Notes on Islam updates

Qasida Burda and Sufi songs from Morocco

2020-06-22T21:44:00.000+02:00

Quran recital, Qasida Burda and sufi songs from Fes in Morocco by Sidi Anass Samsar and friends dedicated to the sick and those with ill health. Various nasheed and adhkar including the Qasida Burda.

Qasida Burda
Tashawakat rohi
Ahlo al mahaba kalo li
Wi nabi ya jameel
Safati annadra

The Diwan of Shaykh Muhammad ibn al-Habib al-Amghari al-Idrisi al-Hasani

2016-06-17T10:21:00.002+02:00

The Diwan of Shaykh Muhammad ibn al-Habib al-Amghari al-Idrisi al-Hasani Arabic with English translation.

The 8 conditions with following the tariqa taught by Shaykh Ibn Ajiba

2015-08-03T12:13:00.001+02:00

Al-qasd al-sahih - having a clear intention and a sound purpose,
Al-sidq al-sarih - they say this means a genuine belief in the khususiyyah of your Shaykh. They say the student's grasp of the secret of his Shaykh depends on the degree of his sincere belief in him. There is no progress in the tariq without this properly considered and properly thought-out perception of one's Shaykh.
Al-adab al-mardiyyah - Pleasing courtesy,
Al-ahwal al-zakiyyah - Pure states,
Hifdh al-hurmah - Protection of the honour of people,
Husn al-khidmah - Excellence of service,
Raf' al-himmah - This means more "highness of one's goal or aim" as opposed to "lower aims". The aim of the murid should be focused on knowledge of Allah rather than achieving worldly dreams or other purposes.
Nufudh al-'azimah - Determination to attain fulfilment.

The Afrikaans of the Cape Muslims - book launch

2015-04-04T10:47:00.003+02:00

Book launch at Timbuktu books in 2011. Dr Achmat Davids, The Afrikaans of the Cape Muslims (From 1815 to 1915), editors. Hein Willemse and Suleman E. Dangor, publisher Protea Book House.

Since the 1950s, linguists working on the history of Afrikaans have known that the earliest written and printed Afrikaans documents – a language recognisably distinct from Dutch – were written in “Arabic-Afrikaans” in the 1800s. That is, Arabic script was used to “spell out” and produce the sounds of the language that was then developing in the colony known as the Cape. The most well-known of these is Bayān al-Dīn (loosely, “Exposition of the Faith”) by the Kurdish scholar, Abubakr Effendi, who apparently came to SA, via complicated Ottoman allegiances to the British Empire, to teach Islam to the Muslims at the Cape. While Bayān al-Dīn was completed in 1869 and published in then Constantinople in 1877, Effendi makes reference to an earlier work of the same kind. For a foreigner to move here and learn how to write in this form must mean that there was an already established tradition of such writing, as Achmat Davids indeed claims.

Documents (student notebooks) from as early as 1845 have been found, pointing, obviously, to Muslim writers who were literate in at least Arabic and writing for an audience that could ‘read’ Arabic. And while most of these texts are of a religious nature (for the purposes of Islamic instruction), there are also secular ‘texts’, like a tailor’s shopping list.

It’s a fascinating area of language study, and it’s not exclusive to South Africa and Afrikaans. Languages survive because they can be bent and shaped to a range of local conditions, and there is a well established tradition of “ajami” writing – using Arabic with which to write in a local language – in other parts of Africa where Islam had spread print-literacy in Arabic.

As Achmat Davids (1939-1998) points out, however, research on the social and historical aspects of these Arabic-Afrikaans texts is at best patchy. This posthumous book, his 1992 M.A. thesis, is then one step in renewing the interest in these documents, and it is a fascinating read, albeit at times quite technical.

Davids’s main aim is technical: he lays the ground for a standardised system of transcribing the Arabic-Afrikaans into Afrikaans in Roman script. This requires an extensive discussion on the mechanics of Arabic. But this allows Davids to claim that these manuscripts are virtual audio recordings of what Afrikaans at the Cape at that time would have sounded like. Anyone who has wondered why some older people in Cape Town say “gaseg” (“gesig”/ face) and “karrag” (“krag”/ power) will find some answers here. Arabic has fewer vowels than Afrikaans and these writers used whatever was available in Arabic phonetics to produce sounds as closely as possible to the Afrikaans vowels. Arabic also avoids consonant clusters – the k and r pronounced as one sound in “krag”, so when scripted in Arabic, the word becomes “k’rag”.

Davids paints these writers as creative innovators, which they certainly were. And while they adhered to a rather strict Arabic linguistic science (which their audience of course uses to ‘decode’ as they read), they nevertheless found ways in which they could bend Arabic into sounding out a Germanic language. As Muslims generally think of Arabic as a sacred language, I find it remarkable that religious writers back then were actually re-shaping Arabic, in a manner of speaking.

Notwithstanding the technical nature of the book, Davids is also concerned with the social and cultural context in which this literature was produced. Past studies, he claims, have focussed too narrowly on the linguistics itself, thereby ironically making errors about the linguistic development of Afrikaans itself. Central to this is whether the Afrikaans of the Muslims at the Cape then should be considered a de-limited dialect of Afrikaans or whether this Afrikaans was more widespread. Davids would like to think the latter, although his argument in support of this relies on one early 20th-century grammarian’s assertion.

Nevertheless, the parts on the history of the speech community at the Cape I find the most fascinating because it provides an insight into the influences languages and cultures had (and have) on each other. The Hindu influence in local Islam can be found, for instance, in “rampies” and “puwasa”. “Puwasa”, generally thought of as a Melayu word and meaning “to fast”, here and still in the Malayan Archipelago, comes from Hindi. A “rampie” is a small pouch of “crinkle paper” (crêpe paper) filled with shredded and perfumed citrus leaves, and doled out to attendees at mosque on Maulid, a celebration of the prophet Muhammad’s birthday. Apparently this word comes from the Hindu “Rampa”, indicating that the “rampie” may have been adopted, also, as a way of attracting slaves who were Hindu to Islam.

While the book is thus technical in parts and of interest to historians and linguists, I find that there is much in it to recommend it to the general reader who has an interest in local history, culture and language.

https://groundwork.wordpress.com/2012/01/11/the-afrikaans-of-the-cape-muslims-review

Remedies to Cleanse the Heart

2015-03-20T09:28:00.000+02:00

Recite a portion of the Quran on a daily basis or as often as possible.
Try to be in a state where you feel hunger or eat less. Eat only to sustain yourself and not for pleasure.
Practice qiyam ul layl by breaking your sleep during the middle of night for any type of ibadah (worship). This helps with better focus and concentration.
Make dua and supplications during the final portion of night with intense humility. There are hadeeth which support this in which Allah swt descends to the earth in last third of the night to answer those who make dua.
Maintain suhba and close contact with people who aspire to be closer to, and who are closer to Allah. It is well known that those who you associate with on a regular basis, a profound influence on your character.

Shaykh Abd al-Rahman al-Shaghouri

2014-09-14T17:19:00.002+02:00

Abd al-Rahman al-Shaghouri (Homs 1912 – Damascus 2004) was a Syrian Sufi master of the Hashimi-Darqawi branch of the Shadhili tariqa, as well as poet, textile worker, and trade unionist.

His life and work
Born in Homs in 1912, al-Shaghouri was soon orphaned and moved to Damascus with his brother. As a child, he worked as an errand boy and later as a weaver.

He attended the lessons of the major scholars of Damascus: Husni al-Baghghal, Muhammad Barakat, 'Ali al-Daqar, Ismail al-Tibi, and Lutfi al-Hanafi.

However, his most important teacher was Muhammad al-Hashimi, an Algerian Sufi from Tlemcen who had already been living in Syria for twenty years before becoming the representative of Shaykh Ahmad al-Alawi, spiritual master of the Shadhili tariqa. Al-Shaghouri himself met al-Alawi in 1932 in Damascus, but it was al-Hashimi who served as his spiritual guide. Finding that al-Shaghouri was already suitable, al-Hashimi placed him in a spiritual retreat. On the first day, al-Shaghouri pledged himself to al-Hashimi's guidance, an unusual if not unprecedented occurrence in Sufi instruction and discipleship.

His Teaching
He never stopped teaching. He once entered the head office of a small religious academy in Damascus with a group of his students and sat down to talk to the director, who bade him wait until he finished some things that were apparently urgent. One thing seemed to lead to another, and the phone kept ringing.

Sheikh ‘Abd al-Rahman waited patiently, while his disciples, as the minutes drew on, became less and less so. Finally, the principal of the school set aside his work, looked up at the sheikh and apologized with a smile, and put himself at the sheikh’s service. The sheikh thanked him, asked him how he was, and then said, “I just wanted to make a phone call.” After a short call, he got up, thanked the principal, and left with his disciples. They had needed a lesson in patience and manners, and the sheikh had given them one.

Practice was the aim of the sheikh’s knowledge. Imam Abul Hasan al-Shadhili (d. 654/1258), whose order the sheikh belonged to, would not let his disciples beg, but had them earn their own livelihood, and Sheikh ‘Abd al-Rahman emphasized the importance of having a trade to earn one’s living by the work of one’s hand. He used to say, “I hope to pass on from this world without having taken a single piaster from anyone: I don’t even take from my own children.”

We had sat on the edge of a pallet on a narrow wooden bed in a room with a single window, whence light shone down on us, and the sheikh was answering a few questions I had on the last day of my first khalwa. “Will we be together in the next world?” I had asked. “All those who attained marifa, gnosis of the

Divine, in this life,” he said, “shall have a special place in paradise by a white dune of musk. Our Lord shall manifest Himself to them once a week, and they will remain drunken with the vision of it for the entire week, when He shall appear to them again, and hence ever shall it be.”
“We never speak of three things: this world, women, or politics.”

His weakness and death
Despite his later physical weakness, he never stopped receiving visitors or attending the weekly hadra at the Nur al-Din al-Shahid mosque, in the old quarter of Damascus. He died on 8 June 2004. A great crowd gathered to attend his funeral at the mosque dedicated to Shaykh Muhy al-Din Ibn al-Arabi.

The funeral prayer was led by Habib Ali al-Jifri, from Yemen, a well-known representative of traditional scholarship and Sufism in Arab media. His death was widely mourned by scholars and laymen alike, and he was widely recognized as one of the most important revivers of the Shadhili tariqa and Sufism in general, particularly in Syria.

His legacy and renown has also become widespread (particularly in the English-speaking world) through two American students whom he authorized in the Shadhili tariqa, Nuh Ha Mim Keller and Zaid Shakir.

His Works

Collections of his poems
Al-hada’iq al-nadiyya fī al-nasamat al-ruhiyya ("The Dewy Gardens in the Spiritual Breezes"), Damascus, Dār fajr al-‘urūba, 2nd ed., 1998.

His notable students

Shaykh Nuh Ha Mim Keller
Shaykh Muhammad al-Yaqoubi
Shaykh Zaid Shakir
Shaykh Faraz Rabbani
Shaykh Gibril Haddad
Shaykh Ismail al-Kurdi

Hadrah with Shaykh Abd al-Rahman al-Shaghouri in Damascus 1996
A video which captures a hadrah in Damascus 1996 with Shaykh Abd al-Rahman al-Shaghouri. Shaykh Abd al-Rahman al-Shaghouri was a well known Shaykh of tazkiyah and master of tasawwuf from the Hashimi-Darqawi branch of the Shadhili tariqa

Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abd_al-Rahman_al-Shaghouri
http://seekersguidance.org/blog/2011/10/glimpses-of-the-life-of-sheikh-abd-al-rahman-al-shaghouri/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6iZ_9EoYeqI (Hadrah with Shaykh Abd al-Rahman al-Shaghouri)

Palestine 1896 short film (La Palestina En 1896) - Lumiere Brothers

2014-07-26T12:21:00.002+02:00

One of the first-ever motion pictures was filmed in Ottoman Palestine by the French Lumiere brothers. It is known popularly as Train Station in Jerusalem (1896). Its exotic, panoramic views are as transfixing today as when they were first screened for a European audience. (1)

The Lumière (pronounced: [lymjɛːʁ]) brothers, Auguste Marie Louis Nicolas [oɡyst maʁi lwi nikɔla] (19 October 1862, Besançon, France – 10 April 1954, Lyon) and Louis Jean [lwi ʒɑ̃] (5 October 1864, Besançon, France – 6 June 1948, Bandol), are credited to be first filmmakers in history. They patented the cinematograph, which contrary to Edison's "peepshow" kinetoscope, the former allowed viewing by multiple parties at once, like current cinema. Their first film, Sortie de l'usine Lumière de Lyon, shot in 1894, is considered the first real motion picture in history. Curiously, their surname, "Lumière", is French for "light". (2)

This film footage of Palestine in 1896 was published online thanks to Lobster Films. It shows Palestinians of all faiths – Christians, Jews and Muslims – living side by side, and praying side by side. I transcribed the narration below.

15 years later, the cinema is taking its first steps. Cameramen employed by the Lumiere Brothers filming in Jerusalem’s station, provide the first moving pictures taken in Palestine. From now on, the camera’s a recording eye and what it records is this: A society much like that of Cairo, Damascus, or Beirut, in an Arab city much like any other.

By the end of the 19th century, Palestine has 500,000 inhabitants, of whom 30,000 live in Jerusalem. A veiled woman, a Sunni Muslim, one of the majority. An orthodox Jew. He too turns away from the camera. Here we have an Armenian pope. Each of the Christian denominations has its church here in the holy city. The holy places of the three religions are scattered across a few hundred square meters. The Great Mosque is close to Christ’s tomb. Further along at the foot of the wailing wall, a Jew is reciting a prayer. He is wearing a Turkish tarboush, and although he prays in Hebrew his everyday language is Arabic. Jews form half the population of Jerusalem, but in the country as a whole they make up less than 5% of the total. Christians account for 10% and Muslims 85%. All of them are subjects of the Sultan of Constantinople. There are no frontiers in the Ottoman Empire. There are administrative divisions in which, in this immense territory, Palestine occupies a mere 27,000 square kilometers, made up of three small districts, in the south of the province of Damascus.

