Rise

3
THE RISE OF
MUSLIM CIVILISATION
THE SUCCESSION CRISIS AND THE ERA OF THE

‘RIGHTLY-GUIDED’ CALIPHS
With the death of its founder, the nascent Muslim community was
plunged into crisis. Muhammad the Prophet was gone, and the
Qur’an made it quite clear that no other messenger would rise after
him: as God’s final revelation, the Qur’an was to suffice mankind
until the end of time. What the Qur’an did not elucidate was the
issue of temporal authority. Who was to succeed Muhammad as
political leader of the community, and how was he to be chosen?
Most of his followers believed that Muhammad, like the Qur’an,
had remained silent on the subject, neither appointing a successor
nor proposing any particular form of election process for the future.
However, some claimed that the Prophet had chosen Ali to succeed
him; the latter’s supporters were known as the shı̄‘a or ‘party’ of
Ali, later evolving into the Shi’ites. The schism which emerged
between this group and the majority of Muslims, known as the
Sunnites (those who adhere to the Prophet’s path or sunna),
continues to this day.
72 THE RISE OF MUSLIM CIVILISATION
ABU BAKR
Regardless of whether or not Muhammad did appoint a successor, Ali

did not become the first leader of the Muslim community after the
Prophet’s death. The title of Caliph (from the Arabic khalı̄fa, meaning
‘deputy’) went instead to Muhammad’s father-in-law and close
companion, Abu Bakr, who was nominated and chosen in Ali’s absence
by a small committee of elders. Abu Bakr was to be the first of four
successors to Muhammad later known as the ‘rightly-guided’ Caliphs,
largely on account of their status as close companions of the Prophet
and their reputations as men of piety and justice.
On becoming Caliph, Abu Bakr’s first challenge was to put down
the tribal insurrections which sprang up in the peninsula after the
Prophet’s death. It appeared that many of the Bedouin tribes who had
converted to Islam during Muhammad’s lifetime had done so for
political reasons only; now that he was dead, they deemed what they
considered to be their part of the ‘pact’ null and void, and so began to
abandon Islam in droves. Aware that such a revolt threatened the
future of the community-state, Abu Bakr moved against the tribes
and, in a series of encounters known as the ‘wars of apostasy’, crushed
the insurrectionists in 633. By the time of his death a year later, peace
and stability had been restored to the peninsula.
UMAR
Shortly before his death in 634, Abu Bakr designated another of the
Prophet’s close companions, Umar, to succeed him. Although the
appointment was opposed by the supporters of Ali, who were outraged
that their candidate had been passed over yet again, Umar met with
little internal resistance during his ten years in office. Shortly after
succeeding to the post, Umar added the honorific amı̄r al-mu’minı̄n
(‘commander of the faithful’) to that of Caliph, denoting the fact that
leadership of the community was spiritual as well as political; from
then on, all Caliphs used the same title.
Yet it is for his military leadership rather than his role as spiritual
guide that Umar is remembered, and not without justification. For it
was Umar who presided over one of the most amazing feats of terri-
torial expansion and empire building that history has ever witnessed:
a wave of conquests that, within twelve years of the Prophet’s death,
would enable the Muslim community-state of Medina to overthrow
THE RISE OF MUSLIM CIVILISATION 73
the Persian empire and conquer all of the eastern Mediterranean

territories of the Roman empire apart from Anatolia. The rapidity
and comparative ease with which this first wave of conquests was
carried out perplexes historians to this day.
THE ARAB CONQUESTS
Umar’s first conquests were in Syria, with Byzantium losing

Damascus to the Muslim forces in 635; Jerusalem, a city sacred to
Jews, Christians and Muslims alike, was captured two years later.
Meanwhile, as Syria was being invaded to the west, Muslim forces
were also busy in the east, marching through Iraq in an attempt to
bring down the Sassanid empire of Persia. The Sassanids, already
weakened following a recent defeat by the Byzantines, were no match
for the invaders, and in 637 the Muslim forces scored a famous
victory at Qadisiyya, near the Euphrates. From there the Muslims
moved eastwards and occupied Ctesiphon, the Sassanid capital. By
641 the Sassanids had relinquished all of their lands to the west of
the Zagros mountains.
With Ctesiphon secured, the Muslims turned west once more, this
time into Egypt. In 641 the ancient fortress of Babylon, south of
present-day Cairo, was captured; a year later, Alexandria fell. Three
years later the Byzantines recaptured the city, but their stay was
brief: it was reclaimed by the Muslims the following year, and the
Christians never ruled in Egypt again. With the fall of Alexandria,
the first wave of Muslim conquests came to an end. During his
ten-year rule Umar had conquered a vast swathe of territories
surrounding the Arabian peninsula, thus creating what was at that
time the second largest empire in the world, only slightly smaller
than that of China.
Realising that their loyalty was crucial to the success of the new
Muslim empire, Umar made sure that his new subjects were not
oppressed by the invading forces, and that their lives were not
disrupted unduly by the conquests. This involved leaving things,
where possible, very much as they had been under previous adminis-
trations. In Syria, for example, the old civil service of the Byzantines
was retained until Umar could establish his own system, and thus
Greek remained the language of administration for another half-
century; a similar situation obtained in Muslim Persia. The Caliph
also tried not to burden the conquered peoples with excess taxation; to
this end he introduced the kharāj or ‘land tax’, levied on farmers in

accordance with the productivity of their fields. The conquered peoples
were also allowed to carry on practising their own religion, albeit upon
payment of a kind of poll-tax known as the jizya. Thus the notion that
Islam was ‘spread by the sword’ is not borne out by history; if
anything, Muslims avoided proselytising, aware that attempts at
conversion would rob the caliphal coffers of an important source of
revenue. Moreover, in the first few decades after the conquests, the
invading Arab soldiers were separated from the local populace in
specially built garrison towns – Basra in Iraq, for example, and Fustat
in Egypt – where they were encouraged to keep to themselves.
Later on, of course, assimilation did occur, and with it, conversion.
However, those who became Muslim did so of their own accord, some-
times sincerely, sometimes for financial gain, but never under duress.
UTHMAN
After Umar’s death in 644 the caliphate fell to Uthman, a scion of the
Umayyad family, who was elected by a council of Muhammad’s
companions. Although he later proved to be a man of considerable
piety and good character, he was not considered the strongest man
for the job and hence lacked unanimous support: those who had been
championing the cause of Ali since the death of the Prophet were
particularly resentful that he had been overlooked for a third time.
Under Uthman’s caliphate (644–656) the empire continued to
grow, although not at the breakneck pace it had enjoyed under Umar.
Nevertheless, his military exploits were not inconsiderable. In 645
his forces stymied the Byzantine attempt to recapture Alexandria,
after which Uthman was able to advance further into north Africa.
The creation of the first Muslim navy, designed to guard the Medit-
erannean against Byzantine attacks, was another achievement; it also
helped him conquer Cyprus in 649. And to the east, Uthman
continued the conquest of Persia by occupying the strategically
important province of Khurasan, the ‘grain basket’ of the old Sassanid
empire, in 653.
At home, Uthman’s most important undertaking was his attempt
to establish the definitive version of the Qur’an. Up until then,
several variant readings had been in circulation, with learned Muslims
unable to agree on the correct manner of recitation. The ensuing
disputes were deemed serious enough to damage the integrity of the
holy book, and so Uthman decided to act. Summoning three of

Muhammad’s most trustworthy companions, he ordered them to
make perfect copies of the first complete written manuscript of the
Qur’an, which had been handed down from Abu Bakr to Umar and
from Umar to his daughter, Hafsa. Their task completed, the
companions were then instructed to send identical copies to all four
corners of the nascent Muslim empire to replace the contentious
material. The text which emerged is the one which exists today.
Sadly for Uthman, however, it is for his political ineptitude that he
is most remembered. His reign saw a decrease in the treasury – a
result, it was claimed, of the kind of lavish spending that was highly
inappropriate for a Caliph and exemplar. More damaging, though,
were the accusations of nepotism levelled against him. Uthman’s
promotion of his Umayyad kin to positions of power and influence in
the caliphal administration engendered much controversy, helping to
create a climate of general discontent that led ultimately to his
demise. As Medina became the scene of popular unrest, supported by
disaffected Egyptian soldiers, Uthman was murdered in June 656.
ALI
After Uthman’s death, Ali finally succeeded to the caliphate, estab-

lishing himself in the Iraqi city of Kufa, where he enjoyed most
support. Almost immediately, however, he found himself embroiled
in the first civil war in the community’s history. The main struggle
was between the new Caliph’s supporters, the shı̄‘at Ali (lit. ‘party of
Ali’) or Shi’ites, and those who refused to recognise his new status.
Foremost among the latter was Mu’awiya, Uthman’s Umayyad
cousin and governor of Syria. Incensed that Ali seemed unwilling to
punish Uthman’s assassins, Mu’awiya and his family challenged the
new Caliph’s leadership, declaring it unlawful. Ali’s election was also
disputed by two of the Prophet’s companions, Talha and Zubayr, and
the Prophet’s widow, the redoubtable Aisha, whose coolness towards
Ali had a long history. The first physical confrontation between Ali
and his detractors came in December 656 at the so-called ‘Battle of
the Camel’ near Basra: Talha and Zubayr were killed, while Aisha
was returned to Medina.
Ali then turned his attention to the Syrian problem, at the heart of
which stood Mu’awiya, who by this time had been governor of
Damascus for almost twenty years. As the son of the infamous Abu
Sufyan, he had inherited the leadership of the Umayyads and was

