al-Mughira bin Shu’bah

Earlier this fall, in fact the very same week I sat down to start writing my thesis — a monograph on al-Mughirah bin Shu’bah (ra), the rather infamous Companion of Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) — one of my advisors informed me that a work in Arabic had just been produced and published, albeit in Iran, on the very same man.  As an academic, even a very temporary academic like me, this is not the sort of news you want to hear.  In fact, it is very much like having the rug pulled right from under your feet.  Hours and hours of research in primary sources:  Tabari, Ibn Sa’d, Ibn Kathir, Baladhuri, Waqidi, Ibn Khallikhan, Ibn Khaldun, all the ahadith of the various canonized collections, all of that down the tubes, not to mention more contemporary tomes that helped me frame my thinking about these primary sources.

Holding “Mughira bin Shu’bah” for the first time.

But, wonderfully enough, through whatever absurd connections Princeton maintains around the world, the University was able to get me a copy of this book, even though it isn’t yet widely available.  As such my task in this monograph remains intact but also gets shaded just a little.  Not only will I produce a monograph of al-Mughirah bin Shu’bah (in English) but I will engage with this work, debate it, raise conflicting opinions, and jump into what might become a mini-academic debate.

The combination of curmudgeonly respect I feel for this volume, as I heft it for the first time, freshly hand-delivered to me by the library staff here, and disgust (that my idea has been stolen) has a certain curiosity to it, an NQR-icism unique, so far, in the annals of this blog.

Please wish me luck reading this tome, digesting it, and somehow incorporating it in my own endeavors over the next two months as I finish this thesis.  It remains for me to read and review and think about just what sources were used and what opinion of al-Mughirah bin Shu’bah the author of this study — a man named Abd’al-Baqi Qurna al-Jaza’iri — formed and conveyed in his preemptive strike on my (strangely cherished) objective.

Spam Filters Have No Sense of Humor

A little less vitriole, a little more humor. Maybe watching politics from afar (hanging out in New Jersey) lets one enjoy a better perspective.

The gubernatorial recall election in my home state (Wisconsin) is no laughing matter.  It’s making national headlines because the incumbent, Scott Walker, did some slightly sketchy things in order to break the power of the public-service unions in the state.  This has had very real effects on people, including my in-laws, who are state employees and who regularly feel the hair on the backs of their necks rise at any mention of Scott Walker.

As such, I contrived to make-up the following (mock) email, sending it to my in-laws from a (mock) email address that looked like a real donation site.  The only hint that it was a forgery and a joke was a link to the donation site that led to a dead-end page on this website, revealing the joke.  I thought it was pretty clever and was relishing the trauma, the cussing, the frantic phone calls to the in-laws’ credit card company, that it might generate.  No dice.  It seems their spam filter caught it and sequestered it.  What is this world coming to, if we’re no longer allowed a little harmless fun over the internets?  It’s no big deal.  But’s also a little strange.  A little NQR.

 

Dear NAME,

Thank you for the anonymous donation in your name to our “Support Scott Walker Re-Election Campaign.” This is an electronic receipt confirming your credit card payment for the following items:

5/8/2012 3:28:09 PM

Bill to:	Ship to:
Address

Qty.	Description	Unit	Total
1	Donation – Anonymous, Scott Walker Campaign Support Fund, sub-category anti-union slush accounting pool	$175	$175
Subtotal:			$175
Shipping:			$0.00
Sales Tax:			$0.00
Grand Total charged by Scott Walker Campaign Support Fund:			$175

The invoice number is: 801151.
The AuthorizeNet transaction id for this payment is: 4364520142.

Thanks again for your payment,

The Staff
Scott Walker for Re-Election
http://justiceagainsttheunions.org

Please do not reply to this message as it was sent by an automated process from an unmonitored email address by your website’s hosting company. Replies will not be read.

Kharijite Rhetoric

The following remarks by the Kharijite (an early heretical sect of Islam) rebel Abu Hamza al-Mukhtar b. ‘Awf were given as part of a sermon in Mecca during his fight against the Ummayid Caliphate, approximately 746 CE.  Amazingly (and definitely NQR) they were preserved in Sunni sources because of the strength of the rhetoric, even though the comments greatly disparage the Sunni Ummayid caliphs.  In this year of campaign invective it might be nice to see that other peoples have engaged in character assassination, perhaps even more effectively than we Americans now stomach.  And it is interesting to note that the Sunni historians had such a sense of aesthetic value that they’d record a sermon like this, even though it clearly damns the Ummayids!

