Jump to content

Fitna

Add links
From wikishia

Fitna (Arabic: فتنة), as defined by a group of exegetes[1] and lexicographers,[2] means trial and examination. Sayyid Muhammad Husayn Tabataba'i stated that any action performed to test the state of something is called fitna. For this reason, the test itself and its consequences, such as the hardship and punishment that affect those who fail the test, are also called fitna.[3] Some consider the root of fitna to be derived from fatn, meaning placing gold in fire to reveal its quality and to purify it.[4] According to Hasan Mustafawi in the book al-Tahqiq, the primary meaning of fitna is that which causes disorder accompanied by anxiety. He enumerates wealth, children, difference of opinions, punishment, disbelief, trial, and anything that causes disorder with anxiety as its instances.[5] Habib Allah al-Khu'i in the commentary on Wisdom 93 of Nahj al-Balagha considers the conventional meaning of fitna to be sedition for political motives, such as the fitna of al-Hajjaj and Ibn al-Ash'ath, or non-political ones like the fitna arising from the theory of the creation of the Quran during the time of al-Ma'mun al-'Abbasi.[6]

In the Qur'an, the word "fitna" appears 32 times and its derivatives 60 times.[7] These include the verse: "Know that your possessions and your children are only a trial (fitna)"; where wealth and children are introduced as a fitna.[8] In a passage of Nahj al-Balagha, fitna in this verse is interpreted as a divine trial, stating that God tests humans with their wealth and children.[9] In the verse "fitna is worse than killing"[10] and "fitna is greater than killing",[11] fitna is described as worse and greater than murder. According to Nasir Makarim Shirazi in Tafsir-i nimuna, fitna in the Qur'an appears in several meanings such as trial, deception, affliction, punishment, misguidance, polytheism and idolatry.[12] In the view of Allama Tabatabayi’s, fitna in the Qur'an is used in the sense of trial and its requirements; however, in Ayatollah Makarim Shirazi’s view, all the mentioned meanings return to the primary meaning of fitna (placing gold in the fire for purification or separating the pure from the impure).[13]

Some researchers consider the most frequent use of the term fitna in religious texts to have three meanings: trial and examination, the mixing of truth and falsehood, and turmoil and distress.[14] According to Jawad Muhaddithi, a religious author and researcher, the Qur'an uses fitna with the meaning of trial in about twenty cases.[15]

It is said that in the Holy Qur'an and Nahj al-Balagha, both positive and negative characteristics are stated for fitna.[16] Researchers believe that the Holy Qur'an explicitly confirms the existence of these two types fitna's by condemning negative fitna and considering it greater than killing,[17] while attributing positive fitna to God.[18][19]

According to researchers, the Qur'an[20] and Nahj al-Balagha[21] provide solutions for escaping fitna such as: insight (basira), piety, and certainty (yaqin).[22] In a famous hadith from Imam Ali (a), he advises a person caught up in fitna to be like a young camel that has neither the strength to be ridden by others nor udders to be milked.[23] According to some commentators of Nahj al-Balagha, this hadith is a metaphor for avoiding cooperation with those who invite one to fitna and does not mean withdrawing from the truth.[24] Some also say that a person should act in a way that their physical strength and social status are not exploited for the benefit of falsehood.[25]

Notes

  1. ↑ For example, see: Ṭabāṭabāyī, al-Mīzān, 1417 AH, vol. 2, p. 61.
  2. ↑ Ibn Fāris, Muʿjam maqāyīs al-lugha, 1404 AH, vol. 4, p. 472; Ibn Manẓūr, Lisān al-ʿArab, 1414 AH, vol. 13, p. 317; Azharī, Tahdhīb al-lugha, vol. 14, p. 211.
  3. ↑ Ṭabāṭabāyī, al-Mīzān, 1417 AH, vol. 2, p. 61.
  4. ↑ Ibn Manẓūr, Lisān al-ʿArab, 1414 AH, vol. 13, p. 317; Rāghib al-Iṣfahānī, Mufradāt alfāẓ al-Qurʾān, 1412 AH, p. 623; Makārim Shīrāzī, Tafsīr-i nimūna, 1371 Sh, vol. 2, p. 21.
  5. ↑ Muṣṭafawī, al-Taḥqīq, 1368 Sh, vol. 9, pp. 23-24.
  6. ↑ Khūʾī, Minhāj al-barāʿa, vol. 21, p. 8.
  7. ↑ ["Rīshih-yābī-yi mādda-yi fatn", Tanzil website.]
  8. ↑ Quran, 8:28.
  9. ↑ Nahj al-balāgha, edited by Subḥī al-Ṣāliḥ, Wisdom 93, p. 484.
  10. ↑ Quran, 2:191.
  11. ↑ Quran, 2:217.
  12. ↑ Makārim Shīrāzī, Tafsīr-i nimūna, 1371 Sh, vol. 2, pp. 21-22.
  13. ↑ Makārim Shīrāzī, Tafsīr-i nimūna, 1371 Sh, vol. 2, pp. 21-22.
  14. ↑ Muḥaddithī, "Fitna-shināsī", Hawzah Information Center.
  15. ↑ Muḥaddithī, "Fitna-shināsī", Hawzah Information Center.
  16. ↑ Akhawān-Muqaddam, "Barrasī-yi mafhūm-i fitna...", p. 18.
  17. ↑ Quran, 2:191.
  18. ↑ Quran, 21:35.
  19. ↑ Akhawān-Muqaddam, "Barrasī-yi mafhūm-i fitna...", p. 18.
  20. ↑ See: Quran, 6:104; Quran, 8:29.
  21. ↑ See: Nahj al-balāgha, edited by Subḥī al-Ṣāliḥ, Sermon 16, p. 57 and Sermon 38, p. 81.
  22. ↑ Ḥaydarī, "Fitna-hā wa rāh-hā-yi gurīz az ānhā"; Akhawān-Muqaddam, "Barrasī-yi mafhūm-i fitna...", p. 18.
  23. ↑ Nahj al-balāgha, edited by Subḥī al-Ṣāliḥ, Wisdom 1, p. 469.
  24. ↑ Khūʾī, Minhāj al-barāʿa, vol. 21, p. 8; Ibn Abī l-Ḥadīd, Sharḥ Nahj al-balāgha, 1404 AH, vol. 18, p. 82.
  25. ↑ Muḥaddithī, "Fitna-shināsī", Hawzah Information Center.

References

Retrieved from "https://en.wikishia.net/w/index.php?title=Fitna&oldid=202469"