The Kitāb al-kasb Attributed to al-Shaybānī: Poverty, Surplus, and the Circulation of Wealth

The Kitāb al-kasb Attributed to al-Shaybānī: Poverty, Surplus, and the Circulation of WealthAuthor(s): Michael BonnerSource: Journal of the American Oriental Society, Vol. 121, No. 3 (Jul. - Sep., 2001), pp. 410-427Published by: American Oriental SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/606670 .

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THE KITAB AL-KASB ATTRIBUTED TO AL-SHAYBANI: POVERTY, SURPLUS, AND THE CIRCULATION OF WEALTH

MICHAEL BONNER

UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN

Modern discussions of asceticism and accumulation of capital in the early Islamic world cite a Kitdb al-kasb attributed to al-Shaybani. This book is actually something of a collective Hanafi production, with much of its content traceable to al-Sarakhsi. However, it does contain a core of sayings or doctrines that can be attributed to Shaybani himself. Unlike the later Hanafis, Shaybani in the Kasb does not express hostility to radical ascetics. In fact he seems to say more about poverty and charity than about acquisition and gain. The "economy of poverty" which emerges from Shay- bani's doctrines contrasts sharply with early Islamic thinking in the tradition of Cilm tadbir al- manzil or "economics"-even though both of these ("economy of poverty" and tadbir) appear in the Kasb. The article concludes with discussion of the Karramiyya, the only named adversaries in the Kasb, and their "declaring it forbidden to earn a living" (tahrim al-makdsib).

1. INTRODUCTION

OVER FORTY YEARS AGO, S. D. Goitein wrote an essay on "The Rise of the Middle-Eastern Bourgeoisie in

Early Islamic Times," which provided the classic ex-

pression for an argument that had been growing in the literature at least since the time of Goldziher.1 This es-

say, which sketches some of the terrain of Goitein's A Mediterranean Society,2 has been quoted and discussed ever since it first appeared.3 According to Goitein, an

I Cahiers d'histoire mondiale 3 (1957): 583-604; revised versions in Studies in Islam and Islamic Institutions (Leiden, 1966, 1968), 217-41. The 1968 version is cited here. See also I. Goldziher, Introduction to Islamic Theology and Law, trans. A. and R. Hamori (Princeton, 1981), 115f.; G. Levi della Vida, "Dominant Ideas in the Formation of Islamic Culture," The Crozier Quarterly 21 (1944), 215. I wish to express thanks to Patricia Crone for comments on an earlier version and for several valuable references; also to Paul Walker and Daniela Gobetti for help at different stages.

2 Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1967-88, 5 vols.; now also A Mediterranean Society: An Abridgement in One Volume, rev. and ed. by J. Lassner (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1999).

3 In Cahiers d'histoire mondiale 4 (1958): 233, A. Belaev faulted Goitein for not distinguishing "between material secu-

rity and wealth" and "the luxury and corruption that accom-

pany it." He stressed that the early ascetics and Sufis were

"ideal of renouncing the world," which in the third cen-

tury of Islam came to be expressed in Sufism, always remained "a strong undercurrent in Islam." Nonetheless, the "representative opinion" of Islam in the early period maintained "a favorable attitude towards earning and

amassing capital and, with some qualifications even towards certain aspects of luxury. During that time the merchant class attained a social position and corre-

spondingly, self-esteem, which it secured far later in

Europe."4 In this essay, Goitein relied upon a then little-known

work attributed to the great Iraqi jurist Muhammad b. al- Hasan al-Shaybani (d. 189/805), known as the Kitab al-kasb or Kitab al-iktisab, both of which mean "Book

artisans whose religious ideology reflected their lower-class status. Goitein replied in the same issue of Cahiers (p. 234) and at Studies, 220, without much elaboration. M. Rodinson, Islam et capitalisme (Paris, 1966), 71-72 = Islam and Capitalism, tr. B. Pearce (New York, 1973), 55, mentions the Goitein argument while stating that the capitalist sector that emerged in the

early Islamic Near East was "apparently the most extensive and highly developed in history before the establishment of the world market created by the Western European bourgeoisie." See also Rodinson's "Conditions religieuses islamiques," in Wirtschaftsgeschichte des vorderen Orients in islamischer Zeit, ed. B. Spuler (Leiden and Cologne, 1977), 18-30.

4 Goitein, "Middle-Eastern Bourgeoisie," 220.

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BONNER: The Kitab al-Kasb Attributed to al-Shaybani

of Acquisition [Earning, Gain]." Goitein's evidence also included a treatise on commerce, apparently dating from the fifth/eleventh century, by a certain al-Dimashqi, the Kitab al-ishdra ila mahasin al-tijara.5 Comparing the Kitab al-kasb to the seventeenth-century The Trades- man's Calling by the Englishman Richard Steele, Goi- tein stated that Shaybani, like Steele,

. . .had to prove that the vigorous striving of the new Mus- lim trading people for a decent living was not only not opposed by Islam, but was actually regarded by it as a reli-

gious duty. [Shaybani] ... had to overcome deep-seated re-

ligious prejudices against making money, convictions made

popular by mendicant ascetics who might be compared to the begging friars and monks, against whom Steele wrote so

eloquently. As is well-known from other quarters, Muslim asceticism of that time was tinged by Christian influence.6

Leah Kinberg built upon Goitein's essay to conclude that the Shaybani and Dimashqi treatises together con- stitute manifestos of the new "Islamic bourgeoisie" against the old, originally Arabian, austerity surviving among ascetics who had steadfastly rejected the acquisition and accumulation of wealth ever since the beginning of Islam.7 But here lurk two traps. First there is the danger of contrasting a group defined in part through its role in economic production, thus a class, with another

5 Dimashqi's Ishara has been edited by F. SaCd, Beirut 1403/

1983. See also H. Ritter, "Ein arabisches Handbuch der Han- delswissenschaft," Der Islam 7 (1917): 1-91; C. Cahen, "A

propos et autour d' 'Ein arabisches Handbuch der Handels- wissenschaft'," Oriens 15 (1962): 160-71, rpt. in Les peuples musulmans dans l'histoire mddievale (Damascus, 1977).

6 Goitein, 221. 7 In "What is Meant by Zuhd" Studia Islamica 61 (1985):

27-44, Kinberg states that the traditions both for and against commerce and merchants, and favoring both poverty and property, express a similar religious outlook, the only difference be-

ing that one of the two trends is better suited to everyday reality; this contradiction is built into the very concept of zuhd. In "Compromise of Commerce," Der Islam 66 (1989): 193- 212, Kinberg maintains that the materials (especially hadith) used in defense of commerce and accumulation came into existence "only as a concession to the rising economic power of the bourgeoisie," and that (p. 195) the renunciation of commerce and of worldly goods may be regarded as the authentic current, because it was grounded in the historical experience of the earliest Muslim community; or else that both trends may be seen as equally authentic.

group defined by its religious and ethical views.8 And second, there is the use of "Islam" as a historical subject or cause, which incurs the risk of a circular argument. While Goitein himself did not fall into either of these traps, others have come close to doing so, in part while following his lead. All in all, the relationship between asceticism and the accumulation of capital in the early Islamic world needs to be reconsidered-and has indeed been reconsidered in recent work that has begun from different premises.9

The purpose of the present article is to examine in detail a central piece of evidence in the debate, Shay- bani's Kitab al-kasb. While this work praises commerce and inveighs against persons who advocate not earning a living, it takes a mainly negative stance toward the accumulation of wealth beyond one's immediate needs. It devotes at least as much attention to poverty as to the acquisition and accumulation of wealth-which seems a strange way to praise the activity of merchants. The work thus differs not only from later Western writers such as Steele and Franklin, but also from al-Dimashqi, author of the Ishara, who approves (though not unam- biguously) of the accumulation of wealth. This study will ask why Shaybani (or whoever wrote this treatise) had so much to say about poverty, leading to broader questions of acquisition and accumulation of wealth, surplus, circulation of goods, in short what we may call early Islamic economic thought.

Some of these questions have been addressed by Johannes Christian Wichard, who views the Kitab al- kasb as a compromise, as a call for a just mean between ascetic denial and over-accumulation.10 Wichard's excellent discussion and his summary of the Kasb should be read together with what follows. However, Wichard

8 For the religious and ethical side, see B. Reinert, Die Lehre vom tawakkul in der klassischen Sufik (Berlin, 1968), and

recently, C. Melchert, "The Transition from Asceticism to

Mysticism at the Middle of the Ninth Century C.E.," Studia Islamica 83 (1996): 51-70.

9 M. Ibrahim, Merchant Capital and Islam (Austin, 1990); J. C. Wichard, Zwischen Markt und Moschee: Wirtschaftliche Bediirfnisse und religiose Anforderungen im friihen islam- ischen Vertragsrecht (Paderborn, 1995); M. A. Bamyeh, The Social Origins of Islam: Mind, Economy, Discourse (Minneap- olis, 1999).

10 Zwischen Markt und Moschee, esp. 37-44. Wichard recognizes that the matter is less clear than Goitein had thought (p. 38), and emphasizes the importance of poverty for the early Hanafis.

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Journal of the American Oriental Society 121.3 (2001)

does not ask who actually wrote the Kitab al-kasb, a question which has not yet been examined in detail by anyone." This is where we must begin, in the following section.

First, however, I must warn readers that they may find this study of the Kitab al-kasb perplexing in a number of ways. To begin with, we have the work's composite nature, the fact that several authors from different times and places had a hand in its composition, in ways we can unravel only with difficulty. The main difficulty, however, is conceptual. The book's subject matter, clearly announced at the beginning, is the religious duty (farida) of earning a living (kasb). Much of the discussion is accordingly about our obligations and about the religious merit (fadl) we receive for performing or abstaining from certain acts. Why then does the Kitab al- kasb go on to say so much about poverty and charity? And why does it express such a cautious, indeed con- tradictory attitude toward this very duty of kasb? I maintain that the answer lies in the concept of haqq, "right," or perhaps better "claim." It is this concept, rather than duty, obligation, or merit, that gives the work such con- sistency and coherence as it has. For in Shaybani, as in his later followers, we have a kind of representation of what we now call the economic sphere, dramatically unlike ours, in which the concept of haqq plays the central role.

