Piety and Patienthood in Medieval Islam

Ahmed Ragab

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781351103510
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Islamic Theology

How did pious medieval Muslims experience health and disease? Rooted in the prophet's experiences with medicine and healing, Muslim pietistic literature developed cosmologies in which physical suffering and medical interventions interacted with religious obligations and spiritual health. This book traces the development of prophetic medical literature and religious writings around health and disease to give a new perspective on how patienthood was conditioned by the intersection of medicine and Islam.

The author investigates the early and foundational writings on prophetic medicine and related pietistic writings on health and disease produced during the Islamic Classical Age. Looking at attitudes from and towards clerics, physicians and patients, sickness and health are gradually revealed as a social, gendered, religious, and cultural experience. Patients are shown to experience certain sensoria that are conditioned not only by medical knowledge, but also by religious and pietistic attitudes.

This is a fascinating insight into the development of Muslim pieties and the traditions of medical practice. It will be of great interest to scholars interested in Islamic Studies, history of religion, history of medicine, science and religion and the history of embodied religious practice, particularly in matters of health and medicine.

1 “A beau ideal for whosoever hopes for God”

The making of medical prophetics in the ninth and tenth centuries

The middle of the ninth century witnessed a number of watershed moments for the development of ḥadīth sciences. The work of al-Shāfiʿī, as many contemporary and later scholars explained, helped consolidate the importance of ḥadīth in legal jurisprudence. Ibn Ḥanbal’s work helped solidify some of the emerging methods and tools of ḥadīth criticism in a variety of ways, including training a group of scholars and reporters who would dominate the scene of ḥadīth reporting and criticism for the rest of the ninth century and whose work would come to constitute important milestones in the sciences of ḥadīth. Ibn Ḥanbal’s position during the miḥna (the trial or testing) and his vicious attacks against Shiites and Muʿtazilites helped solidify a new theological and sectarian position for the emerging group that came to be known as the people of ḥadīth (ahl al-ḥadīth).¹ Other scholars like Isḥāq ibn Rāhawayh (d. 853), Abū Zarʿah al-Rāzī (d. 878), Abū Ḥātim Muḥammad ibn Idrīs al-Rāzī (d. 890), and Muḥammad ibn Naṣr al-Marwazī (d. 907) played important roles in consolidating some of the traditions of ḥadīth sciences, which would continue to influence scholars for centuries to come and, in many cases, continue to resonate today. In this same period, the collections of al-Bukhārī (d. 870), Muslim ibn al-Ḥajjāj (d. 875), Abū Dawwūd (d. 889), al-Dārimī (d. 868), al-Tirmidhī (d. 892), and al-Nasāʾī (d. 915) were produced. Although almost a century would pass before most of these compilations acquired the respect and reverence that they enjoyed later on as some of the central collections of Sunnī ḥadīths,² the rise of these rather selective collections marked an important moment in the history of ḥadīth sciences and indicated a level of maturity in the epistemic and professional practices of these scholars. The rise of these collections was also a sign of a slow but steady transition toward privileging the marfūʿ (elevated) over mawqūf (arrested) ḥadīths – the former being ones that go back (elevated up) to the prophet himself and the latter as ones whose chains of transmission stop at one of the companions and do not reach the prophet. To be sure, the mawqūf traditions continued to play a significant role in the production of legal and pietistic discourses and continued to be subject to scrutiny, criticism, and analysis in ways similar to the marfūʿ traditions. However, the shift in the number of mawqūf traditions from the early collections of Mālik ibn Anas to the collections of Ibn Abī Shaybah and then of al-Dārimī, al-Bukhārī or Muslim ibn al-Ḥajjāj mark this growing interest in preserving the legacy of the prophet himself in a manner that would be distinguishable from those of even his closest companions.³

