“The monasticism of my community is jihad”: A debate on asceticism, sex, and warfare in early Islam

Journal article

This article explores Muslim attitudes towards asceticism in the second/eighth and third/ninth centuries by examining the famous Prophetic hadith: “Every community has its monasticism, and the monasticism of my community is ǧihād.” The hadith serves as a lens for assessing several broader phenomena, including early Muslim views of Christian monasticism, the rejection of celibacy in Islamic culture, and the promotion of a new code of sexual ethics in the post-conquest Middle East—what this article terms the “second sexual revolution of Late Antiquity.” It concludes by presenting several accounts of Christian monks who converted to Islam and joined the ǧihād, as well as Muslim soldiers who converted to Christianity and became monks.

Authors: Sahner, C

• Publication status: Published
• Peer review status: Peer reviewed
• Publisher: Brill Academic Publishers
• Journal: Arabica
• Volume: 64
• Issue: 2
• Pages: 149-183
• Publication date: 2017-06-13
• DOI: 10.1163/15700585-12341453
• EISSN: 1570-0585
• ISSN: 0570-5398
• Keywords: ǧihād; conversion; asceticism; Ibn al-Mubārak; Abbasids; sexuality in Islam; Christianity under Muslim rule; celibacy; ʿUṯmān b. Maẓʿūn; monasticism