We know well that the early Islamic period was an age of economic expansion, in which markets and production flourished across a larger unified economic space than had ever existed before. However, while people then had and made representations of what we call economic matters, they did not carry in their heads a separate and distinct economic sphere-unlike us, with our constant hypostatization of "the economy" in our politics and daily lives. We may accordingly find it baffling to see how a great scholar of the time actually

11 Except for the two editors' introductions. Y. Essid, A

Critique of the Origins of Islamic Economic Thought (Leiden, 1995), concludes with a discussion of Shaybani's Kasb and

Dimashqi's Ishara (pp. 220-28), but his analysis is nearly unconnected to the rest of his argument. See also R. Brun-

schvig, "Metiers vils en Islam," Etudes d'islamologie (Paris, 1976), 1: 147-48; J. Van Ess, Ungeniitzte Texte zur Karramiya (Heidelberg, 1980), 75-76; L. Marlow, Hierarchy and Egali- tarianism in Islamic Thought (Cambridge, 1997), 158. The work has somewhat incorrectly been described as a book of hadith: Goitein, 220-21; Cahen, "A propos et autour d' 'Ein arabisches Handbuch'," 170.

set about reflecting on some of these matters. The topic of "earning" is, for Shaybani, subsumed under "abstinence," as we shall see shortly. Likewise, most of the other concepts to be discussed in this article do not belong, in the first instance, to economic reflection as such. This is not a religiously tinged description of economy, but rather a discourse on economy inextri- cably bound up with and part of discourse on the norms of religious law, on the founding and sustaining narra- tives of the Muslim community, and many other things.

2. THE TEXT AND ITS AUTHORSHIP

If Shaybani ever composed a work on kasb, it no longer exists in its original form. We do have, first of all, what purports to be a mukhtasar, or abridgement of Shaybani's work, by Muhammad b. Sam'ca (d. 233/ 847). An edition of this work, entitled al-Iktisdbfi l-rizq al-mustatab ("Acquisition in sustenance considered pleasing"), was published by Mahmud CArnus in Cairo in 1357/1938, on the basis of a ninth-century (h.) manuscript in the Dar al-Kutub'2 (this edition will henceforth be called "C"). Ibn Samaca was a Hanafi jurist and a zealous proponent of ra'y, the independent use of reason in jurisprudence. He became chief judge (qadi l-qudat) in Baghdad in 192 under the caliph al-Ma'mun, fell into disfavor and was dismissed in 208, and lived to over a hundred.'3 C begins with a brief statement by Ibn Sa- maca on how he is acting to oblige "some friends" who have urged him to abridge this work of the master. Ibn Sama'a's name then does not reappear until the very end of the text. C actually reads as a commentary on or reworking of something by Shaybani.14 Phrases re- cur such as "al-Shaybani said" or "Muhammad" [i.e., al-Shaybani] stated," or "he said," clearly referring to Shaybani. These statements are sometimes followed by

12 CArnus does not identify his MS, but see F. Sezgin, Geschichte des arabischen Schrifttums (henceforth GAS), vol. 1 (Leiden, 1967), 432, 435, correcting Brockelmann. The editor of D (the Damascus Kasb, see below) writes in his introduction (p. 17) that this Cairo MS has become lost.

13 Ibn al-Nadim, Fihrist, ed. G. Fliigel (Leipzig, 1871-72), 205; Tabari, Ta'rikh (Leiden, 1879-1901), 3: 1066; al-Khatib al-Baghdadi, Ta'rikh Baghdad (Cairo, 1349/1931), 5: 341-43; Ibn Abi 1-Wafad, al-Jawahir al-mudiyya (Hyderabad, 1410/ 1989), 2: 306-9; Sezgin, GAS, 1: 435.

14 As noted already by Brunschvig, "Metiers vils," 147, and Van Ess, Ungenutzte Texte, 75.

412




yacnt ("that means") and then by commentary and ex-

position. But it is difficult to say where Shaybani's words end and where Ibn Samaca's begin; the share of the total that can be attributed to Shaybani with any certainty is far less than half.

In 1967 the Syrian scholar Suhayl Zakkar found an Arabic manuscript in Istanbul, written in a fine Persian- ate hand and bearing the title al-Kasb.'5 When he published an edition of this text in Damascus in 1400/1980 (henceforth "D"), Zakkar described it as a work by Shaybani. However, the work purports to be a commentary (sharh) by al-Sarakhsi (d. ca. 483/1090) on the Kitdb al-kasb of Shaybani. It begins with an opening statement and some preliminary analysis by Sarakhsi, but then its text converges with that of C, and after the first page and a half the two versions (C and D) become identical, apart from their concluding lines,'6 some minor differences in wording, and errors in both manuscripts and both printed editions.

There is, finally, a third printed edition, the Kitab al- kasb which comes toward the end of Sarakhsi's mon- umental al-Mabsit (henceforth "M").17 Again, apart from minor differences in wording, M is identical to D, a fact that has escaped the notice of nearly all.'8 Thus, aside from differences in title, attribution, and in the opening and the conclusion of the text, C, D, and M are one and the same work, which we shall now simply call the Kasb.

Three authors-Shaybani, Ibn Samaca, and Sarakh- si-have a hand in the composition of the Kasb, and it is difficult to say which of them is responsible for what.

15 Ahmet III Library, no number given by Zakkar. O. Spies, "Die Bibliotheken des Hidschas," ZDMG 90 (1936): 115, described a manuscript in the Sultan Mahmud Library in Medina, Sharh kitab al-kasb li-Muhammad al-Shaybanl, similar to the

manuscript on which D is based. The two may have once belonged to the same collection, since during the First World War manuscripts from the Mahmud Library of Medina were sent to the Topkapi Sarayi in Istanbul (Spies, 92 n. 1, 97).

16 The concluding sentence of D (p. 123) is longer than its

counterpart in C (p. 82), but Ibn Samaca appears in both versions, qala Muhammad b. SamdCa rahimahu llah qala Muham- mad rahimahu llah wa-hddhd llddhi thabbattu [C: bayyantu] fi hadha l-kitab qawl CUmar wa-'Uthmdn wa-CAli wa-bn CAbbas.... Neither conclusion mentions Sarakhsi.

17 Ed. M. al-Tunisi (Cairo [1906]), 30: 244-87. 18 With the exception of Wichard. Brunschvig was aware of

this text ("M6tiers vils," 147 n. 1), but not of its near-identity to C.

Repetitions occur, especially in the last third or so of the work. For a while toward the end, kasb (acquisition) in the theological sense predominates over kasb in the economic sense,19 leading us to suspect that more con- tributors are at work than the three we already know. Not surprisingly, the work has been called a forgery.20

However, there is reason to believe that Shaybani really was the author of the statements that the Kasb, in all three versions, expressly attributes to him. Unlike the rest of the work, these contain no anachronisms. At least one of these statements by Shaybani is refuted later in the text,2' which indicates that Ibn Samaia, or Sarakhsi, or whomever we suppose to be the author at this point, did not distort Shaybani's original sense even when he (the later author) had reason to do so. And finally, many of the hadiths cited in the Kasb are difficult or impossi- ble to find in other sources. This might merit a study of its own; for now, we may note this hadith material must belong to the oldest layer within this composite work. Note also in this regard the contrast between the Kasb and the other major work from third/ninth-century Iraq on this topic, the Makiasib of al-Muhasibi (d. 243/857),22 which cites hadiths that are easy to trace in standard collections such as the Six Books and the Musnad of Ibn Hanbal.

The Kasb thus contains sayings or doctrines attributed to Shaybani, but is not simply an abridgement of a work by him. Is Ibn Samaca the author of whatever does not go back to Shaybani, as C (and Wichard) would have it? The only adversary named in the work is the Kar- ramiyya, a group that did not yet exist at the time of Shaybani's death in 189/805.23 Ibn Karram, the movement's founder, did adopt a distinctive style of poverty and asceticism during his lifetime (ca. 190/806-255/ 869), but it was not until the 240s that he created a great stir with his preaching in the eastern Iranian world. Ref- erences to the Karramiyya as a distinct group are from

19 C. 68f., D 106f., M 279f. See the juxtaposed articles on "Kasb" in El2, 4: 690-94 (C1. Cahen, L. Gardet).

20 J. Van Ess, "Ibn ar-Rewandi, or the Making of an Image," al-Abhath 27 (1978): 24 n. 4.

21 On the analogy of the obligation of kasb with that of seeking knowledge, C 38-43, D 67-74, M 260-64; below, n. 53.

22 Ed. CA. A. 'Ata (Beirut, 1987/1407); see section 4 and n. 72 below.

23 In a review of Wichard's Zwischen Markt und Moschee (JRAS 3:6:3 [1996]: 425), W. Madelung corrects Wichard on this point, stating that Sarakhsi was the source of this material on the Karramiyya.

413




later times.24 It is therefore possible that Ibn Samaca, who died in 233/847, knew of Ibn Karram, but hardly of a movement called the Karramiyya, and certainly not a

major adversary of that name. This excludes Ibn Sama'a as the author of the text in its current form, and leaves us with Sarakhsi. The Karramiyya attained their greatest expansion and influence in Khurasan and Transoxania in the fourth/tenth and fifth/eleventh centuries, which is Sarakhsi's milieu. Sarakhsi may have taken up a com-

mentary on this older work in order to condemn what he considered a dangerous heretical group. However, he does not say this when he relates how he came to write this commentary.

