Criticism of “Why I am not a Traditionalist” – Part 1
Definitions and Perennialism
In 2002 “Hajj Muhammad Legenhausen” wrote an article “Why I am not a Traditionalist.“ This article has resonated with some readers. Of course, this article and works like it (i.e. Against the Modern World, Sedwick) cannot compare in effectiveness to the continued adoration of vast communities to traditional approaches towards faith and living.
Still, it raises issues which merit a response to those who are quick to label traditional approaches as ‘perennial philosophy’ and cast traditional life and faith aside.
Legenhausen begins with an introduction and a section entitled “Traditionalism or Modernism?” In these sections he asserts his conclusion is not an endorsement of modernism. He believes that “both Traditionalism and modernism should be rejected”, since both simply accept claims by virtue of the fact that they are at odds with its opponent. In his view, a modernist is a modernist because he does the opposite of traditionalists and traditionalists are the same in reverse. As a substitute to these dueling polar approaches towards life, he offers what appears to be a very measured response: “Every claim and every practice must be subject to critical evaluation according to the criteria of religion and reason.”
The claim that Legenhausen is somehow the best discerner of religion and reason is a distraction from the real discussion. The reality is reason and religion are used by everyone to come to some level of truth. I have yet to meet a modernist who believes mass literacy should be pursued because it is merely the polar opposite of largely illiterate traditional societies. No, the fact is that numerous ‘reasonable’ motives are given for each and every action they take.
The introduction to this article, as well as the article itself, suggest numerous times that ‘Traditionalism’ is a modern invention. The article states, “Traditionalism is a modern European reaction against modernism” and “Traditionalism is a paradoxically modern reaction against modernism whose roots are to be found in 19th century Europe, especially France”. This is a flawed ad hominem tu quoque argument, which holds that since those who espouse traditional ideas are living in the modern age, the very nature of the beliefs they carry are a reaction to modernity. The argument falls flat on its face, even with its constant repetition aside.
Islamic Traditionalists are called such because they are carrying a living tradition, regardless of what modernity has brought to replace it. Was this tradition not in existence before Western modernity? Hence, the best and most clear traditional teachers of Islam are not “Rene Guenon” who turned from modernity, but rather those like Rene Guenon’s Sufi teacher and the lineage (silsila) that the Sufi path that Guenon followed until the day he died. Unlike Western ‘traditionalists’ who were espousing ideas of resurrecting traditional papal authority, Islamic Tradition never ‘died out’. So how can it be swept aside as a reactionary understanding?
The need to resort to such techniques simply underscores the major flaw when trying to fit Islamic perspectives into a neat Western box in order to criticize it. Yes, it is clear that from a Western European perspective, like the one Legenhausen is speaking from, embracing a Sufi tarikat (in the same vein as so-called ‘perennialists’ such as Lings, Guenon, and Burckhardt) would have been a rejection of a European modernity, which they were raised in, for an Islamic Traditionalism. However, to consider that Islamic Traditionalism existed as ‘reactions to modernity’ on the part of the billions of Muslims who over history have been fortunate enough to be born into such a path is clearly a representation of a consistent Western hegemony in academic discourse.
According to the article’s definition, modernity is a ‘cultural condition’. If modernity is a cultural condition, then it must be absolutely clear that the Islamic world, for a large part, has not been completely consumed in modern culture. If one is unaware that traditional Islamic societies are still alive, quite oblivious to the high-minded academic discourse going on in the West, one needs only to visit the rural areas of most Muslim countries. Even within the major cities traditional paths to faith and living have hardly been completely abandoned. There is a reason why ‘under-developed’ and ‘third-world’ are the adjectives that describe much of the living situations of Muslims.
The Euro-centric view continues in the definition of tradition, which Legenhausen describes as “confusing” to define. The article states,
“To call a non-Western society traditional is therefore to claim that it is similar in important ways to Europe before the Reformation. In contrast to modernism, traditionalism could be used to designate any movement of resistance to modernization, or the view that pre-modern societies are superior to modernized societies.”
