Popular Religious Preaching as Informal Education and its Impact on Medieval Islamic Culture
Main Article Content
Keywords
preaching, mass education, medieval Islamic culture, ‘ulamā’, Rulers
Abstract
This study examines popular preaching in medieval Islamic culture, which served as a form of mass education for the public. Public assemblies (majālis) and gatherings were organized by scholars on their initiative of scholars, or by rulers for various purposes. The assemblies took the form of a sermon (khuṭba), preaching (wa‘ẓ), da‘wa, dhikr with a Sufi shaykh, or as a part of a visit (ziyāra) to a shrine of a righteous person. Assemblies and gatherings were held in mosques, in the courts of rulers, or in public places. The goals of these gatherings depended on the desires of their organizers, the time and place in which they were held, and the religious or social events for which they were arranged. Therefore, the nature of gatherings tended toward religious preaching, the personal interest of the organizers, propaganda, political activities, critique and oversight, and sometimes as a form of celebration or leisure. By means of
these assemblies, some leaders enhanced their status, as well as garnering greater publicity from among the general population. The gatherings displayed the level of knowledge among the educated and among the ‘ulamā’. In addition to the stated objectives of holding these assemblies, this study shows that the primary objective centered on the preserving of Islamic values and moral rules.
References
Endnotes
1 On the term majlis and its types in Islam, see George Makdisi, The Rise of Colleges, (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1981), pp. 10-12.
2 See Shawqī Ḍīf, Tārīkh al-Adab al-‘Arabī: al-‘Aṣr al-‘Abbāsī al-Awwal, (vol. 3), (Cairo, Dār al-Ma‘ārif, 1966); See also Luṭfī Aḥmad Naṣṣār, Wasā’il al-Tarfīh fī ‘Aṣr Salātīn al-Mamālīk fī Miṣr, (Cairo: al-Hay’a al-Maṣriyya al-‘Āmma li-l-Kitāb, 1999), pp. 19-109.
3 For a description of Ibn al-Jawzī’s preaching and its effect on his audience in Damascus see Ismā‘īl b. ‘Umar Ibn Kathīr, al-Bidāya wa-l-Nihāya, (vol. 13) (Beirut: Maktabat al-Ma‘ārif, 1988): 194.
4 See Ibn Kathīr, al-Bidāya, (vol. 13), p. 194; ‘Abd al-Qādir bin Muḥammad al-Nu‘aymī, al-Dāris fī Tārīkh al-Madāris, (vol. 1), (Beirut: Dār al-Kitāb al-Jadīd, 1981), p. 478.
5 See Makdisi, The Rise, pp. 10-11.
6 For further works on the culture of preaching assemblies (majālis al-wa‘ẓ/al-da‘wa), their spread in the Fatimid and Abbasid eras, and their religious and political impact see al-Qādī al-Nu‘mān bin Muḥammad bin Ḥayyūn, Kitāb al-Majālis wa-l-Musāyarāt, (Beirut: Dār al-Muntaẓar, 1996); ‘Alam al-Islām Thiqat al-Imām, al-Majālis al-Mustanṣiriyya, (Beirut: Mu’ssasat al-Nūr, 2006); al-Mu’ayyad fī al-Dīn al-Shīrāzī, al-Majālis al-Mu’ayyadiyya, (Cairo: Maktabat Madbūlī, 1994); ‘Abd al-Raḥmān bin ‘Alī Ibn al-Jawzī, al-Mawā‘iẓ wal-Majālis, (Tanṭā: Dār al-Ṣaḥāba, 1990).
7 See Jonathan P. Berkey, Popular Preaching and Religious Authority in the Medieval Islamic Near East, (Seattle: University of Washington Press: 2001); See also Adam Metz, al-Ḥaḍāra al-Islāmiyya, (vol. 2), (Beirut: Dār al-Kitāb al-‘Arabī, 1967), pp. 146-156.
8 ‘Abd al-Qādir al-Jilānī, al-Ghunya, (vols. 1-2), (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-‘Ilmiyya, 1997). See also Spencer Trimingham, The Sufi Orders in Islam, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015).
9 Ḍīf, Tārīkh al-Adab, (vol. 3), pp. 100-101; Hatim Mahamid, Waqf, Education and Politics in Late Medieval Syria, (Saarbrücken: Lap Lambert Academic Publishing, 2013), pp. 189-192; idem, “Mosques as Higher Educational Institutions in Mamluk Syria,” Journal of Islamic Studies (JIS), 20, Issue 2, (2009), pp. 205-211.
10 On preaching assemblies, see Daniella Talmon-Heller, Islamic Piety in Medieval Syria: Mosques, Cemeteries and Sermons under the Zangids and Ayyūbids (1146-1260), (Leiden: Brill, 2007), pp. 115-144.
11 On Muhyī al-Dīn Yusuf Ibn al-Jawzī, see Ibn Kathīr, al-Bidāya, (vol. 13), p. 211; al-Nu‘aymī, al-Dāris, (vol. 2), pp. 29-31; On Abu al-Faraj Ibn al-Jawzī, see Shihāb al-Dīn ‘Abd al-Hayy Ibn al-‘Imād, Shadharāt al-Dhahab fī Akhbār man Dhahab, (vols., 7), (Damascus-Beirut: Dār Ibn Kathīr, 1992), pp. 494-496.
78 AMERICAN JOURNAL OF ISLAM AND SOCIETYty 41:3-4
12 Ibn Kathīr, al-Bidaya, (vol. 13), p. 211.
13 See Yūsuf Jamāl al-Dīn Abū al-Maḥāsin Ibn Taghrī Birdī, al-Nujūm al-Zāhira fi Mulūk Miṣr wa-l-Qāhira, (vol. 7), (Cairo: Dār al-Kutub, 1963), p. 39; On the biography of Sibṭ Ibn al-Jawzī, and his preaching in Damascus, see Ibn Kathīr, al-Bidāya, (vol. 13), pp. 194-195; Al-Nu‘aymī, al-Dāris, (vol. 1), pp. 478-480; Ibn al-‘Imād, Shadharāt, (vol, 7), pp. 460-461; Talmon-Heller, Islamic Piety, pp. 128-131.
14 See Daniella Talmon-Heller, “Muslim Preachers during the Crusades,” Zmanim: A Historical Quarterly, no, 97 (2007), pp. 84-90; idem, “Religion in the Public Sphere: Rulers, Scholars and Commoners in Zangid and Ayyubid Syria (1150-1260),” in M. Hoexter, S.N. Eisenstadt, N. Levtzion (eds.), The Public Sphere in Muslim Societies, (Albany: SUNY, 2002), pp. 49-64; Berkey, Popular Preaching, pp. 53-69.
