Drafts by Omar Anchassi
The Secret Life of Elias of Babylon, 2014). Moreover, the introduction connects Ḥannā to external... more The Secret Life of Elias of Babylon, 2014). Moreover, the introduction connects Ḥannā to external sources, such as the manuscripts he owned. In the afterword, Horta recognizes Ḥannā's distinctive contributions to the Arabian Nights collection. He examines the travel account through the lens of these stories told to Galland by Ḥannā. His analysis retrieves Ḥannā's place and stolen rights as the main player in the orphan tales, rather than Galland. Horta argues how the account of Ḥannā reveals the same characteristics of the stories he supplied to the Arabian Nights. Moreover, Horta evaluates what has been taken for granted in scholarship about the role of Galland in terms of developing the characters in the Nights and modernizing the stories and making them coherent. Comparing the Nights and the travel account, we can surmise that Ḥannā is more likely to have done what is usually attributed to Galland. Although Lucas had written a travel account that never mentions Hanna, the afterword sheds light on many parallels between the two accounts. Readers will appreciate the map of the travels at the beginning of the two volumes. At the same time, they will miss an image of the manuscript to get a sense of it during discussion of its orthography and handwriting, or at least a clear reference to the Vatican website where digital photos are available. It would have been helpful to add subtitles to the edition, or at least to the translation, to distinguish the different sections of the account and the narratives. Overall, the work is significant and brings new insights into the life and travels of an early modern Aleppan Christian.
A man came before al-Hajjaj (d. 95/714) complaining that his house had been demolished and his st... more A man came before al-Hajjaj (d. 95/714) complaining that his house had been demolished and his stipend (ʿaṭāʾ) suspended because of the misdemeanours of a fellow tribesman. 'That's too bad', the governor replied, 'have you not heard the poet say: '…it might be that someone is seized for the sin of his tribesman/while the one who commits the deed escapes'?' 'God rectify the governor', the man replied, 'I have heard God say otherwise. ' 'How so?' al-Hajjaj asked. The man recited: '"O Minister! He has an aged father, so take one of us in his place: we see you as one of the virtuous. " He [Joseph] said, "We seek refuge in God that we should seize someone other than him in whose possession our [stolen] goods were found; otherwise, we would be of the wrongdoers"' (Q. 12:78-79). Al-Hajjaj ordered that the man's house be rebuilt, his stipend restored, and that a crier announce 'God has spoken the truth, and the poet has lied!' 1 As this anecdote stresses, and al-Hajjaj pointedly recognises, the principle of individual responsibility is crucial to Islam's moral weltanschauung. It marks a significant departure from jāhilī ethics, which were tribal in character and stressed group loyalty to the detriment of all else: 'Succour your brother, oppressor or oppressed'. 2 Nurit Tsafrir's brilliantly researched monograph on the institution of the ʿāqila, its adoption and subsequent modification under the Umayyads and the Hanafī School, sheds much needed light on this development, and on how the careful reading of legal and other sources can allow for the reconstruction of aspects of social and legal history. The ʿāqila is the group responsible for the payment of blood-money in cases of non-intentional homicide or injury. Jurists conceded that while its origins are indeed jāhilī, the Prophet confirmed (aqarra) this institution, rendering it properly Islamic. That those not responsible for offences should still bear the financial burden of compensation clearly reflects the tribal context of the Prophet's mission, and seemingly contradicts, Tsafrir observes, the principle of individual responsibility, a tension jurists alternately recognised and explained away (2-3). The Hijaz had no history of state formation prior to Islam, and as generations of Islamicists have remarked, the resulting law of homicide resembles a civil more than it does a criminal wrong (8). According to the jurists, it in fact belongs to a composite category, since the perpetrator is required to atone for their sin irrespective of any compensation (15). Joseph Schacht, whose approach is closely followed by Tsafrir throughout, famously averred that law did not fall under the remit of religion per se in the first century AH. Building on this controversial finding, Tsafrir demonstrates how Umayyad practice entered into the mainstream of Islamic law once this finally emerged (44-52). Early jurists accepted
President Reagan meeting with representatives of the Afghan Mujahidin (1983) 1 Ottoman Puritanism... more President Reagan meeting with representatives of the Afghan Mujahidin (1983) 1 Ottoman Puritanism and its Discontents: Aḥmad al-Rūmī al-Āqḥiṣārī and the Qāḍīzādelis by Mustapha Sheikh, 2016. Oxford: Oxford University Press, £65.00, vi + 191 pp., ISBN: 978-0-19-879076-1
Papers by Omar Anchassi
I thank Ashraf Hassan for discussing this point with me. 2 Abdulrahman al-Salimi, "Introduction,"... more I thank Ashraf Hassan for discussing this point with me. 2 Abdulrahman al-Salimi, "Introduction," in Ibadi Texts in Oman from the 3rd/9th Century, ed. Abdulrahman al-Salimi (Leiden: Brill, 2022), 1-30 (at 10). 3 Ibid., 28. 4 The Muḥakkima are the group who rebelled against the Caliph ʿAlī (r. 35/656-40/661), refusing to accept his submission to arbitration (taḥkīm) in his struggle against Muʿāwiya (r. 41/661-60/680), insisting that "God had made His intentions clear regarding the likes of Muʿāwiya: he should be fought, using the terminology of Q 49:9, until he "returned to the ordinance (amr) of God"." The name Muḥakkima derives from their slogan, "no judgement but God's" (lā ḥukm illā li-llāh).
