Rigorous mathematics and Deductive Reasoning

by Abdassamad Clarke

Mathematics uses five main elements: definition, axiom, hypothesis,
proof and theorem.

Definitions are created to ensure that the terms and concepts being
used in the arguments are clear.

The axiom is a concept which is so obviously true one does not have
to prove it; it is ’self-evident’. Sometimes axioms are also called
postulates. Based on the axioms, mathematicians make hypotheses or propositions.

A hypothesis is an unproven idea, a jump in the dark. Having done
that, the mathematician tries to prove it.

If he furnishes a proof for it by deductive reasoning, it is called
a theorem. A theorem is not the same as the saying, “O, but it’s only
a theory,” by which is meant ‘a hypothesis’.

Using this method, European mathematicians set about making a logical
system out of the mathematics that already existed. They were doing
the same thing that Euclid had done with geometry. By the end of the
eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth century, they had built
a very impressive building of pure mathematics. The mathematics of the
preceding epochs was inextricably wed to physics and astronomy. Gradually
the discipline called Pure Mathematics, which had no apparent practical
uses, began to appear.

Remember that they had originally set out to know the mind of God.
It is like many human endeavours. Along the way they built a wonderful
house of rigorously proved mathematics and they forgot God. They forgot
the truth that Allah “created both you and what you do?.” (Surat as-Saffat:
95-96) They said, “We made this building.” Allah says, “If only you
had said when you entered your jannah (garden), ‘It is what Allah wills!
There is no strength but by Allah’.” Imam Malik said that this is a
dhikr to be said upon entering one’s house, because in Arabic a man’s
jannah is his house. This is the ayah about the man who owned a wonderful
garden, but who did not see the hand of Allah in his own work. Scientists
didn’t think of themselves as discovering the order that is in Allah’s
creation, but they thought they themselves had built an amazing science.

One day, the French mathematician Laplace presented his newest, most
extraordinary work, Celestial Mechanics, to the emperor Napoleon.
The emperor said, “Monsieur Laplace, they tell me you have written this
large book on the system of the universe and have never even mentioned
its Creator.” Laplace is said to have answered, “I have no need of this
hypothesis.”

It was almost precisely at this moment in the history of mathematics
that the cracks in the building began to show.

Allah says, “The building they built will not cease to be a source
of doubt in their hearts unless their hearts are cut to shreds. Allah
is All-Knowing, All-Wise.” They thought they had built a house which
was truth, i.e. completely sure and certain knowledge. Then they discovered
geometries other than Euclid’s which are equally correct mathematically.
They cannot both describe reality, i.e. be true. That means mathematical
theorems can be mathematically correct but not necessarily true. This
was a tremendous blow to the emerging religion of mathematical science.
Worse was to come.

Mathematicians found that the simplest things were not really proved
clearly and without doubt. Euclid’s geometry was not as sure as they
had at first thought. Some of the basic axioms he used were not so clear,
and he used others without saying that he was doing so. Subsequent work
based on Euclid or on his methods was also not so sure.

This was a great catastrophe. Mathematicians had to go back to the
beginning and try to prove a lot of what they had done again. It was
as if, having built a really wonderful skyscraper, the builder discovered
that there were very serious flaws in the foundations. No one would
want to demolish the building and start again, and neither did the mathematicians.

Yet more serious mistakes were found. In the twentieth century, Bertrand
Russell and Alfred North Whitehead wrote a book called Principia
Mathematica. Russell, a philosopher, logician and mathematician,
was trying to arrive “at a perfected mathematics which should leave
no room for doubts.” Sceptics said that there is no absolute truth.
Russell replied, “Of such scepticism mathematics is a perpetual reproof;
for its edifice of truths stands unshakable and inexpungable to all
the weapons of doubting cynicism.” This book is in three volumes and
even for a mathematician is an almost completely unreadable attempt
to prove all of mathematics logically from sure foundations.

Russell said later, “I wanted certainty in the kind of way in which
people want religious faith. I thought that certainty is more likely
to be found in mathematics than elsewhere… But as the work proceeded,
I was continually reminded of the fable about the elephant and the tortoise.
Having constructed an elephant upon which the mathematical world could
rest, I found the elephant tottering, and proceeded to construct a tortoise
to keep the elephant from falling. But the tortoise was no more secure
than the elephant, and after some twenty years of very arduous toil,
I came to the conclusion that there was nothing more that I could do
in the way of making mathematical knowledge indubitable.” The work had
failed. It was one of many blows to mathematics as a body of sure knowledge
beyond doubt.

You might ask why this should matter. Most people react to pure mathematics
with a commonsense, “Let’s get on with the real world.” However, science
is increasingly mathematical. If maths has holes, then science has holes
– big holes. However, the effect of mathematics is much further-reaching
than one would have imagined.

This axiomatic approach had already pervaded all of the sciences and
created new ones, although many of the new ones, such as economics,
were regarded as pseudo-sciences when they first appeared, as they are
in reality. An example of how far it has gone is the idea of constitutional
government one of whose foundation documents is the Declaration of Independence
of the United States.

Constitutionalism

The Declaration of Independence begins, “We hold these truths
to be self-evident…” i.e. these are the axioms. This approach
is mathematical without involving numbers or calculation. However, one
does need to scrutinise each ‘truth’ which, even though
it seems on the surface very wonderful and idealistic, contains a great
number of contradictions.

We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created
equal, …

Of course, they are largely equal in having two eyes each, two legs,
hearts, livers, love and hate, and in other matters, but are they equal
in wealth, intellect, talent, beauty, social standing, strength, wisdom
or any other thing? If the equality does consist in having two eyes
and other physical attributes does this mean that invalids, crippled
people and physically impaired people are less equal, an idea abhorrent
to modern people?

…that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable
Rights, …

How did their Creator endow them with these rights? Where is this
written? In what revelation? Has the Creator revealed that in Christianity,
Judaism, Islam or in any other historical revelation? Or is the writer
of this declaration a new prophet with a new revelation?

…that among these are Life,…

Life is a fact rather than a right. Disease, natural disaster and
accident may terminate it. People who haven’t read the Declaration
of Independence or who do not agree with it may put an end to it.

…Liberty, …

Where does liberty end? Am I at liberty to take my neighbour’s
life? Obviously not, because he has the “inalienable right”
to life. But am I at liberty to sleep with his wife or his daughter
if I so wish and if we all think that we are not going to hurt anybody?
Perhaps my neighbour even agrees to that. If I am not so at liberty,
why not?

…and the pursuit of Happiness.

If my pursuit of happiness makes someone else miserable, then what?
What happens if I do not want to be happy? Perhaps I would like to be
miserable. For example, perhaps I want to accumulate a great deal of
money and be resented, feared and disliked by large numbers of people,
like the late Howard Hughes. Did Genghis Khan want happiness? Did he
want to be liked? Had he the inalienable right to do what he did and
to seek his fulfilment? Did he care whether he had or not?

That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men,
…

Here the passive verb “are instituted” cleverly avoids
confronting the question “who institutes them and how?”

…deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.
…

How do the governed show their consent? This is not a small problem.
Is it the consent of all of the governed, or most of them. How do ‘most
of them’ get defined – we have not even broached the problematic
nature of statistics in this work. What questions do you ask them to
find their consent?

…That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of
these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it,
…

What defines its being “destructive of these ends” and
who is to decide that it is so? Who are the people? If I disagree with
the majority am I then not one of “the people”? If the majority
are ignorant and one person is knowledgeable, must he bow to their will?
If he knows that some activity is suicidal or destructive and the majority
do not care and indeed rather like it, must he be silent?

…and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such
principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall
seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.”

“Seem most likely” was what the Bolsheviks thought when
they formed the Soviet State, and that resulted in almost eighty to
a hundred million dead people in Russia, China, Cambodia, etc., and
an incalculable amount of human misery.

