A Lost Piece of Islamic History || ILLUME
A rare color photo of the Ka’aba, Islams most sacred site in the early 1900s.
This era was a time of extreme madhab (school of legal thought) arrogance and difference, and thus there were actually four salahs that would take place at the same time. One for each madhab. You can see the small mihrabs for each of the madhabs in this picture.
Great British Islam
A story of how Islam started out in the 19th century with the conversion of 3 great men – William Abdullah Quilliam, Lord Headley and Marmaduke Pickthall.
Zheng He, a Muslim eunuch, died in 1433 aged 62 and is buried in the Chinese city of Nanjing
Zheng He: Symbol of China’s ‘peaceful rise’
Setting sail more than 600 years ago, Zheng’s armada made seven epic voyages, reaching south-east Asia, the Middle East, and Africa.
Some say he even made it to America - several decades before the celebrated European explorer Christopher Columbus - although this has been widely disputed by historians.
Zheng, known as the Three-Jewel Eunuch Admiral, carried gifts from the Chinese emperor aboard his “treasure ship”, which groaned with valuable cargo including gold, porcelain and silks.
These were exchanged along the established Arab trade routes for ivory, myrrh and even China’s first giraffe, promoting recognition of the new Ming dynasty.
But within years of his death, Zheng appeared to fade from public consciousness, and for centuries his legend was overlooked as China turned its back on the world and entered a long period of isolation.
Now Zheng is enjoying a resurgence - and there appears to be more than historical curiosity behind his revival.
Currently reading about an Indian hadith critic, Sayyid Ahmad Khan, who was influenced by European thought (though he only conceded to points Western opponents made that could be reconciled with his view of Islam). One of the debates he watched became known as the Mohammedan Controversy…
While in India, [Karl Gottlieb Pfander] engaged Muslim religious leaders in public debates and disputations at Agra on 10 and 11 April 1854. Several hundred Muslims and Europeans gathered in the school room of Agra’s Church Missionary Society to listen to a series of public debates between Pfander, a German CMS Protestant missionary, and Al-Kairanawi(other names: Rahmatullah Kairanawi or Sheik Rahmat Kairanawi or Rahamatullah ibn Halil al-Utmani al-Kairanawi or Al-Hindi), a Shi’itetheologian. The debate had following participants — Pfander supporters:British East Indian Company servants, who represented India’s colonial power and its protection of European missionaries; Pfander’s co-workers and his converts; and representatives of Anglican Church, neither wholeheartedly supported nor opposed the debate, but were determined to defend the integrity of Bible against the challenges from Mulsim theologians — Rahmatullah supporters: local Shites and Sunni audiences; local Catholic missionaries, who disliked the work of Protestants; and Muhammad Wazîr Khân, a physician in British-run medical hospital.[2][3]
Although, the debate had been slated to address the topics of Quran as the word of God, trinity(tathlit), and the sending of the Prophet Mohammed, it seems, the debate had actually centered around a single point—the deviation of Christian scriptures(tahrif). Christian missionaries tried to defend the integrity of New Testament and Old Testament, while Al-Kairanawi insisted that the Christian scriptures had been abrogated and tried to corroborate with examples taken from Bible. After two days of debate, both sides claimed victory; however, it marked a turning point in Muslim apologetics, as it was for the first time that Muslim theologians used European critical methods to disprove Christian belief. In fact, it had influenced not only the modern form of apologetics but also Muslim view of Christianity.[2][3]
The interest the debate aroused led a number of Muslims to read Pfander’s literature and consider the questions that had been discussed. Some, such as the leading Sufi scholars and theologians Imad ud-din Lahiz and Safdar Ali, professed conversion to Christianity.
William Muir, Secretary to the Government of the North West Provinces, described these debates between Pfander and Al-Kairanawi in an article published by the “Calcutta Review,” along with recent history of Christian mission to Muslims. Having observed the debate by himself, he later published these articles as The Mohammedan Controversy in 1897.
Outsiders often see Afghanistan as a problem in need of a solution: a conflict region that needs more troops or another election. But in seeing Afghanistan as a problem, the people of the country, and their desire for self-determination, are often overlooked.
From the Soviet invasion and the mujahideen resistance to the Taliban and the American occupation, A Darkness Visible: Afghanistan examines thirty years of Afghan history. It is the story of ordinary citizens whose lives play out in the shadow of superpowers. There are tales of violence to be sure, but there is also love and even romance.
Based on 14 trips to Afghanistan between 1994 and 2010, A Darkness Visible: Afghanistan is the work of renowned photojournalist Seamus Murphy. His work chronicles a people caught time and again in political turmoil, struggling to find their way.
