Enchanting music from Nass Marrakech

I really, really like the music that the Morroccon group Nass Marrakech dishes out. This is a song from their excellent album "Bouderbala", entitled L_Ham. You need an updated version of Flash to view the widget below.



Nass Marrakech represents a new generation of musicians dedicated to keeping the Gnawa tradition alive and true to its roots. The Gnawa are Sufis descended from black Africans enslaved by Arabs centuries ago, which lends their music a very heartfelt and endearing strain.

Once, I laughed at Sufis

A perennial feature of classical Sufi manuals like Imam Al Qushayri's Principles of Sufism or Imam al-Jilani's The Secret of Secrets is the sheer number of anecdotes they quote. I remember trying to read these books many years ago and coming away with a vague sense of disbelief. Sufis taming lions in the wilderness; Sufis traveling very long distances in impossibly short times; Sufi masters reading the minds of their students, etc. I did not come away with anything positive. It was not until later that I realized the real reason for this.

After putting away the Sufi manuals, I turned to a range of other Islamic topics like history, jurisprudence and theology. Compared to Sufism, these were almost secular in content. I devoured the books, two at a time, until I came to a point when new books on the subject no longer had anything new to say. I must clarify that whatever knowledge I gleaned from those books are only a layman's understanding of them, and not a specialist's.

I still had the Sufi manuals in my bookshelves, though, and because I was getting bored with the 'secular' subjects, returned to the al-Qushayri and al-Jilani I had dismissed. This time, remarkably enough, I began to absorb every word. The mental cringe I felt before had vanished. Emerging so soon after my spell with dry topics, this new direction felt like I was slipping into a lake of deliciously cool water.

The first thing that leapt out at me was the difference in writing style between classical (not exclusively Sufi) and modern authors. A contemporary work finds it necessary to explain every little thing, the better to bludgeon its point across. Sufi works, on the other hand, attempt to persuade, often by saying as little as possible.

Al-Qushayri and al-Jilani bother less with exposition than with molding the soul for the next anecdote you just know is waiting for you around the flip of a page. Thus, just as it is necessary to break the surface of the lake once in the while for a breath of air; a Sufi manual virtually demands that you put it down quite frequently to think about what you have just read. I don't know how common this is amongst readers, but it happens every single time I peruse Sufi books.

My modest grounding in history, jurisprudence and theology were important factors in understanding the intensely spiritual works. The stories I had scoffed at earlier began to make sense in light of the deep, almost self-immolating love that their protagonists felt for their Lord, the Creator of all the Heavens, and the Prophet Muhammad, Last Messenger to Mankind. Islamic spirituality is less defined by love of God, which even non-Muslims may hold in abundant quantities, but by love of God's noble Prophet.

This spiritual and mystical trend had not spared even the acknowledged masters of the Islam's 'drier' subjects. Imam Buhkahri, for example, had been inspired to embark on his quest to compile what is now known as the most canonical collection of Hadith (Prophetic traditions) after dreaming one night that he stood in front of the Prophet with a fan in his hand [1]. This he understood to mean that he had been bestowed with a duty to fan away doubts and impurity from the Sunna of the Prophet. Imam al-Ashari, whom I discussed in "The Unquenchable Thirst for Knowledge", had also repented of his ultra-rationalist doctrines and went on to establish the fundamentals of the Ashari theological school after dreaming of the Prophet [2].

In fact, no great scholar in the entire course of Islamic history was completely free from the "chains" of mysticism. Ibn Taymiyah, whose intellectual lineage is today popularized by groups who condemn Sufis as deviants had been himself a 'cloak-toting' member of a Sufi fraternity.

I suppose you are looking for a point to this whole post. I started out the first paragraph not knowing how this would end, but I suppose that I do have a point to make at this juncture. My own experience with Sufi works reveal that no person can approach the path of true spirituality without first anchoring the heart, mind and soul to the fundamentals of Islam. The lack of these things would at the very least, render some kind of aversion to those works, and at the worst, lead you down a path of confused spirituality that so many new-age cults profit from.

---

Notes:
[1] Hashim Kamali, Hadith Methodology, pg 51
[2] Ahmad Roy Jackson, Fifty Key Figures in Islam

Mystical Dimensions of Islam- Annemarie Schimmel

Some call Annemarie Schimmel's book, Mystical Dimensions of Islam, obsolete, but I disagree. To date, I have not come across another book on Sufism that is more complete and moving than this. Spanning a hefty 500-odd pages, Schimmel's work is conspicuously free from the the kinds of defects that afflict other Orientalist writings.

She begins by establishing the fact that western interest in Sufism only properly began in the nineteenth century. Historical sources and important Sufi manuals were made widely available in print both in the Middle East and Europe. However, Schimmel rightly notes that most of the sources available to European scholars at that time were of rather late origin and seldom painted an accurate picture about the earliest stages of mystical trends in Islam.

Moreover, the works of these European scholars were often colored by the view that Islam was a backward religion, or a kind of bastardized version of Christianity. How could a desert religion that had been 'founded' by an illiterate man aspire to fine and high spiritual thoughts? Was the question many Orientalists asked themselves.

Their interpretations would produce a generation of prejudice not only in Europe but also in Arab heartlands, which at that time were going through a painful period of assimilation with their colonial masters.

An entire generation of Muslim modernists and progressives adopted the European deconstruction of Sufism. Their own writings and speeches echoed much of the condescension that was arrayed against Sufism in orientalist writings.

Such cultural borrowings are not entirely inconceivable. For centuries, it was Christians who developed the abiding tropes of anti-Semitism, such as greediness and ambitions to world domination. According to Daniel Pipes,

...historically Christians killed most Jews. Therefore, Jews regularly fled Christendom for Islamdom. In 1945, this pattern abruptly changed. Christians came to terms with Jews, while Muslims adopted both the old Christian themes and murderousness. Today institutional anti-Semitism is overwhelmingly a Muslim affair. One result has been a steady reverse exodus, with Jews now fleeing Islamdom for Christendom.

The prevalence of Muslim anti-Semitism was a topic that the esteemed Shaykh Hamza Yusuf recently touched on in a courageous article entitled, Holocaust Denial Undermines Islam.

It is thus no coincidence that the rise of post-colonial Salafism paralleled the growing rejection of Sufism, based, significantly enough, on reasons that European commentators on Sufism had outlined in their works. In a sense, the character of the revolution led by early Salafists was largely shaped by the European perception of their heritage.

Schimmel very ably supplants all these stereotypes by reverting to the classical interpretation of Sufism that had been expounded by Muslim luminaries like Imam an-Nawawi, Imam Junayd, Imam al-Ghazali and Mawlana Rumi. A position that was remarkably distilled in 1821 by a German Professor of Divinity,

..the Sufi doctrine was both generated and must be illustrated out of Muhammad's own mysticism [1].

In fact, it is a widely-held belief that the seed of man's innate knowledge was planted long before he was even born. The Quran, in Sura 7:171, speaks of a primordial covenant:

Before creation, God called the future humanity out of the loins of the not-yet created Adam and addressed them with the words: "Am I not your Lord?", and they answered: "Yes, we witness it."

Thus, a man or woman's transgression is never attributed to a Christian-like Original Sin, but to a state of forgetfulness. The object of this amnesia, of course, is the covenant.

Through extensive use of classical works like Imam Ghazali's Revival of the Religious Sciences and Mawlana Rumi's Mathnawi'i Manawi, Schimmel explains the key concepts of Sufism in an easy and arresting way.

All Sufis, for example, ascend a path whose beginning is inflected by a process of purification of the heart, and whose end are the twin phenomenon known as mahabba and marifa, love and gnosis. Imam al-Ghazali holds that,

Love without gnosis is impossible- one can only love what one knows [2].

But it was Imam Junayd who best summed it up:

Love between two is not right until the one addresses the other, 'O Thou I' [3].

