Читать книгу A Dictionary of Islam. Being a cyclopedia of the doctrines, rites, ceremonies, and customs, together with the technical and theological terms, of the Muhammadan religion онлайн

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ASSISTANTS. [ANSAR.]

ASTROLOGY. Arabic ʿIlmu ʾn-nujūm. Qatādah says, referring to the Qurʾān, that God has created stars for three uses: (1) as an ornament to the heavens (Sūrah lxvii. 5); (2) to stone the Devil with (Sūrah lxvii. 5); and (3) to direct travellers through the forests and on the sea (Sūrah xv. 16). Muḥammad condemns those who study the stars for any other purpose (Mishkāt, xxi. c. iii. pt. iii.), and consequently the science of Astrology is not considered lawful in Islām.

ASWAD (الاسود‎). An impostor who, in the time of Muḥammad, claimed the prophetic office. His name was ʿAbhalah ibn Kaʿb, and he belonged to the tribe of ʿAus, of which he was an influential chief. He was surnamed Ẕū ʾl-Ḥimār, or “The Master of the Ass,”1 because he used frequently to say, “The master of the ass is coming unto me,” and pretended to receive his revelations from two angels, named Suhaik and Shuraik. Being a good hand at legerdemain, and having a smooth tongue, he gained mightily on the multitude by the strange feats which he shewed them, and the eloquence of his discourse. By these means he greatly increased his power, and having made himself master of Najrān and the territory of T̤āʾif, on the death of Bādhān, the governor of Yaman for Muḥammad, he seized that province also, killing Shahr, the son of Bādhān, and taking to wife his widow Āzād, whose father he had also slain. The news being brought to Muḥammad, he sent to his friends and to the tribe of Hamdān, a party of whom conspiring with Qais ibn ʿAbd Yaghūth, who bore Aswad a grudge, and with Fīrūz and Aswad’s wife, broke by night into his house, where Fīrūz surprised him and cut off his head. While dying, it is said that he roared like a bull, at which his guards came to the chamber door, but were sent away by his wife, who told them that the prophet was only agitated by the divine inspiration. This was done the very night before Muḥammad died. The next morning the conspirators caused the following proclamation to be made, viz. “I bear witness that Muḥammad is the Apostle of God, and that ʿAbhalah is a liar”; and letters were immediately sent away to Muḥammad, with an account of what had been done; but a messenger from heaven outstripped them, and acquainted the prophet with the news, which he imparted to his Companions a little before his death, the letters themselves not arriving till Abū Bakr was chosen Khalif. It is said that Muḥammad on this occasion told those who attended him that before the Day of Judgment thirty more impostors, besides Musailimah and Aswad, should appear. The whole time from the beginning of Aswad’s rebellion to his death was four months.