As you see, whatever seems axiomatic to one person is not always going
to be so to another. In fact the people who drew up the above document
were as aware of all of the above objections as we are, but they thought
that it was only a matter of filling in the details, e.g. by defining
the people as “the majority of the people” as shown in elections,
etc. This leads to the great complexity of detail involved in constitutional
government, to the plethora of paragraphs and sub-clauses, amendments,
plebiscites, referendums, etc.

Orientalism

Another example of the spread of this technique into other areas than
mathematics, and perhaps the most anti-scientific and dishonest example
of which we can think is the contentious subject of orientalism. We
use this term here to refer to western studies of Islam. Orientalism
too contends that it is a scientific discipline. It is clearly a weapon
of the enemies of Allah. However, the Muslims have largely failed in
dealing with it because they deal piece-meal with its multitudinous
propositions, whereas what should be dealt with is its dishonestly unstated
axiomatic base. Euclid and subsequent mathematicians stated all their
definitions of terms and their axioms; orientalists state none of these
things.

For example, what is perhaps the bible of orientalism is the Leiden-published
Encyclopaedia of Islam. This is a distressing and ugly, but
apparently erudite, set of tomes. It is the clearest evidence of the
entirely unscientific axiomatic base of orientalism – we
seek refuge with Allah from the evil of it and His forgiveness for mentioning
it – that is that the Messenger of Allah was a perfectly ordinary
human being who did not receive revelation but compounded the entire
edifice of Islam from fragments of poorly comprehended jewish and christian
materials, and that where it disagrees with the Qur’an, the Biblical
literature is always decisive. They insist that subsequent Islamic thought
elaborated Islam on this basis, and added into it stolen pieces of Buddhism
and neo-Platonism, etc., etc. The proof that these axioms are false
is that they have never been clearly stated as being the axioms and
the premises of orientalism. An axiom, to be a correct basis for a scientific
study, must be so self-evidently true that it needs no proof. This ‘axiom’
is a mere prejudice, and at best a proposition which is impossible to
substantiate and which, if stated as a proposition, would be easily
refutable.

If these were not the axioms of orientalism we should expect at least
an equal amount of literature examining propositions based on the opposite
axioms, i.e. that Muhammad, may Allah bless him and grant him peace,
is the Messenger of Allah and the seal of the Prophets and Messengers,
and that the Qur’an is the revealed Speech of Allah confirming that
which came before it of other revelations to other prophets and messengers
and clarifying the many distortions to be found in other scriptures.
However, sceptical orientalism regards this as merely a proposition
which has to be proved, whereas the other is self-evidently true and
needs no proof, only needing subsidiary propositions merely to fill
in the details in this prejudicial picture.

Thus, many naive Muslims strive mistakenly within the academic nexus
thinking that orientalism is a rather well-meaning judaeo-christian
affair which just needs to be guided aright. They combat bravely various
sub-theses of this monstrous lie, without ever confronting the central
thesis, the deceitfully unmentioned axioms.

Modernist Islam

Within Islam too, this mathematical approach has found a home. Muslims
who believe in deriving shari’ah from ‘Islamic principles’
are following the same method. The ‘principles’ are axioms,
and are not the same as the traditional usul – ‘roots’
or ‘sources’. These latter are the sources of the din –
among which are the Book, the Sunnah, and the consensus of the people
of knowledge, etc. By following ‘Islamic principles’ one
very often arrives directly at a result that contradicts the well-known
shari’ah of Islam.

For example, Abu’l-A’la Maududi, founder of the Jama’at al-Islamiya
in India and Pakistan is a classic case of someone who follows this
method. We take a few examples at random from only one of his books,
The Islamic Way of Life, to illustrate this approach.

In Chapter one, The Islamic Concept of Life, Maududi says,
“There are certain postulates which should be understood and appreciated
at the very outset.” Postulate is another term for axiom, so here
Maududi has clearly set out his intention to create a new type of Islam
based on this mathematical approach, rather than on the traditional
usul.

Under Basic Postulates Abu’l-A’la includes in number one, “Man
has also been invested with freedom of will and choice and the power
to use the resources of the world in any manner he likes. In short,
man has been given a sort of autonomy while being appointed God’s vicegerent
on the earth.” First, although the author invokes the mathematical
approach with the use of the term postulate, this postulate which he
uses has none of the rigour, tight definition and exactness of mathematical
postulates. There are so many elements in this one statement that it
is meaningless to call it a postulate.

Without entering the fruitless and forbidden debate between advocates
of free-will and advocates of predestination, Maududi has clearly and
immediately given very strong indications that he is ideologically a
member of the group who used to be known as the Qadariyyah – the
proponents of free-will and those who deny the decree of Allah. The
second part of that assertion is more evident by emphasis and omission
than by any declaration. When the angel Jibril, peace be upon him, asked
the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, to describe Iman
– belief – he enumerated its elements as, “That you
believe in Allah, His Messengers, His Books, His angels, the Decree
– the good of it and the bad of it, and the Last Day.” The
last two terms deal with the great paradox of human existence that everything
is decreed by Allah, exalted is He, from before the creation of the
cosmos, and that the human being must face a reckoning for his deeds.

Imam Malik said, “The people who believe in the doctrine of
free-will (al-Qadariyyah) are the worst of mankind. I see them
as fickle people of shallow intelligence and innovations because of
many ayat which there are against them, of which there is the words
of Allah, mighty is He and majestic, ‘The building they have built
will not cease to be a bone of contention in their hearts’ (Surat
at-Tawbah, 111), and of which there is ‘And He revealed to Nuh,
“No one of your people will believe except for he who has already
believed”,’ (Surah Hud, ayah 36) and He said, ‘And
they will not give birth to any but wicked disbelievers,’ (Surah
Nuh, 27), ‘You will entice no one to them except for him who is to roast
in the Blazing Fire,’ (Surat as-Saffat, 163) and He said, ‘but Allah
was averse to their setting out so He held them back” (Surat at-Tawbah,
46) and in many other ayat.’”

The Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, is reported
to have said a number of things about the proponents of free-will, including
that they are the worst of mankind. Imam an-Nawawi narrated, “It
is established as an authentic statement that he said, may Allah bless
with him and grant him peace, ‘The Qadariyyah are the Magians (i.e.
dualists) of this community’”. It is not our purpose here to refute
them or to enter into a polemic on the matter. Rather we want to show
how much a modernist like Abu’l-A’la al-Maududi has imbibed the mathematical
approach as shown by his language of postulates. His first postulate
contains by omission and by emphasis something, which is further repeated
and elaborated throughout his book, entirely against the Sunnah.

Again in Chapter three, Essential Features of Islamic Political System,
Maududi begins, “The political system of Islam has been based on
three principles, viz., Tawheed (Unity of God), Risalat (Prophethood)
and Khilafat (Caliphate).” Here postulates are exchanged for principles,
but the thinking is the same. We only note that the equation here fails
in the first term “political system of Islam” because it introduces
two terms which would not be recognised classically: “political”
and “system”, and introducing matters into Islam is called
classically bid’ah. Maudud was enamoured of all things western so much
that he wanted to remake Islam entirely in its image. Yet, he did not
have enough knowledge of western society to know of the immense literatures
in criticism of ‘politics’ and ’systems’.

By the process of these three principles Maududi further arrives at
‘the State’ and ‘Islamic democracy’. The State was no part of early
Islamic thinking and is clearly another innovation. If we examine the
Arabic term dawlah, which is often translated as ’state’, it means a
‘turn of fortune in battle’. The word does not occur in the Qur’an but
another word from the same root does, doolah and it means a ‘turn of
fortune in terms of wealth’. The former is ‘political’ and the latter
‘economic’. However, our term ’state’ is related to ’static’ which is
precisely the direct opposite of the Arabic term. The obsessive drive
to create a state is a desperate fear of the dynamic nature of history
and of the turning this way and that way of fortune, i.e. Allah’s eternal
decree of the winners and losers. The state in western thinking is also
something which legislates, i.e. creates laws. The dawlah for the Muslims
may never create laws, but it can only implement Allah’s revealed law.

