Tag Archives: Sufism

The Myth of “Arabized Islam” & Other Fallacies of Pseudo-Islam (Part 3)

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There are a multitude of scholarly opinions in the tradition of Islam about a number of matters: who were the Ṣābi’ūn, what is the nature of prophecy, and what are the parameters of Sufism? Unfortunately, Kemetian Adept’s depiction of these are not represented in this scholarly tradition. In this post, I will not only demonstrate that his ideas have no merit, but I will show that he is clearly not qualified to speak on these topics.

Sabianism

Abdullah Samak presents seven opinions on the meaning of the word Ṣābi’. I will enumerate them in brief below:

  1. It is an Arabic word meaning to exit, convert, change, or switch religions.
  2. It is an Arabic word meaning to incline, detract, or long for (usually associated with young children).
  3. It is of Aramaic origin meaning to be submerged in water, bathe, purify, or baptize.
  4. It is of Hebrew origin meaning to cover in water.
  5. It is derived from the Hebrew word Ṣabāwūth, meaning warriors of the sky (i.e., the stars).
  6. It is derived from the names of two people mentioned in history: 1) Ṣābī the son of Methusaleh and 2) Ṣābī ibn Mārī, a contemporary of Abraham.
  7. It is related to the Yemeni city of Saba (Sheba) mentioned in the Qur’an, but this is an obvious mistake in Arabic because the words have two different etymologies (س rather than ص).
Kemetian promotes erroneous ideas about the Qur’an, Sabianism, and much more.

In one video, Kemetian admits that he and his brand of MST are Moors are Sabians, but it is obvious that he does not understand the implications of this claim. He attempts to provide his own interpretation of al-Baqarah: 62. He clumsily reads through the Arabic and comes to the word “Ṣābi’īn.” He starts to pontificate on his interpretation of the verse. He accuses “the Arab” of going against the meaning of this verse. Again, he makes another straw man argument, insinuating that Arab Muslims tell Christians that they are going to hell for what they believe in. While some individuals might have done this, it has never been the manner of Muslims (Arab or otherwise) to condemn Christians to hell.

The meaning of the al-Baqarah: 62 is that those amongst those who claim to be Jews, Christians, and Sabians who believe in God according to the teachings of the Prophet Muhammad, believe in the Last Day (as opposed to the eternity of the universe), and work deeds of righteousness they should not worry about the future nor should they grieve about their past. This is the traditional understanding of the verse. It is not a confirmation of all the beliefs of the above-mentioned classifications.

While insisting that “our ancestors” were the Sabians, not only does he reveal his lack of understanding of who the Sabians were, but also his lack of knowledge of the Arabic language. He corresponds the Ṣābi’īn mentioned in al-Baqarah: 62 with the people of Saba’ for which the 34th chapter of the Qur’an is named. This is a layman’s mistake, as mentioned by Samak. Although the two words look similar in English, they have two different roots in Arabic. He mischaracterizes the chapter Saba’ from the Qur’an, claiming that it gives a history of the Sabian people and how they went astray. This is not accurate. The Qur’an is not a history book and only scantly touches on the history of Saba’, who we know as the people of Sheba. Furthermore, if the Qur’an is describing how the Sabians went astray by being ungrateful, this would contradict his understanding of al-Baqarah: 62, which he claims validates the beliefs of all different religions.

He also claims that Sheba (Saba’) is where the word Shabazz comes from. This is yet another linguistic slip up. For one, its usage can be attributed to Fard Muhammad in the 120 Lessons in the early 20th century. However, its etymology is not known. We can say that it is most likely from the Persian shah baz, falcon king, but we cannot definitively claim its origin without solid historical evidence. Kemetian’s attempt to draw some connection between Sheba and Shabazz is pure speculation.

Prophecy

Kemetian attempts to use al-Naḥl: 89 to dispute the notion that the Prophet Muhammad was the last of the prophets. He claims that this verse alludes to God sending a prophet to every people from among themselves. In his teaching, a prophet is “a thought of Allah made manifest in the flesh,” a definition that has no basis in the Qur’an.

While his reading of the verse and its accompanying diatribe sounds as if he has definitively contradicted the orthodox view of Islam, he parades his fallacy in front of us as he fumbles through a reading of the word shahīd. No where in the verse is the word nabī (prophet) or rasūl (messenger) mentioned. A shahīd is not a prophet, but a prophet can be a shahīd. The explanation of the verse lies in knowing other verses from the Qur’an. For instance, al-Baqarah: 143 states: As such, We have made you a just ummah (religion/nation/epoch) in order to be witnesses over people, and the Messenger (Muhammad, not Drew Ali) is a witness over you…

Muhammad al-Qurṭubī, a true Moorish scholar of Islam who died in 1273, stated that the meaning of the verse was on that day (i.e., the Day of Judgment), God will bring forth in every ummah a witness from among themselves; they are the prophets who testify (i.e., bare witness) that they have conveyed the message from God to their respective ummahs and called them to faith. In every time there is a witness even if there is no prophet.

