Iraq after the Muslim Conquest - Michael G. Morony

RELIGIOUS COMMUNITIES

Arabs who had been converted to Monophysite Christianity in the

sixth century had been so attracted to asceticism. Sali!). was ascetic

(Ar. niisik), humble, pale-faced, and devout (Ar. sa~ib 'ibiida). He

taught his companions to recite the Qur'an, instructed them, and

narrated to them (Ar. yaqu~~u). His teaching, as it survived among

his followers, exhorted them to:

... the fear of God and abstinence in this world and desire for

the hereafter, much remembrance of death, separation from sinners,

and love for the faithful because abstinence in this world makes the

servant desire the things of God and frees his body for obedience

to God, and much remembrance of death fills the servant with fear

of his Lord so that he prays fervently to Him and submits to Him

... and going out from the abode of annihilation to the abode of

permanence and joining our truly faithful brethren who sell this

world for the next and spend their wealth as a request for God's

approval on the last day.39

In addition to this conformity to contemporary patterns of piety
and the reinforcement of the relationship between monastic piety and
early Islamic piety, two additional aspects might be noted here. First,
the Khawarij called themselves "vendors" (Ar. shurat) of their souls
and of their substance for the cause of God in return for the assurance
of Paradise. This concept was based most directly on Sura 9:111,
where the purchase by God of the lives and property of those who
fight for His cause and are slain is put in the terms of a covenant. The
idea of spending one's worldly goods in return for salvation was also
current in Christian piety and was part of the rejection of material
values.^40 Second, this concentration on death may be related to pre-
Islamic Arab attitudes of resignation in battle and to the Islamic con-
cept of martyrdom in battle, but the connection between asceticism
and death had already been made in Jewish piety and in Christian
monasticism. Ephrem Syrus regarded monks as dead to the material
world; in monastic rules a monk was disinherited as though he were
dead; and Isaac of Nineveh expressed this connection in a rhetorical
fashion that echoes the Khawarij:

39 Tabarl, Ta'rtkh, n, 881-83.
40 Salem, Khawiirij, pp. 25-26, 37; von Grunebaum, Medieval Islam, p. 122; Wen-
sinck, Muslim Creed, p. 38; Isaac of Nineveh, "Mystic Treatises," p. 39.