{"id":27525,"date":"2020-07-18T11:40:57","date_gmt":"2020-07-18T11:40:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ikim.gov.my\/new-wp\/?p=27525"},"modified":"2020-07-18T11:40:57","modified_gmt":"2020-07-18T11:40:57","slug":"the-dominion-of-scholars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ikim.gov.my\/en\/the-dominion-of-scholars\/","title":{"rendered":"The Dominion of Scholars"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Recorded\nin the Jami\u2018 al-Tirmidhi <\/em>collection of the Prophetic Traditionsis\na hadith<\/em> wherein the Prophet Muhammad foretold the future emergence of\n\u201cBlack Standards (rayat al-sud<\/em>)\u201d from the region of Khurasan, presumably\na Muslim contingent so superior in many ways that nothing would be able to stop\nthem \u201cuntil they are planted in Jerusalem (hatta tunsaba bi-Iliya\u2019<\/em>).\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\ngeographical area of what used to be Khurasan encompassed a major portion of\ntoday\u2019s Uzbekistan and particularly the city of Samarkand; a huge part of\nAfghanistan including its major cities of Kabul (east), Kandahar (south), and\nHerat; some part of Iran including the cities of Tus, Sarakhs, Nishapur, and\nGurgan; and some part of Turkmenistan. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Any\ntruncated view of Khurasan\u2019s history would obfuscate the fact that it was once\nan intellectual and civilizational epicentre of Islam. Such obfuscation could\nonly serve to allow continued political instrumentalist of eschatological hadith<\/em>s\nby unscrupulous groups such as the Islamic State in using the religion\u2019s name\nto justify acts of terror. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Those\nare the people who make ignorance their capital by making use of hadith<\/em>s\nwithout due regard of their full contexts and prerequisite understanding in\norder to lure and recruit the uninformed and the unsuspecting into joining\ntheir illegitimate causes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet,\nwhenever Islam enters a region it contributes to civilizational and cultural\ngrowth. According to historian and thinker Professor Syed Muhammad Naquib\nal-Attas in his work Historical Fact and Fiction <\/em>(2011), the \u201cpermeation\nof the basic elements\u201d of Islam which occur without the removal of pre-Islamic\n\u201cbasic and praiseworthy elements\u201d deemed as socially binding and compatible\nwith the religion can cause the emergence of diverse Muslim cultures capable of\nbecoming collectively and characteristically an Islamic civilisation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Such was exemplified by the people of Khurasan whom\nthe 10th century geographer and historian al-Muqaddasi praised in his work Ahsan\nal-Taqasim fi Ma\u2018rifat al-Aqalim <\/em>(The Best Divisions for Knowledge of\nthe Regions<\/em>) as \u201cthe most devoted to the law, the most steadfast in holding\non to the truth\u201d and \u201cmore honourable, have more righteous and intelligent\npeople, and profound knowledge, and remarkable mental retention of the Qur\u2019an<\/em>;\nthey have wealth aplenty, and rightmindedness.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Khurasan\nwas home to prestigious institutions of learning, one of which was al-Madrasah\nal-Nizamiyyah. Established in the 11th century as a group of colleges by Malik-Shah\u2019s\nvizier, Nizam al-Mulk, it attained\nprominence that a 13th century traveller Shaykh \u2018Ali ibn Abi Bakr\nal-Harawi would mention in his travelogue Kitab al-Isharat fi Ma\u2018rifat\nal-Ziyarat<\/em> (The Guidebook to Places Worth Visiting<\/em>) the finest cities\ndedicated to learning of the hadith<\/em> and the religious sciences: Herat,\nBalkh, and Sijistan. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Khurasan was home to many scholars who contributed\na major part of the Islamic corpus. The city of Sarakhs near the\nIran-Turkmenistan border was the birthplace of Imam Muhammad al-Sarakhsi (d.\n1096), the author of the 30-volume work on Hanafi jurisprudence Kitab\nal-Mabsut.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Al-Sarakhsi\nwas also the author of Sharh al-Siyar al-Kabir<\/em> (The Major Commentary on Prophetic Conduct<\/em>). As a commentary upon Imam\nMuhammad al-Shaybani\u2019s (d. 805) Kitab al-Siyar <\/em>(The Book on Prophetic\nConduct<\/em>), this work provides the guidelines for proper conduct of jihad<\/em>\nagainst aggressors, rules of engagement with rebels, and protection of dhimmi<\/em>\n(non-Muslim subjects under Muslim rule). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

According\nto the late Muslim scholar Muhammad Hamidullah (1908\u20132002) in his book The\nMuslim Conduct of State <\/em>(first published 1941), the works of these scholars\nlaid the foundations for modern-day international law.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At\nNizam al-Mulk\u2019s invitation, Islam\u2019s luminary Imam Abu Hamid al-Ghazali (d.\n1111) headed the Nizamiyyah and taught students there during the height of his\ncareer in 1092. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Al-Ghazali\u2019s\n40-book Ihya\u2019 \u2018Ulum al-Din<\/em> (The Revival of the Religious Sciences<\/em>) is considered to be one of the\ngreatest scholarly masterpieces ever produced in the history of Islam still\nbeing read, taught, translated, commented upon, and studied today after more\nthan 900 years. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As\nintroduced by the author himself, the Ihya\u2019<\/em>\nwas written with the aim of reviving the religious sciences, restoring the\noriginal meaning of fiqh<\/em> (understanding of the religion), and clarifying\nkey concepts which had become obscure due to the semantic construction of terms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

14th\ncentury Samarkand was home to the Muslim polymath Imam Sa\u2018d al-Din al-Taftazani\n (d. 1390). A commentator of Aqa\u2019id\nal-Nasafi<\/em>, the comprehensive summary work on the creed of Islam, al-Taftazani\nobtained his education in the cities of Herat, Ghijduvan, Feryumed, Gulistan,\nKhwarezm, Samarkand, and Sarakhs. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Again,\nthe fact that al-Taftazani travelled to these places for the sake of knowledge is\nalso indicative of the civilisation and the intellectual culture which had\nlived and thrived.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All\nthe above show the great value of Khurasan in terms of civilizational\ndevelopment in history. The above mentioned figures deserve the recognition as\nshining exemplar for those interested in emulating the successes of the past.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Recorded in the Jami\u2018 al-Tirmidhi collection of the Prophetic Traditionsis a hadith wherein the Prophet Muhammad foretold the future emergence of \u201cBlack Standards (rayat al-sud)\u201d from the region of Khurasan, presumably a Muslim contingent so superior in many ways that nothing would be able to stop them \u201cuntil they are planted in Jerusalem (hatta tunsaba…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":35,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_analytify_skip_tracking":false,"_wpzoom_pinterest_image_url":"","_wpzoom_pinterest_hidden_image":"0","_wpzoom_pinterest_description":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[139],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27525","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-new-straits-times","category-139","description-off"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ikim.gov.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27525","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ikim.gov.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ikim.gov.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ikim.gov.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/35"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ikim.gov.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27525"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ikim.gov.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27525\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ikim.gov.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27525"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ikim.gov.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27525"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ikim.gov.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27525"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}