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Sufi Fundamentalism between India and the Middle East*
In Martin Van Bruinessen and Julia Day Howell (eds.), Sufism and the 'Modern' in Islam (London and New York: I.B. Tauris, 2007), pp. 115-128.
In memory of Prof. Nehemia Levtzion.
Introduction Contemporary Muslim perceptions of Sufism, and following them much of the scholarly literature, are dominated by the radical Islamist viewpoint. According to this perspective Sufis are the most prominent example of deviation from the pure religion of the forefathers ( al-salaf ) and therefore are largely to be blamed for the so-called decline of Islam. Yet such a view ignores the major role that Sufism played in religious revival and reform efforts in latter-day Islam, as well as in the struggle against European colonialism. 1 It also overlooks the fact that despite their criticism of popular mystical practices, leaders of the early fundamentalist trends of the second half of the nineteenth century, prominent among them the Ahl-i Hadith in India and the Salafiyya in the Arab world, remained committed to Sufi revivalist ideas and did not reject Sufism as such.^2 When Salafi concepts were embodied in the following century in socio-religious movements such as the Muslim Brothers in Egypt and the Jama‘at-i Islami in the Indian subcontinent, these too, though transcending the Sufi tariqa s, still drew on their modes of organization.^3 Without doubt, in the course of the twentieth century Sufism, and “traditional” Islam in general, were subjected to an increasingly ferocious attack and their hold on both elites and the masses declined. In this attack the fundamentalist critique
combined with other “modern” forces, most importantly Western-inspired rationalist philosophy, with its typical contempt for mysticism, and the authoritarian State bent on suppressing civil society associations such as the brotherhoods. The prominence of radical Islamism in today’s media and the public discourse, however, does not mean that it has remained the sole alternative. On the contrary, rather than a dichotomous presentation of radical as against conservative Islam, it would be more accurate to chart a spectrum of currents encompassing a wide-ranging middle strand between these two poles. To this strand belong the contemporary heirs of the various reformist trends of the past: revivalist Sufi shaykhs who have managed to adapt the spiritual path to the modern environment; fundamentalist ideologues who continue to respect Sufism as the moral-spiritual aspect of Islam; and Islamist movements that preserve Sufi populist and hierarchical conceptions within their structures. Scholars have tended to treat the Islamist middle strand principally as a moderate discourse facing the radicals’ totalitarian and violent inclinations.^4 Our analysis shows that in terms of its religious composition a major element in this middle strand is what may be referred to as Sufi fundamentalism. In both the pre-modern revivalist phase and the modern era of fundamentalist and radical transformations, South Asia has served as a focal point in the dissemination of Sufi, Sufi-related, and anti-Sufi reformist ideas. Unlike other major Muslim concentrations, that of the subcontinent was always a relatively small minority living in the midst of vast Hindu populations. From the orthodox viewpoint this state of affairs was the cause of a perpetual threat, motivating constant reformist thinking. Particularly in contrast to their Ottoman counterparts, even in the heyday of Muslim rule in India in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the political culture of the Mughals was based on religious coexistence and the incorporation of local non-
century, when the Khalidi offshoot backed the Sultans’ efforts to set the Empire on the course of reform. 12 Later in the century the initiative moved to India’s first “fundamentalists,” the Ahl-i Hadith.^13 Claiming roots in the Naqshbandi revivalist tradition, too,^14 the leaders of this trend developed under Western influence a new rationalist concept of ijtihad , which was instrumental in the formation of the modern Salafiyya in Iraq and Syria.^15 In the mid-twentieth century it was the chief ideologue of the Indo-Pakistani Jama‘at-i Islami, Abu A‘la al-Mawdudi, who influenced radical vanguards in the Arab world. No longer committed to Sufism, Mawdudi’s paired concepts of hakimiyya (sovereignty) and ‘ubudiyya (worship) were the cornerstone of Sayyid Qutb’s Islamist manifesto, Ma‘alim fi al-tariq.