T – Hybrid Learning https://hybridlearning.pk Online Learning Thu, 04 Jul 2024 18:54:42 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.5.5 TERRORISM https://hybridlearning.pk/2018/10/19/terrorism/ https://hybridlearning.pk/2018/10/19/terrorism/#respond Fri, 19 Oct 2018 15:22:29 +0000 https://hybridlearning.pk/2018/10/19/terrorism/ TERRORISM is the deliberate, unjustifiable, and random use of violence for political ends against protected persons. Obviously, there is no inextricable connection between Islam, or […]

]]> TERRORISM is the deliberate, unjustifiable, and random use of violence for political ends against protected persons. Obviously, there is no inextricable connection between Islam, or any other great religion, and terrorism. In fact, there is often a great confusion between the phenomenon of political violence and terrorism. The term terrorism applies to a special category of opprobrious acts rather than to all acts of politically inspired violence. Muslims have engaged in terrorism in the modern era, and, just as Jews and Christians engaging in terrorism, they have sometimes claimed a justification based in religion. In point of fact, however, shari `ah (the divine law) does not condone the use of violence except to combat injustice, and noncombatant immunity is a prominent feature of Islamic thinking on jihdd (religiously sanctioned warfare). In warfare, necessity might justify putting noncombatants at risk, but harm to innocents should neither be intentional nor excessive. Thus, phrases such as “Islamic terrorism” significantly misrepresent the religious roots of violence committed by Muslims.

More than any other part of the ummah, the Middle East has, since World War II, become infamous as a cockpit for terrorism, although many of the perpetrators have not purported to act in the name of Islam. Arguably, the first modern act of political terrorism in the region was the bombing of the King David Hotel in 1947, which was carried out by Jewish terrorists led by Menachem Begin, then leader of the Irgun. Following the creation of the state of Israel in 1948, Begin became leader of the political opposition, and in 1977 he became prime minister of Israel. In the 1960s and 1970s, Palestinian fidd’fyin (guerrillas) launched dozens of horrendous acts of violence against innocent bystanders, all in the name of gaining recognition for Palestinian nationalism. These acts included the slaughter of Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics in 1972, a long series of skyjackings, including four in 1970 that helped precipitate the civil war in Jordan, and several bloody attacks on air travelers both inside Israel and in Europe. Significantly, the Palestinian perpetrators were inspired by a secular irredentist ideology, not by religion. The same can be said for Kurdish guerrillas who, in the 1980s and early 1990s, committed a number of vicious acts of violence in Turkey as part of their quest to win an independent Kurdistan.
Muslims, claiming an Islamic rationale for their violence, are also noteworthy. In Egypt, in 1954, the Ikhwan al-Muslimun (Muslim Brotherhood) attempted to assassinate Gamal Abdel Nasser, who then accelerated his suppression of the organization. More recently, President Anwar el-Sadat was assassinated by extremist Muslim conspirators in 1981. Muslim revolutionaries, intent on toppling the regime of Hosni Mubarak have, since the late 1980s, engaged in escalating acts of violence including terrorism to destabilize further the Egyptian government. Many of these acts have been egregiously indiscriminate, targeting innocent foreign tourists, in addition to state officials, soldiers, and police officers. These acts illustrate the scope of activities that constitute contemporary political violence; whether they all constitute acts of terrorism is another question.
Terrorism is notoriously difficult to define, since the term is often used to refer to generic acts of violence committed by political adversaries. Terrorism is a marvelous epithet with which to bludgeon or tar one’s adversaries. But the moral indictment is often debased, because there is a tendency to apply the label selectively to foes, while turning a blind eye to equally contemptible acts carried out by friends or allies pursuing congenial goals.
The quest for a definition of terrorism has bedeviled diplomats and international lawyers, and there is no internationally accepted definition of terrorism. Although terrorism is frequently decried, the standard practice in international law has been to proceed inductively, criminalizing specific acts such as air piracy, attacks on diplomats, or the theft of nuclear materials. Thus, there is general agreement that hijacking of commercial aircraft or vessels constitutes a form of terrorism when carried out by nonstate perpetrators.
Acts of violence carried out within the borders of a state are more problematic to characterize, since illegal acts of violence might be legitimate, especially when the state authorities harshly repress dissent and when the illegal acts do not target protected persons. To argue that an act of political violence is unlawful (a factual statement) is not the same as arguing that it is illegitimate (a normative conclusion). It is important to distinguish between those political systems where citizens can effectively voice their demands and those where whole categories of citizens are disenfranchised. In the second category of states, those where the state is deaf to its citizens and residents, violence might be justifiable and legitimate even though it is deemed illegal by the authorities. In contrast, in the first category of states, political violence is both illegal and illegitimate, because the enfranchised citizen need not resort to violence to be heard or to enjoy the protection of the state.
Of course, legality and legitimacy are not always easy to disentangle, as the case of Algeria illustrates. The Islamic Salvation Front, often referred to by its French acronym, FIS, was on the verge of attaining an overwhelming parliamentary majority following its impressive victory in the first stage of a two-stage set of elections. Instead of allowing FIS to enjoy the fruits of its electoral victory, the Algerian army, fearful of the Islamists’ intentions and supported by about half of Algeria’s population seized power in January 1992. Understandably, the membership of FIS reacted with fury to the army’s action, and a civil war ensued, with thousands of FIS adherents arrested and detained under martial-law conditions. Moderate leaders in FIS were thoroughly discredited, and the Islamists launched a campaign of insurrection and violence that respected few moral boundaries and targeted not only government officials but also intellectuals deemed unsympathetic to the Islamists and individuals who favored western dress or styles of behavior. In a striking throwback to the Algerian Revolution of the 1950s and early 1960s, when French rule was overthrown, terrorism has again become the coin of the realm for both sides in Algeria, thoroughly polarizing Algerian society. [See Islamic Salvation Front.]
The right of a people to resist foreign occupation is widely, if somewhat erratically, upheld. A clear majority of world governments-including Egypt, France, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the United States-supported Afghan Muslims struggling violently against Soviet occupation. Relatively few observers outside the Soviet Union described the Afghani mujahidin as terrorists, even though their attacks were often condemned as terrorism by the USSR. So long as the mujahidin directed their efforts against the Soviet presence in Afghanistan, right was literally on their side. [See Mujahidin, article on Afghan Mujahidin.] By the same token, though agreement is less general, the resistance by Lebanese Muslims (as well as Lebanese Christians) to the Israeli occupation of a portion of souther Lebanon, which it has occupied since 1978, would be similarly sanctioned, despite Israel’s understandable penchant for describing those that attack its soldiers and client-militiamen as terrorists.
A sounder test addresses the moral legitimacy of the means rather than the technical legality of the ends. If the Afghan or the Lebanese resistance forces broaden their campaigns to encompass protected categories of noncombatants, their actions tend to lose privileged status. Whatever the politics of the observer, distinguishing between attacks on soldiers occupying foreign lands and attacks on persons in universally accepted protected categories, such as children, or, more broadly, noncombatants, is not difficult. So long as a resistance force is discriminate in its methods and targets, it is not objectively justified to affix the terrorism label.
Deliberate and random uses of violence for political ends against protected groups constitutes terrorism. This is a functional and nonpolemical definition that has the merit of parsimony and universality. The perpetrators can be states, agents of states, or individuals acting independently. Indeed, the Iraqi government’s al-Anfal campaign in the 1 980s to intimidate and exterminate major segments of its Kurdish population clearly constituted an act of state terrorism. The record shows, however sadly, that states have been often able to commit murderous acts that dwarf the acts of horror committed by nonstate terrorists with impunity. Within the ummah, there are many examples, including the following: Indonesia’s bloody suppression of East Timor in the early 1960s; Syria’s annihilation of more than a thousand people in Hama in 1982; and Sudan’s savage campaign in the south to squash resistance to islamization in the 1990s.
In general, militant opposition movements of Muslims have focused their violence domestically on the authoritarian state, which is typically characterized as thwarting the imposition of shari `ah as the sole legitimate source of law. The writings of Sayyid Qutb (executed in 1966 by the Egyptian government) and his rejuvenation of jahiliyah (literally, a state of ignorance of the truths of Islam) as a description of contemporary Muslim societies has provided, for some contemporary groups, a rationale for acts of violence rationalized as part of a jihad to reestablish Islamic society.
Although most militant movements of Muslims have concentrated on domestic goals, the revolution in Iran spawned an ideology that has been used to justify the use of violence on the international stage in the late 1980s. Not only has the Iranian government been implicated in widespread assassinations and plots against political and intellectual opponents, but it has also lent material support to militant Islamist groups. This can be observed in the case of the Lebanese Shi’i group Hizbullah (Party of God).
Hizbullah is an Iranian-funded party that came to light following the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982. Hizbullah has proven to be a competent, dedicated, and well-led challenger to the more moderate Amal movement of the early 1970s. Although Hizbullah spokespersons were keen to dissociate the party from acts such as the kidnappings of Westerners in the 1980s, it became known that the Islamic Jihad organization that claimed credit for some of the kidnappings was using a flag of convenience masking Hizbullah involvement. Hizbullah
played a major role in inflicting a chain of humiliations on the United States: precipitating the 1984 departure of the American marines from Lebanon with the truck bombing of the marine barracks, while also helping to scuttle the U.S.-brokered 17 May agreement between Lebanon and Israel and holding the world in thrall over the fate of foreign hostages (including Terry Waite, the personal envoy of the archbishop of Canterbury). Equally impressive was the success of the Islamic Resistance (al-Muqawamah al-Islamiyah) in forcing an Israeli withdrawal from most of Lebanese territory in January 1985.
In effect, the Islamic Revolution in Iran provided the substance for a new ideological framework that served to explain the causes of deprivation and suffering among the Muslim masses. The ideological framework legitimized and commended the use of violence against the enemies of Islam, particularly the West. This comes through quite clearly in the remarkable “Open Letter” of Hizbullah (reproduced in Norton, 1987). This revealing document was released by Hizbullah in February 1985 to mark the anniversary of the assassination of Shaykh Raghib Harb, the bright young cleric of Jibshit in southern Lebanon, who was assassinated twelve months earlier.
One of the burdens of the letter is to explain and justify the use of violence by Hizbullah, which, it is argued, has been trivialized in the West as “a handful of fanatics and terrorists who are only concerned with blowing up drinking, gambling, and entertainment spots. . . . Each of us is a combat soldier when the call of jihad demands it and each of us undertakes his task in the battle in accordance with his lawful assignment within the framework of action under the guardianship of the leader jurisprudent.”
The letter emphasizes that the 1978-1979 revolution in Iran was an inspiration to action, a proof of all that can be accomplished when the faithful gather under the banner of Islam. “We address all the Arab and Islamic peoples to declare to them that the Muslim’s experience in Islamic Iran left no one any excuse since it proved beyond all doubt that bare chests motivated by faith are capable, with God’s help, of breaking the iron and oppression of tyrannical regimes.” The letter described a world in which “the countries of the arrogant world” and especially the United States and the Soviet Union struggle for influence at the expense of the Third World. As a commentator in Al-`ahd, the Hizbullah newspaper, noted: “The Soviets are not one iota different from the Americans in terms of political danger, indeed are more dangerous than them in terms of ideological considerations as well, and this requires that light be shed on this fact and that the Soviets be assigned their proper place in the . . . forces striving to strike at the interests of the Moslem people and arrogate their political present and future” (9 May 1987, p. 12). Nonetheless, pride of place belonged to the Untied States, which directly, or indirectly through its “spearhead,” Israel, has inflicted suffering on the Muslims of Lebanon: “Imam Khomeini, the leader, has repeatedly stressed that America is the reason for all our catastrophes and the source of all malice. By fighting it, we are only exercising our legitimate right to defend our Islam and the dignity of our nation.” The French were also been singled out for attack, largely because of their longstanding sympathy for Christians in Lebanon, and for their arms sales to Iraq.
Hizbullah positioned itself as a force resisting the designs and games of Israel and the superpowers, whose jockeying for power, in its view, has led to subjugation and oppression throughout the Third World. “Thus, we have seen that aggression can be repelled only with the sacrifice of blood, and that freedom is not given but regained with the sacrifice of both heart and soul.” The objective is to free Lebanon from the manipulation and chicanery of the malevolent outside powers in order to achieve “the final departure of America, France, and their allies from Lebanon and the termination of the influence of any imperialist power in the country.” The Christian Phalange, who have, according to Hizbullah, unjustly enjoyed privilege at the expense of the Muslims, must be pummeled into submission. Virtually unnoticed outside of Lebanon, Hizbullah has been especially intolerant of competitors for Shi`i recruits. In this regard the Communist party, an especially appealing target given its alien and atheistic ideology, has been singled out for attacks. Dozens, if not hundreds, of party members were killed in a brutal, bloody campaign of suppression and assassination in 1984 and 1985. [See also Hizbullah, article on Hizbullah in Lebanon.]
The cost of terrorism is obviously most severe for its immediate victims, but there are heavy costs for the perpetrators’ society as well. The use of terrorism stereotypes a community, thereby reducing rather than enhancing international support for its claims. The heavy moral baggage of past outrages can be a burden. Not surprisingly, many Lebanese Shi is have come to resent the kidnapping of foreigners, sometimes on moral grounds, but often simply on practical grounds. Many acts of terrorism are patently counterproductive. Rather than weakening the resolve of the target population, terrorists-whether agents of a state or acting independently-supply the argument, and all too often the means for their own eradication.
Scholars are wont to emphasize that terrorism is the weapon of the weak. Although there is some truth in this observation, as illustrated by the bombing of the World Trade Center in New York City by a band of militant Muslims, the major perpetrators are not individuals or nonstate actors inspired by a vision of Islam, but strong, authoritarian governments intent on maintaining or extending their power, or punishing their adversaries.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Cole, Juan R. I., and Nikki R. Keddie, eds. Shi`ism and Social Protest. New Haven, 1986. This important collection of articles probes the significance of the revolution in Iran for inspiring activism among Muslims outside Iran. A number of the authors stress that local conditions were often more important than the events in Iran for explaining the appeal of radical Islamist movements, including Shi 1 movements in Iraq, Lebanon, and Saudi Arabia.
Esposito, John L. The Islamic Threat: Myth or Reality. New York and Oxford, 1992. One of the leading experts on Islam and politics explores and often debunks sensationalist perspectives on the Islamist phenomenon. Esposito distinguishes clear acts of terrorism from other forms of political violence and activism.
Fadlallah, Muhammad Husayn. Al-Islam wa-mantiq al-quwah (Islam and the Logic of Power). 2d ed. Beirut, 1981. The author is a leading Shi’i cleric in Lebanon whose writings reach well beyond Lebanon and whose khutbahs and fatwas are widely influential in Lebanon. This book provides an Islamist argument for the use of violence to overturn injustice and to confront the enemies of Islam. Kepel, Gilles. Muslim Extremism in Egypt: The Prophet and Pharaoh. Berkeley, 1986. Kepel, a French scholar, offers a seminal analysis of the Islamist movement during the 1970s and early 1980s. including the assassins of Anwar Sadat. His discussion of the importance of the writings of Sayyid Qutb is particularly noteworthy.
Martin, David C., and John Walcott. Best Laid Plans: The Inside Story of America’s War against Terrorism. New York, 1988. The authors benefited from many off-the-record interviews with high-level figures in the U.S. government. This book focuses on the U.S. response to Middle East terrorism, but the authors also glean fairly from a number of reliable accounts on “radical” Islamist movements. Mohaddessin, Mohammad. Islamic Fundamentalism: The New Global Threat. Washington, D.C., 1993. The author is associated with the mujahidin-i khalq, which staunchly opposes the regime of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Although the book is sometimes polemical, it also provides a wealth of reasonably reliable information on Iran’s role in planning, fostering, and directing acts of political violence and terrorism.
Norton, Augustus Richard. Amal and the Shi’a: A Struggle for the Soul of Lebanon. Austin, 1987. An account of the political emergence of the Shi ah of Lebanon. The book includes programmatic documents of the two leading Shi’i movements.
Qutb, Sayyid. Milestones (Ma’alim fi al-tariq). Beirut, 1978. The author is arguably the single most important ideologist for radical Islamists in Egypt, and he is also read widely outside of Egypt. He emphasizes the corruption of Egyptian society, which he depicts as jahiliyah, and argues for the organization of an Islamist vanguard. Sivan, Emmanuel. Radical Islam: Medieval Theology and Modern Politics. New Haven, 1985. The author is a leading Israeli scholar, and he offers a readable and competent introduction to the leading thinkers who underlie contemporary radical Islamist politics, including Ibn Taymiyah, Mawdudi, and Qutb. Sivan argues that the radical trend will necessarily dominate more conservative or moderate trends in Islamism with clear ramifications for further intersectarian and antisecularist violence in the Middle East in particular.
Taleqani, Mahmud, Murtaza Mutahhari, and ‘Ali Shari’ati. Jihad and Shahadat: Struggle and Martyrdom in Islam. Edited by Mehdi Abedi and Gary Legenhausen. Houston, 1986. In addition to important articles by Mutahhari and Shari`ati on jihdd and martyrdom, the authors provide a capable introduction.
Walzer, Michael. Just and Unjust Wars: A Moral Argument with Historical Illustrations. New York, 1977. Although this book does not deal with the Islamic world at all, it is an important assessment of the limits that define justifiable versus unjustifiable acts of violence. Wilkinson, Paul. Terrorism and the Liberal State. New York, 1977. This book is commended for its useful development of the distinction between political violence and terrorism.
Wright, Robin. Sacred Rage: The Wrath of Militant Islam. Rev. ed. New York, 1986. First-rate reportage by a leading journalist who provides gripping accounts of a potpourri of hijackings, kidnappings, and other acts of violence.
AUGUSTUS RICHARD NORTON

]]> https://hybridlearning.pk/2018/10/19/terrorism/feed/ 0 Tazir https://hybridlearning.pk/2018/09/30/tazir/ https://hybridlearning.pk/2018/09/30/tazir/#respond Sun, 30 Sep 2018 05:20:03 +0000 https://hybridlearning.pk/2018/09/30/tazir/ Tazir  refers to punishment for offenses at the discretion of the judge (Qadi) or ruler of the state. It is one of three major types […]

]]> Tazir  refers to punishment for offenses at the discretion of the judge (Qadi) or ruler of the state. It is one of three major types of punishments or sanctions under Sharia Islamic law — hadd, qisas and tazir. The punishments for the hudud offenses are fixed by the Qur’an or Hadith (i.e. “defined by God”), qisas allow equal retaliation in cases of intentional bodily harm, while ta’zir refers to punishments applied to the other offenses for which no punishment is specified in the Qur’an or the Hadith.