According to the Electronic Intifada’s Jalal Abukhater, the film was recovered in Paris, February 2007. (3)

Sources:
1. http://www.myjewishlearning.com/culture/2/Film/Israeli_Film.shtml
2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auguste_and_Louis_Lumi%C3%A8re
3. http://hummusforthought.com/2014/02/11/what-did-palestine-look-like-in-1896/

Islam in the Modern World

2014-07-09T23:54:00.003+02:00

This article contains a video of the discussion at Timbuktu books related to the book 'ISLAM IN THE MODERN WORLD' by Professor Seyyed Hossein Nasr.

The discussion is between Shaykh Seraj Hendricks (Shaykh at the al-Zawiyah Institute in Cape Town, South Africa), a world renowned scholar of Islam, and Professor Seyyed Hossein Nasr the author of the book as well as one of the United States' foremost Islamic scholars.

Part 1:

Part 2:

The Sunnah a Way of Being a talk by Shaykh Seraj Hendricks

2014-06-22T12:34:00.000+02:00

A recording of the live stream for the talk on "The Sunnah a Way of Being" by Shaykh Seraj Hendricks.
This event was hosted by Islamic Text at Masjidul Quds in Gatesville, Cape Town, South Africa on 22 June 2014.

On Certainty and Intention by Imam al-Haddad (Book of Assistance)

2014-04-20T12:11:00.001+02:00

You must, beloved brother, strengthen and improve your certainty. For when certainty prevails in the heart and establishes itself therein the unseen becomes as if seen and the man aided by providence says, as 'All, may God ennoble his face, said: 'Were the cover to be removed, I would not increase in
certainty.'

Certainty is power, firmness and stability of faith so great that it becomes as a towering mountain which no doubts can shake and no illusions rock. Rather, doubts and illusions disappear completely, and when they come from outside are neither listened to by the ear nor heeded by the heart. The Devil cannot approach the possessor of such certainty; he flees from him, fears his very shadow, and is content to keep at a safe distance. As the Messenger of God, may blessings and peace be upon him, has said: 'Satan is afraid of the shadow of 'Umar, and 'Umar never takes a road but that Satan takes
another.'

Certainty derives its power and excellence from many things. The first, most essential and pivotal of these is that the servant listen attentively with his heart as well as his ears to verses and hadiths relating to God, His Majesty, Perfection, Magnitude, and Grandeur, His Uniqueness in creating and deciding, ruling and compelling; likewise to the truthfulness and perfection of the Messengers, the miracles they were aided with, and the sundry chastisements which befell those who opposed them. That these are sufficient to bring about certainty is indicated by His Word (Exalted is He!): Is it not enough for them that We have sent down upon you the Book which is recited to them? [XXIX:51]

The second is to learn from looking at the kingdom of the heavens and the earth, and the wondrous and astounding creatures that God made them teem with. That this brings about certainty is indicated by His saying (Exalted is He!): We shall show them Our signs on the horizons and within themselves
until it becomes clear to them that it is the Truth. [XLI:53]

The third is to behave according to what one believes, outwardly and inwardly, zealously, and to the limits of one's resources. That this brings about certainty is indicated by His saying (Exalted is He!): Those who strive in Us, We shall surely guide them to Our ways. [XXIX:69]

Proper certainty results in, among many other things, acquiescence in God's promise, confidence in what He has guaranteed, turning to God with pure longing, abandoning all things which distract from Him, continuously returning to Him in all circumstances, and spending all one's energy in seeking His good pleasure.

In sum, certainty is the essential thing, and all other noble ranks, praiseworthy traits of character and good works are its branches and results.

Virtues and actions are strong or weak, sound or unsound, according to the strength or otherwise of certainty. Luqman, upon whom be peace, said: 'Action is possible only in the presence of certainty; a servant acts in obedience only to the extent that he has certainty, and a man becomes neglectful in
his actions only when his certainty diminishes.' This is why the Messenger of God, may blessings and peace be upon him, has said: 'Certainty is the whole of faith.'

Believers have three degrees of certainty. The first is that of the People of the Right Hand, 10 this is firm belief but with the possibility of becoming doubtful or shaky under certain circumstances. This is called faith.

The second is that of the Ones Brought Nigh, which is the possession of the heart by faith and its establishing itself therein so firmly that its opposite becomes no longer possible or even imaginable. In this degree the unseen becomes as the seen. This is called certainty.

The third is that of the Prophets and the True Saints [siddl- qun] n who are their perfect heirs. Here the unseen becomes seen, which thing is called unveiling [kashj] and contemplation [mushahada].

There are grades within each degree: all are good, but some better than others. That is God's grace, He bestows it upon whom He will, and God's grace is abundant. [LVII:29]

On Intention

You must, O my brother, improve the soundness and sincerity of your intentions, examine them, and reflect well before embarking on your actions. For intentions are the bases of deeds; according to them your deeds will either be good or ugly, sound or unsound. The Prophet has said, may blessings and peace be upon him: 'Deeds are only according to intentions; each man has that which he intended.'

You must, therefore, utter no word, do no action, and decide no matter without the intention of drawing nearer thereby to God and seeking the reward He has assigned, through His beneficence and grace, to the intended act. And know that drawing nearer to Him can only be done through the obligatory and supererogatory devotions that He has indicated through His Messenger, may blessings and peace be upon him.

A sincere intention may change the merely licit into the devotional, for means are judged according to their ends. For example, one may eat to get the strength to perform devotions, or sleep with one's wife to obtain a son who would worship God.

It is a condition of the sincere intention that behaviour does not belie it. For instance, a man who seeks knowledge claiming that his intention is to practice and teach it will be proved insincere in his intention if, when he becomes able to, he does not do so. Or a man who pursues the world and claims that he
is doing so only that he may be independent of other people and be able to give charity to the needy and help his relatives will be proved ineffectual in his intention should he not do so when able.

Intentions do not affect sins, just as purification does not affect that which is, by its very nature, impure. A man who goes along with another who is slandering a Muslim, then pretends that he only wanted to humour him, is himself a slanderer. Anyone who refrains from the enjoining of good and the forbidding of evil and pretends that he only did so to protect himself against the culprit, is his partner in evil-doing. A malicious intention attached to a good deed spoils it and renders it malicious; likewise when one performs good deeds for the sake of wealth and prestige.

Strive, my brother, always to intend that your obedience be solely for the sake of God, and that whatever licit things you may use are only to help you to obey Him.

Know that many intentions can attach to a single act, and that each of them will attract its full reward. An example of this in devotional activities is when someone reads the Qur'an intending to commune with God (which thing he will indeed do) but also to extract from it different kinds of knowledge,
(for the Qur'an is the very mine of knowledge), to profit those who listen or [just happen to] hear, or any other good intention. And an example in licit matters is to eat with the intention of obeying the command of your Lord in His saying (Exalted is He!): O you who believe! Eat of the good things with
which We have provided you, and give thanks to God. [11:172] Intend by so doing to acquire strength for devotion, and to put yourself in a situation where you must thank your Lord, for He says (Transcendent is He!): Eat of your Lord's provision and thank Him. [XXXIV: 15] You can apply these two examples in an analogous fashion to all other devotional and licit activities; and always do your best to increase your good intentions.

The word 'intention' can have one of two meanings. The first is the aim which made you decide, do, or say something. Taken in this sense the intention is usually better than the act when the act is good, and worse when the act is evil. He has said, may blessings and peace be upon him: 'The intention of a
believer is better than his action;' notice how he specifically mentioned the believer. The second is your decision and determination to act. Taken in this sense it is not better than the act. A man, when he decides to do something, can only be in one of three situations. [I] He decides and acts. [II] He decides but fails to act while able to. The way to evaluate these two situations can be clearly found in that which Ibn 'Abbas, may God be pleased with them both, has transmitted to the effect that the Messenger of God, may blessings and peace be upon him, said: 'God has written good and evil deeds, then rendered them clear; anyone who intends a good deed but does not perform it, God records it as one good deed, whereas should he intend and then perform it, God records it as ten good deeds, up to seven hundred fold, and to yet more multiplications. If he intends an evil deed and does not do it, God
records it as one full good deed; if he intends and then does it, God records it as one evil deed.' [Ill] He determines upon something which he is for the time being unable to do and says: 'Were I able, I would do [such-and-such a thing].' He receives the same as the one who acts, whether this be for or against him.

The evidence for this is the Prophet's saying, may blessings and peace be upon him: 'People are of four kinds: a man to whom God has given knowledge and wealth, and who uses his knowledge to manage his wealth; another who says: "Were God to give mejust as He has given so-and-so I would act like him," - their rewards are equal. And a man to whom God has given wealth but no knowledge, who mishandles his wealth through ignorance; while another says: "Were God to give me as He has given so-and-so I would act like him" - their burdens of sin are equal.'

Source
Imam ‘Abdallah Ibn ‘Alawi al-Haddad, The Book of Assistance, translated by Dr. Mostafa al-Badawi.

Foundations of the Spiritual Path - Sidi Ahmad Zarruq

2014-02-13T16:20:00.003+02:00

By Sidi Ahmad Zarruq (rahmatullahi alaihi) Translated by Shaikh Hamza Yusuf

If anyone is asked about the foundations of his path, he should reply, The foundations of our path are five:

Taqwa – mindfulness of Allah, privately and publicly
Adherence to the Sunnah in word and deed
Indifference to whether others accept or reject one
Contentment with Allah in times of both hardship and ease
Turning to Allah in prosperity and adversity.

The realization of mindfulness of Allah is through scrupulousness and uprightness.

The realization of adherence to the Sunnah is through caution and excellent character.

The realization of indifference to others’ acceptance or rejection is through patience and trust in Allah.

The realization of contentment is through acceptance of what one is given and turning over the management of one’s affairs to Allah.

The realization of turning back to Allah is through praise and gratitude in times of prosperity and taking refuge in Him in times of affliction.

The foundations of the preceding five are in the following five:

Exalted aspirations
Maintaining Allah’s reverence
Expending oneself in excellent service of others
Fulfilling one’s resolves
Magnifying one’s blessings.

He whose aspirations are exalted is raised in rank.

Allah maintains the respect of he who preserves His reverence.

He whose service is for others is ennobled by it.

He who does that which he resolves to do is assured continual guidance.

He who deems blessings to be great by his own eye has shown gratitude.

And he who is grateful ensures an increase in blessings from the Giver of gifts according to the promise of the Truthful One.

The foundations of right conduct are five:

Seeking sacred knowledge in order to fulfill Allah’s commands
Keeping company with spiritual guides and the fraternity of aspirants to gaininsight into one’s faults
Foregoing dispensations and interpretations concerning injunctions for one’s own protection
Organizing one’s time with the remembrance of Allah to maintain presence of heart
Suspecting the selfish soul (nafs) in everything in order to free oneself from its whimsical desires and to be safe from destructive circumstances.

The pitfall of seeking knowledge is the company of sophomoric people, whether due to their age, intellect, or deficient religious practice – in other words, those who do not refer to sound principles of guidance in their actions.

The pitfall of keeping company with the spiritual guides and the fraternity is elitism, deception, and self-righteous meddling in the affairs of others.

The pitfall of foregoing dispensations and interpretations concerning injunctions is self-pity due to hardships.

The pitfall of organizing one’s time with devotional works is ostentatious practice and ritualized perfunctory devotion.

The pitfall of constantly suspecting the selfish soul is inclining towards its upright states and goodliness, yet Allah says, “Were he to offer every kind of compensation, it would not be accepted from him” (Qur’an 6:70).

Moreover, the noble son of the noble one, Joseph the son of Jacob says, in the Qur’an, “I do not say the selfish soul was free from blame. The selfish soul indeed commands to evil acts – except for those on whom my Lord has mercy” (Qur’an 12:53).

The foundations of what will cure the sickness of the soul are five:

Moderation achieved by lightening the stomach’s intake of food and drink
Taking refuge in Allah from harm when it actually occurs
Vigilantly avoiding places where one fears misdeeds will occur
Continually asking forgiveness of Allah coupled with devotional prayers upon the Holy Prophet in both solitude and gatherings of people
Keeping company with one who guides to Allah. Unfortunately, such a one no longer exists!

Shaikh Abu Hasan Shadhili (rahmatullahi alaihi) said, My beloved counseled me not to put my feet anywhere except where I hoped for Allah’s reward, not to sit anywhere except where I was safe from disobedience to Allah, not to accompany anyone except someone in whom I could find support in obedience to Allah, and not to select anyone for myself other than those who increased my certainty, and how rare they are to find!

He also said, Whoever directs you to this world has cheated you; whoever directs you to deeds has exhausted you; but whoever directs you to Allah has truly counseled you.

He also said, Make piety (taqwa) your abode, and the delight of your selfish soul will do you no harm so long as it is discontent with its faults and does not persist in acts of disobedience nor abandons the awareness of Allah in solitude.

I say that being content with the self, persisting in disobedient acts, and abandoning awareness of Allah are the foundations of all illnesses, tribulations, and pitfalls.

I have also seen that the seekers of this age are afflicted with five things:

The preference of ignorance over Knowledge
Being deluded by every spiritual impostor
The inability to prioritize important matters
Using the spiritual path as a means to inflate the selfish soul
Attempting to expedite a spiritual opening without fulfilling its prerequisite conditions.

This has resulted in five other afflictions:

Preferring innovations as opposed to the tried and true Holy Prophetic practice (Sunnah)
Following the people of claims and conceit as opposed to the truth
Acting on capricious desires in all of their affairs, even the most celestial
Preferring fantasies to realities
The manifestation of claims without sincerity.

