The fuss about traditional Islam

Humble beads- victim of ideology.

Traditional Islam opposes ideological Islam. The latter seeks to undermine Islam’s rich and diverse intellectual heritage by severing faith from its historical context. Traditional Islam, on the other hand, refers not only to the religion’s origins in Mecca and Medina, but also to its later development by Persians, Mongols, Indians, Caucasians, Malays, Chinese; all of whom had been joined by their common love for God and His Last Messenger. Within this world view, the revelation is just as important as its unfolding in time and space. Whereas the revelation itself is unchangeable, the environment that surrounds it is not.

Islam’s primary sources are the Koran and the sunnah. The sunnah is the actions and words of the Prophet Muhammad, performed and spoken in the unadulterated light of Divine Revelation. While much of the sunnah was passed down through actual practice by individuals and the community, its finer points rested in a body of writings called the hadiths.

Some customs were clear, others were not. These became seeds of conflict and division. The problem was so acute that Abu Bakr, in his reign as caliph, took steps to prohibit their narration. But as the early generations who had witnessed the Prophet’s career began to pass on, the injunction gave way to the more pressing need of preserving the sunnah, especially through the tangled skein of the hadiths.

People of hadith
Diverse groups of scholars availed themselves of the task of safeguarding the hadiths. The Ahl al-hadith (people of hadith) exhibited many tendencies and would often focus their efforts on divergent, though complementary, aspects of the tradition bequeathed by the Prophet Muhammad.

Although they agreed on several basic tenets, they would often have contentious disagreements over others. What identifies them with a single educational and intellectual movement is their common belief that the Koran and the sunnah, or wont, of the Prophet Muhammad were the primary, if not the only, appropriate sources of religious knowledge. Not only was the content of their teachings based upon words transmitted from the Prophet, so too was their mode of teaching modeled upon that of the Prophet and his community.

Thus the Ahl al-hadith movement was not based so much upon a single method or doctrine as it was an expression of the widely held belief that the guarantee of authenticity, and therefore of orthodoxy, was not only the verbal and written transmission of the sayings of the Prophet Muhammad, but the conveyance of the authority contained therein through adherence to his sunnah in the very manner of transmission. Not only was the content of the Islamic message preserved in the sayings of the Prophet, so too was the manner of instruction preserved in detail. The widespread hadith movement thus worked to preserve the sunnah of the Prophet in the actions, minds, and hearts of the Islamic community.

It is important to understand the contours of this movement because modern Islamic reformist movements also claim close adherence to the sunnah of the Prophet Muhammad. The nature of their dedication is, however, quite different. There were those among the Ahl al-hadith who took recourse to a literalist interpretation of scripture while suspending the speculative and intuitive capabilities, and stressing the saving nature of faith alone. But this was never the whole of the Islamic tradition. It was always balanced by other modes of interpretation. [1]

From amongst Ahl al-hadith emerged some of Islam’s greatest thinkers and jurists. These men and women took on the monumental task of compiling, systemizing and commenting on the vast body of sayings that existed. Forsaking comfort and health, they traveled perilous roads, stopping at towns to engage in study, enquiry and conversation.

Methodologies were worked out, both to interpret the Koran and sieve through the hadith literature. The Koran, for example, was not the only criterion used in verifying hadiths. Their chain of transmission, the personality of transmitters, their age and integrity, the number of links between the Prophet and the last transmitter; all these were applied in codifying the first community and individual laws. Consistency was of immense importance. These mujtahids realized from very early on that in the absence of the Prophet and the Rightly-Guided Caliphs as interpreters of divine law, it is the scholars who must take up the mantle.

"So ask the People of Knowledge if you do not know." (21:7)

The role of the mujtahid can be likened to a journeyman who has been struck with wanderlust. He yearns to wade into the ocean, discover new lands, but wisdom informs him that he is ill-equipped. Like all good journeymen, however, he begins by arming himself with basic knowledge. Navigation by stars, how to tell by the wind’s scent if land is just ahead, decipher the swirl of waters so as not to plow straight into a whirlpool. Without these basic skills, the mujtahid flounders and quite simply drowns.