thus in command of possibly the largest and most efficient personal
army in the Muslim world at that time. He also enjoyed the unques-
tioning support of the Syrian Arabs, who considered him the only
legitimate successor to Uthman. Ali’s task would not be an easy one.
In 657 the two forces met at Siffin on the upper Euphrates, with an
outcome more disastrous than Ali could have imagined. At the height
of battle, Mu’awiya’s troops hit upon a strategy that was as brilliant
as it was perfidious: tearing leaves from the Qur’an, they thrust them
aloft on their spears, called a halt to the fighting and entreated Ali
and his men to ‘let God decide between us’. Disoriented by this spec-
tacle, Ali agreed to arbitration. His supporters, however, did not lend
him unanimous backing. A large group of them broke away from
him, outraged that he should put the fate of the community in the
hands of a human tribunal rather than vanquish the dissident
Umayyads in battle as God had surely intended. This group later
became known as the Kharijites (lit. ‘those who secede’), with their
own movement, theology and distinct political ethos. Ali later dealt a
severe blow to the Kharijites at the battle of Nahrawan in 658, but
was unable to break their spirit, as later events were to prove.
The arbitration having proved inconclusive, Mu’awiya proclaimed
himself Caliph in July 660, thus further undermining Ali’s lead-
ership. With the support of the governor of Egypt, as well as his
Syrian army, he was even able to launch raids on Ali’s base in Iraq.
More important, however, was the assistance he received from the
Kharijites, whose defeat at Nahrawan had transformed them into a
militant organisation. For it was one of their number who, early in
661, stole into Ali’s apartments as the latter was praying. With one
stroke of the sword it was all over: Ali fell, and with him the era of
the ‘rightly-guided’ Caliphs came to an ignominious end.
Despite the troubles which beleaguered the caliphates of Uthman
and Ali, many Muslims still look back to the period of the ‘rightly-
guided’ Caliphs as the golden age of Muslim history. It was, after all,
the era for them in which God’s final message to mankind found
expression in the creation of a Muslim community-state, held
together by ties of religious commitment and solidarity. It was the
era in which the definitive reading of the Qur’an had emerged,
ensuring that God’s revelation would be preserved forever, and
forming the basis for the later development of theology and law. And
above all it was the era of the Arab conquests, which helped to take
the Prophet’s message halfway round the known world, thus vali-
dating it in the eyes of the believers.
THE UMAYYAD CENTURY
After Ali’s death, Mu’awiya took over the caliphate, founding the
Umayyad dynasty. The capital was immediately moved to Damascus,
a change that was emblematic of a profound change in the social
philosophy, religious outlook and cultural orientation of the Muslim
community-state. Under the ‘rightly-guided’ Caliphs, religious faith
had a determining role in the unification of society, and was the chief
motivation of individuals in their private lives; under the Umayyads,
however, it counted for little. Blood and tribal relations resurfaced to
become the chief motivating principle among the social groups.
The Umayyad century spanned two related branches: the Sufy-
anids (661-84) and the Marwanids (684-70). Of the three Sufyanid
Caliphs, only Mu’awiya achieved anything of note. Under his lead-
ership the army was modernised and the empire continued to expand.
To govern the conquered territories more efficiently, he introduced
registries (diwān) and a postal system. In an overt move back to a
more tribal style of leadership, he revived the old practices of shurā
(consultation) and wufūd (delegations sent by tribes to keep the
Caliph informed of their interests). It was the reintroduction of such
institutions that led many of his critics to describe Mu’awiya not as
Caliph but as malik, or tribal king in the style of the pre-Islamic
rulers of southern Arabia.
Proof that Mu’awiya saw himself more as king than Caliph came
when he named his inept and licentious son, Yazid, as his successor.
Outraged, many refused to pay allegiance to one whom they
considered so morally bankrupt. In Medina, the old Muslim families
rallied around Abdullah ibn Zubayr, son of one of Muhammad’s
closest companions, as he rose up in revolt. Meanwhile from Kufa,
Ali’s former capital, a delegation was sent to Ali’s son, Husayn,
inviting him to champion their protest against Yazid. Husayn, who
had never acknowledged Yazid’s caliphate, duly set out for Kufa with
a small band of relatives and companions, whereupon the governor
of Iraq, on behalf of Yazid, despatched an army of 4,000 men to
intercept them. Husayn refused to surrender, adamant that he would
never give in to a Caliph whose authority he did not recognise. And

so in October 680, at Karbala near the banks of the Euphrates, Husayn
and most of those with him were massacred. Husayn was decapitated
and his head sent to Damascus. Muslim historians describe how even
the tyrannical Yazid blanched when he saw how the Prophet’s beloved
grandson had been treated. The Karbala massacre was a turning point
in Muslim history, with revenge for Husayn’s death becoming a
clarion call which helped to weaken the Umayyad government and
strengthen the Shi’ite cause. Husayn was hailed as a symbol of pious
resistance to tyranny, and the annual commemoration of his
martyrdom was incorporated into Shi’ite cultic practice.
A WORD ON SHI’ISM AND THE TWELVE IMAMS
Since we are trying to keep to the original remit by covering only the
‘basics’ of Islam, a detailed discussion of the emergence of the various
Muslim denominations and sects is sadly beyond the scope of this
work. However, this book would not be complete without a brief
overview of the birth and evolution of an approach to Islam that is
known as Shi’ism. Approximately 10 per cent of all Muslims adhere
to Shi’ite teachings, and Shi’ism has been the ‘state religion’ of Iran
since the beginning of the sixteenth century. More than 50 per cent
of Iraqi Muslims are Shi’ites, and there are also large Shi’ite minor-
ities in Pakistan and the Gulf states.
The word actually derives from the Arabic shı̄‘a, which means
‘faction’ or ‘party’. The ‘party’ in question was composed of all those
who supported the candidacy of the Prophet’s cousin, Ali, for the
position of Caliph or leader of the community after Muhammad had
died.The ‘succession crisis’ which occurred after the death of Muhammad
has left its mark on all areas of Muslim life and thought down to the
present day, colouring perspectives on law, theology, exegesis and, more
importantly, political theory. Let us delve a little more deeply.
As we have seen, when Muhammad died, his prophethood died with
him: he was proclaimed the ‘seal of the apostles’ and the last in the long
line of messengers tasked by God to bring the message of Divine Unity
to mankind. However, the need for a temporal leader, one who might
guide the community politically as well as spiritually, continued.
Muhammad’s death plunged the nascent Muslim community of
Medina into crisis, simply because most people believed that
Muhammad had failed to nominate a successor.
Some, however, were of the opinion that the Prophet had indeed
chosen the man who would carry on his role as leader and guide of
the young community-state. This man was his cousin and son-in-
law, Ali, one of the first to have converted to Islam when Muhammad
began to receive the revelations a quarter of a century earlier. Those
who believed that Ali was Muhammad’s rightful successor cited
numerous verses in the Qur’an to support their belief that the ‘family
of the Prophet’ – and particularly the male line issuing from Ali
through his marriage to Muhammad’s daughter, Fatima – had a
greater right to rule the Muslim community than anyone else.
However, the Meccans and the Medinese who gathered after the
death of the Prophet chose Abu Bakr as the new leader of the umma,
and he was duly declared Caliph. Ali’s partisans continued to grow in
number, but he was passed over for the caliphate three times in all:
when Abu Bakr died, he was succeeded by Umar, and when Umar died,
Uthman took his place. Following the assassination of Uthman in 556,
Ali became the fourth of the rāshidūn or ‘rightly-guided’ caliphs.
The birth of Shi’ism is traced by many to the troubled caliphate of
Ali, and particularly to his assassination in 661. Following Ali’s death,
the caliphate went to Ali’s bitter rival, Mu’awiya, who founded the
Umayyad dynasty (661–750). With Ali’s demise, authority in the
Muslim world became divided. The Umayyads continued as caliphs,
ruling from Damascus, but in the east, and in Iraq in particular, there
existed a separate community that did not recognise the authority of
the Umayyad caliphs. Instead, they claimed that only the blood
successors of Ali were the true leaders of the Muslim umma. These
successors were given the title of Imam, which means both spiritual
and religious leader, in contradistinction to the title of caliph or
sultan, which has more temporal or secular connotations.
In the year 680, one of Ali’s sons, Husayn, who had risen up
against the corrupt Umayyad regime, was martyred at Karbala, in
Iraq. The merciless slaughter of the Prophet’s grandson and his
family shook the Muslim world, and its reverberations can still be
felt today: in Iran, which is predominantly Shi’ite, the martyrdom
of Husayn is commemorated annually as an emblem of defiance in
the face of oppression. And the concept of martyrdom – the read-
iness for self-sacrifice in order to combat tyranny – was a recurring
motif in the social struggles which preceded the Iranian revolution
of 1979.
Of the several sub-groups within Shi’ism, the largest is that of the

Twelver Shi’ites, who believe that Muhammad vouchsafed the
succession to twelve Imams or leaders, beginning with Ali and
continuing down his blood line to the Imam known as Mahdi, who
allegedly disappeared as a young child and will, it is believed, return
towards the end of time to spread peace and goodness through a
troubled world. The messianic role of the Mahdi has great importance
for Shi’ites, who find comfort and fortitude in the belief that one day,
tyranny and oppression will be removed from the face of the earth.
Shi’ites have in the past been quietist in their approach to politics,
generally accepting the status quo and remaining aloof from political
involvement. Shi’ism’s reputation for radical action in the face of
political oppression is a recent phenomenon, forged largely by a new
generation of Shi’ite thinkers and leaders who have reinterpreted
motifs such as martyrdom and Mahdism and imbued them with the
kind of revolutionary spirit which enabled the Ayatollah Khumayni
to overthrow the regime of Muhammad Reza Shah and establish
arguably the world’s first ‘Islamic republic’.
Approximately 10 per cent of the world’s Muslims self-identify as
Shi’ites, most of whom live in Iran and Iraq.
THE MARWANID UMAYYADS
In 684, the caliphate fell to the Marwanid clan, led by Marwan ibn
al-Hakim, a cousin of Mu’awiya and one of the most influential
figures of Uthman’s caliphate. The transfer of power to the Marwanid
clan occurred not through election, however, but through a bloody
encounter between the Qays tribe, which preferred Ibn Zubayr, and
the Kalb tribe, which supported Marwan. To eradicate their oppo-
nents, the Marwanids attacked Medina, leaving much destruction in
their wake before moving on to besiege Mecca itself.
Under the Marwanids, eleven caliphs ruled the Umayyad state for
some seventy years, with only four of them achieving anything of
lasting significance. Under Abd al-Malik, Arabic was introduced for
the first time as the language of government administration. New
coins were struck and Byzantine and Persian currency replaced by a
single system across the whole empire: the gold dinar and the silver
dirham. Elaborate mosques were built and lavish palaces constructed
for the wealthy and influential. But it was for his military zeal that
Abd al-Malik enjoys renown. When he became caliph, Damascus was
threatened from Byzantium on one side and from Ibn Zubayr in

