Template:Italic title Template:More footnotes In Islam, a Template:Transliteration (Template:Lang-ar; plural: Template:Lang, Template:Transliteration), meaning "renunciate", is someone who maintains the pure monotheism of the patriarch Abraham. More specifically, in Islamic thought, renunciates were the people who, during the pre-Islamic period or Template:Transliteration, were seen to have renounced idolatry and retained some or all of the tenets of the religion of Abraham (Template:Lang, Template:Transliteration), which was submission to God in its purest form.Template:Sfn The word is found twelve times in the Quran (ten times in its singular form and twice in the plural form) and Islamic tradition tells of a number of individuals who were Template:Transliteration.[1] According to Muslim tradition, Muhammad himself was a Template:Transliteration and a descendant of Ishmael, son of Abraham.[2]
Etymology and history of the term
The term Template:Transliteration comes from the Arabic root Template:Transliteration meaning "to incline, to decline"[3] or "to turn or bend sideways"[4] from the Syriac root of the same meaning.[5] It is defined as "true believer, orthodox; one who scorns the false creeds surrounding him/her and profess the true religion" by The Arabic-English Dictionary of Modern Written Arabic.[4]
According to Francis Edward Peters, in verse Template:Cite quran of the Quran it has been translated as "upright person" and outside the Quran as "to incline towards a right state or tendency".Template:Sfn According to W. Montgomery Watt, it appears to have been used earlier by Jews and Christians in reference to "pagans" and applied to followers of an old Hellenized Syrian and Arabian religion and used to taunt early Muslims.Template:Sfn
Michael Cook states "its exact sense is obscure" but the Quran "uses it in contexts suggestive of a pristine monotheism, which it tends to contrast with (latter-day) Judaism and Christianity". In the Quran Template:Transliteration is associated "strongly with Abraham, but never with Moses or Jesus".[6]
Oxford Islamic Studies online defines Template:Transliteration as "one who is utterly upright in all of his or her affairs, as exemplified by the model of Abraham"; and that prior to the arrival of Islam "the term was used [...] to designate pious people who accepted monotheism but did not join the Jewish or Christian communities."[7]
Others translate Template:Transliteration as the law of Ibrahim; the verb Template:Transliteration as "to turn away from [idolatry]". Others maintain that the Template:Transliteration followed the "religion of Ibrahim, the Template:Transliteration, the Muslim[.]"Template:Sfn It has been theorized by Watt that the verbal term Islam, arising from the participle form of Muslim (meaning "surrendered to God"), may have only arisen as an identifying descriptor for the religion in the late Medinan period.Template:Sfn
List of Template:Transliteration
According to the Encyclopædia Britannica, "some of Muḥammad's relatives, contemporaries, and early supporters were called Template:Transliteration"[8] – examples including Waraqah ibn Nawfal, "a cousin of the Prophet’s first wife, Khadija bint Khuwaylid,[8] and Umayyah ibn Abī aṣ-Ṣalt, "an early 7th-century Arab poet".[8]
According to the website "In the Name of Allah", the term Template:Transliteration is used "twelve times in the Quran", but Abraham/Ibrahim is "the only person to have been explicitly identified with the term." He is mentioned "in reference to" Template:Transliteration eight times in the Quran.[9]
Among those who, pre traditional Islamic belief,Template:Cn are thought to be Template:Transliteration are:
- All the prophets and messengers after Abraham
- Old Najranites
- Seven Sleepers
- Sa'id bin Zayd
- Khaled bin Sinan
- Hashim ibn Abd Manaf
The four friends in Mecca from ibn Ishaq's account:
- Zayd ibn Amr: rejected both Judaism and ChristianityTemplate:Sfn
