Saudi Arabia and the Representation of Islam, Hassan Ansari

From the moment it was established as a kingdom, Saudi Arabia captivated some of those who were then pursuing Islamic revivalism and Salafi purism. Muhammad Rashid Rida was one of the first thinkers to give his heart to King Abdulaziz. Yet at that time, not only did thinkers of the religious reformist and modernist currents show no interest in it, but a large group of revivalist thinkers as well—such as the Muslim Brotherhood groups and certain others—disagreed with the Wahhabi approach. During the era of Gamal Abdel Nasser, a kind of regional rivalry existed between Egypt and Saudi Arabia. One of its consequences was a rivalry between al-Azhar, which at the time was under the pressure of new governmental reforms, and, on the other side, the governmental Wahhabi educational institutions of Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia naturally represented the Wahhabi understanding of Islam, with roots in the Hanbali school (not historical Hanbalism, of course, but the Ibn Taymiyyan reading of it, which was more Salafi and distanced itself from historical jurisprudential reasoning), while Egypt and al-Azhar, on the other side, represented the Ashʿari school of Islam and the historical Sunni legal schools. That said, due to the hegemony of Salafi and revivalist Islam, as well as the simultaneous critiques leveled by reformism and revivalism against the historical schools and traditional institutional Islam on the one hand, and the political exploitation of al-Azhar’s standing by nationalist governments, including that of Gamal Abdel Nasser’s Egypt, on the other, al-Azhar effectively ceded the field to its Salafi and Wahhabi rival, at least in many respects. With the benefit of the oil industry and the immense wealth that accrued to Saudi Arabia, the printing of Wahhabi and Hanbali books, hadith-centric literature, and polemical writings against the Ashʿaris, Maturidis, and the Islam of the historical schools intensified and became the order of the day. Universities large and small were established in Saudi Arabia to attract students from all Islamic countries, especially Pakistan, the Muslims of India, North Africa, the Middle East, and the Far East. The result was that Salafi and Wahhabi Islam—which had already, from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries onward, made its way into places like the Subcontinent, where there had never been any ground for the growth of Hanbalism—advanced its path even further and has been pumping out Salafi Islam ever since. Just imagine what might have happened to the traditional, generally Sufi Islam of those lands when these students returned to their home countries. In the 1960s and 1970s, and especially with the increasing growth of domestic radical currents within Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood and the emergence of Sayyid Qutb and Abd al-Qadir ʿAwdah on the one hand, and Mawdudi and Nadwi on the other, the general inclination to embrace revivalist Islam grew stronger, further smoothing the ground for the greater growth of certain levels of revivalist, jihadist, and takfiri Salafism. In the midst of this, Saudi Arabia and its various Wahhabi spectrums, with the levels of internal disagreement they harbor among themselves, came to be known—and still are known—as the representative of Salafi Islam and, in their own words, the Salaf school. It is natural that, as the most important representative and source of inspiration for Salafi literature, it can, even indirectly, transmit related ideas to Salafi and even non-Salafi currents among purist and revivalist groups, and, most importantly, transmit the text-centric, non-jurisprudential view of scripture, the excessive hadith-centrism, and the opposition to any kind of esoteric interpretation and anything outside Hanbali orthodoxy. The problem begins right here: the injection of a text-centric, dogmatic, ahistorical outlook, armed with the weapon of sunna and bidʿa and the excommunication of doctrinal opponents. But, apart from these last one or two centuries, what percentage of Muslim history, Islamic sciences and civilization, and Islamic culture has Salafi Islam actually represented? Historically, the Hanbalis and the traditionists of the ahl al-hadith have always represented a small portion of the Islamic world. In the early centuries, except in Baghdad (in a limited way) or parts of the Levant, Hanbalism had no serious presence at all, and the traditionists of other cities were generally Shafiʿis. In jurisprudential terms as well, absolute dominance—except in North Africa and al-Andalus (where the Maliki school held absolute sway)—belonged to the Hanafi school, and in the next rank, to the Shafiʿi school. Even in books on the disagreements of the jurists, the opinions of Ahmad ibn Hanbal generally had no place, because he was considered a traditionist, not a jurist. The religious sciences—in jurisprudence, theology, and exegesis—among non-Shiʿis must be credited mostly to the Hanafis and Shafiʿis. The Islam of the historical Sunni schools is the Islam of the Ashʿaris and Maturidis. It is natural that the historical jurisprudential schools, and more importantly the Ashʿari and Maturidi theological schools, not only hold no appeal for the Salafis, but hundreds of books are published annually in Saudi Arabia refuting those theological orientations.

خوشمزه این است که در چاپ‌های عربستان از متون گذشته معمولاً مصححان یک فصلی باز می‌کنند تحت عنوان المآخذ علی الکتاب و آنجا شروع می‌کنند به انتقاد از عالمان گذشته که چرا فلان حدیث را نقل کرده و یا عقیده اش بهمان جا موافق معتزلیان و اشعریان است و نه موافق مذهب سلف صالح. حساب دانش های غیر دینی و از جمله فلسفه و علوم محض و کلاً دستاوردهای فرهنگی در تمدن اسلامی هم کاملاً روشن است. بغداد و قرطبه و قاهره و نیشابور و ری را حکومت ها و جریانهایی فکری ساختند که مورد انتقاد و اتهام نویسندگان گرایش اصحاب حدیث بودند. اگر تمدن اسلامی تمدنی بود جهانی به دلیل رازی ها و خوارزمی ها و بیرونی ها و فارابی ها و ابن سینا ها و ابن رشد ها و فخر الدین رازی ها و خواجه نصیرها و غیاث الدین کاشانی ها و ابن راوندی ها و ابو العلای معری ها و ابو عیسی وراق ها و ملا صدراها و حمایت حکومت های فاطمی و آل حمدان و آل بویه و فاطمیان مصر و موحدون و عباسیان بوده است و یا امثال جریانهایی مانند نهضت ترجمه. این دانشمندان بودند که منبع الهام تفکر و اندیشه ورزی در تمدن اسلامی بودند نه فلان و بهمان محدثی که غایت قوتش حفظ چند هزار متن حدیثی بود با اسانید مختلف آن. ایران تاریخی نه تنها تشیع را به دنیای اسلام عرضه کرده بلکه مهد اصلی مذاهب حنفی و اشعری و ماتریدی و مذاهب تصوف هم بوده است. معتزله در ایران رشد کرد و فلسفه اسلامی همواره بهترین نمایندگانش را در ایران داشته است. از لحاظ تاریخی، سرزمین تاریخی و فرهنگی ایران (یعنی آنچه در گذر تاریخ ، زبان فارسی یکی از مهمترین مؤلفه های هویتی آن بوده) و عراق و مصر مهمترین نمایندگان اسلام تاریخی اند. مکه و مدینه هم قرنها زیر نظر اشراف اداره می شده و حکومتهای فاطمیان و یا ممالیک و عثمانی بر آنجا حکم می رانده اند. این حکومت ها نسبتی با اسلام سلفی امروز عربستان سعودی نداشتند.

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Saudi Arabia and the Representation of Islam

Hassan Ansari | Sunday, July 10, 2016

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