This panel will explore the processes by which various aspects of Ibadi religious identity came to be formulated, preserved and transformed. Beginning with the assumption that religious identities must be constructed, maintained and adapted if they are to remain relevant to each successive generation, all five papers will address the question of how and in what manner Ibadi authors constructed compelling portraits of religious/sectarian identity that spoke to different eras of Ibadi history. The papers are chronologically varied yet thematically related, and they are equally attuned to conceptions of sectarian-communal identity.
The first paper will address 'Amr b. Husayn al-'Anbari's poetic insights after the Ibadi victory over the Madinans at the battle of Qudayd in 130/748. Using the medium of early Ibadi poetry, this paper explores al-'Anbari's high hopes and deep disappointments in the wake of the battle, but also his realizations of various expectations and experiences.
The second paper focuses on Ibadi heresiography as a medium for creating medieval Ibadi identities. It explores Abu 'Abdullah Muhammad b. Sa'id al-Qalhati's articulation of Ibadi identity in his chapter on the Ibadiyya in his late 6th/early 12th century Kitab al-Kashf wa-'l-Bayan.
The third paper analyzes the writings of Nasir b. Abi Nabhan (1192-1263/1778-1847), the leading Ibadi scholar of Oman in his generation, whose voluminous writings remain unpublished and have received scant attention in contemporary scholarship. Although a highly original thinker, Nasir framed several of his writings as commentaries on Sunni works and focused on analyzing Ibadism's place among the various schools of Islamic thought.
The fourth paper addresses the emergence of a religio-national Ibadi identity at the beginning of the 20th century, by investigating how Ibadism came to be specifically associated with a limited territory: the Imamate of Oman. The paper delves into how Ibadism was used for the construction of the Ibadi state during the era of Ibadi revivalism, under colonial domination, and finally during the period described under the rubric of Pan-Ibadism.
The final paper discusses the activities and intellectual productivity of the Algerian Ibadi diaspora in Tunisia and Egypt after World War One and the role that diaspora played in the formulation of a version of Algerian nationalism shaped by the ideas of pan-Islamism, Maghribi unity, and pan-Arabism, in a context that pushed Ibadi intellectuals toward a new articulation of Ibadi identity.
Religious Studies/Theology
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Dr. Annie C. Higgins
This paper listens to the voice of the Ibadi poet, ‘Amr al-Husayn al-‘Anbari, in the flush of Mukhtar b. `Awf al-Azdi Abu Hamza’s victory over the Umayyad Madinans at the Battle of Qudayd in 130 A.H./748 A.D. This twenty-eight verse ba’iyya poem in the kamil meter, recorded in al-Isfahani’s al-Aghani, represents forces of alliance, argumentation, conviction, and conflict forming a backdrop to the final attempts to replace Umayyad authority undertaken by the Ibadi Shurat/Kharijite leader ‘Abdullah b. Yahya, known as Talib al-Haqq, in the Holy Cities of Makka and Madina toward the end of Marwan II’s caliphate. The poet presents the Battle of Qudayd itself as a persona encapsulating physical, spiritual, and political elements in an ambiguous song of temporal victory, with references to Qur’anic views of the Day of Judgment. Herein al-‘Anbari engages crucial identity issues for the Shurat/Kharijites in general, and for the Ibadis in particular. I intend to map nuances of sacrifice or exchange/shara, and Exchangers/Shurat, as the poet iterates them, in light of armed and unarmed practices among the Ibadis. He bemoans his own survival: “I did not fulfill my desire for sacrifice with the Shurat contingent.” It is in his final verse that al-‘Anbari urges the listener to ask the battle about its events, presenting the battle itself as an individual person. I will examine components of the battle that relate to personal characteristics in light of physical realities – of the human body, geography, time changes and environment, as well as spiritual atmospheres – of human hopes, religious beliefs, social status, and the impetus for change. With historical hindsight, I will also make reference to the changed trajectories in the same poet’s lengthy elegy for Abu Hamza in the bloodbath that decimated the Ibadis at Wadi al-Qura shortly after Qudayd. The ba’iyya, the poem of victory, provides insights into significant points on the time and ideology-lines of Ibadi identity before and after these tumultuous, defining events. I am using works of al-Baladhuri, al-Isfahani, al-Jahiz, al-Mubarrad, al-Shahrastani, al-Tabari, Ibn ‘Abd Rabbih, and others among primary Arabic sources, as well as identity theory, and literary and historical analyses in secondary sources, including recent publications from Syria, Tunisia, and Oman.