This understanding can be clearly seen as a intellectual cop-out, as its clear that there must be key factors to traditional society that exist and help define them in their own right. While traditionalism is again defined as a resistance to modernization, wouldn’t it be better to investigate the living principles that traditionalists hold that are being infringed upon by modernization and understand the dispute regarding these principles?
When describing Islamic Traditionalism Legenhausen states it is sourced from “Rene Guenon and Ananda Coomaraswamy”. Rene Guenon led a life of many philosophies and finally took initiation in the Shadhili Sufi Tarikat and died as a Sufi Muslim while Ananda Coomaraswamy was a Hindu. If we are defining “Islamic Traditionalist” as the philosophies of early Guenon and Coomaraswamy, then its clear that no traditionalist Muslim can really be considered an “Islamic Traditionalist”.
So we end up with two ‘Traditionalists’, one group represented in those sufi Sheykhs whom most of these European converts flocked to as students and then the 20th century European convert students themselves. The first group has been a connected chain of teachers and students holding Islamic traditional principles high for over 1400 years, and the second group has largely passed on, leaving behind a legacy of works which documented their thinking on their individual steps towards accepting Islam. The result of these works enchanted much of the Orientalist West with a new perspective. Which one is Legenhausen arguing against?
It depends.
The need for Legenhausen to initially box ‘Islamic Traditionalism’ to a convert European philosopher and a Hindu is necessary in order to introduce Legenhausen’s rebuttal to broad pluralistic viewpoints. It should also be considered that Legenhausen wrote a rather long published work attacking religious pluralism, so this article provides another outlet for his thesis. These broad pluralistic viewpoints allowed Guenon, Lings and others to learn about Islam to the point that they adopted it as their final faith in a long journey of soul seeking. However, at the end of their journeys, how pluralist were these core 20th century (non-Hindu) ‘Islamic Perennialists’ (Guenon, Lings, Burckhardt) really? How far was this pluralism from the pluralism which is inherent in the Quranic views of other faiths?
Guenon, while labeled a ‘Perennialist’, ended his life saying ‘Allah!’ and wrote a scathing condemnation of theosophy and other such philosophies. No ‘Islamic Traditionalist’, even if you consider Guenon among them, are such excessive religious pluralists as their opponents make them out to be. They found philosophies and aspects of different faiths that they vastly disagreed with. And therefore what we have for most of the article is another flawed argument structure: the strawman.
Even though Legenhausen agrees that Guenon rejected Theosophical principles, he later equates Guenon’s Perennial viewpoint to the Theosophical understandings of Blavatsky. “Even if Guénon decisively rejected the Theosophical Society, the key ideas of the Traditionalists regarding the unity of religions… are clearly stated by Madame Blavatsky in the introduction to The Secret Doctrine”.
What’s wrong with the sort of pluralism advocated by Blavatsky and the Traditionalists is that it depends on a rather questionable reading of the texts of the world’s religions. It requires that one hold that certain similarities in doctrine, especially esoteric doctrine, constitute the core of the religions, and that differences be dismissed as deviations. Blavatsky supported this interpretation with the dubious claim that she had discovered the original secret teachings. The Traditionalists, on the other hand, claim that through intellectual intuition they are able to discern the common essence. The method used is implausible. It is assumed at the outset that the religions have a common esoteric essence, and the texts are interpreted so as to accord with this principle. This is question begging.
However, isn’t this the very core of the Islamic teaching about other faiths? If a ‘Perennialist’ is someone who believes that prophets were sent to all nations and that most faiths have deviated one extent to another from a core of Islam that those prophets brought, then I believe all Muslims are ‘Perennialists’. Sheykh al Akbar Ibn Arabi (R) was asked about how to treat Christians by the Sultan, and his reply:
“The religious laws (shara’i') are all lights, and the law of Muhammad (Allah bless him and give him peace) among these lights is as the sun’s light among the light of the stars: if the sun comes out, the lights of the stars are no longer seen and their lights are absorbed into the light of the sun: the disappearance of their lights resembles what, of the religious laws, has been abrogated (nusikha) by his law (Allah bless him and give him peace) despite their existence, just as the lights of the stars still exist. This is why we are required by our universal law to believe in all prophetic messengers (rusul) and to believe that all their laws are truth, and did not turn into falsehood by being abrogated: that is the imagination of the ignorant. So all paths return to look to the Prophet’s path (Allah bless him and give him peace): if the prophetic messengers had been alive in his time, they would have followed him just as their religious laws have followed his law.
