An Abridged Handbook of Islamic Sects and Trends

The other day I noticed a comment on richarddawkins.net by a normally insightful commentator; njwong, about the difference between Sufism and Wahhabism. Despite his usual insight I feel that the demarcation he makes is born of ignorance of these two "types" of Islam. So I am going to attempt to compile a list of common terms, groups, and influences that routinely pop up in discussions of Islam, and provide some abridged explanations (in no particular order, save in which they came to my mind). List of Terms:

Wahhabi(ism): A term used in a far too general a fashion. It is essentially a movement founded by Muhammad Ibn Abd al-Wahhab in the central plateau of the Arabian Peninsula (Najd) in the mid 18th Century. Descended from a long line of Hanbali scholars, Bin Abd al-Wahhab dedicated himself to correcting Islamic belief and practice, which he viewed as corrupted. His primary targets for reproach were Sufis (see below) and Shi'as. This is a term too widely applied these days for pejorative purposes. It was most likely first used by the Turks then later by the British. The descendants of Bin Abd al-Wahhab continue to hold the positions of official religious scholars in Saudi Arabia.

Sufi(sm): From the Arabic word tasawuf, meaning "wool", given to these people due to their garments of wool. Sufism is generally associated with spiritual and esoteric versions of Islamic practice. Often they are viewed, particularly by foreign observers, as antinomian, monkish type figures. This is unfair as Sufism spans a great many forms of practice. Some are very tolerant (one such Sufi master had both Jews and Christians in his funeral procession) to orders like the Qadari Tariqa of which 'Izz al-Din al-Qassam was a member (eponym of the Qassam rocket, and an inspiration to Hamas). Sufis are usually organized into an order known as a tariqa, an Arabic word mean "road" or "path". A single shaykh will lead the order and will be the spiritual leader for his followers. Strange practices are sometimes associated with the 'passing on' of the order; Stefania Pandolfo noted that some Sufis in Morocco would drink the bath water of the shaykh who led the order. Sufis range from the ultra liberal to the highly conservative, and many have been deeply involved in resistance movements... namely Sayyid Ahmed Barelwi in the Northwest Frontier Province, and the timeless intellectual Shah Waliullah Dihlavi (who shared a teacher, Muhammad Hayat al-Sindi, with Muhammad Bin Abd al-Wahhab).

Salafi(sm): From the Arabic term, Ahl al-Salif al-Salih (People of the Righteous Forebearers). It is essentially an ultra-traditional interpretation of Islam, harkening back to the aforementioned 'forebearers', referring to Muhammad and his companions. These Muslims often take as their impetus a Hadith attributed to Muhammad in which he said; "Blessed is the one who has seen me, and blessed is the one who has seen the one who has seen me." This is sometimes used interchangeably with the term immediately below. Some Wahhbis eschew the term Wahhabi and prefer to call themselves Salafis. Salafis are more inclined to take issue with non-Muslims than Wahhabis (who are primarily concerned with incorrect practice from Muslims). Salafis range from the highly faithful (but inactive) to the highly radical violent types seen in al-Qaeda and other purification/jihad groups. One such "passive" group is the Jama'a-i Tabliq.

Ahl al-Sunnah wa'l-Jamma': A term meaning People of the Way of the Prophet and the Community. Essentially a group similar to Salafis who focus on the early period of Islam for developing the correct Islamic lifestyle.

Jama'a-i Tabliq: A group of highly fundamentalist Muslims who do not take action with regard to non-Muslims, but instead choose to proselytize to their fellow Muslims who they feel are practicing Islam incorrectly. This group is often found to promote the notion that all the problems of the Muslim Ummah can be corrected by proper worship, and that as a corollary the current problems in the ummah are a direct result of incorrect worship. These Muslims are not all that dissimilar from Wahhabis, however the Tabliq are often comprised of Muslims from the Subcontinent.

The Muslim Brotherhood: Known in Arabic as al-Ikhwan al-Muslimeen, or Ikhwan for short. A movement founded in Egypt by Hassan al-Banna (who was greatly influenced by Rashid Rida' and Muhammad Abduh, who were in turn greatly influenced by a Shi'a Sayyid Jamal al-Din al-Afghani) who claimed that the Qur'an and the Sunnah would provide the perfect model for Muslim life, and that the Caliphate should and would be re-established from Spain to Indonesia... and eventually the entire world. The credo of the brotherhood is: "Allah is our objective. "The Prophet is our leader. Qur'an is our law. Jihad is our way. Dying in the way of Allah is our highest hope." The Brotherhood has been repeatedly oppressed in a number of Arab states. With varying severity in Egypt (under Nasser, and worse after a member assassinated Anwar Sadat). Initially the Brotherhood had helped the Egyptian officers who overthrow Kind Farooq, but were betrayed and persecuted by Nasser. And also in Syria which led to the massacre at Hama. The massacre of Hama occurred after a revolt led by the Brotherhood. The Syrian military bombarded the city killing between 25,000 and 40,000 people.

