CC BY
77
DOI 10.23947/2414-1143-2018-14-2-31-38 UDC 101
DOCTRINAL DIFFERENCES BETWEEN CLASSICAL SUNNI ISLAM AND THE IDEOLOGY OF ISLAMISM
© Ekaterina A. Dobrina
Southern federal university. Rostov-on-Don, Russian Federation science-almanac@mail. ru
Memories of Muslim military successes during Islams birth period strongly contrasted with the reality, where Muslim world turned to be in the colonial and post-colonial period. At that time, Muslim world was mediating about failure's reasons when Islamism, the religion-political ideology of Islamic fundamentalism, offered its decision. Former advances confirmed the truth of Islamic religious doctrine in the religious consciousness of some Muslims, but the truth could not be the reason of recent mishaps unlike people who have committed the changes and have distorted the divine revelation. Islamists consider that socio-political crisis is a consequence of departure from truth, distortion of religious doctrine, revealed by Allah. The Muslim world needs reformation by the returning back to the pure untouched religious tradition of early ages, following of which put the time of greatness back. The doctrinal contradictions between classical religious tradition of Sunni Islam and Islamism have been investigated in the article including the divergence in mashab, taklid, idjtihad, jihad and ummah interpretations.
Key words: classical Islam, Islamism, "pure" Islam, traditional Islam, mashab, taklid, idjtihad, jihad, ummah.
[Е.А. Добрина Доктринальные расхождения между классическим суннитским исламом и идеологией исламизма]
Воспоминания о военных успехах мусульманской общины в период зарождения ислама резко контрастировали с действительностью, в которой оказался мусульманский мир в колониальный и пост-колониальный период. Исламский мир размышлял о причинах неудач и религиозно-политическая идеология исламского фундаментализма - исламизм, предложила свой ответ. В религиозном сознании некоторых мусульман былые успехи подтверждали истинность исламской религиозной доктрины, которая не могла быть причиной современных неудач, в отличие от людей, допустивших изменения и исказивших божественное откровение. Исламизм видит причину социально-политического кризиса в отступлении от истины, в искажении ниспосланной Аллахом религиозной доктрины. Мусульманскому миру необходима реформа существующей религиозной традиции, обращение к истокам, к чистой, не искаженной примесью заимствований и нововведений, доктрине, следование которой вернет мусульманам былое величие. Рассматриваются доктринальные противоречия, существующее между классической религиозной доктриной суннитского ислама и религиозно-политической идеологией исламизма, которые включают в себя различную интерпретацию истории мусульманской цивилизации, расхождения по вопросам следования мазхабам, таклиду, иджтихаду, трактовок концептов джихада и уммы.
Ключевые слова: классическая религиозная доктрина суннитского ислама, идеология исламизма, «чистый» ислам, традиционный ислам, мазхабы, таклид, иджтихад, джихад.
Ekaterina A. Dobrina - post-graduate student. Southern federal university. Rostov-on-Don, Russian Federation; lecturer. Manika Educational Center. Hong Kong, SAR, CPR.
Добрина Екатерина Альбертовна - аспирант. Южный федеральный университет. г. Ростов-на-Дону, Россия; преподаватель. Образовательный центр Маника. Гонконг, САР, КНР.
Nowadays there are about 1.7 billion of Muslims in the world and in more than 50 countries. The largest of them are Indonesia (203 million), Pakistan (174 million), India (161 million) and Bangladesh (145 million). In spite of the different ethnic, linguistic, na-
tional and regional features, Muslim's world history, religious practices and Sunni's Islam faiths unite all Muslims in unique religious community [11, p. 2]. We can describe religious and cultural Sunni's world variety with a phrase "unity in diversity", which is enclosed in a frame sequence of a single religious doctrine, known in scientific literature as "classical" or "the orthodox doctrine of Sunni Islam". Muslims trust in one and the only God, who has revealed himself to all prophets from Adam to Jesus, in the final divine revelation, which was handed over prophet Muhammad and was formalized in Koran owing to angels, significance of the Jewish and Christian prophets, Holy books, Day of Judgment, the sacred supremacy of the universe.
