The Whirling Dervishes and Orthodox Islam

The Whirling Dervishes and Orthodox Islam


Because their sama‘ or “spiritual recital” comprises a number of various elements, such as remembrance of Allah (dhikr), singing, dancing, and instrumental music, it seems best to mention some general considerations about the Islamic shari‘a before discussing each of these separately, in order to reach a more valid conclusion that is at the same time more general in scope.

First, the Islamic shari‘a furnishes a comprehensive criterion for all possible human actions, whether done before or never done before. It classifies actions into five categories, the obligatory (wajib), whose performance is rewarded by Allah in the next life and whose nonperformance is punished; the recommended (mandub), whose perfor­mance is rewarded but whose nonperformance is not pun­ished; the permissible (mubah), whose performance is not rewarded and whose nonperformance is not punished; the offensive (makruh), whose nonperformance is rewarded but whose performance is not punished; and the unlawful (haram) is that whose nonperformance is rewarded and whose performance is punished.

Now, Allah in His wisdom has made the vast majority of human actions permissible. He says in surat al-Baqara, “It is He who has created everything on earth for you” (Qur’an 2:29), which establishes the shari‘a principle that all things are mubah or permissible for us until Allah indicates to us that they are otherwise. Because of this, the fact that the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) did not do this or that particular practice does not prove that it is offensive or unlawful, but only that it is not obligatory. 

This is the reason that when shari‘a scholars speak of bid‘a, they do not merely mean an “innovation” or something that was never done before, which is the lexical sense of the word, but rather a “blameworthy innovation” or something new that no legal evidence in Sacred Law attests to the validity of, which is the shari‘a sense of the word. The latter is the bid‘a of misguidance mentioned in the hadith “The worst of matters are those that are new, and every innovation (bid‘a) is misguidance” (Sahih Muslim. 5 vols. Cairo 1376/1956. Reprint. Beirut: Dar al-Fikr, 1403/1983, 2.592: 867), which, although general in wording, scholars say refers specifically to new matters that entail something offensive or unlawful. As Imam al-Shafi‘i explains:

New matters are of two kinds: something begun that contravenes the Qur’an, sunna, the position of early Muslims, or consensus of scholars (ijma‘): this innovation is misguidance. And something begun of the good in which there is no contravention of any of these, and is therefore something new (muhdatha) but not blameworthy. For when ‘Umar (Allah be well pleased with him) saw the [tarawih] prayer being performed [in a group by Muslims in the mosque] in Ramadan, he said, “What a good innovation (bid‘a) this is,” meaning something newly begun that not had been done before. And even though it had, this does not negate the foregoing (al-Dhahabi, Siyar a‘lam al-nubala’. 23 vols. Beirut: Mu’assassa al-Risala, 1401/1981, 10.70).
As for the practice of Muslims gathering together for group dhikr or the “invocation of Allah,” there is much evidence of its praiseworthiness in the sunna—aside from the many Qur’anic verses and the hadiths establishing the general merit of dhikr in every state—such as the hadith related by Bukhari:

Truly, Allah has angels going around the ways, looking for people of dhikr, and when they find a group of men invoking Allah, they call to one another, “Come here to what you looking for!” and they circle around them with their wings up to the sky of this world.

Then their Lord asks them, though He knows better than they, “What do My servants say?” And they reply, “They say, Subhan Allah (‘Allah is transcendently above all things’), Allahu Akbar (‘Allah is ever greatest’), and al-Hamdu li Llah (‘All praise is Allah’s’), and they exalt Your glory.”

He says, “Have they seen me?” And they answer, “No, by Allah, they have not seen You.” And He says, “How would it be, had they seen Me?” And they say, “If they had seen You, they would have worshipped You even more, glorified You more, and said Subhan Allah more” . . . .
The hadith continues to where Allah says to the angels:

“I charge all of you to bear witness that I forgive them.” Then one of the angels says, “So-and-so is among them although he is not one of them but only came for something he needed.” And Allah says, “They are companions through whom whoever keeps their company shall never meet perdition” (Sahih al-Bukhari. 9 vols. Cairo 1313/1895. Reprint (9 vols. in 3). Beirut: Dar al-Jil, n.d., 8.107–8: 6408).

The last line of the hadith shows the religion’s highest approval for gatherings of dhikr. Further, the explicit mention of the various forms of dhikr in the hadith suffice in reply to certain contemporary “re-formers” of Islam, who, in an attempt to reduce “sessions of dhikr” to education gatherings alone, quote the words of ‘Ata' (ibn Abi Rabah, Mufti of Mecca, d. 114/732), who reportedly said, Sessions of dhikr are the sessions of [teaching people] the lawful and unlawful, how you buy, sell, pray, fast, wed, divorce, make the pilgrimage, and the like (al-Nawawi, al-Majmu‘: Sharh al-Muhadhdhab. 20 vols. Cairo n.d. Reprint. Medina: al-Maktaba al-Salafiyya, n.d., 1.21).

Perhaps ‘Ata' intended to inform people that teaching and learning shari‘a are also a form of dhikr, but in any case it is clear from the Prophet’s explicit words (Allah bless him and give him peace) in the above hadith that “sessions of dhikr” cannot be limited to that alone, but primarily means gatherings of Muslims to invoke Allah in dhikr.

As for dancing, Imam Ahmad relates from Anas (Allah be well pleased with him), with a chain of transmission all of whose narrators are those of al-Bukhari except Hammad ibn Salama, who is one of the narrators of Muslim, that the Ethiopians danced in front of the Messenger of Allah (Allah bless him and give him peace); dancing and saying [in their language], “Muhammad is a righteous servant.” The Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) said, “What are they saying?” And they said, “‘Muhammad is a righteous servant’” (Musnad al-Imam Ahmad. 6 vols. Cairo 1313/1895. Reprint. Beirut: Dar Sadir, n.d., 3.152).

The fact that dancing was done before the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) establishes that it is mubah or “permissible” in the shari‘a, for if it had been otherwise, he would have been obliged to condemn it. For this reason, Imam al-Nawawi, in his Minhaj al-talibin, the central legal work of the late Shafi‘i school, explicitly says:

Dancing is not unlawful, unless it is languid, like the movements of the effeminate. And it is permissible to speak and to sing poetry, unless it satirizes someone, is obscene, or alludes to a particular woman” (Minhaj al-talibin wa ‘umdat al-muttaqin. Cairo 1338/1920. Reprint. Cairo: Mustafa al-Babi al-Halabi, n.d., 152).
Islamic scholars point out that if something which is permissible, such as the singing of poetry or dancing, is conjoined with something which is recommended, such as dhikr or gatherings to make dhikr, the result of this conjoining will not be offensive (makruh) or unlawful (haram). Imam Jalal al-Din al-Suyuti was asked for a fatwa or formal legal opinion concerning “a group of Sufis who had gathered for a session of dhikr,” and said:
How can one condemn making dhikr while standing, or standing while making dhikr, when Allah Most High says, “. . . those who invoke Allah standing, sitting, and upon their sides” (Qur’an 3:191). And ‘A’isha (Allah be well pleased with her) said, “The Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) used to invoke Allah at all times” [Sahih Muslim, 1.282: 373]. And if dancing is added to this standing, it may not be condemned, as it is of the joy of spiritual vision and ecstasy, and the hadith exists [in many sources, such as Musnad al-Imam Ahmad, 1.108, with a sound (hasan) chain of transmission] that Ja‘far ibn Abi Talib danced in front of the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) when the Prophet told him, “You resemble me in looks and in character,” dancing from the happiness he felt from being thus addressed, and the Prophet did not condemn him for doing so, this being a basis for the legal acceptability of the Sufis dancing from the joys of the ecstasies they experience (al-Hawi li al-fatawi. 2 vols. Cairo 1352/1933–34. Reprint. Beirut: Dar al-Kutub al-‘Ilmiyya, 1403/1983, 2.234).

Now, al-Suyuti was a hadith master (hafiz, someone with over 100,000 hadiths by memory) and a recognized mujtahid Imam who authored some six-hundred works in the shari‘a sciences, and his formal opinion, together with the previously cited ruling of Imam al-Nawawi in the Minhaj al-talibin, constitutes an explicit legal text (nass) for the Shafi‘i school establishing that circles of dhikr which comprise the singing of spiritual poetry and dancing are neither offensive (makruh) nor unlawful (haram); rather, they are permissible.
But the Mevlevi or “Whirling Dervish” sama‘s have another aspect to them that must be discussed before reaching a complete conclusion; namely, the use of musical instruments. This is something of a difficulty, for the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) said:

There shall be groups of people from my community who shall consider fornication, silk, wine, and musical instruments to be lawful: groups shall camp beside a high mountain, whom a shepherd returning to in the evening with one of their herds shall approach for something he needs, and they shall tell him, “Come back tomorrow.” Allah shall destroy them in the night, bringing down the mountain upon them, and transforming others into apes and swine until the Day of Judgement (Sahih al-Bukhari, 7.138: 5590).