This view of measured ‘pluralism’ was not dependent on Guenon or Coomaraswamy, this was an integral part of Islamic teaching from the very beginning! Legenhausen then criticizes Martin Lings comments about the Hindu caste system, associating him with the pluralism of new-age philosophies:
“Traditionalists such as Martin Lings continue to defend the Hindu caste system as being a part of authentic tradition, rather than condemning it on the basis of Islamic teachings.”
This selective reading of Martin Lings neglects to point out that even his understanding of the Hindu faith was predicated on the necessity of the elimination of the caste system, to achieve a “Golden Age”. Specifically Martin Lings says, “The Golden Age is by definition an age when men are ‘above caste’” (Ancient Beliefs and Modern Superstitions). Hence while it is debateable whether Martin Lings actively sought out to condemn this or that aspect of other faiths (which is really a modernist way to behave), it is clear that he sought to demonstrate that there was a recognition of the superiority of Islamic principles within the Hindu tradition. Avid polemicist Ahmad Deedat did just this to even greater extents, yet one finds few looking to call him a deviated ‘perennialist’.
[continued]
As an addendum I wanted to enter further into the topic of education.
It is said that my earlier words:
ignores the stewardship of humanity (and Muslims) on the Earth.
I say, stewardship in the hands of people who cannot see a world with different roles and responsibilities is one of confusion and lack of foresight and consequences.
It is often said that the ummah is in need of education, but the immediate response from my point of view has to be “what type of education?” Education is a loaded word, its been the holy grail for many for some time now, so let us qualify it.
Some possibilities of what type of education we could be discussing, keep in mind we are speaking now not of knowledge, but of a broad term of ‘education’ that requires literacy:
1) Secular (Science, Mathematics, etc)
2) Religious – Legal
3) Religious – Doctrine
The criticism of traditionalism was first focused on attacking my qualifications to speak on the issue. Secondly, the criticism was speaking about the need to obtain ubiquitous literacy in the Muslim world and apply at least 1, 2, and 3 into all Muslims life. This is what I will examine.
So let us say we gave you the power to impact some change right now, and immediately educate people. What would you educate them in first, second, last? What and who would you exclude and what and who would you include?
I would remind the reader about the realm of the discussion here. This is on the global scale, for the entire ummah.
Really, now, tell me what is the universal goal of mass literacy and education in its larger context? The truth is, as I said previously, the West has promoted this concept because it has been able to shift those working in jobs which need less education from the public eye. When they do enter the public eye, i.e. Katrina, they shake their head and say “They are just not making enough money because they are not educated!”.
Does everybody, and I mean globally, does every single person on the earth need a secular education right now? I personally don’t think so. Who will be the school janitor when everyone has written a thesis on the contemporary string theory of physics? Who will milk the sheep when everyone can be a professor of fine arts? Who will make the shoes when everyone can build computers? Who will be the waiter when everyone has their MBA to run the restaurant?
It might be said, I am discussing high levels of education and when we are speaking about basic education. Alhamdulillah, ‘basics’ are good, but again then, what are the basics to you and to me? What is the benefit of everyone having that basic secular education if it is not to lead us onward to higher and higher levels within the academic and professional system? People now say, casually that all that math they learned in class didn’t really help them at their professions, yet we don’t really consider the profoundness of that when we are force feeding that same education on families of children who don’t have the luxury of such use of time.
In the traditional days the Awliya would look at a community and help decide who was best suited to be a high scholar and who was best suited to be a porter.
