Short Description
At the core of Islam is the idea of Tawhid, which liberates the individual from his egotistical prison and propels him into a universal mold.
At the core of Islam is the idea of Tawhid, which liberates the individual from his egotistical prison and propels him into a universal mold. Tawhid implies a God-centered civilization, wherein culture, art, politics and sociology all spring from their focus on the omnipresence of God. The Muslims lost their bearing in history when they lost their focus on Tawhid. Legitimacy of rule then became an item of convenience, to be bestowed upon whoever held the big stick. The rulers, the soldiers, the merchants, the writers and the ulema all shared this guilt. The kadis and religious scholars in the Maghrib went along with the divestiture of religion from politics, preaching the Friday Khutba in the name of whoever was in power. Only after Al Muhaddith power had disintegrated did the orthodox vision of Islam find its place in the sun, but by then the center of gravity of world history had moved away from the Maghrib.
It is useful to compare the historical experience of the MalikiSchool, which is most widely practiced in the Maghrib, with the experience of the Hanafi School in Asia. The children of Islam constructed similar but different historical edifices using the spiritual and intellectual material left by Imam Abu Haneefa and Imam Malik. The comparative latitude provided by Imam Abu Haneefa in the school of Fiqh named after him provided the Muslims of Asia the tools to adapt and grow with the tides of history. The Turks adapted the Hanafi School and when Fatimid power challenged the Abbasids in the 10th century, the Turks became champions of the Abbasid Caliphate and its protectors.
The Seljuks and the Ghaznavids alike fought the Fatimids to the blade, in places as far away as Multan (Pakistan) and Baghdad (Iraq). More importantly, the Hanafis showed a remarkable ability to assimilate great ideas as they emerged out of the ideological conflicts of the 9th and 10th centuries. Thus, when the Asharites carried the day against the Mu’tazilites (10th century), Asharite influence melted into Hanafi Asia. The ideas of Al Ghazzali (d. 1111) were absorbed with equal ease. When the Mongol eruption came (1219-1301) and much of Asia lay in ruins, Sufi ideas triumphed, Islam became more spiritual and Sufi ideas also became a part of the Hanafi milieu.
Thus the Islam that emerged by the 16th century, when the Safavid and Moghul dynasties were founded and the Ottomans were at the zenith of their power, was an amalgam of the great ideas that had flowed from Madina, Kufa, Baghdad, Bukhara and Samarqand. Out of this amalgam came the giants of the ages, personages like Ghazzali, Hafiz, Rumi, Abdul Qader Jeelani, Moeenuddin Chisti, Bahauddin Naqshband, Ahmed Sirhindi, Shah Waliulla and Muhammed Iqbal. And it is this amalgamated folk Islam that is practiced by Turks, Pakistanis, Iranis, Indians, Bengalis and Central Asians today.
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