Yemen: the enemy of my enemy

WHAT country in its right mind would bomb another from the air with no boots on the ground? What country would attack a people who are its enemy’s enemy to get at its other enemy?

The answer is Saudi Arabia. The invaded people are the Houthis of north Yemen. The “other enemy” is Iran. In the convoluted politics of the Middle East where the enemy of my enemy can equally be my friend, it is often difficult to understand what is really going on.

The five million-strong Houthis – who consist of some 400 tribes and who are about 40% of Yemen’s population – are the arch-enemies of Al-Qaeda in the Arab Peninsula (AQAP). AQAP are the sworn foes of the Saudi monarchy. But today, for reasons which we will explain, the Houthis are now the enemy of the House of Saud.

For the AQAP Wahhabis, the Houthis are deemed unbelievers worthy of death because they belong to a Shi’ah sect, the Zaidis. For the Wahhabis, all Shi’ah are kafir, notwithstanding that the theologically moderate Zaidi’s are deemed to be close to the Sunni Shafi’i legal school of thought.

As Saudi Arabia’s southern neighbour, Yemen has been no stranger to conflict in the modern age. Unease marked the post-Ottoman era, the British maintaining a presence at Aden in the south from 1839 to 1967. Up north in 1962 the Houthi Mutawakkilite Kingdom, the first independent Arab entity of modern times, was overthrown and the Yemen Arab Republic established.

But not after great unrest, during which Saudi Arabia and Jordan supported the royalists, and Egypt and the USSR the republicans. Egypt’s president Gamal Nasser committed over 60,000 of his troops to what became a quixotic conflict, it ultimately costing him the 1967 Six-Day War against Israel. 

At the heart of the Yemeni discord is the fact that the country was divided north-south during the Cold War with the south enjoying communist rule. The need to co-operate on oil and economic matters saw moves towards unity during the 1980’s. Yemeni unification took place on May 22, 1990, when the People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen (South Yemen) was united with the Yemen Arab Republic (North Yemen), forming the Republic of Yemen.

At the helm of the new government was a strong-man from the north, Abdullah Saleh. He would stay in office until the Arab Spring. Angry Yemenis would unseat him due to corruption, human rights abuses and his alliance with the US to fight Al-Qaeda, whom he – a Houthi – secretly fostered to keep the US aid pot going.

Yemen – which is the Arab world’s historically oldest, but least developed country – is situated strategically on the south-east straits of the Red Sea. Yemen abuts the Rub al-Khali, the Empty Quarter of the Arabian Desert, with fertile coastal highlands to the west. The country has oil reserves, but due to political instability, they have been inadequately exploited.

With many of its young men working in the Gulf States, Yemen’s economy was bolstered by their monthly remittances. However, after the 1990 Gulf War, Saudi Arabia expelled 800,000 Yemeni workers in retaliation for President Abdullah Saleh’s refusal to support the US-led coalition.

This devastated the already fragile Yemeni economy where nearly 50% of the population hovers under the bread line. The economy would take another hit in 1994, making Yemen largely reliant on aid to survive. With its laudably humane – but financially unsustainable – policy of offering open refuge to those affected by tumult in Somalia, Eritrea, Ethiopia and Syria, Yemen hosts 250,000 foreign refugees in addition to its internally displaced 400, 000.

But whilst there are religious agendas at play, the real struggle in Yemen is a political one. What has been happening has been about power: north-south power; Houthi political power and Sunni political power; this all balanced against Saudi Arabia and its Gulf allies feeling uneasy after President Obama’s rapprochement with Tehran.

Apart from perceiving Iran as a mortal enemy in terms of regional affairs, Saudi perspectives are weighed heavily by the Wahhabi creed of regarding all Shi’ah as an undesirable influence. With US capacity for intervention in the Middle East waning, Saudi Arabia perceives an urgency to become the region’s number one broker.

So when a “Shi’ah crescent” sweeps from the north into the capital Sana’a and to Aden, alarm bells will ring in the marble palaces of Riyadh. Despite Houthi leadership having adamantly denied any direct Iranian influence, the Saudi-led coalition has seen it that way.

This has prompted the Saudi-Gulf coalition bombing and support for the government of President Mansur al-Hadi.  The point here, as we’ve already mentioned, is that Yemen has no tradition of Shi’ite-Sunni sectarianism. However, outside powers have disturbingly taken sides along those lines.

This, of course, doesn’t address the delicate issue of the balance of power in Yemen, a harsh and rugged country that was historically ruled by the Houthis for centuries before the colonialists arrived. The tragedy is that prior to the Houthi uprising – fuelled by notions of being marginalised – Yemen was wobbling towards a political equilibrium of sorts, despite AQAP insurrections.