Mecca on the other. To tackle the problem he adopted a policy of
‘sword and negotiation’. Negotiation was used to resolve his diffi-
culties with Byzantium, although it resulted in a number of terri-
torial concessions to the Byzantine emperor, to whom he agreed to
pay tribute. The sword was used to deal with internal opponents,
including Ibn Zubayr, who was defeated in 692. Against his Muslim
enemies in Iraq he unleashed what can only be described as a reign of
terror: it is said that there were so many executions that there were
not enough executioners to behead the condemned.
Abd al-Malik was succeeded by his son, Walid (r. 705–715), under
whom the second wave of Arab-Muslim conquests took place. In north
Africa the Berber tribes converted en masse: having accepted the lead-
ership of the Arabs they then joined forces with them to make the first
inroads into the Iberian peninsula. On the eastern front, Muslim
forces occupied Sind, where they were welcomed by a Buddhist people
discontented with Hindu rule. For many, Walid’s reign marked the
zenith of Umayyad power. The expansion effected during his reign
increased gradually after his death, and by 732 the Muslims had
advanced as far as France. Exactly a hundred years after the death of
the Prophet, the word of his successors was law from south-western
Europe, through north Africa and into western and central Asia – an
extent unmatched by even the Roman empire in its heyday.
Internally, the strength of the Marwanid Umayyads lay chiefly in
their ability to manipulate the tribal networks and connections that
had resurfaced as a major force in Arab society after the demise of
the ‘rightly-guided’ Caliphs. Under the Umayyads, many of the old
tribal attitudes and traditions were revived as Arab clans and tribes
established themselves as landowners throughout the growing
empire. Faction fighting was one such tradition, and throughout most
of the Umayyad period, succession to the caliphate depended on the
outcome of struggles between rival tribes.
Another tribal attitude dominant in this era was Arabism; for
many of the Arab conquerors, being an Arab was often considered
more important than being Muslim. To an extent this was reflected in
the social hierarchy which existed in the conquered territories. At the
apex of the social pyramid stood the conquerors, the Arab Muslims.
Below them came the Muslim converts of the tributary peoples, the
‘neo-Muslims’, for whom participation in the socio-political arena
82
Figure 3.1 The Arab conquests and the spread of Islam, 622–750.
depended on their ability to affiliate themselves as mawali or ‘clients’

of Arab clans. Then came the ‘people of the Book’ – the Jews and the
Christians – who were known to the Arabs as dhimmis or ‘protected
people’. At the bottom came the slaves – converted or unconverted –
and those who adhered to no religion in particular. Arabism was both
a cause and consequence of this divisive social structure and indeed in
many parts of the empire was accepted as a norm sanctioned by Islam
itself, despite the fact that the Qur’an emphasises the equality of all
believers before God.
Walid I was succeeded by Sulayman, whose two-year reign was frit-
tered away in pursuit of wine, women and song. His successor, Umar
b. Abd al-Aziz – Umar II – was, however, the one exception to the
tribally oriented Arab style of government. Umar II was a man of great
personal piety and humility, whose short reign did much to restore
people’s faith in the caliphate. He was able to reconcile the warring
factions of the time, including the Shi’ites and the Kharijites, thus
righting many of the wrongs done by his predecessors. Unfortunately,
he was succeeded by the cruel and licentious Yazid III (720–724), who
proceeded to undo much of what Umar II had accomplished.
The last Umayyad Caliph of note was Hisham (724–743), during
whose reign the bureaucratic structure of the caliphate was improved
and a greater degree of centralisation achieved. One of Hisham’s
more enlightened measures was the employment of skilled non-
Muslims in the administration. Such was the efficiency of the caliphal
machine that Hisham’s style of government became the ideal to
which other rulers would aspire. Yet efficiency came with a price, and
for many it was heavy: Hisham ruled with an iron fist, using arbi-
trary arrest and torture against those who opposed him.
The last four Umayyad Caliphs were cut from the same cloth as
most of their tyrannical forebears, accomplishing nothing of import
during their reigns. Yet even if they had been able to redeem them-
selves with a series of administrative reforms, or perhaps a spate of
monument building, the feeling across the empire was that enough
was enough. Disaffection was spreading rapidly throughout the
conquered territories, with resentment highest among the new
converts to Islam, especially those of non-Arab origin such as the
Persians. Other discontented groups included the Shi’ites, for whom
the memory of Karbala was an open wound, and the Kharijites, for
whom the Umayyads had always been beyond the pale. Khurasan, in
eastern Persia, was the main hotbed of unrest, and it was from there,
in 750, that the Abbasid revolt against the Umayyad regime began.
THE SPREAD OF ISLAM
It is fair to say that during the Umayyad century, most of the

non-Arab subjects of Ummayyad rule were not Muslim; towards the
end of this period, the Berbers of North Africa became the first major
non-Arab group to accept Islam. Within a few centuries, Christianity
all but disappeared from North Africa, while Jews remained a small
minority, with many living in Umayyad Spain.
The Iranians of central Asia were the second major group to grav-
itate towards Islam, almost a century after Iran had been subjugated.
Both Berbers and Iranians proved to be a thorn in the side of the
Umayyad regime, with the latter contributing openly to its over-
throw and the establishment of the Abbasid dynasty in 750. From
this point onwards, Islam was no longer the preserve of a single
ethnic group or of one ruling elite.
In the heartlands of what was then the Muslim world, the spread
of Islam is difficult to trace. For example, some sources state that few
Egyptians had accepted Islam before the eighth century, with no
more than half the population having accepted the new religion by
the 900s, some three centuries after the advent of the Prophet; it was
not until the end of the eleventh century that Muslims made up
more than 90 per cent of the population.
Elsewhere, the spread of Islam was even slower. It is believed that
Iran and Iraq did not have Muslim majorities until the beginning of
the tenth century, while Syria did not reach the 50 per cent mark
until around 1200.
In the Iberian peninsula, Islam became established between 711
and 1250, and although many Muslims – and Jews – were expelled
from Spain after the Reconquista, Islam survived there into the
seventeenth century.
Anatolia, which is comprised of most of modern Turkey, came
under the rule of Muslim Turks at the end of the eleventh century,
and as the Turks moved westwards, they took Islam with them. When
the Ottoman Turks reached the Balkans in the mid-fourteenth
century, Albanians, Bosnians and, to a lesser extent, Bulgarians
accepted the religion of their conquerors.
Further east, the Buddhist population of Sind (India) appears to have

embraced Islam gradually between the eighth and tenth centuries, with
Buddhism disappearing much more quickly than Hinduism. At the end
of the twelfth century, other Muslim Turkish tribesman subjugated
other parts of India, including what we know today as Bangladesh.
Subsequently the number of Muslims there increased exponentially,
and by 1300 constituted a majority. Elsewhere in India, except for the
Punjab and Kashmir, Hinduism remained the religion of the majority.
In the south of India and Sri Lanki, Islam entered with the influx of
Sufi traders, who later carried Islam to south-east Asia by the beginning
of the fourteenth century. Over the next two centuries, Islam spread
from Malaysia to Sumatra and from there to eastern Indonesia.
In Central Asia, Islam gradually spread to the original homelands
of the Turks and Mongols, where it became the religion of nearly all
Turkic-speaking peoples. Islam also spread into Xinjiang, in western
China, where it was tolerated by the Chinese rulers. As far back as
the eighth century, a number of ethnic Chinese Han had accepted
Islam, and these groups continue to practice Islam today. Islam spread
to China through seaports such as Guanzhou, where the earliest
Chinese mosque – built in traditional Chinese style – still exists.
Islam established itself in sub-Saharan Africa as early as 990, when
a small Muslim state was established at Gao, on the Niger River in
Mali. Sixty years later, groups in Senegal had accepted Islam, which
later spread to west Mali, Guinea and Ghana. Mali was home to a
thriving Muslim kingdom in the fifteenth century, while further
east, the area around Lake Chad became Muslim at the beginning of
the twelfth century. As in eastern Asia, Islam in Africa was spread
largely by traders and Sufi travellers. By 1500, Islam had become
established in much of West Africa throughout the Sahel belt and
along the Niger River into today’s Nigeria.
In East Africa, traders had introduced Islam to the coastal popu-
lation by the tenth century. In the Sudan, the Nubian population
gradually turned to Islam during the fourteenth century, largely
thanks to the influx of Muslim Arab tribesmen into the area.
THE ABBASIDS
The name ‘Abbasid’ signifies the descendants of Abbas (d. 653), an