With respect to Islamic democracy, another innovation, Maududi says,
“Every person in an Islamic society enjoys the rights and powers
of the caliphate of God and in this respect all individuals are equal.”
Here we see the ‘equality’ of the French Revolution raising its not
so unexpected head. These words hark back to a group called the Khawarij
– literally ’seceders’ – who also affirmed a kind of
radical understanding of equality, which led them to murder Sayyiduna
‘Ali, may Allah honour him, murder being the ultimate weapon of egalitarians.

Again later in the same chapter, Abu’l-A’la introduces the concept
of Fundamental Human Rights for all mankind. This is clearly another
innovatory introduction of something foreign into Islam.

In Chapter IV Islamic Social Order, he begins, “The foundations
of the social system of Islam rest on the belief that all human beings
are equal and constitute one single fraternity.” We have already
questioned the concept of equality. It is doubly questionable here because
Allah, exalted is He, specifically refutes it in many ayat in the Qur’an,
e.g. where He says, “Say: ‘Are the blind and sighted equal? Or
are darkness and light the same?’” (Surat ar-Ra’d: 17) And, “Do
you make the giving of water to the pilgrims and looking after the Sacred
Mosque the same as believing in Allah and the Last Day and doing jihad
in the Way of Allah? They are not equal in the sight of Allah. Allah
does not guide the people of the wrongdoers. Those who believe and emigrate
and do jihad in the way of Allah with their wealth and themselves have
a higher rank with Allah. They are the triumphant.” (Surat at-Tawbah:
19-20) In this latter ayat, Allah differentiates the people who struggle
in the way of Allah from other believers. The ayat which differentiate
Muslims from jews, christians and other unbelievers are too numerous
and too well-known to mention. It is complete nonsense to say that humans
are all equal and one great brotherhood. But of course ‘brotherhood’
is the last term from the slogan of the French Revolution. That brotherhood
was to be achieved, as Marat proposed, by the removal of, “Two
hundred and sixty thousand aristocrat heads.”

Al-Maududi continues in the same chapter to say, “The foremost
and fundamental institution of human society is the unit of the family,”
but the family is not the unit of the society, but a unit possibly of
a clan or a tribe or a race. Islamic society begins when people pledge
allegiance to their leader, not because of any familial relationship
or tribal culture.

Most significantly in Chapter V, Economic Principles of Islam, Maududi,
says, “Islam has laid down some principles and prescribed certain
limits for the economic activity of man…” Note here that
Islam rather than being ’submission’ and ’surrender’ has now become
an active entity laying down principles. This leads on to something
quite crucial, “Islam does not concern itself with time-bound methods
and techniques of economic production or with the details of the organisational
pattern and mechanisms.” The statement is ambiguous. It can lead
easily to the interpretation that the economic patterns of the right-acting
first generations are not a source for our shari’ah. That cuts us off
from a clear model of a non-usurious economy and leaves us adrift in
the sea of ‘Islamic Principles’. That was what actually and quite conveniently
led many of Maududi’s followers into directorships of Islamic banks
and other similar usurious institutions.

Perhaps, this is sufficient to show the penetration of this type of
mathematical approach into the thinking of just one of the exponents
of now out-dated modernist Islam. However, please note that any mathematician,
philosopher or person trained in that type of thinking would faint at
the weakness of thought displayed here, the falsity of its logic, and
the emptiness of its conclusions.

We put these examples here, to illustrate how widespread is the basic
idea which is at the core of the mathematisation of science, and how
much damage it can do.

From: Abdassamad Clarke

See also:

• A study of the book ‘Root Islamic Education’ by Shaykh Dr Abdalqadir as-Sufi led by Hajj Abdassamad Clarke

Shaykh `Abdalhaqq Bewley: Legalised Deviation of Tassawuf Imposed Inside Muslim Tariqahs

Download

From The 12th International Fiqh Conference via the Muslims of Norwich Community Website

‘Fear Allah & be just with your children’ – Does Justice Mean Equality?

‘Fear Allah & be just with your children’ – Does Justice mean Equality?. Image credit: fingtoys.

Al-Nu`mân b. Bashîr once addressed the people from the pulpit and told them about what took place between the Prophet and his father, saying:

My father gave him a gift. Then my mother, `Amrah bint Rawâhah, said: “I will not be satisfied until Allah’s Messenger (peace be upon it) is a witness to it.”

So my father went to Allah’s Messenger and said: “I gave a gift to my son from `Amrah bint Rawâhah, and she told me to have you be a witness to it, O Messenger of Allah.”

The Prophet (peace be upon him) asked: “Did you give your other children something similar?” He replied that he had not. So the Prophet (peace be upon him) said: “Fear Allah, and be just between your children.” [Sahîh al-Bukhârî (2587) and Sahîh Muslim (1623)]

Islam teaches us the principle of treating our children with justice, and treating children justly usually means treating them equally. We see this clearly in the hadîth cited above. The Prophet (peace be upon him) declared the father to be unjust, because he gave one child a gift without giving an equal gift to the others. In this case, treating the children unequally was the same as treating them unjustly.

But does justice always mean equality? This is an important question, since it is essential for us as Muslim parents to understand what justice between our children entails. We know the matter of justice is serious in our religion, because the Prophet (peace be upon him) told the father to “Fear Allah”. This is a strong rebuke to the father on account of his conduct. Such a strong rebuke shows us that being unjust in our dealings with our children is a serious sin.

Consider the consequences when we favor some of our children over others. It creates hatred and resentment between siblings where love should be. It makes them envious. It ca also make the child who is treated less favorably to suffer from self-doubt and low confidence.

The Pious Predecessors exercised great care and vigilance to be fair to their children. They tried to be equal in how often they paid attention to each child, how often the played with them, spoke with them, even how often they smiled or looked at them. They only made exception when they had to show anger or disapproval to a child for some wrongdoing, and then they did this with fairness in order to correct that child for that particular misdeed, and that with the intention to develop the child’s character.

The Qur’ân gives us a good example, in the story of Joseph, of a family where some children felt that one brother was more loved and more favored by their father. They went so far as to plot to kill him. In the end, they tossed him into a well in the chance that a passing caravan would take him away.

Therefore, as fathers and mothers, we should always show equal love for our children. Being equal in material things, like clothing, gifts and treats is certainly very important part of it, but it is not the whole story. It is also crucial to make sure not to show favoritism in the time and attention that we give to any one of them. We should make sure that our children feel that they are equally loved and esteemed.

An important part of this, however, is to recognize that each of our children is a unique individual, with his or her own particular set of needs, talents, and interests. Therefore, when we should show our love equally to each of our sons and daughters, we should do so in a manner that responds to the unique needs of each. What is best for a small child may not be appropriate for an older child. Likewise, what will interest, please, or benefit one child will not be the same for another.

This is where justice and equality do not mean exactly the same thing. There are times and ways in which we will have to treat our children differently. There are three factors that need to be taken into careful consideration:

1. Children have different emotional constitutions. Some children have a greater need for affection, while others have a greater need for praise or reassurance. There are children who must be taught things with more care and thoroughness and others who want to be included in decisions. True justice entails giving each child what he or she is in need of.

If a parent gives the same exact gift or treatment to each, some children will be favored by it while others will be disfavored. The parent may believe he or she is being just through such dogmatic equality, but he or she is really favoring the child who actually wants the gift or actually benefits by the particular kind of attention being given. The other children lose out. The unwitting parent might be bewildered to see that most of the children are resentful and spiteful, in spite of the parent’s best efforts to be equal and fair.

