Political Anarchism, Dissent, and Marginal Groups in the Early Ninth Century

The Lineaments of Islam

Studies in Honor of Fred McGraw Donner

Edited byPaul M. Cobb

LEIDEN • BOSTON2012

© 2012 Koninklijke Brill NV ISBN 978 90 04 21885 7


CONTENTS

Acknowledgements ........................................................................................ xiList of Illustrations .......................................................................................... xiiiList of Contributors ........................................................................................ xv

Introduction: Narratives of Fred McGraw Donner ............................... 1 Paul M. CobbBibliography of the Works of Fred McGraw Donner .......................... 13

PART ONE

HISTORY AND SOCIETY

Who was the Shepherd of Damascus? The Enigma of Jewish and Messianist Responses to the Islamic Conquests in Marwānid Syria and Mesopotomia ........................................................................... 21 Sean W. AnthonyPolitical Anarchism, Dissent, and Marginal Groups in the Early Ninth Century: The Ṣūfīs of the Muʿtazila Revisited ...................... 61 Hayrettin YücesoyScholars and Charlatans on the Baghdad-Khurasan Circuit from the Ninth to the Eleventh Centuries ................................................... 85 Jonathan A. C. BrownWere the Ismāʿīlī Assassins the First Suicide Attackers? An Examination of Their Recorded Assassinations ............................... 97 David Cook

PART TWO

HISTORIOGRAPHY

The Identity Crisis of Abū Bakra: Mawlā of the Prophet, or Polemical Tool? .......................................................................................... 121 Elizabeth UrbanWriting the History of the futūḥ: The futūḥ-works by al-Azdī, Ibn Aʿtham, and al-Wāqidī ..................................................................... 151 Jens Scheiner


viii contents

In Defense of Muʿāwiya ibn Abī Sufyān: Treatises and Monographs on Muʿāwiya from the Eighth to the Nineteenth

Centuries ...................................................................................................... 177 Aram A. ShahinThe Umayyads and ʿAbbāsids in Mujīr al-Dīn’s Fifteenth-Century History of Jerusalem and Hebron ......................................................... 209 Robert Schick

PART THREE

QURʾĀN, LAW, AND NARRATIVE

Reproducing Power: Qurʾānic Anthropogonies in Comparison ....... 235 Kathryn Kueny

Narratives of Villainy: Titus, Nebuchadnezzar, and Nimrod in the ḥadīth and midrash aggadah ................................................................. 261 Shari L. LowinQurʾānic Rhetoric in Ninth-Century Muslim-Byzantine Diplomacy:

Al-Ma ʾmūn’s Letter to Theophilus in 833 CE .................................... 297 Vanessa De GifĳisIbāḍī Fiqh Scholarship in Context ............................................................. 321 Brannon WheelerThe ḥadd Penalty for zinā: Symbol or Deterrent? Texts from the Early Sixteenth Century ........................................................................... 351 Marion Holmes Katz

PART FOUR

TEXTS AND ARTIFACTS

The Revolt of al-Ḥārith ibn Surayj and the Countermarking of Umayyad Dirhams in Early Eighth Century CE Khurāsān ............ 379 Stuart D. SearsThe Riddle of Early Islamic Ascalon: Where is it and What does Coptic Glazed Ware Tell Us About it? ................................................ 407 Tracy HofffmanḤiṣn, Ribāṭ, Thaghr or Qaṣr? Semantics and Systems of Frontier Fortifĳications in the Early Islamic Period ........................................... 427 Asa Eger


contents ix

Descriptions of the Pharos of Alexandria in Islamic and Chinese Sources: Collective Memory and Textual Transmission ................ 457 Tasha Vorderstrasse

Index ................................................................................................................... 483


POLITICAL ANARCHISM, DISSENT, AND MARGINAL GROUPS IN THE EARLY NINTH CENTURY: THE ṢŪFĪS OF THE MUʿTAZILA REVISITED1

Hayrettin Yücesoy

This essay deals with the views of a particular group of Muʿtazilī ascetics who took a radical stand on the question of legitimate rule, known as the imamate in medieval Islamic political discourse.2 Literature in the fĳield has so far been largely concerned with the “Sunnī” (i.e. Umayyad and ʿAbbāsid) and “Shīʿī” (i.e. Fāṭimid) caliphates and with Sunnī jurists and theologians’ theoretical elaborations on the ideal caliphate. Less exam-ined in this context are the voices of marginal dissenter groups, whose members articulated alternative discourses on the imamate. In this essay, I address the political views of the Ṣūfīs of the Muʿtazila as one such group whose members advanced an anarchist argument in politics. The Ṣūfīs of the Muʿtazila maintained that rulership (the imamate) was neither ratio-nally nor religiously necessary and opposed royal authority as fundamen-tally alien to the “book” and the “sunna.” They rejected the institution of the caliphate as a form of kingship and opposed the political epistemolo-gies of emerging orthodoxies that engaged with and operated within the discourse of the imamate from the perspective of rationality or religious law. Instead, they suggested eliminating the imamate altogether, a term they used roughly synonymously with rulership, including caliphate and kingship. Similar to modern political anarchists, the question for the Ṣūfīs of the Muʿtazila was not whether there should be a political society or not, but rather, what kind of society there ought to be and what kind of foun-dations should support it.3 Their reference to concepts such as aḥkām al-dīn and ḥukm al-Islām in their arguments suggests that they were not epistemological or moral anarchists.

1 I am grateful to Hüseyin Yılmaz, Ahmet Karamustafa, Derek Mancini-Lander, the participants of the “Legitimate and Illegitimate Violence in Islamic Tradition” Conference (The University of Exeter, UK September, 2011), the anonymous readers, and the editor of this volume for commenting on this paper.

2 I will use the word “imamate” to describe, more or less, the caliph and the political structure operating under his authority. The word imamate does not, in this context, imply the abstract notion of state as we use it today.

3 See Harold Barclay, People Without Government: An Anthropology of Anarchism (Lon-don: Kahn & Averill, 1996), 17.

62 hayrettin yücesoy


Their views offfer an excellent vantage point to nuance the ideological landscape of the ʿAbbāsid world and illustrate better the diversity of polit-ical ideologies of the early ninth century. For their contributions on this subject, we are particularly indebted to Josef van Ess, Patricia Crone, and to Florian Sobieroj.4 This essay hopes both to contribute to these effforts and perhaps suggest additional vistas for a better understanding and con-textualization of this signifĳicant group of people.

The subject of the Ṣūfīs of the Muʿtazila relates to another embar-rassingly understudied but important fĳield: ideologies and movements of dissent in early Islamic history. The relevant medieval literature of jurisprudence, theology, and Ḥadīth discuss it under various chapters and topics. Historiography, hagiography, literary genres, and biographi-cal dictionaries are full of material that can be productively studied from this perspective to elaborate on the nature and forms of political dissent. Political tracts, mirrors for princes, manuals of statecraft deal with politi-cal dissent and the methods of its control from the prism of ancient impe-rial notions of justice and social equilibrium.

