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Interiors, Intentions, and the

Spirituality of Islamic Ritual


Practice
Paul R. Powers

The Arabic term niyya (intention) is prominent in texts of Islamic ritual


law. Muslim jurists require niyya in the heart during such ritual duties
as prayer, fasting, and pilgrimage. Western scholars often treat niyya as a
spiritual component of Islamic ritual. Muslim jurists, however, consistently treat niyya as a formal, taxonomic matter, a mental focus that
makes a given act into the specific named duty required by religious law.
Although the effort to thrust niyya into a spiritual role is meant to
defend Islam from charges of empty ritualism, it subtly reinforces the
characterization of Islam as rigidly legalistic. Much scholarship on niyya
belies the scholars own definition of proper religion centered on an
inner, individual, nonmaterial dimension of the self. Instead of trying to
wash away the formalism of niyya, I argue that scholars ought to recognize that such embodied practices are properly religious rather than
spiritually defective.
Western ankles wont do what Muslim ankles have done for a lifetime.
Asians squat when they sit, Westerners sit upright in chairs. When my
guide was down in a posture, I tried everything I could to get down as he
was, but there I was, sticking up. After about an hour, my guide left,
Paul R. Powers is an assistant professor of religious studies at Lewis and Clark College, Portland, OR
97219-7899.
My thanks go to Frank Reynolds, A. Kevin Reinhart, Alan Cole, Robert Kugler, James Riley,
Paul L. Heck, and Fred Donner for helpful comments on earlier drafts of this article and for
conversations that sharpened my thinking on this and related topics. Some of the research on which
this article is based was done in Amman, Jordan, 19951996, supported by a grant from the
Fulbright Program. I delivered an embryonic version of this article at the American Academy of
Religion Annual Meeting in 1999.
Journal of the American Academy of Religion June 2004, Vol. 72, No. 2, pp. 425459
DOI: 10.1093/jaarel/lfh036
2004 The American Academy of Religion

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Journal of the American Academy of Religion

indicating that he would return later. . . . I never even thought about sleeping. Watched by the Muslims, I kept practicing prayer posture. I refused
to let myself think how ridiculous I must have looked to them. After a
while, though, I learned a little trick that would let me get down closer to
the floor. But after two or three days, my ankle was going to swell.
Malcolm X: 333334

THIS PASSAGE POIGNANTLY illustrates the physicality of Islamic rit-

ual practice; Malcolm X is not worried here that he has misunderstood


Islamic theology but, rather, that he cannot achieve the proper prayer
posture.1 It is often said that Islam is a religion of orthopraxy more than
of orthodoxy, focused more on ritual practices and proper comportment
than on theological doctrines and philosophical reflection. Many observers see in Islam an emphasis on law over theology or philosophy and in
law an emphasis on getting the actions right. For example, Frederick
Denny notes that in Islam belief, interestingly, is perfected and proved
in service to God, service that includes worship acts performed according
to strict rules and procedures (1994: 112, see also 113, 174; cf. Gibb: 60).
A. Kevin Reinhart finds that Islamic morality is a morality of action. . . .
Only God knows hearts, say the legal sources, so one must judge by
actions. Right action is thus presumptive evidence of inward virtue
(1993: 24, cf. 1983). Certainly, Muslims have reached impressive heights
of theological sophistication, but many scholars recognize a certain pride
of place that Islamic societies have often given to proper comportment
and to the efforts to determine the rules of such comportment.
This view of Islam as praxis oriented reflects a welcome modification
of much previous western scholarship that saw Islam as mechanically ritualistic and thus ethically superficial. In 1878 Robert Durie Osborn said
of Islam there is no [other] creed the inner life of which has been so
completely crushed under an inexorable weight of ritual; Muslims distant view of God empties all religious acts of spiritual life and meaning and
reduces them to rites and ceremonies (4, cited in Tisdall: 57). William
Tisdall in 1910 claimed that the stress which [Islam] lays upon ceremonial observances, such as fasting, . . . the recitation of fixed prayers at
stated hours, the proper mode of prostration, etc., tends to make the
great mass of Muhammadans mere formalists; thus, it will be evident
that purity of heart is neither considered necessary nor desirable: in fact
it would be hardly too much to say that it is impossible for a Muslim
1
Of course, Malcolm X (see esp. chaps. 1718) did question the theological teachings of the
Nation of Islam and did revise his own theological beliefs. My point is simply that he also recognized
the crucial role of proper action.

Powers: Interiors, Intentions, and the Spirituality of Islamic Ritual Practice

427

(80, 88).2 In 1951 Gustave von Grunebaum remarked that Islam, its
prayer marked by peculiar formalism (13), left the believer satisfied
with an arid, if physically exacting liturgy (3). Islamic law itself has been
seen by some as the convoluted result of an overemphasis on the outward
forms of action; N. J. Coulson has argued that by the fifth century of
Islam jurists were so focused on elaborating the minutiae of right action
that the law they generated could not be supported by society in
practice. . . . Their fundamental concern was the study and development
of law for its own sake. Practical considerations were only employed
where this could be done without infringement of any theoretical principle (222223). For many observers, Islamic law suffers from obsessivecompulsive worry over the infinite potential forms of action, ironically so
focused on praxis as to be impractical. Thus, even when Muslim concern
with right action has been recognized, it has often been denigrated.
The newer standard of seeking a neutral description of Islam as praxis
centered is an advance in both accuracy and attitude, reflecting a general
increase in academic comfort with ritual and the body. Some scholars,
perhaps trying to atone for the sins of previous generations, have sought
to show that Islamic ritual (and praxis in general) is not just empty ritualism and cynical letter of the law compliance but, rather, is the surface
of a deeply spiritual experience. In their efforts some such scholars
have focused on the Arabic term niyya (pl. niyyat), usually translated as
intention. The term is prominent in Islamic ritual law, the discursive
field that provides the traditional normative framework of Islamic ritual
practice. Muslim jurists require (or at least recommend) niyya in acts of
worship (ibadat, sg. ibada)principally prayer, fasting, almsgiving, and
pilgrimage. In general, niyya is to be formulated at the beginning of an
act and maintained for the duration of that act; if the niyya is lost or
invalidated, this invalidates the act of worship and necessitates reperformance. Niyya is done with the heart and may or may not be
expressed with the tongue. In a hadith (a report of the words and deeds
of the Prophet) often cited in legal texts, the Prophet said: Actions are
defined by intentions, and to every person what he intends (innama alamal bi-l-niyyat wa-innama li-kull imriin ma nawa). As a pervasive,
subjective, individual, internal component of ritual, then, niyya seems
to be a good place to look for a deep or spiritual component of ritual.
However, such a spiritual treatment of niyya is more than the legal
sources will bear. Muslim jurists often treat niyya as one formal step in
the process of performing acts of ritual worship; niyya is a focusing of the
2
The latter phrase (taken from the 1906 second edition, with the same page number) is cited in
Goldziher: 19.

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Journal of the American Academy of Religion

mind on the act of worship. The right niyya for a given act is simply the
niyya to do that act. Its inclusion in the requirements of worship has
more to do with allowing an actor confidence that she or he has fulfilled a
duty than with a spiritual communing with the divine. Although the
effort to thrust niyya into a spiritual role is part of a wider effort to
defend Islam from charges of empty ritualism, this move in fact subtly
reinforces the characterization of Islam as superficial and legalistic. Much
scholarship on niyya belies the scholars own a priori definition of proper
religion as spiritual, revolving around an inner, individual, private,
nonmaterial, eternal (and thus preemptively important) dimension of the
self, the true self beneath an ephemeral surface. To be sure, Islam
encompasses some aspects that can accurately be described as spiritual,
but it also contains some aspects that are decidedly exoteric, materialist,
and this-worldly, treating the temporal and bodily as the locus of the
most important religious goings-on; niyya in ritual law is a part of this
embodied dimension of religion.
Rather than recognizing the value some Muslims ascribe at times to
this world and seeing such value as properly religious, scholars have
sought to make niyya the solution to a problem of their own making. Moreover, the apologetic effort to spiritualize Islamic ritual by spiritualizing
niyya participates in the troubled enterprise of seeking a sweeping, holistic characterization of Islam, merely substituting an ostensibly favorable characterization (deep/profound) for a negative one (superficial/
legalistic). In short, my thesis is first that niyya does not serve the
purposes attributed to it and, second, that these mischaracterizations of
niyya reflect a misguided effort to show that Islam really isin spite of
itself?deep and spiritual. I will begin by recounting the relevant
secondary scholarship and then compare this to the relevant Islamic legal
sources.