[al-Sarakhsi said:] I have carried out your request that I dic- tate a commentary... on the works of Muhammad b. al- Hasan [al-Shaybani].... I thought it best to include with it the dictated text of a commentary on the Kitab al-kasb, which is related by Muhammad b. Samaca from Muham- mad b. al-Hasan, God have mercy on him. It is one of

[Shaybani's] compositions; however, it is not widely known because it was transmitted neither to Abu Hafs nor to Abui Sulayman,25 and al-Hakim did not include it in the Mukhtasar,26 even though it contains teachings of which one should not remain ignorant, and which one ought not to refrain from putting into practice. And even if it contained

nothing but [those parts of it which] urge the destitute to take part, together with those who earn, in earning for themselves and in feeding themselves from the exertion of their own hand, it would be incumbent on everyone to make this branch of learning27 better known. [Shaybani] ex-

plained some of this through the use of traditions (athar); we shall mention what he mentioned ... to which we shall add what the scholars of jurisprudence (ahl al-usuil) have discussed and such explanations and counsels as merit consideration.28

Toward the end of the Kasb, a passage occurs that casts some doubt on all this:

24 See below, n. 100. This argues against Wichard, 39 n. 19; also see previous note.

25 Ahmad b. Hafs al-Bukhari and Abu Sulayman al-Juzjani, disciples of Shaybani and transmitters of his works. Khatib, 2: 172-82; Ibn Abi l-Wafa', 1: 105-6, 2: 331; D 31, editor's n. 2.

26 al-Hakim al-Shahid, the Hanafi jurist whose al-Kafi forms the immediate basis for Sarakhsi's Mabsut. See El2, 3: 163, "Hanafiyya."

27 M has hadha al-nawc min al-'ulama', "this type of scholars," instead of min al-'ilm, "this branch of learning."

28 D 31-32, M 244.

[al-Shaybani] wrote this book on renunciation (al-zuhd),

according to what has been related, namely that when he had done with the composition of [his other] books, someone asked him: "Won't you write something29 on piety and renunciation (al-warac wal-zuhd)?" He replied: "I have al-

ready written the Book of Sale." Thereupon he undertook the composition of this book. But illness impeded him, his brain became light,30 and he did not accomplish his desire. And it is related that people said to him: "Give us an outline

(fahris land) of what you intend to write," and so he outlined for them a thousand chapters that he intended to write on renunciation and piety. For that reason, some of those who came afterward said: "The death of Muhammad [al- Shaybani], and Abu Yusuf's preoccupation with his duties as judge, are a mercy for the followers of Abu Hanifa, for otherwise [the two of them] would have written [so much as

to] wear out the seekers [of knowledge]." This book [on kasb] is the first that he [Shaybani] composed on renunciation and piety.31

Here the book was primarily not on kasb or acquisition at all, but rather the beginning of an intended series on zuhd, or renunciation, and piety.32 Shaybani's statement here that a work on the law of sale already contains an element of asceticism within itself is ger- mane to the Kitab al-kasb as we have it.33 At any rate, this and the previous quote from Sarakhsi show that the work did originate with Shaybani, even if the master never completed it.

To sum up, we have three layers within the Kasb:

(1) a core of sayings or doctrines on kasb attributed

directly to Shaybani, thus to Iraq around the turn of the third/ninth century; also the hadiths or athdr which, on the basis of what Sarakhsi tells us, and because of their

29 C and D: a-la tusannifu. M: a-la sannafta. 30 C and M: khaffa dimdghuhu. D: jaffa dimdghuhu, "his

brain went dry." 31 C 74-75, D 114, M 282-83; translated by Wichard at

Zwischen Markt und Moschee, 42-43. 32 See the discussion by Wichard, loc. cit. Note also the

Kitdb al-zuhd wal-raqd'iq by Shaybani's contemporary CAb- dallah b. al-Mubarak (d. 181/797): see the Beirut, 1974 edition; Sezgin, GAS 1: 95; M. Bonner, Aristocratic Violence and Holy War: Studies in the Jihad and the Arab-Byzantine Fron- tier (New Haven, 1996), 122-25.

33 Wichard, Zwischen Markt und Moschee, 42 n. 22, relates this statement to Sarakhsi's explanation (Mabsiit, 12: 110) that

Shaybani meant by this that "zuhd means nothing other than

avoiding that which is forbidden and striving for that which is

permitted."

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BONNER: The Kitab al-Kasb Attributed to al-Shaybini

rarity, we may attribute to Shaybani's original work. (2) Ibn Samgaa's mukhtasar of Shaybani's Kasb, as stated in C, or else Ibn Sama'a's transmission of that same work, as stated in D and M-either way, pro- duced in Iraq in the early-to-mid third/ninth century. (3) A commentary on the latter, written by Sarakhsi around two and a half centuries later in Transoxania, a polemical work with the Karramiyya as its only named adversary.

The following section presents a summary of the Kasb in three parts. Section 4 assembles Shaybani's doctrine of kasb and relates it to early Islamic thinking on poverty more generally. Section 5 discusses the work in relation to the philosophical tradition of economica (Cilm tadbir al-manzil) and sets out the differences between the two, especially regarding the circulation of wealth. Section 6 discusses the great adversary of the Kasb, the Karramiyya.

3(A). THE OBLIGATION OF KASB

The treatise begins with Shaybani's assertion that "seeking to earn is an obligation for every Muslim, just as seeking knowledge is an obligation" (talab al-kasb farida Cald kull muslim kamd talab al-'ilm farida). Pas-

sages from the Quran and hadiths are cited, including a saying of CUmar b. al-Khattab, "I prefer to die between the two upright wooden pieces of my saddle (bayna shucbatay rahli) as I travel through the land seeking God's bounty (faCdl),34 rather than be killed as a fighter in the jihad for the sake of God." The prophets, including Jesus and Muhammad, practiced trades, as did the Rashidun and other great figures of the Islamic past.35 Thus far we probably have some of the substance of the Shaybani treatise.

The treatise-here most likely Sarakhsi-then sets out the position of its adversaries. These are never named individually, but are called at first a "group of ignorant self-mortifiers and foolish Sufis" (qawn min juhhal ahl al-taqashshuf wa-hamdqa ahl al-tasawwuf). These adversaries claim that gain is forbidden and allowed only in case of necessity, on the analogy of the consumption of forbidden foods (mayta). Their main objection to kasb is that it destroys or diminishes trust in God (tawakkul). The passages in the Quran about buying and selling do not, according to them, refer to actual commercial exchange, but rather to the obligation of ex- pending oneself in obedience to God and in religious

34 Quran 73: 20. 35 C 16-18, D 34-36, M 245-46.

observance (Cibdda). To prove this, they point to the nu- merous commercial metaphors in the Quran, such as "selling the signs of God for a paltry price."36 Against this position, the Kasb (again, probably Sarakhsi) states that the Quran uses real, human language; and so the commerce to which it refers (except in a few cases of obvious metaphor) is palpably real. But the strongest argument against the adversaries is the example of the prophets and the Rashidun, all of whom worked and earned at various times in their lives.37

A major Quranic prooftext for the adversaries is: "your sustenance and what you have been promised is in the heavens" (51:22, wa-fi l-samd'i rizqukum wa-md tucaduna). This, however, refers to actual, non- metaphorical rain. "We have been commanded to acquire the means whereby this sustenance may come to us, through earning" (wa-lakinnand umirnd bi-ktisab al- sabab li-ya'tiyand dhalika l-rizq Cinda l-iktisab.) And

just as we have been commanded to cure diseases, even though we know that God is the Healer, so our activity in acquiring a means of sustenance does not erase our certainty that God is the Provider (al-razzdq). The adversaries have no qualms about taking food from other people who have earned it by the effort (kasb) of their hands or the profit (ribh) of their commerce. Therefore, kasb cannot be forbidden.38 At this point comes a passage on the Karramiyya, which will be discussed in section 6 below.

The Kasb-again, no doubt Sarakhsi-goes on to state that kasb is not a religious obligation fundamen- tally or in and of itself. If it were, then doing as much of it as possible (al-istikthdr fihi) would be recommended, whereas this is condemned; or else kasb would be considered supererogatory, on the analogy of religious observances (Cibdddt), which clearly it is not. This is the main point of difference between kasb and seeking knowledge (talab al-'ilm). For Sarakhsi, the Quranic prooftext for kasb is 2:267, anfiqu min tayyibdti ma kasabtum, "Spend [give in charity] out of the good things you have earned." The obligation of spending on alms and on one's family can only be fulfilled through kasb. Being indispensable for the performance of obligations, it is itself an obligation. The order of the world depends on it; if it is neglected, the result is ruin. Those who consider it analogous to sexual procreation among animals are wrong, because in that case the divine plan is realized through the working of animal nature. Kasb,

36 3: 190, 5: 44, 9: 9. 37 C 18-20, D 37-41, M 247-49. 38 C 20-24, D 41-44, M 249-50.

