Shaykh Ali Aliki (ks) – A member of this order, he lived in the vicinity of Mecca the Ennobled.
He once said: “If someone is satisfied with this world, he is accursed. If someone is
satisfied with knowledge per se, he is tempted. If someone is satisfied with abstinence for
the sake of praise, he is veiled. If someone is satisfied with the truth for some reason other
than the truth, whatever it may be, he is a rebel.”
With reference to this, Shaikh al-Islam said: “Do you know what this world is?
Whatever occurs to your heart and distracts you from the Lord of Truth, that is this world
for you. Whatever distracts you from Him (Exalted is He), that is a temptation for you.
As for his assertion that those who are satisfied with knowledge per se are tempted,
knowledge is a term for information, and any information that does not lead you to
obedience and worship, that is a temptation for you.”
In his intimate conversation with the Lord, he used to say: “O my God, do not
leave us addicted to information, because all such addiction amounts to preoccupation
with that which is other than You. Do not leave us attached to the well-informed, for if
someone claims to be well-informed, he is trouble from start to finish. As long as the
servant is left to his own devices, he is rubbish and rusty iron. If someone is satisfied with
abstinence for the sake of praise, he is veiled from the Lord of Truth (Exalted is He). Half
of a small silver coin in the Sufi’s possession is a treasure!”
May Allah be well pleased with him!
- Excerpted from Nafahat al-Uns – Maulana Jami (ks)
The slave, Mahmud ibn al-Husayn ibn Muhammad [al-Kash-ghari] states: When I saw that Allah Most High had caused the Sun of Fortune to rise in the Zodiac of the Turks, and set their Kingdom among the spheres of Heaven; that He called them “Turk,” and gave them Rule; making them kings of the Age, and placing in their hands the reins of temporal authority; appointing them over all mankind, and directing them to the Right; that He strengthened those who are affiliated to them, and those who endeavor on their behalf; so that they attain from them the utmost of their desire, and are delivered from the ignominy of the slavish rabble; [then I saw that] every man of reason must attach himself to them, or else expose himself to their falling arrows. And there is no better way to approach them than by speaking their own tongue, thereby bending their ear, and inclining their heart. And when one of their foes comes over to their side, they keep him secure from fear of them; then others may take refuge with him, and all fear of harm be gone.
I heard from one of the trustworthy informants among the Imams of Bukhara, and from another Imam of the people of Nishapur: both of them re-ported the following tradition, and both had a chain of transmission going back to the Apostle of God, may God bless him and grant him peace. When he was speaking about the signs of the Hour and the trials of the end of Time, and he mentioned the emergence of the Oghuz Turks, he said, “Learn the tongue of the Turks, for their reign will be long.” Now if this hadith is sound—and the burden of proof is on those two!—then learning it is a religious duty: and if it is not sound, still Wisdom demands it.
I have traveled throughout their cities and steppes, and have learned their dialects and their rhymes; those of the Turks, the Turkmen-Oghuz, the Chigil, the Yaghma, and the Q’irghiz. Also, I am one of the most elegant among them in language, and the most eloquent in speech; one of the best educated, the most deep-rooted in lineage, and the most penetrating in throwing the lance. Thus have I acquired perfectly the dialect of each one of their groups; and I have set it down in an encompassing book, in a well-ordered system.
Mahmud al-Kashghari – 11th Century Lexicographer – “Diwan Lughat al-Turk” (1072)
Text Translation Excerpted from “Islamic Central Asia – An Anthology of Historical Sources” – Levi, Sela (2010)
The agnostic also has difficulty in understanding that those who are capable of belief and assent to a faith may believe quite different and irreconcilable things at different levels of their personality…
In any case the believer is more often born than made; he calls himself a Christian or a Muslim because he was born into this or that religious environment. he thinks that he shares the beliefs common to the people around him; with a part of himself he believes, and with another part he disbelieves. But, by the same token, those born into a secular agnostic society, and mouthing the slogans imposed by their education and their conditioning, may none the less be closer to faith than they know; in this case the rust which covers their hearts has come from without rather than from within themselves. A few years before his death in 1934 the great Algerian Sheykh, Ahmed al-Alawi became friendly with a Frenchman, Dr Carret, who had been treating him for various minor ailments. One day Carret tried to explain his agnosticism to the Sheykh, adding, however, that what most surprised him was that people who did claim to be religious ‘should be able to go on attaching importance to this earthly life’. After a pause, the Sheykh said to him: “It is a pity that you will not let your Spirit rise above yourself. But whatever you may say and whatever you may imagine, you are nearer to God than you think.’ In this confused age in which we now find ourselves there may be many a believer who is a kafir under the skin, and many a kafir who is closer than he knows to God in whom he thinks he does not believe.
It is important to be aware of these paradoxes because the distrust of religion – or at least of ‘organized religion’ – which is so widespread in the Western world, derives less from intellectual doubts than from a critical judgment of the way in which religious people are seen to behave. The agnostic does not concern himself with the supernatural dimensions of religion, let alone ultimate truth. He sees only that part of the iceberg which is visible among surface, and he judges this to be misshapen. The whole sad story is summed up in the wise child’s prayer: ‘Lord, please make good people religious, and make religious people good.”
-Islam and the Destiny of Man – Eaton
Contrast the following with the fact that it wasn’t until 1977, with the Pennsylvania Protection from Abuse act, that broad sweeping changes in legislation altered the domestic abuse problem towards intervention in the United States.
