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Abstract
Using the writings of the religious scholar `Abdullahi al-Qutbi, this article examines the ‘transregional’ nature of Muslim reformist discourse in the early twentieth century and the way in which the trajectories of individuals, objects and ideas cut across the largely imaginary boundaries traditionally used to divide the Middle East and Africa. African Muslims have maintained intimate ties with their non-African brethren across space through various intellectual, economic and political relationships throughout the history of Islam. However, they have also remained entwined across time via engagement with the more or less commonly accepted canon of the faith and what Talal Asad has termed the ‘discursive tradition.’ This essay demonstrates the persistence of these processes through the age of European colonialism into the early twentieth century. But equally important is the way in which the increasingly elaborate and rapid networks of empire created in the nineteenth century facilitated and intensified the interaction of both people and ideas helping create the modern horizontally integrated community of believers.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1. Yusuf b. Isma'il Nabhani's endorsement of Abdullahi al-Qutbi's, Majmu'a al-mubaraka, 194.
2. Talal Asad, The Idea of an anthropology of Islam.
3. See for instance Green, Bombay Islam and Reese, Renewers of the Age.
4. Gelvin and Green (eds.), Global Muslims.
5. Tagliacozzo, “Hajj in the Time of Cholera,” and Low, “Empire and the Hajj.”
6. For a complete discussion of the implications of Muhammad al-Barwani's journey see Reese, “Adventures of Abi Harith.”
7. Muhammad al-Barwani, Rihlat Abu al-Harith (Zanzibar, 1915); Colonial Office, 535/60 Somaliland Dispatches June-September, 1920.
8. CO 535/3 Correspondence 1905, Somaliland.
9. See also, Reese, Renewers of the Age.
10. Cole, “Printing and Urban Islam in the Mediterranean World,” 344–64.
11. See, for example, Cole, ibid. Green, Bombay Islam and; Francis Robinson, “Technology and Religious Change.”
12. Reese, Renewers of the Age, especially Chapter 5 and Matthews, “Imagining Arab Communities.”
13. In addition to being commented upon in international centers of learning such as Cairo and Beirut, Al-Qutbi's work was read and positively remarked upon by more regional figures most notably Muhammad Ali Luqman and al-Qadi Da'ud al-Battah two important reformist figures in British Aden who reviewed the collection for colonial censors both of whom commented on its positive moral message.
14. Martin, Muslim Brotherhoods in Nineteenth-century Africa.
15. Reese, Renewers of the Age, 196ff.
16. For a discussion of al-Qutbi's family and intellectual genealogies see Ahl al-thamar fi nisb al-shaykh al-akbar wa al-jawhar al-azghar ‘Umar bin ‘Umar al-ma'rif bi aw Qutb, the first pamphlet in al-Qutbi, al-Majmu'a al-mubaraka, 7–26.
17. Ibid.
18. Curiously, we know of al-Qutbi's Cairo years only via the British colonial record where his al-Azhar sojourn is noted in a series of police reports compiled during a period of residence in Aden. The Collection contains the endorsement of one al-Azhar shaykh but there is no mention of al-Qutbi's connection to the institution or even ever having traveled to Egypt. See India Office Library, IO/R/20/A/3031.
19. See Said Samatar, Oral Poetry and Somali Nationalism.
20. Al-Qutbi, al-Majmu'a al-mubaraka, Pt. I 61–62.
21. IOR R/20/A/3031.
22. Ibid.
23. See Reese, Renewers of the Age.
24. al-Qutbi, al-Majmu'a al-mubaraka, Pt. I 99–140; For a fuller discussion see Renewers of the Age, Ch. 6 and Reese “Tales of the Benaadir.”
25. Reese, Renewers of the Age, 193ff.
26. The first two are permissible as they serve only to elevate one's mood or senses, the second is forbidden because it clouds the senses. Al-Qutbi, Al-Majmu'a al-mubaraka, Pt. I 135–137.
27. A topic dealt with in a section of “Victory of the Believers” entitled, “The Law, The Path and the Truth.” See Reese, Renewers of the Age, 193–209.
28. Although as Knut Vikor has pointed out, this characterization of al-Sanusi completely rejecting taqlid may be somewhat overstated. Knut Vikor, “The Development of ijtihad.” See also, Peters, “Ijtihad and Taqlid,” 131–45, who also considered al-Sanusi an opponent of taqlid in any form.
