Who hasn’t at times confessed that if it weren’t for uncle so-and-so or aunt so-and-so, family reunions would be really nice? Families, like the wider concentric social circles growing around them, can be very diverse – ideologically, too, and even religiously.
We have good friends here from the Central African Republic. Like many other tribal groups in West Africa, their own extended family has Muslims and Christians, and until the recent civil strife, they all got along just fine.
But this one Egyptian family stands out, if only because one of them founded the first modern Islamic mass movement with a political edge – now called “islamism.” Hasan al-Banna (1906-1949) started the first cell of the Muslim Brotherhood in Ismailiyya, Egypt, in 1928. Though he had just recently arrived as a newly minted schoolteacher in that town midway on the Suez Canal, Banna preached in the cafés his version of spiritual renewal (he was also member of a Sufi brotherhood), taught basic Islamic doctrine and practice in adult evening classes he put together, started a couple of schools (one for boys, one for girls), and raised funds for other charitable projects among the town’s wealthier citizens.
Egypt in the 1920s was in the throes of revolutionary fervor. The Revolution of 1919 sparked continuous riots until in 1922 the British were forced to dissolve the Protectorate, while continuing to pull the political strings like a puppeteer from above. Then Muslims everywhere were shocked by the new Turkish ruler’s abolition of the Ottoman caliphate in 1924. And even worse than all that for an ardent young nationalist like Banna, Christian missionaries seemed to be everywhere starting schools, opening clinics, and even a university (American Presbyterians had just founded in 1919 the American University of Cairo). In some ways, the Muslim Brotherhood began as the mirror image of Western missionary activities in Egypt. Here is Banna himself commenting on these events in his diary:
“Mustafa Kamal had announced the abolition of the Caliphate . . . [in Cairo] it was thought that the Egyptian University could never be a secular university unless it revolted against religion and waged war against all social traditions which derived from Islam . . . I saw the social life of the beloved Egyptian people, oscillating between her dear and precious Islam which she had inherited, lived with during fourteen centuries, and this severe Western invasion which was armed and equipped with all the destructive influences of money, wealth, prestige, ostentation, power and means of propaganda.”
Meanwhile, he was often traveling to Cairo and elsewhere to begin and supervise other branches of his renewal movement. From my entry on the Muslim Brotherhood in the Encyclopedia of Islam and the Modern World (Macmillan, 2003; I was asked to update it for the 2nd edition coming out later this year):
“The society enjoyed phenomenal growth right from the start. Although it could boast only 5 branches in 1930, that number had jumped to 2,000 in 1949; by 1941 the society had become so influential that the British had the Egyptian prime minister arrest al-Banna and his lieutenant, Ahmad al-Sukkari, but he soon released them without British permission, fearing that their continued imprisonment would touch off a revolt that would topple his government.”
To say the least, Banna was an organizational genius, indefatigable visionary leader, and political whiz to boot! He was assassinated by government agents in 1949, victim of his own success, and hence, his inability to control a sprawling organization, and especially its “secret apparatus” (similar to other militias at the time that took inspiration from the Hitler youths). Somebody connected to the Society of Muslim Brothers had recently assassinated the Prime Minister. Banna was then eliminated.
Jamal al-Banna (1920-2013)
None of that was new ground for me, but in writing this book (Justice and Love: A Muslim-Christian Conversation) I discovered Hasan’s youngest brother Jamal for the first time. In an obituary in an English-language Egyptian newspaper, writer Noha El-Hennawy describes Gamal (the Arabic “j” in Egypt turns to “g”) as “the antithesis” of his brother Hasan. She’s not far off the mark.
Unlike his illustrious brother, he was sent to secular schools, dropped out of high school, but went on to study commerce at a technical school. His learning didn’t stop there, though. In fact, though Hasan wrote about fifteen books (and most of them were long tracts), his brother Jamal was a prolific author of over eighty books, most of them dealing with Islam and society.
Yet Jamal was self-taught, not a product of the prestigious Sunni center of learning in Cairo, al-Azhar University. His objective was to refute what he considered rigid and outdated rules from the past, while using the ulamas’ methods and writing in a way that the common people could understand. He also devoted many books to disprove the tenets of islamism. Though he always showed respect for his brother, he openly disagreed with the goals and practices of the Muslim Brotherhood – more on that below.
