Muslim pilgrims in Mecca have circled the Kaaba, Islam’s holiest site, and then converged on a vast tent camp in the nearby desert, officially opening the annual Hajj pilgrimage.

The event is returning to its full capacity for the first time since the coronavirus pandemic.

So far, more than 1.8 million pilgrims from all over the world have amassed in and around Mecca for the Hajj, and the number was growing as more pilgrims from inside Saudi Arabia joined, said a spokesman for the Saudi Hajj Ministry, Ayedh al-Ghweinim.

Authorities have said they expect this year to approach pre-Covid levels of more than two million.

Egyptian businessman Yehya Al-Ghanam said he was at a loss for words to describe his feelings on arriving at Mina, one of the biggest tent camps in the world, outside Mecca, where pilgrims will stay for much of the Hajj.

“Tears will fall from my eyes out of joy and happiness,” he said. “I do not sleep. I have not slept for 15 days, only an hour a day.”

The pilgrimage is one of the five pillars of Islam, and all Muslims are required to make the five-day Hajj at least once in their lives if they are physically and financially able to.

For pilgrims, it is a moving spiritual experience that absolves sins, brings them closer to God and unites the world’s more than 1.8 billion Muslims. Some spend years saving up money and waiting for a permit to embark on the journey.

The rituals during the Hajj largely commemorate the Koran’s accounts of Ibrahim, his son Ismail and Ismail’s mother Hajar.

Pilgrims have been doing the ritual circuit around the Kaaba since arriving in Mecca over recent days. As the last ones performed it on Monday, the pilgrims made their way by foot or bus to Mina.

In Mina, soldiers sprayed pilgrims with water to cool them down in the heat in the desert plain, where there is little respite from the blazing sun.

The faithful set up in their tents, resting in the rows of cubicles and praying together to prepare for the coming rituals.

On Tuesday, pilgrims will move to Mount Arafat, a desert hill where the Prophet Muhammad is said to have delivered his final sermon. Afterwards, they collect pebbles from a site known as Muzdalifa to be used in the symbolic stoning of pillars representing the devil back in Mina.

The final three days of the Hajj coincide with the Eid al-Adha holiday, when Muslims around the world slaughter livestock and distribute the meat to the poor.

In 2019, more than 2.4 million pilgrims participated in the Hajj. In 2020, amid worldwide coronavirus lockdowns, Saudi Arabia limited the pilgrimage to a few thousand citizens and local residents.

Last year, just under 900,000 attended as Saudi Arabia allowed limited numbers of pilgrims from abroad.

Read relevant links: Saudi Arabia bans foreign pilgrims amid Covid-19 fears.

Police in Pakistan have arrested the leader of a radical Islamist political party a day after he threatened the government with protests if it did not expel France’s ambassador over depictions of Islam’s Prophet Mohammed.

Saad Rizvi was arrested in the eastern city of Lahore to “maintain law and order”, said Ghulam Mohammad Dogar, chief of Lahore police.

Rizvi called on the government to honour what he said was a commitment it made in February to his party to expel the French envoy before April 20 over the publication in France of depictions of Islam’s Prophet.

The government has said that it only committed to discuss the matter in parliament.

Mr Dogar provided no further details about the arrest, which quickly drew condemnation from Rizvi’s supporters who began gathering near the party’s main office for a protest.

Clashes soon erupted in Lahore between police and Rizvi’s supporters, who were also rallying on the outskirts of the capital Islamabad, disrupting traffic and inconveniencing residents.

Protesters also blocked some roads in the southern port city of Karachi and elsewhere in the country, raising fears of violence amid a surge in cases of coronavirus in Pakistan.

Rizvi emerged as the leader of the Tehreek-e-Labai

k Pakistan party in November after the sudden death of his father, Khadim Hussein Rizvi.

His supporters have previously held violent rallies in Pakistan to pressure the government not to repeal the country’s controversial blasphemy laws.

