A Dictionary of Islam Being a cyclopedia of the...

ʿAbdu ʾllāh ibn ʿAbbās says: “There was an eclipse of the sun in the time of the Prophet, and he recited prayers, and the people recited after him; and he stood up for a long time, as long as anyone would be repeating the Chapter of the Cow (i.e. Sūrah ii.). Then he performed a long rukūʿ, after which he raised up his head and stood a long time, which was under the first standing; after which he did the second rukūʿ, which was the same as the first in point of time; then he raised his head up from the second rukūʿ; and performed two prostrations, as is customary. Then he stood up a long time, in the second rakʿah, and this was shorter than the first standing, in the first rakʿah; after which he did a long rukūʿ in the second rakʿah, and this was under the first rukūʿ, in the first rakʿah. After this, he raised up his head, and stood a long time; and this was shorter than the first, in the second rakʿah. Then he did a long rukūʿ; and this was not so great as the first, in the second rakʿah. Then he rose up, and performed two prostrations; and after repeating the creed, and giving the salām, he concluded his prayers. And the sun was bright. And the Prophet said, ‘Verily, the sun and moon are two signs, amongst those which prove the existence of God, and are not eclipsed on account of the life or death of any person; and when ye see this, remember God.’ The Companions said, ‘O Prophet! We saw you about to take something in the place where you stood in prayer, after which we saw you draw back a little.’

And the Prophet said, ‘I saw Paradise, and gathered a bunch of grapes from it; and if I had taken it and given it to you, verily you would have eaten of it as long as the world lasts. I also saw hell, and never saw such a horrid sight till this day; and I saw that they were mostly women there.’ And the Companions said, ‘O Prophet, why are most of the people of hell women?’ He said, ‘On account of their infidelity; not on account of their disobedience to God, but that they are ungrateful to their husbands, and hide the good things done them; and if you do good to one of them perpetually, after that, if they see the least fault in you, they will say, I never saw you perform a good work.’ ” (Mishkāt, book iv. c. ii.)

The word ʿAdn is not used in the Qurʾān for the residence of our first parents, the term used being al-jannah, “the garden”; although the Muslim Commentators are agreed in calling it the Jannatu ʿAdn, or “Garden of Eden.” The expressions, Jannatu ʿAdn, “the Garden of Eden,” and Jannātu ʿAdn, “the Gardens of Eden,” occur ten times in the Qurʾān, but in each case they are used for the fourth heaven, or stage, of celestial bliss. [PARADISE.]

According to the Qurʾān, it seems clear that Jannatu ʿAdn is considered to be a place in heaven, and not a terrestrial paradise, and hence a difficulty arises as to the locality of that Eden from which Adam fell. Is it the same place as the fourth abode of celestial bliss? or, was it a garden situated in some part of earth? Al-Baiẓāwī says that some people have thought this Eden was situated in the country of the Philistines, or between Fāris and Kirmān. But, he adds, the Garden of Eden is the Dāru ʾs̤-S̤awāb, or “the House of Recompense,” which is a stage in the paradise of the heavens; and that when Adam and Eve were cast out of Paradise, Adam fell on the isle of Ceylon, or Sarandīb, and Eve near Jiddah in Arabia; and after a separation of 200 years, Adam was, on his repentance, conducted by the Angel Gabriel to a mountain near Makkah, where he knew his wife Eve, the mountain being thence named ʿArafah (i.e. “the place of recognition”); and that he afterwards retired with her to Ceylon, where they continued to propagate their species.

Muḥammad T̤āhir (Majmaʿu ʾl-Biḥār, p. 225), in remarking upon the fact that in the Traditions the rivers Jaihūn and Jaihān are said to be rivers in “the garden” (al-Jannah), says the terms are figurative, and mean that the faith extended to those regions and made them rivers of paradise. And in another place (idem, p. 164) the same author says the four rivers Saiḥān (Jaxartes), Jaihān (Jihon), Furāt (Euphrates), and Nil (Nile), are the rivers of Paradise, and that the rivers Saiḥān and Jaihān are not the same as Jaihūn and Jaihān, but that these four rivers already mentioned originally came from Paradise to this earth of ours.

