9781422281130

M USLIM H EROES AND H OLY P LACES

Musheer Mansoor

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Understanding Islam series ISBN: 978-1-4222-3670-3

Table of Contents

I NTRODUCTION ............................................................5 D R . Camille Pecastaing, Ph.D. 1. O N S ELECTING H EROES ............................................9 2. T HE P ROPHET M UHAMMAD ....................................15 3. A LI IBN A BI T ALIB ..................................................33 4. R ABIA AL -A DAWIYYA ..............................................49 5. S ALAH AL -D IN ........................................................57 6. M ALCOLM X ..........................................................71 7. Z AINAB AL -G HAZALI ..............................................85 8. M ECCA AND O THER H OLY P LACES ..........................97 C HRONOLOGY ..........................................................108 S ERIES G LOSSARY ....................................................112 F URTHER R EADING ....................................................113 I NTERNET R ESOURCES ..............................................114 I NDEX ......................................................................115 C ONTRIBUTORS ........................................................120

Islam: Core Beliefs and Practices Ideas & Daily Life in the MuslimWorld Today Islamism & Fundamentalism in the Modern World The Monotheistic Faiths: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam Muslim Heroes and Holy Places Muslims in America An Overview: Who are the Muslims? The Struggle for Identity: Islam and the West

Introduction by Camille Pecastaing, Ph.D.

I slam needs no introduction. Everyone around the world old enough is likely to have a formed opinion of Islam and Muslims. The cause of this wide recognition is, sadly, the recur- rent eruptions of violence that have marred the recent—and not so recent—history of the Muslim world. A violence that has also selectively followed Muslim immigrants to foreign lands, and placed Islam at the front and center of global issues. Notoriety is why Islam needs no simple introduction, but far more than that. Islam needs a correction, an exposition, a full dis- cussion of its origins, its principles, its history, and of course of what it means to the 1.5 to 2 billion contemporaries associated with it, whether by origins, tradition, practice or belief. The challenge is that Islam has a long history, spread over fourteen centuries. Its principles have been contested from the beginning, the religion has known schism after schism, and politi- co-theological issues instructed all sorts of violent conflict. The history of Islam is epic, leaving Islam today as a mosaic of diverse sects and practices: Sunnism, Shi’ism, Sufism, Salafism, Wahhabism, and of course, Jihadism. The familiarity of those terms often masks ignorance of the distinctions between them.

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M USLIM H EROES AND H OLY P LACES

Islam is many things to many people, and while violent radi- cals occupy the headlines, what a Muslim is in the 21st century is practically indefinable. Islam is present on every continent; the religion of billionaires and of the poorest people in the world, the religion of kings and revolutionaries, of illiterate pastoralists and nuclear scientists, of fundamentalist theologians and avant-garde artists. Arabic is the language of Islam, the language of the Qur’an, but most Muslims only speak other tongues. Many Muslims indulge in moderate consumption of alcohol without feeling that they have renounced their faith. Boiled down to its simplest expression, being Muslim in the 21st century is an appre- ciation for one’s origins and a reluctance to eating pork. It is not only non-Muslims who have a partial view of Islam. Muslims, too, have a point of view limited by their own experi- ence. This tunnel vision is often blamed for the radicalization that takes place at the margins of Islam. It is because they do not fully apprehend the diversity and complexity of their faith that some follow the extremist views of preachers of doom and violence. Among those, many are converts, or secularized Muslims who knew and cared little about religion until they embraced radical- ism. Conversely, the foundation of deradicalization programs is education: teaching former militants about the complexity of the Islamic tradition, in particular the respect for the law and toler- ance of diversity that Prophet Muhammad showed when he was the ruler of Medinah. Islam in the 21st century is a political religion. There are four Islamic republics, and other states that have made Islam their offi- cial religion, bringing Islamic law (Shari’a) in varying degrees into their legal systems. Wherever multiparty elections are held, from Morocco to Indonesia, there are parties representing political Islam. Some blame Islam’s political claims for the relative decline of the Muslim world. Once a center of wealth and power and knowledge, it now lags behind its European and East Asian neigh- bors, still struggling to transition from a rural, agrarian way of life to the urban, now post-industrial age. But for others, only Islam

