Qāṣṣ

In early Islam, a qāṣṣ (plural quṣṣāṣ)[lower-alpha 1] was a preacher or "sermoniser" who told stories ostensibly to edify the faithful. The term comes from the Arabic verb qaṣṣa, meaning "to recount".[1] The qāṣṣ was essentially a popular storyteller and the reputation among Islamic scholars of the early quṣṣāṣ has generally been that of "second-rate religious figures lingering on the fringes of Islamic orthodoxy and even, at times, contributing directly to the corruption of the faith".[2] In actuality, the quṣṣāṣ varied from serious Qurʾānic exegetes to outright charlatans.[1]

This article is about the Islamic sermonisers. For the town in Azerbaijan, see Qass, Azerbaijan.
"Ḳāṣṣ" redirects here. For other topics, see Kass (disambiguation).

According to al-Maqrīzī, writing in the fifteenth century, there was a distinction between the private qāṣṣ and the official qāṣṣ. The office was instituted by the Caliph Muʿāwiya I. So far the only traces found of these official quṣṣāṣ come from Egypt. There the office was typically held by a qāḍī (judge). His job was to denounce the enemies of Islam after the morning prayer each day and to explain the Qurʾān after the khuṭba on Fridays. The official qāṣṣ was replaced in the tenth century by the wāʿiẓ and the mudhakkir.[1]

Notes
  1. Also transliterated ḳāṣṣ (ḳuṣṣāṣ)
gollark: Instead of not being synchronised, your nodes are synchronised.
gollark: QED.
gollark: They won't shoot at exactly the same time since they're out of sync.
gollark: Your things are now synchronised.
gollark: If the adjacent thing's clock is too far from yours, implode it.

References
  1. Pellat (1978).
  2. Armstrong (2016), p. 1.

Sources
  • Armstrong, Lyall R. (2016). The Quṣṣāṣ of Early Islam. Islamic History and Civilization, Vol. 139. Leiden: Brill.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
  • Pellat, Charles (1978). "Ḳāṣṣ". In van Donzel, E.; Lewis, B.; Pellat, Ch. & Bosworth, C. E. (eds.). The Encyclopaedia of Islam, New Edition, Volume IV: Iran–Kha. Leiden: E. J. Brill. p. 733–35. OCLC 758278456.
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