How was religion
celebrated on a daily basis in the Medieval Middle East?
This was a very diverse world,
both in terms of religion and ethnicity.
We find people of different religions or belonging to creeds of
the same religion living alongside each other and sharing many rituals.
One of these shared rituals was the visiting of holy places and shrines.
Muslims and Non-Muslims, could travel
long ways to honor the memorial of a holy man's achievements or death.
For Muslims the Hajj,
the pilgrimage to Mecca was of course the journey of all journeys. T
he Darb Zubayda is problaby
the most famous pilgrimage trail in the history of Islam.
The Darb Zubaydah leads from Kufa in Iraq to the Hejaz.
That is to say, the cities Mecca and Medina in Arabia.
It is named after Zubaydah,
the wife of the famous Abbasid Caliph, Harun al-Rashid.
The same Caliph who appears in many of the stories of a 1001 Nights.
Darb simply means roads.
Thus, Darb Zubayda means the road of Zubayda.
During the Abbasid reign,
the center of the empire was in the area that is now Iraq,
both in terms of trade or economics and in terms of intellectual life,
this was the place to be.
Since making the pilgrimage to Mecca at least once in your lifetime,
is an obligation for every Muslim man and woman.
It is not surprising that the roads from Kufa to Mecca was an important one.
On the road, we also find another important city, namely Najaf.
In Najaf, we find the tomb of Ali ibn Abi Talib,
the nephew and son-in-law of the prophet Muhammad.
Especially for Shia Muslims,
Ali is one of the most important people of their religion.
The word Shia, derives from Shia at Ali,
the party of Ali.
But also for Sunni Muslims,
Ali is an important religious historical figure.
Thus both in medieval times and nowadays,
Najaf is an important pilgrimage destination.
In fact, after Mecca and Medina,
Najaf receives most pilgrims.
Though Darb Zubayda existed since the early days of Islam,
and probably has pre-Islamic routes.
It was Queen Zubayda who really devoted herself to making the road outstanding.
She invested in large water stations where caravans replenished and water supplies,
and in smaller water points for the poorer pilgrims who traveled on foot.
There were milestones along the road and fire beacons.
There were fortresses, dams, palaces, and hostels.
Moreover, she appointed the superintendent,
who was in charge of keeping the roads safe.
Many names of these road attendance have been preserved.
Keeping the pilgrims safe both on
their journey towards Mecca and while performing the Hajj,
was a matter of great prestige.
Within the Islamic world,
the role of protector of the Pilgrims and the pilgrimage sites,
remains until this day a very important one.
Pilgrimage would not be
an easy two week trip with older luxury that modern pilgrims enjoy.
It really was a journey of a lifetime.
It was expensive, took a long time,
and was full of dangers.
One medieval writer informs us about a lady traveling with 120,000 camels.
But most pilgrims, traveled a much more modest circumstances.
The pilgrimage was not just a religious obligation.
It was also an opportunity for trade and for what we would now call, networking.
For many medieval writers,
it becomes clear that not only people and goods,
but also ideas traveled along these pilgrimage roads.
We have accounts of travelers,
who took years to get to Mecca.
Along the way, they would stop at mosques, universities, or libraries,
staying for many months to receive teaching or debate
their viewpoints on topics ranging from religion to science and politics.
Others would use to opportunity for commercial purposes.
Though for many Muslims to journey to Mecca,
would never become more than a dream.
The Islamic obligation to travel, shape trade,
knowledge transfer, and ultimately society.
The Hajj formed an annual rhythm of Muslims moving in and out of Mecca,
and even for those staying at home,
the pilgrimage season was noticeable.
They too celebrated the sacrifice feast at the end of the annual Hajj.
After the fall of Baghdad in 1258,
Darb Zubayda lost its status it once had.
Already under the ambassador,
tribal rates formed a problem.
But with the central administration in Baghdad gone,
this became even more of an issue.
So, other pilgrimage routes became popular.
This had always been the case.
When there was war or political troubles,
some trails would be preferred over others with people
making extensive detours to avoid certain areas.
However, Darb Zubayda never disappeared.
Even in the 19th century,
European travelers noted that the road was still used as a pilgrimage trail.
The Medieval Arabic world was intrinsically cosmopolitan.
The roots of Christianity and Judaism
lie in the Middle East.
