Samir Kassir (d. 2005) on the Arab Malaise

The following is an excerpt taken from Being Arab by Samir Kassir and was translated from the Arabic by Will Hobson (Verso 2006). Samir Kassir, one of Lebanon’s best-known journalists and historians, was assassinated by a car bomb in Beirut in June 2005. Among his books are A History of Beirut and Lebanon: An Unfinished Spring. One of the most prominent voices on the Arab Left, Kassir was an energetic campaigner for the Palestinian cause and vocal critic of Syria’s occupation of Lebanon. His thoughts and ideas were immensely powerful and have special relevance for the situation of the Arab world in the current period of turmoil:

“Some people are driven to despair by the Arab malaise. They believe that the Arabs are so profoundly trapped that they will never be able to break free and, in so believing, they only make the deadlock worse. This is the extreme variant of modernism, propounded by liberals, disappointed nationalists and former activists of the left alike. Decline, according to this way of thinking, is so widespread that it damns the very notion of a renaissance: the nahda† did not just end in failure, but it was also by its very nature a historical anomaly, an impossibility right from the outset. Worse still, all attempts to free the Arabs from their predicament, particularly nationalism, are considered to have only made the problem worse. Some of these disappointed souls go so far as to internalize the culturalist distinctions that legitimize imperial domination. Their most affirmative thesis, echoing the American neoconservatives, is that change and democracy can only come from such domination, not realizing that all this will achieve is to aggravate frustrations, exacerbate victimhood and the culture of death, and thereby perpetuate the Arab malaise. For, if they are to overcome their malaise, the Arabs have no choice but to do it themselves.

Then there are those people for whom things are never better than when everything’s wrong. Obviously these are the Islamist jihadists who, as good messianists, see the Arab malaise just as a bad moment to be got through – well, not as bad as all that actually, since it can be a way to gain paradise and the forty houris while waiting for that strange revolution which, unlike its Marxist original, is not seen as a leap into the future, but as a return to an original purity lost in the mists of time.

As a system of thought, jihadist Islamism is far from being the dominant ideology it is often portrayed as in the Western media. Yet it is powerful, no doubt because it is the only ideology that seems to offer relief from the victim status the Arabs delight in claiming (a status that in fact Islamism, jihadist or otherwise, is only too happy to confirm). Arab victimhood goes beyond the ‘Why do they hate us?’ question, which Arabs would be as entitled to ask as the Americans were on the morning of September 11. Inflamed by the West’s attitude to the Palestinian question, it has incorporated other elements, notably the feeling of powerlessness and also a certain crime-novel vision of history.

The cult of the victim claims that Arabs are the West’s primary target, totally disregarding the other peoples of the world, and world history in general. No mention is made of Africa and its systematic pillaging; of the Americas and the genocide of the pre-Columbian populations, perpetuated in the continued marginalization of their cultures, of Indochina and its decimated generations…

Of course I am not denying what we have presupposed, that the Arabs have nothing that might compensate them for their misfortune, and that the Arab world is the only region on earth where the West has continually acted as if it were the master – and still does today, either directly or through Israel. But this doesn’t change the fact that recognizing the threat to the Arab world is not the same as condoning Arab victimhood. None of the major figures of the renaissance showed any signs of indulging such a cult, nor the ideologues or practitioners of nationalism. Victims par excellence, the Palestinians avoided it in the past, and continue in a very large degree to do so, even if their situation fosters a propensity among those who helplessly look on to claim such a status.

Victimhood is the price of the defeat of the universal, rather than a product of the status quo, and its cult, served by the Arab media, in particular the much-lionized Al-Jazeera, has only been able to grow because the ideology of the moment preaches a refusal of the universal. Ideology is in fact a very grand word for the current amalgam of the fossilized remains of Arab nationalism, which, because of their age, have cut themselves off from their original, universalist sources of inspiration, and an ‘Islamic nationalism’ that explicitly sets out to differentiate itself from the universal, if not supplant it. Such a nationalist mishmash is not new. It was around at the end of the nineteenth century, propounded notably by Afghani. The only difference is that Afghani was a reformer of Islam, with a perfect knowledge of, and uninhibited dealings with, Western thought. The same cannot be said of his present-day successors, who abhor nothing so much as talk of religious reform.

Islamic nationalism isn’t just a synonym for jihadism. It is defensive in essence, whereas jihadism can in certain lights see itself as a new conquest of the world. But the distinction between the two is nonetheless a tenuous one, and there can be no doubt that Islamic nationalism prepares the ground for jihadism. For while it may not deny the Arab malaise, as jihadism does, it nonetheless predisposes those who complain of the malaise to wallow in it, so much so that they will only replace it with something similar: the culture of death which the union of fossilized Arab nationalism and political Islam calls resistance.

There is undoubtedly an inherent explanation of the culture of death – not that it is an invariant of Islam or an essence of Arabness, but rather that, as a spectacle of endless bloodshed, it instils a self-perpetuating logic of blood for blood. If there can be no victory, then at least there can be the consolation of bloodletting – others’ blood, obviously, but ours as well. This logic may not be an invariant of Islam, but the fact remains that a religious vision of the world is at work here, even a religious vision in the sense of a system of cruelty, as Nietzsche put it. It goes without saying that this has nothing to do with the idea of sacrifice. Sacrifice has been at the root of all human conflict since the dawn of history, for the Arabs as much as anyone else, and this is the real meaning of jihad in the martial sense (there are also peaceful forms of jihad). In the twentieth century, the Palestinian fighters called themselves fedayeen, those ready to sacrifice their lives, like the Egyptian nationalists before them who fought the British at Suez. But in the new jihadism, death has ceased to be a potential, or even probable, price to be paid. Death has become the indispensable means to a desired end, if not an actual end in itself.

