King Saladin Meets Helena and Louis
The Crusades were wars between Christians and Muslims. They were
fought in the Middle East for nearly 200 years. In 1187 a great ruler,
Saladin, led a Muslim army that recaptured Jerusalem from the
Christians. This is the story of Saladin.
The fighting had ended some hours before, and dusk had
fallen. On the field of battle, shadowy figures moved among
the bodies of the dead and dying. The wives and friends of
the soldiers had come to look for those who had not returned
to the camps.
Helena wandered across the battlefield. She was looking
for her husband Louis, but as time passed, and she could not
find him, she became quite sure he was dead.
When it was dark, she returned to her tent and lay down
next to her young son, weeping quietly.
In the morning, her child too had vanished.
Helena ran from her tent, calling out her child's name. She
searched all morning among the tents of the Christian camp,
but no one had seen her son. Her heart filled with dread.
She looked across the fields to the Muslim camp. She had
heard that the Sultan, Saladin, was merciful. Perhaps her son
had been kidnapped. Perhaps Saladin would set him free...
Weeping, Helena made her way to the Muslim camp, and
the soldiers there took her to Saladin. As she entered his tent
Saladin was conferring with his generals. He looked at the
woman in surprise.
"Mighty Sultan!" pleaded Helena, falling on her knees.
"Help me! My husband was lost in battle and now my child
is gone. If your soldiers have the boy, I beg you to release
him, for he is all I have!"
Saladin was moved, and ordered his soldiers to search for
the child. They soon found him -- safe, but frightened,
wandering at the edge of their camp.
Helena was overjoyed, and cried out when she saw her
son. Outside the tent, a crusader prisoner was being escorted
across the camp, and he heard her.
"Let me see her!" he cried, tearing himself free from his
guards and forcing his way into the tent.
Helena could not believe her eyes. For here before her
stood Louis! A minute ago she had neither husband nor son
-- yet now she had them both in her arms again.
Moved by what he saw, Saladin was merciful, and freed
Louis at once. Helena fell on her knees once more, this time
to thank the Sultan.
"I showed mercy because I must," Saladin told her.
"My religion tells me that, as Allah is merciful, so must all
Muslims be, and so I show mercy to you."
Feb 27, 2007
The True Purpose of Education
The True Purpose of Education
Speech at the Muslim Educational Conference
Sir Sultan Muhammad Shah Aga Khan
1904 Bombay, India
The assembly to his mind represented all that was best in the Muslims of India. It expressed that awakening sense of their fallen position after a glorious past; it expressed dissatisfaction with their present intellectual, moral and social position; and it expressed the longing desire to regain the intellectual freedom which Muslims enjoyed during the first two centuries of their era. Pessimism was not the force, said the Aga Khan, that had drawn them there that day. Pessimism in the Muslim world was nothing new: It had been, unfortunately, the dominant impulse in such intellectual life as Muslims had had during the last century. Pessimism dominated all modern Persian, Arabic and Turkish poetry. What but pessimism could explain those feverish but constant references to Andalus, to Seville, to Toledo, to Cordova. The forces that had made these annual conferences successful, nay a necessity for the Muslims of the day, were other than pessimistic.
Speaking of the blessing of the British rule, the Aga Khan said:
"I think I am right in saying that one of the forces that has drawn us willy-nilly into assembling here is a growing hopefulness and spirit of optimism amongst our co-religionists in India - a sense of hopefulness directly and entirely due to British rule. Providence has given us a government that guarantees justice; intellectual and religious liberty; personal freedom; a government that gives a clear field and no favour, that con-stantly, by its acts, reminds us that fitness is the only test, and that for the fit there are no artificial obstacles. We must, if we wish to lead, concentrate all our energies on acquiring those arts that prove fitness under civilised conditions. At last we see signs of dawn. At last we see the dim light of dawning reason. It will be hours yet - in the life of a people decades are but hours - before the sunshine of knowledge penetrates into our homes, but still we see the signs of dawn."
Of the importance of the Conference, His Highness said:
"Friendly critics have said that we have held many conferences, made many speeches, and many addresses have been delivered, many resolutions passed but that results are still wanting, and that still we Muslims remain behind whenever we are compared with other Indian nationalities on the educational test. This criti-cism expresses but half the truth. Such critics forget that for us these Conferences are signs of progress. Could a Conference such as this have been held in Bombay 20 years ago? I think not.
"A great historian has said that if St. Paul or Gautama Buddha visited St. Peter's or the Chief monastery of Lhassa or Kandy, they would not at first realise what was the object of the magnificent ceremonial they would there behold. But if the Prophet saw Santa Sophia or the Musjids of Delhi to-day he would find the ceremonial the same as it was in his day at Mecca and Medina. This is true of the ceremonial. But what about the personnel? How different the case is there The sects, the sectarian differ-ences, the divisions and sub-divisions that have crept even into the simple and clear faith of Islam - how they would pain and surprise the founder?
"However, here for the cause of learning, for the cause of progress, is an assembly where, thank God, differences are for-gotten. Here we see once more the unity of early Islam. Is this not progress? Is this not a great step towards salvation? It is a fortunate circumstance that at last we have awakened to the necessity of knowledge.
"There are some dangers ahead and I venture to draw your attention to some of them which we can now guard against. It would be the greatest of all our misfortunes if we now mistook instruction for education and the mere power of passing examin-ations for learning. It is for this reason that the thoughtful welcome the reform of the Universities which the Government of India now contemplates. It is for this reason that the far-sighted amongst the Muslims of India desire a University where the standard of learning shall be the highest and where with scientific training there shall be that moral education - that indirect but constant reminder of the eternal difference between right and wrong which is the soul of education. It is a source of regret for many of us that in the Indian Universities there is that divorce between learning and religion which, especially in the case of Muslims, will, I fear, lead to disaster. Gentlemen, most Muslims, I think, would most gladly welcome a Hindu University, at Benares; we would gladly welcome another at Poona, a third in Bengal or Madras. But because there is evidently no desire on their part to have a sectarian University with a Brahminical atmosphere, it is absurd to deny us a University at Aligarh with affiliated colleges all over India. Another reason why we require a Central University where our individuality may not be lost for the sake of turning out a mechanical imitation of a European is this: we have a history in which noble and chivalrous characters abound; we have a religious past so full of heroic figures that direct contact and communion with them could not but improve and give our youth early in life that sense of the necessity for self-sacrifice, for truthfulness, and for independence of character without which instruction and knowledge are, from the national point of view, worthless.
Feb 17, 2007
Islam: General Introduction
Islam: General Introduction
The last in the line of the Abrahamic family of revealed traditions, Islam emerged in the early decades of the seventh century. Its message, addressed in perpetuity, calls upon a people that are wise, a people of reason, to seek in their daily life, in the rhythm of nature, in the ordering of the universe, in their own selves, in the very diversity of humankind, signs that point to the Creator and Sustainer of all creation, Who alone is worthy of their submission.* It was revealed to Prophet Muhammad (s.a.s.) in Arabia from where its influence spread rapidly and strongly, bringing within its fold, in just over a century after its birth, inhabitants of the lands stretching from the central regions of Asia to the Iberian peninsula in Europe. A major world religion, Islam today counts a quarter of the globe's population among its adherents, bound to their faith by the affirmation of the witness that there is no divinity except God, and Muhammad is His messenger.