The party wants the government to boycott French products and expel the French ambassador under an agreement signed by the government with Rizvi’s party in February.

Tehreek-e-Labiak and other Islamist parties have denounced French President Emmanuel Macron since October last year, saying he tried to defend caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed as freedom of expression.

Mr Macron’s comments came after a young Muslim beheaded a French school teacher who had shown caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed in class.

The images had been republished by the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo to mark the opening of the trial over the deadly 2015 attack against the publication for the original caricatures.

That enraged many Muslims in Pakistan and elsewhere who believed those depictions were blasphemous.

Rizvi’s party gained prominence in Pakistan’s 2018 federal elections, campaigning on a single issue: defending the country’s controversial blasphemy law, which calls for the death penalty for anyone who insults Islam.

It also has a history of staging protests and sit-ins to pressure the government to accept its demands.

In November 2017, Rizvi’s followers staged a 21-day protest and sit-in after a reference to the sanctity of the Prophet Mohammed was removed from the text of a government form.

A West Yorkshire teacher has been suspended after reportedly showing an “offensive” caricature of the Prophet Mohammed during a religious studies lesson, sparking a protest outside the school.

Protesters had gathered outside Batley Grammar School, near Bradford, on Thursday, following claims a member of staff had shown students a cartoon deemed offensive to the Islamic faith.

Pictures circulating on social media earlier in the day showed dozens of people stood outside the school gates, partially blocking the road.

The school has “unequivocally” apologised for showing “totally inappropriate” material to children and said a member of staff has been suspended pending an investigation.

Dr Abdul Shaikh, a local academic in Batley and Muslim activist, said he had heard about the incident on social media on Wednesday night.

Speaking to the PA news agency, he said: “I was shocked like many Muslims in the town that Muslim school children’s religious sensitivities were completely ignored by the school teacher who decided to show an offensive image that lampooned the noble Prophet Mohammed.

“Every Muslim around the world holds the Prophet in the highest esteem.

“I feel that the school should be allowed to complete their investigation in due course and find a fair and adequate solution that satisfies first and foremost Muslim pupils, their parents and the wider Muslim community in Batley.

“This situation should not be allowed to happen again for the sake of community cohesion in the area.”

West Yorkshire Police said they were called to the protest at around 7.30am on Thursday.

A police spokesman said the school road had been closed for a short time, no arrests were made and no fines were issued.

In a statement, Batley Grammar School head teacher Gary Kibble said: “The school unequivocally apologises for using a totally inappropriate resource in a recent religious studies lesson.

“The member of staff has also given their most sincere apologies.

“We have immediately withdrawn teaching on this part of the course and we are reviewing how we go forward with the support of all the communities represented in our school.

“It is important for children to learn about faiths and beliefs, but this must be done in a sensitive way.

“The member of staff has been suspended pending an independent formal investigation.”

In a letter addressed to Mr Kibble and shared online, founder of Batley-based charity Purpose Of Life, Mohammad Sajad Hussain, said he was “deeply hurt” by the “insulting caricatures of our beloved Prophet Mohammed”.

He said the charity is unwilling to work with or promote the school until the teacher is “permanently removed”.

However, the National Secular Society branded the protest as an “attempt to impose an Islamic blasphemy taboo on a school”.

Stephen Evans, chief executive of the National Secular Society, said: “Teachers must have a reasonable degree of freedom to explore sensitive subjects and enable students to think critically about them.

“And the school’s weak response will fuel a climate of censorship, which is brought on by attempts to force society as a whole to accommodate unreasonable and reactionary religious views.”

Pakistan’s police said they were seeking arrest of two Christian men in the eastern city of Lahore on charges they allegedly used insulting remarks against Islam’s holy book and its Prophet Mohammed.

The case against the two men was registered last Saturday on the complaint of a Muslim local resident Haroon Ahmed, said Muratab Ali, a police investigator, who said the accused persons had yet to be arrested.