15 Merlin L. Swartz, “The Rules of the Popular Preaching in Twelfth Century Baghdad, according to Ibn al-Jawzi,” in George Makdisi et al. (eds.), Preaching and Propaganda in the Middle Ages. Islam, Byzantium, Latin West, (Paris 1983), p. 224.
16 Daniella Talmon-Heller, “Islamic Preaching in Syria during the Counter-Crusade (Twelfth-Thirteenth Centuries),” in Laudem Hierosolymitani: Studies in Crusades and Medieval Culture, in Honour of Benjamin Z. Kedar, (Iris Shagrir, Roni Ellenblum, and Jonathan Riley-Smith, eds.), (London: Routledge, 2016), pp. 85-100. On relations between rulers and preachers in Syria in the Zangid and Ayyubid Era, see idem, Islamic piety, pp. 123-28.
17 On the role of some of the Fatimid missionaries see al-Qādī al-Nu‘mān, Kitāb al-Majālis; Thiqat al-Imām, al-Majālis al-Mustanṣiriyya; al-Shīrāzī, al-Majālis al-Mu’ayyadiyya; Mustafā Ghālib, Tārīkh al-Da‘wa al-Ismā‘īliyya, (Beirut: Dār al-Andalus, 1965); Verena Klemm, Memoirs of a Mission: The Ismaili Statesman and Poet al-Mu’ayyad fi’l-Din al-Shirazi, (London & New York: I.B. Tauris in assoc. with The Institute of Ismaili Studies, 2003); Hatim Mahamid, “Isma‘ili Da‘wa and Politics in Fatimid Egypt,” NEBULA 3.2-3, (Sept. 2006), pp. 1-17.
18 See Farhad Daftary, Ismailis in Medieval Muslim Societies: A Historical Introduction to an Islamic Community, (I.B. Tauris, London, 2005), pp. 62-88; idem, Ismaili History and Intellectual Traditions, (London & New-York: Routledge, 2018); idem, “The Fatimid Age: Dawla and Da‘wa,” in A Short History of the Ismailis: Traditions of a Muslim Community, (Edinburgh University Press; 2020), pp. 63-119.
19 Yitzhak Yehuda Goldziher, Lectures on Islam, (Translation: J. Rivlin), (Jerusalem: Bialik Institute, 1997), pp. 145-146; Hatim Mahamid, “Sunni Revival in Twelve-Century Syria: A Renewed Perspective,” Hamizrah he-Hadash (The New East) 49 (2010): 74-76; Makdisi, The Rise, pp. 17-19.
20 Ibn Kathīr, al-Bidāya, (vol. 13), p. 29.
21 Jonathan Berkey, The Transmission of Knowledge in Medieval Cairo, (Princeton University Press, 1992), pp. 51, 85-87. Regarding the al-Azhar Mosque since it was
MAHAMID & ABU ALHAIJA: POPULAR RELIGIOUS PREACHING AS INFORMAL EDUCATION 79
built in the Fatimid period to serve the Isma‘ili da‘wa, and until it was returned by
the Mamluk Sultan Baybars to its activities as a mosque and an educational institution
for the Sunni service see Muḥyī al-Dīn Ibn ‘Abd al-Ẓāhir, al-Rawḍ al-Zāhir
fī Sīrat al-Malik al-Ẓāhir, (Al-Riyad: ‘Abd al-‘Azīz al-Khuwaytir, 1976), pp. 277-280;
Shihāb al-Dīn Aḥmad al-Nuwayrī, Nihāyat al-Arab fī Funūn al-Adab, (Beirut, Dār
al-Kutub al-‘Ilmiyya, 2004), (30), p. 87.
22 Mahamid, “Sunni Revival,” 69.
23 See Muḥammad bin Aḥmad Ibn Iyās, Badā’i‘ al-Zuhūr fi Waqā’i‘ al-Duhūr, (vol. 3),
(Cairo: al-Hay’a al-Masriyya al-‘Āmma lil-Kitāb, 1984), p. 297.
24 Ibn Iyās, Bada’i‘, (vol. 2), p. 21; See also the description of the assembly with
al-Harawī, Shihāb al-Dīn Aḥmad Ibn Ḥajar al-‘Asqalānī, Inbā’ al-Ghumr bi-Abnā’
al-‘Umr, (Vol. 3), (Cairo: Lajnat Ihyā’ al-Turāth al-Islāmī, 1972), pp. 57- 64; Ibn
al-‘Imād, Shadharāt, (vol. 9), p. 194.
25 On this event, see Ibn Kathīr, al-Bidāya, (vol. 14), p. 277. At another preaching session,
Shaykh ‘Abd al-Rahmān (a Hanbali) encountered opposition from the followers
of the Shafi‘i school, since his preaching in 1416 tended to be in favor of the Shi‘a
in the mosques of Yalbughā and Umayyad in Damascus, see al-Nu‘aymī, al-Dāris,
(vol. 2), pp. 123-124.
26 On the spreading of corruption and conflicts among the ‘ulamā’, educators and
judges in late Mamluk era in Egypt and Syria, see Mahamid, Waqf, pp. 113-129;
idem, “Muslim Institutions of Learning (Madrasa) in Ayyubid and Mamluk Syria”, in
Research Aspects in Arts and Social Studies Vol. 8. (ed. Atila Yildirim), (India & United
Kingdom: B P International, 2023), pp. 64-65; Aḥmad ‘Abd al-Rāziq Aḥmad, al-Badhl
wa-l-Barṭala Zaman Salāṭīn al-Mamālīk, (Cairo: al-Hay’a al-Masriyya al-‘Āmma
li-l-Kitāb, 1979).
27 On holding councils and assemblies for scientific and religious aims by Sultan
al-Ghawrī see Christian Mauder, In the Sultan’s Salon: Learning, Religion and
Rulership at the Mamluk Court of Qāniṣawh Al-Ghawrī (r. 1501-1516), (vol. 1), (Leiden:
Brill, 2021). On storytelling and preaching in medieval Islamic societies, especially
in Egypt and Syria, see Berkey, Popular Preaching, pp. 36-52.
28 Ibn Iyās, Badā’i‘, (vol. 4), p. 343. On the spread of indecent acts contradicting
Islam and the Shari‘a laws in that period, and the treatment of the Mamluk Sultan
al-Ghawrī in matters which ultimately led to the dismissal and replacement of the
four chief judges, see ibid, pp. 340-349.