Hadith commentaries mention that the transforming (maskh) may mean either “their forms, literally, as happened to some previous mations; or else figuratively, alluding to the metamorphosis of their character” (al-Qastalani, Irshad al-sari li sharh Sahih al-Bukhari. 10 vols. Bulaq 1306/1888. Reprint. Beirut: Dar al-Fikr, 1410/1989, 8.317–18), but in either case, the punishment named in the hadith is a clear proof of the unlawfulness of each of the things mentioned in it.

This hadith is not part of the main text of Sahih al-Bukhari, but is rather of those appended to the Sahih by al-Bukhari ta‘liqan or “in commentary,” meaning hadiths (generally given together with the chapter headings) that are not always at the same level as the rigorously authenticated (sahih) ones, but may include the hasan or “well authenticated” as well, and which al-Bukhari mentioned to clarify or expand on the hadiths of the main corpus. But this particularly hadith is fully authenticated. The hadith master (hafiz) Ibn al-Salah states:

Ibn Hazm claimed that its chain of transmission was dissevered between al-Bukhari and Hisham ibn Ammar [al-Sulami, d. 245/868, whom al-Bukhari quoted it from], and considered this a rebuttal of the hadith as evidence that musical instruments were unlawful. He was wrong about this, in a number of ways. The hadith is rigorously authenticated (sahih), and known to have a contiguous chain of transmission meeting the requirements of the rigorously authenticated (al-sahih) (al-‘Asqalani, Fath al-Bari bi sharh Sahih al-Bukhari. 14 vols. Cairo: al-Maktaba all-Salafiyya, 1390/1970, 10.52: 5590).

The hadith is thus a fully authenticated proof of the unlawfulness of instrumental music. This is also the recorded position of all four madhhabs of Sunni jurisprudence, the Hanafi school (Ibn ‘Abidin, Radd al-muhtar ‘ala al-durr al-mukhtar. 5 vols. Bulaq 1272/1855. Reprint. Beirut: Dar Ihya’ al-Turath al-‘Arabi, 1407/1987, 5.253), the Maliki school (al-Dardir, al-Sharh al-saghir ‘ala Aqrab al-masalik ila madhhab al-Imam Malik. 4 vols. Cairo: Dar al-Ma‘arif, 1394/1974, 2.502), the Shafi‘i school (al-Nawawi, Minhaj al-talibin, 152), and the Hanbali school (al-Bahuti, Kashshaf al-qina‘ ‘an matn al-Iqna‘. 6 vols. Beirut: Dar al-Fikr, 1402/1982, 5.170). Readers who know fiqh literature will observe that each of these works is the top fatwa resource in its school. While it is true that certain Ottoman muftis made exceptions from this general rule, it was only under special circumstances of necessity considered pressing enough to warrant making an exception, such as with military bands, which they argued should be excepted from the prohibition because of the need to rouse the army to fight harder in jihad.

Certain muftis also gave fatwas that the exceptionalness of the spiritual states of the Sufis in their sessions of dhikr made it lawful for them to listen to musical instruments. This, they said, was because the reason for Allah’s prohibiting musical instruments was that they distract the heart from Allah, while in sessions of dhikr, they remind the heart of Him. This argument fails in my opinion not only because the shari‘a should apply to all Muslims equally, but also (and most importantly) because we cannot establish beyond a reasonable doubt that distracting from Allah is the only reason for music’s prohibition, in order to negate the prohibition in situations where it does not. There may be other reasons for its prohibition, or no “reason” at all, except as a test of our obedience to Allah.

The whirling dervishes in Aleppo and Damascus, I am told by Syrians, did not use musical instruments, but only the tambourine (daff), which is permissible in the Shafi‘i school of jurisprudence and others. I have heard that some Turkish sheikhs say that the Mevlevis’ use of musical instruments was begun only after the death of Jalal al-Din al-Rumi, the founder of the whirling dervishes. The opening lines of his Mathnawi are:
Listen to the reed how it tells a tale, complaining of separations—

Saying, “Ever since I was parted from the reed-bed, my lament hath caused man and woman to moan.
I want a bosom torn by severance, that I may unfold (to such a one) the pain of love-desire.
Every one who is left far from his source wishes back the time when he was united with it.
(The Mathnawi of Jalal al-Din al-Rumi. Trans. R. A. Nicholson. 3 vols. London 1926. Reprint. London: Luzac and Company, 1977, 5)

—From these lines, they understand the “song of a reed-pipe” as a metaphor for the longing of the spirit for its original knowledge of the Divine.

To summarize, circles of invocation of Allah (dhikr) conjoined with singing of permissible poetry and even dancing are compatible with the shari‘a of orthodox Islam, as we have reported above from the works of Imams al-Suyuti and al-Nawawi in the Shafi‘i school of jurisprudence. Music produced by instruments, in view of the Prophet’s condemnation of them (Allah bless him and give him peace) in Sahih al-Bukhari, is not lawful in Islam. The Mevlevis or whirling dervishes seem to have used musical instruments in their sama‘s at some times and places, but not used them at others. The latter, according to the evidence we have examined, is permissible (mubah), but the former, sama‘ with musical instruments, is not permissible, as the reasoning behind the fatwas that permit it is not strong enough, in my view, to modify the unlawfulness established by the hadith, which is also the position of the four schools of jurisprudence. And Allah knows best.

[Note: Someone writing to the editor in a subsequent issue of Q-News objected to the article’s saying that “Islamic scholars point out that if something which is permissible, such as the singing of poetry or dancing, is conjoined with something which is recommended, such as dhikr or gatherings to make dhikr, the result of this conjoining will not be offensive (makruh) or unlawful (haram).” This, the reader said, was wrong because the prayer (salat), for example, is something that is either obligatory or sunna, while eating and drinking are mubah or “permissible,” despite the fact that doing either in prayer is unlawful, showing that my reasoning here (on which Imam Suyuti’s fatwa above also turns) is mistaken.

The argument fails because its analogy is delusive. Eating, drinking, extraneous movement, everyday speech, and so forth are unlawful in prayer because of specific interdictions of them that have reached us in hadith from the Prophet himself (Allah bless him and give him peace), which is why the opening Allahu Akbar of the prayer is known in books of fiqh as the takbirat al-ihram, or simply the tahrima: It makes a whole range of permissible things haram or “unlawful” until one finishes. The analogy between the prayer, on the one hand, regarding which there are hadiths forbidding such permissible things in it, and dhikr, on the other, for which no such hadiths exist, is a false analogy, insufficient to build any ruling upon. The sole exceptions in Sacred Law to the praiseworthiness of dhikr in every state are lovemaking and going to the bathroom, when one’s dhikr must be confined to the heart, and neither relates to our question here.]

MMII © N. Keller

[Note: Someone writing to the editor in a subsequent issue of Q-News objected to the article’s saying that “Islamic scholars point out that if something which is permissible, such as the singing of poetry or dancing, is conjoined with something which is recommended, such as dhikr or gatherings to make dhikr, the result of this conjoining will not be offensive (makruh) or unlawful (haram).” This, the reader said, was wrong because the prayer (salat), for example, is something that is either obligatory or sunna, while eating and drinking are mubah or “permissible,” despite the fact that doing either in prayer is unlawful, showing that my reasoning here (on which Imam Suyuti’s fatwa above also turns) is mistaken.

The argument fails because its analogy is delusive. Eating, drinking, extraneous movement, everyday speech, and so forth are unlawful in prayer because of specific interdictions of them that have reached us in hadith from the Prophet himself (Allah bless him and give him peace), which is why the opening Allahu Akbar of the prayer is known in books of fiqh as the takbirat al-ihram, or simply the tahrima: It makes a whole range of permissible things haram or “unlawful” until one finishes. The analogy between the prayer, on the one hand, regarding which there are hadiths forbidding such permissible things in it, and dhikr, on the other, for which no such hadiths exist, is a false analogy, insufficient to build any ruling upon. The sole exceptions in Sacred Law to the praiseworthiness of dhikr in every state are lovemaking and going to the bathroom, when one’s dhikr must be confined to the heart, and neither relates to our question here.]

The Hadra and the Sacred Law

The Hadra and the Sacred Law


A person coming to the Middle East to learn something about the tariqa is likely, at some point in his visit, to see the brethren in the hadra or “public dhikr” as it has been traditionally practiced by generations of Shadhilis in North Africa under such sheikhs as al-‘Arabi al-Darqawi, Muhammad al-Buzidi, and Ahmad al-‘Alawi before being brought to Damascus from Algeria by Muhammad ibn Yallis and Muhammad al-Hashimi at the beginning of this century.

Upon entering the mosque, one will see circles of men making dhikr (women participants are screened from view upstairs) standing and holding hands, now slightly bowing in unison, now moving up and down with their knees in unison, the rows rising and falling, breathing in unison, while certain of them alternate at pacing around their midst, conducting the tempo of the group’s motion and breathing with their arms and step. Singers near the sheikh, in solo or chorus, deliver mystical odes to the rhythm of the group; high, spiritual poetry from masters like Ibn al-Farid, Sheikh Ahmad al-‘Alawi, ‘Abd al-Qadir al-Himsi, and our own sheikh.

