The Arab world, the heart of the Islamic world, is experiencing a tremendous trial these days, the like of which it has not witnessed in modern times except after the 1952 revolution, when the Muslim Brotherhood allied with leftists and socialists and, through treachery and betrayal, overthrew Egypt’s monarchy, while rebellious nationalist, socialist, and communist currents swept the Arab world. Today movement Islamists once again choose to be both the fire and fuel of a new trial.
I do not mean the trial of bloodshed, undermining security, the chaos of demonstrations and sit-ins, and successive revolutions. I mean another trial greater and more dangerous than all this: distorting religion, demolishing its settled principles, changing beliefs, concepts, and ideas, and destroying the distinctive qualities of the Islamic community and Muslim society through explicit advocacy of Western thought’s general foundations and atheistic philosophy: freedom, democracy, pluralism, popular sovereignty, submitting judgement to the masses, agitating against state authority by mobilising crowds, stripping the ruler of his powers, refusing patience with his injustice and oppression, and discarding the community’s mission and highest interests… The issue is greater than whether demonstrations are permitted or forbidden, or when and how rebellion against a ruler may occur. It is rebellion against Islamic law and destruction of this community’s religious characteristics. What remains when Islamists’ habitual and greatest concern becomes advocating freedom, pluralism, civil life, holding rulers accountable for every minor and major matter, restricting their powers, limiting their years in office, and presenting these things as unquestionable necessities of human rights? Where was the noble Prophet in relation to these unquestionable necessities when, in authentic, multiply transmitted hadiths definitive in both transmission and meaning, he commanded his community to bear rulers’ oppression patiently, however excessive their injustice and aggression, unless they manifest clear unbelief? Or were those numerous, multiply transmitted hadiths invented by jurists under the Umayyads to justify their oppression and discourage revolt, as hostile Orientalists claimed, thereby casting the entire Prophetic Sunnah into doubt? Where were the people of the Sunnah and community concerning these supposedly unquestionable necessities when their books of creed established that “patience with rulers’ injustice and oppression is a foundation of the people of the Sunnah and community,” as Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyyah said in Majmu al-Fatawa, 2/179? And what of the rightly guided caliphs, the best humans after the prophets and messengers, none of whom left power until his appointed death, natural or by killing? May God be pleased with them and grant them His pleasure.
Amid this trial, which has shaken settled principles, misguided many minds, and deformed weak hearts, scholars, students, and preachers following the Prophetic methodology must step forward to guard creed and Islamic law, defend the community and its distinctive qualities, and confront this new advance of irreligious Western thought. Many Islamists, regrettably deserving no lament, have become its foremost marketers and promoters. Those most entitled to undertake this great struggle, the struggle of our age, of defence and necessity, are people of devotion and reverence for God’s law and religion among all groups generally affiliated with the Sunnah and community: adherents of hadith and transmitted reports, Asharis, Maturidis, Sufis, mosque imams, university professors, and religious institute graduates. I mean righteous, devout people whose thought is unpolluted by the movement’s political interpretation of Islam, whom doubts and desires have not mastered, and who practise religion in the manner of earlier devout and righteous people, even if they fall into few or many innovations and errors in creed and worship and disagree over some foundations and branches as adherents of one religion do.
Most entitled of all are adherents of hadith and transmitted reports who follow the righteous early generations. They are foremost in struggle in every field and have recognised achievements guarding creed and repelling misguided sects’ aggression in every age and land. Their sensible, learned, and resolute members ought to extend their concerns beyond the preoccupations of every foolish, narrow-minded, small-spirited person: pursuing Muslims’ faults, attacking this person and that, testing people through their stance on particular individuals, commissioning foolish followers to ignite discord everywhere, and progressing from declaring innovation to declaring unbelief, until they become a public laughingstock!
This struggle requires knowledge of Islamic law, understanding of religion, familiarity with philosophies and ideas, the ability to argue and establish proofs, moving from defence to intellectual offence, and benefiting from every sound scholarly and intellectual effort. Foremost among those whose knowledge, thought, and earlier struggle in this field should be consulted is the scholar Abu al-Hasan Ali al-Hasani al-Nadwi, may God have mercy on him. The imam of the age, Abd al-Aziz ibn Abdullah ibn Baz, described him as the famous Islamic writer and great Arab Hasani scholar (Majmu Fatawahu, 1/288).