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Muslims are those who submit to God. They are a community of the middle path, of balance, which is taught to avoid extremes, to enjoin good and forbid evil, using the best of arguments. Such a community eschews compulsion, leaves each to their own faith and encourages all to vie for goodness: it is the nobility of conduct which endears one in the sight of God. In its pristine sense, Islam refers to the inner struggle of the individual, waged singly and in consonance with fellow believers, to engage in earthly life, and yet, to rise above its trappings in search of the Divine. But that quest is only meaningful in tandem with the effort to do good for the kin, the orphan, the needy, the vulnerable; to be just, honest, humble, tolerant and forgiving.**
The spiritual dimension of Islam varies from individual to individual according to their inner capacities as conditioned by the external environment. Equally in the collective domain, a divergence of views has persisted, since the demise of the Prophet, among the pious and the learned, on what constitutes the best community. The very comprehensiveness of the vision of Islam, as it has unfolded over time and in a multiplicity of cultures, has rendered a monolithic conception of the ideal society difficult. Nevertheless, whatever the cultural milieu in which Islam takes root, its central impulse of submission to the Divine translates into patterns of lifeways and acts of devotion, which impart a palpable impress of an Islamic piety to whichever spheres Muslims occupy.
Shia Islam: Historical Origins
Within its fundamental unity, Islam has elicited, over the ages, varying responses to its primal message calling upon man to surrender himself to God. Historically, these responses have been expressed as two main perspectives within Islam: the Shia and the Sunni. Each encompasses a rich diversity of spiritual temperaments, juridical preferences, social and psychological dispositions, political entities and cultures. Ismailism is one such response integral to the overall Shia perspective which seeks to comprehend the true meaning of the Islamic message, and trace a path to its fulfilment.
All Muslims affirm the unity of God (tawhid) as the first and foremost article of the faith, followed by that of Divine guidance through God's chosen messengers, of whom Prophet Muhammad was the last. The verbal attestation of the absolute unity and transcendence of God and of His choice of Muhammad as His Messenger constitutes the shahada, the profession of faith, and the basic creed of all Muslims.
During his lifetime, Prophet Muhammad was both the recipient of Divine revelation and its expounder. His death marked the conclusion of the line of prophecy, and the beginning of the critical debate on the question of the rightful leadership to continue his mission for the future generations. The debate ensued as a result of the absence of consensus, in the nascent Muslim community, on the succession to the Prophet.
A variety of viewpoints on the nature of the succession continued to be expressed before being consolidated into systematic doctrine, propounded by legal scholars and theologians, towards the end of the ninth century. From the beginning, however, there was a clear distinction of views on this matter between those, known as shi'at Ali or the "party" of Ali, who believed that the Prophet had designated Ali, his cousin, as his successor, and those groups which followed the political leadership of the caliphs. These latter groups eventually coalesced into the majoritarian, Sunni branch, comprising several different juridical schools.
In essence, the Sunni position was that the Prophet had not nominated a successor, as the revelation, the Quran, was sufficient guidance for the community. Nevertheless, there developed a tacit recognition that the spiritual-moral authority was to be exercised by the ulama, a group of specialists in matters of religious law, the shariah. The task of the ulama came to be understood as that of merely deducing appropriate rules of conduct on the basis of the Quran, the Hadith or the Prophetic tradition and several other subordinate criteria. The role of the caliph, theoretically elected by the community, was to maintain a realm in which the principles and practices of Islam were safeguarded and propagated.
The Shia or "party" of Ali, already in existence during the lifetime of the Prophet, maintained that while the revelation ceased at the Prophet's death, the need for spiritual and moral guidance of the community, through an ongoing interpretation of the Islamic message, continued. They firmly believed that the legacy of Prophet Muhammad could only be entrusted to a member of his own family, in whom the Prophet had invested his authority through designation. That person was Ali, Prophet Muhammad's cousin, the husband of his daughter and only surviving child, Fatima, and his first supporter who had devoutly championed the cause of Islam and had earned the Prophet's trust and admiration. Their espousal of the right of Ali and that of his descendants, through Fatima, to the leadership of the community was rooted, above all, in their understanding of the Quran and its concept of qualified and rightly guided leadership, as reinforced by Prophetic traditions. The most prominent among the latter were part of the Prophet's sermon at a place called Ghadir Khumm, following his farewell pilgrimage, designating Ali as his successor, and his testament that he was leaving behind him "the two weighty things", namely the Quran and his progeny, for the future guidance of his community.
Among the early Shia were the pious Quran readers, several close Companions of the Prophet, tribal chiefs of distinction and other pious Muslims who had rendered great services to Islam. Their foremost teacher and guide was Ali himself who, in his sermons and letters, and in his admonition to the leaders of the tribe of Quraysh, reminded Muslims of his family's right, in heredity, to the leadership for all time "as long as there is among us one who adheres to the religion of truth".
The Shia, therefore, attest that after the Prophet, the authority for the guidance of the community was vested in Ali. The Sunni, on the other hand, revere Ali as the last of the four rightly-guided caliphs, the first three being Abu Bakr, Umar and Uthman. Just as it was the prerogative of the Prophet to designate his successor, so it is the absolute prerogative of each Imam of the time to designate his successor from among his male progeny. Hence, according to Shia doctrine, the Imamat continues by heredity in the Prophet's progeny through Ali and Fatima.
Evolution of Communities of Interpretation
In time, the Shia were sub-divided. The Ismailis are the second largest Shia Muslim community. The Ismailis and what eventually came to be known as the Ithna ashari or Twelver Shia parted ways over the succession to the great, great grandson of Ali and Fatima, Imam Jafar as-Sadiq, who died in the year 765. The Ithna asharis transferred their allegiance to as-Sadiq's youngest son Musa al-Kazim and after him, in lineal descent, to Muhammad al-Mahdi, their twelfth Imam who, they believe, is in occultation and will reappear to dispense perfect order and justice. Led by mujtahids, the Ithna asharis are the largest Shia Muslim community, and the majority of the population in Iran.
The Ismailis gave their allegiance to Imam Jafar as-Sadiq's eldest son Ismail, from whom they derive their name. Throughout their history, the Ismailis have been led by a living, hereditary Imam. They trace the line of Imamat in hereditary succession from Ismail to His Highness Prince Karim Aga Khan, who is their present, 49th Imam in direct lineal descent from Prophet Muhammad through Ali and Fatima.
There was also divergent growth among the Sunnis. From the early decades, various, embryonic systems of law began to emerge in response to concrete situations of life, reflecting initially the influence of regional custom in the way the Quran was interpreted. Eventually, these were consolidated into four major schools, which came to command the allegiance of the majority of Sunni adherents.
The history and evolution of Islam, thus, witnessed the growth of different communities of interpretation with their respective schools of jurisprudence. However, whatever the differences between the Shia and the Sunni or among their sub-divisions, they never amounted to such fundamental a divergence over theology or dogma as to result into separate religions. On the other hand, in the absence of an established church in Islam, and an institutionalized method of pronouncing on dogma, a proper reading of history reveals the inappropriateness of referring to the Shia-Sunni divide, or to interpretational differences within each branch, in the frame of an orthodoxy-heterodoxy dichotomy, or of applying the term "sect" to any Shia or Sunni community.
Principles of Shiism
The essence of Shiism lies in the desire to search for the true meaning of the revelation in order to understand the purpose of human existence and its destiny. This true, spiritual meaning can never be fettered by the bounds of time, place or the letter of its form. It is to be comprehended through the guidance of the Imam of the time, who is the inheritor of the Prophet's authority, and the trustee of his legacy. A principal function of the Imam is to enable the believers to go beyond the apparent or outward form of the revelation in search of its spirituality and intellect. A believer who sincerely submits to the Imam's guidance may potentially attain the knowledge of self. The tradition attributed to both the Prophet and Imam Ali: "He who knows himself, knows his Lord", conveys the essence of this relationship between the Imam and his follower. The Shia thus place obedience to the Imams after that to God and the Prophet by virtue of the command in the Quran for Muslims to obey those vested with authority.