This vision of martial jihad incarnated in the figure of the istishhadi, the one who seeks martyrdom (the kamikaze, in other words), has no real antecedent in Arab-Muslim culture apart from the – non-Arab – sect of the Assassins. In the modern era, one has to wait until the Iranian revolution for its return. Shia at first, it emerged on the frontline of the Iraq-Iran war, where unbroken waves of volunteers checked the advance of the Iraqi armored divisions before launching themselves against the Iraqi lines at the start of 1982. It appeared next in Lebanon in the form of individual suicide attacks against Western interests and the Israeli occupying forces. It should be noted that this extreme method may have been effective against the Americans, but traditional guerrilla tactics – ambushes, explosions and so on – were more decisive against the Israelis. Nonetheless other groups, some of them secular, adopted it as a model. Hezbollah gave it up when it became the only method of resistance, but kept the symbolism of blood and the totem of the istishhadi – a symbolism that it reinforces through the observance of Ashura. Originating in Iranian Shiism before passing to Lebanon and now Iraq, the rituals of this festival of redemptive suffering resemble certain bloody celebrations of Good Friday, in Spain for instance or the Philippines.

In principle, an insurmountable obstacle divides the Shia and the Sunni jihadists. Radical Sunni Islamism, as the doctrinal statements that have been coming out of Iraq show, holds Shia to be heretics and rafida, people who reject the true faith. Sunni Qur’anic literalism clearly also has its intellectual origins in South Asian Islam, notably the thought of Mawdudi, which, through the conduit of the Egyptian Sayyid Qutb, has permeated its takfiri, or apostatizing, strain. None of this matters, however. The martyrdom seekers first appeared in Shia circles, with the shahids recording their last testaments on video (the price of modernity). Furthermore, of the two Palestinian groups that have practised suicide bombing, one, Islamic Jihad, is reputed to be close to Iran, while the other, Hamas, although an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, is on very good terms with Lebanese Hezbollah.

The proliferation of the culture of death and the evening-out of differences between Shias and Sunnis cannot be explained solely by the Islamization of the fight against Israel. Over and above actual events, the media, especially Al-Jazeera, have played a key role in this process, peddling a lowest-common-denominator mix of Arab nationalism and Islamic nationalism. It was doing this before September 11, defending means, justifying ends, claiming Arab victimhood. The Arab public has been systematically primed to accept the thesis of a ‘clash of civilizations’. Nonetheless, we must be able to continue rebutting Huntingdon and remembering Lévi-Strauss. If we could address the protagonists of the ‘war against terror’ or the ‘jihad against the crusaders’ in academic terms, that ought surely to be the watchword of a new universalism.

Nothing is harder than rebutting Huntington at a time when people are doing their utmost to cultivate difference. On the one hand, politicians and commentators constantly invoke an Eastern essentialism, even if, after long tirades opposing ‘us’ and ‘them’, they see fit to stress that Arabs and Muslims should not all be lumped in with the terrorists. On the other, there is a tendency to qualify, or even justify, the horrors of New York in terms of the evils of American politics, even if people are careful to preface their remarks with the disclaimer that the murder of innocent people goes against every precept of Islam.

We must not forget Lévi-Strauss: ‘civilization’, as he says, is not a category and hence cannot contain ‘natural’ hierarchies; and humanity is one, since it rests on a common anthropological foundation. In other words, it is as meaningless to talk of an ‘attack on civilization’ as it is to classify people according to their adherence to a faith, Muslim or otherwise. I should perhaps point out that supremacy isn’t exclusively white. Some people in Muslim societies may be drawn to radical Islam for defensive reasons, because they feel under threat, but the rhetoric used by the warlords of radical Islamism is intentionally offensive. They justify their triumphalist proselytizing by defining the ‘decadent’ civilization of the Other as inferior.

So it is not just the West that needs to re-examine its stance. The Arab world in particular needs to make a profound effort to eradicate the ambiguities that encourage a logic of cultural confrontation. This means first putting victimhood into perspective. We must replace Arabs’ customary assumption of victim status not by cultivating a logic of power or a spirit of revenge, but by recognizing the fact that, despite bringing defeats, the twentieth century has also brought benefits that can enable Arabs to participate in progress. Equally, we must reject the moral pragmatism lurking in the cult of the victim. If we cannot accept the powerful saying that the ends justify the means, then we can’t let the victims do so either. We must not confuse terrorism with resistance, as the West confuses resistance with terrorism.

But, apart from the effects and means of confrontation, if the Arab world is to reject a clash of civilizations, then we must also give up a negative Arabocentrism (or Islamocentrism) which sees world history purely as a threat to us, and as a ‘cultural’, rather than political or military, threat. By the same token, we must renounce essentialist justifications of the sort that explain the silence surrounding the long affair of the Western hostages in Lebanon in the 1980s, or the indulgent attitudes towards the fatwa against Salman Rushdie. We must accept that democratic values are now part of humanity’s shared heritage.

