Обсуждение:Монашество
Encyclopaedia of the Qurʾān
| Монашество и монахи. С незадолго до возникновения ислама, а затем и в позднем средневековье, монашество было отличительной чертой христианской жизни, как в среде, в которой родился ислам (см. Христиане и христианство, южная аравия, религия в пре-исламский), а в христианских общинах впоследствии интегрируется в мир ислама. Соответственно, с точки зрения его отношения к исламу, нужно рассматривать феномен христианского монашества под тремя заголовками. Во-первых, его присутствие в арабоязычных общинах до и вплоть до времени Мухаммада (см. Арабский арабский язык). Затем в Коране есть отрывки, в которых упоминаются «монахи» (три раза) и «монашество» (один раз). Наконец, в исламских текстах обсуждаются «монахи» и «монашество», которые интерпретируют Коран и устанавливают границы исламской жизни в более поздние времена.
Уже к пятому христианскому веку монахи и их монастыри были многочисленны на границах Аравии. Из пустынь Синайского (q.v.) полуострова на север в Сирию / Палестину (см. Сирию), на восток вдоль края сирийской пустыни в Месопотамию и на юг в Ирак (q.v.) процветали монашеские общины. Монашеские учреждения были в центре христианской церковной жизни в соседнем Египте (кв.в.) и Эфиопии (см. Абиссиния). В ряде мест, таких как монастырь святого Евфимия в Иудейской пустыне, монахи активно способствовали росту и развитию христианства среди соседних арабских племен, которые тогда имели монастырь как центр их религиозной жизни. Точно так же святыни святого Симеона ¶ Стилита в Дайр-Самане / Теланисосе и преподобного Сергия в Рухафе / Сергиополисе в Сирии регулярно привлекали большое число арабских племен среди их частых посетителей. На границах между территориями византийских римлян и арабскими племенами собственно Аравии племенная федерация Гассанидов, союзники византийцев (qv), председательствовала на широко распространенном населении монахов и монастырей в той степени, что более пристальное изучение текстов и археологические данные только в последнее время раскрываются (см. археологию и qur'ān). Точно так же на северо-восточной границе между территориями, контролируемыми персидскими сасанидами и племенами Аравии, на территориях лахмидских союзников персов, сосредоточенных вблизи города Шира в нижней Месопотамии, процветали монашеские общины. По-видимому, монахи из арабского языка составляют значительную часть этих монашеских групп, как правило, с сирийским богословским и литургическим наследием (см. Сириак и куран); Арабские скотоводы регулярно поселялись среди сирийско-говорящих арамейцев этого района.
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Monasticism and Monks — From well before the rise of Islam, and then well into the later Middle Ages, monasticism was a distinctive feature of Christian life, both in the milieu in which Islam was born, and in the Christian communities subsequently integrated into the world of Islam. Accordingly, from the perspective of its relationship to Islam, one must consider the phenomenon of Christian monasticism under three headings. In the first place, there is its presence in the Arabic-speaking communities before and up to the time of Muḥammad. Then, there are the passages in the Qurʾān that mention «monks» (three times) and «monasticism» (once). Finally, «monks» and «monasticism» are discussed in the Islamic texts that both interpret the Qurʾān and set the boundaries of Islamic life in later times.