Unfortunately,  the Saudi coalition – expressing a desire that the bombing would persuade the Houthis to come to the political table again – has in the short term achieved the opposite. Instead, by hobbling the Houthis the Saudi coalition has empowered AQAP, and even the Islamic State, to rush into a vacuum once policed by the Houthis.

This does not bode well for Yemen, a starving country short of water and infrastructure that can ill afford any more calamities than it has already suffered.

Sandton moods....

SANDTON CITY, first constructed in 1973, is said to be Africa's biggest retail space, hosting nearly 300 retail outlets. Over the years it has attracted major corporate businesses, consulates and five-star hotels. The name "Sandton" is a mix of the two suburbs "Sandown" and "Bryanstown". From being a sleepy semi-rural outpost 50 years ago, Sandton has grown to become the business and financial hub of South Africa with the highest office rentals in the country.

Mandela's imposing statue in Mandela Square, a re-invented
Johannesburg away from the original CBD, first
constructed by the gold barons of the 19th century.

South African Highveld sunsets are stunning, even in suburbia.

Late autumn evening brings out blue. 

Easter egg politics in the mall. Opposition leaders
Helen Zille (right) and Julius Malema
flank President Zuma in a parody of chocolate.

Looking out over Sandton towards the west of Johannesburg.

A stunning end to the day.

The ISIS report card, an already failed state

ISIS, or to use its real moniker – DA’ISH – claims to have established an “Islamic State” in parts of war-torn Iraq and Syria to await the final days. However, genuine Islamic sovereignty can only be established if the state ascribes to the true spirit of the Shari’ah, which is governed by mercy.

For ISIS, it seems Sacred Law has meant the misappropriation of hudud, or legal chastisement, to enforce martial rule signified by brutal application.

We should realise that mass killings justified by declaring unbelief on those opposing you, and the YouTube performances of Jihadi John, are not the true face of Islam. An authentic reading of history will reveal that Islam has traditionally been hallmarked by diversity and tolerance.

From the plains of Mongolia to the skyscrapers of New York, and from the Sahara to Anatolia, Islam has never been a homogenous whole marching to one drummer. The classical scholars of Islam have never called for mass migrations to the Middle East as the neo-Wahhabi ISIS has done.

Ironically, it was Ibn Taimiyya – an iconic figure of ISIS – who ruled in his famous 12th century Mardin fatwa that Muslims could live peacefully under non-Muslim rulers who were not hostile to them.  

Diversity has been the footprint of the Muslim community for over 1,400 years.  Sustained by differing interpretations of Shari’ah by four imams of legal thought, Islam has been driven by ijtihād – the inductive reasoning – of qualified men and women who’ve applied their minds to questions of the day.

Shari’ah, the human interpretation of Qur’an and Sunnah, has been subjected to rigorous research. Fiqh, the juridicial application of Shari’ah, has been evolving for centuries. Had it not, Islam would have been fixed in a time warp of mud houses, palm fibre beds and sandals.

To understand Shari’ah we have to look at its definition. “Shari’ah”, we learn, is the pathway to a watering hole. The pathway is the following of God. The water is the Sacred Law’s intellectual nourishment and its life-giving qualities.

Shari’ah is governed by principles or goals, which are called maqasid.  The first scholar to identify the maqasid as a separate discipline was Imam al-Juwaini, who wrote about it in the fourth century after the Prophet’s (SAW) demise. Some of the prominent scholars who built on his writings, and further codified the maqasid, were Al-Shatibi, Al-Razi, Imam Ghazali and Al-Qarafi.

According to the final consensus, Shari’ah had to be grounded in six principles: the protection of Religion, Life, Mind, Family, Wealth and Character. Some jurists felt that Life took priority over Religion, but essentially, all agreed to the categories.

Basically, the above six classifications (Hifdh ul-Deen, Nafs, ‘Aql, Nasab, Mal and Ird in Arabic) are the yardstick to measure the Shari’ah-centric direction of a society – where, ironically, non- Muslim countries such as New Zealand score higher than so-called “Islamic” ones.

So, the big ask: how does ISIS – the Islamic state of all Islamic states according to its massive propaganda machine – measure up to the above?

Protection of Religion: ISIS has killed anyone not taking an oath of allegiance to its leader, Al-Baghdadi and persistently insults Judaism and Christianity. Shi’ah and Sufis (who are Muslim) enjoy no protection from ISIS, let alone Yazidis, Christians or ‘Alawites, who have all been killed for their views. ISIS scores zero in this category, as the Qur’an classifies Jews, Christians and Sabians as “people of the book”.

