issue dedicated entirely to Sundén’s role theory), provides an
eloquent substitute.
Holm, Nils G. “Role Theory and Religious Experience.” In the
Handbook of Religious Experience, edited by Ralph W. Hood,
pp. 397–420. Birmingham, Ala., 1995. This essay provides
a thorough presentation of Sundén’s role theory.
Holm, Nils G. “An Integrated Role Theory for the Psychology of
Religion: Concepts and Perspectives.” In The Psychology of
Religion: Theoretical Approaches, edited by Bernard Spilka
and Daniel N. McIntosh, pp. 73–85. Boulder, Colo., 1997.
In this essay, Holm elaborates Sundén’s role theory towards
an analysis of what he calls an “inner existence space.”
Holm, Nils G., and J. A. Belzen, eds. Sundén’s Role Theory: An Im-
petus to Contemporary Psychology of Religion. A ̊bo, Finland,
- Sundén’s pupils collected their latest essays in the
memory of their mentor and friend.
Källstad, Thorvald, ed. Psychological Studies on Religious Man.
Uppsala, Sweden, 1978. Festschrift dedicated to Sundén on
his seventieth birthday.
Sundén, Hjalmar. Religionen och rollerna. Stockholm, 1959. Ger-
man: Die Religion und die Rollen: Ett psykologiskt studium av
fromheten (Eine psychologische Untersuchung der Frömmig-
keit). Translated by Herman Müller and Suzanne Öhman.
Berlin, 1966.
Wulff, David. Psychology of Religion: Classic and Contemporary
Views. New York 1991.
RENÉ GOTHÓNI (2005)
SUNNAH. In every “founded” religious tradition, main-
taining proximity to the founder has been an important
source of legitimacy and authority, just as arguments about
how to establish that proximity have been a source of con-
flict. In the Islamic tradition, the word sunnah has been the
focal point of such issues. A word with a very old history in
the Arabic language, sunnah comes from a root that is con-
cretely associated with honing or molding, with something
firmly rooted, like a tooth (sinn). Sunnah, by extension, came
to mean habitual practice, customary procedure or action,
norm, standard, or “usage sanctioned by tradition.”
EARLY EVOLUTION. Among pre-Islamic Arabs, sunnah had
the force of what anthropologists would call “tribal custom,”
that is, the generally agreed upon “thing to do” in matters
of piety, morality, and social activity. In fact, it was the sun-
nah of the prophet Muh:ammad’s Arab compeers that initial-
ly led them to reject him, since the habitual social and spiri-
tual practices of their ancestors were incompatible with his
vision and demands. And it was his reinterpretation of their
sunnah that helped him win them over, for he “reminded”
them successfully that what they took to be true tradition
(polytheism, for example) was what modern scholars would
call “invented tradition,” and that the true sunnah of their
ancestors was the same Abrahamic ethical monotheism that
he was announcing, in that he called upon his listeners to ful-
fill Abraham’s moral contract with the one God.
The QurDanic revelations themselves did not establish
an unequivocal meaning for sunnah. They referred either to
the sunnah of those of old (the wrongheaded customs of
Muh:ammad’s Arab brethren) or to the sunnah (or sunan, pl.)
of God, namely his punishment of that other sunnah. The
QurDa ̄n’s flexible usage of the word sunnah never disap-
peared, but sunnah quickly came to be associated with the
exemplary, imitable, normative words, deeds, and silent ap-
proval of the Prophet himself, whose behavior was assumed
to be consistent with all previous prophets. In the sense of
Muh:ammad’s exemplary pattern, sunnah took on an extraor-
dinarily positive coloration and a predominant place in Mus-
lim piety. The sunnah of the Prophet (sunnat al-nab ̄ı) began
to preempt tribal sunnah; the new “tribe,” the Muslims, ac-
quired a new pattern of established practice. That develop-
ment, along with the simultaneous revelation of the sacred
text, the QurDa ̄n, through Muh:ammad produced one of these
dynamic paradoxes that have enriched the histories of all the
major religions: the relationship between Muh:ammad’s roles
as vehicle of revelation and as exemplar of the most impor-
tant sunnah. Muh:ammad was only a man, receiving but not
authoring God’s word. Yet that word was difficult to follow
without its bearer’s example and explication; the QurDa ̄n it-
self urged Muslims to follow God and his Messenger. Al-
though the injunction not to deify Muh:ammad was taken
seriously, he was still a man set apart from others by his spe-
cial intimacy with God and his role as the Seal of the Proph-
ets. Some may also have attributed to him the special, magi-
cal powers they would have previously expected from any
holy person. In his mission, Muh:ammad was, more than
many prophets, both messenger and exemplar, because he
was a temporal as well as spiritual leader. There was always
a thin line between emulation and veneration, between mak-
ing him an ideal exemplar and dehumanizing him into a per-
fect man. One could imitate him, but not completely, be-
cause he was too special; but one could not make him so
special that he was not human. Within this range, myriad
authentic pious responses have flourished.
Furthermore, although scriptural religions have always
developed sources of commentary that involve the founder,
Muslims relied unusually heavily on Muh:ammad. They pro-
duced a massive, multifunctional, multifaceted corpus of
“news” or “reports” (h:ad ̄ıth) from the companions of the
Prophet, whose humanness, though exceptional, had to be
maintained. It is true that the h:ad ̄ıth did not establish
Muh:ammad as an exemplar apart from his role as bearer of
revealed truth; but, ironically, it was the very denial of his
divinity that made him so imitable, that allowed personal de-
tails to accumulate to a level almost unmatched in the history
of religion, with the possible exception of the personality of
Mohandas Gandhi. Ironically, too, it may have been the very
size of the corpus that not only encouraged selectivity but
also promoted, and reflected, disagreement about the norms
to be derived from it.
SUNNAT AL-NAB ̄I. In time, and especially under the pressure
of practical necessity, the two parts of Muh:ammad’s mission
coalesced into two separate oral and written bodies of texts:
(1) revelation (wah:y), that is, divine word or QurDa ̄n; and (2)8852 SUNNAH