Even after the rise of Islam,
Arabic came to be a major language for
Christian and Jewish theologians, writers, and traders.
The early Muslims understood themselves as to these two so-called religions of the book,
"Venerating Jesus and the profits of the Jewish Bible."
Arabic culture also absorbed many of
the intellectual and cultural gifts of the great empires of antiquity,
the Persian and the Greek and Roman Empires.
Thus it is important to realize that the Muslim conquest did not enter pagan lands,
but areas with majority Christian and Jewish populations.
As they moved eastwards,
the early Muslims absorbed the Zoroastrians,
who were also grudgingly included as part of the people of the book,
Monotheist who had a divine scripture.
These non-Muslim populations continue to be in the majority for
many centuries before largely voluntary conversion and upward mobility,
eventually started to change the religious map of the Middle East.
So, in the formative period of Islam,
other religions were an inherent part of the social landscape.
It is because of this,
that non-Muslims were incorporated with a clear status in Islamic law.
Not one of equality,
but one of protected subordination to the Muslim rule, the Dhimma status.
Dhimmi groups had certain rights under Islamic rule,
like the right to practice their religion and gather for religious ceremonies.
To a large extent,
they were allowed to follow their own laws.
They could also appoint their own leaders who
would be in charge of daily life within the communities.
The Medieval status of the non-Muslim Dhimmis may not
compare with modern conceptions of universal human rights,
but it provided basic protections for safe and productive participation in society.
If we compare this with for example the status of the Jews in
Medieval Europe subjected to perennial expulsions and pogroms,
there is no doubt that for many centuries Jews under
Muslim rule were much better off than many of their European contemporaries.
But of course, different places and times produced different conditions.
The most famous pre-modern Jewish thinker,
"Moses Maimonides" was persecuted and exiled from his birthplace in Muslim ruled Cordoba,
but he flourished in Muslim ruled Egypt,
where he produced an unparalleled corpus of Jewish thought written in Arabic and Hebrew,
which still occupies a central place in Jewish canons of knowledge today.
But different religions were not the only factor to
complicate the structure of society in the Medieval Arab world.
Other fault lines included language,
geographical origin, social status, and tribal loyalties.
Even within the Islamic community,
there were numerous fault lines.
Nowadays we often think of Islam split into
the two major sects of Sunni and Shi'ah Islam.
However, in the beginning,
Islam was multipolar, rather than bipolar.
Sunnism began to crystallize around the 11th century,
but by that time there were already several competing law schools,
including the four Sunni law schools that survive today,
the Hanafi, the Shafi'i,
the Maliki, and the Hanbali law schools.
Shiasm also had many different strands,
some of which looked more like pseudonym than other groups recognized as Shi'ah.
The three major Shi'ah denomination surviving
today are the groups as the Ismailis and the Zaidis.
They much divides them,
they are united by their veneration for the prophet Muhammad's son-in-law Ali.
There are forms of Islam which fit neither under the umbrella term Sunni,
nor under the umbrella of Shi'ah.
Like Ibadiyya Islam which is the state religion of Oman.
Stromingen in de islam
Wikipedia
Religious differences sometimes mirror ethnic and tribal lines, but not always.
Nowadays, some Muslims and non-Muslims alike
prefer to portray Islam as an unchanging religion.
Some Muslims stress the timelessness of their religion,
while some non-Muslims like to use the same arguments to
imply that Islam is still stuck in the middle ages.
In fact, Islam has constantly changed in response to the world around.
Ancient texts have been reproduced and re-interpreted throughout the centuries.
In the Medieval period,
debates in Arabic ranged between Jews Christians and Muslims on
subjects like whether God's nature could be expressed in human language,
or if a just God could punish sinners eternally for finite sins.
In the modern period, reformers to Muslims,
Arab nationalists, and Christian literatures,
have debated about issues like,
how to meet the challenge posed by overwhelming Western military at commercial power
We must be careful interacting categories that are too solid.
One uniform Islam does not exist,
and categorizations like Sunnism and Shi'ism are not uniform either.
Religious boundaries are real,
but how they are shaped on a day-to-day basis depends on
many factors including economic, political, and ethnic.
Often the assertion of hard boundaries between groups,
disguises a reality in which fluidity,
interconnection, and evolution is the norm.