From these last five, five more have emanated:

Obsessive compulsive thoughts in acts of devotion
Laxity in matters of habitual practice
Perfunctory devotional gatherings of invocation and chanting that lack inspiration
Inclination toward people of rank and authority
Companionship of those immersed in worldly matters, even mixing with the opposite sex and childish companions.

Based upon far-fetched rationalizations they extrapolated from witnessing the like among real people of the path. They will even mention such people’s states and stations as a justification.

On the other hand, had they had true enlightenment, they would have understood that seeking one’s provision is a dispensation for those lacking certainty, and that includes only the necessities of life without exceeding the necessary.

Anyone lax in these matters is distant from Allah. As for devotional gatherings, they are permitted for people overpowered by their states or as a respite for people of excellent character.

Indeed, such practice is akin to settling upon the carpet of truth if done in accordance with its requisite conditions among suitable people and in an appropriate place, not to mention fulfilling its required courtesies and protocols.

Obsessive-compulsive thoughts arise from innovation, the basis of which is in ignorance of the Holy Prophetic practice or in some psychological affliction.

Any propensity toward creation is by nature the lack of such toward the truth. This is especially so coming from an obsequious chanter, a heedless tyrant, or an ignorant Sufi.

The company of the immature is harmful, as well as a worldly and otherworldly shortcoming, and an acceptance of such company even worse.

Shaikh Abu Madyan (rahmatullahi alaihi) said, “‘The immature’ means anyone who is not in conformance with the spiritual path you are on, even if it were someone who reached ninety years of age.”

I say the immature are those who are not firmly rooted in principle; they accept things at face value and are impassioned by them.

The vast majority of such people are those who are pretentious in their associations with a spiritual group and prefer conversations to real spiritual work. Avoid them to the utmost of your ability.

Anyone who claims to have a station with Allah while any of the following five happen to emanate from him is either a liar or deluded:

Allowing any of his members to fall into sinful disobedience
Affectations in his devotional practice
Expectations from the creation
Backbiting against the people of Allah
Lacking the proper respect for Muslims in accordance with the commands of Allah. Indeed, such people rarely die in a state of grace.

The qualifications of the spiritual guide with whom the seeker may safely entrust his self are the following five:

Unadulterated spiritual experience
Sound outward knowledge
Celestial aspirations
A pleasing state
Penetrating inner perception.

Whoever has any of the following five cannot be a true spiritual guide:

Ignorance of the religion
Disregard for the reverence of other Muslims
Engaging in matters of no concern to him
Following his caprice in his affairs
Unashamed displays of bad manners followed by lack of remorse.

The spiritual courtesies of a student with his or her spiritual guide and fellow wayfarers are also five:

Following the directions of the guide, even if it is contrary to one’s own preference
Avoiding what the guide forbids, even if it would appear to be highly adverse to the student
Maintaining utmost reverence for them in their presence and absence, during their lives and after their deaths
Giving them their due according to one’s ability without stint
Relinquishing one’s own understanding, knowledge, and leadership to that of the teacher, unless these are already in accordance with one’s teacher

Should the seeker not find a guiding teacher or find one who is lacking in any of these five conditions, he should depend on him only in those conditions the teacher fulfills.

As for areas he is wanting in, he should treat him like a brother regarding them. Thus ends the five foundations with the praise, help, and perfect success of Allah.

It is necessary to read this every day, once or twice, and if that is not possible, then at least once a week until its meanings are imprinted on one’s soul and manifest in one’s behavior.

Indeed, it contains that which enables one to dispense with many books and much advice, and it is said, “Surely they have been denied arrival by their neglect of the foundations.”

Whoever reflects deeply on what we have said will acknowledge its truth, and he will continue to have recourse to it, using it as a reminder for him.

Success is ultimately by Allah.

http://occidentalexile.wordpress.com/foundations-of-the-spiritual-path/

Shaykh Ahmad al-Alawi on the Spiritual Significance of Fasting

2014-02-04T12:43:00.001+02:00

Linguistically, to fast means to abstain from something. In the language of the Sufis, it means to abstain from everything but their Beloved. This station has its own obligations, conditions, nullifiers and recommendations, as the author [Ibn Ashir] will detail. He begins:

Fasting is obligatory in the month of Ramadan,
And recommended in the months of Rajab and Sha'ban,
The nine days of Dhul-Hijjah, especially the last,
The month of Muharram, especially the tenth.

We have already seen what the Sufis mean by fasting; the author of the 'Ayniyya [al-Jili], may God be pleased with him, said about it:

Fasting is to abstain from seeing all that is other;
And my breaking of fast will come when I meet You!

Someone else said:

In fasting from every other, my soul was truly rarefied;
In what poured over me and flowed on to others, my Zakat was truly purified.

But the abstinence of the gnostics from all that is besides God takes place in a particular Presence, namely the Presence of the Essence [hadrat al-dhat], or they might call it the Presence of the Domination [hadrat al-jabarut]. As for the Presence of the Names and Qualities, or of the Acts, it is not obligatory to look upon the Essence in such a domain because of how difficult it is to see It when it is portrayed on the canvasses of the Names and Qualities; hence in those two Presences, abstinence is only recommended. It is usually impossible for the one in this station to combine it with the other because of the turbulent waves of the Names and Qualities, all of which disturb abstinence. The same is not true of the Presence of Oneness, for it cannot be disturbed by anything; even if the one in this station tried to see something else, he would be unable to do so, because by definition it does not allow it. Were something other than God to come to his heart, he would immediately come out of the station and his fast would be broken. The Sultan of the Lovers [Ibn al-Farid] said about this:

If a desire for anyone but You were to come to me,
Even accidentally, I would call myself apostate.

Thus it is for the person in this Presence. As for the other Presences, the person in them is veiled by the appearance of the Names and Qualities, and so looking upon the Essence is only recommended for him, if he is able. Hence the author says, 'And recommended in the months of Rajab and Sha'ban.'

From Holy Gifts of Grace [al-Minah al-Quddusiyya].

source: http://muridslog.blogspot.com/2013/07/shaykh-ahmad-al-alawi-on-spiritual.html

On Dhikr

2014-01-29T15:28:00.000+02:00

From Miftah al-Falah (The Key to Success) by Shaykh ibn 'Ata'llah al-Iskandari

Dhikr is a fire which does not stay or spread – so if it enters a house saying, "Me and nothing other than me," which is one of the meanings of "la ilaha illa'llah' (There is no god but Allah), and there is firewood in the house, it burns it up and it becomes fire. If there is darkness in the house, it becomes light. If there is light in the house, it becomes 'light upon light'.

Dhikr expels from the body impure substances produced by excess in eating or from the consumption of unlawful food. As for food which is lawful, it does not touch it. So the harmful components are burned up and the good components remain.

Dhikr is heard by every part as if it were blowing on a trumpet. When dhikr first occurs in the head, the sound of trumpets and cymbals is experienced there. Dhikr is a sultan – when it descends in a place, it descends with its trumpets and cymbals because dhikr is opposed to all that is other than the Truth. When it descends in a place, it occupies itself with negating what is contrary to the Truth, as we find in the union of water and fire. After these sounds, different sounds are heard: like the ripple of water, the sound of the wind, the sound of fire when it is kindled, the sounds of galloping of horses, and the sound of leaves of the trees rustling in the wind.

This is because man is a combination of every noble and low substance: dust, water, fire, air and earth, and heaven and earth and what is between them: these sounds issue from every source and element of these substances. Whoever has heard these sounds in dhikr praises Allah and glorifies Him with his entire tongue. This is the result of the dhikr with the tongue with the force of complete absorption. Perhaps the worshipper will reach the state where, if he falls silent from dhikr, the heart will stir in his breast, like the movement of the child in the womb, seeking dhikr.

Some say that he heart is like 'Isa, the son of Mary, peace be upon him, and dhikr is its milk. When it grows and becomes strong, longing for the Truth audibly springs from it and pangs of yearning craving for dhikr and the One invoked. The dhikr of the heart is like the sound of the bee, neither a confused high noise nor a very low hidden sound. When the One invoked takes possession of the heart and the dhikr is obliterated and vanishes, and the invoker does not pay attention to the dhikr nor to the heart. If during this, he notices the dhikr or the heart, that is a distracting veil.

This is state is annihilation (fana') – and it is that man is annihilated in respect to his self (nafs), and he feels nothing in his limbs nor things outside of him or things inside of him. If, during that, it occurs to him that he is totally annihilated in respect to himself, that then is a blemish and turbidity. Perfection is that he be annihilated to himself and to annihilation, and the annihilation of annihilation is the goal of annihilation. Annihilation is the earliest of the Path (Tariq) since it is travelling towards Allah Almighty, and then guidance follows. By guidance I mean the guidance of Allah as the Prophet Ibrahim said, "I am going to my Lord, and He will guide me." (37:99)

This absorption is seldom stable and rarely continues. If the invoker continues, it becomes a fixed habit and a permanent state by which he may ascend to the celestial world. Then the purest real Being emerges and he is imprinted with nature of the invisible world (malakut) and the holiness of Divinity (lahut) is manifested to him. The first thing manifested to him from that world are the essences of the angels and the spirits of the Prophets and saints in beautiful forms through which some of the realities overflow onto him. That is the beginning. This continues until his degree is higher than forms and he encounters the Truth in everything with clarity.

This is the fruit of the core of dhikr. Its beginning is only the dhikr of the tongue; and then the dhikr of the heart is stimulated. Then the dhikr becomes natural; and then the One invoked takes possession and the invoker is obliterated. This is the inner secret of the words of the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace: "Whoever wish to abide in the Garden of Paradise should invoke Allah much" and the secret of his words "Hidden dhikr is seventy times preferable to dhikr which is heard by listeners."

The sign of dhikr moving to the inner conscience (sirr) is the absence of the invoker from dhikr and the One invoked, and the dhikr of the inner conscience is frantic thirst and drowning in it.

Among its signs is that when you ceasing doing dhikr, it does not leave you, and the ascendancy of dhikr in you stirs you from absence to presence.

Among its signs is that dhikr presses against your heads and limbs so that they seem as if they were bound with shackles and chains.

Among its signs is that its fires do not abate and its light does not depart. Rather you always see its lights rising and descending while the fires around you are pure, aflame and brightly burning. When dhikr reaches the inner conscience when the invoker falls silent from dhikr, it is as if needles had been thrust through his tongue or as if his entire face were a tongue invoking, light pouring from it.

Subtle point: Know that every dhikr which you heart feels is heart by listeners, if their awareness match your awareness. There is a secret in it: when your dhikr vanishes from your awareness since you have departed to the One invoked, your dhikr vanishes altogether from the awareness of listeners.

Subtle point: The dhikr of the letters is without the presence of the dhikr of the tongue. The dhikr of the presence in the heart is the dhikr of the heart; and the dhikr of absence from presence with the One Invoked is the dhikr of the inner conscience (sirr), and it is hidden dhikr.

Source: http://bewley.virtualave.net/miftah.html

Ottoman Women During the Advent of Western Feminism by Zara Huda Faris

2014-01-27T16:56:00.001+02:00

“As to women, as many, if not more than men, are to be seen in the streets [i.e. going about their daily activities, etc] […] I think I never saw a country where women may enjoy so much liberty, and free from all reproach, as in Turkey [...] The Turks in their conduct towards our sex are an example to all other nations; [...] and I repeat it, sir, I think no women have so much liberty, safe from apprehension, as the Turkish – and I think them in their manner of living, capable of being the happiest creatures breathing.”

- Lady Elizabeth Craven, A Journey Through the Crimea to Constantinople, 1789[i]

Lady Elizabeth Craven, 18th century travel writer, playwright and author, made these observations about the women of the Ottoman Caliphate (an Islamic state) in 1789, beforethe advent of feminism in Europe and three years before Mary Wollstonecraft would publish A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792), the 300-page appeal that would become the foundation stone and herald of modern feminism.

The observations of Lady Elizabeth Craven and others, along with records of court proceedings, financial dealings and political documents, reveal that women of the Ottoman Caliphate actually experienced greater liberty and protection than their post-enlightenment Western counterparts, and notably without the need for feminism. Yet, today, feminists strive to convince Muslim women of the exact opposite: that Muslim women have always suffered because of Islam and, in a strange twist of thought, advocate feminism as the solution to the problems of the Muslim world.

This article looks at the condition of women living under an Islamic Caliphate that continued to exist until as recently as 1924 – theOttoman Caliphate – and compares their circumstances with the Western circumstances that gave rise to feminism in the West. As we will see, the very recent historical precedent of the Ottoman Caliphate demonstrates that women of the Muslim world historically never needed feminism in order to guarantee their rights – rather, they simply needed the full implementation of their own belief system – Islam.

Muslim country v. Islamic state

Before turning to the comparison, it is important to note the fundamental difference between a Muslim country and an Islamic state. The Ottoman Caliphate was an Islamic state – i.e. the shari’ah (the sacred law of Islam) ruled supreme as the only source of law – for over 600 years and until its cessation in the early 20th century. This shari’ah provided the Ottomans with their legal framework for governing public and private aspects of daily life, including personal, political, social and economic activities, both civil and criminal. This shari’ahalso enabled the Ottoman Caliphate to include and protect women of Africa, Europe and Asia – which included Jewish, Christian, Muslim, Anatolian, Greek, North African, West Asian, and women of the Balkan Peninsula.

The Muslim countries of today, however, such as Pakistan, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Turkey and much of the Middle East, are secularand not Islamic – i.e. the constitutions of these countries posit that Islam may be just one of many post-colonialist sources of the law. Otherwise, these countries are secular, corrupt, and tyrannical and cannot be looked upon for an example of Islam in practice. In fact, the ordinary men and women of these Muslim countries would be liberated by the establishing of an Islamic state in their lands.

