Shaykh Muhammad Sa‘id al-Tantawi’s introduction to Muhammad Asad’s “Foundations of Islamic Civilisation: A New Social Contract”
Introduction by the Center for Studies in the Interpretation of Islam
This is Shaykh Muhammad Sa‘id al-Tantawi’s introduction to Muhammad Asad’s study “Foundations of Islamic Civilisation: A New Social Contract.” We thought it useful to extract it from University Mosque Tracts and publish it separately, because it assists our efforts to trace the roots of the political interpretation and utilitarian interpretation of Islam in contemporary Islamic thought.
We should briefly introduce the tracts, their author and the writer of the introduction:
University Mosque Tracts is a collection printed and issued by the Damascus University, or Syrian University, Mosque Committee. Publication began in 1371 AH/1951 and, judging by the latest tract’s date, continued until 1391 AH/1971. Shaykh Muhammad Zuhayr al-Shawish (d. 1434 AH/2013) republished them in three volumes, al-Maktab al-Islami, Beirut, 1405 AH/1985. Their importance lies in representing the state of thought and religious teaching during those decades. Their writers were prominent figures with different legal, intellectual and movement orientations: Shaykh Muhammad Nasir al-Din al-Albani (1420 AH/1999), alongside Shaykh Wahbi Sulayman Ghawji (1434 AH/2103, as printed); al-Mawdudi (d. 1399 AH/1979), alongside Wahiduddin Khan. Perhaps their common denominator was concern for Muslims’ circumstances, studying their problems and pursuing reform and renewal.
The author is the renowned journalist, thinker, translator and traveller Leopold Weiss, born in the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1900. He was Jewish and embraced Islam in 1926, thereafter becoming known as Muhammad Asad. Late in life he settled in Andalusia, Spain, where he died on 20 February 1992, aged about 91. His best books include The Road to Mecca, recounting his conversion and life up to age 32, and Islam at the Crossroads, an excellent criticism of Western civilisation and call for Muslims to take pride in their religion and law. First published in 1353 AH/1934, he republished it with a new introduction in 1402 AH/1982, affirming his continued adherence to its content. Written in youth shortly after conversion, it was republished fifty years later when he was over eighty, an important aspect deserving attention.
His worst book is his English translation of the Qur’an’s meanings, in which he distorted some definitive matters of Qur’anic accounts and rulings. The Muslim World League in Makkah therefore declined to support its printing and publication after a scholarly committee studied it and informed the then Saudi Grand Mufti, Shaykh Muhammad ibn Ibrahim Al al-Shaykh (d. 1389 AH/1969), of its errors. Following discussion in the League’s Constituent Council, he ruled that “the commentary must be destroyed and not distributed.” See Fatawa wa-Rasa’il of Shaykh Muhammad ibn Ibrahim ibn Abd al-Latif Al al-Shaykh, Government Press, Makkah, 1399 AH, 13/122.
The writer of the introduction is the long-lived religious teacher Shaykh Muhammad Sa‘id al-Tantawi, born in Damascus in 1343 AH/1923 and deceased in Jeddah in 1441 AH/2019, aged about 96. He was the brother of the renowned writer Ali al-Tantawi, may God have mercy on them both.
The relevant point is that al-Tantawi noticed the materialist and utilitarian tendency in Asad’s words and criticised it. This offers two important lessons:
First, Asad’s books, tracts and articles must be studied to identify examples of this tendency and connect its roots and foundations with its results and effects in his thought, understanding of Islam and aims in religious teaching.
Second, al-Tantawi’s attention to this deviation demonstrates its existence at that time. He referred to it when saying: “Here appears the superficiality into which some young and older people seeking good and working in religious teaching sometimes fall, when one entices a companion into the mosque by promising some worldly gain.” His attention was, however, partial and incidental, because this tendency was neither as clear nor as strong then, and modern calls were not distinguished as clearly as today. Praise belongs to God, Lord of the worlds.
We now present Shaykh Muhammad Sa‘id al-Tantawi’s introduction, may God have mercy on him:
In the name of God, the Most Merciful, the Especially Merciful.
Praise belongs to God, who revealed the Qur’an as an unequalled foundation and sent our master Muhammad, peace and blessings be upon him, as a leader from whom none should turn away.
