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

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

The Prophetic and The Mystic Types of Consciousness

” Clearly, Shah Wali Allah’s sojourn in the Hijaz made a tremendous impact upon his thinking helping him to crystallize and synthesize his intellectual, social, and political concepts into a well-defined ideology and a programme of action. Not only was Shah Wali Allah himself aware of the great transformation that had taken place in his thinking, but his close associates also seem to have noticed it. His son, Shah Abd al-Azziz, for instance, heard about it from his father’s close associates. Fuyud al-Haramayn, which is a sort of spiritual autobiography, written in the peculiar mystic language of anecdotes and visions, bespeaks of this transformation. A comparative study of this work and al-Ghazali’s al Munqidh min al-Dalal makes a fascinating reading. Shah Wali Allah emerged from his spiritual experience to head  a sacred mission, while al-Ghazali contented himself primarily with his personal satisfaction. Shah Wali Allah’s role tended to be prophetic, while al-Ghazali’s tended to be largely mystic and saintly(49).”

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(49) See Muhammad Iqbal, The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam (1962), 124 : ‘ “Muhammad of Arabia ascended the highest Heaven and returned. I swear by God that if I had reached that point, I should never have returned”.  These are the words of a great Muslim saint, Abdul Quddus of Gangoh. In the whole range of sufi literature it will be probably difficult to find words which, in a single sentence, disclose such an acute perception of the psychological difference between the prophetic and the mystic types of consciousness. The mystic does not wish to return from the return of ‘unitary experience’; and, even when he does return, as he must, his return does not mean much for mankind at large. The prophet’s return is creative. He returns to insert himself into the sweep of time, with a view to control the forces of history, and thereby to create a fresh world of ideals. For the mystic the repose of the ‘unitary experience’ is something final; for the prophet, it is the awakening, within him, of world-shaking psychological forces, calculated to completely transform the human world. The desire to see his religious experience transformed into a living world-force is supreme in the Prophet.’

[Islamic Renaissance in South Asia 1707-1867: The Role of Shah Wali Allah and His Successors, Mahmood Ahmad Ghazi, Adam Publishers, p86-87]

Subjugation of ‘Ulama and Madaaris by Imperialist British .

Hazrat Shaykh Zulfiqar Ahmad (db)

The Campaign of 1857 and English Terror

Two fronts were opened against the British in 1857 – one to the north of Amritsar commanded by Hadrat Jafar Than-Siri (ra), and the second just to the south commanded by Haji ImdadUllah Muhajir Makki (ra). Together with Hadrat ImdadUllah (ra) stood noted scholars and warriors of the time such as Hadrat Rashid Ahmed Gangohi (ra), Hadrat Qasim Nanotwi (ra), and Hafiz Damin Shaheed (ra).

The Muslims suffered a crushing defeat in the War of 1857, and scores of noted scholars including Hadrat Hafiz Damin Shaheed (ra) met with martyrdom. The British then decided to tighten their rope and began a horrendous ‘Reign of Terror’ to crush any resistance in the subcontinent.

Over a thousand religious schools (madaaris) were burnt to the ground, and the rest shut down automatically as finances throughout the country were seized. Hadrat Shah WaliUllah Muhaddith Dehlvi (ra)’s Madrasa Rahimia was leveled by a bulldozer. In the following year, over a thousand Muslim scholars were hanged and their bodies were left hanging throughout the country to instill terror in the populace. Still more scholars were chained to cannons and ripped apart as the cannons were fired to salute the British victory.

Infinite Treachery

Despite this mass slaughter to crush all resistance, the British were still anxious to find a solution to these rebellions. They launched a three year survey headed by William Moore to determine a way to permanently keep this resistance from [resurfacing]. After three years Moore submitted a proposal to the Viceroy that Britain would need to implement three measures to free itself from these frequent uprisings.

Moore’s first suggestion was that the Muslims’ strong link to the Holy Quran needs to be severed; his second suggestion was that the British would have to find a means to root out the intense passion for Jihad from the hearts of Muslims. The third and last thing he stated was that the British had to sever any ties that the common Muslims had with their scholars, and thus their knowledge base. Moore said that Britain would have total control only when these three measures were implemented and seen through to their completion.

The Viceroy of Britain issued orders to act on Moore’s recommendations. More than four hundred thousand copies of the Holy Quran were burned over a three-year period from 1861 to 1864. The second step in this diabolical plan was to kill the passion of Jihad amongst the Muslims, and for this the British recruited various false scholars and hypocrites who issued fake and unlawful rulings that Jihad against the British was prohibited (haraam). This served to confuse and divide the Muslims and played right into the foreigners’ plans.

Trials and Tribulations of the Scholars

The culmination of this effort to completely subjugate the Muslims was to kill their scholars, which the British carried out mercilessly in the years 1864 to 1867. [Acting as upholders of the law], the British rulers in India staged mock trials in which scholars were falsely accused of killing Englishmen, and handed down death sentences within an hour of the trial. Fourteen thousand scholars were martyred in this three-year period. This inquisition was so widespread that the British historian Thompson writes that the noble bodies of the Muslim scholars were hanging from every tree on the road between Lahore and Peshawar.

Thompson further writes in his autobiography that he was visiting Delhi when he stopped at one of the tents along the way set up as rest stops for travelers. He noticed a foul stench coming from behind his tent, so he stepped out to investigate. He describes a scene in which forty scholars were stripped and thrown onto beds of coals, being taunted by British soldiers to admit their part in the War of 1857. The flesh and fat was melting and oozing out of their charred bodies and actually extinguishing the ambers. Thompson says that the bodies of these forty scholars stiffened and turned cold in front of him, only to be replaced by forty more who were thrust onto the burning coals.

Still other scholars were imprisoned and tortured in jail, not allowed food or rest in order to break them mentally. Maulana Jafar Than-Siri (ra) writes in his biography that he was in the Khot Laqpat jail when the order came to transport them to Multan. They were put into large cages that had metallic spikes fixed into them to maximize suffering, and in this way they reached Multan in three months. They would be denied food for days at a time to intensify their anguish, and be forced to relieve themselves in their cages. The spikes would stab and wound them at every turn, and thus also rob them of any sleep. Needless to say many died on the way because of these horrific conditions.

The surviving few who reached the Multan jail were further subjected to more torture, until it was ordered that all the scholars remaining in Multan be hanged. Hearing this, the scholars were very pleased and relieved, for they would be free of this life and attain martyrdom. Therefore, regardless of their past suffering, their faces were illuminated on the day their death sentences were to be carried out, something which surprised their captors. When asked why they appeared so peaceful and content on such a day that they were to be hanged, one of them said that they would at last be free and Allah (SWT) would give them the status of martyrdom. The British warden hence conferred with his officers and decided that the scholars should not be given the satisfaction of death, so they were instead sentenced to a further fourteen year sentence during which the British would intensify their torture.

Tears of Innocence

Maulana Than-Siri (ra) further says that his wife and child were brought before him as he and the rest of the scholars were being led away. Seeing him in shackles they both began crying, while his eight year old son said, “When are you coming back to us O Father, and why have these people tied you up like this?” To this Maulana Than-Siri (ra) had no reply, but said to his wife and child, “Be strong, and perhaps I will see you again in this life. If I do not then we will surely meet at the stream of Kauthar [a river in Jannah].”

