« US: The Islamification of Michael Jackson |
| Indonesia: American Expert on Islamist Terror Expelled »
November 24, 2005
Australia: Mufti Miffed With Muslim Charity Group Al-Ahbash
Reports now coming out from Australia's abc.net.au, from Radio Australia, and News.com state that a large consortium of Muslim leaders has condemned a Muslim charity which operates in Australia as "fanatical" and encouraging extremism.
A decree which has been signed by 36 Australian Muslim organisations has condemned the Islamic Charitable Projects Association or al-Ahbash as holding "deviant and perverse views".
The decree is signed by, among others, Dr Ameer Ali, who earlier stated that it would be difficult for Muslims to "dob in" another Muslim to the authorities, and also the self-appointed "Mufti" of Australia, the highly controversial Sheikh Taj al-Din al-Hilaly (pictured), who is imam at Sydney's Lakemba Mosque.
The head of al-Ahbash in Australia, one Ghayath al-Shelh, has denied the allegations, and claims that some people signed the statement after being misled by the office of the self-appointed "Mufti". The spokesperson for Taj al-Din al-Hilaly is Keysar Trad.
There appears to be bad blood between the "Mufti" and Ghayath al-Shelh. Both come from Lebanon (though the "Mufti" is Egyptian-born), and therefore know more about each other's background and community than most Australians. But there is more, much more to this story than I first realised when I scanned through newsfeeds.
According to the Australian from November 5, around the end of Ramadan, there has been a feud going on between the "Mufti" and al-Ahbash. The report describes an Eid ul-Fitr party being held by Muslim Community Radio, and it was at this time that a United Nations report was just coming out, which had accused two Lebanese members of al-Ahbash of complicity in the murder of the Lebanese former Prime Minister, Rafiq al-Hariri.
Al-Hariri died when a truck bomb blew him up, with 20 others in February. The UN account said the assassination was carried out under the aegis of Syrian authorities. It also named two members of al-Ahbash from Lebanon as being involved, in particular an individual named Ahmad Abdel-Al, and his brother Mahmoud Abdel-Al.
The UN report was compiled by Detlev Mehlis, a German prosecutor. He implicated Lebanese and Syrian agents in the truck-bombing plot. According to Ya Libnan.com:
It said a member of al-Ahbash identified as Ahmed Abdel Aal made several phone calls the day of the assassination and two days after with Lebanese security officials. It also said Abdel Aal telephoned President Emile Lahoud minutes before the blast that killed Hariri.A report on the UN document, and contemporary reactions to its publication can be found here from Al Jazeera, dated 21 October. This account states that the press officer of al-Ahbash, Abdelqader al-Fakhani, strongly denied any involvement of his organisation in the political murder, and stated that the UN report implicated neither Abdel-Al nor al-Ahbash.
A few days later, when the significance of the UN report was being understood, at the time of the Muslim Community Radio (MCR) Eid Party that the animosity between the "Mufti" and Ghayath Al-Shelh was being aired in the open.
MCR is run by a supporter of al-Ahbash, Mohammed Mehio, who claims the al-Ahbash followers are Sunni Muslims. At the party, representatives of Shia and Sunni sects were there to offer support to the station. Mehio at that time was angry at remarks made by the "Mufti", who told the Inquirer newspaper that the al-Ahbash group needed to be subjected to a public inquiry.
Mehio and Ghayath Al-Shelh both know Mohammed Abdel-Al and describe him as a moderate, and a man of peace.
The Mufti included Mehio and his radio station in his accusations, claiming the MCR had falsely claimed support from key Islamic groups when it applied for its radio licence. The Attorney General, Philip Ruddock, launched the station, and does not want to be involved in claims and counter-claims, nor to be accused of partiality.
Al-Shelh has claimed that the Mufti is so radical that he decided to set up a foundation to counter the influence of the Mufti. We reported the Mufti's anti-semitic comments earlier. In May, the BBC stated that: "his opponents see him as a menace. They have accused him of praising suicide bombers and claiming the attacks in the United States on 11 September were "God's work against oppressors".
The Mufti was aggrieved when in 2004 Al-Shelh set up an organisation called Darulfatwa (meaning "House of Law/Jurisprudence") which is housed in Bankstown, near the offices of MCR, and in these offices, Islamic legal advice is given out to faithful. The organisation is also called the Islamic High Council. To make your own mind up, its website can be found here.
At the time of Eid, al-Shelh said of the Mufti and his supporters: "They are envious of what is really good support in the Muslim community. "In 10 years they will be empty-handed, because nobody is going to be listening to them any more."
So there is a feud going on between the al-Ahbash movement and the followers of the Mufti. Both factions are drawing their recruits and supporters from the Australian Lebanese immigrant community. And now there seems to have been a political auto-da-fe achieved in creating a document, signed by 36 Muslim organisations.
This master-stroke of effectively creating a fatwa against the al-Ahbash is certainly going to have consequences. The first casualties will be the groups organised by the Islamic Charitable Projects Association or al-Ahbash. These will include a mosque and its worshippers, as well as a school and a scout movement, as well as the Darulfatwa, not to mention the radio station, MCR. This could also cause embarrassment for Philip Ruddock, the Attorney General.
For more information on the background to some of the feuding between the Mufti and Ghayath al-Shelh, there is an article in LebaneseLobby.org, here. The issues of the personal animosity between the "Mufti" and Ghayath al-Shelh could be dismissed as "clashes of personality" or rivalry. But the claims made in the UN report make one want to find out more about the group's origins. The fact that the al-Ahbash group is said to have "deviant views" is also intriguing. What is the basis for these claims? I looked up the group on Wikipedia and all I found was controversy.
