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

QARẒ (قرض). Lit. “Cutting.” (1) A word used in the Qurʾān for good deeds done for God, for which a future recompense will be awarded, e.g. Sūrah v. 15: “Lend God a liberal loan and I will surely put away from you your evil deeds, and will cause you to enter gardens through which rivers flow.”

When a person is found slain in a place, and it is not known who was the murderer, and his heirs demand satisfaction for his blood from the inhabitants of the district, then fifty of the inhabitants selected by the next of kin, must be put to their oaths and depose to this effect: “I swear by God that I did not kill him, nor do I know the murderer.”

QAULU ʾL-ḤAQQ (قول الحق). “The Word of Truth.” A title given to Jesus Christ in the Qurʾān, Sūrah xix. 35: “This was Jesus the son of Mary, the word of truth concerning whom they doubt.” By the commentators Ḥusain, al-Kamālān, and ʿAbdu ʾl-Qādir, the words are understood to refer to the statement made, but al-Baiẓāwī says it is a title applied to Jesus the son of Mary. [JESUS CHRIST.]

QAẒĀʾ (قضاء), pl. aqẓiyah. Lit. “Consummating.” (1) The office of a Qāẓī, or judge. (2) The sentence of a Qāẓī. (3) Repeating prayers to make up for having omitted them at the appointed time. (4) Making up for an omission in religious duties, such as fasting, &c. (5) The decree existing in the Divine mind from all eternity, and the execution and declaration of a decree at the appointed time. (6) Sudden death.

QAẔF (قذف). Lit. “Throwing at.” Accusing a virtuous man or woman of adultery; the punishment for which is eighty lashes, or, in the case of a slave, forty lashes. This punishment was established by a supposed revelation from heaven, when the Prophet’s favourite wife, ʿĀyishah, was accused of improper intimacy with Ṣafwān Ibnu ʾl-Muʿat̤t̤il. Vide Qurʾān, Sūratu ʾn-Nūr (xxiv.), 4: “But to those who accuse married persons of adultery and produce not four witnesses, them shall ye scourge with four-score stripes.” (Hidāyah, vol. ii. p. 58.)

QIBLAH (قبلة). “Anything opposite.” The direction in which all Muḥammadans must pray, whether in their public or in their private devotions, namely, towards Makkah. It is established by the express injunction of the Qurʾān, contained in the Sūratu ʾl-Baqarah (ii.), 136–145:—

“Fools among men will say, What has turned them from their Qiblah on which they were agreed? Say, God’s is the east and the west, He guides whom He will unto the right path. Thus have we made you a middle nation to be witnesses against men, and that the apostle may be a witness against you. We have not appointed the qiblah on which thou wert agreed, save that we might know who follows the Apostle from him who turns upon his heels, although it is a great thing save to those whom God doth guide. But God will not waste your faith, for verily God with men is kind and merciful. We see thee often turn about thy face in the heavens, but we will surely turn thee to a qiblah thou shalt like. Turn, then, thy face towards the Sacred Mosque, wherever ye be turn your faces towards it, for verily those who have the Book know that it is the truth from their Lord. God is not careless of that which ye do. And if thou shouldst bring to those who have been given the Book every sign, they would not follow your qiblah, nor do some of them follow the qiblah of the others; and if thou followest their lusts after the knowledge that has come to thee, then art thou of the evil-doers. Those whom we have given the Book know him as they know their sons, although a sect of them do surely hide the truth the while they know. The truth (is) from thy Lord, be not therefore one of those who doubt thereof. Every sect has some one side to which they turn (in prayer), but do ye hasten onwards to good works, wherever ye are, God will bring you all together. Verily, God is mighty over all.

From whencesoever thou comest forth, there turn thy face towards the Sacred Mosque; for it is surely truth from thy Lord, God is not careless about what ye do. And from whencesoever thou comest forth, there turn thy face towards the Sacred Mosque, and wheresoever ye are, turn your faces towards it, that men may have no argument against you, save only those of them who are unjust, and fear them not, but fear me, and I will fulfil my favour to you; perchance ye may be guided yet.”

