In 2002, nearly 70 years after its completion, a long essay by the celebrated Iraqi poet Maaruf Rusafi on the nature of prophecy in Islam was published in Germany. His reading of early Islamic history, in particular of the accomplishments of the Prophet Muhammad, roughly coincided with another new reading; that by the Egyptian Ali Abd al-Raziq. Rusafi’s admiration for Muhammad is enormous and he credits him with inspiring the Arabs to initiate a new order, taking humanity from the reign of tribal customs to the vision of communities built on shared ethics and beliefs

Filali-Ansary, A.

Leiden University Scholary Publications

A B D O U  F I L A L I - A N S A R Y3 8 I S I M N E W S L E T T E R  1 4 /  J U N E 2 0 0 4Maaruf Rusafi (1873–1945), an Iraqi poetof the early twentieth century, is wellknown to anyone who attended an Ara-bic public school. He celebrated thepride of being an Arab at a momentwhen the domination of the OttomanTurks was receding in the region, justbefore the colonial expansion of Europe.His poetry, in form and content, dealswith Arabism, freedom, equality, andpositive political values and is an exam-ple of the forceful mobilisation of classi-cal canons for a “modern” cause. Cultur-al identity could not be better served, asArabism was linked to freedom, equali-ty, and all sorts of positive values.Only very recently, another face of the poet emerged. Late in his life,Rusafi had turned his attention to the early, or “foundational” mo-ments of Arab history and the figure which had forged Arabs as a forceto be reckoned with in the region and in the world. He dedicated eightyears of his life to the study of the biography of Prophet Muhammadwith the intention of “elucidating a sacred myth,” i.e. extracting the“true facts” of history from the mythological narratives in which theyhad been staged. The book, completed in Falluja in 1933, has hithertoremained hidden from the general public. Only recently, in 2002, has itfound a publisher.1Rusafi studied the traditional sources on the biography of theProphet with the idea of going beyond the religious allegories and nar-ratives by which the myth of Muhammad has been constructed. It is re-markable that although his agenda was modern, his sources, methods,and style remained strictly traditional. Besides Arabic, he seems tohave had some knowledge of Turkish (he served for short periods in afew journals published in Istanbul) and, to some degree, of Farsi, butno knowledge of European languages. His limited knowledge of somemodern theories (such as Newtonian physics or Darwinism) came fromhis reading of mainly Egyptian journals published in Arabic in the earlytwentieth century.However, he clearly adopts the attitudes of a free mind, submittinghistorical sources to a strictly rational scrutiny, discarding all precon-ceptions, including the most sacred for his fellow Muslims. As such, heseems to belong to the line of rationalist rebels who have perseveredin attempting to cross the red line erected around “orthodox” viewsquite early on in the history of Muslims, resisting fierce repression andcensorship that were exerted at all levels. The book opens with astrange declaration (which includes excerpts from his poems) wherebyhe proclaims Truth (Haqq) as the only divinity worth worshiping andasserts his intention of adhering to it whatever the cost may be.Elucidation of a sacred mythHis reconstruction of the life of the Prophet brings back a wealth ofanecdotes forgotten because later biographers discarded them. Theeffect, indeed, is to shed light on a historically real figure. He expungesthe supra-natural from the historical accounts and shows that it ismainly the outcome of imagination of later narrators, and not fully en-dorsed by what we know about the understanding of the contempo-raries of the Prophet. He quotes extensively the most recognisedsources about the life of the Prophet, but uses them in new ways.Through this secularised narration of the Prophet’s life and deeds, anovel picture emerges. Its most striking feature is the use of violencewhich permeates the customs of the time. The Prophet stands outamongst his contemporaries not by being totally different in that re-spect, but by a personality that has the power to dominate others anda vision which transcends the prevail-ing conceptions and customs. Rusafistresses the Prophet’s main strength asthe capacity to free himself from thecategories of culture in which he wasimmersed. He was able to perceiveevents beyond the limitations of hispersonal self and beyond the domi-nant views and values of pre-Islamicsociety. The revelations he receivedwere the consequence of an intellectu-al reasoning through which he brokewith the worldview of his contempo-raries. Thus, he questions the notion ofprophecy as a message literally deliv-ered from God. Most individuals, com-ments Rusafi, think and respond within the world of meanings built bythe language and culture transmitted by their environment. They arethus neither able to distance themselves from their “world,” nor toplace in perspective the conceptions and values they have inherited.Only a few have the capacity of distancing themselves from the mouldof their own value system. Consequently, they are able to contemplateevents and things comprehensively and reach a kind of knowledgewhich is not accessible to their fellow men. Such are, as Rusafi explains,the prophets of the Quranic tradition.Muhammad was such a prophet, probably the one who has gone asfar as any one could go. He had, in addition, the will to apply thatknowledge to transform the moral and political conditions of the time.Rusafi stresses the numerous sayings of the Prophet in which hepromises his Arab tribesmen, if they were to follow his teaching, agreat