NIYYA AS THE HEART OF ISLAM: WHAT WESTERN


SCHOLARS SAY
The topic of intentions in Islamic law has received relatively little attention from western scholars, with much of that focused on contract law
and of little relevance here (Arabi 1997, 1998; Johansen; Linant de Bellefonds; Messick 1998, 2001; Rosen 1985, 1989, 1995, 1999). As for the
place of niyya in ritual law, a handful of scholars have addressed this.
However, if one were to read only this material (and not the primary
sources of Islamic ritual law or Muslim secondary scholarship on the
topic), one would be left with a significantly skewed understanding. The

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429

secondary scholarship often depicts niyya as some kind of spiritual heart


of Islam, the solution to the problem of a putative Islamic overconcern for things exterior.
To begin, a still-influential early giant of western Islamic studies,
Ignaz Goldziher, in his 1910 Introduction to Islamic Theology and Law,
strives to demonstrate that Islam is more than law and the performance
of ceremonial acts. He declares that in the Quran (2:177, 22:34, 37) the
intention behind an act is the criterion for the religious value of the act
(18) and that the highest value is ascribed to ikhla5, unclouded purity of
heart (40:14); taqwa al-qulub, piety of heart (22:32); [and] qalb salim, a
whole heart (26:89) (18). He concludes that such are the criteria
by which the believers religious worth is assessed. . . . They are extended
over the entire range of religious life by the doctrine that niya [=niyya], the
disposition or intention behind a religious act, serves to gauge the value
of that act. According to this doctrine, a tincture of selfish or hypocritical
motive deprives any good work of its value (1819).3 For Goldziher,
such emphasis on the disposition or intention behind a religious act is
clearly a good thing, the mark of a religion with the proper values and
priorities, and he lauds the centrality of such concerns in Islam:
The value of works is determined according to the intention that
prompts them: this is one of the supreme principles of religious life in
Islam. One may infer the importance of this principle for the Muslim
from the fact that a statement of it is inscribed over one of the main
entrances of al-Azhar, the mosque in Cairo that is the much-visited center of theological learning in Islam. It reminds all who enter, whether
their mind is set on study or devotion: Deeds are judged according to
intentions; each mans accounts are drawn up according to his intentions. This hadith rose to be the guiding thought of all religious action
in Islam. (42)

Here Goldziher cites the key hadith passage (already cited above) that is the
proof text Muslim jurists most often employ.4 Without citing any
Muslim commentary on the topic (aside from noting the al-Azhar

3
Goldziher uses this observation explicitly to refute William Tisdalls condemnation of Islam as
rigidly legalistic, quoted above. Goldziher remarks: Thus no unprejudiced observer will accept the
Reverend Tisdalls dictum that it will be evident that purity of heart is neither considered necessary
nor desirable: in fact it would be hardly too much to say that it is impossible for a Muslim (19,
citing Tisdall: 88). As I show, however, Goldziher seeks only to salvage a putative original ethical
vision of Islam that he finds lacking in most of Islamic history.
4
Goldziher (see 4143) cites several other hadith that seem to fit his characterization; these are not
common in fiqh texts. Goldziher presents decontextualized Quran and hadith passages together
with his own exegesis, without exploring whether Muslim commentators agree.

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Journal of the American Academy of Religion

epigram), Goldziher presents niyya as nothing less than a supreme principle and the guiding thought of all religious action in Islam.
From this properly spiritual early phase, Goldziher depicts Islam on a
trajectory of decline, from the early periods high ethical standards centered on internal dispositions and intentions, toward a later, degraded
religious sense dominated by legalistic concerns for outward practice. He
pulls no punches when discussing classical Islamic law: This cultivation
of jurisprudence, which reached its prime as early as the second Islamic
century, contributed a new element to the intellectual world of Islam: fiqh,
the science of religious law, a science which, perverted by casuistry, was
soon to become disastrous for religious life and religious learning (44).
This disaster was precipitated by the establishment of consensus
(ijma) as a doctrine of the infallibility of the consensus ecclesiae and the
attendant emergence of a class of legal experts with inordinate control
over the form Islam would take (Goldziher: 50).5 These developments led
to the adulteration of the Quran and the Prophets ethical vision, for even
if the scholars of fiqh did not intend to embitter the life of the Muslim by
imprisoning him in a stockade of legal restraints, their work led Islam
into soul-destroying pedantry (Goldziher: 55, 62). The profound, interioristic religion of the Prophet gave way to excessive legalism as the theological spirit was trained to . . . quibbling discriminations. . . . that proved
detrimental to the inwardness of religion, undermining true piety, the
devotion of the heart, in perversion of the religious ideal (Goldziher:
63, 66). Fortunately (in Goldzihers eyes), the Sufis, especially al-Ghazali
(d. 505/1111), worked hard to rescue the inwardness of religion from the
clutches of quibbling religious lawyers and restored inward religiosity
to Islam by rejecting legalistic casuistry and the hairsplitting of the dogmatics of the kalam (dialectical theology) (Goldziher: 66, 158159).6
It could hardly be clearer that Goldziher harbors an a priori definition of good religion against which various aspects of Islam are to be
measured.7 For Goldziher, religion with a proper theological spirit is
5
Goldziher admits, however, that ijma provides Islam with a potential for freedom of movement
and a capacity for evolution that explains the impressive adaptability of Islam (52).
6
My point is not that al-Ghazali did not make these arguments but, rather, that they are not, from
a scholarly point of view, the restoration of the true and proper form of religion that Goldziher wants
them to be. Neither al-Ghazalis work nor anything else licenses Goldzihers sweeping claim that
amid this hairsplitting struggle over formulas and definitions, Sufism alone harbored a tolerant
spirit (165).
7
For an interesting study of Goldzihers personal views, see Patai. Raphael Patai is generally
sympathetic toward Goldziher, yet he documents Goldzihers distaste for much of the contemporary
Islamic world, his disdain for foreigners (7071, 90), and his preference for spiritual mystery over
embodied practice. See, e.g., the remarkable entry of 1 October 1873, recounting a visit to an
Istanbul synagogue (Patai: 99100).

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inward and thus truly pious; niyya, elevated by Goldziher to the level
of supreme principle, both constitutes and demonstrates this spiritual
piety. Straining to find the good in it, he reasons that Islam must have
had a proper spirit at one point but that it slipped away in a wash of legalism and distracted theologizing, only to be partly salvaged by Sufism. For
all his historical-critical insight (he was one of the pioneers of western
hadith criticism), Goldziher is wedded to a contrived vision of the golden
age of the Prophet, against which later Islam largely pales.
If Goldzihers work is a locus classicus of this view of niyya as the
heart of Islam, it is hardly alone. This same set of views is reflected in
A. J. Wensincks brief but dense entry on niyya in the influential Encyclopaedia of Islam. Here Wensinck asserts that in the canonical hadith
(which, generally speaking, reflects the state of things up to the middle
of the 2nd/8th century) niyya has not yet acquired in this literature
the technical meaning and limitation that it displays in fiqh works;
instead, niyya here has the common meaning of intention (1954: 66).
Wensinck then recapitulates Goldzihers treatment of niyya as an inner,
better thing:
In this [common, nontechnical] sense, [niyya] is of great importance.
Al-Bukhari opens his collection with a tradition, which in this place is
apparently meant as a motto. It runs: Works are only rendered efficacious by their intention. . . . This tradition occurs frequently in the
canonical collections. It constitutes a religious and moral criterion superior
to that of the law. The value of an ibada, even if performed in complete
accordance with the precepts of the law, depends upon the intention of
performer, and if this intention should be sinful, the work would be valueless. For, adds the tradition [i.e., hadith] just mentioned, every man
receives only what he has intended; or his wages shall be in accordance
with his intention. (1954: 66, emphasis added)8

Wensinck here, like Goldziher, gives his own exegesis of the hadith, not
that of Muslim sources. Having just indicated that the relevant hadith
predates the technical developments of fiqh, Wensinck nonetheless then
claims that the meaning of niyya in those hadith constitutes a religious
and moral criterion superior to that of the law and applies this prior
usage to fiqh al-ibadat. Niyya certainly carries a less technical meaning
in the cited hadith than in fiqh, yet Wensinck arbitrarily holds the
8
Wensinck cites one other hadith: There is no hidjra after the capture of Mecca, only holy war
and intention (1954: 66). This is the only other hadith about niyya to appear regularly in fiqh,
though much less frequently than the other one I have noted.

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former superior and measures the latter against it. For Wensinck, errant
niyya is sinful, a moral interpretation he does not support with
evidence. He next notes that both some hadith and some later sources
(i.e., Lisan al-Arab and al-Ghazalis Ihya ulum al-din) indicate that
the intention of the faithful is better than his work (1954: 67), thus
suggesting that at least some Muslims returned to this prior, superior,
antinomian sensibility. Wensinck follows Goldziher in seeing a trajectory
from hadith, the high point of religious depth, so to speak, downward/
outward into fiqh, and then back upward/inward through al-Ghazali
and Sufism.
Wensincks Encyclopaedia of Islam entry is essentially a condensed
version of portions of an earlier and largely overlooked Dutch article, his
1920 De Intentie in Recht, Ethiek en Mystiek der Semietische Volken.9
This article covers both Islamic and Jewish treatments of intention in a
range of textual genres, especially ritual law and mystical writings. It is
careful and thorough within its limits, and it is unfortunate that it has not,
to my knowledge, been translated into a more widely read language and,
moreover, that the Encyclopaedia of Islam entry loses most of the articles
subtlety. For his Islamic sources, Wensinck first focuses on the term
niyya in fiqh al-ibadat, recounting basic technical details such as the
timing and location of niyya (i.e., in the qalb, heart). This material is
accurate and clearheaded about the formalism of the sources, noting, for
example, the jurists insistence that the niyya correspond closely to the
ritual action it accompanies (e.g., the noon prayer must include niyya
for that prayer, not the evening prayer [Wensinck 1920: 112]).
Wensinck (1920: 121138) then goes on to explore ethical and Sufi
materials, especially al-Ghazalis mystical/ethical treatise, Ihya ulum al-din,
and again provides a responsible account of his sources. Unlike in the
encyclopedia entry, here Wensinck keeps his genres distinct, allowing
fiqh materials their independent due (even if his agenda is disconcertingly broadi.e., a holistic account of intentions in the two Semitic
monotheisms).
Joseph Schachts important 1964 Introduction to Islamic Law
includes a chapter on General Concepts that gives primacy of place to
niyya: A fundamental concept of the whole of Islamic religious law, be
it concerned with worship or with law in the narrow sense, is the niyya
(intent) (116). Schacht, characteristically terse, asserts a historical trajectory that is already becoming familiar:
9
My access to this Dutch text is limited to a partial translation that I personally commissioned; my
thanks go to Alex van der Haven for his invaluable assistance (although any errors in my interpretation
of this text are entirely my own responsibility).

