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The significance of the slogan lā ḥukma illā lillāh and the references to the ḥudūd in the traditions about the Fitna and the murder of 'Uthmān

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 December 2009

G. R. Hawting
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Extract

The aim of this paper is to elucidate some of the phrases and slogans which occur in the Muslim traditions about the Fitna, the first ‘civil war’ in Islam, which, according to tradition, begins with the murder of the caliph ‘Uthmān in 36/656 and ends with the recognition of Mu'āwiya as caliph in 41/661. These phrases and slogans are discussed in the light of ideas and terminology found in Judaism, and it is suggested that a better understanding of them can be gained by the comparison with Judaism than by the attempts to interpret them in more traditionally Muslim terms. It is argued that both the lā ḥukma slogan and the ḥudūd references indicate a dispute within the early Muslim community about the authority to be accorded to Scripture, and that the terminology used is so reminiscent of that used in Judaism that it is likely that the dispute was the same as that which we know was the mam one between Jewish sects in the early Islamic period—the relative status of Scripture and Oral Law. This would be an issue which has not previously been mentioned in discussions of the issues involved in the Fitna and, if the suggestions made here prove to be acceptable, it would provide more material for discussion of the sectarian circles which contributed to the development of Islam.

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Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies , Volume 41 , Issue 3 , October 1978 , pp. 453 - 463
Copyright
Copyright © School of Oriental and African Studies 1978

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References

1 I wish to thank Professor P. M. Holt, Mr. Michael Cook, and Dr. J. Wansbrough for reading versions and offering suggestions.

2 For an extensive bibliography, see Petersen, E. L., 'Alī and Mu'āwiya in early Arabic tradition, Copenhagen, 1964Google Scholar; Hinds, Martin, ‘Kûfan political alignments and their background in the mid-seventh century A.d.’, IJMES, II, 4, 1971, 346–67Google Scholar; idem, ‘The murder of the caliph 'Umân’, ibid., III, 4, 1972, 450–69; idem, ‘The Ṣiffīn arbitration agreement’, JSS, XVII, 1, 1972, 93–129.Google Scholar

3 Al-Ṭabarī, , Tārīkh, Leiden, 1879–1901, I, 3131Google Scholar. For the translation of ḥudūd as precepts', see below.

4 ibid., I, 3116.

5 EI, second ed., art. ‘amal’; see too Vaglieri, L. Veceia, ‘II conflitto 'Alī-Mu'āwiya e la secessione khārigita riesaminati alla luce di fonti ibāḍite’, AION, NS, IV, 1951, p. 20, n. 1.Google Scholar

6 Al-Ṭabarī, , Tārīkh, I, 3132Google Scholar. For another example of the equivalence of iṣlāḥ and khayr, cf. al-Azraqī, apud Wüstenfeld, F., Die Chroniken der Stadt Mekka, Leipzig, 1857–1861, I, 108Google Scholar (innanā lā nurīdu illā 'l-oṣlāḥ) with Hishām, Ibn. Sīra, Cairo, 1955, I, 192Google Scholar (innanā lā nurīdu illā 'l-khayr).

7 Al-Ṭabarī, , Tārīkh, I, 3093.Google Scholar

8 ibid., I, 3133; cf., too, the use of the expression hā'ulā'i 'l-qawm al-ẓālimīn by a supporter of 'Alī to designate his opponents (ibid., I, 3101). It is not clear whether the expression refers to 'Ā'isha and her companions or to the opposition led by Mu'āwiya.

9 Rabin, C., Qumran studies, London, 1957, 127.Google Scholar

10 Ed. and tr. Rabin, C., The Zadokite documents, Oxford, 1954Google Scholar; tr. Vermes, G., The Dead Sea Scrolls in English, London, 1962, 97.Google Scholar

11 Cited by Paul, A., Écrits de Qumran et sectes juives, Paris, 1969, 85.Google Scholar

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13 Al-Ṭabarī, , Tārīkh, I, 3133Google Scholar: la-yazīdū 'l-ḥudūd ta'ṭīlan. I am puzzled by the significance of the phrase dhawī ḥudūd Allāh which is attributed to 'Ā'isha, ibid., with reference to her opponents.

14 Al-Balādhurī, , Ansāb al-ashrāf, V, Jerusalem, 1936, 34Google Scholar: 'A'isha cries inna 'Uthmāna abṭala 'l-ḥudūd; 'Alī says to 'Uthmān 'aṭṭalta 'l-ḥudūd.