Tha age of madhhab
Today, of course, Sunni Islam is made up of four primary madhhabs, named after four mujtahids- Imam Shafi’ie, Imam Malik, Imam Hanbal and Imam Hanifa.

It is a mistake to think, however, that there had always been only four schools of thought. Every mujtahid had one, but the main four were consistently re-used and refined as methods for approaching the primary sources. As the Muslim world burgeoned, each part of it adopted the understanding of one the madhhabs. Imam Maliki remains popular in the African continent, while Imam Hanbal was, until the eighteenth century, closely adhered to by Arabs. The Turks prefer Imam Hanifa, and the Malays continue to be adept exponents of Imam Shafi’ie. At the peak of Ottoman dominion, all four schools were given distinct and exalted places in Mecca.

Although a madhaab is named after an Imam, it really encompasses all the scholars who have studied, commented, taught, sat on ijma conclaves, developed new principles and issued edicts under the glimmering umbrella of their respective school. It also includes the ordinary followers themselves, who arrange their lives around the jurisprudence of a specific school, teach their children the movements of prayer as stipulated by a particular Imam. Obviously, all of these activities are rooted in adherence to a madhhab. At the heart of this adherence- also called taqleed- is trust.

A madhhab is not to be confused with a sect. The chief attribute that distinguishes sects lies not in the differences of opinion that its scholars have attained through ijtihad (independent reasoning), but rather the actual belief (aqeeda) that the scholars and their followers of the sect in question cling to. [2] There may be scholars representing all four madhhabs living in larger Muslim communities, and it is up to those who consult them to decide which school they prefer. It is in this sense that Salafism is less a madhhab that it is a sect. Like Shi’ism, it monopolizes the term Ahle Sunnah Waal Jemmah, even though Sunni, Shia and Salafist Islam all apply very different epistemologies. In Sunni Islam specifically, following a madhhab means following the complete sunnah of the Prophet.

Ideological Islam takes over
Stringent reformists such as Salafists propose strict adherence to the Koran and the sunnah, but in doing so, arrogantly discard fourteen centuries of Islamic intellectual history, claiming that there is no need for help from the great thinkers of the past in order to understand and interpret the texts which they themselves preserved and transmitted. They seek refuge in religious fervor, while closing the door to analysis and deliberation regarding the problems which confront the Islamic world.

This approach stirs deep passions in the hearts of people who yearn to live a pious Islamic life, but denies many forms of guidance by which such passions were traditionally channeled towards the Divine. In the absence of such guidance a narrow ideological interpretation of the faith comes to predominate. Those who fail to adopt this interpretation are then seen a unbelievers, or at best, misguided. [3]

The modernist approach is a direct and tragic result of Western education; which places inordinate weight on empiricism. During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, part of the Western colonialists’ effort to advance the society of their seemingly backward subjects was to reshape their educational system. What had been a traditional focus on quality in the Islamic world became instead a feverish quest for quantity. Education turned out to be short-cuts into the colonial civil service. Western institutions churned out students much like their industrial-revolution factories saturated markets with oversupply.

The most spectacular failure of Western education in the Islamic world is its inability to address much of the inner dimensions (batin) of scripture. Worse, it imparts a false sense of security and certainty. The adage- seeing is believing- has seeped into the deepest recesses of mind, heart and soul. Little wonder that many self-styled reformists of Islam often reach conclusions radically different from 1400 years worth of scholarship.

While classical scholars were rigorously steeped in both logic and humanist disciplines, the modernist is armed with ideas and knowledge that, from the outset, frees itself from dependance on a higher reality. No matter that the modern student valiantly attempts to filter these concepts and make it applicable to Islam. The applicability is an illusion. Both do not share the same roots, and both, according to the Koran’s tree of iman (shajarat-ul-Iman), are destined to produce very different fruits.

================
Where numbered, materials are obtained from these sources:
[1] & [3] - Islam, Fundamentalism, and the Betrayal of Tradition

[2] – Al-Albani Unveiled- Who are the Ahl as-Sunnah wa’l Jama’ah?

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