Legal Status

In the West, women lost their own legal identity (and their names) upon marriage, at which point they could neither sue nor be sued, and their husbands would have to sue or be sued on their behalf.

In England, and most English speaking colonies, the doctrine of coverture identified women according to their marital status. A married woman did not have her own legal identity separate from that of her husband – upon marriage, hers was subsumed by her husband’s identity, and she was known as a feme covert (i.e. a married woman or, literally, a “covered” woman). This legal concept prevailed in the West from around the 12th century until the mid to late 19th century (i.e. almost alongside the entire period of the Ottoman Empire).

“By marriage, the husband and wife are one person in law: that is, the very being or legal existence of the woman is suspended during the marriage, or at least incorporated and consolidated into that of the husband: under whose wing, protection, and cover, she performs every thing…”

- William Blackstone, 18th century English jurist and judge, explaining coverture[ii]

Coverture was a double edged sword, hindering the lives of all women and men together – denying the free will of wives also denied their accountability. For example, a married woman could not file lawsuits in her own name, and her husband would have to do so on her behalf, but this also meant that if someone wanted to take civil action against the wife, her husband would have to be sued in her stead. This devolving of accountability from the woman to her husband was even the subject of satire in English literature. In Charles Dickens’Oliver Twist, a Mr Bumble was informed that “the law supposes that your wife acts under your direction“, to which Mr Bumble replied “If the law supposes that […] the law is a ass—a idiot. If that’s the eye of the law, the law is a bachelor; and the worst I wish the law is that his eye may be opened by experience—by experience.“[iii]

Coverture was only in relation to civil, not criminal, action; as we know, England and the American colonies were still reeling from burning women at the stake for criminal offences of treason and witchery – even as late as 1784![iv] Although coverture was only in relation to civil law, it is interesting to note that, as recently as 1972, two US states allowed a wife accused in criminal court to offer as a legal defence that she was obeying her husband’s orders![v]

Meanwhile, women of the Ottoman Caliphate had legal standing regardless of marital status, the like of which caused even non-Muslim Ottoman women to prefer Islamic courts to their own courts.

The Women of the Ottoman Caliphate, like men, upon reaching puberty, were considered individual subjects of the state, having their own separate legal identity, in accordance with Islamic law. They retained this legal status regardless of whether they married or remained single.[vi] Muslim women also retain their own surnames upon marriage, as a reminder of their own identity and their own accountability.

Along with men, women were granted extensive legal rights, including the right to register complaints and claim their rights before the local Islamic judge (in Arabic, the Qadi), and they could do so independently. They did not need an accompanying male relative, in fact they could take legal action against their own husbands or male relatives if need be. Ottoman women of all social levels, from the countryside and the cities, frequently used the Islamic court system to defend their interests and, in most cases, judges upheld women’s legal and property rights.[vii]

In fact, Islamic Qadi courts were perceived to be so favourable in treating issues of concern to women, that even non-Muslim Ottoman women frequently preferred to take recourse in these Islamic Qadi courts despite the fact that, under the protection of the Ottoman Caliphate, each religious community had access to its own religious or cultural proceedings, as each religious community enjoyed cultural and legal autonomy, managing its own internal affairs, under the leadership of its own religious hierarchy.[viii]

Economic Activity

In the West, women did not have control over their own property upon marriage; their husbands were responsible for their upkeep and were forced to pay off their debts.

The doctrine of coverture meant that, because the husband and wife were ‘one person’, the wife did not have control over her own property and her husband could use and dispose of her property without her permission (unless otherwise agreed before marriage).

As such, a wife could also not execute contracts. In the 19th century, in circumstances where a wife could dispose of her property (for example, if this was permitted by her husband), then a ‘privy examination’ would have to be conducted where she had to be separately examined by a judge (without her husband present), to determine whether her husband was pressuring her into signing the document. This was seen as a means of protecting married women’s property.

On the other hand, because they were seen to be the same person in the eyes of the law, the husband was also legally bound to provide for his wife, as much as himself. It also meant that if a woman entered the marriage already with debt, or she incurred debt for them, her husband was the debtor and obliged to pay off the debt – not the wife.

In Britain, this persisted at least until the Married Women’s Property Act of 1870, which altered the law so that a wife could own, buy and sell, sue and be sued, and be liable for her own debts.

Meanwhile, women of the Ottoman Caliphate had always been economically independent and active and, in some industries, so much so that guilds had to seek state intervention against women’s monopolies.

“The Turkish wife has been called a slave and a chattel. She is neither. Indeed, her legal status is preferable to that of the majority of wives in Europe, and until enactments of a comparatively recent date, the English was far more of a chattel than the Turkish wife, who has always had absolute control of her property. The law allows her the free use and disposal of anything she may possess at the time of her marriage, or that she may inherit afterwards. She may distribute it during her life or she may bequeath it to whom she chooses. In the eyes of the law she is a free agent. She may act independently of her husband, may sue in the courts or may be proceeded against, without regard to him. In these respects she enjoys greater freedom than her Chrisitan sisters.”

- Z. Duckett Ferriman, 1911

Amongst the Islamic rights delivered to women under the Ottoman Caliphate was the Islamic right to inherit, acquire, control and dispose of property according to their own will, without requiring consent from fathers or husbands. In other words, Ottoman women were legally entitled to manage their own wealth, and they very much did so.

In fact, women played a fundamental role in the Ottoman economy, including being landholders, holders of military fiefs, borrowers, lenders, private tax collectors, and partners in business. Ottoman women from various backgrounds were commonly trading and dealing in marketplaces.[ix]

It is documented that ‘upper class’ Ottoman women (who were more likely to be ‘cloistered’ behind screens) did not commonly deal directly with men, and were perceived by foreign observers as being ‘forced’ to use male employees and agents to act on their behalf. This prompted some observers to comment on this with strange sympathy, as if these ‘upper class’ women were somehow being oppressed, despite the fact that they were powerful business owners who are documented to have owned many of the shops in the market in the first place.[x] How unfortunate these women must have been to have employees running their businesses for them! Also, these ‘upper class’ women wielded further influence through the patronage of fundamental architectural projects.

Women of the Ottoman Caliphate were also involved in crafts, silk and cotton spinning. In Mosul, cotton-thread making was an industry that was by and large carried out on a part time basis in the home. At one point, this industry was actually monopolized by women, to the extent that cotton-weaving guilds were forced to seek state intervention against this monopoly![xi]

Ottoman women also played a fundamental role in the distribution of wealth and, during the 18th century, Ottoman women of all classesestablished 20-30% of all charitable foundations/trusts (in Arabic waqf pl. awqaf). Schools, hospitals, caravansaries, baths, fountains, soup kitchens, hostels and mosques were financed throughout the empire by women from their own personal resources, for the benefit of the public.[xii]

Political Involvement

In Britain, universal suffrage for men and women was not achieved until 1928.

In Britain, only very wealthy men could vote, which excluded the vast majority of men, and excluded women altogether! It was not until 1918 that all men over the age of 21 and women over the age of 30 could vote, and it was not until 1928 that all men and women over the age of 21 could vote.

Meanwhile, men and women of the Ottoman Caliphate were required to be politically active.

Under the Ottoman Caliphate, women had the same right as men to directly petition the Divan – the council where viziers debated the politics of the state, and men and women both had a right to pledge allegiance (equivalent of the vote) to the Ottoman Caliph.

The social segregation of women from men was most common among the upper class families, whilst women of lower classes were generally more free to circulate, partly because of their heavy involvement in economic activities.[xiii] As such, it was commonly believed by European foreigners that such upper class women must have been oppressed and restricted. In reality, the late 16th century of the Ottoman Caliphate was actually known as the “sultanate of the women”, when the mothers of the sultans and other royal women became increasingly powerful and influential from behind the veils and screens of the harem. Although the harem was not, and is not, an Islamic concept, the sultanate of the women does demonstrate emphatically that just because women are behind screens or veils, this does not mean their role in society is restricted.

Social Life

In the West, neither men nor women had the right to divorce, and if they were wealthy enough to get a legal separation, remarrying meant the death penalty.

Divorce was not legal under English law until the Matrimonial Causes Act of 1857. Prior to 1857, a form of legal separation could be achieved only through a complex annulment process or through the passing of a Private Act of Parliament (which entailed lengthy public debates about the couple’s intimate life in the House of Commons). Both of these measures were highly costly procedures, and so this legal separation was restricted to the very wealthy.

Not only this, but husbands and wives who had so separated were prohibited from remarrying – ‘bigamy’ was first prohibited and prosecutable by the church and then, in 1604, bigamy was made a legal felony and was punishable with the death penalty![xiv]

Meanwhile, in the Ottoman Caliphate, polygamy was rare and divorce, whilst a last resort, was initiated by both men and women.

“Turks rule countries and their wives rule them. Turkish women go around and enjoy themselves much more than any others. Polygamy is absent. They must have tried it but then given it up because it leads to much trouble and expense.”

- Saomon Schweigger, German Protestant minister who travelled to the Ottoman Empire at the end of the 16th century.

Marriages were mostly arranged by parents and families, emphasizing the importance of family in Ottoman society. Women of the Ottoman Caliphate had the right to refuse a match, and prenuptial contracts were not uncommon. Polygamy was permitted, in accordance with Islamic law, but in practise was actually quite rare, with over 95% of men having only one wife.[xv]

Ottoman jurists “viewed married couples as enjoying reciprocal, as opposed to symmetrical rights”.[xvi] For example, a married woman of the Ottoman Caliphate was duty bound to obey the husband she consented to marry – as long as he did not ask her to do something bad or haram - the legal status and political and economic activity of women clearly demonstrates, however, that Muslim men were not overbearing or oppressive to their wives. Furthermore, because men are, in the eyes of the law, financially responsible for women and children, divorce procedures are different for men than they are from women, although both are allowed to seek divorce. In practice, women of the Ottoman Caliphate had a great deal of flexibility in ending unwanted marriages. In 18th century Istanbul, for example, separations, annulments and divorces initiated by women were frequent enough to even create concern amongst social observers. Being a union of two families as opposed to just two people, divorce was distressing regardless of who initiated it, but divorce was nevertheless an option for either the husband or the wife.[xvii]

Legitimate causes for divorce from either party included incompatibility, financial problems that led to altercations between spouses, ill treatment including physical abuse, adultery, failure of either party to keep to the basic expectations of marriage, especially not doing the work the family needed from either husband or wife. In some cases, divorce was initiated by the wife if she was not satisfied with the house to which her husband had taken her, or by the husband if his wife did not produce sons.[xviii]

After divorce, both men and women were free to marry again. For non-Muslim Ottoman women whose religions or traditions did not normally permit divorce, conversion to Islam was a common path to liberation from unhappy marriages.

Do Muslim women need feminism?

As we can see, the women of the Ottoman Caliphate had no need for feminism in order to obtain the rights ordained for them by their Creator. Not only did the Ottoman Caliphate implement and protect the rights of Muslim men and women, but it also accommodated the vast and various groups of non-Muslim women living under its protection. It should be emphasized that this justice and prosperity amongst men and women long preceded the advent of feminism in the West, and continued until very recently (the early 20th century). Unlike women of the ‘post-enlightenment’ West, Muslim women never needed the patch-work and gender-biased solution of feminism in order to seek justice and obtain their rights, which were guaranteed under the Islamic Caliphate. It would seem that Western women invented feminism out of desperation, because they did not have Islam. So the question we must ask ourselves is, given that Muslim women had always found Islam sufficient for their rights, why would they ever need feminism?

[i] Elizabeth Craven (Baroness), A Journey Through the Crimea to Constantinople: In a Series of Letters from the Right Honourable Elizabeth Lady Craven to His Serene Highness The Margrave of Brandebourg, Anspach, and Bareith, London.

[ii] William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England (Vol. 1, 1765, pages 442-445)

[iii] Charles Dickens, Oliver Twist, 1838, chapter 51

[iv] http://www.capitalpunishmentuk.org/burning.html

[v]The Law: Up from Coverture, Time Magazine, published Monday, March 20, 1972, accessed athttp://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,942533,00.html

[vi] Jenie R. Ebeling, Lynda Garland, Guity Nashat, Eric R. Dursteler “West Asia” The Oxford Encyclopedia of Women in World History. Ed Bonnie G. Smith. Oxford University Press, 2008. Brigham Young University (BYU). 1 November 2010

[vii] Ebeling, Garland, Nashat, and Dursteler

[viii] Colin Imber, The Ottoman Empire, 1300-1650: The Structure of Power, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002

[ix] Mehrdad Kia, Daily Life in The Ottoman Empire, Greenwood, 2011

[x] Kia, M.

[xi] Ebeling, Garland, Nashat, and Dursteler

[xii] Ibid.

[xiii] Ibid.

[xiv] Bernard Capp, Bigamous Marriage in Early Modern England, University of Warwick, 2009

[xv] Ebeling, Garland, Nashat, and Dursteler

[xvi] Kia, M.

