Modern Islamic Authority and Social Change, Volume 1: Evolving Debates in Muslim Majority Countries 9781474433242

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MODERN ISLAMIC AUTHORITY AND SOCIAL CHANGE VOLUME 1

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MODERN ISLAMIC AUTHORITY AND SOCIAL CHANGE VOLUME 1

EVOLVING DEBATES IN MUSLIM-MAJORITY COUNTRIES Ö Ö Ö

Edited by Masooda Bano

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Edinburgh University Press is one of the leading university presses in the U.K. We publish academic books and journals in our selected subject areas across the humanities and social sciences, combining cutting-edge scholarship with high editorial and production values to produce academic works of lasting importance. For more information visit our website: edinburghuniversitypress.com © editorial matter and organization Masooda Bano, 2018 © the chapters their several authors, 2018 Edinburgh University Press Ltd The Tun—Holyrood Road 12 (2f) Jackson’s Entry Edinburgh EH8 8PJ Typeset in 10/12 Adobe Sabon by IDSUK (DataConnection) Ltd, and printed and bound in Great Britain A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 978 1 4744 3322 8 (hardback) ISBN 978 1 4744 3324 2 (webready PDF) ISBN 978 1 4744 3325 9 (epub) The right of the contributors to be identified as authors of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 and the Copyright and Related Rights Regulations 2003 (SI No. 2498).

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CONTENTS

Preface Note on Transliteration Glossary Introduction Masooda Bano

vii xii xiii 1

Part I al-Azhar University and Mosque Network 1. al-Azhar University: A Crisis of Authority Masooda Bano

55

2. History and Continuity: al-Azhar and Egypt Nathan Spannaus

79

3. al-Azhar, Wasaṭīyah, and the Wāqi’ Christopher Pooya Razavian

102

Part II Saudi Salafism 4. Saudi Salafism amid Rapid Social Change Masooda Bano

127

5. Evolution of Saudi Salafism Nathan Spannaus

150

6. Post-Salafism: Salman al-Ouda and Hatim al-Awni Christopher Pooya Razavian

172

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Contents

Part III Deobandi Madrasah Network 7. The Deobandi Network: Steadfast in Taqlīd Masooda Bano

195

8. Darul Uloom Deoband and South Asian Islam Nathan Spannaus

217

9. Deoband’s Conservatism: The Dār al-Iftā’, Nadwatul Ulama and Muftī Muhammad Taqi Usmani Christopher Pooya Razavian

244

Part IV Diyanet 10. Diyanet: Taking Center Stage Masooda Bano

271

11. Religion in the Service of the State: Diyanet and Republican Turkey Nathan Spannaus

293

12. Turkish Islamic Debates: Diyanet, Hayrettin Karaman, and Recep Şentürk Masooda Bano and Emre Caliskan

316

Notes on the Contributors Index

341 342

Tables I.1 Globally influential authority platforms in Sunni Islam I.2 Core dimensions of Islamic Authority

6 33

Maps I.1 Countries housing globally influential scholarly platforms in Sunni Islam 4.1 Saudi Arabia: Najd and Hijaz

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PREFACE

These two volumes are among the first works to be published as part of a fiveyear project, Changing Structures of Islamic Authority and Consequences for Social Change: A Transnational Review, which I initiated in 2014 with the support of a European Research Council (ERC) Start-up Grant: European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013)/ERC grant agreement no. [337108]. These ERC investigator grants, as they are more commonly known, invest in a compelling research idea by allowing the Principal Investigator the time (five years) and resources (close to 1.5 million Euros) to build a team. These volumes are a product of one such team effort. Since September 11, 2001, Islamic legal and political thought, as well as the socio-economic and political attitudes of Muslims, have been intensively researched. However, the debate on whether it is the text or the context that drives some Muslims to espouse radical ideals remains unsettled. This project stems from a desire to explicitly address this question and map the plurality of Islamic intellectual thought; to see how scholars from within the dominant Islamic traditions engage with modernity; and, equally importantly, to present some decisive findings on what, if any, is the relationship between the socioeconomic and political conditions in which the Muslims in question find themselves and their interpretation of the text. Why is it, after all, that intellectual and rationalist inquiry seemed to have flourished best within Muslim societies when they were politically and economically flourishing, and conservative and inward-looking Islamic movements developed strong roots in many Muslim countries under colonial rule, when Muslims were politically and economically marginalized? Historical analysis suggests that context plays a role in how the text is interpreted. As a social scientist interested in the study of societal conditions and Islamic knowledge transmission, mapping the influence of context in both the creation and transmission of Islamic knowledge remains core to my research. My focus in developing this project was thus two-fold: one, to examine how globally influential Islamic scholarly platforms are engaging with [ vii ]

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Preface

change, with a view to mapping the plurality within the tradition; and, two, to situate each tradition within the socio-economic and political conditions in which it evolved, in order to better understand its historical evolution, and consequently to better predict how its current relationship with the state and society may influence its future trajectory. The impetus for this project, not surprisingly, came from my earlier research. Since 2006 a combination of research fellowships and research grants have enabled me to carry out fieldwork across a number of Muslim contexts. More specifically, I have maintained two long-term fieldwork sites, in Pakistan and northern Nigeria, and a number of semi-permanent ones, where I return periodically for short periods of fieldwork (Egypt, Syria, and Turkey in the Middle East; Bangladesh and India in South Asia; and Saudi Arabia in the Gulf). The details of most of this fieldwork are available in my earlier publications, and in particular in my recently published monograph, Female Islamic Education Movements: The Re-Democratisation of Islamic Knowledge (2017, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), which draws on my fieldwork in three of these sites. In addition, I have had opportunities to conduct interviews within Islamic networks in both Malaysia and Indonesia, thereby gaining reasonable exposure to the East Asian Islamic tradition, although I have chosen not to write about it. Further, since 2012, and particularly as part of this project, I have conducted fieldwork with a number of new Islamic scholarly institutions emerging in the West; I have also taken part in many retreats organized by them. The observations that I make in the introduction to Volume 2 thus draw on this ongoing fieldwork with these institutions in the West. Comparative accounts are challenging to produce, because they require time, an ability to relate to different contexts, and financial resources. They particularly make area specialists nervous. For comparativists like me, however, the excitement of an academic endeavour rests in identifying any common patterns across the peculiarity of each context; we are often driven to identify the core drivers of institutional change and persistence. While I personally find singleauthor comparative studies most compelling, it is true that a certain kind of comparative work is best done as a team. Studying the plurality of Sunni Islamic scholarly tradition and embedding the evolution of these competing platforms within their specific societal and historical context not only required a very sound knowledge of Islamic textual sources, but equally it required interdisciplinary expertise; in other words, it required building a team. In the first two years of this project, I was thus very fortunate to have the assistance of two very bright minds to advance this undertaking: Nathan Spannaus used his training in Islamic intellectual history to trace the evolution of each scholarly platform being studied, and map its relationship with the state and society, while Pooya Razavian, a student of Islamic Studies and also trained in traditional Islamic scholarly tradition in Iran, took the lead on analysis of the Islamic legal debates. I, on the other hand, retained a focus on mapping the contemporary political economy of these institutions. We were also fortunate to have support of Emre Caliskan, a doctoral candidate

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at Oxford, who brought knowledge of Turkish language to the team. It is this convergence of expertise that is, to me, the core strength of these two volumes; thus Volume 1 not only offers a rare comparison of current debates within the four most influential Sunni Islamic scholarly platforms today; it also presents a more comprehensive analysis of the evolution of each than is normally available in existing publications. Volume 2 is organized differently from Volume 1; yet it is important to note that the analytical approach and core driving questions are the same. The different organizational structure is actually reflective of the very recent history of the Islamic institutions in the West. Volume 2 focuses on the new institutions emerging in the West that have started to rival the authority of the four institutions covered in Volume 1. Being relatively new, these institutions did not lend themselves to the three-chapter analytical format adopted in Volume 1: in terms of their origin, there were not centuries of history to cover; further, because of being based in the U.K. or the U.S.A., their socio-political context was also less varied than that of the institutions covered in Volume 1. Thus, in Volume 2 I could provide the contextual information on the evolution of all the institutions covered within the introduction, as opposed to dedicating individual chapters to each. These two volumes are thus not edited volumes in a classical sense, whereby scholars tailor their ongoing research to fit a specific call; instead, they are the product of a team project in which ideas were constantly developed in consultation. While the standard model allows for bringing together the experts in specialist traditions, under the team model the main advantage is that each institution is studied using the same methodological lens and the same conceptual framework. Also, all institutions are subjected to the same starting assumptions or biases (if any). The benefit of this model will, I hope, be easy to appreciate in Volume 1, which systematically compares the four most influential Islamic scholarly platforms in Sunni Islam today; it should prove particularly useful as resource material for teaching. Here I also wish to address two important issues raised by the reviewers of these two volumes. I address them here rather than in the introduction so as to draw attention to them. First, these two volumes focus on Modern Islamic Authorities within the Sunni scholarly tradition. Thus, they do not claim to map the entire landscape of modern Islamic authority; the most obvious omissions are the leading Islamic scholarly platforms within the Shi’i tradition, Sufi ṭarīqahs, and political Islamists such as the Muslim Brotherhood in the Middle East and Jamaat-i-Islami in South Asia. While including examples from these other sources of Islamic authority was desirable, to create space for them within these two volumes was impossible without fundamentally re-orienting the scope of the project. The focus of this project was to study in-depth the most influential Islamic scholarly platforms within the Sunni tradition, and these two volumes have focused narrowly on that. Ideally, we need to develop the same level of in-depth comparative analysis for these other sources (Shi’i tradition) and forms (Sufi ṭarīqahs and political Islam) of Islamic authority to complement these two volumes.

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Preface

Second, I would like to acknowledge that in the respective introduction to each volume I make some strong assertions. These relate to my reading of how power dynamics are changing within the Islamic authority platforms based in Muslim-majority countries covered in Volume 1 as well as between them and the new platforms emerging in the West. Further, I make certain assertions about the changing attitudes of young Muslims. I fully recognize that these assertions require further testing. All such arguments are based on the multi-sited fieldwork that I have been conducting since 2006, as explained above; they are based on what I have heard or observed across a number of different contexts. I am therefore as confident of advancing these arguments as a qualitative researcher who feels that they are observing a societal shift in the making can ever be. It could be that, if exposed to further testing through survey-based or other quantitative research methods, some of these observations could be questioned. But I make these assertions precisely in order to motivate such investigations. I am of the view that major socio-economic shifts are under way in Muslim societies and among Muslim diaspora communities in the West, and that these shifts are also going to have major consequences for the transmission of Islamic knowledge in the coming decades and for the power balance between old Islamic authority platforms in Muslim-majority countries and the new ones emerging in the West. My intention here is not to prove that my reading of these developments is correct, given that the change, in my view, is still in the making; it is to inspire further research in this area. In the remaining period of this project, I myself am working with a quantitative researcher and an ethnographer to further test some of the arguments that I put forward. Finally, I must thank the members of the project advisory committee, who have given (and continue to give) generously of their time and expertise. These include Marcus Banks, John Bowen, Morgan Clarke, Rob Gleave, Stéphane Lacroix, Dietrich Reetz, Francis Robinson, and Malika Zeghal. I remain extremely grateful to them for their support and inspiration; with some of them in particular my debts are very old. As can be expected of an advisory committee consisting of such individuals, I cannot claim to have successfully absorbed all their comments and feedback—however, I have tried my best to do so. Equally, I remain indebted to Muhammad Qasim Zaman, who, from 2011 to 2013, accommodated three meetings with me during my visits to Princeton. (For the last one I had actually arrived unannounced on a Sunday afternoon, encouraged by one of his colleagues that I was bound to find him in his office.) These meetings, which took place before the project started, were instrumental in helping me refine those of my ideas that eventually led to its initiation. I thus remain very grateful for the time that he gave me. I also am indebted to the King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies (KFCRIS) for hosting me during my periods of fieldwork in Saudi Arabia and to Dr. Saud al-Sarhan, KFCRIS’s Director, for providing very valuable feedback. My chapter on Saudi Salafism would not have materialized without KFCRIS’s support. I will also like to take this opportunity to thank Nicola Ramsey, my

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[ xi

editor at Edinburgh University Press, who—despite the length of Volume 1— approached the project with great enthusiasm. I remain indebted to her for her encouragement and support. Last but not least, I must note the support that Nicola Shepard has provided me during this period. Although mainly appointed to oversee the administrative aspects of the project, she has in practice contributed much more than that. I have chosen to write a shared Preface to Volume 1 and Volume 2 in the hope that, whichever of the two volumes you may have in your hands now, its scope and contribution will be easy to follow. Masooda Bano June 9, 2017 Oxford

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NOTE ON TRANSLITERATION

Although addressed to a multi-disciplinary audience, these two volumes follow relatively strict transliteration rules instead of restricting themselves to the use of ‘ to indicate ‘ayn, and ’ to indicate hamza (the latter being the norm in social science). This decision stems from a desire to be rigorous in referring to Islamic textual sources, legal concepts, and early Muslim jurists and writers. Thus, names of leading Islamic jurists, scholars, or mystics from prior to the nineteenth century have been transliterated, as have generic Islamic institutional labels such as dār al-‘ulūm (house of science). However, when an institution itself maintains a website and publishes an English version of its name, in that case the spellings used by the institution have been adopted: thus, Darul Uloom Deoband, as opposed to Dār al-‘Ulūm Deoband, or Nadwatul Ulama, as opposed to Nadwat al-‘Ulamā’. In the light of the heavy transliteration, all foreign words have been italicized and included in the glossary, so that those readers less conversant with them can easily identify them and consult the glossary. It is hoped that this balance will ensure that the transliteration meets the expectations of Islamic Studies specialists, while the text remains easily accessible to scholars from other disciplines.

[ xii ]

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GLOSSARY

‘abāyah adab ādamiyyah adhān ‘ādil Ahl-i Ḥadīth ‘ālim (pl. ‘ulamā’) ‘ālimīyah ‘ālīyah amīr aqallīyāt ‘aqīdah, (pl. ‘aqā’id) ‘askarī/ askeri ‘awāmm āyah ayan/a’yān barā’ bāṭin al-bayān beylik bid’ah al-burḥān cemaat dā’ī

“cloak”; refers to a robe-like dress worn by women Islamic norms of behavior and comportment humanity call to prayer equitable ḥadīth-centric revivalist movement from nineteenth-century India men of knowledge, specifically trained in Islamic sciences advanced degree introduced in al-Azhar in the late nineteenth century high; name of reformed madrasahs in Bangladesh commander, prince, or general minorities Islamic creed, articles of faith (Turkish) military the common people verse in the Qurʾān (Turkish) provincial landholders disavowal or disassociation esoteric the statement (Turkish) pre-Ottoman territorial division under the control of a bey, a Turkic tribal military chief illegitimate religious innovation the argument (Turkish) religious communities someone who proselytizes, preaches Islam [ xiii ]

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xiv ] da’wah dār al-ḥarb Dār al-Iftā’ dār al-Islām dār al-‘ulūm

Dars-i Niẓāmī ḍarūrah dhimmī fāqih (pl. fuqahā’) far’ (pl. furū’) fasād fatwā

fiqh fiqh al-aqallīyāt fiqh al-awlawīyāt fiqh al-mawāzināt fiqh al-tajdīdīyah fiqh al-wāqi’ fitnah furū’ ghair muqallid ghulām ḥadīth hāfiẓ ḥājah ḥājāt al-nās Hajj ḥākim ḥāl ḥalaqah Ḥanafī Ḥanbalī

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Glossary proselytizing, preaching of Islam “abode of war,” the non-Muslim world; opposite of dār al-Islām an institution that declares fatwas “abode of Islam,” the Muslim world; opposite of dār al-ḥarb “House of Knowledge,” a common title used to refer to an Islamic seminary or educational institution a curriculum used in traditional South Asian Islamic institutions necessity “protected person” refers to non-Muslim living in an Islamic state an Islamic jurist a new case in Islamic law in which the ratio legis is applied corruption a formal but generally non-binding statement on an issue or question related to Islamic law, given by a muftī (from iftā’, “to advise”) Islamic law or jurisprudence the jurisprudence of minorities jurisprudence of priorities jurisprudence of balances jurisprudence of renewal jurisprudence of reality temptation, disorder, civil strife Islamic positive law (the “branches” of fiqh) those who eschew taqlīd a slave soldier reports describing the words, actions, or habits of Prophet Muhammad one who has memorized the entire Qurʾān need needs of the people the annual Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca ruler status teaching circle a legal school of Islamic law (madhhab) whose origins are attributed to Abu Hanīfah (d. 767/150) a legal school of Islamic law (madhhab) whose origins are attributed to Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal (d. 855/214)

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Glossary ḥarām Ḥaramayn ḥarbī ḥikmah ḥisbah ḥiwār al-ḥiwār al-ṣādiq ḥudūd ḥukm (pl. aḥkām) methodology ḥurīyah

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forbidden by Islamic law “the two sanctuaries,” Mecca and Medina a non-Muslim that is living in a non-Muslim land that does not have a treaty of non-aggression with Muslims wisdom the maintenance of community morals, specifically the duty of the government to enjoin good and forbid wrong dialogue the true dialogue corporal punishments found in the Qurʾān positive Islamic laws derived from Islamic legal

freedom; in the classical literature used to refer to those who were not slaves ‘ibādāt ritual practices such as prayer and fasting iftā’ “to advise,” the act of giving a fatwā ijāzah certificate awarded to a student that allows them to teach the texts that were learned in the Islamic sciences ijmā’ consensus ijtihād the process of legal reasoning in which the jurist applies maximum effort in order to derive a ruling ikhwān (Saudi) “brothers,” the class of formerly Bedouin soldiers mobilized by the Saudi state in the early twentieth century ilahiyat fakultesi (Turkish) “theological faculty” within modern Turkish academia ‘illah the ratio legis ilmiye (Turkish) the Ottoman ‘ulamā’ and its hierarchy imām “one who stands in front,” commonly used to refer to one who leads the prayer imam-hatip schools (Turkish) modern Turkish religious schools for the training of prayer leaders and preachers īmān faith iṣlāḥ “to make righteous, bring about righteousness” religious, moral reform ‘ismah inviolability, and in Islamic legal terminology this denotes the inviolability of life, property, religion, reason, family and honor ‘iṣmah al-‘aql inviolability of mind al-‘ismah bi-al-ādamīyah inviolable concepts that apply to all humans because they are humans isnād a chain of transmitters or authorities

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xvi ] istiqrā’ al-isti’ṣāl istisḥāb jāhilīyah jama’ah (pl. jama’āt) jāmi’ juz’ī Ka‘bah kalām kanun/qanūn khāliq khānqāh khawārij khuṭbah kufr kulī laiklik laylat al-qadar li’ān madhhab madrasah mafsadah mahkeme-i nizamiye mahkeme-i şeriye maḥram makān makrūḥ Mālikī

ma’lūmāt manqūlāt

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Glossary inductive reasoning cut but not an excision of the female genitals presumption of continuity ignorance, often used to describe the “ignorant” way of life of the Arabs before Islam a religious group or faction, used here in the context of Saudi society mosque: a central mosque in a city, holding the Friday communal prayer specific house of God; the cube-shaped building located in the sacred mosque in Mecca Islamic theology (Turkish) Ottoman dynastic law, issued by the sultan (from Gr. “canon”) God’s various attributes such as creation a Sufi lodge generally, used for Sufi teaching and ritual, particularly in urban settings “seceders,” early sectarian group that revolted against the Caliph ‘Alī ibn Abū Ṭālib (d. 661/ 40) sermon given during the Friday midday service unbelief general (Turkish) modern Turkish secularism (from Fr. laïcité) “night of power or decree,” term for the night when the Qurʾān was first revealed to Muhammad an oath of condemnation “way,” an Islamic legal school of thought “place of study,” an Islamic educational institution, higher religious school harm (Turkish) Ottoman civil court, created in the late nineteenth century (Turkish) Ottoman Islamic, “sharī’ah” court unmarriageable kin, such that sexual intercourse would be considered incestuous place unfavorable a legal school of Islamic law (madhhab) whose origins are attributed to Mālik ibn Anas (d. 795/179) knowledge the “transmitted” subjects (from naql, “transmission”) related to scriptural sources, the opposite of ma’qūlāt

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Glossary manṭiq maqāṣid al-sharī’ah

ma’qūlāt

maṣlaḥah maslak matn Mecelle/Majallah melamet/malāmah misyār mu’āmalāt mubāḥ muḍārabah

muḍarib muftī muḥtasib

mujāhidīn mukhtaṣar muqallid Mushārakah

mushrik mutaghāyirāt mutakallim muṭawwi’ naqīb al-ashrāf

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the study of formal logic a methodology of Islamic legal interpretation that focuses on the “objectives” of the sharī’ah as guiding principles the “rational” subjects (from ‘aql, “reason or intellect”) related to philosophy, the opposite of manqūlāt the common good “way” or “path,” a particular trend of thought or religious movement a text, generally used in the sense of the basis for a scholarly commentary (sharḥ) (Turkish) the Ottoman civil code, introduced in the 1870s (Turkish) “blame,” an ascetic, often antinomian approach to Sufism based in self-abnegation ambulant, marriages legal transactions such as marriage, leasing, and sales permissible is a special kind of partnership where one partner gives money to another for investing it in a commercial enterprise person exclusively responsible for operations management in a muḍārabah contract a learned scholar in Islamic law, qualified to give a fatwā an official charged with monitoring the market and public spaces and enforcing Islamic legal norms one who engages in jihad a summary or abridgment of an existing text for teaching purposes one who does taqlīd “sharing”; in Islamic finance it is a joint enterprise in which all the partners share the profit or loss of the joint venture one who is guilty of shirk the rulings of Islamic law that change in accordance to realities a theologian, one who engages in kalām the Saudi religious police a notable or official charged with supervising membership in, and funding for, the descendants or relatives of the Prophet (the ashrāf), particularly in Ottoman urban centers

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xviii ] naṣṣ nifāq niqāb nīyah niẓām Nizam-i Cedit

PBUH purdah qāḍī qīyāfah qiyās qiyās al-manṭiqī qiyās al-tamthīl qudrat al-nās waimkānātahum Qurʾān Qurʾānic Qaumi rabb rabb al-māl rabṭ ramī al-jamarāt

al-ra’y wa-al-fikr reaya/ra’āyā ribā ribā al-faḍl ribāṭ riḥlah rikāz rububīyah sadd al-dharā’i’ al-Ṣaḥwāh al-Islāmīyah

al-salaf al-ṣāliḥ ṣalāḥ

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Glossary an explicit statement within the Qurʾān or ḥadīth hypocrisy face veil intention royal decrees in Saudi Arabia (Turkish) the “new order” of Ottoman military and financial institutions set up by Selim III at the turn of the nineteenth century Peace be upon him (praise to Prophet Muhammad) a curtain; refers to limiting interaction between men and women outside well-defined categories an Islamic judge physiognomy covers a variety of legal arguments, such as analogy and deductive arguments syllogism analogy the capabilities of the people the Islamic sacred book relating to the Qurʾān (Urdu) belonging to the public; name of traditional madrasahs in Bangladesh the Lord financier connecting, related “stoning of the devil”; part of the annual Hajj pilgrimage where participants throw rocks at three pillars, now walls opinion and thought (Turkish) “flocks” or “herds”; the Ottoman rural peasantry usury usury of excess a Sufi lodge, usually rural a journey taken in order to seek divine knowledge treasures that have been buried that belong to the era of the jāhillīyah attributes of Lordship blocking the means the “Islamic Awakening” of post-colonial politicized forms of religion in the latter twentieth century the righteous Muslims close to the time of the Prophet beneficence

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Glossary sanad sharḥ sharī’ah sharīf (pl. ashrāf) Shāfi’ī

Shaykh alIslām/şeyhülislam shifā’ shirk shirk al-‘ubudīyah shūrā sīrah sitr siyāsah sīyāsah shar’īyah sūq ta’addudīyah ṭā’at al-imām Tableegi Jamaat

tadaruj tafsīr ṭāghūt

taḥqīq al-manāṭ taḥrīf tajdīd takfīr takfīrī takhaṣuṣ takhrīj al-manāṭ taklīf talfīq tanqīḥ al-manāṭ Tanzimât

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support through chains of transmitters or authorities, derivative of isnād “explanation,” the genre of scholarly commentary God’s eternal will for humanity that is considered binding. The ideal of Islamic law a descendant or relative of the Prophet a legal school of Islamic law (madhhab) whose origins are attributed to Muḥammad ibn Idrīs al-Shāfi’ī (d. 820/204) (Turkish) a scholar charged with overseeing other ‘ulamā’, particularly here the head of the Ottoman learned hierarchy healing the denial of God’s oneness, the major sin in Islam the polytheism of worship consultation biography of Muhammad covering sin politics, a field of social governance located in the government rather than the ‘ulamā’ governance in accordance with the sharī’ah open-air marketplace, similar to bazaar pluralism the necessity of obeying the political leader in charge (Urdu) a proselytizing movement that began in 1927 in India that calls for the spiritual and personal observation of Islam piecemeal fashion “clarification,” Qurʾānic commentary and interpretation one who goes beyond the limits set by God, and in the Qurʾān it refers to the idols that the pagans worshipped ascertaining the reason, refinement of the cause changing of the Qurʾān “to make new, renovate,” religious reform excommunication one who excommunicates Ph.D. equivalent within a madrasah education extracting the reason obligation the eclectic borrowing of different schools of law to form a new opinion isolating the reason (Turkish) period of reformation in the Ottoman Empire from 1839 to 1876

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Glossary

taqlīd

following the authority of the mujtahid of one’s school ṭarīqah (pl. ṭuruq) “way,” a Sufi order Ṭarīqah Muḥammadīyah “the Muhammadan way,” a name shared by two Sufi-inspired reform movements that arose independently of each other in the sixteenthcentury Ottoman Empire and nineteenthth-century India taṣawwuf Sufism, Islamic mysticism tashaddud hardship tawaqqu’ expectation tawḥīd divine unity and singularity, the oneness of God taysīr facilitation tekke (Turkish) an Ottoman Sufi lodge thawābit the unchangeable principles of Islamic law ‘ulamā’ Islamic scholars ummah the global Muslim community ‘umrah optional Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca that can be performed any time during the year; often referred to as lesser Hajj ‘umūm al-balwā pervasive imposition al-‘unwān the title ‘urf/örf (Arabic/Turkish) “custom,” a theoretical consideration in legal interpretation uṣūl al-dīn the “principles of religion,” a field of religious or theological study uṣūl al-fiqh Islamic legal theory (the “roots” of fiqh) waḥdat al-wujūd the “unity of being,” the metaphysical view that there is a single existence coming from God that is shared by all creation, associated most prominently with ibn ‘Arabī wājib obligatory walā’ “amity, closeness,” association with other Muslims, the opposite of barā’ al-walā’ wa-al-barā’ loyalty and disavowal walī guardian waqf (pl. awqāf) endowment for religious, philanthropic, or posterity causes wāqi’ reality wasaṭīyah moderate, middle path yaqīn certainty ẓāhir apparent, manifest zakāt obligatory charity, one of the five pillars of Islam zamān time zaruret/ẓarūrah (Turkish/ Arabic) necessity

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INTRODUCTION Masooda Bano

With the turn of the twenty-first century, scholarship and policy debate on Islam and Muslim societies have come to focus primarily on Islam’s ability to make young Muslims—both men and women—gravitate towards violent anti-modernity movements. If September 11 established the threat to the West from jihadi groups who had found safe havens within ungoverned spaces such as war-torn Afghanistan, the November 2015 attacks in Paris (and later the March 2016 attacks in Brussels), planned and executed by European-born Muslims, have been interpreted as confirming the threat posed to the West from within by militant Islam.1 Further, within policy circles and even academia there is a strong impulse to attribute not only jihadist violence, but also the overall socio-economic and political stagnation experienced in many Muslim societies, to Islamic theological or legal dictates.2 The persistence of authoritarian rule in many Muslim countries is routinely attributed to an alleged incompatibility between Islam and democracy, as is any evidence of women’s marginalization. As a result, the interpretative rigidity of the ‘ulamā’ (traditionally trained Islamic scholars) who control the mosques and the madrasahs, the primary platforms for transmission of Islamic knowledge, routinely comes under scrutiny: many are accused of promoting radical ideas encouraging Muslims to resist Western modernity. These assertions, however, ignore much evidence that proves otherwise. First, a growing number of studies show the need to distinguish between Islam (a set of scriptural beliefs) and the lived experiences of Muslim societies. The sheer diversity of institutional arrangements within Muslim societies across the globe and across time show how they have been shaped by local socio-economic and political institutions, and not only by religious dictates. The burgeoning theoretical literature on institutions, of which religious belief is but one, convincingly illustrates how any given individual action or collective societal outcome is contingent on a complex interplay among different [1]

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institutions: in Douglass North’s terminology, the “institutional matrix.”3 Rarely is one institution the sole shaper of an individual or collective societal outcome. Second, scholarship in the field of Islamic Studies demonstrates how classical Islamic educational tradition is intellectually much too rich and methodologically far too complex to endorse such narrow and literalist interpretations of the texts as the jihadis deploy when they extract Qurʾānic verses out of context in defence of their attacks. Studies of the working of the four Sunni madhhabs (schools of law) show the complex set of rules that classical Islamic scholarly tradition uses when interpreting a particular Qurʾānic verse.4 At the same time, survey data tell us that most Muslims do not endorse the violence perpetrated in the name of Islam, that they are active participants in modern institutions, and that quite often it is a sense of injustice (whether genuine or imagined) rather than religious beliefs that makes people vulnerable to the calls of the jihadists.5 Even the relatively simplistic media commentaries on Islam acknowledge its rich civilizational past, when Muslim societies contributed to the flourishing of science, arts, and the humanities— advancements that, as the historians of classical Islamic scholarly tradition note, in turn contributed to the rise of Western humanism.6 Yet this evidence is normally easily dismissed, and the challenges faced by Muslim societies and communities are attributed to the influence of Islamic texts. Even within scholarly literature, little effort has been made to understand competing Islamic intellectual trends at a global level, the specific historical and societal contexts in which they emerged, and what moral and ethical advice they offer to their followers. Despite the growth in studies of Islam and Muslim societies since September 11, comparative studies on Islamic intellectual thought and Muslim societies are rare. Such a comparative approach is essential if we are to move beyond simplistic assertions about an inevitable clash of civilizations between Islam and modernity. It is also critical to understanding the future of Islamic thought, and which strands within it are gaining prominence among Muslim youth, and why. This two-volume project is designed to fill this gap: it focuses on the current debates within the most influential scholarly platforms in Sunni Islam7, explains how these institutions attained their current position in the first place, and maps the socio-economic and political context that is shaping their current fiqhi (Islamic jurisprudence) debates and the advice that they provide to Muslims of today. As is often noted, Islam does not have a Vatican; the importance of the proposed project thus rests in recognizing that there have always been, at any given point in time, Islamic scholarly platforms with the popular authority to define for the masses what it means to be a believing Muslim. Scholars trained in these institutions have played a significant role in defining the legitimate application of Islamic legal and theological debate across different times and contexts.8 They have thus defined the moral compass for Muslim believers, making study of ‘ulamā’and their scholarship a central strand of Western scholarship on Islam and Muslim societies. The plurality of Islamic thought

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Introduction

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within Sunni Islam is in fact embedded in the existence of these parallel Islamic authority platforms, whose differing approaches to reconciling the apparent tension between Islam and modernity often result in them being differentiated by labels such as “orthodox”, “conservative”, “traditional”, “moderate”, “progressive”, or “liberal”. Such casual use of these complex and contested terms understandably often irks scholars of Islamic Studies: a specific institutional methodology of Islamic reasoning can, as we will see in these two volumes, be orthodox yet socially progressive (examples include the classical al-Azhari approach discussed in Chapter 3, and the neo-traditionalism of Humza Yusuf and Tim Winter discussed in Volume 2), while defense of a highly conservative social milieu can in terms of its underlying methodology be unorthodox (see discussion on Saudi Salafism in Chapter 6). Yet, while being cautious to avoid simplistic labeling, the need to distinguish between the competing Islamic methodologies employed by leading Islamic authorities to deal with the subject of change and the diverse societal implications of their rulings makes it inevitable for any comparative analysis to develop some analytically meaningful categories of differentiation. In this volume institutions have mainly been classified as advancing one of the two approaches: Islam as a civilization and Islam as a theology. The civilizational approach to Islam requires that Islam should not simply be equated with its theological texts. Rather, it should be interpreted in the light of the creative spirit that it has inspired since its revelation: a spirit that led to the birth of a dynamic Islamic civilization, which not only flourished economically and militarily but that also supported major scientific advancements, provided models of good governance, and gave birth to distinctive Islamic arts, poetry, and architecture that continue to generate awe to this day.9 According to this civilizational approach, respect for the Islamic legal tradition established by the four Sunni madhhabs remains important; however, so, too, do scholars known for their contribution to Islamic philosophy, intellectual mysticism, and humanism, with a particular interest being shown in the work of Imām al-Ghazālī (1058–1111), Ibn Rushd (1126–98), and Ibn ‘Arabī (1165–1240), and Sufi poets such as Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Rūmī (1207–73). Thus, rather than narrowly focusing on theological beliefs, Islamic arts, architecture, and poetry take on an equal importance. Many young, educated Muslims who I have interviewed across different Muslim countries nurture an active desire to revive that creative intellectual energy that they see as an essential part of Islamic society in its prime. It is an approach that has confidence in Islam’s ability to find optimal answers to the needs of the time: answers that, rather than shunning or mimicking Western modernity, may actually be able to enrich and improve upon it (an approach similar to that of Humza Yusuf and Tariq Ramadan, to name a few, who despite their different methodological approaches argue that Muslims can enrich modernity and not merely mimic it—see Volume 2). Such an approach is also in sync with critiques of modernity by some Western thinkers who argue that the increasingly materialistic and isolated mode of modern existence is contributing to an increasing

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sense of inner emptiness.10 Here it is also important to note that this approach is distinct from one adopted by the Muslim modernists, most post-colonial Muslim political elites included, who have tried to reform Islamic norms to fit the Western liberal framework (see Chapter 1 for a contemporary example of this approach in the form of the religious revolution promised by al-Sisi). The key to a civilizational approach is its emphasis on loyalty to an Islamic legal and moral framework but with equal emphasis on an Islamic humanistic and philosophical tradition. The theological approach to Islam, on the other hand, is more inwardlooking. More often than not it is also more prone to adopting literalistic readings of the text, which often seem to place Islam and Western modernity in sharp opposition to each other; examples include the Deobandi aversion to watching TV or use of photography, or some Salafis’ aspiration to live as if they were still living in the times of the Prophet. The result is disengagement, either complete or partial, from what is seen as Western modernity (given that it is seen as a product of the Western liberal tradition) or, worse, vocal and armed resistance to it, as voiced by groups such as al-Qaida and the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). The theological approach is noticeable for its resistance to philosophical strands within Islamic sciences, as is visible in its proponents’ active condemnation of the work of scholars such as Ibn Rushd and Ibn ‘Arabī. It is very important to note that in itself such an approach is not hostile to the West; however, in some cases, such as certain strands of Saudi Salafism, it has been accused of precisely that. The latter’s strong emphasis on takfīr (excommunication) is argued to provide intellectual justifications for radical extremism of the kind associated with al-Qaida and the ISIS. Its inward-looking theological approach and its propensity to endorse radical jihad reflect a certain lack of confidence in Islam’s ability to shape modernity and to preserve Islamic belief against the lure of Western modernity. The civilizational approach thus refers to an outlook that allows Muslims a degree of flexibility (although within clear limits) to adapt to modern institutions and realities. The theological approach insists on preserving practices as they were understood to be in the seventh century at the time of the birth of Islam, irrespective of how the world around has changed since then. Both approaches claim to be guardians of authentic Islamic tradition; however, they vary in their modes of engagement with the texts and thus lead to quite different societal implications in all areas of social, economic, or political activity. The volume thus is focused on institutions that all claim to adhere to traditional Islamic scholarship yet their methods of understanding the tradition vary considerably. A more nuanced understanding of the specific methodological tools used by scholars within these influential Islamic authority centers to answer modern-day questions is not exclusively relevant to Islamic Studies scholars: such an inquiry can also help to decipher each institution’s ability to retain its influence over the next generation of Muslims. While ijtihād (independent reasoning) and qiyās (deductive analogy) remain central methodological pillars within the Islamic intellectual tradition, enabling the Islamic moral and legal codes to be responsive to the changing needs of the time, the manner and

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frequency of their employment is shaped by the specific intellectual legacy of a given institution, by the societal conditions in which it emerged and continues to evolve, and (arguably most critically) by the nature of its relationship with political authority and the changing subjectivities of ordinary Muslims. This two-volume project is aimed at mapping today’s most influential Islamic authority platforms across the globe—institutions that are instrumental in shaping Muslims’ conceptions of their faith. Volume 1 focuses on the four most influential institutions to emerge across four different Muslim-majority regions. Volume 2 covers the new Islamic authority structures emerging in the West; some are entirely home-grown, while others are an extension of the institutions studied in this volume. Together, the two volumes map the most influential Islamic authority structures in the Sunni Muslim world today, unpacking the modes of reasoning that scholars within these institutions deploy; examining both the historical and political considerations that made them choose these specific approaches; and illuminating which of these rival institutional platforms, and the scholarly tradition that each harbors, is best placed to enable young, educated Muslims to engage confidently with the West yet remain loyal to core Islamic beliefs, laws, and ethics. Such a historically and sociologically embedded analysis of the evolution of these competing Islamic authority structures and their discourses enables us to identify the societal conditions and political arrangements that are most conducive to the flourishing of a confident Muslim identity: an identity in which young Muslims do not feel compelled to choose between two equally limiting options—harboring reactionary sentiments towards modern-day institutions, or viewing the mimicking of Western modernity as the only barometer of success in today’s world. The four Islamic authority centers analyzed in this volume are: al-Azhar Mosque and University network, Saudi Salafism, Deoband madrasah network, and Diyanet İşleri Başkanlığı (see Table I.1). These institutions today dominate the popular understanding of Islam not just in the Muslim-majority countries but also among the Muslim diaspora communities in the West. It is therefore important to understand how responsive are scholars within each institution to changing social realities. Further, it is also equally important to understand how are the immediate socio-economic and political developments in their home countries impacting their discourse. Thus, the analytical focus is two-fold: 1. What tools of methodological reasoning are scholars within these leading centers of Islamic authority using to adjust Islamic law to changing societal conditions? How do the real-life choices available to Muslims differ between followers of one Islamic authority and followers of another? 2. What material conditions and intellectual genealogies have historically shaped the evolution of each institution? What is its contemporary political economy? And how does a better understanding of these factors help us to understand an institution’s likely future intellectual trajectory and its ability to retain its influence over the next generation of Muslims?

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Historical origin Founded in tenth century Evolved from the middle of the eighteenth century with the formation of a pact between Muḥammad ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhāb and the House of Saud but was consolidated only after the founding of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in 1932 Founded in the late nineteenth century

The Turkish Presidency of Religious Affairs established in the first quarter of the twentieth century; it, however, has a strong continuity with the Ottoman religious hierarchy that dates back to the fourteenth century

Institution

al-Azhar mosque and university network

Saudi Salafi establishment

Deoband madrasah network

Diyanet İşleri Başkanlığı

Table I.1 Globally influential authority platforms in Sunni Islam

Civilizational

Theological

Theological

Civilizational

Approach

Turkey

South Asia (Pakistan, India, Bangladesh)

Saudi Arabia

Egypt

Base country

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Map I.1 Countries housing globally influential scholarly platforms in Sunni Islam

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Adopting such a two-fold focus enables us to not just examine the specific discourses promoted by each institution but also to situate them within the broader socio-political milieu. Thus, for example, when looking at Diyanet, the volume does not only map its discourses but also situates them within the context of the broader Islamic scholarly revival that Turkey has witnessed under the Justice and Development Party (AK Parti) (AKP). Consequently, while on the one hand these two volumes refine our understanding of the specific conceptual and methodological tools being used by scholars within these institutions to adapt Islamic law to modern reality, on the other they help us better assess the likely future trajectory of each institution based on its political economy. Examples of some important contextual questions informed by these volumes are: Is Turkey under President Erdoğan moving towards Salafism, as its secular critics contend, or is it witnessing a revival of Islamic philosophical and mystical tradition rooted in the work of Ibn ‘Arabī and Rūmī? Is Saudi Arabia sponsoring global jihad or are the major attitudinal shifts among young Saudi men and women, and the members of the royal family, pushing Saudi scholars to show flexibility in interpretation in the face of changing realities? Is al-Azhar the protector of wasaṭīyah (moderate) Islam on the global stage or has its alliance with General al-Sisi so comprised its moral authority that it runs the risk of losing that position to an increasingly assertive Turkish Diyanet? Is Deoband (which inspired many of the initial Taliban leaders and remains in control of the largest share of mosques in the U.K.) showing flexibility in the face of changing social conditions or is it even more resistant to reform of Islamic law than Saudi Salafism? Finally, are the second- and third-generation Muslims in the West content to learn their Islam from representatives of these four globally influential Islamic authority platforms, and their likes, that have traditionally staffed mosques in the West or are they welcoming (and in fact actively contributing to) the rise of new Islamic learning centers in the West that have started to extend their influence even in Muslimmajority countries? While the answers to these specific questions will unfold in the subsequent chapters, the core contention of this volume is that among educated Muslims, geographical and cultural diversity notwithstanding, there is a growing demand for reviving an intellectual and civilizational approach to living Islam, as opposed to adopting a narrowly theological outlook. Such an assertion is based on the shared experiences of young Muslims whom I have encountered in my fieldwork across Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, the United States, the United Kingdom, and various other Western European countries. Finding refuge in scriptural rigidity, and becoming preoccupied with issues of personal piety, are common responses among religious authority platforms to preserve the faith when faced with harsh external change—and Islam is no exception. But complete refusal to recognize change proves to be a poor strategy when the pace of external change is as rapid as is witnessed in this globalized age. Instead of endorsing an inevitable clash of civilizations between Islam and the West, the analysis presented in this volume

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reveals a clear demand among educated Muslims for productive engagement between Islam and Western modernity; a conviction among the majority that such harmony can be achieved without violating the essence of Islamic beliefs, morals, or ethics; and, most importantly, a concerted effort by some of these established Islamic authority platforms to respond to this demand. The pressure on Islamic scholars to be reasonable when applying Islamic fiqh to modern-day realities can be seen in the case of all four institutions; their degree of responsiveness, however, varies. It is Diyanet that appears best placed to nurture the civilizational approach; al-Azhar, which has traditionally nurtured this approach, runs the risk of losing its status. On the other hand, Saudi Salafism, while it is normally argued to be the most rigid of all Islamic scholarly traditions and closest in the view of most to what in this volume has been defined as the theological approach, is showing greater flexibility to adapt to change than Deoband. This volume will illustrate how it is important to situate these institutions in their current sociopolitical and economic context in order to understand these results.

High Education and Traditional Islamic Authority Within the Islamic tradition, an emphasis on traveling to seek knowledge ensured that, from very early on, the influence of prominent scholars and Sufi mystics was not localized; instead their presence often led to the emergence of prominent Islamic centers of learning in the form of madrasahs or khānqāhs (Sufi lodges), which attracted students and disciples from far and wide. Moreover, from the very early days, the practice of Hajj (Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca) and ‘umrah (optional Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca) turned Mecca and Medina into a hub where scholars and Sufis from different regions and from different Islamic intellectual and methodological traditions could meet. Despite this steady flow and exchange of ideas within Muslim communities across geographical divides, it is perhaps easier to talk about global Islamic authorities today than at any time before. The influence of scholarship produced at leading centers of Islamic authority is no longer confined to the traditional Muslim lands, but extends to Muslim diaspora communities across the globe. The expansive reach of mass media and growth in information technology, especially the spread of the Internet and mobile phones with new apps that facilitate the rapid spread of ideas at little cost, has made it possible for these centers’ influence to grow beyond their immediate home bases. Ironically, technological advancements have also facilitated the rise of increased competition for these traditional centers of learning: individuals with no formal Islamic training can now claim to speak in the name of Islam, leading to what Dale Eickelman and James Piscatori—drawing on Francis Robinson’s work on the impact of the printing press on expanding popular Islamic literacy—have famously referred to as the fracturing of Islamic authority.11 Some scholars see within this an opportunity to generate a pluralistic Islamic intellectual sphere;

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others interpret it as a challenge, attributing the rise of militant Islamic groups to this very fracturing of traditional Islamic authority, whereby the right to interpret Islamic texts is no longer seen strictly as the preserve of traditionally trained scholars. In reality, however, the emergence of self-taught and self-proclaimed online imāms, leaders of jihadist groups, or hosts of popular Islamic television shows, has not eroded respect among the public for the traditional centers of learning and those with specialist training in traditional Islamic sciences. Rather, we have seen these traditional centers of Islamic authority successfully co-opt the same technology and expand their reach beyond their local communities to a global audience. As we will see in this volume, all four Islamic authority structures under study actively use the media of television, radio, and the Internet to advance their message, and they all also increasingly operate both phone and online fatwā (Islamic ruling) hotlines that are heavily subscribed. It is important to note that the argument about the fracturing of Islamic authority in contemporary times is not only based on a recognition of the changing modes of modern communication, which make it easy to spread one’s reading of the texts without the need for a mosque-madrasah platform; it is equally premised on there being an inverse relationship between increased literacy and the need for the specialist. An increase in popular literacy gives direct access to the religious texts, which in turn is assumed to remove dependence on Islamic authority structures.12 This is indeed true; but I have increasingly found during my fieldwork that it is equally true that, in the long term, improved literacy cultivates a greater awareness of and appreciation for the work of the specialist, especially among the university-educated. While to some young, university-educated Muslims the Salafi methodological emphasis on self-reasoning appears intellectually empowering, for most, such efforts quickly reveal the limits of one’s own intellectual ability to reach depth of meaning without seeking specialist advice. This assertion ideally should be tested further through survey work, but in my own ethnographic and interview-based fieldwork, I have come across many Muslim students in Western universities who were initially attracted to Salafi methodological emphasis on self-interpretation, finding it consistent with their training in critical thinking and rational inquiry—only to conclude that guidance from a specialist was necessary in order to pursue ideas in depth. Without seeking the advice of a scholar, these young students were limited by their own and fellow students’ somewhat simplistic interpretations. The experience of one of my respondents in Chicago, who during her initial university days had become part of the Salafi network, is illustrative: I was inspired by Salafi networks in university as they emphasized the use of reason much more than what I had heard from the mosque imām my parents used to consult. I always found it difficult to connect to an imām who could not even speak English properly; I just could not communicate to him much as he spoke Urdu. Therefore, the idea of engaging with the texts myself and

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sharing my reasoning with fellow students initially felt quite empowering. But, pretty soon there was a saturation point. How much could we make of the Qurʾānic verses or hadith on our own? I wanted more intellectual depth and I realized that I have to seek a specialist teacher who knows the texts well if I am to acquire serious knowledge of Islam.

Similarly, another of my respondents who I met at the al-Ghazālī retreat in Spain led by Tim Winter (Abdul Hakim Murad) and Dr. Umar Faruq AbdAllah noted: Islam has a rich scholarly tradition in all fields be it fiqh, theology or philosophy. In fact, Islamic theology if properly studied is intellectually very powerful. Yet, to acquire that depth of understanding, we need to go back to the work of great Islamic legal scholars, theologians, philosophers, and mystics and it is simply not possible to study those dense texts on your own. You need to be guided by a teacher and ideally a teacher who has very sound proficiency of Arabic grammar in addition to knowing that specific text. Arabic is such a complex language that to understand a text properly you need to learn from one who knows the nuances of the language. That is why I like to attend such retreats. I don’t have time to pursue study of Islam full time, but participation in these short retreats acts as a good reminder that there is much intellectual depth to Islamic scholarly tradition.

I have repeatedly had such responses from participants in such retreats that are becoming increasingly popular among young Muslims—the annual Rihla programme initiated by Humza Yusuf under the Deen Intensive Foundation being one good example. These retreats attract university-educated young Muslims not just from Western countries but also from the Muslim-majority countries (see Volume 2). Further evidence in support of the continued importance of formal centers of learning in the eyes of ordinary Muslims comes from analyzing the profiles of young Muslims in the West (including converts) who have recently become influential Islamic preachers or scholars in their own right.13All have spent significant lengths of time in Muslim-majority countries, training with traditionally educated scholars, and none was able to establish a following within their home community by claiming to be self-taught or by virtue of being a student of an online imām (Islamic scholar). In my own interviews, I have found that the scholars (as well as their followers) acknowledge the importance of the time spent studying at a traditional center of learning in the Muslim world in enabling the scholar to gain legitimacy in the eyes of Muslim communities. Even most of the self-proclaimed online imāms more often than not claim to hold a certificate or a degree from an institutional platform, in order to establish their credibility. The technological advancements of the last three decades have indeed, therefore, led to increased competition among Islamic authorities, but increased literacy and access to higher education have at the

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same time re-centered traditional Islamic scholarly authority, instead of eroding it. We therefore need more ethnographic and, more importantly, surveybased studies to see how socio-economic and educational background shapes a young Muslim’s decision to follow one Islamic authority over another. The four institutions studied in this volume are the most influential, as measured by the numbers of their adherents worldwide and the prominence that they command in global academic and policy debates. It is time to introduce them properly. Few contemporary Islamic discourses have attracted more attention in the Western scholarly and policy discourse than Saudi Salafism.14 However, as we shall see in Chapter 5, what is today considered as Saudi Salafism is actually a mid-eighteenth-century invention, resulting from the alliance between a tribal leader and a self-proclaimed Islamic reformer, rather than representing the classical learning tradition of Islam (perhaps best illustrated in the pluralistic Islamic culture of Hijaz, whereby until the early twentieth century followers of all four Sunni maddhabs could organize their own prayers in Ka‘bah, until the House of Saud imposed one joint prayer).15 This highly literalist approach to the study of Islam has won large numbers of adherents around the globe. The global influence of Saudi Salafism has been attributed to three factors. First, it emanates from the birthplace of Islam and, thus, in the minds of ordinary Muslims worldwide, is associated with Islam’s two holiest cities of Mecca and Medina. Second, since the 1970s the oil boom has enabled the Saudi state to fund Salafi mosques and madrasahs around the globe. Third, by arguing for direct engagement with the foundational texts, including the Qurʾān and the ḥadīth, and by minimizing reliance on the weighty canon of commentaries produced by scholars working within the four madhhabs, Salafi methodology gives the individual greater autonomy in the eyes of its adherents. The approach is criticized for promoting high levels of rigidity and for inculcating a desire to live like the salaf (pious forefathers) in the first century of Islam, rather than identifying the underlying moral and legal principles that guided their actions in order to answer the needs of contemporary times. The refusal to interpret the foundational texts, or to view the actions of the salaf in their historical context, together with the Salafi emphasis on takfīr, is often blamed for creating a rift between Islam and modernity. Of all the strands of Islamic thought today, Saudi Salafism is the one most commonly accused of directly inspiring militant jihad.16 The use of Saudi money to promote this rigid reading of Islam is highly exaggerated, giving Saudi intelligence services a degree of sophistication that is unlikely. It is also highly simplistic to assume that money alone can make communities dramatically alter their conception of Islam.17 Further, it ignores how the Saudi state itself feels threatened by such militancy, and how both the Saudi state and the religious establishment openly condemn militant groups and warn Muslim youth against joining them.18 However, it is true that, as in the case of the other three institutions under study, the Saudi state has used different platforms for the global promotion of its specific understanding of Islam; the Islamic University of Medina (IUM),

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founded in 1961, is an important example of one such platform. Catering to Muslim students from around the world, this university has played an important part in the Saudi state’s aspiration to assert its leadership of the Muslim world.19 If Saudi Salafism is today frequently labeled as the most divisive voice of Islam on the global stage, the al-Azhar Mosque and University network, which in 1961 was brought under the Ministry of Education and absorbed into the Egyptian state bureaucracy, is perceived to be its most influential counterweight. Proud of its positioning as the global representative of wasaṭīyah (moderate) Islam,20 al-Azhar has traditionally commanded high levels of respect for its methodological rigor and for the depth of training in classical Islamic texts that it provides to its students, despite various complaints of a lowering of educational standards in recent years. Al-Azhar is one of the few institutions that, in line with classical Islamic scholarly tradition, attempts to teach all four Sunni madhhabs (although Ḥanbalīsm has received less and less attention in recent times). Even when the Ottoman Empire spread to Arab lands and Ḥanafī fiqh became the official school of law, al-Azhar continued to teach all four madhhabs. Egypt’s geographical location on the periphery of the Ottoman Empire enabled al-Azhar to survive as a local Egyptian institution, despite the expansion of a formal religious bureaucracy under the Ottomans.21 Historically supported through waqf (religious endowment) property, until the twentieth-century state reforms the Azhari scholarly elite remained independent and among the most prestigious Islamic scholarly platforms in the Muslim world. Today, al-Azhar continues to attract students from across the globe. In East Asia, in particular, its influence is striking.22 And among second- and third-generation Muslims in the West, as well as among Western converts, spending time at al-Azhar is seen as an important route to acquiring Islamic authority. The future of al-Azhar, however, is in flux. Forced to become a university as part of the state’s modernizing agenda, al-Azhar has found its moral authority increasingly called into question because of the compromises it has made with the state. This crisis of authority became particularly pronounced after the Arab Spring in 2011. The decision of Shaykh al-Azhar Ahmad al-Tayyib to support the regime of General Abd al-Fattah al-Sisi has raised serious concerns. The al-Sisi government has received active cooperation and endorsement from Shaykh al-Azhar, even after it has violated the very same ideals of freedom and liberty that the latter actively defended in the famous al-Azhar Document, which he used to critique the Muslim Brotherhood government.23 Next to these two globally influential Islamic authority structures sits the Deobandi madrasah system. An anomaly compared with the other three institutions in terms of its relationship with the state, the network is the only one of the four authority structures under study to rely on community donations, both large and small, instead of being part of a state bureaucracy. Its literalist readings of the text, which often sees it placed in the same league as Saudi

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Salafism, developed in response to the decline in Islamic political authority under British colonial rule. Anxious to see Islamic law lose its socio-economic and legal relevance under colonial rule, the founders of Deoband saw a turn inwards, with a focus on cultivating personal piety, as the best mechanism to help Muslims in India preserve their faith. Unlike the Salafis’ emphasis on direct engagement with the foundational texts and neglect of the four madhhabs, Deobandi tradition relies heavily on a specific kind of taqlīd of the Ḥanafī madhhab, although it shares the former’s emphasis on a literalist as opposed to a contextualized reading of the texts. The result is Diyanet, which, like Deoband, inherited the Ḥanafī fiqh (but not the textual rigidity) due to its continuity from the Ottoman religious hierarchy, sits on the opposite end of the Islamic scholarly spectrum from Deoband, despite both adhering to the same madhhab. Deoband’s interpretative rigidity has been held responsible for inspiring the Talibans—a movement out of keeping with modern sensibilities, which has not only protected al-Qaida but also advocates a very archaic approach to living Islam, including extreme restrictions on women’s mobility, barbaric punishments, and destruction of all art forms, including the centuries-old statues of Buddha in Afghanistan. Unlike Saudi Salafism and al-Azhar, the Deobandi movement remains predominantly an ethnic one, popular mainly among South Asian Muslims and their diaspora. The United Kingdom, the United States, and South Africa have a number of Deobandi madrasahs, which have developed strong roots. In recent years, especially in parts of East Asia, the Deobandi movement has managed to spread beyond South Asian communities. The success of Tableegi Jamaat, one of the largest Muslim proselytizing networks to be inspired by the Deobandi school of thought (although operating independently from it), has also helped the spread of the Deobandi madrasah network. While many other Islamic movements, most noticeably Barelvism, also command a strong following among South Asian Muslims, when it comes to the textual study of Islam, Deoband remains the most influential South Asian Islamic tradition with a global reach—one good barometer of which is the disproportionately high number of Deobandi madrasahs in India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh, compared with the numbers of those belonging to other sects.24 Last but not least, the new competitor to emerge in the sphere of global Islamic authority in recent years is Diyanet, the Turkish Presidency of Religious Affairs. The strengthening of democracy, economic stability, and the rise of a center-right party sympathetic to Islam has made Turkey, with its rich Islamic history, one of the most widely observed Muslim countries today. Although forming the core lands of the expansionist Ottoman Empire, for much of the twentieth century Turkey largely disappeared from global Muslim consciousness, owing to the Kemalist modernization agenda and its staunch defence by the Turkish military establishment. Religion was kept under strict control, madrasahs and Sufi ṭarīqahs (orders) were banned in 1924 and 1925 respectively,25 and the state even attempted to modernize public sensibilities by force, regulating traditional dress codes and promoting Western music.26

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The Kemalist regime offers the best example of how for many Muslim rulers, especially in the post-colonial period, modernization came to be equated with Westernization. Yet, almost a century later, the failure of the experiment to expel Islam from Turkish society is clear; instead, it caused the Turkish state to establish one of the largest and best-funded religious bureaucracies in the Muslim world: the ban on madrasahs and khānqāhs inadvertently forced the state to take responsibility for running mosques where Muslims could carry out their ritual obligations, especially those marking the critical milestones of birth, marriage, and death. Today, Diyanet has more than 150,000 state employees, most of whom are imāms in mosques. By banning the traditional Islamic learning platforms, the state ended up having to take responsibility for providing imāms to the local mosques. However, despite its steady expansion, Diyanet’s relationship with both state and society is complex. The devout have traditionally found it lacking in independence, yet the secular state that established it (given its distrust of religion) has consciously denied Diyanet the status of a ministry,27 despite its having one of the largest budgets of all state departments. Like most interesting questions on Turkey within the social sciences today, in order to understand the current positioning of Diyanet and its future role at home and aboard, it is important to focus on developments in the past fifteen years. With the gradual strengthening of democracy and the rise of the center-right Justice and Development Party (AKP), Diyanet is undergoing subtle but important shifts. Since coming to power in 2002, the AKP has not attempted to change the relationship between the Turkish state and Diyanet, an institution constitutionally committed to respecting a Kemalist separation of state and religion. But what has changed is that, being sympathetic to religious sentiment in society, the AKP has created an environment in which more traditional Islamic groups (both madrasahs and Sufi lodges) are in a position to engage with Diyanet and to influence its discourse, rather than letting it be shaped purely by graduates from theology departments known for their rationalist, scholarly orientation. This opening up of Diyanet to surrounding influences has helped to increase its legitimacy among devout Muslims. Today, Turkey is actively positioning itself as a leader of the Muslim world. In 2014, Mehmet Görmez, President of Diyanet, announced Turkey’s plan to establish an International Islamic University in Istanbul.28 Statements issued by Diyanet increasingly show its ambition to become the leading voice of moderate Islam on the global stage,29 and a growing number of emergent platforms show that it takes this ambition seriously. The elevation of ISAM (Islam Araştırmaları Merkezi, Center for Islamic Studies), a leading Islamic research center in Turkey, which operates under the aegis of the Türkiye Diyanet Vakfı, to a full university (İstanbul 29 Mayıs University, 29 May University) is an example of one such platform. At the same time, since Diyanet provides trained, state-salaried imāms to the Turkish diaspora, it already exerts significant influence in shaping Islamic discourse in Western European countries with large Turkish diaspora communities.30 Owing to its historical

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ties, Diyanet has also acted as a model for post-Soviet states of the Caucasus and the Balkans.31 Keen to curtail Salafi influence, the governments in these countries have taken inspiration from Diyanet in order to learn how to model similar state institutions. Diyanet’s overseas activities are, however, no longer exclusively confined to the Turkish diaspora: it is increasingly supporting many progressive Islamic platforms that are emerging in the West. Its large mosque complex in Washington, D.C. facilitates events for Muslims from all backgrounds, irrespective of their national or ethnic background.32 Such expansiveness is not surprising, given the rise of the AKP’s assertive foreign policy, which under Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu (2009–14) increasingly came to be known as Neo-Ottomanism.33 Turkish Islam’s historically deep spiritual roots, with its emphasis on the cultivation of the intellect along with focusing on the purification of the heart (a combination of ibn ‘Arabī’s metaphysical understanding with Rūmī’s mysticism) to nurture belief, make the revival of the Turkish Islamic tradition particularly appealing to moderate Muslims who are keen on a civilizational approach to the religion. A well-funded infrastructure of theological departments, beautifully maintained mosques, state-salaried imāms, and a pluralist Islamic intellectual and spiritual sphere with a particular focus on taṣawwuf (Islamic mysticism), while retaining a strong focus on the Ḥanafī madhhab, all make Turkey a conducive environment for an intellectually engaging and spiritually grounded approach to the study of Islam. In this approach, the arts, aesthetics, music, and science are as important as learning to perform obligatory Islamic rituals. As we will see in Chapter 10, while the revival of a traditional yet pluralist Islamic scholarly sphere is directly tied to the democratic strengthening in Turkey since 2002 (however limited it may be), economic development has played an equally critical role in this process. Institutions of Islamic learning can now afford more investment in their students and teaching resources, including funding their students to learn Arabic in an Arabic-speaking country.34 Increased investment in English-language teaching within more traditional and university-based Islamic education platforms is also helping to disseminate religious debates within Turkey to a global audience. It is therefore not surprising that Turkey is host to an increasing number of students from Western universities who wish to pursue Islamic Studies summer programmes and degrees. One of the few dividends of the Syrian crisis, which otherwise poses the biggest threat to Turkey’s stability, has been that more than 100 traditionally trained Syrian scholars are estimated to have taken refuge in Istanbul alone. In my own fieldwork, I came across students from both the United States and the United Kingdom who were studying with these Syrian scholars in Istanbul; they had chosen to stay away from Egypt because of the political oppression associated with al-Sisi’s government, but also because of unease about the Azhari establishment’s support for such a regime. This volume thus considers the intellectual debates taking place within these four platforms of global Islamic authority. It looks at the profiles and

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orientation of the scholars leading these debates, to explore how conscious they are of the challenges posed by modernity and the changing subjectivities of today’s young educated Muslims. What real-life choices do they advise, and what methodological reasoning do they use to justify those choices? What are the dominant historical trends that have shaped these institutions and, given the situation today, what shape are they likely to take in the future? The results that it presents are counter-intuitive.

Core Arguments The core contention of this volume is that all four institutions studied are under pressure to adapt to the demands of modern times; their ability and willingness to respond, however, does vary. Although Turkey, after the demise of the Ottoman Empire and the establishment of a secular Turkish Republic in the first quarter of the twentieth century, had lost all influence within the sphere of Islamic scholarly activity, today it holds the greatest promise for reviving Islamic scholarly debates that respect the limits set by the four maddhabs but also offers the intellectual and spiritual depth that the young, educated and progressive modern Muslims are seeking. In the name of modernization, the Kemalists banned madrasahs and Sufi khānqāhs—a constitutional ban that remains in place to date. Today’s prominent Turkish Islamic scholars and historians themselves are quick to point out the lasting damage that this has done to the quality of Islamic scholarship in Turkey: in the words of İsmail Kara, the most influential contemporary historian of the Turkish Islamic scholarly tradition, “Turkey today has no ‘ulamā’.”35 The theology departments that the Kemalists established to replace these traditional centers of Islamic learning are found by traditional Islamic scholars (and most devout Turks) to be lacking in methodological rigor, as well as lacking an ability to inculcate moral piety in their students—two elements that are seen as cornerstones of classical Islamic scholarly tradition. Diyanet is itself known for producing quite simple fatwās and Friday sermons that respect the dominant consensus within Ḥanafī fiqh, but at the same time fail to demonstrate deeper engagement with the Islamic texts.36 However, one of this volume’s key contentions is that the fate of any Islamic scholarly tradition is closely tied to societal conditions, especially the economic realities and the political framework in which it has had to evolve. As we will see in the chapters in Part IV, it is currently Turkey, out of all the Muslim-majority countries, which offers the most favorable conditions for the flourishing of the civilizational approach: an approach that preserves the essence of Islamic law but is equally focused on reviving the Islamic humanistic tradition and rationalist inquiry that is both intellectually challenging and spiritually deep,37 and does not create a forced wedge between Islam and modernity. Under the successive AKP governments, their shortcomings notwithstanding,38 Turkey holds promise of advancing the civilizational approach

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to Islam. The main threat to Turkey’s chances of fulfilling this potential lies in the worsening of regional dynamics due to the conflict in Syria and the resulting insecurity, risks of economic instability, and political uncertainties resulting from the 2016 failed coup attempt. Prolonged regional tensions run the risk of disrupting gains that the country has made in the areas of economic development and democratic strengthening. As I demonstrate in Chapter 10, both economic development and democratic strengthening have been crucial for the revival of traditional Islamic scholarly practices in Turkey. This volume also contends that although al-Azhar, with its emphasis on wasaṭīyah Islam, has traditionally dominated the civilizational approach to Islam, this global dominance is increasingly under threat, especially if the Turkish Islamic scholarly revival sustains itself. The political compromises that al-Azhar has had to make since it became a part of the Egyptian state bureaucracy in 1961, and especially after its leadership supported the coup led by al-Sisi in 2013, have seriously compromised its legitimacy in the eyes of Muslims across the globe—much more so than the crisis of legitimacy that it has suffered at home.39 Further, the secular voices within Egypt calling for a complete reform of al-Azhar are becoming strong. Today, there is no longer any guarantee of al-Azhar’s ability to retain a balance instead of tipping in favor of the Egyptian state’s vision of a “moderate” and “enlightened” Islam— whereby a desire to be like the West rather than staying true to your tradition becomes the primary focus of reform.40 Al-Azhar’s prominence as the leading voice of moderate Islam on the global stage has partly been a result of the conceptual and methodological rigor of the Azhari approach. Even today, this comes closest to what is understood as the classical Islamic scholarly tradition, and it has been very effective in synchronizing Islamic law with the specificities of a given cultural or political context. In retaining this position, however, a lack of competition and more than ten centuries of relatively independent existence also helped al-Azhar. The democratic strengthening in Turkey that has led to a revival of traditional Islamic learning, compared with the perpetuation of authoritarian rule in Egypt and the state’s continued exploitation of religious authority to gain legitimacy, is for the first time in recent history providing a socio-economic and political context for a credible rival to Azhari authority to emerge on the global stage. If the Azhari leadership actually reforms its curriculum on the advice of the al-Sisi government, a move that it has endorsed in principle,41 it will further compromise its popular legitimacy. Comparing the two more socially conservative platforms that come closest to what in this volume has been described as a theological approach—Saudi Salafism and the Deobandi madrasah network—we will see that the former, which is often blamed for fueling global Islamic militancy, is in reality more alive to changing contexts and is adapting to these at a faster pace. This is counter-intuitive, given that most perceive Saudi Salafism to be the most rigid of all the Islamic traditions. But, as we shall see, once again the reasons for this unexpected outcome have to do with the societal conditions in which

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each intellectual and methodological tradition is evolving, and the nature of its relationship with political authority. Saudi Arabia is undergoing major societal change, due to a major investment in education for both boys and girls. This, combined with increased access to media, Internet, and mobile connectivity, is changing societal values. Also, the country’s oil wealth has allowed for ease of travel and the integration of younger Saudis, men, and, equally, women, into global culture. Further, as we will see in Chapter 4, it is important to understand how the Saudi royal family has played a key role in triggering this change. It is thus not surprising that Saudi Salafism is proving more responsive to the changing global and domestic pressures (see Chapter 4) than Deoband, which largely caters to not very affluent pockets of South Asia Muslims.42 The core contribution of the above analysis, however, is not the actual predictions that could change if the context changes but the underlying argument routinely ignored in policy debates: the context plays a critical part in shaping a given Islamic discourse. Studies attributing Islamic militancy to Islamic text thus need a serious review; for successful eradication of Islamic militancy greater emphasis has to be placed on understanding the context that breeds it instead of simply attributing it to religious indoctrination by imāms at mosques or madrasahs. This comparative study thus shows how the socioeconomic and political institutions heavily influence how an Islamic authority platform, and the discourses that it promotes, will evolve. The findings in fact uphold the conclusion that Francis Robinson draws from his comparative analysis of the scholarly traditions under the three major Muslim empires, the Ottomans, Safavids, and Mughals: “rational sciences . . . tended to flourish when Muslims were confidently in power: . . . transmitted sciences . . . tended to flourish when Muslims felt that Muslim state power, either because of compromises with non-Muslim forces within or because of compromises with nonMuslim forces from without, was threatened or destroyed as the upholder of Islamic society.”43 Such a conclusion indicates that, despite evidence that many leaders of Islamic militant groups come from the educated classes (or in fact appear to be engineers),44 the more educated and stable a Muslim society, the less the risk of Islamic militancy. As we will see across the two volumes, the civilizational approach, with its emphasis on a more humanistic reading of Islam while remaining loyal to its legal framework, is developing more visibly within Turkey (which despite growing critiques of Erdoğan’s style of governance has made more visible gains towards consolidation of electoral democracy than the other three contexts mapped) and within the more affluent Muslim diaspora communities in the West (see Volume 2). Rigid orthodoxy is best preserved in contexts of low socio-economic prosperity, or where Muslims are politically marginalized, whether through state authoritarianism or due to minority status. The evidence presented in the two volumes suggests that the more politically stable and economically prosperous they are, the more Muslim societies become confident of their Islamic identity, and confident of Islam’s ability to contribute to modernity instead of being threatened by it, thereby reducing the

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appeal of reactionary sentiments. Such findings are consistent with evidence that even when militants implicated in high-profile targets come from well-todo backgrounds, it is the collective failure of their societies, the poverty, state authoritarianism, and lack of hope for societal reforms that is central to their radicalization.45 Similarly, we see how a sense of socio-economic marginalization among Muslims in Europe, especially those growing up in disenfranchised communities, or a sense of fear and political victimization, as experienced by Muslims in India, paves the way toward religious radicalization or textual conservatism, respectively.46 Inevitably, the trends predicted in this volume are contingent upon the socio-economic and political contexts mapped for each institution staying on course. For example, the Turkish economic boom and democratic stability that have been seen under a center-right party47 sympathetic to Islamic values are central to the promise of a revival of the Islamic intellectual tradition in the country, despite the fact that it faces a dearth of traditionally trained Islamic scholars. The confidence that devout Turks, as well as more educated believers around the globe, are starting to develop in Diyanet could be quickly eroded if the Turkish democracy unravels and the military reasserts the former Kemalist agenda. And if the Syrian conflict on the Turkish border continues to fester, it risks reversing these supportive trends within Turkey, with consequences for the proposed trajectory of Islamic scholarship. But, while the specific details of each context may change, what is clear is that the overall context in which these Islamic scholarly platforms have to operate today requires from them much more dynamism if they are to survive. In order to appreciate the importance of this point, all we need to do is map the major transformation in modern Muslim subjectivities.

Modern Muslim Subjectivities: Cross-country Evidence In the introduction to the volume Subjectivity: Ethnographic Investigations, the editors argue: In the many settings in which anthropologists now work, the vagaries of modern life are undoing and remaking people’s lives in new and ominous ways. The subjects of our study struggle with the possibilities and dangers of economic globalization, the threat of endless violence and insecurity, and the new infrastructures and forms of political domination and resistance that lie in the shadows of grand claims of democratization and reform. Once the door to the study of subjectivity is open, anthropology and its practitioners must find new ways to engage particularities of affect, cognition, moral responsibility, and action.48

This summary of the shared challenge that anthropologists face in understanding individual subjectivities in traditional societies, which unlike a few decades ago are today exposed to rapid change due to the forces of globalization, is

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indeed equally applicable to any study of Islamic authority in contemporary Muslim societies. This context of dramatically altered conceptions of right and wrong in this age of global connectivity is in fact the most accurate starting point for understanding the significance of the questions explored in this twovolume project. Globalization has dramatically altered the nature of people’s desires and aspirations, their modes of economic survival, and their moral conception of right and wrong. These changed material conditions and the altered sense of morality, authority, and the good life in turn have a bearing on what social economic and political structures a society may deem desirable; in order to survive, existing authority structures have to be responsive to these changing material conditions, as well as to changing tastes. Religious institutions are no exception; in fact, the pressures that they face are often more severe, given that modern sensibilities lead to the very questioning of the basis of religion.49 Scholarship on Muslim societies, while cognizant of these socio-economic and political shifts within Muslim sensibilities, has nonetheless often presented a highly exaggerated role of religion in these societies. In particular, within the anthropology of Islam, inspired by Talal Asad’s critique of secularism as an ideologically motivated Western colonial project imposed on Muslim societies,50 a number of recent studies have used evidence from within Muslim societies, most noticeably Egypt, to challenge some of the central assumptions of liberal theory, of which secularism is argued to be an essential feature.51 In reality, as this comparative study shows, the experience of Muslim societies in terms of secularization of public imagination and societal institutions is not so very different from what prevails in the West. The colonial period dramatically altered the importance of sharī’ah in shaping popular Muslim imaginaries, as well as the socio-economic and political institutions. Initially, this change of sensibilities, whereby, rather than being the predominant guiding framework, sharī’ah became just one of the many competing frameworks to shape the individual and collective sense of right and wrong, primarily affected the societal elites who were largely educated in Western educational institutions established by the colonizers and who often were direct beneficiaries of colonial rule. It was these socio-political elites, who came to power in the post-colonial context in most Muslim societies, who not surprisingly pushed forward secularism as an ideology.52 Fifty years on, this state-led project of secularism indeed has failed in most Muslim societies; Turkey remains the most prominent example of a state where a concerted push to modernize and Westernize public sensibilities has not resulted in an erosion of faith, but other examples abound across Muslim societies.53 Analysts, however, make a serious mistake when they assume that the failure of the state-led project of secularism can be interpreted as a failure of the secularization thesis or evidence of its irrelevance for Muslim societies. What this volume instead shows is that to understand the future of Islam it is critical to understand how in the last three decades the spread of media and increased access to TV and cable networks, combined with increased access to higher

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education and ease of travel, has overtaken the state-led ideologically charged project of secularism with an organic process of secularization that has seen a dramatic shift in Muslim subjectivities across all classes (not exclusively among the societal elites, which was the case during the colonial period). Consequently, Islam is no longer the dominant framework shaping individual life choices or societal outcomes within Muslim societies. There may still be large turnouts at the Friday prayers across Muslim societies, but, as Charles Taylor has convincingly illustrated, a simplistic division between state and religion, or a decline in levels of religious adherence, are by no means the most effective measures of secularization. Instead, secularization is best measured and understood by mapping the changes in the mode of religious belief and changed social imaginaries within the public. In his influential work, A Secular Age, Charles Taylor has demonstrated the limitations of defining secularization as one of the following two conditions (or assuming an inevitable link between the two): (1) separation of state and church, and (2) decline in religious belief and practice such as church attendance. These in his view are not necessarily the best analytical frameworks within which to understand secularization; he instead argues for studying the actual “conditions of belief”: “The shift to secularity in this sense consists, among other things, of a move from a society where belief in God is unchallenged and indeed, unproblematic, to one in which it is understood to be one option among others, and frequently not the easiest to embrace.” Understanding secularization, in his words, requires close study of “how we got from a society in which it was virtually impossible not to believe in God, to one in which faith, even for the staunchest believer, is one human possibility among others. This is typical of the modern condition . . . We live in a condition where we cannot help looking over our shoulder from time to time, looking sideways, living our faith also in a condition of doubt and uncertainty.”54 And it is at this level that the nature of change within Muslim societies has been dramatic. Muslims’ relationship with their faith across all classes has changed dramatically in the last century. Islam is still important as a spiritual force, but sharī’ah is by no means the dominant framework shaping individual desires or collective societal outcomes in any Muslim society, except arguably in Saudi Arabia, where Qurʾān and sunnah remain the law;55 but, as we will see, even in the context of Saudi Arabia individual aspirations are highly Westernized and globalized. Only a small fraction of Muslims actually adhere to the Islamist or piety movements that argue for strict adherence to highly conservative interpretations of sharī’ah; most instead increasingly focus on observing the basic principles of sharī’ah, often referred to as maqāṣid al-sharī’ah (objectives of the sharī’ah), to find optimal answers to the needs of the time. As we will see in the case of the followers of the two most conservative Islamic movements, Saudi Salafism and Deoband, even the willing followers often are much more discerning of how they apply highly conservative rulings to everyday life practices. Darul Uloom Deoband classifies watching television or use of photography as

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harām (forbidden by Islamic law), but in my own fieldwork I have found that most students and followers do use both these mediums. The changes in Muslim societies akin to those associated with Western modernity are visible in everyday interactions in all areas of social, economic, and political engagement. If we define modernity as “that historically unprecedented amalgam of new practices and institutional forms (science, technology, industrial production, urbanization), of new ways of living (individualism, secularization, instrumental rationality), and of new forms of malaise (alienation, meaninglessness, a sense of impending social dissolution),”56 its encroachment on traditional modes of living and the resulting individualism are equally visible in Muslim societies. Not only are technological advancement, urbanization, and global connectivity a part of the reality of modern Muslim lives, there is a growing recognition of the importance of the self as opposed to the family: joint families are increasingly giving way to nuclear families, there are increasingly vocal voices against any role of religion in the public sphere, and there is increased questioning of religious authority. Further, the resulting consequences of these choices (increased isolation and individualism) are starting to become visible, too. Urbanization is on the rise in most Muslim countries, leading to a rise of mega cities. Western economic and commercial patterns are being copied. Western-style shopping malls, selling Western clothing brands, promoting Western food chains, and featuring advertisements flaunting Western models are a common feature across major cities in Muslim countries. More specifically, the hype we now see created around Valentine’s Day in most Muslim countries, where until only a few years ago it was shunned as a Western idea reflective of secular sensibilities, presents an important example of how Western ideas are increasingly coming to be idealized in most Muslim contexts.57 The same is true about shifts in what are seen as valued modes of relaxation and entertainment. Highly Westernized modes of social entertainment, including cinema attendance, socializing with friends (often in mixed-sex settings) in trendy cafés, or going out partying in groups (for activities such as ten-pin bowling) are replacing old norms of sociability that prioritized social obligations within the extended family network. The most visible shift is in gender dynamics. Extended families are giving way to nuclear families. The birth rate has started to decline in most Muslim country contexts. In my own fieldwork, I have come across a growing number of cases where elderly parents in very affluent families are being left alone, while all their children migrate to Western countries—due not to economic pressures but to a conscious preference for Western lifestyles. Even in Saudi Arabia, which is arguably the most religiously regulated society within the Sunni Muslim world, major societal shifts are visible: Western consumerism has invaded this Muslim country arguably more than any other—the multistory shopping malls surrounding Ka‘bah being one example, as is women’s highly Westernized clothing, worn underneath their ‘abāyah (cloak).

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This change in sensibilities is not confined to the socio-economic sphere but is also visible in the political arena. Popular tolerance for authoritarian regimes is on the decline: the Arab Spring was the best example of this. Starting in 2011, young Egyptian boys and girls from diverse socio-economic and cultural backgrounds came out in Tahrir Square to question established structures of authority and to demand representation and democracy, as did their counterparts in Tunisia, Syria, and other parts of the Arab world. While the immediate outcomes of the Arab Spring have been disillusioning, with the return of authoritarian regimes to positions of power, and outbreaks of civil unrest, the popular protests did show how democracy and participation are an essential feature of modern Muslim subjectivities. The recent pressures on the al-Sisi regime in reaction to its increasingly authoritarian and oppressive practices reaffirm the same.58 Even in Saudi Arabia, the royal family is under pressure to create increasing numbers of consultative platforms to create some semblance of popular representation, if not direct democracy.59 The factors contributing to these shifts in subjectivities are numerous. Most important has been the increase in literacy. While the colonial period introduced Western educational institutions into the Muslim world, it is the post-colonial period that has seen the major spread of Western education to both Muslim men and women as part of the states’ modernization agenda. In particular, the global push for Education for All, starting from the 1970s, made education a primary goal for international development agencies.60 Apart from education, increased access to mass media, cable TV, dish antennae, and the Internet, along with improved communication technology through mobile and Internet connectivity, has had a major impact on people’s values systems. TV is inside every household, and ideas that once were shocking to Muslim sensibilities, such as the example of Valentine’s Day given above, no longer appear so when those ideas are routinely presented in the media as normal, or in many cases are even valorized in the TV soap operas. At the same time, increased ease of travel has played a major role in bridging the cultural gulf across societies. Today, many Muslims travel to the Western world in order to pursue higher education or gain meaningful employment, or simply for the purpose of vacation and tourism. Arjun Appadurai, in his influential work on globalization,61 notes the importance of media and travel in pushing forward the processes of globalization that he personally witnessed in India, starting from the 1970s; the evidence presented in this volume shows that the Muslim world has been no exception. The findings of these two volumes thus fully endorse Eickelman’s emphasis on recognizing how access to higher education and mass communication has affected Muslims’ association with their faith.62 As he argues: “Even when mass higher education is used to sustain old patterns of belief and authority, its very structure engenders new ‘authoritative’ ways of thinking about self, religion, and politics.”63 He further adds, “In short, older styles of understanding religious authority coexist with newer ones.”64 It is true that many of these changes, such as improved access to education and exposure to modern-day technologies, as well as modes of communication,

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are more of an urban phenomenon, but to assume that those in the rural areas remain isolated from modern influences is an exaggeration. TV and the Internet have reached almost all corners of the developing world, as has mobile-phone technology. People in rural areas may have limited access to modern institutions, but the difference in the rural societies of today as compared with those of the past is that there is much more awareness now, even in rural societies, of competing life choices and options, and improved connectivity to the urban areas.65 In my own fieldwork with female Islamic education groups in different country contexts, I have found young women in the rural areas harboring aspirations similar to those of their counterparts in the urban areas, due to the shared influence of TV dramas and cable TV networks.66 The only difference is that girls in rural areas have limited opportunities to pursue these modern desires, compared with those in the urban areas. This increasingly shared change in desires and sensibilities due to the expansive reach of modern media across rural and urban areas is important for understanding the future of these societies and the place of religion within them. In documenting this change, the idea is not to propose an exaggerated notion of change in Muslim societies in recent decades. Indeed, change is an integral part of history; previous generations have had their own major points of departure from the settled past that seemed to usher in an era of profound change. The colonial encounters of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and the decline of Muslim political authority were perhaps one of the periods of most dramatic change. The shock felt by Muslim populations as well as the thinkers of the time is visible in the writings of Muslim intellectuals, ‘ulamā’, and reformist writers from that period. As Qasim Zaman notes: There is much in the fluid and rapidly changing world of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries that the life and career of Rashid Rida and others allow us to glimpse: colonial rule in the Middle East and North Africa; the demise of the Ottoman caliphate, pan-Islamism and its discontents; Salafism, and not least, the flow of people and ideas between South Asia and the Arab Middle East.67

As he further notes, “The second half of the twentieth century and the first years of the twenty-first are at least as momentous. Few lives reflect this better than that of Yusuf al-Qaradawi.”68 These changes, which were part and parcel of the colonial experience, left a lasting impact on the subjectivities of the Muslim elites who took control of their countries at the end of the colonial period. Further, we have enough evidence to illustrate how Muslim scholars of that time were as fixated with understanding “modernity” and comparing it with the Muslim moral code as are scholars of this time. However, the context of changed subjectivities of modern Muslims today, it is argued in this volume, is different in two important ways: the speed of change is much faster and, more importantly, its reach is pervasive, affecting all sections of the society, not only the elites. That the changes confronted today are of a higher magnitude is also asserted in the work of scholars committed

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to making Islamic fiqh and moral ethics inform contemporary socio-economic and political institutions. Referring to the reformist Islamic scholarly tradition, fiqh tajdidiyyah, Tariq Ramadan argues: For many centuries, that method was and remained the best means to advance Islamic legal thought. However, the fields of the human, experimental, and exact sciences have now become so complex, and the acquisition of knowledge has developed to such an extraordinary extent over the past century, that it has become urgent to reconsider the nature of the relationship established by scholars between scriptural sources on the one hand and social and scientific contexts on the other.69

The defining influence of colonial rule in Muslim societies was the marginalization of sharī’ah, and thereby of the scholars who defended the right to interpret it, from socio-political and economic affairs of society. In all contexts, the fiqh related to mu’āmalāt (social affairs) was largely marginalized; the main area of fiqh that remained relevant concerned ‘ibādāt (ritual practices) and personal family law. And, knowing that this is the only area where they were still consulted by the public and the elites, this is what the ‘ulamā’ most emphasized; the focus on preserving inner piety and ‘aqīdah (Islamic creed) became central to the work of Islamic scholarly platforms in this period. Now if the subjectivities are changing due to the penetration of Western value systems within the masses, then the relevance of Islamic authority even in the domain of the family law is under question. Former areas of established consensus within Islamic societies, such as the strict prohibition of homosexuality or cohabitation without marriage, an aversion to mixed-sex socializing, men’s right to have four wives, and women’s restricted inheritance rights, are all today being openly questioned, not only by Western critics but by liberal voices within Muslim societies on public platforms and widely watched TV channels. The resentment shown towards the Muslim Brotherhood by a major section of the Egyptian population, for what was seen as its attempt to impose a rigid reading of sharī’ah, itself bears testimony to how over-restrictive understanding or enforcements of Islamic moral code are no longer seen as acceptable by the majority.70 The duration of Mohamed Morsi’s government (June 30, 2012–July 3, 2013) resulted in the re-centering of al-Azhar in the political arena, which showed how, for the majority of ordinary Egyptians, the maqāṣid al-sharī’ah-style approach, which is closer to the al-Azhari position than a sharī’ah-centric approach that (rightly or wrongly) was attributed to the Muslim Brotherhood,71 was more palatable. Most Muslims today have much more diluted and globalized sensibilities; for them, Islam or sharī’ah is just one of the many dominant frameworks influencing their aspirations, desires, and actions. Recognizing this change in Muslim subjectivities due to processes of material modernization and global cultural connectivity through media and the Internet, it becomes critical to ask the questions addressed in this volume: how

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are the Islamic authority structures responding to these changed subjectivities of modern Muslims, which even call into question the relevance of Islamic personal law (the last preserve of sharī’ah in many Muslim societies)? How bound are these institutions by the weight of tradition, and the specific methodological approaches inherited from the past, when they try to respond to the needs of the time? Further, have the same opportunities and shifts that have changed the subjectivities of the broader public also affected the subjectivities of the scholarly classes, making younger generations of scholars deviate from the practices followed by the older generations? Is there an active dialogue among these competing Islamic authority structures to cope with this changing context, which ultimately poses a risk to the survival of the very faith, or at least the version that they are committed to defend?

Islam and Social Change: The Methodological Challenge If the changing context alters the subjectivities of the Muslim masses, it also affects the subjectivities of the religious classes. It is often assumed that the ‘ulamā’, just because of their commitment to the study of Islamic texts, are impervious to change. Such a reading ignores the simple fact that ‘ulamā’ (or any religious elite) are part of society, and the changes affecting the broader society also affect them. It is due to this that recent scholarly debate on the ‘ulamā’ has come to question their assumed rigidity. Scholars have shown how internal reform (initiated from within the scholarly classes) has been critical to Islamic scholarship.72 Further, this scholarship has also illustrated how internal reform can be as intellectually rigorous as that propelled by external actors such as the modernizing states. Consequently, as Zaman notes, it is often ignored that “Muslims of varied intellectual orientation have long discussed such matters [militancy], and the debates continue, indeed with special vigor, in the aftermath of September 11, 2001. Despite their centrality to any sophisticated understanding of religious and political thought, many crucial dimensions of these debates remain little understood, however.”73 Noting that the complexity of these internal reforms has not been understood, Zaman asks: “what forms have ‘internal criticism’ taken in modern Islam, how does it relate to the specificities of the social, economic, and political context in which it is articulated, and what questions of religious authority are at stake in such criticism?”74 Such internal critique and attempts at reform are not surprising in a religious tradition whose central methodological pillars encourage consultation and consensus building to find answers to new questions that are products of changing times. Ijtihād, qiyās, and ijmā’ (consensus building) are central to ensuring the relevance of classical Islamic scholarship to modern times. Whether developing consensus on these unsettled new questions requires the agreement of the community as a whole or only that of its legal scholars has long been debated; not surprisingly, the scholarly classes traditionally tried to

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confine the use of this right to themselves. Further, again to draw from Zaman, it is important to note that the consensus once developed was absorbed by the community and became part of the local knowledge. This partly was a result of the Prophet Muhammad’s reported statement that the community would not agree on an error that was both widely accepted and influential.75 The fact that the Muslim communities historically were quick to absorb a new-found consensus and then move on is also understandable in the light of basic understandings of Islam that are part of Muslim consciousness across different contexts. These include the Qurʾānic emphasis on Islam being for all times; the claim that it is close to human nature and thereby realistic; the Qurʾānic promise that God has made this religion easy for you; and the requirement that a Muslim should excel in this world as well as the other. In my own fieldwork, I have found these basic conceptions of Islam shared across different Sunni Muslim contexts as they are explicitly addressed in the Qurʾān itself.76 Thus, despite widespread assumptions in Western media and policy circles that Islam is a highly static religion, in reality, for the majority of Muslims, Islam’s ability to adapt and adjust to changing times while respecting the core ethical principles of the Islamic tradition is central to the religion’s appeal. It is therefore very common in Muslim societies to hear how Islam is a logical religion and how it is very close to human nature. The tension within the scholarly tradition has thus not been concerned with the provision for using these tools, but with how to actually use them meaningfully: how to be modern yet be loyal to the core of Islamic belief? How to strike the right balance between the two? How to determine what is fixed and what is changeable in Islam, given that different Islamic authorities can have varying positions? This tension to adapt to the times yet stay loyal to the core of the Islamic tradition has been repeatedly noted in the work of most Islamic scholars, including those leading the institutions under study. And, again, this is not a uniquely modern realization. Looking at the work of the influential twentieth-century Egyptian scholar Rashid Rida, Qasim Zaman similarly notes: “Finding ways of being at once modern and authentically religious was always foremost among Rida’s concerns, and he liked to both shame and inspire his audiences by pointing to non-Muslims as examples of that combination.”77 What the modernist Muslims who are often critical of the scholarly classes fail to recognize is the actual magnitude of the intellectual challenge faced when attempting to find answers from within the tradition that can meet modern challenges. As we will see in this comparative study, the Islamic scholarly platforms considered in the two volumes are struggling to find precisely this balance; their conceptual and methodological approach and the resulting societal implications vary according to the intellectual legacy that they embody and the societal and political context in which they are currently evolving. However, an increasingly influential concept being invoked by many of these platforms is that of fiqh al-wāqi’ (fiqh of realities), which argues for being reasonable and responsive to

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one’s immediate reality. As we will see, this concept is increasingly being used in conjunction with that of maqāṣid al-sharī’ah, by scholars from across diverse institutional and methodological backgrounds. The results from such reasoning are highly successful in blending Islamic dictates with the demands of modern times—and not just in the form of mimicking Western modernity but by meaningfully engaging with it and then coming up with solutions that are distinct but compatible with it. Further, a growing number of Islamic scholars are engaging with the human-rights framework to examine if and how it can fit within an Islamic legal and moral framework.

Measuring Islamic Authority What shapes the nature of Islamic authority is a much-debated topic in the studies of ‘ulamā’ as well as among modern-educated reformers wanting to speak in the name of Islam. Zaman takes religious authority to mean “the aspiration, effort, and ability to shape people’s belief and practice on recognizably ‘religious’ grounds.”78 Authority is different from power in one critical sense: it involves voluntary adherence, as opposed to subjugation by force.79 What enables an individual or institution to win Islamic authority thus is a complex matter, but certain factors are known to be important. First, studies of Islamic authority have repeatedly recognized command over foundational Islamic texts as being central to establishing Islamic authority. The Qurʾān in Arabic, tafsīr compilations by scholars in Arabic, works of prominent scholars from the four Sunni madhhabs, and the six canonical ḥadīth compilations form the core of the foundational texts. The ability to demonstrate a thorough knowledge of these foundational texts does remain the ultimate claim to Islamic authority.80 The intellectual engagement with the texts, familiarity with the method of reasoning, and the historical knowledge of its evolution are critical to establishing this authority. In the Sunni tradition, actual memorization of the Qurʾān and the ability to reference its verses with ease in establishing an argument lends much credibility to the scholar. These foundational texts mainly developed in the first three centuries of Islam within geographical boundaries that are normally referred to as the heartland of Islam; this is the period when the ḥadīth compilations were completed and sharī’ah schools were established,81 and Arabic was enriched and became consolidated as the language of Islam. This corpus of foundational texts is what I like to call Islamic mega scholarly tradition—the core of the Islamic scholarly tradition with which Islamic authority platforms across all geographical settings have to engage. It is the centrality of this mega-tradition to the shaping of Islamic discourse across diverse geographical regions that has ensured that, despite adapting to local culture and practices, certain core Islamic beliefs (belief in God and Muhammad as his last Prophet), ritual obligations (such as the five obligatory prayers and fasting), and moral ethics (the

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emphasis on justice) remain recognizable across different sites of the Sunni Muslim world.82 It is again the presence of this Islamic mega scholarly tradition that ensures that the command of the Arabic language (spoken, written, and comprehension) remains critical to winning religious credibility across geographically diverse Muslim communities. Developing the desired levels of Arabic fluency in different geographical and linguistic settings, however, remains a challenge not just for the scholars but more so for ordinary Muslims, giving rise to a dense corpus of Islamic texts in vernacular languages. This vernacular literature in turn has its own hierarchy and has developed its own reference points, landmark texts, and influential scholars. The South Asian or Turkish Islamic literature, for example, has its own clear hierarchy of canonical works written by influential scholars, often having a reach beyond their local communities and being part of transnational Islamic scholarly networks even in early generations. This is what I will refer to as Islamic meta scholarly traditions. The prominent scholars or those who produced the foundational texts for these meta-level traditions often also wrote in Arabic, thus helping to establish their credibility among Arabic-speaking scholars.83 In day-to-day working, however, they primarily engage with the vernacular texts. For example, within the Deobandi tradition in South Asia, even the most reputed scholars, such as Taqi Usmani in Pakistan, demonstrate their scholarly expertise to their followers by drawing on the canonical texts from within their immediate tradition. The same holds true for the rich Islamic scholarly literature in Turkish that remains the primary reference point for scholars in everyday debates within the theology departments. Even in Turkey, however, the most esteemed scholars are those who can demonstrate the ability to engage meaningfully with the mega tradition in Arabic. It is the dearth of such scholars, due to the elimination of the madrasah system, which makes some senior Turkish scholars lament the loss of the traditional Islamic scholarly rigor under the Kemalist regime. This existence of strong geographically located Islamic scholarly traditions, which connect to the same foundation texts but have over the centuries developed rich vernacular Islamic scholarly traditions of their own, often in response to local socio-economic and political realities, has contributed to the entrenching of competing Islamic authority structures across different sites. Here it may also be appropriate to acknowledge how a rich scholarly tradition in the vernacular language (of orthodox as well as reformist bent) has evolved within East Asia, especially in Malaysia and Indonesia.84 The reason why no institutional platform from this region is included in this volume is that East Asia is a good example of the absorption of al-Azhari influence and in recent years of the Islamic University of Medina, too;85 unlike South Asia, it did not develop a globally influential movement of its own, such as Deoband. In addition to demonstrating knowledge of the classical texts and Arabic language, the second important prerequisite for the acquisition of Islamic authority

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is the scholar’s moral authority. In forging this relationship, the scholar’s way of life, as reflected in his or her adab (Islamic norms of behavior), uprightness, and conduct on material matters, becomes very important. The persona of the Prophet and his sunnah become the model against which the scholar is judged; in the spirit of the Prophet’s tradition, the scholar is expected to live by what he teaches. This means that certain aspects of the Prophet’s life have become central to shaping the credibility of an Islamic scholar in the society. Central to these features are living a simple life (shunning excessive material indulgences), being truthful, being honest, and standing up to injustices. I have repeatedly found similar references and conceptions of the Prophet’s sunnah invoked across the different social contexts in which I have done fieldwork over the years. Central to this is also an understanding that the scholar must maintain a distance from political authority. As we will see in this volume, the idealized notion of morality expected from the scholar in terms of piety, honesty, distance from material greed or power, and fearlessness still plays a critical role in shaping the popular legitimacy of a given Islamic authority platform. Interestingly, we will see in Volume 2 how this particular aspect of authority is very important for the legitimization of some of the new platforms gaining popularity in the West; the embodiment of Islamic virtues and ethics is very central to their leaders’ claim to authority. The above two are frequently acknowledged sources of Islamic authority. Traditionally, there was also a third critical dimension of Islamic authority: a scholar’s ability to relate to the realities of the time. Traditionally Islamic scholars had to demonstrate their authority over and knowledge of the modern world as much as their knowledge of the Islamic spiritual and legal sciences in order to gain respect.86 This mixed knowledge base was the product of two structural factors of the organization of Muslims societies: one, since sharī’ah was the dominant frame of reference, the state and society made demands on the Islamic scholarly classes to provide answers to socio-economic and political challenges of the time; two, Islamic knowledge was not seen as a profession and many jurists often followed other professions actively. The result of these dimensions of the organization of pre-colonial Muslim societies was that the scholars were often well-versed in the Islamic as well as other sciences and also had direct knowledge of the realities of the field.87 The key shift during the colonial period was that Islamic scholarly platforms lost their socio-economic and political relevance and Western educational institutions replaced them. This in the long term resulted in lowering of public expectations that the ‘ulamā’ should demonstrate knowledge of the modern sciences and the technical realities of the field such as economics, banking, and science. Before, Islamic legal and moral debates were expected to have relevance for all areas of Muslim societies; today, for most Muslims these debates are confined largely to issues of personal piety and observance of rituals. Even when they are state-funded, such as al-Azhar, Diyanet, and the Saudi religious establishment, the influence of

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Islamic scholarly platforms is primarily confined to issues of personal piety, while the state controls debates on modern political and economic issues. This holds true not just for those Muslim-majority countries such as Turkey and Egypt that adopted Western constitutions, but also for a state like Saudi Arabia, which declares the Qurʾān and sunnah as its constitution: ‘ulamā’ leave the economic and political debates clearly in the hands of the royal family (see Chapter 4).88 As we will see, especially in Volume 2, the noteworthy shift today is that young, educated Muslims in the West as well as in the Muslim-majority countries are recreating pressure on Islamic scholars to demonstrate expertise in both Islamic and modern sciences. The scholars leading new Islamic scholarly initiatives in the West, and in countries such as Turkey (see Chapter 10), are thus showing an ability to engage with Islamic as well as modern sciences. Further, they come from the same socio-economic background as their followers. They thus have what has been referred to as, in literature on types of knowledge, tacit knowledge (a form of knowledge that can only be acquired through experiencing something first hand).89 The importance of tacit knowledge and why it is central to understanding the appeal of these new Islamic scholarly initiatives emerging in the West to young, educated Muslims will be explained in detail in the Introduction to Volume 2. When we compare the four institutions under study, al-Azhar, Deoband, and Saudi Salafism emerge strongest in the study of the foundational texts. AlAzhar comes out the strongest in its rigor and ability to combine knowledge of the modern realities with the traditional texts; it is also closest to the classical Islamic learning tradition. Deobandis and the Saudi Salafis suffer in the eyes of many Muslims because of their inability to demonstrate expertise in the modern sciences, their perceived intolerance of arts and aesthetics, and their refusal to acknowledge the changing realities of modern times. The Turkish tradition in the twentieth century suffered the most in terms of its ability to nurture scholars with a sound knowledge of the foundational texts. However, it is also the one best placed to meet the expectations of modern, educated progressive Muslim youth, who demand that the scholar develops a knowledge of the modern sciences, should be open to arts and aesthetics, and must be willing to reason and adapt in the face of modern-day reality. It is because here and in the West, the Islamic scholars are financially well placed in comparison to the other contexts being studied, the historical focus on the philosophical and mystical aspects of the Islamic sciences is strong, and the state is operating under a democratic framework. Ultimately, one of the important arguments of these two volumes is that we need to recognize that the boundaries of what are considered legitimate limits of reform are actually defined not by the scholar, although that is what is often assumed, but by the public. It is actually the public consensus that shapes the limits to which the scholarly classes can deviate from the established consensus inherited from the previous generations. Fazlur Rahman, the influential Islamic reformist scholar from Pakistan who held a chair at the University of

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Dimension

Textual knowledge of Islamic Sciences and command over Arabic

Moral authority

Knowledge of everyday social reality

No.

1.

2.

3. Knowledge of other scientific and professional fields so that the Islamic law can relate to changing needs of the time

Living by Prophetic standards

Command over Classical Arabic texts

Revered level

Table I.2 Core dimensions of Islamic authority

Knowledge of changing social reality

At least not being visibly corrupt or power hungry

Command over vernacular Islamic texts

Acceptable level

It is this dimension of Islamic authority that was most compromised during the colonial period; traditionally, al-Azhari ‘ulamā’and Ottoman ‘ulamā’ best demonstrated this ability

Across all time periods

Across all time periods

Centrality to Islamic tradition

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Chicago, points toward this to indicate the challenges to Islamic reform. Arguing that a scholar has to be very dynamic in order to initiate religious reform that goes against the established consensus, he notes how reformist interpretations run the risk of a scholar losing legitimacy among the masses.90 Such a view will support the theory that secularism follows secularization, instead of the relationship operating the other way around.91 Public subjectivities have to change before religious authority platforms will change or reform dramatically. This was the experience in the West.92 In the case of Muslim societies, on the other hand, the project of secularism was imported by colonial rulers and pushed by post-colonial Westernized elites through the state machinery, but the public social imaginaries were not ready for that shift, as the actual processes of modernization (especially those related to new patterns of production and accumulation) had not touched the majority of the public. It is little wonder that it failed. However, in the first quarter of the twenty-first century, when the subjectivities of young Muslims are changing due to the organic process of globalization whereby media and modern communications technology have effectively spread Western consumer culture and more liberal social norms, the limits of acceptable reforms within religious thought are changing, too. It is this bottom–up rather than top–down understanding of who shapes the limits of reform, the scholar or the public, that is critical to explaining why the turn of the twenty-first century has put particularly intense pressure on Islamic scholars to adjust to change. To understand the evolving debates within the Islamic scholarly platforms, it is thus important to understand the shifting consensus within the Muslim public about what role religion should play in shaping social imaginaries or influencing how society should be organized. It is this that ultimately helps to explain why the state-led project of modernization and secularism could not develop roots in most Muslim countries (Egypt, Turkey, and Pakistan, to name a few)—while the changing subjectivities of young Muslims due to organic processes of globalization are making secularization (changed Muslim social imaginaries of collective life) a reality in these very countries.

Relating Islamic Law: Conceptual and Methodological Tools A close study of the ongoing debates among scholars within the four institutions under study reveals two dominant methodological approaches popular among those in favour of systematically adapting Islamic law to modern reality by placing emphasis on the underlying concept of ijtihād. The first approach is keen to advance the traditional fiqh scholarship while the other develops a new language of fiqh by relating Islamic moral, legal, and philosophical concepts to Western conceptual frameworks. Further, we also find evidence of selective pragmatism, especially on matters to do with

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economics and commerce, even within traditions that are otherwise resistant to change.

Model 1: Working within the Traditional Fiqh Framework Among traditionally trained scholars, three concepts are most in vogue today to argue for adjusting Islamic moral and legal framework to modern realities: fiqh al-wāqi’, maqāṣid al-sharī’ah, and maṣlaḥah. Primarily developed by scholars from within the al-Azhari tradition, the specific methodological tools of reasoning being developed under these conceptual frameworks have had a wide appeal. Yusuf al-Qaradawi, Ali Gomaa, and Bin Bayyah, who has been made popular in the West by Humza Yusuf, have made a significant contribution to advancing the concept of fiqh al-wāqi. Further, as we will see in Chapter 6, these conceptual debates are also being referenced by progressive scholars within the Saudi Salafi sphere to argue for greater individual freedoms. Wāqi’ literally means reality, and in terms of Islamic legal theory it refers to the lived realities of Muslims in the contemporary context. The concept of wāqi’ requires an appreciation of how the modern context differs from the context in which the revelation was revealed. It allows for the development of new hermeneutical categories and approaches that enable reform in Islamic law. The concept of wāqi’ has also been very influential in the development of a new genre of fiqh labeled fiqh al-aqalliyyāt, the jurisprudence of minorities, that has allowed for adaption of many Islamic principles to make it easier for Western Muslims to cope with their immediate context. Qaradawi maintains that there is a broad range of issues that impact wāqi’ (the reality). Privileging reasoning over literal understanding of the text and ijtiḥād over taqlīd, he argues for acknowledging that exceptional circumstances (ḍarurāṭ) occur in people’s lives, that religious rulings change according to time and place, and that religious laws should be implemented gradually. Bin Bayyah similarly argues for taḥqīq al-manāṭ (refinement of the cause) to closely analyze the text in order to understand the reason that a ruling was decreed in order to apply that reason to the new context of today. Supporting similar reasoning, Gomaa argues that we understand Islamic law (fiqh) through the traditional literature, namely the Qurʾān and sunnah. Yet, the process of deriving a ruling (iftā’) requires an additional step that requires understanding the realities of the time (wāqi’). The important contribution of the scholars in this tradition is that they are taking a more expansive notion of ijtihād whereby they are willing to apply these tools not just to find answers to questions where there were no earlier rulings in Islamic law but they are also willing to change rulings that already exist. These scholars’ justification of the above approach rests in the Islamic concept of maṣlaḥa (the common good), which requires that unlike the ritual

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practices (‘ibādāt), transactions (mu’āmalāt) such as marriage, leasing, and sales are meant to serve the utility and common interest (maṣlaḥa) of the Muslim community and thus are more amenable to change based on circumstances. Together the concepts of wāqi’ and maṣlaḥa enables these scholars to simultaneously stay committed to the textual sources while arguing for reform. In terms of seeking answers to specific questions, the concept of maqāṣid al-sharī’ah that enables a scholar to focus on the principles of sharī’ah as opposed to being tied to specific legal rulings from the past fits naturally with these two concepts. The three concepts together thus form a very popular toolkit in the hands of scholars trying to provide deeper conceptual scaffolding for defending change within the Islamic legal tradition. Model 2: Developing a New Language of Fiqh Among scholars trained in the Western-based university system, a popular method to relate Islamic law to contemporary needs is to compare complex legal, moral, or philosophical concepts from Islamic scholarly tradition with the dominant conceptual debates in the West. In this volume, the Turkish scholarly tradition is most actively developing this line of scholarship; in Volume 2, however, we will see that within the new Islamic scholarly platforms emerging in the West, this is in fact the most popular approach. This methodological approach requires the scholar to show command of both the Islamic and the Western philosophical traditions in order to make meaningful comparison between the two. The method makes the Islamic moral and legal framework accessible to modern educated Muslims, who have limited knowledge of traditional fiqh debates. By relating these concepts with dominant frameworks shaping contemporary societies, such as the concept of human rights, these scholars show how the Islamic tradition can rival and in fact enrich such moral or legal concepts attributed to Western humanism or the Enlightenment tradition. Recep Şentürk’s work, analyzed in Chapter 12, is illustrative of the appeal of such a scholarship among young, universityeducated Muslims. Among other topics, he has written extensively about the methodology of fiqh as a science by comparing it with modern social sciences. Referring to fiqh as an open science, which unlike the social sciences does not divide human experiences into narrow fields, Şentürk enables young, university-educated Muslims to think of fiqh in relation to other sciences as opposed to thinking of it in isolation. Scholars like him thus try to act as the bridge between the traditional fiqh literature and the modern sciences and thereby end up developing a new language of fiqh that may have limited traction within traditionally trained ‘ulamā’ but that is more easily relatable for young, university-educated Muslims. Rather than producing dense fiqh texts on a given issue, such as one would expect from scholars such as Yusuf al-Qaradawi or Bin Bayyah, scholars like Şentürk draw their followers because of their ability to develop meaningful synergy between Islamic and modern sciences. As we will see in Volume

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2, this is precisely how most new Islamic scholarly platforms emerging in the West are building their discourse. Model 3: Selective Pragmatism As opposed to the openness of the above two approaches to relate the Islamic legal and moral framework to the realities of the time, there is resistance among the Deobandi and official Saudi Salafi establishment to accept wide-scale social change. Muhammad Taqi Usmani, one of the most influential Deobandi scholars on the global stage today, for example, when writing about the principles of deriving fatwās (uṣūl al-iftā), limits not only the ways that a scholar or muftī can bring about change in Islamic law, but also limits the cases in which change is applicable. For Usmani, if one were to work outside of this taqlīd framework, one would lose the benefits that the tradition of the madhhab provides. Moreover, his approach to textualism limits the role of rational reasoning within Islamic law. He is thus quite critical of those who try to use maqāsid (objectives) and maṣlaḥah (expediency) in order to understand the spirit of the law. It is thus not surprising that leading Deobandi ‘ulamā’ as well as the prominent Deobandi madrasahs still continue to issue fatwās that show a strong disconnect to reality. For instance, women are told to forego formal education if that entails attending a co-educational institution (see Chapter 9). Such a position is deemed unrealistic by many because barring a few exceptions all higher education institutions in South Asia are co-educational. It is almost impossible for a Muslim woman in South Asia to pursue a master’s degree without having to enter a co-educational institution. Given that many Muslim women do join these co-educational institutions, it means that either none of these women belong to the Deoband tradition or else they choose to ignore Deobandi fatwās on this subject. Compared to this Deobandi rigidity, the two approaches outlined above instead prefer to focus on how both genders should behave when studying in co-educational institutions given that this is the modern social reality. However, we do see that even within the Deoband tradition despite this unwillingness to accept changed social reality, there is willingness to be adaptive on matters of economic expediency. Taqi Usmani himself is an advisor to many Islamic banks on the development of new Islamic financial instruments and in this area has shown a great deal of flexibility in interpreting the traditional fiqhi positions (see Chapter 9). Thus, comparing the discourses across the four platforms, it is clear that there are pressures on the scholars to respond to change. The degree of responsive, however, varies. The Secular Age and Muslim Exceptionalism It is finally time to connect the foregoing analysis to debates on secularization and Muslim societies. Literature on secularization and Muslim societies often ends up presenting the two as inherently resistant to each other. Interestingly,

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such assertions come from scholars with opposing ideological positions: those for whom secularization represents the ultimate achievement of modernity and a universally desirable project, and those whose scholarship is dedicated to establishing modernity as a hegemonic Western colonial project. Bernard Lewis and Samuel Huntington have both advanced influential arguments about Islam being inherently incompatible with Western liberal norms;93 others have tried to nuance such arguments by arguing that it is not Islam but Islamism (the political project), which in itself is a reaction to modernity, that is failing to absorb secularism. Such studies view secularism as a positive normative framework with universal relevance. It is not surprising that among anthropologists, inspired by the legacy of Foucauldian critiques of power, there is a tendency to critique such accounts of secularism on the grounds that it is a Western reality, being imposed through Western scholarship as well as colonial history on the other contexts. As Humeria Iqtidar notes, it is considered to be “particularly problematic in studying societies that are markedly different from the contexts in which these concepts took initial shape.”94 The most sophisticated of such critiques of secularism has come from Talal Asad, and the extension of this critique by its application to Muslim societies has today become an influential intellectual project, especially in American anthropology of Islam: the works of Saba Mahmood, Charles Hirschkind, and Hussein Agrama are obvious examples.95 Geared primarily toward critiquing the foundational assumptions of secularism and liberal theory, which expects decline in religious observance to be a natural progression for all societies, these authors have ended up presenting a highly ethical and pietistic image of Muslim societies. Based on fieldwork with specific Islamic groups, whose members represent a small fraction of the total population, these studies have ended up promoting an image of Muslim societies as being “deeply religious”96—and thereby an exception to the processes of secularization. In reality, however, the subjectivities of ordinary Muslims are in flux and are increasingly aligned to a global, largely Western culture, instead of demonstrating a stringent commitment to Islamic moral or legal codes; further, what is viewed as the authentic Islamic tradition is debated vigorously even among members of the same Islamic movements. As opposed to the above strand of scholarship, Charles Taylor’s conceptualization of secularization yields a much more accurate understanding of the reality in Muslim societies. Instead of focusing on a critique of secularism as a Western hegemonic project, Charles Taylor is concerned with studying the condition of belief and “the ways in which people imagine their social existence, how they fit together with others, how things go on between them and their fellows, the expectations that are normally met, and the deeper normative notions and images that underlie these expectations.”97 Taylor argues: “The social imaginary is that common understanding that makes possible common practices and a widely shared sense of legitimacy;”98 he defines Western modernity as a new conception of the moral order of society, where consensus

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is shaped by deliberation, irrespective of religious or other differences. Initially an idea in the minds of some influential thinkers, it gradually “came to shape the social imaginary of large strata, and then eventually whole societies.”99 It is his contention that this new moral order could not have become the dominant view in our culture without this penetration and transformation of our imaginary; this, he argues, was made possible as a result of the development of certain social forms that characterize Western modernity: the market economy, the public sphere, and the self-governing people, among others. What these two volumes capture is precisely this shift in Muslim social imaginaries in response to processes of economic modernization, whereby Islam or sharī’ah is no longer the dominant framework shaping individual desires, aspirations, or actions. Highly conservative or literalist readings of Islam no longer shape the dominant social imaginary; instead, evidence suggests that the majority of Muslims are actively resistant to any attempts at the strict imposition of sharī’ah .100 This is not to deny the existence of orthodox platforms within Muslim societies, or their attempt to spread their worldview, but to highlight how they are often given disproportionate attention in Western scholarship. The move toward secularization has been strong, and the real question in fact is: does this secularization of modern Muslim social imaginaries imply an end of faith? The answer that this volume offers is No. Secularization has not led to the erosion of religion even in the West (demonstrating the failure of extreme secularization theses), and the chances of such an outcome are even more remote in Muslim societies. There are two reasons for the latter: the fact that they have Western experience ahead of them, and the fact that Islam lays greater claims to textual fixity and authenticity than Christianity.101 Just as Charles Taylor has argued that the secularization of belief in the West has not led to the demise of religion but to a greater degree of creativity within it,102 what we will see in these two volumes is evidence of precisely the same kind of creative and pluralistic responses coming from Muslim societies, especially from those countries, communities, and diaspora Muslim communities that have higher levels of material prosperity. What we are seeing is not an absolute decline in religion, although some even within Muslim societies are defecting to atheist camps,103 but an increased focus on a relatively relaxed reading of Islam, with an emphasis not just on piety, material achievement, or military might but equally on artistic, aesthetic, and spiritual dimensions. Taylor notes how the younger generations in the West have started to feel the sense of isolation that results from these processes of modernization and for some leads to a return to religion: In societies where the general equilibrium point is firmly within immanence, where many people even have trouble understanding how a sane person could believe in God, the dominant secularization narrative, which tends to blame our religious past for many of the woes of our world, will become less plausible over time . . .

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At the same time, this heavy concentration of the atmosphere of immanence will intensify a sense of living in a “waste land” for subsequent generations, and many young people will begin again to explore beyond the boundaries.104

In the same way, among educated Muslims around the globe, globalization, while spreading Western values, has also brought greater awareness and experience of the resulting isolation experienced by many in the West, making them question its desirability. To quote from Taylor again: Running through all these attacks is the spectre of meaninglessness; that as a result of the denial of transcendence, of heroism, of deep feeling, we are left with a view of human life which is empty, cannot inspire commitment, offers nothing really worth while, cannot answer the craving for goals we can dedicate ourselves to. Human happiness can only inspire us when we have to fight against the forces which are destroying it; but once realized, it will inspire nothing but ennui, a cosmic yawn.105

Muslim societies are likely to experience greater degrees of secularization in the coming years, but they are unlikely to become a replica of Western modernity; instead we are likely to see the arguments for multiple modernities well supported. In shaping these alternative modernities, my interviews suggest, the conviction that the Qurʾān is the untouched word of God plays an important role. This conviction helps to ensure a certain consensus on things that must not be changed. The continued resistance within Muslim societies to the sexual liberty that is today central to Western conceptions of human freedom and bodily autonomy, despite economic modernization and resulting changes in gender roles in these societies, is a good example of the centrality of the Qurʾān in ensuring that even when Muslim societies secularize they are unlikely to follow the exact path followed by the West. Since sexual liberty is firmly denied within the Qurʾān itself, even with changing Muslim subjectivities major reinterpretations of such fundamental rulings in Islam (and consequent changes in the importance of the family structure) are unlikely. Other factors also are helping Muslim youth to think of alternative ways of being modern. The negative publicity that Islam has received since September 11 has, in my experience, motivated many young Muslims to pursue serious study of Islam (which they would not have otherwise undertaken) in order to better respond to criticisms of their faith. This increased involvement of modern-educated Muslims with the study of Islamic texts has energized the religious debates about how to be modern and yet remain loyal to the tradition. Lastly, the increasing distance from the years of colonial rule is also gradually weakening the influence of the colonial legacy, giving some Muslims more confidence in themselves and their tradition.

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It is the contention of this volume that the more economic prosperity the Muslim societies experience, the more we will see a secularization of public sensibilities, but combined with a confidence that to be modern does not mean mimicking the West. This link between economic modernization and secularization of tastes is established not just by mapping the economic conditions of each Islamic scholarly platform studied in this volume, but also by monitoring the variations within the Muslim diaspora communities in the West: most dynamic scholarly platforms are emerging in the United States, where affluent members of the Muslim diaspora can patronize them; Deoband, which as we will see is proving more resistant to change, is on the other hand thriving in the Muslim-concentrated neighborhoods in the United Kingdom where the Muslim diaspora community is still often economically and socially marginalized.106 It is therefore important to recognize that studies that consciously draw on specific Islamic movements or phenomena in Muslim societies to advance a critique of secularism and the underlying liberal framework, with its related notions of agency and creativity, often end up placing an artificial wedge between them and Western societies. More importantly, they end up denying the Islamic tradition access to the creativity and agency that for modern Muslims holds promise of a vibrant future. Instead, these studies end up promoting a picture of deeply religious Muslim societies, where commitment to faith trumps all other commitments, for which there is little actual evidence. The result is that the only form of agency that such studies find in Islamic movements is one that reinforces “nonliberal” movements;107 and the only scholarly ability that they can find within leading Islamic scholarly platforms (including al-Azhar) is a passive one capable only of mimicking the past, instead of being confident to find creative new answers.108 Paradoxically, while keen to advance Talal Asad’s claim that there is no one objective past, these studies in reality end up reinforcing the understanding that for believing Muslims the conservative readings of Islam present the only authentic Islam;109 they also end up presenting authentic Islamic tradition as capable simply of replicating the past, ignoring its ability to meet tough knowledge standards, undertake fresh reasoning, and produce new answers. Presenting such an image of Muslim societies and institutions (as Agrama, for instance, does for al-Azhar) not only runs totally against the very essence of the al-Azhari scholarly tradition,110 which is highly conscious of the need for creativity and intellectual energy to meet the demands of the time, but it also demonstrates a serious neglect of Islamic history. The very rise of Islamic civilization is nothing but a story of the application of dynamic creative human agency within the framework of a tightly defined basic moral code, but one whose application had inbuilt flexibility to adapt to the specificities of the local contexts.111 To deny any creative energy to Islamic scholarly tradition just because one’s theoretical interests rest in critiquing the emphasis on creativity within the liberal tradition,112 and to deny Muslim women any forward-looking agency (as Mahmood does by focusing on their very conservative

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reading of the text), merely to critique the notion of feminist agency, reflects insincerity with respect to the subject of inquiry. The reality is that if modern-educated Muslims are proud of Islam, and in many contexts are even more proud of it than of their national identity, it is for the creative energy that they associate with the Muslim tradition that led to the rise of a distinct Islamic civilization. Muslims talk about the appeal of Islamic theology, but equally of the Islamic civilization that Islamic beliefs were able to inspire. It is the contention of this volume that it is this dynamic creative energy, which was influential at many points in early Islamic history, that is today most successful in capturing the modern Muslim social imaginaries; the static notions of female piety presented by Mahmood, and the equating of “creativity” with “deception” by Agrama, holds true for very small pockets (and often from socio-economically marginalized sections) within Muslim society.113

The Structure of the Book The starting premise of this comparative project was that to understand the evolution of contemporary Islamic thought we must be cognizant of the historical evolution of each dominant Islamic scholarly tradition, as well as its current political economy. Looking at these institutions without considering their historical evolution limits the ability to see them in their entirety, and thereby the ability to predict their future evolution or to understand how the specific positions were influenced by the historically shaped socio-economic context and the nature of the relationship between a given institution and the political authority. Similarly, reading the work of contemporary scholars within these institutions without mapping the socio-economic and political context in which these contemporary debates are being shaped severely limits an understanding of how religious discourse is shaped. This volume thus is divided into four parts; each part is dedicated to one institution and comprises three chapters. The first chapter in each part maps the current relationship of that institution with the state and the society. These chapters primarily draw on interviews and observational data gathered from 2014 to 2016. Except for the Saudi religious establishment, the other three institutions covered in this volume have, however, been part of my previous studies, thus in reality enabling me to draw on interviews and observations stretching over a much longer period. The second chapter in each part traces the evolution of the intellectual milieu in which that institution had its birth and gradually evolved. These historical chapters are unique in the sense that they map the conditions at the time of origin and not just the recent past; this emphasis on tracing the evolution over time means that the chapters draw on secondary sources, instead of engaging with primary references. A difficult compromise had to be made, but one that was inevitable, given that the analytical justification for including a

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historical dimension to this comparative project necessitated tracing developments over a number of centuries. These historical chapters thus trace how the intellectual and methodological approaches inherited and developed by each of the four institutions, although grounded in certain foundational principles, which have indeed shown remarkable tenacity, were also equally a product of the societal context, economic conditions, and nature of state patronage that each received. The starting point of the historical analysis was not the birth of the institution, but the preceding intellectual and educational context that led the way to its genesis. These historical chapters thus give the reader a rare insight into the conditions that led to the birth and evolution of these leading Islamic scholarly platforms, whose large following today is simply taken as a given. The questions that these historical chapters hope to answer are thereby complex. What were the traditional platforms for Islamic learning in that society, and what prompted the birth of that institution, and when and how? What domestic, regional, or geopolitical developments led to the strengthening of that institution over time, enabling it to outshine other competing scholarly institutions and establishing its credentials as the center of Islamic authority domestically and eventually transcending to the global level? When a specific intellectual tradition and methodological approach became embedded in that institution, to what extent was the choice shaped by dictates of the ruling empire rather than by the intellectual interests of the scholarly classes? What are the conditions that led to the popularity of rationalist and philosophical approaches to the study of Islam in two of the institutions under study, while promoting a heavily textual approach in the other two? The historical chapter in each part is devoted to understanding these critical questions, requiring a broad-based historical analysis, which is often ignored in more contemporary studies that more often than not focus on study of reforms within these institutions during the colonial and post-colonial period. The third chapter in each section in turn focuses on the actual substance of the debates taking place within these competing scholarly platforms, and the methodological tools being developed to justify either adaptation or resistance to change. The questions that these chapters address are thus at the heart of the debate about Islam and modernity: what tools of methodological reasoning do scholars within these institutions employ to talk about modernity or social change? How aware or willing are they to acknowledge the rapidly changing social contexts in which their followers find themselves? What specific responses do they give to questions that are arguably a unique product of the modern secular age? What are the real-life implications of these debates for the way in which their followers live their lives and how they deal with plurality, secularism, and Western hegemony on global culture? These chapters are so structured that they first outline the key methodological tools being used by scholars to defend or resist adaptability within the Islamic law to deal with societal change, and then draw on specific thematic debates to show what specific implications those methods have for the real-life choices of their

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followers. Examples are taken particularly from the fields of politics, gender, economy, science, arts, and aesthetics. Methodologically, the main challenge in undertaking these institutionallevel analyses rested in the selection of scholars who could be argued to represent the dominant approach within a given scholarly tradition; each scholarly tradition is pluralistic in its own right. The chapters have thus focused on writings of those scholars from each institution who are known to be respected among their peers and have a significant following among members of the public. In addition, wherever possible, institutional positions have been mapped by looking at institutional-level fatwās as they represent the official position of that institution. Unlike the historical chapters, these chapters draw on primary sources, namely books written by scholars whose work is being studied, individual and institutional fatwās, and lectures and speeches available online as YouTube videos. Each part thus opens by situating the institution under study in its sociopolitical and economic context, to help the reader understand the reality in which it operates and to which its scholars have to relate. The next chapter then allows the reader an opportunity to step back and understand how the given institution arrived at this point in the first place. In the final chapter, the reader gets to understand the specific tools of methodological reasoning that are currently evolving in that institution, and the real-life consequences of that mode of reasoning for the Muslims who follow that authority. While this volume focuses on the four Islamic scholarly platforms that have historically been most influential across the globe, Volume 2 answers the same questions with regard to the new Islamic scholarly platforms emerging in the West. Most importantly, it shows how what once was unthinkable is today quite plausible: in the coming decades, many influential Islamic authority platforms may actually be based in the Western hemisphere, eclipsing the power of the institutions covered in this volume. Islamic authority is certainly in a state of flux.