uncle of the Prophet. The Abbasid family had opposed the Umayyads
from the outset, and from the beginning of the eighth century had
spread propaganda and fomented unrest against them. Gradually they
won the support of disaffected Shi’ites and mawali, particularly in
Khurasan. In 747 a member of the mawali, one Abu Muslim, unleashed
an uprising which led to the defeat of the Umayyad caliph, Marwan II,
and the accession of the first Abbasid Caliph, al-Saffah (r. 749–754).
However, al-Saffah turned out to be no better than his Umayyad
predecessors: for five years he ruled as a bloodthirsty tyrant, eradi-
cating many of the rebels who had helped him attain the caliphate,
including Abu Muslim. That al-Saffah should have been murdered
by his own brother, the equally ruthless al-Mansur (r. 754–775)
smacks of poetic justice.
Al-Mansur’s crowning accomplishment was the construction of a
new capital for the dynasty. Built in 762 on the banks of the Tigris
and close to the Euphrates on the main route to Persia, the ‘round
city’ of Baghdad was created by, and for, a ruler who combined the
pomp and circumstance of the Byzantine emperors with the opulence
and grandeur of the Sassanid shahs. The position of leader in Muslim
society was no longer that of primus inter pares as it had been during
the era of the Prophet and his immediate successors: under the
Abbasids, the caliphate acquired a majesty and mystique that owed
more to the semi-divine aura attending Persian kingship than it did
to the simple ethos of leadership espoused by Muhammad, and the
new city was designed precisely to accentuate the remoteness of the
ruler from his subjects. Consisting of a series of concentric rings,
Baghdad had as its nucleus the palace and private mosques of the
caliph and his household; court offices and military barracks formed
the outer, protective ring, while the markets and residential quarters
constituted the periphery. Whereas the earlier caliphs had prided
themselves on their accessibility, the Abbasid rulers generally
considered themselves to be above day-to-day contact with the
people. Gaining access to the caliph was now a tortuous affair,
involving contact with numerous courtiers and officials who guarded
their ruler’s privacy with considerable zeal: after all, one mistake
might bring into action the hooded executioner – a prime symbol of
the Abbasid caliphate – who always stood at the caliph’s side, his
sword at the ready.
The construction of Baghdad, with the caliph as both the physical
and symbolic heart of the city, embodied the centralisation of absolute
power in the hands of a single individual as never before. The Abbasid

dynasty was now more powerful than al-Saffah could have dreamed.
Moreover, al-Mansur’s son, al-Mahdi (r. 775–785) sought during his
short tenure to build bridges between the various religious factions
of the day, and was thus able to provide the caliphate with arguably
the only thing that it lacked: a degree of orthodox religious support.
If ever the fabulous world of the 1001 Nights had a real-life simu-
lacrum, then it was to be found in the opulence and splendour of
court life under Harun al-Rashid (r. 786–809), whose reign is often
seen as the pinnacle of Abbasid prosperity and cultural brilliance.
However, others – especially the more religious-minded of the
Muslim historians – see this as a period of excess rather than success,
citing Harun’s open flaunting of Islamic mores as the first nail in the
Abbasid coffin, and, as such, a portent of the eventual decay of the
caliphal edifice. True, Harun was known publicly to be a wine-drinker
and a fornicator, whose penchant for the pleasures of the flesh was
mirrored in the verse of his favourite court poet, Abu Nuwas (d. 803).
The poetry of Abu Nuwas, celebrating the joys of wine, music and
prepubescent boys, did nothing to endear the poet and his patron to
the burgeoning Muslim clerical class – the religious scholars or
ulamā – most of whom were careful to avoid being linked in any way
to the caliph or his court.
Nevertheless, both Harun and his son al-Ma‘mun (r. 813–833)
were open supporters of the shari‘a and did much during their reigns
to further the cause of Muslim scholarship. This period of Abbasid
rule is, thanks in no small way to court patronage, notable for the
advances made in all areas of religious learning. The disciplines which
made the most headway during the early Abbasid era were hadith
studies, theology and law; an exposition of how all three developed
now follows.
MUSLIM LEARNING UNDER THE ABBASIDS
HADITH STUDIES
Study of the Prophet’s sayings or ‘Traditions’ and scholarly research

into their authenticity and ‘chains of transmission’ had begun very
early on, but it was not until the ninth century that the first major
collections of hadith began to appear. In Sunni Islam, the most famous
collections are known as the ‘Six Books’; of these, the works of

Bukhari (d. 870) and Muslim (d. 875) are considered the most author-
itative – to the extent, in fact, that they are accorded a status second
only to that of the Qur’an. The ‘Six Books’, together with the Qur’an,
form the two most important ‘sources of law’ in Sunni Islam, from
which legal rulings are derived. The study of hadith was also culti-
vated by the Shi’ites, albeit slightly later. However, the Shi’ites have
‘Four Books’ and rely not only on the Traditions of the Prophet but
also on the sayings of the Twelve Imams.
THE EMERGENCE OF MUSLIM THEOLOGY
In the Muslim world, learned discussion and debate concerning the

fundamentals of belief have traditionally been the preserve of the
discipline known as kalām (lit. ‘discourse’), which is usually trans-
lated as ‘scholastic theology’. Discussion on the nature of Divine
Unity, the necessity for prophethood, and logical proofs for the
existence of a hereafter occupied the mind of Muslim thinkers from
comparatively early on.
The origins of Muslim theology remain obscure, but the first
recorded theological discussions came about in the middle of the
seventh century as a result of distinctly political concerns. When the
fourth caliph, Ali, was challenged by Mu’awiya, a rival claimant to
the caliphate, hostilities broke out and a civil war ensued. Ali had the
upper hand in battle, and might have secured victory had the enemy
not resorted to shock tactics. Holding aloft pages of the Qur’an on
their spears, they called on Ali to let the Holy Book act as arbitrator
in their dispute. This came to nothing, and Ali was denigrated by a
number of his followers, who said that he should have ignored the
plea for arbitration and settled the issue there on the battlefield, as
they believed God intended. Eventually, these followers broke away
from Ali and formed their own grouping, known as the Kharijiyya
(from the Arabic term meaning ‘those who break away’).
The Kharijiyya began as a political faction, but developed theo-
logical ideas of their own. Prominent among these was the notion
that sin casts an indelible stain on faith, and that sinners – as Ali was
deemed to be – fall outside the pale of Islam into unbelief. The question
of who is a believer and who is not, and the degree to which sins –
trivial or cardinal – damage or destroy faith, was possibly the first to
come under scrutiny. Another group involved in discussions on the
nature of belief and faith were the Murji’ites, a century later. They
concluded that belief and practice were separate things, and that sin
was not enough to exclude anyone from the brotherhood of Islam.
Later still, two important groups emerged that would dominate
Muslim theological discussion in the early medieval period: the
Mu’tazilites and the Ash’arites. More is known about these two
groups than about any other theological faction, and their debates
still have resonance for Muslims today. Known somewhat mislead-
ingly as the ‘free thinkers’ or ‘rationalists’ of Muslim theology, the
Mu’tazilites emphasised God’s unity and justice. With regard to
Divine Unity, they were keen to stress that while God has many
attributes of perfection, these attributes are not separate from Him;
rather they are part of, and virtually synonymous with, His essence.
Thus while God describes Himself as all-powerful, all-knowing and
all-merciful, for example, He does not possess power, knowledge and
mercy as separate attributes: this would imply their co-eternity with
Him, thus adulterating with plurality His absolute unity. With regard
to justice, the Mu’tazilites argued that acts are good or bad inher-
ently, and not because God wills them so. Out of their perspective of
God’s absolute justice came the belief that man was equipped with
free will and the ability to choose between right and wrong. While
some groups believed that all of man’s acts were predetermined by
God, thus allowing little if any room for freedom of choice, the
Mu’tazilites argued that God does not force man to do anything: God
is just, they asserted, and would not punish a man for sins he did not
choose freely to commit.
A third issue debated by the Mu’tazilites was the ‘createdness’ of
the Qur’an. The assumption had been that the Qur’an, as the word of
God, was eternal. However, the Mu’tazilites argued that this would
make the Qur’an co-eternal with God – a clear infringement of
Divine Unity. Similarly, they dismissed the idea that what the Qur’an
describes as the ‘hands’ or the ‘face’ of God should be understood
literally: rather, such terms can only ever be metaphors: God’s ‘hands’,
for instance, signify His all-encompassing power, while His ‘face’
denotes His attributes as made manifest in the created world.
Underpinning all of the Mu’tazilite positions was their staunch
belief in human reason, which they held to be the supreme criterion
by which not only all theological issues should be judged, but also by
which revelation itself must be appraised.
The main rivals of the Mu’tazilites were the Ash’arites, who came
to the forefront in the tenth century, and whose teachings still hold
sway in many Muslim theological circles today. Ash’arite theology
began largely as a response to what certain scholars saw as the rather
unorthodox views of the Mu’tazilites, who were seen as disturbingly
over-reliant on human reason.
The Ash’arites matched the Mu’tazilites argument for argument.
On the issue of Divine Unity, they claimed that God’s essence and
attributes were necessarily separate: were they not so, we might just
as well declare ‘knowledge’ or ‘power’ our god rather than God. They
conceded, however, that the kind of knowledge that we predicate of
God is different from the knowledge we experience as humans, and
that by way of compromise we should conclude that while God’s
knowledge is not identical with His essence, it is not separate either
– at least not in the sense that human knowledge is separate from the
human essence.
On the issue of justice, the Ash’arites agree that God is absolutely
just. However, they claim that good and evil are determined not by
the nature of things or actions themselves, but by God: it is God who
creates good and allows evil, in order to test humankind. An act which
has been declared evil is evil only because God has declared it such,
and not because it is inherently devoid of good. For if, they argued,
God outlaws an act because the act is bad, this implies that His will is
secondary to the evil of the act in question, and that His prohibition
is in a sense contingent upon it. Evil, for the later Ash’arites at least,
is a wholly relative category, and should be seen merely as the ‘lack
of good’. In short, evil is a relative rather than an absolute concept.
An earthquake on the moon, for example, is not seen as evil, simply
because there are no casualties. An earthquake in Japan, however, is
likely to be seen by many as evil, particularly if there is huge loss of
life. As a ‘lack’ – a lack of good, or a lack of mercy – evil has a reality,
but it has no external existence.
On the issue of free will, the Ash’arites argued that humankind
has the choice only to act: as soon as he chooses, everything he does
is created by God, if God wills. While God creates humankind’s acts,
He does not coerce humankind into performing them: the choice is
humankind’s; the creation of the outcome of that choice is God’s. In
short, ‘Man proposes, God disposes’. God even creates those acts
which are deemed sinful, but humankind has to accept responsibility
for them on account of having chosen them in the first place. One
scholar likened this to one man sitting on the shoulders of another:
when the first man says, ‘Take me forward,’ the second man goes
forward; when the first says, ‘Sit me down,’ the second sits down. If
the first man were to say, ‘Throw me onto the ground,’ would he
have the right to complain when he was thrown?
On the question of the ‘created Qur’an’, the Ash’arites argued that
while the paper and ink with which the Qur’an is created, the word
of God which is enshrined in them is eternal. To substantiate this,
they cited the famous Qur’anic verse in which God says:
For to anything which We have willed, We but say the word, ‘Be’, and it is.
(16:40)
This verse implies the eternity of God’s speech, and thus if the Qur’an
is indeed His speech, it must be eternal and uncreated.
Many other issues were debated in theological circles across the
Muslim world throughout the medieval period. However, Muslim
theology has never achieved the kind of profile enjoyed by Muslim
jurisprudence, and after the Ash’arites there were few theological
groupings to rival them in popularity and influence. Today, most of
the Sunni majority adhere to the teachings of the Ash’arites, demon-
strating how little theology has advanced in the Muslim world in the
past thousand years.
THE DEVELOPMENT OF ‘ISLAMIC LAW’
For the majority of contemporary Muslims, ‘Islamic law’ is that corpus