PS.  This is excerpted from Patricia Crone and Martin Hinds’ book “God’s Caliph.”

PSS.  The really good stuff is toward the end of the sermon, so keep reading.

Abu Hamza’s comments:

The Prophet's Mihrab, or pulpit, the approximate spot from which Abu Hamza may have delivered his sermon (although, back then, it wouldn't have been so gilded).

1.  O people! The Messenger of God used neither to advance nor to draw back save with the command of God and His revelation. [God] revealed a book to him and made clear to him what he should undertake and what he should guard against, and he was in no way confused about His Religion….

2.  When the Muslims put him (Abu Bakr) in charge of their temporal concerns, He fought the apostates and acted by the kitab and the sunna, striving, until God took him to Himself; may God’s mercy be upon him.

3.  ‘Umar took charge after him.  He proceeded according to the mode of conduct of him who had gone before him . . .

4.  Then ‘Uthman took charge.  For six years he proceeded in a way which fell short of the mode of conduct of his two companions.  Thereby he annulled what he had done earlier, and passed on his way.

5.  Then ‘Ali b. Abi Talib took charge.  He acted in a proper manner until he established arbitration concerning the book of God and had doubts about His religion. [Thereafter] he did not achieve any goal in respect of what was right, nor did he erect any beacon for that.

6.  Then there took charge Mu’awiya b. Abi Sufyan, who had been cursed by the Messenger of God and was the son of one so cursed.  He made the servants of God slaves, the property of God something to be taken by turns, and His religion a cause of corruption.  Then he passed on his way, deviating from what was right, deceiving in religion.

7.  Then there took charge his son Yazid, part of the curse of the Messenger of God, a sinner in respect of his belly and his private parts. He kept to the path of his father, neither acknowledging what ought to be acknowledged nor disavowing what ought to be disavowed.

8.  Then Marwan and the Banu Marwan took charge.  They shed forbidden blood and devoured forbidden property.  As for ‘Abd al-Malik, he made al-Hajjaj an imam of his, leading to hellfire.  As for al-Walid, he was a stupid fool, at a loss in waywardness, abusing the caliphate with benighted senselessness.  And Sulayman, what was Sulayman?!  His concern was with his belly and his private parts.  So curse them, may God curse them!  Except that ‘Umar b. ‘Abd al-‘Aziz was from them:  he had good intentions but did not act upon them; he fell short of what he intended.

9.  Then there took charge after him Yazid b. ‘Abd al-Malik, a sinner in whom right judgement was not perceived . . . Two items of apparel were woven for him and he wore one as pants and the other as a shirt.  Then he sat Hababa on his right and Sallama on his left and said, “Sing to me, Hababa; give me wine, Sallama.”  Then, when he had become drunk and the wine had taken a hold on him, he rent his two garments, which had been acquired for one thousand dinars on account of which skins had been flayed, hair shaved off, and veils torn away; he took what he spent unlawfully and wrongly.  Then he turned to one of the girls and said, ‘Surely I shall fly!’  Most certainly!  Fly to hellfire!  Is such supposed to be the distinguishing characteristic of the caliphs of God?!

10.  Then squint-eyed Hisham took charge.  He scattered stipends about and appropriated the land . . . and you said, ‘May God reward him with good.’  Nay!  may God reward him with evil!  He was miserly with his wealth and niggardly in his religion.

11.  Then the sinner al-Walid b. Yazid took charge.  He drank wine openly and he deliberatly made manifest what is abominable.  Then Yazid b. al-Walid rose against him and killed him:  God has said ‘So We make the evildoers friends of each other for what they have earned.’ Then Marwan b. Muhammad took charge and claimed the Caliphate.  He abraded faces, put out eyes, and cut off hands and feet…

12.  These Banu Umayya are parties of waywardness.  Their might is self-magnification.  They arrest on suspicion, make decrees capriciously, kill in anger, and judge by passing over crimes without punishment . . . These people have acted as unbelievers, by God, in the most barefaced manner.  So curse them, may God curse them!

(Please note, the Kharijite opinion of these Caliphs is a minority opinion in Islam.)