An exploration into the life of American-Iranian who fell in love with Islam

By Maryam Qarehgozlou

TEHRAN — Laleh Bakhtiar, an Iranian-American Islamic scholar, is the first woman to present a critical translation of the Quran in any language.

Dr. Bakhtiar has a B.A. in History from Chatham College in Pennsylvania, an M.A. in Philosophy, an M.A. in Counseling Psychology and a Ph.D. in Educational Psychology. She is a certified psychotherapist and has been practicing Islam for over 60 years.

She is the author of many books on Islamic unity, architecture, psychology, psychoethics, and moral healing through the Erfan Enneagram and the 99 Most Beautiful Names of God. Dr. Bakhtiar has translated over 30 books on Islam and Islamic beliefs into English. Her vocation as a practicing Muslim, psychologist, book publisher, and editor and scholar gives her an indispensable role in the Muslim community.

Born on July 29, 1938 in Tehran, she was taken to the U.S. by her American mother, Helen Jeffreys. Helen was the first American to marry an Iranian and migrate to Iran (1931) as well as the first American trained nurse in Iran. Helen traveled with Laleh when she was six months old with her two older sisters, who had been born in America, back to America in 1939. Reza Shah (Shah of Iran from 1925 to 1941) at that time was siding with the Germans. The American Embassy wrote to the few Americans who were in Iran that they needed to leave the country because it wasn’t safe for them. 

Once World War II broke out a few months later in 1939, there was no way for them to get back to Iran. Bakhtiar’s father, Abol Ghassem, a well-known Iranian physician as he was the first Iranian physician trained in America to return to Iran (1931), was left with four children in Iran. Her parents and siblings were separated for six years.

After six years of separation, Helen returned to Iran. She and Abol Ghassem found out that they were not on the same page, but they did decide that all seven children should go to America for an education. Abol was supposed to join them, but after World War II, Iran passed a law that said no doctors could leave Iran because they needed the doctors here. Helen and Abol were divorced and Abol remarried. He and his wife, Bibi Turon, were to have ten children.

As Laleh was taken again to America, all her education was there. She went to a woman’s college in Pittsburgh and earned a B.A. in history. Then, many years later when she was a grandmother, she went back to graduate school and got two master’s degree, one in Philosophy and one in Counseling Psychology and a Ph.D. in Educational Psychology.

In the 1960’s she had tried to get a Ph.D. at the University of Tehran in a program of Persian Literature for Foreigners. At the end of the first year the head of the Department of Persian Literature at Tehran University informed her that as her father was Iranian and the course was only for foreigners, she could not finish the course. 

Falling in love with Islam

Laleh practiced Christianity until she was 19.

Coming from Christianity to Islam I realized I did not have to give up my love for Jesus and, in addition, I gained Muhammad (PBUH).”

“I grew up as a Christian in America. When I was 19, one of my brothers was at Harvard University. I was in college in Pittsburgh. I talked to a girlfriend of mine and we decided to go and spend a weekend with my brother at Harvard. We ironed shirts, 25 cents a shirt, for 6 weeks in order to get the money to buy our plane tickets. When we got there, one of my brother’s friends, Seyyed Hossein Nasr, was there,” Laleh Bakhtiar told the Tehran Times in an exclusive interview.

Seyyed Hossein Nasr (born in 1933) is a world-renowned scholar on Islam and is currently a University Professor of Islamic Studies at the George Washington University and President of the Foundation for Traditional Studies. He has published over fifty books and hundreds of articles in numerous languages and translations.

He graduated from Massachusetts Institute of Technology with an undergraduate degree in Physics and Mathematics. He went on to Harvard University where he studied Geology and Geophysics and then completed a Ph.D. in the History of Science and Philosophy.

“Seyyed Hossein Nasr has been my mentor for about 60 years,” she highlighted.

“He was there at Harvard getting his Ph.D. His mother lived in the area. She would have dinner for the few Persians there at that time. On Saturday night of that weekend we went to their house. Seyyed Hossein Nasr asked me: What religion do you practice? I said: I grew up as a Christian. He said: Your father is a Muslim, therefore, people will expect you to be a Muslim. I said: I don’t know anything about Islam.  He said: Well, learn. That’s what I’ve been doing for the last 60 years. As a result, I have fallen in love with it.”

“Seyyed Hossein Nasr brought me from Christianity to Islam. Instead of first teaching me to be afraid of God, which often happens if a teacher begins only with the “Sharia” (the Islamic law which is a religious law forming part of the Islamic tradition), he taught me through Erfan. In this way, I developed a deep love of God. In other words, instead of beginning with what God has asked me to do (daily prayers, fasting, etc.), I began by not doing what God has asked me not to do (eat pork, gamble, drink  alcohol) and then learning the practices. By first giving up what God has asked me to give up, I grew closer to God. I actually fall in love with God so that religion became my whole being, my whole personality and my whole reason for living. In addition, coming from Christianity to Islam I realized I did not have to give up my love for Jesus and, in addition, I gained Muhammad (PBUH).”

Becoming a writer and translator

“In the late 1960s, the Shah had given $3 million to the University of Chicago to establish the Center for Middle Eastern Studies. The University of Chicago wanted to give the Shah a gift once the center was built. They contacted Seyyed Hossein Nasr and said that they wanted an architect to write a book on Persian architecture, not from the point of view of history, but from the point of view of a creative person looking at Persian architecture.

“As my former husband [Nader Ardalan], who had grown up in America as I had, was a practicing architect but was not familiar with the creative or spiritual side of Islam, he asked me to write with him and to do the research as I had studied Erfan with Seyyed Hossein Nasr at Tehran University.

She continues: “By then Dr. Nasr had come back to Iran and he was teaching courses on Erfan (Islamic mysticism) at the University of Tehran. I attended these classes and learned about Erfan and Persian culture. The classes also included learning about the great Islamic scholars of the past, scholars such as Al-Ghazali [one of the most prominent and influential Persian philosophers, theologians, jurists, and mystics of Sunni Islam who is buried in Toos] as well as Avicenna [a Persian polymath] among so many others.

“After finishing the translation of the Quran, I realized that the Quran had taught me to be a critical thinker.”

“So my husband and I wrote the book The Sense of Unity: The Sufi Tradition in Persian Architecture together which has been translated into Persian.

“This was how I became interested in writing. Another publisher called Thames & Hudson, a London/New York publisher, asked me to write an introductory book on Sufism, so I wrote the book: Sufi: Expressions of the Mystic Quest. I had suddenly become a writer, something I had never thought about before.. As we say: We have our plan and God has His!

“Several years later, when I was divorced, I had to look for a career and I thought to myself: The thing I know how to do is to write books. So I became a writer and a translator. The first book I ever translated was Fatemeh is Fatemeh, a book written by Ali Shariati. I translated several of Shariati’s books, and Morteza Motahhari’s books and worked on English translations with some of the different Islamic Organizations.”

The path to translate the Quran

“I was looking for a job when I finished my Ph.D. I was introduced to the oldest Muslim publisher in North America (founded in 1972), Kazi Publications, an independent Muslim publisher in Chicago that publishes books on Shism and Sufism. They had book distribution, but they did not have book production. They hired me, as writing and book production was my specialty. They asked me to write a book on the life of Prophet Mohammad (PBUH) for high school students. I wrote the book. A very famous American professor had written a foreword to the book and it had been reviewed.  It was finished and ready to go to the printers. One day I looked at the book and said to myself: How can I write the life of the prophet without the whole of the Quran in his life story? When you write a one volume work on the life of the prophet, which is important to have, however, and there are many, you just have some of the verses but you don’t give the overall picture of all the Quran that was revealed to him.

“Of course, when you want to include the whole of the Quran in the life of the prophet then you will have many volumes which I was prepared to do.  I studied English translations of the Quran like Abdullah Yusuf Ali’s [Translation and Commentary (1934)], Muhammad [Marmaduke] Pickthall’s [The Meaning of the Glorious Koran (1930)] and Muhammad Asad’s [The Message of the Qur'an (1980)]. I found many problems with them.

“For example in Muhammad Asad’s translation, which many people like in English, you cannot put the Arabic next to his translation because there is so much extra English. So it is a “tafsir”, a commentary, and not a translation. Or, Yusuf Ali’s translation, which is maybe closer to the Arabic, but it includes all these footnotes. So you go down to the footnotes and start reading them forgetting what the Quran had said.

“I found this very disturbing. I felt there needed to be a translation without any parenthesis and without any extra indications or footnotes, etc. but so straight forward so that you could mirror the Arabic with the English and you would be able to learn Quranic Arabic.

“The other thing that was important to me was what is called consistency and reliability. None of the translations had that. As I had translated books before, I knew that when I start from the beginning and I go to the end, in the middle I forget what translation I used for a particular word, so I would continue to add synonyms. This makes it more difficult for a person to learn the meaning of an Arabic word. As I had studied educational psychology where you learn about testing, consistency, and reliability. I wanted to make sure that if the context allows, I use the same English word in translation. “One word in the Quran, if the context allows of course, suddenly has 10 meanings in English, how is one supposed to learn that word in Arabic when it has 10 different English equivalents? It should be the same if the context allows.

“So I thought the way to do it was to start with the words, not from the beginning to the end.

Bakhtiar went on to say that “I was not sure this method would work. I called a Muslim convert friend of mine who lives in Arizona and whose father had been a minister. I explained that I was using this method and said: “I’m not sure if this is going to work.” He said: “That is how they translated the King James version of the Bible in the 17th century.  They began with the words and not the sentences.” I was relieved to realize that this method will work.