Protection of Life: Dabiq, ISIS’s magazine says: “Every Muslim should get out of his house, find a crusader (a Christian or Jew), and kill him. It is important that the killing becomes attributed to patrons of the Islamic State who have obeyed its leadership...” Given ISIS’s roadside executions, YouTube shenanigans and massacres, this proves that ISIS does not preserve or protect life.

Protection of the Mind: this classification has been interpreted as academic endeavour and civic freedom. ISIS’s misinterpretations of Islam and its highly selective use of a few errant scholars, is not reassuring. It readiness to declare takfir (unbelief and death) on anyone disagreeing with it, gives ISIS a zero here. It’s the Caliph’s word, or off with your head.

Protection of Family: ISIS’s mediaeval worldview with regards to slavery and the capturing of non-Muslim women (after having killed their husbands) for sexual exploitation thoroughly degrades family life. ISIS gets a zero for protecting family life for its murderous chauvinism and for the marginalisation of the mother.

Protection of Wealth: ISIS has plundered Iraq’s banks. ISIS has destroyed the homes of civilians, a violation of this principle tied to the respect of property. ISIS has smashed religious shrines, priceless archaeological artefacts and ancient churches. ISIS has extinguished the cultural, social and fiscal wealth of Syria and Iraq. A fat zero here.

Protection of Character: the character or honour of any person not seen to be embracing the ISIS brand has been besmirched, being called an unbeliever, a hypocrite, a Crusader or a polytheist. Al-Baghdadi’s concept of ird is reflected in his statement (in Dabiq) that anyone insulting a Muslim should have his arm chopped off. Another profound zero.

Of course, many of us will recognise that the above maqasid – designed for the benefit of humanity in the mercy of the Shari’ah – have as equally been violated by other leaders and major powers of the day, who professing an undying sympathy for human rights, have killed millions in wars on abstract nouns.

However, the point here is that ISIS claims to aspire to something nobler than the hegemonic powers it says it is fighting in the name of Allah. It begs the question – the ancient cliché naturally– of whether the means can ever justify the ends, or whether two wrongs ever will coalesce into being a right.

This is because the maqasid are all about the means, first and foremost. In this case, if there are no positive means there can be no fruitful end. This is something that ISIS has spectacularly failed to understand, and because of this, the so-called “Islamic Caliphate” in Iraq and Syria is already a failed state.

Xenophobia: our official-unofficial policy?

Xenophobia includes racism.
Photo Copyright Shafiq Morton

THE letter “x’’ doesn’t feature prominently in the English dictionary as the opening letter for a word. Mostly, the “x” precedes borrowed expressions, mainly from Greek. In this case the word “xenos” means “strange” or “foreign”. “Phobia”, as we all know, denotes fear.

Xenophobia is a “deep-rooted, irrational hatred towards foreigners” intones the Oxford Dictionary, whose definition I prefer over a wordier Webster. This is because my encounters with xenophobia tend to agree with the Oxford version, whose definition I would expand to embracing racism and Orientalism.

What the dictionaries can’t define, though, are the horrific outcomes – violent mob behaviour directed against those who have become figures of national resentment. Xenophobia, which targets migrant African minorities, is our great shame.

The picture of Mozambican national, Ernesto Nhamuave, clinging to life after being set alight by a mob in the Ramaphosa informal settlement during Gauteng’s xenophobic riots in 2008, is a harrowing image that has come to characterise the disturbing savagery of South African xenophobia.

Please note that I deliberately haven’t used the term “post-apartheid” to frame the discussion here; our historical human rights shortcomings did not become new ones after Madiba. Three centuries of colonialism and 46 years of apartheid are not the kind of things that disappear overnight because of a different rule book.

Culturally, we are the heirs of an entrenched, violent racial irrationality that has constantly hallmarked our turbulent history. For instance, how many of us know that the first recorded xenophobes were the early Cape settlers who used to hunt the San, or that the Adderley Street Slave Lodge was used as a whorehouse by the Dutch?

Gabiba Baderoon in her book Regarding Muslims explains that the obsession with the p-word on the Cape Flats is a direct result of black women being debased. The term “Maasbekers”, once referring to Mozambicans in our community, is as loaded as “makwerekwere”, the derogatory term for foreigners today.

Even in the stormy 1980’s, when thousands of Congolese and Mozambicans sought shelter in South Africa from regional conflict, some of our Bantustans – to which they were confined by the government – deigned not to accept them. So should it be a complete surprise that in the 1990’s foreigners would unfairly bear the brunt of socio-economic frustration?  

