A hawza ( ar, حوزة) or ḥawzah ʿilmīyah ( ar, حوزة علمیة) is a
seminary where
Shi'a Muslim scholars are educated.
The word ''ḥawzah'' is found in Arabic as well as the Persian language. In Arabic, the word means "to hold something firmly". Accordingly, ''ḥawzah ʿilmīyah'' would mean a place where the firm knowledge (of the Muslim religion) is acquired. In the Persian language, ''ḥawzah'' refers to the middle part of a place or an area. ''Ḥawzah ʿilmīyah'' in Persian, therefore, means "the place of knowledge". Another meaning of the word is "circle of knowledge".
Several senior
Grand Ayatollahs constitute the hawza. The institutions in
Najaf
Najaf ( ar, ٱلنَّجَف) or An-Najaf al-Ashraf ( ar, ٱلنَّجَف ٱلْأَشْرَف), also known as Baniqia ( ar, بَانِيقِيَا), is a city in central Iraq about 160 km (100 mi) south of Baghdad. Its estimated popula ...
,
Iraq
Iraq,; ku, عێراق, translit=Êraq officially the Republic of Iraq, '; ku, کۆماری عێراق, translit=Komarî Êraq is a country in Western Asia. It is bordered by Turkey to the north, Iran to the east, the Persian Gulf and K ...
and
Qom,
Iran
Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...
, are the preeminent seminary centers for the education of Shi'a
scholars. However, several smaller hawzas exist in other cities around the world, such as at
Karbala,
Iraq
Iraq,; ku, عێراق, translit=Êraq officially the Republic of Iraq, '; ku, کۆماری عێراق, translit=Komarî Êraq is a country in Western Asia. It is bordered by Turkey to the north, Iran to the east, the Persian Gulf and K ...
,
Isfahan and
Mashhad in
Iran
Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...
,
Beirut,
Lebanon
Lebanon ( , ar, لُبْنَان, translit=lubnān, ), officially the Republic of Lebanon () or the Lebanese Republic, is a country in Western Asia. It is located between Syria to Lebanon–Syria border, the north and east and Israel to Blue ...
,
Lucknow,
India
India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...
,
Lahore,
Pakistan, Europe and North America.
Law schools
In countries with
sharia courts such as Iran, Pakistan, and Afghanistan, a hawza also functions as a
law school for those wanting to practice law in Islamic courts.
Hawza 'Ilmiyya Najaf
Hawza 'Ilmiyya in
Najaf
Najaf ( ar, ٱلنَّجَف) or An-Najaf al-Ashraf ( ar, ٱلنَّجَف ٱلْأَشْرَف), also known as Baniqia ( ar, بَانِيقِيَا), is a city in central Iraq about 160 km (100 mi) south of Baghdad. Its estimated popula ...
, Iraq was established in 430 AH (the 11th century AD) by
Shaykh al-Tusi (385 AH/995 CE – 460 AH/1067 CE),
[http://www.al-islam.org/fiqh/chap2.htm]
FIQH and FUQAHA - An Introduction to Fiqh (Islamic Jurisprudence) Containing Forty Four Life Sketches of the Great Past Masters, Published by the WORLD FEDERATION OF KHOJA SHIA ITHNAASHERI MUSLIM COMMUNITIES and continued as a center of study until the establishment of modern Iraq in 1921.
At present
Ayatollah Sistani heads Hawza 'Ilmiyya Najaf, which includes two other Ayatollahs -
Mohammad Ishaq Al-Fayyad and
Bashir al-Najafi.
[Thinkin ahead: Shi'ite Islam in Iraq and its seminaries](_blank)
, Christoph Marcinkowsi, Nayang Technological University, Singapore After witnessing a peak of some 20,000 students in the 60s, then around 3000 because of the State repression, since 2003, the Najaf hawza has now more than 13,000 students, while the curriculum has been updated to include many modern subjects as well as inter faith and inter sectarian initiatives.
