THUS DID I LEARN AT THE MOSQUE:
AN ATTEMPT TO COMPREHEND AND AUDIBLY PONDER!
INTRODUCTION:
Eleven years ago, some friends and I were driving down Tahliya Street in Riyadh, the Saudi capital, when our driver noticed that immediately behind us was a European-looking man whom he took to be a non-Muslim. Our friend, who was driving, started being obnoxious to him, even forcing him to the shoulder of the road in a frightening way that almost caused an accident. After that, we stopped at a stoplight. When the light changed, our friend tarried for a while and, when it almost went out, he drove off leaving the poor man behind us yelling and cussing. Behaving thus, our driver meant only to follow what he had learned from the books which deal with how to treat non-Muslims and which remind a Muslim that, upon meeting an “unbeliever,” a Muslim has to force him to take the narrowest path. True, such harassment in the age of and through the medium of the automobile is much more dangerous, but the comparison, anyhow, stays the same.
Friedman’s Letter
In a letter by the famous American writer, Thomas Friedman, which he imagined as having been sent by U.S. President George Bush to the Minister of Islamic Affairs in Saudi Arabia criticizing the religious curricula of education, Friedman lauded statements made by a couple of the symbols of the religious establishment in Saudi Arabia: the Minister of Islamic Affairs, Shaikh Salih Al Shalih, and a member of the Senior Council of Scholars and Imam of the Grand Mosque in Mecca, Shaikh Muhammed al-Sabeel.
The Saudi newspaper Al-Riyadh had published before then a lengthy interview with the Minister of Islamic Affairs. The interview included sublime ideas and moderate views, which surprised many of those interested in Islamic issues. For the first time, a Saudi theologian with such considerable weight as Shaikh Salih Al Shaikh, who is also regarded as one of the most influential young scholars of Shari`a (Islamic Law), makes statements characterized by honesty, transparency and ideological maturity--things we wish will positively reflect on the plans and activities of the said Ministry and will inform the required credentials of the members of the Islamic Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice and will lead to the desired effect. So that the Ministry may not bear a burden more than needed, a radical internal reform is required, but such reform and reorganization require an ample amount of time.
Thomas Friedman’s letter elicited the expected reactions. The Saudi newspaper, Al-Watan, published an imaginary letter by the Minister of Islamic Affairs, Shaikh Salih Al Shaikh, to the American President. As usual, a number of writers kept writing one article after another responding to Friedman’s letter and employing the usual rhetoric that came to characterize any defense of the Saudi religious curricula against accusations. Also, interviews were conducted and forums were held to confront the Western media campaign against the educational curricula in Saudi Arabia.
It is natural that most of such responses were fraught with zeal dished out in a spirit of defiance. Some went so far in their responses as to suggest that if any amendment or alteration were done to the religious curricula, they would take it upon themselves to personally tutor their children the unaltered curricula. Surely, everyone applauded these responses.
Six years ago, following the Al-Olya [Riyadh] explosions, a number of experts in education called for a re-examination of the Saudi religious curricula in a number of articles published in Saudi newspapers. The time was opportune for making such a review. However, these calls were not taken seriously by decision-makers. Following the September 11 atrocities, all of this evaporated, vanishing under the tumult. Some of those who in the past called for reform now adopted a defensive stance, claiming the religious curricula had no role to play; the issue, after all, is one of national dignity and sovereignty!
Everyone was confused and bewildered! They wanted to do something, yet they did not know what to do! Such confusion manifested itself in the anticipated role played by theologians and Shari`a specialists, including personalities who participated in the preparation of the religious curricula or who graduated droves of Shari`a specialists from universities and mosques considered the true incubators for the preparation and graduation of scholars and for producing model religious Muslims. Many did not understand what they were expected to do, although we came to hear during interviews in the different news media important issues such as Islam’s tolerance of those who adhere to other creeds and how to treat and understand others. During these interviews, too, we heard carefully-worded announcements characterized by their sweeping generalization. But when one comes to details, those announcements revealed nothing new.