Extracted from The Scholars of Deoband by Hazrat Shaykh Zulfiqar Ahmad (db), Tasawwuf.org

From: at-Talib

From Shama’il Tirmidhi: Chapter on the Sword of RasuluLlah, SallaLlahu `alayhi wa sallam

باب ما جاء في صفة سيف رسول الله صلى الله عليه و سلم

99– (1)   حدثنا محمد بن بشار أخبرنا وهب بن جرير أخبرنا أبي قتادة عن أنس قال : كانت قبيعة سيف رسول الله صلى الله عليه و سلم من فضة

100– (2)   حدثنا محمد بن بشار أخبرنا معاذ بن هشام حدثني أبي عن قتادة عن سعيد بن أبي الحسن قال : كانت قبيعة سيف رسول الله صلى الله عليه و سلم من فضة

101– (3)  حدثنا أبو جعفر محمد بن صدران البصري أخبرنا طالب بن حجير عن هود و هو ابن عبد الله بن سعيد [ أي العبدي ] عن جده العصري قال : دخل رسول الله صلى الله عليه و سلم مكة يوم الفتح و على سيفه ذهب و فضة قال طالب : فسألته عن الفضة ؟ فقال : كانت في قبيعة السيف فضة

102– (4)    حدثنا محمد بن شجاح البغدادي أخبرنا أبو عبيدة الحداد عن عثمان بن سعد عن ابن سيرين قال صنعت سيفي على سيف سمرة بن جندب و زعم سمرة أنه صنع سيفه على سيف رسول الله صلى الله عليه و سلم و كان حنفيا

حدثنا عقبة بن مكرم البصري قال حدثنا محمد بن بكر عن عثمان بن سعد بهذا الإسناد نحوه

The Ulama have stated that the reason for writing this chapter after the chapter of the ring is because of a special system, which also points towards a governmental rule. First letters inviting the kings to Islam are to be sent. If they accept Islam they will benefit in this world and the hereafter, otherwise they should decide between themselves and the sword. The Prophet of Allah sallallahu alaihe wasallam had several swords, each of which had a special name. For example the first sword was named ‘Ma-thur’ which was inherited from his father. The name of another sword was ‘Qadib’, one was ‘Qil-ee’, one was ‘Tabaar’ and one was ‘Dhulfiqaar’ etc. Imam Tirmizi has quoted four ahaadith in this chapter.

(99) Hadith 1
Hazrat Anas radiyallahu anhu reports that the handle of the sword of the Prophet of Allah sallallahu alaihe wasallam was made of silver.

Commentary
Allamah Bayjuri writes, about the sword named ‘Dhulfiqaar’, “At the time of conquering Makkah, the Prophet of Allah sallallahu alaihe wasallam had this sword.”

(100)  Hadith 2
Hazrat Saeed bin Abil Hasan Basri radiyallahu anhu has related the same hadith that the handle grip of the sword of the Prophet of Allah sallallahu alaihe wasallam was made of silver.

(101)  Hadith 3
Hazrat Mazeedah bin Malik, the (maternal) grandfather of Hud says that when the Prophet of Allah sallallahu alaihe wasallam entered Makkah on the day it was conquered, his sword had gold and silver on it.
Talib who is one of the narrators of this hadith says that  he asked the ustaadh, “On which part of the sword was the silver?”
He replied, “The cap of the grip handle was made of silver.”

Commentary
According to the majority of the Ulama it is not permissible to use gold on a sword. This hadith cannot be used as proof, as it has been declared to be weak. Allamah Turpishti says, “This hadith cannot be used as an argument because its sanad (chain of narrators) cannot be relied upon. The use of silver for the handle etc. is permissible according to the previous hadith.”
It is said that since it is not permissible to use gold, the narrator did not care to investigate which portion of the sword  was made of gold. He only investigated those portions that were made of silver.

(102)  Hadith 4
Ibn Seereen says, “I made my sword like the sword of Samurah bin Jundub radiyallahu anhu. He said that he had his sword made in the same manner as the one the Prophet of Allah sallallahu alaihe wasallam had. The sword was the type used by the tribe of Banu Hanifah.”

Commentary
Banu Hanifah was a tribe in Arabia who were famous for manufacturing good quality swords. These people, one after another, in imitating the Prophet of Allah sallallahu alaihe wasallam, made a replica of his sword.

(From the commentary on Imam Abi `Esa Muhammad ibn Sorah at-Tirmidhi’s,  Shama’il Tirmidhi (ash-Shama’il al-Muhammadiyyah sallaLlahu `alayhi wa sallam, khasa’is nabawiy Sharh Shama’il Tirmidhi) by Shaykh al-Hadith Maulana Muhammad Zakariyya Kandhelawi.)

RasuluLlah orders some of his companions to learn the Suryani Language

Bukhari and Tirmidhi narrate on the authority of Kharijah ibn Zayd ibn Thabit from his father Zayd ibn Thabit, may Allah be pleased with him, who said: “RasuluLlah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, ordered me to learn some words for him from the language of the Jews. He [RasuluLlah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace] said to me: ‘I take an oath by Allah that I do not trust the Jews with my letter.’ Before half a month could pass, I learnt the [Suryani] language. After I learnt it, if he had to write a letter to the Jews, I used to write it for him. And if they wrote to him, I used to read their letter to him.”

Tirmidhi says that this is a good and authentic Hadith. Al-A`mash also narrated it on the authority of Thabit ibn `Ubayd from Zayd ibn Thabit, may Allah be pleased with him, saying: “RasuluLlah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, ordered me to learn the Suryani language.”

Utilizing foreign languages in the field of teaching, inviting and propagation when there is a need to do so is established from the Sunnah of RasuluLlah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace.

Today, languages are key to universal sciences which have become necessary because of us neighbouring the non-Arabs and Europeans. Languages are a key to progress between nations. They have become a key to mutual cooperation which has become necessary in life and so that a person’s right will be guaranteed when he mixes with other nations.

Shaykh Safiyyuddin al-Hilli who knew several languages says in a poem:

“The more languages a person knows, the more he is able to benefit. These languages come to his assistance at the time of calamities. Hasten, then, in learning new languages. For every language, in essence, is another human.”

(Shaykh `Abd al-Fattah Abu Ghuddah, al-Rasul al-Mu`allim, translated by Mahomed Mahomedy and published by Zam Zam Publishers, as Prophet Muhammad – The Teacher and his teaching methodologies, p.159)

See also:

• On Learning languages

On Learning languages

The more languages you know the more useful you are.
Languages help in relieving misfortune.
Be keen on learning other languages.
Each language you know is a human being.