[xvii] Ebeling, Garland, Nashat, and Dursteler

[xviii] Justin McCarthy, The Ottoman Turks: An Introductory History to 1923 (London, New York: Wesley Longman Limited, 1997)

ONE GOD Many Names

2013-11-20T16:26:00.001+02:00

A Nawawi Foundation Paper by Dr. Umar Faruq Abd-Allah

In the turmoil of current events and talk of clashing civilizations, people often want to know what Muslims worship. Many Jews, Christians, and Muslims correctly assert that each of their religions invokes the God of Abraham, but many among America’s religious right increasingly make a point of denying this common ground. For the Christian Coalition’s Pat Robertson, the world’s troubles turn on the question of “whether Hubal, the moon god of Mecca known as Allah,1 is supreme or whether the Judeo-Christian Jehovah, God of the Bible, is supreme.” Franklin Graham—son of Billy Graham and prominent evangelical who led the invocation at George W. Bush’s 2001 presidential inauguration—insists that Christians and Muslims worship different Gods. In the same vein, William Boykin, a top Pentagon general, brought himself international notoriety by proclaiming his God to be a “real God” and “bigger” than the Muslim God, whom he deemed a mere “idol,” inflammatory remarks for which the Bush-Cheney administration has refused to hold him accountable.2

The fact that Allah and the Biblical God are identical is evident from Biblical etymology.3 From the standpoint of Islamic theology and salvation history,4 it is simply unacceptable to deem the Biblical God and that of the Qur’an to be anything but the same, despite the fact that, in recent years, many English-speaking Muslims have developed an ill-ad-vised convention of avoiding the word “God” under the mistaken assumption that only the Arabic word “Allah” carries a linguistic guarantee of theological authenticity.

Beautiful names for God are not unique to the Bible or the Qur’an nor to any religion or group of human tongues. Semitic languages—like Hebrew, Aramaic, and Arabic—possess rich glossaries of divine names, but those who invoke them have never possessed a monopoly on God. At a most fundamental level, all humanity shares in a legacy of knowing the Supreme Being and being able to designate him by appropriate names, which—from an Islamic point of view—reflect humankind’s inborn knowledge of God, bolstered by its remote association with the primeval legacy of universal prophecy. As for our English word “God,” it reflects such primordial roots, belongs to
the treasury of ancient divine names, and is among the most expressive designations of the Supreme Being. The continued aversion on the part of many English speaking Muslims to admit “God” into their vocabulary serves only to reinforce the groundless claims of the religious right. It is urgent for English-speaking Muslims to communicate coherently, and embracing the word “God” is an important step in that direction.

Symposium of Abrahamic Faiths
Today, it has become part of the generally accepted ecumenical lexicon to speak of the “Abrahamic faiths,” since the expression accurately reflects that Judaism, Christianity, and Islam invoke the God of Abraham and share a host of monotheistic beliefs and values. The Qur’an calls Islam the religion of Abraham (millat IbrahÏm): “Then we revealed unto you (Muhammad) that you follow the religion of Abraham, who did not belong to those associating false gods with God.”5 The thesis that Muslims worship the God of Abraham is so central to Islam that even Muslim school children know it well. Muslims invoke salutations upon Abraham and his family in their daily prayers, and the annual rites of pilgrimage to Mecca and the House of Abraham (the Ka¢ba) are tied to the Abrahamic story at every point. Islamic scripture repeatedly asserts the belief that Islam represents a pristine model of the Abrahamic dispensation.6 It instructs Muslims to declare their allegiance to Abraham’s God and his primordial teaching: “Say (all of you): ‘We believe in God and what was revealed to Abraham, Ishmael, Isaac, Jacob, and the tribes of Israel and what was given unto Moses and to Jesus and what was given to all the prophets from their Lord. We draw no distinctions between any of them, and we are a people who submit themselves
(willingly) to God.”7

From the Qur’anic standpoint, Muslims, Christians, and Jews should have no difficulty agreeing that they all turn to the God of Abraham, despite their theological and ritual differences. Historical arguments between their faiths have never been over what name to call Abraham’s God. As for Muslims, the Islamic concept of salvation history is rooted in the conviction that there is a lasting continuity between the dispensation of Muhammad and the earlier ones of Abraham, Moses, Jesus, and the Biblical and extra-Biblical prophets. The Qur’an instructs Muslims to acknowledge openly and forthrightly that their God and the God of the followers of Biblical
religion—Jews and Christians—is the same: “Do not dispute with the people of the Bible (the Book—Jews and Christians) but in the best of manners, excepting those of them who commit oppression, and say (to them): ‘We believe in what was revealed to us and what was revealed to you. Our God and your God is one, and we are a people in (willing) submission to him.’”8

Allah and Biblical Names of God
The Arabic word Allah is the most common divine name in the Islamic scriptures and has unique sanctity not just for Muslims but also for Arabic-speaking Jews and Christians, who have used “Allah” for God from time immemorial. For Muslims, Allah is the most inclusive of God’s names, embracing all his other names and attributes. In accordance with conventional Arabic usage, Allah can be applied only to the Creator and cannot be assigned to any other being, angelic, human, animate or inanimate, real or imaginary.

Even in idolatrous pre-Islamic Arabia, Allah was revered as the creator of the heavens and the earth and lord of the worlds. In distinction to the cults of hundreds of lesser pagan gods, pre-Islamic Arabian worship of Allah was never associated with an idol, including Hubal—Pat Robertson’s “moon god of Mecca,” whom he erroneously associates with Allah. Hubal was the chief idol of pagan Mecca but had no historical or theological connection with Allah or, for that matter, even with the moon. Hubal was venerated as a god of divination, and its cult was relatively new, having been introduced to Mecca only a few generations before Muhammad’s time, probably originating among the ancient Moabites or Mesopotamians.

Arabic is an ancient and exceptionally rich form of Semitic speech, closely related to Biblical Hebrew, Aramaic, and Syriac.9 Etymologically, Allah comes from the same root as the Biblical words Elo¯ hîm, ha-Elo¯ hîm, and ha-Elôh (all meaning “God”) invoked by the Hebrew prophets and the Aramaic and Syriac Alaha (“God”) used by John the Baptist and Jesus. Elo¯ hîm derives from elôh (Hebrew for “god”), and Alaha is an emphatic form of alah (Aramaic/Syriac for “god”), while Allah is connected to ilah
(Arabic for “god”). All three of these Semitic words for “god”—elôh, alah, and ilah—are etymologically equivalent. The slight modifications between them reflect different pronunciations conforming to the historical pattern of morphological shifts in each tongue. They are akin to the variations we find, for example, between the Latin, Spanish, and Italian words for God (Deus, Dios, and Dio) or the English and German (God and Gott). Elo¯ hîm, Alaha, and Allah are all cognates—sister words—deriving from a common proto-Semitic root, which, according to one standard view, was the root ’LH, conveying the primary sense of “to worship.” The fundamental linguistic meaning of the three Abrahamic cognates for God—Elo¯ hîm, Alaha, and Allah—is “the one who is worshipped.”

Elo¯ hîm occurs over two thousand times in the Old Testament and is customarily rendered “God” in English translation. Like the Qur’an, the Bible has a plurality of divine names: “God of preexistence” (Elôhî qedem), “Living One of eternity” (¤ay ha-‘ôlam), “God of eternity” (E¯ l ‘ôlam), “Holy One of Israel” (Qadôsh Yisra’el), “Great King” (Melek Râb), “God All-Powerful” (E¯ l Sheddâi), “God the Overwhelming” (E¯ l Gebbôr), “God the Most High” (E¯ l ‘Elyôn), and so forth. The Tetragrammaton
(Greek for “four letter word”), YHWH, is the most common word for God in the Hebrew Bible but is generally rendered in translation not as “God” but as “the Lord” and occasionally as “Jehovah.”

The insistence among elements of the religious right on the “Judeo-Christian Jehovah” as a dichotomous opposite to the Arabic Allah is, at best, a parochial interpretation of the Judeo-Christian tradition, since few Jews and certainly not all Christians would be content with rendering the Biblical “Lord” as Jehovah. “Jehovah,” as such, does not occur in the Bible but is a tentative philological construct of the Tetragrammaton, YHWH, which modern scholarship generally renders as Yahweh—“he who is, or he who gives being”—from an Old Hebrew verb “to be.” Rabbinic tradition, however, regarded the Tetragrammaton as so sacrosanct that it was glossed
as “Lord” without being spoken aloud or consigned a given pronunciation.10 In any case, the Bible declares that “YHWH is himself ha-Elo¯ hîm” (Deut. 4:35); so, from the standpoint of the Bible, there is no theological distinction between YHWH and Elo¯ hîm, which, as shown, is a linguistic cognate of the Arabic Allah.

Beautiful Names of the God of Abraham
It is axiomatic in Islamic scripture that the God of Abraham has many names: “God: there is no god but him. His are the most beautiful names.”11 His many names have great efficacy and constitute a special channel of spirituality. In congregate, they affirm God’s supreme perfection and cultivate deeper understanding of his beauty and majesty. They are powerful instruments of invocation and facilitate one’s approach to the divine: “God’s are the most beautiful names. So call upon him by means of them.”12 His beautiful names constitute an eternal theological treasure:
He is God, other than whom there is no god: Knower of the unseen and the manifest. He is the All-Merciful, Bestower of special mercy. He is God, other than whom there is no god: the King, the Holy One, the Perfect Peace, Granter of security, Giver of protection, the Omnipotent, the Overwhelming, the Imperious: Glory be to God against whatever is (falsely) associated (with him). He is God: the Creator, the Originator (of all things from nothing), Giver of forms. His are the most beautiful names. All that is in the heavens and earth proclaims his glory, and he is the All-Powerful, the All-Wise.13

It is commonly remarked that Muslims believe God has ninety-nine names, based on an authoritative saying of the Prophet Muhammad: “God has ninetynine names—one hundred less one—which anyone who protects (their sanctity) will enter the Garden. God is singular and loves what is singular.”14 But the authentically attested names of God in Islamic scripture are many more than ninety-nine. Traditional commentators note this fact and point out that the prophetic Tradition of the ninety-nine names was not
intended to delimit the divine names to a particular number but to indicate that, among God’s innumerable names, there are ninety-nine distinctive ones, which, if learned by heart and guarded in sanctity, are a key to salvation. Another Prophetic Tradition reveals unequivocally that God’s names are not numerically restricted but include undisclosed names and others known only to God or to special segments of his creation. According to that Tradition, the Prophet would invoke God, saying: “I ask you by every name that is yours, by which you have named yourself, sent down in your book, taught any of your creation, or kept its knowledge exclusively in your presence in the knowledge of the unseen that you make the Qur’an the springtime of my heart, light of my sight, healing of my heart, and the removal of my anxiety and sadness.”15

Humanity’s Legacy of Countless Divine Names
In the Qur’anic conception of the world everything in the heavens and on earth is imbued with knowledge of God and proclaims his glory; similarly instinctive knowledge of the Supreme Being is embedded in each human soul as an inborn part of human nature.16 Moreover, all peoples on earth have received divine messengers at some time in the course of human history or pre-history.17 Consequently, God and his names are part of a universal human legacy. They are hardly unique to anyone, nor are the Abrahamic religions the sole residuaries of divine names expressing the Creator’s perfection and glory.

The world’s many micro-religions (i.e., primitive religions) contain hundreds of names for God, bearing witness to his oneness, preexistence, eternity, omnipotence,
omniscience, omnipresence, goodness, and justice. There is an observable pattern in the microreligions to regard the Supreme Being as the source of all vital knowledge, moral norms, and essential social conventions. Like pre-Islamic Arab paganism, micro-religions associate deified human beings, lesser spirits, and intermediaries with God, although they consistently lack the full-blown pantheons typical of the polytheistic religions of many ancient civilizations. Numerous micro-religions commemorate a primeval time of the “old religion,” when harmony existed between the Supreme Being and their forebears, an age of pristine happiness which was brought to an end
through wrongdoing, estrangement, and alienation.18

The micro-religions reflect instinctive commonsensical knowledge of God without the intricate metaphysical theologies of civilized peoples. As with the pre-Islamic Arab cult of Allah, micro-religions refrain uniformly from associating the Creator God with idols, images, or pictures, for they insist that he cannot be seen with physical eyes nor touched by human hands. The Nilotic tribes of southern Sudan, for instance, share an ancient belief in “the Great God, who created humankind,” and, although they associate intermediaries with him, they acknowledge that he is eternal, without origin or likeness, all-knowing and all-powerful, upholding the moral order.

Around 1906, a European anthropologist studied the Shilluk, one of these Nilotic tribes, and once asked a six-year old boy from the tribe who had created him.
Without hesitation, the little boy answered, “Dywok (God) created me.” The anthropologist pressed further, asking what Dywok was like and where he came from. With childlike self-assurance, the boy quickly replied that he did not know, but his father surely would. To his astonishment, neither his father nor immediate kin had an answer, but the child kept inquiring until he finally brought the question before his tribal elders.
They replied:
Dywok, we only know that he exists. We know he made the sky that you see above, the stars, all the animals, and even people—both black and white—but who Dywok actually is, no one in Shilluk can say. For no one has seen him. What we know is this: Dywok is there and made everything. Even if you cannot see him, yet he is there…like the breeze that blows. Even if no one can see the breeze, yet it blows. No one has doubts about that.19

The micro-religions are filled with telling names of God. “Creator” and “Maker” are virtually universal. Native Americans had many names for God. The Cheyenne called him “Creator of the universe” and “Lord of the entire heaven and earth.” The Californian Maidu called him “Ruler of the world.” The Fox called him “the Guide” and “the Good Spirit.” The Lenape called him “Our Creator,” “You to whom we pray,” “Pure Spirit,” and “You to whom we belong.” Some South African Bushmen and the pygmies of Gabon called him “the Lord of all things.” The Siberian Samoyeds knew him as “the Creator of life.” The Ainu of Japan called him “the Divine Maker of the worlds,”
“the Divine Lord of heaven,” “the Inspirer,” and “the Protector.” The Wirdyuri of Australia called him “the Eternal,” and several Aboriginal tribes designated
him as “the Great Builder” and “the Great Maker,” although certain Aborigines and African Bushmen held the Creator’s name to be inviolable (taboo) and imparted it only to adult male initiates, while concealing it from women, children, and outsiders.