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on the other hand, consists of labor and fatigue, and unless it were an obligation no one would perform it, since nothing in human nature compels people to do it. It is the divine law (sharc) that has made it an obligation (fard).39

3(B). ACCUMULATION, SURPLUS, POVERTY

Once you have acquired enough to satisfy your needs, should you devote yourself to acquiring more, or to religious observances (Cibaddt)? Some say that earning more is better. "Whatever is more generally beneficial is more meritorious" (md kana acamma nafcan fa-huwa afdalu); in particular, everyone benefits from what the cultivator produces. (Therefore, we may suppose, more kasb is better than less.) Religious observance, however, benefits only the one who performs it. But the opposing view is sounder. Though the prophets worked, they preferred to seek the "highest of degrees" for themselves through religious observance. In a crisis, people will opt for religious observance over kasb. And Muslims and non-Muslims have kasb in common, whereas valid religious observance is possible only for Muslims. More- over, the highest merit is attained by denying one's own desire; and kasb, though it involves strenuous effort, results in the satisfaction of some desires. Marriage, however, must not be rejected.40

Is, then, the attribute of poverty (sifat al-faqr) higher than that of wealth? The commentator says yes, basing his argument on two statements which, he says, occur in the Kitab al-kasb of Shaybani. (1) "If only people would be content with what suffices for them, and direct their attention to [their] surplus wealth, and direct [this surplus wealth] toward the matter of their eternal life, it would be better for them" (wa-law anna l-ndsa qanicu bi-md yakfihim wa-camadu ild l-fuduli fa-wajjahuha li- amri akhiratihim kana khayran lahum). (2) "A man is ever called to account for what goes beyond unavoid- able necessity" (wa-ma zada Cald ma la budda minhu

yuhasabu l-mar'u Calayhi). On the basis of these two statements (says Sarakhsi), "no one is called to account for poverty." Those who favor wealth say it is a benefac- tion from God, and therefore better than poverty, which is affliction and trial. In the Quran, after all, God called property fadl, and enjoined us to seek it.41 The Kasb

39 C 25-27, several lines missing at top of 27; D 44-48, M 250-51.

40 C 27 (with lacuna), D 48-50, M 251-52. 41 In the Quran, fadl "[divine] grace," often retains its older

sense of "surplus of wealth." See M. Bravmann, "The Surplus of Property: An Early Arab Social Concept," Der Islam 38

quotes hadiths in favor of both positions,42 but concludes that poverty is sounder, since no poor man was ever guilty of the arrogance of the rich. The poor will precede the rich in heaven by half a day, which equals five hundred years.43

What of being thankful for wealth? Is it more meritorious than patience in enduring poverty, or vice versa? On this the authors are divided, but the Kasb favors patience. There is no reward for wealth in itself, but one must only be thankful for it. A rich man argues with a poor man, saying that God borrows from the rich,44 but the poor man counters that when God borrows from the rich, it is for the sake of the poor: "And one may seek loans from a person one loves or from a person one does not love, but loans are only sought for the sake of a person whom one loves." The rich need the poor, whereas the poor, appearances to the contrary, do not need the rich. This is because the right/claim (haqq) of the property is incumbent upon the rich man.45 The poor could all agree not to receive, and if they did so they would only be praised; but the rich, who must acquit themselves of the duty of almsgiving, would then be in a sorry plight.46

In order to perform one's duties, one must maintain one's minimal strength (sulb). Hadiths are quoted in favor of bare sufficiency (bulgha). But kasb is also necessary in order to meet obligations such as paying debts and supporting one's family. Acquisition beyond such bare sufficiency, or stockpiling,47 is therefore permissi-

(1962): 28-50, rpt. in The Spiritual Background of Early Islam

(Leiden, 1972), 229-53; M. Bonner, "Definitions of Poverty and the Rise of the Muslim Urban Poor," JRAS 6: 3: 3 (1996), 337. Here the Kasb cites Quran 62: 10, "seek of God's bounty/ surplus" (wa-btaghu minfadli lldhi).

42 Hadiths in favor of wealth include the well-known "Pov-

erty is almost like unbelief," as well as traditions on the "upper hand" (Bonner, "Definitions of Poverty," 340). Goitein saw this as favoring his own argument, but note that the Kasb finally takes the opposing position.

43 C 27-28, D 50-52, M 252-53. 44 Quran 2: 246, man dhd lladhi yuqridu lldha, where the

believers are urged to contribute toward the war waged for the sake of God.

45 li-anna l-ghaniyya yalzamuhu add'u haqqi l-mdli. On the

right or claim (haqq) upon the owner of surplus property in-

hering in that surplus property itself, see Bonner, "Definitions," 337-41.

46 C 28-32, D 52-56, M 253-56. 47 On "hoarding," see Dimashqi, Ishdra, 101-5; Ritter, "Ein

arabisches Handbuch," 66-69; Cahen, "A propos d' 'Ein arabisches Handbuch'" 166.

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ble if performed for oneself and one's children and par- ents. There is no obligation in the case of other relatives, though generosity towards them is recommended.4 Storing up property is permissible if done with modesty and restraint (Cald tariq al-tacaffuf), but refraining from this is also permitted and on the whole preferred. Ha- diths are quoted against money in general and against hoarding.49

3(C). ALMSGIVING AND THE CIRCULATION OF GOODS

Another statement comes directly from Shaybani: the concept of kasb includes the sense of mutual assistance for the purpose of approaching and obeying God (inna l-kasb fihi macnd l-mucawana Cald l-qurb wal-tacat).50 The Kasb develops this concept in terms of voluntary almsgiving, or sadaqa.

All ways of making a living (makdsib) are equally permissible. These include humble trades5' such as weaving, the products of which (clothing) are indispensable for the performance of religious duties (covering one's nakedness during prayer). Some of the adversaries, the mutaqashshifa, say that the practice of humble trades is permissible only under duress, but there is proof against this position in hadiths which do not differentiate among the various types of kasb. Begging, however, is not considered one of these. There are four basic ways of making a living: hired labor, commerce, agriculture, and crafts (ijara, tijara, ziraca, sindca), all

equally permissible. Some assert that agriculture is de- meaning, but this is refuted by the example of the Prophet and of Companions who held and worked lands. Some say that if everyone practiced agriculture, the jihad would be neglected, but in fact the two support and reinforce one another. There is also a dispute over the relative merits of agriculture and commerce, but most authorities find agriculture the more meritorious of the two, because its benefit is more general and because its sadaqa is more apparent (azhar). "People, beasts, and birds receive some of what the cultivator earns, and all of that is sadaqa for him (counted in his favor, sadaqa lahu)." A hadith is cited: if someone plants a tree, and then someone else (human, quadruped, or bird) eats from it, it is a sadaqa for him [i.e., the planter]. Kasb

48 Kasb performed for the purpose of silat al-rahim is recommended, but may be refused; some of the virtuous predeces- sors, salaf, did this, others did not.

49 C 32-35, D 56-61, M 256-58. 50 C 35, D 61, M 259. Sarakhsi immediately qualifies it as

"metaphorical kasb." 51

Brunschvig, "M6tiers vils," above, n. 11.

which lacks this element of sadaqa is less meritorious, even when performed through useful trades such as weaving.2

After a refutation of Shaybani's original statement that kasb is an obligation on the analogy of seeking knowledge,53 comes a discussion of what we now call the division of labor. Our bodies require four things, food, drink, clothing, and shelter. Quranic prooftexts are adduced for each of these. Created beings are weak, and no one knows how to acquire all that he needs. There- fore-and here Shaybani is quoted-God "has allotted people their livelihood through means regarding which there is confirmed knowledge" (wa-qaddara lahum al- macdsh bi-asbdb fihd hikma bdligha). Everyone must learn a type or kind of means (nawc, presumably of sabab), so that he may get what he needs, and so that others may do the same through him. The lesson of the prooftexts from Tradition and Quran is that "the poor man needs the rich man's money, and the rich man needs the poor man's work." A similar argument is made in the case of the planter and the weaver, who require one another's products in order to survive and do their work. Underlying all this is the principle, already stated, that when one person benefits from the work of another, it is a form of alms (sadaqa), insofar as it is performed with the intention of approaching and obeying God. This holds true whether or not the work has been performed in return for a specified compensation (Ciwad). What matters is not the compensation, but rather the intention (of cooperation). It is like sexual relations, re- warded when performed with the intention of producing offspring.54 This important passage is discussed in section 5 below.

Shaybani states that everyone is forbidden to waste food. A number of hadiths support and develop this position; then a just mean is recommended between the extremes of extravagance and miserliness.55 Waste of food, Shaybani says, consists of consuming beyond the measure of one's own need. Wherever one goes beyond that limit, there exists a right or claim (haqq) for someone else. The Kasb condemns "wastefulness, extravagance, haughtiness, boastfulness, and competitive accumulation" (al-israf wal-saraf wal-makhila wal-tafakhur wal-takathur). Waste of food is reprehensible because it contains a principle of extravagance, or as we might say, of social as well as material waste. We might also say, in modern terms, that the Kasb insists that all surplus

52 C 35-38, D 61-65, M 259-60. 53 C 38-43, D 67-74, M 260-64. 54 C 43-44, D 74-76, M 264-65. 55 C 46, D 78-79, M 266.

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must circulate, though this is not quite the way it presents the matter. Again, it is important to emphasize that this circulation, or return, or sadaqa may take place either with or without compensation. (On the "return of wealth" see section 4 below.) Stockpiling food is permissible in some cases, as is consuming beyond one's immediate need.56 But unless this is done intentionally for some acceptable purpose, such as fasting, "exceed- ing the measure of one's need becomes [or encroaches upon] the right/claim of someone else" (al-ziyada Cald miqddr hajatihi kdnat haqq ghayrihi). The search for refined dishes and new types of cuisine is condemned. It is wasteful to eat only the moist part of the bread and to throw away the crust, or not to retrieve crumbs as they fall, though this is all right if someone else gets the rejected parts.57

With clothing it is as with food. One should wear old, worn garments, except on Fridays and holidays. But self-denial has limits; indeed, one's self (nafs) has a claim over one, as do one's family and creditors.58 Some of the adversaries say that starving oneself is praisewor- thy, because the nafs is prone to evil and is an enemy to man (Quran 12:53). But suicide is not permitted, and a just mean must be established between abstinence and gratification. In some cases, abstaining from food may prevent the nafs from committing acts of disobedience: so a young man who fears falling into lewdness may starve himself.59

Shaybani says that whenever the needy are unable to seek their own livelihood, people are obliged to feed them. Several hadiths support this position. The Kasb (probably Sarakhsi) then discusses several possibilities, according to the degree of capacity of both parties (donor and recipient). Physical proximity enhances the haqq of the needy: if it is your neighbor, you have the obligation before someone else does. In all instances,

56 C 46-47, D 80-81, M 266-67. 57 C 47-49, D 81-82, M 267-68. 58 A joke at C 49, D 82-83, M 268 plays on the equivocal

meaning of nafs (soul, self, appetitive self) and haqq (right, claim). Abui Hanifa found the jester Buhlil eating in the street and asked him, "Do you permit yourself (a-tastajiz min naf- sika) to eat in the street?" Buhlul replied, "Abu Hanifa, you ask me this when my nafs has a claim over me (wa-nafsi gharimi, literally, 'is my creditor'), and when I have the bread right here in my lap. The Prophet has said: 'It is oppression for the rich man to put off paying what he owes' (matal al-ghani zulm). How then could I deny [my nafs] her claim until I arrived at home?"

