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Why Incline to the Left in Prayer? Sectarianism, Dialectic, and Archaeology in Imāmī Shīʿism

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Law and Tradition in Classical Islamic Thought

Abstract

In a chapter of miscellaneous traditions (nawādir) near the end of the “book of prayer” (kitāb al-salāt) of his celebrated collection of Imāmī Shī‘ite traditions, Kulaynī (d. 329/941) has the following tradition:2

‘Alī b. Muhammad rafa‘ahu qāla: qīla li-Abī ‘Abdi ’llāh ‘alayhi ’l-salām: lima sāra ’l-rajul yanharifu fī ’l-salāt ilā ’l-yasār? fa-qāla: li-anna lil-Ka‘ba sittat hudūd, arba‘a minha ‘an3 yasarika, wa-’thnan minha ‘ala yaminika, fa-min ajl dhalika waqa ‘a ’l-tahrif4 ilā ’l-yasār.

‘Alī b. Muhammad,6 without a (full) chain of transmission,7 said: Abū ‘Abdallāh [Ja‘far al-Sādiq (d. 148/765)] was asked: “How does it come about that a man inclines to the left in prayer?” He answered: “Because the Ka‘ba has six boundaries, four of them on your left, and two of them on your right; it is on account of this that the inclination is to the left.”

An earlier draft of this chapter with the title “A Puzzling Tradition about the qibla in the kāfī of Kulaynī” formed the basis of a short talk I gave at the International Symposium on Kulaynī held at the shrine of Hadrat-i ‘Abd al-‘Azīm in Shahr-i Ray on May 7, 2009, at which time the unchecked draft was translated into Persian and published (M. Cook, “Hadīthī mu‘ammāyī dar bāb-i qibla dar al-Kāfī-yi Kulaynī,” trans. H. Islāmī,. ‘Ulūm-i hadīth 14, no. 1 [1388 shamsī]). I am much indebted to Hossein Modarressi for his extensive comments on the draft.

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Notes

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Cook, M. (2013). Why Incline to the Left in Prayer? Sectarianism, Dialectic, and Archaeology in Imāmī Shīʿism. In: Cook, M., Haider, N., Rabb, I., Sayeed, A. (eds) Law and Tradition in Classical Islamic Thought. Palgrave Series in Islamic Theology, Law, and History. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137078957_6

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