0021-1818_islam_98-1-2-i-259

The The Lure of a Controversial Prayer 159
22) Al-Sulam\ vs. al-Shahrazur\: Chronicle of the legal debate in Damascus
Abu Shama: It so happened, that in 637/1239–40 the tasks of preaching and
leading the prayer in the Great Mosque of Damascus, may God protect it, were assumed
by the worthiest of its people at that time, the jurist and mufti, champion of
the sunna and supporter of truth, Abu Mu1ammad ^Abd al-^Az\z b. ^Abd al-Salam
[al-Sulam\], may God support and strengthen him. 80 He engaged in the revivification
of the sunan and in the suppression of bida^, as was his manner. When the
month of Rajab was approaching, he presented the issue of salat al-ragha#ib to the
people, explaining that it was a reprehensible bid^a, and that the hadith pertaining
to it was falsely attributed to the Messenger of God. He addressed that issue
from the pulpit during the Friday sermon, informing the people that he would not
perform it [i.e. lead them in prayer] and that he forbade them to pray it. He [also]
composed a nice treatise about it, under the title „A call to abstain from salat alragha#ib,”
warning the people not to engage in bida^ and not to seek closeness to
God in ways He did not command. He had hoped to make the people abstain from
it by his words and deeds, but that was hard upon the masses, and upon many
of the distinguished among the common people (tagham), because they had believed
wrongly that it was nothing but a prayer and an act of obedience and devotion
that brings one closer to God, so why ban it? All that, while relying on that
fabricated hadith.
The ruler of the land, [al-Malik al-Sali1 Isma^\l, 637–647/1240–1249], and his
entourage also found it hard to abolish, so one of the muftis of Damascus 81
composed a treatise ratifying it, presenting it in a favorable light and including it
within the category of bid^a hasana (good innovation), 82 on account of its being a
prayer. He had wished to refute the treatise of [al-Sulam\] in this composition of
his. But the jurist Abu Mu1ammad [al-Sulam\] answered him with a better response,
in which he clarified that it was he [i.e., Ibn al-Sala1 al-Shahrazur\] who
had issued previously the two fatwas mentioned earlier, 83 and now was contradicting
his former ruling and was presenting that which would satisfy the whim
talibin fi tarjamat al-imam Muhyi al-Din, ed. A. H. Salman, Dar al-Sami^i li-l-Nashr, 1414, 222–23,
where he says similar things.
80 Al-Sulamī lost the job several months later, having criticized al-Malik al-Sali1 Isma^\l’s concessions
to the Franks (see R.S. Humphreys, From Saladin to the Mongols: The Ayyubids of Damascus,
1193–1260, Albany 1977, 266–67). In 639/1241–42 he moved to Egypt, where he was
appointed khatib and qadi by the rival Ayyubid ruler al-Malik al-Sali1 Ayyub (Abu Shama, Tarajim,
170–71).
81 Taq\ al-D\n b. al-Sala1 al-Shahrazur\.
82 See below, text no. 24.
83 See his early fatwas above.