The succession of the line of prophecy by that of Imamat ensures the balance between the shariah or the exoteric aspect of the faith, and its esoteric, spiritual essence. Neither the exoteric nor the esoteric obliterates the other. While the Imam is the path to a believer's inward, spiritual elevation, he is also the authority who makes the shariah relevant according to the needs of time and universe. The inner, spiritual life in harmony with the exoteric, is a dimension of the faith that finds acceptance among many communities in both branches of Islam.
Intellect and Faith
The intellect plays a central role in Shia tradition. Indeed, the principle of submission to the Imam's guidance, explicitly derived from the revelation, is considered essential for nurturing and developing the gift of intellect whose role in Shiism is elevated as an important facet of the faith. Consonant with the role of the intellect is the responsibility of individual conscience, both of which inform the Ismaili tradition of tolerance embedded in the injunction of the Quran: There is no compulsion in religion.
In Shia Islam, the role of the intellect has never been perceived within a confrontational mode of revelation versus reason, the context which enlivened the debate, during the classical age of Islam, between the rationalists who gave primacy to reason, and the traditionalists who opposed such primacy without, however, denying a subordinate role for reason in matters of faith.
The Shia tradition, rooted in the teachings of Imams Ali and Jafar as-Sadiq, emphasizes the complementarity between revelation and intellectual reflection, each substantiating the other. This is the message that the Prophet conveys in a reported tradition: "We (the Prophets) speak to people in the measure of their intelligences". The Imams Ali and Jafar as-Sadiq expounded the doctrine that the Quran addresses different levels of meaning: the literal, the alluded esoteric purport, the limit as to what is permitted and what is forbidden, and the ethical vision which God intends to realise through man, with Divine support, for an integral moral society. The Quran thus offers the believers the possibility, in accordance with their own inner capacities, to derive newer insights to address the needs of time.
An unwavering belief in God combined with trust in the liberty of human will finds a recurring echo in the sermons and sayings of the Imams. Believers are asked to weigh their actions with their own conscience. None other can direct a person who fails to guide and warn himself, while there is Divine help for those who exert themselves on the right path. In the modern period, this Alid view of Islam as a thinking, spiritual faith continues to find resonance in the guidance of the present Imam and his immediate predecessor. Aga Khan III describes Islam as a natural religion, which values intellect, logic and empirical experience. Religion and science are both endeavours to understand, in their own ways, the mystery of God's creation. A man of faith who strives after truth, without forsaking his worldly obligations, is potentially capable of rising to the level of the company of the Prophet's family.
The present Imam has often spoken about the role of the intellect in the realm of the faith. Appropriately, he made the theme a centrepiece of his two inaugural addresses at the Aga Khan University: "In Islamic belief, knowledge is two-fold. There is that revealed through the Holy Prophet and that which man discovers by virtue of his own intellect. Nor do these two involve any contradiction, provided man remembers that his own mind is itself the creation of God. Without this humility, no balance is possible. With it, there are no barriers. Indeed, one strength of Islam has always lain in its belief that creation is not static but continuous, that through scientific and other endeavours, God has opened, and continues to open, new windows for us to see the marvels of His creation".
Muslims need not be apprehensive, he said, of these continuing journeys of the mind to comprehend the universe of God's creation, including one's own self. The tendency to restrict academic inquiry to the study of past accomplishments was at variance with the belief in the timeless relevance of the Islamic message. "Our faith has never been restricted to one place or one time. Ever since its revelation, the fundamental concept of Islam has been its universality and the fact that this is the last revelation, constantly valid, and not petrified into one period of man's history or confined to one area of the world."
Crossing the frontiers of knowledge through scientific and other endeavours, and facing up to the challenges of ethics posed by an evolving world is, thus, seen as a requirement of the faith. The Imam's authoritative guidance provides a liberating, enabling framework for an individual's quest for meaning and for solutions to the problems of life. An honest believer accepts the norms and ethics of the faith which guide his quest, recognises his own inner capacities and knows that when in doubt he should seek the guidance of the one vested with authority who, in Shia tradition, is the Alid imam of the time from the Prophet's progeny.
Feb 16, 2007
ISLAM AND THE WEST
ISLAM AND THE WEST
ISLAM AND THE WEST
Speech by HRH The Prince of Wales, at the Sheldonian Theatre, Oxford on the occasion of his visit to the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies: Wednesday 27 October 1993
Ladies and gentlemen, it was suggested to me when I first began to consider the subject of this lecture,
that I should take comfort from the Arab proverb,'In every head there is some wisdom'. I confess that
I have few qualifications as a scholar to justify my presence here, in this theatre, where so many
people much more learned than I have preached and generally advanced the sum of human
knowledge. I might feel more prepared if I were an offspring of your distinguished University, rather
than a product of that 'Technical College of the Fens' - though I hope you will bear in mind that a chair
of Arabic was established in 17th century Cambridge a full four years before your first chair of Arabic
at Oxford. Unlike many of you, I am not an expert on Islam - though I am delighted, for reasons
which I hope will become clear, to be a Vice Patron of the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies. The
Centre has the potential to be an important and exciting vehicle for promoting and improving
understanding of the Islamic world in Britain, and one which I hope will earn its place alongside other
centres of Islamic study in Oxford, like the Oriental Institute and the Middle East Centre, as an
institution of which the University, and scholars more widely, will become justly proud.
Given all the reservations I have about venturing into a complex and controversial field, you may well
ask why I am here in this marvellous Wren building talking to you on the subject of Islam and the
West. The reason is, ladies and gentlemen, that I believe wholeheartedly that the links between these
two worlds matter more today than ever before, because the degree of misunderstanding between the
Islamic and Western worlds remains dangerously high, and because the need for the two to live and
work together in our increasingly interdependent world has never been greater. At the same time I am
only too well aware of the minefields which lie across the path of the inexpert traveller who is bent on
exploring this difficult route. Some of what I shall say will undoubtedly provoke disagreement,
criticism, misunderstanding and probably worse. But perhaps, when all is said and done, it is worth
recalling another Arab proverb: 'What comes from the lips reaches the ears. What comes from the
heart reaches the heart.
The depressing fact is that, despite the advances in technology and mass communications of the
second half of the 20th Century, despite mass travel, the intermingling of races, the ever growing
reduction - or so we believe - of the mysteries of our world, misunderstandings between Islam and the
West continue. Indeed, they may be growing. As far as the West is concerned, this cannot be because
of ignorance. There are one billion Muslims worldwide. Many millions of them live in countries of the
Commonwealth. Ten million or more live in the West, and around one million in Britain. Our own
Islamic community has been growing and flourishing for decades. There are nearly 500 mosques in
Britain. Popular interest in Islamic culture in Britain is growing fast. Many of you will recall - and I
think some of you took part in - the wonderful Festival of Islam which Her Majesty The Queen
opened in 1976. Islam is all around us. And yet distrust, even fear, persist. In the post-Cold War
world of the 1990s, the prospects for peace should be greater than at any time in this century. In the
Middle East, the remarkable and encouraging events of recent weeks have created new hope for an
end to an issue which has divided the world and been so dramatic a source of violence and hatred.
But the dangers have not disappeared.