59 C 49-53, D 83-88, M 268-71.

however, the needy person has a haqq. A hadith is quoted against those who ask when they do not need what they are asking for (wa-huwa ghani mimma yas'alu). But if the needy person cannot earn, yet is able to go out and beg, then begging is an obligation for him. It is best to avoid the humiliation of begging, but in time of need it is no disgrace, "because that with which he fortifies his own life is a claim he is entitled to make on people's property" (wa-li-anna ma yasuddu bihi ra- maqahu haqqun mustahaqqun lahu fi amwali l-nds).60

Shaybani says that the giver is better than the recipient, even though both fulfill obligations. A detailed analysis of this statement follows, including polemics against the HIanbali school. (1) The recipient may be in need, but capable of earning: here the recipient performs a supererogatory act, whereas the donor performs a prescribed duty (fard), which is higher. The recipient acquires no benefit except by consuming the gift; the donor thus acquires more. Again, if all the poor stopped taking they would be praised, unlike the rich who would be blamed if they stopped giving.61 (2) Both donor and recipient may be seen to act as voluntary benefactors toward one another-as the recipient helps the donor to accomplish his religious duty. In this case the donor is better, because by casting off his wealth he inclines toward poverty, which is a higher station.62 Poverty is an affliction or test; all of us have a greater desire to receive than to give; hence there is more merit in giving than in receiving. (3) When the recipient is incapable of earning, he carries out an obligation when he receives from the donor (who is under no strict obligation to give). Here the Kasb enters into an argument with Ibn Hanbal, Ibn Rahawayh, and the ahl al-hadith who say: In this case the recipient is better, because he responds to an obligation (fard), whereas the donor only performs a supererogatory act. Therefore (say the Hanbalis), the recipient must receive, while if the donor refrains from giving, he has done nothing wrong, since someone else, for whom it is an obligation, will give to the poor man. The Hanbalis also argue that creating saldm, what we might call social peace, is better than restoring it after it has been disrupted. The recipient strives to revive his nafs, while the giver strives only to protect his. Against this view, the Kasb cites the well-known hadith about the upper hand being better than the lower hand.63 The giver of alms first makes his money over to God, by

60 C 53-57, D 88-93, M 271-73. 61 Above, n. 46. 62 Above, n. 43. 63 Above, n. 44.

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separating it from his own possessions, and then hands it over to the poor man. Thus the recipient receives a blemish, but the donor receives none. The Prophet gave alms directly, but was forbidden to receive them. A debate follows over whether the other prophets were forbidden to receive alms.64

The remainder of the treatise is devoted to themes which have already been discussed. Hadiths are quoted in favor of restraint. Consumption is permitted only to the point of satiety, and even within that limit there can be a haqq for the hungry. Kasb from an illicit source is forbidden, no matter how it is spent. More hadiths are cited against the ascetics. Near the end comes a section, noticeably different in style, on "acquisition" in the theological sense, which may have been added on.65 A concluding section on the use of silks and other fine materials has already been thoroughly discussed by Goitein, Kinberg, Wichard, and others.

4. SHAYBANI ON ACQUISITION AND POVERTY

We have seen that Sarakhsi apparently wrote a commentary on a work on kasb by Shaybani in order to polemicize against the Karramiyya and other adversaries. Now we look to the Iraqi environment in which the work first arose. If we assemble the statements attributed expressly to Shaybani throughout the Kasb, we come up with the following "bare bones." Shaybani maintains that kasb is a religious obligation, analogous to the obligation of seeking knowledge. Once a Muslim has acquired enough to take care of his basic needs, he should "direct the remaining surplus (al-fudul) toward the concern of his eternal life"; similarly, "a man is always called to account for what goes beyond unavoid- able necessity." Regarding circulation of goods, kasb has to do with "mutual assistance for the purpose of approaching and obeying God." Shaybani develops this idea in terms of voluntary alms, sadaqa.66 He states that God "has allotted people their livelihood through means (asbab), regarding which there is confirmed knowledge." Wasting food is an act of arrogance, as is consuming beyond the measure of one's own need. If someone is both needy and incapacitated, people have an obligation to help him. Indeed, the giver is better than the recipient, even though the latter is also fulfilling an

64 C 57-60, D 93-97, M 273-75. 65 C 68f., D 106f., M 279f.; above, n. 19. 66 The hadith on sadaqa which expresses this idea was prob-

ably part of the original treatise: see above, section 2.

obligation. The needy can have a right or claim (haqq) to one's property, even within the limit of satiety (that is, not only to one's surplus property). Kasb from an illicit source is forbidden, no matter how it is spent.

I have argued elsewhere that around the turn of the third/ninth century, when Shaybani first wrote or dictated the Kasb, definitions of poverty in and around Baghdad tended to fall into two main groupings.67 These emphasize different concerns and proceed from different premises. They do not oppose one another in any logically consistent way. Moreover, it was often possible to combine elements of the two according to the changing requirements and exigencies of life. Nonetheless, these two types of definitions of poverty did occur from quite early on and are often clearly recognizable in the hadith literature and elsewhere.

The first of these emphasized the notion of haqq (right, claim). In this view, the true poor are deserving outsiders who desire integration into the community, above all through participation in the jihad. There is no limit on the amount one may or should give to them; indeed, self-impoverishment is a constant and desir- able option, since the circulation of goods is envisaged as taking place, ideally, through a never-ending flow of alms. In hadith and other sources falling into this cat- egory, one often encounters phrases such as "returning the wealth of the rich to the poor" (radd amwdl al- aghniya' Cald l-fuqard') and other language stressing the idea of "return." It is difficult to say if this "return" can be envisaged as forming a circle. At any rate, this view stands, as we shall see, in a recognizable relation to the Hanafi school, of which the Kitab al-kasb gives a composite expression.68

The second set of definitions of poverty emphasized not rights, but surplus, in the sense of whatever one has left over after satisfying one's own fundamental needs. (Again, this is not the logical counterpart to the first type, but a different emphasis or starting-point.) In this view, one must only give alms out of one's surplus, and one must give no alms at all out of the rest, since one's first obligation is to care for oneself and one's family. In definitions of this second type, there is concern with maintaining peace within an urban world already char- acterized by inequality and social conflict. This second view, or something like it, became characteristic of the Hanbali school and the ahl al-hadith, as we see from the end of section 3c above.

67 "Definitions of Poverty," see above, n. 41. 68 Wichard, Zwischen Markt und Moschee, 37, on the Kasb

as a collective Hanafi production.

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These early definitions of poverty, mostly taken from hadith relating to almsgiving, rarely account for the problem of work: whether the poor person works, or tries to work, or has a trade at all. This problem arose in the literary genre of kasb, of which Shaybani's is the first known example. Shaybani insists on the irrefutable claim of the needy person, which can apply even to

property that is not surplus. His "mutual assistance" (mucawana) bears resemblance to the elefnosinary chain or "return of wealth" typical of the first type of definitions of poverty.69 But Shaybani also insists on the

necessity of having some surplus and on the superiority of the giver over the recipient. He seems to contradict himself, by saying first that the attribute of poverty is

higher than that of wealth, and next that the "upper hand" is better than the lower, and so that it is better to

give than to receive. Otherwise, these "bare bones" give few indications of

Shaybani's opponents or of currents of thought at this time. The "mendicant ascetics" mentioned by Goitein (above, introduction) do not appear at this stage. But a debate over kasb emerged in the following generations, with ascetic practices increasingly at issue. Ahmad b. Harb al-Naysaburi (d. 234/848), an influential ascetic in Khurasan with connections in Baghdad, had many disciples including Ibn Karram. Ibn Harb held a negative position regarding the acquisition of wealth, though less radical than that of the Karramiyya who came afterwards. A controversial figure who was mainly damned by Sunni tradition,70 Ibn Harb also wrote a Kitab al-kasb of which nothing has survived.71 The more flamboyant Ibn Karram (d. 255/869), mentioned briefly in section 2 above and in section 6 below, was active mainly in the Islamic East until his exile to Jerusalem at the end of his life.

The best-known work of third/ninth-century Iraq on this topic is the al-Makdsib of al-Harith b. Asad al-

69 Cf. D. D6cobert, Le mendiant et le combattant: L'insti- tution de l'islam (Paris, 1991), 238f., on l'economie aum6niere, "the economy of alms"; Bonner, "Definitions," 339-41.

70 Khatib, 4: 118-19 rawd ashyda kathira la usul laha, "[Ibn Harb] related many things without any basis." See also Chabbi, "Remarques," 30, 33, 48-49; below, n. 101.

71 Hajji Khalifa, Kashf al-zunun (Istanbul, 1362/1943), 2: 1452; Goitein, "Rise of the Bourgeoisie," 221-22. Another work on kasb is attributed to Ahmad b. Yahya al-Hulwani, but this is probably the same, since Hulwani transmitted Ibn Harb's works. Neither Ibn Harb nor Hulwani had Hanafi affiliations, and Ahmad Ibn Hanbal seems to have considered Ibn Harb

highly suspect.

