435 
hanéfite, Cairo ; W.B. Hallaq, The use and
abuse of evidence: The question of provincial
and Roman influences on early Islamic law, in
  (), -; repr. in W. Hallaq, Law
and legal theory in classical and medieval Islam,
Aldershot⁄Hampshire , ch. ; J. Schacht,
An introduction to Islamic law, Oxford , -;
E. Tyan, ilf, in   , iii, -.
Conversion
Spiritual and moral transformation at-
tended by a sincere change of belief. The
concept of conversion is represented in the
Qur
ān by a group of teachings which to-
gether stress the importance of admitting
God’s lordship, accepting the guidance he
gives, following the way he has established
and conforming to his will (see 
 ; ; ; ). It
is essentially a matter of reverting to a
norm perceptible to all and to which one is
able to conform by one’s own efforts. The
initiative for the movement of restoration
lies with God, though humankind has the
ability to comply or not (see  
).
God has created all things primarily so
that they should serve and worship (q.v.)
him (e.g.  :; :-; :-; :;
see ; ). Among them are
humankind ( :) whose vocation is to
seek God’s help ( :) and thank him for
the good he gives. But humans are weak
and contentious ( :; :; :; see
; ) even though
God has given them intelligence ( :),
and they allow themselves to be seduced
from their proper relationship with him
( :; :-; see ;
  ). It is this fal-
libility that causes a slip from their true
nature ( :; see   ) and
which God in his mercy (q.v.) seeks to
restore.
One of the commonest terms in the
Qur
ān by which the notion of this resto-
ration is expressed is guidance, hudā. It
springs from the idea that the fundamental
relationship entails that humans follow
where God leads and in so doing fulfill
their existence. But the term has rather
more nuanced meanings than this basic
depiction suggests. On the one hand, the
Qur
ān makes clear that God’s guidance
enlightens ( :) and directs to the path
of right action ( :) and that he pro-
vides signs (q.v.) to help along the way
( :). But this guidance is not made
available to everyone. For on the other
hand, some have fallen into error (q.v.;
 :; :) or even been cast aside by
God ( :) and purposely willed by him
to stray ( :; :; see ). Exactly
why this should be is part of the divine
mystery, for only God can give guidance
( :) and no one else, not even the
Prophet ( :; :; :). A partial
explanation, however, is provided by sug-
gestions that humans have a crucial part to
play for themselves, for God could have
willed to guide all ( :; :; :)
and he guides those who turn to him
( :; :; :). This is amplified by
indications that he gives guidance to those
who are already seeking it, alladhīna htadaw
hudān ( :; cf. :) and guides those
who believe ( :-).
The relationship between belief and
guidance is made yet more explicit in refer-
ences to those who have made a choice.
God has shown the way to the grateful and
the ungrateful ( :); however, he only
guides those who believe ( :; :).
Believers who turn away from their belief
can only be left to the consequences of
their choice ( :; see ; ).
Here the Qur
ān seems to suggest a subtle
interplay between God’s unbounded will to
guide and the human ability to accept or
reject. While humans are not left entirely
to decide for themselves — because God’s
 