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Dr. Adam Gaiser
The fact that Oman was never fully isolated from the rest of the Islamic world meant that Omani Ibadis sometimes found it expedient to formulate statements of identity that reified their own sense of what it meant to be Ibadi in relation to other non-Ibadi groups of Muslims. This was done, as it was in Sunni and Shi’ite intellectual spheres, using the medium of heresiography. Abu ‘Abdullah Muhammad b. Sa’id al-Qalhati – an Omani heresiographer and historian from the late 6th/12th, early 7th/13th century – penned one of the most important medieval works of Ibadi heresiography. His Kitab al-Kashf wa’l-Bayan fi Sharh Iftiraq al-Firaq wa’l-Adyan is a work of two parts that first presents early Islamic history, especially the rise of the Ibadiyya in relation to the Kharijites, and then treats the Ibadiyya as part of the constellation of Islamic groups using the standard 72 erring sects format. This paper examines the heresiographical portions of al-Qalhati’s work to determine how, and in what fashion, al-Qalhati creates a notion of Ibadi identity using the medium of heresiography. It will focus on al-Qalhati’s fiftieth chapter in which he mentions the ahl al-istiqama (i.e. Ibadiyya) and elucidates their creed (i‘tiqad). In this chapter, al-Qalhati provides an exposition of Ibadi belief, ritual worship and proper practice that is sandwiched in-between two lists of important personages who transmitted this material, and from whom the Ibadiyya trace their lineage. The paper argues that these genealogies of religion were as important to al-Qalhati and the medieval Ibadiyya as the description of the distinctive Ibadi doctrines and rituals. This emphasis on transmission via teacher lines can likewise be detected in earlier Ibadi writings, just as it can be seen operating in medieval Ibadi attitudes toward hadith. These genealogies have generally been ignored by Western scholars. An examination of how and why al-Qalhati crafted his chapter on the Ibadiyya in the particular in which he did will illuminate novel methods by which scholars can appreciate the process of sect-identity formation.
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Although Nasir b. Abi Nabhan (1192-1263/1778-1847) was the leading Ibadi scholar of Oman in his generation, his voluminous writings remain unpublished and have received scant attention in contemporary scholarship, though he is frequently cited in Nur al-Din al-Salimi’s history of Oman and in the multi-volume work on Ibadi teachings entitled Qamus al-Shari‘a. His importance was such that Sayyid Sa‘id b. Sultan, the sultan of Oman, kept Nasir by his side wherever he went, taking him with him when he moved the capital of his empire to Zanzibar in 1832. The impact of his residence in Zanzibar is reflected in his book on the healing properties of plants on the Swahili coast, and perhaps also in his fascination with Sunni scholarship. Although Nasir’s legacy is somewhat overshadowed by that of his more famous father, Abu Nabhan Ja‘id b. Khamis al-Kharusi, Nasir was a far more original thinker. While sharing his father’s concern with the promotion of Ibadi law, theology, and politics, in addition to mystical poetry, Nasir displayed a keen interest in the full range of Islamic thought and framed a number of his writings as commentaries on Sunni works. His works are not apologetic in nature, as he clearly imagined his readers to be Ibadis, but he devotes a great deal of attention to analyzing Ibadism’s place among the various schools of Islamic thought. His writings reflect the sharp intellect of a scholar who was keenly aware of his own acumen, and reveal a nuanced analysis of the teachings of both Ibadism and of other Muslim sects.