Schimmel admits that the Sufi fondness for discursive reasoning has not always worked in their favor. Sufi manuals and poetry are not only difficult to penetrate without proper coaching from a master, they are also notoriously hard to translate. Although mistranslations have sometimes formed part of the arsenal of those who oppose Sufi theories, Schimmel argues that mystical poetry, such as those favored by Mawlana Rumi or even the more contemporary Muhammad Iqbal, should never be equated with theoretical discussions about theological problems. From my own readings of Imam al-Ghazali, I believe that Sufism views such discourse, even those rooted in established sciences like kalam, as veils that lie between them and God. According to him,

Those who are so learned about rare forms of divorce can tell you nothing about the simpler things of the spiritual life, such as the meaning of sincerity towards God or trust in Him [4].

However, it is a mistake to think that Sufis are not orthodox. Sufis did not reject the religious law but rather added to it- often making more punishing demands on their personal lives. Imam al-Ghazali gave up a life of comfort and reputation in Baghdad for that of a wandering Sufi. The latter imposed as an iron rule of conduct, a sharp renouncement of the world and of everything which would separate man from God.

Schimmel arranges the chapters of her books according to the ages of Sufism. The earliest and perhaps the most famous (or infamous) mystic, al-Hallaj, is given considerable attention. The later part of the book charts the eventual systemization of Sufism under the able hands of Sufi masters like Imam al-Ghazali. She makes a brief but compelling stop at the turbulent years when Kemal Ataturk seized power in Turkey and abolished the Sufi institutions. For many, it was regarded as the most treacherous and fatal blow on Islam-dom. But Schimmel concludes,

In the course of time...the institutions found themselves unable to respond to the need for modernization and changed outlook. Instead of fulfilling their centuries-old function as center of spiritual education, they became headquarters of obscurantism and backwardness. That is why Ataturk abolished the orders in 1925- a step that some of the leading personalities in the mystical hierarchy even approved of. They felt that the spiritual values of Sufism as taught by the poets of Anatolia would survive without the ruined framework of the orders- perhaps even in a more genuine way. And these values are indeed still alive.

Schimmel's book is replete with references and information that are not readily-available anywhere else. For example, she mentions the war between members of the Naqshabandi Sufi order in a far-flung Chinese province, Xinjiang, over the issue of true dzikir. Some advocated the dzikir to be hidden, while others thought it should be spoken aloud. Or the fact that the Shadhiliyya Sufis had invented coffee to increase wakefulness during their long litanies and night-vigils. She leaves almost no stone unturned in her loving tribute to the science of Tassawwuf, not sparing criticism when she speaks of degenerate Sufis who go against their heritage by being extreme and worse, making light of the Shariah. Written in 1975, this remarkable book is still immensely relevant to our times.

---

Notes:
[1] Friedrich August Deofidus Tholuck, Ssufismus suve theosophia persarum pantheistica, Berlin 1821.
[2] Abu Hamid al-Ghazali, Ihya ulum ad-din, 4:254
[3] Fariduddin Attar, Tadhkirat al-auliya, edited by Reynold A Nicholson, 1905-07, London and Leiden
[4] Watt, Muslim Intellectual

Only traditional Islam can do it...or can it?

A refreshing article written by Phillip Blond and Adrian Pabst caught my attention today. It is provocatively titled, Only traditional Islam can do it. Here is the lead-in to the story:

The attempted bombings in London and the attack on Glasgow Airport last week underscore the continued and long-term Islamic terror threat that Britain and the world is facing. To date, all of those detained are highly educated foreign-born medical staff.

Far from being affronted by this incursion, young British Muslims are increasingly likely to support domestic jihad. The radicalization of British Muslim youth proceeds apace. According to a recent poll by Populus, growing numbers of Muslims aged 16-30 subscribe to extreme versions of Islam, and almost 40 percent want to live under Shariah law. Britain faces the prospect of a whole new generation of young people embracing extremism and religious fanaticism...

Crucially, current policies are not working because they fail to address the real cause of radicalization and fanaticism. Contemporary Islamic violence is religious in nature. Its origin lies in Islamic scripture and the destruction of the traditional medieval schools that dictated its interpretation.

It is gratifying to note that western commentators are getting closer and closer to the truth of the causes of Muslim extremism. Books like Joespeh Lumbard's Islam, Fundamentalism, and the Betrayal of Tradition, Khaled Aboud Fadl's The Great Theft and Aftab Malk's With God on Our Side have certainly made an impact, inasmuch as they have clearly drawn a line between extremist Islam and mainstream Islam.

However, Phillp Blond's article is not without problems. For example, he says:

And since there were four traditional schools of religious interpretation, which themselves varied according to time and location, what constituted a proper Islamic practice varied according to local norms and customs. As such traditional Islam prohibits the very totalitarian state Al Qaeda seeks to impose.

For example, if Islam recovers the traditional practice of ijtihad, a process of textual reinterpretation that replaces the scriptural literalism of the fundamentalists with a more medieval allegorical reading of the Koran, this would enable the Muslim faithful to distinguish between immutable God-given laws and mutable human interpretations.

Blond not only furnishes a wrong definition of ijtihad, but also makes the rather mistaken assumption that literalism is bad, allegory is good. Ijtihad is the action that a qualified scholar (called a mujtahid) takes in determining Islamic laws. His sources are primarily the Quran and Sunna. Because mujtahids employ different methods in interpreting the sacred texts, there are differences between the four canonical schools of jurisprudence. Within individual methods, the degrees of literalism or allegorism varies. Imam Ahmad Hanbal, for example, was known to have interpreted certain Quranic verses literally, but that does not mean he had not also used reason in interpreting other verses.

No doubt, modern-day extremists do employ a literalist approach to the text, but their literalism is of an entirely different flavor. In an earlier article, I had commented:

Muslim extremists...have a quaint habit of seeing the Quran as totally self-explanatory. "It's not rocket science," they would declare. However, to live up to that claim, any interpretation of the holy scriptures done by them inevitably gravitates toward literalism. What's worse, most Muslims aren't even familiar with the Arabic language and the particular grammar that infuses the Quranic text, so what they end up being literal about are the translations of the Quran, be they English, Malay or Mandarin.

Moreover, I find that the greatest impact literalism has on Islam is where statements are made concerning theology (see my previous article, The Amman Message in light of Imam al-Ghazali's Clear Criterion), rather than on matters like huddud or state institutions (criminal punishments).

Thus, literalism per se is not evil, while excessive allegory, which found its strongest expression in an ancient group of Muslim ultra-rationalists called the Mutazilla (see my previous discussion on this at Mu'tazilla is not Godzilla), is unanimously rejected by all four schools of jurisprudence.

Blond goes on to say:

...the mere rebirth of classical Islam is not enough.

I find the word "rebirth" extremely incompatible with Islam, because it mirrors the idiolect of Muslim ideologues who like to use words like "reformation" for their interpretation of Islam. Reformation implies that the cumulative tradition which is the hallmark of traditional Islam is flawed. In the same vein, rebirth implies that traditional Islam has been lost for a time and needs to be brought back into the lives of Muslims again. Blond's mistake is in assuming that traditional Islam has given up significant ground to extremist Islam, when this is not the case, especially in Muslim populations outside the Middle East.

Nonetheless, there are a lot of positive signs in Britain. For one, Prime Minister Gordon Brown has banned ministers from using the word "Muslim" in ­connection with the ­terrorism crisis.

While I support Brown's noble intentions, I have some reservations. By glossing over the label that most terrorists rigorously apply to themselves, Brown might be in danger of underestimating how much of a role Islam, or the extremist interpretation of it at least, plays in their ideology and lives. Making the subject taboo might ironically fuel bigotry against the whole Muslim community, since the dichotomy between what the terrorists claim themselves to be on television (i.e. true Muslims) and what the government is trying to push out (i.e. not Muslims) is simply too wide to ignore.

Wahdat-al-Wujud and the politics of polytheism

Wahdat-al-wujud was an idea developed by the inestimable twelfth-century scholar, Ibn Arabi. Translated literally, wahdat-al-wujud means unity of being, but it can also mean unity of finding. The object of this 'finding' is God, and the finder seeks to remove the veils that stand between himself and God so that the perfect level of certainty is reached. This doctrine forms an integral part of traditional Islam, but finds its most explicit expression in the mystical discipline known as Sufism.

