Devoted to the viewpoint of Islam of Muhammad SAW and Amir ul-Mumineen, Ali ibn Abi Talib SA, in the Shi'a Fatimi Ismaili Dawoodi Bohra tradition.
December 9, 2002
Religion, not Culture, of Peace.
The question remains. Is Islam a Religion of Peace? The social, cultural, and political entity is clearly
not, by simple fact that counter-examples to peaceful muslims (namely, violent muslims) do exist.
QED. But what about the
religion itself?
I have already answered this question:
True Islam - even if mis-practiced by a billion Wahabi fanatics, is eternal. It cannot be suppressed. As long as a single Muslim like myself practices it in accordance with the original teachings of the Prophet, it cannot be extinguished from this world. As a Muslim, it's not my place to worry about how Islam is perceived by you. It's to worry about how Islam is practiced by me.
The peaceful message of Islam the Religion itself is clear, apparent even from the crudest translations. Those who espouse a violent interpretation are in violation of the clearest possible aspect of the religion - the Qur'an - and this is why you will never see such a craven dog as Osama bin Laden even acknowledge the existence of ayats 2:256, 109:6 5:32-33, 2:190, 5:61, and the full version of 4:91.
To argue that Islam has a religious message of intolerance and violence, and that violent interpretations are as valid as non-violent ones, is willful ignorance. An analogy would be to infer from a selective reading of the US Constitution that the Self-Evident Truths mentioned in the Declaration applied only to white males, or that there was no right to free speech, press, or separation of church and state. By ignoring parts of the Constitution (such as the Bill of Rights), certain people can always invoke other parts of it to
justify actions drastically at odds with the intent of the document.
But should Muslims go around parroting the phrase "Religion of Peace" ? No. It's a useless and meaningless excercise. If you believe in the Qur'an, live by its teachings, and leave the opinion making to the opinion makers.
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posted by Shi'a Pundit
December 7, 2002
dialouge of unprovable assertions.
There has certainly been a full-scale resurgence in the Blame Islam movement (myself, I tend towards the Blame Muslims camp). Jonah Goldberg calls on "moderate" muslims to
prove they are not terrorists. Dipnut (no offense intended, that's his pseudonym) has a lengthy and rational post which says that
"moderate" muslims are really the fanatics at that Islam is rotten at its core. Steven Den Beste calls for Islam itself - the sum total of the faith, not just individual strains of interpretation - to be
radically "defeated" (extending his
earlier arguments). And a scan of comment threads on LGF reveals calls for
internment camps and "
nuking the cube". These examples represent a progression of sorts, but Dipnut's and Steven's arguments represent a logical plateau. The arguments by NRO and LGF commentators are a kind of fallacious gorge isolating them and I have no desire to venture into such depths.
Dipnut's arguments are reasoned and well-organized, and it was a pleasure reading his writing. While I cannot fault his reasoning, my disagreement with his conclusions is no great surprise, but the reason is because I simply do not accept his assumptions (upon which his arguments are solidly grounded).
Dipnut writes:
The murderous mobs and terrorist cells may be un-Islamic in some obscure canonical sense, but right now they are more representative of Islam as a whole than are such as Aziz Poonawalla. The actual killers are only a small minority in Islam, but their sympathizers (by which I mean anyone with a neutral-or-better opinion of their activities) probably number in the hundreds of millions.
May be un-Islamic.
Are more representative.
Probably number. These are Dipnut's
impressions and opinions, shaped by the
media silence addressed earlier.
Note that I do not think the media is racist or that fixing that silence is a priority or any other such
victimized petulance. The WHY behind the reason for the media filters are essentially irrelevant. But reliance on such heavily filtered data guarantees flawed conclusions.
The majority of Muslims ARE "moderate".
This is a simple fact. The "core" of Islam is quite sound and healthy - but existing as it does in
Asia and the Middle East, and documented in
Arabic, Persian, Urdu, and Gujarati, mostly existing
offline, and being of absolutely
zero entertainment or shock value to the American media, the assertion that the core is rotten is intellectually dishonest. If Dipnut recognizes that the Core of Islam is completely beyond his access for observation and analysis, then the entire thesis must be re-examined.
Note that these assumptions are central to Steven's analysis as well. I sent Steven a link to the David Warren article "
Wrestling with Islam" with the sole motive of finding it interesting, and certainty that it would trigger his blogging impulses (I dont have any ambition or desire to change Steven's view of Islam, as he speculated, though I certainly make use of him as foil for my own arguments). Steven focuses on Warren's pessimism as a function of his (Warren's) religious belief, regarding the outcome of the perceived clash of civilizations. Steven parlays this into an expression of his own atheist worldview, and finds cause for optimism:
If that's correct, it gives me even more hope for a positive outcome in this war, for it means that a sufficient number of terrible setbacks for their side will shatter that faith, as the infidel keep winning and Allah keeps not showing up for the fight.
