The unseen war in Islam

We've come a long way from early, clumsy attempts to identify the perpetrators of terrorism. Even George Bush appeared dazed and unsure when he famously quipped: "Islam is peace". That was in 2001, a few days after fifteen Saudi Arabian terrorists flew three planes into American landmarks. George Bush wanted to assure the American public that the 'war against terrorism' was not a 'war against Islam'. Unfortunately, some of the Muslim representatives he had chosen to grace the important event had, pre-9/11, expressed keen support for terrorist groups like Hamas.

As Abdel Rahman al-Rashed, general manager of Al-Arabiya news channel, rightly laments:

"...not all Muslims are terrorists, but it is equally certain, and exceptionally painful, that almost all terrorists are Muslims."

Muslims like Abdel Rahman know that the situation is not as simple as some policy-makers tell us. While neo-conservatives in Washington agitate for reforms to be implemented in the Middle East- by force, if necessary- extremists draw up plans to attack other parts of the world. Against all expectations, the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq have not led to a decline in terrorism. More and more, the victims are Muslims themselves.

The cynical might say: It's about time. After all, there's no better way to wake a slumbering giant than to light a fire under his feet. Muslims are beginning to understand that the problem arises directly from their ranks. Not from Islam itself, but from those who pervert the religion and cloak it in the rhetoric of religion.

Modern ideological forms of Islam, which saw a blossoming in the 18th century, are recent innovations that are completely different in form, content and above all, ethical behavior than orthodox Islam. Indeed, the two have so little in common and agree on so little that many Muslims who are aware of these differences have, for a long time, been predicting that sooner or later, as ideological Islam grows in strength, ideologues would wage war on traditional Muslims.

That moment seems to have arrived.

Terrorism exposes ugly truths

What hurts Muslims most is the fact that militants have begun to target predominantly Muslim countries. The bombings in Jordan are not likely to be the last ones that kill Muslims. As long as sections of the Muslim community continue to support suicide bombings in other countries like Israel, terrorists are not going to stop strapping bombs to themselves, not for the convenience of Muslim bystanders.

Most Muslims don't get it.

In the wake of the Bali bombings, Indonesian Indonesian Vice President Yusuf Kalla famously remarked:

"Suicide bombings in Afghanistan and Iraq are perhaps understandable because there is an 'opponent' there..."

But suicide is clearly forbidden by Islamic law. No matter who the opponent is, suicide bombings can never be placed in the realm of 'understanding'. The same Muslims who express 'understanding' on a violent and religiously-objectionable tactic are the same ones who remain silent when Israeli civilians are snuffed by a Hamas bomber. The moral high ground from which they reject suicide bombing Muslim civilians is hence merely an euphemism for tribalism.

Just last week, Yusuf Kalla gathered 18 prominent Muslim leaders and scholars to show them footage of threats allegedly made by Noordin Top against the United States, Australia, Britain and Italy. Naturally, the scholars expressed outrage and dismay. The chairman of the prominent Muhammadiyah Islamic organization, Din Syamsuddin, exhorted the police:

"If possible, he (Noordin Top) must be caught alive and hopefully he can explain what exactly are the motives behind his actions here...,"

Chances are, these religionists are demanding answers to stock questions like: "How can Muslims do this to Muslims?" It's the identity of the victims that bothers them, not the tactic.

Despite annoying lapses, the Indonesian authorities and religious leaders do recognize the danger of ideological Islam. Scholar Komaruddin Hidayat of the Paramadina Foundation isolates the ingredients that ideologues are constantly on the lookout for:

"The combination of hard life and partial understanding of the concept of Islam and jihad..."

It helps that Indonesia has a rich intellectual aversion to forcing Islam down the ideological chute. Abdurrahman Wahid is perhaps the strongest example of this. In many respects, he is a giant on the Islamic stage in modern Indonesia and his election as fourth president in 1999 only enhances his already substantial profile.

