Author:  Abdassamad Clarke

Publication date: 9/2/2013

Assalamu alaykum. Welcome to the Civilisation and Society Programme of the MFAS. This is the second of 12 sessions which make up the Technique and Science module. The lecture will last approximately 40 minutes during which time you should make a written note of any questions that may occur to you for clarification after the lecture.

Introduction

In this lecture, we will ask examine the significance of the creation of modern science by Galileo, Descartes, Newton and others in a period that stretched from the Renaissance through the crisis of the Reformation to the foundation of the modern state and the first central banks, the issuance of banknotes and the first national debt. For this purpose, we must first briefly consider the historical background.

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Author: Abdassamad Clarke

Publication date: 2/2/2013

Assalamu alaykum. Welcome to the Civilisation and Society Programme of the MFAS. This is the first of 12 sessions which make up the Technique and Science module. The lecture will last approximately 50 minutes during which time you should make a written note of any questions that may occur to you for clarification after the lecture.

The subject of this lecture is comprised under the academic disciplines of history and philosophy of science and technology. No one needs to be convinced of the centrality of science and technology in our age, although people are divided as to their benefits. But to pass judgement would be to pre-empt a proper enquiry into the nature of science and technology for which we need to follow their history and unravel the thinking behind them.

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Thinking about language and law in the modern age

Abdalhakim Andersson – Director of Studies MFAS

The purpose of the following lecture – entitled Discourses of the Secular – is not to cover the full spectrum of secular ideas and realities in the modern age. Nor is it to make pronouncements about the virtues or vices of secular societies. Rather, it is an introduction to some perspectives that might help us to understand how the the secular, in its various discourses, defines our way of thinking and acting in the modern world. In order to make these perspectives comprehensible and useful, however, we will begin by defining our terms and clarifying the basic ideas.

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New Approaches to European Thinking through Arabic

Abdassamad Clarke – Dean MFAS

The identity of the Muslim and of the Ummah could not be clearer. Indeed, the issue before us is in some sense behind us: the translation of that identity into a British, European and Western setting. The fact of our meeting and the fact that it is we who meet is proof that this matter is well advanced.

But let us not be triumphalist. As we work, others are working and often more eagerly and dedicatedly. Just as we strive to translate our deen into this historically new setting, others are far further advanced in translating the secular worldview into a Muslim setting. And others of our own community are working to translate an understanding of the din we can hardly recognise into a form that is even more aberrant in order to fit into this age. It is quite conceivable that lands such as Egypt will lose Islam entirely. But these are not separate issues: the spearheading of Islam here and the preservation there. The issue is not geographical but temporal: the translation of the deen into the new age we are in, and that is the timeless challenge the d?n has always faced, and thus gives the title for our symposium: Identity and Time. The issue is the same here as it is in Egypt.

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Khutbah – Ihsan Mosque, Norwich – 7/5/10

Those commands to do with the tongue are recitation of the Qur’an, dhikr and du‘a, and today we want to talk about the fourth matter: commanding the right and forbidding the wrong.

Allah, exalted is He, said, that whose meaning is:

Let there be a community among you

who call to the good,

and enjoin the right,

and forbid the wrong.

They are the ones who have success. (Surah Al ‘Imran: 104)

Continued…

This excerpt is an incomplete translation of the section which Ibn Khaldun devotes to the subject of the Mahdi, and comprises in full his study of the ahadith on him.

If we examine first the ‘aqidahs which are acknowledged, such as those of at-Tahawi, an-Nasafi, or Ibn Abi Zayd al-Qayrawani (in his Risalah and the Kitab al-Jami‘) we find that none of them mention the Mahdi as a fundamental part of the ‘aqidah of Islam, whereas all do indeed mention the return of ‘Isa, peace be upon him, and the descent of the Dajjal, except in the Risalah, whose ‘aqidah is brief.

When we turn to the works of ahadith, we find that Malik in Muwatta, and al-Bukhari mention nothing of the Mahdi at all, although Muslim does mention a hadith that in later times there will be an unnamed noble and generous khalifah. It is inconceivable for these great Imams to have neglected something which is a fundamental pillar of the ‘aqidah.

The significance of this section is not to deny that there may be at some point in the future of Islam a great rightly-guided Khalifah, but that it is not a fundamental part of the ‘aqidah and that it is a deviation of Islam to ‘wait for the Mahdi’ in order to establish Islam, wage jihad or restore the Khalifate.

In the later part of this section Ibn Khaldun devotes some space to Sufi writings on the Mahdi, and on some of the historical personages particularly in North Africa who rose in revolt proclaiming themselves to be Mahdis. Ibn Khaldun writes that if there is to be a Mahdi he will have to appear according to the dynamics of political power outlined in theMuqaddimah, and not as in the apocalyptic fantasies of some sources.

This section is by no means the last word on this matter, and Ibn Khaldun’s chapter has met with criticism from other hadith scholars throughout the ages, but that is also of the nature of these sciences, since there are few scholars who have escaped criticism for some position they have taken. Some of the criticisms made of him are utterly baseless, such as that he was not a scholar of hadith. This is blatantly untrue since he was educated thoroughly in hadith and indeed later in Cairo taught both fiqh and hadith, and numbered among his pupils the great Ibn Hajar (not necessarily in the science of hadith) who is unquestionably one of the greatest authorities on the subject.

However, this chapter has particular interest for us because of the huge significance that the prophetic ahadith on the Mahdi are given in the time in which we live, and as a corrective to the transformation of the Mahdi into “al-Mahdi al-Muntadhar” (the Awaited Mahdi) whom one of our acquaintance wittily renamed “al-Mahdi al-Muntadhir” (the Waiting Mahdi).

Continued…