Muhasibi (d. 243/857).72 Muhasibi seems serenely un- aware of the Shaybani teachings on kasb. In his account, God has created bodies that are fragile and require nourishment. But sustenance, rizq, does not come through a virtuous circle of occupations, or even of alms (see fol-

lowing section). Man must depend for rizq directly on God.73 Love of accumulation is caused by doubt,74 and

preoccupation with "means," asbab, is evil. But under the right conditions, haraka, "movement," what we

might call economic activity, is permissible, as is kasb itself.75 Muhasibi polemicizes against individuals and groups who hold otherwise, including Shaqiq al-Balkhi, and (perhaps) the followers of Ibn Harb and Ibn Kar- ram.76 But God has set limits on haraka.77 Muhasibi does not define these limits "economically"-in particular, he has no concern with surplus-but rather theo- logically, concentrating on "means." Caring for one's charges is a form of obedience, unlike striving to ac- cumulate (al-kathra).78 Muhasibi sets out a kind of commercial ethics, including a diatribe against "the merchants of this age" who exceed the correct limits on haraka.79 He exhorts his reader to follow this ethical system "in your market or elsewhere."80

In his essay, Goitein outlined the views of the later Sufi writers Abu Tflib al-Makki and al-Sulami which, as he saw it, contributed to his "survey of representative opinions" to the effect that "Islam as a whole took a pos- itive, or at least lenient, view of economic activities, luxury and the amassing of capital and saw in the pro- fession of a trade a service to one's fellow men not de- void of religious value."81 Goitein might have done better to take Muhasibi's Makasib as his prooftext for the existence of an "Islamic bourgeoisie," rather than the so-called Shaybani Kasb. At any rate, we can see that texts of this kind, which have mainly been consid-

72 Above, n. 22. See also J. Van Ess, Die Gedankenwelt des .Hdrit al-Muhdsibi (Bonn, 1961); El2, 7: 466-67 (R. Arnaldez), and bibliography cited there.

73 Muhasibi, Makdsib, 42. 74 Ibid., 45. 75 Ibid., 47-48. 76 Ibid., 48-49, 61-64. The unnamed opponents here speak

of rukhsa, "permission" to perform kasb; this corresponds to the Karrami position, see below, n. 96.

77 Ibid., 51 If. 78 Ibid., 55. 79 Ibid., 67-71. 80 Ibid., 72. 81 Goitein, "Rise of the Bourgeoisie," 226-28.

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ered in the context of mysticism and theology, are also

valuable for their economic content.

5. BRYSON AND THE VIRTUOUS CIRCLE;

SURPLUS AND ALMS

Economics as an independent discipline did not exist in the Islamic world, at least not until such great writers as Ibn Taymiyya, Ibn KhaldFn, and al-Maqrizi turned their attention to this area in the later Middle Ages.82 But Muslim thinkers did have available a philosophical genre known as Cilm tadbir al-manzil, "the science of

managing one's household" (rendering the Greek oiko-

nomika). This branch of learning had Aristotelian roots and was considered by the Peripatetics as one of the three divisions of "practical philosophy," the other two

being ethics and politics. The principal ancient source available to the medieval Muslims in this field was a treatise by an obscure Greek author known as Bryson, who may have lived in Alexandria in the first or second

century A.D.83 Bryson was quoted, paraphrased, and otherwise absorbed into Arabic and Persian treatises on ethics and tadbir, including works by Miskawayh, Ibn

Sina, and Nasir al-Din Tusi. The earliest Arabic author known to have quoted Bryson was Qudama b. Jacfar in his Kitab al-kharaj.84 Qudama died between 320/932 and 337/948, and it is likely that the Bryson text was translated not long before then. This means that Shay- bani and Ibn Samfca did not know Bryson. Sarakhsi, however, could have, which may explain the connections that arise from a comparison of the Kasb with Bry- son on the circulation of goods and the division of labor.

Bryson begins his discussion of property (mdl) with the original condition of humanity. The Creator made man "impaired, mutable, and fractious" (muntaqisan mustahilan mutaqa.ddiban). This impairment or lack has a physiological basis.

[Man] cannot exist in one single state, but is rather in a con-

stant, continuous process of dissolution. Therefore he needs to seek to replace what he loses through dissolution-and

82 A. Allouche, Mamluk Economics: A Study and Translation

of al-Maqrizl's Ighathah (Salt Lake City, 1994). 83 We do not know who translated Bryson into Arabic and

when; the Arabic version is not a complete translation of the Greek original, most of which is lost. See M. Plessner, Der Oikonomikos des Neupythagoreers 'Bryson' und sein Einfluss auf die islamische Wissenschaft (Heidelberg, 1928).

84 Cahen, "A propos d' 'Ein arabisches Handbuch'," 169.

that is the nourishment that feeds him. And with all that, if the body were of one type (jins), then he would require one

kind (nawc) of nourishment. However, since his parts are different [from one another], he requires different kinds of nourishment and foods. And all of these are either from

plants or animals, since the nourishment of every thing is one of the closest things to it, and there is nothing closer to the nature of man's body than the animals and plants. Now the plants and animals need [various] kinds (anwdc) of crafts (sindcdt) in order for them to come into existence and in order for them then to reach perfection. As for the plants, they need to be planted or fixed, then watered and culti- vated and whatever else is involved in the attainment of

perfection. As for animals, they need to be fed and guarded and given shelter and other such things as affect their well-

being. And many other crafts are needed for collecting and

preparing food and for providing that by which men and animals exist.

The crafts have an organic basis, corresponding to the deficiencies for which they compensate. This brings Bryson to one of his best-known statements.

Although the power to invent or to learn every craft has been made in man, no single individual can invent or learn

[all] that, because of the brevity of his life: in order to invent or learn one single craft he must neglect the invent-

ing or learning of the others. And even if he were capable of learning many of them, still he could not learn them all.... And the crafts are also comprised in one another

(mudamman baCduha bi-baCd). Thus the builder needs the

carpenter and the carpenter needs the craft of the smiths, and the craft of the smiths needs the miners, and that craft needs the builder. And even if every one of the crafts were

perfect in itself, it would still need the others, just as the links of a chain need one another; if one craft falls away, the rest are rendered useless. Thus, since every individual, for the carrying out of his affairs, requires various kinds [of crafts] through which he is fed and clothed, he thereby requires all the crafts. And since no individual can master all the crafts, all the people came to need one another for

providing their livelihood. For this reason, people need to found cities and to gather in them, so that they can assist one another with the crafts.85

Thus we have a mutual, organic dependence among humans, stemming directly from their original condition

85 Plessner, Der Oikonomikos, 144-48, 214-17.

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of deficiency and want: a mutual dependence that as- sumes the form of a virtuous circle of the crafts or oc-

cupations. It is important to emphasize that for Bryson and his tradition, the virtuous circle of crafts or occupations is in motion, but tends nonetheless towards overall

stability, a "zero-sum" outcome. This is because positions of individual persons are ideally fixed: each prac- titioner of a craft does best to stay where he is, and above all one must avoid the shame involved in taking up a craft inferior in status to that of one's ancestors.86

The Arabic version of Bryson was absorbed, incorpo- rated, and otherwise used (often without attribution) in

philosophical treatises on tadbir al-manzil, just men-

tioned, as well as in non-philosophical works, notably Dimashqi's Ishara. Often we cannot tell if a writer is

citing Bryson or one of his Arabic epigones. Thus in the Kitab al-kasb, Sarakhsi uses language and ideas that derive from this Bryson tradition, if not directly from

Bryson himself.

[Shaybani] said: "And [God] has decreed people's livelihood through means [asbdb] regarding which there is confirmed knowledge." This means that each individual is unable to learn all that he needs in his life, and if he occu-

pied himself with that, his life would vanish before he

[could] learn [it all]; and he is unable to produce for himself whatever he has not learned. The conditions in which people make their livelihood were connected to this (wa-qad tacallaqa bi-hddhd masalih al-macisha lahum). And God has made it easy for everyone to learn a type of that (nawc min dhalika, i.e., a type of crafts?), so that he may attain what he needs of that type through his knowledge,87 and so that others may also attain what they need of that through his knowledge. The Prophet alluded to this in his saying: "The believers are like a building, each part of which fortifies the rest." And the proof of this is in [God's] saying [Quran 43:32]: "And we raised some of them over the others by degrees," etc. This means that the poor man needs the rich man's wealth, while the rich man needs the poor man's labor. And here too, the cultivator needs the weaver's labor, so that he may get clothing for himself; and the weaver needs the cultivator's labor in order to obtain food, and the cotton from which he gets clothing for himself. Each of them establishes [proximity to God] from labor which88

86 Plessner, 154, 221. 87 Here and soon afterwards, C and M have bi-'ilmihi; D has

bi-'amalihi, "through his labor." 88 The sense requires alladhi, missing in D and M. C has

this, but it is missing an entire line here.

is intended for others [than himself], by virtue of its [being performed for the sake of] proximity and obedience

[to God].89 The ability to establish proximity to God is achieved through this.... And it is the same whether or not this labor is performed in exchange for compensation specified for it (bi-'iwad shurita Calayhi). If [the person's] intention is as we have explained, then his labor contains within itself the sense of obedience.... 90

Phrases and ideas from Bryson are echoed here, such as the brevity of life preventing one from learning all the crafts. The phrase naw' min dhalika, "type of that," makes little sense unless we look to the Arabic Bryson, where it stands for naw' min al-sina'at, "a type of the crafts." However, we must remember that Shaybani in the Kasb did not speak of "crafts" at all, but rather of "means," which are more abstract and impersonal. Else- where he also spoke of mutual assistance and alms-

giving. Those places in the Kasb that speak of mutual need between rich and poor (a notion alien to Bryson and his tradition) may well go back to Shaybani himself.91 In any case, for Shaybani, as for much early Muslim thought in this area, if there is any circle-and

again, it may be more accurate to speak of a "a return of wealth"-it is a circle of goods moving through "mutual assistance," thus through poverty and almsgiving, and not a circle of trades and occupations. And unlike the Brysonian virtuous circle, which tended, as we have seen, toward a "zero-sum" result, for Shaybani the circle or return of wealth through "mutual assistance" and almsgiving is dynamic and open to expansion.

All this must not be taken too literally. Shaybani obviously understood in some way the importance of the

occupations and crafts. However, when he set about de-

scribing the circulation of goods and the interdependence of humans, he used the language of poverty and

almsgiving. Later on, when Muslims (including Ha- nafis) became aware of the Aristotelian Bryson tradition, they took over the idea of a circle of crafts, which became fairly commonplace. But these portions of the Kitab al-kasb show these two conceptions of the circulation of wealth side by side. Of the two, it is the one

89 C has qawl wa-tdCa, apparently a mistake for qurba wa-tada. 90 C 43-44, D 75, M 264-65. 91 Jghiz, Hayawan (ed. CA. M. Harun, Cairo, 1966), 1: 44, in

a discussion of interdependence, says that God has made no one self-sufficient and so kings have need of subjects and subjects of kings; likewise the rich and the poor need one another, as do masters and slaves. Jahiz does not discuss either almsgiving or crafts.