29 Ibn Kathīr, al-Bidāya, (vol. 13), pp. 38-39; Shams al-Dīn Muḥammad Ibn Ṭūlūn,
al-Qalā’id al-Jawhariyya fī Tārīkh al-Ṣāliḥiyya (vol. 2), (Damascus: Majma‘ al-Lugha
al-‘Arabiyya, 1980), pp. 441-442. See also the example of the Shaykh Sibṭ Ibn al-Jawzī
(d. 1256), and his influence among the popular crowd at the Umayyad Mosque in
Damascus, Ibn Kathīr, al-Bidāya, (vol. 13), pp. 194-195; Al-Nu‘aymī, al-Dāris, (vol.
1), pp. 478-480.
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30 See for some examples of such preachers, Ibn Kathīr, al-Bidāya, (vol. 14), p. 277; Taqiy
al-Dīn bin Aḥmad Ibn Qādī Shuhba. Tārīkh Ibn Qādī Shuhba. (vols. 3). Damascus:
al-Ma‘had al-‘Ilmī al-Faransī, 1977), pp. 172-173.
31 On this topic, see Hatim M. Mahamid and Younis F. Abu Alhaija, “Scholars and
Educational Positions under Criticism and Praise in the Medieval Islamic Era,”
Educational Research and Reviews vol. 16 (8), (Aug. 2021), pp. 336-342.
32 Ibn Qādī Shuhba, Tārīkh, (vols. 3), pp. 219-220; Ibn Iyās, Badā’i‘, (vol. 1/2), pp.
387-388.
33 On the Shaykh Ṣadr al-Dīn Ibn Mufliḥ, see Al-Nu‘aymī, al-Dāris, (vol. 2), pp.
50-52. Ibn al-‘Imād says that Ibn Mufliḥ’s name became famous and known among
common people, see Ibn al-‘Imād, Shadharāt, (vol. 9), p. 246.
34 See Nadia Erzini and Stephen Vernoit, “The Professorial Chair (kursi ‘ilmi or kursi
li-l-wa‘z wa-l-irshād) in Morocco,” Al-Qantara XXXIV 1, (2013), pp. 89-122.
35 In addition to assemblies with religious aims during the Mamluk era, some of the
Mamluk rulers sometimes held entertainment meetings such as drinking, singing,
and dancing, see Naṣṣār, Wasā’il al-Tarfīh, pp. 112-303.
36 Talmon-Heller, “Muslim Preachers,” pp. 87-88.
37 Ḍīf, Tārīkh al-Adab, (vol. 3), pp. 102-103. On the rise of rational sciences in the Islam,
see Younis F. Abu Alhaija and Hatim M. Mahamid, “The Impact of Doctrinal and
Intellectual Conflicts on Medieval Islamic Sciences,” Journal of Positive Psychology
& Wellbeing, vol. 5, no. 4, (2021), pp. 542-546.
38 On the Bayt al-Ḥikma in Baghdad and its influence on the culture of Islam,
see Claude Kahan, Islam, (Trans.: Emanuel Kopelevich), (Tel-Aviv, 1995). On
al-Mu‘tazila, its development and its most important intellectual views and works,
see Muḥammad Salīm al-‘Awwā, al-Madāris al-Fikriyya al-Islāmiyya, (Beirut:
al-Shabaka al-‘Arabiyya li-l-Abḥāth, 2016), pp. 193-245; Ignaz Goldziher, Introduction
to Islamic Theology and Law, (trans. Andras and Ruth Hamori), (Princeton, New
Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1981), pp. 85-100; Yūsuf al-‘Ish, Dūr al-Kutub
al-‘Arabiyya al-‘Āmma wa-Shibh al-‘Āmma li-Bilād al-‘Irāq wa-l-Shām wa-Miṣr
fī al-‘Aṣr al-Wasiṭ, (Beirut: Dār al-Fikr al-Mu‘āṣir, 1991), pp. 41-96; Ḥaydar Qāsim
al-Tamīmī, Bayt al-Ḥikma al-‘Abbāsī wa-Dawruhu fī Ẓuhūr Marākiz al-Ḥikma
fī al-‘Ālam al-Islāmī, (vol. 1), (Amman: Dār Zahrān, 2011), p. 41; Khaḍir Aḥmad
‘Aṭallah, Bayt al-Ḥikma fī ‘Aṣr al-‘Abasiyyīn, (1st ed.), (Cairo: Dār al-Fikr al-‘Arabī,
1989), p. 33; Jonathan Lyons, The House of Wisdom: How the Arabs Transformed
Western Civilization, (New York: Bloomsbury Press, 2009); idem, “Bayt al-Hikmah,”
in Kalin, Ibrahim (ed.), The Oxford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Science, and
Technology in Islam, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014); Jim Al-Khalili, The
House of Wisdom: How Arabic Science Saved Ancient Knowledge and Gave us the
Renaissance, (New York: Penguin Press, 2011).
MAHAMID & ABU ALHAIJA: POPULAR RELIGIOUS PREACHING AS INFORMAL EDUCATION 81
39 Ḍīf, Tārīkh al-Adab, (vol. 3), pp. 105-109; On Intellectual conflicts on Islamic sciences, and their effect see Abu Alhaija and Mahamid, “The Impact,” pp. 542-560; Farhad Daftary (ed.), Intellectual Traditions in Islam, (London-New York: I.B. Tauris Publishers, 2001).
40 On the victory of the advocates of the science of transmission (al-naqliyya) over the rational sciences (al-‘aqliyya) and the revival of the Sunna and religious sciences, see Abu Alhaija and Mahamid, “The Impact,” pp. 552-555; ‘Abd al-Raḥmān ‘Azzām, Saladin: The Triumph of the Sunni Revival, (Mecca: Islamic Texts Society, 2014); Jonathan Berkey, The Formation of Islam: Religion and Society in the Near East, 600-1800, (Cambridge University Press, 2002), pp. 189-202.
41 See Yossef Rapoport, “Legal Diversity in the Age of Taqlid: The Four Chief Qadis Under the Mamluks,” Islamic Law and Society, 10 (2), (2003), pp. 210-228; Jorgen S. Nielsen, “Sultan al-Ẓāhir Baybars and the Appointment of Four Chief Qāḍīs, 663/1265,” Studia Islamica 60 (1984), pp. 167-176; Hatim M. Mahamid, “Religious Policy of the Mamluk Sultan Baybars (1260–1277 AC),” Religions 14, no. 11: 1384, (2023). https://doi.org/10.3390/rel14111384
42 The custom, which was before this order, obliged the Shafi‘i judge to be present in these meetings in the citadel. See Ibn Iyās, Badā’i‘, (vol. 2), p. 29.
43 Ibn Taghrī Birdī, al-Nujūm, (vol. 14), pp. 38-39.
44 See Ibn Iyās, Badā’i‘, (vol. 5), pp. 24-25. Mauder’s research presented detailed and extensive descriptions of learning and the transmission of knowledge and religious life at the Mamluk Sultan al-Ghawrī’s Court by holding of councils and assemblies, see Mauder, In the Sultan’s Salon, Chapters 4 and 5.