Such a re-examination could take place. The problem is that the elites that might push for it are caught between non-democratic regimes (frequently supported by the West, despite the ‘democratic crusade’ in the Middle East), on the one hand, and radical Islamism on the other. It goes without saying that the task would be easier if it was accompanied by another renaissance that had as many forms as it did inspirations, a renaissance that is still perfectly possible.”

Ibn Taymiyya (d. 1328) on Ibn ‘Arabi (d. 1240)

Despite being an intractable opponent of several of the latter’s key ideas, this is what Ibn Taymiyya (d. 1328) had to say about Ibn ‘Arabi (d. 1240):

“[Despite his deviance], Ibn ‘Arabi is the closest to true belief among [the mystical philosophers], and his teaching is, in many respects, better than theirs. He, at least, distinguished between the manifest One and the concrete forms of His manifestations. Moreover, he affirmed the validity of the Divine Command and the Prohibition and the Divine Laws as they stand. He also instructed the travelers on the mystical path how to acquire high morals and the acts of devotion, as is common with other Sufis and their disciples. Therefore, many pious worshipers have learned the rules of their path through his instructions and thus have greatly benefited from him, even though they sometimes failed to understand his (mystical) subtleties.”

–Letter to Shaykh Abu Nasr al-Manbiji

Rustamid Dynasty: An Ibadi State in North Africa (776-909)

The Rustamids were an Ibādī dynasty, of Persian origin, which reigned from Tāhart (in what is now Algeria) 161-296/776-909. The following summary and narrative of the political history of this fascinating dynasty is adapted from http://www.qantara-med.org/qantara4/public/show_document.php?do_id=865&lang=en and M. Talbi, “Rustamids” Encyclopedia of Islam, Volume II.

The birth of the Ibādī principality of Tāhart is bound up with the great Berber uprising against the Umayyads begun by Maysara in 122/740. The uprising was reinforced by the Kharijite movement, the puritanical sect of Islam which preached equality of the faithful within the community, and advocated insurrection against an unjust power. Kharijism also advocated open access to the caliphate/imamate (imam is used by the Kharijites in the sense of supreme spiritual guide of the community of the faithful). As a result of this rising, the greater part of the Maghrib fell away definitively from the control of the caliphate in the East, with the exception of the principality of Qayrawān (Kairouan), which only achieved virtual independence with the coming of the Aghlabids in 184/800. The Ibādī chief Abu ’l-Khaṭṭāb al-Maʿāfirī, once elected Imām, seized Tripoli and then, in 141/758, Qayrawān, from where he ejected the Ṣufrī Khārijites and then entrusted its government to ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. Rustam. It seemed that the whole of the Maghrib, now detached from the caliphate, was likely to fall to Khārijism, with its two strands of Ibādism and Ṣufrism.

Political History

ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. Rustam b. Bahrām, the founder of the Ibādī principality of Tāhart, was certainly of Persian origin, without one being able to connect him, with any certainty, to the Persian royal house, as certain sources suggest. Having arrived in Qayrawān, with his mother, as a child, he was attracted to Ibādism which, alongside other doctrines, was being taught in the Great Mosque there, until Saḥnūn, appointed qadi in 234/848-9, “broke up the circles of innovators (ahl al-bidaʿ)” and forbade them from spreading their “deviations”. In 135/752, like others, he journeyed to the East n order to complete his education at Baṣra, at that time the spiritual center of Ibādism, at the feet of Abū ʿUbayda Muslim b. Abī Karīma, the great authority of the age, who gave out instruction in which political theology necessarily played a large role, conformable to the general principles of Khārijism which had itself arisen from of a succession to power crisis. Five years later, in 140/757, together with Abu ’l-Khaṭṭāb, he was one of five missionaries, the hamalat al-ʿilm (literally “bearers of knowledge”), who set out for the Maghrib in order to pass on to the phase of the khurūj, i.e. open insurrection, with the aim of installing a just Islamic regime conformable to the Ibādī ideas of an elective and egalitarian theocracy, considering that (in their view) all the previous existing authorities had more or less betrayed true Islam since the time of the arbitration (tahkīm) at Ṣiffīn (37/657).

The conjunction of affairs was at that moment especially favorable. Khārijite ideas had been introduced into the Maghrib some four decades previously, and it found there its most fertile ground. The Ṣufrīs were the first to enter the lists and, thanks to some resounding victories, had founded three principalities: at Sijilmāsa, at Tlemcen and in the region of Salé on the Atlantic shores. The Ibādīs had the ambition of assuming for themselves power over the eastern Maghrib, and nearly succeeded.

However, Baghdād was not yet disposed to relinquish control, and still had the means within its general framework of policy to achieve this. In 144/761 Ibn al-Ashʿath recaptured Ḳayrawān, and Ibn Rustam fled into the central Maghrib. He ended up at Old Tāhart, in a region where several Ibāḍī Berber tribes were solidly established. He was not immediately elected Imām in place of Abu ’l-Khaṭṭāb, killed in battle, but he continued his involvement in the warfare against the ʿAbbasids, and in 151/768 he besieged, without success, the chief town of the Zāb, Ṭubna, the ancient fortress of Tubunda, which had become an advance bastion protecting Ifrīqiya.