“Some people say: In order to prepare the English translation of the King James version of the Bible, 50 to 55 men were working on it, but you are only one person, so how can you think you are equal to that? I say: I have a computer.”

“Using this method, then, also laid the basis for an English “al-Mujim al-mufahris” which I called The Concordance of the Sublime Quran.”

The Concordance of the Sublime Quran serves the need of those who do not know the Arabic language but want to understand the Quran. This work is a translation and transliteration of the Arabic Concordance known as al-Mujim al-mufahris. This all-English work shows the semantic structure of the Arabic vocabulary in order to arrive at the multiple meanings of Arabic three and four-letter roots and their derivatives. Divided into three parts, Part 1: Contents lists the 3673 transliterated Arabic derivatives of all verbs, nouns and some particles in the Quran. Part 2: Text lists the transliterated derivatives, their grammatical structure and English translation followed by the verses in which the word appears in The Sublime Quran. Part 3: Index lists the 6000+ words used in the translation followed by a reference to the derivative found in both Part 1: Contents and Part 2: Text. 

Controversies surrounding Sublime Quran translation

Most of the people who haven’t been brainwashed would come to the determination that to think of the spirit of the law and meaning would be a better way of understanding the world.Bakhtiar’s translation of the Sublime Quran is different from other English translations in many ways. For example, she used the word “ungrateful” for “kafirun” where the context allows. Or in Chapter 4, Verse 34, a hotly debated verse, that has been interpreted to say that a rebellious woman should first be admonished, then abandoned in bed, and ultimately “beaten” — the most common translation for the Arabic word “daraba” — unless her behavior improves. However, Bakhtiar chose to translate the word daraba as “go away.”

“I realized that if you wanted an inclusive translation then ‘kafir’ has to be translated as ‘ungrateful’ if the context allows. If the word appears with ‘iman’ meaning ‘faith’ then you have to translate it into ‘disbeliever’ but if it does not appear with that, then you can understand it as meaning ‘ungrateful’ because we know plenty of Muslims who are ‘kafirs’ in the sense that they are ungrateful to God. Not that they don’t believe in God, but they are ungrateful to God and they don’t show their gratitude towards Him.

“Or, for instance, it is not common to use thee, thy or thou in English for the second person singular. Yet, when we use ‘you’ instead of ‘thou’, we are referring to the second person plural, making God plural which is an unforgivable sin in Islam. So, when the original was thee or thou, I put the pronoun in bold so the reader knows that the original was singular.

“In regard to masculine or feminine pronouns which exist in Arabic, sometimes they are not clear in English when the Arabic refers to the third person plural, ‘them’.  I found several verses in the Quran where a distinction has to be made between a third person plural pronoun being masculine or feminine. For example verse al-Nur, 24:33 on forcing women into prostitution. It says: Compel not your spiritual warriors (fatat) against their will to prostitution when they wanted chastity, that you be looking for the advantage of this present life. Whoever compels them to it against their will, yet after their compulsion, God will be of them, Forgiving, Compassionate. (Q24:33) When you read this in English, the plural pronouns need further explanation.

“The third person plural pronoun, ‘them’, in this case is feminine. That is, it is the women who will be forgiven. But this doesn’t come across in even a Persian translation. So for important pronouns like this, I put ‘f’ in parentheses to indicate this is a feminine pronoun.

“And then, of course, I came to 4:34 and the Arabic word ‘daraba’. I realized that the God that I love is not going to allow anyone to beat anyone. So I did research. The Arabic word, ‘daraba’ has 26 meanings. One of them is ‘to go away’ instead of ‘beat them’. There is a disagreement about this as not everyone agrees that it says that. However, having it as an alternative understanding in the entire translation of the Quran indicates a difference of opinion.

“As an example, there was a child custody case in New York. An Indian Muslim physician-husband wanted to get custody of his four children from his Polish-convert-to-Islam wife even though he had beaten his wife. He took the stand before the judge and showed him the Marmaduke Pickthall translation of the Quran where it says: “scourge them”. Scourge is an even stronger punishment than beat! The judge was confused, thinking: American law forbids beating, but this man’s religion says he can beat his wife so which way do I decide. Then, the wife took the stand. She opened the Sublime Quran to chapter Nisa: 4:34 and said that the verse says the husband after admonishing his wife and leaving her bed, he should “go away”. The judge then realized that there is a difference of opinion in regard to 4:34 and was then able to decide for the wife.  He gave her custody of the children.

 “It took me seven years to complete the English translation of the Sublime Quran. It was published in 2007. I can’t speak Arabic. I can pronounce the Quran, but to myself, because I don’t pronounce it correctly. However, it is important to recognize that we receive spiritual reward by listening to the Arabic recitation of the Quran, whether we are able to recite it correctly ourselves or not, and not from reading a translation. Translation does not give you that but it gives you meaning which is also very important.”

Critical Thinking and the Chronological Quran in the Life of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH)

“After finishing the translation of the Quran, I realized that the Quran had taught me to be a critical thinker. As a result, I was able to do a series of thirty books entitled Critical Thinking and the Chronological Quran in the Life of Prophet Muhammad. Twenty-four of the books are focused on the 23 years and some months of the revelation of the Quran to the Prophet. Four other volumes are the verses about the other prophets. Each lesson begins with a critical thinking element.

“One of the most important elements of critical thinking is to ask questions. One-sixth of the Quran, over 1,000 verses, are questions: Will you not be reasonable? Will you not wake up? Why haven’t you done this? Why aren’t you listening? So when the Quran itself is teaching me to be a critical thinker, so this has a beautiful message in it that I need to understand.

Books entitled Book Year 1 to Book Year 24 consist of one book for each year of the revelation to the death of the Prophet. Books 25-28 are devoted to the Quranic stories of all other Prophets, Messengers, and Ones Who Are Sent in order of their dates. The last two are: Book 29: The Life of Prophet Muhammad from Birth to the Revelation and Book 30: Teachers Manual. The last, Book 30 has been prepared for the teachers Lesson Plans.

She added, “The series are educational books as well. They are being taught in five states in America in Sunday schools to teach Muslim students about the Quran because they are learning both critical thinking and the Quran.

“The book that I began on the life of the Prophet was never published. Maybe I will finish it one day, but I just thought because it didn’t have the whole Quran in it I found that I was denigrating the Prophet. I was not giving the full message of his life and why God had chosen him for the revelation.”

A women-friendly translation of Quran

While Bakhtiar’s translation of Quran is cited to be a women-friendly translation, she says she doesn’t call herself a feminist.

“Before me, Ms. Saffarzadeh, God rest her soul in peace, who was a friend of mine, had been the first woman to do an English translation of the Quran. However, if you read her English translation of the Quran it is just like Yusuf Ali’s translation. She translated the Quran the same way a man would. She did not look at it from a woman’s point of view.”

Tahereh Saffarzadeh (1936-2008) published her bilingual translation of the Qur'an in Persian and English in 2001, which is the first bilingual translation of the Qur'an, and the first translation of the Qur'an into English by a woman. She was an Iranian poet, writer, translator and prominent university professor. 

“My translation is the first translation of the Quran by a woman from a women’s point of view, but I’m definitely not a feminist. You can call me a Muslim-feminist or a Muslim-activist if you want but ‘Muslim’ has to be there because feminism ideology began as a rejection of men. While translating 4:34 and the Arabic word ‘daraba’ I found out that there are as many men who agree with me that you cannot beat anyone. However, some women, particularly in the Arab world, say women are supposed to be beaten. Therefore, it is a human rights issue and not a question of being a feminist.”

‘Hijab has a great psychological effect on you’

My translation is the first translation of the Quran by a woman from a women’s point of view, but I’m definitely not a feminist. You can call me a Muslim-feminist or a Muslim-activist if you want but ‘Muslim’ has to be there because feminism ideology began as a rejection of men.

Speaking about the mandatory Hijab in Iran, she explained: “Wherever you live, you have to follow the laws of that country. If you don’t like a law, then you vote for a different law. There are many laws in America I do not agree with, but I have to go along with the law. You change it through your vote, but you don’t change it by saying I don’t like it or I don’t want to do it. It’s like stopping at a red light. Mandatory hijab makes sense in the culture of Iran, but it doesn’t mean that all cultures have to do that. I also believe that in another culture, like in America, where it is not a law, it is up to a woman to decide if she likes it or not and everyone should accept her decision.

“I loved wearing the Hijab because it kept down my ego. It has a great psychological effect on you in the sense that in your home you are free to wear whatever you want to wear, but when you go out to society you cover because you don’t want to corrupt the society. This makes perfect sense. But in America women wear the worst looking clothes at home and are the least attractive at home, but when they go out they get all these beautiful clothes. That is the complete reverse of what the idea of Hijab is. Here, women’s egos are trained to want to draw attention of everybody to them, and what for?

“I still practice the hijab, but I do not wear a headscarf in the U.S. When 9/11 happened, I stopped wearing a headscarf. I have three children and eight grandchildren. They live in three different states, so I’m the one who travels. I have to get travel alone. I found when I got on an airplane and I was wearing a scarf as I walked down the aisle, I put everyone I passed in a state of fear. I thought to myself: This is not the Hijab because you are supposed to not call attention to yourself. That is the whole idea of it, but here, in this culture, I am calling attention to myself.

