My madrassa classmate hated politics. Then he joined the Islamic State. By Ebrahim Moosa
Ebrahim Moosa is a professor of Islamic studies at the University of Notre
Dame; and the author of “What Is a Madrasa?” He
has studied at both Deoband and Nadwa.
Here is the link
to this article <http://wpo.st/P7IW0>
When we studied together at a madrassa, Rashid Moosagie had
a very low opinion of my politics. I was disenchanted by the academic, abstract
nature of our curriculum at the Deoband seminary, some 100 miles from New
Delhi, where I was enrolled in 1978; I desperately wanted the wisdom of my
faith to help shape the world, and I had begun to lose myself in the writings
of political Islam.
Rashid had just arrived to apprentice under some scholars
after completing his religious education elsewhere, and he thought my notion of
“applied Islam” was nonsense. The ideas I loved offered heady rhetoric but
little substance, he argued. And eventually I came to agree with him that the madrassa
approach, focused on tradition and piety, along with an infusion of new
knowledge, was the best way to revitalize Islam. By that time, Rashid had
become a successful imam in his native South Africa.
So I was very confused to learn that, this year, Rashid
immigrated to Syria and joined the Islamic State. He left Port Elizabeth with
his wife, adult sons and daughter and parted with the circle of clerics in a
city where he had served for more than 30 years. His brother Allie told a
reporter that he is trying to persuade Rashid to return. In a letter he sent home and audio recordings I
obtained from someone close to him who asked not to be named, Rashid claims it
is theologically mandatory for a Muslim to migrate to a land where God’s law is
applied. “I am very happy here,” he said. “Here I found what I missed all my
life.”
It was a departure not just of place but also of mind. “The
Islam that the Indian [scholars] taught us is totally, totally, away from
Islam,” he said, renouncing our joint theological education. The madrassas had
not taught him the rules for slavery, jihad or dealing with prisoners of war,
he complained. “I have painfully realized that Indian Islam teaches you to
become passive and submissive to infidel, secular laws, which is a kind of
unbelief.” And this realization led him to trade the democracy founded by
Nelson Mandela for the caliphate of Raqqa in Syria. He surrendered the
orthodox commitment about which he had exhorted me and adopted the very idea he
had mocked: a toxic version of political Islam on steroids.
How could this have happened? Islamic orthodoxy, which
controls mosques and institutions worldwide, is out of step with the world in
which the majority of Muslims live. In few places is orthodox Islam independent
of the state; it is often a political tool used by authoritarian regimes, which
explains why the Muslim intelligentsia does not respect it. Its hallmark is
archaism in theology and ethics, and its reach covers most of the global
community of faith.
Once a robust intellectual tradition, today Islamic
orthodoxy is in serious need of a makeover. Mainstream theologians who cater to
the majority of lay Muslims, both Sunni and Shiite, are unable to address such
critical moral and theological challenges as evolution, gender and sexuality,
or the role and meaning of sharia in a modern nation. That’s because
theological education is steeped in ancient texts with little attention to
reinterpretation.
Groups like the Islamic State propound antiquated teachings
still held to be true by many orthodox authorities. These include enslaving
prisoners of war and taking female prisoners as concubines. Because mainstream Islam has not truly
defused these theological hand grenades by explaining how they apply to the
modern world, groups like the Islamic State and disaffected followers like
Rashid can view these dangerous teachings as Islam’s true ideals. No wonder his
parting message said that every Muslim must be loyal to the caliph, who decides
what is in the best interest of the Muslim community. “From a sharia point of
view,” he said in his audio message, “I cannot leave dawla [the Islamic State]
. . . and if I did so I would be an apostate” — a crime punishable by death. He
planned to settle in Raqqa and buy a house there for his family.
Rashid could theoretically have migrated to Afghanistan
under the Taliban long before the birth of the Islamic State. But there is an
important technical difference: The Taliban claimed to have established an
autonomous emirate, not a sovereign caliphate. According to medieval Islamic
law, only an Arab, a descendant of the prophet Muhammad, can hold the office of
the caliph, a qualification the self-proclaimed Islamic State head, Abu Bakr
al-Baghdadi, claims to meet.
My old friend’s new approach blends Salafism and
millenarianism, a lethal combination. Salafism rejects any interpretation of
scriptural sources. In this sense, Salafism is to sharia as formaldehyde is to
a dead body. It prevents decomposition but also creates the illusion that the
body is alive. But a sharia that truly lives would help Muslims adapt to a
changing world.
Meanwhile, Rashid explains his millenarianism in his last
message, which contends that the conflict in Syria is the last heroic war — the
final standoff between Islam and its adversaries. This philosophy draws on
Muslim apocalyptic literature that says Jesus will return to Syria to combat
the forces of evil just before the end of the world.
There are few alternatives to this pressing challenge in
Islamic thought because many among the guardians of orthodoxy, the ulama,
believe too in the sharia-in-formaldehyde approach. Ordinary clerics are
reluctant to replace the medieval rulings on blasphemy, apostasy and captives
with new interpretations of Islamic law based on current realities. So a
credible and sophisticated narrative of Islam remains out of the reach of most
Muslims. In my view, a doctrinal overhaul is the best long-term antidote to the
radicalism and senseless interpretations that masquerade as Islam.
Rashid’s final messages offer reasons to celebrate and to
worry. First, he castigates some right-thinking orthodox Muslim authorities who
believe slavery is an abominable legacy of the past. That means, thankfully,
that some orthodox elements are prepared to rethink issues. Sadly,
they are a minority.
Second, madrassa-hating Islamophobes will be disappointed to
hear that Rashid believes that the madrassas are insufficiently radical. Rashid also rebukes Sufism, or Islamic mysticism. For
centuries Muslim theologians have blended the rigorist teachings of sharia with
the insights of mysticism to allow the spirit, rather than the letter, of the
law to shine. The Islamic State and similar groups insist upon the letter,
which is why all kinds of obscenities — beheading, rape, slavery, forced
conversion, war — are committed in the name of sharia. Rashid now denounces any
human attempt at theological or legal deliberation as idolatry.
The Islamic State outlook does not threaten only groups like
the Yazidis, Jews, Christians and Shiites. It poses an even greater threat to
Islam. As long as mainstream Muslim authorities keep Islamic learning in
formaldehyde, they make it easier for many more like Rashid to head for the
violent apocalyptic theaters of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. I don’t doubt Rashid’s sincere intention to live a pious
life any more than I did when we studied together. But he was able to embrace
the Islamic State as its lodestar only because Islamic orthodoxy has not
offered a humane alternative.
see also:
The great historian of early Islam, Patricia Crone, died on July 11 after a long battle with cancer. This memoir by her friend and colleague was written for a volume of essays in her honour and links to her outstanding essay on Mohammed
The religious persecution of Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd (1945-2010)/ Interview: My life fighting intolerance/ Mahmoud Mohammed Taha & the Second Message of Islam
Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd's Legacy (Library of writings)
Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd's Legacy (Library of writings)
Mahmoud Mohammed Taha was a Sudanese religious thinker and leader executed for apostasy at the age of 76 by the regime of Gaafar Nimeiry. (See his Court statement)