He provided no further details and only said they were still investigating to determine whether the two minority Christians made derogatory remarks about the Koran and Islam’s Prophet during a discussion on religion.

Under Pakistan’s blasphemy laws, anyone accused of insulting Islam or other religious figures can be sentenced to death if found guilty.

While authorities have yet to carry out a death sentence for blasphemy, just the accusation of blasphemy can cause riots in Pakistan.

According to domestic and international human rights groups, blasphemy allegations in Pakistan have often been used to intimidate religious minorities and to settle personal scores.

A Punjab governor was killed by his own guard in 2011 after he defended a Christian woman, Aasia Bibi, who was accused of blasphemy.

She was acquitted after spending eight years on death row and left Pakistan for Canada to join her family after receiving threats.

On the 30th of October, a rally of about a hundred protestors rounded on the French Embassy in Central London and conducted a ‘sit-in’ around the bounds of the Embassy. The demonstrators, it seems, had traveled to London to shower the Embassy with chants and raised fists in the air. It was a show of force and rage against the comments of Macron, who had defended the fundamental principle of free speech, in defending the right for Charlie Hebdo to publish cartoons about the Prophet Muhammad. Macron had also subsequently made numerous statements delineating the Government of France from the actions of the Charlie Hebdo publication and even expressly stated that France has “no problem” with the religion of Islam that is practised by over 1.7 billion people. However, none of the context and nuances of the French premier mattered to the demonstrators in the video below. Their rage is clearly evident in the video, much of it looking like it was stage managed by a core handful of people.

What is clear from the footage below is that many of the demonstrators were a mix of people of South Asian heritage and many seemed to follow the rehearsed chants of a handful of agitators who were repeatedly and aggressively shouting slogans with their fists in the air. We will come back to these slogans later as we believe that public order offences were conducted by some of the demonstrators and we have noted the times in the video when we believe they took place. 

The Link to Khatme Nabuwat (KN)

Khatme Nabuwat is a loose affiliation of people at a global level whose primary aim is to defend the honour and integrity of Prophet Muhammad, by placing him as a central figure in their lives. They see themselves as ‘defenders against blasphemy’ which we have long said, is affecting parts of Barelwi Muslim communities, not just in the UK, but at a global level. Khatme Nabuwat networks feed off themselves and are therefore a sporadic modern day version of the Spanish Inquisition, where anyone seen to question the divinity or events around Prophet Muhammad, become legitimate targets for intimidation, harassment and hate. Take for example, this incident where ‘Kill Ahmadis’ leaflets were reported to have been found in a South London mosque. It was reportedly authored by an ex-head of Khatme Nabuwat, with the leaflets sending shock waves and fear into the British Muslim Ahmadi community at the time.

Khatme Nabuwat’s constant obsession with Ahmadis, had led to targeted acts of intimidation against them, as a means of rallying others to their cause. This has meant threats and incitement against Ahmadi Muslims on the basis that they question the finality of Prophet Muhammad. This is fundamentally false or ‘fake news’, yet none of this matters, since the ‘blasphemy police’ and mob type behaviour of Khatme Nabuwat networks regard anyone who simply questions elements around the life of Prophet Muhammad, as fair game for violence. So not much has changed in their medievalist mindsets.

Anyone watching and listening to the video below may come to the conclusion that free speech comes with caveats and limitations as the speaker rants against the very values that give him the right to speak so openly. In other words, free speech is fine as long as nothing is directed towards Muhammad, which aptly demonstrates the sheer hypocrisy of these ‘blasphemy policing’ networks. But this is no laughing matter since the spread of such intolerance has impacts and we have seen how this very intolerance led to an asylum seeker in France using a meat cleaver against two people who happened to be outside the former offices of the Charlie Hebdo publication. Their crime was being in the wrong place at the wrong time, whilst they had a smoke.