Notes 1. David A. Graham, “What’s the Matter with Belgium?,” The Atlantic, November 17, 2015, accessed August 12, 2016, http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/11/belgium-radical-islam-jihad-molenbeek-isis/416235/; Nick Thompson, “A Tale of Two Brussels,” CNN, March 26, 2016, accessed June 23, 2016, http://www.cnn.com/2016/03/25/world/tale-of-two-brussels/ index.html; Robert S. Leiken, “Europe’s Angry Muslims,” Foreign Affairs, July/ August 2005, accessed August 12, 2016, http://www.cfr.org/religion/europesangry-muslims/p8218. 2. For a review of the assumed tensions between Islam and democracy see John L. Esposito and John O. Voll, Islam and Democracy (New York–Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996); John Anderson, “Does God Matter, and if so Whose God? Religion and Democratization,” Democratization 11 (2004), 192–217; “Islamic and Democracy: Uneasy Companions,” The Economist, August 6, 2011, accessed

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3.

4. 5.

6. 7.

8. 9.

10.

11.

12. 13.

14.

15.

16.

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August 12, 2016, http://www.economist.com/node/21525410. On the economic backwardness of contemporary Muslim societies see Timur Kuran, The Long Divergence: How Islamic Law Held Back the Middle East (Princeton–Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2012). On Islam and purported restrictions on female agency, see Fatima Mernissi, The Veil and the Male Elite: A Feminist Interpretation of Women’s Rights in Islam (Reading: Perseus Books, 1992). North defines the institutional matrix as “consist[ing] of an interdependent web of institutions and consequent political and economic organizations that are characterized by massive increasing returns.” Douglass C. North, “Institutions,” The Journal of Economic Perspectives 5 (1991), 97–112 at 109. Wael B. Hallaq, Sharī’a: Theory, Practice, Transformations (Cambridge–New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009). Masooda Bano, The Rational Believer: Choices and Decisions in the Madrasas of Pakistan (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2012), esp. ch. 8, 176–203. For a broader analysis of individual motivations to join jihad, see Diego Gambetta and Steffen Hertog, Engineers of Jihad: The Curious Connection between Violent Extremism and Education (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2016). George Makdisi, “Scholasticism and Humanism in Classical Islam and the Christian West,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 109 (1989), 175–82. Scholarly platforms representing Shīʿite Islam (estimated to have following within 20 to 25 per cent of the global Muslim population) are not covered in this volume; “Shīʿite,” Encyclopaedia Britannica Online, accessed August 11, 2016, https:// www.britannica.com/topic/Shiite. Francis Robinson, Islam and Muslim History in South Asia (Delhi–Oxford: Oxford University Press India, 2003). Marshall G. S. Hodgson, The Venture of Islam: The Classical Age of Islam: Conscience and History in a World Civilization: The Classical Age of Islam, Vol. 1 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1977); George Saliba, Islamic Science and the Making of the European Renaissance (Cambridge, M.A.: MIT Press, 2011). Roxanne L. Euben, Enemy in the Mirror: Islamic Fundamentalism and the Limits of Modern Rationalism: A Work of Comparative Political Theory (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999). Francis Robinson, “Technology and Religious Change: Islam and the Impact of Print,” Modern Asian Studies 27 (1993), 229–51; Dale F. Eickelman and James Piscatori, Muslim Politics (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004). Robinson, “Technology”; Eickelman and Piscatori, Muslim Politics. Examples would include Humza Yusuf, who spent prolonged time in Mauritania and credits his learning to his Mauritanian shaykhs, especially Shaykh Murabit al-Hajj. Tim Winter similarly spent time with scholars in Hadhramaut (Yemen), al-Azhar, and Saudi Arabia. Stéphane Lacroix, “Sheikhs and Politicians: Inside the New Egyptian Salafism,” Brookings Doha Center, Policy Briefing, June 11, 2012, accessed August 12, 2016, https://www.brookings.edu/research/sheikhs-and-politicians-inside-the-new-egyptian-salafism/. Saud al-Sarhan, “The Saudis as Manager of the Hajj,” in The Hajj: Pilgrimage in Islam, eds Eric Tagliacozzo and Shawkat M. Toowara (New York–Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016), 196–212. As an example, see Alastair Crooke, “You Can’t Understand ISIS If You Don’t Know the History of Wahhabism in Saudi Arabia,” The Huffington Post, August

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17.

18.

19.

20.

21. 22. 23. 24. 25.

26.

27. 28.

29.

30. 31. 32.

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27, 2016, accessed August 12, 2016, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alastaircrooke/isis-wahhabism-saudi-arabia_b_5717157.html. Masooda Bano and Keiko Sakurai, “Introduction,” in Shaping Global Islamic Discourses: The Role of al-Azhar, al-Medina and al-Mustafa, eds Masooda Bano and Keiko Sakurai (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2015), 1–18. During my fieldwork in Saudi Arabia and my daily reading of the The Arab News, I routinely came across many statements to this effect from state officials and senior Islamic scholars. To consult a collection of such statements, see, “Public Statements by Senior Saudi Officials and Religious Scholars Condemning Extremism and Promoting Moderation,” Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia, Washington, D.C., May 2008, Washington, D.C.accessed July 20, 2016, https://www.saudiembassy.net/files/PDF/Reports/2008Reports/Extremism_Report_May08.pdf. Mike Farquhar, “The Islamic University of Medina since 1961: The Politics of Religious Mission and the Making of a Modern Salafi Pedagogy,” in Bano and Sakurai, Shaping Global, 21–40. For an analysis of al-Azhari ‘ulamā’’s definition of wasaṭīyah Islam, see Masooda Bano, “Protector of the ‘al-Wasatiyya’ Islam: Cairo’s al-Azhar University” in Bano and Sakurai, Shaping Global, 73–92. Hallaq, Sharī’a. Bano and Sakurai, Shaping Global, esp. chapters in Part 3. For an analysis of the al-Azhar Document and the civic and political rights defended in it, see Bano “Protector.” Bano, Rational Believer. Iştar Gözaydın, “Religion, Politics and the Politics of Religion in Turkey,” Occasional Paper 121 (Berlin: Liberales Institut, 2013), http://edoc.vifapol.de/opus/ volltexte/2015/5694/pdf/Religion_Politics.pdf. Muhammet Habib Saçmalı, “Compliance and Negotiation: The Role of Turkish Diyanet in the Production of Friday Khutbas” (M.A. thesis, Istanbul Boğaziçi University, 2013). Amit Bein, Ottoman Ulema, Turkish Republic: Agents of Change and Guardians of Tradition (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2011). Fatma Aksu, “Turkey Aims to Open Islamic University: Top Religious Head,” Hurriyet Daily News, October 1, 2014, accessed August 11, 2016, http://www. hurriyetdailynews.com/turkey-aims-to-open-islamic-university-top-religious-head. aspx?pageID=238&nID=72418&NewsCatID=393; Mustafa Akyol, “Secular Turkey to Build an ‘International Islamic University’,” Al-Monitor, October 2, 2015, accessed June 23, 2016, http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2014/10/turkey-international-islamic-university.html. The challenges that Diyanet’s global ambitions pose to al-Azhar are being recognized in the Middle Eastern media: Walaa Hussein, “Al-Azhar Rewrites Curricula,” Al-Monitor, June 29, 2015, accessed July 27, 2016, http://www.al-monitor. com/pulse/originals/2015/06/egypt-azhar-curriculim-revise-religious-discourseextremism.html. Zana Çitak, “The Institutionalization of Islam in Europe and the Diyanet: The Case of Austria,” Ortadoğu Etütleri//Middle Eastern Studies 5 (2013), 167–82. Şenol Korkut, “The Diyanet of Turkey and its Activities in Eurasia after the Cold War,” Acta Slavica Iaponica 28 (2010), 111–39. Diyanet has established a large mosque-based residential complex called Diyanet Center of America in the suburbs of Washington, D.C. that welcomes all Muslim

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33. 34. 35.

36. 37.

38.

39.

40.

41.

42.

43.

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groups to use its facilities. Many American Muslim organizations host their retreats and events at this new center, including the Deen Intensive Foundation that is linked to Humza Yusuf (Volume 2, Chapter 1) and that organizes an annual Rihla retreat. For information, see: http://diyanetamerica.org/our-campuses/mosque/ (accessed August 12, 2016). For a discussion on Neo-Ottomanism, see Chapter 12. See Chapter 10. Personal interview, Istanbul, November 2015; during interviews, other senior Turkish scholars—such as Professor Mahmud Erol, a prominent scholar of Ibn ‘Arabī from Marmara University—expressed similar remorse about the demise of the traditional Islamic scholarly platforms in Turkey during the Kemalist era. Saçmalı, “Compliance.” For an understanding of how classical Islamic scholarship ensured such adaptability and creativity, see Umar Faruq Abd-Allah, “Innovation and Creativity in Islam,” Nawawi Foundation Paper, 2006, accessed August 12, 2016, http://www. nawawi.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/Article4.pdf. AKP is increasingly subjected to heavy criticism in the Western media that accuses President Erdoğan of centralizing political authority and Islamization of Turkey— critiques that are shared by the secular minded and Kemalist Turkish elite. My own fieldwork in Turkey, however, showed strong support for President Erdoğan among ordinary Turks. Many were critical of this negative media coverage of President Erdoğan in the West, making one young, highly educated and very progressive female anchor of a popular TV show (whom I had interviewed soon after the November 2016 elections) emphasize: “The West much understand that such biased coverage of Erdoğan makes the Turks convinced that the West is biased against any Muslim country that starts to assert a strong standing on the global stage.” Michael Kaplan, “Under Egypt President Sisi, World Famous Muslim University Al-Azhar Faces Global Backlash,” International Business Times, August 13, 2015, accessed July 27, 2016, http://www.ibtimes.com/under-egypt-president-sisi-worldfamous-muslim-university-al-azhar-faces-global-2048315. Hanan Fayed, “Al-Azhar Responds to Sisi’s Call for ‘Religious Revolution,’” The Cairo Post, January 2, 2015, accessed July 27, 2016, http://thecairopost.youm7. com/news/132144/news/al-azhar-responds-to-sisis-call-for-religious-revolution; “El-Sisi Says Al-Azhar Has Failed to Renew Islamic Discourse,” Ahram Online, July 14, 2015, accessed July 27, 2016, http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/1/64/135369/Egypt/Politics-/ElSisi-says-AlAzhar-has-failed-to-renew-Islamicdi.aspx. Walaa Hussein, “Al-Azhar Rewrites Curricula,” Al-Monitor, June 29, 2015, accessed July 27, 2016, http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2015/06/egyptazhar-curriculim-revise-religious-discourse-extremism.html. For South Asia, see Bano, Rational Believer; outside South Asia, Deoband madrasahs are thriving in the United Kingdom within South Asian Muslim communities, which are economically not well integrated. On the economic isolation of British South Asian Muslim communities, see Tahir Abbas, “British South Asian Muslims: State and Multicultural Society,” in Muslim Britain: Communities under Pressure, ed. Tahir Abbas (London–New York: Zed Books, 2005), 3–17. Francis Robinson, “Ottomans–Safavids–Mughals: Shared Knowledge and Connective Systems,” Journal of Islamic Studies 8 (1997), 151–84 at 172.

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48 ] 44. 45. 46. 47.

48. 49. 50. 51.

52.

53. 54. 55. 56. 57.

58.

59. 60.

61. 62. 63. 64.

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Gambetta and Hertog, Engineers of Jihad. Bano, Rational Believer, 176–203. Graham, “What’s the Matter.” AKP disowns the label of an Islamist party, instead preferring to present itself as a center right party; on the evolution of political Islam in Turkey, see M. Hakan Yavuz, Islamic Political Identity in Turkey (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005). Joao Biehl, Byron Good, and Arthur Kleinman, Subjectivity: Ethnographic Investigations, (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007), 1. Dale F. Eickelman, “Mass Higher Education and the Religious Imagination in Contemporary Arab Societies,” American Ethnologist 19 (1992), 643–55. Talal Asad, Formations of the Secular: Christianity, Islam, Modernity (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2003). Saba Mahmood, Politics of Piety: The Islamic Revival and the Feminist Subject (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2011); Hussein Ali Agrama, Questioning Secularism: Islam, Sovereignty, and the Rule of Law in Modern Egypt (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2012). In the literature on secularization, a clear distinction is maintained between secularization and secularism. The former refers to the organic process of shift in public sensibilities due to changing material conditions and resulting separation of church and state while the latter is understood to be a political ideology emanating from the Western liberal framework and often imposed on non-Western cultures as part of colonial rule. See Asad, Formations of the Secular; Charles Taylor, A Secular Age (Cambridge, M.A.: Harvard University Press, 2007). For an example from South Asia see Masooda Bano, “Madrasa Reforms and Islamic Modernism in Bangladesh,” Modern Asian Studies 48 (2014), 911–39. Taylor, A Secular Age, 11. Comparable example is Iran in the Shīʿite world. Charles Taylor, “Modern Social Imaginaries,” Public Culture, 2002 14(1), 91–124 at 91. Worried by the fervor surrounding the Valentine Day celebrations in Pakistan in 2016, the country’s president made a vocal critique of this change in attitudes: “Pakistan President Condemns St Valentine’s Day,” BBC News, February 13, 2016, accessed 11 August 2016, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-35570606. Magdy Samaan and Raf Sanchez, “Egypt: Protests against President Fattah El-Sisi Broken up with Tear Gas While Pro-Government Demonstrations Go Unhindered,” The Telegraph, April 25, 2016, accessed August 12, 2015, http:// www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/04/25/egypt-braces-for-mass-protests-againstpresident-fattah-el-sisi/. Mark C. Thompson, Saudi Arabia and the Path to Political Change: National Dialogue and Civil Society (London: I.B. Tauris, 2014). “Education for All Movement,” UNESCO Website, , accessed July 29, 2017, http://www.unesco.org/new/en/education/themes/leading-the-internationalagenda/education-for-all. Arjun Appadurai, Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions in Globalization (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1996). Eickelman, “Mass Higher Education.” Ibid, 645. Ibid, 648.

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65. S. Akbar Zaidi, “Rethinking Pakistan’s Political Economy: Class, State, Power, and Transition,” Economic and Political Weekly 49 (2014), 47–54, accessed August 12, 2016, http://www.epw.in/journal/2014/5/special-articles/rethinking-pakistanspolitical-economy.html. 66. Masooda Bano, “Education and Aspirations: Evidence from Islamic and State Schools in Pakistan and Nigeria,” paper presented at 2015 AALIMS Conference, University of Oxford, May 15–16, 2015, accessed August 12, 2016, http://aalims. org/uploads/Bano-Education%2520and%2520Aspiration.pdf. 67. Muhammad Qasim Zaman, Modern Islamic Thought in a Radical Age: Religious Authority and Internal Criticism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 18. 68. Ibid. 69. Tariq Ramadan, Radical Reform: Islamic Ethics and Liberation (Oxford–New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), 31–2. 70. Hazem Kandil, Inside the Brotherhood (Malden, M.A.: Polity Press, 2014). 71. Ibid. 72. For an insightful analysis of a strong tradition of internal reform within Islamic thought, see Francis Robinson, “Islamic Reform and Modernities in South Asia,” Modern Asian Studies 42 (2008), 2–3, 259–81; Zaman, Modern Islamic Thought. 73. Zaman, Modern Islamic Thought, 1. 74. Ibid, 1. 75. Ibid. 76. On ease in religion, some of the often quoted Qurʾānic verses are: “God desires ease for you, and desires not hardship” (2:185); “Truly with hardship comes ease” (94:6); “God will assuredly appoint, after difficulty, easiness” (65:7). On Islamic emphasis on aspiring to excel in this world as well as the next, one of the most often repeated Qurʾānic verses is: “Our Lord, give us good in this world and in the Hereafter, and protect us from the torment of the Fire” (2:201). This verse is argued to be one of the favorite supplications of Prophet Muhammad and Muslims are encouraged to recite it during Ṭawāf (circling the Kaʿbah). 77. Zaman, Modern Islamic Thought, 8. 78. Zaman, Modern Islamic Thought, 29. 79. Hilary Kalmbach, “Introduction: Islamic Authority and the Study of Female Religious Leaders,” in Women, Leadership, and Mosques, eds Masooda Bano and Hilary E. Kalmbach (Leiden–Boston: Brill, 2013), 1–29. 80. Masooda Bano, “Conclusion: Female Leadership in Mosques: An Evolving Narrative,” in Bano and Kalmbach, Women, Leadership and Mosques, 507–34. 81. Hallaq, Sharī’a. 82. Even historically this shared understanding of core Islamic principles, stemming from the study of similar texts, was visible in the ease with which students could move from studying in one region of the Muslim world to another: Jonathan P. Berkey, The Formation of Islam: Religion and Society in the Near East, 600–1800 (Cambridge–New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002). 83. Syed Abul Hasan Ali Nadwi, a prominent scholar from Darul Uloom Nadwatul Ulama (a reformist madrasah within the Deoband tradition), for example, wrote in Arabic and was highly respected among scholars in the Middle East, see Zaman, Modern Islamic Thought. 84. Michael Feener, Muslim Legal Thought in Modern Indonesia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007). 85. Bano and Sakurai, Shaping Global, see chapters in Part 3.

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86. Hodgson, Venture of Islam; Berkey, Formation of Islam; Saliba, Islamic Science. 87. Ibid. 88. Nabil Mouline, “Enforcing and Reinforcing the State’s Islam: The Functioning of the Committee of Scholars,” in Saudi Arabia in Transition: Insights on Social, Political, Economic and Religious Change, eds Bernard Haykel, Thomas Hegghammer, and Stéphane Lacroix (Cambridge–New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015), 48–70. 89. Michael Polanyi, The Tacit Dimension (Chicago–London: University of Chicago Press, 2009). 90. Fazlur Rahman, Islam and Modernity: Transformation of an Intellectual Tradition (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984). 91. The critics of the secularization project have often argued that Western countries have tried to impose secular values on other cultures and that is partly the reason that such efforts have normally failed; in the West, on the other hand, the public sensibilities (or as Charles Taylor puts it, public “social imageries”) changed first due to the changing material conditions and only then did privatization of religion ensue. 92. Taylor, A Secular Age. 93. Bernard Lewis, What Went Wrong? Western Impact and Middle Eastern Response (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2002); Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2011). 94. For a good review of these debates see Humeira Iqtidar, Secularizing Islamists? Jama’at-E-Islami and Jama’at-ud-Da’wa in Urban Pakistan (Chicago–London: University of Chicago Press, 2011), 12–15. 95. Mahmood, Politics of Piety; Charles Hirschkind, The Ethical Soundscape: Cassette Sermons and Islamic Counterpublics (New York: Columbia University Press, 2009); Agrama, Questioning Secularism. 96. Agrama, Questioning Secularism, back cover. 97. Taylor, “Modern,” 106. 98. Ibid, 106. 99. Ibid, 92. 100. The popular resistance to the Muslim Brotherhood government in Egypt, the failure of Jamaat-i-Islami in South Asia to establish electoral success and the recent announcement by Tunisia’s Ennahda that it is abandoning its Islamic identity are important examples to this effect: “Tunisia’s Ennahda Distances Itself from Political Islam,” Al Jazeera, May 21, 2016, accessed August 11, 2016, http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/05/tunisia-ennahda-distances-politicalislam-160520172957296.html. 101. Yusuf Estes and Miller Gary, “Bible Islam—Bible Compared to Quran,” accessed June 12, 2017, http://www.bibleislam.com/bible_vs_quran.php. 102. Taylor, A Secular Age. 103. The recent killings of atheist bloggers in Bangladesh shows their growing presence, albeit under threat; in Egypt, many prominent media figures, when accusing al-Azhar of supporting jihadi sentiments, have also expressed a general hostility toward religion, see Chapter 1. 104. Taylor, A Secular Age, 770. 105. Ibid, 717. 106. Abbas, “British South Asian Muslims.”

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107. Mahmood, Politics of Piety, 5. 108. Agrama, Questioning Secularism. 109. Mahmood’s primary concern is to demonstrate that women in Islamic piety movements, irrespective of their backgrounds, eventually end up working on themselves to imbibe a very orthodox sense of female piety; Agrama, similarly, is keen to establish that al-Azhari ‘ulamā’ are replicating the past instead of being creative or imaginative in adapting Islamic law to needs of the time—Chapter 3 in this volume illustrates, however, how indefensible is such a position. 110. Agrama, Questioning Secularism. 111. Abd-Allah, “Innovation.” 112. Agrama, Questioning Secularism. 113. Ibid, 162–70.

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PART I Ö Ö Ö

AL-AZHAR UNIVERSITY AND MOSQUE NETWORK This part argues that the al-Azhari scholarly tradition remains the most vibrant in responding to a changing environment, while respecting the tradition’s boundaries. Yet both its scholarly credentials and moral authority, which have been under pressure since 1961 nationalization of al-Azhar, are further threatened by al-Azhari senior leadership’s support for General al-Sisi. Chapter 1 supports this analysis by presenting a detailed review of the al-Azhari leadership’s response to the Arab Spring, its opposition to the Muslim Brotherhood government, and its subsequent endorsement of the al-Sisi regime and its highly controversial policies, including a proposed reform of the al-Azhari curriculum. Chapter 2 illustrates how al-Azhari tradition has historically best preserved the classical forms of Islamic learning: giving importance to the study of all four madhhabs has invested it with the flexibility to adapt to change. Chapter 3 analyzes the work of many al-Azhari scholars, both inside and outside the institution, such as Yusuf al-Qaradawi. It shows the active emphasis that these scholars place on the concept of fiqh al-wāqi’(jurisprudence of realities) and on the Islamic emphasis on “reasonableness” to argue for adjusting Islamic fiqh to the needs of modern times.

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CHAPTER

1

AL-AZHAR UNIVERSITY: A CRISIS OF AUTHORITY Masooda Bano

Founded in 970 in Cairo, al-Azhar Mosque is the oldest continuously active center of Islamic learning, and one of the few to preserve the classical Islamic tradition of teaching all four Sunni madhhabs. Globally recognized as an influential voice of wasaṭīyah Islam, its fatwās are sought by socially progressive Muslims as well as by heads of state,1 and it attracts aspiring young Muslim scholars from the West and the Muslim world alike.2 As we will see in Chapter 2, a combination of historically determined factors led to the evolution of al-Azhar as the leading voice of moderate Islam. Further, the analysis of ongoing debates among al-Azhari-trained ‘ulamā’ presented in Chapter 3 will illustrate how al-Azhar’s claim to be the moderate voice of Islam, capable of balancing commitment to the fiqh with contemporary realities, is justified. However, its historic ability to strike a balance in favor of wasaṭīyah Islam is under higher pressure right now than arguably at any other time in the recent past. This chapter will illustrate why. In the post-Arab Spring in Egypt al-Azhar is faced with a serious crisis of legitimacy: its alliance with General Abd al-Fattah al-Sisi’s government has severely compromised its moral authority within the global Muslim community. Shaykh Ahmad al-Tayyib, the Shaykh al-Azhar (Grand Shaykh), who demanded the protection of basic political freedoms under the Muslim Brotherhood government, led by Mohamed Morsi, of which he was openly critical,3 went on to lend unqualified support to the al-Sisi government, despite its discernible disregard of those very freedoms.4 The decision by the al-Azhari leadership to cooperate with the Egyptian military regime, and its reservations about the Muslim Brotherhood, are not new developments: ever since al-Azhar lost its independence to the Egyptian state under Gamal Nasser’s regime (see Chapter 2), official al-Azhar has time and again had to lend

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religious legitimacy to highly controversial political decisions of successive Egyptian regimes. While such pragmatism has compromised al-Azhar’s moral authority in the eyes of the Islamists and moderate Muslims alike, collusion with the state has also been a boon: state resources have helped to expand alAzhar’s educational network across the country.5 Why then should the postArab Spring alliance between the al-Azhari leadership and the al-Sisi regime be expected to damage al-Azhar’s standing more severely than similar alliances forged in the past? This chapter argues that three factors suggest that the current alliance poses a special risk to al-Azhar’s reputation as a leading center of moderate Islam. To begin with, the al-Sisi government’s tactics for oppressing political resistance have been more violent and indiscriminate than those adopted by previous governments. Previous military regimes mainly targeted leaders and members of the Brotherhood. Under al-Sisi, however, police attacked public spaces, including sacred religious spaces such as the Raba Mosque, leading to large numbers of casualties (women and children included).6 Further, the Egyptian courts have imposed unprecedented mass death sentences, based on proceedings that are viewed as flawed, and abductions and torture of Brotherhood members and sympathizers (but also of secular activists) in police custody have been rampant.7 The more violence a religious authority endorses, the higher the risk that it will lose popular legitimacy: the extreme nature of oppression under the al-Sisi government thus has posed extreme challenges to al-Azhari popular legitimacy for endorsing it. Second, not only has the al-Azhari leadership endorsed al-Sisi: the acrimonious language used by many al-Azhari scholars concerning the Muslim Brotherhood in defence of the regime has also been unprecedented. Historically, the al-Azhari ‘ulamā’ trod with caution when required to comment on state engagement with Brotherhood members:8 restraint is an essential Islamic moral virtue. This time, however, some prominent al-Azhari ‘ulamā’ have incited the government to award even harsher punishments to the Brotherhood members. Such extreme positions have compromised the authority of these scholars in the eyes of many. Finally, the al-Sisi government’s proposed reforms of the al-Azhari curriculum are also uniquely problematic. Since its conversion to a state university, alAzhar has undergone many state-led reforms.9 Whereas in the past the reforms aimed to modernize the al-Azhari curriculum by expanding its scope and introducing modern subjects or new teaching methods,10 the reforms proposed by the al-Sisi regime, on the other hand, tamper directly with the curriculum of the Islamic sciences and require the abolition of established themes in Islamic fiqh from the university curriculum. Such reforms of the curriculum of the Islamic sciences have proved more controversial across the Muslim world than those aimed at expanding the scope of Islamic education through the inclusion of modern subjects.11 This chapter will illustrate how these three factors make al-Azhar’s postArab Spring crisis of authority a serious concern, making it legitimate to ask:

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can al-Azhar remain true to the spirit of wasaṭīyah Islam? Or will the secularizing forces within the state and Egyptian society force al-Azhar to adopt a modernization agenda by which Western liberalism becomes the yardstick against which the appropriateness of Islamic theological and legal dictates must be assessed? This question is critical to understanding whether al-Azhar will retain popular legitimacy in the eyes of ordinary Muslims in future generations. The erosion of Zaytuna and Qarawiyyin—two equally ancient centers of classical Islamic learning in North Africa—from popular Muslim imagination shows how established structures of Islamic authority can lose their popular legitimacy if the state’s modernization agenda overrides their independent scholarly status. The loss of al-Azhar’s popular legitimacy would be a major set-back for moderate Islam on the global stage; the resulting vacuum will have to be filled by Diyanet12 if the current Turkish Islamic scholarly revival sustains itself, or else the legitimacy to speak in the name of the classical Islamic scholarly tradition may ironically shift to new Islamic institutions emerging in the West (see Volume 2, Part I).

Unpacking the Al-Azhari Crisis of Legitimacy after the Arab Spring Since 1961, when al-Azhar lost its autonomy and financial independence to the modern Egyptian republic (see next chapter), Western scholarship on alAzhar has keenly monitored the impact on its popular legitimacy. Speaking truth to those in power is seen as an essential attribute of a true Muslim scholar; qāḍīs (an Islamic judge) who stood up to kings in defence of truth, and ‘ulamā’ who maintained a distance from the rulers, have therefore been eulogized in Islamic historiography.13 This expectation that a true scholar would stand up to power is rooted in the model of the Prophet Muhammad, who is seen as the ultimate teacher. A true Islamic scholar does not merely teach Islamic principles: he is expected to embody them. Historically, alAzhari ‘ulamā’ have had to live up to these very standards, but becoming part of the state bureaucracy has taken its toll: pressure to endorse contentious state policies has led to increased erosion of public trust. However, despite having to make these compromises, al-Azhar’s loss of credibility has not been complete. Instead, as Malika Zeghal has made us appreciate, two factors have helped al-Azhar to retain its influence. First, collusion with the government, while costly in terms of popular legitimacy, has on the whole proved to be a winning strategy: one, access to state resources has helped al-Azhar to consolidate its educational network across the length and breadth of the country; two, the pluralistic nature of the alAzhari scholarly tradition, which accommodates teachers from all four Sunni schools as well as those affiliated to the Muslim Brotherhood or Salafi movements, has ensured that scholars within the al-Azhari system are the first to critique any controversial position taken by the official al-Azhari leadership.14 The presence of these scholars, to whom Zeghal refers as “periphery ‘ulamā’,”

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has enabled the public to differentiate between what is seen as an official alAzhari position, arguably adopted under duress, and the independent stances of the “periphery ‘ulamā’.” The latter cannot officially speak in the name of al-Azhar, but in the eyes of the public they command high respect. That yet another military regime should draw on al-Azhar’s support to harness popular legitimacy proves how the institution continues to command significant religious capital within Egyptian society. While Zeghal’s reading of al-Azhar’s positioning between state and society has been quite accurate in explaining al-Azhar’s continued popularity in the last two decades, in post-Arab Spring Egypt these two explanations have lost much of their explanatory power. The intensity of violence associated with the al-Sisi regime makes al-Azhari establishment’s defence of state atrocities more questionable than in the past. Further, some prominent al-Azhari scholars (former as well as current) have condemned the Brotherhood with such ferocity that they have severely compromised their moral authority. Even the Shaykh al-Azhar has been accused of hypocrisy for demanding an array of political freedoms under the Morsi government but none from the military regime that toppled it. It is important to discuss the implications of these three post-Arab Spring developments in some detail. Only when we appreciate how the nature of violence sponsored by the al-Sisi government, as well as the nature of defence put up by the al-Azhari scholars, show a deviation from the past do we see how the resulting nature of the challenge to al-Azhari religious authority is also distinct. The leaders of al-Azhar have had to justify many controversial political stances over time in order to defend state restriction of political freedoms; defending state use of force to curb popular dissent has been one of them. The Shaykh al-Azhar’s refusal to endorse the Arab Spring in the initial days of the protests in Tahrir Square was just another example of al-Azhar’s pro-regime political expediency. Only when the Mosni Mubarak regime visibly started to lose control did the Shaykh al-Azhar come out in support of popular protests. Systematic state oppression of Islamist or secular activists has been a norm under the modern Egyptian state. Unlike the political activism associated in popular imagination with the al-Azhari tradition (such as its role in leading resistance against the French), post-1962 al-Azhar has accepted the political domain as a preserve of the state. The Egyptian state’s use of force to crush popular dissent is thus not unprecedented; the nature of the oppression associated with the al-Sisi regime, however, is. The operation at Raba Mosque carried out two days after ousting of the Morsi government led to the deaths of at least 817 civilians, many of them women and children.15 Many of those killed were not active members of the Muslim Brotherhood.16 The operation also involved the complete destruction of the Raba Mosque. Since the Nasser period, the Muslim Brotherhood has been persecuted at the hands of the modern Egyptian state, but in the past the targets were primarily Brotherhood leaders and senior members. Imprisonment of Brotherhood members was common, and Sayyid Qutb, the main ideologue behind the

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movement, was hanged in 1966.17 Compared with these targeted punishments, the police operations involving armed attacks on mosques, killing hundreds of ordinary civilians, young and old—such as the attack on the Raba Mosque— pose a different nature of moral dilemma for a religious authority required to endorse such action. The gravity of the moral dilemma posed by the Raba Mosque operation is gauged by how the Shaykh al-Azhar responded to it. This is the only period after endorsing al-Sisi when he temporarily tried to disassociate al-Azhar from the state’s actions. Noting that the shedding of blood is a serious matter, he requested that al-Azhar should not be dragged into the fight and announced his withdrawal from the public sphere until matters were resolved.18 It is important to note, however, that he did not hold the state responsible for the violence at the Raba Mosque, despite the existence of incriminating evidence against it; instead he urged all sides to use restraint. For a state to display such indiscriminate use of violence,19 and for the religious authority to endorse it, poses a severe crisis of moral legitimacy for both. Similar moral dilemmas are raised by the judicial proceedings carried out under the al-Sisi government. Mass death sentences imposed on Brotherhood members have been noted as being procedurally flawed.20 International human-rights groups have thus raised serious concerns about these proceedings, and about the routine disappearance of activists and their torture in police custody.21 All these actions violate the basic notion of a just ruler contained in the Islamic legal framework: not surprisingly, more than 150 scholars, including Yusuf al-Qaradawi, himself an al-Azhari (see Chapter 3), soon after al-Sisi takeover signed a petition accusing the Shaykh al-Azhar of violating the sanctity of his office.22 To defend a regime perpetuating such widespread oppression has thus put al-Azhar in a particularly vulnerable position. To defend state action against specific Brotherhood members is one thing; to justify attacks on mosques, the killing of ordinary civilians, torture in custody, and politically motivated judicial trials is a different story, however. Further, not only has the al-Azhari leadership defended the al-Sisi regime, but many prominent al-Azhari scholars used highly charged language, arguing for further persecution of the Muslim Brotherhood. The Shaykh alAzhar was at the side of al-Sisi in the television address in which the latter announced an end to the Morsi government.23 During this initial period, the al-Sisi regime also actively used the platform of Dār al-Iftā’ and the Ministry of Awqāf (religious endowments) to gain religious legitimacy in support of its actions; statements issued by these two institutions labelled pro-Morsi protestors as khawārij (heretics).24 Both platforms also issued numerous statements against the protesters, drawing on Islamic injunctions to respect the ruler and avoid fitnah (civil strife). They have also actively defended al-Sisi’s vision of a religious revolution, which will be discussed in the next section.25 Similarly, the Shaykh al-Azhar’s withdrawal from the public scene after the Raba Mosque carnage was short-lived; soon he was back in the public eye,

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appearing alongside al-Sisi on TV shows and endorsing al-Sisi’s positions on matters as diverse as institutionalizing an Islamic revolution and practicing birth control. Further, endorsement came not just from the Shaykh al-Azhar but also from some prominent al-Azhari ‘ulamā’; most noticeable of these was Ali Gomaa, the former Grand Mufti of Egypt, who is strongly associated with the al-Azhari tradition and is widely respected for his writings. While he made many public speeches favoring al-Sisi and justifying the ousting of the Brotherhood government, it is the speech that he made to the military academy that revealed the extent of the hatred that some al-Azhari scholars harbor towards the Brotherhood. In this speech, which was leaked through a recording made on a mobile phone, Gomaa asked the soldiers to have no remorse in killing the Brotherhood members: Shoot them [Muslim Brotherhood members] in the heart, and be careful not to sacrifice your men and soldiers for the sake of those heretics and traitors. Blessed are those who kill them, and those who are killed by them, and whomever kills them is closer to God . . . We must cleanse our Egypt and our city from these trash, they do not deserve our Egyptian-ness, and they dishonour us [shame us] and we should be cleared/absolved of them the way the wolf is cleared of the blood of the son of Jacob [Yousef] . . . . . . and therefore the khawarij [heretics] were called the dogs of hellfire despite their prayer, fasting and reading the Qur’an.26

While this leaked speech was particularly controversial, the underlying position that Brotherhood members are khawārij and should be killed was a popular refrain among many al-Azhari scholars.27 These extreme statements by al-Azhari scholars in defence of the al-Sisi government show a deviation from the past. The relationship between al-Azhari ‘ulamā’ and the Muslim Brotherhood has historically been strained.28 Even though some al-Azhari ‘ulamā’ are of Muslim Brotherhood orientation, the top echelons of al-Azhari leadership have normally been reticent about the political agenda of the Brotherhood.29 In the past, at such moments of crisis, the al-Azhari ‘ulamā’, even those skeptical of the Brotherhood, exercised some level of caution in their statements: “When they had to support Nasser against the Muslim Brothers, their statements were extremely short, wrapped in few sentences, as if they only halfheartedly criticized the Muslim Brothers.”30 Such behavior is much more in line with the popular understanding of the idealized conception of a scholar: one who maintains independence from political authority, attempts to be impartial, and takes human life seriously. It is important to note that Zeghal does go on to note that, by the 1970s, the al-Azhari ‘ulamā’ had become much more vocal in their critique of the Muslim Brotherhood but even when compared to the speeches from that era the content of Ali Gu’ma’s speech quoted above would appear extreme. Most importantly, in order to understand the implications of al-Azhar’s endorsement of al-Sisi, it is important not only to understand the relationship

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between the two, but to situate it in the context of the tense relationship that the same al-Azhari leadership had with the Muslim Brotherhood government. When the Muslim Brotherhood emerged as a strong political force after the fall of the Mubarak regime, al-Azhar became an important institution in the national rebuilding process; in particular, for the secularists it became a counterweight to the Muslim Brotherhood’s claim to be a religious authority.31 The al-Azhari leadership, which had been reluctant to endorse the initial protests against Mubarak, later came forward to claim a prominent role in drafting the new Egyptian constitution: the Shaykh al-Azhar argued that al-Azhar was best placed to bring together the Islamists, moderates, and modernists, while also protecting the interests of the Coptic Christians. The relationship between the Shaykh al-Azhar and President Morsi, however, remained tense. During this period, the Shaykh al-Azhar produced the famous al-Azhar Document, which argued for protection of basic political freedoms.32 While referring to abstract ideals, the document was in reality seen as a critique of the Muslim Brotherhood government. Yet, despite the tense relationship between the al-Azhari leadership and President Morsi, the former won many protections in the new Egyptian constitution of December 2012 that was drafted under the Muslim Brotherhood government. The al-Azhari leadership was quick to point out to the public that its leadership had to fight for these concessions and that they were not gifted them by the Muslim Brotherhood.33 Either way, the constitution developed under the Muslim Brotherhood government preserved the role of Islam in Egyptian legislation, gave al-Azhar a prominent role in interpreting it, and most importantly promised al-Azhar a great deal of structural autonomy. Article 2 of the constitution stated that “Islam is the religion of the state” and “the principles of Islamic Sharia are the principal source of legislation.”34 This article was imported from the previous constitution, but not without controversy; many secular and Christian leaders wanted the reference to sharī’ah removed, while some Salafis objected to the use of the “principles” of sharī’ah, preferring instead the “commandments” (ahkam) of sharī’ah as the basis for legislation.35 Article 4, devoted entirely to al-Azhar, stated as follows: Al-Azhar is an encompassing independent Islamic institution, with exclusive competence over its own affairs. It is responsible for preaching Islam, theology and the Arabic language in Egypt and throughout the world. Al-Azhar’s Council of Senior Scholars is to be consulted in matters relating to Islamic Sharia. The state ensures sufficient funds for Al-Azhar to achieve its objectives. Al-Azhar’s Grand Sheikh is independent and cannot be dismissed. The method of appointing the Grand Sheikh from among members of the Council of Senior Scholars is to be determined by law.36

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Thus, between Article 2 and Article 4, the constitution protected the importance of Islam for law making, gave al-Azhar the right to interpret Islamic sharī’ah, and most importantly promised to restore to al-Azhari scholars the right to appoint the Shaykh al-Azhar.37 In addition, other articles pointed toward the maintenance of private awqāf that could further separate al-Azhar from state interference.38 Lastly, and perhaps most significantly, the constitution’s introductory section listed eleven governing principles around which the constitution is oriented. Included was an explicit defence and support of the “honorable Al-Azhar, which throughout [Egypt’s] history has been the backbone of the homeland’s identity, a guardian of the immortal Arabic language and the revered Islamic Sharia, and a beacon for moderate enlightened thought.”39 The ousting of the Brotherhood government in July 2013, however, made this constitution irrelevant. The new constitution, drafted in late 2014 under the al-Sisi government, omitted many of the specifically religious articles of the previous constitution (although not Article 2); references to al-Azhar’s consultation in Islamic matters have also been excised.40 Yet, unlike the resistance posed by al-Azhar to the Morsi government, it did not criticize the new regime for limiting its sphere of authority in the new constitution. Nor did the Shaykh al-Azhar at any point quote the al-Azhar Document to demand the same basic political freedoms from al-Sisi that he had forcefully demanded from the Muslim Brotherhood government. The Shaykh al-Azhar’s starkly different responses to the government of the Muslim Brotherhood and that of al-Sisi have understandably not gone unnoticed. Ultimately, however, the strongest challenge faced by al-Azhar in retaining its popular legitimacy comes not from the loss of its moral credibility but from how well it can preserve its scholarly credentials. In transitioning from an independently endowed center of classical Islamic learning to becoming a state-regulated formal university with government-salaried staff, al-Azhar has faced a serious deterioration in educational standards. It is now confronted by a new challenge: al-Sisi has not only been keen to use al-Azhar to legitimize state actions, he also claims to be leading a religious revolution. As part of this revolution, major changes are proposed to the al-Azhari curriculum. It is therefore important to understand the philosophy behind al-Sisi’s religious revolution to understand why the risk that it poses to al-Azhar’s popular legitimacy is particularly troubling.

Al-Sisi’s “Religious Revolution” and Al-Azhar On ousting Morsi, al-Sisi did not try to weave some grand narrative in defence of secularism; instead he presented himself as a true Muslim: one who felt it his duty to protect Islam from the extremists.41 Known to be religiously devout, he argued for a religious revolution,42 calling on al-Azhari ‘ulamā’ to come to his support.43 His speeches made abundantly clear the ends that this revolution

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should produce: put simply, Muslims should accept Western liberal sensibilities as an ideal type and make Islamic injunctions conform to it. The approach is thus no different in its ambitions from those of many other military generals in the Muslim world who have defended their political aspirations in the name of rescuing Islam from the militants.44 In his numerous speeches addressed to the al-Azhari ‘ulamā’, he has given precise instructions on how scholars should approach issues as wide ranging as the need for Muslims to extend Christmas greetings to Christians45 and outlining what aspects of classical Islamic fiqh should be purged from the al-Azhari curriculum. Speaking to al-Azhari ‘ulamā’ on the laylat al-qadar (night of power or decree) in 2105, al-Sisi first of all made it clear where the power rested by placing himself above the scholars: “You are the ones responsible for religious discourse, and God will ask me whether I am satisfied [with your performance] or not.”46 He then went on to outline the role of an ideal cleric: “The role of the clerics is not to give speeches in mosques, but to spread peace among humanity . . . At last year’s ceremony, when I tackled the idea of a religious revolution, I did not mean imposing [change through] violent actions, rather I meant to revolutionize our thoughts in order to make them fit the time and also to improve the image of Islam.” He further added, “The main problem is that we don’t understand our religion,” going on to advise that we “should stop and change our religious rhetoric from faulty ideas, which lead to (terrorism) . . . This has nothing to do with creed. No one will touch the pillars of Islam.”47 A month before, on the occasion of the birth of the Prophet, he told the al-Azhari scholars: “There are ideas and texts in Islam that have been sanctified over hundreds of years and cannot be ignored. These erroneous ideas, however, have painted a bad picture of the Muslim nation as one characterized by killing and destruction.”48 He went on to ask the scholars to remove these ideas from the curriculum. On another occasion, he noted: “It does not make sense that the thought we sanctify pushes this entire nation to become a source of apprehension, danger, murder and destruction in the entire world.”49 At one level, these are quite standard statements. The desire to promote a tolerant, pro-modernity, and Western-friendly Islam has been shared by many political and military elites in the Muslim world; equally, most military regimes in post-colonial Egypt have exerted pressure on al-Azhar to revise its curriculum and modernize. The modernization pressure from the state had in fact been building for a long time. The early twentieth-century reforms of alAzhar turned it from a traditional madrasah into a more formalized university (see next chapter). In 1929 three academic divisions were established within al-Azhar: Arabic, uṣūl al-dīn (rule of religion), and sharī’ah. Formal degrees themselves had been first introduced in 1896, with the ahliyya degree granted after eight years of study, and the ‘ālimīyah, which allowed the recipient to teach, granted after twelve years.50 With the massive reorganization of al-Azhar in 1962 under the Nasser regime, its degrees were brought into line with the rest of the Egyptian educational system, which was modeled on Western schools and colleges.51 New

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faculties in non-religious subjects such as medicine, business, and agriculture were also opened. New subjects were also added to the main Islamic faculties. The Faculty of Arabic Language (Kulliyat al-lugha al-‘arabiyya) is consequently predominantly oriented toward secular uses of Arabic, with a focus on linguistics, rhetoric, literary criticism, and Arab culture.52 Today, there are primarily three degrees offered in Islamic subjects: the license (lisans/ ijāzah ‘aliya), requiring four or five years of study and equivalent to a bachelor’s degree, and the master’s (majistir) and doctorate (‘alimiyya dukturah), requiring approximately six and eight years of total study, respectively.53 These state-led reforms of the al-Azhari curriculum and teaching methods have, however, caused more challenges than opportunities. The dramatic expansion in student numbers since al-Azhar’s conversion into a state university has resulted in a decline in learning standards.54 In interviews with faculty members I have heard many lament on how many students graduating from al-Azhar even lack the proper command of classical Arabic grammar and vocabulary required to understand the Qurʾān. The close teacher–student contact, which was at the heart of the traditional ḥalaqah (teaching circle)-based teaching at al-Azhar and allowed for individual moral training of the student, is now a luxury confined to the teaching of those few subjects for which classes still take place in the al-Azhar mosque, as opposed to the university campus. Others note how today’s al-Azhari students mostly work from simplified books, rather than mastering the classical texts. As Cardinal points out, instructors have long found students unprepared linguistically or pedagogically to engage with pre-modern legal works, and they have instead utilized newer introductory textbooks (often of their own composition) to give students an understanding of the topics at hand before exposing them to more traditional texts.55 Cardinal also points out that more recently new textbooks have been written that are based on other modern textbooks, leading to increased separation from the classical textual tradition.56 Aria Nakissa’s observations of epistemological changes in legal studies at al-Azhar raise similar concerns.57 Undergraduates do work with classical texts, but this happens primarily in the third and fourth years, as independent research.58 The fact that there is already a strong sense of loss concerning this authentic al-Azhari scholarly tradition among the young al-Azhar graduates is best illustrated in the rise of two new educational initiatives (Shaykh al-ʿAmūd and Dār al-ʿImād) that emerged during the Arab Spring with the hope of reviving classical learning practices traditionally associated with al-Azhar. Concerned about a dramatic deterioration in two cornerstones of classical alAzhari learning—mastery of classical texts and embodiment of Islamic piety and moral conduct—the founders of both these institutions (themselves alAzharis) vocalized a widely shared concern about the increasing gap between the reality of al-Azhar today and its idealized image from the past. Against the long history of state-enforced reforms, al-Sisi’s demands on the al-Azhari ‘ulamā’ could be viewed as inconsequential. But that would be a mistake. There is an important difference between the previous reforms and the

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one proposed by al-Sisi, for the latter is asking for deletions of integral parts of the sharī’ah from the al-Azhari curriculum, without any internal dialogue among the scholars, simply because those aspects of Islamic fiqh (namely, slavery, jizyah, which is a tax on non-Muslims, and jihad) are seen to clash with modern sensibilities. These random interventions in the actual curriculum of Islamic sciences is problematic in a way that reforms aimed at introducing modern subjects in the madrasah curriculum are not; evidence from across the Muslim world lends support to this conclusion.59 That official al-Azhar has been compliant with these demands is thus problematic. The new President of al-Azhar, Abdel Hai Azab, who was appointed in 2014, has in a number of media interviews endorsed al-Sisi’s rhetoric in support of removing topics such as slavery and jizyah from the al-Azhari curriculum. In April 2015, Azab announced the formation of an academic committee to revise the textbooks used at al-Azhar, to purge them of these topics: “We will teach curricula which are suitable for our times. This emanates from our belief in the necessity of renewal and coping with the latest developments in different disciplines.”60 In another media interview he added: I said that not all what is included in the Qur’an is currently applied on the ground. For example, the Qur’an spoke about slavery, and according to the doctrine, it is advisable and desirable to seek to free a slave from slavery, but IS [Islamic State] and other extremist groups are demanding teaching the concept of slavery and to reapply it. This is why I demanded to make the curriculum immune to these matters, which are no longer in harmony with the current era. We do not make room for such subjects in the curricula and it is better to set priorities in accordance with what serves contemporary causes. There are also concepts regarding the jizya tax, which used to be a source of state income in Islam, but this source is no longer applied and there is no reason to keep reiterating this in our lessons.61

He is not alone in endorsing these reforms; a number of al-Azhari scholars have come to his rescue. Ahmed Karima, a Professor of Islamic Law at alAzhar, who, in the post-Arab Spring period, like Ali Gomaa, made his strong distaste for the Muslim Brotherhood blatantly clear, has publicly asserted that some of the textbooks used at al-Azhar feature “dangerous views” (related to jihad and the distribution of war spoils) that were made in the past under certain circumstances.62 “We have to exercise self-criticism to set things right and enable Al-Azhar to lead efforts for carrying out necessary renewal of religious discourse,”63 he argued in one of his public statements. As we will see, this approach runs counter to al-Azhar’s own sophisticated tradition of adapting to the time but in a methodologically rigorous way, whereby established aspects of Islamic fiqh are not randomly annexed but debated and adjusted on the basis of a reasoned debate (see Chapter 3). Such a reason-based adaptation of fiqh, instead of a simple annexation from the curriculum of Islamic concepts found to be out of tune with modern

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sensibilities, is normally a more legitimate way to reform in the eyes of ordinary members of the public. It is little wonder that al-Azhar’s acceptance of such ad hoc reforms has resulted in increasingly vocal critiques of its current leadership; some have also criticized such an approach for being counter-productive. The latter position is based on the premise that if al-Azhar excludes discussion on these topics, students will still read about them on their own, given the easy access to this reading material in bookstores as well as online. To check radicalization, it is deemed more effective for al-Azhar to discuss these topics and through reasoned debate convince students of the need to modify them in the light of modern realities, instead of losing its legitimacy by simply annexing these topics from the curriculum under state pressure. By depriving students of the opportunity to discuss these aspects of Islamic fiqh in the university setting, al-Azhar in fact becomes party to making them vulnerable to more radical interpretations of those very texts. As one media report notes,64 many al-Azhari students who were interviewed labeled the curriculum reform under al-Sisi as producing “fiqh-lite”: a curriculum devoid of depth and Islamic scholarly legitimacy. Many al-Azhari scholars are equally disturbed: Khalid al-Jundi is one of the al-Azhari scholars who has publicly opposed these reforms, arguing that they amount to an abandonment of the fundamentals of religion, since they remove concepts mentioned in the Holy Qurʾān. That al-Azhar’s popular legitimacy is under pressure is also captured in the nature of questions that al-Azhari official leaders have been asked in media interviews. President Abdel Hai Azab was, for example, asked in an interview about his opinion on Turkey’s move toward establishing an International Islamic University in response to the perceived decline in al-Azhari standards. His crude response did not help alleviate the concerns, as it was very unlike what one would expect from the head of an Islamic scholarly platform: “It is known that Turkey’s role is based on racist Ottoman concepts and has a desire for new invasions but at an intellectual level; while Al-Azhar’s objective is not based on racism, but rather on the concepts of moderation and peaceful coexistence and the elevation of humanity.”65 The stability of the al-Sisi regime is already in question: the increasing brutality of the regime has led to the gradual disappearance of the initial public euphoria.66 Thus, in reality, the ongoing curriculum reforms may not go very far if the Egyptian political landscape undergoes yet another upheaval.67 Yet the post-Arab Spring developments in Egypt do show that continued authoritarianism in Egypt is the biggest threat to al-Azhar’s global standing as the leading voice of moderate Islam. If the Turkish religious revival sustains itself, and the new Islamic education platforms emerging in the West (especially those categorized as neo-traditionalist in Volume 2) continue to prosper, then they may be able to fill the resulting gap. Otherwise, disenchanted by a compromised al-Azhar, many moderates may be swayed toward the more radical calls of Salafi da’wah (proselytizing).

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The compromises that the al-Azhari leadership has made over time with successive military regimes have indeed brought a financial boon and helped to expand its formal authority over the Egyptian religious sphere (such as increased authority to regulate the mosques);68 however, with every passing regime, the concerns about al-Azhar’s loss of moral legitimacy are crystalizing. Its global influence has partly survived in the last few decades due to lack of competition: with Salafism being the most influential rival global force, there have been few contenders on the global stage more credible than al-Azhar to speak in the name of moderate Islam. The landscape is, however, changing. Turkey has the history, the resources, and, under the AKP, also the intent to pose that competition; the many new Islamic learning institutions emerging in the West are also natural rivals.

Al-Azhari Leadership: The Considerations The question, however, is why did al-Azhari ‘ulamā’ choose to show such deference to al-Sisi? Even if they were strongly opposed to the Muslim Brotherhood in ideological terms, why could the leadership not attempt to retain some semblance of neutrality, instead of pledging full backing for a highly contentious regime? If the al-Sisi regime wanted al-Azhar on its side in order to gain religious legitimacy, then we know that, despite the aforementioned concerns, al-Azhar continues by default to command a fair degree of religious capital within society, and, if that is so, then al-Azhar should ideally have some power to resist the state by drawing on its popular legitimacy. Instead, what we have seen is that the al-Azhari leadership has bent over backwards to defend even highly contentious aspects of the al-Sisi regime. Instead of opting to stay quiet on particularly contentious issues, it has actually laid the blame for the oppression seen under al-Sisi’s tenure not on the state but actually on those persecuted. When the group of 150 Muslim scholars criticized Shaykh al-Azhar for siding with an unjust regime and supporting the removal of Muslim Brotherhood government, al-Azhar official response was as follows: The Shaykh would not have been able to reject and not support a call made to all national parties and political and religious figures, including the Freedom and Justice Party, in a highly historical moment, . . . [P]eople have become very tired, and at such a national moment, not responding positively to this call is considered treason given the responsibility of the Shaykh to respond to the voice of the people who expressed their opinion in a very civilized and peaceful way; no different from January revolution.69

This does raise the question of why the relationship between al-Azhar and the Muslim Brotherhood has become so acrimonious? Indeed, ‘ulamā’ and political Islamists have historically been at odds with each other in most Muslim

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countries, as the former regard politics as having a corrupting influence, and the latter accuse the former of being out of sync with modern-day realities and too inward-looking to take action to shape society on sharī’ah lines.70 Further, the al-Azhari official establishment does take pride in its pluralistic outlook, which is reflected in its respect for all four madhhabs (thereby preserving a strong focus on loyalty to fiqh), while at the same time nurturing a strong tradition of taṣawwuf and mysticism. It claims to stand for the spirit of Egyptian Islam and society, which accommodates its Pharaonic past as well as religious minorities, in particular Coptic Christians. The approach of al-Azhar is thus more conducive to individual piety than to support for enforcement of sharī’ah by the state. The Muslim Brotherhood, as is the case with all political Islam movements that were born in the colonial context of the twentieth century, on the other hand promotes a specific reading of Islam shaped largely around the teachings of its key ideologues—Hasan al-Bana and Sayyid Qutb. The extremely acrimonious statements by al-Azhari ‘ulamā’ against the Muslim Brotherhood are thus partly reflective of a genuine clash of perceptions about what is the authentic Islamic tradition. The fact that these scholars became so vocal could partly be indicative of a heightened fear, created by Muslim Brotherhood 2012 electoral success, that the Brotherhood is becoming too strong within the Egyptian society. The apprehension that radical Islamic strands are taking over Egypt was also propelled by the simultaneous rise of the formerly unknown Salafi political party, Al-Nour, which emerged as a visible force in the elections that brought the Muslim Brotherhood to power. Threatened by the growing onslaught of conservative Islamic movements on the Egyptian landscape, many al-Azhari scholars feel that its wasaṭīyah approach is under threat. Thus, ideology, or different conceptions of what constitutes an authentic Islamic tradition, is at the heart of the tension we have seen between alAzhar and the Muslim Brotherhood. Pragmatism had a role to play, too, however. Traditionally, al-Azhar has faced competition from two sources: from independent Islamic movements such as the Muslim Brotherhood, and from the two state-owned religious platforms: the Ministry of Awqāf, and Dār al-Iftā’. The Egyptian state has used these platforms carefully. At times, they have been used to coerce al-Azhari ‘ulamā’ to cooperate with the state; at other times, they have been used to carefully boost al-Azhar’s standing so that it can do a more effective job of legitimizing the state. The Ministry of Awqāf, for instance, expands or restricts al-Azhar’s sphere of influence depending on the latter’s relationship with the sitting government. For example, in the 1970s, when the ‘ulamā’ demanded changes to the Egyptian legal system, Anwar Sadat gave all the powers of the Shaykh al-Azhar to the Ministry of Awqāf, although eventually he rescinded his decree.71 Similarly, in 1996 when the state was worried about the spread of Islamist preachers on the periphery, it passed a law that required all private mosques to come under the control of the Ministry of Awqāf.72 Thus, this competition from

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both independent and state-controlled religious platforms remains an important reason for the al-Azhari leadership’s alliance with the state. As Malika Zeghal has argued, “The more violent the conflict between the state and radical Islamists grew, the more leverage al-Azhar gained on the regime, and the more diverse and powerful al-Azhar appeared on the political scene.”73 Under al-Sisi, al-Azhar has thus sought increased authority vis-à-vis the state by legitimizing the state repression of the Muslim Brotherhood. A number of concessions have thus come its way: the Ministry of Awqāf made al-Azhar responsible for developing the new curriculum for Islamic studies at all educational levels as part of the al-Sisi religious revolution;74 it also made it compulsory for imāms in all mosques to be trained by al-Azhar, thereby limiting the power of the Salafi da’wah movement—another of al-Azhar’s competitors.75 However, ideology and pragmatism alone do not explain the real severity of the challenge faced by al-Azhar today as a leading voice of moderate Islam: the real challenge in fact rests in the growing influence of secularizing forces within the Egyptian state and society. Al-Azhar, while on the one hand being criticized for losing its methodological rigor and moral credibility, is on the other being portrayed by many in the Egyptian secular media as being too conservative and inspiring militant groups such as the ISIS.76 The hurling of such accusations at an Islamic scholarly institution that has over the centuries stood for the most tolerant readings of Islam shows that the pressures from the secular elites are growing. Even though the majority may not share these ideas, the complete capture of major Egyptian media channels by secular-minded elites is creating heavy pressures on even the most progressive of Islamic scholarly institutions to further give in to Western sensibilities. Further, some of the scholars within the institution are part of this changing landscape, such as those who endorse al-Sisi-led curriculum reforms. The profiles of the top alAzhari leadership, due to their being appointed by the regime, rather than by fellow scholars, are in reality very mixed. The current Shaykh al-Azhar is not a graduate of al-Azhar but instead has studied in Sorbonne, France. The al-Azhar Document that he developed to challenge the Morsi government outlined basic political freedoms that were not in conflict with the Islamic framework, but its wording revealed a deeper embedding in Western sensibilities and was reminiscent of the influences that he probably absorbed during his time in France. Similarly, as we will see in Chapter 3, Usama al-Azhari, a former student of Ali Gomaa and a senior adviser to al-Sisi, is genuinely very keen on reform because in his view a state constituted on a rigid reading of the sharī’ah is a bigger threat than one in the hands of the secular elites.77 This growing influence of secular sensibilities within educated, urban, and upper-middle-income sections of Muslim societies, where religion, although still important is just one of the many influences shaping people’s conception of right or wrong, poses a special risk to the continued legitimacy of a moderate institution like al-Azhar: the risk of it tipping over in favor of a stateled project of modernization, whereby its main role becomes simply to reframe Islamic fiqh to meet Western sensibilities, becomes too strong.

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Masooda Bano The Myth of “Deeply Religious” Societies

The key to understanding the future of al-Azhar rests in understanding the mixed Egyptian sensibilities to which it is pressured to respond. The al-Azhari tradition, as we will see in Chapter 3, continues to maintain a good balance in terms of trying to stay true to the principles of the sharī’ah while accounting for the needs of the time: fiqh al-wāqi’ and maqāṣid al-sharī’ah, the former emphasizing the importance of understanding the reality in which one lives, and the latter emphasizing the need to reconcile that reality with the principles of the sharī’ah, are thus two influential concepts being used by most influential al-Azhari ‘ulamā’, irrespective of their different political orientations. But how long al-Azhar will be able to sustain this balance is unclear. On the one hand, there are many Muslims who are highly critical of al-Azhar because of its complete endorsement of the al-Sisi regime; on the other hand, are the secularists for whom al-Azhar, despite its willingness to forge alliances with the government, is too conservative. Writing about the protests in Tahrir Square, Charles Hirschkind argues against reading these protests as either religious or secular, instead viewing them as “asecular.”78 While this explanation does fit the first round of protests that brought down the Mubarak regime, the protests led by Tamarod, the movement that brought down the Muslim Brotherhood government, cannot be read as asecular: these protests were explicitly framed by an anti-religious discourse that argued that the religious state cannot be democratic. Even though it later transpired that this movement was actively backed by the military regime, putting its claim of more than 22 million signatories into question, the fact that it built support against the Muslim Brotherhood government by accusing it of religious dogma shows how religion remained central to its demand. It was also precisely in these terms that the Western commentators also presented the developments in Egypt. Even many Egyptian academics in the West accused the Muslim Brotherhood of extreme Islamic understandings unfamiliar to Egyptians79 and thereby defended its forced removal. The extreme reaction of many members of the Egyptian public to the Muslim Brotherhood shows that, whatever may be its governance problems, its commitment to building a sharī’ah-based society had a major role to play in generating the strong public reaction against it and thus giving al-Sisi the justification to intervene. In understanding the real risk to the future of alAzhar as a moderate voice of Islam that may tilt too much in favor of the state-led modernization agenda, we need to recognize the mixed sensibilities of the Egyptian public, among whom the voices arguing for a secular public space and curtailment of the role of religion in personal life are growing stronger. Especially with the growing power of electronic media and private television channels, which in Egypt remain largely in the control of secular companies, religious sensibilities are under pressure: Shaykh al-Azhar’s refusal to label ISIS as takfīrī—a position that, he argues, will make him

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like ISIS, as they declare everyone else non-Muslim—made him the target of much criticism within these media channels, despite his full support for the al-Sisi regime.80 Many pro-Sisi journalists have been blaming al-Azhar for supporting radical ideals.81 While the modernists, including reform-minded Islamic scholars like Muhammad Abduh, have long criticized al-Azhar for being out-dated and in need of educational reform, today many are accusing it of breeding radical militancy82—assertions that are hard to substantiate but that are being widely made. Being accused of backwardness or conservatism is different from being accused of promoting militancy or violent groups like ISIS. Al-Azhar graduates are today being accused by some of supporting ISIS.83 The critics of al-Azhar have also questioned its ability to reform teachings in the katibs (basic Qurʾānic schools)—a task that it was assigned under the al-Sisi government.84 This evidence of changing public subjectivities is very poignantly brought out by Lisa Goldman in her article “In Sisi’s Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood are the New Jews.”85 Analyzing the content of a popular drama serial, The Jewish Quarter, she notes how in it the Muslim Brotherhood has replaced the Jews as the new villains: “It is they who commit acts of terror aimed at upsetting Egypt’s political stability and at tearing apart its social fabric. The Jews on the other hand are not all perfidious Zionists: some—the heroic ones—are patriotic Egyptians.” She further analyzes how the drama serial also shows a major shift in how Palestinians have traditionally been presented in the Egyptian mindset. Instead of the romanticized portrayal of Palestinians in Arab popular media, whereby they were formerly presented as heroic resistance fighters, she notes how in the current series they are shown as “relatively passive and ambivalent, even collaborating at times with the Israelis.” As she notes, this narrative is consistent with one promoted by the al-Sisi regime, whereby Hamas has been presented as the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood and suspected of helping Islamist militants carry out terror attacks in the Sinai. Summing up the analysis, Goldman exposes the heart of the dilemma faced by observers of Egyptian Islam: “Just as it’s difficult to determine if Netanyahu pushed Israel to the right or if Israelis elected Netanyahu because they had shifted to the right, it’s difficult to determine whether ‘The Jewish Quarter’ reflects popular Egyptian attitudes or if the producers are promoting the Sisi regime’s narrative via a popular drama series.” As in the case of the Tarmord Movement, it is quite likely that this drama series has the backing of the al-Sisi regime, too. But, even if that is the case, it is no longer easy to say that it is state propaganda that alone advances secular worldviews whereby religion is increasingly being presented as the cause of major societal problems. Instead, the way that many Egyptians endorsed al-Sisi’s treatment of the Muslim Brotherhood indicated a deeper level of confusion within Muslim societies, where the authority of the faith has been highly diluted: regimes seen to be aiming to impose a strict code of sharī’ah

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are not welcome.86 Most importantly, as we have seen, this shift in sensibilities is visible even within the al-Azhari leadership, which preferred to work with a secular regime in preference to one claiming allegiance to a religious framework. In the immediate post-colonial period, it was only the elites who had developed largely secularized or Westernized attitudes; now, many from the middleand low-income strata of society are also divided in their subjectivities. Islam is still very present in Egypt when it comes to the Friday prayer congregations; however, as Charles Taylor notes, the turnout at church services in the United States can be very large, too. He argues that the will to make religion the dominant framework for shaping life and society is the main test defining the role of religion in society,87 and this will appear to be weak in contemporary Egyptian society. Al-Azhar support for al-Sisi, and its extreme aversion to the Muslim Brotherhood’s control of political power, is thus not only about competition for religious authority, it is also evidence of the highly secularized social imaginaries of many urban Egyptians today. Islam still remains a powerful force in Egypt, and the removal of the Muslim Brotherhood does not mean that it has been entirely rooted out (although many of its critics, like Hazim Kandil, have pronounced it dead).88 What this phase of Egyptian history has, however, shown us is that scholarship concerning Muslim societies often exaggerates the religiosity of these societies, thereby putting them in unnecessary opposition to the West. Studies such as Mahmood’s Politics of Piety,89 Agrama’s Questioning Secularism,90 and Hirschkind’s The Ethical Soundspace91 present the Egyptian people as highly devout, so that the blurb on the back cover of Agrama’s book labels Egypt as a “highly religious society.” Admittedly, these studies do focus on specific religious groups, platforms, or themes. Yet their attempt to abstract from these specific cases to build a general critique of liberal theory and related notions of agency, creativity, and reasoning, which are closely tied to the notion of secularization, ends up presenting wrong conclusions about the role of religion in these societies; more importantly, they deny religiously guided agency any element of creative energy. Mahmood finds women in the mosque movements despite their socio-economic and cultural differences conforming to a very orthodox reading of female sexuality; Agrama similarly finds al-Azhari ‘ulamā’ capable only of mimicking the past and incapable of finding creative and dynamic responses to the needs of the time.92 As we will see in Chapter 3, such an approach discredits the rich intellectual and creative energy within the al-Azhari scholarly tradition, where the influential scholars are not mimicking the past; instead, they are leading the debate today on fiqh al-wāqi’, a concept that is centered on recognizing that the realities of each time are different, and the fiqh has to respond to the changed realities by engaging in reasoned discourse. Similarly, Chapter 2 will illustrate how reasoned discourse and creative energy have historically been central to al-Azhari scholarly tradition. Using Muslim societies as a means to prove the limits of liberal theory and its underlying assumptions is thus problematic. The future

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that these societies envision may never be exactly the same as that of the West, but the pockets of orthodox piety that these studies have tried to emphasize are already a rarity. Moving forward, the dilemma thus remains: to what extent will al-Azhar be able to retain its emphasis on wasaṭīyah Islam, where Islam is responsive to modern sensibilities but not made subservient to the Western liberal framework? The key to retaining its position as the leading center of Islamic learning rests on maintaining this delicate balance.

Notes 1. Al-Azhar is routinely approached by the Egyptian state, and at times even by the Western governments, to legitimize state policies that would be considered controversial in light of Islamic dictates, see Malika Zeghal, “The ‘Recentering’ of Religious Knowledge and Discourse: The Case of al-Azhar in Twentieth-Century Egypt,” in Schooling Islam: The Culture and Politics of Modern Muslim Education, eds Robert Hefner and Muhammad Qasim Zaman (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007), 105–30. For the overwhelming influence of al-Azhar in shaping Islamic discourse and practice in other regions, in particular East Asian, see chapters in Part 3 in Masooda Bano and Keiko Sakurai, eds, Shaping Global Islamic Discourses: The Role of al-Azhar, al-Medina and al-Mustafa (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2015). 2. Al-Azhar remains a popular destination for young Muslims interested in specialist study of Islam in the West. Many of the prominent scholars in the West, including figures such as Tariq Ramadan and Tim Winter (covered in Volume 2), have spent time at al-Azhar. 3. Masooda Bano, “Protector of the ‘al-Wasatiyya’ Islam: Cairo’s al-Azhar University,” in Bano and Sakurai, Shaping Global, 73–92. 4. Ahmed Morsay and Nathan Brown, “Egypt’s Al-Azhar Steps Forward,” The Cairo Review of Global Affairs: Tahrir Forum, November 23, 2013, accessed July 27, 2016, http://www.thecairoreview.com/tahrir-forum/egypts-al-azhar-steps-forward/; Michael Kaplan, “Under Egypt President Sisi, World Famous Muslim University Al-Azhar Faces Global Backlash,” International Business Times, August 13, 2015, accessed July 27, 2016, http://www.ibtimes.com/under-egypt-president-sisi-worldfamous-muslim-university-al-azhar-faces-global-2048315. 5. Malika Zeghal, “The ‘Recentering’ of Religious Knowledge”; Malika Zeghal, “Religion and Politics in Egypt: The Ulema of al-Azhar, Radical Islam and the State (1952–1994),” International Journal of Middle East Studies 31 (1999), 371–99. 6. Human Rights Watch (HRW), “Egypt: Rab’a Killings Likely Crimes against Humanity. No Justice a Year Later for Series of Deadly Mass Attacks on Protesters,” Human Rights Watch, August 12, 2014, accessed July 27, 2016, https:// www.hrw.org/news/2014/08/12/egypt-raba-killings-likely-crimes-against-humanity; Human Rights Watch (HRW), “All According to Plan: The Rab’a Massacre and Mass Killings of Protesters in Egypt,” Human Rights Watch, August 12, 2014, accessed July 12, 2016, https://www.hrw.org/report/2014/08/12/all-according-plan/raba-massacre-and-mass-killings-protesters-egypt.

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7. HRW, “All According to Plan.” 8. Zeghal, “Religion and Politics in Egypt.” 9. Indira Falk Gesink, Islamic Reform and Conservatism: al-Azhar and the Evolution of Modern Sunni Islam, rev. edn (London: I. B. Tauris, 2014). 10. Ibid.; Aria Nakissa, “An Epistemic Shift in Islamic Law: Educational Reform at al-Azhar and Dar al-Ulum,” Islamic Law and Society 21 (2014), 209–51. 11. Masooda Bano, “Madrasa Reforms and Islamic Modernism in Bangladesh,” Modern Asian Studies 48 (2014), 911–39. 12. The competition posed by Diyanet to al-Azhar is visible in a recent interview where the President of al-Azhar is explicitly questioned about this, see Walaa Hussein, “Al-Azhar Rewrites Curricula,” Al-Monitor, June 29, 2015, accessed July 27, 2016, http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2015/06/egypt-azhar-curriculimrevise-religious-discourse-extremism.html. 13. See Chapter 2 titled “Fear of the Imam” in Fatima Mernissi, Islam and Democracy: Fear of the Modern World, trans. Mary Jo Lakeland (New York: Basic Books, 2009). 14. Zeghal, “Religion and Politics in Egypt.” 15. HRW, “All According to Plan.” 16. Ibid. In interviews conducted in late 2014, a female student at al-Azhar similarly explained to me how her brother, who was killed during the Raba Mosque operation, was not a Brotherhood member. 17. John Calvert, Sayyid Qutb and the Origins of Radical Islamism (London: Hurst, 2010); Richard P. Mitchell, The Society of the Muslim Brothers (Oxford–New York: Oxford University Press, 1993). 18. Reem Gehad, “Crackdown on Pro-Morsi Sit-Ins Leaves Egypt in a State of Emergency,” Ahram Online, August 15, 2013, accessed August 11, 2016, http://english. ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/1/0/79019/Egypt/0/Crackdown-on-proMorsi-sitinsleaves-Egypt-in-a-sta.aspx. 19. The Human Rights Watch has argued that the operation at Raba was a clearly planned operation with approval from the country’s top command as also indicated by its report title, “All According to Plan.” 20. Ibid. 21. The death, apparently in police custody, of an Italian student from Cambridge who was pursuing his Ph.D. fieldwork in Egypt caused major international outcry: Stephanie Kirchgaessner, Ruth Michaelson, and Aisha Gani, “Italian Student Giulio Regeni Found Dead in Cairo ‘With Signs of Torture,” The Guardian, February 4, 2015, accessed July 27, 2016, http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/feb/04/ italian-student-found-dead-egypt-giulio-regeni-torture. 22. “Pro-Muslim Brotherhood Clerics Call to Overthrow al-Sisi Regime in Egypt, Restore Mursi to Presidency,” Ikhwan Info, June 17, 2016, accessed August 11, 2016, http://www.ikhwan.whoswho/en/archives/555. The petition, also endorsed by important religious bodies from across the Arab world, was posted on the Nida Al-Kinana (Egypt Call) website. 23. Oliver Laughland, “Egyptian Military Removes President Mohamed Morsi—As It Happened,” The Guardian, July 4, 2013, accessed August 14, 2016, https://www. theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/04/egypt-morsi-removed-army-live. 24. “Egypt Minister Calls for Killing 400,000 Brotherhood Members and Supporters,” Middle East Eye, January 28, 2016, accessed August 11, 2016, http://www. middleeasteye.net/news/egypts-justice-minister-calls-killing-400000-mb-membersand-supporters-1842112087.

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25. Hanan Fayed, “Al-Azhar Responds to Sisi’s Call for ‘Religious Revolution,’” The Cairo Post, January 2, 2015, accessed July 27, 2016, http://thecairopost. youm7.com/news/132144/news/al-azhar-responds-to-sisis-call-for-religiousrevolution. 26. Amr Osman, “Ali Gomaa: Kill Them, They Stink, Middle East Monitor,” 27 January 2014, accessed on August 15, 2016, https://www.middleeastmonitor. com/20140127-ali-gomaa-kill-them-they-stink. 27. Ahmed Karima, Professor of Islamic Law at al-Azhar, who has also endorsed alSisi’s proposed reforms to the al-Azhar curriculum, is one such example; Hussein, “Al-Azhar Rewrites Curricula.” 28. Calvert, Sayyid Qutb; Mitchell, Society of the Muslim Brothers. 29. Ibid. 30. Zeghal, “Religion and Politics in Egypt,” 30. 31. Bano, “Protector of the ‘al-Wasatiyya’ Islam.” 32. Ibid. for a detailed analysis of the freedoms demanded in the al-Azhar Document. 33. Ibid. 34. Chloe Benoist, “The Sketchy Articles of Egypt’s Constitution,” al-Akhbar, December 2, 2012, accessed August 1, 2016, http://english.al-akhbar.com/node/14200. 35. Ibid. 36. Ibid. 37. Ibid. 38. Ibid. 39. Ibid. 40. Heather McRobie, “Egypt: A Tale of Two Constitutions,” openDemocracy, January 16, 2014, accessed August 14, 2016, http://www.opendemocracy.net/5050/heathermcrobie/egypt-tale-of-two-constitutions. 41. Morsay and Brown, “Egypt’s Al-Azhar Steps Forward.” 42. Paolo Caridi, “Consensus-Building in Al-Sisi’s Egypt,” Insight Egypt, February 2015, accessed July 27, 2016, http://www.iai.it/sites/default/files/inegypt_07.pdf. 43. Raymond Ibrahim, “Egypt’s Sisi: Islamic ‘Thinking’ is ‘Antagonizing the Entire World,’” Middle East Forum, January 1, 2015, accessed July 27, 2016, http://www. raymondibrahim.com/2015/01/01/egypts-sisi-islamic-thinking-is-antagonizing-theentire-world/. 44. General Musharraf, who, like al-Sisi, staged a military coup against an elected government (becoming Pakistan’s President between 1999 and 2008) similarly liked to present himself as a devout Muslim, but one who was a reformist. Explicitly referring to Mustafa Kemal as his model, he developed a notion of “enlightened Islam” which like al-Sisi’s “religious revolution” argued for Muslim societies to conform to Western modernity. 45. Mohamed Khairat, “Egypt’s President Sisi Urges Islamic Scholars to Send Christmas Greetings, Calls for Reform,” Egyptian Streets, December 24, 2015, accessed July 27, 2016, http://egyptianstreets.com/2015/12/24/egypts-president-sisi-urgesislamic-scholars-to-send-christmas-greetings-calls-for-reform/. 46. “El-Sisi Says Al-Azhar Has Failed to Renew Islamic Discourse,” Ahram Online, July 14, 2015, accessed July 27, 2016, http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/1/64/135369/Egypt/Politics-/ElSisi-says-AlAzhar-has-failed-to-renew-Islamicdi.aspx. 47. Ibid. 48. Ibid.

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49. Hanan Fayed, “Al-Azhar Responds to Sisi’s Call for ‘Religious Revolution’,” The Cairo Post, January 2, 2015, accessed July 27, 2016, http://thecairopost.youm7. com/news/132144/news/al-azhar-responds-to-sisis-call-for-religious-revolution. 50. Jakob Skovgaard-Peterson, “al-Azhar, Modern Period,” EI3. 51. George Hyde, Education in Modern Egypt: Ideals and Realities (London: Routledge, 1978), 155. 52. “Kulliyat al-lugha al-’arabiyya,” http://www.azhar.edu.eg/bfac/Foal/index.html. 53. E.g. Kulliyat al-dirasat al-islamiyya banin bi-l-Qahira website, “al-Aqsam al’ilmiyya,” accessed July 6, 2016, http://www.azhar.edu.eg/bfac/drasat_cairo/ dprts.htm. 54. Monique Cardinal, “Islamic Legal Theory Curriculum: Are the Classics Taught Today?,” Islamic Law and Society 12 (2005), 224–72. 55. Ibid. 56. Ibid., 241, 245. 57. Aria Nakissa, “An Epistemic Shift in Islamic Law: Educational Reform at al-Azhar and Dar al-Ulum,” Islamic Law and Society 21 (2014), 209–51. 58. Cardinal, “Islamic Legal Theory,” 239. 59. Bano, “Madrasa Reforms”; Masooda Bano, “Engaged Yet Disengaged: Islamic Schools and the State in Kano,” Religions and Development (RaD) Research Programme Working Paper 29 (University of Birmingham, 2009). 60. Hussein, “Al-Azhar Rewrites Curricula.” 61. Ibid. 62. Ibid. 63. Ibid. 64. Mahmoud Mourad and Yara Bayoumy, “Special Report: Egypt Deploys Scholars to Teach Moderate Islam, but Skepticism Abounds,” May 31, 2015, accessed July 27, 2016, http://www.reuters.com/article/us-egypt-islam-azhar-special-report-idUS KBN0OG07T20150531#0EVtXs2xeRUfYpbY.97 65. Hussein, “Al-Azhar Rewrites Curricula.” 66. Muhammad Mansour, “Why Sisi Fears Egypt’s Liberals,” Foreign Affairs, May 18, 2016, accessed August 14, 2016, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/ egypt/2016-05-18/why-sisi-fears-egypts-liberals. 67. Ibid. 68. Even this time around, in return for its cooperation with the al-Sisi government, the Ministry of Awqāf made al-Azhar responsible for revising the Islamic curriculum for state schools and made it mandatory for all mosque imams to be al-Azhar trained; Reham Mokbel, “Al-Azhar Rethinks Primary School Teaching to Encourage Moderation,” Al-Monitor, July 14, 2015, accessed July 27, 2016, http:// www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2015/07/egypt-azhar-quran-school-katateebupdate-modernize-curricula.html. 69. Al-Yom al-Sabah, accessed August 17, 2016, http://www.youm7.com/story/0000/0/0//1155480#.VuV86_nDJNo. 70. South Asian experiences have been similar. Abul Ala Maududi, the South Asian counterpart of Sayyid Qutb, and founder of Jamaat-i-Islami, was critical of the political inaction of the ‘ulamā’ and vice versa. He also severely critiqued the neglect of modern subjects in madrasah curriculum, which he found indicative of ‘ulamā’ unwillingness to engage with the modern world: Masooda Bano, “Welfare Work and Politics of Jama’at-i-Islami in Pakistan and Bangladesh,” Economic and Political Weekly 47 (2012), 86–93; Bano, “Madrasa Reforms.”

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71. Zeghal, “Religion and Politics in Egypt,” 383. 72. Carrie Rosefsky Wickham, Mobilizing Islam: Religion, Activism, and Political Change in Egypt (New York–Chichester: Columbia University Press, 2002), 216. 73. Zeghal, “Religion and Politics in Egypt,” 389. 74. Mokbel, “Al-Azhar Rethinks Primary School Teaching.” 75. Stéphane Lacroix, “Sheikhs and Politicians: Inside the New Egyptian Salafism,” Brookings Doha Center, Policy Briefing, June 11, 2012, accessed August 12, 2016, https://www.brookings.edu/research/sheikhs-and-politicians-inside-the-newegyptian-salafism/. 76. Cathy Hinners, “The ISIS-Al Azhar-Murfreesboro Imam Connection,” The Counter Jihad Report, November 29, 2015, accessed July 27, 2016, http://counterjihadreport.com/category/al-azhar-university/; Jennifer Williams, “There’s a ‘Crisis of Legitimacy Within Islam’—And It’s Fueling ISIS,” Vox, November 18, 2015, accessed July 27, 2016, http://www.vox.com/2015/11/18/9756658/legitimacyislam-isis. 77. John Jammy, “Sheikh Usama Al-Sayyid Al-Azhari,” The Correct Islamic Faith Blog, May 19, 2013, accessed August 11, 2016, http://thecorrectislamicfaith. blogspot.com/2013/05/sheikh-usama-al-sayyid-al-azhari.html. 78. Charles Hirschkind, “Beyond Secular and Religious: An Intellectual Genealogy of Tahrir Square,” American Ethnologist 39 (2012), 49–53. 79. Hazem Kandil, Inside the Brotherhood (Malden, M.A.: Polity Press, 2014); Shadi Hamid, Temptations of Power: Islamists and Illiberal Democracy in a New Middle East (Oxford–New York: Oxford University Press, 2014). 80. Raymond Ibrahim, “Al Azhar Can’t Denounce ISIS as Un-Islamic Even if it Commits ‘Every Atrocity,” Middle East Forum, December 3, 2015, accessed August 11, 2016, http://www.meforum.org/blog/2015/12/alazhar-isis; Rami Galal, “Sisi’s Call for Religious Tolerance Divides Muslims,” Al-Monitor, May 26, 2015, accessed July 27, 2016, http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2015/05/egypt-salafist-sufi-religion-extremism-azhar-quran-sheikh.html#. 81. Ismael El-Kholy, “Al-Azhar Controversy Leads to Curriculum Updates,” Al-Monitor, June 5, 2015, accessed July 27, 2016, http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2015/06/egypt-azhar-university-curriculum-updates-extremist-sisi.html. 82. Williams, “There’s a ‘Crisis of Legitimacy.” 83. Hinners, “ISIS-Al Azhar-Murfreesboro Imam Connection.” 84. Mokbel, “Al-Azhar Rethinks Primary School Teaching.” 85. Lisa Goldman, “In Sisi’s Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood are the New Jews,” 972mag.com, July 7, 2015, accessed July 27, 2016, http://972mag.com/in-sisisegypt-the-muslim-brotherhood-are-the-new-jew-s/108606/. 86. Not only have Islamists normally struggled to win elections, as can be seen in the case of Jamaat-i-Islami in South Asia, more recently the decision by Tunisia’s Ennahda party to disown its religious identity in order to appeal to the secular voter is suggestive of the challenge that the Islamists face in winning popular electoral support: “Tunisia’s Ennahda Distances Itself from Political Islam,” Al Jazeera, May 21, 2016, accessed August 11, 2016, http://www.aljazeera.com/ news/2016/05/tunisia-ennahda-distances-political-islam-160520172957296.html. 87. Charles Taylor, A Secular Age (Cambridge, M.A.: Harvard University Press, 2007). 88. Seminar given at the Oxford Centre for Middle East Studies in 2013, soon after al-Sisi’s take over. For his critical view of Muslim Brotherhood reading of Islam, see Kandil, Inside the Brotherhood.

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89. Saba Mahmood, Politics of Piety: The Islamic Revival and the Feminist Subject (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2011). 90. Hussein Ali Agrama, Questioning Secularism: Islam, Sovereignty, and the Rule of Law in Modern Egypt (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2012). 91. Charles Hirschkind, The Ethical Soundscape: Cassette Sermons and Islamic Counterpublics (New York: Columbia University Press, 2009). 92. The fact that Agrama only focuses on fatwās related to family matters (such as marriage and divorce), as opposed to those linked to modern economic, political, or scientific developments (such as the new Islamic finance instruments being designed, or Islamic debates on the ethics of bio-medicine) explains why he is able to argue for human concerns being unchanging across time.

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CHAPTER

2

HISTORY AND CONTINUITY: AL-AZHAR AND EGYPT Nathan Spannaus

Since its founding in the tenth century, al-Azhar has been a focal point for religious life in Egypt, connected to both ruling dynasties and the broader society and shaped by the social and political circumstances of the country. Al-Azhar’s long history, unique among contemporary Islamic institutions, informs its current function and the construction of its religious authority, which is inseparably linked with its past. At the heart of al-Azhar are its ‘ulamā’, the scholars whose knowledge and expertise of the Islamic scholarly tradition underpins their role as religious interpreters and guides from its origins until today. The continuity of its ‘ulamā’ is connected with, and supported by, the continuity of al-Azhar as an institution, which provides a long-standing foundation for the exercise of religious authority.

The Early Period The history of al-Azhar begins in 970. The Fatimids, an Ismā’īlī Shi’i dynasty from North Africa, had (peacefully) taken control of Egypt in 969 from the short-lived Ikhshid dynasty and set about establishing a new, “victorious” capital, Cairo (al-Qāhirah, literally “the victorious”), separate from the older capital of Muslim Egypt, Fustat, which was founded after the Islamic conquest of the seventh century.1 Al-Azhar was intended as the royal mosque, built for the caliph al-Mu’izz (r. 953–75) and his family near a similarly new palace.2 Al-Mu’izz had decided to transfer the entire Fatimid court to Cairo from its previous capital in Tunis, and al-Azhar was part of the effort to establish

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Fatimid rule in Egypt.3 By this point the Fatimids had gained control of the whole of North Africa, which was extended to Syria and the Hijaz within a few decades of the conquest of Egypt, and spreading Ismā’īlism was a significant aspect in reinforcing Fatimid authority. Concurrent with the conquest of Egypt and establishment of a new capital, the administrative character of the Fatimid caliphate also underwent a shift, as its earlier incarnation as a tribal military dynasty gave way to a more bureaucratized political structure. Religion was made an important component of the Fatimid bureaucracy (largely adopted from the existing bureaucratic frameworks in the newly conquered territories), which was set on promoting Ismā’īlism through the da’wah, the missionary message that the Fatimids linked with allegiance to the caliphate. Officials (the dā’īs) were designated for the purpose of spreading the dynasty’s creed, both inside and outside Fatimid domains, conflating the roles of the government and religious authorities, while the Fatimid court itself was directly involved in the teaching of Ismā’īlī beliefs.4 Al-Azhar, as the royal mosque, was made a focal point of that process, distinct from the major Sunni mosques nearby, which remained centers of Sunnism (and also received support from the dynasty).5 Public lectures on Ismā’īlī belief intended to introduce people to Ismā’īlism were frequently held there, but al-Azhar became even more important for the study of Ismā’īlī fiqh. Legal scholars teaching in the mosque were supported by the ruling dynasty, with thirty-five jurists granted a salary for teaching in 988.6 Financial support from political and military elites would became a common aspect of Islamic education, but at this early stage funding for teaching at al-Azhar was not yet made permanent. The salaries for the thirty-five jurists were paid from the treasury, rather than through a waqf (an immutable endowment), which were established for the main mosques in Cairo (including al-Azhar) and Fustat only in the early eleventh century. However, these endowments merely supported physical maintenance of the mosques, rather than education specifically.7 Although the spread of Ismā’īlism was an obvious priority for the dynasty, the Fatimid court itself was the main center for Ismā’īlī teaching. The distinction between exoteric (ẓāhir) and esoteric (bāṭin) knowledge is foundational for Ismā’īlism, with the latter taught only to a select few. The caliph-imām is himself most knowledgeable and the leading religious authority, and therefore the primary Ismā’īlī teaching sessions (called majālis al-ḥikmah) were held in the caliph’s palace. The teaching of Ismā’īlī law—an exoteric subject—in alAzhar was open to the public and therefore of a lower status. Nevertheless, it was an important part of the da’wah, educating people in the texts of Ismā’īlī fiqh, the foremost of which was the Da’ā’im al-Islām by the Fatimid chief judge and dā’ī Qāḍī Nu’mān (d. 974).8 Government patronage and influence over religious scholarship were most clearly institutionalized in the madrasah, which was introduced into Egypt in the 1130s, as Fatimid governance was undergoing reorganization. The power

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of viziers had been steadily increasing since the mid-eleventh century while the Fatimid imāms had been slipping in importance; the viziers’ more autonomous position allowed them to patronize ‘ulamā’ themselves. The Ayyubids, an elite Kurdish military family who had become viziers under the Fatimids, used patronage to bolster their own wealth and standing. Taking advantage of the chaos of the twelfth-century Levant, in which the Seljuqs, the remnants of the Abbasid caliphate in Iraq, the Byzantine Empire, the Crusader states, the Fatimids, and the Zangid sultans of Syria were in constant competition, the Ayyubids gradually grew in power at the Fatimids’ expense. As vizier, the famed Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn (Saladin, 1137–93) asserted his independence from the Fatimid caliphs by undermining the official support for Ismā’īlism in Egypt, restricting its teaching, ceasing the Shi’i version of the call to prayer, and appointing only Sunni qāḍīs. Finally, in 1171, he removed the last Fatimid caliph from power and proclaimed himself ruler of Egypt.9 In establishing Ayyubid rule, Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn pursued a markedly pro-Sunni approach. In addition to the measures he took as vizier, as sultan he stripped alAzhar of its status as a jāmi’ mosque and seized its endowments.10 (Al-Ḥākim mosque, Cairo’s other major Shi’i mosque, suffered worse. It was used to house Crusader prisoners and then turned into a stable.11) The madrasah played a major role in his promotion of Sunni identity. Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn founded a number of endowments explicitly for instruction in Sunnism, including positions for teaching Sunni fiqh at the previously Shi’i Ḥusaynīyah mosque. It wasn’t simply anti-Fatimid sentiment that drove this approach. The Ayyubids’ rivals, the Zangid sultans of Syria, had adopted a pro-Ḥanafī stance, and Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn, although supporting to some degree all four legal schools in madrasahs and khānqāhs, patronized Ash’arism in particular, as well as Shāfi’ism (the two schools being closely linked), in response.12 Nonetheless, it should be noted that Islamic scholarship was never entirely dependent upon government sponsorship, and the continued importance of the ḥalaqah (study circle) beyond endowed teaching in the madrasah is particularly significant for the history of al-Azhar. Learning through the ḥalaqah was largely informal and required little beyond the time and room to hold a lesson. As such, there was doubtlessly teaching and learning carried out at al-Azhar despite the official neglect of the Ayyubid period, and even after patronage for al-Azhar was restored in the Mamluk era a significant portion of ḥalaqahs held there were not linked to any endowment.13

The Mamluk Period (1250–1517) Formal government support for scholarship reached its apex in Egypt under the Mamluk sultanate. The Mamluks (whose name denotes their slave status) were a quintessential Turkic military dynasty. Slaves of Circassian and Cuman origin (from the steppes touching the northeastern shore of the Black Sea)

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were first brought to Egypt as soldiers for the Ayyubids. After seizing power in a palace coup in 1250, Amir Aybak (r. 1250–7) established Mamluk control of Cairo, which became the capital of their domains, eventually stretching to Syria and Palestine. Linguistically and ethnically Turkic, the Mamluks relied heavily upon the ‘ulamā’ to provide them with legitimacy and a link with the Egyptian population, and they secured scholars’ support through extensive patronage. They patronized ‘ulamā’ broadly, building and endowing large numbers of madrasahs and khānqāhs in Cairo alone. Al-Azhar again received waqf support and government patronage. The mosque itself was enlarged and renovated, with new sections devoted to teaching, such as the Aqbughāwīyah and Ṭaybarsīyah madrasahs, both bearing the conspicuous names of their Mamluk patrons.14 Charitable endowments by Mamluk elites served their political purposes, but they also supported educational and pious activities—which overlapped considerably—and the broad scope of Mamluk patronage allowed it to play a significant role within society, providing important services and promoting religiosity among the population.15 As Michael Chamberlain writes, patronage connected the otherwise estranged ruling class with their subjects, and its effects extended throughout society.16 Mamluk support, importantly, was not linked to a particular school. All four madhhabs were present in Cairo during this period, with the Shāfi’īs and Mālikīs most prevalent (giving Ash’arism a central place in theological circles). Ḥanbalism was the third school, while Ḥanafism had long had only a tiny presence in Egypt, limited largely to the Mamluks themselves. (This would change during the Ottoman era, of course, as Ḥanafism received tremendous support as a matter of imperial policy and Ḥanbalīs gradually disappeared from Egypt.17) The Mamluks for their part promoted the four Sunni legal schools equally, which, as Yossef Rapoport argues regarding the appointment of four qāḍīs, provided the dynasty with a stable, but also relatively broad-based legal and religious environment. The presence of the four schools and availability of ‘ulamā’ from each allowed lay Muslims to seek judgments or fatwās from whichever school’s doctrine was most advantageous. Although condemned by some scholars, many ‘ulamā’ considered it a legitimate practice, and it has been argued that the Mamluk policy was chosen with due regard for the flexibility it offered.18 This continued among Egyptians well into the Ottoman period, despite overwhelming imperial support for Ḥanafism.19 Selecting a judge based on his school’s corpus juris necessarily required a degree of knowledge from the lay person and, indeed, many people were well familiar with the relevant doctrines of the legal schools. As Nelly Hanna has shown in her cultural history of Ottoman Cairo, learning and literacy were prominent aspects of the Cairene middle class, which only grew in wealth and number in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Education

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was widespread among large segments of the population, as was the significant book trade in the city.20 As a result, firm divisions between ‘ulamā’ and society are difficult to draw. While teaching positions continued to be endowed and filled by prominent ‘ulamā’, many people who never became “scholars” in any sense of the word nevertheless attained some education beyond basic childhood schooling. Others had fairly extensive religious educations but were not ‘ulamā’ by profession, earning their living through other means. Much of the education these people received would have come in mosques, certainly in the less formal ḥalaqahs, ubiquitous around the city.21 Familial association also played a role in linking the ‘ulamā’ with Cairene society, as most scholars were of local origin, and few came from strictly ‘ulamā’ dynasties. These connections between scholars and the broader society were particularly pronounced in terms of al-Azhar. Its ḥalaqahs, given the sheer number held at the mosque, served as perhaps the most important educational venue in Cairo. Moreover, a significant proportion of students there were of lower-class backgrounds, coming from smaller villages around Egypt or Cairo proper. (Indeed, many prominent Azhari scholars from this era were of rural origin.)22 While these points applied equally to the Mamluk and Ottoman periods, al-Azhar’s local character took on increased importance under Ottoman rule. Cairo itself became an important scholarly center under Mamluk patronage. The military elite supported learning and religious scholarship extensively, at the Mamluk court and in the numerous khānqāhs and madrasahs endowed by them and their families. Much like their religious administration, the Mamluks’ patronage was broad-based, supporting a range of subjects and schools of thought that encompassed the breadth of the scholarly tradition. Fiqh, ḥadīth, tafsīr, and kalām in particular were major points of emphasis for Mamluk-era authors, whose works were cultivated by Cairo’s intellectual environment.

The Ottoman Period (1517–1805) The Ottoman conquest of 1517 coincided with significant shifts in religious scholarship in Egypt. In contrast to the earlier period, in which logical and philosophical subjects were dismissed and condemned as religiously illegitimate, the sixteenth century saw a flourishing of the study of logic and Ash’arī kalām, formed out of a combination of Iranian (particularly from Shiraz) and North African scholarly trends, resulting in a distinctly Egyptian strand of Ash’arism.23 One of the leading scholars at al-Azhar in this period was Ibrāhīm al-Laqānī (d. 1633), Mālikī muftī, whose Jawharat al-Tawḥīd became a major text of Ash’arī theology in Azhari circles, engendering numerous commentaries and supercommentaries up to the twentieth century.24 This movement of

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Egyptian Ash’arism dominated al-Azhar throughout the Ottoman period, with preeminent Mālikī and Shāfi’ī scholars and numerous shaykhs al-Azhar major proponents.25 In addition, conventional religious subjects—including logic and philosophy—were accompanied by sciences such as astronomy, astrology, and medicine, all of which were studied and taught, even among prominent ‘ulamā’.26 Accordingly, Azhari scholarship was characterized in this period by its breadth. While their scholarly activities continued apace, the political environment for the ‘ulamā’ was transformed under Ottoman rule. Following the conquest of Egypt, the Ottomans retained the Mamluks to serve as governors, semiautonomous vassals to the Sublime Porte in Istanbul (which they did until the French invasion in 1798). Despite this ostensible continuity in political rule, the Ottomans introduced a number of important bureaucratic changes regarding the ‘ulamā’. Unlike the Mamluks, whose religious administration was largely informal, limited to the appointment of four chief qāḍīs and financial patronage, the Ottoman ‘ulamā’ were part of the imperial bureaucracy and subject to a relatively formal hierarchy. At the top was the Shaykh al-Islām, the chief muftī of Istanbul, as well as the elite qāḍīs of the central Ottoman provinces. These figures controlled the appointment of judges and muftīs in other areas of the empire, including Egypt. The Shaykh al-Islām and qāḍī of Anatolia selected the chief judges (sing. qāḍī, quḍāt) and lesser district judges, respectively, for the Arab provinces. Judicial positions in the Ottoman Empire were temporary, however, and chief judges generally served only a year in each posting, while terms for lesser judges were similarly short. As part of the ‘ulamā’ hierarchy, these scholars were circulated around the empire, with more successful ones gaining frequent promotions. Cairo was, of course, a prominent position, but that simply made it a stepping-stone to the upper echelons of the bureaucracy.27 Additionally, in contrast to Mamluk practice, the Ottomans specifically supported Ḥanafism as the official madhhab of the empire. Chief judges were by rule Ḥanafīs, as were their assistants, who were personally linked with the judges and moved with them from posting to posting. District judges were Ḥanafīs as well. In larger cities like Cairo, where other schools were wellrepresented, Mālikī and Shāfi’ī judges remained available, but they were below Ḥanafī judges within the bureaucracy. They were also predominantly local and did not move around the empire.28 As a result, there was a substantial divide between Ottoman Ḥanafī scholars, who held significant authority and were connected with the center of power in Istanbul, and native, non-Ḥanafī ‘ulamā’ who held a degree of separate social, and in some cases religious, legitimacy.29 (While the duties of muftīs are less formalized than that of qāḍīs and less affected by bureaucratization, provincial Ḥanafī muftīs were also supported by Istanbul.) This was particularly important for al-Azhar, which prior to the Ottoman takeover had predominantly Shāfi’ī and Mālikī scholars, with a small number of Ḥanbalīs. Even

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with the increase in Ḥanafīs associated with the mosque, its ‘ulamā’ remained overwhelmingly Egyptian.30 The introduction of the Ḥanafī-centric religious hierarchy controlled by Istanbul and staffed largely by non-Arabs appears to have had a significant impact on al-Azhar’s position within the Egyptian religious landscape. It is in this period, Daniel Crecelius argues, that al-Azhar became a focal point for native religious identity, apart from the Ottoman bureaucracy.31 (Accordingly, it also grew in importance beyond other madrasahs and mosques, becoming Cairo’s— if not Egypt’s—primary religious center.32) Deeply intertwined with Egyptian society, it represented an alternative institution, unconnected to Istanbul. And it seems that a corporate identity arose among its affiliated scholars, regardless of madhhab; it is at this time that the Shaykh al-Azhar emerges.33 The position, it should be noted, was not on an official level very prestigious. The shaykh was not only below the qāḍīs appointed from Istanbul, but also the prominent Bakrī and Sādāt families, who from about 1700 held considerable administrative power (as appointed heads of the Sufi orders in Cairo and leaders (sing. Naqīb) of the ashrāf, descendants of the prophet). In terms of patronage, the heads of these families received hundreds of thousands of paras34 per year from the Ottoman treasury, while the Shaykh al-Azhar received 19,870.35 Indeed, the shaykh was not even the highest-ranking Azhari scholar, but was actually of a lower standing than the Ḥanafī, Shāfi’ī, and Mālikī muftīs, who all taught fiqh at the mosque.36 The Shaykh al-Azhar, however, became one of the leading native ‘ulamā’ figures, and his importance as a link between Cairene society and the Mamluk-Ottoman elite only grew in the eighteenth century. Control by Istanbul had been weakened in Egypt in this era, leading to increased intra-Mamluk competition for power and wealth and a degree of social unrest that resulted from their infighting. Prominent ‘ulamā’ tended to remain outside of these conflicts, but were not always able to do so. According to Guilain Denoeux, the ‘ulamā’, Sufi leaders, and Cairo’s merchant community had by 1700 developed close, overlapping connections that tied their collective fortunes together, often against political and military elites. Thus, when merchants’ rights were curtailed they would turn to scholars to press their claims with the Mamluk leadership, and public demonstrations against oppressive taxation led by prominent Sufis would receive tacit support from merchants closing Cairo’s marketplace.37 While Azhari scholars were less likely than lower ‘ulamā’ to participate in popular unrest, given their standing and patronage by the government, it was not uncommon for Azhari students to do so, and during larger uprisings al-Azhar itself would become a center of resistance.38 Afaf Lutfi al-Sayyid Marsot notes that drums played from its minarets would signal a revolt, shuttering the market—located adjacent to al-Azhar—and rallying people to the mosque.39 The connections between ‘ulamā’ and merchants made them an influential force in Cairo, and that importance was reinforced during the upheaval caused

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by Napoleon’s invasion of Egypt in July 1798. An uprising against the occupation broke out in October of that year, as new, onerous taxes imposed by the French brought the merchants to al-Azhar seeking the ‘ulamā’’s support. Religious sentiment was a major part of the uprising’s popular appeal, and people were rallied to al-Azhar, which, along with the neighboring Ḥusaynīyah mosque, served as the headquarters of the revolt, despite the fact that very few Azhari ‘ulamā’ were involved. Lesser ‘ulamā’ and Azhari students were important participants, spurring the people to action, but higher-ranking scholars were noticeably absent.40 As in earlier periods, their links to the ruling elite prevented their violent revolt. In fact, Napoleon relied upon the ‘ulamā’ to a greater extent than the Mamluks, using them as administrators, and he quickly formed partnerships with a number of prominent Azhari scholars, including ‘Abd Allah al-Sharqawi (1737–1812), Shaykh al-Azhar from 1794, who was made president of Napoleon’s newly formed “national council” just before the uprising. During the rioting, Sharqawi and others worked with Napoleon to try to calm the population.41 As Baer notes, the leading ‘ulamā’ were thus rendered largely insignificant, ignored and spurned by the populace.42 A second uprising in 1800 followed a similar pattern. Merchants and lower ‘ulamā’ played a central role, but it was also led by ‘Umar Makram (1755–1822), a naqīb al-ashrāf who was closely linked with the ruling Mamluks. Makram was able to use his position and influence among the populace to become one of the most powerful men in Egypt during and immediately after the French occupation. He had been involved in organizing the defense of Cairo in advance of Napoleon’s attack on the city, and he helped in the restoration of Ottoman rule in late 1801, returning to his position as naqīb al-ashrāf after Napoleon had replaced him.43 Al-Azhar itself remained a popular focal point for Cairenes, particularly with the pre-existing merchant–’ulamā’ connection, and prominent Azhari scholars had joined Makram in becoming a major force of political power following the French abandonment of Egypt. It was this alliance that was instrumental in the rise of Muhammad ‘Ali Pasha (1769–1849) as ruler. An Ottoman officer of Albanian origin, Muhammad ‘Ali had served in the campaign against the French and remained in Cairo with a contingent of Albanian soldiers. He and his troops were unaffiliated with the local Ottoman administration or the various Mamluk factions, making them an important factor in the ongoing struggles for control in Egypt. The power vacuum brought about by the French withdrawal, exacerbated by a series of ill-suited governors appointed by Istanbul, led eventually to a broad uprising of Cairo’s merchants and much of the urban population, led by Makram, who alongside the Azhari ‘ulamā’ turned to Muhammad ‘Ali. In 1805 he was anointed governor by Sharqawi in a public ceremony, pledging to rule justly and that the ‘ulamā’ could depose him if he broke his word. Although going against the Porte’s wishes, after successfully removing Mamluk and Ottoman

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competitors for power Muhammad ‘Ali’s ascension became a fait accompli, helped by the segments of Cairene society fed up with both the Mamluks and the previous governors.44

The Modern Period (1805–1961) Once in power, Muhammad ‘Ali set about remaking Egyptian government and society. These reforms had the effect of increasing the power of the government at the expense of other social actors, as the government began to involve itself in the very function of society in unprecedented ways. Agricultural policies, for instance, were no longer aimed simply at taxation, but at regulating, coordinating, and improving the “productive powers” of the country.45 The main priority was the foundation of an Egyptian army, and the infrastructure of a modern army necessitated a string of changes, from land taxes to fund it and administration to facilitate recruitment and conscription, to the development of factories and hospitals. As Khaled Fahmy writes, the new military “triggered the need to found more and more institutions which together radically transformed the face of Egyptian society.”46 In all, these changes “led to the creation of a centralized bureaucracy, and involved a series of ad hoc decisions in response to circumstances, which in the final analysis created the trappings of a modern state.”47 With these steps, Muhammad ‘Ali initiated a pattern of ever-increasing state power that would continue throughout the modern period. Many of the reforms undertaken affected the ‘ulamā’, both indirectly and directly. He established tighter control over commerce, creating extensive monopolies on commodities and forming new marketplaces on the outskirts of Cairo, measures that weakened the pre-existing merchant class with which the ‘ulamā’ were linked and moved the center of economic activity away from the area around al-Azhar.48 Likewise, he instituted sweeping land reforms, reclassifying a large number of rural waqfs as state property (and therefore also subject to taxation), undermining the main source of scholars’ income and funding for religious institutions (which precipitated an unsuccessful uprising by ‘ulamā’ in 1809).49 The result was a new context in which state power was predominant and the ‘ulamā’ were increasingly marginalized within society. Broad social changes gradually altered the environment in which religious authority was exercised, ultimately impacting the role of Islamic institutions as well as the discourse of the scholarly tradition. It is important to note that the state generally did not interfere directly in the function of the ‘ulamā’ or their institutions. Rather, government actions created a changed context in which the state had become the primary actor within society, while the ‘ulamā’ had become less integral, their role less significant, and their methods less universally accepted as new alternatives emerged, particularly in terms of education.

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In this period the state introduced new types of educational institutions, directly under government control and organized on European lines, with formalized organization, curricula, and pedagogy distinct from the madrasah. Military, engineering, and medical academies (among others) staffed largely with European experts were established around the country. Western-style primary schools were introduced, intended to produce graduates better prepared for technical education, army service, and industrial work.50 Formal education had largely been the monopoly of the ‘ulamā’, and these new schools brought competition for students and resources. But their introduction also changed perceptions of Islamic education, which was now merely one type of schooling among many, distinct from the new, Westernstyle approaches and subjects. With this shift came a decline in the prestige of the madrasah as well as critiques of it. Hasan al-Attar (1766–1834), an Azhari student who later studied medicine and other natural sciences (as well as religious subjects) in Istanbul and Damascus, argued that Islamic education was too narrow in scope, and that modern subjects, if not pedagogy, should be included. ‘Attar was connected with the government of Muhammad ‘Ali, who supported his aims and—controversially—appointed him Shaykh al-Azhar in 1831.51 Among ‘Attar’s students was the famous Rifa’ah al-Tahtawi (1801–73), who likewise sought to expand Islamic education, but also to bring it more in line with contemporary European norms. In 1826, Tahtawi was sent to Paris (on ‘Attar’s recommendation) with a delegation of Egyptian students. There he was exposed to new learning styles, which he praised as more efficient and easier on students in a work published in Cairo in 1831.52 In 1837, Tahtawi established the School of Islamic Law and Jurisprudence, which taught fiqh alongside mathematics, geometry, history, and European languages. Staffed by Azhari scholars, its pedagogical approach was European-inspired, and its graduates primarily went on to work for the government.53 Critiques of Islamic education became more pointed as the century progressed, led by reformists who were generally not professional ‘ulamā’ (even if most had a madrasah education) and were often supported by the government, which sought to limit the scope of the ‘ulamā’’s independence. Like ‘Attar and Tahtawi, who were involved in early publishing ventures, reformers—most notably the famed modernists Jamal al-Din al-Afghani (1838–97), Muhammad Abduh (1849–1905), and Rashid Rida (1865–1935)—used the popular press to attack what they saw as the shortcomings of the madrasah and argue for the necessity of educational and intellectual reform among ‘ulamā’.54 Embracing the utilitarian approach toward education of modern schools, reformists presented Islamic education as disorganized and ineffective in both method and content. They argued that its personal and informal character lacked standardized curricula or instruction, and its focus on texts, themselves

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repetitive and written in difficult and obtuse language, was an obstacle to efficient learning. Its subject matter was portrayed as ill-suited to contemporary needs and the mosque as a poor setting for education, without proper space for students and in bad physical condition.55 This last point was well-taken. The state’s seizure and taxation of waqfs had substantially reduced the funds for maintaining al-Azhar, which had fallen into disrepair. Making matters worse, al-Azhar witnessed an explosion in its student population. Most of the madrasahs in Cairo (and Egypt generally), already lacking al-Azhar’s expansive endowments, could no longer support themselves, leaving al-Azhar as the main option for Islamic education. Moreover, madrasah students were exempted from conscription, funneling even more students to al-Azhar.56 Many Azhari ‘ulamā’ acknowledged the need to address these material problems, but critiques that focused on the scholarly discourse of al-Azhar found far less support among the ‘ulamā’.57 Scholarship continued on much as it had in the Ottoman era. Reformers, however, saw little relevance in such scholastic endeavors. Rather, they viewed the ‘ulamā’’s focus on centuries-old discourses as evidence of their backwards and unchanging nature. Beginning with Tahtawi, reformers created an image of traditional Islamic scholarship— underpinned by taqlīd—as hidebound and the source of broader social stagnancy, thus necessitating sweeping changes. Seizing on European notions of progress and innovation, they argued that the rejection of taqlīd and renewed exercise of ijtihād was the only way to break with past models and thereby revitalize Egyptian society.58 Faced with these critiques, conservative ‘ulamā’ argued for the need to maintain the scholarly tradition. The influential Mālikī muftī and Ash’arī theologian Muhammad ‘Ilish (alternatively ‘Illish or ‘Ilaysh) (1802–82), for instance, defended taqlīd on the grounds that it was an essential part of Sunnism.59 It’s important to note that the label “conservative” here is a derivative one: conservatives were not a coherent group, nor was it common to selfidentify as such. Their conservatism operated only in response to the calls for reform. To believe that the character of Islamic education and scholarship should not be altered in this way was to be a conservative.60 Although the Azhari ‘ulamā’ were hardly monolithic, such attitudes were widespread among them. The circumstances of the late nineteenth century, however, made resisting reform increasingly less feasible, while also making the Azhari ‘ulamā’ more amenable to it (if reluctantly). The need for structural reform to deal with overcrowding and the decline of the mosque’s physical infrastructure became even more pressing, and utilitarian conceptions of education continued to spread, driving belief in the need for curricular and pedagogical changes. Reform began in 1872 with the introduction of the ‘ālimīyah examination and degree, which certified a student as having completed a formal course of study—in fiqh, uṣūl al-dīn, theology, ḥadīth, tafsīr, logic, and Arabic grammar and rhetoric—and therefore qualified to teach at al-Azhar.61

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The state also strove to modernize Azhari education, and a series of laws and policies enacted from 1895 to 1930 further remade al-Azhar in its administration, organization, and educational content.62 Several new branches of al-Azhar were founded in cities around the country, and the Shaykh al-Azhar was granted powers of oversight over any other institutions and ‘ulamā’. With these reforms al-Azhar became officially the supreme Islamic institution in Egypt, establishing a de facto religious hierarchy that rendered al-Azhar synonymous with Islamic authority.63 These new powers were welcome among Azhari scholars, but they brought the ‘ulamā’ closer to the government, complicating their claims to religious legitimacy. At the same time, shifts in the broader social environment had an impact on religious life in Egypt. As Nathan Brown has argued, the restriction of the ‘ulamā’’s legal authority to matters of personal status significantly altered the conception of the sharī’ah from one of “process” to one of “content,” thereby minimizing the role of scholars as legal interpreters and restricting the scope of the sharī’ah as a legal framework.64 Aria Nakissa has also noted how broad changes in educational episteme have affected how Islamic law and other religious subjects are taught and understood at al-Azhar, bringing them closer to the natural sciences.65 Within this context, reformist currents strengthened. Reform was embraced as a goal in itself by growing numbers of Azhari students and ‘ulamā’, who were increasingly empowered within the institution.66 Mustafa al-Maraghi (1881–1945), a controversial follower of Rashid Rida, was appointed shaykh in 1928 with the goal of enacting reform. Shortly after his appointment, he published an article in al-Manār calling for a thorough revision of the Azhari curriculum, with education based on ijtihād and rational-scientific inquiry.67 Although pushed out of office in 1929, Maraghi returned for a more successful tenure (1935–45) that saw further reform of al-Azhar and its function as an institution.68 At the same time, other close associates of Rida were establishing the Anṣār al-Sunnah al-Muḥammadīyah, a faction of Azharis whose Salafi notions of reform were distinct from Maraghi’s. Founded in 1926, it followed a project of purist reform that aligned with Saudi-Wahhabi religious attitudes.69 (See Chapter 5.) Criticism of al-Azhar’s educational and religious approach played a significant role in the group’s orientation; its main ideologue and leader, ‘Abd al-Rahman al-Wakil (1913–70), developed his influential anti-Sufi stance while a student at the Azhar branch in Tanta, where he was attacked for questioning his teachers’ Sufi-infused instruction.70 Nevertheless, disagreements over Sufism or theological matters did not firmly separate the Anṣār al-Sunnah membership from the Azhari ‘ulamā’ or preclude their cooperation.71 In fact, scholars who shared Salafi ideals were not uncommon at al-Azhar, nor were those inclined to Islamism. While the Muslim Brotherhood—particularly its founder, Hasan al-Banna (1906–49)— had been critical of al-Azhar and established ‘ulamā’, there were a number of

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figures attached to the Brotherhood at the institution, including some prominent scholars.72

The Two Revolutions (1961 to Present) Al-Azhar underwent further reform in 1961, under the auspices of the new, independent Egyptian government. Following the Free Officers’ revolt in 1952, there was a renewed push to modernize al-Azhar, and President Gamal Abdel Nasser (r. 1956–70) appointed the reformist Mahmud Shaltut as Shaykh alAzhar in 1958 (serving until his death in 1963), with the intention of remaking it for a new era in Egyptian history. With the law of 1961 came a massive reorganization of al-Azhar into a nationalized university, with the establishment of new faculties in non-religious subjects (medicine, engineering, agriculture, commerce) and new campuses in Cairo, including one for women.73 Moreover, the Azhar administration was brought under the control of the newly created Ministry of Awqāf and Azhar Affairs (turned into separate ministries in the 1970s), which was made wholly responsible for the university’s budget. This measure decisively placed al-Azhar within the state bureaucracy, ending its structural and financial independence. A Supreme Council for al-Azhar was formed to oversee all affiliated institutions of the new, sprawling university. This body had power over appointments and finances and was staffed by a number of government officials and outside experts.74 Many ‘ulamā’ resisted these changes, which were only presented to Azhar leaders by the parliament hours before they were approved.75 In the aftermath, nearly a third of al-Azhar’s existing faculty was either fired or resigned in protest, most of whom were replaced by pro-government figures.76 However, as with earlier reforms, state control brought with it benefits for al-Azhar and government support for its religious authority, which now extended into the realm of secular education (accompanied by a massive increase in its budget and facilities).77 Ultimately, the takeover of al-Azhar allowed the state to use its religious authority for its own political ends—to, as Jakob Skovgaard-Petersen writes, nationalize and instrumentalize al-Azhar as a constituent part of the government.78 In this role, al-Azhar was tasked with legitimating the new government and supporting its policies, which it was empowered to do in the religious sphere by the state itself. Stretching back to the initial reforms of the twentieth century, the functional transformation of al-Azhar into a state religious hierarchy institutionalized a particular Islamic orientation, embedded within the mainstream ‘ulamā’. This orientation—conventionally orthodox, moderate, generally apolitical—received official patronage and support, which led almost necessarily to the exclusion of other orientations.79 Moreover, the existence of al-Azhar as a center for Egyptian ‘ulamā’ gave structural form to the relationship between religious authorities and the state, delineating central

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from peripheral figures and marginalizing dissenting religious voices. With the power to regulate the Egyptian ‘ulamā’, al-Azhar had the authority to promote certain interpretations and approaches and stifle others. But this power was not used merely to serve the state. Instead, as Malika Zeghal has shown, many Azhari ‘ulamā’ saw themselves not as government functionaries, but as defenders of the sharī’ah, against both anti-‘ulamā’ views among the populace and the secular-nationalist thrust of the post-colonial state. Both goals required popular legitimacy, which had been undermined by its close relationship to the government, and this position ironically brought the institution closer to its Islamist opponents, forced to compete for followers through preaching (da’wah).80 (Salafis as well embraced popular piety in this period, with the broadly influential organization Da’wah Salafīyah, founded in Alexandria in 1970, at the forefront.81) The contestation with grassroots Salafi and Islamist groups required that al-Azhar respond to critiques of its relationship with the government, which was seen as damaging to its religious legitimacy. Maintaining a balance was (and continues to be) crucial; if al-Azhar claims to stand between the government and Egyptian society, it must act as a bulwark against misguided policies—however construed—of the former while being adaptable enough to remain relevant for the latter, but not so flexible that it loses all moral standing.82 By the middle of twentieth century the question had ceased to be whether al-Azhar should change (rendered moot by the significant transformations that had already occurred), but rather whether changes should be directed by the government or al-Azhar itself. Following the 1961 reorganization, any structural independence from the state had been lost, and there was (and still is) a danger that it would be subsumed under the political needs of the government. In fact, the Academy of Islamic Research (Majma’ al-Buḥūth al-Islamīyah) was founded within al-Azhar in 1961 to carry out innovative research on contemporary issues, but its creation was mandated by the government as a way to bolster religious legitimacy for its policies. Islamist critics have accordingly attacked the Academy as ineffectual and too beholden to the government.83 Nevertheless, the Academy is aimed toward religious reform. As Muhammad Qasim Zaman writes, its work serves as a type of “collective ijtihād”, a religious interpretation that is legitimated by its grounding within an established body of scholars.84 Indeed, this institutional platform serves as legitimation for all Azhari ‘ulamā’: it is their connection to this longstanding religious pillar of Egyptian society that is the source of their broad authority, such that each scholar’s religious standing is almost necessarily increased by his connection with al-Azhar, the ideological and religious scope of which encompasses a range of positions and orientations, as Zeghal points out.85 This institutional authority is in turn tied inexorably to its scholars’ expertise, their knowledge of the subjects of Islamic tradition, which specifically sets them apart from Salafis and Islamists (even if some Azhari scholars have Salafi or Islamist leanings). This is reflected in the breadth of al-Azhar’s current

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religious curricula, as students in the central faculties, regardless of concentration, study a wide range of subjects, a fact of Azhari education that has not changed over centuries, with all subjects comprising the knowledge an ‘ālim should possess. This knowledge is necessarily backward-looking, validated by al-Azhar’s history and the long-established contours of its intellectual content. Scholars’ expertise in this regard represents a continuation of the earlier tradition, as part of a broad religious discourse. The precise forms of its discourse have changed (in many ways radically), as new approaches and ideas have been incorporated into it, primarily from modern/Western sources. Fiqh reasoning has been altered, but older texts of the legal tradition and the framework of the four madhhabs continue to be taught.86 Sufism as well is still present within Azhari religiosity.87 Kalām has undergone the most significant transformation, as it has essentially ceased to be a productive area of religious or philosophical inquiry. Nevertheless, Ash’arism remains part of Azhari scholarship.88 In fact, the uṣūl al-dīn faculty continues to use the Tuḥfat al-Murīd, a commentary by the important Shaykh al-Azhar Ibrahim al-Bajuri (1783–1861) on Laqānī’s Jawharat al-Tawḥīd.89 ‘Umar ‘Abd Allah Kamil, a recent al-Azhar graduate and current instructor, has composed a revision and summary of Bajuri’s work for teaching purposes.90 Commentaries and supercommentaries were tied in with older, more discursive styles of teaching, and while these are no longer predominant at alAzhar, they have not been entirely abandoned, either. Ḥalaqahs are still held in the mosque,91 and even in formal classes some instructors teach in this manner. Nakissa, conducting fieldwork in the last decade, notes at least one teacher who conducted his class in commentary form, going through a classical text line by line.92 The coming together of expertise and institutional continuity is evinced in Usama al-Azhari’s short text on the “Azhari method” (al-manhaj al-azharī), which lists several key elements of this method.93 First among them is the sanad, the chain of transmission from teacher to student, which shows the critical importance of the passing down of expertise across time within the institution. (Indeed, regarding kalām, its current teaching not only goes back to Bajuri and ‘Ilish, but is connected through them to Laqānī and earlier North African Ash’arīs.)94 Included after the sanad are a broad scope for learning and discursive flexibility tied to religious values. In this way, Usama al-Azhari links the Azhari method to the broad expertise of the ‘ulamā’ (distinguished from narrow expertise of Salafis or lay training among Islamists95) with adaptability in their scholarship. And as with Zaman’s “collective ijtihād,” that adaptability is legitimated by scholars’ affiliation with a long-standing institution.96 This construction of expertise among the Azhari ‘ulamā’ has only grown in importance in recent years with continuing competition/conflict with Salafi and Islamist groups, particularly post-Arab Spring. Azhari scholars describe their religious orientation as wasaṭīyah, denoting moderate Islam (al-manhaj

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al-wasaṭī al-mu’tadil) that is explicitly tied to their expertise and knowledge of “correct” Islamic understandings.97 The term wasaṭīyah (an Arabic word found in the Qurʾānic signifying a middle course between opposing poles and therefore moderation (for example, Q 2:143)), however, is also claimed by Islamists, who understand it as an ideology that is neither politically nor religiously extremist nor tied to ‘ulamā’-centered conservatism.98 As Nakissa writes, both Azhari and Islamist claimants to wasaṭīyah share the same conception of how it operates in practice—that is, as the maintenance of essential Islamic norms while adapting less essential matters to better fit contemporary society. The issue, however, is who decides what is and is not essential and how the adaptation of the latter should be carried out.99 For Azharis, the answer is that Azharis, by virtue of their learning and expertise, are the only ones qualified to make these determinations, as the ‘ulamā’ have been making such determinations for centuries, even if the specific methods they use to make them have changed.100 In his study of wasaṭīyah as a religious concept, Mohammad Hashim Kamali has noted the prevalence of “centrist” reformers among the Azhari ‘ulamā’ in the twentieth century, prominent scholars who have embraced different forms of tajdīd (religious renovation) as a way to maintain flexibility in Islamic interpretations while grounding them in established institutions and religious morality. (Kamali here explicitly links this type of centrist reformism with the work of Yusuf al-Qaradawi (1926– ), an Islamist Azhari graduate who has distanced himself from the institution post-1961, and new interpretive strategies as part of the development of fiqh al-aqallīyat.)101 Given the changes in Egyptian politics since the beginning of the Arab Spring, al-Azhar’s position as legitimate religious interpreter is ever more important. The Azhari ‘ulamā’ see themselves as speaking for the public interest independent of the government, providing stable Islamic guidance without involving themselves in the vicissitudes of governance. In this regard, Brown argues, al-Azhar’s conservative character becomes a virtue, making it an appealing alternative to more radical religious voices.102 A more active political role for al-Azhar was introduced with the so-called “Azhar Document” of June 2011. This manifesto of sorts, composed under the leadership of Shaykh al-Azhar Ahmad al-Tayyib (1946– , Shaykh 2010– ), lays out several principles with which the post-revolutionary government should conform, calling for representative democracy and civil rights, but also for al-Azhar’s structural independence and its designation as the “main authority of reference on all Islamic affairs, sciences, heritage and modern jurisprudence and thought.”103 The removal of Mohamed Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood from power by General Sisi in 2013 has brought al-Azhar more closely in line with the current government and, as noted in the preceding chapter, this alliance has provided new opportunities but also posed serious challenges to al-Azhar’s popular legitimacy, raising questions about the institution’s future. Yet, despite the sweeping changes since the Arab Spring, the Azhari ‘ulamā’ nevertheless

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seek to assert their position as the foremost religious guides and experts for the community.104 Although they may disagree about the precise nature of their authority and their role vis-à-vis the government, that al-Azhar remains the prime locus of Islamic authority in Egypt, and is so because of their knowledge and connection with its history, is not for them in question. Notes 1. Cairo and Fustat were not far apart, and present-day Cairo encompasses both. 2. Heinz Halm, The Fatimids and Their Traditions of Learning (London: I. B. Tauris, 1997), 31. 3. The Fatimids’ older capital in Tunis, al-Manṣūrīyah, served as a model for Cairo (initially and briefly called al-Manṣūrīyah), and al-Azhar was named after its central mosque; Heinz Halm, The Empire of the Mahdi: The Rise of the Fatimids (Leiden: Brill, 1996), 346, also 415. 4. Michael Brett, The Rise of the Fatimids: The World of the Mediterranean and the Middle East in the Fourth Century of the Hijra, Tenth Century (Leiden: Brill, 2001), esp. 317–19, 339–44, 366–81; Halm, Fatimids, esp. 56–70; Yaacov Lev, State and Society in Fatimid Egypt (Leiden: Brill, 1991), esp. 133–52. 5. Halm, Fatimids, 32, 36–8. Despite their explicit attachment to Ismā’īlism, the Fatimids’ missionary efforts were largely kept among Ismā’īlīs. There was no attempt to dislodge Sunnism—to which the overwhelming majority of the Muslim population adhered—and there was some limited support for Sunni ‘ulamā’. The caliph al-Hakim (r. 996–1021) in fact appointed a Ḥanbalī chief judge during his reign; Lev, State and Society, 136–7, 139. 6. Halm, Fatimids, 41–4. 7. Ibid., 38, 74–6. 8. Ibid., esp. 44–8; cf. Qāḍī Nu’mān, Da’ā’im al-Islām wa-Dhikr al-Ḥalāl wa-alḤarām wa-al-Qaḍāyā wa-al-Aḥkām ‘an Ahl Bayt Rasūl Allāh, 2 vols (Cairo: Dār al-Ma’ārif, 1960–3). 9. Yaacov Lev, Saladin in Egypt (Leiden: Brill, 1999); Heinz Halm, “Fatimids,” EI3. 10. Yaacov Lev, Charity, Endowments, and Charitable Institutions in Medieval Islam (Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 2005), 148–9. 11. Yaacov Lev, “Prisoners of War during the Fatimid–Ayyubid Wars with the Crusaders,” in Tolerance and Intolerance: Social Conflict in the Age of the Crusades, eds Michael Gervers and James Powell (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 2001), 11–27, esp. 16. 12. Lev, Charity, 97; Lev, Saladin, 131–2, 136. 13. Jonathan Berkey notes that in the fourteenth century there were hundreds of teachers at a given time associated with al-Azhar; cf. Jonathan Berkey, The Transmission of Knowledge in Medieval Cairo: A Social History of Islamic Education (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992), 86–7. 14. J[acques] Jomier, “Al-Azhar,” EI2; Berkey, Transmission of Knowledge, 148. 15. Cf. Lev, Charity. 16. Michael Chamberlain, Knowledge and Social Practice in Medieval Damascus, 1190–1350 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002). 17. Michael Winter, Egyptian Society under Ottoman Rule, 1517–1798 (New York: Routledge, 2003), 111.