Classic religious doctrine in Sunni Islam is a tradition, codified by tacit consensus of Muslim scholars in XI-XII centuries, a key result of which was the recognition of four canonical theological and legal schools - the madhhabs, the formation of taqlid, extinction of the ijtihad practice and as a result, "closing the gate of ijtihad". There are four theological-legal schools of Sharia law In Sunni Islam (ar. madhhabs), which are "the core of Islam and its essence" [4, p. 4]. Classical religious tradition obliges every Muslim, by birth or by choice, to belong to one of the madhhabs and to guide their lives by its provisions. Sometimes madhhabs discord between themselves on the questions of genesis, doctrine, legitimized recognition issues of the local customs, traditions and legal practices, as well as in matters of ritual practice and law, madhhabs implementation area, its influence on official authorities and belonging to the Islamic schools and branches [9, p. 160]1.
Requirements of knowledge, religious experience and the authority have restricted the circle of people who were able to dispense justice. The imams mujtahids, the founders of the madhhabs, had the right to make /j't/had-pronouncement of individual judgement concerning theological legal issues in cases, when the answer to them is absent in the Koran, Sunnah and in theologians works. We do not know the exact date in history, when the classical Islamic doctrine forbidden ijtihad, but we know that exactly this event marked the end of individual judgment practice and interpretation and canonized the existing tradition. Since that time until nowadays, Muslims have been following this tradition, reckoning it sufficient and avoiding the need of additional ijtihad.
The opinion of authoritative scholars, expert knowledge which is confirmed by the original certificate - igati (ar. "permission ") form taqlid (ar. "tradition") - following the opinion of the authority in theological and legal matters. Recourse to taqlid is the basis of the practice facilities all Muslims for this or that madhhab. Muslim theologians explain the existence of taqlid and madhhabs, saying "in matters in which a person does not understand, it needs to follow the one who knows" [1, p. 15]. "The purpose of ordinary people is taqlid, because they cannot comprehend the true nature of the provisions with the help of ijtihad, in contrast to a mujtahid who is able to withdraw solution" [4, p. 30]. Muqallid is a "simple man", a follower of madhab, has the right to choose the madhab that contained the important rule, "forbidding denying the words of anyone with authority" [4, p. 20]. Thus, muqallid, choosing maddhabs, whom he will follow, should not assume other school's position of thought misguided. «For this reason all the ulamas agree that hanifit has the right to conduct prayers for Shafi'i or Maliki and vice versa" [4, p. 30]. Possibility of doctrinal controversy within the Muslim community and its fragmentation are excluded by this rule.
The history of the early Muslim community demonstrates the distribution model and the defense of Islam through the hijrah and Jihad. Three components of this model are hi-
1
The most widespread Madhhab in the Muslim world is Hanafi, which is defined by "In addition to religious law, law temporal a local customary law which was prevailed before the adoption of Islam (ar. ADAT and URF) and laws issued by secular authorities are extensively used" (ar. kanun) [8, p. 137].
jrah - the migration of Prophet Muhammad to Medina from persecution in Mecca. Later Jihad started by Muhammad for the distribution and protection of the divine word and law, and the concept of Ummah - the global Islamic community, expressing pan-Islamic unity [13, p. 5], differently interpreted in the classical doctrine and the ideology of Islamism. An important part of this model is the concept of Jihad. In Arabic the verb Jihad is translated as "strive", "work", "endeavor", the noun is formed from Jihad- "struggle". The verb ijtihad is indicated by the zeal of the man, a mujtahid, in committing a particular action. In the classical tradition concept of Jihad implies that man is zealous in his actions and achieves this goal with the help of God. Jihad in Islam lasts till the end of days [10, p. 184] and consists of four consequential stages-zeal in the way of Allah. These stages are distributed with its degree of importance in the life of a Muslim as follows: "Jihad of the heart" is the most complex and the most accepted view of Jihad, which implies a struggle with their own imperfections and the believer's bad tendencies [3, p. 40]. To the utmost, faithful accomplishes this type of Jihad during the month of Ramadan. At this time, faithful gives up eating, drinking, bad thoughts and sexual relations. During daylight hours, a man demonstrates his perseverance in the faith; "Jihad of the tongue" - is "command to perform a decent approval and ban worthy of reproach"; "Jihad of the hand"-adoption of appropriate penalties against criminals and violators of morality; "Jihad of the sword"-the lowest kind of Jihad is fighting the infidels [4, p. 41 ].
