Re-introducing Myself
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Assalaamu Alaykum dear Brothers and Sisters
I have introduced myself earlier, but I needed some more time to evaluate more of the arguments set out in this and other similar sites. I am therefore giving you a more detailed story of myself, and hope we will mutually benefit by me sharing such a lot of detail.
Firstly, my name is Anwar Shaik. The local South African Zulu/Xhosa translation of my name is Khanyo, so I use Khanyo as a nick name. I add my real name, because I feel that there is greater reliability in what I say, if my reputation rests on it. I also have a blog at thecall.co.za , if you'd like to read more about my ideas.
TheCall.co.za is my intellectual journey to arrive at a religio-political-social understanding of the world. I was born a Muslim, but I am saddened to add that I was not born into an entirely truthful understanding of the world. The religion today that goes under the name Islam is fraught with contradictions. For me, if children and other innocent people are dying in the name of a religion, then that should be the first warning sign that something has gone wrong.
Early on in my life, when I was just a lad of 17 or 18, I was slandered and eventually ex-communicated by my Muslim community for postulating that Islam has a focus on all people instead of only on promising salvation to Muslims. My real intention was to get Muslims interested in taking a stand against the inhuman Apartheid system. Sadly though, instead of joining me in the fight against Apartheid, I was made a pariah and a deviant. When I sat in jail for anti- Apartheid activism, these people ignored me and treated me like a reckless fellow who deserved what was coming my way. The convenient label that time to get people to stay away from me was to call me and those close to me ?communists?. I felt more personal acceptance at that time from my Christian brothers and sisters, who accepted me, prayed for me made me feel part of them. The Christian church, under the leadership of people like Alan Boesak and Bishop Desmond Tutu even paid for my legal costs when I was eventually brought to trial for terrorism, arson and some other serious charges.
The Islamic Revolution in Iran in 1979 came as water to a scorched earth for me. I could reconcile a socio-political agenda, aimed at establishing social justice from my Islamic perspective. But it also gave my townsfolk a new label to stick on me and those near to me. We simply then became Shi?ite apostates in their eyes, even if we had almost no clue what Shi?ism was. The anti-Apartheid struggle became fashionable around 1990 and these people welcomed a new label, since the government in waiting was now communist! For a few years I went to the Al-Azhar to seek a better religious understanding of Islam, and to evaluate the religion that my community was preaching against the more original sources. I returned from the Al-Azhar with a good working understanding of Arabic and a good overview of Sunni Islam, with all its tendencies. I used the time in Egypt also to become more acquainted with Shi?ism, having met and learnt from a Shi?ite scholar in exile from Iraq there in Egypt. The premium placed on rationality by the Shi?ite thinkers appealed to me.
Around 1994, back in South Africa, under a new neo-liberal order, established by the ANC government under Mandela, with strong pro-western leanings, I was confronted with the sad contradictions within the liberation movement itself. The ANC had orchestrated a betrayal of the people of epic proportions. The poor was left landless and economically powerless in return for getting a vote, while the prime beneficiaries of Apartheid, namely the mining houses, the banks and the insurance companies were guaranteed their own continued prosperity. Funny enough, I was now facing off with my old townsfolk, who had now taken a serious shift towards the new government of the day, namely the communist ANC. I continued to support the leftist parties like the PAC and AZAPO.
Meanwhile, Iran had stepped up their efforts to recruit local support, but the local pro-Iran Shi?ite cleric saw the key element of transformation as a conversion to the Shi?ite world view. It was not long before I discovered that the cleric that Iran has sanctified and approved of for us was a socio-political ignoramus from Pakistan. A preacher, bent on recruiting as many as possible people to cry and lament for men and women who died over a thousand years ago, while shifting the socio-political agenda way back into the background. When I attempted to visit Iran back in 1989, I was already put off by their refusal to grant me a visa, which led to me wasting thousands of rands on an airline ticket, only to be sent back home without ever entering Iran. In my opinion, the Islamic revolution started out with noble intentions, but seems to have been hijacked by the clerics. My infatuation with Shi?ism began to waver as the years went by. Some of the core ideas stuck however, such as the dissidence to oppressive authorities, preached by Shi?ism, and the strict code required for those declared fit for highest office.
I was happy to discover that there was a version of Shi?ism that incorporated the best of what Twelver Shi?ism offered minus the personality cult around the Imaams. This is how I got to become interested in Zaidi Shi?ism. The Zaidi?s actually shy away from calling themselves Zaidi?s and simply prefer to be called Muslims in search of truth and unity. Zaidi?s also place more emphasis on rationality and logic in arriving at any religious position. They also have a less uncritical acceptance of the Hadith literature. (Hadith, similar to the Talmud in Judaism, is accepted by almost all Muslims today as a compulsory adjunct to the revealed word of God.) Hadith are people?s narratives of the spoken words and the actions of the Prophet Muhammad, may peace be upon him. The ?Way of the Salaf? or the ?Salafist? path is the early scholars? edicts and pronouncements, based on Hadith and Quran, where Quranic verdicts are often trumped by a Hadith. To give you an indication of the magnitude of Hadith The Quran has under 6000 verses, while there are over a hundred thousand Hadith in the ancient books of Islam. Most wars and disunity between Muslims can be traced back to an interpretation of some or other rival Hadiths.
The weakness of the Zaidi school, based mainly in northern Yemen, saddened me. This, even though the school has powerful roots in a strong legacy of opposing corrupt governments. The Zaidi school also has a truly rationalist philosophical outlook, established by people such as Waasil bin Ataa, the founder of the Mu?tazilite (Islamic Rationalism) school of thought. I have discovered however discovered a growing force, in support of classical Islamic Rationalism in the modern Quranist movement, which simply is a movement back to the Quran, even at the cost of sacrificing Hadith holy cows. The Ahlul Quran people seem not to be monolithic. There are strands within the greater movement that I really feel are losing their roots, such as the Submitters, founded by Rashaad Khalifah, who sadly postulated the corruption of the Quran, before his murder by Salafist extremists.
So where do I stand today? The grand global movement away from oppression, exploitation and enslavement, and towards divine and natural justice has to transcend political and religious tags. The right-wing, left-wing approach has become irrelevant, as has the compartmentalization based on religious dogma. I am a Muslim, meaning I know that God exists and that Muhammad is the final in a long line of messengers from God, but I also embrace the Christian truth-seeker, or the Jewish truth-seeker, and anyone at a different point of understanding or progress on the truth-path. I feel a strong affinity for a Christian like Keith Ward, professor emeritus of divinity at Oxford, whose rational scientific arguments in favour of the validity of a God worldview is as good as it gets.
I look forward to benefiting more from all your ideas and knowledge. Thank you for the articles section, which is really of great value. I do think however that there should be some more moderating of the forum, just to prevent us from flying off on a tangent. By saying that, I do not mean censorship, just some responses that step in to provide corrections where serious logical or factual errors are made, which have the possibility of scaring off potential visitors.
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Salamun Alaykum... Wow what an amazing story. May Allah continue to guide you.
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Peace,
Welcome to the forum.
God bless you