Sheikh ‘Aadel Al-Kalbani, Former Imam Of The Grand Mosque In Mecca: ‘ISIS Is A True Product Of Salafism’
Admin
As-Sunnah Foundation of America
9 October
2021
Sheikh ‘Aadel Al-Kalbani, former imam of the
Grand Mosque in Mecca has announced that ISIS is the result of the Salafi
version of Islam, and therefore there needs to be changes within the Salafi
sect itself.
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“ISIS is a true product of Salafism, and we
must deal with it with full transparency.” This statement was made not by
liberal Muslim elements, who regularly criticize Salafism, but by Sheikh
‘Aadel Al-Kalbani, former imam of the Grand Mosque in Mecca and a Salafi
himself, hence its importance. Al-Kalbani is not the first Salafi to come out
against ISIS but Al-Kalbani has gone farther in his criticism: he has come out
against the principles of the Salafi perception from which ISIS and its ilk
draw, and has called for a rationalistic approach to Islam’s distant past and
what it means for Islam today instead of a blind re-enactment of it.
Adel Abu Abdella al-Kalbani
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In two
articles in the daily Al-Riyadh, Al-Kalbani criticized elements in the Salafi
stream for appropriating the truth and Islam and for permitting the killing of
their opponents, and likewise criticized clerics and society that dared not
come out against them. He stated that the call to blindly re-enact the path of
the Prophet Muhammad and of the forefathers of Islam stems from a faulty grasp
of the essence of this path, and that Muhammad himself had rejected blind
adoption of the perceptions of the past and blind following of the path of his
predecessors, choosing instead a rationalistic approach appropriate for a changing
reality. Al-Kalbani stated that clerics must take their heads out of the sand
and move with the spirit of the times instead of rejecting and condemning any
new idea.
This is not
the first time that Al-Kalbani has challenged the mainstream clerics. He has
harshly attacked suicide bombings, published a fatwa permitting poetry and
called for allowing women to drive cars.
The
following are translated excerpts from his two recent articles in Al-Riyadh:
“ISIS Is
A True Product Of Salafism And We Must Deal With It With Full Transparency”
On August
15, 2014, Sheikh Al-Kalbani tweeted (@abuabdelelah): “ISIS is a true product of
Salafism and we must deal with it with full transparency.”
Shaykh
Kalbani Tweet that rocked the Salafis
Original
Tweet Here
داعش نبتة ( سلفية ) حقيقة يجب أن نواجهها بكل شفافية !
— عادل بن سالم الكلباني (@abuabdelelah) August 15, 2014
This
statement sparked reactions across the social networks, and 10 days later, on
August 24, Al-Kalbani wrote in an Al-Riyadh article titled “Is Terrorism A
Salafi Product?”: “Every time we see the fitna network sweeping up young people
from among our sons… [and pitching them into] to a very deep abyss from which
they will emerge only by means of idioms that drip blood, our conscience
torments us and we wonder: From whence has this come upon us? How have they
fallen into this? As if we could not do a
thing before then.
“But the
opposite is true: The main reason for their deviation is our neglect – and by
‘our’ neglect I mean the [neglect of the] generation of the parents, and of the
honourable members of society among the clerics, teachers, preachers,
jurisprudents, and sociologists who are linked directly to that society. The
words, the books, the sermons, the dramas, and all the artistic creativity and
the essential link [to the audience] that these people present in all the
media, whether print, radio, or television, [allow them] to monitor the ideas
of the young people and to participate in balancing them. I exclude [of course]
that tiniest of minorities whose throat is parched from warning about the
extremism of the Salafis.
“Yes, this
is the plant that has sprouted in the garbage dump of those who excessively
pass judgment on others and pretend to represent Salafism. How gravely they
have accused others of apostasy, of deviating from the right path, of heresy,
and of licentiousness – as if the arena lies open before them and there is
nobody to condemn them and no judge to punish them. Furthermore, they are
received with feigned respect and admiration, and opportunities have been
opened to them to plant in the minds of our young people that this one has gone
astray and that one is an infidel and the other one is lax in religion. Even
the greatest of clerics, past and present, are not spared their arrows. They
spread the principles of Islam in a twisted manner that makes them
incomprehensible or distorted, and preserve things that negate Islam. They
measure the judge, the educated, and the student, and even the simple folk by
what they [i.e. these extremists] have learned by heart [but] do not
understand, and think that they are entitled to rule that the above mentioned
are apostates and to call down upon them the punishments of Allah that are no
longer implemented and [by so doing, they think that they will] restore the
glory and splendor of monotheism.
“This group
thinks that no one but itself and its supporters are the source of good and the
defenders of monotheism – because [its members] imbibed with their mothers’
milk [the view] that all Muslims worldwide do not understand [monotheism] and
that they are not worshipping only Allah but are polytheists who worship
graves… and that there are no just clerics besides their own clerics and their
disciples. [They think that] only a cleric whom they love, whom they heed and
obey, and on whose say they reject or validate [others] – only he holds the
truth and acts in accordance with the ways of[Islam’s] just forefathers… They
spread out and multiply, and publicly call for following in the footsteps of
some sheikh and for accepting his words in full. They have begun to classify
people, preachers, and clerics – [for example,] this sheikh shouldn’t be
listened to because he is more loathsome than the Jews and the Christians, and
that fatwa deviates [from the right path], so it is forbidden to pray behind
anyone who adopts it, or to sit with him, eat with him or respect him. They
have begun… to separate the young people from the clerics who understand the
result of [this activity by them] and what difficulties they are going to cause
the nation.
