Lighthouses, Wreckers and Sirens

Written by Karima Hamdan

As Muslims we navigate our intellectual world secured in our ship of faith in waters that are rough and treacherous, with sharp rocks lurking beneath brewing storms. Shuddering at the numerous wrecks of those who sailed too close to the reefs or in ships too flimsy to withstand the waves – we pray that this is not our end. Above all we keep our eyes planted firmly on our maps, our astrolabes, our moral compasses - sure in the knowledge that these will guide us.
21st century Muslims navigating the waters of the West face particular perils should they choose to disregard their previously tried and tested "navigational techniques". Seldom have Muslims lived as such a culturally heterogeneous group whilst battling the combined obstacles of poor education, deprivation and the mixed motivations which brought us here in the first place. While the Muslims of the past settled in foreign lands primarily to spread the deen, most Muslims in the West have emigrated to seek brighter economic prospects or escape persecution.

Despite these challenges, we still possess "lighthouses" to steer us away from hazards - standing tall and resilient against the prevailing weather - sending out their light to guide us through the reefs, rocks and wrecks so as to keep us safe. We see them as callers to the straight way. The lighthouses are our ulema - our scholars, inheritors of the Prophets - may Allah preserve and protect them all.

There are, however, other lights on the shore - in every coastal community there are tales of ships floundering in the shallows after becoming disoriented by "false lights" on the shore – the work of wreckers...

There have always been wreckers polluting the history of Islam. Even in the last century we have had such characters as Mirza Ghulam Ahmed, Elijah Mohammed and more recently Rashad Khalifa. They all appeared initially to be sincere callers but with time the deviation and danger of their views became apparent for all to see.

Whereas all these deviant characters were men who wished to declare themselves prophets of Allah, our time is characterised by a newer phenomenon - callers to the reformation of Islam. With this agenda firmly in the sights of the world's elite as a means to make Islam inert, our time has seen a proliferation of callers pulling the Ummah from their intended route towards these false lights on the shore.

Obvious examples of these include Amina Wudud with her media-stunt-khutbah to her mixed sex congregation who stood shoulder-to-shoulder behind her while the eyes of the media looked on approvingly. Mona Eltahawy, an Egyptian writer much beloved by the liberal chatterati as their sort of Muslim and given more media exposure due to the recent events in Egypt, enthused about the perfection of her prayer – despite the fact that she prayed in front of men, uncovered and menstruating. Interestingly none other than Emel Magazine could be heard hollering support from the media circus gallery - Ziauddin Sardar (Three Cheers for Women Imams, issue 11, page 19) mockingly wrote :

"The heavens have been shaken. Imams, mullahs, sheikhs and the ulama are hopping mad. A centuries old custom has been challenged: a woman has led a mixed gender congregation for Friday prayers in New York."

Amina Wadud – a one trick pony - repeated the stunt in Oxford under the auspices of our own British wrecker Taj Hargey: self-appointed head of the inappropriately named Muslim Educational Centre of Oxford – MECO.

As theological adviser to BMSD – whom we have mentioned in previous articles – neither Hargey nor his motley crew at BMSD make any bones about their antipathy to the normal mainstream Islam that has been practiced by Muslims the world over for centuries. Their qualifications are as dubious as their fatwas, which they hand out like Ectasy pills during a rave – with much the same consequences for those imbibing them.

Each wrecker however has their own distinctive modus operandi, certain themes emerge. Taj Hargey uses an impressive sounding fatwa-dispensing organisation as the platform for unashamed media self-promotion, a tactic virtually the same as that used by Anjum Choudary, the head qadi of the dubious (to say the least) London School of Sharia. Both men would be easily dismissed as raving lunatics in the wilderness if it wasn't for the facades constructed by their media handlers.

Moving along the ideological coastline, other false lights include the Quilliam Foundation and BMSD which at first glance appear to be entirely political organisations. However, closer inspection reveals another story that we have previously highlighted, with BMSD's disgraceful attempts to interfere with the relationship between teachers and Muslim parents through their disreputable guidance paper released to schools on how to "handle" Muslim parents. Quilliam is a bit more widespread in its reach - since its inception it has sought to reduce Islam to a collection of individualised interpretations and to be practiced only at home. In order to garner support for this secular approach and attract the seven figure government funding it has received, they have gone one step further and stigmatised anyone who wants to live by the word of Allah as an "Islamist".

