by IN ISLAMIC · 2007 · Cited by 3 — sons, ahl al-kitāb are subsumed under the rubric of mushrikūn. 18 Qurʾān 9:29–31, 33; trans. Pickthall, with additions or alterations in square brackets.

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PRE-PAPER JAIS INTERNET ‚THEY SHALL NOT DRAW NIGH™ THE ACCESS OF UNBELIEVERS TO SACRED SPACE IN ISLAMIC AND JEWISH LAW Ze™ev Maghen BAR ILAN UNIVERSITY, TEL AVIV This essay compares the Sunn Muslim position(s) concerning the ingress of non-Muslims to the Meccan Sanctuary w ith the Rabbinic outlook on the entry of non-Jews into the Temple precinct. In both cases, the issue is one of purity and pollution, and the algorithms of each religion™s ritual code are therefore probed in search of the underlying bases for their respective policies on the subject. The discussion will follow the legists through their intricate evaluation of what is perceived by many today to be ‚minutiae™ Œ it was certainly not seen thus by the jurists themselves. The attitudes of Shar a and Halakha to immer- sion for the sake of conversion also harbor significant implications for this question, and space is devoted to elucida ting the two systems™ variant rationales for requiring this ceremony. Our conclusions reveal a significant difference Œ indeed, a diametric antithesis Œ between Judaism™s and Islam™s conceptions of the cultic status of the other. Text and Context We begin with a complex exegetical problem. In his classic The hirs: Their Doctrine and Their History, Ignaz Goldziher digresses momentar- ily from a discussion of the jurist Ibn azm™s literalism in order to praise the Sunn scholars for their ecumenical attitude to the question of infidel impurity ( najsat al-mushrikn). Goldziher explains how, as opposed to the ‚utmost rigorism and intolerance™ of the hirs and Sha Œ who consign all non-Muslims to the category of intrinsically unclean and contagiously polluting objects ( nawjis al-dh t, a yn al-najsa): Sunnite Islam–has displayed in this point a splendid example of its perfectibil- ity, its possibility of evolution, and also the ability to adapt its rigid formalism to the requirements of social intercourse by modifying the Koranic tenets of the impurity of unbelievers through its own in terpretation, until it reached the point when it abandoned this doctrine. 1 1 Ignaz Goldziher, The hir s: Their Doctrine and Their History, trans. and ed. Wolfgang Behn (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1971), 58.

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Journal of Arabic and Islamic Studies 7 (2007) 104 In a previous article, the present aut hor has fleshed out the few sentences Goldziher devoted to this subject a nd delved into the significant exegeti- cal and legal differences between the Sh , hir and Sunn positions. 2 While my conclusions on the whole supported Goldziher™s assessment, there is one area in which I believe his remarks require some fine tuning, and we must attend to this before pr oceeding to the main subject of this paper: the access of unbelievers to Muslim and Jewish holy sites. The evidence Goldziher marshals to bolster his claim that Sunnism ‚moderated™ and ultimately ‚a bandoned™ its own (and the Qur n™s) original outlook on the ritual status of unbelievers involves the slightly divergent rulings of the Sh fi, Mlik and anaf legal schools regard-ing the areas considered off-limits to non-Muslims. He sees a sort of anti-chronological pattern of liberalization in progressively more ‚toler- ant™ interpretations put by these madhhib on the revelevant scriptural clause (Qurn 9:28), culminating with the anafite acceptance of the ‚provisional stay™ of a member of one of the Peoples of the Book even inside the borders of the arm or sanctuary at Mecca itself. He writes: The three more liberal of the legal schools represent in their interpretations of this Koranic verse one stage each of this gradual process. Al-Sh fi™s school is of the opinion that nothing can be deduced from this verse but the