Mawlā (Arabic:مَوْلَى, pluralmawālīمَوَالِي), is apolysemousArabic word, whose meaning varied in different periods and contexts.[1]
Before the IslamicprophetMuhammad, the term applied to any form oftribal association.[2]
In theQuran andhadiths it is used in multiple senses, including 'lord', 'guardian', and 'trustee'.[1]
After Muhammad's death, theUmayyad dynasty accepted new converts toIslam into Arab-Muslim society and the wordmawali gained currency as an appellation for converted non-ArabMuslims in the earlyIslamic caliphates.
The wordmawla, which was used by the Islamic prophetMuhammad aboutAli in theGhadir Khumm speech,[3] is derived from therootو ل يw-l-y, meaning "to be close to" or "to have power over".Mawla can have reciprocal meanings, depending on whether it is used in the active or passive voice: "master" Originally,mawāli were clients of an Arab people, but with the advent of Islam, the term came to refer to non-Arab Muslims and other allies. [needs editing].
Under theAbbasid rulers of the 9th century, the non-Arab converts comprised an important part of the army. The institution of wala' as a requirement to enter Muslim society ceased to exist after the fall of the Umayyads, as the Abbasids favoured a universal interpretation of Islam that was not the exclusive religion of the Arab elite. However, throughout the centuries, the rise of political power of regional Arab dynasties and non-Arab ethnic groups eventually restricted the power of the Abbasidcaliph inBaghdad, as Persian, Turkic andBerber Muslims began to form independent and autonomoussultanates.
Abu Hanifa was the founder of theHanafi school ofjurisprudence withinSunni Islam and lived through the Abbasid Revolution. He famously stated in one of his sayings: "The belief of a newly convertedTurk is the same as that of an Arab fromHejaz."
This institution continued in the Abbasid period on a much smaller scale when the 8th Abbasid Caliph,al-Mu'tasim, formed private corps entirely composed of non-Arabs in the service of the Caliph. These men were the mawali of the Caliph and were thus considered to be more loyal to the Caliph. This practice persisted throughout Islamic history through to theOttoman period.
The word "Moula" is regarded as a considerable word in theGhadir Khumm event (regarding the sentence which was declared by the Islamic prophetMuhammad in Islam aboutAli, when he said: "For whoever I am hismoula, 'Ali is hismoula."). There have been mentioned meanings for this use of the word "moula", including leader,[4] administrator,[5][6] Lord, owner, master, follower, one who has more right in something,wali, an ally, etc.[7]Shias argue that in the context of the sermon (Ghadir Khumm), intended that the word "moula" to be taken as "leader". They therefore see this to be the official designation of Ali as theprophet's successor.[3]