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18. Yossef Rapoport, “Legal Diversity in the Age of Taqlid: The Four Chief Qadis under the Mamluks,” Islamic Law and Society 10 (2003), 210–28. 19. See Ahmed Fekry Ibrahim, Pragmatism in Islamic Law: A Social and Intellectual History (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 2015). 20. Nelly Hanna, In Praise of Books: A Cultural History of Cairo’s Middle Class, Sixteenth to Eighteenth Century (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 2003). 21. Cf. ibid., esp. 71–4, 51–3 and passim. 22. Ibid., 107; Guilain Denoeux, Urban Unrest in the Middle East: A Comparative Study of Informal Networks in Egypt, Iran, and Lebanon (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1993), 63. 23. Khaled El-Rouayheb, “Opening the Gate of Verification: The Forgotten ArabIslamic Florescence of the 17th Century,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 38 (2006), 263–81; Aaron Spevack, “Egypt and the Later Ash’arite School,” in OHIT, 534–7; Jacques Jomier, “Un aspect de l’activité d’al-Azhar du XVIIe aux débuts du XIXe siècle: les ‘aqa’id ou professions de foi,” in Colloque international sur l’histoire du Caire, eds André Raymond, Michael Rogers, and Magdi Wahba (Cairo: General Egyptian Book Organization, 1972), 243–50. 24. Ibrāhīm b. Ibrāhīm al-Laqānī, Matn Jawharat al-Tawḥīd (Cairo: Dār al-salām, 1422 [2002]). 25. Jomier, “Un aspect,” esp. 244, 247; Rachida Chih, “Autorité religieuse et role public d’un ouléma d’al-Azhar au XVIIIe siècle: Vie et carrier du cheikh Ahmad al-Dardîr (1715–1786),” in L’autorité religieuse et ses limites en terres d’islam: Approches historiques et anthropologiques, eds Nathalie Clayer, Alexandre Papas, and Benoît Fliche (Leiden: Brill, 2013), 33–54. 26. Cf. Jane Murphy, “Ahmad al-Damanhuri (1689–1778) and the Utility of Expertise in Early Modern Ottoman Egypt,” Osiris 25 (2010), 85–103. Murphy here notes, citing biographical records, that interest in the ‘ulūm gharībah (a term encompassing a range of (pseudo-)scientific subjects, which she renders as “uncommon sciences”) was by no means rare among Egyptian ‘ulamā’ in this period; ibid., esp. 90. 27. Jane Hathaway and Karl Barbir, The Arab Lands under Ottoman Rule, 1516–1800 (Harlow: Pearson, 2008), 116–17, 122–3; Winter, Egyptian Society, 108–11; also Nelly Hanna, “The Administration of Courts in Ottoman Cairo,” in The State and Its Servants: Administration in Egypt from Ottoman Times to the Present, ed. Nelly Hanna (Cairo: American University in Cairo Press, 1995), 44–59. On the Ottoman learned hierarchy, see Chapter 11 in the present volume. 28. Hathaway and Barbir, Arab Lands, 116–17. 29. Cf. Winter, Egyptian Society, 108–10. 30. This is not to say that the Ottoman ‘ulamā’ and government structures bore no influence on Egyptian religious life. For instance, the Khalwatīyah Sufi order, which was predominant in the Ottoman Empire, became one of the most important ṭuruq among Azhari ‘ulamā’ in the late eighteenth century. It had been considered a Turkish, heterodox order by Egyptians, until it spread under the influence of the prominent Azhari Shafi’i Muḥammad al-Ḥifnī (shaykh, 1757–67), who joined the order during a journey to Jerusalem. By the early nineteenth century, Rachida Chih writes, it was ubiquitous among Azhari scholars; Chih, “Autorité religieuse,” 44; cf. Winter, Egyptian Society, 117, 133–8 and passim; also Hathaway and Barbir, Arab Lands, 130. 31. Daniel Crecelius, “The Emergence of the Shaykh al-Azhar as the Pre-eminent Religious Leader in Egypt,” in Colloque international sur l’histoire du Caire, eds

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32. 33. 34. 35.

36. 37. 38.

39. 40.

41. 42. 43. 44.

45. 46.

47. 48. 49. 50.

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André Raymond, Michael Rogers, and Magdi Wahba (Cairo: General Egyptian Book Organization, 1972), 109–24, 110–11; also Winter, Egyptian Society, esp. 115–16. Hathaway and Barbir, Arab Lands, 124. The office of shaykh first appears in historical sources from the end of the seventeenth century; Crecelius, “Emergence,” 109; Winter, Egyptian Society, 116–17. Ottoman-Egyptian silver coins. Cf. Afaf Lutfi Al-Sayyid Marsot, “The Political and Economic Functions of the ‘Ulama’ in the 18th Century,” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 16 (1973), 130–54, esp. 142–3, also 144–6. On these families and the office of naqīb al-ashrāf, see Winter, Egyptian Society, 138–42, 186–90; also F. de Jong, Turuq and Turuq-linked Institutions in Nineteenth Century Egypt: A Historical Study in Organizational Dimensions of Islamic Mysticism (Leiden: Brill, 1978). Crecelius, “Emergence,” 113 Denoeux, Urban Unrest, 53–4, 62–3; Gabriel Baer, “Popular Revolt in Ottoman Cairo,” Der Islam 54 (1977), 213–42. Baer, “Popular Revolt,” 217–19. Baer adds that it would be wrong to assume that the Azhari ‘ulamā’ had an important role in all instances of popular revolt. Scholars on several occasions refused to participate, and in others their participation was coerced by the mob. In 1724, in fact, al-Azhar was overrun in a riot, with the ‘ulamā’ fleeing; ibid., 228–9. Marsot, “Political,” 133–4; Baer, “Popular Revolt,” 220; Hanna, Praise of Books, 48. Baer, “Popular Revolt,” 222, 230–2, 234; Juan Cole, Napoleon’s Egypt: Invading the Middle East (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007), 198–202. Both Baer and Juan Cole note the druggist (Cole calls him a perfumer) dressed as a scholar who stood in Cairo’s streets exhorting people to revolt, stating, “God is most great, O Muslims. The ‘ulamā’ have commanded you to kill the infidels.” Cole, Napoleon’s Egypt, 73–5, 126–7, 196, 200 Baer, “Popular Revolt,” 237–8. Ibid., 235–6 and passim; Cole, Napoleon’s Egypt, 58; Marsot, “Political,” passim; Daniel Crecelius, “‘Umar Makram,” EI2. Afaf Lutfi al-Sayyid Marsot, Egypt in the Reign of Muhammad Ali (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), 36–72; Baer, “Popular Revolt,” 238–41; Khaled Fahmy, “The Era of Muhammad ‘Ali Pasha, 1805–1848,” in The Cambridge History of Egypt, Vol. 2: Modern Egypt, from 1517 to the End of the Twentieth Century, ed. M[artin] W. Daly (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 139–79, 141–8. Timothy Mitchell, Colonising Egypt, 2nd edn (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991), 35. Khaled Fahmy, All the Pasha’s Men: Mehmed Ali, His Army and the Making of Modern Egypt (Cairo: American University in Cairo Press, 1997), 12; also Mitchell, Colonising Egypt, 35–9. Marsot, Egypt, 100. Denoeux, Urban Unrest, 63–4; Marsot, Egypt, 153; Marsot, “Political,” 137–8. Fahmy, “Era,” 148; Marsot, Egypt, 143. See Fahmy, All the Pasha’s Men, 209–13; J. Heyworth-Dunne, An Introduction to the History of Education in Modern Egypt (London: Luzac, 1938); Mitchell, Colonising Egypt, 69–71; also David Ralston, Importing the European

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51.

52.

53. 54. 55. 56.

58.

59.

60. 61.

62.

63.

64. 65. 66. 67.

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Army: The Introduction of European Military Techniques and Institutions in the Extra-European World, 1600–1914 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996), 79–106. Indira Falk Gesink, Islamic Reform and Conservatism: al-Azhar and the Evolution of Modern Sunni Islam, rev. edn (London: I. B. Tauris, 2014), 24–8; see Peter Gran, The Islamic Roots of Capitalism: Egypt, 1760–1840 (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1979). Rifa’ah Rafi’ al-Ṭahṭawi, Takhlīṣ al-Ibrīz fī Talkhīṣ Bārīz (Cairo: Kalimāt, 2011). On Egyptian education missions to Europe in the 1820s–30s, see HeyworthDunne, Introduction, 157–81. Gesink, Islamic Reform, 28–9, 39–40. Cf. ibid., 59 and passim. Ibid., 45, 76; Mitchell, Colonising Egypt, 79–94. Gesink, Islamic Reform, 41–3; Heyworth-Dunne, Introduction, 397–9; Crecelius, “Emergence,” 116–17.57. Daniel Crecelius, “Nonideological Responses of the Egyptian Ulama to Modernization,” in Scholars, Saints, and Sufis, ed. Nikki Keddie (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1972), 167–209, 190–1. Cf. Gesink, Islamic Reform, 62–88; also Samira Haj. Reconfiguring Islamic Tradition: Reform, Rationality, and Modernity (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2009), 67–108; Muhammad Qasim Zaman, Modern Islamic Thought in a Radical Age: Religious Criticism and Internal Criticism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012). Gesink, Islamic Reform, 99–100; cf. Muḥammad Aḥmad ‘Ilīsh, Fatḥ al-’Alī al-Mālik fī al-Fatwā ‘alā Madhhab al-Imām Mālik, 2 vols (Beirut: Dār al-ma’rifah, n.d.). See also Spevack, “Egypt,” 540–4. Gesink, Islamic Reform, 5–6. Ibid., 53–4; A[chille] Sekaly, “l’Université d’el-Azhar et ses Transformations,” Revue des Études Islamiques 1 (1927), 95–118, 471–529, esp. 97–8; cf. HeyworthDunne, Introduction, 398–401. See Chris Eccel, Egypt, Islam and Social Change: al-Azhar in Conflict and Accommodation (Berlin: Klaus Schwarz Verlag, 1984), esp. 194–229; Sekaly, “l’Université d’el-Azhar” and A[chille] Sekaly, “l’Université d’el-Azhar et ses Transformations,” Revue des Études Islamiques 2 (1928), 47–165, 255–337, 401–72; Crecelius, “Nonideological Responses,” 191–5. As the law of 1911 states: “The Shaykh al-Azhar is the supreme head of all the servants of religion and at the same time the general director of education at the mosque and the other institutes. He supervises the individual conduct of the ‘ulamā’ and fuqahā’ connected to these religious educational establishments, and guarantees that it is compatible with the dignity of science and religion”; cited in Jakob Skovgaard-Petersen, Defining Islam for the Egyptian State: Muftis and Fatwas of the Dar al-Ifta (Leiden: Brill, 1997), 146, also 46, 146–8; Crecelius, “Nonideological Responses,” 193–4. Nathan Brown, “Sharia and State in the Modern Muslim Middle East,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 29 (1997), 359–76. Aria Nakissa, “An Epistemic Shift in Islamic Law: Educational Reform at al-Azhar and Dar al-Ulum,” Islamic Law and Society 21 (2014), 209–51. Cf. Skovgaard-Peterson, Defining Islam, 146–55 and passim. [Muṣṭafā] al-Marāghī, “Iṣlāḥ al-Azhar al-Sharīf,” al-Manār, 29/5 Rabī’ awwal 30 1347/September 14 1928.

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68. Cf. Francine Costet-Tardieu, Un réformiste à l’université al-Azhar: Oeuvre et pensée de Mustafa al-Maraghi (1881–1945) (Paris: Karthala, 2005); Rainer Brunner, “Education, Politics, and the Struggle for Intellectual Leadership: al-Azhar between 1927 and 1945,” in Guardians of Faith in Modern Times: Ulama in the Middle East, ed. Meir Hatina (Leiden: Brill, 2009), 109–40. 69. Cf. Henri Lauziere, The Making of Salafism: Islamic Reform in the Twentieth Century (New York: Columbia University Press, 2016); Chanfi Ahmed, West African Ulama and Salafism in Mecca and Medina: Jawab al-Ifriqi—The Response of the African (Leiden: Brill, 2015). 70. Richard Gauvain, “Egyptian Sufism under the Hammer: A Preliminary Investigation into the Anti-Sufi Polemics of ‘Abd al-Rahman al-Wakil (1913–70),” in Sufis and Salafis in the Contemporary Age, ed. Lloyd Ridgeon (London: Bloomsbury, 2015), 33–58. 71. Cf. Richard Gauvain, “Salafism in Modern Egypt: Panacea or Pest?” Political Theology 11 (2010), 802–25, esp. 811–12; also Lauziere, Making of Salafism, 119–20. 72. Jakob Skovgaard-Petersen, “Egypt’s ‘Ulama in the State, in Politics and in the Islamist Vision,” in The Rule of Law, Islam and Constitutional Politics in Egypt and Iran, eds Said Arjomand and Nathan Brown (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2013), 279–302, esp. 287. 73. For an overview, see Eccel, Egypt, Islam; Jakob Skovgaard-Peterson, “al-Azhar, modern period,” EI3. 74. Daniel Crecelius, “Al-Azhar in the Revolution,” Middle East Journal 20 (1966), 31–49, esp. 44–6. 75. See ibid., 38–40. 76. Tamir Moustafa, “Conflict and Cooperation between the State and Religious Institutions in Contemporary Egypt,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 32 (2000), 3–22, esp. 5–6; also Eccel, Egypt, Islam, 509; Crecelius, “Azhar,” 36–7. 77. Moustafa, “Conflict and Cooperation,” 6; Eccel, Egypt, Islam, 297. 78. Skovgaard-Petersen, “Egypt’s ‘Ulama in the State,” 282. 79. Cf. Malika Zeghal, “The ‘Recentering’ of Religious Knowledge and Discourse: The Case of al-Azhar in Twentieth-Century Egypt,” in Schooling Islam: The Culture and Politics of Modern Muslim Education, eds Robert Hefner and Muhammad Qasim Zaman (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007), 107–30; Malika Zeghal. “Religion and Politics in Egypt: The Ulema of al-Azhar, Radical Islam and the State (1952–1994),” International Journal of Middle East Studies 31 (1999), 371–99. 80. Malika Zeghal, Gardiens de l’Islam: Les oulémas d’Al Azhar dans l’Égypte contemporaine (Paris: Sciences Po, 1996); also Zeghal, “Religion and Politics in Egypt”; Skovgaard-Petersen, “Egypt’s ‘Ulama in the State,” 284–5. 81. Gauvain, “Salafism in Modern Egypt,” 814–15; Richard Gauvain, Salafi Ritual Purity: In the Presence of God (London: Routledge, 2012); Jacob Hoigilt and Frida Nome, “Egyptian Salafism in Revolution,” Journal of Islamic Studies 25 (2014), 33–54. 82. Cf. Moustafa, “Conflict and Cooperation”; also Steven Barraclough, “Al-Azhar: Between the Government and the Islamists,” Middle East Journal 52 (1998), 236–49. 83. Skovgaard-Petersen, Defining Islam, 186–8; also Skovgaard-Petersen, “Egypt’s ‘Ulama in the State.” 84. Zaman, Modern Islamic Thought, 92–3. 85. Cf. Zeghal, “Recentering,” esp. 120–2.

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86. See Monique Cardinal, “Islamic Legal Theory Curriculum: Are the Classics Taught Today?,” Islamic Law and Society 12 (2005), 224–72. 87. See, for instance, on Shaykh al-Azhar and staunch defender of Sufism ‘Abd alHalim Mahmud (1910–78), Moshe Albo, “al-Azhar Sufism in Post-Revolutionary Egypt,” Journal of Sufi Studies 1 (2012), 224–44; also Ibrahim Abu-Rabi’, “al-Azhar Sufism in Modern Egypt: The Sufi Thought,” Islamic Quarterly 32 (1988), 207–35. 88. Ash’arism, in addition to its long history within al-Azhar, is important in distinguishing its approach from Salafism, which is roundly opposed to kalām. 89. Ibrāhīm al-Bājūrī, Ḥāshīyat al-Imām al-Bayjūrī [sic] ‘alā Jawharat al-tawḥīd al-musammā Tuḥfat al-murīd ‘alā Jawharat al-tawḥīd, ed. ‘Alī Juma’ah (Cairo: Dār al-salām, 2002 [1422]), 8. On Bajuri, a learned and influential scholar, see Aaron Spevack, An Archetypal Sunni Scholar: Law, Theology, and Mysticism in the Synthesis of al-Bajuri (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2014). 90. ‘Umar ‘Abd Allah Kamil, al-Mawjiz al-mufīd min tuḥfat al-murīd ‘alā Jawharat al-tawḥīd li-Shaykh Ibrāhīm al-Bayjūrī [sic], accessed July 25, 2016, http://www. okamel.com/portal/books/3qidh/. 91. Nakissa, “Epistemic Shift,” 215; cf. Crecelius, “Azhar,” 48 n. 48. 92. Nakissa, “Epistemic Shift,” 225. Nakissa, unfortunately, does not note the subject of the class nor the text(s) used. 93. Usāmah al-Sayyid Maḥmūd al-Azharī, al-Iḥyā’ al-Kabīr li-Ma’ālim al-Manhaj al-Azharī al-Munīr (Abu Dhabi: Dar al faqih/Dubai: Kalam Research and Media, 2009). 94. See the isnād connecting Ali Gomaa, former grand muftī of Egypt, to Bajuri, given in his edition of Bajuri’s commentary; Bājūrī, Ḥāshīyat al-Imām al-Bayjūrī, 8. For William Graham, the maintenance of the sanad is the sine qua non of Islamic traditionalism, as it represents a concrete form of continuity with the past; William Graham, “Traditionalism in Islam: An Essay in Interpretation,” Journal of Interdisciplinary History 23 (1993), 495–522. 95. Cf. Jonathan Brown, “Is Islam Easy to Understand or Not?: Salafis, the Democratization of Interpretation and the Need for the Ulema,” Journal of Islamic Studies 26 (2015), 117–44. 96. Cf. Zeghal, “Recentering,” esp. 120–2. 97. E.g. Kullīyat al-Dirāsāt al-Islāmīyah Banīn bi-al-Qāhirah, “Kalimat Wakīl al-Kullīyah,” accessed July 26, 2016, http://www.azhar.edu.eg/bfac/drasat_cairo/ wakel.kelma.html. 98. Cf. Haj, Reconfiguring, esp. 86–90; also Uriya Shavit, “The Wasati and Salafi Approaches to the Religious Law of Muslim Minorities,” Islamic Law and Society 19 (2012), 416–57, esp. 420. 99. Aria Nakissa, “Islamist Understandings of Sharia and Their Implications for the Post-revolutionary Egyptian Constitution,” Middle East Brief 68, November 2012, accessed March 25, 2015, http://www.brandeis.edu/crown/publications/ meb/MEB68.pdf. On the overlap between Islamist and Azhari uses of wasaṭīyah, see Skovgaard-Petersen, “Egypt’s ‘Ulama in the State,” esp. 293. It has been argued that the contemporary usage of the term stems from Qaradawi, which may account for the overlap; cf. ibid., 295 n. 18; also Shavit, “Wasati and Salafi.”.”

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100. Rachel Scott, “What Might the Muslim Brotherhood Do with al-Azhar? Religious Authority in Egypt,” Die Welt des Islams 52 (2012), 131–65; cf. Nathan Brown, “Post-Revolutionary al-Azhar,” Carnegie Papers, September 2011, accessed March 25, 2015, http://carnegieendowment.org/files/al_azhar.pdf, 11–12. 101. Thus, the opposing poles are secularism and inflexible conservatism; Mohammad Hashim Kamali. The Middle Path of Moderation in Islam: The Qur’anic Principle of Wasatiyyah (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), esp. 210–34. 102. Brown, “Post-Revolutionary,” 12–14. 103. Quoted in Assem Hefny, “Religious Authorities and Constitutional Reform: The Case of Al-Azhar in Egypt,” in Constitutionalism, Human Rights, and Islam after the Arab Spring, eds Rainer Grote and Tilmann Roder (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016), 89–122, 104. The full text of the document is given here in English translation; ibid., 107–9. 104. These both remain part of al-Azhar: in addition to its educational role, it makes official religious pronouncements through its Fatwā Council (Lajnat al-fatwā), but muftīs are also readily available to the public; Skovgaard-Petersen, Defining Islam, 150–4. The work of the Council is quite distinct from more traditional iftā’, but the informal fatwās are not. On the latter, see Hussein Ali Agrama, “Ethics, Tradition, Authority: Toward an Anthropology of the Fatwa,” American Ethnologist 37 (2010).

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CHAPTER

3

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AL-AZHAR, WASAT. I YAH, AND THE WAQI ’ Christopher Pooya Razavian

Within al-Azhar there is a growing emphasis on the need for scholars to take into consideration the fact that there is a difference between the context in which Islam was revealed and the current context that we live in. This debate is grounded in the term wāqi’. This chapter will examine the overlapping consensus about the importance of wāqi’, the intellectual tools used in ijtihād to reinterpret Islamic law with this understanding of the wāqi’, and, finally, the practical ramifications of incorporating wāqi’ within the process of ijtihād. Wāqi’ literally means reality, and in terms of Islamic legal theory it refers to the lived realities of Muslims in the contemporary context.1 As it will be shown, this understanding of wāqi’ also includes an appreciation of how the modern context differs from the context of the original revelation. In short, wāqi’ is used as a justification for reform. There have been a series of statements from nearly all the major official figures within al-Azhar, as well as statements from al-Azhar affiliates about the importance of bringing about an equilibrium between the demands of the wāqi’ and the requirements of the sharī’ah.

Tracing the Origin This approach toward wāqi’ grows out of reforms initiated by Muhammad Abduh (d. 1905) and Rashid Rida (d. 1935) in the late nineteenth century and early twentieth, which were briefly outlined in the preceding chapter. Muhammad Abduh was an influential liberal reformer as well as the third Grand Muftī of al-Azhar. Abduh’s reform efforts consisted of several projects, such as his attempts to reform al-Azhar’s curriculum. He was keen to promote active use of ijtihād and incorporate the role of reason in Islamic legal theory so as to better answer the challenges of modern life.2 Abduh summarized his approach [ 102 ]

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to reform as having two main components: the destruction of taqlīd and the return to the opinions of the early Muslims (salaf).3 Abduh’s disciple, Rashid Rida, however, had greater impact in terms of actually influencing Islamic legal theory.4 Maṣlaḥah (public or common good) and maqāṣid (purposiveness) are two concepts that are critical in the thought of Rida and Abduh and form the cornerstone of their approach, which Wael Hallaq has labeled as “religious utilitarianism.”5 It is important to keep in mind a general distinction in fiqh, the difference between the ritual practices (‘ibādāt) and transactions (mu’āmalāt).6 The ‘ibādāt includes ritual practices such as prayer, fasting, and hajj, while the mu’āmalāt includes transactions such as marriage, leasing, and sales. The ‘ibādāt are generally considered to be fixed and not amenable to change. The mu’āmalāt, on the other hand, are considered to serve the utility and common good (maṣlaḥah) of the Muslim community, which makes them more amenable to change based on circumstances. It is here that the concept of maṣlaḥah plays such a crucial role in driving forward their approach to legal change.7 Further to operationalizing the concept of maṣlaḥah, Rida and Abduh actively defended the use of the concept of maqāṣid, the objectives or purposes behind Islamic rulings.8 Here they were reviving the works of classical thinkers such as Abu Isḥāq al-Shātibī (d. 709/1388) the Andalusian Mālikī jurist and reformer who argued for establishing Islamic law around the maqāṣid.9 The primary maqāṣid are the protection of life, private property, mind, religion, and offspring.10 Abduh and Rida’s dynamic approach to legal theory had a substantial impact on several of their fatwās. 11 This background sets the historical context for the work of contemporary scholars analyzed in this chapter, who in defending the concept of fiqh al-waqi’ see themselves as working within this dynamic pro-ijtihād tradition. All of these scholars are working within the maqāṣid and maṣlaḥah approach that was put forward by Rashid Rida and Muhammad Abduh. It is also worth noting here that the classical scholar who had a significant impact on the thought of Rashid Rida is Muḥammad ibn Abū Bakr ibn Qayyim al-Jawzīyah (d. 1350/751).12 Ibn Qayyim was a student of the influential Ḥanbalī scholar Ibn al-Taymīyah (d. 1328/728) and emphasized ijtihād over taqlīd. Quoting the work of Ḥanbali jurist Abu al-Wafā ‘Alī ibn ‘Aqīl (d. 1119/513), Ibn Qayyim emphasizes: “any measure which actually brings the people closest to beneficence (ṣalāḥ) and furthest away from corruption (fasād) partakes in just siyāsah even if it has not been approved by the Prophet (S) nor regulated by Divine revelation.”13 Ibn Qayyim is, therefore, often cited in support of the concept of wāqi’ as he is one of the earliest scholars, if not the earliest, to clearly state that a jurist must have knowledge of the wāqi’. The use of the term wāqi’ itself is important. The text that is often quoted by Ibn Qayyim is about the different types of knowledge required by a muftī. The first type of knowledge is about the importance of understanding the wāqi’ itself, and the second is about applying Islamic

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law to the wāqi’: “The first kind: Knowledge of reality (wāqi’) and understanding it . . . The Second kind: knowing what is obligatory (wājib) in the reality.”14 As we will see below, scholars from al-Azhar echo this two-part approach toward Islamic law. It is not, however, clear that Ibn Qayyim is necessarily arguing for a similar understanding of wāqi’ that these scholars are trying to defend; many salafi scholars also see themselves as inheritors of Ibn Qayyim’s methodology.15 The scholars discussed in this chapter neither cite these differing interpretations of Ibn Qayyim’s text, nor do they cite the more contemporary influences on their own understanding of the concept of wāqi’. This debate over the different understandings of the term wāqi’ highlights a common approach that the scholars in this chapter share as opposed to their Salafi counterparts: they are all working within what is currently known as the wasaṭīyah tradition. Wasṭ, in Arabic means middle and in terms of legal theory it refers to an approach to jurisprudence that does not go into either the extremes of conservatism as seen by the Saudi Salafis nor the neglect of the principles of Islam as seen by the liberals.16 As discussed in Chapter 5, many socially conservative Saudi Salafis have also inherited Rida’s approach to ijtihād.17 Denoting themselves as wasaṭī helps to differentiate between the type of ijtihād that they are interested in and the ijtihād of the more conservative scholars. The concept of wāqi’, and the al-Azhari’s scholars understanding of the term, therefore becomes an important piece of the wasaṭī approach. It enables them to simultaneously stay committed to the textual sources while arguing for reform. It is an approach that understands that the context that Muslims live in today is different from the context that Muslims lived in in the past, and that this change in context justifies the reform of laws that have a precedent in the Islamic tradition. It allows for the development of new hermeneutical categories and approaches that makes the development of the type of reform presented here possible.18 However, wāqi’ by itself only justifies why reform would be needed but does not specify how that reform is to take place. This chapter will concentrate on the tools available within the wasaṭī tool set, such as maqāṣid, fiqh al-awlawīyāt, and taḥqī al-manaṭ, to manage change;19 the latter two methods as we will see are particularly developed by Shaykh Yusuf al-Qaradawi and Shaykh Abdullah Bin Bayyah, respectively. These two scholars, although not holding an official al-Azhari position, are influential among within the institution. A more thorough introduction of these scholars will be given below.

The Importance of the Wāqi’ The analysis here will begin from a lecture given by Shaykh Usama al-Sayyid al-Azhari titled al-Azharī wa al-Wāqi’ (al-Azharī in the title is referring to al-Azhar the institution not al-Azhari himself).20 Shaykh Usama al-Sayyid alAzhari is an up-and-coming scholar within al-Azhar. He is currently the head

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of the Office of the Azhar Message, Maktab Risālat al-Azhar, a popular TV personality, ranked 47 out of the 500 most influential Muslims, and is also a protégé of the former Muftī of Egypt Shaykh Ali Gomaa who as we will see is a strong advocate of fiqh al-wāqi’.21 From 2005 to 2009, al-Azhari gave the Friday sermons at Sultan Hassan Mosque on behalf of Shaykh Gomaa.22 In addition to all of those accomplishments, he is also professor at al-Azhar University. His above referenced lecture is important because it illustrates the spread of the concept of wāqi’ within the broader Azhari community: it is an example of how many of the next generation of al-Azhari scholars have internalized and incorporated Gomaa’s approach to wāqi’. Al-Azhari is keen to present the notion of wāqi’ as central to understanding the Azhari approach toward jurisprudence.23 In doing so, he categorizes and clarifies how the Azhari method incorporates wāqi’ as well as its practical effects. The focus of the lecture is to highlight the importance of wāqi’ for ijtihād. Al-Azhari begins by stating that there are three categories of knowledge that are required by the Islamic scholar. The first category is the traditional Islamic sciences, which includes traditional topics such as Arabic grammar, ḥadīth studies, and jurisprudence. These are the sciences that have a long history at al-Azhar and consist of the traditional hermeneutics used by scholars in order to understand the tradition literature. Al-Azhari draws a circle on the board and labels these as al- ‘ulūm al-khādimah li al-waḥī al-sharīf, the sciences that serve revelation. He then states that the second category that is required is knowledge of the wāqi’. Arguing that wāqi’ is the reality in which Muslims currently live in, al-Azhari goes on to draw another circle labeled the sciences of reality, ‘ulūm al-wāqi’. The final category is the knowledge that is required to link wāqi’ with the Islamic law, which he labels as al-‘ulūm al-rābiṭah (the connecting sciences). This he indicates by drawing a circle that intersects the two other circles. The essence of Usama al-Azhari’s lecture is that a scholar trained in alAzhar must have command over all three of these spheres of knowledge. AlAzhari gives an example of the tenth Shaykh al-Azhar, Aḥmad al-Damanhūrī (d. 1778). He states that Damanhūrī not only studied and wrote about the Islamic sciences, but also wrote about the sciences related to the wāqi’.24 In order to illustrate the importance of understanding wāqi’, al-Azhari goes through a short debate about rikāz. Rikāz are treasures that have been buried that belong to the era of the jāhilīyah.25 The jāhilīyah, commonly translated as the “days of ignorance,” denotes the period before Islam. Some of these treasures are made of gold or silver. There are many ḥadīth about rikāz and one of the commandments is that whoever finds a rikāz can keep it, but they must pay khums, one-fifth of its value.26 Al-Azhari connects this debate to the special status given to objects related to the Ancient Egyptians, posing the question as to whether it is illegal to purchase or sell these items as in principle they belong to the state. He notes that there is a conflict between what has been written in classical Islamic books and the laws of the modern state. So how would they solve this dilemma?

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Al-Azhari presents a solution by stating that in economics there are three types of ownership: personal, public, and state. While rikāz would have been considered as personal ownership before, that is not the case now. Al-Azhari attributes this change in perception to Heinrich Schliemann. Schliemann was an archaeological excavator and was interested in discovering the historical sites depicted in Homer’s Iliad and Virgil’s Aeneid.27 Ever since Schliemann’s discoveries, argues al-Azhari, archaeological sites have taken on a different meaning. Given the importance that the rise of the field of archaeology has granted to these items, these rikāz are now considered as public instead of private ownership. This change in the wāqi’ justifies the need to bring a change in the Islamic law. Al-Azhari adds that if the scholars of old were to be brought back to life today, and told to give an opinion on this matter, given the current circumstances, they would rule in favor of public ownership. He goes on to argue that by ignoring the wāqi’, the scholar brings about harm to the public. In his view, a literalist interpretation of rikāz in present-day Egypt would be harmful to the public interest, and harmful to the archaeological items. Arguing that Islam does not want to cause people harm and hardship, he argues that rulings that cause harm do not present a legitimate Islamic approach. Abdullah Bin Bayyah, a Mauritanian religious scholar whose works in religious law are well respected in al-Azhar, takes the same line of argument (a more detailed biography is offered below). Bin Bayyah specifically states that ignoring wāqi’, and the changes that would proceed from it, leads to rulings that will cause hardship and harm for Muslims and non-Muslims alike.28 Yet, there have always been concepts within Islamic law that have tried to stop the occurrence of harm and hardship.29 Al-Azhari himself connects this concept of wāqi’ to the past. He cites two classical scholars that have given weight to the concept of wāqi’: Ibn Qayyim, who was discussed above, and Shihāb al-Dīn al-Qarāfī (d. 1285), a Mālikī jurist of Ayyubid and Mamluk Egypt. He also cites a well-known legal maxim that states that rulings change with time: “Do not deny the change in rulings due the change in eras” (lā yunkar taqhīr al-aḥkām bi taqhīr al-azmān).30 Qaradawi and Bin Bayyah also consistently cite these three references, ibn Qayyim, al-Qarāfī, and the legal maxim.31 While these sources are cited often, more contemporary scholars, such as Abduh or Rida, are not. Al-Azhari understanding of waqi’ is taken from his teacher Shaykh Ali Gomaa. Gomaa was the eighteenth Grand Muftī of Egypt (2003–13) and has built a large following both inside Egypt and abroad. As the Grand Muftī, his fatwās and his approach toward Islam has had deep influence in Egyptian society. Gomaa’s main construction of fiqh al-wāqi’ centers on the tripartite categorization of the knowledge about Islamic tradition, knowledge about the realities in which Muslims live, and the ability to connect these two branches of knowledge together. In an article titled “Ḍawabit al-Tajdīd al-Fiqhī” (The Rules of Renewing Islamic Law),32 Gomma lays out the same tripartite categorization as outlined above with reference to al-Azhari. He begins by stating that one

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comes to understand Islamic law (fiqh) through the tradition literature, namely the Qurʾān and sunnah. Yet the process of deriving a ruling (iftā’), he notes, requires an additional step: understanding the realities of the time (wāqi’).33 He then adds that understanding realties requires comprehending developments under five categories: things (e.g. science), persons (e.g. medicine), events (e.g. politics and international relations), thoughts (e.g. new intellectual ideas), and organization (e.g. political science, economics and social organizations).34 Gomaa states that he has included these five through a process of inductive reasoning (al-istiqrā’) and that it is possible that there are more categories. Similar to Qaradawi, Gomaa considers a broad list of issues that have an impact on wāqi’. The final step is connecting the fiqh and the wāqi’ together.35 Gomaa’s tripartite categorization highlights the importance of understanding the social-political context and the ramifications that it has on deriving an Islamic ruling. It also highlights the need for Islamic scholars to go beyond the bounds of their traditional training in order to accurately assess the contemporary context.

From Wāqi’ to Sharī’ah When understanding the importance of fiqh al-wāqi’ it is critical to appreciate how this concept links back to Islamic law. This section will show that while most scholars using the concept of wāqi’ draw on a maqāṣid (objectives of Islamic law) framework to contribute to debates on Islam law that in itself is not enough. Rather, other conceptual tools have been developed to aid this process. Qaradawi and Fiqh Al-awlawīyāt Much has been written about both Yusuf al-Qaradawi’s influence as a global muftī and his approach to Islamic law.36 Yusuf al-Qaradawi is an Egyptian Islamic scholar, residing in Qatar, who was a close student of some of al-Azhar’s most influential scholars, such as Mohammed al-Ghazālī (d. 1996). Qaradawi has served on al-Azhar’s Islamic Research Council from 2008 to 2013, after al-Azhar decided to include scholars from outside Egypt. Some members of the Council described Qaradawi as “one of the most prominent ulema of our time,”37 although as discussed in Chapter 1 Qaradawi resigned from the Council after the overthrow of then President Mohamed Morsi.38 Qaradawi can be said to have been either instrumental in coining, or at least popularizing many concepts that have gained currency among Arab Sunni scholars, such as wasaṭīyah (middle path), fiqh al-awlawīyāt (jurisprudence of priorities), fiqh al-aqallīyāt (jurisprudence of minorities), and fiqh al-mawāzināt (jurisprudence of balances).39 His active role as the head of multiple fatwā councils has meant that he has been instrumental as well in giving fatwās that relate directly to the lives of contemporary Muslims.

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Qaradawi has detailed the importance of wāqi’ in his book Fī Fiqh al-Aqallīyāt (On the Jurisprudence of Minorities), and in Mūjibāt Taqhīr al-Fatwā fī ‘Asrinā (The Causes of Change in Fatwā in Our Era). Fī Fiqh al-Aqallīyāt is a reflection on the debates undertaken within the European Council for Fatwā and Research with regards to developing a type of jurisprudence for Muslims in the West. The debates about fiqh al-aqallīyāt have had wider ramifications in Islamic legal theory and Qaradawi’s book helps spark a new genre within the field. This is not to say that Qaradawi was the first person to speak about wāqi’ or to present the importance of wāqi’ in this way. Yet, given the importance of both Qaradawi and the topic of fiqh al-aqallīyāt, it would be safe to say that he has helped to popularize its usage. The first usage of the term fiqh al-aqallīyāt seems to belong to Taha Jabir al-Awani40 when Fiqh Council of North America, under his presidency, issued a fatwā in 1994 allowing American Muslims to vote.41 Yet, Qaradawi was the first major scholar to write a book on this topic. His book is also important in that it details some of the debates that have been undergoing within the European Council for Fatwā and Research. There is an overlap between the topics discussed by Shaykh Usama al-Azhari under the topic of wāqi’, such as how time and place change rulings, and what Qaradawi writes in his book. We find Qaradawi not only citing similar topics as Usama al-Azhari, but even citing similar scholars such as ibn Qayyim and al-Qarāfi.42 In this book, Qaradawi argues that it is not possible to do the type of contemporary ijtihād that is necessary for the fiqh al-aqallīyāt without paying attention to fiqh al-wāqi’. He illustrates this point by stating that the work of a jurist is similar to the work of a doctor: a doctor can only prescribe a remedy if the doctor has adequately examined the patient.43 It is also under this context of fiqh al-wāqi’ that Qaradawi discusses the legal maxim that rulings change in response to the necessities of time.44 In his book Mūjibāt Taqhīr al-Fatwā fī ‘Asrina, Qaradawi details the causes of change. This book was published in 2009 roughly eight years after his work on fiqh al-aqallīyāt, and it was published by the International Union of Muslim Scholars, al-Ittiḥād al-ʻĀlamī li-ʻUlamāʼ al-Muslimīn. Qaradawi begins by stating that the classical literature has stated four reasons that a fatwā could change: makān (place), zamān (time), ḥāl (status), and ‘urf (custom). He adds six more reasons to this list: al-m’alūmāt (knowledge), ḥājāt al-nās (needs of the people), qudrāt al-nās wa-imkānātahum (the capabilities of the people), ‘umūm al-balwā (pervasive imposition), al-awdha’ al-ijtima’īyah wa al-iqtisādīyah wa al-sīāsīyah (the social, economic, and political conditions), and, finally, al-r’ay wa al-fikr (opinion and thought).45 In the conclusion of the book, Qaradawi notes that he added these later conditions because they stem from the fiqh al-wāqi’ al-ma’īsh, the jurisprudence of the reality in which Muslims live.46 From this rather long list presented by Qaradawi we understand that there is a greater complexity about managing change within Islamic law in the modern period. He has more then doubled the list from its classical roots. Yet even within the classical topics listed, he

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has expanded their scope. It is through these concepts that Qaradawi argues why certain concepts within Islamic law need to be rethought. Although he does not delve deeply into case studies he does pepper his explanations with examples. One interesting example is under the topic of ‘umūm al-balwā (pervasive imposition). This topic deals with issues that affect all Muslims. Qaradawi raises the issue of beards and the effects that the ruling on beards would have on one’s right to give testimony. In accordance to Islamic law, a person giving testimony must be considered ‘ādil (equitable). A condition of his good standing is that he does not commit greater sins and does not consistently commit smaller sins. If shaving one’s beard is a sinful act, then the person that shaves his beard could not offer testimony in court. Given the plethora of individuals that shave their beard, this would mean that the testimony of a great deal of people would be void. Qaradawi argues that because this issue has such a wide impact, it does not seem reasonable to ignore the testimony of such large numbers of people. He therefore concludes that shaving one’s beard does not bar a person from giving testimony.47 Qaradawi uses the same logic for allowing women to work. He states that there are many places in society that require a competent staff. By barring women from work, these places could not serve the greater good of the community. Therefore, it is permissible for women to work. He does set limits, clearly, that this does not apply to jobs that are in of themselves considered haram (forbidden by Islamic law).48 For Qaradawi, these concepts are highly correlated and they serve as the basis for his fiqh al-aqallīyāt. It allows him to look at the conditions of change noted above and to implement changes such that it brings a balance between traditional Islamic law and the realities of Muslims. One example is the cause of Muslims in the West and the permissibility of mortgages. The prohibition on usury is a long-standing, and well-founded aspect of Islamic law. Yet Qaradawi allows Muslims living in the West to buy homes with the use of mortgages. Although Qaradawi does base his fatwā partially on the Ḥanafī position that usurious contracts are valid in the dār al-ḥarb, abode of war, he also relies heavily on the notion that prohibiting people from mortgages would leave Muslims in the West in a difficult financial position (a topic that will be explained in detail further below). One of the ways in which Qaradawi has organized legal theory is through the development of fiqh al-awlawīyāt, the jurisprudence of principles. Fiqh al-awlawīyāt attempts to organize Islamic principles based on their order of importance. It helps to manage the complexities of change by prioritizing the more important aspects of Islam over others. Qaradawi fully explores this approach to fiqh in his book, Fī Fiqh al-Awlawīyāt (On the Jurisprudence of Priorities).49 His rationale for developing fiqh al-awlawīyāt is that both scholars and religious laymen have confused these priorities.50 By clarifying these priorities, Qaradawi is also clarifying the wasaṭī approach to legal theory. In his discussion on the priorities of knowledge and thought he privileges understanding over memorization, purposiveness over the literal understanding of

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the text, ijtiḥād over taqlīd.51 In the priorities of deriving fatwās and calling to Islam (da’wah) he privileges facilitation (taysīr) over hardship (tashadud). This means acknowledging that exceptional circumstances (ḍarurāṭ) occur in people’s lives, that religious rulings change according to time and place, and that religious laws should be implemented gradually.52 One tangible example within this concept of facilitation (taysīr) is the “stoning of the devil” (ramī al-jamarāt) during Hajj. As part of the hajj pilgrimage Muslims are required to throw pebbles at three pillars (now walls) in the city of Mina, east of Mecca. Millions of people must congregate in a relatively small area within a short period of time, and this has led to stampedes in 1994, 1998, 2001, 2003, 2004, 2006, and most recently in 2015 with the death of at least 2,411 people.53 Qaradawi argues that the hajj was not an event that was supposed to be made difficult for people and stated that in order to help guarantee the safety of the people a greater period of time should be given for people to complete this ritual.54 It is also under the concept of leniency that Qaradawi again argues for changing of rulings in accordance with time and place. He states that we should re-examine rulings given in previous eras because they may have been lenient in their own time but are not lenient in the current circumstances. He gives the example of the rulings that divide the world into dār al-islām and dār al-ḥarb and define the relationship between Muslims and non-Muslims as that of war. He states that this opinion is no longer justified in our contemporary era, and that the textual sources of Islam do not support such a stance either. He argues that the Qurʾān has called on all people to have good relationships with one another, and that the only reason that jihad was ordained was to destroy the barriers that would stop the proselytizing of Islam. He adds that in our current era these barriers no longer exist, especially in politically liberal countries that accept pluralism.55 Qaradawi’s development of fiqh al-awlawīyāt helps to define his overall approach to fiqh, and systematizes the various opinions that have culminated into the wasaṭī approach. The influence of these priorities is evident in his fatwās, especially in the case of fiqh al-aqallīyāt. In his book Fī Fiqh al-Aqallīyāt, Qaradawi explains his general approach towards Islamic legal theory before he begins his debate about particular fatwās. Here we find the same issues discussed above under the topic of “Substrates of the Jurisprudence of Minorities” (Rakā’iz fi fiqh al-Aqallīyāt).56 Bin Bayyah and Taḥqīq al-Manāṭ āṭ Bin Bayyah is also another classical trained scholar who has given much attention to the concept of wāqi’ and fiqh al-aqallīyāt. He was born in Mauritania in 1935, into a scholarly family. His father, Cheikhna Mahfudh, was a wellknown West African scholar, and Bin Bayyah studied in the Mauritanian classical Islamic curriculum. Bin Bayyah is well respected among Azhari scholars. He is invited for academic conferences in al-Azhar, and there have been interviews

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where Azhari scholars have praised his academic work.57 Bin Bayyah used to be a part of the European Council for Fatwā and Research (ECFR), but left to establish his own institute, the Forum for Promoting Peace in Muslim Societies. Bin Bayyah has summarized his approach to fiqh al-wāqi’ in a book published in 2014 titled Tanbīh al-Marāja’ ‘alā Ta’ṣīl Fiqh al-Wāqi’. He begins his book by stating that there is a problem with the way that Muslims are approaching Islamic law and that Muslims are being pulled from two sides: modernists that try to imitate the West and those that try to implement Islamic law but have no understanding of the reality in which Muslims live. He then argues that this strict understanding of sharī’ah that is disconnected from reality has barred Muslims from developing their tradition, and has effectively marginalized Islamic law to personal matters.58 This attempt by Bin Bayyah to connect reality to sharī’ah leads to his work on wasaṭīyah. In a separate article published on his personal website labeled Mi’āīyr al-Wasaṭīyah fi al-Fatwā’ (The Benchmark of Moderation in Religious Rulings), Bin Bayyah reiterates the same points.59 He writes that the wasaṭīyah approach is to move between these extremes, to keep the thawābit, the unchangeable principles of Islamic law, intact and not to deny the mutaqhayirāt, the rulings that change in accordance to realities. This requirement to be faithful to tradition is where Bin Bayyah introduces the concept of taḥqīq al-manāṭ (refinement of the cause). The concept of taḥqīq al-manāṭ allows Bin Bayyah to closely analyze the text in order to understand the reason that a ruling was decreed in order to apply that reason to the new context of today. This, however, requires Bin Bayyah to bring the concept of taḥqīq al-manāṭ from the fringes of Islamic legal theory and the corners of qiyās (analogy) to the forefront as a core concept. Taḥqīq al-manāṭ has generally been used for issues that did not have a ruling in Islamic law; it was not designed to change rulings that already exist in Islamic law. Bin Bayyah presents his argument in three segments, each dealing with a perceived shortcoming in contemporary Islamic law. These segments are al-bayān (the statement), al-burḥān (the argument), and al-‘unwān (the title). The al-bayān deals with the shortcomings of understanding the wāqi’ as a concept and how wāqi’ affects and changes Islamic law; it grounds this concept of change in the traditional literature. Finally, the al-‘unwān states how it is possible to develop an approach to Islamic law that relates the wāqi’ with ijtihād through the concept of taḥqīq al-manāṭ.60 When Bin Bayyah begins to explain the importance of wāqi’ he does so by referring to the classical jurist ibn Qayyim, and al-Qarafi. This thus shows how referencing these two scholars has become a standard practice among scholars working on wāqi’. Bin Bayyah states that custom is one of the biggest causes of change in Islamic law and that the concept of custom highlights the importance of understanding context. Bin Bayyah builds upon this argument for the importance of wāqi’ by stating that it is a prerequisite for the application of taḥqīq al-manāṭ. In order to correctly understand the manāṭ, or the reasoning behind a ruling, one must understand the context in which it was

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revealed. Similarly, if one wishes to apply this reasoning in a new context, it again becomes essential to understand the new context. One example is the case of jihad.61 Bin Bayyah argues that the reason jihad was ordained was to proselytize the religion. Given that there were long distances between nations and that it was not possible to send missionaries, jihad became a way of spreading the religion. The manāṭ for jihad is the spread of religion. This manāṭ applied today changes the ruling of jihad for two reasons. First is the greater degree of harm that war causes today with the use of advanced weapons such as the threat of nuclear warfare. Second, today it is easier for Muslims to send missionaries to foreign lands. Since today the manāṭ of spreading of religion can be met without war, there is, therefore, no longer a need for war. Bin Bayyah makes clear that the older Islamic laws were not wrong.62 That is, that the reason that they need to be changed is not because they were derived incorrectly. He argues that traditional Islamic law was correct for its own period, and that some of those rulings are still correct, but that modern rulings should be made on the basis of taḥqīq al-manāṭ. He compares it to mathematics—where classical mathematics led to correct answers and modern mathematics leads to sound solutions that are suitable for the modern era. The focus of wāqi’, however, is not only on understanding reality as it is now; Bin Bayyah instead argues for understanding of the current era in its historical context. He states that one needs to understand the past because it serves as a foundation to the present, and makes the present understandable. Bin Bayyah extends the scope of the analysis of the wāqi’ to also try to anticipate the necessities of the future. He calls this al-tawaqu’ (expectation).63 He argues that it is the duty of the scholar to not only understand the requirements of the past, and the changing context of the present, but to also try to foresee the changes that will occur in the future. One of Bin Bayyah’s contributions to Islamic legal theory is to bring taḥqīq al-manāṭ from the fringes of Islamic jurisprudence to the fore, and thereby offer a new approach to applying the Islamic law to the wāqi’. He is attempting to give greater role to a concept that already exists within Islamic jurisprudence. Taḥqīq al-manāṭ is generally discussed under the concept of qiyās as will be discussed below. It is generally aligned with two other concepts, takhrīj al-manāṭ and tanqīḥ al-manāṭ. Manāṭ in Arabic is synonymous with ‘illah (reason, cause, or justification for the revelation of a particular ruling). Muhammad Kamali defines qiyās as the “extension of sharī’ah value from an original case, or aṣl, to a new case because the latter has the same effective cause as the former.”64 Kamali goes on to state that qiyās has traditionally only been warranted if “the solution of a new case cannot be found in the Qur’ān, the sunnah or a definite ījmā’.”65 There are different types of qiyās but only one that becomes a cornerstone of Bin Bayyah’s thought, and that is taḥqīq al-manāṭ. Taḥqīq al-manāṭ is the final leg of a three-part process: takhrīj al-manāṭ (extracting the reason), tanqīḥ al-manāṭ (isolating the reason), and

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taḥqīq al-manāṭ (ascertaining the reason). In this application of qiyās there are three things that the jurist must take into consideration. The first is the original case, or the aṣl. As an example, we will use the asl of the consumption of drinking wine. Then there is the ḥukm, which, in this case, is the prohibition of drinking wine. Finally, there is ‘illah (reason) for the ḥukm, which in the case of the prohibition of wine is its intoxicating effect. Thus, by following this three-step process, the jurist understands that whatever has an intoxicating effect must also be prohibited. Now the jurist is presented with a new case, far’ of (modern narcotics). Since these narcotics are said to have an intoxicating effect their consumption is therefore also prohibited. The three-part system comes into play in understanding the ‘illa. The first part in understanding the ‘illa is takhrīj al-manāṭ. In this step, the jurist lists all the possible reasons that could have led to the prohibition of wine. The next step is tanqīḥ al-manāṭ where the jurist identifies the one true reason that the prohibition was decreed, in this case the intoxicating effect. And the final step, taḥqīq al-manāṭ, is the application of this ‘illa to a new case, namely modern narcotics. Although qiyās is a controversial topic among a variety of different schools of law, this type of qiyās is generally accepted by most, if not all schools of law. Bin Bayyah emphasizes this point through an analysis of al-Ghazālī’s text, the al-Muṣtasfā. He quotes al-Ghazālī’s statement from this text that “taḥqīq al-manāṭ is a type of ijtihād.”66 Bin Bayyah quotes multiple reasons given by al-Ghazālī as to why taḥqīq al-manāṭ should not be considered as a part of qiyās, but the ultimate reason he provides is that taḥqīq al-manāṭ is not concerned with comparing the particulars (juz’ī) of a case with the particulars of another case. This is the case with qiyās al-tamthīl (analogy), and taḥqīq al-manāṭ should be considered as qiyās al-manṭiqī (a syllogism).67 Bin Bayyah considers al-Ghazālī as the forerunner in bringing this concept to the forefront of ijtihād and states that scholars such as al-Shāṭibī followed his lead.68 Bin Bayyah builds on the arguments of al-Ghazālī and al-Shātibī and ultimately argues that taḥqīq al-manāṭ is not merely a part of qiyās but that it should be considered as one of the core aspects of Islamic jurisprudence. Absent from Kamali’s understanding of qiyās, and from the classical literature as well, is the use of qiyās as means of reforming an existing ruling. Qiyās, as stated above, was generally used to derive rulings for cases that did not have an existing ruling. Thus, Bin Bayyah’s appropriation of this concept to help reform existing rulings is innovative. He is able to use a long-standing concept within Islamic jurisprudence in order to bring about a desired reform. One of the concepts that is important for Bin Bayyah is the differentiation between kulī and juz’ī, the general and the specific or particular. The concept of the kulī and juz’ī is repeated often in his book. Bin Bayyah argues that when a ruling was revealed at the time of the Prophet it was revealed for a specific case. It is not appropriate for a scholar to apply the ruling for the specific case directly to a case today. Instead, a scholar must understand the general ruling, the kulī, which helps understand why that specific case was decided so during the time of

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the Prophet. It is only through a study of the kulī that one can understand how to apply Islamic laws in a modern context.69 This concept of kulī and juz’ī relates directly with taḥqīq al-manāṭ given that it is concerned with the study of the reasons that a ruling was revealed. It provides the general reasoning, the kulī, which grounds the justification of a ruling in a specific case, the juz’ī. Yet, this general categorization shows how Bin Bayyah views the principle of taḥqīq al-manāṭ as a general and overarching principle. In essence, it is a higher-level abstraction that helps to organize types of rulings into general and specific. It then allows the scholar to manage the complexity of change by understanding when a ruling is specific and acceptable to change, and when a ruling is general and can be applied to different concepts. Bin Bayyah has an interesting section about who is supposed to apply this methodology of taḥqīq al-manāṭ. One would have thought that he would argue for the centrality of the ‘ulamā’, or at least a group of experts. Instead, Bin Bayyah argues that it is the duty of the person to whom the ruling applies.70 He claims that he is in fact following al-Shātibī.71 Al-Shātibī maintained that it is the layperson who enacts taḥqīq al-manāṭ, and Bin Bayyah tries to further clarify this point by arguing that it is the duty of the person to whom this ruling applies to enact taḥqīq al-manāṭ. He gives an example of a sick person during the month of Ramaḍān. A sick person is not required to fast, but it is upon the layperson to decide if they are sick.72 There are rulings that apply to a variety of different people such as those who are fasting in Ramadan, those who are getting married, and those in power. Each person would be responsible for applying the manāṭ in each particular case. Thus, it is noteworthy that Bin Bayyah placed heavy emphasis on the point that scholars are not the ones who should be applying the method of taḥqīq al-manāṭ—a point he states multiple times throughout his book. One of the areas where he tries to drive this point home is in relation to politics. He argues that the state is “a tool from amongst the tools that establish justice and religion.”73 Bin Bayyah is quick to try to strike a middle path between theocracy and secularism. He states that on the one hand the state in Islamic thought is not a theocracy, but neither is it secular.74 He describes this utopian city as such: “It is a state that has a place for religion, and the place of religion is accompanied with the fusion of the common good (maṣāliḥ) and a broad application of interpretation (ta’wīl). It is not led by people of religion, but by civil servants . . .”75 Bin Bayyah does acknowledge that at times the application of taḥqīq al-manāṭ would seem subjective. He states that the taḥqīq al-manāṭ needs to be a “judicious opinion, free from desires.”76 In his opinion, it is the use of shurā or committees that can safe guard against subjectivism.77 Bin Bayyah’s key motivation behind the formation of taḥqīq al-manāṭ is to help manage the reform of Islamic rulings. Taḥqīq al-manāṭ requires a jurist to understand the context of a ruling in order to decipher the reason that ruling was revealed. It

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then requires an understanding of the current context in order for this ruling to be applied. The concept of taḥqīq al-manāṭ allows Bin Bayyah to link the changing context, wāqi’, to the text by focusing on the manāṭ that is derived from the text. Bin Bayyah envisions that the taḥqīq al-manāṭ will play a synthesizing role among the various different rational concepts. He states that in classes where a mafsadah (harm) and a maṣlahah (benefit) are in conflict, taḥqīq al-manāṭ can help to decide between the two. He also states that the correct use of other concepts such as sadd al-dharā’i’ (blocking the means)78 and istisḥāb (presumption of continuity)79 will also be clarified by taḥqīq al-manāṭ. For Bin Bayyah, taḥqīq al-manāṭ is a central rational concept that helps to balance other concepts, but is not designed to replace them.80 Bin Bayyah’s statements about taḥqīq al-manāṭ has sparked debates as to whether taḥqīq al-manāṭ truly does support these concepts or ultimately replaces them.81 Bin Bayyah discusses a few points in his book Tanbīḥ al-Marāji’, which is about economic matters. He, however, does not attempt to provide decisive answers.82 He discusses issues that have to do with the use of modern cash. The means of economic exchange during the time of the Prophet were gold and silver. A cash-based economy has to deal with inflation, which has an effect on how we deal with lending money. In countries with a high degree of inflation, the person who is lending the money without any interest would actually be at a loss. Bin Bayyah speculates that it may be justified to allow interest in this case. A Practical Implication of Wāqi’: Mortgages in the West While examples are available to illustrate how these scholars are applying fiqh al-wāqi’ to everyday issues across a number of different fields, this section will look at its application to the debate on mortgages in the West. One of the issues that has in recent years drawn the attention of scholars from al-Azhar is that of fiqh al-aqallīyāt (jurisprudence of minorities).83 The fiqh al-aqallīyāt literature exemplifies how jurisprudence can change according to time and place. It is telling even by its title. There has never been any literature related specifically to Muslims living in a minority context. Many scholars, such as Bin Bayyah and Qaradawi, argue that a true jurisprudence for Muslims living as minorities can only be developed by paying attention to the wāqi’ that those Muslims live in. One of the major debates under fiqh al-aqallīyāt has been about the permissibility of mortgages. Given that usury has been clearly banned within the Qurʾān, the subject promoted a serious debate when the European Council for Fatwā and Research (ECFR) discussed the issue and finally ruled that it was permissible. Qaradawi and Bin Bayyah were two of the senior members of the ECFR when this issue was being debated. Alexandre Caeiro gives a masterful account of the debates about fiqh al-aqallīyāt especially in relation to the issue of mortgages.84 The debate stems

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from concerns in multiple reports that the Muslims in the West had poor economic status, and much of this poor economic status was related to the fact that they could not get mortgages. A report about the importance of the needs of Muslims was presented at the first working meeting of the ECFR by scholars who were residing in France.85 Qaradawi encouraged these scholars to research the issue further. Al-Arabi Bichri, a religious scholar who had studied in Algeria and Saudi Arabia, prepared an initial report. He used multiple arguments for the permissibility of mortgages, but there were two that were noted in the final fatwā by the ECFR. The first is that Ḥanafī law does not consider any of the laws regarding financial contracts valid outside of dār al-Islām, the abode of Islam or Muslim countries. The second reasoning was that in certain cases a ḥājah (need) can be seen as a ḍarūra (necessity). Thus, the need of Muslims to own a home can be seen as a necessity, which would allow for greater flexibility in Islamic law.86 There was a lot of debate among the members of the ECFR on this report. One of the main dissenters was the influential Syrian scholar Muhammad Said Ramadan al-Buti,87 who eventually wrote a rebuttal against the approach taken by the ECFR in a book titled al-Islām wa-al-Gharb (Islam and the West).88 The ECFR, nonetheless, accepted many of al-Arabi Bichri’s positions and stated that it was possible for Muslims in the West to purchase a house with a mortgage. This ruling came with many caveats, as is expected of such innovative decisions: it was limited to only those purchasing a house to live in, and who had no other means to undertake this purchase. Qaradawi was one of the first to publish a book on fiqh al-aqallīyāt. In his book Fī Fiqh al-Aqallīyāt al-Muslimah, Qaradawi begins his discussion about the mortgages by providing a historical background and explains how he has thought about the issues of mortgages for a long time because of the frequency with which he received questions on this subject during his visits to the West.89 He admits that for nearly twenty years he has been giving the wrong fatwā, even though Muslims in Britain had told him about other rulings given by scholars in Pakistan and India based on Ḥanafī jurisprudence. He uses this example to reiterate the importance of fiqh al-wāqi’ and the necessity of truly understanding the reality in which Muslims live in order to offer valid fatwās.90 He then starts to detail the importance of mortgages for Muslims in the West. Qaradawi then discusses a short history of the different rulings given on the subject. He begins with Rashid Rida’s fatwā that allows for the use of interest in dār al-ḥarb, but then jumps to reviewing the opinions of modern fatwā councils, some of which allowed the use of mortgages and some of which did not. It slowly becomes clear that the arguments used by the EFCR about the permissibility of mortgages in the West have a historical precedence, such as the permissibility of usurious transactions in dār al-ḥarb based on Ḥanafī jurisprudence and considering a need as a necessity.91 One of the principle fatwās that Qaradawi notes was personally important for him was the fatwā by Shaykh Mustafa al-Zarqa (d. 1999), a renowned Syrian scholar who taught

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at the University of Damascus and wrote a well-respected book on Islamic legal theory titled al-Madhkal al-Fiqhī al-’Ām (A Comprehensive Introduction to Islamic Law).92 Qaradawi quotes a fatwā from al-Zarqa from 1997 where al-Zarqa allowed the use of mortgages based on Ḥanafī jurisprudence.93 Qaradawi had many personal encounters with al-Zarqa and had been a strong critic of al-Zarqa’s stance on mortgages.94 Qaradawi then moves on to contemplate what it was that caused him to change his decision; after all, he had been aware of the issue as well as the arguments for nearly twenty years. His answer is that it was old age. He states that it could be due to the fact that as one gets older one has a greater affection for God’s creation and is more inclined to find ways to get them out of difficulties. Or, he writes, it could be that as one matures one becomes braver in adopting rulings that make life easier for people without worrying about the consequences.95 This is a rather key insight into the mind of a jurist and as to why one can choose one ruling over another. The rest of the parts in his book discuss the ruling passed by the EFCR and the debates that occurred in its wake. Qaradawi includes the opinions of those who had critiqued the EFCR and others who tried to find different kinds of arguments for the permissibility of mortgages. Like Qaradawi, Bin Bayyah has also published much on fiqh al-aqallīyāt under the rubric of how a scholar constructs a fatwā in his Sinā’at al-Fatwā wa-Fiqh al-Aqalliyyāt. Bin Bayyah states that there are several key concepts that a scholar must keep in mind when he is constructing a fatwā for Muslims living in a minority context. Although he does not use the exact phrase fiqh al-wāqi’, he does state the importance of the legal maxim that rulings change with time and place.96 It is interesting that Bin Bayyah’s concept of taḥqīq al-manāṭ plays such a minor role in this book. One of the key concepts discussed at length by Bin Bayyah is the concept of considering a hājah (need) to have the same importance as a dharūrah (necessity).97 Bin Bayyah states that this legal maxim is important for many cases that have to deal with usury,98 although he does not comment about its direct relevance for Muslims in the West until much later. Bin Bayyah does not trace the history of the fatwās regarding mortgages as Qaradawi does; instead, after a lengthy discussion about the difference between a need and a necessity, he takes up the case of mortgages in the West as one example. Bin Bayyah quotes the fatwā given by ECFR, and adds simply a few short comments at the end. With regards to the Ḥanafī ruling about the permissibility of usurious transactions in non-Muslim countries, he states that this fatwā does not allow usurious transactions to the extent that Ḥanafī ruling would dictate, as the ECFR’s fatwā is only restricted to cases of personal need.99 Moreover, he argues that equating need with necessity does not in itself allow for the use of mortgages; instead, he notes that this fatwā needs to complement that legal maxim with the legal maxim of taysīr, the ruling that things should be made easy for people.100

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The concept of wāqi’ has a central importance for these wasaṭī scholars. It plays a fundamental role in how they understand Islamic legal theory. This is evident in their strong emphasis on the need to understand the wāqi’ as well as their explorations into the conditions that allow for change within Islamic law. This interest in the wāqi’ is an outgrowth of the efforts initiated by Rashid Rida in terms of Islamic legal theory. The concept of wāqi’ opens up new hermeneutical categories, such as aqallīyāt, and helps to justify reform. It justifies the use of purposiveness, either through the use of maqāṣid or taḥqīq al-manāṭ. As some of the examples discussed show, the concept of wāqi’ is a testament as to how modern society differs from pre-modern society. If Islam and the sharī’ah are to be relevant and are to help guide believers toward what is required of them from the sharī’ah, then scholars must account for these social changes when deriving their fatwās. The combination of wāqi’ and purposiveness helps the wasaṭī scholars see themselves as being both faithful to the textual sources and implementing reform. Arguably, this helps to define what is wasaṭī about these scholars. Notes 1. “Fiqh Al-Wāqi’,” Dār al-Iftā’ Al-Misirrīyah, July 25, 2011, accessed August 11, 2016, http://www.dar-alifta.org/AR/ViewFatawaConcept.aspx?ID=56. 2. Wael B. Hallaq, A History of Islamic Legal Theories: An Introduction to Sunnī Uṣūl Al-Fiqh (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 212–14; David L. Johnston, “A Turn in the Epistemology and Hermeneutics of Twentieth Century Uṣūl Al-Fiqh,” Islamic Law and Society 11 (2004), 233–82. 3. For an overview of the status of ijtihād and taqlīd during ‘Abduh’s time, see Rashid Rida, Tārīkh al-Ustād al-Imām al-Shaykh Muḥammad ‘Abduh (Cairo: Dār al-Faḍīlah, 2006), 11. 4. Hallaq, History of Islamic Legal Theories, 212–14. 5. Ibid., 215–31. 6. Malcolm H. Kerr, Islamic Reform: The Political and Legal Theories of Muḥammad ‘Abduh and Rashīd Riḍā (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1966), 187– 91;Yasir S. Ibrahim, “The Spirit of Islamic Law and Modern Religious Reform: Maqāsid Al-Sharī`a in Muhammad ‘Abduh and Rashīd Ridā’s Legal Thought” (Ph.D. dissertation, Princeton University, 2004), 12; David L. Johnston, “Yusuf Al-Qaradawi’s Purposive Fiqh: Promoting or Demoting the Future Role of the ʿulamāʾ?,” in Maqāṣid Al-Sharīʿa and Contemporary Reformist Muslim Thought, ed. Adis Duderija (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014), 39–71, esp. 53–4. 7. Kerr, Islamic Reform, 187–190; Wael B. Hallaq, Sharī‘a: Theory, Practice, Transformations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 506–507. 8. Hallaq, History of Islamic Legal Theories, 218. 9. Ibrahīm ibn Musā al-Shāṭibī, Al-Mawāfaqāt (Khobar: Dār ibn ‘Afwān li al-Nashr wa al-Tawzī’, 1997); Ahmad Al-Raysuni, Imam Al-Shatibi’s Theory of the Higher Objectives and Intents of Islamic Law, trans. Nancy Roberts (London: International Institute of Islamic Thought, 2005).

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10. al-Shāṭibī, Al-Mawāfaqāt, 20. 11. Kerr, Islamic Reform; Ibrahim, “Spirit of Islamic Law”; Jakob SkovgaardPetersen, Defining Islam for the Egyptian State: Muftis and Fatwas of the Dār Al-Iftā (Leiden: Brill, 1997), 119–33. 12. Kerr, Islamic Reform, 75–7. 13. Muḥammad ibn Abū Bakr Ibn Qayyim al-Jawzīyah, al-Ṭurq al-Ḥakīmah fī al-Sīyāsah al-Shar’īyah, ed. Nāif ibn Aḥmad al-Ḥamad (Dār al-’Alim al-Fawā’id li al-Nashr wa al-Tawzī’, n.d.), 29; trans. from Mohammad Hashim Kamali, “Siyāsah Shar’iyah or the Politics of Islamic Government,” AJISS 6 (1989), 59–80 at 61. 14. Muḥammad ibn Abū Bakr Ibn Qayyim al-Jawzīyah, I’lām al-Mūqi’īn ‘an Rabb al-’Ālamīn, vol. 7 (Dammam: Dār Ibn al-Jawzī, 2002), 2:165. 15. This will be discussed in more detail in the chapter on Salafism. See also Muḥammad Nāsir al-Dīn al-Albanī, Su’āl wa Jawāb Ḥawl Fiqh al-Wāqi’ (Amman: Al-Maktabah al-Islāmīyah, 2001); Muhammad ibn Saalih Ibn ‘Uthaymeen, Mukhtārāt min Al-Ṭuruq al-Ḥakīmah fī al-Sīyāsah al-Shar’īyah (Unaizah: Mu’asasah al-Shaykh Muḥammad ibn Ṣāliḥ al-’Uthaymīn al-Kayrīah, 2012/13 [1434]), 12. 16. Bettina Gräf, “The Concept of Wasattiyya in the Work of Yūsuf Al-Qaraddāwī,” in Global Mufti: The Phenomenon of Yusuf Al-Qaradawi, eds Jakob SkovgaardPetersen and Bettina Gräf (London: Hurst, 2009), 213–38; Iyad Zahalka, Shari’a in the Modern Era: Muslim Minorities Jurisprudence (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016), 11–61; Masooda Bano, “Protector of the ‘Al-Wasatiyya’ Islam: Cairo’s Al-Azhar University,” in Shaping Global Islamic Discourses: The Role of Al-Azhar, Al-Medina, and Al-Mustafa, eds Masooda Bano and Keiko Sakurai (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2015), 73–92. 17. For Rida’s influence on the works of Muhammad Nasiruddin al-Albani (d. 1999), the influential Salafi scholar, see Jonathan Brown, The Canonization of Al-Bukhārī and Muslim: The Formation and Function of the Sunnī Ḥadīth Canon (Leiden: Brill, 2007). 18. Ḥusayn Ḥalāwah, Fiqh al-Aqallīyāt ‘ind al-Shaykh al-Qaraḍāwī, 2007, accessed August 11, 2016, http://elibrary.mediu.edu.my/books/MAL05212.pdf, 6. 19. For discussion on maqāsid, see Adis Duderija, Maqasid Al-Shari’a and Contemporary Reformist Muslim Thought: An Examination (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014); Muḥammad al-Ṭāhir Ibn ʿĀshūr, Ibn Ashur: Treatise on Maqāṣid Al-Ahariʿah, trans. Mohamed El-Tahir El-Mesawi (Herndon: International Institute of Islamic Thought, 2006); Mohammad Hashim Kamali, Maqāṣid Al-Sharīʿah Made Simple (London: International Institute of Islamic Thought, 2008); Mohammad Hashim Kamali, Maqāṣid Al-Sharīảh, Ijtihad and Civilisational Renewal (London: International Institute of Islamic Thought, 2012); Jasser Auda, Maqāṣid Al-Sharīʿah: A Beginner’s Guide (London: International Institute of Islamic Thought, 2008); Musfir bin Ali al-Qahtani, Understanding Maqasid Al-Shariah: A Contemporary Perspective (Richmond: International Institute of Islamic Thought, 2015); Jamāl al-Dīn ʿAṭīyah, Towards Realization of the Higher Intents of Islamic Law: Maqāṣid Al-Sharī’ah: A Functional Approach, trans. Nancy N. Roberts (London: International Institute of Islamic Thought, 2007). 20. Usama Elsayed Alazhary, “al-Azharī wa al-Wāqi’” [Video], YouTube, April 28, 2014, accessed August 11, 2016, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fvlJ51P_4-I. 21. Talal Asad, “Thinking about Tradition, Religion, and Politics in Egypt Today,” Critical Inquiry 42 (2015), 166–214, accessed June 5, 2015, http://criticalinquiry.

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22. 23. 24.

25.

26. 27.

28. 29.

30.

31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36.

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uchicago.edu/thinking_about_tradition_religion_and_politics_in_egypt_today/; “Sheikh Usama Al-Sayyid Al-Azhari,” The Muslim 500, accessed 20 July 2016, http://themuslim500.com/profile/al-azhari-sheikh-usama-al-sayyid. “Sheikh Usama al-Sayyid al-Azhari,” Kalam Research and Media, accessed June 5, 2015, http://www.kalamresearch.com/~kalamres/staff.php?category=9&staffid=5. Usama al-Azhari, al-Iḥiyyā’ al-Kabīr li Ma’ālim al-Manhaj al-Azharī al-Munīr (Dubai: Kalam Research and Media, 2010). Jane H. Murphy, “Ahmad Al-Damanhūrī (1689–1778) and the Utility of Expertise in Early Modern Ottoman Egypt,” Osiris 25 (2010): 85–103; See for example Ahmad ibn ‘Abd al-Mun’im Damanhūrī, ‘Ayn al-Ḥayat fī ‘Ilm Istinbāṭ al-Miyāh, ed. Muḥammad Bahjat bin Maḥmūd Atharī (Rabat: Manshūrāt ‘Akāṭ, 1989). For an intricate debate about the meaning of rikāz, see “Ḥukm Bay’ al-Āthār,” Dār al-Iftā’ al-Miṣrīyah, October 22, 2014, accessed August 17, 2016, http://dar-alifta. org/AR/ViewFatwa.aspx?ID=8235&LangID=1. Muḥammad ibn Ismā’īl Bukhārī, Saḥīḥ al-Bukhārī (Beirut: Dār Ibn Kathīr, 2002), Kitāb al-Zakah (24), Bāb fī Rikāz al-Khums (67), 365–6. Heinrich Schliemann, Ilios: The City and Country of the Trojans (London: John Murray, 1880); David A. Traill, Schliemann of Troy: Treasure and Deceit (London: John Murray, 1995). Abdullah Bin Bayyah, Tanbīh Al-Marāji’ ‘alā Ta’ṣīl Fiqh al-Wāqi’ (U.A.E.: Forum for Promoting Peace in Muslim Societies, 2014), 9–10. See, for example, Felicitas Opwis, Maṣlaḥa and the Purpose of the Law: Islamic Discourse on Legal Change from the 4th/10th to 8th/14th Century (Leiden: Brill, 2010). Muhammad Zarqa, Sharḥ Qaw’id al-Aḥkām (Damascus: Dār al-Qalam, 1989); ‘Alī Ḥaydar, Durar al-Ḥukām Sharḥ Majalah al-Aḥkām (Riyadh: Dār ‘Alam al-Kutub li al-Ṭabā’ah wa al-Nashr wa al-Tawzī’, 2003); Suhā Salīm Makdāsh, Taghayyur al-Aḥkām: Dirāsah Taṭbīqīyah li Qāʻidat lā Yunkaru Taghayyur al-Aḥkām bi Taghayyur al-Qarāʼin wa al-Azmān fī al-Fiqh al-Islāmī (Beirut: Dār al-Bashā’ir al-Islāmīyah, 2007); Ahmad al-Raysuni, “Qā’idah Taghīr al-Aḥkām Bitaghīr Mawjibātahā,” Mawqi’ Al-Ustadh Aḥmad Al-Raysūnī, December 10, 2015, accessed August 17, 2016, http://www.raissouni.ma/index.php/articles/1028.html. Qaradawi, Fī Fiqh al-’Aqallīyāt, 44; Bin Bayyah, Tanbīh Al-Marāji’ ‘alā Ta’ṣīl Fiqh al-wāqi’, 19–20; “Fiqh Al-Wāqi’.” Ali Gomaa, Ḍawabit Al-Tajdīd Al-Fiqhī, 2003, accessed August 17, 2016, https:// ia800509.us.archive.org/4/items/dr_ Ibid., 175–6. Ibid., 177–80 Ibid., 180. ‘Bettina Gräf and Jakob Skovgaard-Petersen, Global Mufti: The Phenomenon of Yusuf Al-Qaradawi (London: Hurst, 2009); Sagi Polka, “Constructing Muslim Identity in Western Society: The Rulings (Fatawa) of Shaykh Yusuf Al-Qaradawi for Muslims in the West,” in Muslim Minorities in Non-Muslim Majority Countries: The Islamic Movement in Israel as a Test Case, eds Elie Rekhess and Arik Rudnitzky (Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University, n.d.); David L. Johnston, “Yusuf AlQaradawi’s Purposive Fiqh: Promoting or Demoting the Future Role of the ʿulamāʾ?,” in Maqāṣid Al-Sharīʿa and Contemporary Reformist Muslim Thought, ed. Adis Duderija (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014), 39–71; Muhammad Qasim Zaman, Modern Islamic Thought in a Radical Age: Religious Authority

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42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48. 49. 50. 51. 52. 53.

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and Internal Criticism (Cambridge University Press, 2012); Sagi Polka, “Taqrib Al-Madhahib – Qaradawi’s Declaration of Principles Regarding Sunni–Shi‛i Ecumenism,” Middle Eastern Studies 49, 3 (1 May 2013), 414–29. “Al Qaradawi in Al Azhar,” Asharq Al-Awsat, July 17, 2008, accessed August 17, 2016, http://english.aawsat.com/2008/07/article55258254/al-qaradawi-inal-azhar. Hanan Fayed, “Sheikh Qaradawi Resigns from Al-Azhar Islamic Research Academy. Cairo Post,” December 21, 2013, accessed August 17, 2016, http://www. thecairopost.com/news/59893/news/sheikh-qaradawi-resigns-al-azhar-islamicresearch-academy. For the influence of the term wasaṭīyah on the thought of al-Azhar see Gräf, “Concept of Wasattiyya.” Jaber al-Awani is a religious scholar who graduated from al-Azhar, but currently resides in the United States. He was the founder of the Fiqh Council of North America, and author of many books on Islam and Islamic legal theory that have been published by the International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT). His views are discussed in full in the third chapter of the second volume. Tauseef Ahmad Parray, “The Legal Methodology of ‘Fiqh Al-Aqalliyyat’ and Its Critics: An Analytical Study,”,” Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs 32, no. 1 (March 2012), 88–89. Qaradawi, Fī Fiqh al-’Aqallīyāt, 44–5. Ibid., 44. Ibid., 50. Yusuf Qaradawi, Mūjibāt Taqhīr Al-Fatwā fī ‘Asrina (al-Itiḥād al-’Ālimī li-al’Ulamā’ al-Muslimīn: Lajnat al-Ta’līf wa al-Tarjumah, 2009), 11. Ibid., 107. Ibid., 93–4. Qaradawi, Mūjibāt Taqhīr Al-Fatwā fī ‘Asrina, 94–6. Yusuf al-Qaradawi, Fī Fiqh al-Awlawīyāt: Dirāsah Jadīdah fī Ḍaw’ al-Qur’ān wa al-Sunnah (Cairo: Maktabah Wahbah, 1996). Ibid., 14–24. Ibid., 66–72. Ibid., 81–92. “270 Died in Saudi Crush,” The New York Times, May 27, 1994, accessed August 17, 2016, http://www.nytimes.com/1994/05/27/world/270-died-in-saudicrush.html; “Saudis Identifying Nationalities of 118 Dead Pilgrims,” BBC News, April 9, 1998, accessed August 17, 2016, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/76348.stm; “Lessons from Hajj Deaths,” BBC News, March 6, 2001, accessed August 17, 2016, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/1204816. stm; “Fourteen Killed in Hajj Stampede,” BBC News, February 11, 2003, accessed August 17, 2016, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/2749231.stm; “Hundreds Killed in Hajj Stampede,” BBC News, February 1, 2004, accessed August 17, 2016, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/3448779.stm; Mark Oliver, “Hundreds Killed in Hajj Stampede,” The Guardian, January 12, 2006, accessed August 17, 2016, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2006/ jan/12/saudiarabia.religion; Rick Gladstone, “Death Toll From Hajj Stampede Reaches 2,411 in New Estimate,” The New York Times, December 10, 2015, accessed August 17, 2016, http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/11/world/middleeast/death-toll-from-hajj-stampede.html.

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122 ] 54. 55. 56. 57.

58. 59. 60. 61. 62. 63. 64. 65. 66.

67. 68. 69. 70. 71. 72. 73. 74. 75. 76. 77. 78. 79. 80. 81.

82. 83. 84. 85. 86. 87. 88. 89.

Christopher Pooya Razavian

Qaradawi, Fī Fiqh al- Awlawiyyāt, 88–9. Ibid., 91–2. Qaradawi, Fī Fiqh al-Aqaliyyāt, 40–60. ‘Abd Allah bin al-Shaykh al-Maḥfūẓ Bin Bayyah, “‘Ulama’ Al-Miṣr Yarḥabūn Bi Al-’Alāmā ‘Abd Allah Bin Bayyah,” accessed September 17, 2015, https://www. youtube.com/watch?v=hsgEkKVoRGQ. Bin Bayyah, Tanbīḥ al-Marāji’ ‘alā Ta’ṣīl Fiqh al-Wāqi’, 9. Abdullah Bin Bayyah, “Mi’āīyr Al-Wasaṭīyah fi al-Fatwā,” accessed May 6, 2015, http://binbayyah.net/arabic/archives/164. Bin Bayyah, Tanbīh Al-Marāji’ ‘Alā Ta’ṣīl Fiqh al-wāqi’, 18. Ibid., 25–6. Ibid., 23. Ibid., 33. Mohammad Hashim Kamali, Principles of Islamic Jurisprudence, (Cambridge: Islamic Texts Society, 2003), 264. Ibid., 264. Bin Bayyah, Tanbīh Al-Marāji’ ‘Alā Ta’ṣīl Fiqh al-wāqi’, 56; Abu Hāmid al-Ghazālī, al-Mustaṣfā min ‘Ilm al-Uṣūl, vol. 3, ed. Hamzah bin Zuhayr Ḥāfiẓ (Medina: al-Jāmi‘ al-Islāmīyah), 487. Ibid., 114. Ibid., 115. Ibid., 57. Ibid., 77. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid., 93. Ibid., 93. Ibid., 93. Ibid., 81. Ibid. Sadd al-dharā’i’ is applied in cases where a lawful means would lead to an unlawful outcome. Istisḥāb assumes the continuation of an aspect of Islamic law until it is proven otherwise. Ibid., 72–73. Yūsuf Ḥamītū, “Taḥqīq Al-Manāṭ: Taḥkīm li al-Qawā’d am Taḥakum fī-ha?” April 29, 2012, accessed August 18, 2016, http://nama-center.com/ActivitieDatials. aspx?Id=91. Bin Bayyah, Tanbīh al-Marāji’, 103–7. Said Fares Hassan, Fiqh al-Aqalliyyāt: History, Development, and Progress (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), 37–56. Alexandre Caeiro, “The Social Construction of Sharīʿa: Bank Interest, Home Purchase, and Islamic Norms in the West,” Die Welt des Islams 44 (2004), 351–75. Ibid., 354. Ibid., 354–9. Ibid., 373–4. Muhammad Sa’id Ramadan al-Buti, Islām wa-al-Gharb (Damascus: Dār al-Fikr, 2007). Qaraḍawi, Fī Fiqh al-’Aqallīyāt , 154.

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90. Ibid., 157. 91. Ibid., 154–7. 92. Mustafa al-Zarqa, al-Madhkal al-Fiqhī al-’Ām, 2 vols (Damascus: Dār al-Qalam, 2004). 93. Qaradawi, Fī Fiqh al-Aqaliyyāt, 166–7. 94. Ibid. 95. Ibid., 169. 96. Abdullah Bin Bayyah, Sinā’at Al-Fatwā wa-Fiqh Al-’Aqalliyyāt (Morocco: Markaz al-Dirāsāt wa al-’Abḥāth wa Iḥyā’ al-Turāth, 2012), 246. 97. Ibid., 252–94. 98. Ibid., 252. 99. Ibid., 305. 100. Ibid., 305.

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PART II Ö Ö Ö

SAUDI SALAFISM This part illustrates how the global shifts and changing subjectivities of modern Muslims are forcing adjustments even within the most conservative of Islamic scholarly traditions. Chapter 4 maps the political economy of the Saudi religious sphere before tracing the changes in public subjectivities resulting from increased access to education and mass communication that are forcing the ‘ulamā’ to show flexibility in interpreting Islamic fiqh; most importantly, the chapter also shows how the Saudi state has actually played a critical role in triggering this change in social attitudes. Chapter 5 presents a detailed analysis of the rise of Wahhabism and its tense relationship with the highly pluralistic religious culture of Mecca and Medina, which for centuries have been a centre of diverse, global scholarly networks. Chapter 6 shows how a growing number of Saudi scholars are starting to move beyond the established limits of reform. It looks in particular at the work of Salman al-Ouda, who uses reasoning from fiqh al-wāqi’(jurisprudence of realities) to argue for democracy, and that of Hatim al-Awni, a prominent student of Nasir al-Din al-Albani, who calls for opening up the debate in Salafi thought, and who maintains that freedom of conscience rather than a state enforcement of sharī’ah allows for a better quality of dialogue on the Islamic tradition.

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CHAPTER

4

SAUDI SALAFISM AMID RAPID SOCIAL CHANGE Masooda Bano

Saudi Arabia is regarded as one of the most conservative Sunni Muslim countries1—a society with strong tribal roots, under the strict control of a monarchy that is argued to view cultural change as a threat to its survival. The country is routinely and harshly criticized in the Western media for alleged denial of basic human freedoms, especially those of women: the legal protection of the institution of male guardianship, the ban on women driving, obligatory female covering, and mandatory gender segregation in public spaces are but a few examples of contentious issues earning notoriety for the regime; its implementations of ḥudūd (corporal punishments) similarly generates loud protests from human-rights groups. With Saudi state remaining firm in its commitment to Muḥammad ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhāb—the highly conservative eighteenth-century religious reformer from central Arabia, who promulgated an almost militant conception of takfīr that led mainstream Sunni scholars of the time (including his own brother) to declare him a heretic—Saudi Arabia’s social milieu is seen not just by the West, but increasingly even by modern-educated, young Muslims, as highly restrictive and out of sync with contemporary realities. Equally vocally expressed are concerns that Wahhabi theology is inspiring global jihad, spearheaded by groups such as al-Qaida and ISIS. Such conceptions of Saudi Arabia warrant its reputation as the ultimate exception to the processes of secularization of modern Muslim subjectivities mapped for the other contexts under study in this book. Scholarship on Saudi Arabia has thus focused heavily on explaining the persistence of orthodoxy, rather than mapping change.2 Western scholars often attempt to explain the survival of the House of Saud through the rentier state model: the Saudi royal family, it is argued, successfully buys public allegiance through the provision of large-scale public subsidies, made possible by its surplus oil wealth. This

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chapter will show how the most interesting question to ask about Saudi society today, however, is not about the persistence of conservative values but about the forces of rapid social change: the aspirations and sensibilities of the younger generation of Saudis are just as much influenced by the global consumer and entertainment culture that increasingly prevails in the rest of the Muslim world and elsewhere. In reality, Saudi society is undergoing major change; more importantly, we need to recognize how the Saudi state has played a conscious role in triggering that change. The relationship between state and society in this country with strong tribal norms is in reality complex and, as argued by Hertog,3 does not fit neatly within the confines of the rentier state model. Exploitation-based models alone fail to capture the intensity of mutual obligations and moral commitments that mark a society that to date has not shed its tribal roots4; nor do such models give due attention to the role of ideology. Consequently, scholarship on Saudi Arabia often fails to acknowledge the evidence of strong modernist impulses displayed by members of the royal family— especially by the likes of King Faisal bin Abdulaziz al Saud (1932–75) and more recently King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz al Saud (1924–2015)—who have helped to transform a closed, tribally governed society into a modern state in less than a century. The overwhelming impulse among many critics to label Saudi Arabia as the sponsor of global Islamic terrorism and exporter of Wahhabi intolerance has led to an inability to recognize the adaptability evinced by the Wahhabi scholarly establishment when under pressure from the state and society. The reality is: the Wahhabi rigidity of the earlier war-making years (when the House of Saud was still battling against rival Arab tribes for control over Arabia) was replaced (after the establishment of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia) by the religious pragmatism required in any state-building period. It is an over-simplification to claim that the religious conservatism within Saudi society is strictly imposed from the top by the royal family and the Wahhabi religious elite; such conservatism is also reflective of the economic underdevelopment of much of the Arabian land at the time of the establishment of the Saudi Kingdom in 1932.5 From the birth of Islam, Hijaz, the eastern part of the Arabian peninsula (home to the holy cities of Mecca and Medina), became very cosmopolitan, hosting Muslims from all over the world; but this was not the case for the rest of Arabia. Najd, the central Arabian land where Riyadh is situated, and where the alliance between the House of Saud and the House of Wahhab was forged, was, on the other hand, entirely tribal until the foundation of the modern Saudi state. This difference was markedly visible in the respective levels of education, degrees of religious and cultural pluralism, and nature of governance structures in the two regions (see the next chapter for details).6 When this difference between the two regions is taken into account, one is obliged to question the static image of the Saudi state or society; instead, we see a society that has undergone a major social and economic transformation under a stateguided project of development. Made possible by oil wealth, Saudi Arabia’s

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Map 4.1 Saudi Arabia: Najd and Hijaz economic development has gradually changed public sensibilities, and herein the changes since the turn of the twenty-first century have been most significant. This chapter will record how the social imaginaries of young Saudis are today very much part and parcel of the global culture, and how these changed subjectivities are leading the state and religious establishment to allow for greater individual freedoms, as manifest in the recent curtailment of the power of the muṭawwiʿīn (religious police).7

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Today, of all Muslim societies, Saudi Arabia is closest to Charles Taylor’s conception of the pre-secular age when religion was the predominant guiding framework for individual action and the organization of society.8 Never having undergone Western colonization, adhering to sharī’ah instead of adopting a Western codified law, officially still following a hijri (Islamic calendar), enforcing the closure of business for ṣalāḥ (prayer), and organizing the national museum around verses of the Qurʾān are but a few examples to show how in Saudi Arabia Islam still does act as the primary guiding framework for all spheres of life. It is therefore not surprising to find Muslim expatriates from South Asia and Middle East expressing statements such as this: “Whatever the problems with the Saudi state, one has to admit, if one wants to follow Islam, the Saudi state makes it very easy to follow it.”9 It is also then understandable why the Muslim modernists in the Middle East, such as the Egyptian Rashid Rida, were so supportive of Saudi Arabia: it lacked the colonial baggage that in their view had made the political elites in other Muslim countries too keen to idealize the Western conception of modernity, instead of having the confidence to chart one from within the Islamic tradition.10 However, as Charles Taylor has argued, economic modernization is an important precondition for the onset of the modern social imaginaries, which in turn propel the processes of secularization;11 in Saudi Arabia the material prosperity resulting from the country’s oil wealth has had precisely that impact. As we will see, social attitudes are changing: the global cultural influences are equally pervasive in shaping the attitudes and aspirations of Saudi youth. This change in sensibilities is, however, not necessarily a prelude to the erosion of Islamic faith; nor is it a harbinger of impending rebellion by frustrated Saudi youth against the House of Saud—despite routine predictions of this nature in Western media outlets.12 Rather, if economic security is preserved and effective policies are put in place to ensure a smooth transition from oil dependency to a more diversified and sustainable economic order, a gradual shift in social norms and the nature of political authority is more likely. The warm reception among many Saudis of the Vision 2030 presented by the Deputy Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman Al Saud13 in April 2016 illustrates a preference for gradual change rather than violent rebellion, just as it has been manifest in the post-2001 failure of al-Qaida to win popularity among the Saudi public.14 The gradual invasion of Western cultural values is loosening the hold of strictly literalist readings of Islamic dictates, especially among the young boys and girls studying in modern Western educational institutions.15 That, however, is not an indication of the erosion of faith. Rather, as in the other three contexts studied in this volume, exposure to Western life is making many Saudis (some members of the royal family included) conscious of the limits of excessive materialism, and the emptiness that can come with complete loss of faith.16 This inner emptiness, which Charles Taylor argues is also bringing many young people in the West back to some form of religiosity,17 is also what is making the more educated modern Muslims cognizant of the need to preserve the faith. Thus, increased education, awareness, and global exposure are not necessarily leading to an erosion of faith among the younger

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generation of Saudis, but is making them appreciate the need to adopt more reflective and individualistic modes of religious living than one imposed from the top. During my own interviews with members of the Saudi royal family,18 their cognizance of these processes of change was very clear. Thus, in many ways, Saudi Arabia’s confident assertion of its Islamic identity has the potential to earn it respect among educated young Muslims around the globe who are critical of the influence of the Western colonial legacy in Muslim societies; yet, the rigidity associated with Saudi Islam also makes it unpopular among these very young Muslims. Their attitudes may, however, change if the royal family is able to make the religious establishment responsive to the changing social context: it is economically affluent and has the advantage of hosting Mecca and Medina, to which all Muslims gravitate. The reason why we can expect the Saudi scholarly establishment to be flexible in responding to these changes in the coming years is that it has already shown such flexibility on the discourse of takfir. After September 11, when the idea of takfir started to pose a risk to the Saudi state itself, the Wahhabi scholarly establishment has used religious reasoning to condemn the waging of war against alleged infidels, and the Saudi educational curriculum has been consciously revised to purge texts that could contribute to the creation of an appreciation for jihad. Of the four contexts under study, Saudi Arabia, along with Turkey, is thus the most interesting case to observe: a clear rebalancing of religious and secular sensibilities is underway in the Saudi state; both the Saudi state and Saudi society are creating gradual pressures on the religious establishment to revisit religious dictates formerly accepted as fixed elements of established consensus.

The Saudi State and the ‘Ulam Ulamā’ To understand Saudi religious discourse today, the pact forged in 1744 in the central Arabian town of al-Diriyya (today to be found on the outskirts of the capital city of Riyadh) between the House of Saud and Muḥammad ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhāb still remains pre-eminent. This alliance, which was resisted by rival Muslim political authorities for more than two centuries before it succeeded in 1932 in establishing the modern state of Saudi Arabia, is still key, eighty years on, to shaping the socio-legal and political institutions of the country. What, however, is often ignored is that the rigidity associated with Wahhabism in earlier years, when the Saudi–Wahhabi alliance was waging wars against rival Arab tribes as well as against the Ottoman Empire, was replaced by a degree of religious pragmatism during the later state-making period. During the eighteenth and the nineteenth centuries, as this alliance attempted to gain political power, it was ruthless in its treatment even of fellow Sunnis;19 however, once the Saudi state was successfully established, political pragmatism replaced the earlier rigidity. The alliance between the House of Saud and the descendants of Muḥammad ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhāb today hinges on mutual respect between the two’s clearly divided domains of primary responsibilities: the latter rules over

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matters of religious creed, education, social issues, and family matters; the former presides over matters of national defense, economic policies, and political governance.20 The religious establishment helps to legitimize royal authority; royalty, in turn, obliges by ensuring that the Wahhabi ‘ulamā’ remain in control of the official religious establishment. Functionally, however, the Saudi state exercises overriding powers. Especially after King Faisal’s administrative reforms,21 the royal family gained the upper hand, rendering the religious establishment more subservient to their political authority. Faisal’s personal charisma, and his lineage from the family of Ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhāb on his mother’s side, is argued to have helped him expand the power of the state. After Faisal’s death, however, the royal family again had to allow greater concessions to the religious establishment, as subsequent Saudi monarchs lacked Faisal’s charisma and authority.22 But while the Saudi state, global Salafism, and Wahhabism today are often seen as one and the same thing, the relationship between the three is neither clear cut nor static. Wahhabism, as argued by most, was a deviation from the classical Islamic scholarly tradition and, as David Commins has noted,23 for much of its early years it remained an outsider to Islamic mainlands (see next chapter). With its roots in Najd, as opposed to cosmopolitan Hijaz, Wahhabism advanced a very narrow conception of takfir, which made it a very divisive ideology, even discriminating against fellow Sunnis. It thus drew strong condemnations from Muslim scholars and leading political authorities of the time, including the Ottomans, the Sharifs of Hijaz, and the Egyptians.24 But, although its emphasis on takfir makes it hostile to plurality within the Islamic tradition, attributing al-Qaida and ISIS violence to Saudi Salafism or Wahhabism is rather simplistic: such assertions have, to a great extent, made Saudi Arabia a scapegoat for Western countries’ own failure to identify25 the real motivation of the jihadis and the success of their recruitment strategies. Recent scholarship has made clear how Salafism, which is better defined by its methodology than by the outcomes that it is argued to inspire,26 arrived in Saudi Arabia from the Middle East in the 1950s, and how by the 1980s the Egyptians and Syrians responsible for bringing its ideas to Saudi Arabia had in fact become leaders of the first major Islamic political resistance (ṣaḥwah islāmīyah) opposed to the Saudi state (see next chapter). The Salafi methodological emphasis on direct engagement with the foundational texts, as opposed to following the four Sunni madhhabs (or adhering to taqlīd of one), owes much to the work of Muslim modernists such as Rashid Rida and political Islamists, mainly members of the Muslim Brotherhood from Egypt and Syria. Granted refuge by King Faisal when fleeing oppression by the Arab socialist regimes in their own countries, these men came to exert a major influence on shaping Saudi educational institutions. Compared with this, the Saudi religious establishment’s commitment to the Wahhabi scholarly tradition— which in turn draws explicitly on Ḥanbalī madhhab (although not necessarily doing its taqlīd)—meant that it had historically been more maddhab-bound. Global Salafism, as attributed to Saudi Arabia today, disowns madhhabs and defends direct engagement with the Qurʾān, ḥadīth, and sunnah to find the

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answer to any question, and thus it is more a blend of the legacy of the Muslim modernists and political Islamists from the Middle East and that of the Wahhabi emphasis on takfir. Few, however, understand this complex origin and evolution of Saudi Salafism, even though recent studies—most significantly, Stéphane Lacroix’s Awakening Islam27—have made a major contribution to analyzing this process. Instead, there is often a keenness to blame Saudi Salafism for promoting extreme religious intolerance by funding conservative Islamic platforms around the globe and for providing theological fodder to militant groups, such as al-Qaida and ISIS, which enable them to mobilize more recruits. Under the Obama administration, the U.S. President himself had levied these accusations against Saudi Arabia, making a serious dent in the decades-old alliance between the two countries. In April 2015, Obama told Thomas Friedman, of The New York Times, that Saudi Arabia and its neighbors should recognize that the “biggest threats that they face may not be coming from Iran invading. It’s going to be from dissatisfaction inside their own countries.”28 He listed sources of potential unrest in the following terms: “ ‘populations that, in some cases, are alienated, youth that are underemployed, an ideology that is destructive and nihilistic, and in some cases, just a belief that there are no legitimate political outlets for grievances. And so part of our job is to work with these states and say, How can we build your defense capabilities against external threats, but also, how can we strengthen the body politic in these countries, so that Sunni youth feel that they’ve got something other than [the Islamic State, or ISIS] to choose from.’ ” Senior Saudi royals reacted strongly to Obama’s statements;29 during his April 2016 visit to Riyadh, Obama was publicly snubbed.30 The evidence to support such extreme readings of developments within Saudi society—namely, a highly authoritarian state, frustrated youth on the verge of rebellion, enforced religious piety, and a lack of political freedoms— needs, however, to be examined carefully.31 In my own experience, the highly static image of Saudi state, society, and religious establishment that such views invoke does not hold up to reality, or at best tells only a partial story. Such assertions ignore the fact that, since the establishment of the Saudi state, both the Saud royal family and its religious establishment have been fairly pragmatic; there was from early on an awareness that state building is different from war making, and that a certain level of pragmatism and tolerance for plurality in religious orientations had to be accommodated in order to establish the state writ. The Saudi religious establishment routinely offers pragmatic responses to help defend the political authority of the House of Saud; it allows the government to form economic policies, even when those policies could be violating the Islamic prohibition of riba (interest) as in the case of Saudi policy on mortgages; and more recently when the state has pushed forward certain gender-based reforms, such as opening a co-educational university for the study of science and technology, the religious establishment, despite its apprehensions, has largely tagged along.32 But, more importantly, even on matters of ‘aqīdah and the subject of takfir, Wahhabi establishment has in practice shown much more flexibility since the formation of the Saudi state.

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Even though the Saudi–Wahhabi alliance justified waging war on other Muslim Arab tribes through the use of its extremely rigid definition of takfīr, once the Saudi state was established, its founder, King Abdulaziz Al Saud, trod carefully and allowed religious plurality to persist in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia especially in the Hijaz area. Although neglected, other madhhabs, plus Sufi Ṭarīqahs, to which Wahhabi ideology is strictly opposed, have not been actively persecuted; they have been allowed to operate as long as they do not pose any opposition to the state. The twenty-two-member Council of Senior Scholars (Majlis Hay’at Kibar al-‘Ulama) (the highest-ranking religious body in Saudi Arabia that has exclusive authority to issue fatwās), does have representation from the other three maddhabs (Ḥanafī, Mālikī, and Shāfi’ī) though relatively limited. Given the original Wahhabi emphasis on takfir, the mere survival of these groups in Saudi Arabia shows a certain level of tolerance and pragmatism. Further, compared with the hostility shown by the first Saudi state33 toward Sufism, whereby the holy shrines and sites in Mecca and Medina were destroyed, the modern Saudi state from the start allowed Sufi groups to operate in Mecca and Medina. Many transnational Sufi orders have managed to maintain a strong presence in these Muslim holy cities for a number of years; the regime is aware of their existence, but lets them operate as long as they pose no threat. In my own fieldwork, I have found many subtle instances illustrative of this Saudi tolerance: for example, scholars who are known to be vocal critics of Saudi Salafism could secure access to the most holy of places: the birth place of the Prophet Muhammad, to which the Saudi government restricts access. This access was reflective of the connections of these scholars to those members of the royal family (or senior Saudi officials) who themselves are of Sufi orientation and have respect for their scholarship. Further, while the first two Saudi states may have destroyed tombs and important Islamic remains from the Prophet’s time, and the modern Saudi state continues to do the same, it is possible for a prominent Saudi scholar to work on developing an app that maps all the important sites from the Prophet’s time, giving the visitor immediate (virtual) access to them. As this scholar argues: “Our idea is that the buildings might be gone but the location is most important and that it can still be visited and cherished.” He is not at odds with the Saudi authorities; in fact, he is a respected member of the official establishment, but can develop an app to record the locations of shrines and monuments with the explicit intention of making them accessible to other Muslims—even though such a project counters the Saudi government’s attempts to restrict veneration of those sites. Further, despite Saudi Salafism’s aversion to Sufism (especially shrine visits), taṣawwuf remains important to many Saudis and also to some influential members of the royal family; appreciation for Moroccan Sufis, Turkish mysticism and the current Turkish Islamic scholarly revival, and the contributions of Muslim converts such as Humza Yusuf and Tim Winter, were some surprising findings of my interviews with a senior member of the royal family. The lived reality of Saudi Islam has thus been more tolerant than outsiders’ perception of it. The most striking evidence of the Saudi scholarly establishment’s willingness to adapt when under pressure, however, comes from the way in which

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the Saudi royalty and scholars have changed the religious discourse on jihad and revised the educational curriculum in the last fifteen years; today they are among the more ferocious critics of global Islamic militancy (despite allegations to the contrary), partly because it threatens their own power base.34 Global jihadism, which the Saudis are blamed for fueling, is in fact giving the strongest push to impel the Saudi regime, as well as the Wahhabi scholars, to argue for moderate readings of Islam: it is this context of growing global Islamic militancy and the recognition within the Saudi state and the religious establishment of the need to restrict such readings of Islam that in fact is giving impetus to some scholars from within the Saudi scholarly establishment to argue for the expansion of political freedoms from within the sharī’ah-based framework (see Chapter 6). The politically charged nature of global Salafism is, on the issue of global militancy, thus very much at odds with the traditional Saudi Salafism as represented by the Wahhabi scholarly establishment, which works with the Saudi state rather than threatening its legitimacy. This just proves that when socio-political or economic realities change, the Saud family, as well as the official Saudi religious establishment, are willing to revisit what earlier may have been viewed as an established consensus. Even within the social domain, there is evidence that the Saudi religious establishment is increasingly showing more flexibility in response to changing public sensibilities. The most forceful example of the growing pressure from within society (and from many members of the royal family alike) to relax social norms came most recently in the curtailing of the powers of the muṭawwiʿīn. The immediate trigger for this change was the video clip of a Saudi muṭawwa trying to force two girls into a van to take them to a police station for some apparent transgression of accepted moral behavior outside a shopping mall in Riyadh, which went viral on social media and Twitter.35 The government ruling to abolish the powers of muṭawwiʿīn to take people into custody was, however, not a response to this single event but was a result of the slowly growing pressure from the public and the more progressive members of the royal family to remove such forced restrictions on individual behavior. Many within the Saudi religious establishment are unlikely to be pleased with the curbed powers of the muṭawwiʿīn; the enactment of this ruling, however, shows that, faced with growing pressures from both the state and society, the scholars are having to move along. Similarly, the Deputy Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman’s answer, when asked, at the launch ceremony for Vision 2030, about women having the right to drive, (“I just want to remind the world that American women had to wait long to get their right to vote. So we need time”),36 indicated that he thinks that it is only a matter of time before Saudi women will get the right to drive, too.37 Media coverage of the debates within the Shurah (Consultative Assembly) on the issue of women’s right to drive shows how those who justify it do so on practical rather than ideological grounds. Those arguing for reversing the ban focus on risks posed to Saudi women from employing foreigner drivers; practicalities are thus a very central aspect of the debate on matters that are apparently concerned with religion alone. Similarly, the establishment

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of the first co-educational university38 in Saudi Arabia is in itself suggestive of a major shift in attitudes. Out of the entire Council of Senior Scholars, only one scholar protested (and subsequently lost his seat). Thus, when pressures for change intensify (whether from state or from society), which is increasingly the case, due to Saudis’ enthusiastic use of all kinds of social media and apps, the official Saudi scholarly establishment normally plays along. The resistance, if it comes, normally arrives via the political Islamist movement that, as noted above, took roots in Saudi society during the 1980s under the influence of Muslim Brotherhood members from Egypt and Syria.39 Similarly, while electoral democracy is not on the agenda, at least in the near future, increased numbers of platforms for popular consultation that create some semblance of participation are being established by the Saudi state;40 in addition, there are also many informal platforms where people meet to discuss and deliberate on political developments.41 The state has also intensified its efforts to demonstrate its commitment to respecting the United Nations human-rights mandate: a Human Rights Commission has only recently been established.42 Further, it has a separate (and quite extensive) unit dedicated to protecting the rights of women and children, which is led by Saudi women; this unit works in close association with the main Commission, but exercises a high level of independence. During my interviews in the Commission, apart from being briefed about the various educational, economic, and legal provisions made available to Saudi women, I was also enabled to meet one of the young Saudi interns who had been based in the United States for the last ten years, pursuing her education. Very progressive and liberal (in her dress as well as her ideas), she was advocated by Commission members as a model for Saudi girls. Thus, changes are coming: perceptions of Saudi Arabia are more rigid than is the reality. The Saudi religious establishment can be pragmatic in order to ensure its own survival. This pragmatism, when set against the changing subjectivities of the younger generation of Saudis, is suggestive of a gradual but steady relaxation in Islamic rulings in Saudi society in the coming years. This is so because even many members of the royal family (especially many of its younger members) are undergoing similar changes in values and tastes. As one royal family member recalled: “When we were young, our governesses used to recite the verses from the Qur’ān to lull us to sleep as they combed through our hair; now my daughter falls asleep watching television. I tell her this is not right, but that is how this young generation is growing up.” To understand the nature and pace of societal change, the next section, in particular, focuses on the increased social mobility enjoyed by many young Saudi women and captures how their aspirations and values are very much part and parcel of the global culture.

Change in Unexpected Quarters Since gender is the lens most widely used to critique excesses of Saudi religious conservatism, to support the contention of this chapter it is best to draw on evidence from within the dramatically changing landscape of opportunities

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for young Saudi women, and the visible changes in their attitudes and aspirations. This section will illustrate this by presenting two types of evidence: one, instances of the rigidity of gender segregation in theory versus practice; two, the opening up of new opportunities for young Saudi women. I advance these arguments on the basis of fieldwork in the female campus of a leading private university in Riyadh, drawing on numerous interviews with students as well as faculty members, and interviews with expatriate Muslim families of various nationalities resident in Riyadh and Jeddah; in particular, I spent time talking to any teenage daughter they may have, in order to understand how she may compare fellow Saudi students in schools and colleges with her peers in the country of origin. Equally, I made observations of interactions between the two sexes in public spaces such as the expansive malls (in particular the alFaisaliah Mall in Riyadh) and Western food chains, as well as the traditional souks and restaurants—the former giving access to the more affluent sections of the society, the latter providing access for those less well-off. For those who worry about the oppression of women in Saudi society, a visit to the women’s wing of a leading Saudi university is in order: young Saudi women (at least in the big cities) are no less cosmopolitan than the Muslim girls I have interviewed across a range of Muslim countries, as well as among Muslim diaspora communities in the West. In fact, the benefits of Saudi affluence have ensured that they are in fact more globally connected, they travel overseas, and they have highly Westernized tastes in terms of their sense of style (personal dress), modes of entertainment, and increasingly even in terms of professional aspirations. On the campus, with the ‘abāyahs (cloaks) off, the student culture is no different from what one would find in institutions such as The American University in Cairo or Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS)—both offering co-education and known for promoting very Western and socially progressive values. These girls were pursuing degrees in a wide range of areas, such as law, economics, and sociology. Girls spoke fluent English, thanks to the mushrooming of private English-tuition centers where they could take lessons from native English speakers in addition to pursuing their university education. These girls were confident, vibrant, and extremely well conversant with the latest apps and social-media technology such as Facebook, Twitter, and Whatsapp. Many mentioned traveling overseas during the summer. Most were single, but also among the students were many who are married and a few also who are divorced. There was a general recognition among the faculty as well as students that the attitudes and aspirations of Saudi girls are changing. As an expatriate teacher who had been within the university for more than ten years noted: The culture is changing rapidly. This is visible in small as well as big matters. When they enter the classroom today, students say hello or good morning instead of salam. They are excellent with the use of modern apps. They in fact taught me how to use Twitter, which I now find very useful to follow individuals or institutions whose reports and publications are relevant to my field. They also are very mobile; it is very normal for them to go out

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and socialize in groups at cafés. In recent years much is changing. I don’t personally see how life in Riyadh is that different from Dubai. I think these girls are enjoying being part of the global culture as much as girls in other Muslim societies do.

Girls themselves acknowledged how it is normal to take pride in speaking good English and “broken Arabic.” Most shared inspiring plans for higher studies; some also planned to study overseas. All appreciated opportunities for overseas travel: most importantly, not all were keen to rush to the West, as often imagined, to pursue hedonistic pleasures that they are supposedly denied at home; some instead shared details of family trips to Indonesia, Malaysia, and Japan, and expressed the desire to explore alternative cultures with great enthusiasm. Some also worried that these Western influences are going too far, threatening to erode the moral values of society: I am different; I still like to socialize with the girls from my extended family network. I have a big family network, so when we get together we have 10–12 girls in the family, and we were taught this is the best form of socialization. But now many girls instead want to socialize outside. Girls in the university routinely make group plans to go out to restaurants. When I will have a child, I will want to self-teach that child, because it is today so difficult to control the different influences that are affecting the young children in schools.

This concern that the attitudes of young educated girls are changing too fast was also reflected in a video produced by the Human Rights Commission, which was shared with me by a local colleague. It showed a mother on her mobile phone, stepping out of a car and extending her arms to welcome the child, while the child instead runs into the arms of the maid accompanying her. The change in gender norms is also visible in increasing divorce rates,43 which by default indicate a decline in the practice of polygamy. As divorces become more prevalent, there is less pressure on a woman to stay with a man against her will in case he decides to take on a second wife. Discussions with girls and teachers also revealed how in many cases their divorced peers had in fact often themselves initiated the divorce—and at times for purely subjective reasons. As one teacher noted: “One of my students took a divorce because she found her husband to be too lazy. She told me that her husband says what is the problem when I am keeping you financially comfortable? But she argued that she wants a husband who does something productive, she does not want to be with someone sleeping late into the morning, having no purpose.” These cases also showed that many of these young women had support from their parents and brothers in initiating divorce; cases of many married girls pursuing higher education, on the other hand, showed how they had the active support of their husbands. Similarly, regularly expressed concerns about the highly restricted mobility of Saudi women are not really upheld for women from this stratum of society: taxis were very easy to order and were widely used by these girls who were very comfortable ordering a taxi using Uber (or another app, named kareem).

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Whenever I finished a meeting, someone would offer to get me a taxi, using one of the two mobile apps. The ban on driving was in my experience never raised as a serious concern, as most maintained that being driven around is actually rather comfortable—a position often endorsed by a fellow researcher, a European, in Riyadh. As she often used to state: “The West presents an exaggerated image of oppression of the Saudi women; the Saudi girls are actually quite well looked after.” Such an environment does not support narratives of the overwhelming oppression of Saudi women’s rights. Admittedly, these opportunities are recent and are most visible in the affluent sections of society, and in particular the big cities; however, that does not make them less important, given that this divide is visible across all Muslim societies (see Chapter 7). In fact, it has been a standard feature of modernization processes in all societies: the urban areas, especially the big cities and the economically better off within them, are the first to benefit from new opportunities that emerge as a result of changing contexts. There is normally a lag between urban and rural sensibilities, with the influence of Westernization strongest among the economically affluent groups in big cities. But it is the elites that have the greatest power to trigger social change and thus the changes in their sensibilities have far-reaching impact. Further, given that a major share of the Saudi population is economically comfortable, the pool that is being exposed to Westernized culture is growing with time, not declining. The change in attitudes and aspirations of young Saudi women, and their heavy use of social media, thus makes them very much part of global (largely Westernized) culture; they are not an exception. However, it is also very important to ensure that the above evidence of changing attitudes and desires is not interpreted as implying some kind of a cultural rebellion in the making that risks the stability of the Saudi state or the religious establishment. The instances of young girls taking more pride in broken Arabic and fluent English, or wanting to socialize with friends in cafés rather than staying at home, are processes underway in all other Muslim societies in the present study. Just as has been argued in the case of the other contexts, while such shifts do create a certain fear of losing the tradition among some (as noted for one of the students quoted above), for the majority these shifts do not mean an inevitable clash with traditional moral or religious values. I personally could not find anything in the behavior or aspirations of these girls that would indicate a rebellion against their tradition; instead, most were appreciative of the tradition but keen to avail themselves of the opportunities for education and travel to which their generation had access. The same expatriate teacher who pointed out the shift in morning greetings from salam to good morning also recorded the girls’ response to any mention of Mecca or Medina: “If I ever tell them that I am going to Mecca or Medina or need to take any of my visitors to these cities, they go out of the way to help me. You can see how their heart melts at the reference to these cities. Few care when I announce my travel to some other city. The changes are thus in moderation; they are not losing respect for their religious tradition; they are only allowing for a little bit of flexibility in its interpretation.”