^16 In this paper I trace another, little noticed but no less important, recent line of transmission of reformist religious concepts from India to the Middle East. This line belongs to the moderate Sufi fundamentalist strand and is closely connected with the Naqshbandi revivalist tradition. At its core lies the idea of doing away with the conventional Sufi terminology and modes of organization as a means to preserve its spiritual essence in the face of the “modern” in general, and the radical Islamist critique in particular. This concept, which may be described as “Sufism without tasawwuf ,” became part of the Islamic discourse in Syria in the early 1980s in the context of the Islamist uprising against Asad’s Ba‘th regime. It had originated several decades earlier in India within the Lucknow-based organization of Nadwat al- ‘Ulama’. The paper begins with an analysis of the background and specific use of this concept among three of its major proponents who formed the contours of the middle Islamist strand in Syria. These are, on the one hand, Ahmad Kuftaru, the government- backed Grand Mufti and Naqshbandi shaykh, and on the other hand, ‘Abd al-Fattah Abu Ghudda and Sa‘id Hawwa, the Naqshbandi-related leaders of the Muslim
Brothers opposition, the first being hadith scholar and the latter a religious activist and ideologue. I then examine the background of Abu al-Hasan ‘Ali Nadwi, the Indian leader who had formulated the concept in the 1950s, and the ways through which it reached his fellows in Syria. Through these examples I wish to illustrate that not only have Sufi and Sufi-related ideas continued to flow in the twentieth century from India to the Middle East along with the radical-fundamentalist ones, but also that movements embodying such ideas are bent on playing a moderating role in the contemporary Islamist scene.
“Sufism without tasawwuf ” The idea of doing away with Sufi terms, including even those of tasawwuf and tariqa , is explicitly mentioned in a book that appeared in Syria in 1985 under the title al-Tarbiya al-ruhiyya bayna al-sufiyin wa’l-salafiyin (Spiritual Education between Sufis and Salafis).^17 The work represents the teachings of Ahmad Kuftaru, the 90- year-old Grand Mufti (b. 1915) who is the foremost religious leader in the country.^18 Kuftaru is also the head of today’s most widespread Naqshbandi-Khalidi branch in Syria, generally referred to as the Kuftariyya.^19 Of Kurdish extraction, Kuftaru’s Sufi affiliation goes back through his father^20 to ‘Isa al-Kurdi (1831-1912), an important figure in the regeneration of the Khalidiyya in Damascus at the turn of the twentieth century. Faithful to the Ottoman Sultan, ‘Isa became alarmed at the growing Western influence on the urban elite and turned his attention to the lower strata of the city and to the countryside.^21 Kuftaru himself assumed public activity after Syrian independence in 1946 as a founding member of the professional association of Damascene men of religion, Rabitat al-‘Ulama’, which was dominated by ‘Isa’s foremost deputies and other like-minded Sufi ‘ulama’. 22 Concomitantly, he began a
bring about a reconciliation between the orthodox Sufis and the Salafis as against the radical Islamists, on the one hand, and deviating Sufis and conservative ‘ulama’ generally, on the other.^25
Reviving the Rabbaniyya Shaykh Ahmad Kuftaru’s elaboration of the middle-strand concept of “spiritual education” should be seen within the wider context of the conflict between the Ba‘th regime which he serves and the Islamist opposition. More specifically it was a reaction to a series of Sufi-oriented books published in the preceding years that expounded this same concept. The author of this series was Sa‘id Hawwa, the foremost ideologue of the Muslim Brothers in Asad’s Syria.^26 A son of a poor family from Hama, Hawwa (1935-1989) adhered to the Naqshbandi-Khalidi brotherhood, as well. He inherited this combination of Sufi affiliation and membership in the Muslim Brothers from his teacher, Muhammad al-Hamid (1910-1969). The latter, in his turn, was a disciple of Abu al-Nasr Khalaf (1875-1949), an extremely popular Khalidi master who, not unlike ‘Isa al-Kurdi, spread the path in the towns and villages of northern Syria during the French Mandate. Hamid helped in founding the Muslim Brothers’ branch in Hama after independence and subsequently became its spiritual guide.^27 Following his advice, Hawwa joined the Brothers in 1953 before enrolling in the Shari‘a College of the Syrian University in Damascus. He ascended to a position of leadership in the movement in the wake of the Ba‘th’s rise to power, when the old leaders were forced to flee the country. Subsequently he was charged with the task of reformulating the Brothers’ doctrine in the face of the new circumstances. Compelled to flee Syria too, Hawwa was allowed to return after the establishment of the Asad regime, but was imprisoned in 1973; on his release five years later he left the country