destiny and an empire that would crush and dominate the exist-ing powers of the time, the Sassanid and Byzantine empires. HereRusafi shows the limits of his critical reading. While he is critical of laternarrators, his criticism of these early narratives does not lead him toquestion these traditions, which could very well have been retro pro-jections from subsequent history. Instead, Rusafi sees them as the ex-pression of a “grand design” which he supposes to have overtaken theimagination and driven the actions of Prophet Muhammad. He drawsthe image of the Prophet as the one who envisions and initiates a newcommunity, which is not built on tribal bonds or on the domination ofpowerful monarchies, as were the big empires of the time, but ratheron religious and ethical beliefs. Mohammad’s grand design was thus toimplement an alternative to tribe and empire, which were the onlyavailable socio-political forms his area had known until then. Monothe-ism and the ethics related to it (solidarity, social justice, and equality)were to provide the foundations a new community. The Arabs, as theones to champion its building and implementation, would enjoy aprivileged role in its subsequent development. In Rusafi’s portrayal the Prophet is not a man who passively receivesmessages from a transcendent God, as he is depicted in orthodox tra-ditions. He is rather one who accesses the inner processes of natureand history, beyond the cultural framework which determines thethought and action of his time, and brings forth a project which leadsto great transformations in the history of mankind: the creation of a so-cial order which enacts the ethical principles brought about bymonotheism. Rusafi’s admiration for the Prophet is immense, but not for the samereasons that traditional accounts present. The Arabs are credited, inpassing, of being the initiators of a new order, which is supposed tohave taken humanity from the reign of tribal customs and brute domi-nation, to the vision of communities built on shared beliefs and ethi-cally grounded regulations.Arts, Media & SocietyIn 2002, nearly 70 years after itscompletion, a long essay by the celebratedIraqi poet Maaruf Rusafi on the nature ofprophecy in Islam was published inGermany. His reading of early Islamichistory, in particular of theaccomplishments of the ProphetMuhammad, roughly coincided withanother new reading; that by the EgyptianAli Abd al-Raziq. Rusafi’s admiration forMuhammad is enormous and he credits himwith inspiring the Arabs to initiate a neworder, taking humanity from the reign oftribal customs to the vision of communitiesbuilt on shared ethics and beliefs.The Poet andthe ProphetISIM-Newsletter-14-WEB-DEF  29-06-2004  11:07  Pagina 38Arts, Media & SocietyAn alternate portraitIn his reconstruction of the life of the Prophet, it remains unclear ifRusafi was aware of another “secular” reading of the same period of Is-lamic history, which had been proposed a few years earlier. The resem-blance between the two contemporary endeavours is striking. Ali Abdal-Raziq (1888–1966) had published his most controversial essay Islamand the Foundations of Political Power in 1925. He also had ventured be-yond the traditional narratives of the early phases of the Muslim com-munity in order to find answers to modern questions. His quest, fol-lowing immediately the abrogation of the Ottoman caliphate byMustafa Kamal Atatürk in 1924, was to question the prevalent thesisthat Islam encompasses both religion and politics. His conclusions,which seem to contradict Rusafi’s, are also strikingly original. Abd al-Raziq found that the community created and led by the Prophet inMedina was by no means a state, in the modern sense. Although itshared some external features with those of a polity (collecting taxes,building an “army,” administrating justice, appointing “ambassadors”to neighbouring states), it was by all means just a religious community,intended to create a space where individuals could follow their new re-ligious beliefs and practices at a distance from the hostility of their trib-al leaders, who had remained hostile to the new religion. The Prophetdid not attempt, nor promote, anything beyond this kind of communi-ty. The absence of political concerns could be indicated by the fact thathe did not appoint any successor or provide rules for the continuity ofhis community, as any political leader with a political agenda wouldhave done. It was Muslims who, after the death of the Prophet, decid-ed to transform this religious community into a polity, and who madeof it, in time, an empire. In order to defend his thesis, Abd al-Raziq also felt the need to pro-pose a theory of prophecy. He did not question the idea of a messageliterally delivered from God, as did Rusafi, but stressed its exceptional-ity. He describes prophecy as a phenomenon which gives an electedman total, comprehensive powers over his fellows. These powers in-clude and exceed those of kings and temporal leaders. The “inclusionof politics within the realm of religion” is thus an exceptional turn, abreak into the ordinary course of social and political history, whereby aman endowed with a message and a mission, transforms the prevailingorder by providing new moral foundations. The exception is, by defin-ition, not a lasting state and is not intended to outlive its founder.Although having two different agendas, one rather “liberal” and theother nationalist, both Abd al-Raziq and Maaruf Rusafi wrote at a timewhere Muslim intellectuals were exposed to deep and rapid changesand enjoyed an unprecedented opening in the intellectual sphere.New explanations had to be sought and could—to some degree—beproposed. They understood, and stressed, that the historical emer-gence of Islam had