Hamza ibn Ali
Hamza ibn Ali ibn Ahmad | |
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Born | 985 Sunnis |
Hamza ibn Ali ibn Ahmad (
Life
Origin
The life of Hamza ibn Ali and his exact role in the birth of the Druze movement are not entirely clear, as the chief sources about him—the contemporary Christian chronicler Yahya of Antioch, the Muslim historian Ibn Zafir, and Hamza's own epistles—are often contradictory.[1]
According to Ibn Zafir, Hamza ibn Ali was born in
Background: the Isma'ili daʿwa under al-Hakim
At that time, the
The most explosive of al-Akhram's views, however, was that the line of the
Start of Hamza's mission
Hamza also followed similar teachings: he established himself at a mosque on the Raydan Canal, outside the city gate of Bab al-Nasr, and there expounded the view that in al-Hakim, God had become incarnate. He adopted the title of "leader of the adepts" (hādi al-mustajībīn), and his following quickly grew. According to the medieval chroniclers, he too enjoyed signs of favour from al-Hakim: when he complained to the Caliph that his life was in danger, he was given weapons, which he demonstratively hung on every entrance to the Raydan Mosque.[15] It is unclear when exactly Hamza began his mission. The earliest of his epistles to contain a date comes from July 1017.[16] In the previous, undated fifth epistle, Hamza had declared a new oath (mīṭāq) to his followers, who were for the first time referred to as "The People of Monotheism" (al-Muwaḥḥidun). In it, they pledged to abandon every previous allegiance and swear obedience to "our Lord al-Hakim, the One, the Unique, the Sole One" and to place themselves at his disposal body and soul, including all their possessions and even their children.[16]
Al-Hakim is generally portrayed in the historical sources to have been favourably disposed towards Hamza's movement. Modern historians are more skeptical about claims—mostly transmitted by hostile Sunni historians—that the Caliph actually instigated the new doctrine himself. The historian
Hamza and al-Darzi
Although Hamza was the real founder of the Druze religion,[21][22] it received its name by another like-minded propagandist—and soon to become rival—the Turk al-Darazi (probably derived from the Persian word for tailor). From him, the followers of Hamza became known as the "Darzites" (darzīya) and "Druzes" (from the broken plural form durūz).[23] The exact relation between Hamza and al-Darzi is unclear. Yahya of Antioch presents him as a disciple of Hamza, but Ibn Zafir has it the other way round.[1]
The modern historian Marshall Hodgson attempted to discern doctrinal differences between the two, positing that al-Darzi was still within the limits of Isma'ilism, while Hamza's teachings about al-Hakim's divinity effectively put his doctrine outside the boundaries not only of Isma'ilism, but of Islam in general.[24] This thesis was rejected by Bryer,[25] and al-Darzi is now considered by historians as a particularly zealous adherent of al-Hakim's divinity, writing letters to senior Fatimid officials and commanders urging them to join him.[26][27] Indeed, in his epistles, Hamza is critical of his colleague, both for al-Darzi's disputing Hamza's role as the leader of their movement, as well as for his followers' over-zealous, extremist and provocative actions, which revealed the movement's ideas prematurely and placed it under danger of attack.[28]
The Day of al-Kāʾina
According to Yahya of Antioch, the chief opponent of the doctrines propagated by Hamza and al-Darzi was the leader of the established Isma'ili daʿwa, the
The conflict between the two parties came to a head at the Amr ibn al-As Mosque at Fustat (Old Cairo) on 19 June 1019 (12 Ṣafar 410 AH), known in Druze tradition as the "Day of al-Kāʾina", a name whose meaning is unknown.[1][30] On that day, some of Hamza's followers entered the Mosque of Amr, loudly proclaiming their beliefs, but encountered the opposition of the locals, who began streaming to the mosque. When the Sunni chief judge (qāḍī al-quḍāt) learned of events, he went to the mosque, where Hamza's men tried to have him read out a statement affirming the divinity of al-Hakim. The qāḍī demurred, and the assembled multitude became incensed, so that they lynched Hamza's followers, dragging their corpses through the city's streets.[1][31][32] On the same day, al-Hakim dismissed the police prefects of the capital, and punished the instigators of the lynchings.[33] This only served to provoke the populace and the troops: on 29 June, the Turkish soldiers surrounded al-Darzi's house and, after a brief battle with his followers who had barricaded themselves there, stormed it. Some forty of al-Darzi's supporters were killed, but al-Darzi himself managed to escape and found refuge in the caliphal palace. The Turks then assembled before the palace gates, demanding that he be delivered to them for punishment; the historical sources are silent on al-Darzi's fate, but Hamza's epistles report that he was executed by al-Hakim.[1][34][35]
Robbed of their original target, the Turkish troops turned on Hamza and his followers, attacking the Raydan Mosque and setting its gate on fire. Hamza himself reports in two of his epistles (10 and 19) how, with only twelve followers, of whom five were either too old or too young to fight, he managed to hold back the attacks of his enemies for a whole day, before a 'miraculous' appearance of al-Hakim forced their attackers to withdraw.[36][28] Hamza places this miracle on the day of the Islamic new year (1 Muharram 410 AH/9 May 1019 CE), which thus marked the resumption of the Druze's missionary activity (the "divine call").[37] The riots spread, the discipline of the soldiers collapsed, and order was restored only after much of Cairo had been burned down. Chroniclers hostile to al-Hakim, like Yahya of Antioch or later Sunni historians, saw in this a deliberate attempt by the Caliph to punish the Cairenes for opposing the Druze teachings.[38][19]
