It’s been a busy week for the Australian media when it comes to reporting Islamic issues. Following the initial report in The Australian of Sheikh Taj’s speech, there has been a tsunami of coverage as each outlet has sought to offer a new and different perspective or insight on the events that are unfolding in Sydney’s south west. Events, we might add, that have culminated in the news that Sheikh Taj was taken away by paramedics a short while ago.
With all this excitement, it’s perhaps understandable that some mistakes creep into media reports. So here’s a snapshot from the last 24 hours.
Exhibit A
In reporting the supposed meeting to decide Sheikh Taj’s future, the Sydney Morning Herald informs its readers that the LMA would be calling an umma. They write (emphasis added):
The Herald believes the plan, thrashed out at a closed-door meeting of the Lebanese Muslim Association on Saturday, was devised after discussion of several options. They include the staging of an umma - a national consultative process - to determine whether the sheik should be stripped of his title of Mufti of Australia and New Zealand….That can be done only through an umma, which may take several days or weeks to organise because it involves clerics, Sunni and Shiite, from every state and New Zealand….While declining to confirm any decision to stage an umma…
An umma, readers of the SMH are advised, is “a national consultative process” that could take “several days or weeks to organise.” However, as any Muslim would know, the umma refers to the body of Muslims: that is, it refers to the global community of believers in Islam rather than a process, consultative method or approach. I suspect what they mean is shura or perhaps someone said, “the ummah will decide Sheikh Taj’s future” and the media got confused.
Exhibit B
The second example comes from the Sunday Telegraph. As everybody, including the Telegraph, knows, Keysar Trad is the spokesman for Sheikh Taj, is not a cleric and doesn’t live in Melbourne. Despite that, the Sunday Telegraph report:
Victorian cleric Keysar Trad, no stranger himself to inflammatory tirades, explained Sheik Alhilaly apologised “because there was a clear ambiguity that people who do not have a clear understanding of the religion (wouldn’t appreciate) … It’s not a message that applies to people who are not Muslim”.
Exhibit C
The third example is somewhat less obvious and comes from The Australian. Rebecca Weisser, a freelance writer, has a piece called “Hilali’s Radical Mentor” in which she attempts to make an ideological connection between Sheikh Taj and Sayyid Qutb. Fair enough, I suppose. But then she writes:
Qutb’s writings have been translated into every language in the Islamic world. During the 1960s and 70s he was translated into the Afghan language of Dari and his ideas became popular at the University of Kabul. They are said to have influenced the Taliban.
The Taliban are Pashtun and speak Pashtun. Dari is Farsi (Persian) and so it isn’t a language that most Taliban would understand. Mullah Omar, the leader of the Taliban, didn’t go to the University of Kabul but was educated in Quetta and Kandahar. That Qutb’s ideas may have been popular amongst Persian-speaking Afghan students in the 60s and 70s has no relevence whatsoever to the emergence of the Taliban movement in the early 90s. Lastly, is there any evidence at all that the Deobandi, Afghan-centric Taliban were ever influenced by the pan-Islamic writings of Sayyid Qutb?
Exhibit D
And whilst we are talking about Sayyid Qutb, Piers Akerman wrote the following in the Daily Telegraph yesterday:
It draws heavily from the writings of Sayyid Qutb, Islam’s most influential thinker…
Though Alhilaly has claimed to have left the Muslim Brotherhood, he is an acknowledged admirer of Qutb’s philosophy and has spoken admiringly of his views on the Arabic language Voice of Islam radio station. Qutb’s works are also accepted as being the principal philosophy behind Osama bin Laden’s medieval attacks on the West and the driving ideology behind al-Qaeda, the Taliban and Jemaah Islamiah.
Islam’s most influential thinker? Hardly. There’s no doubt that Sayyid Qutb has had an influence in some quarters but to put him above figures such as al-Ghazzali, Ibn Qayyim, Ibn Taymeeyah, or even Sheikh Muhammad ibn Abdul Wahab (whose ideology, unlike Qutb’s, begot a modern state) in terms of influence is just absurd. Likewise, it is absurd to conflate the Indonesian-based JI, al-Qaeda and the Taliban as sub-expressions of some common Qutbist ideology.
As many people have pointed out, al-Qaeda may have been given sanctuary under Taliban rule but the two are inspired by very different, and even competing, ideologies and goals. To name one such difference, the Taliban are Deobandi and strict followers of the Hanafi madhab; whereas al-Qaeda, for the most part, are not followers of any madhab and would consider aspects of the Deobandi creed to be — and let’s be diplomatic — highly problematic.
Exhibit E
Although outside the 24 hour window, let’s look at one last example. On the 28th October, the Sydney Morning Herald would inform its readership that:
After returning from the US, Qutb formed the Muslim Brotherhood before being imprisoned. He was executed in Egypt in 1966. Egyptian-born Sheik Hilaly was a member of the Muslim Brotherhood but said he left it because it became too extremist. “Sheik Hilaly does not regard the West as evil and has regularly condemned terrorist attacks,” Mr Trad said.
Whilst we hate to appear nit-pickers, the Muslim Brotherhood was formed before Sayyid Qutb left for the US. It was formed in 1928 by Hassan al-Banna. Of course, one would have to consult obscure sources like, say, Wikipedia to find this little tidbit so we don’t blame them for getting it so wrong.
11 comments ↓
Qutub’s history with Ikwaan is interesting, I would recommend “The society of Muslim brothers” by Brynjar Lia from Norway, who had unrivalled access to the al Banna family.
