Ummah

A New Paradigm for a Global World

Katrin A. Jomaa

• Editorial: SUNY Press
• Año: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781438482064
• Categoría: Theologie & Religion
• Categoría: Islamische Theologie

How can we live together without alienation, avoidance, and fear? How can we complement one another such that each of us can uniquely contribute to the making of our societies? To address these and other questions, Katrin A. Jomaa examines the moral, political, and spiritual understanding of the Qur'anic term ummah, which is commonly used to refer to the worldwide Muslim community but is employed more broadly in the Qur'an itself. Drawing on theology, history, philosophy, and political science, Jomaa argues that ummah, while often defined as a group of people united by ethnicity or religion, is, in its ideal sense, a community that demands active commitment and a conscious and continuous dedication to the highest moral ideals of that community rather than mere affiliation with a particular set of religious doctrines and practices. Jomaa begins by chronologically and thematically analyzing the word "ummah" in the Qur'an, a comprehensive study currently missing from Islamic scholarship, in order to propose a novel understanding of the term that connects all its different meanings. She then compares this new definition to the Aristotelean polis, which highlights the political features of ummah, thereby situating it within contemporary discourses on liberal politics and community and creating the space for an alternative sociopolitical order to the nation-state, both as a local unit and a global system.

Chapter 1

Conceptual Meaning of Ummah in the Meccan Verses of the Qurʾān

Ummah in the Literature

In common parlance, the term ummah often refers to the Muslim community. However, looking at the literature, we find different usages for the word and different explanations for its meaning. Riḍwān as-Sayyid cited eight meanings for the word ummah in classical Arabic dictionaries, whereas six of those meanings are mentioned in the Qurʾān. The common meanings are: a group of people, followers of a prophet, a specific religion, exemplary human being, unrivaled individuals, and a period of time.¹ There is no comprehensive study that relates all of those meanings to one another or, in other words, attempts to find a causal relationship among the different meanings in the Qurʾān that would highlight the specific connotation of the word ummah relative to other similar terms.

Naṣīf Naṣṣār, an Arab intellectual from the modern period, says that the concept of the ummah is one of the greatest social ideas, an idea that is most complicated, mysterious, and charming. However, the idea of the ummah is different from its practical manifestation in social and historical realities. Thus, Naṣṣār argues, the dialectic between the idea of the ummah and its different forms of existence will continue until all the hidden content of the ummah, as an idea, is practically revealed in the social history of humankind.² I find this statement particularly interesting because it reflects two realities; one is the abstract theoretical dimension of the term, and the other is its practical expression in history. It also suggests that the full realization of the ummah has not come about yet and that research carried out on the ummah has not exhausted all of its possibilities. Exegetes resort to interpretation (taʾwīl) to define and understand the concept. However, this method still leaves many question marks about the concept.³ On the other hand, Muslim exegetes did not study the concept in a methodological, organized manner to explore the different aspects and meanings of ummah. Their orientation was focused on the relationship between the concept of a community and sharīʿah (religious law), so they overlooked the theoretical understanding of the ummah before receiving religious law.

The latter statement is evident in the way exegetes differed in their understanding of ummah in the premodern and modern periods. For example, the prominent historian and classical Qurʾānic exegete At-Ṭabarī (839–923 AD) thinks that the original meaning of ummah is a group of people practicing one religion based on the Qurʾānic verse “Humankind were one ummah then Allah sent Prophets with glad tidings and warnings, and with them He sent down the Scripture in truth to judge between people in matters wherein they differed …” (Qurʾān 2:213). There are different interpretations of the time during which people were all one community. Some exegetes consider this time to be between the prophets Adam and Noah. Others consider this time to be at the beginning of creation in the spiritual realm before physical existence when all the offspring of Adam were presented before him and they acknowledged their submission to God. At-Ṭabarī argues that, irrespective of the knowledge of that time in which all humans were one ummah, the crucial point is that they were one ummah by one faith, “the religion of the truth.” Only after humans differed among themselves about the truth did Allah send the Prophets to guide them, as the above verse shows.⁴ However, in the modern period, there is a shift in understanding why people were one ummah. For example, the scholar and reformer Muhammad ʿAbduh (1849–1905) discussed at length what could be meant by ummah wāḥidah and concluded that people were guided by their fiṭrah (“the innate nature of humans inherent to acknowledging the one creator and submitting to him”), that is, guidance derived of reason (hidāyat al-ʿaql). However, when people are left to their own discretion without divine guidance, each starts following his or her personal motives, and thereby dissent and conflict occurs. Hence, there was a need for prophets to guide people and organize their life according to an unbiased divine book.⁵ Similarly, the scholar and Qurʾānic exegete Faḍlallah (1935–2010) says that the verse refers to people before they received divine revelation in the forms of divine books and laws through messengers. What united them as one ummah was a common creed rather than one religion (i.e., a comprehensive doctrine with its divine laws such as Judaism, Christianity, or Islam). That creed is basically fiṭrat-Allah.⁶ Then guidance was not based on a specific religious law because they had not received a detailed religious message. Prophet Adam did not bring religious law, unlike the other prophets such as Moses, Jesus, and Muhammad.⁷ From that perspective, the word ummah relates to the root “umm” (“mother”), symbolic of the fiṭrah state.

In the premodern period, there is more emphasis on exclusivity, whereby the only means people could be united is by following one true religion (religious law). In the modern period, the understanding is widened to include all humans who are united by their reason and fiṭrah. This shift shows how the modern period, witnessing more interaction and globalization, has affected the exegetes’ understanding of Qurʾānic concepts. This new hermeneutical reinterpretation opens up the possibility for exploring a richer and more open understanding of the concept and underpinning its theoretical roots before confining it to a specific religious law.

Naṣṣār deduces, based on research into Islamic sources performed so far on the concept of ummah in the Qurʾān, that the Qurʾanic perception of the ummah is mainly rooted in the dialectic relationship between community and its religious path. The adopted solution for this dialectic is based on the perception of the ummah as a community agreeing on following a specific way or path. In this case, the concept of the path takes precedence over the concept of the community, whereby the community becomes known and determined by the path it follows.⁸ From this understanding, we find the common expression “the Muslim ummah,” where ummah is determined by the path or religion it follows. Frederick Denny, a Western scholar who has studied the concept of ummah in the Qurʾān, argues that the ummah holds a prominent role in Islam that has no precedent in any other world religion. In his view, the ummah had its theoretical foundations in the Qurʾān before it crystallized as a social and political entity in Islamic history.⁹

In this chapter, I examine the theoretical aspect of the ummah, mentioned by both Naṣṣār and Denny, in the Meccan Qurʾānic verses. It is worth noting that there is no mention of “Muslim ummah” in the Meccan verses because it was not formed historically during that period of revelation. The Muslim ummah was first crystallized later in Medina. This is important for the research objective of this chapter, which explores the concept as a general term without being confined to a specific religious law or path. There are sixty-two verses in the Qurʾān where the word ummah or its derivative forms are mentioned. This chapter is devoted to the Meccan verses, where I start with the first verse revealed in Mecca; then I group the relevant verses according to a main theme uniting them, such as that of religion, al-kitāb, Imām, and so forth. The exact chronological order of the Meccan verses had to be sacrificed in order to develop my argument.

Analysis of the Word Ummah in the Meccan Verses of the Qurʾān

UMMA...