Al-Hasan ibn 'Ali al-Barbahari

Al-Ḥasan ibn ʻAlī al-Barbahārī was a Muslim theologian and populist[2] religious leader from Iraq. He was a scholar and jurist who is infamous for his role in suppressing S̲h̲īʿa missionaries and Mu'tazilism in the Abbasid Caliphate during the 10th–11th (4th–5th AH) centuries.[3] His books include creedal and methodological refutations against the Shias, Qadaris, Mu'tazilis and Ash'aris.

al-Ḥasan ibn ʻAlī al-Barbahārī
Personal
Born
Baghdad, Iraq
Died941 CE
ReligionIslam
EraMedieval era
RegionIraq scholar
DenominationSunni
JurisprudenceHanbali
CreedAthari
Main interest(s)Aqidah
Fiqh
Muslim leader

Biography

Al-Barbahari was born in Baghdad, Iraq, and learned from the students of Ahmad ibn Hanbal. In addition, al-Barbahari took Ibn Hanbal's views and championed them.

Al-Barbahari had several widely known 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.[4] While al-Barbahari contributed little to jurisprudence, he was well known as a polemicist. His book Sharh as-Sunnah was written to educate the Atharis in methods to identify heretics.[5] [6][7]

Defender Of The Sunnah

Al-Barbahari was the leader of a number of protests against other sects during the Abbasid Caliphate in Baghdad. His audience was strong in the Hanbalite quarter of the city.[8] 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.[9][10]

From 921 until his death in 941 CE, al-Barbahari fought for orthodox 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", destroy musical instruments, combat Shiism and Mu'tazilism.[11] Under the influence of al-Barbahari and popular pressure of his followers, the Caliphs Al-Muqtadir and Al-Qahir enforced Sunni orthodoxy (according to 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.[10]

The efforts of al-Barbahari and the Baghdad Atharis were put to an end in 935 by the new Caliph Ar-Radi. 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.[12] Ar-Radi ended the favored status of the Atharis.

Thought

Like other Hanbali, Barbahari strongly opposed bidʻah (religious innovation), defined as anything that the first generation of Muslims, (known as the Companions of the Prophet or Sahabah), "did not do".[13] Thus he taught that "whoever asserts that there is any part of Islam with which the Companions of the Prophet did not provide us has called them [the Companions of the Prophet] liars".[13] While not opposed to reason in religion, provided it was put to good use and did not contradict doctrine such as divine attributes,[11] he nonetheless, opposed asking "'Why?' and 'How?' Theology, polemic, disputation, and argument are an innovation which casts doubt into the heart".[13]

See also

References
  1. Gibb, H.A.R.; Kramers, J.H.; Levi-Provencal, E.; Schacht, J. (1986) [1st. pub. 1960]. Encyclopaedia of Islam (New Edition). Volume I (A–B). 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. Retrieved 12 April 2020.
  3. "al-Barbahārī". Brill Reference. Retrieved 12 July 2016.
  4. 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
  5. Joseph Norment Bell, Love Theory in Later Ḥanbalite Islam, p. 49. Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 1979. ISBN 9780791496237
  6. 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
  7. 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
  8. 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
  9. Ira M. Lapidus, Islamic Societies to the Nineteenth Century: A Global History, p. 192. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012. ISBN 9780521514415
  10. 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
  11. Mouline, Nabil (2014). The Clerics of Islam: Religious Authority and Political Power in Saudi Arabia. Yale University Press. p. 29. Retrieved 12 April 2020.
  12. Christopher Melchert, Studies in Islamic Law and Society, vol. 4, p. 151. Leiden: Brill Publishers, 1997.
  13. Cook, Michael, The Koran, a very short introduction, Oxford University Press, 2000, p.109
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