Voices of Islam (45 page)

We do not approve the use of the sword against any person of the community of Muhammad unless it is required to use the sword against him. We do not approve of secession from our Imams and those in authority. Even if they rule

What Is Sunni Islam?
211

tyrannically over us, we do not curse them or restrain any hand from obeying them. We consider obeying them an ordinance of God because judgment over human affairs is part of obedience to God (4:62). We pray for the welfare and security [of our leaders].

We follow the Sunna and the Community (
al-sunna wa’l-jama‘a
) and we shun that which deviates, is contrary, and divisive. We love the people of justice and trustworthiness, and hate the people of tyranny and treachery. We say, ‘‘Allah knows best concerning the knowledge that confuses us.’’
...

We love the Companions of the Messenger of God. We are not remiss in lov- ing any one of them nor do we repudiate any one of them. We hate him who hates them or mentions them disrespectfully. We mention them only respect- fully. Love for them is [being] religious, believing, and doing good; hatred for them is unbelief, hypocrisy, and perverseness.
...

Whoever speaks well of the Companions of the Messenger of God, of his wives who are pure of any defilement, and of his progeny, who are far removed from every abomination, is innocent of hypocrisy. The learned among the Fore- runners (
al-Salaf
), their Successors (
al-Tabi‘un
), those who came after them of the people of narrative and precedent, and the people of
fi h
and speculation are only to be mentioned favorably. Whoever mentions them badly is not on the right path. We do not prefer any one of the saints (
awliya’
) to any of the Prophets. We say, ‘‘One prophet is better than all the saints.’’ We believe in what has been passed down of their miracles (
karamat
) and those narratives that are authentic from trustworthy people.

We consider the Community real and correct but divisiveness we consider a turning away from the right and an affliction.

CONCLUSION: SUNNI ISLAM TODAY AND THE ROAD AHEAD

The history of the
Ahl al-Sunna wa’l-Jama‘a
shows that religious, ethical, and political concerns cannot be easily separated, as the stability of commu- nity and the common good are of paramount importance. Because of this, what begins as a religious issue may become a political power struggle, and vice versa. The original Sunni–Shi‘a split attests to this, stemming as it does from a dispute over the best way to devise a social system in keeping with the ideals of Islam. The impulse that led to the Sunni–Shi‘a split in the early centuries of Islam was driven by differences of opinion on how to create the best society possible, led by the best leader possible and displaying the char- acter of the Prophet. The best society for Muslims is one that is in communion with God, and whose laws and means of governance are informed and bounded by ethics that are in keeping with God’s preference for humankind. This is the only accurate definition of an ‘‘Islamic’’ commu- nity—or an ‘‘Islamic State’’—and it has been the ambition of every Islamic political movement. Because this was the impulse that fi st divided the Islamic body politic, it is potentially the area in which achieving consensus

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could be vital for uniting Muslims in agreement on the terms of a universal social contract. This is where modern
ijtihad
(scholarship in the area of law) is needed—to remove from the historical legacy of Islamic theology ideas that were based on the politics of earlier times and re-craft an Islamic political theory that is suitable for modern times and fully in keeping with the ethics of the Qur’an and the Sunna.

All Muslims today belong to a global body politic. The Islamic
Umma
is a subset of this global body politic. As we move our eyes in our living rooms from reading the pages of early Islamic history to watching the evening news on television, we witness the continued intersection of religion and politics in current events. As Muslims contemplate their role in this new world, the larger question we all wonder about is this: How might Muslims craft a coherent understanding between religion and politics, and make this globally meaningful and relevant to today’s world?

NOTES

1. A
   hadith
   is a report of a saying or action of the Prophet Muhammad.
   Hadith
   

   (with a capital h) in English is used to indicate the entire corpus of
   hadiths.
   

2. Note that the Sunni–Shi‘a distinction is not true of the ethical content of the Hadith; there is a great overlap of many Sunni and Shiite hadiths. The difference is most pronounced in those hadith texts that refer to political controversies.
   

