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Hadeeth Scholarship and Islamic Revival in the Modern Era | Global Intifada
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There seems to be a lot of discussion on the blogosphere concerning the connection between Sufis and Salafis in a hadeeth circle in Madinah in the 18th century. (Imam Suhaib Webb, Sidi AbulHussein, and Mujahideen Ryder). The following is my contribution to the discussion.
Introduction
In a previous work, “On Intellectual Revival”, I argued that an intellectual revolution restoring the classical traditions and deconstructing Western paradigms was a necessary prerequisite for the unification of the Ummah. This thesis can be supported by the historical record which clearly illustrates that every great Islamic movement was first preceded by a scholarly movement. This thesis is so strong that it can even be extended to Shias whose own successes can be attributed to scholarly revivals. For example, the only Muslim force to defeat Israel, Hezbullah, has its fair share of connections to Shi’a ‘Ulema both in Lebanon and abroad. The defeat of Israel in Lebanon by Hezbullah was not an isolated historical event, but part of a larger causal chain that is intimately connected to the Islamic Revolution of Iran [Iran provides a lot of funding to Hezbullah and trained them through the Revolutionary Guard]. The Islamic Revolution of Iran itself was a direct by-product of the success of the Usuli ‘Ulema over the Akhbari ‘Ulema within the Ithna Jafarai tradition. Of course, the Usuli’ movement itself was spawned by the interaction between Shia scholars and Sunni scholars in Ottoman Maddrassehs. But for the Sunni construction of the science of hadeeth, taqleed, and ijtehad, the Usuli movement would never have happened and the world we live in would be a very different place. A careful scrutiny of all the major revivalist movements, whether Sunni or Shia, can all be traced to scholars.
History is already a testament to the role of Sufis in the intellectual, military, and political protection of the Ummah [Sufi Mujahideen] However, it seems that the modern era in particular has been marked by neo-Sufi revivalist movements that produced a variety of novel solutions to the collapse of the Islamic political order following the decline of the Ottoman, Safavid, and Mughal empires.
Perhaps the best summary of all the Islamic revivalist movements can be found in the works of Ira Lapidus. In my opinion, he does the best job of all contemporary historians in linking together the revivalist movements. Although he doesn’t go into much detail about each of the movements, he provides a macroscopic picture of the Ummah as a whole which assists in understanding how many of the revivalist movements were linked to one another through hadeeth scholarship. [See here and Islamic Revival and Modernity” by Ira Lapidus.
The study of the revivalist movements all begin with Shaykh Ibrahim ibn Hasan al-Kurrani, the scholar who seemed to be at the center of this whole hadeeth revivalist movement that spanned four continents and over 300 years.
John Voll: Hadeeth Scholarship in Madinah
After getting the “big picture” from Lapidus, you should move on to the man who started it all, John Voll. Voll was probably the first Western academic to investigate the role of Hadeeth scholarship in Islamic revival.
In “Hadith Scholars and Tareeqahs: An ‘Ulema Group in the Haramayn and their Impact”, he traces the general chains of hadeeth scholarship and links them with revivalist movements spanning from Western Africa, Northern Africa, Egypt, Ottoman Lands, Arabia, Central Asia, India, and as far off as Indonesia. This is basically a more detailed explanation than what Lapidus provides in the links posted above. Nikki Keddi elaborates on Voll’s argument by extending the scope of study from the revivalist movements to the modern day movements in “The Revolt of Islam 1700 - 1993″.
For a detailed study of Ibrahim al-Kurrani, see the work “Tasawwuf and Reform in Pre-Modern Islamic Culture: Ibrahim al-Kurrani” by Basheer Nafi who investigates the Naqshbandi origins of the hadeeth scholarship movement in Madinah that triggered all of these revivalist movements. Shaykh Ibrahim ibn Hassan al-Kurrani’s students would lead the revival of Islam all over the world. For a study of how some of his students would lead the resistance against the Dutch in Indonesia, see the work ‘Kurdish ‘Ulama and their Indonesian Disciples” by Martin van Bruinessen. In addition to being resistance fighters, his students would, in turn, become teachers themselves and educate some of the greatest intellectuals and leaders the Ummah has ever seen. Two of his students in particular, Abu’l Hasan Muhammad ibn ‘Abd al-Hadi al-Sindi and his own son Abu’l-Tahir Muhammad ibn Ibrahim al-Kurani, played crucial roles as teachers in this global movement.