Political dissent was expressed in a variety of subtle and open ways. These ranged from pacifĳist attitudes such as renunciation, withdrawal from politics, unvoiced deviation, and quietism to openly activist behav-ior, which included the tradition of al-amr bi-al-maʿrūf wa-al-nahy ʿan al-munkar, but certainly was not limited to it: poetry, political speeches, abstention, noncooperation, and various acts of open disobedience con-stituted other forms of dissent. Above all, scholarship, in particular his-torical scholarship, itself can be examined as dissent and a kind of shelter for the expression of dissent. As John Kelsey notes, scholarship helped citizens move out of the familial relations and establish a set of broader loyalties to function in the society as sectarian, artisanal, and professional

4 Pseudo-al-Nāshī al-Akbar, Frühe Muʿtazilitische Häresiographie (Masāʾil al-Imāma), ed. Josef van Ess (Beirut: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1971), 49–50. (Henceforth Masāʾil). Also see Josef van Ess, Theologie und Gesselschaft in 2. Und 3. Jahrhundert Hidschra: Eine Geschichte Des Religioesen Denkens Im Fruehen Islam (Berlin: Wanter De Gruyter, 1992), 5: 329 fff. For its attribution to Jaʿfar ibn Ḥarb (236/850), see Wilferd Madelung, “Frühe muʿtazilitische Häresiographie: Das Kitāb al-Uṣūl des Ġaʿfar ibn Ḥarb,” Der Islam 57 (1980): 220 fff.; Patricia Crone, “Ninth-Century Muslim Anarchists,” Past and Present 167 (2000): 3 fff. and God’s Rule: Government and Islam (New York: Columbia University Press, 2004), 65–69; Florian Sobieroj, “The Muʿtazila and Ṣūfĳism,” F. de Jong and Bernd Radtke. Islamic Mysticism Contested: Thirteen Centuries of Controversies and Polemics (Leiden, Netherlands: Brill, 1999), 68–92. See also Hayrettin Yücesoy, Taṭawwur al-Fikr al-Siyāsī ʿinda Ahl al-Sunna: Fatrat al-Takwīn (Amman: Dār al-Bashīr, 1993), 140–43.

the ṣūfīs of the muʿtazila revisited 63


groups.5 Noting the conflictual meaning and function of the law, includ-ing religious law or scripture, in this context is useful. Once scripture is disseminated among the faithful as a ubiquitous text/oral code outlining duties and privileges of the members of the community, it functions as a sort of ‘objectifĳied law,’ empowering subjects with duties and privileges irrespective of governmental contingencies and, thus, enabling them to criticize and contest policies and practices. Therefore, while religious law does function to justify and legitimize political power, it also plays the role of a shelter for dissent.

Needless to say, there are difffĳicult issues to deal with in studying any movement of dissent across space and time, especially within the interpre-tive framework of medieval scholarship that was based on universalizing claims of scriptures, which inform more frequently than one wishes the premises and conclusions of modern scholars.6 The result is sometimes as misguided as asking whether one can speak of individuality, civil society, freedom, and rational political system in medieval Muslim societies.7 So much of this confusion results, as Rita Copeland argues about modern historiography of medieval European history, from neglecting the contin-gencies of such views and the internal conflicts, dissonances, and multi-vocality of their politics in any given ideological context. As she suggests, to make sense of dissent and the reasons of its variation we need to his-toricize medieval critiques in their own ideological contexts as practices that are themselves politically multivocal, heterogeneous, contingent, and conflictually invested.8

The Ṣūfīs of the Muʿtazila were one such critical cluster that advocated non-cooperation and refused compliance with established ideologies and epistemologies. Even though the Ṣūfīs of the Muʿtazila were not a coher-ent group and never became powerful enough to disturb the political and ideological establishment, they did engender substantial ideological reactions throughout generations in the form of sectarian reprimand, to which we owe our information about this group. Unfortunately, the source

5 John Kelsay, “State and Civil Society,” in S. H. Hashmi, ed., Islamic Political Ethics: Civil Society, Pluralism, and Conflict (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2002), 10.

6 See the comments of Rita Copeland, “Introduction: Dissenting Critical Practices,” in R. Copeland, ed., Criticism and Dissent in the Middle Ages (Cambridge: Cambridge Univer-sity Press, 1996), 1–2 on the historiography of medieval Europe.

7 See Ann K. S. Lambton, State and Government in Medieval Islam (Oxford: Oxford Uni-versity Press, 1981), 309–310; Crone, God’s Rule, 300–301, 315 fff.

8 Copeland, “Introduction,” 2–3, 4.



material about them is extremely slim,9 which means that what we can hope for often times is no more than scattered shreds of information that barely allow us to make conjectures about their views. However, we do have a contemporary source, Masāʾil al-Imāma, that offfers insight into the political worldview of the Muʿtazilī Ṣūfīs. Madelung has made a strong case that the Masāʾil al-Imāma was authored most likely by Jaʿfar ibn Ḥarb (d. 236/850), who was a contemporary of the individuals men-tioned below. As a Muʿtazilī himself, Jaʿfar ibn Ḥarb was not a distant bystander who transmitted hearsay about them. He was personally associ-ated with the Muʿtazilīs of his generation and intimately knowledgeable about these individuals. What he offfers is not a sectarian refutation, but rather a considerate summary of their opinions.10 Since this essay relies heavily on what Masāʾil al-Imāma has to say about them, it may be useful to provide a translation of the relevant section of the source at the end of this essay to facilitate easier access to the text for those who wish to consult it.

Because of their background the Ṣūfīs of the Muʿtazila had a distinct intellectual-ideological genealogy linking them to various Jamāʿī, Shīʿī, Muʿtazilī, and Ṣūfī trends. It is expected that some of their political views overlap with that of others, in particular the Muʿtazilī anarchists, under which category Patricia Crone treats them. However, it seems that there is enough of a gap in outlook to suggest a potentially important distinction between the Ṣūfīs of the Muʿtazila and other Muʿtazilī anarchists.

Crone has been criticized for using the word anarchism to describe those Muʿtazilīs who argued for a no-imamate position. My own objection is not about her use of the term; on the contrary it is about anchoring the meaning of it into European history to the degree that it drains the seman-tic potentiality of it, which leads her to argue at the end of her examina-tion that those Muʿtazilīs were not actually anarchists. This tentativeness makes the use of the word anarchism for this group not only provisional and impressionistic, but also Orientalizing. Like the Weberian ideal type on what constitutes a “real” city, whose othering results we know up-close from our discussions on the “Islamic city,” “anarchism” as an ideal type of the same sort reinforces the idea of European exceptionalism and seals offf the rest in the confĳines of the “Orient,” which was assumed to lack

9 The source material about them is limited to a few pages at most, one full page in Masāʾil on their political views being the most coherent and longest.

10 EI2, s.v. Djaʿfar ibn Ḥarb (Albert N. Nader); Madelung, “Frühe muʿtazilitische.”



the necessary institutions to develop anarchist ideas on its own. However, given the fact that anarchism meant widely diffferent things even within European traditions, this point of view cannot be sustained. Scholars need to work with the already decentralized and broadened semantic range of the word so that we can productively accommodate new experiences from diffferent political and cultural traditions. In this article, I will use the term to mean strictly political anarchism, which advocates minimiz-ing if not abolishing state hierarchy and calls for the self-management of communities according to a shared set of laws, but rejects the notion of individualistic or hedonistic opposition to external authority.11

The Ṣūfīs of the Muʿtazila were a small cluster of scholars and ascetics associated with the circle of Bishr ibn al-Muʿtamir and Abū Mūsā ʿĪsā ibn Ṣabīh al-Murdār. Other prominent Muʿtazilīs such as al-Naẓẓām also had Ṣūfī students, including Faḍl al-Ḥadathī and Ibn Khābiṭ.12 In their inter-ests in both kalām and asceticism the group carried on and elaborated a distinct tradition reaching back to Ḥasan al-Baṣrī, to whose circle Wāsil ibn ʿAṭā’ and ʿAmr ibn ʿUbayd belonged. They were apparently among the early generations of ascetics to be named Ṣūfīs, who also followed an activist tradition of al-amr bi-al-maʿrūf wa al-nahy ʿan al-munkar, which would later become the fĳifth principle of the Muʿtazila and a major prin-ciple of many ascetic groups.13 Al-Raqāshī, al-Ḥadathī, and Ḥusayn al-Kūfī mentioned in the translated section seem to represent a smaller group of individuals among them that opposed the ʿAbbāsids as illegitimate and denied the legality of earning a livelihood (kasb). While their opin-ion on earning suggests a renunciatory tendency, I hope to show that it emanated from their position on political legitimacy and not from seeing earning contrary to appropriate “trust in God” (tawakkul) in the sense of withdrawal from society irrespective of political legitimacy.

