Ibāḍī Texts from the 2nd/8th Century

390 Pages·2018·4.43 MB·Arabic

by  Abdulrahman al-Salimi

Ibāḍī Texts from the 2nd/8th Century
Islamic History and
Civilization
STUDIES AND TEXTS
Editorial Board
Hinrich Biesterfeldt
Sebastian Günther
Honorary Editor
Wadad Kadi
VOLUME 133
The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/ihc
Ibāḍī Texts from
the 2nd/8th Century
Edited by
Abdulrahman al-Salimi
Wilferd Madelung
LEIDEN | BOSTON
Cover illustration: A page from “al-Siyar al-Ibadiyya”, from the manuscript collection of the al-Salimi
Library, Bidiya, Sultanate of Oman.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Al-Salimi, Abdulrahman, editor. | Madelung, Wilferd, editor.
Title: Ibāḍi ̄ texts from the 2nd/8th century.
Description: Leiden ; Boston : Brill, [2018] | Series: Islamic history and civilization ; v. 133 | Includes
bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: lccn 2017002047 (print) | lccn 2017006528 (ebook) | isbn 9789004330641 (hardback : alk.
paper) | isbn 9789004330658 (E-book)
Subjects: lcsh: Ibadites--Doctrines--History--Sources.
Classification: lcc bp195.i3 i2017 225 (print) | lcc bp195.i3 (ebook) | ddc --33/297.8dc23
lc record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017002047
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isbn 978-90-04-33065-8 (e-book)
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Contents
Introduction 1
Arabic Texts
1 �ن اورم� �ن�ن ك�ل��ملا د��ن�ع� ىلإا ��ن ا��نإا �ن�ن ه�ل��ل�ا د��ن�ع� ة�ر�ة�س�� Letter of ʿAbd Allāh b. Ibāḍ to
ʿAbd al-Malik b. Marwān 44
2 ��ن ا��نإا �ن�ن ه�ل��ل�ا د��ن�ع�ل� ةه��ة��نا��ث�ل�ا ةه�ل�ا�س��رللا ʿAbd Allāh b. Ibāḍ's Second Letter to ʿAbd
al-Malik 60
إ
ة
3 �ن���ن ا�ح دودوم� ىة�نا �ر�ة�س�� Epistle of Abū Mawdūd Ḥājib 80
ن إ ة إ ة
4 �ن ر����ملا ل�ه�ا ىلإا �ن���ن ا�حو �د��ة�من�ع� ىة�نا مل��س��م� �ن اك�� Letter of Muslim Abū ʿUbayda
and Ḥājib to the People of the Maghrib 94
إ إ
ة ة
5 دودوم� ىة�ناو �د��ة�من�ع� ىة�نا ه�ل�ا�س��ر Epistle of Abū ʿUbayda and Abū
Mawdūd 104
6 ر�ة�ث���ل � ن�ن ل����ن���ن��ل�ا ىلإا دودوم� ىة�نإاو ة�د��ة�من�ع� ىة�نإا �ن�مِ� ادن�ه�و Epistle of Abū ʿUbayda and
Abū Mawdūd to al-Faḍl b. Kathīr 112
إ
ة ة
7 �د��ة�من�ع� ىة�نا ه�ل�ا�س��ر Epistle of Abū ʿUbayda 118
إ إ
8 ةه�م�ةر�ل ى ة�نا �ن�ن مل��س��م� ة�د��ة�من�ع� ىة�ن�ل ة�اك�رنللا ةه�ل�ا�س��ر Epistle of Abū ʿUbayda about the
Alms Tax 146
9 ةه��ة�ط��ع� �ن�ن �ن�مة�م�ن�س�ث� ة�ر�ة�س�� Epistle of Shabīb b. ʿAṭiyya 212
10 ةه��إ���ن رمملاو كا���ّك سُ�ّث�ل�ا ىل��ع ّدر م�ال�س��ل�ا د��ن�ع� ىلإا ةه��ّة�ط��ع� �ن�ن �ن�مة�م�ن�س�ث� �ن اك��ة Letter of Shabīb b.