The Ibādiyya in the end had to abandon Qayrawān, firmly held by a governor of first-rate competence, Yazīd b. Ḥātim al-Muhallabī, and then decided to found their own principality in the Tāhart region where ʿAbd al-Rahmān b. Rustam had already found refuge. There, in 161/778, “on a slope which dominated, from a height of a thousand meters, the steppes and their pasture-grounds,” and in a place where there was abundant water, they constructed their capital, New Tāhart or Tīhart (9 km/6 miles to the west of present-day Tihert, founded in 1863, the administrative center of a wilāya or province in modern Algeria), around which was built a protective wall with four gates. The site offered advantages at the same time for settled peoples and nomads alike, and constituted a natural fortress.

After his return from Baṣra, ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. Rustam had already been in charge of various responsibilities, whence the uncertainty of the sources regarding the date of his investiture as Imām. This probably did not take place officially till after the foundation of Tāhart in 162/779. Ibn Rustam evidently combined in himself the conditions of knowledge and piety required by the Ibādiyya for the election of their Imām. But the main reason which tipped the balance in his favor was that, if disputes should arise, he had “no tribe to bring him aid, and no clan to support him”.

Externally, Ibn Rustam practiced a pacific policy with regard to his neighbors, the ʿAbbāsid governors in Qayrawān, the ʿAlid Idrīsids in Fez, and the Ṣufrī Midrārids in Sij̲ilmāsa. Internally, he devoted his efforts to strengthening his power and to furthering the economic prosperity of his principality, thanks, in particular, to financial support from the Ibādiyya of the East, to the impulse given to trans-Saharan trade, and to agricultural and urban development. Tāhart quickly became a rich and cosmopolitan metropolis, and the Sunnī historian Ibn al-Ṣaghīr observed a host of people there, originating stemming from Baṣra, Kūfa, Ḳayrawān and other places, all attracted by the justice and order which prevailed there.

Before his death, which probably took place in 171/788, ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. Rustam appointed a council to choose a new Imām. The choice fell on his son ʿAbd al-Wahhāb. Till the end of the kingdom of Tāhart, the succeeding Imāms all came from his line, but with a chronology more or less uncertain and with many troubles which often took on the character and tiresome nature of schisms. The following is the most likely succession of the Imāms, theoretically elected but in fact succeeding by virtue of the dynastic succession rule against a background of schisms and political crises:

ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. Rustam, 161-71/778-88

ʿAbd al-Wahhāb b. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān, 171-208/788-824

Abū Saʿīd Aflaḥ b. ʿAbd al-Wahhāb, 208-58/824-72

Abū Bakr b. Aflaḥ, 258-60/872-4

Abu ’l-Yaqẓān Muḥammad b. Aflaḥ, 260-81/874-94

Abū Ḥātim Yūsuf b. Muḥammad, first reign 281-2/894-5

Yaʿqūb b. Aflaḥ, first reign 282-6/895-9

Abū Ḥātim Yūsuf b. Muḥammad, second reign 286-94/899-907

Yaʿqūb b. Aflaḥ, second reign?

Yaqẓān b. Abi ’l-Yaqẓān, 294-6/907-9

The first schism (iftirāḳ) broke out as soon as ʿAbd al-Wahhāb came to power, with his election contested by a splinter group of the Ibāḍiyya. It took shape as the Nukkāriyya, who had their hour of glory under the command of Abū Yazīd, the “Man on the Donkey”, who almost succeeded in putting an end to the Fāṭimid caliphate of Mahdiyya. Towards 195/811, a conflict broke out between the Ibādiyya of Tāhart and their Zanāta Berber neighbors, who professed Muʿtazilism in its Wāṣilī form. It is related that the controversy preceded the open conflict which was finally resolved in favor of Tāhart, thanks in particular to intellectual and military support from the Nafūsa Berbers of southern Tripolitania.

The second schism which broke out amongst the Ibādiyya was that of the Khalafiyya, from the name of Khalaf b. al-Samh, a grandson of the Imām Abu ’l-Kh̲aṭṭāb, who succeeded his father as governor of the Jabal Nafūsa to the south of Tripoli but without the agreement of the Imām ʿAbd al-Wahhāb, who rightly feared that a new dynasty would become installed there. Khalaf’s partisans, taking as a pretext the discontinuity of the kingdom of Tāhart, proclaimed Khalaf as an independent Imām. The secession of the Jabal Nafūsa continued during Aflaḥ’s imāmate until at least 221/836—the date of a decisive defeat inflicted on Khalaf—and the Khalafiyya maintained their doctrinal stance until the very end of the Rustamids.

Aflaḥ’s reign, an exceptionally long one, was the Golden Age of the Rustamid imāmate. Despite various shocks which rocked the eastern part of the principality, his reign was relatively peaceful. He was able, by a combination of pliant policies and largesse, to impose his authority on the nomadic tribes.

His successors were less fortunate or skillful. The Tāhart principality had fluid frontiers, more human than geographical ones. It was very little urbanized, and had no limes or frontier march supported by a line of powerful fortresses. The Imām’s territory had no other frontiers except those of the tribes which considered themselves Ibādī, and consequently recognized his authority, and this ultimately on the spiritual rather than the temporal level. This was the case e.g. of the Ibādiyya within the Aghlabid principality. Moreover, the principality was a mosaic of very differing ethnic elements: Berber tribes, predominantly nomadic and having divergent interests, Persians who had got rich in the shadow of Rustamid power, and factions of the Arab jund—through their profession, bellicose in nature—who had fled from Ifrīqiya. Once the religious bond became relaxed, all these ingredients became a typically explosive mixture. Hence the internal history of the Rustamid state was full of ups and downs, especially after Aflaḥ’s death.