I know that's not something a devout Muslim like Aziz would think is desirable, but for me as an atheist I see religion as being helpful for individuals but largely negative for society collectively. To the extent that individuals practice it without it becoming a societal force, it's net positive (in most cases) providing comfort and guidance. When it starts meddling in politics, the effects are uniformly negative in part because it is uniformly anti-pluralistic. Thus for me the ideal state is actually something like what we have in the US, where religion is quite common but there are so many different ones that no single one attains critical mass.
I agree that the United States is the closest to ideal, for complementary reasons, as a member of a minority of a minority religion. Steven is mistaken when he thinks I would disagree with him about the desirability of Wahabis finding that Allah does not materialize to lend their deranged interpretations spiritual legitimacy. I think my self-interest in such a scenario is obvious. But where I start to disagree is in how he extrapolates his atheist worldview to the most unlikely of targets - ie, the practice of religion:
I've been wondering for a while, and have sometimes voiced the possibility, that indeed one way for this war to end is for us to shatter Islam itself; not Islamism or pan-Arabism, but Islam outright. At the very least, the most fundamentalist forms of Islam may need to be shattered.
Certainly Wahhabism has to be the primary target of this, and what would remain in what I see as the ideal case would be Islam as personal religion but without Islam as mass movement. Islam existing, Islam still broadly believed, but Islam in a thousand small pieces (if not in hundreds of millions). Islam not as a small number of vast monoliths, but Islam as a personal faith, interpreted as the result of individual study and thought. Islam as belief and not dogma; as religion and not as identity. Islam as moral guidance and not as politics. Islam as the equivalent of the thousand Protestant sects of Christianity, not Islam as Catholic Church. Islam as a force in individual lives but with little direct effect on the operations of society (any society, theirs or ours). Islam as one religion among many.
This extends Steven's prior ideas about
Defeating Islam, but here the scope is expanded dramatically. Having never met Steven, I can't be certain, but I think I detect his sense of humor at work. It cannot be a coincidence that his side of the debate with me always returns to defining my belief on his terms :) But treating this as a serious proposal, it's easy to identify gaping flaws in his understanding of how Islam is structured.
The fact is, the vision of an intensely personal Islam that Steven advocates is already central to the faith. In fact, as a Shi'a, I am further from this state than a Wahabi, since Shi'a do believe in hierarchical religious systems and Sunnis practice a more distributed form of worship. The analogy between Shi'a and Sunni is analogous to Catholic and Protestant. The danger of the Wahabis is not that it is a centralized theocracy, but rather that every wingnut with a Qur'an is free to indulge in projection of their prejudices and grievances onto the text, without any authority to assist with the context.
The great schools of Islamic thought - four Sunni "madhabs", and the Shi'a branches - all have extensive devotion to exegisis of the Qur'an, as a coherent book. Only the Wahabis take a word-by-word, reductionist approach to the text. Lacking a centralized authority, they are able to assign meanings based on expediency, not context or analysis. Steven's solution would undermine these traditional structured schools and actually encourage Wahabi-like theologies. To extend his analogy towards Christianity, he is labeling Protestants "Catholics" and then arguing that they need to be more Protestant!
Also, Steven has a dramatically false assertion:
Warren makes a point also made elsewhere that the western concepts of tolerance and sympathy (which manifest in the most extreme form now as "multiculturalism") are in fact relatively modern, and that the Muslims who embrace those ideals learned them from the West (mainly from Christian missionaries), and are in the minority.
Actually, Islam makes the same distinction in the Qur'an that Christianity has always made between "believers" and "non-believers". I find it ironic that an atheist like Steven has never come across this concept in Christianity before. The Qur'an has very strong messages of tolerance - explicitly calling for respect and freedom of other faiths to exist and practice in peace. The most famous
surat in the Qur'an about tolerance has a powerful, yet simple message:
O disbelievers!
I worship not that which ye worship;
Nor worship ye that which I worship.
And I shall not worship that which ye worship.
Nor will ye worship that which I worship.
Unto you your religion, and unto me my religion. [109:1-6]
And the Abbasid Caliphate, based in Baghdad, was reknowned for its tolerance and benevolent rule over its non-Muslim subjects. The Fatimid Dynasty in Egypt even had non-Muslims at the highest levels of government. And the Mughal Emperor Akbar married a Hindu princess. These are simply a few counterexamples to disprove Steven's general assertion that tolerance is alien to Islamic teachings or cultures.
And Steven makes the same media-filtered gaffe as Dipnut when he tries to assert that tolerant Muslims are in the minority. It certainly me be true that a minority of Muslims viewed in the media are tolerant. But to extrapolate from a filtered data set to the general populace? I invite Steven to consult his copy of
Bevington and review the section on "Estimated Error in the Mean" (specifically Equation 4.14).
