Disgust in early Islamic thought
the affects of hadith and moral aversion in pious traditions
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/bar.29511Keywords:
disgust, morality, dietary laws, ḥadīth, piety, zuhd, gossipAbstract
The relationship between morality and disgust has been a matter of considerable interest and debate in modern scholarship, while its salience in premodern religious history still deserves more attention. This article focuses on the role of disgust in medieval Muslim thought, identifying relevant notions in classical Arabic and examining their usage in traditionist sources from the first few
centuries of Islam (seventh to tenth centuries ce). Hadith narratives illustrate the concept of taqadhdhur or revulsion to a disgusting object, especially in the context of food. Well-known accounts of the Prophet Muhammad’s aversion to an Arab custom of eating lizards raised questions about the normative implications of his disgust, which medieval jurists sought to resolve through interpretive debates on the category of khaba'ith (disgusting things) in dietary law. In contrast to the circumstantial role of disgust in law, appeals to disgust served as a rhetorical strategy for moral persuasion against sin in the literature of hadith, Qur'anic exegesis, and traditions associated with renunciant piety (zuhd). A paradigmatic case is the invocation of a particular motif, the rotting corpse (jifa), which is considered to be a core elicitor of disgust and was frequently used in early Islamic sources as a trope for the vice of gossip or backbiting (ghiba). The metaphor was elaborated through traditions centered on the sensory dimensions of disgust as a bodily phenomenon. Stories of pious Muslims suggest the affective power of such traditions to inculcate revulsion toward sin. I argue that early Muslim pietists regarded disgust as a didactic instrument and a morally productive emotion.
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