EDUCATION. Education without religion is to the Muḥammadan mind an anomaly. In all books of Traditions there are sections specially devoted to the consideration of knowledge, but only so far as it relates to a knowledge of God, and of “God’s Book.” (See Ṣaḥīḥu ʾl-Buk͟hārī, Bābu ʾl-ʿIlm.) The people who read the “Book of God” are, according to the sayings of the Prophet, described as “assembling together in mosques, with light and comfort descending upon them, the grace of God covering them, and the angels of God encompassing them round about.” The chief aim and object of education in Islām is, therefore, to obtain a knowledge of the religion of Muḥammad, and anything beyond this is considered superfluous, and even dangerous. Amongst Muḥammadan religious leaders there have always been two classes—those who affect the ascetic and strictly religious life of mortification, such as the Ṣūfī mystics and the Faqīrs [FAQIR]; and those who, by a careful study of the Qurʾān, the Traditions, and the numerous works on divinity, have attained to a high reputation for scholarship, and are known in Turkey as the ʿUlamāʾ, or “learned,” and in India, as Maulawīs.

Amongst Muḥammadans generally, a knowledge of science and various branches of secular learning is considered dangerous to the faith, and it is discouraged by the religious, although some assert that Muḥammad has encouraged learning of all kinds in the Qurʾān, by the following verse, Sūrah ii. 272:—

Mr. Lane, in his Modern Egyptians, says: “The parents seldom devote much of their time or attention to the intellectual education of their children; generally contenting themselves with instilling into their young minds a few principles of religion, and then submitting them, if they can afford to do so, to the instruction of a school. As early as possible, the child is taught to say, ‘I testify that there is no deity but God, and I testify that Muḥammad is God’s Apostle.’ He receives also lessons of religious pride, and learns to hate the Christians, and all other sects but his own, as thoroughly as does the Muslim in advanced age.”

In connection with all mosques of importance, in all parts of Islām whether in Turkey, Egypt, Persia, or India, there are small schools, either for the education of children, or for the training of students of divinity. The child who attends these seminaries is first taught his alphabet, which he learns from a small board, on which the letters are written by the teacher. He then becomes acquainted with the numerical value of each letter. [ABJAD.] After this he learns to write down the ninety-nine names of God, and other simple words taken from the Qurʾān. [GOD.] When he has mastered the spelling of words, he proceeds to learn the first chapter of the Qurʾān, then the last chapter, and gradually reads through the whole Qurʾān in Arabic, which he usually does without understanding a word of it. Having finished the Qurʾān, which is considered an incumbent religious duty, the pupil is instructed in the elements of grammar, and perhaps a few simple rules of arithmetic. To this is added a knowledge of one Hindustanī, or Persian book. The ability to read a single Persian book like the Gulistān or Bostān, is considered in Central Asia to be the sign of a liberal education. The ordinary schoolmaster is generally a man of little learning, the learned Maulawī usually devoting himself to the study of divinity, and not to the education of the young.

Amongst students of divinity, who are called t̤alabatu (sing. t̤ālib) ʾl-ʿilm, or “seekers after knowledge,” the usual course of study is as follows: aṣ-ṣarf, grammatical inflection; an-naḥw, syntax; al-mant̤iq, logic; al-ḥisāb, arithmetic; al-jabr wa ʾl-muqābalah, algebra; al-maʿna wa ʾl-bayān, rhetoric and versification; al-fiqh, jurisprudence; al-ʿaqāʾid, scholastic theology; at-tafsīr, commentaries on the Qurʾān; ʿilmu ʾl-uṣūl, treatises on exegesis, and the principles and rules of interpretation of the laws of Islām; al-aḥādīs̤, the traditions and commentaries thereon. These are usually regarded as different branches of learning, and it is not often that a Maulawī, or ʿĀlim, attains to the knowledge of each section. For example, a scholar will be celebrated as being well educated in al-aḥādīs̤, but he may be weak in al-fiqh. The teacher, when instructing his pupils, seats himself on the ground with his hearers all seated round him in a ring. Instruction in mosques is usually given in the early morning, after the morning prayer, and continues some three or four hours. It is again renewed for a short time after the mid-day prayer.

