Hanif

Etymology

The term ar comes from the Arabic root ar meaning "to incline, to decline" or "to turn or bend sideways" from the Syriac root of the different meaning “to deceive, to turn pagan, to lead into paganism”. The Syriac word refers to pagans and deceivers. The Arabic is defined as "true believer, orthodox; one who scorns the false creeds surrounding him/her and profess the true religion" by The Arabic-English Dictionary of Modern Written Arabic.

According to Francis Edward Peters, in verse of the Quran, hanif has been translated as "upright person", and outside the Quran as, "to incline towards a right state or tendency". According to W. Montgomery Watt, hanif appears to have been used earlier by Jews and Christians in reference to "pagans" and applied to followers of an old Hellenized Syrian and Arabian religion and used to taunt early Muslims.

Michael Cook states, "its exact sense is obscure," but the Quran uses hanif "in contexts suggestive of a pristine monotheism, which it tends to contrast with (latter-day) Judaism and Christianity". In the Quran ar is associated "strongly with Abraham, but never with Moses or Jesus". The unique association of ḥanīf with Abraham underscores his foundational role in the development of monotheistic faith and his exemplary status in the Islamic tradition.

Oxford Islamic Studies online defines ar as "one who is utterly upright in all of his or her affairs, as exemplified by the model of Abraham"; and that prior to the arrival of Islam "the term was used [...] to designate pious people who accepted monotheism but did not join the Jewish or Christian communities."

Others translate ar as the law of Ibrahim; the verb ar as "to turn away from [idolatry]". Others maintain that the ar followed the "religion of Ibrahim, the ar, the Muslim[.]" It has been theorized by Watt that the verbal term Islam, arising from the participle form of Muslim (meaning "surrendered to God"), may have only arisen as an identifying descriptor for the religion in the late Medinan period.

Historicity

According to the Encyclopædia Britannica, "there is no evidence that a true ar cult existed in pre-Islamic Arabia."

A Greek source from the 5th century CE, The Ecclesiastical History of Sozomen, speaks of how "Abraham had bequeathed a monotheist religion" to the Arabs, who are described being descended "from Ishmael and Hagar" and adhering to certain practices of the Jews, such as shunning pork consumption.

Sozomen, a 5th-century Roman lawyer and historian of the Christian Church, is thought to have been a native of Gaza City and a native speaker of Arabic Therefore, according to Ibn Rawandi, he provides a "reliable source" that Arabs—at least in northwest Arabia—were familiar with the idea there were pre-Islamic "Abrahamic monotheists (ar) [...] whether this was true of Arabs throughout the [Arabian] peninsula it is impossible to say."

Yehuda Nevo, a revisionist Islamic historian which has called into question several aspects of the traditional islamic narrative, interprets the Hanif movement as part of a broader pre-Islamic monotheistic trend in Arabia that eventually morphed into what he names Mohammadian Islam following the Islamic conquests.

List of Arabian monotheists

According to the Encyclopædia Britannica, "some of Muḥammad's relatives, contemporaries, and early supporters were called ar" – examples including Waraqah ibn Nawfal, "a cousin of the Prophet’s first wife, Khadija bint Khuwaylid, and Umayyah ibn Abī aṣ-Ṣalt, "an early 7th-century Arab poet".

According to the website "In the Name of Allah", the term ar is used "twelve times in the Quran", but Abraham/Ibrahim is "the only person to have been explicitly identified with the term." He is mentioned "in reference to" ar eight times in the Quran.

Among those who are thought to have been ar are:

• All the prophets and messengers after Abraham according to Islamic tradition
• Muhammad
• Old Najranites
• Seven Sleepers
• Sa'id bin Zayd
• Khaled bin Sinan
• Ilyas ibn Mudar
• Hashim ibn Abd Manaf
• Umayya ibn Abi as-Salt

The four friends in Mecca from ibn Ishaq's account:

• Zayd ibn Amr: rejected both Judaism and Christianity
• Waraqah ibn Nawfal: was a Nestorian priest and patrilineal third cousin to Muhammad. He died before Muhammad declared his Prophethood.
• Uthman ibn al-Huwayrith: travelled to the Byzantine Empire and converted to Christianity
• Ubayd-Allah ibn Jahsh: early Muslim convert who emigrated to the Kingdom of Aksum.

ar opponents of Islam from Ibn Isḥāq's account:

• Abū 'Amar 'Abd Amr ibn Sayfī: a leader of the tribe of Banu Aws at Medina and builder of the "Mosque of the Schism" mentioned in the Quranic verse and later allied with the Quraysh then moved to Ta'if and onto Syria after subsequent early Muslim conquests.
• Abu Qays ibn al-Aslaṭ

Notes

References

References

1. (1949). "Muslim World". Muslim World.
2. Lane, 1893
3. "Dictionary of Modern Written Arabic".
4. "The Comprehensive Aramaic Lexicon".
5. "The Comprehensive Aramaic Lexicon".
6. J. Payne Smith (Mrs. Margoliouth), ''A Compendious Syriac Dictionary'' (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1903) p. 149 [from sedra.bethmardutho.org, tagged by Aron M. Tillema, accessed on Dec. 06, 2023].
7. (1983). "Muhammad". Oxford University Press.
8. "Hanif".
9. "Hanif".
10. [[#IROoI2000. Ibn Rawandi, "Origins of Islam", 2000]]: p.112
11. [[#PCMTatRoI1987. Crone, ''Meccan Trade and the Rise of Islam'', 1987]]: p.190-91
12. https://archive.org/details/yehuda-d.-nevo-judith-koren-crossroads-to-islam-the-origins-of-the-arab-religion/mode/2up page 199
13. "hanif".