Situación relacionada con los Residuos Especiales

holy building of the Ka‘bah was itself a religious foundation. There is a refer- ence to surah 3.96:‘Behold, the first Temple ever set up for mankind was indeed the one at Bakkah (= Mecca): rich in blessing, and [a source of] guidance unto all the worlds.’ In the history of Islam the first mosque in Medina is also the first foundation. As well as religious foundations there are charitable and above all family foundations. They have developed as a religious category since the sev- enth and eighth centuries on the basis of prophetic tradition (hadith).26

I shall be go into these special elements of Islamic economic life, zakat and

waqf, later (E IV, 1–2).

The annual period of fasting

All three prophetic religions, and many others, have the practice of fasting, and in Judaism, Christianity and Islam specific times are prescribed for it. According to Jewish law, fasting takes place on the Day of Atonement,27_{and on}

national days of mourning, but not on the Sabbath or on feast days. The Christian community practised fasting from the beginning, but there was a clear instruction in the Sermon on the Mount that people should ‘not observe that you fast, but only your Father, who also sees what is hidden’.28_{Yet at a very}

early stage the church observed a complete ‘public’ fast on Good Friday and Holy Saturday: a complete renunciation of food and drink.

Soon fasting was extended to the whole of Holy Week, which became a spe- cial time of fasting, and to other festivals, but not as a complete fast. Instead, Christians were to eat no more than one meal a day and to abstain from meat and wine (later also from other foods). However, since the Middle Ages and especially since the Reformation and in modern times, fasting has been increas- ingly reduced in Christianity. Days of fasting and abstinence have been abol- ished in the Protestant world, and in the Roman Catholic Church since the Second Vatican Council are prescribed only for Ash Wednesday and Good Friday. The Orthodox churches observe longer and stricter periods of fasting. Most recently, however, the traditional pre-Easter fast (Passiontide) has been promoted again, particularly by evangelical churches in Western consumer society, as a time of voluntary abstinence from consumption.

Islam, too, has voluntary fasts. As in traditional Catholicism, fasting can be a meritorious work or a penance. The Prophet introduced and regulated the obligation of fasting (siyam) as a divine commandment for all Muslims in his first year in Mecca.29_{We have already seen that he replaced fasting on the Jewish}

Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur) by fasting in the month of Ramadan because of his conflict with the Jews. As a result of his victory at Badr on 17 Ramadan of Year 2 after the Hijrah this month had assumed a special solemnity; it is no coin- cidence that the Qur’an is said to have been sent down in Ramadan.30

The motivation for fasting is similar to that in Judaism and Christianity: - Fasting is an expression of penitence and the eradication of sins.

- Fasting serves towards the mastery of the body and its drives by the spirit. - Fasting promotes piety and a mutual readiness for forgiveness.

What is special about Muslim fasting? Three characteristics are particularly striking:

– It is not just eating less or giving up certain foods, as in Christianity, but a complete fast, complete abstinence from food and drink and from sexual inter- course.

– It is not just restraint at meal times; rather, restraint is to be practised for the whole day from dawn (the moment when one can distinguish a white thread from a black one) to dusk; it is not even possible to rinse out one’s mouth with water or to smoke.

– Fasting is to be practised not just on particular days but for a whole month,the month of Ramadan (between 28 and 30 days). Fasting is made more difficult by the fact that Ramadan, the ninth month of the Islamic lunar calendar, moves through the year and therefore in high summer, when water is necessary for life, refraining from drinking causes considerable difficulties. (The lunar calendar, introduced as the result of a revelation shortly before Muhammad’s death,31_loses

eleven days every year because the lunar year is shorter than the solar year, so that Ramadan begins around eleven days earlier every year and the month of fasting can fall in any season.)

The command to fast, for a period that lasts considerably longer in summer than in winter, applies to all adult Muslims, men and those women who are not menstruating. There are concessions over this strict fasting: for the old and sick, for pregnant women and those who are breast-feeding, for travellers and for those involved in hard manual work. However, they are to make up the days of fasting they miss, which cannot always be easy.