Al-Nadwi was a great scholar, deeply knowledgeable about history and civilisations, a student of philosophies and ideas, intellectually distinguished, pure in soul, highly ambitious, firmly devout, detached from worldly life, and prepared for the Hereafter. Yet many Salafis disregarded him because of his Sufism. Professor Salah Maqbul, may God reward him, wrote a valuable book, Professor al-Nadwi: The Other Face of His Writings, providing an adequate and comprehensive study and critique of his Sufi positions. Many students think he belonged to the Muslim Brotherhood, though he never did. He had close ties with many of its personalities and praised some, so they claimed him as one of their own. Yet he wrote much that refutes and contradicts their thought, and authored the most important modern book exposing movement ideology and its danger to Islam’s future: The Political Interpretation of Islam in the Mirror of the Writings of al-Mawdudi and Sayyid Qutb, titled in Urdu The New Interpretation of Islam. But the book was opposed and concealed. Very few scholars or students have heard of it, let alone read it.
This book was the fruit of sound religious discernment, powerful religious enthusiasm, well-guided civilisational awareness, and an intelligent, truthful intuition of the dangerous consequences of this new interpretation of Islam. He wrote it to advise the community and discharge his responsibility, expressing this in its introduction:
“He was alarmed by intellectual tendencies, understandings, and interpretations of religion whose beginnings appeared in speech and writing, thought and authorship, work and practice. He feared the emergence of a class or society containing many intelligent, educated youths and sincere workers for Islam’s glory, possessing lofty aspirations, far-sightedness, altruism, and a spirit of sacrifice in serving Islam and Muslims, but following a methodology differing from the original Islamic methodology in spirit and motives, mentality and disposition, aims and ends, ideals and values. It would weaken what the Messenger and his Companions struggled for: devoting religion sincerely to God, working for the Hereafter, and the spirit of ‘faith and seeking reward’ governing all life and permeating all deeds and conduct. This struggle would turn into merely a process of collective organisation or an attempt to secure rule and power for Muslims. The transformation might permit no return to the origin and source, as has repeatedly happened in the history of religions, sects, calls, and movements. Thus, God knows, reluctantly compelled, we undertook to warn of this danger, however obscure or distant. Love prompts concern, and sincere counsel impels warning.”
How admirable you were, Abu al-Hasan! Your intuition proved true, your assessment accurate, and you gained the honour of being first to advise and warn against the ‘global distortion of Islam’. Movement ideology has become a trial throughout the community, a trial with no Abu al-Hasan to confront it!
In this and his other books, al-Nadwi made a valuable, commendable effort to expose the new interpretation of Islam as a project for developing the earth and establishing an ideal city, gradually stripping it of its religious, devotional, and doctrinal realities. He showed that this involves fascination with Western thought and philosophies. He therefore devoted much of his lectures and writing to explaining worship’s reality and religion’s purpose, freeing religious advocacy from material aims and worldly gains, criticising Western thought, and demolishing its foundations in materialism, selfishness, and utilitarianism.
Al-Nadwi’s legacy is a vast mine that can benefit the struggle of our age against the global distortion of Islam. I advise my brothers among scholars, students, and preachers to return to it and extract its treasures. He enjoys broad renown and high standing in the Islamic world, and no movement activist will dare describe him with the labels they apply to godly scholars who openly proclaim religion’s realities as stated in the Book and Sunnah, those {who convey God’s messages, fear Him, and fear none but God}. Fools attack them as ignorant of reality and politics, lacking understanding, reactionary, backward, and afraid of rulers. We have brought you someone whom you must reluctantly acknowledge as thoroughly knowledgeable in religion, politics, thought, philosophy, and history. How then are you turned away?
In loyalty to al-Nadwi, I am now preparing a new edition of The Political Interpretation of Islam, to revive it, highlight its importance, and acknowledge its merit. Afterwards, God willing, I will undertake an extensive study of the political and utilitarian interpretation of Islam, hoping to gain the honour of participating in the struggle of our age. Success, assistance, and right guidance come from God.
Written by Abu Maslamah Abd al-Haqq al-Turkmani.
Britain: 9 Ramadan 1432 AH.