3. Although the original doctrine of the Shi‘a was that rulership had to be from the descendants of the Prophet Muhammad through ‘Ali, we see today in Shiite Iran the rule of nondescendants, such as Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad.
   

4. The first crisis occurred during the time of the Caliph Abu Bakr. At the battle of Yamama (632
   CE
   ) the heavy loss of life among the Qur’an readers, who were among the Prophet’s Companions, prompted ‘Umar ibn al-Khattab to approach Abu Bakr and urge him to make a complete compilation of the Qur’an. Abu Bakr and ‘Umar approached Zayd ibn Thabit, one of the Prophet’s scribes, and charged him with the task of putting together a complete compilation of the Qur’an, culled from the memory and written notes of all the Prophet’s surviving companions. The completed copy of the Qur’an remained with Abu Bakr until he died, and then with ‘Umar, who became the second Caliph, until the end of his life. Finally, it was entrusted to Hafsa, ‘Umar’s daughter and a former wife of the Prophet Muhammad. See Dr. Muhammad Muhsin Khan, ed. and trans.,
   Sahih al-Bukhari
   (Pakistan: Sethi Straw Board Mills, Ltd, 1971), vol. 6, 478; Kitab Fada’il al-Qur’an, Bab Jam‘ al-Qur’an (Book of the Excellences of the Qur’an, Chapter on the Collection of the Qur’an).
   

5. Ibid.
   

6. Ibn Hajar al-‘Asqalani,
   al-Fath al-Bari’,
   vol. 9, 14, quoted in Labib as-Said,
   

   The Recited Koran, A History of the First Recorded Version,
   trans. Bernard Weiss,
   

   M.A. Rauf and Morroe Berger (Princeton, NJ: The Darwin Press, 1975) 23.
   

7. Ibn al-Athir, Majd al-Din Abu’l–Sa‘ada al-Mubarak ibn Muhammad,
   Al-Nihaya fi-gharib al-hadith wa’l-athar,
   Cairo, 1963-6, vol. III, 85-86, quoted in ibid., 23.
   

   What Is Sunni Islam?
   213
   

8. Sahih al-Bukhari,
   vol. 6, 479.
   

9. Talha and Zubayr were among a group of six members of a consultative com- mittee who were nominated by ‘Umar to be potential successors: ‘Uthman, ‘Ali, Zubayr, Talha, ‘Abd al-Rahman ibn ‘Awf, and Sa‘d ibn Abi Waqqas.
   

10. Kharaju,
    meaning, ‘‘They left or exited.’’ The name eventually given to this faction,
    Khariji,
    thus means, ‘‘one who exits,’’ or in a wider sense, ‘‘secessionist.’’ In Arabic, this group of Muslim dissidents is called
    al-Khawarij,
    the plural of
    khariji.
    They are called
    Kharijites
    in English.
    

11. Muhammad Ibn Jarir Al-Tabari,
    Ta’rikh al-Umam wa’l-Muluk
    (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1964) vol. 2, 199.
    

12. This position was a powerful statement opposing both the Sunni position of the time that the leader had to be from the tribe of Quraysh and the Shi‘a position that he had to be from the line of ‘Ali.
    

13. Note the similarities between Azraqi Kharijite beliefs and those of some modern Muslim extremists, who also judge those disagreeing with them as apostates, even to the point of murdering them along with their innocent spouses and children.
    

14. This term,
    al-Khulafa’ al-Rashidun
    in Arabic, refers to the first four Caliphs, who ruled in Medina: Abu Bakr, ‘Umar, ‘Uthman, and ‘Ali. The names of these Caliphs adorn many a mosque in beautiful calligraphy, together with the names of ‘Ali’s two sons Hasan and Husayn. In such mosques, the names
    Allah
    (God) and Muhammad are also prominently displayed.
    