This interpretation of Jihad is intended, firstly, to form the moral foundations of the believer and is the means of man's spiritual work on himself with the aim of approaching the moral ideal of the prophet Muhammad, becoming a better person and a better Muslim. To achieve this goal, a Muslim uses Sunnah-stories about acts of the Prophet as a moral guideline for their actions and the Koran as a source of moral principles and rules.
Thus, since the birth period of Islam 14 centuries history of Muslim represents a process of forming a variety of cultural traditions, religious practices and beliefs inside it. In the modern Muslim world the diversity of religions and cultural traditions are named by the word "traditional" Islam. Traditional Islam is bound to a specific territory, it embodied the religious and cultural traditions of the region, in which there is, promoting the survival and adaptation of Islam in various historical, geographical and socio-political conditions. Examples of traditional Islam can be attributed, for instance, as wearing by women variety of religious Muslim clothes, which differs by shape, colour and style, or celebrating religious holidays or the performance of religious Sufism's practices. Traditional Islam is in the framework of classical religious traditions, and is thus one of the aspects of the world of Islam. Representatives of traditional Islam - are all diverse Muslim ummah, those faithful, religious and cultural practices which may differ from each other, but which still exist within a single religious tradition. Incorporating local traditions and beliefs, traditional Islam is represented in the form of various "Islam practices": Various types of Islam, such as, "Arabian Islam," "Turkish Islam," the "Caucasian Islam", "Tatar Islam" are all united under one religious doctrine, which has different cultural representations.
Regarding to the ideology of Islamism, they use adjectives "clean" and "true" in its interpretation of Islam. Process of forming a single global Muslim community of believers occurs due to this. In the interpretation of Islamism, "pure" Islam is a refined form of divine revelation, which was existed during the time of Islam religion birth and had not been yet deprived by subsequent borrowings and innovations, which was enshrined in the classical doctrine. The ideology of Islamism has a long history and includes ideas of Salafism and Wahhabism and, in particular, relies on the writings of Ibn Hanbal (780-855), the founder of the most strict Hanbalies madhab in Sunni Islam, which "laid the foundations of Islamists features as total rejection of the others experience" [7, p. 51]. Furthermore, it relies on the writings of medieval theologian Ibn Timie (1263-1327), whose ideological interpreta-
tions became the theoretical basis of the contemporary jihadist organizations, primarily al-Qaeda and the Taliban [12, p. 109]. Another Arabian theologian Muhammad Ibn Abd al Wahhab (1703-1787), the founder of the religious movement, whose members call themselves "muvahhidun" - committed to the idea of monotheism, known throughout the world as the movement of Wahhabism. Ideology of Islamism in its theoretical form, originated in the writings of the Egyptians: Hasan al-Banna (1906-1949) and Sayyid Qutb (1906-1966), who were ideologues and founders of a religious-political organization "Muslim brotherhood" as well as the Pakistani Abul-Ala Mawdudi (1903-1979), who was a state political figure, the founder and ideologue of the political party "Jamaat-e-Islam". Each of the ideologues, depending on historical circumstances and the demands of society, engaged in the development of certain concepts in the ideology of Islamism.
In its "pure" form Islam existed during the period of the prophetic activity of Muhammad and after his death in 632 in the period of theocratic rule of the first four righteous caliphs from 632 to 661 by year. This period was accompanied by a large aggressive success and became Islamists evidence for the truth of religious teachings, because Allah helped Muslims to achieve success.
