MUSLIMS: THE COMMUNITYIsaac to replace the burning torments of Hell with suffering for those
who had sinned against love and separated themselves from God. As
he expressed it, "Love works with its force in a double way. It tortures
those who have sinned, as happens also in the world between friends.
And it gives delight to those who have kept its decrees. Thus it is also
in Hell. I say that the hard tortures are grief for love."144 This was
expressed in early Islamic piety by weeping out of a longing for God
and out of grief in being separate from Him. Anas ibn Malik at Basra
is reported to have said, "there has been no night in which I have not
seen my Beloved," and then he wept.^145 The eighth-century mystic
'Abd al-Wa9id ibn Zayd (d. 793) asked, "0 brethren, will ye not
weep in desire for God? Shall he who weeps in longing for his Lord
be denied the Vision of Him?"146
But this change also took the form of weeping for joy. 'Abhdish6'
I:Iazzaya spoke of a mystic weeping "not from grief or sorrow for his
sins, but rather from his joy and happiness and from his ecstasy in
the creating power, the grace and the providence of God for a11."147
According to Joseph I:Iazzaya, who linked love of God to love of one's
neighbor, "The first emotion of prayer is accompanied by love, and
by a heat of the thoughts which burns in the heart like fire; ... its
sign is penitence of the soul, with tears of joy, and the love of God
that burns in your heart."148 Although the incorporation of these ideas
into Islamic mysticism (Siifism) really only began in the eighth century,
their early expression in Islamic piety may be found in the report that
Ibdhim an-Nakha'i (d. 714) at Kufa, who used to sit in fear on the
two festivals and on Fridays, also wept with joy,149
CONCLUSIONS
Almost everything of a religious nature that was available in pre-
Islamic Iraq and among non-Muslims turned up among Muslims in
some form in the century after the conquest. This was a period when
144 Isaac of Nineveh, "Mystic Treatises," pp. 6, 136, 148, 170-71.
145 Ibn Sa'd, Tabaqiit, VII(1), 12..
146 Smith, Early Mysticism, p. 157.
147 Mingana, Woodbrooke Studies, VII, 164.
148 Ibid., VII, 166, 178, 183.
149 Ibn Sa'd, Tabaqiit, VI, 193, 195. The two festivals are the 'Id al-kablr (Ar., "the
great festival") on the tenth of Dhii l-f:lijja, when the pilgrims perform their sacrifices
at Makka, and the 'Id a?-?agh,r (Ar., "the lesser festival), which marks the end of the
month-long fast of Rama<.lan. Both are occasions of joy.