45 See Taqī al-Dīn Aḥmad b. ‘Alī al-Maqrizī, al-Khiṭaṭ al-Maqrīziyya, (vol. 2), (Cairo: Maktabat Madbūlī, 1997), pp. 350, 353.
46 See for example such spectacular assemblies and ceremonies during the month of Ramadan held by the Mamluk Sultan Qāytbāy. At one of these celebrations on the bank of the Nile River in Cairo, all the readers of the Qur’an and the preachers of Cairo were invited. Ibn Iyās, Badā’i‘, (vol. 3), p. 11.
47 Aḥmad bin ‘Alī al-Qalqashandī, Ṣubḥ al-A‘ashā fī Ṣinā‘at al-Inshā, (vol. 3), (Beirut: Dār al-Fikr, 1987), p. 576; Al-Maqrīzī, al-Khiṭaṭ, (vol. 2), p. 305; Ibn Iyās, Badā’i‘, (vol. 3), pp. 38, 53, 108, 130, 200, 216. It is important to mention that this tradition of reviving the birthday of the Prophet (‘Īd al-Mawlid) is still celebrated in Muslim world to this day.
48 See Atta Muhammad, The Public Sphere during the Later Abbasid Caliphate (1000- 1258 CE): The Role of Sufism. (Ph.D. Dissertation: The University of Leeds, 2020); Daphna Ephrat, “The shaykh, the physical setting and the holy site: the Diffusion of the Qadiri Path in late Medieval Palestine,” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 19/1 (January 2009), pp. 1-20; idem, Sufi Masters and the Creation of Saintly Spheres
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in Medieval Syria, (Leeds: Arc Humanities Press, 2021), pp. 83-100; Mahamid, Waqf,
pp. 193-223; Donald Little, “The Nature of Khanqahs, Ribats, and Zawiyas under the
Mamluks,” in Islamic Studies Presented to Charles J. Adams, (eds., Wael Hallaq and
Donald P. Little), (Leiden, Brill, 1991), pp. 91-105.
49 See Stephennie Mulder, The Shrines of the ‘Alids in Medieval Syria: Sunnis, Shi`is,
and the Architecture of Coexistence, (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2014);
Stephen Wilson (ed), Introduction to Saints and Their Cults: Studies in Religious
Sociology, Folklore and History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983). On
the expansion of operation in the public sphere and the community that affected
by the Sufi leader (Shaykh), see Ephrat, Sufi Masters, pp. 63-80. On the Ribāṭ as an
institution of the “Public Sphere”, see Muhammad, The Public Sphere, pp. 156-210.
50 See Nathan Hofer, The Popularisation of Sufism in Ayyubid and Mamluk Egypt, 1173-
1325, (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2015); Josef W. Meri, The Cult of Saints
among Muslims and Jews in Medieval Syria (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002),
pp. 100-108; Daphna Ephrat and Hatim Mahamid, “The Creation of Sufi Spheres in
Medieval Damascus (mid-6th/12th to mid-8th/14th centuries),” Journal of the Royal
Asiatic Society, vol. 25 / issue 02, (2015), pp. 16-19. See also Christopher C. Taylor,
In the Vicinity of the Righteous Ziyara and the Veneration of Saints in Late Medieval
Egypt, (Leiden: Brill, 1999), pp. 67-127; Ephrat, Sufi Masters, pp. 101-114, 115-134;
Eric Geoffroy, Le Soufisme en Egypte et en Syrie sous les Derniers Mamlouks et les
Premi`eres Ottomans: Orientations Spirituelles et Enjeux Culturels, (Damascus: Institut
français d’études arabes de Damas, 1995), pp. 216-217. On Sufi tombs as sacred sites
for pilgrimage in Baghdad during the later Abbasid caliphate, see Muhammad, The
Public Sphere, pp. 235-236.
51 See Mulder, The Shrines, pp. 186-266.
52 On the organization of the dhikr circles (halaqat al-dhikr) of the Sufi orders, see
Mahamid, Waqf, pp. 222-223. See also the example of the development of Sufism in
the public sphere in Islamic regions, especially in Syria, Egypt, and Iraq between
the fifth and tenth centuries/eleventh to sixteenth centuries: Ephrat and Mahamid,
“The Creation,” pp. 189–208; Little, “The Nature,” pp. 93-96; Makdisi, The Rise, pp.
20-22, 33-34. On Sufi shaykhs’ roles in the public sphere as teachers, preachers,
ascetics and charitable shaykhs of the ṭarīqa, see Muhammad, The Public Sphere,
pp. 225-246
53 Al-Nu‘aymī, al-Dāris, (vol. 2), pp. 197-199; Ibn Kathīr, al-Bidāya, (vol. 13), pp. 173-
174; Ibn Qāḍī Shuhba, Tārīkh, (vol. 2), p. 495. On the role of the Sufis in Syria and
Egypt in the Ayyubid and Mamluk periods, their activity in the public sphere, and
their relations with the rulers and the strengthening of their position among the
popular community see Mahamid, Waqf, pp. 201-214. On Sufis’ relations with the
ruling authorities and their contribution to the “Public Sphere,” see Muhammad,
The Public Sphere, pp. 211-246.
MAHAMID & ABU ALHAIJA: POPULAR RELIGIOUS PREACHING AS INFORMAL EDUCATION 83
54 See the descriptive text of this meeting, Shams al-Dīn Muḥammad bin Ibrāhīm al-Qurashī al-Jazarī, al-Mukhtār min Tārīkh Ibn al-Jazarī, (Beirut, 1988), pp. 265-266; Shaykh ‘Alī al-Qaṭnānī (d. 1346), of the Sufi order al-Rifā‘iyya in Damascus, also had many followers among the upper class of the city. See Ibn Qāḍī Shuhba, Tārīkh, (vol. 2), p. 495; See also the meeting held by the Mamluk Sultan al-Mu’ayyad in 818/1415, mentioned above. Ibn Taghrī Birdī, al-Nujūm, (vol. 14), pp. 38-39.
55 Al-Nu‘aymī, al-Dāris, (vol. 2), pp. 219-221; ‘Alī bin Yūsuf al-Buṣrawī, Tārīkh al-Buṣrawī, (Damascus: Dār al- Ma’amūn li-l-Turāth, 1988), p. 186.