An Arab poet

[Islam Online]

Amirate – Ibn Rajab al-Hanbali

Al-Hasan said about amirs, “They take charge of five of our affairs: the Jumu’ah and the congregational prayer [jama'ah], the ‘Id, the frontiers, and the hadd punishments. By Allah! the deen will only be straight and effective by them, even if they are tyrannical and wrongdoing. By Allah! that which Allah puts right by means of them is more than that which they corrupt, although, by Allah! obedience to them is tough, but separating oneself from them is kufr.”
Al-Khalal narrated in the “Kitab al-Imarah –Book of Amirate” from the hadith of Abu Umamah that he said, “The Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, commanded his companions when they had prayed ‘Isha’, ‘Assemble, because I have need of you.’ When they finished the morning prayer, he asked, ‘Have you assembled as I told you?’ They answered, ‘Yes.’ He said three times, ‘Worship Allah and do not associate anything with Him! Have you grasped this?’ We answered, ‘Yes.’ He said three times, ‘Establish the prayer and produce the zakah! Have you grasped this?’ We answered, ‘Yes.’ He said three times, ‘Hear and obey!’ He said three times, ‘Have you grasped this?’” He said, “We had thought that the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, was going to give a long discourse, but then [we saw] that he had collected together the entire affair for us.”

(Ibn Rajab al-Hanbali, Jami’ al-’ulum wa’l-hikam translated by Abdassamad Clarke and published by Turath Publishing Ltd., as The Compendium (of knowledge and wisdom). In commentary of hadith no.28, p.707)

From: Abdassamad Clarke

Risala – To a Young Man on the Edge

Ya Walad – with these words our great scholars and Awliya have started their letters of counsel and guidance on the path of our sublime Deen. They were in every case words on the future life of the youth so that he should achieve maturity, and strengthen the Muslim community not only by good actions in their service but by obeying the command to set up a family, treating both the wife and later the children of the next generation with that wisdom and compassion that would guarantee that the Deen of Islam would flourish as promised by the Merciful Lord, and spread in increase and nobility.

Ya Walad – today this does not happen. Today the Muslim youth is living in such a chaos, in such a disaster zone that he not only is frankly ignorant of the Deen but also ignorant about life. In the Qur’an, which, I can assure you, you have never been taught, Allah, glory be to Him, addresses the kuffar – and warns them: and the muminun – and guides them: and mankind itself, the human race – both guiding and warning them.

You will not know that to the palaeontologists who study the evidence of mankind’s presence on the planet, it is marked by the indication that the human species had human burial sites. In other words the human species begins with the knowledge that human life is sacred. Burial honours the dead. Man is buried with honour because he is in life the container or the vessel of a Divine Contract.

In Surat al-A’raf (7:172) we find:

When your Lord took out all their descendants
from the loins of the children of Adam
and made them testify against themselves
‘Am I not your Lord?’
they said, ‘We testify that indeed You are!’
Lest you say on the Day of Rising,
‘We knew nothing of this.’

It is this Contract which elevates mankind above all the creation. With it comes the gift of self-awareness, of the faculty of recognition, that is seeing the object and also evaluating it. This entails the capacity to reflect, that is both the ability to see the object or the event and attach a meaning to it. Access to the mithal is itself the means to recognising Allah’s Names and Attributes. This, oh youth! is who you are.

Allah explains in Surat al-Baqara (2:29-33):

It is He who created everything on the earth for you
and then directed His attention up to heaven
and arranged it into seven regular heavens.
He has knowledge of all things.

When your Lord said to the angels,
‘I am putting a khalif on the earth,’
they said, ‘Why put on it one who will cause corruption on it
and shed blood
when we glorify You with praise
and proclaim Your purity?’
He said, ‘I know what you do not know.’

He taught Adam the names of all things.
Then He arrayed them before the angels and said,
‘Tell me the names of these if you are telling the truth.’

They said, ‘Glory be to You! We have no knowledge
except what You have taught us.
You are the All-Knowing, the All-Wise.’

He said, ‘Adam, tell them their names.’
When he had told them their names,
He said, ‘Did I not tell you that I know
the Unseen of the heavens and the earth,
and I know what you make known
and what you hide?’

Here Allah the Glorious tells you openly:

It is He who created everything on the earth for you.

And in the last ayat He warns:

and I know what you make known
and what you hide

Ibn Taymiyya has told us that if we want to understand the human situation today which may seem incomprehensible, because so complex, we must go back to its beginning where the primal model of mankind will be clear to us, that is, with the first family of mankind, that of Sayyiduna Adam, ‘alayhi salam.

In Surat al-Ma’ida we are told (5:27-31):

Recite to them the true report of Adam’s two sons
when they offered a sacrifice
and it was accepted from one of them
but not accepted from the other.
The one said, ‘I shall kill you.’
The other said, ‘Allah only accepts from people who have taqwa.
Even if you do raise your hand against me to kill me,
I am not going to raise my hand against you to kill you.
Truly I fear Allah, the Lord of all the worlds.
I want you to take on both my wrongdoing and your wrongdoing
and so become one of the Companions of the Fire.
That is the repayment of the wrongdoers.’

So his lower self persuaded him to kill his brother,
and he killed him and became one of the lost.

Then Allah sent a crow which scratched at the earth
to show him how to conceal his brother’s corpse.
He said, ‘Woe is me! Can I not even be like this crow
and conceal my brother’s corpse?’
And he became one of those who suffer bitter remorse
on account of that.

Here we see the confirmation of the previous ayats which informed us that Allah knows both the seen and the hidden. What is of importance to us in this is that the matter not just of killing but of human life itself is a matter of the profoundest and gravest implication.

Now we can categorically deduce from this that taking the life or lives of another or others having this importance – the taking of one’s own life is of the same spiritual significance.

In the ayat which follows, Allah the Almighty grants authority for the killing “in retaliation or for causing corruption on the earth.”

unless it is in retaliation for someone else
or for causing corruption in the earth

However, you cannot kill you!

Let us look coldly at the event itself and its intention before we examine the ugly and sordid background that has made the earth a suicide zone of young men and women who have been ordered into dementia.

The Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, declared in a renowned Hadith: “The ‘Amal is by the Niyyat.” This means the action is not a thing in itself. It springs from the inward – from the self. Whatever the situation, whatever the role of others, whatever urgency may be found in the event – at the moment of making a human action – this must be understood – that same human action cannot take place as event in-itself. It begins as conscious intention. The action is triggered by the order that the Niyyat be fulfilled. That is: the action is the firing of the lethal bullet. The trigger awaits its order to fire. The subject, his finger pulls the trigger. The finger obeys the order of the subject. In law, and therefore, in reason, the subject is responsible. If the action is haram, then the subject is criminal and answerable.

I say, oh youth, that before we can examine who and what has led to the momentous moment of the suicide action – it must be clearly understood that you are responsible. And as we shall see, guilty of a terrible crime whose end is not your demise or the havoc and murder around you, but in the Next World where a terrifying punishment awaits this absolute and unconditional failure of yourself to recognise who you were, and what Allah had created you for – nothing less!

In Surat an-Nisa (4:29) Allah the Powerful declares:

You who have iman! do not consume one another’s property
by false means,
but only by means of mutually agreed trade.
And do not kill yourselves.
Allah is Most Merciful to you.

Ya Walad! You dare not act in this matter without being fully aware that this is an affair in which there has been no doubt whatsoever through the long centuries of historical Islam. Let us first look at this uncompromising ayat and how our renowned mufassirin have put this ayat to the point of test and examination.

