Islamic Info

Islam and European Culture

Since the rise of Islam in the seventh century there has been continuous interaction between Europe and the Islamic world, often with profound implications on either side. Deepest and with greatest effect has been the interaction between Europe and Islam in the Middle East and North Africa, that is, Arab Islam. The new Arab-Islamic state, established in the 640s and 650s, included major areas that had been conquered from the East Roman (Byzantine) empire. Many aspects of Byzantine culture and custom were absorbed into the nascent Islamic culture, including administrative and legal practices.
Over a longer term, the Hellenistic philosophical heritage played a major role in the development of Islamic philosophy, and its gnostic tradition in Islamic mysticism. Through both official and unofficial translation projects, major Greek works of philosophy and science became available in Arabic, laying the foundation of a flourishing of the sciences, including mathematics, astronomy, and medicine, in Arabic.

Arab-Islamic civilization in turn made a major contribution to the development of European Christian civilization a few centuries later. The main routes for this transfer were Sicily and Spain. The influence of Islamic art and architecture on the early Renaissance is often quite explicit, as in many of the well-known churches and palaces of Florence and other Italian cities. Likewise, the impact of the Spanish Islamic philosophers, above all Ibn Rushd (Averroes), on Thomas Aquinas, is widely acknowledged. It is also the case that much of the Greek philosophical tradition, in particular that of Aristotle, was for a long time known primarily through the Arabic versions of the texts. It has been suggested that the influence goes much deeper. Especially via the Norman connections, from Sicily to northern France and England, and through Italian networks, the patterns and structures of learning, of the organization of institutions, and of professional development were transmitted from the Mediterranean Islamic world into western Christendom. So it is suggested that the earliest universities in Europe, such as Bologna, Paris, and Oxford, were founded on Islamic models. Similarly, many of the financial instruments and techniques of long-distance trade, which became so important in the early development of European capitalism, were borrowed from Middle Eastern models. The Crusades, by contrast, appear to have brought into Europe primarily certain military techniques.
Over the following centuries, cultural exchange both ways was diminished. The Ottomans very quickly adopted some of the new military technologies of Europe, especially artillery, while Europe during the eighteenth century developed a fascination with things “oriental” in the arts and crafts. The globalization of European trade combined with the industrial revolution firmly moved the initiative into European hands.
At the same time the encounter between Europe and Islam spread beyond the Mediterranean into South and South-East Asia and into sub-Saharan Africa. The imperial expansion was the context for the adoption of “curious” elements of Islamic culture into European culture, but Islamic cultures came under an all-pervading European impact. Initially, this impact was mainly economic. As the industrial revolution gathered pace, so European industrial exports began to replace the products of local craftsmen, and the colonized economies became suppliers of raw materials. Egypt was a good example of this process as it switched its agriculture from producing food to producing raw cotton during the first few decades of the nineteenth century. When Egypt took control of Syria in the 1830s and cut import duties, the finished cotton goods produced in the mills of England from Egyptian cotton replaced the locally produced crafts of the Syrian cities. But European ideas also started attracting the urban intellectual and professional classes of the Islamic world.
Initially the attraction was limited to individuals, but as states began to restructure on European patterns, either because they came under European rule, as in India, Indonesia, or Algeria, or because they sought to meet the European political challenge, as in the Ottoman empire, Egypt, and Persia, they also built up new education systems to produce the kind of manpower they needed. By the end of the nineteenth century there were a number of European-style universities and many more secondary schools. The early attractions of the social and political ideas of the French revolution were supplemented by the end of the nineteenth century by many of the nationalist philosophical ideas that had been developed in Germany. These ideas were being circulated ever more widely among a growing urban middle-class and literate population through newspapers, a new literature of poetry, histories, essays, and political pamphlets.
The early precursors of national movements can be found throughout the Islamic world by the beginning of the twentieth century. Their ideas often combined elements of European ideas with Islamic ones, and many times used Islamic terms to express European ideas. During the 1930s, a growing sense of disillusion with European models could be discerned. The European ideas of liberty and democracy were not being extended to the colonies, so many intellectuals began to look for their ideas in Islamic traditions, the most radical formulating explicit and complete rejections of anything European. This trend was strengthened in response to the establishment of Israel in 1948, perceived as an imposed foreign body, and even more so after the Israeli victory in 1967, after which the Islamic trends gradually moved center-stage.
However, throughout the twentieth century the continuing impact of a globalizing economy appeared irresistible. Declining agriculture and the growth of industry and services led to a massive movement of populations from the countryside to the large cities. A small proportion of that movement took the form of migration to European cities. The impact on Islam of this urbanization—and with it the growth of education and literacy—is difficult to underestimate, and the impact is similar whether in Islamic cities or in European cities. The traditional synthesis of Islamic practices and local customs finds it very difficult to function in the modern urban environment. Many have responded to this by rebelling against modernity or withdrawing from participation in it, providing some of the Islamist political movements much of their support. On the other hand, many younger people have started using their newly gained educational resources to challenge the traditions of the older generation. They seek to separate local custom from the core of Islamic expectations and principles, placing themselves on a collision course with many of their parents’ generation. A number of Islamic intellectuals have recognized this and have become prominent participants in a rethinking of Islamic law and theology that has a large audience both in Europe and the Islamic world.