2. Since each child is a unique individual, each will behave differently towards his or her parents. It is unavoidable for parents to feel differently about their children on account of how their children treat them. Sometimes, a child’s behavior warrants special treatment. A child who shows extra respect and good behavior to his parents will be acknowledged and rewarded for doing so in the way that child’s parents respond to the good behavior. This may actually be an unwitting response of the part of the parents, but it is a natural one.

3. Sometimes, a child’s circumstances demand some form of special treatment. Obviously, a small child needs more direct care and attention than an older one. Also, a child who excels in his or her studies needs to be shown special regard for doing so. A child who is religious and morally upright should be shown respect for it. A child who has a disability should be shown the extra care, affection, ad support that dealing with the disability requires. With grown children, one who is poor or facing unfortunate circumstances can be given the help that he or she needs.

In all cases, however, the essence of justice must always be upheld. Though our hearts have a tendency to love one child more than another and to favor some of our children at times over others, we should do what is in our power to be just between them.

Though this is certainly complicated by the fact that just treatment is not always the same as equal treatment, we must to the best of our abilities and knowledge strive to be fair and to show equal love. And May Allah forgive us for whatever unwitting mistakes we might make.

From: Islamtoday.com

Future Islam and the Secret of Technology

There is something prior to technology without which it cannot be understood, and that is a method that analyses and breaks things down into what it regards as logical component pieces. The process that exemplifies this best is the search for the atom. The Greeks, notably Leucippus and Democritus, proposed that if one breaks something in half, and then breaks the half in half, that one can proceed only so far until one comes to something that is not divisible, which they call the “not divisible” or atom. For “a” means “not” and “tom” means “divisible. Of course, we all know that what has been called the atom was itself divisible further into the sub-atomic particles, but the basic idea still stands. The inheritors of this thinking called the atom, “the basic building block of matter” for they thought that matter and thus the universe is essentially something that has been built, and by calling the atom a building block they of course implied that once one understands this process we too can build.

Now one person most eloquently expressed anxiety at this process, and that was Mary Shelley, for in her novel Frankinstein, and remember that Frankinstein is the doctor and not his monster although arguably it is the doctor who is the real monster, she embodied this process in the doctor who, having anaylsed the human being into his constituent organs, limbs and bones, then decides that he too can build a human. Tellingly, although what he builds is hideous, it is nevertheless human. Frankinstein is unable to return its natural need for love, and it is this that drives the creature over the edge.

So this building activity of technology derives from this prior process of analysing and breaking down into the simplest elements.

So what does technology do? We ask this in the most general sense in order to get beyond the very specific picture of particular technologies. But let us take a specific in order to understand these general processes better: a Hi-Fi system. In it we have, for example, an amplifier. The amplifier does exactly what its name implies: it takes a weak input, a weak signal, and makes it stronger. If we step back from this example, we realise that technology does this throughout its realm. It takes a weak signal and amplifies it, whether it is a sound or a force or an idea. The media take weak signals, such as silly ideas, or poor analyses of situations, but through the power of the technology, it is transmitted into thousands and often millions of homes; it is amplified. We see instantly that this process is intimately connected to power, both in the physical sense and the political.

So having derived a general from a specific, let us now list a few more general features of technology.

Technology telescopes: i.e. it brings that which is distant much closer, and this derives from the Greek root “tele” for distance. Obviously we have the telescope, telephone and television. Equally it brings that which is close to distant parts: the telephone is two-way. We can now blog and our writings can be read instantly in China or Borneo. All of us assume such a reality. We spend time in virtual communities.

Paradoxically, we see that it drives that which is closer further away, as most people have experienced with the mobile phone interrupting a conversation. The caller is brought closer but the people in the conversation are made distant.

It also microscopes: it enables one to see what is ordinarily too small to see. The detail. To do this it has to put a frame around the object excluding other things. This is an inescapable activity of science and technology. Focus in and exclude extraneous signals.

It accelerates. Things are speeded up, by planes, cars, and by processes. In general things are going faster today than they ever did, and will evidently go even faster tomorrow.

Technology reproduces, repeats, replicates, duplicates and multiplies, e.g. in factories. A simple movement is repeated endlessly. Industry analyses the manufacture of the shoe into minute processes which are then individually expedited by robots, or people behaving like robots, and then assembled. The shoe is no longer in the hands of a person but in the hands of a system, whether of machines or people or both. An unanticipated side-effect of this process is the utter boredom and tedium of people’s lives since the part of the process or the product over which they have control is in itself meaningless. People are creatures of meaning.

Although the above list certainly does not cover everything that technology does, it gives an indication of some very key things that it does do. However, the above are not necessarily technological or machine driven. For example, our outline of the factory could equally well be applied to schooling or the state. The school has become a kind of factory for manufacturing citizens. It is an industrial process. Similarly, the state is an industry for processing citizens from birth until death. Machines are used, but the essence of these two examples is that people submit themselves, whether actively or passively, to being parts of a great machine. Thus, the word technology is not going to do for what we are trying to describe, and for that reason some people, such as the French writer Jacques Ellul, suggested that really we are dealing with technique.

So here we have a technique or set of techniques or sets of techniques and technologies which accelerate, amplify, reproduce, and telescope. Programmers have a maxim of computing which is “rubbish in, rubbish out”. Any such system or set of techniques behaves much like a computer programme, so that it basically amplifies, telescopes, accelerates and endlessly reproduces the input. If it is the technical society that is destroying the planet, then it is this facet of it that is to blame. Before technique culture, mistakes were limited in scale. With technique culture, the mistakes are amplified and accelerated tremendously. What is perhaps more distressing is that the reach of mediocrity is extended greatly.

But where does this culture come from? The people of the planet asked themselves this question in different places and in different epochs and they said: it comes from Europe. Both Europeans and non-Europeans gave this answer.

As this technique culture grew, there was a broad spectrum of responses to it, whose two extremes were infatuation and repulsion. This was both in Europe and elsewhere. The first response was because of the control and the power it appeared to give, and men are prone to love control and power. However, they neglected to reflect on Dr Frankinstein’s case, for he was incapable of love. The people of technique culture are incapable of love.

The opposite response, repulsion and rejection, was to be found both in Europe and elsewhere. In its most extreme case it is to be seen in people who decided that no technology from later than the seventeenth century should be used, and they dedicated themselves to live in communities based on that principle.

Now these two responses were possible when technique culture was still growing, when there were still places it had not reached.

In the seventies, a New York painter called Tobias Schneebaum made a journey up the Amazon river. He was, probably deeply instinctively, trying to get away from the all-enveloping technique culture. He went as far up the river as anyone would think to go and arrived at a missionary settlement. He asked them what lay further up the river? They told him that there were really terrible cannibal peoples. He immediately proceeded further up the river. Seeing a beach with some curious boulders on it, he disembarked to inspect them, but was astonished to find them to be the heads of people who were squatting there staring at him. After a moment in which they contemplated each other, they leapt to their feet and embraced him wildly and happily. They were completely naked. He was taken in to their society, made welcome, and lived happily with them for a year without seeing anything untoward. At the end of that period, the young men, among whom he was included, primed themselves for some martial escapade, and he and they went to another village where there was a fight, with them killing a number of people there. Then they ate parts of the dead people, and he ate with them. This was the beginning of his disengaging from them and he ultimately returned to New York and wrote a book called, “Keep the River on Your Right”. However, the reprise of the story is that in the nineties he returned there with a documentary film crew. The missionaries had got there before him along with the Coca Cola. The erstwhile savages were now in tee-shirts and were suffering from various ailments such as unemployment, something for which they probably had no word in their language.

Thus, the reality is that the technique culture has penetrated everywhere on the planet. There is nowhere outside of it, and so the option of wanting it in that infatuated way or of rejecting it is no longer open to us. Whatever we think of it, we are stuck with it.