15 See EI, second ed., art. ‘Ḥadd’ (J. Schacht) and the bibliography given there. Schacht's statement that ‘ḥadd in its narrow meaning has become the technical term for the punishments of certain acts which have been forbidden or sanctioned by punishments in the Qur'ān and have thereby become crimes against religion’ could be misleading. The punishment for sorcery, for example, seems to be counted as one of the ḥudūd. (For example, al-Tirmidhī, , Ḥudūd, bāb ḥadd al-sāḥirGoogle Scholar; 'Alī, Zayd b., Corpus iuris, Milan, 1919, no. 823Google Scholar, bāb ḥadd al-sāḥir wa 'l-zindīq; al-Ṭabarī, , Tārīkh, I, 2845 f.Google Scholar: al-Walīd b. 'Uqba asks Ibn Mas'ūd about the ḥadd of a sorcerer whom he has apprehended, and, after ascertaining that it was a genuine case of sorcery, Ibn Mas'ūd says, ‘kill him’. But there is some ambiguity. Some ḥadīth collections do not seem to regard the punishment for sorcery among the ḥudūd although it is generally accepted that it is to be punished by death. Al-Bukhārī, for example, has traditions classifying sorcery among the seven ‘deadly sins’ (al-mūbiqāt; Waṣāyā, 23 etc.)Google Scholar but does not explicitly put its punishment among the ḥudūd.) The Qur'ān, however, does not specifically forbid sorcery and nowhere says what its punishment is. Sorcery is, though, explicitly forbidden, and the death punishment ordained, in the Pentateuch (e.g. Exodus, xxii, 18)Google Scholar. In view of the origin of the notion of the ḥudūd in Islam which is suggested below, it may be that the tendency to associate the ḥudūd with the Qur'ān derives from the association between the precepts of God, the ‘boundary’, and Scripture in Jewish scripturalist circles. Islam could have taken over this notion of the ‘boundary’ and also certain specific precepts such as the death penalty for sorcery. When the Qur'ān became Muslim Scripture, there would then have been a tendency to associate the ḥudūd with it although certain specific divine precepts contained in the Pentateuch do not occur in the Qur'ān. See further below.

16 EI, second ed., art. ‘Al-Hurmuzān’ (L. Veccia Vaglieri).

17 Al-Balādhurī, , Ansāb, V, 29–36Google Scholar; al-Ṭabarī, , Tārīkh, I, 2840–50.Google Scholar

18 See, e.g., EI, second ed., art.‘'Alī b. Abī Ṭalib’ (L. Veccia Vaglieri). According to one tradition, when 'Uthmān failed to ensure that al-Walīd was flogged, 'Alī carried it out himself (al-Balādhurī, , Ansāb, V, 35)Google Scholar. This seems to reinforce the idea that the ḥudūd which 'Uthmān had nullified were the fixed punishments such as flogging for drunkenness.

19 e.g. al-Ṭabarī, , Tārīkh, I, 3112Google Scholar where 'Ā'isha says inna 'Uthmāna qutila maẓlūman wa-wallāhi la-aṭlubanna bi-damihi; 3119 where Ṭalḥa says wa-ammā 'l-ṭalab bi-dam al-khalīfat al-maẓlūm fa-innahu ḥadd min ḥudūd Allāh; 3156 where 'Alī's messenger asks Ṭalḥa and al-Zubayr what they mean by iṣlāḥ and they reply by asking for the deliverance of 'Uthmān's murderers fa-inna hadha in turika kāna tarkan lil-Qur'ān wa-in ‘umila bi-hi kāna iḥyā’anlil-Qur'ān; and see the detailed argument of 'Amr b. al-'Āṣ, citing the Qur'ānic verse, ibid., I, 3356; Vaglieri, L. Veccia, ‘II conflitto 'Alī-Mu'āwiya’, 19–20.Google Scholar

20 cf. al-Balādhurī, , Ansāb, V, 24Google Scholar with al-Ṭabarī, , Tārīkh, I, 3133Google Scholar. The expression ta'ṭīl al-ḥadd occurs also in the tradition about al-Walīd b. 'Uqba and the sorcerer (al-Ṭabarī, , Tārīkh, I, 2845–6)Google Scholar. A certain Jundab takes the law into his own hands and kills the sorcerer because he feared ta'ṭīl ḥaddihi—apparently meaning that al-Walīd would not execute him. Note too al-Shammākhī, , Kitāb al-siyar, lith. Cairo 1301/1883–1884, 65Google Scholar: Abū Bilāl the Khārijī refuses to obey a caliph who, among other things, yu'aṭṭilu 'l-ḥudūd.

21 See EI, second ed., s.v. ḥadd; Lane, , Lexicon, s.v.Google Scholar

22 Al-Ṭabarī, , Tafsīr, Cairo, 1954 f., III, 546.Google Scholar

23 According to the lexicographers, the ḥudūd in the sense of ‘fixed punishments’ are so called ‘because they prevent one's committing again the acts for which they are appointed as punishments’ or ‘because the limits thereof are determined’ (see Lane, , Lexicon, s.v.).Google Scholar

24 Al-Ṭabarī, , Tārīkh, I, 3132.Google Scholar

25 ibid., I, 3131.

26 e.g. The Koran, tr. Rodwell, J. M., Everyman, ed., London, 1909, p. 362, n. 1Google Scholar; Le Koran, tr. Kasimirski, M., Paris, n.d., I, p. 27, n. 3.Google Scholar

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28 Vermes, and Rabin, translate mṣ(s)ygyGoogle Scholar by ‘removers’, but Wieder argues that the Targums, on Hosea, v, 10Google Scholar, and Deut. xix, 14 and xxvii, 17Google Scholar indicate the rendering ‘changers’.