Jamal, like his elder, was an activist. Unlike him, his efforts were mostly in the Egyptian trade union movement, in which he became one the great leaders in the second half of the twentieth century. He was a forceful advocate for social justice, human rights, and especially, women’s rights. El-Hennawy calls him “a feminist at heart.” In particular, he argued from the Qur’an that there was no obligation for women to cover their hair and no impediment for women running for political office, even for head of state. And he was especially critical of traditional Islamic scholarship regarding the Sunna, the “exemplary model” of the Prophet’s words and deeds. Few hadiths (individual reports gathered in the main nine authoritative collections) are actually authentic, he claimed.
Eminent Egyptian sociologist Saad Eddin Ibrahim, who also paid for his human rights activism with three years in prison (1999-2002), convened an “Islamic Reform” conference in Cairo in 2004. In his opening address, he saluted Banna, and as he does, notice what he says about 9/11 (keep in mind that the ME has always been rife with conspiracy theories):
“Among the first to recognize the Muslims’ crisis among modern Muslims was our great brother Jamal Al-Banna. Ever since he joined the board of the Ibn Khaldun Center, he has been insisting that we take the initiative in the challenging battle of reforming Islamic thought to renew it, and to reach a living, ever-changing jurisprudence that fits the spirit of this age and adapts to its speedy changes.
Brother Jamal Al-Banna’s insistence transformed into a deafening shout as I sat in my prison cell in Turra, after the horrifying events of September, as I read about what he wrote on those events. He did not bow to the misguided mainstream that had somehow engulfed the Arabs and Muslims, who either were in denial that the attacks had taken place or that some Muslims were responsible. He did not deny nor doubt either fact. He repeated his mantra: reform, reform, reform.”
One last quote by Jamal al-Banna, and for this purpose I’ll just lift this paragraph from my manuscript:
“A strong critic of western-led globalization and the iron rule of transnational corporations, as well as the moral decay eating away at western societies, al-Banna ends up a stronger critic of the moral complacency, political corruption and rampant injustice within Muslim countries themselves. Ironically, he writes, more justice finds its way in the mechanics and dynamics of western democratic societies. Yet Muslims should know better, he moans. And then this memorable phrase—a jarring phrase, indeed—calculated to impel Muslims to action: 'It may well be that Islam is alive in a land that ignores its name, a land in which the banner of the cross is unfurled, more than in a land that raises the banner of the crescent.'”
The enigmatic Tariq Ramadan (b. 1962)
Said Ramadan was one of Hasan al-Banna’s right-hand men and he became his son-in-law. The great “persecution” (mihna) of 1954 – when the military junta purged the government of all Brotherhood members, executing six top leaders and sending thousands to prison – scattered the movement abroad. After several years in Saudi Arabia, where he participated in the founding of the Muslim World League, Ramadan settled in Switzerland, where he founded the Islamic Center of Geneva in 1961, which his son Hani (b. 1959) continues to lead today.
While Hani has written several books on Islam in French (his center, because of its Brotherhood connections, was put on a US terrorist list – and may well remain there today), his younger brother Tariq seems to have found more inspiration from his great uncle Jamal. After obtaining a PhD in philosophy from the University of Geneva (his dissertation was on Nietsche), he spent some time studying at al-Azhar University with tutors one on one, where he obtained several certificates in Islamic science disciplines.
Tariq Ramadan taught philosophy for a while at the University of Freiburg; then in 2004 he accepted a full professorship in Religion, Conflict and Peacebuilding at Notre Dame University, but his US visa was subsequently revoked by the US authorities, citing the “ideological exclusion provision” based on the Patriot Act. He was alleged to have contributed to a Palestinian charity that had ties with Hamas. The lower district court’s decision was reversed by a court of appeals in 2009 and Ramadan had this to say,
“The U.S. government's actions in my case seem, at least to me, to have been arbitrary and myopic. But I am encouraged by the unwavering support I have received from ordinary Americans, civic groups and particularly from scholars, academic organizations, and the ACLU. I am heartened by the emerging debate in the U.S. about what has been happening to our countries and ideals in the past six years. And I am hopeful that eventually I will be allowed to enter the country so that I may contribute to the debate and be enriched by dialogue.”