At the heart of this burgeoning environment, scholars contended with the legal and pietistic dimensions of a few central questions: What was the prophet’s sunna? How could it be reported and discussed? And what obligations were constituted by this sunna? The sunna, and the prophet’s sayings and deeds that constituted its amorphous corpus, functioned as part of a pietistic discourse that identified what pious Muslims were supposed to do and how they were required or asked to behave. In this regard, knowledge about the prophet and the early community became an important tool in creating a pietistic environ that Muslims were asked to inhabit. This environ was structured around the prophet as a moral and pietistic example and, as the Quran put it, “a beau ideal for whosoever hopes for God” [Q33:21]. Such a legacy did not only involve legal questions or issues related to religious rituals and obligations, but was also important in relation to various daily activities, from eating to drinking to having sex or getting sick and receiving treatment. Although many of the reported narratives about the prophet’s daily life did not constitute furūḍ (religious obligations), they contributed to the making of a pietistic narrative, which included sunan and nawāfil (supererogatory acts), among other nonmandatory rituals, that influenced how pious Muslims understood their relationship to the religious past.

This chapter focuses on the construction of the prophet’s persona as a beau ideal in relation to medicine. In its first half, it starts by addressing the making of the sunna and its evolving relation to ḥadīth in the work of al-Shāfiʿī and other ninth-century scholars. Here, I look at the connections between ḥadīth and adab and the attending practices of collecting and categorization. It then moves to discussing the relation between ḥadīth and adab, understood as both a literary and epistemic discipline, as well as a locus of self-fashioning. In the second half, the chapter looks at the medical sections in the major ḥadīth collections of the ninth century. Here, I investigate the beginning of the interest in these medical questions in the works of Muʿammir ibn Rāshid (d. 770) and his student, ʿAbd al-Razzāq al-Ṣanʿānī (d. 826), as well as in the works of Abū ʿAbd Allāh ibn Saʿd (d. 845) and their contemporaries. I then analyze the medical chapters of some of the major ḥadīth compilations, including those of Ibn Abī Shaybah (d. 849), al-Bukhārī (d. 870), Muslim ibn al-Ḥajjāj (d. 875), and al-Tirmidhī (d. 892), among others. Here, I first analyze the main themes and common tropes in these various compilations before concluding with an examination of the “materia prophetica,” or the materials used and mentioned in these texts as treatments. In mapping the “materia prophetica” in these compilations, I attempt to reproduce the material space of this prophetic narrative.

The emergence of Muḥammad

The development of ḥadīth sciences in the seventh and eighth centuries was connected to the development of the sīra and maghāzī literature chronicling the life of the prophet and his companions. For instance, some of the earliest examples of a systematic effort to collect ḥadīths and to record them was undertaken by the famous author of sīra, Ibn Shahāb al-Zuhrī (d. 742). Al-Zuhrī worked under the patronage of the Umayyad court as an educator to the Umayyad Caliph Hishām ibn ʿAbd al-Malik’s (r. 724–743) sons. Al-Zuhrī used this opportunity to collect and record ḥadīths aided by a number of students.⁴ Sīra and maghāzī books included collections of ḥadīths attributed to Muḥammad along with anecdotes that were reported by eyewitnesses or attributed to other important companions who were close to events in the life of Muḥammad.⁵ With the rise in importance of ḥadīth and the sunna as sources for interpreting the Quran and for the law, the importance of sīra and maghāzī rose as well.

The development of the maghāzī and sīra literature from the mid-seventh to the ninth and tenth centuries further demonstrates the increasing interest in the details of Muḥammad’s life in connection to the emerging importance of the sunna at the legal and pietistic levels.⁶ The beginning of this literature on Muḥammad’s history was in the maghāzī accounts, which focused on the battles and wars that Muḥammad waged and other central events in his life.⁷ The maghāzī literature had its roots in Arabian tribal accounts of battles and conquests known as ayyām al-ʿArab or Battles of the Arabs. The new Islamic rendition, however, extolled a significant pietistic dimension. In maghāzī works, divine interventions, the causes of various events or actions taken by the prophet, and the consequences of these events presented an important pietistic background that supplanted the tribal heroisms of ayyām al-ʿArab.⁸ For instance, al-Zuhrī was reported to have said that “‘the science of maghāzī is the science of both this world and the Hereafter’; ʿAlī b. al-Ḥusayn is recorded as saying, ‘We used to learn maghāzī of the prophet as we learnt a sūrah of the Qurʾān.’”⁹