In other places in the Qur’an, God explains the people upon whom His grace is bestowed, as is repeated by Muslims in their reading of al-Fātiḥah. They are: al-nabīyyīn, al-ṣiddiqīn, al-shuhadā’, and al-ṣāliḥīn as explicated in al-Nisā: 69. These are clearly separate levels of people who will receive God’s grace. According to the exegete ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Saʿdī, everyone who obeys Allah and His messenger according to his state and measure of what is incumbent upon him – whether male or female, young or old – those are the people that God will bestow His greatest blessings upon. This blessing brings the highest level of perfection, success, and felicity.

The prophets are those who Allah has favored with revelation to call people to faith in God (not Kemetian’s made up definition). The affirmers of truth are those who affirmed what the prophet has taught with certainty and acted upon that truth with everything they had. The witnesses or martyrs are those who have fought to raise the word of God and died in the process. The righteous are those whose inner states are purified and matches their outward behavior. All of these people will be granted the company of each other in paradise.

The verse was revealed to console the deep-rooted longing of Muhammad’s disciples to dwell with him eternally in paradise, which is a level of love and spirituality that the likes of Kemetian cannot comprehend because his understanding of Islam is too shallow. A true Muslim can connect to the Prophet Muhammad by following his Sunnah and through remembrance. Many Muslims see him in dreams and in an awakened state and continue to receive guidance and blessings from him to this day.

AI generated image with Hotpot.

Sufism

With regards to taṣawwuf, it is clear that Kemetian has no conception of it. Rather, he follows the footsteps of many Western Orientalists who deemed taṣawwuf as an Islamic form of “mysticism” and the pursuit of paranormal phenomena. This was the opinion of European Orientalists Henri Bergson and Reynold Nicholson. Rene Guenon, however, challenged them on the ground that mysticism is a Western concept equivalent to heresy, magic, occultism, which only leads to confusion and distraction from the true path of esoteric knowledge (i.e., taṣawwuf).

On the topic of Dhū al-Nūn, Kemetian contends that he was not Muslim and supposedly practiced ancient Egyptian mysticism which he inherited from Tahuti. In turn, he uses these baseless claims to assert that taṣawwuf is not Islam. I happened to write a paper for graduate school refuting this Orientalist view of mysticism, who attempted to change Dhū al-Nūn from a pious Muslim ascetic to a syncretic mystic. Nicholson characterized Dhū al-Nūn as a mystic, moving a sofa with his thoughts, which caused spectators to die out of astonishment. Yet I found none of this in his earliest biographical sources: Ṭabaqāt al-Ṣūfīyya by Abū ‘Abd al-Raḥmān al-Sullamī (d. 412/1021), Ḥilyat al-Awliyāʾ wa Ṭabaqāt al-Aṣfiyāʾ by Abū Nuʿaym al-Iṣfahānī (d. 430/1039), and al-Ṭabaqāt al-Kubrā al-Musammā Lawāqiḥ al-Anwār al-Qudusīyya fī Manāqib al-‘Ulamā wa’l-Sūfīyya by ‘Abd al-Wahhāb al- Sha’rānī (d. 973/1565).

From these works we can ascertain that Dhū al-Nūn was clearly an Islamic scholar who is listed in the chains of hadith narrators along with Mālik ibn Anas, Layth ibn Sa’d, and Sufyān ibn ‘Uyayna, a science Kemetian rejects. Al-Sullamī confirmed that he was a Nubian from Akhmīm, a city in the Sohag state of Upper Egypt. This is a site of ancient Egyptian temples, but the biographers do not relate much information about his background. They only relate that he his teachings as a true Sufi. He emphasized divine love (maḥabba), humility (tawāḍu’), repentance (tawba), sincerity (ikhlās), solitude (waḥda), and truthfulness (ṣidq). Furthermore, he stressed that people not make claims to gnosis (maʿrifa), which is a trope of Sabian groups who believe they have some secret knowledge that is not attainable by all people.

Al-Sha’rānī relates Dhū al-Nūn’s encounter with the Abbasid caliph al-Mutawakkil, which demonstrates his brand of Sufism. After being accused of heresy, he was marched to Baghdad in chains. On the way, an old woman advised him not to be in awe of the caliph nor to look down on him or argue his case. Dhū al-Nūn thus avoided responding to the accusations. When asked why he did not answer, he said that if he denied the claims he would have made liars of Muslims, and if he confirmed them, then he would have lied about himself. So he left the decision up to the caliph. Upon hearing this al-Mutawakkil declared him innocent.