Origins of al-Ahbash
The al-Ahbash derives its name from a man referred to by some as al-Habashi, an Arabic word meaning "the Ethiopian." His real name is Shaykh Abdallah ibn Muhammad ibn Yusuf al-Hirari al-Shibi al- Abdari. Apparently the ideology of this man combined elements of Sufi, Sunni and Shia thought.
For a comprehensive account of the origins of al-Ahbash, whose followers are sometimes called Habahis, I have turned to an essay by A. Nizar Hamzeh and Hrair Dekmejian. These claim that that the Ahbash officially call themselves the Society of Islamic Philanthropic Projects, or Jam'iyyat al- Mashari' al-Khayriyya al-Islamiyya. The authors admit that in Lebanon, where the group originates, it is mired in controversy.
Shaykh Abdallah ibn Muhammad ibn Yusuf al-Hirari al-Shibi was born in Ethiopia in al-Hirara, near Somalia in 1920. He became a Mufti but was expelled from Ethiopia in 1947 because Haile Selassie found his teachings "threatening". He arrived in the Middle East, finally settling in Beirut in 1950, becoming licenced as a shaykh by al-Azhar University.
The original Society of Islamic Philanthropic Projects had been founded in 1930, but was taken over by the Shaykh and his supporters in 1983. It had become one of the country's largest Islamic movements by the late 1980s, having increased its numbers dramatically during the Lebanese civil war, infiltrating Sunni militias and schools. It absorbed the militia of Abd al-Hafiz Qasim when it disbanded in 1984, but officially maintained a policy of moderaion and political non-aggression. In 1992, the group began to field political candidates in the elections.
The complex structure of Shaykh Habashi's belief system blends elements of Sunni and Shi'i theology with Sufi spiritualism. The outcome of his doctrinal eclecticism is an ideology of Islamic moderation and toleration that emphasizes Islam's innate pluralism, along with opposition to political activism and the use of violence against the ruling order. These attributes of the Ahbash creed set the group on a collision course with the political thought of Ibn Taymiyya, Ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab, Sayyid Qutb, and the activist segments of the Muslim Brotherhood and its militant affiliates in Egypt, Algeria, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, and Lebanon. In an attempt to neutralize his critics and reinforce the legitimacy of his imama among the Sunni Muslims, Habashi traces his genealogy to the Prophet MuhammadThe essay becomes quite involved, though it is fascinating. What is important to understand is its relevance to current situations, in Lebanon and Australia. However, one must mention that the concept of takfir, expounded by Sayyid Qutb of the Muslim Brotherhood and others, is opposed by the al-Ahbash, which may give a clue why so many people flocked to the MCR party, and why Ruddock gave the station its licence.
Takfir is the policy of denouncing rulers. Obviously in Egypt, Mubarak is having a lot of problems trying to supporess the Muslim Brotherhood, for they are always denouncing him. Similarly, by enjoining Sufi, Sunni and Shia followers to partake in pan-Islamic meetings, one can also see why Philip Ruddock was impressed enough to help set up the MCR licencing to al-Ahbash supporters.
Many of the rituals of the group are ostensibly Sufi. Sufis, whose most famous proponents to westerners are Omar Khayam and the Whirling Dervishes of Turkey, are generally regarded as mystics, and also they are seen as less "aggressive" than some Shia and Sunni sects. This mysticism, however, means that many Sufis have been persecuted, and is not a main aspect of the faith.
They strive to achieve safa or "purity", from the Arabic tasawwuf. They attempt to gain union with the Godhead, as symbolised in the outstretched arms of the Whirling Dervishes, a physical analogy of this "union" which the individual Sufi seeks. To seek union with Allah within oneself is the biggest source of contention when viewed by fundamentalist Shias and Sunnis. Only Mohammed was the prophet, and the Sufi attempt to find union with God is seen as an attempt to be a prophet, and therefore blasphemy against Islam.
More on the al-Ahbash ideology and its relations to Sufism, and to other political and religious Islamic group can be found in the article cited above.
A more critical commentary can be found in a piece by Z. Alzamil, which can be found here though its bias against the philosophical and religious tenets of the group mar its objectivity. In fact it is just one long rant by someone with his own view of Islam.
The ramifications of such a multi-signed decree against the Australian al-Ahbash group will be enormous. But I have my doubts if they are as dangerous as they are painted. One could easily call the Mufti potentially dangerous, and even a supporter of terror.
I am sure al-Ahbash have an agenda, and some of its followers have been implicated in an assassination, and one of these is known to the founders of the Darulfatwa and the MCR. But to condemn them outright is to assign guilt by association. Why were there not 36 groups condemning Benbrika or other mad mullahs operating in Australia?
One must not rule out the sheer spite of the Mufti, who felt that his preposterous claim to represent himself as "Mufti" for all Australians was being threatened by this up-and-coming, multi-sect group. He felt threatened, and went on the offensive.
Until I see ASIO documentation of terrorist agendas, I feel that Dr Ameer and the other signatorys of the decree may have been hoodwinked to commit a rather unnecessary act which ultimately benefits the Mufti far more than it does the Muslim community or Australians in general.
Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at November 24, 2005 11:32 PM
Comments
Post a comment
Thanks for signing in, . Now you can comment. (sign out)
(If you haven't left a comment here before, you may need to be approved by the site owner before your comment will appear. Until then, it won't appear on the entry. Thanks for waiting.)