Free and Hurr: On the redefiniton of Islamic terminology
One of the most moving stories told during the Ashura processions, commemorating the death of the Prophet's grandson, the Imam Hussein, killed by the sixth caliph for refusing to swear loyalty to him and generally dated as the origin of the Shi'a Sunni split, is that of Hurr. Hearing Imam Hussein speak just before the onset of the battle, with only a few dozen fighters by his side while the caliph commanded an army of tens of thousands, Hurr began to tremble in terror. His compatriots asked what was wrong, he was the great Hurr, commander of men, how could a single men with a few dozen people scare him? And the answer returned was that he, Hurr, was afraid of no swords but when the son of the Apostle of God spoke, he saw his soul fluttering between Paradise and Hell. He switches sides, obviously ends up getting killed, but as he is taking his last breath, Imam Hussein says to him:
You are Hurr, and so you shall be. Hurr in this life and Hurr in the next.
Hurr would generally be translated by any modern linguist as "free" and indeed that's how I have always thought of it as a modern Arabic speaker, familiar with modern Arabic in its modern forms particularly as concerns the law. Hurriya is freedom, political freedom, memorialized in constitutions throughout the Arab world as such. It's a transplanted idea, but one that has taken root. If you adopt it in the Hurr context, the idea would be that Hurr acted freely, he chose to distance himself from the constraints of command and post, and follow his conscience. It was in that sense an ultimate act of freedom, of breaking the bonds that tie one in this life, and earn them freedom in the next.
But I've been thinking about this rather modern understanding recently and realize of course I'm imposing modern meanings on older words. There is another moment recounted in the battle of Kerbala, where Imam Hussein tells to the gathering barbarian hordes who have come to kill him
آل أبى سفيان.ان فان لم يكن لكم دين وكنتم لا تخافون الميعاد فكونو احرار في دنياكم
or roughly translated, "Family of Abu Sufyan: if you have no religion, and you have no fear of the appointment, then be free in this life of yours"
Now given that these are Shi'i accounts, Imam Hussein can't be understood to be asking the family of Abu Sufyan to be free to follow their conscience. They have none, that's the point of the whole story of Ashura, they are unconstrained in their willingness to soil the religion by murdering the Prophet's grandson and desecrating his corpse, none of it works as a defining legend of a faith if the bad guys are acting not according to their own evil intentions, but because they are constrained by other forces they are too cowardly to contest. There is someone in the tale who occupies that role, the Judas of Kerbala, Omar ibn Saad, but those who Imam Hussein addresses in this account aren't going to be swayed by conscience.
Things became much clearer once one starts to think about the matter of the word "Hurr" more carefully. Generally the term is used, even in the Qur'an, as a contrast to "slave". So the verse on retaliation for murder (life for life unless blood money paid instead) says the free for the free, the slave for the slave, so you don't take the live of the free person for killing a slave. That much everyone knows and yet that still works for the modern mind, other than that slavery could be tolerated, but that's another matter Muslims have largely dispensed of. The point for the meaning of the word Hurr is that clearly a slave isn't free, and so Hurr still means free as in politically free.
Yet thinking in terms of class distinctions, and classical Islamic law is rife with them particularly in marriage (another fact that seems to escape the notice of many modern Muslims, who seem to think Islam never believed in social class), the opposite of a slave is not just a "free" person, but also a "noble" one. A man with property, with means, a man of substance and depth. And in early Islamic sources, it's pretty clear "noble" works better than "free" in most instances when the term is used without reference to slave.
And so Hurr, your name is Hurr, and so you shall be. Noble in this life, and noble in the next. And so Family of Abu Sufyan, if you have no religion, and you don't fear the appointment, then at least be noble in this life of yours.
It works quite well, there are many other examples. What is the point of all of this? Mainly that "freedom" meaning political freedom as understood by a liberal, isn't a term that has any meaning in early or classical Islam. The word doesn't mean what we take it to mean, it means something else in the sources of law. That isn't to say that liberal freedoms are incompatible necessarily with classical Islamic law. To take an easy example, I think you could talk about the "right" to an education, or the "freedom" to learn, and make a pretty good case that the sources presuppose that. Still, they don't say it, in fact it's more an individual duty than a public freedom, it takes some transformation to make the one into the other. The notion that learning has to do with "freedom" would be baffling to anyone from earlier eras, they might well retort "but the duty to learn is incumbent on everyone, slave and free, it has nothing to do wth that status."