The word tazir is not used in the Quran or the Hadith, in the sense that modern Islamic criminal law uses it.[18] However, in several verses of the Quran, crimes are identified, punishment of the accused indicated, but no specific punishment is described. These instances led early Islamic scholars to interpret the Quran as requiring discretionary punishment of certain offenses, namely Tazir. Example specific verses from the Quran that support taazir are,
And as for the two who are guilty of indecency from among you, give them both a punishment; then if they repent and amend, turn aside from them; surely Allah is Oft-returning (to mercy), the Merciful.
— Quran 4:16
And (as for) those who dispute about Allah after that obedience has been rendered to Him, their plea is null with their Lord, and upon them is wrath, and for them is severe punishment.
— Quran 42:16
Tazir punishments
Tazir punishments are common in Sharia courts for less serious offenses. Punishments vary with the nature of crime and include a prison term, flogging, a fine, banishment, and seizure of property. Execution is allowed in cases such as habitual homosexuality, practices which split the Muslim community, propagating heretical doctrines or espionage on behalf of an enemy of the Muslim state. All four schools of fiqh (Madhhab), namely Hanafi, Maliki, Shafii and Hanbali, permit the death penalty at the discretion of the state or Qadi, for certain Tazir offenses. But traditionally Ta’zir often varied between schools of fiqh. Insolvent debtors were generally required to sell their goods, but a Hanafite judge would send the defendant to jail until their creditors were paid, for example. Hanafite and Shafi’ite fiqh allowed a judge sometimes to “rely on information personally acquired instead of independent testimony”—even in cases where the defendant faced capital punishment. Judges would use the difference in fiqh to the advantage of prosecution and disadvantage of the defendant. Malakite fiqh allowed for beating during interrogation if the defendant had a “bad reputation”, and “an expansive approach to capital punishment” compared to other schools. At least during the fourteenth century non-Malakite judges “often” sent defendants to Malakite judges.
Contemporary application
In some Islamic countries, such as Pakistan, rape is being treated as liable to Tazir. For Tazir punishment for rape, the Pakistan law requires evidence that the woman resisted, that there is semen present on the woman, and that the man is potent; if the evidence confirms all these three requirements then the Tazir punishment under the Pakistan law is a fine, thirty lashes and/or imprisonment for up to 10 years for the convicted. In cases, where the judge discretionarily decides that the evidence is insufficient, the rape victim can be tried on charges of false accusation, under both hadd and tazir rules of Pakistan law.
Brunei introduced Tazir into its Syariah Penal Code Order effective 2014. Tazir crimes in Brunei now include offenses such as failing to perform Friday prayers by anyone above 15 years old, any Muslim disrespecting the month of Ramadan, and khalwat (dating or any form of close proximity between unrelated members of opposite sex)
Iran introduced Tazir into its legal code after the 1979 Revolution, naming the section as Qanon-e Tazir. These Tazir laws allow prosecution of offenses such as illicit kissing, failing to wear proper head dress such as hejab, and making critical statements against judges and members of the Council of Guardians.
 

]]> https://hybridlearning.pk/2018/09/30/tazir/feed/ 0 TAXATION https://hybridlearning.pk/2018/09/30/taxation/ https://hybridlearning.pk/2018/09/30/taxation/#respond Sun, 30 Sep 2018 05:10:14 +0000 https://hybridlearning.pk/2018/09/30/taxation/ TAXATION. Islam makes specific provision for taxation, the payment of which is viewed as a religious duty. The most important tax is zakdt, a tax […]

]]> TAXATION. Islam makes specific provision for taxation, the payment of which is viewed as a religious duty. The most important tax is zakdt, a tax based on wealth, which is paid annually at a rate of one-fortieth of the value of personal or business liquid assets. Property and equipment are excluded, but cash holdings and inventories are subject to the tax at the standard rate of 2.5 percent.

There has been considerable debate among Islamic economists and lawyers about what assets are “zakatable,” given the changes in the nature and range of economic activity since the time of the Prophet. The type of tax structure which is appropriate for agricultural economies with only simple trading businesses is clearly rather different from one which is suitable for industrializing economies with businesses organized on a corporate basis. It is only during the past decade that Islamic scholars have addressed modern accounting issues, and there remains much work to be done in this field.
There is general agreement that the income from asset disposals should be subject to zakdt, although there is some debate whether it is the disposable income at the end of the accounting period which matters or the income as it accrues. The treatment of debt has also been considered in detail. Debt is allowable against zakat, but what counts as debt is not always a simple matter, as there are many forms of business liability.
Zakat is a transfer payment, as it is designed to be paid by those with surplus liquid wealth for the benefit of the poor and needy. The essential purpose is redistribution, and the funds raised are earmarked for social and humanitarian spending. The proceeds cannot merely be paid into the treasury and used to finance such commitments as expenditure on defense or even infrastructure investment. The collection is usually organized separately from other taxes, with a religious ministry involved. The receipts are often not even counted with fiscal revenue, and balances are accounted for independently.
Although there have been some Muslim economists who have suggested that zakdt could be used as an instrument of demand management, there is a general consensus that this would conflict with the social objectives of the tax. However it can be argued that there are more needy people in a recession, so zakat expenditure should be increased, and in a boom period, receipts will be higher. Running surpluses with zakat funds and borrowing to cover deficits raises other problems, including that of ribs (interest earnings and payments). This is of course unacceptable from the Islamic point of view. Zakat is in any case a wealth rather than an income tax, so its suitability for Keynesian short-term demand management must be open to question, even when considered from a narrow economic perspective.
The issue of whether taxation should be limited to zakat obligations has been debated since the time of the Prophet by Muslim scholars. In the early years of Islam, a tax called jizyah was imposed on non-Muslims. This was justified on the grounds that non-Muslims did not pay zakdt, yet they received government protection if they resided in a Muslim state. Jizyah was not therefore a punishment on the conquered who refused to convert to Islam, rather it was to ensure that all residents of an Islamic state contributed to its maintenance on a nondiscriminatory basis.
Unlike zakat, the Islamic land tax (kharaj) is applied to both Muslims and non-Muslims. The tax is levied according to the acreage of the land, but the rate depends on the output potential. Higher rates apply on irrigated lands, better soils, and fields suitable for higher-value crops. The maximum rate is half the value of the crop. In the event of crop failure owing to climatic factors, the tax is not applied. If low yields are the result of negligence, then the owner will still be obliged to pay. In such circumstances the land may be sold to another farmer, who, it is hoped, will make better use of it. Kharaj means that landowners have a responsibility to use their land effectively and realize its potential, as land is a gift from God and should not be wasted.
In the Ottoman Empire land taxes were a major source of state revenue, and all land was registered so that an accurate assessment could be made. This land registration proved very useful, as uncertainties were removed about boundary demarcation, and the security of tenure with land title encouraged productive investment by landowners in irrigation and other farm improvements. State-owned land was auctioned to private operators under the muqatta’ah system, with successful bidders given the right to farm the land for a three-year period. This system was extended to mining, the minting of coinage, and even the collection of customs revenue. This franchising out to private operators of former government-run activities resembled in many respects the privatization methods increasingly adopted by Western governments.
In the nineteenth century the European imperial powers tended to undermine traditional Islamic methods of tax collection. Secular taxes were introduced as Ottoman control weakened, customs duties being a major source of revenue. Income tax was also introduced in many parts of the Islamic world, although this never proved popular, and in practice often only government employees paid the tax. In such countries as Iran tax evasion was widespread under the secular regimes of the shahs, although zakat was administered independently by the mullahs through the mosques. There were frequent attempts at government interference, but these were resisted by the clerics, who had little faith in state social-welfare provision.
Recent years have witnessed a resurgence of interest in Islamic taxation. In Saudi Arabia zakat is the main form of taxation, and although contributions are voluntary, most Muslims willingly pay. In Sudan most domestic social-welfare expenditure is financed from zakat funds, the government spending most of its unearmarked budget on military commitments. In Pakistan Islamic taxation is increasingly important, although much remains to be done if the economic system is to be islamized as the government appears to want.
As with Islamic banking, zakat in most Muslim countries exists in parallel with conventional tax structures.
The latter often function ineffectively owing to the reluctance of businesses and individuals to pay. There is little doubt that Islamic taxation could aid development, as the faithful are more than willing to contribute. Zakat and other Islamic taxes can effectively widen the tax base, harnessing hoarded funds in the interests of development, and because the revenue is earmarked, it is likely to improve social welfare rather than procure armaments.
[See also Economics, article on Economic Theory; Jizyah; Kharaj; Property; Zakat.]
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Abdul Mannan, Muhammad. Abstracts of Researches in Islamic Economics. Jeddah, 1984. Summary of important work on taxation by Muslim economists in the 1970s and early 1980s.
Abdul Mannan, Muhammad. Islamic Economics: Theory and Practice. Cambridge, 1986. Examines tax structures in the early Islamic period, including taxes on non-Muslims and land taxes.
Chapra, Mohammad Umer. Islam and the Economic Challenge. Leicester, 1992. Considers zakay income distribution, and economic development.
Chapra, Mohammed Umer. “Reforming the Public Finances in Muslim Countries to Realise Growth with Equity.” In Financing Economic Development: Islamic and Mainstream Approaches, edited by A. M. Sadeq, pp. 125-141. Kuala Lumpur, 1992. Applies Islamic thinking on public finance, using a Western framework.
Kahf, Monzer. “Fiscal and Monetary Policies in an Islamic Economy.” In Monetary and Fiscal Economics of Islam, edited by Mohammad Ariff, pp. 125-137. Jeddah, 1982. Concise outline of Islamic taxation for those with some knowledge of public finance. Kahf, Monzer. “Zakat: Unresolved Issues in Contemporary fiqh.” In Development and Finance in Islam, edited by A. M. Sadeq et al., pp. 173-190. Selangor, 1991. Considers some of the debates among modern writers on Islamic taxation.
Morad, Munir. “Current Thought on Islamic Taxation: A Critical Synthesis.” In Islamic Lain and Finance, edited by Chibli Mallat, pp. 117-127. London, 1988. A rather personal view which tries to bring together the different strands of thought on Islamic taxation. Nienhaus, Volker. “Les biens public et la politique financiere dans une economie islamique.” In Les capitaux de l’Islam, edited by Gilbert Beauge, pp. 123-134. Paris, 1990. Excellent French-language summary of the essentials of Islamic public finance.
Tabakoglu, Ahmed. “Role of Finance in Development: The Ottoman Experience.” In Proceedings of the Third International Conference on Islamic Economics, edited by A. H. Ajunaid, pp. 2-16. Kuala Lumpur, 1992. Useful account of nineteenth-century Ottoman tax structures.
Wilson, Rodney. “Macroeconomic Policy and the Islamic State.” Chapter seven of the author’s study Islamic Business: Theory and Practice. London, 1985. Examines fiscal policy objectives and the role of zakat as a wealth tax.
RODNEY WILSON

]]> https://hybridlearning.pk/2018/09/30/taxation/feed/ 0 TAWHID https://hybridlearning.pk/2018/09/09/tawhid/ https://hybridlearning.pk/2018/09/09/tawhid/#respond Sun, 09 Sep 2018 06:30:48 +0000 https://hybridlearning.pk/2018/09/09/tawhid/ TAWHID. An Arabic term meaning literally “making one” or “unifying,” is considered by many twentieth century Islamic activists to be the axial or defining doctrine […]

]]> TAWHID. An Arabic term meaning literally “making one” or “unifying,” is considered by many twentieth century Islamic activists to be the axial or defining doctrine of Islam.