Though a very stirring experience, it is meticulously timed and controlled, and as with all group dhikrs, the main adab or “proper behaviour” is harmony. No one should stand out in any way, but rather all subordinate their movement, breathing, and dhikr to that of the group. The purpose is to forget one’s individuality in the collective sea of spirits making dhikr in unison. Individual motives, thoughts, and preoccupations are momentarily put aside by means of the Sacred Dance, of moving together as one, sublimating and transcending the limitary and personal through the timelessness of rhythm, conjoined with the melody of voices singing spiritual meanings.

It is an experience that joins those travelling towards Allah spiritually, socially, and emotionally. Few forget it, and visitors from the West to whom it is unfamiliar sometimes wonder if it is a bid‘a or “reprehensible innovation,” as it was not done in the time of the earliest Muslims, or whether it is unlawful (haram) or offensive (makruh); and why they see the ulama and righteous attending it in Damascus, Jerusalem, Aden, Cairo, Tripoli, Tunis, Fez, and wherever there are people of the path.

I was one of those who asked our sheikh about the relation of the hadra to the shari‘a or “Sacred Law” which is the guiding light of our tariqa. As Muslims, our submission to the law is total, and there are no thoughts or opinions after legally answering the question “Does the hadra agree with orthodox Islam?”
Because it comprises a number of various elements, such as gathering together for the remembrance of Allah (dhikr), singing, and dancing, we should reflect for a moment on some general considerations about the Islamic shari‘a before discussing each of these separately.

First, the Islamic shari‘a furnishes a comprehensive criterion for all possible human actions, whether done before or never done before. It classifies actions into five categories, the obligatory (wajib), whose performance is rewarded by Allah in the next life and whose nonperformance is punished; the recommended (mandub), whose perfor­mance is rewarded but whose nonperformance is not pun­ished; the permissible (mubah), whose performance is not rewarded and whose nonperformance is not punished; the offensive (makruh), whose nonperformance is rewarded but whose performance is not punished; and the unlawful (haram), whose nonperformance is rewarded and whose performance is punished.

Now, Allah in His wisdom has made the vast majority of human actions permissible. He says in surat al-Baqara, “It is He who has created everything on earth for you” (Koran 2:29), which establishes the shari‘a principle that all things are mubah or permissible for us until Allah indicates to us that they are otherwise. Because of this, the fact that the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) did not do this or that particular practice does not prove that it is offensive or unlawful, but only that it is not obligatory. 

This is the reason that when shari‘a scholars speak of bid‘a, they do not merely mean an “innovation” or something that was never done before, which is the lexical sense of the word, but rather a “blameworthy innovation” or something new that no legal evidence in Sacred Law attests to the validity of, which is the shari‘a sense of the word. The latter is the bid‘a of misguidance mentioned in the hadith “The worst of matters are those that are new, and every innovation (bid‘a) is misguidance” (Sahih Muslim. 5 vols. Cairo 1376/1956. Reprint. Beirut: Dar al-Fikr, 1403/1983, 2.592: 867), which, although general in wording, scholars say refers specifically to new matters that entail something offensive or unlawful. Imam Shafi‘i explains:

New matters are of two kinds: something newly begun that contravenes the Koran, sunna, the position of early Muslims, or consensus of scholars (ijma‘): this innovation is misguidance. And something newly inaugurated of the good in which there is no contravention of any of these, and is therefore something which although new (muhdatha), is not blameworthy. For when ‘Umar (Allah be well pleased with him) saw the [tarawih] prayer being performed [in a group by Muslims at the mosque] in Ramadan, he said, “What a good innovation (bid‘a) this is,” meaning something newly begun that had not been done before. And although in fact it had, this does not negate the legal considerations just advanced [n: i.e. that it furnishes an example of something that ‘Umar, who was a scholar of the Sahaba, praised as a “good innovation” despite his belief that it had not been done before, because it did not contravene the broad principles of the Koran or sunna] (Dhahabi: Siyar a‘lam al-nubala’. 23 vols. Beirut: Mu’assassa al-Risala, 1401/1981, 10.70).

As for the practice of Muslims gathering together for group dhikr or the “invocation of Allah,” there is much evidence of its praiseworthiness in the sunna—aside from the many Koranic verses and the hadiths establishing the general merit of dhikr in every state—such as the hadith related by Bukhari:
Truly, Allah has angels going about the ways, looking for people of dhikr, and when they find a group of men invoking Allah, they call to one another, “Come to what you have been looking for!” and they circle around them with their wings up to the sky of this world.

Then their Lord asks them, though He knows better than they, “What do My servants say?” And they reply, “They say, Subhan Allah (“I glorify Allah’s absolute perfection”), Allahu Akbar (“Allah is ever greatest”), and al-Hamdu li Llah (“All praise be to Allah”), and they extoll Your glory.” 
He says, “Have they seen Me?” And they answer, “No, by Allah, they have not seen You.” And He says, “How would it be, had they seen Me?” And they say, “If they had seen You, they would have worshipped You even more, glorified You more, and said Subhan Allah the more.”
He asks them, “What do they ask of Me?” And one answers, “They ask You paradise.” He says, “Have they seen it?” And they say, “No, by Allah, My Lord, they have not seen it.” And He says, “How would it be, had they seen it?” And they say, “If they had seen it, they would have been more avid for it, sought it more, and been more desirous of it.”

Then He asks them, “From what do they seek refuge?” And they answer, “From hell.” He says, “Have they seen it?” And they say, “No, by Allah, they have not seen it.” And He says, “How would it be, had they seen it?” And they say, “If they had seen it, they would have fled from it even more, and been more fearful of it.”
He says, “I charge all of you to bear witness that I have forgiven them.” Then one of the angels says, “So-and-so is among them, though he is not one of them but only came for something he needed.” And Allah says, “They are companions through whom no one who keeps their company shall meet perdition” (Sahih al-Bukhari. 9 vols. Cairo 1313/1895. Reprint (9 vols. in 3). Beirut: Dar al-Jil, n.d., 8.107–8: 6408).
The last line of the hadith shows the highest approval for gatherings of dhikr in the religion of Allah. Some other accounts transmit the condemnation of Ibn Mas‘ud (Allah be well please with him) for gathering together to say Subhan Allah (perhaps out of fear of ostentation), but even if we were to grant their authenticity, the above hadith of Bukhari, containing the explicit approval of such gatherings by Allah and His messenger (Allah bless him and give him peace) suffices us from needing the permission of Ibn Mas‘ud or any other human being. Further, the explicit mention of the various forms of dhikr in the hadith suffice in reply to certain contemporary “re-formers” of Islam, who attempt to reduce “sessions of dhikr” to educational gatherings alone by quoting the words of ‘Ata' (ibn Abi Rabah, Mufti of Mecca, d. 114/732), who reportedly said,
Sessions of dhikr are the sessions of [teaching people] the lawful and unlawful, how you buy, sell, pray, fast, wed, divorce, make the pilgrimage, and the like (Nawawi: al-Majmu‘: Sharh al-Muhadhdhab. 20 vols. Cairo n.d. Reprint. Medina: al-Maktaba al-Salafiyya, n.d., 1.21).


Perhaps ‘Ata' intended to inform people that teaching and learning shari‘a are also a form of dhikr, but in any case it is clear from the Prophet’s explicit words (Allah bless him and give him peace) in the above hadith that “sessions of dhikr” cannot be limited to teaching and learning Sacred Law alone, but primarily mean gatherings of Muslims to invoke Allah in dhikr.

As for dancing, Imam Ahmad relates from Anas (Allah be well pleased with him), with a chain of transmission all of whose narrators are those of Bukhari except Hammad ibn Salama, who is one of the narrators of Muslim, that the Ethiopians danced in front of the Messenger of Allah (Allah bless him and give him peace); dancing and saying [in their language], “Muhammad is a righteous servant.” The Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) said, “What are they saying?” And they said, “‘Muhammad is a righteous servant’” (Musnad al-Imam Ahmad. 6 vols. Cairo 1313/1895. Reprint. Beirut: Dar Sadir, n.d., 3.152).

Other versions of the hadith clarify that this took place in the mosque in Medina, though in any case, the fact that dancing was done before the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) establishes that it is mubah or “permissible” in the shari‘a, for if it had been otherwise, he would have been obliged to condemn it. For this reason, Imam Nawawi says:

Dancing is not unlawful, unless it is languid, like the movements of the effeminate. And it is permissible to speak and to sing poetry, unless it satirizes someone, is obscene, or alludes to a particular woman” (Minhaj al-talibin wa ‘umdat al-muttaqin. Cairo 1338/1920. Reprint. Cairo: Mustafa al-Babi al-Halabi, n.d., 152).
This is a legal text for the permissibility of both dancing and singing poetry from the Minhaj al-talibin, the central legal work of the entire late Shafi‘i school. Islamic scholars point out that if something which is permissible, such as singing poetry or dancing, is conjoined with something that is recommended, such as dhikr or gatherings to make dhikr, the result of this conjoining will not be offensive (makruh) or unlawful (haram). Imam Jalal al-Din Suyuti was asked for a fatwa or formal legal opinion concerning “a group of Sufis who had gathered for a session of dhikr,” and he replied:

How can one condemn making dhikr while standing, or standing while making dhikr, when Allah Most High says, “. . . those who invoke Allah standing, sitting, and upon their sides” (Koran 3:191). And ‘A'isha (Allah be well pleased with her) said, “The Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) used to invoke Allah at all of his times” [Sahih Muslim, 1.282: 373]. And if dancing is added to this standing, it may not be condemned, as it is of the joy of spiritual vision and ecstasy, and the hadith exists [in many sources, such as Musnad al-Imam Ahmad, 1.108, with a sound (hasan) chain of transmission] that Ja‘far ibn Abi Talib danced in front of the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) when the Prophet told him, “You resemble me in looks and in character,” dancing from the happiness he felt from being thus addressed, and the Prophet did not condemn him for doing so, this being a basis for the legal acceptability of the Sufis dancing from the joys of the ecstasies they experience (al-Hawi li al-fatawi. 2 vols. Cairo 1352/1933–34. Reprint. Beirut: Dar al-Kutub al-‘Ilmiyya, 1403/1983, 2.234).