The perpetrator of these attempted murders was Ali Hassan, who left Pakistan when he was 15 and who entered Europe illegally. Hassan put out a video prior to the attack in which he explained that he was from Kotli Qazi in Pakistan and he cited his family lineage and then put out an emotional defence of Muhammad on the back of the cartoon reprints by Charlie Hebdo. These reprints coincided with the trial of fourteen people alleged to be accomplices of the initial Charlie Hebdo attackers in 2015.

The fact is that Hassan came from a Barelwi Muslim background, who have mainly been influenced by Sufi traditions and who have taken a much more spiritual approach to faith. However, the issue of ‘blasphemy’ and the defence of the Prophet has significantly shifted members from this Muslim grouping towards harder and more extreme beliefs. One of these beliefs is that threats and violence are legitimate in the defence of the reputation of Muhammad. This is particularly depressing given that Barelwi Muslim communities by enlarge, have been more spiritually and religiously flexible in their interpretation of Islamic theology and traditions. 

Blasphemy linkages

The brutal attack in Paris by Hassan cannot be seen to be in isolation. It is part of a wider ideology, which at its core is built on the need to use threats and force against people merely perceived to be blasphemous. It is simply now reaching a murderous form in European states, even though the history of blasphemy in Pakistan, has seen people brutally murdered by mobs on the mere allegation that the victim questioned some aspect of Muhammad or his life.

Which brings us back to the video below. At 14:16 mins into the video – demonstrators are seen to specifically mention the ideology of Khatme Nabuwat and to rouse the crowd on the back of these chants outside of the French Embassy in London. Worst still, at 22:38 mins into the video, a number of the demonstrators are led to chant “Death to Macron” – (Macron Murdabad). These actions we believe, are public order offences and may well fall into incitement, which need to be reviewed by the Metropolitan Police Service (Met), given the public affirmation of threats to the well-being of the French President. 

Words and actions have consequences. At the very least, the Met need to assess the video for any criminal actions. Sadly, the issue of extremism based on perceived blasphemy is not going away for some time to come.

Read More: French militant group and mosque to close after teacher’s killing

The 18-year-old suspected killer of a French teacher who showed caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad in class paid students to help him identify the victim, France’s terrorism prosecutor has said.

Prosecutor Jean-Francois Ricard said a 14-year-old and a 15-year-old are among seven people who appeared before an investigating magistrate on accusations of complicity in murder in relation with a terrorist undertaking, and criminal conspiracy.

The suspect in Friday’s killing of teacher Samuel Paty, who was attacked and beheaded near Paris, offered students at the school 300 to 350 euros (£267 to £311) to help him pick out, Mr Ricard said during a news conference on Wednesday.

“The investigation has established that the perpetrator knew the name of the teacher, the name of the school and its address, yet he did not have the means to identify him,” the prosecutor said.

“That identification has only been possible with the help of students from the same school.

“That’s why the anti-terrorism prosecutor’s office has decided to prosecute two under-18 minors whose implication in the identification of the victim for the killer has appeared to be conclusive.”

A terror investigation is under way into Mr Paty’s killing.

Authorities have identified the killer as Abdoullakh Anzorov., an 18-year-old Moscow-born Chechen refugee who was later shot dead by police.

The surviving suspects also include a student’s father who posted videos on social media that called for mobilisation against the teacher and an Islamist activist who helped the man disseminate the virulent messages, which named Mr Paty and gave the school’s address, Mr Ricard said.

Two more men are accused of having helped the attacker by accompanying him when he bought weapons including a knife and an airsoft gun that were found near the 18-year-old’s body, according to the prosecutor.

Another suspect had close contacts with the attacker and endorsed radical Islamism, Mr Ricard said.

The French government issued an order on Wednesday morning to dissolve domestic militant Islamic group the Collective Cheikh Yassine.

Government spokesman Gabriel Attal said it was “implicated, linked to Friday’s attack” and was used to promote anti-republican hate speech.

