Jawharat al-Tawhid (Arabic: جوهرة التوحيد, lit. 'The Gem of Monotheism') is a popular didactic poem on the Ash'ari creed,[1] consisting of one hundred and forty-four (144) rajaz verses, authored by the Egyptian Maliki scholar Ibrahim al-Laqqani (d. 1041/1631). It is widely read, studied, and memorized in many Islamic educational institutions throughout the entire Islamic world, including al-Azhar.[2][3][4][5][6] According to Roman Loimeier, this was the basic text in Zanzibar in the late 19th century for advanced students in theology.[7] It is still on the curriculum of Islamic university education in contemporary Daghestan.[8]
Content
Al-Laqqani's Jawharat al-Tawhid is considered his most celebrated and acclaimed work that summarizes the doctrines of the Ash'ari school of theology,[5] a widely accepted rational framework of Sunni Islam that was endorsed in the Maliki school of law, which is dominant among Muslims in Upper Egypt and throughout Northwest Africa.[Note 1]
The text deals with the divine aspects of creed, such as Allah's names and attributes, prophetology, and revealed creed (al-sam'iyyat),[Note 2] which includes faith in the afterlife.[6] The text also adds additional details on the ranks of the companions and imams, and the five universal legal maxims in Islamic jurisprudence, the foundations of moral philosophy with a little bit of Sufism and etiquette.
In the poem (v. 81), Al-Junayd, the shaykh of the Sufis, is evoked as “Abū al-Qāsim”, a leader of the community on a par with Mālik [b. Anas]. Reminiscent of Sufi theory is the exhortation in v. 87 to ask one's soul, i.e. oneself, to account for one's deeds. Fittingly, the poem has also been read and quoted by Sufis such as the Khalwatiyya shaykh and poet Mustafa ibn Kamal al-Din al-Bakri [ar] (d. 1162/1749).[5][Note 3]
Commentaries
Many scholars wrote commentaries and glossaries on this work,[4][11] beginning with the author himself and his own son, 'Abd al-Salam b. Ibrahim al-Laqqani (d. 1078/1667).[3][6]
According to Mohd. Nor bin Ngah, the Malay translation of the Jawharat al-Tawhid belongs to "the most popular and widely used Kitab Jawi," i.e. Islamic theological books in Malay script. Several translations and commentaries in local languages (Malay, Javanese, Sundanese, and Madurese), which are still available in print, testify to its continuing popularity until the present day among Muslims in insular Southeast Asia.[2]
At the end of the nineteenth century, Snouck Hurgronje observed that "a Malay commentary on the Jauharat at-tauhîd (by Ibrâhîm al-Laqânî) after a manuscript written in Sambas" was printed in Mecca.[18]
^The word used here, al-sam'iyyat, refers to all that which can be known only through the Qur'an or Prophetic reports (Hadith) that partake in certainty.
^ In one of the first verses of al-Murshid al-Mu'in of Ibn 'Ashir (d. 1040/1631), a didactic poem on religious obligations (prayer, alms, fasting, etc.) and on tasawwuf, al-Junayd is mentioned after the name of Mālik, and thus also evoked as an authority on mysticism.
^Ayman Shihadeh; Jan Thiele, eds. (2020). Philosophical Theology in Islam: Later Ashʿarism East and West. Vol. 5 of Islamicate Intellectual History. BRILL. p. 244. ISBN9789004426610. Later Ashʿarī scholars such as al-Bājūrī continued to discuss these fine points of technical terminology and the nature of existence when they commented on al-Laqāni's creedal poem Jawharat al-tawhid.