Some people regarded Friedman’s letter (no matter what his intentions are, although they are hardly ambiguous) as having missed the mark when it was directed to the Minister of Islamic Affairs instead of to the Minister of Education. However, we all know that many religious lessons, lectures, courses, debates, etc. are held at mosques, religious assemblies and camps, while hundreds of preachers and thousands of imams are subject to the supervision of the Ministry of Islamic Affairs. Since the clerics, imams and religious speakers have more say and are more visible in the news media, and since they themselves are the ones who directly participated, at least during the past twenty years, in the making of the model religious individual, they are the ones who understood that they were to manage the affairs after the late events. Therefore, they monopolized the news media. Given all of this, I believe that they are part of the problem, and that a message ought to be directed to them. Therefore, Friedman’s letter was directed to the right person.
Loyalty and Dissociation (Walla’a and Barr’a)
Among the important lessons we learned in religious texts as well as in textbooks at our mosques, is the concept of “loyalty and dissociation” or “loving for the sake of Allah and hating for His sake” and “disbelieving in tyranny and believing in Allah.” We learned that we should not smile in the face of an “unbeliever,” nor should we greet him nor like him. We learned that the forefathers stated that sharpening a pencil for a non-Muslim or bringing him an inkwell is regarded as forbidden loyalty, while eating and drinking with him are prohibited.
Several years ago, a religious edict by a major scholar and member of the Council of Edicts in Saudi Arabia was issued in which he asserted that anyone who follows a sect that represents a substantial percentage of the citizens of our country [Shia] and who, first and foremost, are our brethren in faith, no matter what percentage of disagreement there is between us, is an apostate. We used to find the said edict posted on the doors and walls of mosques. After the commendable initiative undertaken by the Saudi government to realize the concept of national unity by widely opening the doors before its citizens, regardless of their various sectarian affiliations so that they could spread in various educational regions in Saudi Arabia instead of confining them to a particular region, and due to putting an end to the isolation which they lived, following in the footsteps of their Sunni brethren, this was taken quite negatively by some clerics and shaikhs, so they wrote studies and reports warning against the result of such a trend. At an assembly where seekers of knowledge were crowded, one of the latter issued an edict that it is permissible to write false reports against “those from among the Muslims who differ from us” if the outcome will be getting rid of them and expelling them “so that we may protect our sons against being taught and educated by those of whose religion we do not approve.”
A few years ago, in a West Riyadh mosque, I heard a shaikh supplicating thus: “O Lord! Grant us the upper hand over the Shia’s so that we may wade in their blood up to the knees...” as the attendants at the mosque kept repeating “Amen!”
On March 3, 2002, someone called the TV show “Religion and Life,” aired on The Middle East Broadcasting Corporation (MBC), saying that he heard, as he was circling the Holy Kaba’a in Mecca, an Islamic scholar say—in a religious seminar he usually holds at the Grand Mosque—that the Abazis (Official sect of Oman) are members of a “deviant sect” that causes others to stray, and that they are apostates because they say that the Koran was created. “Why are they calling us apostates?” the caller asked. The program’s guest answered by saying: “Between us and you is the Book of Allah and the Sunnah of His Messenger,” yet Ibn Taymiyyah did not call the Kharijites (Abazis) apostates although they are the “dogs of hell.”
Almost a year ago, a caller called in the TV show “Religion and Life,” aired on Channel One of the Saudi television, asking about some fatwa (ruling) issued by Shaikh Yousuf al-Qardawi without mentioning Al-Qardawi by name. One of the guests on the show, a well-known judge, burst in anger and called upon al-Qardawi to repent. Anyone with the least amount of knowledge of the bases and branches of the Shar’ia knows that the fatwa (ruling) made by Qardawi realtes to Ijtihad (Individual Reasoning) which admits of being wrong at times, but is not a sin or a misguidance requiring a person making it to repent.
Ijtihad
When the ijtihad of a dissenting scholar is viewed by others as a “sin” or a “transgression,” then we should not be surprised to know that the Permanent Council of Fatwas issued a verdict calling upon Shaikh Dibyan al-Dibyan--a member of the Department of Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice at the Ministry of Islamic Affairs, to repent and to retract his fatwa in which he simply repeated what most scholars from among the Hanbali and other sects have advocated, that is, it was permissible to trim whatever exceeds a handful of the beard!
If there is an issue in Fiqh (Jurisprudence) regarding which the scholars of the same sect have disputed among themselves, one wherein a dissenter is called upon to repent, I do not know how the situation and the level of dialogue about the “scholarly” ideological differences listed under the title of “doctrine” will be, and how one who dissents from them in his belief and religion will be treated!