Dipnut also tries to underscore the general argument by making the case that the Wahabis' control of Mecca lends them a far-reaching legitimacy:
A "moderate" Muslim*, living in the West, may deplore the bloody-minded Wahhabi sect of Islam, but as a Muslim he cannot elude its influence. The Wahhabis own Mecca, and as we'll soon see, whoever owns Mecca gets to decide not only the landscaping and architecture but the meaning of the place. When our friendly Muslim goes on his hajj, he'll be in the Wahhabis' hands. He'll live, for a time, in their brutal austerity, in their idea of a good society. He'll adopt their customs. He'll do as they say, if only to get through the day in a strange land. The white-washed, windowless walls will enclose him, the endless drumbeat of purity purity purity will soak into him as he reaches for the wellspring of his own soul, to offer his devotion to God.
And for the rest of his life, five times a day, he'll relive the experience, praying toward the Mecca of the Wahhabis' sterile hopes and dreams. Of course, this won't make him a Wahhabi. He can retain his own ideals, his own interpretation. But that interpretation will always be at odds with a central part of his religious experience. A small thing, perhaps, but a small leak in the boat means bailing water throughout the journey.
This is absolutely false (to say nothing of the profound misunderstanding of Hajj
[1]). Consider a history lesson: ALL of the great Islamic empires (Ummaiyad, Abbasid, Fatimid, Babur, Ottoman) established their capitals in brand new cities - Damascus, Baghdad, Cairo, Delhi, Constantinpole - rather than try to control Mecca directly. The main role of Mecca was that whichever ruler's name was read aloud at the Great Mosque on holy friday was the generally acknowledged
Symbolic Leader of Islam (in the Sunni tradition). But this did not translate to any kind of pan-Islamic control, and rival Islamic empires existed simultaneously at many points in history.
Granted, the Wahabis control Mecca, but that is SOLELY because the Sauds control Arabia. And the Sauds control Arabia SOLELY with British, then
American, support.
But is their control of Mecca the reason that the Wahabis have established such a threatening posture regarding proslytezation? NO. It is because Wahabis are funded by Saudis. The success of the Wahabis is DIRECTLY a function of their enormous base of political and economic support from the Sauds. The Sauds are DIRECTLY supported by the West. The West is in a Clash of Civilizations with Wahabi Islam? Do you detect a certain irony?
The truth is that the rest of the 99% of the Muslims worldwide who belong to thousands upon thousands of different ethnic/political sects, and who adhere to any one of hundreds of theological schools, are not influenced by Wahabism because they control Mecca. It is because the poverty of the third world, the oppressive rule of tyrants, and the misguided implementation of ideological economic policies, have all resulted in a vast pool of disaffected people. These people exist in Palestine, in Turkey, in Israel, in Egypt - even in
France. This is fertile ground for Wahabism, a parasitic interpretation whose Christian counterpart has not gained much traction in recent history (the occassional Fallwell and Robertson aside) because the disaffected class has largely been pacified.
The real problem thus boils down into a top-down parasite (Wahabism) that is artificially supported (Sauds) feeding on a vast pool that is fed from bottoms-upwards by oppression and misery. How to correct the problem?
Remove either the parasite or the pool. The pool is a larger problem and much more complicated. The parasite is a simple problem. Which do you think the war on Iraq will solve, if you by into the warblogger and neocon theories about why Iraq needs the smackdown?
So what then to make of all these non-Muslims exhorting Reformations and Defeats? Al these calls for Islam to be remade into something a little more Western or democratic or Christian or fuzzy or otherwise compatible with the NRO crew and the neocon agenda? The fact is, Islam as mass movement is a manifestation of the inherent strength underlying the basic undistorted message of the Qur'an. Which is embodied by the daily living practice of nearly a billion "moderate" muslims worldwide. This is an unstoppable force of good in the world, whose legacy is generation upon generation of decent and moral people, who strive for ascension to the next world by the virtue of their deeds in the present one.
This may not be very reassuring to Steven, but
Islam has and will continue and grow. The calls for Reformations and the polemics about how rotten the Core of Islam is, are mere hysterics, fueled by false binary-ism of the Clash of Civilizations thesis. Those who buy into the existenc of a separable entity called "The West" and another called "Islam" are naturally going to try and neuter the other side. Steven's hope that Islam loses its appeal and becomes more of a personal philosophy (akin to his self-defined engineerism) is really an attempt to destroy what makes Islam unique, so that it becomes more familiar, and thus less threatening. Trying to convince him that Islam is not the problem, that it is a solution to the problem, is pointless, and it is not my goal, because what he thinks about Islam is essentially irrelevant.