“I live in this culture where it is not normal to wear a head scarf. People are not used to seeing others wearing it. In addition, I eventually became 65 years old and the Quran has a verse that says older women do not need to be as careful.”

‘Islam gives women rights that they don’t even know about’

Commenting on gender equality in Islam, Bakhtiar explained that Islam gives women rights that they don’t even know about because they are not educated in women’s rights.

“There are an amazing number of rights that a woman is given. There are logical reasons for whatever rights a woman has or does not have. For example, the Quran says two women witnesses to one man witness. In the first place, that’s an economic contract and it’s very easy to intimidate women. If she has a friend, she is not going to be as closely intimidated as if she were by herself. It makes perfect sense. Or why men get twice as much inheritance? In the first place, you can write your own will and not follow that. This is for those who do not have a will. A man is supposed to support his mother and sisters, while whatever a woman earns is her own.

“Some say women cannot be judges. I believe this will change with time because women are the best judges when it comes to women’s issues. How are men going to be able to judge women’s issues?

“And then women are supposed to go to a women dentist or a women gynecologist, so this gives opportunities to women that they wouldn’t have if it were not because of Islam.  

“And then the movies and cinema. Iranian movies are unbelievable, they are winning awards all around the world. The writers, directors and actors follow the “Sharia” [the Islamic law]. It is so creative in how they do it. So Islam is not something inhibitive. If you use your creative and critical thinking skills you can come up with unbelievable, wonderful ways of expressing human relationships in a way that Persian movies do.

God spirit is with us all the time; even with the development of the world

Bakhtiar opposes the view that today’s human beings are dissimilarly different from their ancestors due progress in technology and a view shared by certain people that today religion cannot be responsive to the current needs of our societies.

“I disagree that human beings are dissimilarly different from their ancestors. We still exhibit the same virtues and vices. However, there are changes of other kinds. From the steam engine, we went to the car. But the most important message of life to me is to know yourself. Who are you? Where did you come from? Where are you going? Well, you can’t know that if you don’t know God. And how could you know God as Existence if you don’t have some kind of faith or some kind of religious belief? It is also a good distinction to make between the spiritual and the religious. So some people only believe in the religious side of things or a formal religion but others believe in the spiritual. God’s spirit is within all of us, in giving us our very existence. Even with the development of the world with televisions, computers, and smartphones, God is still around us and is still a part of us.

“Maybe in our minds, we might want to separate it from our lives, but we can’t really because if we want to know ourselves we have to know that God has given us all these things. Everything came from God. If you define religion as the belief in God, the presence and existence of God is what caused everything to happen to be. It’s just that our minds have doubts so that some say science is more important, or evolution is more important or power is more important or control or money like in the West where religion is replaced with money. 

“They go hours and hours talking about the stock market and about what’s going up and down while in the past we used to talk about God and religion like that. Now it is all about money. Yes, things have changed, but that’s also God’s will about how things should happen. However, we are free to do what we want to do. There is no compulsion in believing in God, but there is a consequence either way.”

What is right and what is wrong

The 21st century has seen an ideological shift; religion is now interpreted by different groups who manipulated it to meet their needs. Given this, there is confusion as to what is right and what is not.

To elaborate on this, Bakhtiar said, “When somebody from a religious perspective tells us what is right or wrong, it’s up to us to use our mind to determine and say “yes”, this does make sense or “no”, it does not and decide whether we follow that or not. One of the most important guidelines in Islam is “taqlid” [an Islamic terminology denoting the conformity of one person to the teaching of another] and that’s for religious issues like when do I pray? If I miss the noon prayer do I first pray the noon prayer? Taqlid relates to questions about specific religious practices. 

“Then, there is “tahqiq” [meaning verification, seeing things as they are in themselves through immediate perception without intermediaries]. It means using my mind to understand things. So the great civilization of Islam, when it was its most powerful was when people used “tahqiq” for things other than religion. “Taqlid” was there but only for religious issues such as prayer, Hajj, fasting, etc. but it wasn’t in other things that had nothing to do with the “Sharia”. The emphasis was on creativity. How do I learn something and this come from “tahqiq”, recognizing things for myself. What does this mean to me? When we do that, we eventually come to spiritual birth. There is no way you cannot get there, but it takes time. I mean it may take a whole lifetime, and that is what the whole “Jihad-e-Akbar” (The Greater Struggle) is about: to know yourself.

“I believe that having faith in God and the Day of Judgment is the only thing that is giving meaning to our lives."

Presenting the true face of Islam

There are different interpretations of the Quran. For example, the Taliban has its own interpretation, Al-Qaeda has its own. Some argue these are puritanical views of Islam; then another group called ISIS presents a stricter version of Islam. The way they are representing Islam is distorting the true image of it.

When somebody from a religious perspective tells us what is right or wrong, it’s up to us to use our mind to determine and say “yes”, this does make sense or “no”, it does not and decide whether we follow that or not.

But Bakhtiar said there is a difference between the literal interpretation of the Quran and understanding the meaning of the Quran.

“To present the true face of Islam you need education so people learn the difference between the literal interpretation of the Quran and understanding the meaning of the Quran. The Wahhabi perspective or the ISIS perspective or those puritanical and ultraconservative views is that the word you are reading is exactly what you are reading and there is no meaning behind that. It’s just whatever that word says.

“But the point of view of other perspectives which is more of an “Erfan” kind of perspective is that every word has meaning because it came from God so that it has a meaning behind it. The spirit of a word is the meaning behind it. So when we say cat, for instance, what is the meaning of a cat? We look for the meaning of it. When we say the prophet or when we say charity, what is the meaning of that? But the Wahhabi or the ultraconservatives just say charity only means this and you give it at this time and that’s it. It’s a very sterile kind of life. It’s like the Puritans who first founded America. They were literalists. They left England because they were being persecuted for being literalists.

“They said whatever it says in the Bible is exactly what it is. You don’t look for the meaning of the things. That’s why they burnt women at the stake calling them witches because they were not looking at the meaning behind whatever they had done. You can say we have the law and the spirit of the law. For instance, if someone is hungry and they steal a chicken, based on the law, stealing is punishable by cutting off hands, but when you look at the spirit of the law, you say: Wait a minute. The person did that because they are hungry. So whose fault is it that they are hungry? It is the government’s fault that they didn’t give that person food. They then had to go and steal something. So there is a spirit behind the law but not for ISIS or the Wahhabi. For them, it’s just the law.

“I had an experience in Chicago. One day someone rang my doorbell. He was in a hurry looking for somewhere to offer his daily prayer. Once he finished, he said only twice in his lifetime had he been late for his daily prayer. I thought that he must be a very pious person. Then I found out that he beats his wife. She was in the hospital because he had beaten her so badly. Why? Because for him there is no meaning in the law. It is just the form. The form says you offer prayer at 12 noon or exactly at noon. This has nothing to do with how you relate to your wife or children or friends. If that exact time doesn’t work for you because your baby is crying, do you take care of the baby or do you just say: Ok, let the baby cry because I have to pray exactly at noon? You either look for the meaning or you say there is no meaning. So it is education that teaches people the difference. Most of the people who haven’t been brainwashed would come to the determination that to think of the spirit of the law and meaning would be a better way of understanding the world.

“The Western media is just reporting about the extremists. Most Muslims are good people and not interested in beating someone or killing someone. However, their stories are less often reported because who is going to buy a story about them? Everything is about money.

“One of the major differences that has rarely been pointed out is the main difference between Sunni and Shia—or as I say, the Ja’fari, Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi'i and Hanbali schools of law—when you talk about martyrdom, for the Ja’faris it's going to war where, if you are killed, you become a martyr for your country or God as Imam Hossein did. But in the view of the extremists, martyrdom is associated with blowing up innocent people. We don’t have that concept in Iran and that’s a big difference that the West doesn’t point out at all because the Ja’faris are in the minority and don’t get as much press as them which has fueled Islamophobia in America. It’s targeting the Muslims and it’s a very difficult time.”

Islam and democracy

On a belief among certain scholars that Islam, or generally religion, is not in conformity with democracy and that these two are not reconcilable, she said, “There is no compulsion in religion. That’s an aspect of democracy. You don’t want to believe in it, don’t. If you want to believe in it, then do. This is a democratic process where it is up to an individual to decide one way or the other. You have a choice. It’s not that the religion is forcing people so if you don’t have a religion you have democracy. They are not separate things. It does not mean that if you have a religion you cannot be democratic. You have just as much right to be religious and democratic as to not having a religion and having democracy. Democracy doesn’t mean you don’t have religion, it means that you are free to vote for whoever you want no matter what you believe in. This is basically what democracy is. Also, America is not a democracy. It is a republic. It never has been a democracy although we talk about it as if it is. When you vote in a presidential election in America, you do not vote directly for the person of your choice. You vote for a person from the Electoral College who can change the vote. We have much more of a direct vote here in Iran. 

Other books and works of translation

“I think one of my most important works of translation and editing is Ibn Sina’s The Canon of Medicine, a five-volume work of 5,000 pages. It took 1,000 years to translate it into English. I spent 10 years with Kazi Publications completing it.

“The other book is The Sufi Enneagram: The Secrets of the Symbol Unveiled. It’s a nine-point personality theory which we can call “Erfanic psychology” and this is how I came to know Dr. Mahshid Razavi.

A quest

Mahshid Razavi Rezvani, a cultural resource manager and policy analyst, also talked to the Tehran Times during the interview.

