Futuwwah: Codifying Youth Ethics From the Sunnah with Reference to Sulami’s Kitab Al-Futuwwa

Recep Şentürk

ABSTRACT

Futuwwah genre on youth ethics has rich literature in prose and poetry in Arabic, Persian and Turkish. It started emerging about a thousand years ago and spread around the Muslim world as a response to a need for an Islamic youth ethics to educate new generations of Muslims according to Sunnah. The ummah as a whole regards the Futuwwah as the highest ethical ideal as it crosscuts all theological, jurisprudential, philosophical, ethnic lines. Futuwwah genre produced practical narrative ethics. It presents the chain of Prophets from Adam up until the Prophet Muḥammad, and his Companions as the best examples of applied futuwwah ethics and the role models for the young generations to come. Presently, well-formulated Islamic youth ethics is dearly needed. This paper explores the work of ʿAbd al‑Raḥmān al-Sulamī of Nīs̲h̲āpūr (325-412 AH / 936-1021 CE), the great scholar of hadith, who authored the first known Kitāb al-Futuwwah and codified the ethical principles of Islamic chivalry. In this presentation, I will analyze the genre of futuwwah with a focus on al-Sulamī’s book to address the following questions: Why did the genre of futuwwah emerge? What is the role of narrative and hadith in Futuwwah ethics? What are the core values of futuwwah ethics? Who are the role models of futuwwah? And finally, how can futuwwah be implemented in today’s world as youth ethics?