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[Niyya] applied originally to acts of worship; the religious obligation is


discharged not by outward performance as such but only if it is done
with a pious intent. But Islamic orthodoxy insisted on the performance, and
niyya, from being a state of mind, became an act of will directed towards
performing a religious duty; it must, as a rule, be explicitly formulated,
at least mentally. An act of worship without niyya is invalid, and so is the
niyya without the act. (116, emphasis added)

Schachts observations about technical details are correct, as is his observation of a shift from a general to a technical meaning specific to ritual
contexts (a development we have seen asserted by Wensinck). Schacht,
however, subtly suggests a devolution from niyya as pious to niyya as
mere will directing mechanical, orthodox performance of ritual
duties.
By now a picture is emerging of niyya as a spiritual component of
Islamic ritual, one that was endorsed as such by the Prophet himself, fell
out of favor with the jurists, and reemerged with the rise of Sufism.
Goldziher, Wensinck, and Schacht share the idea that in its early usage,
niyya was an ethical matter before law made Islam into a legalistic
religion. Wensinck and Schacht grudgingly recognize that medieval
fiqh treats niyya formalistically; Goldziher and Wensinck restlessly
yearn for Sufism to (re)inspire the faith, whereas Schacht simply
watches it ossify.
Among the most significant recent studies of niyya in Islamic ritual is
a 1990 essay by Frederick Denny.10 Denny treats niyya as the ethical and
spiritual core of Islamic ritual practice, forcefully asserting that niya [=niyya]
is believed to emanate from the worshipers innermost being. It safeguards the sincerity (ikhla5) of the ritual performance. . . . Only by a sort
of descent into the selfs core before resurfacing with correct intention in
the presence of ones creator may the Muslim truly commune with God.
There is thus an ethical relationship between worshipper and Lord. . . .
[N]iya ensures spiritual spontaneity as well as integrity in worship
(1990: 209). Denny gives little evidence for such strong claims, and he
provides no citations (though he implies that his inspiration here is alGhazali), so that he appears to be trying to characterize all of Islam.
Dennys project (i.e., exploring the ethical dimensions of Islamic ritual
law) strikes me as a good one, and the technical aspects of niyya that
10
Another scholar, John R. Bowen (1993, 1997), has also paid attention to niyya in Islamic ritual
contexts, studying a dispute in the Gayo region of Indonesia in the 1980s and 1990s over whether to
make a verbal pronouncement of intent to worship. Bowens work suggests that there is yet much
work to be done exploring how medieval Islamic law relates to later Islamic doctrine and practice
and that niyya can be understood very differently by different Muslims.

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Journal of the American Academy of Religion

Denny does discuss are accurate as far as they go.11 But from this starting
point, he runs quickly into territory uncharted by Islamic ritual law. In a
passage reminiscent of Goldziher, Denny comments on the hadith:
Works are in the intentions . . . is a frequently cited hadith. This saying
is encountered in many contextsritual, legal and othersand serves as
a universal ethical principle among Muslims. In the case of ritual, there is a
kind of dialectic between niya and the performance of the various acts of
worship. . . . Individual and personal moral responsibility are required for
niya and without it the act would be devoid of ethical meaning (1990: 209,
emphasis added). Niyya here emanate[s] from the worshipers innermost
being and serves as a universal ethical principle among Muslims, giving ritual practice its ethical meaning. This ethical meaning Denny
defines as a communing with God, for niyya puts one in the presence
of ones creator. In short, niyya is again placed by a scholar at the heart
of Muslim spirituality; the acts of Islamic ritual law have no value save
the spiritual one they supposedly get from niyya.
Denny goes on to argue a point seemingly similar to that which I am
making myself, that Islamic ritual practice has often been central to
Muslim religious life and that this praxis-centered quality is easily misunderstood and debased by outside observers (especially those accustomed to certain Christian antinomian attitudes).12 However, Denny does
not accept this praxis orientation as properly religious but, rather, seeks
to defend Islam against charges of legalism by asserting that authentic
Islam really is spiritual, and niyya is central to his argument. My point
here is subtle but crucial, so I will quote Denny at length:
It appears that ritual acts are at the heart of Islamic ethics, and in fact are
their source and ground to the extent that they function as a means of
drawing near to God in a predictable pattern. This supremely valuable
relationship must, then, be hedged about with the protection and
minute regulation of law. Niya is the basic moral act involved in ritual.
The niya ensures the validity of the specific ritual to be performed, and
the performance itself reinforces the integrity of both the individual and
her or his moral community, to adapt Durkheims phrase. . . . When
niya and the core meaning of akhlaq [i.e., Islamic ethics] are considered,
11
For example, he rightly notes the requirement that niyya immediately precede and endure
throughout most acts of worship, though he mistakenly indicates that niyya must be verbalized
(jurists disagree about this). Additionally, Denny notes without elaboration that niya is itself a ritual
act, of course, and as such it is defined and explicated in the fiqh books (1990: 209).
12
Denny observes that Christian thinkers at least since the Apostle Paul have denounced legalism
in relations between humankind and God. The history of Christian liturgy, however, displays much
concern for regulation and decorum, although there has never been a universally uniform cultus
since the primitive church (1990: 210).

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435

along with the flexible five principles [i.e., required, recommended,


permitted, detested, and forbiddenthe possible assessments in Islamic
law], Islamic ritual may be understood to be anything but legalistic in its
authentic form. Many western critics of Islam who have sometimes
decried what they have perceived to be rote repetition in Islamic worship have known little about the inner dimensions of Muslim piety,
whose patterns and habits in and outside the mosque are informed and
energized by religion as a complete way of life. The legal elements are
strong and determinative, not because they are the possession of a legalistic people, but because they safeguard the spiritual path of a serious
people. . . . [W]e need to be sensitively aware of the intimate relationship
between ritual, legal, and ethical norms in the Islamic scheme of things.
This relationship derives from the common Semitic ethical monotheism
that Jews, Christians, and Muslims share, and that at its most authentic
always bases itself on God as the sole source of value. (1990: 209210,
emphasis added)

Denny recognizes the centrality of ritual praxis and that Islamic ritual
takes place in a social, this-worldly context; I welcome his observation
that Muslim rituals are potentially interwoven with serious ethical reflection and, yes, spiritual concerns. But Denny does not assert that one
ought simply to accept the possibility that Muslim ritual practice might
place a strong emphasis on form, on bodily posture, verbal utterance,
and simple mental focus; rather, he seeks to erase this formalism with a
niyya-based spirituality. I take issue with his implicit claim that to be
properly moral, properly religious, means to be inwardly focused and
especially that niyya, as the basic moral act involved in ritual, is what
makes Muslims praxis properly moral and religious. Denny seems to be
trying to save Islam from itself. No doubt Dennys heart is in the right
place, perhaps a significant improvement over Goldziher, but still he produces a profound, if subtle, distortion.
In sum, much of what has been written by western scholars on the
topic of niyya in Islamic ritual law tends to devalue the physical, bodily,
praxis-oriented qualities so central to Islamic ritual law and practice.
Even when they seek to defend and not denigrate, as with Denny, they
imply that Islamic approaches to ritual are defective to the extent that
they really are temporal, bodily, and this-worldly. Earlier generations of
scholars perhaps reflected the colonialist and missionary biases of their
times; the more recent work is surely politically more benign, with an
honest goal of achieving greater understanding. But the later work retains
a surprising level of antinomian, antiritual animus. If we are spared a
view of Muhammadan mere formalism, with its inner life completely
crushed under an inexorable weight of ritual, then it is in part because

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niyya has been transformed by scholarly alchemy into the lever that pries
open the spiritual heart of Islam. As we turn next to the primary sources
of Islamic ritual law, we will see that niyya is not the spiritual phenomenon it has been made out to be.

NIYYA IN ISLAMIC LEGAL SOURCES


That the secondary sources tend to misconstrue the meaning and role of
the term niyya in Islamic ritual law is fairly easily demonstrated (though
it requires somewhat technical evidence). A reading of the medieval
manuals of Islamic law shows that the jurists do not treat niyya as a spiritual component, as many of the secondary sources imply.13 Rather,
niyya is one step among several in the proper performance of an act of
ritual worship; it is, in short, what one does with ones mind while doing
other things with ones body. One might say that the jurists treat the
heart/mind (qalb, the locus, as we will see, of niyya) as coextensive with
the body, subject to the will, and required to be in proper alignment for
the act of worship to be proper and valid. Niyya is the mental state
accompanying an act of worship, and the intentionality, the aboutness
of the mind, while doing the ritual actthe intention that I perform
this act. As such, niyya defines a given action as a particular kind of
action, a specific, named type of action, so that it can be located in the
legal taxonomy of actions. Niyya to pray, for example, helps make a
given set of words and gestures into prayer. The function that medieval
jurists assign to niyya is not a vaguely spiritual one but, in fact, an
epistemological and taxonomic one; niyya allows the ritual actor the
knowledge that a given action is the legally stipulated one, that one has
fulfilled ones duty.
Niyya in the legal sources is indeed subjective, internal, and individual, done by the heart/mind and unavailable for direct assessment by
anyone other than the actor him- or herself. But it is not the supreme
principle of religious life in Islam emanating from the worshipers
innermost being, a descent into the selfs core placing one in the

13
The medieval period from which I draw my sources spans from the end of the formative
period (roughly the end of the ninth century C.E.) to just preceding the modern period (roughly the
nineteenth century and later); this is a long period during which Islamic law certainly developed, but
for our present purposes the jurists treatment of niyya in this period can be considered sufficiently
stable as to disregard changes. By manuals of Islamic law I mean works of positive law (generally
called furu or usul), the normative rule books, as distinguished from works of legal theory (usul
al-fiqh), collections of juristic responsa (fatawa), and court records. I will not pay systematic
attention to variations (ikhtilafat) among schools (madhahib); some disagreements arose regarding
niyya in fiqh al-ibadat, and I will mention these as they affect my argument.

