Al-Hasan ibn 'Ali al-Barbahari

Al-Ḥasan ibn ʻAlī al-Barbahārī (867-941 CE) was a Muslim theologian and populist[2] religious leader from Iraq. He was a scholar and jurist who is famous for his role in suppressing S̲h̲īʿa missionaries and Mu'tazilism in the Abbasid Caliphate during his lifetime.[3] His books include creedal and methodological refutations against certain sects including the Shias, Qadaris, and the Mu'tazilites.

al-Ḥasan ibn ʻAlī al-Barbahārī
Personal
Born
867 CE Baghdad, Abbasid Caliphate (now Iraq)
Died941 CE
Abbasid Caliphate
ReligionIslam
EraIslamic Golden Age
(Middle Abbasid era)
RegionCaliphate
DenominationSunni
JurisprudenceHanbali
CreedAthari
Main interest(s)Aqidah
Fiqh
Notable idea(s)Islamic Theology and Islamic Jurisprudence
Known forHis role in suppressing Shia missionaries and Mu'tazilism in the Abbasid Caliphate during the 10th–11th (4th–5th AH) centuries. His books include creedal and methodological refutations against the Shias, Qadaris and Mu'tazilis
Muslim leader
Influenced by
Influenced

Biography

Al-Barbahari was born in Baghdad, Iraq, and was taught by the students of Ahmad ibn Hanbal. Al-Barbahari then took Ibn Hanbal's views and championed them. He was also known to be an associate of the Sufi Sahl al-Tustari.[4]

Al-Barbahari had several students, including the famed scholar Ibn Battah. His status as an authority within the Hanbali school was not universal, however, and al-Barbahari and his students were often in conflict with Abu Bakr al-Khallal, generally considered to be the sole preserver and codifier of the school.[5] While al-Barbahari contributed little to jurisprudence, he was well known as a polemicist.[6][7][8]

Defender Of The Sunnah

Al-Barbahari was the leader of a number of protests against other sects during the Abbasid Caliphate in Baghdad. His followers were concentrated in the Hanbalite quarter of the city.[9] He was very influential among the urban lower classes, and exploited popular grievances to foment what often turned into mob violence against religious minorities and supposed sinners.[10][11]

From 921 CE until his death in 941 CE, al-Barbahari fought for literalist Sunni thought and practice, leading masses of Sunnis in actions to stop the sale of wine and visits to the "tombs of certain religious figures". They destroyed musical instruments and fought against Shiism and Mu'tazilism.[12]

Under the influence of al-Barbahari and the popular pressure of his followers, the Caliphs Al-Muqtadir and Al-Qahir enforced Sunni "orthodoxy" (according to the Athari creed) as the state creed, exiling and imprisoning al-Barbahari's enemies and even burying renowned Muslim historian Muhammad ibn Jarir al-Tabari, considered a heretic by most Atharis at the time, in secret due to fears of mob violence were a funeral to be held at the public graveyard.[11] Al-Barbahari had ordered groups to check any homes suspected of containing wine or musical instruments. The crowds confiscated from shops and physically enforced female entertainers to leave their practices.[13]

The efforts of al-Barbahari and the Baghdad Atharis were brought to an end in 935 CE by the new Caliph Ar-Radi. Ar-Radi ended the favoured status of the Atharis.

Thought

Like other Hanbalis', Barbahari strongly opposed bidʻah (religious innovation), defined as anything regarding worship that the first generation of Muslims (known as the Companions of the Prophet or Sahabah) "did not do".[14] Thus he taught that "whoever asserts that there is any part of Islam with which the Companions of the Prophet did not provide us, is calling them [the Companions of the Prophet] liars".[14] While not opposed to reason in religion, provided it was put to good use and did not contradict doctrine such as divine attributes,[12] he nonetheless, opposed asking "'why?' and 'how?' Theology, polemic, disputation, and argument are an innovation which casts doubt into the heart".[14]

See also

References
  1. Gibb, H.A.R.; Kramers, J.H.; Levi-Provencal, E.; Schacht, J. (1986) [1st. pub. 1960]. Encyclopaedia of Islam. Vol. I (A–B) (New ed.). Leiden, Netherlands: Brill. p. 1040. ISBN 9004081143.
  2. "Commanding right and forbidding wrong". The Princeton Encyclopedia of Islamic Political Thought. Princeton University Press. 2013. p. 105. ISBN 978-0691134840. Retrieved 12 April 2020.
  3. "al-Barbahārī". Brill Reference. Retrieved 12 July 2016.
  4. JSTOR: The Ḥanābila and the Early Sufis, page 253&265
  5. Christopher Melchert, The Formation of the Sunni Schools of Law: 9th–10th Centuries C.E., p. 150. Issue 4 of Studies in Islamic Law and Society, V. 4. Leiden: Brill Publishers, 1997. ISBN 9789004109520
  6. Joseph Norment Bell, Love Theory in Later Ḥanbalite Islam, p. 49. Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 1979. ISBN 9780791496237
  7. Richard M. Frank, Early Islamic Theology: The Mu'tazilites and al-Ash'ari, Texts and studies on the development and history of kalām, vol. 2, p. 172. Farnham: Ashgate Publishing, 2007. ISBN 9780860789789
  8. A Medieval Critique of Anthropomorphism: Ibn Al-Jawzī's Kitāb Akhbār Aṣ-Ṣifāt, p. 98. Ed. Merlin L. Swartz. Volume 46 of Islamic philosophy and theology: Texts and studies. Leiden: Brill Publishers, 2002. ISBN 9789004123762
  9. Gerhard Böwering, The Mystical Vision of Existence in Classical Islam: The Qur'anic Hermeneutics of the Sufi Sahl At-Tustari, Parts 283–896, p. 89. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1979. ISBN 9783110837056
  10. Ira M. Lapidus, Islamic Societies to the Nineteenth Century: A Global History, p. 192. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012. ISBN 9780521514415
  11. Joel L. Kraemer, Humanism in the Renaissance of Islam: The Cultural Revival During the Buyid Age, p. 61. Volume 7 of Studies in Islamic culture and history. Leiden: Brill Publishers, 1992. ISBN 9789004097360
  12. Mouline, Nabil (2014). The Clerics of Islam: Religious Authority and Political Power in Saudi Arabia. Yale University Press. p. 29. ISBN 9780300206616. Retrieved 12 April 2020.
  13. Christopher Melchert, Studies in Islamic Law and Society, vol. 4, p. 151. Leiden: Brill Publishers, 1997.
  14. Cook, Michael, The Koran, a very short introduction, Oxford University Press, 2000, p.109
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