Dawah in Islam

Since the late nineteenth century, conceptions of dawa have re-emerged as central in the formulation of Islam. Dawa is increasingly associated with socially vital activities, such as edification, education, conversion, and charity. However, the Term also alludes to the Quran and the normative Islamic history. Due to this combination, dawa has become a functional tool in face of the challenges of modernity. Dawa is sometimes equated with Christian ideas of mission and evangelicalism. Muslims themselves are, as a rule, wary of that comparison; and indeed, such translations tend to overlook the variations and socio-political specificity of dawa. This term has been conceptualized, institutionalized, and applied for divergent purposes throughout the course of history.
Furthermore, Muslim endeavors to convert non-Muslims to Islam have often been understood in terms other than dawa. This is true, for instance, of the significant Sufi ventures of recruitment, which historically largely appear to have been disinterested in dawa terminology. Thus, dawa should be regarded as but one type of Islamic discourse of mobilization, sometimes in conflict with others.
This entry introduces the range of conceptions of dawa, paying attention to scriptural occurrence, historical development, and, finally, modern understandings and organizations.
Scriptural Occurrence
The word dawa is derived from an Arabic consonant-root, d- _-w, with several meanings, such as call, invite, persuade, pray, invoke, bless, demand, and achieve. Consequently, the noun dawa has a number of connotations too. In the Quan and the sunna, dawa partly has a mundane meaning and refers to, for instance, the invitation to a wedding. Sometimes the mundane and spiritual meanings are interconnected. In one account of the sunna (Bukhari), the invitation to Islam is allegorically referred to as an invitation to a banquet. Spelled with a long final vowel, the word means lawsuit. Theologically, dawa refers to the call of God to Islam, conveyed by the prophets: “God summons to the Abode of Peace” (10:25). Like the previous prophets, Muhammad is referred to as “God’s caller” or “God’s invitor,” da_i Allah
(46:31). God’s call has to be distinguished from the false dwa of  Satan (14:22). Conversely, dawa  refers to the human call directed to God in (mental) prayer or invocation. The One God answers the dawa directed to Him, whereas the prayers of the unbelievers are futile. The human da_wa is the affirmative response to the da_wa of God. It is not to be confused with salat, ritual prayer. When referring to human prayer or invocation, the Qur_an makes no distinction between da_wa and du_a, a related form of the same consonantroot. During the course of theological history, however, the term du_a evolved into a particular, technical concept, described and regulated in philosophical and devotional works, not least in handbooks of prayer. Apart from affirming God’s call in prayer, however, humankind is invited to live in accordance with the will of God: “Let there be one nation (umma) of you, calling to the good, enjoining what is right, forbidding what is wrong” (3:104). Thus dawa is intimately interconnected with shari_a, the sacred law. As illustrated by verse 3:104, cited above, dawa also has a social dimension in the Qur_an. The community of believers, the umma, who have received the invitation, shall convey the message to others. A commonly cited verse reads: “Call men to the way of the Lord with goodness and fair exhortation and have arguments with them in the best manner” (16:125). This verse, in turn, is commonly connected to the equally familiar verse: “Let there be no compulsion in religion” (2:256). Finally, there is an eschatological dimension of dawa. At the end of time, the archangel Jibril (Gabriel) will call humans from their graves: “Then when He calls you by a single call from the earth, behold you come forth at once” (30:25).