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presence of ones creator. As I will note below, some Muslim sources do


treat niyya in this spiritual fashion, but because a central strand of
Islamic normative discourse does not, we cannot simply characterize
niyya as spiritual; nor can we in turn use niyya to characterize all
Islam, as the secondary scholarship has too often done.
Fiqh manuals include a set of materials collectively known as fiqh alibadat, a term often translated as ritual law. The ibadat include the
so-called five pillars of Islam, as well as rules for purification and other
ritual and religious concerns. As previously noted, the key term for intention in the ibadat is niyya.14 The term does not appear in the Qur an.15
As noted above, it does appear in several widely accepted hadith, where it
displays the general meaning of intention but not the technical sense
found in works of fiqh. The most importantbecause most commonly
cited in fiqh manualsof these hadith is the following (already cited
above): Actions are defined by intentions, and to every person what he
intends (innama al-amal bi-l-niyyat wa-innama li-kull imriin ma
nawa). So whoever emigrated [i.e., participated in the hijra] for God and
His Messenger, then his emigration was for God and Gods Messenger,
and whoever emigrated for worldly benefits or for a woman to marry, his
emigration was what he emigrated for.16 This hadith is citedin full or
often only in part (often the equivalent of the first sentence in the
English)in virtually all fiqh manuals; in many, it is the only hadith cited
in regard to niyya. Given this fact, it is striking that the hadith sheds so
little light on the legal meaning of niyya. The hadith is vague in its usage
of the termhere it has very general connotations of plan or purpose. The hadith says nothing of acts of worship or of requiring or recommending niyya as an element of any action. Rather, it seems to suggest
that niyya is a pervasive fact of human life, the motive behind action. On
its face, this hadith has a vaguely moralistic tone, as the Prophet apparently calls for honesty and piety in behavior and implies that God knows

14
Wensinck notes that in some instances adjmaa is used, where the later language has nawa
(1954: 66). The most common verbs used to indicate the act of formulating or having niyya are
simply verbal forms of the root n-w-y, from which the noun niyya is derived. Also note that, here
and throughout, my translation is in the present tense, rather than the literal perfect tense often used
in the Arabic, to better convey the deontological sense of the text.
15
The root for this term, n-w-y, appears only once in the Qur an, in surat al-Anam, 6:95. Here the
root is used in the word al-nawa, meaning fruit or date pit. This highlights an etymological aspect
of the root, illustrating its connotation of seed, kernel, core, central inner element, and so forth.
However, neither the noun nor the verb form of the root appears in the Quran with the meaning
intention.
16
This hadith is found in most major collections (see Wensinck 1969: s.v. niyya); Wensinck cites
some twenty-five hadith employing the term niyya. However, the one given here is the only one of
these consistently cited in fiqh manuals.

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the motives behind actions and judges accordingly. Though it may seem
enticing, this hadith frankly tells us little, and we have no license to follow
Goldziher, for example, and read a sweeping spiritual message into it. In
short, neither the Quran nor the hadith tells us much about the specific
meanings of niyya in fiqh. For that, we must search in the texts of fiqh
al-ibadat themselves. The analysis below will necessarily venture into the
technical details of Islamic law, and though the uninitiated may find this
tricky terrain, it is exactly my point that such technical details cannot be
overlooked because the very concepts in question are partly constituted
by such detail.

Purification (Tahara) and Prayer (Salat)


Following the arrangement of the primary sources, we begin with
purification (tahara). Purification is required before certain ritual acts
(e.g., prayer, Quran recitation, hajj, etc.); it is accomplished by wet
ablutions (wudu), dry ablutions (tayammum), and bathing (ghusl).17
Causes and states of impurity can be either major, which necessitates
a full-body bath (ghusl), or minor, which necessitates ablutions of the
head/face and extremities.18 Many rules govern the specific elements of
each act of purification (e.g., the specific causes of impurity, the quality
of the purifying water and its container, etc.). Most jurists agree that
niyya is a required element of wudu and tayammum (though they vary
on ghusl).
A few passages from Abu Ishaq al-Shirazis (d. 476/1083) al-Muhadhdhab
illustrate the usage of niyya here. In his first mention of niyya, he
remarks: As for purity from minor impurity (hadath), it is [attained by]
wudu, ghusl, and tayammum, and nothing of this is valid without niyya,
[in accord with] the saying of the Prophet, Actions are defined by intentions, and to every person what he intends (1:69). The timing and
duration are specified clearly: It is preferred that one intend from the
start of wudu until the completion of wudu and that one continue the
niyya [throughout] (al-Shirazi: 1:69). Next, Shirazi raises the prospect of
the loss of niyya: If one formulates niyya at the point of washing the
face, and then the niyya slips (azabat) [from ones mind], it [the washing] is valid, because [the washing of the face] is the first of the obligatory
actions. If one formulates niyya at that point, the niyya includes all the
17
Technically, for most jurists tayammum does not produce purity as such but, rather, licenses the
performance of the ibadat even in the absence of purity. Tayammum, a sort of dry pantomime of
wudu, allows one to perform rituals, especially 5alat, in the absence of ample clean water.
18
Major impurity is caused mainly by sexual fluids and menstrual and postpartum bleeding,
whereas minor impurity is caused by a wide range of acts and substances (e.g., urination, defecation,
sleep, etc.).

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[subsequent] obligatory actions (1:69). Niyya is understood here as a


discreet act, at a discreet moment in time; it is a step in the process that
somehow licenses that which follows or accompanies it. It is lost by
slipping from the mind, not by sin.
Shirazi discusses the object of niyya or, we might say, what is
intended while intending. Acts of purification raise peculiar issues in this
regard: The characteristic nature (5ifa) of niyya is intending the removal
of minor impurity or [intending] purity from minor impurity, and either
is valid, because one intends the goal (al-maq5ud), and this removes the
minor impurity. Intending purity without qualification (al-tahara almutlaqa) is not valid because the purity could be purity from minor
impurity or from major impurity, so it is not valid to have an unspecified
niyya (al-Shirazi 1:70). So one may formulate the niyya negatively,
intending the absence (or removal) of impurity, or positively, intending
the presence of purity; Shirazi sees these as equivalent. Moreover, one
may intend either the act of purification (e.g., that I become pure) or
the act of ritual worship for which one is purifying (e.g., that I [become
prepared to] pray). Shirazi also considers the prospect of wudu producing mundane effects in addition to ritual purification: If one intends
by his purification the removal of hadath and also cooling off and getting
physically clean, the wudu is valid . . . because one thus intends removal
of hadath and combines it with things that are not incompatible with it
(la yunafihi), [although] there are those among our colleagues who say:
Such wudu is not valid because it divides (ashrak) the niyya into [both]
an act of worship (qurba) and something else (1:70; cf. al-Shafii: 1:44).
In Shirazis opinion, multiple compatible goals are acceptable in wudu,
although some jurists disagree. Note that cooling and cleaning are not
presented here as unintentional consequences but, rather, as part of the
object of the niyya; even though cooling off is not given a spiritual cast
here, it is accompanied by niyya.
Already we may begin to entertain doubts that niyya refers to a state
of spiritual reverie and communion with the divine. It first appears as
one step among many in the specific formal procedures of the ibadat.
Niyya here and above connects the mind to the outward actions, not the
spirit to God and the heavens. While considering niyya in tahara, jurists
often discuss the location (mahall) of niyya, which they agree is the qalb,
a term usually translated as heart. The legal texts do not explicitly discuss the implications of this fact; they simply assert it.19 But the texts
19
For example, al-Musili says that niyya is done in the heart because it is an action of the heart
(amal al-qalb) (1:4748). Shirazi (1:69) and Ibn Qudama (2:132) similarly insist that the location
of niyya is the heart and further that niyya is a silent, mental phenomenon, though it can be made

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reflect the prevailing belief in medieval Islamicate lands that the heart
(qalb, located in the chest) is the seat of the intellect, the aql (mind or
rational faculty [Gardet: 486; Massignon 1922: 468, cited in Gardet: 486;
Massignon 1997: 198199, passim; al-Qarafi: 1718]). The qalb was not
seen either as simply a blood-pumping organ or as the seat of the emotions
but, rather, as what Wensinck (without elaborating on the implications)
calls the central organ of intellect and attention (1954: 66). Contrary
to contemporary western folk understandings, the heart was not seen as
the locus of bodily lusts, which were taken to come from the liver and bile
(Massignon 1922: 489n7, cited in Gardet: 486). This was not only in keeping with the antecedent Semitic understandings of the heart; it was also
unequivocally endorsed by the Quran (Gardet: 486).20 Classical fiqh texts
reflect this understanding of the heart as the organ of intellection, and even
many modern legal scholars retain this view (al-Ashqar: 115117; Bahnasi:
68). In the legal texts the heart is an organ of thought, and niyya, as a
function of that organ, is a rational mental phenomenon. (Loose translation of qalb as heart may itself support romantic misreadings of niyya
in fiqh, so I will use mind or heart/mind instead.)
Medieval Muslim jurists had at their disposal a well-developed vocabulary for things of the spirit; we have to assume, I think, that they
deliberately chose not to use it when discussing niyya. Classical Arabic
religious and legal texts generally employ a sophisticated terminology for
various aspects of the self, including ruh (soul, spirit), nafs (spirit, self),
irada (will), fikr (thought), ilm (knowledge, understanding), the various
emotions, and so forth (see Calverley; Massignon 1997; al-Qarafi: 716;
Smith and Haddad: esp. 1721, 3637, 5659, 121125). The terms ruh
and nafs are largely interchangeable, and in what Calverley calls the
dominant Muslim doctrine, the spirit/soul is seen as corporeal, different in quiddity (al-mahiyya) from [the] sensible body, of the nature of
light, high, light in weight, living, moving, interpenetrating the bodily
members as water in the rose (882). Created to be eternal, it leaves the
body temporarily in sleep and leaves again to undergo the first judgment
after death; it then normally returns to the body to await resurrection
during the Last Days. Thus, the spirit in much Islamic thought is itself
seen in corporeal terms, capable of sensations and actions and closely
linked to the physical body. The Aristotelian notion of an incorporeal

more emphatic with a simultaneous verbal pronouncement. On the question of whether niyya
entails a verbal pronouncement, a statement of intent, medieval fiqh texts are consistent in treating
niyya as a mental, nonverbal action/state. Niyya is closely associated with certain verbal formulas,
especially in salat and the hajj, but remains distinct from those utterances.
20
Gardet cites, e.g., Quran 7: 101, 179; 22:46; 26:89; 30:59; 39:45; etc.