for good. He was thus prevented from exercising his moderating effect on the radicals, who led the Islamic movement of Syria to a bloody confrontation with the regime.^28 The first book in Sa‘id Hawwa’s Sufi series is entitled Tarbiyatuna al-ruhiyya (Our Spiritual Education) and it was published in 1979, when the Islamist uprising was gaining momentum. This was complemented by a short epistle called Ihya’ al- rabbaniyya (Reviving [the way of] the Godly Men) which appeared in 1984, after the uprising had been brutally suppressed by Asad’s security forces.^29 Hawwa’s stated aim in Tarbiyatuna al-ruhiyya was to familiarize the Islamist activists with the revivalist Sufi tradition and thus provide them with spiritual “depth.” In his introduction he points out that he originally wanted to title the book “The tasawwuf of the contemporary Islamic movement” or merely “The spiritual life of God’s army,” but for various reasons, undoubtedly connected with the prevalent revulsion at Sufism, he chose the existing title. Hawwa was convinced, however, that a clear view of Sufism was essential to protect the Islamist movement from being attracted by either the radicals, who threatened to drag it into a hopeless struggle with the Ba‘th, or by their rivals who, like Ahmad Kuftaru, were ready to collaborate with the un- Islamic regime. As against the two poles, Hawwa set out to expound, in a “book for the people” and not merely for the elite, the foundations of a middle strand Salafi Sufism. 30 Following his scheme to deemphasize the Sufi vocabulary, the spiritual education he proposes consists of a combination of ‘ilm , based on ijtihad , and tazkiyat al-nafs leading to ihsan.^31 Such education, Hawwa believed, would also guarantee the political goals of the Islamist movement in the modern age, the age in which apostasy ( ridda ) has returned^32 : the establishment of an Islamic government in each Muslim country and the restoration of the overall unity of the umma under the Caliphate.^33
teacher was ‘Isa al-Bayanuni (1873-1943), the local deputy of Abu al-Nasr Khalaf, whom he describes as “a lover of the Prophet and follower of the righteous, pious and pure way with abstinence, godliness and devotion,” but without mentioning his Sufi affiliation.^36 While completing his studies at al-Azhar in the second half of the 1940s, Abu Ghudda became attached to Muhammad Zahid al-Kawthari (1878-1952), the conservative ex-deputy of the last Ottoman Shaykh al-Islam, who belonged to the Khalidiyya, as well.^37 On the other hand, Abu Ghudda is credited with the foundation of the first Islamic youth association in Aleppo in 1935.^38 Coming under the influence of Hasan al-Banna while in Egypt, upon his return to his native city in 1951 Abu Ghudda, not unlike Muhammad al-Hamid in Hama, assumed teaching and preaching positions and came to be regarded as the figurehead of the Muslim Brothers’ local branch. In 1962 he was elected Member of Parliament on their ticket, as well as a founding member of the Saudi-sponsored Muslim World League on behalf of the Syrian ‘ulama’. 39 Imprisoned for eleven months following the rise of the Ba‘th, Abu Ghudda left for Saudi Arabia, where he dedicated himself to teaching, research, and political activity. In these capacities he also traveled extensively among the Muslim countries. In the escalating conflict with the Ba‘th, Abu Ghudda emerged as the leader of the moderate faction of the Muslim Brothers which by the mid-1980s was seeking to come to terms with the regime. 40 In 1995 the aging shaykh was allowed to return to Syria, where he spent the last year of his life.^41 Of ‘Abd al-Fattah Abu Ghudda’s 70-odd books the great majority are scholarly editions of works in hadith and to a lesser extent jurisprudence.^42 Only one is a classical Sufi work, namely Muhasibi’s Risalat al-mustarshidin (The Epistle for the Seekers of Spiritual Guidance). In this case again Abu Ghudda refrains from mentioning that the author was indeed a Sufi. He defines Muhasibi as one of the
