Impurity in Terms of Human Ontology: al-Tawba 9/28

Abstract

<jats:p xml:lang="en">In this article, the literature set forth in the Muslim tradition of thought on the nature of social relations with polytheists is discussed in general terms. The literature in question has been formed based on the verse “…Do not allow polytheists to approach al-Masjid al-Ḥarām after this year” (Tawba 9/28). In this context, scholars discussed such issues as the nature of the polytheism, the content of the act of not approaching the borders of al-Masjid al-Ḥarām region, and especially whether the warning in the verse is limited to the worship of Hajj. It is seen that two views come to the fore in the literature presented within the framework of this verse. The first one expands the boundaries of the prohibition of not approaching, considering that the meaning of the term al-Masjid al-Ḥarām covers all mosques, while the other view is based, with an interest centered approach, on the claim that the area in question is limited to the Ka‘ba and its surroundings. In this context, it is argued that the polytheists cannot enter the area of Ḥarām at all, while the second view emphasizes that the polytheists cannot enter the area in order to perform pilgrimage and umrah in the way they did in the time of ignorance, but they can come for different purposes such as trade, travel etc. In the article, the subject is examined with reference to riwāyah, dirayāh, aḥkām, and Shiite tafsirs written until the seventh century of Hijra. In this context, the ahkâm tafsirs by Muqātil b. Sulaymān, Imām Shāfiʿī, al-Jaṣṣāṣ, Abū Bakr Ibn al-ʻArabī and al-Qurṭubī; the narration tafsirs by al-Ṭabarī, Ibn Abī Ḥātim, Abū Isḥāq al-Thaʻlabī and Ibn Kathīr; the dirayāh tafsirs by al-Māturīdī, al-Zamakhsharī, Fakhr al-Din al-Rāzī, al-Bayḍāwī and Abū al-Barakāt al-Nasafī, and the Shiite tafsirs by al-Qummī, al-Ayyāshī, Abū Ja‘far al-Tūsī and al-Ṭabarsī have been studied. The purpose of dealing with the subject based on the aforementioned tafsirs is to