From the Treatise “Prayers of Seven Days” of al-Makzun al-Sinjari

Abstract

Annotated translation from Arabic of fragment of the treatise “Prayers of the Seven Days” by the medieval Nusayri sheikh al-Makzun al-Sinjari (c. 1188–1240). The introduction provides an overview of the principles of text construction, the basis of the author's approach to the religious weekly cycle, and it describes the problems of the Nusayri heritage study. This hymnographic treatise is built in the form of prayers for each day of the week; it contains the richest symbolism, dogmas, personalities of the Nusayri sacred history, and even internal polemics with opponents. The treatise belongs to the late period of Makzun's work, and his ideas appear in it in a concentrated form. The third of the translated prayers, the Friday prayer, has a powerful polemical charge. It denounces with particular force the internal enemies of this Shiite community, which are spoken of allegorically. An important focus of the prayers was the community spirit of the Nusayris – full of steadfastness in faith. The theme of reason and consciousness, is clearly heard, which makes the problems of these Nusayri prayers related, for example, to the central theme of reason among the Ismailis, another secret confessional community with which the Nusayris were in close contact at different periods of history. Although Makzun's Sufi method includes a passionate comprehension of divine secrets – through love and sensual images, in these later texts of his, the dominant role of reason and prudence is noticeable on the special Islamic path of obedience to God that he adopted.