forefathers ( salaf ) and characterizes him as an ascetic, a scholar and a religious propagator who left precious works concerning the purification of man’s deeds and the mending of his soul.^43 The books that Abu Ghudda composed himself are likewise mostly concerned with moral-spiritual education, a subject in which he specialized for two years after completing his studies at al-Azhar.^44 Most important among these compilations is Safahat min sabr al-‘ulama’ ‘ala shada’id al-‘ilm wa’l-tahsil (Anecdotes on the Steadfastness of the Religious Scholars in the Face of the Hardships of Science and Learning), which was modeled on Ibn Jawzi’s critical summary of Abu Nu‘aym al-Isfahani’s Sufi hagiographical work, Hilyat al-awliya’.^45 Aiming at the contemporary educated youth, who under the influence of Western culture belittle the Islamic heritage, Abu Ghudda assembled in the book a wealth of reports on the hardships endured by students and men of religion throughout the ages to obtain and record it. Explicitly avoiding dealing with the afflictions that the ‘ulama’ suffered at the hands of the rulers, his primary concern is with Sufi-tinged themes such as hunger and thirst, little sleep and much travel, poverty and chastity. Abu Ghudda believes that it is the example of such godly men, most of them, he claims, of a humble artisan and peasant background, that can bring about a moral regeneration among the Muslim youth and evoke in them a spirit of sacrifice for the cause of Islam.^46
The Indian Connection The respective schemes of “spiritual education” of Ahmad Kuftaru, ‘Abd al- Fattah Abu Ghudda, and Sa‘id Hawwa seem to be widely divergent. They differ in terms of their point of departure – the Sufi brotherhood, the scholarly endeavor, and Muslim Brothers’ activism – as well as their political direction – cooperation with the
was to produce modern ‘ulama’ capable of standing up to these challenges. More specifically, the Nadwa leaders proposed to reform the old educational system and to promote unity among the religious scholars of various opinions. Posing between the earlier-established modernist trend of Aligarh and the tradition-bound Deoband, the council’s activity resulted, as in their cases, in the establishment of a new madrasa , whose cornerstone was laid in Lucknow in 1898. Other important objectives were the creation of dar al-ifta’ and the propagation of Islam abroad. For a while the Nadwa came under the spell of Shibli Nu‘mani (1857-1914), a former teacher at Aligarh University with a mild modernist views. 49 Following his death, the more conservative elite of the surrounding small towns ( qasba s) gained the upper hand with the nomination of ‘Abd al-Hayy al-Hasani (1869-1923), a close associate of Mongiri, as director of the school. His descendants, the Nadwis, turned the position into an actual family patrimony. They also brought the course of study in Nadwat al-‘Ulama’ nearer to the traditional syllabus as it was shaped in the eighteenth century by another Lucknow-based family that assumed the name of the school it controlled, the Farangi Mahall.^50 The Nadwis are a notable ‘ulama’ family claiming descent from the Prophet ( sadat ), which settled in India after the establishment of the Delhi Sultanate in the thirteenth century.^51 Their principal Sufi affiliation goes back via Sayyid Ahmad Barelwi (Shahid), the famous nineteenth-century jihad leader,^52 to Adam Banuri, a prominent deputy of Ahmad Sirhindi and the first to spread the Mujaddidi teachings in the Hijaz.^53 In pursuance of this tradition ‘Abd al-Hayy became a disciple of Fadl al-Rahman Ganj Muradabadi (d. 1894), an influential Naqshbandi master with whom many of the founders of Nadwat al-‘Ulama’ were associated.^54 This Sufi connection was continued by his sons: ‘Abd al-‘Ali (b. 1893), who in 1931 was elected life-