Firstly: Imam Al-Qurtubi. He says:

“The people of interpretation have agreed that it means ‘do not kill one another’.
It allows for the meaning of a man who kills himself through his anxiety over Dunya and the search for wealth, so that his obsession with this illusion leads to ruin.
It also includes the meaning of ‘do not kill yourself’ in a state of distress or anger.
And all of these are forbidden.”

Secondly: Abu Bakr Ibn al-‘Arabi in his renowned Ahkam-ul-Qur’an.

“There are three different judgments on this.
One: Do not kill the people of your Millah (community).
Two: Do not kill one another.
Three: Do not kill yourselves by doing what has been forbidden to you.
These are all correct, though some have more validity with regards to the Deen and a more complete meaning.
And the one I consider most correct is the third, and the previous two are included within it.”

Thirdly: Ruh al-Ma’ani.

“One: It means ‘do not kill one another’.
Two: Another judgment is that it means: ‘Do not send yourselves to destruction by committing wrong actions like consuming one another’s property by false means, or by any other acts of disobedience which deserve punishment.’
Three: Another judgment is that it means a prohibition of killing oneself in a state of anger or difficulty.
Four: It is also said that it means ‘Do not put yourself at risk in battle by taking on an enemy you cannot overcome.’
Five: And it is said the meaning is: ‘Do not trade in enemy lands so that you find yourself alone! And from this Imam Malik takes a proof that it is makruh to trade in enemy lands.”

Fourthly: Ibn Juzayy (and the Sultan al-‘Ulama of our time, Shaykh Shadhili an-Nayfar, said of him: “Among the mufassirin he has the last word!”):

“Ibn ‘Atiyya says, ‘The mufassirin agree that the meaning is ‘do not kill one another’.’
And I say that the expression encompasses the meaning ‘killing one’s self’, that is suicide. For this was how ‘Amr ibn al-‘Aas understood it, and the Messenger, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, did not disapprove of this when he heard it.”

Fifthly: Ibn ‘Atiyya.

“The mufassirin have agreed that intended in this ayat is the prohibition on people killing each other.
And it contains the meaning of a man who kills himself, having made the intention to do so.
And the prohibition contains all these elements.”

Ibn Juzayy’s conclusion has to be seen in the confirming Hadith in Imam Muslim’s Collection on the authority of Abu Hurayra, who told that the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said:

“He who killed himself with a weapon will exist forever in the Fire of Jahannam. He will have that weapon and be thrusting it into his stomach forever. He who drank poison and killed himself will be taking it in the Fire of Jahannam where he is doomed to remain forever. He who killed himself by flinging himself from the top of a mountain will be perpetually plunging downwards in the Fire of Jahannam, forever.”

Thabit bin Dahaq reported the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, as saying:

“He who killed himself with a thing will be tormented on the Day of Rising with that very thing.”

Now according to the primal Madh-hab of the ‘Amal Ahl-al-Madinah, suicide was utterly unknown as a method of warfare and could only be imagined as the last recourse of a man in terminal agony who could no longer bear the pain. Further, among us all, there is a legal term called the ‘Ijma of the Community. This expression is to define the blessed situation of the Muslim ‘Ummah as defined in the statement of the Messenger, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, “My people cannot go entirely wrong.” In other words the Muslim Jama’at in every time and at every place is protected by the Book, the Sunna, and the ‘Amal of the People of Madinah, the Place of the Deen.

So it has been through centuries that the curse of suicide, induced by other men who do NOT die, has only manifested once. When it did it manifested amongst a body of men who adhered not to Islam but to the post-Islamic religion of the Shi‘a, and that in a most extreme form. We mean by this the Isma‘ili deviants in the Lebanon whose activities ended in the aim of assassinating the great Muslim ruler, Salahuddin. We will examine these evil people, later.

Before that we must force your attention on a matter which young men before you with this sick ambition of self-inflicted death seem never to have considered.

As a result of the impact of these suicide-bombers and their macabre publicity, some ignorant and unbalanced youths have copied the suicide-bombers and car-drivers in, as it were, a spontaneous copy-cat act of self-immolation, saying, “How spectacular. Our lives are worthless. Let us copy these men. Let us go out with a bang. Let us make the late TV news and the morning paper!” These small groups of what we may call ‘improvisers’ are few, indeed a bi-product of the main body of suicide-bombers, who are part of an organised social activity.

In general, the matter proceeds as follows:

1. A political leadership which is local, hidden and anonymous directs the affair. They constitute a Secret Society. No one elected them. Nor did they stand out and declare themselves publicly as Renewers of the Deen. They are leaders without legitimacy. There was no Bay’at. No acclamation. There is no territory that can be declared a State under their aegis. They are not prayed for from the mimbar, and no Islamic Dinar and Dirham are struck in their name. Zakat is not collected by Collectors in their name, nor is Zakat paid by them to an Amir. They are, in Islamic terms, outlaws. Also, their continued vagabond existence grants kuffar armies the right to massacre Muslim families, bomb Muslim villages and cities, as well as persecute, torture and humiliate innocent Muslims on a world scale.

2. These robber barons of the political class have licensed their military ‘wing’ to prepare and groom the young men, and now even women, to kill themselves, so that in their programme a fantasised day will come that the ‘enemy’ will submit to their Terror. Here is where we reach the heart of darkness.

3. Worse than the leadership – below them come the executioners. The true Assassins. The suicide-bomber is not an assassin. He wreaks havoc. In that havoc are innocent men, women and children, often with Muslims among them. But the one with the Semtex strapped to his belly is not the assassin. He is the victim. Just as the sexual pederast grooms his victim to submit to seduction, this political pederast grooms his victim to submit to death. Is it his son he sends to death? Is it his neighbour’s? Or does he send them off to die but his son is safe? Do the parents know him?

The high Islamic ethos of the Sahaba and ever-after of Muslim fighting men and of great Sufis has been what we call preference – Tafteel. It was demonstrated at Badr and the first ghazwats. A Companion dying of thirst and wounds refuses the water-casket. He passes it on to his suffering brother. He in turn refuses it for the man dying next to him. And so the water-casket is passed down the line. It is preference. Let me die so that he can live. These men who strap on the dynamite, tying it around these pure, deceived youths’ bellies – they represent the cynical abolition of the Muslim ethos. No. They will not die – let the next generation die. Let the evil old ones live. They do not believe in the battle. They do not fight. They do not believe in the future. They have sent it to its death. They do not believe in Allah. They do not trust in His Mercy.

Allah the Exalted says in Surat al-Ma’ida (5:11):

You who have iman! remember Allah’s blessing to you
when certain people were on the verge
of raising their hands against you
and He held their hands back from you.
Have taqwa of Allah.
The muminun should put their trust in Allah.

In Ruh al-Ma’ani this ayat is examined:

“…it is an indication of what more than one collected from Jabir. He related that the Messenger, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, stopped at a place to rest, and the people split up looking for shade under the trees. He hung his weapon on a tree, then a bedouin came and took his sword. He unsheathed it. He then faced the Messenger, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, and asked, ‘Who will protect you from me?’