There was nothing “mystical” about Dhū al-Nūn’s Sufism and there is nothing to suggest that he secretly practiced ancient Egyptian mysticism. His earliest biographers reported about his loyalty to Islam and Sufism and did not report instances of telekinesis and other paranormal activity. Therefore, how can a 20th century European writer with no ties to Sufism bring a new report about him? It is clear that Kemetian is citing the European tradition of mysticism and not the African tradition of Sufism with regards to Dhū al-Nūn.

Kemetian presents the Orientalist perspective on Dhū al-Nūn.

Conclusion

The ability to create YouTube channels and gain recognition from less informed people has emboldened people to share half-baked theories and misinformation on the web. No qualifications or prior experience needed. It is noble the Mr. Kemetian is compiling information and pondering these topics, but his level of knowledge is premature and lacks the proper orientation. His information is faulty because he is not qualified to speak on much of what he claims to know. Experts can easily recognize other experts and he is surely not one of them. This is just a warning: although internet Sabians may seem smart and dazzling, it is important to supplement one’s understanding with actual source materials on the given topic and consult with experts. Or else you will be deceived into the crooked path of modern Sabianism.

References:

Guenon, Rene. Perspectives on Initiation. Edited by Samuel D. Fohr, Translated by Henry D. Fohr, Sophia Perennis, 1946.

Guenon, Rene. The Crisis of the Modern World. Translated by Marco Pallis et al., Sophia Perennis, 1946.

Iṣfahānī, Abū Nuʿaym al-. Ḥilyat Al-Awliyāʾ Wa Ṭabaqāt al-Aṣfiyāʾ. Dār al-Fikr, 1996.

Nicholson, Reynold Alleyne, et al. The Mystics of Islam. G. Bell and Sons, 1914.

Qurṭubī, Abū ʿAbd Allah Muḥammad ibn ʾAẖmad al-ʾAnṣārī. Al-Jāmiʿ Li ’Aḥkām al-Qur’ān. Dar Alam al-Kutub, 2003.

Samak, ʿAbdullah ʿAlī. Al-Ṣābiʼūn. 1st ed., Maktabat al-Ādāb, 1995.

Sha’rānī, ’Abd al-Wahhāb. Lawāqiḥ Al-Anwār al-Qudusīyya Fī Manāqib al-ʿUlamā Wa al-Ṣūfīyya. Maktabat al-Thaqāfa al-Dīnīyya, 2005.

Sullamī, Abū ’Abd al-Raḥmān al-. Ṭabaqāt Al-Ṣūfīyya. Maktabat al-Khanji, 1986.

Trajectories of Western Islam Part I: Traditionalism

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Generally speaking, two trajectories of Islam have influenced the masses of Western Muslims in the last century: Traditionalism and Spiritualism. By Western Muslim, I mean those whose backgrounds are not immediately from the Muslim world. For those of us who learned about Islam in the 20th century we know how deeply one or both of these currents have shaped our view of Islam, even if it has not been articulated in the way that I will discuss in the next few posts.

Islam & Traditionalism

While we commonly think of Islam’s contentious relationship with the West, Islamic influence has been penetrating Europe since the Middle Ages. Muslim dominance in Andalusia and the spread of Islam in Eastern European lands such as Turkey, Greece, and the Balkans are examples of this penetration going back several centuries. Though it is well documented that Muslim influence is what brought Europe physically out of its Dark Ages, less is known about Islam’s spiritual influences. [1]

We can say that overt displays of Islamic influence was taboo in Europe following the Spanish Inquisition and during the Crusades. However, Islamic spiritual influence began to emerge as Europeans conquered Muslim lands. The first handful of known European converts to Islam appeared in the 16th and 17th centuries. However, it was not until the early 20th century that we saw an actual movement of European conversions to Islam under the banner of Traditionalism. This was due to the direct and indirect influence of Rene Guenon.

Traditionalism, in Guenon’s conception, required an initiation into an established religious tradition with an unbroken chain to the source. For those Europeans who were influenced by his writings and had direct meetings or correspondences with him like Frithjof Schuon, Jean Reyor (Marcel Clavelle), Titus Burckhardt, Martin Lings, etc. he encouraged to embrace Islam and join a Sufi order. While many followed through with this conversion, they often considered their practice as a means to sophia perennis (perennial wisdom).