Hawza 'Ilmiyya Qom
Although large
Shi'a academies existed in
Qom dating back as early as 10th century CE,
the hawza of the city became prominent at the time of the
Safavids
Safavid Iran or Safavid Persia (), also referred to as the Safavid Empire, '. was one of the greatest Iranian empires after the 7th-century Muslim conquest of Persia, which was ruled from 1501 to 1736 by the Safavid dynasty. It is often conside ...
when
Shi'a Islam became the official religion of Iran. The famous teachers of that era included
Mulla Sadra and
Shaykh Bahai
Bahāʾ al‐Dīn Muḥammad ibn Ḥusayn al‐ʿĀmilī (also known as Sheikh Baha'i, fa, شیخ بهایی) (18 February 1547 – 1 September 1621) was an Iranian ArabEncyclopedia of Arabic Literature'. Taylor & Francis; 1998. . p. 85. Sh ...
. The modern
Qom hawza was revitalized by
Abdul Karim Haeri Yazdi and
Grand Ayatollah Borujerdi and is barely a century old.
There are nearly three hundred thousand clerics in Iran's seminaries.
[A History of Tension between Iran's Clerics and the State](_blank)
Mehdi Khalaji 26 July 2010 Washington Institute
Hawza 'Ilmiyya Khwaharan (Women's Hawza)
There are also a number of women's hawza, mostly located in
Iran
Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...
. Already in the early 1800s, the
Salehiyya madrasa in
Qazvin ran a women's section where several female
mujtahids were trained. In Qom, the earliest seminary for women was established by the grand ayatollah
Mohammad Kazem Shariatmadari
Sayyid Mohammad Kazem Shariatmadari ( fa, محمد کاظم شریعتمداری), also spelled Shariat-Madari (5 January 1906 – 3 April 1986), was an Iranian Grand Ayatollah. He favoured the traditional Shiite practice of keeping clerics away ...
, who in 1973 added a women's section to his hawza
Dar al-Tabligh, called
Dar al-Zahra. Next, the
Haghani school opened a women's wing in 1974/75, called
Maktab-e Tawhid.
Outside Qom, women's seminaries included Maktab-e Fatema of Fasa (opened in 1961),
Maktab-e Zahra of Shiraz (opened in 1964),
Maktab-e Fatimah of Isfahan (opened by
Lady Amin in 1965),
[Mirjam Künkler and Roja Fazaeli, "The Life of Two Mujtahidas: Female Religious Authority in 20th Century Iran", in ''Women, Leadership and Mosques: Changes in Contemporary Islamic Authority'', ed. Masooda Bano and Hilary Kalmbach (Brill Publishers, 2012), 127–160. ] Zahra-i Athar of Tehran (opened in 1966), and
Madrase-ye ‘Elmīyya Narges of Mashhad (opened in 1966).
After the
1979 revolution
The Iranian Revolution ( fa, انقلاب ایران, Enqelâb-e Irân, ), also known as the Islamic Revolution ( fa, انقلاب اسلامی, Enqelâb-e Eslâmī), was a series of events that culminated in the overthrow of the Pahlavi dynas ...
in Iran, the state began to centralize the women's hawza system. The women's seminaries in Qom were centralized into one large school, the
Jamiat al-Zahra. In Khorasan with its clerical center of Mashhad, the women's maktabs came under the aegis of the state-run Centre for Management of Women's Seminaries of Khorasan. In the rest of the country, women's seminaries were integrated into the Centre for Management of Women's Seminaries (Markaz-e Modiriat-e Ḥawzahā-ye ʿElmiyya Khwaharān). Since the mid-1990s the latter center has established more than 300 seminaries across Iran (before the revolution less than a dozen existed in the entire country).
Hawza subjects
Hawza students begin their studies by learning
fiqh
''Fiqh'' (; ar, فقه ) is Islamic jurisprudence. Muhammad-> Companions-> Followers-> Fiqh.
The commands and prohibitions chosen by God were revealed through the agency of the Prophet in both the Quran and the Sunnah (words, deeds, and ...
,
kalam,
hadith
Ḥadīth ( or ; ar, حديث, , , , , , , literally "talk" or "discourse") or Athar ( ar, أثر, , literally "remnant"/"effect") refers to what the majority of Muslims believe to be a record of the words, actions, and the silent approva ...
,
tafsir,
philosophy, natural and abstract sciences as well as
Arabic and
Arabic literature
Arabic literature ( ar, الأدب العربي / ALA-LC: ''al-Adab al-‘Arabī'') is the writing, both as prose and poetry, produced by writers in the Arabic language. The Arabic word used for literature is '' Adab'', which is derived from ...