To proceed:
I was pleased when I saw the first proof the printer prepared of this tract. Intellectual maturity, sound awareness and a proper view of matters are essential elements in a Muslim religious teacher’s character, and studies like this help develop thought, correct perspective and set standards straight. I was also pleased because its author is the well-known thinker Muhammad Asad, author of Islam at the Crossroads, who grew up Austrian and in the Austrians’ religion before God guided him to Islam forty years ago. He left what he called his homeland for a homeland knowing no such borders, and abandoned what he called his religion when he rose above earthly baseness and attached himself to heavenly purity. He affirmed this break by abandoning the name in which his body was born, Leopold Weiss, for the name in which his soul was born, Muhammad Asad.
He travelled through Muslim lands, across Najd and the Hijaz, wrote The Road to Mecca, spent a long time in India and Pakistan, held offices there, and issued his English-language magazine Arafat to introduce Islam to those who did not know Arabic.
I welcomed the respected committee’s choice and began reading the study. As Muslims, we do not sanctify individuals, follow everything someone says because we admire some of it, or reject everything another says because of errors in some of it. We honour and love scholars without sanctifying or worshipping them. We benefit from their knowledge, heed their reminders and thank them for their help, but do not overlook their shortcomings, turn faults into virtues or follow their mistakes, though we excuse them where both the person and error merit excuse.
Likewise, abhorrence of falsehood and deviation must not turn us from fairness, denying the mistaken person their due or the proponent of falsehood their merit. If they did wrong in following falsehood, they did well in whatever good they undertook. We love a virtuous person for their piety, not their person, and withdraw when they withdraw from truth and good. Similarly, we dislike someone for blameworthy qualities and bad deeds, not their essence. Dislike becomes love when they adopt praiseworthy qualities and righteous conduct.
The thoughtless person sees only the material and befriends or opposes people for their persons. Those who think exercise thought, revere truth and rise above making bodies the foundation of their attitudes towards people.
Truth is higher and prior to people. They are known by it, not it by them. They draw from it, and it is then recognised through them. May God be pleased with Ali, who says: “You do not know truth through men. Know truth and you will know its people.” Malik, imam of the abode of migration, was not prevented by reverence for contemporary scholars and esteem for his teachers from saying: “Everyone’s words may be accepted or rejected except the occupant of this grave.”
I began reading knowing that Muhammad Asad is a great thinker and capable writer whose many opinions and writings are useful, and knowing that I hold no notable standing among this country’s men and am scarcely known beyond it. But I also know that someone below me may notice an error in someone greater, while each remains who they are. The lesser has not become great, since they noticed through prior truth rather than their own power; the greater has not fallen, since every person is subject to error, oversight and forgetfulness. As the verse says:
If the deed that displeased was one,
His deeds that pleased are thousands.
I reached his answer to a question some repeat, p. 17, concerning Islam’s value and success in bringing happiness to lands and people, and his reply: “It is no good answering this question by saying Islam is God’s law.” I stopped and questioned the value of that answer. Many of us see little benefit in patiently convincing others that Islam is God’s religion, turning instead to varieties of philosophy. Yet the essence of our Islam is precisely this belief: Islam is God’s law.
Islam is certainly noble, lofty and great, entirely beneficial and good. But someone who chooses Islam for perceived utility, benefits and goodness is not a Muslim as they should be, even if they call to it, work for it and expend their blood and wealth for it. Indeed, they do not become Muslim until they choose Islam because it is God’s law: because God approved it for them, commanded it and accepts nothing else. I would almost say that the true Muslim accepts and embraces Islam and resolves to follow it before learning its commands, prohibitions, systems and components of civilisation.
Islam is submission arising from servitude and divinity: awareness that one is a created servant in every bodily atom, every part of one’s being and everything one uses in life, and awareness of the Creator’s greatness, wisdom and might. When a creature recognises itself as created, it knows it has a Creator. Knowing the Creator produces monotheism and submission, and thus upright adherence to Islam.
When buying an item from a stranger, you turn it over, test it and examine it carefully for fear of fraud, unwilling to exchange money for a defective item. If the seller is someone you trust and know to be truthful and honest, this becomes unnecessary; their word and recommendation suffice. Suppose your father is learned and righteous, with extensive expertise in that kind of goods, and brings you the item saying he approves it for you. Would you refuse until examining it yourself, despite being among the least knowledgeable about it, then deliver your answer? Would you then be well-mannered, noble in character, obedient and pleasing to your father, even if you answered yes? Showing distrust of your father and little confidence in his knowledge and experience, judging his specialist knowledge by your ignorant opinion, would be, in everyone’s view, a grave offence.