Razavi, a Ph.D., is the Managing Director at Mahshid-e-Kherad Institute of Art and Culture. She first met Laleh Bakhtiar in 2016 in her quest for learning about the Enneagram.

Razavi conducts research in the field of culture and personality using the Enneagram approach, specifically, the Sufi Enneagram discovered by Dr. Bakhtiar. Razavi is a Professional Member of IEA (International Enneagram Association), Accredited Professional at IEA (International Enneagram Association), and Representative of ITP (Dr. Bakhtiar’s Institute of Traditional Psychology) from Chicago.

“As a counselor, it was important for me to provide counseling from an Islamic point of view as generally counseling theories and approaches lack an Islamic perspective,” Razavi explained.

Democracy doesn’t mean you don’t have religion, it means that you are free to vote for whoever you want no matter what you believe in. This is basically what democracy is. Also, America is not a democracy. It is a republic. It never has been a democracy although we talk about it as if it is.

“Ten years ago I read about the Enneagram and found out that it originated with “Erfan” (mysticism) and Sufism. Five years ago Dr. Bakhtiar’s book The Sufi Enneagram: The Secrets of the Symbol Unveiled, which my office has translated into Persian, entitled Noh Ganeh Irani, came out and answered my question.

The Enneagram (pronounced any-a-gram; ennea is Greek for nine, and gram means drawing) and has its roots in the Middle East in ancient spiritual traditions and research suggests dates as far back as Plato. As we know it today, the Enneagram is a vital link between Eastern spirituality and Western psychology.

The Enneagram of Personality, or simply the Enneagram is a model of the human psyche which is principally understood and taught as a typology of nine interconnected personality types. Although the origins and history of many of the ideas and theories associated with the Enneagram of Personality are a matter of dispute, contemporary Enneagram claims are principally derived from the teachings of Oscar Ichazo and Claudio Naranjo. Naranjo's theories were partly influenced by some earlier teachings of George Gurdjieff. As a typology, the Enneagram defines nine personality types (sometimes called "enneatypes"), which are represented by the points of a geometric figure called an enneagram, which indicate connections between the types.

However, Razavi explained, monotheism was missing in the kind of Enneagram presented in the West as it does not correspond with the Islamic viewpoint.

“It was important to me to reintroduce the Sufi Enneagram or the Iranian Enneagram to Iranians as well as the world once again,” she said, adding the kind of Enneagram being practiced in the U.S. was first introduced by Persian polymath Nasir al-Din al-Tusi.

“Dr. Bakhtiar has also researched the Enneagram roots among Iranian polymaths as well in her book,” she added.

“The Enneagram practiced in the West is mostly affected by seven deadly sins [the capital vices or cardinal sins, which is a grouping and classification of vices within Christian teachings], however, the Iranian Enneagram is based on moral issues and monotheism,” she highlighted, ”adding that, the human being’s personality is dynamic and can change by avoiding extreme behaviors; the 9 Points Iranian’s (Noh Ganeh Irani) ultimate purpose it to teach us to be fair and just and promote the practice of “spiritual chivalry” (futuwwah, javanmardi) in society.

“The Iranian Enneagram (Noh Ganeh Irani) can introduce Iran and the true face of Islam to the world,” she concluded.

UNDERSTANDING TAWHID: PROVING DIVINE SIMPLICITY MEANS GOD IS NOT LIMITED OR FINITE.

INFINITE ASCENSION

The Muslimvibe

In the name of God, the Most Gracious, the Most Compassionate

Though mentioned previously, it is pertinent to review a number of critical points that will help elucidate further posts, particularly the understanding of God’s attributes.

Proving divine simplicity means God is not limited or finite. He is not a composite of act and potency, rather He is pure actuality, pure being. There is no perfection we can propose that God does not have. In fact, there is no perfection except that which the Quran attributes it to God essentially and exclusively to God, and only to others secondarily and with His permission. God is the reality that encompasses and comprehends all realities and all perfections. Everything other than God is encompassed, finite and limited.

This leads us to a very important point; that God is infinite and without limit means that we cannot comprehend or understand the reality and essence of God; for it is impossible for the finite to grasp the infinite, as shown in the Holy Quran:

وَلَا يُحِيطُونَ بِهِۦ عِلْمًۭا

“but they cannot comprehend Him in their knowledge.”(20:110)

As such a plethora of narrations exist warning us of the dangers and pitfalls that occur when one attempts to comprehend the reality of God. As Imam Ali says, anything one imagines Him to be, He is different to that very thought.

However, in the first sermon of Imam Ali, He says the foremost in religion is knowing God, so how do we reconcile between those seemingly contradictory statements? In reality, we can know God only by knowing his Divine names and attributes and this opens for us the door to the knowledge of God that is possible.

I will conclude with a beautiful narration reported from Imam Al Ridha (as), full of wisdom and the light of gnosis:

“He who knows Him by similitude has not understood His oneness;

And one who compares Him (to anything) has not understood the true essence,

nor has he confirmed Him if he sets any limit for Him;
And he who points towards Him with any of his senses is, in fact, aiming at something other than Him;

So, he who likens Him (to others) does not actually mean Him,

and he who considers Him a part of the whole, does not actually know Him,

and he who imagines Him is indeed deluded.

Everything, which can be encompassed by knowledge and imagination, is created,

and everything that is dependent upon others for its existence is an effect.”

Political Dimensions of the Seerah

Written by Kalim Siddiqui


...A messenger reciting unto you the revelations of Allah made plain, that he may bring forth those who believe and do good works from darkness unto light. -- Al-Qur'an, 65:11 This is how Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala describes the Prophet, peace be upon him and his pure progeny, in the Noble Qur'an.

But the point is addressed not only to his contemporaries, but also to all people in times yet to come. This is why he was the Last, or Seal, of all Prophets [1]. Prophethood ended with Muhammad, upon whom be peace, because his Seerah could be applied by ‘those who believe and do righteous deeds' at any time and place in history and would lead them ‘from the depth of darkness into light'.

The ‘depth of darkness' today is represented by the West and the Western civilization on the one hand, and the conditions into which Muslim societies have sunk on the other. This is the modern equivalent of the state of jahiliyyah which confronted the great Exemplar [2]. And this contemporary darkness is total because the Western civilization encompasses the whole world. It is everywhere. The Islamic Revolution in Iran has made a bold attempt to escape this darkness and to move into light.

There is no doubt that the rest of the Ummah today remains immersed in ‘the depth of darkness' in every conceivable way. This darkness has spread to include everything from the individual behaviour of Muslims to their collective condition, identity and behaviour. Merely to describe the condition of the Ummah today would require many volumes of thoroughly researched books. A simple way to achieve the same result is to say that Muslims today have reverted to the state of jahiliyyah, or darkness (zulumat), without formally stepping out of Islam. Thus, once again, we are faced with the same problem that faced the great Exemplar himself, upon whom be peace. And, clearly, the only way forward is to follow the Seerah and the Sunnah of the Prophet.

But the issue—how to follow the Seerah and the Sunnah of the Prophet?—is not so simple. In today's conditions the Seerah cannot be followed in the shape and form in which it is recorded in the classical texts on the subject. The Seerah and the Sunnah, like the Qur'an, are sources of knowledge and guidance for all times. The Seerah is there to be researched, written, understood and applied in each new historical situation as it emerges. In recent times a variety of Islamic movements have emerged, claiming to be based on the Seerah. But the results they have achieved have varied from the dubious successes of most of the ‘Islamic parties' that emerged during the colonial period to the recent triumph of the Islamic Revolution in Iran. Perhaps each new generation, in each new historical situation, has to apply the Seerah afresh according to its peculiar circumstances and requirements. Perhaps a process of trial and error is inevitably involved in recapturing the ethos of the Seerah in today's conditions.

It is also possible that the historical situation and the intellectual climate of the time when the first classical works on the Seerah were compiled imposed their logic, limits and needs on such works as those of Ibn Ishaq, al-Waqidi and Ibn Hisham. The politically dominant position of Islam, indeed the geographically expanding dominion and power of Islam, were taken for granted as part of a divinely ordained plan. This persuaded the early compilers of the Seerah to concentrate on issues of the personal qualities of the Prophet, upon whom be peace, and the taqwa (piety) of early Muslims. They followed the simple historical method of compiling a chronological record of events with great accuracy. There was no attempt to link early events with later events, or to discover patterns in the Seerah as guides to the underlying methods used by the Prophet, upon whom be peace.

Significant in this connection is the use of power. Power relationships are the basis of all relationships in nature. Power inequalities are inherent in the state of nature itself, and defining factors in determining behaviour. Stronger animals eat or otherwise exploit the weaker and the weakest try to seek refuge underground or in thick undergrowth. The Qur'an describes mankind as the best of Allah's creation [3]. This means that mankind has been given the power or ability to acquire control over all things. Man can also have power over other men, and rulers can replace other rulers.

Allah has promised, to those among you who believe and work righteous deeds, that He will, of a surety, grant them in the land inheritance of power, as He granted it to those before them; that He will establish in authority their religion—the one which He has chosen for them; and that He will change (their state), after the fear in which they (lived), to one of security and peace; ‘They will worship Me (alone) and not associate aught with Me.' If any do reject Faith after this, they are rebellious and wicked. -- Al-Qur'an, 24:55.