The Messenger, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, answered: ‘Allah!’ The bedouin repeated it two or three times, and each time he replied ‘Allah!’ So the bedouin finally put the sword away. The Messenger then called his Companions and told them about what the bedouin had done. The bedouin was sitting next to him but he did not punish him.”

The ethos of suicide-bombing – its leaders, its military wing, its helpless victim youths – it is all an antithesis of Islam, an anti-Islam. Full of hate. Full of fear. Full of menace and threats. Devoid of hope. Devoid of Tawakkul. Devoid of Iman. Devoid of ‘Ibada. Devoid of men. No Jama’at. No Amir. Nothing! Nihilism – the bastard child of capitalism.

* * * * *

Footnote: The Isma‘ili terrorists were led by a hidden leader who hung out in the mountains from where his adepts initiated youths to participate in assassination projects with promises of the Garden and its Houris. When they were killed they were buried in special ‘Martyr Cemeteries’ – drawings of their faces were posted on their headstones and the next batch of terrorists were, as part of their indoctrination, sent to meditate on their coming immolation, by sitting among the graves. Their leader was called ‘The Old Man of the Mountains’. Their enemies were the christians and the Muslim leadership. Once people seemed to have taken Terror to its limits the Sect then declared that the time had come for the new dispensation. They abolished Islamic Shari‘at, permitted everything haram to be halal with the New Tolerance, and made all religions equal and identical. In other words the Isma‘ili creed sees Terrorism not as a prelude to an Islamic State, but rather as a releasing element to bring on the post-religious, thus to them, post-Islamic future. An end world – where nothing matters any more.

We seek the protection of Allah, the Mighty, the Great.

Allah the Exalted declares in Surat al-Ma‘un (107:1-3):

In the name of Allah, All-Merciful, Most Merciful

Have you seen him who denies the Deen?
He is the one who harshly rebuffs the orphan
and does not urge the feeding of the poor.

* * * * *

Source: Shaykh Dr. Abdalqadir as-Sufi

See also:

• On Terrorism, Shaykh Dr. Abdalqadir as-Sufi

Souls vary in their occupations

Ibn al-Qasim died in Eqypt in 191 AH.

After his death Ibn al-Qasim was seen in a dream and asked about the good he encountered. He was asked, “For what reason?” He said, “On account of some raka’ats I prayed in Alexandria.” He was asked, “For fiqh questions?”, “No,” he answered, gesturing with his hand, meaning: “We found it to be dust.” [3]

The author said, “Let no one think that being occupied with knowledge is nothing and that there is only being occupied with worship. Being occupied with knowledge is a sort of worship, indeed, it is the most esteemed [worship] because human souls vary in their occupations. Some of them are strongly affected by one occupation and some of them are affected by another. The effect of that will appear in the World of Interspace. All occupations are praiseworthy in themselves; sometimes a man will be successful in some minor simple actions because of a righteous intention, which does not occur in many major actions. ‘Allah does not look at your forms, but He looks at your hearts and intentions.’ [4] This is a basic principle in the din, so understand.” [5]

———————————————————————————————-

[3] Qadi ‘Iyad, Tartib al-madarik, 1:434.

[4] How excellent is what Ibn ‘Abd al-Barr transmitted! ‘Abdallah al-’Umari, the devotee, wrote to Malik to encourage isolation and action. Malik wrote to him: “Allah has divided actions as He has divided provisions. Many a man is given openings in prayer, but not in fasting, while another is given an opening in jihad. So knowledge spreads from the best actions of taqwa. I am satisfied with that in which He has given me an opening, and I do not think that I am doing less than what you are doing. I hope that each of us will remain in blessing and good. (Siyar a’lam an-nubula’. 8:114.)

[5] Muslim transmitted it in his Sahih, in the Book of Piety, Maintaining Ties of Kinship and Adab, in the chapter on the prohibition of wronging a Muslim from Abu Hurayrah, may Allah be pleased with him, who said, “The Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said, ‘Allah does not look at your bodies nor your forms, but He looks at your hearts.’”

(The Garden of the Hadith Scholars, Imam ‘Abd al-’Aziz ad-Dihlawi)

Letter to a New Muslim by Hajj Abdassamad Clarke

In the Name of Allah, the All Merciful, the Most Merciful

And may Allah bless Muhammad and his family and companions and grant them peace.

Letter to a New Muslim

Allah, exalted is He, says that whose meaning is:

Who could say anything better

than someone who summons to Allah

and acts rightly

and says, “I am one of the Muslims”? (Surah Fussilat: 33)

You have accepted Islam. You have realised that you have a Lord Who created you, and Who has decreed your destiny, both the good and the bad of it, the sweet and the sour of it, Who hears your prayers, Who knows you well – for does He not know what He created? – Who guides you and has guided you to Islam, Who is Generous, Merciful and Powerful, Swift to take reckoning, and Who has both beautiful and majestic attributes. You realise that your Merciful Lord sent messages to you personally by means of His messengers, the last of whom was the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, Muhammad. You believe that the Book of Allah is the Speech of Allah, speaking to you.

You are probably stunned that your culture concealed the truth of Islam for more than a thousand years, and lied about it to you and to your ancestors. You have been overwhelmed to find that Allah is the Truth, the Real, that the Garden and the Fire are true, that countless prophets and messengers have been sent to mankind including ‘Isa (Jesus), Musa (Moses), Ibrahim (Abraham), Nuh (Noah) and Adam, and many more whose names you do not know, in all corners of the earth throughout history, peace be upon all of them, and that now you live in the time of the last prophet Muhammad, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, whose message abrogates all other messages and whose way of life, Islam, is for all mankind of every race and language until the end of time.

You belong to a community that extends eastward from China to western Europe, and into the Americas, south to the southern tip of Africa, and north to cold Asiatic lands. It is a community that blends Arabs, Turks, Persians, Chinese, Africans, Malays and Indonesians, Indians and Pakistanis, and increasing numbers of Germans, Spanish, English and Italians, and Mayans, Incas, Guyanans and Caribbeans. This community is more than a quarter of all humanity.

You are probably aware of the amazing wealth and beauty of the architecture, workmanship and craftsmanship of Muslim life, the great corpus of poetry and song, and the huge cultural heritage of scholarship on the sciences of Islam, commentary on the Qur’an, elaboration of the law in a most sophisticated manner, studies of the hadith literature, and dictionaries of the Arabic language, etc.

However, in the midst of all of this, you are also struck by the fact that you are not only a new Muslim, but are considered to be a ‘revert’ or a ‘convert’, and are expected to qualify that further, by all manner of people, both Muslim and non-Muslim, and to become: Sunni, Sufi, salafi, Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi’i, Hanbali, or to adhere to ‘Traditional Islam’, or political Islam, become a ‘moderate’ Muslim or be regarded as a fundamentalist or extremist. But you have simply accepted Islam and are content to be a Muslim. You are probably perplexed that membership of these sub-divisions also seems necessarily to place you in a position of opposition to others, sometimes with an actual dislike verging on hatred, or with a slight antipathy, or, as in the case of the legal schools, with a courtesy which you suspect masks a deeper hostility.