The veil is often used as a metaphor for either emotional obstacles or worldly distractions. Even certain Sufi rituals are not spared. For example, poverty is a well-known circumstance that many Sufis choose to place themselves in. Thus, it is often said in Turkey [1]:

Sharia (Islamic Law): yours is yours, mine is mine
Tariqa (The Sufi path): yours is yours, mine is yours too
Marifa (Gnosis): there is neither mine nor thine

However, poverty must not be regarded as a goal in and of itself, or else it becomes a veil along the path toward God. From the outset, wahdat-al-wujud's chief concern has been with God, or more specifically, with attaining an existential awareness of the Divine Unity. Poverty is nothing more than a condition bequeathed by God to test a person's trust in Divine Grace. Some authorities assert that the more God loves a person, the more He will test him. Hence, we find that the Prophets, being nearest to God, are made to suffer the most.

Since the veils relate to the Divine, they are an infinite number of them. The proper attitude of the seeker is that of bewilderment. The state of finding is said to be directly parallel to the state of not finding, since it is humanly impossible to overcome infinity. This kind of paradox is hardly novel, as evident by this saying from Abu Bakr, the first caliph of Islam.

...the incapacity to attain comprehension is itself comprehension. [2]

Because there is a verse in the Quran that states, wherever you turn, there is the face of God [3],  the seeker understands that everything he witnesses and experiences is a divine manifestation of God's Eternal Will. But taking this idea too literally would lead the seeker into anthropomorphism; the attribution of uniquely human characteristics to God. The seeker knows that just as all is God, all is not God.

If such is the case, what does finding God entail? The problem lies in the vagueness of the question. It should instead be re-phrased as: "How do I remove the veils that prevent me from finding God?"

Muslim cosmology is divided into two worlds, the seen and the unseen. The Quran makes it clear that,

With Him are the keys of the Unseen. No one knows them save He. [4]

Hence, none knows God but God Himself. Because of this, our question can be further refined as: "How to remove the veils that prevent me from being God?"

The question is not as radical as it appears. After all, proximity with God has always been an overriding goal of the nominal believer. In a famous hadith, it is striking that the measure of distance is used as a metaphor for the degree of closeness between the believer and God.

If my servant draws nearer to Me by a handsbreadth, I draw nearer to him by an armslength, and if he draws nearer to Me by an armslength, I draw nearer to him by twice that distance. And if he comes walking to meet Me, I come running to meet him. [5]

And the culmination of such a journey has always been understood by scholars to be union with God. For example, Imam al-Ghazali states in his Ihya [6],

I want union with him...

Before Imam al-Ghazali, the great Shaykh Junayd Baghdadi had been even more explicit:

Love between two is not right until the one addresses the other, 'O Thou I' [7].

It would be a grave mistake to dismiss the likes of these scholars as mere pantheists without first understanding what is actually meant by union or wahdat-al-wujud. The latter term does not only have an apparent meaning, but also an inner meaning that cannot be discarded. As mentioned before, wahdat-al-wujud not only means unity of being but also unity of finding. Thus, the ostensibly radical question "How to remove the veils that prevent me from being God?" is in essence, "How to remove the veils that prevent me from finding God?" In an intimate study of Ibn Arabi's thought, William Chittick clarifies that,

Being precedes knowledge as in the world; nothing knows until it first exists. [8]

I wrote this article not because I have a particular affinity with Ibn Arabi's thought, but because I came across another article written by a Muslim who pompously accused wahdat-al-wujud of being polytheistic. In the Islamic sense, polytheism is known as shirik and involves the worship of multiple gods, something that is conspicuously missing in wahdat-al-wujud.

It is not unreasonable to demand restrain where the charge of polytheism is concerned, since history attests that factions like the followers of Shaykh Muhammad ibn Abdul Wahhab had been all too ready to use that label to justify the persecution and outright murder of fellow Muslims.

---

Notes:
[1] Annemarie Schimmel, Mystical Dimensions of Islam, p99, The University of North Carolina Press, 1975
[2] William Chittick, Ibn Arabi's Metaphysics of Imagination, State University of New York Press, 1989
[3] The Holy Quran, 2:115
[4] The Holy Quran, 6:59
[5] al-Bukhari, Sahih, Book 97, Section 50, Hadith 1
[6] Abu Hamid al-Ghazali, Ihya 'ulum ad-Din, 4:117
[7] Fariduddin 'Attar, Tadhkirat al-Awliya. Edited by Reynold Nicholson. Reprint, London and Leiden, 1959
[8] William Chittick, Ibn Arabi's Metaphysics of Imagination, p4, State University of New York Press, 1989

Guns, germs and Sufis

I am sometimes astounded by how much mis-information some people, Muslims and non-Muslims, place on the branch of Islam known as Tasawwuf. That's right, no matter what some left or right-wing Muslim evangelicals might insist, Tasawwuf has always been an indispensable part of Islam. Like the other branches of knowledge like jurisprudence (fiqh) or Quranic exegesis (tafsir), 'ilm al Tasawwuf was, in the words of Imam Abu'l-Hasan Bushanji,

...a reality without a name.

In the west, we call the practitioners of Tassawwuf Sufis. But the west also has a bad habit of divorcing Sufism from Islam itself, setting Sufism out to be a peaceful, and more importantly pacifist alternative to oh-so-militant Islam. This is a foolish idea. Sufism did not rise as a response to militarism, but in reaction to excessive legalism; a disease that is familiar to most Christians in the form of the Pharisees described in the Gospels. From the first, Sufism attempted to temper the cold, dispassionate sword of the law with love and mercy, a trait that the Prophet Muhammad, more than anyone else, had embodied. It encouraged Muslims to grasp the inner realities of seemingly monotonous rituals and reach a state of supreme certainty on the all-encompassing unity of God, instead of only going through the motions. In Mystical Dimensions of Islam, Annemarie Schimmel correctly identifies Sufism as nothing more spectacular than an interiorization of Islam.

Nonetheless, pacifism is hardly an attribute I would pin on Sufism. Not so many decades ago, many of the resistance movements against the oppressive colonialists of France (in Algeria) and Russia (in Chechnya) were led by out-and-out Sufis.

The exploits of one Imam Shamil so awed the Russian generals who fought against him, that upon his capture, he was brought to Saint Petersburg to meet the Tsar. The greatest testimony to the Tsar's positive impression of Imam Shamil was in granting Imam Shamil's desire to retire to Mecca. Along this arduous trip to the birthplace of his beloved Prophet, he was acclaimed and hailed by throngs of people. His nobility and fame had spread beyond the mountains he had given up half his life to defend. When he died, he was given the greatest honor of being buried amongst the first martyrs of Islam in the revered Jannatul Baqi cemetery.

I would concede one difference between Sufi 'militants' like Imam Shamil and today's breed. Where the Sufis had rigorously shunned the brutal methods of war employed by their oppressors, today's militants have embraced them in unprecedented and creative ways. 9-11 was merely one example out of a giant cauldron.

Marifah- Knowledge and Realization

Marifah.net has been doing good work, putting out translations of classical works that not only inform, but also refute many of the ideological positions taken up by modern Islamic groups.

For the uninitiated, the word marifah means gnosis. The gnostic discipline exists in almost all religious traditions. In the Islamic sense, the light of gnosis,

...will reveal itself to him such that matters that had been blindly accepted on faith become as if he sees and witnesses them (for himself). This is true gnosis which obtains only after the fetters of formalized doctrine are undone and the bosom is expanded by the light of God the Exalted. [1]

Central to the gnostic belief is that theological and philosophical debate rarely bring about certainty in faith. Doctrines are formulated by men and sometimes present a veil between the receiver of doctrine and God. The greatest testimony of this was in the way Islam spread in the past. New converts flocked to to the Sufis, rarely to theologians or jurists.

Unveiling is realizing the truth behind the message, and this is the ultimate goal of revealed religion. Realization accumulates through direct experience of life itself. The meanings of words might change in the process of discovery, but only in the sense of tearing away their abstractness. Certainty is born.

While the process of unveiling provides insights, the unveiler must never fool himself into thinking that it takes the place of revelation. It does not and never will.

How apt is the name marifah in an age when people have forgotten the power of internalized truths. Their search for certainty expands ever outwards, discarding this ideology and embracing that, never realizing that in the process, they are fleeing further and further from themselves.

Bookmark Marifah.net now.