Perhaps what is wrong with the modern world is that human relations are defined almost purely by real or perceived power considerations. The powerful impose their will and their interests on the weak. The weak generally submit to those with more power. Clearly when human behaviour is determined purely by power differentiations, there can be no justice (‘adl); husbands will oppress their wives, employers their employees, monopolistic suppliers will impose unjust prices on customers, officials will oppress their juniors, rulers will oppress their people, and strong States will bully, invade, occupy or impose unjust ‘treaties' on weaker States. Islam achieves justice by regulating the use of power in all relationships. Islam does not equalize power; that would be against the state of nature. No order would be possible without power differentiation. But what Islam does is that it places strict limits and moral codes on the exercise of power at all levels.


They are those who, if we establish them in the land, establish regular prayer and give zakat, enjoin the right and forbid wrong; with Allah rests the end and decision of all affairs. -- Al-Qur'an, 22:41.

Permission is also given for the weak to fight their oppressors [4]. The Prophet's use of power and the limits he placed on the use of power are a rich source of new research [5].



The Seerah of the Prophet, upon whom be peace, is also a model for the acquisition and use of power. At birth Muhammad was an orphan. He grew up unable to read or write in a society which had a highly developed language and where literary and cultural symposiums were regularly held. But they were divided into tribes and misused their power even among themselves and against the weakest in their society; for example, blood feuds among tribes lasting over many generations were common, and female children were buried alive. Tribal leaders and elders wielded enormous power which they mostly misused against their own people, families and neighbours, and by spilling the blood of the innocent. There was little moral or political framework to regulate the power of those in authority.

In this environment the Prophet began life without any claim to power. When he died he had achieved unchallenged power and built a power base, the Islamic State, that was to demolish all other centres of power. What was this power and what was the source of this power? The power the Prophet sought and achieved was not power to rule and oppress or to invade and lay waste other lands and peoples. His power was not in numbers of men, or material or territory at his disposal; the secret of his power lay in the belief, commitment and obedience of the men and women around him.

The whole of the Seerah can be written, read and understood in the framework of the Prophet's acquisition and use of power. The fact that this has not been done is one of the great failures in the intellectual and political history of Muslim scholarship which the Islamic movement must immediately redress. Research must now be begun to define power in the Seerah, to identify the methods for the acquisition of power, and to draw up principles for the use of power. To do this, some scholars will also have to attempt to draw a profile of the political structures created by the Prophet within which the power of Islam resided. This opens up the whole issue of leadership and the limits of power, if any, that the leadership must be subjected to. Did the Prophet limit his own power? Did he share power? Did he use shura as a method of decision making? Examples of these will have to be found in the Seerah and thoroughly researched. What is needed is not mere description of what happened; we need to analyse each situation and try to compare it with similar situations at other times in the Seerah. We have to answer these and many more similar questions; and we have to conceptualize our answers in such a way that when the concepts are applied to the Seerah as a whole the results are consistent.

Immediately following the issue of power is the issue of the definition of ‘politics'. Once again we are in a minefield of conflicting ideas. Can we separate the meaning of ‘politics' in Islam from the general meaning that this term has come to have in the modern world under the influence of the West? This issue cannot be resolved by simplistic affirmations, such as that politics in Islam is moral while politics outside Islam is immoral. There is something more to politics in the Seerah than ‘politics based on morality'. How can it be defined or, at least, delineated? Is there a consistent pattern in the Prophet's political conduct from the beginning to the end? If so, what are the principles and rules of politics in the Seerah?

Muslims of all schools of thought have always regarded the ‘Islamic State', or the khilafah, as the physical structure and the ultimate manifestation of Islam. It is also agreed that the Prophet, upon whom be peace, established the first Islamic State in Madinah. As such, the Islamic State established by the Prophet, upon whom be peace, is an integral and inseparable part of the Seerah of the Prophet. Yet the State of Madinah is not included as such in the classical Seerah literature. Only in relatively recent, politically-motivated literature on the Seerah has attention been given to the State of Madinah. In fact the duty to establish the Islamic State is as much part of the Muslims' obligatory ibadah as salat, saum, zakat, hajj and so on.

This obligation cannot be suspended or modified under any circumstance.

O ye who believe! Obey Allah, and obey the Messenger, and those charged with authority among you. -- Al-Qur'an, 4:59 [6].

There is evidence that even in Makkah, from the earliest stages of his mission, the Prophet organized the small Muslim community on the lines of a State. He dealt with the mushrikeen of Makkah and with the Negus across the Red Sea as the leader of a political entity called Islam. This is an important area of research from which scholars could begin to trace the power of Islam in order to define it. To confine our understanding of political power to something that only a territorial State can possess may be one of the mistakes that modern Muslim political thought has made under the influence of the West. It is possible that power is an all-pervasive quality of Islam related to the belief and taqwa of Muslims individually and collectively, whether or not they have control over a territory. If so, this would have enormous implications for the Islamic movement and Muslim minorities throughout the world. It would then be possible to mobilize the power and resources of Islam in small groups as well as in great States and Empires. If so, relatively small groups of Muslims, living together or living far apart, may be able to successfully assert and exert the power of Islam using today's information technology and organizational skills.

Nor can we ignore the fact that the Islamic State and the quality of its leadership have played a crucial part in history. We can argue that the moral foundations of the Islamic State were shaken soon after the demise of the Prophet, upon whom be peace. This took the form of the introduction of malukiyyah [7] from the beginning of Umayyad rule. The continuation of dynastic rule, in one form or another, albeit in the name of Islam, ultimately led to the defeat and dismemberment of dar al-Islam at the hands of the European colonialists. Muslim historians have shied away from researching and identifying the processes of decline and defeat that were implicit in malukiyyah as a form of government and leadership. This gap in our knowledge must now be filled.

European colonial rule over all parts of dar al-Islam and its partition into more than fifty weak and subservient nation-States has created an unprecedented situation. To emerge from this predicament and reintegrate the Ummah requires fresh insights into the Seerah and the political methods of the Prophet, upon whom be peace. A great deal of descriptive, analytical and prescriptive political thought has been written in the last one hundred years. The results range from the minimal or nominal participation in secular government of ‘Islamic parties' in such countries as Egypt, Turkey, Malaysia, Pakistan and Sudan, to the victory of the Islamic Revolution in Iran. There is also the victory of the mujahideen in Afghanistan, followed by a bloody civil war among competing groups, some calling themselves ‘Islamic'. The decline of Muslim power, then the total loss of Muslim power, followed by Western sponsored nationalism in new Muslim nation-States and the rise of incipient ‘Islamic parties' and ‘movements', offers a rich source for checking historic results with the Seerah. In this important area researchers have to come up with answers and insights from the Seerah not sought after before. This era may be described as the era of neo-jahiliyyah. Can modern nationalism be equated with tribalism of the time of the Prophet? If so, how did the Prophet, upon whom be peace, deal with tribalism? When the mushrikeen of Makkah made the removal of those who were not racially Arab a condition of their joining Islam, the Qur'an was emphatic:

Send not away those who call on their Lord morning and evening, seeking His Face. In naught art thou accountable for them, and in naught are they accountable for thee, that thou shouldst turn them away, and thus be (one) of the unjust -- Al-Qur'an, 6:52.

Can Muslims today deal with nationalism in the same way as the Prophet dealt with tribalism? What likelihood is there of civil wars breaking out in different parts of dar al-Islam between nationalism and Islam? Are such civil wars inevitable or perhaps even desirable? What will be the implications of such wars, including the near certainty of external intervention? Maybe such civil wars are already under way at low levels in many Muslim countries? Does the Seerah point to the inevitability of armed struggle between the Islamic movement and the nationalist, secular, post-colonial élites? If so, what steps have to be taken to minimize the intensity of armed conflicts among Muslims and between Muslims and non-Muslims? What are the rules of engagement in such armed struggles? [8]

Then there is a whole range of modern political concepts, with their origin in the political history, experience and philosophy of the West, that have found their way into everyday usage in Muslim political thought and vocabulary. These include such concepts as democracy, representative government, elections, multi-party systems, pluralism, socialism, communism, capitalism, equality, freedom of speech, emancipation of women and so on. Each of these needs to be closely scrutinized in light of the Seerah and, if necessary, totally rejected and repudiated. This exercise is essential if Muslims are to produce their own conceptual tools for the reordering of Muslim societies. It is not enough to assert that Islam and Western civilization are incompatible; this incompatibility has to be demonstrated within the framework of the Seerah. We need to develop and present a complete outline, indeed a detailed map, of the alternative civilization of Islam. This is perhaps the most important challenge facing Muslim scholarship today.

This leads us to the crucial issue of opposition. The opposition to the Prophet, upon whom be peace, was no less total and vicious than the opposition the Islamic movement confronts in its attempt to create, or recreate, a global civilization today. The West is already opposing, with all the cunning and might at its disposal, even the minor political goals currently pursued by Islamic groups in many parts of the world. A total statement of the political goals of Islam in terms of the Seerah is certain to attract total opposition from the West, and the agents of the West in Muslim countries [9]. To deal with this situation, the Seerah has to be studied to produce the defensive and offensive strategies of Islam at every stage of this global confrontation over a very long period of time. We must also recognize that there may be no precedent in the Seerah for certain current situations. The best we can hope for in these situations is to apply qiyas, the principle of analogical inference.



Then there are the great issues of morality and economics mixed together. How will Islam redistribute the resources and wealth of the world? How would this affect capital formation and investment? Is there a limit to growth? Is such a limit desirable? What minimum standards of living must be provided for all before the few can be allowed to add to their already lavish living? How can the West be stopped from using Asia, Africa and Southern America as a hinterland to be exploited for the benefit of the rich northern hemisphere around the North Atlantic? The West's role in the modern world perfectly fits the description in the Qur'an as ‘mischief on earth' [10]. In what way might the Seerah guide us in these vital contemporary issues of social disorder, iniquity and injustice?