chairman of the Nadwa, and Abu al-Hasan ‘Ali (b. 1914), who succeeded him in 1961 and kept office until his death in 1999. According to his own testimony, Abu al-Hasan became acquainted with Ahmad Sirhindi’s Maktubat (collection of letters) when seventeen at the instigation of his brother;^55 as Hartung shows, the Naqshbandi affiliation remained always close to his heart. His first master on the path was Ahmad ‘Ali Lahawri (d. 1962), local khalifa of Ghulam Muhammad Dinpuri (d. 1936) of the Northwest province in today’s Pakistan who was closely connected with the Deoband school. Subsequently Nadwi became the disciple of another Naqshbandi master of north India, ‘Abd al-Qadir Ra’ipuri (d. 1962). This shaykh had close ties with the Tablighi Jama‘at, a grassroots organization founded in the mid-1920 with the aim of propagating Islam among the Indian Muslim masses.^56 Nadwi remained a Naqshbandi-Mujaddidi master all his life, combining it with an enduring interest in the study of hadith.^57 The major part of his activity, though, was carried out through the Sufi-related organizations with which he was associated: Nadwat al-‘Ulama’ and the Tablighi Jama‘at.^58 Through them Nadwi and his ideas became known to his Syrian colleagues: Ahmad Kuftaru, ‘Abd al-Fattah Abu Ghudda, and Sa‘id Hawwa. As a graduate of Nadwat al-‘Ulama’, Abu al-Hasan ‘Ali al-Nadwi not only mastered the Arabic language but was also well acquainted with the history and current situation of the Arab world. Nadwi’s first visit to the Middle East was the hajj he performed in 1947, which was aimed at buttressing the propagation efforts of the Tablighi Jama‘at.^59 His second pilgrimage, undertaken three years later, was extended into a comprehensive one-year daw‘a journey in the region, during which he established contacts with many leading Arab Islamic figures.^60 In Egypt, one of his major targets, Nadwi was much impressed by the political and intellectual activities of the Muslim Brothers movement, which seemed to him a complement to the quietist
Apart from Ahmad Kuftaru, Abu al-Hasan ‘Ali al-Nadwi was naturally also eager to get to know the Syrian Muslim Brothers, as well as Salafi ‘ulama’ and reformist Sufi shaykhs who backed them. His first encounter with Mustafa al-Siba‘i, their leader, took place in the parliament, where the representatives of the Brothers were engaged in an ongoing struggle over Syria’s Islamic character.^68 Later on Nadwi toured the country, partly in the company of Siba‘i, visiting major Muslim Brothers centers and meeting, among others, ‘Abd al-Fattah Abu Ghudda in Aleppo and apparently Muhammad al-Hamid in Hama. 69 Nadwi returned to Syria in 1956, this time at the invitation of Siba‘i, who meanwhile had been nominated dean of the newly-founded Shari‘a Faculty of the Syrian University in Damascus. He exploited his half-year stay, during which he delivered a series of lectures on the great Islamic reformers of the past, to tighten his relations with the Syrian men of religion. When in 1960 the Muslim Brothers established their organ, Hadarat al-Islam , Nadwi was entreated to send contributions. These dealt mainly with the impact of Islam on India.^70 In 1973 Nadwi paid yet another visit to Syria, by now under the Ba‘th regime, as part of a delegation of the World Islamic League. Taking the opportunity to meet with Kuftaru again, he nevertheless noted that most of his friends, namely those attached to the Muslim Brothers, were no longer there. The visit was abruptly interrupted when the delegation was inexplicably expelled from the country.^71 Ahmad Kuftaru’s suggestion to do away with the Sufi terminology is taken from an article by Abu al-Hasan ‘Ali al-Nadwi that appeared in the ninth issue of Hadarat al-Islam under the title “Vacuum that must be filled.”^72 Nadwi opens his article with the postulate that concepts often misrepresent the things they denote and thus give birth to distorted entities which, in their turn, arouse skepticism and factionalism. Such is the case, he claims, with the term tasawwuf , which has no root in the Qur’an
and the Sunna or in the sayings of the first generations, and around which fierce battles have been fought throughout Islamic history. Were the Muslims to free themselves from this innovative concept and return to the sources, Nadwi maintains, they would fall back on the Qur’anic terms of tazkiyat al-nafs and ihsan , the two spiritual pillars upon which the righteous society and just government of the forefathers were founded. The science which explores the “inner” aspects of the shari‘a may accordingly be called fiqh al-batin. Sufism played its part in the degeneration of the umma in the later generations, Nadwi admits, as heretics, philosophers, and monks were allowed to act under its banner. As against them, there emerged in every generation people of God, rabbaniyyun , who renewed and propagated Islam through their call upon rulers and common people alike to adopt the path of tazkiya and ihsan. The specific Sufi way may have become obsolete today in view of the modern materialist condition, concludes Nadwi, yet the social and moral vacuum thus created can be filled neither by science nor by political independence, but only through the perpetuation of their spiritual work. ‘Abd al-Fattah Abu Ghudda’s debt to Abu al-Hasan ‘Ali al-Nadwi may have been less direct than Kuftaru’s, but it was nonetheless substantial. Abu Ghudda’s academic work was inaugurated in the wake of a three-month visit to India and Pakistan in 1962, during which he was received in Nadwat al-‘Ulama’ by Abu al- Hasan, the recently nominated director of the school. He also met the leaders of the Tablighi Jama‘at and numerous other respected men of religion.