- Waraqah ibn Nawfal: was an Nestorian priest and patrilineal third cousin to Muhammad. He died before Muhammad declared his Prophethood.Template:Sfn
- Uthman ibn al-Huwayrith: travelled to the Byzantine Empire and converted to ChristianityTemplate:Sfn
- Ubayd-Allah ibn Jahsh: early Muslim convert who emigrated to the Kingdom of Aksum and then converted to Christianity.Template:Sfn
Template:Transliteration opponents of Islam from Ibn Isḥāq's account:
- Abū 'Amar 'Abd Amr ibn Sayfī: a leader of the tribe of Banu Aws at Medina and builder of the "Mosque of the Schism" mentioned in the Quranic verse Template:Cite quran and later allied with the Quraysh then moved to Ta'if and onto Syria after subsequent early Muslim conquests.Template:Sfn
- Abu Qays ibn al-AslaṭTemplate:Sfn
Historicity
According to the Encyclopædia Britannica, "there is no evidence that a true Template:Transliteration cult existed in pre-Islāmic Arabia".[8]
A Greek source from the fifth century CE, The Ecclesiastical History of Sozomen, speaks of how "Abraham had bequeathed a monotheist religion" to Arabs, that the Arabs descended "from Ishmael and Hagar" and followed Jewish practices such as not eating pork.[10] No archaeological evidence has been found to support the idea that Abraham was a real person,[11] and most scholars do not consider the Book of Genesis to be an accurate history.Template:Citation needed
Sozomen was a historian of the Christian Church who is thought to have been a native of Gaza[12] whose native tongue was Arabic and who lived from about 400-450 CE. Thus according to Ibn Rawandi, he provides a "reliable source" that Arabs – at least in northwest Arabia – were familiar with the idea there were pre-Islamic "Abrahamic monotheists (Template:Transliteration) [...] whether this was true of Arabs throughout the [Arabian] peninsula it is impossible to say".[10]
See also
- Banu Khuza'a
- Noahidism, similar concept with Judaism
- Abrahamites
- Perennial Philosophy
- People of the Book
- Prisca theologia, equivalent concept in esoteric Christianity
- Rahmanism
- Urmonotheismus
Notes
- ↑ Muslim World, Volume XXIX, 1949, pp. 120-125.. Muslim World({Template:Date).
- ↑ See:
- Louis Jacobs (1995), p. 272
- Turner (2005), p. 16
- ↑ Lane, 1893
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 Dictionary of Modern Written Arabic{{#if:|, {{{last}}}}
- ↑ Lane, 1893
- ↑ Muhammad{{#if:|, {{{last}}}}. Oxford University Press(1983). ISBN 0192876058
- ↑ Hanif. Oxford Islamic Studies Online. Retrieved 28 October 2019.
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 8.3 Hanif. britannica.com. Retrieved 23 February 2020.
- ↑ hanif. In the Name of Allah. Retrieved 28 October 2019.
- ↑ 10.0 10.1 Ibn Rawandi, "Origins of Islam", 2000: p.112
- ↑ What Did the Biblical Writers Know and When Did They Know It?: What Archeology Can Tell Us About the Reality of Ancient Israel{{#if:Dever|, Dever}. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing(2001-05-10). ISBN 978-0-8028-2126-3
- ↑ Crone, Meccan Trade and the Rise of Islam, 1987: p.190-91
References
- A Concise Dictionary of Koranic Arabic{{#if:|, {{{last}}}}. Reichert(2004)
- Meccan Trade and the Rise of Islam{{#if:|, {{{last}}}}. Princeton University Press(1987)
- The Idea of Idolatry and the Emergence of Islam: From Polemic to History{{#if:Hawting|, Hawting}. Cambridge University Press(1999)
- The Quest for the Historical Muhammad{{#if:|, {{{last}}}}. Prometheus(2000)
- Ishmael Instructs Isaac: An Introduction to the Qu'ran for Bible Readers{{#if:Kaltner|, Kaltner}. Liturgical Press(1999). ISBN 0-8146-5882-2
- Concept of Monotheism in Islam & Christianity{{#if:|, {{{last}}}}. International Progress Organization(1982). ISBN 3-7003-0339-4
- Muhammad and the Origins of Islam{{#if:Peters|, Peters}. SUNY Press(1994). ISBN 0-7914-1875-8
- Muhammad: prophet and statesman{{#if:Watt|, Watt}. Oxford University Press US(1974). ISBN 0-19-881078-4