Better known as Gus Dur, he was born into a famous family; his grandfather being Kai Haji Hasyim Asy'ari who studied Jurisprudence, Tradition and Sufism with both Shaykh Ahmad Khatib and Muhammad al-Nawawi during a period of seven years in Mecca in the 1890s, before returning to become famous as the kyai at the Pondok Pesantren Tebuireng. His greatest legacy lies in the foundational role in establishing Nahdatul Ulama (NU) in 1926. [1]

Gus Dur attained NU's supreme position as Chairman in 1984. In 1994, he opposed the late President Suharto's creation of ICMI (the Indonesian Association of Muslim Intellectuals), saying that it could become the 'thin end of the wedge' as far as political Islam was concerned, leading to a threat from Islamist thinking to Indonesian democracy.

"As long as they think Islam is an ideology, then I will not participate. Islam is a way of life. Its adherents should follow it voluntarily, not needing any legislation from the state."

He was joined by eight other prominent scholars, one of whom was the late Nurcholis Madjid, who famously proclaimed in 1972: "Islam, yes; Islamic parties, no." The dictum that these Indonesian intellectuals held from very early on was critical in curbing the proliferation of Muslim extremism.

Singapore's Defence Minister Teo Chee Hean acknowledges that Southeast Asia is a "key battleground", simply because the war so far has been waged between secular Muslim states like Indonesia and extremists who want to replace them with an ideological, intolerant alternative. Fortunately, Muslim leaders in the region remain cognizant of the roots of the danger. In a speech during Eid celebrations, Singapore's Minister for Muslim Affairs, Dr Yaacob Ibrahim warned religious leaders to guard against "the influence of seemingly fashionable and even seemingly 'Islamically-correct' ideas from abroad". He added:

"The promise of an idealized past is in fact a response of a mind unable to grapple with current realities and a complex future."

It is important to note that Dr Yaacob drops several hints as to what this pernicious influence really is.

Hint 1: It comes "from abroad"
Hint 2: Its ideology is based on an "idealized past".

It's not too difficult to connect the dots, is it?

It is a testament to Islam's genuine cultural and spiritual power- and actually the ideologue's own poverty in these respects- that ideology and extremism has not reached more Muslims, despite traditional Islam's sometimes bizarre meekness before them. The recent bombings in Bali, Indonesia and the daily slaughter of Shia Muslims in Iraq show that ideological Islam is making dangerous gains, and will continue to do so unless an international, concerted effort is made to thwart it.

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[1] Islam and the Malay-Indonesian World, Peter Riddel

Mom, I have Arabs in the cellar!

On Tuesday, US forces raided an Interior Ministry building in Baghdad, drove befuddled guards out of it and found a basement chock-full with prisoners. Nearly all of them were Sunni Arabs; nearly all of them showed signs of having been tortured and starved. Embarrassed, Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari quickly distanced himself from the affair, as did all his junior officials. Quipped deputy interior minister Hussein Kamal:

"I saw signs of physical abuse by brutal beating, one or two detainees were paralyzed and some had their skin peeled off various parts of their bodies."

Interviewed by the BBC, Hussein Kamal smoothly added that the Interior Minister did not, in reality, have full control over the ministry's armed forces. At one point, he implied his ministry might be infiltrated by terrorists.

It seems that nobody, including the Iraqi government, had fair warning of the American raid. Caught with pants down, official excuses come thick, fast and incredibly colorful.

Four things stand against the Iraqi government's disavowal of responsibility:

1. Sunni parties have consistently complained of ill-treatment from Shia police and militias. After Tuesday's horrific discovery, Farid Sabri, a UK-based spokesman for the mainly Sunni Iraqi Islamic Party, caustically pointed out:

"This is the tip of the iceberg...We told the government about this months ago and they did nothing."

2. Earlier this year, Human Rights Watch issued a scathing report on human rights abuses carried out by Iraqi policemen and soldiers. Bodies of Sunni Arabs dumped in the river were never investigated.

3. Anne Clwyd the UK government's human rights envoy in Iraq, said she had raised such allegations with Iraqi authorities back in May. "It is shocking what has happened," she told Newsnight.

4. The prison is located in the basement of an Interior Ministry building. It is inconceivable that no one, until the US raid, had thought to ask: "What's down there?"