But now we have to ask the question again: where does the culture of technique and technology come from? We have inherited a crude theology from Rome which basically sees the world in terms of nature and civilisation. In the Christianised version, God is seen as the Creator of nature and man the maker of civilisation. The reality is that this is how people really do see things, no matter what philosophers and theologians say. And of course because man’s civilisation has grown so much that people no longer believe in God.

Early scientists such as Galileo, Descartes, Newton, Kepler and Copernicus were undoubtedly believers in the Christian sense, but what they discovered was so powerful and it produced so many results that as night follows day the next generation were basically atheists, such as Laplace who on being asked by Napoleon why his book on celestial mechanics had no mention of the Creator replied, “Monsieur, I had no need of that hypothesis.” This was from arrogant pride at the sheer extent of new information and in the power of the new technical scientific man.

But what was forgotten is that man is natural; he is a part of nature. What man creates is a part of the natural order, even when it seems un-natural. Thus it is a part of God’s creation. Everything comes from Allah. He is the Creator of everything because if this were not the case, we would be dealing with a plurality of gods, which is a very primitive idea. However, the natural order contains both fruit and poison, it contains both health and cancer. Thus, we are in need of a discrimination. Clearly something in our culture is cancerous. But we are not taking the stance of the rejectionists that sees rejection of technique culture in toto as the only way forward. Thus we are in serious need of some kind of discrimination.

Let us return to our shoe factory. The ability of the shoe factory process to turn out copious amounts of shoes is undisputed. However, the shoes suffer from one flaw: like most industrially manufactured things they are mediocre; they are neither superlatively well designed and made nor, on the other hand, unusable. The truth is that all things being equal and price being no consideration, anyone who had the choice of a handmade shoe or an industrially manufactured one, would choose the former. So why did the craft tradition go down before industry? Price. The industrial product was cheaper. Very often it was not cheaper because it was genuinely less expensive to make, but because the owners practised undercutting; they looked at the price of shoes and then decided that their shoes would be cheaper, often dramatically so. They knew that by this means they would drive their craft competitors out of business, at which point the price could be whatever they wished it to be. Now this is where our wished-for discrimination might come in useful. Undercutting used to be considered illegal in many societies.

In many traditional markets, a shoe of a known description had a known price. It was not acceptable to go below it. Thus, tradesmen had to compete with each other in terms of making the very best shoes rather than fighting each other by means of price.

So here we are up against a very different type of technique, which has little to do with machines or technology. We are up against financial and commercial technique and it has proved more decisive than the machine. We also see the difference between technique and law. Law is the idea, whether in society or in nature, that things work in a certain way. Technique finds ways to circumvent law. In our acknowledgement that the technique culture ultimately comes from Allah and our awareness that we are in need of a discrimination, it is clear that it is only Allah Who can give us the discrimination we need for that which comes from Him. It is Islam that contains that discrimination until the end of time. The task of future Islam is to recover law, Divine law, and to make it dominant over technique, both in terms of technology but particularly in terms of financial and commercial technique.

From: Abdassamad Clarke

See also:

• A study of the book ‘Root Islamic Education’ by Shaykh Dr Abdalqadir as-Sufi led by Hajj Abdassamad Clarke

Where to go

The people asked the Hodja,“Dear Hodja, tell us, where should we go in a funeral procession, in front, at the back, or at the side?”

The Hodja answered, “It doesn’t matter where you go, as long as you don’t go in the coffin.”

From: here

The Wisdom Behind the Commands of Islam

The Wisdom Behind the Commands in Islam. Image credit: milkymouse

FOREWORD

to the Urdu Edition

Praise belongs to Allah and blessings be on his Messengers.

It is my firm belief that commands of Shari`ah  are known to be true from the texts of Shari`ah itself. There is no need to investigate the wisdom behind them in order to obey them. If anyone makes knowledge of the wisdom of a condition for his obedience, he is actually being rebellious to the Holy Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace. We may take the example of a king or government, unless he is told why those commands were issued; such a man will be termed a rebel and proceeded against. Then, how can anyone say the same thing for the noble words of the Messenger of Allah? We should have no doubt, therefore that the commands of Shari`ah must be obeyed simply because they are part of the Shari`ah. At the same time, there is no doubt whatsoever that there are points of wisdom and deep significance in those commands. So, though our obedience must not be conditional to awareness of the wisdom and significance, yet it is sometimes helpful to satisfy some inquisitive temperaments to gain insight into the wisdom behind these commands. The firmly believing worshippers do not need to know the background but certain weak minds find that the knowledge is a convincing motivation to submission. (In the present times there is an abundance of people of such a disposition.) It is because of this reason that we find the fine points and deep insight in the writings and sayings of great scholars like Imam Ghazali, Khattabi, Ibn `Abdis Salam and others. Modern education, however has changed the outlook of people and many of them make it a point to investigate the reasons for the commands. Although the true remedy is to discourage them from probing into the wisdom of every command (because sometimes this tendency is harmful too) yet it is known from experience that, except for the sincere students. the common people do not need the advice. This tendency has led some scholars to dwell on this subject and offer their explanation to satisfy the curiosity of the common people. If they had respected the limits of Shari`ah, then they would have considered their efforts enough and not felt it necessary to produce a fresh explanation.

However, most of these efforts showed lack of true knowledge or its application and a plethora of baseless and perverse imagination and application of personal whims. Thus, they trespassed the limits of Shari`ah. I have before me such a book; it is replete with worthless matter and the writer seems bereft of sufficient knowledge. It is very harmful to the layman to read such books so unless he is provided with a correct alternative he cannot be stopped from reading worthless, harmful material. With that in view, I saw the need to provide a collection of topics free from  material for the laymen so that those inclined towards knowing the background of various commands of Shari`ah may refer to it now and then. If it may not be a source of profit, it will surely ward off the disadvantages associated with the worthless books. (However, there are some whose nature is to think little of the commands of Allah on realizing the wisdom behind them, or they began to think of them as the essence of the commands so that if there is no wisdom behind it, the command is not liable to be obeyed, or they take them to be the true aim and lose the importance of the commands). We had implied this possibility when we said, this tendency is harmful too. So, those who have the above-described nature must not read the collection I have presented. The collection which I have referred is now in your hands. I have reproduced much of what was sound in to the said book[1] and some of the suggested ideas prompting the well-known commands are not against the principles of Shari`ah and easily digested by common sense. But, all these suggested wisdom behind the directives are not definite and binding, and not the basis of the commands, and not dependable and reliable. They are merely symbolic and suggestive.

Some time before our time Mawlana Shah Waliullah has written on this subject in his book entitled, Hujjat Allah al-Baligah and I have heard that it has been translated (into Urdu) but it is not suitable reading for the common people because it is vague and mystical. Even in our times the book Asrarul-Shari`ah is written by an Egyptian scholar, Ibrahim Aafandi, a senior teacher in Madrasah al-Khadyuyah. It was printed by Mutba` al-Wa`iz, Egypt in 1328AH Another booklet, Risalah Humaydiyah was published before that. Both these are in Arabic[...]If you consult these books at the same time as reading my book you will advance in knowledge.[2] The style of each is different from the other so none of them was considered independent of the other. I have mentioned these books for this reason and also because my book should not be considered as a peerless effort. Even Shah Waliullah has said about his “Hujjat Allah al-Baligah“, that it is not a unique presentation but has its roots in the sayings of the Book and Sunnah. He has presented examples of some of its sources in the Book and Sunnah. I name my book al-Masalih al-`Aqliyyah lil Ahkam an-Naqliyyah. May Allah make it profitable and may he cause it toward off doubts and suspicion about the commands,

Ashraf Ali Thanwi

Thursday 1st Rajab 1334 A.H.