Ancient civilizations also bear witness to a primordial knowledge of the One. Although the pharaonic Egyptians were highly polytheistic, their language contained abundant names and attributions for the Supreme Being distinct from the personified gods of their pantheon. Ancient Egyptian was replete with seemingly endless synonyms for God (Neter, Sha‘, Khabkhab, Hephep, Shesa, Sedga, Saj, Nethraj, Nekhbaj, Khetraj, Itnuw, and so forth). There were names for “the Creator” (Kewen, Kun, Nehef),
“Creation’s God” (Nebirut), and “the Giver of forms” (Nebi). They invoked “the High God” (Neter ‘A), “the Lord” (Nebu), “the Divinity from preexistence” (Nun, Hahu), “the Divinely Merciful” (Hetefi), “the Divine Destroyer” (Hetem), “the God of truth and balance” (Sema Ma‘at), “the God of humankind” (Itmu), and “the Lord of all” (Neberdher).20

The ancient Chinese worshipped a personalized “Creator” (Tsao wu chê), “the Ruler of heaven” (Shang Ti), “Heaven’s Lord” (Ti’en Ti), and “the Lord” (Ti), although “Heaven” (Ti’en) later became the most common Chinese name for God and sometimes reflected astral beliefs. But an ancient Chinese dictionary says of “Heaven” (Ti’en): “The exalted in the highest of his exaltation. His ideogram combines two symbols, which mean ‘the One, who is the most great.’” Some ancient Chinese scholars wrote that
“Heaven” (T’ien) had been substituted for “the Ruler of heaven” (Shang Ti) in the ancient past, because “it is not permissible that the name Shang Ti be taken lightly. Therefore, we call him by the name of the place where he abides, which is ‘heaven,’ that is, ti’en on the analogy that ‘the court’ signifies ‘the emperor.’”

The Sanskrit Vedas of ancient India contain a notable vocabulary for the Supreme Being: “the Creator” (Dhâtr), “the Lord of the creatures” (Prjâpati), “the Maker of all things” (Vishvakarman), “the Regulator of things” (Vidhâtr), “the Manifest One” (Dhartr), “the Protector” (Trâtr), “the Guide” (Netr), “the Giver of forms” (Tvashtr), and “the Animator” or “Reviver” (Savitr). One of his names was simply “Who” (Ka), signifying the one who is ultimately unfathomable and beyond finite description. In later times, Ka was frequently used to designate the Supreme Being.

God, the Most Beautiful Word in English
The English word “God” is a unique linguistic and theological treasure. It is pre-historic, extending into the Neolithic period and deriving from the proto-Indo-
European root gheu(?), meaning “to invoke” or “to supplicate.” “God” is a past participial construction, meaning “the one who is invoked” or “the one who is called upon.” Like Sanskrit, Persian, Urdu, and most of the European languages, English belongs to the Indo-European family. Our word “God”—proto-Indo-European Ghuto—corresponds linguistically to the Sanskrit past participle h‰ta (“invoked” or “called upon”), which appears in the Indic Vedas in the divine epithet puruh‰ta (“much invoked”). Etymologically, “God”—“the one who is invoked in prayer”—is remarkably close in meaning to the Biblical Elo¯ hîm and Alaha and the Qur’anic Allah, which, as we have seen, convey the sense of “the one who is worshipped.” “God” is also virtually identical in connotation to the Native American Lenape word for the Supreme
Being “You to whom we pray.” Supplication and worship are closely interrelated. The Prophet said in a well-known Tradition: “Supplication is the essence of worship.”

The English word “God” in its present form is ancient and pre-Christian, having no hidden or implicit link with Trinitarian theology. Its earliest documented historical use is in the poem Beowulf, the oldest poem in the English language and the earliest European vernacular epic. Beowulf relates pre-Christian events from the early sixth century, a generation or so before the birth of the Prophet Muhammad. Western scholars often find Beowulf paradoxical, because it lacks distinctive Christian references but speaks constantly of God’s grandeur, taking every occasion to praise God and give him thanks. “God” in its present form is the most common word for the Creator in the epic, but the poem also contains scores of other magnificent divine names, which are so deeply embedded in its fabric that they cannot have been interpolated later by medieval monks.21 Although Beowulf refers to the creation, Adam, Noah, the Flood, the resurrection, judgment, heaven and hell, it contains no references to Mosaic
or post-Mosaic Biblical events or to Christ, the crucifixion, Trinitarian dogma, saints, relics, or similar elements that one would expect to find, if there had been
any subsequent medieval editing. The poem declares God’s oneness explicitly and extols his wise and merciful governance of the world and its people; it rejects and ridicules paganism as the work of the devil, and the epic’s hero, Beowulf—a brave and mighty but truly humble man of God—engages in constant combat
with the diabolical forces of evil and destruction.

Not just in its many words for God but in general, the religious vocabulary of Beowulf expresses with exactitude the crux of the spiritual and theological vision
which Muslims find so precisely expressed in the Arabic language. Beowulf is a testimony to the English language’s unique richness and should inspire us, as English-speaking Muslims, with a deeper respect for our language and its inherent power to express not only our concept of the divine but the entire repertoire of primordial prophetic teaching.

Conclusion
It is natural for English-speaking Muslims to have a special attachment to the word Allah, with which we have an intimate connection, invoking it daily in Arabic prayer formulas and recitation of the Qur’an. For us, Allah has a direct emotional and spiritual efficacy which no other word for God can replace. But it rarely has that same effect on non-Muslim, non-Arab listeners, and few of them will develop our sensitivity for the word merely by being constantly bombarded by it. For some, even despite honest efforts to remain open-minded, “Allah” continues to evoke a wide range of deeply ingrained cultural prejudices and negative associations, conscious or subconscious. On the other hand, “God” creates an immediate associative response in most non-Muslim native speakers of English that would be virtually impossible for “Allah” to evoke even after years of positive exposure.

Just as our attachment to Allah does not distract us from invoking God’s other beautiful names in Arabic, so should our love of the word and the Arabic language not impel us to degrade the ancient English word “God” with its unique and illustrious history among humanity’s legacy of divine names. Nor, for Persian or Urdu-speakers, should fidelity to the use of Allah lead them to disparage the ancient Indo-European Khoda (God), which, like “God,” has monotheistic roots and which great Muslim scholars, mystics, and poets have found perfectly suitable for more than a thousand years.22

When we speak English, let us speak it intelligently, respectfully, and reverently. Our witness of faith, for example, is effectively and concisely translated as:
“There is no god but God, and Muhammad is God’s messenger.” Some insist, however, on translating everything but the most important word: “There is no god but Allah…”. This partial translation is likely to create unwarranted barriers for the non-Muslim listener and induce a multitude of negative connotations. Such a translation will inevitably require further explanation that the word Allah actually means “God” anyway. Yet shunning “God,” even in the light of such commentary, needlessly gives the impression that “God” is somehow inadequate.

Christians and Jews are justified in wondering why—if Allah and “God” do mean the same thing—Muslims systematically avoid using “God,” an ornament to the English language, which both Christians and Jews have fittingly used for generations to translate the Biblical Elo¯ hîm and Alaha. We have no one but ourselves to blame, if, as the result of a misplaced attachment to our sacred language, we create the impression that we do not really worship the same God, after all, or that we believe our
Allah trumps the Biblical God, the God of Abraham, Ishmael, Isaac, Jacob, the tribes of Israel, Moses, Jesus, and all the prophets.

Use of “God” emphasizes the extensive middle ground we share with other Abrahamic and universal traditions and provides a simple and cogent means by which Muslims may act upon the Qur’anic injunction to stress the similarities between us. Failure to use “God” conceals our common belief in the God of Abraham and the continuity of the Abrahamic tradition, which are fundamentals of our faith. We must overcome our misgivings about “God” both because of the word’s intrinsic, historical merit and because
it empowers us to communicate with our Jewish, Christian, and other English-speaking neighbors in a meaningful way.

Notes
1. As discussed below, Hubal bore no theological or historical connection to Allah.
2. These and similar references are readily accessible on the Internet. I am indebted, however, to an excellent New York Times editorial (January 28, 2004) by John Kearney, written on the occasion of the Muslim pilgrimage, an Islamic ritual intimately linked with Abraham. John Kearney rebuked the religious right’s denial of the shared Abrahamic belief in the Biblical God and their disparagement of Muslim theology and insisted that such obscurantism was as dangerous as it was inexcusable.
3. Etymology is the study of the linguistic history of words, tracing their development in a particular language and often using comparisons with cognate words in related tongues and dialects. The Semitic words Allah (God in the Qur’an), the Old Testament Elo¯ hîm (God), and the Aramaic/Syriac New Testament Alaha (God) are etymological cognates, as John Kearney’s editorial noted and as is further illustrated below.
4. I use “salvation history” to refer to the religious conception of how God brings about salvation in the course of human history. For Jews, salvation history centers on the ramifications of God’s special covenant with the Children of Israel. In Christian theology, salvation history culminates in Christ’s crucifixion. Islamic salvation history is predicated on the belief in the primordial message of universal prophecy, culminating in the prophethood of Muhammad, elucidating and vindicating all that came before.
5. Qur’an 16: 123.
6. See Qur’an 6:161; 16:123; 22:78; 2:130, 132, 135; 3:67-68, 95; 4:125.
7. Qur’an 2:136.
8. Qur’an 29:46.
9. Linguists classify Arabic as ancient Semitic and Hebrew, Aramaic, Syriac, and Ethiopic as middle Semitic, even though the latter languages were written down long before Arabic. The reason for this linguistic classification is that Arabic preserves virtually all the distinctive features of proto-Semitic—like inflection, systematic dual endings, and full consonantal distinctions—which have generally been lost or merged in middle Semitic.
10. Orthodox Jews carefully avoid vocalizing the Tetragrammaton and substitute Adonâi (my Lord) instead. Judaic tradition refers to YHWH as “the Name” (hash-Shem),
since it was believed to represent God’s most holy name, the pronunciation of which was a sacrosanct and carefully guarded secret. Knowledge of “the Name” was a
distinctive legacy reserved for the high priest. On the Day of Atonement, he would invoke the Tetragrammaton at the Temple, and, at its mention, the congregation of Israel would fall down in prostration before God.
11. Qur’an 20:8.
12. Qur’an 7:180.
13. Qur’an 59:22-24.
14. Transmitted in Bukhari and Muslim, Islam’s most rigorously authenticated hadÏth collections. The verb translated here as “protects (their sanctity)” is hafi·a in the original and ah|a in other narrations. It means to keep them in memory and not neglect or forget them but also to believe in them, have knowledge and understanding of them, and to live in accordance with that awareness: to have God-consciousness, doing what the servant of such a God ought to do and avoiding what ought to be shunned. The actual ninety-nine names are listed in an “acceptable” (hasan) transmission by Tirmidhi and other sources with slight variations.
15. Transmitted in the Musnad of Imam Ahmad ibn Hanbal.
16. See Qur’an 59:22-24 and 30:30.
17. See Qur’an 35:24.
18. My references to the micro-religions are taken primarily from Wilhelm Schmidt, Der Ursprung der Gottesidee, 12 vols., (Münster i. W.: Aschendorffsche Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1949).
19. Wilhelm Schmidt, Der Ursprung der Gottesidee, 8:193-194.
20. See Adolf Ermann and Hermann Grapow, Wörterbuch der ægyptischen Sprache, 13 vols., (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1971). In all, I was able to collect over one hundred
and twenty Old Egyptian names and attributions for God, the Creator, from this dictionary.
21. The following are among the names of God in Beowulf: God, Holy God (hâlig God), Wise God (wîtig God), Mighty God (mihtig God); High Lord (Drihten), High
Lord God (Drihten God), Eternal High Lord (êce Drihten) (Drihten also occurs with the adjectives holy, wise, and mighty); Creator (Scyppend); the Lord of life (Lîffrêa); Regulator of destiny (Metod), Preexistent Regulator of destiny (Ealdmetod), Glorious Regulator of destiny (scîr Metod), True God, Lord of destiny or True God
(sôd¯ Metod); Lordly Master of all (Alwealda); the One Lord and Master (Anwalda); Powerful Lord (Wealdend); Powerful Lord of Glory (wuldres Wealdend); Lord of men
(ylda Waldend); Lord of humankind (Waldend fîra); Lord of victories (sigora Waldend); King of majesty (Cyninga wuldor and Wuldurcyning); True King (Sôd¯cyning); True
King of victories (sigora Sôd¯cyning); the Father and the Father Omnipotent (Fæder and Fæder Alwalda); Lord of all things (Frêa ealles); the Protector of mankind
(manna Gehyld); Glory’s Guardian (wuldres Hyrde); the Almighty (se Ælmihtiga); Judge of deeds (dæda Dêmend); Heaven’s Guard (heofena Helm); and the Wielder of the
heavens (rodera Rædend). See Fr. Klaeber, Beowulf and the Fight at Finnsburg, (Boston: D. C. Heath, 1950), pp. xlviii-li and 1-120.
22. Khoda comes from the Old Iranian (Indo-European) Hwa-Taw, meaning literally “self-able” or “self-powerful,” that is, “Ruler” and “Lord.” It is a name of majesty,
indicating that God is self-sufficiently omnipotent. Although the English “God” and Persianate “Khoda” are both Indo-European and give the appearance of being cognates, they are actually derived from different roots.

http://nawawi.org/downloads/article2.pdf

Sidi Hamza al Qadiri al Boutchichi - Morocco

2013-10-24T18:55:00.000+02:00

Introduction

Shaykh Hamza al Qâdiri al Boutchichi is the spiritual guide of the Qadirriyya Boutchichiyya Sufi order. This Qadiri order's origins go back to Abd al Qadir al-Jilani (1083–1166) which become very important a few decades later with his descendants.

The Boutchichi branch of this order came into being in the eighteenth century in the North-west of Morocco. Its headquarters principal zawiya is found in the small village of Meddagh near Berkane but Sidi Hamza himself has built another zawiya near Naima in the province of Oujda where he now resides in seclusion.