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Thus, Saudi society is changing, but the change is incremental rather than reactionary. This narrative of a gradual transformation in social institutions in Saudi society is consistent with Mark Thompson’s44 analysis of the gradual opening up of political space due to the establishment of consultative platforms, and consistent also with Saud al-Sarhan’s analysis of Saudi society’s lack of enthusiasm for violent dissent.45 This moderate pace of change is indeed the best way forward. The key question, however, is this: how is the Saudi state responding to all this?

Change from Unexpected Quarters In 1932, at the time of the creation of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, much of society was living in traditional tribal settings. Western-styled schools and colleges, which under colonial rule had become the mainstream platform for providing education in most Muslim countries, were completely absent, except for a few educational institutions in Hijaz. Even the prominent Islamic scholarly platforms were located in Egypt, Damascus, or Hijaz, rather than Najd. Consequently, on the establishment of the Saudi Kingdom, even though the seat of power was in Riyadh, in the earlier period the Saudi state had to draw on the Arab gentry, especially from Hijaz, for staffing government posts, as they had the required experience and exposure to run the economic and political institutions required of a modern state. Thus, education indicators for Saudi Arabia even until the middle of the twentieth century were extremely low; however, from the 1960s the landscape started to change visibly. Especially after the discovery of oil reserves, King Faisal made major investments in the education sector, opening schools, colleges, and universities across most regions of the country. At the same time, the state bureaucracy kept developing, to substitute for tribal governance structures. It is this major state-led project of the development of state and society, initiated since the discovery of oil by members of the royal family itself, that over time has culminated in triggering the shifts that this chapter has mapped for Saudi society, especially through providing examples of increasing opportunities for women. The initial phase of state investment in developing the education sector, however, had unexpected consequences: as Stéphen Lacroix has demonstrated, during the 1970s and 1980s, lacking sufficient humanpower to staff the newly created colleges and universities, the Saudi state allowed many Islamists from Egypt and Syria to take up senior teaching and administrative positions within the higher education sector. These Islamists brought with them political ideas of a different socio-political order than those offered by most post-colonial regimes in Muslim countries. Although initially refraining from criticizing the Saudi royal family, these scholars and the Saudi youth who were becoming politically aware under their influence after the 1990s Iraq War began to direct critiques at the Saudi state itself. This has had profound implications for the Saudi Arabian state. Since Saudi Arabia made university qualifications from

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Islamic Studies faculties a prerequisite for securing senior positions within the religious hierarchy, as well as for appointment to the judiciary, the politicization of Saudi universities by the Islamists from Egypt and Syria and other Middle Eastern countries has had major consequences for the Saudi state. The impact of these developments within the Saudi education system from the 1970s to the 1990s is by now well documented; what, however, needs more rigorous analysis today is the major change underway in the Saudi educational landscape, in terms of both the types of institution and the content of education since the first decade of the present century. Just as the 1960s witnessed the first major push by the Saudi state to develop a proper system of modern education, the early years of the twenty-first century marked the second major push, with a two-fold focus: improving the quality of education as opposed to merely ensuring provision, and linking education to improving employment prospects. The original Saudi Education Policy as developed in the 1960s was heavily focused on cultivating a good moral character as a believing Muslim; this remained the focus for much of the 1970s and 1980s. As Abdulla Mohamed quotes from the Saudi Education Policy of the early 1980s: [T]he key principles of education are: • • • •

Belief in Allah as the only God, Islam as the Religion and Mohammed (May peace be upon him!) as God’s Apostle and Messenger. Total Islamic concept of life, the Universe and Man. Seeking knowledge is the obligation of each individual and it is the duty of the State to provide and spread education. Recognizing women’s right to obtain suitable education on equal footing with men in the light of the Islamic laws.

Future objectives include: • • •

Promoting the spirit of loyalty to Islamic law. Demonstrating complete harmony between science and religion in the Islamic law. Encouraging and promoting the spirit of scientific thinking and research, strengthening the faculty of observation and contemplation and enlightening the students about God’s miracles in the Universe and God’s wisdom in enabling his creatures to fulfil an active role in the building up of social life and in steering it in the right direction.46

This focus on using schools and colleges as a platform for inculcating a good moral character in accordance with Islamic principles remains an integral aspect of Saudi education policy today; but, unlike the 1980s, it no longer dominates the Ministry of Education’s planning documents. Today, the focus of these documents is much more on improving the quality of education, and

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ensuring that the education provided matches the needs of the modern economy and helps to create skilled manpower that can help Saudi Arabia to meet its Vision 2030 objective of diversifying its economy beyond an exclusive reliance on oil revenue. This broadening of the purpose of education is partly reflective of a gradual development process whereby provision of education is the first step, which eventually leads to demands for better quality; it is, however, also reflective of the major effort by the Saudi state to overhaul its education sector, both in response to the pressure that it has faced since September 11 and in response to the concern that its economy is too dependent on oil revenues. Seriously perturbed by the participation of Saudi youth in the hijacking of the planes on September 11, and the subsequent string of al-Qaida-linked attacks on Saudi soil itself, the Saudi state has tried to actively purge its educational institutions, as well as the curriculum at all levels of education, of jihadi ideals. Further, King Abdullah, who ruled from 2005 to 2015, was a keen reformer. He made major investments in the education sector. One of his most important contributions was to institutionalize a foreign education-scholarship programme for both men and women.47 This generous scholarship programme has opened up unprecedented opportunities for Saudi women.48 In general, the growing numbers of Saudi men and women from different sectors of society getting an opportunity to spend years overseas have had an impact on opening up the society to foreign influences. During my interviews in Saudi Arabia, this scholarship programme was repeatedly noted by many from different sectors of society as a “major game changer.” At the same time, this period has seen a major expansion in the number of private educational institutions in the country at the school, college, and university levels. The impact of the private institutions at the school level is particularly noteworthy. Often set up by international chains, these private schools, especially those catering to the elite and upper-middle-income groups, become a hub for nurturing Western values and norms. Even though they are required to follow the government curriculum, compared with government schools these schools enjoy much more flexibility concerning the specific texts that they teach and, more importantly, how they teach it. The culture within the institution can thus be quite Westernized, depending on the specific school. Given the importance attached today to learning English in most countries, including Saudi Arabia, the teaching in these schools takes place primarily in English, and the focus is on making the students comfortable with globally accepted norms, as opposed to developing a particularly Saudi sense of identity or piety. As noted by a ninth-grade student of Pakistani origin in one of these private schools (whose owners were Lebanese): “In my school, things are very chill. Girls are very Westernized; often, their parents are not even around much to monitor them. We also have a branch for boy students and girls who want to have relations can find ways to connect to them.” The education-sector reforms are thus at the heart of the ongoing changes within Saudi society. The links between education and development are well documented within the field of development studies.49 Given that the Saudi

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royal family has played a major role in developing a proper Saudi education system since the 1960s, and that in the last fifteen years a major push has been underway to further modernize and improve the quality of education, it is clear that the Saudi state has played a major role in triggering the societal changes that this chapter has earlier mapped. Most critically, Saudi royals have not just promoted changes in the education system, they have also played a decisive role in ensuring the spread of media, cable networks, the Internet, and mobile-phone apps. King Fahd allowed access to the Internet in the late 1990s,50 despite resistance from some within the religious establishment. It is because of this access to education, as well as modern communication technology, that young educated Saudis are today showing aspirations and tastes very similar to those of Muslims in other parts of the world. As Dale Eickelman has argued convincingly,51 higher education and mass communication are the two most influential forces that are changing modes of religiosity in Muslim societies: together these two forces make people more reflective and questioning of their beliefs—rather than adhering to them out of blind conviction. A recognition of these aspects of the Saudi state makes one appreciate the complexity of its working, and how religious commitment for many of the Saudi rulers has not meant complete neglect of modern education institutions or related opportunities. Far from wanting a static society, some of the Saudi royals have in fact pushed the development agenda forward quite forcefully. The primary interest of the Saudi state indeed remains in preserving its political authority and the related benefits; however, the analysts often over-state their case in associating this survival with extremely exploitative rule wherein religious ideology is used to win allegiance to the state. Instead, the survival of the Saudi state is largely a product of tactful governance, where not just religious commitment but political pragmatism, commitment to certain development ideals, and a close monitoring of public opinion have all contributed to shaping public policy. As one member of the royal family pointed out, “My King himself has a Twitter account”; this young Saudi royal was of the view that the royal family increasingly use social media to keep an eye on popular debates and to gauge public opinion. Staying responsive to public demands was, in his view, essential to the royal family’s survival.

Beyond the Static Image In my fieldwork across the different Muslim contexts, among the young, Saudi Arabia is never really cited as a model of idealized governance or religiosity. This is partly a result of negative perceptions of Wahhabism among more socially progressive Muslims; however, it also stems from the anti-Saudi reporting in much of the Western media that, for young educated Muslims, are often the primary source of news on other Muslim countries. When I started my fieldwork in Saudi Arabia in early 2016, due to the dramatic plunge in oil

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prices and increasing regional instability, speculations about the imminent fall of the House of Saud were once again rife in the Western media; a report in The Guardian noted as such: the street revolutions of 2011 that overthrew several Arab leaders (coupled, more generally, with growing popular aspirations towards democratic pluralism throughout the region), the rise of Muslim Brotherhood parties; the current turmoil in Libya, Iraq, Syria and Yemen, which has also spawned a plethora of jihadist groups and militias; the growing influence of Iran; and concerns that the US is trying to disengage itself from the Middle East. Each of these is dangerous for Gulf rulers . . . but together “they take on the dimensions of a tsunami.”52

In the view of many, thus, a revolution of frustrated youth is in the making; however, this chapter has instead argued that gradual changes are already well underway, and incremental change, rather than a revolution by frustrated youth, is a more realistic reading of the reality. In understanding the future of the Saudi state and society, three issues thus have to be kept in the picture. First, despite the historical rigidity associated with Wahhabism, since the establishment of the Saudi state, the Wahhabi scholarly classes have in practice shown a high degree of pragmatism and flexibility. Especially since the late 1960s, when King Faisal curtailed the authority of the religious establishment, the latter has had to show a certain degree of responsiveness to the changing demands of the state and society. When the pressure has come from the state or society (whether due to internal changes or to global pressures), the Saudi scholars have adjusted their established consensus in the light of the realities of the time, be it in the area of politics, economics, or social change. Even though Saudi Arabia is blamed for sponsoring global jihad, in reality the Saudi state sees this as the biggest challenge to its stability: this is visible in the frequency of announcements made to this effect by the Saudi royalty, as well as by the Saudi ‘ulamā’. Global jihadism is in fact one of the biggest factors leading to critical rethinking of the basic Wahhabi creed among some Saudi scholars (see Chapter 6). Second, social change is indeed underway, but it is incremental rather than reactionary. There is little evidence to support the assertion that this is a society that is about to explode; what, however, is clearly discernible is a change in popular sensibilities in favor of the global (and largely Western) conception of being modern. Educational reforms and access to mass communication are at the heart of this ongoing change in attitudes and desires. It is, however, important to remember that secularization here is indicative not of an erosion of faith, but of a state of existence where religion indeed remains important but evolves from being the only frame of reference to being one of many competing ones. The perceptions and desires of the young are very similar to those mapped for the other Muslim contexts: the changes are most visible in the area of gender, but are apparent also in politics and economics. Not only are

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the next generation of Saudi women showing very globalized and Westernized attitudes and aspirations; they are often supported in this process by their fathers, brothers, and husbands. Finally, it is important to recognize how the royal family itself has pushed society in the direction of these changes by providing access to education and mass communication. It is the Saudi state’s investment in the education sector that observers of Saudi Arabia have most undervalued. While the education sector in Saudi Arabia still faces many challenges to improve quality,53 to advance from having no conception of modern schools until the late 1930s to a situation where education up to university level is today available to most, at state cost, is not a small feat. Further, the increased provision of state funds for improving the quality of education points in the right direction.54 Before, Saudi education was heavily focused on creating morally upright young Muslims; now, the goal of education has been expanded to ensure skilled manpower that can contribute to development of the economy and the society. The fact that the state has consciously charted this route ensures that the Saudi governance structure, although paternalistic, is not completely off track: it has survived so long because it appreciates that the royal family’s own preservation requires ensuring a certain degree of societal development. The rentier state model applied to Saudi Arabia thus does not capture the Saudi experience in its entirety. The incentives as well as the ideological commitments guiding the actions of the royal family are both complex and diverse. There is a struggle to retain popular religious commitment, but the religious understanding of many members of royalty itself is highly diluted, due to the long periods of time that many of them spend overseas, often within Western educational institutions. In my own assessment, Prince Turki bin Faisal is right when he argues for observers of Saudi Arabia to remember that it is a state still in the making.55 The production of Vision 2030 shows that the young generation of Saudi royals, who are to assume positions of power, are keen to respond to the standard critiques of the Saudi economy and society: there is an increased focus on diversifying the economy to move beyond an oil-dependent future; there is also a realization that a move toward constitutional monarchy to replace the existing governance structure may be inevitable. The Saudi religious establishment, being an extension of the state, is bound to show flexibility as the members of the royal family, as well as broader society, push for greater social liberties, such as the ones documented for women in this chapter. The change is likely to be incremental, although significant enough to be visible—and this incremental pace of change is, by all accounts, the best bet for the Saudi state, as well as for society. The next chapter traces the evolution of Saudi Salafism; it helps the reader to understand why its historical origins have made it so contentious a movement, even among Muslims, yet at the same time it illustrates how attributing global jihadism to Saudi Arabia is largely unjustified. The subsequent chapter analyzes the writings of two influential scholars in Saudi Arabia and demonstrates how religious discourse in Saudi Arabia is increasingly demonstrating more dynamism than is normally recognized by its critics.

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1. Iran is its main rival in this respect within the Shī’ite world. 2. Cf. Bernard Haykel, Thomas Hegghammer, and Stéphane Lacroix, eds, Saudi Arabia in Transition: Insights on Social, Political, Economic and Religious Change (Cambridge–New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015). 3. Steffen Hertog, Princes, Brokers, and Bureaucrats: Oil and the State in Saudi Arabia (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2011). 4. For a nuanced analysis of the complex relationship between the Saudi state and society, see Tim Niblock, Saudi Arabia: Power, Legitimacy and Survival (Abingdon: Roudledge, 2006). 5. For a fascinating account of Saudi tribal history and culture, see Abdulaziz H. Al Fahd, “Raiders and Traders: A Poet’s Lament on the End of Bedouin Heroic Age,” in Haykel, Hegghammer and Lacroix, Saudi Arabia in Transition, 231–62; Abdulaziz H. Al Fahd, “Rootless Trees: Genealogical Politics in South Arabia,” in ibid., 263–91. 6. Mai Yamani, Cradle of Islam: The Hijaz and the Quest for Identity in Saudi Arabia (London–New York: I. B. Tauris, 2009). 7. Lauren Said-Moorhouse, “Saudi Arabia Strips Religious Police of Arrest Powers,” CNN, April 15, 2016, accessed July 20, 2016, http://edition.cnn.com/2016/04/14/ middleeast/saudi-arabia-religious-police-powers/index.html. 8. Charles Taylor, A Secular Age (Cambridge, M.A.: Harvard University Press, 2007). 9. Shaykh Muhammad Surūr was a member of the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood who moved to Saudi Arabia in the 1960s; by the 1980s, he had become a prominent figure of the Saudi Sahwa movement (see Chapter 5). He made a similar observation about Saudi society when he moved there from Syria. In an autobiographical account, he notes how he was struck by the marked difference in the visible presence of Islam in everyday activities in Saudi Arabia when compared with Syria: “Murāja’āt (dialogue with Shaykh Muhammad Surūr),” YouTube, August 24, 2008, accessed February 17, 2016, https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=0tahpyLj5FU. 10. David Commins, “From Wahhabi to Salafi,” in Haykel, Hegghammer and Lacroix, Saudi Arabia in Transition, 151–67. 11. Charles Taylor, “Modern Social Imaginaries,” Public Culture 14 (2002), 91–124; Taylor, Secular Age. 12. “Extremism Could Lead Youth to Atheism,” Arab News, April 20, 2016, accessed July 20, 2016, http://www.arabnews.com/saudi-arabia/news/913101; Brooks Wrampelmeier, “Review of Saudi Arabia on the Edge: The Uncertain Future of an American Ally by Thomas W. Lippmann,” Middle East Policy 19 (2012), accessed July 20, 2016, http://www.mepc.org/journal/middle-east-policy-archives/ saudi-arabia-edge-uncertain-future-american-ally; Rory Donaghy, “Senior Saudi Royal Urges Leadership Change for Fear of Monarchy Collapse,” Middle East Eye, September 22, 2015, accessed July 20, 2016, http://www.middleeasteye. net/news/saudi-arabia-senior-royal-urges-change-amid-fears-monarchy-collapse-1612130905/. 13. Rob L. Wagner, “Saudi ‘Vision 2030’ Sparks Praise, Scepticism,” The Arab Weekly, May 1, 2016, accessed August 9, 2016, http://www.thearabweekly.com/ pdf/2016/05/01-05/p08.pdf.

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14. Saud al-Sarhan, “The Struggle for Authority: The Shaykhs of Jihadi-Salafism in Saudi Arabia, 1997–2003,” in Haykel, Hegghammer and Lacroix, Saudi Arabia in Transition, 181–206. 15. This will be discussed in the next part drawing on my own fieldwork; for an analysis of how Saudi women express agency even within apparently restricted spaces, see Amélie Le Renard, “Engendering Consumerism in Saudi Capital: A Study of Young Women’s Practices in Shopping Malls,” in Haykel, Hegghammer and Lacroix, Saudi Arabia in Transition, 314–31. 16. Based on my interviews; also see Yamani, Cradle of Islam. 17. Taylor, Secular Age. 18. See also Donaghy, “Senior Saudi Royal”; Mark C. Thompson, Saudi Arabia and the Path to Political Change: National Dialogue and Civil Society (London–New York: I. B. Tauris, 2014). 19. Commins, “From Wahhabi.” 20. Nabil Mouline, “Enforcing and Reinforcing the State’s Islam: The Functioning of the Committee of Scholars,” in Haykel, Hegghammer and Lacroix, Saudi Arabia in Transition, 48–70. 21. Ibid.; Sarah Yizraeli, Politics and Society in Saudi Arabia: The Crucial Years of Development 1960–1982, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012). 22. Ibid. 23. Commins, “From Wahhabi.” 24. Ibid., also see Chapter 5 in this volume. 25. The growing literature on jihadist motivations shows that these are much more complex than blind religious indoctrination, and often driven by political grievance, see Masooda Bano, The Rational Believer: Choices and Decisions in the Madrasas of Pakistan (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2012); Diego Gambetta and Steffen Hertog, Engineers of Jihad: The Curious Connection between Violent Extremism and Education (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2016). 26. Commins, “From Wahhabi.” 27. Stéphane Lacroix, Awakening Islam: The Politics of Religious Dissent in Contemporary Saudi Arabia, trans. George Holoch (Cambridge, M.A.: Harvard University Press, 2011). 28. Thomas L. Friedman, “Iran and the Obama Doctrine,” The New York Times, April 5, 2015, accessed August 9, 2016, http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/06/ opinion/thomas-friedman-the-obama-doctrine-and-iran-interview.html?_r=1. 29. An article in The Arab News to this effect, penned by Prince Turki al-Faisal and widely circulated in the international media, is noteworthy: see Turki al-Faisal, “Mr Obama, We are not ‘Free Riders’,” Arab News, March 14, 2016, accessed August 9, 2016, http://www.arabnews.com/columns/news/894826. 30. President Obama was received at the airport by the Governor of Riyadh, Prince Faisal bin Bandar Al Saud, instead of the king and, unlike the normal practice, the event was not broadcast live on Saudi TV. Commentaries within the Saudi, as well as international, media focused on how the two sides are forced to stay in an “unhappy marriage” as outright “divorce” will (for both) be too costly: Ian Black, “Obama’s Chilly Reception in Saudi Arabia Hints at Mutual Distrust,” The Guardian, April 20, 2016, accessed August 12, 2016, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/apr/20/barack-obama-saudi-arabia-visit-king-salmanrelationship.

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31. It is not just the Western media or think tanks, but also some Arab academics, who express similarly extreme readings of Saudi state and society: see Madawi al-Rasheed, “Caught between Religion and State: Women in Saudi Arabia,” in Haykel, Hegghammer and Lacroix, Saudi Arabia in Transition, 292–313. 32. One scholar from the Senior Council of ‘Ulama who did protest was duly sacked, see Lamis Hoteit and Courtney C. Radsch, “Saudi Cleric Sacked over Co-Ed University Spat,” Al Arabiya News, October 4, 2009, accessed August 9, 2016, https:// www.alarabiya.net/articles/2009/10/04/86923.html; “Criticism of Co-Education: Saudi Scholar Sacked,” Dawn, October 6, 2009, accessed August 14, 2016, http:// beta.dawn.com/news/855298/criticism-of-co-education-saudi-scholar-sacked. 33. The Emirate of Diriyah, referred to as the first Saudi state, was established in 1744. For details on the first and second Saudi states, see Chapter 5. 34. “Public Statements by Senior Saudi Officials and Religious Scholars Condemning Extremism and Promoting Moderation,” Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia, Washington, D.C., May 2008, accessed July 20, 2016, https://www.saudiembassy.net/ files/PDF/Reports/2008Reports/Extremism_Report_May08.pdf. 35. “Fierce Debate in Saudi Arabia over Video of Woman’s Public Beating,” Middle East Eye, accessed June 12, 2017, http://www.middleeasteye.net/news/fierce-debatesaudi-arabia-over-video-womans-public-beating-602384753. 36. “Deputy Crown Prince Backs Women Driving,” Arab News, April 23, 2016, accessed June 12, 2017, http://www.arabnews.com/featured/news/914356. 37. Annalisa Merelli, “Saudi Arabia’s Most Powerful Royal Reportedly Thinks Women Should Be Allowed to Drive,” Quartz, April 23, 2016, accessed August 9, 2016, http://qz.com/668574/saudi-arabias-most-powerful-royal-reportedly-thinkswomen-should-be-allowed-to-drive/. 38. “Saudi Looks to the Future, Opens Coed University,” Al-Arabiya News, September 22, 2009, accessed August 9, 2016, https://www.alarabiya.net/ articles/2009/09/22/85724.html. 39. Stéphane Lacroix, “Understanding Stability and Dissent in the Kingdom: The Double-Edge Role of the jama’at in Saudi Politics,” in Haykel, Hegghammer and Lacroix, Saudi Arabia in Transition, 167–80. 40. Thompson, Saudi Arabia. 41. Toby Matthiesen, “Diwaniyyas, Intellectual Salons, and the Limits of Civil Society,” Middle East Institute, October 1, 2009, accessed August 9, 2016, http:// www.mei.edu/content/diwaniyyas-intellectual-salons-and-limits-civil-society. 42. “Human Rights Commission,” accessed June 12, 2017, www:hrc.gov.sa. 43. “Saudi Divorce Rate High: The “Message” Is Clear—Stop Abusing Social Media,” Arab News, May 9, 2015, accessed June 12, 2017, http://www.arabnews.com/ saudi-arabia/news/744426. 44. Thompson, Saudi Arabia. 45. Saud al-Sarhan, “Struggle for Authority.” 46. Abdulla Mohamed Al-Zaid, Education in Saudi Arabia: A Model with Difference (Riyadh: Tihama Publications, 1982). 47. Annalisa Pavan, “A New Perspective on the Quest for Education: The Saudi Arabian Way to Knowledge Society,” Higher Education Studies 3 (2013), 25–34, doi:10.5539/hes.v3n6p25; Annalisa Pavan, “Higher Education in Saudi Arabia: Rooted in Heritage and Values, Aspiring to Progress,” International Research in Higher Education 1 (2016), 91–100.

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48. For a review of other recent investments made by the Saudi state to promote female education, see “Woman in Higher Education: Saudi Initiatives & Achievements,” Kingdom of Saudi Arabia Ministry of Higher Education, 2010, accessed July 20, 2016, http://www.moe.gov.sa/ar/Ministry/Deputy-Ministry-for-Planningand-Information-affairs/The-General-Administration-of-Planning/Documents/ women_in_higher_edu.pdf; to contrast how dramatically the nature of educational opportunities available to Saudi women today differs from those available 20 years ago, see Nagat el-Sanabary, “Female Education in Saudi Arabia and the Reproduction of Gender Division,” Gender and Education 6 (1994), 141–50. 49. See the Human Development Reports (HDRs) from the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP); the 2015 report is available from http://hdr.undp.org/en. 50. Hamed A. Alshahrani, “A Brief History of the Internet in Saudi Arabia,” TechTrends 60 (2016), 19–20, doi:10.1007/s11528-015-0012-5. 51. Dale Eickelman, “Mass Higher Education and the Religious Imagination in Contemporary Arab Societies,” American Ethnologist 19 (1992), 643–55. 52. Brian Whitaker, “Saudi Arabia is Worried—and Not Just About its King,” The Guardian, September 29, 2015, accessed July 20, 2016, http://www.theguardian. com/commentisfree/2015/sep/29/saudi-arabia-king-salman-spending-gulf. 53. Jamal Khashoggi, “Saudi Arabia’s Education System in the Spotlight Again,” Al Arabiya English, February 9, 2014, accessed July 20, 2016, http://english.alarabiya.net/en/views/news/middle-east/2014/02/09/Saudi-Arabia-s-education-systemin-the-spotlight-again.html. 54. Pavan, “Higher Education.” 55. He has expressed these views in many interviews and speeches; see, for example, Bernhard Zand, “Interview with Saudi Prince Turki Bin Faisal Al Saud: ‘We Try To Learn from Our Mistakes,” SPIEGEL ONLINE, May 15, 2015, accessed June 12, 2017. http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/spiegel-interview-withprince-turki-bin-faisal-al-saud-a-1033376.html.

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CHAPTER

5

EVOLUTION OF SAUDI SALAFISM Nathan Spannaus

Salafism, the Islamic reform movement, has changed markedly since the late nineteenth century. Emerging out of the context of colonialism, it originally focused on Islamic unity and renewing the intellectual and religious vitality of the Muslim world in the face of European domination. It was also a cosmopolitan discourse, spurred by diverse scholars and intellectuals and the Muslim press—exemplified by Rashid Rida’s (1865–1935) newspaper al-Manār, which enjoyed broad circulation—linking strands of thought from around the world in its major centers: Cairo, Damascus, and the holy cities of Mecca and Medina.1 As colonialism gradually ended, however, Salafism was transformed; less focused on unity, it became more narrow and exclusionary, with greater emphasis on religious correctness.2 Saudi Arabia plays a large role in this history. Mecca and Medina were brought under its control in the 1920s, and their Salafi institutions and scholars were subsequently incorporated into Saudi academia, which quickly became a major patron of Salafism worldwide. Yet Saudi academia is also intimately linked with Wahhabism, the established Islamic school of the kingdom, and the twentieth-century shifts in Salafism reflect its convergence with Wahhabism under Saudi auspices. While Salafism contains considerable internal diversity and has retained its global character, Saudi academia represents perhaps the foremost institutional center of Salafism today, and it has exerted an immense influence on the movement. The contemporary development of Salafism is thus directly tied to the interconnected histories of Saudi Arabia and Wahhabism. Saudi Arabia The geography of Saudi Arabia forms an important backdrop to this narrative. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, founded in 1932, is comprised of three main regions—Najd, al-Ahsa, and the Hijaz—each with a distinct history, [ 150 ]

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society, and religious culture that, with a few isolated exceptions, were only brought into a single polity in the twentieth century. Al-Ahsa (also written Hasa), located near Iraq along the Persian Gulf, and the Hijaz, the western portion of the Arabian peninsula along the Red Sea, had significant settled populations in addition to Bedouins, the latter also containing Mecca and Medina (called the Ḥaramayn, the “two sanctuaries”). The society of Najd, by contrast, comprising central Arabia, was more strongly Bedouin, with far less of a settled presence. While the Hijaz and al-Ahsa were more diverse, connected to other regions through trade, and pilgrimage for the Hijaz, Najd was more isolated, with a smaller, more homogenous population. The Saudi dynasty hails from Najd, and its rise to political prominence and eventual dominion over the Hijaz and al-Ahsa dates back to the middle of the eighteenth century. It was at that time that the connection was formed between the Saud family’s political and military power and Wahhabism as a religious ideology, which likewise has its origins in eighteenth-century Najd. But Wahhabism’s emergence can be traced to changes in Najdi society dating back to the sixteenth century, when the area’s settled population began to increase, spurred by regional, environmental and economic changes. Although there is little historical information on the cultural and religious life of Najd in the preceding era, the growth of settlements allowed for greater establishment of ‘ulamā’ institutions.3 Ḥanbalism became the predominant school in the area, although its broader impact was limited, and Michael Cook notes that the Najdi Ḥanbalīs that appear in Damascene texts are decidedly minor figures.4 It was out of this environment that Wahhabism, as a coherent and unifying ideology, emerged. It began as a religious reform movement started by the eponymous Muḥammad ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhāb (1703–92), who was born into a Ḥanbalī scholarly family in ‘Uyaynah, an oasis in Najd. His early life followed a common trajectory for the time. He was educated in ‘Uyaynah before traveling outside of Najd to pursue his studies. It is generally agreed that he studied in al-Ahsa, Basra, and the Hijaz.5 There is some uncertainty regarding when he developed his distinctive thought, but, nevertheless, by the early 1740s ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhāb had established himself as a religious authority in ‘Uyaynah and was espousing his views. He focused on preaching, articulating a vision of Islam that was austere and strict and attacking a number of widespread practices he considered immoral and perversions of true religion. These criticisms, as well as an unyielding approach to people’s behavior, stirred up considerable controversy, and, despite attracting a sizable following, ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhāb was expelled from ‘Uyaynah by the amir ‘Uthmān ibn Mu’ammar in 1744. He was subsequently welcomed by the ruler of the nearby oasis of Diriyah (or Dariyya), Muḥammad ibn Sa’ūd (d. 1765), who promised to support his burgeoning religious movement.6 The arrangement between ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhāb and the Saud clan in Diriyah was straightforward: in exchange for backing the latter’s political leadership, the former was granted a position of religious authority and a platform

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from which he could propagate his message. It was an agreement of mutual benefit. The Sauds’ military and economic resources were directed toward spreading Wahhabism, which in turn allowed the Sauds’ political control to spread, increasing their military strength, which was accordingly driven by religious fervor. The Wahhabi-Saud jihad swiftly reshaped the political and religious landscape of Najd, and this partnership remains the foundation of Saudi government and society.7

Wahhabism Ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhāb’s reformism provoked controversy due to its strictness, but it was also at odds with the Ḥanbalī mainstream of the time. Instead, its contours and major thrust come from the works of the famed Damascene Ḥanbalī reformer Taqī al-Dīn Aḥmad ibn Taymīyah (1263–1328). For ibn Taymīyah, faith (īmān) and action were inextricably linked within the believer, such that a true Muslim could not but act in a corresponding manner, obedient to the sharī’ah in all ways, and likewise one who acted obedient to the sharī’ah would be a true Muslim in faith. Mouline terms this the joining of orthodoxy (correct belief) with orthopraxy (correct action). The best environment for Muslims then was one that encouraged orthopraxy, as doing so simultaneously encouraged orthodoxy. Ibn Taymīyah, therefore, argued that society should be ordered according to the dictates of orthopraxy, enforced by political authorities, an idea he labeled siyāsah shar’īyah (sharī’ah politics). The best government was one that maintained a society in which true Islamic behavior could flourish and divergent practices, which pulled people away from orthodoxy, would be excluded.8 This approach underpins the most characteristic aspects of Wahhabism. It is central to the connection with the Saud dynasty, whose legitimacy as rulers was tied to their role as enforcers of orthopraxy, as articulated by ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhāb. Public morality in this way is given particular significance, and its maintenance by political powers becomes a religious priority.9 During the initial expansion of Wahhabism in the second half of the eighteenth century (the so-called first Saudi state), the acceptance of ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhāb’s religious leadership in a village or oasis was solidified by the appointment of a muṭawwi’, an official tasked with leading prayers, preaching, offering religious expertise, and enforcing morality, with the support of political elites.10 This aspect of Wahhabism predated ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhāb’s patronage by the Sauds. He had already enacted a regime of orthopraxy in ‘Uyaynah, which eventually led to his expulsion. Nevertheless, with support of the amīr he instituted mandatory mosque attendance and centralized collection of zakāt. These were largely unprecedented changes, but, more remarkably, he also executed a woman for adultery and ordered the destruction of the tomb of the prophetic companion Zayd ibn al-Khaṭṭāb (older brother of the caliph ‘Umar).11 Although falling only within a period of about five years, these instances are

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representative of ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhāb’s vision for how orthopraxy should be imposed within society. The use of force to stop illegitimate actions was common: smaller infractions like missing prayer were met with corporal punishment, and the penalty of stoning for adultery ran counter to the widespread practice of the period, in which it was hardly ever carried out. These measures show a severe and violent character to ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhāb’s reformism, but its inflexibility is particularly evinced in the destruction of the tomb. Adultery and missing prayer or zakāt were obviously considered transgressions (even if the punishments were unusual), but visitation of saints’ tombs and holy places was a common expression of piety among Muslims, seen by many—Sufis, especially—as virtuous.12 This was controversial among ‘ulamā’ to be sure, with a range of scholars holding it to be at best useless and at worst heretical. Such scholars generally denounced the practice in their writings and sermons, urging Muslims to abandon it. The step of razing holy sites was, however, unheard of.13 That ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhāb chose to destroy tombs rather than merely forbidding visitation (and/or individually punishing Muslims who visited them) speaks to the extent to which he felt the imposition of orthopraxy by force was necessary. Ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhāb’s objection to tombs and other extra-ritual practices associated with them were an extension of his basic religious ideology, with a particular emphasis on tawḥīd (divine oneness, or monotheism). Tawḥīd is a—if not the—central element in Islamic belief, enshrined in the first phrase of the profession of faith: “There is no god but God.” Traditionally speaking, tawḥīd has been understood in abstract terms, signifying God’s existence as the sole divinity and His stature as the singular object of worship. Ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhāb, however, beyond this abstract conception of the divine (which he quite conventionally labeled tawḥīd al-asmā’ wa-al-ṣifāt—“the oneness of [God’s] names and attributes”), relied on an additional understanding of tawḥīd connecting it with the conjunction of orthodoxy and orthopraxy. This notion of tawḥīd comes from ibn Taymīyah, who argued that in addition to God’s unique existence, there are two other facets of tawḥīd: tawḥīd ulūhīyah (or ‘ubūdīyah), that all worship and religious servitude is due to God, and tawḥīd rubūbīyah, God’s all-encompassing sovereignty.14 The inseparability of faith and action follows from the link between these two facets. God’s sovereignty includes His role as divine law-giver, as it is He who determines the dictates of the sharī’ah. To acknowledge this role is an act of worship, which entails abiding by the laws He has set down. To ignore these laws would accordingly constitute a rejection of His exclusive sovereignty, thereby failing to devote all worship to Him. The linking of faith and action can thus be understood as tantamount to obedience to God, in every sense of the word. Within this logic, the visitation of tombs, as a form of reverence for something other than God, violated tawḥīd ulūhīyah and, as an act that runs counter to divine commandment, tawḥīd rubūbīyah as well.15 The purpose of this conception of tawḥīd, Samira Haj points out, is to remove divine oneness from the realm of the purely abstract and instead make

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it manifest within society through people’s actions: “Unconditional obedience and worship of the one God is to be socially embodied rather than a private action or statement detached from a living community.”16 This is the basic aim of ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhāb’s reformism, which he articulated in his first and most important work, the Kitāb al-Tawḥīd, and that he sought to enact in ‘Uyaynah and then under the Sauds’ patronage, linking tawḥīd with orthodoxy and orthopraxy in an environment conducive to them.17 The problem with such an understanding of tawḥīd lies with the implications that it holds for any sort of deviation. If right action is itself an expression of tawḥīd, then the opposite is also true: wrong action amounts to a rejection of tawḥīd. As a central tenet of Islam, the violation of tawḥīd is a transgression of enormous weight, constituting shirk, which is described in the Qurʾān as the sin that God will not forgive (Q 4:48 and 4:116). In Islamic tradition, shirk is associated with gross irreligiosity and rejecting Islam; the term for those who commit shirk—mushrikīn—was used for Arab idolaters who resisted Muḥammad’s message.18 Subsuming correct action and belief under the category of tawḥīd necessarily taps into this discourse of shirk (as tawḥīd’s opposite), implicitly connecting instances of incorrect action or belief with a rejection of Islam. Ibn Taymīyah and others who held this view of tawḥīd, such as the contemporary Yemeni reformer Muhammad ibn ‘Ali al-Shawkani (1759–1839), despite this implication, did not adopt a narrow view of orthodoxy and orthopraxy, thereby avoiding bringing accusations of shirk upon Muslims with whom they disagreed.19 By contrast, ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhāb made this connection with shirk explicit, condemning what he considered illegitimate practices as such and labeling those who committed them mushrikīn.20 Although ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhāb evinced some hesitation in declaring his opponents guilty of shirk, he nevertheless condemned them for their failures to uphold tawḥīd.21 This points to the exclusionary impulse at the heart of Wahhabism (and most clearly distinguishes it from ibn Taymīyah’s approach). To begin with, ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhāb’s understanding of tawḥīd eliminated any incorrect practice from the fold of legitimacy.22 Even simple moral failings like disrespect for one’s parents were categorized as shirk (even if not punished as such).23 Accordingly, his works focus on defining comprehensively what makes a good Muslim.24 However, his emphasis on public morality and socially embodied orthopraxy sought a very narrow and homogenous conception of religious correctness, precluding meaningful diversity. As such, his definition of a good Muslim doubles, inversely, as a definition of a bad Muslim, as anyone who does not continuously meet its stringent criteria is rendered such. As Hamid Algar writes, ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhāb’s conception of the necessity of tawḥīd “can be defined only negatively, in terms of the avoidance of certain practices, not affirmatively; this places a fear of perceived deviation at the very heart of Wahhabism and helps to explain its intrinsically censorious nature.”25 For ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhāb and his followers, it was they who fully manifested tawḥīd through orthodoxy and orthopraxy, rendering them (in their eyes) the only true Muslims. As Mouline points out, ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhāb

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believed that “the sole path to salvation was to follow and apply his teachings,” and any other path led to shirk.26 The Wahhabi attitude toward religious others is enshrined in the emphasis they place on barā’, the dissociation from unbelievers (kuffār) or any source of unbelief (kufr), which rendered the very acceptance of religious diversity a transgression. The term and its opposite, walā’, had been used by ibn Taymīyah and others to signify religious and social separation from non-Muslims and the corresponding strengthening of connections among Muslims, but early Wahhabis used it to underline their severance of ties with “non-believing” Muslims.27 Although ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhāb generally reserved the label of mushrik for groups whose beliefs and practices he considered particularly egregious, he nevertheless declared whole groups of Muslims unbelievers due to their ostensible infringement upon tawḥīd. Some within the former category, such as practitioners of magic or fortune-telling, were guilty of shirk because of particular actions that many Muslims considered illegitimate, but others, primarily Shi’is and Sufis, were condemned outright. Indeed, merely wearing Sufi garments was declared a form of shirk.28 Adherence to the mainstream Ash’arī and Māturīdī schools of kalām was likewise declared an act of unbelief, as their conception of God was seen as violating tawḥīd.29 (Ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhāb accepted all four Sunni schools of law as valid, but held that only Muslims who adopted Ḥanbalism as a theological creed avoided shirk.30) Yet even Muslims who avoided shirk were condemned by Wahhabis; lesser transgressions elicited charges of hypocrisy (nifāq), which was tantamount to unbelief.31 In essence, the Wahhabis repudiated virtually all contemporary non-Wahhabis as illegitimate Muslims. Mouline thus describes it as a counter-religion (relying on a concept from Jan Assmann)—a religious movement seeking to “break with the past and the immediate environment in order to create a new social order,” thereby inverting the values of the dominant religion and rejecting its validity.32 Wahhabism in this way was intended not to integrate into the existing Islamic tradition, but dominate it.33 In fact, Wahhabism is largely set apart from the scholarly tradition. Although an ‘ālim himself, ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhāb rejected the edifice of that tradition and its post-classical construction. He argued that Muslims should take their beliefs directly from scripture and the practice of the first generations of Muslims, explicitly ignoring later texts and commentaries. This was justified as a form of ijtihād.34 His reliance on earlier authorities, including ibn Taymīyah, was highly selective, disregarding the continuity of ‘ulamā’ discourse over the preceding centuries, which Wahhabism, as a counter-religion, was set against.35 This includes Ḥanbalism, to which Wahhabism bears only a tenuous connection. As noted, ibn Taymīyah represents the most significant source of ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhāb’s views, but there was no scholarly link between him and ibn Taymīyah’s particular trend of Damascene Ḥanbalism. Moreover, ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhāb seems to have had little regard for mainstream Ḥanbalism (outside of which lies ibn Taymīyah’s thought), which contained beliefs problematic for Wahhabism.36 Indeed, he had few significant ties with contemporary Ḥanbalis,

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who made up the bulk of his detractors among the Najdi ‘ulamā’.37 Instead, much of his knowledge came from the isolated study of texts—a criticism present in contemporaneous condmenations—rather than the conventional transmission of knowledge mediated through teacher–student interaction.38 The anomalous and radical elements of ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhāb’s reformism brought swift backlash from other ‘ulamā’. Among the Najdi scholars who attacked his views was his own brother, Sulaymān (d. 1793), a Ḥanbalī qāḍī, who penned a refutation read aloud in ‘Uyaynah’s mosque in 1754. Sulaymān, citing ibn Taymīyah and other references used by his brother, argued that the exclusion of non-Wahhabis from the community of Muslims was illegitimate, and visiting tombs, although wrong, does not constitute a rejection of Islam nor warrant violent punishment.39 These two points were common throughout writings against Muḥammad ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhāb from the period, even those by other reformers, such as Shawkani, whose views bore some similarity.40 Criticisms of Wahhabism began during the movement’s nascence, spreading beyond Najd. One of the most significant detractors was Aḥmad ibn ‘Alī al-Qabbānī (fl. eighteenth cent.), a Basran Shāfi’ī who had composed several anti-Wahhabi works by 1750. He also produced a copy of a refutation of ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhāb written in Mecca in 1743, which had been sent to Basra. This epistle, by a certain ‘Abd al-Wahhāb ibn Aḥmad al-Azharī al-Ṭandatāwī, was signed and attested by ten Meccan shaykhs, including the muftīs of all four madhhabs. It was precipitated by the destruction of Zayd ibn al-Khaṭṭāb’s tomb and the stoning of the adulteress, both of which had aroused the condemnation of scholars in the Hijaz, Iraq, and Yemen.41 Also, in contrast to the anti-Wahhabi work mentioned above, this text, as well as others, treated tomb visitation as entirely legitimate.42 In 1746 the Wahhabi-Saud alliance declared jihad against Muslims guilty of shirk (in practice, those who rejected Wahhabism) and began expanding its control through a combination of military force and religious persuasion.43 Much of Najd had been conquered by the 1780s, when the Sauds turned their attention to the surrounding regions—al-Ahsa, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, and the Hijaz. These campaigns featured excessive violence toward their religious adversaries: massacres of Shi’is and Sufis, tombs demolished, books burned. Mecca and Medina were subjugated in 1805–6, and the establishment of Wahhabi-Saud rule in the Ḥaramayn followed the pattern set during earlier conquests. Prayers were made obligatory, alongside instruction in Wahhabi doctrine. Religious practices objectionable to Wahhabis, including Sufi rituals and the celebration of the Prophet’s birthday, were banned. And the destruction of tombs was extensive, including those devoted to Khadījah and Abū Bakr, and cemeteries dating from the time of the Prophet.44 In other respects, however, the installation of Wahhabism in the Ḥaramayn was unique. Shortly after the conquest, ‘Abd Allah ibn Muhammad ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhab (d. 1826), his father’s successor as the chief Wahhabi authority, composed a fatwā outlining the the specific policies to be put in place. While it conforms to the broad contours of Wahhabism, it also features compromises,

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including accepting the religious validity of supplication to Muḥammad and miracles (karāmat) performed by saints, as well as allowing certain forms of music and the continued operation of some Sufi orders.45 The Wahhabis’ experience of ruling the Hijaz was short-lived. An offensive by Muhammad ‘Ali’s modernized Egyptian army in 1812 restored Ottoman rule. In 1815 the Egyptians entered Najd, crushing the first Saudi state in 1818. Diriyah was sacked, its fortifications destroyed and population scattered, and leading Wahhabi ‘ulamā’ and Saud family members were taken to Cairo. Saud ruler Abd Allah (r. 1814–18) was beheaded in Istanbul.46 After the failure of the second Saudi state (1820–91), which became riven with interal conflict (exacerbated by the emphasis on barā’),47 the ultimate resurgence of Saud-Wahhabi power began in 1902, when Abd al-Aziz ibn Saud (1876–1953) retook Riyadh. From there he set about regaining the Sauds’ lost territory, conquering al-Ahsa in 1913 and Najd in 1921. This renewed success was facilitated by the competition between the Ottoman and British empires, with the Sauds gaining the direct support of the latter. Abd al-Aziz was also aided by the Ikhwān (“brothers”), Najdi Bedouins who had been turned into fervent Wahhabi soldiers, invaluable in the Sauds’ military campaigns.48 Mecca and Medina were taken peacefully in 1924, and Abd al-Aziz was recognized by European powers as King of the Hijaz and Najd in early 1926. The British confirmed his position with the 1927 Treaty of Jeddah.49 Abd al-Aziz had used a lighter touch than his predecessors in establishing Saudi-Wahhabi authority outside of Najd, and he continued this approach in the Hijaz. He allowed the region’s considerable Shi’i and Sufi groups to remain, permitting their distinctive practices and celebrations as long as they were limited to private spaces, and indeed a number of Sufi orders retained a presence in the Hijaz after the Saudi takeover.50 He also barred the Ikhwān from the region permanently, preventing any attacks on the population. (Their zeal would lead them to turn against Abd al-Aziz, who eliminated them in the late 1920s.) That said, virtually all tombs and shrines in the region were destroyed, as were most Sufi khānqāhs. Wahhabi ‘ulamā’ were installed in positions of power, and in 1926 the muṭawwi’īn were introduced.51

Religion in the Hijaz The Saudi-Wahhabi takeover of the Hijaz drastically altered the religious and political environment of the region. The ruling ashrāf (plural of sharīf), descended from Muḥammad through his grandson Ḥusayn, had controlled Mecca in an unbroken lineage since 968. A separate dynasty of ashrāf controlled Medina. Although often competing with each other for power, neither was independent, but rather subject to the rulers of Egypt—the Ottomans, since the sixteenth century. They both oversaw a cosmopolitan and diverse population. Muslims from all over the world came to Mecca on pilgrimage, usually visiting Medina as well, and it was common for those who had made

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the journey to reside in the Hijaz for a time afterwards, particularly scholars and merchants, who benefited most from international contacts. These temporary residents bore the label mujāwir, one who “neighbors” the sacred mosques of these cities.52 This put the Hijaz in a unique position, intellectually speaking. Unlike elsewhere, where distinctly local traditions developed around particular schools and movements, scholarship in the Hijaz was marked by its overarching diversity. No madhhab gained predominance in the region, and in fact Hijazi scholars tended to eschew school affiliation during the early period of madhhab formation.53 Even the Mālikī school, whose founder Mālik ibn Anas (711–95) was a native of Medina and whose doctrine was based on the practice of the city, took hold in Iraq and—particularly—North Africa, remaining foreign to the Hijaz.54 Moreover, there had always been a significant Shi’i population in the region, especially Medina, which was home to several Shi’i imāms and their tombs, and therefore was an important place of veneration. The Hashemite ashrāf were Shi’ite in their early history, which they perhaps retained in later periods of Sunni rule. At any rate, Shi’ites, both Twelver and Zaydi, represented the elite of Medina and a considerable part of Meccan society into the Mamluk period and retained a presence long thereafter.55 Both the Mamluks (1250–1517) and the Ayyubids (c. 1170–1250), the Ottomans’ predecessors in ruling the Hijaz from Cairo, sought to promote Sunnism, placing Sunni members of the ashrāf lineages in power and appointing Sunni ‘ulamā’, without, it seems, regard for madhhab. It was during the early Ayyubid period that the madrasah as an institution first appeared in the Hijaz. Sufi khānqāhs or ribāṭs, serving as lodges, had existed in the region for more than a century by this point, and they show both the cosmopolitan, as well as the diffuse character of the region’s scholarly and religious culture. Teaching sessions in the form of the ḥalaqah had, as everywhere, been taking place in the Masjid al-Ḥarām in Mecca and the Prophet’s mosque in Medina since the early years of the community. Studying in (or near) these sacred locations was considered a reverent and pious act, which drew scholars to visit and patronage by elites from around the Muslim world.56 Beyond endowments, it was the traditional duty of the ruling dynasty to provide food and protection for the pilgrim caravans traveling to Mecca. The stability guaranteed by Ottoman rule increased the number of people performing the hajj, but more important in this regard was the introduction of European powers in the Indian Ocean in the sixteenth century. Despite initial disruptions in traffic from India and Southeast Asia, namely by the Portuguese, European naval and shipping capabilities facilitated travel to the Hijaz from farther away and by more people.57 By the middle of the nineteenth century, the British had a virtual monopoly on Indian Ocean transit, which they used to manage and monitor pilgrims going to and from Jeddah.58 The broader range of pilgrims brought a broader range of ‘ulamā’ to the Hijaz, contributing to the eclectic and diverse character of scholarship in the

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region. Khaled El-Rouayheb argues for a scholarly florescence from at least the seventeenth century, if not earlier, spurred by Persianate and North African ‘ulamā’ in Medina, with further connections with developments in Syria and Egypt.59 This heterogeneous florescence, which focused on (among other things) the study of logic, philosophy, and kalām, overlaps to some degree with John Voll’s notion of an eighteenth-century global network of ‘ulamā’ centered in the Hijaz. Voll’s argument hinges on Muḥammad Ḥayyah al-Sindī (d. 1750), a South Asian scholar who taught ḥadīth in Medina for much of his life. Sindī attracted students from different regions and schools of thought to his lessons, most of whom seem to have shared a certain reformist outlook in favor of ijtihād and against the structures of the madhhab, including ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhāb and the famed South Asian scholar Shāh Walī Allāh Dihlawī (1703–62).60 While there is some question as to the historical significance of this network, there is no doubt that ḥadīth studies and Sufism were major subjects in Medina from the seventeenth century through to the early twentieth.61 Both of these, fittingly, benefit most from the global connections facilitated by the Hijaz as center of pilgrimage.

Salafism and Education in the Hijaz Voll has argued that the Hijaz network of reformist ‘ulamā’ has served as a wellspring of modern fundamentalist sentiment, including Wahhabism.62 Ahmad Dallal and others have persuasively shown the considerable differences between Wahhabism and other reformist movements of the eighteenth century and early nineteenth (reinforced by the rejection of Wahhabism by contemporaries, particularly in the Hijaz).63 But Wahhabis did work in the ninteenth century to make connections with other intellectual movements outside of Arabia. Wahhabi ‘ulamā’ exiled to Cairo following the Egyptian invasion studied at al-Azhar, while working to create a link between Wahhabism and mainstream Ḥanbalism through scholarly chains of transmission. More Wahhabis went abroad during the chaos of the second Saudi state, including to India, where they joined with the Ahl-i Ḥadīth, the ḥadīth-centric revivalist movement that was similarly anti-Sufi.64 The Ahl-i Ḥadīth became important Wahhabi supporters; several of the eventual leading ‘ulamā’ of Saudi Arabia studied with them, and Ahl-i Ḥadīth publishing houses in Bombay and Delhi issued editions of numerous Wahhabi and pro-Wahhabi books.65 The link between Wahhabism and the Ahl-i Ḥadīth is significant for our purposes because it foreshadows the development of contemporary Salafism in Saudi Arabia. Dating back to the middle of the nineteenth century, there were emerging movements strongly critical of the established scholarly tradition and inclined toward intellectual and religious reform as a way to deal with modern science and technology and in particular resist European domination. The Ahl-i Ḥadīth were one such group, arising in the aftermath of the failed Indian Mutiny of 1857 against British rule; they rejected the existing

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‘ulamā’ and emphasized the prophetic sunnah as the basis for correct belief and practice.66 While the Ahl-i Ḥadīth was perhaps unique in its coherence, other, more diverse trends were emerging in the Arab Middle East, particularly in Damascus and Cairo. The latter was home to the famed modernist circle of Muhammad Abduh (1849–1905) and Rashid Rida, which espoused in this period what Henri Lauziere calls “balanced reform,” combining religious reform with an openness to Western science.67 In Damascus, a more conservative current that was inspired by ibn Taymīyah and inclined toward Wahhabism was growing in prominence.68 An important shift occurred in the aftermath of World War I, led by Rida. The further extension of European colonialism into the Middle East and—particularly—the dissolution of both the Ottoman Empire and the caliphate that followed signaled a changed historical context. As Lauziere argues, Rida saw this situation as dire, with Western powers and secular reformers like Kemal Ataturk in Turkey representing twin threats to the Islamic community. The Saudi conquest of the Hijaz, however, seemed to offer Rida a pious and capable ruler in Abd al-Aziz, behind whom Muslims could rally, and “the nascent Saudi state [became] Rida’s best hope for the reemergence of Muslim greatness and political power in a colonial order.”69 Thus, despite his misgivings about the Wahhabi ‘ulamā’ and their influence, Rida embraced the dynasty, pursuing a strategy of cooperation with the Sauds to promote their religious standing. But Rida had the double aim of publicly defending the dynasty and Wahhabism and tempering their more reactionary impulses through exposure to reformist ideas. For instance, in 1927 Rida responded to the overt criticism of modernist interpretations of scripture from a leading Wahhabi scholar by defending them as containing social benefit for Muslims and providing copies of his own Tafsīr al-Manār for the Wahhabi ‘ulamā’’s edification.70 Beginning soon after the conquest of the Hijaz in 1926, Rida cooperated with Abd alAziz and sent a handful of scholars from his circle in Cairo to take various positions in Mecca and Medina. The Saudi government sought foreign scholars and Islamic intellectuals to work alongside Najdi ‘ulamā’ in order to counteract the widespread impression that Saudi control would bring a complete Wahhabi takeover of the Ḥaramayn. In addition, these foreign scholars provided expertise in modern scholarly practices—namely publishing, journalism, and new forms of education—as well as familiarity with religious practices unknown in the more homogenous Najd.71 Three of the most important of Rida’s disciples working in the Hijaz were Taqi al-Din al-Hilali (1894–1987), a native Moroccan, and the Egyptians ‘Abd al-Zahir Abu al-Samh (1882–1951) and Muhammad Hamid al-Fiqi (1892–1959). Each spent several years in Saudi Arabia—Abu al-Samh settling there permanently—holding various positions in major mosques and schools in the Ḥaramayn and leading publishing and education initiatives. For example, in 1926 the Islamic Institute (al-Ma’had al-Islāmī), a school covering religious and secular subjects, was founded in Mecca under the direction of Muhammad Bahjat al-Bitar (1894–1976), a reformist associate of Rida from

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Damascus. This school, renamed the Saudi Scientific Institute (al-Ma’had al-’Ilmī al-Sa’ūdī) in 1928, had many foreign reformers among its administration and faculty, including Hilali, Fiqi, and Abu al-Samh.72 Indeed, Michael Farquhar has noted the prevalence of foreign intellectuals and native Hijazis who had studied in the Ḥaramayn, working in the nascent Saudi educational system, which, he points out, was indebted to pre-Saudi institutions.73 These scholars represent an important early point of connection between the ongoing reformism in Cairo and the Saudi religious environment. In terms of the former, they pioneered the major Egyptian Salafi organization Anṣār al-Sunnah al-Muḥammadīyah, founded by Fiqi in 1926. And they contributed to, and shaped the latter, even after returning to Egypt, through the authoring of pro-Wahhabi works and the publication of Wahhabi and Ḥanbalī texts.74 Reformist groups also overlapped with extant ḥadīth networks, and scholars associated with the Ahl-i Ḥadīth and West African muḥaddithīn played a major role in contributing to scholarship in the Hijaz, both before and after the Saudi takeover. The most prominent example is the Dār al-Ḥadīth in Medina, a religious school founded in 1931 by Ahmad Dihlawi (d. 1955), a member of the Ahl-i Ḥadīth who had moved from India in 1926. A vocal supporter of the Saudi dynasty, Dihlawi taught in the Prophet’s Mosque until receiving permission from Abd al-Aziz to establish his own madrasah. A year later a second Dār al-Ḥadīth was founded by Dihlawi in Mecca, with Abu al-Samh as its director.75 The schools attracted many students of West African origins, including ‘Abd al-Rahman al-Ifriqi (c. 1908–57), who came to the Hijaz in 1926 and later studied ḥadīth with Dihlawi in Medina. Part of the francophone elite of colonial Mali before his pilgrimage, Ifriqi grew to become an esteemed figure in the Saudi ‘ulamā’, serving as an emissary of Wahhabism in West Africa in the 1940s and holding prestigious teaching positions in Medina and Riyadh. He was Dihlawi’s chosen successor to lead the Dār al-Ḥadīth upon the latter’s death in 1955, and he in turn passed the position to his student Umar Fallatah (1926–98), a native of Medina whose family had emigrated from Mali.76 Contemporary Salafism coalesced in this environment, with the blending of modernist reformism and ḥadīth networks. The distinctions between them didn’t disappear, of course, and there were many scholars in the cosmopolitan setting of the Hijaz who differed on important issues, but cooperation between representatives of each trend brought them closer, as did the influence of SaudiWahhabi leadership. As Frank Griffel writes, speaking generally on the development of Salafism, the overlap between conservative modernist reformism, ḥadīth scholarship (namely the Ahl-i Ḥadīth and movements tracing their origins to Shawkani), and Wahhabism allowed for a combination to emerge in the 1920s, although one that was nevertheless itself distinct.77 These points of agreement served as the building blocks for a shared religious ethos: a literalist reliance on scripture—particularly ḥadīth—as the necessary source of religious knowledge; rejection of taqlīd and embrace of ijtihād; hostility toward Sufism and “superstitious,” “ non-scriptural religious practices; rejection of kalām and

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philosophy; generalized antipathy for the scholarly tradition and reverence for ibn Taymīyah.78 Agreements between the different trends were emphasized in pro-Salafi writings and publications; articles in the very first Saudi journal published in the Hijaz from 1925 and 1926 argue that the Najdi ‘ulamā’ follow only the madhhab of the salaf, a claim repeated by Abd al-Aziz himself in a speech to Indian pilgrims in 1925.79 In the same vein, Hilali, when arguing with a traditionalist Mālikī scholar in the Masjid al-Ḥarām in Mecca in 1922, defended Wahhabis and Salafis by joining them under the same creed and stating that they both follow (ittibā’) the Ḥanbalī madhhab, the former in its furū’ and the latter in its uṣūl.80 Accordingly, points of disagreement were downplayed, and some eventually excised—for instance, Rida’s continued belief in modernist reform, as his Salafi disciples, both inside Saudi Arabia and abroad, abandoned modernism in favor of puritanical reform more in line with Wahhabis and the Ahl-i Ḥadīth.81 Nevertheless, friction between Salafis and Wahhabis as representatives of distinct trends remained, with Wahhabism perceived as parochially Najdi and Salafism as an international phenomenon and part of the cosmopolitan Hijaz.82 To give one example, the Central Asian Salafi Muhammad Sultan alMa’sumi al-Khujandi (1880–1959), who had settled in Mecca in 1938 and taught at the Dār al-Ḥadīth and Masjid al-Ḥarām, composed in about 1940 a long fatwā against the need to follow a madhhab that also serves as an antiWahhabi polemic.83 Indeed, into at least the 1940s there was a significant non-Wahhabi, non-Salafi presence in the Hijaz, including individual teachers in the Masjid al-Ḥarām who were Sufi and Mālikī.84 Moreover, the most important school in Medina in this period was the Madrasat al-’Ulūm al-Shar’īyah, which was founded just prior to the Saudi conquest by Ahmad al-Fayd Abadi, the brother of a leading Deobandi shaykh. The school, it seems, featured a religiously diverse faculty and student body.85 The Dār al-Ḥadīths encapsulate the global orientation of Salafism and its place in the Saudi religious context. They were scholarly centers of international scope, and they stand as institutional evidence for the distinction between Salafism and Wahhabism that existed at the time. The same can be said of the Saudi Scientific Institute in Mecca, which, under the leadership of foreign Salafis, taught religion from a Wahhabi-inspired perspective alongside secular subjects, all using modern forms of pedagogy quite at odds with traditional ‘ulamā’ training; this approach caused some discord between Najdi students and their Salafi teachers.86 The career of Nasir al-Din al-Albani (1914–99) is illustrative in this regard. A native of Albania (whence the name), Albani was a Syrian-educated ḥadīth scholar, linked with earlier Salafi circles of Damascus, who came to Medina in about 1961 to teach. He is today perhaps the most globally influential representative of Salafism, but he had a radically literalist approach to ḥadīth study

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that frequently placed him at odds with the Saudi religious establishment (arguing, for instance, that there was no scriptural requirement that women cover their faces), and he left the country by 1963. Nevertheless, Albani had attracted a number of student disciples, inaugurating a religious movement that Stephane Lacroix calls the “neo-Ahl al-Ḥadīth,” which remains important worldwide.87 Albani taught at the new Islamic University of Medina (IUM) (al-Jami’ah al-Islāmīyah bi-al-Madīnah), founded in 1961 and connected with Dār al-Ḥadīth, where he also lectured and where the neo-Ahl al-Ḥadīth took hold.88 IUM, like the Dār al-Ḥadīth, was a Salafi and global institution, quite unlike the other Saudi Islamic universities—Umm al-Qura in Mecca (founded 1949) and Al-Imam Mohammad Ibn Saud Islamic University in Riyadh (founded 1953)—whose character was more markedly Wahhabi. IUM, however, was explicitly globally oriented.89 Its founding statutes list among its aims spreading “the eternal mission of Islam through da’wah,” the production and dissemination of research into Islamic studies in foreign languages, “educat[ing] university students who will come from the entire Muslim world and train[ing] ‘ulamā’ able to undertake da’wah after finishing their studies.”90

The Wahhabi–Salafi Convergence Beginning in 1957, the Saudi state found itself in political conflict with neighboring post-colonial regimes. In response, it adopted the policy of “Islamic solidarity” (taḍāmun islāmī) led by Prince Faysal (king, 1964–75), created to counter Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser’s Arab socialism in particular. The kingdom had welcomed Islamists and Muslim Brotherhood members from nearby countries, and this political approach now relied on their familiarity with resisting secularist ideologies in religious terms. As Lacroix writes, To confront Nasser’s pan-Arab socialism, [Faysal] had to make Islam, the kingdom’s chief symbolic resource, into a counterideology, but the very traditional Wahhabi ulema were quite incapable of engaging in a political debate of this magnitude. Thus the members of the Muslim Brotherhood in Saudi Arabia were increasingly brought into the anti-Nasser propaganda apparatus and became its core by 1962. No one but these experienced Islamists, sometimes themselves Nasser’s victims, was in a better position to denounce the “ungodliness” of his secular government and to use Islam as a weapon against it.91

Education was a major venue for promoting and disseminating the message of Islamic solidarity, in particular IUM with its predominantly foreign faculty comprising many reformist and Islamist figures. But the Muslim Brotherhood became prevalent throughout the growing Saudi educational system, which underwent its own modernization under Faysal. Members of the group from

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Egypt, Syria, and Palestine became predominant in the religious faculties at both Umm al-Qura and Imam University, including many prominent leaders. Their presence extended beyond the universities, and by 1970 “hundreds of the movement’s grassroots militants had permeated the various levels of the Saudi educational system, where they taught all subjects, religious and secular.”92 From this position, Brotherhood members bore a significant influence on the trajectory of Saudi education, introducing elements of their religious and political ideology throughout its schools. In 1970, a new, national education policy was implemented, devised by a committee that included several of them, emphasizing a comprehensive conception of Islam and its function within society—as part of “Islamic culture”—that was more characteristically Islamist than indebted to Wahhabism. This attitude underpinned the education policy, with the place of Islamic or Islamized subjects pronounced within the curriculum.93 The prominent position of Muslim Brotherhood members in Saudi academia shaped the religious environment in the country. Islamist intellectuals working alongside Wahhabi scholars brought about a synthesis of the two trends, which was encouraged by their complementary differences. The resulting movement, called the ṣaḥwah islāmīyah (Islamic awakening), combined Wahhabi creedal purity and jurisprudence with Islamist ideas about religion’s role in politics and culture.94 While the ṣaḥwah was controversial within the kingdom, the alteration of the educational landscape in this period had a broader impact on Saudi religious discourse, and it would eventually lead to the collapse of the distinction between Wahhabism and Salafism. Wahhabism up to that point remained tied to the Saudi ‘ulamā’, in contrast to Salafism’s more cosmopolitan scope (and absorption of foreign influences), and, as Commins writes, the influx of foreign intellectuals and scholars predisposed to the latter “had the potential to undermine the authority of the Wahhabi ulama, especially among pious youth.” In response, Wahhabi scholars set about self-consciously connecting Wahhabism with Salafism, primarily through the publication of books that presented Wahhabi beliefs and practices as “Salafi” or “according to the Salaf” and included Wahhabi ‘ulamā’ among the biographies of Salafis. Primary religious texts were re-edited as well to highlight a historical link between the Salafi tradition and Wahhabism.95 In addition, Khaled Abou El Fadl notes, the Saudi government used its financial clout to patronize foreign authors who wrote Salafi works with a pro-Wahhabi perspective.96 But pro-establishment Saudi scholars also used these claims to Salafi heritage against the Muslim Brotherhood and the ṣaḥwah, whose political focus was a source of tension within Saudi Arabia. The new portrayal of Salafism that included Wahhabis excised the earlier, more markedly modernist figures like Rida from Salafi genealogies, criticizing reformers who relied on elements of Western thought or politics as un-Islamic. The Wahhabis’ recasting of themselves as Salafis thus redefined Salafism in a way that is amenable to Wahhabism, maintaining its exclusionary thrust.97

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This messaging was brought on by changes in the domestic context. The ṣaḥwah represented a new wave of politicized scholars and teachers, and although the Muslim Brotherhood was never allowed to establish itself as an official party in Saudi Arabia (which forbids all political parties), informal factions (jama’āt) linked with the Brotherhood became common in the 1960s, as did opposing factions within Saudi academia. As the ṣaḥwah grew in prominence and anti-government activity increased in about 1990, the need to discredit and undermine political forms of Islam became imperative. The shift in the significance of “Salafism,” excluding modernist ideologies but explicitly including apolitical or pro-dynasty Wahhabi ‘ulamā’, was used to deny Islamists religious legitimacy.98 The global backdrop played a role in this shift as well. Lauziere argues that as the post-colonial period begins in the 1950s the relationship between different types of Muslim reformism changes; resistance to Western domination had offered a significant impetus toward unity and internal cohesion. The end of colonialism, however, “prompted purist Salafis to rethink the relationship between religious unity and religious purity. In the process, they further narrowed the range of what was considered to be religiously acceptable.”99 Faced with this new situation, purist Salafis maintained a strong opposition over three issues: deviations in creed, madhhab adherence, and Sufism. Particularly early on in the post-colonial period, Islamic activists and reformers of all stripes found themselves marginalized by nationalist regimes, but this was less of an obstacle for purist Salafis than for modernists or Islamists, whose goals were more societal and political in scope. Salafis instead focused on religious revival and the repudiation of erroneous beliefs and practices.100 Their attention, accordingly, was directed toward other Muslims, and increasingly other Salafis. Understandings of religious correctness hardened as well. Lauziere notes intra-Salafi debates over theological issues from the 1950s that show the reification of certain attitudes among Salafis, moving away from the critical and open-minded interpretation of scripture that underpinned earlier forms of the movement in favor of a more unwavering approach to requisite orthodoxy. There was little downplaying of disagreement in the name of unity as before.101 In this regard, the reification of purist Salafism entailed what is functionally taqlīd, as readings of scripture were increasingly mediated by authorities to whom Salafis attached themselves and their strict conceptions of orthodoxy conformed.102 The convergence between Wahhabism and Salafism thus brought the former’s exclusionary ethos to bear on the latter, resulting in a narrowed scope for acceptable Salafi beliefs. This accompanied historically the total marginalization and rejection of modernist or liberal strands within Salafism and their ultimate disappearance.103 The incorporation of Wahhabism into Salafism also serves as the culmination of the long process of bringing Wahhabism from the periphery of global Islamic discourse to its center—a process that was equally the product of the efforts of foreign intellectuals (beginning in earnest with Rida) and Saudi government and academia, most notably IUM.

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Contemporary Saudi religious ideology and authority is premised on Salafism encompassing Wahhabism, with both embedded in the kingdom’s educational system, from which they are projected and disseminated to Muslims around the world.

Notes 1. On Manār’s global influence, see Intellectuals in the Modern Islamic World: Transmission, Transformation, Communication, eds Stéphane Dudoignon, Komatsu Hisao, and Kosugi Yasushi (London: Routledge, 2006). 2. Henri Lauziere, The Making of Salafism: Islamic Reform in the Twentieth Century (New York: Columbia University Press, 2016). 3. Uwaidah Al Juhany, Najd before the Salafi Reform Movement: Social, Political and Religious Conditions during the Three Centuries Preceding the Rise of the Saudi State (Reading: Ithaca Press, 2002); Michael Cook, “The Historians of PreWahhabi Najd,” Studia Islamica 76 (1992), 163–76. 4. Cook, “Historians of Pre-Wahhabi Najd,” 173; also Michael Cook, “The Expansion of the First Saudi State: The Case of Washm,” in The Islamic World: From Classical to Modern Times, eds Clifford E. Bosworth, Charles Issawi, Roger Savory, and Abraham L. Udovitch (Princeton: Darwin Press, 1989), 661–700, esp. 672; Nabil Mouline, The Clerics of Islam: Religious Authority and Political Power in Saudi Arabia (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2014), esp. 41–2. 5. Michael Cook, “On the Origins of Wahhabism,” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain & Ireland 2 (1992), 191–202. 6. Mouline, Clerics, 56–9; David Commins, The Wahhabi Mission and Saudi Arabia (London: I. B. Tauris, 2006), 17–19; Madawi al-Rasheed, A History of Saudi Arabia, 2nd edn (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 14–17. 7. Mouline, Clerics, 59–61; Rasheed, History of Saudi Arabia, 17–20; Cook, “The Expansion of the First Saudi State.” 8. Mouline, Clerics, esp. 36–9; cf. Taqī al-Dīn Aḥmad ibn ‘Abd al-Ḥalīm bin Taymīyah, al-Siyāsah al-Sharī’yah (Riyadh: Wizārat al-shu’ūn al-islāmīyah, 1418). 9. Mouline, Clerics, 66; Samira Haj, Reconfiguring Islamic Tradition: Reform, Rationality, and Modernity (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2008), 44–6; Ahmad Dallal, “The Origins and Early Development of Islamic Reform,” in The New Cambridge History of Islam, Vol. 6: Muslims and Modernity: Culture and Society since 1800, ed. Robert Hefner (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 107–47, esp. 112–13. 10. Cook, “The Expansion of the First Saudi State,” 672–5. 11. Mouline, Clerics, 57; Natana Delong-Bas, Wahhabi Islam: From Revival and Reform to Global Jihad (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 24–9. 12. It was common among Ḥanbalī Sufis; e.g. John Voll, “The Non-Wahhabi Hanbalis of Eighteenth Century Syria,” Der Islam 49 (1972), 277–91, esp. 284–5. 13. Cf. Scott Kugle, Sufis and Saints’ Bodies: Mysticism, Corporeality and Sacred Power in Islam (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2011), esp. 47–8; Hamid Algar, Wahhabism: A Critical Essay (Oneonta: Islamic Publications International, 2002), 33–4.

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14. Mouline, Clerics, 62–3; Haj, Reconfiguring, 40–7; Delong-Bas, Wahhabi Islam, 56–9. 15. Cf. Mouline, Clerics, 63–4. 16. Haj, Reconfiguring, 42. 17. Mouline, Clerics, 65–6; also Delong-Bas, Wahhabi Islam, 57–8; cf. Muḥammad ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhāb, Kitāb al-Tawḥīd, ed. Abū Mālik al-Riyāshī ([Cairo]: Maktabat ‘ibād al-Raḥmān, 2008 [1429]). 18. Daniel Gimaret, “Shirk,” EI2. 19. Mouline, Clerics, 37; Dallal, “Origins and Early Development,” 125–7. See Bernard Haykel, Revival and Reform in Islam: The Legacy of Muhammad alShawkani (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003). 20. Haj, Reconfiguring, esp. 17, 52–3. The importance of this is overlooked in Haj’s account. Although her monograph is focused on the ways that reformers like ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhāb connect with pre-existing discourses in order to articulate and justify their reformist views, she does not address the impact of ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhāb’s use of the discourse surrounding shirk, despite its immense significance within Islamic tradition. 21. Mouline, Clerics, 64–5. 22. Mouline in fact notes that ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhāb’s conception of tawḥīd “rendered any infraction, however minor, punishable by exclusion” from the community of believers; ibid. 23. Haj, Reconfiguring, 44. 24. Ibid., 51–3. 25. Algar, Wahhabism, 33. 26. Mouline, Clerics, 57, also 64–5. 27. Dallal, “Origins and Early Development,” 114. 28. Haj, Reconfiguring, 225 n. 56. 29. Mouline, Clerics, 63, 73. 30. Ibid., 65. 31. Elizabeth Sirriyeh, “Wahhabis, Unbelievers and the Problems of Exclusivism,” British Society for Middle Eastern Studies Bulletin 16 (1989), 123–32, 127; Mouline, Clerics, 64; also Haj, Reconfiguring, 52. 32. Mouline, Clerics, 51; cf. Jan Assmann, Moses the Egyptian: The Memory of Egypt in Western Monotheism (Cambridge, M.A.: Harvard University Press, 1998). 33. Cf. Mouline, Clerics, 14. 34. Ibid., 51, 65. 35. Cf. Algar, Wahhabism, 13–17, 35–7. 36. Indeed, John Voll notes that Ḥanbalism in Damascus was separate from ibn Taymīyah’s strain of school doctrine; Voll, “Non-Wahhabi Hanbalis,” esp. 289. 37. Mouline, Clerics, 42, 57–8, 62 and passim. 38. Cook, “Origins,” 191, 198–200. 39. Commins, Wahhabi Mission, 22–4; Khaled Abou El Fadl, The Great Theft: Wrestling Islam from the Extremists (New York: Harper, 2005), 56–8; Haj, Reconfiguring, 60–1. For other Najdi detractors, see Commins, Wahhabi Mission, 52–4. 40. Cf. Algar, Wahhabism, 23; Dallal, “Origins and Early Development,” 124–7; Ahmad Dallal, “The Origins and Objectives of Islamic Revivalist Thought, 1750–1850,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 113 (1993), 341–59. 41. Samer Traboulsi, “An Early Refutation of Muhammad ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhāb’s Reformist Views,” Die Welt des Islams 42 (2002), 373–415.

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42. Ibid., 386–7; also, Rifaat Y. Ebied and Michael J. L. Young, “An Unpublished Refutation of the Doctrines of the Wahhabis,” Rivista degli studi orientali 50 (1976), 377–97. 43. Algar, Wahhabism, 20; Cook, “Expansion,” 668–73. 44. Rasheed, History, 20–1; Algar, Wahhabism, 24–8; Mouline, Clerics, 70–2. 45. Mouline, Clerics, 72–4. 46. Ibid., 76; Commins, Wahhabi Mission, 31–3, 36–8; Rasheed, History, 22. 47. Commins, Wahhabi Mission, 46–9, 61–9; Mouline, Clerics, 86–90; Rasheed, History, 22–9; Joas Wagemakers, “The Enduring Legacy of the Second Saudi State: Quietist and Radical Wahhabi Contestations of al-Wala’ wa-l-Bara,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 44 (2012), 93–110. 48. Rasheed, History, 37–40; Commins, Wahhabi Mission, 71–2, 81–5; Mouline, Clerics, 97–9; Daniel Silverfarb, “The Anglo-Najd Treaty of December 1915,” Middle Eastern Studies 16 (1980), 167–77; Joseph Kostiner, “On Instruments and Their Designers: The Ikhwan of Najd and the Emergence of the Saudi State,” Middle Eastern Studies 21 (1985), 298–323. 49. Rasheed, History, 42–4; Daniel Silverfarb, “The Treaty of Jiddah of May 1927,” Middle Eastern Studies 18 (1982), 276–85. 50. Mark Sedgwick, “Saudi Sufis: Compromise in the Hijaz, 1925–40,” Die Welt des Islams 37 (1997), 349–68. 51. Ibid., esp. 358–61; Commins, Wahhabi Mission, 77–9, 95. 52. Richard Mortel, “The Origins and Early History of the Husaynid Amirate of Madina to the End of the Ayyubid Period,” Studia Islamica 74 (1991), 63–78; Richard Mortel, “The Husaynid Amirate of Madina during the Mamluk Period,” Studia Islamica 80 (1994), 97–123; William Ochsenwald, Religion, Society and the State in Arabia: The Hijaz under Ottoman Control, 1840–1908 (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1984); Joshua Teitelbaum, The Rise and Fall of the Hashimite Kingdom of Arabia (London: Hurst, 2001). 53. Monique Bernards and John Nawas, “The Geographic Distribution of Muslim Jurists during the First Four Centuries ah,” Islamic Law and Society 10 (2003), 168–81. 54. Mālikī scholars had disappeared from Medina by the mid-ninth century; Christopher Melchert, The Formation of the Sunni Schools of Law, 9th–10th Centuries. (Leiden: Brill, 1997), 156–77; also N. Cottart, “Malikiyya,” EI2. 55. Werner Ende, “The Nakhawila, a Shiite Community in Medina Past and Present,” Die Welt des Islams 37 (1997), 263–348. 56. Richard Mortel, “Madrasas in Mecca during the Medieval Period: A Descriptive Study Based on Literary Sources,” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 60 (1997), 236–52; Richard Mortel, “‘Ribats’ in Mecca during the Medieval Period: A Descriptive Study Based on Literary Sources,” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 61 (1998), 29–50. 57. Naim Farooqi, “Moguls, Ottomans, and Pilgrims: Protecting the Routes to Mecca in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries,” International History Review 10 (1988), 198–220; Eric Tagliacozzo, The Longest Journey: Southeast Asians and the Pilgrimage to Mecca (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013). 58. Michael Low, “Empire and the Hajj: Pilgrims, Plagues, and Pan-Islam under British Surveillance, 1865–1908,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 40 (2008), 269–290.

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59. Khaled El-Rouayheb, “Opening the Gate of Verification: the Forgotten ArabIslamic Florescence of the 17th Century,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 38 (2006), 263–81. 60. John Voll, “Muḥammad Hayya al-Sindi and Muḥammad ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhāb: An Analysis of an Intellectual Group in Eighteenth-Century Madina,” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 38 (1975), 32–9; idem, “Hadith Scholars and Tariqahs: An Ulama Group in the 18th Century Ḥaramayn and Their Impact in the Islamic World,” Journal of Asian and African Studies 15 (1980), 264–73; see also Basheer Nafi, “A Teacher of ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhāb: Muhammad Hayat al-Sindi and the Revival of Ashab al-Hadith’s Methodology,” Islamic Law and Society 13 (2006), 208–41. 61. Atallah Copty, “The Naqshbandiyya and Its Offshoot, the NaqshbandiyyaMujaddidiyya in the Ḥaramayn in the 11th/17th Century,” Die Welt des Islams 43 (2003), 321–48; Basheer Nafi, “Tasawwuf and Reform in Pre-Modern Islamic Culture: In Search of Ibrahim al-Kurani,” Die Welt des Islams 42 (2002), 307–55. 62. John Voll, Islam: Continuity and Change in the Modern World (Boulder: Westview, 1982). 63. Cf. Dallal, “Origins and Objectives”; Haykel, Revival and Reform, 13. 64. Mouline, Clerics, 89–92; Claudia Preckel, “Ahl-i hadith,” EI3. The spelling “Ahl-i Ḥadīth” will be used to differentiate them from the “Ahl al-ḥadīth”, mentioned below. 65. Mouline, Clerics, 91–2, 108. 66. Cf. Daniel Brown, Rethinking Tradition in Modern Islamic Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), esp. 27–32. 67. Lauziere, Making of Salafism, passim; cf. Haj, Reconfiguring, esp. 67–108. 68. Itzchak Weismann, Taste of Modernity: Sufism, Salafiyya, and Arabism in Late Ottoman Damascus (Leiden: Brill, 2001). Baghdad likewise saw an early embrace of ibn Taymīyah among reformers; Basheer Nafi, “Salafism Revived: Nu’man alAlusi and the Trial of the Two Ahmads,” Die Welt des Islams 49 (2009), 49–97. 69. Lauziere, Making of Salafism, 64–5. 70. Lauziere, Making of Salafism, esp. 62, 68–70. 71. Ibid., 70–9; also Commins, Wahhabi Mission, 137–9 and passim. 72. Lauziere, Making of Salafism, 78–9. The curriculum of the Institute is given in George Trial and R. Bayly Winder, “Modern Education in Saudi Arabia,” History of Education Journal 1 (1950), 121–33 at 131. On Biṭār and his family, see Weismann, Taste of Modernity, passim. 73. Michael Farquhar, “Expanding the Wahhabi Mission: Saudi Arabia, the Islamic University of Medina and the Transnational Religious Economy” (Ph.D. dissertation, London School of Economics, 2013), esp. 85–7. 74. Mouline, Clerics, 88–9, 93. 75. Chanfi Ahmed, West African Ulama and Salafism in Mecca and Medina: Jawab al-Ifriqi—The Response of the African (Leiden: Brill, 2015), 83–7. Ahmed makes a point of stating that the attribution of the founding of the Meccan Dār al-Ḥadīth to Abu al-Samh by Lacroix and others is mistaken; cf. Stéphane Lacroix, “Between Revolution and Apoliticism: Nasir al-Din al-Albani and His Impact on the Shaping of Contemporary Salafism,” in Global Salafism: Islam’s New Religious Movement, ed. Roel Meijer (New York: Columbia University Press, 2009), 58–80, esp. 73. 76. Ahmed, West African Ulama, esp. 51–2, 117.

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77. Frank Griffel. “What Do We Mean by ‘Salafi’? Connecting Muḥammad ‘Abduh with Egypt’s Nur Party in Islam’s Contemporary Intellectual History,” Die Welt des Islams 55 (2015), 186–220. 78. Commins notes the emergence of this kind of Salafi ethos in pre-Saudi Jeddah, particularly among modernists and ḥadīth networks; David Commins, “From Wahhabi to Salafi,” in Saudi Arabia in Transition: Insights on Social, Political, Economic and Religious Change, eds Bernard Haykel, Thomas Hegghammer, and Stéphane Lacroix (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015), 151–66, esp. 158–9. 79. Ibid., 159–60. 80. With the implication that the Wahhabis’ attachment to Ḥanbalism is a matter of taqlīd, while for Salafis it is a matter of ijtihād; Ahmed, West African Ulama, 163. 81. Lauziere, Making of Salafism, esp. 87–90. 82. Commins, “From Wahhabi,” 160–1. There was a push to turn Riyadh into a scholarly center beginning in 1950 with the founding of the Riyadh Scientific Institute (Ma’had al-Riyāḍ al-’ilmī), which at the time was the only advanced school in Najd. Over the next decade a number of schools were opened around the country, including the Islamic faculties in the capital, which would become Imam Ibn Saud University; cf. Ahmed, West African Ulama, 111–14; Mouline, Clerics, 136–8. 83. Griffel, “What Do We Mean by ‘Salafi’?,” 210; Stefan Wild, “Muslim und Madhab: Ein Brief von Tokio nach Mekka und seine Folgen in Damaskus,” in Die islamische Welt zwischen Mittelalter und Neuzeit: Festschrift fur Hans Robert Roemer zum 65. Geburtstag, eds U. Haarmann and P. Bachmann (Beirut–Wiesbaden: Steiner, 1979), 674–89, esp. 679–81; cf. Muḥammad Sulṭān al-Ma’ṣūmī al-Khujandī al-Makkī, Hal al-Muslim Mulzam bi-ittibā’ Madhhab Ma’ayyan min al-Madhāhib al-Arba’ah ([Kuwait]: Jama’īyat Iḥyā’ al-Turāth al-Islāmī, n.d.). 84. Ahmed, West African Ulama, 123. 85. Ibid., 107 and passim. 86. Farquhar, “Expanding the Wahhabi Mission,” 88–105. 87. Lacroix, “Between Revolution and Apoliticism”; also Griffel, “What Do We Mean by ‘Salafi’?,” 209–10. 88. Lacroix, “Between Revolution and Apoliticism,” 73. 89. It is intended primarily for non-Saudi students and is less focused on Wahhabism or a specifically Saudi religious and legal orientation. According to Mouline, only 2 per cent of the leading Saudi ‘ulamā’ studied there, in contrast to 51 per cent in Riyadh: Mouline, Clerics, 191. 90. Quoted in Ahmed, West African Ulama, 136–7. 91. Stéphane Lacroix, Awakening Islam: Religious Dissent in Contemporary Saudi Arabia (Cambridge, M.A.: Harvard University Press, 2011), 41. 92. Ibid., 45. 93. Ibid., 46–7. 94. Cf. ibid., esp. 52; also Lauziere, Making of Salafism, 201. 95. Commins, “From Wahhabi,” 161–3. 96. Abou El Fadl, Great Theft, 72–4. Likewise, Salafi works with an anti-Wahhabi slant were suppressed, including Rida’s; cf. ibid., 300 n. 82. 97. Commins, “From Wahhabi,” 164–5.

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98. The struggles between different jama’āt and with the government colored the Saudi religious and educational environment from the 1960s until today; Stephane Lacroix, “Understanding Stability and Dissent in the Kingdom: The Double-Edged Role of the Jama’at in Saudi Politics,” in Saudi Arabia in Transition: Insights on Social, Political, Economic and Religious Change, eds Bernard Haykel, Thomas Hegghammer, and Stephane Lacroix (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015). 99. Lauziere, Making of Salafism, 165. 100. Ibid., 164–5; cf. Richard Gauvain, Salafi Ritual Purity: In the Presence of God (London: Routledge, 2012). 101. Cf. Lauziere, Making of Salafism, 166–9. 102. See on this point Griffel, “What Do We Mean by ‘Salafi’?,” 208–9. 103. See an illuminating example of this transition given by Lauziere in Making of Salafism, 217–24; also Abou El Fadl, Great Theft, 84–5.

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CHAPTER

6

POST-SALAFISM: SALMAN AL-OUDA AND HATIM AL-AWNI Christopher Pooya Razavian

Despite the inflexibility associated with Saudi Salafism, a growing number of Salafi scholars are moving beyond contemporary Salafi views. This paper will analyze the works of two influential scholars associated with Saudi Salafism: Salman al-Ouda and Hatim al-Awni. Salman al-Ouda, a fiery speaker during the Ṣaḥwah period (discussed in the preceding chapter), has expanded on his use of the concept of fiqh al-wāqi’ (fiqh of realities) by moving from arguing for greater political freedoms to arguing for change in conservative social practices. He advocates a rethinking of Islamic law based on the experience of application rather than formal theoretical rule formation. Ḥatim al-Awni comes from a different strand of Saudi Salafis. As a student of Nasir al-Din al-Albani, al-Awni’s primary focus has been academic with a keen interest in ḥadīth studies. Yet, with the rise of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) he has turned into a vocal critic of mainstream Salafi thought. He criticizes the Wahhabi establishment for holding the same ideology as ISIS, and critically reviews issues such as takfīr (excommunication) and al-walā’ wa-al-barā’ (loyalty and disavowal) that have normally been used to justify jihad. Moreover, he advocates for an opening up of dialogue and discussion within the Saudi public sphere, and argues that it is only through open dialogue that correct faith can be found and internalized. In order to appreciate the significance of these new debates evolving within the Saudi Salafi sphere it is useful to first map the dominant trends in Salafi thought. Saudi Salafism: Mapping the Religious Sphere To understand the variety of different trends within the Saudi Salafi religious sphere as it stands today, a good point of entry is Yasir Qadhi’s article titled “On Salafī Islam.” Qadhi is arguably the most famous foreign graduate of the [ 172 ]

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Islamic University of Medinah (IUM), and one of America’s most influential Muslims (see Volume 2, Chapter 5).1 Qadhi’s extensive training among Salafī scholars during his years in Saudi Arabia as well as his ability to simplify complex fiqh issues for the Muslim audience in America has gained him a large following. His categorization of the various Salafi groups draws on his own experience in Saudi Arabia as well as his training in Western academia. Much of Qadhi’s analysis of Salafi Islam is also reflected in the work of other scholars, such as Bernard Haykel’s “On the Nature of Salafi Thought and Action,”2 but none of these sources maps the different Salafi strands as clearly, and succinctly, as does Qadhi. Qadhi begins by explaining how the core element binding the various Salafi groups together is their method. All Salafis see themselves as the only group representing the true teachings of the salaf al-sāliḥ, the righteous Muslims close to the time of the Prophet. This, in turn, affects how they understand theological issues such as the concept of tawḥīd, the divine unity of God, and that only God is the object of worship. What distinguishes the Salafi approach to tawḥīd from other groups, is the extent that Salafis are critical of any action or belief that would be seen as compromising this value, such as saint veneration and intercession of the dead. Salafis also stand against the Asha’rī and Mu’tazilite creeds and follow an older Atharī creed. Thus, they deny any metaphoric and symbolic interpretation of God’s names and attributes. The Atharī creed was dominant during the fourth and fifth Islamic centuries, but was revived by Ibn Taymīyah in the thirteenth century. Qadhi argues that although Salafis will refer to Ibn Taymīyah, they do not consider him as a founder of the modern Salafi movement. Another of the hallmarks of Salafism is that they oppose what they see as bid’ah, innovation, and dissociate from people who partake in innovation.3 Beyond these core features, there are various points of dispute among the Salafis and these various disputes separate them into different groups. Qadhi lists seven major points of contestation: the permissibility of taqlīd, dissociation from the people of innovation, whether actions are a part of īmān, the level of allegiance to an Islamic ruler, forbidding wrong to a ruling authority, takfīr of rulers who do not rule by Islamic law, and their positions toward jihad.4 Further, Qadhi describes seven major trends within Salafism. For understanding how new trends are evolving within the Saudi Salafi thought, it is important to look at three of these trends: Saudi Salafis, Shaykh al-Albani’s strand of Salafism, and the Ṣaḥwah movement. The mainstream Saudi Salafis are, as the name suggests, the largest group of Salafis in Saudi Arabia. This includes figures such as the very influential Shaykh Abd al-Aziz ibn Baz (d. 1999) and Sheikh Muhammad ibn ‘Uthaymin (d. 2001). Ibn Baz and ibn ‘Uthaymin had become leading figures of institutionalized state Wahhabism and both were prolific scholars.5 Ibn Baz was the Grand Muftī from 1993 until his death in 1999. Ibn ‘Uthaymin passed away two years after Bin Baz, and has written numerous books on various topics of Islamic thought.

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The mainstream Saudi Salafis, a term that in this chapter is used interchangeably with institutional Wahhabism, do not reject taqlīd. In an interview, that has subsequently been published on his personal website, Ibn Baz stated that he still does follow the Ḥanbalī madhhab. However, he also made clear that he does not follow it in the traditional sense of taqlīd, but in the sense of following the uṣūl (or core framework) of the madhhab.6 One of the major points of contestation between this strand of Salafism and the al-Albani strand is precisely this notion of taqlīd. Al-Albani criticized both the mainstream Saudi Salafis, and even ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhāb himself, the founder of Wahhabism, for practicing taqlīd.7 The mainstream Saudi Salafis are very conservative in their outlook towards Islamic practice. This group is historically apolitical, remains close to Saudi government, and is very critical of both the extremist jihad groups and the Ṣaḥwah movement. The second group of interest to Yasir Qadhi comprises of scholars from the Ṣaḥwah movement. After Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait in 1990, the Saudi regime called on foreign troops, mainly American, to protect its borders. This was met with a backlash from politically minded scholars, many of whom were non-Saudis who, as discussed in the previous chapter, had taken refuge in Saudi Arabia during the 1960s and 1970s against the neighboring socialist regimes, forming what came to be known as the al-Ṣaḥwā al-Islāmīyah, the Islamic Awakening. The Egyptian and Syrian Muslim Brotherhood members who had come to Saudi Arabia had been actively reorganizing the school system since the 1960s within Saudi Arabia, and it was in the 1990s that many of the scholars influenced by the Muslim Brotherhood were coming to the front. These “Ṣaḥwah ulema” were generally “born in the 1950s, socialised from their earliest years in Ṣaḥwī circles, brought up in the Saudi school system, and graduates of the religious faculties of Saudi universities, from which many had received master’s or doctoral degrees.”8 This background gave these scholars legitimacy, and enabled them to teach at the religious faculties of Saudi universities. The Ṣaḥwah movement believed that secularism had taken control of Saudi Arabia. Some blamed the United States for establishing a network of American-educated Saudis who had infiltrated all aspects of the government and were loyal to the Americans.9 The Ṣaḥwah ‘ulamā’ were critical of the traditional Wahhabi establishment, which consisted of scholars such as Ibn Baz and Ibn ‘Uthaymin. The Ṣaḥwah scholars considered themselves as the possessors of fiqh al-wāqi’, the jurisprudence of reality (see Chapter 3), and argued that mainstream scholars were more interested in less relevant theological details.10 However, the Ṣaḥwī scholars were themselves divided. There were two branches within the Ṣaḥwah movement, the Saudi Brothers and the Sururis. Their line of thinking was originally divided among the thinking of Hassan al-Banna and Sayyid Qutb respectively, although both groups became predominantly Qutbi later on. Yet, differences remained, especially with regards to takfīr: the Sururis were exclusivist and used takfīr; the Saudi Brothers followed an inclusive approach. These two groups wrote books against

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each other’s positions, and even vied for control of various institutions such as the universities.11 The third Salafi group that Yasir Qadhi notes as being important consists of the followers of Nasir al-Din al-Albani. Al-Albani was an Albanian scholar who specialized in ḥadīth and Islamic law, and lived in Jordan. He was originally a follower of the Ḥanafī maddhab, but later changed his position toward taqlīd. He was invited to teach at the IUM by Ibn Baz. Al-Albani’s critical stance toward the Ḥanbalī maddhab and his positions on certain conservative issues, such as the permissibility of women not covering their face, earned him a bad reputation with many Wahhabi scholars. Even though Ibn Baz tried to support al-Albani as much as possible, al-Albani was forced to eventually leave the country and move back to Jordan. Al-Albani was a popular scholar, and influential among Saudi Salafis. Followers of al-Albani also critique established practices among other Salafi groups. One such example is that al-Albani allowed the wearing of shoes within mosques, stating that there was no textual evidence against the practice. This had caused a lot of tension with other scholars.12 Looking at the work of al-Awni and al-Ouda helps illustrate important shifts in Saudi Salafi thought.

Salman Al-Ouda: The S. ah. wah and Fiqh Al-wa–qi’ Salman al-Ouda is an influential figure in Saudi thought. He was one of the leading scholars behind the Ṣaḥwah movement. His recent turn to more liberal policies, combined with his social-media presence, has again put him in the limelight.13At the time of writing, his twitter account had more than 7 million followers, and he runs a popular website (islamtoday.net). Al-Ouda has gone from being a firebrand cleric imprisoned for his stances to one who is advocating liberal understanding of the state based on the social contract. He has become a promoter of democracy and tolerance. After the events of the Arab Spring in 2011 al-Ouda published a book that summarizes his political philosophy. He not only quotes the traditional literature, the Qurʾān and ḥadīth, but also Western philosophers such as Karl Marx and Karl Popper. He defends the concept of a social contract as being the ideal framework for moving forward post-Arab Spring. His book was promptly band in Saudi Arabia, but he made it available online.14 Yet, what differentiates al-Ouda’s approach is not necessarily his method. Through social media, al-Ouda has been able to present himself as someone who is experiencing the world in a way similar to other believers. Most scholars present a more formal version of Islam: Islam is first to be understood through the text, the traditional literature, and it is then to be implemented. Formal methods are given weight before lived experience, and the scholar is expected to have an objective distance from the material that they are studying. AlOuda, on the other hand, represents an understanding of Islam that is gained through application. He presents himself as having gained an understanding

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of Islam through experience. He talks about his mistakes; he apologizes on camera to a taxi driver that he got into an argument with in Morocco;15 he speaks about his own racism;16 and he speaks about how his life experience in general has changed his stance toward Islamic law.17 His views have inspired many Muslims around the world, including Yasir Qadhi, who writes that “it is scholars like Sh. Salman that I take as my role models in my own endeavors in the West.”18 Al-Ouda’s fatwās, in turn, reflect this understanding of Islam when applied to everyday realities. He is sensitive to the context that Muslims live in, and tends to give fatwās that attempt to provide manageable solutions to difficult problems. He defends the practice of ziwaj al-misyār (a type of marriage contract that abandons several marital rights), allows the reconstruction of the hymn, and believes that it is permissible for women to drive cars.19 Moreover, he believes that the application of Islamic law should be done in a piecemeal fashion, such that Muslims slowly come to internalize Islamic deeds and actions instead of being forced by the state to live by them. This will be clarified below. During the Ṣaḥwah years, al-Ouda and other Saḥwah ‘ulamā’, were the defenders of fiqh al-wāqi’: they argued that Islamic law must fit within the context in which they live; yet their approach to this issue was mostly political. In recent years, al-Ouda has started to apply the same concept of wāqi’ to solving other social issues and has aligned himself with scholars such as Bin Bayyah who have been working on developing academic approach to fiqh al-wāqi’ (see Chapter 3). Within Saudi Arabia, it is the Ṣaḥwī’ ‘ulamā’ who highlighted the importance of fiqh al-wāqi’ (a concept that we have seen has been invoked by many reformist and revivalist groups), and during the late 1980s, they tried to claim a monopoly over this concept.20 They claimed that they were the saviors of Islam because they were the true interpreter of fiqh al-wāqi’ and that the traditional Wahhabi ‘ulamā’ were busy dealing with minor details of theology and ritual practice. The Ṣaḥwah ‘ulama, however, did not write extensively on the subject; most of their opinions have been expressed in speeches that were later disseminated through cassettes. The sources that Lacroix cites in his influential book on the Saudi Ṣaḥwah movement, Awakening Islam, mostly constitute of speeches. Two Ṣaḥwī scholars that were particularly active in promoting the concept of fiqh al-wāqi’ were Nasir al-Umar and Salman al-Ouda. Nasir al-Umar wrote an essay on fiqh al-wāqi’ simply titled Fiqh al-Wāqi’. This essay is not dated, but given that it references the Mujahidin in the Soviet– Afghan War, it seems that at least parts of it were written in the late 1980s or early 1990s. This essay does not analyze the concept in the same detail as available in the books of Yusuf al-Qaradawi and Bin Bayyah (see Chapter 3) but his emphasis on the need for a scholar of Islam to understand more than just the classical Islamic sciences is clear when he describes fiqh al-wāqi’ as “the science of looking at the jurisprudence of contemporary conditions, factors affecting communities, the dominant forces on the state, thoughts directed to destabilize the Islamic beliefs, and legitimate ways to protect and advance the ummah in

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the present and the future.”21 Al-Umar then argues that fiqh al-wāqi’ relies on two important foundations: knowledge across different fields, and persistence. A spirit of persistence is required, such that the scholar is up to date with current events.22 Al-Umar, however, does not present a coherent strategy to relate classical jurisprudence to the modern world. Similarly, Salman al-Ouda, who was also imprisoned from 1994 to 1999 for his involvement in the Ṣaḥwah movement, also has been heavily emphasizing the importance of fiqh al-wāqi’: “one of the things for which many ‘ulamā’ of our age can be criticized is that they live in isolation from the reality surrounding them.”23 The interest in al-Ouda has grown since the Arab Spring. Al-Ouda was a defender of the popular movements, and he wrote a book outlining his political philosophy in response to the Arab Spring. Professor Madawi al-Rasheed describes al-Ouda’s thought as having “anchored peaceful collective revolutionary action in an Islamic framework and reached out for humanist interpretations that assimilate Western intellectual positions with his own Salafi orientation.”24 Al-Ouda’s book, As’ilat al-Thawrah (Questions of Revolution), addresses multiple issues pertaining to the Arab Spring. Banned in Saudi Arabia, the book is available online. In it, al-Ouda approaches multiple questions regarding the revolutions during the Arab Spring and argues how sharī’ah is best implemented in a piecemeal fashion. He also presents an analysis of why politics is best understood as a type of a social contract. The Application of Sharī’ah Al-Ouda argues for observation of two factors for successful implementation of sharī’ah: one, it be applied in gradual fashion, given that people often cannot implement the sharī’ah all at once; two, the difference between the context in which the sharī’ah was revealed and the context in which we live in today is appreciated. Here he refers explicitly to Abdullah Bin Bayyah. In the third part of his book As’ilat al-Thawra, al-Ouda addresses various questions about the social-political make-up of the state. The first question that he covers in this section is about taṭbīq al-sharī’ah (applying the sharī’ah).25 He writes that the issue of the application of the sharī’ah is “one of the most important, if not the most important, that requires a deep rooted understanding of Islamic law that does not go beyond Islamic legal maxims and the undoubtable text, and at the same time does not deny the visible realities (wāqi’) and the apparent common good (maṣāliḥ).”26 He then goes on to argue how sharī’ah was always expected to be applied in a piecemeal fashion (tadaruj). Al-Ouda begins by explaining that the sharī’ah was initially revealed to the Prophet bit by bit in accordance with events that were happening at the time, so that even the Prophet applied Islamic law gradually. To defend this position, he gives the example of the prohibition of alcohol. He writes that the Prophet gradually banned alcohol and did not ban the consumption of alcohol in total from the beginning. He also writes about how different companions of the Prophet, notably ‘Umar, also followed this prophetic practice.

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Al-Ouda narrates the story between ‘Umar ibn ‘Abd al-Azīz (d. 682), the Umayyid Caliph who is generally well respected in Sunni thought, and his son, ‘Abd al-Mālik. ‘Umar’s son asks why his father does not apply Islamic law in total. ‘Umar replies that the people are not ready and justifies his action by referring to how the Prophet placed a gradual ban on alcohol. Al-Ouda states that we should follow this precedent set by ‘Umar, and gradually convince people to believe and accept these Islamic laws.27 Another example that he gives is that of the Prophet’s commandment to one of the companions, M’ādh bin Jabal, when he was sent off to propagate the religion of Islam in Yemen. The Prophet ordered him to first convince the people to believe in the oneness of God and that the Prophet was the messenger of God. If the people accepted that, then he was to tell them about the obligatory prayers. And if people accepted that, then he should tell them about zakāt (alms).28 More than just tadaruj, these examples show the importance of understanding the reasoning behind a ruling, such that it could be applied to other cases. It is not appropriate to apply the sharī’ah without understanding these higher-order reasons. As is common with many who work in the field of fiqh al-wāqi’, he refers to the fact that ‘Umar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb (23/644), the second caliph, changed many of the rulings that Muslims used to abide by during the life of the Prophet.29 The third concept that al-Ouda uses is that of taḥqīq al-manāṭ. Thus, similar to Bin Bayyah, al-Ouda argues that it is important to understand the underlying reasons for the revelation of Islamic law. If we understand the reason for the revelation of a ruling, we can better understand the application of the law, he argues. He begins the discussion of this section by referring to an oft-cited example from the time of the Prophet that had do with the concept of forbidding wrong and commanding right. The incident revolves around a man who began to urinate inside the mosque; the companions of the Prophet rebuked the person but to their surprise the Prophet disapproved of the action of the companions. Al-Ouda writes that there are many narrations from the Prophet that state that if one can stop a wrong action with one’s hands then one should do so; if one can’t do it with one’s hands then one should do so with one’s tongue; and, if one cannot do that, then one should dislike the action in one’s heart. In light of this narration, it would seem that the companions of the Prophet were justified in rebuking this person. Why then did the Prophet disapprove of the actions of the companions? Al-Ouda writes that this is an important example of how Islamic law is to be applied. We may have texts that justify an action, but how that action is carried out is just as important: the companions of the Prophet were rebuked because they over stepped their bounds when they were trying to make that person comply with Islamic injunctions regarding cleanliness.30 From here he jumps to the issue of corporal punishment, ḥudūd. He writes that it was part of the prophetic tradition to hold back on the application of corporal punishment if there were doubts about a case. It was even preferred to not actively seek out the application of corporal punishment, and to try to

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hide the sins of the sinner. He states that the rulings that lean towards forgiveness are preferred to the rulings that lead to punishment. He then quotes one of the great scholars of the Islamic formative era, Ibrahīm al-Nakh’aī (96/715), who had said that he would prefer to not implement one hundred punishments that have been proven, than implement one wrong punishment by mistake. He then states that this scholar himself relied on the practice of the second caliph ‘Umar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb, who himself is known to have said that if he do not apply corporal punishment because of doubts, this inaction is much more superior in his eyes than if he were to enact these punishments.31 He concludes by stating that the application of sharī’ah is dependent on understanding how the Islamic law applies to the individual or to the society of the time. He writes that this is a specific type of ijtihād, and that it is not an easy task, except for the most spiritual of scholars who understand both the text and maxims of the law and understand the realities of society, their culture, and their politics.32 He also talks about the type of ijtihād that he sees as being essential, emphasizing that human judgment is involved in transforming the theory of Islamic law to practice: “It is a human ijtihād that travels between the text and the context of the people.”33 This type of ijtihād, he adds, requires one to take into consideration time, place, the person, the event, and the text. It is here that he specifically refers to Abdullah Bin Bayyah’s book Fiqh al-Wāqi’ wa-al-Tawaqu’. He writes that a correct implementation of Islamic law requires one to understand the text first, and then to understand the context.34 Democracy In another short subsection titled The Identity of the State After the Revolution (Religious or Civil?) in the same book, al-Ouda outlines his vision of the state post-Arab Spring. He begins first by stating that there is no theocracy in Islam. He refers to Mawdudi’s works on the Islamic state, stating that a theocracy would just be a dictatorship in the name of religion.35 Thus, alOuda moves toward highlighting the importance of a civil society. He states that at the heart of this civil society rests a social contract. He sees the ideal state as one in which the government is seen as representatives of the people. The government would be Islamic if the Islamic injunctions and maqāsid are implemented in light of the social contract. He ends the section by stating that the worst type of dictatorship is one that is done in the name of religion. He then argues for the separation of powers in politics, and tries to ground this position in the traditional literature.36 Developing these ideas further in another section titled The Democratic Solution and the Political Institution in Islam, al-Ouda writes that democracy does have its problems, but it is a much better solution than dictatorship. He cites several concepts within Islamic thought that are similar to democracy, such as shūrā (consultation), and ijmā’ (consensus), and goes on to argue that sharī’ah has certain maqāsid, objectives, and one of these objectives is justice.

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He argues that democracy helps to bring about justice because democratic government is representative of the people, and that democracy gives a voice to the people. Democracy, he argues, is the fruit of human experience, and it is much better than dictatorships.37 Al-Ouda also writes about the relationship between democracy and Islamic law. He argues that in a democracy, the state is a reflection of the people. Thus, if the people do not choose Islamic laws, then the fault is not that of the political system, but the people themselves. Steps should therefore be taken to convince the people to become more religious, because it is not possible to force them to believe.38 Although al-Ouda does not elaborate in much detail on this relationship between democracy and Islamic law, this brief statement does nonetheless reflect his belief about the importance of autonomy for internalizing faith. He adamantly denies that force can make people believers and argues that faith requires wisdom and da’wah (a call or invitation). The internalization of religion is dependent, in a sense, upon autonomy. It should be noted that this is quite similar to the positions taken by Iranian reformist thinkers, such as Mohammad Mojtahed Shabestari.39

Hatim al-Awni as a Conservative Reformer Hatim al-Awni al-Sharif is a prolific Salafi academic who studied under Nasir al-Din al-Albani, has written numerous books on the ḥadīth sciences and Islamic law and has also taught at various Saudi universities. He was born in Taif and is a descendant of the al-Sharīf family that ruled the Hijaz before the Saudi conquest in the 1920s. Bunzel states that al-Awni had remained a marginal figure in the Saudi religious landscape because of his background.40 Al-Awni is coming from a tradition that was aligned against the Ṣaḥwī scholars discussed above. His teacher, Al-Albani, wrote books and gave speeches against the Ṣaḥwī scholars, and even wrote a book refuting their stance on fiqh al-wāqi’.41 Although al-Awni is not taking a position that necessarily mimics the views of al-Ouda as discussed in the preceding section, there is some overlap between their ideas. One of the major points that both scholars agree upon is the importance of civic tolerance and deliberation. It is therefore interesting to see a scholar that is not as politically minded as those belonging to the Ṣaḥwī movement and is more grounded in the traditional Islamic academic scholarship taking a similar stance. In general, there are two ways that al-Awni is trying to critique the mainstream Salafi movement. The first is by creating a space for religious tolerance. He accomplishes this by critiquing the intolerance of Wahabbism on the one hand, and showing the tolerance in Islamic thought on the other. The second way he emphasizes this point is by arguing for the importance of open dialogue and discourse. This he maintains has the potential to provide a foundation for a greater degree of freedom of conscience.

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Critiquing Intolerance and Promoting Tolerance Al-Awni critiques Wahabbi intolerance on two fronts. He criticizes the Wahabbi understanding of takfīr and its understanding of al-walā’ wa-albarā’. He puts forward a rethinking of Wahabbism that tries to move beyond a narrow emphasis on takfīr. Al-Awni’s rise to fame has come by his engagement with King Abdullah’s criticism of the Saudi religious establishment for its silence toward the threat posed by the Islamic State and other jihadi groups.42 King Abdullah rebuked the scholars for their laziness and their negligence of the responsibility they bear to protect their religion.43 Just two days after King Abdullah made statements to this effect, al-Awni posted an essay on his website titled al-Mashāyikh al-Kusālā (The Lazy Scholars) in which he gave an answer as to why the religious establishment were so reluctant to criticize the Islamic State: it was because the scholars themselves believed in the very ideals of takfīr that motivated the Islamic State. Following on from the publication of this, al-Awni gave an interview to the popular al-Hayat newspaper.44 In the interview, al-Awni attacks one of the most respected sources in Wahhabi thought, the influential al-Durar al-Sanīyah fī al-Ajwibah al-Najdīyah (The Glittering Pearls of the Najdi Response). Al-Durar al-Sanīyah is a collection of the writings of Wahabbi scholars from the time of ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhāb until the mid-twentieth century. This book is considered an essential reference in the Saudi religious field.45 Although the mainstream Salafi scholars deny the extremist elements found within the book, it is known to have inspired some jihadists. One such person is Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi. Al-Maqdisi is a quietest jihadi who is “the most influential scholar in the world of militant Islam today” and was the spiritual mentor to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of al-Qaida in Iraq.46 Joas Wagemakers, after conducting a series of interviews with alMaqdisi, states that al-Maqdisi’s initial reading of al-Durar al-Sanīyah was a “life-changing moment.” This book provided al-Maqdisi with concepts and ideas that “applied takfīr more easily.”47 It is precisely these notions of takfīr that al-Awni criticizes. Al-Awni states that the fact that some scholars try to deny the degree of takfīr that is found in al-Durar al-Sanīyah is a “betrayal of the ummah and the nation.”48 He states that the majority of scholars that deny that al-Durar al-Sanīyah promotes extreme levels of takfīr are in terms of their views themselves dormant members of ISIS (al-dā’ishīyūn al-qa’dah) and that they are waiting for an opportunity to actually implement their vision of takfīr. Two days after al-Awni gave his interview with al-Hayat, he appeared on a weekly television programme called Liqā’ al-Jum’ah, to discuss the statements he had given in al-Hayat.49 The programme host asks al-Awni to clarify his stance toward al-Durar al-Sanīyah and the contemporary scholars, to which al-Awni repeated his position. He stated that the issue of takfīr is quite central to al-Durar al-Sanīyah and that it has been elaborated upon by other scholars.

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By taking this position, al-Awni criticized an idea that is at the core of the Wahhabi establishment. Madawi al-Rasheed states that takfīr was used as a social-political tool in order to control social and political “deviance” and to expand “the political realm under the pretext of correcting the blasphemy of others.”50 She highlights the fact that “[s]everal Saudi scholars take it for granted that the Arabian population was blasphemous and chaotic prior to Wahhabi revivalism.”51 She quotes the famous statement from ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhāb about the Muslim population of his time: “The polytheists of our time are more numerous than the infidels at the time of the Prophet.”52 Al-Rasheed believes this to be a case of takfīr al- ‘umūm, the general excommunication of Muslims. She also quotes twentieth-century Wahabbi scholars that would address their letters as such: “From Muhammad ibn Abd al-Latif to the people of Asir, Hijaz and Yemen, may God guide them to Islam.”53 The frequency of takfīr was “related to the requirements of specific historical and political contexts rather than theological concerns.”54 Al-Rasheed argues that in fact the current legitimacy of Wahhabism relies on the notion that Muslims were blasphemers before the Wahhabi movement: Wahhabi legitimacy today rests on a myth that was perpetuated by generations of Wahhabi writers, historians, religious scholars and laymen, as well as royalty. The myth claims that Muslims in Arabia were and are blasphemous, and their salvation is entirely dependent on the message of Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab and the political power that endorsed his message, the AlSaud family.55

Given both the centrality of al-Durar al- Sanīyah and takfīr to Wahhabi thought, it is clear that al-Awni is quite revolutionary in his efforts as he is trying to reform ideas that are core to Wahabbism. In addition to writing these short articles and giving these interviews, al-Awni has written books that tackle the issue of takfīr. One such book is his Takfīr Ahl al-Shahādatayn (Excommunicating the People of the Two Testimonials). The book discusses the permissibility and possibility of excommunicating other Muslims. Al-Awni has another book titled al-‘Ibādah: Bawābat al-Tawḥīd wā-Bawābat al-Takfīr (Worship: The Gate of Tawḥīd and the Gate of Takfīr). Central to both of these books is his discussion of the definition of shirk al-‘ubūdīyah (the polytheism of worship). Polytheism takes several forms, and one of the forms is believing that there are gods other than Allah. Another form of polytheism is worshipping false idols. Within Wahhabi thought there is a strict distinction between the two. For example, they argue that the pagan Arabs considered Allah as the one true God, and the other deities as his creation. Thus, the pagans were monotheist in the sense that they understood Allah to be the only true Lord (rabb). However, they were polytheists in the sense that they worshipped the other false idols, believing that they had certain powers.56 In both of these writings, al-Awni tackles the issue of polytheism of worship. He argues that this issue has been misunderstood in Wahhabi thought.