Understandably, Sunni parties don't trust Ibrahim Jaafari, even if he had swiftly called for an investigation. After all, the Prime Minister's idea of an independent commission is to enlist the services of the third (and smallest) ethnic group in Iraq- the Kurds.

How effective will the Kurds be? Still reeling from the victory of winning an autonomous homeland in the north, the Kurds seem unlikely to upset their larger partners in government, the Shia. And Ibrahim Jaafari belongs quite firmly to the latter.

If the invitation for Sunni Arabs to participate in Iraqi politics is genuine, the Shia-dominated government should allow an international body to investigate the matter, much as the Lebanese did for the murder of Rafik Hariri. Anything less would smack of cover-up.

The Gospel according to Hamas

Because terrorist groups like Hamas and al-Qaeda do not adopt the positions of traditional scholars on a wide array of issues, they can be placed against the context of a wider movement that has sought, with varying degree and success, to 'modernize' Islam. The adherents of extremist groups thrive on the 'exclusion clauses' that are woven into their ideology. When the need arises, new understandings, such as those justifying suicide bombing, can be drawn from the sacred texts. Religion becomes an expediency, rather than a moral compass.

Traditionally, the shaping of Islamic guidance has always lain in the hands of specialists and scholars who go through extremely rigorous training in a broad range of disciplines. To give you an example of how convoluted the field actually is, I shall use Imam Bukhari's own warning to his student, Abul-Abbas Walid ibn Ibrahim as an example of just what is required:

"Son, before you set out to pursue any field, make sure you are well-grounded with its prerequisites and demands. And remember that a person cannot become a perfect scholar in the science of hadith [muhaddith] until and unless he writes four things with four other things, which are as indispensable as four things, which resemble four other things. (He must write these things) in four times, with four conditions, in four places, upon four things, from four types of people, and for four objectives. All of these four-angled things can only be achieved with another four things coupled with another four. Once all these things are achieved, four things will become insignificant before him and he will be tried with four other things. If he exercises patience in these four trials, Allah a will honor him with four things in this world and award him four things in the hereafter."

I said, "May Allah have mercy upon you. Please explain these four-angled things for me."

He said, "Certainly. The four things he has to write are:

(1) the statements and commands of Allah's Messenger
(2) the sayings of the Companions and their relative ranks,
(3) the sayings of the Followers and their ranks (i.e. who among
them are reliable and who are not), and
(4) the conditions of all the narrators who narrate hadiths.

These (four pieces of information) must be written together with the following four things:

(1) the actual names of the narrators,
(2) their appellations or titles [kuna],
(3) their places of residence, and
(4) their dates of birth and death (to determine whether the narrator actually met the people he has narrated from).

(These are indispensable to him) just (as four things are necessary with four other things:)

(1) as praises [tahmid] of Allah (are necessary) with the khutba,
(2) as salutations [salawat], (are necessary) with mention of the name of Allah's Messenger
(3) as (the recitation of) bismillah (is necessary) with a sura (of the Qur'an), and
(4) as the takbir (is necessary) with the salat.

'These resemble four other things (which are names of four categories of hadith):

(1) the musnadat [narrations traceable to the Messenger],
(2) the mursalat [narrations transmitted by a Follower from the Messenger directly without a Companion in between],
(3) the mawqufat [narrations traceable only to a Companion], and
(4) the maqtu'at [narrations traceable only to a Follower].

(These things must all be written) in four times:

(1) in his childhood,
(2) in his age of discernment (i.e. close to maturity),
(3) in his youth, and
(4) in his old age.

(In other words, he must continue acquiring hadiths at all times throughout every stage of his life. They must be written) under four conditions:

(1) while his is occupied,
(2) while he is free,
(3) in his poverty, and
(4) in his affluence.

(In other words, he must diligently pursue the knowledge of these things no matter what his circumstances may be. This is done) at four places:

(1) in mountainous terrain,
(2) on the seas,
(3) in cities, and
(4) in rural areas.

