TRANSMIGRATION OF SOULS. [TANASUKH.]
TREATY. Arabic ʿAhd (عهد). The observance of treaties is enjoined in the Qurʾān (Sūrah viii. 58; ix. 4); but if peace be made with aliens for a specified term (e.g. ten years), and afterwards the Muslim leader shall perceive that it is most advantageous for the Muslim interest to break it, he may in that case lawfully renew the war, after giving the enemy due notice. (Hidāyah, vol. ii. p. 151; Arabic edition, vol. ii. p. 423.)
The negotiations with John the Christian prince of Ailah, are an interesting incident in the life of Muḥammad, as indicating the spirit of Islām, in its early history, towards Christianity. In the first place, Muḥammad addressed to John the following letter:—
“To John (Yaḥyā), the son of Rūbah, and the chiefs of the tribe of Ailah. Peace be unto you! Praise be to God, besides whom there is no God. I will not fight against you until I receive an answer to this letter. Believe, or else pay tribute (jizyah). Be obedient unto God and to His Apostle. Receive the embassy of God’s Apostle, and honour them, and clothe them with excellent vestments, and not with inferior raiment. Specially honour Ḥāris̤ ibn Zaid, for as long as my messengers are pleased, so am I likewise. Ye know the tribute. If ye desire security by sea and by land, obey God and His Apostle, and you will be defended from every attack, whether by Arab or by foreigner. But if you oppose God and His Apostle, I will not accept a single thing from you until I have fought against you, and have slain your men, and have taken captive your women and children. For, in truth, I am God’s Apostle. Believe in God and in His Apostle, as you do in the Messiah the son of Mary; for truly he is the Word of God, and I believe in him as an apostle of God. Submit, then, before trouble reaches you. I commend this embassy to you. Give to Harmalah three measures of barley, for Harmalah hath indeed interceded for you. As for me, if it were not for the Lord and for this intercession, I would not have sent any embassy to you, until you had been brought face to face with my army. But now submit to my embassy, and God will be your protector, as well as Muḥammad and all his followers. This embassy doth consist of Shuraḥbīl, and Ubaiy, and Harmalah, and Ḥāris̤ ibn Zaid. Unto you is the protection of God and of his Apostle. If you submit, then peace be unto you, and convey the people of Maqnah back to their land.”
Upon receipt of this message, John hastened to Muḥammad’s camp, where he was received with kindness; and having made submission and having agreed to pay tribute of 300 dīnārs a year, the following treaty was ratified:—
“In the name of God, the Merciful, the Gracious. A treaty of Peace from God, and from Muḥammad the Apostle of God, granted unto Yaḥyā ibn Rūbah and unto the tribe of Ailah. For them who stay at home and for those who travel abroad, there is the security of God and the security of Muḥammad the Apostle of God, and for all who are with them, whether they belong to Syria, or to al-Yaman, or to the sea-coast. Whoso breaketh this treaty, his wealth shall not save him; it shall be the fair prize of whosoever shall capture him. It shall not be lawful to hinder the men of Ailah from going to the springs which they have hitherto used, nor from any journey they may desire to make, whether by land or by sea. This is the writing of Juhaim and Shuraḥbīl by the command of the Apostle of God.” [TOLERATION.]
TRINITY. Arabic Tas̤līs̤ (تثليث), “Holy Trinity,” as̤-S̤ālūs̤u ʾl-Aqdas (الثالوث الاقدس). The references to the doctrine of the Holy Trinity in the Qurʾān occur in two Sūrahs, both of them composed by Muḥammad towards the close of his career at al-Madīnah.
Sūrah iv. 169: “Believe, therefore, in God and His apostles, and say not ‘Three.’ ”
Sūrah v. 77: “They misbelieve who say, ‘Verily God is the third of three.’… The Messiah, the Son of Mary, is only a prophet, … and his mother was a confessor; they both ate food.”
Sūrah v. 116: “And when God shall say, ‘O Jesus son of Mary, hast thou said unto mankind: Take me and my mother as two Gods besides God?’”
Al-Baiẓāwī, in his remarks on Sūrah iv. 169, says, the Christians made the Trinity consist of Allāh, al-Masīh, and Maryam; and Jalālu ʾd-dīn takes the same view. Al-Baiẓāwī, however, refers to a view taken of the Trinity, by some Christians in his day, who explained it to be, Ab, Father, or the Essence of God; Ibn, Son, or the Knowledge of God; and Rūḥu ʾl-Quds, the Life of God.