In the Muslim world, we are seeing the unique way of life of the Marsh Arabs of Southern Iraq,
thousands of years old, being systematically devastated and destroyed. I confess that for a whole year
I have wanted to find a suitable opportunity to express my despair and outrage at the unmentionable
horrors being perpetrated in Southern Iraq. To me, the supreme and tragic irony of what has been
happening to the Shia population of Iraq - especially in the ancient city and holy shrine of Kerbala - is
that after the Western allies took immense care to avoid bombing such holy places (and I remember
begging General Schwarzkopf when I met him in Riyadh in December 1990 to do his best to protect
such shrines during any conflict) it was Saddam Hussein himself, and his terrifying regime, who caused
the destruction of some of Islam's holiest sites. And now we have had to witness the deliberate
draining of the marshes and the near total destruction of a unique habitat, together with an entire
population that has depended upon it since the dawn of human civilization. The international
community has been told the draining of the marshes is for agricultural purposes. How many more
obscenities do we have to be told before action is taken? Even at the eleventh hour it is still not too
late to prevent a total cataclysm. I pray that this might at least be a cause in which Islam and the West
could join forces for the sake of our common humanity. I have highlighted this particular example
because it is so avoidable. Elsewhere, the violence and hatred are more intractable and deep-seated,
as we go on seeing every day to our horror in the wretched suffering of peoples across the world - in
the former Yugoslavia, in Somalia, Angola, Sudan, in so many of the former Soviet Republics. In
Yugoslavia the terrible sufferings of the Bosnian Muslims,alongside that of other communities in that
cruel war, help keep alive many of the fears and prejudices which our two worlds retain of each
other.Conflict, of course, comes about because of the misuse of power and the clash of ideals, not to
mention the inflammatory activities of unscrupulous and bigoted leaders. But it also arises, tragically,
from an inability to understand, and from the powerful emotions which out of misunderstanding lead to
distrust and fear. Ladies and gentlemen, we must not slide into a new era of danger and division
because governments and peoples, communities and religions, cannot live together in peace in a
shrinking world.
It is odd, in many ways, that misunderstandings between Islam and the West should persist. For that
which binds our two worlds together is so much more powerful than that which divides us. Muslims,
Christians - and Jews - are all 'peoples of the Book'. Islam and Christianity share a
common monotheistic vision: a belief in one divine God, in the transience of our earthly life, in our
accountability for our actions, and in the assurance of life to come. We share many key values in
common: respect for knowledge,for justice, compassion towards the poor and underprivileged, the
importance of family life, respect for parents. 'Honour thy father and thy mother is a Quranic precept
too. Our history has been closely bound up together.There, however, is one root of the problem. For
much of that history has been one of conflict: fourteen centuries too often marked by mutual
hostility.That has given rise to an enduring tradition of fear and distrust, because our two worlds have
so often seen that past in contradictory ways. To Western school children, the two hundred years of
Crusades are traditionally seen as a series of heroic, chivalrous exploits in which the kings,
knights,princes - and children - of Europe tried to wrest Jerusalem from the wicked Muslim infidel. To
Muslims, the Crusades were an episode of great cruelty and terrible plunder, of Western infidel
soldiers of fortune and horrific atrocities, perhaps exemplified best by the massacres committed by
the Crusaders when, in 1099, they took back Jerusalem, the third holiest city in Islam. For us in the
West, 1492 speaks of human endeavour and new horizons,of Columbus and the discovery of the
Americas. To Muslims, 1492 is a year of tragedy - the year Granada fell to Ferdinand and Isabella,
signifying the end of eight centuries of Muslim civilisation in Europe. The point,I think, is not that one or
other picture is more true, or has a monopoly of truth. It is that misunderstandings arise when we fail to
appreciate how others look at the world, its history, and our respective roles in it.
The corollary of how we in the West see our history has so often been to regard Islam as a threat - in
mediaeval times as a military conqueror,and in more modern times as a source of intolerance,
extremism and terrorism.One can understand how the taking of Constantinople, when it fell to
Sultan Mehmet in 1453, and the close-run defeats of the Turks outside Vienna in1529 and 1683,
should have sent shivers of fear through Europe's rulers.The history of the Balkans under Ottoman rule
provided examples of cruelty which sank deep into Western feelings. But the threat has not been
one way. With Napoleon's invasion of Egypt in 1798, followed by the invasions and conquests of the
19th century, the pendulum swung, and almost all the Arab world became occupied by the Western
powers. With the fall of the Ottoman Empire, Europe's triumph over Islam seemed complete. Those
daysof conquest are over. But even now our common attitude to Islam suffers because the way we
understand it has been hijacked by the extreme and the superficial. To many of us in the West, Islam is
seen in terms of the tragic civil war in Lebanon, the killings and bombings perpetrated by
extremist groups in the Middle East, and by what is commonly referred to as 'Islamic fundamentalism'.
Our judgement of Islam has been grossly distorted by taking the extremes to be the norm. That, ladies
and gentlemen, is a serious mistake.It is like judging the quality of life in Britain by the existence of
murder and rape, child abuse and drug addition. The extremes exist, and they must be dealt with. But
when used as a basis to judge a society, they lead to distortion and unfairness.
For example, people in this country frequently argue that the Sharia law of the Islamic world is cruel,
barbaric and unjust. Our newspapers,above all, love to peddle those unthinking prejudices. The truth
is, of course, different and always more complex. My own understanding is that extremes, like the
cutting off of hands, are rarely practised. The guiding principle and spirit of Islamic law, taken straight
from the Qur'an, should be those of equity and compassion. We need to study its actual
applicationbefore we make judgements. We must distinguish between systems of justice administered
with integrity, and systems of justice as we may see them practised which have been deformed for
political reasons into something no longer Islamic. We must bear in mind the sharp debate taking place
in the Islamic world itself about the extent of the universality or timelessness of Sharia law, and the
degree to which the application of that law is continually changing and evolving.
We should also distinguish Islam from the customs of some Islamic states.Another obvious Western
prejudice is to judge the position of women in Islamic society by the extreme cases. Yet Islam is not a
monolith and the picture is not simple. Remember, if you will, that Islamic countries like Turkey, Egypt
and Syria gave women the vote as early as Europe did its women - and much earlier than in
Switzerland! In those countries women have long enjoyed equal pay, and the opportunity to play a full
working role in their societies. The rights of Muslim women to property and inheritance,to some
protection if divorced, and to the conducting of business, were rights prescribed by the Qur'an twelve
hundred years ago, even if they were not everywhere translated into practice. In Britain at least,
some of these rights were novel even to my grandmother's generation! Benazir Bhutto and Begum
Khaleda Zia became prime ministers in their own traditional societies when Britain had for the first time
ever in its history elected a female prime minister. That, I think, does not smack of a mediaeval
society.Women are not automatically second-class citizens because they live in Islamic countries. We
cannot judge the position of women in Islam aright if we take the most conservative Islamic states as
representative of the whole. For example, the veiling of women is not at all universal across the Islamic
world. Indeed, I was intrigued to learn that the custom of wearing the veil owed much to Byzantine and
Sassanain traditions, nothing to the Prophet of Islam. Some Muslim women never adopted the veil,
othershave discarded it, others - particularly the younger generation - have more recently chosen to
wear the veil or the headscarf as a personal statement of their Muslim identity. But we should not
confuse the modesty of dress prescribed by the Qur'an for men as well as women with the outward
Forms of secular custom or social status which have their origins elsewhere.