(In other words, he must endeavor to acquire this science from the right teacher, no matter where that teacher is located. He writes what he has acquired) upon four things:

(1) upon stones,
(2) upon shells,
(3) upon skins, and
(4) upon bones.

(In other words, even when he does not find paper he will continue recording it somewhere) until he finds the paper upon which to preserve it. (He acquires it from four different types of people:)

(1) from his seniors,
(2) from his juniors,
(3) from his counterparts, and
(4) from the books of his father, provided he has firm conviction
that these are his father's books.

(In other words, he endeavors to acquire this science in every way possible without feeling ashamed to obtain it even from his juniors. He has four objectives for doing all of these things:)

(1) to acquire (this science) solely for the pleasure of Allah ~41,
(2) to practice upon the hadiths which conform to the verses of
the Holy Qur'an,
(3) to propagate (the science) to those who seek it, and
(4) to write it out so that it can be a source of guidance to those who will come after him.

Thereafter, the aforementioned four things cannot be acquired (unless he has first acquired) four other things that are part of human acquisition:

(1) the knowledge of how to read and write,
(2) lexicography and vocabulary,
(3) morphology, and
(4) syntax,

together with four other things that are not of human acquisition, but are bestowed by Allah:

(1) sound health,
(2) ability,
(3) an ardent desire for learning, and
(4) a retentive memory.

Once all the aforementioned four-angled things are attained by him, then four things will become insignificant before him:

(1) his family,
(2) his children,
(3) his wealth, and
(4) his native land.

He will then be afflicted with four things:

(1) his enemies will rejoice at his distress,
(2) his friends will reproach him,
(3) the ignorant will taunt him, and
(4) the scholars ['ulema'] will be jealous of him.

Once he exercises patience on these calamities, Allah will honor him with four things in this world:

(1) the honor of contentment [qana'a],
(2) conviction coupled with awe and dignity,
(3) the pleasure of sacred knowledge ['ilm], and
(4) eternal life.

(On top of that,) Allah will honor him with four things in the hereafter:

(1) the honor of intercession on behalf of whomever he pleases,
(2) the shade of the throne of Allah a on the day when there will be no shade available except the shade of His throne,
(3) the privilege to provide water to whomsoever he pleases from the pool of Muhammad [al-Kawthar], and
(4) close proximity with the Prophets [anbiya'] in the Highest of the High Places [ala illiyyin].

So now, my son, I have told you whatever I have heard from my teachers. Now you have the choice to either pursue this field or to abstain from it."

Burn that Peugeot!

As long as French authorities are more interested in the number of cars set to flame than the real roots of the conflagration that has swept across 300 towns and cities, the public disorder will spiral into something much worse. Jacques Chirac frankly notes that "respect for all, justice and equal opportunity," are needed to quell the unrest, but any details as to what this entails has so far been left to the imagination.

If the French authorities are not careful, here is what the riots might degenerate into:

1. It would not take long for an extremist group to adopt the riots as opening shots in a wider 'jihad'. Because of the recent ban on hejab in schools, the government is largely seen as Islamaphobic. Plus, all the other ingredients for a witch's brew is already present:

- Perceived discrimination from the state
- Uneducated youth
- Anti-Semitism

The French suburbs could prove to be fertile ground for extremist recruitment if the French government is not careful. The worst-case scenario, already being thrown about, is the spreading of violence across French borders.

2. The riots (and their inspiration) have spread as wide as they have only because of modern communications like the mass media, Internet and cell-phones. French authorities might sever these links between cities and towns by disabling the communications network for a period of time. The police will then only have to deal with isolated pockets of rebellion.

However, such a drastic move will severely impact the French economy.

3. French law should prevail, through force-of-arms if nothing else. The public disturbances will die down, but the wounds will fester if the French government is not serious about reversing the situation of French minorities. Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy's proposal of 'positive discrimination' to enable minorities to attain high civil posts is not only humiliating, it turns a blind eye to the broader and more entrenched problem of bigotry.

Even Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin understands that the roots of the problem is discrimination.

4. European dithering over Turkey's entry into the European Union will increase, and because the recent unrest is largely seen to be a product of Muslim dissatisfaction, might even boil over to outright rejection.