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Specifically, he argues that most scholars have misunderstood the meaning of worship (al-‘ibādah), specifically the type of worship that leads to polytheism.57 The key to understanding the issue of worship is intention (al-nīyah). It is intention that makes a certain act of worship a type of polytheism. Having love for God is a type of worship, but so is having love of the Prophet. Yet, having love for the Prophet is not polytheism because you do not love him for any of the attributes of Lordship (rubūbīyah). The same applies for physical acts of worship such as prostration. He quotes a verse in the Qurʾān in which Ya’qūb prostrated to his son Yūsuf. It is clear that Ya’qūb understood the difference between prostrating to God and prostrating to Yūsuf.58 He argues that he is not writing about the permissibility of prostration to beings other than God, which is prohibited in the sharī’ah; he is writing about polytheism, and that there is no correlation between an action being prohibited and that act being an indication of polytheism.59 He concludes that the reality of worship is that it is a “specific action of the heart.”60 He then separates polytheism into two types. One type is the belief that there are separate independent deities, such as the mythology of the Greek pagans. The other is the belief that there is one ultimate being, but that there are other beings that challenge the ultimate being in his various attributes such as creation (al-khālig). Al-Awni writes that this second category is what the pre-Islamic pagans believed. In short, the worship of the Arab pagans was such that it ascribed attributes of Allah to these idols. It was the ascription of these attributes to idols that made them polytheists, not the action of seeking help from other than Allah. It is this intention that separates the seeking of help from another human in daily matters from the pagan custom of seeking help from idols.61 Al-Awni then quotes from Ibn Tamīyah, stating that the reason that pre-Islamic pagans were polytheists is because they believed that the idols could heal (shifā’) without the permission of Allah. He therefore concludes that only actions that deny the Lordship (al-rubūbīyah) of Allah should be considered as polytheistic. He says that it is wrong for many of the Wahhabi scholars to assume that actions in of themselves are signs of polytheism. A Muslim can prostate to others but not be a polytheist, because he did not prostate with the intention of declaring another being as having any of the attributes of Allah. Al-Awni repeats this argument in his book Takfīr Ahl al-Shahādatayn. He again states that it is intentions that delineate acts of polytheism from other types of actions. In this book, however, he goes into more detailed examples of takfīr, such as the kufr (being an infidel), cursing the companions of the Prophet, believing that the Qurʾān has been changed. The cursing of the companions is a relevant issue given that here he is directly referring to the Shi’a. Al-Awni argues that cursing the companions does not amount to takfīr62—one of the reasons being that the cursing of the companions would only lead to kufr if it implied rejecting belief in Allah or the Prophet. Given that the Shi’a have a different interpretation of Islamic history, and do not deny the traditional literature, there is no grounds for labeling such action as takfīr. He

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notes that one may disagree and even become disturbed by these statements, but that does not mean that one can label the Shi’a as non-Muslims. Al-Awni cites how both Ibn Taymīyah and his student Ibn Qayyim considered the general Shi’a populace to be Muslims.63 Al-Walā’ Wa-al-Barā’ It was discussed earlier that tawḥīd has a central role in Salafi thought, and that the concept of al-walā’ wa-al-barā’ is closely linked to that concept. Muslims must be loyal to those who defend tawḥīd and disavow those who do not. The concept of al-walā’ wa-al-barā’ does divide the world up into good and evil. Al-walā’ wa-al-barā’, therefore, makes it difficult to make space for religious pluralism and freedom of human conscience. It is for this reason that alAwni has made it a central part of his project to rethink al-walā’ wa-al-barā’. Al-Awni begins his essay on al-walā’ wa-al-barā’ by giving a detailed definition for the meaning of al-walā’ wa-al-barā’. Although it is a lengthy discussion, he does not give a definition that differs from the standard account. He equates al-walā’ with love and support, and equates al-barā’ as being the opposite of al-walā’.64 Thus, al-walā’ refers to the love of Allah and his Prophet, the love of the religion of Islam and Muslims, and aiding Allah, his Prophet, the religion of Islam and the believers.65 Al-barā’, on the other hand, requires one to hate the objects that are worshipped other than Allah, such as idols. This includes real idols, such as statues, or metaphorical idols such as one’s unholy desires. It also means to hate the unbelief of the unbelievers, and to work against their unbelief.66 He adds that al-walā’ wa-al-barā’ is primarily a belief that one believes in one’s heart, but it has ramifications for one’s actions.67 Elaborating on the concept of al-walā’ wa-al-barā’, he writes that the concept is without doubt a part of Islam, because it is connected with the fundamentals of īmān.68 He then goes on to provide evidence for al-walā’ wa-al-barā’ from the Qurʾān and ḥadīth. Al-Awni has a section that deals with how the concept of al-walā’ wa-al-barā’ fits in with other concepts of Islam. He writes that it is important to relate the concept of al-walā’ wa-al-barā’ with other concepts such as moderation, tolerance, and mercy.69 This has practical implications for how Muslims are supposed to interact with others, and he provides a few examples. The examples he gives include: Muslims cannot force non-Muslims to believe in Islam;70 Muslims are bound to honour any contracts or deals that they have with non-Muslims;71 and that it is harām for Muslims to kill any non-Muslims who are abiding by their contracts and the conditions of dhimmah.72 He also writes that differences of religion do not justify denial of human rights,73 and that justice and kindness are the right of all people who are not engaged in war with the Muslims.74 Al-Awni then spends the rest of the book drawing the boundaries of al-walā’ wa-al-barā’ and defining its limitations. He states that performing an action that goes against the concept of al-walā’ wa-al-barā’ does not make one an unbeliever, although it is a great sin.75 The reason that it does not

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make the person an unbeliever is that al-walā’ wa-al-barā’ is related to one’s beliefs, and no one truly knows another person’s belief except for God.76 Thus, one cannot assume to know a person’s belief based solely on their actions, as has been discussed above. Al-Awni goes to great lengths to prove this point, roughly a hundred pages. After this section, al-Awni defends the concept of al-walā’ wa-al-barā’ against those who wish to remove the concept completely. Al-Awni is therefore trying to put forward a more nuanced understanding of al-walā’ wa-al-barā’, one that keeps the foundations of the concept intact but still allows room for other concepts to flourish, such as moderation, mercy, and kindness. He is trying to stop extreme uses of the concept. Al-Awni not only limits the scope of takfīr but also shows that Islam is capable of incorporating a diverse body of thought. In an article titled “Istī’ab al-Islām li-al-’Adyān al-Mukhtalifa wa-li-Tanawu’ al-Hiḍārāt” (The Accommodation of Islam of Different Religions and Diverse Civilizations), he presents a review of the religions that he believes should be respected. These include religions that, he argues, have been revealed by God, such as Judaism and Christianity, as well as religions that have been created by man. The reason he includes the second group is that he maintains that, over time, the beliefs of people belonging to human-made religions also come to reflect the wisdom of humankind, and that by itself is worthy of respect and mercy. He then goes on to explain how he believes that Islam has made room for these various religious beliefs.77 Grounding Freedom of Conscience in Epistemology Al-Awni has written a book about the impact of open discussion on Islamic discourse78. He argues that an open dialogue (ḥiwār) can help to bring about a deeper understanding of Islamic issues. He begins by stating that discourse is a primary aspect of human civilization; that it was a blessing endowed by God; and that it is the primary way that one calls upon God. He goes on to link this emphasis on discourse with the importance of freedom of conscience. He maintains that dialogue has an epistemic gain, but for that epistemic gain to be achieved, dialogue must be done in a context that allows for the freedom of conscience. Al-Awni’s key argument here is that restricting freedom of conscience actually restricts the epistemological qualities of dialogue and discourse. Al-Awni begins by describing what he understands to be freedom of conscience. He describes it as the “assurance of every person that they will not be harmed or discriminated against due to the views that they believe, as long as their views are not criminal (they do not legitimise criminal actions), they do not threaten social peace by spreading doubt about the fundamentals of religion, do not capitalise on the ignorance, needs, and greed to spread their beliefs. They should also not be barred from dialogue with the leading intellectuals and scholars with whom they disagree, with fear, persecution, and without limits.”79

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Al-Awni sees his description of freedom of conscience as having four main elements. The first is the individual is declaring a belief that they are convinced of. The second is that this belief does not incite hatred and aggression. The third is that it does not threaten the social peace that rests on freedom and a peaceful culture. The fourth is that they do not exploit the ignorance of the people. He then sets out to describe these four concepts in greater detail. After his initial description of the freedom of conscience, he goes on to show how this concept is legitimately grounded in the traditional literature. He refers to verses of the Qurʾān such as the oft quoted: “There is no compulsion in religion.” He refers also to the examples set by the Prophet, such as that the Prophet never coerced people into believing in the religion of Islam. He also refers to the actions of the companions of the Prophet and the rightly guided caliphs, especially ‘Alī ibn Abū Ṭālib’s treatment of the Khawārij. He writes that the fact that ‘Alī (40/661) did not coerce the Khawārij to give up their beliefs shows that there is great deal of room for the freedom of conscience in Islam.80 This discussion on freedom of conscience in turn helps him build a case for the importance of dialogue. al-Awni writes about al-ḥiwār al-ṣādiq (a true dialogue).81 A dialogue cannot be true dialogue unless there is complete freedom. In bold letters, he writes: “A profound dialogue comes only from deep thought, and deep thought only grows in free earth.”82 This in his view is one of the twelve benefits of freedom of conscience. Some of the other benefits that al-Awni writes about is that freedom of conscience allows for truthful debate, it corrects absurd beliefs, it allows for innovative thought, and that without freedom of conscience dialogue would simply push the two sides to extremes.83 Al-Awni states, however, that the greatest benefit of dialogue is that it weeds out the pseudo-scholars from the real scholars. He argues that true scholars are scholars that call for an open dialogue.84 The fake scholars are those that try to limit freedoms in the name of religion, and try to replace knowledge with a type of priesthood.85 This is a rather direct attack by AlAwni on scholars that are trying to limit the boundaries of dialogue. Some of al-Awni’s other comments about the importance of freedom of conscience have to do with issues of belief. He writes that freedom is the foundation of yaqīn (certainty) and taklīf (obligation). The reason that freedom is the foundation of taklīf is that taklīf only makes sense when there is a possibility of choice. Without freedom, there is no taklīf. One cannot be called a good person if one has never had the opportunity to sin, and one cannot be called an evil person if one has never had the opportunity to do good.86 The reason that freedom is the basis of yaqīn, is that for one to have certainty for one’s belief, one must rely on the fact that one’s arguments are the strongest arguments. One must know that one is the most capable of defending one’s arguments. Thus, if we fear open discussion and free debate then we are signaling to our opponents that our faith is shaky and that we are not truly certain of our beliefs.87 Moreover, al-Awni argues that hypocrisy will be widespread if there is no freedom of thought. He writes that it is obvious that hypocrisy will rein in

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societies that suppress thought and limit freedoms; were it not for this suppression of thought, there would be no need for hypocrisy. During the time of the Prophet, it was the freedom of thought that the Prophet allowed that ended the movement of the hypocrites, he argues.88 Although it would seem that al-Awni’s approach toward freedom of conscience is rather straightforward, and does not have the complexities of Islamic law as shown by Bin Bayyah (see Chapter 3), it does arguably set a very strong foundation for social change. There have been two Western philosophers who have argued for the freedom of conscience within religion: Lucas Swaine and Robert Talisse. Lucas Swaine, in his article The Liberal Conscience, argues that “the arguments liberals have given to theocrats on crucial points of political and legal justification remain philosophically unsatisfactory.”89 Swaine is keeping in spirit with Rawls’ distinction between a comprehensive doctrine and a political concept. Swain does not want to present a comprehensive liberalism that is based on individualism. Swaine’s goal is to “develop a new case in favor of a political liberalism focused on institutions.”90 Swaine’s main argument is that “[c]onscience must be free, for the theocrat, to reject errant faiths where they may arise, to gravitate toward the good, and to have the ability to distinguish among competing alternatives.”91 Robert Talisse, a prominent pragmatist philosopher, has different reasons for tackling the issue of democracy but his argument for democracy resembles Swaine’s position. Talisse argues that we should move away from essentially controversial concepts such as autonomy and freedom and try to ground democracy in more neutral debates by focusing on epistemic rather than moral concerns.92 The arguments put forward by Talisse and Swaine that ground democracy in epistemology are part of a greater trend in political philosophy called “epistemological democracy.” Epistemic democrats justify democracy based on the epistemic value that is derived from democracy.93 It is from this foundation that further democratic institutions evolve. Thus, while al-Awni’s argument for freedom of conscience may seem simple in its approach, its strength is exactly in this simplicity. He is arguing that freedom of thought is a necessary condition for deliberation, and that deliberation helps us to understand the truth. He is making a similar epistemic argument for the importance of freedom of thought as Swaine, Talisse, and other epistemic democrats. Al-Awni is able to justify this position based on the traditional literature. Al-Awni has therefore created an overlapping consensus between his Salafi thought and epistemic democracy. This could serve as a basis for justifying establishment of political institutions. What is interesting about al-Awni’s approach is that he is able to relate the concept of freedom of conscience with his Salafi thought to create a reflective equilibrium without requiring a massive rethinking of different Islamic concepts. This is exactly what Talisse and Swaine were aiming for in their arguments: the ability to put aside controversial comprehensive doctrines and find a common ground in epistemology. Bin Bayyah, for example, goes to great lengths to establish his concept of fiqh al-wāqi’. Yet, after fiqh al-wāqi’ has

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been established, it still takes another great intellectual framework to establish freedom of thought within that paradigm. Al-Awni is able to establish freedom of conscience without requiring conceptual tools such as fiqh al-wāqi’. Yet, there is still a difference between how al-Awni understands the limits of freedom of conscience compared to Swaine and Talisse. For al-Awni, freedom of conscience is limited to the point that it does not threaten social peace by spreading doubt about the fundamentals of religion.94 Swaine and Talisse do not share this constraint. Moreover, it becomes problematic to decide where one draws the line about “spreading doubt.” As Alexander Wendt has argued, “[a]narchy is what the state makes of it.”95 It could be easy to abuse this condition in order to stifle the freedom of thought that al-Awni is trying to defend, especially given that he still defends apostasy laws. Nonetheless, al-Awni’s defence of freedom of thought makes space for greater degree of deliberation and discourse within Saudi society, and within Salafi thought in general. It still remains to be seen if and how al-Awni will build upon this concept and what the reaction will be from the official Wahhabi establishment. Notes 1. Andrea Elliott, “Why Yasir Qadhi Wants to Talk about Jihad,” The New York Times, March 17, 2011, accessed October 19, 2016, http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/20/ magazine/mag-20Salafis-t.html. 2. Bernard Haykel, “On the Nature of Salafi Thought and Action,” in Global Salafism, ed. Roel Meijer (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), 33–57. 3. Yasir Qadhi, “On Salafī Islam,” MuslimMatters.org, June 22, 2014, accessed October 19, 2016, http://muslimmatters.org/wp-content/uploads/On-Salafi-Islam_ Dr.-Yasir-Qadhi.pdf. 4. Ibid. 5. Gilles Kepel, The War for Muslim Minds: Islam and the West (Cambridge, M.A.: Belknap Press, 2004), 186. 6. “Liqā’ Ma’ Ṣaḥīfah Al-Rāyah Al-Sūdāniyyah. Mawqa’ Al-Shaykh ‘Abd Al-’Azīz Bin Bāz,” accessed October 1, 2015, http://www.binbaz.org.sa/node/8225#_ftn2. 7. Stéphane Lacroix, Awakening Islam: The Politics of Religious Dissent in Contemporary Saudi Arabia, trans. George Holoch (Cambridge, M.A.: Harvard University Press, 2011), 84–5. 8. Ibid., 141. 9. Ibid., 132. 10. Ibid., 144. 11. Ibid, 122–9. 12. Ibid., 88. 13. Stéphane Lacroix, “Saudi Islamists and the Arab Spring,” Kuwait Programme on Development, Governance and Globalisation in the Gulf States, Research Paper 36 (The London School of Economics and Political Science, 2014). 14. Madawi al-Rasheed. “Salman Al-Awdah: In the Shadow of Revolutions,” April 27, 2013, accessed October 19, 2016, http://www.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/11412/ salman-al-awdah_in-the-shadow-of-revolutions.

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15. al-Ouda, “Never Too Late to Apologise” [Video], YouTube, June 22, 2012, accessed October 19, 2016, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MpRF5fBfORc. 16. al-Ouda, “One Day I Hurriedly Greeted” [Video], YouTube, November 28, 2013, accessed October 19, 2016, https://youtu.be/oBqKl3l97PY. 17. al-Ouda, “Guide us to the Right Path” [Video], YouTube, May 11, 2012, accessed October 19, 2016, https://youtu.be/O4vnnEQRl0Q. 18. Yasir Qadhi, “I Admire the Saudi Cleric Sh. Salman . . .” [Facebook Post], November 19, 2013, accessed March 5, 2016, https://www.facebook.com/yasir.qadhi/ posts/10151872642653300. 19. Abdul Rahman Shaheen, “Saudis Debate Hymen Repair Fatwa,” Gulf News, November 6, 2009, accessed October 19, 2016, http://gulfnews.com/news/gulf/ saudi-arabia/saudis-debate-hymen-repair-fatwa-1.523952; Nadaan Dil, “Zawaj Al Misyar Expained = There Is Nothing like Mutah in Islam,” February 17, 2011, accessed October 19, 2016, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=590W4BUJsi8; Saad Al-Matrafi, “Scholars Frustrate Extremists on Women Driving Issue,” Arab News, May 31, 2005, accessed October 19, 2016, http://www.arabnews.com/ node/267794. 20. Lacroix, Awakening Islam, 144. 21. Al-‘Umar, Fiqh al-Wāqi’, 5, accessed October 16, 2016, http://www.almoslim.net/ documents/Feqeh%20Alwaqei.pdf. 22. Ibid., 15. 23. Lacroix, Awakening Islam, 146, taken from a recorded lecture. 24. Madawi al- Rasheed, “Salman Al-Awdah: In the Shadow of Revolutions,” April 27, 2013, accessed October 19, 2016, http://www.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/11412/ salman-al-awdah_in-the-shadow-of-revolutions. 25. Al-Ouda, As’ilat al-Thawrah (Beirut: Markaz Nama’ li-al-Buḥūth wa-al-Dirāsāt, 2012), 109–25. 26. Ibid., 110–11. 27. Ibid., 113–14. 28. Ibid., 113. 29. Ibid., 111–12. 30. Ibid., 115. 31. Ibid., 115–16. 32. Ibid., 116. 33. Ibid., 118. 34. Ibid., 119. 35. Ibid., 128. 36. Ibid., 127–9. 37. Ibid., 131–6. 38. Ibid., 137. 39. Mohammad Mojtahed Shabestari, Īmān Va Āzādī (Tehran: Tarḥ-e Naw, 2000). 40. Cole Bunzel, “The Kingdom and the Caliphate: Duel of the Islamic States,” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, February 18, 2016, accessed October 20, 2016, http://carnegieeurope.eu/2016/02/18/kingdom-and-caliphate-duel-of-islamic-states/ iu4w. 41. Muhammad Nasir al-Dinal-Albani, Su’āl Wa Jawāb Ḥawl Fiqh Al-Wāqi’ (Amman: Al-Maktabah al-Islāmīyah, 2001). 42. Bunzel, “Kingdom and the Caliphate.” 43. Bunzel, “Kingdom and the Caliphate.”

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44. “Al-’Awnī li-Al-Ḥayāt: Inkār ‘Alāqah al-Takfīr bi ‘Salafīyah al-Durar al-Sanīyah Khiyānah li-al-Ummah wa-al-Waṭan,” Al-Hayat, August 29, 2014, accessed October 20, 2016, http://www.alhayat.com/Articles/4347097. 45. Stéphane Lacroix, Awakening Islam, 177 n. 139. 46. Joas Wagemakers, A Quietist Jihadi: The Ideology and Influence of Abu Muhammad Al-Maqdisi (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 1. 47. Ibid., 36. 48. “Al-‘Awnī li-al-Ḥayāt,” Al-Hayat. 49. Hatim bin Arif al-Awni, “Interview with Abdullah Almdevr” [Video], YouTube, September 12, 2014, accessed August 21, 2016, https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=FPG0inv45–8. 50. Madawi al-Rasheed, Contesting the Saudi State: Islamic Voices from a New Generation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 37. 51. Ibid., 23 n.3. 52. Ibid., 39. 53. Ibid. 54. Ibid. 55. Ibid. 23. 56. Ibn Uthaymin, Fatāwa Arkān al-Islām, Islām (Riyadh: Dār al-Thurayā li-al-Nashr wa-al-Tawzī‘, 2001),18. 57. Hatim bin Arif al-Awni, Al-’Ibadah: Bawābat al-Tawḥīd wā-Bawābat al-Takfīr (Markaz Nama li-al-Buḥūth wa-al-Darāsāt, n.d.), http://nama-center.com/ImagesGallary/photoGallary/pdf/nama_pdf_002.pdf, 4. 58. Ibid., 7. 59. Ibid., 7. 60. Ibid., 7. 61. Ibid., 8–12. 62. Ḥatam bin Arif al-Awni, Takfīr Ahl al-Shahādatayn (Beirut: Markaz Namā’ li-alBuḥūth wa-al-Darāsāt, 2016), 113–22. 63. Ibid., 137–9. 64. Hatam bin Arif al-Awni, Al-Walā’ Wa-al-Bara’, (n.p. 2013), 12. 65. Ibid., 12. 66. Ibid., 12. 67. Ibid., 13–14, for his debates about the connection to īmān see 33–46. 68. Ibid., 18. 69. Ibid., 47. 70. Ibid., 49. 71. Ibid., 49. 72. Ibid., 53. 73. Ibid., 58. The rights that al-Awni is referring to are social-ethical rights. Such as the rights of the neighbour (ḥaqq al-jār) and the responsibility of visiting someone that is ill. 74. Ibid., 60. 75. Ibid., 82–3. 76. Ibid., 82. 77. Al-Awni, Istī’ab al-Islām li al-’Adyān al-Mukhtalifa wa li Tanawu’ al-Hiḍārāt, accessed October 20, 2016, http://www.dr-alawni.com/files/books/pdf/1427250273. pdf.

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78. Hatam bin Arif al-Awni, al-Ḥurīyah al-Fikrīyah wa-Atharu-ha fī Ta’mīq Al-Ḥiwār wa ‘Ithmāruhu, accessed September 23, 2015, http://www.dr-alawni.com/files/ books/pdf/1429718305.pdf. 79. Ibid., 4. 80. Ibid., 11–28. 81. Ibid., 29. 82. Ibid., 29. 83. Ibid., 29–41. 84. Ibid., 32–3. 85. Ibid., 33. 86. Ibid., 33. 87. Ibid., 33–4. 88. Ibid., 36–7. 89. Lucas Swaine, “A Liberalism of Conscience,” Journal of Political Philosophy 11, no. 4 (December 1, 2003), 369–91. 90. Ibid. 91. Ibid. 92. Robert B. Talisse, Democracy and Moral Conflict (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 4. 93. David Estlund. “Introduction: Epistemic Approaches to Democracy.” Episteme: A Journal of Social Epistemology 5, no. 1 (2008): 1–4. 94. Al-Awni, al-Ḥurīyah al-Fikrīyah, 4. 95. Alexander Wendt. “Anarchy Is What States Make of It: The Social Construction of Power Politics.” International Organization 46, no. 2 (April 1, 1992): 391–425.

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PART III Ö Ö Ö

DEOBANDI MADRASAH NETWORK The chapters in this part show how the Deobandi tradition, which continues to have a strong following both within South Asian Muslims at home and in the diaspora, is proving to be even more intellectually resistant to change than is Saudi Salafism. Chapter 7 shows how this rigidity reflects the historically distinct nature of its relationship with political authority: unlike the other three institutions, it faces no direct pressure from the state to be pragmatic. It also shows that low levels of socio-economic development in the region, and the nature of the South Asian diaspora in the U.K.—where many choose to live in isolated communities—help to sustain the appeal of this unchanging tradition for many Muslims. Chapter 8 outlines the historical conditions that led to the preservation of a specific kind of Ḥanafī taqlīd within the Deobandi tradition. Chapter 9 examines the current fatwās issued by the Dār al-Iftā’, which is associated with the parent Darul Uloom Deoband in India. It also looks at the scholarship of Muhammad Taqi Usmani, one of the most influential contemporary scholars in the Deobandi tradition from Pakistan, and shows its high level of rigidity. Unlike his counterparts in al-Azhar or Diyanet, Usmani sees no need for reform in Islamic law, and believes that the laws of Islam already lay out a basic blueprint for society. Muslims should simply follow God’s plan and ijtihād should be reserved strictly for new issues that do not have a precedent in Islamic law.

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CHAPTER

7

THE DEOBANDI NETWORK: STEADFAST – IN TAQL ID Masooda Bano

Within South Asia, as well as among the South Asian Muslim diaspora in the West, Deoband represents the most influential Islamic scholarly tradition. In Pakistan, India, and Bangladesh, which together host close to 500 million Muslims, the largest number of madrasahs belong to the Deobandi school of thought.1 Their graduates staff the mosques, teach children to read the Qurʾān, and impart knowledge of the sīrah and ḥadīth; these madrasahs are central to the successful transmission of knowledge of Islamic ‘aqīdah, and basic knowledge of the Islamic legal and moral code, from one generation to the next. Many Deobandi scholars are prolific writers and produce rich Islamic texts in vernacular languages, in particular Urdu (the language of Indian Muslims). In recent years many prominent Deobandi ‘ulamā’ have also begun to appear on mainstream television channels to share religious commentaries on matters of everyday routine. Similarly, many countries in the West, most noticeably the United Kingdom and the United States, host influential Deobandi madrasahs of their own. Established mainly in the 1970s and 1980s, often on the initiative of a leading Deobandi ‘ālim from India or Pakistan, these madrasahs are today strong in their own right. Deobandi scholarly tradition follows the Ḥanafī madhhab, which under the Ottoman Empire became the dominant school of law in the Middle East; the Muslim invaders from Central Asia who were of Turkic origin took Ḥanafī Islam to the Indian sub-continent (Chapter 8). However, the Deobandi tradition from the time of its very origin in 1867 has had socially conservative undertones, adhering to a particular kind of taqlīd (following) of the Ḥanafī madhhab that endorsed societal outcomes quite opposed to those supported by religious bureaucracies maintained by the Ottomans or the Mughals.2 Within the genealogy of Islamic intellectual trends in South Asia, Deoband [ 195 ]

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in fact marked a clear departure from the more rationalist-leaning Persian influences on South Asian madrasahs that were epitomized in the teaching of Farangi Mahall—the leading madrasah under the Mughal Empire—which was to lay down the foundation of Dars-i Niẓāmī, a curriculum of Islamic education that is to this day followed in South Asian madrasahs.3 This leading madrasah of rationalist bent, however, lost its influence as Muslim political authority in the Indian subcontinent was eclipsed, giving way to British colonial rule. Darul Uloom Deoband, which evolved in 1867, just when British rule over the Indian sub-continent was crystalizing, chose to focus instead on the study of transmitted sciences, dramatically reducing the weight of rationalist sciences in the South Asian madrasah curriculum.4 This shift from an emphasis on rationalist sciences to transmitted ones was, it has been argued, a consequence of the inward turn that to the ‘ulamā’ of Deoband seemed the most viable response to the fast-changing sociopolitical and economic context in which sharī’ah was rapidly losing its relevance.5 Emphasis on the inculcation of inner piety was, in such turbulent times, seen as the best route to preserving the faith. As is illustrated by Francis Robinson’s comparative study of Islamic scholarly trends under three leading Muslim empires—Safavids, Mughals, and Ottomans—times of uncertainty have in general seen Islamic scholars adopt a more conservative bent,6 arguably because experimentation becomes riskier in fast-changing contexts. The Deobandi ‘ulamā’, although known to descend from circles of ḥadīth-centric scholars rather than those keen on rationalist subjects, were also thus responding to a basic survival instinct. However, the textual and methodological rigidity evident in the fatwās of leading Deobandi madrasahs and the writings of leading scholars (discussed in Chapter 9), especially when compared with ongoing debates among alAzhari or Turkish scholars, is perplexing. The debates among Deobandis on the importance of ijtihād, the conditions under which it should be allowed, and the fatwās issued by leading Deobandi ‘ulamā’ and madrasahs show an exceptional degree of unwillingness to endorse the position that a changing societal context demands a creative response from scholars. Instead, in its assertive mode (as in the writings of influential Deobandi scholars such as Taqi Usmani), the Deobandi tradition argues for molding modernity to orthodox readings of the Islamic moral or legal code (even for issues where such a position appears impossible), instead of looking for possible new solutions, and in its defensive mode it argues for disengaging with modern-day institutions altogether (as reflected in the fatwās of Dār al-Iftā’ operating out of Darul Uloom Deoband and Nadwatul Ulama). It is not that South Asia presents an exception to the available evidence for the growing influence of Western cultural values and norms across societies, due to the influence of globalization: Arjun Appadurai’s influential theorization of globalization,7 identifying the spread of modern communications, media, and ease of travel as being central to triggering major transformations in individual subjectivities in favor of Western value systems, actually draws on his personal experiences of growing up in India in

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the 1970s. The influx of Western values and consumer culture, especially in the past decade, has been no less aggressive in Pakistan or Bangladesh. South Asia today is an integral part of the global economic order. Stateled programs aimed at economic development, cultural modernization, and gender empowerment are an integral part of the development plans of all three countries.8 The gender gap in educational access and attainment indicators has dramatically declined; female economic participation rates, on the other hand, have recorded impressive gains.9 Big shopping malls selling Western brands, Western food chains, and cinema halls showing the latest Hollywood movies are popular today in all the major cities of South Asia. The growth in private television channels and easy and relatively cheap access to cable television networks has made Indian movies and soap operas the most popular means of family entertainment. Command of English, which, given the South Asian post-colonial legacy, has traditionally been viewed as a sign of elite status, is today common in middle-income groups: a survey of Pakistani bookstores shows a major decline in the publication of Urdu-language fictional literature for school-age and college-age children in favor of English titles imported from the United Kingdom and the United States.10 Given this change in the socioeconomic context and public sensibilities, what enables Deobandi scholars to continue applying a level of rigidity that allows for very little adaptation to changing contexts and desires? As we can see in the chapters presented in Part II, the real irony is that, compared with Deoband, Saudi Salafism, which is perceived as being the most rigid of all the Islamic scholarly traditions, is in fact showing more flexibility. This rigidity is particularly puzzling, given that the Deobandi tradition, unlike the other three institutions studied in this volume, relies on public donations and receives no official state patronage. Its ability to retain a following among a major share of South Asian Muslims and the Muslim diaspora communities in the West is indicative of the need to understand the conditions that induce some Muslims to relate to such restrictive readings of the texts that routinely yield answers that are impractical for modern times. Answering this puzzle actually helps one to appreciate how state engagement with religious authority structures is actually a double-edged sword––a point that Malika Zeghal has successfully established in her study of al-Azhar (see Chapter 1). While a close alliance with political authority often results in the erosion of popular legitimacy, especially if religious leaders are routinely called upon to endorse actions of the state, it does on the other hand maintain a healthy pressure on the scholarly platforms to remain relevant and “reasonable” in interpreting Islamic texts in light of the demands of the changing times. Pragmatism, after all, is key to the survival of political authority. This impact of state engagement with religious authority is evident in the cases of all three institutions under study, including Saudi Salafism: the Saudi royal family has drawn a clear line indicating areas that are seen to fall mainly under the purview of the state and those where the ‘ulamā’ take the lead (Part II, Chapter 4). By virtue of not being part of the state bureaucracy, Deobandi

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tradition has not had to face direct pressure from the state to find practical answers to the changing socio-political and economic realities; it can thus to a large extent refuse to acknowledge the changes taking place in society. The joint statement issued by senior Deobandi ‘ulamā’ in Pakistan in 2010 in condemnation of suicide bombing, when such attacks became rampant within Pakistan’s own cities, shows how when the state or society puts on the pressure, even the Deobandi ‘ulamā’ adapt. The absence of state pressure to provide practical answers is, however, not the only reason for Deoband’s methodological rigidity: equally important is the fact that the primary constituency of Deobandi followers continues to come from low- to middle-income sections of South Asian Muslim communities. Despite the influx of modernization and globalization, the pockets of society that constitute Deoband’s primary constituencies across India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh are those least touched by these changes and by economic prosperity. Unlike al-Azhar, Diyanet, and Saudi Salafism, which either directly evolved from (or are extensions of) an expanding Islamic empire or modern state respectively, Deoband evolved as a response to the decline in Muslim political power and even today caters most to those least engaged with modern educational, economic, and political institutions. South Asia has indeed seen rapid economic growth for many decades, but it is also a region with a highly skewed distribution of those gains. While the elites and upper-middle-income groups have increasingly benefited from globalization and become part of the global economic order and consumer culture, the lower-middle-income groups have continued to feel economically marginalized and on the fringe of society.11 Further, in the Indian context, the socio-economic marginalization of the majority of Muslims, including the communities in Uttar Pradesh, the birthplace of Deoband, is well documented.12 This context of the continuing economic marginalization of a large share of South Asian Muslims, and their limited integration into modern institutions, ensures that the traditional Deobandi discourse remains relevant to this large constituency. Deoband was born at a time when members of the Indian Muslim elite were quitting the madrasah system in favor of Western schools and colleges; its primary constituency has thus from the beginning been the lower-middle-income groups, or the masses. While it has had many affluent patrons, the student body and the scholars themselves come from middle- and lower-income backgrounds. The Deoband’s case also therefore lends support to Charles Taylor’s assertion that economic modernization is an important prerequisite for change in popular social imaginaries which carve the way to the secularization of society.13 Finally, the case of Deoband also helps to illustrate how in understanding the actual practices endorsed by a given scholarly tradition it is important to reach beyond the analysis of its textual debates; ethnographic studies show how the religious advice that scholars dispense in practice is in reality often more relaxed than the texts. Arguing for a reformist position in interpreting traditional texts carries the burden of changing tradition in a way that verbal reasoning does not. John Bowen nicely brings out this tension in his study on

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how imāms in France help ordinary Muslims to reconcile the tension between their faith and the reality of the society in which they live.14 He refers to this as undertaking an anthropology of public reasoning. This co-existence of textual rigidity with flexibility in practice is again important to understanding how Deobandi commitment to preserving a specific form of taqlīd of Ḥanafī madhhab can prevail in modern times.

The Deobandi Madrasah Landscape The Darul Uloom Deoband, the parent institution founded in 1867 in Saharanpur, India, to date remains an active platform of Islamic scholarly learning. The institution also maintains a popular Dār al-Iftā’ service, which issues fatwās.15 Contemporary scholarly or policy references to Deobandi madrasahs, however, rarely refer directly to it. Reliant from the very beginning on public donations (large and small), as opposed to a waqf endowment or state funding, the parent madrasah in Saharanpur soon gave way to a network of autonomous, independently run madrasahs established by graduating students.16 The list of influential Deobandi madrasahs in South Asia that shape the Deobandi discourse is thus long; each one is entirely independent and may take forward its teaching and scholarship as it sees fit. Few, however, choose to deviate from the established consensus on a specifically Deobandi taqlīd of the Ḥanafī madhhab (see next chapter). While the Deobandi tradition had begun to expand across the Indian subcontinent during the colonial period, it was the partition of the sub-continent that actually laid the foundation of a strong Deobandi madrasah network in the regions that became part of Pakistan. At the time of the partition, Pakistan had few prominent Deobandi madrasahs. This triggered a conscious migration from within the leading families of Deobandi ‘ulamā’ in Uttar Pradesh to fill the perceived gaps in the Islamic education sphere that this newly created Muslim homeland was expected to face. The Deobandi scholars who migrated to Pakistan, especially to the big cities of Lahore and Karachi, ended up laying the foundation of major Deobandi establishments that were to produce prominent Deobandi ‘ulamā’ in the second half of the twentieth century. Jamia Ashrafia, the most eminent Deobandi madrasah in Lahore, was founded in 1947 (a month after the creation of Pakistan) by Mufti Muhammad Hassan, who had migrated from India with an explicit intent to open a madrasah.17 In Karachi, the alliance forged between migrating Deobandi scholars and the big industrialists (many from the Memon community) in turn laid the foundation of a series of highly prestigious Deobandi madrasahs, making Karachi the hub of Deobandi scholarship in Pakistan.18 Prior to September 11, the leading Deobandi madrasahs, especially the leading madrasahs in Karachi and Jamia Ashrafia in Lahore, also received many Muslim students from overseas (especially from the U.S.A. and the U.K., while the latter also exerted a strong appeal among Norwegians of

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Pakistani origin). These madrasahs also made special provisions for senior students from leading Deobandi madrasahs in Bangladesh to pursue higher studies.19 The Deobandi ‘ulamā’ in Pakistan were also the first to establish Wafaq-ul-Madaris al-Arabia, the umbrella organization of Deobandi madrasahs, founded in 1957. This platform facilitates internal coordination among Deobandi madrasahs and defends their turf against the state. It achieved the first by developing a fixed curriculum for Deobandi madrasahs and introducing degree examinations at both bachelor and master’s level. This meant that students of Deobandi madrasahs could earn Wafaqrecognized degrees, and it thus created an internal market economy within madrasahs. These degrees could help students move across madrasahs and secure jobs as teachers and imāms. Further, the Wafaq successfully lobbied the state to officially recognize its master’s degree and grant it equivalence to the master’s in Islamic Studies issued by state universities. This was a major achievement, as it made the madrasah graduates eligible for formal-sector employment and for government jobs, such as teaching positions in government schools. This degree also makes students eligible to pursue a Ph.D. in Islamic Studies at a government university. While owing its origin to the migrating scholars from India, the strong Deobandi madrasah network in Pakistan today rarely makes any public show of deference to the parent madrasah in India.20 The tense relationship between India and Pakistan, which severely restricts communication and travel between citizens of the two countries, has contributed to the consolidation of an entirely independent Deobandi madrasah hierarchy in Pakistan. Leading Deobandi ‘ulamā’ in Pakistan, such as Taqi Usmani, whose work is analyzed in some detail in Chapter 9, see themselves as the leading luminaries of Deobandi tradition in contemporary times. In Bangladesh, the Deobandi madrasah network remains equally influential; a traditional madrasah, what in Bangladesh is commonly referred to as a Qaumi madrasah, is most often of Deobandi origin.21 The leading Qaumi madrasahs in Bangladesh, which are concentrated primarily in the Chittagong area, mainly belong to the Deobandi tradition or one of the reformist madrasahs in the Deobandi tradition, Nadwatul Ulama.22 Al-Jamiatul Ahlia Darul Ulum Moinul Islam (popularly known as Hathazari) and al-Jamiah al-Islamiyyah, Patiya, the two most influential Qaumi madrasahs in Bangladesh, belong to the Deoband tradition. The Deobandi ‘ulamā’ in Bangladesh, while highly influential within the country, have lagged behind their Pakistani counterparts in terms of gaining a global standing, partly because of their reliance on Bengali. This restricts the reach of their scholarship and limits their own access to the work of prominent early Deobandi scholars, who mainly wrote in Urdu. The struggle to preserve Urdu as the medium of instruction in the East Pakistani madrasahs faced a decisive defeat after the creation of Bangladesh: the focus on establishing the supremacy of the Bangla language during the liberation struggle made Urdu entirely irrelevant.23 Even the most prestigious Deobandi madrasah in Bangladesh, namely Hathazari, had to reduce the status of Urdu to that of

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an additional language, instead of being the medium of instruction. It is thus understandable why leading Deobandi madrasahs in Bangladesh continued to send their brightest students to Karachi until September 11, 2001. The security checks put in place by the governments on both sides, subsequent to that, have restricted such opportunities for Bangladeshi students to study at leading Deobandi madrasahs in Karachi. After East Pakistan became the independent state of Bangladesh, a number of umbrella organizations of Deobandi madrasahs evolved there on the model of Wafaq ul Madaris al-Arabia in Pakistan. While effective in advancing many objectives similar to those of its counterpart in Pakistan, these platforms have failed to secure official recognition for its master’s degree. Further, in Bangladesh the madrasah landscape is more complex than in Pakistan. In addition to this traditional system, Bangladesh also has a strong network of ‘ālīyah madrasahs, which was introduced in 1979 under the state-run Bangladesh Madrasah Education Board. These ‘ālīyah madrasahs receive state funds and follow the formal government primary- and secondary-school curricula, but with a higher ratio of Islamic subjects than is taught in the Qaumi madrasahs. These two madrasah systems, which work in parallel and have no formal links, are estimated to be equally large in scale: it is estimated that there are close to 11,000 madrasahs of each type. When it comes to commanding religious authority, the Qaumi madrasahs lead the show, however.24 It is the students from Qaumi madrasahs who are trained to take up jobs in the religious sphere: they become the imāms at local mosques, teach Qur’ān to the neighbourhood children, and conduct religious rituals at times of birth, marriage, and death. The ‘ālīyah madrasah students, on the other hand, aim for jobs in the regular market. The children attending ‘ālīyah madrasahs would have gone to normal schools as opposed to a Qaumi madrasah but end up choosing ‘ālīyah madrasahs to ensure slightly more rigorous religious and moral training than that received in state schools.25 The mixed curriculum followed in ‘ālīyah madrasahs makes it difficult for its students to convince the community of their ability to interpret complex Islamic texts. Thus, despite the growth of a state-supported ‘ālīyah madrasah system in Bangladesh, Islamic authority remains largely in the hands of the Deobandi madrasahs. In India, both Darul Uloom Deoband and Nadwatul Ulama continue to have a strong following. The parent madrasah did suffer some loss of credibility in the 1980s, as it experienced internal frictions between the families of the founding scholars. These tensions culminated in the family of Maulana Muhammad Qasim Nanautavi (the founder of Deoband) leaving the parent madrasah to open an alternative platform, al-Jamia al-Islamiyya Darul Uloom Waqf Deoband.26 The latter sustains a large following of its own, even though when it comes to official recognition the degrees issued by the parent madrasah of course carry more weight. As in Pakistan and Bangladesh, the Deobandi madrasah network in India has spread across different parts of the country, especially the states with a higher ratio of Muslims in their population. Estimates of the total number of madrasahs in India vary from 20,000 to 40,000

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and the majority are Deobandi.27 In the case of India there is also a great deal of inter-state variation in the overall madrasah landscape, as many states with a large Muslim population, such as Bengal and Bihar, have a long history of running government madrasah boards that support reformed madrasahs along the lines described for ‘ālīyah madrasahs in Bangladesh.28 Deobandi ‘ulamā’ in India have also been involved in many other platforms, including the political arena. The Jamaat-i-Ulama Hindi is an influential Muslim political party in India run by scholars belonging to Deoband. Both Darul Uloom Deoband and Nadwatul Ulama also maintain Dār al-Iftā’, which routinely issue fatwās in response to questions from their communities; these fatwās are also made available on their institutional website. They are also involved in platforms aimed at generating cross-madrasah discourse in India: the Fiqh Academy of India, which hosts Islamic lectures, seminars, training programmes, and research on Islamic fiqh, is largely dominated by Deobandi scholars.29 It also makes most of its publications available online. Further, the Deobandi madrasah network has expanded successfully in many other countries, including the U.K. and the U.S.A., with a strong South Asian Muslim diaspora. This conservative South Asian scholarly tradition has also been pragmatic about the use of modern technology to advance its message; while some of its ‘ulamā’ classify watching television as harām, others take part in television shows to give sermons, answer questions on religious matters, or give a series of lectures on selected themes during Ramadan. Apart from a move toward active use of modern media, including the Internet, to spread its message and increase its followers, some other common developments in the Deobandi tradition are discernible across the three contexts. One such trend is the emergence and expansion of the female madrasahs across the three countries. In Pakistan, the female madrasahs (including those belonging to Deoband) now constitute close to 20 percent of the total madrasah population; my fieldwork in the other two countries indicates a similar ratio.30 These similar trends across the three contexts have largely evolved as a response to local realities and the challenges and opportunities created by the changing context; they are not the results of a coordinated response of senior Deobandi ‘ulamā’ from the three countries. I have found little evidence of active contacts among Deobandi scholars across the three country contexts. The visa difficulties between Pakistan and India from inception have made such exchanges difficult. Any connections and contacts have further weakened since September 11, when Deobandi madrasahs came under the strict scrutiny of the national governments, as well as becoming targets of the U.S.-led “war on terror”.31 In Pakistan and Bangladesh, Deobandi madrasahs have been in particular accused of recruiting jihadis for al-Qaida and the Taliban. My own visits to Islamic bookstores in the respective countries show the limited availability of recent work from scholars in the other two countries. These independent trajectories should thus have allowed for pluralistic debates to evolve from within these three different and independent Deobandi madrasah hierarchies that have evolved in post-partition South Asia. Yet, as we will see

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in Chapter 9, a shared level of rigidity in interpretation is visible in the work of prominent Deobandi scholars and institutions across the three countries. Are then the Muslim subjectivities in South Asia an exception?

Muslim Subjectivities in Transition Muslim sensibilities in South Asia have been in transition, as has been the case in the rest of the Muslim world. Across the three countries, global consumer culture has made strong inroads. Despite growing concerns about Islamic radicalization in Pakistan and Bangladesh since September 11, there has been a widespread trend toward Western cultural norms, mass consumerism, and more equal relations between men and women. The extended-family system is increasingly giving way to nuclear-family households. Co-educational institutions are on the rise, more women are entering tertiary education, and women’s participation is on the increase in both formal and informal economic activities.32 Hollywood and Bollywood movies and American and Indian soap operas widely accessible through cable TV networks are among the most popular and affordable modes of family entertainment. The change in public attitudes to the celebration of Valentine’s Day, which until a few years ago was seen as a foreign concept and in conflict with Muslim values, is but one of many everyday examples that speak volumes about the changing sensibilities of the public.33 Now on Valentine’s Day, newspapers publish special advertisements, restaurants offer special romantic deals for couples, and TV channels start to air special Valentine shows a few days prior to February 14. In Pakistan, a country that has been in the global spotlight for its alleged support for Islamic militancy, the reality on the ground speaks differently. The privatization of media channels in the past decade has led to the high visibility of women in the media. Lifestyle choices that until a few years ago were seen as taboo are becoming accepted norms today; divorce rates among the younger generation are on the rise. More importantly, in many cases divorced women are able to remarry before their ex-husbands, thus demonstrating a major change in attitudes, given that in the past the stigma of divorce severely restricted a woman’s prospects of a good second marriage. People’s attitudes toward political authority are also changing. The Naya Pakistan (New Pakistan) movement, led by Imran Khan’s Teerek-i-Insaaf party, which has brought millions of young Pakistanis out on the streets, has echoed demands for popular representation similar to those heard in Tahrir Square. As in the case of Egypt, young women took an active part in the Tehreek-i-Insaaf dharnas (sit-ins) not just in the major cities but even in the more conservative cities in central and southern Punjab, Sargodha, and Multan, respectively. Constitutional assemblies at the same time are under no compulsion to consult religious scholars when it comes to law making. In 2014, the Sindh Assembly increased the minimum age of marriage to 18 years, under the influence of Western-funded non-governmental organizations (NGOs), without

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consultation with religious scholars.34 Similarly, in 2003 the National Assembly led by General Musharraf approved a 17 percent parliamentary quota for women in order to establish his liberal credentials in the eyes of his Western backers, without invoking any debate on the role of women in leadership positions in Islam. As Matthew Nelson has effectively illustrated, despite the constitutional commitment to Islam as the law of the land, the debate about who is to exercise the right to interpret Islam has been highly contested, with the power remaining largely in the hands of the secular parliament.35 Results from a survey aimed at measuring attitudes and aspirations among girls in Pakistani madrasahs compared with those in colleges also show changing attitudes, with girls in both institutions recording a strong desire to work and earn independent income.36 Girls from rural areas with limited access to the glamor of modern city life aspired to relatively less material comfort, but 90 percent wanted a job and financial independence. In India, similar shifts in Muslim subjectivities are visible among the upper-middle-income classes. In recent years, this has had a visible influence on increased political engagement by Indian Muslims, as compared with the inward turn that Muslims historically developed during the colonial period and that persisted in the immediate post-colonial context. Irfan Ahmad’s study of Jamaat-i-Islami convincingly illustrates the shift in Jamaat’s thinking in recent years whereby it has taken a complete U-turn on its position on secularism: formerly a staunch critic of secularism, the party today is among the biggest defenders of Indian secularism, as it recognizes that secularism is the best political order for preserving the interests of Indian Muslims, given their minority status.37 The rise of the Popular Front, another Islamic political movement emerging from South India, similarly provides increased evidence of confidence among upper-middle-income Muslims to assert their political and legal rights.38 What is interesting to note is that for these upwardly mobile middle-class Indian Muslims, the ‘ulamā’ are becoming less relevant. Most Muslims are seeking their Islamic knowledge from more mixed sources, including many Middle East-based Islamic channels.39 There is thus a clear economically determined divide between the popular sensibilities of Indian Muslims: those who are upwardly mobile are either absorbing strong Western cultural influences or are increasingly adopting Middle Eastern Islamic practices,40 while those adhering to Deoband and the other South Asia madrasah networks are normally from lower-income backgrounds and thereby are less exposed to opportunities leading to alternative lifestyles. Of the three countries, it is Bangladesh where some of the social indicators have shown the most dramatic improvements, especially those linked to female empowerment. Today, more women are active in the economy, and fertility rates have visibly declined.41 Access to education has also dramatically improved. In Bangladesh, women’s rights groups are very proactive, with the result that some of the most radical calls for reform of the sharī’ah on womenrelated issues have come from Bangladesh. These women’s rights groups have

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not restricted themselves to challenging the contentious ḥudūd punishments that have attracted the wrath of feminists in many Muslim countries (Pakistan included), but are actually asking for more fundamental change, to give women the right to equal inheritance.42 Bangladesh has in recent years been seeing vocal displays of secular sentiments by some members of the public, exemplified best by atheist bloggers.43 The support from elements of the public for the International War Crimes Tribunal, led by the Bangladesh Awami League, which has resulted in death verdicts for many Jamaat-i-Islami leaders (the main Islamic political party in Bangladesh), is another example of increasingly secular sensibilities.44 The Shahbag protests, which became a focus of media attention in 2013, were a call by secular-minded Bangladeshis to demand tougher punishments for Jamaat-i-Islami leaders.45 These influential secular voices that have argued both for restricting the role of religion in politics and for suppressing religious sentiment in society in general have provoked a strong reaction from religious groups. The gory killings of some of the self-proclaimed atheist bloggers have also shocked the country.46 Yet their visibility in the Bangladeshi political and social landscape proves that assuming Muslim societies of today to be deeply religious is erroneous. Such assertions simplify a highly contested arena of debate as to what it means to be Muslim in the modern world; it also illustrates the challenge posed to traditional religious authority to demonstrate its relevance in modern times. Among Muslims there is still indeed a strong tendency to observe ritualistic practices; however, to assume that religion plays the key role in shaping people’s actions in everyday life would be misguided. Not only is there a growing secular modernist core within these societies, some of whose adherents openly declare themselves as secular or atheists, but more importantly those who claim to be believing Muslims rarely abide fully by an orthodox reading of Islamic ethical and moral guidelines. The question then is: in this context of changing sensibilities, what is allowing Deobandi scholars and institutions to apply such a rigid attitude to interpretation of the texts that many of their fatwās prove impractical for anyone who wants to be part of modern society? (See the discussion of rulings on women’s education in mixed-sex settings in Chapter 9.) The next section will unpack the question by looking at the two main reasons: one, the lack of pressure on Deobandi ‘ulamā’ to be reasonable, due to their complete independence from the state; two, the fact that pockets of South Asian Muslims remain in extreme poverty and deprivation, due to the large disjuncture between the promised development plans of the state and the reality on the ground. At the same time some credit, however, is due to the methodological rigor of Deobandi scholarship, especially concerning study of ḥadīth, which convinces especially the culturally conservative among the affluent classes of its authenticity. It is this that ultimately enables it to retain a visible number of patrons from within affluent South Asian communities.

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The relationship between the state and the Islamic scholarly platforms in South Asia in the post-colonial period has differed from the one experienced in the Middle East and the Gulf: the post-colonial states in South Asia never tried to regulate religious authority as completely as did most of the Middle Eastern states (including Turkey) and the Gulf states. South Asian regimes mainly tried to patronize and co-opt Islamic scholarly platforms at politically sensitive moments to boost their political authority; they rarely made systematic attempts to bring religious establishments under their control.47 The reasons underlying this historic difference are varied: the different degrees of threat posed by religious establishments to political authority, or the differing nature or duration of colonial rule, are two possible hypotheses. Whatever the reason for this difference, in reality this absence of state ambition to directly control Islamic scholarly platforms (either by nationalizing them, as in the case of al-Azhar, or creating entirely new structures, as in the case of Diyanet) has had a direct bearing on perpetuating the inflexibility that we see in Deobandi scholarship. On the up side, the absence of state-led attempts to directly control Islamic scholarly platforms has allowed the Deobandi madrasahs and ‘ulamā’ to enjoy greater autonomy and safeguard their popular legitimacy: independence of the scholar from political authority, as has been examined in some detail in the introduction to this volume, greatly helps to boost the scholar’s moral legitimacy. Protected from direct dependence on the state, Deobandi madrasahs have not had to endorse contentious state policies that would compromise their moral authority. Deobandi madrasahs to date have relied on independent sources of funding, a policy that Qasim Nanautavi, the founding father of Deoband, defended for the same reason from the very beginning.48 From its very foundation, for Deoband, both small and large independent patrons were thus very important.49 This community-based funding model has helped to embed the Deobandi madrasah network within the community, but it has also meant that the religious sphere in South Asia has been left largely unregulated and unsupported by the state. The state across the three countries has from time to time tried to create pressure on the madrasahs to reform or modernize their educational curricula, as well as their teaching methods; however, these reforms have not been systematically designed, funded, or enforced.50 In Pakistan, a state-led discourse on madrasah reforms started as early as 1960s on the initiative of General Ayub Khan, who was President of the country from 1950 to 1962, but to date no proper madrasah-reform programme has been successfully implemented.51 In India, certain states have been able to pursue madrasah-modernization plans through state madrasah boards; West Bengal and Bihar are two prominent examples. The same has been the case in Bangladesh, where a stateled madrasah board manages more than 11,000 reformed madrasahs. Under these programmes, the states have tried to provide salaries for teachers who

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can teach modern subjects in madrasahs. In the case of India, these salaries are restricted to teachers teaching modern subjects, while in Bangladesh the state covers the salaries of the Islamic subject teachers also.52 Even in those Indian states and in Bangladesh where the state has invested in establishing reformed madrasahs, such efforts have not displaced the authority of the traditional ‘ulamā’. The state for its part has tried to secularize the madrasah curriculum, instead of genuinely trying to develop a rigorous intellectual discourse that could bridge the gap between Islamic fiqh and modern realities. The result is that the Islamic-studies curriculum of these state-supported madrasahs has been so diluted that these institutions come to compete with modern schools rather than with traditional madrasahs.53 Consequently, it is actually those parents who want to combine Islamic and modern education who end up choosing these reformed madrasahs over modern schools, as opposed to parents who plan to send their children to traditional madrasahs.54 The religious authority remains intact in both these countries, in the hands of traditionally trained ‘ulamā’. This lack of state investment in the traditional madrasah system, which continues to train the South Asian Islamic scholarly elite, means that the madrasahs and the Islamic scholars are under limited pressure to respond to the demands of modern times. Historically, we know that modern sciences flourished in Muslim societies best when the political authority was strong and economically prosperous. George Saliba shows how sciences thrived under Muslim political authority because rulers provided incentives to their ministers to find optimal answers to contemporary socio-economic challenges, and promote technological innovation that could give their society an edge over its rivals.55 Failure to put in place a system where the state provides incentives for religious leaders to provide answers to modern needs is one of the factors that explain why Deobandi scholars continue to be inward-looking. Whether it is the subject of Muslim women’s role in changed social contexts, or democracy as a legitimate political framework, or the validity of jihad, Deobandi ‘ulamā’ are under little pressure to give pragmatic answers, because they are not part of the state system. This has led to the focus on the teaching of ‘ibādāt (ritual practices) among the Deobandi ‘ulamā’ and a relative failure to provide viable answers to questions faced by modern Muslims in the area of mu’āmalāt (social transactions). This focus on one and neglect of the other is also reflected in the kinds of question on which leading Deobandi ‘ulamā’ and madrasahs are asked to provide fatwās: a review of Dār al-Iftā’ websites run by Darul Uloom Deoband and Nadwatul Ulama illustrates how most questions focus on issues of ‘ibādāt and ‘aqīdah as opposed to economic and political realities. The fact that some degree of pressure from state or society can compel ‘ulamā’ to show greater flexibility in their original positions is evident in the evolution of their position on suicide bombings. Initially, suicide bombings were defended with reference to Palestine and Afghanistan. However, after General Musharraf signed up to support the U.S. “war on terror” and in reaction militants made Pakistan’s own cities increasing targets of suicide bombing,

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Deobandi ‘ulamā’ came under pressure both from the state and from society to condemn suicide bombing. In this context in 2010, the Wafaq ul Madaris al-Arabia issued a statement signed by leading Deobandi ‘ulamā’, condemning as harām the suicide bombing of Pakistani targets. Similarly, in the case of India, while we see that Darul Uloom Deoband and Nadwatul Ulama assume very conservative positions on women’s role outside the bounds of the home (advising them to forego educational and professional opportunities if that involves having to engage with mixed-sex settings), both endorse democracy as a legitimate mode of political representation, even when many prominent dār al-‘ulūms in the U.K. condemn democracy as an unIslamic model of governance and encourage their followers to refrain from participating in British elections.56 This adjustment is reflective of the pragmatism of the Indian Deobandis, who, like the rest of the Muslim political elites in India, have come to defend secularism and democracy because they recognize that for a religious minority living under the pressure of a Hindu majority, Muslim interests are best preserved in a secular democratic legal framework. Finally, we also find evidence of flexibility and pragmatism in the work of individual scholars in response to specific incentives. Taqi Usmai, who (as we shall see in Chapter 9) is highly conservative in his reading of the texts and argues against widespread use of ijtihād, actually comes across as a keen reformer in the matter of Islamic banking—an area of scholarly inquiry where he is an adviser on the panels of many Islamic banks.

An Economic Rationale Disengagement from the state, or lack of direct links with modern societal and economic institutions, thus helps to maintain the textual rigidity that in Chapter 9 we will see preserved in the Deobandi tradition. The other reason why disengagement from the state supports rigidity of thought is that it deprives these scholarly platforms of any financial resources from public funds. Deobandi madrasahs across South Asia remain financially frugal and thereby their students have limited exposure to modern influences or opportunities that otherwise are commonplace for their peers from upper-middle-income backgrounds. Contrary to popular assertions, the majority of the children in madrasahs are not destitute or orphans;57 most, however, come from lowermiddle-income families and rural areas and thereby represent the segments of society that are least integrated into the modern economy and society. Since the next generation of Deobandi scholars comes from within these ranks, rather than from the more affluent and modern sections of society, this means that the scholars as well as the students are the least directly affected by the Western cultural influences that are otherwise quite widespread in those very societies. Being boarding facilities, Deobandi madrasahs effectively limit students’ access to television and cable networks, thus blocking their access to one of the most influential sources of change in cultural sensibilities.

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The economic dimension of the madrasahs network is key to understanding Deobandi textual rigidity. The socio-economic profile of an ordinary Deobandi ‘ālim is thus in strong opposition to the profile of professors staffing the Turkish Theology departments, or the materially comfortable Saudi scholars (especially the descendants of Ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhāb) who are part of one of the world’s richest states, and the mixed backgrounds of the al-Azhari ‘ulamā’, which means that although many of them come from the more traditional and rural sections of society, the senior posts are in the hands of scholars such as the Shaykh al-Azhar, who have received education at the Sorbonne. This economically marginalized background of many Deobandi madrasah students and some of their teachers in turn limits their ability to study modern sciences, knowledge of which is essential if the ‘ulamā’ are to try to bridge the gap between the Islamic moral and legal tradition and modern realities. While many leading madrasahs encourage and support their students to study privately for bachelor degrees so that they can enter a modern university if wished, there is no explicit focus in the curriculum on promoting modern subjects. It is also individuals from this very socio-economic background who often seek fatwās from Deobandi scholars; many are from rural settings. The families of reputed Deobandi ‘ulamā’ and some of the large Deobandi madrasahs such as those in Karachi (including one led by Taqi Usmai’s family) do of course acquire affluence over time, but that does not significantly change the background of the students and teachers to whom they cater.58

Heightened Insecurity Another factor that is helping to preserve Deobandi rigidity, especially post2001, is the negative press that the religious leaders have received since September 11. Since many Taliban leaders were educated in Deobandi madrasahs operating in the tribal belt of Pakistan or the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, the U.S. “war on terror” exerted pressure on the Pakistani state to better regulate the madrasahs and also reform their curriculum. The U.S.-funded madrasah-reform programme launched by General Musharraf’s government, however, did not go far in winning the participation of madrasahs, due to a major deficit of trust.59 A keen ally of the U.S. “war on terror” in Pakistan, General Musharraf publicly blamed madrasahs for harboring militancy and argued for “enlightened moderation,” rather similar in conception to al-Sisi’s “religious revolution” (see Chapter 1). The government also tried to enforce a compulsory madrasah-registration drive during this period, which bred further distrust between the two sides: the madrasahs were, in particular, reluctant to reveal their sources of funding. The overall secular outlook of General Musharraf’s regime, his alliance with the U.S.A., and the launching of military operations by the Pakistani state in the tribal belts as part of the war on terror led to a strong sense of resentment among the religious community; the Pakistani state, which during the

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1980s had actively worked to recruit mujahidīns to fight in Afghanistan, had taken a complete U-turn and was now not to be trusted. The distrust crystalized especially after 2007, when the military carried out a lethal operation to crush a movement for the imposition of sharī’ah, led by the Red Mosque ‘ulamā’—former allies of the state in supporting jihad in Afghanistan. The military operation resulted in the deaths of more than 100 students from the two madrasahs linked to the Red Mosque, and the complete destruction of its building.60 This turning of government against its old allies left a bitter taste within the madrasah community. In India, distrust between the state and the Muslim-minority population remains equally potent. The creation of Pakistan put the loyalty of Indian Muslims to India permanently into question.61 Statistics on Muslims’ socioeconomic status and educational levels show them lagging behind even the scheduled-caste Hindus.62 Further, Muslims in certain neighborhoods remain vulnerable to communal violence, with little guarantee of protection from the police.63 This context has created a psyche of fear and made Muslims distrust the state.64 While in recent decades the opening up of the Indian economy, combined with increased labor migration to the Gulf countries, has helped to improve the economic status of some, the majority of Indian Muslims still work in the informal sector, earning low wages and living in socio-economically marginalized neighborhoods.65 The rise of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the Hindu right party, in the 2013 Indian elections has created further pressures on the Muslims: in recent high-profile incidents, Muslims have been severely beaten (in one case leading to death) for allegedly slaughtering a cow (an animal that Hindus hold holy).66 Comments by some of the leading Muslim Bollywood actors criticizing the rising intolerance in India have led to their facing hate campaigns from Hinduvata groups.67 This growing influence of the Hindu right in India is notable for its potential impact on the confidence of Muslims from upper-middle-income backgrounds, who had begun in recent years to engage more actively in Indian electoral politics.68 In Bangladesh, similarly, the Islamic scholarly and political platforms are faced with severe insecurity. The death penalties imposed on many Jamaati-Islami leaders by the International Crimes Tribunal set up by the Awami League in 2009 have created a dangerous wedge in society between those who claim to be secular and others who harbor strong religious sensibilities. The execution of respected Jamaat-i-Islami leaders, combined with public protests led by secular segments of society asking the government to further check religious influences in the public sphere, has provoked unprecedented violence—most visible in brutal killings of self-proclaimed atheist bloggers—by those who view Islam to be under threat.69 In 2012, the Deobandi madrasahs in Bangladesh launched the Hafazet-i-Islam movement, which brought large numbers of madrasah students, along with Islamists from other platforms, on to the streets to protest against the increasing secularization of society.70 It was also a response to the Shahbag movement, whose self-proclaimed secular leaders had demanded increased penalties for the Jamaat-i-Islamic leadership. The Hafazet-i-Islam leadership constituted of the ‘ulamā’ from leading Deobandi

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madrasahs in Bangladesh, such as Hathazari. Concerned that Islam in Bangladesh was under attack, the movement developed a thirteen-point agenda, including demands such as restoring the phrase “Complete faith and trust in the Almighty Allah” in the constitution, asking the state to ban the activities of the atheist bloggers, and death punishment for those who defame Islam. Across the three countries, post-2001 the sense of distrust between state and the madrasahs has thus heightened. The fear that Islam is under attack encourages textual rigidity for the very same reasons that Deoband developed an inward-looking perspective in the first place: a context of rapid change or political uncertainty or hostility makes preservation of the established religious consensus a safer bet; experimentation in such a context can risk the very survival of the tradition. Textual Positions versus Everyday Practice Last but not least, in interpreting the Deobandi textual rigidity, it is equally important to highlight an aspect of the exercise of religious authority that John Bowen captures effectively in his book, Can Islam Be French? Elaborating on the fact that many French public figures criticize some Muslims for harboring values incompatible with French citizenship, even if these Muslims “neither break laws nor contravene norms of public behaviour,”71 Bowen raises the question: can Islam become a generally accepted part of the French social landscape? In order to answer this question, he decides to focus on “scholars and educators and public figures, who are trying to configure a set of teachings and norms and institutions that will anchor Islam in France, for now but especially for the next generation, and without renouncing the tradition of Islam.” In order to understand this, Bowen asks, what forms of Islamic ideas and institutions will enable those Muslims wishing to practice their religion to do so fully and freely in France? To answer this question, he proposes a method that he calls “anthropology of public reasoning.” In his own words: The “anthropology” parts of that phrase mean that I look whenever possible at ongoing interactions in social life: at how a teacher reasons or an imām persuades or a city official justifies his actions. I bring in written texts when these enter into social life, when they are used in teaching and read widely, but I begin from social interactions in mosques, schools, public meetings, and Internet exchanges. The “public reasoning” part means that I highlight the ways in which people deliberate and debate in these public settings. It is in these practices of deliberation—justifying one’s belief and seeking areas of agreement—rather than in a static notion of an achieved consensus that I find hope for pluralistic forms of civic interaction.72

In the same vein, understanding why a conservative tradition such as Deoband continues to attract large number of followers requires an appreciation of the fact that scholars are often more flexible in their reasoning when giving oneto-one verbal advice to a follower than they are in their written work. This

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difference exists because in real-life interactions the scholars realize the importance of providing a solution that is viable for the person asking the question. This one-to-one interaction leads to a level of flexibility in interpretation that is often not reflected in the written texts: texts become official representations of one’s individual or institutional position in a way that verbal statements do not. Written work confers greater responsibility; one-to-one interactions, on the other hand, are flexible, as they often involve covert advice. This difference between the textual rigidity of Deobandi scholarship and the relative flexibility that ‘ulamā’ demonstrate when consulted personally has been visible even in my own interactions with Deobandi ‘ulamā’ and students over the years: in all three countries, Deobandi ‘ulamā’ agreed to give me interviews in unsegregated settings; most leading Deobandi ‘ulamā’ appear on TV, even though many of them consider it harām; and Jamia Hafsa, the female madrasah attached to the Red Mosque, allowed women to take part in armed resistance even though prior to the resistance, like other Deobandi madrasahs, it encouraged women to be docile in their roles as mothers, wives, and sisters.

Conclusion In sum, as mapped for the other contexts under study, South Asian Muslim communities record a major shift in sensibilities in favor of Western cultural norms. Deoband, however, is less responsive to these changes in the external environment, primarily because its primary constituencies (students as well as followers) come from economically less affluent segments of society that are least integrated into the modern economic order and, therefore, are least exposed to the mass consumer culture that is changing social sensibilities and moral values among the more affluent sections of society. Thus, the case of Deoband does lend support to Charles Taylor’s assertion that economic modernization and development is an important prelude to the shifts in social imaginaries that propel processes of secularization.73 This link is also upheld when we compare the differences in the socio-economic profile of Muslim diaspora communities in the U.K. (where Deoband remains very influential) with those in the U.S.A. that are nurturing platforms, such as Zaytuna College, which are very dynamic (see Volume 2). The communities nurturing the Deoband madrasahs in the U.K. are economically much more marginalized. The Deobandi case also shows how enforced state-led modernization programmes can be detrimental to the initiation of progressive internal reform within religious thought, because externally hostile conditions make religious establishments further averse to experimentation. Post-September 11, negative publicity concerning the madrasahs, and the pressure enforced on them both by their own governments and by Western governments partnering in the “war on terror”, have made the madrasah network in South Asia even less willing to engage with the state: any previous signs of trust have been completely eroded.

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Finally, the case of Deoband also shows that while state control over a religious authority poses serious challenges to popular legitimacy (as mapped in the cases of the other three institutions under study), complete disengagement from the state poses its own challenges: it takes away all pressure from the religious classes to respond to real-life challenges and provide answers that respect tradition but are viable and reasonable, given the needs of modern times. The unwillingness of the South Asian states to make any financial commitment to nurturing Islamic scholarly platforms, thereby leaving the production of Islamic knowledge entirely in private hands, has thus posed special challenges of its own. The next chapter outlines how the Deobandi tradition developed commitment to a specific reading of taqlīd of Ḥanafī madhhab. The subsequent chapter presents examples from the writings of Deobandi scholars as well as from fatwās issued by leading Deobandi madrasahs illustrative of their reluctance to change.

Notes 1. Masooda Bano, The Rational Believer: Choices and Decisions in the Madrasas of Pakistan (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2012). 2. Muzaffar Alam and Sanjay Subrahmanyam, eds, The Mughal State, 1526–1750 (New Delhi–Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000); Amit Bein, Ottoman Ulema, Turkish Republic: Agents of Change and Guardians of Tradition (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2011). 3. Bano, Rational Believer. 4. Barbara D. Metcalf, Islamic Revival in British India: Deoband, 1860–1900 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2014). See also Chapter 8 in this volume. 5. Ibid. 6. Francis Robinson, “Ottomans–Safavids–Mughals: Shared Knowledge and Connective Systems,” Journal of Islamic Studies 8 (1997), 151–84. For a broader theoretical discussion on the link between institutional stability and innovation see Josiah Ober, Democracy and Knowledge: Innovation and Learning in Classical Athens (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2008). 7. Arjun Appadurai, Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions in Globalization (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1996). 8. Mahbub ul Haq Human Development Centre (MHHDC), Human Development in South Asia 2015—The Economy and the People (Lahore: MHHDC, 2015). 9. MHHDC, A Ten-Year Review: Human Development in South Asia 2007 (Karachi– Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009). 10. Until ten years ago, detective novels in Urdu had a thriving market among highschool children in Pakistan; today, leading bookstores in major cities do not stock such titles. This change in reading habits of the young (which was confirmed during my visits to these bookstores) was brought to my attention by young parents as an example of the increased Westernization of the curriculum in private schools in Pakistan compared to when they were in school.

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11. For a detailed analysis of this issue in the case of India, see Barbara Harriss-White, India Working: Essays on Society and Economy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003). 12. Jamal Kidwai, “A History Lesson for Muslims (in Uttar Pradesh),” INSAF International South Asia Forum, accessed August 13, 2016, http://www.insafbulletin. net/archives/1889. 13. Charles Taylor, A Secular Age (Cambridge, M.A.: Harvard University Press, 2007). 14. John R. Bowen, Can Islam Be French? Pluralism and Pragmatism in a Secularist State (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2011). 15. The Dār al-Iftā’ website provides translations of fatwās in English; accessed August 13, 2016, http://www.darulifta-deoband.com/terms. 16. Metcalf, Islamic Revival. 17. “Ashrafia Islamic University Lahore,” accessed June 15, 2016, http://www.ashrafia. org.pk/founder.html 18. Bano, Rational Believer. 19. Masooda Bano, “Madrasa Reforms and Islamic Modernism in Bangladesh,” Modern Asian Studies 48 (2014), 911–39. 20. Based on my own fieldwork with Deobandi madrasahs, and visits to book stores show hardly any publications from the other two countries. 21. Some Qaumi madrasahs in Bangladesh belong to Ahl-i- ḥadīth or Barelvi maslak, but compared to Deobandi madrasahs their numbers are small: Bano, “Madrasa Reforms”; Nikhil Puri, “Minds of the Madrasah: Islamic Seminaries, the State, and Contests for Social Control in West Bengal and Bangladesh” (D.Phil. dissertation, University of Oxford, 2014). 22. Darul Uloom Nadwatul Ulama is the most prominent example of attempt at internal reform within the Deoband tradition: accessed August 13, 2014, http:// www.nadwatululama.org/. 23. Bano, “Madrasa Reforms.” 24. Ibid. 25. Ibid. 26. Dietrich Reetz, “Facing the Challenges: Old and New Trends in the Dārul-’Ulūm Deoband after the Split in 1982,” in The Madrasah in Asia: Political Activism and Transnational Linkages, eds Farish A. Noor, Yoginder Sikand, and Martin van Bruinessen (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2009), 71–104; Dietrich Reetz; “The Deoband Universe: What Makes a Transcultural and Transnational Educational Movement of Islam?” Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East 27 (2007), 139–59. 27. Padmaja Nair, “The State and Madrasahs in India,” Religions and Development (RaD) Research Programme Working Paper 15 (University of Birmingham, 2009), accessed August 15, 2016, http://epapers.bham.ac.uk/1567/1/Nair_Madrasahs_ India.pdf. 28. Bano, Rational Believer, Chapter 3. 29. Muhammad Qasim Zaman, The ‘ulamā’ in Contemporary Islam: Custodians of Change (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2010). 30. See Bano, Rational Believer, Chapter 6, for data from Pakistan. 31. Bano, “Madrasa Reforms.” 32. MHHDC, Ten-Year Review. 33. For the Pakistani president’s critique of this trend, see “Pakistan President Condemns St Valentine’s Day,” BBC News, February 13, 2016, accessed August 11, 2016, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-35570606.

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34. Michelle Lowery, “Victory for Girls in Pakistan as Sindh Province Outlaws Child Marriage,” ActionAid U.K., April 29, 2014, accessed August 13, 2016, https:// www.actionaid.org.uk/blog/news/2014/04/29/victory-for-girls-in-pakistan-assindh-province-outlaws-child-marriage. 35. Matthew J. Nelson, “Islamic Law in an Islamic Republic: What Role for Parliament?” paper presented at AALIMS Conference, University of Oxford, May 15–16, 2015, accessed August 15, 2016, http://aalims.org/conferences/aalims-oxford-conferenceon-political-economy-of-islam-and-muslim-societies. 36. Masooda Bano, “Education and Aspirations: Evidence from Islamic and State Schools in Pakistan and Nigeria,” paper presented at 2015 AALIMS Conference, University of Oxford, May 15–16, 2015, accessed August 12, 2016, http://aalims. org/uploads/Bano-Education%2520and%2520Aspiration.pdf. 37. Irfan Ahmad, Islamism and Democracy in India: The Transformation of Jamaate-Islami (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2009). 38. “Popular Front of India: Naya Caravan Naya Hindusthan,” accessed August 13, 2016, http://popularfrontindia.com/. 39. Tabassum Ruhi Khan, Beyond Hybridity and Fundamentalism: Emerging Muslim Identity in Globalized India (New Delhi–Oxford: Oxford University Press India, 2015). 40. Ibid. 41. MHHDC, The Gender Question: Human Development in South Asia 2000 (Karachi–Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000); Anna Ridout and Simon Tisdall, “Women in Bangladesh Are Taking Charge—From Grassroots up to Government,” The Guardian, September 29, 2015, accessed August 15, 2016, https:// www.theguardian.com/global-development/2015/sep/29/bangladesh-women-taking-charge-from-grassroots-to-government. 42. “Protests after Bangladesh Government Propose Equal Inheritance Laws,” MuslimVillage.com, April 6, 2011, accessed August 15, 2016, https://muslimvillage.com/2011/04/06/9626/protests-after-bangladesh-government-proposeequal-inheritance-laws/. 43. “Bangladeshi Bloggers: What We Want the World to Know,” CNN, April 29, 2016, accessed August 13, 2016, http://www.cnn.com/2016/04/28/opinions/bangladeshi-bloggers-opinion/index.html. 44. “Bangladesh War Crimes Trial: Key Accused,” BBC News, May 10, 2016, accessed August 13, 2016, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-20970123. 45. “Shahbag Protests in Dhaka,” Maciej Dakowicz, accessed August 13, 2016, http://www.maciejdakowicz.com/features/shahbag-protests-rally-dhaka-bangladesh-2013/; David Lewis, “The Paradoxes of Bangladesh’s Shahbag Protests,” South Asia @ LSE Blog, March 21, 2013, accessed August 15, 2016, http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/southasia/2013/03/21/the-paradoxes-of-bangladeshsshahbag-protests/. 46. Saad Hammadi and Aisha Gani, “Secular Activist Who Criticised Islamism Killed in Dhaka,” The Guardian, April 7, 2016, accessed August 15, 206, https://www. theguardian.com/world/2016/apr/07/secular-activist-who-criticised-islamismhacked-to-death-in-bangladesh. 47. Masooda Bano, “Co-Producing with FBOs: Lessons from State-Madrasa Engagement in the Middle East and South Asia,” Third World Quarterly 32 (2011), 1,273–89. 48. Metcalf, Islamic Revival. 49. Ibid.

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50. Bano, Rational Believer, Chapter 3. 51. Masooda Bano, “Contesting Ideologies and Struggle for Authority: State-Madrasa Engagement in Pakistan,” Religions and Development (RaD) Research Programme Working Paper 14 (University of Birmingham, 2007). 52. Bano, Rational Believer. 53. Ibid. 54. Ibid.; Bano, “Madrasa Reforms.” 55. George Saliba, George, Islamic Science and the Making of the European Renaissance (Cambridge, M.A.: MIT Press, 2011). 56. Shaykh Shams Ad Duha (Ibrahim College, London), “Voting in Islam,” YouTube, May 23, 2014, accessed August 15, 2016, https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=OKhgpeLEsWs. 57. Bano, Rational Believer, Chapter 5 and Chapter 6. 58. Ibid. 59. Bano, “Contesting Ideologies.” 60. Masooda Bano, “Conclusion: Female Leadership in Mosques: An Evolving Narrative,” in Women, Leadership and Mosques, eds Masooda Bano and Hilary E. Kalmbach (Leiden–Boston: Brill, 2013), 507–34. 61. Khan, Beyond Hybridity. 62. “Sachar Committee Report,” Ministry of Minority Affairs, Government of India, November 3, 2006, accessed August 13, 2016, http://www.minorityaffairs.gov.in/ sachar. 63. Christophe Jaffrelot, “Communal Riots in Gujarat: The State at Risk?” Heidelberg Papers in South Asian and Comparative Politics 17 (University of Heidelberg, 2003), accessed August 15, 2016, http://archiv.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/volltextserver/4127/. 64. Khan, Beyond Hybridity. 65. Harriss-White, India Working; Mohammad Talib, Writing Labour: Stone Quarry Workers in Delhi (Oxford–New York: Oxford University Press India, 2010). 66. “Indian Muslim Accused of Beef Smuggling Beaten to Death,” The Guardian, October 16, 2015, accessed August 13, 2016, https://www.theguardian.com/ world/2015/oct/16/indian-muslim-accused-beef-smuggling-beaten-to-death. 67. “Shah Rukh Khan, Aamir Khan and the Intolerance Debate,” The Asian Age, January 15, 2016, accessed August 13, 2016, http://dailyasianage.com/m/ news/7846/shah-rukh-khan-aamir-khan-and-the--intolerance-debate. 68. Ahmad, Islamism and Democracy. 69. “Bangladeshi Bloggers.” 70. Sabir Mustafa, “Hefazat-e Islam: Islamist Coalition,” BBC News, May 6, 2013, accessed August 13, 2016, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-22424708. 71. Bowen, Can Islam be French?, 5. 72. Ibid., 5–6. 73. Taylor, Secular Age.

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CHAPTER

8

DARUL ULOOM DEOBAND AND SOUTH ASIAN ISLAM Nathan Spannaus

Deobandi Islam is a significant religious movement in South Asia and globally, and it exists both as a network of institutions—Islamic schools—and as a religious orientation. The two cannot be easily separated; Deoband began as a single school devoted to a particular understanding of correct Islamic practice and knowledge, which forms the Deobandi maslak (path), distinct from other Indian Muslim groups. Emerging out of the context of British colonial rule, it is premised on an approach toward Islamic authority and scholarship—with the two inseparably linked—stemming from the Mughal era, but adapted to the colonial, and now post-colonial, environment. In this regard, it reflects a certain conservatism that holds up past forms of the Islamic scholarly tradition as normative, and grounds its authority in its adherence to, and maintenance of, that tradition by learned ‘ulamā’. It is not, however, unchanging or static in its use of tradition, but the religious correctness of the Deobandi maslak is underpinned by its fidelity to the tradition (through taqlīd) and its preservation as a valid and operative religious framework under scholars’ control. Deoband’s heritage thus lies in Mughal-era scholarship, and, as such, it is deeply indebted to, and molded by, the pre-colonial culture of South Asian Islam, in particular its Persianate foundations.

Persianate Culture in Early Islamic India The Islamic history of India has long been shaped by its geographic position. As André Wink argues, India is situated on the edge of two of the great “frontiers of mobile wealth” in the world: the pastoral plains of Eurasia and the Indian Ocean. Both represented significant avenues for long-distance trade, [ 217 ]

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and therefore as the source of much of India’s prosperity.1 They were also the primary means for Islamic influence in the subcontinent. Historically, merchants and mendicant Sufis have been the main drivers for the spread of Islam, with India no exception. From the eighth to tenth centuries, the Muslim political presence in India was limited to isolated, short-lived kingdoms in the Sindh region (present-day Pakistan, neighboring south-eastern Iran), some Ismā’ilī and independent, but most Sunni and nominally aligned with the Abbasid caliphate in Baghdad.2 The first, more permanent Muslim polity to rule over part of India was the Ghaznavid dynasty (tenth to twelfth centuries), so named for its capital of Ghazna, in present-day Afghanistan. Led by Sultan Mahmud (r. 997–1030), the Ghaznavid army made repeated raids into the Punjab, eventually taking control of the region and establishing a center at Lahore.3 The Ghaznavids were a Turkic slave dynasty who had emerged out of the dissolution of the Persian Samanid Empire in the late tenth century. Nominally (and inconsistently) subject to the Seljuq Empire in Iraq, they followed the model of military governance perfected by the Seljuqs, which they introduced into India. Ghaznavid power, which at its peak extended into Iran and Central Asia, remained focused in Ghazna, however, with India a peripheral part of its territory.4 According to Wink, the gradual conquest of northern India by Muslim nomadic armies opened a corridor for trade, migration, and the movement of culture between India and Central Asia, which would become a defining factor in the shape of Islam in India.5 The Ghaznavids introduced nomadic styles of rule through this corridor. They had been slave generals under the Samanids, and they relied upon Turkic slave soldiers (sing. ghulām) for their own military strength. More significantly, they also continued the mode of governance associated with Turkic slave dynasties, with extensive military administration and limited interaction with the subject population (which remained overwhelmingly Hindu), as well as Persian court culture and language.6 Extensive patronage for arts and scholarship was an important component, with Lahore quickly developing as a center of learning.7 Although the Ghaznavids’ direct influence on India was fairly minimal, by establishing this model of governance and its use of Persian, they set the cultural orientation for India’s Muslim population firmly within the Persianate sphere, shared with other Turkic dynasties in Iran, Central Asia, and—most famously—the Ottoman Empire. This orientation was solidified by the Ghaznavids’ successors in India, the Ghurid dynasty. Just as the Ghaznavids had been generals for the Samanids before asserting their independence, the Ghurids had been slave generals under the Ghaznavids, establishing themselves as a separate dynasty as the Ghaznavid polity broke up under military pressure in the twelfth century. The Ghurids’ reign was short-lived, stretching only from the 1180s to the first decade of the 1200s, but the confusion in the aftermath of the Ghaznavids’ collapse that led to their ascension also led to a shift away from Afghan cities like Ghazna as seats of power toward northern India. The Ghurid rise to power was quickly followed by the conquest of Central Asia and the Middle East by the Mongols,

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who sacked Lahore in the process. India was geographically inhospitable to nomadic armies, however, preventing the Mongols from further advance. As a result, Delhi, which had previously been a relatively minor city on the frontier of Muslim territory, became not only a primary destination for refugees from Central Asia and Iran fleeing the Mongols, but also the capital for an independent Muslim kingdom in India, the so-called Delhi Sultanate.8 The Delhi Sultanate, which comprised a succession of Turkic and Afghan slave dynasties ruling from Delhi, controlled northern India until the fifteenth century, along the lines of Persianate kingship adopted from their Ghaznavid and Ghurid predecessors. Their domains were predominantly Hindu; the Muslim population was small and overwhelmingly urban.9 The patronage dispensed by the sultans made Delhi an attractive place for poets, artists, and ‘ulamā’, many of whom had left areas under Mongol control.10 The result was a vibrant Sunni Persianate society. Adherents of the Ḥanafī school of law and Māturīdī school of kalām from Central Asia and Shāfi’īAsh’arī scholars from Iran (where these schools predominated prior to the Shi’i Safavid revolution) contributed to India’s active scholarly culture.11 Although Ḥanafism and Māturīdism were the more popular schools and received the majority of support from political and military elites, the influx of Iranians brought other strands of Persianate thought. The combination linked India with the high culture of the so-called Perso-Islamic civilization, in that, in Francis Robinson’s words, educated Indians “came to speak the same languages, read the same books, delight in the same verses, follow the same laws and cherish the same values as men in Herat and Samarqand, in Shiraz and even Istanbul.”12 In terms of religious scholarship, the main subjects of Qur’ān, law, and theology were accompanied by an emphasis on philosophy and metaphysics. Most important in this regard was the metaphysical thought of Muḥy al-Dīn ibn ‘Arabī (1165–1240), a native of Spain who died in Damascus and who developed the notion of waḥdat al-wujūd (“unity of being”), that there is one existence, which comes from God, and thus all things share in God’s existence. This notion proved immensely popular in subsequent Persianate thought, spreading widely through Persian-language poetry in the Ottoman Empire (where ibn ‘Arabī became a singularly revered figure), Iran, Central Asia, and, of course, India. James Morris argues that the role of Persian poetry was significant in building ibn ‘Arabī’s popularity as it was far more widely read than Arabic, which was limited to elite scholarly circles.13 Eventually, waḥdat al-wujūd, expressed in the Persian phrase hameh ūst (“all is He”), would come to dominate Islamic philosophy in India.14 Ibn ‘Arabī was a major Sufi thinker, and mysticism was not only influential in India in terms of philosophy, but also in the make-up of its Muslim society. Sufism was present in India from a very early period, brought by Sufis from Iraq and Iran who traveled to Sindh as early as the eighth century. In addition, ‘Alī Hujwīrī (c. 990–1070), author of one of the earliest Persian texts on Sufi practice, the Kashf al-Maḥjūb, composed it while living in Ghaznavid Lahore, where his

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tomb remains a major religious site to this day.15 More importantly, Sufism was instrumental in the spread of Islam in India. As noted, the Ghaznavids and then Delhi Sultanate ruled over an overwhelmingly non-Muslim population. Similar to the extension of Muslim political rule in Anatolia, mendicant “warrior Sufis” formed much of the vanguard of Muslim settlement, with more established and institutionalized orders appearing later.16 In India, the former involved antinomian and heterodox orders like the Qalandarīyah and Ḥaydarīyah, Persianate ṭarīqahs who also played this role under the burgeoning Ottoman Empire.17 Most important in this role were the Chishtīyah, a strongly ascetic and orthodox order arising in the thirteenth century. The Chishtīyah were connected with mendicant orders of Central Asia through their founder, Mu’īn al-Dīn Sijzī (1141–1236), a native of Chisht in Afghanistan who had studied Sufism across the Persianate world before eventually settling on the frontier of Muslim-ruled India in about 1200. (Thierry Zarcone argues, on the basis of doctrinal and ritual similarities between the Chishtīyah and Qalandarīyah, that the former absorbed the latter in India.18) As mendicant—that is, wandering—ascetic Sufis, Chishtis moved around India, particularly in rural areas that were predominantly Hindu. Many adopted Hindu practices, such as vegetarianism, and Chishti khānqāhs attracted and welcomed Hindus, contributing to conversion to Islam (although Hindus could, and did, join the order without converting).19 Alongside the Chishtīyah, the other primary order in India in the sultanate period was the Suhrawardīyah. The Suhrawardi order was based on the mystical writings of Abū Ḥafṣ Suhrawardī (1145–1234), which were incidentally also a significant inspiration for the Chishtīyah. (The two orders also shared an affinity with ibn ‘Arabī’s waḥdat al-wujūd.) More urban and elite than the Chishtīyah and popular among ‘ulamā’, the Suhrawardīyah predominated in cities and particularly in learned circles, drawn by its combination of philosophy and mysticism. One major figure associated with the ṭarīqah was Fakhr al-Dīn ‘Irāqī (1213–89), who had settled for a time in Sindh. In addition to the Suhrawardīyah, ‘Irāqī was connected to ibn ‘Arabī’s metaphysical “school” through ibn ‘Arabī’s main disciple, Ṣadr al-Dīn Qūnawī (1207–74), whom ‘Irāqī met during his travels to Konya in Anatolia, where he also became acquainted with the famed poet Jalāl al-Dīn Rūmī (1207–73).20 ‘Irāqī’s Persian poetry, which combined motifs of love and Sufism with ibn ‘Arabī-inspired philosophical musings, were immensely popular among Indian Sufis, contributing, Annemarie Schimmel argues, to the lasting importance of the Suhrawardīyah.21 The influence of the Suhrawardīyah and Chishtīyah in India was due in part to political circumstances. The Sufi order (ṭarīqah) was forming as an institution (globally) at the same time that indigenous Muslim political rule was emerging in India with the Delhi Sultanate at the beginning of the thirteenth century. As Blain Auer argues, this simultaneous development led to a convergence of the two structures.22 The Chishti and Suhrawardi orders helped spread Sunni Persianate Islam in India, which furthered the political aims of the burgeoning sultanates, which relied on religious institutions as part

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of the political order, and patronized them accordingly. Indeed, more so than in other Turkic military dynasties in the Middle East or Central Asia (with the exception of the Ottomans), Sufism was made a pillar of the religious establishment in India; the office of Shaykh al-Islām, which elsewhere was an office occupied by an expert scholar dedicated to preserving Sunni orthodoxy, was under the Delhi Sultanate a primarily Sufi position (generally allotted to the Suhrawardīyah), overseeing the sultanate’s ṭarīqahs.23 Indeed, the end of the sultanate period saw these two orders slip from predominance. Following Tīmūr’s (1336–1405) sack of Delhi in 1398, the sultanate was left in shambles, incapable of governing effectively outside of Delhi, with other Muslim regions of India ruled by Turkic military commanders.24 The Suhrawardīyah, already declining in popularity, had largely disappeared by the middle of the fifteenth century, as opportunities for official patronage became scarcer.25 ‘Ulamā’-centric orders from outside India eventually replaced the Suhrawardīyah as the main elite orders under the Timurid Mughals (see below), namely the Qādirīyah and particularly the Naqshbandīyah, which was already very closely aligned with Timurid authorities. The Chishtīyah likewise saw a decrease in importance (although not permanently) in this period, with the corresponding emergence of the Shaṭṭārīyah, developing out of the Suhrawardīyah in early fifteenth-century Iran, which evinced a heavy Hindu influence and ascetic outlook, while cooperating much more readily with Mughal political elites than the Chishtīyah had.26 One significant thing that connected the newer orders to the older, however, was a shared acceptance of ibn ‘Arabī’s waḥdat al-wujūd as a mystical and philosophical principle, which would deeply color Islamic thought in India throughout the Mughal period.

The Mughal Period At the end of the fifteenth century, the Timurids, the dynasty established by Tīmūr at Samarqand, was in steep decline, undermined by attacks by nomadic Uzbek warriors from the Eurasian steppe who had succeeded in taking significant territory from their control and killing numerous members of the dynasty and their relatives. Surviving Timurids had made their way to Kabul, whose distance from the Uzbeks offered some protection. Ẓahīr al-Dīn Muḥammad Bābur (1483–1530), a minor Timurid and direct descendant of Tīmūr, arrived there in 1504. Weakened by the Uzbeks and with only a small force accompanying him, Bābur eventually decided to abandon the remaining Timurid domains (such as they were), turning his attention to India. (In 1519, he named his newborn son Hind-āl, the “taking of India”.)27 Bābur’s ventures into the subcontinent initially met with failure, but in 1526 he scored a major victory at Panipat against the remaining Sultanate of Delhi. Aided by ongoing fighting between various Muslim kingdoms and the Hindu Rajputs and possessing firearms and cannons, which Indian armies

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did not use, Bābur was able to establish control in Delhi. Within two years, he had carved out a kingdom stretching from Kabul to Punjab, Delhi and Bihar, with Agra as his capital. Bābur’s death in 1530 had come before he was able to consolidate his control in India, which had to be re-established by his son, Humāyūn (r. 1530–56). Humāyūn succeeded in reclaiming his father’s gains against both opposing kingdoms and rebellious Timurids, setting up a new capital in Delhi just before his accidental death. The Timurid throne then passed to his son, the famed Akbar—just twelve years old at the time—under whose reign (1556–1605) the empire would reach its zenith as one of the largest and most populous Muslim empires in history.28 As Timurids, the Mughals (the Persian word for “Mongol,” referring to their origins) continued the connection of the Muslim rulers of India with Persianate culture. The original Timurid dynasty had overseen a tremendous artistic, scientific, and intellectual fluorescence in the fifteenth century in their domains, in centers like Samarqand, Bukhara, and Herat, with philosophy, theology, logic, and Persian poetry, among other areas, receiving significant patronage and support. This attitude was accompanied by a strong emphasis on Sufism and Sunnism (in particular, Ḥanafī-Māturīdism).29 As such, although the Mughals remade the political landscape of India, their impact on the cultural landscape, while considerable, was one of continuity, rather than departure. In this way, the intellectual trends developed under the sultanate period highlighted above continued under the Mughal period, if not strengthened. One of the most important developments was the growing influence of the Naqshbandīyah. Originally founded in fourteenthcentury Bukhara, the Naqshbandis, who espoused strict orthodoxy and social activism, had long had a close relationship with the Timurid dynasty, with its sultans, including Bābur, often following Naqshbandi shaykhs.30 This relationship was continued in the Mughal period, with Naqshbandis, many of whom were ‘ulamā’, holding a place of prominence at the Mughal court.

Philosophy and the Dars-i Niẓāmī Naqshbandis were also involved in the spread of ibn ‘Arabī’s philosophical mysticism through Persian poetry, with leading figures like ‘Abd al-Raḥmān Jāmī (1414–92), who wrote a number of works on mysticism and metaphysics and was active in Herat alongside his close friend ‘Alī Shīr Navā’ī (1441–1501), the great Chaghatay mystic poet and Timurid administrator.31 Jami had a main role in adapting ibn ‘Arabī’s metaphysical ideas to existing philosophical and theological discourse, furthering their incorporation into Persianate Māturīdī and Ash’arī kalām (which by this time had begun to overlap considerably).32 At the same time, ibn ‘Arabī’s ideas were influencing a related philosophical movement in Shiraz in Iran. The so-called school of Shiraz was an eclectic group of Sunni scholars who combined a number of different intellectual trends into Persianate philosophy. This school (which is a misleading label,

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Reza Pourjavady notes, as they disagreed with one another at least as much as they agreed) involved a number of exceedingly influential scholars, including ‘Aḍud al-Dīn Ījī (1300–55) and Jalāl al-Dīn Dawānī (1426–1502).33 It was also connected through student–teacher links with Timurid (and later) scholarship in Central Asia, and during the Mughal period in India. Indeed, as the Shi’i Safavids took greater control of Iran in the sixteenth century, India became a destination and source of patronage for Iranian Sunni scholars. This connection with the school of Shiraz furthered the importance of Persianate philosophy in the Mughal Empire, which became particularly prominent in Mughal intellectual life in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Asad Ahmed and Reza Pourjavady identify a number of Shirazi scholars who moved to India in this period, among them Fatḥ Allāh Shirāzī (d. 1589), a Shi’ite who served at the court of Bijapur before joining Akbar’s service in 1582. Fatḥ Allāh, a renowned polymath who had studied with major figures of the Shirazi school, was one of the most important scholars of the time, and his expertise in logic and philosophy was influential in spurring the study of these subjects in India, with several prominent Indian ‘ulamā’ of the seventeenth century attaching themselves to him.34 Both Ahmed and Francis Robinson, following an established view in native Indian historiography, position Fatḥ Allāh as founding important intellectual movements focused on Islamic rational subjects (the ma’qūlāt) in India.35 The study of logic (manṭiq) serves as a useful example. Ahmed writes that it was only in the fifteenth century that logic became established in India as a madrasah subject, and then only on a limited basis. During the Mughal period, particularly the reign of Akbar, increased government patronage and increasing interest in logic among ‘ulamā’ made Delhi and Lahore centers for a burgeoning Persian philosophical tradition in India. This tradition was primarily comprised of related intellectual lineages linked with the school of Shiraz, promulgated by figures like Fatḥ Allāh.36 The reigns of Mughal emperors Jahāngīr (1605–27) and Shāh Jahān (1628–58) saw the further establishment of logic and rational subjects in the curricula of (northern) Indian madrasahs, with Delhi and Lahore surpassed by the provinces of Bihar and Awadh, where the teaching of this Persianate rationalist trend was solidified. In Lucknow, an intellectual lineage from Shiraz stretching through Fatḥ Allāh, comprising both Shi’i and Sunni scholars, flourished in an environment of significant patronage for ‘ulamā’. Perhaps the most important scholar working in this milieu—and certainly the one with the most lasting influence—was Niẓām al-Dīn Sihālawī (1677–1748), who ran a madrasah in Lucknow called the Farangī Maḥall. Sihālawī and his brothers had been granted the Farangī Maḥall by Mughal emperor Aurangzeb (r. 1658–1707) following the murder of their father Qutb al-Dīn in the provincial town of Sihali in 1691. Quṭb al-Dīn Sihālawī was a well-known scholar whose education connected him with the trend of Shirazi rationalist studies, which he passed on to his sons, who in turn made it the basis for their new madrasah.37

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Niẓām al-Dīn Sihālawī’s fame stems from his success in formalizing the curriculum used at the Farangī Maḥall (with the family becoming identified with this name). The eponymous Dars-i Niẓāmī, which was a collection of texts utilized in instruction, was the culmination of efforts in Awadh to institutionalize the teaching of rational subjects over the preceding century.38 The Farangī Maḥall family’s prominence, both with the Mughal government and in extensive established ‘ulamā’ networks, as well as the importance of their madrasah itself, which quickly attracted hundreds of students, made the Dars-i Niẓāmī synonymous with a style of learning that was already becoming widespread in India.39 Calling the Dars-i Niẓāmī a “curriculum” is, to be sure, slightly misleading. While it did indeed enumerate the texts used in the Farangī Maḥall, it was not a concrete or comprehensive plan of study, nor was it standardized. Some important subjects, such as Sufism, were omitted from the Dars-i Niẓāmī but studied nevertheless, and its content evolved over time and in different settings. The Dars-i Niẓāmī was rather more of an approach to madrasah education, a methodology. Its focus on rational subjects functioned as a means to an end, to give students logical and critical tools for application in myriad settings.40 The commentary (sharḥ) as a genre, as well as the abridgement or summary (mukhtaṣar), played a major role in the Dars-i Niẓāmī approach. Commentaries were one of the primary genres of the post-classical period in Islamic intellectual history, serving as the textual means through which the scholarly tradition was constructed over time, as scholars built upon the ideas contained in an established text (matn) in a commentary, and another scholar could build further upon those ideas in the commentary in a supercommentary, and so on. The mukhtaṣar operated in a related but distinct way, distilling and summarizing the ideas in a text for easier comprehension retention, instead of expanding on ideas as many commentaries did. It should be noted that mukhtaṣars frequently served as the basis for commentaries as well. The commentary was therefore an integral part of the so-called “scaffolding” of the scholarly tradition, in its construction and evolution over time.41 Teachers of the Dars-i Niẓāmī used commentaries extensively, as they showed the advancement of a logical and philosophical issue from text to text, with commentaries containing the most developed and extensive treatments of an idea. The curriculum was therefore comprised overwhelmingly of relatively recent commentaries (that is, also from the post-classical period), and Farangī Maḥall ‘ulamā’ themselves composed commentaries almost exclusively. One of the main texts of logic in the Dars-i Niẓāmī was the Sullam al-’Ulūm by Muḥibb Allāh Bihārī (d. 1707), which, although not a commentary, drew together several different extant approaches to logic among Central Asian and Iranian ‘ulamā’, and a great many commentaries were subsequently written upon it.42 The Dars-i Niẓāmī was connected with the school of Shiraz in terms of the scholarly lineages of the Farangī Maḥall and other ‘ulamā’ who played a role in its development and early history, but also in terms of content. Its curriculum was centered on works of logic and philosophy in ways that overlapped with the dominant trends in Indian thought. Its philosophical approach

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was grounded in mystical philosophy, most prominently ibn ‘Arabī’s Fuṣūṣ al-Ḥikam, which was the major text of his used by later Persianate philosophy.43 Its Sufi foundations were furthered by related scholars’ affiliation with the Chishtīyah and Qādirīyah especially, as these two orders became closely linked with the curriculum and helped drive its spread.44 In many ways, the Dars-i Niẓāmī fit into the Indian context, helping to drive its popularity and swift spread. Not only did it tap into the extant intellectual environment and important Sufi orders, but its approach was well-suited to the social and economic environment under the Mughals. As Robinson points out, its focus on logic and rational thinking made the Dars-i Niẓāmī effective in preparing students for a range of professions, and graduates found success serving in the Mughal administration, their critical thinking skills highly valued.45 This fact, along with the character of the curriculum itself, made the Dars-i Niẓāmī broadly popular, with the Farangī Maḥall attracting both Shi’i and Hindu students.46 Its spread helped to solidify the place of Persian as the preeminent administrative language in India, used in governance by the Mughals, Hindu kingdoms, and English administrators well into the nineteenth century.47

Raḥīmīyah Ḥadīth Scholarship Alongside the Persianate rationalist tradition from which the Dars-i Niẓāmī emerged, there was also a more legalistic trend in Indian Islam that took its influences more from connections with Arab ḥadīth scholarship than Iranian philosophy. Muhammad Qasim Zaman traces some of the early development of this trend to the sixteenth-century scholar ‘Alī al-Muttaqī (d. 1567), who played a large role in furthering the presence of ḥadīth scholarship from Egypt and Arabia in India. Muttaqī studied in Cairo and the Hijaz, leaving students and disciples particularly in the latter, before returning to India, where he collected a circle of scholars who strove to bring ḥadīth to a place of prominence in Indian scholarly culture. Most important among his intellectual descendants is ‘Abd al-Ḥaqq Dihlawī (d. 1642), who had studied ḥadīth with one of Muttaqī’s disciples in Mecca. (More on him below.) Muttaqī, as well as ‘Abd al-Ḥaqq, saw ḥadīth scholarship as a major part of religious reform, indispensable in correcting divergent practices and excluding unfounded beliefs, while also promoting piety. Muttaqī, a member of the Chishtīyah, used ḥadīth to argue for more disciplined and sober Sufi practices within his drive for reform, and his scholarly circle operated in a similar fashion as a Sufi order.48 The combination of sober Sufism with reformist inclinations would significantly color this legalistic trend. It underpins the reformist project of the famed Aḥmad Sirhindī (1564–1627), a devoted member of the Naqshbandīyah who articulated a form of ascetic piety with a strict focus on adhering to the legal norms of the sharī’ah as formulated by ‘ulamā’, alongside religious and political activism.49 Many of these elements were part of the Naqshbandi mystical orientation, but they were put forward more forcefully by Sirhindī, forming

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the basis for the sub-order of the Naqshbandīyah that stems from him and his immediate followers, the Mujaddidīyah.50 The Mujaddidīyah’s activism spread steadily in the seventeenth century, both in India and abroad. Although its message was controversial and not always welcomed in this period, its legalistic approach paralleled the predominant thrust under the reign of Aurangzeb, who emphasized and patronized Ḥanafī legal authority as a means of consolidating legal practice in the empire and administering it in a more uniform manner under the ‘ulamā’.51 The Mujaddidīyah’s spread converged with this burgeoning legalistic trend, attracting ‘ulamā’, including ‘Abd al-Raḥīm Dihlawī (d. 1718), a leading Ḥanafī scholar and head of the important Madrasah Raḥīmīyah in Delhi. Most significantly, ‘Abd al-Raḥīm was joined in the Mujaddidīyah by his son, Shāh Walī Allāh (1703–61), one of the most influential intellectual figures of Indian history, who, following the example of both Sirhindī and ‘Abd al-Ḥaqq, formulated a Sufi-inspired reform project that focused on ḥadīth scholarship. Shāh Walī Allāh was concerned with the relationship between ‘ulamā’ discourse and society. He argued that partisan attachment (ta’aṣṣub) to the madhhab had skewed legal scholarship, with fuqahā’ more focused on adhering to their school’s doctrine than scriptural norms. He instead put forward the renewed exercise of ijtihād, with a greater emphasis on ḥadīth study, to minimize discrepancies and disagreements between the schools.52 Although directed toward fellow ‘ulamā’, Shāh Walī Allāh’s reformist project concentrated on the function of society as a whole, how religious and political authorities interact with one another and with the broader community, and the role of history in the development of society.53 Shāh Walī Allāh also drew from the extant philosophical scholarship in India. Although perhaps seemingly anomalous, the use of Persianate philosophy had an important place in the Mujaddidīyah. Sirhindī himself was deeply involved in philosophical and—particularly—metaphysical reasoning similar to the type that underpinned the ‘ulamā’ of the Farangī Maḥall. A deep admirer of ibn ‘Arabī (a fact frequently lost in the subsequent scholarship), Sirhindī attempted to refine and correct what he saw as the errors in his conception of waḥdat al-wujūd. The result was an argument that posited extreme dualism between God and existence, while maintaining the basic outline of ibn ‘Arabī’s view.54 This view inspired Shāh Walī Allāh, who composed philosophical works that sought a synthesis of Sirhindī and ibn ‘Arabī’s respective positions, while accommodating waḥdat al-wujūd more firmly within Mujaddidi thinking.55

Islamic Revivalism in Society Shāh Walī Allāh’s emphasis on society and its religious foundations was in large part inspired by his historical context. Mughal power—not to mention territory—had begun declining under Aurangzeb, a process intensified by a

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succession crisis following his death, with Hindu and Sikh, as well as Sunni Afghan and north Indian Shi’i kingdoms infringing on Mughal domains. By the middle of the eighteenth century the area under the dynasty’s control had been limited to Delhi and its hinterlands. Moreover, the sack of the city by the Iranian ruler Nādir Shāh (1688–1747) in 1739 was deeply destructive and unnerving to the Indian Muslim elite, exposing the weakness of Mughal rule.56 At the same time, the European presence in India—Portuguese, Dutch, French, British—was steadily increasing. Previously confined to coastal areas in the south and east of the subcontinent, in the eighteenth century the British East India Company was able to extend its control inland in northern India, establishing de facto rule over Bengal in 1757 following its defeat of the regional Mughal vassals as well as the French East India Company. A 1765 agreement with Delhi formalized the British East India Company’s position as controlling northeast India, if under nominal Mughal suzerainty.57 The uncertain political situation led ‘ulamā’ to rethink their role in society. As Barbara Metcalf argues, scholars took on a more self-conscious attitude toward their religious authority, emphasizing increasingly the preservation of the Mughal cultural and religious heritage in the face of the disintegration of the empire and the marked instability that followed.58 For Shāh Walī Allāh and other reform-minded Muslims, Mughal decline was a matter of great concern, and they saw religious impropriety as its main cause. As the situation worsened through the eighteenth century, more and more ‘ulamā’ became focused on scriptural normativity as the basis for the revitalization of the Muslim community.59 The ḥadīth-centric scholars from the Madrasah Raḥīmīyah took a leading role, offering an understanding of Islamic practice that was more directly tied to the prophetic example than the Farangī Maḥall’s more philosophical bent. As the eighteenth century gave way to the nineteenth, this reformist circle, in particular Shāh Walī Allāh’s descendants, became the wellspring for subsequent Islamic movements, Deoband included.60 In this period, Mughal—and Sunni Muslim—power continued its decline and British control was further entrenched in India, with significant interference by colonial administrators in Islamic legal institutions. Beginning in the 1760s, the East India Company set about codifying Islamic legal discourse as a means of wresting control of the exercise of the law from native experts and authorities—i.e. the ‘ulamā’. The result of this process was a collection of Islamic legal norms (furū’) taken from Ḥanafī fiqh texts and given the force of law backed by British power, labeled Anglo-Mohammedan Law, which was established as a legal system in Bengal in 1771.61 In this environment, socially activist forms of religious authority grew in importance, as did questions of how Islamic heritage and norms should be preserved outside of political and legal structures that had been markedly altered. Accordingly, the fatwā as a genre became a central medium for the exercise of Islamic authority. Although still the domain of scholars, their informal character had led muftīs to receive less attention from British officials than qāḍīs, and fatwās “were given directly to believers, who welcomed

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them as a form of guidance in the changed circumstances of the day.” As such, they became “a vehicle for disseminating ever more detailed guidance in minute concerns of everyday life, including in their purview decisions about customary practices that had been of little concern to the state, but were of great moment to Muslims seeking to preserve an authentic expression of their religion under alien rule.”62 Shah ‘Abd al-‘Aziz (1746–1824), son of Shāh Walī Allāh and teacher at the Madrasah Raḥīmīyah, was a major source for such guidance, frequently publicizing his fatwās as well as malfūẓāt (religious pronouncements, lit. ‘utterances’) as a means of exercising Islamic authority. Along with his brothers Shah Rafi’ al-Din (1749–1817) and Shāh ‘Abd al-Qadir (1753–1827), he promoted a scripturally normative form of Islam for a broad Indian audience. In addition to fatwās, they wrote works of ḥadīth scholarship and Qurʾānic commentary, including translations of the Qurʾān intended for popular accessibility.63 They wrote in Urdu, in addition to Persian and Arabic, encouraging its use as a language of prose, and they utilized print to spread their works cheaply and quickly.64 Among ‘Abd al-’Aziz’s most important fatwās were those dealing with (not uncommon) questions about India’s status as part of the dār al-Islām, or whether the disintegration of the Mughal Empire and establishment of British rule had rendered it part of the dār al-ḥarb. ‘Abd al-’Aziz, citing various Ḥanafī legal manuals, answered the questions in the negative, that it was no longer part of the dār al-Islām. Importantly, as Muhamad Khalid Masud and Saiyid Athar Rizvi both state, this did not signify ‘Abd al-’Aziz’s endorsement of armed jihad against the British, nor the necessity of Muslims in British-controlled territory to emigrate to “Islamic” domains. Instead, the fatwās serve as acknowledgment of the degree to which the religious environment in India had been transformed over the preceding century, and that Islam was no longer at the foundation of society.65 In light of these circumstances, two approaches to Islamic renewal became predominant: the renewal of Muslim political power through armed jihad and the legalistic renewal of normative Islamic practice and behavior. Both found expression among Shāh Walī Allāh’s heirs.66 In the 1820s the charismatic mystic Sayyid Ahmad Barelvi (1786–1831) spurred his followers to (ultimately unsuccessful) armed insurrection with the aim of founding a new Muslim state in northern India. Sayyid Ahmad had studied with ‘Abd al-’Aziz and others at the Madrasah Raḥīmīyah, and he espoused an approach to Sufism that relied upon very strict, learned notions of proper Sufi ritual, eschewing more popular, but perhaps heterodox, practices. His approach, which he named the Ṭarīqah-i Muḥammadīyah (lit. “the Muhammadan way”), proved influential among a wide swath of India’s Muslim population, attracting adherents across the social spectrum, including prominent ‘ulamā’ such as Muhammad Isma’il (1781–1831), Shāh Walī Allāh’s grandson through ‘Abd al-Qādir, as well as others from the Madrasah Raḥīmīyah.67 Although Sayyid Ahmad and many of his followers were defeated and killed by a Sikh army in 1831, the Ṭarīqah-i

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Muḥammadīyah as an influential revivalist movement based on his ideas continued for decades. At the same time as Sayyid Ahmad’s revolt evinced the futility of military jihad, other ‘ulamā’ were adopting ‘Abd al-’Aziz’s less-politicized approach and focusing on the dissemination of normative Islamic knowledge and guidance through the promulgation of fatwās and popular writings. As Metcalf states, these texts “provided the means for individual Muslims to receive day-to-day guidance in the innumerable details of life that together created a distinctive pattern of religious fidelity, whatever the vicissitudes of political life.”68 Spreading religious knowledge to individuals, beyond any institutional basis, allowed for the preservation of Islamic norms despite the rapidly shifting political and social circumstances of India. This approach was not mutually exclusive with the embrace of armed jihad, and many figures associated with the Madrasah Raḥīmīyah and the Ṭarīqah-i Muḥammadīyah supported both. Shah Muhammad Ya’qub (1786–1867), ‘Abd al-’Aziz’s grandson and a major teacher at the Madrasah Raḥīmīyah, helped recruit on behalf of Sayyid Ahmad in Delhi, although he never himself participated in the insurrection. In this he was opposed by Shah Muhammad Musa (1770s–1843), Shāh Walī Allāh’s grandson through Rafi’ al-Din, one of the most vocal Muslim opponents of Sayyid Ahmad’s mission. Despite these differences, both scholars led the Madrasah Raḥīmīyah.69 It was the latter approach, relying upon increasing individual Muslims’ knowledge and religious guidance, that would come to predominate in India, promoted by ‘ulamā’ from Shāh Walī Allāh’s family and the Raḥīmīyah circle more broadly.70 Although the madrasah suffered a sharp decline in the 1840s, ceasing operation by the 1857 mutiny, its former students continued to have an enormous influence on Islamic reformism in India, Deoband in particular.71

The Formation of Deoband The Indian Mutiny of 1857, a failed uprising begun by Bengal army officers (sepoys) that quickly spread among the Hindu and Muslim populations of northern India, spurred on and supported by the Delhi ‘ulamā’, dashed any hope for removing British power through arms, but also brought more direct political control from London, as the East India Company was disbanded and Indian territory made officially part of the British Empire.72 A series of legal reforms followed, effectively removing any elements of Islamic jurisprudence from criminal and public law, and eliminating any role for Islamic legal experts in the colonial administration. Anglo-Mohammedan Law was continued only in the area of family and personal status law, where it functioned in a highly rigid and standardized manner.73 Muslim religious reformers looked increasingly inward. The extension of British control in the aftermath of the mutiny had severely limited the ways in which Muslims could act outside confines and spaces set out by British

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officials. The removal of the last vestiges of Mughal administration precluded support from nominally independent political elites. Legal reforms, moreover, rendered the legal codes that governed Muslims wholly British in character. As Kugle notes, Islamic authorities who could resist these changes had been killed or displaced in the mutiny, with the role of Islamic legal expert taken up by Muslims trained primarily in English law.74 In this context, Islamic education and (strictly speaking) religious authority took on added importance as spheres that remained within Muslims’ control. These, of course, had been focal points of the earlier modes of revivalism espoused by ‘Abd al-’Aziz and others, and they became the primary vehicles for maintaining Muslims’ religious identity and cultural and intellectual heritage in light of political and military domination, the final collapse of the Mughal polity, and ever-increasing pressure from Christian missionaries. It was under these circumstances that the Darul Uloom was founded in 1867 in the northern Indian city of Deoband.75 The school was intended to serve the religious needs of the Muslim community through the training of learned Islamic scholars, while also preserving the cultural and intellectual legacy of Mughal India. The latter aim was built into the school’s curriculum, which combined the ma’qūlāt tradition of the Farangī Maḥall with the manqūlāt of the Madrasah Raḥīmīyah. Relying on an adapted form of the Dars-i Niẓāmī, the Deobandi curriculum added ḥadīth scholarship and Qurʾānic interpretation to the study of logic, fiqh, and philosophy.76 Within this curriculum, ḥadīth was given a place of prominence. The Dars-i Niẓāmī, which previously contained only one or two ḥadīth texts, was expanded to include all six canonical collections (the so-called “Six Books” of Sunni ḥadīth).77 This emphasis largely reflected in the background of its founders. The major figures behind the Darul Uloom were Muhammad Qasim Nanautawi (1833–77) and Rashid Ahmad Gangohi (1829–1905), both of whom were connected with the Raḥīmīyah circle of ḥadīth scholars, through their own studies in Delhi as well as through their families, which included other prominent ‘ulamā’ going back generations. In addition to these scholarly connections, Muḥammad Qasim and Rashid Ahmad shared the revivalist approach stemming from Shah ‘Abd al-’Aziz (whose scholarly chains of transmission linked to theirs).78 There was, however, a third institution that bore a significant influence on the makeup of the Darul Uloom, beyond the Farangī Maḥall and Madrasah Raḥīmīyah: Delhi College, a Western-style school founded under British leadership in Delhi in 1825.79 Divided into two sections along linguistic lines, the college consisted of an English section teaching language, literature, and modern sciences, and an Oriental section with courses in Arabic, Persian, and Sanskrit, as well as geography, mathematics and science, taught mainly in Urdu.80 Until its closure during the mutiny, the college was a popular and influential pillar of Delhi’s learned society, serving as conduit for Indians’ exposure to a wide range of European approaches to education and forms of knowledge. In this role the college linked together representatives of different strands of

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thought among India’s Muslim population, including the Islamic revivalism of the Raḥīmīyah circle and the future leaders of the Westernizing Aligarh movement.81 One of the major figures associated with the college was Mamluk ‘Ali (1787–1851), its longtime teacher of Arabic. A student and disciple of Shah ‘Abd al-’Aziz, Mamluk ‘Ali was closely linked with far-reaching ‘ulamā’ networks, and he was one of the most important ḥadīth transmitters of the first half of the nineteenth century in India. Deeply enmeshed in Islamic scholarly culture and its revivalist trends, Mamluk ‘Ali was also personally close with Muhammad Qasim and Rashid al-Din, serving as teacher and mentor to both. In addition, his son Muhammad Ya’qub (1833–86) was a member of the school’s first council.82 The Darul Uloom was influenced by the structure of Delhi College and British-style institutions more generally, and its makeup was much closer to that of a college or school than a madrasah in the traditional sense. Historically speaking, the madrasah was primarily an institutional arrangement for the support of education, generally through funds provided by a waqf endowment to provide a wage for a teacher and often boarding for students. The quality of infrastructure and degree of support varied widely, but physically a madrasah consisted mainly of students’ quarters with perhaps a library; instruction itself took place in a mosque, frequently a separate institution, where anyone was welcome to attend lessons as offered by multiple teachers. Its character was overwhelmingly informal, directed by the wishes of the teachers. The Darul Uloom, by contrast, was unquestionably formal, representing a standardization of Islamic education. To begin with, it was itself originally a freestanding building (although more buildings were added over time) dedicated primarily as a school, and unattached to a mosque. The building contained classrooms, with the school operating by way of discrete classes, with a particular instructor teaching a particular subject to a particular set of students. Such a setup necessitated not only a formalized curriculum, to lay out the sequence of classes, but also a formalized process of matriculation, to admit students and oversee their progression through the course of study. Accordingly, requirements were implemented for admission to different specializations, with standardized evaluation for prospective students, and regular examinations given to measure students’ progress and confirm their completion and sufficient mastery of the material, with formal graduation at the end of the six-year course (quickly shortened from the original ten).83 The standardization of the function and organization of the school almost inevitably brought with it a formalization of its administration and faculty. In addition to instructors assigned to teach certain classes, there was a dedicated administrative council created—even before its actual establishment—to run and oversee the institution.84 In contrast to conventional Indian madrasahs at the time, Darul Uloom’s faculty and student body were not overwhelmingly linked through family ties (although such ties did exist) but rather through institutional relationships, a fact reinforced by the constitution of its faculty,

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which included officials in the colonial government and Delhi College graduates alongside ‘ulamā’.85 Lastly (and significantly), Darul Uloom was not supported by waqf funds. Rather, a concerted effort was made by its leadership to solicit donations from the broader Muslim community. To this end, regular editions of a Darul Uloom newsletter were circulated throughout India to publicize the school and its aims and achievements in order to attract donors. They relied on the recently established postal service to distribute their materials, as well as on the money orders by which people made their donations. Although funding wavered over time, these efforts were consistently successful, to the degree that the Darul Uloom was able to offer education, lodging, and supplies to 200–300 students without charge, with considerable resources available to them and periodic expansion of its campus.86 The fundraising for the school was certainly helped by its faculty and leaders’ extensive connections among the ‘ulamā’, which were only furthered after Darul Uloom’s founding. Despite the mutiny and ensuing disruptions, the Raḥīmīyah circle and other groups from the Delhi ‘ulamā’ remained active, if more geographically dispersed. Moreover, Sufism represented a significant and ubiquitous element of the Darul Uloom, with large numbers of Chishtīyah and Naqshbandīyah, plus Qādirīyah, attached to the school. Accordingly, ṭarīqah affiliation and shaykh-disciple relationships tied Deobandis to the broader Islamic religious context. In this way, the Darul Uloom’s attention was not overwhelmingly focused inward, and the need to fundraise simply reinforced the importance of links beyond the institution. Fundraising efforts made use of existing connections, turning scholarly and Sufi networks into donor networks, and they also served as an important conduit for spreading Deobandi teachings and influence.87 While it would be wrong to call the Darul Uloom a “national” venture, it was without question trans-local in its approach and scope for its activities. It was less tied to the setting in Deoband specifically than in northern India generally; following the mutiny and final dissolution of the Mughal polity, the environment for Islamic institutions was—at best—lacking certainty and stability. The ‘ulamā’ had been firmly excluded from any role in governance (to the degree that qāḍīs became widely non-existent88), and many scholars had been killed, exiled, or scattered or had emigrated. Delhi had been made a center of British colonial power. As such, while the Islamic scholarly culture of India continued, its social foundation had been shaken, and the context in which it functioned had moved further from its Mughal heyday. The Darul Uloom itself was a product of this context, which represents the true setting for its operation. Indeed, Dietrich Reetz argues that its founding was a direct response to the Mughal collapse.89 The town of Deoband had significance as a long-standing center for religious learning, as well as a connection to extant reformist trends, but, while the Darul Uloom was by no means foreign to the town, it owed more to northern India generally than Deoband specifically, in particular in its continuity with the Madrasah Raḥīmīyah and Delhi College,

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and with its adoption of the Dars-i Niẓāmī the schools of Khayrabad and Farangī Maḥall.90 Its student body was composed of students from different parts of northern India, who even when the Darul Uloom’s reach and influence spread far beyond the subcontinent formed the majority of students.91 Collectively, they represented a new and distinct ‘ulamā’ network, who, as graduates leaving Deoband “carried with them a commitment to reformed religious practices, knowledge of a common language, and bonds of affection and common purpose with their teachers and fellow students.”92 These graduates, trained in a curriculum aimed at forming ‘ulamā’— imāms, preachers, authors, teachers— were instilled with an ethic of Islamic revivalism.93 Many of them, facilitated by existing scholarly connections, went on to found their own schools adopting the curriculum, organization, and approach of the Darul Uloom. Initially, these schools were small in scale, joint ventures between a Deobandi graduate and a local patron, and were often short-lived, but by 1880 seventeen surviving schools had been established in northern India, with seventeen more founded from 1880 to 1900 stretching across the subcontinent.94 Although administratively and operationally independent, these schools shared the Darul Uloom’s religious orientation, and played a significant part in its success as an Islamic movement, aimed at “preserving the learned tradition and providing a structure of religious leadership for Muslims without support of the state.”95

The Deobandi Maslak Intellectually speaking, the Deobandi movement revolves around the articulation and propagation of scripturally grounded legal scholarship and normative Sufi practices. As Metcalf writes, the goal of the Darul Uloom’s founding was the creation of an Islamic “community both observant of detailed religious law and, to the extent possible, committed to a spiritual life as well.”96 The latter was fostered through Sufi affiliation that, as noted, was pervasive among Deobandis. The former entailed dedicated compliance with the exemplary morality comprised in the prophetic sunnah and adherence to the established juridical norms of the Ḥanafī school of law. The Deobandi “tack” (the preferred English rendering of maslak, a term synonymous with madhhab, used in Deobandi discourse to denote contemporary religious movements or sects) is summarized by the twentieth-century head (1928–80) of the Darul Uloom, Qari Muhammad Tayyib (grandson of Muhammad Qasim), in seven points: 1. 2. 3. 4.