prohibition against unbelievers entering the holy territory in Mecca; the M likite school extends this prohibition to all the mos ques of Mecca; according to the view of the anafites, believers of other faiths are not even barred from entering the holy arm territory for a provisional stay (al-M ward, p. 290). The latter interpretation just about abrogates the validity of the Koranic prohibition!3 Let us briefly examine the verse in question, together with some excerpts from its exegesis, in order to propose a subtle but portentous corrective to Goldziher™s portrayal of the issue. Qur n 9:28 reads: O believers, the idolaters are indeed unclean [ innam l-mushrik na najas ]; so let them not come near the Holy Mosque after this year of theirs [is over] [ fa-l yaqrab l-masjida l- arma ba da mihim hdh]. If you fear poverty, God shall surely enrich you of His bounty, if He will; God is All-Knowing, All- Wise. 4 2 Ze™ev Maghen, ‚Strangers and Brothers : The Ritual Status of Unbelievers in Early Islamic Jurisprudence™, Medieval Encounters 12/2 (2006): 248Œ311. 3 Goldziher, hir s, 59, n. 1. 4 Trans. A. J. Arberry, The Koran Interpreted (various editions), capitaliza- tion altered and additions in square brack ets. Verse numbers in this article are cited according to the now generally accepted division of the Egyptian edition

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Ze™ev Maghen 105 PRE-PAPER JAIS INTERNET Taken by itself, this Qur nic passage seems to be establishing a causal connection between two logically related statements: because the poly- theists are ritually ‚dirty™ and therefore ritually ‚contagious™, therefore the Sacred Mosque Œ as a preeminent locus of prayer ( muall) which needs to maintain its ceremonial fitness 5 Œ is out of bounds to them (as are, by extension, all other venues of Muslim worship). It is from this understanding of the words that Goldziher believes the Sunn authorities sooner or later distanced themselves. But there are other ways of interpreting Qur n 9:28, and both scrip- tural structure and traditional exegesis make such alternative readings plausible. If we look at the context of Srat al-tawba (to the extent that we can speak of ‚context™ in the Qur n after Richard Bell, and it seems reasonable to do so here), 6 it represents a sufficiently compelling concep- tion to say that the idolators/polytheists continually referred to in this chapter are Muammad™s immediate opponents hailing from Mecca. The introductory verses of the chapter read: An acquittal, from God and His Messenger, unto the idolaters with whom you made covenant: ‚Journey freely in the land for four months; and know that you cannot frustrate the will of God, and that God degrades the un- believers.™ A proclamation, from God and His Messenger, unto mankind on the day of the Greater Pilgrimage [ al- ajj al-akbar ]: God is quit, and His Messenger, of the idolaters. So if you repent, that will be better for you; but if you turn your backs, know that you cannot frustrate the will of God. . . . Then, when the sacred months are drawn away, slay the idol aters wherever you find them, . . . Will you not fight a people who broke their oaths and purposed to expel the of King Fu d. Arberry numbers every fifth verse and follows the division es- tablished by Gustav Fluegel. 5 There are three potential ‚targets™ of pollution in the Muslim ahra (purity) code: the human body ( al-badan ), the clothing used to cover it ( al-thawb ) and the venue of devotions ( al-mu all ). Purification water and the Qur nic codex may perhaps be added to this list, but the issue is complex. 6 See the first chapter of Marion Holmes Katz, Body of Text (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2002) . where the author outlines and implements a cautious yet persuasive approach to Qur™ n contextualization involving ( inter alia ) the apparent ‚bunching™ of relevant passages in particular scriptural loca- tions Œ an approach which has partly inspired the following analysis.