Moreover, Muḥammad’s life and the early days of the Muslim polity carried significant political implications under first, the Umayyads, and then, the Abbasids. The stories of different companions, their connections to Muḥammad, and the different roles that they played or that were assigned to them significantly influenced how they and the legitimacy of their political positions and acts were perceived in the following centuries. Thus, these stories, the perceptions of them, and the legitimacy they proffered came to form the claims of the various reigns and polities that followed Muḥammad’s death. Ultimately, the strongest claim to legitimacy was one related to tribal origin (namely, belonging to Quraysh, with preference awarded according to the clan and family) and to precedence in accepting Islam and migrating from Mecca to Medina, known as al-sabq fī-l-Islām wa-l-hijra.¹⁰ Those who believed in Muḥammad first, who accompanied him, and who emigrated with him were awarded more legitimacy and more authority retrospectively.¹¹

This ranking of the companions based on precedence in Islam and migration carried particularly significant political weight for the Umayyads, whose forefathers were mostly late-comers to Islam and had fought against Muḥammad for a decade or more before joining his victorious polity. Facing Alid opposition, which was bolstered by ʿAlī’s kinship, companionship to the prophet, and his precedence in Islam, the Umayyads relied on the legitimacy of the first three caliphs, particularly ʿUthmān ibn ʿAffān, who was their closest of kin, and in whose assassination they implicated ʿAlī.¹² In his Maghāzī, Ibn Shahāb al-Zuhrī paid special attention to the place of ʿAlī and ʿUthmān and their various claims to precedence. For instance, in discussing who the first Muslim was, al-Zuhrī dismissed the claim that ʿAlī was the first to convert, attributing this honor to Muḥammad’s adopted son Zayd ibn Ḥāritha.¹³ The choice of Zayd is significant for a number of reasons. On one hand, his close association with Muḥammad made this anecdote plausible. On the other, Zayd passed away during Muḥammad’s life and was not party to the conflicts between ʿAlī and Muʿāwiyah (r. 661–680). His son, Usāma ibn Zayd (d. 673), who was an important companion in his own right and was appointed by Muḥammad to lead the last campaign dispatched shortly before his death, refused to fight alongside ʿAlī, casting significant doubts on his support for the Alid cause.

The same sensitivity can be seen in the discussion of the battle of Uḥud (ca. 625), which constituted Muḥammad’s first defeat and a moment of great distress to the emerging community. Al-Zuhrī paid attention to how Abū Sufyān (the father of Muʿāwiyah, the Umayyad first caliph), who was among the leaders of the Meccan armies fighting against Muḥammad, acted gallantly, and was even remorseful for the calamities that befell the Muslims:

Abū Sufyān said, “You will find that some of your dead were mutilated. [Know] that this was not decided by us or by our leaders.” He then said, “May Hubal (a Meccan deity) be glorified.” ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb said, “Allah is mightier and holier.” Abū Sufyān said, “Your dead are for our dead in the battle of Badr.” ʿUmar replied, “The two are not equal. Our dead will be in heaven and yours will be in hell.” So Abū Sufyān said, “We have failed then!” and he went back to Mecca.¹⁴

In the same vein, the roles played by different companions, their closeness to the prophet, and the details of their lives influenced how later scholars of law and ḥadīth judged their piety and integrity and accepted them as sources for ḥadīth or for the law. G.H.A. Juynboll has argued that ḥadīth transmitters and compilers of the eighth century engaged in discussions around the role and trustworthiness of the prophet’s companions and showed significant interest in defending the collective integrity of the companions, especial...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• 1 “A beau ideal for whosoever hopes for God”: the making of medical prophetics in the ninth and tenth centuries
• 2 From medical prophetics to prophetic medicine
• 3 Piety and illness
• 4 Spiritual medicine
• 5 The pious physician
• Coda
• Bibliography
• Index