You also see and sometimes intuit that there are those who see ‘the West’ as utterly opposed to Islam and who are thus themselves explicitly in opposition to it and yet others who are intent on imitating ‘the West’ in every possible way and see no other way forward for Islam than in such imitation.

So this is a puzzle, but as a new Muslim, you may feel yourself not in a position to hold to your original intuition that Islam itself is enough and that you are simply a Muslim. It is the purpose of this open letter to try to convince you that it is indeed more than enough simply to be a Muslim. But I would also like to show that the groupings to which you are being called, and the labels being used all have some substance to them and to persuade you that there is also a reality in belonging to these groups and that they are all Muslims and part of the greater Muslim community. Nevertheless the great secret is to remain simply a Muslim. Perhaps you are beginning to realise that this is something whose meaning we do not completely know and needs to be reclaimed.

But where to start? First of all, I will limit myself to matters in which different groups of Muslims are right in what they adhere to because they are things that all the Muslims agree upon without entering into areas on which there is disagreement. In this I will ask your patience, because we must tackle some demanding concepts and really try to get to grips with some of the ideas at work here.

Let us start with political Islam, and let us for that purpose take the much maligned Hizb at-Tahrir. Although there are other groups who place emphasis on the political aspects of Islam, such as the Muslim Brotherhood, we will take this one group since they are in the headlines at present. The truth is that the Hizb have taken hold of one of the important threads of Islam, the issue of governance.

Allah says that whose meaning is:

You who have iman! obey Allah and obey the Messenger

and those in command among you.

(Surat an-Nisa’: 58)

The third group mentioned in this verse, ‘those in command among you‘, according to the majority of the people of knowledge, are the rulers and leaders of the Muslims, and the Companions of the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, agreed unanimously on the election of a caliph.

Much of the Shari’ah cannot be put into effect without a ruler, or a qadi appointed by a ruler, and there is no doubt that caliphate is the traditional expression of Muslim governance, although we must also be clear that we are grossly over-simplifying our history since even a cursory glance at it reveals all sorts of counter-Caliphates, sultanates, kingdoms and Amirates throughout the last near millennium and a half. Yet all of these forms can clearly be comprised under the heading of communities under the leadership of ‘those in command among you‘.

Indeed, governance is built into much of Islam. For example, zakah is collected by men appointed by the ruler and is distributed by them. The ruler must decide the beginning and end of Ramadan. He appoints imams of the major mosques, and he appoints regulators (muhtasibs) who keep the market free of usury and make sure that the weights and measures are just. He is the one who will decide whether or not the Muslims under his care are at war or not, something that may not be decided by groups of fighters in the mountains or guerrillas hiding in the cities. So the Hizb are quite right in that there is no real way to separate the religion of Islam from politics, and the politics of Islam is quite clearly there in the Book and the Sunnah.

The Hizb are also one group representing the trend called ‘modernism’, which, if stated as our need to grapple with the modern age, then the case is inarguable. Indeed, we could argue that it is the essential characteristic of Islam that it is destined to be fit for every age and every society until the end of time. Not only does the law of Islam contain specific timeless rulings, but it contains within itself procedures to meet every new situation and to bring answers to new questions on the basis of what we already have of verses of the Qur’an, known Sunnahs, the consensus of the people of knowledge and previous judgements.

That is simply in the legal sense, but Islam is always modern, or rather let us say that it is ‘new’, and if not, something has gone wrong. It is not new because of the impact of external cultures; but because it is new it subjects each age to its higher evaluation and retains what is acceptable and rejects what is unacceptable. The modernism that says that we must revise or reform Islam on the basis of what we understand from science or other contemporary institutions is already out of date, since the science they elevate is already under intense scrutiny from within its own citadel and in serious crisis. Such people yearn for the precise mechanical order of Newton which has already been swept away by the uncertainties of the quantum order.

Islam has always been new. The first appearance of Islam was new, and in the words of the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, it was a stranger. He said:

“Islam began as a stranger and it will come again as a stranger as it began, so fragrant good fortune for the strangers.” This hadith is narrated by Abu Hurayrah, may Allah be pleased with him and is included in the collection of Sahih Muslim among others.

The great Andalusian civilisation was completely new. The arrival of the Ottomans was completely new. Each civilisation of Islam has been new.

After political Islam and modernism, let us take a look at forms of Islam that emphasis tradition; let us look at the salafis or as they are sometimes known derogatorily the wahhabis. They place emphasis on the practice of the salaf: the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, and the right-acting first generations, and in that they are quite correct. Abu Nahih al-’Irbad ibn Sariyah, may Allah be pleased with him, is reported to have said, “The Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, admonished us with an admonition by which the hearts became frightened and the eyes flowed with tears, so we said, ‘Messenger of Allah, it is as if it were a farewell admonition, so advise us.’ He said, ‘I advise you to have taqwa¹ of Allah, mighty is He and majestic, and to hear and obey even if a slave is given command over you.² Whoever of you lives will see many disagreements, so you must take hold of my Sunnah and the Sunnah of the rightly guided³ caliphs who take the right way⁴. Bite on it with the molar teeth. Beware of newly introduced matters, for every newly introduced matter is an innovation, and every innovation is a going astray, and every straying is in the Fire.” Abu Dawud and at-Tirmidhi narrated it and [at-Tirmidhi] said, “A good sahih hadith.” And Imam an-Nawawi discerningly included it in his selection of those forty hadith about which the people of knowledge agree that they are indispensable. This well known hadith is one of very many that make clear that one must hold to the Sunnah of the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, and to the Sunnah of the caliphs who took the right way. So the salafi insistence on this is not something new and is not something that was lost, but rather it is and has always been a matter of agreement among the Muslims, and indeed there are too many verses of the Qur’an and traditions of the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, on this matter for there to be any doubt about it.

There are similar groups whose orientation one might say is towards tradition and the past and carefully preserving the sources of Islam, and who can argue with them about the importance of that?

Then let us take a glance at those who place more stress on the spiritual aspect of Islam. For the sufis, in the preliminary stages Sufism consists of purification of the heart and one’s behaviour from destructive traits such as showing-off, envy, miserliness, greed, anger and hatred and then the embodiment of the noble qualities of character such as generosity, forbearance, steadfastness, and vigilance, etc. They aspire to a true and direct knowledge (maﾕrifah) of Allah, exalted is He, quite unlike the knowledge acquired from books or from study, although not contradicting that necessary scholarly knowledge. Very many of the people of knowledge take the position that its sciences are obligatory for every single Muslim man and woman. That is because there are numerous verses of the Qur’an and hadith of the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, showing the importance of authentic knowledge of Him and that the negative qualities of character are fatal and that the noble qualities of character are of the very essence of what the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, was sent for. He, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, is narrated to have said:

“I was only sent to perfect the noble generous qualities of character.” This is narrated by Imam al-Bukhari and by a number of other eminent hadith scholars, and is only one out of numerous texts which stress the importance of this point.