Final years
The ghulāt doctrines current during the later years of al-Hakim's reign were apparently propagated simultaneously and independently by a number of missionaries. Their roles and their mutual relationships are unclear. Al-Akhram for example is assigned a major role by later Sunni historians, but is passed over in silence by Hamza. Nevertheless, Hamza does appear to have played a leading role: even if al-Darzi had his own followers, the sources do suggest that he acknowledged Hamza's leadership on some matters.[39] In any event, with the death of al-Darzi, by 1019 Hamza was the almost undisputed leader of the new movement.[40]
More importantly, it was Hamza who built up the new religion into an organized movement similar to the official Isma'ili daʿwa, by appointing his own dāʿīs in Egypt and Syria.[40] He furthermore selected some of his senior disciples and established them in a hierarchy of "ranks", headed by himself (see below).[40][41]
Al-Hakim's disappearance and Hamza's death
On the night of 13 February 1021, Caliph al-Hakim disappeared during one of his usual nightly rides, likely the victim of a palace conspiracy. Power was seized by his sister,
A few months after al-Hakim's disappearance, Hamza wrote a farewell epistle (Risālat al-Ghayba, 'Epistle of Occultation'), in which he announced his retirement and al-Hakim's concealment or occultation (ghayba). In it, Hamza urged his followers to keep the faith, as the period of trials would soon pass, and the end times would arrive.[1][44][a]
According to the contemporary Baghdadi chronicler al-Khatib al-Baghdadi, Hamza fled the persecution to Mecca, where he was placed under the protection of the local ruler, the Sharif of Mecca. However, he was soon recognized by Egyptian Hajj pilgrims, who demanded his execution. The Sharif hesitated—according to Heinz Halm, likely waiting to see whether the new regime in Egypt would last—but after a series of supposed signs of divine displeasure, he had Hamza and one of his slaves beheaded in front of one of the gates of the Kaaba. The corpses were crucified, and stoned by passers-by; their remains were later burned.[44]
Aftermath
The leadership of the Druze movement, now scattered and decimated, was taken over by one of Hamza's chief disciples,
This marked the end of the Druze "divine call", i.e., its active missionary phase. From then to the present day, the Druze have been a closed community, in which neither conversion nor apostasy is allowed.[48] The 71 epistles of al-Muqtana, together with those of Hamza and another disciple, Isma'il ibn Muhammad al-Tamimi, that al-Muqtana compiled, form the scripture of the Druze faith, the Epistles of Wisdom (Rasāʾil al-Ḥikma) or Exalted Wisdom (al-Ḥikma al-Sharīfa). Of its six books, the first two contain the work of Hamza and others, while the remaining four encompass al-Muqtana's writings.[49][48] Thirty of the 113 Epistles of Wisdom (numbers 6 to 35) are attributed to Hamza.[1]
Teachings
Part of a series on
Druze |
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The doctrine propagated by Hamza in his epistles reflects ideas current among Iranian Isma'ilis in the 10th century, particularly in the work of
Cosmology
Early Isma'ilism regarded history as a sequence of cycles, each inaugurated by a prophetic figure like
During the Biblical Creation, God was incarnated as al-Bar (from an Arabic or Persian word meaning "Creator" or "God"), while the Universal Intellect was incarnated as
Al-Hakim and the new religion
According to Hamza, the establishment of the Fatimid Caliphate inaugurated a new cycle, in which God secretly took human form (nāsūt) again, in the persons of the Fatimid imam–caliphs.
Instead of the previous religious law, Hamza now preached a new "spiritual law" (al-sharīʿa al-rūḥāniyya) founded on seven moral principles. As the historian Daniel De Smet points out, these were simple injunctions "that had no esoteric dimension at all and were thus not subject to interpretation".[1] The aim of the Druze movement was thus to restore the conditions prior to the fall of Adam; Hamza saw himself as a "new Adam", with the task of "wielding the sword of Our Lord" to achieve the return to the lost paradisiac conditions.[1]
However, again the Devil and his minions interfered with the divine cause, taking the form of the leaders of the Fatimid daʿwa, who incited the people and the army against al-Hakim.[1] Corresponding to his concept of pairs of emanations of God and their adversaries, Hamza established a hierarchy of five cosmic ranks (ḥudūd) corresponding to the emanations of the Creator-God (al-Hakim), and assigned to each of them a leading figure of the Fatimid establishment as their adversary: Hamza himself was the incarnation of the Universal Intellect, and opposed by al-Hakim's designated successor as caliph, Abd al-Rahim ibn Ilyas; next in line was Isma'il al-Tamimi, the incarnation of the World Soul, opposed by al-Hakim's designated successor as imam, al-Abbas ibn Shu'aib; then the Word, a certain Muhammad ibn Wahb al-Qurashi, opposed by the dāʿī al-duʿāt, Qut Tegin; then the Right Wing, Ali ibn Ahmad ibn al-Daif, opposed by the deputy dāʿī al-duʿāt, Ja'far al-Darir; and finally the Left Wing, Baha al-Din al-Muqtana (Hamza's eventual successor), opposed by the qāḍī al-quḍāt, Ahmad ibn Abi'l-Awamm.[41] The continued opposition by the establishment would finally lead to God shedding his earthly vessel (al-Hakim) on the night of his disappearance.[1]
References
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w De Smet 2017.