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Journal of Arabic and Islamic Studies 7 (2007) 106 Apostle . . .?7 These verses and those that follow them are a pretty clear indication that the exhortations against the untrustworthiness and evil ways of the mushrikn are Œ in this particular Qur nic context Œ direct reactions to political developments in the earliest days of Islam. They are provisions ‚in time™, as it were. Qur n 9:28 itself bears witness to this immediacy and specificity, in directing the Muslims to turn the polytheists away from the Sacred Mosque ‚after this year of theirs™ (the year in question was 9 AH or 631 CE).8 More evidence that this was indeed the Qur n™s frame of reference comes from the verses directly leading up to Qur n 9:28, which include the following: It is not for the idolators to inhabit [t end, maintain] God™s places of worship, witnessing against themselves unbelief; those their works have failed them, and in the Fire they shall dwell forever. Do you reckon the giving of water to p ilgrims and the inha biting [tending] of the Holy Mosque as the same as one who believes in God and the Last Day and struggles in the way of God? 9 When we encounter, only a few lines down, God™s injunction that the idolators ‚not come near the Holy Mosque after this year of theirs [is over]™ (Qur n 9:28), we are certainly within our rights to assume that the same specific Meccan polytheists Œ the immediate enemies of Muammad and the Muslims Œ are the subject. It is therefore eminently possible that the Qur n did not intend to prohibit mushrikn (however they are defined) from entering all mosques from that point on in history and wherever they might be located, but rather solely and context- specifically to forbid Meccan polytheists from trespassing on the grounds of the aram and approaching the central shrine of the Ka ba. Such a reading would be consistent w ith the eventual ‚lenient™ ruling of the majority of Sunn exponents, who allowed non-Muslims access to mosques the world over, and it woul d not require the ‚abandonment™ or ‚interpretation out of existence™ of original scriptural intent posited by Goldziher: there was no all-encompassing prohibition to be abandoned in the first place. Thus, indeed, most Sunn commentaries do render this 7 Qurn 9:1Œ5, 13; trans. Arberry. 8 See Mu ammad b. Jar r al-abar, Jmi al-bay n an ta wl y al-Qur n (Beirut: Dr al-Fikr, 1995), 10: 136 (no. 12895). 9 Qurn 9:17 and 19; trans. Arberry, with additions in square brackets.

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Ze™ev Maghen 107 PRE-PAPER JAIS INTERNET aspect of Qur n 9:28, specifically distinguishing those banned from Muslim places of worship during the period in question from the ‚People of the Book™: This prohibition is limited to the polytheists who were forbidden from entering Mecca and the remaining mosques [anywher e] because they did not possess the status of a Protected People ( lam takun lahum dhimma ) and the only choice that was offered them was Islam or the sword ( kna l yuqbal minhum ill l-Isl m awi l-sayf ) Œ and these were the ‚Arab polytheists™ ( al-mushrik n al- arab).10 Commenting on the phrase ‚let them not come near the Holy Mosque after this year of theirs,™ our earli est extant exegetical work, that of Muqtil b. Sulaym n (d. 767 CE), says simply that ‚this refers to the Arab polytheists™ ( yan mushrik l- arab).11 The renowned exegete Ibn Kathr glosses the same clause with the wo rds: ‚This constitutes a denial of access to [all those] excepting [p agan] slaves and members of the Protected Peoples ( ill an yak na abdan aw a adan min ahli l-dhimma),™ and he cites an injunction of the Prophet: ‚A polytheist shall not enter our mosques after this our year, save only the People of the Covenant and their servants (ahl al-ahd wa-khadamuhum).™12 Fakhr al-D n al-Rz also supports the claim that only Meccan mushrikn are referred to in Qur n 9:28, albeit in an indirect fashion. He argues that the masjid al- arm whence the unbelievers were thence- forward to be banished comprises not just the place of worship itself (nafs al-masjid) but the sanctuary zone in its entirety ( jam al-aram): The proof of this may be found [in the continuation of the verse]: ‚If you fear poverty, God shall surely enrich you of His bounty, if He will;.™ [This refers, as al-abar and others tell us, to the complaint of many Muslims upon learning of the new ban: ‚Whence now shall come our sustenance? The polytheists are no longer permitted (to enter) and thus the caravans have been cut off from us (nufiya l-mushrik na wa-nqa aat al- r)!]13 Now [continues al-R z] the locus 10 Ab Bakr A mad b. Al al-R z al-Ja , Akm al-Qur n (Beirut: Dr al-Kutub al- Ilmiyya, 1994), 3: 114. Al-Ja suggests another possible under- standing as well, but it is not relevant to our question. On the ‚Arab polytheists™ see Yohanan Friedmann, ‚Classification of Unbelievers in Sunn Muslim Law and Tradition™, Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 22 (1998): 163Œ95, esp. 168ff. 11 Muq til b. Sulaym n, Tafs r (Cairo: Al-Haya al-Miriyya al- mma li-l- Kitb, 1984), 2: 165. 12 Imd al-D n Isml b. Umar b. Kath r, Tafsr Ibn Kath r (Cairo: al-Maktaba al-Tawfqiyya, n.d.), 4: 90. 13 abar, 10: 137 (nos. 12896Œ97 and ff.).

