Abdal Hakim Murad - The Cambridge Companion to Islamic Theology

The social construction of orthodoxy 111
differing doctrinal orientations of social groupings such as neighbourhoods
could turn into civic conflict. In a number of instances, the power
of communal religious identity was harnessed by members of the
‘ulama’ to draw support from the masses for their campaigns against
perceived heresy or immorality in society. An illustration is provided by
the events following the arrival of Abu Nas _
r al-Qushayrı, an avid
Ash‘arite, in Baghdad in 1067. Qushayrı used his public lectures to extol
Ash‘arite teachings and to castigate the dominant H _
anbalı theology,
which was highly critical of Ash‘arism, as anthropomorphic. In
response, a large number of residents from the H _
anbalite quarters of
Baghdad – a significant force in Baghdadı politics – took to the streets
under the leadership of the H _
anbalı scholar al-Sharıf Abu Ja‘far. They
were met by a mob of adherents of the Shafi‘ı school of law, who
had come to the defence of their fellow Shafi‘ı Qushayrı. In the
ensuing street battle, several people were killed, and order was restored
only through the intervention of vizier Niz _
am al-Mulk, who briefly
imprisoned Abu Ja‘far and persuaded Qushayrı to return to his native
Nıshapur. Such clashes between rival schools were also not uncommon
in other urban centres. There is a heated but as yet inconclusive debate
among historians regarding whether these sprang primarily from the
public’s will to defend its notion of orthodoxy, or whether religious
claims were in fact deployed to mask social and ethnic divisions that
were the true root causes of these conflicts. 11
Outside the sphere of scholarly discourse, lay Muslims developed
their own religious practices and convictions, giving rise to localised
forms of popular religion that at times were at odds with the sober
orthodoxies of the ‘ulama’. A prominent example is the longstanding
Cairene tradition of visiting the graves of saintly individuals buried in
al-Qarafa, the ‘‘City of the Dead’’, located next to the old city. Such
visits were fuelled by the belief that the baraka, special grace bestowed
by God on certain individuals during their lifetimes, lingered at the sites
of their interment. Prayers performed at these sites (for example for
recovery from an illness or for success in conceiving a child) were thus
believed to be particularly potent. Over time, grave visits developed
into an established form of pilgrimage, with prescribed rituals to be
performed at set days of the week.
The majority of the ‘ulama’ reacted to the popularity of grave visitation
by seeking to impose ‘‘orthodox’’ limits on the rituals through
their sermons and through the composition of written manuals for grave
visits. A vocal minority of scholars insisted that the visitation of graves
was a reprehensible religious innovation and should be shunned
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