Liberty Media Corporation honored A Darkness Visible: Afghanistan by VII Photographer Seamus Murphy and MediaStorm last week as the winner of its 2012 Media for Liberty Award.
Every night when the 16th-century Ottoman ruler Sultan Murad III went to bed, he looked forward not just to rest, but also to the guidance he would find in his dreams. In the morning, Murad, the grandson of Suleiman the Magnificent, reported his dreams to his Sufi – a mystical Islamic master who interpreted and transcribed the signs and symbols to help the sultan make decisions about his empire and his personal progress.
One night while dreaming of a boy with “a bejeweled crown on his head,” the sultan reported hearing a voice in his dream that said, “It is not a boy, it is the religion of Muhammad and the religion of Islam; it is the religion of Muhammad.”
Hundreds of dream narrations like this were eventually compiled into a bound manuscript that established the ruler not only as a religious leader but also as an important authority figure.
To this day, Islamic mysticism places a great emphasis on the significance of dreams as windows into the dreamer’s soul. The mystics also believed that dreams, and even visions that happen when one is awake, correspond to real-world scenarios. While many modern historians write off dreams as fiction, Muslim populations understood the interpretation of these dreams as ways in which to achieve “orientation in a world that would otherwise be experienced in chaos,” according to Stanford scholar Özgen Felek.
The research of Felek, a Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in Religious Studies at Stanford, has shed new light on Ottoman dream culture and Sufism. Her international investigation of archival documents has yielded new perspectives on the spiritual progress of important figures in Ottoman history.
“For Ottoman chroniclers and their audiences, dreams were as real as historical events. But, for some Sufis, dreams were particularly significant for each disciple’s individual progress,” said Felek.
For example, in the Khalwatiyya order of the Sufi tradition, if one’s dreams featured elephants and camels or the color blue, the individual’s soul was in the first stage or “Nafs-i Ammara” (the Soul/Self that Dictates Evil), which indicated that the soul was still dominated by earthy desires and passions.
Felek, co-editor (with Alexander D. Knysh) of the recently published book, *Dreams and Visions in Islamic Societies* (SUNY Press), is studying how Sultan Murad III’s portrayal of himself in dreams established him as a universal Islamic ruler and an accomplished Sufi.
Felek, inspired by the rich descriptions of the dreams, is also painting a series of miniatures that illustrate some of their themes.
Fourteen centuries of profound Islamic art will be celebrated in a new documentary film that takes a global look at Islamic art and architecture in a way that redraws a complete image of a dazzling civilization.
The film reflects “the whole breadth and depth of Islamic civilization,” filmmaker Alex Kronemer, who has a master’s degree in theological studies from Harvard University, told Toledo Blade on Saturday, March 24.
The new documentary, Islamic Art: Mirror of the Invisible World, will have its premiere on Sunday at the Toledo Museum of Art.
Taking a new scope of the Islamic culture, the 90-minute film goes through 1400-year history of Islamic art.
It also spans different categories of art from calligraphy and painting to architecture of the world’s great mosques.
Kronemer noted that the film would show the result of centuries of collaboration between different cultures which resulted in the creation of a great art and civilization.
This sounds like it’ll be better than the way museums generally handle ‘Islamic Art.’ I want to see this!
Exactly 900 years ago today, on Dec. 19, 1111, the world bid a sad farewell to one of its most influential contemporaries: Imam Abu Hamid al-Ghazali. That same world still has a reason to be nostalgic.
Al-Ghazali was a Persian theologian, philosopher, jurist and mystic, acclaimed in both East and West as the most influential Muslim after the Prophet Muhammad. His works shaped how generations of Muslims would understand their religion and even influenced European theologians such as St. Thomas Aquinas. His great feats include bringing orthodoxy and mysticism into closer contact and leading Islamic theology into an epic battle against Arabic Neo-Platonism.
But perhaps he is most relevant to us today in terms of his personality. Great religious figures transform society by who they are, as much as what they say. His life was one of fame, doubt, confusion, introspection and searching. His journey was riddled with the eternal questions of life and meaning which still face us today.
As a young lad he excelled in all the disciplines of his education and so took the route of academia. By the age of 38 he was at the pinnacle of his career as a university professor in Baghdad, with hundreds of students sitting at his feet and a reputation as a religious scholar that carried far beyond the city.
It was at this point in his life, when he apparently had all the answers, that he realised all he had was questions. He underwent a traumatic spiritual crisis riddled with doubt and confusion. Did he really believe in existing doctrine? Was he sincere in his profession or massaging his ego? Was he ready for the mortal journey of death?