29. Haj in her Reconfiguring Islamic Tradition, 77–86, describes Abduh as waging a veritable “war” on Taqlid.
30. Fadel, “The Social Logic of Taqlid and the Rise of the Mukhtasar,” 193–233; Jackson, “Taqlid, Legal Scaffolding and the Scope of Legal Injunctions,” 165–85. Indeed, Vikor contends that this is largely how it was approached by al-Sanusi.
31. Hallaq, Shari'a: Theory, Practice, Transformations, 111–3.
32. Frank, “Knowledge and Taqlid,” 37.
33. The term al-mujtahid al-mutlaq the absolute or unrestricted mujtahid is often thought to refer exclusively to the founders of the various Sunni schools of law, especially the four surviving ones (Maliki, Hanafi, Shafi'i and Hanbali). However, as Wael Hallaq in Authority, Continuity and Change in Islamic Law, points out there exists a certain amount of ambiguity regarding this characterization. Hallaq, Authority, 8–9.
34. Al-Qutbi, al-Majmu'a al-mubaraka, Pt. I 130.
35. Ibid.
36. Ibid.
37. Ibid.
38. Ibid., 130–1.
39. Frank, “Knowledge and Taqlid,” 37.
40. Ibid., 40–41.
41. Al-Qutbi, al-Majmu'a al-mubaraka, Pt.I 131.
42. Ibid. Though it should be noted that the early Asha'aris maintained a great deal more reservation than al-Qutbi seems to when it comes to using the term “muqallid” to describe the spiritual state of common believers. Frank, “Knowledge and Taqlid,” in particular, 55–58.
43. Al-Qutbi, al-Majmu'a al-mubaraka, 131.
44. Frank is at pains to point out that none of the early Ash'aris would have supported the view that the inability to work out the proofs of God's unity rendered one an unbeliever. Frank. Op. cit.
45. Shaykh Abd al-Salam b. Ibrahim al-Laqqani was, in fact, the author of the Jawharat al-Tawhid (The Gem of Divine Unity,) while the sharh was composed by al-Bajuri. It is from the latter work upon which al-Qutbi draws.
46. Al-Qutbi doesn't say which one, precisely or quote a work, but probably the 16th century Shafi'ite scholar al-Haythami.
47. Al-Qutbi, al-Majmu'a al-mubaraka, 132.
48. Ibid.
49. Ibid.
50. Ibid.
51. Ibid.
52. In fact, al-Qutbi's use of the term “salaf” demonstrates a certain elasticity of meaning that the term has possessed historically. The term comes from the phrase “al-salaf al-salih” or the “pious ancestors.” Later scripturalist reformers co-opted the term using it to refer only to the Prophet Muhammad and his contemporaries. However, al-Qutbi's use of the term takes in a much larger group of seminal Muslim figures that includes not only the Prophet and his followers, but also luminaries including the founders of the four law schools as well as important theological figures such as al-Ghazali.
53. For an excellent overview of the evolution of scripturalist thought in this period is Henri Lauziere, “The Construction of Salafiyya,” 369–89.
54. Ayalon, “Arab Booksellers and Bookshops in the Age of Printing,” 73–93.
55. Ibid.
56. Though its owners only began to publish their own books around 1919, see Lauziere’, “The Construction of Salafiyya,” 379.
57. R/20/A/3031 Govt of Bombay Notification, 30 August 1921. See Laffan “A Sufi Century,” 25–39; Bang, “Authority and Piety,” 103–4.
58. Al-Qutbi, al-Majmu'a al-mubaraka, 116.
59. Ibid., 133.
60. Personal communication Rahma Bavelaar, February 21, 2010.
61. See Ghazal, “Beyond Modernity.”
62. Al-Qutbi, Majmu'a al-mubaraka, 194.
63. Haj, Reconfiguring Islamic Tradition, 81.
64. Reese, Renewers of the Age, 196.
65. Ibid.
66. R/20/A/3031 Memorandum, Col. G.H. Summers, Sheikh, Somaliland 12 May, 1921. It was also reported that the Shaykh continued to take up subscriptions on his travels in order to fund the printing of additional copies.
67. Al-Qutbi, al-Majmu'a al-mubarka, 133–4.
68. Ibid.
69. The continued importance of religious authority in this period is another theme currently being explored by scholars of Islamic reform. See, Ingram, “The Portable Madrasa.”