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spirit did find a niche in Islamic thought, especially via al-Ghazali and
theistic philosophy, but, Calverley notes, it has never dominated Islam
as has the corporeal doctrine (881).
Most jurists say nothing about the nafs or ruh when discussing niyya;
they simply assert that niyya is located in the qalb. In his treatise on niyya
al-Qarafi asserts that niyya is indeed an aspect or function (hal) of the
soul (nafs), at least indirectly, because niyya is a function of the mind
(aql), which in turn is among the properties (5ifat, ahwal) of the soul. In
discussing the location of niyya, al-Qarafi (17) asserts that niyya is a part
or type (naw) of the will (irada) and a function of the mind (aql). As the
Quran establishes that the aql is seated in the qalb, so too the niyya is
seated in the qalb. Moreover, if it is established that the aql is in the qalb,
it must be among our axioms that the nafs is in the qalb, because everything related to the aql such as thought and knowledge and the like are
properties (5ifat) of the nafsand, further, it is the nature of the soul to
give rise to knowledge and thought, and it is this that is called aql (alQarafi: 18). So niyya, being related to the aql, is a property of the soul.
However, this does not lead al-Qarafi into a discussion of niyya as the
spiritual conduit between humans and God, in part because he clearly
holds the dominant corporeal view of the soul: The soul (al-nafs), he
says, is a subtle [light, latif] body dwelling transparently within the
physical [heavy, kathif] body, from which it is distinguished like a fetus
(18). The soul does not appear here as the unfathomable inner depths of
the self but, rather, as a corporeal entity with a place in the body. AlQarafi is primarily concerned to show that niyya is located in the qalb. He
ends up demonstrating the indirect link of niyya to the soul but shows no
interest in the spiritual implications of this fact.
Al-Qarafi does, however, shed light on the juristic understanding of
niyya in the ibadat and of the ibadat themselves. He explicitly asserts
that niyya is that which defines a particular act of worship, distinguishing
it from other actions: The rationale for the requirement [of niyya] is distinguishing (tamyiz) acts of worship (al-ibadat) from ordinary actions
(al-adat), and distinguishing among levels of acts of worship (20,
cf. 910). The term al-Qarafi uses here, tamyiz, is central to his definition
of niyya. As Sherman Jackson observes, for al-Qarafi, the role of intention
[is] to isolate (yumayyiz [a verbal form of the word tamyiz]) the specific
objective for which a willful act is performed (200). Further, al-Qarafi
asserts:
[Niyya] distinguishes that which is for God from that which is not, so
the action is fit for glorification (faya5luhu al-fil lil-tazim). For
example, bathing (ghusl) may accomplish cooling off and cleaning up,

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but can also accomplish a commanded act of worship (ibada). If one


intends specifically that the act is for God, the person accomplishes the
glorification of the Lord with this bathing (fayaqau tazim al-abd lilrabb bidhalika al-ghusl). In the absence of niyya . . . fasting (al-5awm) is
[merely] lack of nourishment. (20)

Niyya not only defines an act but also allows certain acts to accomplish
the glorification of the Lord and the fulfillment of divine commands. It
does this not by moral soul-searching but, in fact, by making a given
action into an ibada, an act that glorifies God. It is through bathing that a
person glorifies the Lord, not through niyya; niyya makes washing into
ritual bathing and abstaining from food into 5awm (legally prescribed
fasting), and those acts glorify God. The point of niyya is to define a given
action as the particular action called for by the sharia, an action that in
itself accomplishes the religious goals of worship and glorification of
God. These acts are religious, even spiritual in a sense, but not because
niyya makes them so. Niyya does not make just any act into a religious
one; niyya would not make sleeping or turning summersaults into spiritual offerings to God. Niyya makes certain movements (e.g., rinsing with
water) into the stipulated acts of fiqh al-ibadat (e.g., wudu), acts that are
religious because they are stipulated by religious law, not because they are
accompanied by niyya.21

21
Ibn Rushd asserts that most jurists agree that niyya is necessary in every pure act of worship
(ibada mahda): By this I mean [an act] which has no rational meaning (ghayr maqulat al-mana),
and what is meant by it is only a devotional act (al-qurba), like prayer and the like, as distinguished
from an act of worship with rational meaning (ibada maqulat al-mana), such as washing off major
impurity (ghusl al-najasa) (1988: 1:8, 1994: 1:3). In other words, a pure act of worship is an act
with no other purpose; there is no rational explanation for prayer beyond it being a religious duty
and devotional action. Some acts categorized as acts of worship, however, do have other purposes,
other explanations: ghusl, for example, physically removes unclean substances. In effect, this
establishes a threefold classification of acts governed by fiqh: pure acts of worship (ibada mahda,
synonymous with ghayr maqulat al-mana), actions that combine worship with material or
instrumental ends (ibada maqulat al-mana or al-ibada al-mafhuma al-mana), and acts with
purely material or instrumental ends. Ibn Rushd continues: There is no disagreement that a pure
ibada requires niyya, and that an ibada with a rational meaning (al-ibada al-mafhuma al-mana)
does not [necessarily] require niyya [the third category, purely instrumental acts, does not require
niyya] (1988: 1:89, 1994: 1:34); wudu, he notes, has characteristics of each category (shabah min
al-ibadatayn), combining the effects of cleansing with fulfilling a devotional duty, and jurists must
decide which characteristic (i.e., the rational/utilitarian or the nonrational/worshipful) they deem
stronger. Not all jurists use this language of pure ibada; many simply indicate that niyya is
required in a given act of worship. Ibn Rushd uses it consistently, however, as does Shirazi (see, e.g.,
1:69, 236; 2:598, 642, 698). Niyya, in these terms, is a definitive element of pure acts of worship,
acts with no rational functions or explanations, only religious ones; these are acts one does simply
because one is commanded to do so. Niyya gives a defining purpose or goal (i.e., to be acts of
worship) to acts with no other purpose.

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That the central function of niyya is taxonomic becomes increasingly


clear with al-Qarafis discussion of acts that do not require niyya. Niyya is
not necessary for acts that are inherently directed toward God, which he
calls acts of worship (al-qurbat) about which there is no confusion and
actions of the heart devoted (mutaalliqa) to God almighty (21, 34). These
include believing in God, affirming [Gods] greatness and majesty, fearing His punishment, hoping for His reward, depending on His mercy,
humility before His splendor, adoration of His wondrousness, awe before
His authority, and likewise pronouncing the tasbih and the tahlil (common invocations of Gods glory and unity, respectively), recitation of the
Quran, and engaging in dhikr (recalling and/or reciting the name[s] of
God) (al-Qarafi: 21, see also 34). These are mostly actions that are internal,
mental states in and of themselves, and thus do not involve an additional,
accompanying state of mind. These acts also all have in common that their
object is effectively defined by the act itselfone cannot believe in and fear
God without the act being for God. As al-Qarafi puts it, These are distinguished by being for the honor of [God] almighty, and thus the niyya is
directed (mun5arifa) to God almighty by their very form (bi-5uratiha). Thus
there is no harm done if [these acts] have no additional niyya (21). Here
the form of the act defines the niyya, so to speak. The act is what matters;
niyya makes some acts into the right act required by sharia, but niyya is
superfluous for those acts that by their very form are for God.
Following purification, fiqh texts turn to 5alat, including the (usually
five) daily prayers as well as prayers done for certain special occasions
(e.g., funerals, holidays, etc.). For present concerns, the role of niyya in
5alat is of central importance. Prayer in many religious traditions involves
some kind of interaction between the human/natural and divine/supernatural realms and is widely treated as an arena of spirituality. Niyya is
a prominent element of Islamic 5alat and seems to lend itself handily to
interpretation as a spiritual phenomenon. But a survey of the sources
only further proves that, however spiritual 5alat may be, niyya in medieval fiqh is largely a formal, bodily (and mindful) matter. Salat as described in medieval fiqh al-ibadat is an act of obedient worship, not a
conversation with God. Salat does not properly include entreaties to
God, petitions for specific blessings or rewards; Islamic law and popular
practice do provide for such activities, but these are distinct from the
obligatory 5alat. Salat is a set of prescribed bodily postures and verbal
pronouncements, to be done at the prescribed time and place; niyya is a
prescribed mental component that accompanies the outward, bodily
forms, completing them as 5alat.
Ibn Mawdud al-Mu5ili (d. 683/1284) provides a typical example of the
general role given to niyya in 5alat: There are six required [preliminaries