Although tawhid has traditionally been recognized as a fundamental doctrine of Islam, its popularity as Islam’s defining characteristic is a modern development. Indeed, the term is not mentioned in the Qur’an. Early theologians used it in their interpretations of the relationship between divine essence and divine attributes, as well as in their defense of divine unity against dualists and trinitarians. In the thirteenth century, renowned Hanbal-i jurist Ibn Taymiyah rehearsed and clarified the early theologians’ positions, adding his own interpretation and shifting the emphasis on tawhid from theology to sociomoral issues. In the nineteenth century, tawhid gained some attention with the renewed popularity of Ibn Taymiyah among the Wahhabiyah. The modern importance of tawhid did not begin to emerge, however, until 1897, when Egyptian reformer Shaykh Muhammad `Abduh published a full discussion of its implications, Risalat al-tawhid (translated as Theology of Unity; London, 1966). Although `Abduh’s epistle was for the most part an effort to reintroduce the classic issues of Islamic theology, by the mid- to late twentieth century tawhid, as an organizing principle of human society, had become a rallying cry of many Islamic reformers. In the 1960s Sayyid Qutb proclaimed tawhid the underlying principle of all true religion, and in 1982 Isma’il alFaruqi claimed that tawhid was the core of all Islamic religious knowledge, as well as its history, metaphysics, esthetics, ethics, social order, economic order, and indeed the entire Islamic world order. The term has even been adopted by activist organizations, such as the Shi’i Dar al-Tawhid (“Abode of Tawhid”) in the Gulf region, and the Sunni Harakat al-Tawhid (“Tawhid Movement”) in Palestine. Thus, the meaning and implications of tawhid have undergone continuous revision, most dramatically so in the contemporary era.
Tawhid in Classical References. The classical religious science of `ilm al-kalam, usually translated as “theology,” is also known as `ilm al-tawhid wa-al-sifat (science of [divine] unity and the attributes) or simply `ilm al-tawhid. As distinguishied from the speculative science of fiqh (jurisprudence), `ilm al-kalam was considered traditional knowledge (revealed or transmitted through recognized authorities), presented with rational explanations and refutations of contradictory opinions (e.g., al-Jurjani, 1977, pp. i, 2). Its synonymy with `ilm altawhid occurred because of the centrality of the question of divine unity in the early disputes among believers.
The early emphasis on divine unity among Muslim rationalists appears to have resulted from the perceived influence of Manichaean dualism on some groups of Shicis. But rational arguments for divine unity were more fully developed in the context of arguments over the status of a sinner, made famous by the Qadariyah, Khawarij, and Murji`ah, and particularly in debates regarding the status of the Qur’an. as created or not created, and how the multiplicity evident in the world could have proceeded from a creator who is essentially one.
The Mu’tazilah, among the earliest groups of thinkers identified by their rationalist approach to Islamic doctrines, held that the Qur’an. was created. As such, it is to be distinguished from the divine essence, which is unitary (simple), eternal, and unchanging. The Qur’an. is the word of God, created in time for humanity. Opponents of the Mu’tazilah held that the Qur’an. was uncreated, part of the essence of God. To the Mu’tazilah, this position appeared to compromise divine immutability, and thus divine simplicity, and ultimately divine unity itself. Indeed, divine unity (tawhid) became, with divine justice, the Mu’tazilah’s first principle. They were known as “the people of justice [`adl] and unity [tawhid ] .”
Ninth-century ‘Abbasid caliph al-Ma’mun (r. 813833) gave official sanction to the Mu’tazili position; belief that the Qur’an. was created was proclaimed an article of faith. However, that position was perceived as a threat, to the traditionalists’ position. The divine essence, according to the Mu’tazilah, is beyond human comprehension, whereas the Qur’an. the divine word, is accessible to human reason. Therefore, the anthropomorphic references to God in the Qur’an must be considered allegorically. The traditionalists, however, favored a literal interpretation of the Qur’an and reliance on the practice of the early Islamic community-both without rationalist interpretation-as the model for community leadership. Al-Ma’mun’s position, therefore, sparked a rebellion of sorts among their ranks. Traditionalist Ahmad ibn Hanbal (78o-855) was imprisoned, both for his vocal opposition to the doctrine of the created Qur’an and for his insistence that human reason and authority are to be resorted to only in the rare instances where the Qur’an is silent on a subject and there is no precedent to be derived from early Muslim practice.
By the middle of the ninth century, the caliph’s authority was severely weakened, and the traditionalists gained dominance in positions of doctrine and jurisprudence. The traditionalists’ position was eventually systematized under the influence and name of its main thinker (who had actually begun his career as a Mu’o tazili), Abu al-Hasan al-Ash’ari (d. about 936). According to the Ash’ari interpretation, the Qur’an is the uncreated word of God, coeternal with God. But, as noted above, the createdness of the Qur’an had been asserted in order to protect the unity of God. Therefore, the Ash’ari thinkers were compelled to demonstrate that their position did not compromise divine unity.
It was for this reason that Ash’ari thinkers became insistent on divine unity and transcendence. God is one, unique and eternal, and there is no god but the almighty God. They believed that divine unity could be preserved by viewing the divine attributes, including speech and action (or will, power, and knowledge), as additional (zd’idah) to the divine essence. In this context, they argued that if the divine will is an attribute and is identical with the divine essence, as in the Mu’tazili position, then God’s freedom of choice is called into question. God would be compelled by his very nature (essence) to act. The Mu’tazilah, however, believed that their assertion that the divine will is created would preclude such a conclusion.
Yet ultimately, for the Ash’ariyah, the divine essence is inaccessible to human reason. God is known to human beings only through revelation; indeed, the verses of the Qur’an are called dyat (“signs”) of God, and revelation should be accepted at face value. Ash’ari doctrine holds, for example, that God is truly on his throne (according to Qur’an 20.5) and that God has hands (Qur’an 3875 and 5.64). Likewise, God created everything and nothing that God did not want was created. Thus, not only does God create all human actions, allowing only the occasion for the actions to human beings, but God created even the evil deeds that people do. This position was taken in response to the Mu’tazili position that God creates with a purpose and that purpose is good. That view, combined with the Mu’tazili insistence that people have free will (that we create our own acts by virtue of a contingent power created by God within us) allows the Mu’tazilah to make sense of the Qur’anic promise of reward and threat of punishment. The Ash’ari position, by contrast, insists that human beings do not have free will and that things are good or evil because God does them as such, not vice versa. However, the Ash’ari interpretation continues, in none of these cases (i.e., on the questions of apparent anthropomorphization of God, the lack of free will, and God’s creation of evil) are humans to question the modality, or how it is that these things are true. All revelation is to be accepted literally but bi-la kayf (“without [asking] how”).
Later Ash’ari thinkers allowed that some things about God are accessible to human reason (`aqliyat), such as that God’s attributes do not compromise divine unity (tawhid), but regarding the nature of those attributes, we know only what the prophets taught (sam’iyat). In this way, Ash’arism, which dominated Sunni Islamic orthodoxy from the tenth to the nineteenth century, insisted on divine unity, but it rejected interpretations of revelation that would make that unity accessible to human reason in favor of assertions of ultimate divine transcendence. Other thinkers approached the question of divine unity from different directions. For example, Abu Mansur Muhammad al-Maturidi of Samarkand (d. 944), in his kalam compendium Kitab al-tawhid; places relatively greater emphasis on creation and free will than on the issue of divine attributes. This approach effectively constitutes a parallel tendency or school of theology.
The Philosophers and Tawhid. The subject of divine unity was addressed by the classical philosophers of the Islamic world in accordance with their rationalist orientation and frequently under the influence of Platonic, Aristotelian, and Neoplatonic influences, particularly in the area of metaphysics. Al-Kinds (d. about 866), for example, rejects the idea that the attributes superadded to God’s essence in order to insist on the absolute oneness of God. In answer to the question of how the One could be responsible for the multiplicity of the world, he claims that indeed, multiplicity could not exist without the One. For him the existence of the One is logically prior to, and necessary to account for, the existence of multiplicity, since the multiplicity (or plurality) is simply a combination of unities.
Al-Farabi (d. about 95o) describes God as pure intellect, superseding the problem of the potential duality of essence and attributes. Yet like al-Kindi, he is then left with the challenge of explaining how the One can be responsible for the multiplicity which characterizes creation. Like many philosophers faced with this problem, al-Kindi and al-Farabi both rely on versions of the Neoplatonic theory of emanation. Al-Kindi refers to a kind of universal radiation, while al-Farabi makes use of the more familiar formula wherein the entire universe emanates from God through a succession of nine intellects along with their celestial spheres. The process begins as existence outflows from God, creating the first intelligence, a composite of being (existence) and knowledge (essence). For from the one, only one can come, thus protecting divine simplicity/unity. The emanation proceeds through the ninth intellect, from which emanates a tenth, which is the active intellect that comprises human reason. Accordingly, multiplicity in the universe is only apparent; all existence is unified in God, the source of all.
Ibn Sina (980-1037) attacks the problem of the potential duality of essence (attributes) and existence by affirming it in all existents except God. All creatures’ existence is superadded to their essence; they are composite creatures. But God’s very essence is to exist. God, therefore, is the only simple existent. As with al-Farabi, other existents result from emanation.
The Spanish philosopher Ibn Rushd (1126-1198) rejects the emanationists’ doctrine, particularly its fundamental principle that the one can only give rise to one. He stresses that God is ultimately transcendent and therefore should not be described in human terms. There is no basis for assuming that God’s creation is anything like the human act of making, or that the divine will is anything like the human act of willing. Ibn Rushd, therefore, rejects the idea that claiming the multiplicity of the universe was created by God compromises God’s unity. He likewise rejects the distinction between essence and existence, claiming it is only an analytic tool. In reality, he claims, with Aristotle, that essences (ideas of things) can only come from things that exist; existence must necessarily precede essence. There is, however, such a thing as potentiality, he claims, and the difference between potentiality and actuality is God. God actuates the potential. Thus God is truly the agent of creation, rather than, as in Ibn Sina’s scheme, the source of automatic emanation. Tawhid in Sufi Thought. Yet even in the case of Ibn Rushd, the philosophers found themselves caught between the teaching of the Qur’an, that God created the universe at some point in time, and the results of rational processes. In the case of Neoplatonic emanationists and Aristotelian philosophers alike, the conclusion that the universe is somehow eternal was inevitable, since creation in time implied movement or change in God. Because change or movement is defined philosophically as transition from potentiality to actuality, and potentiality is considered a lack of actuality, change or movement is considered incompatible with divine perfection. Yet the idea of the universe being coeternal with God did not accord with revelation. Sufi thought sought to affirm the unity and primacy of God in a way that transcends such logical conundrums.
As with the theologians and philosophers, the most general meaning of tawhid for Sufis is affirmation of the essential oneness of God. Beyond that, however, tawhid reflects the mystical belief in ascending levels of knowledge or proximity to divine unity. Ordinary believers accept divine unity as a matter of faith; intellectuals might accept it as a matter of reason. But true recognition of divine unity in the Sufi context is not accessible to reason alone. Contemplation of the illusory dichotomies in the universe will produce the ultimate goal of Sufi practice; a realization of the ultimate unity of existence that is quite beyond discursive or rational inquiry.
Accordingly, a Sufi interpretation of the first pillar of Islam, the shahadah (bearing witness that there is no god but the One God, Allah), is that it affirm the ultimate paradox: it first denies divinity and then affirms it in a way that defies categorization and thus knowability by means of the rational faculties. In a non-Sufi context, God’s defiance of categorization is known as divine incomparability, as affirmed by the Qur’an. The implication is thus God’s ultimate transcendence: God cannot be known except insofar as he reveals himself. That revelation is contained in shari`ah (Islamic law); therefore, the proper human response to God is obedience to God alone. In the Sufi context, God’s incomparability implies as well God’s imminence.
God’s imminence was expressed definitively by the Spanish-born mystic Ibn `Arabi (1165-1240) in the phrase wahdat al-wujud (the unity of all being). Ibn ‘Arab! claims that there is only one Reality, also known by various other names, such as the one Real, the one Truth, and the one Essence. There is only one Real, by virtue of participation in which everything else exists. Thus God is in all creation, but is not identified with creation. No part contains the totality, nor is the totality simply a sum of the parts. Creation is God’s self-manifestation. Employing the Neoplatonic emanationist scheme, Ibn `Arab! claims the First Intelligence represents the perfect individual (al-insan al-kamil), identified with the inner reality of the prophet Muhammad. This individual, aware of both divine uniqueness and creaturely multiplicity, is the pivot between the one and the many, between God and creation. The mystic aspires to the sort of awareness represented by al-insan al-kamil. Similarly, the great Sufi poet Jalal al-Din Rum! (c. 1207-1273) expresses the belief that the Sufi adept can achieve the level of awareness of God represented by the First Intelligence. He must first, however, transcend the confines of his own limited existence-in effect, passing out of existence-in order to affirm the existence of God.
Certain aspects of these themes, echoed throughout Sufi thought, are also evident in philosophical works. Ibn Sina, for example, believes there is a level of knowledge beyond the discursive. For just as creatures’ existence results from an outflowing from God, so there is the possibility of ascent of levels of knowledge. Al-Ghazali (1058-1111) is given credit for reconciling mystical and logical claims with revealed doctrine and condemning those conclusions at odds with true belief. He retains belief in the mystic’s journey but denies that the adept achieves direct recognition of God. For him, the adept draws near to the divine attributes, which, as an Ash’ari, he believes are not identical with the divine essence. [See the biographies of Ghazah and Ibn al’Arabi. ]
Ibn Taymiyah. Even this effort to avoid compromising God’s transcendence was considered insufficient by Hanbali jurisprudent Taq! al-Din Ahmad Ibn Taymiyah (1263-1328). He believed the key issue was tawhid and attempted to settle the question once and for all. Ibn Taymiyya was convinced that the efforts of Muslim thinkers influenced by Greek philosophy (Islamic philosophy [falsafah] and rational theology [kalam]) were as misguided as those of the Sufis, who blurred the distinction between the divine and the mundane, in Ibn Taymiyah’s view. Ibn Taymiyah rejected the rationalists’ denial of the attributes’ reality (tanzih and ta`til), positions taken in efforts to preserve divine simplicity and therefore unity. He also rejected the method of considering the divine attributes allegorically and the traditionalists’ literalist or anthropomorphic interpretation of the attributes (tashbih). His approach to the divine essence and attributes was to simply accept them and leave their true meaning a mystery (tafwid). Likewise, he rejected the philosophers’ distinction between the divine essence and existence, and their efforts to demonstrate God’s necessary existence.
Ibn Taymiyah believed that God’s self-characterization in revelation was sufficient and, indeed, the only understanding of God accessible to humans. That selfcharacterization, he believed, was epitomized in the brief passage in the Qur’an, surah 62, entitled “Al-ikhlas” (“The Sincere [Faith]” or “The Pure [Faith]”: “In the name of Allah, the compassionate, the merciful, Say Allah is one, the eternal God. He begot none, nor was he begotten. None is equal to him.”) Beyond that we need not and should not seek. It was in this context that Ibn Taymiyah focused his insistence on the absolute unity of God (tawhid). People are created with a natural or instinctive recognition (fitrah) of God, Ibn Taymiyah believed. Moreover, God’s existence is everywhere reflected in creation. The world is full of testimony (ayat) to God’s existence. These realities themselves are an aspect of tawhid for Ibn Taymiyah: God as sole creator, ruler, and judge of the world is everywhere reflected in creation.
However, by the time of Ibn Taymiyah, the controversy over the metaphysical status of the divine attributes had lost their implications for political authority. Indeed, by the thirteenth century, the caliphate as the single, central religio-political power in Islam was a thing of the past. For Ibn Taymiyah, the critical issue was no longer the validity of the caliphate but the nature of faith. Accordingly, having established absolute divine unity (tawhid) as the cornerstone of Islam, albeit incomprehensible, Ibn Taymiyah went on to focus on what actually was within the scope of human activity, and that, he believed, was the response to tawhid: submission (tashm) to the will of God as revealed in the Qur’an and sunnah. For Ibn Taymiyah this is the essence of faith. It was not mere intellectual assent but included as well expression through religious practice or ritual and, most importantly, actions. True faith is expressed in virtuous behavior, he believed, both on the individual and the collective levels. Indeed, the two levels (personal and public, or religious and political) were inextricably linked. Human beings require social organization, and that organization must be guided by religion. Furthermore, he shifted emphasis from community leadership to individual piety, stressing that everyone must contribute to the well-being of the state.
Thus, for Ibn Taymlyah tawhid remains central in Islam but for reasons different from those of the early commentators. Tawhid precludes both rational understanding of God (the focus of Ash’ari arguments) and the kind of mystical awareness of God that had become popular among Sufi expositors by the time of Ibn Taymiyah. He believed that rather than attempting to prove the existence of God, or describe God, or to achieve mystical awareness of or communion with the divine, the sole obligation of human beings is to submit to God’s revealed will and participate in carrying it out. This is the orientation toward tawhid’s importance, rather than that of the Mu’tazilah or Ash’ariyah, that forms the legacy for the early modern and modern commentators. [See the biography of Ibn Taymiyah]
The Wahhdbiyah. In the eighteenth century, Arabian reformer Muhammad ibn `Abd al-Wahhab (1703-1792) drew inspiration from Ibn Taymiyah. In the face of what he considered spiritual stagnation and continuing Sufi excesses, he sought to reassert the radical oneness of God. As with Ibn Taymiyah, God is simply one and beyond comparison, as proclaimed in revelation. It is innovation (bidah; both unnecessary and irreligious) to attempt to determine the modality of tawhid. A Hanbali, he denounced those schools of thought traditionally criticized by Hanabilah as compromising Islamic unity, including the Shi’ah and Mu`tazilah, as well as what he considered excessive rationalism on the part of the mutakallimun (scholastic theologians) and excessive spirituality on the part of the Sufis. In particular he denounced the Sufi and Sh!’! practice of praying to saints. Only God, he asserted, is worthy of praise and to God is due all praise. He considered the belief that saints or angels or even prophets could intercede with God sheer polytheism. Moreover, he believed it utter heresy to claim knowledge based on any source beyond the Qur’an, the sunnah, and the results of logical processes.
Furthermore, Islamic unity is a central feature of tawhid for `Abd al-Wahhab. He therefore rejected sectarianism of any kind and even sought to establish a state based on divine and Islamic unity. In the mideighteenth century he formed an alliance with Muhammad ibn Sa’ud (d. 1765) devoted to the task of purifying Islamic practice and making God’s word prevail. Basing themselves on what they considered the prophet Muhammad’s model, they sought to replace tribal solidarity with religious solidarity, purifying the religion from what they considered extraneous practices. When `Abd al-Wahhab and Ibn Sa’ud died, their movement continued and gained strength under Ibn Sa’ud’s grandson, Sa`ud ibn `Abd al-`Aziz (r. 1803-1814). WahhabiSa`udi influence was eventually spread as far as Karbala, Mecca, and Medina, accompanied by the destruction of saints’ tombs and imposition of strict Hanbali-based order. Although the movement was repulsed when it spread into Syria and Iraq, it survived and became the basis of the modern state of Saudi Arabia. [See Wahhabiyah and the biography of Ibn `Abd al-Wahhab.]
Muhammad `Abduh. Popular Egyptian reformer Muhammad `Abduh (1849-1905) transmits to the modern era both the early theological discussions of tawhid and the later refocusing of its importance toward the ethical imperative, human responsibility to obey the revealed word of God. In the process, he effectively, though subtly, modifies some key positions of the formerly dominant Ash`ari position, particularly with regard to the role of free will and reason. He begins his Risalat al-tawhid (Epistle on Divine Unity; 1897) by noting that the study of tawhid is the study of “the being and attributes of God, the essential and the possible affirmations about Him, as well as the negations that are necessary to make relating to Him,” although he also claims that Islamic theology is named for the most important of its parts, “namely the demonstration of the unity of God in Himself and in the act of creation” (The Theology of Unity, translated by 1. Musa`ad and K. Cragg, London, 1966, p. z9). He believes it is beyond question that God is omnipotent and omniscient, but that it is likewise self-evident that people have free will (in contradistinction to the Ash’ari position). Attempts at rational explanation of these seemingly conflicting truths are not only doomed to failure but misguided in the first place. Revealing the influence of Ibn Taymiyah, `Abduh asserts that people should occupy themselves with responding to God through obedience rather than intellectual inquiry into matters beyond their ability to grasp.
`Abduh asserts that although the Qur’an gives all the information about God that is permitted to human beings, it does not ask us to believe blindly. On the contrary, it validates reason and thus gave rise to the earliest schools of theology. `Abduh outlines the development of early Islamic rationalism, noting that it was experimental at first. This is how he explains Ash’arism; it was a compromise among extremist interpretations and must be considered in historical context. The same holds true for the work of the later philosophers who criticized al-Ash’ari’s apparent anti-intellectualism. The upshot of the early efforts to meet the intellectual challenge raised by the Qur’an yet at the same time protect God’s transcendence, `Abduh concludes, was such confusion that further rational inquiry was effectively precluded, and the Islamic world forfeited its position at the forefront of significant human inquiry. For that reason he takes it on himself to resurrect the rationality of religion.
Formulating the approach that will become popular in twentieth-century Islamic activism, `Abduh justifies his own rational inquiries through tawhid. Islam “is a religion of unity throughout,” he explains (`Abduh, 1966, p. 39). There can be no conflict between reason and revelation, otherwise God would have created rationality in people in vain. Indeed, `Abduh goes on to place tawhid squarely at the center of the prophet Muhammad’s mission. The most important knowledge for Muslims, he says, is that God is one in himself and that creation was a single act. Then, in perhaps his most direct attack on traditionalism, `Abduh concludes, “The purpose of this discipline, theology, is . . . to know God most high and His attributes . . . to acknowledge His messengers . . . , relying therein upon proof and not taking things merely upon tradition” (p. 39). Returning to the traditional assertion of tawhid, affirming that God is therefore simple or noncomposite, the sole necessary existent on which all other beings are contingent, `Abduh affirms that both our reason and revelation tell us that God exists. Nevertheless, now echoing Ibn Taym-iyah, `Abduh asserts that the nature of God’s existence is beyond our comprehension.
Accordingly, `Abduh establishes three traditionally recognized aspects of tawhid. There is only one God, God is essentially one and noncomposite, and God is unique in the sense of being totally transcendent and beyond human comprehension. He then proceeds to direct tawhid to a modern issue, religious pluralism. At the time `Abduh worked, Egypt was facing the challenge of reorganizing as a state independent of both Turkish and European overlords. In that context, the question of the basis of citizenship became central. Thus `Abduh developed a fourth dimension of tawhid, the unity of religion. Relying on Qur’anic references (surahs 3.67 and 42.13), he claims that diversity in religion, even in the true religion, is not in itself troublesome. God chose to reveal incrementally, “to proceed by stages in the nurture” of humanity (`Abduh, 1966, p. 130). “Islam taught that the sole aim of outward forms of worship was to renew the inward recollection of God and that God looks not on the form but on the heart” (p. 134).
Another dimension of tawhid for `Abduh has to do with God’s work, creation. Just as perfection must be predicated of God, so must it be of what God has done. Therefore, not only must truth be attributed to God’s threats and promises, resulting in the necessity of free will, but purpose must be attributed to God’s will. Again, `Abduh quotes the Qur’an affirming that everything was created with a purpose, a goal, of perfection in accordance with God’s will (surah 21.16-18). `Abduh thus rejects both the traditionally accepted fatalism of predestination and complete freedom of human beings. Instead, he claims that people have free will, but it does not compromise divine omnipotence. He concludes by returning to the two themes of his work that influence subsequent twentieth-century commentators on tawhidcentered Islamic activism. First, to believe human behavior is predetermined, he says, is to fall into “the disease” of taqlid, blind adherence to precedent or failure to exercise the proper role of the human intellect. Recognition of tawhid thus requires revival of the spirit of intelligent initiative (ijtihad) after centuries of dormancy. Second; rather than focusing on the nature of the divine essence and attributes, as did early kalam, that initiative must be directed toward the pursuit of practical Islamic goals, the creation of an Islamic society. [See the biography of `Abduh.]
Tawhid as the Focus of Contemporary Activism. `Abduh’s orientation toward the centrality of tawhid in directing human pursuits became more important as the Islamic world continued to suffer political setbacks. It is reflected, for example, in the work of Sayyid Qutb (1909-1966), ideologue of the Muslim Brotherhood. Qutb’s viewpoint reflects the frustration felt by many Egyptians who were disappointed by Gamal Abdel Nasser’s 1952 revolution. Continued European control in the Islamic world, despite Allied victory over former Ottoman suzerains, had created the conditions that prompted enthusiastic support for the military coup among secularists and Muslim Brothers alike. But when Nasser’s government failed to achieve its lofty goals of independence, prosperity, and unity throughout the Arab-Islamic world, Sayyid Qutb’s strident and seemingly definitive articulation of a uniquely righteous Islamic worldview (in clear distinction from the weakness of either the Western capitalist or Eastern socialist models), struck a responsive chord.
Tawhid is the central feature of this worldview, and the central feature of tawhid is human response to God. As in previous formulations, tawhid is the ultimate basis of Islam for Sayyid Qutb. “The unity of God is such that there is no reality and no true and permanent existence except His. . . . This is the belief that should be entrenched in us. It is a full explanation of human existence” (Sayyid Qutb, In the Shade of the Qur’an, translated by M. A. Salahi and A. A. Shamis, London, 1979, vol. 30, p. 35o). The erstwhile concern for the metaphysical status of divine attributes has been replaced by the insistence that society reflect divine unity through unanimous submission to God’s revealed will. Gone also is the tolerance of religious diversity expressed by `Abduh. For Qutb, tawhid implies that only specifically Islamic revelation is legitimate, earlier forms of revelation having been corrupted by their followers. And all of those deviations are the result of deviation from the doctrine of tawhid. The uniquely Islamic insistence on the absolute unity of God is expressed in “its being considered a foundation for the realistic and practical system of human life with its effects clearly appearing in legislation as well as in belief’ (p. 353). Thus, for Qutb, tawhid implies not merely that people should submit to the will of God, but that governments should be based on Islamic law (Sayyid Qutb, Khasdis al-tasawwur al-islami wa mugawwtmdtuhu, Cairo, 1962, p. 45). [See the biography of Qutb.]
This insistence on unanimous submission to God’s revealed will is likewise reflected in the work of Palestinian scholar Isma’il Raji al-Faruqi (1921-1986). In AlTawhid: Its Implications for Thought and Life (Herndon, Va., 1982), following Sayyid Qutb’s approach, al-Farugi devotes his entire treatment of tawhid to its practical implications. Indeed, he ignores completely the metaphysical aspects of divine unity so prevalent in traditional kaldm and instead declares that the traditional meaning of Islam is that there is only one God. But, he continues, the implications of this assertion include every aspect of human life.
Al-Faruqi’s lengthy discussion of the practical implications of tawhid begins with the principle of tolerance. For al-Faruqi however, it is not the same kind of tolerance reflected in `Abduh’s support for pluralism in Egypt; the implications of tawhid are much broader. Muslims, as beneficiaries of the perfect and complete revelation concerning tawhid, are responsible for all humanity and for the entire cosmos. This universal or cosmic responsibility shared by all Muslims to fashion the world according to the will of God is the essence of shari`ah. The purpose of Islamic law, based on revelation, is to order human life in the service of God. Since tawhid dictates that all life must be ordered according to divine will, then Islamic law must both legislate concerning every aspect of life and be the dominant legal system throughout the world. It need not be the only legal system, since tawhid also dictates respect for other religions, including their legal systems. Indeed, protection of other religions is itself part of tawhid-based Islamic law. This is part of the Islamic world order. Yet it must ultimately prevail.
Of paramount importance in al-Faruqi’s discussion of the implications of tawhid is the public nature of human responsibility, which characterizes the Islamic world order, or pax Islamica, as he calls it. Whereas Christianity, according to al-Faruqi had to stress spirituality in its capacity as a corrective to Judaism’s excessive materialism and legalism, Islam places human activity squarely in the public sphere of social action. This means, first of all, that the Islamic community is a single community, wherein all believers are equal and subject to Islamic law. “In Islam all this is worship: the actual transformation of the earth and men for the sake of which the Qur’an itself was revealed, the concrete service of the tenant-farmer in the manor of God which is the earth.” (1982, pp. 147-148). [See the biography of Faruqi]
Tawhid in Shi’i Discourse. The modern emphasis on practical tawhid so evident in the work of the abovementioned Sunni writers is evident in the Shi’i community as well. Iranian ideologue of the Islamic resurgence, ‘Ali Shari4ati (1933-1977) popularized the theme in his lecturing to Iran’s disaffected youth. Shari’ati criticized those Iranians educated in the Western mode for their spiritual shallowness. Human beings are two dimensional, he believed, both spiritual and material. But both are directed toward the singular human purpose of khilafah (vicegerency). Just as in the work of Pakistani philosopher and poet Muhammad Iqbal (1877-1938), and that of al-Farugi, Shari`ati stresses the purposefulness of human existence, tracing it to a primordial agreement (or “trust” [amdnah]) between God and creation. That agreement gives human beings superiority over all other creatures but, at the same time, responsibility for them. Indeed, human beings are responsible for perfecting their environment.
This special relationship between God and humanity is at the core of tawhid for Shari`ati. Although al-Farugi believes that tawhid is the unique contribution of Islam to the monotheistic tradition, Shari`ati believes that it has been in the tradition from the beginning of human existence. Islam simply perfected our understanding of tawhid, showing it to be the foundation of all other values. Thus, all social organization should be based on tawhid (nizam-i tawhid). Again, like al-Farugi, Shari’ati believes that only Islam and its social organization enables people to carry out their sacred trust. Islam’s teaching on God’s unity and the unity of the universe as a reflection of God’s unity is a worldview essential to human perfection. It is a “universal philosophy of sociology” (‘Ali Shari `ati, On the Sociology of Islam, translated by Hamid Algar, Berkeley, 1979, p. 33). Reflecting a distinctively Shi’! orientation, Shari`ati explains this universalism by defining tawhid as “regarding the whole of existence as a single form, a single living and conscious organism, possessing will, intelligence, feeling and purpose,” for the relationship between God and creation is “the same as that of light with the lamp that emits it.” Yet he warns against monism or the pantheism of the Sufis: “It is not a question of wahdat al-wujud [unity of existence] of the Sufis, but a tawhid al-wujud, scientific and analytical” (pp. 82-85). That is, all creation must be oriented toward the Creator, and this conviction becomes the basis of social action. A tawhid-based worldview rejects “legal, class, social, political, racial, national, territorial, genetic or even economic contradictions” and therefore requires believers to work for justice in all its forms. Tawhid, therefore, transforms “the religion of deceit, stupefaction and justification of the status quo” into the “religion of awareness, activism and revolution” (p. 109). [See the biography of Shari`ati.]
Similarly, Iran’s Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini (1902-1989) places tawhid at the center of Islamic spiritual and material life. Islam, he says, is indeed the school of tawhid, which calls for the unity of all Muslims. Stressing political unity more than Shari`ati did, he claims, “The ultimate reason for all the troubles that afflict the Muslim countries is their disunity and lack of harmony. . . . I beseech God Almighty that He exalt Islam and the Muslims and grant unity to all Muslims in the world” (Imam Khomeini, Islam and Revolution, translated by Hamid Algar, London, 1985, p. 277). Indeed, tawhid was at the root of Ayatollah Khomeini’s political views. The “Great Satan” of Westernism is trying to control the Islamic world by sowing disunity among them, he warned. Islamic Iran therefore had to wage “a determined struggle to ensure the unity of all Muslims in the world on the basis of tawhid and true Islam” (p. 301)
In the work of Ayatollah Khomeini, therefore, tawhid came to represent revolutionary Islam. His calls for the elimination of specific leaders in the name of true Islam understandably engendered political insecurity among other Muslim leaders in the Middle East. His inflammatory speeches were received negatively in the Arab press. Indeed, in 1987 the Arab League issued a statement to the effect that the greatest source of instability in their region was the threat of Islamic revolution emanating from Iran. The ayatollah’s supporters, however, found inspiration to organize and act against what they considered the undue influence of the United States and European political powers among them. [See the biography of Khomeini.]
Even by 1936 the modern popularity of tawhid was not sufficiently developed to warrant more than a scant few paragraphs in the Encyclopedia of Islam (Leiden, 1913). In the new edition of the Encyclopedia of Islam (Leiden, 1960-), Louis Gardet pondered the demise of `ilm al-kalam or `ilm al-tawhid. Even by the twentieth century, he noted, Muhammad `Abduh for the most part simply reiterated classical theories in his Risalat altawhid. He suggests that the reason for the dearth of original thinking on the subject since the time of the controversies over divine essence and attributes is that the arguments of such disputants as the Mu’tazilah were so successfully refuted that the question of God’s unity is no longer an issue. The major issues of today, he observed, lay elsewhere. Indeed, he closes his comments wondering if anything more practical than the intensely speculative kind of thinking that characterized discussions of tawhid until the twentieth century would again gain Muslim thinkers’ attention. It appears that the modern development of concern with `ilm al-tawhid answers Gardet’s question. It seems true, as he noted, that “Ash’arism no longer appears to be necessitated by the demands of the faith” (” `Ilm al-kalam,” Encyclopedia of Islam, new ed., Leiden, 1960-, vol. 3, p. 1150). Concern with the practical manifestations of Islamic unity in a world fragmented by colonialism and nationalism has become today’s central issue. As the fragmentation resulting from the colonial period continues throughout the postcolonial era, tawhid has emerged as a powerful symbol of unity-divine, spiritual, and sociopolitical.
[See also Theology.]
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Ash’ari, Abu al:Hasan al-. The Theology of al-Ash`ari. Translated by Richard J. McCarthy. Beirut, 1953.
Averroes [Ibn Rushd]. Averroes’ Tahafut al-Tahafut (The Incoherence of the Incoherence). 2 vols. Translated by Simon van den Bergh. London, 1969.
Ghazali, Abu, Hamid al-. The Faith and Practice of al-Ghazali. Translated by W. Montgomery Watt. London, 1953.
Goichon, Amelie-Marie. La distinction de [‘essence et de l’existence d’apres Ibn Sina (Avicenne). Paris, 1937
Jurjani, `All ibn Muhammad al-. Sharh al-Mawaqif fi `ilm al-kalam. Cairo, 1977. Last third of the work deals with the divine essence and tawhid.
Kindi, Ya’qub ibn Ishaq al-. Al-Kindi’s Metaphysics. Translated by Alfred L. Ivry. Albany, N.Y., 1974.
Laoust, Henri. Essai sur les doctrines sociales et politiques de Taki-d-Din Ahmad b. Taimiya. Cairo, 1939
Marmura, Michael E., and J. M. Rist. “Al-Kindi’s Discussion of Divine Existence and Oneness.” Medieval Studies 25 (1963): 338-354. Maturidi, Muhammad ibn Muhammad al-. Kitdb al-Tawhid. Edited by Fath Allah Khulayf. Beirut, 1970.
Shari’ati, `Ali. Islam’shinasi. Mashhad, 1347/1978 Shari’ati, `Ali. On the Sociology of Islam. Berkeley,
TAMARA SONN