15. In Islamic jurisprudence,
    taqlid
    is the opposite of
    ijtihad,
    the effort of a scholar to arrive at a correct legal opinion.
    Taqlid
    thus means to follow the opinions of others without understanding or scrutiny, or in the words of Sayf al-Din al-Amidi (d. 1233
    CE
    ), ‘‘To accept the rulings of others when such rulings are not coupled with a conclusive argument’’ (
    Al-Ihkam fi Usul al-Ahkam,
    Cairo 1347 AH, vol. III, 166). Many Muslims today are under the impression that following
    taqlid
    is always a bad or shameful thing.
    Taqlid
    has often been used as a pejorative term in Islamic discourse. This is unfortunate because in almost every field of human endeavor, people follow the advice of experts. The proper practice of
    taqlid
    is thus nothing more than recog- nizing one’s own professional limitations. Neither does
    taqlid
    necessarily mean that one is ignorant of religion. When a modern-day physics student learns Newton’s for- mulas, he is a
    muqallid
    (imitator or follower) of Newton. Such usage does not lower a person’s standing in the least unless it is applied where it does not belong; in that case the imitator would be justly criticized. The real issue of
    taqlid
    thus becomes one of knowing how far to follow the guidance of another. A great and innovative scholar like Imam Ghazali was a
    muqallid
    in that he followed the principles established by prior Imams like Shafi‘i. However, he also disagreed with such authorities in certain instances.
    

16. According to Shafi‘i, Prophetic precedent in Islamic law is made up of three types of Sunna: (1) verbal statements of the Prophet (
    sunna qawliyya
    ), (2) normative actions of the Prophet (
    sunna fi‘liyya
    ), and (3) the tacit consent of the Prophet indi- cated by his silence with reference to an event that happened in his presence (
    sunna taqririyya
    ).
    

17. For example, the Prophet made his Hajj pilgrimage only once, and began his Hajj from Medina. This, however, does not mean that a Muslim is prohibited from doing the Hajj several times or is required to start the Hajj from Medina.
    

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    Voices of Tradition
    

18. Al-Fiqh ‘ala-l-madhahib al-khamsa,
    jurisprudence according to the five major schools of law, is a common expression that embraces the notion that the four major schools of Sunni law (Maliki, Hanafi Shafi‘i, and Hanbali), plus the Shiite Ja‘fari school of law, have come to be accepted as the dominant interpretations. The differ- ences between the Ja‘fari school of law and any one of the other four Sunni schools are no greater than the differences between any one of the Sunni schools and the other three. If not for the political differences that originally differentiated Shi‘as from Sun- nis, one could argue that all five legal schools flowed out of the same tradition, each school preferring certain interpretive or structural legal principles over others.
    

19. In Shafi‘i usage, the former concept of the
    sunna
    of the Prophet’s Compan- ions was subsumed into the developing legal category of consensus (
    ijma‘
    ). In Han- bali thought, for example, the consensus of the Companions of the Prophet Muhammad, and in particular the practices, beliefs, and customs of the first rightly guided Caliphs, is of greater value than the consensus of later scholars. This led Ahmad Ibn Hanbal to speak of
    Ahl al-Sunna wa’l-Jama‘a wa’l-Athar,
    in which the word
    athar
    meant ‘‘the precedents,’’ referring to the precedents of the Prophet and his closest Companions.
    

20. It should not be forgotten that during the time of Shafi‘i and the founders of the major Sunni schools of jurisprudence (who died between the years 767 and 855
    CE
    ), the ‘‘six classical works’’ of Sunni Hadith collection had not yet been compiled. Most of these works were composed in the following century. The founders of major Sunni schools of jurisprudence were:
    