The current phase of Wahabism is an artificial construct, which we as Muslims must deal with realistically - but it is not a manifestation of an inner rot - it was grafted onto Islam by Imperials and continues to be propped up by neo-Imperials. But ratherthan cast stones of blae, we have to grapple with it in a realistic way. I will discuss how Muslims need to do this in a future post.
[1] Few non-Muslims are aware, but what you do during Hajj was prescribed by the Prophet SAW, and is not influenced in any way by the Saudis. The religious rituals, the ascetic quality to the experience, all are constant and have been since the Prophet SAW himself led it. What the Saudis have done is actually make Hajj safer, cleaner, and more accessible, and they finance hundreds of thousands if not millions of pilgrims each year, providing opportunity for Hajj to millions who would otherwise never have the means to complete this requirement of faith. The treatment of the Hajj is the one single aspect of the Saud legacy in Islam with which I not only find zero fault, but actually praise to the highest degree.With all due respect to Dipnut, all his comments about Hajj and filtering worldview and whatnot are the purest nonsense.
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posted by Shi'a Pundit
December 5, 2002
Eid Mubarak.
Today is 1st Shawwal, 1423H - ie, today is Eid al Fitr, the first day after completing the month of Ramadan.
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posted by Shi'a Pundit
December 4, 2002
Alaik as-Salaam, ya Shahro Ramadan.
Ramadan will end today at sunset. Shortly after noon today, I will pray the last
faraz for ramadan 1423.
I give thanks to Allah for the bounty of the Qur'an, and the precious opportunity for ibadat during this holy month.
Eid Mubarak!
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posted by Shi'a Pundit
November 28, 2002
Islamic condemnations of terrorism.
Many have accused Muslims of being "silent" in the face of terrorism. Though examples abound in the blogsphere, where it is practically conventional wisdom that Muslims consent by virtue of their supposed silence (examples: SDB, Porphyrogenitus, Brian). This stereotype also penetrates deeply into traditional media, with William F Buckley's essay "Are we owed an apology?" being a prominent example
[1].
From
Muhabajah.com, is this
comprehensive list of links and resources on Islamic perspectives against terrorism (
hirabah), essays by prominent Islamic intellectuals and clerics condemning terrorism, statements by muslim leaders, and even a section on muslim military personnel.
In addition to these, there is also
this statement condemning 9-11 by the leaders of the American Muslim Alliance, the American Muslim Council, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the Muslim Public Affairs Council, the Muslim American Society, the Islamic Society of North America, the Islamic Circle of North America, the Muslim Alliance in North America, and American Muslims for Jerusalem. Almost all of the country's 7 million muslims are represented by these groups.
And,
the Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia condemned the 9-11 attacks as well.
In general, though, islamic condemnnation of terrorism is dull news here in America's media. Here in Houston, the various Islamic groups had "open Mosque" days and other community-peace programmes after 9-11, which drew mild interest at best. Later, a firebrand gave a anti-Semtic speech at a local campus and it made headlines. One firebrand x 10,000 media points = a score of 10,000. 100 peaceful muslims x 1 media point = a score of 100. AltMuslim has a nice roundup of other
community outreach efforts by Muslims during Ramadan, but again, this is not a winnable PR battle (another reason
I don't think it's worth the effort, counter to
SDB's opinion).
[1] Muslims do NOT owe anyone an apology for 9-11.
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posted by Shi'a Pundit
November 27, 2002
what consent to infer from the media's silence?.
Steven has another post supporting my thesis that
tribalist misogynistic impulses are often wrapped in religion to lend them legitimacy.
Throughout history, what has been the one way that Brute A can impress Brute B? (def.
impress: scare off, intimidate, keep from stealing your grain or winning the election) The easiest route is to beat on your women. Instant respect!
But, when religions came along, and said things like "women are people", this caused some initial concern among these boneheads, because they until then had never really dealth with a coherent and intellectual response to their straightforward Hulk Smash! attitude. The response was ingenious, simply assert that "women are people" REALLY means "women are chattel" and now, you can use the entire infrastructure of religion as just another club! It's a far better club, in fact, because no matter how big and striong a Brute you are, your victims fear God more than they fear you.
Steven agrees with me. But he doesn't know it yet.
When Steven writes, however:
But to remain apathetically silent is to consent to let the extremists speak on behalf of Islam collectively and to characterize the struggle as being against all of Islam. To stay silent is to permit the extremists to control how Islam is perceived by the non-Muslims of the world.
then we rae emphatically NOT in agreement. He is talking about Muslims. But let me assure him and you that as a Muslim, I don't really CARE how Islam is perceived by non-Muslims. I care how Islam is perceived by Muslims.