Perhaps never defĳined as a group, the Ṣūfīs of the Muʿtazila seem to have come from urban, well-to-do, literate, and scholarly background

11 For a history of European and American anarchist thought see Peter Marshall, Demanding the Impossible: A History of Anarchism (Oakland, CA: PM Press, 2008).

12 Among what medieval heresiography attributes to both, the most relevant pieces of information are their ascetic concerns and Ibn Khābiṭ’s rejection of the mafḍūl’s imamate. See Ibn Ḥazm, al-Faṣl fī al-Milal wa-al-Ahwāʾ wa-al-Niḥal, eds. Muḥammad Ibrāhīm Naṣr and ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ʿUmayra (Jiddah: Sharikat Maktabāt ʿUkāẓ, 1982), 5: 64–65. Florian Sobieroj, “The Muʿtazila and Ṣūfĳism,” 69–70. Toby Mayer, “Theology and Ṣūfĳism,” in Tim Winter, ed. The Cambridge Companion to Classical Islamic Theology (Cambridge; Cam-bridge University Press, 2007), 261.

13 See Christopher Melchert, “The Ḥanābila and the Early Ṣūfīs,” Arabica 48 (2001), 355.



based in Baghdad and Basra. As learned elite residing in the centers of power, they had access to the privileges that the cosmopolitan and elabo-rate urban life could offfer, but perhaps were not interested in agricultural hinterland and its inhabitants whose work and surplus supplied the main arteries of the Caliphate. That some of them donated their wealth and chose poverty suggests that they were not particularly keen about the exu-berance of Baghdad and pro-earning ideologies. Nevertheless, their views reflect the values of an urban, scholarly, and politically engaged circle of people, whose level of dissatisfaction made them question the very foun-dations of the existing socio-political order.

The author of the Masāʾil begins his passage with mentioning that the Muʿtazila were divided into two major groups on the imamate. After briefly mentioning those who maintained that it was a religious obliga-tion whose institution was incumbent upon the community as well as an essential creed of faith, he goes on to explain the views of the sec-ond group, which in this passage seem to be the opinions of the Ṣūfīs of the Muʿtazila.14 The second group maintained that the imamate was not a necessity nor a religious obligation, but merely a choice inferred by reason. The idea of appointing an imām stemmed from the people’s desire to do so, not from any religious command or practice requiring it. They maintained that appointing an imām resembled how daily prayers were performed—people could pray with or without the imām; none of which was better than or preferable to the other. What needed to happen instead, the Ṣūfīs of the Muʿtazila reasoned, was that individuals in the community acquire sufffĳicient knowledge of their duties and responsibili-ties to conduct themselves appropriately.

It is clear that the Ṣūfīs of the Muʿtazila rejected the attribution of reports concerning the imamate to the Prophet Muḥammad. They in fact claimed the opposite: the Prophet did not appoint anybody as an imām. Why did the Prophet explain in great detail the daily obligatory prayers, zakāt, and even as minor an issue as the direction of the prayer15 and yet leave a fundamental matter such as the imamate to be merely inferred? Were the imamate a fundamental principle of faith, ʿaqd al-dīn, Muḥammad

14 The author does not spell out their name until the end of the passage when he somewhat ambiguously states that “this is the opinion of the Ṣūfĳiyyat al-Muʿtazila” with-out clarifying which opinions in the preceding paragraph he means to attribute to them. However, given the absence of any evidence to the contrary, I will base my analysis on the assumption that the author of Masāʾil intends to attribute the content of the whole passage to them.

15 Masāʾil, 49.



would have appointed somebody for it and announced his opinion in an unambiguous way, just as he did for other obligations.16

Another argument against having an imām was their association of the caliphate with kingship, mulk, which they opposed as fundamentally incompatible with the laws of Islam. To be sure, regardless of afffĳiliation, many other early ninth century sectarian groups generally made a distinc-tion between true imamate and kingship. For the majority of the Imāmī Shīʿīs, the true imamate existed only during the reign of ʿAlī. For the Zaydīs, both the Umayyads and the ʿAbbāsids were certainly kings. The Khārijīs rejected all caliphs after ʿUmar as illegitimate oppressors. For many of the Jamāʿīs, the true imamate was the period of the fĳirst four caliphs fol-lowed by kingship.17 But few seem to have problematized this dichotomy to launch an anarchist argument like the Ṣūfīs of the Muʿtazila did. They maintained that while it might have been appropriate for other nations to live under royal authority, Islam was against kingship. The prophet was not a king and did not appoint one over his community, umma. They offfered several reasons explaining their rejection of royal authority, many of which are also expressed against the state by modern anarchists. First of all, kingship calls for tyranny and monopoly of power, which results in kings ruling against the will of their subjects, coercing them into accepting royal authority, and not allowing them a share in governance. According to the Ṣūfīs of the Muʿtazila, these characteristics were detrimental to the faith and even destructive to divine laws—the laws of the “book” and the “sunna.” While it is not clear what they specifĳically meant by the “sunna” and the “book,” they must have coalesced around an approach that was diffferent from and perhaps contrary to the discourse of ḥadīth and fĳiqh that was rising to prominence at the time among the Jamāʿīs.

The Ṣūfīs of the Muʿtazila recognized the need for peace, stability, and welfare. They, like many of the Khārijīs and the Muʿtazilīs, considered vio-lating the law a valid reason to depose the caliph. They did not share the sentiment that one should endure injustice, oppression, and abuse of law to avoid discord. Kingship, according to them, was the root cause of unrest and violence. As the community was endowed with duties and privileges and therefore authority, it would resist the king for his transgressions.

16 Masāʾil, 49.17 Masāʾil, 66; Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal, al-Musnad, eds. Aḥmad Muḥammad Shākir and

al-Ḥusaynī ʿAbd al-Majīd Hāshim (Cairo: Dār al-Maʿārif, 1980), 16: 133. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn ʿAmr Abū Zurʿa al-Dimashqī, Tārīkh Abī Zurʿa al-Dimashqī, ed. Shukr Allāh Niʿmat Allāh al-Qūchānī (Damascus: Majmaʿ al-Lugha al-ʿArabiyya bi-Dimashq, n.d.), 1: 187–88.



Kings, they argued, would inevitably commit crimes, which would require the community to interfere to prevent kings from eradicating divine laws, which would lead to a cycle of violence every time the king transgressed. As there would always be those who would defend the king against his opponents, this cycle of violence would not only result in bloodshed, con-tention, and disunity, but also a perpetual fear of the tyranny and revenge of the king, which would render the effforts to depose the king unsuccess-ful. Even if a qualifĳied individual were to be elected for the imamate, the Ṣūfīs of the Muʿtazila maintained, the problem of violence could not be avoided. Even a legitimately elected person could become oppressive later in his reign, which would require the community to resist and declare him illegitimate. Infringing upon his prerogatives and authority would then provoke and justify the king’s retaliation, which would, in turn, lead to strife. Thus, if, by electing an imām, the community had hoped to avoid strife, in reality, instituting an imām ultimately served just the opposite purpose. Not having an imām at all was therefore a better alternative if one wanted to avoid civil discord.