Armed clashes forced Abū Bakr to yield his power to his brother Abu ’l-Yaqẓān, who was supported by the Arabs. The latter was nevertheless not able to take up residence at Tāhart until 268/882, thanks to the support of the Lawāta and Nafūsa Berbers. Having learned from these occurrences, he followed, it is recorded, a policy of justice, tolerance and balance, on an indispensable foundation of piety, austerity and erudition.

During his own lifetime, Abu ’l-Yaqẓān appointed his son Abū Ḥātim to succeed himself, a procedure not at all, at least in principle, in accordance with Ibāḍi tradition. It is true that the make-up of Tāhart had, meanwhile, changed considerably. Henceforth, at the side of a cosmopolitan plebs or ʿāmma, there were all sorts of groups of people, including a great number of Mālikīs and Shīʿīs, whose weight began to be felt in the political life of the city. In these conditions, an uncle of Abū Ḥātim, Yaʿqūb b. Aflaḥ, preferred to leave the capital and settle amongst the Zuwāgha Berbers who formed part of the Khalafiyya. Civil warfare soon resumed. Abū Ḥātim was driven out of Tāhart and his uncle Yaʿḳūb took his place. But this was not for long, and political alliances, from now onwards no longer reserved for the Ibādī community, were made and unmade according to shifting interests. Yaʿqūb, in turn, lost his capital, and Abū Ḥātim returned to power, supported by the ʿāmma, a mixture of both Ibādīs and non-Ibādīs. Disorder increased and the central power weakened. Abū Ḥātim was ruler only in name, and was assassinated by his nephews, which merely added to the disorders. Yaqẓān b. Abi ’l-Yaqẓān was on the throne when the troops of Abū ʿAbd Allāh al-S̲h̲īʿī came to extinguish the Rustamid principality; Tāhart offered no resistance.

It is difficult to define precisely the territorial extent of the Rustamid power. Its authority was recognized, nominally at least, by several predominantly Ibadi regions, (notably in Tripolitania or in the Jerid), but only extended very partially into the western part of the central Maghreb (the modern Algerian west), where it co-existed with several autonomous Alid principalities, including the Idrissids. Largely unstructured, the Rustamid power does not seem to have given rise to a developed administrative machinery and remained strongly tribal in its workings. The Rustamids’ power base drew mainly on two tribal groups, the Nafusa, who formed the backbone of the army, and the Mazata nomads, affluent thanks to their involvement in the trans-Saharan gold and slave trade. Thus the second Rustamid imam, ‘Abd al-Wahhab, stated that the Ibadi power rested upon “the swords of the Nafusa and the wealth of the Mazata”. The Rustamids do not seem to have struck any distinct coinage, unlike the majority of the Muslim powers of the Maghreb.

(Trade across the Sahara was a major source of income for the Rustamids)

Tahert: A Flourishing Metropolis in the Aures Mountains

Tahert was the dynasty’s capital and main urban center. The Rustamid settlement, New Tahert, is situated close to an ancient locality, Old Tahert.  According to the classical Arabic narrative sources, it had a citadel and a double rampart, probably dating from the Byzantine period. The Rustamids’ new town, situated on a plateau, is reputed to have been built on the ruins of another ancient site, and this may explain the toponymic Tagdemt (the Berber form of the Arabic qadîm, “ancient”). Crossed as it was by two waterways, New Tahert had sufficient hydraulic resources for the development of prosperous orchards and market gardening. Hydraulic planning work enabled optimum use of this water: and now the ruins of a hydraulic building consisting of a series of basins have been discovered. The town was made up of adjoining districts, based on distinct communities (inhabitants originating from Qayrawan, Kufa and Basra) or tribe (the Nafusa Berbers).

At its apogee, the Rustamid capital was very prosperous. Al-Yaʿqūbī describes it as “an important city, very famous and with a great influence, which people have termed the ʿIrāḳ of the Maghrib”, adding that “a fortress on the coast serves as a port for the fleet of the principality of Tāhart; it is called Marsā Farūkh”. Concerning the commercial routes by land, Ibn al-Ṣag̲h̲īr noted that there were roads connecting Tāhart with the land of Sūdān and with all the lands to the East and the West. It was probably in order to stimulate trade with Sub-Saharan Africa that Abū Bakr b. Aflaḥ sent an embassy headed by a rich merchant of Tāhart, Ibn ʿArafa, to the “king of the Sūdān”. A great tolerance reigned within the city, whose population included, amongst others, Christians (ʿaj̲am), who are described as being especially influential and rich, possessing both a church and a market. The people of Tāhart were fond of controversy and disputation, and the Imāms themselves were often scholars as well-versed in the profane sciences as the religious ones.

A citadel towered over Tahert, called “the impregnable Casbah” by the geographer al-Bakri. Georges Marçais situated it in the south-west corner of the city. It was a rectangular building, with a single direct entrance leading into a large central courtyard, surrounded on four sides by rooms of varying sizes, including living quarters, stables and shops. The defensive function of the Casbah accounts for its sobriety; but this absence of all decoration is also explained by the Rustamid imams’ conspicuous austerity and their puritanical ideology, as embodied in the great mosque, known to us only through written indications. Al-Bakri speaks of a building with four naves, whose vaults were held up by wooden columns. The archaeological material discovered during ancient excavations carried out in Tahert consists mainly of turned ceramic with a distinctive and most characteristic excised decoration. The walls of the vases are adorned with geometric motifs, mostly triangular, but also linear or curved.