Some Muslims agree on this but differ about terminology, so that rather than talking about Sufism, they talk about ‘purification of the self’ (tazkiyat an-nafs). Taking that into account, and since both groups agree on the essence of the matter, only differing about terminology, it is clear that the Muslims are unanimous on the importance of this science.

But if someone thought that because of the spiritual and inner dimensions of Islam one could dispense with the outward aspects of it, or if he believed in an inner interpretation that negated the clear outward meanings, it would be a corruption of Islam. Rather, Sufism is an important and significant aspect of our way whose importance only becomes clearer in the context of the traditional sources and politics, i.e. it is a part of a whole.

Now let us turn to terms such as ‘traditional Islam’ – which is a modern coinage – or ‘Sunni’ Islam, both used for a similar purpose which we might refer to as belonging to Ahl as-sunnah wa al-jamaﾕah ‘the people of the Sunnah and the community (jamaﾕah)’. This was a term that was coined to cover different groups within the Muslim community, which, although differing in some points of practice and doctrine, are considered to stay within the acceptable parameters of Islam: that is those who adhere to the four legal schools – the Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi’i and Hanbali, to the two schools of ﾔaqidah – the Maturidi and the Ash’ari and to the school of Sufism that derives from Imam al-Junayd, which is the Sufism whose proofs are from the Book of Allah and the Sunnah. So this umbrella is used to cover a number of different positions that Muslims have adopted, admitting that they are acceptable even though there are differences between them.

Here it is important to remember that the people covered by this term are Muslims, not merely Sunnis or even ‘Sunni’ Muslims, for to talk of ‘Sunni’ Muslims almost suggests that there is another acceptable type of Islam, which is not the case.

Although Muslims follow the Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi’i or Hanbali schools, which are themselves comprised within the body known as the People of the Sunnah and the Community, they ought not to be defined by them, i.e. one may follow the madhhab of Abu Hanifah, for example, but one is not a Hanafi Muslim, but a Muslim. Moreover, the truth is that the vast majority of Muslims do not, properly speaking, have a madhhab at all. The ruler of a society must choose someone to act as qadi and mufti and they must necessarily follow the fiqh of one of the well known imams, since they will never reach the level of being able to derive judgements from the Qur’an and the Sunnah by themselves, and this is the consensus of the people of knowledge. The Muslim will ask the mufti or imam for the answers to various problems and issues, and the answer he receives will be according to one of these well known schools, but he still remains a Muslim and not defined by the school of his mufti or imam. In that sense, madhhabism is a corruption, although the madhhabs themselves are all acceptable. So, incidentally, we are again pointed to the importance of leadership, since leaders determine the path taken in these matters.

All of the above is about groups within the fold of Islam. It is necessary to address the matter of one of the groups outside of the acceptable parameters of Islam: the Shi’ah. This term covers a wide range of groups some of whom, such as the Ismailis, are clearly doctrinally so far from Islam as to be non-Muslims, or have doctrines containing elements that remove them from Islam, such as those who declare all of the Companions, may Allah be pleased with them all, to be unbelievers. The main body of the Shi’ah are beyond the bounds acceptable in Islam, but one hesitates to issue a blanket condemnation of them since unnecessary accusations of kufr are abhorrent. If we were to look for merit in them, we would say that it is love of the family of the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, such as ‘Ali ibn Abi Talib and his wife and descendants, may Allah be pleased with them. Respect and love for the family of the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, is something of high importance in Islam, and is ordinarily to be found among Muslims. There are many proofs of its importance in the Book of Allah and the Sunnah, the most immediate of which is the fact that the very prayer we perform five times a day concludes with the famous duﾕa, “O Allah, bless Muhammad and the family of Muhammad as you blessed Ibrahim and the family of Ibrahim…” However, we do not let the undoubted merit of Sayyiduna ‘Ali, may Allah be pleased with him, blind us to the equally evident high standing of the other great Companions, which is documented in the Qur’an itself and in numerous uncontested hadith.

Now we turn to our theme of Islam and the West. Although we are not blind to the machinations of imperial and colonial powers in the past and present, we are loathe to view the West as a monolithic entity implacably opposed to Islam, particularly since we ourselves are its fruit. A careful study of European history, in my view, shows that the West has been making its way towards Islam for a very long time. In that, it has been thwarted by vested interests, such as the church and usury finance, which feel threatened by Islam. But a deep reading of our history shows that we have been moving beyond the imperial Roman heritage and the falsifications of doctrine and religion that the churches foisted on us, and the only logical place for the West to go is Islam. A proof of that is the very fact that a talk such as this is needed for the great numbers of people entering Islam here in the UK.

In that context, I would like to return to speaking to you about your position in this.

Do not in the midst of all this succumb, may Allah protect you and me, to the disappointment and disillusionment that has set in for others in similar situations, when after the initial excitement over the discovery of this great hidden treasure of Islam they found out that many Muslims and Muslim communities fail quite seriously to live up to it. They slowly drifted away from mosques dominated by their own ethnic divisions and quarrels. They rarely go right out of Islam, but the enthusiasm has gone, and at best, their Islam became a habit, a religion. That disillusionment is impossible if you see yourself as responsible, along with your brothers and sisters, for bringing about Islam in our time in these lands. You will have no time for disappointment and depression then.

We have summed up in a very cursory way some things about the different Muslim groups that exist, trying to show that each one has something of value and something true in what it adheres to. Indeed, even in their grouping together under leaders and working together to establish what they believe to be true, there is also a valuable point, for the group is an attempt to do what we should be doing which is to bring about community. Even though we habitually consider such groupings divisive, yet the truth is that forming a community and obeying leaders is closer to the way of the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, and the Companions than living as isolated families and individuals in a secular state. That such groups ought to become communities and ought naturally to extend a welcome to all Muslims and to regard all Muslims as their brothers and sisters and to naturally come to coalesce with each other to form larger communities capable of being considered societies, we consider obvious. So it is really time for the Muslims at large to learn from these matters and to begin to come together in communities under freely chosen leaders, and to put into effect whatever of Islam we are able in our lives here and now, most importantly the fallen pillar of zakah.

But I would like again to speak to you who have become a Muslim in this society at this time. Your place is very important. It is vital that you take the middle way of Islam, and I do not mean a way of compromise, but a way of balance. It is important that you become a Muslim in Britain rather than a ‘British Muslim’, because we are tired of all adjectives qualifying Islam. It is important that you subject British life to the values of Islam rather than trying to reform Islam according to British values. In that, you should also resist the pressure on you from your brother and sister Muslims to modify Islam in the other direction, i.e. to bring Arabic and Pakistani cultural elements into your Islam. Islam will spread here when it is clear that one does not cease to be British by becoming a Muslim, for Islam is not a culture but a filter for culture, with the unique challenge in this time of filtering the anti-culture of presentism that engages modern man today. Modern culture is against culture.

In this endeavour, your maintaining good relations with your parents and family, your old friends and acquaintances, your work colleagues and fellow students, is something so important that it is hard to over-stress. How much of Islam consists of good character and behaviour, generosity, courtesy and kindness! In the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, we have a good model. As indigenous Muslims you have an access to people in these islands. It may be enough that they simply know that you are a Muslim, if your conduct is in harmony with his, may Allah bless him and grant him peace. You are actually engaged in a historic event even if history does not record your name. So you have a double responsibility: you have the responsibility of maintaining a good opinion of and showing good behaviour to all Muslims, whatever groups they belong to, and you have the responsibility of being a forerunner of the Islamic society that is sure to come in these lands.

