Munājāt

Contents: About Munājāt | About The Collection | Tech

About Munājāt

The word munājāt (sin. مناجاة pl. مناجات) is the verbal noun of the Form III transitive verb nājā نَاجَى, to confer with, to speak privately with. As one of the type-names of devotion – the rest listed by Constance Padwick in her study of Islamic prayer manuals are ‘ibāda عابدة, ṣalāt صلاة, sujūd سجود, du‘ā’ دعاء, dhikr ذكر, wird ورد, waẓīfa وظیفة, ḥizb حزب, and ḥirz حرز – munājāt alludes to verse 19:52 in the Qurʾān, where God uses its cognate najiyy نَجِيّ to describe how Moses was summoned from the right-hand side of the Mount as a confidant. Therefore, munājāt is also reasonably interpreted as the ideal state of ritual worship, a mode of praying that emphasizes the private exchange between God and the believer.

In addition, the word munājāt has also been historically defined by texts that announce themselves as munājāt. This body of texts is fascinating for straddling established binaries such as ṣalāt vs. du‘ā’, liturgical vs. spontaneous, or even prayer vs. poetry. They often resort to authority through attribution to saintly figures – amīr al-muʾminīn (d.661), Zayn al-ʻĀbidīn (d.713), al-Shāfiʿī (d.820), Ḥamza ibn ‘Alī (d.1021), Anṣārī (d.1039), sulṭān al-ʻārifīn (d.1166), al-Shādhilī (d.1258), etc. – or patterned invocation (Ilāhī, yā rabb, ḥasbī Allahu, Allāhumma) and oath-taking (by the truth of Qurʾānic teachings, by pre-Islamic prophets, by the prophet Muḥammad, by the Fourteen Infallibles). They also allow for formal and linguistic creativity, stitching poetry and prayer in takhmīs, qaṣīdah, masnavi and in Arabic, Persian, Ottoman Turkish, Chaghatay, Urdu, Uyghur, Indonesian etc.

About The Collection

Through a curated sampling of munājāt manuscripts, this digital collection offers a glimpse into a rich tradition. Texts are selected, organized, and presented in a way that gives you a sense of munājāt’s historical continuity and geographical reach in addition to its textual constitution and literary character. Most manuscript images, sourced from other digital libraries, are in the public domain, though for better visualization and shorter load time, text objects are presented as cover images instead of full-text pdf documents, which interested readers are able to access via links provided in the metadata. Sort-by-Date under Browse and Timeline are functionalities centered on manuscript production rather than the historical development of a single text or a particular literary form used in munājāts, which you can read more about in articles under Exhibits. Locations and Map respectively highlight manuscript provenance (who made it then) and dispersal (who has it now). To further explore texts in the collection from a literary perspective, use the word cloud (word size determined by frequency) under Subjects and term buttons on the Browse page.

This digital collection, created by Indiana University Bloomington Comparative Literature Ph.D. Candidate Yilin La, is a work in progress. Objects in the collection, related metadata, interactive features, and individual exhibits will be updated as the corpus expands in volume, language, and medium. Comparative examples of the munājāt genre are intended to promote further research on Islamic ritual and practice, the role of form in the formation of a genre, and the interplay between poetry and prayer. Send Yilin your suggestions, comments, or corrections.