Now, Suyuti was a hadith master (hafiz, someone with over 100,000 hadiths by memory) and a recognized mujtahid Imam who authored hundreds of works in the shari‘a sciences, and his formal opinion, together with the previously cited ruling of Imam Nawawi in the Minhaj al-talibin, constitutes an authoritative legal text (nass) in the Shafi‘i school establishing that circles of dhikr which comprise the singing of spiritual poetry and dancing are neither offensive (makruh) nor unlawful (haram)—unless associated with other unlawful factors such as listening to musical instruments or the mixing of men and women—but rather are permissible.
To summarize, the hadra of our tariqa, consisting of circles of invocation of Allah (dhikr) conjoined with the singing of permissible poetry and dancing, is compatible with the Sacred Law of orthodox Islam; and when the latter elements facilitate presence of heart with Allah (as they do with most people who possess hearts), they deserve a reward from Allah by those who intend them as such. And this is the aim and importance of the hadra in the tariqa.

MCMXCVI © N. Keller

History of Wahhabism - Shaykh Nuh

Music in Islam

Dinosaurs and Religion

Is religion a consequence of fear of death?

Diversity of the Human Race

Innovation & the Shia

What does Science Provide?

Following A Madhab - Sh. Nuh Ha Mim Keller, Sh. Hamza Yusuf and Sh Abdallah Al Kadi

 

How would you respond to the claim that sufism is a Bidah?

HOW WOULD YOU RESPOND TO THE CLAIM THAT SUFISM IS BID'A?
 

I would respond by looking to see how traditional ulama or Islamic scholars have viewed it. For the longest period of Islamic history--from Umayyad times to Abbasid, to Mameluke, to the end of the six-hundred-year Ottoman period--Sufism has been taught and understood as an Islamic discipline, like Qur'anic exegesis (tafsir), hadith, Qur'an recital (tajwid), tenets of faith (ilm al-tawhid) or any other, each of which preserved some particular aspect of the din or religion of Islam. While the details and terminology of these shari'a disciplines were unknown to the first generation of Muslims, when they did come into being, they were not considered bid'a or "reprehensible innovation" by the ulema of shari'a because for them, bid'a did not pertain to means, but rather to ends, or more specifically, those ends that nothing in Islam attested to the validity of.

To illustrate this point, we may note that the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) never in his life prayed in a mosque built of reinforced concrete, with a carpeted floor, glass windows, and so on, yet these are not considered bid'a, because we Muslims have been commanded to come together in mosques to perform the prayer, and large new buildings for this are merely a means to carry out the command.

In the realm of knowledge, books of detailed interpretation of the Qur'an, verse by verse and sura by sura, were not known to the first generation of Islam, nor was the term tafsir current among them, yet because of its benefit in preserving a vital aspect of the revelation, the understanding of the Qur'an, when the tafsir literature came into being, it was acknowledged to serve an end endorsed by the shari'a and was not condemned as bid'a. The same is true of most of the Islamic sciences, such as ilm al-jarh wa tadil or "the science of weighing positive and negative factors for evaluating the reliability of hadith narrators", or ilm al-tawhid, "the science of tenets of Islamic faith", and other disciplines essential to the shari'a. In this connection, Imam Shafi'i (d. 204/820) has said, "Anything which has a support (mustanad) from the shari'a is not bid'a, even if the early Muslims did not do it" (Ahmad al-Ghimari, Tashnif al-adhan, Cairo: Maktaba al-Khanji, n.d., 133).

Similarly ilm al-tasawwuf, "the science of Sufism" came into being to preserve and transmit a particular aspect of the shari'a, that of ikhlas or sincerity. It was recognized that the sunna of the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) was not only words and actions, but also states of being: that a Muslim must not only say certain things and do certain things, but must also be something. The shari'a commands one, for example, in many Qur'anic verses and prophetic hadiths, to fear Allah, to have sincerity toward Him, to be so certain in ones knowledge of Allah that one worships Him as if one sees Him, to love the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) more than any other human being, to show love and respect to all fellow Muslims, to show mercy, and to have many other states of the heart. It likewise forbids us such inward states as envy, malice, pride, arrogance, love of this world, anger for the sake of ones ego, and so on. Al-Hakim al-Tirmidhi relates, for example, with a chain of transmission judged rigorously authenticated (sahih) by Ibn Main, the hadith "Anger spoils faith (iman) as [the bitterness of] aloes sap spoils honey" (Nawadir al-usul. Istanbul 1294/1877. Reprint.
Beirut: Dar Sadir, n.d., 6).

If we reflect upon these states, obligatory to attain or to eliminate, we notice that they proceed from dispositions, dispositions not only lacking in the unregenerate human heart, but acquired only with some effort, resulting in a human change so profound that the Qur'an in many verses terms it purification, as when Allah says in surat al-Ala, for example, "He has succeeded who purifies himself" (Qur'an 87:14). Bringing about this change is the aim of the Islamic science of Sufism, and it cannot be termed bid'a, because the shari'a commands us to accomplish the change.

At the practical level, the nature of this science of purifying the heart (like virtually all other traditional Islamic disciplines) requires that the knowledge be taken from those who possess it. This is why historically we find that groups of students gathered around particular sheikhs to learn the discipline of Sufism from. While such tariqas or groups, past and present, have emphasized different ways to realize the attachment of the heart to Allah commanded by the Islamic revelation, some features are found in all of them, such as learning knowledge from a teacher by precept and example, and then methodically increasing ones iman or faith by applying this knowledge through performing obligatory and supererogatory works of worship, among the greatest of latter being dhikr or the remembrance of Allah. There is much in the Qur'an and sunna that attests to the validity of this approach, such as the hadith related by al-Bukhari that:

Allah Most High says: "....My slave approaches Me with nothing more beloved to Me than what I have made obligatory upon him, and My slave keeps drawing nearer to Me with voluntary works until I love him. And when I love him, I am his hearing with which he hears, his sight with which he sees, his hand with which he seizes, and his foot with which he walks. If he asks me, I will surely give to him, and if he seeks refuge in Me, I will surely protect him (Sahih al-Bukhari. 9 vols. Cairo 1313/1895. Reprint (9 vols. in 3). Beirut: Dar al-Jil, n.d., 5.131: 6502)--which is a way of expressing that such a person has realized the consummate awareness of tawhid or "unity of Allah" demanded by the shari'a, which entails total sincerity to Allah in all one's actions. Because of this hadith, and others, traditional ulama have long acknowledged that ilm or "Sacred Knowledge" is not sufficient in itself, but also entails amal or "applying what one knows"--as well as the resultant hal or "praiseworthy spiritual state" mentioned in the hadith.

It was perceived in all Islamic times that when a scholar joins between these aspects, his words mirror his humility and sincerity, and for that reason enter the hearts of listeners. This is why we find that so many of the Islamic scholars to whom Allah gave tawfiq or success in their work were Sufis. Indeed, to throw away every traditional work of the Islamic sciences authored by those educated by Sufis would be to discard 75 percent or more of the books of Islam. These men included such scholars as the Hanafi Imam Muhammad Amin Ibn Abidin, Sheikh al-Islam Zakaria al-Ansari, Imam Ibn Daqiq al-Eid, Imam al-Izz Ibn Abd al-Salam, Abd al-Ghani al-Nabulsi, Sheikh Ahmad al-Sirhindi, Sheikh Ibrahim al-Bajuri, Imam al-Ghazali, Shah Wali Allah al-Dahlawi, Imam al-Nawawi, the hadith master (hafiz, someone with 100,000 hadiths by memory) Abd al-Adhim al-Mundhiri, the hadith master Murtada al-Zabidi, the hadith master Abd al-Rauf al-Manawi, the hadith master Jalal al-Din al-Suyuti, the hadith master Taqi al-Din al-Subki, Imam al-Rafi'i, Imam Ibn Hajar al-Haytami, Zayn al-Din al-Mallibari, Ahmad ibn Naqib al-Misri, and many many others.