^73 The first scientific editions that Abu Ghudda then published were three works by ‘Abd al-Hayy al- Lakhnawi, followed by Muhasibi’s epistle.^74 ‘Abd al-Hayy was a conservative scholar of the Farangi Mahall tradition, of whom Abu Ghudda had first heard from his erstwhile teacher, Kawthari. It was Nadwi, however, who supplied him with a copy of
revolution, but a modern reformulation of the Islamic culture and a dedicated organization for its propagation ( da‘wa ).^80 Moreover, in many of the ideas that Sa‘id Hawwa developed after 1979, and especially that of ihya’ al-Rabbaniyya , he was inspired by Nadwi’s book Rabbaniyya la rahbaniyya , a second edition of which appeared in Beirut in 1978.^81 The first chapter of this book is a reprint of the article “Vacuum that must be filled,” while in the following chapters Nadwi clarifies that the term rabbaniyyun refers primarily to the great Sufi masters and Sufi-inclined scholars. Among these he counts classical figures such as ‘Abd al-Qadir al-Jilani and Jalal al-Din al-Rumi,^82 but also Ahmad ibn Taymiyya, who according to him was no less adamant in his approval of the exigency of the spiritual-moral path.^83 Nadwi also mentions more recent Sufi masters and Sufi- inclined leaders who undertook the jihad against the European onslaught, for example, ‘Abd al-Qadir al-Jaza’iri, the Sanusis, and Hasan al-Banna.^84 The most prominent place in his book is reserved, though, for those Naqshbandi-Mujaddidi shaykhs, the followers of imam-i rabbani Ahmad Sirhindi, who were instrumental in the formation of Nadwat al-‘Ulama’ and the Tablighi Jama‘at: Fadl al-Rahman Ganj Muradabadi, ‘Ali Mongiri, and ‘Abd al-Qadir Ra’ipuri.^85 In line with the goals of the latter, the principal task that Nadwi assigns to the rabbaniyya today, the age of passions and temptations, is to propagate the Qur’anic message among the people and urge them to purify their souls. Still, as the examples of the movements of Sayyid Ahmad Shahid in India and of Hasan al-Banna in the Middle East demonstrate, in times of crisis such as the modern one, spiritual training must not be confined to personal devotion but also include love of the shahada and jihad.^86
Conclusion
Ahmad Kuftaru, ‘Abd al-Fattah Abu Ghudda, and Sa‘id Hawwa represent different ways within the broader Islamist middle strand of coping with the political and religious challenges of modern Syria. Kuftaru has kept to the traditional Sufi framework while allying with the State; Abu Ghudda and Hawwa transcended this framework while joining the opposition movement of the Muslim Brothers, the one being primarily a religious scholar ( ‘alim ), the other an Islamist ideologue and activist. All three were influenced by the ideas of the Indian scholar and propagandist Abu al-Hasan ‘Ali al-Nadwi, who like them came from a Naqshbandi-Mujaddidi background and lived under a non-Islamic government. Each of the three further elaborated Nadwi’s ideas into a scheme of “spiritual education” in accordance with his own point of view and needs. For Kuftaru, the notion of doing away with the Sufi terminology serves as a means to lure the moderate Islamists to make peace with the government. Abu Ghudda implemented the same idea in order to focus on what he regarded as the most urgent task of preserving the Islamic heritage in a secularized age. Finally, Hawwa relied on the complementary concept of rabbaniyya to propose a grassroots organization that would allow the opposition to continue its work under a hostile and vigilant regime. Their different solutions notwithstanding, these three Syrian men of religion thus ultimately shared with their Indian colleague the ideal of combining a Sufi type of spirituality with a fundamentalist ideology as the basis for a moderate alternative to both backward Sufis and vociferous radical Islamists.