Though Guenon was credited with the founding of Traditionalism, it was really Schuon on those that followed him that took the concept in the direction of what we now know as Perennialism. Schuon and the early Traditionalists embraced Islam and joined the order of the Algerian shaykh, Ahmad al-‘Alawi, primarily because he was based in France and spoke French. After the shaykh’s death, Schuon quickly rose through the ranks and became the shaykh of the order. As explained by Mark Sedgwick, this was because of his visions and an ambiguous ijaza he received from al-‘Alawi’s immediate successor.[2]

As shaykh, Schuon began to take on unorthodox beliefs and practices. Some particularly alarming examples of these were:

  • his enduring infatuation for his former girlfriend named Madeleine, which he brought into the beliefs of the order saying, “Whoever does not love Madeleine is not of the order!”[3]
  • his attachment to religious artifacts like a Sanskrit copy of the Baghavad Gita and a statuette of the Virgin Mary.[4]
  • his tendency to make major decisions based on his own interpretations of visions he had, such as a trance that overtook him the day of Shaykh al-‘Alawi’s death, his waking up with certainty that he had become the shaykh, and his vision of the (naked) Virgin Mary, which caused him to change the name of the order to the Maryamiyya.[5]
  • his habit of walking around naked and painting pictures of the Virgin Mary in the nude.[6]
  • his “verticle marriage” to a woman already married to one of his followers.[7]

Needless to say, the Islam in his sufi order did not last and he and many of his followers ended up taking other spiritual paths. However, what became of Traditionalism under Schuon would foreshadow or parallel much of what we hear about “goofy sufis” in the U.S.

The Faults of Traditionalism

The faults of Traditionalism in the European context was due to two main factors: 1) secrecy and 2) lack of knowledge:

Secrecy

Mark Sedgwick gives a few reasons for the Traditionalists’ use of secrecy: 1) “Secrecy is a part of the Western or occultist conception of initiation,” 2) to avoid the hostilities of “unsuspected… powers,” 3) Islam was a temporary step towards a greater goal, 4) people feared scorn from the society and losing their livelihoods if they lived openly as Muslims, and 5) there was no Islamic infrastructure (mosques, schools, etc.) in most European societies in those times.[8]

The first three reasons, secrecy and insulation, is what allowed for abuses and distortions. First, their understanding of initiation, or lack thereof, implied secrecy, whereas a careful reading of Guenon’s writings would reveal that initiation implied a serious commitment to a religious tradition that entailed taking spiritual instruction by a learned person in that tradition.

Secondly, Guenon’s attack on Theosophists and occultists, as well as his soured relationship with the Catholic Church, was perhaps necessary or inevitable, but it stirred much animosity in European circles of religious thought. The solution was to create the insulated communities thought sought to preserve and protect their beliefs from people that could challenge or potentially obstruct their movements.

Finally, because their initiation into Islam was seen as temporary, there was no need to be consistent with their beliefs or practices. It was open to change depending on the time and circumstances.

Lack of Knowledge

The temporary nature of the Islamic initiation also reflected their lack of knowledge of the tradition. The shaykh (or master of any other tradition for that matter) spent his whole life learning, practicing, and mastering the tradition in order to remain steadfast on it and teach it to others. The notion that one can ascend to that level by simply having visions should be cause for alarm. Furthermore, moving on to another path would place them at square one of another tradition, which would take another lifetime to master, remain steadfast upon, and teach others.

As for the fact that they would have received scorn and lost their livelihoods is a serious concern, which turned out to not be true. Von Meyenburg, a follower of Schuon, was discovered to be a Muslim by his Swiss employers and they did nothing.[9] Such a revelation could have been grounds for making their presence known in the society and gaining acceptance if that was a concern. Likewise, they could have built the infrastructure they wanted had that been a concern.

Perhaps, one justification was that they were not soundly educated in the tradition of Islam. It should be remembered that resources by which one could become educated on non-European religions was quite scarce in those times. Even if there were resources about such religions they often did not give much insight into how one might use them for devotional purposes. The problem of translating an ancient tradition into modern European languages is one that exists to this day. The only solutions were to travel to the East, learn the language(s) and learn the traditions from spiritual masters in those lands or attach oneself to a master or a student of a master in one’s homeland and learn directly from him. Such a theme will re-emerge later when I discuss contemporary Traditionalism in the U.S.

In the next post, I will discuss the second trajectory of Western Islam, Spiritualism, particularly among 20th century groups in the U.S.

References

[1] See W. Montgomery Watt, The Influence of Islam on Medieval Europe, Islamic Surveys 9 (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2001).

[2] Mark J. Sedgwick, Against the Modern World: Traditionalism and the Secret Intellectual History of the Twentieth Century (Oxford ; New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), 88-93.

[3] Ibid., 91.

[4] Ibid., 92-3.

[5] Ibid., 88, 92, 149, and 151.

[6] Ibid., 150-1.

[7] Ibid., 152.

[8] Ibid., 91-2.

[9] Ibid., 92.