razib
-
12:49:55 pm on May 8, 2008 | # | |
aprosos of the apostasy post below, God’s Rule - Government and Islam: Six Centuries of Medieval Islamic Political Thought :
The Prophet was remembered as havinggiven them the choice between conversion and death. But it was only Arab pagans that he had eradicated: did non-Arab peers have to be similarly treated? After some debate, the jurists decided that the Zoroastrians…were an exception, they had once possessed a book…and/or that the Prophet had accepted jizya from Zoroastrians (in eastern Arabia)…But the jurists could not agree on other pagans. Some took the Prophet’s eradication of Arab idolaters to mean that all pagans had to be given the choice between Islam or death, whatever their ethnicity. This was the position of the Shafi’ites…Others argued that the Arabs were a special case and that it was the Prophet’s treatment of Zoroastrians which had universal significance: all non-Arab pagans should be treated as Zoroastrains. That was the position of the Malikis and Hanafis…aruging that all unbelievers were eligible for dhimmi status, full stop.the hanafi position is one reason adduced as to why this school is popular in the turkic and south asian world; it was more practical since non-muslims were thick on the ground. but it is interesting to note that shafis are dominant in southeast asia, where there are large non-muslim pagan minorities (buddhists and hindus).
-
Tag this post
aziz 1:26 pm on May 8, 2008 | #
what time period does the quoted text refer to? (I am probably broadcasting my ignorance by asking).
Shafis are dominant in southeast asia, but that doesnt mean that shafism is a monolithic entity. Being adjacent to heavily Buddhist and Hindu majorities probably has influenced it heavily. There is bound to be cultural syncretism, which will override religious theory in favor of more pragmatic coexistence. The harsh Shafist school that is more likely to take the view about pagans more seriously is probably the African side (Sudan, etc). I find it intriguing that the Shafi school is so widely separated between two spheres - with an ocean between them, I doubt that theres any theologic crosstalk or reinforcement.
razib 5:50 pm on May 8, 2008 | #
1) i’m pretty sure that this is around 1000 AD when the sunni party coalesced around the 4 primary schools of hanafi, shafi, maliki and hanbali….
2) the mopillas of kerala are also shafi. i’m pretty sure that the shafi dominance among indian ocean sunnis has to do with the arab trade dominance. there are ‘arabs’ in indonesia who are descendants of merchants that showed up as late as the 19th century from southern yemen. i put arab in quote since these are now mixed populations. the southern yemenis actually were prominent in reforming mopilla islam as late as the 20th century.
fwiw, your point about pragmatism is kind of my point….
aziz 6:35 am on May 9, 2008 | #
there’s also a gigantic Indian community in East Africa, and so you would expect Shafism to be rather diluted there.
what i was getting at is that the harsher shafi tone towards apostasy doesnt seem to govern actual implementation. You pointed out that Hanafi school is dominant in South Asia, because of pragmatic reasons. I am arguing that even the Shafi school is likely to look Hanafi in practice (with respect to apostasy and unbelievers, anyway) for much teh same reasons.
razib 11:55 am on May 9, 2008 | #
there’s also a gigantic Indian community in East Africa, and so you would expect Shafism to be rather diluted there.
right, but these are most ismaili and hanafi gujaratis, and it isn’t like they interact with the vast numbers of native muslims. the omanis are ibadi, outside of sunni or shia islam.