We in the West need also to understand the Islamic world's view of us.There is nothing to be gained,
and much harm to be done, by refusing to comprehend the extent to which many people in the Islamic
world genuinely fear our own Western materialism and mass culture as a deadly challenge to their
Islamic culture and way of life. Some of us may think the material trappings of Western society which
we have exported to the Islamic world- television, fast-food, and the electronic gadgets of our
everyday lives- are a modernising, self-evidently good, influence. But we fall into the trap of dreadful
arrogance if we confuse 'modernity' in other countries with their becoming more like us. The fact is that
our form of materialism can be offensive to devout Muslims - and I do not just mean the
extremists among them. We must understand that reaction, just as the West's attitude to some of the
more rigorous aspects of Islamic life needs to be understood in the Islamic world. This, I believe,
would help us understand what we have commonly come to see as the threat of Islamic
fundamentalism. We . be careful of that emotive label, 'fundamentalism', and distinguish,as
Muslims do, between revivalists, who choose to take the practice of their religion most devoutly, and
fanatics or extremists who use this devotion for political ends. Among the many religious, social and
political causes of what we might more accurately call the Islamic revival is a powerful feeling of
disenchantment, of the realisation that Western technology and material things are insufficient, and that
a deeper meaning to life lies elsewhere in the essence of Islamic belief.
At the same time, we must not be tempted to believe that extremism is in some way the hallmark and
essence of the Muslim. Extremism is no more the monopoly of Islam than it is the monopoly of other
religions, including Christianity. The vast majority of Muslims, though personally pious, are moderate in
their politics. Theirs is the 'religion of the middle way'.The Prophet himself always disliked and feared
extremism. Perhaps the fear of Islamic revivalism which coloured the 1980's is now beginning to
give away in the West to an understanding of the genuine spiritual forces behind this groundswell. But if
we are to understand this important movement,we must learn to distinguish clearly between what the
vast majority of Muslims believe and the terrible violence of a small minority among them which civilized
people everywhere must condemn.
Ladies and gentlemen, if there is much misunderstanding in the West about the nature of Islam, there is
also much ignorance about the debt our own culture and civilisation owe to the Islamic world. It is a
failure which stems, I think, from the straightjacket of history which we haveinherited. The mediaeval
Islamic world, from Central Asia to the shores of the Atlantic, was a world where scholars and men of
learning flourished.But because we have tended to see Islam as the enemy of the West, as an alien
culture, society and system of belief, we have tended to ignore or erase its great relevance to our own
history. For example, we have underestimated the importance of 800 years of Islamic society and
culture in Spain between the 8th and 15th centuries. The contribution of Muslim Spain to the
preservation of classical learning during the Dark Ages, and to the first flowerings of the Renaissance,
has long been recognised. But Islamic Spain was much more than a mere larder where Hellenistic
knowledge was kept for later consumption by the emerging modern Western world. Not only did
Muslim Spain gather and preserve the intellectual content of ancient Greek and Roman civilisation, it
also interpreted and expanded upon that civilisation,and made a vital contribution of its own in so
many fields of human endeavour- in science, astronomy, mathematics, algebra (itself an Arabic
word),law, history, medicine, pharmacology, optics, agriculture, architecture,theology, music.
Averroes and Avenzoor, like their counterparts Avicenna and Rhazes in the East, contributed to the
study and practice of medicine in ways from which Europe benefited for centuries afterwards.
Islam nurtured and preserved the quest for learning. In the words of the tradition, 'the ink of the scholar
is more sacred than the blood of the martyr'. Cordoba in the 10th century was by far the most
civilised city of Europe. We know of lending libraries in Spain at the time King Alfred was making
terrible blunders with the culinary arts in this country.It is said that the 400,000 volumes in its ruler's
library amounted to more books than all the libraries of the rest of Europe put together. That was made
possible because the Muslim world acquired from China the skill of making paper more than four
hundred years before the rest of non-Muslim Europe. Many of the traits on which modern Europe
prides itself came to it from Muslim Spain. Diplomacy, free trade, open borders, the techniques of
academic research, of anthropology, etiquette, fashion, alternative medicine, hospitals, all came from
this great city of cities. Mediaeval Islam was a religion of remarkable tolerance for its time, allowing
Jews and Christians the right to practise their inherited beliefs, and setting an example which was not,
unfortunately, copied for many centuries in the West. The surprise, ladies and gentlemen, is the extent
to which Islam has been a part of Europe for so long, first in Spain, then in the Balkans,and the extent
to which it has contributed so much towards the civilisation which we all too often think of, wrongly, as
entirely Western. Islam is part of our past and present, in all fields of human endeavour. It has helped to
create modern Europe. It is part of our own inheritance, not a thing apart.
More than this, Islam can teach us today a way of understanding and living in the world which
Christianity itself is poorer for having lost.At the heart of Islam is its preservation of an integral view of
the Universe.Islam - like Buddhism and Hinduism - refuses to separate man and nature,religion and
science, mind and matter, and has preserved a metaphysical and unified view of ourselves and the
world around us. At the core ofChristianity there still lies an integral view of the sanctity of the world,
and a clear sense of the trusteeship and responsibility given to us for our natural surroundings. In the
words of that marvellous seventeenth century poet and hymn writer, George Herbert: 'A man that
looks on glass, on it may stay his eye, Or if he pleaseth, through it pass, and then the heaven espy.'
But the West gradually lost this integrated vision of the world with Copernicus and Descartes and the
coming of the scientific revolution. A comprehensive philosophy of nature is no longer part of our
everyday beliefs.I cannot help feeling that, if we could now only rediscover that earlier,all-embracing
approach to the world around us, to see and understand its deeper meaning, we could begin to get
away from the increasing tendencyin the West to live on the surface of our surroundings, where we
studyour world in order to manipulate and dominate it, turning harmony and beauty into disequilibrium
and chaos. It is a sad fact, I believe, that in so many ways the external world we have created in the
last few hundred year has come to reflect our own divided and confused inner state.
Western civilisation has become increasingly acquisitive and exploitive in defiance of our environmental
responsibilities. This crucial sense of oneness and trusteeship of the vital sacramental and spiritual
character of the world about us is surely something important we can relearn from Islam. I am quite
sure some will instantly accuse me, as they usually do, of living in the past, of refusing to come to terms
with reality and modern life. On the contrary, ladies and gentlemen, what I am appealing for is a wider,
deeper, more careful understanding of our world: for a metaphysical as well as material dimension to
our lives, in order to recover the balance we have abandoned, the absence of which, I believe, will
prove disastrous in the long term. If the ways of thought in Islam and other religions can help us in that
search, then there are things for us to learn in this system of belief which I suggest we ignore at our peril.
Ladies and gentlemen, we live today in one world, forged by instant communications, by television, by
the exchange of information on a scale undreamed of by our grandparents. The world economy
functions as an inter-dependant entity. Problems of society, the quality of life and the environment,
are global in their causes and effects, and none of us any longer has the luxury of being able to solve
them on our own. The Islamic and Western worlds share problems common to us all: how we adapt to
change in our societies,how we help young people who feel alienated from their parents or
society's values, how we deal with Aids, drugs, and the disintegration of the family.Of course, these
problems vary in nature and intensity between societies.But the similarity of human experience is
considerable. The international trade in hard drugs is one example, the damage we are collectively
doing to our environment is another. We have to solve these threats to our communities and our lives
together. Simply getting to know each other can achieve wonders.I remember vividly, for example,
taking a group of Muslims and non-Muslims some years ago to see the work of the Marylebone
Health Centre in London,of which I am patron. The enthusiasm and common determination that
shared experience generated was immensely heart-warming. Ladies and gentleman,somehow we have
to learn to understand each other, and to educate our children- a new generation - whose attitudes
and cultural outlook may be different from ours so that they understand too. We have to show trust,
mutual respect and tolerance, if we are to find the common ground between us and work together to
find solutions. The community enterprise approach of my own Trust, and the very successful
Volunteers Scheme it has run for some years,show how much can be achieved by a common effort
which spans the classes,cultures and religions. The Islamic and Western world can no longer afford to
stand apart from a common effort to solve their common problems. We cannot afford to revive the
territorial and political confrontations of the past. We have to share experiences, to explain ourselves to
each other,to understand and tolerate, and build on the positive principles our culture shave in
common. That trade has to be two-way. Each of us needs to understand the importance of
conciliation, of reflection - TADABBUR - to open our minds and unlock our hearts to each other. I
am utterly convinced that the Islamic and Western worlds have much to learn from each other. Justas
the oil engineer in the Gulf may be European, so the heart transplant surgeon in Britain may be
Egyptian.