]]> https://hybridlearning.pk/2018/09/09/tawhid/feed/ 0 TANZANIA https://hybridlearning.pk/2018/07/08/tanzania/ https://hybridlearning.pk/2018/07/08/tanzania/#respond Sun, 08 Jul 2018 15:24:54 +0000 https://hybridlearning.pk/2018/07/08/tanzania/ TANZANIA. Although Islam was practiced in East African coastal enclaves and off-shore islands such as Zanzibar (that are now part of Tanzania) as early as […]

]]> TANZANIA. Although Islam was practiced in East African coastal enclaves and off-shore islands such as Zanzibar (that are now part of Tanzania) as early as the twelfth century CE, only at the end of the nineteenth century did it become a truly popular religion. Its spread from the coast to surrounding areas was linked to trade, and people along the three major routes from the coast to the interior became the most likely converts. These routes were nominally under the control of the ruling Zanzibari oligarchs, who were adherents of the Khariji Ibadi sect, the Muslims who plied them and played a key role in Islam’s dissemination, mainly Arab or part-Arab, were usually Sunni of the Shafi’i schoolas the majority of Tanzanian Muslims are today. (Less than two percent, mainly of Indian origin, belong to various Shi` i sects.)

The coming of European rule-first the Germans in 1891 and then the British in 1916-resulted in major gains for Islam. German government policies inadvertently fostered its growth; a subsequent vacuum of political and administrative leadership in the transition from German to effective British rule reinforced it. The period from 1916 to 1924 was in fact when Islam made its greatest gains ever in East Africa. As was true with earlier periods of expansion, upheaval, uncertainty, and crisis fostered Islam’s growth. From pre-World War I estimates of about 3 percent of the population, Muslims by 1925 estimates constituted about 25 percent. Although the percentage of Muslims has continued to grow, to about one-third of the population today, the rate of increase has never surpassed the post World War I period.
Islam’s growth after World War I was primarily led by African missionaries, almost exclusively Sunni. Until the imposition of European colonial rule, the `ulama’ class based in Zanzibar and under the tutelage of the sultanate exercised authority and influence on the mainland. Ethnically, this community consisted mostly of Arabs of Hadrami origin. Arabs of southern Somali Barawi origin also figured significantly within the `ulama’ The end of Zanzibar’s regional rule created opportunities for a learned class on the mainland, and Africans began to emerge as key leaders. Although Arabs disproportionately occupied such posts throughout the twentieth century, African Sunni leaders increasingly emerged, especially beyond the coastal enclaves.
The chief agent for Islam’s growth in the twentieth century was the Sufi order or brotherhood, the tariqah.
Although exact figures do not exist, today up to 70 percent of Tanzanian Sunnis are estimated to be affiliated with Sufi orders. The largest of these is the Qadiriyah, comprised of three major branches whose adherents account for about three-fourths of all brotherhood followers. Other brotherhoods present in Tanzania, ranked in importance, are the Shadhiliyah, the `Askariyah, the Ahmadiyah-Dandarawiyah, and the Rifa’iyah. [See Qadiriyah; Shadhillyah; Ahmadlyah; and Rifa’iyah. ]
Islam was africanized primarily through the brotherhoods. The historical hegemony that Arab elites exercised within the Sunni community was challenged with the advent of the orders at the end of the nineteenth century and their spread in the twentieth. Their emphasis on piety as opposed to the book-learning of the `ulama’ made it possible for the first time for Africans to assume positions of authority as tariqah heads. The dhikr rituals that involved singing and dancing were often looked on with disapproval by the Wama’, who tended to regard such practices as bid `ah. The combination of African leadership and ritual practices made the brotherhoods the key agent in recruiting the African masses to Islam.
African Muslims were particularly active in the struggle for independence. The challenge from the brotherhoods to the traditional `ulamd’, manifested mainly at the local level, in fact represented a nascent expression of African nationalism. African Muslims were most active in the Tanganyika African National Union (founded in 1954), the party that led the independence struggle. Tariqah leaders mobilized support for the party before and after independence in i 96 i . Their hope was that independence would redress the inequities of British colonial rule, under which Christians-also about onethird of the population-had relatively better educational and thus economic opportunities.
On both the mainland and Zanzibar, which united with the former in 1965, the ruling parties took stepsat times coercive-to ensure Muslim support in the postcolonial period. However, with the dismantling in the late i98os of Tanzania’s version of African socialism, ujamaa, and the adoption of more explicit procapitalist and pro-Western policies by the government, there are now signs of growing discontent among some elements of the African Muslim population. It is likely that free-market policies will exacerbate the inequalities that ujamaa never fully overcame and thus that such sentiment will increase. The fact that Islamic fundamen talism is getting a hearing today, which entails more aggressive proselytizing, may also indicate what is on the agenda. Historically, periods of uncertainty and instability have accompanied significant growth of Islam; whether this is the reality today in Tanzania remains to be seen.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Caplan, Ann Patricia. Choice and Constraint in a Swahili Community. London and New York, 1975. Detailed anthropological look at a community on Mafia Island, with some attention to Islam.
Iliffe, John. A Modern History of Tanganyika. Cambridge, 1979. The best overview for understanding the twentieth-century social and political context of the Muslim community.
Martin, B. G. “Notes on Some Members of the Learned Classes of Zanzibar and East Africa in the Nineteenth Century.” African Historical Studies 3 (1971): 525-545. Biographical data on the leading `ulamd’, particularly the Hadrami Arabs.
Nimtz, August H., Jr. “Islam in Tanzania: An Annotated Bibliography.” Tanzania Notes and Records 72 (1972): 53-74. The only annotated listing and the most comprehensive to 1970.
Nimtz, August H., Jr. Islam and Politics in East Africa: The Sufi Order in Tanzania. Minneapolis, t98o. Still regarded as the best overview and introduction. In addition to a regional and national view, provides an in-depth analysis of the coastal town of Bagamoyo.
Prins, A. H. J. The Swahili-Speaking Peoples of Zanzibar and the East African Coast. London, 1961. The most comprehensive ethnographic survey, with some reference to Islam. Contains an extensive bibliography.
Trimingham, J. Spencer. Islam in East Africa. Oxford, 1964. Still useful introduction to the region, although some of its claims have been refuted by more recent research. Contains a useful glossary. Westerlund, David. Ujamaa na Dini: A Study of Some Aspects of Society and Religion in Tanzania, 1961-1977. Stockholm, 198o. Argues that the country’s socialist course has both political and ideological roots in Islam.
AUGUST H. NIMTZ, JR.

