Aqsa Publications - Reviving a Tradition
This past Friday, al-hamdu li-Llah, I had the opportunity to meet Shaykh Gibril F. Haddad -- may Allah preserve him -- who is well-known for his prolific writings and translations, much of which can be found on his Living Islam website, in numerous thoughtful responses to questions on SunniPath.com and in several books [1, 2, 3, 4] -- all of which I highly recommend.
Indeed, Shaykh Gibril has produced some of the most incisive, articulate and detailed responses to the deviations of the so-called "Salafis" and Wahabis that are available in the English language, so I encourage the reader to take advantage of the resources mentioned above. Likewise, the detailed exposé of Wahabi crimes and deviations entitled Advice to Our Brothers the Scholars of Najd [Click here for 365K Acrobat .pdf file], by Sayyid Yusuf ibn al-Sayyid Hashim al-Rifa`i of Kuwait, has been translated by Shaykh Gibril and is well worthy of a detailed read.
During our conversation, the Shaykh informed me that his book Albani & his Friends is now available from Aqsa Publications in the U.K. I was happy to find out about this, since even though I had heard of this book, the only publisher that I was able to find carrying it was Wardah Books in Singapore. This book is a detailed refutation of the late Nasr al-Dîn al-Albâni, under whose influence many neo-Pharisee "Salafis" have broken with the rich intellectual tradition of Sunni Islam, slandered the classical 'ulama and are continuing to cause division and confusion within the Ummah. Insha'llah, I expect that this new book will be a worthy partner to Al-Albani Unveiled: An Exposition of His Errors and Other Important Issues. I've made an inquiry about obtaining a bulk order of 100 copies of Albani & his Friends, which I plan to distribute at the upcoming suhba and via this blog to readers in the U.S. and Canada -- so standby for more information on that, insha'llah.
I have added a link to Aqsa Publications to the bottom of my links page below a couple of others that I added a few weeks ago.
Deen On...
Labels: Traditional Islam
posted by @ 10:58 AM
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2 Comments:
Salam 'Alaikum,
Shaykh G.F. Haddad's articles are indeed quite incisive; however, I find it hard to present these to Salafis since the tone of his writings is sometimes quite harsh.
wa 'alaykum as-salam wa rahmatullah,
Well harshness is a relative term that can mean different things to different people -- and sometimes it's called for. As I see it, Shaykh Gibril tells the painful truth when dealing with the "Salafi"/Wahabis. Even though he does so in a "here it is, like it or not" sort of way, he always maintains proper adab. Now if one wants to talk about being harsh, then Shaykh al-Albani was well known for being rather harsh -- and when dealing with harshness, sometimes it requires harshness in return.
Based on my observations, it seems that so many Muslims these days have slipped into relativism that they're afraid to say that something is right or wrong, or even recognize the flaws in the beliefs of sects like the Shi'a, Mu'tazilah and the nascent "Salafis" -- although members of these sects are heavily involved in "quite harsh" polemics against the Ahl as-Sunnah. As I understand it, Islam isn't an "anything goes" religion.
I should also mention that I'm a former "Salafi" -- or should I say "recovering Salafi" since maybe someone knows of a good 12-Step program for such people -- and I found Shaykh Gibril Haddad's writing to be immensely helpful once I began to reconsider the entire so-called "Salafi Way". I'll say the same for Shaykh Nuh Keller's writings and those of Shaykh Abdal-Hakim Murad as well, since they deal with the issues head-on and don't dance around them or not mention them -- and doing otherwise is not too helpful when one is trying to find the truth.
I hate to be the bearer of bad tidings, but some people out there don't seem to realize that polemics is part of religion. While I realize that the comment above had to do with polemics that are allegedly unnecessarily "quite harsh", I know from experience that whenever one deals in polemics that accusations of "harshness", "unfairness", "double-standards" and a long list of other things will start coming out of the woodwork -- especially from those on the receiving end of the polemics. Obviously, sometimes such criticism are valid, but they're also just the nature of the business -- and some people are seemingly always offended by any sort religious polemics. However, even though such polemics might be inherently distasteful, that doesn't mean that they're not necessary.
As far as the people that (often rather selectively) seem to believe that we should all just hold hands and sing Kumbaya regardless of how extreme our differences are...well I obviously don't agree with them. Rather I think we need to speak out against some of the dangerous intellectual and spiritual trends within our Ummah...wa Allahu 'alim.
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