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Islamic Spirituality and the Black-Led Freedom Movement Omid Safi

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Islamic Spirituality and the Black-Led Freedom Movement Omid Safi “God Commands You to Justice and Love”: Islamic Spirituality and the Black-led Freedom Movement Omid Safi Department of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies Duke University Symposium on Islam and Good Governance Muqtedar Khan (Ed.) International Institute of Islamic Thought | October 2020 DOI: 10.47816/01.005.20 Islam and Good Governance Muqtedar Khan (Editor) Cornel West, widely seen as one of the most prophetic intellectuals of our generation, has famously said: “Never forget that justice is what love looks like in public.” This teaching, bringing together Sanusis, Senegalese Tijanis, among love and justice, also serves as one that others.3 links together the highest aspirations of Many studies of the social and Islamic spirituality and governance political dimensions of Islamic (Ihsan) and justice (‘adl). Within the spirituality have tended to look at the realm of Islamic thought, Muqtedar “Middle” period of Islamic history, from Khan has written a thoughtful volume the years 1100-1600 or so. recently on the social and political Understandably, scholarship on modern implications of the key concept in Islamic thought has tended to prioritize Islamic spirituality, Ihsan.1 The present studies of modernist, Salafi, as well as essay serves to bring together these two various reformist and puritanical by taking a look at some of the main schools of Islamic thought instead of the insights of the Black-led Freedom Sufi tradition. I want to push against Movement for Islamic governance and that trend here, and examine the spirituality. implications of the Black-led Freedom Older models for the study of Movement in the 1960s in the United mysticism—and Sufism in the context of States for helping us imagine and re- Islam—tended to relegate spirituality to imagine models of Islamic spirituality the “private realm of personal and governance. experience.”2 More recent scholarship has tended to identify that *** characterization as a product of Protestant tradition, and instead insists The connection between the that Sufism has always had a social, and Black-led Freedom Movement (more even political, dimension. This is true in commonly known as the Civil Rights the case of Naqshbandi Central Asian Movement) and Islam is not so far- Sufis, South Asian Chishtis, Libyan fetched. Until 1970, the majority of 2 Omid Safi God Commands You to Justice and Love Americans professing to be Muslim foundational passage in the Qur’an hailed from the Nation of Islam led by (16:90): Elijah Muhammad and Malcolm X. It was only the passage of the 1965 ِا نِ ّٰللاَِ يَ اا ُم ُرِ بِاالعَ اد ِلِ َواا ِۡل اح َسا ِِن immigration laws that made America’s Inna ‘laha ya’miru bi ‘l-adl wa ‘l-ihsan formal immigration law slightly less “Indeed, God commands you to Justice racist that the migration of Muslim and Love.” doctors, engineers, and technocrats The term translated here as Love from Arab countries, South Asia, and is none other than Ihsan. The spiritual Iran changed the demographic of the background of the word Ihsan in Islamic American Muslim population. Prior to thought goes back to the famed Hadith this time, almost all the significant of Gabriel, which states: American Muslim figures such as Elijah أَ نِ تَ عبُِدَ ّللاَِ َكأَ ن َكِ تَ َراهُ، َفإِ نِ َل مِ تَ ُك نِ تَ َراهُِ َفإِ نهُِ Muhammad, Malcolm X, Muhammad يرا َكِ َ َ Ali, and W. D. Muhammad were African-Americans who came out of the Ihsan is that you worship God as if you Black liberationist tradition of Nation of see Him Islam.4 Furthermore, iconic figures like And if you don’t see Him, remember Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks that He nevertheless sees you. were deeply aware of Muslim figures like 6 Malcolm X, and were constantly [Sahih Bukhari and Sahih Muslim] modulating their own stances in light of the more radical social justice stances of The term Ihsan has been the Nation of Islam. While many people translated variously as “virtue” and have looked at the centrality of love and “excellence.” It’s helpful to remember nonviolence for the practice of the Civil that the concept of Ihsan comes from Rights Movement, not many have the same Arabic trilateral root system sought to similarly center the teachings (H-S-N) that means both Good and of Ihsan for the American Muslim Beautiful. Ihsan is the very process of bringing goodness and beauty here and experience.5 The connection between love and now and making them real. Ihsan, then, spirituality in Islam goes back to the 3 Islam and Good Governance