Qutbist: So named after eponym Sayyid Qutb. Qutb was a member of the Muslim Brotherhood and was executed by Nasser in 1966. He wrote several fundamental works:
-Ma'alim fi't Tariq "Milestones", a critique of un-Islamic governments in Muslim countries.
-Fi Zilal al-Qur'an "In the Aegis of the Qur'an", an exegesis of the Qur'an in which Qutb couched a scalding critique of Nasser's Egypt.
-Adalat al-Ijtima'iyya fi'l Islam "Social Justice in Islam", in this work Qutb laid out his vision for Islam as a social system.
Qutb began his career in S. Egypt (he was Nubian and thus black) where he worked for the ministry of education and wrote tawdry romance novels. Qutb was steeled in his Islamism after a visit to the United States in the 1950's (he studied briefly in Greely, Colorado) where he was revolted by the sexual immorality of Americans. Qutb's most important commentary was his labeling of non-Islamic Arab governments as jahili (the Jahiliyya is the period before Islam, which is best translated as "Period of Ignorance"). Qutb has been an inspiration to Osama Bin Laden.

Osama Bin Laden: A Saudi of Yemeni origin, his family grew wealthy in Saudi Arabia through their construction business. Bin Laden was a reasonably moderate young man, but after a trip to Switzerland he began to eschew Western values. He went to participate in the jihad against the Soviets in Afghanistan. He was inspired by the writings of Sayyid Qutb, and an indirect line of filiation can be drawn as Bin Laden's closest ally (an integral founder of al-Qaeda) Abdullah Azzam had taught in Medina alongside Muhammad Qutb, brother of Sayyid Qutb. Bin Laden has adhered, loosely, to the hierarchy of disdain set out by Qutb. First were atheistic communist societies and second were Western capitalist societies, which ‘worshipped money’, and were thus idolaters. Another principle Qutb laid out (in Milestones) which bin Laden adopted was takfir ("To declare a Muslim to be non-Muslim"... literally "To make them a Kafir). Since Islam had entered a period of "Jahiliyya", any Muslim not taking part in the solution was an infidel. This practice of takfir is how bin Laden has justified the targeting of Muslims in terrorist attacks; he simply views them as Kuffar.

Jihad: Jihad is accurately translated as "Struggle", yet its historical context often causes people to render it "Holy War". Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya (most famous student of Hanbali scholar Ibn Taymiyya) best outlined what jihad is in his magnum opus, Zaad al-Ma'ad (Provisions for the Hereafter). He wrote that jihad was divided into two levels. The First al-Jihad al-Akbar (The Greater Jihad) which was comprised of the struggle for internal perfection of faith, and the second al-Jihad al-Asghar (The Lesser Jihad) often times known as Jihad bi'l-Sayf (Jihad by the Sword). The Greater Jihad means perfecting faith and the practice of Islam, eschewing negative behaviors and perfecting worship, it is know as a Fard Ayni (Individual Obligation of the Muslim). The Lesser Jihad is fighting for the spread of Islam, or the defense of its borders, it is known as a Fard Kifaya (Sufficient or Communal Obligation) this means that not everyone need participate in this jihad, but SOME from the community MUST step forward to fulfill the obligation. This is in turn divided into subcategories by al-Jawziyya:
-Jihad bi'l-Lissan "Jihad by the Tongue" which means to spread Islam by the word.
-Jihad bi'l-Qalam "Jihad by the Pen" which means to spread Islam by the written word.
-Jihad bi'l-Sayf "Jihad of the Sword" which means to spread Islam by the sword.
All of these are potential obligations, and can be simultaneous. Al-Jawziyya makes no mistake about the importance of BOTH forms of jihad writing "Jihad is the very pinnacle of Islam, and the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, experienced it in every facet" (my translation).

Now I am tired. I shall revisit this as it requires updating. Please contact me with any other questions or suggestions for terms requiring definition.