Already by the fifth Christian century monks and their monasteries were plentiful on the borders of Arabia. From the deserts of the Sinai (q.v.) peninsula northward into Syria/ Palestine, eastward along the edge of the Syrian desert into Mesopotamia and southward into Iraq (q.v.), monastic communities flourished. Monastic institutions were at the heart of Christian church-life in nearby Egypt (q.v.) and Ethiopia. In a number of places, such as the monastery of St. Euthymius in the Judean desert, the monks actively fostered the growth and development of Christianity among the neighboring Arab tribes, who then had the monastery as the center of their religious life. Similarly, the shrines of St. Simeon the ¶ Stylite at Dayr Samʿān/ Telanissos and of St. Sergius at Ruṣāfa/Sergiopolis in Syria regularly attracted large numbers of Arab tribesmen among their frequent visitors. On the borders between the territories of the Byzantine Romans and the Arab tribes of Arabia proper, the Ghassānid tribal federation, allies of the Byzantines (q.v.), presided over a widely distributed population of monks and monasteries to an extent that a closer examination of texts and archeological data are only lately revealing. Similarly, on the northeastern frontier between the territories controlled by the Persian Sasanids and the tribesmen of Arabia, in the territories of the Lakhmid allies of the Persians, centered near the city of Ḥīra in lower Mesopotamia, monastic communities flourished. Natively Arabic-speaking monks seem to have made up a large part of these monastic populations, usually with a Syriac theological and liturgical heritage; Arab pastoralists regularly sojourned among the Syriac-speaking Arameans of the area. From these monastic centers on the near periphery of Arabia, in the fifth and sixth centuries monks and monasticism penetrated into Arabia proper. Remains of their establishments have been uncovered along the southern coasts of Arabia as well as in cities in the interior such as Najrān (q.v.). A few Syriac texts speak of the activities of monks in Arabia, and a number of pre-Islamic and early Islamic Arabic texts similarly record their presence. Poets, for example, in the classical qaṣīdas sometimes mention the lights burning in the cells of monks in the dark of night (cf. Cheikho, Le christianisme). More helpfully, the biographical traditions concerned with Muḥammad’s early years mention several encounters between monks and the young prophet-to-be, most famously his encounter with the monk Baḥīra, who reportedly recognized the sign of prophecy on his ¶ body. A monk Fīmiyyūn is also named in the sīra in connection with the establishment of Christianity in Najrān (see Ibn Isḥāq, Sīra, i, 31). And the early Persian Companion of Muḥammad, Salmān, is said to have come to the profession of Islam due to his earlier association with monks, one of whom had premonitions about the coming of Muḥammad and Islam (see Ibn Isḥāq, Sīra, i, 217-8). These and other mentions and allusions in Arabic texts to monks and monasticism in the world in which Islam was born testify to their common presence among the Christians known to Muḥammad and the Qurʾān. They do not suggest a wide and well-established monastic presence in the Ḥijāz and its environs, in the heart of Arabia. But by Muḥammad’s day monks and monasticism were certainly known to be an integral feature of Christian life, and monks may well have been prominent among the Christians actually known to Muḥammad. In the Qurʾān, «monks» (ruhbān) are mentioned three times (q 5:82; 9:31, 34) and «monasticism» (rahbāniyya) once (q 57:27). In general, one may say that the Qurʾān’s attitude to monks mirrors its ambivalent attitude towards Christians at large. On the one hand, the Qurʾān says that the reason Muslims will find those claiming to be Christians «closest in affection to the believers» is that «there are among them priests (qissīsīn) and monks, and they are not arrogant» (q 5:82). On the other hand, the Qurʾān also says that Jews and Christians respectively «take their rabbis (aḥbār) and monks as lords (arbāb) besides God» (q 9:31). And the text goes on to say, «many of the rabbis and monks devour the wealth (q.v.) of the people un-¶ justly and turn [others] from the way of God» (q 9:34). While in the many translations and interpretations of the Qurʾān into western languages there are a number of variations in rendering the technical terms in these passages, usually due to lexical or exegetical considerations, the sense of the judgments about the monks remains the same in all of them. In one passage the Qurʾān addresses the institution of monasticism itself but there is significant disagreement among commentators and translators, both medieval and modern, Muslim and non-Muslim, about what the text actually says (cf. Beck, Das christliche Mönchtum). In one understanding, the text speaks of the followers of Jesus (q.v.), of whom God says, «We put into the hearts of those who followed him mercy (q.v.), compassion, and monasticism; they innovated/renovated/invented it; we prescribed for them only to please God, but they did not exercise a proper compliance. So we provided their reward for those of them who believed; many of them are sinful» (q 57:27). On this reading monasticism is understood to be something initially instituted by God; subsequently Jesus' followers re-invented it and introduced innovations into it. Alternatively, most Muslim interpreters have understood the verse to say, «We put into the hearts of those who