`ABD AL-HAMID – Hybrid Learning

KISHK, ABD AL-HAMID

Batoota — Sat, 26 Jul 2014 18:53:31 +0000

KISHK, ABD AL-HAMID (March 10, 1933 – December 6, 1996) more fully, Shaykh `Abd al-Hamid `Abd al-`Aziz Muhammad Kishk, immensely popular Egyptian preacher, known to many of his followers as Shaykh `Abd al-Hamid. Born in 1933 in Shubrakhit, a village not far from Damanhur, Kishk went to school in Alexandria and became blind at the age of twelve. Graduating from the us il al-din (dogmatics) faculty of al-Azhar, he worked for some time in the service of the Egyptian awqaf (religious endowment) ministry as a mosque preacher and imam. From 5 May 1964 until 28 August 1981, he was an independent preacher in the `Ayn al-Hayah Mosque in Misr wa-‘1-Sudan Street in the Cairene quarter known as Hada’iq al-Qubbah. This mosque is also known as the Masjid al-Malik. It was from here that his fame and popularity spread.

KISHK, ABD AL-HAMID

Under the regime of President Gamal Abdel Nasser (1952-1970), Kishk came into conflict with the authorities over several questions. For instance, he refused to give a fatwa that approved of the death sentence imposed by the regime on Sayyid Qutb in 1966; and he avoided answering the question of Arab socialism’s compatibility with Islam. By such attitudes he identified himself as a dissident, and he consequently spent time in prison.
Under the regime of Anwar el-Sadat (1970-1981), Kishk’s sermons became immensely popular. In these, he continued to criticize sharply any behavior that he regarded as a deviation from the norms of Islam. However, the regime was a little more tolerant of such criticisms, since it needed the support of the Islamic movement in the struggle against “communism and atheism.” Nevertheless, Shaykh Kishk, unlike Islamists such as Shaykh al-Sha’rawi, did not appear on state-run television or publish in the official printed media.
In spite of the official media boycott, Kishk’s sermons were widely distributed on cassette tapes, as were, in the same period, those by the Iranian leader Ayatollah Khomeini, who came to power in 1979. Hence, the Western media have sometimes called Kishk an Egyptian Khomeini. It is now more obvious than it was in the 1980s that the resemblance between the two men is superficial at best. Whereas Khomeini founded a revolutionary movement that came to power in Iran and survived the death of its founder by years, Kishk’s political views (as far as they can be found in his books) resemble a form of anarchism. He writes, for instance, with great nostalgia about the days when there were no policemen to stop people and ask for their driver’s licenses, or frontier guards to ask for passports and entry or exit visas: those were the days when the Muslims conquered the world, so Kishk wants his audience to remember.
Anarchism, obviously, is too strong and too Western a word to describe the traditional dislike for rulers and government officials in the Middle East and elsewhere. This common attitude is perhaps best put into words by Sa’d Zaghlul (1857-1927; prime minister of Egypt from January to November 1924), who once remarked that Egypt’s citizens tend to look at their rulers in the same way a bird looks at the hunter.
The emphasis in Kishk’s preaching falls on personal and private piety, not on something as transitory as worldly power. The shaykh is occupied with the end of the world, the miracles of the Sufi saints, the metaphysics of the soul, eschatology, and death. Nevertheless, in a politically tense atmosphere the statements he makes about this world may easily be understood as veiled demands for the introduction of a theocracy, especially by those who are in favor, or in fear, of an Islamic theocracy. There can, however, be little doubt that many in the shaykh’s audiences, in the traditions of the Islamic quietist Sufi movements, are only superficially, or not at all, interested in political (Islamic) utopias.