And just because he thinks Muslims are silent doesn't mean they are. In fact they have strong voices, and there is a level of debate raging in the Islamic world that is completely missed by insulated commentators in the US. This point was eloquently made in an
interview with Stephen Schwartz, in National Review Online:
Leading Muslims outside the U.S. denounce Wahhabism, and many denounced the atrocity of 9/11. Unfortunately, however, most of U.S. media is completely incompetent in finding, listening to, or understanding these voices. U.S. media does not interview anti-Wahhabi sheikhs or imams or muftis in the Islamic world. U.S. media paid no attention when the head of Bosnian Islamic scholars, Mustafa efendija Ceric, preached eloquently against terrorism. U.S. media did not notice when an Albanian daily - in a country with a Muslim majority - hailed the U.S. action in Afghanistan last year with the headline "Nobody Veils the Statue of Liberty's Face." Nobody in the U.S. media has followed up on reports by myself and others showing that Kosovar Albanian Muslims would like to fight for the West in Iraq. Worse, U.S. media has reported very little of the mobilization of 70 million Indonesian Muslims against extremism in the aftermath of the Bali horror.
U.S. media listens to the so-called "Arab street," which is essentially irrelevant, filled as it is with yelling loiterers, or engages in polling
exercises asking loaded questions. This, of course, reinforces the view of Muslims as unanimous haters of the West and America. To understand the struggle of the world's traditional Muslims against Wahhabism, you have to get away from the "Arab street" and meaningless people wandering around. You have to sit down with serious Islamic clerics and thinkers and dialogue
with them in a way they understand and respect.
(this article was posted to the UNMEDIA mailing list. You can browse and search the list archives without subscribing.). I know I reproduced the same text below in my Falsafat post but it's so important (and again relevant) that it was necessary.
Steven usually links to BBC and ABC News as his primary source of information about news and world events. Therefore it's not surprising that he perceives a raging silence. That silence is the media's journalistic ethos, though, not the moral clarity of the majority of the world's muslims.
In fact, the effort that Muslims would have to make in order to get media coverage to satisfy the opinion of Steven and others like him who rely exclusively on western media for information about the Islamic world, would be
wasted. Positive coverage lasts only as long as the next tragedy. That energy would be better spent - and is being better spent - inwards.
And, silence is not consent. If it were, the date rapists (another species of Brute A) will have won. Sometimes, silence means, "no time for inane talk. Busy actually fixing the problem"
UPDATE: via the indispensable
alt.muslim, an article in Sify News that mentions that
the fatwa was condemned by much larger Muslim groups in Nigeria:
Zamfara's deputy governor Mamuda Aliyu Shinkafi said late Monday in a speech to religious leaders in the Zamfara State capital Gusau which was rebroadcast on state radio, "Like Salman Rushdie, the blood of Isioma Daniel can be shed.
"It is binding on all Muslims wherever they are to consider the killing of the writer as a religious duty," he said.
But Lateef Adegbite, general secretary of the Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs in Nigeria, distanced his influential body from the fatwa, refusing to immediately endorse it. He told AFP that the council would study the ruling, but would also take into account that Daniel is a Christian, does not live or work in Zamfara and that her paper had apologised.
By the way, the givernor of Zamfara state who issued the fatwa stated that "Islam prescribes the death penalty on anybody, no matter his faith, who insults the Prophet." This is
wrong. He actually claimed a Qur'anic basis, which is a pure fabrication.
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posted by Shi'a Pundit
November 26, 2002
Falsafat II: Peak of Eloquence.
This is the second post in my
falsafat (philosophy) series. The
first part serves as an index to the
Ideofact blog's ongoing review of Qutb's
Social Justice in Islam, one of the core ideologies of extremist Islam.
Ideofact has comprehensively analyzed how Qutb's ideas (which are just distilled versions of Maudoodi and Wahab) are not only internally contradictory but flout the entire history of Islam and discard the theologic traditions of the past 1400 years. It is supreme understatement to say that Qutb has been discredited, and Ideofact is hardly alone. In fact, throughout the Arab world and the greater Muslim sphere, Qutb (and Wahab) have been attacked with great effect by prominent Islamic thinkers, intellectuals, and clerics. Unfortunately, this repudiation of extremism is completely ignored by the Western media. This point has been made effectively in an
interview with Stephen Schwartz at National Review Online (via
Bin Gregory, and posted to
UNMEDIA list) :
Leading Muslims outside the U.S. denounce Wahhabism, and many denounced the atrocity of 9/11. Unfortunately, however, most of U.S. media is completely incompetent in finding, listening to, or understanding these voices. U.S. media does not interview anti-Wahhabi sheikhs or imams or muftis in the Islamic world. U.S. media paid no attention when the head of Bosnian Islamic scholars, Mustafa efendija Ceric, preached eloquently against terrorism. U.S. media did not notice when an Albanian daily — in a country with a Muslim majority — hailed the U.S. action in Afghanistan last year with the headline "Nobody Veils the Statue of Liberty's Face." Nobody in the U.S. media has followed up on reports by myself and others showing that Kosovar Albanian Muslims would like to fight for the West in Iraq. Worse, U.S. media has reported very little of the mobilization of 70 million Indonesian Muslims against extremism in the aftermath of the Bali horror.