It makes one wonder what type of person would wish to be associated with this group, which is probably why there was such shock and disbelief when Usama Hasan - son of Islamic Shariah Council member Shaikh Sohaib Hasan - joined Quilliam.

This incredulity continued when in a candid interview with Independent newspaper columnist Johann Hari he admitted to loving to listen to "anything in the top 20" pop charts and later went on to debate this point openly with a former student.

Not content with this he then saw fit to support and contribute to a new Muslim marriage contract and then went on in a Guardian article to stir up a whirlwind when he suggested that evolution was compatible with Islam. This complete transformation has stunned those who have known him and were drawn to his call over the last twenty years. Although some amongst this vanguard of followers have also been wrecked upon his shore of extreme secular Islamic modernism others have seen fit to turn back, with a ground swell building within the very mosque in which he is imam.

The "Save Masjid al Tawhid" campaign, buoyed by a fatwa from Sh Sadlan and comments by Sh (Dr) Abdullah al-Farsi, have prompted people to no longer pray behind him. In an open meeting in the masjid convened by his father in recent days, Usama Hasan repeated his position that Adam (AS) was born of "human-like" parents when pressed on this issue by the audience. His father, naturally concerned for his son's well-being, sought to justify his position by invoking the idea that an isolated, discordant view can still have a legitimate legal standing alongside the established (Jamhur) opinion of the majority.

While one might generally be willing to entertain such a line of reasoning from a traditional scholar grounded in the etiquettes of disagreement (adaab ul'ikhtilaaf), coming from a staunch Salafi, this presents a major problem: anyone who has had the pleasure of dealing with Salafi dawah is well acquainted with the refrain "Brother, what's your daleel (proof)?" The question is: what is Usama Hasan's daleel? Bland statements that "Contrary to the lies and slander spread by some fitnah-mongers, alhamdulillah (1) I believe in the teachings of the Qur'an about the creation of Adam a.s. (2) I believe in the teachings of the Qur'an about Hijab (Veiling). May Allah guide us all to Truth and Justice." (Usama Hasan public statement, Jan. 28, 2011) just won't cut it, either with the public or with his father's life-long methodology. We are left wondering: Does Sh. Sohaib Hasan agree with his son's proof for his position or not? Or does Usama treat his father with the same intellectual contempt that he has already shown towards the Muslims who came out to hear his daleel?

Despite his father's endorsements of his right to have his own position on evolution in Islam, we are left with just one more question mark to add to Usama's already dubious positions on the issues of music, the Muslim marriage contract, and the hijab/niqab.

This one-time budding beacon of British Muslims has joined the media's siren chorus - his lineage being his passport into the minds of those who once knew him. Despite his cloak of unity and his father's plea for mutual understanding, Usama Hasan's views have been and will continue to be corrosive. It is a tragedy that by attempting to hide behind his father's legacy of work for the community, he runs the risk of destroying it.

The coastal landscape is changing - lighthouses that once marked the way through this haze have been dimmed and their light obscured by an ever-thickening fog of new agedness. As if this was not bad enough, decoys have been lit along the coastline to entice people into the rocks and cliffs, or trap them and run them aground.

This maritime analogy does not do justice to the peril which Muslims currently face: gone are the days when all we had to worry about was our physical and financial security. Instead the battle field is one of hearts and minds. For many of us the Muslim coastline has become unfamiliar, but sooner or later we all must find a port, intellectual or not, in which to berth and anchor ourselves and our beliefs. Given the confusion now engulfing Muslims' psyche, is it not surprising that many people are turning their boats around and heading instead to apparently clearer waters and friendlier coastlines?

Narrated Abu Hurayrah: "The Prophet (peace be upon him) said: 'The Jews were split up into seventy-one or seventy-two sects; and the Christians were split up into seventy one or seventy-two sects; and my community will be split up into seventy-three sects.'" (Abu Dawud)

"And hold firmly to the rope of Allah all together and do not become divided. And remember the favor of Allah upon you - when you were enemies and He brought your hearts together and you became, by His favor, brothers. And you were on the edge of a pit of the Fire, and He saved you from it. Thus does Allah make clear to you His verses that you may be guided." (Quran 3:103)