The fuss about traditional Islam

Humble beads- victim of ideology.

Traditional Islam opposes ideological Islam. The latter seeks to undermine Islam's rich and diverse intellectual heritage by severing faith from its historical context. Traditional Islam, on the other hand, refers not only to the religion's origins in Mecca and Medina, but also to its later development by Persians, Mongols, Indians, Caucasians, Malays, Chinese; all of whom had been joined by their common love for God and His Last Messenger. Within this world view, the revelation is just as important as its unfolding in time and space. Whereas the revelation itself is unchangeable, the environment that surrounds it is not.

Islam's primary sources are the Koran and the sunnah. The sunnah is the actions and words of the Prophet Muhammad, performed and spoken in the unadulterated light of Divine Revelation. While much of the sunnah was passed down through actual practice by individuals and the community, its finer points rested in a body of writings called the hadiths.

Some customs were clear, others were not. These became seeds of conflict and division. The problem was so acute that Abu Bakr, in his reign as caliph, took steps to prohibit their narration. But as the early generations who had witnessed the Prophet's career began to pass on, the injunction gave way to the more pressing need of preserving the sunnah, especially through the tangled skein of the hadiths.

People of hadith
Diverse groups of scholars availed themselves of the task of safeguarding the hadiths. The Ahl al-hadith (people of hadith) exhibited many tendencies and would often focus their efforts on divergent, though complementary, aspects of the tradition bequeathed by the Prophet Muhammad.

Although they agreed on several basic tenets, they would often have contentious disagreements over others. What identifies them with a single educational and intellectual movement is their common belief that the Koran and the sunnah, or wont, of the Prophet Muhammad were the primary, if not the only, appropriate sources of religious knowledge. Not only was the content of their teachings based upon words transmitted from the Prophet, so too was their mode of teaching modeled upon that of the Prophet and his community.

Thus the Ahl al-hadith movement was not based so much upon a single method or doctrine as it was an expression of the widely held belief that the guarantee of authenticity, and therefore of orthodoxy, was not only the verbal and written transmission of the sayings of the Prophet Muhammad, but the conveyance of the authority contained therein through adherence to his sunnah in the very manner of transmission. Not only was the content of the Islamic message preserved in the sayings of the Prophet, so too was the manner of instruction preserved in detail. The widespread hadith movement thus worked to preserve the sunnah of the Prophet in the actions, minds, and hearts of the Islamic community.

It is important to understand the contours of this movement because modern Islamic reformist movements also claim close adherence to the sunnah of the Prophet Muhammad. The nature of their dedication is, however, quite different. There were those among the Ahl al-hadith who took recourse to a literalist interpretation of scripture while suspending the speculative and intuitive capabilities, and stressing the saving nature of faith alone. But this was never the whole of the Islamic tradition. It was always balanced by other modes of interpretation. [1]

From amongst Ahl al-hadith emerged some of Islam's greatest thinkers and jurists. These men and women took on the monumental task of compiling, systemizing and commenting on the vast body of sayings that existed. Forsaking comfort and health, they traveled perilous roads, stopping at towns to engage in study, enquiry and conversation.

Methodologies were worked out, both to interpret the Koran and sieve through the hadith literature. The Koran, for example, was not the only criterion used in verifying hadiths. Their chain of transmission, the personality of transmitters, their age and integrity, the number of links between the Prophet and the last transmitter; all these were applied in codifying the first community and individual laws. Consistency was of immense importance. These mujtahids realized from very early on that in the absence of the Prophet and the Rightly-Guided Caliphs as interpreters of divine law, it is the scholars who must take up the mantle.

"So ask the People of Knowledge if you do not know." (21:7)

The role of the mujtahid can be likened to a journeyman who has been struck with wanderlust. He yearns to wade into the ocean, discover new lands, but wisdom informs him that he is ill-equipped. Like all good journeymen, however, he begins by arming himself with basic knowledge. Navigation by stars, how to tell by the wind's scent if land is just ahead, decipher the swirl of waters so as not to plow straight into a whirlpool. Without these basic skills, the mujtahid flounders and quite simply drowns.