]]> https://hybridlearning.pk/2018/07/08/tanzania/feed/ 0 TALEQANI, MAHMUD https://hybridlearning.pk/2018/07/08/taleqani-mahmud/ https://hybridlearning.pk/2018/07/08/taleqani-mahmud/#respond Sun, 08 Jul 2018 15:18:56 +0000 https://hybridlearning.pk/2018/07/08/taleqani-mahmud/ TALEQANI, MAHMUD (1910-1979), Iranian cleric and political activist, a key ideologue of the Islamic Revolution Of 1978-1979. Talegani (or Taliqani) was born into a family […]

]]> TALEQANI, MAHMUD (1910-1979), Iranian cleric and political activist, a key ideologue of the Islamic Revolution Of 1978-1979. Talegani (or Taliqani) was born into a family of `ulama’ (religious scholars) in the Taleqan Valley northwest of Tehran and spent his childhood in the capital, where his father was prayer leader of a mosque.

After extensive studies at the seminaries of Qom and Najaf, he settled in Tehran in 1939 His opposition to royal dictatorship was deepened when in that same year he was jailed for three months for not carrying with him a government-issued license exempting `ulama’ from Reza Shah’s European dress code. Disappointed with the `ulama’s preoccupation with matters of faith and indifference to the country’s sociopolitical conditions, he sought refuge in the sources of religion, chiefly the Qur’an. Beginning in 1939 he organized Qur’an interpretation sessions, in which he attempted to draw exemplary significance from the holy book in a language nonscholars could understand. His main preoccupation after Reza Shah’s abdication in 1941 was the rapid spread of communist influence among the youth. Since neither repression nor traditional religion could stop the flow of ideas, the formulation of an attractive ideological alternative was the only solution. Talegani collaborated with Mehdi Bazargan in its elaboration.
In the years of relative political freedom between 1941 and 1953, Talegani engaged in public activity on a scale far beyond what was customary for the `ulama’ In 1946 he accompanied Iranian troops reoccupying Azerbaijan, in 1947 he gave radio talks in which he analyzed social issues in light of religion, and in 1948 he became prayer leader at the Hidayat Mosque in central Tehran. After the founding of the National Front in 1949, this mosque became a focal point for religiously oriented Mossadeghists, who attended meetings organized by Talegani. An early supporter of the nationalist prime minister, Mohammad Mossadegh, Talegani was a candidate in the parliamentary elections Of 1952, but the voting in his northern constituency was canceled. After his fellow clerical activist Abol-Qasem Kashani broke with Mossadegh, Talegani remained loyal to the latter and became active in the National Resistance Movement after the coup Of 1953. In 1961 he cofounded the Liberation Movement of Iran (LMI) with Mehdi Bazargan, and he was arrested in 1963.
During the shah’s dictatorship, Talegani spent many years in prison or internal exile and was freed only in late 1978. Shortly thereafter he led the gigantic antiregime demonstrations of 1o and 11 December in Tehran that heralded the end of the shah’s regime. A charismatic and popular leader in his own right, Talegani at no point challenged Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, whose position in the clerical hierarchy was far above his own. Talegani did not rejoin the LMI in 1978, so as to be able to work for the unity of all revolutionary forces. Having been elected to the Assembly of Experts from Tehran with the highest number of votes, he died on 9 September 1979 before the final version of the constitution was passed.
As an ideologue, Taleqani’s heritage is claimed by groups as disparate as leaders of the Islamic republic, its radical opponents in the Mujahidin-i Khalq, and the liberal Islamists of the LMI. The pervasiveness of his influence makes him one of the key figures in the Islamic Revolution. In 1955 Talegani edited and published the book Tanbih al-millah wa-tanzih al-ummah. Written in 1905 on the basis of ShIN doctrine by Ayatollah Muhammad Husayn Nd’ini (d. 1936) to defend constitutional government against the supporters of both royal and clerical rule after the Constitutional Revolution of 1905-1909, it acquired new significance for the religiously oriented sectors of the opposition against the shah.
In the early 1960s agrarian reform became a major issue in Iranian politics with the shah’s land-reform program. As a populist, Taleqani did not share many of his fellow clerics’ outright opposition to land reform, but he could not support the regime’s self-serving handling of the matter. To solve this problem, he concentrated on the question of ownership and concluded that unlike socialism, Islam accepted the principle of private ownership of land-but unlike capitalism, this acceptance was not absolute and was contingent on the owners using the land productively.
Between 1963 and 1978 Taleqani worked on a Qur’dnic commentary, which he called “A Ray from the Qur’dn.” It differed from traditional exegetical works in that it adopted a simple language accessible to the laity. From the Qur’dn, he deduced an evolutionary view of history in which societies move from a bad to a better condition and advocated “free will” as opposed to “predestination.” From these premises Taleqani concluded that Muslims had to take their destiny into their own hands and strive against their internal and external enemies to improve their condition and achieve justice. By attempting to show the relevance of the Qur’dn to the problems faced by Iranians, he invented an ideological discourse whose lingering attractiveness is testified to by the variety of groups that claim his legacy. This legacy, however, is viewed with skepticism by the more traditional Wamd’, who criticize his reductionist reading of the Qurdn.
[See also Iranian Revolution of 1979; Liberation Movement of Iran; and the biographies of Bazargan, Ka-shani, Khomeini, and Nj’ini]
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Chehabi, H. E. Iranian Politics and Religious Modernism: The Liberation Movement of Iran under the Shah and Khomeini. Ithaca, N.Y., and London, 1990. Contains biographical material and an analysis of Taleqani’s socioeconomic writings.
Dabashi, Hamid. “Taliqani’s Qur’anic Exegesis: Elements of a Revolutionary Discourse.” In Modern Capitalism and Islamic Ideology in Iran, edited by Cyrus Bina and Hamid Zanganeh, pp. 51-81. London, 1992. Excellent discussion and critique of the methodology and content of Taleqani’s interpretation of the Qur’an.
Dabashi, Hamid. Theology of Discontent: The Ideological Foundation of the Islamic Republic of Iran. New York, 1993. See chapter 4 for an exhaustive treatment of Taleqani’s thought.
Taleqani, Seyyed Mahmood (Taleqani, Mahmud). Islam and Ownership. Translated by Ahmad Jabari and Farhang Rajaee. Lexington, Ky., 1983. Final version of Taleqani’s thought on the forms of ownership according to Islam, published in Persian in 1965.

  1. E. CHEHABI
]]> https://hybridlearning.pk/2018/07/08/taleqani-mahmud/feed/ 0 TAJIKISTAN https://hybridlearning.pk/2018/07/07/tajikistan/ https://hybridlearning.pk/2018/07/07/tajikistan/#respond Sat, 07 Jul 2018 01:17:31 +0000 https://hybridlearning.pk/2018/07/07/tajikistan/ TAJIKISTAN. An independent state in Central Asia as of December 1991, Tajikistan was formerly a constituent republic of the Soviet Union. In the nineteenth century […]

]]> TAJIKISTAN. An independent state in Central Asia as of December 1991, Tajikistan was formerly a constituent republic of the Soviet Union. In the nineteenth century the area was divided between the emirate of Bukhara and the khanate of Kokand; in the late nineteenth century, Kokand was annexed by the Russian Empire.
By the beginning of the 1990s, the overwhelming majority of Tajikistan’s population of more than five million belonged to nationalities that were historically Muslim. Tajiks (and eastern Iranian peoples counted as Tajiks in Soviet censuses) comprised roughly 6o percent of the population, Uzbeks more than 20 percent, and Tatars, Kirghizes, and Turkmens each less than five percent. The remainder of the population was comprised of historically non-Muslim nationalities. A large majority of the Muslim peoples of Tajikistan are Sunni and follow the Hanafi school of law. A small minority is traditionally Isma’ili Shi`i; it includes certain eastern Iranian peoples and some Tajiks living in the mountainous southeast of the republic in Badakhshan. Sufism, especially the Naqshbandiyah order, has strong historic roots in Tajikistan and adjoining republics, especially in the Ferghana valley.
During the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, most Muslims in what later became Tajikistan continued to practice their faith as they had traditionally done. Mosques, maktabs, madrasahs, and popularly venerated holy places were numerous. There was a high degree of conformity with the standard obligations of Islamic observance.
Despite major changes during the Soviet era, there was significant continuity in the practice of Islam in Tajikistan. Except for a period of relative tolerance in the early and mid-1920s, the Soviet regime sharply restricted the practice of Islam, and, under Stalin and Khrushchev, launched campaigns to destroy it along with other religions. Religious figures were arrested, religious books destroyed, religious schools abolished, and religious instruction of minors made a crime. Mosques and other holy places were closed, converted to secular use, or allowed to fall into ruin. The number of legally recognized religious figures (the “official clergy” in Soviet parlance) was limited to far too few to meet the needs of the Muslim population. By 1989 Tajikistan had only seventeen legally registered Muslim congregations.
Tajikistani Muslims adapted by drawing on the traditional practices of ordinary believers from pre-Soviet times. Religious instruction of children continued in the home and in de facto but illegal local maktabs. The main life-cycle rituals and major holidays were still observed. People made pilgrimages to tombs of holy men and to many natural sites associated with the miraculous. Numerous mullahs, Sufis, fortunetellers, and pious individuals served the needs of believers in ways the “official clergy” could not.
Yet Soviet policies did produce changes. Many people became less observant or nonobservant, although a large proportion of them still considered Islam an important part of their national heritage. By the end of the Soviet era, a number of religious leaders and Islamic activists were criticizing their fellow Muslims for knowing little about the religion beyond the major rituals.
The status of Islam changed in the late Soviet and early independence periods (since 1989); official anti-Islamic measures virtually disappeared, and citizens became openly assertive of the importance of Islam to them not only as religion, but also as a system of worldly values (in contrast to Soviet ideology) and as a part of their cultural and national heritage. Positive treatments of Islamic subjects were published. People organized Islamic study groups and, in a broader sense, reexamined the role they wanted Islam to play in their society. Political parties representing a range of ideologies (even the Communist Party) declared their respect for Islam and an explicitly Muslim party, the Islamic Renaissance or Revival Party (also called the Islamic Movement Party), was established. A new madrasah opened in Dushanbe, the capital of the republic. By 1991 Tajikistan had nearly three thousand legally functioning mosques. The old distinctions between “official” and “unofficial” Islam collapsed in the face of the rapid expansion of open observance.
Tajikistan’s Muslims have ethnic and cultural as well as religious links to peoples beyond the republic’s borders. All the larger Muslim nationalities represented in Tajikistan have members living elsewhere in the former Soviet Union, mostly in adjoining Central Asian republics. Contacts between Tajikistanis and members of the same nationalities in China’s Xinjiang Autonomous Region appear to be extremely limited.
Tajik interest in the Tajiks of Afghanistan seems to focus primarily on repudiation of the Soviet war there and on ways to use Tajik cultural development in Afghanistan to enrich Tajikistan’s culture after years of Soviet manipulation. Religious propaganda from various sources and personal contacts have crossed the border between Tajikistan and Afghanistan.
Tajik interest in Iran includes a similar concern with culture. Iran also has some appeal as a country that has gone from self-described dependency on a foreign power to self-reliance. Some Tajikistanis have been adamant that Iran’s Islamic Republic could not be a model for Tajikistan because the differences between the Twelver Shiism of Iran and the Sunnism of Tajikistan are too great. Apart from religious or ethnic ties, newly independent Tajikistan is concerned to develop relations with a variety of foreign countries as it seeks the technology and investment funds it urgently needs to address its massive economic problems.
According to census 2016 the estimated population of Tajikistan is 8,734,951
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Atkin, Muriel. The Subtlest Battle: Islam in Soviet Tajikistan. Philadelphia, 1989. Examines the social context of continued Islamic practice and the ways the Soviet regime tried to undermine Islam’s influence from the 1970s to the mid-1980s.
Atkin, Muriel. “The Survival of Islam in Soviet Tajikistan.” Middle East Journal 43.4 (Autumn 1989): 605-618. Explains how Muslims in Tajikistan were able to preserve and disseminate knowledge of Islam, despite the Soviet regime’s efforts to prevent that from happening.
Atkin, Muriel. “Religious, National, and Other Identities in Central Asia.” In Muslims in Central Asia: Questions of Identity and Change, edited by Jo-Ann Gross, pp. 46-72. Durham, N.C., 1992. Discusses the way the theoretically supranational Islamic identity coexists with a strong sense of Tajik national identity and local loyalties in contemporary Central Asia.
Bennigsen, Alexandre, and Chantal Lemercier-Quelquejay. Islam in the Soviet Union (1968). Translated by Geoffrey E. Wheeler and Hubert Evans. New York, 1967. Classic history of the problematic political relations between Muslims and the Russian empire and Soviet regime from the late imperial period to the mid-twentieth century.
Carrere d’Encausse, Helene. Islam and the Russian Empire: Reform and Revolution in Central Asia (1966). Translated by Quintin Hoare. Berkeley and London, 1988. Seminal study of the way, in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, some Muslim intellectuals in Central Asia-primarily Uzbeks and Tajiks-sought alternatives to traditionalist Islamic conservatism without repudiating their identity.
Dupree, Louis. “Tajik.” In Muslim Peoples: A World Ethnographic Survey, edited by Richard V. Weekes, vol. 2, pp. 739-‘745. Westport, Conn., 1984. Noted anthropologist’s introduction to the religion and general way of life of Tajiks living in the Soviet Union, Afghanistan, and elsewhere.
MURIEL ATKIN

]]> https://hybridlearning.pk/2018/07/07/tajikistan/feed/ 0 TAGHUT https://hybridlearning.pk/2018/07/07/taghut/ https://hybridlearning.pk/2018/07/07/taghut/#respond Sat, 07 Jul 2018 00:28:12 +0000 https://hybridlearning.pk/2018/07/07/taghut/ TAGHUT. The term taghut, from the root tghy (“to rebel, transgress, or overstep the mark”), occurs eight times in the Qur’an, where it denotes a […]

]]> TAGHUT. The term taghut, from the root tghy (“to rebel, transgress, or overstep the mark”), occurs eight times in the Qur’an, where it denotes a focus of worship other than God and so is often translated as “idols” or “Satan.” But its meaning is wider than this: surah 4.6o refers to taking cases for judgment before tdghut, implying earthly authorities that have taken the place of God.