Imam al-Nawawi's attitude towards Sufism is plain from his work Bustan al-arifin [The grove of the knowers of Allah] on the subject, as well as his references to al-Qushayris famous Sufi manual al-Risala al-Qushayriyya throughout his own Kitab al-adhkar [Book of the remembrances of Allah], and the fact that fifteen out of seventeen quotations about sincerity (ikhlas) and being true (sidq) in an introductory section of his largest legal work (al-Majmu: sharh al-Muhadhdhab. 20 vols. Cairo n.d. Reprint. Medina: al-Maktaba al-Salafiyya, n.d., 1.1718) are from Sufis who appear by name in al-Sulamis Tabaqat al-Sufiyya [The successive generations of Sufis]. Even Ibn Taymiyya (whose views on Sufism remain strangely unfamiliar even to those for whom he is their "Sheikh of Islam") devoted volumes ten and eleven of his Majmu al-fatawa to Sufism, while his student Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya wrote his three-volume Madarij al-salikin as a detailed commentary on Abdullah al-Ansaris Manazil al-sairin, a guide to the maqamat or "spiritual stations" of the Sufi path. These and many other Muslim scholars knew firsthand the value of Sufism as an ancillary shari'a discipline needed to purify the heart, and this was the reason that the Umma as a whole did not judge Sufism to be a bid'a down through the ages of Islamic civilization, but rather recognized it as the science of ikhlas or sincerity, so urgently needed by every Muslim on "a day when wealth will not avail, nor sons, but only him who brings Allah a sound heart" (Qur'an 26:88). And Allah alone gives success.

© Nuh Ha Mim Keller 1995

Would you advise individuals to study hadith from al-Bukhari and Muslim on their own?

Would you advise individuals to study hadith
from al-Bukhari and Muslim on their own?
© Nuh Ha Mim Keller 1995

Any Muslim can benefit from reading hadiths from al-Bukhari and Muslim, whether on his own or with others. As for studying hadith, Sheikh Shuayb al-Arnaut, with whom my wife and I are currently reading Imam al-Suyuti's Tadrib al-rawi [The training of the hadith narrator], emphasizes that the science of hadith deals with a vast and complex literature, a tremendous sea of information that requires a pilot to help one navigate, without which one is bound to run up on the rocks. In this context, Sheikh Shuayb once told us, "Whoever doesn't have a sheikh, the Devil is his sheikh, in any Islamic discipline." In other words, there are benefits the ordinary Muslim can expect from personally reading hadith, and benefits that he cannot, unless he is both trained and uses other literature, particularly the classical commentaries that explain the hadiths meanings and their relation to Islam as a whole.

The benefits one can derive from reading al-Bukhari and Muslim are many: general knowledge of such fundamentals as the belief in Allah, the messengerhood of the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace), the Last Day and so on; as well as the general moral prescriptions of Islam to do good, avoid evil, perform the prayer, fast Ramadan, and so forth. The hadith collections also contain many other interesting points, such as the great rewards for acts of worship like the midmorning prayer (duha), the night vigil prayer (tahajjud), fasting on Mondays and Thursdays, giving voluntary charity, and So on. Anyone who reads these and puts them into practice in his life has an enormous return for reading hadith, even more so if he aims at perfecting himself by attaining the noble character traits of the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) mentioned in hadith. Whoever learns and follows the prophetic example in these matters has triumphed in this world and the next.
What is not to be hoped for in reading hadith (without personal instruction from a sheikh for some time) is two things: to become an alim or Islamic scholar, and to deduce fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence) from the hadiths on particulars of sharia practice.

Without a guiding hand, the untrained reader will misunderstand many of the hadiths he reads, and these mistakes, if assimilated and left uncorrected, may pile up until he can never find his way out of them, let alone become a scholar. Such a person is particularly easy prey for modern sectarian movements of our times appearing in a neo-orthodox guise, well financed and published, quoting Quran and hadiths to the uninformed to make a case for the basic contention of all deviant sects since the beginning of Islam; namely, that only they are the true Muslims. Such movements may adduce, for example, the well-authenticated (hasan) hadith related from Aisha (Allah be well pleased with her) by al-Hakim al-Tirmidhi that the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) said, Shirk (polytheism) is more hidden in my Umma than the creeping of ants across a great smooth stone on a black night . . . (Nawadir al-usul fi marifa ahadith al-Rasul. Istanbul 1294/1877. Reprint. Beirut: Dar Sadir, n.d., 399).
This hadith has been used by sects from the times of the historical Wahhabi movement down to the present to convince common people that the majority of Muslims may not actually be Muslims at all, but rather mushrikin or polytheists, and that those who do not subscribe to the views of their sheikhs may be beyond the pale of Islam.
In reply, traditional scholars point out that the words fi Ummati, "in my Umma" in the hadith plainly indicate that what is meant here is the lesser shirk of certain sins that, though serious, do not entail outright unbelief. For the word shirk or polytheism has two meanings. The first is the greater polytheism of worshipping others with Allah, of which Allah says in surat al-Nisa, "Truly, Allah does not forgive that any should be associated with Him [in worship], but forgives what is other than that to whomever He wills" (Quran 4:48), and this is the shirk of unbelief. The second is the lesser polytheism of sins that entail shortcomings in one's tawhid or knowledge of the divine unity, but do not entail leaving Islam. Examples include affection towards someone for the sake of something that is wrongdoing (called shirk because one hopes to benefit from what Allah has placed no benefit in), or disliking someone because of something that is right (called shirk because one apprehends harm from what Allah has placed benefit in), or the sin of showing off in acts of worship, as mentioned in the sahih or rigorously authenticated hadith that the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) said, The slightest bit of showing off in good works is shirk (al-Mustadrak ala al-Sahihayn. 4 vols. Hyderabad, 1334/1916. Reprint (with index vol. 5). Beirut: Dar al-Marifa, n.d.,1.4). Such sins do not put one outside of Islam, though they are disobedience and do show a lack of faith (iman).

Scholars say that the lesser shirk of such sins is meant by the hadith, for if the greater shirk of unbelief were intended, the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) would not have referred to such individuals as being in my Umma, since unbelief (kufr) is separate and distinct from Islam, and necessarily outside of it. This is also borne out by another version of the hadith related from Abu Bakr (Nawadir al-usul, 397), which has fikum or "among you" in place of the words "in my Umma", a direct reference to the Sahaba or prophetic Companions, none of whom was a mushrik or idolator, by unanimous consensus (ijma) of all Muslim scholars. As for sins of lesser shirk, it cannot be lost on anyone why their hiddenness is compared in the hadith to the imperceptible creeping of ants across a great smooth stone on a black night; namely, because of the subtlety of human motives, and the ease with which human beings can deceive themselves.

Similarly, al-Bukhari relates that the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) said: "Truly, you shall follow the ways of those who were before you, span by span, and cubit by cubit, until, if they were to enter a lizards lair, you would follow them." We said, "O Messenger of Allah, the Jews and Christians?" And he said, "Who else?" (Sahih al-Bukhari. 9 vols. Cairo 1313/1895. Reprint (9 vols. in 3). Beirut: Dar al-Jil, n.d., 9.126: 7320).

This hadith is also used by modern movements claiming to be a return to the Quran and sunna, to suggest that the majority of ordinary Sunni Muslims who follow the aqida (tenets of faith) or fiqh of mainstream orthodox Sunni Imams (whose classic works seldom fully correspond with their views) are intended by this hadith, while there is much evidence that the orthodox majority of the Umma is divinely protected from error, such as the sahih hadith related by al-Hakim that "Allah's hand is over the group, and whoever diverges from them diverges to hell" (al-Mustadrak, 1.116). Such hadiths show that Quranic verses like "If you obey most of those on earth, they will lead you astray from the path of Allah" (Quran, 6:116) do not refer to those who follow traditional Islamic scholarship (who have never been a majority of those on earth), but rather the non-Muslim majority of mankind.

It is fitter to regard the previously-mentioned hadiths wording of following the Jews and Christians as referring, in our times, to the Muslims who copy the West in all aspects of their lives, rational and irrational, even to the extent of building banks in Muslim cities and holy places never before sullied by usury (riba) on an institutional basis since pre-Islamic times. Or those who promote divisive sectarian ideologies under the guise of reform movements among the Muslims, as the Jews and Christians did in their respective religions.
Traditional scholarship is protected from such misguidance by the authentic knowledge it has preserved, living teacher from living teacher, in unbroken succession back to the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace). To return to our question, without such a quality control process, the unaided reader of hadith cannot hope to become a sort of homemade alim, giving fatwas on the basis of what he finds in al-Bukhari or Muslim alone, because the sahih hadiths related to Islamic legal questions are by no means found only in these two works, but in a great many others, which those who issue judgements on these questions must know. I have mentioned elsewhere some of the sciences needed by the scholar to join between all the hadiths, and that some hadiths condition each other or are conditioned by more general or more specific hadiths or Quranic verses that bear on the question. Without this knowledge, and a traditional sheikh to learn it from, one must necessarily stumble, something I know because I have personally tried.
When I first came to Jordan in 1980, someone had impressed upon my mind that a Muslim needs nothing besides the Quran and sahih hadiths. After reading through the Arabic Quran with the aid of A.J. Arberry's Koran Interpreted and recording what I understood, I sat down with the Muhammad Muhsin Khan translation of Sahih al-Bukhari and went through all the hadiths, volume by volume, writing down everything they seemed to tell a Muslim to do. It was an effort to cut through the centuries of accretions to Islam that orientalists had taught me about at the University of Chicago, an effort to win through to pure Islam from the original sources themselves. My Salafism and my orientalism converged on this point.
At length, I produced a manuscript of selected hadiths of al-Bukhari, a sort of do-it-yourself sharia manual. I still use it as an index to hadiths in al-Bukhari, though the fiqh conclusions of my amateur ijtihads are now rather embarrassing. When hadiths were mentioned that seemed to contradict each other, I would simply choose whichever I wanted, or whichever was closer to my Western habits. After all, I said, the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) was never given a choice between two matters except that he chose the easier of the two (Sahih al-Bukhari, 4.230: 3560). For example, I had been told that it was not sunna to urinate while standing up, and had heard the hadith of Aisha that anyone who says the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) passed urine while standing up, do not believe him (Musnad al-Imam Ahmad. 6 vols. Cairo 1313/1895. Reprint. Beirut: Dar Sadir, n.d., 6.136). But then I read the hadith in al-Bukhari that the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) once urinated while standing up (Sahih al-Bukhari, 1.66: 224), and decided that what I had first been told was a mistake, or that perhaps it did not matter much. Only later, when I began translating the Arabic of the Shafi'i fiqh manual Reliance of the Traveller did I find out how the scholars of sharia had combined the implications of these hadiths; that the standing of the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) to pass urine was to teach the Umma that it was not unlawful (haram), but rather merely offensive (makruh)--though in relation to the Prophet such actions were not offensive, but rather obligatory to do at least once to show the Umma they were not unlawful--or according to other scholars, to show it was permissible in situations in which it would prevent urine from spattering one's clothes.