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to 5alat]: purity of the body from major and minor impurities, purity of
the clothing, purity of the place, proper covering of the body, locating of
the qibla [i.e., the direction of Mecca], and niyya (1:45). This account
puts niyya on the level of the formal, physical alignment of body and space
prior to 5alat proper. In 5alat the object of niyya must be the specific type of
5alat to be performed. As Shirazi asserts, If the prayer is a required one,
one must have specific (tayin) niyya, intending the noon prayer or the
evening prayer to distinguish (li-tatamayyaz) it from other [prayers]
(1:236). Again niyya defines the act of worship that it accompanies. Shirazi
considers the possibility of changing ones niyya: If one enters into noon
prayer then changes the niyya to the mid-afternoon prayer this invalidates
the noon prayer, because it interrupts (qataa) the niyya, and the midafternoon prayer is not valid because he did not intend this at the point of
[entering] ihram (1:237). Once prayer has been initiated with the proper
niyya, changing or interrupting the niyya (again, not sin) invalidates
the prayer.22 And ones niyya can be wrong, causing the act to fail. The act
is central, and niyya again does not make just any act into an offering to
God; rather, if put in the right place, it makes an act into the act called for
by the sharia. Niyya alone, however, does not define the act, for if one
intends to perform an obligatory prayer, for example, but acts before the
proper prayer time, the prayer only counts as a supererogatory prayer.
The niyya cannot overcome certain objective limitations; subjective and
objective criteria both matter in defining the act.
Shirazi affirms, as he did for wudu, that the niyya must remain constant throughout the prayer: If one intends breaking off (al-khuruj)
from prayer or intends that he will break off [in the future] or doubts
whether he broke off or not, the prayer is invalidated, because niyya is
required throughout the prayer, and he has already cut it off (qad qataa)
by so doing and thus invalidated the prayer, as purity [is removed] if it is
cut off by minor impurity (1:237). This passage introduces a new prospect, namely, that one might intend the ending of or exiting from prayer.
This passage presents the actor as changing the niyya from niyya to
pray to niyya to break off from prayer; changing niyya is like changing ones mind. This implies that one can only have a single niyya at a
time; significantly, the texts do not envision an internally divided self,
22
Ibn Qudama remarks: If one enters ihram for a religious duty (farida) then intends to change
(nawa naqlaha) to another duty, the first duty is invalid because the niyya is interrupted (qata), and
the second duty is invalid because he did not intend it from the start (2:135). He goes beyond the
binary possibilities of niyya/not niyya, suggesting the possibility of insufficiently firm niyya: If one
begins prayer with a niyya wavering between completeness and interruptedness (mutaraddada bayna
itmamiha wa-qatiha), the prayer is invalid, because niyya is firm resolve (al-niyya azmu jazimu)
(2:133). On the term resolve (azm), see note 25 below.

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intending several potentially incompatible actions/goals at once, but,


rather, a binary, niyya/not niyya (or this niyya/that niyya) situation. Here
niyya is not only the intention to perform an act of worship but also the
intention to perform any act (including the act of ending prayer). Further, Shirazi does not describe a person necessarily acting on the intention to cease praying but simply formulating such an intention; forming
the niyya to break off the prayer is the act of breaking off the prayer, as
much as any outward indication, such as ceasing the bodily movements
of prayer.
When traveling (or ill, or at war), a Muslim is permitted to perform
an abbreviated version of the daily prayers. For Shirazi, the permissibility
of this abbreviation hinges in part on the niyya: Abbreviation is not permitted unless one intends abbreviation at the point of entering into the
prayer state (ihram), because the norm (al-a5l) is the complete version
[i.e., the default mode is full prayer unless otherwise specified by niyya];
so if one did not intend abbreviation while establishing his purity, he is
obligated [to perform] a full prayer, and is not permitted to abbreviate, as
is the case for one who is not traveling (1:338). The goal of the niyya must
be not simply to pray but to pray an abbreviated prayer, and this must be
established prior to the start of the prayer. Doing so establishes which
prayer (full or abbreviated) the ensuing bodily actions constitute. The
implication is that even if one should proceed to perform the movements
of full prayer, if one starts with the niyya of abbreviation, the action
would be counted as abbreviated prayer.
Shirazi also illustrates the role of niyya in defining actions when he
addresses group prayer. Islamic law establishes that whenever two or
more Muslims pray together, one must be the leader and the others must
take their cues from the leader. Niyya plays an important role in determining the designation of prayer leader:
Group prayer is not valid unless the follower (al-mamum, the member of
the prayer congregation) intends [to be among the congregation in] the
group prayer, because one wants (yuridu) to follow (yatabaa) another
[person], for it is necessary to [have] the niyya of following. If two men
decide to pray individually and [a third person] intends to follow the
two, his prayer is not valid, because it is not possible for him to emulate
the two at one time, and if he intends emulation of one of the two, without specifying (ayyin), his prayer is not valid, because if he does not specify
it is not possible to emulate [one of them]. (al-Shirazi: 1:310)23
23
Ibn Rushd recounts a disagreement among jurists on this issue: [The ulama] disagree about
whether it is required that the niyya of the follower agree with the niyya of the leader in specification
(tayin) of the prayer and its necessary steps (al-wujub [i.e., the outer form]), that he is not permitted

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Journal of the American Academy of Religion

When two or more people pray together, each must have the appropriate
niyya to lead or follow. It is rarely clearer that niyya serves to define an act
and locate it within the legal taxonomy. Niyya also distinguishes one who
is traveling (and may thus engage in an abbreviated form of 5alat) from
one who is stationary; according to Shirazi, If one who is traveling
intends (nawa) to stay for four days, excluding the day he arrives and the
day he leaves, he is considered (5ar, lit., becomes) stationary, and his
license (rukha5) [to perform the abbreviated practices] of travel is invalidated (1:33940; cf. al-Kasani: 1:97; al-Mu5ili: 1:79). The issue is not
staying in one place but, rather, intending to do so, and once one has this
intent, one shifts from being a traveler to being a stationary person. One
does not wait until one has actually stayed the requisite number of days
but, rather, begins full prayer when the niyya to stay for that long is
formed. Jurists may disagree over how many days one must have in mind
to be considered stationary, but they agree that niyya is the issue. This is a
clear case of the niyya defining the action, the legal status of the actor,
and the prescriptions incumbent on him or her.
Muslim jurists discussion of niyya in 5alat clearly produces a great deal
of casuistic detail; niyya serves several specific functions in this complex set
of rules. It appears as a basic focusing of the mind on the act at hand, paying
attention to the movements of 5alat, and, as it were, putting the mind in the
right place while putting the hands, head, feet, and so forth in the right
places. I think we are not far off base here if we think of niyya as akin to a
bodily posture, that of the qalb. Further, niyya partly constitutes the distinction between outwardly identical acts. As such, it helps locate a given action
in the taxonomy of Islamic law, linking a given action to the prescribed
categories of fiqh. It may thus serve the psychological function of producing
or confirming knowledge that a given act was performed and a specific duty
was fulfilled. But niyya is not, in any overt, explicit way, spiritual, even in
the context of prayer, presumably the most spiritual of the ibadat.

Niyya in the Other Ibadat


Even if 5alat were a good place to expect niyya to be a spiritual component (though, as we have seen, it is not), we would still face the problem that
the term niyya is also important in the other ibadat, actions not so clearly
fitting a common (contemporary western) notion of religious or spiritual. The ibadat include zakat, a tax levied on certain kinds of personal
to pray the noon prayer behind a leader who is praying the mid-afternoon prayer, or to pray a
supererogatory prayer when the follower prays a required prayer. Malik and Abu Hanifa hold that it
is necessary that the niyya of the follower agree with that of the leader, while al-Shafii holds that this
is not necessary (1988: 1:120, 1994: 1:132).

Powers: Interiors, Intentions, and the Spirituality of Islamic Ritual Practice

447

wealth, distributed primarily to the poor of the Islamic community. The


payment of zakat, like the other ibadat, requires niyya at the time of performance (al-Mu5ili: 1:101; al-Shirazi: 1:560). Niyya distinguishes between an
obligatory and a supererogatory instance of almsgiving, two actions that
may outwardly appear identical. In short, niyya defines a given act of giving
money/goods as zakat, distinguishing it from generic giving and voluntary charity (5adaqa). Further, the jurists envision a case in which the person paying the zakat does not personally transport the payment to the
recipient but, rather, authorizes another party to act on his or her behalf:
Regarding the timing of the niyya, there are two opinions: One, one
must intend the situation of payment (hal al-daf ) because entering into
the action is an ibada, so it is necessary to intend at the beginning like in
prayer; Two, it is permitted that the niyya precede [the payment]
because delegating authority (tawkil) is permitted for [zakat], and niyya
is not simultaneous with the fulfillment [of the duty] by the delegate, so
it is permitted that the niyya precede the action, unlike in the case of
prayer. (al-Shirazi: 1:560; see also al-Nawawi: 6:156158)

The person responsible for the zakat must have the niyya when designating the amount of goods/cash to be used as payment; if a proxy physically delivers the payment to the recipient, that proxy need not have the
niyya of this duty. The important niyya is that of the person on whose
wealth the zakat is levied. Here we see again that niyya is literally a definitive element of a given act of worship. The very facts that niyya is
required for zakat and, indeed, that zakat is an ibada, an act of worship,
undermine the overly interioristic and spiritualistic view of niyya, Islamic
ritual, and Islam found in some secondary sources. Niyya here is not
the intent that God accept my offering or that my zakat support the
poor, though no doubt Muslims may have such hopes for their zakat;
rather, niyya is the intent that this transfer of wealth be zakat.
Niyya is required in fasting, whether that fasting is for Ramadan, in
fulfillment of an oath, an expiation (kaffara), or a supererogatory devotional act. In fact, niyya is a crucial element constituting the difference
among such fasts (Ibn Qudama: 4:333334). This is demonstrated by Ibn
Qudama (d. 620/1223): One must specify the niyya for each required
fast, such as whether the next days fast is for Ramadan, or for making up
a previous broken fast, or as an expiation, or [in fulfillment of] an oath
(4:338).24 Like many jurists, he enters a debate over just when the niyya is

24
Ibn Qudama (see 4:338339) notes, however, that jurists disagree about this and that some
allow less specificity about the fast when formulating niyya.

