IBN HAZM (An 384-456/994-1064 CE), more
fully Abu Muhammad 'Ali ibn Ahmad ibn Sa`id ibn Hazm; Muslim theologian and
man of letters. Born in Cordova to a rich and influential family, Ibn Hazm
received a distinguished education in religious sciences, literature, and
poetry. Nonetheless, he grew up in a period of disruptive ethnic and clan
rivalries that saw the decline of the Umayyad caliphate at Cordova and the
formation of tiny kingdoms fighting among themselves. His own childhood was
marred by the disgrace of his father after the fall of Caliph Hisham II and by
the destruction of the family home at Balat Mughith in the course of bloody
battles between Arabs and Berbers.
As a result of his political activities on behalf of the legitimist (Umayyad) party, Ibn Hazm met with imprisonment, banishment, and flight but was appointed to high positions as well, serving as vizier at least twice, under 'Abd al-Rahman III al-Murtada and 'Abd al-Rahman V al-Mustazhir, and possibly a third time under the last caliph, Hisham al-Mu'tadd. Profoundly disappointed by his political experience and offended by the conduct of his contemporaries, Ibn Hazm subsequently left public life and devoted his last thirty years to literary activities.
His writings are quite personal, shaped by the intensity
of his own reactions and rigorous in their condemnation of what is, in fact,
only human nature. Tawq al-hamamah (The
Dove's Neck-Ring), a youthful work that was clearly revised later, is
interesting in several respects. As a collection of prose passages and poetic
illustrations on the subject of love and lovers, it offers a fairly standard
treatment of a popular theme in Arabic literature. What sets it apart, however,
is Ibn Hazm's penetrating observation of human psychology, a trait found in his
later study of characters and conduct, Kitab
al-akhlaq wa-al-siyar, as well. Underlying the delicate charm of the prose
and poetry in The Dove's Neck-Ring is
an uneasy sensibility. Questioning, for example, the sincerity of exchanges
between women and their lovers, Ibn Hazm finds a gap between what is said and what is
thought and concludes that language often serves to mask thought. This
otherwise commonplace discovery of dishonesty provides him in turn with a basis
for profound reflection on language and its wider uses, and it is here that he
introduces the notion of Zahir, the
"apparent" or literal meaning of words.
This line of thought is further developed when Ibn Hazm
examines the word of God. In opposition to the Malikiyah, he argues that people
are bound to obey only the law of God, in its zahir or literal sense, without restrictions, additions, or
modifications. Although he was originally a Shafi'i jurist, Ibn Hazm joined the
Zahiri school and brought to it a systematic structure of logic. For the
interpretation of sacred texts, he put together a Zahiri grammar in which he
specifically eliminates the ambiguities that grammarians were using to explain
certain syntactical forms. He takes the position that language itself provides
all that is necessary for the understanding of its content and that,
therefore, God, who revealed the Qur'an in clear (mubin) Arabic, has used the language to say precisely what he
means. Each verse should be understood grammatically and lexically in its immediate
and general sense: when God wants a verse to have a specific meaning, he
provides an indication (dalil), in
the same verse or elsewhere, which allows the meaning to be restricted.
The significance of a Qur'anic text can also be determined
by a hadith recognized as authentic
after careful critical examination; a verb in the imperative, for example, can
be taken as a command, but also as a suggestion: the meaning can be determined
only from the literal sense of the context. From this position, it follows
that Ibn Hazm strongly criticizes the use of reasoning by analogy (qiyas) and the principles of personal
evaluation: the pursuit of what is considered good (istihsan), the pursuit of values for the common good (istislah), and most of all, the recourse
to personal opinion (ra'y) by which
the jurists sought to extend divine law to cases not mentioned in the texts (nusus). In the same spirit, he limits
the basis of consensus (ijma') to the
companions of the Prophet; the agreement of the community of scholars on a
legal question does not authorize the derivation of a law.
In Al-ihkam fi usul
al-ahkam (Judgment on the Principles of Ahkam), Ibn Hazm develops his method for classifying human acts
within the five established juridical categories (ahkam) of obligatory, recommended, disapproved, forbidden, and
lawful: for an action to fall into one of the first four categories, there must
be a text (Qur'an or authentic hadith) that
establishes its particular status; otherwise, the act is lawful. This method
is further applied in his voluminous treatise on Zahiri law, Kitab al-muhalla (The Book of
Ornaments).
Ibn Hazm is also famous for his great work, the Fisal (Detailed Critical Examination),
in which he offers a critical survey of different systems of philosophical
thought in relation to religious beliefs among the skeptics, Peripatetics,
brahmans, Zoroastrians and other dualists, Jews, and Christians. Using the
examination of these religions to establish the preeminence of Islam, he also
attacks all the Muslim theologians, the Mu'tazilah and the Ash'ariyah in
particular, along with the philosophers and mystics. His main objection is
that each of them raises questions about the revealed text only to resolve them
by purely human means. Ibn Hazm does not deny recourse to reason, since the
Qur'an itself invites reflection, but this reflection must be limited to two
givens, revelation and sense data, since the socalled principles of reason are
in fact derived entirely from immediate sense experience. Thus reason is not a
faculty for independent research, much less for discovery.
By submitting humans exclusively to the word of God, Ibn
Hazm's literalism frees them from any choice of their own. His drive for
synthesis leads him to demonstrate the harmony of all the Qur'anic and
prophetic texts through the application of Zahiri principles. As a result, his
work constitutes one of the most original and important monuments of Muslim
thought.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
A general work for the study of
Ibn Hazm is W. Montgomery Watt and Pierre Cachia's A History of Islamic Spain (Edinburgh, 1965), which provides a
useful summary of cultural and political history as well as a detailed
bibliography. D. B. Macdonald's Development
of Muslim Theology, Jurisprudence and Constitutional Theory (1903; reprint,
New York, 1965) and Ignacz Goldziher's classic work The Zahiris: Their Doctrine and Their History, translated and
edited by Wolfgang Behn (Leiden, 1971), shed light on the legal and
theological currents of which Ibn Hazm was a part.
A work that specifically concerns Ibn Hazm is my Grammaire et theologie chez Ibn Hazm de
Cordoue: Essai sur la structure et les conditions de la pens a musulmane (Paris,
1956). Miguel As?n Palacios's Abenh?zam
de C?rdoba y su historia cr?tica de las ideas religiosas, 5 vols. (Madrid,
1927-1932), is an analytical edition and partial translation of Ibn Hazm's
most famous work, Kitab al-fall fi
al-milal wa-al-ahwa' wa-al-nihal. His Tawq al-hamamah ft al-ulfah wa-al-ullaf has
been translated by A. R. Nykl as A Book
Containing the Risala Known as the Dove's Neck-ring, about Love and Lovers (Paris,
1931) and by A. J. Arberry as The Ring
of the Dove (London, 1953).
BY: ROGER ARNALDEZ
Translated from French by Miriam Rosen
Questions:
Why was Ibn Hazm imprisoned?
What sets apart Tawq al-hamamah (The Dove's Neck-Ring)?
Why should each verse of the Quran be understood grammatically and lexically?
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