U.S. media listens to the so-called "Arab street," which is essentially irrelevant, filled as it is with yelling loiterers, or engages in polling exercises asking loaded questions. This, of course, reinforces the view of Muslims as unanimous haters of the West and America. To understand the struggle of the world's traditional Muslims against Wahhabism, you have to get away from the "Arab street" and meaningless people wandering around. You have to sit down with serious Islamic clerics and thinkers and dialogue with them in a way they understand and respect.
The failure of the Western media to avoid being blinded to moderate majorities by the allure of extremist minorities is the reason why normal Muslims like myself and Bin Gregory are routinely challenged to "justify" our religion, or why we have now been labeled "moderate muslims" (to distinguish from muslims, who are understood to be fanatic nutjobs. CW is cruel.).
But it is not enough to denounce harmful ideologies like Qutbism and Wahabism. A strong alternative must be presented simultaneously, otherwise there is no net progress towards solutions. Towards that end, having dismissed Qutb in part 1, I intend to present an alternative here in part 2. That alternative is
Nahjul Balagha ("Peak of Eloquence"), written by of Amirul Mumineen Ali ibn Talib AS
[1]. Ali AS was the
chosen successor of the Prophet Muhamad SAW. This book is a collection of his sermons and is essential reading. The book is
available from Amazon, but the
full text is also available online.
Before understanding this book, though, it is hepful to gain a sense of who Ali AS was. There is an essay posted to Shiapundit on
the character of Ali AS, and also provides a general biography and the nature of his relationship with the Prophet SAW.
The value of the sermons is that they give an accurate and in-depth view at the moral code within Islam, as exemplified by the example of Ali AS. This is a clear window into the core of Islam as practiced by its first male convert
[2], undistorted by the Wahabis and the Qutbis and the attached cruft of their self-serving hadith and fundamentalist interpretations. Shi'a such as myself revere Ali as the only person of the Prophet's SAW companions who had the Prophet's permission and authority to interpret the Qur'an. Muhammad SAW himself said that "I am the city of Knowledge, and Ali is the Gate." But the value of Ali's example need not be restricted to Shi'a alone. Ali AS is acknowledged as the Fourth Caliph to Sunnis as well and embracing the ideals that Ali AS personified is an embrace of core Islamic values.
But Nahjul Balagha is about more than character. It also lays the framework for a rationalist approach to theology. The great Shi'a jurist Imam Jafa al-Sadiq
[3] - who actually mentored the Sunni founders of the dominant Sunni schools of thought - laid the foundation for Islamic rationalist philosophy, emphasising the importance of al-Aql (Reason) as the primary faculty of mankind. The great works of Ikhwan us-Safa and Dai'm al-Islam are almost completely unknown to Western armchair analysts of Islam, but are central to the core of true Islamic theologic philosophy (the very word philosophy comes from the Arabic word, "falsafat").
It is beyond my ability to "review" Peak of Eloquence, any more than I could review the Bible or the Qur'an. But the authenticity of every word spoken by Ali AS in these sermons is an absolute. Contrast this to the compilations of hadith (sayings) of the Prophet SAW, notably Bukhari and Muslim, which were accumulated without any real regard for authenticity. Unfortunately, the bulk of Muslim believers accord higher status to these flawed compilations of hadith than they do to Nahjul Balagha. It is beyond the scope of this article to examine Bukhari and Muslim in this piece, but I have
previously blogged about some minor but highly illustrative examples of the absurdity of the claim to authenticity for these books. Some of the flaws in these compilations, in fact, have given ammunition to Wahabists as they sought to discredit all prior Islamic theology and establish the dominance of their interpretation.
Peak of Eloquence remains the single clearest example of living Islam that Muslims can both agree on and aspire to.
[1] I am using transliterated honorifics that are traditionally applied to Ali AS and Muhammad SAW. SAW is for "sallalahu aleyhi walehi" which translated roughly to "Peace be upon him". Often, you see "PBUH" appended to the Prophet SAW instead of SAW, but I personally find this distasteful for much teh same reasons that I don't like translations of the Qur'an. AS is for "alayhi-salaam" which is similar.
[2] The wife of the Prophet was the first convert to Islam. Ali AS was the second. For many long years, the three of them were the only Muslims in the world, until the Message began to spread. For an epic telling of the early origins of Islam, I highly recommend the movie, The Message.
[3] Direct descendant of Ali AS and Ali's son, Imam Husain AS (who was martyred by the Caliph Yazid LA at Karbala, in modern-day Iraq).