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Journal of the American Academy of Religion

to be formed, particularly whether it must be formed before sunrise on


the day of fasting or whether it can validly be formed after that (among
the major madhhabs, the Hanafis are alone in generally supporting the
latter idea [see the Hanafi al-Mu5ili: 1:26]).25 For example, Ibn Qudama
asserts that it is not acceptable to form the niyya a day ahead, unless one
maintain it into part of the night, so that there is niyya the night immediately preceding the day of fasting (4:336). He further discusses a debate
regarding whether one must re-form the niyya each night of Ramadan or
one may form it once for the whole month (three madhhabs say the
former, whereas Hanafis say the latter [see Ibn Rushd 1988: 1:292ff, 1994:
1:341ff; al-Nawawi: 6:266ff]). Another aspect of Ramadan, retreat to the
mosque (itikaf ), also requires (or is recommended to have) niyya
(itikaf is the supererogatory act of spending time, usually in the evening,
and sometimes even overnight, in a mosque). Niyya is the intention that
a given stretch of time spent in a mosque count as the fiqh-defined action
itikaf, thus distinguishing the act from the outwardly identical act of
simply spending time in a mosque (see, e.g., al-Mu5ili: 1:136138).
The remaining major Islamic ritual is the hajj, the pilgrimage to
Mecca required once in the lifetime of every physically and financially
able Muslim. This is a complex ritual, with numerous subelements governed by a detailed array of rules. Niyya appears at several points along the
way, first as the niyya of the overall performance of the hajj (or umra,
the supererogatory lesser pilgrimage) and later for several separate
constituent elements. The pilgrimage proper begins when the pilgrim
reaches one of the several approved entry sites into the precincts of Mecca.
At this point the pilgrim must be in the state of ihram (purity, inviolability), which includes wearing a special seamless garment. Al-Mu5ili
observes, [The pilgrim] prays two rakas and says: O God, I desire to perform the hajj, so make my way easy and accept it from me, and if he formulates niyya in his qalb, this [makes the hajj] lawful (1:143); and he adds,
[One enters ihram] when he formulates niyya and calls out the talbiyya
25
Wensinck notes that the period of fasting is from dawn to sunset. Because it is hard to establish
precisely the time of dawn, and the fast is not an action which starts at a specific moment, the
formulation of [niyya] cannot be immediately followed by the action; one speaks here, when one
expresses himself precisely, of azm [resolve]; this is not to deny that the term [niyya] is usually used
(1920: 110). Ibn Qudama uses the term azm when discussing the timing of niyya for fasting, effectively
treating azm and niyya as synonymous in this context: The meaning of the niyya is the aim (al-qasd),
and this is the settling of the heart/mind to do something, and ones resolve about it (azmuhu alayhi)
without wavering (4:337; he [1:156] gives a similar definition of niyya when he first discusses it at
length). Denny comments that if the niyya does not immediately precede the act, then its status is
reduced to mere decision (azm), which would be no more than what precedes ritual niya (1990: 209).
This deprecation of the term azm seems to me unwarranted, as the sources take a more neutral tone. It
may be that jurists disagree about the proper usage of this term, a matter that awaits further study.

Powers: Interiors, Intentions, and the Spirituality of Islamic Ritual Practice

449

[i.e., calling out, Here I am, O Lord . . . , a standardized invocation]


(1:144; cf. al-Shirazi: 2:698699).26 Shirazi (and his commentator alNawawi) notes that niyya determines the taxonomy of the act, whether it
counts as hajj or umra: One should specify [with niyya] whether one is
preparing for the hajj or the umra (al-Nawawi: 7:237, see also 7:235239).
As with zakat, jurists consider the prospect of one person performing
the hajj on behalf of another, such as someone physically unable to travel
or one who has died without having performed the duty. This is generally
allowed, provided the proxy has already performed his or her own obligatory hajj. In such a case niyya is the crucial action that distinguishes the
performance (i.e., someone elses hajj) from the outwardly identical act
(i.e., ones own hajj). For example, according to al-Mu5ili, whoever
performs the hajj on behalf of another intends (yanwi) the hajj for that
person, while saying I am at your service, O Lord, on behalf of so-andso (1:170171; see also al-Shirazi: 2:700; Wensinck 1920: 114). The
proxy goes on to perform all the normal actions of the hajj, but the fulfillment of the duty is attributedlegally and, it is hoped, in the eyes of
Godto the person on whose behalf the proxy acts. The niyya, in this
case linked to a verbal statement, defines the act it accompanies, establishing its legal status.
Such casuistic detail may seem beside the point to a reader in search
of the spirit of Islam. That is precisely my point. I recount this material
to show how niyya is actually discussed in the legal sources because any
analysis of niyya must deal with these facts. Like most legal systems,
Islamic law generates a complex normative taxonomy of human activity,
defining the types of actions one should do (or not do) to fit into the
system. Muslim jurists are not strict behaviorists, and fiqh al-ibadat conceptualizes action in a way that includes intention. One must get the outward form right, but one must get the inner form right as well. Niyya is a
function of the mind, the rational faculty, and its link to the spirit/soul
(itself a corporeal entity) is indirect; it is depicted being spoiled not by
sin but by slipping the mind. The call to formulate niyya is the call
to focus the mind on the ibada at hand. Niyya is definitive of actions,
critical to making a given set of movements and utterances into one type
26
As with fasting, timing is also a complex issue in the hajj. See Wensinck 1920: 113114. On the
topic of verbalizing ones niyya during the hajj, Shirazi remarks that one Nafi reported asking Ibn
c
Umar, Is it necessary for us to say whether we are on hajj or cumra? He answered Does God know
what is in your hearts? Then this is your niyya (2:699700; see also al-Nawawi: 7:237239).
Though this seems to imply that niyya is some kind of link to the divine, Shirazi simply presents this
account as evidence that the niyya need not be verbalized. So even when faced with an apparent
opportunity to do so, Muslim jurists do not wax eloquent about the spiritual qualities of acts of
worship, or place niyya in a spiritual role, but, rather, maintain a focus on the formal.

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Journal of the American Academy of Religion

of act and not another (say, performing ablutions, not cooling off or
cleaning up; the noon prayer, not the evening prayer; or someone elses
hajj, not my own). Thus, niyya helps make a persons particular action
into the named type of action identified and required by the law.

CONCLUSION: THE SEARCH FOR THE SPIRIT OF ISLAM


If niyya has elements of a spiritual quality in fiqh al-ibadat, it does
so indirectly, as an intention to perform an act of worship. An ibada is an
act of obedient service in accord with the will of God. Niyya is not simply
the intention, for example, that I bow at the waist, then kneel, then touch
my forehead to the floor. Rather, niyya is specifically the intention that I
pray, that these actions constitute 5alat, and, implicitly, that my action
be an ibada. A valid ibada, then, must be accompanied by niyya with the
goal that this action be done to accord with the will of God. Thus, niyya
can perhaps be described as a religious or spiritual component of the
ibadat, if by this we mean it is an intention to fulfill the will of God, the
sharia. This is how we ought to take al-Qarafis assertion that niyya is the
intention specifically that the act is for God and accomplishes the glorification of the Lord. The sharia governs actions in this life, including
what might seem to some to be quite mundane matters. This is one way of
understanding what Muslims mean when they insist that Islam is not a
religion as modern westerners often use the term but, rather, is a way
of life. Proper religion does not necessarily involve Dennys disembodied
descent into the selfs core, for religion in fiqh al-ibadat is consistently
presented in bodily, formalistic terms, an embodied orientation toward
God. Niyya is Goldzihers supreme religious principle only if one takes
religion in this embodied sense (and even then there are plenty of other
principles at least as important as niyya). The jurists treat the qalb
(heart/mind) as part of the body, which must be properly aligned when
performing the ibadat. It would be better to recognize that all the ibadat,
in all their aspects, are properly religious, properly spiritual, than to separate niyya off as that element that makes them such.
I wish to be emphatically clear: I am not making the absurd claim that
there is nothing spiritual (in the more interioristic, disembodied sense)
about anything in the many and varied Islamic religious traditions. Nor
am I arguing that no Muslim ever uses the term niyya in a spiritual
way.27 Fiqh al-ibadat is not the whole of Islam, and there are contexts
27
Anecdotally, it should be noted that the many Muslims with whom I have discussed niyya
attribute a wide range of connotations to the term. My initial interest in the topic was only sharpened
by the apparent lack of worry about niyya reported by several fellow students of mine at the College