It was wisdom, interpersonal relationships, knowing what people wanted for themselves and for others, knowing levels of ambition, and also necessity which brought whole communities together that made secular education *a useful tool* for the right people.
Today, without their guidance, the world has turned into a rat race of getting on the top of an educational ladder, those who fall by the wayside are only looked upon as having failed and essentially tossed aside for the wolves. In today’s day those ‘failures’ are punished by being priced out of food, not earning enough to cover the costs of an unseen education tax on the growing of their scientifically engineered bread. But in the past those people were content, generally those people lived and sought simple lives, with satisfaction.
In an Islamic context, you might actually know the name of the janitor who cleans your office, and he might have actually been respected.
The promise of modernity has all but erased the desire for a simple life from our lives. The Prophet (Sallalahu’alaiheewassalam) taught us contentment with what we have, contentment with destiny, contentment with our Lord, and what was taught was simplicity in practice, simplicity in lifestyle. This is what the modern ‘scholar’ has forgotten and rejected.
If they have understood the above about secular education they have become confused and applied the same rat race to the religion itself, and that is not only dangerous for the world but to the soul.
Let us continue with the different types of education and their roles.
Does everyone need #2, a legal education in Shariat? Let us realize the number of people who don’t even believe even in its application today personally. Will a mandatory class in understanding of Mukhtasar al-Quduri help save the souls of the world? Will studying the fiqh exposed through Sahih Bukhari in high school lead to a situation where more and more people feel they have the authority to argue on matters of legal permissibility? Most likely. That is what we are seeing today, and it is only creating more confusion.
Nearly all of the world doesn’t practice the Shariat in terms of public policies, and in the traditional understanding it took years before we considered someone satisfactorily studied in the aspects of Shariat in order to utter one word about it. Is a light ‘dose’ of information what we need? I think it would be better to focus and create respect for the scholarship which did exist, to keep alive the practical aspects of learning how to pray, how to fast, which are easily understood by consulting ones knowledgeable local imam. Furthermore, the basic respect for the madhabs and a very high level understanding of the methodologies could be summarized and conveyed in a simple 15 minute talk.
Does absolutely everyone need #3, doctrine? I think few people could read the works on aqeeda and say that every man, woman, son and daughter, needs to understand the principals and differences within the Ashari, Maturidi and Athari aqeedas. Like Shariat, there is questionable worldly and spiritual benefit to knowing exactly the necessary consequences on physics from understanding that Allah is the source of all causality. At the same time, understanding the basic creedal aspects of our religion is something very simple, again, understood in its necessity in a 15 minute talk.
Now let us begin to discuss the power of knowledge and ‘education’ that does not need mass literacy.
4) Religious – Spiritual (Tassawuf)
5) Religious – General, Basics, Dawah
6) Practical ‘On the Job’/Experienced-based Knowledge
Now we can begin to discuss what the Prophet (Sallalahu’alaiheewassalam) spoke about when he commended knowledge and its seeking.
Regarding spiritual knowledge: It is said our Grandshaykh Abdullah Daghestani was Ummi, he could not read nor write outside of the Quran. Yet, when he spoke he was able to speak of spiritual realities which ended moving thousands and thousands of people. Is everyone in need of such spiritual lessons? Yes, because this is what the Prophet (Salallahu’alaiheewassalam) poured into the hearts of people. Shariat was learned largely through his practice and example, and a few orders. But spiritual teachings and awareness of God was the content of our beloved Prophet’s (Sallalahu’alaiheewwassalams) words.
So everyone is in need of it, but yet we don’t see an absolute need of ‘literacy’ to learn it nor to speak about it.
The general aspects of Islam, #5, need to be retaught to many, many, many people who call themselves Muslims indeed. But again, is the reliance on texts or on the people to spread that knowledge?
The Muslim community may be in need of a light dose of Shariat, Aqeedah, etc. I say, those that want it can get a ‘light dose’ through numerous means. There never was a prerequisite of ‘literacy’ when it comes to the basics of the deen. When Saad bin Abi Waqqas (R) went to China, did he bring with him books or knowledge within his heart?