deep and lasting political consequences, as it pro-vided new models, aspirations, and values. Both also understood andstressed that the understanding which prevailed in Muslim historiesdid not depict the depth of such a revolution. The latter raised the ac-counts of Muslim history, i. e. the building of new empires and sul-tanates, to the status of an Islamic norm, and distorted the meaning ofthe “political” message of the Prophet, i.e. that political systems had tobe grounded on shared beliefs and ethical principles, not that religionhad to provide, or did provide, the blue print for designing these polit-ical systems.However, Abd al-Raziq acted cautiously, perhaps too cautiously, bynot publishing anything following the controversy around his book.Rusafi, on the other hand, entrusted his thoughts to an essay thatcould not be published during his life-time, or even a few decadeslater. The Elucidation of a Secret Enigma is likely to remain the work of apoet who had not fully mastered scholarly methods and discipline, orhis impatience with the beliefs and attitudes of his fellow Muslims.I S I M N E W S L E T T E R  1 4 /  J U N E 2 0 0 4 3 9Note1. Maaruf Rusafi, The Personality of Muhammad, or the Elucidation of a Sacred Enigma,al-Shakhsiya al-muhammadiya aw hall al-lughz al-muqaddas (Cologne: al-JamalPublications, 2002).Continued from page 10Notes1. Tilman Seidensticker, “Martyrdom in Islam,” Awraq 19 (1998): 63-77. 2. See Joseph Alagha, “Hizbullah and Martyrdom,” Orient 45, no. 1 (January 2004):(forthcoming). 3. This was the sole suicide attack prior to the Oslo Agreements, but somecontroversy exits as to whether it was an intended suicide attack.4. http://www.islam-online.net/english/news/2003-01/11/article05.shtml.5. Yusuf al-Qaradawi, “al-Muslimun wal-'unf as-siyasi: Nazariyat ta’siliya,” Islam Online,6 June 2004, http://www.islamonline.net/Arabic/contemporary/2004/06/artcle01.shtml. 6. http://www.islamonline.net/fatwa/arabic/FatwaDisplay.asp?FatwaID=6837.7. Faisal Maulawi, “Idanat al-amaliyat al-istishhadiya: ru’ya fiqhiya,” Islam Online,30 April 2003, http://www.islamonline.net/fatwa/arabic/FatwaDisplay.asp?hFatwaID=46143.Sabine Damir-Geilsdorf is Research Fellow at the Department of Near and Middle EasternStudies, Justus-Liebig Universität Gießen, Germany.E-mail: sabine.damir@web.deDiscourse on martyrdomWhile some Palestinian scholars and scholars from other countriescondemned the suicide attacks with the argument, that suicide is pro-hibited in Islam, others justified them as a legitimate part of the na-tional struggle for liberation and a proper method of jihad. The Mufti ofSaudi Arabia, Shaykh Abd al-Aziz bin Abdullah al-Shaykh commentedin April 2001 that Islam forbids suicide attacks. His comments raised astorm of criticism from supporters of the Palestinian resistance. Shaykhal-Azhar, Muhammad Tantawi, the highest Islamic authority in Egyptstated in the same year, that resistance in occupied Palestine is a dutyfor Muslims and these suicide operations a legal means. In general, fat-was frequently refer to Israeli violations of human rights and interna-tional law and stress that Palestinians can neither come to their rightsby diplomatic means, nor by jihad with traditional means. Martyrdomoperations, so they argue, have nothing in common with suicide, be-cause a person who commits suicide escapes life, whereas a Palestin-ian martyr sacrifices his or her life carrying out a religious duty –the de-fence of Muslim land and people—while employing the opportunitiesof modern technology.5A modern theology of martyrdom is as yet under construction. AHamas website attempts to supply proof to the argument that Pales-tinian suicide attacks are no innovation but a continuation of Prophet-ic traditions. Many fatwas and books have emerged, discussing ques-tions including as to whether women who are carrying out martyr op-erations are allowed to travel without a mahram, and whether theymay take off their headscarf if required so by their mission.6 Nationalistarguments merge in theologies of martyrdom. Often terms “nation,”“bravery,” and “heroism” are mentioned. The fact that Islamic rulingsforbid the killing of persons, who are not directly involved in war, isoften circumvented by the argument that the entire Israeli society ismilitarised—with Israel’s system of universal conscription often givenas “proof”—and that martyrdom operations only return Israeli atroci-ties.7Political impotence and lack of prospect play a significant role in thepresent cult of martyrs. Through their deeds they become individualscapable of acting, even if only in the moment of death, which bestowsupon them and their families social prestige and financial rewards. Theweakness underlying these attacks is thus transformed into a personalmoment of strength.Though there are ways to justify political violence in Islamic terms,these are as such not part of a structural nature of “Islam.” The ideolog-ical factors that promote the use of the concept of martyrdom for po-litical ends cannot be detached from the rejection of basic rights, gravesocial inequality, and the repression of non-violent means of opposi-tion and resistance. Confrontational Western models and aggressivepolitics reinforce constructs of foe images and bring about politicaland social strategies that are increasingly subject to religious interpre-tations. The further Islamization of the concept of suicide martyrdom isessentially dependent on the political developments in these regions.Abdou Filali-Ansary is Director of the Institute for the Study of Muslim Civilizations,The Aga Khan University, London.ISIM-Newsletter-14-WEB-DEF  29-06-2004  11:07  Pagina 39

The Poet and the Prophet

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