If this need for tolerance and exchange is true internationally, it applies with special force within Britain
itself. Britain is a multi-racial and multi-cultural society. I have already mentioned the size of our
own Muslim communities who live throughout Britain, both in large towns like Bradford and in tiny
communities in places as remote as Stornaway in Western Scotland. These people, ladies and
gentlemen, are an asset to Britain.They contribute to all parts of our economy - to industry, the public
services,the professions and the private sector. We find them as teachers, doctors,engineers and
scientists. They contribute to our economic well-being as a country, and add to the cultural richness of
our nation. Of course, tolerance and understanding must be two-way. for those of us who are not
Muslim,that may mean respect for the daily practice of the Islamic faith and a decent care to avoid
actions which are likely to cause deep offence. For the Muslims in our society, there is a need to
respect the history, culture and way of life of our country, and to balance their vital liberty to
be themselves with an appreciation of the importance of integration in our society. Where there are
failings of understanding and tolerance, we have a need, on our own doorstep, for greater
reconciliation among our own citizens.I can only admire, and applaud, those men and women of so
many denominations who work tirelessly, in London, South Wales, the Midlands and elsewhere,to
promote good community relations. The Centre for the Study of Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations
in Birmingham is one especially notable and successful example. We should be grateful for the
dedication and example of all those who have devoted themselves to the cause of
promoting understanding.
Ladies and gentlemen, if, in the last half hour, your eyes have wandered up to the marvellous allegory
of Truth descending on the arts and sciences in Sir Robert Streeter's ceiling above you, I am sure you
will have noticed Ignorance being violently banished from the arena - just there in front of the organ
casing. I feel some sympathy for Ignorance, and hope I maybe able to vacate this theatre in somewhat
better condition. Before I go,I cannot put to you strongly enough the importance of the issues which I
have tried to touch on so imperfectly. These two worlds, the Islamic and the Western, are at something
of a crossroads in their relations. We must not let them stand apart. I do not accept the argument that
they are on a course to clash in a new era of antagonism. I am utterly convinced that our two worlds
have much to offer each other. We have much to do together.I am delighted that the dialogue has
begun, both in Britain and elsewhere.But we shall need to work harder to understand each other, to
drain out any poison between us, and to lay the ghost of suspicion and fear. The further down that road
we can travel, the better the world that we shall create for our children and for future generations.
Feb 15, 2007
Aga Khan Music Initiative in Central Asia
Aga Khan Music Initiative in Central Asia
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Introduction
Music and musicians have historically played a vital role in the cultures of Central Eurasia and the Middle East. Music traditionally served not only as entertainment, but as a way to reinforce social and moral values, and musicians provided models of exemplary leadership. Whether bringing listeners closer to God, sustaining cultural memory through epic tales, or strengthening the bonds of community through festivity and celebration, musicians have been central to social life. In 2000, recognition of this important role led His Highness the Aga Khan to establish the Aga Khan Music Initiative in Central Asia (AKMICA) with the aim of assisting in the preservation of Central Asia's musical heritage by ensuring its transmission to a new generation of artists and audiences, both inside the region and beyond its borders. For more information, please see the Introduction.
AKMICA strives to achieve the goals of preserving and promoting Central Asian music through four distinct, but mutually reinforcing programme areas: Supporting Tradition Bearers; Music Touring and Festivals programmes; Documentation and Dissemination; and collaboration with the Silk Road Project.
AKMICA supports a group of exceptional musical tradition-bearers who are revitalising important musical repertories throughout Central Asia by transmitting their traditions to students. Formerly inaugurated in 2003, the Programme is currently operating in Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. At the core of the Tradition-Bearers Programme is the time-honoured process of apprenticeship known as ustad-shagird, in which master musicians, or ustads, provide intensive instruction rooted in oral transmission of a repertory. AKMICA looks for three essential qualities in the musician-educators it supports: vision, passion, and a history of outstanding achievement in musical performance and teaching.
Throughout Central Asia, AKMICA-sponsored tradition-bearers work both in self-initiated music centres and schools, and within guild-like networks that encourage collegiality and communication among independent master teachers. As part of their mission of promoting musical transmission, tradition-bearer centres work to develop new materials and methodologies for teaching traditional music, involve students in ethnographic documentation of local traditions, and work toward building appreciation of authentic traditional music among audiences in Central Asia. AKMICA provides administrative and financial support to centres and schools, and in some cases, a stipend to students. Support is renewed on the basis of an annual review with the longterm goal of helping centres, schools, and guilds to become self-supporting through tuition, barter, and local patronage.
Kazakhstan
In Qzyl-Orda, in central Kazakhstan, renowned epic performer and scholar Almas Almatov is conserving and digitising archival recordings of epic singers, conducting ethnographic expeditions with advanced students, and preparing audio-visual materials to support the training of a new generation of performers of oral epic and poetry. During the first year of AKMICA support, Almatov released two compact discs, a CD-ROM, and a video devoted to epic traditions. His students excel as performers of epic poetry and music, and are equally adept at electronically transcribing epic texts from handwritten notebooks kept by old masters, and using computers to de-noise old recordings.
In Almaty, Abdulhamit Raimbergenov, director and founder of the Kokil Music College, is working to expand his innovative approach to teaching Kazakh traditional music to children. Students who attend his college are not specially selected for musical talent, and most do not intend to become professional musicians. Raimbergenov's goal is to create educated and appreciative audiences for the next generation of traditional musicians under the assumption that music will not survive unless it is performed in a social milieu in which listeners understand and support it. The culmination of Kokil's 2003 activities was a week-long seminar for secondary school music teachers on Raimbergenov's orally-based approach to teaching traditional music. The seminar brought together participants from Kazakhstan's many regions as well as from Kyrgyzstan as part of AKMICA's efforts to stimulate interaction among musical tradition-bearers in different parts of Central Asia. Raimbergenov's aim in 2004 is to extend the teacher-training seminar programme to the most distant regions of Kazakhstan. In 2003, Raimbergenov's method was officially approved for use in Kazakhstan's national music school curriculum.
Kyrgyzstan
AKMICA’s Bishkek-based Centre Ustat-Shagirt (or Ustad-Shagird, i.e. Master-Apprentice) currently employs five master teachers – Nurlanbek Nyshanov, Nurak Abdyrakhmanov, Zainidin Imanaliev, Namazbek Uraliev and Bakyt Chytyrbaev – each tutoring a group of students ranging in age from 6 to 20. Master teachers provide regular instruction on komuz, qyl-qiyak, temir-comuz, choor, and chopo-choor. In each case, the pedagogic method centres around oral transmission, in contrast to the notation-based teaching commonly employed in Kyrgyz music schools and in the National Conservatory. Students meet frequently with their teacher, and learn the küü repertory by ear. Aural learning facilitates the process of extemporization and improvisation that is at the heart of Kyrgyz music.