So in sum, we invent new concepts, like freedom. We go back to classical sources to justify them. We use words for them that would have meant completely different things to different generations of people. And yet the notion that we reinvent the religion to suit the times is met with stiff resistance. Why that is, I will never know.
HAH
You are Hurr, and so you shall be. Hurr in this life and Hurr in the next.
Hurr would generally be translated by any modern linguist as "free" and indeed that's how I have always thought of it as a modern Arabic speaker, familiar with modern Arabic in its modern forms particularly as concerns the law. Hurriya is freedom, political freedom, memorialized in constitutions throughout the Arab world as such. It's a transplanted idea, but one that has taken root. If you adopt it in the Hurr context, the idea would be that Hurr acted freely, he chose to distance himself from the constraints of command and post, and follow his conscience. It was in that sense an ultimate act of freedom, of breaking the bonds that tie one in this life, and earn them freedom in the next.
But I've been thinking about this rather modern understanding recently and realize of course I'm imposing modern meanings on older words. There is another moment recounted in the battle of Kerbala, where Imam Hussein tells to the gathering barbarian hordes who have come to kill him
آل أبى سفيان.ان فان لم يكن لكم دين وكنتم لا تخافون الميعاد فكونو احرار في دنياكم
or roughly translated, "Family of Abu Sufyan: if you have no religion, and you have no fear of the appointment, then be free in this life of yours"
Now given that these are Shi'i accounts, Imam Hussein can't be understood to be asking the family of Abu Sufyan to be free to follow their conscience. They have none, that's the point of the whole story of Ashura, they are unconstrained in their willingness to soil the religion by murdering the Prophet's grandson and desecrating his corpse, none of it works as a defining legend of a faith if the bad guys are acting not according to their own evil intentions, but because they are constrained by other forces they are too cowardly to contest. There is someone in the tale who occupies that role, the Judas of Kerbala, Omar ibn Saad, but those who Imam Hussein addresses in this account aren't going to be swayed by conscience.
Things became much clearer once one starts to think about the matter of the word "Hurr" more carefully. Generally the term is used, even in the Qur'an, as a contrast to "slave". So the verse on retaliation for murder (life for life unless blood money paid instead) says the free for the free, the slave for the slave, so you don't take the live of the free person for killing a slave. That much everyone knows and yet that still works for the modern mind, other than that slavery could be tolerated, but that's another matter Muslims have largely dispensed of. The point for the meaning of the word Hurr is that clearly a slave isn't free, and so Hurr still means free as in politically free.
Yet thinking in terms of class distinctions, and classical Islamic law is rife with them particularly in marriage (another fact that seems to escape the notice of many modern Muslims, who seem to think Islam never believed in social class), the opposite of a slave is not just a "free" person, but also a "noble" one. A man with property, with means, a man of substance and depth. And in early Islamic sources, it's pretty clear "noble" works better than "free" in most instances when the term is used without reference to slave.
And so Hurr, your name is Hurr, and so you shall be. Noble in this life, and noble in the next. And so Family of Abu Sufyan, if you have no religion, and you don't fear the appointment, then at least be noble in this life of yours.
It works quite well, there are many other examples. What is the point of all of this? Mainly that "freedom" meaning political freedom as understood by a liberal, isn't a term that has any meaning in early or classical Islam. The word doesn't mean what we take it to mean, it means something else in the sources of law. That isn't to say that liberal freedoms are incompatible necessarily with classical Islamic law. To take an easy example, I think you could talk about the "right" to an education, or the "freedom" to learn, and make a pretty good case that the sources presuppose that. Still, they don't say it, in fact it's more an individual duty than a public freedom, it takes some transformation to make the one into the other. The notion that learning has to do with "freedom" would be baffling to anyone from earlier eras, they might well retort "but the duty to learn is incumbent on everyone, slave and free, it has nothing to do wth that status."
So in sum, we invent new concepts, like freedom. We go back to classical sources to justify them. We use words for them that would have meant completely different things to different generations of people. And yet the notion that we reinvent the religion to suit the times is met with stiff resistance. Why that is, I will never know.
HAH
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