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BONNER: The Kitab al-Kasb Attributed to al-Shaybdni

we find in Shaybani that we may consider the more original and the more "Muslim." This is a more dynamic conception of the flow of wealth, well suited to the early Islamic world, where commerce and markets expanded, where merchant capital often went into traveling ven-

tures, and where any individual might find himself rich and poor, recipient and donor, at different times in his life-a favorite theme of Arabic belles-lettres.

One particularly difficult sentence in the long passage just quoted from the Kasb requires some elucidation. After describing the mutual dependence of the cultivator and the weaver, the Kasb (here presumably Sarakhsi) says that each of these two "establishes [proximity to

God]92 from labor that is intended for others [than him-

self], by virtue of its being [performed for the sake of] proximity and obedience [to God]; the ability to establish proximity to God is achieved through this" (thum- ma kull wahid minhumd yuqimu min al-'amal yakunu mu'ayyannan li-ghayrihi fimd huwa qurba wa-taa fa- inna l-tamakkun min iqdmat al-qurba bi-hddhd yuh- salu).93 Here we might say that surplus is abstracted from the production of individuals; it might be more accurate to call this an element of production directed toward others. The Kasb identifies this altruistic element as that through which God is approached: which is

closely related in turn to sadaqa, voluntary almsgiving, and to the haqq, the claim of the poor upon the surplus of the rich.

Poverty and want are basic elements both for Bryson and for Shaybani. Bryson begins his account of property by describing a primordial condition of organic, physiological need, which the crafts then satisfy through their harmonious, mutual efforts. For Shaybani, poverty and

almsgiving are a basic, necessary element in everyone's continuing effort to make a living. The later authors of the Kasb have combined Shaybani's views with others which to some extent derive from Bryson's. Yet Shay- bani's original conception, with its stress on poverty and

sadaqa, still shows through in the Kasb and remains the basis for the doctrine of the Hanafi school.

6. THE KARRAMIYYA

The Kasb names no individual adversaries, but re-

peatedly uses the abusive terms mutaqashshifa (self-

92 Here yuqimu is understood to have as its object al-qurba, as in iqdmat al-qurba later on in the sentence. Alternatively, yuqimu might be short for yuqimu awadahu, "to provide someone with sustenance."

93 C 43, D 75, M 264.

mortifiers) and taqashshuf (self-mortification).94 Since in two places it does name the Karramiyya,95 we include here a brief look at the Karrami doctrine of tahrim al-makdsib, "declaring it forbidden to earn a living," and its relation to the Kasb. We must keep in mind that this argument in the Kasb against the Karramiyya must be attributed to Sarakhsi and thus to the milieu of Sa- manid and Ghaznavid Khurasan and Transoxania, even

though the argument went back roughly to the mid- third/ninth century. Sarakhsi's longest statement on this doctrine is as follows.

Thus it is accepted among all jurisconsults who adhere to the Sunni position (ahl al-sunna wal-jamdca) that kasb is a religious obligation to the extent that it is a necessity. But the Karramiyya say: No, [kasb] is permissible [only] as an indulgence conceded [by God] (mubdh bi-tariq al- rukhsa96). This is because [if kasb is indeed an obligation] there are only two possibilities: either it is an obligation [in effect] at every time, or else at a certain prescribed time. Now the first [of these two] is false, because it leads [to a situation in which] a person could not be done with performing this obligation in such a way as to allow him to

occupy himself with other obligations and duties. And the second is false, because whatever the religious law has

specified as an obligation for a prescribed time, such as

prayer or fasting, would become supplementary for that time. And it is not the intention of the religious law to add kasb on to a prescribed time. Furthermore, there are only two possibilities: either that [kasb] is an obligation because of people's desire for it, or else because of necessity. Now the first [of these] is false, for [people's] desire for all the wealth in the world is steady and constant; and one does not

say that everyone is obliged to acquire all of that. But the second [possibility] is also false: for whatever is obligatory because of necessity only becomes obligatory upon the realization of [such] necessity; but upon the realization of [such] necessity [in this case, i.e., when one has become destitute], one is incapable of performing kasb at all. How, then, can an obligation be postponed until [one is in] a condition of incapacity to perform it? And then there are only two possibilities: either that all types (anwdc) [of kasb] are

94 The caliph al-Ma'min referred to the taqashshuf of Ibn Samaia himself, in a list of the annoying habits (ostentatious weeping, humility, praying, fasting, etc.) of ten prominent religious scholars. Khatib, 5: 342.

95 C 24, D 44, 107, M 250, 279. 96 On rukhsa, see M. Kister, "On 'Concessions' and Conduct:

A Study in Early Hadith," in Studies on the First Century of Islamic Society, ed. G. H. A. Juynboll (Carbondale, 1982), 89-

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obligatory, or else certain specified types of it. Now the first of these is false, because it is not within the capacity of any human being to have direct involvement in all types [of kasb], nor can he know [all of] that; his life would vanish before he could learn it.97 But the second [possibility] is

false, because no one of the types [of kasb] is more apt to be specified as an obligation than any other. And then there are only two possibilities: either that [kasb] is obligatory for all of the people, or else only for some of them. Now the first of these is false: for the prophets, peace be upon them, did not occupy themselves with kasb for the greater part of their time; likewise the noteworthy Companions, may God be pleased with them all, and those excellent men who came after them; but no one thinks regarding them that they agreed in abandoning what was obligatory for them. And the second [possibility] is false, because no one is more apt to be singled out for this obligation than anyone else.98

Despite Professor Van Ess's negative verdict,99 there are reasons for believing that this passage represents genuine Karrami views. It is difficult to see why Sarakh- si (or whoever is the source of this) would have set out his adversaries' arguments in such detail-if only for the purpose of demolishing them-without reproducing these arguments with some accuracy. Reductive recast-

ing of doctrines is characteristic of the heresiographical literature, but the Kasb does not belong to that genre. The sophistic character of these arguments fits with what we know of Karrami doctrine in its earlier stages. The grudging justification of kasb as divine indulgence or permission (rukhsa) seems to be recurrent. The arguments regarding rights and claims (huquq), characteristic of early Islamic discussions of poverty, find no place in Karrami discussions of makdsib, here or elsewhere.

The Karrami doctrine of tahrim al-makasib seems to have originated with the founder of the sect, Muham- mad b. Karram,'00 who may have based it on teachings of Ahmad b. Harb (see above). Ibn Karram's practice and doctrine were described generally under the heading of tawakkul: you must trust that you will receive rizq,

107, rpt. in Society and Religion from Jahiliyya to Islam (Lon- don, 1990); Wichard, Zwischen Markt und Moschee, 42 n. 21.

97 Another recurrence of the Bryson phrase, see above. 98 C 24-26, D 44-46, M 250-51. 99 Ungenitzte Texte, 75.

100 C. E. Bosworth, "The Rise of the Karamiyyah in Khurasan," Muslim World 50 (1960): 5-14; idem, The Ghaz- navids (Beirut, 1973), 185-94; idem, "Karramiyya, El2, 4: 667-69; J. Chabbi, "Remarques sur le developpement his-

torique des mouvements asc6tiques et mystiques au Khurasan,

sustenance, but you may not earn it.l01 In the recently published heresiographical section of the Kitdb al-

shajara of Abui Tammam, apparently a Khurasanian

Ismacili author of the early-to-mid-fourth/tenth cen-

tury,'02 we read that:

Muhammad b. Karram was a man given to self-mortification and asceticism (al-taqashshufwal-zuhd). He claimed that he was a person who relied solely on God and that he had intended to go into the desert with many of those who followed him without provisions, water, or riding mounts. The ruler

(al-sultan) prevented him from doing that and threw him into prison, saying, "This man will destroy himself and these other poor wretches as well. It is incumbent on us to stop him and to assume control over him."103

Among the heresiographical sources, the "Eastern," Hanafi/Maturidi tradition which Keith Lewinstein has discussed104 generally shows more interest in the "economic" aspect of Karramism than does the "Western," Ashcari/Shafici tradition.'05 In, or related to, this "East-

IIIe/IXe siecle-IVe/Xe siecle," SI 46 (1977): 5-72; J. Van Ess, Ungeniitzte Texte zur Karrdmiya (Heidelberg, 1980), 19-20, 30-32, 75-76; W. Madelung, Religious Trends in Early Islamic Iran (Albany, 1988), 39-46, esp. 43; A. L. Knysh, Islamic

Mysticism: A Short History (Leiden, 2000), 88-94. 101 The Kitab rawnaq al-qulub by CUmar al-Samarqandi

(Bib. Nat., MS Ar. 6674, 4929), cited by Van Ess, Ungenitzte Texte, 30-32. An abridged version of another work by CUmar

al-Samarqandi, the Mukhtasar Rawnaq al-majalis by cUthman b. Yahya b. CAbd al-Wahhab al-Miri (Damascus and Beirut, 1985/1405) is a collection of tales about ascetics and sufis; see 83-86 (tawakkul) and 101-4 (warac). The protagonist of many of the stories is Ahmad b. Harb, whose example is consonant with the Karrami position, but less radical. On the differences between Ibn Harb's followers and the Karramiyya in Khurasan, see Chabbi, "Remarques," 48-49.

102 W. Madelung and P. E. Walker, An Ismaili Heresiogra- phy: The 'Bab al-shaytan'from Abu Tammam's Kitab al-shajara (Leiden, 1998), 54-56 (Arabic), 58-59 (English). See also P. Walker, "Abu Tammam and his Kitab al-shajara: A New Ismaili Treatise from Tenth-Century Khurasan," JAOS 114

(1994): 343-52. 103 After his imprisonment by the Tahirid authorities, Ibn

Karram went to Jerusalem with his followers. On traveling without provisions, see Reinert, Die Lehre, 197-206.