All the issues relating to corporate capitalism, paper currency, banking, interest, exchange rates, capital formation and investment need to be tackled. A whole body of literature has emerged under the general title of ‘Islamic economics'. By and large, it is similar in character to the political literature of the ‘Islamic democracy' variety. Essentially it is an attempt to import into Islam all the West's economic and political experience. In recent years it has become clear that the West's drive for the wholesale economic and political exploitation of the world will inevitably lead the world to the brink of ecological and environmental disaster. This brings us back to the mutual incompatibility of Islam and the West, and all the issues raised by this basic clash between the two. Answers to these questions have to be sought in the study of the Seerah.


It has to be admitted and realized that some of these issues have never before been raised in the context of the Seerah. Therefore, much of the early work on these issues will be exploratory and tentative. This is inevitable. But the publication and debating of such exploratory work will then generate new research and thinking, leading to new ideas and higher quality literature in the future. The fact is that Muslims have never explored the Seerah to find answers to some of the questions raised in this paper; at this stage we can only hope to make a start in this direction.


The major objectives of the new research required on the Seerah can be summarised as follows:


To use the Seerah as source material to map out in detail a new civilization of Islam;

To use the Seerah to define the stages by which the ‘depth of darkness' may be turned into light in the conditions prevailing today;

To use the Seerah to outline the likely opposition to Islam and how this could be overcome;

To use the Seerah to define the good and just order that Islam wishes to create for all mankind;

To use the Seerah to define the leadership requirements of Islam, the global Islamic movement and all parts of it;

To develop and apply new research methodologies to the Seerah that shall yield the answers required to solve the problems of the Ummah and mankind in today's conditions;

To free the classical Seerah literature of its narrow, descriptive and chronological straitjacket;

To develop assumptions and hypotheses for future action and to test them in the framework of the Seerah;


To define such key concepts as 'adl (justice) and to apply them to the political, economic and social conditions prevailing today;

To define the Islamic State and how such States may be brought about in today's conditions; and

To plant the roots and methods of the Islamic movement firmly in the Seerah of the Prophet, upon whom be peace.

Once the long process of applying the Seerah to achieve convergence of Muslim thought on current issues is begun, we must avoid the sort of theological disputations which have led to obscurantism and bitterness among the various schools of thought in the past. Such issues are now, for all practical purposes, dead or at least irrelevant. New ideas require a new and open approach. The new ideas thrown up by an open-ended study of the Seerah can then be applied and the results checked against the Seerah. The Seerah then becomes a dynamic paradigm for new ideas, actions and results. These new ideas can then be refined and modified and applied again to achieve results at any particular time and place. This process should become a permanent process for shaping history, for creating new Islamic societies, for establishing new Islamic States, and so on, indefinitely into the future. In this way we shall have made the Seerah a permanent source of new ideas, hypotheses, and policy options. It is only when Muslims have learned to use the Seerah as an active guide in contemporary history at every step that they shall have achieved the full potential of the Seerah of the Prophet, upon whom be peace. This will not necessarily mean success at every step; even the Prophet experienced occasional failure. But what it could do is to minimize the rate of failure and facilitate the evaluation of the causes of failure and thus the revision of policy. A political system based on the Seerah should be stable and long lasting. It will facilitate the continuous emergence of broad public consensus on major issues and offer a framework for public debate free of acrimony over personalities or party positions.

Below are listed some of the areas in which ulama, scholars, researchers, students, and writers may seek topics for their particular research. By the very nature of the Seerah, and of our problems, such a list cannot be exhaustive. The knowledge we have of the Seerah is already very extensive; the emphasis must now be on seeking new insights from the Seerah to solve the problems now facing the Ummah. For example, if we were asked to name one factor more responsible than any other for our present maladies, we should have to say that it was the lack of power. Therefore, the issue of power, its definition, acquisition and use must occupy a substantial proportion of our attention.

We know that the Prophet, upon whom be peace, embarked on his career destitute of power. He ended his life at the head of a State that commanded overwhelming power over the Arabian peninsula, and had the ability to generate sufficient power to defeat and replace the ‘superpowers' of the time, Persia and Byzantine. These are feats of history that Muslims have to repeat in today's conditions. The defeat of the former Soviet Union in Afghanistan, the defeat of the United States in Iran, Vietnam and Somalia, and the defeat of Israel in Lebanon are glimpses of what is possible under even the most imperfect conditions. Clearly, if conditions improve, a great deal more can come within our reach. Drawing up the outline and detailed map of an alternative civilization, based on the Seerah, is not an exercise in futility. It is the logical next step on the road to the recovery of Islam and the Ummah from our own dark ages of defeat, dismemberment, and subservience to the power of kufr.

Proposed Areas of Research


1. Review of modern Seerah literature


The early sources of Seerah in the Arab cultural traditions of the time form a fascinating study. The verbal tradition of stories and poetry led to Ibn Ishaq's full-scale Seerah and al-Waqidi's Maghazi, among many others. We are not concerned here with that period; what we want to know is in what ways the decline of Muslim power has affected and influenced the study and writing of the Seerah and Sunnah of Muhammad, upon whom be peace. We are clearly not the first to seek solutions to our modern problems in the Seerah. Uthman dan Fodio established the Sokoto Caliphate in West Africa in the early part of the 19th century. He, his family and followers are said to have followed the method of the Seerah, including hijrah, in a struggle that also included jihad. There are many more similar figures throughout the last two hundred years who in seeking to resist the power of the West drew on the Seerah for their inspiration and methods of struggle. Literature written by them or about them is of crucial importance, and needs to be critically analysed. Some very recent literature in such languages as Turkish, Urdu, Bengali, Malay, English and Hausa appears to be influenced by the Islamic Revolution in Iran. How far and in what ways the Seerah has influenced developments in the Shi'i tradition leading up to the Islamic Revolution is also a question clamouring for attention. A survey of Seerah writings over the last 200 years might produce insights into how the Seerah has influenced Muslim political and religious thought during a period of rapid decline of Muslim power.


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2. The Last Prophet or the Seal of Prophethood


The finality of the Prophethood of Muhammad ibn Abdullah, peace be upon him, is a key part of the aqida of all Muslims [11]. As aqida, it needs no restatement. But there are certain implications of this fact for history and for the evolution of Muslim thought, especially Muslim political thought. For example, the fact that no new Prophet is to come and that direct revelation (wahi) has been completed for all time, puts great emphasis on the Seerah. It is the Seerah, the living manifestation of the Qur'an, that is the key to the Qur'an as well. This is why the Seerah is sometimes described as the first tafseer. Scholars may wish to explore all the implications of this. It surely means that Muslim divergences from the roots of Islam can only be small and temporary; that Islam has an in-built versatility, magnetism and mechanism to guide Muslims back to itself after long periods of divergence. We can also learn a great deal about the nature and limits of Muslim divergences. We can also learn about the nature of Muslim attempts to return to the roots of Islam and the historical processes that may be involved. There is also the important issue of structural impediments that Muslims and Islamic movements face in their search for correction of their thought processes and political programmes. The obvious examples of these structural impediments are nationalism and nation-States, as well as the secondary theological positions—often deviant—that have been taken up by various schools of thought and religious traditions in many parts of the world. This is not to deny the importance to Muslims of developing dynamic intellectual traditions within the bounds of the Seerah at all times in history. We need guidelines for the growth and flowering of such intellectual traditions at different times in history, or in different parts of the world at the same time.


3. The opposition to Islam


Islam faced intense opposition from the beginning of the Prophethood of Muhammad, upon whom be peace, and throughout the Prophet's life. The Prophet's method in dealing with this constant opposition is an integral part of the Seerah. We need to identify and study it, and examine how it can be applied in today's conditions.

Moreover, while the broad outline of this opposition is recorded and described in the Seerah literature, the opposition itself as a phenomenon has not been analysed. Is the opposition to Islam in the modern world essentially a continuation of the opposition to Islam at the time of the Prophet? If so, then we are better equipped to understand the modern hostility to Islam and how best we can meet this challenge.


4. Leadership



As the Prophet, upon whom be peace, was the undisputed Leader of his people from the advent of his risalah until the end of his life, the Seerah is clearly a rich source from which to identify the qualities necessary in a leader. The concept of the leader and leadership in Islam as exemplified by the Prophet is also an important area of research [12]. What were the Prophet's leadership training methods and programmes? The answers to this may hold the key to many of our contemporary problems in the field of education and training. The failure of leadership in the ‘Islamic parties' may be traced to the systems of education of which they were products. Did the system of education and training in the Shi'i school create the leadership that made the Islamic Revolution possible? What lessons are there in it for systems of ‘Islamic education' in other parts of the world? This offers a rich area for research.

Leadership in the Seerah also has a strong conceptual base for its continuation after the death of the Prophet, upon whom be peace. There has been considerable controversy on the issue of succession to the Prophet between the Shi'i and Sunni schools of thought. A great deal of ‘secondary theology' has been written around this subject. We do not need to go over this ground again. But, in the conditions prevailing today, there are signs pointing towards a convergence of Muslim political thought on this issue.

