Shaykh Abdal Hakim Murad on: Welcome to Mercy: A Discussion with New Muslims

30th March 2008, Ebrahim Community College, London

This presentation is brought to you by The Radical Middle Way

[Opening du’ā’]

The organizers have chosen to link the principle of rahma with the principle of welcome. And of course at this time of the year, in particular, we are thinking in ‘marhaban terms’ – and in terms of ‘rahmata lil ‘ālamīn’. Islām sees itself as a great hospitable gate through which not just one sort of person, but every sort of person, can pass. One of his khasā’is, his unique qualities, sall Allahu ‘alayhi wa sallam, as indicated in a hadīth is that earlier Prophets were only sent to their own people, ‘I am sent to all of mankind’. And this in the most obvious sense means that it’s not just for a chosen people – it’s not about tribalism at its head, but rather to be for the sha’ūb, for the qabā’il, for the people and the tribes. And we see this in Medina where the Prophet (saw) is working hard to overcome the tribalism and the tribalisms of his people to establish something universal. Something represented in a new space in Arabia.

The Masjid Nabawiyy, not just the Prophetic Mosque, which is to have not just, as it were, one gate, but many gates, where women as well as men, will be worshipping. Where it doesn’t really matter which tribe you’re from because whoever is there at the front is there because he’s come to the mosque early. There are no pews for particular families. This was an extraordinarily radical thing for the Arabs of that time and place. Of course down the centuries Muslims have always had to fight against that particular kind of tribalism; Arabian tribalism, Pakistani tribalism, local tribalisms, British tribalism, every kind of jāhiliyah which persists. This is part of human nature. We like to divide ourselves up and attribute value on the basis of criteria that are not the egalitarian rigorous criteria of taqwa of which the Qur’ān speaks. But none the less the revolution is clear and that’s what is required now in the modern world, in the modern west which has its own ignorance and its own forms of tribalism. But those who have come to Islām are always attached to those who first came to Islām and will always seek them out as their teachers. That is to say, the balancing act of the muhtedi, the one who is guided, is always going to be in authentic connection to the ancient path, and Islām is very big on that.

But an authentic connection also to one’s inherited present; that we find a very subtle balance in the Prophetic revolution. The people’s tribal affiliation was not abolished; you still called yourself khazrajī or awsī or qureshī or tamīmī or whatever it might be. It’s just that in the new shari’a family that had no particular legal force. But none the less, ancestry, having a past, having a lineage, is not something that Islām abolishes. So there’s this subtle balance we have to maintain. Membership to two great traditions. Islam is not and cannot be an abolition of one’s ancestry because one’s ancestry is not susceptible of being abolished. But it is a way of establishing what there is to be proud of in one’s ancestry, and what has to be tactfully, or sometimes angrily, left behind. So when we come to Islām we find that the temptation is to reject everything from the ancestral or tribal past. And to re-invent ourselves as something alien, different, new, theoretically more pure. The first temptation of the muhtedī is to reinvent himself or herself as a Pakistani, an Arab or a Bangladeshi or a Bosnian, or

something else because it’s hard to figure out exactly what the continuity can be. After all, Islām is relatively new in this part of the world. It’s hard to plug oneself into an existing lineage of faith. However we see with the history of the Ummah that this is a big mistake, and something that Muslims have not historically done. Where he says, (saw), ‘I am sent to all mankind’ it is not because he is there to abolish all the shu’ūb and qabā’il – they are ayāt – signs of Allah (swt), as the Qur’ān says; just as man and woman is a sign, so also being of a particular tribe, of a particular affiliation, particular region, having a particular language, is also to have one of Allah’s signs. And the Muslim is precisely the one who does not oppose the signs of Allah in creation.

The role of the kāfir is that he conceals them; he veils them, he denies them. The Muslim is the one that celebrates them and lives with them. So these languages and these colours – this ikhtilāf – of which the Qur’an speaks, are signs of Allah (swt) and the universalism of Islām has to be to strengthen and to purify those manifestations and those signs, rather than to abolish them so that the only sign left is the Pakistani-Urdu sign, or the Arab-Arabian sign, or whatever it might be. Historically we see that the Ummah has been rather good at this. Go into mosques in different parts of the world and you will find that the mosque architecture, if it’s a traditional building, is linked to the particular local genius of the people which it serves.A traditional mosque in Nigeria doesn’t look at all like a traditional mosque in Bosnia, or a mosque in Java doesn’t look like a mosque in China or in Senegal. Similarly, the styles of dress, while shari’a conformable, vary considerably. (6mins something)