Deoband & History of Deobandi Movement

Deoband, a country town ninety miles northeast of Delhi, has given its name to ulema associated with the Indo-Pakistani reformist movement centered in the seminary founded there  in 1867. A striking dimension of Islamic religious life in colonial India was the emergence of several apolitical, inwardlooking movements, among them not only the Deobandis but the so-called “Barelwis,” the much smaller Ahl-e Hadis/Ahl-I Hadith, and the controversial Ahmadiyya. The Deobandi, Barelwi, and Ahl-e Hadis ulema not only responded to Hindu and Christian proselytizing, but engaged in public debate, polemical writings, and exchanges of fatawa among themselves.
Each fostered devotion to the prophet Muhammad as well as fidelity to his practice; each thought itself the correct interpreter of hadith, the guide to that practice. All depended on means of communication, above all print, as well as on institutional changes that came with British colonial rule. The Dar al-_Ulum at Deoband utilized the organizational model of British colonial schools. Its goal was to hold Muslims to a standard of correct individual practice in a time of considerable social change, and, to that end, to create a class of formally trained and popularly supported ulema to serve as imams, guardians, and trustees of mosques and tombs, preachers, muftis, spiritual guides, writers, and publishers of religious works. At the end of its first centenary in 1967, Deoband counted almost ten thousand graduates, including several hundred from foreign countries. Hundreds of Deobandi schools, moreover, have been founded across the Indian subcontinent and now in the West as well.

The Deobandis followed Shah Wali Allah Dihlawi (1702–1763) in their shift from emphasis on the “rational sciences” to an emphasis on the “revealed sciences” of the Qur_an and, above all, hadith. Unlike him, however, they have been staunch Hanafis in jurisprudence. They have also been Sufi guides, bound together by shared spiritual networks, especially Chishti Sabiri. Among the most influential writers was Maulana Ashraf _Ali Thanawi (1864–1943), who published scholarly works on Qur_an, hadith, and Sufism. He also wrote an encyclopedic guide for Muslim women, Bihishti Zewar, disseminating correct practice, reform of custom, and practical knowledge.
After about 1910, individual Deobandis began to be involved in politics in opposition to British rule in India and also to British intervention in the Ottoman lands. Many Deobandis supported the Khilafat movement after World War I in support of the Ottoman ruler as khalifa of all Muslims, and were also strong supporters of the Jam_iyat _Ulama-e Hind who was allied with the Indian National Congress and opposed to the creation of Pakistan. The apolitical strand within the school’s teaching has taken shape for many in the widespread, now transnational, pietist movement known since the 1920s as Tablighi Jama_at. The popular writings of Maulana Muhammad Zakariyya Kandhalavi (1897–1982), associated with the second major Deobandi school in India, the Mazahir-e _Ulum in Saharanpur, are utilized extensively in the movement. In Pakistan, the Jam_iyat_Ulama-e Islam party represents Deobandi ulema. In striking contrast, the Taliban movement, which emerged in Afghanistan in the 1990s, had its origins among refugees in Deobandi schools in Pakistan and also identifies itself as Deobandi.

