Sr. Fedwa:

I would like to thank you for this discussion and the opportunity to chat with you, learn, grow and gain new horizons. I certainly agree with you that one cannot exclude tasawwuf from the picture. However, the quote that you mentioned was one of Sidi Ahmed Zaruq in his Qawai’d Tasawuff. Its meaning is that, at the end of the day, the sufi cannot escape the bounds of Islamic law. If there is a doubt regarding any affair, it is the law that has the final say and not an esoteric enterprise. For that reason Junaid said, “If you see a man flying in the sky, don’t follow him until you see how he acts with Allah’s orders and prohibitions.”

Regarding the Prophet’s mission, may Allah’s peace and blessings be upon him, it began with an order “read” and ended with an order “fear.” Those orders, in different forms dealt with the entire human being. Some dealt with ihsan, some with akhlaq, some with law and some with creed. Thus, I would not dare say that there was no ihsan nor practice in the early community.

Finally, while I agree with your experiences, the same can be said for those who went and studied tasawwuf. I’ve seen some of them acting in the manner you described above.

For me, I try and stick to the opinion of the majority, as noted by al-Sh’arani, “One cannot master the inner sciences, until he’s mastered the outer.” However, as Ibn Taymiyyah noted, “Neither are exclusive to the other.”

SDW

“Thus, while calls to reform the hearts are great, there can be no tasawwuf with out fiqh and faith.”

I am not sure I agree with that. Let me pose to you an example in a different aspect. Say you have a doctor who is so arrogant and filled with envy, and sees his self-importance that he does not listen to the patient and misdiagnosed the patient. And you have another person who wants to help people but he has no knowledge of medicine and gives a prescription or a medication to a person without permission or quaification to do so. Are they not both abusing the patient/person?

I would say that there can be no faith without both tasawwuf and fiqh. They both go hand in hand. What I see from people in many communities is students who learn Fiqh and come to the US and start to put themselves in positions to speak on everything under the sun. They are so arrogant and filled with envy as they undermine social workers, counselors, psychologists, etc., and start to promote themselves as marriage counselors, youth counselors, educators, etc., I know some of them who grew up in the middle east and barely lived here yet they arrive here and start to bash people who were raised here as well as bash counselors who seek to help heal the communities. While they hurl Fiqh at you, the fiqh is embraced in envy, undermining logic, and a desire for power and self-promotion. It is like the 4,6,8 year degree in Fiqh got to their head and they think they know all, see all, and hear all. You cannot communicate with such people because they flash the fiqh degree in your face everytime you try to point out that they are abusing the community by speaking on issues beyond their knowledge. They can say if a marriage is valid or not, but they are not qualified to counsel marriages on the brink of divorce.

How can such people guide others when their knowledge of some years in Fiqh gets to their head?

Finally, can you answer this question for me? When Prophet Muhammad, upon him peace and blessings began his prophethood, did he begin with Fiqh or tasawwuf? What came first? Self-discipline and connecting to God, or Islamic Law?

My understanding is Tasawwuf or self-discipline came first. Correct me if I am wrong.

I end with this…There was a study done by Howard Beckman and Richard Frankel in 1984 – that researched doctors and found the average time patients were allowed to talk was 18 seconds. The majority of lawsuits against doctors was found to be for their failure to listen and not their lack of knowledge/qualifications in medicine. When doctors were presented with the evidence, they insisted they listened longer than this. And if they listened any longer, the patient would never stop talking. So Beckman and Frankel did a follow up study and found the contrary was true. That when patients were RESPECTED and given the time to talk – no patient talked more than 90 seconds. And most talked for 30 seconds. The same is true with most professionals and people of knowledge/Fiqh or data, is when they lack humility and fail to listen – they end up creating more harm than good.

[9:61] “Some of them hurt the prophet by saying, “He is all ears!” Say, “It is better for you that he listens to you. He believes in GOD, and trusts the believers. He is a mercy for those among you who believe.” Those who hurt GOD’s messenger have incurred a painful retribution.”

What value is Fiqh if you cannot actively listen to people and how can you listen if you lack humility and fail to cleanse yourselve from spiritual diseases and see your self-importance and knowledge and DISRESPECT others knowledge in other areas than fiqh?