This reasoning suggests that they proposed to shift the axis of politics from the exclusive domain of the dynastic or imperial elite to the com-munity of faithful through a decentralized socio-political order. They, for instance, proposed that if there were a need requiring a judge, the com-munity would seek him among the righteous in their midst and give him authority to arbitrate the task at hand. This individual would fulfĳill the duty for which he was appointed and relinquish his prerogatives as soon as his commission ended. He would return to being an ordinary individ-ual as before with no political authority vested in him any longer. The authority vested in such an individual would be similar to that of a per-son authorized to lead a single session of prayer with the full consent of the worshippers. The authority of the prayer-leader would be coterminous with the prayer, dependent on the approval of his congregation, and not extending outside the prayer. He is not entitled to serve in that capacity again without the consent of the worshippers.

Another far-reaching argument of the Ṣūfĳiyyat al-Muʿtazila was the prohibition of earning an income through employment or business (kasb, pl. makāsib). Masāʾil does not help in clarifying the nature and reason of their rejection of the legality of earning. The only piece of information we get is their categorical prohibition of earning: “This is the opinion of the Ṣūfĳiyyat al-Muʿtazila who uphold the prohibition of [the ways of ] earning ( yaqūlūna bi- taḥrīm al-makāsib).” This position places them with the Ṣūfī renunciants of the late Umayyad and early ʿAbbāsid times. As Michael



Bonner has shown in his examination of the controversies concerning the problem of kasb, the prohibition of earning dated back well before the ninth century. From the objections of al-Shaybānī, who enthusiastically defended an earning-afffĳirmative position,18 to their views we know that some of the renunciatory ascetics refrained from earning because they saw a contradiction between earning and tawakkul (reliance on God). The argument was that since God had promised to provide human beings with the means of life, it was against tawakkul to seek earning and get involved in economic activity.19 Another group of ascetics allowed the earning of what is permitted (ḥalāl) and enough for survival ( faqr wa-taqallul).20 Others considered earning permissible only in the case of life-threatening conditions: “earning is prohibited, it is not permissible except in case of necessity, like the permissibility of eating carrion.”21

The Karrāmiyya’s position was that earning was neither a religious obligation nor prohibited. It was a neutral activity, hence permissible.22 Other ascetics maintained that tawakkul was better and more meritorious than action for earning. According to these ascetics, seeking a livelihood is permitted for those who do not have enough strength for perfect tawak-kul.23 They draw a distinction between elite, khāṣṣa, and common people, ‘āmma, to argue that kasb is appropriate for common people while tawak-kul is for those who have achieved a higher spiritual level: “Refraining

18 Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan al-Shaybānī, al-Kasb, ed. Suhayl Zakkār (Dimashq: ʿAbd al-Hādī Ḥarṣūnī, 1980), 32–33, 34. “Earning is not only permissible but also a religious obli-gation incumbent on every Muslim, as is the seeking of knowledge.” Also, “prayer cannot be performed without appropriate clothing, clothing is made from fabric, fabric is acquired usually by earning; therefore, that without which obligatory prayer cannot be performed is obligatory.”

19 al-Shaybānī, al-Kasb, 37; Ḥārith ibn Asad al-Muḥāsībī, al-Makāsib, ed. ʿAbd al-Qādir Aḥmad ʿAṭā (Beirut: Muʾassasat al-Kutub al-Thaqāfĳiyya, 1987), 61; see also Michael Bon-ner, “The Kitāb al-Kasb Attributed to al-Shaybānī: Poverty, Surplus, and the Circulation of Wealth,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 121 (2001): 410 fff.; Michael Bonner, “Poverty and Charity in the Rise of Islam,” in Michael Bonner et al., Poverty and Charity in the Middle Eastern Contexts (Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 2003), 133 fff.; Michael Bonner, “Poverty and Economics in the Qur’an,” Journal of Interdisciplinary History 35 (2005): 391 fff.; Margeret Smith, Studies in Early Mysticism in the Near and Middle East (Oxford: One World, 1995), 172–73; Tor Andrae, In the Garden of Myrtles: Studies in Early Islamic Mysti-cism (Albany, NY: 1987), 110–11.

20 Al-Muḥāsibī, al-Makāsib, 76, 90, 95, 96.21 Al-Shaybānī, al-Kasb, 37 and al-Muḥāsibī, al-Makāsib, 48.22 Al-Shaybānī, al-Kasb, 45–46.23 Al-Shaybānī, al-Kasb, 63.



from action is better. However it is permitted for the weak among the people.”24

One of the best representatives of the ascetic compromise between tawakkul and kasb is no doubt al-Muḥāsibī. He refers to the main duty of humans in earthly life as knowledge of God, behaving according to His rules and relying upon Him in all deeds.25 In fulfĳilling those obligations, al-Muḥāsibī argues, tawakkul does not prevent human beings from seeking a livelihood. Moreover tawakkul and kasb are not contradictory because God has created human beings with a desire to seek livelihood and to love wealth.26 The main point is, then, to keep a balance between trust and earning since excessive wealth and a luxurious life style is indeed contrary to God’s will, both during the process of earning and afterwards.27 It is clear that for al-Muḥāsibī, earning is not an obligation, but rather a license circumscribed by divine law. As long as humans do not transgress these laws, they are allowed to seek a livelihood so that they can perform their duties toward their relatives and fulfĳill their obligations.28 So the problem for many ascetics was not the legitimacy of the ruler but rather the legal value of the act of earning itself independent of its political framework.29

The Ṣūfĳiyyat al-Muʿtazila on the other hand were maximalist renunci-ants. But if that was the case, what do we do with their views on the poli-tics of the community? Clearly, they do not reflect a renunciant attitude. One plausible explanation of their position on earning is their opposition to the caliphate. While we do not have explicit evidence in the sources fully backing such a suggestion, we do have convincing indicators that the Ṣūfĳiyyat al-Muʿtazila might have conditioned earning on political legitimacy. Al-Khayyāṭ mentions, for instance, that al-Raqāshī used to pro-scribe earning and claim that “the house” (dār) of the caliphate was the house of disbelief (dār al-kufr).30 Although this piece of evidence does not directly link the two positions (considering the caliphate dār al-kufr and proscribing earning), contextual evidence makes the argument of politics

24 Al-Muḥāsibī, al-Makāsib, 63, also 61–64.25 Al-Muḥāsibī, al-Makāsib, 37 fff.26 Al-Muḥāsibī, al-Makāsib, 45–46.27 Al-Muḥāsibī, al-Makāsib, 5, fff., 47.28 Al-Muḥāsibī, al-Makāsib, 5 fff.29 Al-Muḥāsibī, al-Makāsib, 63 fff.30 Abū Qāsim al-Balkhī, al-Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār, al-Ḥākim al-Jushaymī, Faḍl al-Iʿtizāl

wa-Ṭabaqāt al-Muʿtazila, ed. Fuʾād Sayyid (Tunis: Al-Dār al-Tūnisiyya li-al-Nashr, 1986), 283–84; Aḥmad ibn Yaḥyā ibn al-Murtaḍā, Ṭabaqāt al-Muʿtazila, ed. Susanna Diwald-Wilzer (Beirut: Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft, 1961), 77.



a plausible inference. In particular, we know that some ascetics consid-ered illegitimate selling arms and riding animals to those they opposed as “oppressors” and some others proscribed earning because they considered it illegal under an illegitimate ruler.31 Not unexpectedly, al-Shaybānī and al-Muḥāsibī were adamant about rejecting such views. Both unequivocally expressed that the lawfulness of earning as a legal question was separate from questions relating to political legitimacy.32 Al-Muḥāsibī, perhaps intending the Ṣūfĳiyyat al-Muʿtazila or similar groups, thus, declared that the “oppression of the imāms does not invalidate earning but noncompli-ance with jurisprudence (fĳiqh) and knowledge (ʿilm) makes it invalid.”33 The Ṣūfĳiyyat al-Muʿtazila were therefore not unique and particularly new, but if they linked kasb to political legitimacy they placed themselves among a distinct minority.

