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Document Details : Title: Bargaining with God Author(s): ALON, I. Journal: Le Muséon Volume: 110 Issue: 1-2 Date: 1997 Pages: 223-247 DOI: 10.2143/MUS.110.1.525805 Abstract : A celebrated, and widely studied Islamic tradition reports the circumstances under which the duty of five daily prayers was imposed on the Muslims. In this paper I propose to examine it as an ordinary case of bargaining, albeit a crippled one, between two nearly equal parties, Allah and Muḥammad, over the exact number of daily prayers demanded from a Muslim. As such, this tradition may have served as a model for bargaining. I should suppose, however, that Muslim believers, would not refer to the above mentioned process as “bargaining” (musāwama). At best they would call it murāja'a or tawaṣṣul, in order to minimize the compromising theological implications that the term “bargaining” carries. |
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