Why should the others be told differently from what is said to the house pigeons?! One imam informed me that he once attended a meeting some time ago with one of the men of authority. The latter kept saying that the country cannot be run except when all people follow one and the same viewpoint of Islamic jurisprudence (fiqh), and that different viewpoints produce nothing but dissension and evil. He cited the example of how one scholar voided the edict of another and someone seeking a religious verdict said to him, “Shaikh so-and-so issued an edict in this regard,” so he said to him, “Let him then be of benefit to you then!!” The one who narrated the incident to me said, “Two weeks later, I was surprised at an interview conducted with that man of authority which a newspaper published. It contained views which contradict what we know he holds, and what he had told us during the “closed meeting.” Then I wrote an article praising the said interview and lauding the ideas of His Eminence which were characterized by openness and moderation. But I changed my mind about publishing it when I came to know, through one of the advisers of that man of authority, that he did not recommend that I should write about that interview because the man was forced by circumstances as well as by interested parties to make such statements; otherwise, he never would have swerved from his covenant!
Danger reaches its limit when it comes to judging someone’s religion and to calling him, on air, an “apostate” without a prior background investigation of the same issue, its intricacies and circumstances and the extent of quoting, the soundness of comprehension, and the taking into consideration of what prohibits and restricts calling one an “apostate.” One of the professors of jurisprudence at the Islamic University of Imam Muhammed ibn Saud in Riyadh on the 17th of Shabban, 1422 A.H. was asked on TV show “Ask Those Who Know,” aired on MBC-FM, about a novelist who, through one of the characters in his novel, made a statement which the inquirer thought the novelist did not let that persona articulate except because he himself believes in it, being convinced of it, something which requires a true stance to be undertaken by the Council of Senior Scholars, not by the court system, in order to apply the judgment of the Shari`a to him and to prove that he reneged from Islam altogether. The professor of Shari`a said, on the air, that what was attributed to the novelist was a statement which he articulated at a special get-together of some of his friends (while the inquirer asked about the novel), pledging to pursue the matter further and not to ignore it, and that the scholars would not remain silent but would do their duty.
I learned at the mosque that among our righteous predecessors were some who regarded those who followed their own inclinations, i.e. the Shia, the Mu`tazilites, the Jahmis, the Abazis, the Ash`Aris and other Islamic parties as being more dangerous to Islam than the Jews and the Christians, and that while it may be permissible to befriend a Jew or sit with him, there should be no friendship with a Muslim who believed differently, nor should one who brings about an innovation be accepted in a marriage proposal. They taught us that anyone who befriends or respects someone who brings about an innovation in the creed helps demolish Islam...
We learned from the books of the creed, such as the one titled “Al-Sunnah” by `Abdullah ibn Ahmed, that senior predecessors went as far as calling Imam Abu Haneefah a disbeliever, and that he twice was asked to abandon apostasy. We learned from the books of the creed, also, that the corrupt ones from among the Sunnis, those who narrate hadith from among the Hanbalis specifically, exclusive of the Ash`aris and others, their thieves and highway robbers..., are much better than the righteous ones, the worshippers, the God-fearing ones from among other Islamic sects. And we learned that if the Sunnis did no good deeds, their beliefs alone raised their status. Why do not we discuss these statements and ideologies?
Nowadays we have a good number of those who work hard to recall the most backward ideologies in the Islamic theological legacy, using them as a protective shield for a targeted identity, shielding themselves with agents of fueling and mobilization.
Many ideologies have formed a trend in the literature of the Islamic groups nowadays which did not come from a vacuum. Rather, they were lingering in the pockets and hideouts of our education as mines that could explode, appearing sometimes and disappearing some other longer periods of time, whenever the conditions are conducive for them to come out and be recalled. They are accessible. It is impossible to get rid of them except by getting rid of the causes of their resurgence, getting rid of the causes of their existence, for they are lying in ambush like a virus.
Urgent need is there to comprehend with awareness the Shari`a and the religious texts and their objectives together with the major developments and the winds of change which storm nations and cultures. In coming in contact with civilization, faults become unveiled, and a heap of statements treated as absolutely holy crumble down into negligible bits and pieces. On the surface there appear crises springing out of practices that find for themselves a cover of legitimacy in the texts, in the legacy of jurisprudence, and of the creed.
