‘Id al Adha versus Kurban Bayramy: Arab Literalism versus Persian Symbolism as Opposite Factors in the Spread of Islam

by Dr. Robert D. Crane

Kerim Balci’s seminal article, “The Feast of Proximity”, available at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address), is excellent on the difference between the Arab emphasis on external acts in the feast of ‘Id al Adha and the emphasis in the peripheral countries as an expression of Sufism on the symbolic purpose of the acts.  This may be why Islam spread historically beyond the Arab world primarily despite rather than as a result of governmental power. 

Salah is not namaz, which may help explain why Arab and Urdu speakers prefer to worship in their own ethnically segregated mosques, but not why African Americans seem to prefer ISNA over ICNA, though it may explain why African-Americans prefer their own Sufi mosques over those funded by the Saudis. 

This also might explain why the maqasid al shari’ah as the essence of Islamic jurisprudence and of human responsibilities and rights died out six hundred years ago in the Arab world but still flourished throughout this period (with ups and downs) in Ithna’ashari Persia, and also why normative jurisprudence (the maqasid) was developed by the Prophet Muhammad, salla Allahu ‘alayhi wa salam, but was not perfected in the explicit form of the maqasid until Imam Jafar and Persian scholars developed the maqasid as a separate Islamic science.  This would also clearly explain why the ‘aqida of the Shi’a start with tawhid and justice, whereas transcendent justice was rarely if ever a governing paradigm for Sunni thought.  The greatest master, Al Shatibi, of course, perfected the maqasid in Andalucia but only as the dying gasp of the Islamic civilization in the West. 

The different dynamics between the Arab and Persian worlds would also explain why all the great Sufi tariqat originated in Central Asia, other than the Shadhiliya of North Africa, which had an enormous influence through St. John of the Cross on Christian mysticism, just as in the intellectual realm Ibn Sina had an equally profound influence on the greatest “Doctor of the Church”, St. Thomas Aquinas.

    This distinction was detailed in Chapter One of my book, Rehabilitating the Role of Religion in the World: Laying a New Foundation, in http://www.theamericanmuslim.org, specifically in Part One, posted on May 30, 2009, with the rest in three other parts on May 30 and June 7th, with a chapter on each of the eight currently most popular maqasid, as well as in my book, The Natural Law of Compassionate Justice: An Islamic Perspective, written four years ago but available only since January, 2010, on Amazon.  This is also explained in the 70-page chapter, entitled “The Spread of Islam”, in the three-volume textbook, Islam and Muslims, which in November, 2011, is now in page proofs for electronic publication by the Center for Understanding Islam early in 2012.  Like most ideas, however, my explication did not clarify the concept of dhahr (the outer) versus batin (the inner) as simply as does Kerim Balci in his article pasted below comparing ‘Id al Adha with Kurban Bayramy.  A simple comparison of two examples makes all the difference.

Feast of Proximity, by Kerim Balci
                                                                                       
English-speaking Muslims prefer to use Arabic names for Muslim rituals and feasts.  Turks have from the very beginning preferred to use Persian equivalents.

Arabs and English speaking Muslims use “salat” for daily prayer, whereas Turks and Persians use “namaz.”  The Arabic Eid al-Adha is translated into English as the Feast of the Sacrifice.  Turks, Persians, Urdu-speaking nations, and Balkan Muslims on the other hand call this feast Kurban Bayramı (this final vowel missing in some locations), which can be translated as Feast of Proximity.

This is not a simple issue of nomenclature. Different names used for the same meaning attest to different worldviews, in this case, to a difference between the Orthodox Islam of the Arab core and the Sufi Islam of the peripheral Muslim nations.

Generally speaking, the Arabic names of Muslim rituals and feasts are names of acts themselves.  They name “what is being done.”  On the other hand the Turko-Persian naming relates rather to the question “why.”  A good example is the Eid al-Adha and Kurban Bayramı pair.  Eid and Bayram both mean a feast, festival or holiday.  Adha is the plural of the Arabic Dahiya and is the name of the sacrificial animal that is acceptable religiously to be sacrificed.  Dahiya is an animal with special qualities sacrificed on the days of Eid al-Adha by a free, non-travelling, well-to-do Muslim with the intention of fulfilling the duty of sacrifice. The qualities of the Dahiya are such a sophisticated issue that downgrading the issue to the level of animal rights can sound disgusting to a Muslim.  Anyhow, the Arabic naming of the feast revolves around the kind of animal that can be sacrificed, the intention of slaughtering as a sacrifice to Allah, and the economic and political situation of the Muslim person who will sacrifice the animal.

In the Turkish case Kurban Bayramı is rather about “Kurbiyet” with meanings related to proximity in feeling, approaching, appealing, affinity, and befriending.  Thus, the Feast of Proximity is a feast when Muslims try to realize and feel the closeness of their Creator through their devotion proved by the symbolism of sacrificing animals.  For peripheral Sufi Muslim traditions the gist of sacrificing is not about the animal but about the relationship between Allah and man.  For this reason Turkish Muslims stress the memory of Patriarch Abraham’s readiness to sacrifice his son Ishmael (or Isaac as the Judeo-Christian tradition says, or both) to Allah.

For this reason Turkish Muslims attach more importance to feast visits between relatives and neighbors as the proximity between the believers connotes a proximity to Allah.  For this reason also Turkish Muslims have added dimensions of candy distribution, giving pocket money to children, buying presents for close friends and paying visits to the houses of otherwise neglected poor families during Kurban Bayramı.

Since in the Turkish understanding proximity is not restricted to those who sacrifice an animal, Turks are ready to share their feelings of closeness and affinity with their non-performing Muslim and non-Muslim neighbors also. The feast is a Feast of Proximity for all, and sacrifice is only one particular dimension of that proximity.  It is indispensable; but it is not all.

The issue of proximity is a major part of the Muslim cosmology.  In fact all states of the human condition in this world are measured according to proximity and remoteness (kurb-bu’d) from Allah.  The psychological states corresponding to these two poles are openness and eclipse (bast-kabz).  During times of proximity, as in the days of the Feast of Proximity, we are open to inspirations, we are happy, and our souls are satisfied, wheras on days of remoteness we are lost in the wilderness of this world with our unsatisfied souls looking for a port of tranquility.

All of the Beautiful Names of Allah correspond to these two cosmological conditions: Cemil (beautiful) looks to proximity, whereas Celil (glorious) looks to remoteness; Ahad (one) looks to proximity and Wahid (sole one) looks to remoteness and so on.  Gravitational force relates to the proximity and centrifugal force relates to remoteness.  Love connotes proximity, and hatred connotes remoteness.

Hence we feel countless levels of proximities during the Feast of Proximity ranging from the level of most intimate human feelings to supernatural cosmological events.