In explanation of these verses (which are allowed to be of different periods), and the change of Qiblah, al-Baiẓāwī, the commentator, remarks that when Muḥammad was in Makkah he always worshipped towards the Kaʿbah; but after the flight to al-Madīnah, he was ordered by God to change his Qiblah towards aṣ-Ṣak͟hrah, the rock at Jerusalem on which the Temple was formerly erected, in order to conciliate the Jews, but that, about sixteen months after his arrival in al-Madīnah, Muḥammad longed once more to pray towards Makkah, and he besought the Lord to this effect, and then the instructions were revealed, “Verily we have seen thee turning thy face,” &c., as given above. (See al-Baiẓāwī, in loco.)

This temporary change of the Qiblah to Jerusalem is now regarded as “a trial of faith,” and it is asserted that Makkah was always the true Qiblah. But it is impossible for any non-Muslim not to see in this transaction a piece of worldly wisdom on the part of the Prophet.

Jalālu ʾd-dīn as-Suyūt̤ī admits that the 110th verse of the IInd Sūrah—which reads: “The east and the west is God’s, therefore whichever way ye turn is the face of God”—has been abrogated by a more recent verse, and that at one time in the history of Muḥammad’s mission there was no Qiblah at all.

“There have been few incidents more disastrous in their consequences to the human race than this decree of Muhammad, changing the Kibla from Jerusalem to Mekka. Had he remained true to his earlier and better faith, the Arabs would have entered the religious community of the nations as peace-makers, not as enemies and destroyers. To all alike—Jews, Christians, and Muhammadans—there would have been a single centre of holiness and devotion; but the Arab would have brought with him just that element of conviction which was needed to enlarge and vivify the preceding religions. To the Jew he would have been a living witness that the God who spake in times past to his fathers by the prophets still sent messengers to men, though not taken from the chosen seeds—the very testimony which they needed to rise out of the conception of a national deity to that of a God of all men.

“To the Christians, his deep and ardent conviction of God as a present living and working power, would have been a voice recalling them from their petty sectarian squabbles and virtual idolatry, to the presence of the living Christ. By the change of the Kibla, Islam was placed in direct antagonism to Judaism and Christianity. It became a rival faith, possessing an independent centre of existence. It ceased to draw its authenticity from the same wells of inspiration. Jew and Christian could learn nothing from a creed which they knew only as an exterminator; and the Muhammadan was condemned to a moral and intellectual isolation. And so long as he remains true to his creed, he cannot participate in the onward march of men. The keystone of that creed is a black pebble in a heathen temple. All the ordinances of his faith, all the history of it, are so grouped round and connected with this stone, that were the odour of sanctity dispelled which surrounds it, the whole religion would inevitably perish. The farther and the faster men progress elsewhere, the more hopeless becomes the position of the Muslim. He can only hate the knowledge which would gently lead him to the light. Chained to a black stone in a barren wilderness, the heart and reason of the Muhammadan world would seem to have taken the similitude of the objects they reverence; and the refreshing dews and genial sunshines which fertilise all else, seek in vain for anything to quicken there.” (Islam under the Arabs, p. 58.)

QIBT̤Ī (قبطى). Copt. The Christian descendants of the Ancient Egyptians, derived from Coptos, a great city in Upper Egypt now called Gooft. The favourite slave of Muḥammad, Māriyah, was a Copt, and is known in Muslim history as Māriyatu ʾl-Qibt̤īyah. [MUHAMMAD, WIVES OF.]

Muḥammad T̤āhir, the author of the Majmaʿu ʾl-Biḥār, p. 173, says a qint̤ār is a very large sum of money. As much gold as will go into the hide of a cow! or, according to others, 4,000 dīnārs. Others say it is an unlimited sum, which implies a considerable amount of money.

QIṢĀṢ (قصاص). From qaṣaṣ. Lit. “Tracking the footsteps of an enemy.” The law of retaliation. The lex talionis of the Mosaic law, with the important difference that in the Muslim law the next of kin can accept a money compensation for wilful murder.