Ramadan is undoubtedly Europe’s most visible Muslim, appearing on television interviews in France, the UK and elsewhere, and a popular speaker at venues where young Muslims gather (he tweets in French, Arabic and English to close to 300,000 followers!). Founder and president of the European Muslim network, he often advises European politicians on religious matters at the EU headquarters in Brussels.
Ramadan is also controversial, as you might gather if you know anything about Europeans and Islam. Many have called him two-faced, or a wolf in sheep’s clothing. He faces Muslims’ criticisms too. Though he is invited to speak all over the Muslim world, he is clearly beyond the pale for many more conservative Muslims, Salafis and other staunch textualists – and of course, Muslim Brotherhood sympathizers (I wonder how he and his brother Hani carry on at family dinners!).
Yet, having read several of his books along the way, I see him using traditional Islamic methodologies to try and convince traditional Muslims to see their faith from a fresh perspective. In 2005 he issued a declaration in the form of a small book published by Oxford University Press (since 2009 he has been a Professor of Contemporary Islamic Studies at Oxford University), “An International Call for a Moratorium on Corporal Punishment, Stoning and the Death Penalty in the Islamic World.” Then in 2009 his book Radical Reform: Islamic Ethics and Liberation came out. The next year he published The Quest for Meaning: Developing a Philosophy of Pluralism.
Ramadan was a plenary speaker at the 2009 American Academy of Religion annual meeting in Montreal. Since it was in Canada, he could attend. I was there as well and I lined up after his talk to speak to him. We spoke in French, knowing that it was his “heart language” (his accent is almost Parisian, with no trace of the Swiss lilt). I showed him a proof of my book, Earth, Empire and Sacred Text. He said, “I would very much like to have a copy of that.” He wrote down his mailing address at Oxford for me to send him the book.
Tariq Ramadan is not so enigmatic to me. Sure, he knows how to tailor his message to each of his audiences. At times he ferociously defends his fellow Muslims who in Europe are often put down, stigmatized and criminalized; at other times, he’s like a pied piper, playing his tunes of revivalist Islam with a tinge of liberation theology to woo young Muslims away from extremist screeds on the internet.
Tariq is also the philosopher of The Quest for Meaning who takes his readers on an ocean voyage in which the human quest finds commonalities in all the world’s philosophies and literature, in Eastern religions and the monotheistic faiths – each one peering through the window of her own soul, upbringing and faith, to discover others on the ocean peering out of their own windows and now in conversation. The book is both rational and mystical, and really quite accessible to the average reader, but likely baffling to the average Muslim reader. When he writes “pluralism,” he means “theological pluralism” (there is only one Absolute Reality and many paths leading to it).
Tariq, unlike his brother Hani, is marching to the drumbeat of his great uncle Jamal; but unlike him, he’s on the world stage, projecting his voice, his pen and his ideas to a global audience.
I don’t think his grandfather Hasan could even understand where he’s coming from – or where he’s going. But then again, Hasan lived in a very different world. I’m guessing, had Hasan lived several decades more, he would not have been on speaking terms with his brother Jamal.
Jamal, just two months before his death had this to say in an interview. Asked in December 2012 where the Morsi presidency was going, he answered with these prophetic words,
“The mistake of the Revolution is that there is no room for individual freedom. The politics of the leader is against that of the masses. The situation is very bad. Before the Muslim Brotherhood took charge it was bad, but now it is even worse. The minds of the people are not developed. Their way of thinking is bourgeois, not revolutionary. They are professors and lawyers whose understanding is bourgeois. We are now seeing a reaction to the revolution and this revolution is far from a traditional revolution. People are disappointed and the leader is a tyrant. People want the regime down.”
This is the second out of three blogs devoted to my manuscript, which, as of this writing, has been sent out to anonymous reviewers by the publisher – Justice and Love: A Muslim-Christian Conversation.
In the first one we looked at the main Christian source for this book, Yale philosopher Nicholas Wolterstorff. For him, justice is about the inherent dignity of people, by virtue of their creation in God’s image and their being deeply loved by God, to the point of sending his own Son to die on a cross for their salvation. That dignity translates into inalienable rights, argues Wolterstorff, and justice consists in finding ways to make sure that all receive what is rightly theirs – a seemingly impossible task in a world ripped apart by outrageous inequalities.