Other groups will be dissolved “in the coming weeks” for similar reasons, Mr Attal said.

Named after an assassinated leader of the Palestinian Hamas, Collective Cheikh Yassine was founded in the early 2000s by an Islamist activist who is among the seven people accused of being accomplices to the attacker.

Mr Attal also confirmed the government ordered a mosque in the north-east Paris suburb of Pantin to close for six months.

It is being punished for relaying the angry father’s message on social media.

Authorities say it has long had an imam following the Salafist path, a rigorous interpretation of the Muslim holy book.

A national memorial event is scheduled to be held Wednesday evening in the courtyard of the Sorbonne university.

Read More here: French militant group and mosque to close after killing

Suspect in French beheading was Chechen in origin

Demonstrations across France to mark the killing of Samuel Paty

Chechnya’s strongman regional leader Ramzan Kadyrov, who has used massive federal subsidies to rebuild the province and squelched any resistance with his feared security forces, has condemned the killing of a teacher in France.

An 18-year-old from Chechnya claimed responsibility for the attack in a Paris suburb before being shot by the police.

Mr Kadyrov condemned the crime also warned against insulting the feelings of Muslims.

The teacher was apparently targeted for discussing caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed with students.

“We condemn this act of terror and offer our condolences to the relatives of the man who was killed,” Mr Kadyrov said on his blog.

“While speaking out categorically against any manifestation of terrorism, I also urge not to provoke believers, not to offend their religious feelings.”

He went on to criticise French society for what he described as manifestations of “provocative” disrespect for Islamic values.

“When France has a proper state institution of inter-ethnic and inter-faith relations, then the country will have a healthy society.”

Mr Kadyrov noted that the Chechen suspect only visited the region once when he was two years old.

Read more: Suspect in French beheading horror was Chechen teenager

The shahadah – the testimony of faith in Islam – states that Allah is (the only) God and that Muhammad is His Messenger. This is one of the five foundational pillars of Islam, along with fasting the month of Ramadan, undertaking the holy pilgrimage (hajj), giving Zakat (obligatory charity) and offering salat (daily prayers).

By declaring this and accepting the Qur’an as the message of God given through Prophet Muhammad (pbuh), we acknowledge the six articles of faith. We declare that:

• Allah as the One and Only God
• The angels
• Allah’s books (e.g. Qur’an)
• Allah’s prophets (e.g. Muhammad (pbuh))
• The Day of Judgement
• The unknown and pre-destiny

If you believe in these articles then you are Muslim. But there is a large group of Muslims -around 25,000 here in the UK – that are predominantly shunned, ignored, discriminated against and denied the right to be recognised as Muslims. Who? The Ahmadiyya Muslim community.

There is no God but Allah (the One God) and Muhammad (pbuh) is His Messenger

Love for all, acceptance by none

Ahmadi Muslims are known for their motto: Love for all, hatred for none and are an incredibly peaceful group dedicated to interfaith and charity work. However, they are shunned by the mainstream Muslim community as many scholars have declared them to be “non-Muslim”.

Now I’m no scholar but I know the fundamentals of Islam and I keep an open mind. The myth that declares Ahmadi Muslims as non-Muslim is based on the wrongful assumption that they believe that their caliph is a prophet, when Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) is declared as the Seal of the Prophets in the Holy Qur’an.

Well I have spoken to Ahmadi Muslims and would like to clarify:

• They do believe that Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) is the Final Messenger/Prophet
• They do not believe that their caliph is a Prophet but instead the Mahdi/Messiah (redeemer) who has come to reform Islam

In any case, they believe in the shahadah and the six pillars of faith and regardless of the above: they do not deserve to be shunned and excluded.

From isolation to persecution

I’ve spent time in many interfaith circles and often witnessed great diversity within Christian and Jewish circles. Whilst there is great diversity in Islam, such diversity is not often recognised or “tolerated”.