Such a marginal stand reveals a serious disagreement with the institu-tions and discourses of the established order. The caliphate was one of them. In the course of its evolution, the caliphate underwent changes in the way the caliphs imagined themselves, exercised authority and con-trol, and projected power. The controversies over identity, legitimacy, and power were magnifĳied by changes and developments in public life. As the caliphate’s administration became more efffective and central, it not only accelerated the process of social diversifĳication along new lines leading to tensions over social and economic privileges, but also provoked resistance to the central authority itself in the peripheries as well as the center.34 Similar to other empires, the caliphate reordered the society over which it ruled, redistributed the human and material resources it controlled, and used violence when necessary and feasible to maintain control. Criticism of the caliphate was therefore also about resources, distribution and allo-cation of power within the caliphate.

The events of the early ninth century (such as the civil war and the Miḥna) forced dissenting views to the fore not only because they pro-voked critical stands, but also perhaps because the period seemed an appropriate moment for power realignment and redistribution. The Ṣūfīs

31 Al-Muḥāsibī, al-Makāsib, 76–77, 90, 95, 96. For various opinions about the prohibition of earning for political reasons under the caliphate see Al-Ashʿarī, Maqālāt al-Islamiyyīn ed. Helmut Ritter (İstanbul: İstanbul Darülfünûn, Devlet Matbaası, 1927), 465.

32 Al-Muḥāsibī, al-Makāsib, 76–78.33 Al-Muḥāsibī, 83.34 For a more detailed analysis of the subject see my previous study, Taṭawwur, 37 fff.,

83 fff. 121 fff. For a solid survey of the caliphate see Hugh Kennedy, The Prophet and the Age of the Caliphates (London: Longman, 2004).



of the Muʿtazila were such a group of people who opposed and contested the legitimacy of the caliphate for practices they perceived as coercion, oppression, monopoly of power, violation of law, and disregard of the community. For instance, succession conventions were a major source of discontent. This was so not only because of the violence and confusion that frequently followed the death of a caliph, but also because succession was associated with monopoly of power and exclusion. As succession to rule shifted from elective practices to dynastic control, a wide spectrum of groups criticized the caliphate and called for a return to election and consultation (shūrā wa-ikhtiyār). One needs only to mention the revolt of Ibn al-Zubayr and the subsequent uprisings led by al-Muṭarraf ibn al-Mughīra ibn al-Shuʿba, Ibn al-Ashʿath, and Yazīd ibn al-Muhallab dur-ing the Umayyad period. The violent succession crisis between the sons of al-Rashīd himself, al-Amīn and al-Ma ʾmūn, was a stark reminder for critics such as the Ṣūfīs of the Muʿtazila that violence in the transition of power was emblematic of rule.

As a policy, concentrating political and administrative power in the center had also been a major source of discontent. In their empire build-ing effforts, the caliphs pushed for a more efffective control by establishing and improving military and administrative bureaucracy and interfered with existing social classes, hierarchies, and power distributions. As the caliphs pressed more for centralization, initially the centrifugal tribal ideologies, but later provincial power bases, nobility, and emerging reli-gious movements and groups saw this as an intrusion into their afffairs and became more protective of their own privileges against the central authority. Judging from the literary output of the ninth century, the rift between imperial ambitions and more egalitarian socio-political aspira-tions engendered a major confrontation of religious, political, and social dimensions.35 The limitations of medieval empires in efffective control of their provinces notwithstanding, the critique of the Ṣūfīs of the Muʿtazila shows discontent over policies of centralization.

The period of civil war and the following developments as the imme-diate context for the ideas of the Ṣūfīs of the Muʿtazila were particularly important for three reasons:36 The civil war was a spectacular failure of

35 For an evaluation of the centralization policies of the caliphs and their repercus-sions see the still-leading study of Marshall Hodgson, The Venture of Islam (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1974), 1: 187 fff., 241 fff., 280 fff.

36 For a study of the civil war, the Miḥna, and al-Ma ʾmūn see Hayrettin Yücesoy, Messi-anic Beliefs and Imperial Politics in Medieval Islam (Columbia: University of South Carolina



the institution, which must have further provoked their discontent. Sec-ondly, part of what happened in Baghdad during the civil war after its capture by al-Ma ʾmūn’s commander, Ṭāhir, in 813 might have served as an inspiration to think about the possibility of having no govern-ment at all and about the means of preventing society from falling into socio-political chaos in the absence of a central authority. When crimi-nals took over Baghdad what appears to be spontaneous civil resistance emerged in the city. In the absence of authority, neighborhoods looked for men of good conduct, ṣulaḥāʾ, and volunteers to resist the banditry and to bring a measure of security to their city. These ṣulaḥāʾ gathered in groups and started forming defense units against the brigands in the city under the leadership of eminent individuals from various quarters of Baghdad, such as Khālid ibn Daryūsh in the Ṭarīq al-Anbār quarter and Sahl ibn Salāma in al-Ḥarbiyya, none of which seems to be associ-ated with the Ṣūfĳiyyat al-Muʿtazila. They gathered around the slogan “command the good and forbid the evil” to address the problems plagu-ing the town.37 Even though this spontaneous movement melted away after the return of al-Ma ʾmūn to the city, the sheer attempt itself at self-governance might have inspired anarchist ideas as a possible alternative to the caliphate. Thirdly, while the tumultuous period of the civil war gal-vanized a few around anarchist ideas, the succeeding events might have pushed some of them who sympathized with those who opposed the Miḥna into alignment and eventually merger with the Jamāʿīs. Thus, as Sobieroj notes, the events of the Miḥna might have also brought the Ṣūfīs of the Muʿtazila’s relatively short existence into a rapid disintegration.38

Another cause of dissent was a particular political ideology offfered by the secretaries, kuttāb. Already during the late Umayyad period but increasingly with the establishment of the ʿAbbāsid caliphate this ideology spread largely by communicating the conventions and culture of Sasanian imperial practice to governors, secretaries, princes, and caliphs as exem-plifĳied in the activities of Ibn al-Muqafffaʿ (d. 757). Following a tradition of

Press, 2009); John Nawas, Al-Ma ʾmūn: Miḥna and the Caliphate (Nijmegen: 1992) and his “A Reexamination of Three Current Explanations for al-Ma ʾmūn’s Introduction of the Miḥna,” IJMES 26 (1994).

37 For a treatment of this subject see Ira M. Lapidus, “Separation of State and Religion in the Early Islamic Society,” IJMES 6 (1975). Wilferd Madelung, “The Vigilante Movement of Sahl ibn Salāma al-Khurāsānī and the Origins of Ḥanbalism Reconsidered,” Journal of Turkish Studies 14 (1990); van Ess, Theologie und Gesellschaft, 3: 173–75. Michael Cooperson, Al-Ma ʾmūn (Oxford: Oneworld, 2005), 66–68.