The Religious Cleansing of Bangladesh

The Hindu man to the left was beaten to death by Muslims after a Friday prayer in Bangladesh. Apparently the imam riled the congregants and immediately upon completion of the prayer the worshippers stormed into the street and grabbed the first Hindu they could find, and beat him to death. As you can see in the photo he begged for his life, to no avail. Someone once argued for religion saying "Wouldn't you feel safer knowing a mob coming down the street had just left a prayer service." Whoever said that wasn't a Hindu in Bangladesh.

While Muslims parade (read: 'riot') around claiming to be defenders of the "human rights" of Palestinians, remind them how millions of Hindus have been forced out of their homes and country and even killed by rampaging Muslims. Muslims hypocritically use "human rights" as a tool in their arsenal to wage their ongoing jihad against the state of Israel, but are quite a bit more shy when it comes to the Muslims systematically gang raping Christian women in the Sudan. {I commented briefly on gang rape as an institutionalized form of redressing offenses to "honor" here}

In 1947 when East Pakistan (as Bangladesh was then known) gained independence, Hindus comprised roughly 28% of the population. As of the most recent census data, the number has been reduced to 9.2%. This is largely attributable to a Muslim policy of religious cleansing of Hindus. As Hindus are polytheists, and polytheists are the most despised in Islam, it is not hard to motivate the Muslim masses to participate in such practices, or at least tolerate them.

In 1971 (during Operation Searchlight) and running clear through the Bangladesh War of Independence there was an active policy to kill both Bengali intellectuals, Biharis, and Hindus. Below is a quotation from "Statistics of Democide: Genocide and Mass Murder Since 1900" (Ch.8):

"In East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) [General Agha Mohammed Yahya Khan and his top generals] also planned to murder its Bengali intellectual, cultural, and
political elite. They also planned to indiscriminately murder hundreds of
thousands of its Hindus and drive the rest into India. And they planned to
destroy its economic base to insure that it would be subordinate to West
Pakistan for at least a generation to come. This despicable and cutthroat plan
was outright genocide."

After 267 days of offensive operations the army of Agha Mohammed Yahya Khan had killed approximately 1.5 million people (intellectuals, ethnic Biharis, and Hindus). They had also created 10 million refugees (people who were forced to flee to neighboring India, which instituted a policy to turn most back or treat them as intruders which resulted in the shooting of a 12 year old girl ). It is worth noting that 1.5 million was a conservative estimate, other estimates have come in at 3 million dead in the genocide.

In June of 1988 President, Gen. H.M. Ershad signed an amendment to the Constitution of Bangladesh stating that Islam was the state religion and that absolute faith and trust in Allah would be the basis of all action. Is it any wonder that a state now designated as officially "Islamic" would carry on persecuting the mushrikeen (polytheists)? And indeed it carried on in official state policy with the passing of the "Enemy Property Act" after the 17 day war with India. After the passage of this act the "Islamic" state began confiscating property belonging to Hindus, at will. And even when this law was repealed in 2001 (Property Return Bill) the State Minister informed the press in April, 2001 that this was for the sole benefit of Muslims.

Nor is this unique to Bangladesh. Afghanistan was similarly cleansed of Hindus... if one notices the mountain range "Hindu Kush" in Afghanistan, the translation of this is "Hindu Killer". Kush invariably means "killing" in Old Persian. This is in reference to the multitudes of Hindus who had died in the passes of these mountains after they had been taken as slaves by the Muslims (Islam permits the taken of slaves) and forced to march through the mountains.

There is no doubt that there are Muslim apologists who will say that this is a result of the nation state, identity, etc... The unfortunate fact is that it isn't unique or new when a Muslim population comes to control a region. In the original Islamic conquest it is estimated by some scholars that as many as 70 million Hindus were killed, and many more subtly forced to convert to Islam. Although things got better under the Mughal dynasty, this was due, possibly, to the fact that the Mughals were Timurids (Turko-Mongol), and not Arabs. By comparison, the conquest of the Mongols (Genghis Khan) looks mild versus what Muslims did in the subcontinent. Genghis Khan had a policy of including local religions in his empire, taking their input, and giving them freedom of worship. This much more accurately explains why the Mughals gave greater latitude to the Hindus than any false notion of Islamic tolerance.