Students in mosques are generally supported by the people of the parish, (each mosque having its section or parish), who can be called upon for food for all the inmates of a mosque every morning and evening. Not unfrequently mosques are endowed with land, or rents of shops and houses, for the payment of professors. Mr. Lane speaks of a mosque in Cairo, which had an endowment for the support of three hundred blind students. The great mosque al-Azhar, in Cairo, is the largest and most influential seat of learning in Islām. In 1875, when the present writer visited it, it had as many as 5,000 students gathered from all parts of the Muḥammadan world.

In India almost every mosque of importance has its class of students of divinity, but they are not established for the purposes of general education, but for the training of students of divinity who will in time become the Imāms of mosques. Some of the Maulawīs are men held in great reputation as Arabic scholars, but they are, as a rule, very deficient in general knowledge and information. Whether we look to India, or Persia, or Egypt, or Turkey, the attitude of Muḥammadanism is undoubtedly one in direct antagonism to the spread of secular education.

Much has been made by some writers of the liberal patronage extended to literature and science by ʿAbdu ʾr-Raḥmān and his successors as K͟halīfahs of Cordova in the Middle Ages. But there was nothing original, or Islāmic, in the literature thus patronised, for, as Professor Uerberweg remarks in his History of Philosophy, “the whole philosophy of the Arabians was a form of Aristotelianism, tempered more or less with Neo-Platonic conceptions.” The philosophical works of the Greeks and their works of medical and physical science, were translated from Greek into Arabic by Syrian Christians, and not by Arabian Muslims. Muḥammadans cannot be altogether credited with these literary undertakings.

“Respecting the state of science among the Andalusians (Spaniards), we must own in justice that the people of that country were the most ardent lovers of knowledge, as well as those who best knew how to appreciate and distinguish a learned man and an ignorant one; indeed, science was so much esteemed by them, that whoever had not been endowed by God with the necessary qualifications to acquire it, did everything in his power to distinguish himself, and conceal from the people his want of instruction; for an ignorant man was at all times looked upon as an object of the greatest contempt, while the learned man, on the contrary, was not only respected by all, nobles and plebeians, but was trusted and consulted on every occasion; his name was in every mouth, his power and influence had no limits, and he was preferred and distinguished in all the occasions of life.

“Owing to this, rich men in Cordova, however illiterate they might be, encouraged letters, rewarded with the greatest munificence writers and poets, and spared neither trouble nor expense in forming large collections of books; so that, independently of the famous library founded by the K͟halīfah al-Ḥākim, and which is said by writers worthy of credit to have contained no less than four hundred thousand volumes, there were in the capital many other libraries in the hands of wealthy individuals, where the studious could dive into the fathomless sea of knowledge, and bring up its inestimable pearls. Cordova was indeed, in the opinion of every author, the city in Andalus where most books were to be found, and its inhabitants were renowned for their passion for forming libraries. To such an extent did this rage for collection increase, says Ibn Saʿīd, that any man in power, or holding a situation under Government, considered himself obliged to have a library of his own, and would spare no trouble or expense in collecting books, merely in order that people might say,—Such a one has a very fine library, or, he possesses a unique copy of such a book, or, he has a copy of such a work in the hand-writing of such a one.”

EGGS. According to the Imām Abū Ḥanīfah, if a person purchase eggs and after opening them discover them to be of bad quality and unfit for use, he is entitled to a complete restitution of the price from the seller. (Hidāyah, vol. ii. p. 415.)

EGYPT. Arabic Miṣr (مصر). The land of Egypt is mentioned several times in the Qurʾān in connection with the history of Joseph and Moses. In the year A.H. 7 (A.D. 628), Muḥammad sent an embassy to al-Muqauqis, the Roman Governor of Egypt, who received the embassy kindly and presented the Prophet with two female Coptic slaves.