will is not to be resisted — the relationship
does involve a measure of freedom, with
the result that God’s guidance is occasion-
ally identifiable as forgiveness (q.v.) offered
in order to bring back his willful creature
to his way ( :-).
This is the kind of awareness that is
shown by Abū āmid al-Ghazālī (d. ⁄
) who tries to explain his recovery from
the debilitating skepticism (see -
) which struck him when he taught
in Baghdad. Quoting  :, he relates
that after a time God put light into his
heart (q.v.) to give him clearer insights than
he had obtained himself by the deductive
methods that he had previously employed,
implying that whereas his own faculties
had led him into error, he was brought
back to the truth by God’s guidance. He
readily admits that he is moved entirely by
God in his new vocation of teaching the
true knowledge and he asks God to guide
him and through him to guide others
(Ghazālī, Munqidh, , -). It is clear
from what al-Ghazālī says that he attri-
butes the origins of his recovery wholly to
God although the preparations he himself
made for the conversion are detailed
throughout his autobiographical account
in his expositions of the weaknesses of the
various sciences.
More or less the same dynamic is ex-
pressed in the less common notion that
God admits (adkhala) humankind into the
sphere of his mercy or into a place among
the righteous. While he admits those whom
he wills ( :; :; cf. :), he also al-
lows to enter those who show their worth
by good deeds (q.v.;  :; :; cf. :).
The elaborate relationship of divine ordi-
nation and human qualification is inti-
mated in the prayer of the prophet Solo-
mon (Sulaymān, see ) asking God
to compel him to have gratitude and to act
righteously and to admit him among his
servants ( :). Human action and di-
436
vine conduct are inseparable here, forming
a partnership in which the responsibility
for fulfilling God’s expectations seems to
be reciprocal.
The manner in which these terms are
employed suggests that the act of conform-
ing to God’s way requires a conversion that
is determined by God himself but also in-
volves human initiative. The most intimate
form of this relationship is denoted by the
idea of returning to an initial position or
restoring a lost condition, expressed by the
verb tāba and its forms. In some instances
this is used of humans alone and carries a
strong element of repentance ( :;
:). But in other significant occurrences it
is used of God, as when he turns to Adam
and guides him ( :; see  
), or when the three followers of Mu-
ammad who have failed in their duty try
to run away until God turns to them to
enable them to turn as well, (thumma tāba
alayhim li-yatūbū ( :; compare :;
see   ). The use of
the same verb for both divine and human
action here graphically portrays the way in
which the fugitives’ return is reciprocated
by God’s move to restore them. The same
divine concern is shown in God’s turning
to those who believe ( :), suggesting
that as soon as they signal their readiness,
he too is ready to help them in their faith.
The accounts of how the theologian
(mutakallim) Abū l-asan *Alī al-Ash*arī
(d. ⁄) abandoned the Mu*tazilī doc-
trines (see *;   

) of his early years illustrate this co-
operative action well. In most versions of
the story of his conversion, he is first trou-
bled by the insufficiency of the answers
provided by speculative theology (kalām)
and then, after praying to God, is guided
in visions of the Prophet to accept tradi-
tional beliefs and to defend them with
rational arguments (see   

:   ). Accord-
 437
ing to one version he publicly declares that
he now embraces Islam and repents of his
old ways, (innī qad aslamtu l-sāa wa-innī tā$ib
mimmā kuntu fī-hi, Ibn *Asākir, Tabyīn, ;
also, R. McCarthy, Theology of al-Asharī,
). This conversion results from al-
Ash*arī’s own preliminary efforts and
God’s guidance working together.
The same movement, though only with
respect to human actors, is expressed in the
verb anāba, which similarly suggests the
motion of coming back to the same point.
So humankind is enjoined to make this re-
turn ( :) and warned to do so before
punishment is inflicted ( :; see -
  ; 
; ) though they only com-
ply when in trouble and at other times
ignore God’s oneness ( :; see  
 ). Human responsibility for
making this move is emphasized in the
forthright admonition to unbelievers: God
leaves to stray those whom he wills but
guides those who make the return ( :).
Here again there is a hint that the action of
God in guiding and that of humankind in
accepting are interconnected. But if con-
version consists in returning to the way
that God has set and which humans are
innately prepared to follow, there is still the
necessity of actively pointing them to this
way. The Qur
ān explains that the activity
of calling humankind (see ), in-
dicated by the verb daā, is undertaken both
by God through clear signs ( :), and
by the Prophet. Muammad is told to in-
vite people ( :; :; :) with
proper exhortation ( :) though, like
Noah (q.v.) and other earlier messengers
(cf.  :), he meets solid resistance
( :-; :; see ; 
 ). One reason for this is
that God prevents those who have already
ignored his signs from hearing and under-
standing ( :). And again we see an in-
timate relationship, this time between the