ʿAṭiyya to ʿAbd al-Salām in Answer to the Doubters and the
Murjiʾa 222
11 ىةن�ار�ح����ن�ل�ا دا��ةرن �ن�ن �نل���حن ة�ر�ة�س�� Epistle of Khalaf b. Ziyād al-Baḥrānī 306
إ
12 �نوة�ا �ن�ن ل��إاو ه��ة��ة�����ن��ل�ا �ن���ة�����س�ث�ل�ا ة�ر�ة�س�� Epistle of the Jurist Sheikh Wāʾil
b. Ayyūb 328
13 ك�س�ث�ل�ا ل�ه�إا ىل��ع در ه��ة���ن �ن اك��ة Book in Which There is a Reply to the People
of Doubt 350
14 ةه�ع�ة�ا��ن�م�و ه�ل���ة��ة���م� ةه���ن��و ه��ة����ع �ن و��ل��س��ملا �ة����ن ا�م�و �ن ا��ّ�ن��ع� �ن�ن �ن ام�ثع� �ث اد�حإا ةه���ن�� ه��ة���ن �ٍن اك��ة �ن�م� رٌص����ة��ن�م
إ م
�د�ع��ن �ن�م� �ن�ل�ا�ط ىة�نا �ن�ن ىةل��ع ���ا��ن�ل�ا Epitome of a Book in Which There is the
Description of the Offences of ʿUthmān b. ʿAffān and What the
Muslims Held against Him and the Description of His Killing and of
the Pledge of Allegiance of the People to ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib 368
ن
���را������ Indexes 369
Introduction
The extant religious literature of the Ibāḍī communities in Oman and North
Africa has preserved a sizable number of theological, legal and political texts
produced in the late 1st and the 2nd century of Islam. Since relatively few simi-
lar texts of such early age have been preserved by other Muslim communities,
the source value of these texts for modern scholars of Islam goes well beyond
their immediate interest for sectarian history. The present volume assembles
14 texts dating mostly from the first half of the 2nd/8th century whose authen-
ticity now seems unquestionable. While a few of them have been edited and
published before, the majority of them are published here for the first time. All
the texts but one are edited on the basis of modern ʿUmānī manuscripts gath-
ered by Abd al-Rahman al-Salimi. No early manuscripts of any of these texts
are extant, and all the manuscripts on which the editors had to rely contain
considerable corruption requiring emendation. Indeed some other texts the
editors would have liked to include in the volume proved too corrupt for any
attempt to establish a publishable version. We thank Wadad Kadi for carefully
reading all the texts and suggesting corrections and emendations.
The Texts
1. Sīrat (Kitāb, Risālat) ʿAbd Allāh b. Ibāḍ ilā ʿAbd al-Malik b. Marwān, Letter of
ʿAbd Allāh b. Ibāḍ to ʿAbd al-Malik b. Marwān. This text was long considered
as an authentic letter of ʿAbd Allāh b. Ibāḍ, the alleged founder of the Ibāḍiyya
sect, to the Umayyad caliph ʿAbd al-Malik b. Marwān (65–86/685–705). Its
authenticity was first questioned by J. Wilkinson and M. Cook who argued
that it could not have been addressed to a caliph. Cook suggested that it might
rather be a letter of Jābir b. Zayd to the Muhallabid amīr ʿAbd al-Malik b. al-
Muhallab b. Abī Ṣufra (d. 102/720–21).1 Wilkinson proposed in his more recent
Ibāḍism: Origin and Early Development in Oman2 that the ʿAbd al-Malik to
whom it was addressed was in fact the son of the caliph ʿUmar ii and the great-
grandson of Marwān b. al-Ḥakam, the founder of the Marwānid branch of the
Umayyad caliphate. Wilkinson considered the ascription of the letter to ʿAbd
Allāh b. Ibāḍ as fictitious and suggested that the author was a militant early
1  M. Cook, Early Muslim Dogma, Cambridge 1981, pp. 57–67.
2  John Wilkinson, Ibāḍism, Oxford 2010, pp. 202–205.
© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2018 | doi: 10.1163/9789004330658_002
2 introduction
leader of the Ibāḍiyya rather than Jābir b. Zayd. The authenticity of the letter
has been upheld by W. Madelung who agreed with the view of Wilkinson that
the addressee of the letter was the son of the caliph ʿUmar ii, ʿAbd al-Malik,
who died during the caliphate of his father (99–101/717–720).3 The letter thus
can safely be dated to ca. 97–99/715–717.