[1]Much of this was adopted from Hujjat Allah al-Baligah, as I found out later on referring to it, and some from our worthy predecessors. I praise Allah that it turned out so.

[2] That you may derive more benefit I have named some other books too. Al-Inhibat al-Mufidah by myself, al-`Aqal wan-Naql, Mawlana Shabbir Ahmad `Uthmani, Mawa`iz Haft Akhir wa ar-Ruh al-Arwah, Risalah al-Haq, Malatiahizb nine articles.

The Wisdom Behind the Commands of Islam, Sheikh Ashraf `Ali Thanwi

When Should Children Be Encouraged to Fast?

In the Name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful.

All praise and thanks are due to Allah, and peace and blessings be upon His Messenger.

Dear questioner, thanks for your question. We implore Allah to guide our children to the best and to guide us all to that which pleases Him, Amen.

It is well known that fasting, like other obligatory acts of worship, becomes mandatory when the person reaches the age of puberty. As regards children, we would like to stress that it is highly desirable to encourage them to fast when they reach the age of seven if they are physically capable of doing so.

Here, the prominent Saudi Islamic lecturer and author, Sheikh Muhammad Saleh Al-Munajjid, states the following:

It is encouraged that children observe fasting when they reach the age of seven, if they are physically capable of bearing it.

Some Muslim scholars state that the child should be physically disciplined if he does not fast by the age of 10, which is the same rule that is applied to prayer. This is stated in the book of Al-Mughni. Al-Rubayyi’ bint Mu’awwadh (may Allah be pleased with her) said about fasting `Ashoura’ at the time when it was mandatory to fast it and not voluntary: We used to make our young children fast, and we made them a toy made out of wool. If one of the them cried (wanting) food, we would give him the toy to distract him until it was time to break the fast. (Reported by Al-Bukhari ). (`Ashoura’ is the tenth day of the month of Muharram. Although fasting this day is now voluntary, the majority of Muslims usually fast it.)

Some people are quite lenient and lax when it comes to making their children fast. A situation may even arise where the young child feels enthusiastic and chooses to fast and is physically capable of doing so, then his father or mother order him to break his fast claiming that it is out of sympathy. Little do they know that real sympathy is in stressing the importance of fasting and teaching the child about it. Allah Almighty says, (O you who believe! Ward yourselves and your families off from a fire (Hell) whose fuel is of men and stones, over which are appointed angels stern and severe, who do not disobey the commands they receive from Allah, and execute that which they are commanded.) (At-Tahrim 66:6)

Also, we must pay extra attention to the young girl when she first starts fasting after she reaches puberty. There is a possibility that she will fast while she has her period (the first time) out of shame or shyness, and end up not making up the days later on.

Excerpted with modifications from www.islam-qa.com

Moreover, Dr. Muzammil Siddiqi, former president of the Islamic Society of North America, adds:

Fasting, like all the other obligations in Islam, becomes mandatory at bulugh. That is when a person reaches the age of puberty. There is a Hadith of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) in which he said, “Tell your children to pray when they are seven years old and discipline them if they don’t when they are ten years old.”

The same can be said about fasting. That is, we should encourage our children to fast when they are seven years old and we should emphasize fasting to them when they are ten, but it becomes obligatory when they reach the age of puberty.

From: IslamOnline.net

‘Urf [culture] and islam

Imam Ibn Taymiyyah said, ”Islam did not come to destroy a culture. It came to polish it.”

[Imam Suhaib Webb Blog]

Gifts for the Seeker, Being some Answered Questions

Prologue

In the Name of God, the Merciful and Compassionate

No power is there, and no strength, but by God, the High, the Great!

Transcendent are You! We have no knowledge save that which You have taught us. You are indeed the Knowing, the Wise! [ 2:32]

ALL PRAISE BELONGS TO GOD, Who never disappoints those who hope in Him, never refuses those who ask of Him, never ignores those who quest for Him, never underpays those who act for Him, never deprives those who thank Him, never fails those who battle for Him, never allows those whose comfort is in His remembrance to be estranged, never surrenders to those who surrender to His might, never abandons to others those who depend on Him, and never forsakes those who trust and commit themselves to Him. Those who firmly hold to His Book shall never err, and those who take refuge in His Presence shall never find disgrace.

I praise Him for all that He has inspired and taught, and thank Him for all His grace and bounties. His help I request to fulfil His immense right [upon us], and I seek refuge in the light of His noble Countenance against the loss of His favours and the onslaught of affliction. It is God I ask whelm with His blessings and peace His most noble Prophet, most eminent Messenger and greatest Beloved, who is our master and patron Muhammad, and his Family and Companions, who are the essence and generosity, the very fountainhead of knowledge and wisdom. And may these blessings and peace endure for as long as pens write and banners are unfurled!

To proceed. The righteous shaykh of integrity and intelligent understanding, `Abd al-Rahman ibn `Abdullah `Abbad, has requested me to answer a number of questions which he committed to writing and presented to me in the town of Shibam after my visit to the great gnostic shaykh Sa`id ibn `Isa al-`Amudi, and to to other people of virtue, both living and dead, in those regions. I perceived in him signs of eagerness for the truth, combined with the fragrance of sincerity, and therefore promised him a response. The time has now come to fulfil that promise–by God’s ability and power–and to welcome the arrival of his pertinent questions with the hospitable offer of clear replies.

I feel it is appropriate to precede these answers with a prologue which will give insight and reassurance both to the questioner, and to all other intelligent people of similar tendency.

Therefore I seek God’s help, relying on Him, committing myself to Him, and asking Him (Transcendent is He!) to guide me to that which is correct in His sight, for He guides whom he will to a straight path [10:25]; the path of God to Whom belongs all that is in the heavens and the earth. Indeed, to God do all things return. [42:53]

I say: Know that to put a question whenever a need or problem arises and to seek further knowledge and insight it is the wont and custom of the elite of every time and place. It is deemed obligatory where obligatory knowledge is concerned, and a virtue in the case of supererogatory knowledge. For questions are the keys to the sciences and secrets of the Unseen which some people carry in their hearts and breasts. Just as valuables and goods kept within locked houses can be reached only by using keys fashioned of iron or wood, so too are these sciences and gnoses, borne by scholars and gnostics, to be reached only by questions fashioned out by the wish to profit, and accompanied by sincerity, enthusiasm, and courteous manners. Questioning is encouraged and enjoined by the Shari`ah, for God the Exalted has said: Ask those who recite the Book before you, [10:94] and Ask the people of remembrance if you do not know; with clear signs and the Scriptures. [16:43-4] And the Messenger of God, may blessings and peace be upon him, has said: ‘A good question is [already] half of knowledge.’ The intention of every leading scholar or Imam who has ever informed others of the breadth of His knowledge was that this should be known about him so that people might ask and seek it from him. This was related in the case of `Ali, `Umar, Abu Hurayra, and others among the [early] predecessors and those who came later, may God be pleased with them all.  And there were other scholars, such as `Urwa ibn al-Zubayr, al-Hasan al-Basri and Qatada, who likewise encourged people to put questions to them. Sufyan al-Thawri immediately left any town he entered when none of its people asked him for knowledge, saying: ‘This is a town where knowledge dies’. Whenever al-Shibli, may God have mercy on him, sat in his [teaching] circle and no questions were put forth to him, he would recite: ‘And the word shall fall upon them because of their wrongdoing; they do not speak.’ [27:85]

A scholar may sometimes question his companions to asses their knowledge and so be able to benefit them. It has been related in a sound hadith that the Messenger of God, may peace and blessings be upon him, once asked a group of his Companions about a tree of leaves which did not fall and which resembled the believer. None of those present answered, so he informed them, may blessings and peace be upon him, that it was the date-palm. Ibn `Umar was there, and had recognised it, but kept his silence; subsequently he informed his father the latter blamed him for his silence. `Umar, may God be pleased with him, often questioned his companions, and whenever one of them replied, ‘God knows best,’ he would become angry and declare: ‘ I did not ask you about God’s knowledge, but about yours: either say “I know” or “I know not”!’