Due to our mining industry we have always been an economically migrant society. In the pecking order that governs being a newcomer, our recent migrants fleeing war, famine and poverty have always been the most vulnerable in the most insecure and most impoverished sectors of our society – a place where competition for scarce jobs and resources is at its most intense.

Let me provide an anecdotal example of why I would say the above. A few years ago I was teaching a journalism course at a local tertiary institution. When the topic of xenophobia came up in a discussion forum, things got very heated.           

Some students were adamant that the foreign migrants should go home. Foreign migrants took their jobs, sold drugs and unfairly occupied RDP houses. Other students argued that foreign migrants were hard-working, law-abiding and that the RDP houses had been sold to them by the very same locals who wanted them out.

As I sat watching these talented young minds let loose on each other, I began to observe a pattern emerging. It was a small class and I knew my students well.

Those who were the most “xenophobic” in debate usually came from township environments, whilst those who were more tolerant generally hailed more from the middle-class ones. It wasn’t scientific, but there was an observable trend.

It reminded me that apartheid’s group areas had been designed to confine people of colour to the outskirts of cities. The poorer you were, the more you were pushed to the edges. With populations forcibly moved, they were suppressed by a psychology of state violence that, I feel, still festers angrily within our DNA.

I tried the same discussion on xenophobia with another class, and exactly the same thing happened. I tried it the following year, and again, exactly the same thing happened. Those from disadvantaged backgrounds always expressed the most antagonism towards foreign migrants.

Fascinated, I turned to a 2004 study on xenophobia by the SA Migratory Project that told me 21% of its respondents had felt that foreign migrants should be repatriated; 64% had felt there should be restrictions. It tied up with my findings number-wise, but I didn’t encounter too much about setting – for instance, foreign migrants are not traditionally targeted in economically stable areas.

Given apartheid’s stark geography, this lack of attention to socio-political ecology surprised me. I’m no expert, but wouldn’t the institutional memory of our privilege-divided landscape be the key to addressing the challenges of xenophobia?

When you’ve been down in the dumps for so long, and your hopes have been extinguished by decades of municipal neglect, unemployment and corruption, perceiving a newcomer to be ahead of you in the queue is going to fuel resentment – justified or not.

However, what struck me further was another statistic. It showed that 87% of law enforcement officials believed 10 years ago – without any proof – that foreign migrants were involved in crime. This explained the bureaucratic disdain that is the bane of every migrant’s life in South Africa. Xenophobia – I’m afraid to say – is our official, if not unofficial, policy.

Comparisons are unmistakably odious, but it does remind me of a mentality during apartheid that a black man walking through a white area was always regarded as a potential burglar.  Even the dogs were xenophobic, and picking up their master’s vibes, would snap and snarl at any person of colour.

Of course, in trying to understand xenophobia we are certainly not condoning the rank lawlessness and ugly victimisation occurring across the country. But surely the time is ripe for our leaders, who appear to pay little more than lip service to the rights of foreign migrants, to rid themselves of the subliminal xenophobe that still lingers within us?

Are Al-Qaeda and ISIS really at our gates?

RECENT reports that government had been told by the UN that 11 foreign terrorists might want to use the country as a base is nothing new. A neutral space in the “war on terror” and a gateway to the continent, South Africa’s neutrality is often seen to be the source of its vulnerability.

Accounts of Al-Qaeda, Al-Shabab, Boko Haram, the Taliban and secret training camps existing here are not strange to our ears.  However, much of this has been anecdotal, with little concrete evidence.

The leaked Al-Jazeera spy tapes, which unearth that intelligence gathering is not an exact science, are a case in point. The saga of “jihadi training camps” (Islamic extremism is a MOSSAD obsession here) has been on the intelligence radar without meaningful substance since the 1990’s.   

Of course, that does not mean that our SSA should smoke a cigar. In this troubled and turbulent epoch, South Africa still has to be watchful. The UN report, which informs the country of a possible scenario, is a notice of vigilance. 

At the same time, we have to be honest with ourselves: a look at the past two decades reveals that we have not been exempt from the footprint of terror. In the 90’s, for instance, the Western Cape was gripped by fear when PAGAD, an anti-crime movement operating beyond the law, metamorphosed into a sinister anti-state one.  

Shortly after PAGAD began to feel the weight of the courts in 1999, immigration authorities were alerted to the presence in Cape Town of Khamis Khalfan Mohamed, a suspect in the 1998 US embassy bombing in Dar us Salam.  Mohamed – an alleged Al-Qaeda operative –was questioned and handed over to the FBI.

Then in 2004 police commissioner Jackie Selebi revealed that eight foreigners had been detained for planning to bomb the British QE2 luxury liner. Selebi’s claim was quickly denied.

