RELIGIOUS COMMUNITIESquite strong in Simon of Taibutheh, who said "Woe unto the man
who does not weep, is not assailed by affliction, and does not wipe
off his sins while there is yet time for repentance, as in the next world
he will have to wipe them off forcibly with the billows of fire. "84
Qur'anic sanction reinforced local usage in the practice of weeping
as a pious exercise by Muslims in Iraq. Weeping is specifically asso-
ciated with prostration in the Qur'an, as it was in Christian piety.8s
In early Islamic piety, ascetics who included tears as part of their pious
activities were called weepers (Ar. bakkii'un). The weepers at Basra
and Kufa included al-I;Iasan al-Ba~rI (who wept until the tears flowed
onto his beard), Ibn SirIn, and Malik ibn Dinar. The seven sons of
Muqarrin at Kufa were bakkii'un. In Islamic piety the ability to weep
was also considered a sign of divine grace and a mark of true religious
fervor. Tears were part of the liturgical exercises and accompanied
the hearing of ~adith and sermons, the $aliit, the recitation of the
Qur'an, and nocturnal vigils in meditation on those passages in the
Qur'an concerning the punishment of sinners.86 The primary motive
for weeping, as among Christians, was fear-fear of God, of the Day
of Judgment, of the fires of Hell-because of a deep awareness of sin,
of the impossibility of being certain of God's verdict on the Day of
Judgment, and of the impossibility of achieving salvation through one's
own efforts. It is significant to notice here how the Rabbinic objection
and the monastic justification of weeping survived in the argument
over this practice among Muslims. When Sha 'wana was warned that
too much weeping could cause blindness, she is said to have answered
that blindness in this world from weeping was better than eternal
blindness in the next world through the fires of Hell.87
The main motive for piety was fear. The contemporary Christian
attitude was justified by Proverbs 1: 17, "The fear of the Lord is the
beginning of wisdom," but concentrated on the imminent end of the
world, God's judgment, and the torments of Hell.^88 A typical expres-
sion of this attitude in the sixth-century Life of Susan is worth quoting
here because it juxtaposes the torments of Hell with their denial. At
the end of her life, the saint deplored how
84 Mingana, Woodbrooke Studies, VII, 21-22, 290.
8S Qur'an, 17:109; 19:58.
86 Ibn Sa'd, Tabaqat, VI, 12; VII(1), 127; F. Meier, "Bakka'," E1(2), I, 959-60.
87 Von Grunebaum, Medieval Islam, p. 126.
88 Mingana, Woodbrooke Studies, VII, 153, 190; Thomas of Margha, Governors, I,
404, n, 681; von Grunebaum, Medieval Islam, pp. 125-26.