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Notes:
[1] R. M. Frank, Al-Ghazali and the Asharite School, 1994.

What's that Hadith doing in my computer?

All religions revolve around a source, and for Islam, the sources are the Quran, which is a divine revelation, and the Sunna, which is defined as the sayings and actions of the Prophet Muhammad. However, it would be foolhardy to compare the contents and nature of the Quran with the Christian Gospels. The verses in the Quran represent a direct conversation between God and the reader, while the Gospels are narrations of the life, ministry and eventual death of Jesus Christ. In that sense, the Gospels most closely resemble the Hadiths, which are collections of reports detailing, sometimes in contradictory form, the Prophet's Sunna. I would add that the only difference between the Gospels and the Hadiths is one of authenticity. While most of the surviving compilations of Hadiths have gone through a rigorous process of validation and authentication, the Gospels' origins remain dubious at best.

There was a time, early in the history of Islam, when Hadiths were neither authenticated, nor checked for their accuracy. Purported sayings of the Prophet Muhammad were thrown about to justify just about anything. So dangerous was the potential for abuse in the hands of unscrupulous Muslims that Abu Bakr, the first caliph who led the fledgling Muslim community after the Prophet's death, prohibited their transmission. However, as the generation who had witnessed the Prophet's life and mission began to pass on, it became clear that the Sunna they had learnt from the Prophet and taught to the masses had to be preserved in more concrete form. The logic that prompted the early Caliph Uthman to expand the Quranic revelation from its original oral tradition to a textual one was also extended to the Sunna. As the study of religion coalesced onto a written text, the Hadiths too began to take on an increasingly vital role in the transmission of Sunna.

The word 'tradition' means literally handing over, but it also includes the object of handing over, which in our case, is practices and beliefs. The words or deeds of Muhammad and his followers, the Companions (al-Sahaba) and their Followers (tabi'un), were handed down to posterity in a kind of communication called 'hadith' (a tradition, literally a tale or a report)...[1]

While the oral tradition of both the Quran and Sunna never lost their places in Islam, the sacred teachings that had been etched out in writing attained an authority and permanence that was unmatched. What followed was a process of a standardization and consolidation. Then came the increased specialization in both the study and understanding of the sacred texts. This was especially significant since Islam was expanding well beyond the tiny borders of Mecca and Medina, into territories like Persia that had their own mature civilizations and often competing theological tendencies.

The new interest in Hadiths injected fresh impetus to those scholars who rightly feared that they could be abused to introduce heretical teachings. Some scholars undertook dangerous and harrowing journeys to track down Hadiths and their transmitters, right back to the original source. The personalities of each transmitter in the chain, called isnad, were unearthed and evaluated. From a body of millions of Hadiths, these scholars shaved off the untrustworthy ones, applying methods that were well-documented. Only a small number of Hadiths were found to survive the scholars' rigorous sieves. Even so, the number was still considerable. Those Muslims who undertook the memorization of Hadiths, including the meticulous chains of transmission of each one, came to be immensely respected. Yet, Imam Abu Hanifa, the eminent jurist who founded the Hanafi School of Jurisprudence, remarked:

"You (the Scholars of Hadith) are the Pharmacists but we (the Jurists) are the physicians."

This is not merely wanton self-praise or even a case of academic one-upmanship. The apparent debate between the role of Hadith and Fiqh (jurisprudence) in the formulation of Islamic doctrines and law continues even today. Though the distinction between both is ambiguous,  present-day reformists gain from the tactic of driving a wedge between the two. A common refrain amongst reformists is the call for Muslims to return to the Quran and Sunna. Fiqh, especially those emerging from the four canonical Schools of Jurisprudence, is regarded as obsolete and in most cases, unnecessary. Hence, the current overplaying of the person who studies Hadiths exclusively.

Yet, a rote knowledge of the Quran and Hadiths are not enough to define and establish universal doctrines. Without a consistent method of assessing and applying Hadiths, especially those that hopelessly contradict one another, the muhhadith (memorizer of Hadiths) quickly becomes lost in a sea of confusion. Even a man like Ibn Wahb, who had compiled almost 12,000 narrations, was forced to confess:

"Were it not for Malik ibn Anas...I would have perished; I used to think everything that is (authentically) related from the Prophet must be put into practice." [2]

Notably, Imam Malik occupies a place very similar to Mark, the author of the first Gospel, in Christian history. Like Mark, Imam Malik had been one the earliest authorities to systemize interpretative principles that were later scrutinized and more importantly, affirmed and imitated. Ibn Wahb's confession also brings up an issue that is all too easily forgotten- the deceptiveness of self-perception. While compilers of Hadiths like Imam Bukhari and Muslim had been paramount scholars in their own right, with access to tens of thousands of Hadiths; they too had had to submit to the fiqh of the canonical Schools.

Imam Ahmad Hanbal, the founder of one of the Four Schools, had related a narration from Muhammad ibn ibn Yahya al-Qattan that said:

"If one were to follow every rukhsa (dispensation) that is in the hadith, he would become a transgressor." [3]

This was related with good reason, for many of the Hadiths at that time were not only unverified, but also appeared to contradict one another, so that people without knowledge took from these Hadiths teachings and practices that was contradictory. And when they debated one another, it was without basis or recourse to what could ascertain the closest truth. This was where the fiqh of the Four canonical Schools would come to play a major part, for it was fiqh, literally understanding, that formulated the tests, conditions and limits that Hadiths played in delineating the Sunna.

In an apt illustration of this principle, a man who had come to Ibn Ugda asking about a particular Hadith was instead reprimanded:

"Keep such hadiths to a minimum for, truly, they are unsuitable except for those who know their interpretation." [4]

The great scholars of the past had addressed the vainglorious aspirations of some of the Hadith specialists of their time sternly. One of the best examples was the esteemed Sufyan al-Thawri, who used to describe the study and memorization of Hadiths as a disease that preoccupies people. He asserted that the,

"...explanation of the hadith is better than the hadith." [5]

A useful parallel would be the personal computer that sits on our desks. The Hadiths are like the raw binary data that the computer's processor runs. A programmer might memorize strings of printed ones and zeros which make up the binary, so that he might recognize words and phrases. As is the wont of men, he might marvel at his ability to make out what the binary strings say. It impresses his friends and colleagues, but the sad truth is, without the computer's processor, our programmer would never obtain the overall picture, the entire story that the data is trying to impart and how it relates to other data that is furiously coming in. Islam's earliest scholars had warned of the use and application of Hadiths without the contextualization provided by fiqh because they knew, as Shaykh Ismail al-Ansari had once warned [6], that the Sunna is wisdom and wisdom is to place each thing in its right context.

Unfortunately, the mainstay of modernist Muslim thought remains devoted to the reformist agenda of tearing Islam from its historical and intellectual roots, which it blithely considers to be blameworthy and obsolete accretions, and returning it to its so-called roots. The role of fiqh and the Four Schools are considerably diminished. In its place is a steady profusion of individuals, books, tracts, lectures and websites that reach doctrinal conclusions through a criminally unmethodical use of Quranic passages buttressed by a selective reading of the Hadiths. Such attempts almost always result in two extreme positions that the early scholars of Islam had avoided like plague. The first is an overdependence on reason and and its inevitable offspring, the highly elliptical, metaphorical and pretentiously-modern interpretations of scripture which became the downfall of the Mutazilla sect early in Islamic history. The second is the overt literalism that some inheritors of Imam Ahmad Hanbal's School had come into and the isolation and exclusivist behavior that it naturally encouraged amongst its cohorts. The more general effect, however, is the loosening of restrains that had traditionally kept Islam's agenda from being set by deviants and rebels.

The evidence that such a phenomenon has already happened lies in the impressive glut of Muslim groups and factions that all stake their claim on true Islam, and dismiss as belligerents and even apostates those "Muslims" who do not share their ideology. Recent history has shown that the restraints has come off so completely that these rebels even attack and slay fellow Muslims, citing as their justification that wrong belief must be dealt with in the severest manner possible. Without exception, these exclusivist Muslims have an extremely narrow range of scholars from whom they claim to derive their central doctrines. Ibn Taymiyya is an oft-quoted scholar who lived in the thirteenth century, but there is strong reason to believe that where these deviants use him, they have done so in highly-selective and sometimes even in a deliberately misrepresentative manner. The clearest example of such mischief is in the way most of these deviants roundly and unconditionally condemn Sufi Muslims while conveniently forgetting the fact that their "Shaykh al-Islam" had in fact been a committed follower of a Sufi tariqa (path) himself.