Now we look at the Muslim author whose writing and action, starting in 2007, initiated a sea change in Muslim-Christian relations – at least potentially, and this book wants to add to that impact. This is Jordan’s Prince Ghazi bin Muhammad (b. 1966), son of Prince Muhammad bin Talal.
Here I just want to cover three points about his writing: love is central to the Qur’anic revelation; the Common Word letter on love and justice; a short summary of his big book, now in its seventh edition, Love in the Holy Qur’an, and what it says about love and justice.
Islam is primarily about love
In a book about the Common Word letter he co-edited with Yale theologian Miroslav Volf, Prince Ghazi in one chapter responded to criticisms he had received about the letter (Volf did the same in responding to Christian critiques). The last criticism out of seven was this: that it was a concession to Christians by framing traditional Islamic discourse in the language of “love.” This was a common objection by Muslims, he wrote, but it also displays a glaring ignorance of their own faith tradition. In his words,
". . . this frequently underestimated aspect of our religion: the Grand Principle of Love. Indeed, the Holy Qur’an uses over fifty near-synonyms for love; English does not have the same linguistic riches and connotations, as was discussed in particular during the Yale workshop and conference in July 2008. If Muslims do not usually use the same language of love as English-speaking Christians, it is perhaps because the word 'love' for Muslims frequently implies something different for Muslims than it does for Christians.
Our use of the language of love in ‘A Common Word’ is simply, then, a recognition that human beings have the same souls everywhere, however pure or corrupted, and thus that the experience of love must have something in common everywhere, even if the objects of love are different, and even if the ultimate love of God is stronger than all other loves."
But there’s an edge to this . . . Muslims continue to feel the sting of Christian polemics over the centuries which indict Islam as a religion of law and justice, but devoid of love. George Washington University professor Seyyed Hossein Nasr, arguably “one of the most important and foremost scholars of Islamic, Religious and Comparative Studies in the world today” (a quote from his website), wrote the Foreword to Ghazi’s book. “Love is in fact one of the central themes of the Noble Qur’an,” he asserts, “whatever naysayers, whether non-Muslims or even some Muslims who see only the external dimension of things, may assert.” Then this recommendation of Ghazi’s book:
“This unique work, therefore, is of great importance not only for Muslims, who at the present moment are so much in need of a deeper understanding of their religion and realization of the central importance of the Prophetic virtues of love, compassion, mercy and forgiveness, but also for non-Muslims and especially Westerners. For too long Western critics of Islam have asserted that while Christians view God as Love, Muslims hold the view of God as a vengeful God who emphasizes His justice alone at the expense of his Love and Mercy. This false and malicious view of the Islamic conception of God has been propagated over and over in orientalist writings and also asserted again and again by Christian missionaries who preach to those Muslims who would listen to them that the Islamic emphasis upon the Divine Attributes of Justice eclipses and nullifies the reality of the Divine Attributes of Love, Compassion and Mercy. The present book is a powerful response to this erroneous but prevalent view that is such a major obstacle to better understanding between the two religions.”
But before delving more into that book, let’s have a look at the Common Word letter. As penned by Ghazi, it is mostly about love for God and love for neighbor. That said, justice is still in the background.
Love and justice in the Common Word
You will remember that this was an open letter to the Pope (Benedict XVI) and “to all Christian leaders.” World peace will be unattainable unless Christians and Muslims, who form more than half of humanity, seek reconciliation after centuries of conflict. The good news is that what the two faiths have in common is at the very core of their traditions: love of God and love of neighbor. That’s the central message of the letter. And on the periphery you can find several interesting clues relative to justice.
Here I’ll take you directly to the conclusion, when Ghazi comments on the following verse: “Say (Muhammad): I am no new thing among the messengers (of God), nor know I what will be done with me or with you I do but follow that which is Revealed to me and I am but a plain warner” (46:9):
“Thus also God in the Holy Qur’an confirms that the same eternal truths of the Unity of God, of the necessity for total love and devotion to God (and thus shunning false gods), and of the necessity for love of fellow human beings (and thus justice), underlie all true religion:
[First, it quotes Q. 16: 36, then this verse:] ‘We verily sent Our messengers with clear proofs, and revealed with them the Scripture and the Balance, that mankind may stand forth in justice….’” (57:25).