Powers: Interiors, Intentions, and the Spirituality of Islamic Ritual Practice

451

and genres in which the term niyya is given a different, more spiritual cast
than in fiqh (see, e.g., Padwick: 4854). For example, al-Ghazali, who in
Goldzihers account is the savior of Muslim interiority, addresses niyya at
some length in his Ihya ulum al-din, devoting an entire chapter (kitab) to
niyya, ikhla5, and 5idq (intention, sincerity, and truthfulness) (14:154
177). This text does indeed treat niyya as a spiritual thing, a kind of conduit between the believer and God, and as Wensincks religious and moral
criterion superior to that of the law.28 Goldziher, then, is partly correct;
Sufi writings generally do tend to have a more interioristic notion of religion, including religious praxis, than fiqh texts do. But fiqh is no minor part
of the Islamic tradition, and no sweeping characterizations of Islam that
misrepresent fiqh will do. And casting Sufism as superior, as the cure to a
legalistic disease, is inappropriately normative and historically simplistic.
The misreading of niyya found in the secondary sources is indicative
of a troubling tendency in the academic study of Islam to privilege interiority over exteriority, often in a quest for some religious essence. Too
much scholarship on Islam appears intent on making Islam friendly to a
non-Muslim audience by making it look more spiritual (perhaps more
like Protestant Christianity) than it sometimes does. The goal seems to be
to correct the widespread impression that persists among non-Muslims
that Islam is a rigidly legalistic tradition, preoccupied with overt adherence to rules of behavior generated by patriarchal jurists. Often, this
correction means privileging Sufism over fiqh, much as Goldziher and,
more subtly, Wensinck and Denny do. Karen Armstrong, for example,
admits that following the demise of the Abbasid caliphate in the tenth
century, the ulama, with the backing of the Shariah, became the only stable
authority, yet she immediately adds that as Sufism became more popular,
the piety of the people deepened and acquired an interior dimension, so
that a truly Muslim people had come into being, who had learned to
endorse the faith at a profound level (2002: 87, 9293). Similarly, Malise
Ruthven asserts that contemporary Muslim attitudes toward Islamic law
are problematically conservative: The solutions, I believe, are to be
of Islamic Law at the University of Jordan. My inquiries about niyya, especially my expectation that
one might fret over the indeterminacy of ones own niyya, often inspired quizzical responses and
calm assurances that one simply does the niyya. Others, however, have told me that they very
much see niyya as a crucial spiritual element in their religious practice, especially 5alat, describing
niyya in terms of spiritual insight or comfort. My point is not that the latter Muslims are wrong but,
rather, that the former are also right.
28
Al-Ghazali maintains that God rewards good intentions even if they are not put into action,
suggesting that for him niyya is the ethical core of an individuals actions, the aspect of ones
behavior that matters most to God. He cites a hadith: the niyya of the believer is more important
than his action (162). However, no fiqh manual I have consulted cites al-Ghazalis opinion or this
hadith, which al-Ghazalis editor notes is considered weak (daif [162n1]).

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Journal of the American Academy of Religion

found in those Islamic traditions that resisted the encroachments of populist orthodoxy in the past, notably the spiritual disciplines of Sufism and
the forward-looking orientations of modern Shiism (399).29 Such antinomian, antiritual, romanticized, and neocolonial attitudes are oddly
continuous with those of Osborn, Tisdall, and Goldziher.30
The 11 September attacks seem to have given new life to such timeworn western calls for Islamic reform. R. Scott Appleby, for example,
asserted in November 2001 that Islam has been remarkably resistant to
the differentiation and privatization of religion that often accompanies
secularization . . . and has not undergone a reformation like the one experienced by Christianity, which led to a pronounced separation of sacred
and secular (Lingua Franca, November 2001, cited in Fish: 36). Similarly, Andrew Sullivan has called Islam a great religion that is nonetheless extremely inexperienced in the toleration of other ascendant and
more powerful faiths (New York Times Magazine, 7 October 2001,
cited in Fish: 36). Stanley Fish responds to such assertions by observing
that privatization and secularization are not goals Islam has yet to
achieve, they are specters that Islam (or some versions of it) pushes
away as one would push away death (36). Moreover, Fish continues,
when Sullivan says of Islam that it is a great religion, he means a
potentially great religion. Islam will be fine when it rids itself of its
impurities, the chief impurity being a stubborn insistence on a fidelity
to a set of particular beliefs (36). (I would hasten to add fidelity to a
set of particular practices.) This reformist agenda rests on a notion of
true religion that Fish calls vague, nonbinding, light-as-air spirituality,
29
Along the same lines, Ruthven cites approvingly the work of P. J. Stewart, whom Ruthven
summarizes as arguing that religiosity, like other endowments, may be genetically transmitted. . . .
In Islam there is no celibacy, and the Sufi orders, which in the past acted as a kind of spiritual yeast in
society, may be the carriers and preservers of a vital genetic component. . . . [T]he future of Islam
must lie in a renovated mystical orientation where depth of religious feeling can be yoked to
metaphorical understandings of the Quran and the Prophetic traditions (399400).
30
Russell McCutcheon comments on the tendency among certain prominent authors (e.g., Karen
Armstrong, Joseph Campbell) to search for evidence that the many various religious traditions
found in human history are actually directed toward the same God, the same profound spiritual
experiences of divine power and mystery. He makes the salient point that perhaps what is more
interesting and in need of exploration is just why it is that people seem continually drawn to
generating nonempirical sameness where empirical differences dominate (43). The popularity of
Armstrongs work (especially 1993), McCutcheon asserts, is itself evidence of the age in which we
live when people of relative privilege seem intent on reducing empirical diversity and multiplicity to
ethereal and essential unity and simplicitya unity and simplicity that follows a rather strict party
line. This is nothing more than the ideological strategy of universalization (54). McCutcheon
recognizes that this is a liberal agenda, one that may be well intentioned in the sense of seeking some
degree of social harmony, but its consequence, intended or not, is the construction of homogeneity
by means of rhetorics of unity, a rhetoric that purchases social identity at the expense of those who
do not quite fit the dominant pattern (55).

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453

the chief characteristic of which is that it claimsand believesnothing,


a religion of surface pietiesabstractions without substantive biteto
which everyone will assent because they are empty, insipid, and safe
(37, 38). Whatever the reason for taking this reformist approach, it fails
to describe or explain contemporary Islam, not, of course, because Islam
is imprisoned in a stockade of legal restraints and soul-destroying
pedantry but, rather, because this approach rests partly on the peculiarly
modern (and perhaps particularly Protestant Christian) notion that
embodied praxis has less value than inward, silent, private, meditative,
spiritual activity. Certainly, the Islamic world today has its share of
aggressively conservative voices, and these may be disproportionately
more concerned with external performance than with inner spirituality.
But making Islam safe by making it uniformly more concerned with
spirit and less with form is a confused and inappropriate scholarly
agenda, albeit one with a long history.
Efforts to spiritualize niyya serve this same broad agenda of correcting
a defective Islam. They seem wedded, moreover, to an ethical vision
focused on the inner self as a complex site of conflicting drives and,
indeed, as the principal battleground of good and evil (see Thomas).
According to this view, proper objective action is not sufficient; proper
internal disposition is also required. Furtherand this is crucial, for this
is where Islamic ritual law really veers from this coursenot only is the
person divided into inner and outer but the inner self is seen as divided
and unruly, capable of the worst kinds of betrayals. Ethical profundity
here emerges as a hermeneutic of suspicion of ones own actions that
refuses to be satisfied and that consistently distrusts the interior self.
However, the inner self as presented in fiqh al-ibadat is not so complex.
If we are not yet at the point of offering a systematic theory or genealogy
of the Islamic legal self on the order of Michel Foucaults (1978, 1985) or
Charles Taylors work on western selfhood, a few preliminary observations
are in order (see Messick 2001: 151152; see also Rahman). There is no
Fall in the general Islamic view of history or human nature; as Denny
himself points out, Fitra, humankinds God-given sound, original
nature, is, as Gods creation, inherently good (1990: 203; cf. MacDonald).
Most Muslims think themselves born as blank slates rather than ones
needing erasure of inherited mistakes. Islamic ritual law does not envision the inner self as unruly and rebellious, fallen and prone to
betrayal.31 The jurists do not treat niyya as a slippery slope; one need not
31
Beyond treating niyya more spiritually, Sufis also tend to see the internal self as complex,
multilayered, and potentially divided, even dangerous. Al-Muhasibi (d. 243/857), for example, is
representative of a strain of Sufi thought regarding the complexity of the inner self: The person who

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Journal of the American Academy of Religion

pile layer upon layer of niyya, so that one must not only mean it when
one acts but also mean to mean it and so on indefinitely. And niyya is
not depicted as conflicted, in some Augustinian turmoil of self-doubt,
wanting to mean it but not able to. Niyya, the internal, subjective
dimension of right action, is presented as generally stable and subject to
the will. Subsequently, the ethic pervading ritual law texts is not one of an
elusive, unattainable standard (i.e., a claim that ones niyya can never be
deep or lasting enough). One can actually get the actions right, both
inside and out. The jurists are scrupulous in assessing actions (in their
subjective and objective aspects), but it is not the runaway, insatiable,
interioristic scrupulousness that Goldziher, Denny, and others seem to
harbor as a model of ethical profundity and try to find in Islam. My point
is not that Denny is wrong in suggesting that Islamic ritual is profound
but, rather, that the specific model of profundity he seeks inappropriately
constrains the data.
The actions governed by Islamic ritual law are presented as valuable and
moral in and of themselves, not (just) as symbolic surfaces, signifiers, or
metaphors. The texts of Islamic ritual law, when addressing the nature and
role of niyya, do not say that niyya puts one in the presence of ones creator or that niyya gives these acts their ethical meaning and religious
worth; they do not say to be spiritual or be moral when doing these
acts. Rather, they say, Formulate niyya when doing these acts, which is to
say, Do these acts and not others, for one is being religious and moral by
doing these acts. Of course, many Muslims see morality and religion as
involving much more than just these acts. But western scholarship has
often overlooked a crucial aspect of niyya in fiqh al-ibadatits technical
aspect as a discrete step in embodied (and mindful) ritual duties. Western
scholars have too often tried to wash away the sticky problem of this
formalism with the monotheistic universal solvent of spirit. Such an
approach to niyya is defensive and apologetic, meant to show the spiritual depth of Islamic practice, but it ironically only perpetuates the characterization of Islam as rigidly formalistic. Making niyya into the
spiritual side of praxis pushes back against, and thus props up, a misunderstanding of Muslim ritual actions as somehow spiritually defective.

falls into vanity does not hesitate to become mired in self-delusion (ghirra) . . . . [and] even goes so
far as to lie about God Most High while thinking that he is being true, to stray into error while
thinking he is well guided [kitab al-riaya li-huquq Allah] (in Sells: 172173). Sells notes that many
Sufis more systematically divide the self (nafs) into three phases: the phase of ego-domination (annafsu l-amara), the phase of self-blame (an-nafsu al-lawama), and the phase of peace and security
(an-nafsu al-mutmainna), a distinction derived from Quran 12:53, which refers to the self that
dominates with wrong [an-nafsu l-amaratu bi s-su] (178n19).

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