Baber Johansen

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common ground for social morality when he assigns to all members of
society the capacity to perform acts that strengthen its cohesion.
The discussion of the ritual, ethical and legal classification of acts did, of
course, not end with the authors of the pre-Mamluk and early Mamluk
period. The widely-read seventeenth-century dictionary of legal and
theological terms, al-KulliyyÁt, authored by KaffawÐ (1619-1684), a
Íanafī jurist who served as qÁÃÐ of Istanbul and Jerusalem under the
Ottomans, discusses the relationship between acts of worship, acts of
obedience, and acts that bring closer to God. KaffawÐ states: "The act that
constitutes nearness to God (qurba) is more specific than the act of
obedience (ÔÁÝa) if one takes into consideration the cognition of the one
whose nearness one searches (maÝrifat al-mutaqarrab ilaihi fÐhÁ). The act
of worship (ÝibÁda) is more specific than both [i.e. than the act of coming
closer to God and the act of obedience] because in it the intent (niyya) [to
perform a specific act of worship in order to come closer to God] is taken
into account."
The hierarchy established in this sentence is based on the knowledge of
God and the intent of coming closer to Him. The most specific notion is
that of the act of cult because the intent to perform it is based on a
specification of the act to be performed and of the divine authority in
whose name it is performed. The second rank is assigned to acts with a
qurba-function: though the act is not specified, the actor knows that he
performs it in order to come closer to God. The act of obedience ranks
third. It indicates the willingness to follow the law and the actor loses
her/his capacity to perform it through the act of apostasy. 69
The discussion of the relation between the act of worship, the effort to
come closer to God through acts with qurba-functions, and the act of
obedience is continued in the nineteenth century. Ibn ÝÀbidÐn (d. 1836 or
1842), a widely-read and -discussed Damascene jurist of the Íanafī
school of law, defines qurba in the following terms:
That which brings closer to God (qurba) is the performance of an
act that is rewarded [by God] after he [the actor] knows to whom