マグリブ中世史料にみえるバラカ概念の變化と聖者崇拜の發展

Abstract

The concept of baraka was an idea widely employed in pre-Islamic Western Asia. It was neither conceived as a special blessing from god, nor was it linked to sacred acts, or even restricted to the spiritual realm, but it was a conception that was linked to material objects. However, with the first stirring of the monotheistic doctrine of the absolute Allah, the origin of the concept of baraka became almost completely identified with Allah, and in this sense baraka was sacralized and incorporated into Islam. On the other hand, although its later prominence in the popular veneration of holy men and the linking of the conferral of baraka to the veneration of virtuous figures and graves had not yet appeared, it is possible to see the original form in a reverence for Muhammad. In the historical development following the birth of Islam, baraka came to be seen as residing everywhere, including within human beings and inanimate objects. In this process, the transformation of the concept of baraka saw it become increasingly concrete and less abstract, and its origin came increasingly to be seen as derived less from Allah and more strongly associated with saintly holy men. Likewise, in a parallel development, baraka came to be strongly linked to material benefit, illness and graves, saliva and physical contact, and to this-worldly authority and power. These factors furthered the popularization and variegation of baraka. With the appearance of Sufism, saints were identified as wali Allah and the sacred as walaya, and the concept of baraka became for a time more strongly linked to Allah and was returned to being an intellectual and spiritual concept, however this return of the concept to its original sphere of meaning was only a temporary phenomenon. Officially recognized Sufism was swept up in the wave of popularization of the concept of baraka, and it became fused with the veneration of popular saints in the 14th century. Political powers could not help but be swept up in the same system of the veneration of popular saints, and this worked in the direction of increasing the political character of the concept of baraka. This momentum, on the other hand, began to produce saints who could respond to the various hopes of the people everywhere through the conferral of baraka by physical contact and the veneration of graves.