(Ibadi mosque from Jerba, built during the same period, may give an indication as to the simple structure of the Great Mosque of Tahert)

Foreign Relations

Wedged between two hostile regimes, that of the ʿAlid Idrīsids on the west and that of the ʿAbbāsid governors, and then the Sunnī Ag̲hlabids on the east, the Rustamids practiced, by force of circumstances, a policy of rapprochement: to their south, with the Ṣufrī Midrārids of Sijilmāsa, who, moreover, controlled the vital route by which gold came; and to their north, with the strongly Mālikī Umayyads of Cordova.

To the east, after vain attempts to seize Tripoli from the Aghlabids, the Imām ʿAbd al-Wahhāb, who had directed the battle in person, relinquished the town itself and the seas to the Aghlabids, and contented himself with the hinterland, having been neither conqueror not vanquished, and with a reversion to the status quo ante. In 239/853-4, the Aghlabid Abu ’l-ʿAbbās Muḥammad I built a town in the neighborhood of Tāhart, which he provocatively called al-ʿAbbāsiyya in honor of his suzerains. The Imām Aflaḥ burnt it down and informed the caliph in Cordova of his action; the latter sent him 100,000 dirhams. Finally, in 283/896 Ibrāhīm II inflicted a severe defeat at Mānū, near the sea and to the south of Gabès, on the Nafūsa, the spear-head of Ibādī power. In the west, the Imām ʿAbd al-Wahhāb allowed Idrīs I to capture Tlemcen in 173/789 almost without any adverse reaction.

Across the seas, the Ibāḍī Imāms of Tāhart and the Mālikī amīrs of Cordova had extremely amicable relations, despite their doctrinal differences, united by a common political interest. In 207/822, ʿAbd al-Raḥmān II gave a warm welcome to three sons of the Imām ʿAbd al-Wahhāb arriving at Cordova on an embassy, probably to greet the amīr on his accession to power. In 229/844, “Cordova informed Tāhart officially of its victory over the Vikings”, and in 239/853 the Andalusi emir Muḥammad I sent a sumptuous present to the Imām Aflaḥ on his accession. Furthermore, members of the Rustamid family, installed in al-Andalus, held high offices in Cordova, up to the ranks of commander and vizier.

Tahert had become a major Trans-Saharan trading post: it was an important entepôt for supplies of gold dust and slaves en route between the Maghreb and the Mediterranean. In its dealings with West Africa, it was also a major center for the dissemination of Islam. Indeed, Ibadi merchants and missionaries played an instrumental role in transmitting the teachings of Islam across the Sahara. Tahert was also involved in trade with other parts of the Muslim world: it had a Radhanite market, the Rahâdina being multilingual Jewish merchants who had built up a trade-network with activities ranging from China, India or Transoxiana to the Maghreb, al-Andalus and the Kingdom of the Franks.

In 909, following their victory over the Aghlabids in Ifriqiya, the Fatimid armies overran Tahert, put the last imam, al-Yaqzan (906-909), and his family to death, and devastated the town. The Ibadis of Tahert then took refuge in Sedrata, near Ouargla, in the Algerian desert. The ruins of Sedrata, dating from the tenth to eleventh centuries, are known thanks to ancient excavations. They constitute the legacy of Rastamid art and architecture. Thus a mosque covered with adjoining oval domes and several residential blocks have been uncovered. The art of Sedrata is characterized above all by its plaster decoration, using geometric or floral motifs of simple workmanship, or again Kufic inscriptions. The Ibadis’ presence in Sédrata was relatively brief. Around 1077, the end of a new migratory phase saw them settle in the Mzab, which has remained to this day a veritable bastion of Maghrebi Ibadism.

The Rustamid dynasty provides a unique case in the history of North Africa, whereby a Persian dynasty ruled over a largely rural Berber population and a largely urban Christian population while adhering to the ideological and religious force of Ibadism.

(Above description adapted from: http://www.qantara-med.org/qantara4/public/show_document.php?do_id=865&lang=en and M. Talbi, “Rustamids” Encyclopedia of Islam, Volume II)

St. Augustine of Hippo (d. 430) on the Nature of Kingdoms/States

“Remota itaque iustitia quid sunt regna nisi magna latrocinia? quia et latrocinia quid sunt nisi parva regna? Manus et ipsa hominum est, imperio principis regitur, pacto societatis astringitur, placiti lege praeda dividitur. Hoc malum si in tantum perditorum hominum accessibus crescit, ut et loca teneat sedes constituat, civitates occupet populos subiuget, evidentius regni nomen assumit, quod ei iam in manifesto confert non adempta cupiditas, sed addita impunitas. Eleganter enim et veraciter Alexandro illi Magno quidam comprehensus pirata respondit. Nam cum idem rex hominem interrogaret, quid ei videretur, ut mare haberet infestum, ille libera contumacia: Quod tibi, inquit, ut orbem terrarum; sed quia <id> ego exiguo navigio facio, latro vocor; quia tu magna classe, imperator” DE CIVITATE DEI CONTRA PAGANOS, Liber IV.4