Later in the same year, a Gauteng medical practioner, Dr Feroze Ganchi, and 20 year-old student, Zubair Ismail, were detained after a shoot-out with Pakistani security forces in Gujarat. According to their families, Ganchi and Ismail were on a hiking holiday.

Another East African Al-Qaeda suspect, Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, was resident in the same house they were staying. The police seized laptops, maps, arms and explosives. Allegations that the South Africans were hatching plans to target Johannesburg were denied. They flew home as free men.

On October 31, 2005, a Pakistani national, Khalid Ahmad Rashid, was arrested in Estcourt and flown to Pakistan by a private jet. Only after numerous petitions by fiery local advocate, Zehir Omar, did details of his rendition become known.

In 2006 Rashid Rauf, a British citizen, was arrested in Pakistan with a forged South African passport. He was the mastermind of a plot to bomb trans-Atlantic flights. According to the Institute for Security Studies one of his accomplices, Mohammed Gulzar, lived in Gauteng with false South African papers before his arrest in Britain.

Some security experts suggest that it was probably Home Affairs’ corruption that became the biggest security liability to the country, its officials caught red-handed in 2002 working with foreign syndicates to issue forged identity documents – documents which ended up in the hands of Al-Qaeda operatives, including Haroon Aswat who was linked to Britain’s 7/7 bombing.

It was with South African papers (reportedly costing R60, 000) that Samantha Lewthwaite, wife of 7/7 bomber Germaine Lindsay and dubbed the “white widow”, is believed to have slipped in to East Africa. In 2012 Kenyan police issued a warrant for her arrest, saying she’d travelled on a fraudulent South African passport issued in the name of Natalie Webb.

Home Affairs confirmed that Lewthwaite had entered South Africa in 2008. Other reports say she had stayed in Mayfair, Johannesburg, for two years.

In 2007 the Imam Haroon Brigades popped-up on the website of Voice of the Cape radio station claiming credit for sabotaging Koeberg, and warning the SA government of its involvement in Somalia. Security officials raided a house in Muizenberg and discovered swimming pool chemicals under the bed of a suspect.

The 2010 World Cup was ostensibly centred more on crime than terror. Nonetheless, Free State University academic, Prof Hussein Solomon, claimed that Al-Shabab sleepers in the Somali community were preparing to target US interests during the event.

In 2013 The Daily Maverick ran a story by De Wet Potgieter entitled Al-Qaeda: Alive and Well in South Africa. His piece zeroed in on the Dockrat brothers, Farhad and Junaid, who had purportedly donated R400, 000 to the Taliban.

According to Potgieter, the Dockrat brothers had run an Al-Qaeda training camp in the Eastern Cape. It had been monitored by national intelligence, whom he suggests, were inexplicably called off the job. After inaccuracies in the story were interrogated by lawyers, The Daily Maverick pulled Potgieter’s piece off its site.

Late last year an ISIS YouTube video featured an Abu Shu’aib, professedly from South Africa, extolling ISIS’s virtues and encouraging Muslims to emigrate to its neo-Islamic state.

Recently, it was discovered by Simon Allison from The Daily Maverick that an 18 year-old South African, Abu Hurayra al-Afriki, was fighting with ISIS.  Abu Hurayra (an assumed name) is said to be of Indian origin from Gauteng. He claims that another South African, Abu Bara, is also in ISIS’s ranks.

Added to the above, Media24 has broken a story that a Port Elizabeth family sold off their house to join ISIS. And whilst this is cause for concern – ISIS is a “one-way” ticket – this has to be measured against Tunisia (3,000 fighters) and France (over 1,000) amongst the 25,000 or so foreign fighters with ISIS.

Former SABC Head of Religious Broadcasting, Muhammad Nur Nordien, is right when he says that South Africa’s Muslim community – whose leadership has condemned ISIS out of hand – is not homogenous, and that a handful of individuals out of about 2 million, is a very small, if not unrepresentative, number.

In conclusion, whilst there is an obvious need for watchfulness, it could be said that Al-Qaeda and ISIS are not banging at our gates. The only instances of terror on South African soil since the 1990’s have all been indigenous – either from rabid right wingers or from PAGAD, who were put on the US’s terror list in 2001.

Taj Hargey's "Open Mosque Members": justifying the light fantastic

"Open Mosque Members" assert Hadith,or Prophetic
Tradition is akin to irrationality.

THE ARTICLE ‘Seeking the Light
Fantastic…’ by Shafiq Morton (MuslimViews
December 2014) is a shocking reality
of the distorted and irrational beliefs
that have permeated Islamic society.
It is also an insult to many Muslims
who have become complacent to
this type of expression and hence do
not bother to respond.