of rites, rules and recommendations given by God so that humankind
may order all of their actions and behaviours – be they personal or
societal – in accordance with the ‘Divine will’. As such, the reach of
‘Islamic law’ is considered to be all-inclusive: there is no facet of a man
or woman’s personal behaviour that is not catered for or covered by
some divine ordinance or other, and no area of a man or woman’s social
or political life that is untouched by the ‘law’ or ‘laws’ of God. Popular
belief has it that there is no aspect of human existence that is not regu-
lated or legislated for by this all-encompassing code, hence the perennial
mantra, ‘Islam is not just a religion, it is a whole way of life.’
However, as we shall see later on, there is no such thing as a practice
or action that is inherently sacred, religious or ‘Islamic’: an action is
only as good, bad, sacred or profane as the intention which engenders

it and the attitude which underpins it. The same applies, but for
slightly different reasons, to that codified body of rules and regula-
tions known as ‘Islamic law’, most of which is a purely human
construct, and much of which has little or nothing to do with the
precepts enshrined in the Qur’an. A whole host of practices – from
those staples of Western tabloid interest such as the ritual stoning of
adulterous females to the more trivial practices such as veiling, or
circumcision – are passed off as ‘Islamic’ but in fact receive no
mention at all in the Islamic revelation.
The fact that most of the laws by which Muslims have endeavoured
to regulate their lives are in fact human constructs may come as a
bracing surprise to most readers, and a shock to many, particularly if
they are Muslims with traditionalist views. However, that ‘Islamic
law’ is mostly ‘human law’ is not particularly earth-shattering. What
is shocking is the fact that it has masqueraded as a sacred code for so
long, its spurious provenance allowing it to avoid criticism and to act
as a virtually impregnable barrier to legal, social and political reform.
That which passes in most Muslim societies as ‘Islamic law’ is in fact
a hybrid of Qur’anic precepts; moral and social codes abstracted from
the personal practice or sunna of the Prophet; and the rulings of jurists,
which are based largely on their personal interpretation of the so-called
‘sources of law’, the most important of which are the Qur’an and the
sunna of Muhammad. While the ‘Muhammadan code’ or sunna
enshrines the sayings and behaviour of a mere mortal, it is held to be
divinely inspired. However, the sunna is suspect as a source of law on
account of the problematic nature of the Traditions that comprise it,
many of which may be later fabrications. This leaves the rulings of
jurists, which, as we shall see shortly, are human and fallible through
and through. Of the whole melange, only the Qur’an can claim to be
divine, and even then, in comparison with the other two components,
its direct contribution to the body of Islamic law is minimal. The term
‘Islamic law’ is at best misleading, and at worst a travesty; to call it ‘law
abstracted by Muslims from a mixture of divine and human sources’
would be cumbersome and unfeasible, but much closer to the truth.
SEEING ‘ISLAMIC LAW’ AS MUSLIMS SEE IT
Before we go back in time to the era of the Prophet and the earliest
Muslim communities to trace the gradual development of Islamic law,
let us first clear up a few ‘definitional’ grey areas and look at Islamic
law – on the surface at least – as Muslims see and understand it.
The laws that God is said to have devised so that each man might
order and regulate his life, and each woman hers, are described in
their totality as the shari‘a.
Over the past thirty years the profile of Islamic law internationally
has become such that the word shari‘a has found its way into most of
the well-known English dictionaries. Readers may have heard of or
read about endeavours and campaigns by Muslims in various parts of
the world to ‘bring back the shari‘a’ or to ‘reinstate shari‘a law’.
Sometimes, such efforts are undertaken to revive Islamic law with
respect to a certain area of socio-political life: to bring back Islamic
criminal codes, for example, or Islamic laws of inheritance – rules and
regulations that were in force when the nation or society in question
operated according to the shari‘a, but which have long since been
superseded by secular codes. Other endeavours to reinstate the
shari‘a have harboured the objective of applying the ‘sacred code’ in
its totality, thus turning the nation or society into an ‘Islamic state’,
run solely on legal principles said to be derived directly from the
Qur’an through the medium of Islamic law. The most famous example
of this, of course, is Iran, which refashioned itself as an ‘Islamic
republic’ after the revolution of 1979.
Let us now turn to the history of early Islamic legal doctrine so that we
may throw a little light on the development of the complex phenomenon
we have been trying to deconstruct in the previous paragraphs.
THE SHARI‘A: THE EVOLUTION OF MUSLIM LEGAL THEORY AND ‘ISLAMIC LAW’
The Arabic word shari‘a means ‘a path or an approach to a watering

place’, but in the technical sense it is understood as the laws prescribed,
directly or indirectly, by God. It is the aim of fiqh – or jurisprudence
– to understand how practical laws are to be derived from the main
‘sources of law’, namely the Qur’an and the Prophetic sunna. For
complex reasons, fiqh has always been the most popular and important
discipline in the Muslim world of learning.
Fiqh has two principal components: furū‘ al-fiqh (the ‘branches of
understanding’) and usūl al-fiqh (the ‘roots of understanding’), also
translatable as ‘legal theory’. The ‘branches’ comprise the various
laws, which are classified under two headings: ibādāt, or acts of
worship (namely: ritual purity, prayer, almsgiving, fasting, pilgrimage
and so on); and mu‘āmalāt, or transactions, which include family law,

commercial law, civil law and criminal law. The roots are more
extensive, covering the various categories or values of law (the oblig-
atory, the recommended, the permitted, the discouraged and the
forbidden); the sources of law (which vary according to different
‘schools of law’, but which always include the Qur’an, the sunna and
scholarly consensus or ijma); the rules for extrapolating norms from
the sources; and the principle of ijtihad, which is the right to exercise
independent judgement.
THE PRINCIPAL SCHOOLS OF JURISPRUDENCE
Although there is a certain amount of legislative material in the

Qur’an, it is not a legal compendium and thus one will not find
written in it any systematic code of law. While the Qur’an does tell
those who adopt Islam as their chosen creed what they are supposed
to do to express their submission in practical terms (e.g. through
praying, fasting and the like), it does so only in a very general manner.
Muslim orthopraxy is firmly rooted in the Qur’an, but the Qur’an
itself gives believers only very vague and general guidance on how
their obligations are to be fulfilled. In the case of prayer, for example,
there are verses in the Qur’an which stress the importance of prayer,
and which mention the times when people should pray, but nowhere
can we read precisely when and how the prayers are to be performed;
for that one has to refer to the sunna – the practice of the Prophet.
Another example is the issue of the punishment of theft. The Qur’an
does indeed state that the thief’s hand should be cut off, but it leaves
many questions unanswered. For example, does the law apply to
minors as well as adults? Should the punishment be carried out if the
thief is old, pregnant or insane? Are there mitigating circumstances
such as poverty? Must the object taken be of value? What evidence is
required to convict a person of theft? And so on.
While the Prophet was still alive, the Qur’an’s silence on these
issues was unproblematic. Sometimes he would receive additional
revelations which would throw light on difficult issues, but more
frequently he gave his own judgement, or relied instead on the
customary law of Medina. After his death, however, the situation
changed dramatically. There were no further revelations, and there
was no one else like Muhammad who could act as lawgiver in his
own right. The first four caliphs administered justice on the basis of
the Qur’an and the decisions of the Prophet. Like him, they too gave
ad hoc rulings of their own and relied on the customary law of
Medina. However, these last two elements proved increasingly
difficult to justify. In matters of administration, for example, the
third caliph, Uthman, was criticised severely for reversing many of
the policies of his predecessors. More importantly, as the Arab
conquests took Islam halfway around the world, it became increas-
ingly less practical to rely on the customary law of Medina.
A watershed development took place during the Umayyad period
(661–750), when the provincial governors in various parts of the
Arab Muslim empire appointed qādis (judges) to whom they dele-
gated their judicial authority. The governors reserved the right to
judge any case themselves if they so desired, and they could of course
dismiss the judges if they saw fit. Nevertheless, the judges were in
charge of the day-to-day administration of justice. The historical
sources portray them mostly as devout Muslims who were concerned
to proceed in accordance with the Qur’an and Islamic tradition, but
they also drew on local custom and frequently had to use their own
discretion. Many of the decisions which they took were incorporated
into law. The appointment of judges who were legal experts led, in
turn, during the early Abbasid period (750– 900), to the emergence
of distinct ‘schools of jurisprudence’ (madhhab) in different parts of
the empire. Four schools of law still exist in the Sunni world: the
Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi‘i and Hanbali; the Shi’ites have their own
‘school of jurisprudence’, the Ja‘fari school, named in honour of its
founder, Ja‘far al-Sadiq, a direct descendant of the Prophet.
The Hanafi school