---

Notes:
1. Binyamin Abrahamov, Islamic Theology: Traditionalism and Rationalism
2. Narrated by Ibn Asakir al-Bayhaqi, cf. Ibn Rajab, Sharh al-'Ilal
3. Ahmad, al-'Ilal
4. Narrated by al-Khatib, al-Faqih wal-Mutafaqqih
5. Ibn Abd al-Barr, Jami Bayan al-Ilm
6. As quoted by 'Awwama, Athar

Mesquita politics

A Muslim friend once told me that the word mosque was derived from the word mosquito. "It's a Crusader plot to defame Muslims," he confided. Like most conspiracy theories, however, it's plain baloney. First of all, the Crusaders are dead. Second of all, Crusaders were too stupid to have concocted any sort of etymological device to describe their enemies. The height of Crusader ingenuity was probably describing their feet being colored to the ankles with the blood of the slain Jews and Muslims of Jerusalem.

But mosques are interesting in other ways. When extremists want to show the Shias in Iraq who is boss, they bomb the domes off Shia mosques. Now, if you think bombing domes are an odd way of sending a message, think again. History attests that some Muslims- well, actually those belonging to a certain strain- have been at domes for a long time, including the green one that is currently above Prophet Muhammad's grave.

Why the dome-fetish, though? Some Muslims apparently believe that building domes above the graves of holy men promotes shirik (idolatry). In the world of the dome-destroyers, the logic even extends to Prophet Muhammad's tomb.

In some countries, mosques are seen as a barometer for radical teachings. India for example, has this exquisite national monument, the Grand Mosque, that is in urgent need of repair. Oil-rich Saudi Arabia offered to pump in money to fund the reconstruction. The Indian media, ever the rabid watchdog over its troublesome minorities, was quick to point out that the offer had a caveat. The kingdom apparently wants to fund education too. Naturally, Indian security agencies are wary that the money could go into preaching radical Islam.

But that's all fluff. If I were an Indian Muslim, I would be more worried about the Grand Mosque not keeping its distinctive style. Not only is it an eclectic mix of Hindu and Muslim architecture, there are three graves within the mosque's compound. And its obscene complement of fifteen domes (yes, 15!) can only belong in a dome-destroyer's fantasy.

The re-construction might degenerate into a de-construction project, as happened in the Saudi-aided reconstruction of Sarajevo's mosques in the aftermath of the Bosnian genocide. A mosque that is deliberately torn from its native context- as expressed through its unique architecture- is well on its way to nurturing an exclusivist mindset amongst Muslims that India can frankly do less with.

Then, there's good old England. According to Guardian Unlimited:

A plan to build a 'mega mosque' in east London has become mired in controversy with allegations that it is being bankrolled by Islamist groups in Saudi Arabia. Opponents say it would promote a radical form of Islam. They accuse its backers of not consulting local people.

Tablighi Jamaat, the controversial Islamist sect that has applied for planning permission for the multi-million-pound mosque, has been described by French intelligence as 'an antechamber of fundamentalism'. This evangelical movement, which has gained a strong following among young male Muslims, is a Deobandi Muslim organisation that has close links with the Wahhabi fundamentalist form of the religion promoted in Saudi Arabia and practised by the Saudi royal family.

The sect, which bought the brownfield site in the early Nineties, has sent hundreds of British Muslims to madrassas - religious schools - in Pakistan each year. There are concerns within British intelligence that these trips may have radicalised some of them. Followers have also attended the sect's Saudi-financed UK headquarters in Dewsbury, West Yorkshire. They include Mohammed Siddique Khan and Shehzad Tanweer, two of the bombers who struck London on 7 July last year.

Oddly enough, the mosque has created a unique coalition of protesters comprising local Muslims and Christians. Way to go, silent majority!

Not all mosques create controvosy, of course. My own experience at a mosque I visited several years ago brought me near tears. But that was in a country that's been called a city of Tassawwuf (Sufism) and grave-worship in some social circles.

Schwartz's Words of Mass Distortion

In an article written for Family Security Matters, Stephen Schwartz rhetorically asked "Is California an Islamic Republic?", and directly accused the state's most prominent Muslim, Shaykh Hamza Yusuf, of being a dishonest person and a poseur.

Sidi Aftab Ahmad Malik [1] responds:

In his recent article: Is California an Islamic Republic? (The Family Security Foundation, Inc., October 25, 2006), Stephen Schwartz, in his tireless search for an opportunity to profess his undying patriotism, has written a personal attack against Hamza Yusuf Hanson. The nominal basis for his attack is an article in a Saudi newspaper, in which Hamza Yusuf "was described as 'the mufti of California.'" It is not clear how accurately this was translated for him, particularly as he later states that "It is Hamza Yusuf Hanson who is dishonest, when he calls himself, ridiculously, 'the mufti of California,' and when he claims to be a Muslim moderate." Schwartz's claim then, is that Yusuf has been called or has called himself the mufti of California and, therefore, Schwartz claims, "propagandizes for the Islamicization of America," based on how Yusuf has "built himself up as a major Western Muslim leader."

My immediate response is to question why Schwartz has searched out this reference (of questionable accuracy) to denounce Hamza Yusuf. Why does he go to such pains to try to convince his readership that Yusuf is an extremist who does not speak for the majority of Muslims? The implication of course, is that Schwartz is a moderate Muslim (struggling for plurality) and in fact speaks for the majority of mainstream Muslims. In fact, Schwartz has a long record of denouncing other Muslims as either being Islamists, Jihadists, or Wahhabis—all words that the public has been taught to "understand" represent three incarnations of everything evil in the world today. While the reality remains that many Americans still cannot make sense of Islam, Schwartz's simplistic articles only offer a dangerous black and white view of a complex landscape. I find it astonishing that Schwartz, the executive director of the Center for Islamic Pluralism cannot even recognize the plurality within the Muslim community itself, and rather than acknowledge this, he demarcates disperse communities into moderates versus extremists.

Schwartz's unabashed attack on Hamza Yusuf is at best misguided and at worst libelous. His continued character assassination of one of the most distinguished, loved, and brilliant Muslim scholars in the Western world is enough to discredit him in the eyes of many mainstream Muslims. The respect that Yusuf commands from numerous sectors of the Muslim community throughout the world is unquestioned; it is based on nearly fifteen years of studying with scholars throughout the world, in a tireless effort to grasp the depth of traditional Islamic scholarship. Schwartz himself wrote a moving obituary of the late "famous Sufi teacher" and scholar, Shaykh Muhammad Alawi, in which he highlights the authority that Alawi commanded. And it is this very same Muhammad Alawi that is counted among the teachers of Hamza Yusuf, who was awarded a handwritten diploma by the Shaykh—something that Alawi rarely did—conferring upon Yusuf the licence to teach the Islamic sciences, which include Sufism.

I find it lamentable that Schwartz maintains this misguided assertion that Hamza Yusuf is dishonestly portraying himself as a Sufi and hiding ulterior motives that only Schwartz has been able to decipher (the rest of the gullible world has failed to recognize these ill-intentions). Surely this, above and beyond his other outlandish claims, clearly indicates that Schwartz is a man with an agenda and far from a serious or scholarly commentator on Islamic affairs. I question Schwartz's intentions because he is most likely aware of and has met many contemporary Sufi shaykhs from America to Great Britain; West Africa to the Middle East; the Subcontinent to the Arabian peninsula, who confirm and acknowledge Yusuf as being counted among the qawm—a sufi term that refers to "the people [of spiritual excellence]." Could Schwartz's accusations stem from such a superficial fact that Yusuf does not dress like a Sufi shaykh, but wears western clothes? (I have actually met some individuals who criticize his ability to be a shaykh precisely because of this.) Or, perhaps Schwartz is irked by the fact that Yusuf is invited by a wide range of people to speak to diverse audiences, some of whom may not see eyeto- eye with the spiritual tradition of Islam?

