The Magian Position: Legal Consequences for Creedal Ignorance in the Far Maghrib, 8th/14th-11th/17th century

Abstract

This article analyzes a series of legal opinions from the Far Maghrib between the 8th/14th and 11th/17th centuries in which the authors promote a remarkable position: that members of the Muslim community deemed ignorant of creedal doctrine should be accorded the legal status of Magians (hukm al-majus). The primary consequence of categorizing people as Magians - meaning here something different than Zoroastrians - was the annulment of their marriages. After discussing the sources and offering comments on the social, political, and religious circumstances that may have conditioned this position (Section 1), I explain its intellectual architecture. I show that while the concepts animating the concern with creedal ignorance were rooted in Ash'arī theology (Section 2), the tools of enforcement came from Mālikī law (Section 3). The “Magian position” thus sheds light on historical interactions between Islamic theology and law, as well as on the functioning of orthodoxy in Muslim societies.