This article traces juristic debates on the ethics of masturbation from the formative period of I... more This article traces juristic debates on the ethics of masturbation from the formative period of Islamic law to the early nineteenth century. I document the appearance of discussions of the practice in the earliest extant sources and explore how masturbation figures in the Sunnī and Šīʿī ḥadīṯ corpora with attention to regional patterns of dissemination. I also address the terminology used by jurists and point to material in encyclopaedias, adab and other works where relevant, and include some comparative observations from other cultures. My overall findings include the fact of clear regional patterns of opinion across the amṣār (garrison cities) in the early period and an unmistakable increase in “conservatism” on sexual matters with the consolidation of the legal schools (maḏāhib), as well as a clear distinction between Sunnī and Šīʿī views on the practice. I conclude by attempting to explain the relatively low visibility of masturbation in legal sources and to account for the doctrinal shift more generally.
This article explores how mutakallimūn engaged with competing visions of the cosmos—traditionalis... more This article explores how mutakallimūn engaged with competing visions of the cosmos—traditionalist and Aristotelian-Ptolemaic—to the beginning of the sixth/twelfth century. Drawing on works of kalām, Quran commentary, and items from other genres, I demonstrate that rationalist theologians remained divided on such questions as the shape of the earth to the end of this period. These disagreements, moreover, cannot be explained in terms of school affiliation. Based on a comprehensive examination of published sources, I argue that cosmographical opinion among mutakallimūn was a function of exposure to late ancient learning, intellectual formation, and personal inclination more than doctrinal commitment.
In her formidable study of the intellectual project and life of Abū l-Maʿālī al-Juwaynī (d. 478/1... more In her formidable study of the intellectual project and life of Abū l-Maʿālī al-Juwaynī (d. 478/1085), Law and Politics under the Abbasids: An Intellectual Portrait of al-Juwayni, Sohaira Siddiqui makes a number of significant interventions. Among these contributions, she urges historians to read across genres-not to disregard the conventions governing premodern scholarly production, but to throw underlying coherence into greater relief. The coherence in the Juwaynian project is by no means assumed in this book. Rather, it is demonstrated through a painstaking reading of a number of his most influential texts in the domains of legal theory and theology. The relationship of al-Juwaynī's central concerns of certainty and continuity to his historical and social context is carefully argued. In fact, the fundaments of religion and society themselves, Siddiqui indicates, were perceived to be under threat during this period. As Omid Safi has highlighted in his Politics of Knowledge in Premodern Islam, the early Saljuq regime considered doing away with the Abbasid Caliph altogether (39). Sectarianism had riven the legal and theological communities, fracturing them into mutually hostile Ḥanafī-Shāfiʿī and Muʿtazilī-Ashʿarī camps. Most spectacularly, this rivalry led to al-Juwaynī's surreptitious flight from Nishapur in 446/1054, following which orders were issued for his arrest (47). This is the backdrop against which al-Juwaynī laboured to guarantee a basic minimum of certainty and continuity to religious life. It is worth pausing to unpack these two themes of the Juwaynian corpus and to explore how they relate to Siddiqui's broader argument. I offer this summary by way of preface to my own engagement with the book's arguments in the following section. My colleagues, Mohammad Fadel, Joshua Ralston, Walid Saleh and Mariam Sheibani will each contribute pieces on their reactions to the book and its implications for the field. The author will offer a response following the publication of all the pieces.
This article explores how jurists articulated the distinction between free and enslaved Muslim wo... more This article explores how jurists articulated the distinction between free and enslaved Muslim women through sartorial norms in the formative and early post-formative periods of Islamic law. Drawing on works of fiqh (positive law), tafsīr (Qurʾān commentary) and ḥadīth (Prophetic and non-Prophetic reports), I posit that this distinction attests to the tensions between “proprietary” and “theocentric” sexual ethics, as noted by Hina Azam. Specifically, I track the variant transmissions of a widely-cited report featuring the Caliph ʿUmar (r. 13–23/634–44), and trace how jurists responded to the free-slave binary in their discussion of “modesty zones” (ʿawrāt) and veiling practices. Based on a detailed examination of fiqh sources to the early fifth Islamic century (with some attention to subsequent material), I argue that Islamic modesty norms are best understood in light of the proprietary/theocentric binary, and that the divergence between juristic expectations of free and enslaved women increased in the post-formative period.
Conference Presentations by Omar Anchassi
Interpreting the Kāshif al-Ghiṭāʾ Library: Provenance, Genre, and Scribal Culture (University of Exeter, Islamicate Digital Humanities Workshop, 8 December 2021)
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Drafts by Omar Anchassi
Papers by Omar Anchassi
Conference Presentations by Omar Anchassi