SORE et ee eer Muslim WORLD A journal devoted to the study of Islam and Christian-Muslim relations Yahya Michot Between Entertainment and Religion: Ibn Taymiyya’s Views on SuperstitionM'islim WORLD Volume 99+ Number 1+ January 2009 Contents ARTICLES 30 60. 86 102 Between Entertainment and Religion: Ibn Taymiyya’s Views on Superstition Yahya Michot Jesus and Mub Tim Winter J: new convergences Youth: Muslim American Colleg: Attitudes and Responses Five Years After 9/11 Fait Muedini A Contextual Approach to Women's Rights in the Qur'an: Readings of 4:34 Rachel M. Scott The Women’s Bay'a in Quran and Sira Barbara Freyer Stowasser God as Father-Mother, and More Nancy Roberts Quranic Hermeutics and Political Hegemony Reformation of Islamic Thought Massimo Campanini Demonstrating Islam”: the Conflict of Text and the Mudawwana Reform in Morocco Josep Lluis Mateo DiesteBerwery EXTeRTAnM Between Entertainment and Religion: Ibn Taymiyya’s Views on Superstition Yahya Michot Hartford Seminary Hartford, Connecticut jhe French dictionary Larousse du XXe siécle defines superstition as a “deviation of religious sentiment, based on fear or ignorance, which lends a sacred character to vain beliefs, practices, obligations, etc. Some 700 years ago, the populations of the sultanate of Egypt and Syria ‘were all but immune from such deviations. One of the greatest religious scholars of the time, the Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyya (d. 728/1328, Damascus)? was professionally led to take a clear stand on many of them. The fetwas he issued to bring people back to what he considered to be the true religion offer a fascinating picture of what was then effectively going on in the hearts and minds of his fellow Muslims, far away — it often appears — from the teachings of the Qur‘an and the paradigmatic example of the Prophet Muhammad. They could even be used -es for an anthropology of Islam under the Mamliiks.” According to fbn Taymiyya, the Iskamic Way — the Sharia — must be understood as.a via media between nature and innovation. Nature must be led to its perfection by the religion and, just as to remain beneath the realm of the latter is not enough to make one a Muslim, no believer is allowed to enter, beyond Islam's straight path, into innovated avenues. For example, as such, a beautiful voice is worthless. It is when some distinctive value is added to it, like psalmodying the Qur'an, that a “useful religion” takes shape. As for singing poetry with the supposed intention of praising or worshipping God, this is leaving the main road He invited His servants to follow for alternative Published by Blackwell Pubhing Ui, 960 Garsington Rou, Oxford, OX4 2D, UK an 350 Main Set, Malden, 1Tue Mesut Wann + Voue 9 © Jasuany and ky alleys." In other words, God has not only a monopoly on the definition of the ends to be pursued by humans, but also on the means: defining the path to be followed by them in order to achieve these ends. Just as is the case with the creation, it is to Him alone that the religion belongs: “It is the religion of God Who does not accept save it from anybody."* Certainly the Sharia is large and the jurists reducing it to some legal codification have « 100 narrow understanding of God's revelation. It nevertheless has limits boundaries, and cannot incorporate everything, be it just natural or the result of people's caprice and fertile imaginations, This being so, it could be argued that, for our theologian, there is no sacred?” if to be sicred!” means to have the power, in virtue of some intrins nature oF attribute, to bring one nearer to God or to secure divine aid. It is indeed not per se that praying, giving alms, fasting, or performing the pilgrimage rites in Mecca have this kind of religious efficacity but hecause they are actions that God prescribes to His servants. The religious operativity of Islamic rituals is thus not owing to some natural energy or substantial power that the bodily movements, spiritual dispositions, times, places, things and other created realities involved by performing them would have in themselves, but to their election by God as constituents of His Way. Just as the moon's light comes from the sun, not from itself, or as Muhammad is also called “Mustafa, in reference to his divine election as the final Messenger, without any ivinisation of his px fson nor any incarnation of God in his humanity In fact, classica Islamic theology goes even further in dispossessing created things and beings of the agentship which humans are spontaneously tempted to attribute to them, Since Aba I-Hlasan al-Ash'ari (d, 324/935), a predeterminist, occasionalist monism of divine action has become the dogmatic reference in mainstream Sunni Islam: there is no other real agent than God, and man’s “actions” are His creations. Things only exist and, metaphorically speaking, “act,” because of God's creative will. So, a fortior how could some creatures ever be recognised any kind of sacredness per se or, even, independently of the divine plan which was, in matters of religion, definitely and most perfectly communicated to humans through the revelation ’an and its implementation by the Prophet? There is already a danger iationism (sbird), the only sin that the Quran says God does not forgive, in attributing a real power of action to secondary causes and other creatures. What then, «@ fortiori if such a power is said to