In “Muhammad Haya al-Sindhi and Muhammab ibn Abdul Wahhab”, Voll goes into a lot more detail about the scholarly connections that spawned these revivalist movements. Shaykh Muhammad Haya al-Sindhi was an Ashari Nasqhbandi Sufi who was the scholar who introduced the works of Shaykh Ibn Taymiyyah to Shaykh Muhammad Ibn Abdul Wahhab. Regardless if one disagrees with the central tenets and methodology espoused by Salafis/Wahhabis/Muwahiddun, their contribution to the revival of Islam on a global level is undeniable. But of course, their links to Ashari Sufism is just as equally undeniable.
Of course, Voll is not without his critics. His entire thesis has been questioned by Ahmad Dallal in “Origins and Objectives of Islamic Revivalist Thought: 1750-1850″ who scrutinizes the ideas propounded by Shaykh Muhammad ibn AbdulWahhab, Shah Waliullah, Imam Sanusi, and Shaykh Uthman Dan Fodio to enunciate their different approaches in spite of possessing the same intellectual roots. Dallal points out that the very nature of the science of hadeeth scholarship is to create chains of transmission. However, merely being a link in such a chain did not necessarily result in a massive transmission of knowledge. Dallal argues that while it is true that many of these ‘Ulema held common chains of transmission, they did not engage in a detailed study from these scholars and had radically divergent paradigms of revival ranging from the scholarly tradition to politics to militant movements and differed on key core issues ranging from following a madhab, tasawwuf, bid’a, jihad, the role of Islam in politics, and even how to respond to European expansion and whether to respond at all. Thus, in his view, Hadeeth scholarship was just that and not the source of the revivalist movements which were merely localized responses that were so distinct that they cannot possibly be attributed to a single source.Hadeeth Scholarship in India
As is evident in the works of Voll, Lapidus, and others, the opening of the Arabian sea enabled commerce and trade to occur between Arabia and India that had been disrupted by the Portuguese and pirates. Thanks to the Ottoman navy, once the sea routes were open and safe again, a steady stream of hadeeth scholars migrated to and from India and Arabia. This connection was absolutely instrumental in the revival of the Ummah. Hadeeth scholars from Sindh, Gujarat, Hyderabad, and Punjab contributing to the global study of the science of hadeeth. This includes the two al-Sindhis, Shah Waliullah, and al-Zabidi. In order to properly understand the revival of the Ummah through the science of hadeeth, one MUST examine the history of scholarship in India.
A cursory overview of the role of scholarship in India can be seen in “The Role of the ‘Ulema in Indo-Muslim History” by Aziz Ahmad. The author traces the role that the ‘Ulema played in India. Shah Waliullah was a student of Shaykh Muhammad Haya al-Sindhi, the teacher of Shaykh Muhammad Ibn Abdul Wahhab, who brought back the neo-Sufi strain of Islamic thought back to India. Under his leadership, as well as many other ‘Ulema, the hadeeth revival in India triggered many revivalist movements, the most persevering and dominating one being the Deobandi school. Barbara Metcalf provides the most detailed analysis of the formation of Deoband in “Traditionalist Activism - Deobandis Tablighis and Talibs”. An excellent supplement to this work is “The Political Struggles of the Ulama of Deoband” by Myra Hamid which highlights the role of Deobandi ‘Ulema in the political struggles of their day from the participation of the founders of the school in the Great Mutiny of 1857, to the Nationalist resistance against the British, the Khilafat movement, and the Pakistan movement. Maulana Ilyas, a Deobandi scholar, created another great revivalist movement in India deeply connected to Deoband: Tableeghi Jamat which currently has something like 3 million members worldwide. For an article solely focusing on Tablghi Jamat, see “Islamic Revival: Tablighi Jamat” by Jan Ali. An excellent summary of the history of other revivalist movements in India such as the Barelwis, Ahl ul Hadeeth, and Nadwat ul ‘Ulema, see “Commentaries, Print, and Patronage: Maddrassehs in India” by Muhammad Qasim Zaman.