Ironically, back in 1997 at Stanford University, the late expert on Sufism, Annemarie Schimmel, Hamid Algar of the University of Berkeley, and Hamza Yusuf spoke on the theme of "Sufism and its influence on Europe." In closing the program, Yusuf stressed that Sufism was an integral part of Islam, stating that "in the tradition of Islam Sufism has always been part of the traditional Islamic curriculum in every single Muslim university." He continued to remark that he knew of "no period in the Islamic tradition in which Sufism was not taught in the universities and not seen as an important and fundamental aspect of the tradition of Islam." More ironic yet is the fact that this favorable write-up of the event was (and remains) posted on the Naqshbandi.org website, a prominent Sufi group that operates under the auspices of the Sufi sage, Mawlana Shaykh Nazim al-Haqqani. If we believe, as Schwartz proposes, that Yusuf decided to transform himself from a "radical" Muslim preacher into a spiritual Sufi, the author of the lengthy article would not have concluded by saying that this event took "great courage" and was a "courageous stand" in the light of the fact that (at that time) Sufism was perceived by many Muslims as something alien to Islam—clearly a result of the strength of a Wahhabi-brand of Islam.

I actually agree with Schwartz on one issue: it is ridiculous for Hamza Yusuf to call himself "the mufti of California"; I daresay that Yusuf would consider it ridiculous as well. I doubt that Schwartz's reference to the article in the Saudi newspaper is accurate. But I would correct Schwartz on the role of a mufti. He confusingly defines a mufti as a "religious judge, directing sharia courts in Sunni Muslim countries," (one would think a fairly substantial position of authority), then says that California does not need a mufti, "because Sharia governs such minor aspects of Islamic life as the issuance of halal butchers' licenses…and the propriety of certain financial transactions." Schwartz reveals his ignorance of the sharia, not to mention the role of a mufti. Then he goes on to clarify (for those unaware!) that California does not have sharia courts.

By way of clarification, a mufti fulfils a role that goes beyond merely declaring meat halal. The role of a mufti is more akin to that of a rabbi and an imam to that of a cantor. A rabbi explains Torah and Mishnah to his congregants and the function of a mufti is to explain the Qur'an and the Prophetic way to his followers; this can relate to everything from how to prepare oneself for prayer to whether insurance is a halal financial transaction. A mufti gives non-binding legal opinions and has no state authority, nor can his opinions be enforced by the state in most matters. Muslim nations often appoint a Grand Mufti, as in Egypt, but most muftis actually have no state affiliation. Muftis are also noted for their intellectual ability and moral character. Indeed, the late Dr. Zaki Badawi of London was, in one of his obituaries, referred to as the "Grand Mufti of Islam in England." There were no sensationalist headlines the following day that sought to explain how all along, Zaki Badawi the mild-mannered moderate Muslim, was a stealth Islamist by night, because it simply would not be true. Rather, the title was bestowed upon him as a mark of respect and acknowledgement of his intellectual prowess, authority and admiration he had earned from many people, Muslims and non- Muslims alike in the UK.

In his article, Schwartz has manipulated the facts in order to create a fictional scenario in which a fictional character (only nominally based upon the real Hamza Yusuf) has a fictitious aim of establishing an Islamic republic in California. The only credence that Schwartz has that lends itself to this mythical construct is a quote by Zaid Shakir (who he inaccurately refers to as Ziad Shakir), in which Shakir remarked that he would "like to see America become a Muslim country." Had he known Shakir personally, Schwartz would have understood the inaccuracy of his explanation. Shakir's remark is no more than an imitation of the Prophet Muhammad's words: "Love for humanity what you love for yourself." Shakir, a dedicated savant and intellectual giant, said that to love what he loves (and clearly, Zaid Shakir loves Islam), how could he not wish for other people to enjoy what he enjoys from Islam? As the late Betty Shabaz remarked, only people of violence read violence into Malcolm's words and I would add that only those who want to feed the current climate of fear, announce it wherever they can.

Hamza Yusuf has been vociferous in the past as well as the present, on the topic of those who seek to subvert the lands in which they live, and has said in no uncertain terms that these people should leave—if they wish to live under Islamic law, there is nothing preventing them from moving to those lands in which it is the rule of the land. At the same time, Yusuf has not made secret his views on what he sees as the ailments of the society in which he lives. There is gross inequality in the distribution of wealth, the educational system is not producing rounded human beings, and there are areas in America where there is intense racial tension and segregation. While Yusuf has openly criticized the country's foreign policy, he has emphasized that foreign policy should not be seen as synonymous with the American people; this is a message that he has particularly stressed when speaking in the Middle East. The problem we face is that despite the Internet and talk about a global village, there still remains a huge gulf between the West and the Muslim world.

To be patriotic (and Schwartz implicitly implies that Yusuf is not), does not mean to turn a blind eye to injustices. To be loyal or zealously support one's country can be dangerous if it is merely another name for crude nationalism. True patriotism—to truly have a great love for one's country—would include exercising one's judgment, evaluating policies, and engaging in discussions. When Yusuf says that most Americans do not comprehend Islam or that racism is a real concern, he is not revealing a conspiracy of hate toward America. These are issues that have been debated for decades by many (non-Muslim) social scientists and (non-Muslim) religious/political commentators. It is only at the mercy of Schwartz's pen that such concerns are twisted and morphed into a sinister and threatening menace. In an environment that is plagued by a virtual avalanche of tracts, writings, and publications that express unrestrained animosity to Islam and Muslims, written by so-called experts on Islam (the vast majority of whom do not read, write, or speak Arabic), the quest for sanity and balance seems lost within a quagmire of suspicion and self-appointed "moderate" Muslim leaders. The only losers in the end will be the principles of equity, integrity, and justice. When these are lost, what reigns is anarchy, and this will ultimately lead to the perpetuation of hate crimes.

Notes:
[1] Editor of The State We Are In: Identity, Terror and the Law of Jihad and Visiting fellow at the Center of Culture and Ethnicity, University of Birmingham (UK)

The kingdom is facing strange times

Abdullah ibn Abdul Aziz of Saudi Arabia is a strange man, and I don't mean this in a disrespectful way. He has been in power for a long time, mostly due to the fact that his half brother, Fahd ibn Abdul Aziz had fallen into a coma for ten years before passing away in 2005. As Crown Prince, Abdullah had been commander-in-chief in all but name only. So when he graced the funeral of the Sufi teacher Syed Mohammad Alawi Al-Maliki in 2004, it was a premonition of things to come when he would one day be Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques.

Bad news for the religious establishment who regulate Islam in the kingdom, of course. Syed Alawi is reviled by those who inherit their intellectual and even genealogical lineage from the eighteenth-century preacher, Sheikh Muhammad ibn Abdul Wahhab. The latter, whose line of descendants are known as ahl-al-sheikh, had been instrumental in the initial expansion of the al-Saud tribe into a full-fledged kingdom and the subsequent repression of many traditional aspects of Islam, including Sufism. According to a Saudi Institute report on religious freedom,

Several government-financed books were written by Hanbali clerics to attack Syed Alawi accusing him of Sufism and apostasy. Algerian-born Shaikh Abu Baker Al-Jazairi, who worked as a speaker at the Prophet's mosque and a teacher at the Islamic University in Madina, attacked Syed Alawi in several speeches and in at least one book.

Shaikh Abdullah Bin Manee, a high ranking judge and a member of the Council of Senior Uluma, wrote a book calling Alawi an apostate and a religious deviant. The late Grand Mufti, Shaikh Abdul Aziz Bin Baz, wrote the book's forward.

It's a misnomer to characterize the kingdom's scholars as Hanbali, since whatever they take from that particular Madhhab (school of thought) invariably filters through scholars like the thirteenth-century Syrian scholar ibn Taimiyya, who spent his last years in prison for alleged deviancy. As this refreshing website attests, however, the Hanbali Madhhab is very different from the face that emanates from modern movements that claim affiliation with the school of thought. Note the sections on following Madhhabs and even the ruling on the celebration of Mawlid (the Prophet Muhammad's birthday), which a vocal minority condemns as being a blameworthy innovation.