Religious-political ideology of Islamism is an interpretation of Islam and its history. Islamism is based on a literal understanding of the Koran - "law of life" [5, p. 12], which, along with the Sunnah, stands the only religious authorities for Muslims. The Islamists have expressed their belief in the slogans: "True Islam is only in the Koran, but not in the traditions and culture of Muslims" [16]. It requires the application of the Sharia to all humankind, following the formula "the Sharia is our path and Koran is our Constitution, Islam is our religion and state". It was at first time expressed by H. al-Banna and used in sermons by all the bright followers of Islamism from Khomeini to the leaders of Hamas [14, p. 52]. Islamism proclaims that:
- Provisions contained in the Koran and Sunnah are sufficient, and its literal interpretation deprives Muslims of the need to use additional methods of rational interpretation of the information [17, p. 78].
- Islamic principles should regulate all aspects of human life, both personal and public. "Islam is neither a mystical doctrine nor a philosophy. It is a program of personal and social behaviour". "It finds a harmonious balance between the world of faith and the world of action" [2, p. 6]. It contains the "commandments of Allah in matters of privacy and Dzhamaata, in which he lived, for health issues affecting everyone personally and Jamaat in General" [5, p. 12].
- Islam is the truth; all other religions are either false, or partially true.
- Western secular ideology promoting the culture of consumption and permissiveness, as the opposition Islamic religious principles [11, p. 1].
- Despite the fact that the modern ideology of Islamism does not represent a slender single concept, all the Islamist organizations have a common ultimate goal. This goal consists in the domination of Sharia in all spheres of life of the Islamic society and state, and as a maximum, the change of the world order, dividing the question of possibility of application of Jihad to achieve their goals.
The main charge, which is put forward by the Islamists representatives of traditional Islam is innovation indictment (ar. Bida), i.e. process of addition non-existent items to the ancestral religious tradition. The classical notion of Bida refers only to the innovations in the theological and legal sphere [6, p. 85], however, it is often mistakenly used for accusations of innovations in the sphere of culture, economics, politics and other spheres of human activity. Accusations the Islamists in the falsity of following the classical doctrine, read as follows: "Adherence to the four imams is kufr (ar. the sin of "unbelief"). Commitment to a particular madhhab - delusion and giving the Imam the status of the Lord besides Allah
is shirk (ar. sin "of polytheism, making partners with God")" [4, p. 12]. "Following the four madhhabs, the faithful departed from the path of salafu-s-Saliheen (ar. "the righteous ancestors"), and the abandonment of their way is an innovation" [1, p. 6], "Allah has ordered us to obey him and his Messenger, and you instead obeyed the imams" [1, p. 31]. According to their opinion, a person, including the mujtahid and founder of the madhhab, is incapable of error and "it is impossible to stick, according to one scholar, because it means to adhere to the opinion of those who are not protected from error" [1, p. 24]. The only the era of the righteous ancestors - salafu-s-Saliheen is a benchmark for Muslims. Madhabs disunited Religion and Muslims, and they preached factionism as Islamists say [4, p. 24]. Word "immadhab" (ar. 2—¿jAi^i) was introduced into academia in contrast with the word "al-la madhaby" ). It means Position of rejection and failure of taqlid mazhab se-
quence. "immadhab" is an attempt to return to the genuine Islam time of Prophet Muhammad, which was not depraved by innovations and borrowings. The negation of the need to follow a specific mazhab way is connected with denial of specific Islamist's feature "the closure of the ijtihad gates", because ijtihad practice was consented at the time of the Prophet, and its termination is an innovation and distortion of the pure tradition. The Islamists claim, "Ijtihad is the ability to cope with the ever-changing demands of the world" [2, p. 47] and endue Islamists ideologists with the right of personal judgment. Modern fundamentalist tradition, dreaming to solve problems, and getting back to the basics of the faith, regained the ability to make ijtihad and opened the gates of ijtihad in order to change the community and make it suitable to its time. The Islamists do not consider this fact as a contradiction, and claim that Islam is self-sufficient, and in each of the centuries God sends to Muslims remedies to update the religion and compliance challenges that reality confronts him. Religious doctrine remains a miraculous, but new, adequate to modern challenges resources can help Muslims to cope with the challenges of modernity.