“Justice being taken away, then, what are kingdoms [or states] but great, organized robberies? For what are robberies themselves, but little kingdoms? The band itself is made up of men; it is ruled by the authority of a prince, it is knit together by the pact of the confederacy; the booty is divided by the law agreed on. If, by the admittance of abandoned men, this evil increases to such a degree that it holds places, fixes abodes, takes possession of cities, and subdues peoples, it assumes the more plainly the name of a kingdom, because the reality is now manifestly conferred on it, not by the removal of covetousness, but by the addition of impunity. Indeed, that was an apt and true reply which was given to Alexander the Great by a pirate who had been seized. For when that king had asked the man what right he had to keep hostile possession of the sea, he answered with bold pride, “The same as you have to infest the world. Because I do it with one small ship, I am called a pirate. You do it with a whole fleet and are called an emperor.” ”–St. Augustine of Hippo (d. 430), “City of God” IV.4

Ibn ‘Arabi (d. 1240) on the Noble Rank of Abu Bakr al-Siddiq (d. 634)

The following are some excerpts from a book by Muhyiddin ibn ‘Arabi (d. 1240) about his view on Abu Bakr (RAA) in relation with the Mahdi and Jesus (A.S.); the notes at the bottom are particularly important in clarifying each statement. It is definitely an interesting and unique perspective. For the complete book, see: http://www.ibnarabisociety.org/articles/anqamughrib.html

THE LIFTING OF A VEIL AND THE HOLY STRUGGLE OF AN UNPIERCED PEARL [76]

…Were it not for the Caliphate of the true Friend (khilāfat al-sadīq; i.e. Abu Bakr), the people would have turned aside from the Path[81] because of the absence of the ongoing process of Revelation and because of the Gnosis of God’s Turning-away [the evildoer]’ (ma’rifat al-sarf).[82]

…The Sun of the West [viz., the mahdī] ranks below the Station of the ‘Faithful One’ (rutbat al-siddīq) – but keep that a secret! – even as the Faithful and, therefore, he who is below him, is under the Banner of the Seal [of the Saints] (liwā’ al-khatm).[86] That is to say that the Lights of the Transcendent Mysteries shining in the hearts, which we alluded to earlier, might still be attained unto by one who is not a Greater ‘Faithful-One’ (siddīq akbar) and who has not achieved that most-important Station. Indeed, even one utterly deluded, duped and deceived can attain unto them – the Secret of this being in God’s saying (Be He Exalted!): “We shall lure them step by step from whence they know not”[87] – whereas the Station of Supreme Faithfulness (al-siddīqīyah) is attained only by the People of Sainthood (ahl al-walāyah) and he to whom it is foreordained by God from Pre-eternity. For Faithfulness is the Way of Salvation for one who possesses it and proceeds according to its way.

This, then, is the reason we made the Western Sun (i.e. the Mahdi) to be beneath the Faithful One (i.e. Abu Bakr) and dependent upon him, even as the Seal is above the Station of the Faithful: The Mahdī is the one who paves the way (al-mumahhid li-l-tarīq) upon which a Noble One (‘atīq)[88] will walk. But the Seal is Prophetary in origin (nabawī al-mahtid), Heavenly in appearance (‘alawī al-mashhad). Therefore, we have placed him above the Station of Faithfulness (al-sidq), even as the Real had placed him. For he who takes his light from the Lamp of Prophecy (mishādt al-nubūwah)[89] is greater than one who takes it from the Lamp of Faithfulness (mishkāt al-siddīqīyah) – the relationship between the Follower (al-tābi’) and the Companion (al-sāhib) being as that of one who is present (al-shāhid) to one who is absent (al-ghā’ib).

When it was established that the Seal would be the Head of the Community (muqaddam al-jamā’ah) on the Day of the coming of the Hour (qiyām al-sā’ah), it was determined that he would have two Congregations,[90] being Master of the Two Seals. But whereas the ‘Winged One’ (dhū l-ajnihah) [viz., the Angel Gabriel] will share with the Seal the task of gathering the two Congregations,[91] the Seal is alone in charge of his two Signet-seals. The ‘Winged One’ in Man is he in whom spirituality (al-rūhanīyah) predominates and who is devoted to the purification of his soul by virtue of the Angelic Station (al-rutbah al-malakīyah). Incontestably, in our view, as regards this Station there is no putting off its power…

76. Raf’u sitrⁱⁿ wa-mujahadatu bikrⁱⁿ. ‘Unpierced (virgin) pearl’ is one of the several meanings of bikr which resonates with the imagery of the present work. Another possibility would be ‘first-born’, in the sense of first ‘successor’, since the allusion is surely to Abu Bakr as the Prophet’s successor, the caliph par excellence. Mujāhadah : “holy struggle” (e.g., against bodily desires).

81. The caliphate of Abu Bakr was occupied by the wars of apostasy (hurūb al-riddah) fought against Arab tribes that attempted to secede from the Islamic confederation after the death of the Prophet (in 11-13/632-4). (I take this to be the exoteric referent of the phrase, mujāhadat bikr, in the heading.)

82. Other possible translations of sarf here might be ‘evasive artifice, cunning’ (cf. Q. 25:19), ‘repentance’, and ‘supererogation’, etc. I have opted for the sense of the cognate verb in Q. 9:127: “God turns away (sarafa) their hearts, for they are a people who know not”; and 7:146: “I shall turn away from My Signs (ayat-ī) those who wrongfully magnify themselves in the earth, so that [even] if they see every Sign, they will not believe it, and if they see the way of righteousness, they will not adopt it; while when they see the way of error, they will take it as their way.”