be sacred and 10 bring one nearer to God? 1g Muslims come from the farthest parts of the world to kiss a black: stone and throw some pebbles in Mecca during the pilgrimage, the Syrian poet Abi al-Ma‘arti (d, 449/1058) wondered if the whole of mankind was blind to the tth, Free-thinkers of his kind and Christian polemicists were See 2 2 © 20 Horton SeinBenwees EXTERrar ExT ap RELIGION quick to stigmatize what they considered irrational or pagan aspects of Islamic religious practices or doctrines — belief in the existence of the jins For example, or the eclipse cer, circumambulating the Ka‘ba seven times, ete, It is true that Islam's Weltansschauung is not closed to the supematural ancl accommodates beings nd realities for which a positivist, sceptic mind has no other interest than that of the curator of a museum of the marvels, myths, and other fancies of pre-modern ages. Moreover, the religiousness that Iskim promotes is not purely immaterial and involves ritual and liturgic practices invested with salvific qualities. In the opinion of Ibn Taymiyya and most other classical theologians, it nevertheless has claims to rationality, in both practices and creed, and therefore presents itself as radically opposed to heathenism sind magic ‘The Ka'ba in Mecca” Such a position again appears as a cia media, in this case between the extremes of disenchantment and witcheraft. It not only follows from the theological reasons already alluded to but, also, from Islam’s determination to protect the humans’ dignity and to liberate them from all kind of degrading manipulation and exploitation; in this case, from being taken advantage of by all those — religious authorities or others — who abuse their credulity. Just remember how Moses’ rod became a snake swallowing up what Pharaoh's magicians had faked (Q, 20,65~70)! This leads Ibn Taymiyya to be very eritical of Christianity For the Shaykh al-Islam, Jews do not act according 10 the knowledge they have of the truth. As for christians, they act without knowledge. They rely on. «an ambiguous language and on stories whose author's truthfulness is not known — and even if their author is truthful, he is not preserved from error (ma’siim).* They also “exert themselves in various rituals without sanction anil Sonia 3Tur Mostiw Wor. * Voie 9 #JaNtary 20 lators of their religion." In Islam, on the contrary, there are neither sacerdocal functions nor Sicraments, Muslims “do not permit the greatest of their scholars and of their devotees to change God's religion and, consequently, to order what they want and to prohibit what they want, as the Nazarenes do.""' Christian prayer oriented towards the Fast and worship of the cross were commanded neither by the Messiah nor by the Apostles but are Constantinian innovations, Similarly for the liturgic music, monasticism, and most of the precepts, rituals, and, ceremonies, holy places and religious festivals of Christianity: they have neither scriptural nor prophetic basis." In fact, Christianity has perpetuated or consciously integrated many aspects of ancient paganism. “For example, there from God” and they let “their priests and monks be the le was in Alexandria a temple of the pagans in which there was an idol named Mika’il: the Christians made it a church with the name of the angel Michael and began to worship the angel and sacrifice to it where they had been previously honoring the idol, In this Christians are transferring the idokatrous worship of a creature to the idolatrous worship of a higher creature. Earlier peoples had been building their temples and putting in them idols with the names of heavenly bodies like the sun, the planet Venus, etc. The innovators ‘mong the Christians changed them over to the worship of some one of the aungels or prophets, But God! condemned this." For our theologian Christianity is par excellence what he calls “the vain religion’: “at one time, one ‘worships someone else than God: at another time, one worships by means Of something else than what God commands," in a process of continuous innovation orchestrated by the church." Priests even say that they have the power to forgive sins. “Among them, there are even some who claim t© insufllate some Holy Spirit in women, nnd who thereby believe depravation to be an offering!" Ibn Taymiyya therefore wonders, about the Christian monks: “Would a scholar say that the iméms of infidelity who lead their populace away from God's path, devour people's wealth by means of vain procedures and are satisfied with being adopted as lords beneath God, one will not fight them a no head tax will be levied on them although itis levied on people of the populace who are religiously less pernicious than them and who have less ‘wealth? None of those who know what they sa id will ever say sol" ‘The reverence for their persons that Christian cleries encourage among, their folk by presenting themselves as incontournable mediators between. them and their Lord continues alter their death, with the veneration of their graves and relics. Their voracity is so great that they even try to seduce Muslims. “How much the Nazarens venerite the relics of their saints! One thus cannot rule out that they suggest to some ignorant Muslims that such a grave is the grave of someone whom the Muslims venerate, so that the latter might venerate it together with them. How would it not be so as they have 4 © 2009 Hatt Semin