Abdullah ibn Abdul Aziz's presence at the funeral of a Sufi sheikh has an air of deliberation about it. He is either trying to bridge the ideological divide between Saudi Salafists and Sunni Muslims, or else, attempting to emasculate the more intolerant of the two. In 2005, he pushed for the kingdom's clerics to sign on the seminal Jordan Initiative, even though many of the groups that were declared by the Initiative to be valid expressions of Islam are actually excommunicated by conservative Salafists. In the long-run, though, the Initiative is a strategic imperative. By officially acknowledging the diverse sects and movements in Islam, Muslim governments hope to destroy the very same tactic of excommunication that Muslim radicals use to justify doing violence on fellow Muslims.

Are we witnessing the demise of the ideology that has been the mainstay of the Islamic discourse for the past two hundred years, so much so that popular movements like the Indonesian Nahdlatul Ulema were formed specifically to counter its vigorous and often tumultuous spread? Did the Jordan Initiative start something good, after all?

Stay tuned!

Can interfaith relations stop extremism?

A CBS poll claims to prove, within a reasonable margin of error, that people's perception of Islam is going down the drain. Margin or no margin, one does not need a poll to know that.

In almost all interfaith gatherings, the agenda inevitably coalesces on the question of Islam's image. I think it saps the agenda somewhat. More can be done instead of simply waxing and waning that Muslims are hated as never before. God forbid that such gatherings should go the way of most OIC (Organization of Islamic Countries) meetings.

Nonetheless, it is a fact that most people believe that one of the means to reduce the potential for future terrorism is to build bridges between faiths. While this is a commendable attitude, I have never believed in its realism, not while the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, for example, is couched in the absolutist terms of religion. To put it bluntly, peace has little chance of succeeding if terms like Jerusalem, third holiest city of Islam, and Jerusalem, eternal capital of Israel are consistently placed on the negotiating table.

The Israeli position, especially, makes little sense in the tumultuous context of the Tanakh (the Hebrew scriptures). They, of all people, should know the falsity of such claims.

For better or for worse, however, Israel has influential friends in the United States. No group has been more vociferous in supporting America's myopic stance on the Middle East than the Christian premillennialist camp. Malise Ruthven (Fundamentalism, the Search for Meaning) calls them,

theological refugees in a world they no longer control. They have a baleful influence on American foreign policy, by tilting it towards the Jewish state which they aim eventually to obliterate, by converting 'righteous' Jews to Christ. They have damaged the education of American children in some places by adding 'scientific creationism' to the curriculum...On a planetary level, they are selfish, greedy, and stupid, damaging the environment by the excessive use of energy and lobbying against environmental controls. What is the point of saving the planet, they argue, if Jesus is arriving tomorrow?

Interfaith gatherings, while great for fostering relations between the intellectuals and elites of religions, have limited impact on the ground. Sometimes, I suspect that these talks are promoted for their sheer futility, because let's face it, the initiatives and positions adopted by interfaith councils seldom, if ever, trickle down to the sermons delivered from either Christian pulpits or Muslim minbars. No boats are rocked. It's a useful distraction from real problems.

Of greater importance is the dialogue between different Muslim groups. Take this recently-concluded interview with Saudi Sheikh Ayedh al Garni, in which he supports calls for,

...an open dialogue between Sunni, Shiaa and Sufi Muslims.

He further adds,

"We should meet and refer our differences to the Quran and the Sunna."

Now, I am not going to comment on Sheikh Ayedh's inference that Sunni Muslims and Sufi Muslims are two different things. It's obvious he means Salafist Muslims when he mentions Sunni Muslims, even though the Sunni'ism of the majority of Muslims is based on taqlid (adherence) to the four Madhhabs (Schools of Thought) and a qualified acceptance of the science of Tassawwuf (Sufism). This majority is in fact established by the Jordan Initiative, which places the Madhhabs at the apex of a list it calls "true Islam". Why is this an issue? Salafists typically despise taqlid and condemn it every opportunity they get.

Nor am I going to say that any dialogue that transpires should rightly lie between this Sunni majority and the Salafist minority, a conversation that has, in reality, taken place away from the masses.

I merely mentioned Sheikh Ayedh's interview because I wanted to bring up the brilliant response of one blogger, Mr Ahmed Al-Omran of the prolific Saudi Jeans.

I'm all for dialogue, but I don't really see the point of this one. Instead of looking for our differences- as if these differences are some kind of a problem, how about respecting each other and support freedom for everybody to practice their beliefs?

Usama bin Laden's bedtime story

"The unluckiest man in the world is he who rides the lion or rules Yemen" -
from an ancient Yemeni poem

In the so-called war on terrorism, propaganda is as critical as military might. Propaganda bolsters personal morale and conviction, and is liberally employed by both sides of any conflict. President Bush's invocation of God in his decision to invade Iraq, for example, is indistinguishable from Usama bin Laden's fatwas (religious edicts) that lash out at the West. But there is a third strand of propaganda that does not seek to demonize, but to protect the status quo.

In the aftermath of 9-11, Western commentators pointed at the disproportionate number of Saudi nationals involved and quickly deduced that the regime, together with its religious establishment, had contributed to the terrorist mindset. The numbers- all but four of the hijackers had been Saudi- were mind-boggling to a country that had always regarded Saudi Arabia as a major ally.

The United States retaliated on two fronts. At home, closer scrutiny was imposed on such places as mosques, Muslim institutions and charities. On the international stage, the United States invaded Afghanistan to punish the Taliban regime for protecting Usama bin Laden, widely believed to have been the mastermind of the 9-11 attacks.

The Muslim world was incensed. Leaders railed from pulpits that the war on terrorism was an excuse to wage war on Islam itself.

In all this, Usama bin Laden remained a pivotal figure. For many Westerners, he was made out to be nothing less than an enemy of humanity. For Muslims, though, another theater unfolded. Usama was carefully crafted by Salafists to fill the shoes of an enemy that is generally described as the very "antithesis of 'Wahhabism'".

Muslims and non-Muslims were informed (through such channels as The Wahhabi Myth) that even though Usama bin Laden had been involved in 9-11, he was not necessarily a true or worthy representative of the Saudi brand of Islam. The latter, of course, being Salafist in ideology and literalist in flavor.

Instead, Usama was conceived to be a Sufi, the so-called antithesis of 'Wahhabism'. His alleged Sufi-ism was first and foremost based on his pedigree. It was disclosed that the bin Laden clan had originated from Hadramout in South Yemen, an area ostensibly crawling with Sufis.

The logic is absurdly simple, and because it is so simple, many people overlook how superficial it really is.

Muslims in South Yemen belong to one of Sunni Islam's Schools of Thought which is named after the early mujtahid (those qualified to issue expert legal opinion) Imam Shafi'i.

Because the detachment of Sufism from normative Islam only makes sense from an Orientalist and a Salafist standpoint, it is misleading to generalize any region in South Yemen as being uniquely Sufi in character.

The majority of ulema (religious scholars), and this includes Muslims residing in Malaysia, Indonesia, Algeria, Chechnya, Bosnia, Egypt, the Hijaz and significantly, South Yemen, hold that the spiritual discipline of Sufism is an indispensable component of Islam.

The ulema of Singapore, for example, unequivocally states in an official "Charter on Moderation in Religious Practice" (Moderation in Islam) that:

Sufism and tasawuf are accepted as practices which aim to purify the soul and bring oneself closer to Allah.

However, all this was set to change dramatically in 1970s and 1980s when poor Yemeni laborers were allowed to work in Saudi Arabia for their upkeep. Enthralled by Saudi activism, these men brought back with them the first seeds of Salafism.

In typical fashion, sectarian violence spiked; with the first wave of attacks leveled against the Zaydi Shi'a who dominate North Yemen and the second wave targeting the mosques of Shafi'ite Muslims in South Yemen.

Word for word, the narrative of Salafism's entry into Yemen mirrors that of Afghanistan through the vehicle of the Taliban.

9-11 had of course forced the Saudis to reevaluate their ties with the Taliban regime, if only because of the Taliban's refusal to surrender Usama bin Laden. The Taliban were unceremoniously ditched, their embassy in Riyadh (Saudi Arabia was one of only three countries to recognize the Taliban's legitimacy) shut down exactly two weeks after the attacks on New York.