I think the time for dismissing and insulting the Muslims of villages as irrelevant and ignorant fools is long gone. Frankly, I think those are the places where one can still practice Islam and escape from this world with a clean heart. It is in Russia, where texts were eliminated, where people carried Islam within their hearts, through the knowledge of the heart. This was a time when even proclamation of your faith would land you in jail. Turkey, which experienced an elimination the actual Arabic script, escaped with a faith that has lead Islamists into democratic government. In Bosnia, few could name you six books of Hadith, but their faith carried most of them through a genocide.
I think emphasizing knowledge has to now to be prefaced with what type of knowledge exists, I think demeaning those who happen to be born in different conditions as being unable to achieve high levels with Allah is the real Bidaa.
Yes, we need education in this society to survive. The world demands it, as it is not being run by people with faith. But while we participate in this system, we can also keep alive in our hearts the reality and the goal of a simple life. Looking to spread the confusion within the very sciences of Islam is not the answer.
There is more to say, the Ottoman’s decision regarding the printing press, Imam Ghazali’s (R) encounter with those who were ready to eliminate all his books, etc. But I will leave it at this for now.
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 Sheykh 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.
One overarching aspect of the article which criticizes traditionalist thought is that it focuses on the lack of actual effort on the part of people who espouse traditional beliefs in integration with the modern world.
The point is fundamentally flawed, as is most of the article, as it focuses on generalities and intellectual ego-stroking all the while not providing one specific example of a situation where traditionalist effort has failed. Is writing an article about Nietzsche and Islam going to bring anyone to Islam?
For real?
The idea that traditionalism has, in and of itself, slowed Muslims is a ridiculous one. Especially when it is clear that Muslims have seen no worse time than the past 100 years in our entire history. The one common theme with this time period is the exhaustive push for reform and attempt to change the opinions of the past, in order to condemn most of the people who carried Islam to us as deviants.
Focusing on this type of reform has done nothing to actually establish Islamic lifestyles for people, nor in establishing Islamic justice, as really the people who want to live Islamic lifestyles will find a way to do so personally. The real issue is the large majority of the worlds population who has no desire to live in an Islamic way, in fact, they fear it.
One commentator wrote:
Rather, it is being said – use the methodology of the traditional but do not look to the fataawa of the past to give you your answers. Rather, look to the method by which those fataawa came and apply them now to bring new fataawa for the new issues.
I think without having a sound understanding of the methodologies, speaking in this way is getting a bit ahead of ourselves. For a great majority of the issues at hand for a Muslim, the traditional methodology yields the same result as the age old fatwa which we are trying to forget. Those fatwas already list numerous possibilities including the understanding on where one can be flexible and where special cases are involved.
Let us remember the points in contention are very basic things which apply to Muslims living in various secular nation states.
What *needs* to change regarding fulfilling the few personal religious obligations (salat, zakat, sawm, etc) that we maintain?
A majority of the issues of the madhabs revolve around just those basic elements. Do we need to revisit the question over how much filth causes an unmoving body of water to be considered filth unworthy of Wudu? No, that is already answered within Mukhtasar al-Quduri, the Sheykh’s all know about it, so lets follow it and get on with actual progress.
Really. Please lets get on with it..
Is the need for reexamining whether Imam Bukhari (R) was wrong in his book of Adaab about a hadith about kissing hands and feet as a greeting and sign of respect going to change the Islamic world?
I don’t think so.
Really, I must say that the argument about progress is actually totally backwards.
When we are questioning where the “community development” is from traditionalists and that the next question is the necessity of developing a “Fiqh Council”, we have a real disconnection with reality. If you believe the two are related someone needs to splash water on your face.
We have then shown that we still hold to the vain hope that some singular, and ultimate answer can be delivered and hence eliminate the plurality which is inherent in the traditional way of understanding Islam. We believe that singularity is the solution for all Muslim kind, that it will somehow give Muslims in the West and East shelter, food, good jobs, a life. Frankly I find the idea immature. The truth is that the disconnect and focus on finding some type of utopian fiqh manual for the West is really what has consumed Muslims for far too long.