Nothing will be sound for you until you understand that a servant and everything they possess belong to their master, and that you are God’s servant. He created you from nothing, strengthened you after incapacity and provided for you after deprivation. Your sole purpose in life is attaining His pleasure, attained only by following Islam. He accepts no other path.
As for saying this will not satisfy those who disbelieve in the Qur’an and its Messenger, and carries no weight for deniers and doubters,
That may be true, but what weight or significance does it have? If they are blind to the great, evident foundation that they are creatures steeped in incapacity, not gods, and must submit and obey their Creator, or deliberately blind themselves to it, do you imagine they will yield to your sound rational arguments?
We do not invite people graciously to approve Islam or do us a favour by performing its acts. We invite them to monotheism. If they accept, they have accepted Islam, for Islam is submission to God and following the path He approves solely for His sake. If they reject monotheism, accepting any Islamic matter or performing any Islamic act will avail them nothing.
Here appears the superficiality into which some young and older people seeking good and working in religious teaching sometimes fall: enticing a companion into the mosque by promising worldly gains or threatening their loss. No, dear brother. Every act that does not arise from faith in God and rest upon monotheism has no value, benefit or effect: “We turn to the deeds they performed and make them scattered dust” (al-Furqan 25:23). Whoever does not believe in God is an unbeliever, and an unbeliever’s works, however much good, endurance and expenditure they involve, are a mirage: “The deeds of those who disbelieve are like a mirage in a plain, which a thirsty person thinks water, until reaching it they find nothing, but find God there, who settles their account in full” (al-Nur 24:39).
This superficiality afflicts many who debate deviants or atheists about particular Islamic matters, spending hours and reaping only exhaustion.
If you truly wish to call people, brother, adhere to the principle established by your beloved leader, peace and blessings be upon him: a clear and evident call to monotheism, without complication or obscurity. If the person refuses, leave them and save your effort for another. If they accept, everything is settled.
Islam’s particulars are endless. If your occupation is dragging people towards them one by one, many times your lifespan would not suffice to draw one person towards some of them. Whenever you drew them to one matter they would escape others, and you would start the toil again, spending life in hardship. But if you patiently invite them to the foundation, clarify it and convince them so they approve and believe, something possible only if you yourself first believe, understand and sincerely, firmly follow it, then once they accept, you need not invite them to each detail. They will themselves seek, learn, practise and teach those details.
On p. 27 he says:
“Among the Messenger’s Companions there was no group or class possessing exclusive privilege or authority over other classes or groups. No form of distinction or differentiation among the Companions could exist…”
I do not wish to call this mistaken, but to remind readers that it must be understood properly.
When reading prophetic biography and Islamic history, one finds that Umar’s council consisted of Qur’an scholars; that commanders of large and small Muslim armies were appointed from veterans of Badr and their like; and that Umar consulted leading people and senior Emigrants and Helpers. When someone criticised a senior Companion because the leading men in Madinah had alone discussed and decided the caliphate without everyone else, he replied in effect: “The matter belongs to these men. What they approve is established and what they reject abandoned. You are followers.” Many other texts show that distinctions existed. Umar’s stipends for Muslims, ranging widely from twelve thousand to three hundred, are also significant here.
But whatever the nature or extent of these distinctions, they derived only from Islam and rested upon Islam alone. Lineage, wealth, authority and similar things received no consideration. A person’s share corresponded to their Islam, and their rank to their precedence in Islam. Those elevated were elevated only by raising Islam, embracing it, enduring and striving for it. Those lowered were lowered only by turning away and falling short.
I repeat: I did not intend to refute the author, for he is above intending the mistaken meaning. But the words admit different interpretations, some may take them wrongly and some may become confused. Clarification therefore does no harm; some explanation may prevent distortion.
We seek God’s refuge from deviation and negligence and His aid in uprightness and earnest effort. We intend guidance and seek His pleasure. There is no power or strength except through God, the Most High, the Magnificent.
End of Shaykh Muhammad Sa‘id al-Tantawi’s words, may God have mercy on him.
Source: University Mosque Tracts, collected and republished by Shaykh Muhammad Zuhayr al-Shawish, al-Maktab al-Islami, Beirut, first edition, 1405 AH/1985, 3/211–218.