    1. Imam Hasan al-Basri, who lived in Medina and then in Basra (d. 729)
       

    2. Imam Abu Hanifa, who lived in Kufa and Baghdad (d. 767)
       

    3. Imam ‘Abd al-Rahman al-Awza‘i of Syria (d. 774)
       

    4. Imam Sufyan al-Thawri of Kufa and Basra (d. 778)
       

    5. Imam Layth ibn Sa‘d of Egypt (d. 791)
       

    6. Imam Malik ibn Anas of Medina (d. 795)
       

    7. Imam Sufyan ibn ‘Uyayna of Mecca (d. 814)
       

    8. Imam Muhammad ibn Idris al-Shafi‘i (d. in Egypt 820)
       

    9. Imam Ishaq ibn Ibrahim, better known as Ibn Rahawayh, of Nishapur (d. 853)
       

    10. Imam Ibrahim ibn Khalid, better known as Abu Thawr, of Baghdad (d. 855)
        

    11. Imam Ahmad Ibn Hanbal (d. in Baghdad in 855)
        

    12. Imam Dawud ibn ‘Ali al-Zahiri (d. in Baghdad in 883)
        

    13. Imam Muhammad ibn Jarir al-Tabari, (d. in Baghdad in 922) The six classical works of Sunni Hadith are:
        

        1. Sahih
           of al-Bukhari (d. 870)
           

        2. Sahih
           of Muslim (d. 875)
           

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           215
           

        3. Sunan
           of Ibn Maja (d. 886)
           

        4. Sunan
           of Abu Dawud (d. 888)
           

        5. Sunan
           of al-Tirmidhi (d. 892)
           

        6. Sunan
           of al-Nasa’i (d. 915)
           

        The compilers of the five most esteemed Shi‘a books of Hadith lived even later,dying between 939 and 1067
        CE
        . They are:
        

        1. Al-Usul al-Kafi
           of al-Kulayni (d. 939)
           

        2. Man la Yastahdiruhu’l-Faqih
           of al-Qummi (d. 991)
           

        3. Tahdhib al-Ahkam
           by al-Tusi (d. 1067)
           

        4. Al-Istibsar fi-ma Akhtalafa fihi al-Akhbar,
           also by al-Tusi
           

        5. Nahj al-Balagha
           of al-Sharif al-Murtada (d. 1044)
           

21. The reader should note that the differences we are speaking of were not major. For the most part, they were minor differences on issues of ritual, such as whether one’s feet had to be washed or wiped during the ablution or the definition of the part of the body that males and females have to cover during prayer or in the presence of the opposite sex.
    

22. A genre of traditions called
    Isra’iliyyat
    (‘‘Tales of the Israelites’’) entered Muslim discourse via Jews and Christians. Many of these accounts dealt with biblical narratives of the Prophet Moses and the second coming of Jesus. In addition, deeply ingrained customs such as the African practice of clitoridectomy (popularly known as female circumcision), which were not practiced in the Arabian peninsula of the Prophet’s time, were ‘‘Islamized’’ and thus continued to be practiced in the regions where they had originally occurred.
    

23. Tabari,
    Ta’rikh,
    vol. 3, 1113 and 1118.
    

24. Martin Hinds,
    Mihna,
    article in
    Encyclopedia of Islam
    (Brill Academic Publishers, CD-ROM 2004).
    

25. Kitab al-Sunna,
    38;
    Manaqib,
    159–161.
    

26. Kitab al-Sunna,
    35.
    

27. This was the precedent of Abu Bakr (the first Caliph after the Prophet) who appointed ‘Umar b. al-Khattab.
    

28. This can be seen as a nod to the Kharijite position of
    la hukma illa lillah
    (‘‘There is no ruling but through God’’). In addition, it gives more power to the ulama as interpreters of the Law.
    

29. Kitab al-Suuna,
    35.
    

30. Islamic law divides jurisprudence into two broad categories: worship (
    ‘ibadat
    ), concerning the laws of ritual worship, and worldly actions (
    mu‘amalat
    ). These are divided into four categories: criminal law, personal law, law of contracts (which today would include business law), and the law of governance or of nations (in modern parlance, constitutional and international law).
    

31. The popular view of Hanbali thought as rigorous or rigid is mainly due to their rejection of any form of worship that may be attributed to vestiges of foreign cultures or religions.
    

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    Voices of Tradition
    

32. Kitab al-Sunna,
    34. 33. Ibid., 35–36.