The disciples of Sidi Hamza regard him as the heir of the spiritual secret (sirr) descended from the prophet Muhammad (SAW) through Abd al Qadir al-Jilan and also consider him to be the spiritual pole (qutb or kutb) of his time

Biography

Born in Madagh in 1922 Sidi Hamza BOUTCHICHI showed signs of spiritual stature very early in his life. He quickly attracted the attention of the Majdubs (One who is Intoxicated in GOD) of market (Souk) Ahfir, well known for their spiritual perception. They embraced him and told Sidi al-Hajj Abbas to take good care of him. Sidi Boumadiane had also told him that Sidi Hamza would be someone exceptional. He spent an ordinary childhood for one born into a rural family. His time was divided between activities on the land and religion. His father would take him to the fields so that he might be familiar with the earth. “In my childhood I received a religious education. I grew up imbued with respect for people and the principles of the Quran”.

He pursued his studies along the lines of the traditional education of the time in the Zawiya at Madagh and Quranic school. His early disciplines entailed four main pursuits:

Learning the Quran (from 3/4 years until 8/9 years)
The religious sciences (Mutun) grammar (Nahu), jurisprudence (Fiqh) for six years.
After the death of his uncle and teacher, Sidi al-Makki in 1936, Sidi Hamza went to Oujda to continue his studies at the university (1937-1940)
He returns to the Zawiya in Madagh, where for a further four years he deepened his knowledge in the company of two religious scholars (‘Ulema) from the city of Fes.

He learned the traditional sciences of the Hadith, expounding of the Quran, Jurisprudence, theology, mathematics, rhetoric and logic, in all of which he excelled and mastered. From the exoteric sciences he went on to master the esoteric sciences.

Sidi Hamza is always quoting the words of his principle teachers many of whom are also members of his family and of the Beni Snassen such as Sidi Ali Qadiri the descendant of (see the initiatory chain) Sidi Moulay Abd-al Qadiri al Jilani (470H/559H -1077/1166 AD) and it is from here that Sidi Hamza has inherited the name of el Qadiri.

After many years devoted to the study of the religious sciences, Sidi Hamza then turned his attention to the esoteric sciences at the hand of Sidi Abu Madyan, a distant uncle, who became his spiritual master, but who was hitherto little known to him. It was after the death of one of Sidi Hamza’s sisters that the two were destined to meet.

1942

Was an important year. Within the space of one month both Sidi Hamza and his father both became disciples of Sidi Abu Madyan. They would remain so for the next fourteen years. At the time Sidi Al Hajj Abbas was 40, traditionally the required age. Sidi Hamza was only 19, and had hardly completed his education. In the course of those fourteen years in the company of their spiritual master they took note of everything the master said and of every detail of his comportment and actions. “During the fourteen years we spent near to our master we assiduously followed our devotions which consisted mainly of the reading of the Quran and to remembering GOD (Dhikr). “I loved him dearly and greatly admired the simple majesty of his manners and of his words” notes Sidi Hamza.

1958

Before he died, Sidi Abu Madyan appointed Sidi Hajj Abbas as his successor and inheritor of his spiritual heritage (Sirr). Sidi al-Hajj Abbas rejected this for five years. He only took up his destined direction in 1960 after he had three times had the same premonitory dream. In the dream angels exhorted him to take the appointment (Idhn) seriously and that if he did not he would be erased from the book of Saints (Awliya).

In fact Sidi Hamza also had received the appointment (Idhn) from Sidi Abu Madyan but after his death, he made allegiance to his father and became his disciple for seven years. “A black beard does not grow from a white beard”. The son cannot precede his father. This is an essential part of the respect of Sufi good manners (adab).

1972

When Sidi el-Hajj Abbas died he bequeathed all his spiritual authority to Sidi Hamza and exhorted his disciples (fuqara) to follow him.

The Renewal of Sufism (Tassawuf)

Sidi Hamza continued the work of his father towards a renewal of Sufism. This renewal process is derived from a more subtle spiritual orientation than that of traditional Sufism known for its rigorous practices and disciplines. This is epitomised by the transition from the majestic (Jalal) aspect to the beautiful (Jamal) aspect of spiritual orientation. “Sufism has changed” In the old days the masters subjected their disciples to rigorous tests and exercises to help them to vanquish their own souls and to venerate the spiritual secrets that they would thereby acquire.

Sidi Hamza says:

“Dhikr takes the place of tests and exercises. And nowadays it is up to the teacher (Shaykh) thanks to his spiritual standing to raise his disciples to their highest possible degree of spiritual accomplishment by means of love (Mahabba) and orientation (tawwajjuh).”

The reasons for this change are both historical and social especially men’s natural attractions to the material world and the imbalance of the spiritual and the physical aspects of life which has altered religious consciousness. On the one hand modern man is prone to a multiple array of distractions from spiritual awareness and on the other hand there has been massive destruction of all that is religious and of spiritual value in modern times. Sufism has thus adapted to these new realities prevalent in the modern world.

We are witnessing three important changes.

In former times the spiritual master addressed his message to an elite seeking spiritual enlightenment, and was little concerned with the “ordinary” Muslim. Nowadays because of the state of spiritual crisis in the modern world, where even the practice of the five pillars is endangered, Sidi Hamza addresses himself to every one on his own level.

The relationship between the master and the disciple has also been transformed. Formerly it was the disciple who sought the master. Now it is the master who seeks out the disciple. The notion of disciple (murid) is derived from the word ‘will’ (irada). Embodied in this will is the quest for spiritual achievement, the aspiration that seeks satisfaction and the thirst that must be quenched.

Indeed formerly it was often only after years of searching and difficult travels that a would-be disciple would find his master and teacher. Today the quest and the physical difficulties are simplified or even eliminated and the murid, the seeker, becomes the murad, the sought after. The desirers as the disciples of Sidi Abu Madyan become the desired as the disciples of Sidi Hamza.

Austerity (Takhalli). Beautification (Tahalli)

Traditionally Sufism emphasises self deprivation and the stripping away of the structures of the ego rather than on embellishment.

The disciple must first undo his vices both inner and outer like a young bride who throws away her old clothes to don fresh, new and her most beautiful clothes. To rid oneself of one’s vices requires a high degree of sincerity and strength of character that are difficult to find nowadays. Hence we have the reverse idea of beauty taking precedence over austerity. Sidi Hamza compares a novice’s heart with a darkened room in disorder. For him in order to create order one must first bring in light.

Sidi Hamza first radiates light in the heart of the novice, so that he might taste this beautification of the soul. Then once the spiritual initiative has been seized, the disciple is ready for the second stage: The stripping down of the structures of the self to an austere minimum. These reforms do not constitute a change in the nature of Sufism. The repository and resource of the Quran and the secret (sirr) retain their essential status and importance. It is only the method and the way it is transmitted, particular to the living master, that has changed.

(As-Silsila) Initiatory chain. Spiritual transmission of Tariqa Qadiriyya Boutchichiyya

Sidi al-Imam Ali ibn Abi Talib

Sidi al-Hassan al-Basri

Sidi Habib al-Ajami

Sidi Suleiman Tai
Sidi Maruf al-Karkhi
Sidi Abul Hassan Saqti
Sidi Abulqasim al-Junaid
Sidi Abu Bakr Shibli
Sidi Raziuddin Abdulwahid
Sidi Youssef Tartusi
Sidi Ali Ahmad al-Hankari
Sidi Mubarak al-Mukhrami

Moulay Shaykh Sidi Abd el Qadir al-Jilaani
The genealogy of the Qadiri family is through Sayedina Hassan (peace be on him), the grandson of Prophet Muhammad (blessings and peace of GOD be upon him).

Sidi Abderrazaq The First
Sidi Isma'îl
Sidi Abderrazaq The Second
Sidi Muhammad
Sidi Muhammad
Sidi Abd al Qadir
Sidi Ali Sidi Chûayb
Sidi al Hassan
Shaykh Abu Dakhîl
Sidi Muhammad
Sidi Muhammad
Sidi Muhammad
Abu Dchîch

The first Qadiri to come to Morocco
Sidi Ali Qadiri

Sidi Muhammad
Shaykh al-Mokhtâr the first
Hajj al-Mokhtâr
Hajj Muhyî Addin


Tariqa Tijaniya Shaykh Sidi al-Mahdi Bel-Aryan	Sidi Al Mokhtâr The Grand father of Sidi Hamza	Tariqa Shadiliya Darqawiya Shaykh Sidi Muhammad Lahlou Al-Fassi


	Sidi Boumadiane
	The Shaykh of Sidi Hajj al Abbas and Sidi Hamza al Qadiri al Boutchichi


		Sidi Hajj al Abbas
		The father of Sidi Hamza


		Shaykh Sidi Hamza al Qadiri al Boutchichi

The Zawiya in Madagh

In 2003 there were over 70.000 people in Madagh. They came to visit the living saint and master Sidi Hamza el Qadiri el Boutchichi and to celebrate the birth of the Prophet Muhammad (blessings and peace of GOD be upon him). It was an occasion where disciples from the four corners of the world met. Europeans, Africans, Asians, Americans, Arabian ; all linked by the bond of pure and unconditional divine love.

Source:
http://www.sufiway.net/sec14=edcu=TQchainsaint8113261.html
http://www.sufiway.net/ar_SidiHamzaQadiriBoutchichi.html
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madagh_(Maroc)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamza_al_Q%C3%A2diri_al_Boutchichi
http://www.deenislam.co.uk/gallery/morocco/madagh1.jpg
http://www.deenislam.co.uk/gallery/morocco/madagh.jpg

Dua Nasiri - The Prayer of the Oppressed

2013-10-24T14:44:00.000+02:00

About The Prayer of the Oppressed

The power of this prayer of Imam Muhammad al-Dar’i lies in its simplicity, its purity, and its sincere supplication. It is essentially a plea to God that our transgressions be overlooked, that divine mercy be bestowed upon us, that social justice be restored in spite of us, that wrongs be righted, and that righteousness reign once again in our lands, so that the destitute may no longer be in need, the young may be educated, the animals’ purpose fulfilled, rain restored, and bounties poured forth.

It is a plea to be freed from the aggression of foreigners in lands over which they have no right – a plea much needed in our modern world, rampant as it is with invasions and territorial occupations. Ultimately, it asks not that our enemies be destroyed, but simply that their plots, and the harm they cause, be halted. Its essence is mercy, which in turn is the essence of the Messenger of God, Muhammad, peace and blessings be upon him: “And We have only sent you as a mercy to all the worlds.”

This highly potent du'a by the renowned Sufi Shaykh Muhammad Ibn Nasir, was recited across Morocco and inspired resistance to the French Occupation. So powerful was it that the French President had to issue an order banning its recitation from the mosques. Moroccans date the movement to return King Muhammad from that outlawing of the du'a. It is appropriate to the present state of the 'Umma.

The Dua Nasiri - Arabic and English translation

Source
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QmjI7uRGlaI
http://www.deenislam.co.uk/dua/Nasiri-and-Munfarija.htm
http://bewley.virtualave.net/Nasiri.html

Quote by Rabi`a al `Adawiyya

2013-10-24T14:23:00.002+02:00

I carry a torch in one hand

And a bucket of water in the other:

With these things I am going to set fire to Heaven

And put out the flames of Hell,

So that voyagers to God can rip the veils

And see the real goal.

― Rābiʻah al-ʻAdawīyah

Rābiʻa al-ʻAdawiyya al-Qaysiyya or simply Rābiʿah al-Baṣrī (Arabic: رابعة البصري‎) (717–801 C.E.) was a female Muslim saint.

She was born between 95 and 99 Hijri in Basra, Iraq which is ~715 Julian . Much of her early life is narrated by Farid ud-Din Attar, a later Sufi Saint and poet, who used earlier sources. Rabia herself did not leave any written works.

She was the fourth daughter of her family and therefore named Rabia, meaning "fourth". Although not born into slavery, her family was poor yet respected in the community.

According to Farid ud-Din Attar, Rabia's parents were so poor that there was no oil in house to light a lamp, nor a cloth even to wrap her with. Her mother asked her husband to borrow some oil from a neighbour, but he had resolved in his life never to ask for anything from anyone except the Creator. He pretended to go to the neighbour's door and returned home empty-handed.

Ibn Ajiba on the Spiritual Virtues - Repentance

2013-10-13T19:46:00.000+02:00

Ahmad ibn 'Ajiba (1747–1809) was an 18th-century Moroccan saint in the Darqawa Sufi Sunni Islamic lineage.

He was born of a sharif family in the Anjra tribe that ranges from Tangiers to Tetuan along the Mediterranean coast of Morocco. As a child he developed a love of knowledge, memorizing the Qur'an and studying subjects ranging from Classical Arabic grammar, religious ethics, poetry, Qur'anic recitation and tafsir. When he reached the age of eighteen he left home and undertook the study of exoteric knowledge in Qasr al-Kabir under the supervision of Sidi Muhammad al-Susi al-Samlali.

It was here that he was introduced to studies in the sciences, art, philosophy, law and Qur'anic exegesis in depth. He went to Fes to study with Mohammed al-Tawudi ibn Suda, Bennani, and El-Warzazi, and joined the new Darqawiyya in 1208 AH (1793), of which he was the representative in the northern part of the Jbala region.

He spent his entire life in and around Tetuan, and died of the plague in 1224 AH (1809). He is the author of around forty works and a Fahrasa which provides interesting information concerning the intellectual center that Tetuan had become by the beginning of the 19th century. Among his descendants are the famous Ghumari brothers.

Ibn Ajiba (RA) on Repentance

Repentance means to renounce every vile action and adopt every pleasant one; or to renounce every base attribute and adopt every high one; or to renounce the vision of created things and immerse oneself in the vision of the Real.