To claim that the soil near Quba
has special healing properties is the
type of thinking that has made many
young Muslims become disillusioned
with the level of Islamic preaching
and Islamic literature of today, and
also makes the religion a laughing
stock amongst its opponents.
Islam is a religion of Revelation
and Reason, not Stories and Irrationality.

There is no scientific evidence of
the Quba soil claim. The same can be
said for the water from the Zamzam
source, which has in fact been
analysed to contain high levels of
arsenic and declared unfit for human
consumption by the Association of
Public Analysts in the UK.

The sight of Muslims carrying
heavy containers laden with water,
and now digging up the soil from
Quba, is a sad reality of the level to
which Muslims have sunk.

Besides the many contestable opinions
expressed about the city of Madinah,
the verse quoted in Surah Maida
5:15 ‘O People of the Scripture! Now
hath Our messenger come unto you,
expounding unto you much of that
which ye used to hide in the Scripture,
and forgiving much. Now hath come
unto you light from Allah and plain
Scripture,’ (M M Pickthall) undoubtedly
refers to the light of the message,
a figurative expression, not to the
physical make-up of the Prophet
(SAW).

The claim that emanates from this
verse is tantamount to raising the
Prophet to a state of divinity, as
Christians did to Jesus (AS), an
attempt propagated by scholars of
Hadith.

That the Prophet was light before
he became form is not mentioned in
the Quran nor that he performed any
miracles such as emitting light from
his incisors.

The Quran, in fact, stresses the
mortality of the Prophet (SAW) in one
of the many verses, such as 18:110:

‘Say: I am only a mortal like you.
My Lord inspireth in me that your
Allah is only One Allah. And whoever
hopeth for the meeting with his
Lord, let him do righteous work, and
make none sharer of the worship due
unto his Lord.’ (M M Pickthall)

To say that this argument is
backed by interpretations of the
Quran and hadith is to absolve the
writer from responsibility. This can be
accepted if the writer is an author of
fiction but not one with a journalistic
background in which the ethics of
investigation and rationality prevail.

To perpetuate the lies that the light
of the Prophet (SAW) moved through
the DNA of the Quraish, that the
Prophet (SAW) was born circumcised,
and 500 of his nearest ancestors were
not pagan, indicates acceptance of
stories handed down and distorted
along the way.

The term ‘DNA’ of course was not
around when hadith was constructed
around 250 – 300 years after the
death of the Prophet, so with time
comes further distortion.

The author’s claim that the
Prophet (SAW) will be granted the
‘station of intercession’ is also contradicted
in the Quran in verses 7:188
and 2:48.

‘Say: For myself I have no power
to benefit, nor power to hurt, save
that which Allah willeth. Had I
knowledge of the Unseen, I should
have abundance of wealth, and adversity
would not touch me. I am but a
warner, and a bearer of good tidings
unto folk who believe.’ [(M M Pickthall)
7:188]

‘Beware of a day where no person
can avail another person, nor will any
intercession be accepted from it, nor
will any ransom be taken, nor will
they have supporters.’ (2:48)

The remainder of the article is
filled with opinions and hearsay from
past so-called scholars, and is not
worthy of analysis, except to say that
Muslims must move away from such
unfounded thinking and focus on following
the true example of the
Prophet Muhammad (SAW).

Members of The Open Mosque
Wynberg, Cape Town

Answer to the Open Mosque: Justifying the Light Fantastic

The "Open Mosque Members" claim
Madinah's soil has no
healing qualities

THE assertion by ‘Members of the Open Mosque’ that my article Seeking the Light Fantastic on the Prophet (SAW) reflects that I am a liar is a view that they are entitled to. As they state, Islam is a religion of reason and revelation – but if they want to debate on Islamic matters, surely they will have to use Qur’an and Hadith as the primary sources of reason and revelation themselves too? 

However, there is cause for concern here. The Members – apart from bizarrely demanding journalistic proofs alone – brush aside Hadith (which they regard as historical distortion) and pour arrogant scorn upon the academic enterprise of over 1,400 years of Islamic scholarship on the history of the Prophet (SAW).

Nevertheless, given the authentic, classical paradigm (via Hadith) the healing qualities of Madinah’s soil are not a fairy story as The Members so cynically allege. We have the saying in which the Prophet (SAW) asked the Bani Khazraj – who were ill – whether they’d forgotten the soil of Su’aib (a place near Quba).

“In the name of Allah…the dust of our soil mixed with our saliva is a cure for the sick by the permission of Allah,” said the Prophet (SAW) to them.