FATWA in Islam: A fatwa (pl. fatawa) is an advisory opinion issued by a recognized authority on law and tradition in answer to a specific question. Fatawa can range from single-word responses (e.g., “Yes,” “No,” or “Permitted”) to book-length treatises. Although typically focused on legal matters, fatawa also treat more general religious issues, including theology, philosophy, creeds, and _ibadat (religious obligations or acts of worship). Traditionally, despite numerous exceptions (particularly since the eleventh century), the issuer of fatawa, termed a mufti—whose authority derives from his knowledge of law and tradition—has functioned independently of the judicial system, indeed often privately. While court rulings rely on the sifting of evidence and conflicting testimonies, muftis assume the facts presented by their questioners, which, obviously, can bias the answer.

Moreover, a fatwa differs from a court judgment, or qada_, not only in its wider potential scope—for instance, although _ibadat are essential parts of Islamic law, they transcend the jurisdiction of the courts—but also because the qada_ is binding and enforceable, “performative,” while the fatwa is not. Instead, it is “informational,” and, while decisions of shari_a courts usually pertain only to the specific cases they adjudicate, thus setting no legal precedents, fatawa are very often collected, published, and cited in subsequent cases.

Dar ul Harb in Islam

The term dar al-harb, which literally means “the house or abode of war,” came to signify in classical jurisprudence a geopolitical reality; hence, it may also be rendered the “territory” of war.
In the most basic sense the term indicates territory not governed by Islam, in contrast to territory under Islamic rule, dar al-islam. More precisely, these territories are geopolitical units within which Islam is not the established religion, where the ruler is not a Muslim, and where there exists no mechanism by which political or military leaders may seek the counsel of Islamic religious specialists. Use of the phrase dar al-harb further indicates the threat of war from the Muslim community. Muslim jurists differed on the mechanisms by which this threat of war could become a reality. For the majority, the leader of the Muslims must fulfill the obligation of “calling” the people of a non-Islamic territory to Islam.
Once a people, through its rulers, refused the opportunity (1) to establish Islam as the state religion, or (2) to enter into a tributary arrangement with the leader of the Muslims, it was understood that war could follow. In accord with normative traditions, this war should be understood as an aspect of jihad, or the struggle to “make God’s cause succeed,” specifically by spreading Islamic government throughout the earth. It is important to note that the purpose of the war to expand the territory of Islam was not to make converts, but rather to establish Islamic government.
In modern times, the notion of dar al-harb has been employed by some Muslims to speak about territories lost to the forces of colonialism or, more generally, secularism. In this connection, the ruling of the Shah _Abd al-_Aziz (d. 1824) regarding the status of British India is of great interest. As he had it, given British dominance in the subcontinent, India should no longer be considered Islamic territory. It was rather part of dar al-harb. Mirroring subsequent discussions in Islamic political and juridical thought, _Abd al _Aziz’s followers drew differing conclusions from his ruling, some believing that cooperation with the British, particularly in the field of education, was a necessary prelude to a renewal of Islam and its cultural influence. Others were more inclined toward direct action with the goal of British withdrawal.