Where is the Islamic basis for such behavior? Let's look at some verses from the Qur'an regarding polytheists.... Qur'an 9:5:

"When, when the sacred months have passed, slay the idolaters
(polytheists) wherever ye find them, and take them (captive), and besiege
them, and prepare for them each ambush. But if they repent and establish worship
and pay the poor-due, then leave their way free. Lo! Allah is Forgiving,
Merciful. "

Explanation: Fight and kill polytheists until they become Muslim.

Qur'an: 89:6

"Those who reject (Truth), among the People of the Book and among the
polytheists, will be in Hell-Fire, to dwell therein (for aye). They are the
worst of creatures. "

The point is made. The Muslims have systematically killed, expelled, and oppressed Hindus in the Subcontinent. This is due to the Islamic principles of intolerance and hate for polytheists. Let us not fall into the trap of discussing human rights with Islam apologists.

Geert Wilders and the Weak Kneed Capitulationists

All over the news recently (or rather the sources that bother to note massive and impending threats to our liberties) is the case of Geert Wilders, under prosecution for the production of his film Fitna. On January 21, 2009 a three judge court ordered prosecutors to try Wilders for "hate speech". This is an absolutely despicable act, one that a person would expect to see in the very dictatorial pseudo-fascist Islamic states that Wilders so rightly excoriates, not in a liberal European state. As this pathetic comedy plays out it will be an enormous pie in the face of the Islamists who have begun a campaign to suppress free speech the world over. Having already succeeded in their own miserable cesspools of countries they have moved on to places where women can drive.

The reason this may turn into a fiasco is because Wilders did nothing but read back what Muslim texts already say, and juxtapose these with pictures of acts carried out by Muslims who cite these very same texts for these actions. In furtherance of this Promethean display of irony, Wilders actually does use 'hate speech', but it isn't his own, it is that of the Muslim canonical texts. Muslims should be suing themselves, if anyone.

The real issue here isn't whether Muslims are outraged over offenses, which is a near hourly occurrence for these spoiled brats, it is that a western government has given in to their fascistic demands for blood over the execution of one of their sacred cows (ironically Muhammad Ali Jinnah once quipped about the partition of India "I want to eat the cow the Hindu worships"). Liberal democracies have one enduring quality, with which they can always best the Muslim world, and that is the freedom of expression. And now the Dutch seem ready to sacrifice this great virtue on the alter of cowering political correctness (perhaps they will keep the windmills and wooden shoes).

Alas, it isn't the wooden shoe people alone who have gone on bent knee to appease the Islamists, the British (never content to be bested by another country's obsequious whimpering) have issued a letter telling Wilders he is not welcome on British soil because he "would threaten community harmony and therefore public security in the U.K." by upsetting Muslims. No doubt this has something to do with a Muslim member of the British House of Lords, Nazir Ahmed, threatening to mobilize 10,000 Muslims to protest Wilders' appearance and the screening of Fitna.

See the letter here:
http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/024785.php#respond

And frankly who can blame the British law enforcement establishment, the very police that scurried in all directions like frightened rats when a Muslim mob charged them screaming Kuffar (a derogatory term best translated as "infidels") during a protest in support of the people of Gaza (read, 'Hamas'). Every once and a while (lately, in fact, all too regularly) there are such grotesque examples of hypocrisy that simply boggle the mind. This is one such instance... the British have welcomed with open arms all sorts of jihadists and Islamists who spend their government welfare checks in furtherance of the destruction of British society. Spewing hate, these ignorant thugs are allowed to reside in the UK, gleefully going about their dirty business, while one of the few men with the intestinal fortitude to stand up to this brand of hate is banned for preaching "hate". What form of sick self loathing has overcome our societies that we are unable to call a spade a spade, in fact a spade that calls itself a spade? It is a bit of comedy, this liberal defense of Muslims. The Muslims themselves spew this hate, citing their texts, whilst the useful idiots try to tell the rest of the infidels that this isn't really what the Muslims mean. And all the while Muslims listen to preachers who say "this is precisely what we mean". These useful idiots must feel like an attorney on the steps of the courthouse who proclaim their client's innocence to the media, while this very client stands round back confessing to a litany of crimes.

Do these politicians feel no shame as they sell out their peoples? Not just the non-Muslims, but the Muslims who wish a better life. Muslims who escaped the cesspools of the Islamic world to come to a place that respects individual rights. Won't these brave souls be surprised to learn that after escaping the clutches of this 7th Century fascism, that those they have trusted to help them make better lives have sold them out. Revolting.

With any luck the Islamists shall be hoisted by their own petard.