If this is considered weak, there is a supporting Hadith in which the Prophet (SAW) says that the dust of Madinah is a cure for leprosy. And in another Hadith, Sayyidah A’ishah remarks that the Prophet (SAW) would wet his finger, put it in the dust and then apply it to a sick person.

But the question: is this unscientific? The Saudi Journal of Science did a study in 2010 by taking soil samples from Madinah mixed with saliva. The findings were that the soil and the saliva both possessed certain anti-bacterial qualities. Similar studies were done in India, Yemen and Egypt.

As for Zam-Zam being contaminated with arsenic. The Members have relied upon a 2005 report in which the British Food Standards Authority issued warnings against ‘fraudulent’ Zam-Zam water being sold in Britain. ‘Fraudulent’ is the word in the report.

However, in 2011 the BBC also found arsenic in Zam-Zam samples. The critical question is whether Zam-Zam has been contaminated at source, as the Saudis reportedly damaged the eye of the well when dynamiting rock for the expansion of the Haram.

The ‘old’ Zam-Zam water has a unique balance of salts and minerals. Space does not allow further commentary, but I do have a sample of Zam-Zam water from 1987. The Members are welcome to take a sample to the lab.

In any case, a reading of prophetic hagiography will tell us that Zam-Zam is one of the reasons why Makkah exists today – and arsenic or no arsenic – its religious significance does not diminish in any way because of possible contamination.

As for the Prophetic light, or nur. The Prophet (SAW) was in possession of miraculous attributes afforded by God, and there were times when his nur would become physically apparent. The writings on this on fill volumes in libraries.

By relying upon English for Qur’anic commentary, The Members have  misread the verse at the end of Surat ul-Tawbah, which they use to justify that the Prophet (SAW) was a man ‘like us’ with no special qualities.

If they were to read the Arabic – as opposed to translator Pickthall – they would realise the Qur'an reflects on the notion of the Prophet’s humanity in an elevated form.

Indeed, the Prophet (SAW) was like us in flesh, but in other aspects he was not. That is why the Qur’an does not use the colloquial word for man, ‘rajul’, when it addresses the Prophet (SAW).  Instead, the elevated word ‘bashr’ is used. Lexically, ‘bashr’ does not mean ‘man’, but ‘the bearer of good news’.

The Qur’an is very specific in linking the Prophet (SAW) to the revelation, which sets him apart. The next word after the phrase ‘like you’ refers to the revelation. In other words, the message is: ‘I am a man like you, yes, but….’ and there is immediate confirmation that the Prophet (SAW) has attributes superior to us.

It is also the view of the classical scholars that the Prophet (SAW) will intercede for us on the Day of Judgement. There are over 40 Ahadith on this in all the major books, one account attested to by 14 Companions alone.

It is reported from Ibn ’Abbas, a cousin of the Prophet (SAW), that he personally heard the Rasulullāh (SAW) saying each prophet up until Jesus had been given a special prayer for his people. “I have saved mine for the hereafter, and that will be my intercession for my ummah on the Day of Judgement.”

The Arabic in the Hadith is “du’a-ti shifa’t ul-ummati yawmul qiyamat”. The word ‘shifa’t’ means ‘intercession’. What the traditional sceptics always forget to mention is that the Prophet (SAW) never did anything without Divine Sanction. His du’ah, his special prayer, was that it be postponed and Allah, the Almighty, granted permission.

As for the Prophet’s (SAW) nasab, or lineage. Firstly, anybody who knows history will know too that the Arabs specialised in detailed family trees. Secondly, the Prophet (SAW) said about himself: “Nothing of me hailed from the fornication of jahiliyya (or moral debasement). I was only born through the union of Islam.”

Thirdly, Ibn Sa’d and Ibn Asakir report from Hisham ibn al-Kalbi that his father investigated 500 grandmothers of the Prophet (SAW) and found no signs of paganism or moral degeneration in any of them.

My allusions to the prophetic DNA are an interpretation, yes, but if The Members want to dispute this they have to come up with an alternative as to how the prophetic nur travelled from generation to generation.

The karamat, or minor miracles, of how this light manifested itself amongst the Prophet’s (SAW) Quraish ancestors are remembered because they were so remarkable. In the same vein, so is the extraordinary birth of the Prophet (SAW).

The Members, it seems, are prepared to accept the immaculate conception of Jesus, but struggle with the magnitude of the noble Prophet’s entry into the world, which was extensively witnessed and recorded.

Finally, with the final sweep of a dismissive pen, we Muslims are summarily urged to follow the ‘true path’ of the Prophet (SAW).  However, with the Prophet (SAW) stripped of his Sunnah, one can only wonder what this really means.