29 Qumran studies, 96.Google Scholar

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31 Wieder, loo. cit., citing Markon, I. D. (ed.), Pithron Shenēm 'Āsār, Jerusalem, 1958, 8.Google Scholar

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33 Ed. Rabin, , v, 20–vi, 2Google Scholar; cf. i, 17.

34 v, 12.

35 Al-Shahrastānī, , Kitāb al-rnilal wa 'l-niḥal, London, 1846, I, 87Google Scholar; Goldziher, I., Vorlesungen über den Islam, Heidelberg, 1910, 204Google Scholar; Thomson, W., ‘The character of early Islamic sects’, in Löwinger, S. and Somogyi, J. (ed.), Ignace Goldziher memorial volume, I, Budapest, 1948, 94Google Scholar; Vaglieri, L. Veccia, ‘Il conflitto 'AIī-Mu'āwiya’, 31 ff.Google Scholar; see Crone, P. and Cook, M., Hagarism, Cambridge, 1977, p. 27Google Scholar and n. 63 for the suggestion that the slogan was a denial of the authority of the imām.

36 Wieder, , Judaean scrolls, 151–3.Google Scholar

37 Al-Shahrastānī, , 94Google Scholar (the Bayhāsiyya); Goldziher, I., ‘Kämpfe nm die Stellung des ḥadīt’, ZDMG, LXI, 1907, 865Google Scholar; idem, Vorlesungen, 207Google Scholar; Watt, W. M., ‘Khārijite thought in the Umayyad period’, Der Islam, XXXVI, 3, 1961, 220–2Google Scholar, on the priority given by the Azāriqa and the Najadāt to the Qur'ān. Wilkinson, J. C., Arab settlement in Oman, University of Oxford D.Phil, thesis 1970, p. 80, n. 31Google Scholar, says that the Ibāḍīs ‘like the Khārijīs in general, emphasize that their whole movement is based on the precepts of the Qur'ān and accuse 'Alī's supporters of ignoring it and relying on aḥādīth’. He cites in support the text of Ibn Ibāḍ's letters as contained in the Damascus MS (Tārīkh, 347)Google Scholar of the Kashf al-ghumma, fol. (?) 313Google Scholar. In the letter which Ibn Ibāḍ is supposed to have sent to 'Abd al-Malik, given in the Kitāb al-jawāhir of al-Barrādī, there is a marked emphasis on the authority of the Book of God but not completely to the exclusion of the sunna of the Prophet (Rubinacci, R., ‘Il califfo 'Abd al-Malik b. Marwān e gli Ibāḍiti’, AION, NS, v, 1953, 99–121Google Scholar; Schacht, J., ‘Sur l'expression “Sunna du Prophète”’, in Mélanges Massé, Téhéran, 1963, 361–5).Google Scholar

38 Sa'd, Ibn, Ṭabaqāt, Leiden, 1904–1921, V, 119Google Scholar (= 'Asākīr, Ibn, Tārīkh Dimashq, Damascus, 1951 f., VII, 412–13).Google Scholar

39 The most common version is that they broke with him when he would not agree with their attitude to the killing of 'Uthmān and their renunciation (barā'a) of other prominent early Muslims: al-Balādhurī, , Ansāb, IVB, 96Google Scholar; al-Ṭabarī, , Tārīkh, II, 516–17.Google Scholar

40 al-Zubayrī, Muṣ'ab, Nasab Quraysh, Cairo, 1953, 103Google Scholar; abbreviated in al-Balādhurī, , Ansāb, V, 9.Google Scholar

41 Al-Ṭabarī, , Tārīkh, I, 3133Google Scholar; cf. al-Shammākhī, , Siyar, 50Google Scholar, where 'Alī cites the same verse in an argument with the Khawārij.

42 Al-Ṭabarī, , Tārīkh, I, 3350–53.Google Scholar

43 ibid., I, 3351.

44 ibid., I, 3352.

45 Wellhausen, J., The Arab kingdom and its fall, London, 1927, 57Google Scholar; Lammens, H., Études sur le règne du calife Omaiyade Mo'āwiya 1er, Beirut, 1908, 135 f.Google Scholar; Caetani, L., Annali dell'Islam, Milan, 1905–1926, 38Google ScholarA.h., § 70; for the argument that the arbitrators were to discuss whether or not 'Uthmān's murder had been justified, Vaglieri, L. Veecia, ‘Il conflitto 'Alī-Mu'āwiya’, 19–24.Google Scholar

46 Ya'qūbī, , Tārīkh, Beirut 1970, II, 170–1.Google Scholar

47 Wansbrough, Neither J., Quranic studies, London, 1977Google Scholar, nor Burton, J., The collection of the Qur'ān, Cambridge, 1977Google Scholar, accepts the traditional attribution of our Qur'ān text to 'Uthmān, although they differ radically on the date and circumstances of its composition. Both regard the surviving variant readings as later in origin than the canonical text.