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posted by Shi'a Pundit
November 25, 2002
The Seerat of Amir'al mu'mineen.
It was the month of Ramadaan. The streets of Kufa were still hot from the day's unbearable heat. A musafir (traveler) was walking through the streets. His clothes had a thin layer of sand, his amamat was worn low on his forehead against the harsh rays of the sun, his shoes worn out from the long walk. Hungry for food and tired, his eyes caught the tall and beautiful minaret of the masjid. He quickened his pace towards the masjid, entered, and said Salaam. Straining his eyes, he saw a lonely figure inside and his ears picked up the low hum of prayers filling every corner of the masjid. The musafir knew in his heart that he was in the presence of a very saintly man, a Wali of Allah Ta'ala.
The musafir laid his masallah near the mehrab and prayed namaaz. He saw the Wali unlock a wooden chest, take out a handful of food and eat it. The musafir having not eaten anything all day, went closer to the Wali and asked, "Saheb, I have had nothing to eat since yesterday. Please give me something to eat." The quiet, peaceful voice of the Wali replied, "Brother, I do not have anything that you would like to eat." The musafir insisted, "I just saw you eat a handful of something. You look like a pious, good muslim and yet you refuse to give me food." Upon the musafir's insistence, the Wali opened up the wooden chest and gave the musafir some food to eat. The hungry man grabbed the handful and put it in his mouth. Suddenly he was choking on the dry and tasteless food. He could not swallow it. He looked at the man, his eyes filled with tears of pain. "Brother, what did you give me to eat?" The Wali replied, "That was the dry flour of jav (a kind of grain)."
"Saheb, flour is very cheap in this part of the country. Why do you keep it locked? Is it that you are afraid of thieves?" questioned the unknowing musafir. The Wali answered, "I know flour is cheap and I am not afraid of the thieves either. I keep this chest locked because when I am not around my sons mix butter and sugar in it. You look very hungry. Go the house of Hasan (AS) and Husain (AS). During the month of Ramadaan, they serve many varieties of food to those who are fasting and hungry. Go join them and delight yourself in the company of good people and delicious food." The musafir folded his masallah, took the directions to the house, and then went to join in the festivities.
Hundreds of people were gathered together at the home of Maulana Hasan (AS) and Maulana Husain (AS), all seated and enjoying delicious food. As the musafir entered the courtyard, two very tall, handsome men approached and invited him to dinner. The musafir sat and ate his fill. As he was leaving the house, Hasan (AS) and Husain (AS) stopped him and said "We've been watching you and have seen that your face is sad, and your eyes have tears in them. Do you have a family somewhere? Are they also hungry? If so, we have plenty of food. Please bring them here to eat or take some food for them."
The musafir answered, "Maula, I have no family. I am a poor man, but I saw a man praying at the masjid, his clothes are old and he is eating dry flour. While eating the delicious food in your home, I was thinking of him and crying. If you give me some food, I will take it to him." Maulana Husain (AS) put his right hand on the musafir's shoulder and said, "Brother, the man you saw in the masjid praying is the Allah's Wali, Mohammad Rasulallah's (SA) Wasi, and our beloved father Ameerul Mumineen Ali (AS). The delicious food you just ate is all provided by him."
Ali (AS) was the cousin of Mohammad Rasulallah (SA). He was born on the 13th of Rajab in the Ka'aba in Mecca. When his mother came to the Ka'aba, she felt weighed down before the Holy structure and prayed humbly to Allah. No sooner had she raised her head from supplication, then the wall of the sacred House split by a solemn miracle. She entered the Ka'aba and the portion returned to its normal position. Some who witnessed the event flocked at the gate of the Sacred House which was lodged and tried to open it, but in vain. They then decided to give up, considering the miraculous nature of the event and the Divine will in action. The news of the this miraculous incident spread like wildfire in Mecca.
Maulana Ali (AS) was born within the Ka'aba with his eyes closed and his body in humble prostration before Almighty God. His mother stayed in the Ka'aba for three days and as the fourth day approached, she stepped out, carrying her gem in her arms. To her great surprise she found the Holy Prophet (SA) awaiting to receive the newly-born child in his anxious arms.
Maulana Ali (AS) was brought up under the care and affection of Rasulallah (SA). As Ali (AS) says, "The Holy Prophet (SA) brought me up in his own arms and fed me with his own morsel. I followed him wherever he went like a baby camel following its mother. Each day I learned a new aspect of his noble person and I would accept it an follow it as a command." (from Nahjul-Balagha)
Ten years in the company of the Holy Prophet (SA) had kept him so close and inseparable that he was one with him in character, knowledge, self-sacrifice, forbearance, bravery, kindness, generosity, and eloquence[1]. From his very infancy, prayed along with the Mohammad Rasulallah (SA). Maulana Ali (AS) always accompanied the Holy Prophet (SA) to help and protect him from his enemies.