Knowledge of the Shariah The Following of the [Sufi] Path Conformity to the Sunnah Jurisprudential Hanafitism [sic]

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5. Dialectical Maturidiism [sic] 6. Defence against Tergiversation and Deviation 7. The Taste for Qasimism and Rasheedism97 These points encapsulate both the movement’s moral orientation as well as its intellectual and scholarly foundations. For Deobandis, the two were inextricable; the obligatory, proper exercise of Islamic morality could only be understood as such by virtue of its grounding in sound scriptural sources (namely, ḥadīth) and in fiqh doctrines. The first principle, knowledge of the sharī’ah, for instance, is framed explicitly in terms of fiqh and the interpretive strategies of the ‘ulamā’.98 This approach is aimed at preserving Muslims’ religious and cultural heritage and integrity in light of the external threats and pressures of the colonial period (and after). It therefore relies to a significant degree on continuity with the past, as part of the Deobandis’ aim of maintaining Mughal-era religious ideology despite the disappearance of the Mughal polity. In this regard, Deobandi religious authority is itself based on its connection to the past, its continuous—and self-conscious—perpetuation of existing forms of Islamic scholarship. Their use of the Dars-i Niẓāmī, being so influential in eighteenth-century intellectual life, is of course an example, but more important was their attachment to the madhhab. As an institution, the madhhab dominated post-classical Islamic thought, serving as the primary framework for fiqh interpretation and the exercise of religio-legal authority. Its function was underpinned by taqlīd, which ensured the coherence of the school by placing limits on scholars’ interpretive autonomy, obliging individual fuqahā’ to fit their judgments into the school’s body of legal doctrines. This did not preclude flexibility or innovation in the articulation of the law, but scholars’ ability to adapt doctrine or craft new interpretations was dependent upon their use of the existing corpus juris of their school; novel legal positions were derived from pre-existing positions, thereby guaranteeing their connection with school doctrine. This represents the “scaffolding” (as mentioned above) by which madhhab ideology was constructed over time.99 The commentary, of course, played a large role in this process and not incidentally continues to be a major genre for Deobandi authors.100 Deoband’s attachment to Ḥanafism is premised upon maintaining and continuing the scaffolding of the school. In this way, Deobandi scholars quite willfully and intentionally accept the limitations on their juristic autonomy and work to ensure their legal judgments’ coherence as part of the madhhab. As with taqlīd conventionally, Deobandi ‘ulamā’ are not beholden to earlier school doctrines, but rather must maintain a connection between them and their own interpretations. Indeed, Tayyib states that their attachment to Ḥanafism is jurisprudential, signifying their “compliance” with Ḥanafī interpretive methodologies, allowing for novel judgments articulated within this framework.101

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This fact was made quite explicit in an encounter between the Deobandi ‘ulamā’ and the famous Cairene modernist and vocal and influential opponent of taqlīd and the madhhab Rashid Rida (1865–1935). As described by Zaman, Rida during a 1912 visit to the Darul Uloom appeared to his hosts as mostly ignorant of the Deobandi approach. A Deobandi scholar Muhammad Anwarshah Kashmiri (1875–1933) offered a speech as part of the celebrations in Rida’s honor that doubled as both an introduction to the Deobandi movement and, more importantly, a full-throated defense of taqlīd. In his speech, Kashmiri argued for the continued viability of the madhhab, specifically the Ḥanafīs’ methods of interpreting ḥadīth for juridical purposes, while describing very sophisticated types of fiqh reasoning—often characterized as ijtihād— that remain possible within a framework of taqlīd.102 Rida, it seems, was not impressed and dismissed much of Kashmiri’s speech—and Deoband generally—but the speech stands as a clear indication of how Deobandi ‘ulamā’ viewed taqlīd as a vehicle for active legal thinking, rather than, in Rida’s understanding, something that tied them to outdated positions. For Kashmiri, the madhhab represents an operative framework for religious interpretation, rather than a set of specific, inarguable textual norms.103 This was not an overwhelmingly popular attitude among Deobandi ‘ulamā’—Zaman notes that Kashmiri certainly intended much of his speech to convince his own colleagues, and he did wind up leaving the Darul Uloom some years later104—but even within the Deobandi mainstream there was recognition of space for the continued evolution of fiqh (even if more limited than Kashmiri believed). The final principle of the Deobandi tack, the “Taste for Qasimism and Rasheedism,” refers to the scholarship of the founders Muhammad Qasim and Rashid Ahmad, which sets the particular direction for Deobandi fiqh, even within the Ḥanafī school. As the principle is explained, “The tack of the Dār al-‘Ulūm, Deoband, will be the Hanafite practical method (mazhab) in accordance with the Ahl al-Sunnah wal-Jama’ah [i.e. Sunnism, broadly] and the disposition (mashrab) of its holy founders, Hazrat Maulana Muhammad Qasim Nanautavi and Hazrat Maulana Rasheed Ahmed Gangohi (may their secrets be sanctified!).”105 Thus, Deoband is not based simply in Ḥanafism, or even Indian Ḥanafism, but the specific doctrines elaborated and continued by its founders, which are not mere adoptions from earlier periods, but—at the very least—newly articulated points of reference for Deobandi taqlīd. Significantly, these points of reference were determined by a subsequent generation of Deobandi ‘ulamā’ (that is, not Muhammad Qasim and Rashid Ahmad themselves), who “drew in the demands of the time in it and adopted the form of a particular” legal disposition.106 Indeed, Reetz describes this adherence to the founders’ doctrines as evincing new “ijtihād,” noting that Rashid Ahmad’s fatwās in particular are widely utilized by later Deobandis.107 (Kashmiri as well referred to Rashid Ahmad as a mujtahid.108) Although such characterization is contentious, it speaks to the degree of legal change that has taken place for Deobandis within a staunchly defended framework of taqlīd, to the point,

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Reetz rightly adds, that Deobandis are really a distinct legal movement within the Ḥanafī school.109 Deoband’s emphasis on taqlīd is one of its most salient aspects, but it is almost necessarily inseparable from the elitism that is at the heart of the movement. Without question, the central conceit of the Deobandi approach is the supremacy of the ‘ulamā’ as religious interpreters. The notion of the ‘ulamā’ as “heirs of the prophets,” the leading religious authorities, a widespread trope in Islamic history generally, is a common theme among Deobandis. Muhammad Qasim, citing this idea, called for lay Muslims’ unquestioned obedience to scholars’ pronouncements, noting that while they may err in their statements, the uneducated are unqualified to evaluate or judge them.110 In the conventional understanding of taqlīd, deference to the authority of one with greater knowledge is obliged, with varying conditions and restrictions on a person’s ability to question another’s superior judgment. ‘Ulamā’ could thereby use their own judgment. Laypeople, however, were considered utter muqallids, whose lack of knowledge made them wholly dependent on the ‘ulamā’’s interpretations. In historical reality, many lay Muslims had more than passing familiarity with madhhab doctrines, giving them some leeway, if controversially so. They were nevertheless understood as reliant on the ‘ulamā’ collectively, such that even if a layperson doubted one scholar’s judgment, they could not disregard scholars entirely. For Deobandis, and indeed going back to Shah ‘Abd al-’Aziz’s fatwās about the dār al-ḥarb, the collapse of Muslim political rule in the face of external pressure had rendered the ‘ulamā’ the sole remaining Muslim elites and pillar of an Islamic society.111 Any leeway that lay Muslims may have had was thus made irrelevant by the circumstances. In practice, the disappearance of Muslim political power and establishment of colonial rule had greatly expanded all Muslims’ religious autonomy, leading to, of course, the fragmentation of Islamic authority, which marked the end of any putative monopoly that the ‘ulamā’ held over religious interpretation and facilitated, as Zaman notes, both the negation of long agreed-upon points of Islamic doctrine and—most significantly—legal reasoning outside of any established fiqh discourse.112 The Deobandis’ elitism was in many respects a reaction to the latter in particular, which they saw as a marked danger to Muslims’ proper religious adherence and something driven by new, uneducated, and unqualified religious “authorities” among laypeople.113 Attaching oneself to the authoritative doctrine of a school thus prevents either following one’s own desires or the vicissitudes of circumstance, as well as ignoring what is inconvenient or difficult or operating according to one’s own ad hoc logic. This served as the Deobandis’ primary critique of ijtihād, whether from figures like Rida or the Indian Ahl-i ḥadīs, who likewise eschewed the madhhab.114 Avoiding these ways of thinking thus becomes a moral necessity, which can only be accomplished either through education in these matters (ipso facto in the doctrine of a school) or the absolute adherence to the judgment of

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learned scholars. And both are the primary areas of Deobandi authority: the madrasah and continuous articulation of religious guidance through the fatwā. In addition to frequent fatwā collections from Deobandi authors, the office of muftī was made a faculty position at the Darul Uloom in 1892.115 In this, Deobandi ‘ulamā’ seek to disseminate and instill in the Muslim community not only continuity with established forms of Islamic knowledge and reasoning but also a very particular, very comprehensive form of religious identity: [I]n sum it is that the Dar al-Ulum is Muslim; as a sect, Ahl-e Sunnah walJama’ah; in practical method, (mazhab), Hanafite; in conduct, Sufi; dialectically [that is, in kalām], Maturidi Ash’ari; in respect of the mystic path, Chishtiyyah, rather comprising all the Sufi orders; in thought, Wali Allahian; in principle, Qasimid; sectionally, Rasheedian; and as regards connection, Deobandi.116

In a manner of speaking, each of these degrees of affiliation are held together through taqlīd, and, as evinced in the level of detail present, an unquestionably rigid emphasis on it. Maintaining such an identity requires unwavering adherence. Indeed, the Deobandi insistence on taqlīd and rigid notions of religious authority is an essential feature of their Islamic orientation. Inflexibility ensures continuity by preventing divergence from past models, and offers, in light of the fragmentation of authority, a degree of religious certainty. But inflexibility also plays a large role in the historical construction of Deobandi authority. British critiques of Islamic law as arbitrary and capricious doubtlessly influenced more stringent and fixed legalistic discourse among the Indian ‘ulamā’.117 In addition, the Deobandis’ staunch fidelity to the Ḥanafī school set them apart from other movements that were less tied to the madhhab or rejected it outright. Perhaps the most important aspect of the Deobandis’ rigidity is that it served to bolster the ‘ulamā’’s own authority. As Zaman’s study of the South Asian ‘ulamā’ shows, the practice of Islamic law by scholars was far less fixed and unyielding than is commonly presumed, and he offers examples of “flexible” scholarship, wherein Deobandi ‘ulamā’ articulated legal positions that were either at odds with existing Ḥanafī doctrine, justified through changing historical circumstances, or novel interpretations in response to newly arisen legal issues. Yet rigidity is present in these positions in their application, which only reinforced lay Muslims’ dependence on the ‘ulamā’. There were multiple different types of divorce cases brought by wives against their husbands that fatwās by Deobandi scholars accepted as justified and legally valid, and that divorces in such cases could be granted by a qāḍī. The imposition of Anglo-Mohammedan law had eliminated the position of qāḍī, however, effectively preventing the divorces from being granted despite their theoretical approval. Zaman writes that ‘ulamā’ hoped that this would pressure the British into reinstating qāḍīs for Muslim family law disputes,

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but it ultimately drove numbers of women to apostasize from Islam as a legal means of leaving their marriages (which in turn led ‘ulamā’ to alter the fiqh on divorce to prevent it).118 Zaman notes the impractical inflexibility of the ‘ulamā’ here, adding that they maintained their legal doctrine at women’s expense, but what is interesting is the ‘ulamā’’s apparent willingness to change doctrines, even in direct response to circumstances, but not in any way that would undermine or diminish the need for learned authorities in the function of the law. Such a position could be seen as a reaction to the fragmentation of authority, a way of resisting the administration of Islamic family law by non-Muslims (under Anglo-Mohammedan law) and by non-‘ulamā’ authorities without continuous guidance from scholars. Accordingly, legal doctrines could be amended (if incrementally) but only by expert interpreters and within a framework of taqlīd. Thus, we can see two distinct valences of taqlīd for Deobandis: the absolute taqlīd offered by laypeople to the ‘ulamā’ as guides, which even among the literate is not sufficiently carried through scholars’ writings, but also involves their active involvement, and the intellectual framework taqlīd underpinning the madhhab (and Deobandi fiqh particularly), maintaining the discourse and methodology of the school. The Deobandis’ conservative—in the strictest sense of the word—attitude toward both are foundational for their religious authority, premised upon their fidelity to, and continuity of, established modes of scholarship, which are essential in terms of their role as religious interpreters and the very content of their interpretations. While there may be changes and adaptations in the latter, the validity of such alterations depends on their remaining (or appearing to remain) within the discursive and interpretive space laid out by the school.

Notes 1. André Wink, Al-Hind: The Making of the Indo-Islamic World, 3 vols (Leiden: Brill, 1990–2004). 2. Ibid., vol. 1, esp. 201–18; Annemarie Schimmel, Islam in the Indian Subcontinent (Leiden: Brill, 1980), 4–6. 3. Schimmel, Islam, 7–8; Richard Eaton, The Rise of Islam and the Bengal Frontier, 1204–1760 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993), 28. 4. Cf. C. Edmund Bosworth, “Ghaznavids,” EIr, vol. 10.6, 578–82. 5. Wink, al-Hind, vol. 2, 4. 6. Cf. Eaton, Rise of Islam, 28–30 and passim; Peter Jackson, The Delhi Sultanate: A Political and Military History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), esp. 24–5; also William Hanaway, “Secretaries, Poets, and the Literary Language,” in Literacy in the Persianate World: Writing and the Social Order, eds Brian Spooner and William Hanaway (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2012), 95–142. 7. Schimmel, Islam, 8–9.

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8. Jackson, Delhi Sultanate, 26–37. 9. Schimmel, Islam, 10. 10. Sunil Kumar, The Emergence of the Delhi Sultanate 1192–1286 (Ranikhet: Permanent Black, 2007). 11. Cf. ibid., 222–3. 12. Francis Robinson, The ‘Ulama of Farangi Mahall and Islamic Culture in South Asia (London: Hurst, 2001), 9. 13. James Morris, “Ibn ‘Arabi and His Interpreters Part II: Influences and Interpretations,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 106 (1986), 733–56, esp. 752; also James Morris, “Ibn ‘Arabi and His Interpreters Part II (Conclusion): Influences and Interpretations,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 107 (1987), 101–19. On this point, see also Robinson, Ulama, 16–17. 14. Cf. Schimmel, Islam, 23. On Suhrawardī and ibn ‘Arabī, as well as the intellectual connections between them, see Annemarie Schimmel, Mystical Dimensions of Islam (Chapel Hill, N.C.: University of North Carolina Press, 1975). 15. Aziz Ahmad, An Intellectual History of Islam in India (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1969), 34; Schimmel, Islam, 8; Schimmel, Mystical Dimensions, 345; cf. ‘Ali ibn ‘Uthman Hujviri, Somme spirituelle: kashf al-mahjub li-arbab al-qulub, ed. and trans. Djamshid Mortazavi (Paris: Sindbad, 1988). 16. Cf. Eaton, Rise of Islam, 71–7; Richard Maxwell Eaton, Sufis of Bijapur, 1300– 1700: Social Roles of Sufis in Medieval India (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1978). 17. Ahmad, Intellectual History, 44–5; Schimmel, Islam, 34–5. See also Chapter 11 in the present volume. 18. Thierry Zarcone, “Central Asian Influence on the Early Development of the Chishtiyya Sufi Order in India,” in The Making of Indo-Persian Culture: Indian and French Studies, eds Muzaffar Alam, Françoise Delvoye, and Marc Gaborieau (New Delhi: Manohar, 2000); see also Simon Digby, “The Sufi Shaikh as a Source of Authority in Medieval India,” in India’s Islamic Traditions, 711–1750, ed. Richard Eaton (Dehli: Oxford University Press, 2003), 234–262. 19. Ahmad, Intellectual History, 36–9; also Schimmel, Mystical Dimensions, 345–51. 20. On these connections, see Morris, “Ibn ‘Arabi,” esp. 754; and Schimmel, Mystical Dimensions, 311–15 and passim. 21. Schimmel, Mystical Dimensions, 352–4, 357; cf. Fakhr al-Dīn ‘Irāqī, Lama’āt, ed. Muḥammad Khawājawī ([Tehran]: Intishārāt-i Mawlā, 1992 [1371]). 22. Blain Auer, “Intersections between Sufism and Power: Narrating the Shaykhs and Sultans of Northern India, 1200–1400,” in Sufism and Society: Arrangements of the Mystical in the Muslim World, 1200–1800 C.E., eds John Curry and Erik Ohlander (New York: Routledge, 2011), 17–33. 23. Ibid., 21–2; cf. Richard Bulliet, “The Shaikh al-Islam and the Evolution of Islamic Society,” Studia Islamica 35 (1972), 53–67, esp. 56. 24. On Timur’s invasion, see Wink, Al-Hind, vol. 3, esp. 123–5. 25. Ahmad, Intellectual History, 40. 26. Ibid., 43. 27. Cf. Stephen Dale, “The Later Timurids, c. 1450–1526,” in The Cambridge History of Inner Asia: The Chinggisid Age, eds Nicola Di Cosmo, Allen J. Frank and Peter B. Golden (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 119–218.

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28. John Richards, The Mughal Empire (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993). 29. Cf. Dale, “Later Timurids,” 215–18. 30. Ibid., 207. 31. Ibid., 209–11; Paul Losensky, “Jami, i. Life and Works,” EIr, vol. 14.5, 469–82. 32. Nathan Spannaus, “Theology in Central Asia,” in OHIT, 587–605, esp. 594–5; cf. Morris, “Ibn ‘Arabi,” 110–14. 33. Reza Pourjavady, Philosophy in Early Safavid Iran: Najm al-Din Mahmud al-Nayrizi and his Writings (Leiden: Brill, 2011). 34. Asad Q. Ahmed and Reza Pourjavady, “Islamic Theology in the Indian Subcontinent,” in OHIT, 606–24; Sharif Husain Qasemi, “Fath-Allah Širazi, Sayyed Mir,” EIr, vol. 9.4, 421; Asad Ahmed, “Logic in the Khayrabadi School of India: A Preliminary Exploration,” in Law and Tradition in Classical Islamic Thought: Studies in Honor of Professor Hossein Modarressi, eds Michael Cook, Najam Haider, Instisar Rabb and Asma Sayeed (New York: Palgrave, 2013), 227–46. 35. Robinson—erroneously, it seems—identifies him as “Fadl Allah”. 36. Ahmed, “Logic,” 228–31. 37. Robinson, ‘Ulama, 1–2, 43–6. 38. Ahmed, “Logic,” 230. 39. Ibid.; Asad Ahmed, “Dars-i nizami,” EI3. 40. Cf. Robinson, ‘Ulama, esp. 46, 53–54; Ahmed, “Dars-i nizami.” 41. Scaffolding is Sherman Jackson’s term, speaking about Islamic law and the use of taqlīd specifically; Sherman A. Jackson, “Taqlid, Legal Scaffolding and the Scope of Legal Injunctions in Post-Formative Theory: Mutlaq and ‘Amm in the Jurisprudence of Shihab al-Din al-Qarafi,” Islamic Law and Society 3 (1996), 165–92, esp. 167–8. 42. See Ahmed, “Logic,” 228–9, 231–5; also Robinson, ‘Ulama, 47–53; cf. Muḥibb Allāh Bihārī, Sullam al-’Ulūm (Lahore: n.pub., [1880]). 43. Robinson, ‘Ulama, esp. 24, 56–68; Morris, “Ibn ‘Arabi,” 751–2; cf. Muhy al-Dīn ibn ‘Arabī, Fuṣūṣ al-Ḥikam, ed. Abū al-’Alā ‘Affīfī (Beirut: Dār al-Kitāb al-’Arabī, [1966]). 44. Ahmed, “Dars-i nizami.” 45. Robinson, ‘Ulama, 53; Michael Fisher, “Teaching Persian as an Imperial Language in India and in England during the Late 18th and Early 19th Centuries,” in Literacy in the Persianate World: Writing and the Social Order, eds Brian Spooner and William Hanaway (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2012), 328–58. 46. Ahmed, “Dars-i nizami.” 47. Robinson, ‘Ulama, 20–2. 48. Muhammad Qasim Zaman, “Transmitters of Authority and Ideas across Cultural Boundaries, Eleventh to Eighteenth Centuries,” in The New Cambridge History of Islam, Vol. 3: The Eastern Islamic World Eleventh to Eighteenth Centuries, eds David Morgan and Anthony Reid (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 582–610, esp. 586–9; Scott Kugle, “‘Abd al-Haqq Dihlawi, an Accidental Revivalist: Knowledge and Power in the Passage from Delhi to Makka,” Journal of Islamic Studies 19 (2008), 196–246. ‘Abd al-Ḥaqq, who was part of an established Sufi family involved in court politics in northern India, was also an important biographer-historian; cf. Raziuddin Aquil, Sufism, Culture,

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49.

50. 51.

52.

53.

54. 55. 56.

57.

58. 59. 60.

61.

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and Politics: Afghans and Islam in Medieval North India (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007). Hamid Algar, “A Brief History of the Naqshbandi Order,” in Cheminements et situation actuelle d’un ordre mystique musulman: Actes de la Table Ronde de Sèvres, 2–4 mai 1985, eds Marc Gaborieau, Alexandre Popovic and Thierry Zarcone (Istanbul: Editions ISIS, 1990), 3–44; also Muhammad Abdul Haq Ansari, Sufism and Shari’ah: A Study of Shaykh Ahmad Sirhindī’s Effort to Reform Sufism (Leicester: The Islamic Foundation, 1986). Cf. Itzchak Weismann, The Naqshbandiyya: Orthodoxy and Activism in a Worldwide Sufi Tradition (New York: Routledge, 2007). Cf. Alan Guenther, “Hanafi Fiqh in Mughal India: The Fatawa-i ‘Alamgiri,” in India’s Islamic Traditions, 711–1750, ed. Richard Eaton (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2003), 209–33. On Aurangzeb’s religious attitude and relationship with the ‘ulamā’, see Richards, Mughal Empire, esp. 173–5; Munis Faruqui, The Princes of the Mughal Empire, 1540–1719 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012). Zaman, “Transmitters of Authority,” 589–91; Ahmad Dallal, “The Origins and Objectives of Islamic Revivalist Thought, 1750–1850,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 113 (1993), 341–59; cf. [Shāh] Walī Allāh al-Dihlawī, al-Inşāf fī bayān asbāb al-ikhtilāf (Beirut: Dār al-nafā’is, 1977 [1397]); Shāh Walī Allāh al-Dihlawī. ‘Iqd al-Jīd fī Aḥkām al-Ijtihād wa-al-Taqlīd, ed. Muḥammad ‘Alī al-Ḥalabī al-Atharī (Shāriqah: Dār al-fatḥ, 1995 [1415]). Cf. Johannes M. S. Baljon, Religion and Thought of Shah Wali Allah Dihlawi 1703–1762 (Leiden: Brill, 1986); Marcia Hermansen, The Conclusive Argument from God: Shah Wali Allah of Delhi’s Hujjat Allah al-Baligha (Leiden: Brill, 1996). Cf. Spannaus. “Theology in Central Asia,” 596–7. Cf. Abdul Haq Ansari, “Shah Waliy Allah Attempts to Revise ‘Wahdat al-Wujud,” Arabica 35 (1988), 197–213. Barbara Metcalf and Thomas Metcalf, A Concise History of Modern India, 2nd edn (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 31–42; Richards, Mughal Empire, 253–81. It’s worth noting that territories beyond Delhi independent of the Mughals saw economic expansion in this period. Metcalf and Metcalf, Concise History, 44–55. For a broad overview of the development of colonialism in India with regard for the circumstances specific to the Mughal-era environment, see Christopher A. Bayly, Indian Society and the Making of the British Empire (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988). Barbara Metcalf, Islamic Revival in British India: Deoband, 1860–1900 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1982), 43–4. Cf. ibid., esp. 55–8. Robinson, ‘Ulama, passim; Mahmood Ahmad Ghazi, Islamic Renaissance in South Asia 1707–1867: The Role of Shah Wali Allah and His Successors (Islamabad: Islamic Research Institute, 2002). Muhammad Qasim Zaman, The Ulama in Contemporary Islam: Custodians of Change (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2002), 21–2; Muhammad Khalid Masud, “Anglo-Muhammadan Law,” EI3; Scott Kugle, “Framed, Blamed and Renamed: The Recasting of Islamic Jurisprudence in Colonial South Asia,” Modern Asian Studies 35 (2001), 257–313. A corresponding Anglo-Hindu Law was also created; cf. Metcalf and Metcalf, Concise History, 58–9.

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62. Metcalf, Islamic Revival, 50 also 52. 63. Saiyid Athar Abbas Rizvi, Shah ‘Abd al-’Aziz: Puritanism, Sectarian, Polemics and Jihad (Canberra: Ma’rifat Publishing House, 1982). 64. Metcalf, Islamic Revival, 67. 65. Muhammad Khalid Masud, “The World of Shah ‘Abd al-’Aziz (1746–1824),” in Perspectives of Mutual Encounters in South Asian History, 1750–1860, ed. Jamal Malik (Leiden: Brill, 2000), 298–314; Rizvi, Shah ‘Abd al-’Aziz, 522–32. 66. Metcalf, Islamic Revival, 46–7. 67. Ghazi, Islamic Renaissance, 189–204; also Rizvi, Shah ‘Abd al-’Aziz, 471–541. 68. Metcalf, Islamic Revival, 47. 69. Ghazi, Islamic Renaissance, 183–4. 70. Metcalf, Islamic Revival, 47, 85–6. 71. Ghazi, Islamic Renaissance, 184–6. 72. Cf. Metcalf and Metcalf, Concise History, 100–6; Bayly, Indian Society, esp. 179–99. 73. Kugle, “Framed,” 300–1; Zaman, Ulama, esp. 23–4. 74. Kugle, “Framed,” 301–2. 75. For a detailed self-presented history of the Dār al-’Ulūm, see Sayyid Mahboob Rizvi, History of the Dar al-Ulum Deoband, 2 vols (Deoband: Idara-e Ihtemam, Dār al-’Ulum, 1980–1). 76. Metcalf, Islamic Revival, 100–1. 77. Ibid., 101. 78. Ghazi, Islamic Renaissance, 214–15, 234–7; Metcalf, Islamic Revival, 75–80. 79. According to Ghazi, the college was established out of the pre-existing Madrasah-i Ghāzī al-Dīn; Ghazi, Islamic Renaissance, 205. 80. Metcalf, Islamic Revival, 72–3. 81. Ibid., 71–5. 82. Ibid., 74–5; Ghazi, Islamic Renaissance, 205–6, 214–15, 234; Rizvi, Shah ‘Abd al-’Aziz, 95–6. 83. Metcalf, Islamic Revival, esp. 93–4, 100. 84. Ibid., 95; Ghazi, Islamic Renaissance, 233–4. 85. Metcalf, Islamic Revival, 94–5. 86. Ibid., esp. 94, 97–100, 106 and passim. Metcalf speculates that fundraising was one of the factors in Deoband’s success relative to Farangī Maḥall-associated madrasahs, which predominantly relied on (ever-shrinking) waqfs. 87. Ibid., 97–9; cf. Ghazi, Islamic Renaissance, 242–52. 88. Cf. Zaman, Ulama, 25–8. 89. Dietrich Reetz, Islam in the Public Sphere: Religious Groups in India, 1900–1947 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), 84. 90. Cf. Metcalf, Islamic Reform, 88, 91–2, 100–2. 91. See the table of students in ibid., 110–11. 92. Ibid., 136. 93. These were the intended professions for graduates, with medicine—the only practical trade deemed prestigious enough—added toward the end of the century; ibid., 100, 103. 94. Ibid., 125–7, 133–5. 95. Ibid., 110. 96. Ibid., 87. 97. Rizvi, History, vol. 1, 329–31; also in Reetz, Islam, 316–18. 98. Rizvi, History, vol. 1, 329. 99. Cf. Jackson, “Taqlid.”

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100. Cf. Muhammad Qasim Zaman, “Tradition and Authority in Deobandi Madrasahs of South Asia,” in Schooling Islam: The Culture and Politics of Modern Muslim Education, eds Robert Hefner and Muhammad Qasim Zaman (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007), 61–86, esp. 64–6. 101. Rizvi, History, vol. 1, 329–30. 102. Muhammad Qasim Zaman, Modern Islamic Thought in a Radical Age: Religious Criticism and Internal Criticism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), esp. 76–83. 103. Zaman, “Tradition and Authority,” 68; cf. Muhammad Anwar al-Kashmiri, Fayḍ al-Bārī ‘alā Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī, 6 vols, ed. Muḥammad Badr ‘Ālim Mīrtahī (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-’Ilmīyah, 2005). 104. Zaman, Modern Islamic Thought, 83–4. 105. Rizvi, History, vol. 1, 331. 106. Ibid., 330. 107. Reetz, Islam, 99–100. 108. Zaman, Modern Islamic Thought, 82. 109. Reetz, Islam, 100. 110. Quoted in ibid., 111. 111. Metcalf, Islamic Reform, 51–2. 112. Cf. Zaman, Modern Islamic Thought, esp. 72–3. 113. Rizvi, History, vol. 1, 330. 114. On the Ahl-i Ḥadīth, see the accompanying chapter on Saudi Arabia in this volume. 115. Metcalf, Islamic Reform, 95. 116. Rizvi, History, vol. 1, 328. 117. Zaman, Ulama, 24. 118. Zaman, Ulama, 25–31.

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CHAPTER

9

DEOBAND’S CONSERVATISM: THE DA ¯R AL-IFTA ¯’, NADWATUL ULAMA AND – MUFT I MUHAMMAD TAQI USMANI Christopher Pooya Razavian

In contrast to the reforms being undertaken at al-Azhar and Diyanet, Deoband is steadfast in its conservatism. This chapter examines the conservatism of Muhammad Taqi Usmani, one of the most influential scholars in Deoband, as well as the current fatwās by the Dār al-Iftā’ and the Nadwatul Ulama. Conservatism here refers to resistant to change in rulings that have a precedent in Islamic law. Usamni sees no such need for reform in Islamic law, and believes that the laws of Islam have already laid out the basic blueprint for society. Muslims should simply follow God’s plan. Ijtihād is to be reserved for new issues that do not have a precedent in Islamic law. He believes that although modernity has brought many technical advances, it has also brought moral ills. Thus, he argues that it is through the traditional literature that one can filter out the bad parts of modernity from the good. This chapter will begin by examining the general approach toward deriving fatwās by Muhammad Taqi Usmani. Usmani’s works on the principles of deriving fatwās (uṣūl al-iftā) limits not only the ways that a scholar or muftī can bring about change in Islamic law, but also limits the cases in which change is applicable. Although this is an examination of the work of one scholar, Usmani’s approach toward Islamic law and fatwās is grounded in Deoband’s emphasis on taqlīd discussed in the previous chapter. Examining the fatwās of the Dār al-Iftā’ and Nadwatul Ulama will reflect this conservative ethos. The final section will analyze Usmani’s approach toward Islamic finance, one of the few topics in which he allows for dynamic interpretations of the Islamic law. Yet, it will be shown that even here his method and extent of change is still conservative.

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The Conservatism of Muftī Muhammad Taqi Usmani Muftī Muhammad Taqi Usmani is one of the best known Deobandi scholars from Pakistan.1 Born in 1943 in Deoband, India, he is the son of the late Muftī Muhammad Shafi. Muhammad Shafi was sent by the Deobandi scholars to Pakistan in order to fill the vacuum of scholarship in the newly established country.2 Usmani attained his takhaṣuṣ, Ph.D. equivalent, in madrasah system, from the Darul Uloom Karachi. He also holds a master’s degree in Arabic literature from University of the Punjab, and a Bachelor of Laws (LL.B.) from University of Karachi.3 Taqi Usmani’s Father, Muhammad Shafi, established this madrasah in Karachi.4 Usmani is currently the vice president of Darul Uloom Karachi,5 and his brother Rafi Usmani is the president.6 His education as a law graduate at University of Karachi has informed some of his positions on the importance of reform of the madrasah education.7 Usmani has held many important judicial positions. He has served as a judge in the Shariat Appellate Bench of the Supreme Court of Pakistan from 1982 to 2002. He is a permanent member of the International Islamic Fiqh Academy, located in Saudi Arabia. Given Usmani’s specialization in Islamic finance he is quite active on many sharī’ah boards for various banks and other financial institutions. His personal website also lists various sharī’ah boards on which he is chairperson, such as the ones managed by Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank, Meezan Bank, Pak-Kuwait Takaful, Pak-Qatar Takaful, and JS Investments Islamic Fund, to name a few. There are in addition a few sharī’ah boards that he was affiliated with in the past, such as Dow Jones Islamic Index, Saudi American Bank, HSBC Amanah Finance, Citi Islamic Investment Bank, and Swiss Re-Takaful.8 Usmani is conservative when it comes to change in Islamic law, and limits the use of ijtihād for only matters that have no precedence. His approach toward Islamic law is grounded in taqlīd and textualism. His conservatism is also grounded in his negative attitude toward modern morality. Usmani believes the West to be morally bankrupt, that secular reason leads to decadence, and that the good of modernity can only be identified through the use of traditional literature. He is highly critical of reformists such as Fazlur Rahman, and believes that reformists are trying to change Islam to conform to modernity rather than trying to have modernity conform to Islam. Islamic law is based on taqlīd and textualism. This is the core of Usmani’s approach toward Islamic law, especially as it is expressed in his Uṣūl al-Iftā’ wa-Ādābuhu (The Principles of Issuing Fatwās and its Etiquettes).9 Had Usmani written a book similar to Qaradawi’s Fiqh al-Awlawīyāt (The Fiqh of Priorities), as discussed in Chapter 3, he would have reversed Qaradawi’s emphasis on ijtihād to taqlīd—a reversal that puts him in conflict with an approach reinvigorated by Muhammad Abduh, but grounds Usmani in the Deobandi approach, especially in the works of Ashraf ‘Ali Thanawi, who he quotes from often.10

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What draws Usmani to taqlīd is the order that it brings. He sees a world without taqlīd as a world in which people follow their own whims and desires. Taqlīd offers a pragmatic solution to the difficulties that are faced in the process of ijtihād. It provides a concrete answer to the layman, and a structured approach for the learned scholar. On this point, Usmani writes: Subsequently, each one of these madhhabs has a specific framework within which they operate, such that many rulings are connected to each other. If one ruling from it is adopted and another ruling that is connected to it is omitted, this would cause the framework to be defective.11

Islamic law is an intricate coherent web of legal positions that have evolved over the centuries; each madhhab has developed its own approach that defines that madhhab, and provides a means for critical assessment. For Usmani, if one were to work outside of this taqlīd framework, one would lose the benefits that the tradition of the madhhab provides. Mohammad Fadel argues for a similar position when he states that taqlīd was “the result of group interpretation that provided an objective basis upon which legal decisions and legal rulings could be described as either substantively correct or incorrect.”12 Moreover, the reason that taqlīd is important has to do with social concerns more than epistemic ones; taqlīd does not necessarily lead one to the true sharī’ah as God intended. This becomes quite apparent when Usmani describes the permissibility of referring to other schools of law. Hence, Usmani writes: And that is due to what our scholars emphasised that doing taqlīd of a particular Imam is not a ruling that is a part of the sharī’ah by itself. It is a fatwā that has been given to regulate religious matters and to avoid what they fear in its absence, such as the people playing with religious rulings and following their own whims.13

Again, the emphasis is on social order and not truth. Taqlīd provides the scaffolding that helps to organize religious rulings. Scholars do not have any direct access to the sharī’ah. They are all striving to understand the sharī’ah as it was truly meant, but they know that they will often fail at this. They hold themselves—and their followers—to be bound by these rulings because they see them as being the most correct, not because they are necessarily true. Therefore, the rulings of the other madhhabs have the same proximity to the true sharī’ah. Although one is convinced by a madhhab more than another this does not mean that it is necessarily closer to the true sharī’ah. The legal scaffolding offered by taqlīd should not be confused with legal rigidity. Jackson, Fadel, and Ibrahim have made strong arguments regarding this point.14 As Ibrahim argues: “Every mature legal system has to strike a balance between stability and flexibility.”15 There are various strategies that a jurist can use to stay within the taqlīd framework and still be open to dynamic

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practices of legal reasoning. Usmani himself argues: “Likewise, adopting a madhhab does not mean that the ‘ulamā’ of that madhhab do not oppose the statement of their Imam in any of the issues.”16 What makes Usmani, and the Deobandi approach in general, conservative is not their emphasis on taqlīd but the way that they limit change within Islamic law. Ibrahim has masterfully shown the ways in which pre-modern jurists were able to incorporate change while staying within the taqlīd framework. One of the primary means of this was the use of talfīq, the eclectic borrowing from different schools of law to form a new opinion.17 As it will be shown below, Usmani limits the use of talfīq. Moreover, his approach to textualism limits the role of rational reasoning within Islamic law. He is thus quite critical of those who try to use maqāṣid (objectives) and maṣlaḥah (common good) in order to understand the spirit of the law. This puts Usmani in conflict with thinkers such as Muhammad Abduh and Rashid Rida who argued for the use of talfīq, maqāṣid, and maṣlaḥah. Usmani’s understanding that the different madhhabs have the same epistemic status means that theoretically one can follow the opinion of another madhhab. In practice, however, he has a very cautious attitude toward borrowing from a different maddhab, and repeatedly states that one should be careful not to borrow from a different madhhab solely due to one’s personal desires. In order to give a ruling based on a different madhhab certain conditions must also be met: there must be a severe need, the muftī must be sure of this severity, the muftī must investigate the madhhab being consulted, it must not a minority opinion within the madhhab, and it must be adopted with all of its conditions.18 One of the issues that Usmani sees as being justifiable for borrowing from a different maddhab is that of financial matters. The issue of finance will be discussed in greater detail below. He writes: In our age, monetary transactions have become complex, and the needs of people therein have multiplied, especially after the emergence of big industries, and the spread of trade between countries and continents, so it is necessary for the muftī to make it easy for the people in adopting that which is most lenient in those [matters] in which there is widespread affliction, even if it is from another madhhab from the four madhhabs.19

Usmani not only limits the cases in which one can borrow from another madhhab, but he also limits the way that one can borrow from a different madhhab. Usmani is against the practice of talfīq. Usmani defines talfīq as combining two madhhabs in such a way that it forms a new opinion.20 Thus, one may follow the opinions of a different madhhab, but one cannot join different opinions together to form an entirely new ruling. He argues again that working outside of the madhhab in such a fashion only opens the door for one’s whims and personal desires.21

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Usmani’s opinion on talfīq goes directly against the opinion of the Egyptian Dār al-Iftā’.22 The Dār al-Iftā’ declares that talfīq is permissible; one can create a new ruling by combining the rulings of two different madhhabs. The Dār al-Iftā’ limits the practice of talfīq to issues that go against the consensus. Interestingly, the Dār al-Iftā’ is aware that the majority of pre-modern scholars ruled against this practice of talfīq, but they defend their position nonetheless. Usmani is also more conservative than his Egyptian counterparts because he is a textualist. With regards to change in Islamic law he privileges textual sources over rational deliberation. This is evident in how he stays within the confines of the types of change that have been allowed in the classical literature, and how he criticizes the more rational approaches to Islamic law such as the use of maqāṣid. Usmani confines change in Islamic law to four different types: change due to the ‘illah (the ratio legis), ‘urf (custom), ḍarūrah (necessity), and sadd al-dharā’i’23 (blocking the means).24 These types of changes can be found within the traditional literature, and Usmani makes no effort to move beyond them. This is unlike Qaradawi who, as discussed in Chapter 3, expanded the list of reasons that a ruling can change. On the issue of ‘illah, Usmani makes a difference between ‘illah and ḥikmah (wisdom). The ‘illah of the ruling describes why the ruling exists, whereas the ḥikmah describes the usefulness of the ruling. He clarifies this difference through the example of the impermissibility of drinking wine. The ‘illa for the ruling is that wine is an intoxicant, but the ḥikmah for the ruling is that intoxicants cause a diminishing of one’s mental capacity. The ‘illah takes precedence over the ḥikmah, and thus if one were not to have diminished control over one’s mental capacities this does not affect the ruling that drinking wine is impermissible, because wine is in and of itself an intoxicant.25 Usmani gives another example by using the ruling on shortening one’s prayers while traveling. The ‘illah for shortening one’s prayers is the fact that one is traveling. The ḥikmah is to abstain from hardship. Thus, even if a traveler were not to suffer hardship, as is generally the case in the modern age, the traveler must still shorten her prayers.26 To make this distinction even more understandable for the reader, Usmani gives a third more mundane example: traffic lights. The ‘illah that one must stop behind a light is because the light is red. The ḥikmah for this act is that it helps stop accidents. Thus, even if one is the only person on the road, it is mandatory to stop behind the red light. This rather lengthy introduction sets up Usmani’s criticism of contemporary practices in Islamic law. Usmani effectively denies the practice of changing Islamic law due to maṣlahah, the common good, or by trying to follow the spirit of the law, the ḥikmah. In fact, he sees this practice as eventually leading to the suspension of all of Islamic law: In short, the sharī’ah ruling is vested in the ‘illah and not in the ḥikmah nor in maṣlahah. However, maṣlahah and the ḥikmah might help in understanding the ‘illah of the ruling, if the ‘illah is not clearly stipulated in the textual

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words of the shāri’ [law giver]. This voids the opinions of many contemporary reformers who call for the change of sharī’ah rulings due to changes in maṣlahah. This is verily something dangerous that can suspend all sharī’ah rulings.27

Usmani extends this criticism to the use and abuse of the maqāṣid al-sharī’ah as well. Directly after the quote above Usmani starts a new section focused on maqāṣid. Usmani broadly agrees that there are maqāṣid and maṣāliḥ behind rulings. Yet, the discovery of these maqāṣid is based on the text and not on rational discourse: That which rules on issues if it is useful or harmful is the sharī’ah of Allah. The maṣlaḥah that seems to apparently contract a text from the texts of the sharī’ah is not a maṣlaḥah, and is not useful, in reality. It is a construct of one’s desires, that which the sharī’ah was revealed in order to abolish its following.28

Thus, Usmani is quite critical of the maqāṣid-based approach. For Usmani, it is not possible to understand the intended goals of the sharī’ah nor the common good through rational reasoning. It is the text that clarifies these issues. He is critical of those who say that there are maqāṣid and maṣāliḥ (plural of maṣlaḥah) for every ruling, and that we are to follow these maqāṣid over the more literal understanding of the text. He states clearly that such an approach would destroy the sharī’ah. The reason that it would destroy the sharī’ah is because human rationality cannot truly understand what is and is not a part of maṣlaḥah. Some would say that it is expedient to do action A while others would say it is expedient to do action B. Moreover, it is not possible to discover the maqāṣid or its limits and boundaries through rational reflection. Usmani wonders who is supposed to disclose these maqāṣid, and who is to say how they are to be applied? This denial of the use of any type of purposiveness or common good puts Usmani in direct conflict with the al-Azhari scholars whose work was analyzed in Chapter 3. For many of those scholars, the wāqi’ (the reality) in which Muslims live now is drastically different to the reality in which Muslims lived in the past, necessitating a move toward maqāṣid and maṣlaḥah in order to define the way in which the spirit of the law could be applied today. For these scholars, it was simply not possible to abide by the more literal understanding of the text. Yet Usmani is clearly not convinced by these arguments. For Usmani, any move toward purposiveness opens the doors of subjectivity and will eventually ruin the sharī’ah. Usmani’s stance on conservatism is in part supported by his negative view toward modernity. In his book Islam and Modernism, Usmani has expressed both praise and contempt for modernity. He praises modernity for the technology that it has brought and its advances, but he states that modernity has failed in terms of moral standards. He puts forward an approach to modernity

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that will help to separate out the good from the bad. This approach is based on the teachings of the traditional literature. In his review of Usmani’s book, Zimmerman correctly states that “Usmani does not see any contradiction between his arguments that Islam should remain unchangeable with its ability to adapt to modernity.”29 Usmani understands modernity to be both a blessing and a curse. The technological advancements are good; the moral stances are bad. In the first chapter of Islam and Modernism he writes: However, in its own sphere it remains a reality that whereas modernity has elevated man’s material status to great heights, given him newer inventions and provided him with better means of comfort and ease in life, it has, at the same time, caused man to suffer from many depravities and led him to many disastrous ends.30

There are a few things that he would wish to separate from the industrial revolution, what he considers the non-essential parts, such as “[o]bscenity and nudity, free mixing of men and women, music and dances, interest and birth control.”31 He writes that this “is the evil from which the Islamic world has to save itself very diligently.”32 To summarize he adds that the “[i]ndustrial revolution in the Islamic world has become a necessity, but it should be a revolution free of the profanities of Western civilization which have led them to the brink of total destruction.”33 The way that the good of modernity can be sifted through the bad is through the use of the Qurʾān and sunnah: “The only way to judge between desirable and undesirable modernism is to examine it in the light of Qur’anic injunctions.”34 Usmani views Islamic law as already having laid out the blueprint for developing a Utopia, and all that is required by Muslims is to follow the plan. Thus, Islam “is the only religion in the world whose guidance is ever fresh. No revolutions and circumstances make it old.”35 Islam is also a “natural religion and it has come to exist till the Last Day,”36 and the Qurʾān and ḥadīth “encircle all problems arising till the last day.”37 Given that Usmani is critical of what could be considered more traditional approaches to change in Islamic law, such as the use of maqāṣid or talfīq, it is unsurprising, therefore, that Usmani is also critical of the reformist approaches and criticizes modernists for starting a “campaign of alterations and innovations in Islam.”38 He is critical of those modernists who want to interpret the Qurʾān and the sunnah in a manner that suits the contemporary context. In his critique of reformists, he writes: “It is a clear admission to the fact that they want to bring the Qur’an and Sunnah to reconcile with their decisions and not make their decisions to correspond with the Qur’an and Sunnah.”39 One modernist that has caught Usmani’s particular attention is Fazlur Rahman.

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Usmani’s Critique of Fazlur Rahman In 1962, Ayub Khan appointed Fazlur Rahman as the director of the Central Institute of Islamic Research, which later changed its name to the Institute of Islamic Research (IIR).40 The aim of the IIR was to bring secular laws in harmony with Islamic laws. Usmani has an article addressed to the IIR that was headed by Fazlur Rahman at the time.41 The article is titled “Research or Distortion” and is critical of Rahman’s reformist efforts. Usmani states that after several years in operation the IIR has failed to meet its goals. Rahman himself stated that the main problem of the IIR was that it could not find “adequate human resources,”42 that is, scholars who could do the type of scholarship he had in mind. Usmani, however, believes that there were other reasons for its failure. He argues that the main cause of IIR’s failure was that it could not differentiate between research and distortion. This distortion of Islamic values, in Usmani’s view, was a result of two problematic assumptions. The first is that Islamic laws have become outdated; the second is that Muslims must accept all of Western thought in toto.43 Thus, Usmani sees the IIR’s endeavor as being simply to restate Western thought within an Islamic guise. Usmani counters this approach by stating that the Islam as revealed 1,400 years ago already has solutions to many modern dilemmas: Our submission is that, if you believe that Islam is the natural religion, if you have faith that its principles and injunctions are not the product of any human brain but that of the All-knower Allah who is fully aware of all the needs of Mankind for all times to come, if you are confident that the Islam proclaimed by Muhammad (PBUH) contains satisfactory solutions to all the problems and difficulties that may arise till the Last Day, then you must admit that the solution to the problems of twentieth century also lies in the same principles which were brought by the Holy Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) 1400 years ago.44

This quote clearly shows Usmani’s stance toward reason, revelation, and change. Usmani is steadfast against change because he believes that Islamic law is already perfect in the form first revealed to the Prophet. Any change to this Divine law can only be a change for the worse—whether this be change as presented by Fazlur Rahman and his modernist agenda, or change as presented through the use of maqāṣid or talfīq. For Usmani, ijtihād is a double-edged sword.45 In the right hands, it can help solve new issues that are faced by contemporary Muslims; in the wrong hands, it can distort the Divine Law. Therefore, he limits ijtihād to issues where there is no explicit injunction from the Qurʾān and ḥadīth, for if ijtihād “could be permitted in matters where explicit injunctions from the Qur’an and Hadith are present, there was no need for the advent of Prophets and Messengers.”46 He writes that numerous issues arise in every period in which no ruling can be

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found in the Qurʾān, ḥadīth, or rulings of previous scholars. Exercising ijtihād in this new terrain is the proper use of ijtihād: “Being within these limits and seeking the solutions to newer problems and understanding the intentions of jurists and the intentions of the Shariah is called true ‘Ijtehad.’”47 It is quite clear then that Usmani makes no room for the concept of wāqi’ that has been put forward by the scholars affiliated with al-Azhar. Changing Islamic law to fit the modern context opens the doors for subjective interpretations. Islamic law as it was originally revealed already presents us with a blueprint with which we must live. Given that it is perfect, it cannot be made more perfect through reform. The only place for reform is in cases of extreme hardship and necessity. Taqi Usmani is in general no fan of modern lifestyles. He believes that Muslims should take the good from industrial revolution, with its advancements in technology and medicine, but leave behind modernity’s approach to morality and ethics. His stance on the perfection of the divinely inspired Islamic law mixed with this negative stance toward modern morality grounds his critical stance toward reform and modernist approaches toward Islamic law. Moreover, it also grounds his relatively lax approach to violence to destroy the esteemed status that Western thought has gained within the Muslim world.

The Fatwās of the Dār al-Iftā’ If Taqi Usmani’s views show Deobandi conservative ethos staying firm, then the examination of the fatwās of the Dār al-Iftā’ and the Nadwatul Ulama leads to no different conclusions. The Dār al-Iftā’ was set up as a part of Darul Uloom Deoband in 1892. It was set up in response to the numerous questions that were coming to the Darul Uloom. Currently, the Dār al-Iftā’ is headed by Muftī Habibur Rahman. The online website is managed by the Internet Department at the Darul Uloom, and all the English translations are carried out by this department. The website has posted many of Dār al-Iftā’s fatwās, and it is possible to submit a question directly through the website.48 The fatwās on the website are divided into five major sections: Faiths and Beliefs, Prayers and Duties, Social Matters, Transactions and Dealings, and Miscellaneous. Each major section is divided into further subsections. The questions cover a broad spectrum of issues, ranging from the permissibility of eating nutmeg, to voting in Indian politics. It is interesting that even though the fatwās of the Dār al-Iftā’ mirror many of the same stances of their Saudi Salafi counterparts (see Chapter 6), the Dār al-Iftā’ takes a harsh stance against Salafi methodology. In one fatwā, a person asks, “Shaikh Nasiruddin Albani, Shaikh Ibn Baaz are reliable scholars or they belong to Ghair Muqallid?” Ghair muqallid here refers to the fact that some Salafi scholars, such as Albani but not Ibn Baz, generally eschew taqlīd. In response, the Dār al-Iftā’ website states: “Nasiruddin Albani was extremist, staunch ghair muqallid as well as narrow minded towards Ḥanafīs. He is out of Ahl Sunnah Al-Jamah and deviant

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person.”49 The same, however, did not apply to Ibn Baz, the website maintained, because he was within the Ḥanbalī school of thought.50 In a separate question regarding Salafis, the website replies that the ghair muqallid “are not from Ahl al-Sunnah wa al-Jamah.”51 Another response on the website notes: “The present-day Salafis are deviated from the Right Path, in several issues they are against the mainstream Muslim Ummah.”52 As stated earlier, taqlīd is a central component in Deoband’s approach, as evidenced by Muhammad Taqi Usmani’s statements. This fatwā by the Dār al-Iftā’ states the importance of taqlīd to a greater level. By not doing taqlīd one is actually considered to be outside the fold of Sunnism. This negative stance toward the Salafis reflects Deoband’s critical view of nearly all competing Muslim groups, even the Tableegi Jamaat. However, this negative stance toward the ghair muqallid also stems from Deoband’s rivalry with the Ahl-i Ḥadīth. The Ahl-i Ḥadīth are a reformist movement that emerged in the Indian subcontinent and that, similar to the Salafis of the Arabian peninsula, emphasize ijtihād in legal matters.53 The reason that the Dār al-Iftā’ is so negative about the Salafis is that its scholars believe that a Salafi will eventually leave the fold of Islam and become an atheist: “Ghair Muqallidiat (not following any Imam) leads a man to atheism and disbelief.”54 Deobandi scholars take a very conservative stance when it comes to the role of women in Muslim societies. One woman wrote to the Dār al-Iftā’ asking: “Please advise that being at home how should I live my life and what should be my goal?”55 First, the Dār al-Iftā’ replied by recommending a series of books for her to study. Second, she was advised against “going out of home without any need.” This prohibition extended to the fact that she should “refrain from participating in rituals and celebrations.”56 Another woman wrote asking about the role of women in da’wah and propagating the religion of Islam. The woman wrote that she goes to female educational circles that are part of the Tableegi Jamaat. The Tableegi Jamaat is an offshoot of the Deobandi movement that focuses more on propagation of Islam than specialist teaching. The woman writes that these circles “keep insisting that women should go out of their homes”57 to participate in activities that would propagate the religion. She asked: “Is it really necessary for a woman to go on jamaats (local, national, international) or is it enough to seek & give dawah from their homes.”58 The Dār al-Iftā’ answered: “Women are not asked to do dawah and tabligh. It is the responsibility of men to learn religion and teach their women as well.”59 It continues by stating that there are no examples of women performing acts of da’wah from the early generation of Muslims. Moreover, it argues, our current era is an era of fitnah, mischief, and “it is very hard for a woman to save her honour.” It is due to this fitnah that “women are not allowed to come to the mosque of their locality though they come along with their mahram.”60 At the end of the same answer, the Dār al-Iftā’ states that the Qurʾān “asks the women to stay in their homes and remain in purdah.”61 The literal definition of purdah is curtain, but it refers to “limiting interaction between men and

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women outside well defined categories.”62 Purdah is practiced by both Hindu and Muslim communities in South Asia. There are many questions about the purdah on the Dār al-Iftā’ website. One question in particular asks about the proper observance of purdah. Dār al-Iftā’ responds: “According to the Shariah, observing purdah for women is that they wear such clothes that cover their bodies and the body structure is not revealed. They must not expose their adornments . . . While at home, women should wear qamis, shalwar and scarve, and while going out, they must wear simple burqah. Thus she will be observing full purdah.”63 By stating that woman should wear the burqah, the scholars at Dār al-Iftā’ are also stating that women should cover their face. In response to a separate question, the Dār al-Iftā’ clarifies its stance on covering the face. In response to a question about hijāb, the Dār al-Iftā’ writes that if a woman goes out in public and “she puts only dupatta (scarf) on head while the face is open, it is not complete hijab. In such case the woman shall be sinful.” This is in contradiction to scholars such as Qaradawi that do not see the veiling of the face as obligatory.64 There is also a question regarding permissibility of a woman leaving her home without a maḥram (male guardian). The Dār al-Iftā’ answers: she can “go in nearby places without a mahram observing hijab provided there is no fear of fitnah (civil strife). But for a journey, she should be accompanied by any mahram.”65 The same questioner asked if it was permissible for women to drive. The answer was that it is not allowed. In a different question, a person writes that his wife was able to pass the driving test the first time; seemingly impressed about his wife’s achievement, he wanted to know how he could improve his own memory. The Dār al-Iftā’ replied that first it was “not liked by Shariah for women to drive” and that if he wished to improve his memory he should recite ya qawī eleven times.66 With regards to women traveling alone, it seems that Dār al-Iftā’ views any type of travel without the accompaniment of a maḥram as unlawful. One individual asked about the permissibility of a woman performing the Hajj without a maḥram. The reply was that her hajj is valid but that it was a sin to travel without a maḥram.67 Another questioner asked about the permissibility of women traveling in the company of her female siblings. The Dār al-Iftā’ replied that, again, she cannot travel without a maḥram. This fatwā refers to a ḥadīth that, according to Dār al-Iftā’s English translation, states: a woman “should not travel for more than 48 miles except with a mahram relative.”68 Muhammad Taqi Usmani also reiterates these views in his own personal fatwās. He writes that the sharī’ah has “not allowed women to leave the house without some urgent or pressing need.”69 Taqi Usmani emphasizes the compatibility between technical innovation and Islamic norms. At times, however, these two seem to be in tension. One of these cases is about the issue of photography. Dār al-Iftā’ considers any type of photography to be prohibited. This is problematic in today’s media culture. Many people have written to Dār al-Iftā’ about the issue of photography. Dār al-Iftā’ fatwās are quite clear that “photography and videotaping

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of living beings is disallowed in Islam.”70 For instance, one woman wrote to Dār al-Iftā’ that she was a reporter for a television news channel and felt that being a television reporter went against the sharī’ah; she wanted to know what was the correct position. The Dār al-Iftā’ replied: “it is prohibited in Islam to photograph and to let others photograph you” and that the individual should find a different vocation.71 The prohibition of photography is, however, limited to the photography of living beings. This becomes clear in a response by Dār al-Iftā’ to a query about the permissibility of using a mobile phone for photography or video recording. The Dār al-Iftā’ replied that the mobile phone itself is permissible to use for communication but one cannot use it for the photography of living beings.72 The Dār al-Iftā’ refers to several ḥadīth in order to justify its position. For example, many of its fatwās site the Prophetic ḥadīth found in collections of Bukhārī and Muslim: “Those who make pictures will be punished on the Day of Judgment and will be asked: make the picture alive which you created.”73 Another ḥadīth often quoted is: “Angels do not enter a house accommodating dog and picture.”74 They also refer to several scholarly works on the issue. One of the books referenced is by Muhammad Taqi Usmani, Islam Mian Tasweer ka Hukm (The Ruling on Photograph in Islam).75 Another person wrote in asking about the permissibility of viewing pictures on a computer. The Dār al-Iftā’ considered that to be unlawful as well: “It is unlawful to see the pictures intentionally.”76 Another person wrote asking if digital cameras were permitted, and again the answer was no.77 One person asked if they could post photos on websites, and Dār al-Iftā’ replied that that was not allowed either.78 The Dār al-Iftā’ also bans the watching of television. One of its fatwās states: Television is a tool of entertainment and amusement, the root cause of indecencies and obscenities, it has taken the place of cinema. Those who watch television watch haram programme and learn nudity and sinful acts. Therefore, watching television is haram.

In a personal fatwā, Muhammad Taqi Usmani extrapolates on Deoband’s position on television. He writes that images on television are not pictures in the sense described in the narrations of the Prophet. Yet the reason that watching television is prohibited is because “most of the programs broadcast on the TV channels contain impermissible elements.”79 Dār al-Iftā’ makes a distinction between watching something on television and watching it via the Internet. One person asked if it was permissible to watch the prayers broadcast from Mecca on television or over the Internet. The Dār al-Iftā’ replied: “It is wrong to watch fair programmes also on television. Yes, one can see it using internet.”80 Another person asked about this discrepancy between television and the Internet, questioning that if television

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is prohibited, the Internet should be prohibited as well. Moreover, he also asks why scholars from Nadwatul Ulama distribute videos of their speeches on CD: If keeping T.V. for islamic porpose [sic] is haram so why not keeping mobile or surfing internet is haram since it is the latest mode of entertainment, why madarsas [sic] like nadwatul ulema [sic] make C.D. roms of speeches by there [sic] famous scholers [sic], for sure this CDs will be watched on TV only. 81

The Dār al-Iftā’ replies: It is not right to analogize the TV to mobile and internet. These two things have not been made for entertainment. This is the reason that many people utilize them in fair and allowed ways, except TV that is nearly impossible to use it without a sin. However, if a person uses mobile in unlawful ways like TV then it will be equally sinful.82

As discussed in the chapter on al-Azhar, one of the major issues that scholars from al-Azhar were discussing was the issue of fiqh al-aqallīyāt. One of the main issues within that literature was about mortgages. An inquirer from the U.K. writing to Dār al-Iftā’ asks: “there are lot of muslim [sic] people living in mortgaged house . . . is this allowed in the U.K.?” The inquirer then states the position held by a few Ḥanafī scholars that argues that interest in the dār al-ḥarb was allowed. The Dār al-Iftā’ replied: “The Holy Quran will last till Qiyamah and all rulings of it also shall remain till Qiyamah. Likewise, the ruling about riba shall last till Qiyamah and it shall remain unlawful for each Muslim whether he lives in any part of the world.”83 In a similar question, a person from the U.S. stated, “I purchased a house, since I did not have full amount I took out mortgage on it . . . Please advise that taking this interest based loan is jaaiz [legitimate] or not.”84 The Dār al-Iftā’ replied: “When you did not own full amount to buy house then you should wait till you arrange the full amount or try your level best to borrow interest free money from someone. It is unlawful to take interest based loan without a severe need.”85 The response of Dār al-Iftā’ not only goes against the European Council for Fatwa and Research (ECFR), Qaradawi, and Bin Bayyah’s ruling on mortgages in the West, it also goes against the spirit of fiqh al-wāqi’ that they were trying to promote. The Dār al-Iftā’ clearly states that if a law is in the Qurʾān it will be applicable until the day of judgment. They do not make similar concessions to the waqi’ that al-Azhar scholars do. Searching Dār al-Iftā’s website, there are a few issues that would communicate Dār al-Iftā’s sensitivity to issues related to the wāqi’. As the two issues discussed above (the role of women in society and photography) demonstrate, Dār al-Iftā’ emphasizes a strict conservatism toward already established practices. This, however, does not mean that Dār al-Iftā’ bans all facets of modernity. The

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Dār al-Iftā’ does in fact promote an active engagement with electoral processes. One individual asks the Dār al-Iftā’ to clarify who the individual should elect based on the Islamic textual sources. The Dār al-Iftā’ responds: “India is not an Islamic country but it is a democratic and secular country. Hence it is out of place to look [at] its politics in Islamic perspective and test the parties and political leaders on the principles of the Quran and Hadith.”86 It further adds that turning to the traditional literature to understand who to vote for would “bring nothing except disturbance and confusion.”87 The criterion that the Dār al-Iftā’ puts forward as to who to vote for is: “one should vote to the party and leader who is better in the favour of Muslims and the country.” The fatwā ends by noting: “status of vote is as testimony and witness; so it is the responsibility of every Muslim should utilize it as much as possible correctly. The vote should not be kept back.”88 This is the sole fatwā on voting that was available on the website. It nonetheless states that the Dār al-Iftā’ does not view voting as being tantamount to shirk and that it supports a pragmatic approach toward Muslims’ engagement with broader Indian society. Dār al-Iftā’ views participation in elections as a pragmatic step toward gaining the greatest amount of good for Muslims in India. The question does not, however, directly address those living in Muslimmajority countries nor those living outside of India. The Nadwatul Ulama (NU) is an educational and reformist movement that started in 1892 in India in order to start a new madrasah curriculum that mixed traditional and modern curricula together.89 The founders of NU believed that on the one hand the traditional madrasahs were no longer in touch with the realities of their communities, and, on the other, they believed that Muslim scholars should play a larger role in society. A new curriculum was established to meet these goals.90 The curriculum was a mix of the Dars-i Niẓāmī, the curriculum that was developed to produce administrators for the Mughal state, and English-language schools that were being introduced by the British. The curriculum was not generally accepted by the other madrasahs, and thus the movement decided to establish its own educational institution, the Darul Uloom Nadwatul Ulama.91 The Nadwatul Ulama website has a section where they have posted a series of free to read books in English. These books are all by Syed Abul Hasan Ali Hasani Nadwi (d. 1999), who has been described as “the most influential Indian religious scholar of his generation.”92 Nadwi has been influential not only in India but in Arab countries as well.93 He has written more than 200 books, mainly in Arabic, and many of them have been translated into English. One of his most influential books was Madha Khasr al-‘Ālam bi ‘Inḥiṭāṭ al-Muslimīn. The book has been translated into English under the title Islam and the World: The Rise and Decline of Muslims and its Effect on Mankind. The book focuses on the effects of the decline of Muslim political authority in the world. Nadwi shares Usmani’s concerns and critiques of modernity. One theme that runs heavily in this book, and in Nadwi’s writings in general, is the concept of jāhilīyah.94 Jāhilīyah means ignorance, and it is

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usually used to describe the “ignorant” ways of the life of the Arabs before Islam. Nadwi uses this same term to describe aspects of contemporary Western lifestyle. This is especially clear when he writes that European civilization transformed from a Christian civilization to a materialist jāhili civilization.95 As Zaman correctly states, for Nadwi, “Islam and the Jāhiliyya are mirror images.”96 Any deviation from Islam is a movement toward jāhilīyah. Nadwi writes that there is no civilization on Earth as opposed to Western civilization, and its jāhil philosophies and materialist obsession, as Islam.97 He argues that with the rise of the West has come a myriad of social problems, and that the only solution to these problems is for Muslims to take charge as leaders of a global movement.98 Yet, this is not simply a leadership of Muslims, but specifically the leadership of Arabs. He dedicates an entire chapter to the leadership of the Arab world.99 One of the critical ways that Muslims can regain global leadership, in Nadwi’s view, is through restructuring the educational system. Nadwi writes that the educational system that has been adopted from the West has made Muslims subservient to the same goals. Muslim countries require an independent system of education. Nadwi does not seem to give any weight to new approaches to ijtihād. In his book Mas’ūliyat al-‘Ulamā’ fī al-Awḍa’ al-Mutghayyirah (The Responsibilities of Scholars in Changing Times), which is a text of a speech that he gave to scholars in India, Nadwi discusses what he believes to be the most important responsibilities of scholars.100 Nowhere does he discuss the importance of a new approach to ijtihād. Instead, he discusses the importance of other issues such as da’wah, propagating the religion, and infighting and corruption among scholars. Nadwi’s writings give a sense that Islam as it is traditionally practiced is the savior of humanity. Reform would therefore be seen as trying to incorporate the jāhilīyah of Western norms. The essence of Nadwi’s writings are captured by the translator of his book when he writes that the real aim of reformers is “to recast the teachings of the Qur’ān in such a way as to find in them justification for degenerate ways of living and thinking they have borrowed from the materialistic civilization of the West.”101 Given this approach, it would then have been justifiable, indeed necessary, for the scholars at Nadwatul Ulama to try to preserve their old way of life. This is especially evident in the fatwās from Nadwatul Ulama about the role of women in society. All the fatwās support the practice of purdah and the segregation of women and men. Although they state that it is permissible for women to seek an education, it is not permissible for them to attend mixed-gender classes. One fatwā on the website asks if it is permissible for women to gain an education. The scholars reply that it is permissible because it allows her to become a better mother, but she should not study in mixed-gender classes.102 The same person asks if it is permissible to walk to an educational institution without a maḥram. They reply that is permissible as long as the distance is short and that there is no fear of fitnah (moral vice).103 Another person asks about a particular madrasah where the male teacher and female students

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sit together without a purdah (curtain) between them. The Nadwi scholars respond that this violates Islamic principles and women should not pursue an education in such an environment.104 Another person asks if it is permissible to send one’s daughters to study in modern universities that have mixedgender classes. The scholars reply that due to the mixed-gender classes, it is not permissible.105 The purdah culture seems to have a strong following among South Asian Islamic movements. This is evident by how contemporary religious scholars try to tread carefully on this issue. One example comes from the work of Mohammad Akram Nadwi. Mohammad Akram Nadwi is a student of Abul Hasan Ali Hasani Nadwi and has written a book on the latter Nadwi’s life and works. Based in the United Kingdom for many years, Nadwi is normally seen as a progressive within the Deobandi tradition. In one of his interviews, like Hasani Nadwi, Akram Nadwi also uses the imagery of jāhilīyah but he uses the concept to promote women’s education and leadership. He argues in this interview that barring women from education and religious authority was a type of jahilīyah and that it was similar to the pre-Islamic custom of burying young girls alive.106 In another recent lecture, Akram Nadwi noted that the situation of women in some Muslim-majority countries is so difficult that if men were to live in those conditions they would suffer serious mental stress.107 However, having been criticized for promoting liberal gender norms, Akram Nadwi qualified his statements in another interview by emphasizing that women should sit at a distance from their male classmates or be separated by a curtain108 even though he does not adhere to the stricter fatwās given by the scholars at Nadwatul Ulama. Nadwi has started his own educational institution in England called the Al-Salam Institute. The website is full of pictures of students, both male and female.109

Islamic Finance Taqi Usmani is renowned for his in-depth studies of Islamic finance. His personal website currently lists him as sitting on at least seventeen sharī’ah boards,110 and his statements tend to taken seriously within the Islamic finance sector.111 He has written various books on the subjects, and the largest sections of his fatwā collections are dedicated to Islamic finance.112 Finance is one of the few areas where Usmani deems it justifiable to borrow from a different madhhab.113 Financial transactions, especially those based on usury, he maintains, have become so widespread and ingrained in modern life that it is not possible for Muslims to escape them. He attributes this practice to Thanwi and his Imdād al-Fatawā, and Usmani remarks that Thanwi learned this practice from his teacher Rashid Ahmad al-Gangohi.114 Thus, Usmani grounds his approach toward finance in the practice of the previous Deobandi scholars. One of the most important characteristics of Islamic financing for Usmani is that it is backed by hard assets thereby differing from contemporary

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practices of interest-based finance. In a transaction there should always be an exchange of real assets, he maintains. Usmani presents mushārakah and muḍārabah as being the ideal instruments of Islamic finance. Mushārakah in Arabic means sharing. In terms of Islamic finance, it is “a joint enterprise in which all the partners share the profit or loss of the joint venture.”115 There is no fixed rate of return, and the return is based on the actual profit earned by the joint venture. Moreover, the financier can suffer a loss if the venture goes badly. Usmani presents this as the ideal type of Islamic financial instrument. Muḍārabah, on the other hand, is a “special kind of partnership where one partner gives money to another for investing it in a commercial enterprise.”116 The difference between muḍārabah and mushārakah is that in mushārakah contracts are joint ventures whereas muḍārabah contracts are split between the financier (called the rabb al-māl) and the other partner who is exclusively responsible for operations management (the muḍārib). This means that under muḍārabah contracts the financier is responsible for any loss. The most widely used type of financial instrument is the murābaḥah. Murābaḥah is classically considered as a type of sale. It is a type of sale where the seller clearly states the cost incurred as well as the amount of profit that will be charged; this profit may be based on a percentage. Essentially, the financier owns the asset and the borrower makes periodic co-payments based on a percentage of the mark-up. This percentage of mark-up generally follows the London Interbank Offered Rate (Libor).117 Usmani believes that murābaḥah is to be used only in cases of the need.118 The reason is that he believes that the net result of murābaḥah is the same as interest-based borrowing. The fundamental difference between murābaḥah and interest-based borrowing is that murābaḥah contracts are backed by assets. Nonetheless, Usmani sees murābaḥah as “only a device to escape from ‘interest’ and not an ideal instrument for carrying out the real economic objectives of Islam.”119 The few occasions on which Usmani has borrowed from different madhhabs to develop his arguments are linked to developing the details of these different types of contracts. For example, there is a dispute among the madhhabs if commodities can be accepted as capital in mushārakah contracts. Usmani allows it, based on the views of the Mālikī madhhab: “It seems that the view of Imam Mālik is more simple and reasonable and meets the needs of the modern business. Therefore, this view can be acted upon.”120 Even though Usmani allows the greatest degree of flexibility in issues related to finance, the degree of dynamism is still limited. The use of borrowing from different madhhabs is confined to rather marginal issues. He states that Islamic finance should be based on asset-backed transactions and is critical of the use of murābaḥah. Murābaḥah is the most widely used financial transaction, but Usmani believes its use should be limited to cases of necessity.

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Traditional Scholars and Ijtihād Are there any scholars within Deobandi traditionalists who are trying to push the boundaries of reform? Muhammad Qasim Zaman in his masterful studies of South Asian ‘ulamā’ and ijtihād puts forward two candidates. The first is Abu Ammar Zahid al-Rashidi, the president of the Deobandi madrasah Nusrat ul Uloom in Gujranwala.121 Reading Zaman, and the comparisons between al-Rashidi and Qaradawi, one could assume that al-Rashidi approaches legal theory in roughly the same way as Qaradawi. Zaman describes al-Rashidi as being similar to Qaradawi, in the sense that al-Rashidi argues for broadening the scope of toleration when it comes to ijtihād as well as madrasah reform.122 He also comments that al-Rashidi believes that scholars should enlighten the common person (‘awamm) about the benefits of ijtihād,123 and that al-Zahiri is committed to pursuit of socioeconomic justice in a way that separates him from the more conservative approach of Usmani.124 Yet, examining al-Rashidi’s works reveal that al-Rashidi is just as committed to the principles of taqlīd as any other Deobandi scholar. There is a difference between al-Rashidi and Usmani in the way that they approach issues such as economic justice, which Zaman has covered in full.125 Yet this difference in their approach to social-political issues does not transfer into a more dynamic approach toward established rulings. One must separate the use of ijtihād for issues that have an established precedent in Islamic law from the use of ijtihād in modern issues that are without precedent. It is the second type of ijtihād that al-Rashidi is calling for. There are no signs within al-Rashidi’s works to show that he is pushing for reform within Islamic law for already established legal rulings while there is ample evidence that, in his view, if a legal ruling has a precedent, then that precedent should be followed. This is evident when he discusses the issue of fasting during extreme heat, his defence of ḥudūd (corporal punishment), and his discussion on human rights and Islam.126 Where al-Rashidi does allow for ijtihād are in new cases, similar to Usmani quoted above. Another institution that Zaman regards as being dynamic is the Islamic Fiqh Academy (IFA) based in New Dehli, India. The IFA is a fatwā council in India that was formed to answer many difficult questions regarding Islam and contemporary society. Zaman argues that IFA is “acknowledging the need to rethink particular norms and to do so in a ‘contemporary idiom.’”127 There has been considerable effort within the IFA to address modern questions. Their website boasts a series of detailed publications on topics such as acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS), the Internet, and human cloning.128 Zaman argues that it is through the use of collective ijtihād that the IFA tries to garner authority. Zaman’s analysis focuses on the issue of forced marriages in particular, and analyzes how the IFA rejected coerced marriages, a move seen to go against a traditional stance within Ḥanafism, and ruled that sharī’ah courts could annul these marriages.129 Narendra Subramanian echoes

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the same sentiment in her study of legal change and gender equality in regards to the IFA.130 Moreover, the publications of the IFA on legal theory also point to the fact that scholars attached to this institution are more receptive of legal principles that can allow for greater degree of change in Islamic law. In a collected volume dedicated to the method of deriving fatwās and legal judgments in India, several authors argue for a more reformed approach toward Islamic law.131 They argue for the use of maqāṣid, maṣlaḥah, and a greater degree of borrowing among the madhhabs.132 Yahya Nomani, a scholar from Lucknow, criticizes conservative ‘ulamā’ for keeping to conservative rulings even though it harms Muslim society.133 The IFA has also published a summary of all, or most of, their conference proceedings.134 One such conference proceeding covers a variety of issues such as marriage, financial transactions, and elections, but it begins with presenting a guideline as to how the IFA approaches issues of reform in Islamic law.135 Again emphasis is placed on greater borrowing from different madhhabs in cases of necessity, such that it would “make the things easy.”136 The proceeding also discusses the use of maqāṣid and maṣlaḥah especially as it pertains to Muslims living as minorities.137 This stance in legal theory has led to the reform of certain legal rulings. One example is IFA’s ruling on the permissibility of buying insurance.138 Insurance is seen as a prohibited type of transaction, but the IFA allows it because in India a Muslim’s “life, property, trade and industry are exposed to a constant danger of communal carnage.”139 Another case is the issue of coerced marriages for minors as stated above. Interestingly, Zaman writes that the IFA is reluctant to describe their endeavors about coerced marriages as ijtihād, and attributes this hesitation to the overall scholarly atmosphere in South Asia that is heavily suspicious of the use of ijtihād.140 Yet, if we attempt to plot these approaches to change on a continuum, we could place Qaradawi and the al-Azhari scholars on one end of the spectrum, and the Deobandi scholars on the other. The IFA would fall somewhere inbetween. For even though one can find publications that praise reform and change, many of the rulings of the IFA echo many of the socially conservative positions taken by Deoband. The IFA publications advise that women should not work with male colleagues,141 asked the government to ban women working at night,142 and stipulate that women should not study in mixed-sex institutions.143 The IFA also does not allow the watching of television but makes an exception for religious programmes,144 and it also does not allow the photography of living beings.145 Interestingly, similar to Deoband, IFA promotes active participation in elections.146 It seems, therefore, that Zaman is correct in stating that the conservative ethos within South Asia limits the degree to which scholars are willing to use ijtihād for rethinking established practices. The concept of taqlīd has a very strong hold within South Asian approaches to Islamic thought. Even scholars that are interested in the application of Islam in modern life are hesitant to push past the established precedent. They are conservative and cautious in

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their approach, and try to mostly stay within the bounds of taqlīd. Missing from Deoband’s discussion on Islamic law is any understanding of context or social conditions. Scholars such as Qaradawi and Bin Bayyah (see Chapter 3) emphasize that a fatwā must be appropriate to the realities that Muslims are living in (al-wāqi’ al-m’aīsh). This emphasis is clearly lacking from the works of Usmani and the fatwās of the Dār al-Iftā: the Deoband approach is thus quite distinct from that of al-Azhar, which allows for a greater degree of dynamism in Islamic law.

Notes 1. Misbahur Rehman, “Reforms in Pakistani Madrasas: Voices from Within,” in Reforms in Islamic Education: International Perspectives, ed. Charlene Tan (London: Bloomsbury, 2014), 97–116 at 106. 2. Masooda Bano, The Rational Believer: Choices and Decisions in the Madrasas of Pakistan (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2012), 129. 3. “Profile,” Mufti Muhammad Taqi Usmani Website, accessed November 6, 2015, http://muftitaqiusmani.com/en/?page_id=11333. 4. Rehman, “Reforms in Pakistani Madrasas,” 106. 5. “Profile,” Mufti Muhammad Taqi Usmani Website. 6. Rehman, “Reforms in Pakistani Madrasas,” 106. 7. Ibid. 8. “Profile,” Mufti Muhammad Taqi Usmani Website. 9. Muhammad Taqi Usmani, Uṣul al-Iftā’ wa-Ādābuhu (Karachi: Maktabah M’ārif al-Qur’ān, 2011). 10. For an intellectual history of the debate between ijtihād and taqlīd see Wael B. Hallaq, “Was the Gate of Ijtihad Closed?” International Journal of Middle East Studies 16 (1984), 3–41. 11. Usmani, Uṣūl al-Iftā’, 64. Modified translation from Muhammad Taqi Usmani, “The Issue of Taqlid and Adopting a Madhhab”, trans. Zameelur Rahman, Deoband.org, July 26, 2012, accessed October 24, 2016, https://www.deoband.org/2012/07/general/taqlid-and-ijtihad/the-issue-of-taqlid-and-adoptinga-madhhab/. 12. Mohammad Fadel, “The Social Logic of Taqlīd and the Rise of the Mukhataṣar,” Islamic Law and Society 3 (1996), 193–233 at 193. 13. Usmani, Uṣul al-Iftā’, 69. Modified translation from Muhammad Taqi Usmani, “The Issue of Taqlid and Adopting a Madhhab”. 14. Cf. Sherman A. Jackson, “Taqlīd, Legal Scaffolding and the Scope of Legal Injunctions in Post-Formative Theory. Muṭlaq and ʿĀmm in the Jurisprudence of Shihāb al-Dīn al-Qarāfī,” Islamic Law and Society 3 (1996), 165–92; Fadel, “The Social Logic of Taqlīd”; Ahmed Fekry Ibrahim, Pragmatism in Islamic Law: A Social and Intellectual History (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 2015), 15. Ibrahim, Pragmatism in Islamic Law, 14. 16. Usmani, Uṣul al-Iftā’, 81. Modified translation from Muhammad Taqi Usmani, “The Issue of Taqlid and Adopting a Madhhab”. 17. Ibrahim, Pragmatism in Islamic Law, 105–28. 18. Usmani, Uṣūl al-Iftā’, 202–7.

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19. Usmani, Uṣul al-Iftā’, 204. Modified translation from Muhammad Taqi Usmani, “Issuing Fatwa on the Ruling of Another Madhhab”, trans. Zameelur Rahman, Deoband.org, January 1, 2013, accessed October 24, 2016, https://www.deoband. org/2013/01/general/principles-of-fiqh/issuing-fatwa-on-the-ruling-of-anothermadhhab/. 20. Ibid., 207. 21. Ibid., 213. 22. “Al-Talfīq Bayn Al-Madhāhib Al-Fiqhīyah,” Dār Al-’Iftā’ Al-Miṣrīyah, February 17, 2014, accessed October 24, 2016, http://dar-alifta.org.eg/AR/ViewFatawaConcept.aspx?ID=%20182. 23. sadd al-dharā’i’ literally means “closing off the means that can lead to evil.” This concept is based on the understanding that the sharī’ah wants to prevent evil: Mawil Y. Izzi Dien, “Sadd al-Ḏh̲arāʾiʿ,” EI2. 24. Usmani, Uṣūl al-Iftā’, 240. 25. Ibid., 241. 26. Ibid. 27. Ibid., 244. 28. Ibid., 245. 29. Reviewed by John C. Zimmerman, “Review of Islam and Modernism by Muhammad Taqi Usmani,” Terrorism and Political Violence 20 (2008), 446–8 at 447. 30. Mufti Muhammad Taqi Usmani, Islam and Modernism, (n.p.n.d.), 6 (available online from: http://archive.org/details/IslamAndModernismByMuftiTaqiUsmani, accessed November 3, 2015). 31. Ibid., 16. 32. Ibid., 16. 33. Ibid., 16–17. 34. Ibid., 13. 35. Ibid., 15. 36. Ibid., 30. 37. Ibid., 16. 38. Ibid., 16. 39. Ibid., 41–2. 40. John L. Esposito, Islam and Politics (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1998), 122. 41. Usmani, Islam and Modernism, 32. 42. Fazlur Rahman, Islam and Modernity: Transformation of an Intellectual Tradition (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984), 123. 43. Usmani, Islam and Modernism, 34. 44. Ibid., 34–35. 45. Ibid., 75. 46. Ibid., 76. 47. Ibid., 77. 48. “Darul Ifta, Darul Uloom Deoband India,” Darul Ifta Website, 2016, accessed October 30, 2016 http://www.darulifta-deoband.com/. 49. “Question/Answer 43764 (Fatwa: 242/221/N=1434),” Darul Ifta Website, English Fatwas (Taqleed & Fiqh Schools), February 4, 2013, accessed October 30, 2016, http://www.darulifta-deoband.com/home/en/Taqleed--Fighi-Schools/43764. 50. Ibid. 51. “Question/Answer 49267 (Fatwa: 1436/1108/D=01/1434),” Darul Ifta Website, English Fatwas (Islamic Beliefs), November 16, 2013, accessed October 30, 2016, http://www.darulifta-deoband.com/home/en/Islamic-Beliefs/49267.

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52. “Question/Answer 4343 (Fatwa: 1106/951=B/1429),” Darul Ifta Website, English Fatwas (Deviant Sects), July 20, 2008, accessed October 30, 2016, http://www. darulifta-deoband.com/home/en/Deviant-Sects/4343. 53. Claudia Preckel, “Ahl-i Ḥadīth,” EI2. 54. “Question/Answer 2523 (Fatwa: 1705/1501=B),” Darul Ifta Website, English Fatwas (Taqleed & Fiqh Schools), January 21, 2008, accessed October 30, 2016, http://www.darulifta-deoband.com/home/en/Taqleed--Fighi-Schools/2523. 55. “Question/Answer 36380 (Fatwa: 194/L=110/TL=1433),” Darul Ifta Website, English Fatwas (Clothing & Lifestyle), January 7, 2012, accessed October 30, 2016, http://www.darulifta-deoband.com/home/en/Clothing--Lifestyle/36380. 56. Ibid. 57. “Question/Answer 24967 (Fatwa: 1636/1288/B=1431),” Darul Ifta Website, English Fatwas (Dawah & Tableeg), September 4, 2010, accessed October 30, 2016, http://www.darulifta-deoband.com/home/en/Dawah--Tableeg/24967. 58. Ibid. 59. Ibid. 60. Ibid. 61. Ibid. 62. Shahida Lateef, “Political-Social Movements: Protest Movements: Purdah in South Asia,” in Enyclopedia of Women and Islamic Cultures, ed. Suad Joseph, accessed October 30, 2016, http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/1872-5309_ewic_ EWICCOM_0134g. 63. “Question/Answer 8557 (Fatwa: 1946/1810=D /1429),” Darul Ifta Website, English Fatwas (Women’s Issues), November 25, 2008, accessed October 30, 2016, http://www.darulifta-deoband.com/home/en/Womens-Issues/8557. 64. “Ra’ī al-Shaykh Yusuf al-Qaradawi fī al-Niqāb” [Video], YouTube, May 20, 2011, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lCRw-K1wNJg. 65. “Question/Answer 8668 (Fatwa: 1414/1183=L/1429),” Darul Ifta Website, English Fatwas (Women’s Issues), Nov 9, 2008, accessed October 30, 2016, http:// www.darulifta-deoband.com/home/en/Womens-Issues/8668. 66. “Question/Answer 12014 (Fatwa: 615/445=L/1430),” Darul Ifta Website, English Fatwas (Dua [Supplications]), April 20, 2009, accessed October 30, 2016, http:// www.darulifta-deoband.com/home/en/Dua-Supplications/12014. 67. “Question/Answer 21739 (Fatwa: 618/618/M=1431),” Darul Ifta Website, English Fatwas (Hajj & Umrah), April 19, 2010, accessed October 30, 2016, http:// www.darulifta-deoband.com/home/en/Hajj-Umrah/21739. 68. “Question/Answer 30182 (Fatwa: 511/308/D=1432),” Darul Ifta Website, English Fatwas (Women’s Issues), March 2, 2011, accessed October 30, 2016, http://www.darulifta-deoband.com/home/en/Womens-Issues/30182. 69. Muhammad Taqi Usmani, Contemporary Fataawa (Durban: Offset Plate and Printing Services, 1999), 199. 70. “Question/Answer 1251 (Fatwa: 865/814=B),” Darul Ifta Website, English Fatwas (Halal & Haram), August 28, 2007, accessed October 31, 2016, http://www. darulifta-deoband.com/home/en/Halal--Haram/1251. 71. “Question/Answer 3785 (Fatwa: 487/442=D),” Darul Ifta Website, English Fatwas (Halal & Haram), April 28, 2008, accessed October 31, 2016, http://www. darulifta-deoband.com/home/en/Halal--Haram/3785. 72. “Question/Answer 119 (Fatwa: 1157/B=1335/B),” Darul Ifta Website, English Fatwas (Halal & Haram), March 31, 2007, accessed October 31, 2016, http:// www.darulifta-deoband.com/home/en/Halal--Haram/119.

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73. “Question/Answer 9529 (Fatwa: 2227/3030=D/1429),” Darul Ifta Website, English Fatwas (Halal & Haram), January 6, 2009, accessed October 31, 2016, http:// www.darulifta-deoband.com/home/en/Halal--Haram/9529. 74. Ibid. 75. Ibid. 76. “Question/Answer 7322 (Fatwa: 852/852=M/1429),” Darul Ifta Website, English Fatwas (Halal & Haram), September 1, 2008, accessed October 31, 2016, http:// www.darulifta-deoband.com/home/en/Halal--Haram/7322. 77. “Question/Answer 7279 (Fatwa: 1089/953=L/1429),” Darul Ifta Website, English Fatwas (Halal & Haram), September 4, 2008, accessed October 31, 2016, http:// www.darulifta-deoband.com/home/en/Halal--Haram/7279. 78. “Question/Answer 21244 (Fatwa: 720/585/B=1431),” Darul Ifta Website, English Fatwas (Halal & Haram), April 17, 2010, accessed October 31, 2016, http://www. darulifta-deoband.com/home/en/Halal--Haram/21244. 79. Muhammad Taqi Usmani, “Q & A: Video Chips,” Albalagh, accessed June 24, 2016, http://www.albalagh.net/qa/video_chips.shtml. 80. “Question/Answer 2654 (Fatwa: 2/2=L),” Darul Ifta Website, English Fatwas (Halal & Haram), December 9, 2007, accessed October 31, 2016, http://www. darulifta-deoband.com/home/en/Halal--Haram/2654. 81. “Question/Answer 2098 (Fatwa: 1892/1485=H),” Darul Ifta Website, English Fatwas (Halal & Haram), December 9, 2007, accessed October 31, 2016, http:// www.darulifta-deoband.com/home/en/Halal--Haram/2098. 82. Ibid. 83. “Question/Answer 3651 (Fatwa: 511/412=B),” Darul Ifta Website, English Fatwas (Interest & Insurance), April 21, 2008, accessed October 31, 2016, http:// www.darulifta-deoband.com/home/en/Interest--Insurance/3651. 84. “Question/Answer 60174 (Fatwa: 900/900/M=09/1436),” Darul Ifta Website, English Fatwas (Interest & Insurance), June 30, 2015, accessed October 31, 2016, http://www.darulifta-deoband.com/home/en/Interest--Insurance/60174. 85. Ibid. 86. “Question/Answer 5024 (Fatwa: 1176/149=B/1429),” Darul Ifta Website, English Fatwas (International Relations), August 11, 2008, accessed October 31, 2016, http://www.darulifta-deoband.com/home/en/International-Relations/5024. 87. Ibid. 88. Ibid. 89. Ẓafarul-Islām Ḵh̲ān, “Nadwat Al-ʿUlamāʾ,” EI2. 90. Muhammad Qasim Zaman, The Ulama in Contemporary Islam: Custodians of Change (Princeton–Woodstock: Princeton University Press, 2002), 68–72. 91. Ḵh̲ān, “Nadwat Al-ʿUlamāʾ .” 92. Zaman, Ulama in Contemporary Islam, 52. 93. Ibid., 52. 94. Muhammad Qasim Zaman, “Arabic, the Arab Middle East, and the Definition of Muslim Identity in Twentieth Century India,” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 8 (1998): 59–81 at 71. 95. Sayyed Abul Hasan Ali Nadwi, Mādha Khasr al-’Ālam bi-‘Inḥiṭāṭ al-Muslimīn (Mansoura: Maktabat al-Īmān, n.d.), 225. 96. Zaman, “Arabic, the Arab Middle East,” 71. 97. Nadwi, Mādha Khasr al-’Ālam, 229. 98. Ibid., 228.

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99. Ibid., 240. 100. Sayyed Abul Hasan Ali Nadwi, Mas’ūliyat al-’Ulamā’ fī-al-Awḍa’ al-Mutghayyirah (India: Majma’ al-’Islāmī al-’Ilmī, 2012). 101. Sayyed Abul Ḥasan Ali Nadwi, Islam and the World: The Rise and Decline of Muslims and Its Effect on Mankind (Leicester: U.K. Islamic Academy, 2005), xiii–xiv. 102. Nadwatul Ulama, “Fatwas, No. 46,” accessed June 1, 2017, http://www.nadwatululama.org/english/fatwa/arf_fatwa%20nadwa/fatwa%20nadwa.html#. 103. Ibid. 104. Nadwatul Ulama, “Fatwas, No. 43,” accessed June 1, 2017, 105. Nadwatul Ulama, “Fatwas, Nos. 42 and 44,” accessed June 1, 2017, html#http:// www.nadwatululama.org/english/fatwa/arf_fatwa%20nadwa/fatwa%20nadwa. html#. 106. Carla Power, “A Secret History,” The New York Times, February 25, 2007, accessed October 31, 2016, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/25/ magazine/25wwlnEssay.t.html. 107. Shaykh Dr. Mohammad Akram Nadwi [Cambridge Islamic College], “Feminism, Islam and Muslim Women” [video], YouTube, September 2, 2015, accessed December 18, 2015, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3MNHo35qNbU. 108. Power, “Secret History.” 109. Shaykh Dr. Mohammad Akram Nadwi [Al-Salam Institute], “Hadith, Fiqh & Tafsir Scholarship [Student Testimonial]” [video], YouTube, January 2, 2014, accessed December 18, 2015, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VzQDtLnGNA0. 110. “Profile,” Mufti Muhammad Taqi Usamni Website. 111. Robin Wigglesworth, “Sharia Boards: Scholars Hold Sway over the Success of Products,” Financial Times, May 5, 2009, accessed October 31, 2016, https:// www.ft.com/content/91c1636e-3836-11de-9211-00144feabdc0. 112. See for example Muhammad Taqi Usmani, Fiqh al-Buyū‘ ‘alā al-Madhāhib al‘Arba‘ah, 2 vols (Karachi: Maktabah M‘ārif al-Qur’ān, 2015); Usmani, Contemporary Fataawa. 113. I would like to thank Salman Younas for bringing this to my attention: Salman Younas, “Deobandi Attitudes and Approaches to Legal Change: The Case of Islamic Finance” (paper presented at the Deobandi Thought and Contemporary Times CSIA workshop, Oxford, February 22, 2015). 114. Usmani, Uṣūl al-Iftā’, 204. 115. Muhammad Taqi Usmani, An Introduction to Islamic Finance (The Hague–London: Kluwer Law International, 2002), 17. 116. Ibid., 31. 117. Ibid., 71–81. 118. Ibid., 12. 119. Ibid., 72. 120. Ibid., 27. 121. Muhammad Qasim Zaman, Modern Islamic Thought in a Radical Age: Religious Authority and Internal Criticism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 104. 122. Ibid., 135, 166–7. 123. Ibid., 104–5. 124. Ibid., 258. 125. Ibid.

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126. Abu Ammar Zahid al-Rashidi, “Asr Ḥāẓir Mīn Ijtihād: Chand Fikrī wa ‘Amalī Mabāḥis,” (Gujranwala: al-Shariah Academy, 2008). 127. Zaman, Modern Islamic Thought, 101. 128. “Digital Library,” Islamic Fiqh Academy (India) Website, accessed November 1, 2017, http://www.ifa-india.org/english.php?do=home&pageid=english_Library. 129. Zaman, Modern Islamic Thought, 193; Islamic Fiqh Academy (IFA), Juristic Decisions on Some Contemporary Issues (New Delhi: IFA Publications, 2014), 125. 130. Narendra Subramanian, “Legal Change and Gender Inequality: Changes in Muslim Family Law in India,” Law & Social Inquiry 33 (2008): 631–72 at 657. 131. Manhaj al-Iftā’ wa al-Qadhā’ fī al-Hind (New Delhi: Mu’asasah Īfā li al-Ṭab’ wa al-Nashr, 2011). 132. Badr Ahmad al-Mujibi, “Tasā’ulāt wa-Taḥdīyāt Tawajuh Manhaj al-Iftā’ fī al-‘Aṣr al-Ḥādhir,” in Manhaj al-Iftā’ wa-al-Qadhā’ fī al-Hind (New Delhi: Mu’asasah Īfā li al-Ṭab‘ wa al-Nashr, 2011), 77–88; Yaḥya Nu‘manī, “Mas‘ūlīyah al-Muftī Naḥw Muqawamah al-Taḥdīyāt al-Mu‘āṣarah,” in ibid., 99–102. 133. Nu’manī, “Mas’ūlīyah,” 102. 134. IFA, Juristic Decisions. 135. Ibid., 23. 136. Ibid. 137. Ibid., 29. 138. Ibid., 203. 139. Ibid. 140. Zaman, Modern Islamic Thought, 194. 141. IFA, Juristic Decisions, 155. 142. Ibid., 155. 143. Ibid., 237. 144. Ibid., 276. 145. Ibid., 304. 146. Ibid., 169.

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PART IV Ö Ö Ö

DIYANET This part argues that of the four major structures of Islamic authority under study, it is in fact Diyanet İşleri Başkanlığı (Presidency of Religious Affairs, hereafter Diyanet) that is most responsive to the sensibilities of the modern, educated young Muslims, whose Western style of education leads them to demand that the Islamic authorities provide intellectually rigorous responses while preserving the spiritual depth of Islam. Chapter 10 maps out in detail how the democratic strengthening and economic prosperity under the centerright AKP party has contributed to a revival of traditional Islamic scholarship in Turkey. A pluralistic religious sphere of reformist scholars and Sufi ṭarīqahs is evolving and cultivating close ties with Diyanet; the latter’s willingness to absorb these pluralistic influences in turn is giving it the Islamic legitimacy it has historically lacked in religious circles both at home and abroad. Chapter 11 helps explain how Diyanet, an institution established by the secular Kemalist regime, has actually maintained a high degree of continuity with the Ottoman scholarly tradition. Chapter 12 examines the fiqhi positions of Diyanet and those of two influential Turkish scholars, who are actively engaging with traditional Islamic concepts to bridge the gap between Islam and modernity. The chapter shows how despite the pressure from successive secular governments, Diyanet has historically followed a moderate course and while adapting to change has respected the limits to reform defined by the four Sunni madhhabs. The practical answers to real-life questions that emerge from such an intellectual and spiritual milieu resonate with a growing number of educated Muslims around the globe.

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CHAPTER

10

DIYANET: TAKING CENTER STAGE Masooda Bano

The inclusion of Diyanet İşleri Başkanlığı (Presidency of Religious Affairs, hereafter the Diyanet), among leading Islamic scholarly platforms within Sunni Islam would surprise some: Diyanet’s claim to global leadership of Sunni Islam is, after all, quite recent. But, if comparative analyses are valued for their potential to identify subtle shifts that in the medium or long term can potentially change the status quo, then it is the study of Diyanet and of the changing milieu of the Turkish Islamic scholarly sphere that has most to offer to this comparative project. The socio-economic and political changes in Turkey since 2002, when AKP (the Justice and Development Party of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan) came to power, have facilitated a revival of the traditional Islamic scholarly and spiritual platforms. More importantly, scholars leading these platforms are now engaging with Diyanet in ways that are boosting the latter’s authority among devout Turks and making its newly stated ambition to be the leader of the moderate voice of Sunni Islam on the global stage plausible. It is the contention of this volume that Turkey today is the most promising context for the flourishing of what in this volume has been defined as the civilizational approach to Islam, capable of appealing to the sensibilities of the moderneducated, progressive Muslims: its appeal rests in its ability to combine moderate but loyal readings of Ḥanafī fiqh with a strong emphasis on taṣawwuf. This moderate approach, which respects the importance of sharī’ah while equally emphasizing esoteric matters and the inner workings of the heart through a strong emphasis on taṣawwuf, is in fact quite close in spirit to what is normally interpreted as al-Azhar’s wasaṭīyah Islam;1 it also strongly overlaps with the understanding of neo-traditionalists in the West such as Hamza Yusuf and Tim Winter, who—as we will see in Volume 2, Part I—are currently very influential among young, educated, and upwardly mobile Muslims in the West. The burst in Islamic scholarly activity that Turkey has seen under the [ 271 ]

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AKP, especially since 2010, merits serious scholarly attention: it tells us about the deep-rootedness of Islam in Turkish society and the potential that Turkey offers for reinvigorating intellectually engaging and spiritually enriching Islamic discourse and practices that can court modern-educated and socially progressive Muslim youth. Most importantly, it also tells us how public consensus actually sets the limits of legitimate reform, and equally how public perceptions about an institution’s right to speak in the name of Islam can at times shift rapidly. To understand Diyanet’s newly found confidence to assert itself as the leading authority of moderate Sunni Islam, the strengthening of democracy, especially from 2010 onwards, after which the Turkish military’s influence on politics was visibly curbed,2 is in particular very important. If we consider how the AKP has engaged with Diyanet—an institution founded in 1924 by the Kemalist elite to replace the expansive Ottoman religious bureaucracy, regulate religious practice and discourse, and defend a secular constitutional order—assertions that the AKP is imposing a specific brand of Islam inspired by the Salafi outlook are seriously called into question.3 Instead, the pluralistic religious influences absorbed by Diyanet under the AKP verify the latter’s claim to being a center-right party that respects Islamic values but is not an Islamist party in the sense of imposing a specific understanding of Islam on society.4 The AKP leadership, as we will see, has provided moral support and at times official state patronage to encourage a pluralist array of Islamic scholarly and spiritual platforms in Turkey, including university-based research institutions, madrasah-style traditional learning platforms, and Sufi ṭarīqahs of varying orientations, including those with a particular emphasis on the philosophical study of taṣawwuf, such as Ibn‘Arabī. By reversing the Turkish state’s excessively repressive approach to religion and reconnecting to the legacy of the Ottoman Empire, while at the same time facilitating economic growth and the strengthening of democracy, since 2002 AKP rule has both directly and indirectly supported a revival of traditional Islamic scholarly platforms. This revival is creating a pluralistic Islamic religious sphere where not one but many platforms are engaged in reviving traditional Islamic scholarly practices5 that were banned by the Kemalist regime, starting from 1924. The AKP government has since 2011, however, severely restricted the activities of the influential Gülen movement—a Sufi order whose leader has been accused by the AKP government of running a parallel state and planning the 2016 failed coup attempt.6 Further, certain religious communities, in particular Alevis, who have historically been excluded from Diyanet, remain excluded to date.7 While Diyanet’s exclusion of Alevis is an important concern for scholars working on religious pluralism,8 the issue is of less relevance when studying the leadership role that Diyanet is trying to acquire in the eyes of Sunni Muslims across the globe.9 Rather than imposing a specific reading of Islam on Diyanet (such as the one that al-Azhari ‘ulamā’ feared in respect of the Muslim Brotherhood), the AKP has allowed for pluralist Islamic scholarly platforms within Sunni Islam

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to have increased opportunities to lobby Diyanet, which is partly reflective of AKP’s own pluralistic make-up.10 My own fieldwork suggests that the influence is, however, not restricted to religious groups or orders formally associated with the AKP.11 These pluralistic influences, if properly absorbed by Diyanet, can give this expansive and well-funded bureaucratic structure the spiritual depth and scholarly credibility that it has historically lacked in the eyes of the devout, due to its origin as part of the Kemalist secularization project.12 On the basis of a number of visits to Turkey since 2008, and particularly drawing on the interviews that I conducted in late 2015, I am of the view that this synergy between Diyanet and the rich array of Islamic scholarly platforms evolving in Turkey has the potential to make Diyanet succeed in asserting itself as an influential voice of moderate Islam on the global stage. To the moderate and socially progressive Muslims for whom three dimensions of faith—deep spirituality, reasoned debate, and respect for the sharī’ah—are equally important, the Turkish Islamic spirit can be particularly appealing. Acquiring this status, however, will take time. While a rich milieu of religious activities does exist in contemporary Turkey, reviving the rigor required of classical Islamic scholarship, as is expected of senior ‘ulamā’, will take some time. Further, since this Turkish Islamic scholarly revival is strongly tied to the economic and political stability achieved under the AKP, any serious threat of disruption to this process (such as the 2016 failed military coup) runs the risk of reversing the socio-economic gains that allowed for the revival of traditional Islamic scholarly platforms. If, however, democracy stays on course and the military is kept in check, the Islamic scholarly revival in Turkey will make it a highly influential voice of moderate Islam on the global stage—a status that arguably it would have naturally inherited if the Ottoman legacy had not been so forcefully disrupted by the modern Turkish Republic. To understand the importance of the Islamic scholarly revival in contemporary Turkey requires appreciation of three factors: first, the historical roots of Turkish Islam, which from the start balanced a commitment to basic principles of the sharī’ah with cultivation of inner mysticism and a strong sense of Islamic arts and aesthetics; second, the modernist turn under Mustafa Kemal, whereby the state violently supressed all expressions of Islamic sentiments in the Turkish public sphere; and third, the revival since 2002 of a confident Turkish Islamic identity under the AKP during a period of democratic consolidation and economic expansion. This chapter will explore the significance of all these factors in terms of Diyanet’s past, present, and future.

Pre-AKP Diyanet: A Huge Establishment Lacking Traditional Authority A creation of the Kemalist regime, which enshrined respect for the separation of state and religion in its founding constitution, Diyanet—with its budget of more than 2 billion dollars13 a year—is today one of the biggest state-funded Islamic bureaucracies in the Muslim world. Diyanet was established in 1924 to

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regulate the role of religion in Turkish society under the Turkish Republic; the same year marked the closure of madrasahs in Turkey under the Unification of Education Act.14 Diaynet’s powers were severely restricted, in comparison with the Ottoman religious hierarchy (Şeriye ve Evkaf Vekaleti) that it replaced. Under Ottoman rule, the office of the Shaykh al-Islām (Grand Shaykh) had the status of the Grand Vizir (minister), ranked directly below the office of the Sultan himself.15 Under the Turkish Republic, religious authority lost its ministerial status, and Diyanet became an administrative rather than ministerial unit of the Turkish state, albeit reporting directly to the Prime Minister. Under the new restricted mandate, Diyanet presided only on questions of ‘aqīdah and ‘ibādāt; responsibility for mu’āmalāt was transferred to the parliament through the Law of the Abolition of the Şeriye ve Evkaf Vekaleti. This meant that sharī’ah lost all legal and constitutional relevance.16 Successive Diyanet Presidents have had to respect this separation of state legislation and religion; some, in fact, have come to actively appreciate it. When President Erdoğan, for instance, asked Ali Bardakoğlu (the President of Diyanet from May 2003 to November 2010), who was known to be particularly supportive of Turkish secularism, to weigh in on the debate on headscarves, the latter famously refused to get involved, arguing that it would violate the principles of secularism.17 In order to understand how an Islamic scholar could defend such a position, it is important to appreciate that for Professor Ali Bardakoğlu, and for the majority of Turks who have come to respect this separation, secularism does not mean suppression of religion but a relationship of mutual respect between state and religion. In Ali Bardakoğlu’s words: “Secularism is respect shown for religious affairs by the state and the lack of religious intervention in state affairs. However, this does not mean a total severance of the two. Secularism does not entail total independence and operation in two separate areas. As the Ottoman example illustrates, it is rather a relationship based on mutual respect and balance.”18 In reality, the Kemalist regime did argue for the separation of state and religion, as defended by Ali Bardakoğlu, but adopted a French-style laïcité model whereby the state actively tried to regulate religion and minimize its role in society. During the last years of the Ottoman Empire, in which the Young Turks, with their modernist agenda, exercised great influence, madrasahs had come under heavy pressure to reform and absorb Western system and methods of education. This pressure had triggered a series of reforms within the madrasah system, designed by the more reform-minded Islamic scholars, convinced of the need to adapt to the prevailing critiques in order to ensure the system’s survival. Thus, by the time of the foundation of the Turkish Republic in 1923, the madrasah system in Turkey had undergone many reforms. The Kemalist regime, however, did not acknowledge these reforms, and in 1924, under the Law of Unification of Education, it abolished the madrasah system—a move that over successive generations severely eroded Turkey’s ability to nurture traditional Islamic scholarship. In the following year, it further restricted the remaining Islamic scholarly platforms by banning ṭarīqahs and Sufi lodges.19

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Diyanet was created in this context of suppression to help the Kemalist regime defend its secularization agenda, and also to shape a new discourse on Islam that would endorse the regime’s modernization agenda.20 In reality, however, Diyanet ended up having a much stronger continuity with the Ottoman scholarly tradition than the planners had intended.21 To win this new institution some legitimacy in the eyes of the public, the Kemalist regime chose to appoint senior officials of Diyanet from within the Ottoman ‘ulamā’—albeit those who were viewed as reformists.22 As İsmail Kara notes, socially esteemed pro-reform ‘ulamā’ were appointed as the presidents of Diyanet in the first decades of the Republic: Rıfat Börekçi (1924–41), Şerafeddin Yaltkaya (1941–7), and Ahmed Hamdi Akseki (1947–51). All three were highly respected figures, both among the ‘ulamā’ and within society in general. These scholars, even though considered to be reformists compared with their more conservative colleagues, were men of strong religious conviction, and thus they did not endorse the full agenda of the secular regime.23 Obliged to comply with the state, these first three presidents were highly strategic and successfully diluted the efforts of the Kemalist regime to bring about extreme changes to the religious debates. They thus often saw service in state office as the best way to influence and defend the religious debate in a politically harsh climate. These Diyanet officials themselves engaged in illegal religious activities, such as the education of students preparing to become a hafız, the awarding of ijāzahs for madrasah training and Qurʾānic recitation, the teaching of Ottoman Turkish, dressing in prohibited religious robes (such as sarık, takke, and cübbe), and so on.24 Until the September 12, 1980 coup, İsmail Kara notes, muftīs had been known as müftü effendi or hocaefendi, even though these titles were banned. These early presidents of Diyanet also successfully resisted the Turkification of Islamic texts by deliberately failing to produce an official Turkish translation of the Qurʾān (despite heavy pressure from Mustafa Kemal himself), once they realized that the regime is likely to use the Turkish version to officially replace the original Qurʾān in Arabic—just as adhān was forced to be recited in Turkish from 1932 to 1950;25 this is just one of the many examples of how earlier presidents of Diyanet helped to ensure continuity with the Ottoman past. Such efforts by these early presidents of Diyanet to deliberately dilute the plans of the Kemalist regime ended up ensuring that in the long term Islamic discourse in Turkey, despite the heavy reformist agenda of the Kemalist regime, did not stray too widely away from the mainstream Sunni fiqh. The death in 1951 of Ahmed Hamdi Akseki, the third president of Diyanet, marked the end of the era of Ottoman-trained ‘ulamā’ leading the institution. By now, the newly established theology faculties (sing. ilahiyat fakultesi) and imam-hatip schools had become the main route to securing positions within Diyanet.26 The political climate had by then, however, also changed, and the extreme pressures on religious institutions had eased, due to a number of factors, the death of Mustafa Kemal in 1938 being one. The state itself had by then increasingly begun to draw on religious discourse (although still in a

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highly controlled fashion) to build the Turkish national identity and to ward off the pressure of communist ideas.27 Although this trend vacillated every time the military intervened to defend Turkish secularism, successive presidents of Diyanet on occasions continued to adopt positions that put them in opposition to the state. Diyanet’s 1980 decision to endorse the wearing of headscarves by female students attending imam-hatip schools, and by women in general in 1993, was a challenging and risky decision in direct opposition to state ideology. So was its emphasis on preserving the performance of ‘ibādāh in Arabic instead of Turkish (a debate that was revived in 1997 during the February 28 period whereby the military forced the exit of Prime Minister Erbakan without officially declaring a coup).28 In terms of actual services provided by Diyanet, its primary responsibility has from the start been to train imāms to ensure that the mosques function properly. The dearth of trained imāms, resulting from the closure of madrasahs, was by the 1940s starkly obvious, presenting a great challenge to the mosques. Diaynet’s focus thus shifted toward the actual provision of religious services; even today, mosque imāms constitute the largest share of the employees of Diyanet, estimated to exceed 150,000 in total.29 Other staff and senior advisers mainly come from theology departments. These theology departments offer both undergraduate and graduate degrees, including Ph.D.s. Diyanet also oversees the production of Friday khutbahs through city-level khutbah committees, whose members draft the khutbahs, which are then distributed to all the imāms in the city.30 Another important role that Diyanet has in the long term come to play is that of issuing fatwās. Diyanet Müftülüğü in each city use previous fatwās issued by the Diyanet High Board of Religious Affairs based in Ankara as precedents on which to base their answers to public queries; any new questions are, however, forwarded to the Board, which alone has the authority to deliberate on such questions and issue new fatwās. Most members of the High Board of Religious Affairs come from theology faculties. The theology departments have therefore had considerable influence in shaping the official Turkish religious sphere. Diyanet has in recent years also extended its reach by increasing use of electronic media and the Internet. It now runs a phone fatwā hotline and a fatwā website, and also has a TV and radio channel.31 In addition, one of Diyanet’s main responsibilities is to produce Islamic publications, and in many cities it also maintains a bookstore. Since the 1980s, Diyanet has also steadily increased its sphere of influence among the Turkish diaspora community, especially in Europe, by providing Diyanet-trained and salaried imāms to counterbalance the influence of independent Islamic groups.32 The fall of the U.S.S.R., which led to the independence of former Turkic Central Asian states, has made Diyanet influential in shaping Islamic debates in these Central Asian Republics and the Balkans; a few of these states have also sought help from Diyanet to set up similar boards to regulate the religious sphere in their countries, and in particular to counter the influence of Salafi movements.33 The most important factor leading to the

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expansion of Diyanet’s influence beyond Turkey in recent years is a conscious shift in its approach to command a role on the global stage as a prominent voice of moderate Islam. In line with its mandate, Diyanet has thus tried to monopolize the Turkish religious sphere, but it is also a classic example of the complexity of projects to construct Islamic authority. Because it is a product of the Kemalist regime, Diyanet has for much of its history suffered from a lack of popular legitimacy, despite successfully resisting extreme pressures for reform by many governments. For religiously devout Muslims, Diyanet has been too secular. The scholarship associated with Diyanet, and the theology departments whose graduates hold key positions within it, are often seen to be lacking the rigor expected of traditional Islamic scholarship. Here it is important to understand how the Turkish theology departments differ from the traditional madrasah system. As the theology departments were established as part of the Kemalist modernization project and modeled on theology departments in Western universities instead of on the traditional madrasah system, their mandate was to promote a “rational” study of religion—which meant that belief in Islamic theology was not a requirement for joining the department. The challenge that these faculties face is that the scholarship they promote is perceived as lacking the rigor expected of madrasahs and traditional Islamic scholarly platforms—a common challenge faced when the state attempts to modernize madrasah education.34 Students are not required to cover the traditional Islamic texts in the same depth as required in a madrasah system; nor is mastery of Arabic guaranteed. Along with a perceived lack of depth in terms of textual knowledge, there is concern about the theology departments’ lack of emphasis on inculcating ritualistic piety. As discussed in some detail in the introduction to this volume, the embodiment of Islamic ethical and ritualistic practices is perceived to be characteristic of a good Islamic scholar, and inculcation of these virtues among the students is a central feature of traditional Islamic teaching. However, within the theology faculties, since neither teachers nor students are required to be believing Muslims (although in reality the majority who join these departments are) and since they are encouraged to question and debate religion in a rational way just as in the other faculties, a focus on moral training is largely absent. This lack of emphasis on building a learning culture that inculcates Islamic ethics and ritual practices, along with suspicions about the required depth of textual knowledge, is the biggest challenge to establishing the scholarly credibility of the Turkish theology faculties among the religious-minded. It is because of this that leading scholars of Islamic intellectual history in Turkey such as İsmail Kara argue that “Turkey has no ‘ulamā’’35 or that “Diyanet is not a religious authority in the sense al-Azhar is.” It is partly the result of this relative dilution of textual and moral education in Turkish theology departments that they, as well as Diyanet, which traditionally absorbs their graduates, have limited authority in the eyes of devout Turks. This distrust of Diyanet is key to ensuring that the traditional platforms, especially the

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Sufi ṭarīqahs and tekke, continued to operate successfully underground during the Kemalist period, and new forms of religious associations, named cemaats (which designed effective ways to impart religious education through socialwelfare programmes) became highly effective in attracting members. Diyanet thus had the formal authority to speak in the name of Islam; however, since this authority was not really grounded in traditional Islamic learning methods and practices, Sufi ṭarīqahs, cemaats, and (in the Kurdish-dominated areas) even the traditional madrasahs continued to operate underground. Some of these platforms are now able to operate more freely again in the changed political climate under the AKP. It is for the very same reasons that Diyanet has not historically been recognized as a serious Islamic authority on the global stage. Yet, as this chapter will show, what makes Diyanet a fascinating subject of study is the major transformation that is underway in the Turkish Islamic scholarly sphere. Since the time of my initial fieldwork in Turkey in 2008, there has been a visible shift in public perceptions of Diyanet: for the secular-minded it has become too religious; for the religiously devout who doubted it, it is increasingly acquiring an aura of religious credibility. Post-AKP Diyanet: A Growing Sphere of Influence To grasp the future potential of Diyanet, it is important to understand how the broader socio-political and economic shifts in Turkey since 2002, under the AKP, have influenced Diyanet and its relationship with the traditional Islamic scholarly platforms. An authoritarian or Islamist outlook could have resulted either in the imposition of a specific political Islamist ideology on Diyanet or in the very dismantling of the institution that was founded to defend the separation between state and religion. There is, however, no evidence of this happening under the AKP. Yet AKP rule has indirectly had a major influence in connecting Diyanet to more traditional forms of Islamic learning and thereby bringing it to center stage, both within Turkey and abroad. Three trends have been crucial to the revival of the Turkish Islamic scholarly sphere under the AKP: the government reviving the Turkish Islamic identity, the strengthening of democracy, and economic growth. Especially since 2010, after the military’s ability to interfere in politics was seriously checked, the AKP has been much more open about acknowledging the importance of religion. In a speech in February 2012, Erdoğan emphasized the need for a “pious generation”: He [the opposition party CHP leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu] says that I divide Turkey as the pious-the atheist . . . In my statement there is no mention such as the pious-the atheist, but bringing up a pious youth. I support this. Do you expect raising an atheist youth from a party having conservative democratic identity? You may have that kind of a goal, but we do not. We are going to raise a conservative and democratic youth that also protect its values coming from history. This is our reason for being.36

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In the same year, changes were made to the education system: imam-hatip schools were reopened, and two optional Islamic courses were introduced into the curricula of primary and secondary schools—one on the life of the Prophet Muhammad, and the other on the knowledge of the Qurʾān. Further, Diyanet’s budget and administrative structure and duties were expanded. More importantly, there has been a qualitative shift within Diyanet. Due to the make-up of the AKP, which brings together different religious groups, most noticeably from the Naqshbandi Sufi order, many of these groups are now represented within Diyanet. Some have been appointed as advisers, and others as part of the administrative staff.37 After 2010, Diyanet ran a special programme to absorb 2,000 traditional scholars among its staff.38 This absorption of scholars and respected figures from traditional religious platforms into Diyanet has provided the latter with more legitimacy in the eyes of devout members of the public. Also, these new officials, due to their religious commitment, are often more proactive in planning activities and expanding the scope of Diyanet, leading Gibbon39 to refer to them as “entrepreneurial bureaucrats.” During this period, Diyanet has also become more responsive to the demands of the more traditional communities. Mehmet Görmez, who was appointed President of Diyanet in 2010, endorsed a ruling that imāms and preachers could preach and give Friday khutbahs in Kurdish, Arabic, and Zazaki instead of just Turkish. This important shift, approved in March 2012, helped Diyanet built trust within these communities.40 However, to interpret Diyanet’s absorption of these traditional scholars as AKP’s attempt to influence Diyanet’s discourse in a particularly restrictive “Sunni Salafi” way, as some recent observers have asserted,41 is misguided. It is therefore not surprising that such assertions have come from those who are not conversant with Islamic scholarly tradition.42 There is ample evidence of Diyanet’s opening up to a broad array of traditional Islamic scholarly and spiritual platforms during this period, none of which would fit Salafism in methodology or outlook in the way this term is used today (Chapter 5); further, the very distinction that these commentators draw between “Ḥanafī” and “Sunni” Islam (as if they are clearly distinct entities), presenting them as different categories, is artificial. It is in fact an extension of the overall democratic strengthening process in Turkey that these pluralist religious platforms are able to lobby Diyanet to engage with them and where possible support their activities. During my fieldwork in Turkey in the fall of 2015, the growth in the number of Islamic scholarly platforms since my last visit in 2012, and their increased confidence to engage with Diyanet, was striking. Despite their different orientation and approaches, most such platforms felt both supported and consulted by Diyanet; in interviews with scholars from across the different platforms, there was much enthusiasm about how Diyanet was evolving. Recep Şentürk is an influential Turkish academic and intellectual whose work was first brought to my attention by a Syrian Canadian student who during the time of my fieldwork in Istanbul was studying with one of the traditionally trained Syrian shaykhs who have been forced to relocate to

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Istanbul due to the insecurity in Syria. He had during the summer attended a summer course in Islamic sciences organized by Recep Şentürk for visiting students from the U.S.A. in one of the Turkish universities. Impressed by Şentürk’s method and approach, this student had stayed in touch with him and was of the view that I must meet him. Another student, a final-year doctoral candidate in Cambridge University’s theological faculty, who was pursuing specialist Islamic studies in Istanbul with another Syrian shaykh, was similarly enthused about Şentürk’s attempts to bridge the apparent intellectual disconnect between Western and Islamic moral and philosophical concepts. As my fieldwork progressed, it became clear that a scholar like Recep Şentürk, who was appealing to educated and socially progressive Muslim youth who were at the same time keen to stay loyal to the essence of the Islamic tradition, was at perfect ease with Diyanet and was routinely invited to its consultations and activities. With a doctorate in sociology from Columbia University, U.S.A., and as the author of many books, one of them published in English by Stanford University Press, in the case of Recep Şentürk we have one example of the multiple profiles, approaches, and platforms that are spearheading the Turkish Islamic scholarly revival. Currently heading a research center on the Alliance of Civilizations, based at one of the private universities in Istanbul, Şentürk is a former Research Fellow at ISAM (Islam Araştırmaları Merkezi, Center for Islamic Studies), a leading Islamic research center in Turkey associated with Diyanet, and in addition to his university position he is also active in many initiatives aimed at re-energizing Islamic scholarly debates. His research, as we will see in Chapter 12, aims to reconcile concepts such as human rights, which are embedded in the Western philosophical tradition, with concepts from within the Islamic scholarly tradition. While his reasoning may not convince all, just as in the case of any scholarly exercise, what is important are the attempts that a person of his profile is making to bring Islamic philosophical concepts into dialogue with Western ones, the multiple platforms that he is developing, and activities that he is routinely hosting to advance Islamic scholarship, and it is significant that he regards the current opening up of Diyanet as a very positive development. While Şentürk may be seen as occupying a place in the middle of a continuum between the more reformist and the more traditional approaches aimed at re-energizing Islamic scholarship, at one extreme may sit the traditional Sufi groups, especially from the Naqishbandi-Khaladi ṭarīqah that is argued to have inspired most of the groups represented within the AKP, and on the other end of the spectrum would fall the work of Cemalnur Sargut, a female Sufi scholar who belongs to the Rifai ṭarīqah. This is the ṭarīqah that, unlike many other Sufi orders, places a greater emphasis on unlocking the intellect than on working to cleanse the heart to cultivate real taṣawwuf—although the latter remains a very important aspect of the overall focus.43 Thus, while making Ibn ‘Arabī’s philosophical mysticism accessible to the Turkish public is central to her teaching and scholarly writings, the thirteenth-century poet Jalāl ad-Dīn

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Muhammad Rūmī, with his focus on the cleansing of the heart, remains the second important figure referenced in her works. Herself seen by many as being too liberal—just as was the case for the founder of the Rifai ṭarīqah, who also endorsed the decision of the Kemalist regime to ban traditional Sufi ṭarīqahs and lodges—Cemalnur Sargut does not wear a headscarf, and neither do most women among her followers. She will be seen as the classic antithesis to the Saudi-style Sunni Islam that APK critics are accusing the party of promoting in Turkey. Yet, in the interviews, a person of her profile—a socially progressive, modern-educated, Sufi scholar passionate about making Ibn ‘Arabī accessible to the public, and well connected to leading scholars of Ibn‘Arabī in Western universities—was equally enthused and optimistic about the opportunities that had in recent years become available to promote Islamic scholarship within Turkey, as well as the prospect of opening up these opportunities to students from overseas. She spoke highly of the President of Diyanet, Mehmet Görmez, and also the senior AKP leadership for being highly supportive of the work of the Rifai ṭarīqah: “These are good people. They consult us; they ask us for prayers.” At the time of our meeting, she was very excited about having successfully launched a teaching and research center on Ibn ‘Arabī at one of the private universities in Istanbul. The center was starting off by offering seminar-style lectures, which students enrolled in any degree could attend while plans for the launch of a proper degree were being finalized. One of her seminars that I was able to attend at this center had a turn-out of more than fifty students and members of the public of different ages and both sexes; in it she tried to discuss aspects of the concept of ‘waḥdat al-wujūd’ (“unity of being,” which is very central to Ibn ‘Arabī’s thinking) at a level that was accessible for the audience. The center was also going to run a summer programme for American students. Commenting on this, she noted with great satisfaction: “This was always my dream: for people to come to my land to study Ibn ‘Arabī. I am very happy that we are now in a position to do that.” Similar optimism about the opportunities available to pursue a dynamic Islamic scholarly agenda was also evident among the researchers and academics at ISAM, which has now been promoted to the status of a university. The institution is named 29 May University, to mark the date when Constantinople fell to the Ottomans. While the academic programmes are being developed, the level of resources available to the project shows the government’s commitment to investing in Islamic scholarly activities. Explaining how the facilities available to young students in Turkey today are much better than those that were available to her generation, one of the senior research fellows at ISAM, who did her doctoral degree in the U.K. and is also a member of the theology faculty to be established in the university, noted: “We now have the economic resources for the students to undertake one year of intensive language training in an Arab country; currently Jordan is one location. This helps them perfect the language before they engage with the specialist subjects. These kind of facilities were not there when we were pursing our studies.”