38 Florian Sobieroj, “The Muʿtazila and Ṣūfĳism,” 70.



divine or sacral kingship in the region, this ideology enhanced the divine or semi-divine image of the ruler; considered society as stratifĳied and con-flictual; and promoted the Sasanian idea of equilibrium to maintain social order as the primary aspects of exemplary rulership. The objection of the Ṣūfīs of the Muʿtazila seems to have been directly against this axial shift in the socio-political order toward the traditions of kingship in the region, which they must have seen as alien to Islam and incompatible with divine laws. Ideologically, this was a conflict between two outlooks: anarchist egalitarianism vs. imperial and social hierarchism.

A third source of discontent was the ideological support that various groups provided the caliphate. Available source material from the period amply demonstrate how references to divine appointment and favor jus-tifĳied the caliphs who were depicted as the trustees of God, the mine of kingship, the axis of authority and leadership, and the deputies of God (i.e. amīn allāh, maʿdan al-mulk, maqarr al-siyāsa wa-al-riʾāsa, khalīfat allāh).39 Abū Yūsuf depicted his patron as the caliph of God on earth who was given light to illuminate what is dark to his subjects in their deal-ings with each other. If he ruled with piety and justice, he would have his reward, and, if he acted otherwise, he would bear the guilt of his sin.40 Al-Shāfĳiʿī legitimized military domination (ghalaba) as long as it was suc-cessful: “He who takes hold (ghalaba) of the caliphate by the sword so that he is named caliph and the people gathered (ijtamaʿa) around him is the caliph if he is from Quraysh. One is to go to war with him and pray the Friday prayers behind him; whoever does not do this is in error.”41 Not unexpectedly, the Ṣūfīs of the Muʿtazila and others viewed such attempts as not only reinvention of kingship, rebirth of Sasanian political practice, and an impediment to their own aspirations to bring the caliphate under the aegis of Islamic morality, but also oppressive and dismissive of the community.

More broadly, the Ṣūfīs of the Muʿtazila criticized the views of the emerging orthodoxies on the imamate. Unlike the Sufĳis of the Muʿtazila, the Jamāʿī, Shīʿī, and Muʿtazilī orthodoxies, despite their diffferences among themselves and criticisms of the caliphate, reasoned within the

39 For the signifĳicance of these titles in the Umayyad and ʿAbbāsid periods see Patricia Crone and Martin Hinds, God’s Caliph: Religious Authority in the First Centuries of Islam (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986).

40 Abū Yūsuf Yaʿqūb ibn Ibrāhīm, Kitāb al-Kharāj, ed. Iḥsān ʿAbbās (Beirut: Bank al-Kuwayt al-Ṣināʿī, 1985), 68–71.

41 Fakhr al-Dīn Muḥammad ʿUmar al-Rāzī, Manāqib al-Imām al-Shāfĳiʿī, ed. Aḥmad Ḥijāzī al-Saqqa (Cairo: Maktabat Kulliyāt al-Azhariyya, 1986), 137.



discourse of the imamate. In particular, when the use of ḥadīth became a discursive practice in the early ninth century42 defĳining where one stood epistemologically, scholars began to advance political arguments based on prophetic utterances, whose recycling eventually became indispen-sable for many groups. Since the late second and early third Islamic cen-turies ḥadīth transmitters began to insist on referring to ḥadīths in their arguments about the necessity of the imamate as a religious obligation.43 Like their Jamāʿī counterparts, some Muʿtazilīs too seem to have used the argument of implicit designation to defend their views. They, for example, claimed that the Prophet Muḥammad did not designate a specifĳic indi-vidual for the caliphate but rather indicated his qualifĳications and charac-teristics, naʿt and ṣifāt.44 Even though the Shīʿīs and the Khārijīs advanced arguments not based on ḥadīths, they did too operate within the discourse of the imamate.

By opposing religious and rational arguments for the imamate and by rejecting the legality of earning, the Ṣūfīs of the Muʿtazila were directly challenging the very foundations of these emerging epistemologies. Their arguments about the imamate suggest that they categorically rejected ḥadīths and denied the exemplarity of the caliphate as a basis of politi-cal ideology. While Qurʾānic verses do not play a role in their discourse against the imamate, prophetic practice does. According to them, the sunna, which appears to replace the ḥadīth as the foundation of religious knowledge, instructs or inspires no imamate at all. Thus the Imāmī Shīʿī, the Jamāʿī, the Khārijī, and the Muʿtazilī emphasis on the importance of the imamate for not only the community but also the faith as well fĳinds no justifĳication among the Ṣūfīs of the Muʿtazila.

Therefore at least in two respects, the Ṣūfīs of the Muʿtazila must be dis-tinguished from other Muʿtazilī anarchists: their views on earning, which we have already outlined, and the nature of their anarchism. Unfortunately, existing scholarship45 treats them together. Although there is a certain amount of overlap between their views, they do difffer considerably. While

42 See Scott C. Lucas, Constructive Critics, Hadith Literature, and the Articulation of Sunni Islam: The Legacy of the Generation of Ibn Saʿd, Ibn Maʿīn, and Ibn Ḥanbal (Leiden: Brill, 2004).

43 Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal, Musnad, 10:133–34; al-Ḥārith ibn Asad al-Muḥāsibī, Al-Masāʾil fī Aʿmāl al-Qulūb wa-al-Jawāriḥ fī al-Makāsib wa-al-Aʿmāl, ed. ʿAbd al-Qādir Aḥmad ʿAtā (Cairo: ʿĀlam al-Kutub, 1969), 208; Aḥmad ibn al-Daḥḥāk ibn Abī ʿĀṣim, al-Sunna, ed. Muḥammad Nāṣir al-Dīn al-Albānī (Beirut: Al-Maktab al-Islāmī, 1980), 2: 503–504.

44 Al-Nawbakhtī, Firaq, 8.45 See for instance Crone, “Ninth-Century Muslim Anarchists.”



the Ṣūfīs of the Muʿtazila argued against having any imām, other Muʿtazilī anarchists acknowledged their acceptance of, in fact argued for, having multiple imāms and even a single imām if he was elected by consensus.46 Secondly, for numerous other anarchists, such as al-Fuwaṭī, anarchism was a provisional system of governance as long as the afffairs could be managed without an imām.47 In the case of Ḍirār ibn ʿAmr (d. circa sec-ond decade of the ninth century) and Ḥafṣ al-Fard (d. circa 810) any non-Arab (ʿajamī) imām would do just fĳine, even better.48 So the argument is about the qualifĳications of the candidates but not about eliminating the imamate altogether. In contrast, the Ṣūfīs of the Muʿtazila seem to have objected to the imamate categorically.

One of the leading Muʿtazilī anarchists, al-Aṣamm (d. 816 or 817) for instance argued that the imamate was not an obligation required by reli-gious law (laysat wājibatun sharʿan) but a secular utility (maṣlaḥa) whose institution was contingent upon the will of the community, which had the discretionary power to decide whether to institute it.49 He also argued that, in an ideal case, if people conducted themselves according to ethical principles and acted justly in their transactions, crime would not occur in society. This would eliminate the need for penalty and therefore ren-der political authority superfluous, if not harmful.50 Similarly, the famous ninth century Muʿtazilī al-Naẓẓām (d. 835 or 845), who was a mentor to some of the Ṣūfīs of the Muʿtazila, and his followers also were of the opin-ion that if people followed the law willingly and maintained their integrity in both private and public life they would not need an imām.51 So far, there is compatibility between these views and the arguments of the Ṣūfīs of the Muʿtazila.

