"On that day when faces will be white or black" (Q3:106): towards a semiology of the face in the Arabo-Islamic tradition.

• Author: Lange, Christian

Your face is covered with a veil of beauty.--Abu Nuwas (1)

My face looks like a wedding-cake left out in the rain.--W. H. Auden (2)

1. BLACK FACES IN THE MUSLIM RELIGIOUS IMAGINATION

   One of the most striking eschatological images employed in the Qur'an is that of the black faces of sinners in Hell and, conversely, the white faces of the inhabitants of Paradise: "On that day when faces will be white or black" (yawma tabyaddu wujuhun wa-taswaddu wujuhun, 3:106, cf. 39:60). The Qur'an suggests that faces will be black because they are scorched by hellfire (14:50, 21:39, 23:104, 27:90, 33:66). (3) Other passages indicate that faces will be covered with earth (qatar, 10:26) and dust (ghabra, 80:40). The ignomy (dhilla) resulting from this stigmatization is so great that it appears "as if their faces had been veiled (ughshiyat) with a cloak of darkest night" (10:27). (4)

   Commenting on Qur'an 3:106, Fakhr al-Din al-Razi (d. 606/1209) argued against a metaphorical understanding of the verse, stating that "there is nothing to indicate that one should abandon the literal meaning (haqiqa)." (5) Razi reasoned that there is a divine purpose (hikma) in the whiteness and blackness of faces, since it helps people to find their way around on the Day of Judgment, identifying those in whose company they belong. (6) According to Abu 1-Muzaffar al-Sam'ani (d. 489/1096), faces are signs by which "the secret things are revealed on the Day of Judgment" (yawma tubld al-sarair, Quran 86:9). (7) All in all, there seems to have been little disagreement that on the Day of Judgment the faces of sinners would literally be black. In fact, according to Ghazall (d. 505/1111), they are "blacker than charcoal." (8)

   Opinions differed, however, as to who exactly the black-faced people of sura 3:106 were. Abu Abd Allah al-Qurtubi (d. 671/1272) lists a number of candidates: (1) unbelievers (kuffar), a view attributed to Ubayy b. Ka'b (d. before 35/656); (2) apostates (murtaddun) (from Qatada, d. 117/735); (3) the "people of innovation" (ahl al-bid'a) (from Malik b. Anas, d. 179/795); (4) people of sectarian or heretical inclinations (ahl al-ahwa') (also from Malik); (5) hypocrites (munafiqun) (from al-Hasan al-Basri, d. 110/728); (6) the Haruriyya (i.e., the Kharijites) or the Qadariyya (from Abu Umama al-Bahili, d. ca. 100/718). Qurtubi himself adds (7) the Rawafida (i.e., the Shi'a), (8) the Mu'tazila, (9) tyrannical rulers, and (10) all "those who make public grave sins" (al-mu'linuna bi-l-kabair). (9)

   Qurtubi, by adding categories (7) through (10), extends the threat of punishment in the hereafter from unbelievers, apostates, and heretics to encompass rather well-established (if heterodox) schools within Islam (the Mu'tazilites and the Shi'ites), as well as to sinning believers (the unrighteous, and all those who transgress against the ethos of keeping sins hidden). In fact, in the Islamic religious imagination, black faces as markers of doom are by no means restricted to unbelievers. Instead, the notion had a remarkable career as it applied within the community of Muslim believers.

   In Ghazali's Ihya' 'ulum al-din, a pilgrim recounts:

   [W]hen I set out for Mecca for the first time in the company of my father, I went to sleep at a way-station. While I was asleep someone called to me and said, "Arise, for God has caused your father to die and has blackened his face." Terrified, I arose, and removed the garment from his face, and behold, he was indeed dead, and his face had turned black. (10) The pilgrim's father's face is later restored to its salvific white by the Prophet Muhammad, who makes a miraculous appearance and intercedes on the dead man's behalf. The story shows how black faces inspired the imagination of the pious, who were ever anxious that belief (iman) might not be enough to ensure salvation, and that there would be retribution for sins. The early Sufi Sari al-Saqati (d. 253/867) famously remarked, "I look at my nose twice every day, because I am afraid that my face may have turned black," anticipating the charring of faces in the Fire. (11)

   Partial blackening of faces reflects gradations of sinful behavior. Ibn al-Jawzi (d. 597/1200) relates the story of someone who in a dream sees Abu Nasr Habib al-Najjar, a preacher from Basra. Habib used to be known for his handsomeness. Now, however, a black spot has appeared on his face. Habib explains:

   I passed through the quarter of the Banu 'Abs in Basra, and I saw a young beardless lad wearing a light ghilala cloth under which his body was distinguishable. I looked at him. When I came to my Lord, He said to me: "Habib!" I said: "Here I am!" He said: "Pass over the Fire!" So I passed over the Fire, and it blew this gust on me. I cried: "Help!" He called to me: "A gust (nafha) for a glance (lamha). Had you done more, verily We would have punished you more severely!" (12) 2. THE HUMAN FACE IN THE QUR'AN AND PROPHETIC TRADITION (HADlTH)