A scholar may question one of his companions about something which he already knows, so that others present may benefit. Such, for example, were the questions put to the Messenger of God, may peace and blessings be upon him, by Gabriel, peace be upon him, concerning Islam, Iman and Ihsan.

A lesser man may for subtle reasons be in possesion of a particular item of knowledge unknown to  a superior one, and the latter may thus need to ask about it. An example of this is `Umar’s questioning of Hudhayfa, may God be pleased with them, about [future] tribulations, and about the hypocrites.

A scholar may ask his equal, or one who is nearly so, about the way he has understood certain things in God’s Book and the Sunnah of His Messenger, may blessings and peace be upon him, to see whether they share the same opinion, which will serve to confirm or strengthen it. This again resembles the practice of `Umar, may God be pleased with him, who asked a group of Companions about a particular interpretation of the verse When support comes from God, and victory, [110:1] and only Ibn `Abbas agreed with him–may God be pleased with them both. Many such things occured with great men, in both the early and later [generations]. As for `Umar’s question to `Ali , may God be pleased with them both, the purpose behind it was to learn from him, since `Ali was granted a privilege share by no other Companion, which was to be the Gate to the City of knowledge’–the city being the Messenger himself, may blessings and peace be upon him. As for the order given by the Messenger of God to his Companions not to ask him too many questions, this prohibition, although stated in general terms was particularly  directed at questions concerning legal judgements, retaliatory punishments [qisas] or hudud and public affairs. This was out of compassion for the Nation, and out of the merciful wish that they should not be charged with something they would unable to implement. The evidence to support this is His saying, O you who believe! Inquire not after things which, if they were discovered to you, would vex you, yet if you question concerning them when the Qur’an is being sent down, they will be discovered to you. God has effaced those things, for God is Forgiving, Forbearing. A people before you questioned concerning them, then disbelieved in them. [5:101-2] And there is also the saying of the Messenger of God, may blessings and peace be upon him: ‘God has made certain obligations incumbent upon you; so neglect them not. And He had drawn limits; therefore violate them not. He has prohibited certain things, therefore commit them not. And He has remained silent concerning certain things–out of mercy for you, not out of forgetfulness–therefore do not inquire about them.’ And in another hadith: ‘Those who came before you were destroyed by their great inquisitiveness and their arguments about [what was brought to them by] their Prophets.’ A man once asked the Messenger of God, upon whom be blessings and peace, whether the Pilgrimage [hajj] was a yearly obligation, and the Prophet kept his silence. When he repeated his question, he replied: ‘Once in a lifetime; and had I said “Yes!” it would have become obligatory for you, and you would have been unable to comply.’ Underlying this anecdote is a noble secret which is that it is not possible to disclose in writing but you can search for it within the context of  His saying (Exalted is He!): Whoever obeys the Messenger has obeyed God, [4:80] and Those who pledge their allegiance to you do but pledge their allegiance to God. [48:10]

A disciple who asks his shaykh a question, or a student who asks his teacher, should have no other aim but to benefit, and should beware of wanting to test him, for that may lead to his deprivation and failure. When a disciple or student asks a shaykh or a scholar about something the knowledge of which may be harmful or beyond his understanding, then the latter should stop and ponder; they are to inform the questioner of his lack of qualification only if their assesment of him is that [such a response] will not break his heart, and be religiously damaging to him, or that no aversion will arise in his soul which would deflect him from his quest; otherwise they should stoop in their answer to his level of knowledge and understanding.

Should they divert the answer from the strict implication of the question they are not to say, as one of the people of realization once said:

It is my duty to carve rhymes from the bedrock of words; It is not my concern if cattle  do not comprehend.

For such an utterance is peculiar to a certain spiritualal state and situation.

A shaykh or a scholar is like a compassionate father and a gentle tutor; he speaks in such a manner as to be of benefit and profit. Gnostics, however, are subject to overpowering and absorbing spiritual states in which they become unable to keep in mind what we have just mentioned; their states should be conceding acknowledged, for they are too high in rank to be objected to or accused of ignorance or negligence. This is not the place, moreover, to elaborate a justification of such authoritative writers for divulging in their books and treatises the secrets of Lordship and the realities of the Unseen.

It may be permissible for a man to question another with the intention of testing him in two situations. The first is when a scholar, compassionate and of good counsel, sees a man so deeply under the sway of self-admiration that he is prevented from seeking knowledge, or from adding to the knowledge which he already has, or from acknowledging the merits of the virtuous; he may then question him–preferably in private–to test and try him, so that this man may know his real worth, this being a form of counsel to him. The second is when one sees a hypocrite speaking assertively and threatening to confuse weak believers by introducing into religion things which do not belong to it, he may then question him in their presence to test him and demonstrate to them his failings and his ignorance. While doing so, his intention should be to counsel and warn him about his faults, in the hope that he will return to a fairer judgement and submit to the truth. It is this that has drawn the scholars, may God be pleased with them, into debates with those who innovate, deviate, or falsify the truth.

The scholars of the present time must not keep their knowledge to themselves and wait for someone to come along and ask, for most people today are complacent about religion, uninterested in knowledge and in anything else that will benefit then in the hereafter, to the extent that a man’s beard may grow white and he still knows nothing of the obligatory parts of the ritual ablution and prayer, or what is mandatory for him to know by way of belief in God, His Angels, Books, Messengers and the Last Day. The very states of such people mutely proclaim their ignorance; and for scholars endowed with understanding, that is sufficient to be a question.

A seeker travelling to God, whose sole aim is to acquire knowledge of Him, and whose wish is to rid himself of anything that may distract him from going to Him, should never ask for knowledge unless it is necessary in his [own particular] state and time. However, in this blessed time of ours, such a seeker is stranger than the Phoenix and rarer than the philosopher’s stone. So let each man be prolific in his questioning after knowledge, so as to profit and grow, for a believer is never sated with good things. In a hadith it is said: ‘Two [kinds of] people can never get enough: those who are avid for knowledge, and those who are avid for money.’ The proof for what we have just said about the seeker is what is related about Dawud al-Ta’i, may God’s mercy be upon him. When he decided to devote himself to God began by sitting with the scholars: he thus kept the company of Imam Abu Hanifa, may God’s mercy be upon him, for nearly a year. Sometimes when a question arose [in his mind] which he was , in his own words: ‘more eager to know than a thirsting man is eager for cool water,’ he refrained from asking about it, the reason being, as we said earlier, that a seeker is only to ask about that which is a necessity for him.

There are many proofs for the correctness of the topics discussed in this brief introduction; and it would lead us away from our intended brevity if we were to delve into every one of them. The indications that we have given will, however be sufficient.

Success is from God, also help and confirmation. We trust in Him, upon Him do we rely. He is our sufficiency, and He is Best of Custodians.

It is now time to begin fulfilling our purpose. God speaks the truth, and He guides the way. [33:4]

Gifts for the Seeker, Imam `Abdallah ibn`Alawi al-Haddad (translated from the Arabic by Mostafa al-Badawi)

BOOK REVIEW: ISLAM – Its Basic Practices and Beliefs by Abdalhaqq Bewley

BOOK REVIEW

ISLAM – Its Basic Practices and Beliefs

by Abdalhaqq Bewley (2008, Ta-Ha Publishers Ltd, pp. 288. Paperback. ISBN 978-1-84200-088-5)

The Prophet Muhammad, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said that an hour’s reflection is better than a lifetime of worship. This latest book of Hajj Abdalhaqq Bewley is the fruit of a lifetime’s reflection and a catalyst for a lifetime’s reflection. It is also very practical. It deals with actions and the meanings of these actions and the results of these actions, in this world and in the next. It is a reliable source of knowledge for those who rely on Allah, or who wish that they could rely on Allah. Above all, this book is illuminated by a knowledge which has been transmitted from living heart to living heart. Accordingly it is vast but not encyclopaedic. Since words tether meanings, it is also grounded in the understanding of well known reliable written sources of recorded knowledge which have been studied in depth. Accordingly it is the work of a scholar, but not of an academic. The Qur’an tells us that the people of knowledge are those who fear Allah (Qur’an: 35.28) ~ not those who accumulate information.