In the letter, ʿAbd Allāh b. Ibāḍ replies to a previous letter of ʿAbd al-Malik in
which the latter earnestly appealed to him to distance himself from the extrem-
ist enemies of the caliphate of ʿUthmān and the Umayyads and to accept the
legitimacy of their reign. ʿAbd Allāh b. Ibāḍ rejects ʿAbd al-Malik’s overture,
denounces the tyrannical rule of ʿUthmān and Muʿāwiya, and justifies the
violent overthrow of ʿUthmān by his opponents and their continued revolt
against Muāwiya and his successors. He polemically argues that the Umayyads
and their supporters are the extremists in religion, not the Khārijites accused
by ʿAbd al-Malik of extremism. ʿAbd al-Malik was indeed guilty of extrem-
ism by following ʿUthmān and the Umayyad caliphs after him in their rebel-
lion against God. ʿAbd Allāh b. Ibāḍ distances himself, however, from Nāfiʿ b.
al-Azraq and his followers who, when they first revolted, had seemed good
Muslims, but then had turned away from Islam and become infidels.
Previous editions of the letter of ʿAbd Allāh b. Ibāḍ on the basis of other
manuscripts are listed by M.H. Custers, Al-Ibāḍiyya: a Bibliography, vol. i: Ibāḍīs
of the Mashriq (Maastricht 2006), p. 3.
2. Risālat ʿAbd Allāh b. Ibāḍ al-thāniya, long known as ʿAbd Allāh b. Ibāḍ’s sec-
ond letter to ʿAbd al-Malik. The authenticity of this letter was first questioned
and rejected by M. Cook, who pointed out that it was written in response to a
letter of a Shīʿī and dated it to the middle of the 2nd century / ca. 770. ʿAbd Allāh
b. Ibāḍ, who in the historical account of Abū Mikhnaf is described as the leader
of the Ibāḍiyya in the early 60s of the 1st century H/ca. 680–685, could not
be the author of the letter.4 The authenticity of the letter has been defended
by W. Madelung on the basis of a report of Abū ʿUbayd Allāh al-Marzubānī
according to which ʿAbd Allāh b. Ibāḍ was imprisoned by the ʿAbbāsid caliph
al-Manṣūr after having accused the Shīʿī poet al-Sayyid al-Ḥimyarī of cursing
the Companions of the Prophet. Madelung suggested that the early leader of
the Ibāḍiyya may have been Ibāḍ b. ʿAmr who was presumably succeeded by
his young son ʿAbd Allāh b. Ibāḍ in the late 80s or early 90s of the 1st century/
ca. 705–710. The addressee of the letter may well have been the poet al-Sayyid
al-Ḥimyarī, who is known to have been sharply reproached by ʿAbd Allāh b.
3  W. Madelung, ‘The Authenticity of the letter of ʿAbd Allāh b. Ibāḍ to ʿAbd al-Malik’, in remmm
132, pp. 35–43.
4  Cook, Early Muslim Dogma, pp. 52–57.
introduction 3
Ibāḍ for abandoning the Ibāḍī faith of his parents and espousing Shīʿī belief in
his poetry.5
The letter contains a polemical denunciation of the caliph ʿAlī for his agree-
ment to arbitration in his conflict with the Umayyad Muʿāwiya and his later
conduct. The author defends the Ahl al-Nahrawān, the early seceders from
the army of ʿAlī, against the charge of the author’s correspondent that they
were rebels against the legitimate caliph. The author goes on to denounce ʿAlī’s
son and successor al-Ḥasan as a traitor of Islam for his surrender to the caliph
Muʿāwiya and castigates the later Shīʿa for their rejection of the caliphate of
Abū Bakr and ʿUmar and their claim that only descendants of ʿAlī were entitled
to rule in Islam.
3. Sīrat Abī Mawdūd Ḥajib raḥimahu Allāh, Epistle of Abū Mawdūd Ḥājib,
may God have mercy upon him. Abū Mawdūd Ḥājib b. Mawdūd al-Ṭāʾī al-Azdī,
a merchant from Oman, was for some time leader of the Ibāḍī community
in Baṣra jointly with Abū ʿUbayda Muslim b. Abī Karīma al-Tamīmī, client
(mawlā) of ʿUrwa b. Udayya who had manumitted his father Abū Karīma. Ḥājib
is known as a major organizer of the rising of ʿAbd Allāh b. Yaḥyā Ṭālib al-Ḥaqq
in Arabia in 129/748 and armed supporter of his Ibāḍī imamate. He died before
Abū ʿUbayda during the caliphate of al-Manṣūr (136–158/754–775).6
The epistle is addressed to all faithful Muslims, i.e. all Ibāḍīs. The author
admonishes them to continue strictly performing God’s commandments. They
must not obey the unjust caliphs who have claimed the rule of the Muslims
after Abū Bakr and ʿUmar, but must obey their just imams, who are not identi-
fied in the letter, and their scholars of the law (fuqahāʾ). The author details the
obligations of the Muslims towards their just imams as well as the obligations
of the imams towards the Muslims. The epistle may well have been written in
the time of the imamate of ʿAbd Allāh b. Yaḥyā Ṭālib al-Ḥaqq, but may also date
from a later time when there was an active Ibāḍī claimant of the imamate.