Ghazi believes that love for one’s fellow humans includes justice. And then, at the end, after quoting Q. 16: 90 (“Lo! God enjoineth justice and kindness, and giving to kinsfolk . . .”), the letter mentions Mat. 5:9 (“Blessed are the peacemakers . . .”) and then comes the last sentence, “Let us respect each other, be fair, just and kind to another and live in sincere peace, harmony and mutual goodwill.” All these virtues, including respect and justice, come together under the umbrella of love, and produce “peace, harmony and mutual goodwill.”
Prince Ghazi’s Love in the Holy Qur’an
This man who graduated from Princeton University summa cum laude was already gripped by the idea of love at the time. “Love” was on his radar as a Comparative Literature major there, and he went on to Cambridge University for a PhD in that field. His dissertation title was “What Is Falling in Love? A Study of the Literary Archetype of Love.” Finally, he enrolled in what is considered by many as the first Islamic university in the world, the 10th-century Al-Azhar University of Cairo, traditionally considered as the most prestigious center of Islamic Sciences. Love in the Holy Qur’an is the product of that second doctorate.
As you might expect, this is a modern version of a scholastic treatise, but it remains very traditional, just the same. I call this a “literalistic” approach: the book is probably 90% quotations from the Qur’an, the hadith, and the classical Islamic commentators. The rest is Ghazi’s own skillful weaving of all this material in the service of his own thesis: that love is indeed central to God’s revelation in the Qur’an.
I don’t have the space here to go into any detail, but just to give you a taste of how justice and love interact. This mostly comes up in Chapter 17, “Love of Others (All Humanity; The ‘People of the Scripture’; Believers and Friends).”
Since all human beings were “created from a single soul” (e.g., Q. 6:98) and since they all descend from one pair, Adam and Eve; and finally, since the diversity of languages, ethnicities and cultures are among the Divine Signs (ayät) (Q. 30:22; 49:13), “God values every single soul as if it were all humanity, when it comes to saving its life or not causing its death” (Q. 5:32). After quoting several other verses, he notes, “Thus God commands Muslims to be peaceful and to be just toward every single human being, except those who wage war upon them, destroy their places of worship and drive them out of their homes.”
After three more pages of Qur’anic quotes, Ghazi offers this summary. Note here the connection between justice, forgiveness and rights:
“In summary: God has given each and every human being inalienable rights, and has obliged Muslims to have respect for all human beings; not to commit aggression against anyone; to be peaceful and to be just; to be merciful; to empathize with all human beings; to forgive them; to pardon them; to restrain themselves from anger; and even to repay evil deeds with kindness and “turn the other cheek” – and to do this with all people, whoever they may be and regardless of their faith (or lack of it) all the times, so long as they are not first waging war against Muslims.”
Here you have Ghazi unwittingly agreeing with Nicholas Wolterstorff that God endowed all human beings at creation with “inalienable rights” and has as a result enjoined on us all to act toward one another with profound respect, mercy, kindness and even repaying evil with kindness and “turning the other cheek.” That last phrase is an innovation in Islamic literature. Ghazi, after all, knows the gospels well and he’s made an admirable effort to bridge the gap between the two communities.
And then, after a two-page summary of quotations on the People of the Book (Jews and Christians, primarily), Ghazi concludes with this statement:
“God enjoins upon Muslims – in addition to having respect, justice and mercy in general towards all humanity – to have affection and admiration for the People of the Scripture in general (notably Christians and Jews). God says in the Holy Qur’an that the Jews were His most favoured people and that Muslims have a special affinity with Christians in particular; and God knows best.”
Love was not mentioned in any of the Qur’anic verses cited, so it doesn’t figure here. But notice how justice is paired with mercy, and that “affection and admiration” should be the hallmarks of Muslim attitudes toward Jews and Christians.
I end here, but not without looking you in the eye, dear reader, and saying, “do you realize how this Jordanian prince has invested his considerable assets? Not only his wealth, prestige, and influence … but his intellectual gifts?” His cousin, King Abdullah, convened an international conference in Jordan in September 2013 specifically to address the Christian exodus from the Middle East. Ghazi was influential in that initiative (see my first blog on the Christian exodus from the region).
Amidst the terribly negative publicity Muslims tend to receive in our media these days, would you be willing to counter that image with friends and acquaintances and actively build bridges between these two faith communities – thus directly contributing to peacebuilding in our conflict-ridden world? Prince Ghazi’s efforts should inspire us all!