Prophet’s call, people’s readiness to heed
and God’s ordaining the outcome. An obli-
gation for individual Muslims and the
community, the equivalent to the Prophet’s
calling, is striving, jihād (q.v.). While this
term is often employed for fighting with
arms, some uses suggest conduct that
marks out believers. Such is the case when
those who are called strive in God’s way
(see    [ ]) with person
and possessions (e.g.  :; :; :),
having been commanded to do this as part
of the observance of faith, as though their
conduct might attract others to imitate
them.
This nexus of movements in which God
and humankind seem engaged together
achieves its end in the conforming of the
individual to God’s way. The Christian
convert *Alī b. Rabban al-abarī (d. ca.
⁄) attests to this when he confesses
that he was able to recognize the existence
of one, eternal God through his own rea-
son, though it was God who called (daā)
him to exercise his reason and so escape
from the error of unbelief (I.-A. Khalifé
and W. Kutsch, Radd, ). This is the true
conversion, fulfilled in the action of bow-
ing (see   ) to
God’s will as expressed by the verb aslama.
Its significance is perhaps most fully con-
veyed in  : which proclaims that all
things in heaven and earth surrender to
God, whether obediently or not, and will
return to him, indicating that God is the
lord of all and that eventually nothing can
remain indifferent to him. This receives
endorsement elsewhere, e.g. where Mu-
ammad is told to say that God’s is the
only guidance and so humankind is com-
manded to surrender to him ( :; :)
and that there can be no help when pun-
ishment comes unless humankind sur-
renders to God ( :). There is a
strong suggestion in such verses that the
act of bowing and submitting results for
 
reasonable creatures from an awareness
of God and of the individual’s status as
subservient to him. Living indifferently
to him is, therefore, unreasonable and
fraught with obstacles, while living in har-
monious conformity with his way brings
self-enhancement.
The inference to be drawn is that conver-
sion and return to the position for which
creatures were ordained results from a
rational acknowledgement of the relation-
ship between the created order and the
Creator. The prime example of this in the
Qur
ān is the prophet Abraham (Ibrāhīm,
see ) who, from the initial realiza-
tion that idols cannot be objects of worship
(see   ), engages in a pro-
cess of deduction. From his observation of
the changing condition of the natural
world in which stars (q.v.), moon (q.v.) and
sun (q.v.) can appear to be supreme until
they decline and disappear, he deduces the
existence of the one who made them all
( :-; see    
).
The prophet himself works out the differ-
ence between the created and Creator
but at the same time he is supported and
guided in his growing understanding by
God himself ( :).
It is salutary to be told in the Qur
ān that
while the act of acknowledging God and
submitting to him is in conformity with his
will, it is not a cause for complacency as
though those who had accomplished it
have been able to do so through their own
insight. For the very act itself results from
God’s guidance which he gives as a favor
( :; see ;   -
). Again, the human’s return through
reason to the appropriate position in rela-
tion to God is as much an act of God’s
care as the individual’s efforts. See also
.
David Thomas
438
Bibliography
Primary: al-Ghazālī, Abū āmid Muammad,
al-Munqidh min al-alāl, ed. *A.-. Mamūd,
Cairo n.d.; Ibn *Asākir, Tabyīn kadhib al-muftarī,
ed. . al-Qudsī, Damascus .
Secondary: T.W. Arnold, The preaching of Islam.
A history of the propagation of the Muslim faith,
London ; M.Gervers and R.J. Bikhazi (eds.),
Conversion and continuity. Indigenous Christian
communities in Islamic lands, eighth to eighteenth
centuries, Toronto ; I.-A. Khalifé and W.
Kutsch (eds.), ar-Radd *alā n-na2ārā de *Alī
a(-abarī, in Mélanges de l’Université Saint Joseph
 (), -; N. Levtzion (ed.), Conversion to
Islam, New York ; B. Lewis, The Jews of
Islam, Princeton ; R.J. McCarthy, The
theology of al-Asharī, Beirut  (contains a
partial translation); W.M. Watt, Conversion in
Islam at the time of the Prophet, in W.M.
Watt, Early Islam. Collected articles, Edinburgh
.
Coral
The lime-skeleton of sea-creatures covered
by animalcular polyps. Red coral (Corallium
rubrum), which is particulary valued, is har-
vested from the depths of the sea and used
in jewelry; moreover, it is supposed to pos-
sess curative power. The Arabic term for
this coral, marjān, appears twice in the
Qur
ān.
The two qur
ānic references to coral
occur in   (“The Merciful,” Sūrat al-
Ramān; see    ).
Reflecting the name of the sūra, coral and
pearls (lu$lu$, see ) are mentioned
together in  : as symbols of the
mercy (q.v.) and benefits of God (see
): “He has loosed the two seas
[fresh-water and salt-water] which meet.
Between them is a barrier (q.v.) which they
do not transgress. Which then of the bene-
fits of your Lord will the two of you count
false? From both come forth the pearl and
the coral” ( :-). ( : contains a
similar passage, but with no reference to
any specific product: “… yet from each [of