followed him mercy and compassion. Monasticism they invented — only to seek to please God. We did not prescribe it for them. And they did not exercise a proper compliance. So we provided their reward for those of them who believed; many of them are sinful.» On this reading monasticism is understood to be a human innova-¶ tion totally, not something mandated by God. Most interpreters favor some form of the second reading, regarding the first one to be the product of a faulty grammatical construction on the part of those who would accept it (see esp. Ṭabarī, Tafsīr; Zamakhsharī, Kashshāf, ad q 57:27; cf. Gimaret, Jubbāʾī, 787). Nevertheless, some earlier Muslim exegetes and some modern scholars have in fact entertained the theoretical possibility of some form of the first reading (cf. McAuliffe, Qurʾānic, 260-84). Traditionally, Muslim scholars have considered monasticism to be an instance of the Christians' putting religious burdens on people beyond what God has mandated and then not being able to support them. By way of contrast, the prophetic tradition (ḥadīth) according to which, "There is no monasticism in Islam, " gradually gained currency among Muslims. While many scholars have questioned the authenticity of this tradition, it is nevertheless widely reported and accepted. Similarly, another controversial prophetic tradition says, «The monasticism of this community is jihād (q.v.).» These traditions seem to have come into prominence in the context of debates among Muslim scholars in the early centuries about the legitimacy of Ṣūfism (cf. Massignon, Essay, 99). Muslim scholars have also been careful to point out that the disapproval of monasticism should not be mistaken for a disapproval of the hermit’s way of life, or the practice of a religious retreat, including sexual abstinence (q.v.), undertaken for a time for legitimate religious reasons. Rather, what is rejected in monasticism, according to many scholars, is the commitment to lifelong celibacy that the Christian institution entails. Celibacy is seen by some commentators to be the in-¶ novation introduced by Christians into what Muslims could consider to be an otherwise acceptable, even divinely instituted, monasticism. After the rise of Islam and the consolidation of the territories of the Christian, ecclesiastical provinces of Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem under Muslim rule, Christian monks writing in Syriac, Greek and Arabic were the first to call attention to the doctrinal and moral challenges of Islam to Christians. Monks were also the first Christians to adopt Arabic as an ecclesiastical language, to write theology in Arabic and to translate the Christian Bible and other classical Christian texts into Arabic. In the agreements drawn up to govern the relationships between Muslims and Christians in early Islamic times, monks were often exempted from the payment of the poll tax (q.v.; jizya), and often the authority of the Prophet himself was claimed for this dispensation. Monasteries were often considered to be privileged places by Muslims and Christians alike, where help could be sought and interreligious conversations could take place. Some of them claimed to have patents offering them special protection. Contrariwise monks and monasteries were sometimes targets of anti-Christian attacks. In Arabic secular literature from the early period a genre of poetic writing often called diyāriyyāt, or "monastic poems, " developed that celebrated monasteries as places of revelry. |
- Primary
- Gimaret, Jubbāʾī, 787 (for an early Muʿtazilī reading of q 57:27)
- Ibn Isḥāq, Sīra, ed. M.M. ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd, 4 vols., Cairo 1937
- W. Nassau Lees, The Qoran. With the commentary of the Imam Aboo al-Qasim Mahmood bin ʿOmar al-Zamakhshari, entitled "The Kashshāf ʿan haqāʾiq al-tanzīl, " 2 vols., Calcutta 1856, ii, 1453-4
- al-Shābushtī, Abū l-Ḥasan ʿAlī b. Muḥammad, Kitāb al-Diyārāt, ed. J. ʿAwwād, Baghdad 1966
- Ṭabarī, Tafsīr, 30 vols., Cairo 1903, xxvii, 123-5
- Secondary
- T. Andrae, Les origines de l’Islam et le Christianisme, Paris 1955
- E. Beck, Das christliche Mönchtum im Koran, in K. Tallqvist (ed.), Studia orientalia, vol. xiii, Helsinki 1946, 3-29
- Y. Calvet, Monuments paléo-chrétiens à Koweit et dans la région du Golfe, in R. Lavenant, Symposium syriacum VII [Orientalia christiana analecta 256], Rome 1998, 671-85
- L. Cheikho, Le christianisme et la littérature chrétienne en Arabie avant l’Islam, Beirut 1912 and 1919-23
- E. Key Fowden, The barbarian plain. Saint Sergius between Rome and Iran, Berkeley 1999
- S.H. Griffith, Arabic Christianity in the monasteries of ninth-century Palestine, Aldershot, Hampshire 1992
- id., From Aramaic to Arabic.
- The languages of the monasteries of Palestine in the Byzantine and early Islamic periods, Dumbarton Oaks papers 51 (1997), 11-31
- L. Massignon, Essay on the origins of the technical language of Islamic mysticism, trans. B. Clark, Notre Dame, IN 1997
- McAuliffe, Qurʾānic
- I. Shahīd, Byzantium and the Arabs in the sixth century, vol. 2, part 1, Washington 2002
- R. Tardy, Najrān. Chrétiens d’Arabie avant l’Islam, Beirut 1999
- J. Spencer Trimingham, Christianity among the Arabs in pre-Islamic times, London 1979
- G. Troupeau, Les couvents chrétiens dans la littérature arabe musulmane, in La nouvelle revue de Caire 1 (1975), 265-79
- M.S. al-Ṭurayḥī, al-Diyārāt wa-l-amkina l-naṣrāniyya fī l-Kūfa wa-ḍawāḥīhā, Beirut 1981
- J. Wensinck, Rahbāniyya, in ei2, viii, 396-7
- id., Rāhib, in ei2, viii, 397