INHIBITION

Arabic ḥijr ( حجر‎ ), which, in its primitive sense, means “interdiction or prevention.” In the language of the law it signifies an interdiction of action with respect to a particular person; the causes of inhibition being three: infancy, insanity, and servitude. The acts of an infant, i.e . one under puberty, are unlawful, unle sanctioned by his guardian. The acts of a lunatic who has no lucid intervals are not at all lawful; and so are those of a male or female slave. ( Hidāyah , iii. p. 468.) INITIAL LETTERS of the Qurʾān. [ QURʾAN .] INJĪL ( انجيل‎ ). Gr. Εὐαγγέλιον . Evangel. Injīl is used in the Qurʾān, and in the Traditions, and in all Muḥammadan theological works of an early date, for the revelations made by God to Jesus. But in recent works it is applied by Muḥammadans to the New Testament. The word occurs twelve times in the Qurʾān, as in the following Sūrahs, which we have arranged chronologically , and not as they occur in the Qurʾān. (It will be seen that the expre ion Injīl is not mentioned in the earlier Sūrahs. See chronological table of Sūrahs in article QURʾAN .) Sūrah vii. 156 : “Who follow the Apostle—the illiterate Prophet, whom they find written down with them in the Law ( Taurāt ) and the Gospel ( Injīl ).” Sūrah iii. 2 : “He has sent thee a book ( i.e . the Qurʾān) confirming what was before it, and has revealed the Law, and the Gospel before, for the guidance of men.” Sūrah iii. 43 : “He will teach him the Book and Wisdom, and the Law and the Gospel .” Sūrah iii. 58 : “Why do ye dispute about Abraham, when the Law and the Gospel were not revealed until after him.” Sūrah lvii. 27 : “We gave him (Jesus) the Gospel , and we placed in the hearts of those who followed him kindne and compa ion.” Sūrah xlviii. 29 : “Their marks are in their faces from the effects of adoration: that is their similitude in the Law, and their similitude in the Gospel .” Sūrah ix. 112 : “Promised in truth in the Law, in the Gospel , and in the Qurʾān.” Sūrah v. 50 : “We brought him (Jesus) the Gospel .” Sūrah v. 51 : “Then let the people of the Gospel judge by what is revealed therein.” Sūrah v. 70 : “And were they steadfast in the Law and in the Gospel ?” Sūrah v. 72 : “Ye rest on nought until ye stand fast by the Law and the Gospel and what is revealed to you from your Lord.” Sūrah v. 110 : “When I taught thee the Book, and Wisdom, and the Law, and the Gospel .” There are also allusions to the Christian Scriptures in the following verses:— Sūrah xix. 31 . (The infant Jesus said,) “Verily, I am the servant of God: He hath given me the book , and He hath made me a prophet.” Muḥammad was much more indebted to Judaism than Christianity for the teaching he received, which enabled him to overthrow Arabian idolatry and to establish the worship of the One True God [ CHRISTIANITY , JUDAISM ], and consequently we find more frequent allusions to the Law of Moses than to the Gospel of Christ; and, as it has been already stated, the references to the Gospel as a revelation are in the later Sūrahs. But in all references to the Injīl as an inspired record, there is not one single statement to the effect that the Christians of Muḥammad’s day did not po e the genuine Scriptures. In Sūrah iv. 169 , (which is an al-Madīnah Sūrah), the Christians are charged with extravagance , or error in doctrine, but not with not po e ing the true Gospels:— “Ye people of the Book! commit not extravagance in your religion; and say not of God other than the truth. For verily the Me iah, Jesus, the son of Mary, is an apostle of God, and His word which He placed in Mary, and a spirit from Him. Wherefore, believe in God, and in His apostle; and say not,—‘the Trinity’;—refrain; it will be better for you. For verily God is one God; far exalted is He above the po ibility that there should be unto Him progeny! to Him be long eth whatever is in the heavens and in the earth, and He sufficeth as a guardian.” In Sūrah lxi. 6 , there is an appeal to the Gospel in support of Muḥammad’s mi ion, and the appeal is made without any doubt that he was referring to a genuine saying of Christ, well known to the Christians of that day. The verse is as follows:— “When Jesus, the son of Mary, said: ‘O children of Israel! verily, I am the apostle of God to you, verifying the law that was before me, and giving you glad tidings of an apostle who shall come after me, whose name shall be Aḥmad!’ But when he did come to them with manifest signs, they said, ‘This is manifest sorcery!’ ” The allusion is to the promise of the Paraclete in John xvi. 7 , the Muslims declaring that the word παράκλητος has been substituted for the Greek περικλυτός , the word Aḥmad, which is equivalent to Muḥammad, meaning “Praised.” The charge which modern Muslims bring against the Christians of having either lost, or changed the original Scriptures, is treated of under the head of CORRUPTION OF THE SCRIPTURES ; but some curious statements on the subject will be found in an article in the Kashfu ʾz̤-Z̤unūn . It is a Bibliographical Dictionary, compiled by Ḥājjī K͟halīfah about 200 years ago. The statements in its article on INJIL are such a strange mixture of fact and fiction that we translate the article from the Arabic in extenso :— “The Injīl is a book which God revealed to ʿĪsā ibn Maryam. In the work entitled al-Muwāhib (by Shihābu ʾd-Dīn Aḥmad al-Qast̤alānī, died A.H . 923), it is recorded that the Injīl was first revealed in the Syriac tongue, and has since been translated into seventeen languages. But in the Ṣaḥīḥu ʾl-Buk͟hārī ( A.H . 256), in the story of Waraqah ibn Naufal, it is related that the Injīl was revealed in Hebrew. According to Wahb ibn Munabbih, as quoted by Zamak͟hsharī ( A.H . 538) in the Kashshāf , the Injīl was revealed to Jesus on the 13th day of the month Ramaẓān, although some say it was on the 18th day of that month, 1200 years after the revelation of the Zabūr (Psalms) to Moses. “It is a disputed question whether or not the Injīl abrogates the Law of Moses ( Taurāt ). Some say that Jesus was not a Sāḥibu ʾsh-Sharīʿah (a law-giver); for it is said in the Injīl :— قال عيسى انى ما جئت لتبديل شرع موسى عليه السلام بل لتكميله‎ ‘I am not come to abrogate ( tabdīl ) the Law of Moses , peace be upon him , but to fulfil it ( takmīl ).’ “But al-Baiẓāwī ( A.H . 685), in his commentary the Anwāru ʾt-Tanzīl , seems to prove that the Law of Jesus does abrogate the Law of Moses ( Sharʿu Mūsā ), for there are certain things revealed to Jesus which were not revealed to Moses. “At the commencement of the Injīl is Inscribed باسم الاب و الابن الخم‎ , ‘In the name of the Father and of the Son,’ . And the Injīl , which is now in the hands of the Christians, is merely a history of the Christ ( Sīratu ʾl-Masīḥ ), collected by his four companions Matta, Lūqā, Marqūṣ and Yūḥannā. “In the book entitled the Tuḥfatu ʾl-Adīb fi Raddi ʿalā Ahli ʾṣ-Ṣalīb , or ‘A refutation of the servants of the Cro ’ (written by ʿAbdu ʾllāh, a pervert from Christianity to Islām, A.H . 823), it is said that these four Companions are they who corrupted the religion of Jesus, and have added to it. And that they were not of the Ḥawārīyūn , or Apostles, mentioned in the Qurʾān. Matta did not see Jesus until the year he was taken up to heaven; and after the Ascension of Jesus he wrote in the city of Alexandria, with his own hand, his Injīl , in which he gives an account of the birth and life of Jesus, mentioning several circumstances which are not mentioned by others. Lūqā also did not see Jesus, but he was converted to Christianity by one Būlis (Paul), who was an Israelite, who himself had not seen Jesus, but was converted by Anānīyā (Ananias). Marqūṣ also did not see Jesus at all, but was converted to Christianity, after the Ascension of Jesus, by the Apostle Bītrū , and received the Injīl (Gospel) from that Apostle in the city of Rome. And his Gospel in many respects contradicts the statements of the other three. Yūḥannā was the son of the sister of Maryam, the mother of Jesus, and the Christians a ert that Jesus was present at the marriage of Yūḥannā, when Jesus changed the water into wine. It was the first miracle performed by Jesus. “When Yūḥannā saw the miracle, he was converted to Christianity, and left his wife and followed Jesus. He was the writer of the fourth Injīl (Gospel). It was written in Greek, in the city of Ephesus. These are the four persons who altered and changed the true Injīl , for there was only one Injīl revealed to Jesus, in which there was no contradiction or discrepancy. These people have invented lies concerning God and His Prophet Jesus, upon whom be peace, as it is a well known fact, although the Christians ( Naṣāra ) deny it. For example, Marqūṣ has written in the first chapter of his Gospel that in the book of the Prophet Isaiah it is said by God, ‘I have sent an angel before thy face, namely, before the face of Jesus,’ whereas the words are not in the book of Isaiah but in that of Malachi. [See Mark i. 2 . In the Received Version the words are “in the Prophets”; but in the Revised