. Once these studies have been completed, they may begin preparation to become a
mujtahid by studying advanced old textbooks known as ''sat'h'', and research courses known as ''kharij''.
Subjects studied at the hawza may include the following:
#
Falsafa
Islamic philosophy is philosophy that emerges from the Islamic tradition. Two terms traditionally used in the Islamic world are sometimes translated as philosophy—falsafa (literally: "philosophy"), which refers to philosophy as well as logic, ...
(Islamic philosophy)
#
Fiqh
''Fiqh'' (; ar, فقه ) is Islamic jurisprudence. Muhammad-> Companions-> Followers-> Fiqh.
The commands and prohibitions chosen by God were revealed through the agency of the Prophet in both the Quran and the Sunnah (words, deeds, and ...
(jurisprudence)
# 'Ilm al-
Hadith
Ḥadīth ( or ; ar, حديث, , , , , , , literally "talk" or "discourse") or Athar ( ar, أثر, , literally "remnant"/"effect") refers to what the majority of Muslims believe to be a record of the words, actions, and the silent approva ...
(traditions)
#
Ilm al-Kalam
''ʿIlm al-Kalām'' ( ar, عِلْم الكَلام, literally "science of discourse"), usually foreshortened to ''Kalām'' and sometimes called "Islamic scholastic theology" or "speculative theology", is the philosophical study of Islamic doc ...
(theology)
# '
Ilm ar-Rijal
Biographical evaluation ( ar, عِلْمُ الرِّجال, ʿilm al-rijāl; literally meaning'' 'Knowledge of Men' , ''but more commonly understood as the ''Science of Narrators)'' refers to a discipline of Islamic religious studies within ha ...
(evaluation of biographies)
# '
Irfan (Islamic mysticism)
#
Mantiq (Logic)
# Lugha (language studies)
#
Tafsir al-Qur'an (interpretation of the Qur'an)
# Tarikh (history)
# 'Ulum al-Qur'an (Qur'an sciences)
#
Usul al-Fiqh
Principles of Islamic jurisprudence, also known as ''uṣūl al-fiqh'' ( ar, أصول الفقه, lit. roots of fiqh), are traditional methodological principles used in Islamic jurisprudence (''fiqh'') for deriving the rulings of Islamic law (''s ...
(principles of jurisprudence)
Advanced subjects
Once the basic studies have been completed, students may begin preparation to become a
mujtahid by studying advanced ancient textbooks known as ''sat'h'', and research courses known as ''kharij''.
To be a
mujtahid one has to excel in the advanced levels of the Hawza including ''Muqad'dim'maat'', ''Sotooh'', ''Sotooh 'Ulya'', '' 'Uloom ukhra'' and ''Bahath Kharij''.
''Bahath e Kharij'' is the last level of hawzah and this level leads to
Marja'iya, to become a
marja' one has to teach ''dars e khaarij'' for considerable amount of time, publish collection of juridical edicts (''risala ‘amaliyya'') and become recognised as one (by established ''Maraji'').
What is Islam? Beliefs, principles and a way of life
by Abdelmalik Badruddin Eagle (translation of Grand Ayatollah Sayyid Muhammad al-Husayni al-Shirazi's work ''Ma-huwa ’l-Islam?'' first published in 1960s)
See also
* Marja'
* Lists of Maraji
*List of current Maraji
This article provides the list of ''Maraji'' (plural of ''Marja'', the supreme legal authority or the source of emulation), followed by Twelver (also known as ''Imamiyyah'') Shia Muslims around the world. The concept of a ''Marja-i Taqlid'' (lit. ...
* Qom Seminary
* Society of Seminary Teachers of Qom
*Hawza Najaf
The Najaf Seminary ( ar, حوزة النجف), also known as the al-Hawza Al-Ilmiyya (الحوزة العلمية), is the oldest and one of the most important Shia seminaries (hawza) in the world. It is located in the city of Najaf in Iraq. The ...
References
External links
Al-Mahdi Institute Hawza Programme, Birmingham, UK
Towards an Understanding of the Shiite Authoritative Sources
Research centre of Hawza Ilmiyya, Qom, Iran
*
Imam Hossain University (Howza)
Alqaem Institute
Hawza - Advanced Islamic Studies
{{Islamic educational institutions
Islamic education
Islamic terminology
Lists of law schools
Single-gender schools