Fitna (word)

Did You Know?

• The triliteral root fā'-tā'-nūn also forms a Form I active participle fātin and a Form I passive participle maftūn.
• The Fifth Fitna occurred in 865–866.

Lexical meanings

Edward William Lane, drawing on traditional Arabic lexicographical sources, reported that the verb's primary signification is 'to burn,' later applied to the smelting of gold and silver. It was extended to mean causing someone to enter fire or a state of punishment or affliction. Lane glossed the noun fitna as a trial, probation, affliction, distress, or hardship, and stated that the sum total of its meaning in the language of the Arabs is an affliction whereby one is tried, proved, or tested.

Badawi and Haleem, in their dictionary of Quranic usage, list meanings such as to purify gold and silver by smelting, to burn, to put to the test, to afflict as a means of testing endurance, to disrupt community peace, and to tempt or seduce. In Modern Standard Arabic, Hans Wehr's dictionary adds meanings including charm, attractiveness, enchantment, captivation, fascination, enticement, temptation, infatuation, intrigue, sedition, riot, discord, dissension, and civil strife.

Buckwalter and Parkinson's frequency dictionary lists fitna as the 1,560th most frequent word in a corpus of over 30 million words, glossing it as charm, allure, enchantment, unrest, riot, and rebellion.

Nakhla Raid (first mention of fitna in Quran)

The first Quran verse about fitna was supposedly revealed during the Nakhla Raid. After returning from the first Badr encounter, Muhammad sent Abdullah ibn Jahsh in Rajab with twelve men on a fact-finding operation. Muhammad gave Abdullah ibn Jahsh a letter not to be read until he had traveled for two days, then to do as instructed without pressuring his companions. The letter told him to proceed to Nakhla, between Mecca and Taif, to lie in wait for the Quraysh and observe them.

While the Quraysh prepared food, the Muslims attacked. Waqid ibn Abdullah killed Amr ibn Hadrami, the caravan leader, with an arrow. The Muslims captured Uthman ibn Abdullah and al-Hakam ibn Kaysan, while Nawfal ibn Abdullah escaped. Abdullah ibn Jahsh returned to Medina with the booty and captives.

Muhammad initially disapproved of the act and suspended action regarding the camels and captives because of the prohibited months. Arab pagans accused the Muslims of violating what is divinely inviolable. According to Ibn Qayyim, most scholars have explained the word fitnah in this context as meaning shirk. Ibn Kathir's commentary states that trying to force Muslims to revert from their religion and re-embrace kufr after they had believed is worse with Allah than killing.

In the Quran

Badawi and Haleem note that the triliteral root fā'-tā'-nūn occurs in six different forms a total of sixty times in the Quran, appearing thirty-four times as a noun and twenty-six times in various verbal forms. The root bears a range of significations within the Quran itself. Fitna as persecution appears in several verses commanding Muslims to fight unbelievers, specifically referring to Meccan polytheists who had persecuted Muhammad and his early followers, leading to the hijra.

For example, in one verse the command to fight is justified because persecution is worse than slaying. In another, Muslims are forbidden from fighting unbelievers around the Holy Mosque in Mecca unless the unbelievers attack first, in which case Muslims are to fight until there is no persecution and the religion is God's. The hijra is mentioned as having occurred because of persecution believers had suffered in Mecca. Other verses promise the chastisement of Hell for those who have persecuted Muslims, and provide that daily required prayer may be shortened if, when on a journey, one fears attack.

In another verse, the Quran describes itself as having clear revelations and allegorical ones, and characterizes those who are unsteady as desiring dissension in the community through their pursuit of interpretations of the allegorical verses. A set of occurrences related to dissension or sedition appears in a verse where those who say they are believers but show reluctance to follow God's commands are described as seeking sedition among the community.

Historical usage

Aside from its use in the Quran, fitna came to have a primary sense of revolt, disturbances, or civil war, specifically a civil war that breeds schism and in which the believers' purity of faith is in grave danger. This was especially so as it came to refer to the first major civil war of the Islamic Caliphate, the First Fitna, lasting from 656 to 661. The term was later applied to any period of disturbances inspired by schools or sects that broke away from the majority of believers, and thus appears in descriptions of other major conflicts such as the Second Fitna, Third Fitna, Fourth Fitna, Fifth Fitna, and the Fitna of al-Andalus.