Version we have “in Isaiah the prophet.”] “Again, it is related by Matta, in the first or rather thirteenth chapter of his Gospel [ sic ; see, however, Matt. xii. 40 ], that Jesus said, ‘My body will remain in the belly of the earth three days and three nights after my death, just as Jonas was in the whale’s belly;’ and it is evident it was not true, for Matta agrees with the three other writers of the Gospels that Jesus died in the sixth hour on Friday, and was buried in the first hour of the night on Saturday, and rose from the dead early on Sunday morning, so that he remained in the belly of the earth one day and two nights. So there remains no doubt that the writers of the Gospels told the untruth. For neither Jesus said of himself, nor did God in his Injīl say of him, that Jesus will be killed or buried in the earth, for God has said ( i.e . in the Qurʾān, Sūrah iv. 156 ), ‘They slew him not, for certain! Nay, God raised him up unto Himself.’ For this cause there were various divisions amongst the Christians. Other circumstances similar to these are mentioned in the Tuḥfatu ʾl-Adīb . Then there are the fundamental rules and doctrines ( al-Qawāʾid ), upon which the Christians are, with very few exceptions , universally agreed, namely: (1) At-Tag͟ht̤īs (Baptism); (2) Faith in the Tas̤līs̤ , or Trinity; (3) the Incarnation of the Uqnūm ( i.e . the e ence) of the Son in the womb of Mary; (4) a belief in the Fit̤rah ( i.e . the Holy Communion); (5) the Confe ion of all sins to the Priest ( Qi īs ). These five foundations also are full of falsehood, corruption, and ignorance.” “In the work entitled al-Insānu ʾl-Kāmil (written by the Shaik͟h ʿAbdu ʾl-Karīm ibn Ibrahīm al-Jīlī, lived A.H . 767–811) it is said that when the Christians found that there was at the commencement of the Injīl the superscription باسم الاب و الابن‎ , i.e . ‘in the name of the Father and Son,’ they took the words in their natural meaning, and [thinking it ought to be Ab , father, Umm , mother, and Ibn , son] understood by Ab , the Spirit, by Umm , Mary, and by Ibn , Jesus; and on this account they said, S̤ālis̤u S̤alās̤at in , i.e . ‘(God is) the third of three.’ ( Sūrah v. 77 .) But they did not understand that by Ab is meant God Most High, by Umm , the Mahīyatu ʾl-Ḥaqāʾiq , or ‘E ence of Truth ’ ( Quiddit as veritatum ), and by Ibn , the Book of God, which is called the Wujūdu ʾl-Mut̤laq , or ‘Absolute Existence,’ being an emanation of the E ence of Truth, as it is implied in the words of the Qurʾān, Sūrah xiii. 9 : ‘And with him is the Ummu ʾl-Kitāb , or the Mother of the Book.’ ” AL -INSĀN ( الانسان‎ ). “Man.” The title of the LXXVI th Sūrah of the Qurʾān, called also Sūratu ʾd-Dahr, both words occurring in the first verse: “Did there not pa over man ( insān ) a long space of time ( dahr ), during which he was a thing not worthy of remembrance.” Some take these words to be spoken of Adam, whose body, according to tradition, was first a figure of clay, and was left for forty years to dry, before God breathed into it; but others understand them of man in general and of the time he lies in the womb. (See al-Baiẓāwī , in loco .) AL -INSĀNU ʾL-KĀMIL ( الانسان الكامل‎ ). “The perfect man.” A term used by the Ṣūfī mystics for one in whom are combined all the attributes of divinity and of humanity. ( Kitābu ʾt-Taʿrīfāt , in loco ). Also title of a mystic work by ʿAbdu ʾl-Karīm ibn Ibrahīm al-Jīlī (lived A.H . 767–811). INSHĀʾ ( انشاء‎ ). Lit . “Constructing; raising-up.” The term is particularly applied to literary compositions and forms of letter-writing. Mr. Lane, in his Modern Egyptians , vol. i. p. 272, mentions the Shaik͟h of the great Mosque, the Azhar, as the author of a collection of Arabic letters on various subjects, which are intended as models of epistolary style, such a collection being called an Inshāʾ . INSHĀʾA ʾLLĀHU TAʿĀLĀ ( ان شاء الله تعالى‎ ). “If it should please God Almighty.” A very frequent ejaculation amongst Muslims. [ ISTISNAʾ .] AL -INSHIRĀḤ ( الانشراح‎ ). “Expanding.” The title of the xcivth Sūrah of the Qurʾān, which opens with the words “Have we not expanded thy breast.” It is supposed to allude to the opening of Muḥammad’s heart in his infancy, when it is said to have been taken out and cleansed of original sin. (See al-Baiẓāwī , in loco .) INSOLVENCY of a debtor is established by a judicial decree; and after such a declaration a bequest by such a person is void. If, however, the creditors relinquish their claim, the bequest is then valid. ( Hidāyah , iv. p. 475.)