Mohammad Rasulallah (SA) has said of Ali (AS):
"O Ali (AS) you are my brother in this world and the hereafter."
"I am the City of Knowledge and Ali (AS) is the gate." ("Ana madinat-ul-ilm wa Ali-yun baaboha")
"For whom I was your leader, Ali (AS) is your leader also." ("Man kuntu Maula, fa-haza Ali-yun Maula")[2]
Maulana Ali (AS) had the qualifications of a poet, a soldier, and a saint; his wisdom still breathes in a collection of moral and religious sayings; and very antagonist in the combats of the tongue or of the sword, was subdued by his eloquence and valor. From the first hour of his mission to the last rites of his funeral, Ali (AS), was never forsaken by a generous friend, whom he delighted to name his brother.
Under divine instruction, Rasulallah (SA) arranged the marriage of his beloved daughter Fatimah (AS) to Ali (AS), though others vainly tried for her hand. Among their children, Imam Hasan (AS), Imam Husain (AS), Maulatena Zainab (AS) and Maulatena Umme Kulsum (AS) have each left their mark on the history of the world.
While offering his prayers in the Masjid at Kufa (Iraq) on the 19th of Ramadan, Maulana Ali (AS) was struck by a poison sword of an enemy. He passed away 2 days later on the 21st of Ramadan and was buried in Najaf-ul-Ashraf. He was born in the house of God in Masjid-al-Haram and martyred in the house of God in Masjid-al-Kufa. The lion of God, the most brave-hearted and gentle Mumin that ever lived, Mushkil-Kusha, Ali (AS) began his glorious life with devotion to Allah and Rasulallah (SA) and ended it in the service of Islam.
"And do not speak of those who are slain in Allah's way as dead; nay, they are alive but you do not perceive."(Al-Qur'an 11:154)
[1] The Ahlul Bayt Digital Islamic Library has an comprehensively documented site devoted to the recorded event of Eid e Ghadir Khum.
[2] Recorded by numerous Sunni sources (isnad).
This essay was originally written by my close friend, Zakir H.
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posted by Shi'a Pundit
November 21, 2002
lanat upon the hirabists.
The people of Israel are in shock and pain today. A suicide bomber
killed 11 people - mostly children - on a crowded bus during the morning rush hour in Jerusalem.
The military wing of the militant Hamas movement, Izz el-Deen al-Qassam Brigades, has claimed responsibility for the attack and named the suicide bomber as Na'il Azmi Abu al-Hal, Hezbollah's al-Manar television station reported, according to Reuters.
...
"Such operations must go on," Abdul Aziz Rantissi told the Arabic TV station al-Jazeera, adding that the "vast majority" of Palestinians supported them.
Lanat upon Na'il Azmi Abu al-Hal.
Lanat upon the Izz el-Deen al-Qassam Brigades.
Lanat upon Abdul Aziz Rantissi.
As Almighty Allah revealed in the holy Qur'an,
We ordained for the Children of Israel that if any one slew a person - unless it be for murder or for spreading mischief in the land - it would be as if he slew the whole people: and if any one saved a life, it would be as if he saved the life of the whole people. Then although there came to them Our messengers with clear signs, yet, even after that, many of them continued to commit excesses in the land. Those who wage war against Allah and His prophet, kill the believers and plunder their property shall be disgraced in this world, and for them is a dreadful doom in the hereafter. (5:32-33)
When innocent children are slain, it is indeed as if
the whole of mankind are slain
[1]. And those who perpetrated, those who planned, those who approved, those who conceived, and those who justify this act of
harabah will indeed face
a dreadful doom in the hereafter.
The Palestinians are truly oppressed and suffering. They face true injustice, and rectifying that injustice is the only way that the Middle East will ever achieve peace. But the path to achieving Palestinian goals MUST be in accordance with the morality of the Qur'an:
Fight in the cause of Allah those who fight you, but do not transgress limits; for Allah loveth not transgressors. (2:190)
Jihad will always succeed. Harabah will always fail.
[1] Mohammed al-Dura will welcome the innocents to heaven, as the cohort of the victims of injustice grows. Palestinian or Israeili, Heaven is enriched, and the world grows poorer, for their departure.
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posted by Shi'a Pundit
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About Shi'a Pundit
Shi'a Pundit was launched in 2002 during the run-up to the invasion of Iraq. The blog focuses on issues pertaining
to Shi'a Islam in the west and in the Islamic world. The author is a member of the Dawoodi
Bohra Muslim community. Bohras adhere to the
Shi'a Fatimi tradition of Islam,
headed by the 52nd Dai al-Mutlaq, Syedna
Mohammed Burhanuddin (TUS).
