Обсуждение:Равенство

Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition / Musāwāt

MUSAWAT (A.) "equality", the masdar of form III of the verb sawiya "to be equal to, be worth", with the same sense as form I; in modern times, it has been used for the political concept of human equality (Ottoman Turkish musdwdt, modern Turkish musavat, Persian musdwdt, bardbdri).

The root is found frequently in the Kurgan, though only once in form III (19:96), in the sense "to make level, even up". In the literary and cultural controversies of the ‘Abbasid period, those of the Shucubiyya [^.z>.], the non-Arabs seeking social equality with the ruling class of Arabs were sometimes known as the ahl al-taswiya "proponents of equalisation" (using here form II) (see Goldziher, Muh. Studien, i, 165, Eng. tr. i, 153).

In recent Middle Eastern political vocabularies, the concept of human equality made its first tentative appearance when the ideas of the French Revolution reached the region. Thus in a memorandum of 1798 on French Revolutionary activities, the Ottoman Chief Secretary ‘Atif Efendi translated "equality and liberty" as musdwdt we serbestiyyet [see HURRIYYA. ii, at III, 590], and Bonaparte's proclamation at the time of the French landing in Egypt during this same year announced that all men were equal in the sight of God (mutasdwiyin [sic] cind Allah), and the new principles are explained by al-Djabartl as tawsiya and hurriyya (Al-Jabarti's chronicle of the first seven months of the French occupation of Egypt, ed. and tr. S. Moreh, Leiden 1975, Ar. text 8, 11, tr. 40, 42).

During the course of the 19th century, of the three principles of the French Revolution, it was Freedom and Fraternity (the latter in the form of Pan-Arab and Pan-Turkish feeling; see KAWMIYYA. i-ii, iv) which were dominant in the minds of westernising Muslims, insofar as these concepts affected their thinking. The division by Islamic religion of mankind into the saved, the Muslims, and the damned, the non-Muslims, and the division by Islamic law of mankind into a male sex with superior legal and social status over women [see MARDA], together with the survival until well into the 19th century of personal slavery [see ‘ABD] in those Islamic countries not under Western colonial domination, left little scope for developing the concept of the equality of mankind in any sphere, whether theological, legal, social or political. This concept did not appear until the early 20th century, when the ideas of European socialism [see ISHTIRAKIYYA] and Marxist communism [see MARK(I)SIYYA] began to have a vogue amongst certain sections of westernised intelligentsia; hence Musdwdt was the title of the social democrat_workers' party active from 1911 to 1920 in Russian Adharbaydjan [see HIZB. iv]. On the whole, however, Middle Eastern peoples have viewed the idea of human equality as a chimera, to which lip service is paid by political leaders in political manifestos but which is rarely taken into account in practice.

Bosworth, C.E., “Musāwāt”, in: Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition, Edited by: P. Bearman, Th. Bianquis, C.E. Bosworth, E. van Donzel, W.P. Heinrichs. Consulted online on 18 August 2020 <http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/1573-3912_islam_SIM_5577>