David Nirenberg
CCAR Journal, A Reform Jewish Quarterly, Spring/ summer 2002, pp. 17-36
Sufism does not form a sect in its own right,
but is a mystical orientation to be found among many different Muslim groups.
Sufism or mystical Islam is about attaining a direct experience or taste of the presence,
the power and the love of God.
Sufism began to crystallize within
Muslim societies from about the 9th century of the Common Era.
It played a very important role in both the shaping and spreading of Islam.
Like many aspects of historical Islam,
Sufism has taken on diverse forms depending on time and place,
and it is related to movements beyond Islam like
Christian asceticism and Jewish mysticism.
Because of this variety of shapes and the extent to which
it is interwoven with culture and other religious expressions,
it is very hard to describe Sufism as if it has a beginning and an end.
The manifestation of Sufism takes
different shapes varying greatly from one place to another.
Besides, Sufism focus on the interior spiritual aspects of religion,
has sometimes produced an apparently paradoxical contradiction with orthodox rules.
Yet, in order to get some idea of how Islam developed in medieval times,
it is essential to include this mystical dimension of Islam.
S
hrines and holy places
The visiting of shrines and holy places shows usmany similarities between different denominations ofIslam and between Islam and other religions in the region.At the same time,it tells us about diversity,because the particulars of these visits,the nature of the sites,the rituals that are performed and the attitudes ofthe pilgrims vary enormously according to historical period,geographical location, and individual personality.
The visitation of shrines and
holy places has been an inherent part of Islamic religious experience for many centuries,
with strong reference to Sufism.
The discomfort at raising humans up as objects of veneration goes back almost as long.
For many Muslims, both Sunni and Shia,
the visiting of the shrines or sites that are designated
as holy places because of an event that has occurred there are important.
Natural phenomena like caves,
springs or trees occasionally get a holy status due
to the fact that they provided a certain saint with water or shelter,
and this has allowed Islam to absorb and re-imagine locations associated
with earlier cults and religions for whom shrine visitation was also significant.
It is probably in part this historical aspect that
explains the mixing of groups or communities that would not normally mingle.
We see many shrines that are shared by Sunnis and Shia Muslims,
but also between Muslims and members of other religions.
Jews and Christians in the Middle East and Hindus in India.
Shrine visitation has been present in Islam from the very early years,
especially visits to the shrines of the Prophet Mohammad
and his family play an important role.
The graves of other prominent people like theologians,
lawyers, and Sufi saints have also become sites for pilgrimage.
Like pious people in all religions,
Muslims have always venerated people who seemed to have
a particular closeness to God due to their piety,
their knowledge or their ability to perform miracles.
One reason that visiting the graves of these people is considered beneficial is because
their miracles and the power of
their blessing is believed to continue even after their death.
Especially in Shia Islam, the Prophet,
his family members, and the Imams play a very important role.
In Sunni Islam, although it is practiced everywhere,
it has been more controversial.
Jerusalem was a sacred place for Jews and
Christians and thus it became sacred for Muslims too.
Likewise, the Kaaba in Mecca was already a sacred site in pre-Islamic times.
In medieval text, we find many references and descriptions
of pilgrimages and visits to a variety of holy places and shrines.
Long distance pilgrimages involved preparation,
planning, and considerable expense.
In addition to such long distance pilgrimages,
it was also common to make smaller trips to visit nearby shrines.
People visited shrines and holy places for a variety of reasons.
These could be of a celestial nature.
So, you might hope for example,
that visiting a saint or one of the Shia Imams would help you reach heaven after death.
Quite often though, visits were also meant to improve life in the here and now.
Illness and infertility were among the most common reasons to visit a shrine,
as is the case in other religions.
Amulets used for protection and for wearing off evil spirits,
are another example of practices that are shared among different religions.
At the same time,
it becomes clear that religion is not
the only factor determining the shape of common practice.
In the case of jewelry,
very worldly economic considerations and the static values,
also played a part.
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| Amuletketting door Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje meegenomen uit Mecca |
Western Arabia in the Leiden Collections : traces of a colourful past
Amulets and Talismans from the Islamic World
Yasmine Al-Saleh
Harvard University, november 2010
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| Lidded Box of Muhammad al-Hamawi, Timekeeper at the Umayyad Mosque, Damascus |