Its conditions are regret, renunciation and a firm resolve not to repeat the sin; as for returning the rights of others, it is a separate obligation and repentance may be valid without it, just as it may be valid to repent from one sin while persisting in another.

Ordinary people repent from sins; the elite repent from faults; the elite of the elite repent from everything which distracts the spirit from the Presence of God. Every spiritual station requires repentance: when one repentance has been sincerely made, another is then required.

The station of Fear requires repentance at times of security and pride; the station of Hope requires repentance at times of hopelessness and despair; the station of Patience requires repentance at times of anxiety; the station of Asceticism requires repentance at times of desire; the station of Piety requires repentance at times when dispensations are needless sought out, and at times of avarice; the station of

Confidence requires repentance at times when one engages in planning and decision-making and when one is concerned about one’s provision; the station of Contentment and Resignation requires repentance at times when one dislikes and objects to what fate brings one; the station of Vigilance requires repentance at times of poor outward comportment or evil thoughts; the station of Self-Awareness requires repentance when time is wasted on things which do not bring one closer to the Real; the station of Love requires repentance when the heart inclines to anything but the Beloved; the station of Vision requires repentance when the spirit’s attention is directed to anything but the Beheld, or when it is absorbed with a sensory matter instead of ascending further the ladder of divine mysteries.

This is why the Prophet (upon him be peace and blessings) would seek forgiveness seventy or one hundred times in a single gathering.

Sincere repentance entails four things: to seek forgiveness with the tongue, to abstain with the body, to refrain from persisting with the heart, and to shun bad company. Sufyan al-Thawri summarised this by saying: ‘The signs of sincere repentance are four: Speech, intention, humility and solitude.’

The Hadra and the Sacred Law - Shaykh Nuh Ha Mim Keller

2013-10-12T01:07:00.002+02:00

A person coming to the Middle East to learn something about the tariqa is likely, at some point in his visit, to see the brethren in the hadra or “public dhikr” as it has been traditionally practiced by generations of Shadhilis in North Africa under such Shaykhs as al-‘Arabi al-Darqawi, Muhammad al-Buzidi, and Ahmad al-‘Alawi before being brought to Damascus from Algeria by Muhammad ibn Yallis and Muhammad al-Hashimi at the beginning of this century.

Upon entering the mosque, one will see circles of men making dhikr (women participants are screened from view upstairs) standing and holding hands, now slightly bowing in unison, now moving up and down with their knees in unison, the rows rising and falling, breathing in unison, while certain of them alternate at pacing around their midst, conducting the tempo of the group’s motion and breathing with their arms and step. Singers near the Shaykh in solo or chorus, deliver mystical odes to the rhythm of the group; high, spiritual poetry from masters like Ibn al-Farid, Shaykh Ahmad al-‘Alawi, ‘Abd al-Qadir al-Himsi, and our own Shaykh.

Though a very stirring experience, it is meticulously timed and controlled, and as with all group dhikrs, the main adab or “proper behaviour” is harmony. No one should stand out in any way, but rather all subordinate their movement, breathing, and dhikr to that of the group. The purpose is to forget one’s individuality in the collective sea of spirits making dhikr in unison. Individual motives, thoughts, and preoccupations are momentarily put aside by means of the Sacred Dance, of moving together as one, sublimating and transcending the limitary and personal through the timelessness of rhythm, conjoined with the melody of voices singing spiritual meanings.

It is an experience that joins those travelling towards Allah spiritually, socially, and emotionally. Few forget it, and visitors from the West to whom it is unfamiliar sometimes wonder if it is a bid‘a or “reprehensible innovation,” as it was not done in the time of the earliest Muslims, or whether it is unlawful (haram) or offensive (makruh); and why they see the ulama and righteous attending it in Damascus, Jerusalem, Aden, Cairo, Tripoli, Tunis, Fez, and wherever there are people of the path.

I was one of those who asked our Shaykh bout the relation of the hadra to the shari‘a or “Sacred Law” which is the guiding light of our tariqa. As Muslims, our submission to the law is total, and there are no thoughts or opinions after legally answering the question “Does the hadra agree with orthodox Islam?”

Because it comprises a number of various elements, such as gathering together for the remembrance of Allah (dhikr), singing, and dancing, we should reflect for a moment on some general considerations about the Islamic shari‘a before discussing each of these separately.

First, the Islamic shari‘a furnishes a comprehensive criterion for all possible human actions, whether done before or never done before. It classifies actions into five categories, the obligatory (wajib), whose performance is rewarded by Allah in the next life and whose nonperformance is punished; the recommended (mandub), whose performance is rewarded but whose nonperformance is not punished; the permissible (mubah), whose performance is not rewarded and whose nonperformance is not punished; the offensive (makruh), whose nonperformance is rewarded but whose performance is not punished; and the unlawful (haram), whose nonperformance is rewarded and whose performance is punished.

Now, Allah in His wisdom has made the vast majority of human actions permissible. He says in surat al-Baqara, “It is He who has created everything on earth for you” (Koran 2:29), which establishes the shari‘a principle that all things are mubah or permissible for us until Allah indicates to us that they are otherwise. Because of this, the fact that the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) did not do this or that particular practice does not prove that it is offensive or unlawful, but only that it is not obligatory.

This is the reason that when shari‘a scholars speak of bid‘a, they do not merely mean an “innovation” or something that was never done before, which is the lexical sense of the word, but rather a “blameworthy innovation” or something new that no legal evidence in Sacred Law attests to the validity of, which is the shari‘a sense of the word. The latter is the bid‘a of misguidance mentioned in the hadith “The worst of matters are those that are new, and every innovation (bid‘a) is misguidance” (Sahih Muslim. 5 vols. Cairo 1376/1956. Reprint. Beirut: Dar al-Fikr, 1403/1983, 2.592: 867), which, although general in wording, scholars say refers specifically to new matters that entail something offensive or unlawful. Imam Shafi‘i explains:

New matters are of two kinds: something newly begun that contravenes the Koran, sunna, the position of early Muslims, or consensus of scholars (ijma‘): this innovation is misguidance. And something newly inaugurated of the good in which there is no contravention of any of these, and is therefore something which although new (muhdatha), is not blameworthy. For when ‘Umar (Allah be well pleased with him) saw the [tarawih] prayer being performed [in a group by Muslims at the mosque] in Ramadan, he said, “What a good innovation (bid‘a) this is,” meaning something newly begun that had not been done before. And although in fact it had, this does not negate the legal considerations just advanced [n: i.e. that it furnishes an example of something that ‘Umar, who was a scholar of the Sahaba, praised as a “good innovation” despite his belief that it had not been done before, because it did not contravene the broad principles of the Koran or sunna] (Dhahabi: Siyar a‘lam al-nubala’. 23 vols. Beirut: Mu’assassa al-Risala, 1401/1981, 10.70).

As for the practice of Muslims gathering together for group dhikr or the “invocation of Allah,” there is much evidence of its praiseworthiness in the sunna—aside from the many Koranic verses and the hadiths establishing the general merit of dhikr in every state—such as the hadith related by Bukhari:

Truly, Allah has angels going about the ways, looking for people of dhikr, and when they find a group of men invoking Allah, they call to one another, “Come to what you have been looking for!” and they circle around them with their wings up to the sky of this world.

Then their Lord asks them, though He knows better than they, “What do My servants say?” And they reply, “They say, Subhan Allah (“I glorify Allah’s absolute perfection”), Allahu Akbar (“Allah is ever greatest”), and al-Hamdu li Llah (“All praise be to Allah”), and they extoll Your glory.”

He says, “Have they seen Me?” And they answer, “No, by Allah, they have not seen You.” And He says, “How would it be, had they seen Me?” And they say, “If they had seen You, they would have worshipped You even more, glorified You more, and said Subhan Allah the more.”

He asks them, “What do they ask of Me?” And one answers, “They ask You paradise.” He says, “Have they seen it?” And they say, “No, by Allah, My Lord, they have not seen it.” And He says, “How would it be, had they seen it?” And they say, “If they had seen it, they would have been more avid for it, sought it more, and been more desirous of it.”

Then He asks them, “From what do they seek refuge?” And they answer, “From hell.” He says, “Have they seen it?” And they say, “No, by Allah, they have not seen it.” And He says, “How would it be, had they seen it?” And they say, “If they had seen it, they would have fled from it even more, and been more fearful of it.”

He says, “I charge all of you to bear witness that I have forgiven them.” Then one of the angels says, “So-and-so is among them, though he is not one of them but only came for something he needed.” And Allah says, “They are companions through whom no one who keeps their company shall meet perdition” (Sahih al-Bukhari. 9 vols. Cairo 1313/1895. Reprint (9 vols. in 3). Beirut: Dar al-Jil, n.d., 8.107–8: 6408).

The last line of the hadith shows the highest approval for gatherings of dhikr in the religion of Allah. Some other accounts transmit the condemnation of Ibn Mas‘ud (Allah be well please with him) for gathering together to say Subhan Allah (perhaps out of fear of ostentation), but even if we were to grant their authenticity, the above hadith of Bukhari, containing the explicit approval of such gatherings by Allah and His messenger (Allah bless him and give him peace) suffices us from needing the permission of Ibn Mas‘ud or any other human being. Further, the explicit mention of the various forms of dhikr in the hadith suffice in reply to certain contemporary “re-formers” of Islam, who attempt to reduce “sessions of dhikr” to educational gatherings alone by quoting the words of ‘Ata' (ibn Abi Rabah, Mufti of Mecca, d. 114/732), who reportedly said,

Sessions of dhikr are the sessions of [teaching people] the lawful and unlawful, how you buy, sell, pray, fast, wed, divorce, make the pilgrimage, and the like (Nawawi: al-Majmu‘: Sharh al-Muhadhdhab. 20 vols. Cairo n.d. Reprint. Medina: al-Maktaba al-Salafiyya, n.d., 1.21).

Perhaps ‘Ata' intended to inform people that teaching and learning shari‘a are also a form of dhikr, but in any case it is clear from the Prophet’s explicit words (Allah bless him and give him peace) in the above hadith that “sessions of dhikr” cannot be limited to teaching and learning Sacred Law alone, but primarily mean gatherings of Muslims to invoke Allah in dhikr.

As for dancing, Imam Ahmad relates from Anas (Allah be well pleased with him), with a chain of transmission all of whose narrators are those of Bukhari except Hammad ibn Salama, who is one of the narrators of Muslim, that

the Ethiopians danced in front of the Messenger of Allah (Allah bless him and give him peace); dancing and saying [in their language], “Muhammad is a righteous servant.” The Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) said, “What are they saying?” And they said, “‘Muhammad is a righteous servant’” (Musnad al-Imam Ahmad. 6 vols. Cairo 1313/1895. Reprint. Beirut: Dar Sadir, n.d., 3.152).

Other versions of the hadith clarify that this took place in the mosque in Medina, though in any case, the fact that dancing was done before the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) establishes that it is mubah or “permissible” in the shari‘a, for if it had been otherwise, he would have been obliged to condemn it. For this reason, Imam Nawawi says:

Dancing is not unlawful, unless it is languid, like the movements of the effeminate. And it is permissible to speak and to sing poetry, unless it satirizes someone, is obscene, or alludes to a particular woman” (Minhaj al-talibin wa ‘umdat al-muttaqin. Cairo 1338/1920. Reprint. Cairo: Mustafa al-Babi al-Halabi, n.d., 152).

This is a legal text for the permissibility of both dancing and singing poetry from the Minhaj al-talibin, the central legal work of the entire late Shafi‘i school. Islamic scholars point out that if something which is permissible, such as singing poetry or dancing, is conjoined with something that is recommended, such as dhikr or gatherings to make dhikr, the result of this conjoining will not be offensive (makruh) or unlawful (haram). Imam Jalal al-Din Suyuti was asked for a fatwa or formal legal opinion concerning “a group of Sufis who had gathered for a session of dhikr,” and he replied:

How can one condemn making dhikr while standing, or standing while making dhikr, when Allah Most High says, “. . . those who invoke Allah standing, sitting, and upon their sides” (Koran 3:191). And ‘A'isha (Allah be well pleased with her) said, “The Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) used to invoke Allah at all of his times” [Sahih Muslim, 1.282: 373]. And if dancing is added to this standing, it may not be condemned, as it is of the joy of spiritual vision and ecstasy, and the hadith exists [in many sources, such as Musnad al-Imam Ahmad, 1.108, with a sound (hasan) chain of transmission] that Ja‘far ibn Abi Talib danced in front of the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) when the Prophet told him, “You resemble me in looks and in character,” dancing from the happiness he felt from being thus addressed, and the Prophet did not condemn him for doing so, this being a basis for the legal acceptability of the Sufis dancing from the joys of the ecstasies they experience (al-Hawi li al-fatawi. 2 vols. Cairo 1352/1933–34. Reprint. Beirut: Dar al-Kutub al-‘Ilmiyya, 1403/1983, 2.234).

Now, Suyuti was a hadith master (hafiz, someone with over 100,000 hadiths by memory) and a recognized mujtahid Imam who authored hundreds of works in the shari‘a sciences, and his formal opinion, together with the previously cited ruling of Imam Nawawi in the Minhaj al-talibin, constitutes an authoritative legal text (nass) in the Shafi‘i school establishing that circles of dhikr which comprise the singing of spiritual poetry and dancing are neither offensive (makruh) nor unlawful (haram)—unless associated with other unlawful factors such as listening to musical instruments or the mixing of men and women—but rather are permissible.

To summarize, the hadra of our tariqa, consisting of circles of invocation of Allah (dhikr) conjoined with the singing of permissible poetry and dancing, is compatible with the Sacred Law of orthodox Islam; and when the latter elements facilitate presence of heart with Allah (as they do with most people who possess hearts), they deserve a reward from Allah by those who intend them as such. And this is the aim and importance of the hadra in the tariqa.

MCMXCVI © N. Keller

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