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Journal of Arabic and Islamic Studies 7 (2007) 108 of trading was not within the Mosque itself [but rather in its environs, the campus of the aram], and if this verse intended to prohibit polytheists only from entering the Mosque proper, what would be the basis for fearing poverty? They could only have feared poverty if the polytheists were being banned [by this revelation] from the marketplaces and seasonal fairs [which were outside of the actual venue of worship] ( innam yakh fn al- la idh muni min uri l-asw q wa-l-mawsim). Further evidence for this may be garnered from God™s words [elsewhere in the Qur n]: ‚Glory be to Him, who carried His servant by night from the Holy Mosque [ al-masjid al- arm] to the Further Mosque, . . .™14 coupled with the unanimous opinion of the authorities that the Messen- ger, upon whom be blessings and peace, was lifted up on that occasion from the abode of Umm H n [which was located inside the aram but outside the place of prayer. Thus, just as in the verse just cited, Qur n 17:1, the term al-masjid al- arm indicates the entire sanctuary zone, so in our verse, Qur n 9:28, the polytheists are being banned from the entire sanctuary zone]. 15 What al-R z has done is give us even more reason to confine the reference, and perhaps even the application, of the divine injunction in Qurn 9:28 to the immediate political situation in the last years of the Prophet™s life. The inclusion of the market-places and other extra- spiritual areas in the ban militates for a focus not on the ceremonial danger presented to the masjid al- arm, the muall par excellence, by the polluted persons of non-Muslims, but on the abolition Œ hard on the heels of the Muslim conquest of Mecca Œ of the traditional, pre-Islamic structure of ceremonial administration and commerce in favor of a new order. Be that as it may, we have seen above the direct testimony of more than one Sunn exegete to the effect th at the second clause of Qur n 9:28 Œ ‚so let them not come near the Holy Mosque after this year of theirs [is over]™ Œ had in mind Arabian idolators, not Jews or Christians (‚This prohibition is limited to the pol ytheists, who were forbidden from entering Mecca and the remaining mosques because they did not possess the status of a Protected People.™) 16 Now things become difficult, becau se at the same time that the Sunn commentators and legists distinguish between the Meccan polytheists and the monotheist scriptuaries in the context of the second clause of Qurn 9:28, they mostly opt for the identity of these two groupings in 14 Qurn 17:1; trans. Arberry. 15 Fakhr al-D n Mu ammad b. Umar al-R z al-Sh fi, Maft al-ghayb (Cairo: al-Maktaba al-Tawfqiyya, n.d.), 16: 23. 16 Al-Ja, cited above, p. 5.