56 See as an example, the meeting of the renowned ‘ulamā’ in Damascus in 901/1495, in which they argued about whether to issue a fatwa to prohibit the use of drums. See al-Nu‘aymī, al-Dāris, (vol. 2), p. 219; al-Buṣrawī, Tārīkh, p. 186. Shams al-Dīn Ibn Ṭūlūn criticized the using of music and drums by the Sufis and even forbade it. See Shams al-Dīn Muḥammad Ibn Ṭūlūn, Tashyīd al-Ikhtiyār li-Taḥrīm al-Ṭabl wa-l-Mizmār, (Ṭanta, Dār al- Ṣaḥāba li-l-Turāth, 1993).
1 On the term majlis and its types in Islam, see George Makdisi, The Rise of Colleges, (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1981), pp. 10-12.
2 See Shawqī Ḍīf, Tārīkh al-Adab al-‘Arabī: al-‘Aṣr al-‘Abbāsī al-Awwal, (vol. 3), (Cairo, Dār al-Ma‘ārif, 1966); See also Luṭfī Aḥmad Naṣṣār, Wasā’il al-Tarfīh fī ‘Aṣr Salātīn al-Mamālīk fī Miṣr, (Cairo: al-Hay’a al-Maṣriyya al-‘Āmma li-l-Kitāb, 1999), pp. 19-109.
3 For a description of Ibn al-Jawzī’s preaching and its effect on his audience in Damascus see Ismā‘īl b. ‘Umar Ibn Kathīr, al-Bidāya wa-l-Nihāya, (vol. 13) (Beirut: Maktabat al-Ma‘ārif, 1988): 194.
4 See Ibn Kathīr, al-Bidāya, (vol. 13), p. 194; ‘Abd al-Qādir bin Muḥammad al-Nu‘aymī, al-Dāris fī Tārīkh al-Madāris, (vol. 1), (Beirut: Dār al-Kitāb al-Jadīd, 1981), p. 478.
5 See Makdisi, The Rise, pp. 10-11.
6 For further works on the culture of preaching assemblies (majālis al-wa‘ẓ/al-da‘wa), their spread in the Fatimid and Abbasid eras, and their religious and political impact see al-Qādī al-Nu‘mān bin Muḥammad bin Ḥayyūn, Kitāb al-Majālis wa-l-Musāyarāt, (Beirut: Dār al-Muntaẓar, 1996); ‘Alam al-Islām Thiqat al-Imām, al-Majālis al-Mustanṣiriyya, (Beirut: Mu’ssasat al-Nūr, 2006); al-Mu’ayyad fī al-Dīn al-Shīrāzī, al-Majālis al-Mu’ayyadiyya, (Cairo: Maktabat Madbūlī, 1994); ‘Abd al-Raḥmān bin ‘Alī Ibn al-Jawzī, al-Mawā‘iẓ wal-Majālis, (Tanṭā: Dār al-Ṣaḥāba, 1990).
7 See Jonathan P. Berkey, Popular Preaching and Religious Authority in the Medieval Islamic Near East, (Seattle: University of Washington Press: 2001); See also Adam Metz, al-Ḥaḍāra al-Islāmiyya, (vol. 2), (Beirut: Dār al-Kitāb al-‘Arabī, 1967), pp. 146-156.
8 ‘Abd al-Qādir al-Jilānī, al-Ghunya, (vols. 1-2), (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-‘Ilmiyya, 1997). See also Spencer Trimingham, The Sufi Orders in Islam, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015).
9 Ḍīf, Tārīkh al-Adab, (vol. 3), pp. 100-101; Hatim Mahamid, Waqf, Education and Politics in Late Medieval Syria, (Saarbrücken: Lap Lambert Academic Publishing, 2013), pp. 189-192; idem, “Mosques as Higher Educational Institutions in Mamluk Syria,” Journal of Islamic Studies (JIS), 20, Issue 2, (2009), pp. 205-211.
10 On preaching assemblies, see Daniella Talmon-Heller, Islamic Piety in Medieval Syria: Mosques, Cemeteries and Sermons under the Zangids and Ayyūbids (1146-1260), (Leiden: Brill, 2007), pp. 115-144.
11 On Muhyī al-Dīn Yusuf Ibn al-Jawzī, see Ibn Kathīr, al-Bidāya, (vol. 13), p. 211; al-Nu‘aymī, al-Dāris, (vol. 2), pp. 29-31; On Abu al-Faraj Ibn al-Jawzī, see Shihāb al-Dīn ‘Abd al-Hayy Ibn al-‘Imād, Shadharāt al-Dhahab fī Akhbār man Dhahab, (vols., 7), (Damascus-Beirut: Dār Ibn Kathīr, 1992), pp. 494-496.
78 AMERICAN JOURNAL OF ISLAM AND SOCIETYty 41:3-4
12 Ibn Kathīr, al-Bidaya, (vol. 13), p. 211.
13 See Yūsuf Jamāl al-Dīn Abū al-Maḥāsin Ibn Taghrī Birdī, al-Nujūm al-Zāhira fi Mulūk Miṣr wa-l-Qāhira, (vol. 7), (Cairo: Dār al-Kutub, 1963), p. 39; On the biography of Sibṭ Ibn al-Jawzī, and his preaching in Damascus, see Ibn Kathīr, al-Bidāya, (vol. 13), pp. 194-195; Al-Nu‘aymī, al-Dāris, (vol. 1), pp. 478-480; Ibn al-‘Imād, Shadharāt, (vol, 7), pp. 460-461; Talmon-Heller, Islamic Piety, pp. 128-131.
14 See Daniella Talmon-Heller, “Muslim Preachers during the Crusades,” Zmanim: A Historical Quarterly, no, 97 (2007), pp. 84-90; idem, “Religion in the Public Sphere: Rulers, Scholars and Commoners in Zangid and Ayyubid Syria (1150-1260),” in M. Hoexter, S.N. Eisenstadt, N. Levtzion (eds.), The Public Sphere in Muslim Societies, (Albany: SUNY, 2002), pp. 49-64; Berkey, Popular Preaching, pp. 53-69.
15 Merlin L. Swartz, “The Rules of the Popular Preaching in Twelfth Century Baghdad, according to Ibn al-Jawzi,” in George Makdisi et al. (eds.), Preaching and Propaganda in the Middle Ages. Islam, Byzantium, Latin West, (Paris 1983), p. 224.
16 Daniella Talmon-Heller, “Islamic Preaching in Syria during the Counter-Crusade (Twelfth-Thirteenth Centuries),” in Laudem Hierosolymitani: Studies in Crusades and Medieval Culture, in Honour of Benjamin Z. Kedar, (Iris Shagrir, Roni Ellenblum, and Jonathan Riley-Smith, eds.), (London: Routledge, 2016), pp. 85-100. On relations between rulers and preachers in Syria in the Zangid and Ayyubid Era, see idem, Islamic piety, pp. 123-28.