The dangers of excluding an entire group of Muslims are far-reaching. Firstly, this give a negative perception to outsiders and whilst we’re not here to simply please others, there is a gross contradiction between propagating interfaith relations when there is a lack of intrafaith unity within the Muslim community itself.

The more worrying issues however are two-fold. Firstly, they highlight a tendency to propagate a discourse around a singular “true Islam” without recognition or room for diversity of belief. This in itself is dangerous and can and does lead to extremism. It mirrors those who monopolise a faith according to one’s own beliefs despite evidence or beliefs stating otherwise.

Secondly, this actively promotes the exclusion and “othering” of Ahmadi Muslims. “Othering” leads to violence and the tragic murder of Asad Shah in Glasgow in 2016 exemplifies this. This was an explicitly religiously motivated attack towards an Ahmadi Muslim by a Sunni Muslim. For this to happen here in the UK is quite frankly terrifying. Please let us not slide into the murky reality of normalised religiously aggravated discrimination and the violation of human rights in countries such as Pakistan – a nation with the worst example government sanctioned persecution of the Ahmadiyya community.

In Pakistan, Ahmadi Muslims are expressly and legally forbidden from calling themselves Muslims. If an Ahmadi Muslim makes the azan (gives the call to prayer), recites from the Qur’an in public or greets people with Assalam aleykum and is found guilty, then could not only face three years in prison but more shockingly also the death penalty according to current blasphemy laws. Thankfully no such executions have yet taken place.

Here in the UK, I have spoken to Ahmadi Muslims who have recounted the abuse that their fellow brothers face in Pakistan and it is here in the UK and USA that many are taking refuge and bringing up new generations in peace and safety. For such intolerance and quite frankly bigotry to spill over onto British soil is heartbreaking. Only recently a historic Ahmadi mosque was desecrated by a mob in Pakistan, not that long after an Ahmadi billboard here in the UK was removed after a backlash from non-Ahmadi Muslims. Yet the lack of mainstream coverage of the “controversy” in the media was shocking. No one wanted to talk about the double standards at play here. Freedom of belief and speech is for all, yet the reactions received seem to show a different concept of freedom – a selective right for only “approved minorities”.

Here we can see that “othering” and discrimination leads to the abuse of human rights including the right to free speech, freedom of religious practice and even the right to life. Whilst no doubt, 99% of British Muslims from outside of the Ahmadiyya community wish no harm and simply disagree with Ahmadi teachings, the community as a whole still refuses to acknowledge that they are Muslim. No one can force belief or a certain teaching on another person but what harm is there in “agreeing to disagree”? Ahmadi Muslims pray daily to Allah and follow the Qur’an. They are Muslims, whether quite frankly everyone else likes it or not.

Furthermore, whether they are “Muslim” or not is no one’s business but Allah’s. So I ask the non-Ahmadi Muslim community (to which I belong): when will this “bogeyman” be called out for what it is? When will “the Ummah” – billions of Muslims across the world in fact – open their eyes and acknowledge that this bogeyman is in fact an invented “otherised” demon reflective of our own community and the intolerance, simmering hatred and indifference within?

So, let’s put this bogeyman to bed and instead welcome our brothers and sisters, showing love for all hatred for none – without exception.

– Written by Elizabeth Fear, Founder of Voice of Salam

It is too often erroneously claimed that Sunni Islam is divided into a legalistic conservative mainstream presided over by jurists, and a mystical, liberal marginalised minority comprised of mystics. However such a perception came to emerge, it is inaccurate. From the beginnings of Islam in the Qur’an and in the person of the Prophet Muhammad himself, through to his companions and the jurists who established the four Sunni schools of Islamic Law, the external application of the law and the internal cultivation of the spirit have always been intertwined.