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Journal of Arabic and Islamic Studies 7 (2007) 110 purposes.19 The Sunn understanding of the various components of Qur n 9:28 Œ as well as the plain sense of the verse itself in scriptural context Œ would therefore appear to involve a difficult bifurcation. The first clause (innam l-mushrik na najas) is perceived as including the ahl al-kit b, whereas the second (fa-l yaqrab l-masjida l- arma ba da mihim hdh) is seen as excluding them. Although the conjunction fa- connecting the first clause to the second is naturally seen as denoting tafarru (deduction), in terms of its traditional Sunn interpretation the second clause is neither a consequence nor a confirmation of what precedes it in the verse. A disjunction was early on created between these two phrases, even though they are juxtaposed back-to-back and syntactically and logically connected. As strange and antagonistic to the plain meaning of the text as this may appear, the traditional Sunn exegesis of Qur n 9:28 does not really understand this verse to be saying that because the mushrikn are impure, therefore they must be barred from the main and other mosques. After all, the first clause Œ ‚the 19 On the other hand, the express scriptural prohibition against marrying the daughters of idolators Œ wa-l tanki l-mushrik t (Qurn 2:221), when coupled with the explicit permission granted to marry the daughters of Jews and Christians: illun lakum . . . al-mu santu mina l-mu minti wa-l-musantu mina lladh na t l-kit ba min qablikum (‚permitted to you . . . are the chaste believing women and the chaste wome n from among those who received the Book before you™ [Qur n 5:5; trans. mine]) Œ causes problems for such a comparison (questions of naskh or abrogation of certain verses by others cannot be taken up in the context of an analysis of this sort). Muslim scripture and tradition follows different definitions a nd classifications of people depending on the situation. Some offer Qur n 9:30 in explanation of this seeming paradox: ‚And the Jews say: Ezra is the son of Allah, and the Christians say: The Messiah is the son of Allah.™ The implication is that the members of these religions worship the parent-child celestial diumvirate and are therefore not true monotheists. Others point to the fact that the Qur n regularly hedges its descriptions of Jews and Christians, and does not perceive either group monolithically: it regularly accuses (for instance) ‚a group among you [Israelites] ( far qan minkum )™ Œ i.e., not all of you Œ of treason or recalcitrance, and does not neglect, after excoriating the Jews for ‚turning your backs [on God]™, to add the qualification: ‚except for a few of you™ (Qur n 2:83). Even the opening of the passage we have just cited in the text Œ ‚Fight against such of those who have been given the Scripture as believe not in Allah nor the Last Day™ Œ could be read as excluding from the hostilities those scriptuaries who do believe in God and the Last Day (and not, e.g., in the Trinity or in Ezra as the son of God), although the continuation of the verse is less ecumenical.

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Ze™ev Maghen 111 PRE-PAPER JAIS INTERNET idolaters are indeed unclean™ Œ is considered to include Jews and Chris- tians (as we said), and to indicate that they are indubitably najas; and yet they are explicitly exempted by the Sunn mufassirn (as we saw) from the ban from sacred space enjoined in the following clause (and no doubt as a consequence allowed into most if not all mosques by three out of the four Sunn madhhib [as we saw at the outset of this paper]). The syllo- gism is clear: if being ‚unclean™ in the sense described in the first clause of Qur n 9:28 is not grounds for exclusion from a mosque (even, according to the early exegetes and the anafiyya, from the Sacred Mosque), then this clause cannot follo w upon (or even be relevant to) the second clause of Qur n 9:28, the whole purport of which is the insti- tution of that very exclusion. Against all grammatical and syntactical instincts, then, the tradition (especia lly the legal tradition) has employed each part of this verse for a different purpose. It is interesting to note in this connection what al- abar tells us about Umar b. Abd al-Azz. This zealous caliph, famous like his predecessor of the same name for his strict application of measures regarding the ahl al-kitb, at one point commanded in a rescript: ‚Prevent the Jews and Christians from entering the mosques of the Muslims!