The modern Islamic ideologue Abu al-A’la Mawdudi defines tdghut in his Qur’an commentary as a creature who exceeds the limits of creatureliness and arrogates to himself godhead and lordship—one who not only rebels against God, but imposes his will on others in disregard of God’s will (Mawdudi, 1988, vol. I, pp. 199-200). In Shi’i Islam, tdghut and the associated word tdghtydn refer to those who have opposed the rightful imam (see, for example, Husayn ‘All Muntaziri, Mabani -yi fiqhi-i hukumat-i Islami, Tehran, AH 1367/1988 CE, pp. 238, 376), and they were therefore often applied to the Sunni authorities.
Because of these associations, the word taghut became a general appellation for any person or group accused of being anti-Islamic, in particular those thought to be leading people away from Islam. The modern Shi’i scholar Muhammad Husayn Tabataba’i, for example, in his twenty-volume Qur’anic commentary, Mizdn alhaqq, along with the usual definitions of idols, satans, and jinn, defines tdghut as “those leaders who lead mankind astray and are obeyed despite God’s displeasure” (Beirut, n.d., VOL 2, p. 344).
In particular, tdghut was used during and after the Iranian Revolution of 1:979 by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini to designate the shah and what Khomeini identified as the illegitimacy, false values, and corruption of his regime; the United States of America (“the accursed Satan,” shaytan-i rajim) and its taghuti agents, the shah and his supporters, were accused of trying to lead people away from Islam and toward false gods.
Khomeini was himself accused of being tdghut by his principal religious rivals, the Hujjatiyah. This group was founded to oppose the Baha’i faith, and consequently one of its main principles is that any claim to leadership before the advent of the Hidden Twelfth Imam usurps the rights of the imam. Since the Hidden Imam will, according to the hadith, bring justice to a world filled with injustice, Khomeini’s claim that he was establishing a more just society was also considered by the Hujjatiyyah as an attempt to usurp the functions of the imam. In Shiism, anyone who usurps the rights of the imams is tdghut, which explains why the Hujjatiyah accused Khomeini of this. [See also Hujjatiyah.]
Since the 1979 Iranian Revolution, the term tdghut has entered into political discourse in both Iran and the Sunni world, referring to any person, group, or government who is portrayed as being anti-Islamic and a supporter of the materialism and irreligious values of the West. It is used to refer to those who are seen as agents of Western cultural imperialism and are trying to import these values into the Islamic world.
Binliography
There has been no extensive study of the word taghut in relation to modern discourse. The Qur’anic references to tdghut include surahs 2.256, 2.257 4.6o, 4.76, 5.6o, 16.36, and 39.17. Associated words from the same root also occur in the Qur’an, but the derivative adjective tdghuti, which frequently occurs in modern political discourse, is not found in the Qur’an. See also Sayyid Abu al-A’la Mawdudi, Towards Understanding the Qur’an: a translation of Mawdudi’s Tafhim alQur’an: by Zafar Ishaq Ansari (Leicester, 1988; 4 vols. to date); and Mahmud Taleqani, “Jihad and Shahadat,” in Jihad and Shahadat: Struggle and Martyrdom in Islam, edited by Mehdi Abedi and Gary Legenhausen, pp. 51-53 (Houston, 1986), an analysis of the term by a modern Shi’i political cleric. Said Amir Arjomand, in his work The Turban for the Crown (New York and Oxford, 1988), discusses the term as applied to the Pahlavi regime on pages 103-105.
MOOJAN MOMEN

]]> https://hybridlearning.pk/2018/07/07/taghut/feed/ 0 TAFSIR https://hybridlearning.pk/2018/05/25/tafsir/ https://hybridlearning.pk/2018/05/25/tafsir/#respond Fri, 25 May 2018 14:40:13 +0000 https://hybridlearning.pk/2018/05/25/tafsir/ TAFSIR. Exegesis of the Qur’an is known as tafsir. The focus in this article will be on Sunni tafsir, but Shi’i tafsir will also be […]

]]> TAFSIR. Exegesis of the Qur’an is known as tafsir. The focus in this article will be on Sunni tafsir, but Shi’i tafsir will also be discussed.