In retrospect, my early misadventures in hadith enabled me to appreciate the way the fiqh I later studied had joined between all hadiths, something I had personally been unable to do. And I understood why, of the top hadith Imams, Imam al-Bukhari took his Shafi'i jurisprudence from the disciple of Imam Shafi'i, Abdullah ibn al-Zubayr al-Humaydi (al-Subki, Tabaqat al-Shafi'iyya al-kubra. 10 vols. Cairo: Isa al-Babi al-Halabi, 1383/1964, 2.214), and why Imams Muslim, al-Tirmidhi, Abu Dawud, and al-Nasai also followed the Shafi'i school (Mansur Ali Nasif, al-Taj al-jami li al-usul fi ahadith al-Rasul. 5 vols. Cairo 1382/1962. Reprint. Beirut: Dar Ihya al-Turath al-Arabi, n.d., 1.16), as did al-Bayhaqi, al-Hakim, Abu Nuaym, Ibn Hibban, al-Daraqutni, al-Baghawi, Ibn Khuzayma, al-Suyuti, al-Dhahabi, Ibn Kathir, Nur al-Din al-Haythami, al-Mundhiri, al-Nawawi, Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani, Taqi al-Din al-Subki and others; why Imams such as Abd al-Rahman ibn al-Jawzi followed the madhhab of Ahmad ibn Hanbal; and why Abu Jafar al-Tahawi, Ali al-Qari, Jamal al-Din al-Zaylai (the African sheikh of Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani, thought by some to have been even more knowledgeable than him), and Badr al-Din al-Ayni followed the Hanafi school.
These facts speak eloquently as to the role of hadith in the sharia in the eyes of these Imams, for whom it was not a matter of practicing either fiqh or hadith, as some Muslims seriously suggest today, but rather, the fiqh of hadith embodied in the traditional madhhabs which they followed. There would seem to be room for many of us to benefit from their example.

Why Does One have to follow a madhhab?

Why Does One have to follow a madhhab?
Debate Between Muhammad Sa'id al-Buti and a Leading Salafi Teacher
(c) Translated by Nuh Ha Mim Keller 1995

[Nuh Ha Mim Keller:] I will close this answer by translating a conversation that took place in Damascus between Shari‘a professor Muhammad Sa‘id al-Buti, and a Salafi teacher. Buti asked him: Buti: “What is your method for understanding the rulings of Allah? Do you take them from the Qur’an and sunna, or from the Imams of ijtihad?”
 
Salafi: “I examine the positions of the Imams and their evidences for them, and then take the closest of them to the evidence of the Qur’an and Sunna.”
Buti: “You have five thousand Syrian pounds that you have saved for six months. You then buy merchandise and begin trading with it. When do you pay zakat on the merchandise, after six months, or after one year?”
Salafi: [He thought, and said,] “Your question implies you believe zakat should be paid on business capital.”
Buti: “I am just asking. You should answer in your own way. Here in front of you is a library containing books of Qur’anic exegesis, hadith, and the works of the mujtahid Imams.”
Salafi: [He reflected for a moment, then said,] “Brother, this is din, and not simple matter. One could answer from the top of one’s head, but it would require thought, research, and study; all of which take time. And we have come to discuss something else.”
Buti: I dropped the question and said, “All right. Is it obligatory for every Muslim to examine the evidences for the positions of the Imams, and adopt the closest of them to the Qur’an and Sunna?”
Salafi: “Yes.”
Buti: “This means that all people possess the same capacity for ijtihad that the Imams of the madhhabs have; or even greater, since without a doubt, anyone who can judge the positions of the Imams and evaluate them according to the measure of the Qur’an and sunna must know more than all of them.”
Salafi: He said, “In reality, people are of three categories: the muqallid or ‘follower of qualified scholarship without knowing the primary textual evidence (of Qur’an and hadith)’; the muttabi‘, or ‘follower of primary textual evidence’; and the mujtahid, or scholar who can deduce rulings directly from the primary textual evidence (ijtihad). He who compares between madhhabs and chooses the closest of them to the Qur’an is a muttabi‘, a follower of primary textual evidence, which is an intermediate degree between following scholarship (taqlid) and deducing rulings from primary texts (ijtihad).”
Buti: “Then what is the follower of scholarship (muqallid) obliged to do?”
Salafi: “To follow the mujtahid he agrees with.”
Buti: “Is there any difficulty in his following one of them, adhering to him, and not changing?”
Salafi: “Yes there is. It is unlawful (haram).”
Buti: “What is the proof that it is unlawful?”
Salafi: “The proof is that he is obliging himself to do something Allah Mighty and Majestic has not obligated him to.”
Buti: I said, “Which of the seven canonical readings (qira’at) do you recite the Qur’an in?”
Salafi: “That of Hafs.”
Buti: “Do you recite only in it, or in a different canonical reading each day.”
Salafi: “No, I recite only in it.”
Buti: “Why do you read only it when Allah Mighty and Majestic has not obliged you to do anything except to recite the Qur’an as it has been conveyed—with the total certainty of tawatur (being conveyed by witnesses so numerous at every stage of transmission that their sheer numbers obviate the possibility of forgery or alteration), from the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace)?”
Salafi: “Because I have not had a opportunity to study other canonical readings, or recite the Qur’an except in this way.”
Buti: “But the individual who learns the fiqh of the Shafi‘i school—he too has not been able to study other madhhabs or had the opportunity to understand the rules of his religion except from this Imam. So if you say that he must know all the ijtihads of the Imams so as to go by all of them, it follows that you too must learn all the canonical readings so as to recite in all of them. And if you excuse yourself because you cannot, you should excuse him also. In any case, what I say is: where did you get that it is obligatory for a follower of scholarship (muqallid) to keep changing from one madhhab to another, when Allah has not obliged him to? That is, just as he is not obliged to adhere to a particular madhhab, neither is he obliged to keep changing.”
Salafi: “What is unlawful for him is adhering to one while believing that Allah has commanded him to do so.”
Buti: “That is something else, and is true without a doubt and without any disagreement among scholars. But is there any problem with his following a particular mujtahid, knowing that Allah has not obliged him to do that?”
Salafi: “There is no problem.”
Buti: [Al-Khajnadi’s] al-Karras, which you teach from, contradicts you. It says this is unlawful, in some places actually asserting that someone who adheres to a particular Imam and no other is an unbeliever (kafir).”
Salafi: He said, “Where?” and then began looking at the Karras, considering its texts and expressions, reflecting on the words of the author “Whoever follows one of them in particular in all questions is a blind, imitating, mistaken bigot, and is “among those who have divided their religion and are parties” [Qur’an 30:32]. He said, “By follows, he means someone who believes it legally obligatory for him to do so. The wording is a little incomplete.”
 