™ basing his prohi- bition on the statement of God: ‚The idolators are indeed unclean.™ 20 We learn much from this anecdote that supports our analysis of the early exegetical perception of Qur n 9:28. Note that the caliph did not seek support in the second clause of the verse, ‚So let them not draw near the Holy Mosque after this year of thei rs [is over],™ even though this was the clause that directly addressed his issue: mosque access. He could not make use of it, we would argue, because it had long been understood as referring solely to the Arabian polytheists of Mu ammad™s time and excepting dhimms. He was left with the first clause, and attempted to hang his legislation on that: polytheis ts Œ a term that he knew was seen by the exegetical and legal tradition as including Jews and Christians Œ are impure, and mosques are to be protected from ritual defilement. Ergo: No People of the Book may be allowed into Muslim mosques. 21 20 abar, 10: 136 (no. 12893): Umar b. Abd al- Azz kataba: imna l- yahda wa-l-nara min dukh li mas jidi l-muslim n, wa-ttaba a f nahyihi qawla ll h: ‚Innam l-mushrikna najas.™ 21 A brief survey of the principles informing the Islamic system of ritual purity ( ahra) will facilitate a better understanding of what follows. According to that system, Muslims can become ceremonially ‚polluted™ or ‚precluded™ in two primary ways: (1) by coming into, and remaining in, contact with a set of substances or organisms possessing a status known (by relatively late authori-

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Journal of Arabic and Islamic Studies 7 (2007) 112 ties) as najsa issiya/aqqiya or ‚tangible impurity™, for example: urine, feces, blood, semen, pigs, dogs, carrion, wine, pre-ejaculatory fluid, a ‚marred™ egg (containing a blood-spot); and (2) by experiencing certain occurrences or com- mitting certain acts, including (a) those designated as ‚minor events™ ( al-a dth al- ughr, sing. adath ) such as urination, defecation, bleeding, regurgitation, ejaculation of ‚pre-ejaculatory fluid™ ( madh) or ‚prostatic fluid™ ( wadh /wad ), flatulence, laughing, sleeping, fainting, touching the genitals, palpating women, ingesting camel flesh; and (b) those designated as ‚major events™ ( al-a dth al- kubr), consisting of menstruation, sexual intercourse, ejaculation of actual semen ( man) and lochia or puerperium ( nif s). In contradistinction to the ‚tangibly™ contaminating substances enumerated above in clause (1), these latter acts or occurrences are classed together (again, only by comparatively late au- thorities) under the rubric of najsa ma nawiya/ ukmiya, meaning something like ‚abstract impurity™. They are also known as nawqi (sing. nqi) al-wu or nawqi al-ghusl, minor or major violators of ritual fitness. Many of these items are subject to juristic disputes. Some, like the pollutive capacity of laugh- ter and of consuming camel meat, have been effectively dismissed. In all cases of ritual ‚pollution™, whether due to ‚tangible™ or ‚abstract™ impu- rity, a situation has arisen for the Muslim believer which precludes prayer and certain other obligatory or meritorious activities (however, unlike the case in most, if not all, other purity systems the world over, this ‚contaminated™ individ- ual cannot transmit his impurity onward to other persons, places or things). If a Muslim Œ or his clothing or place of prayer ( muall ) Œ encounters impure matter ( najsa issiya), that matter and its residue should be neutralized through various types of directed cleansings and sprinklings, subsumed under the head- ing izlat al-naj sa (removal of impure entities). In order to exit the compara- tively more serious predicament incurred as a result of a ‚minor event™ (clause 2.a above), an alleviation of the state of ceremonial uncleanness ( raf al- adath ) must be effected through the stylized series of ablutions