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The result is thus a rich milieu for Islamic scholarly platforms, some, such as the 29 May University, directly supported by state funds, and others operating independently but feeling morally supported by the AKP’s willingness to acknowledge the Turkish Islamic identity and share pride in its heritage. That these shifts are having a positive impact on how the religiously minded view Diyanet was also evident in my interviews when people responded to my questions about Diyanet’s current president, Mehmet Görmez: most were positive about him. His predecessor, Ali Bardakoğlu, while also highly respected, was seen to be a bit “too secular”44 in his defence of Turkish secularization. Mehmet Görmez, who was also a professor from Ankara University Theology Department and thus had the same modern education as his predecessor, was also mentioned, mainly as having also received training in a Kurdish madrasah, which was seen as a sign of his legitimacy in the eyes of devout Turks. Görmez took over the office of the president of Diyanet in November 2010, and since then Diyanet has become more confident in asserting its claim to be the leading voice of moderate Islam on the global stage. In 2014, Görmez announced Turkey’s decision to establish an International Islamic University; more recently, given al-Azhar’s co-option by the al-Sisi government in Egypt, speculations are rife about how this new university can pose a challenge to the latter’s standing as the leading voice of moderate Islam (see Chapter 1). While on the one hand this International Islamic University is aiming to counter the more radical strands of Islam, on the other it is keen to revive traditional Islamic scholarship that al-Azhar long preserved but now is finding increasingly hard to defend. This ambition to become the leading voice of moderate Islam on the global stage, and the realization that acquiring this status requires reviving traditional Islamic scholarly practices, is leading Diyanet to engage with scholars who may appear too conservative to secular-minded Turks but who lend credibility to Diyanet in the eyes of Muslims around the globe. One such authority is Salman al-Ouda, the Syrian scholar who has developed his career mainly in Saudi Arabia (Chapter 6). Thus, Diyanet’s growing engagement with scholars from across the Muslim world who are respected within traditional Islamic circles cannot be interpreted as a radicalization of Turkish Islam; it is reflective instead of the thinking at the top that, in order to win international respect in the eyes of Muslims, Diyanet has to start to rebuild Turkey’s links with traditional scholars and platforms from across the Muslim world. In addition to working on the establishment of the International Islamic University, Diyanet is also establishing more visible centers overseas; for example, its mosque complex (named Diyanet Center of America) in Washington, D.C. is a beautifully designed and well-resourced center that is increasingly being used by a whole array of Islamic scholarly platforms, many run by American converts, and not just the Turks.45 This repositioning of Diyanet, from being perceived as an extension of a secular state to a body capable of gradually reviving traditional Islamic scholarly tradition, was also evident in how the theology faculties were ranked

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in terms of their importance. I was repeatedly told that it was the theology department at Marmara University, which is known to be more traditional, that was currently a more influential theology department than the one at Ankara, which is associated with the rationalist school and has historically been the most influential. Many of the senior scholars based at Marmara University, including İsmail Kara (the most respected professor of Islamic intellectual history in Turkey) and Mahmud Erol (another influential Turkish professor, specializing in Islamic philosophical mysticism), were equally critical, during the interviews I conducted with them, about the severe blow that Turkey had suffered in preserving traditional Islamic scholarship under the Kemalist era. Hayrettin Karaman, the adviser on Islamic matters to the AKP and a highly respected scholar of fiqh, is a former member of this faculty. The very fact that, during my 2015 interviews, it was the Marmara faculty that was repeatedly identified as being influential in religious and Diyanet circles shows the growing complexity of discourse within Diyanet; as argued before, and as will be illustrated in more detail in Chapter 12, this shift, however, does not imply a move in the direction of radical Islam but a move toward recognizing the importance of reviving the traditional Islamic scholarly practices and methods that were forcefully crushed by the Kemalist regime. What makes Turkish Islam particularly capable of appealing to modern young Muslims is its historical emphasis on balancing loyalty to the spirit of sharī’ah with a deep-rooted interest in taṣawwuf, and combining it with a strong sense of aesthetics. Music and arts are one of the four major areas of study within the Turkish departments of theology, and Diyanet’s recognition of the importance of aesthetics to spiritual experience is visible in the care with which the Turkish mosques are maintained. The grand chandeliers, the clean carpets, and the beautiful courtyards and gardens of the Turkish mosques make visitors from other Muslim countries particularly appreciative of the Turkish religious experience. Humza Yusuf, one of the most influential American Muslim scholars (see Volume 2, Chapter 1), appreciates Turkey for precisely these attributes in a lecture that he gives during Rihla (an intensive Islamic-studies summer course) that he and some other scholars run every year. For the last few years they have been hosting Rihla in the city of Konya and, while appreciating the Turkish religious tradition, in one of his lectures he notes how Turkey is one of the rare Muslim countries where beauty is still visibly preserved and cherished in the way that cities are organized and decorated.46 On the basis of my own comparative fieldwork across a large number of Muslim countries, it is easy to understand the point that Humza Yusuf is trying to make. Istanbul, with the Sultanahmet district at its heart, remains the most beautiful city, capable of instantly appealing to Muslims of all orientations who are keen to relate to Islam’s rich civilizational past. Turkish mosques are indeed among the most beautiful and well-kept mosques in Muslim countries today. The imāms are well trained, they dress ceremonially, and they are able to engage with a diverse set of audiences. As one of my respondents, a visitor to

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Istanbul, noted after coming out of Friday prayers in the Blue Mosque: “Where else will you find the Friday khutbah given in three languages, Arabic, Turkish and English—the last being in recognition of the large number of visiting Muslim tourists who inevitably flock to the Blue Mosque for the Friday prayer?” It is also the land of Rūmī, and, while the Mevlavi order may not be among the largest, its mystical spirit is very much reflected in the strong presence of Sufi orders in Turkey. Platforms teaching Ibn ‘Arabī (and to some extent even al-Ghazālī), who remain highly influential scholars in the minds of socially progressive and educated Muslims, are much more easily accessible in Turkey than in any other Sunni country in which I have conducted fieldwork. Even in countries such as Pakistan or Egypt, figures such as Ibn ‘Arabī, al-Ghazālī, and Rūmī remain very important to Muslim consciousness, but to find scholars who are capable of teaching these texts is a serious challenge. Thus, Turkish Islamic tradition as it evolved in the Ottoman period represented a careful blend of respect for core principles of the fiqh with deep appreciation for taṣawwuf and a strong focus on inculcating a sense of beauty within the religious tradition. The contemporary Islamic revival in Turkey is thus a positive step toward reviving this rich Islamic scholarly tradition and practice; it is not a shift in favor of radical Islam. It is thus understandable why the Research Fellow at ISAM who, first interviewed in 2012, had expressed reservations about how traditional Sufi ṭarīqahs distrust Diyanet, when re-interviewed in 2015 no longer had such qualms about Diyanet; instead, she was of the view that Diyanet is today an increasingly respected and important institution. Thus, the positioning of Diyanet has dramatically shifted under the AKP; today it is being viewed as more credible and committed to reviving the authentic Islamic scholarly tradition. The fact that this shift is becoming visible to Muslims beyond Turkey is evident in the media reports that increasingly pose Turkey’s proposed International Islamic University as a potential future rival to al-Azhar.47 The question, however, is this: what has allowed for this relatively easy rebalancing of focus within Diyanet’s religious orientation? What has enabled it to gain legitimacy in the eyes of the devout public in a very short period of time (2002–16)? Why have we not seen a more active resistance from within Diyanet to the opening up to traditional scholarly platforms? The answers to these questions lie in recognizing the importance of the first presidents of Diyanet in setting the tenor of the religious discourse that was to be pursued within Diyanet. Having been trained in the Ottoman madrasah system, these scholars were able to ensure that, even when under heavy pressure from the Kemalist regime to dramatically modernize the Turkish Islamic scholarly tradition, Diyanet’s publications or fatwās did not violate the areas of established consensus within the Ḥanafī fiqh (see next section). Equally importantly, it was the popular understanding of these core Islamic principles that ensured that the limits of reform were firmly set: even the Kemalist state could appreciate that crossing those limits will utterly compromise Diyanet’s ability to develop a mass following.

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The Key to Re-centering: Staying the Moderate Course When we look closely at Diyanet, the real puzzle (given its origin under the Kemalist regime) is not why until recently it has not been taken seriously by devout Turks at home and abroad, but more critically: why did it not radically reinterpret the core of the Islamic legal tradition? On the basis of an analysis of one of Diyanet’s influential scholarly compendiums that outlines Islamic rulings on a range of themes (see Chapter 12), it is easy to discern that, while respecting the separation between state and religion, Diyanet has not taken forward the agenda of major reinterpretation of the text that Atatürk saddled it with; instead, it has stayed well within the bounds of the traditional fiqhi interpretations. Where the fiqh clashes with the constitution of the Turkish Republic, Diyanet does not explicitly address the gulf between the two; however, it does outline the standard fiqh rulings on that subject, leaving it to the one asking the question to make a choice. It has not attempted to develop some radically modernist interpretation of the text; it is this that has helped to ensure that its recent attempts to cultivate a more traditional image are starting to pay off relatively quickly. A good illustration of this is its position on women’s inheritance rights. While the Turkish constitution gives men and women equal inheritance rights, and feminist groups within some Muslim countries (such as Bangladesh)48 are lobbying for similar constitutional changes, Diyanet’s response to this issue reflects how it has not tried to challenge what are viewed, within traditional Islamic scholarly debates, as established aspects of Islamic fiqh. Women are not usually responsible for providing subsistence for others. However, men are on the contrary obligated to ensure subsistence of their spouses, their daughters, their mothers or sisters in nearly all societies. Therefore, in accordance with the principle of “blessing as much as the burden experienced”, a man who is responsible for ensuring the subsistence of his spouse, daughter and mother or sister, is given twice the share of a woman who does not have such an obligation. b) A woman has the right to use her financial assets any way she wants. Even if her financial condition is good, she does not have to take part in the family expenses. Therefore, from this perspective, in the case when both a woman and a man take equal shares, since he is under obligation to provide for his family and she is not, this will upset the balance against him. c) A man is obligated to give mehir (some amount of property and goods) to his spouse. However, not only does a woman not have such an obligation, she also earns the right to get mehir from her spouse. d) Although during the Islamic waiting period of a divorce process the man is obligated to cover his wife’s expenses such as housing, food, clothing and medical treatment, the woman does not have such an obligation towards her husband. As one can see, concerning the financial obligations, far from being equal to a man, in fact a woman is in an advantageous position. In many areas, the financial obligations are imposed on the man. Therefore, because of the

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reasons given above, in dividing the inheritance among the siblings, the man receives, in accordance with the weight of his financial obligations, two shares; and having no financial obligations, the woman receives one share. This is the fairest and the most just inheritance division.49

This position and its justifications are fully in line with what the traditionally trained scholars in al-Azhar or Deoband would argue. Another interesting example of Diyanet’s ability to retain a balanced approach rests in its position on the custom of visiting shrines, and the whole subject of superstition more broadly. In trying to promote a more rationalist approach to religion, Diyanet was from an early period made to discourage the public from following practices viewed by the Kemalists as superstitions. However, given the centrality of Sufi orders in the Turkish Islamic tradition, Diyanet’s approach to regulating shrine worship illustrates its moderate approach. Unlike Saudi Arabia, Turkey has preserved the shrines immaculately, instead of erasing them to the ground; yet it has also ensured that it educates those visiting the shrines about the appropriate code of conduct whereby they are instructed not to pray to the saints but to pray for them. Analyzing one of Diyanet’s publications on superstitions, İştar Gözaydın notes how it advises people not “to hope for help from places like tombs and holy burials”; not to light a candle at a holy person’s burial and make a wish; not to believe that getting married between two religious holidays is unlucky; or that an itch on one’s right palm means that money will come, while an itch on the left palm means money will be gone. She notes how the document lists many other practices like these, leading her to conclude: “many practices encountered frequently in the Turkish ‘folk’ Islamic culture appear to be disapproved by the Diyanet.”50 These responses are again very much in line with traditional Islamic fiqh, or what one would expect to hear from al-Azhari or Deobandi scholars. It is interesting, therefore, to ask what has deterred an institution such as Diyanet, established and funded by a very secular regime, from dramatically reinterpreting the Islamic texts. As argued above, the main answer to this rests in understanding how the first three presidents of Diyanet have had a lasting impact in shaping its religious discourse. Trained in Ottoman madrasahs and keen to protect the core of Islamic fiqh, these first three presidents, who were often accused by the more conservative scholars of selling out to the state, defended their engagement with the state as the best means available to minimize the harm inflicted on Turkish Islam by the state secularization agenda. Amit Bein’s book,51 is particularly illuminating in illustrating the challenging role that these initial presidents of Diyanet had to play in balancing alternative pressures, and it explains why, despite their decision to work with a secular state, they eventually earned a high degree of respect, even among the more traditional scholarly classes. Their conscious effort to defeat Atatürk’s ambition to have an official Turkish translation of the Qurʾān (which they feared would be used to replace

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the Qurʾān in Arabic) is a fascinating example of their commitment to preserving the purity of Islamic scholarship and practices, which Beit documents in great detail.52 Although by the early 1950s the tenure of the last of these three presidents of Diyanet representing the Ottoman Islamic scholarly tradition had come to an end, so had the rule of Atatürk. By then the Turkish state’s growing conflation of Turkish national identity with being Muslim (both to suppress ethnic tensions and later to check the appeal of communism) had eased state pressure on Diyanet.53 The contributions of the first three presidents of Diyanet toward preserving the core of the Islamic tradition in the most hostile political context thus gave the limits of reform that they established a degree of permanency. At the same time, Diyanet’s ability to retain the moderate yet loyal readings of core of the Islamic fiqh shows the importance of popular consensus in setting the limits of religious reform. It was this awareness that if Diyanet is to have any authority it has to be led by a figure with some degree of respect in the traditional scholarly circles that made the Kemalist regime appoint reformist-minded but traditionally trained and respected scholars as the initial presidents of Diyanet. Therefore, even when Diyanet’s leadership gradually came into the hands of the professors trained in newly founded Turkish theology faculties, the institution did not deviate from respecting the core of the Islamic fiqh (see Chapter 12). Thus, the Islamic discourse that was embedded within Diyanet from the start was that of moderation rather than radical reinterpretation; the established consensus within the Turkish population on what are the core legal and ethical rulings in Islam ensured that Diyanet could not deviate too far from it. This power of popular consensus is also reflected in the shaping of the nature of Turkish theology faculties themselves. While they were based on rationalist principles, and students and teachers were not required to be devout believers, most of those opting to join these faculties in fact were believers, and even the professors within the two most rationalist-leaning theology faculties in Turkey—at the universities of Ankara and Izmir—did not interpret secularism as absence of religion. My own interviews with scholars in these faculties show not a lack of commitment to preserving Islamic tradition, but to engage with it in such a way that it can defend itself against the pressures of modern times. Thus, the Chicago-based reformist scholar of Pakistani origin, Fazular Rahman, remains a highly influential figure in these two faculties. The Muslim poet and philosopher Mohammad Iqbal from the early twentieth century is another popular figure; his book Reconstruction of Islamic Thought has many readers. As one member of the Ankara Theology Department argued: “It is wrong to assume that those in theology departments don’t believe; in fact, most of us argue that we are actually stronger believers as we maintain that Islam can be engaged with through reason and not just force of habit or ritual practice. We believe in constructing a different kind of religiosity. When I read the Qurʾān, I see dynamism in it, energy, and a respectful identity. And when I look at Muslims, I see the opposite.”

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We can thus see how the pragmatic need of the Kemalist regimes to appoint traditionally trained Ottoman ‘ulamā’ as the first few presidents of Diyanet, and the popular consensus on the need to respect the core of the Islamic fiqh (knowledge of which was preserved by traditional Islamic scholars, by the Sufi orders that had gone underground, and by cemaats), ensured that Diyanet’s interpretation in core areas of Islamic fiqh stayed in line with the established Sunni consensus, and we can see why Turkish theology faculties, even when promoting a rationalist approach to the study of religion, did not contribute to erosion of belief.

Diyanet in Future Looking forward, a question debated under many previous governments still remains relevant:54 does Turkey need an institution such as Diyanet, or could it be dissolved, especially if the constitutional clauses from the early Kemalist era that to date ban madrasahs and Sufi orders are removed in coming years? Why would Diyanet be needed? Historically, irrespective of their differences, both religious and secular groups have in the end defended the presence of Diyanet for their shared concern about the need for religious cohesion;55 the present debates within Turkey suggest that the position today is the same. People (of both religious and secular dispositions) whom I interviewed saw a role for Diyanet in an attempt to avoid the possibility of inter-religious tensions. As one of the faculty members at the Izmir Theology Faculty added: In Turkey, sometimes among friends and even within the faculty, we discuss this question and generally come to this conclusion: that Diyanet is a necessary institution. If we give all religious groups freedom, mosques will get associated with specific religious groups and create serious hostility and rivalry. Diyanet thus is no longer just an ideology of a secular state, it offers services that people value. There are many religious groups and organizations that give Hajj services to people but the majority of the Turkish people like to follow Diyanet’s organized Hajj for both organizational and religious reasons. Turkish people have a good common sense; they feel a trust in Diyanet. It is a Sunni reflex historically; they don’t like extreme ideas.

Second, as history teaches us, a time of crises also often creates new opportunities. The regional instability triggered since the Arab Spring, especially since the start of the Syrian civil war in which Turkey has become heavily embroiled, has led to the flight of more than two million Syrian refugees to its shores. While posing a threat to Turkey’s economic and political stability, this regional instability and resulting forced migration has, however, brought an unexpected boon: it has made Turkey an important destination for the pursuit of traditional Islamic scholarship. Foreign students are right now finding Istanbul rather than Cairo a more appealing destination for the pursuit of

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Islamic scholarship. The migration of many esteemed traditional Syrian scholars to Istanbul thus has the potential to help Turkey review its classical Islamic scholarly platforms. During my fieldwork, some interviewees were of the view that more than 100 Syrian scholars are currently living in Istanbul. Historically, regional conflicts, the fall of empires, and political instability were among important factors shaping the future of Islamic scholarly platforms, as such dramatic events often led to the exodus of scholars from unsafe regions to areas of stability: al-Azhar benefited from many such flights of scholars over the centuries, such as the influx of Andalusian scholars at the end of Muslim rule in Moorish Spain. The congregation of reputed scholars (by choice or default) at one location is an important impetus to the rise of institutions of learning, and the history of Islamic scholarly platforms is no different. The current domestic, regional, and global trends that are leading to a congregation of respected Islamic scholars in Istanbul, at a time when the government in power is attempting to establish an International Islamic University, could potentially have unexpected dividends. At a more conceptual level, the case of Diyanet has helped to illustrate an often-overlooked aspect of Islamic authority: namely, that eventually it is the public consensus, and not the scholarly consensus, that really holds the key to determining the pace of religious reform in a society. The established consensus inherited over the generations is more powerful than the reasoning of a reformist scholar—although, of course, the latter has a role to play in initiating small shifts in thinking. Such a reasoning will in turn again conform with one of Charles Taylor’s contentions in A Secular Age: that secularization in the West followed a change in public sensibilities that was triggered by altered socio-economic and political contexts and was not due to a shift in the religious discourse itself.56 It is little wonder then that the state-led projects of modernization in many post-colonial Muslim societies that tried to enforce the reform of religious discourse, before the socio-economic contexts in their societies had changed enough to initiate an organic shift in public sensibilities, suffered a decisive defeat. The Turkish case also helps to support one of the key arguments of this volume: that while increased globalization and economic transformation are leading to changes in attitudes and desires among young Muslims, and putting pressures on traditional centers of Islamic authority to provide more viable answers to the challenge of contemporary times, these secularizing forces are not necessarily going to result in Muslim societies endorsing a complete replication of Western liberal sensibilities. Diyanet’s inability to deviate from what can be considered the core of Islamic fiqh and the areas of established consensus is reflective of a widely recognized difference between Islam and Christianity: the former is firmer in many of its commands,57 reinforced by the Muslim conviction that there is only one version of the Qurʾān and it is completely untouched by human intervention. Finally, it is interesting to note that the dilemma of Turkish theology faculties in terms of establishing their Islamic authority is in principle the same as

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one faced by the Sharī’ah Courts in Egypt, whose verdicts, as Hussein Agrama documents, are often resisted by the litigants who otherwise voluntarily adhere to fatwā of the al-Azhari Fatwā Council, even though both provide answers in the light of Islamic law.58 In trying to explain the difference in the respect accorded to the two institutions by ordinary Egyptians, he emphasizes the unique access of the al-Azhari ‘ulamā’ to the authentic tradition and counters other possible explanations, such as the possibility that al-Azhari ‘ulamā’ have deeper knowledge of the traditional texts than the judges of the Sharī’ah Court, and that they are under greater pressure to conform to Islamic moral code and ritualistic practices. The case of theology departments in Turkey, and even Diyanet, however, has shown that the explanations dismissed by Agrama are in fact important factors in understanding what earns an institution popular Islamic legitimacy (thereby making followers voluntarily conform to its rulings) and it also shows that they are actually central to understanding the formation of Islamic authority. The inability of modern Muslim states to create Islamic authority platforms—be it the Sharī’ah Courts, the theology departments, or the reformed madrasahs in Bangladesh and India—which can displace the traditional structures of Islamic authority is thus a shared failure, propelled by their ambition to modernize Islamic discourse rather than enrich it. The next chapter traces the evolution of Diyanet, mapping both its rupture from and its continuity with the Ottoman past; the subsequent chapter presents an analysis of Diyanet’s approach to fiqh and maps the methodological approaches of two of the most prominent Turkish scholars operating from independent platforms. Notes 1. Masooda Bano, “Protector of the ‘al-Wasatiyya’ Islam: Cairo’s al-Azhar University,” in Shaping Global Islamic Discourses: The Role of al-Azhar, al-Medina and alMustafa, eds Masooda Bano and Keiko Sakurai (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2015), 73–92. 2. Soner Cagaptay, Rise of Turkey: The Twenty-First Century’s First Muslim Power (Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 2014). 3. Svante E. Cornell and M. K. Kaya, “The Naqshbandi-Khalidi Order and Political Islam in Turkey,” Hudson Institute, September 2, 2015, accessed August 11, 2016, http://www.hudson.org/research/11601-the-naqshbandi-khalidi-order-andpolitical-islam-in-turkey. 4. M. Hakan Yavuz, Islamic Political Identity in Turkey (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005); Banu Eligür, The Mobilization of Political Islam in Turkey (Cambridge– New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014). 5. Alper Bilgili, “Post-Secular Society and the Multi-Vocal Religious Sphere in Turkey,” European Perspectives—Journal of European Perspectives of the Western Balkans 3 (2011), 131–46. 6. Bekim Agai, “Islam and Education in Secular Turkey: State Policies and the Emergence of the Fethullah Gülen Group,” in Schooling Islam: The Culture and Politics of

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7.

8. 9.

10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17.

18. 19.

20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34.

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Modern Muslim Education, eds Robert W. Hefner and Muhammad Qasim Zaman (Princeton: Princeton University Press), 149–71. “Alevis File Legal Complaint against Diyanet Head,” Hurriyet Daily News, January 7, 2016, accessed August 13, 2016, http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/ alevis-file-legal-complaint-against-diyanet-head.aspx?pageID=238&nID=93558 &NewsCatID=393. During my interviews in Turkey, the complexities emerging from Diyanet’s exclusion of Alevis were discussed frequently by critics of this policy as well as its defenders. In my own experience, such divisions (just as in the case of the Sunni–Shī’ite divide) are so engrained within the Muslim consciousness that in the eyes of the devout followers of each sect, such state-defined distinctions are not controversial. Yavuz, Islamic Political; Eligür, Mobilization. Cornell and Kaya, “The Naqshbandi-Khalidi.” Amit Bein, Ottoman Ulema, Turkish Republic: Agents of Change and Guardians of Tradition (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2011). Cornell and Kaya, “The Naqshbandi-Khalidi.” Bein, Ottoman Ulema; Agai, “Islam and Education .” Bein, Ottoman Ulema. Ibid. Claire Berlinski, “Moderate Muslim Watch: Ali Bardakoğlu,” Ricochet, October 16, 2010, accessed August 13, 2016, https://ricochet.com/archives/moderate-muslimwatch-ali-bardakoglu/. Ali Bardakoğlu, Religion and Society: New Perspectives from Turkey (Ankara: Publications of Presidency of Religious Affairs, 2006), 12. Agai, “Islam and Education”; Muhammet Habib Saçmalı, “Compliance and Negotiation: The Role of Turkish Diyanet in the Production of Friday Khutbas” (Master’s Thesis, Istanbul Boğaziçi University, 2013). Bein, Ottoman Ulema; İştar Gözaydın, “Religion, Politics and the Politics of Religion in Turkey,” Liberales Institut Occasional Paper 121 (Berlin, 2013). İsmail Kara, Cumhuriyet Türkiyesi’nde Bir Mesele Olarak İslam (İstanbul: Dergah Yayınları, 2010), 65–6. Bein, Ottoman Ulema. Ibid., Kara, Cumhuriyet. Kara, Cumhuriyet. Bein, Ottoman Ulema. Ibid. Eligür, Mobilization. Kara, Cumhuriyet referenced in Saçmalı, “Compliance and Negotiation.” This figure was given to me by Diyanet’s Izmir office (Müftülüğü), November 2015; other studies quote 120,000, see Cornell and Kaya, “The Naqshbandi-Khalidi.” Saçmalı, “Compliance and Negotiation.” Details on these facilities are available on Diyanet’s official website, accessed August 15, 2016, http://www.diyanet.org.uk/. Zana çitak, “The Institutionalization of Islam in Europe and the Diyanet: The Case of Austria,” Ortadoğu Etütleri//Middle Eastern Studies 5 (2013), 167–82. Şenol Korkut, “The Diyanet of Turkey and Its Activities in Eurasia after the Cold War,” Acta Slavica Iaponica 28 (2010), 111–39. Masooda Bano, “Madrasa Reforms and Islamic Modernism in Bangladesh,” Modern Asian Studies 48 (2014), 911–39.

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292 ] 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43.

44. 45. 46.

47.

48. 49. 50. 51. 52. 53. 54.

55. 56. 57. 58.

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Interview with İsmail Kara, Istanbul, November 2015. Saçmalı, “Compliance and Negotiation.” Cornell and Kaya, “The Naqshbandi-Khalidi.” Interview at Diyanet Izmir office, November 2015. James Gibbon, “God is Great, God is Good: Teaching God Concepts in Turkish Islamic Sermons,” Poetics 36 (2008), 389–403. Saçmalı, “Compliance and Negotiation.” Cornell and Kaya, “The Naqshbandi-Khalidi.” Ibid. Details about Ken’an Rifâî, the founder of the Rifai ṭarīqah, are available from Cemâlnur Sargut’s personal website: “Kenan Rifai Hazretleri,” accessed August 13, 2016, http://www.cemalnur.org/contents/detail/kenan-rifai-hazretleri/5. These views were expressed by many of my interviewees in Turkish religious and academic circles across Istanbul, Izmir, and Ankara. Details on the facilities that the Center offers are available on the Diyanet Center of America official website, accessed August 15, 2016, https://diyanetamerica.org/. Humza Yusuf, “Introduction to Logic (Rihla 2013, Konya, Turkey),” Deenstream, accessed August 15, 2016, https://deenstream.vhx.tv/rihla-2012-introduction-tologic-shaykh-hamza-yusuf/videos/r13-logic-01. Walaa Hussein, “Al-Azhar Rewrites Curricula,” Al-Monitor, June 29, 2015, accessed July 27, 2016, http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2015/06/egyptazhar-curriculim-revise-religious-discourse-extremism.html. See Chapter 9 in this volume. Quoted in Gözaydın, “Religion, Politics,” 17–18. Ibid. Bein, Ottoman Ulema. Ibid. Saçmalı, “Compliance and Negotiation.” Bein, Ottoman Ulema; Yavuz Baydar, “AKP Seems Intent on Keeping ‘Diyanet’ for Sunni Supremacy,” Cihan News Agency, May 5, 2015, accessed June 23, 2016, https://www.cihan.com.tr/en/akp-seems-intent-on-keeping-diyanet-for-sunnisupremacy-1778352.htm. Bein, Ottoman Ulema. Charles Taylor, A Secular Age (Cambridge, M.A.: Harvard University Press, 2007). Yusuf Estes and Miller Gary, “Bible Islam—Bible Compared to Quran,” accessed August 20, 2015, http://www.bibleislam.com/bible_vs_quran.php. Hussein Ali Agrama, Questioning Secularism: Islam, Sovereignty, and the Rule of Law in Modern Egypt (Chicago–London: University of Chicago Press, 2012).

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CHAPTER

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RELIGION IN THE SERVICE OF THE STATE: DIYANET AND REPUBLICAN TURKEY Nathan Spannaus

Diyanet, the Turkish Presidency of Religious Affairs, was conceived and operates as a successor to the religious structures of the Ottoman Empire, the ilmiye/’ilmīyah, headed by the office of the Shaykh al-Islām/şeyhülislam.1 This institution had a long history within the Ottoman Empire, stretching back to at least the sixteenth century, and it served an important role in supporting and shaping Ottoman political rule. In the process, the religious orientation of the ilmiye became deeply embedded in Ottoman society, coloring how Islam was understood and practiced. There is considerable continuity in this understanding of religion, despite the dislocations of the early twentieth century, which is helped by the continuity between the Ottoman ilmiye and Turkish Diyanet, and that has contributed today to the preservation of a uniquely Turkish approach to Islam.

Early Ottoman History The Ottoman dynasty emerged in Anatolia at the beginning of the fourteenth century. The dynasty takes its name from Osman Gazi (1258–1326), a regional military leader (bey) in northwestern Anatolia who was able to attract a large number of warriors and followers to his side. He declared his independence from the reigning Seljuqs of Rum in 1299, with the territory he controlled forming the beginnings of the Ottoman Empire. Anatolia at that time was undergoing significant political and demographic changes. The Seljuqs, who had ruled the region since defeating the Byzantines at the Battle of Manzikert in 1071, were by this point collapsing as a dynasty. The main Seljuq empire centered in Iran had disappeared by 1200, dividing [ 293 ]

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into smaller successor kingdoms. The Seljuqs of Rum split from the main dynasty in 1156. Seljuq rule in Anatolia, with Konya as its capital, was more secure initially, and they were able to fend off threats from Byzantine and Crusader armies. They were less successful confronting the Mongols under Hulegu Khan (c. 1218–65), grandson of Genghis Khan, who were sweeping across the Middle East in the thirteenth century. The Mongols defeated the Anatolian Seljuqs at Aksaray in 1256, after which the latter accepted the suzerainty of the Ilkhanid dynasty (founded by Hulegu), based in Iran and Iraq. At the same time, large numbers of refugees fleeing the Ilkhanids, who sacked Baghdad in 1258, streamed into Anatolia, a significant portion of whom were nomadic or semi-nomadic Turkic tribes and clans. These groups (generally called Turkmen or Turcoman in the literature) made up the bulk of the Seljuq military stratum, and their addition to the existing Turcoman warrior class (of which Osman was a member) in Anatolia exacerbated the political divisions that had followed Mongol vassalage.2 Osman used his position as part of the regional elite to recruit these warriors (ghāzīs), forming a power base apart from the Seljuq administration (a very common practice within Seljuq domains). Raiding and conquering neighboring areas, Osman was able to expand the territory and military forces under his control, until he abandoned his allegiance to the disintegrating Seljuq dynasty (which would disappear by 1308). Other Turkic warrior clans had likewise established themselves in Anatolia, with whom Osman struggled for territory and soldiers, but Osman’s domains also bordered those sections of western Anatolia still under Byzantine control. Internal dissension and nearconstant warfare had weakened the Byzantines, and Osman was able to move with greater success against them than he had against his Turkic rivals. His forces conquered a number of important Byzantine cities, most notably Bursa shortly before his death in 1326. Bursa was made the new capital by Osman’s son Orhan (r. 1324–62), who began the swift expansion of Ottoman control into the Balkans, a strategy continued under Murad I (1362–389), who made further, substantial conquests into Byzantine territory in Europe. Fighting against rival beyliks in Anatolia continued, with Ottoman successes in expanding their empire eastward as well. Despite some setbacks— namely the defeat of Bayezid I (r. 1389–1402) by Timur in the Battle of Ankara in 1402 and the subsequent interregnum—Ottoman military might had brought most of Anatolia and the Balkan peninsula under its control by the middle of the fifteenth century, preceding the eventual conquest of Constantinople by Mehmed the Conqueror (r. 1451–81) in 1453.3 Having taken control of such a large territory in a relatively short period, the Ottomans worked to consolidate their rule. They adopted an approach, common to Turkic military dynasties, that was based on the might of the ruling (military) elite and their ability to order society. Prosperity and justice were seen as flowing from the powerful government and a boon to the population, who in turn supported the government’s role as guarantor of that same prosperity and justice. In this understanding of governance, the land of the empire

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was the mülk/mulk of the sultan, his personal property to distribute to the askeri/‘askarī (military elite) who ruled on his behalf over the reaya/ra’āyā, the “flock” whose taxes supported the function of the former as protecting them and ensuring justice.4 Religion, of course, was an important part of justice, and it was the sultan’s responsibility to ensure the preservation of both the proper practice of Islam and non-Muslims’ freedom from oppression. The former was the purview of the ‘ulamā’/ulema. Unlike other regions of the Islamic world, however, in the Ottoman Empire the ‘ulamā’ were part of the ruling elite, the pious and learned counterpart to the askeri establishment, and they played a major role in the construction of Ottoman political rule. This was a practice that had been brought to Anatolia by the Seljuqs, who had used the ‘ulamā’ as a pillar for their empire. Lacking religious legitimacy of their own, the Seljuqs employed a strategy of patronizing scholars and bringing them into the government, which allowed them to simultaneously bolster their religious credentials and establish certain limits for religious authorities, controlling selected ‘ulamā’ while excluding others.5 This approach is evinced in the transformation of the Shaykh al-Islām under the Seljuqs. As Richard Bulliet has argued, the Shaykh al-Islām in Khurasan and Central Asia prior to the Seljuqs signified a prominent scholar whose job it was to attest to the competence and worthiness of members of the ‘ulamā’ in a particular city (primarily ḥadīth transmitters and madrasah instructors); under the Seljuqs, however, this role was transformed into a government appointee responsible for allotting patronage and positions to ‘ulamā’, through whom government influence could be directly borne on scholars.6 (The madrasah and khānqāh, as institutions relying upon patronage, were important elements of this approach. Indeed, both spread across the Middle East from their origins in Khurasan and Central Asia due primarily to the Seljuqs’ embrace of religious patronage.7) The Ottomans continued this approach, furthering it and adapting it within their administration. The religious circumstances in their domains facilitated the process. When Osman took control of his beylik in the late thirteenth century, western Anatolia was a frontier zone with a largely Christian population that had recently been part of the Byzantine Empire.8 Sufism played an unquestionably central role in this frontier environment, as Sufis were primarily involved in both the conquest of the region and the subsequent propagation of Islam. (These twin functions have earned the title “colonizing” Sufism.9) The “colonization” of Anatolia was carried out by a range of Sufi groups, linked with different segments within Seljuq society. Although distinct and reasonably coherent, these groups were not formally organized ṭarīqahs; rather, they were built around the principle of melamet (from the Arabic malāmah—“blame, reproach”), a mystical orientation set against worldly things (not just material objects, but also, for instance, pride). Melameti Sufis were well-suited to the particulars of “colonization,” and they were supported by the Ottomans as an integral part of settling their domains, especially in the

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Balkans. They had a prominent place in early Ottoman society (Osman was himself a devotee of one such order), and their khānqāhs were among the very first major Islamic institutions under the dynasty.10 However, cooperation with ruling elites did not always sit well with adherents of melamet, the very ethos of which inclined these Sufis to heterodox and antinomian beliefs and behaviors, as well as political and social dissent.11 Although there had always been support for more orthodox groups, by the beginning of the fifteenth century the view of melameti groups among the Ottoman elite shifted, with them seen as more of a liability and/or threat. As Derin Terzioglu notes, Ottoman officials moved to minimize their influence and social position, utilizing a number of strategies that operated through religious institutions. Promoting mainstream ‘ulamā’ over heterodox Sufis, the government took over khānqāhs, turning them into madrasahs, while also supporting conventional scholarly education. The Ottomans also encouraged orthodoxy by appointing pro-establishment Sufis as preachers and curbing the use of mosques for “non-canonical” activities.12 At the same time, officials promoted other orders, seeking to channel melameti sentiment into more acceptable—not to mention government-backed—alternatives. The Bektashīyah, one of the major “colonizing” melameti orders, was closely connected with the Ottoman military, specifically the elite Janissary corps, and it was used by the government to Sunnicize the more antinomian and politically and religiously divergent orders. In doing so, Thierry Zarcone writes, the Bektashīyah broadened its membership, incorporating a range of previously distinct Sufi groups under its institutional umbrella, absorbing some of their beliefs and practices and altering the Bektashīyah’s mystical and philosophical character.13 The successful reining in of heterodox Sufis was not entirely the result of a concerted strategy. Circumstantial changes contributed as well. As the Ottomans extended their administration of conquered territories, these regions ceased to be frontier zones, and there was less of a place for “colonizing” Sufis. Moreover, the social and political stability engendered by Ottoman rule allowed for the establishment of more permanent religious institutions, with a corresponding flourishing of conventional ‘ulamā’.14

The Ottoman Ilmiye Out of this environment in the fourteenth century the ilmiye, the distinctive Ottoman learned establishment, developed. It was created as part of the administration, intended to contribute to the consolidation of Ottoman rule in its conquered territories and maintaining the sultan’s suzerainty. Keeping the ‘ulamā’ under the imperial umbrella enlisted them in government service and subsumed their religious authority under the aegis of the dynasty. That the Ottomans could employ scholars in this manner was due in large part to the lack of ‘ulamā’ in their domains. Unlike other Turkic military dynasties—the Seljuqs, Mamluks, Safavids—Ottoman religious policies

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did not have to contend initially with pre-established ‘ulamā’ structures as they were practically non-existent. While “colonizing” Sufi orders thrived in the frontier zone, ‘ulamā’ institutions (strictly defined) were few in western Anatolia. It is therefore not incorrect to say that the Ottomans created an ‘ulamā’ apparatus, particularly in the Balkans.15 Indeed, the very first Ottoman madrasah, founded in the city of Iznik by Sultan Orhan in 1331, was located in a commandeered church, as were the famed “Eight Madrasahs” (Medaris-i Semaniye) in Istanbul, the highest madrasahs in the empire inaugurated by Mehmed the Conqueror.16 The chief figure in the ilmiye was the Shaykh al-Islām, the muftī of Istanbul, who played a considerable role in the administration of the empire. Across the fifteenth century and the early sixteenth, as a hierarchy of ‘ulamā’ developed, this position emerged as the preeminent scholar of the dynasty, a figure whom the sultans and highest imperial officials consulted over religious and legal matters and for legitimation for their policies. The muftī of Istanbul also became the chief jurisconsult for the Ottoman ‘ulamā’, charged with interpreting religious matters for scholars throughout the entire empire, and, building off the Seljuq conception of the office, overseeing the function of the ilmiye and its various ranks and offices.17 Below the Shaykh al-Islām was a descending hierarchy of judges (kazis), each assigned to a particular jurisdiction. Judges were circulated to different posts throughout the empire, switching positions every two or three years while (ideally) moving up the ranks in terms of authority and prestige. The highest judges, just below the Shaykh al-Islām, were the kazi ‘askers of Anatolia and the Balkans, respectively. Equivalent to the judges was the hierarchy of muftīs, which likewise consisted of officially appointed scholars spread across the empire in constantly circulating positions, charged with supervising and validating the lower kazis in their jurisdiction.18 The ilmiye was also comprised of numerous government-supported madrasahs for the education of ‘ulamā’. The Ottoman madrasahs were similarly organized in a hierarchical fashion, with the highest schools staffed by high-level instructors (themselves arranged into ranks based on their education and position).19 Seeking to further maintain the unity of the ilmiye system, Sultan Suleyman the Magnificent (r. 1520–66) devised a curriculum for Ottoman madrasahs, specifying which texts to be taught and in what order.20 Altogether, these elements formed a systematic scholarly infrastructure, in which scholars were trained by ‘ulamā’ and granted positions as ‘ulamā’ themselves, as madrasah instructors and/or legal positions like kazi or muftī. Discrete career tracks emerged within the ilmiye apparatus, with those who studied with the top teachers at the best madrasahs moving into postings toward the upper levels of the hierarchy.21 All of this constituted a major element in the Ottoman administration, with the ilmiye not only overseeing Islamic religious matters but also involved in the governance of the empire and its politics. Baki Tezcan argues, in an insightful study, that, as part of sweeping changes in Ottoman society and

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government in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the dynasty and military elite brought the ‘ulamā’ further into the administration of the empire (lessening the insularity of the askeri class), which had the effect of simultaneously increasing the degree of government control over scholars and empowering them to shape and influence Ottoman governance more broadly. As a result, elite ‘ulamā’ in particular played a central role in Ottoman politics, which would continue into the twentieth century.22 The empowering of scholars at the highest ranks of the ilmiye hierarchy also served to enrich them, which, coupled with other associated privileges, allowed the elite ‘ulamā’ to protect and pass on their status and social standing, turning the later ilmiye into a virtual hereditary caste.23 An important component of the dynasty’s influence over the ilmiye was the substantial support for Ḥanafism as the official school of the empire. The use of a single madhhab brought greater coherence in the application of law and legal education, but it also allowed for the greater assertion of government control in the articulation of Islamic law. As Guy Burak has shown, the dynasty utilized the existing Ḥanafī corpus juris to formulate legal positions that fit the sultan’s vision for how the empire should be administered. Ḥanafī furū’ (points of positive law) contained a diverse range of positions and interpretations, and by supporting a view that matched the sultan’s desired policy over another, the government could justify its actions as a legitimate expression of Ḥanafī doctrine. Bolstering this source of legitimation, Ottoman ‘ulamā’ focused on particular trends in the madhhab and scholarly genealogies as most authoritative within Ḥanafism, to the exclusion of other (equally legitimate) trends, while emphasizing the connection between the ilmiye (and, indeed, the dynasty itself) and these “canonical” forms of Ḥanafism.24 In light of Burak’s argument, it is worth noting that an Ottoman Shaykh al-Islām, Kemalpaşazade (1468–1536), authored one of the major texts outlining the historical structure and evolution of the Ḥanafī school and the attendant forms of juristic activity that follow from that history.25 The patronage and authority granted to Ḥanafīs impacted the discursive exercise of law.26 In some cases, the changes were more structural and had little to do with Ḥanafism specifically; the Ottomans introduced more formal bureaucratic practices, particularly in terms of record-keeping for kazis’ court proceedings (sing. sijill/sicill), and these records attained the level of formal proof or evidence (hujjah) in judges’ deliberations.27 More significantly, the legal concept of ‘urf/örf (“custom,” broadly understood), which had a long history in Ḥanafī jurisprudence, was enlarged under Ottoman influence to serve as the interpretive vehicle through which dynastic law, the Ottoman kanun/qānūn, as well as political considerations (siyāsah) were incorporated into fiqh reasoning, reducing potential conflict between religious and governmental legal activities.28 The promotion of Ḥanafism was a more fraught project for the Ottomans in territories like Egypt and Syria, both conquered in the early sixteenth century, where all four madhhabs were present and patronized by the

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ruling Mamluk dynasty.29 Burak notes, however, that the Ottoman ilmiye had adopted some ‘ulamā’ titles and positions from the Mamluks, as well as conventions from Arabic legal writing, that helped bridge the gap between Ottoman Turkish scholarly practices and extant Arab, non-Ḥanafī ‘ulamā’.30 By contrast, explicit support for Ḥanafism was far less controversial in Anatolia (as well as the Balkans), where it was the overwhelmingly predominant school, a fact due to the Turks’ historical connection with Central Asia. Central Asian Heritage The Turkic nomads who conquered and settled Anatolia brought with them the religious culture of their Central Asian origins, in which Ḥanafism was deeply embedded. Sunni Persianate Islam had developed by the eleventh century into a distinct religious tradition, built around Sufism, Ḥanafī law, and Māturīdī kalām, the school of theology that emerged in Samarqand out of Ḥanafī theological discussions. This tradition, which used Persian and Turkic languages as literary languages alongside Arabic, was spread across the Middle East primarily by the Seljuqs, who often patronized Ḥanafīs and Māturīdīs at the expense of other schools, while appointing Central Asian and Khurasani scholars of any affiliation to madrasahs and ‘ulamā’ positions as a matter of policy.31 This tradition was adopted wholeheartedly by the Ottomans, for whom the Central Asian connection remained significant. They, of course, patronized Ḥanafism and Māturīdism and, particularly during the early years of the ilmiye hierarchy, actively sought Central Asian scholars to fill ‘ulamā’ positions. Scholars were not always receptive; for example, the great Herat Sufi poet and philosopher ‘Abd al-Rahmān Jāmī (1414–92), wary of Ottoman politics, declined an offer of a court position from Mehmed the Conqueror.32 The Ottomans also, as noted, patronized Sufism as part of their religious legitimacy. Unlike their backing of an official legal and theological school, various Sufi orders received patronage from officials and military elites, and Sufism remained a central component of Islam in the empire. The Bektashīyah were of course closely linked with the Janissary corps, and the Mevlevi order, stemming from the great Persian poet Jalāl al-Dīn Rūmī (1207–73) who had settled in Konya, was significant in urban centers. The Naqshbandīyah, brought to Ottoman domains from Bukhara in the late fourteenth century, attracted officials and guild members in Istanbul particularly.33 Sufism in the Ottoman Empire should not be seen as separate from more scholarly Islam controlled by the ‘ulamā’, but rather was intertwined with Ottoman religious culture broadly. Many members of the ‘ulamā’, if not a majority, were affiliated with a Sufi order, particularly the Khalwatīyah, and Sufis had been integral to the Ottoman ilmiye since its beginnings. Sufism in this regard significantly shaped religious scholarship in the empire, specifically the teachings of the famed mystic Muḥy al-Dīn ibn ‘Arabī (1165–1240), who was deeply influential in the ilmiye. For instance, the instructor at the very

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first Ottoman madrasah, Dawūd Qayṣarī (1260–1350), was a prominent follower of Ibn ‘Arabī, as was the first scholar to hold the title Shaykh al-Islām, Shams al-Dīn Fanārī (1350–1431), himself an important theologian and philosopher.34 These two were members of what has been called Ibn ‘Arabī’s “school,” a loose collection of scholars and poets who explored the metaphysical and philosophical dimensions of Ibn ‘Arabī’s concept of waḥdat al-wujūd (the “unity of being,” understood as a single existence coming from God that connects all of creation) through their own Persian-language writings and commentaries.35 Led by Ibn ‘Arabī’s main disciple, Ṣadr al-Dīn Qūnawī (1207–74), this school coalesced in Konya, at that time a major destination for refugees fleeing the Mongols. From there, it spread to India and Central Asia.36 It also spread across Anatolia, where it became deeply embedded in the religious and scholarly culture (and, as we saw in the preceding chapter, persists in Turkish Islam until the present).37 Virtually all of the main Sufi orders in Anatolia were influenced by Ibn ‘Arabī’s ideas, filtered through the lens of these scholars work, and they became a central feature of the ilmiye’s intellectual character and were defended at the highest levels; Shaykh al-Islām Kemalpaşazade, for example, was staunch in his defense of Ibn ‘Arabī and condemnation of those who attacked him.38 Ibn ‘Arabī was also revered by the Ottoman sultans, who regarded him as the patron saint of the dynasty.39 Ottoman Sufism was hardly uniform, however, and even within ilmiye circles dissenting views were common. The most prominent example is the Kadizadeli movement of the seventeenth century, which was set against ecstatic Sufi practices like dancing and singing, and Kadizadelis had particular ire for Ibn ‘Arabī’s philosophy. The leaders of the movement were popular preachers who directed their sermons against the religious shortcomings of the elite ‘ulamā’ and their embrace of non-scriptural practices (bid’ah). But the Kadizadelis were not markedly anti-establishment nor anti-Sufi per se. The movement’s founder Kadizade Mehmed (1582–1635) was preacher at several of Istanbul’s imperial mosques, appointed to this position by the sultan, and there were large numbers of ilmiye members among their ranks, generally from lower levels of the hierarchy.40 In addition, Kadizade’s inspiration came from Mehmed Birgevi (1522–73), who called for the puritanical adherence to the ṭarīqah muḥammadīyah, an idea of strict ascetic behavior he developed under strong Naqshbandi influence.41 There was significant overlap between the Kadizadelis and Naqshbandis over acceptable Sufi practices, and Naqshbandi ‘ulamā’ were among the main Kadizadelis, including Shaykh al-Islām Feyzullah Efendi (1639–1703).42 Although the Kadizadelis’ prominence and ostensible impact is commonly seen as ushering in a new era of strictly scripturalist religiosity, Khaled ElRouayheb has shown that in fact the opposite is true: despite the attention they garnered, the Kadizadelis had a minor presence within the ilmiye, and— more significantly—the types of ‘ulamā’ scholarship they condemned actually increased in prevalence during the seventeenth century. Not only did Ibn

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‘Arabī’s metaphysics thrive in the empire into the nineteenth century, but philosophy, logic, mathematics, and the natural sciences were studied with rising frequency in Ottoman madrasahs.43 All of these subjects were part of the Sunni Persianate tradition and had been fully incorporated into scholarly discourse by the post-classical period. Indeed, it is difficult to fully separate these fields from one another. Philosophy, logic, and natural sciences such as astronomy were often grouped under the label of hikmat (wisdom). Kalām was particularly broad in this regard. Methodologies and concepts from philosophy and logic had long been integrated into Sunni theology, and Ibn ‘Arabī’s metaphysics likewise had an impact in the field. The Persian influence also continued to be strong, and theological works by Central Asian and Iranian scholars, most prominently Sayyid Sharīf Jurjānī (1339–1413), Sa’d al-Dīn Taftāzānī (1322–90), and Jalāl al-Dīn Dawānī (1426–1502), were ubiquitous in the empire. These three were all Ash’aris, and Ash’arī and Māturīdī kalām had converged in this period (although Māturīdī identity remained important within the ilmiye hierarchy).44 The career of Ismail Gelenbevi (1730–91) is illustrative of the breadth of scholarship. He was a brilliant theologian, logician, and philosopher—all of which were conventional ‘ulamā’ fields in the empire—and he became a prominent scholar, earning invitations to private gatherings of ‘ulamā’ hosted by the sultan and appointments as a kazi and instructor at the Suleymaniye Medrese, the highest teaching position. He was also a polymath, writing on such varied topics as astronomy, Sufism, and chess. In 1785, he became a teacher of mathematics at the Naval Engineering School (Mühendishane-i Bahri Hümayun), which had been established in Istanbul in 1775 to improve the Ottoman navy to European standards. Although teaching a theoretical field, Gelenbevi was reportedly strongly involved with the technical instruction at the school, earning himself the epithet “engineer.”45 Although Gelenbevi was an exceptionally talented scholar, what is remarkable for our purposes is the fact that the trajectory of his career was not uncommon. Rather, several of his contemporaries served as key members of the ilmiye and as instructors and experts in scientific and/or technical fields, which were slowly becoming established at the time.46

Modern Transformations The naval school, and others like it, was part of a push for reform in the empire. The eighteenth century was a period of military and economic contraction, and a string of defeats by European powers spurred a focus on reform as a means to halt the empire’s decline.47 Following smaller-scale attempts at military improvement, extensive changes were instituted under Selim III (1787–1807), who sought to modernize the Ottoman military. In 1792, he created the Nizami Cedit (“New Order”), a new army corps modeled on European militaries with new educational, technical, and financial infrastructure to support it. However,

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the Nizam-i Cedit provoked a violent backlash among established army cadres, particularly the Janissaries, and their supporters in the ilmiye. A fatwā from the Shaykh al-Islām declared it religiously invalid and authorized Selim’s removal as sultan, leading to his execution in 1807.48 A more successful push for reform was undertaken by Mahmud II (1808–39). Having appointed like-minded figures to high positions throughout the government and military and among the ranks of the ilmiye, Mahmud was able to subsequently enact sweeping reforms, beginning in the 1810s. These reforms were presented to the public in explicitly religious terms, as matters of iṣlāḥ or maṣlaḥah justified by the contemporary circumstances. The Shaykh al-Islāms under Mahmud played a critical role in this Islamic messaging, which proved effective, limiting resistance.49 Changes to the military were among the major reforms, and the Janissaries were disbanded after an 1826 uprising and replaced with a modern standing army funded by a restructuring of landholding and taxation.50 The impact of these measures was significant. The Janissaries were closely linked with the ayan/a’yān (provincial landowners), who made up a powerful class outside the government. The ayan had helped to bring Mahmud to the throne, but they were devastated as a class by the policies related to military reform, which undermined their economic base. Mahmud also commandeered their lands for the newly created officer corps.51 These measures reflect a concerted effort on the sultan’s part to remove potential sources of resistance to his rule. As Tezcan argues, the weakening and removal of structures that may hinder the government’s power was a key part of the reorganization of the Ottoman Empire, based on the principle of autocratic centralization (which characterizes Turkish history, he states, until at least 1950). The elimination of the ayan and—particularly—the Janissaries marks the beginning of this reorganization.52 As noted, Mahmud’s reforms were justified in religious terms by the ranks of the ilmiye, which supported the centralization of power under the sultan as necessary for preserving justice and the sharī’ah and defending Islam from European onslaught.53 Indeed, Kemal Karpat argues that religious messaging on behalf of the centralizing government became the basic function of the ‘ulamā’ in the nineteenth century, reflected in an emphasis on iftā’ as religious guidance, utilized “to explain, justify and legitimize in an Islamic way social and political change,” and, accordingly, “the ilmiye’s primary function shifted towards reconciling [such] change with Islam and adapting society to contemporary life.”54 Mahmud’s reign ushered in an era of intense reform of the empire and its government, known as the Tanzimât (Reorganization). The higher ‘ulamā’ helped to formulate and promote reform, but the transformations that occurred in this period (which lasted until 1877) altered both the context in which the ilmiye operated and its relationship to the government. As part of a broad bureaucratic restructuring, the office of the Shaykh al-Islām was

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transformed in 1836 into a government department: the bab-i meşihat/bāb-i mashīkhah or bab-i fetva. The Shaykh himself was officially empowered by this change, granted explicit oversight over all ranks of the ilmiye and allotted a place alongside the grand vizier and head of the military as the sultan’s chief advisors.55 At the same time, the ‘ulamā’ represented a potential obstacle to the sultan’s power, and the ilmiye’s position was generally weakened by the reforms of this period. As early as 1820, the government began appropriating waqf funds, redirecting them to the imperial treasury under the auspices of the newly formed Evkaf Nezaratı (Directorate of Waqfs).56 In 1869, civil courts (sing. mahkeme-i nizamiye) were established alongside sharī’ah courts (mahkeme-i şeriye) under the purview of ‘ulamā’, with the former staffed by three judges— one kazi and two lay judges. In addition, a series of legal codes were implemented, based on European—primarily French—legal systems, starting in the 1840s.57 Of these, the Mecelle/Majallah, promulgated from 1870 to 1877, is most significant, serving as the civil law for the empire until 1926. Although based on Ḥanafism in content, it represents a transmutation of Ḥanafī fiqh into European-style civil code, suited to the new civil judiciary; its function, as stated by its authors (a commission of fuqahā’), was to provide a clear and straightforward presentation of legal doctrine for nizamiye judges.58 These changes served to both narrow the purview of the ilmiye and marginalize scholars’ role as legal authorities, particularly as judges, limiting the space in which they could exercise legal interpretation. This did not change during the reign of Sultan Abdulhamid (1876–1909), whose anti-reform stance relied strongly on Islamic symbolism and identity. Moreover, the seizure of waqfs lessened the financial resources available to ‘ulamā’. While the highest-ranking scholars remained influential and powerful within the government (and also wealthy), lower-ranking scholars saw their official and material standing undermined. As a result, there was an internal split within the ilmiye, with scholars from the lower ranks aligning themselves with sectors of civil society and Sufi organizations, apart from—and at times against—the government. Elite ‘ulamā’, by contrast, remained attached to, and strongly supportive of, the sultan and leading ministers.59 The ilmiye structure itself, however, was restricted by governmental reforms, none more important than the introduction of secular schooling. Education, especially at the primary level, had traditionally been the near-exclusive domain of ‘ulamā’, but reformist efforts going back to the eighteenth century emphasized new forms of education and learning distinct from the Islamic tradition. In the nineteenth century, the push for modern education only grew, leading to the creation of a state school system, comprising a range of institutions. Moreover, schools founded by Christian missionary organizations became common in this period, as did Ottoman students traveling abroad to Europe for study.60 European intellectual influence became pervasive, shaping the Ottoman political and religious landscape in the twentieth century.

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The years 1908 and 1909 marks a point of transition in this history. The Young Turk Revolution ushered in a period of significant change, both internally and externally driven, which would eventually result in the end of the Ottoman Empire and the foundation of the Turkish Republic in 1923.61 The government formed by the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP), having deposed Abdulhamid, initiated a sweeping programme of administrative reforms. As part of this great reorganization, the structure and composition of the ‘ulamā’ was brought under scrutiny. For many within the new government, the Ottoman religious hierarchy was not only tainted by its association with the Hamidian regime, but also—and more importantly—was an agent against progress and change within society. Scholars were widely presented in the reformist press as obstinate, fanatical, backwards, and also self-serving. And while many CUP members were agnostic and even atheist, these attitudes were often shared by even pious reformers, who saw the ‘ulamā’ and their institutions as outdated and irrelevant, demanding modernization.62 The Young Turks’ attacks on the ‘ulamā’ were inspired in part by their underlying philosophy. Much of the Young Turk leadership had had a European (or European-style) education, and they were deeply influenced by Western sociological and philosophical theories, in particular scientific positivism. Their belief that society follows natural, material laws led them to develop an anti-religious outlook that was also politically elitist: only those individuals who understood these laws should hold political power, thereby excluding both the common people (who clung to older superstitions) and especially the ‘ulamā’, whose authority had no rational basis.63 Even before the revolution, a major critique of the Young Turks was directed at the supposed “dualism” represented by the joint political and religious character of the Ottoman sultanate. To resolve this issue, the new government once in power sought to reshape the relationship between these two sources of authority by asserting the absolute supremacy of the former. From 1913 to 1916, following a reform project formulated by Ziya Gökalp (1876–1924), who played a major role in shaping early Kemalist policies, the structure and function of religious institutions was altered in ways that served the government. Religious courts had their purview limited and were made subordinate to secular appellate courts and the Ministry of Justice, and new educational standards and official examinations were implemented for qāḍīs. Waqf property and funds were brought under the control of the Ministry of Finance, which managed and distributed the proceeds. Likewise, the Ministry of Education took over all religious schools. In the process, the Shaykh al-Islām, who had previously controlled all of these areas, was strictly limited in his power and removed from the state cabinet. Moreover, in 1917 the procedure of religious courts was brought in line with that of secular courts, and family and personal status law—not covered by the Mecelle—was for the first time codified.64

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Diyanet and the Structure of Laiklik Laiklik as a governing principle was an innovation of the Republican period, but its articulation as an ideology stems from Gokalp, who was set against the ‘ulamā’ exercising any form of leadership that was not strictly religious in nature. He argued, therefore, for the removal of religious institutions from the organs of the state.65 He proposed the creation of a separate administration, run by qualified ‘ulamā’, to oversee matters of ritual, morality, and belief. Called the Diyanet İşleri Nezaratı, it would have taken control of all Turkish religious institutions—mosques, madrasahs, and Sufi khānqāhs—while also operating councils of expert scholars in (respectively) kalām, Sufism, and fiqh to maintain and propagate proper and correct Turkish Islamic doctrines and articulate necessary modernizing reforms.66 The First World War prevented the implementation of such a sweeping bureaucratic restructuring, and the Ottoman Empire’s eventual defeat brought the end of the CUP government. The political chaos and confusion that followed in the aftermath and the eventual rise of a nationalist military government based in Ankara shifted popular attitudes away from the ‘ulamā’ and religious institutions, which for Turks were connected with the ineffectual, conservative government located in Istanbul.67 The dominant political mood in the early 1920s was overwhelmingly secular and nationalistic, and with the victory of the Ankara government confirmed in late 1923, there was an everdecreasing space for the ‘ulamā’ within the state. The conflict between the burgeoning nationalist government headed by the former general Mustafa Kemal Ataturk (1881–1938) and the more Islamist sultanate and caliphate in Istanbul colored the post-war period.68 Breaking with the religious Ottoman past, the new government reformed the ‘ulamā’ in 1920, creating the Ministry of Şeriat and Evkaf and distinguishing it from the office of the Shaykh al-Islām and older religious hierarchy, which was by then attached to the sultanate.69 The office was dissolved along with the final Ottoman cabinet in November 1922.70 Secularist control of the new republic under Kemal sidelined politically activist ‘ulamā’, and in March 1924 sweeping changes to the religious establishment were implemented. In place of the Ministry of Şeriat and Evkaf, the Diyanet İşleri Reislıǧı (Presidency of Religious Affairs), a government department with markedly lower status, was created, along with a separate department for the administration of waqf funds. The former was charged with overseeing the religious content and orientation of the country’s Islamic institutions and their personnel, with the latter providing material support for the upkeep of mosque buildings. At the same time, the training of imāms and religious experts was made the purview of the Ministry of Education, which closed all madrasahs and introduced new academic institutions. Significantly, the government also abolished the institution of the caliphate and exiled the remaining members of the Ottoman dynasty. All of these measures were instituted within a two-week span in March 1924, reinforcing the decisive nature of the historic break.71

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Secularism in Turkey represents a particular form of laïcité—rendered in Turkish as laiklik—which operates through the principle of the absence of religion from the country’s public and political life. Modeled on French anticlericalism, which sought to restrain the power of the Catholic Church, laiklik represents the strict limitation of Islamic institutions’ potential political authority.72 In essence, laiklik is a means of constructing political power by the state that is exclusionary, removing possible claimants whose (religiously based) power falls outside the government.73 However, Turkish laiklik departs from French laïcité in the degree of state control over religious institutions and discourse. As argued by Hakan Yavuz, Andrew Davison, and Taha Parla, respectively, the former connotes the subordination of religion by the government, rather than true separation of the religious and the political (and certainly not disestablishment). Not only is there no public role for religious authorities, but they have little independent existence outside of the government. Instead, the Turkish state created an official religious structure to further its political ends, promoting a nationalist and pro-military ideology and conflating Muslim and Turkish identity with loyalty to the government.74 Diyanet was formed as a religious bureaucracy entirely subordinate to the state, officially subject to the office of Prime Minister. Headed by a president and leadership committee, it was responsible for shaping the religious ideology of the country, through the promulgation of fatwās, publishing religious books, and determining the subjects for Friday sermons.75 Under the leadership committee were the muftīs appointed for each of the country’s administrative districts and tasked with supervising public mosques, as well as their employees.76 In practice, the Kemalist government’s control over Diyanet hindered its operation, undermining much of its activity.77 For instance, in 1931 its original oversight of mosques was transferred to the Ministry of Evkaf. (It was restored in 1950.)78 Brian Silverstein notes as well that very few works were published by Diyanet prior to 1950, despite religious publication being an explicit duty of the bureaucracy.79 The late 1920s brought a further push from the state toward the secularization of society, and a number of new laws were passed aimed at weakening the role of traditional Muslim culture within Turkey and replacing it with explicitly Western cultural forms, including the switch to the Latin alphabet from Arabic, the elimination of Arabic and Persian language instruction in schools, the ban on religious clothing outside of specific functions, and the adoption of the Gregorian calendar and a Monday to Friday workweek.80 Moreover, all Sufi orders were banned and tekkes and shrines closed in 1925 in a backlash against Sufi-inspired unrest.81 Islam was removed from the constitution as the official state religion in 1928.82 One-party Kemalist rule marginalized religion, minimizing ‘ulamā’ and religious education particularly, well into the 1930s and 1940s. The reorganization of 1924 standardized all education under government control, closing madrasahs and replacing them with so-called imam-hatip schools (which, as the name suggests, trained prayer leaders and preachers) and theological

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faculties (sing. ilahiyat fakultesi), each utilizing modern educational methods. The decisive move away from conventional Islamic education was the culmination of reform policies dating back at least to the late nineteenth century.83 The secularizing push of the late 1920s and 1930s, however, undermined any type of religious education; the twenty-six imam-hatip schools serving 1,442 students in 1924 became two with 278 students in 1927, and had ceased entirely by 1931.84 The sole theological faculty, operating at Istanbul University, was likewise closed in 1933.85 Dankwort Rustow argues that the end of one-party rule in the 1940s brought secularization policies into the political arena, and the government subsequently bent to popular pressure, again allowing religious education. Optional religious courses for schoolchildren began in 1949, coinciding with the return of imam-hatip schools and theological faculties.86 A structural relationship was formed between these two types of educational institutions and Diyanet, with imam-hatip schools staffed by the graduates of theological faculties, and, since 1965, only these two kinds of schools could train personnel for the Diyanet hierarchy.87 The imam-hatip schools and theological faculties, which gradually spread around Turkey, came to form the institutional basis for the new “clergy” that would define both Diyanet and Turkish Islam in the second half of the twentieth century. In both imam-hatip schools and—especially—theological faculties, students were educated in Islamic and secular subjects using modern pedagogy, in ways distinct from the madrasah.88 This type of knowledge and the combination of Islamic and modern, Western discourses is representative of Turkish Islam and sets Diyanet apart from ‘ulamā’ elsewhere (a term, it should be noted, not used in Republican Turkey).89 The theological faculties were expressly established to replace the madrasah with the modern, academic study of religion. Even during their abortive first years they were at the forefront of religious reform and an important part of the creation of a rational, learned form of Islam that could fit the Republican government’s secularizing goals.90 The formation of a modern Turkish Islam that preoccupied the state in this period relied heavily upon Western philosophical frameworks and the transfer of higher religious education from the madrasah to a university setting aligned with this goal. Indeed, the post-1949 theological faculties were initially staffed by graduates of European institutions. Accordingly, the influence of Western academia was pervasive; Mehmet Koç notes that Orientalism played a central role in the Turkish study of Islam through the widespread translation of European works into Turkish.91 Annemarie Schimmel, the famed German Orientalist, herself helped establish the Ankara theological faculty, where she served as professor from 1954 to 1959.92 The theological faculties formed—and continue to form—the mainstream of the new, modern Turkish Islam. Today, Turkish academia stands alongside Diyanet as the main foundations for religious authority. As Silverstein writes, “publishing monographs and journals is, and has been for decades, one of

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the most important outlets for Islamic scholarship” in the country.93 While religious publishing was limited and largely controlled by Diyanet prior to the 1950s, since then it has become a major part of the Turkish religious environment, led by academic scholarship into Islam and Islamic history that by now has spread beyond the theological faculties.94

Normative Turkish Islam Diyanet has been allowed to grow and extend its activities since the end of strict Kemalist rule in the late 1940s. Its function was included in the new constitution of 1961, granting it a more firmly established existence. (It was also at that time that its name was changed to the current Diyanet İşleri Başkanlıǧı.)95 The military coup of 1980 continued this trend. Yavuz describes the pro-military, anti-leftist “Turkish-Islamic synthesis” that emerges, using Islamic symbols and discourse to promote a particular Turkish political identity. Diyanet was granted further powers by the military government to propagate this identity and preserve Turkish nationalism, with its role solidified in the new constitution of 1982.96 The promotion of the Turkish-Islamic synthesis in Turkish politics and increased prominence for Diyanet brought an expansion of its scope and bureaucracy. Its staff almost doubled in size, growing from just over 50,000 employees in 1979 to nearly 85,000 ten years later.97 Compulsory religious education was also introduced into Turkish schools, with Diyanet granted control over its teaching. These courses served an explicitly nationalistic purpose, emphasizing morality that was pro-government and pro-military but based in both Islam and ancient Turkish culture.98 The overt use of religious appeals by the government provoked questions of religion’s place in politics and fidelity to the Kemalist legacy, as well as controversy over Diyanet’s role. Yet, as Amit Bein writes, debates about Diyanet and how it should function within both a laik government and a Muslim country have existed since its founding, but nevertheless its fundamental character and relationship to the state have not changed. Rather, Diyanet continues to serve as a political vehicle for government limitation of the religious sphere and control of the content and discourses therein.99 It has been noted that each coup to restore Kemalist military rule (1965, 1980, 1997) has brought with it an expansion and strengthening of Diyanet, bolstering its stature to help prevent the spread of anti-government movements.100 Through Diyanet, the government regulates Turkish religious discourse, delineating what are and are not legitimate forms of Islam (or more specifically “Turkish” Islam) by promoting some forms and excluding others, and channeling religious sentiment among the population into established structures (in this case into Diyanet itself and/or academia). Religious structures or movements that begin to compete with Diyanet or grow independent are

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therefore suppressed, as was the case with the Sufi-inspired Nurcu movement in the early republican period and the related Gülen movement since the 1990s. The latter, a religious-educational movement founded by Fethullah Gülen (1941– ), who had been an imām and teacher with Diyanet, flourished in the 1980s within the context of the Turkish-Islamic synthesis, interjecting explicitly Islamic rhetoric and reasoning into the country’s political discourse. This elicited a secularist backlash following the 1997 coup, which strove to eliminate it as a source of religious legitimacy outside the government, forcing the Gülen movement underground and its leader to leave the country.101 As the primary and almost-exclusive religious structure in Turkey, Diyanet has become the main venue for tension, as well as negotiation, between the state’s desire for control of religion and Turks’ religious inclinations, to say nothing of the wishes of Diyanet (and other) officials themselves. As Nathalie Clayer argues, the character of laiklik and precise function of Diyanet were not laid out in detailed plans in March 1924, but rather were shaped over time by the interactions between different parts of the government, the Turkish population, and, of course, religious actors who—despite the repression, and operating either within or without state institutions (with the boundary between the two of them being somewhat blurred)—exploited any freedom of manoeuvre to change course afforded by the heterogeneities and tensions between various levels of the administration, and by the state’s lack of means and ability to exercise control. Officials working at the Diyanet and within the Turkish education system were not merely passive agents or collaborators.102

Drawing a comparison with the early years of the Soviet Union (whose official Islamic institutions bore the most resemblance to Diyanet), she rightly notes that the Kemalist state could not simply make religion among the populace disappear, nor was its privatization under the guise of laiklik an obvious goal. Clayer cites the disagreement between officials from Diyanet and the Ministry of Education over Qurʾān courses taught by volunteers, which the latter argued were not actually under Diyanet’s supervision, as an example of Diyanet using a bureaucratic gray area to expand religious education.103 The interaction between the government and religious actors is mediated through Diyanet, which is empowered by the state to fulfill this role (a role that is evolving and not always clear). But this interaction predates the founding of Diyanet, and has a long history linking back to the Ottoman Empire and the ilmiye. This history has shaped Diyanet, that is, its structure, its place within laiklik, and its religious orientation, and it has led to the emergence today of a distinctively Turkish Islam, unique in many ways among contemporary Muslims.104 This sui generis form of Islamic identity is thus inseparable from Diyanet and its Ottoman heritage.

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1. Arabic or Persian terms used in modern Turkish will be given in both Latin Turkish and transliterated spellings, and written in the most common form thereafter. 2. On this period, see Claude Cahen, Pre-Ottoman Turkey: A General Survey of the Material and Spiritual Culture and History c. 1071–1330 (New York: Taplinger, 1968); Songul Mecit, The Rum Seljuqs: Evolution of a Dynasty (London: Routledge, 2013). 3. Stanford Shaw, History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey, 2 vols (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1976–197), vol. 1, esp. 12–70; M. Fuad Köprülü, The Origins of the Ottoman Empire (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1992). 4. Shaw, History, esp. vol. 1, 112; Halil Inalcik, An Economic and Social History of the Ottoman Empire, Vol. 1: 1300–1600, ed. Halil Inalcik with Donald Quataert (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 16–17; also Rhoads Murphey, Exploring Ottoman Sovereignty: Tradition, Image and Practice in the Ottoman Imperial Household, 1400–1800 (London: Continuum, 2008). 5. See Omid Safi, The Politics of Knowledge in Premodern Islam: Negotiating Ideology and Religious Inquiry (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2006). 6. Richard Bulliet, “The Shaikh al-Islam and the Evolution of Islamic Society,” Studia Islamica 35 (1972), 53–67. Bulliet notes that under the weaker Anatolian Seljuqs the office operated along its original lines; ibid., 55, 65. 7. See the discussion in Roy Mottahedeh, “The Transmission of Learning: The Role of the Islamic Northeast,” in Madrasa: le transmission du savoir dans le monde musulman, eds Nicole Grandin and Marc Gaborieau (Paris: Éditions Arguments, 1997), 63–72; Wilferd Madelung, “The Spread of Maturidism and the Turks,” Actas IV congresso de estudos arabes e islamicos (1968). 8. On the importance and influence of such a location, see Cemal Kafadar, Between Two Worlds: The Construction of the Ottoman State (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995). 9. Cf. Dina Le Gall, A Culture of Sufism: Naqshbandis in the Ottoman World, 1450–1700 (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2004), 64. 10. Derin Terzioglu, “Sufis in the Age of State-Building and Confessionalization,” in The Ottoman World, ed. Christine Woodhead (London: Taylor and Francis, 2011), 86–103; Thierry Zarcone, “Bektasiye,” EI3; Resul Ay, “Sufi Shaykhs and Society in Thirteenth and Fifteenth Century Anatolia: Spiritual Influence and Rivalry,” Journal of Islamic Studies 24 (2013), 1–24; J. Spencer Trimingham, The Sufi Orders in Islam (Oxford: Clarendon, 1971); Annemarie Schimmel, Mystical Dimensions of Islam (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1975). 11. Terzioglu, “Sufis,” esp. 87–89; cf. Trimingham, Sufi Orders, 13, 23–4, 52, 264–9; Ahmet Karamustafa, God’s Unruly Friends: Dervish Groups in the Islamic Later Middle Period, 1200–1550 (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1994). 12. Terzioglu, “Sufis,” 95–6. 13. Zarcone, “Bektasiye,” EI3. 14. Cf. Terzioglu, “Sufis,” 90. 15. Shaw notes that it was originally a duty of the chief Ottoman kazi to “[build] up the ulema by importing learned men from the old centers of Islam, appointing them to judicial and other positions, and arranging for them to train Ottoman subjects to take their place by building up the medrese system”: Shaw, History, vol. 1, 138.

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16. Gilles Veinstein, “Le modèle Ottomane,” in Madrasa: La transmission du savoir dans le monde Musulman, eds Nicole Grandin and Marc Gaborieau (Paris: Editions Arguments, 1997), 73–83, esp. 73; also Shaw, History, vol. 1, 132. 17. Richard C. Repp, The Mufti of Istanbul: A Study in the Development of the Ottoman Learned Hierarchy (London: Ithaca Press, 1986); Colin Imber, Ebu’s-su’ud: The Islamic Legal Tradition (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1997); Shaw, History, vol. 1, 134–9. 18. See the chart in Repp, Mufti, 24; also Shaw, History, vol. 1, 137–8. 19. Shaw, History, vol. 1, 132–4; Repp, Mufti, 40–4; also Veinstein, “Modèle Ottomane.” 20. Shahab Ahmed and Nenad Filipovic, “The Sultan’s Syllabus: A Curriculum for the Ottoman Imperial Medreses Prescribed in a Ferman of Qanuni I Suleyman, Dated 973 (1565),” Studia Islamica 98/9 (2004), 183–218. 21. Abdurrahman Atcil, “The Route to the Top in the Ottoman Ilmiye Hierarchy of the Sixteenth Century,” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 72 (2009), 489–512. 22. Baki Tezcan, The Second Ottoman Empire: Political and Social Transformation in the Early Modern World (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010). 23. Madeline Zilfi, “Elite Circulation in the Ottoman Empire: Great Mollas of the Eighteenth Century,” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 26 (1983), 318–64. 24. Guy Burak, The Second Formation of Islamic Law: The Hanafi School in the Early Modern Ottoman Empire (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015). 25. Cf. Wael Hallaq, Authority, Continuity and Change in Islamic Law (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 14–17; “Ṭabaqāt al-mujtahidīn li-ibn Kamāl Bāshā,” in Risālatān, ed. Abū ‘Abd al-Raḥmān ‘Aqīl (Cairo: Maṭba’at al-Jabalāwī, 1976 [1397]), 5–17. 26. Cf. Imber, Ebu’s-su’ud; Baber Johansen, “Legal Literature and the Problem of Change: The Case of the Land Rent,” in Islam and Public Law: Classical and Contemporary Studies, ed. Chibli Mallat (London: Graham & Trotman, 1993), 29–47. 27. Reem Meshal, Sharia and the Making of the Modern Egyptian (Cairo: American University in Cairo Press, 2014), 103–24. 28. Cf. Uriel Heyd, Studies in Old Ottoman Criminal Law (Oxford: Clarendon, 1973); also Gideon Libson, “On the Development of Custom as a Source of Law in Islamic Law,” Islamic Law and Society 4 (1997), 131–55. 29. See Yossef Rapoport, “Legal Diversity in the Age of Taqlid: The Four Chief Qadis under the Mamluks,” Islamic Law and Society 10 (2003), 210–228; see also Chapter 2 in the present volume. 30. Burak, Second Formation, esp. 181–90. 31. Wilferd Madelung, “The Westward Migration of Hanafi Scholars from Central Asia in the 11th to 13th Centuries,” Ankara Üniversitesi Ilahiyat Fakültesi Dergisi 43 (2002), 41–55, 43; idem, “The Spread of Maturidism.” 32. Paul Losensky, “Jami: i, Life and Works,” EIr; also James Morris, “Ibn ‘Arabi and His Interpreters Part II (Conclusion): Influences and Interpretations,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 107 (1987), 101–19, 113. 33. Cf. Le Gall, Culture of Sufism. 34. Richard Todd. The Sufi Doctrine of Man: Sadr al-Din Al-Qunawi’s Metaphysical Anthropology (Leiden: Brill, 2014), 173–4; Repp, Mufti, 86–7; Shaw, History, vol. 1, 144.

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35. Morris, “Ibn ‘Arabi (Conclusion)”; James Morris, “Ibn ‘Arabi and His Interpreters Part II: Influences and Interpretations,” Journal of the American Oriental Society, 106 (1986), 733–56. 36. Morris, “Ibn ‘Arabi,” esp. 754. See also Chapter 8 in the present volume. 37. See Mustafa Tahrali, “A General Outline of the Influence of Ibn ‘Arabi on the Ottoman Era,” Journal of the Muhyiddin Ibn Arabi Society 26 (1999), 43–54. 38. Ibid.; Tim Winter, “Ibn Kemal (d. 940/1534) on Ibn ‘Arabi’s Hagiology,” in Sufism and Theology, ed. Ayman Shihadeh (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2007), 137–57. 39. Le Gall, Culture of Sufism, 124. 40. See Madeline Zilfi, “The Kadizadelis: Discordant Revivalism in SeventeenthCentury Istanbul,” Journal of Near Eastern Studies 45 (1986), 251–69. Zilfi here notes but does not explore how the Kadizadelis and their opponents did not neatly fall along anti-Sufi/Sufi lines. 41. [Mehmet Efendi Birgivi], al-Ṭarīqah al-Muḥammadīyah wa-al-Sīrah al-Aḥmadīyah ([Istanbul]: Shirkat ṣaḥḥāfīyah ‘uthmānīyah, 1906 [1324]). 42. Itzchak Weismann, The Naqshbandiyya: Orthodoxy and Activism in a Worldwide Sufi Tradition (New York: Routledge, 2007), 134–5; also Le Gall, Culture of Sufism, 150–6. 43. Khaled El-Rouayheb, “The Myth of ‘the Triumph of Fanaticism’ in the SeventeenthCentury Ottoman Empire,” Die Welt des Islams 48 (2008), 196–221. It is not entirely clear, El-Rouayheb notes, to what degree Kadizade or his followers condemned these subjects, though they hardly embraced them. 44. Cf. Lutz Berger, “Interpretations of Ash’arism and Maturidism in Mamluk and Ottoman Times,” in OHIT, 693–704. 45. Hasan Umut, “Ismail Gelenbevi at the Engineering School: The Ottoman Experience of European Science through Logarithms” (M.A. thesis, Istanbul Bilgi University, 2011). 46. Ibid., esp. 56–8. 47. See, broadly, Shaw, History, vol. 1, 217–60. 48. Ibid., 262–5, 272–4. 49. Seyfettin Erşahin, “The Ottoman Ulema and the Reforms of Mahmud II,” Hamdard Islamicus 22 (1999), 19–40. 50. Shaw, History, vol. 2, esp. 19–26; also Kemal Karpat, “The Transformation of the Ottoman State, 1789–1908,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 3 (1972), 243–81. 51. Karpat, “Transformation,” 253–4. 52. Baki Tezcan, “The New Order and the Fate of the Old—The Historiographical Construction of an Ottoman Ancien Regime in the Nineteenth Century,” in Tributary Empires in Global History, eds Peter Fibiger Bang and Christopher A. Bayly (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011), 74–98. 53. Philip Anscombe, “Islam and the Age of Ottoman Reform,” Past and Present 208 (2010), 159–89. 54. Kemal Karpat, “Ifta and Kaza: The Ilmiye State and Modernism in Turkey, 1820– 1960,” in Frontiers of Ottoman Studies: State, Province, and the West, vol. 1, eds Colin Imber and Keiko Kiyotaki (London: I. B. Tauris, 2005), 25–42 at 27. 55. Shaw, History, vol. 2, 37, 38–9; Karpat, “Transformation,” 255; Nurullah Ardic, Islam and the Politics of Secularism: The Caliphate and Middle Eastern Modernization in the Early 20th Century (London: Routledge, 2012), 171.

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56. Karpat, “Ifta and Kaza,” 29. 57. Cf. Shaw, History, vol. 2, 117–18; Ardic places the founding of the civil courts in 1871; Ardic, Islam and the Early Politics of Secularism, 171. 58. Samy Ayoub, “The Mecelle, Sharia, and the Ottoman State: Fashioning and Refashioning of Islamic Law in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries,” Journal of the Ottoman and Turkish Studies Association 2 (2015), 121–46, esp. 128–30. 59. Karpat, “Ifta and Kaza,” 30–1. 60. Cf. Shaw, History, vol. 2, esp. 106–13; also Selçuk Akşin Somel, The Modernization of Public Education in the Ottoman Empire, 1839–1908: Islamization, Autocracy and Discipline (Leiden: Brill, 2001). 61. For an overview, see Shaw, History, vol. 2, 272–339. 62. Amit Bein, Ottoman Ulema, Turkish Republic: Agents of Change and Guardians of Tradition (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2011), 21–9. 63. Sukri Hanioglu, Young Turks in Opposition (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985); M. Sait Özervarli, “Transferring Traditional Islamic Disciplines into Modern Social Sciences in Late Ottoman Thought: The Attempts of Ziya Gokalp and Mehmed Serafeddin,” Muslim World 97 (2007), 317–30, esp. 318–20; Bein, Ottoman Ulema, 18. 64. Niyazi Berkes, The Development of Secularism in Turkey, new edn (London: Hurst, 1998), 415–16; Shaw, History, vol. 2, 306–7; Andrew Davison, Secularism and Revivalism in Turkey: A Hermeneutic Reconsideration (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998), 101–2. 65. Berkes, Development of Secularism, 381; Davison, Secularism and Revivalism, 101. 66. Erşahin, “Ottoman Foundation,” 193–4. 67. Cf. Bein, Ottoman Ulema, 95–104. 68. On the political struggles of the post-World War I period and the different uses of religious discourse in shaping modern Turkey, see Ardic, Islam and the Politics of Secularism. 69. Henry Allen, The Turkish Transformation: A Study in Social and Religious Development (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1935), 88; Dankwort Rustow, “Politics and Islam in Turkey 1920–1955,” in Islam and the West, ed. Richard Frye (The Hague: Mouton, 1957), 69–107, esp. 82. 70. Bein, Ottoman Ulema, 102–4. 71. Ibid., 72–3, 105–6; Davison, Secularism and Revivalism, 138–9; Allen, Turkish Transformation, 175–7; Rustow, “Politics and Islam,” 82–3; also Gazi Erdem, “Religious Services in Turkey: From the Office of Seyhulislam to the Diyanet,” Muslim World 98 (2008), 199–215. 72. Jean-Paul Burdy and Jean Marcou, “Laicite/Laiklik: Introduction,” Cahiers d’études sur la Méditerranée orientale et le monde turco-iranien 19 (1995), 5–34. To this Berkes adds the removal of the authority of Islamic tradition from areas of society, although this is a very broad and analytically problematic definition; Berkes, Development of Secularism, 5–7. 73. Cf. Seval Yildirim, “The Search for Shared Idioms: Contesting Views of Laiklik Before the Turkish Constitutional Court,” in Muslim Societies and the Challenge of Secularization: An Interdisciplinary Approach, ed. Gabriele Marranci (Dordrecht: Springer, 2010), 235–52, esp. 237. 74. Andrew Davison and Taha Parla, “Secularism and Laicism in Turkey,” in Secularisms, eds Janet Jakobsen and Ann Pellegrini (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2008), 58–75; M. Hakan Yavuz, Islamic Political Identity in Turkey

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75. 76. 77. 78.

79. 80. 81.

82. 83.

84. 85.

86. 87. 88. 89. 90. 91. 92. 93. 94.

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(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 48–50; Davison, Secularism and Revivalism, esp. 135–40; Umut Azak, Islam and Secularism in Turkey: Kemalism, Religion and the Nation State (London: I. B. Tauris, 2010); Iştar Gözaydin, “Management of Religion in Turkey: The Diyanet and Beyond,” in Freedom of Religion and Belief in Turkey, eds Ozgur Heval Cinar and Mine Yildirim (Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2014), 10–35 at 16. Allen, Turkish Transformation, 176–7; Davison, Secularism and Revivalism, 139; Erdem, “Religious Services,” 208; Howard Reed, “The Religious Life of Turkish Muslims,” in Islam and the West, ed. Richard Frye (The Hague: Mouton, 1957), 108–48, esp. 110. Cf. Erik Zurcher, The Young Turk Legacy and Nation Building: From the Ottoman Empire to Ataturk’s Turkey (London: I. B. Tauris, 2010), 249. Nathalie Clayer, “An Imposed or a Negotiated Laiklik?: The Administration of the Teaching of Islam in Single-Party Turkey,” in Order and Compromise: Government Practices in Turkey from the Late Ottoman Empire to the Early 21st Century, eds Marc Aymes, Benjamin Gourisse, and Élise Massicard (Leiden: Brill, 2015), 97–121, esp. 100. Brian Silverstein, “Islamist Critique in Turkey: Hermeneutics, Tradition, and Genealogy,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 47 (2005), 134–60 at 140. Davison, Secularism and Revivalism, 149–51; Yavuz, Islamic Political Identity, 50. Davison, Secularism and Revivalism, 145–6; Allen, Turkish Transformation, 178; Elisabeth Ozdalga, The Veiling Issue, Official Secularism and Popular Islam in Modern Turkey (London: Routledge, 1998), 17–19. Azak, Islam and Secularism, 9; Ozdalga, Veiling Issue, 19. Cf. Howard Reed, “The Faculty of Divinity at Ankara,” Muslim World 46 (1956), 295–312; also Murteza Bedir, “Fikih to Law: Secularization through Curriculum,” Islamic Law and Society 11 (2004), 378–401. Allen, Turkish Transformation, 182–3. Reed, “Faculty,” 296–7. Reed notes that the theological faculty was at this time reformed into the Institute for Islamic Research (Islam tetkikleri enstitusu), but it consisted only of one course before closing in 1942. Rustow, “Politics and Islam,” 90–6; Reed, “Imam-hatip,” 152–4. Reed, “Imam-hatip,” 158; Yavuz, Islamic Political Identity, 146. Cf. Reed, “Imam-hatip,” 155–7. Cf. Ozdalga, Veiling Issue, 33–4; also Bein, Ottoman Ulema, 106, 163. Cf. Reed, “Faculty,” 298–301; also Allen, Turkish Transformation, 186–8, 191–2. Mehmet Akif Koç, “The Influence of Western Qur’anic Scholarship in Turkey,” Journal of Qur’anic Studies 14 (2012), 9–44. Ibid., 11; also Ali Isra Gungor, “The Turkish Contribution to the History of Religions,” Numen 54 (2007), 71–92. Silverstein, “Islamist Critique,” 140. Research into the Qurʾān, for instance, has become a major focus of Turkish academia; cf. Mehmet Akif Koç, “The Influence of Western Qur’anic Scholarship in Turkey,” Journal of Qur’anic Studies 14 (2012); Johanna Pink, “Tradition and Ideology in Contemporary Sunnite Qur’anic Exegesis: Qur’anic Commentaries from the Arab World, Turkey and Indonesia and Their Interpretation of Q 5:51,” Die Welt des Islams 50 (2010); Felix Körner, “When Islam Receives Criticism: Historical Koran Exegesis in Today’s Turkey,” Rosenzweig Jahrbuch 2 (2007), 153–169.

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101.

102. 103. 104.

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Davison and Parla, “Secularism and Laicism,” 74. Yavuz, Islamic Political Identity, 69–72; Zurcher, Young Turk Legacy, 281. Zurcher, Young Turk Legacy, 281–2. Yavuz, Islamic Political Identity, 72, 129. Bein, Ottoman Ulema, esp. 148–59. This observation was made by an official in the current Turkish government; Thijl Sunier, Nico Landman, Heleen van der Linden, Nazli Bilgili and Alper Bilgili, Diyanet: The Turkish Directorate for Religious Affairs in a Changing Environment, accessed July 2, 2015, http://dare.ubvu.vu.nl/handle/1871/48186, p. 34. Zurcher, Young Turk Legacy, 282; M. Hakan Yavuz, Toward an Islamic Enlightenment: The Gulen Movement (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013); Joshua Hendrick, Gulen: The Ambiguous Politics of Market Islam in Turkey and the World (New York: New York University Press, 2014). Clayer, “Imposed or Negotiated,” 120. Ibid., 111–12. Hakan Yavuz, “Turkey: Islam without Sharia?,” in Sharia Politics: Islamic Law and Society in the Modern World, ed. Robert Hefner (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2011), 146–78.

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CHAPTER

12

TURKISH ISLAMIC DEBATES: DIYANET, HAYRETTIN KARAMAN, AND RECEP S¸ENTÜRK Masooda Bano and Emre Caliskan

Despite pressure from secular governments, for much of its early years, to develop a highly modernist reading of Islam that strives to make its laws and ethics conform to the Western liberal tradition, Diyanet İşleri Başkanlığı (Presidency of Religious Affairs) has pursued a moderate course in interpreting Islamic fiqh. This chapter provides evidence to this effect by presenting an analysis of Diyanet’s approach to fiqh with a close study of İlmihal1 (Catechism of Islam)—a major two-volume publication on Islamic fiqh produced by Diyanet under a committee consisting of senior Turkish Islamic theologians and chaired by former President of Diyanet Ali Bardakoğlu (May 2003–November 2010). Further to the contention of Chapter 10— that especially since 2010 Diyanet has increased its engagement with traditional Islamic platforms banned during the Kemalist period, as well as with those members of the Turkish theology departments who are trying to develop a reformist discourse but with due respect for the traditional Islamic fiqh, as opposed to the more rationalist approaches to the study of theology traditionally encouraged in these departments—this chapter will examine the work of two influential contemporary Islamic thinkers in Turkey associated with Turkish theology departments: Hayrettin Karaman, an influential Islamic-studies scholar and public figure, who until 2001 was a professor of Islamic law at Marmara University’s Divinity School, and has many books to his credit; and Recep Şentürk, a prominent emerging Turkish scholar who is trying to revive traditional Islamic methods and ideas by considering them in the light of modern ideas and is gaining a growing audience. In these three examples, we see that the Turkish Islamic scholarly sphere was never so secularized as to lose its Islamic identity; yet we also see how influential scholars such as Karaman, due to their close advisory relationship [ 316 ]

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with the governing AK Party (AKP), cannot be accused of promoting Salafi Islam, despite the accusations to the contrary made by the critics of AKP.2 It is particularly useful to consider Karaman’s positions and his methods of Islamic reform, because he is an example of one of the influential Islamic scholars upon whom Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan draws when in need of fatwās, instead of pressuring Diyanet to issue them (unlike the arrangement observed between the Egyptian state and al-Azhar, see Chapter 1). Karaman’s positions on Islamic issues, as analyzed in this chapter, would clearly qualify as moderate, in comparison with the more conservative platforms of Deobond or Saudi Salafism. This finding in turn helps support the position advanced in Chapter 10: that claims that under the AKP the Turkish state is adopting a Salafi reading of Islam remain unsubstantiated. Finally, the work of Şentürk shows how, in the current climate, dynamic new scholarly efforts are being made by Turkish scholars to stay loyal to the tradition and yet engage confidently with the modern world and Western philosophical tradition. The connections that he develops between specific Islamic and Western concepts may be open to critique (as all scholarly works are), but his work is a good example of the kind of Islamic scholarship that the current Turkish political climate is conducive to nurturing.

Diyanet through the Lens of İlmihal The İlmihal is a two-volume book project in which Diyanet explains the principles of Islam from the Turkish Islamic perspective. The first volume addresses issues related to faith and worship, while the second volume covers matters of socio-economic and political concern. The volumes were published by the Turkiye Diyanet Vakfı (Turkish Diyanet Foundation)3 and were later approved by Diyanet’s High Board of Religious Affairs on 16 July 2002. The two volumes offer an insight into the Turkish reading of core Islamic fiqh positions as pursued by Diyanet: they help to map Diyanet’s understanding of issues such as secularism, governance, human rights, and women’s rights. One of the most important discussions in Turkish Islam is about laiklik (secularism). For Diyanet, laiklik means separation of the state and religious affairs.4 In principle, Diyanet accepts the notion of laiklik, but what is also clear through study of the İlmihal is that it is critical of the way that this ideal has been implemented in Turkey, where the Kemalist regime actively suppressed religious platforms.5 Although it does not refer to Turkey or any other country specifically, the İlmihal is keen to emphasize that separation of state and religion under the notion of laiklik should not be used to suppress religion; instead, it argues strongly for the protection of freedom of religion. The İlmihal maintains that laiklik should not be understood as presenting dichotomies such as religion versus reason, and religion versus science;6 rejecting suggestions that only secular thought can be rational, it emphasizes that Islam accommodates reasoning and that it is in harmony with science.7

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According to the Diyanet, personal religion can remain a powerful force in secular societies,8 and the separation of state and religion under laiklik can only be effective if the state guarantees the freedom of religion, including rights such as allowing people to practice their faith and also disseminate it.9 The İlmihal is keen to assert that the argument for maintaining a separation between state and religion should not be used to justify the use of control mechanisms that limit the role of religion in public life.10 Diyanet, however, views freedom of religion purely from the believer’s perspective and does not mention the rights of a non-believer, and how the rights of the non-believer could be protected. Diyanet believes that, even if it is in accordance with the law, freedom of religion shall not be restricted in the interests of public order.11 For Diyanet, any limitation on religion may lead to oppression and also to the exploitation of religious values for political motives.12 The İlmihal argues that the rule of law must not define the meaning of religion, but should facilitate its teachings.13 The İlmihal also discusses freedom of religion in the context of human rights relating to women’s rights and slavery.14 It notes that the Prophet Muhammad’s last sermon is a very important document in this respect, referring to it as the “founding document of human rights in Islam.”15 Noting that the human-rights movements began in the Western world because of “widespread violations of woman rights and slaves,”16 it elaborates: “It is difficult to claim there has been no human rights violations in the Muslim societies. However, important progress to protect main rights and liberties had been made in Muslim societies in the light of Qurʾān and sunnah. Even today, Muslim societies are enviably tolerant. Violations and injustice are limited to local practices.”17 In its interpretation of ideal modes of governance, the İlmihal reveals that Diyanet tries not to challenge the democratic principles of the Turkish Republic. According to it, Islam does not impose any particular system of governance, but defines general principles;18 what is essential, however, is that the Qurʾān and sunnah be followed by all people.19 As long as Muslims follow the principles enshrined in the Qurʾān and sunnah, they are free to choose any social contract they prefer.20 Diyanet avoids explicit debate on the question of whether sovereignty belongs to God alone or to the people.21 The İlmihal acknowledges that democracy has been considered the best governance model to guarantee human rights, but argues that extensive debates on whether or not democracy exists within Islamic thinking are pointless, given that the Islamic model of governance was historically very democratic in spirit.22 Diyanet views participation in politics as an honorable act, given that the Prophet Muhammad and the Caliphs (Abū Bakr, ‘Umar, ‘Uthman, and ‘Alī.) were political leaders. But the İlmihal argues emphatically: “Those who engage in politics should be elected based on merit.”23 In addition to other qualities, Diyanet stresses the importance of pious leadership. With reference to Surah Ṣād from the Qurʾān (38: 26–8), Diyanet believes that a pious leader acts in

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accordance with justice, and his decisions do not contradict the principles of Islam.24 However, as is common in traditional Sunni fiqh, Diyanet encourages respect for state authority, instead of mass rebellion, for fear of creating civil war (fitnah). Obedience to state authority thus plays a very important role in Diyanet’s understanding of governance. In this regard, the İlmihal provides a reference from the Surah Nisa (4:59): O you who have believed, obey Allah and obey the Messenger and those in authority among you. And if you disagree over anything, refer it to Allah and the Messenger, if you should believe in Allah and the Last Day. That is the best [way] and best in result.

According to Diyanet, people can call upon political leaders to act with fairness and ensure justice.25 This, the İlmihal notes, is the essence of the Islamic principle of “Enjoining what is right and forbidding what is wrong” (al- ‘Amr bi al-Ma’rūf wa al-Naḥy ‘an al-Munkar)—a notion that, as examined in Chapters 5 and 6, has been interpreted very differently by Saudi Salafis, some of whom have used its extreme interpretation to endorse individual and collective jihad. But in the case of Diyanet, this Islamic injunction gives Muslims only the right to “warn,” as opposed to taking any direct action, in order to avoid causing chaos. Diyanet states that people can send written or verbal warnings, protest against politicians, stop contacting or visiting them, refuse to be paid, and pray for the end of the authority—but taking violent action or leading a rebellion is not allowed.26 In order to implement the principle of al-‘Amr bi al-Ma’rūf wa al-Naḥy ‘an al-Munkar in public life, Diyanet suggests having a Hisba agency, “an institution which protects and monitors public order”27 and notes that a person who works for the Hisba agency should be called muhtasip. Diyanet’s description of this Hisba agency is very ambiguous. In Islamic societies, the Hisba is referred to as the Islamic religious police, but in the Ottoman Empire Hisba was used to describe the municipal police as well.28 Traditionally, muhtasip was used to describe someone who supervised bazaars and trade areas in Islamic countries. According to Diyanet, the Hisba should be in charge of monitoring imāms to check that they recite the adhān at the right time; work to prevent violations of religious freedom, immoral behavior, and the consumption of alcohol; monitor relationships between men and women; govern weights and measures; restrain fake beggars; and oversee the performance of a profession or trade. The Diyanet description of a Hisba is a combination of the religious police and the municipal police.29 Although Diyanet believes that the Hisba is extremely useful in helping to establish public order and protect the social sphere, this contradicts the secular principle of the Turkish state, and its inclusion in the İlmihal helps contradict the assumptions of the traditional Islamic authorities in other countries who view Diyanet as too Western and liberal in its outlook. It is also important to note that it is the edition of the İlmihal published in 2002

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that is being analyzed in this chapter, which means that Diyanet’s endorsement of the idea of a religious police (which is today under attack even in conservative countries such as Saudi Arabia, see Chapter 4) cannot be attributed to the influence of the AKP. On issues concerning gender, the İlmihal again reveals that Diyanet has tried to maintain a moderate course. Unlike the other schools of thought in Islam, according to the decision of Diyanet’s High Council, dated 17 October 2002, the testimony of a woman is equal to the testimony of a man—thereby showing a preference for a more reformist reading.30 The İlmihal notes: “According to Islam, ontologically and also with regards to religious responsibility, legal competence, and fundamental rights and freedoms, there is, in principle, no difference between a man and a woman.”31 However, on inheritance law, on which the Islamic rulings are firmer, Diyanet endorses the traditional position, stating that men have more obligations than women and therefore are entitled to receive double shares of any inheritance, compared with the entitlements of their female siblings.32 Comparing the rights and duties of a wife and a husband according to Islam, the İlmihal argues that the main duty of the woman is to take charge of domestic affairs and responsibility for the education of children; women must respect the authority of the male head of the household, who is responsible for providing for it. It does, however, note that women and men may switch roles and help each other by mutual consent.33 Women are permitted to work—and according to the Diyanet are allowed to become judges and managers. However, in line with the mainstream Sunni position, Diyanet also discourages the active mixing of sexes in private places: one of the Diyanet fatwās argues: “Men and women should not be alone in closed places.”34 In Islamic law, another matter for debate is the injunction requiring women to travel with a male guardian; on this point the İlmihal avoids adopting a clear position. Diyanet cites Ḥanafī and Ḥanbalī schools that argue that women are not permitted to carry out their Hajj duty without being accompanied by their guardian. However, it also notes that Mālikī and Shāfi’ī schools allow women to perform this duty if they travel with a group of other women.35 Diyanet explains these restrictions on travel by arguing that the restrictions act as protection for women, ensuring their safety and security. Diyanet argues that when it comes to security and safety measures, “it is possible to be more tolerant on this matter.” However, the İlmihal does not elaborate on what such special arrangements may be and does not clarify whether women and men can travel together. Even though Diyanet does not call for separate carriages in public transport for males and females, its reasoning demonstrates a school of thought closer to the Mālikī and Shāfi’ī schools than to its own Ḥanafī tradition. Diyanet does not explicitly take any position regarding the age of marriage, but it cites a difference of opinions on the matter among Islamic schools of thought.36 According to Diyanet, marriage is allowed for someone

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of adolescent age, “which differs from one region to another.”37 Therefore, in the İlmihal Islamic scholars define lower and upper bounds for the period of adolescence: they agree on the minimum age of adolescence as nine years old for girls and twelve years old for boys. Further, they note that the upper bound of the adolescent period is seventeen years for girls and eighteen years for boys in books of Ḥanafī legal fiqh, and eighteen years old for both sexes in the teaching of Imām Mālik. In terms of divorce, Diyanet says that the Ḥanafī school does not recognize the right of a woman who may want to divorce, while other schools accept it under certain circumstances.38 Thus, the accusation by more traditional centers of Islamic learning that Diyanet or Turkish Islam has become too secular or Westernized is unjustified, because, as discussed in detail in Chapters 10 and 11, Diyanet’s key advantage when attempting to assert global leadership of moderate Islam (as it is trying to do now) is that, despite its being established by a secular Kemalist regime, the scholars guiding its discourse, especially in the early years, have successfully ensured that the institution has preserved a continuity with the Ottoman Islamic scholarly tradition. It has opted for more progressive readings of a specific fiqh debate only in cases where they do not violate what is viewed as the non-negotiable aspects of Islamic fiqh and by following debates within the four Sunni madhhabs. This respect for the earlier scholarly Islamic tradition is visible in the İlmihal’s constant reference to positions of different madhhabs when presenting a defence of its specific position.

Hayrettin Karaman: A Man of Da’wah Hayrettin Karaman is a leading Islamic intellectual in Turkey. He represents the first generation of scholars educated in the new Republic education system, in which the imam-hatip schools and theology departments replaced the traditional madrasah education system.39 He is among the foremost reformist thinkers of Turkish Islam, advocating the interpretation of Islamic law in light of modern conditions. His emphasis on the use of ijtihād is evident in his writings. His Ph.D. thesis, entitled “Ijtihād in Islamic Law (Islam Hukukunda İctihad),” challenges a popular assertion in Western academia (although now also under attack therein40) that the door of ijtihād was closed after the first three centuries of Islam.41 Karaman became one of the most outspoken voices of the imam-hatip schools, which are aimed at training preachers and prayer leaders. He is also associated with the intellectual debates of Turkey’s traditional political Islamic movement, Millî Görüş (National Outlook Movement).42 Today, according to many, Hayrettin Karaman is President Erdoğan’s chief fatwā-giver,43 and Turkey’s more modern and progressive version of Yusuf al-Qaradawi.44 When we examine the views of Karaman, who in the opinion of many is the imām of Turkish Islamism under the AKP, we can see how his positions may appear conservative to the secularists or Kemalists but

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are by no means expressive of the Salafi rigidity that AKP’s critics attribute to President Erdoğan.45 Hayrettin Karaman was born in Çorum, a city in central Anatolia, in 1934. Ten years before Karaman was born, the new Turkish Republic adopted Tevhid-Tedrisat (Law of Unification of Educational Instruction), which replaced classical madrasah education with a secular, nationalist, and centralist education system. Imam-hatip schools and the theology faculties were established by the new law of 1924. However, both were abolished in 1933 due to “a lack of student interest.”46 In 1951, when the Democrat Party was in power, imam-hatip schools were re-established in Isparta, Adana, İstanbul, Kayseri, Konya, and Maraş.47 In 1952, Hayrettin Karaman enrolled at the Konya Imam-Hatip school. He completed his studies in 1959 as a second-year graduate. He then moved to Istanbul and attended Istanbul Higher Islamic Institute, which was later renamed as the School of Divinity of Marmara University, today one of the most influential theology departments in Turkey. Karaman was one of the first graduates of this institute in 1963. He worked as a teacher of religious subjects at Istanbul Religious High School for two years; then he became a fiqh assistant at Istanbul Higher Islamic Institute. After higher Islamic institutes were transformed into faculties of theology, he completed his academic studies and was appointed as an associate professor, and then a full professor. He resigned from his office at Marmara University Faculty of Theology in 2001 because of the prohibition on girls’ wearing headscarves in the universities.48 Karaman has been very influential in shaping Turkey’s Islamic education. He actively worked in Marmara University’s Theology Department.49 Since the beginning of his career, as Iren Ozgur rightly points out, Karaman has contributed to Turkey’s Islamic agenda by praising imam-hatip schools as the primary resource for the preservation of Islam in society.50 The new generation of emerging Islamists were very much influenced by his writings, speeches, and activism. At a time when students of imam-hatip schools faced difficulties in finding textbooks on Islamic subjects, Karaman published six books, including one on Arabic grammar and also a dictionary.51 Karaman was involved in the activities of the Diyanet Foundation, an organization established in 1975 with the objective of supporting the activities of Diyanet. He was a member of the editorial board of Diyanet’s Encyclopaedia of Islam and the İlmihal (discussed above). He also played an influential role in the establishment of ISAM (Islam Araştırmaları Merkezi, Center for Islamic Studies), a leading Islamic research center in Turkey, which operates under the aegis of the Diyanet Foundation. Karaman published the Nesil (Generation) magazine from September 1976 to September 1980. As has been well documented, Islamic periodicals became instrumental in facilitating the formation and mobilization of an Islamist network in Turkey during this period.52 Karaman’s aim in publishing Nesil was to mobilize imam-hatip students as a united generation with shared

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Islamic views.53 This reflects his approach to Islamism in Turkey. He advocated working within the existing system, rather than toppling governments. The tactic was to push for reform from within. According to Guida, Karaman’s strategy of “Islamisation from the base through education” differentiates him from other Islamic thinkers such as Rashid Rida and Muhammad Abduh (see Chapter 2) or other Arab jurists.54 Referring to his influence on imamhatip schools, Ahmet Tasgetiren, a prominent Islamic intellectual, notes that Karaman is the dava adamı (man of action).55 For Karaman, Islamism is an ongoing process that is about “the existence of Islam in all spheres of life, the presentation of Islam as a religion and civilization in the most appropriate manner to the people of the world, the unification of Muslims in some way, and the domination of a just order throughout the world.”56 The religion that he follows is different from that of Necmettin Erbakan, the leader of traditional Turkish political Islam. Erbakan tried to undo Western influence in Turkey by fighting against corruption, poverty, and nepotism, while promoting social and economic prosperity.57 According to Karaman, however, Erbakan’s Refah Partisi (Welfare Party) was not really an experiment of political Islam: If Refah Partisi was left alone, it probably would have ended up being a liberaldemocratic order in harmony with Second Republicans (a group of intellectuals who mostly opposed military tutelage over politics in 1990s) or it would have worked for them.58

Erbakan’s Welfare Party existed for only a short time; following the military’s “postmodern coup” in 1997, it was shut down in 1998 by the Constitution Court. This paved the way for a division within the party between the moderate innovationists (yenilikçiler) and the hardliners (gelenekçiler).59 Yenilikçiler later established the AKP, which came to power in 2002. Karaman took the side of the yenilikçiler. In the absence of an Islamic state, Karaman saw democracy as an instrument to protect Islamic identity. Unlike Erbakan’s anti-Western discourse, for instance, Karaman expressed his support for Turkey’s membership of the European Union, which he viewed as a shield to protect Muslim identity in Turkey’s strongly secular state: “If there is no way to protect the Muslim identity under the current climate in Turkey, not only is Turkey justified in wanting to enter the EU, but it is also imperative.”60 Karaman also attended several Abant Meetings, which were organized by the Gülen Movement, to discuss national issues by drawing on contributions from a broad spectrum of professionals and academics. According to Ahmet Kuru, the yenilikçilers’ interaction with the Gülen movement played an important role in the formation of the AKP’s new perspective on secularism.61 In the second Abant Meeting, entitled “Religion, State and Society,” participants discussed the role of Islam in the state. Karaman opposed the separation of state and Islam on these grounds:

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The Islamic faith claims that the will of the public and the government is unable to exist without the pillars of faith because Islam is a religion of “tevhid” (perfect uniqueness and unicity of God). In other words, it encompasses life; it integrates life with the worship of God; and it organizes life with a comprehensive sharia. There is no separation between religion and politics, or private life and public life. Separating politics from religion is much like considering God’s creations as equal to the will of God, which would be deemed as a shirk (the sin of practicing idolatry or polytheism).62

On democracy, Karaman believes that, although it cannot be the ideal system for Muslims, they can use it until they find a better one. He believes that Islamists can take advantage of secular-liberal-democratic systems when conditions are not available to establish an Islamic order: Those who want to take advantage of it to establish a party in line with the existing system can do so. As long as these cadres do not forget their true cause, do not give it up, and serve their cause to the best of their abilities, it cannot be said that they “had forsaken the Islamist cause, betrayed it, and Islamism is dead in this respect.” Even if it is said, it is not the case.63

According to Karaman, “Democracy has its own mentality, system and modes of implementation. In its principle, human beings are put equal to the status of God or even are made superior to God. In democracy, human beings are free from God. That is the essence of democracy, which contradicts with Islam.”64 It is important to note that Karaman mainly opposes the notion of secular democracy, which in his view is incompatible with Islam; he is not against the idea of representation or participation.65 Karaman thus prefers what he calls “shura democracy” to Western democracy. He believes that shura was established on the basis of God’s absolute values and was based on the premise that all human beings are the creatures of God and have fundamental rights.66 According to Karaman, “the source of popular sovereignty in Islam is the God’s caliphate. This is depended on obedience to God. Thus, in Islamic democracies, there is no absolute popular sovereignty, but dependence on respecting the sharia.”67 On other issues Karaman has expressed similarly interesting views, most of which could be classified as relatively progressive readings of the text. Unlike some conservative Islamic thinkers, he maintains that Christians and Jews can be saved in the afterlife.68 Referencing the Surah Baqarah (2: 256)—“there should be no compulsion in acceptance of the religion”—Karaman believes that apostasy, namely the conscious abandonment of Islam, should not be punished.69 At a time when veiled women could not attend universities or work in public offices due to the headscarf ban, Karaman encouraged students to take their headscarves off: “If a girl or woman knows that she will face difficult situation without work or study, she can apply ‘permit ruling’

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which allows them to take their headscarf off temporarily at only a prohibited zone.”70 This is in strong contrast to the Deobandi advice (see Chapter 9) that tells women not to study if it involves studying in co-educational institutions or removing their purdah. In relation to Muslims living in Europe, Karaman writes on the dichotomy between dār al-Islām and dār al-ḥarb. He emphasizes the need for searching and reflecting on ways to live as a Muslim in the modern European context. According to Karaman, if a Western Muslim is free to practice his or her religion based on principles similar to the Constitution of Medina, they cannot be considered as a person who lives in dār al-ḥarb; however, he rejects the call to view Western countries as part of dār al-Islām. For him, this freedom to practice Islam is a necessary condition or agreement that Muslims must have when living in foreign lands, but that does not make those lands Islamic. Also, he rejects the reasoning put forward by some Islamic scholars who, drawing on the Ḥanafī fiqh, suggest that Muslims in the West “are entitled to do business with profit if it is for their interest.” Karaman argues: Today’s Muslims in Europe can only use interest loan under necessity conditions. For instance, mortgage loan is a necessity condition. If a person does not own a house or enough saving to buy a house, the person can apply banks for a mortgage loan. This is allowed as a necessary condition, not a luxury. This is a basic need.71

Karaman mostly works with the idea that “necessities permit the prohibited.” For instance, he rejects the idea of human cloning, but defends cloning of animals and plants if it is necessary.72 He concedes the need for abortion if the life of the unborn child or that of its mother is under threat, but in other circumstances he opposes it.73 He accepts the establishing of milk banks if it is necessary. On the same principle, he thinks that it is permissible in the Qurʾān and sunnah to have in vitro fertilisation (IVF) treatment, but only for married couples who cannot conceive a child.74 On the subject of homosexuality Karaman stays in line with the traditional Sunni consensus, arguing that it is not accepted in the Qurʾān; he maintains: “Homosexuality is not normal, but can be cured.”75 He argues for religious and political pluralism by noting that different groups can live together in a democratic society by showing tolerance toward one another. However, by tolerance he does not mean active engagement: “Muslims do not tolerate, but merely bear the existence of homosexuals, gamblers, and those engaging in extramarital sex.”76 Consequently, Karaman suggests having minimum engagement with homosexuals, which arguably would lead to the social segregation of conservatives and lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) communities.77 But, in expressing these views, he is no exception: none of the progressive or reformists scholars studied in these two volumes argue otherwise.