4. Kitāb Muslim Abī ʿUbayda wa-Ḥājib ilā ahl al-Maghrib ḥīna ikhtalafū fī amr
ʿAbd al-Jabbār wa l-Ḥārith ḥattā qatala baʿḍuhum baʿḍan, also known as Sīrat
Abī ʿUbayda wa-Abī Mawdūd Ḥājib ilā ahl al-Maghrib, Letter of Muslim Abū
5  W. Madelung, “ʿAbd Allāh Ibn Ibāḍ and the Origins of the Ibāḍiyya”, in Authority, Privacy and
Public Order in Islam. Proceedings of the 22nd Congress of L’Union Européenne des Arabisants
et Islamisants, eds. B. Michalak-Pikulska and A. Pikulski, Leuven 2008, pp. 51–57; and “ʿAbd
Allāh b. Ibāḍ’s Second letter to ʿAbd al-Malik”, in Community, State, History and Changes:
Festschrift for Riḍwān al-Sayyid on his Sixtieth Birthday, Beirut 2012, pp. 7–17.
6  J. van Ess, Theologie und Gesellschaft im 2. und 3. Jahrhundert Hidschra, Berlin 1991–97, II, pp.
196–197; Custers, Ibāḍiyya, i, p. 413.
4 introduction
ʿUbayda and Ḥājib to the people of the Maghrib when they disagreed concern-
ing the matter of ʿAbd al-Jabbār and al-Ḥārith such that they killed each other.7
The letter was sent by Abū ʿUbayda and Abū Mawdūd jointly from Baṣra to the
Ibāḍī community in Tripolitania which was rent apart by bloody conflict about
the “case of ʿAbd al-Jabbār and al-Ḥārith.” This case, much discussed in early
Ibāḍī literature, concerned two prominent members of the Ibāḍī community
in Tripolitania, ʿAbd al-Jabbār b. Qays al-Murādī and al-Ḥārith b. Talīd, who
after a quarrel were found together slain, each with the opponent’s sword in
his body. This provoked a serious conflict in the community on whether asso-
ciation (walāya) or dissociation (barāʾa) was obligatory in regard to either or
both of them. The case obviously involved the question whether someone who
kills his opponent in legitimate self-defense is committing a crime. The letter
was written in reply to a request for a legal opinion from the Ibāḍī leadership
in Baṣra. It appealed to the Maghribī Ibāḍīs to reunite in strict obedience to
the God’s commandments and affirmed that dissociation from both killers was
appropriate.
The letter can be dated before the rise of the first Ibāḍī imamate in the
Maghrib under ʿAbd al-Aʿlā b. al-Samḥ al-Maʿāfirī in 141/758.
5. Risālat Abī ʿUbayda wa-Abī Mawdūd raḥimahumā Allāh, Epistle of Abū
ʿUbayda and Abū Mawdūd, may God have mercy upon them.8 This theological
treatise, presumably addressed to Ibāḍīs everywhere, upholds God’s creator-
ship of all his creatures and his trial of the Jinn and humankind by command-
ing them to do and summon to what is good and to abstain from and forbid
whatever is reprehensible and by promising the obedient eternal reward and
the disobedient eternal punishment. The obligation of repentance (tawba)
from all evil acts is explained at length. Repentance just before death is not
valid, and God may not accept any repentance that is not comprehensive.
6. Sīrat (Min) Abī ʿUbayda wa-Abī Mawdūd ilā al-Faḍl b. Kathīr, Epistle of
Abū ʿUbayda and Abī Mawdūd to al-Faḍl b. Kathīr.9 Nothing is known about
al-Faḍl b. Kathīr. He must have been leader of an Ibāḍī community outside
Baṣra. The letter, after initially greeting him, continues to address the members
of an Ibāḍī community in the plural. Its contents are theological, upholding
predestination on the basis of God’s determining foreknowledge of everything
and every event in the world. No one is capable of obeying God’s command-
ments without being favoured by God’s mercy and grant of success (tawfīq).
7  Custers, Ibāḍiyya, I, p. 417.
8  Custers, Ibāḍiyya,I, p. 415.
9  Custers, Ibāḍiyya, I, p. 417.