However, one point is particularly important here: the new research done in the framework of the global Islamic movement must focus on areas which minimize differences and expand on the new common ideas on which there is clearly convergence and agreement. Papers written in a sectarian spirit, or presenting a sectarian position, on this issue, or any other issue, are no longer acceptable. We must, in the words of the Qur'an, put our historical differences aside and learn to be ‘compassionate amongst each other' [13].


5. The tribal society in Makkah


An examination of the structure of society in Makkah is important to identify its power structure and hierarchy, and so understand the context in which the Prophet took the decisions he took. There were men in Makkah who wielded great power and influence. The Makkan society also had great weaknesses, rivalries and conflicts. The Prophet's strategy in dealing with this society, and using Makkan society and its immediate environs, is an essential part of the Seerah. The organization of the small Muslim society in Makkah offers many lessons on how relatively small communities can deal with and win over much larger communities. The first migration to Habasha (Abyssinia) and the negotiations with the Negus may also be examined in this framework.


6. The hijrah


Clearly the hijrah to Madinah is the greatest single event in the Seerah of the Prophet, upon whom be peace. How he prepared for it is dealt with summarily in the traditional Seerah literature. This event needs to be examined in depth as an underlying method of overcoming great difficulties at one place by building a power-base at another. Clearly the Prophet did not mean to leave Makkah for good; he intended to return as a conqueror or liberator. The steps the Prophet took immediately upon his arrival in Madinah were clear indications of his intention to challenge the Makkan power. That this would involve war was also clear from the Prophet's early moves in Madinah and the agreements he entered into with the tribes there, who were committed to defend him. Moving out of one's normal hostile habitat to prepare for eventual return to rule over it is a familiar pattern in history. The Prophet's use of this method needs very careful handling. There are political lessons to be learned and techniques to be developed for use in today's conditions.

The first migration to Habasha and the negotiations with the Negus may also be examined in this framework. Did the results of this migration encourage the Prophet, upon whom be peace, to seek and plan for another, greater hijrah, to secure a greater power base outside Makkah? Did this lead to the Prophet's eventual migration to Madinah? Hijrah as a method of developing an alternative power centre needs to be examined in some detail.


7. The pursuit of power


This is clearly the heart of the Seerah that we have set out to explore. Power in Islam is not like power in other historical and political situations. Power in Islam does not mean the same thing as in the use of such contemporary terms as great powers, superpowers, regional powers, minor powers and so on. Power in the Seerah has an additional quality over and above all other forms of power. Nothing else can explain the global power and presence that Islam continues to exercise in the world today in spite of hundreds of years of continuous decline and physical defeat. Perhaps the colonial powers succeeded in defeating and destroying the structures in which Muslim power resided. But there is another level of Islamic power that cannot be destroyed by military power. Islam has a regenerative capacity that does not depend on political and military structures. Islam has no political and military structures but has secured its long-term survival in a form of power that remains immune against destruction by physical action, occupation or military invasion. What is this power? How can it be described? What evidence of it is there in the Seerah? The Seerah is also a guide for the reconstruction of the structural foundations and institutions of Islamic power after a period of defeat and dismemberment.

This ability to separate power from its structures is also peculiar to Islam. The process of establishing the Islamic State can be seen as the drive to build new structures for power. All earlier civilizations in history—Chinese, Indian, Mesopotamian, Egyptian, Greek, etc.—have enjoyed their heyday and then declined, never to reappear. The civilization of Islam is unique in this respect; unique in that it is in the process of regeneration, and unique in that it has the diffuse power base in history that can be used for this purpose. A global Ummah is now committed to this cause, exploring all possible options and exploring the Seerah for guidelines.


8. Negotiations, treaties and agreements


These have played an important part in the Seerah. Instances of them are found in the life of Muhammad before he was called to Prophethood. He was known as a man of integrity and honesty. The Arabs called him al-Amin, the trustworthy. He also mediated in and averted a potentially bloody conflict over the rebuilding of the Ka'aba and the placement of the Black Stone. After he became Prophet, he pursued peace with his enemies in Makkah and with the tribes around Makkah. During this period he is known not to have retaliated aggressively against those who tormented him or other Muslims. The Prophet patiently negotiated two pacts of Aqaba that laid the foundations for the hijrah to Madinah. Once in Madinah he entered into a covenant with all the parties in that city, many of them his enemies, including the two Jewish tribes. This social contract in Madinah, known Seerah literature as the Sihafah, is also known as the Constitution of Madinah. It raises many questions. For example, was the Constitution of Madinah designed to neutralize his internal enemies in Madinah against his external enemies, with whom the Prophet expected early wars? The Constitution of Madinah has not been analysed as extensively and profoundly as it ought to be. In the sixth year of the hijrah the Prophet entered into an agreement with Quraish of Makkah, known as the Treaty of Hudaibiyyah. Many of the Prophet's companions thought the terms were too favourable to Makkans and humiliating to Muslims. The Prophet was, therefore, obviously a man of peace who did not want to fight if he could avoid it; yet, after the hijrah, he had sought an early military engagement with Quraish of Makkah. It can also be argued that peace treaties and agreements that the Prophet entered into with his foes were designed to buy time to accumulate power for the ultimate victory of Islam. Only two or three episodes of this kind are mentioned here; the Seerah offers many more examples. Detailed research and analysis in this area may provide a pattern for the future conduct of the Islamic movement and the Islamic State.


9. The definition of ‘politics'


Politics in the modern world is almost universally perceived as a ‘dirty game'. It is also widely regarded as a game ‘to fool all of the people all of the time'. In more serious or academic circles, politics is regarded as a study of the powerful seeking to retain or increase their power in their own State or in their relations with other States. It is a zero-sum game—the loss of one is the gain of another, or the gain of one equals or exceeds the loss of another. It should be noted that siyasah, the Arabic word for politics, does not appear in the Qur'an at all, or in the early Seerah literature. Yet the Prophet, upon whom be peace, engaged in all the activities that together go to make up what is today called ‘politics'. This includes the organization of men at all levels, collection of taxes or religious dues, regulation of markets, leadership, rulership (hukm), despatch of embassies to foreign rulers, appointment of governors, military training, intelligence gathering, wars and other lesser military expeditions, and so on.

What is more, the Prophet, upon whom be peace, carried out all or most of these activities in Makkah as well as in Madinah. The difference is that in Makkah he did not have a territorial State, while in Madinah he did. This may mean that all aspects of ‘politics' in Islam are applicable and obligatory with or without a territorial base. Is it the case then that ‘politics' in Islam are applicable and obligatory with or without a territorial base? And that it is also an obligation (fardh) to seek a territorial base as soon as possible, even if this should involve migration (hijrah)? If so, then an important distinction emerges: politics and political processes are not necessarily related to the State at all times. It is possible that the political processes of Islam, if practised without a State, inevitably lead to the State. Should this be the case (and the Seerah appears to support this view) then the implications for the Islamic movement are profound.

In this regard perhaps the recent experience of the Shi'i school may be examined, preferably by Shi'i ulama themselves. For many hundreds of years the Shi'i view was that the political processes of Islam, including rulership (hukm), must remain suspended during the absence (ghaibah) of the Twelfth Imam. This position started to be questioned some three hundred years ago, leading to the emergence of marjaiyyat as a form of interim leadership. But this ijtihad reintroduced the political processes of Islam to the Shi'i part of the Ummah, though initially it was in the guise of ‘religious institutions' and azzadari (grieving for the Prophet's family) only. But slowly, in stages, this led to the full flowering of the political power of Islam and the establishment of the territorial Islamic State of Iran after the Islamic Revolution. What appears to have happened is that every marja' was effectively a khalifah ruling over his own ‘non-territorial Islamic State' consisting of his muqallideen, perhaps comparable to the condition of Muslims in Makkah before the hijrah. It was inevitable, therefore, that sooner or later one marja' would take the next logical step of setting up a fully-fledged territorial Islamic State. This is what has happened in Iran.

Some sufi shaikhs, calling themselves khulafa, have also run their orders (tariqat) as non-territorial Islamic States. But none has succeeded in establishing an Islamic State on the foundations of sufi orders, though some are known to have opposed tyranny and launched jihad movements. This is an important area for new research. Some of these papers need to take into account the Qur'anic injunctions on rulership, eg, ulul amr, khilafah and vilayah [14].


10. The Islamic movement


The term ‘Islamic movement', or al-harakah al-Islamiyyah, is unknown in the history of Islam and in the literature on Seerah, history, fiqh and usul al-din. It has come into common parlance only recently, especially after the constitutional fall of the Uthmaniyyah khilafah in 1924. Yet it is not difficult to assert that the Seerah itself was the first complete, all-inclusive Islamic movement. If so, the question which arises is: why, for over 1300 years, was the Seerah not viewed as an Islamic movement? The answer to this question may well be that so long as there was an Islamic State in existence and a khalifah in office, the need for an Islamic movement did not arise, or at least was not recognized. After 1924 the ‘Islamic movement' became the non-territorial Islamic State that filled the vacuum, at least in the Sunni world, caused by the absence of the khilafah. The struggle to re-establish the territorial Islamic State came to be known as the Islamic movement.