17 On the role of some of the Fatimid missionaries see al-Qādī al-Nu‘mān, Kitāb al-Majālis; Thiqat al-Imām, al-Majālis al-Mustanṣiriyya; al-Shīrāzī, al-Majālis al-Mu’ayyadiyya; Mustafā Ghālib, Tārīkh al-Da‘wa al-Ismā‘īliyya, (Beirut: Dār al-Andalus, 1965); Verena Klemm, Memoirs of a Mission: The Ismaili Statesman and Poet al-Mu’ayyad fi’l-Din al-Shirazi, (London & New York: I.B. Tauris in assoc. with The Institute of Ismaili Studies, 2003); Hatim Mahamid, “Isma‘ili Da‘wa and Politics in Fatimid Egypt,” NEBULA 3.2-3, (Sept. 2006), pp. 1-17.
18 See Farhad Daftary, Ismailis in Medieval Muslim Societies: A Historical Introduction to an Islamic Community, (I.B. Tauris, London, 2005), pp. 62-88; idem, Ismaili History and Intellectual Traditions, (London & New-York: Routledge, 2018); idem, “The Fatimid Age: Dawla and Da‘wa,” in A Short History of the Ismailis: Traditions of a Muslim Community, (Edinburgh University Press; 2020), pp. 63-119.
19 Yitzhak Yehuda Goldziher, Lectures on Islam, (Translation: J. Rivlin), (Jerusalem: Bialik Institute, 1997), pp. 145-146; Hatim Mahamid, “Sunni Revival in Twelve-Century Syria: A Renewed Perspective,” Hamizrah he-Hadash (The New East) 49 (2010): 74-76; Makdisi, The Rise, pp. 17-19.
20 Ibn Kathīr, al-Bidāya, (vol. 13), p. 29.
21 Jonathan Berkey, The Transmission of Knowledge in Medieval Cairo, (Princeton University Press, 1992), pp. 51, 85-87. Regarding the al-Azhar Mosque since it was
MAHAMID & ABU ALHAIJA: POPULAR RELIGIOUS PREACHING AS INFORMAL EDUCATION 79
built in the Fatimid period to serve the Isma‘ili da‘wa, and until it was returned by
the Mamluk Sultan Baybars to its activities as a mosque and an educational institution
for the Sunni service see Muḥyī al-Dīn Ibn ‘Abd al-Ẓāhir, al-Rawḍ al-Zāhir
fī Sīrat al-Malik al-Ẓāhir, (Al-Riyad: ‘Abd al-‘Azīz al-Khuwaytir, 1976), pp. 277-280;
Shihāb al-Dīn Aḥmad al-Nuwayrī, Nihāyat al-Arab fī Funūn al-Adab, (Beirut, Dār
al-Kutub al-‘Ilmiyya, 2004), (30), p. 87.
22 Mahamid, “Sunni Revival,” 69.
23 See Muḥammad bin Aḥmad Ibn Iyās, Badā’i‘ al-Zuhūr fi Waqā’i‘ al-Duhūr, (vol. 3),
(Cairo: al-Hay’a al-Masriyya al-‘Āmma lil-Kitāb, 1984), p. 297.
24 Ibn Iyās, Bada’i‘, (vol. 2), p. 21; See also the description of the assembly with
al-Harawī, Shihāb al-Dīn Aḥmad Ibn Ḥajar al-‘Asqalānī, Inbā’ al-Ghumr bi-Abnā’
al-‘Umr, (Vol. 3), (Cairo: Lajnat Ihyā’ al-Turāth al-Islāmī, 1972), pp. 57- 64; Ibn
al-‘Imād, Shadharāt, (vol. 9), p. 194.
25 On this event, see Ibn Kathīr, al-Bidāya, (vol. 14), p. 277. At another preaching session,
Shaykh ‘Abd al-Rahmān (a Hanbali) encountered opposition from the followers
of the Shafi‘i school, since his preaching in 1416 tended to be in favor of the Shi‘a
in the mosques of Yalbughā and Umayyad in Damascus, see al-Nu‘aymī, al-Dāris,
(vol. 2), pp. 123-124.
26 On the spreading of corruption and conflicts among the ‘ulamā’, educators and
judges in late Mamluk era in Egypt and Syria, see Mahamid, Waqf, pp. 113-129;
idem, “Muslim Institutions of Learning (Madrasa) in Ayyubid and Mamluk Syria”, in
Research Aspects in Arts and Social Studies Vol. 8. (ed. Atila Yildirim), (India & United
Kingdom: B P International, 2023), pp. 64-65; Aḥmad ‘Abd al-Rāziq Aḥmad, al-Badhl
wa-l-Barṭala Zaman Salāṭīn al-Mamālīk, (Cairo: al-Hay’a al-Masriyya al-‘Āmma
li-l-Kitāb, 1979).
27 On holding councils and assemblies for scientific and religious aims by Sultan
al-Ghawrī see Christian Mauder, In the Sultan’s Salon: Learning, Religion and
Rulership at the Mamluk Court of Qāniṣawh Al-Ghawrī (r. 1501-1516), (vol. 1), (Leiden:
Brill, 2021). On storytelling and preaching in medieval Islamic societies, especially
in Egypt and Syria, see Berkey, Popular Preaching, pp. 36-52.
28 Ibn Iyās, Badā’i‘, (vol. 4), p. 343. On the spread of indecent acts contradicting
Islam and the Shari‘a laws in that period, and the treatment of the Mamluk Sultan
al-Ghawrī in matters which ultimately led to the dismissal and replacement of the
four chief judges, see ibid, pp. 340-349.
29 Ibn Kathīr, al-Bidāya, (vol. 13), pp. 38-39; Shams al-Dīn Muḥammad Ibn Ṭūlūn,
al-Qalā’id al-Jawhariyya fī Tārīkh al-Ṣāliḥiyya (vol. 2), (Damascus: Majma‘ al-Lugha
al-‘Arabiyya, 1980), pp. 441-442. See also the example of the Shaykh Sibṭ Ibn al-Jawzī
(d. 1256), and his influence among the popular crowd at the Umayyad Mosque in
Damascus, Ibn Kathīr, al-Bidāya, (vol. 13), pp. 194-195; Al-Nu‘aymī, al-Dāris, (vol.
1), pp. 478-480.
80 AMERICAN JOURNAL OF ISLAM AND SOCIETY 41:3-4
30 See for some examples of such preachers, Ibn Kathīr, al-Bidāya, (vol. 14), p. 277; Taqiy
al-Dīn bin Aḥmad Ibn Qādī Shuhba. Tārīkh Ibn Qādī Shuhba. (vols. 3). Damascus:
al-Ma‘had al-‘Ilmī al-Faransī, 1977), pp. 172-173.