Buti: I said, “What evidence is there that that’s what he meant? Why don’t you just say the author was mistaken?”
Salafi: He insisted that the expression was correct, that it should be understood as containing an unexpressed condition [i.e. “provided one believes it is legally obligatory”], and he exonerated the writer from any mistake in it.
Buti: I said, “But interpreted in this fashion, the expression does not address any opponent or have any significance. Not a single Muslim is unaware that following such and such a particular Imam is not legally obligatory. No Muslim does so except from his own free will and choice.”
Salafi: “How should this be, when I hear from many common people and some scholars that it is legally obligatory to follow one particular school, and that a person may not change to another?”
Buti: “Name one person from the ordinary people or scholars who said that to you.”
 He said nothing, and seemed surprised that what I said could be true, and kept repeating that he had thought that many people considered it unlawful to change from one madhhab to another.
I said, “You won’t find anyone today who believes this misconception, though it is related from the latter times of the Ottoman period that they considered a Hanafi changing from his own school to another to be an enormity. And without a doubt, if true, this was something that was complete nonsense from them; a blind, hateful bigotry.”
 I then said, “Where did you get this distinction between the muqallid “follower of scholarship” and the muttabi‘ “follower of evidence”: Is there a original, lexical distinction [in the Arabic language], or is it merely terminological?”
Salafi: “There is a lexical difference.”
Buti: I brought him lexicons with which to establish the lexical difference between the two words, and he could not find anything. I then said: “Abu Bakr (Allah be well pleased with him) said to a desert Arab who had objected to the alotment for him agreed upon by the Muslims, ‘If the Emigrants accept, you are but followers’—using the word "followers" (tabi‘) to mean ‘without any prerogative to consider, question, or discuss.’” (Similar to this is the word of Allah Most High, “When those who were followed (uttubi‘u) disown those those who followed (attaba‘u) upon seeing the torment, and their relations are sundered” (Qur’an 2:166), which uses follow (ittiba‘) for the most basic blind imitation).
Salafi: He said, “Then let it be a technical difference: don’t I have a right to establish a terminological usage?”
Buti: “Of course. But this term of yours does not alter the facts. This person you term a muttabi‘ (follower of scholarly evidence) will either be an expert in evidences and the means of textual deduction from them, in which case he is a mujtahid. Or, if not an expert or unable to deduce rulings from them, then he is muqallid (follower of scholarly conclusions). And if he is one of these on some questions, and the other on others, then he is a muqallid for some and a mujtahid for others. In any case, it is an either-or distinction, and the ruling for each is clear and plain.”
Salafi: He said, “The muttabi‘ is someone able to distinguish between scholarly positions and the evidences for them, and to judge one to be stronger than others. This is a level different to merely accepting scholarly conclusions.
Buti: “If you mean,” I said, “by distinguishing between positions differentiating them according to the strength or weakness of the evidence, this is the highest level of ijtihad. Are you personally able to do this?”
Salafi: “I do so as much as I can.”
Buti: “I am aware,” I said, “that you give as a fatwas that a three fold pronouncement of divorce on a single occasion only counts as one time. Did you check, before this fatwa of yours, the positions of the Imams and their evidences on this, then differentiate between them, so to give the fatwa accordingly? Now, ‘Uwaymir al-‘Ajlani pronounced a three fold divorce at one time in the presence of the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) after he had made public imprecation against her for adultery (li‘an), saying, ‘If I retain her, O Messenger of Allah, I will have lied against her: she is [hereby] thrice divorced.’ What do you know about this hadith and its relation to this question, and its bearing as evidence for the position of the scholarly majority [that a threefold divorce pronounced on a single occasion is legally finalized and binding] as opposed to the position of Ibn Taymiya [that a threefold divorce on a single occasion only counts as once]?”
Salafi: “I did not know this hadith.”
Buti: “Then how could you give a fatwa on this question that contradicts what the four madhhabs unanimously concur upon, without even knowing their evidence, or how strong or weak it was? Here you are, discarding the principle you say you have enjoined on yourself and mean to enjoin on us, the principle of “following scholarly evidence (ittiba‘)” in the meaning you have terminologically adopted.”
Salafi: “At the time I didn’t own enough books to review the positions of the Imams and their evidence.”
Buti: “Then what made you rush into giving a fatwa contravening the vast majority of Muslims, when you hadn’t even seen any of their evidences?”
Salafi: “What else could I do? I asked and I only had a limited amount of scholarly resources.”
Buti: “You could have done what all scholars and Imams have done; namely, say “I didn’t know,” or told the questioner the postition of both the four madhhabs and the postion of those who contravene them; without givng a fatwa for either side. You could have done this, or rather, this was what was obligatory for you, especially since the poblem was not personally yours so as to force you to reach some solution or another. As for your giving a fatwa contradicting the consensus (ijma‘) of the four Imams without knowing—by your own admission—their evidences, sufficing yourself with the agreement in your heart for the evidences of the opposition, this is the very utmost of the kind of bigotry you accuse us of.”
Salafi: “I read the Imams’ opinions in [Nayl al-awtar, by] Shawkani, Subul al-salam [by al-Amir al-San‘ani], and Fiqh al-sunna by Sayyid Sabiq.”
Buti: These are the books of the opponents of the four Imams on this question. All of them speak from one side of the question, mentioning the proofs that buttress their side. Would you be willing to judge one litigant on the basis of his words alone, and that of his witnesses and relatives?”
Salafi: I see nothing blameworthy in what I have done. I was obliged to give the questioner an answer, and this was as much as I was able to reach with my understanding.”
Buti: “You say you are a “follower of scholarly evidence (muttabi‘)” and we should all be likewise. You have explained “following evidence” as reviewing the positions of all madhhabs, studying their evidences, and adopting the closest of them to the correct evidence—while in doing what you have done, you have discarded the principle completely. You know that the unanimous consensus of the four madhhabs is that a threefold pronouncement of divorce on one occasion counts as a three fold, finalized divorce, and you know that they have evidences for this that you arae unaware of, despite which you turn from their consensus to the opinion that your personal preference desires. Were you certain beforehand that the evidence of the four Imams deserved to be rejected?”
Salafi: No; but I wasn’t aware of them, since I didn’t have any reference works on them.”
Buti: “Then why didn’t you wait? Why rush into it, when Allah never obligated you to do anything of the sort? Was your not knowing the evidences of the scholarly majority a proof tht Ibn Taymiya was right? Is the bigotry you wrongly accuse us of anything besides this?”
Salafi: “I read evidences in the books available to me that convinced me. Allah has not enjoined me to do more than that.”
Buti: “If a Muslim sees a proof for something in a the books he reads, is that a sufficient reason to disregard the madhhabs that contradict his understanding, even if he doesn’t know their evidences?”
Salafi: “It is sufficient.”
Buti: “A young man, newly religious, without any Islamic education, reads the word of Allah Most High “To Allah belongs the place where the sun rises and where it sets: wherever you turn, there is the countenance of Allah. Verily, Allah is the All-encompassing, the All-knowing (Qur’an 2:115), and gathers from it that a Muslim may face any direction he wishes in his prescribed prayers, as the ostensive purport of the verse implies. But he has heard that the four Imams unanimously concur upon the necessity of his facing towards the Kaaba, and he knows they have evidences for it that he is unaware of. What should he do when he wants to pray? Should he follow his conviction from the evidence available to him, or follow the Imam who unanimously concur on the contrary of what he has understood?”
Salafi: “He should follow his conviction.”
Buti: “And pray towards the east for example. And his prayer would be legally valid?”
Salafi: “Yes. He is morally responsible for following his personal conviction.”
Buti: “What if his personal conviction leads him to believe there is no harm in making love to his neighbor’s wife, or to fill his belly with wine, or wrongfully take others’ property: will all this be mitigated in Allah’s reckoning by “personal conviction”?
Salafi: [He was silent for a moment, then said,] “Anyway, the examples you ask about are all fantasies that do not occur.”
Buti: “They are not fantasies; how often the like of them occurs, or even stranger. A young man without any knowledge of Islam, its Book, its sunna, who happens to hear or read this verse by chance, and understands from it what any Arab would from its owtward purport, that there is no harm in someone praying facing any direction he wants—despite seeing people’s facing towards the Kaaba rather than any other direction. This is an ordinary matter, theoretically and practically, as long as there are those among Muslims who don’t know a thing about Islam. In any event, you have pronounced upon this example—imaginary or real—a judgement that is not imaginary, and have judged “personal conviction” to be the decisive criterion in any event. This contradicts your differentiating people into three groups: followers of scholars without knowing their evidence (muqallidin), followers of scholars’ evidence (muttabi‘in), and mujtahids.”
Salafi: “Such a person is obliged to investigate. Didn’t he read any hadith, or any other Qur’anic verse?”
Buti: He didn’t have any reference works available to him, just as you didn’t have any when you gave your fatwa on the question of [threefold] divorce. And he was unable to read anything other than this verse connected with facing the qibla and its obligatory character. Do you still insist that he must follow his personal conviction and disregard the Imams’ consensus?”
Salafi: “Yes. If he is unable to evaluate and investigate further, he is excused, and it is enough for him to rely on the conclusions his evaluation and investigation lead him to.”
Buti: “I intend to publish these remarks as yours. They are dangerous, and strange.”
Salafi: “Publish whatever you want. I’m not afraid.”
Buti: “How should you be afraid of me, when you are not afraid of Allah Mighty and Majestic, utterly discarding by these words the word of Allah Mighty and Majestic [in Sura al-Nahl] ‘Ask those who recall if you know not’ (Qur’an 16:43).”
Salafi: “My brother,” he said, “These Imams are not divinely protected from error (ma‘sum). As for the Quranic verse that this person followed [in praying any direction], it is the word of Him Who Is Protected from All Error, may His glory be exalted. How should he leave the divinely protected and attach himself to the tail of the non-divinely-protected?”
Buti: “Good man, what is divinely protected from error is the true meaning that Allah intended by saying, “To Allah belongs the place where the sun rises and where it sets . . .”—not the understanding of the young man who is as far as can be from knowing Islam, its rulings, and the nature of its Qur’an. That is to say, the comparison I am asking you to make is between two understandings: the understanding of this ignorant youth, and the understanding of the mujtahid Imams, neither of which is divinely protected from error, but one of which is rooted in ignorance and superficiality, and the other of which is rooted in investigation, knowledge, and accuracy.”
Salafi: “Allah does not make him responsible for more than his effort can do.”
Buti: “Then answer me this question. A man has a child who suffers from some infections, and is under the care of all the doctors in town, who agree he should have a certain medicine, and warn his father against giving him an injection of penicillin, and that if he does, he will be exposing the child’s life to destruction. Now, the father knows from having read a medical publication that penicillin helps in cases of infection. So he relies on his own knowledge about it, disregards the advice of the doctors since he doesn’t know the proof for what they say, and employing instead his own personal conviction, treats the child with a penicillin injection, and thereafter the child dies. Should such a person be tried, and is he guilty of a wrong for what he did, or not?”
Salafi: [He thought for a moment and then said,] “This is not the same as that.”
Buti: “It is exactly the same. The father has heard the unanimous judgement of the doctors, just as the young man has heard the unanimous judgement of the Imams. One has followed a single text he read in a medical publication, the other has followed a single text he has read in the Book of Allah Mighty and and Majestic. This one has gone by personal conviction, and so has that.”
Salafi: “Brother, the Qur’an is light. Light. In its clarity as evidence, is light like any other words?”
Buti: “And the light of the Qur’an is reflected by anyone who looks into it or recites it, such that he understands it as light, as Allah meant it? Then what is the difference between those who recall [Qur’an 16:43] and anyone else, as long as all partake of this light? Rather, the two above examples are comparable, there is no difference between them at all; you must answer me: does the person investigating—in each of the two examples—follow his personal conviction, or does he follow and imitate specialists?”
Salafi: “Personal conviction is the basis.”
Buti: “He used personal conviction, and it resulted in the death of the child. Does this entail any responsibility, moral or legal?”
Salafi: “It doesn’t entail any responsibility at all.”
 