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In recent years, Karaman has been criticized for his close relationship with the ruling party and its leader President Erdoğan. His long-standing reputation as a respected Islamist intellectual has turned into a reputation as Erdoğan’s chief fatwā-giver. In fact, Karaman has always been a politicized figure in Turkish Islam. However, for most of his career he managed to keep his reputation as a critical thinker intact; today, however, critics of the AKP have begun to accuse him of legitimizing the wrongdoings of the AKP government.78 He, however, remains undeterred by such critiques, making his support for the AKP very clear by publicly calling on citizens to vote for the party in elections, saying, “The AKP is not only the hope of Turkey but also all ummah.”79 Karaman’s fatwās have at times changed to align with AKP policies. For instance, when Turkey’s policy of pursuing EU membership fell off the Turkish government agenda, former EU supporter Karaman said that relations with the West should be restricted to necessary engagement only. “[Pious Muslims will] never want integration with the EU, westernization and replacement of their own and glorious civilization with that which belongs to the West and they consider this to be ‘an issue of faith’,” he argued.80 Previously, Karaman was a champion of individual freedoms and an opponent of state intervention. For instance, he once said, “State [intervention] should be minimized as in the economic sphere, also in the sphere of rights and liberties. An order should be established only to preserve the country’s unity as well as a system that has, realizes, and preserves people’s oneness and union, public order as well as religious freedom, freedom of conscience and expression.”81 However, when academics signed a petition denouncing military operations against Kurds in the south-east of the country, Karaman did not consider this as freedom of expression, and instead criticized them harshly. Karaman wrote the following: They [“democratists,” his neologism for possibly fake democrats] view the academics’ declaration as freedom of opinion . . . despite the fact that it damages our country’s image, it is against the law and ethics, and it is impossible that freedom of opinion could allow this [the declaration] . . . They are not defenders of human rights; they are democracy fools and “democratists”.82

Karaman’s views on corruption have received much attention. On December 17, 2013, Turkish police launched a corruption investigation that turned the political agenda upside down. The allegations concerned the AKP and Erdoğan’s inner circle. Erdoğan’s son Bilal Erdoğan, his son-in-law Berat Albayrak, and Turkey’s spy chief Hakan Fidan were among those accused in the case. The government accused the Gülen movement of attempting to overthrow the government by masterminding corruption inquiries. Four ministers had to resign following the allegations. Karaman came under the spotlight during the corruption crisis. He was criticized for issuing a fatwā that allegedly

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was used to justify corruption. He was accused of giving a green light for the government to encourage the businessmen who won state contracts to make donations to pro-government charitable foundations.83 Karaman rejected the allegations by responding to them in his newspaper column: “Many others have asked me, ‘Is there a problem if we encourage the people who win contracts from the state and make a profit to make donations to charitable foundations?’ Here is what I say to them: ‘If these people who you encourage to make donations are Muslims and would not have made these donations unless you demanded it of them . . . they will not earn the [divine] blessing for it. But, assuming that it is written and transparent, charitable foundations can benefit from such donations.’” In the last few years, although Hayrettin Karaman’s reputation has been shaken, he remains one of the most influential Islamic figures in Turkey. Generally, unlike the case of al-Azhar (see Chapter 1), Diyanet holds back from taking a position on controversial issues, respecting secularism and the democratic principle of the Turkish Republic. In this respect, Karaman filled a gap in Turkish Islam; he revived the debates on ijtihād and has become the most important fatwā-giver of Turkey. His views on governance and Islam and society have changed somewhat in the course of time. As Ahmet Tasgetiren correctly points out, Karaman is a man of da’wah (proselytizing). As the socio-political context changes, his da’wah has been evolving in response to it: his critics may see flexibility in his thinking as evidence of his blind support for the AKP, but his defenders view such adaptability as an essential feature of ijtihād that allows one to adjust to the changing context as long as the reasoning provided does not violate the core rulings of Islam. In summary, it is important to note that Karaman is in fact coming to many of the same conclusions as those drawn by al-Azhari using the concept of fiqh al-wāqi‘ (see Chapter 3). There is little evidence to show that his positions can be grouped with those of conservative groups such as Saudi Salafis or Deobandis. Given that he is today seen as the chief fatwā-giver for AKP, claims that Turkish Islam is taking a Salafi turn84 thus remain unsubstantiated. Recep Şentürk: A Neo-Ottomanist thinker Recep Şentürk is one of the important contemporary Turkish scholars in Islamic studies. He specializes in the sociology of knowledge, human rights, and Islamic studies with a focus on the Ottoman Empire, Egypt, and Turkey. Şentürk is the Director of the Alliance of Civilizations Institute at the Fatih Sultan Mehmet University, a board member of İstanbul Sabahattin Zaim University, and chair of the International Ibn Khaldun Society. Şentürk was awarded his B.A. by Marmara University, his M.A. by Istanbul University, and his Ph.D. by Columbia University. He has published articles in English, Turkish, and Arabic. His doctoral dissertation, now published as Narrative Social Structure: Anatomy of the Hadith Transmission Network, 610–1505, examines the impact of

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social structures on the ḥadīth transmission process.85 He takes a quantitative approach, whereby he examines the networks of ḥadīth scholars, arriving at the well-known conclusion that scholars sought out the shortest chain of narrations, and that this would lead them to study with older teachers rather than to cite a ḥadīth by their peers.86 Şentürk attempts to meld this study of ḥadīth with sociological research on language and power. As is evident throughout most of Recep Şentürk’s scholarship, including his book Open Civilization: Towards a Multi-Civilizational World and Society, he is an important example of a new and growing Turkish-Islamic intelligentsia. He could be described as a neo-Ottomanist thinker. The term “neo-Ottomanism” has gained much attention under the AKP, especially in terms of defining Turkish foreign policy whereby the AKP has tried to reassert its engagement with former Ottoman Empire territories; neo-Ottomanism is largely related to the preservation of Turkish and Islamic identity in the modern world. This term, however, has an older history, dating back to the nineteenth century. Toward the end of the Ottoman Empire, Ottoman intellectuals were discussing to what extent they should adopt Western values in the Ottoman Empire. The founders of neo-Ottomanism, such as İbrahim Sinasi, Namik Kemal, and Ali Suavi, were highly influenced by Western values. They were all educated in the secular schools, as Recep Şentürk was. But, at the same time, they were keen to preserve the Islamic tradition. For instance, Namık Kemal promoted the idea of meşveret (consultation) and he tried to prove that the parliamentary system is not contrary to the sharī’ah.87 He was against the secularization of Ottoman legislation. According to him, the laws should be based on divine authority. Neo-Ottomanism was an attempt to unite the Empire’s different ethnic nations under the umbrella of Ottoman identity (Osmanlılık). Unlike the Young Turks, the neo-Ottomanist understanding of unity was based on Islamic values. In the 1980s, Turkey saw a surge of Islamic movements, and with it came the romanticizing of the Ottoman past by new Islamic scholars. They focus on Islamic culture with a reference to the Ottoman Empire. Ahmet Davutoğlu, the former Turkish Prime Minister (2014–16), was perceived as one of the main figures reviving the neo-Ottomanist thinking.88 Like Recep Şentürk, Davutoğlu is keen to present Muslim culture not as subsidiary to Western culture, but as an alternative to it.89 According to him, only Islamic methodologies and theories can address the questions of Islamic civilization.90 Open versus Close Civilizations and Forms of Knowledge As a representative of neo-Ottomanist thinking, Şentürk classes civilizations in two categories: open and closed. Open civilizations are inclusive, while recognizing other civilizations and their right to coexist. In contrast, closed civilizations exclude other civilizations and deny their right to coexist.91 For instance, he listed Samuel Huntington and Francis Fukuyama as prominent defenders of closed civilization.92 He argues that Ottoman society is a historical example of an open civilization. According to him, the open-civilization model was not

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only institutionalized in the Ottoman Empire but also modernized. He also believes that the Ottoman millet system provided pluralism for different civilizations within the Empire. In the millet system, non-Muslims were organized into communities with certain delegated powers, including their right to manage their own legal systems under their religious leaders.93 Şentürk maintains: “Islam provided pluralist legal normative framework for the practices of different legal systems.”94 On the Ottoman Empire’s transition from divan (legislative body) to the parliamentary system in the nineteenth century, Şentürk argues that the Ottomans demonstrated how open civilization could be applied to modern organizations.95 He cites Tanzimat Fermanı (Imperial Edict of Reorganization) to show how the rights of Ottoman citizens were granted regardless of their religious and ethnic background. But he adds, “This was a codification attempt to permit rights which already existed in Islamic law.”96 Şentürk’s understanding of universalism is linked to the Ḥanafī jurisprudence of the Ottoman Empire. According to Şentürk, only Ḥanafī jurisprudence presents universal values within Islam. His description of Ḥanafī jurisprudence is based on the concept of ādamiyyah (humanity), which is discussed in some detail below. He goes further: In the Ḥanafī understanding, “Human rights are due for humanity” (al-’ismah bi al-ādamiyyah). In other words, impunity is granted for being human. In the Shafiʻī understanding, “Human rights are due for faith or treaty” (al-’ismah bi al-iman aw bi al- aman). According to Shafiʻī’s, the status of Dhimmi was only given to Jews and Christians which were also known as Ahl-al Kitab, the other religions were not recognized as Ahl-al Kitab. However, in the Ḥanafī School, the important thing is to be ādamiyyah, in other words being a human. Religion is not important. All rights were granted to all people regardless of their religion.97

Şentürk describes today’s Muslim communities as a closed civilization. He blames the domination of Western education for preventing Islam from opening up to other civilizations in the last century. In this sense, Şentürk’s approach to Western education is very similar to Davutoğlu’s thinking. Davutoğlu argues that the differences between Western and Muslim paradigms create an obstacle for the study of contemporary Islam as a social-science subject.98 According to Davutoğlu, the modernist paradigm and its philosophical foundations are in crisis, and Islam can offer an alternative paradigm not only for the Islamic world but also for humanity.99 He cites the Soviet Union as a totalitarian example of the modernist paradigm: The Soviet Union’s dissolution, following the victory of the Afghan people (who were not altered by the modernist paradigm), proves . . . transformation of modernist paradigm . . . Intellectuals from the Islamic world have a very important responsibility to prevent this clash of civilisations . . . Restructuring of the damaged Islamic tradition will open up new horizons not only for Muslim communities but also for humanity.100

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Again, here Recep Şentürk follows in the footsteps of Ahmet Davutoğlu. In a way, Şentürk tries to restructure Islamic thinking in the modern world. He describes science in two categories: open and closed. The latter is based on positivist thinking. He suggests that we should abandon positivist thinking, as it lacks any mechanisms to prevent political and social conflicts.101 Therefore, he proposes to use fiqh in order to understand the actions of human beings (amal) instead of using social sciences.102 Fiqh as an open science offers multiplexity, which also establishes the foundations of pluralist political culture and open society.103 Şentürk emphasizes that Ottoman culture adopted this tradition from previous Muslim empires.104 He adds that Ottoman thought and the state were founded on fiqh, which was an example of open science. According to Şentürk, fiqh helps us to understand and implement the lifestyle that is suggested in the Qurʾān and ḥadīth.105 For him, fiqh has multiplex ontology, multiplex epistemology, and methodological pluralism.106 Referring to Ottoman tradition, Şentürk’s concept of fiqh has four layers: (1) Al-fiqh al-akbar [“the greater fiqh”]: The theology and philosophy in which ontological and epistemological questions are explored. It is commonly called kalam. (2) Usul al-fiqh [“the foundations of fiqh”]: The common philosophy and methodology of all Islamic sciences, including the social and normative branches. (3) Al-fiqh al-’amalf [“fiqh pertaining to action”]: The social and normative science dealing with the external, observable, or objective aspects of action. It is also called fura al-fiqh (literally, branches of fiqh). (4) Al-fiqh al-wüdani [“the inner fiqh”]: The social and normative science dealing with the internal or intentional aspect of action. It is also known commonly as tasawwuf. 107 According to Şentürk, science consists of facts and theories. As a student of fiqh he suggests accepting only empirically proven facts and their interpretation through fiqh.108 Therefore, Şentürk rejects using social sciences as the dominant framework; however, he does still recommend scholars to study them alongside the study of fiqh. He notes: Even if at the end you are going to reject, you must study and learn [social science] interpretations. Islamic approach is comparative . . . Allah talks about haq and batil at the same time . . . He also talks about seytan. He objectively reports the arguments of the seytan [satan] and critically analyses and shows that it is false . . . Quranic approach is comparative. Allah teaches both haq and batin at the same time. Talking about seytan does not mean that you are going to accept his claims. But you have to know his claims as well.109

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Reconciling Islam and Human Rights Şentürk can be seen as supporting a vision of Islam that incorporates democracy, secularism, and human rights. He tries to meld these concepts with religious values. The discussion on human rights is central to his work. He believes that the Muslim world is in a status of human-rights dependency, and that this dependency can be overcome only by looking back at the classical Islamic tradition: “Nor can the human rights dependency, on the part of Muslims who believe in human rights, be overcome without linking the chain of memory to the past cultural reservoir.”110 As part of looking to the past, Şentürk highlights the influence of Ḥanafī concepts in bringing about the Tanzimat reforms during the Ottoman Empire. In his attempt to show that human rights are consistent with Islamic ethics, Şentürk invokes the concept of ādamiyyah. Roughly translated, ādamiyyah means humanity. In the classical legal texts, this concept was used to argue that humans have certain rights and duties simply because they are human. This concept plays a central role in Şentürk’s conception of human rights in at least three of his papers.111 It also plays a central role in his discussion with the American Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, and various other scholars.112 In two of his papers, “Sociology of Rights: ‘I Am Therefore I Have Rights’” and “Human Rights in Islam between Universalistic and Communalistic Perspectives,” Şentürk tries to present an Islamic defence of the notion of universal human rights based on the works of Abu Ḥanifa. Şentürk has two goals in these papers: first, to prove that “[m]ere existence qualifies a human being for universal human rights”113 and, second, to reconcile this understanding of human rights with Islamic principles, or what he labels the “Universalistic School, emanating from Abu Hanifa.”114 According to Şentürk, the Universalistic School “advocated for the universality of human rights.”115 He contrasts this Universalistic school with the “Communalistic School, originating from Malik, Shafii and Ibn Hanbal,” which “advocated for civil rights.”116 Şentürk’s main argument is as follows: “My very existence suffices as a substantiation of my rights, irrespective of my innate, inherited, gained or ascribed qualities.”117 He sees no problem reconciling this with religion, because he believes that “all universal cultures, be they religious or secular, ancient or modern, commonly agree on the inviolability of all human beings.”118 Şentürk’s first step to proving his argument is to explain how a notion of universal human rights is possible.119 He argues that the key to this is understanding the “universal human.” By that he means “the human being, which is constructed by methodologically discarding the inherited, gained, and ascribed physical, cultural, racial, geographical, national and religious qualities an individual may have.”120 It is humanity in its purest form. Before one can talk about universal human rights, one must discuss the universal human. For Şentürk, not only is it possible to understand a universal human in such a manner, but all universal cultures have already done so: “All universal cultures

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have fostered a concept of human being at the universal level and the due process to achieve justice in society.”121 It is not clear how Şentürk makes the jump from understanding the universal human to defending universal human rights. He quickly moves from explaining the universal human to discussing impediments to the application of human rights. He notes that these impediments are the absence of a number of factors: due process, civil society, the existence of an educated middle class, and mechanisms to defend human rights.122 He writes that overcoming these impediments is possible through social activism against the authoritarian state.123 He adds that Islam allows for this type of struggle and activism, citing Abu Ḥanifa as someone who sacrificed his life for human rights.124 He writes: “Islamic law sanctifies struggle and sacrifice for human rights at the highest level possible by granting them the honorary title of martyrdom.”125 Şentürk builds on this by stating that human rights begin with freedom of thought: “Inner freedom of the agency thus precedes the struggle for liberation from political oppression and violation of human rights.” He writes that classical scholars called this the “inviolability of mind” (‘iṣmah al-‘aql). He argues that the Ḥanafīs believe that ‘ismah is a universal concept that is attached to ādamiyyah, meaning that these inviolable concepts apply to all humans because they are humans. This is called al-‘ismah bi al-ādamiyyah. In order to illustrate the importance of this concept, he quotes a paragraph from Muḥammad ibn aḥmad ibn Abī Sahl Abū Bakr al-Sarakhsī’s book of ‘uṣūl. Sarakhsī was an influential Ḥanafī jurist who lived in Transoxania in the eleventh century.126 His works on Islamic law were influential until the modern era. The extract below is Şentürk’s translation: Upon creating human beings, God graciously bestowed upon them intelligence and the capability to carry responsibilities and rights (person-hood). This was to make them ready for duties and rights determined by God. Then He granted them the right to inviolability, freedom and property to let them continue their lives so that they can perform the duties they have shouldered. Then these rights to carry responsibility and enjoy rights, freedom and property exist with a human being when he is born. The insane/child and the sane/adult are the same concerning these rights. This is how the proper person-hood is given to him when he is born for God to charge him with the rights and duties when he is born. In this regard, the insane/child and sane/adult are equal.127

Şentürk quotes this text in at least two of his papers, “Âdamiyyah and ‘Ismah,” and the “Sociology of Rights.”128 In “Âdamiyyah and ‘Ismah,” he summarizes the statement by saying: In brief, according to al-Sarakhsi, the plausibility of the universal divine call requires universal human rights along with free will (ikhtiyar) and freedom (hurriyyah) as prerequisites because the purpose of God in creating the human family on this earth is a “trial”; this cannot be achieved unless human beings

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are free, inviolable, and protected. Otherwise, if human beings were not granted basic freedoms and protection, God’s purpose in creating humanity on Earth would be unrealizable. The religious choices of human beings must be honored, even if they are in contradiction with Islamic teachings; they are a reflection of free will and thought.129

It is clear that Şentürk sees Sarakhsī as defending a version of human rights, especially a version that defends freedom of conscience. It can now be questioned how Şentürk jumps from the word “freedom” to his understanding that “religious choices of human beings must be honored, even if they are in contradiction with Islamic teachings.” Issues such as apostasy and slavery would need further discussion in this framework. Sarakhsī, like many jurists at the time, believed that apostasy was punishable by death, thus violating the right to freedom of religion.130 While it is true that some basic rights were protected under classical Islamic law, the argument that these rights can equate to human rights as currently understood is a daring claim. In the views of others, there are clearly issues of conflict between the two.131 Şentürk does admit that “it would be wrong to jump to the conclusion that what the UN constructed after the World War II in the second half of the 20th century had already existed in the Islamic culture.”132 Yet he does go on to assert that reconciliation between Islamic rights and the concept of Universal Human Rights is possible. In terms of women’s rights, he argues that “the Hanafi law grants equal rights to a unilateral dissolution of marriage (talaq); both parties are entitled to negotiate on the three rights of unilateral divorce without the court’s decision (tawfid al-talaq).”133 It is not clear what he means by equal rights to a divorce, for he gives no references. If he means that the woman can unilaterally divorce her husband, just as a man can freely divorce his wife, then that would require extensive evidence. It is widely understood that only men can unilaterally divorce their wives.134 In terms of divorce, the Ḥanafī school of law is generally seen as being more restrictive than the other schools: Malikyar in her study of divorce in Afghanistan writes that the Ḥanafi school of law is “the most restrictive of all schools of shari’a law on divorce.”135 Similarly, Carroll in her study of divorce in England writes: “There is, however, considerable divergence among the schools of Islamic law concerning the precise grounds which would entitle a Muslim wife to judicial dissolution of her marriage. The classical Hanafi school is by far the most restrictive in this regard.”136 Şentürk then moves on to discuss the effect of these Ḥanafī viewpoints on the Ottoman Empire. He writes that “the Ottomans had to compete with the European powers in extending rights to their citizens on equal basis.”137 He argues that the Ottomans were able to do this because they had Ḥanafī fiqh at their disposal, resulting in the Tanzimat reforms: “This declaration, which may be seen as the first declaration of human rights by a Muslim state, assured all citizens their basic rights: right to life, property, freedom of religion, protection of honor, education, employment and due process.”138 He writes that the

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Tanzimat declaration was grounded in the doctrine of iṣmah139 and had been promoted by the middle class and civil society.140 For Şentürk, the fall of the Ottoman Empire also meant the fall of human rights. With the fall of the empire, the political activities of the middle class came to an end, and the new Turkish Republic seized total state control of all activities. Even though the Turkish Republic copied and translated the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights, it did not implement it.141 After this period, the “doctrine of universal human rights was no longer rooted in the native Islamic or Turkish culture.”142 Şentürk then presents a critique of the Turkish Republic for implementing an authoritarian “a-religious” approach to human rights that banned expression of religiously inspired ideas within the public sphere. He adds that in reaction to this environment several Turkish Islamic thinkers, such as Hüseyin Kazım Kadri and Ali Fuad Başgil, began to write in defence of human rights. He expresses his regret that many Muslim-majority countries didnot follow in the spirit of human rights and blames this on the break with tradition: “Unfortunately, with the break in the chain of memory, the modern Islamic legal discourse has lost the universal dimension that characterized the discourse of some jurists in the classical era.”143 Şentürk does not try to compare how his focus on ādamiyyah compares with other efforts aimed at reconciling Islamic law with modern reality, such as the maqāsid approach, which (as discussed in these two volumes) is today popular within many Islamic scholarly circles. However, the notions of ādamiyyah and ‘iṣmah that he invokes are important concepts in Islamic fiqh. The major issue within Islamic law is not that there are no concepts that can define human rights, but that these concepts are in tension with other norms. Terms such as maqāsid, maṣlaḥah, and al-wāqi’, on the other hand, have gained traction among prominent Islamic scholars, such as Yusuf al-Qaradawi and Tariq Ramadan, because they justify following the higher-order Islamic legal principles that allow more flexibility in interpretation instead of being bound by specific legal precedents. Concepts such as ādamiyyah and ‘ismā thus provide important frameworks for extending human rights—as long as these ideas are not stretched beyond their original meaning. Şentürk’s scholarship is, therefore, a good example of current efforts in the Turkish Islamic scholarly sphere to revive Islamic concepts and ideas in a way that remains true to the tradition while also engaging confidently with the modern world and the Western philosophical tradition. Notes 1. İlmihal, 2 vols, 23rd edn (Istanbul: Türkiye Diyanet Vakfı Yayınları, 2015). 2. Both of these arguments challenge two equally common (although opposing) critiques of the Turkish religious sphere where, on the one hand, the traditional centers of Islamic learning assume that Turkish Islam became too Westernized under the Kemalist period to be able to assert global leadership while, on the

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3.

4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31.

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other, the secular critics of President Erdogen and the AKP increasingly accuse the government of adopting what they call “Sunni Islam” (which they associate with Saudi Salafism) as opposed to “Ḥanafī Islam” (which they associate with the Ottoman tradition)—for an example of the latter, see Svante E. Cornell and M. K. Kaya, “The Naqshbandi-Khalidi Order and Political Islam in Turkey,” Hudson Institute, September 2, 2015, accessed August 11, 2016, http://www. hudson.org/research/11601-the-naqshbandi-khalidi-order-and-political-islamin-turkey. The Turkiye Diyanet Foundation, in line with the organizational goals of the Presidency of Religious Affairs, was established on March 13, 1975. It provides support and aid to mosques and provides Qurʾān courses, and meets the needs of the Muftiate and training centers. İlmihal, 258 Ibid., 311. Ibid., 258. Ibid. Ibid., 259. Ibid., 310. Ibid. Ibid., 311. Ibid. Ibid., 312. Ibid., 307. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid., 307. Ibid., 301. Ibid., 302. Ibid., 302. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid., 548. Ibid., 551. Ibid. Ibid., 552. Ibid., 474. Yüksel Demirkaya, “Osmanlı Devletinde Belediye (Hisbe Teşkilatı),” Sosyal Siyaset Konferansları Dergisi 41–2 (1998), 303–17. İlmihal, 475. Ibid., 207. Diyanet İşleri Başkanlığı, “Kurul Kararları Kadınların Şahit ve Mirasçı Olmaları,” October 17, 2010, accessed June 28, 2013, http://www.diyanet.gov.tr/turkish/dy/ KurulDetay.aspx?ID=37. İlmihal, 318. Ibid., 322. “Religious Affairs: Women Who Wear Perfume are Immoral,” Asia News, May 29, 2008, accessed August 18, 2016, http://www.asianews.it/news-en/Religiousaffairs:-women-who-wear-perfume-are-immoral-12384.html. İlmihal, 321.

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336 ] 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43.

44.

45. 46. 47. 48. 49.

50.

51. 52.

53. 54. 55.

56.

57.

58. 59.

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Ibid., 211. Ibid. Ibid. Yasin Aktay, “Hayreddin Karaman,” in Islamcilik, ed. Yasin Aktay (Istanbul: Iletisim, 2004), 348–73 at 349. Wael B. Hallaq, Sharia: Theory, Practice, Transformations (Cambridge–New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009). Hayrettin Karaman, İslam Hukukunda İctihad, 5th edn (Istanbul: Ensar Teşriya, 2015). Aktay, “Hayreddin Karaman,” 350. “Erdoğan Regime’s Chief Fatwa-Giver: Hayrettin Karaman,” Cihan News, June 27, 2015; “Erdoğan’ın fetvacısı’ Karaman: Müslüman, eşcinselle eşit tutulduğu rejimi savunamaz,” Diken, July 3, 2015, accessed August 18, 2016, http://www. diken.com.tr/erdoganin-fetvacisi-karaman-musluman-escinsellerle-esit-tutuldugurejimi-savunamaz/. Mustafa Akyol, “Erdogan Counts on Karaman’s Islamic Counsel,” Al Monitor, 29 January 2014, accessed August 18, 2016, http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2014/01/erdogan-karaman-counsel.html. Cornell and Kaya, “The Naqshbandi-Khalidi Order.” Howard A. Reed, “Turkey’s New İmam-Hatip Schools,” Die Welt des Islams 4 (1955), 150–63 at 151. Ibid., 154. Hayratten Karaman’s Personal Website, http://www.hayrettinkaraman.net/kimdir. htm, accessed June 19, 2016. Michelangelo Guida, “The New Islamists’ Understanding of Democracy in Turkey: The Examples of Ali Bulaç and Hayreddin Karaman,” Turkish Studies 11 (2010), 347–70 at 358. Iren Ozgur, “Social and Political Reform through Religious Education in Turkey: The Ongoing Cause of Hayrettin Karaman,” Middle Eastern Studies 47 (2011), 569–85 at 569. Guida, “The New Islamists,” 358. Menderes Çinar and Ipek Gencel Sezgin, “Islamist Political Engagement in the Early Years of Multi-Party Politics in Turkey: 1945–60,” Turkish Studies 14 (2013), 329–45 at 332. Guida, “The New Islamists,” 358. Ibid., 359. “Zamanın aradığı alim Hayrettin Karaman,” Yeni Şafak, February 12, 2011, accessed June 19, 2016, http://www.yenisafak.com/aktuel/zamanin-aradigi-alimhayrettin-karaman-302808. “Hayrettin Karaman, İslamcılık ölmez,” Yeni Safak, July 10, 2015, accessed August 18, 2016, http://www.yenisafak.com/yazarlar/hayrettinkaraman/islamcilik-olmez-2015964. “Adil Düzen,” in The Oxford Dictionary of Islam, ed. John L. Esposito, Oxford Islamic Studies Online, accessed August 18, 2016, http://www.oxfordislamicstudies.com/article/opr/t125/e50. Hayreddin Karaman, Laik Düzende Dini Yaşamak, 4 vols (Istanbul: İz Yayınlari, 2002), vol. 2, 86. The movement was eventually divided into two parties after the closure of the FP: the gelenekciler’s Felicity Party (Saadet Partisi, or SP), founded on July 20, 2001;

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60.

61.

62. 63. 64. 65. 66. 67. 68. 69.

70. 71.

72. 73. 74.

75. 76. 77. 78. 79. 80.

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and the yenilikciler’s AKP, founded on August 14, 2001. In this research, gelenekciler represent the National Outlook Movement, and yenilikciler represent the Neo-National Outlook Movement. Hidayet Karaman, cited in Ihsan Dagi, “Beyond the Clash of Civilisations: The Rapproachment of Turkish Islamic Elite with the West,” in Clash or Cooperation of Civilizations? Overlapping Integration and Identities, ed. Wolfgang Zank (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2009), 43–64 at 54. Ahmet Kuru, “Changing Perspectives on Islamism and Secularism in Turkey: The Gülen Movement and the AK Party,” in Muslim World in Transition: Contributions of the Gülen Movement, ed. Ihsan Yilmaz (London: Leeds Metropolitan University Press), p. 150. Hayrettin Karaman, Türabi ve İslami Demokrasi, Yeni Şafak, September 3, 2015. Hayrettin Karaman, İslamcılık Ölmez, Yeni Şafak, July 10, 2015. Kayrettin Karaman, İslam, demokrasi ve Medine Vesikası, Yeni Şafak, May 29, 2014. Hayrettin Karaman, September 3, 2015, http://www.hayrettinkaraman.net/ makale/1378.htm. Hayrettin Karaman, Türabi ve İslami demokrasi (2), Yeni Şafak, September 4, 2015. Hayrettin Karaman, Türabi ve İslami Demokrasi, Yeni Şafak, September 3, 2015. Hayrettin Karaman, Necat konusu (2), Yeni Şafak, August 28, 2008. Hayrettin Karaman Website, Soru-(228) İrtidad`ın (din değiştirmenin) cezası ölüm müdür? , accessed June 20, 2016, http://www.hayrettinkaraman.net/sc/00228. htm. Hayrettin Karaman Website, Kızların okuma ve çalışmaları, accessed June 20, 2016, http://www.hayrettinkaraman.net/yazi/hayat2/0103.htm. Hayrettin Karaman, Hayatımızdaki Islam 1–2, İz Yayıncılık: İstanbul, 5th edn, 2010, Hayrettin Karaman Website, Yurt Kavramı, Hayvan Kesimi, Ötenazi . . . accessed June 20, 2016, http://www.hayrettinkaraman.net/yazi/hayat/0403. htm. Hayrettin Karaman Website, Yurt Kavramı, Hayvan Kesimi, Ötenazi . . ., accessed June 20, 2016, http://www.hayrettinkaraman.net/yazi/hayat/0403.htm. Hayrettin Karaman, Laik Düzende Yaşamak 2, Karaman Website, Kürtaj, accessed June 20, 2016, http://www.hayrettinkaraman.net/yazi/laikduzen/2/0048.htm. Hayrettin Karaman, Personal Website, İki Mesele (Süt bankası ve tüp bebek uygulaması), accessed June 20, 2016, http://www.hayrettinkaraman.net/yazi/laikduzen/3/0122.htm. Hayrettin Karaman , Personal Website, Soru-(485) Eşcinsellik hakkında, accessed June 20, 2016, http://www.hayrettinkaraman.net/sc/00485.htm. Hayrettin Karaman, Hayrettin Karaman’ın “Tahammül mü hoşgörmek mi?” Yeni Şafak, August 7, 2011. Mehmet Sinan Birdal, “Queering Conservative Democracy,” Turkish Policy Quarterly 11, no. 4 (xxxx), 125–6. Ihsan Yılmaz, “Mahçupyan and Karaman: A Davutoğlu–Erdoğan Clash?” Today’s Zaman, December 6, 2014. Hayrettin Karaman, “Niçin AK Parti’ye oy vermeil,” Yeni Şafak, October 18, 2015. Hayrattin Karaman, Yeni Şafak, February 13, 2014, cited in “Pro-Gov’t Islamist Ideologue Says Muslims Can’t Accept West or EU,” Today’s Zaman, Februray 15, 2014.

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81. Hidayet Karaman cited in Guida 2010, 68. 82. Hayrettin Karaman, Yeni Safak, January 17, 2016 cited in Burak Bekdil, “OK, Turkey is a Majoritarian Democracy, Not a Dictatorship,” Hurriyet Daily News, January 20, 2016. 83. Mustafa Akyol, “Erdogan Counts on Karaman’s Islamic Counsel,” Al Monitor, January 29, 2014. 84. Cornell and Kaya, “The Naqshbandi-Khalidi Order.” 85. Recep Şentürk, Narrative Social Structure: Anatomy of the Hadith Transmission Network, 610–1505 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2005). 86. Behnam Sadeki, “Review of Narrative Social Structure: Anatomy of the Hadith Transmission Network. 610–1505,” The Journal of Interdisciplinary History 38 (2007), 328–9. 87. Adem Olmez, “Osmanlı Devletinin Son Asrında İslam ve ‘Usul-ü Meşveret’ Tartışmaları,” Devlet ve İktidar 58 (spring 1997), accessed May 7, 2016, http:// www.koprudergisi.com/index.asp?Bolum=EskiSayilar&Goster=Yazi&Yaz iNo=335. 88. Esra Aslan and Yasemin Yıldırım, “Reflections of Neo-Ottomanist Discourse in Turkish News Media: The Case of the Magnificent Century,” Journal of Applied Journalism & Media Studies 3 (2014), 318. 89. İştar Gözaydın, “Ahmet Davutoğlu: Role as Islamic Scholar Shaping Turkey’s Foreign Policy,” in International Relations and Islam: Diverse Perspectives, ed. Nassef Manabilang Adiong (Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2013), 95. 90. Ahmet Davutoğlu, “İslam Düşünce Geleneğinin Temelleri, Oluşum Süreci ve Yeniden Yorumlanması,” Divan 1 (1996), 36. 91. Recep Şentürk, Açık Medeniyet: Çok Medeniyetli Toplum ve Dünyaya Doğru (Istanbul: İz Yayıncılık, 2014), 26. 92. Ibid., 27. 93. Kamel S. Abu Jaber, “The Millet System in the Nineteenth-Century Ottoman Empire,” The Muslim World 57, no. 3 (July 1967), 212. 94. Recep Şentürk, “Unity in Multiplexity: Islam as an Open Civilization,” Journal of the Interdisciplinary Study of Monotheistic Religions 7 (2011), 49–60 at 51. 95. Şentürk, Açık Medeniyet, 35. 96. Ibid., 36. 97. Ibid., 30. 98. İştar Gözaydın, “Ahmet Davutoğlu: Role as Islamic Scholar Shaping Turkey’s Foreign Policy,” in International Relations and Islam: Diverse Perspectives, ed. Nassef Manabilang Adiong (Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2013), 95. 99. Davutoğlu, “İslam Düşünce,” 34. 100. Ibid. 34–5. 101. Şentürk, Açık Medeniyet, 242. 102. Ibid., 55. 103. Ibid., 241. 104. Şentürk, “Unity in Multiplexity,” 52. 105. Şentürk, Açık Medeniyet, 22. 106. Recep Şentürk, “Toward an Open Science and Society: Multiplex Relations in Language, Religion and Society—Revisiting Ottoman Culture,” Islam Arastirmaları Dergisi, Sayı 6 (2001), 99. 107. Ibid, 117.

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108. Recep Şentürk, Why Students of the Islamic Sciences Should Study the Social Sciences, Ebrahim College, April 28, 2016, accessed May 6, 2016, https://www. youtube.com/watch?v=MUvP5Uk229k. 109. Ibid. 110. Recep Şentürk, “Sociology of Rights: ‘I Am Therefore I Have Rights’: Human Rights in Islam between Universalistic and Communalistic Perspectives,” Muslim World Journal of Human Rights 2, no. 1 (2005): 28, doi: 10.2202/15544419.1030. 111. Şentürk, “Sociology of Rights”; Recep Şentürk, “Human Rights in Islamic Jurisprudence,” in The Future of Religious Freedom, ed. Allen D. Hertzke (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 290–309, http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199930890.001.0001/acprof9780199930890-chapter-14; Recep Şentürk, “Âdamiyyah and ‘Ismah: The Contested Relationship between Humanity and Human Rights in the Classical Islamic Law,” Turkish Journal of Islamic Studies 8 (2002): 39–70. 112. Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, Defining Islamic Statehood: Measuring and Indexing Contemporary Muslim States (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015). 113. Şentürk, “Sociology of Rights,” i. 114. Ibid. 115. Ibid. 116. Ibid. 117. Ibid., 1. 118. Ibid., 1. 119. Ibid., 4. 120. Ibid., 4. 121. Ibid., 5. 122. Ibid., 6. 123. Ibid., 7. 124. Ibid., 7. 125. Ibid., 8. 126. N. Calder, “Al-Saraḵh̲sī,” in Enyclopedia of Islam, Second Edition, eds P. Bearman et al. (Brill Online, 2015), accessed December 14, 2016, http:// referenceworks.brillonline.com/entries/encyclopaedia-of-islam-2/al-sarakhsiSIM_6620?s.num=0&s.f.s2_parent=s.f.book.encyclopaedia-of-islam-2&s. q=sarakhsi. 127. Şentürk, “Sociology of Rights,” 14. 128. Şentürk, “Âdamiyyah and ‘Ismah,” 55; Şentürk, “Sociology of Rights,” 14. 129. Şentürk, “Âdamiyyah and ‘Ismah,” 55. 130. Abdullah Saeed and Hassan Saeed, Freedom of Religion, Apostasy and Islam (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2004), 67–8. 131. Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na’im, “Human Rights in the Muslim World: Socio-Political Conditions and Scriptural Imperatives—a Preliminary Inquiry,” Harvard Human Rights Journal 3 (1990): 13–52. 132. Şentürk, “Sociology of Rights,” 29. 133. Ibid., 22. 134. Ronald C. Jennings, “Divorce in the Ottoman Sharia Court of Cyprus, 1580–1640,” Studia Islamica 78 (1993): 157, doi: 10.2307/1595610. 135. Helena Malikyar, “Development of Family Law in Afghanistan: The Roles of the Hanafi Madhhab, Customary Practices and Power Politics,” Central Asian Survey 16, no. 3 (September 1, 1997): 393, doi: 10.1080/02634939708400998.

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136. Lucy Carroll, “Muslim Women and ‘Islamic Divorce’ in England,” Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs 17, no. 1 (April 1, 1997): 101, doi: 10.1080/13602009708716361. 137. Şentürk, “Sociology of Rights,” 24. 138. Ibid., 25. 139. Ibid., 25. 140. Ibid., 26. 141. Ibid., 26. 142. Ibid., 26. 143. Ibid., 29.

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NOTES ON THE CONTRIBUTORS

Emre Caliskan is reading for a D.Phil. in International Relations at St Antony’s College at the University of Oxford. His research interests include Turkey’s transnational Islam, Turkish foreign policy, and Islamic NGOs in International Relations. He holds an M.A. in Middle East and Mediterranean Studies from King’s College London and is the co-author, with Simon A. Waldman, of The ‘New Turkey’ and its Discontents (2015) which assesses social, religious, and political polarization under Recep Erdoğan’s AKP and the likely consequences for Turkey’s evolution. A Turkish analyst and freelance journalist, he has worked for the BBC Turkish service, Cumhuriyet, Newsweek Turkey and the Turkish public broadcaster Türkiye Radyo Televizyon (TRT), as a foreign correspondent based in Ankara, Damascus, Beijing, and London. His commentaries are picked up by Open Democracy, Al Monitor, and Haaretz. Christopher Pooya Razavian undertook his Ph.D. under the supervision of Professor Sajjad Rizvi at the University of Exeter. His doctoral research is focused on the relationship between autonomy and tradition in Shi’ism. He has also spent many years in Iran, at both the Islamic Seminary and the University of Tehran. Nathan Spannaus is a graduate of McGill University’s Institute of Islamic Studies and Harvard University’s Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, and he has previously held positions at Princeton University and the University of Tennessee-Knoxville. He specializes in Islamic intellectual history, and his research focuses on modernity and secularization in the Islamic world and their impact on forms of religious and social thought, particularly from the mid-eighteenth through the early twentieth centuries. His work has appeared in Arabica, The Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient (forthcoming), The Muslim World, Islamic Law and Society, and The Oxford Handbook of Islamic Theology. His monograph, Preserving Islamic Tradition: Abu Nasr Qursawi and the Beginning of Modern Reformism, is forthcoming. [ 341 ]

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INDEX

Abadi, Ahmad al-Fayd, 162 Abbasid caliphate, 81, 218 Abd-Allah, Umar Faruq, 11 Abd Allah bin Saud, 157 ʿAbd alʿAziz, 228, 229, 230, 236 ʿAbd al-Ḥaqq Dihlawī, 225, 226 ʿAbd al-Mālik, 178 ʿAbd al-Qadir, 228 ʿAbd al-Raḥīm Dihlawī, 226 Abduh, Muhammad, 71, 88, 102–3, 106, 160, 245, 247, 323 Abdulaziz Al Saud, 134, 157, 160, 161, 162 Abdulhamid, Sultan, 303, 304 Abdullah bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, 128, 142, 181 abortion, 325 Abou El Fadl, Khaled, 164 Abū Bakr, 156, 318 Abū Ḥanifa, 331 Abu al-Samh, ʿAbd al-Zahir, 160–1 Academy of Islamic Research (al-Azhar), 92 action, linked to faith, 152–5, 173 adab (Islamic norms of behaviour), 31 ādamiyyah (humanity), 329, 331–4 Adana, 322 adultery, 152–3 aesthetics, 16, 32, 273, 283–4 al-Afghani, Jamal al-Din, 88 Afghanistan, 14, 176, 207, 210, 218, 220, 227, 333 agency, 41–2, 72 Agra, 221 Agrama, Hussein, 38, 41, 42, 72, 290 agriculture, 87, 91 Ahl-i Ḥadīth movement, 159–60, 161, 162, 236, 253 Ahmad, Irfan, 204 Ahmed, Asad, 223 al-Ahsa, 150–1, 156, 157 Akbar, 222, 223 AKP see Justice and Development Party Akseki, Ahmed Hamdi, 275 al-Albani, Nasir al-Din, 125, 162–3, 172, 174, 175, 180, 252–3

Albayrak, Berat, 326 alcohol, 113, 177–8, 248 Alevis, 272 Algar, Hamid, 154 ʿAlī Hujwīrī, 219–20 ʿAlī ibn Abū Ṭālib, 186 alienation, 23, 130 Aligarh movement, 231 ʿālīyah madrasahs, 201 alms see zakāt al-ʿAmr bi al-Maʾrūf wa al-Naḥy ʿan al-Munkar, 319 Anatolia, 84, 220, 293–301, 322; see also Turkey Anglo-Mohammedan Law, 227, 229, 237–8 Ankara, 276, 283, 287, 305, 307 Anṣār al-Sunnah al-Muḥammadīyah, 90, 161 apostasy, 324, 333 Appadurai, Arjun, 24, 196–7 ʿaqīdah (Islamic creed), 26, 133, 207, 274 Arab Spring, 13, 24, 53, 58, 64, 70, 175, 177, 288 Arabic language foundational texts in, 11, 29, 275, 287 and Islamic authority, 11, 29, 30 learning in an Arabic-speaking country, 16, 281 pride in broken Arabic in Saudi Arabia, 138, 139 teaching of at al-Azhar, 62, 63, 64 teaching of at Delhi College, 230 teaching of in Turkey, 16, 277, 281, 306 use for texts and preaching in Turkey, 275, 276, 279, 284, 287 archaeological items, 106 armies see military arts, 2, 3, 14, 16, 32, 218, 273, 283 asceticism, 220, 221, 225, 300 Asad, Talal, 21, 38, 41 Ashʾarism, 81, 82, 83–4, 93, 155, 173, 219, 222, 301 Asʾilat al-Thawrah (al-Ouda), 177–80

[ 342 ]

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Index aṣl (original case for a ruling), 112–13 Assmann, Jan, 155 Atatürk, Mustafa Kemal, 160, 273, 275, 285, 286–7, 305; see also Kemalist regime Atharī creed, 173 atheism, 39, 205, 210, 211, 253, 304 al-ʾAttar, Hasan, 88 Auer, Blain, 220 Aurangzeb, 223, 226–7 authoritarian rule, 1, 18, 19, 20, 24, 66, 133, 332; see also political oppression Awadh, 223, 224 Awami League, 205 al-Awani, Taha Jabir, 108 al-Awni, Hatam, 125, 172, 180–8 Aybak, Amir, 82 Ayyubids, 81, 158 Azab, Abdel Hai, 65, 66 al-Azhar Document, 13, 61, 62, 69, 94 al-Azhar Mosque and University network Academy of Islamic Research, 92 accused of supporting radicalism, 71 adaptation to modernity, 53, 55, 65–6, 70, 93–4, 102–18 Ayyubid period, 81 al-Azhar Document, 13, 61, 62, 69, 94 branches in cities around Egypt, 90 calls for reform, 18, 71, 89–91 civilizational approach, 6, 9, 18 competition from independent and stateowned platforms, 68–9, 93–4 constitutional protections, 61–2 and creativity, 72 current debates, 102–18 degrees awarded, 63, 64, 89 dominant position threatened by Diyanet, 8, 9, 18, 66–7, 282, 284 educational standards, 62, 64 emphasis on reasonableness, 53 expansion in student numbers, 64 Fatimid period, 79–81 and fiqh al-wāqiʾ, 35, 53, 70, 72, 102–18, 249, 251, 256, 327 formalized as university, 63 founding of, 55, 79–80 Friday sermons (khutbahs), 105 future directions, 70–3 ḥalaqahs, 64, 81, 83, 93 historical origins and evolution, 6, 53, 55, 63–4, 79–95 and ijtihād, 89, 90, 92, 102–4, 105, 108, 110, 111, 113 interpretation of sharīʾah, 61–2, 90

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[ 343 involvement in social unrest, 85–6 Islamic authority, 32, 90, 92–3, 95 late nineteenth-/early twentieth-century reforms, 89–91, 102–3 legitimacy of, 8, 13, 18, 55–69, 92, 94–5 Mamluk period, 81–3 and maqāṣid al-sharīʾah, 26, 70, 103, 249 and migrant scholars, 289 modern period (1805–1961), 87–91 moral authority, 53, 55–7, 58 and the Muslim Brotherhood, 53, 55, 56, 58, 59–62, 65, 67–9, 72, 90–1 and Napoleon, 86 Ottoman period, 13, 83–7 overview, 13, 53 periphery ʿulamāʾ, 57–8 pluralism, 57, 68 proposed curriculum reforms, 53, 56, 62, 63, 65–6, 69 and public opinion, 70–2 put under state control, 13, 18, 53, 57, 62, 91 relationship with merchant community, 85–6, 87 relationship with the state, 13, 18, 53, 55–73, 87–95 and the “religious revolution,” 62–7, 69 reorganization under Nasser regime, 63–4, 91 representative of Egyptian religious identity, 85 responses to the Arab Spring, 53, 58 and secularism, 69, 72 and the al-Sisi regime, 8, 13, 18, 53, 55–72, 94, 282 and Sufism, 90, 93 Supreme Council, 91 teaching of all four madhhabs, 13, 53, 55, 57, 68 teaching of Arabic language, 62, 63, 64 teaching of logic and philosophy, 83–4 teaching of non-religious subjects, 63–4, 84, 91 teaching of sciences and medicine, 84, 91 teaching of sharīʾah, 63, 65–6, 90 Wahhabi ʿulamāʾ study at, 159 and wasaṭīyah Islam, 8, 13, 18, 55, 57, 66, 68, 70, 73, 93–4, 104, 110, 111, 118, 271 and Western modernity, 69 women’s campus, 91 see also Egypt al-Azhari, Usama, 69, 93, 104–6, 108

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Index

Bābur, Ẓahīr al-Dīn Muḥammad, 221–2 Baer, Gabriel, 86 Baghdad, 218, 294 al-Bajuri, Ibrahim, 93 Bakrī family, 85 al-Banna, Hassan, 68, 90, 174 Bangladesh ʿālīyah madrasahs, 201 atheist bloggers, 205, 210, 211 Awami League, 205 changing Muslim subjectivities, 204–5 Deoband, 14, 195, 198, 200–1, 202, 206–7, 210–11 education, 203, 204 female madrasahs, 202 and globalization, 197 Hafazet-i-Islam movement, 210–11 insecurity, 210–11 International War Crimes Tribunal, 205, 210 Jamaat-i-Islami, 205, 210 Nadwatul Ulama, 200 and partition, 199 Qaumi madrasahs, 200–1 secularism, 205, 210 Shahbag protests, 205, 210 sharīʾah, 204–5 state reform initiatives, 206–7 students studying in Pakistan, 200, 201 umbrella organizations, 201 Westernization, 197, 203 women, 197, 202, 203, 204–5 women’s rights groups, 204–5 see also Deoband madrasah network banking, 37, 208, 244, 245, 259–60 barāʾ (dissociation from unbelievers), 155, 157, 172, 181, 184–5 Bardakoğlu, Ali, 274, 282, 316 Barelvism, 14, 228 Başgil, Ali Fuad, 334 Basra, 151, 156 Bayezid I, 294 beards, 109 Bedouins, 151, 157 Bein, Amit, 286–7, 308 Bektashīyah, 296, 299 Bengal, 202, 206, 227 Bengali language, 200 Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), 210 Bichri, al-Arabi, 116 bidʾah (religious innovation), 173 Biehl, Joao, 20 Bihar, 202, 206, 222, 223 Bihārī, Muḥibb Allāh, 224 Bin Bayyah, Abdullah, 35, 104, 106, 110–15, 117, 176, 177, 178, 179, 187–8, 256, 263

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Birgevi, Mehmed, 300 al-Bitar, Muhammad Bahjat, 160–1 blocking the means see sadd al-dharāʾiʾ Blue Mosque, Istanbul, 284 Bollywood, 203, 210 Bombay, 159 books, burning of, 156 Börekçi, Rifat, 275 Bowen, John, 198–9, 211 British East India Company, 227, 229 British Empire see colonial rule; United Kingdom (U.K.) Brown, Nathan, 90, 94 Bukhara, 222, 299 Bulliet, Richard, 295 Bunzel, Cole, 180 Burak, Guy, 298–9 burqah, 254; see also clothing Bursa, 294 al-Buti, Muhammad Said Ramadan, 116 Byzantine Empire, 293, 294, 295 Caeiro, Alexandre, 115–16 Cairo, 55, 79–87, 91, 150, 157, 159, 160, 225 Cardinal, Monique, 64 Carroll, Lucy, 333 cash-based economies, 115 cemaats (religious associations), 278, 287 Central Asia, 195, 218–19, 220, 223, 224, 276, 295, 299–301 certainty see yaqīn chains of transmission, 93, 159, 230 Chamberlain, Michael, 82 Chishtīyah, 220–1, 225, 232 Chittagong, 200 Christianity, 61, 68, 185, 230, 258, 289, 295, 303, 324, 239 cinema, 23, 197 civil strife see fitnah civilizational approach, 3–4, 6, 8–9, 17–18, 19, 271 clash of civilizations hypothesis, 2, 8 Clayer, Nathalie, 309 closed civilizations, 328–30 clothing, 14, 23, 127, 137, 254, 274, 276, 281, 322, 324–5 co-educational institutions, 37, 133, 136, 137, 203 cohabitation before marriage, 26 colonial rule and control of the Indian Ocean, 158 and education, 21, 24 and the emergence of Deoband, 217, 229–33, 234, 236, 237–8 expansion of after First World War, 160 in India, 14, 159, 196, 227–33

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Index and Islamic authority, 227–8, 230, 236, 237–8 and the origins of Salafism, 150 and reduced importance of sharīʾah, 14, 21, 26, 196 and secularism, 21, 34 and societal change, 25 weakening legacy of, 40 commentary Qurʾānic see tafsīr scholarly see sharḥ Commins, David, 132, 164 Committee of Union and Progress (CUP), 304, 305 common good see maṣlaḥah communism, 276, 287 consensus-building see ijmāʾ Constantinople see Istanbul consultation see shūrā consumerism, 23, 128, 197, 198, 203 continuity, presumption of see istisḥāb Cook, Michael, 151 Coptic Christianity, 61, 68 corporal punishments see ḥudūd corruption, 326–7 Council of Senior Scholars (Saudi Arabia), 134, 136 coups d’état Egypt (2013), 18, 94 Turkey (1980), 275, 308 Turkey (1997), 308, 309, 323 Turkey, attempted (2016), 18, 272, 273 creativity, 3, 39, 41–2, 72 Crecelius, Daniel, 85 cultural integration, 19, 129, 130, 137–8, 139, 145; see also globalization custom see ʿurf Daʾāʾim al-Islām (Nuʾmān), 80 Dallal, Ahmad, 159 al-Damanhūrī, Aḥmad, 105 Damascus, 88, 140, 150, 160, 162 Dār al-Ḥadīth, Medina, 161, 162, 163 dār al-ḥarb (non-Muslim world), 109, 110, 116, 228, 236, 256, 325 Dār al-Iftāʾ (Deoband), 193, 196, 199, 202, 207, 244, 252–7 Dār al-Iftāʾ (Egypt), 59, 68, 248 Dār al-ʿImād educational initiative, 64 Dars-i Niẓāmī curriculum, 196, 224–5, 230, 233, 234, 257 Darul Uloom Deoband, 22–3, 193, 196, 199, 201–2, 207, 208, 230–8, 245, 252 ḍarūrah (necessity), 116, 117, 248, 260, 262, 325 ḍarurāṭ (exceptional circumstances), 35, 110

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[ 345 Davison, Andrew, 306 Davutoğlu, Ahmet, 16, 328, 329–30 daʾwah (proselytizing), 66, 69, 80, 92, 163, 180, 253, 258, 327 Dawānī, Jalāl al-Dīn, 223, 301 days of ignorance see jāhilīyah death sentences, 56, 59, 152–3, 205, 210–11, 333 deductive anaology see qiyās Deen Intensive Foundation, 11 Delhi, 159, 219, 221, 222, 223, 226, 227, 229, 230, 232 Delhi College, 230, 232–3 Delhi Sultanate, 219, 220–1 democracy alleged incompatibility with Islam, 1 and the Arab Spring, 24 demands for in Egypt, 24, 94 demands for in Pakistan, 203 demands for in Saudi Arabia, 24, 125, 136 Deobandi positions on, 208, 257, 262 Diyanet position on, 318, 324, 327 and epistemology, 187–8 in India, 208, 257 Karaman on, 324 promoted by al-Ouda, 175, 179–80 and Saudi Salafism, 125 strengthening of in Turkey, 14, 15, 16, 18, 20, 269, 272, 273, 278 Denoeux, Guilain, 85 Deoband madrasah network adopts Dars-i Niẓāmī curriculum, 230, 233, 234 associated political parties, 202 in Bangladesh, 14, 195, 198, 200–1, 202, 206–7, 210–11 and colonial rule, 217, 229–33, 234, 237–8 conservatism, 22–3, 195–6, 202, 208, 238, 244–63 criticism of Salafism, 252–3 current debates, 193, 244–63 Dār al-Iftāʾ, 193, 196, 199, 202, 207, 244, 252–7 Darul Uloom Deoband, 22–3, 193, 196, 199, 201–2, 207, 208, 230–8, 245, 252 degrees awarded, 200 and democracy, 208, 257, 262 differences between textual position and everyday practice, 198–9, 211–12, 237–8 and divorce, 237–8 elitism, 236 fatwās, 37, 193, 196, 199, 202, 207, 209, 235, 237, 244, 252–60 female madrasahs, 202 focus on ʿibādāt, 207

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Deoband madrasah network (cont.) formation of, 229–33 funded through public donations, 13, 197, 199, 206, 232 global reach of, 14 ḥadīth scholarship, 205, 230 and the Ḥanafī school, 14, 193, 195, 199, 234–8 historical origins and evolution, 6, 193, 198, 199, 217–38 and ijtihād, 193, 196, 208, 235, 236, 244, 245–6, 251–2, 253, 258, 261–3 in India, 14, 193, 195–6, 198, 199, 201–2, 206–7, 208, 210, 229–38 and insecurity, 209–11 inward turn of, 14, 196, 207 and Islamic authority, 32, 230, 236, 237–8 and Islamic finance, 244, 245, 247–8, 259–60 and jāhilīyah, 257–9 al-Jamia al-Islamiyya Darul Uloom Waqf Deoband, 201 and jihadist groups, 202, 209 legitimacy of, 206, 213 literalist readings of texts, 13–14 maslak (path or tack), 217, 233–8 Nadwatul Ulama, 196, 200, 201–2, 207, 208, 244, 252, 256, 257–9 overseas students, 199–200 overview, 13–14, 193 in Pakistan, 14, 193, 195, 198, 199–200, 202, 206, 207–8, 209–10 and partition, 199, 210 and personal piety, 14, 196 and pragmatism, 37, 202, 208 prohibition of photography and television, 22–3, 202, 212, 254–6, 262 and purdah, 253–4, 258–9 relationship with political authority, 193, 197–8, 206–8, 209–10, 212–13 resistance to reform, 8, 41, 193, 196, 197–8, 205–13, 244, 247–52, 258 rigidity of, 14, 193, 196, 197–8, 205–13, 237–8 and sharīʾah, 22–3, 233, 234 socio-economic contexts, 41, 193, 198, 204, 205, 208–9, 212 in South Africa, 14 state reform initiatives, 206–7, 209, 212 and Sufism, 232, 233 and suicide bombings, 198, 207–8 and talfīq, 247–8, 259–60, 262 and the Taliban, 8, 14, 202, 209 and taqlīd, 14, 193, 195, 199, 234–8, 244, 245–7, 252–3, 261, 262–3 theological approach, 6

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in the U.K., 8, 14, 41, 193, 195, 202, 208, 212 umbrella organizations, 200, 201 in the U.S., 14, 195, 202, 212 use of media and technology, 195, 202, 212 vernacular scholarly literature, 30, 195 and women, 253–4, 258–9, 261–2 dialogue see ḥiwār Dihlawi, Ahmad, 161 Diriyah, 151–2, 157 divine unity see tawḥīd divorce, 138, 203, 237–8, 321, 333 Diyanet Foundation, 317, 322 Diyanet İşleri Başkanliği adaptation to modernity, 269, 271–2, 317 and art and aesthetics, 16, 32, 273, 283–4 civilizational approach, 6, 9, 17–18, 271 continuity with Ottoman scholarly tradition, 14, 269, 275, 284, 286–8, 309, 321 current debates, 269, 316–34 on democracy, 318, 324, 327 dilution of Kemalist policies, 275, 284, 286–7 Diyanet Foundation, 317, 322 Encyclopaedia of Islam, 322 engagement with Western philosophy, 280, 307, 317, 327–34 English-language teaching, 16 exclusion of Alevis, 272 fatwās, 17, 276, 284, 306 Friday sermons (khutbahs), 17, 276, 279, 284, 306 future directions, 288–90 on governance, 318–20, 327 and the Ḥanafī school, 14, 16, 271, 279, 284 High Board of Religious Affairs, 276, 317 on Hisba, 319–20 historical origins and evolution, 6, 269, 273, 293–309 on human rights, 318 and ijtihād, 321, 327 İlmihal, 316, 317–21, 322 influence on diaspora communities, 15, 276–7 and inheritance rights, 285–6, 320 interpretation of fiqh, 269, 275, 284, 285–8, 316, 317–21 Islamic authority, 32, 277–8, 307–8 lack of traditional scholarship, 17, 30, 273, 277–8 legitimacy of, 15, 269, 271, 275, 277, 279, 282, 284, 290 on marriage, 320–1 as model for post-Soviet states, 16, 276

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Index moderate approach, 271–2, 273, 277, 282, 285–8, 316–17, 320 and moral authority, 277 mosque complex in Washington, D.C., 16, 282 overview, 14–16, 269 pluralism, 16, 269, 272–3, 279 and public consensus, 8, 272, 284, 287, 288, 289 publications, 276, 306, 307–8, 316, 317–21, 322 refugee Syrian scholars, 16, 279–80, 289 relationship with the state, 15, 271–90, 305–9 and Salafism, 8, 272, 279, 316 on secularism, 317–18, 327 and shrines, 286, 306 and Sufism, 15, 269, 272, 278, 279, 280–1, 284, 286, 288 support for Western Islamic platforms, 16 and taṣawwuf, 16, 271, 272, 273, 280–1, 283–4 and theology departments, 15, 17, 30, 209, 276, 277, 282–3, 287, 289–90, 306–8, 316 threatens dominant position of al-Azhar, 8, 9, 18, 66–7, 282, 284 training of imāms, 15, 276, 305, 306–7, 321 use of media and technology, 276 vernacular language preaching, 279, 284 vernacular scholarly literature, 30 and women, 274, 276, 285–6, 320–1, 324–5 see also Turkey dress codes see clothing driving, 127, 135, 138–9, 176, 254 Al-Durar al-Sanīyah fī al-Ajwibah al-Najdīyah, 181–2 economic development and Deoband, 41, 193 in Saudi Arabia, 128–9 in South Asia, 197, 198, 204 in Turkey, 14, 16, 18, 20, 269, 273, 278 economic modernization, 39, 40, 41, 130, 198, 212 education in Bangladesh, 203, 204 co-educational institutions, 37, 133, 136, 137, 203 and colonial rule, 21, 24 in Egypt, 82–3, 88–91 foreign education scholarships, 142 impact of media and technology, 9–10 in India, 198, 224–5, 230–3 and Islamic authority, 9–17 and Islamic militancy, 19

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[ 347 missionary schools, 303 in Pakistan, 203 private schools, 142 in Saudi Arabia, 19, 125, 128, 130, 131, 133, 135–8, 140–5, 160–4, 174 and secularism, 21–2 in South Asia, 196, 197 and specialist guidance, 10–12 travel for, 9, 24, 142, 199–200 in Turkey, 279, 303, 304, 306–7, 308, 322–3 Western, 21, 24, 31, 63–4, 88, 130, 145, 198, 230–1, 258, 274, 303, 304, 307, 329 for women, 19, 37, 133, 135–6, 137–8, 141, 142, 197, 202, 203, 204, 258–9, 324–5 Education for All movement, 24 Efendi, Feyzullah, 300 Egypt agricultural policies, 87 Arab Spring, 24, 53, 58, 64, 70 authoritarian rule, 18, 24, 66 Ayyubid rule, 81 condemnation of Wahhabism, 132 constitutions, 61–2 Coptic Christians, 61, 68 Dār al-Iftāʾ, 59, 68, 248 Dār al-ʿImād educational initiative, 64 demands for democracy, 24, 94 education, 82–3, 88–91 Fatimid rule, 79–81 flawed judicial proceedings, 56, 59 Free Officers’ revolt, 91 French occupation, 86 land reforms, 87 literacy, 82 Mamluk rule, 81–3, 298–9 mass death sentences, 56, 59 merchant community, 85–6, 87 military, 55–6, 58, 63, 67, 87, 157 Ministry of Awqāf, 59, 68–9, 91 modern period (1805–1961), 87–91 Morsi government, 26, 55, 58, 59, 61, 94 Mubarak regime, 58, 61, 70 Muhammad ʿAli’s leadership, 86–8, 157 Muslim Brotherhood, 26, 55, 56, 58–62, 65, 67–72, 90–1, 94, 132, 136, 163–4, 174 Napoleon’s invasion, 86 Nasser regime, 55, 60, 63–4, 91, 163 Ottoman rule, 82, 83–7, 298–9 Pharaonic past, 68 political oppression, 16, 24, 56, 58–9, 67 public opinion, 70–2 restores Ottoman rule to the Hijaz, 157 Salafism, 66–7, 68, 69, 90–1, 92, 132, 136, 161 School of Islamic Law and Jurisprudence, 88

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Egypt (cont.) secularism, 69, 70–1, 72 sharīʾah, 26, 61–2, 69, 70, 71–2, 90, 290 sharīʾah courts, 290 Shaykh al-ʿAmūd educational initiative, 64 al-Sisi coup (2013), 18, 94 al-Sisi regime, 13, 16, 18, 24, 53, 55–72, 94, 282 al-Sisi’s “religious revolution,” 4, 59, 62–7, 69 social unrest, 85–6 socialism, 132, 163 state legitimacy, 18, 56, 59, 91 state relationship with al-Azhar, 13, 18, 53, 55–73, 87–95 state violence, 56, 58–9 Sufism, 85, 90, 93 Tahrir Square protests, 24, 58, 70 Tamarod movement, 70, 71–2 taxation, 85–6, 87, 89 torture, 56, 59 women, 72, 91 see also al-Azhar Mosque and University network; Cairo Eickelman, Dale, 9, 24, 143 elitism, 236, 304 Encyclopaedia of Islam (Diyanet), 322 engineering, 91, 301 English language, 16, 137, 138, 139, 142, 197, 257, 284 entertainment, 23, 128, 137, 197, 203 epistemology, 64, 185–7 Erbakan, Necmettin, 276, 323 Erdoğan, Bilal, 326 Erdoğan, Recep Tayyip, 8, 19, 271, 274, 278, 317, 321, 326 Erol, Mahmud, 283 esoteric (bāṭin) knowledge, 80 European Council for Fatwā and Research (ECFR), 108, 111, 115–17, 256 European Union (EU), 323, 326 exceptional circumstances see ḍarurāṭ excommunication see takfīr executions see death sentences exoteric (ẓāhir) knowledge, 80 extended families, 23, 203 extracting the reason see takhrīj al-manāṭ facilitation see taysīr Fadel, Mohammad, 246 Fahd bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, 143 Fahmy, Khaled, 87 Faisal bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, 128, 132, 140, 144, 163 faith, linked to action, 152–5, 173 Fallatah, Umar, 161

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family law, 26, 229, 237–8, 304; see also divorce; marriage family structures, 23, 40, 203 Fanārī, Shams al-Dīn, 300 Farangi Mahall madrasah, 196, 223–5, 227, 230, 233 Farquhar, Michael, 161 fasting, 103, 114, 261 Fatḥ Allāh Shirāzī, 223 Fatimids, 79–81 fatwās (Islamic rulings) ʿAbd al-ʿAziz’s, 228, 236 al-Azhari, 290 on democracy and voting, 108, 257 Deobandi, 37, 193, 196, 199, 202, 207, 209, 235, 237, 244, 252–60 Diyanet, 17, 276, 284, 306 ECFR’s, 116, 117, 256 fatwā hotlines, 10, 276 Gomaa’s, 106 on India’s status under colonial rule, 228, 236 on Islamic finance, 259–60 Karaman’s, 317, 321, 326–7 on mortgages, 109, 116–17, 256 and orders of priority, 110 al-Ouda’s, 176 on photography, 254–5 principles of deriving (uṣūl al-iftā), 244 on purdah, 253–4, 258–9 Qaradawi’s, 107, 109, 110, 116–17 Rashid Ahmad’s, 235 and religious authority under colonial rule, 227–8, 229 Rida’s, 116 on the role of women, 253–4, 258–9 on taqlīd, 252–3 on television, 255–6 types of change, 108–10, 248–9 Usmani’s, 244, 254, 255, 259–60 al-Zarqa’s, 116–17 female madrasahs, 202, 212 fertility treatment, 325 Fī Fiqh al-Aqallīyāt (Qaradawi), 108, 110, 116 Fī Fiqh al-Awlawīyāt (Qaradawi), 109–10, 245 Fidan, Hakan, 326 financial contracts, 109, 115–17, 256, 259–60, 325 financial instruments, 37, 259–60 fiqh (jurisprudence) adaptation to modern realities, 9, 25–6, 28–9, 34–7, 53, 65–6, 69, 70, 72, 102–18, 331–4 aspects deemed to clash with modern sensibilities, 65–6

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Index Diyanet interpretation of, 269, 275, 284, 285–8, 316, 317–21 family law, 26, 229, 237–8 and human rights frameworks, 29, 36, 280, 331–4 and Islamic banking and finance, 37 of minorities see fiqh al-aqalliyyāt as an open science, 330 of priorities see fiqh al-awlawīyāt of realities see fiqh al-wāqiʾ relating to ʿibādāt (ritual practices), 26, 36, 103, 207, 274 relating to muʾāmalāt (social transactions), 26, 36, 103, 207, 274 schools of see madhhabs Şentürk’s four layers of, 330 and Western philosophy, 36–7, 280, 317, 327–34 Fiqh Academy of India, 202 fiqh al-akbar (the greater fiqh), 330 fiqh alʿamalf (fiqh pertaining to action), 330 fiqh al-aqalliyyāt (fiqh of minorities), 35, 94, 108, 109, 115–17, 118, 256 fiqh al-awlawīyāt (fiqh of priorities), 104, 107–10 Fiqh Council of North America, 108 fiqh tajdidiyyah (reformist scholarship), 26 fiqh al-wāqiʾ (fiqh of realities) and adaptation to modern realities, 28–9, 35–6, 53, 70, 72, 102–18, 175–9, 334 application to sharīah, 107–18 and al-Azhar, 35, 53, 70, 72, 102–18, 249, 251, 256, 327 Bin Bayyah on, 110–15, 117, 187–8 Deobandi opposition to, 249, 252, 256 and ijtihād, 35, 102–4, 105, 108, 110, 111, 113, 179 importance of, 104–7 origins of, 102–4 al-Ouda on, 125, 172, 175–9 Qaradawi on, 35, 107–10, 115–17 and Saudi Salafism, 125, 172, 174, 175–9, 187–8 Usmani’s opposition to, 249, 252 Fiqh al-Wāqiʾ wa-al-Tawaquʾ (Bin Bayyah), 179 fiqh al-wüdani (inner fiqh), 330 al-Fiqi, Muhammad Hamid, 160–1 First World War, 160, 305 fitnah (civil strife), 59 forced marriages, 261, 262 forgiveness, 179 Forum for Promoting Peace in Muslim Societies, 111 Foucault, Michel, 38 foundational texts

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[ 349 deterioration in teaching of at al-Azhar, 64 direct engagement with, 10–11, 12, 132–3, 155 knowledge of prerequisite for Islamic authority, 29–30, 32, 277 literalist readings of, 4, 12, 13–14, 130, 161, 162–3 Turkish theology departments do not cover in depth, 277 see also ḥadīth; Qurʾān; tafsīr France, 69, 86, 88, 116, 199, 211, 227, 274, 305 Free Officers’ revolt, 91 freedom of conscience, 125, 185–8, 326, 332, 333 freedom of religion, 317–18, 326, 333; see also religious tolerance French East India Company, 227 Friday sermons (khutbahs) al-Azhar, 105 Diyanet, 17, 276, 279, 284, 306 Friedman, Thomas, 133 Fukuyama, Francis, 328 Fustat, 79, 80 Fuṣūṣ al-Ḥikam (ibn ʿArabī), 225 Gangohi, Rashid Ahmad, 230, 231, 235–6, 259 Gelenbevi, Ismail, 301 gender dynamics see women gender segregation, 127, 137; see also purdah generalities see kulī Genghis Khan, 294 al-Ghazālī, 3, 113, 284 al-Ghazālī, Mohammed, 107 al-Ghazālī retreat, Spain, 11 Ghaznavid dynasty, 218, 219–20 Ghurid dynasty, 218–19 Gibbon, James, 279 globalization, 8, 20–1, 24, 34, 40, 129, 130, 137–8, 145, 196–7, 198, 289 Gökalp, Ziya, 304, 305 Goldman, Lisa, 71 Gomaa, Ali, 35, 60, 65, 69, 105, 106–7 Görmez, Mehmet, 15, 279, 281, 282 governance, 318–20, 327 Gözaydin, İştar, 286 Griffel, Frank, 161 Guida, Michelangelo, 323 Gülen, Fethullah, 309 Gülen movement, 272, 309, 323, 326 ḥadīth Deobandi scholarship, 205, 230 direct engagement with, 12, 132–3 Hijazi scholarship, 159

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ḥadīth (cont.) impact of social structures on transmission, 328 knowledge of prerequisite for Islamic authority, 29 literalist readings of, 161, 162–3 and photography, 255 Raḥīmīyah scholarship, 225–6, 227, 228, 230 “Six Books,” 230 see also foundational texts ḥadīth networks, 161 Hafazet-i-Islam movement, 210–11 Haj, Samira, 153–4 Hajj (pilgrimage to Mecca), 9, 103, 110, 157–9, 254, 288, 320 Al-Ḥākim mosque, 81 ḥalaqahs (teaching circles), 64, 81, 83, 93, 158 Hallaq, Wael, 103 Hamas, 71 Ḥanafī school and ādamiyyah, 329, 331–2 al-Albani follows but later moves away from, 175 becomes official school of law, 13, 84, 195, 298 in Central Asia, 195, 299 Deoband follows taqlīd of, 14, 193, 195–6, 199, 234–8 Diyanet follows, 14, 16, 271, 279, 284 in India, 195, 219, 222, 226 limited representation on Saudi Council of Senior Scholars, 134 in Mamluk period Egypt, 82, 298–9 and the Ottoman Empire, 13, 82, 84–5, 195, 298–9, 303, 329, 331, 333–4 position on divorce, 321, 333 position on financial contract laws, 109, 116–17, 256, 325 position on marriage age, 321 position on women travelling with a guardian, 320 and universalism, 329, 331–2 see also madhhabs Ḥanbalī school and ādamiyyah, 331 al-Albani’s criticism of, 175 in Mamluk period Egypt, 82, 84 position on women travelling with a guardian, 320 and Wahhabism, 132, 151, 152, 155–6, 159, 162, 174 see also madhhabs Hanna, Nelly, 82 Hassan, Muhammad, 199 Hathazari madrasah, 200–1, 211

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al-Hayat, 181 Ḥaydarīyah, 220 Haykel, Bernard, 173 headscarves, 254, 274, 276, 281, 322, 324; see also clothing Herat, 222, 299 Hertog, Steffen, 128 hijāb, 254; see also clothing; headscarves Hijaz, 12, 80, 128, 132, 134, 140, 150–1, 156–63, 225 hijri (Islamic calendar), 130 ḥikmah (wisdom), 248–9, 301 al-Hilali, Taqi al-Din, 160–1, 162 Hinduism, 208, 210, 218, 219, 220, 221, 225, 227, 253 Hirschkind, Charles, 38, 70, 72 Hisba (religious police), 319–20 ḥiwār (open dialogue), 185–6 homosexuality, 26, 325 ḥudūd (corporal punishments), 127, 152–3, 178–9, 205, 261 Hulegu Khan, 294 human nature, Islam’s closeness to, 28, 250, 251 human rights, 29, 36, 56, 58–9, 127, 136, 184, 261, 280, 318, 329, 331–4 Human Rights Commission (Saudi Arabia), 136, 138 humanism, 2, 3, 17, 19, 36 humanity see ādamiyyah Humāyūn, 222 Huntington, Samuel, 38, 238 Ḥusaynīyah mosque, 81, 86 Hussein, Saddam, 174 hypocrisy see nifāq al-ʿIbādah: Bawābat al-Tawḥīd wā-Bawābat al-Takfīr (al-Awni), 182 ʿibādāt (ritual practices), 26, 36, 103, 207, 274 Ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhāb, Muḥammad, 127, 131–2, 151–7, 174, 182 Ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhāb, Sulaymān, 156 Ibn ʿAqīl, Abu al-Wafā ʿAlī, 103 Ibn ʿArabi, Muḥy al-Dīn, 3, 4, 8, 16, 219, 220, 222, 225, 226, 272, 280–1, 284, 299–301 Ibn Baz, Shaykh Abd al-Aziz, 173–4, 175, 252–3 Ibn Muhammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhab, ʿAbd Allah, 156–7 Ibn Qayyim al-Jawzīyah, Muḥammad ibn Abū Bakr, 103–4, 106, 108, 111, 183 Ibn Rushd, 3, 4 Ibn Taymīyah, Taqī al-Dīn Aḥmad, 103, 152, 153, 154, 155, 156, 160, 162, 173, 183–4

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Index Ibn ʿUthaymin, Sheikh Muhammad, 173, 174 Ibrahim, Ahmed Fekry, 246–7 al-Ifriqi, ʿAbd al-Rahman, 161 ignorance see jāhilīyah Ījī, ʿAḍud al-Dīn, 223 ijmāʾ (consensus-building), 27–8, 179 ijtihād (independent reasoning) Abduh on, 102–3 and Ahl-i Ḥadīth, 253 and the application of sharīʾah, 179 and al-Azhar, 89, 90, 92, 102–4, 105, 108, 110, 111, 113 al-Azhari on, 105 Bin Bayyah on, 111, 113, 179 as central methodological tool, 4–5, 27, 34 and Deoband, 193, 196, 208, 226, 235–6, 244, 245–6, 251–2, 258, 261–3 and Diyanet, 321, 327 and fiqh al-wāqi, 35, 102–4, 105, 108, 110, 111, 113, 179 and al-Ghazālī, 113 Ibn Qayyim on, 103–4 Islamic Fiqh Academy on, 261–2 Karaman on, 321, 327 Nadwi on, 258 al-Ouda on, 179 Qaradawi on, 35, 108, 110 al-Rashidi on, 261 Rida on, 103, 104 and Saudi Salafism, 104, 155, 159, 161 Shāh Walī Allāh on, 226 and al-Sindī, 159 and taḥqīq al-manāṭ, 111, 113 and taqlīd, 35, 89, 102–3, 110, 161, 193, 235–6, 245–6, 262–3 Usmani on, 193, 208, 244, 245–6, 251–2 and Wahhabism, 155, 159, 161 Ikhwān (Bedouin soldiers), 157 Ikshid dynasty, 79 ʿIlish, Muhammad, 89 Ilkhanid dynasty, 294 ʿillah (reason for a ruling), 112–13, 248–9 İlmihal (Diyanet publication), 316, 317–21, 322 imam-hatip schools, 275, 276, 279, 306–7, 321, 322–3 Al-Imam Mohammad Ibn Saud Islamic University, Riyadh, 163, 164 in vitro fertilization (IVF), 325 independent reasoning see ijtihād India Ahl-i Ḥadīth movement, 159–60, 161, 162, 236, 253 Anglo-Mohammedan Law, 227, 229, 237–8 Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), 210

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[ 351 Bollywood, 203, 210 changing Muslim subjectivities, 204 colonial rule, 14, 159, 196, 227–33 Dars-i Niẓāmī curriculum, 196, 224–5, 230, 233, 234, 257 Darul Uloom Deoband, 193, 199, 201–2, 208, 230–8 Delhi Sultanate, 219, 220–1 democracy, 208, 257 Deoband, 14, 193, 195–6, 198, 199, 201–2, 206–7, 208, 210, 229–38 education, 198, 224–5, 230–3 English language, 197 female madrasahs, 202 Fiqh Academy of India, 202 Ghaznavid dynasty, 218, 219–20 Ghurid dynasty, 218–19 and globalization, 24, 196–7 ḥadīth scholarship, 225–6, 227, 228, 230 Ḥanafī Islam, 195, 219, 222, 226 Hinduism, 208, 210, 218, 219, 220, 221, 225, 227 historical evolution, 217–38 Indian Mutiny, 159, 229 insecurity, 210 Islamic Fiqh Academy, 261–2 Islamic revivalism, 226–9, 230–1, 233 marginalization of Muslims, 20, 198, 204, 210 Mughal period, 196, 217, 221–7 mysticism, 219–21, 222, 225 Nadwatul Ulama, 201–2, 208, 257–9 partition, 199, 210 Persianate culture, 196, 217–21, 222–5 philosophy, 219–21, 222–5 pilgrims travelling to Mecca from, 158 Popular Front movement, 204 relations with Pakistan, 200, 202 secularism, 204, 208 Shirazi scholars, 222–5 Sikhism, 227, 228 state reform initiatives, 206–7 Sufism, 218, 219–21, 222, 224, 225–6, 228, 232, 233 Ṭarīqah-i Muḥammadīah movement, 228–9 television and film, 197, 203 Wahhabi supporters in, 159–60 Westernization, 196–7 women, 197, 202, 208 see also Bengal; Bihar; Delhi; Deoband madrasah network; Punjab; Uttar Pradesh Indian Mutiny, 159, 229 Indian Ocean, 158, 217–18 individualism, 23 Indonesia, 30

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Index

inductive reasoning see al-istiqrāʾ industrialization, 23, 250 inflation, 115 inheritance rights, 26, 205, 285–6, 320 insecurity, 209–11 Institute of Islamic Research (IIR), 251 institutional theory, 1–2 insurance, 262 interest see riba internal reform, 27–9, 32–4, 212 International Islamic Fiqh Academy, 245 International Islamic University, Istanbul (planned), 15, 66, 282, 284 International Union of Muslim Scholars, 108 International War Crimes Tribunal, 205, 210 Internet, 9–10, 19, 24–5, 70–1, 136, 137, 139, 143, 144, 202, 255–6, 276 intoxication, 113, 248 inviolability see ʿiṣmah Iqbal, Mohammad, 287 Iqtidar, Humeria, 38 Iran, 83, 218, 219, 221, 222–3, 293–4 Iraq, 140, 151, 156, 158, 181, 218, 219, 294 Iraq War, 140 ʿIrāqī, Fakhr al-Dīn, 220 Islam and Modernism (Usmani), 249–50 Islam and the World (Nadwi), 257–8 Islam Araştırmaları Merkezi (ISAM), 15, 280, 281–2, 284, 322 Islam Mian Tasweer ka Hukm (Usmani), 255 al-Islām wa-al-Gharb (al-Buti), 116 Islamic authority and al-Azhar, 32, 90, 92–3, 95 and colonial rule, 227–8, 230, 236, 237–8 and command of Arabic language, 30, 33, 277 and command of foundational texts, 29–30, 32, 33, 277 comparison of institutions under study, 32 and Deoband, 32, 230, 236, 237–8 and Diyanet, 32, 277–8, 307–8 and education, 9–17 exercised through fatwās, 227–8, 229 and moral authority, 30–1, 33, 277 and reform, 32–4 and relation to contemporary realities, 31–2, 33 summary table, 33 and Turkish theology departments, 289–90, 307–8 and vernacular scholarly literature, 30 see also legitimacy Islamic awakening see ṣaḥwah islāmīyah movement Islamic banking and finance, 37, 208, 244, 245, 247–8, 259–60

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Islamic calendar see hijri Islamic creed see ʿaqīdah Islamic Fiqh Academy (IFA), 261–2 Islamic financial instruments, 37, 259–60 Islamic Institute, Mecca, 160–1 Islamic judges see qāḍīs Islamic mega scholarly tradition, 29–30 Islamic meta scholarly traditions, 30 Islamic mysticism see mysticism; taṣawwuf Islamic norms of behaviour see adab Islamic revivalism, 226–9, 230–1, 233 Islamic solidarity, 163 Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), 4, 65, 70–1, 127, 132, 133, 172, 181 Islamic theology see kalām Islamic University of Medina (IUM), 12–13, 30, 163, 164, 165, 173, 175 ʿiṣmah (inviolability), 332–3, 334 Ismaʾil, Muhammad, 228 Ismāʾīlism, 79–81, 218 isolating the reason see tanqīḥ al-manāṭ isolation, 3–4, 23, 39–40, 130 Isparta, 322 Israel, 71 Istanbul, 15, 16, 84–5, 88, 157, 280, 281, 283, 288–9, 294, 297, 299, 300, 301, 305, 307, 322 Istanbul 29 May University, 15, 281–2 “Istīʾab al-Islām li-al-ʿAdyān al-Mukhtalifa wa-li-Tanau’ al-Hiḍārāt” (al-Awni), 185 al-istiqrāʾ (inductive reasoning), 107 istisḥāb (presumption of continuity), 115 Izmir University, 287, 288 Iznik, 297 Jackson, Sherman, 246 Jahāngīr, 223 jāhilīyah (days of ignorance), 105, 257–9 Jamaat-i-Islami, 204, 205, 210 Jamaat-i-Ulama Hindi, 202 Jāmī, ʿAbd al-Raḥmān, 222, 299 Jamia Ashrafia madrasah, 199–200 Jamia Hafsa madrasah, 212 al-Jamia al-Islamiyya Darul Uloom Waqf Deoband, 201 al-Jamiah al-Isalmiyya Patiya madrasah, 200 Janissary corps, 296, 299, 302 Jawharat al-Tawḥīd (Laqāni), 83, 93 Jeddah, 137, 158 jihad context of the ordaining of, 110, 112 declared by Wahhabi-Saud alliance against those guilty of shirk, 156 and Islamic revivalism, 228–9 militant see jihadist groups; radicalization

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Index position on contested in Saudi Salafism, 173 removal from al-Azhar curriculum, 65 removal from Saudi curriculum, 131, 134–5, 142 jihadist groups and al-Azhar, 71 and Deoband, 202, 209 and education levels, 19 Qurʾānic verses used out of context by, 2 and Saudi Salafism, 4, 8, 12, 127, 132, 133, 144, 174, 181 and the Saudi state, 8, 12, 132, 133, 135, 142, 144 social and economic contexts, 2, 19–20, 133 Taliban protection of, 14 use of media and technology, 10 see also Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS); al-Qaida; radicalization jizyah (tax on non-Muslims), 65 Jordan, 174, 175, 281 Judaism, 71, 185, 324, 329 al-Jundi, Khalid, 66 jurisprudence see fiqh Jurjānī, Sayyid Sharīf, 301 Justice and Development Party (AKP), 8, 15–18, 67, 269, 271–3, 278–84, 317, 320–3, 326–7, 328 juzʾī (the particular), 113–14 Kaʿbah, Mecca, 12, 23 Kabul, 221, 222 Kadizade Mehmed, 300 Kadizadeli movement, 300–1 Kadri, Hüseyin Kazım, 334 kalām (Islamic theology), 83, 93, 155, 159, 161–2, 301 Kamali, Mohammad Hashim, 94, 112–13 Kamil, ʿUmar ʿAbd Allah, 93 Kandil, Hazim, 72 Kara, İsmail, 17, 275, 277, 283 Karachi, 199–200, 201, 209, 245 Karaman, Hayrettin, 283, 316–17, 321–7 karāmat (miracles), 157 Karima, Ahmed, 65 Kashf al-Maḥjūb (ʿAlī Hujwīrī), 219–20 Kashmiri, Anwarshah, 235 Kayseri, 322 Kemal, Namik, 328 Kemalist regime, 14–15, 17, 20, 30, 269, 272, 273–8, 283, 284, 286–8, 305–8, 317, 334 Kemalpaşazade, 298, 300 Khadījah, 156 Khalwatīyah, 299 Khan, Imran, 203 Khan, Ayub, 206, 251

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[ 353 khānqāhs (Sufi lodges), 9, 15, 17, 81–3, 157, 158, 220, 274, 296; see also Sufism; tekkes Khayrabad, 233 al-Khujandi, Muhammad Sultan al-Maʾsumi, 162 khutbahs see Friday sermons Kitāb al-Tawḥīd (ʿAbd al-Wahhāb), 154 Koç, Mehmet, 307 Konya, 220, 283, 294, 299, 300, 322 kuffār (unbelievers), 155 Kugle, Scott, 230 kulī (the general), 113–14 Kurdish language, 279 Kuru, Ahmet, 323 Kuwait, 174 Lacroix, Stéphane, 133, 140, 163, 176 Lahore, 199–200, 218–2, 223 laïcité, 274, 306; see also secularism laiklik (Turkish form of secularism), 305–8, 309; see also secularism land reforms, 87 al-Laqāni, Ibrāhīm, 83, 93 Lauziere, Henri, 160, 165 law making, 203–4 legitimacy of al-Azhar, 8, 13, 18, 55–69, 92, 94–5 of Deoband, 206, 213 of Diyanet, 15, 269, 271, 275, 277, 279, 282, 284, 290 of the Egyptian state, 18, 56, 59, 91 and moral authority, 31, 206 of the Saudi state, 132, 135, 152 of Turkish theology departments, 289–90 see also Islamic authority Lewis, Bernard, 38 liberal theory, 21, 38, 72 Liqāʾ al-Jumʾah (TV programme), 181–2 literacy, 10, 11–12, 24, 82 literalist readings, 4, 12, 13–14, 130, 161, 162–3 logic, 83–4, 159, 222, 223, 225, 230, 301 Lucknow, 223, 262 Mʾādh bin Jabal, 178 madhhabs (schools of jurisprudence) all taught at Al-Azhar, 13, 53, 55, 57, 68 borrowing rulings from different madhhabs (talfīq), 247–8, 259–60, 262 equal epistemic status of, 246–8 formation of, 158 and Islamic finance, 247–8 limited representation on Saudi Council of Senior Scholars, 134 in Mamluk period Egypt, 82

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354 ]

Index

madhhabs (schools of jurisprudence) (cont.) none predominant in the Hijaz, 158 rules for Qurʾānic interpretation, 2 Salafi rejection of, 132–3, 134 Usmani on, 246–8 see also Ḥanafī school; Ḥanbalī school; Mālikī school; Shāfiʾī school al-Madhkal al-Fiqhī alʿĀm (al-Zarqa), 117 Madrasah Raḥīmīyah, 226, 227, 228–9, 230, 232–3 Madrasat al-ʿUlūm al-Sharʾīyah, Medina, 162 Mahfudh, Cheikhna, 110 Mahmood, Saba, 38, 41–2, 72 Mahmud I, 218 Mahmud II, 302–3 maḥrams (male guardians), 254, 258, 320 Makram, ʿUmar, 86 Malaysia, 30 male guardians see maḥrams Mali, 161 Mālik ibn Anas, 158, 260 Mālikī school and ādamiyyah, 331 in the Hijaz, 158, 162 limited representation on Saudi Council of Senior Scholars, 134 in Mamluk period Egypt, 82, 84 in Ottoman period Egypt, 83–4, 85 position on Islamic finance, 260 position on women travelling with a guardian, 320 see also madhhabs Malikyar, Helena, 333 Mamluk ʿAli, 231 Mamluks, 81–3, 84, 85, 86–7, 158, 298–9 al-Manār, 90, 150 maqāṣid al-sharīʾah (objectives of the sharīʾah), 22, 26, 29, 35–6, 70, 103–4, 107, 118, 179–80, 247, 249, 251, 262, 334 al-Maqdisi, Abu Muhammad, 181 al-Maraghi, Mustafa, 90 Maraş, 322 Marmara University, 283, 316, 322 marriage, 26, 36, 103, 138, 176, 203–4, 261, 262, 320–1; see also divorce Marx, Karl, 175 al-Mashāyikh al-Kusālā (al-Awni), 181 Masjid al-Ḥarām, Mecca, 158, 162 maṣlaḥah (common good), 35–6, 103, 114, 115, 177, 247, 248–9, 262, 334 mass media see cinema; Internet; mobile phones; radio; social media; television Masud, Muhamad Khalid, 228 Mas’ūliyat al-‘Ulamā’ fī al-Awḍa’ alMutghayyirah (Nadwi), 258 Māturīdism, 155, 219, 222, 234, 299, 301

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Mauritania, 110 Mawdudi, Sayyid Abuʾl-Aʾla, 179 Mecca, 9, 12, 23, 125, 128, 131, 134, 139, 150, 151, 156–63, 225 Mecelle legal code, 303, 304 medicine, 84, 91 Medina, 9, 12–13, 30, 125, 128, 131, 134, 139, 150, 151, 156–63 Mehmed the Conqueror, 294, 297, 299 melameti Sufis, 295–6, 297 merchants, 85–6, 87 metaphysics, 219, 222, 300–1 Metcalf, Barbara, 227, 229, 233 Mevlavi order, 284, 299 Mi’āīyr al-Wasaṭīyah fi al-Fatwā’ (Bin Bayyah), 111 miracles see karāmat militancy see jihadist groups; radicalization military Egypt, 55–6, 58, 63, 67, 87, 157 Ottoman Empire, 294–5, 296, 301–2 Saudi Arabia, 157 Turkey, 14, 20, 272, 273, 276, 278, 308, 326 millet system, 329 Millî Görüş movement, 321 Mina, 110 Ministry of Awqāf (Egypt), 59, 68–9, 91 Ministry of Şeriat and Evkaf (Turkey), 305 minority status, 19, 35, 108, 109, 115–17, 204, 208, 262, 325 missionary schools, 303 mixed-sex socializing, 23, 26 mobile phones, 9–10, 19, 24–5, 137, 143, 255–6 moderate Islam, 271–2, 273, 277, 282, 285–8, 316–17, 320; see also wasaṭīyah Islam modernists see Muslim modernists modernization and alienation, 23, 130 and consumerism, 23, 128, 197, 198, 203 economic, 39, 40, 41, 130, 198, 212 and entertainment, 23, 203 equated with Westernization, 15 and family structures, 23, 203 and gender dynamics, 23, 136–40, 203 and isolation, 3–4, 23, 39–40, 130 and morality, 245, 249–50, 252 and Muslim subjectivities, 22–3, 25–7, 203–5, 289 in Saudi Arabia, 128, 135–43, 144–5 in South Asia, 197 in Turkey, 14–15, 17, 21, 273, 275, 284 Usmani’s negative attitude to, 245, 249–50, 252

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Index see also societal change; Western modernity Mohamed, Abdulla, 141 Mohammad bin Salman Al Saud, 130, 135 Mongol Empire, 218–19, 294, 300 moral authority, 8, 13, 30–1, 53, 55–7, 58, 206, 234, 277 Morocco, 134, 176 Morris, James, 219 Morsi, Mohamed, 26, 55, 58, 59, 61, 94, 107 mortgages, 109, 115–17, 133, 256, 325 Mouline, Nabil, 152, 154–5 muʾāmalāt (social transactions), 26, 36, 103, 207, 274 Mubarak, Hosni, 58, 61, 70 muḍārabah contracts, 260 Mughal Empire, 19, 195–6, 217, 221–7 Muhammad, Prophet, 28, 31, 57, 134, 154, 156, 157, 177–8, 183, 186, 279, 318 Muhammad ʿAli Pasha, 86–8, 157 Muḥammad ibn Saʾūd, 151 Muhammad Musa, 229 Muhammad Yaʾqub, 229, 231 al-Muʾizz, 79–80 Mujaddidīyah, 226 mujahidīns, 176, 210 Mūjibāt Taqhīr al-Fatwā fī ʿAsrinā (Qaradawi), 108–9 mukhtaṣar (scholarly summary), 224 murābaḥah contracts, 260 Murad I, 294 Murad, Abdul Hakim see Winter, Tim mushārakah contracts, 260 Musharraf, Pervez, 204, 207, 209 music, 14, 16, 157, 283 Muslim Brotherhood, 13, 26, 53, 55–6, 58–62, 65, 67–72, 90–1, 94, 132, 136, 163–5, 174 Muslim modernists, 4, 28–9, 71, 88, 130, 132–3, 160–2, 164, 235, 250 Muslim subjectivities, 20–5, 34, 39–41, 203–5, 212, 289 al-Muṣtasfā (al-Ghazāli), 113 muṭawwiʿīn (Saudi religious police), 129, 135, 152, 157 al-Muttaqī, ʿAlī, 225 mysticism, 3, 8, 16, 32, 68, 134, 219–22, 225, 271–3, 280–1, 283–4; see also taṣawwuf Nādir Shāh, 227 Nadwatul Ulama, 196, 200, 201–2, 207, 208, 244, 252, 256, 257–9 Nadwi, Mohammad Akram, 259 Nadwi, Syed Abul Hasan Ali Hasani, 257–9 Najd, 128, 132, 140, 150–2, 156, 157, 160, 162

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[ 355 al-Nakhʾaī, Ibrahīm, 179 Nakissa, Aria, 64, 90, 93, 94 Nanautavi, Maulana Muhammad Qasim, 201, 206, 230, 231, 235–6 Napoleon Bonaparte, 86 naqīb al-ashrāf, 85, 86 Naqshbandīyah, 221, 222, 225–6, 232, 279, 280, 299, 300 Nasser, Gamal Abdel, 55, 60, 63–4, 91, 163 national identity, 42, 276, 278, 282, 287, 306, 308, 328 National Museum of Saudi Arabia, 130 nationalism, 92, 165, 305, 306, 308, 322 Navāʾī, ʿAlī Shīr, 222 Naval Engineering School, Istanbul, 301 Naya Pakistan movement, 203 necessity see ḍarūrah Nelson, Matthew, 204 neo-Ahl al-Ḥadīth, 163 Neo-Ottomanism, 16, 328–31, 333–4 Nesil magazine, 322–3 Netanyahu, Benjamin, 71 Netherlands, 227 nifāq (hypocrisy), 155, 186–7 Nizam-i Cedit, 301–2 Nomani, Yahya, 262 North, Douglass, 2 Norway, 200–1 Al-Nour party, 68 nuclear families, 23, 203 Nuʾmān, Qāḍī, 80 Nurcu movement, 309 Obama, Barack, 133 obligation see taklīf oil wealth, 12, 19, 127, 128–9, 130, 142 “On Salafī Islam” (Qadhi), 172–5 “On the Nature of Salafi Thought and Action” (Haykel), 173 online imāms, 10, 11 Open Civilization (Şentürk), 328 open civilizations, 328–30 open dialogue see ḥiwār Orhan, Sultan, 294, 297 Orientalism, 307 orthodoxy, 152–5, 165, 222 orthopraxy, 152–5 Osman Gazi, 293, 294 Ottoman Empire and al-Azhar, 13, 83–7 comparative analysis with Safavid and Mughal Empires, 19, 196 competition with British Empire, 157 continuity of scholarly tradition to Diyanet, 14, 269, 275, 284, 286–8, 309, 321

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356 ]

Index

Ottoman Empire (cont.) criticism of Wahhabism, 132 dissolution of, 160, 304 emergence of dynasty and early Empire, 293–6 and the Ḥanafī school, 13, 82, 84–5, 195, 298–9, 303, 329, 331, 333–4 ilmiye, 293, 296–304, 309 military, 294–5, 296, 301–2 and neo-Ottomanism, 16, 328–31, 333–4 as open civilization, 328–9 Persianate culture, 218, 219, 220, 299–301 reorganizations and reforms, 301–4 rule in Egypt, 82, 83–7, 298–9 rule in the Hijaz, 157–8 rule in Syria, 298–9 rule in Turkey, 14, 269, 272, 274, 275, 284, 286–8, 293–304 Saudi–Wahhabi jihad against, 131, 156–7 and Sufism, 295–6, 297, 299–301 and Tanzimât, 302–3, 329, 331, 333–4 al-Ouda, Salman, 125, 172, 175–80, 282 Ozgur, Iren, 322 Pakistan Bangladeshi students, 200, 201 changing Muslim subjectivities, 203–4 constitutional assemblies, 203–4 demands for increased democracy, 203 Deoband, 14, 193, 195, 198, 199–200, 202, 206, 207–8, 209–10, 245 divorce, 203 education, 203 English language, 197 female madrasahs, 202, 212 and globalization, 197 influential scholars, 30, 32–4, 193; see also Usmani, Muhammad Taqi insecurity, 209–10 law making, 203–4 marriage, 203–4 media and technology, 203 National Assembly, 204 Naya Pakistan movement, 203 overseas students, 199–200 parliamentary quota for women, 204 and partition, 199 Red Mosque, 210, 212 relations with India, 200, 202 sharīʾah, 210 state reform initiatives, 206, 209 suicide bombings, 198, 207–8 supports U.S. in “war on terror,” 207, 209 Wafaq-ul-Madaris al-Arabia, 200, 208 Westernization, 197, 203 women, 197, 202, 203, 204, 212

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see also Deoband madrasah network; Karachi; Lahore; Sindh Palestine, 71, 82, 164, 207 Panipat, 221 Parla, Taha, 306 particularities see juzʾī partition (of India), 199, 210 Persian language, 218, 225, 228, 230, 299, 300, 306 Persian poetry, 219, 220, 222 Persianate culture, 159, 196, 217–21, 222–5, 299–301 personal piety, 14, 26, 31–2, 64, 68, 196 pervasive imposition see ʿumūm al-balwā philosophy, 3, 4, 8, 32, 36–7, 83–4, 159, 162, 219–26, 230, 280, 300–1, 304, 307; see also Western philosophy photography, 22–3, 254–5, 262 pilgrimage, 9, 103, 110, 157–9, 254, 288, 320; see also Hajj; ʿumrah pious leadership, 318–19 Piscatori, James, 9 pluralism, 12, 16, 57, 68, 110, 125, 128, 134, 157–9, 162, 269, 272–3, 279, 328 poetry, 3, 219, 220, 222, 280–1, 284, 299 political oppression, 16, 24, 56, 58–9, 67, 332; see also authoritarian rule polygamy, 26, 138 polytheism see shirk al-ʿubūdīyah Popper, Karl, 175 Popular Front movement, 204 Portugal, 158, 227 positivism, 304, 330 Pourjavady, Reza, 223 pragmatism, 37, 128, 131, 133–6, 144, 202, 208 prayer, 103, 130, 156, 178, 248 priorities see fiqh al-awlawīyāt private schools, 142 Prophet’s Mosque, Medina, 158, 161 proselytizing see da’wah public morality, 152, 154 public opinion, 8, 32, 70–2, 143, 144, 272, 284, 287, 288, 289 punishments, 14, 127, 152–3, 178–9, 261, 333 Punjab, 218, 222 purdah, 253–4, 258–9; see also gender segregation al-Qabbānī, Aḥmad ibn ʿAlī, 156 Qadhi, Yasir, 172–5, 176 Qādirīyah, 221, 225, 232 qāḍīs (Islamic judges), 57, 227, 232, 237–8, 304 al-Qaida, 4, 14, 127, 130, 132, 133, 142, 181, 202

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Index Qalandarīyah, 220 al-Qaradawi, Yusuf, 25, 35, 53, 59, 94, 104, 106–10, 115–17, 176, 245, 248, 254, 256, 261, 262, 263, 334 al-Qarāfī, Shihāb al-Dīn, 106, 108, 111 Qarawiyyin, 57 Qaumi madrasahs, 200–1 Qayṣarī, Dawūd, 300 qiyās (deductive analogy), 4–5, 27, 111, 112–13 Qūnawī, Ṣadr al-Dīn, 220, 300 Qurʾān on apostasy, 324 and assessment of modernity, 250 commentary on see tafsīr direct engagement with, 12, 132–3 on freedom of conscience, 186 on Islam being close to human nature, 28, 250 on Islam being for all times, 28, 250 knowledge of prerequisite for Islamic authority, 29 memorization of, 29 on obedience to authority, 319 on pious leadership, 318–19 on polytheism, 183 rules for scholarly interpretation, 2 Saudi national museum organized around verses of, 130 on shirk, 154 Surah Baqarah, 324 Surah Nisa, 319 Surah Ṣād, 318–19 taken out of context, 2 on Turkish school curricula, 279 Turkish translation resisted by Diyanet, 275, 286–7 as untouched word of God, 40, 289 on al-walāʾ wa-al-barāʾ, 184 see also foundational texts Qutb, Sayyid, 58–9, 68, 174 Raba Mosque, 56, 58–9 radicalization, 1–2, 4, 19–20, 66, 127, 133; see also jihadist groups radio, 10, 276 Rafiʾ al-Din, 228 Rahman, Fazlur, 32–4, 245, 250–2, 287 Rahman, Habibur, 252 Ramaḍan, 114, 202 Ramadan, Tariq, 3, 26, 334 ramī al-jamarāt (“stoning of the devil”), 110 Rapoport, Yossef, 82 al-Rasheed, Madawi, 177, 182 al-Rashidi, Abu Ammar Zahid, 261 Rauf, Feisal Abdul, 331

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[ 357 Rawls, John, 187 reasonableness, 9, 28–9, 53, 197 Reconstruction of Islamic Thought (Iqbal), 287 Red Mosque, Islamabad, 210, 212 Reetz, Dietrich, 232, 235–6 Refah Partisi (Welfare Party), 323 refinement of the cause see taḥqīq al-manāṭ reformist groups, 159–62, 253 religion, role of, 21, 22–3, 34, 38–40, 69, 72, 130–1, 144, 205, 273–4, 278, 323–4 religiosity, 38, 41, 72–3 religious associations see cemaats religious endowments see waqf religious innovation see bidʾah religious police see Hisba; muṭawwiʿīn religious revolution (al-Sisi’s), 4, 59, 62–7, 69 religious tolerance, 133–5, 180–4, 185; see also freedom of religion; pluralism rentier state model, 127, 128, 145 retreats, 11 riba (interest), 109, 115–17, 133, 256, 259–60, 325 Rida, Rashid, 25, 28, 88, 90, 102–4, 106, 116, 118, 130, 132, 150, 160, 162, 164–5, 235–6, 247, 323 Rifai ṭarīqah, 280–1 Rihla programme, 11, 283 rikāz (treasures from the jāhilīyah that have been buried), 105–6 ritual practices see ʿibādāt Riyadh, 128, 133, 135, 137–9, 140, 157, 161, 163 Rizvi, Saiyid Athar, 228 Robinson, Francis, 9, 19, 196, 219, 223, 225 El-Rouayheb, Khaled, 159, 300–1 Rūmī, Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad, 3, 8, 16, 220, 280–1, 284, 299 rural communities, 25, 139 Rustow, Dankwort, 307 Sadat, Anwar, 68 Sādāt family, 85 sadd al-dharāʾiʾ (blocking the means), 115, 248 Safavid Empire, 19, 196, 219, 223 Saharanpur, 199 ṣaḥwah islāmīyah movement, 132, 164–5, 174–7 Salafism colonial contexts of, 150 cosmopolitan nature of, 150 daʾwah movement, 66, 69, 92, 163 Deobandi criticism of, 252–3 direct engagement with foundational texts, 10–11, 12, 132–3 and Diyanet, 8, 272, 279, 316

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358 ]

Index

Salafism (cont.) in Egypt, 66–7, 68, 69, 90–1, 92, 132, 136, 161 historical origins, 150 in Saudi Arabia see Saudi Salafism in Syria, 132, 136 understanding of wāqiʾ, 104 Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn, 81 Al-Salam Institute, 259 Saliba, George, 207 Samanid Empire, 218 Samarqand, 222, 299 sanad (chain of transmission), 93 Sanskrit, 230 al-Sarakhsī, Muḥammad ibn aḥmad ibn Abī Sahl Abū Bakr, 332–3 Sargut, Cemalnur, 280–1 al-Sarhan, Saud, 140 Saud, House of, 8, 12, 19, 24, 32, 127–8, 131–6, 140–5, 151–2, 156–7, 160, 163, 181, 197 Saudi Arabia authoritarian rule, 133 criticism of, 127, 133 demands for increased democracy, 24, 125, 136 destruction of tombs and shrines, 134, 152, 153, 156, 157 divorce, 138 early madrasahs, 158 economic development, 128–9 education, 19, 125, 128, 130, 131, 133, 135–8, 140–5, 160–4, 174 English language, 137, 138, 139, 142 establishment of Kingdom, 128, 133–4, 140, 150–1 fall of predicted by Western media, 130, 144 foreign education scholarship programme, 142 gender-based reforms, 133, 135–40, 144–5 Hijazi scholarship, 157–63 historical evolution, 150–66 ḥudūd, 127, 152–3 Human Rights Commission, 136, 138 integration into global culture, 19, 129, 130, 137–8, 145 Islamic solidarity policy, 163 and jihadist groups, 8, 12, 132, 133, 135, 142, 144 map, 129 marriage, 138 media and technology, 19, 125, 136, 137, 139, 143, 144 military, 157 modernization, 128, 135–43, 144–5

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Muslim Brotherhood, 132, 136, 163–5, 174 muṭawwiʿīn, 129, 135, 152, 157 mysticism, 134 national museum, 130 oil wealth, 12, 19, 127, 128–9, 130, 142 pluralism, 12, 128, 134, 157–9, 162 policy on mortgages, 133 private schools, 142 public opinion, 143, 144 public subsidies, 127 al-Qaida attacks in, 142 and the rentier state model, 127, 128, 145 role of religion, 130–1, 144 royal family see Saud, House of Salafism see Saudi Salafism; Wahhabism ṣaḥwah islāmīyah movement, 132, 164–5, 174–7 and secularism, 131, 144, 174 sharīʾah, 22, 125, 130 Shiʾism, 155, 156, 157, 158 shopping malls, 23, 137 societal change, 8, 19, 23, 125, 128–31, 135–45 state legitimacy, 132, 135, 152 state relationship with the ʿulamāʾ, 131–6, 145, 197 Sufism, 9, 134, 153, 155, 156, 157, 158, 159, 161, 162, 165 tribal roots, 125, 128, 140, 151 Vision 2030, 130, 135, 142, 145 Wahhabism, 125, 127, 128, 131–5, 143–4, 150, 151–7, 159–63, 172, 173–4, 180–4 Western perceptions of, 127, 133, 134, 136, 143–4 Westernization, 23, 137–9, 142, 144–5 women, 19, 23, 127, 133, 135–40, 141, 142, 144–5 see also al-Ahsa; Hijaz; Jeddah; Mecca; Medina; Najd; Riyadh Saudi Brothers, 174–5 Saudi Salafism adaptation to modernity, 18–19, 125, 131, 134–6, 144 and application of the sharīʾah, 177–9 and the Atharī creed, 173 and bidʾah, 173 conservative interpretations of sharīʾah, 22–3 contested points, 173 Council of Senior Scholars, 134, 136 current debates, 172–88 and daʾwah, 163 and democracy, 125 Deobandi criticism of, 252–3 direct engagement with foundational texts, 10–11, 12, 132–3, 155

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Index dominant trends of thought, 172–5 and fiqh al-wāqiʾ, 125, 172, 174, 175–9, 187–8 funding from oil wealth, 12 global influence, 12–13 historical origins and evolution, 6, 12, 132–3, 150–66 hostility to Sufism, 134, 155, 156, 159, 161, 165 and ijtihād, 104, 155, 159, 161 Islamic authority, 32 and jihadist groups, 4, 8, 12, 127, 132, 133, 144, 174, 181 and linking of faith and action, 152–5, 173 literalist readings of texts, 130, 162–3 mainstream Saudi Salafism, 173–4, 181 mosques and madrasahs established globally, 12 and the Muslim Brotherhood, 132, 136, 163–5, 174 overview, 12–13, 125 positions toward jihad, 173 pragmatism, 128, 131, 133–6, 144 relationship with the state, 131–6, 145, 197 ṣaḥwah islāmīyah movement, 132, 164–5, 174–7 and takfīr, 4, 12, 127, 131, 132–4, 172, 173, 174–5, 181–4 and taqlīd, 161, 165, 173, 174, 252–3 and tawḥīd, 153–5, 173, 184 theological approach, 6 and tolerance, 133–5, 180–4, 185 and Wahhabism, 161–6 and al-walāʾ wa-al-barāʾ, 155, 157, 172, 181, 184–5 see also Saudi Arabia; Wahhabism Saudi Scientific Institute, Mecca, 161, 162 Sayyid Ahmad Barelvi, 228–9 Schimmel, Annemarie, 220, 307 Schliemann, Heinrich, 106 School of Islamic Law and Jurisprudence (Egypt), 88 schools of jurisprudence see madhhabs science, 2, 16, 23, 84, 91, 141, 159–60, 207, 209, 230, 301, 330 secularism and al-Azhar, 69, 72 in Bangladesh, 205, 210 and changes in the social imaginary, 38–9, 130, 198, 212, 289 as colonial project, 21, 34 and economic modernization, 39, 40, 41, 130, 198, 212 and education, 21–2 in Egypt, 69, 70–1, 72 in France, 274, 306

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[ 359 in India, 204, 208 and liberal theory, 21, 38 and mass media, 21 and Muslim subjectivities, 21–3, 34, 39–41 and the role of religion, 22–3, 38–40, 69, 144, 205, 274 and Saudi Arabia, 131, 144, 174 and separation of religion and state, 15, 22, 273, 274, 285, 305, 317–18, 323–4 supposed incompatibility with Muslim societies, 37–8 and travel, 22 in Turkey, 14–15, 17, 21, 274–6, 282, 287, 305–9, 317–18, 322, 323–4, 327 and Western modernity, 38–40 Selim III, 301–2 Seljuq Empire, 81, 218, 293–4, 295, 299 Şentürk, Recep, 36, 279–80, 316, 317, 327–34 September 11 attacks, 1, 142, 202 Şeriye ve Evkaf Vekaleti, 274 sexuality, 26, 40, 72, 325 Shabestari, Mohammad Mojtahed, 180 Shafi, Muhammad, 245 Shāfiʾī school and ādamiyyah, 329, 331 favoured by Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn, 81 in India, 219 limited representation on Saudi Council of Senior Scholars, 134 in Mamluk period Egypt, 82, 84 in Ottoman period Egypt, 84, 85 position on women travelling with a guardian, 320 see also madhhabs Shāh Jahān, 223 Shāh Walī Allāh Dihlawi, 159, 226–7 Shahbag protests, 205, 210 Shaltut, Mahmud, 91 sharḥ (scholarly commentary), 224, 234 sharīʾah application of, 177–9 in Bangladesh, 204–5 basic principles of see maqāṣid al-sharīʾah calls for reform from women’s rights groups, 204–5 and the common good see maṣlaḥah conservative interpretations, 22, 26, 39, 69 and democracy, 180 and Deoband, 233, 234 in Egypt, 26, 61–2, 69, 70, 71–2, 90, 290 and ḥudūd, 127, 152–3, 178–9, 205 interpretation of at al-Azhar, 61–2, 90 levels of adherence to, 22–3 loss of relevance in Turkish Republic, 274 in Pakistan, 210

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360 ]

Index

sharīʾah (cont.) reduced importance under colonial rule, 14, 21, 26, 196 in Saudi Arabia, 22, 125, 130 sharīʾah courts, 290, 303, 304 sharīʾah politics (siyāsah sharʾīyah), 152 state enforcement of, 22, 125 teaching of at al-Azhar, 63, 65–6, 90 in Turkey, 274, 283, 303, 304 types of change, 108–10, 248–9 al-Sharqawi, ʿAbd Allah, 86 al-Shātibī, Abu Isḥāq, 103, 113, 114 Shaṭṭārīyah, 221 al-Shawkani, Muhammad ibn ʿAli, 154, 156, 161 Shaykh al-ʿAmūd educational initiative, 64 Shaykh al-Azhar, 13, 55, 58–60, 61, 62, 67, 69, 70–1, 85, 86, 88, 90, 91, 94 Shaykh al-Islām, 84, 221, 274, 293, 295, 297, 298, 300, 302–3, 304, 305 Shiʾism, 79, 81, 155, 156, 157, 158, 183–4, 219, 223, 225, 227 Shirazi scholars, 83, 222–5 shirk (rejection of tawḥīd), 154–5, 156, 257 shirk al-ʿubūdīyah (polytheism of worship), 182–3 shoes, wearing of in mosques, 175 shopping malls, 23, 137, 197 shrines, 134, 152, 153, 156, 157, 286, 306 shūrā (consultation), 179, 324 Sihālawī, Niẓām al-Dīn, 223–4 Sihālawī, Qutb al-Dīn, 223 Sijzī, Muʾīn al-Dīn, 220 Sikhism, 227, 228 Silverstein, Brian, 306, 307–8 Sinā’at al-Fatwā wa-Fiqh al-‘Aqalliyyāt (Bin Bayyah), 117 Sinasi, İbrahim, 28 Sindh, 203, 218, 219–20 al-Sindī, Muḥammad Ḥayyah, 159 Sirhindī, Aḥmad, 225–6 al-Sisi, Abd al-Fattah, 4, 8, 13, 16, 18, 24, 53, 55–72, 94, 282 siyāsah sharʾīyah (sharīʾah politics), 152 Skovgaard-Petersen, Jakob, 91 slavery, 65, 318, 333 social contract, 175, 179–80 social imaginaries, 38–9, 42, 130, 198, 212, 289 social media 135, 136, 137, 139, 143, 175; see also Internet; mobile phones social transactions see muʾāmalāt socialism, 132, 163, 174 socializing, 23, 26, 138, 139 societal change and colonial rule, 25

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in Saudi Arabia, 8, 19, 23, 125, 128–31, 135–45 speed of change, 25–6, 128, 140, 144–5 see also modernization; Westernization Sorbonne, 69 South Africa, 14 Soviet–Afghan War, 176 Soviet Union, 176, 309, 329 Spain, 11, 289 specialist knowledge, 10–12 state violence, 56, 58–9 stoning, 153 “stoning of the devil” see ramī al-jamarāt Suavi, Ali, 28 Subramanian, Narendra, 261–2 Sufi lodges see khānqāhs; tekkes Sufi orders see ṭarīqahs Sufism and asceticism, 220–1, 225, 300 and al-Azhar, 90, 93 in Central Asia, 299–301 “colonizing” Sufism, 295–6, 297 and Deoband, 232, 233 and Diyanet, 15, 269, 272, 278, 279, 280–1, 284, 286, 288 in Egypt, 85, 90, 93 and ḥadīth scholarship, 225–6 in the Hijaz, 9, 134, 156, 157, 158, 159, 162 and the House of Saud, 134 in India, 218, 219–21, 222, 224, 225–6, 228, 232, 233 khānqāhs, 9, 15, 17, 81–3, 157, 158, 220, 274, 296 in Morocco, 134 omitted from Dars-i Niẓāmī curriculum, 224 in Saudi Arabia, 9, 134, 153, 155, 156, 157, 158, 159, 161, 162, 165 Saudi Salafi hostility towards, 134, 155, 156, 159, 161, 165 shrines destroyed in Saudi Arabia, 134, 152, 153, 156, 157 shrines preserved in Turkey, 286 and the spread of Islam, 218, 219–20, 295–6, 297 Sufi orders see tarīqahs Sufi poets, 3, 299 tekkes, 278, 306 in Turkey, 14–15, 17, 269, 272, 274, 278–81, 284, 286, 288, 295–6, 297, 299–301, 306 Wahhabi hostility towards, 134, 155, 156, 159, 161, 165 Suhrawardī, Abū Ḥafṣ, 220 Suhrawardīyah, 220–1 suicide bombings, 198, 207–8

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Index Suleyman the Magnificent, 297 Sullam alʿUlūm (Bihārī), 224 Sultan Hassan Mosque, 105 summary (scholarly) see mukhtaṣar sunnah, 31, 132–3, 233, 250 superstition, 155, 161, 286 Sururis, 174–5 Swaine, Lucas, 187–8 Syria Arab Spring, 24 conflict in, 16, 18, 20, 279–80, 288–9 Fatimid rule, 80 Mamluk rule, 82, 298–9 Ottoman rule, 298–9 Muslim Brotherhood, 132, 136, 164, 174 Salafism, 132, 136 scholars as refugees in Turkey, 16, 279–80, 289 Wahhabi-Saud jihad against, 156 Zangid sultans, 81 see also Damascus Tableegi Jamaat, 14, 253 tacit knowledge, 32 tafsīr (Qur’ānic commentary), 29, 228 Tafsīr al-Manār (Rida), 160 Taftāzānī, Saʾd al-Dīn, 301 taḥqīq al-manāṭ (refinement of the cause), 35, 104, 110–15, 117, 118, 178 Tahrir Square protests, 24, 58, 70 al-Tahtawi, Rifaʾah, 88, 89 takfīr (excommunication), 4, 12, 127, 132–4, 172, 173, 174–5, 181–4 Takfīr Ahl al-Shahādatayn (al-Awni), 182, 183–4 takhrīj al-manāṭ (extracting the reason), 112–13 taklīf (obligation), 186 talfīq (borrowing from different maddhabs), 247–8, 251, 259–60, 262 Taliban, 8, 14, 202, 209 Talisse, Robert, 187–8 Tamarod movement, 70, 71–2 Tanbīh al-Marāja’ ‘alā Ta’ṣīl Fiqh al-Wāqi’ (Bin Bayyah), 111, 115 al-Ṭandatāwī, ‘Abd al-Wahhāb ibn Aḥmad al-Azharī, 156 tanqīḥ al-manāṭ (isolating the reason), 112–13 Tanta, 90 Tanzimât (Reorganization), 302–3, 329, 331, 333–4 taqlīd (following of authority), 14, 35, 37, 89, 103, 110, 132, 161, 165, 173–5, 234–8, 244–7, 252–3, 261–3 Ṭarīqah-i Muḥammadīah movement, 228–9, 300

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[ 361 ṭarīqahs (Sufi orders) Bektashīyah, 296, 299 Chishtīyah, 220–1, 225, 232 in Egypt, 85 Gülen movement, 272, 309, 323, 326 Ḥaydarīyah, 220 in the Hijaz, 134, 157 in India, 220–1, 222, 225–6, 228 Kadizadeli movement, 300–1 Kemalist regime ban on, 14–15, 17, 274, 281, 306 Khalwatīyah, 299 Mevlavi order, 284, 299 Mujaddidīyah, 226 Naqshbandīyah, 221, 222, 225–6, 232, 279, 280, 299, 300 Qādirīyah, 221, 225, 232 Qalandarīyah, 220 Rifai ṭarīqah, 280–1 Shaṭṭārīyah, 221 Suhrawardīyah, 220–1 in Turkey, 14–15, 17, 269, 272, 274, 278, 279, 280–1, 284, 286, 288, 299–301, 306 see also Sufism taṣawwuf (Islamic mysticism), 16, 68, 134, 271, 272, 273, 280–1, 283–4; see also mysticism Tasgetiren, Ahmet, 323, 327 taṭbīq al-sharīʾah (application of the sharīʾah), 177–9 tawḥīd (divine unity), 153–5, 173, 184 taxation, 65, 85–6, 87, 89, 295, 302 Taylor, Charles, 22, 38–40, 72, 130, 198, 212, 289 taysīr (facilitation), 110, 117 al-Tayyib, Ahmad, 13, 55, 58–60, 61, 62, 67, 69, 70–1, 94 Tayyib, Qari Muhammad, 233–4 teaching circles see ḥalaqahs technology, 9–10, 19, 23–5, 34, 70–1, 136–7, 139, 143–4, 202, 249–50, 254–6, 276 Teerek-i-Insaaf party, 203 tekkes (Sufi lodges, Turkey), 278, 306; see also khānqāhs; Sufism television, 10, 21, 22–5, 70–1, 136, 195, 197, 202–3, 208, 212, 255–6, 262, 276 terrorism, 1, 71, 202, 207–8 Terzioglu, Derin, 296 testimony, 109, 320 Tezcan, Baki, 297–8, 302 Thanawi, Ashraf ʿAli, 245, 259 theological approach, 4, 6 Thompson, Mark, 140 Tīmūr, 221, 294 Timurid dynasty, 221–2, 223

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Index

tombs, 134, 152, 153, 156, 157, 286 torture, 56, 59 travel, 9, 19, 22, 24, 137, 138, 142, 196, 248, 254, 320 Treaty of Jeddah, 157 Tuḥfat al-Murīd (Bajuri), 93 Tunisia, 24 Turkey administration of waqf, 303, 304, 305 adopts Latin alphabet and Gregorian calendar, 306 AKP see Justice and Development Party Alevis, 272 attempted coup (2016), 18, 272, 273 ban on madrasahs and ṭarīqahs, 14–15, 17, 30, 274, 281, 288, 305, 306 cemaats, 278, 287 Central Asian heritage, 299–301 Christianity, 303 civil courts, 303, 304 Committee of Union and Progress government, 304, 305 constitutions, 272, 273–4, 285, 288, 306, 308 corruption, 326–7 coup (1980), 275, 308 coup (1997), 308, 309, 323 economic development, 14, 16, 18, 20, 269, 273, 278 education, 279, 303, 304, 306–7, 308, 322–3 and EU membership, 323, 326 foreign policy, 16, 328 Gülen movement, 272, 309, 323, 326 headscarves, 274, 276, 322, 324–5 imam-hatip schools, 275, 276, 279, 306–7, 321, 322–3 impact of Syrian conflict upon, 16, 18, 20, 288–9 Kemalist regime, 14–15, 17, 20, 30, 269, 272, 273–8, 283, 284, 286–8, 305–8, 317, 334 laiklik, 305–8, 309, 317–18 legal reforms, 303, 304 maintenance and care of mosques, 16, 283–4 Mecelle legal code, 303, 304 military, 14, 20, 272, 273, 276, 278, 308, 326 Millî Görüş movement, 321 Ministry of Şeriat and Evkaf, 305 modernization, 14–15, 17, 21, 273, 275, 284 mysticism, 16, 134, 271, 272, 273, 280–1, 283–4 national identity, 276, 278, 282, 287, 306, 308, 328

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nationalism, 305, 306, 308, 322 Nurcu movement, 309 Ottoman ilmiye, 296–304, 309 Ottoman rule, 14, 269, 272, 274, 275, 284, 286–8, 293–304 overseas students, 280, 281 planned International Islamic University, 15, 66, 282, 284 pluralism, 16, 269, 272–3, 279 refugee Syrian scholars, 16, 279–80, 289 revival of Islamic scholarship, 8, 15–16, 17–18, 134, 269, 271–3, 278–84 role of religion, 273–4, 278, 323–4 Salafism, 8, 272, 279, 317 secularism, 14–15, 17, 21, 274–6, 282, 287, 305–9, 317–18, 322, 323–4 separation of state and religion, 15, 273, 274, 285, 305, 317–18, 323–4 Şeriye ve Evkaf Vekaleti, 274 sharīʾah, 274, 283, 303, 304 sharīʾah courts, 303, 304 shrines, 286, 306 state relationship with Diyanet, 15, 271–90, 305–9 strengthening of democracy, 14, 15, 16, 18, 20, 269, 272, 273, 278 Sufism, 14–15, 17, 269, 272, 274, 278–81, 284, 286, 288, 295–6, 297, 299–301, 306 Tanzimât (Reorganization), 302–3, 329, 331, 333–4 theology departments, 15, 17, 30, 209, 276, 277, 282–3, 287, 289–90, 306–8, 316, 322 Unification of Education act, 274, 322 Westernization, 306 women, 274, 276, 285–6, 322, 324–5 Young Turks, 274, 304, 328 see also Anatolia; Ankara; Diyanet İşleri Başkanliği; Istanbul; Ottoman Empire Turki bin Faisal Al Saud, 145 Turkic languages, 299 Turkic peoples, 81–2, 195, 218, 219, 221, 276, 294, 299 Turkish language, 30, 275, 279, 284, 286–7, 307 Turkish Republic see Kemalist regime al-Umar, Nafsir, 176–7 ʿUmar ibn ʿAbd al-Azīz, 177–8 ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb, 178, 179 Umm al-Qura university, Mecca, 163, 164 ʿumrah (optional pilgrimage to Mecca), 9 ʿumūm al-balwā (pervasive imposition), 108, 109 unbelievers see kuffār

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Index Unification of Education act (Turkey), 274, 322 United Kingdom (U.K.) British Empire, 157, 158, 229 colonial rule in India, 14, 159, 196, 227–33, 237–8 control of Indian Ocean, 158 Deobandi madrasahs, 8, 14, 41, 193, 195, 202, 208, 212 Deobandi position on democracy, 208 East India Company, 227, 229 South Asian diaspora communities, 14, 41, 193, 202, 212 students studying in Pakistan, 199 support for the Sauds, 157 United Nations (U.N.), 136, 333, 334 United States (U.S.) criticism of Saudi Arabia, 133 Deobandi madrasahs, 14, 195, 202, 212 Diyanet mosque complex in Washington, 16, 282 Fiqh Council of North America, 108 influential scholars, 173 Islamic scholarly platforms, 41 Saudis educated in, 174 September 11 attacks, 1, 142, 202 students studying in Pakistan, 199 students studying in Turkey, 280, 281 “war on terror,” 202, 207, 209, 212 unity of being see waḥdat al-wujūd divine see tawḥīd universalism, 329, 331–4 urbanization, 23, 139 Urdu, 195, 197, 200–1, 228, 230 ʿurf (custom), 108, 248, 298 Usmani, Muhammad Taqi, 30, 37, 193, 196, 200, 208, 244–52, 254, 255, 259–60 Usmani, Rafi, 245 Uṣūl al-Iftāʾ wa-Ādābuhu (Usmani), 245 uṣūl al-dīn (rule of religion), 63, 89, 93 usul al-fiqh (foundations of fiqh), 330 usury see riba ʿUthmān ibn Muʾammar, 151 Uttar Pradesh, 198, 199 ʿUyaynah, 151, 154 Valentine’s Day, 23, 24, 203 vernacular scholarly literature, 30, 195, 228 Vision 2030 (Saudi Arabia), 130, 135, 142, 145 Voll, John, 159 Wafaq-ul-Madaris al-Arabia, 200, 208 Wagemakers, Joas, 181

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[ 363 waḥdat al-wujūd (unity of being), 219, 220, 226, 281, 300 Wahhabism and the Ahl-i Ḥadīth movement, 159–60, 161, 162 alleged inspiration for jihadist groups, 127, 132, 133, 144 al-Awni’s criticism of, 172, 180–4 and barāʾ, 155, 157, 172, 181 condemned by other ʿulamāʾ, 156 and destruction of tombs, 152, 153, 156 direct engagement with foundational texts, 132–3, 155 draws on works of Ibn Taymīyah, 152, 155, 162 and Ḥanbalism, 132, 151, 152, 155–6, 159, 162, 174 historical origins, 151–2 hostility to Sufism, 134, 155, 156, 159, 161, 165 and ijtihād, 155, 159, 161 interpretation of tawḥīd, 153–5 jihad against those guilty of shirk, 156 linking of faith and action, 152–5, 173 literalist readings of texts, 161, 162–3 in Mecca and Medina, 156–7 negative Western perceptions of, 127, 133, 134, 143–4 and public morality, 152, 154 relationship with the Saudi state, 131–5, 150, 151–2 Rida’s response to, 160–1 rigidity of, 128, 131–2, 144 and Salafism, 161–6 ṣaḥwah criticism of, 174, 176 and shirk, 154–5, 156 and shirk al-ʿubūdīyah, 182–3 and takfīr, 127, 132–4, 172, 181–4 and taqlīd, 161, 165, 173, 174 ʿulamāʾ studying at al-Azhar, 159 ʿulamāʾ studying in India, 159–60 and al-walāʾ wa-al-barāʾ, 155, 157, 172, 181, 184–5 see also Saudi Salafism al-Wakil, ʿAbd al-Rahman, 90 al-walāʾ wa-al-barāʾ, 155, 157, 172, 181, 184–5 waqf (religious endowments), 13, 62, 80, 82, 87, 89, 231, 232, 303, 304, 305 wāqiʾ see fiqh al-wāqiʾ “war on terror,” 202, 207, 209, 212 wasaṭīyah Islam, 8, 13, 18, 55, 57, 66, 68, 70, 73, 93–4, 104, 110, 111, 118, 271; see also moderate Islam Washington, D.C., 16, 282 Welfare Party (Turkey) see Refah Partisi

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364 ]

Index

Wendt, Alexander, 188 Western brands, 23, 197 Western centers of Islamic learning, 8, 57, 66, 67, 271 Western education, 21, 24, 31, 63–4, 88, 130, 145, 198, 230–1, 258, 274, 303, 304, 307, 329 Western festivals, 23, 24, 203 Western modernity and alienation, 23, 130 and al-Azhar, 69 and consumerism, 23, 128, 197, 198, 203 described as jāhilīyah, 258 engagement with, 8–9, 29, 328–34 enrichment of, 3–4 and entertainment, 23, 203 and family structures, 23, 203 and gender dynamics, 23, 203 and isolation, 3–4, 23, 39–40, 130 mimicking of, 5, 22–3, 130 and morality, 249–50, 252 and Muslim subjectivities, 22–3, 203–5 resistance to, 4, 5 and secularism, 38–40 and sexuality, 40 Usmani’s negative attitude to, 245, 249–50, 252 see also modernization; societal change Western mortgages, 109, 115–17, 256, 325 Western philosophy, 36–7, 175, 187, 280, 304, 307, 317, 327–34 Westernization, 15, 21, 22–3, 34, 137–9, 142, 144–5, 196–7, 203, 212, 306 wine see alcohol Wink, André, 217, 218 Winter, Tim, 11, 134, 271 wisdom see ḥikmah women abortion, 325 and agency, 41–2 and armed resistance, 212 aspirations, 137–8, 139, 145, 204 in Bangladesh, 197, 202, 203, 204–5 campus for at al-Azhar, 91 clothing, 23, 127, 137, 254, 274, 276, 281, 322, 324–5 and daʾwah, 253 Deobandi positions on, 253–4, 258–9, 261–2 divorce, 138, 203, 237–8, 321, 333 Diyanet positions on, 274, 276, 285–6, 320, 324–5

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driving, 127, 135, 138–9, 176, 254 education, 19, 37, 91, 133, 135–6, 137–8, 141, 142, 197, 202, 203, 258–9, 324–5 in Egypt, 72, 91 employment, 109, 203, 204, 262, 320 entertainment, 23, 137 female madrasahs, 202, 212 fertility treatment, 325 in India, 197, 202, 208 inheritance rights, 26, 204, 285–6, 320 integration into global culture, 19, 137–8, 139 and male guardians, 254, 258, 320 marriage, 138, 203, 261, 320–1 in the media, 203 in Pakistan, 197, 202, 203, 204, 212 parliamentary quotas, 204 and purdah, 253–4, 258–9 in Saudi Arabia, 19, 23, 127, 133, 135–40, 141, 142, 144–5 segregation of, 127, 137 and sexuality, 72 socializing, 23, 26, 138, 139 in South Asia, 197 Taliban restrictions on, 14 testimony, 320 in Turkey, 274, 276, 285–6, 322, 324–5 women’s rights groups, 204–5 Yaltkaya, Şerafeddin, 275 yaqīn (certainty), 186 Yavuz, Hakan, 306, 308 Yemen, 156, 178 Young Turks, 274, 304, 328 Yusuf, Humza, 3, 11, 35, 134, 271, 283 zakāt (alms), 152, 178 Zaman, Muhammad Qasim, 25, 27–8, 29, 92, 225, 235, 236, 237–8, 258, 261–2 Zangid sultans, 81 Zarcone, Thierry, 220, 296 al-Zarqa, Mustafa, 116–17 al-Zarqawi, Abu Musab, 181 Zayd ibn al-Khaṭṭāb, 152, 156 Zaytuna, 57 Zaytuna College, 212 Zazaki language, 279 Zeghal, Malika, 57–8, 60, 69, 92, 197 Zimmerman, John C., 250 ziwaj al-misyār (type of marriage contract), 176

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