31 On this topic, see Hatim M. Mahamid and Younis F. Abu Alhaija, “Scholars and
Educational Positions under Criticism and Praise in the Medieval Islamic Era,”
Educational Research and Reviews vol. 16 (8), (Aug. 2021), pp. 336-342.
32 Ibn Qādī Shuhba, Tārīkh, (vols. 3), pp. 219-220; Ibn Iyās, Badā’i‘, (vol. 1/2), pp.
387-388.
33 On the Shaykh Ṣadr al-Dīn Ibn Mufliḥ, see Al-Nu‘aymī, al-Dāris, (vol. 2), pp.
50-52. Ibn al-‘Imād says that Ibn Mufliḥ’s name became famous and known among
common people, see Ibn al-‘Imād, Shadharāt, (vol. 9), p. 246.
34 See Nadia Erzini and Stephen Vernoit, “The Professorial Chair (kursi ‘ilmi or kursi
li-l-wa‘z wa-l-irshād) in Morocco,” Al-Qantara XXXIV 1, (2013), pp. 89-122.
35 In addition to assemblies with religious aims during the Mamluk era, some of the
Mamluk rulers sometimes held entertainment meetings such as drinking, singing,
and dancing, see Naṣṣār, Wasā’il al-Tarfīh, pp. 112-303.
36 Talmon-Heller, “Muslim Preachers,” pp. 87-88.
37 Ḍīf, Tārīkh al-Adab, (vol. 3), pp. 102-103. On the rise of rational sciences in the Islam,
see Younis F. Abu Alhaija and Hatim M. Mahamid, “The Impact of Doctrinal and
Intellectual Conflicts on Medieval Islamic Sciences,” Journal of Positive Psychology
& Wellbeing, vol. 5, no. 4, (2021), pp. 542-546.
38 On the Bayt al-Ḥikma in Baghdad and its influence on the culture of Islam,
see Claude Kahan, Islam, (Trans.: Emanuel Kopelevich), (Tel-Aviv, 1995). On
al-Mu‘tazila, its development and its most important intellectual views and works,
see Muḥammad Salīm al-‘Awwā, al-Madāris al-Fikriyya al-Islāmiyya, (Beirut:
al-Shabaka al-‘Arabiyya li-l-Abḥāth, 2016), pp. 193-245; Ignaz Goldziher, Introduction
to Islamic Theology and Law, (trans. Andras and Ruth Hamori), (Princeton, New
Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1981), pp. 85-100; Yūsuf al-‘Ish, Dūr al-Kutub
al-‘Arabiyya al-‘Āmma wa-Shibh al-‘Āmma li-Bilād al-‘Irāq wa-l-Shām wa-Miṣr
fī al-‘Aṣr al-Wasiṭ, (Beirut: Dār al-Fikr al-Mu‘āṣir, 1991), pp. 41-96; Ḥaydar Qāsim
al-Tamīmī, Bayt al-Ḥikma al-‘Abbāsī wa-Dawruhu fī Ẓuhūr Marākiz al-Ḥikma
fī al-‘Ālam al-Islāmī, (vol. 1), (Amman: Dār Zahrān, 2011), p. 41; Khaḍir Aḥmad
‘Aṭallah, Bayt al-Ḥikma fī ‘Aṣr al-‘Abasiyyīn, (1st ed.), (Cairo: Dār al-Fikr al-‘Arabī,
1989), p. 33; Jonathan Lyons, The House of Wisdom: How the Arabs Transformed
Western Civilization, (New York: Bloomsbury Press, 2009); idem, “Bayt al-Hikmah,”
in Kalin, Ibrahim (ed.), The Oxford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Science, and
Technology in Islam, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014); Jim Al-Khalili, The
House of Wisdom: How Arabic Science Saved Ancient Knowledge and Gave us the
Renaissance, (New York: Penguin Press, 2011).
MAHAMID & ABU ALHAIJA: POPULAR RELIGIOUS PREACHING AS INFORMAL EDUCATION 81
39 Ḍīf, Tārīkh al-Adab, (vol. 3), pp. 105-109; On Intellectual conflicts on Islamic sciences, and their effect see Abu Alhaija and Mahamid, “The Impact,” pp. 542-560; Farhad Daftary (ed.), Intellectual Traditions in Islam, (London-New York: I.B. Tauris Publishers, 2001).
40 On the victory of the advocates of the science of transmission (al-naqliyya) over the rational sciences (al-‘aqliyya) and the revival of the Sunna and religious sciences, see Abu Alhaija and Mahamid, “The Impact,” pp. 552-555; ‘Abd al-Raḥmān ‘Azzām, Saladin: The Triumph of the Sunni Revival, (Mecca: Islamic Texts Society, 2014); Jonathan Berkey, The Formation of Islam: Religion and Society in the Near East, 600-1800, (Cambridge University Press, 2002), pp. 189-202.
41 See Yossef Rapoport, “Legal Diversity in the Age of Taqlid: The Four Chief Qadis Under the Mamluks,” Islamic Law and Society, 10 (2), (2003), pp. 210-228; Jorgen S. Nielsen, “Sultan al-Ẓāhir Baybars and the Appointment of Four Chief Qāḍīs, 663/1265,” Studia Islamica 60 (1984), pp. 167-176; Hatim M. Mahamid, “Religious Policy of the Mamluk Sultan Baybars (1260–1277 AC),” Religions 14, no. 11: 1384, (2023). https://doi.org/10.3390/rel14111384
42 The custom, which was before this order, obliged the Shafi‘i judge to be present in these meetings in the citadel. See Ibn Iyās, Badā’i‘, (vol. 2), p. 29.
43 Ibn Taghrī Birdī, al-Nujūm, (vol. 14), pp. 38-39.
44 See Ibn Iyās, Badā’i‘, (vol. 5), pp. 24-25. Mauder’s research presented detailed and extensive descriptions of learning and the transmission of knowledge and religious life at the Mamluk Sultan al-Ghawrī’s Court by holding of councils and assemblies, see Mauder, In the Sultan’s Salon, Chapters 4 and 5.
45 See Taqī al-Dīn Aḥmad b. ‘Alī al-Maqrizī, al-Khiṭaṭ al-Maqrīziyya, (vol. 2), (Cairo: Maktabat Madbūlī, 1997), pp. 350, 353.
46 See for example such spectacular assemblies and ceremonies during the month of Ramadan held by the Mamluk Sultan Qāytbāy. At one of these celebrations on the bank of the Nile River in Cairo, all the readers of the Qur’an and the preachers of Cairo were invited. Ibn Iyās, Badā’i‘, (vol. 3), p. 11.