I NTRODUCTION

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will deliver a successful and indigenous modernization. Islam is also an economic actor. Shari’a instructs the practices of what is known as Islamic finance, a sector of the international financial system that oversees two trillion dollars worth of assets. For decades now, Islamist organizations have palliated the defi- ciencies of regional states in the provision of social services, from education to healthcare, counseling, emergency relief, and assis- tance to find employment. It is the reach of Islamist grassroots net- works that has insured the recent electoral success of Islamic par- ties. Where the Arab Spring brought liberalization and democrati- zation, Islam was given more space in society, not less. It should be clear to all by now that modernity, and post- modernity, is not absolute convergence toward a single model— call it the Western, secular, democratic model. Islam is not a lega- cy from a backward past that refuses to die, it is also a claim to shape the future in a new way. Post-communist China is making a similar claim, and there may be others to come, although today none is as forcefully and sometimes as brutally articulated as Islam’s. That only would justify the urgency to learn about Islam, deconstruct simplistic stereotypes and educate oneself to the diver- sity of the world.

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On Selecting Heroes

T he dictionary defines hero as “a person admired for his or her achievements and noble qualities; one who displays courage.” That definition seems straightforward enough. But in going from the abstract to the concrete—that is, in saying a particular per- son does or does not qualify as a hero—a measure of subjectivity inevitably comes into play. Heroism is, to a great extent, in the eye of the beholder. While one observer might focus on an individual’s achievements, another might focus on the individual’s mistakes and setbacks. Where one observer sees evidence of a noble quality, anoth- er may discern faults or a baseness of character. It cannot even be said that courage means the same thing to everyone: one person’s courage is another’s foolhardiness or fanaticism. If obtaining agreement on who should or should not be consid- ered a hero is always somewhat elusive, selecting a small group of heroes representative of a major nation or culture or religion is an

Opposite: The purpose of this book is to introduce readers to various aspects of Islamic history and civilization through brief biographies of important figures. The book by no means constitutes a comprehensive list of Islamic heroes, but it can serve as a starting point for further research.

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especially daunting task. The difficulties of picking just a few heroes of Islam for inclusion in this book should be readily apparent. After all, Islamic civ- ilization has a history that extends back more than 1,400 years. And today over 50 coun- tries have Muslim-majority populations, to say nothing of the large number of countries with significant Muslim minorities, including Russia, India, China, and several European nations. Geographically, the Islamic

The American civil rights leader Malcolm X is a hero to many Muslims, who admire him for publicizing orthodox Islam in the United States and fighting for social justice.

world spans the globe from Morocco to Indonesia, and Islam claims nearly 2 billion adherents in all. Perhaps no other religion can claim such geographical and cultural diversity. It should also be noted that modern Muslims, like adherents of other faiths, vary in their level of religious commitment, and in the way they interpret some of their religion’s tenets and traditions. Thus an ideologically secular Muslim and a traditional, devout Muslim would probably list different figures from Islamic history as heroes. The same might be expected from a more liberal Muslim and a member of the fundamentalist Wahhabi sect. caliph— a successor of the prophet Muhammad as leader of the Islamic community. mausoleum— a large, usually stone building where the dead are entombed above ground. Shiite— a follower of Shiism, Islam’s second-largest sect worldwide. Sufi— a practitioner of Sufism, a Muslim mystical tradition. Words to Understand in This Chapter

O N S ELECTING H EROES

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In addition, other than the three places that all Muslims uni- versally acknowledge as holy—Mecca, Madina, and Jerusalem— there exist a large number of local shrines scattered throughout the Islamic world. Some of these shrines are particularly important to Shiite Muslims, while others are memorials to Sufi heroes, such as the mausoleum of Jalal al-Din al-Rumi in Turkey, Ibn al-‘Arabi in Syria, or Khawaja Moeenuddin al-Chishti in Pakistan. A Wide Range of Heroes This book is by no means intended to be comprehensive; a volume of this length could never begin to touch on the many significant figures in the long and rich history of Islam. Rather, the goal of this book is to introduce readers—through biographies of a handful of people whom most educated Muslims would respect or consider important in the history and development of Islam—to various currents in, and aspects of, Islamic history and civilization. The heroes selected for inclusion in this book span the history of Islam, from its seventh-century beginnings to the late 20th century. They represent various ethnic and cultural groups, reflecting the diversi- ty of the Muslim community of believers. And they played a range of roles, from messenger to military leader to mystic. The book begins with the prophet Muhammad, the central human figure of Islam. Other individuals featured include Ali, one of Muhammad’s relatives and closest companions and the fourth caliph ; Rabia al-Adawiyya, a female Sufi master of the eighth cen- tury; the 12th-century Kurdish political and military leader Salah al-Din (known in the West as Saladin); Malcolm X, perhaps the best-known American Muslim; and Zainab al-Ghazali, founder of the Muslim Women’s Association. The final chapter focuses on the holiest cities of Islam, including Mecca, Madina, and Jerusalem, and explains why these places are revered by Muslims. In addition to the figures profiled in this volume, there are many other individuals whom Muslims would identify as heroes. Asian Muslims might list such people as Shah Waliullah, the pre-