Dar ul Islam

The term dar al-islam, which literally means “the house or abode of Islam,” came to signify Islamic territory in juridical discussions. For the majority, it is thus suggestive of a geopolitical unit, in which Islam is established as the religion of the state, in contrast to dar al-harb, territory not governed by Islam. The signs of legitimacy by which one could speak of a geopolitical unit as dar al-islam would include a ruler or ruling class whose self-identity is Islamic, some institutional mechanisms by which consultation between the political and religious elite is possible, and a commitment to engage in political and military struggle to extend the borders of the dar al-islam.
For others, the relationship between dar al-islam and existing political arrangements was not so easily negotiated. Thus, in one tradition the proto-Shi_a leader Ja_far al-Sadiq (d. 765) is presented as suggesting that the territory of Islam exists wherever people are free to practice Islam and to engage in calling others to faith—even if the leadership in such a place does not acknowledge or establish Islam as the state religion. Correlatively, a territory in which the ruler or ruling class identifies with Islam, but where the (true) interpretation of Islamic sources is suppressed, is not dar al-islam, but something else.
In the modern period, one of the most vexing questions for jurists, and indeed for Muslims generally, has to do with the ongoing power of the symbol of dar al-islam. The experience of colonialism, the demise of the historic caliphate, and the formation of modern states present serious challenges to those who would follow classical precedent and utilize this symbol. One line of thought, expressed most succinctly by Shah _Abd al-_Aziz (d. 1824), held that the influx of British power meant that India was no longer dar al-islam. As such, the Muslim community was under an obligation to struggle and bring about the restoration of Islamic influence. Others, by contrast, understood the classical use of the term as connected with an outmoded and even non-Islamic emphasis
on empire. For these, in ways analogous to the thinking of Ja_far al-Sadiq, Islam “abides” wherever Muslims practice their religion and call others to faith.

Ahle Kitab

The term ahl al-kitab, or people of the book, refers to followers of scripture-possessing religions that predate the Qur_an, most often Jews and Christians. In some situations other religious groups, such as Zoroastrians and Hindus, have been considered to be people of the book. Some Qur_anic verses also reference the Sabeans, who are usually understood to be one of several gnostic Judeo-Christian sects such as the Mandeans, the Elchasaites, or Archontics. Muslims recognize the holy books possessed by the Jews (al-Tawrah: Torah; al-Zabur: Psalms) and Christians (al-Injil: Gospel) as legitimate revelations. However, they believe that some portions of these scriptures were abrogated and superceded by the Qur_an and the Christians and Jews corrupted others.
The Quran provides an ambivalent picture of the people of the book, sometimes praising and sometimes condemning them. Muslims are said to worship the same God as the people of the book, who were likewise honored with divine revelations (Q 2:62). However, the people of the book are also criticized for certain faults and sometimes referred to as  unbelievers (Q 5:18, 9:29–35). These differences in tone seem to be connected with the circumstances in which Qur_anic revelations were delivered. In Mecca the Prophet’s message was directed against the idolaters who opposed him, and Muhammad believed that the Jews and Christians, as fellow monotheists, would recognize him as a prophet. After his arrival in Medina, however, it became apparent that most Jews and Christians were not going to submit to Islam. As a result, the Meccan suras generally express more favorable opinions of the people of the book, and the Medinan suras more negative images.

Muslim representations of ahl al-kitab in hadith and early juristic literature demonstrate an increased familiarity with Jewish and Christian beliefs and practices, because the people of the book initially represented the majority population in the expanded Muslim empire. On the whole, this literature presents ahl al-kitab in a negative light. Many hadiths seem concerned about their undue influence and warn Muslims not to imitate them. Hadith literature also lays the groundwork for the practice of assigning protected status (known as dhimmi status) to people of the book who submitted to Muslim political authority. This arrangement made it possible for Jews and Christians to practice their faiths while living in Muslim societies. Although treated as second-class citizens, non-Muslim communities were largely able to coexist peacefully with Muslims for centuries, without experiencing the active persecution that minority religious groups often encountered in Europe. Islamic literature from the eleventh through eighteenth centuries generally deals with ahl al-kitab within the context of their dhimmi status. Although dhimmis were understood to be inferior to Muslims, some Jews and Christians managed to attain high positions in Islamic states.