“Actually,
there is no connection between the path of these extremists and the [true] path
of the Salafis – which is tolerance, compassion, and gentleness, and in which
there is no place for extremism and [religious] fanaticism. [Salafism] is a
path that spreads love, brotherhood, and acceptance of the other among Muslims
and coexistence with non-Muslims. But the thing is to understand it and to
implement it – and not [just to] pretend [to do so] – in a way that is
compatible with the deep roots of the past and with the demands of the present.
“[However,]
what is needed is a perception for reforming ideas, not admonitions, reproof,
reactions and word-sparing that deal with the symptom and ignore the disease!
There is still enough time to rehabilitate [these ideas], ideologically and
practically, and to prevent society from splitting into sects and groups that
throng after dignitaries who are enveloped in an aura of immunity [to sin and
error] and sanctity, with each group thinking that it has the right to guide
the nation and recruit its young people.
“A plant is
always like its roots. If we want a good, fruitful plant, it is incumbent upon
everyone to care for its roots, its water sources, the spread of its branches,
and the fertility of the earth [from which it grows], and to protect it from
ideas and viruses that turn its fruit and seeds to poison from which the
generations sip and on which the young people grow up; from [these seeds]
sprouts a plant that has in it no place for compassion and to whom love and
friendship are totally alien.”
The
Chains of the Past
On August
31, 2014, Al-Kalbani published another article, “The Chains of the Past,” in
which he criticized the Salafism that advocates uncritical reliance on Islam’s
past, and called for a rationalistic critical approach. He wrote: “We never
stop elevating the past at any cost, so much so that it has taken over our
lives and thwarted our management of our present, and I do not know what it
will do to our future. We claim that the past is the perception, the deeds, and
the outlook of the forefathers [of Islam], to the point where if a catastrophe
happens to one of us, he hastens to seek a solution for his catastrophe in a
book written hundreds of years ago! And then we shout loudly, ‘Islam is
compatible with every time and every place [!]’
“What is
very strange is that we remain trapped in the dungeons of the very distant
past, chewing over the words of Malik [bin Anas], may the peace of Allah be
upon him, ‘The last of this ummah will not be successful unless they follow the
same [pattern] that was successful in the hands of its first ones,’ and think
that what it means is that we must remain in the first century of the era of
the mission [of the Prophet Muhammad], in the same style of life, and in the
same patterns and knowledge that he had.
“From these
words [of Malik bin Anas] I do not understand that our past [must] control our
present and constrain our future; rather, I understand that [the past] is what
caused the Prophet’s honourable Companions to change their perception, and
brought about their wonderful transition from the caves of darkness and
straying into the light of truth… What improved the situation of the first
generation [of Islam] was not preserving the heritage of the forefathers and
the ideas of the previous generations, but the complete opposite. The first generation
[of Islam] abandoned the [pattern] of blind imitation, and with the descent [of
Koran 96:1] ‘Recite in the name of your Lord,’ the use of the mind began, after
it was neglected for many centuries; the wagon of change began to move and to
shift the bitter reality full of oppression, backwardness, and idolatry with
lofty and clear rational truths. They [the members of the first generation]
opened their eyes to what had [always] been in front of them, but which the fog
of imitating what their forefathers did had prevented them from seeing… until
the honoured Quran arrived and removed this fog and enabled them to see what
they had been blind to, and to distinguish what they had not noticed [before].
“In the
same spirit, I want the past to free us from the yoke of the backwards present
– not drag us towards it. I want our past to make us see reality as it is, and
for us to rely on it in the areas of development and culture, and for us to
emerge from it with momentum towards the horizons of the future and with an
enlightened perception. This [should be done] under the direction of the two
revelations [the Koran and the Sunna] – and not by means of the opinions of
people who have invested most of their efforts in studying that era [of early
Islam].
“We should
rely on the past as a foundation from which we head out to the future and to
the building of the present; this is better than turning the past into
[something] that binds our hands and arouses among us rivalry, conflict, and
opinions for which we fight and as a result of which we weaken and splinter.
Had we done this [from the outset], we would be sitting on the throne of the
pinnacle of culture.
“We must
acknowledge that our past contains things that are not compatible with our
present. The religious collapse of the West happened only after it became fully
aware of the depth of the yawning chasm between the scientific knowledge that
serves the culture that the human mind has attained and the religious beliefs
and laws set out by the church, which included beliefs that had been distorted
or misunderstood, or were not appropriate for every time.
“From among
those who call for absolute adherence to the past there has emerged a young
generation that defends and fights for opinions and ways that are devoid of the
[the correct] Islamic concepts and religious views that can guide the Ummah in
the right direction. This gang, that has granted itself the right to banish
minds, has not grasped the situation of the Ummah, and has not managed to adapt
to [today’s reality]; therefore its path is to subdue the other or to accuse
him of apostasy and of deviating from the right path. [These people] can be
found in all walks of life, preventing men of insight from advancing and
catching up to the present, and anyone who criticizes them and points out their
mistakes is accused of being Khawarij [1] – an accusation tailored for such
[critics]. Anyone who talks about women’s rights is deviating from the right
path and is loathsome and is lax in religion. Anyone who expresses a wise opinion
that has been covered up and ignored because it contradicts their Salafism, is
going against the vast majority of the people… and so on…
“What is
strange is that these radical extremists who accuse their opponents of heresy
and of apostasy acknowledge neither the stagnation of their own perception and
ideas nor the worthlessness of their religious law, and thus do not recognize
that they have left seeds that are today inflicting suffering and torment on
the Ummah.”
Notes:
[1] Term
referring to a rebel cult in early Islam that split off from the army of Ali
ibn Abi Talib at the Battle of Siffin in 657.
Source: Sunnah.Org
URL: https://www.newageislam.com/radical-islamism-jihad/al-kalbani-imam-mecca-isis-salafism/d/125543
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