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eminent reformer and leader of the 18th-century Muslim intellec- tual revival; Tipu Sultan, one of the last Indian rulers to resist Britain’s colonialist advance; or Muhammad Iqbal, a poet and intellectual of the early 20th century. Turks might feel that impor- tant sultans of the Ottoman Empire, such as Murad I, Suleiman the Magnificent, or Mehmet al-Fatih, should be included because of the large role they play in the Muslim historical imagination. Individuals such as ‘Urabi, ‘Abd al-Qasim al-Jaza’iri, Sulayman al- Halabi, or Muhammad ‘Abdu might be among those who are remembered as heroes by Arab Muslims. Americans may consider people like boxer Muhammad Ali or basketball star Kareem Abdul Jabbar as heroes; both men have been activists for Muslim causes around the world during and after their sports careers. Or people like Keith Ellison, the first Muslim American elected to the U.S. Congress. Although several women are included in this book, many other women have played important roles in the history and develop- ment of Islam. One of these was the prophet Muhammad’s wife Ayesha. After Muhammad’s death she became a political leader in her own right, leading a rebellion against the fourth caliph because of a disagreement over state policy. After losing her attempt to lead the Muslim community, she retired to a life of teaching and became an important part of the developing Islamic legal tradition. Ayesha played a significant role in establishing the foundational opinions of Islamic law and narrated a large number of pivotal statements about the Prophet. Another significant figure in the growth and development of Islamic law was the jurist, theologian, and mystic Abu Hamid al- Ghazali (1058–1111). Al-Ghazali had a huge impact on the inter- pretation and development of Islam. His own life story is quite fascinating: after acquiring an important position at one of the most prominent universities of the time, al-Ghazali suddenly quit, impelled by his desire to discover spiritual truth. He spent the next 10 years anonymously wandering around the Muslim world, seek- ing knowledge and truth from different contemporary masters. He

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returned to his position and wrote the hugely influential book The Revival of the Religious Sciences as well as the famous The Incoherence of the Philosophers . Later in his life al-Ghazali turned to Sufism as a spiritual method and discipline. His influential teachings helped Sufism become accepted into Islamic theology. Other prominent Muslim philosopher-scholars include al-Kindi (ca. 800–873); al-Farabi (870?–950); Avicenna, known also as Ibn Sina (980–1037); Averroës, known also as Ibn Rushd (1126–1198); Ibn Taymiyya (1263–1328); and Ibn Khaldun (1332–1406?). In addition to Muhammad and Ali, there are many other fig- ures from the early years of Islam whose stories are important and whom many Muslims consider heroes. The lives of Muhammad’s companions, especially the first three caliphs, are fascinating. Many other leaders are also remembered fondly. For example, Umar ibn ‘Abd al-Aziz, caliph from 717 to 720, was so famed for his justice and compassion that some consider him the fifth “right- ly guided” caliph. The point is that throughout the history of Islam there have been many rulers, scientists, artists, and scholars who are widely remembered, respected, and honored for their spectacular achieve- ments. The stories selected for this book provide some basic infor- mation about important Muslim figures and are intended as a starting point for more in-depth research into the world of Islam. Text-Dependent Questions 1. Who are some contemporary Americans that Muslims may consider to be heroes? 2. What Medieval Muslim played a significant role in the growth and development of Islamic law? Research Project Choose one of the people who are mentioned in this chapter as Muslim heroes, yet are not profiled in chapters two through seven of this book. Using your school library or the Internet, find out more about this person’s life and accomplishments. Write a two-page report that presents these accomplishments to the class, and explains why Muslims might consider this person to be a hero.