However, both part ways in the following arguments. While the Ṣūfīs of the Muʿtazila clearly argued against having any imām, al-Aṣamm accepted the possibility of, in fact argued for, having multiple imāms. Furthermore, he seems to have agreed to having a single imam if he was elected by

46 Masāʾil, 60–61.47 ʿAbd al-Qāhir al-Baghdādī, Uṣūl al-Dīn, ed. Helmut Ritter (İstanbul: Devlet Matbaası,

1928), 271–72.48 Masāʾil, 51.49 Masāʾil, 49, 59–60; al-Ashʿarī, Maqālāt, 460; Muḥammad ibn Ḥasan ʿAbd al-Jabbār,

al-Mughnī fī Abwāb al-ʿAdl wa-al-Tawḥīd, eds. ʿAbd al-Ḥālīm Maḥmūd and Sulaymān Dunyā (Cairo: Dār al-Miṣriyya li al-Ta ʾlīf wa-al-Tarjuma, n.d.), 20/1: 48.

50 Masāʾil, 49; al-Ashʿarī, Maqālāt, 460; Al-Baghdādī, Uṣūl, 271–72. 51 Al-Ashʿarī, Maqālāt, 9–10, 460; al-Ḥasan ibn Mūsā al-Nawbakhtī, Firaq al-Shīʿa, ed.

Helmut Ritter (İstanbul: Devlet Matbaası, 1931), 10–11.



consensus. It is true that he still sees having multiple imāms as better for the community and elaborates on its benefĳits and practicality, yet he does not rule out having one imām.52 In fact, he explains the conditions under which this could be the case. Such an imām should be accepted by all members of the community; his election should follow strict guidelines: the appointment should come only after a wide consultation followed by a comprehensive search to identify the most appropriate candidate; the candidate then must accept the nomination and the responsibilities asso-ciated with his post; the community in turn must declare its consent to the candidate and acknowledge publicly a conscious deference to him. In short, according to al-Aṣamm there has to be a literal, communal consen-sus on the ruler for such an appointment to be legitimate.53 If consensus does in fact happen, even a singular imām will be legitimate. This is not what the Ṣūfīs of the Muʿtazila seem to have argued.

According to the Sunnī theologian al-Baghdādī (d. 1038), Hishām al-Fuwaṭī (d. 840s?) too seems to have maintained, in a similar way that the authority of the imām would be legitimate only if the whole com-munity agreed on him. Al-Fuwaṭī recognized that consensus was not a universal requirement as it might not be practical all the time and it could even be counterproductive. Al-Fuwaṭī maintained that if the community rebelled against and assassinated the ruling imām, such as during a civil war, the “people of the truth” were then not required to elect another one. So for him anarchism was an option as long as needs can be met without an imām.54

Part of al-Fuwaṭī’s argument seems to have derived from the controver-sies concerning the fĳirst civil war and the legitimacy of the early caliphs, about which the Ṣūfīs of the Muʿtazila appear silent in the quoted pas-sage. According to al-Baghdādī, al-Fuwaṭī intended to nullify the caliphate of ʿAlī (r. 656–661) in his argument.55 Indeed, al-Fuwaṭī questioned the legitimacy of the election which brought the fourth caliph ʿAlī to power, who was acclaimed caliph after the murder of ʿUthmān (r. 644–656) in the circumstances of a civil war. Probably al-Aṣamm shared the same view. He accepted the caliphates of Abū Bakr (r. 632–634) and ʿUmar (r. 634–644) as legitimate because there was a valid consensus on their caliphates, but he rejected the legitimacy of ʿAlī because there was no

52 Masāʾil, 60–61.53 Masāʾil, 59–60.54 Al-Baghdādī, Uṣūl, 271–72.55 Al-Baghdādī, Uṣūl, 272.



consensus on his caliphate.56 Using the same logic, al-Aṣamm recognized Muʿāwiya as a legitimate caliph, because there was a consensus on his caliphate.57 Al-Fuwaṭī’s opinion was also echoed by al-Jāḥiẓ58 It seems that this discussion was informed by the events of the fourth civil war in which al-Ma’mūn and al-Amīn were separately proclaimed imām.

Ḍirār ibn ʿAmr (d. circa second decade of the ninth century) and Ḥafṣ al-Fard (d. circa 810) were both concerned, like the Ṣūfīs of the Muʿtazila, about monopoly of power and oppression. However, unlike the Ṣūfīs of the Muʿtazila, Ḍirār and Ḥafṣ fell back on the assumption of having an imām. They opposed the practice of appointing a Qurashī to the imamate for fear that it would lead to a power monopoly, oppression, and strife. Both advocated allowing non-Qurashī candidates from more modest social ranks to be elected. In fact, they suggested that, given the option, people should elect a candidate from a socially inferior background, such as a “Nabataean” individual, instead of a Qurashī. Even if both candidates were equally eligible and competent, the community should elect the “Naba-taean” candidate if it wishes to preempt civil wars in the future. Why would a “Nabataean” caliph be more likely to prevent civil wars? Their reason was that if such an imām should commit a crime requiring removal from offfĳice, when the community acts to remove him he would have no tribal base to support his resistance. Without the tribal support, the removal of the “Nabataean” imām from offfĳice would be easier, less controversial, and less likely to cause civil strife. Ḍirār ibn ʿAmr and Ḥafṣ al-Fard seem to have conceived the role of the imām as comprising nothing more than a mediator; they therefore opposed investing too much power in him. It is clear that the caliphal succession crises and civil wars served as back-ground for Ḍirār ibn ʿAmr and Ḥafṣ al-Fard. In fact, both used to mention the civil war associated with the removal of ʿUthmān (r. 644–656) to back

56 ʿAlī was opposed in the Battle of Camel by Ṭalḥa, (d. 656) Zubayr (d. 656), and ʿĀʾisha, (d. 678) and in the Battle of Ṣifffīn by Muʿāwiya (r. 661–680).

57 Masāʾil, 59–60. Although al-Aṣamm was not supportive of ʿAlī, he nevertheless did not accuse either ʿAlī or his opponents of wrongdoing in their respective decisions on how to settle their diffferences. Al-Aṣamm tended to see the disagreements as a legitimate dif-ference in reasoning, ijtihād. See al-Nawbakhtī, Firaq, 14; al-Ashʿarī, Maqālāt, 453.

58 Abū ʿUthmān ʿAmr ibn Baḥr al-Jāḥiẓ, “al-Jawābāt fī al-Imāma,” in Rasāʾil al-Jāḥiẓ, ed. ʿAbd al-Salām Hārūn (Cairo: Maktabat al-Khanjī bi-Miṣr, 1979), 4: 285 fff; al-Jāḥiẓ, “Kitāb al-Futya,” in Rasāʾil al-Jāḥiẓ, 1: 213–14; al-Jāḥiẓ, al-ʿUthmāniyya, ed. ʿAbd al-Salām Hārūn (Cairo: Maktabat al-Khanjī bi-Miṣr and Maktabat al-Muthannā bi-Baghdād, 1955), 14, 250, 256, 261–63.



their claims.59 While their views were certainly along the lines of anar-chism, they were not parallel to that of the Ṣūfīs of the Muʿtazila.