The Hanafi school is named after Abu Hanifa (d. 767), a native of
Kufa in Iraq. He was an academic lawyer and never served as a judge.
The Hanafi school is seen as the most liberal and flexible of the four
Sunni schools.
In establishing points of law, Abu Hanifa relied in the first instance
on the Qur’an, then on ‘analogical reasoning’ (qiyas). He actually
regarded the latter as more important than Prophetic Tradition
although of course he took hadiths into account. A jurist’s use of
analogical reasoning to extend a Qur’anic ruling to a new case depends
on his ability to identify the underlying cause or reason (‘illa) for the
original ruling. For example, according to the Qur’an, after the adhān
has been sounded for the Friday congregational prayers, it is forbidden

to buy or sell goods until the prayers are over. The underlying reason
for this is that buying and selling tend to distract people from praying.
Therefore, by analogy, all other transactions are likewise forbidden at
this time because they too are a distraction.
Abu Hanifa invoked the principle of ‘juristic discretion’ (istihsan,
which literally means to approve or deem something preferable) in
order to justify departing from the letter of the law in circumstances
where the rigid application of it would lead to unfairness. For example,
the Qur’an requires men and women to dress modestly when in the
presence of members of the opposite sex to whom they are not
married or closely related. However, Hanafi jurists argue that this
rule may be set aside in the case of a person who is seriously ill and
needs a medical examination. A similar principle, istislah, gives the
jurist the authority to overrule a law which is not in the public
interest, even if that law is religiously binding in the sense of being
fard. These principles, which give jurists tremendous scope for
‘creative legislature’, came under attack by the more conservative
juristic majority and were discontinued, much to the chagrin of
modern Muslim reformers.
As well as allowing ample room for the use of reason, Abu Hanifa
also relied on scholarly consensus (ijma) to establish points of law.
He held that only the consensus of the qualified legal authorities of a
given generation was absolutely infallible, but in practice, jurists of
the Hanafi school have often accepted a local consensus, sometimes
involving only a handful of scholarly opinions.
The Hanafi school was the dominant school during the Abbasid
period and subsequently became the official school of the Ottoman
Empire. Largely because of this it has continued to be the most wide-
spread school. It is adhered to by the majority of Muslims in Syria,
Jordan, Turkey, North India, Pakistan, China and Central Asia.
Approximately a third of all Muslims are Hanafis.
The Maliki school

The Maliki school was founded by Malik b. Anas (d. 796), who was
born and died in Medina. This school of law represents a reaction
against the earlier, more speculative approaches to law. Malik’s
magnum opus is al-Muwatta (lit. The Trodden Path), which is essen-
tially a law book based on Prophetic Tradition. In dealing with each
topic, he cites the precedent set by the Prophet, followed by reports

about the opinions and acts of the Companions and other eminent
Medinese Muslims. Then he discusses them and accepts or rejects
them in the light of the legal tradition of Medina and his own
reasoning. In the last analysis, what counted for Malik was the legal
tradition of Medina. In his view, it was this that enshrined the will of
the Prophet as understood by the Companions. Thus, where Abu
Hanifa had understood ijma as the consensus of the qualified legal
authorities of a given generation, Malik understood it as the consensus
of the people of Medina.
Malik is also credited with having supported the principle of
istislah, or taking into account the public interest. He held that new
laws could be introduced which had no textual basis in the Qur’an or
sunna, provided that they are created to bring about benefit or prevent
harm, and are consonant with the aims of the shari‘a. The principle
of istislah was often called on by rulers who wished to impose taxes
or introduce other social or political measures which might have
appeared to be Islamically suspect. The Maliki school dominates in
Egypt and North Africa, but finds no favour in Medina, its birthplace,
where a far more conservative jurisprudence holds sway.
The Shafi‘i school

This was founded by Muhammad b. Idris al-Shafi‘i (d. 820), who
studied in Mecca, Medina, Iraq and Syria. He was thoroughly
acquainted with the various schools of law which existed in his time,
but refused to identify with any one in particular. Instead, his life’s
endeavour was to unify them by providing a sound theory of the
sources from which laws are derived. For Shafi‘i, the ‘sources of law’
were hierarchical. First and foremost came the Qur’an. Then he relied
on evidence from the Qur’an to show that Muslims were duty-bound
to follow the Prophet because his legal decisions were divinely
inspired. Thus the sunna as enshrined in the hadiths became the
second most important authority. In many people’s views, however,
the hadiths were often contradictory. Shafi‘i therefore tried to show
that apparent contradictions could be explained in terms of a later
hadith abrogating an earlier one, or one hadith representing an
exception to the rule laid down in another.
Next in Shafi‘i’s hierarchy of authorities came ijma (consensus).
Both Hanafis and Malikis accepted this as a source of law, although
they disagreed over its scope and application. Shafi‘i’s solution was to
redefine it to signify the agreement of the entire Muslim community,
including both jurists and laymen. In effect, this meant that its value
was acknowledged in theory, but that its importance in practice was
reduced. Shafi‘i’s final source of law was analogical reasoning (qiyas).
Owing to his emphasis on the sunna, he accorded qiyas much less
importance than Abu Hanifa, and rejected both istihsan and istislah
as legitimate principles of jurisprudence. Today, adherents of the
Shafi‘i school are to be found scattered throughout the Muslim world,
and predominate in the Indian subcontinent and south-east Asia.
The Hanbali school

The Hanbali school, seen by many as the most conservative, is named
after Ahmad b. Hanbal (d. 855). Ibn Hanbal never actually wrote
anything on jurisprudential theory: he was more of a collector of
hadith than a jurist, travelling far and wide to collect Prophetic tradi-
tions, many of which formed the basis of an enormous collection
known as the Musnad. A pupil and admirer of Shafi‘i, he had an even
higher opinion of the value of the sunna than the latter. He insisted
that the Qur’an and the sunna were the primary sources of law, and
that both were to be understood literally. Later Hanbalites recognised
four further sources of law, ranking them in the following order: the
legal rulings of the Companions of the Prophet, provided that they do
not contradict the Qur’an or sunna; the sayings of individual
Companions so long as they are consonant with the truths enshrined
in the Qur’an and sunna; Prophetic Traditions with weak chains of
transmission; and, finally, analogical reasoning, but only when abso-
lutely necessary. The most famous Hanbali scholar was probably Ibn
Taymiyya (d. 1327), whose writings greatly influenced the eighteenth-
century reformers, the Wahhabis. The success of the Wahhabis led
ultimately to the recognition of Hanbalism as the official law school in
Saudi Arabia and Qatar. It also has adherents in Iraq and Syria.
THE CLOSURE OF THE ‘GATE OF IJTIHAD’
The process of using independent judgement to derive new laws,

known as ijtihad, was criticised by some scholars because they believed
it encouraged over-confidence in the role of human reason. Also, by
the end of the tenth century, the proliferation of schools of law – at
one point there were at least nineteen – was such that some scholars
thought Muslim jurisprudence might become over-fragmented,

leading to splits and schisms in the fabric of Muslim society. The idea
began to emerge in certain quarters that the ‘gate of ijtihad’ must be
closed, and instead of using independent reasoning in the future,
scholars should confine themselves to studying and reinterpreting
the laws that were already in existence. From this point onwards,
principles such as qiyas, istihsan and istislah, all vital components of
independent reasoning, were to be abandoned, and scholars of juris-
prudence were to emulate (taqlid) their illustrious jurist predecessors
rather than foster legal innovation in their own right.
Today, many Muslim thinkers believe that the ‘gate of ijtihad’ has
never really been closed, and that Muslim jurists continued down the
ages to practise independent reasoning in order to derive laws for
new, unprecedented situations. The alleged closure of the ‘gate of
ijtihad’ has been cited by many as the reason why Muslim law
appeared to ossify after the twelfth century.
SHI’ITE LAW
Shi’ite law developed along markedly different lines, and was based
on Traditions handed down not only from the Prophet but also the
Imams who were deemed to have succeeded him. Shi’ite jurispru-
dence came into existence largely thanks to the efforts of Ja‘far
al-Sadiq, the sixth Shi’ite Imam, who had actually been the teacher
of many important Sunni jurists, including Abu Hanifa. The Shi’ites
differ slightly from the Sunnis on the sources of law, and for the
Shi’ites the ‘gate of ijtihad’ was never considered closed.
When the line of successors to Muhammad – the Twelve Imams
– came to an end, the last in that line, the Imam Mahdi, was deemed
to have gone into ‘occultation’, to return at the end of time. During
his absence, jurisprudential authority was devolved upon the most
learned Shi’ite jurists, who acted as representatives of the Hidden
Imam. The development of Shi’ite legal theory culminated, in the
nineteenth century, in the notion that the most learned Shi’ite
jurists of the age are in fact representatives of the Imam in all his
functions, both temporal and spiritual, leading in turn to the prin-
ciple known as wilayat al-faqih, the simplified meaning of which
means the right of the jurist to rule. This theory was elaborated by
Ayatollah Khumayni, who made it a cornerstone of the Islamic
Republic of Iran.
THE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN SUNNISM AND SHI’ISM
From a practical point of view, there is little to separate Shi’ite from