A few, such as John ofDamascus (d. c. 748), even engaged in theological discussions with Muslims. Islamic polemical literature associated with scholars such as Ibn Hazm of Córdoba (d. 1064), Ibn al- _Arabi (d. 1148), and al-Ghazali (d. 1111) repeated earlier criticisms of Jews and Christians, posited different theories to explain the corruption of their scriptures, and assigned blame for this calamity to well-known figures such as the Old Testament prophet Ezra, the Christian apostle Paul, and the Byzantine emperor Constantine. The people of the book were also accused of concealing biblical prophecies foretelling the coming of Muhammad and the triumph of Islam. Sufi works, such as the poetry of Jalal al-Din Rumi, look to Jesus and other biblical saints as models but contain similar criticisms of Jews and Christians. All these texts reflect a belief in Muhammad as the bearer of God’s crowning revelation, supplanting the partial revelations of the biblical Scriptures. During modern times, substantial changes in the relationship between the Islamic world and the West led to shifts in Muslim attitudes toward the people of the book. From the early 1800s, Islamic modernists acknowledged that Muslims could learn some things from the “Christian” West, but they continued to assert Islam’s superiority as a religious system. Colonizing European states attempted to impose Western values upon Islamic populations, but westernizing Muslim governments failed to achieve the promised prosperity. With the breakdown of the dhimmi system and the rise of nationalism, ethnic and religious violence has erupted throughout the Muslim world. This is most noticeable in the region of Palestine, where many Muslims see the establishment of Israel as a Western colonial project. During the late twentieth century, Islamic revivalists (or “Islamists”) increased their influence and largely rejected the “compromises” of the modernists. The Islamists advocate a return to the glorious Islamic civilization of the past, with its division of the world into dar al-islam and dar al-harb (“house of war”; i.e., that part of the world not ruled by Islamic government) and returning non-Muslim minorities to their former dhimmi status.

Ahle Bait

Ahl al-bayt, or “people of the house,” is a phrase used with reference to the family of the prophet Muhammad, particularly by the Shia. In early Arabian tribal society, it was a designation for a noble clan. It occurs only twice in the Qur_an, once in regard to Ibrahim’s family (11:73), but more significantly in a verse that states, “God only wishes to keep uncleaness away from you, O people of the house, and to purify you completely” (33:33). The context suggests that this statement pertains to women in Muhammad’s household, a view held by Sunni commentators. Some authorities have applied it more widely to descendants of Muhammad’s clan (Banu Hashim), the Abbasids, and even the whole community of Muslims. Since the eighth century C.E., however, the Shi_a  and many Sunnis have maintained that Qur_an 33:33 refers specifically to five people: Muhammad, _Ali b. Abi Talib (Muhammad’s cousin), _Ali’s wife Fatima (Muhammad’s daughter), and their two children, Hasan and Husayn. Ulema invoke hadiths in support of this view, as seen in Tabari’s Jami_ al-bayan (c. tenth century C.E.). Thus, in South Asia, they are called “the five pure ones” (panjatan pak). They are also known as “people of the mantle” (kisa_) in remembrance of the occasion when the Prophet enveloped them with his mantle and recited this verse. Belief in the supermundane qualities of the ahl al-bayt and the imams descended from them form the core of Shi_ite devotion. They are the ideal locus of authority and salvation in all things, both worldly and spiritual. As pure, sinless, and embodiments of divine wisdom, they are held to be the perfect leaders for the Muslim community, as well as models for moral action. Many believe that they possess a divine light through which God created the universe, and that it is only through their living presence that the world exists. Twelver Shi_ite doctrine has emphasized that the pain and martyrdom endured by ahl al-bayt, particularly by Husayn, hold redemptive power for those who have faith in them and empathize with their suffering. Moreover, they anticipate the messianic return of the Twelfth Imam at the end of time, and the intercession of the holy family on the day of judgment.