   In order to appreciate the notion of black faces in Islam fully, it is necessary to outline the role of the face in the Muslim religious imagination in general. It is indeed striking that it is the face that is singled out as the object of blackening. The mystery of the face is that it both represents the self to others and that it symbolizes something that lies beyond; it is "both mask and window of the soul." (13) This paradox makes the face, in the words of Lacan, "the most elusive of objects." (14) This is no doubt as true in the Western context in which Lacan wrote as it is in Islam.

   The word for "face" (wajh, pl. wujuh) is mentioned seventy-two times in the Qur'an. Eleven times it is used to denote God's face (wajh Allah, wajhuhu, wajh rabbika). (15) Most theologians preferred to understand the expression metaphorically. (16) "God's face" in the Qur'an stands pars pro toto. (17) The face is a symbol for God's all-embracing, overwhelming presence, as in the famous periscope, "Wherever you turn, there is the face of God" (Qur'an 2:115). "Face" is a synecdoche of God, that is, a part of Him which stands for the whole: "Everything shall perish except His face" (kullu shay'in halikun illa wajhahu, 28: 88, cf. 55:26-27). (18)

   Similarly, in the Quran the face serves as a metonymy for the human self: "I have surrendered my face (that is, my whole self) to God" (aslamtu wajhi li-llah, 3:20). (19) A hadith states that "he who fasts one day in the way of God, He will distance his face (baada wajhahu) from Hell for seventy seasons." (20) However, while the face gives man identity, it also symbolizes the fragility and powerlessness of humankind vis-a-vis its Creator. One is tempted to speak of a 'facialized creature feeling' (Kreaturgefuhl) in Islam. According to a tradition preserved by Qurtubi, on the Day of Judgment sinners "are thrown into the Fire shackled (masfudun), and they have nothing to protect themselves except their faces (laysa lahum shay'un yattaquna bihi illa l-wujuh)--but they are blind, their vision having disappeared from them." (21) Nothing shields man from God except his face. However, all masks come down on the Day of Judgment, the day on which "secret things are revealed" and when "what was hidden is made plain, and veils are lifted." (22)

   Thus the inhabitants of Paradise are marked by their radiant and shining faces (Quran 75:22, 80:38. 83:24). According to a tradition in Abu I-Layth al-Samarqandi's (d. 373/984 or after) eschatological manual Qurrat al-uyun, believers are washed in a well next to the entrance to the Garden "until their faces become as bright as the moon on the night of the full moon." (23) Conversely. God disfigures (shana) the faces of sinners in Hell. (24) In addition to blackening, an array of punishments is directed against the faces of those confined to the Fire. According to the Quran, the guardians of Hell (zabbaniya) beat the sinners' faces (8:50, 47:27). The people of the Fire are blind and deaf (Quran 17:97). (25) They have their ears and noses severed. (26) and the gaolers of Hell trample on their monstrously swollen tongues. (27) The person who neglects prayer during his life is smitten in the face with his prayer rug. (28) Hellfire is so fierce that the upper lip of the sinner "is rolled up until it reaches the middle of his head, and his lower lip hangs down until it beats upon his navel." (29)

   The Qur'an states that "We shall assemble them, on the Day of Judgment, upon their faces" (nahshuruhum yawma l-qiyama 'ala wujuhihim; 17:97; cf. 25:34). (30) According to another passage, sinners "will be dragged on their faces into the Fire" (yushabuna fi l-nar 'ala wujuhihim; 54:48). This notion is echoed in the hadith that states, "He who has pride in his heart the weight of a mustard seed, God will throw him down on his face in the Fire." (31) Again, commentators tended to take such descriptions rather literally. Ghazali, for example, relates that the inhabitants of Hell walk on their faces, stepping with their eyeballs upon spikes of iron. (32)

   The human face plays a central role in Islamic eschatology because it is both identity-bestowing, representing man toward the outside, and the body's most vulnerable part, mirroring the truth inside. All inhabitants of Hell suffer punishment of faces in one way or another. In the spirit of talionic punishment, acts of defacement in Hell are directed especially against those who seek to "acquire face" in this world. Examples include those who choose martyrdom for reasons of social prestige, those who give alms in order to be known as generous, and vain scholars. (33) All those who dye their hair with black color out of vanity will have blackened faces on the Day of Judgment, (34) "except when it happened for the purpose of jihad." (35) These traditions show the face's ability to express the ideas of honor and shame. To "blacken someone's face" (sawwada wajhahu) is, in fact, a well-known expression meaning "to dishonor someone." There are copious examples in the...