Consider the ritual prayer, performed by Muslims five times a day, as this most demonstrates the interdependence of the external and the internal. In the Qur’an it is said, “Perform the Prayer to remember Me.” In this it is made clear that the Prayer is not simply a series of movements and supplications performed in accordance with an established formula. Rather, its objective is the remembrance of God. The Prophet Muhammad elaborates that, “When performing the Prayer, one is conversing intimately with one’s Lord.” However, he makes clear that, “A man gets credit only for that part of his Prayer of which he is conscious,” and it is not sufficient to merely perform the outward action. The prayer, as with all acts of worship, ceases to be intimate communion, it ceases to truly be worship, if engaged in heedlessly without devotion. Therefore, both the essence and the purpose of the prayer is the pure and sincere intention with which it is performed. This centrality of intention applies to all action, as the Prophet teaches that, “All actions are according to intention.” The cultivation of sincere and pious intention is a fundamentally spiritual, mystical process, and those who have undergone this process most exemplify the unity of the internal and the external. They are the mystics of Islam, the Sufis.

It is often taken for granted by some that the Sufis, though emerging from Sunni tradition, have gone beyond it. It is assumed that they have discarded those alleged cumbersome codes of conduct and dry dogmas which confine the legalistic Sunni mainstream in favour of a freer, mystical approach which was once Islamic but no longer. Arguably, no Sufi evokes this image more than Mawlana Jalal ad-Din Rumi, the renowned 13^th century mystical poet, who’s deeply profound and intimate poetry speaks to millions such that it is a U.S. bestseller. Yet, it was Rumi who said, “Act and word are witness to the hidden mind; from these twain infer the inward state”- that is, correct word and action are a manifestation and an indication of one’s spiritual condition. If the action is bad, the heart is bad, and vice versa. Rumi was not exceptional in this regard, he was articulating an oft spoken principle voiced by many Sufis that, “with regard to the Law, mere formality is defective, while mere spirituality is vain.” For the Sufis, then, the mystical is not the polar opposite of the law, it is its completion, and the law is the correct means through which the mystical is cultivated and manifest.

Should the arbiters of the law, the Caliphs who ensure its implementation and the jurists who interpret it, not also be mystics? Indeed, the Prophet’s companion and the first and foremost of the Caliphs, Abu Bakr as-Siddiq, is referred to as “the Imam of the Muslims in general, and of the Sufis in particular.” Many Sufis trace their spiritual lineage from teacher to student back to him, as they do also the fourth Caliph, ‘Ali ibn Abi-Talib, the Prophet’s cousin. Rumi lovingly proclaims of him, “A lover, I am, of Murtaza ‘Ali; in rapture, my very being cries out: ‘Ali ‘Ali.” The prominent jurists who came two generations after these companions, who established the four Sunni schools of Islamic Law, were also mystics, or had studied under them. For example, Imam Malik and Imam Abu Hanifa, founders of the Maliki and Hanafi schools of Law respectively, both studied under the renowned jurist and mystic, Imam Ja’far as-Sadiq, who was himself a descendent of the Prophet. Just as the Sufis of later generations exhorted correct adherence to the Law when traversing the spiritual path, the lawmakers themselves had walked upon it, further illustrating the intimate relation between the legal and the mystical, the external and the internal.

In examining the foundations of the Sunni Islamic tradition, the Qur’an, the Prophet Muhammad, his companions and the early jurists, we can see that the contention Islam has one community of dry legalists and another with rich spirituality is wrong. The exemplary individuals who have carried this tradition from its beginnings to contemporary times, from the early scholar-saints such as Imam al-Ghazali and Mawlana Rumi, to more modern names, such as Mawlana Shaykh Nazim of Cyprus and Shaykh Ninowy of America, make this point clear. For myself and many others, rather than there being a contradiction between the law and the spirit, you can’t have one without the other.

Hamza graduated from the University of Manchester with a BA (Hons) in Religion and Theology, and is continuing his studies to MA with the intention of pursuing a PhD. His research focuses particularly on Islam in Britain, and on understanding denominational difference. He writes in a personal capacity.

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