The Qur’an, regarded as the word of God, needed tafsir-elucidation, explanation, interpretation, or commentary-for an obvious reason: it had to be understood clearly and fully so that its commandments could be carried out with the conviction that the will of God had been done. Equally, however, as God’s word the Qur’an seemed to discourage attempts at tafsir, for two different but complementary reasons. First, coming as it did from God, the Qur’an must be assumed to be clear in its import, thus obviating the need for exposition. Second, how could finite human intelligence claim to be able to discover the true meanings of the texts of a book that emanated from the possessor of infinite wisdom? The case of the prophet Muhammad was different: he had brought the Qur’an, and, having been appointed by God as prophet, he could explain the sacred text authoritatively. For these reasons there was in the very early years of Islam a reluctance on the part of Muslims to interpret the Qur’an but at the same time an eagerness to know and transmit the interpretations attributed to the Prophet in the first instance and to his companions in the second-the assumption being that these latter interpretations too went back directly or indirectly to the Prophet himself.
Only a very small amount of tafsir is ascribed to the Prophet and his companions, and that usually in the form of brief explanations in response to questions asked. But this was hardly sufficient to satisfy the needs of a community that was not only growing apace in numbers but also was coming into contact with culture and traditions very different from those of Arabia. A host of new problems, both conceptual and practical, were arising and calling for solution. Since the Qur’an was the fundamental text of Islam, it was natural for Muslims to look in it for answers to new problems; thus a need for more comprehensive tafsir was felt.
Soon after the age of the companions, in the age of the successors (those who are said to have met the companions), the so-called schools-Meccan, Medinan, and Iraqi-of tafsir came into existence. As in jurisprudence, so in tafsir Iraq, as against Mecca and Medina, came to be known for a ray-based approach, that is, an approach that relied on considered personal judgment and not simply on reports transmitted from the Prophet and his companions through dependable channels. The spread of Jewish apocryphal reports was distinctive of the age of the successors. Until then, tafsir on the whole had been transmitted orally and had not been compiled and written down. Furthermore, the discipline of tafsir was not yet clearly distinguishable from that of hadith  (prophetic tradition) but was rather a special domain within hadith. In fact, it was the muhaddithun (“scholars of hadith”; sg., muhaddith) whose collections of ah, adith (pl. of hadith, “report”), which included tafsir reports, paved the way for the development of an independent discipline of tafsir. This development led to the emergence of major mufassirun (pl. of mufassir, “tafsir scholar”) and their works, a topic we shall take up later. The scope of tafsir meanwhile continued to widen as new problems and issues arose. At this point it will be useful to take a synoptic view of the issues and problems that have arisen in the history of tafsir.
Typology of Issues. Three broad areas can be distinguished: linguistic, juristic, and theological. A few points should be noted before going into detail. First, the following typology does not imply that the different categories are historically sequential. Second, not all the problems within any single category arose at one time, although the questions become noticeably more complex over time. Third, several issues fall into more than one category.
In the beginning, questions of vocabulary and syntax are raised: What is the meaning of a given Qur’anic word? Which of the several possible meanings of a word is intended in a given context? What is the case-ending of a word? Is there any preposing (taqdim) or postposing (ta’khir) in a sentence? Then questions involving rhetoric are asked: Does the imperative always signify a command or does it sometimes signify permission or option as well? How is repetition to be explained in a perfect book- from a perfect God? The issue of literal and nonliteral meanings also receives attention.
The law early acquired a prominent position in the hierarchy of Islamic sciences, and the preoccupation of scholars with legal issues had its impact on tafsir. Among the first issues to be raised was that of abrogation (naskh). Since the Qur’an is made up of revelations that came to Muhammad over a period of about twentythree years, certain injunctions were understandably meant to be temporary and were repealed by subsequent ones. The abrogated (mansukh) and the abrogating (ndsikh) verses thus had to be identified. Then a distinction was made between the general (`amm) and the specific khass) application of an injunction or command. For example, surah 3.97 says that it is incumbent on “people” to perform the pilgrimage to the Ka`bah. While “people” is general, obviously Muslims are meant; more specifically, only those adult Muslims are meant who are physically able to perform the pilgrimage and have the financial means to undertake the journey. A sophisticated basis for interpreting the Qur’an from a legal viewpoint was laid down through a fourfold division of the meanings of the text into significative (`ibarah), implicative (isharah), analogical (daldlah), and assumptive (iqtida’), discussed below.
Several Qur’anic verses speak of God’s hand and face and of his being seated on his throne. Interpreting these verses literally smacked of anthropomorphism, but interpreting them nonliterally seemed to constitute a departure from the Qur’anic text. A solution considered plausible by many was to interpret the verses literally but with the addition of the rider, “it is not known precisely in what manner.” Another issue dealt with was that of the sinlessness or infallibility (`ismah) of the prophets; verses involving certain acts of some prophets were explained with reference to this notion. One such instance is Joseph’s relations with Potiphar’s wife, for surah 12.24 seems to indicate that Joseph and Potiphar’s wife both “made for each other,” but that Joseph, upon seeing a sign from God, stopped short of committing adultery. A fundamental issue was that of free will and determinism: different verses seemed to support either the predestinarian or the libertarian view, and reconciling the two possible interpretations was a major preoccupation of the mufassirun.
Principles. The multiplicity and diversity of issues, and the variety of perspectives and approaches brought to bear on them, led to the systematization of the discipline of tafsir. Again it must be emphasized that the systematization did not wait until after all issues had arisen but occurred over a period of time, beginning quite early and leading to the formulation of the principles of tafsir among other developments. A convenient way to cover this subject is by glancing at the medieval scholar Ibn Taymiyah’s Muqaddimah fi usul al-tafsir (Introduction to the Principles of Tafsir). Ibn Taymiyah (d. 1328) lists the following as the usul (“sources” or “principles,” translated here by the latter):  tafsir of the Qur’an by the Qur’an tafsir of the Qur’an by the sunnah of Muhammad tafsir of the Qur’an by reports from the companions of Muhammad tafsir of the Qur’an by the successors
It is obvious that Ibn Taymiyah puts a high premium on tafsir that is provided by the Prophet himself or in some sense goes back to him, for tafsir by the companions (the “occasions of revelation,” asbab al-nuzul, are apparently subsumed by Ibn Taymiyah under tafsir by the companions) or the successors acquires its authority through its putative connection with the Prophet. Knowledge of the Arabic language-including grammar, rhetoric, and the literary (especially pre-Islamic) tradition-is assumed by Ibn Taymiyah. This approach is heavily weighted in favor of what is known as tafsir bial-ma’thur (“received tafsir,” transmitted from the early times of Islam, beginning with the Prophet’s age). It evinces a profound distrust of tafsir bi-al-ray (“tafsir by opinion,” arrived at through personal reflection or independent rational thinking), and a number of reports attributed to the Prophet or other early authorities condemn the latter. Ibn Taymiyah too rejects tafsir bi-alra’y out of hand.
We shall have more to say about tafsir bi-al-ray later. Here it should be pointed out that although the traditionally listed principles of tafsir appear to be rather simplistic, the application of these principles in practice not infrequently takes a sophisticated form. Two examples, one from the theological realm and the other (in fact a set of examples) from the juristic, are helpful. In both examples (more exclusively in the first) the principle of interpretation of the Qur’an by the Qur’an is employed.
Surah 12.24, as noted above, speaks of Joseph and Potiphar’s wife in a certain situation. The text seems to suggest that, like Potiphar’s wife, Joseph too was sexually aroused. Coming to the defense of the notion of prophetic `ismah, Fakhr al-Din al-Razi (1150-1210) constructs an elaborate argument to prove that this is impossible, basing it on an analysis of all those Qur’anic texts that, in his view, are relevant to the issue. He shows that not only does Joseph claim his innocence (12.26) and prefer to go to prison rather than succumb to temptation (12.33), but Potiphar’s wife admits in front of other Egyptian noblewomen (12.32) and then in front of the king (12.51) that Joseph refused to comply with her demands; Potiphar himself accuses his wife, exonerating Joseph (28); an independent witness supports Joseph (2.26); God himself declares that Joseph was one of his chosen men and that he warded off evil from Joseph (24); and Iblis (Satan) admits that he has no control over the chosen men of God (15.40). In view of such overwhelming evidence from within the Qur’an, Razi concludes, it is impossible to interpret the words, “and he [Joseph], too, made for her” (12.24), to mean that Joseph too had become sexually excited.
The conceptual apparatus developed by Muslim legal scholars for the interpretation of Islamic texts included the fourfold division of meanings mentioned above. The purpose of this division, which was made by the Hanafi school and to which there is a Shafi`i counterpart, was to extend the application of the texts through logical deduction. The significative meaning of a Qur’anic verse is the obvious and primarily intended meaning. The implicative meaning is that which may not be primarily intended but which, reflection will show, is implied by the text. For example, surah 46.15 says that the combined period of pregnancy and weaning is thirty months. Since surah 31.14 says that the period of weaning is two years, it follows, as Ibn `Abbas is said to have argued, that the minimum period of pregnancy (determination of which would have a bearing on issues of legitimacy and paternity) is six months. In analogical meaning, the obvious meaning can be extended to cover cases that are either similar or admit of a readier application of the rule. Surah 17.22 forbids one to say uff (an Arabic interjection signifying impatience or anger) to one’s parents; it follows quite obviously that they may not be manhandled or killed. The assumptive meaning is that which, in order to be complete, requires the assumption of certain words. For example, surah 5.4 says that certain things are forbidden, the meaning being that it is forbidden to eat them, “eating” being assumed to be the act forbidden.
Because of its relative paucity, tafsir bi-al-ma’thur could not become the basis for interpreting the Qur’an in its entirety. The attempts to widen the scope of such tafsir necessarily resulted in the inclusion in works on the subject of many reports of doubtful authenticity. Jalal al-Din al-Suyfiu’s (1445-1505) Al-durr al-manthar, a major source of tafsir bi-al-ma’thur, testifies to this. Not only was there a practical necessity to augment tafsir material through independent study of the Qur’anic text, there was also sanction for such activity in the Qur’an itself. Surah 38.29 reads, “A Blessed Book which We have revealed to you so that they may reflect (li -yatadabbaru) on its verses, and so that intelligent people may take remembrance.” Surah 47.2 asks curtly, “Don’t they reflect on the Qur’an (a -fa-la yatadabbaruna al-Qur’dn)?” The fact that tafsir bi-al-ra`y was given a bad name does not mean that the essential activity it represented lacked warrant or justification. What deserved censure was irresponsible interpretation by unqualified people. Responsible interpretation by competent scholars could not be impugned through an indiscriminate use of the label of tafsir bi-al-ra`y That is why tafsir bi-al-ra`y despite opposition, earned itself a respectable place in the tradition, and the advocates of tafsir bi-al-ma’thur were forced to concede ground in that they came to distinguish between tafsir bi-al-ra`y that was desirable and acceptable (mahmud) and tafsir bi-al-ra’y that was condemnable (madhmum). Eventually a middle ground between tafsir bi-al-ra`y and tafsir bi-alma’thur was reached, the rather pointless semantic quarrel giving way to a sound, practical compromise.
Major Mufassirun. We have seen that only a small amount of tafsir was transmitted from the Prophet and his companions. Perhaps the two distinguishing features of that tafsir are selectiveness and brevity: as a rule, only certain words or phrases in certain verses are explained, and that through citation of synonymous words or phrases. This is the method used in the tafsir attributed to the companion Ibn `Abbas, who was Muhammad’s cousin and is known as the “interpreter of the Qur’an.” The same method is used by the successor Sufyan alThawri.
The first activities of compilers of tafsir consisted of attempts to collect reports that were supposed to have originated with the Prophet and his companions or the successors. Ibn Jarir al-Tabar-1 (839-923) is generally regarded as the most important figure in the formally established classical tradition of tafsir. His Jami’ al-bayan is an encyclopedia of tafsir comments and opinions that had come into existence up to his time. As such, it is an indispensable source of traditionist tafsir, which is made up of reports transmitted from early authorities. Ibn Jarir aims at being comprehensive rather than selective, which makes his book a treasure-house of information, enabling later mufassiran to select data on their own principles. He provides the names of authorities for the reports he cites but generally does not evaluate the chains of transmission, although he does often give his opinion on the reports themselves, without putting any constraints on the reader. In this too he helps later scholars to form their own judgment. These features give Ibn Jarir’s book an objectivity that has earned it deserved distinction.
Ibn Jarir’s work is typical of tafsir bi-al-ma’thur. Several mufassiran with different points of emphasis compiled works in this category. Suyfiti’s Al-durr al-manthar has already been mentioned. Abfi Muhammad alBaghawi’s (d. 1122) Ma’alim al-tanzil, an abridgement of Abfi Ishaq al-Tha’labi’s (d. 1035) Al-kashf wa albaydn `an tafsir al-Qur’dn, is unlike the latter in that it excludes Jewish apocrypha and fabricated hadiths. The tafsir of Ibn Kathir (d. 1373) may be called an abridgement of Ibn Jarir’s work; it is much more selective, evaluates the chains of transmission, and pronounces on the authenticity of reports. Ibn Kathir is essentially a muhaddith, however, and his approach to the subject reflects the viewpoint of one, much more geared to advancing the established orthodox viewpoint.
Alongside traditionist tafsir there developed what may be called literary tafsir. At a basic level this consisted in citing Arabic poetry to support an interpretation of a Qur’anic word or expression, and at an advanced level in making a rigorous analysis of the language of the Qur’an. Literary tafsir begins quite early. `Umar is reported to have enjoined Muslims to stick to the works of Arabic poetry (diwdn al-‘Arab) because it contained tafsir of the Qur’an. A similar statement is attributed to Ibn `Abbas, who may be called the progenitor of this tafsir. According to a report, in a dialogue between Ibn `Abbas and the Khariji Nafi` ibn al-Azraq, the latter put about two hundred questions to Ibn `Abbas about the meanings of certain Qur’anic words, and Ibn `Abbas in each case supported his answer by citing Arabic poetry. Whatever authenticity such reports may have, they definitely indicate the crystallization of the general view of the exegetes regarding the usefulness of Arabic poetry in expounding the Qur’an. Literary tafsir reaches its zenith in Mahmfid ibn `Umar al-Zamakhshari (10751144). Despite his nonorthodox views in theology, Zamakhshari’s Al-kashshaf is regarded by all as an invaluable source of linguistic and literary insights. Baydawi’s (d. 1286) Anwar al-tanzil is more or less an “expurgated” edition of Zamakhshari’s work, for Baydawi seeks to purge the latter work of theological views considered objectionable by the Sunnis. Abfi alBarakat al-Nasafi’s (d. 1310) Maddrik al-ta’wd is an abridgement of the works of Zamakhshari and Baydawi taken together, although he also deals with legal issues. Another tafsir with emphasis on language and literature, and one that is important in its own rights, is Abfi Hayyan’s (1256-1344) Al-bahr al-muhit.
Fakhr al-Din al-Razi’s Al-tafsir al-kabir represents the dialectical and theological type of tafsir. Study of this commentary provides a full view of the range of Muslim theological debates and differences, especially those between the traditional Ash’aris and the so-called rationalist Mu’tazilis. While Razi defends the Ash’ari doctrine, al-Qadi’Abd al-Jabbar (d. 1025) in his Tanzih al-Qur’an Can al-mata`in argues for the Mu’tazili viewpoint.
Juristic tafsir is represented by the Ahkdm al-Qur’an of the Hanafi Abu Bakr al-Jassas (917-981) and Alyami` li-ahkdm al-Qur’an of the Maliki Abu `Abd Allah alQurtubi (d. 1273). Ibn al-JawzI’s (d. 1200) Zad al-mash, although it casts its net much wider, may be regarded as representing the Hanbali viewpoint in this field.
It should be noted that many of these tafsir works would fit into more than one category. Zamakhshari’s Al-kashshaf, for example, deals not only with the rhetorical aspects of the Qur’an but also with theological issues, and Qurtubl’s Al -Jami` li-ahkam al-Qur’an is not only juristic tafsir but also discusses linguistic and literary issues. A number of tafsir works were in fact expressly meant to be composite in nature, a good example being the nineteenth-century tafsir, Ruh al-ma’ani, by Shihab al-Din Mahmud al-Alusi (1802-1854).
Sufi Tafsir. Establishing a close personal relationship with God is, generally speaking, the principal aim of Sufis or Muslim mystics. The focus of their attention is those Qur’anic verses that speak of God’s magnificent attributes and exhort believers to love and fear God. “Acquire the qualities of God” is a well-known Sfifi motto, interpreted mainly in ethical and behavioral terms.
Sufi tafsir is notable first for the near absence in it of grammatical, rhetorical, legal, and theological discussions, and second for its attempt to go beyond the apparent meaning of the Qur’anic text in order to derive deeper, hidden meanings through intuitive perception. Although it is possible to speak of major themes and preoccupations of Sfifi tafsir, it would be difficult to say that the Sfifi mufassirun employ a certain method of interpretation. The interpretations offered do not always challenge those reached through the use of orthodox methods. Not infrequently, however, the Qur’anic text is used as a springboard for presenting views that have a very tenuous basis in the text and may even be irrelevant in the context or incompatible with the text. Among the well-known Sfifi mufassirun are Sahl ibn `Abd Allah al-Tustari (d. 986; Tafsir al-Tustari), Abfi `Abd al-Rahman al-Sulami (936-1021; Haqa’iq altafsir), and Abfi al-Qasim al-Qushayri (d. 1072; Latd’if al-ishardt).
Shi’i Tafsir. Imami Shi`i tafsir differs from Sunni not so much in methodology as in respect of its assumptions, sources, and motifs. The distinctive concept of a divinely ordained imamate is expounded and defended, and the verses believed to establish the successorship to Muhammad within the Prophet’s family (beginning with CAR, the first in a series of twelve infallible imams) are treated at length, often polemically. Because the interpretations attributed to the twelve imams are regarded as authoritative beyond question, the traditions reporting these interpretations carry the greatest weight. A distinction is made between the exoteric and the esoteric meanings of the Qur’anic texts, with the esoteric meaning that goes back to an imam (and believed to have reached the imam from the Prophet through the chain of imams) taking precedence over the exoteric meaning.
On several theological issues-such as the possibility of the beatific vision, guidance and misguidance by God, and the reality of magic-Shi` ! tafsir reflects the influence of Mu’tazili thought. In the legal sphere, Shi` l tafsir, besides expounding Shi`i law, dwells on issues on which basic disagreements with the Sunnis exist. Among the major Imami mufassirun are Abu Ja’far alTusi (d. 1067; Al-tibydn), Abu al-Fadl al-Tabars! (d. 1153; Majma` al-bayan), and Mulla Muhsin Fayd alKashani (d. 1777; Al-safi). Muhammad Husayn alTabataba’i (1903-1981; Al-mizan) is a distinguished modern Imami exegete.
Zaydi tafsir, judged from the work of Muhammad ibn `All al-Shawkani, a nineteenth-century Yemenite scholar, is not very different from Sunni. His tafsir, Fat# al-Qadir, is in fact very popular with Sunnis. As is well known, of all the Shi’i sects the Zaydis are the closest to the Sunnis in respect of doctrine and interpretation of the crucial period of early Islamic history.
Modem Tafsir. For our purposes modern tafsir is chiefly, though not exclusively, that of the twentieth century. Modern tafsir seeks to address a much wider audience-not only the scholars, but the common people as well. The spread of education and the rise of such political institutions as democracy have led to a heightened awareness of the importance of the man in the street, which has in turn led to the use of an idiom comprehensible to the common people. The need to address the populace in various parts of the Muslim world has also led to the writing of tafsir works in regions other than the central lands of Islam. Particularly important in this respect is the Indo-Pakistan subcontinent, where a number of major works in Urdu have been produced. Some tafsir work has also been produced in the Maghrib and in Southeast Asia.
A change in points of emphasis is notable in modern tafsir. There is in some cases diminished emphasis and in others an almost total neglect with regard to such aspects of classical tafsir as grammar, rhetoric, and the ology. By contrast, there is an increased emphasis on the discussion of problems faced by society at large; the mufassirun dwell on verses that bear on issues in the economic, social, moral, and political spheres. In fact, tafsir today has become an important vehicle for advancing ideas in these spheres, and quite a few mufassirun have used it for purposes of reform and revival. The tafsir works of Muhammad Rashid Rida of Syria (Al-mandr), Sayyid Qutb of Egypt (Fi zildl al-Qur’an Abu al-A’la Mawdudi of Pakistan Tafs him al-Qur’an and Ibn Badis of Algeria (Tafsir al-shihdb, so called because it was published in the journal Al-shihdb), are cases in point. Shawkani uses the medium of tafsir to make a severe criticism of taghd (unquestioning acceptance of authority). Tafsir remains an important avenue for expressing dissident opinion in closed or repressive societies, and Muslim scholars are not afraid to exploit its potential.
A notable feature of modern tafsir is the assumption it makes of the Qur’anic surahs as unities. The surahs in their received arrangement are believed to possess nazm (order, coherence, or unity), and this nazm is regarded as hermeneutically significant. Thus in many cases a nazm-based interpretation overrides an interpretation based on a certain “occasion of revelation.” Perhaps the most successful attempt made in this area is that by Am-in Ahsan Islahi of Pakistan in his multi-volume Urdu work Tadabbur-i Qur’an.
A word may be said about scientific tafsir. The need to demonstrate the harmony between science and Islamic religion has led certain Muslim writers to argue that all scientific and technological developments were foretold or alluded to in the Qur’an fourteen centuries ago. The Egyptian scholar `All Jawhari al-Tantawl, in the several volumes of his Jawahir al-Qur’an takes this approach to extreme lengths; needless to say, whole sciences are made to hang on tiny pegs.
The differences between classical and modern tafsir are certainly important; still, it is a moot question whether modern tafsir, taken as a whole, is radically different from classical. The declared aims of the modern exegetes are not very different from those of the classical-to make the divine word accessible to believers in a manner that is authentic and also faithful to the tradition of pristine Islam. Moreover, most of the modern mufassirun are by training not very different from the classical. As such, it may be asked whether the break between classical and modern tafsir is fundamental and will become permanent. Here it may not be out of place to look at the views of the late Fazlur Rahman.
Although he was not a mufassir as such, Fazlur Rahman was deeply interested in Qur’anic studies, as shown by his several publications on the subject. He was convinced of the need to develop a new approach to Qur’anic interpretation, and in his Islam and Modernity he proposed what he regarded as the tafsir methodology suitable for modern times. Although he stated the methodology briefly and in general terms and did not expound or support it with actual examples, it nevertheless deserves to be considered. After criticizing the hitherto popular piecemeal approach to the Qur’an, he stated his premises: the Qur’an was revealed against a specific sociohistorical background and embedded in its specific pronouncements are rationes legis that may or may not be explicit. In order to interpret the Qur’an meaningfully for present times, therefore, a double movement of thought is needed (pp. 5-7):
The process of interpretation proposed here consists of a double movement, from the present situation to Qur’anic times, then back to the present. The Qur’an is the divine response, through the Prophet’s mind, to the moral-social situation of the Prophet’s Arabia, particularly to the problems of the commercial Meccan society of his day. . . . The first step of the first movement, then, consists of understanding the meaning of the Qur’an as a whole as well as in terms of the specific tenets that constitute responses to specific situations. The second step is to generalize those specific answers and enunciate them as statements of general moral-social objectives that can be “distilled” from specific texts of the sociohistorical background and the often-quoted rationes legis. . . . [T]he second [movement] is to be from this general view to the specific view that is to be formulated and realized now. That is, the general has to be embodied in the present concrete sociohistorical context. This once again requires the careful study of the present situation and the analysis of its various component elements so we can assess the current situation and change the present to whatever extent necessary, and so we can determine priorities afresh in order to implement the Qur’anic values afresh.
On this view, as Fazlur Rahman himself notes, the historical tradition of tafsir, instead of serving as a criterion of the validity of, or even as an aid to, “the new understanding,” will itself become subject to scrutiny and “an object of judgment” (pp. 6-7).
Fazlur Rahman’s approach, though challenging, is unlikely to find ready acceptance among the religious scholars of the Muslim world, for two reasons. First, it calls into question in a fundamental way the value of the historical tradition of tafsir; and modern tafsir, for all its distinctive features, is in respect of ethos, inspiration, and structure still dependent on the latter and perhaps not ready to strike out on a totally new path. Second, as Fazlur Rahman himself observes, in order to be successful this approach requires the concerted efforts of the historian, the social scientist, and the ethicist. Modern mufassiran, in spite of their acute consciousness of the changed needs of present-day Muslim societies, continue to be-by training and orientation as well as in their tastes and predilections-theologians and legists in the classical tradition. The role of the social scientist is one that they are particularly ill-equipped to play. [See the biography of Rahman.]
Conclusion. The primacy of the Qur’an in Muslim religious life has always been accepted. In modern times, renewed emphasis has been placed by Muslim scholars on the Qur’an as a source of guidance. Often implicit in this emphasis is a challenge to many facets of the accepted tradition, in the theological, legal, or other spheres. This being the case, it is likely that tafsir will gain in importance not only as a discipline of Islamic learning but also as a carrier of new ideas and as a medium scholars can use to initiate change or reform. This is borne out by the ever-growing number of tafsir works (sometimes translations or abridgements of existing works) in the Muslim world, not only in Arabic but also in many regional and local languages. The ultimate test of the efficacy of this literature will of course be whether it succeeds in providing satisfactory solutions to the questions it claims to be able to answer.
[See also Qur’an, article on The Qur’an as Scripture.]
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Ayoub, Mahmoud M. The Qur’an and Its Interpreters. 2 vols. to date. New York, 1984-.
Baljon, J. M. S. Modern Muslim Koran Interpretation (1880-1960). Leiden, 1961.
Bowering, Gerhard. The Mystical Vision of Existence in Classical Times: The Quranic Hermeneutics of the Sufi At-Tustari (d. 2831896). New York, 198o.
Dhahabi, Muhammad Husayn al-. Al-tafsir wa-al-mufassirun. 2 vols. 2d ed. Cairo, 1976.
Gatje, Helmut. The Qur’an and Its Exegesis: Selected Texts with Classical and Modern Muslim Interpretations. Translated and edited by Alford T. Welch. Berkeley, 1976.
Goldziher, Ignacz. Die Richtungen der islamischen Koranauslegung. Leiden, 1920.
Hawting, G. R., and Abdul-Kader A. Shareef, eds. Approaches to the Qur’an. London and New York, 1993
Jansen, J. J. G. The Interpretation of the Koran in Modern Egypt. Leiden, 1974.
Jullandri, Rashid Ahmad. “Qur’anic Exegesis and Classical Tafsir.” Islamic Quarterly 12 (1968): 71-119.
Lichtenstadler, Ilse. “Qur’an and Qur’an Exegesis.” Humaniora Islamica 2 (1974): 3-28.
Merad, Ali. Ibn Badis, commentateur du Coran. Paris, 1971.
Mir, Mustansir. Coherence in the Qur’an: A Study of Islahi’s Concept of Nazm in Tadabbur-i Qur’an: Indianapolis, 1986.
Noldeke, Theodor, et al. Geschichte des Qorans. 3 vols. 2d. ed. Leipzig, 1909-1938.
Nwyia, Paul. Exegese coranique et langage mystique. Beirut, 1970. Rahman, Fazlur. Islam and Modernity: Transformation of an Intellectual Tradition. Chicago, 1982.
Rippin, Andrew. Tafsir.” In The Encyclopedia of Religion, vol. 14, PP. 236-244. New York, 1987.
Rippin, Andrew. Approaches to the History of the Interpretation of the Qur’an. Oxford, 1988.
Rippin, Andrew. “Present Status of Tafstr Studies.” Muslim World 72 (1982): 224-238.
Tabataba’i, Muhammad Husayn. The Qur’an in Islam: Its Impact and Influence on the Life of Muslims. London, 1987.
Zarkashi, Badr al-Din al-. Al-burhdn fi `ulum al-Qur’an. 4 vols. Edited by Muhammad Abu al-Fadl Ibrahim. Cairo, 1957-1958.
MUSTANSIR MIR

]]> https://hybridlearning.pk/2018/05/25/tafsir/feed/ 0 TABLIGHI JAMA`AT https://hybridlearning.pk/2018/05/20/tablighi-jamaat/ https://hybridlearning.pk/2018/05/20/tablighi-jamaat/#respond Sun, 20 May 2018 04:51:33 +0000 https://hybridlearning.pk/2018/05/20/tablighi-jamaat/ TABLIGHI JAMA`AT. The Tablighi Jama’at of the Indo-Pakistan subcontinent, also variously called the Jama’at (Party), Tahrik (Movement), Nizam (System), Tanzim (Organization), and Tahrik-i Iman (Faith […]

]]> TABLIGHI JAMA`AT. The Tablighi Jama’at of the Indo-Pakistan subcontinent, also variously called the Jama’at (Party), Tahrik (Movement), Nizam (System), Tanzim (Organization), and Tahrik-i Iman (Faith Movement), is one of the most important grassroots Islamic movements in the contemporary Muslim world. From a modest beginning in 1926 with da’wah (missionary) work in Mewat near Delhi under the leadership of the Sufi scholar Maulana Muhammad Ilyas (18851945), the jama’at today has followers all over the Muslim world and the West. Its 1993 annual international conference in Raiwind near Lahore, Pakistan was attended by more than one million Muslims from ninetyfour countries. In fact, in recent years the Raiwind annual conference has become the second largest religious congregation of the Muslim World after the hajj. Its annual conference in North America normally attracts about ten thousand, probably the largest gathering of Muslims in the West.