Buti: I said, “Then let us end the investigation and discussion on this last remark of yours, since it closes the way to any common ground between you and me on which we can base a discussion. It is sufficient that with this bizarre answer of yours, you have departed from the consensus of the entire Islamic religion. By Allah, there is no meaning on the face of the earth for disgusting bigotry if it is not what you people have” (al-Lamadhhabiyya (b01), 99–108).
Buti concludes the story by saying: I do not know then, why these people don’t just let us be, to use our own “personal conviction” that someone ignorant of the rules of religion and the proofs for them must adhere to one of the mujtahid Imams, imitating him because of the latter’s being more aware than himself of the Book of Allah and sunna of His messenger. Whatever the mistake in this opinion in their view let it be given the general amnesty of “personal conviction.” like the example of him who turns his back to the qibla and is his prayer is valid, or him who kills a child and the killing is “ijtihad” and “medical treatment” (ibid. 108).

Who or what is a Salafi? Is his approach valid?

Who or what is a Salafi? Is his approach valid?
(c) Nuh Ha Mim Keller (1995)

The word salafi or "early Muslim" in traditional Islamic scholarship means someone who died within the first four hundred years after the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace), including scholars such as Abu Hanifa, Malik, Shafi'i, and Ahmad ibn Hanbal. Anyone who died after this is one of the khalaf or "latter-day Muslims". The term "Salafi" was revived as a slogan and movement, among latter-day Muslims, by the followers of Muhammad Abduh (the student of Jamal al-Din al-Afghani) some thirteen centuries after the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace), approximately a hundred years ago. Like similar movements that have historically appeared in Islam, its basic claim was that the religion had not been properly understood by anyone since the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) and the early Muslims--and themselves.
In terms of ideals, the movement advocated a return to a shari'a-minded orthodoxy that would purify Islam from unwarranted accretions, the criteria for judging which would be the Qur'an and hadith. Now, these ideals are noble, and I don't think anyone would disagree with their importance. The only points of disagreement are how these objectives are to be defined, and how the program is to be carried out. It is difficult in a few words to properly deal with all the aspects of the movement and the issues involved, but I hope to publish a fuller treatment later this year, insha'Allah, in a collection of essays called "The Re-Formers of Islam".
As for its validity, one may note that the Salafi approach is an interpretation of the texts of the Qur'an and sunna, or rather a body of interpretation, and as such, those who advance its claims are subject to the same rigorous criteria of the Islamic sciences as anyone else who makes interpretive claims about the Qur'an and sunna; namely, they must show:

1. that their interpretations are acceptable in terms of Arabic language; 
2. that they have exhaustive mastery of all the primary texts that relate to each question, and 
3. that they have full familiarity of the methodology of usul al-fiqh or "fundamentals of jurisprudence" needed to comprehensively join between all the primary texts. 

Only when one has these qualifications can one legitimately produce a valid interpretive claim about the texts, which is called ijtihad or "deduction of shari'a" from the primary sources. Without these qualifications, the most one can legitimately claim is to reproduce such an interpretive claim from someone who definitely has these qualifications; namely, one of those unanimously recognized by the Umma as such since the times of the true salaf, at their forefront the mujtahid Imams of the four madhhabs or "schools of jurisprudence". As for scholars today who do not have the qualifications of a mujtahid, it is not clear to me why they should be considered mujtahids by default, such as when it is said that someone is "the greatest living scholar of the sunna" any more than we could qualify a school-child on the playground as a physicist by saying, "He is the greatest physicist on the playground". Claims to Islamic knowledge do not come about by default. Slogans about "following the Qur'an and sunna" sound good in theory, but in practice it comes down to a question of scholarship, and who will sort out for the Muslim the thousands of shari'a questions that arise in his life. One eventually realizes that one has to choose between following the ijtihad of a real mujtahid, or the ijtihad of some or another "movement leader", whose qualifications may simply be a matter of reputation, something which is often made and circulated among people without a grasp of the issues.
What comes to many peoples minds these days when one says "Salafis" is bearded young men arguing about din. The basic hope of these youthful reformers seems to be that argument and conflict will eventually wear down any resistance or disagreement to their positions, which will thus result in purifying Islam. Here, I think education, on all sides, could do much to improve the situation.
The reality of the case is that the mujtahid Imams, those whose task it was to deduce the Islamic shari'a from the Qur'an and hadith, were in agreement about most rulings; while those they disagreed about, they had good reason to, whether because the Arabic could be understood in more than one way, or because the particular Qur'an or hadith text admitted of qualifications given in other texts (some of them acceptable for reasons of legal methodology to one mujtahid but not another), and so forth.
Because of the lack of hard information in English, the legitimacy of scholarly difference on shari'a rulings is often lost sight of among Muslims in the West. For example, the work Fiqh al-sunna by the author Sayyid Sabiq, recently translated into English, presents hadith evidences for rulings corresponding to about 95 percent of those of the Shafi'i school. Which is a welcome contribution, but by no means a "final word" about these rulings, for each of the four schools has a large literature of hadith evidences, and not just the Shafi'i school reflected by Sabiq's work. The Maliki school has the Mudawwana of Imam Malik, for example, and the Hanafi school has the Sharh ma'ani al-athar [Explanation of meanings of hadith] and Sharh mushkil al-athar [Explanation of problematic hadiths], both by the great hadith Imam Abu Jafar al-Tahawi, the latter work of which has recently been published in sixteen volumes by Mu'assasa al-Risala in Beirut. Whoever has not read these and does not know what is in them is condemned to be ignorant of the hadith evidence for a great many Hanafi positions.
What I am trying to say is that there is a large fictional element involved when someone comes to the Muslims and says, "No one has understood Islam properly except the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) and early Muslims, and our sheikh". This is not valid, for the enduring works of first-rank Imams of hadith, jurisprudence, Qur'anic exegesis, and other shari'a disciplines impose upon Muslims the obligation to know and understand their work, in the same way that serious comprehension of any other scholarly field obliges one to have studied the works of its major scholars who have dealt with its issues and solved its questions. Without such study, one is doomed to repeat mistakes already made and rebutted in the past.
Most of us have acquaintances among this Umma who hardly acknowledge another scholar on the face of the earth besides the Imam of their madhhab, the Sheikh of their Islam, or some contemporary scholar or other. And this sort of enthusiasm is understandable, even acceptable (at a human level) in a non-scholar. But only to the degree that it does not become ta'assub or bigotry, meaning that one believes one may put down Muslims who follow other qualified scholars. At that point it is haram, because it is part of the sectarianism (tafarruq) among Muslims that Islam condemns.
When one gains Islamic knowledge and puts fiction aside, one sees that superlatives about particular scholars such as "the greatest" are untenable; that each of the four schools of classical Islamic jurisprudence has had many many luminaries. To imagine that all preceding scholarship should be evaluated in terms of this or that "Great Reformer" is to ready oneself for a big letdown, because intellectually it cannot be supported. I remember once hearing a law student at the University of Chicago say: "I'm not saying that Chicago has everything. Its just that no place else has anything." Nothing justifies transposing this kind of attitude onto our scholarly resources in Islam, whether it is called "Islamic Movement", "Salafism", or something else, and the sooner we leave it behind, the better it will be for our Islamic scholarship, our sense of reality, and for our din.