This paper relies mainly on unpublished manuscripts read in Oman, in addition to Nasir’s opinions as reflected in Qamus al-Shari‘a, to analyze the state of Ibadi identity formation in the early nineteenth century, at a time when Ibadis were in greater contact than ever before with Sunni Muslims and with Western powers, but had not yet reached the phase when Ibadi scholars engaged in apologetics and the language of pan-Islamism.
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Anna Rita Coppola
Ibadhism has always survived at the edges of the Islamic world and Ibadhis had few contacts with the other Islamic communities: they developed their own idea of government, the imamate, and Law.
In Oman, the emergence of Ibadhism at the beginning of the 20th century as the basis for the construction of a “National”/Imamate identity is due to the birth of the sultanate on the coast of Oman, the influence of the Salafiyya and the diffusion of the Nah?a movement. The sultanate does not belong to the Ibadhi tradition of government: it is a bid‘a so it does not participate in the formation of Omani/Ibadhi identity but on the contrary the sultanate is rather a term of opposition in relation to which the National/Ibadhi identity is positively established. The traditional government is that of the ibadhi Salaf, the Imams, and thanks to the diffusion of the Nah?a movement the need for the constitution of an Ibadhi imamate is now possible.
The aim of the paper is to point out how the formation and recognition of the Imamate of Uman, as a State, in the 1920 Sib Treaty, is closely linked to the emergence of the idea that Ibadhism is the distinctive religion of the territory where the Imamate itself was proclaimed. It follows from this that the imamate would be the natural government of the inner Omani territory during the process of the national states formation, at that time shared by all the Islamic world. So the Ibadhi identity, historically existing in the Omani territory, can now be formally expressed in the Imamate of Oman. Ibadhi Islam became the specific and distinctive feature of a limited territory for the construction of an Ibadhi State in which the Ibadhi/Omani identity is fully recognized. As it will be seen this link between territory- religion-government is well described in various historical books written in the first half of the last century, as Tu?fat al-A‘y?n bi-s?rat Ahl ‘Um?n by N?r al-D?n al-S?lim?, Nah?at al-A‘y?n bi-?urriyyat ‘Um?n by Mu?ammad al-S?lim? or ‘Um?n ‘abrá Ta‘r?kh by Ab? Hil?l al-Siy?b?.
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Dr. Amal Ghazal
This paper follows the activities and intellectual productivity of the Mzabi diaspora in Tunisia and in Egypt after World War One and the role that diaspora played in the formulation of a version of Algerian nationalism shaped by ideas of pan-Islamism, Maghribi unity, and pan-Arabism. It shifts attention from the Algerian diaspora in France to that in the cities of the Arab world and from the Algerian nationalism formulated by Algerians in France to that formulated by those in the Arab world. It argues that the diasporic element of Ibadis necessitated assimilation in transnational networks that produced hybrid versions of nationalism, accommodating territorial nationalism with pan-Maghribism, and pan-Arabism. Equally significant is the impact of these rising nationalist ideologies on the ways Ibadi Mzabis were negotiating their sectarian identity. Nationalism, be it territorial, pan-Arab or pan-Maghribi, entailed a discourse of cross-sectarian Muslim unity. This paper analyzes Ibadi articulations of a new identity that fit into the nationalist mould and required new definitions of an Ibadi history that needed to speak to issues of unity and to the notions of an eternal nation to which Ibadis belonged. This paper, on the one hand, looks at the conditions that made the integration of Ibadis into those networks possible, such as the emergence of a press culture and the colonial policy of exile, and on the other hand, it sheds light on the impacts of such integration on how Ibadi history in Algeria and the larger Maghribi region came to be imagined by the Ibadi Mzabi community. The major sources of this study are the Ibadi press and Ibadi publications in Arabic newspapers as well as memoirs of major Ibadi activists and news editors.