The picture he paints is of two Ikwaan movements, the original grass roots one set up Hassan Al Banna, and the later much more political one (influenced by Marxist revolutionary thought) that was shaped by Qutb.
Hassan al Banna’s movement sought to revive Islamic thought and practice to transform large sections of his community by his Islamic outreach program. Over time, its success brought its own complications, attracting attention from the Government and the Arab nationalists who viewed it as a threat. The jailing and execution of the senior Ikwaan members radicalised the movement. Qutb who has a prominent (secular) public intellectual and writer provided the intellectual basis for this. If one reads his “In the shade of the Qur’an, it is an intensely political exegesis, often without any textual basis in the Qu’ran.
The damage done to the Islamic movement by the spiritual descendants of this religiously innovative movement are immense. When one speaks to the leaders of the “Islamists movements” in private, (such as Qazi Asfahq Ahmad in Sydney) they say that this political emphasis has been the downfall of the Islamic movements. If they had their time again they would eschew politics and concentrate on deen, religious revival through praxis and study.
As sheikh Abdul Hakim Murad says “Islamism is the West’s only success”
The standard of Australian journalism is so low, that if one wishes to know what is happening in Australia, read an English newspaper. The ABC news-reader today couldn’t even pronounce “Yemen” correctly.
I admit it is a complex task, all 5 letters and 2 and half vowels. ye—men, ye–men, ye-men.
actually you should have have renamed this 24 hours in a lunatic asylum (with nurse Ratchet played by John Howard who disturbingly also looks like her although not as masculine as she is.)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nurse_Ratched
In this rendition of the timeless classic “One flew over the cuckoo’s nest” ,Billy Bibbit is of course Ameer Ali and McMurphy is Sheikh Taj
Good work, maybe I should go call an “umma”. May Allah restore al-Hilali’s health.
Good job.
BTW do you have any sources on the talibans being strict hanafi followers?
On the topic but taking it to the near future. I envision that the comments by Hilali will be used by the usual motley crew to open a debate on immigration. In particular, to advocate for a discriminatory immigration policy in Australia. the debate will appear to be an assault on the Muslim community and on Islam. However, the things to remember are the following:
1) This is will be an attack on Australia’s immigration policy; Muslims and Islam are incidental to such advocacy. In decades past east Asian immigrants were the focus of individuals wanting to open a debate on Australia’s immigration policy. Indeed, in the 1980’s it was the Asian community that was in the sight of John Howard, then in the opposition. So in summary this debate which is ongoing and is likely to flare-up has little to do, in a specific way, with Muslim Australians, apart from the inconvenience that it creates because they will be the focus of a new articulation of an old debate.
2) The debate is not unique to Australia. Right wing groups around the world are advocating a similar thing. For example there is a vigorous xenophobic attack on French liberal traditions by the right in France.
3) The Muslim community must not be dragged into defending Islam against such an onslaught on immigration . The best way to counter such advocacy is to identify it for what it is: a desire to return to the White Australia policy. For this reason, in my opinion the best counter advocacy
is
This is a debate on Australia’s immigration policy. It has as much to do with Muslim community in Australia as any other Australian community. It predates the main part of Muslim migration to the country. In fact, it has traditionally been a debate motivated by racism against the south east Asian community in Australia.
Many people are still not happy with how far we have moved away from the White Australia policy and the little-apartheid that Australia used to be.
The question here is do we want a fair immigration policy that does not discriminate based on race and culture, or do we want to return to the White Australia policy. We believe that a non-discriminatory immigration policy is a basic Australian value, and that those who want to return us to the days of White Australia are not in tune with contemporary Australian values.
I think that the Australian is now on a Muslim witch-hunt. I also think that the discussion here on Austrolabe is being used by pollies as a template to attack muslims, so you guys should be careful what you say here
http://www.smh.com.au/articles.....?from=top5
How is that the case?
Baybers:
“I also strongly agree with your point that Hilali, should have been sacked, many many years ago when he made stupid, anti-Jewish remarks, which were no more than crude racist and unforgivable. He restated those remarks during the recent Lebanese conflict. It was unforgivable that the LMA has not shown him the door. It reflects very badly on all Muslims”
and again
“I also agree with non-Muslim commentators that some Muslim men do have a problem with their attitudes to women, attitudes that have clearly been fostered by their parents and religious leaders like Hilali.”
Costello
“PETER COSTELLO accused Australia’s Muslims of tolerating a message of hate by Sheik Taj el-Din al Hilaly for a decade too long as the leading cleric stood down yesterday from preaching duties at Lakemba Mosque.
The Treasurer said tolerating Sheik Hilaly’s speeches against women, Jews and the West had allowed him to influence behaviour in Australia, and could have contributed to the Cronulla riots and crimes such as the gang rapes led by Bilal and Mohammed Skaf.”
“These kinds of attitudes have actually influenced people,” Mr Costello said in an interview with the Herald. “So you wonder whether a kid like Bilal Skaf had grown up hearing these kind of attitudes”
Abdur-Rahman, I’ll try and find some references for you but the Taliban leadership were followers of the Deobandi school which is, like the majority of Pashtuns, hanafi in fiqh.
[…] The events over the last few weeks, noteably the media frenzy of some comments that Sh. Taj [see here, here, here, here and here for other Aussie bloggers posts, among others] made in a speech he gave during Ramadan, has got me thinking about one of the issues dear to me - what can be done in order to improve the lot of the Muslim community in the West? Specifically that of my current country of residence, Australia. The thought on this issue became even more pronounced once I began commenting on Samaha’s blog, specifically when it led to the discussion on the journal of theylion. […]
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