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BOSTON
PUBLIC
LIBRARY
 Digitized by the Internet Archive
in 2018 with funding from
Kahle/Austin Foundation

https://archive.org/details/oxfordencycloped04espo
THE OXFORD ENCYCLOPEDIA
OF THE

Modern Islamic World

 EDITORS

Shahrough Akhavi Yvonne Yazbeck Haddad Janies P. Piscatori

Abdulaziz Sachedina Sharon Siddique John O. Voll

Fred R. von der Mehden

SENIOR CONSULTANT

Albert Hourani

CONSULTANTS

Dale F. Eickelman Fedwa Malti-Douglas

Martha Brill Olcott M. Nazif Shahrani

ADVISERS

Feroz Ahmad Hamid Algar Richard T. Antoun Leila Fawaz

Ijaz S. Gilani Michael Gilsenan Nikki R. Keddie Martin Kramer

§erif Mardin Barbara D. Metcalf Roy P. Mottahedeh

Seyyed Hossein Nasr Sulayman S. Nyang
Peter von Sivers
THE OXFORD ENCYCLOPEDIA
OF THE

Modern Islamic World

John L. Esposito
EDITOR IN CHIEF

VOLUME 4

New York Oxford

OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS

1995
 Oxford University Press

Oxford New York

Athens Auckland Bangkok Bombay
Calcutta Cape Town Dar es Salaam Delhi
Florence Hong Kong Istanbul Karachi
Kuala Lumpur Madras Madrid Melbourne
Mexico City Nairobi Paris Singapore
Taipei Tokyo Toronto

and associated companies in

Berlin Ibadan

Copyright © 1995 by Oxford University Press, Inc.

Published by Oxford University Press, Inc.,

200 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016

Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,

stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means,
electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise,
without the prior written permission of Oxford University Press.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

The Oxford encyclopedia of the modern Islamic world

John L. Esposito, editor in chief
p. cm.
Includes bibliographic references and index.
1. Islamic countries—Encyclopedias. 2. Islam—Encyclopedias.
I. Esposito, John L.
DS35.53.095 1995 909'.097671'003—dc20 94-30758 CIP
ISBN 0-19-506613-8 (set)
ISBN 0-19-509615-0 (vol. 4)