known as wu. ‚Major events™ (clause 2.b above) induce the more consequential defilement of jan ba or ‚distancing™, and must be dealt with by means of the full body wash- ing called ghusl. In either case Œ of wu or ghusl Œ if water is not found, clean earth or sand may be substituted ( tayammum). Until the given ritual ‚problem™ Œ contact with najsa, occurrence of a adath, or incurrence of jan ba Œ is solved via the appropriate type of lustration, the believer™s prayers will be invalid ( l alta li-man l wu a lahu [Ab Dwd, Sunan Ab Dwd, fiB b al-tasmiya al al-wu fl, adth no. 101 (Cairo: al-D r al-Mi ryya al-Lubn niyya, 1408/ 1988), 1: 25, and numerous places elsewh ere]). Depending on the level of con- tamination, s/he may also be prohib ited from engaging in other religiously significant acts (entering a mosque, fasting during Rama n, performing the pil- grimage, handling Œ perhaps even reciting Œ the Qur n). A Muslim who has yet to counteract the ritual influence of a adath via wu is referred to as a mudith, whereas one who has so counteracted it is known as a mutawai (or

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Ze™ev Maghen 113 PRE-PAPER JAIS INTERNET Why did the Sunn fuqah not follow the lead of Umar b. Abd al-Azz in this matter and deny Jews and Christians entry into all mosques? Because while they did ind eed believe, with the caliph, that the phrase innam l-mushrik na najas included scriptuaries, they dis- agreed with his apparent position on the meaning of the word najas in this context . Umar, as we said, seems to have sought support for his (new?) prohibition in the framework of the formal Muslim ahra code, according to which the muall is one of those objects ‚vulnerable™ or ‚susceptible™ to ritual defilement, and thus must be preserved from con- tact with defiling objects ( ayn al-najsa).22 But Sunn exegetes and jurists never conceived of the first clause of Qur n 9:28 that way, and almost across the board denied that it was meant to be taken in a literal, legal sense. In their eyes the najsa of non-Muslims Œ whether polythe- ists or monotheists 23 Œ is spiritual/symbolic, not tangible/cultic: it is an expression of ‚the filth of their souls and the wickedness of their beliefs as hir ), or is said to be al wu . One who has had sexual relations or been involved in any other ‚major event™ and has not yet performed ghusl is called a junub (from jan ba); after executing a proper ghusl s/he is hir. A menstruant (i) performs ghusl after her flow has ceased. Secondary studies illumina ting various aspects of ritual purity in Islam include: A. K. Reinhart, ‚Impurity/No Danger™ in History of Religions 30/1 (1990); G. H. Bousquet, ‚La pureté rituelle en islam™, Revue de l™histoire des religions 138 (1950): 53Œ71; A. J. Wensinck, ‚Die Entstehung der muslim- ischen Reinheitsgesetzgebung™, Der Islam 5 (1914); J. Burton, ‚The Qur n and the Islamic Practice of Wu ™, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 51 (1988): 21Œ58; and M. H. Katz, Body of Text (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2002). Two additional articles relevant to fiqh al- ahra have recently appeared: R. Gauva in, ‚Ritual Rewards: A Considera- tion of Three Recent Approach es to Sunni Purity Law™, Islamic Law and Society, 12/3 (2005), and especially relevant to our present subject, J. M. Safran, ‚Rules of Purity and Confessi onal Boundaries: Maliki Debates about the Pollution of the Christian™, History of Religions 42/3 (2003). 22 See Muslim, a (= Ibn ajar, Fat al-B r), ahra, fiBb wujb ghusl al- bawl wa-ghayrihi min al-naj st idh asalat f al-masjidfl (al-Ma ba‚a al- Miriyya bi-l-Azhar, 1347/1929 30), 3: 191, where the Prophet is reported to have exclaimed: inn hdhihi l-mas jida l ta luu li-shay in min h dh l-bawl wa-l l-qadhar, innam hiya li-dhikri ll hi azza wa-jall wa-l- alti wa-qir ati l-Qur n (‚These venues of worship cannot abide any amount of such urine or filth, for they are places in which God™ s name is invoked and places of prayer and recitation of the Qur n™). 23 To the extent that one can talk, from an Islamic point of view, about a non- Muslim monotheist Œ the issue is far from clear.

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