Since the author, together with his wife Hajja Aisha Bewley, has been deeply involved in the translations from Arabic into English of the Noble Qur’an, Al-Muwatta of Imam Malik and Ash-Shifa of Qadi ’Iyad, as well as many other key Islamic texts, and since it is clear from the quotations he provides that he is well and widely read, it must have been difficult for him at times when writing this book to decide what to include and what to exclude ~ and yet this book is full of abundance and bereft of deficiency. Indeed whenever I thought that an important point had been omitted, I usually found it later on in the book. The author has so much knowledge to impart that it is presented in due measure so that it can be absorbed and retained.

The only limited criticism that I have is that the author does not say much about the intercession of the Prophet Muhammad on the Last Day, may Allah bless him and grant him peace ~ which will continue until not one person who said the shahada remains in the Fire, no matter how great the wrong action which took them there ~ but this is probably because the author is more concerned with emphasising the importance of our being scrupulous about intention and action in the first place, since it is each one of us who takes our self either to the Garden or to the Fire ~ and it is infinitely preferable to go straight to the Garden rather than via the Fire.

Shaykh Dr Abdalqadir as-Sufi once said, “Allah is so Merciful that I am almost tempted to say that you do not need to do the prayer ~ but you must do it!” In contrast, Hajj Abdalhaqq Bewley once said, “Probably more people obey Allah out of fear of the Fire than out of longing for the Garden. In contrast, Jesus, peace be on him, said that those who obey Allah purely out of love for Him are truly the nearest to God.”

However much you know, you only know a little. However much you know, you will certainly find knowledge in this book of which you were not aware before you opened it. This is especially because this book is primarily concerned with meaning. Accordingly it is an invaluable resource not only for the newcomer to Islam, but also for those who have been following the way of Islam as best they can for most or part of their lives and yet who know in their heart of hearts that they have not fully understood the significance of what they have been doing. As T.S. Eliot put it, “We had the experience but missed the meaning.”

As T. S. Eliot also wrote, “Where is the Life we have lost in living? Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?” This book contains all three of these elements of learning about Life.

What is especially significant about this book is that it does not simply describe the basic practices and beliefs of Islam in abstract, but rather in the context of today’s existential realities ~ as well as of Existence itself. The Prophet Muhammad, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, asked Allah to be able to see things as they are ~ and this is what this book is about.

In so doing, it articulates and evaluates the main modern thought constructs, philosophical concepts and ideological dogmas which many people on the face of the planet blindly accept as scientific gospel truth without ever having really reflected on or been capable of assessing them. In this aspect of the book there are echoes of the author’s earlier works, especially The Natural Form of Man, The Key to the Future and Zakat – Raising a Fallen Pillar. He reminds us that our greatest enemy is an ignorant self, but that it can be transformed by the grace of Allah to become a self at peace, pleased and well pleasing. Islam is the science of waking up.

In setting out the basic practices and beliefs of Islam by reference to both outward action and inward meaning, the author affirms clearly and eloquently the purpose of Islam and the reason for our existence ~ which is worship of the Divine Source of existence. He does this in such a way that the reader must inevitably arrive at a deeper understanding of both the Creator and the creation in both the Seen and Unseen worlds. As Shaykh Moulay Al-Arabi ad-Darqawi once wrote, Allah is only truly worshipped by means of knowledge: the deeper your knowledge, the more profound and illuminated your worship.

By holding firmly to this basic truth, the author avoids making the mistakes into which some religious groups (not only amongst the Muslims but more notably amongst their predecessors) inevitably fall: he does not tend towards worship of the Message ~ even though he has the great respect which is its due; nor does he tend towards worship of the Messenger ~ even though he is dearly beloved; the author simply reminds us that we have been created to worship the One Who sent the Messenger with the Message in order to guide us on the straight path.

In dealing with the nature of existence and of the One Who created it and all that it contains, the author inevitably deals with those aspects of the human situation with which people often grapple unsatisfactorily and with uncertainty, such as the nature of the Decree of Allah and how this contrasts with modern notions of free will and the freedom of choice, “when Allah created both you and what you do.” (Qur’an 37.96) As the author himself once observed, “Although I have to make choices, when I look back, I see that I could not have acted any differently!”

Perhaps one of the most reassuring aspects of the book is that while showing an understanding of such deviations as the khawarij/mutazili dialectic ~ which in its most recent form has manifested as the pseudo-salafi/modernist-reformer dialectic, the text is refreshingly free of such ‘too rigid/too floppy’ distortions of the original message. Hajj Abdalhaqq Bewley simply tells it how it is ~ and in so doing he confirms the role of traditional tasawwuf (sufism), which is to guard and establish the shari’a of Islam in order to arrive, by following the tariqa of Muhammad, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, at knowledge of the haqiqa, in both this world and the next.

Hajj Abdalhaqq Bewley reminds us of the words of Imam Malik ibn Anas, may Allah be pleased with him: “Whoever has the shari’a without the haqiqa is astray. Whoever claims knowledge of the haqiqa without following the shari’a is a heretic. Whoever has both shari’a and haqiqa has realised.” He reminds us of the words of Imam Shafi’, may Allah be pleased with him: “Even if a man comes to you flying through the air, if he does not do the prayer ~ leave him!”

He reminds us of the words of Shaykh ibn Ajiba who states in his commentary on the poem of Ibn al-Banna of Saragossa, “The basis of sufism is in five things: Fear of Allah in secret and in the open. To follow the Sunnah in speech and deed. To turn away from creation whether it is coming towards you or leaving you. To be pleased with either a little or a lot. To return to Allah in ease and difficulty.”

If you read this book ~ and I recommend that you do ~ you will most probably react, to coin the author’s phrase, either like a moth or like a cockroach: you will either be attracted or repelled by its light ~ for real knowledge is light and this book is full of knowledge of the Real, “the Light of the heavens and the earth” (Qur’an 24.35). And if you are enlightened and inspired by this book, then it will act as a key to approaching the more detailed texts and seminal works to which the author refers.

Indeed if you do not already have a teacher, you may well start looking for one, for just as the Companions learnt from the Prophet, so the Followers learnt from the Companions ~ may the blessings and peace of Allah be for ever on him and on his family and on his companions and on his followers ~ and this is how every generation of Muslims has learnt from their predecessors, up until the present day. If it were not for the means, the end would escape us.

As Shaykh Dr Abdalqadir as-Sufi once said, “I can give you the key and show you the door ~ but you have to put the key in the lock, and turn the key, and open the door and pass through!” This is what this book will help you do.

If you are sufficiently awake to recognise that Islam is not what those who reject it or do not understand it say it is ~ and if you would genuinely like to understand what the way of Islam is and what its fruits and rewards are ~ then this book was written for you. If you sometimes feel like a golden fish confined in a transparent bowl, then perhaps this book will help provide you with the nourishment and sustenance that you need to enable you to make your way towards and discover the ocean in which in reality you are already swimming. As Shaykh Dr Abdalqadir as-Sufi recently remarked, “At last, a book about Islam that you can give to people!”

Hajj Ahmad Thomson April 2009/Rabi’al-Akhir 1430

From: Abdassamad Clarke

See also:

• Pride

• Anxiety

• Envy

• Showing-Off

• Conceit

• Ingratitude