Today the beginning of Ramadan, the month of fasting, is indicated accord- ing to ancient custom by the observation of the light of the new moon and is announced with pomp in the media. Special Ramadan carpets are laid out in the mosques, and the minarets are also illuminated all night. How is it, then, that for Muslims the time of fasting is not a gloomy time of penitence but rather a time of celebration? This is explained by the two aspects of the month of fast- ing—its day side and its night side. Fasting (and sexual continence) are prac- tised only during the day; by night people are free. Moreover, according to a revelation the Prophet is said to have abrogated the prohibition against sexual intercourse on the nights of Ramadan.32_{There is eating, lots of feasting, usually}

2. ALMSGIVING, FASTING, PILGRIMAGE 135

more and longer than usual, and sometimes a lavish meal (fatur), immediately before which a great deal of shopping is done. The next day one can sleep it off, which makes the daytime fast considerably easier. Fasting and celebrating together helps the community and leads many Muslims who otherwise are not particularly observant to join in.

All in all, Ramadan is more a time of feasting than of repentance, full of count- less religious and social activities in mosques and coffee houses. It is a time of fast- ing and celebrating for the whole Muslim community, a great symbol of the unity of Muslims all over the world and an invitation to non-Muslims to join the Ummah. Like its beginning, the end of Ramadan is established by the sighting of the new moon and the feast of breaking the fast (‘id al-fitr), one of the two main Islamic festivals.

The great pilgrimage to Mecca

All three prophetic religions and many others also have the practice of pilgrim- age. In Judaism, people were to go up to Jerusalem or from Jerusalem to the Temple Mount three times, at the three harvest festivals (the Feast of Unleavened Bread, the Feast of Weeks and the Feast of Tabernacles33_{). However,}

at an early stage there was a dispute as to whether one had to appear personally and whether one had to fulfil the commandment literally or depending on cir- cumstances. Even after the destruction of the Second Temple Jews made pil- grimages to Jerusalem, though now their joy over Jerusalem was combined with a lament over the destroyed sanctuary and the Herodian western wall, which was all that remained. All through modern times Jews have made pilgrimages to Jerusalem, even more in the age of Zionism, and now after the new foundation of the state of Israel.

In Christianity, too, pilgrimage was customary at an early stage. However, there are no specific instructions about it in the New Testament (there is only a report of Jesus’ traditionally Jewish ‘pilgrimage’ to Jerusalem). A person, not a place, is decisive for Christianity. Yet Christian pilgrimages developed in the early Christian centuries: to the places of martyrdoms or to martyrs’ tombs (especially to the tombs of Peter and Paul in Rome), and to the scenes of Jesus’ activity in Palestine. The pilgrimage to Compostela, to the tomb of the apostle James, was particularly important in the Middle Ages—it has recently been revived. Very much later, in the Catholic tradition, there were also pilgrimages to particular places where appearances of Mary and other saints were said to have taken place.

From early times there were annual and semi-annual pilgrimages in pre- Islamic Arabia, at the beginning of the spring and the autumn harvest. Mecca was a particularly prominent destination because of the Ka‘bah and the other

sanctuaries in the vicinity. This old Arabian practice of pilgrimage was contin- ued under a Muslim monotheistic aegis. The various old places and ceremonies were preserved by the Prophet. Cleansed of polytheistic references and re-inter- preted, the ceremonies were fused into one group of rituals and made fruitful again for Islam by their association with the history of Abraham and Ishmael (maqam Ibrahim = Abraham’s footprint by the Ka‘bah).34

This pilgrimage was of the utmost significance not only for the reconciliation of Muhammad with Mecca but also for the integration of the constantly growing Muslim populations.Their prayer niches (mihrab) in the direction (qiblah) of Mecca constantly reminded Muslims of their starting-point, their origin, the home of their religion. They needed only to remember or imagine the line as the crow flies extended forwards to know where Muslims ‘who are able to undertake it’ should travel.35