86. Here we have Ibn al-‘Arabī’s first explicit ranking of the walāyah-grades with respect to each other.

87. Q. 7:182 and 68: 44. AI-Maqaābirī adds a note of caution to this sanguine pronouncement, quoting Q. 6:121: “Indeed, the devils inspire their followers (awliyā’u-hum)…”

88. ‘Atīq Allah (freed by God) is another epithet of Abu Bakr, who stands here for the Siddīq. Al-Maqaābirī glosses ‘atīq as the intellect (al-‘aql), in accordance with the tradition, “The first thing created by God was the intellect” (see Abu Da’ud, Sunnah, 16, et at.), for it ‘became precedent’ (‘atīq) in the sense of existential priority (sābiqīyat al-wujūd).

89. The Seal, as the one who takes his light (al-akhidhu nūra-hu) from the lamp of prophecy, might well be assumed to rank below prophecy. This, however, is not the case, as the saints are themselves endowed with ‘general prophecy’ (nubūwah mutlaqah) in Ibn al-‘Arabī’s full-blown doctrine, and in the same clause we learn that the siddīq takes his light from the lamp of his own proper station. Mishkāh: properly, ‘a niche in the wall’ where a lamp gives off more light than elsewhere (d. the famous ‘Light-verse’, Q. 24: 35).

90. AI-Maqaābirī glosses the “two congregations” (and the “two seals”, below) as being of the “tangible and the heavenly worlds (‘ālam al-mulk wa-l-malakūt)”. In the margin, however, another commentator has given the better interpretation: “This is indicative of Jesus (May the blessings and peace of God be upon him!), for he has two congregations – that is, one of his own people, the children of Israel [that is, the Christians], in respect to his own prophethood, and another with our Prophet Muhammad (May God bless and keep him) and his community” (cf. Futūhāt, II, 9 [9-10] and 49 [20-1]). The final Judgment is known as the ‘Day of Congregation’.

91. Gabriel is the angel who will blow the trumpet heralding the beginning of the Resurrection.

Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti (d. 1230) on the Martyrdom of Imam Husayn (A.S.)

Shah Ast Hussein Badshah Ast Hussein

Ruler is Hussain, Emperor is Hussain

Deen Ast Hussein Deen Panah Ast Hussein

Faith is Hussain , guardian of faith is Hussain

Sar dad na daad dast dar dast e yazeed

Offered his head and not the hand to Yazid

Haqaaq e Binaa e Laa iLaha Ast Hussein

Indeed, Hussain is the foundation of La-ilah (the declaration that none but God is Absolute and Almighty)

Aljamiado Manuscript

Qur’anic exegesis (tafsir) manuscript from 16th-century Arévalo (north-western Spain).

This is written in the Romance language (Castilian Spanish) of the Muslims of Castile but with Arabic (as opposed to Latin) alphabet. If this manuscript had been discovered in Aragon, it would have been composed in Catalan, whereas if if had been found in Portugal, it would probably have been written in Portuguese. This language was known as Aljamiado and is one of the most fascinating phenomenon from the late medieval and early modern periods. Through it, the Andalusi (Iberian) Muslims affirmed their distinctive identity and their affiliation with their homeland (Spain) on the one hand and the Islamic world on the other. Another reason to dispense with the ludicrous term “Moor” and its derivatives to refer to the Muslims of Spain from 711-1609.

Byzantine Empire at its Greatest Extent (ca. 565)

Holy Roman Emperor Charles V (d. 1558) on Language

Alius vero, qui Germanus erat, retulit, eundem Carolum Quintum dicere aliquando solitum esse; Si loqui cum Deo oporteret, se Hispanice locuturum, quod lingua Hispanorum gravitatem maiestatemque prae se ferat; si cum amicis, Italice, quod Italorum dialectus familiaris sit; si cui blandiendum esset, Gallice, quod illorum lingua nihil blandius; si cui minandum aut asperius loquendum, Germanice, quod tota eorum lingua minax, aspera sit ac vehemens

“Indeed another, who was German, related that the same Charles V sometimes used to say: if it was necessary to talk with God, that he would talk in Spanish, which language suggests itself for the graveness and majesty of the Spaniards; if with friends, in Italian, for the dialect of the Italians was one of familiarity; if to caress someone, in French, for no language is tenderer than theirs; if to threaten someone or to speak harshly to them, in German, for their entire language is threatening, rough and vehement”

Winston Churchill on Islam in 1899

The following is an excerpt of Winston Churchill’s critique of Islam, which he perceives to be the source of the weakness and decline of Muslims. Keep in mind this was written in 1899, when he was 25, so much of his views in his latter life may have changed. Obviously I disagree with it in a lot of ways, but this theory (Muslims=good, Islam=bad) still asserts itself in many Western analyses and discussions of Islam in the world today:

“How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy.

The effects are apparent in many countries. Improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live.

A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement; the next of its dignity and sanctity. The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property, either as a child, a wife, or a concubine, must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men.

Individual Moslems may show splendid qualities, but the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it.

No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step; and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science, the science against which it had vainly struggled, the civilization of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilization of ancient Rome.”

— Sir Winston Churchill, The River War, first edition, Vol. II, pages 248-50 (London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1899).