The emergence of the Tablighi jama’at as a movement for the reawakening of faith and reaffirmation of Muslim religio-cultural identity can be seen as a continuation of the broader trend of Islamic revival in North India in the wake of the collapse of Muslim political power and consolidation of the British rule in India in the mid-nineteenth century. In the strictly religious sphere one manifestation of this trend was the rapid growth of the madrasahs (religious educational institutions) in North India, which sought to reassert the authority of Islamic orthodoxy and to relink the Muslim masses with Islamic institutions. The pietistic and devotional aspects of the Tablighi Jama’at owe their origin to the Sufi teachings and practices of Shaykh Ahmad Sirhindi, Shah Wall Allah, and the founder of the Mujahidin movement, Sayyid Ahmad Shahid (1786-1831). These Sufis, who belonged to the Naqshbandiyah order, considered the observance of the shari `ah integral to their practices. It is in this sense that the Tablighi Jama’at has been described, at least in its initial phase, both as a reinvigorated form of Islamic orthodoxy and as a reformed Sufism.
The emergence of the Tablighi Jama’at was also a direct response to the rise of such aggressive Hindu proselytizing movements as the Shuddhi (Purification) and Sangathan (Consolidation), which launched massive efforts in the early twentieth century to “reclaim” those “fallen-away” Hindus who had converted to Islam in the past. The special target of these revivalist movements were the so-called “borderline” Muslims who had retained most of the religious practices and social customs of their Hindu ancestors. Maulana Ilyas, the founder of the Tablighi Jama’at, believed that only a grassroots Islamic religious movement could counter the efforts of the Shuddhi and Sangathan, purify the borderline Muslims from their Hindu accretions, and educate them about their beliefs and rituals in order to save them from becoming easy prey to the Hindu proselytizers.
The Tablighi jama’at originated in Mewat, a Gangetic plateau in North India inhabited by Rajput tribes known as Meos. Historical accounts differ as to the exact time of their conversion to Islam, but most historians place it between the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, the formative phase of Muslim rule in India. There is also evidence to suggest, however, that there were several Meo conversions to Islam, followed by reconversion to Hinduism whenever Muslim political power declined in the region. When Ilyas started his religious movement in Mewat, most Meos were Muslims in name only. They retained many Hindu socioreligious practices; many kept their old Hindu names and even worshiped Hindu deities in their homes and celebrated Hindu religious festivals. Most could not even correctly recite the one-line shahddah (the Muslim profession of faith) or say their daily ritual prayers. Very few villages in Mewat had mosques of madrasahs. Their birth, marriage, and death rituals were all based on Hindu customs.
Maulana Ilyas, an Islamic religious scholar in the tradition of the orthodox Deoband seminary in the United Province and a follower of the Naqshbandiyah, learned of the “dismal Islamic situation” in Mewat first through his disciples and later through his own several missionary trips there. His initial efforts toward reislamization of Mewati Muslims were essentially to establish a network of mosque-based religious schools to educate local Muslims about correct Islamic beliefs and practices. Although he was able to establish more than one hundred religious schools in a short time in the Mewat region, he soon became disillusioned with this approach, realizing that these institutions were producing “religious functionaries” but not preachers who were willing to go door to door and remind people of their religious duties. Recognizing the futility of the madrasah approach as a basis for reawakening religious consciousness and educating ordinary Muslims about their religion, Maulana Ilyas decided to quit his teaching position at Madrasah Mazharul `Ulum in Saharanpur and moved to Basti Nizamuddin in the old quarters of Delhi to begin his missionary work through itinerant preaching. The Tablighi movement was formally launched in 1926 from this place, which later became the movement’s international headquarters. After the partition of India in 1947, however, Raiwind, a small railroad town near Lahore, Pakistan, replaced Basti Nizamuddin as a major center of the Jama`at’s organizational and missionary activities.
Physically frail and intellectually unassuming, Maulana Ilyas possessed none of the qualities attributed to many other prominent leaders of twentieth-century Islam. Neither an outstanding religious scholar and author nor a good public speaker nor a charismatic leader, Maulana Ilyas was nevertheless imbued with the enormous zeal of a dedicated missionary. His singleminded devotion and determination to reach out to the Muslim masses and touch them with the message of the Qur’an and sunnah took precedence over everything else. He was persistent, untiring, and wholeheartedly devoted to what he described as “the mission of the prophets”to call people to the path of God. His message to his coreligionists was simple and straightforward: “Ai Musalmano Musalman bano” (O Muslims, become good Muslims!).
The method adopted by Maulana Ilyas to call people to Islam was equally simple. It was to organize units of at least ten persons and send them to various villages. These tablighi units, known as jama’ats (groups), would visit a village, invite the local Muslims to assemble in the mosque or some other meetingplace, and present their message in the form of the following six demands. First, every Muslim must be able to recite the shahadah (“There is no God but Allah and Muhammad is His Prophet”) correctly in Arabic and know its meaning; this asserts the unity of God, rejects all other deities, and emphasizes obedience to the prophet Muhammad. Second, a Muslim must also learn how to say the salat (obligatory ritual prayer) correctly and in accordance with its prescribed rituals; this not only emphasizes the need for the ritual performance of prayer in its external form but also encourages the believer to strive for complete submission to God by bowing before him in humility and God-consciousness.
Third, a Muslim cannot claim to be a true believer unless he is knowledgeable about the fundamental beliefs and practices of Islam; he must also perform dhikr (ritual remembrance of God) frequently. For basic religious knowledge, Tablighi workers are required to read seven essays written by Maulana Muhammed Zakarlya, a reputable scholar of hadith at Saharanpur madrasah and an early supporter of the movement. These essays, now compiled in a single volume under the title Tablighi nisab (Tablighi Curriculum) deal with life stories of the companions of the Prophet, and the virtues of salat dhikr, charity, hajj, ritual salutation to the Prophet, and the Qur’an. Written in simple and lucid Urdu and based mostly on inspirational but historically suspect traditions and anecdotes, these essays also constitute, with little change, the basic source material for the formulaic speech delivered by the Tablighi missionaries throughout the world. In addition, every Muslim is also encouraged to learn how to read the Qur’dn in Arabic, with correct pronunciation.
Fourth, every Muslim must be respectful and polite toward fellow Muslims and show deference toward them. This idea of ikrdm-i Muslim (respect for Muslims) is not only a religious obligation but also a basic prerequisite for effective da’wah work. Included in this principle is also an obligation to recognize and respect the rights of others: the rights of elders to be treated respectfully; the rights of young ones to be treated with love, care, and affection; the rights of the poor to be helped in their needs; the rights of neighbors to be shown consideration; and the rights of those with whom we may have differences. Fifth, a Muslim must always inculcate honesty and sincerity in all endeavors. Everything is to be done for the sake of seeking the pleasure of God and serving his cause, and not for any worldly benefit.
The final demand, which constitutes the most distinctive innovative aspect of the Jama’at’s approach to Islamic da’wah work, deals with the formation of small groups of volunteer preachers willing to donate time and travel from place to place spreading the word of God. For Maulana Ilyas preaching is not the work of only the professional `ulama’, it is the duty of every Muslim. People are usually asked to volunteer for a chillah (forty days of itinerant preaching), which is considered the maximum stint of outdoor missionary activity for new members. Those who cannot spare forty days may undertake forty one-day retreats in a year. Every member must preach at least four months during his lifetime. Maulana Ilyas believed that this preaching would prepare people to endure hardships and strengthen their moral and spiritual qualities.
These six principles are the cornerstone of the Tablighi Jama’at ideology and are to be strictly observed by all members. Maulana Ilyas later added another rule asking members to abstain from wasting time in idle talk and aimless activities and protect themselves from sinful and prohibited (haram) deeds.
The new movement met with spectacular success in a relatively short period. Thousands of Muslims joined Maulana Ilyas to propagate the message of Islam throughout Mewat. Hundreds of new mosques were built and dozens of new madrasahs established for both children and adults. People began to observe obligatory rituals such as saying salat, paying zakat, fasting during Ramadan, and performing the hajj. The most visible change was in dress and in the customs associated with birth, marriage, and burial rituals. There were signs of Islamic religious revival everywhere in the area.
By the time Maulana Ilyas died in 1944 Mewat had come to be seen as the great success of this new approach to Islamic da’wah. The Jama’at now started extending its activities into other parts of India. Since the Tablighi method of preaching did not require any degree of religious scholarship, formal training, or lengthy preparation, everyone who joined the Jama’at became an instant preacher on the basis of his familiarity with the six simple principles of da`wah. Thus the number of itinerant preachers multiplied quickly, and the Jama’at was able to send its Tablighi missions all over India, from Peshawar in the Northwest Frontier Province to Noakhali in, East Bengal.
It is interesting that this Islamic revivalist upsurge was taking place precisely at a time when its political counterpart, the Muslim nationalist movement of the All-India Muslim League with its demand for a separate homeland for Indian Muslims, was also gaining great momentum. The fact that the Tablighi Jama’at was able to withstand the intense pressures of the Muslim politics of the 1940s and maintain its purely religious course throughout this period of turmoil, communal riots, and eventual partition of the subcontinent emphasizes not only its firm ideological commitment and methodological rigidity but also its ability to operate in isolation from its political environment.
After the death of Maulana Ilyas, his son Maulana Yusuf (1917-1965) was selected as his successor by the elders of the Jama’at Maulana Yusuf was a great organizer and an untiring worker. He spent most of his adult life traveling with preaching groups throughout the subcontinent. He extended the movement’s operations beyond the northern provinces and mobilized thousands of groups to tour all over India. It was also during, his tenure that the Jama’at’s activities spread to countries of Southeast Asia, the Middle East, Africa, Europe, and North America. Since Maulana Yusuf’s death in 1965, Maulana In’amul Hasan has led the Jama’at and has expanded its international operations enormously. Today the Jama’at has become a truly global Islamic movement. Its influence has grown significantly over the past two decades, especially in South and Southeast Asia but also in Africa and among Muslim communities in the West; however, it has not been able to attract any significant following among Arabicspeaking Muslims. The majority of its followers in the Middle East are South Asian immigrant workers.
The success of the Jama`at owes much to the dedicated missionary work of its members and followers, its simple, noncontroversial and nonsectarian message, and its direct, personal appeal to and contacts with individual Muslims. Instead of publishing books or addressing large gatherings, Jama’at members go door to door and invite people to join their ranks and spread the word of God. Their program of asking Muslims to leave their families, jobs, and home towns for a time and join in a system of communal learning, worship, preaching, and other devotional activities has proved enormously effective in building a community-type structure with close personal relationships and mutual moral-psychological support. Because the basic message of the Jama’at is simple enough to be imparted by anyone willing to volunteer, it is ideally suited for ordinary Muslims with little or no previous Islamic education. The Jama’at’s reliance on lay preachers, rather than on `ulama’, has helped it greatly to reach and attract the Muslim masses in rural communities and small towns.
Despite its enormous expansion over the past sixtyeight years, the Jama’at remains an informal association with no written constitution, standardized organizational rules and procedures, hierarchy of leadership, network of branches and departments, or even office records and membership registry. The amir (chief) is selected for life through informal consultation among the “elders” of the Jama’at; he in turn appoints a shura (consultative body) to advise him on important matters.
In matters of religious beliefs and practices, the Tablighi Jama’at has consistently followed the orthodox Deoband tradition and has emphasized taghd (following the established schools of Islamic law) over ijtihdd (independent reasoning). It rejects such popular expressions of religion as veneration of saints, visiting shrines, and observing the syncretic rituals associated with popular Sufism. The Jama’at can thus be considered an heir to the reformist-fundamentalist tradition of Shah Wall Allah, with its emphasis on reformed Sufism and strict observation of the sunnah of the Prophet. Jama’at workers are rigid in following orthodox rituals and practices and in observing the rules of the shad `ah. Unlike modernists and neofundamentalists, Tablighi workers emphasize both the form and the spirit of religious rules and practices.
From its inception the Tablighi Jama’at has deliberately stayed away from politics and political controversies. Maulana Ilyas believed that the Jama’at would not be able to achieve its goals if it got embroiled in partisan politics. Reforming individuals for him was more important than reforming social and political institutionsa process that, he believed, could gradually come about as more and more people joined his movement and became good Muslims. His later years coincided with a great schism in the Indian Muslim religious circles: most of the Deoband `ulama’, opposed the idea of a separate homeland for Muslims and supported the All-India National Congress in calling for a united India; other `ulama’, joined with the Muslim League in its demand for Pakistan. Maulana Ilyas asked his followers not to take sides with either camp and to continue their essentially nonpolitical da’wah work among Muslims of all political persuasions.
The Jama`at has rigidly maintained this nonpolitical posture since. In Pakistan, India, Malaysia, Indonesia, and elsewhere in its operations, it has scrupulously observed its founder’s ban on political activities and has refused to take positions on political issues. Thus, in Pakistan, the Jama`at remained noncommittal on major national controversies involving the relationship between Islam and the state. In India too the Jama`at has never been involved in so-called “Muslim issues” such as communal riots, Muslim family laws, the Shah Bano case, and the Babri mosque. This nonpolitical stance has helped it greatly to operate freely in societies where politically oriented religious activities are viewed with suspicion and fear by the government.
In India, Pakistan, Malaysia, Indonesia, Turkey, and, to a certain extent in the Muslim areas of Thailand and the Philippines, the Tablighi Jama’at has been an important movement in nonpolitical Islamic revivalism and has attracted a large following from rural communities and small towns. Although members do not participate in partisan politics, they do nevertheless constitute a solid vote bank for `ulama’-based religio-political parties. In Pakistan they have consistently voted for the orthodox, Deobandi-oriented Jam’iyatul `Ulama’-i Islam. In Malaysia, Tablighi Jama`at followers have been a major source of support for the `ulama’-based Partai Islam Se-Malaysia in federal and provincial elections. [See Jam`iyatul `Ulama’-i Islam; Partai Islam Se-Malaysia.]
In Europe and North America the Tablighi Jama`at has been working among the immigrant Muslim communities, especially among Muslims of South Asian origin, for more than three decades and has established a large following among them. In addition to the propagation of its standard six-point program, the Jama’at in the West has also been concerned with the preservation of the religious and cultural identity of Muslims in a non-Islamic environment. Thus it has been active in building mosques and Islamic centers, establishing Islamic Sunday schools for Muslim children and adults, providing dhabihah (ritually slaughtered) meat to Muslim families, and organizing Islamic training camps and retreats for Muslim youth. In North America the Jama’at has also met with some success in gaining converts among African-Americans and Caribbean immigrants. Chicago, Detroit, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Atlanta, New York, and Washington, D.C., are the major centers of the Jama’at’s activities in the United States.
Most followers of the Tablighi Jama’at in South Asia come from the lower middle class with minimum exposure to modern Western education and from semiurban areas. It has also attracted a considerable following among lower-level government employees, paraprofessionals and schoolteachers. Its influence on college and university campuses has been minimal. Because of its nonpolitical orientation it has been easy to spread its message in the armed forces of Pakistan, where it has a considerable following among noncommissioned personnel. The Jama’at received a great boost during the government of President Zia ul-Haq, who was concerned to develop Islamic spirit among the Pakistani military; an active member of the Jama’at rose to the sensitive position of chief of Pakistan Military Intelligence during 1991-1993 and reportedly directed Pakistan’s Afghan operation both through conventional intelligence techniques and through holding dhikr assemblies.
In Malaysia and Indonesia the social bases of the Jama’at’s support are more diverse than in South Asia. Its initial followers in these countries were immigrant Muslims from South Asia, but during the past two decades it has penetrated the Malay Muslim community, especially in rural areas. Today the bulk of its support comes from urban-based, well-educated youth. In Indonesia, where the Jama`at has worked in close collaboration with such nonpolitical Islamic reform movements as the Muhammadiyah and the Nahdatul Ulama, its activities have focused on converting abangan (syncretic, Indic-oriented) Muslims into santri (purist) Muslims. Thus the Tablighi Jama’at in Indonesia, unlike India and Pakistan, has been associated both with the `ulama’ and with urban-based, modern-educated Muslim youth.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Except for brief references, the Tabligh! Jamaat has not received adequate attention from scholars of modem Islamic movements. Only recently have some scholars of South Asian and Southeast Asian Islam begun to study the ideology and program of the Jama’at in the context of contemporary Islamic revival. The available literature on Tabligh! Jamaat is mostly in Urdu and that, too, consists mainly of inspirational words by its leaders and devotional writings by its followers and admirers. There are also several polemical tracts written by its opponents belonging to the Barelwi school of thought, who regard the Jama’at essentially as an offshoot of the militant reformist movement of Sayyid Ahmad Shahid and Shah Isma’il Shahid.
Ahmad, Mumtaz. “Islamic Fundamentalism in South Asia: The Jamaat-i-Islami and the Tablighi Jamaat.” In Fundamentalism Observed, edited by Martin E. Marty and R. Scott Appleby, pp. 457530. Chicago, 1991. Discusses the specific circumstances of the Jama`at’s origin and growth, the nature and methodology of its work, and the religio-political consequences of its ideology.
Anwarul Haq, M. The Faith Movement of Mawland Muhammad Ilyas. London, 1972. Sympathetic study of the life, work, and thought of the founder of the Tablighi Jama’at with an exclusive focus on its Sufi origins.
Mahdi, Tabish. Tablighi J ama’at apne bani ke malfuzat ke d’ine men (Tablighi Jamaat in the Mirror of Its Founder’s Utterances). Deoband, 1985. Harshly worded critique of the Jamaat by a Barelwi polemicist who argues that the real purpose of the Jamaat is not to preach Islam but to propagate Deobandi sectarianism.
Marwa, I. S. “Tabligh Movement among the Meos of Mewat.” In Social Movements in India, vol. 2, edited by M. S. A. Rao. New Delhi, 1978. Sociological study of the rise and impact of the Tablighi Jamaat in Mewat, where it originated.
Muhammad Zakariya. Tablighi Nisab Tablighi Curriculum). Lahore, [198-]. Translated as Teachings of Islam. Des Plaines, Ill., [1983]. Compilation of Maulana Zakariya’s seven essays on the basic teachings of Islam, which constitute the prescribed program of study for Jamaat members and followers.
Nadvi, Abulhasan `All. Hazrat Mauldna Muhammad Ilyas our unki dini da’vat (Revered Maulana Muhammad Ilyas and His Call to the Religious Renewal). Lucknow, 196o. Translated by M. A. Kidwai as Life and Mission of Maulana Mohammad Ilyas. Lucknow, 1979. Very sympathetic, insightful description of the life and work of Maulana Ilyas by an ardent admirer.
Qadri, Muhammad Ayyub. Tablighi Jama’at ka tarikhi ja’iza (A Historical Analysis of the Tablighi Jama`at). Karachi, 1971. Excellent work by a meticulous historian, situating the rise of the Tablighi Jama’at in the context of other movements of religious revival that came before it and their impact on its ideology and program.
MUMTAZ AHMAD

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