BTW, this is not directed at you personally. I don’t see you in that light, but we cannot pretend this problem does not exist in our communities. We need to confront it. We need to stand up and tell students of fiqh, that your knowledge of fiqh does not qualify you to be a youth or marriage counselor. Humble yourself and know your limitations.

wasalaam,
Fedwa

Does a Mujaddid have to be a faqih? Is it possible for the mujaddid not to be a scholar of the traditional Islamic sciences?

Malcolm X (rahimahullah) comes to mind, but I don’t know if he would be considered a mujaddid or not…

By ‘Mujaddid’ I understand it to be ‘Reviver’: somebody who filters out whatever that is not of the deen which has crept into the understanding/practice of peoplewhich they regard as part of the deen, or, bring back that which has been lost and is not being acted upon.

Our deen itself doesn’t need changing i.e., matters upon which have been for centuries been clearly regarded to be permissible or impermissible and so on.

There is much in the article that requires development in the form of dialogues that maybe span a few posts. Due to the nature of the article it stands as one robust in a series of themes interlaced. Two themes that strike out at me as a reader are the theme of “tajdid and islah” and then “working with Islamic tradition”.

The first theme renewal and reform are interesting notions but one thing is clear there is an effort to claim the Muslim world is in need of a “protestant reformation” and this takes us to the matter of fundamentalism and then liberalism both which imply to some degree a doing away with tradition. The other turn is moving towards a sort of Muslim Catholicism wherein we emphasize tradition and the saints and the ascetic life as it was practiced by earlier generations as a normative age.

In any event, it is clear that the two notions of reform and revival open up a multiplicity of trajectories not only in how we read tradition but moreso in how we understand the political sphere. One can make the argument that 18 and 19 th century scholars fell to the wayside in terms of revival as well as those who came before. A program involving an analytical understanding of various scholars in Egypt before the 18th and 19th century would definitely do well to aid us to understand the role of Azhari Ulema in revival efforts or as models of revival and in this sense allow us to cultivate a sense of continuity, “sanad” that connects the present past and future.

There stands a lot to be done the say the least this article at least charts a course for serious inquiry into understanding how to work with tradition and how to study the principles of Islamic revival and further how to conceptualize the relationship between the scholar, the social context and politics.

One feels so much depth in this type of discourse that it hurts to stop here it is my hope that this post turns into a series of blogs, contemplation over the meaning embedded herein. Perhaps we can etch out a serious and mature discourse by way of this post and gain a sense of orientation in regards of how to deal with revival and the role of tradition in that effort.

Allahu Al’am
Shukran Jazeelan Wa Baraka Allahu Fika

Asalamu alaykum,

I pray you are well akhi and that your faith is strong. I’m not sure I understood your message? Are you of the opinion that there is no “reform” regarding the Muslim nation? If so, how do you understand the hadith of Ibn Majah from the Prophet [sa] who said, “At the head of every century Allah will send a reformer who will reform, for the community, its religion.” This hadith is sound and was acted upon by the salaf and the khalaf of this Umma. Imam al-Syuti [may Allah’s mercy be upon him] even wrote a small treaty on this topic listing those he felt were the Mujjadi’s [reformers] of this community. He was not alone in this as there were other great scholars who did the same.

As for the qualifications of such reformers, the majority hold that they will be the scholars of Fiqh [the outer sciences] because, as the great sufi al-Sh’arani mentioned in Tanbih al-Mughnatin, “There is a binding agreement that one who has not mastered the outer can’t engage in the inner.” Sidi Zaruq said, “Shari’ah [here he means fiqh] can survive without tasawwuf, but taswwuf cannot survive without Shari’ah.” Thus, while calls to reform the hearts are great, there can be no tasawwuf with out fiqh and faith. For that reason Ibn Ashir al-Maliki began his famous texts with creed, fiqh and finally tasawwuf.

Dr. Ali Gooma is a Faqih, Usoli, Muhaddith and a member of a Tariqah as I heard him say, “I’m versed in both the Shadiliy and Naqshabandi ways.” It is important to distinguish between legislated “reform” and “reform” that fails to meet the requirements of Shari’ah. I trust the scholarship of Dr. ‘Ali and hope that others will as well.

For more, I recommend you read the article of Dr. al-Qaradawi on this site that talks about the difference between tajdid and tabdid.

SDW