Sunni in terms of everyday law and jurisprudence. Sunnism, strictly
speaking, means adhering to the sunna of the Prophet, which is
something that all Shi’ites would claim to do anyway. Sunnis,
however, depend on the sunna alone, while Shi’ites also include the
Twelve Imams as sources of spiritual inspiration and socio-political
guidance. However, the difference between the two are few and rela-
tively minor. And while there are some theological differences
between the two approaches, on the three ‘fundamentals of faith’ –
Divine Unity, Prophethood and the Last Day – they are in complete
agreement. In fact, there are arguably more differences – jurispru-
dentially, at least – between different Sunni groups than there are
between Sunnis and Shi’ites.
THE RISE OF SUFISM
Parallel to developments in the sphere of mainstream Muslim learning

was the growth of Sufism, which had appeared as early as the first
century of Islam. Sufism – or, as some prefer, Muslim mysticism –
developed out of the assertion made by some that to live by God’s laws
was not enough: while the shari‘a had always provided an exterior
path of law to which one must submit in order to please God, it did not
satisfy the innate desire of the human heart to enter directly into
communion with God, and in doing so to know, love and worship Him
as had so obviously been required of mankind in the Qur’an. The
legalistic religion of the ulamā, it was claimed, did not cater for this
very human need, and thus it was to compensate for the deficiencies of
orthodox religion that the movement known as Sufism came into
existence. The term ‘Sufi’ was coined in the ninth century, possibly as
a name for those mystics whose ascetic practices and devotions included
the donning of garments made out of sūf, or coarse wool. By the time
of Harun al-Rashid, the term referred to the generality of Muslim
mystics, whether they engaged in ascetic practices or not. By the ninth
century, the Sufis had begun to teach and write about the methods
which, they claimed, could lead to the gnostic knowledge of God.
Throughout the ninth and tenth centuries, Sufism grew throughout
the Muslim world; famous mystics such as al-Muhasibi (d. 857) and
Junayd (d. 910), both of Baghdad, and Persian gnostics such as

al-Bistami (d. 874) and the notorious Mansur al-Hallaj (d. 922) all
made important contributions to the development of Muslim mystical
thought. More about Sufism can be found in Chapter 7, which deals
with Muslim spirituality in general.
THE BEGINNINGS OF MUSLIM PHILOSOPHY
Under al-Ma’mun we also see the beginnings of Muslim philosophy.

Sympathetic to Mu’tazilite rationalism, Ma’mum built a vast library
and institute of research known as the bayt al-hikma or ‘House of
Wisdom’, which he stocked with manuscripts on philosophy, medicine,
astronomy, mathematics and the natural sciences, brought from
various parts of the old Byzantine and Sassanid empires by Christian
and Jewish scholars. These manuscripts were then rendered into Arabic,
thus acquainting Muslim scholars with the works of Plato and Aris-
totle, Euclid and Galen. Known as the ‘translation movement’, this
endeavour not only facilitated the growth of an indigenous Muslim
philosophy, based initially on the teachings of Aristotle, but also served
as a conduit through which classical learning, via translation from
Arabic to Latin, would pass back into Europe centuries later, forming,
as some Muslims claim, one of the bases for the Renaissance.
THE ABBASIDS IN DECLINE
Ma’mun’s successor, al-Mu’tasim (r. 833–842) moved the capital

from Baghdad to a newly constructed city on the Tigris, Samarra. But
a change of scenery could not mask the fact that the Abbasids were in
trouble: the Turkish soldiers employed by Harun al-Rashid to protect
the caliphate had now started to turn against it, and by the end of of
al-Mu’tasim’s reign, the Turks were ruling in all but name. Their
power grew even greater under al-Wathiq (r. 842), whom they even-
tually assassinated. The Abbasid star was now on the wane.
MUSLIM SPAIN
Paradoxically, as the Abbasids began to decline, an earlier offshoot of

the Baghdad caliphate had taken root in southern Spain, and was now
thriving. By the end of the seventh century the Arabs had already
established a presence in North Africa, having founded the garrison
town of Qairawan, in modern-day Tunisia, as early as 667. From
there they conquered the rest of the Maghrib and, in 711, crossed the
water to Spain: the name Gibraltar – the first Muslim foothold in
Europe – is derived from the Arabic jabal Tāriq (‘Tariq’s mountain),
named in honour of the commander of the Arab forces. The Arab and
Berber fighters under Tariq were soon joined by a new wave of Arabs
from the east, and before long the conquest of Spain was under way.
Apart from the north-west, which remained Christian, most of the
peninsula was under Muslim control within four years. The rate of
Muslim expansion through Spain was dramatic. Indeed, the move
north would have continued into France, too, had it not been checked
by Charles Martel (d. 741) at the battle of Poitiers in 732. Had the
Muslims been victorious, the religious map of Europe – and possibly
the entire history of the West – might have been very different.
After 717 the territories captured by the Arabs were governed by
a succession of emirs, appointed by the caliph in Damascus. However,
in-fighting among the various governors and commanders led to
misrule and disorder, with the appointment and deposal of no fewer
than twenty emirs in forty years. This state of affairs ended with the
arrival in Andalusia of Abd al-Rahman, grandson of the Caliph
Hisham. During the Abbasid revolution, while most members of the
Umayyad ruling house were being slaughtered, Abd al-Rahman
managed to escape across North Africa to Spain. There he defused
the power struggle between the emirs and, in 756, established himself
in the name of the Umayyads as sole ruler of Andalusia (756–788).
This marked the first instance of regional separation from the Abbasid
caliphate in Baghdad.
Under Abd al-Rahman’s successors, the Umayyad emirate blos-
somed, culturally as well as politically. The stability which obtained
under Abd al-Rahman II (822–852) allowed for an efflorescence of
art, culture and commerce. The great Mosque of Cordoba, begun by
Abd al-Rahman I, was enlarged and religious scholarship, spear-
headed by clerics from the Maliki school of law, was patronised.
It was under Abd al-Rahman III (r. 921–961), however, that Anda-
lusian civilisation reached its zenith. His political self-assurance was
such that he declared himself caliph in 921, thus breaking away from
Baghdad for good. Under him, the capital – Cordoba – was transformed
into possibly the most splendid city in the Western world. Like his
predecessors, he was a great lover of the arts; he himself was a poet and
author of some talent. He also fostered the spread of education and
learning: numerous schools were built in which the poor were often
taught for free, and in the religious seminaries a whole new generation
of Andalusian scholars emerged, versed in disciplines such as medicine,
mathematics, theology and philosophy.
The peace and prosperity of Abd al-Rahman III’s reign contrasts
sharply with the political instability and social unrest which beset
the reigns of his successors, foreshadowing the eventual disinte-
gration of Muslim rule in the peninsula. At the beginning of the
eleventh century, the Cordoba caliphate gradually splintered into a
number of petty emirates and kingdoms, led by power-hungry
dynasts – the so-called ‘faction kings’. This was a period of political
intrigue, infighting, lawlessness and bloodshed, and the ensuing
disunity among the various Muslim leaders was exploited to full
effect by the Christian kings of the north, to whom the ‘faction kings’
were forced to pay tribute. Consequently, in an attempt to regain
control over their former territories, the Christian rulers of the north
were able to move southwards, meeting little resistance. Toledo fell in
1085, followed in 1094 by Valencia.
By the end of the eleventh century, the progress of the Christian
reconquista appeared inexorable, and it was only the appearance of
two new Muslim dynasties, both North African, that stemmed the
encroaching tide and bought time for the Muslims in Andalusia. The
Almoravids were a Berber dynasty which hailed from the deserts of
southern Morocco. They had ruled independently over much of
north-west Africa since 1056; three decades later they entered Spain,
where they were able to put paid to the quarrelling ‘faction kings’
and restore a semblance of stability. The Almoravids governed Anda-
lusia from the Moroccan city of Marrakesh, which they had estab-
lished as their capital in 1062.
The success of the Almoravids in Spain stemmed as much from the
piety and austere spirituality of their leaders as from the innate
military prowess of the Berber warriors who championed their cause.
Recognising the authority of the Abbasid caliphs, in terms of rite and
ritual the Almoravids were staunch champions of the Sunni
orthodoxy, insisting on the strict application of the shari‘a while
denouncing other approaches to Islam – Sufism, for example – as
highly suspect. The books of Imam Ghazali, for instance, were

publicly burnt, while the use of reason in theology and exegesis was
deemed heretical.
However, the Almoravid dynasty soon became a victim of its own
success, falling prey to the corruption and dissipation that are often
the lot of rulers who are given to unbridled excess. As a result, by
1145 they had been forced to leave the peninsula altogether, thus
allowing the Almohads, whose star was then rising in North Africa,
to become the new rulers of Muslim Spain.
The Almohads were also Berber in origin, evolving from the
followers of Ibn Tumart (1080–1130), a self-proclaimed mahdı̄ – the
messianic figure who, it is believed, is to reappear at the end of time
– and religious reformer in the vein of Imam Ghazali. From Marrakesh
the Almohads marched north into Andalusia in 1160 with an army of
250,000 men, and within less than a decade most of southern Spain
was theirs. However, their rule did not last long, and by 1250 their
power in the region was dwindling.
The last Muslim stronghold in Spain belonged to the Nasirid
dynasty, which ruled over the small kingdom of Granada from 1231
to 1492. The demise of the Nasirids came towards the end of the
fifteenth century with the marriage of Ferdinand of Aragon to
Isabella of Castile, an alliance which united Spain and strengthened
the Christian hand beyond estimation. Granada, the last Muslim
outpost in Spain, fell on 2 January 1492, marking the end of seven
centuries of Muslim civilisation in Spain. Subsequently, many
Muslims left the peninsula and embarked on new lives elsewhere,
mostly in north Africa; those who remained were subjected to consid-
erable hardship and oppression at the hands of their new Christian
masters. It was at Ferdinand and Isabella’s wish that all traces of
Muslim culture be extirpated from Spanish society, and such
suppression continued until the expulsion from Spain of the last
remaining Muslims in the middle of the seventeenth century.
THE DECLINE OF THE CALIPHATE:

THE RISE OF THE TURKS AND PERSIANS
Meanwhile, back in Baghdad, the growing influence of the Turkish

mercenaries and the inability of the ruling elite to create an effective
governmental apparatus independent of the caliph meant that by the
end of the ninth century, the Abbasids were little more than puppet
rulers. Although the caliphate was to limp on for another three
centuries, real power belonged to the semi-autonomous provincial
governors, who were allowed to collect taxes and raise armies to
maintain law and order in their own names. As Abbasid power
declined throughout the empire, numerous new dynasties emerged,
some paying lip-service to the caliph, others claiming independence.
One of the first regional dynasties to assert itself was that of the
Samanids, who ruled in eastern Persia from 819 to 1005. It was
during the Samanid era that a new form of Persian language
appeared, based on ancient Pahlavi but enhanced by a large number
of Arabic loan words. The new language formed the basis for the
renaissance of Persian literature, championed by figures such as
Ferdowsi – Iran’s national poet – and Rudaki, and patronised by the
Samanids from their twin capitals of Samarkand and Bukhara. The
efflorescence of Persian culture was so far-reaching that it effectively
broke the monopoly hitherto enjoyed by the Arabic language over
Muslim civilisation.
The Samanids later lost control of their lands to the Ghaznavids, a
dynasty founded by the son of a Turkish slave of the Samanids who
had reached a position of great influence in court circles. The
Ghaznavids were also patrons of the arts, and it was to the Ghaznavid
court at Ghazni, in the Afghan mountains, that Ferdowsi presented
his epic poem, Shāhnāmeh or ‘Book of Kings’.
Elsewhere, dynasties were emerging apace. The Shi’ite Zaydis
ruled the Caspian littoral independently from 864 to 928, while the
Tulunids established a dynasty in Cairo at roughly the same time
(868–906). In Tunisia, the Aghlabids ruled from 809–909, later
conquering Sicily, which they held until the end of the eleventh
century. They were replaced in north Africa by the Fatimids, another
Shi’ite offshoot, who ruled from 900 to 972. The dynasty, which came
to prominence through its leadership of the Ismaili movement,
occupied Egypt in 869, with its rulers assuming the titles of both
Imam and Caliph. The Fatimids were later replaced by the Ayyubid
dynasty, founded by the legendary Kurdish military leader, Saladin
(d. 1193). The Ayyubids lasted sixty years after their founder’s death,
at which point the petty squabbles between those who considered
themselves his heirs opened the way for the Mamluks, a dynasty
formed from slave soldiers of the Ayyubid army.
Meanwhile, as puppets of the Turkish mercenaries, the Abbasid

Caliphs were floundering. Of the twelve rulers who followed Muta-
wakkil (d. 861), six were murdered and six were either imprisoned or
blinded. In an attempt to save the Abbasid state, the Caliph al-Mustaqfi
(r. 944–946) invited a family of military leaders, the Buyids, to take
control of Baghdad. This they did in 945, assuming the old Persian
title of shāhanshāh or ‘king of kings’. The Buyids were Shi’ites, a fact
which led to the anomaly of an Abbasid caliph being forced to
surrender power to a heterodox sect while himself having to be
content with what amounted to little more than the empty prestige of
the caliphal title. Although the Buyids were able to restore a modicum
of order to the ailing regime, overseeing advances in scholarship and
the arts, the revival was short lived. Eventually they declined into a
group of squabbling, power-hungry princelings, and were ousted with
alacrity by yet another Turkish dynasty, the Seljuks.
The Seljuks, who had defeated the Ghaznavids in 1030 and divided
up the conquered territories among their ruling families, captured
Baghdad in 1055; within several decades they had succeeded in uniting
much of the eastern wing of the Muslim heartlands and, under the
authority of the Abbasids, were able to recover areas which had been
appropriated by local dynasts, including Syria and Palestine.
Yet the Seljuks did not consider themselves to be caliphs. They
preferred the official title of sultān or ‘holder of power’, a new term
in Muslim political vocabulary which was used to denote the actual
holder of power in society, as distinct from the Caliph. The sultanate
system of the Seljuks was based largely upon Persian bureaucracy,
with the famous vizier Nizam al-Mulk as its lynchpin. Nizam
al-Mulk’s major contribution to Muslim civilisation was his founding
of the first university in the Muslim world, the famous Nizamiyya
school or madrasa, established in 1066; a network of similar institu-
tions later sprang up in most of the major cities of the land. These
schools fostered the theology of al-Ash’ari and trained generations
of ulamā in hadith and jurisprudence.
One outstanding product of the madrasa system was Imam
Ghazali (1058–1111), arguably the medieval Muslim world’s greatest
scholar. Born in Tus in eastern Persia, he became head of the Baghdad
nizamiyya in 1091. For four years, to great acclaim, he taught juris-
prudence and produced stinging critiques of philosophy and Ismaili
doctrine. However, he later wrote that the more he taught, the more
sceptical he became, until finally he could teach no more. In 1095 he

retired from public life and went into retreat, the aim being to arrive
at a more satisfying understanding of Islam. When he reappeared a
decade later, he brought with him a system of ideas that combined
the introspective religion of the mystics with the exoteric practices of
mainstream Islam, thus reconciling Sufism with Sunni orthodoxy.
For his pains he was acknowledged as a ‘renewer’ (mujaddid), a role
expected by most Muslims to be fulfilled by at least one scholar at
the turn of each century.
After Nizam al-Mulk’s death in 1092 at the hands of an Ismaili
‘assassin’ (al-hashishiyyūn), the Seljuk empire fractured into a
number of independent principalities, thus robbing the caliphate in
Baghdad of the stability upon which its survival depended. When the
end finally came for the Abbasids, with the Mongol invasion of
Baghdad in 1258, it was far from merciful. The palace, the seminaries
and the mosques were plundered and burnt, and the figure of 800,000
is the lowest estimate given of the number of people who were
slaughtered in the ensuing mayhem. The Mongol invasion brought
an end not only to the Abbasid dynasty, but also to the most important
religio-political instution – the caliphate – which had existed since
the death of the Prophet five hundred years earlier.

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3

THE SUCCESSION CRISIS AND THE ERA OF THE

Regardless of whether or not Muhammad did appoint a successor, Ali

the Persian empire and conquer all of the eastern Mediterranean

THE ARAB CONQUESTS

Umar’s first conquests were in Syria, with Byzantium losing

this end he introduced the kharāj or ‘land tax’, levied on farmers in

holy book, and so Uthman decided to act. Summoning three of

After Uthman’s death, Ali finally succeeded to the caliphate, estab-

Sufyan, he had inherited the leadership of the Umayyads and was

THE UMAYYAD CENTURY

never give in to a Caliph whose authority he did not recognise. And

A WORD ON SHI’ISM AND THE TWELVE IMAMS

Of the several sub-groups within Shi’ism, the largest is that of the

THE MARWANID UMAYYADS

threatened from Byzantium on one side and from Ibn Zubayr in

depended on their ability to affiliate themselves as mawali or ‘clients’

THE SPREAD OF ISLAM

It is fair to say that during the Umayyad century, most of the

Further east, the Buddhist population of Sind (India) appears to have

The name ‘Abbasid’ signifies the descendants of Abbas (d. 653), an

power in the hands of a single individual as never before. The Abbasid

MUSLIM LEARNING UNDER THE ABBASIDS

Study of the Prophet’s sayings or ‘Traditions’ and scholarly research

collections are known as the ‘Six Books’; of these, the works of

THE EMERGENCE OF MUSLIM THEOLOGY

In the Muslim world, learned discussion and debate concerning the

THE DEVELOPMENT OF ‘ISLAMIC LAW’

For the majority of contemporary Muslims, ‘Islamic law’ is that corpus

only as good, bad, sacred or profane as the intention which engenders

SEEING ‘ISLAMIC LAW’ AS MUSLIMS SEE IT

The Arabic word shari‘a means ‘a path or an approach to a watering

and so on); and mu‘āmalāt, or transactions, which include family law,

THE PRINCIPAL SCHOOLS OF JURISPRUDENCE

Although there is a certain amount of legislative material in the

The Hanafi school

has been sounded for the Friday congregational prayers, it is forbidden

The Maliki school

topic, he cites the precedent set by the Prophet, followed by reports

The Shafi‘i school

The Hanbali school

THE CLOSURE OF THE ‘GATE OF IJTIHAD’

The process of using independent judgement to derive new laws,

thought Muslim jurisprudence might become over-fragmented,

THE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN SUNNISM AND SHI’ISM

From a practical point of view, there is little to separate Shi’ite from

THE RISE OF SUFISM

Parallel to developments in the sphere of mainstream Muslim learning

Junayd (d. 910), both of Baghdad, and Persian gnostics such as

THE BEGINNINGS OF MUSLIM PHILOSOPHY

Under al-Ma’mun we also see the beginnings of Muslim philosophy.

THE ABBASIDS IN DECLINE

Ma’mun’s successor, al-Mu’tasim (r. 833–842) moved the capital

Paradoxically, as the Abbasids began to decline, an earlier offshoot of

highly suspect. The books of Imam Ghazali, for instance, were

THE DECLINE OF THE CALIPHATE:

Meanwhile, back in Baghdad, the growing influence of the Turkish

Meanwhile, as puppets of the Turkish mercenaries, the Abbasid

sceptical he became, until finally he could teach no more. In 1095 he

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