Yemen is a more delicate issue than Afghanistan because of its closer proximity to Saudi Arabia. The Kingdom has always regarded Yemen as a troublesome neighbor, whether it is on account of its republicanism, its larger population, its whimsical path toward democratization, or the unruly ways of some of its people.

In addition, Yemen dredged up sour memories of the 1962 civil war fostered on the one side by Saudi Arabia and on the other by its cold war rival, Egypt.

Any talk about unification between North and South Yemen was therefore met with alarm, and the Saudis did everything they could to prevent the expansion from taking place.

Billions of Saudi riyals were thus pumped into benevolent causes, like conventional parochial education, legal training and private religious charities; the better to advance Saudi influence. Money also found its way into the creation of a group known as al-Tajammu al-Yamani lil-Islah (Islah, or Reform); helmed by the paramount chief of the powerful Hashid tribe, Shaykh Abdallah bin Hussein al-Ahmar.

Now, this is where the Salafist take on bin Laden's Sufi credentials gets a little slippery, because the Hashid tribe also happens to be the tribe of the bin Laden family. Unlike most other Arab countries, Yemen's tribal system remains extremely vibrant. Deviation from tribal norms remains a rare occurence.

It is therefore unlikely for the Hashid-Islah co-operative to have held any significant "Sufi tendencies" in the first place. If the Saudis had even caught a whiff of this, money for the movement would have vanished in an instant.

As it stands, Saudi money for the movement is drying up, though for a very different reason.

In 1993, President Ali Abdullah Salih won elections and received the remarkable mandate to rule over both North and South Yemen.

In an overt rebellion against Saudi wishes, the Hashid-Islah movement accepted President Ali Abdullah Salih's (himself a member of the Hashid) invitation to join a coalition government; thereby supporting his ambitious bid to strengthen Yemen's tenuous unity.

Matters took a turn for the worse when President Ali Abdullah Salih opposed the first Gulf War and explicitly called democracy "the rescue ship" for all political regimes. The latter was a direct challenge to Saudi Arabia's role in the 1964 civil war on the side of the ill-fated royalists.

Playing up Usama bin Laden's progeny is a deft move which fulfills several objectives, implicit as some of them are. First, it deliberately seeks to demonize Sufism in general. Second, through the crass generalization of labeling a whole region as Sufi, it also demonizes the Shafi'ite Muslims of South Yemen. The documented attacks on Sunni mosques in South Yemen attests to this aspect of the propaganda.

Lastly and most significantly, it transplants the context of Usama's personal ideology and upbringing to a place little known outside Yemen. The progeny-argument clearly benefits from a studious effort to ignore the fact that Usama had not only been born and raised in Saudi Arabia, but also graduated from the prestigious King Abdul Aziz University.

If a test is to be placed before the bin Laden family, it should rightly fall on the shoulders of Usama's father, Mohammed bin Laden. He was the first to migrate from the "Sufi-infested" region of Hadramout after all.

The test fails miserably, however, when one considers that the bin Laden family remains one of the largest construction conglomerates in Saudi Arabia and the Middle East. More importantly, the ties between the bin Laden family and the Saud monarchy continue to be intimate and lucrative.

There is little reason to compare bin Laden's case with that of the Hashid-Islah movement, although both share a profound tribal bond. It is more accurate to describe Saudi Arabia's generous financing of the Yemeni movement, however, as nothing more egregious than an attempt to interfere with another country's political destiny. Nevermind that it directly contravenes Saudi Arabia's own stated foreign policy.

The relationship with the Hashid-Islah movement was also ideological from the outset, as verified by the wave of Yemeni Salafists who flocked to join al-Ahmar's movement.

Indeed, Dr David Buchman (Hanover College) describes the Islah movement to be a hotchpotch of factions professing varying levels of "puritan" zeal.

One faction follows the Saudi-sponsored Salafism, which rabidly opposes Sufi practices; the other follows the teachings of the Egyptian-based Muslim Brotherhood, which is less hostile to Sufism. What is striking is that under different circumstances, both sides would have gone for each other's throats.

While it is true that South Yemen continues to host a strong Shafi'ite presence, the Hashid tribe that Saudi Arabia once munificently supported remains committed to the ideology of neo-Salafism.

The Wisdom of Musab al-Zarqawi

One thing that the Jordan Initiative exposed is the existence of groups within the fold of Islam. Two facts bear repeating- one, that Muslims, especially today's Muslims, are not a monolithic bloc; two, that Muslim reform movements have taken on the tendencies of messianic cults. These movements share with their Christian counterparts an intolerance for those factions most similar to them than those who more starkly disagree with them.

Hardly surprising since we have historical examples. The Bolsheviks hated the Mensheviks in the Russian Revolution far more than the czar. The Communists hated the Trotskyites far more than capitalists. The Nazis hated the Communists far more than the French.

Thus, we find in Musab al-Zarqawi's letter to Usama bin Laden the first hints of the ideology that drives militant groups. Almost three-quarters of the letter attack Muslims themselves. He either considers them plain enemies or at the very least, misguided. Of the shaykhs and ulema (religious authorities) who lead the Ummah (Muslim community), he describes as being mostly "Sufis doomed to perdition".

Since Musab al-Zarqawi is not a scholar by any stretch of the imagination, his ideas are neither original nor unique in the ideological framework he claims to operate in, which is Salafism.

But he brings up a valid point. The claim that shaykhs and ulema are Sufis might sound strange at first, but it clarifies the point that ilm-al-Tassawwuf (the science of Sufism) has always held an integral position in traditional Islam.  Certainly, what is meant by traditional Islam today is the implementation that emanates from the Koran and the Sunnah, as interpreted by the four major Madhhabs (Schools of Thought). Normative Islam, in other words.

Unfortunately, what today's Muslims lack is Musab al-Zarqawi's blunt honesty. They blithely accept the charge that Sufism, for example, is pantheistic, corrupting and a fringe cult. Thus informed, they flee far away when they hear terms as Tassawwuf or Kalam (Islamic theology). The argument goes that since these disciplines arrived later on the historical stage- generations after the what Salafists like to call the time of al-salaf al-salihin (Pious Predecessors)- they should be regarded as negative accretions.

This is unnecessarily dense. All religionists depend on their cultural and social background to interpret religion. Other more methodical tools like philosophy, logic and even textual criticism are utilized when a sufficient level of understanding has been reached. It is social evolution at play. Because religion is essentially interpretative, the human relationship with divine scripture is hardly frozen, regardless of Salafist claims that traditional Islam is fossilized Islam.

The whole purpose of the Madhhabs- a key ingredient of traditional Islam- is to streamline the interpretative. Because subjectivity is an invariable fact standing between man and divine text, a certain 'norm' must be established, and the Madhhab culture provides a tool to address this. That tool is called taqleed (adherence) and it is a covenant that was formulated not for the purposes of oppressing thought, but protecting orthodoxy.

Yet isn't the Golden Age of Islam, the supposed Time of the Pious Predecessors, a far better criterion to go by? Neo-Salafism champions the idea of receiving religion from a direct access to the Koran and Hadiths. More specifically, the emphasis should be on how the Salaf had interpreted and implemented Islam, and less on how classical ulema had done so down the ages. It is from this platform that neo-Salafists rail against Tassawwuf, Kalam, Ashari'ism etc, which did not exist in any coherent sense during the time of the Prophet.

The line of reasoning is tempting but intellectually dishonest.  No matter what criterion is used, religion remains interpretative. Muslims don't see God, yet they are told that He exists. The Koran enjoins believers to strengthen belief through inward contemplation of things as simple as natural phenomenon. Significantly, these are referred to as ayats (signs).

The only means we have of studying the Time of the Pious Predecessors is through writings and customs passed down generations of upright persons or groups. The striking thing is that Salafists do not, in actuality, possess a special manuscript or a more direct access to sacred history than say, the scholars of traditional Islam.

What they do bring is an insight, a filter that is made up of preconceived notions. Ultimately, their insights are as subjective as the next one.

The Time of the Pious Predecessors was an objective reality to those who had literally witnessed and partook from it, immersed in the cultural and linguistic norms of that time. Contemporary groups that claim descent from it are merely constructing a subjective framework. There is no real significance to attaching