While the anarchists examined above seem to have retained the notion of an ideal imamate (however difffĳicult to realize), as Crone has argued, the Ṣūfīs of the Muʿtazila seem to have stayed away from suggesting it. They simply were concerned with creating a political society without an imām. It makes sense in this context that Ḍirār, Ḥafṣ al-Fard, al-Naẓẓām, and others among the Muʿtazilī anarchists argued for the election of “the best” candidate for the imamate because they considered the offfĳice important and noble enough to require a meritorious individual. Their argument was that as much as the Prophet Muḥammad was the most meritorious person of his epoch, the imām must also be the most excel-lent of his time, because the place (manzila) of the imām in merit comes only after that of the Prophet. Having no such concern, those who were associated with the Ṣūfīs of the Muʿtazila however supported the idea, attributed to Wāṣil ibn ʿAṭāʾ, that the imām did not have to be the best of his contemporaries. They accepted the less meritorious as eligible for the offfĳice as long as he was just, knowledgeable in the “book” and the “sunna,” and agreeable to the community. Bishr ibn al-Muʿtamir and Abū Mūsā al-Murdār were among such individuals. It would have been odd to see them argue otherwise because the importance they assigned to the posi-tion of the imām was much less pronounced compared to that of other Muʿtazilīs. The Ṣūfīs of the Muʿtazila were not, as far as their main premise is concerned, on the wrong side in this debate.60

Finally, there has been a tendency to attribute the anarchism of early Islam to tribalism, which in some instances appears relevant—to the early Kharijīs for instance but not necessarily the later ones. In the case of the Muʿtazilī anarchists and the Ṣūfīs of the Muʿtazila an argument based on tribal aspiration or tribal nostalgia does not stand to scrutiny. For the indi-viduals belonged to scholarly circles in the early ninth century Baghdad, Basra, and other core urban areas and expressed views that suggest decid-edly urban, communitarian, and sometimes elitist political ideologies. If these groups did indeed help pre-Islamic tribal political values survive in the early ninth century61 they did so by reinventing them within the context

59 Masāʾil, 55–56.60 Masāʾil, 51–52 fff. for more detail.61 Crone, God’s Caliph, 58–61, 269–70. For the role of tribal values in public life and poli-

tics see ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz al-Dūrī, Muqaddima fī Tārīkh Ṣadr al-Islām (Beirut: Dār al-Mashriq, 1984), 42 fff.



of an urban and agrarian empire, which renders an argument based on tribal motivations of little value analytically. Instead of tribalism, it may be more useful to look into the complex socio-political context of metropoli like Baghdad and Basra, with their functioning mosques, markets, neighbor-hoods, educational institutions, and charitable institutions to understand how anarchist ideas became one of the ideological choices available to dissenters.

Conclusion

Anarchist political thought developed within the context of the caliph-ate and was by and large about the caliphate. The stress on empower-ing the center justifĳied the actions of centripetal forces. The emphasis on succession led to an opposition accusing the caliphate of becoming indistinguishable from kingship. The sustained political interest in form-ing orthodoxy certainly assisted the formation of alternative theological positions. The systematic emphasis on sovereignty engendered questions about legitimacy and monopoly of power. The civil wars suggested that the caliphate was failing to maintain legitimacy and justice.

The question for the Ṣūfīs of the Muʿtazila was not how to reform the caliphate, but rather how to change the system more comprehensively. They were against the monopoly of power that deprived the community of its right of participation in governance. Inspired by their background, they took their religio-political opposition to its logical end and wanted to do away with rulership for good. Their dissent prompted reactions in the form of juridical/theological reprimand in sectarian language such as the accusation of heresy which often carried a serious socio-political con-sequence of exclusion from the political society. Ironically, however, the marginal views of these groups did help consolidate some of the Shīʿī, Jamāʿī, and the Muʿtazilī views on the imamate. Yet, from another per-spective, their dissenting views expressed a vital function relating to the community’s role in public life. Even if their views remained marginal, it was this kind of emphasis on the community that encouraged in the medieval period the formation of universal discourses that were anchored not to any given political system, but to the transregionally spread umma itself and to social institutions emerging from and supporting it.



AppendixPs.-Nāshiʾ al-Akbar on the Muʿtazila (Masāʾil, 49–50)

82. All of the Muʿtazila is [divided into] two classes: [The people in] one class considered the imamate necessary (wājib). They claimed that erect-ing an imām is an obligation upon the community (umma) [stemming from] the essential creed of faith (ʿaqd al-dīn). [People in] another class denied that the imamate was obligatory and claimed that it was up to the Muslims if they institute or not institute an imām. None of the two choices is better than the other. They likened that to [performing] the daily prayer with and without an imām. They said: All of that is fĳine. Whichever [of the two options] one chooses is permissible ( jāʾiz). They claimed that what is required from people is to know what they need [to know] about obligations ( farāʾiḍ) which is specifĳically related to each one of them individually. If an incident occurs and they need the presence of a judge for [settling] it, such as inflicting the punishment of mutilation on the thief, the flagging of the adulterer, and fĳighting ( jihād) the enemy, they seek a man among the more righteous ones [in their community] and appoint him for that [purpose]. When that task [for which the person was appointed] has been completed, his authority expires and he [would have] no residual [authority] in that subject [anymore]. He [becomes] like any other Muslim—similar to a group of people who appoint someone to lead the [daily] prayer. Once the prayer has ended, his imamate also expires. He is not entitled to return to the imamate again without their consent. Their source in this [opinion] is that the Prophet died without appointing anybody as an imām for the people. They said: If the imamate was one of the fundamental creeds of religion, the Prophet would have appointed someone for it among the people and instructed [them about] it, similar to how he instructed [his people concerning] the qibla, the daily prayer, and the zakāt.

83. They claimed that the judgment of Islam (ḥukm al-islām) was opposed to the judgment of other nations concerning appointing kings and adopt-ing kingdoms because the Prophet was not a king and did not appoint anyone over his community (umma) as king. They said: kingship calls for despotism (ghalaba) and monopoly of power (istiʾthār). In despotism and the monopoly of power there is the degeneration of religion, nullifĳica-tion of its laws (aḥkām) and the acceptance of the laws of kings, [which are] against the laws of the Book and the Sunna. They said: Deposing the king when he commits [a crime] invites disagreement among the umma,



dispersal of the [unity of the] word, spilling of blood, and nullifĳication of the laws. God the most exalted has commanded the Muslims to restrain whoever attempts to change anything from His laws. The kings are not to be trusted concerning replacement, change, and removing the laws from their [appropriate] places. If this is the case, whenever the imām makes a mistake the umma is responsible for preventing him [from doing that]. In this [confrontation], there is the erosion of religion, degeneration of it, [needlessly] making efffort to fĳight [mujāhada] against the imāms, and [a perpetual] fear from the tyranny of the kings. [It is the case] espe-cially since transgressors and evil doers (ahl al-baghy wa-al-fasād) incline toward the kings to afffĳirm their actions, defend and help them. They said: If this is the case, the better [option] for the people is not to have an imām [at all]. If they appoint an imām, their obligation is to depose him whenever he willfully intends to remove the laws of religion. If he does not resign, they will fĳight against him. This is the opinion of the Ṣūfĳiyyat al-Muʿtazila who uphold the prohibition of the ways of earning ( yaqūlūna bi-taḥrīm al-makāsib). Among them there is Abū ʿImrān al-Raqāshī, Faḍl al-Ḥadathī, and Ḥusayn al-Kūfī.

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Political Anarchism, Dissent, and Marginal Groups in the Early Ninth Century

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