Although several modern legal codes make reference to domestic violence, Islamic Law (Sharia) addresses it through the concept of darar (harm) that encompasses several types of abuse against a spouse. For example, darar can include the failure of a husband to provide obligatory support (nafaqa) for his wife, which includes food, shelter, and clothing … Darar also includes physical abuse against a spouse. The laws concerning darar maintain that if a woman is harmed in her marriage, she can have it annulled:
“The most important proof needed was the show that the husband had broken the marriage contract or that the marriage caused the woman harm) Sonbol 1996, 281. Physically assaulting a wife violates the marriage contract and is grounds for immediate divorce.
…
Ottoman law tends to treat cases of darar in accordance with the Sharia; this is reflected in a sixteenth-century fatwa from the Ottoman Seyhulislam (Sheykh of Islam) Ebu su’ud that reads: “Question: Zeyd hurts his wife Hind in many ways. If the qadi (judge) knows about it, is he able to separate Hind from Zeyd? Answer: He is able to prevent his hurting her by whatever means possible. (Imber 1997) [yk: note the Ottoman Shariat, interventionist policy reaffirmed in the 16th century]
Further evidence of Ottoman treatment of darar can be found in studied currently being undertaken using Sharia court records from the Ottoman period. For example Sharia court cases from Aleppo, Syria reflect the ability of women to seek retribution when subjected to abuse. The courts of Aleppo ruled against abusive husbands in several cases of domestic violence. In one court case from May 1687 Fatima bt Hajj Ali filed a lawsuit against her husband testifying that he was abusing her, he had hit her with a stick on her body and on her mouth causing her to bleed. She claimed that he was constantly abusive. In her defense she brought along five witnesses. The court reprimanded the abusive husband, ordering that he be given tazir (discretionary corporal punishment).
…
Both Sonbol and Largueche problematize the connection between obedience and darar in the modern period as the patriarchal state commingles with the Shariah. These pioneering studies question the notion that modernization is a springboard for progress, as several areas of the law drastically limit the legal options afforded women in earlier periods.
Although in the rubric of Western Law, murdering a wife in a crime of passion has been placed in the same legal category as domestic violence, this is not the case in Islamic Law. There is no mention in the juridical texts of condoned or permissible murder of a wife. However, some modern laws, such as Jordan’s Penal Code (1960) contain clauses for “excuse for murder” or offer reduced sentences for men who murder a wife or female relative suspected of sexual misconduct. Authors such as Amira Sonbol and Lama Abu Odeh have argued that there is a legal connection between “excuse for murder” and “crimes of passion” in the European tradition through the focus on circumstance and the criminal intent of the murderer. Modern legal reforms borrowed from French criminal codes freed the criminal of responsibility so long as the element of surprise was present (Sonbol 2003) In contrast, crimes of passion, prejudicially called “honor crime” in the context of the Islamic world, have mistakenly been associated with Sharia despite their stark connection with tribal law.
ref: Semerdjian, Elyse (2005). Encyclopedia of Women & Islamic Cultures: Family, law, and politics. pub: BRILL Academic Publishers
During the Ottoman period, calligraphy gained a very high standing in society. Several women calligraphers flourished. Amoung them were ‘Ibrat; Zahidah Salma Khanum; Sharifah Aishah Khanum; Silfinaz Khanum; Faridah Khanum, the Qastumonian; Khadijah Kuzaydah Khanum Celebi; and Nukkah Khanum.
Many of the Ottoman sultans were themselves calligraphers, as were their mothers. Durrah Khanum, the mother of Sultan Mahmud Khan, copied a Quran in the year 1172/1758. This Quran was held by the Mahmudiyah Library in Medina. It is said that it was carried away by the Ottoman Turks to Istanbul when they left the Hijaz. The mother of Sultan Abd al Majid Khan, who ascended to the throne in 1255, penned a copy of Dalail al-Khayrat, which was also among the holdings of the Mahdmuiyah Library in Medina.
Amoung the most splendid works of the Turkish women calligraphers is a Quran copied by al-Sharifah and hafizah Zulaykhah Khatimi al-Sadi, the daughter of al-Hajj Abd al Karim Zadah Bisar Yari, in 1276/1859…
The first two pages of this Quran are splendidly illuminated. Within “The Opening” (al-Fatihah) and the beginning of “The Cow” (al-Baqarah), several ayat are decorated with very colorful folial and floral designs on a gilded background. Though I have seen many gilded Qurans, I don’t believe I have seen anything as beautiful as these two pages. The other pages of this Quran have wide, gilded border surrounded by a fine blue line. …
It is believed that there exists a spiritual and mystical bond between women and letters of the alphabet. One writer described a woman calligrapher by her saying: ” Her ink was like the blackness of her hair, her paper was like the tanned skin of her face, her pen was like one of her delicate fingers, and her knife was like the penetrating sword of her sweet looks” The eyebrows of a beautiful woman have been compared to the Arabic letter nun, her eye to an ‘ayn, her temple to a waw, her mouth to a mim, and her braided hair to a shin. For a woman to be considered really beautiful, one of the qualifications was good penmanship. It was said that a lucky woman was one who combined the beauty of body and face with that of character and penmanship.
(ref: al-Munajjid, Salah al Din. The Book in the Islamic World, “Women’s Roles in the Art of Arabic Calligraphy” (1995). State University of New York Press, New York.)
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