- ^ a b c d Madelung 1971, p. 154.
- ^ Halm 2003, pp. 279–280.
- ^ Bryer 1975a, pp. 66–69.
- ^ Halm 2003, pp. 282–285.
- ^ Bryer 1975a, pp. 66–68.
- ^ Halm 2003, pp. 282–284.
- ^ Halm 2003, pp. 281–282.
- ^ Bryer 1975a, pp. 59–61.
- ^ Bryer 1975a, p. 68.
- ^ Halm 2003, pp. 284–285.
- ^ Bryer 1975a, pp. 64–66.
- ^ Halm 2003, p. 285.
- ^ Halm 2003, pp. 285–286.
- ^ Halm 2003, pp. 286–287.
- ^ a b Halm 2003, p. 287.
- ^ Bryer 1975a, pp. 75–78.
- ^ Halm 2003, p. 456 (note 457).
- ^ a b Halm 2003, p. 292.
- ^ Bryer 1975a, pp. 78–79.
- ^ Bryer 1975a, p. 48.
- ^ Halm 2003, p. 286.
- ^ Halm 2003, p. 288.
- ^ Bryer 1975a, pp. 82–83.
- ^ Bryer 1975a, p. 83.
- ^ Bryer 1975a, pp. 69–71.
- ^ Halm 2003, pp. 288–289.
- ^ a b Halm 2003, p. 291.
- ^ Halm 2003, pp. 288, 289.
- ^ Halm 2003, p. 289.
- ^ Bryer 1975a, pp. 72–73.
- ^ Halm 2003, pp. 289–290.
- ^ Halm 2003, p. 290.
- ^ Bryer 1975a, pp. 70–71.
- ^ Halm 2003, pp. 290–291.
- ^ Makarim 1974, pp. 20–22.
- ^ Makarim 1974, p. 22.
- ^ Bryer 1975a, pp. 73, 75–76.
- ^ Bryer 1975a, pp. 79–80.
- ^ a b c Bryer 1975a, p. 80.
- ^ a b c d Halm 2003, p. 294.
- ^ Halm 2003, pp. 294–309.
- ^ Halm 2003, pp. 324–326.
- ^ a b Halm 2003, p. 324.
- ^ Halm 2003, pp. 326–327.
- ^ Halm 2003, pp. 329, 330.
- ^ Halm 2003, p. 329.
- ^ a b Daftary 2007, p. 189.
- ^ Halm 2003, p. 326.
- ^ Bryer 1975a, pp. 57–58.
- ^ Bryer 1975a, p. 50.
- ^ Bryer 1975b, p. 239.
- ^ Bryer 1975b, p. 241.
- ^ Bryer 1975a, pp. 52–53.
- ^ a b c Halm 2003, p. 293.
- ^ Halm 2003, pp. 293–294.
- ^ Bryer 1975a, pp. 54–55.
- ^ Halm 2003, pp. 295–296.
Notes
- ^ Hamza ibn Ali's Risālat al-Ghayba ('Epistle of Occultation', written in 1021) is not to be confused with a treatise of the same name written in 1042 by his pupil Baha al-Din al-Muqtana (on which, see Kratschkowsky & Halm 1993, p. 544).
Sources
- Abu-Izeddin, Nejla (1993) [1984]. The Druzes: A New Study of Their History, Faith, and Society (Second ed.). Leiden, New York, Köln: Brill. ISBN 90-04-09705-8.
- Bryer, David R. W. (1975). "The Origins of the Druze Religion". S2CID 201807131.
- Bryer, David R. W. (1975). "The Origins of the Druze Religion (Fortsetzung)". S2CID 162363556.
- Bryer, David R. W. (1976). "The Origins of the Druze Religion". S2CID 162266101.
- ISBN 978-0-521-61636-2.
- De Smet, Daniel (2017). "Ḥamza b. ʿAlī". In Fleet, Kate; Krämer, Gudrun; Matringe, Denis; Nawas, John; Rowson, Everett (eds.). Encyclopaedia of Islam (3rd ed.). Brill Online. ISSN 1873-9830.
- ISBN 3-406-48654-1.
- ISBN 978-90-04-09419-2.
- OCLC 495469525.
- Makarim, Sami Nasib (1974). The Druze Faith. Caravan Books. ISBN 978-0-88206-003-3.