In that there is no avoiding the need for one core element of the message of Islam, which is so obvious that, even though, along with leadership, it is one of the threads of our letter to you, it is almost never stated explicitly in the literature: community. The Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, and his Companions were a community. That is evident in the entire hadith literature. And if we link back to what we have talked about, it is the need for community that drives people to create and belong to groups.

Needless to say, a chilly mosque in which people come and go without meeting each other and without any care for each other’s well-being does not fulfil that requirement, and is certainly not based on the model of the Illuminated Madinah which our beloved Messenger, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, established.

In the prayer we make five times a day, and the Fatihah we recite, we ask Allah to “Guide us on the straight path,” asking Him for ‘us’, with no qualification of gender, race or culture, and not only for ‘me’. It is assumed at the most fundamental level of Islam that we are in community.

The one adjective qualifying our status in Islam that we have not refused is ‘new’, for if there is anything that a new age requires it is a new Muslim. And as we have stressed the importance of community, we must also add that the new Muslim will necessarily be in new communities.

But, what is community? This is a question worth asking, for it is easy to assume that we know what it means, but this is by no means clear. This word has received a great deal of mystification.

For an answer let us turn to the meaning of the word. We first of all find that it links in its etymology to the word ‘common’, i.e. what is common to a group of people. In its most extreme form everything is held in common, to the extent that men and women hold each other in common and there is no recognisable form of marriage. This is the extreme idealistic form of communism. It is there in Plato’s Republic. At the other extreme we have virtual communities, members of Facebook. People who use the same type of computer are considered to be communities. We are in community with people on the other side of the earth whom we have never met and never will, because we share an interest in some form of music. So relatively trivial things that people have in common are considered to make them communities, even to the extent of them suffering some rare syndrome. We posit that people are communities with respect to trivial matters, because they are not allowed to be communities in what really matters, and a great deal of what really matters is those things that are to do with money, property and wealth. The great undiscovered aspect of Islam is those matters that are to do with money and property, the most significant part of which for us is the fallen pillar of zakat, which we hope that Hajj Abdalhaqq Bewley will treat later today.

Humanism treats the essential thing that we have in common to be our humanity, but since Stalin, Genghis Khan and the serial killer can all claim that, it is not a particularly useful definition.

We say, and Allah knows best, that one of the key matters we have in common is our need. This is not merely need of things but our deep need of the Creator who brought us into being and sustains us in being at each instant. That need also manifests as our need of each other and our interconnectedness. Allah said:

Mankind! you are the poor in need of Allah

whereas Allah is the Rich Beyond Need, the Praiseworthy. (Surah Fatir: 15)

Humanity divide into two with respect to this need: those who acknowledge it and those who deny it. They are two communities and have always been so throughout history.

We also realise that it links to words such as commune and communicate. Commune is still used as a noun for a unit of urban government in Europe, but as a verb it is a particularly intense and intimate version of communicate. So let us dare the thought that community, as well as being a people who hold some things in common, is something in which communication takes place. Communication, as between human beings, we characterise as uncovering what has become covered and bringing it to light. Its opposite is what we experience today: the covering over of the truth, its concealment by clever argument and dialectic.

We would not characterise our age as community, because of its reliance on high-tech data and information, and its adversarial and dialectical approach to that information, and information’s propagation by expert priest-like figures and professionals who manipulate it to nefarious ends, which is the opposite of communication.

Moreover, we would find one essential element in Islam, and in every society that has had at some point the remnants of the Islam of an ancient prophet, and we hold that every people has had such a being among them at some point, that there are two levels of communication, only one of which modern man considers real: inter-human communication. However, the other vital element that every sane culture has always been alert to is communication with the Unseen Divine; talking to Him in earnest supplication and hearing His address to us in His revealed book.

So this is an attempt to open up the idea of community: it is those who have in common their deep existential need of the Creator and of each other, and those who communicate and commune.

You have to be such individuals that if no one else is acting as if in a community, you will yourselves create it. And if you cannot do that, you need to find people with whom you can do it. I do not mean to find a community, but to find people with whom you can express your community-making needs. Community is needed for the very prayer: Muslims pray in community. Community is needed for the zakah: we need others to give our sadaqah to; it is not merely that they need our sadaqah, although they may do, but that we need them to fulfil this aspect of our din, remembering that sadaqah can encompass many aspects of human behaviour along with the merely financial. Community is needed for the mutual reminder that is so intrinsic a part of Islam. We are a people who teach and are taught. Every Muslim has some arenas in which he teaches and some in which he is taught. Community is needed for our children to be able to emerge from the family into the world. Education means originally to “lead out”, to lead the child out of the child’s world and the safe zone of the family into the life it will need to live in its turn. Outwith community, children are led out into the world by institutions, and even the counter-culture, the anti-culture is now institutionalised, although people rarely recognise it. People almost never emerge from these overt and covert institutions. The community or the institution must not, however, be substitute safe worlds for the child but community is another natural means of its coming out into the world and into its adulthood in proper time.

Islam will have arrived in these lands when our children and grandchildren have taken on Islam as a completely natural expression of their being.

A core of our community is leadership. Islam is not a democracy. Democracy is the humanist thesis, hoping that, by the sheer numbers of people participating in the democratic process, we might escape from the tyranny of autocracy. But since Islam is not an autocracy, our first attempt to define our governance as the obedience of men to one of their own is simply not good enough either. Neither is Islam a theocracy; it is not the rule of priests and scholars. Islam is a nomocracy; it is the rule of law (nomos). So it is governance by one man counselled by, limited by and even directed by the people of knowledge among whom the people who have knowledge of the revealed law are the most significant, the fuqahaﾕ.

This is unarguably the very nature of Muslim society from the time of the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, himself, through the Caliphates of the khulafaﾕ ar-rashidun, may Allah be pleased with them, right down to our epoch before the interregnum we now experience in the caliphate.

Therefore, Islam can be said to have fully arrived in these lands when communities of Muslims born and brought up here spring up under the leadership of the best of us, guided by fuqahaﾕ from these lands, knowledgeable first of all in the law and sciences of Islam, but also in the culture and history of these lands.

May Allah make you and me worthy of these responsibilities. Amin.

Assembly House, Norwich

Saturday 11th Dhi’l-Hijjah 1428/22nd December 2007

¹ Taqwa is behaviour arising from fearful awareness of Allah, i.e. avoidance of everything He and His Messenger, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, have prohibited and obedience to everything they have commanded.

² Another ringing endorsement of the importance of leadership.

³ ‘Mahdiyyun‘ means ‘rightly guided’.

⁴ ‘Rashidin‘ which I have translated as ‘who took the right way’ is often mistranslated as ‘rightly guided’ which has a passive sense, whereas it has an active meaning.

From: Bogvaerker.dk

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See also:

• A study of the book ‘Root Islamic Education’