Furthering the discussion of criticism of the traditional methodology and lifestyle, we find the opening of criticism often focuses on ‘authority’ and ‘ijazaat’ (from both sides of the table). Of course, it is traditionalists who first revived the importance of needing ijazaat when speaking on matters of legal authority. The responses from traditionalists at the time were regarding those who believed that independent reading of source texts allowed them to make qualified responses on all subjects of fiqh, and apply (if not force) that understanding on others. The opponents to traditional Islam had no real response to this necessity of ijazaat, so they have fled to obtain the qualifications necessary, in the subjects of their choosing.

This has left us with scholars, half-trained in half-sciences, leaving us with very few who are able to grasp the reality of the spiritual and legal in one conversation. Only a few of such saintly people have lifted the veil allowing us to be in their company today.

The necessity of ijazaat before speaking on matters of the legal, spiritual, societal, and political has been confused due to the absence of understanding the roles and responsibilities within Islam. Was the Khalifa’s rule invalid unless he was a legal scholar? Is a porter unable to speak to his children about how to pray? Can anyone discuss anything with anyone before double checking their ijazaat clipbook?

This is an easy mistake to make. Islam covers a broad range of subjects, it covers every aspect of our lives, from the legal to the spiritual, from the heart to the mind. Someone being qualified in teaching Sahih Bukhari must first understand what context their qualification exists. Is it in discussing the isnaad, the biographies of the narrators, and the authenticity of each hadith? Is it in discussing the legal conclusions which one can gain from each saying? According to which methodology? Is the ijazaat in understanding the spiritual sunnat within each word of the Prophet (Salallahu’alaiheewassalam)? Is it in knowing how to take those understandings together and create a practical application? Is it in teaching children?

The realm of that one book of hadith (and hence Sunnah) is so vast, it would take a lifetime to consider oneself qualified to speak on all matters regarding it. Hence, with ijazaat comes flavors of understanding. For many, the understanding that legal knowledge is a heavy spiritual responsibility is lost. Do we need to be reminded each small piece of knowledge will be a witness against us? In the past, we would have seen Imam Abu Hanifa (R) and Imam Bukhari (R) shy away from proclaiming their status and attempting to gain further titles. Today, we see the opposite.

This humbleness and careful approach towards ijazaat, responsibility, etc, has been abandoned by most today. Now we find those that believe that their ijazaat in the ’source texts’ is in itself, unqualified and extremely broad. This study qualifies them to speak on matters of the legal, the spiritual, on matters of politics, and of general realities on the ground for Muslims. This might even be acceptable, to an extent, except that now it has been combined with a culture of exclusion.

The attempt to usurp ‘authority’ on all matters related to people and life is a sad attempt at trying to achieve empowerment through holy means. A casual dismissal of anyone who is outside of the subculture of self-proclaimed intellectual and academic studies is admitting that really they have no response to a traditional Islamic worldview.

We end up with those without qualifications on a subject speaking and dictating how Islam is (in all aspects) and therefore dictating to all of us how we need to live (or otherwise we burn in hell). The only difference between this generation and the previous who had no knowledge of ijzaat, is that they now believe they are extremely qualified and question others on their qualification. What is clear is the modern generation does not come from the strong traditional understanding of ijazaat. That sort of Ijazaat comes from the combination of association with high teachers, ijazaats in texts, and accomplishments in a practical and spiritual reality. The modern approach yields only self applied titles and proclamations alone.

One commentator indicated that my focus has been on fiqh, when the assault on traditionalism was really much broader.

The confusions over the issue may have been that the criticism against traditionalism has been one loaded with fiqhi buzzwords (i.e. taqleed, ‘evidence’), fiqhi points of contention, Bidaa’, Shirk, etc, rather than the terms and examples most appropriate for some broader discussion. Of course this focus of terms hints at the criticizers area of expertise and areas of weakness.

So let us address the broader issue.

The broader issue is that of supposed progress, and a vision of a society which is modern and yet Islamic.

The truth is, discussing modernity and its integration with Islam is moot. The traditional lifestyle has already accomplished it, we are living examples of it. In fact, that was the entire purpose of the examples in the last post. To categorize what is going on in tariqat as first ‘retreating from modernity’ and then identifying it as ’social work’ is a sign of the confusion. In reality, building an Islamic community where all aspects of Islam are being practiced is really the only ‘intellectual’ discourse that matters.

The attempt to put the orthodox Sufi into some ideological box is failing. A difference of opinion over the proofs which create the fiqhi foundation of that community is one that should be respected, in the interest of unity.