47 Aḥmad bin ‘Alī al-Qalqashandī, Ṣubḥ al-A‘ashā fī Ṣinā‘at al-Inshā, (vol. 3), (Beirut: Dār al-Fikr, 1987), p. 576; Al-Maqrīzī, al-Khiṭaṭ, (vol. 2), p. 305; Ibn Iyās, Badā’i‘, (vol. 3), pp. 38, 53, 108, 130, 200, 216. It is important to mention that this tradition of reviving the birthday of the Prophet (‘Īd al-Mawlid) is still celebrated in Muslim world to this day.
48 See Atta Muhammad, The Public Sphere during the Later Abbasid Caliphate (1000- 1258 CE): The Role of Sufism. (Ph.D. Dissertation: The University of Leeds, 2020); Daphna Ephrat, “The shaykh, the physical setting and the holy site: the Diffusion of the Qadiri Path in late Medieval Palestine,” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 19/1 (January 2009), pp. 1-20; idem, Sufi Masters and the Creation of Saintly Spheres
82 AMERICAN JOURNAL OF ISLAM AND SOCIETY 41:3-4
in Medieval Syria, (Leeds: Arc Humanities Press, 2021), pp. 83-100; Mahamid, Waqf,
pp. 193-223; Donald Little, “The Nature of Khanqahs, Ribats, and Zawiyas under the
Mamluks,” in Islamic Studies Presented to Charles J. Adams, (eds., Wael Hallaq and
Donald P. Little), (Leiden, Brill, 1991), pp. 91-105.
49 See Stephennie Mulder, The Shrines of the ‘Alids in Medieval Syria: Sunnis, Shi`is,
and the Architecture of Coexistence, (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2014);
Stephen Wilson (ed), Introduction to Saints and Their Cults: Studies in Religious
Sociology, Folklore and History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983). On
the expansion of operation in the public sphere and the community that affected
by the Sufi leader (Shaykh), see Ephrat, Sufi Masters, pp. 63-80. On the Ribāṭ as an
institution of the “Public Sphere”, see Muhammad, The Public Sphere, pp. 156-210.
50 See Nathan Hofer, The Popularisation of Sufism in Ayyubid and Mamluk Egypt, 1173-
1325, (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2015); Josef W. Meri, The Cult of Saints
among Muslims and Jews in Medieval Syria (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002),
pp. 100-108; Daphna Ephrat and Hatim Mahamid, “The Creation of Sufi Spheres in
Medieval Damascus (mid-6th/12th to mid-8th/14th centuries),” Journal of the Royal
Asiatic Society, vol. 25 / issue 02, (2015), pp. 16-19. See also Christopher C. Taylor,
In the Vicinity of the Righteous Ziyara and the Veneration of Saints in Late Medieval
Egypt, (Leiden: Brill, 1999), pp. 67-127; Ephrat, Sufi Masters, pp. 101-114, 115-134;
Eric Geoffroy, Le Soufisme en Egypte et en Syrie sous les Derniers Mamlouks et les
Premi`eres Ottomans: Orientations Spirituelles et Enjeux Culturels, (Damascus: Institut
français d’études arabes de Damas, 1995), pp. 216-217. On Sufi tombs as sacred sites
for pilgrimage in Baghdad during the later Abbasid caliphate, see Muhammad, The
Public Sphere, pp. 235-236.
51 See Mulder, The Shrines, pp. 186-266.
52 On the organization of the dhikr circles (halaqat al-dhikr) of the Sufi orders, see
Mahamid, Waqf, pp. 222-223. See also the example of the development of Sufism in
the public sphere in Islamic regions, especially in Syria, Egypt, and Iraq between
the fifth and tenth centuries/eleventh to sixteenth centuries: Ephrat and Mahamid,
“The Creation,” pp. 189–208; Little, “The Nature,” pp. 93-96; Makdisi, The Rise, pp.
20-22, 33-34. On Sufi shaykhs’ roles in the public sphere as teachers, preachers,
ascetics and charitable shaykhs of the ṭarīqa, see Muhammad, The Public Sphere,
pp. 225-246
53 Al-Nu‘aymī, al-Dāris, (vol. 2), pp. 197-199; Ibn Kathīr, al-Bidāya, (vol. 13), pp. 173-
174; Ibn Qāḍī Shuhba, Tārīkh, (vol. 2), p. 495. On the role of the Sufis in Syria and
Egypt in the Ayyubid and Mamluk periods, their activity in the public sphere, and
their relations with the rulers and the strengthening of their position among the
popular community see Mahamid, Waqf, pp. 201-214. On Sufis’ relations with the
ruling authorities and their contribution to the “Public Sphere,” see Muhammad,
The Public Sphere, pp. 211-246.
MAHAMID & ABU ALHAIJA: POPULAR RELIGIOUS PREACHING AS INFORMAL EDUCATION 83
54 See the descriptive text of this meeting, Shams al-Dīn Muḥammad bin Ibrāhīm al-Qurashī al-Jazarī, al-Mukhtār min Tārīkh Ibn al-Jazarī, (Beirut, 1988), pp. 265-266; Shaykh ‘Alī al-Qaṭnānī (d. 1346), of the Sufi order al-Rifā‘iyya in Damascus, also had many followers among the upper class of the city. See Ibn Qāḍī Shuhba, Tārīkh, (vol. 2), p. 495; See also the meeting held by the Mamluk Sultan al-Mu’ayyad in 818/1415, mentioned above. Ibn Taghrī Birdī, al-Nujūm, (vol. 14), pp. 38-39.
55 Al-Nu‘aymī, al-Dāris, (vol. 2), pp. 219-221; ‘Alī bin Yūsuf al-Buṣrawī, Tārīkh al-Buṣrawī, (Damascus: Dār al- Ma’amūn li-l-Turāth, 1988), p. 186.
56 See as an example, the meeting of the renowned ‘ulamā’ in Damascus in 901/1495, in which they argued about whether to issue a fatwa to prohibit the use of drums. See al-Nu‘aymī, al-Dāris, (vol. 2), p. 219; al-Buṣrawī, Tārīkh, p. 186. Shams al-Dīn Ibn Ṭūlūn criticized the using of music and drums by the Sufis and even forbade it. See Shams al-Dīn Muḥammad Ibn Ṭūlūn, Tashyīd al-Ikhtiyār li-Taḥrīm al-Ṭabl wa-l-Mizmār, (Ṭanta, Dār al- Ṣaḥāba li-l-Turāth, 1993).
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Mahamid, H., & Abu Alhaija, Y. (2024). Popular Religious Preaching as Informal Education and its Impact on Medieval Islamic Culture. American Journal of Islam and Society, 41(3-4), 56–83. https://doi.org/10.35632/ajis.v41i3-4.3461
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