The reality is Muslims need to work on real community development, and this is easily and already being implemented in the traditional style of living. The goal of such a life being to die with Shahadat. Thats it. When that becomes our goal, really, that is when we begin to understand everything in its proper perspective.
That is when you realize, like an airplane stewardess, that you need to put the mask on yourself, and then help others.
That is when you realize how and in what way helping others is helping yourself.
Today we have the extremes of people who have forgotten all aspects of the sunnah, pretend that their politics and activism is their golden ticket. Also, what I have seen, is that these are the ones promoting disunity at every opportunity, as if a Sufi Sheykh was allowed to give a short talk, their whole campus might become instant dancing apostates.
Then we have those who have totally immersed themselves in fiqhi matters, all in some never-ending quest for the universal fiqh book or council. These are the ones who have found huge faults with the traditional tariqats, are quick to question the conclusions of the madhabs, and spend their days trying to find reasons also on creating disunity. They live in a pseudo reality that going overseas will somehow draw them closer to Allah, when really it only draws them closer to books.
The traditionalist is, on the other hand, bringing balance indeed to these matters. By reviving a traditional lifestyle *wherever they may be* they have opened the door for helping real people. The traditionalist is then naturally, with blessing, mixing the old and the new. As far as matters of ‘life challenges’, in the days of old the people consulted with their village Sheykh on such matters. They got their answer, and they moved forward.
Actually improving things and community development comes from really building a community, my dear brothers and sisters. Handling issues with mercy, respect and knowledge – real ilm not simply hukm.
It is actual people who are living Islam within the traditional understanding who are the ones bringing Islam to the modern world. Those who have visited people of other faiths, with a strong presence of religion, teaching Islam and giving Dawah.
I hate boasting, and I don’t want anyone to consider this boasting but since I can give only the example of our Tariqat, that is what I am forced to do.
So while it may be absurdly easy to look at a picture of a farm and criticize us as ‘retreating into traditionalism and farms’, without knowing an inkling about the work being done, I would say criticizers need to keep their mouths firmly closed.
The truth is every Friday, carloads of people are driving 3 hours each way to do dawah in the middle of the New York City, the center of the worlds financial system. Staying there overnight calling people to Islam from all corners of the streets. I cannot count the number of Shahadat that I have seen taken by the people who happen across our Sheykh. If they return to us or not is not even our concern, but inshaAllah we hope and pray that it brings them some safety.
It is our Sufi tariqat which is visiting the elderly, getting them excited about saying LaillahaillAllahMuhummadurRasulullah. It is our Sufi tariqat reciting Quran with confidence and inspiring respect within Mormon Churches. It is a Sufi Tariqat going to Washington getting questioned by the FBI because of spreading the message of Islam. It is our Sheykh who is giving Dawah by writing articles mentioning Allah’s name in a local newspaper of a completely Christian community.
It is our traditional Sheykh who has given shelter to dozens of homeless and hopeless, it is a Sufi Sheykh who dragged and cleaned thugs off the streets of NY and made them into saints performing all 5 daily prayers with all Sunnat and supplementary prayers. It is our traditional Sheykh who has advised numerous people on escaping real life situations of credit issues, issues with the law, and family losses.
It is our tariqat which is bringing real halaal food, cut by believing Muslim hands, not machines, to everyones dinner tables. It is our tariqat which is reviving ways of living with cleanliness of spirit and in touch with *reality* of Islam which is calling people to live a simple life, remembering Allah and fulfilling our obligations to each other.
It is our traditional Sheykh who is living Islam not in some confused virtual world or even some Western-Envious Islamic academic subculture, where the contest has changed from whose *whatever* is bigger, to “what intellectual work have you done for the ummah today?” or “How many good speeches have you given which stroke everyones intellectual ego?”