“The believer’s creed must be compressed into: loving God,” Kishk once wrote (Kishk, 1978-, vol. 13, p. 159). It is not plausible, although admittedly possible, that such an emphasis on love, also known from Islamic mysticism, accompanies political ambitions, revolutionary schemes, and participation in the struggle for worldly power. Yet Kishk’s social criticisms may be thought to imply political consequences. In a sermon on 12 December 1980, he attacked not only Jews, Christians, lax Muslims, and a former rector of al-Azhar University, but also a soccer captain and a businessman who was reported to have presented his wife with an expensive coat. Since the shaykh was intermittently sent to jail, one has to assume that those in power were concerned about the force of such sweeping criticisms.
In the first days of September 1981, on the eve of the assassination of Sadat, which took place on 6 October, Kishk was again thrown into prison. He shared this fate with 1,526 others of all political persuasions who were put under “precautionary arrest.” In anticipation of the publication of a complete official list of detainees, the first page of Al-ahrdm on September 4 noted the imprisonment of Kishk along with a small number of prominent Egyptians. In spite of controls on the media, the shaykh’s fame had clearly spread.
On 24-25 January 1982, Kishk was released from detention. In February, the Egyptian semiofficial weekly devoted to religious affairs, Al-liwa’ al-Islami, contained minor contributions by Kishk-an indication that a compromise with the regime of Hosni Mubarak had been reached. His books and cassette tapes were to be freely available (they still were in 1993), but his life as a public preacher was over-for the time being at least. His mosque in Cairo has since been transformed into a public health center.
Kishk’s uniqueness is closely connected to the way in which he chants his sermons. His voice expresses nostalgia for the Kingdom of Heaven in a way that moves many members of his audiences.
[See also Egypt.]
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Jansen, Johannes J. G. “The Voice of Sheikh Kishk.” In The Challenge of the Middle East, edited by Ibrahim A. El-Sheikh et al., pp. 57-67. Amsterdam, 1982. Discusses the teachings of Shaykh Kishk.
Jansen, Johannes J. G. The Neglected Duty: The Creed of Sadat’s Assassins and Islamic Resurgence in the Middle East. New York and London, 1986. Discusses the teachings of Shaykh Kishk and his reaction to the assassination of Sadat. Contains quotations from his sermons and his booklets (pp. 91-120).
Kepel, Gilles. The Prophet and Pharaoh. London, 1985. Contains translated excerpts of Shaykh Kishk’s sermon for 1o April 1981 (pp 172-190).
Kishk, `Abd al-Hamid. Maktabat al-Shaykh Kishk. Cairo, [1978-]. More than thirty-two small volumes, most of them reprinted several times. The first volume, Tariq al-naja, was written, or rather dictated, before 1973.
Kishk, `Abd al-Hamid Qissat ayyami: Mudhakkirat al-Shaykh Kishk. Cairo, n.d. [1986]. Autobiography.
Kishk, `Abd al-Hamid. Al-khutab al-minbarryah. Cairo, 1987- Literal texts of the shaykh’s sermons. Thirteen volumes had appeared by 1992. Date of delivery is given for some sermons; not arranged chronologically.
Kishk, `Abd al-Hamid. Fatawd al-Shaykh Kishk: Humun al-Muslim al-mu’asir. Cairo, n.d. [1988?]. Ten volumes had appeared by 1992. Contains answers (fatawd) to questions by concerned Muslims.
JOHANNES J. G. JANSEN