The ideologies of a number of our Islamic groups do not vary in their fanaticism from those of Christian sects which sprung from the Christian religious legacy and till now have followers. Among their establishments are: the Mormons, the Reformers, the Jehovah Witnesses, the Quakers, the Amish, etc. But many concepts of the Western civilization, whose winds blew centuries ago, reawakened the nationalistic awareness for a number of supreme human values. They were capable of clipping the nails of these extremist religious groups. Due to criticism with widely opened doors and using all its scalpels and tools a number of major theological ideologies were subjected to surgeries and reforming movements.
The freedom to think, to criticize, to subject the most holy of ideologies to a review were behind the self-criticism undertaken by Christianity itself of many of its theological concepts. This is what we, Muslims, need nowadays.
During the recent decades, reforming trends have surfaced, but they were completely aborted..., so they made way to convulsive ideologies subject to time which nowadays seat themselves to preach Islamic fundamentalism, daily gaining supporters...
A number of scholars, including members in the Council of Senior Scholars, participated in a debate among religions, as well as emissaries to the Vatican, called for opening a dialogue with the West. Yet they failed to open their hearts, minds and ears to their brethren in faith!
The Jail Experience
Ten years ago, I was jailed in a case involving burning a store selling videos. During the investigation, I consumed all the books I could lay my hands on as well as theological references which I could access. I wanted to formulate a clear legislative vision justifying what I had done or at least would help me avoid the penalty by casting doubt. When I sat in front of the judge, I was already prepared. He asked me, “Are you, son, repentant?” I said, “I did nothing wrong so I should repent it. Give me an evidence from Allah’s Book, and from the Sunnah of the Messenger of Allah, or from the statements of the scholars to whom you yourself refer to identifying the error in what I have done, and I shall then declare my repentance.” Then I stated my arguments, and I was careful not to bring about any problem without suggesting a solution for it. The judge kept listening till I finished then said to me, “Are you repentant?” I said, “No! Against what should I repent?”
The scholarly principles, the theological authority and the sectarian school from which the judge sets out were the same principles from which I set out; therefore, so long as one is in harmony with his ideologies and authority, no matter how trivial, weak, or backward they may be, the more loyal and honest with his onset he will be and the more pleased by the evidence. The judge had no law to rely on to indict this type of reasoning, as I knew then, regarding places held by the public as abominable. There were edicts prohibiting trade in movies, labeling them as unprotected by the Shari`a and confiscating or destroying them did not require compensation because the ground from we set out is one and the same. The judge had nothing to say.
A few years ago, some youths were jailed because of some extremist ideologies which they espoused and propagated through leaflets and booklets. Although many judges were careful not to slip into discussions, dialogues often took place which were often embarrassing to them, and the sessions would end by advising the individual to follow the scholars and their lessons...
One of the major questions faced by the religious establishments (i.e. the Ministry of Islamic Affairs, the Council of Edicts) is that there has been no separation from the bases which nourish the ideologies of extremism. It is not strange to find the books by Esam al-Barqawi (Abu Muhammed al-Maqdisi) and others relied upon to label as “apostate” all Islamic governments and to call as “unbelievers” the members of the Council of Senior Scholars of Saudi Arabia, of references such as Al-Durar al-Saniyya fi Rasaail Ulema al-Da`wa al-Najdiyya which used to be distributed free of charge by the Presidency of the Directorates of Scholarly Researches, Edicts, Propagation and Guidance. A casual review of both volumes of “Al-Jihad” and “Hukm al-Murtadd” from among Al-Durar al-Saniyya, as well as the works of Shaikh Hamad ibn `Ateeq, Sulayman ibn Hamdan, Hmoud al-Tuwayjri... suffice to pass a clear judgment.
So, does this explain the complete silence and the satisfaction with just denying when the theological establishment is afflicted by some of those who stray from what is accustomed to, who sing outside the flock...? Are not Hmoud ibn Oqlaa al-Shu`aybi, `Abdullah ibn Matrook al-Haththal, the guest of the program titled “the opposite direction,” are far from us?
Al-Nogaidan is a Saudi writer and specialist in Islamic affairs. Previously he was the Imam of the Marba` Mosque in Riyadh.
The interior ministry has targeted him, fired him from his job, and banned him from travel for several years now. |