It is understandable that the great pilgrimage (hajj) to Mecca became the fifth pillar of Islam. Every adult Muslim is required to undertake this pilgrimage once in his lifetime, though in fact even now only a small number of Muslims can afford it (therefore, as in the case of almsgiving, representation is allowed). Often a family or even a whole village saves so that at least one of them can join in the pilgrimage, to the blessing of all, and later bear the honorific title ‘pilgrim’ (hajj) before his name. Mecca, where formerly Muslims, Jews and Christians lived peacefully together, became the ‘mother of the cities’ (umm

al-qura): a ‘holy inviolable place’ (harim) but now for non-Muslims a forbidden

city because of its holiness (al-haram, ‘the sanctuary’, has a minimum radius of five kilometres from the Ka‘bah in all directions). Medina, too, is an exclu- sively holy city, but a visit to the tomb of the Prophet is not mandatory for Muslims.

The great pilgrimage of Muslims to Mecca bears little resemblance to a rela- tively comfortable pilgrimage to Rome or Lourdes, even if some Muslims like to combine a business, study or holiday trip with it. The pilgrimage makes special demands. It is valid only if the pilgrim, of whatever status or class, submits to a ritual that has been very precisely prescribed:

– First of all pilgrims must put themselves in a special state of dedication (ihram): with specific ritual actions (the key words are labbayka allahumma— ‘at your service, O God’) put on a white, seamless garment and stop shaving and combing the hair, stop cutting hair and nails, use no perfume, not cover the head, not wear a veil, at most have sandals on their feet, and refrain from sexual intercourse.

– Then a series of sometimes very strenuous and complicated rituals must be performed (usually with the help of a pilgrim guide). These are the rites of the

2. ALMSGIVING, FASTING, PILGRIMAGE 137

‘little pilgrimage’, the ‘visit’ (‘umrah) to the Ka‘bah in the central mosque of Mecca with a circumambulation of the Ka‘bah seven times, which is possible at any time of the year; and the rites of the ‘great pilgrimage’ (hajj), which are pos- sible only on fixed days of the pilgrimage month (du ‘l-hijja) and are performed at the various holy places round Mecca (Mina, Muzadlifah and ‘Arafat).

The most important stations of the great pilgrimage are: the circumambula- tion of the Ka‘bah seven times; the walk, repeated seven times, between the hills of Safa and Marwa; climbing Mount Rahma (‘the Mount of Grace’) on the plain of ‘Arafat; picking up pebbles in Muzdalifah and throwing them at a stone mon- ument; the animal sacrifice in Mina and the sacrificial meal which follows; and finally the repetition of the circumambulation of the Ka‘bah .36_{All this is God’s}

command, to be obeyed reverently; like many religious rites it can be under- stood rationally only to a certain degree.

Some of these Islamic rites, mentioned in the Qur’an and in the Muslim tra- dition associated with Abraham, Hagar or Ishmael, still clearly show their pre- Islamic origins:

- the throwing of forty-nine pebbles (jamrat) in Mina at three stone pillars, which is understood as a symbolic stoning of the devil;

- the kissing, touching or greeting of the black stone in the extreme eastern corner of the Ka‘bah (for many centuries now it has been broken and is held together by a stone ring and a silver fastening);

- the sacrifice of sheep, goats or even camels, performed at the same time by all pilgrims; the throats of the animals are cut in the direction of the Ka‘bah (by slaughterers or by the pilgrims themselves); today, with more than one mil- lion pilgrims, this costs hundreds of thousands of animal lives an hour. Then follows the great sacrificial feast with the distribution and eating of the sac- rificial meat, after which the men shave, have their hair cut and put on new clothes. Together with the breaking of the fast, this day of sacrifice (yawm al-

adha), celebrated all over the Islamic world, is the highest religious festival in

Islam.