IBN BADIS, `ABD AL-HAMID

Batoota — Sat, 05 Apr 2014 16:20:09 +0000

IBN BADIS, `ABD AL-HAMID ( December 4, 1889, Constantine — April 16, 1940), Islamic reformer, national leader, and head of the Association of Algerian `Ulama’. `Abd al-Hamid ibn Badis was born inConstantine,Algeria, to a prominent Berber family renowned for its scholarship, wealth, and influence. Ibn Badis received an Islamic education and in I 9o8 attended the famous Zaytunah Mosque inTunis. There, he was educated by scholars who had been influenced by the teachings of Jamal al-Din al-Afghani (d. 1897) and Muhammad `Abduh (d. 1905) and introduced Ibn Badis to the reformist ideas of the Salafiyah movement. After obtaining the degree of `alim (scholar of religion), Ibn Badis returned in 1913 to Algeria and, until his death in 1940, devoted his entire career to teaching, reforming Islam, and defining the Arab and Islamic basis of Algerian nationalism.

The French colonial administration had closed down many centers of Arab and Islamic education, appropriated the financial institutions that backed them, restricted the teaching of Arabic and the Qur’an, and spread French schooling and culture. It also encouraged missionary activities and supported the mystical Sufi orders, which disseminated acquiescent attitudes among the Algerians. To quell the disorienting effects of French policies and the advocates of assimilation (evolues), Ibn Badis initiated a reform movement that sought to assert the national identity ofAlgeria, defend the cultural integrity of its people, and prepare them for eventual independence fromFrance. In 1925, he founded a weekly paper, Al-muntagid (The Critic), in which he disseminated Salafi ideas and attacked the “un-Islamic” practices of the Sufi orders. Al-muntagid was banned after eighteen issues, and Ibn Badis replaced it with Al-shihab (The Meteor), in which he maintained a more moderate tone.
In 1931, Ibn Badis and other religious scholars formed the Association of Algerian `Ulama’, which he headed and which promoted the Arab and Islamic roots of the Algerian nation, the reform and revival of Islam, and criticism of the Sufi orders and the assimilationists. The Association demanded religious freedom, restoration of the hubus (religious endowment, waqf) properties, and recognition of Arabic as the national language. It opened hundreds of free schools and mosques to teach Arabic, Islam, and modern subjects, published its own papers to spread religious, cultural, and social reform, campaigned against the marabouts’ (local venerated men) corrupt practices, and sent delegations toFranceand opened branches to involve Algerian residents there. In 1938, the Association issued a formal fatwa (legal opinion), which declared naturalized Algerians to be non-Muslims. Its activities disturbed the French administration, which tried to restrict the conduct of its members.
Ibn Badis perceived his mission as “not to produce books, but educated people.” His thought is discernible in the numerous articles that he wrote and in his interpretation of the Qur’an. He shared many viewpoints of the Salafiyah movement, blaming the deterioration of the Muslims on internal weakness, disunity, despotism, and the spread of non-Islamic practices.
Ibn Badis stressed education to purify Islam from popular accretions and improve the condition of the individual as a step toward reviving the entire society. He offered a modernist interpretation of the Qur’an and emphasized reasoning and free will. His major. contribution lies in linking reform and education with the promotion of an Algerian nationalism. He identified Islam, Arabism, and nationalism as the three components of the Algerian national character.
Ibn Badis and the Algerian `Ulama’ laid the foundations for the national identity of the Algerian people. Throughout the Algerian war againstFrance(19541962), the Association aligned with the Front de Liberation Nationale (FLN), and was later represented in the provisional government of theAlgerianRepublicafter independence.
[See alsoAlgeria; Salafiyah.]
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Balasi, Nabil Ahmad. Al-ittijdh al-`Arab! wa-al-Islami wa-dawruhu ft tahrir al-jaza’ir (The Arab and Islamic Trend and Its Role in LiberatingAlgeria).Cairo, 1990. Detailed study of the Arab and Islamic trend and its impact within the Algerian nationalist movement.
Jurashi, Salah al-Din al-. Tajribah ft al-islah: Ibn Badis (A Case in Reform: Ibn Badis).Tunis, 1978. Overview of the role of Ibn Badis and the Association of Algerian `Ulama’ in establishing a movement for reform and social change.
Qasim, Mahmud. Al-Imam `Abd al-Hamid Ibn Bddis, al-za’im al-ruhi li-harb al-tahrir a1 jaza’iriyah (`Abd al-Hamid Ibn Badis: The Spiritual Leader of the Algerian Liberation War). 2d ed.Cairo, 1979. Early and excellent study of Ibn Badis’s life, reform ideas, and thought.
Rabih, Turk!. Al-Shaykh `Abd al-Hamid Ibn Badis: Ra’id al-islah waal-tarbiyah ft al-jaza’ir (`Abd al-Hamid Ibn Badis: The Pioneer of Reform and Education inAlgeria). 3d ed.Algiers, 1981. Comprehensive study of an important period in Algeria’s modern history (1900-1940), with a special focus on Ibn Badis, social, cultural, economic, and political factors influencing his thought, and his contributions in providing the Arab and Islamic seeds for the Algerian nationalist movement.
`Uthman, Fathi. `Abd al-Hamid Ibn Bddis: Ra’id al-harakah alIslamiyah ft al-jaza’ir al-mu’asirah (`Abd al-Hamid Ibn Badis: The Pioneer of the Islamic Movement in Contemporary Algeria).Kuwait, 1987. Original comparison of Ibn Badis’s thought and movement with that of Jamal al-Din al-Afghani, Muhammad `Abduh, and Hasan al-Banna’.
EMAD ELDIN SHAHIN