Ummah

In the Qur'an, this term occurs more than sixty times ^[1] , denoting human communities, which together constituted the world of people ^[2] . So, in the 38th verse of Surah al-Anam (“Cattle”) it says: “There is not a single animal [walking] on the ground, nor a bird flying on the wings, which, like you, would not unite into a community, because We missed nothing in [this] Scripture, and then all of them will be gathered before their Lord ” ^[3] . Some commentators of the Qur'an believed that this verse says that humanity was once a single ummah of believers, but then it was divided and ceased to be a single community. Other interpreters believed that humanity was once a single community of unbelievers , therefore, the concept of ummah can be attributed not only to believers. In their opinion, after the arrival of the prophets, the ummah of believers stood out from the community of unbelievers. Most Islamic scholars are of the opinion that only those communities that obey the prophets can be attributed to the Ummah ^[1] . The basis for this is the hadith of the prophet Muhammad : “Each ummah submits to its prophet” ^[4] .

Separate communities united by a common religion, Scripture, the absence of Scripture sent down in the past, were called by the name of a spiritual ancestor and were also designated by the term umma ^[5] . In pre-Islamic times, this term meant " faith ." In the associative row with the word umma was the verb amma ("precede", "be in front"), which indicates the content of the concept of spiritual continuity in this term.

The Ummah can consist of both one people and several nations and races. According to Islam, the superiority of some people over others lies not in the origin or color of the skin, but in fear of God and sincere faith. An example of this was the attitude of the first Muslims, led by the prophet Muhammad, to representatives of other peoples and races, who had equal rights with the Arabs. The Islamic religion never opposed national languages, as well as the customs and traditions of various peoples, if they did not contradict Sharia. The Arabic language is obligatory only in services, being an additional unifying factor of the Muslim Ummah ^[1] .

In the Medina suras, the ummah was designated mainly the medina community , consisting of the ummah of Muslims and Jews. The basis of the social organization of the Medina community was the relationship of dependence / patronage ( valia jivar ), which acquired an absolute character. All members of the community were connected by these relations ^[6] and were under the auspices of the “supreme” maul ( wali ) - Allah ^[7] . In pre-Islamic times, there was an idea of ​​the relationship between the patron deity of the tribe and the members of the tribe. Muhammad himself ^[8] , who was the transmitter of the will of Allah ^[9], became the patron ( wali ) of the members of the ummah.

By the end of the life of the Prophet Muhammad, the Ummah included almost the entire population of the Arabian Peninsula. After his death, the Islamic Ummah became the earthly bearer of supreme sovereignty. During the course of Islamization , which took place over several centuries, the term al-umma (with a certain article ) began to refer to the entire Islamic community of Muslims, and without the article it could also be used in relation to the entire “community of non-Muslims” - the population, the gift of al-harb or the gift of al-kufr ^[9] .

During the 7th century, the Muslim community began to be identified with their habitat (the gift of al-Islam ) and the Caliphate . Moreover, a Muslim who lives outside the Caliphate also belongs to the Ummah. Until the end of the 19th century, Muslims of various states were legally considered members of the same Muslim community. The emergence and development of the ideology of pan-Islamism and pan-Arabism led to the emergence of such concepts as the Ummah Islam (“community of Muslims”) and Ummah Arabia (“Arab nation”). In the writings of the Egyptians, who deny pan-Arabism, the expression umma misriya ("Egyptian nation") is recorded. The term ummah continues to be used to refer to autonomous religious communities ( Maronites , etc.) ^[9] .

in Russian

• Ali-zade A. A. Ummah // Islamic Encyclopedic Dictionary . - M .: Ansar , 2007 .-- 400 p. - (The Golden Fund of Islamic Thought). - ISBN 5-98443-025-8 .
• Ummah / Bobrovnikov V.O. // Uland - Khvattsov. - M .: Great Russian Encyclopedia, 2017. - P. 32. - ( Great Russian Encyclopedia : [in 35 vols.] / Ch. Ed. Yu. S. Osipov ; 2004—2017, vol. 33). - ISBN 978-5-85270-370-5 .
• Rezvan E.A. Ummah // Islam: Encyclopedic Dictionary / Otv. ed. S. M. Prozorov . - M .: Science ,GDVL , 1991 . - S. 241. - ISBN 5-02-016941-2 .

in other languages

• Umma // Encyclopaedia of Islam . 2 ed . - Leiden: EJ Brill , 1960-2005. (paid)