When addressing modernity gets away from the building of actual living Islamic communities and the real challenges to building that lifestyle, instead turning into dealing with theoretical postulation, we have lost our way. If admitting that someone ‘traditional’ hasn’t written a compare & contrast article about Descartes and Muhummad (Sallalahu’alaiheewassalam) is a sign of our failure, alhamdulillah. Again and again I’ll say I’m glad we have ‘failed’. That type of failure is a success.

Jabir Ibn �Abd Allah narrated, the Messenger of Allah (SAAW) said:

�Do not acquire knowledge in order to vie with scholars, and to wrangle with the foolish, and to sit in the best seats: whoever does that his abode will be the Fire, the Fire.�

(Ibn Hibban, Sahih)

What business do we have with the ‘intellectual’ wrangling of foolish Western philosophers? The prophetic example is absent of this type of intellectual meandering, but it is replete with practical realities of Islam.

It is said:

“This is where we see the traditionalist who inhabits the West is out of touch with scholarship and calls to utopia because he fails to deal with questions such as Democracy, Modernity, Science, Postmodernity, Globalization, and a series of other issues.”

Well, I say it is better to outline what ‘questions’ exist rather than waste time speaking of problems or intellectual challenges that really do not exist in a practicing Muslims mind.

Citing names and ideas created by a system totally consumed with secularism, and mentioning the key conspirators in undermining the traditional lifestyle, does something only for those who have left the saints of Islam and occupied themselves with the inferiority complex applied by the West.

The traditional lifestyle allows us to be truly and ultimately present in our reality, all while being aware and full participants in a world of modernity, science, democracy, globalization. The Prophet’s (Sallalahu’alaiheewassalam) words indicate for us that every generation has its own reviver of the religion. For the traditionalist, therefore, the reliance is on the holy ones of our age, the prophesized revivers of the religion, the Saints of Islam, who have already addressed these issues to their logical conclusion and said: live Islam.

Those who are still clinging on to the understanding that conceptualizing modernity and relating it back to updated fiqh or a new philosophical tradition have gotten caught up in something setup to occupy their ego’s for their entire lifetime, resulting in no actual development or spiritual progress.

Calls towards education and literacy are empty when they don’t reflect the reality of the world. True traditionalism rejects the world-view where literacy is the answer to our problems. It is in today’s world that we find the largest ever contingent of Muslims being literate, yet also the most hopeless.

The truth is there is no room in the modern, Western, world for the illiterate worker, the porter, the farmer, the shoemaker, the factory worker. The Western world has for a large part, ignored them and pushed them to the third world where they don’t have to see them or their suffering. Slowly but surely, if they don’t participate in the ‘game’ of education they are subjected to worse and worse living conditions. Entire minorities, nations, and races are faced with this problem and again and again the answer is ‘education’.

This hyper-capitalistic idea runs contrary to the Islamic understanding which honors everyone,which sent us an illiterate Prophet (Salallahu’alaiheewassalam), with largely illiterate companions. Education has become the new caste system, and while we live in it and are educated ourselves as a matter of survival, we reject it’s necessity in what we deem holy: the Islamic context. It is necessary for a few, but for the large majority, the necessity is on escaping the tricks and traps of this world, its lures of money, wealth, fame and even unnecessary education.

We hold that Islam is innocent of that evil understanding of education which turns knowledge into ego fodder. Islam offers a good, holy, and blessed understanding which makes education a necessity for the few, recommended for many, unnecessary for many. Islam does this with balance and moderation, through the spiritual and living blessings which comes from his Awliya.

The mistake of equating the Alim as the Qadi or Mufti has gone on long enough. What made Shaykh Abdul Qadir Jilani (R) great was the blessing he received of pure Ilm, the Ilm of spiritual knowledge, not his lectures on hadith isnaads.

Those who seek to bring a parallel of the Western pipe-dream of ‘education’ to Islamic terms need to undergo some self-examination. Traditional Islam will reject the same unending race, the same game, the same attempt at power wielding which has wreaked havoc in the world.

Don’t we feel shamed when we hear from a scholar:

How long must we live with illiteracy?

And then we read in Sahih Bukhari

Sahih Bukhari
Volume 3, Book 31, Number 137:

Narrated Ibn ‘Umar:

The Prophet said, “We are an illiterate nation; we neither write, nor know accounts. The month is like this and this, i.e. sometimes of 29 days and sometimes of thirty days.”

The reality is those who are propagating education as the only means for saving Muslims have taken their example from the West, and abandoned the simplicity of life of traditional Islam as taught to us by our beloved Prophet (Sallalahu’alaiheewassalam) for a yearning of skyscrapers and hover-cars. Islam on the other hand was sent to protect the weak, the poor, the slaves, the orphans, and yes: the uneducated. Islam is not here to cast them aside due to their lack of education, but to say: You have a place, a role. You too are loved by Allah.

Nietzsche and his admirers can take that in whatever place they want.