In a work quoted in the Kashfu ʾz̤-Z̤unūn, entitled al-Insānu ʾl-Kāmil (written by the Shaik͟h ʿAbdu ʾl-Karīm ibn Ibrahīm al-Jīlī, lived A.H. 767–811) it is said that when the Christians found that there was at the commencement of the Injīl the superscription باسم الاب و الابن, i.e. ‘In the name of the Father and Son,’ they took the words in their natural meaning, and [thinking it ought to be Ab, father, Umm, mother, and Ibn, son] understood by Ab, the Spirit, by Umm, Mary, and by Ibn, Jesus; and on this account they said, S̤ālis̤u S̤alās̤atin, i.e. ‘(God is) the third of three.’ (Sūrah v. 77.) But they did not understand that by Ab is meant God Most High, by Umm, the Māhīyatu ʾl-Ḥaqāʾiq, or ‘Essence of Truth’ (Quidditas veritatum), and by Ibn, the Book of God, which is called the Wujūdu ʾl-Mut̤laq, or ‘Absolute Existence,’ being an emanation of the Essence of Truth, as it is implied in the words of the Qurʾān, Sūrah xiii. 9: ‘And with him is the Ummu ʾl-Kitāb, or the Mother of the Book.’
In the G͟hiyās̤u ʾl-Lug͟hāt, in loco, it is said the Nazarenes (Naṣārā) say there are three aqānīm, or principles, namely, wujūd (entity), ḥayāt (life), and ʿilm (knowledge); and also Ab (Father), Ibn (Son), and Rūḥu ʾl-Quds (Holy Spirit). [INJIL, JESUS, SPIRIT.]
It is evident neither Muḥammad nor his followers (either immediate or remote), had any true conception of the Catholic doctrine of the Trinity, but the elimination of the Holy Spirit from the Trinity is not strange, when we remember that Muḥammad was under the impression that the angel Gabriel was the Holy Ghost.
As the doctrine of the Holy Trinity is one of several stumbling-blocks to the Muslim’s reception of Christianity, we cannot refrain from quoting Charles Kingsley’s words addressed to Thomas Cooper on the subject (vol. i. p. 311):—
“They will say ‘Three in one’ is contrary to sense and experience. Answer, ‘That is your ignorance.’ Every comparative anatomist will tell you the exact contrary, that among the most common, though the most puzzling phenomena, is multiplicity in unity—divided life in the same individual of every extraordinary variety of case. That distinction of persons with unity of individuality (what the old schoolmen properly called substance) is to be met with in some thousand species of animals, e.g. all the compound polypes, and that the soundest physiologists, like Huxley, are compelled to talk of these animals in metaphysic terms, just as paradoxical as, and almost identical with, those of the theologian. Ask them then, whether granting one primordial Being who has conceived and made all other beings, it is absurd to suppose in Him, some law of multiplicity in unity, analogous to that on which He has constructed so many millions of His creatures.
“But my heart demands the Trinity, as much as my reason. I want to be sure that God cares for us, that God is our Father, that God has interfered, stooped, sacrificed Himself for us. I do not merely want to love Christ—a Christ, some creation or emanation of God’s—whose will and character, for aught I know, may be different from God’s. I want to love and honour the absolute, abysmal God Himself, and none other will satisfy me; and in the doctrine of Christ being co-equal and co-eternal, sent by, sacrificed by, His Father, that He might do His Father’s will, I find it; and no puzzling texts, like those you quote, shall rob me of that rest for my heart, that Christ is the exact counterpart of Him in whom we live, and move, and have our being.”
TROVES, Arabic luqt̤ah (لقطة), signifies property which a person finds on the ground, and takes away for the purpose of preserving it in the manner of a trust. A trove under ten dirhams must be advertised for some days, or as long as he may deem expedient; but if it exceed ten dirhams in value, he must advertise it for a year. (Hamilton’s Hidāyah, vol. ii. p. 266.)
TRUMPET. Arabic ṣūr (صور). According to the Qurʾān, Sūrah xxxix. 68, the trumpet at the Day of Resurrection shall be blown twice. “The trumpet shall be blown (first), and those who are in the heavens and in the earth shall swoon (or die), save whom God pleases. Then it shall be blown again, and, lo! they shall rise again and look on.”
Al-Baiẓāwī says there will only be these two blasts, but Traditionists assert there will be three. The blast of consternation, the blast of examination, and the blast of resurrection, for an account of which, see the article on RESURRECTION.
TUBBAʿ (تبع). A tribe of Ḥimyarite Arabs, whose kings were called Tubbaʿ, or “Successors,” and who are mentioned in the Qurʾān, Sūrah xliv. 35: “Are they better than the people of Tubbaʿ and those before them? Verily, they were sinners, and we destroyed them.”
T̤UHR (طهر). The period of purity in a woman. [DIVORCE, PURIFICATION.]
T̤ULAIḤAH (طليحة). A chief of the Banū Asad, a warrior of note and influence in Najd, who claimed to have a divine commission in the days of Muḥammad, but who was afterwards subdued by K͟hālid under the K͟halīfate of Abū Bakr, and embraced Islām. (Muir’s Life of Mahomet, vol. iv. p. 246.)