State of the Nation 2015: an encouraging sign of democracy

I STAY in the city bowl area near to parliament. For the past 22 years I’ve witnessed the preparations for the State of the Nation address at close quarters. Each February it has always been a much-anticipated ceremony, a ceremony signalling the start of the parliamentary year and for us journalists – a new season.

Every year SONA has followed a set pattern in its preparations, and every year it has been entirely predictable. Hedges get trimmed and the parliamentary precincts get a makeover. We have meetings with GCIS – the state communication body – and technical issues are thrashed out.

However, this year things were markedly different from the outset. Government, which is understandably cautious on security concerns, appeared to have embraced paranoia – as opposed to rationality – in the light of EFF threats to disrupt President Zuma’s address.

The first sign was the feed, in simple terms the cables that TV networks and radio stations use to get their images and sounds to the public via the parliamentary chamber. Instead of the networks having their own feeds, everybody was linked to one feed.

This immediately set off concerns that should something happen inside parliament, the feed would be cut and the media left in darkness. It had already happened with the parliamentary broadcast when the EFF had first challenged the president to pay back monies spent on Nkandla.

To put it bluntly, we were facing the real prospect of state censorship during a state of the nation broadcast; a blackout within an august body in which every South African had a stake, and a right to know what was going on – regardless of unparliamentary behaviour or not.

Added to this, I witnessed things I’d never seen in terms of preparation for SONA. Days before the event, there was unusual helicopter activity over the CBD and barricades were set up in places I’d never seen them before.

Security paranoia really showed its hand, I feel, when we learnt that the president would not be entering the House from Government Avenue as per tradition, but from the Tuynhuis side – something that we observed would keep him a distance away from the media and the crowds on the red carpet.

We also heard that there was a heavy security presence at parliament, and that should something happen, the EFF members would be dealt with. We did not doubt that; and it did not take much to notice that there were more men-in-black than usual prowling the precincts.

However, when Cabinet Ministers, MP’s, honoured guests, ambassadors and the media entered the building it became evident that security fears had gone into overdrive. I was in a broadcast van when just before 6 pm my phone started to buzz with the startling news that the mobile signal had been turned off in the House.

This enraged the media, who in an act not historically seen in parliament before, began to chant “bring back the signal”. ANC backbenchers chanted “ANC! ANC! ANC!” but they could not drown out the ensuing Twitter storm.

I believe it was the switching off of the signal – a heavy-handed Big Brother blunder – that catalysed the ensuing chaos, combined with the rabbit-in-the-headlights response of the Speaker. She appeared to have been flummoxed by a flurry of points of order – not from the EFF as expected – but other opposition parties.

Her initial response that the secretary of parliament would “look into” the cell phone signal saga was an unfortunate turn of phrase. It was probably not her intention, but she managed to further antagonise those who wanted a more definitive response on their basic constitutional rights to communicate.

I’ve covered SONA in various capacities since the 90’s, from the dying days of apartheid to the highs of 1994 and the recent challenge of 2015. I use the word “challenge” here quite deliberately, without political euphemism.

And whilst the proceedings of SONA 2015 may have surprised, disgusted and disappointed many watching it unfold on television, I must admit I don’t feel that way.

As someone who has covered the South African story both sides of apartheid, I am proud that South Africans still have the spark in them to protest against injustice, to stand up for their rights, to ask the difficult questions and to face up to our historical cancers.

Our democracy, given its socio-political landscape, is by definition an emotional and extremely demanding one. Yes, there are questions of procedure and appropriate protest behaviours. But surely the bigger issue is the underlying distress about our future prospects, and the current trajectory of the ruling party: a party that sometimes forgets its power is borrowed from us.

From within the beast of the mighty ANC, and from without it, it is our inalienable right as citizens to interrogate executive power and to ask for genuine accountability from our public representatives. As author Songezo Zibi says about our problems in his recently published book, Raising the Bar, Hope & Renewal in South Africa:

“Society is the pool from which leaders emerge. If we cannot fix our society’s socio-economic value system, there is absolutely no hope that the promises of our politicians will be anything but conventional platitudes that serve only one purpose, to con citizens into believing them to be something they are not.”

Zibi adds that the necessary moral and ethical transformation of South African society in the 21^st century cannot be effected in parts. Nothing will be achieved if power doesn’t orientate itself towards exactly the same values as the society it is meant to serve. Political power, he says, must be an outcome of society itself, and not be a blunt instrument of control.

And SONA 2015, as noisy and as chaotic as it was, is an encouraging sign that many South Africans are not prepared to be bludgeoned by that instrument.