In addition to sponsoring the Centre Ustad-Shagird, AKMICA supports an extensive Music Touring Programme in which Kyrgyz musicians have figured prominently. Among the most active ensembles in the touring programme is Tengir-Too, a Bishkek – based group directed by Nurlanbek Nyshanov, who is also one of the master teachers in the Centre Ustat-Shagirt. During the past year, Tengir-Too has performed Kyrgyz music to large and enthusiastic audiences in Belgium, France, Germany, Greece, Morocco, Norway, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. Early next year, their first CD will be released worldwide to launch a new anthology of Central Asian music co-produced by AKMICA and the Smithsonian Institution, the national museum network of the United States. For an introduction to the series, please see the Quicktime Movie.
Tajikistan
Abduvali Abdurashidov, a leading music scholar and celebrated performer of Tajik-Uzbek classical music (Shashmaqam) is founder of the Navo Centre of Music and Poetry and director of the AKMICA-sponsored Academy of Shashmaqam in Dushanbe. The Academy provides an elite group of students with an intensive four-year course of study in Shashmaqam, as well as traditional prosody and poetics (aruz), and music theory (ilm-e musiqi). Graduates of the programme earn a diploma validated by the Ministry of Education.
Pedagogic work is linked to musical performances, recordings, and ethnographic expeditions that will help assure the continuity of the Shashmaqam. During the Academy's first year of operation, students worked with Abduvali Abdurashidov to recover musical textures, rhythms, and formal features characteristic of the Shashmaqam's pre-Soviet performance style. The students also 4 began performing their carefully crafted version of the Shashmaqam to enthusiastic audiences in Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. This coming autumn, they will perform in the AKMICA-sponsored “Voices of Central Asia” concert at the English National Opera.
Through his Khunar Centre, Sultonali Khudoiberdiev has organised a master-apprentice (ustadshagird) programme in Khojand, Isfara, Ura-Tyube and other cities in Northern Tajikistan, and is preparing to open a special music school for gifted children. Students study one-on-one with master musicians, assimilating classical art song and instrumental music through oral transmission.
Uzbekistan
In Tashkent, two leading musicologists and music educators, Ravshan Yunusov and Aqil Ibragimov, have written a new music textbook for beginning and intermediate students based on indigenous music theory, repertories, and performance traditions. The textbook will be introduced into the curriculum of music schools during the coming year as a replacement for textbooks based exclusively on European music.
Afghanistan
AKMICA activities in Afghanistan are centered around the spiritual and physical revival of Kucheh Kharabat, the musicians' quarter in Kabul's old city, and a centre of Kabul's distinctive art music tradition.
Depleted in the late 1970s as well as during the Coalition Period, when musicians fled Afghanistan, mostly for Peshawar and Quetta, Kucheh Kharabat ceased to exist during the Taliban rule. Today, with many master musicians returning to Afghanistan and re-opening their music schools, Kucheh Kharabat has acquired new symbolic significance.
AKMICA's Ustad-Shagird Music Training Scheme (Program-e amuseshi ustad-shagird AKMICA) began operation in 2003 and currently supports masters (ustads) who teach vocal music, harmonium, rubab, delruba and tabla, each selecting his students on a merit basis. Plans to extend the project beyond Kabul, as well as to include oral history and a recording component, are currently in development.
Music Touring and Festivals Programme
The Music Touring and Festivals Programme was created to celebrate Central Asian musical traditions in regions where they are little known, and integrate leading exponents of these traditions into the global network of music presenting institutions. The Programme achieved a succes d'estime in its European tours of winter and summer 2002, when AKMICA artists enchanted audiences in France, Italy, Germany, Belgium, and the Netherlands.
In 2003, AKMICA conceived and co-produced a festival programme “Via Kaboul: Musiques de l'Asie centrale sans frontières” in Paris, France. Twenty musicians and dancers from Afghanistan, Iran, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan performed at Odéon-Théâtre de l'Europe in three theatricalised concerts, with parallel lectures at the Musée Guimet and workshops and master classes at the Maison Populaire de Montreuil. The partnership with Odéon-Théâtre de l'Europe represented a breakthrough in concert presentations of traditional music in that theatre technology – lighting, set design, and overhead projection – became integral elements of the performance, generating widespread media coverage.
In 2004, AKMICA is preparing an expanded touring programme of music from Central Asian. The five-week-long tour includes major performances at the Festival de la Musique Sacrée in Dijon, France, the English National Opera in London, the Ultima Festival in Oslo, and the World Music Expo (WOMEX) in Essen, Germany as well as at venues in Brussels, Turin, and Milan. The tour programme will also feature numerous educational events such as workshops, lecturedemonstrations, and master classes.
Documentation and Dissemination
The Music Initiative has undertaken a long-term collaboration with the Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage of the Smithsonian Institution, the national museum and research complex of the United States, to create a ten-volume Anthology of Central Asian Music. When complete, the Anthology will include compact discs, DVDs, photographs, and detailed booklet notes for each volume. The Anthology will consist primarily of new recordings as well as selected archival recordings drawn from important collections in Central Asia. One of the Music Initiative's goals in producing the Anthology is to set new standards of professionalism in ethnographic sound recording and videography. The Anthology will be released worldwide by Smithsonian Folkways Recordings. The first three volumes, scheduled for release in spring, 2005, feature musicians from Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. “Tengir-Too: Mountain Music from Kyrgyzstan,” presents a panoramic view of Kyrgyz music performed by the ensemble Tengir-Too as well as by distinguished solo performers such as komuz players Nurak Abdyrakhmanov and Zainidin Imanaliev, and Manas reciter Rysbek Jumabaev.
The Dushanbe-based Academy of Shashmaqam, sponsored by the Aga Khan Music Initiative and directed by Tajik classical musician Abduvali Abdurashidov, is featured in a recording devoted to the courtly art song cycles known as Shashmaqam. Abdurashidov's nine-person ensemble breathes new life into the Shashmaqam's refined, Sufi-inspired poetic texts and ecstatic lyricism during their hour-long vocal tour de force. From Tashkent, Uzbekistan, Uyghur vocalist and tanbur virtuoso Tughluk Rozi leads his seven-piece Sanam Uyghur Ensemble in a rousing performance of Uyghur festive music drawn both from the classical muqam and from the rich repertory of Uyghur folksong. Future releases in the Anthology series will feature music from Afghanistan, Badakhshan, Kazakhstan, Qaraqalpakstan, and Uzbekistan.
Collaboration with the Silk Road Project
The Initiative's creative partnership with the Silk Road Project began in 2000 and has since resulted in festivals, concert tours, recordings and innovative collaborations. The Silk Road Project and its performance unit, the Silk Road Ensemble, both founded and directed by cellist Yo-Yo Ma, is devoted to exploring musical tradition as a resource for innovation and creativity. In 2003 AKMICA presented Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble in a nine-day concert tour of Central Asia featuring concerts and workshops in Bishkek, Almaty, and Dushanbe. The partnership has recently been extended to develop multimedia programmes for a new “Museum Initiative” in which works of visual art join traditions of oral literature and world music through performances, exhibitions, and educational events in some of the world's leading museums. Newly-created multimedia programmes have been presented at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts in January 2004, and, most recently, at the British Library in London, accompanying the exhibition “The Silk Road: Trade, Travel, War and Faith”.
Related Site: The Silk Road Project
Feb 13, 2007
Ismaili Imamat
Ismaili Imamat from the time of the division in the Shia community: An overview
The foundation of the Ismaili Fatimid caliphate in Ifriqiya (Tunisia) in the year 909 was the culmination of a long development, directed by the descendants of Imam Ismail and sustained by a commitment to promote the Islamic ideal of social justice and equity.