T̤ŪR (طور). Chaldee טוּר. (1) A mount. At̤-T̤ūr, the mountain mentioned in the Qurʾān, Sūrah ii. 60: “When we took a covenant (mīs̤āq) with you, and held the mountain (ready to fall) over you.” This is generally understood to mean T̤ūru Saināʾ, or Mount Sinai, but al-Baiẓāwī says it was Jabal Zubail. In Persian, the mountain is called Koh-i-T̤ūr, or the Mount of T̤ūr. In Arabia, the name is given to the Mount Sinai of Scripture.
(2) The title of the LIInd Sūrah of the Qurʾān.
TURBAN. Arabic ʿimāmah (عمامة), Persian dastār (دستار), Hindūstānī pagṛī (پگڑى). The turban, which consists of a stiff round cap, occasionally rising to a considerable height, and a long piece of muslin, often as much as twenty-four yards in length, wound round it, is amongst all Muḥammadan nations a sign of authority and honour, and it is held to be disrespectful to stand in the presence of a person of respectability, or to worship God, with the head uncovered. Shaik͟hs and persons of religious pretensions wear green turbans. The Coptic Christians in Egypt wear a blue turban, having been compelled to do so by an edict published in A.D. 1301. In some parts of Islām, it is usual to set apart a Maulawī, or to appoint a chief or ruler, by placing a turban on his head.
The mitre, bonnet, hood, and diadem of the Old Testament are but varieties of the head-dress known in the East as the turban. Canon Cook, in the Speaker’s Commentary, on Exodus xxviii. 4, 37, says the mitznepheth, or “mitre” of the Hebrew Bible, “according to the derivation of the word, and from the statement in verse 39, was a twisted band of linen coiled into a cap, to which the name mitre in its original sense closely answers, but which in modern usage would rather be called a turban.”
The term used in the Hebrew Bible for putting on the tzaniph or the peer, “bonnet,” in Ex. xxix. 9, Lev. viii. 13, is חָבַשׁ k͟hāvash, “to bind round,” and would therefore indicate that even in the earliest periods of Jewish history the head-dress was similar in character to that now seen amongst the different Muslim tribes of the world.
Josephus’ account of the high priest’s mitre is peculiar; he says (Antiquities, book iii. ch. vii. p. 3): “Its make is such that it seems to be a crown, being made of thick swathes, but the contexture is of linen, and it is doubled many times, and sewn together; besides which, a piece of fine linen covers the whole cap from the upper part, and reaches down to the forehead and the seams of the swathes, which would otherwise appear indecently; this adheres closely upon the solid part of the head, and is thereto so firmly fixed that it may not fall off during the sacred service about the sacrifices.”
The varieties of turban worn in the East are very great, and their peculiarities are best illustrated by the accompanying drawing, giving seventeen different styles of tying up the turban. In books written upon the subject in Eastern languages, it is said that there are not fewer than a thousand methods of binding the turban. It is in the peculiar method of tying on, and of arranging this head-dress, that not only tribal and religious distinctions are seen, but even peculiarities of disposition. The humility or pride, the virtue or vice, as well as the social standing of the individual, is supposed to be indicated in his method of binding the turban upon his head. And travellers in the East can at once distinguish the different races by their turbans. [DRESS.]
MUSLIM TURBANS. (A. F. Hole.)
TURK. Arabic tark or turk (ترك), pl. atrāk. (1) A term applied by European writers to express Muḥammadans of all nationalities. (See Book of Common Prayer, Collect for Good Friday.)
(2) An inhabitant of Turkomania, Turkistān or Transoxania, so named from Tur, eldest son of Farīdūn, to whom his father gave it for an inheritance. Also of those numerous races of Tartars who claim to be descended from Turk, a son of Japhet. Turki chin, a Chinese Tartar.
(3) A native of European or Asiatic Turkey. Halaku, the Turk, a grandson of Jengiz K͟hān, took Bag͟hdād A.D. 1258, and about forty years afterwards ʿUs̤mān (Othman) founded the ʿUs̤mānī or Turk dynasty at Constantinople, A.D. 1299. Hence Muḥammadans were known to the European Christians as Turks.
The word Turk is also frequently used by Sikh writers to express Muḥammadans in general. The terms Turk and Musulmān are employed interchangeably. [KHALIFAH.]
T̤UWĀ (طوى). A sacred valley mentioned in the Qurʾān:—
Sūrah xx. 12: “O Moses! verily I am thy Lord, so take off thy sandals; thou art in the sacred valley of T̤uwā, and I have chosen thee.”
Sūrah lxxix. 16: “Has the story of Moses reached you? when his Lord addressed him in the holy valley of T̤uwā.”