Baber Johansen

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and the fainting person are obliged to perform the prayer that they missed
during their incapacity. In this particular case, Íanafī jurists engage in a
contradictory debate between adherents of different doctrines, on the
determining role of the cosmic causes of prayer and fasting and on the
importance of understanding the legal discourse as a condition for the
capacity to incur obligations. 42
VI. Acts of Worship (ÝibÁdÁt)
VI.1: Deontology and the Muslim cult
The doctrinal conflicts within the HanafÐ school on the role of cosmic
causes for the cultic obligations of the fainting person is important for the
understanding of the role that references to cosmic causes of legal norms
play in the jurists’ regulation of cultic obligations. Cultic acts are
considered legal obligations in Muslim fiqh. In order to be obliged to
perform valid cultic acts, a person has to have attained the age of puberty
and the capacity of sound reasoning. In addition, she has to adhere to the
religion of Islam. Through this criterion, the cult is characterized as a
system of norms that is addressed to Muslims only, a law for the Muslim
religious community. Acts of worship constitute an integral part of the
law. The "pillars of Islam," that is the five obligatory acts that a Muslim
has to fulfill in his service to God, comprise in the first place the
testimony of belief (shahāda). This testimony consists of two parts: "I
testify that there is no God but God and MuÎammad is his Prophet." The
other four cultic obligations are the obligatory prayers (ÒalÁt), the almstax
(zakÁt), fasting (Òawm) and the pilgrimage (Îajj). Every law book
invariably opens with chapters on ritual purity (ÔahÁra), seen by most
Sunnī law schools—with the exception of the ÍanafÐs— 43 as an
obligatory act of worship that requires a declaration of intent (niyya).
The history of the Muslim cult has not been a major focus of Occidental
research. It does not diminish the important contributions of Wensinck 44
and Klaus Lech 45 to underline that a path-breaking change in outlook has
been produced in the works of Zeev Maghen 46 and Marion Katz 47 in the