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Much has been written about the Fatimid caliphate, one of the most successful in overcoming the endemic threat of despotism and anarchy, and much noted for its religious tolerance. The geographer al-Muqaddasi has written of the harmony among different religious groups in the Fatimid domains, which, at the peak of the caliphate, centred in Egypt, extended westward to North Africa, Sicily and other Mediterranean islands, and eastward to the Red Sea coast of Africa, Palestine, Syria, the Yemen and the Hijaz.
The Ismaili view of history, which accorded due respect to the great monotheistic religions of the Abrahamic tradition, provided the intellectual framework for the participation of the followers of different faiths in the affairs of the Fatimid state. Within the Fatimid judiciary, as in other branches of government, appointments were based on merit. In elevating a Sunni jurist to the post of chief qadi, Imam-caliph al-Hakim praised the appointee's sense of justice and calibre as the determining factors. The Fatimid tolerance towards non-Muslims has also been well attested. Christians and Jews, as much as Muslims of either branch, were able to rise to the highest echelons of state office on grounds of competence.
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The foundation of the Fatimid caliphate, as the first major Shia state, provided the first opportunity for the promulgation of an Ismaili school of jurisprudence. Based on Shia principles, it was formulated and implemented with due deference to the Fatimids' universalist philosophy of religious tolerance. In the same spirit, the Fatimids pioneered the practice of encouraging private patronage of mosques and other pious buildings by Muslims of different persuasions. Their policy reflected the historical fact of a plurality of pious ways rather than a monolithic interpretation of the faith.
The Fatimids generously encouraged intellectual pursuits. Natural and philosophical inquiry enjoyed a free rein, and thrived. The culture of unhindered scientific thought attracted the finest minds of the age to the Fatimid court, whatever their religious persuasions: mathematicians and engineers like Ibn Haytham, astronomers like Ali b. Yunus; physicians like al-Tamimi, al-Israili and Ibn Ridwan. Nor was the scientific culture the preserve exclusively of men of letters and science, as efforts were made to popularise their learning. Al-Azhar, the chief Cairo mosque built by Imam/caliph al-Muizz in 972, was also a great centre of learning, generously endowed by the Fatimid Imam/caliphs. Dar al-Ilm, the House of Knowledge, established in Cairo in 1005 by Imam/caliph al-Hakim, was the first medieval institution of learning, a precursor of the modern university, which combined in its programme of studies a full range of the major academic disciplines, from the study of the Quran and Prophetic traditions through jurisprudence, philology and grammar, to medicine, logic, mathematics and astronomy. The institution was open to followers of different religions.
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In the last decade of the eleventh century, the Ismaili community suffered a schism over the succession to Imam/caliph Mustansir billah (d.1094). One section of the community followed his youngest son al-Mustali. The other gave its allegiance to his eldest son Imam Nizar from whom the Aga Khan, the present Imam of the Ismailis, traces his descent. The seat of the Nizari imamat then moved to Iran where the Ismailis had succeeded in establishing a state comprising a defensive network of fortified settlements. With its headquarters at Alamut, in Northern Iran, the Ismaili state later extended to parts of Syria. Though there were continual wars among Muslims over issues of power and territory, this period of Muslim history does not paint a simple canvas of one camp of enemies facing another. The military equation was further complicated by the presence of the Crusaders. Shifting alliances among all these different groups was the normal order of the times.
In spite of their continual struggle to keep powerful enemies at bay, the Ismailis of the Alamut state did not forsake their intellectual and literary traditions. Their fortresses housed impressive libraries whose collections ranged from books on various religious traditions and philosophical and scientific tracts to scientific equipment. Nor did the hostile environment force them to abandon their liberal policy of patronage to men of learning which benefited Muslim as well as non-Muslim scholars and scientists. Their settlements were a generous sanctuary for waves of refugees, irrespective of their creed, fleeing the Mongol invasions. It was these invasions by the Mongol hordes which, in 1256, brought about the destruction of the Ismaili state.
Baghdad, the Abbasid capital, fell a much easier prey to the Mongols, whose advances further west were checked by the Mamluk rulers of Syria and Egypt. The Syrian Ismailis were thus spared the Mongol atrocities. Many of the Ismailis of the Iranian lands found refuge in Afghanistan, the Oxus basin in Central Asia, China and the Indian subcontinent, where large Ismaili settlements had existed since the ninth century.
The Ismailis who remained in the Iranian lands had to protect themselves from hostile dynasties. Given the esoteric nature of their own tradition, aspects of which they shared with communities among both Sunni and Shia Muslims, Sufi tariqas provided welcome hospitality to the Ismailis. Though the Sufi orders then prevalent in the Iranian lands were predominantly Sunni, virtually all of them held the Prophet's family in high esteem. During this difficult phase, the Ismaili mission retained its resilience. Under the direction of each succeeding Imam, new centres of activity were established in the Indian subcontinent, Afghanistan, the mountainous regions of the Hindukush, Central Asia and parts of China.
The advent of Shia rule in fifteenth century Iran led to a number of opportunities for the Ismailis and other Shias. In time, the Shia Safawid rulers cultivated friendly relations with the Ismaili Imams, one of whom had married a Safawid princess. Later, under the Zands, the Ismaili Imams played an important role in governing the province of Kirman.
The Modern Period
As a result of migratory movements and mission activities in its history, the Ismaili community has come to settle in a wide spread of countries across the globe. Like the Muslim ummah as a whole, it represents today a rich diversity of cultures, languages and nationalities. Its traditions fall within four broad geographic and ethnographic groups: Central Asian, Persian, Arab and South Asian, all of them united by their allegiance to their present, 49th hereditary Imam, Prince Karim Aga Khan. Settlements in Africa primarily comprise Ismailis of Indian sub continental origins, while recent settlements in the West comprise Ismailis from all the above traditions.
The modern phase of Ismaili history began when the forty-sixth Imam, Aga Hasan Ali Shah, emigrated to India in the early 1840's. He was the first Imam to bear the title of Aga Khan, bestowed by the Persian emperor, Fath Ali Shah. He settled in Mumbai (Bombay) in 1848, where he established his headquarters. The event had an uplifting effect on the community in India and on the religious and communal life of the whole Ismaili world. It helped the community in India to gain a greater sense of confidence and identity as a Shia Muslim community, and to lay the foundations for its social progress. It also marked the beginning of an era of more regular contacts between the Imam and his widely dispersed followers. Their deputations came to Mumbai to receive the Imam's guidance from as far afield as Kashgar in China, Bokhara in Central Asia, all parts of Iran, the Middle East, the African coast and its then narrowly settled hinterland.
Aga Khan I died in 1881. He was succeeded to the Imamat by his eldest son Aga Ali Shah. Imam Aga Ali Shah assumed the title of Aga Khan II, and was honoured with the courtesy of His Highness, first granted to his father, by the British government. Building on the initiatives of his father, Aga Khan II set about the long-term task of social development of the community, with emphasis on education. He established a number of schools in Mumbai and other Ismaili centres. On the broader front, he served on the Bombay Legislative Council and was elected President of the Muslim National Association in recognition of his educational and other philanthropic efforts for the benefit of Indian Muslims generally, Shia and Sunni alike.
Aga Khan II passed away in 1885 after being the Imam for only four years. The institution of the imamat then devolved upon his son Sultan Mahomed Shah by Shams al-Mulk, a granddaughter of the Persian monarch, Fath Ali Shah. At the time of his accession, Imam Sultan Mahomed Shah, Aga Khan III, was under eight years old. At the age of nine he received the honorific title of His Highness from Queen Victoria.
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