Urban myths are folklore that are thought to be true by those circulating them. These myths are not necessarily false, but they are often distorted, exaggerated, or sensationalized. An effective urban myth is designed to provoke an emotional response from the audience, instead of an intellectual one.
Take for example, this urban myth that has been going around for some time now. It is a killer one-liner that reads: If you are Sunni, you are already a Salafi.
Now, the Salafiyyah did not begin as a popular movement with clearly-defined goals until 1866, when a Shia activist named Sayyid Jamal al-Din al-Afghani kick-started his career of political agitation by traveling to Afghanistan and persuading Azam Khan, the warlord of Kandahar province, to form an alliance with Russia against the British.
His ideas were later expanded and refined by a series of thinkers and activists which coalesced into the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood in 1928. Founded and helmed by the charismatic Hassan al-Banna, the Brotherhood attained a powerful influence over the lives of ordinary Egyptians who had grown cynical over their government's policies. The Brotherhood's popularity and increasingly-hostile rhetoric against the government ensured enmity from the state. It was inevitable that the Egyptian government would crack down on the movement. Hassan al-Banna was himself assassinated, the rest of the Brotherhood's leaders were either imprisoned or executed. Those who could get out in time chose to flee the country. These exiles eventually found sanctuary in Saudi Arabia.
According to the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, this was a critical juncture.
After they were thrown out of Egypt during the Arab cold war between Nasser and King Faisal of Saudi Arabia, (1960-1970), the Muslim Brothers went to Saudi Arabia. There they worked in the field of education. They were responsible for radicalizing Saudi students who were raised in the strict but quietist Wahabi tradition.
Saudi Arabia, whose origins hinged on the exploits of an eighteenth-century preacher named
Muhammad ibn Abdul Wahhab and his expedient relationship with the al-Saud tribe, was now thoroughly exposed to the ideals and motivations of the Brotherhood. The vast potential of the Salafist message for uniting Muslims outside the paradigm of traditional scholasticism was surely not missed, especially in a country whose theological founder had himself been embroiled in sharp conflict with the orthodox authorities of his time. The co-opting of the Salafist brand thus began in earnest.
It would be a mistake to assume that the transition passed unnoticed. An Egyptian scholar, Muhammad al-Ghazali, wrote in a book [1] about a Bedouin form of Islam that was camouflaging itself as the only true form of Islam and was threatening to take over the Muslim world. For political reasons, al-Ghazali did not explicitly mention the type of Islam that prevailed in Saudi Arabia, popularly known as Wahhabism.
While Muhammad al-Ghazali had been predictably castigated for his views, he was correct in his assessment of the Salafists' overriding agenda. The killer line I mentioned in the beginning of my article would only make sense if Salafists see themselves as the only valid methodology in the body of Muslims known as Ahle Sunna Waal Jemaah, or Sunnis for short. By pushing for the term Salafi to be made synonymous with Sunni, Salafists are clearly gunning to fulfill two aims. The first is to adopt the mantle of legitimacy that the Sunni label automatically confers; the second is to inflate the numbers of Salafists, which until now remains a small albeit vocal minority.
Just how this is accomplished forms a powerful lesson in the benefits that can be reaped if one is powerful and influential enough to revise history. In the Salafist paradigm, there is little doubt that the concept of Sunni-ism is being reconstructed in a much more specific way than how classical authorities had envisioned it to be. One of the most practical fallouts of the the Salafist reduction is the forcing out of those groups that had once been considered as Sunnis. These include
Sufis and even the theological disciples of both
Imam Abu Hasan al-Ashari and Imam Abu Mansur al-Maturidi. It is striking but not entirely surprising that both these groups had also been Muhammad ibn Abdul Wahhab's own political enemies in eighteenth-century Arabia.
Nonetheless, a great bulk of Muslims would recoil from being labeled Salafist.
Indonesia, which is the world's most populous Muslim country, is home to a large and dominant group of Muslims who are affiliated with the
traditional form of Islam represented by
Nahdatul Ulama. Ustadz
Abdurrahman Wahid, a leader in the Nahdatul Ulama, sardonically described traditional Muslims as,
...widely supposed to be backward in orientation and ossified in their understanding of Islamic society and thought. It is held that their persistence in holding orthodox Islamic law (i.e., the Sunni Madhhab or legal schools) leads them to reject modernity and a rational approach to life. Similarly, in matters of theology, their determined adherence to the scholasticism of al-Asy'ari and al-Maturidi is said to have resulted in a fatalistic understanding of submission to God's will and a disregard for the exercise of free will and independent thinking. Traditionalists are furthermore accused of being too other-worldly in their practice of ritual Islamic mysticism (tasawuf). Their activities within the sufi orders (tarekat) give the appearance of forsaking the present world in the hope of gaining eternal happiness in heaven. Thus, the commonly held view of traditionalists is that they are a wholly passive community unable to cope with the dynamic challenges of modernisation, the sort of community that scholars regard as belonging to a dying tradition. [2]
It is obvious why the urban myth has gained renewed urgency. In the years following the terrorist attacks on New York, Muslim groups have scrambled to undertake a serious re-examination. While apologia of variable quality have cropped up to defend Salafism from criticism, a far more important groundswell was building up. There was an increased recognition amongst Muslims that Islam was being
hijacked for insidious causes. The impetus finally converged in 2005, on a document entitled
True Islam and its Role in Modern Society. Not only does the universally-endorsed document furnish the true meaning of Sunni-ism- one that conforms with Ustadz Abdurrahman Wahid's own opinion- it also
snaps the carpet out from under the feet of those who continue to repeat meaningless urban myths.
[1] Nabawiyya Bayn Ahl al-Fiqh wa Ahl al-Hadith (Cairo: Dar al-Shuruq, 1989)
[2] Nahdlatul Ulama, Traditional Islam and Modernity in Indonesia, Foreword, pg. xiii