The emergence of the Islamic movement inaugurates a new phase in Islamic history. The movements launched by Hasan al-Banna in Egypt in 1928 and by Abul Ala Maududi in India in 1941 can be regarded as the first post-khilafah experiments in bringing together the elements necessary to re-establish the Islamic State. The Islamic movement is now a global phenomenon transcending modern political boundaries imposed by nationalism in the interest of global imperialism. The Islamic Revolution in Iran is a product of a revolution in the theological formulations based on ijtihad within the Shi'i school. But it may be of great value and guidance when it comes to the final stages of overthrowing the established order and creating a new Islamic State in its place. To the extent that the Islamic Revolution also represents a convergence of Shi'i/Sunni political thought in matters of leadership and rulership, it has great value in the study of the Seerah. It is almost certainly the case that divergences within Islam can only converge within the framework of the Seerah. The Seerah is a common ground for all Muslims; it is also the only ground on which all Muslims can stand. The conscious development of the Seerah as the foundation of the global Islamic movement will integrate the movement and clarify common goals across the Ummah. The Seerah as the foundation will also work to remove such tensions as are found today in parts of the Islamic movement over issues such as leadership, stages of growth, and the final goals.

Research in this important area offers great scope for original thought and reformulation of the Seerah for the solution of crucial issues confronting Muslims in all parts of the world today. There are also many definitions of the Islamic movement found in journals and newspapers published by Islamic groups. An attempt to define the Islamic movement in terms of the Seerah should be of great assistance towards its development and the harmonization of its methods and goals. Research in this area might also help us develop assumptions and hypotheses for future organization, priorities, methods and goals of all parts of the Islamic movement. In a sense, the Islamic movement simply means the following of the Seerah in today's conditions. For this to happen two conditions have to be met: (a) the understanding of the Seerah in such great depth that it can be applied today; and (b) an accurate understanding of the conditions that prevail today. It seems that for a very long time Muslims have not met either of these conditions to any great extent. Those who studied and claimed to have understood the Seerah did not understand the modern world; and those who claimed to understand the modern world did not understand the Seerah. This is a common weakness in all parts of the Islamic movement; hence their frequently far from impressive performances.


11. The definition of the Islamic State


Confusion in this area is widespread. The modern nation-States, creations of the colonial powers, also claim to be Islamic States. They have set up an ‘Islamic Secretariat' and hold an annual conference of ‘Islamic foreign ministers'. Some parts of the Islamic movement take the view that these nation-States can be ‘democratically' modified in some respects and turned into Islamic States. There is also the view held in some parts of the Islamic movement that all that requires to be done is for an ‘Islamic party' to win an election and that would convert that country's government into an ‘Islamic government'. This was the view entertained by Maulana Maududi in Pakistan, and this is still the position of the Tanzim al-Dawli wing of al-Ikhwan al-Muslimoon. What is wrong with this view is that it fails to recognize that a State, any State, founded on the basis of nationalism cannot be converted into an Islamic State without first uprooting nationalism and other colonial influences from its history and foundations. This is now coming to be commonly accepted in all parts of the Muslim world and the Islamic movement. In classical Sunni thought there also appears to have been a willingness to accept a State as ‘Islamic' so long as its ruler styles himself khalifah. Thus the debate on the issue by-passed the State, and Sunni ‘secondary theology' concentrated on defining the minimum conditions a ruler must meet before he is entitled to bai'ah. Moreover, these conditions were whittled down to such an extent that any dynastic ruler was more than willing to meet them in order to protect his throne and dynastic rights. The time has come to define the Islamic State in terms of its origin in the Seerah. Once this has been done, khilafah and vilayah as sources of authority and leadership need to be restated in the context of the Islamic State rather than merely as a question of bai'ah on minimal conditions. The explication of historical processes involved in transforming the present political structures into Islamic States is a major challenge facing Muslim intellectuals working in the Islamic movement framework.


12. Military campaigns of the Prophet


This is an important area that offers particular challenges. There were no fewer than 68 military campaigns launched by the Prophet, upon whom be peace, from Madinah. These included a number of raids to harass the trading caravans of Quraish of Makkah that led to the Battle of Badr in only the second year of the hijrah. Another empire builder, ruler or adventurer in a similar position might have sought some years of peace in Madinah for the consolidation of his power before taking on his adversaries. The Prophet did precisely the opposite. He chose an early confrontation in the battlefield between his handful of followers and the extensive might of Quraish of Makkah and their allies. He clearly realized that an early victory over Makkah was essential for the consolidation of his power even in Madinah. To provoke the Makkans at that time was clearly an act of faith, not of reason. We need to put all of the military campaigns in a similar context. What were the underlying goals the Prophet pursued through his military campaigns? Why did he launch so many military campaigns in such short a time?


13. Source of an alternative civilization


Today all mankind is in the grip of a single civilization, its power, values, culture and economy. This dominant civilization is the Western civilization, while the civilization of Islam now exists only as a dismembered sub-culture in various forms in different parts of the world. Islam no longer has a civilization that can claim to have global power or a working economic system, though it still has strong values that are global, and also retains a global cultural and political identity. It is this global political presence that the West is now trying to brand as ‘fundamentalist' and ‘terrorist'. Can we justifiably compare the West with the Quraish and its civilization with jahiliyyah? It is now universally accepted among Muslims that the West is determined to eradicate all remaining traces of Islam from the world. Having established its political and economic hegemony over most parts of the world, the West is determined to make sure that its power can never be challenged by Islam again. The West views Islam as the only possible source of challenge to its domination. This challenge does indeed exist in the form of a widespread realization among Muslims everywhere that they have to escape from the stranglehold the West has acquired over them and over Islam. At one level, it is a question of generating Islamic Revolutions in all Muslim countries to escape from the West's manipulation and control. But this is not enough. We have to go on to create, or recreate, a new civilization of Islam that offers mankind peace, security, moral upliftment, and economic and social justice (‘adl). The Seerah of the Prophet, upon whom be peace, is clearly the soil in which the roots of this new civilization exist. These roots have to be found, defined and developed. Ultimately the struggle between Islam and the West will not be decided by bombs and technology; this war will be decided by the emergence of a superior civilization in which mankind is assured of security, physical and moral health, and, above all, justice. The foundations of the Western civilization are based on oppression, aggression, enslave-ment, exploitation, brutality, war, genocide, immorality, inequality and injustice. The true face of the West has to be exposed to all mankind, including people in the West itself. And, simultaneously, an alternative civilization of Islam has to be shaped from the Seerah of the Prophet, upon whom be peace. This also offers new challenges in the form of research methodologies that shall have to be applied to the study of the Seerah. This clearly is a rich area for original, even speculative, research.

Conclusion

The Seerah of the Prophet of Islam, upon whom be peace, is a vast ocean which cannot be charted in a short paper. Any attempt to do so would be futile. The object of this paper has been to indicate, as briefly as possible, some of the issues that need to be addressed. Ulama, scholars, intellectuals, students and writers will need to focus on one or more of these areas and build on them according to their own preferences. Once work in this direction is started, fresh ideas and approaches to the understanding of the Seerah, and new issues for debate on the subject of the Seerah, will continue to emerge for many, many years to come. Such an intellectual revolution, pulling the Ummah together on the common ground of the Seerah, is an essential pre-requisite for the future success of the global Islamic movement. Only then can the Ummah be lifted out of its present state of neo-jahiliyyah, and the foundations laid for a new era of Islamic civilization in the future.


Notes

See also Al-Qur'an, 62:2-3; 21:107; 7:158. - (Back to text.)

"uswatun hasana", Al-Qur'an, 33:21. - (Back to text.)

Al-Qur'an, 95:4. - (Back to text.)

Al-Qur'an, 22:39. - (Back to text.)

Al-Qur'an, 28:83, 38:26. - (Back to text.)

See also Al-Qur'an, 5:44-49, 4:65. - (Back to text.)

Malukiyyah is defined in the Qur'an in answer to the Prophet Ibrahim's (pbuh) request that his children too should inherit leadership. Allah replied: ‘But my Promise is not within the reach of evil-doers' (2:124). Here the message is that being the progeny is not enough. The successor must also be muttaqi. The Qur'an also defines malukiyyah as an unjust system in which the ruler is succeeded by a member of his family. - (Back to text.)

Al-Qur'an, 25:31. - (Back to text.)

On this issue, see Sayyid Qutb, Milestones, first published in Arabic in 1964, especially the chapter on 'Jihad in the cause of Allah'. - (Back to text.)

Al-Qur'an, 28:83. - (Back to text.)

Al-Qur'an, 33:40. - (Back to text.)

Al-Qur'an, 3:159, 9:128, 15:88. - (Back to text.)

Al-Qur'an, 48:29. - (Back to text.)

Al-Qur'an, 38:26. - (Back to text.)


About this paper


Dr Kalim Siddiqui (1931-1996) was Director of the Muslim Institute, London, and one of the leading thinkers of the global Islamic movement. His commitment was to helping generate an ‘intellectual revolution' in Islamic social and political thought, which could lay the foundations for a future Islamic civilization and world order.

The Seerah of the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) was a lasting influence on Dr Siddiqui's ideas and work. Many of the key areas on which he wrote — Muslim political thought, the use of power, the unity of the Ummah, the concept of leadership in Islam, the nature of the Islamic state — were based on his reading of the Seerah. He also regarded the Seerah as the common ground on which all Muslims, of all schools of thought, could stand together to work for the good of the Ummah as a whole and the establishment of a new Islamic civilization and world order.

Above all, Dr Siddiqui believed that studying the Seerah from ‘a power perspective' was the key to an intellectual revolution in Muslim thought. At the time of his death, he was planning to launch an international research project into the Seerah as his next major work. This paper, on which he was still working at the time of his death, outlines some of the areas in which he believed Islamic movement intellectuals must work. It was first published by the ICIT in 1998.