The respective properties of these elements are said to be as follows: Fire, hot and dry; air, hot and cold; water, cold and wet; earth, cold and dry. A knowledge of the properties of the four elements is required in the so-called science of Daʿwah. [DAʿWAH.]

ELEPHANT, The year of. Arabic ʿĀmu ʾl-Fīl (عام الفيل). The year in which Muḥammad was born. Being the year in which Abrahatu ʾl-Ashram, an Abyssinian Christian and Viceroy of the King of Ṣanʿāʾ in Yaman marched with a large army and a number of elephants upon Makkah, with the intention of destroying the Kaʿbah. He was defeated and his army destroyed in so sudden a manner, as to give rise to the legend embodied in the CVth Sūrah of the Qurʾān, which is known as the Chapter of the Elephant.

Sūrah xxxvii. 123: “Verily Ilyās (Elias) was of the Apostles; and when he said to his people, ‘Will ye not fear, Do ye call upon Baʿl and leave the best of Creators, God your Lord, and the Lord of your fathers in the old time?’ But they called him a liar; verily, they shall surely be arraigned, save God’s sincere servants. And we left him amongst posterity. Peace upon Ilyāsīn (Elias) verily, thus do we reward those who do well; verily he was of our servants who believe.”

ELOQUENCE. The Arabic word al-Bayān (البيان), which is defined in the G͟hiyās̤u ʾl-Lug͟hah as speaking fluently and eloquently, occurs once in the Qurʾān, Sūrah lv. 3: “He created man: he hath taught him distinct speech.” The word also occurs in the Traditions, and it is remarkable that although the Qurʾān is written in rhythm, and in a grandiloquent style, that in the Traditions the Prophet seems to affect to despise eloquence, as will be seen from the following Aḥādīs̤:—Ibn ʿUmar says the Prophet said, “May they go to hell who amplify their words.” Abū Umāmah relates that the Prophet said, “Eloquence (al-bayān) is a kind of magic.” Ibn Masʿūd relates that the Prophet said, “Vain talking and embellishing (bayān) are two branches of hypocrisy.” ʿAmr ibn al-ʿĀṣī relates that the Prophet said, “I have been ordered to speak little, and verily it is best to speak little.” (Mishkāt, book xxii. c. ix.)

EMANCIPATION OF SLAVES. Arabic Iʿtāq (اعتاق). The emancipation of slaves is recommended by the Prophet, but the recommendation applies exclusively to slaves who are of the Muslim faith. He is related to have said: “Whoever frees a Muslim slave God will redeem that person from hell-fire member for member.” (Mishkāt, book xiii. c. xix.) It is therefore laudable in a man to release his slave or for a woman to free her bond-woman, in order that they may secure freedom in the next world. (Hidāyah, vol. i. p. 420.)

ENFRANCHISEMENT. In an orthodox Muḥammadan state, only those persons who have embraced the Muslim faith are enfranchised; all others are called upon to pay a poll tax (jizyah), for which they obtain security (amān). Those residents in a Muslim country who are not Muḥammadans are expected to wear a distinctive dress and to reside in a special part of the village or town in which they live. Slaves who may embrace the Muslim faith do not become ipso facto enfranchised, unless their master be an unbeliever, in which case their becoming Muslims secures their emancipation. Ẕimmīs, or persons not Muslims in a Muslim state, cannot give evidence against a Muslim. (See Durru ʾl-Muk͟htār, in loco.)

ENTERING INTO HOUSES. To enter suddenly or abruptly into any person’s home or apartment, is reckoned a great incivility in all eastern countries. With Muḥammadans it is a religious duty to give notice before you enter a house. The custom is founded upon an express injunction in the Qurʾān, Sūrah xxiv. 57–61:—

“O ye who believe! let your slaves and those of you who have not come of age, ask leave of you, three times a day, ere they come into your presence;—before the morning prayer, and when ye lay aside your garments at mid-day, and after the evening prayer. These are your three times of privacy. No blame shall attach to you or to them, if after these times, when ye go your rounds of attendance on one another, they come in without permission. Thus doth God make clear to you His signs: and God is Knowing, Wise!