Tha age of madhhab
Today, of course, Sunni Islam is made up of four primary madhhabs, named after four mujtahids- Imam Shafi'ie, Imam Malik, Imam Hanbal and Imam Hanifa.

It is a mistake to think, however, that there had always been only four schools of thought. Every mujtahid had one, but the main four were consistently re-used and refined as methods for approaching the primary sources. As the Muslim world burgeoned, each part of it adopted the understanding of one the madhhabs. Imam Maliki remains popular in the African continent, while Imam Hanbal was, until the eighteenth century, closely adhered to by Arabs. The Turks prefer Imam Hanifa, and the Malays continue to be adept exponents of Imam Shafi'ie. At the peak of Ottoman dominion, all four schools were given distinct and exalted places in Mecca.

Although a madhaab is named after an Imam, it really encompasses all the scholars who have studied, commented, taught, sat on ijma conclaves, developed new principles and issued edicts under the glimmering umbrella of their respective school. It also includes the ordinary followers themselves, who arrange their lives around the jurisprudence of a specific school, teach their children the movements of prayer as stipulated by a particular Imam. Obviously, all of these activities are rooted in adherence to a madhhab. At the heart of this adherence- also called taqleed- is trust.

A madhhab is not to be confused with a sect. The chief attribute that distinguishes sects lies not in the differences of opinion that its scholars have attained through ijtihad (independent reasoning), but rather the actual belief (aqeeda) that the scholars and their followers of the sect in question cling to. [2] There may be scholars representing all four madhhabs living in larger Muslim communities, and it is up to those who consult them to decide which school they prefer. It is in this sense that Salafism is less a madhhab that it is a sect. Like Shi'ism, it monopolizes the term Ahle Sunnah Waal Jemmah, even though Sunni, Shia and Salafist Islam all apply very different epistemologies. In Sunni Islam specifically, following a madhhab means following the complete sunnah of the Prophet.

Ideological Islam takes over
Stringent reformists such as Salafists propose strict adherence to the Koran and the sunnah, but in doing so, arrogantly discard fourteen centuries of Islamic intellectual history, claiming that there is no need for help from the great thinkers of the past in order to understand and interpret the texts which they themselves preserved and transmitted. They seek refuge in religious fervor, while closing the door to analysis and deliberation regarding the problems which confront the Islamic world.

This approach stirs deep passions in the hearts of people who yearn to live a pious Islamic life, but denies many forms of guidance by which such passions were traditionally channeled towards the Divine. In the absence of such guidance a narrow ideological interpretation of the faith comes to predominate. Those who fail to adopt this interpretation are then seen a unbelievers, or at best, misguided. [3]

The modernist approach is a direct and tragic result of Western education; which places inordinate weight on empiricism. During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, part of the Western colonialists' effort to advance the society of their seemingly backward subjects was to reshape their educational system. What had been a traditional focus on quality in the Islamic world became instead a feverish quest for quantity. Education turned out to be short-cuts into the colonial civil service. Western institutions churned out students much like their industrial-revolution factories saturated markets with oversupply.

The most spectacular failure of Western education in the Islamic world is its inability to address much of the inner dimensions (batin) of scripture. Worse, it imparts a false sense of security and certainty. The adage- seeing is believing- has seeped into the deepest recesses of mind, heart and soul. Little wonder that many self-styled reformists of Islam often reach conclusions radically different from 1400 years worth of scholarship.

While classical scholars were rigorously steeped in both logic and humanist disciplines, the modernist is armed with ideas and knowledge that, from the outset, frees itself from dependance on a higher reality. No matter that the modern student valiantly attempts to filter these concepts and make it applicable to Islam. The applicability is an illusion. Both do not share the same roots, and both, according to the Koran's tree of iman (shajarat-ul-Iman), are destined to produce very different fruits.

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Where numbered, materials are obtained from these sources:
[1] & [3] - Islam, Fundamentalism, and the Betrayal of Tradition

[2] - Al-Albani Unveiled- Who are the Ahl as-Sunnah wa'l Jama'ah?