During the middle ages, Nizari Isamaili da_is in northern India even identified the ahl al-bayt with Hindu gods (Brahma, Vishnu, Kalki, Shiva, and the goddess Shakti) and the Pandavas, the five heroes of the Mahabharata epic. The Shiite ritual calendar is distinguished by holidays commemorating events in the lives of the holy family, and it is common for the “hand of Fatima,” inscribed with their five names, to be displayed in processions and to be used as a talisman.
Sunnis also revere the ahl al-bayt, attributing to them many of the sacred qualities that the Shia do. This is especially so in Sufi tariqas (brotherhoods), most of which trace their spiritual lineage to Muhammad through _Ali. Several tariqas hold special veneration for the holy five and the imams, such as the Khalwatiyya, the Bektashiyya, and the Safawiyya, which established the Safavid dynasty in Iran (1502–1722). In many Muslim communities, high social status is attributed to those claiming to be sayyids and sharifs, blood-descendants of the ahl al-bayt. Indeed, many Muslim scholars and saints are members of these two groups, and their tombs often become pilgrimage centers. Although the Saudi-Wahhabi conquest of Arabia (nineteenth to early twentieth centuries) led to the destruction of many ahl al-bayt shrines (including Fatima’s tomb in Medina), elsewhere their shrines have attracted large numbers of pilgrims in modern times. These include those of _Ali (Najaf, Iraq), Husayn (Karbala, Iraq and Cairo, Egypt), _Ali al-Rida (the eighth imam; Mashhad, Iran), and also of women saints such as Sayyida Zaynab (_Ali’s daughter; Cairo) and Fatima al-Ma_suma (daughter of the seventh imam; Qom, Iran).
Nizari Ismailis (Khojas) make pilgrimages to their living imam, the Aga Khan, also a direct descendent of the Prophet’s household. Contemporary heads of state in several Muslim countries have claimed blood-descent from the family of the Prophet to obtain religious legitimacy for their rule: the _Alawid dynasty of Morocco (1631–present), Hashimite dynasty of Iraq (1921–1958) and of Jordan (1923–present), and many of the ruling mullahs in Iran, including the Ayatollah Khomeini (r. 1979–1989), whose tomb has become a popular Iranian Shi_ite shrine. Even former President Saddam Husayn of Iraq (r. 1979–2003) has claimed descent from ahl al-bayt.

Assassins was a name originally applied by the Crusaders and other medieval Europeans, starting in the twelfth century, to the Nizari Ismailis of Syria. Under the initial leadership of Hasan Sabbah (d. 1124), the Nizaris founded a state centered at the stronghold of Alamut, in northern Iran, with a subsidiary in Syria. The Nizari state in Iran was destroyed by the Mongols in 1256. In Syria the Nizaris reached the peak of their power and glory under Rashid al-Din Sinan (d. 1193), the original “Old Man of the Mountain” of the Crusaders, who had extended dealings with the Crusaders and their Frankish ruling circles in the Near East. The Syrian Nizaris permanently lost their political prominence when they were subdued by the Mamluks in the early 1270s.
The Nizaris and the Crusaders had numerous military encounters in Syria from the opening decade of the twelfth century. But it was in Sinan’s time (1163–1193) that the Crusaders and their occidental observers became particularly impressed by the highly exaggerated reports and widespread rumours about the Nizari assassinations and the daring behavior of their fida_is, or devotees, who carried out suicide missions against their community’s enemies in public places. The Nizari Isma_ilis became infamous in Europe as “the Assassins.” This term, which appears in medieval European literature in a variety of forms (Assassini, Assissini, and Heyssisini), was evidently based on variants of the Arabic word hashishi (plural, hashishiyya or hashishin), which was applied pejoratively to the Nizaris of Syria and Iran by other Muslims. The term was used in the sense of “low-class rabble” or “people of lax morality” without claiming any special connection between the Nizaris and hashish, a product of hemp. This term of abuse was picked up locally in Syria by the Crusaders as well as by other European travelers and emissaries and was adopted to designate the Nizari Isma_ilis. Medieval Europeans, and especially the Crusaders, who remained generally ignorant of Islam and its divisions, were also responsible for fabricating and disseminating, in the Latin Orient as well as in Europe, a number of interconnected legends about the secret practices of the Nizaris, including the “hashish legend.” It held that as part of their training this intoxicating drug was systematically administered to the fida_is by their beguiling chief, the “Old Man of the Mountain.” The so-called Assassin legends revolved around the recruitment and training of the Nizari fida_is, who had attracted the Europeans’ attention. These legends developed in stages and culminated in a synthesized version popularized by Marco Polo, who applied the legends to the Iranian Nizaris and created the “secret garden of paradise,” where the fida_is supposedly received part of their indoctrination. Henceforth, the Nizari Ismailis were portrayed in European sources as a sinister order of drugged assassins bent on senseless murder and mischief.

