The Lure of a Controversial Prayer: Ṣalāt al-raghā’ib (the Prayer of Great Rewards) in Medieval Arabic Texts and from a Socio-legal Perspective
-
Daniella Talmon-Heller,
und
Raquel Ukeles,
Abstract: A rich array of twelfth to fifteenth century Arabic texts captures the advent of a supererogatory prayer known as ṣalāt al-raghā’ib (the prayer of great rewards), on the eve of the first Friday of the month of Rajab in late eleventh-century Jerusalem, and its wide dissemination. This corpus offers an unusually vivid picture of the formation and the transformation of a medieval bid’a (to use the Islamic term), or, of an ‘invention of tradition’ (to use Hobsbawm’s term). Combining our expertise in Islamic law and in Ayyūbid and Mamluk era history, we use this corpus for an in-depth study of popular piety, power politics, scholarly polemics and legal discourse. Twenty eight translated excerpts of various texts are presented in this paper, preceded by a detailed introduction. Exploring legal reasoning in its concrete political and social context provides a nuanced understanding of the development, mass proliferation and ensuing debate over a highly controversial and extraordinary potent religious practice.
©2012 by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co.
Artikel in diesem Heft
- masthead1
- Der Islam. Journal of the History and Culture of the Middle East
- First Century Sources for the Life of Muḥammad? A Debate
- Early Versions of the shahāda: A Tombstone from Aswan of 71 A.H., the Dome of the Rock, and Contemporary Coinage
- Yā ḫāḍiba š-šaibi Arabische Verse für und wider das Färben des weißen Haares
- Notes on Some Turkish Personal Names in Seljūq Military History
- Das Geburtsjahr des Šahrastānī
- Was al-Maqrīzī’s Khiṭaṭ a Khaldūnian History?
- The Lure of a Controversial Prayer: Ṣalāt al-raghā’ib (the Prayer of Great Rewards) in Medieval Arabic Texts and from a Socio-legal Perspective
- Reviews
Artikel in diesem Heft
- masthead1
- Der Islam. Journal of the History and Culture of the Middle East
- First Century Sources for the Life of Muḥammad? A Debate
- Early Versions of the shahāda: A Tombstone from Aswan of 71 A.H., the Dome of the Rock, and Contemporary Coinage
- Yā ḫāḍiba š-šaibi Arabische Verse für und wider das Färben des weißen Haares
- Notes on Some Turkish Personal Names in Seljūq Military History
- Das Geburtsjahr des Šahrastānī
- Was al-Maqrīzī’s Khiṭaṭ a Khaldūnian History?
- The Lure of a Controversial Prayer: Ṣalāt al-raghā’ib (the Prayer of Great Rewards) in Medieval Arabic Texts and from a Socio-legal Perspective
- Reviews