Muqtedar Khan (Editor) is nothing short of the realization of can do the right religious deeds goodness and beauty. (including prayer) without faith having In the Hadith of Gabriel quoted permeated one’s heart. This, in fact, above, Ihsan is listed as the highest level seems to be the very insight mentioned of the spiritual path: first comes the in the Qur’an when a group of Arab actions related to the path, named as nomads come to the Prophet asking him submitting of oneness to the spiritual to bear witness that they have faith in path (such as testimony of Divine unity, God. The Prophet is commanded to say prayer, fasting, pilgrimage, charity). that while they have submitted This is the level of Islam, that of a themselves to God and are performing wholehearted and engaged surrender to the right deeds (literally, that they are the Divine will. Then comes Iman islam-ing), faith has not yet taken root (faith), which is faith in God, the in their heart. messengers, the scriptures, angels, َقا َل ِِت ااۡلَ اع َرا ُِب ٰا َم نا ِؕ قُ لِ ل امِ تُ اؤ ِمنُ اوا َوٰلـ ِك انِ قُ اولُ ۤۡاوا predestination, and the day (of resurrection and judgement). Above اَ اس َل امنَا َوِ َل ما يَ اد ُخ ِلِ اا ِۡلاي َما ُنِ فِ اِى قُلُ اوبِ ُك اِم both of these levels is Ihsan, which is a [Qur’an 49:14] more subtle realm, not merely to do the prayers, not merely to worship God, and not merely to do so while having faith in The great Muslim poet and sage God, but to do so as if one is witnessing Rumi confirms this. In his Fihi Ma Fihi, (mushahda) God, and if not, to he states that better than prayer is the remember that one is always beheld by soul of prayer, and better than prayer God. (key dimension of “Islam” above) is faith While there are slight variations (“Iman”) since prayer takes place a few in the multiple versions of this famed times a day, but faith is continuous; Hadith, occasionally said to be the most prayer can be stopped or even important saying of the Prophet, in the postponed, but faith is ongoing.7 version in the Sahih Muslim (one of two Ihsan is an even higher rank. most influential Hadith collections in Ihsan is about seeing God, and none Sunni Islam), the order goes from Islam other than God. Ihsan is also about to Iman and ultimately to Ihsan. One 4 Omid Safi God Commands You to Justice and Love transcending the ego to the point that water would rush from the high and safe one even if he does not see God, is ground to the low ground. conscious of being seen by God. It’s for that reason the entire realm of Islamic A dragon was devouring a bear spirituality is associated with Ihsan. As A brave one such, one can say that the whole realm With heart of a lion of love, beauty, spirituality, and Heard the poor creature cry out aesthetics have to do with Ihsan. In that These are the brave ones: sense, the entire domain of Islamic Who tend to the lament of the oppressed spirituality – also called the Sufi tradition but also goes beyond that to Whenever they hear include many genres of Islamic poetry, the heart’s anguish of those oppressed music, philosophy, Hikmat (wisdom They come running traditions), Batini (esoteric, often traced Like God’s mercy to Ismai‘ili teachings) dimensions, and These are the ones who hold up the Shi‘i gnosis – is concerned with Ihsan. world This spiritual tradition took a Healing diseases of the heart special interest in the weak, the They are: marginalized, the broken, and the Pure love suffering. The Sufis of the path of Ihsan Justice were fond of quoting a Hadith Qudsi Mercy traced back to the Prophet Muhammad in which God whispered to him: Someone asked the brave soul Why did you come running I am with those When everyone ran away? whose hearts are broken.8 He said: A Sufi no less prominent than I came Rumi identified the real chivalrous because lovers as those who run down towards I heard his cry those who are hurting and suffering, as 5 Islam and Good Governance Muqtedar Khan (Editor) And saw his sorrow conversation about the Black-led Freedom Movement, that which Wherever there is pain commonly is referred to as the Civil The remedy runs towards it Rights Movement. I write as both a student of the Movement and a participant in the ongoing struggle Wherever there is lowliness against what Dr. King referred to as the The water flows towards it triple giant of evil: racism, materialism, If you seek and militarism. I was honored to be The water of mercy asked to speak in the 50th annual Go commemoration of Dr. King’s Become humble assassination at the 2018 ceremony on Drink the wine of mercy the spot of his martyrdom, The National Become drunk like this Civil Rights Museum at Lorraine Motel Mercy upon mercy in Memphis, TN.
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