Subsequently, Westerners retained the name Assassin in general reference to the Nizari Ismailis, even though the term had now become in European languages a new common noun meaning a professional murderer, although its etymology had been forgotten. Silvestre de Sacy (1758–1838) finally succeeded in solving the mystery of the name Assassin and its etymology, but he and other orientalists subscribed variously to the Assassin legends. Modern scholarship in Isma_ili studies, based on genuine Isma_ili sources, has now deconstructed the Assassin legends revealing their fanciful nature and also showing that the name Assassin is a misnomer rooted in a doubly pejorative appellation without basis in any communal or organized use of hashish by the Nizari Isma_ilis or their fida_is, Shi_ite Muslims who were deeply devoted to their community.

Shirk – Meaning and Definition in Islam

Meaning of Shirk or Shirk definition in Islam, “association,” the term shirk generally implies assigning partners or equals to God, and is considered to be the paramount sin in Islam. The central doctrine of Islam is tawhid (divine unity), which came to mean that God does not need nor have partners to assist Him. By contrast, Muslims base their understanding of shirk on three passages from the Quran (34:20–24, 35:40, 46:4), which advise Muslims against associating helpers or partners with God. For instance, Sura 34:20–24 establishes the non-duality of God, arguing that evil and good originate in God’s creative act and that evil (the shaytan) has no power over creation.
Sura 34:23 has been used by some commentators to suggest that God’s power is so all encompassing that humans have no free will, and that God has predetermined who will be saved and who will be damned. The Jabriyya (compulsionists, circa eighth-to-ninth century) argued that those who advocated a free will position (the Qadariyya) held, by implication, that humans have abilities over which God has no power, in effect making humans equal to God in certain respects. This view was later modified by al-Ash_ari (d. 935), who held that God creates a range of choices from which humans have the limited ability to choose (kasb, literally “to acquire”) at the moment of decision. In this way, God’s ultimate unity is not violated and humans do not associate themselves with God’s creative power.

Some contemporary Islamic revivalists have argued that the Qur_an accuses Christians and Jews of shirk, based on Sura 9:30, which states that “the Jews call Ezra a son of God and the Christians call Christ the son of God.” Furthermore, Sura 5:72–73 accuses Christians of associating Jesus with God and contends that “if they do not desist … a painful punishment will come upon them.” Sura 2:105, however, draws a distinction between Christians and Jews, whom it refers to as ahl al-kitab (people of the book) and the polytheists, whom it calls the mushrikun (literally the “ones who associate”). The distinction is based on the idea that while Christians and Jews may be in error, they base their mistake on a corruption of earlier revelation. They, therefore, accept the basic concepts of God’s true religion while interpolating certain ideas that need to be corrected for them to fully follow God’s path. The mushrikun reject all revelation and prefer to worship their own gods in preference to the united and all-powerful God (see Sura 23:51–77).
Contemporary Islamic revivalists have also used the concept to justify attacks on non-Muslims, as well as fellow Muslims who reject revivalist ideologies. Many contemporary revivalists base their ideas on the writings of Sayyid Qutb (d. 1966), who argued that true Islam had been corrupted by pre-Islamic and extra-Islamic ideas that promoted concepts of shirk and interwove them with Islamic ritual and theology. According to this view, only through the violent expulsion of shirk concepts can true Islam flower as it did during the time of the prophet Muhammad and his Companions and successors. There is one common question that can shirk be forgiven and answer is no.