Islam is the only Abrahamic religion that has preserved blood sacrifices (these are also performed in the fulfilling of vows). However, it is not the exter- nals that are important for Muslims but the religious and spiritual attitude that can be attained with the pilgrimage: complete submission to God and a tempo- rary turning away from the world.

With increasing numbers of participants the organization of the pilgrimage became a growing challenge to the political authorities. Initially the caliph of Damascus was responsible and then the caliph of Baghdad; from the tenth

century the Fatimid caliph and the later sultans of Cairo, who were followed finally by the Ottoman sultans and last of all the kings of Saudi Arabia, as guardians of the holy places. It is always the same pilgrimage—though gov- erned by constantly changing political and social circumstances. It goes on year after year, and year after year the giant curtain (kiswah) of the Ka‘bah is rewo- ven, while the old is cut into pieces which are sold as souvenirs for the pilgrims. We have now occupied ourselves sufficiently with the essence and centre of Islam, its central figure and its central structural elements. Before we embark on the tremendous history of fourteen centuries, I would like to pause a moment to sum things up and to ask a few further questions.

A change in the substance of faith

What are the centre and foundation, what is the abiding substance in the Islamic religion or Muslim faith? Whatever historical, political, sociological and anthropological interpretations may rightly or wrongly emphasize, in the light of the basic documents of Islamic faith which have become normative and his- torically influential, the central content of faith is: ‘There is no God but God, and Muhammad is his prophet.’Without this confession there can be no Islamic faith, no Islamic religion.

The whole as it were elliptical testimony of the Qur’an revolves round these two focal points: God and his Prophet. Of course it can be argued that the one God himself forms the centre of the Qur’an, its ‘theocentricity’. However, the significant thing about the Qur’an is that this God is never seen alone but always together with the one who is constantly addressed by his revelation. The surahs of the Qur’an do not circle round the ‘mysteries of the deity’ but round the mes- sage which the Prophet has to proclaim to his people.

More precisely, the distinguishing structural elements and abiding guide- lines of Islamic faith are:

z belief in the God whom Muslims worship in common with Jews and Christians, who allows no associates;

z belief in the Prophet Muhammad who, as the ‘seal of the prophets’, confirms the prophets before him;

z belief in the Qur’an proclaimed by the Prophet as the uncorrupted, defini- tive revelation of God.

The special relationship of Muhammad to his God, resulting in the Qur’an, is the nucleus, starting point and focal point of Islam. Despite the initial refusals of Muhammad’s fellow tribesmen and all the developments and entanglements of Islamic history, this would nevertheless remain the basic notion of the Islamic religion that was never given up. For Islam, this constant centre—God

2. ALMSGIVING, FASTING, PILGRIMAGE 139

and his message in the Qur’an—which is the motive force for everything is the basis of:

z its originality from earliest times;

z the continuity in its long history down the centuries;

z its identity despite all the differences of language, race, cultures and nations. Anyone who wants to pass a well-founded judgement on the present situa- tion of Islam must know its history, for with the ‘essence’ and its structure we have as yet by no means grasped living Islam. Just as a static architectural for- mula cannot show us the imposing building resting on five pillars, a description of its essence cannot show us the concrete religion. Unquestionably, like Judaism and Christianity, Islam is not a static entity. It is a living history, in which ‘the essence’ of Islam, its ‘substance of faith’, has repeatedly assumed new and different forms. I shall now turn to this history.

C. HISTORY

In some respects what forms the centre of Islam, its foundation, the abiding substance of its faith, has become clear in a more evident and concentrated way than in the case of Judaism and Christianity: God’s word has become a book and the message of this book is that there is no God but God and Muhammad is his Prophet. Islamic faith is imposingly simple and compact; Islamic society is amazingly capable of integration and of offering resistance; and by compari- son with Christianity and even more with Judaism the history of the formation of Islamic religion is extraordinarily short and compressed. So, we can ask, doesn’t this unique history show incessant expansion until the nineteenth cen- tury, a history of victors and victories, a direct development without any deep breaks and contradictions, without a change of paradigms?

C I

The Original Paradigm of the