Printing (last digit): 987654321

Printed in the United States of America

on acid-free paper

women in rural Turkey were largely confined to their
homes, except for visits to local shrines on religious and
secular festivals. Visits to shrines secure blessings for
the household and can be used to signal changes in per¬
sonal status—marriage, the birth of a child, or mourn¬
ing. Women say prayers at these shrines and are more
conscious than men of local sacred geography. Men oc¬
casionally visit shrines with women, but rarely do so on
their own.
The sacred geography of shrines is not confined to
supposed vestiges of the past, although shrines, such as
that at Mecca, had pre-Islamic significance, and other
shrines, as in Java, are not associated exclusively with
Islamic figures. Instead, they constitute a physical rep¬
resentation of the sacred, defining not only relations of
particular social groups and categories with the divine
but also the relations among social groups and between
genders. Thus they offer a rich means of ordering the
religious and social universes, and for many, they serve
as a means of aligning one with the other.
[See also Hajj; Sainthood; Sufism, article on Sufi
Shrine Culture; and Ziyarah.]
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Eickelman, Dale F. Moroccan Islam: Tradition and Society in a Pilgrim¬
age Center. Austin, 1976. Describes a major shrine complex in Mo¬
rocco and the practices associated with it.
Esin, Emil. Mecca the Blessed, Madinah the Radiant. London, 1963.
Beautifully written and illustrated account of Mecca and Medina as
shrine complexes.
Fischer, Michael M. J. Iran: From Religious Dispute to Revolution.
Cambridge, Mass., 1980. Chapter 4, “Qum: Arena of Conflict,”
describes religious and political action in a major Shi'i shrine
center.
Fox, James. J. “Ziarah Visits to the Tombs of the Wali, the Founders
of Islam on Java.” In Islam in the Indonesian Social Context, edited
by Merle C. Ricklefs, pp. 19-38. Clayton, Australia, 1991.
McChesney, Robert. Waqf in Central Asia: Four Hundred Years in the
History of a Muslim Shrine. Princeton, 1991. The best account for
the historical continuity and changing significance of a major shrine
in Central Asia.
Naamouni, Khadija. Le culte de Bouya Omar. Casablanca, 1993- Fasci¬
nating account by a Moroccan scholar of a shrine center associated
with the cure of mental illness in southern Morocco.
Tapper, Nancy. “Ziyarel: Gender, Movement, and Exchange in a
Turkish Community.” In Muslim Travellers: Pilgrimage, Migration,
and the Religious Imagination, edited by Dale F. Eickelman and J.
P. Piscatori, pp. 236-255. Berkeley and Los Angeles. 1990.
Weingrod, Alex. “Saints and Shrines, Politics and Culture: A
Morocco-Israel Comparison.” In Muslim Travellers: Pilgrimage, Mi¬
gration, and the Religious Imagination, edited by Dale F. Eickelman
and J. P. Piscatori, pp. 217-235. Berkeley and Los Angeles. 1990.
Dale F. Eickelman
sibAt, MUSTAFA AL- 71
SHURA. See Democracy.
SIBA I, AFA AL- (1915-1964), Syrian polit¬
ical thinker, educator, and founder of the Muslim
Brotherhood in Syria. Born in Homs, al-SibacI came
from a prominent family of culama’. His father’s nurtur-
ance of him in Islamic learning included a strong sense
of political activism that later put him on a collision
course with the authorities of the French mandate.
When al-Sibafi was eighteen years old, he traveled to
Egypt, a country that would have a profound impact on
his intellectual development and public life. His studies
at al-Azhar were accompanied by involvement in politi¬
cal activism, membership in the Egyptian Muslim
Brotherhood, and close association with Hasan al-
Banna’. In 1934 al-Sibafi was jailed for participating in
anti-British demonstrations; in 1940 the British charged
him with subversion and sent him to the Sarfad camp
in Palestine. After his release (1941), he returned to
Homs to establish an organization called Shabab
Muhammad (Muhammad’s Youth). Soon he was ar¬
rested and jailed by the French for two and a half years.
Despite his deteriorating health brought on by torture,
al-Sibafi’s release from prison in 1943 ushered in two
decades of dynamic activity as writer, teacher, and
leader of Syria’s Islamic movement.
By 1946 al-Sibafi had forged a merger between differ¬
ent Islamic jamfiyat to form the Muslim Brotherhood,
and was elected its general supervisor (al-muraqib al-
camm). Until the brotherhood’s suppression by the Shi-
shakll regime in 1952, al-Sibafi worked to strengthen
his movement, which he conceived not as a jamfiyah or
political party but as a ruh (spirit) seeking to raise public
consciousness to achieve comprehensive Islamic reform.
He was also a distinguished educator and administrator
at the University of Damascus.
Al-Sibaci’s most important contribution to Islamic
thought was his book, Ishtirakiyat al-Islam (The Social¬
ism of Islam), in which he argued that Islam teaches a
unique type of socialism, one distinct from its Western
materialistic variants emphasizing class struggle. He saw
Islamic Socialism as conforming with human nature,
based on five natural rights: life, freedom, knowledge,
dignity, and ownership. God is the ultimate owner of
all, and man is deputized to make use of property