Al-Ghazali later relayed this existential crisis in “Deliverance from Error,” a sort of autobiographical account. His inner turmoil culminated in his dramatic exit from the classroom where, in front of his students, the falsity of his state dawned on him, rendering him speechless. He walked out of the class to start a journey of self-discovery and didn’t return for 10 years. He left as an academic who had just had a breakdown and returned as a holy man who had tasted the fruits of faith.
He sold most of his possessions, leaving enough to sustain his family and set out for the wilderness. Thus began his spiritual odyssey. Al-Ghazali and Odysseus have more in common than one might think. Both their epic journeys were in order to return home. Whilst Odysseus sought the island of Ithaca, al-Ghazali looked towards his spiritual origin. They both took 10 years to find their way home but never lost sight of the final goal. As we admire Odysseus for his shrewd schemes to outwit the Cyclops and survive hearing the songs of the sirens, we too must admire Al-Ghazali’s strategies to master the ego and insatiable search for knowledge which spurred on his journey.
He knew a truly informed decision on how to live his life would first entail understanding the alternatives. He studied the ways of theologians, philosophers and authoritarians before deciding to walk down the mystic path as one which not only knew about faith, but experienced it. His search for meaning was not just ethereal and his great corpus of 40 volumes, “The Revival of the Religious Sciences,” explores how to practically tame the ego and foster a good character.
In the noisy rat-race of the 21st century, it’s sometimes hard to take a step back. The world we live in seems to function as a great big machine for competition and ego. A sort of envy culture permeates, leaving us always asking for more but not necessarily making us happier. In a time of economic instability and talks of measuring the Happiness Index of nations, it might be a thought to look at the vision of a man who has been known to be the Alchemist of Happiness.
Al-Ghazali speaks to us because he was just as human and confused as us all — but he never stopped searching. Faith could not be defined by academia, but was a complicated journey of realisation. He wasn’t afraid to admit that despite his reputation, he didn’t know. Such humility was, and still is, a rarity in a world of both religious and secular arrogance.
On Wednesday, Karen Armstrong spoke at London School of Oriental and African Studies and claimed that despite our technological advances, “our understanding of religion is very simplistic — even primitive.” We are bombarded with political discourse which confines God and religion to a box labelled with sound-bites, as though it is quick and easy to understand.
As Aquinas mentions at the end of his great exposition on the five proofs for the existence of God, we have no idea what has actually been proved because we can’t comprehend what we mean when we say God. Armstrong draws an analogy with the end of a great musical symphony. There is a profound beat of pregnant silence before the applause erupts. Perhaps contentment is this serene yet weighty moment of realisation that we have transcended our own understanding and submitted to what has been found.
Al-Ghazali tried to live in this beat of silence.
There are an estimated five million Muslims in France today, which is the largest such population in Western Europe.
A century ago, they were called “colonials”; in the 1960s, they were known as “immigrants”; today, they are “citizens”.
With issues of immigration and integration raising the political temperature in Europe, this three-part series looks back at the history of Muslim immigration into France. It is a history that remains alive today, with the ongoing debate over how to reconcile France’s long-standing tradition of secularism with religious diversity.
What challenges have Muslim immigrants in France faced and overcome in order to retain their cultural identity in a foreign country?
It is not widely known that the European quest to appropriate the highly prized library of Sanskrit’s ancient spiritual texts motivated the construction of the “Aryan” race identity, one of the ideological roots of Nazism. The Sanskrit word “arya” is an adjective that means noble or pure. For example, the famous Buddhist Four Noble Truths are described as the Four Arya Truths or catvÄ ri Ä ryasatyÄ ni in Sanskrit. Arya does not refer to a race, but a cultural quality venerated in Sanskrit texts.
German nationalism turned this word into a noun, “Aryan,” and capitalized it to refer to an imagined race of people that were the original Sanskrit speakers who had composed its great texts. Early romantic claims that Indians were the ancestors of the Europeans were gradually replaced by the new myth that a race called “Indo-Aryans” was the common ancestors to both. Their origin was thought to be in the Caucasus Mountains, hence the term “Caucasian.” Later, the “Indo” was dropped and the white Aryan Race Theory emerged. Thus, from the European desire to be seen as the inheritors of the Sanskrit civilization, the notion of a European super-race was born, with Germany as its highest manifestation.
Imagine a mosque that left gender segregation at its door, allowed women in leadership positions, and adapted to the culture of its host community. Then consider that Canada’s first mosque, the Al-Rashid mosque in Edmonton, Alberta, did all these things and more over seven decades ago.