So brothers and sisters, if you want to play these games with Sufi Tariqas, who probably have had very few weak people like me to represent them on this place we the internet, then please continue. Realize I’m a very pleasant person, but I’m also learning to be a bit blunt when needed. And this is one of those cases.
So as far as the response to “Unto date the traditionalist has not responded to modernity nor to postmodernity.”
I think we have responded, what exactly have you done?
And while we may have “failed to respond to the Jurgen Habermas, to Nietzche and Descartes and Foucault and to Zizek and others from the perspective of Islam so that his mureeds have an orientation to the modern world”, we probably have done a lot more work which is actually beneficial to real people than anyone who wastes their time with the above mission.
Wake up. Live in Reality and not Theory. Live Islam. Stop criticizing those that are living it too, it is only for your own benefit.
Excerpted From Sheykh Abdul Hakim Murad’s work:
Islamic Spirituality
the forgotten revolution
Let me point to the answer with an example drawn from my own experience.
I used to know, quite well, a leader of the radical ‘Islamic’ group, the Jama’at Islamiya, at the Egyptian university of Assiut. His name was Hamdi. He grew a luxuriant beard, was constantly scrubbing his teeth with his miswak, and spent his time preaching hatred of the Coptic Christians, a number of whom were actually attacked and beaten up as a result of his khutbas. He had hundreds of followers; in fact, Assiut today remains a citadel of hardline, Wahhabi-style activism.
The moral of the story is that some five years after this acquaintance, providence again brought me face to face with Shaikh Hamdi. This time, chancing to see him on a Cairo street, I almost failed to recognise him. The beard was gone. He was in trousers and a sweater. More astonishing still was that he was walking with a young Western girl who turned out to be an Australian, whom, as he sheepishly explained to me, he was intending to marry. I talked to him, and it became clear that he was no longer even a minimally observant Muslim, no longer prayed, and that his ambition in life was to leave Egypt, live in Australia, and make money. What was extraordinary was that his experiences in Islamic activism had made no impression on him – he was once again the same distracted, ordinary Egyptian youth he had been before his conversion to ‘radical Islam’.
This phenomenon, which we might label ‘salafi burnout’, is a recognised feature of many modern Muslim cultures. An initial enthusiasm, gained usually in one’s early twenties, loses steam some seven to ten years later. Prison and torture – the frequent lot of the Islamic radical – may serve to prolong commitment, but ultimately, a majority of these neo-Muslims relapse, seemingly no better or worse for their experience in the cult-like universe of the salafi mindset.
This ephemerality of extremist activism should be as suspicious as its content. Authentic Muslim faith is simply not supposed to be this fragile; as the Qur’an says, its root is meant to be ‘set firm’. One has to conclude that of the two trees depicted in the Quranic image, salafi extremism resembles the second rather than the first. After all, the Sahaba were not known for a transient commitment: their devotion and piety remained incomparably pure until they died.
What attracts young Muslims to this type of ephemeral but ferocious activism? One does not have to subscribe to determinist social theories to realise the importance of the almost universal condition of insecurity which Muslim societies are now experiencing. The Islamic world is passing through a most devastating period of transition. A history of economic and scientific change which in Europe took five hundred years, is, in the Muslim world, being squeezed into a couple of generations. For instance, only thirty-five years ago the capital of Saudi Arabia was a cluster of mud huts, as it had been for thousands of years. Today’s Riyadh is a hi-tech megacity of glass towers, Coke machines, and gliding Cadillacs. This is an extreme case, but to some extent the dislocations of modernity are common to every Muslim society, excepting, perhaps, a handful of the most remote tribal peoples.
Such a transition period, with its centrifugal forces which allow nothing to remain constant, makes human beings very insecure. They look around for something to hold onto, that will give them an identity. In our case, that something is usually Islam. And because they are being propelled into it by this psychic sense of insecurity, rather than by the more normal processes of conversion and faith, they lack some of the natural religious virtues, which are acquired by contact with a continuous tradition, and can never be learnt from a book.
the truth on 
m.a.kidwai,CME/IND.RLY.(retd.) on 