through honest labor. The state plays a regulatory func¬
tion through nationalization (tacmim) of essential public
services, implementation of Islamic laws on mutual so-
72 SIN
cial responsibility (al-takaful al-ijtimaci), and sanctions
(mucayyidat). Al-SibacI’s theory created an uproar be¬
cause of its opposition to capitalism, its association of
Islam with socialism, and its ostensible support of Nas¬
ser’s ideology at a time when the Egyptian Brotherhood
was suppressed.
Because of his failing health, in 1957 al-SibacI turned
over leadership of the brotherhood to cIsam al-cAttar,
although he continued to write until his death (1964). In
addition to his book on socialism, al-SibacI edited three
journals, Al-manar (The Lighthouse), Al-muslimin (The
Muslims), and Hadarat al-Islam (The Civilization of Is¬
lam), and began to compile an Encyclopedia of Islamic
Law. His other books were Maid ah bayna al-fiqh wa-al-
qanun and Hdkadha callamatni al-hayah.
[See also Muslim Brotherhood, article on Muslim
Brotherhood in Syria; Socialism and Islam.]
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Abd-Allah, Umar F. The Islamic Struggle in Syria. Berkeley, 1983.
Dekmejian, R. Hrair. Islam in Revolution. Syracuse, N.Y., 1985.
Donohue, John J., and John L. Esposito, eds. Islam in Transition.
New York, 1982.
Enayat, Hamid. Modem Islamic Political Thought. Austin, 1982.
Ismael, Tareq Y., and Jacqueline S. Ismael. Government and Politics
in Islam. New York, 1985.
R. Hrair Dekmejian
SIN. In the Qur’an several words are used for sin, a
breach of the laws and norms laid down by a religion,
including dhanb, ithm, khati’ah, and sayyi’ah. A sin may
be one of omission or commission; technically, any vio¬
lation of a religious law or ethical norm would be a sin,
but the sin for which one will be held accountable is, as
a rule, the one intentionally committed.
If sin is violation, the question arises whether all sins
are alike or whether it is possible to grade them. The
question is more complex than it appears. The Qur’an
clearly speaks of two types of sins, major and minor.
Surah 4.31 says, “If, of the things that have been for¬
bidden to you, you stay away from the major ones [i.e.,
major sins], We shall forgive you your [minor] sins.” In
surah 53.31-32, likewise, hope of salvation is held out
to those who avoid major sins, though they may have
committed minor sins (see also 42.37). In a hadith
Muhammad says that the five prayers, two Friday pray¬
ers, and two months of Ramadan wipe off the sins com¬
mitted during the intervening periods—that is, sins
committed after one prayer are wiped off by the next
prayer, and so on. A principal issue arising from this
distinction is that of the objectivity of sin: what makes
a sin major or minor? The Qur’an does provide some
help in answering this question by labeling certain acts
as major sins. Thus setting up peers to God (shirk) is
the most heinous sin in Islam, the Qur’an categorically
stating that one who commits this sin shall not be for¬
given (5.72). Murder and illicit sex are also regarded as
major sins (25.69, 5.32). The sunnah of the Prophet,
embodied in hadith, elaborates the subject.
In spite of the help they furnish in identifying a num¬
ber of major sins, and in spite of the many general
warnings they contain against sinful behavior, the
Qur’an and the sunnah appear reluctant to identify mi¬
nor sins. A little reflection suggests why this is so. A
religion that attaches great importance to intention as an
imbuer and determinant of moral value cannot look
with favor on an overly formal or mechanical view of
sin. For example, kufr (unbelief) is one of the most se¬
verely castigated qualities in the Qur’an, and yet expres¬
sion of unbelief is allowed to a believer under duress
(16.106). Formal similarity of two acts thus may not
represent substantive similarity. A related point is that
labeling sins as minor might create a tolerance for or
even crass indifference toward them. It is probably for
this reason that comprehensive lists of major and minor
sins are not provided. The absence of such listings
might, however, lead one to categorize as major sins
what common sense might designate as minor and vice
versa. Such a tendency is found, for example, in
Muhammad ibn Ahmad al-Dhahabl’s Kitab al-kaba’ir,
where no fewer than seventy sins are identified as major.
The Qur’an does not take a static view of sin; like
other moral categories, sin can grow and diminish. Ac¬
cording to a well-known hadith of the Prophet, when a
man commits a sin, his heart is marked with a black
spot. If he keeps committing sins, the heart is fully cov¬
ered with such spots, so that he loses the capacity to do
good: God seals off his heart, rendering him incapable
of good acts. By contrast, good actions wash away sins
(Qur’an 11.111).
The notion of inherited sin is foreign to Islam. The
Qur’anic story of Adam, which differs from the Biblical
account in several important respects, is crucial to un¬
derstanding the Islamic view. According to the story,
Adam, forbidden to eat of the fruit of a certain tree in
Eden, succumbed to the suggestions of Iblls and ate of
the fruit; Eve too ate of it. Realizing their mistake, the