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[German version] ( Hārūn ar-Rašı̄d). Fifth Abbasid ( Abbasids)  Caliph (AD 786-809). Popular because of the narratives from the ‘Arabian Nights’. His term of office was characterized by political unrest in the Arab lands from North Africa to Yemen, by difficulties in consolidating  Islam in the eastern parts of his realm, as well as by wars against Byzantium. His main achievement in the cultural area is the promotion of translations into Arabic of Greek natural scientific and philosophical literature. Schönig, Hanne…

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[German version] (< Shia/ Šı̄a, literally 'party', elliptical for 'Party of Ali'). Term for the supporters of Ali in the struggle for the caliphate (Caliph). According to the number of imams (Imam) they recognise, Fiver (e.g. Zaidites in Yemen), Sevener (e.g. Ismailites in Pakistan and central Asia; Fatimids 909-1171 in northern Africa and Egypt, Fatima) and Twelver Shiites (group with the largest number of adherents, today in e.g. Iran, Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon) are distinguished. Martyrdom, i.e…

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[German version] (Ḥusain). Grandson of the Prophet  Muhammad (Muḥammad), son of his daughter  Fatima (Fāṭima) and cousin of  Ali (ʿAlı̄). Third  Imām of the  Shiites. After the death of the  Caliph  Muʿāwiya he was forced by members of his father's party to take over power from the  Umayyads, and was killed by their troops at Kerbela (ʿIrāq) in 680. His martyr's death is remembered by the Shiites annually in passion plays, his supporters' failure to succour him is atoned for in processions of flagellators. Schönig, Hanne (Halle/Saale) Bibliography H. Halm, Der schiitische Islam, 1994 Id…

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[German version] (Abū Bakr). First of the four righteous caliphs (AD 632-34), i. e. the first successor of  Muhammad. As one of the latter's first followers and close advisor, A. became caliph after his death though not without opposition ( Ali). After subduing the apostasy movement he is credited with the initial consolidation of the young Islamic community and laid the foundation for its rapid initial expansion.   Caliph Schönig, Hanne (Halle/Saale) …

[German version] ( Makka; Μακόραβα; Makóraba, Ptol. 6,7,32). The most important of the holy cities of Islam only accessible to Muslims, located in modern Saudi Arabia. Mecca is the place where the prophet Muhammad was born and worked until he emigrated ( Hejira) to Medina ( Yaṯrib). It is the direction of prayer and the destination of pilgrimage ( Kaaba). Mecca was already an important centre of trade in the pre-Islamic period. The first Koranic revelations ( Qur'an) are primarily a critique of the materialism and lack of faith of Meccan merchants. Macoraba Schönig, Ha…

( Banū Umayya). [German version] A. The dynasty AD 661-750 First Islamic dynasty (AD 661-750), with its capital at Damascus. Under the Umayyads, the Islamic expansion reached Central Asia in the east and the Pyrenees in the west. The Byzantines were driven out of North Africa, but kept resisting the Arabs in Asia Minor. This - ethnically and religiously heterogeneous - extensive empire required a new internal organization and administration, modelled on Byzantine and Persian-Sassanid institutions. Its heyday was followed by a fast decline, aided by a combination of various factors, particularly under a weak ruler (Al-Walīd II, 743-744): the strengthening of the Arabian element (‘Arabian Empire’ [3]) combined with a neglect of the Islamic principle of equality, the conflict between Arabs and non-Arabs, increasing intertribal feuds (pre-Islamic conflict between northern and southern Arabs), the revival of non-Sunni Islamic orientations …

[German version] (Arab. imām, in general ‘conductor, leader’). 1. conductor of prayer, i.e. prayer-leader in the mosque, 2. leader of the community of all Muslims in succession to the prophet  Mohammed (Muḥammad), i.e. religious and political head. The schools of law and lines of belief evidently have different views about qualifications, investiture and offices/duties of the imam. Among the  Sunnites: defender of faith, (religious) law and j…

[German version] ( ḥarı̄m). A sacred, inviolable, prohibited place, i.e. those parts of the house where the women (mother, wife/wives, daughters, unmarried sisters, concubines) of a family live and which can only be entered by those male members of the family who ha…

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[German version] ( kalām). In Islam, (scholastic) theology, (defensive) apologetic. In fact: ʿilm al-kalām, literally: ‘science of the word, of speech’, which means presentation and explanation, dispute, discussion, (rational and dialectical) argumentation, reasoning, and the defence of Islamic beliefs and of the divine unity, against persons of different faiths, infidels, doubters, and heretics ( Heresiology). A theological discipline since the 7th cent. The emphasis is on a rational-dialectical, and, from the 11th cent., on syllogistic argumentation in the discussion about a) the conception of the caliphate and imamate, b) predestination and free will, c) belief and unbelief, d) the attributes of God, e) creation of the Koran. Beginning with the ʿAbbasids (AD 750-1258), translations from Greek into Arabic led to contact with, and reception of, Greek dialectics, philosophy (Aristotelian logic) and metaphysics, and, as a result, to the development of several schools and factions (movements). The rationalist theology of the Muʿtazila in the 8th-10th cents. is based primarily on the thesis of the unity and justice of God. In the 10th cent., the latter gave rise to the oppositional movement of reform by the Ašʿarites [1], which at first was involved with the most traditional school of law, the Hanbalites, both thematically and methodological…

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[German version] ( masǧid; ‘place where one prostrates oneself (in prayer)’; the Arabic word is of Syrian origin: masgeḏā). Muslim (Islam) place of prayer; also, a social meeting-point and a place of teaching. In the course of time several architectural types of mosques developed and already existing cult buildings were taken over (Hagia Sophia, Constantinople; Ummayad Mosque, Damascus). All mosques have a prayer niche facing Mecca, washing facilities and usually one or more minarets (Muezzin). In special Friday mosques ( ǧāmi) the Friday prayer is performed together in th…

[German version] I. Christian Term used to delineate unwelcome religious teachings divergent from orthodoxy. In Pre-Christian and non-Christian contexts, the Greek term   haíresis (αἵρεσις, Latin haeresis [5]) was still entirely value-free: the basic meaning ‘to take’, ‘to choose’ evolves into ‘religious or philosophical school of thought’, ‘school perspective’, as well as ‘member of a school of thought’, ‘(fragmentation into) parties’, ‘sect’, cf. for example the titles in Lucian, Hermótimos ḕ perì hairéseōn; Antipater of Tarsus, Katà tôn hairéseōn; Varro, Perì hairéseōn (…

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(Koran) [German version] A. Definition The sacred book of the Muslims, the word of God, received through the prophet Muhammad c. AD 610-632. Schönig, Hanne (Halle/Saale) [German version] B. Origin The divine revelations had already been collected in oral and written form by the faithful during the lifetime of the prophet, but it was the 3rd Caliph Othman (ʿUṯmān; 644-56) who compiled them in their ultimate, unchangeable, canonical form. Schönig, Hanne (Halle/Saale) [German version] C. Structure and form - language and style The 114 Suras (loan word from Talmudic šūrah ‘sequence, lin…