104 "Notes on Eastern Hanafite Heresiography," JAOS 114 (1994): 583-98.

105 Ashcarl's Maqaldt, Baghdadi's Farq, and Shahrastani's Milal do not mention the tahrim al-makdsib in their discussions of Karramism.

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BONNER: The Kitab al-Kasb Attributed to al-Shaybdni

ern" tradition is the Kitab al-radd Cala ahl al-bidac of Abui Mutic Makhul al-Nasafi (d. 318/930), who may even have been a Karrami himself, and who expressed a view in harmony with what we know of the Karrami doctrine of tahrim al-makdsib.106 In denouncing a group called the "Qasitiyya" Nasafi says:

. . they made it incumbent upon every Muslim to seek [this world], and they gave preference to those who seek [this world] over those who abstain from it, and to its rich over its poor. And they said: "Poverty is almost like unbelief." But the community of believers say (wa-qalat al-jamaial07): This world is wretched, because it is cursed, and whatever it contains is cursed, except for what comes from obedience to God. A worshipper's food distracts him from worship of his Lord, and brings together those who seek [this world] in the Fire; that means, [food] which is not licit.... 108

The last phrase indicates that some (of the Karramiyya?) did believe that even religiously licit food was a distrac- tion from God. Such radical views appeared elsewhere, for instance along the Thughar, the Arab-Byzantine frontier, where the early ascetic Ibrahim b. Adham, to-

gether with some of his later followers, was known as a virtuoso of starvation and, on occasion, as an eater of earth and clay.109 But we still need to know more about the Karrami practice and doctrine of tahrim al-makasib.

7. CONCLUSION

S. D. Goitein deserves the credit for having identified the Shaybani Kasb and its importance. However, this work is not an optimistic statement on commerce and gain on the part of the rising Near Eastern bourgeoisie of the early Islamic period. Before we can say that "Is- lam" as such encouraged or impeded commercial activity, we must look to the detailed circumstances of various times and places, as much as the evidence will allow.

106 Lewinstein, "Notes," 585-87; B. Bernand, "Le Kitab al- radd Cala ahl al-bidac d' Abu Mutic Makhul al-Nasafi," Annales Islamologiques 16 (1980): 39-126; Van Ess, Unge- niitzte Texte, 58.

107 On Nasafi's use of jamaca, see Bernand, 43-44, con-

necting it with the anti-AshCarite, anti-MuCtazilite views of Khurasanian Hanafis, soon to be identified with Maturidism.

108 Bernand, 94-95. 109 al-Cubbdd al-khushn, "the devotees of harsh practice."

Bonner, Aristocratic Violence, 128-30, 152, 158-61, 171-73, 178, 184; Knysh, Islamic Mysticism, 19-20.

J. C. Wichard has argued persuasively that the Kasb calls for a just mean between the extremes of ascetic denial and of ostentatious acquisition and consumption. He places less emphasis on poverty and almsgiving than I have done here, and more on work and on activity in earning (Erwerbstdtigkeit). However, the matter is even more complex than Wichard makes it to be, in part because the Kasb is a composite, multi-authored work, more so even than most medieval Arabic books. Sarakhsi had before him a work on kasb by Shaybani and Ibn SamaCa which we no longer have. Only some of this work suited his polemics against the radical ascetics. Still, Sarakhsi worked faithfully through the entire thing, including the passages on poverty, charity and so on. In this way he added to the work's contradictions. He also obscured the fact that the form, message, and context of Shaybani's work were different from that of the Kitab al-kasb we now have, and different also from much of what modern scholarship has attributed to it.

Three authors (of whom we know) contributed toward the composition of the Kasb (above, section 2). Roughly corresponding to them were three historical contexts in which these questions of acquisition, consumption, charity, surplus and so on took on different meanings and forms. Now that we have begun to sort these out, we may review some of their main elements in relation to the Kitab al-kasb.

(a) Shaybdni and early CAbbasid Baghdad. Though only a fraction of the Kasb as we have it consists of Shaybani's own words, we can assemble his views (above, section 4). In his arguments in favor of acquisition and earning (in modest amounts), Shaybani did not aim against "mendicant ascetics." Indeed, his discourse on economic matters is dominated by concepts of poverty and almsgiving. The key to these is a strong notion of haqq, of the right/claim that the needy have upon us, or more accurately, upon whatever we acquire that goes beyond the limit of our own need, and possibly even on what does not. Wherever we acquire beyond the limit of our own need, there exists a haqq for someone else. Shaybani's followers take this further, and entirely logically: "That with which [a needy person] fortifies his own life is a claim he is entitled to make on people's property,"110 and similar formulations.

Thus the existence of any economic surplus immediately creates a haqq for someone. Shaybani expresses this in terms of religious obligation: once a man has provided for his own and his family's needs, he should "direct the remaining surplus toward the concern of his

110 Above, n. 60.

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eternal life." What does this mean? On the one hand the Kasb favors an increase in religious observance (Ciba- dat) over an increase in economic acquisition (kasb). But on the other hand, Shaybani attaches strong religious value to economic activity in the form of cooperation and mutual assistance (tac'wun) "for the purpose of approaching and obeying God." Already in Shaybani this mutual assistance is conceptually tied to voluntary alms, or sadaqa. The Hanafi school (represented by Sa- rakhsi) afterwards spelled out this connection more clearly.

Some could say that the rich and the poor need each other, whether for economic or spiritual reasons."' But more meaningfully and precisely, for Shaybani and his followers, almsgiving is bound up with the very principle of circulation and exchange. Whenever anyone benefits from someone else's work, it is a form of sadaqa, with merit and benefit extending to "donor" as well as to "recipient." Here, with the haqq of the poor at its basis, we have the principle of an "economy of

poverty,""2 at least so far as Shaybani and the Hanafi school are concerned. And furthermore, whereas the Aristotelian/Brysonian conception of exchange and circulation, which at some point became fairly widely known in the Islamic world, constructs a virtuous circle of occupations and crafts, in which persons occupy fixed positions, Shaybani, together with much of early Is- lamic tradition, describes a virtuous circle of almsgiving in which persons constantly change their positions (the poor gaining wealth and the rich impoverishing themselves).

Shaybani shows continuity with much of earlier Is- lamic thinking on these matters, as far as we can tell. This complicated story will have to be resumed elsewhere.13 But in brief, as Shaybani prescribes the attitude we must take in our working and earning, he confronts us with the figure of the poor man. He certainly does not want us to beg, unless we have no choice. But our daily lives should be informed by zuhd, abstinence. More specifically, our activity in earning should be based on awareness of our interdependence: we would say now in both economic and spiritual terms, though Shaybani and his followers did not make this distinction. Again, this altruistic principle of economic circulation has at its basis the haqq that the poor have

11 Above, n. 90. 112 See G. Todeschini, "'Quantum valet?' Alle origini di

un'economia della poverta," Bullettino dell'lstituto italiano storico per il Medioevo 98 (1992): 173-234.

113 Above, nn. 41, 69.

upon the rich, but which also, in the end, we all have

upon each other. It will still be necessary to work out with better preci-

sion what this (to us) rather strange concept of right and claim (haqq) is all about. In what relation does it stand to the various concepts of duty (fard, farida) and merit (fadl) expressed in the Kitdb al-kasb and elsewhere?l"4 And what is its relation (for it must have one) to living practice? Answers to these questions will give us a better understanding of economic activity in the early Is- lamic world, including the circulation of wealth and kasb itself.

(b) Ibn Samdca and the Hanbalis. We do not know precisely what role Ibn Samaia had in the creation of the Kasb. But in any case he was a loyal Hanafi. During the later part of his long life and for several generations afterwards, an important feature of urban social and intellectual life, in Baghdad and elsewhere, was conflict between the Hanafi and Hanbali madhhabs. Such ten- sions surface in the text of the Kasb, whether or not through Ibn Samaa's doing (above, section 3c). Here, in an argument over the meaning of the "upper hand,""5 we may detect two different representations of the economic world, both emphasizing poverty and almsgiving. The Hanafi view is as we have set it out here. The Han- ball view would require a different study, but already here we see the concern with saldm, keeping the peace through use of charity, in a turbulent urban setting; and a view of alms as a means to alleviate misery and to keep that peace, without changing anyone's condition.

(c) Sarakhsi and the Karrdmiyya. Jacqueline Chabbi and others have described the milieu of Khurasan and Transoxania under the Siamnids and Ghaznavids. It is difficult to use the Kitab al-kasb as a source of information about this milieu, because Sarakhsi combined contemporary polemics with his conversation with Shay- bani and other masters of the past. But it is here that "mendicant ascetics" have become a major source of contention. Sarakhsi polemicizes vehemently against the Karramiyya and other extreme mutawakkilun, "trust- ers [in God]," whom he refers to contemptuously as muta'akhkhilan, "spongers."

We should not regard the Kasb as a forgery,"6 nor as an appropriation by later authors of earlier, more "authentic" texts. Even its contradictions and redundancies

114 For an introduction to the modern Western conversation on these issues, see J. Waldron, ed., Theories of Rights (Oxford, 1984); S. Stoljar, An Analysis of Rights (New York, 1984).

115 Above, n. 63. 116 Above, n. 20.

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are useful to us, since they correspond to the contradictions of everyday life in this economic arena of action and reflection where inconsistency seems to prevail in all cultures, not least our own. The literary genre of kasb itself can be studied further, through the more coherent and elegant work of al-Muhasibi, to the culmination of the genre in al-Ghazali's Ih.ya' Culam al-din and beyond.

As before, these and similar works will be investigated for their theological and mystical teachings. Now we may also interrogate them for their economic content, for what they can tell us about medieval Islamic atti- tudes and answers to the eternal question of how we get our living from our environment and from each other.

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The Kitāb al-kasb Attributed to al-Shaybānī: Poverty, Surplus, and the Circulation of Wealth

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