Regarding to the interpretation of the Jihad concept in the Islamism's ideology, it has an interpretation, which is different from the classical doctrine, becoming the concept of "global" Jihad and one way of spreading Islamism's ideology. In the issue of Jihad, the Islamists reflect about the dichotomy of the word "we", which means true believers and "they" - kuffar. They claim that "Islam declares war on those who is the last group, no matter what nationality or race they belong to, because in Islam hostility or military action depends not on national or political considerations but from considerations of truth and justice" [2, p. 71]. Islamists argue that chapters as the "Jihad of the heart" to "Jihad of the sword" in the classical doctrine of Jihad are not successive stages, following one after another. Its creator defined aspects of Jihad but not its successive stages of <...> in reality these three aspects there are only aspects that run parallel to each other [15, p. 423]
The radical jihadist organization, inspired by the ideas of S. Qutb, believe Jihad considers that the only way to save Islam and, declaring it as duty (ar. Farida) of all Muslims in the fight against Jahiliyyah society, is based on the interpretation of the concept of Jihad and the concepts of Tawhid and Takfir. In this context, the question of sin is also raised, after which Muslim ceases to be a Muslim and for whom Jihad cannot be applied to. In this, as in many other matters unanimity does not exist in Islamists society. The Islamists appeal to history, referring to Ibn Taymiyya, who was the first who set a precedent and attributed it to the category of the "wrong" representatives of the Muslim community. Despite the fact that the Mongols, who began the victorious invasion of the middle East in 1256, had converted to Islam and declared themselves Muslims, refused to follow the Sharia remained true to the laws of Genghis Khan. On this basis, Ibn Taymiyyah issued a fatwa, which identified them apostates and declared Takfir that was excluded from the Muslim community. Thus, Muslims became the legitimate object of Jihad. The same logic is used in modern S. Qutb, the organization of Islamic Jihad, al-Qaeda and many others against
the governments of Middle Eastern countries, which does not follow Sharia as a law, which guides the Muslims [13, p 46]. According to the ideology of Islamism H. Al-Banny, no one Muslim instead, Shahada, cannot be called unfaithful, even if he has committed a grave sin [6, p. 95], and in this case, Jihad Muslim is not possible against a Muslim.
The interpretation of the ideologues of Islamism includes the most important changes that violate classical Islamic tradition. It based on the principle of benefits for the Muslim community, Jihad definition, which was used by S. Qutb. It determines jihad as Sixth pillar of faith and totally excluded from it the moral aspect, enclosed in the attitude of "the God-man and the human quest for moral perfection, leaving only the "man-man" definition in the context of the fighting between people over the rule of divine power. The return practice of ijtihad and the Declaration of Jihad by the sixth pillar of faith are the key aspects of the ideology of Islamism as "Jihad and ijtihad are two principle embodying dynamism of Islam can never be absent in its structure, they continue to work factors like living inside Islam" [2, p. 50].
Islamists believe that the modern generation of Muslims guide in its life distorted tradition and, therefore, in all differs from the first generation of the righteous Muslims. Sayyid Qutb called this process "pollution" [6, p. 12] of the original generation different from the first "excellent and unique" generations of Muslims who followed the "pure" tradition. Hence here is the state of oppression and weakness, which is a modern Muslim community. According to Islamists opinion, the deviation from "pure" Islam and innovations following the split of the once United Muslim community was made of Muslims polytheists and returned them to the state of ignorance and paganism (ar. jahiliya). The modern Muslim community is not able to provide the way out of socio-political crisis without reforming religious doctrine and its purification from the additions to the world of Islam. "If we compare daily activities of today's Muslims and <...> members of the old Islamic civilization, we will find it hard to believe, that they and others profess the same religion, or that they in fact shared just a few of the generations" [2, p. 88].
Thus, the ideology of Islam offers a religious response to the challenges of our time, considering the classical religious doctrine of Sunni Islam distorted borrowings and innovations. Differences include a denial of the possibility of following the views of authorities in matters of faith, madhhabs and the need to return the practice of ijtihad. The modern Muslim community, following, according to the Islamists, distorted religious doctrine is not able to return the Islamic world to the path of greatness. Return to the purer Islam times of Prophet Muhammad and the formation of a unified community of believers -that is the only way out of the crisis of modernity.
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April 21, 2018
