1 00:00:06,520 --> 00:00:13,989 Good afternoon and welcome to our first session of the Oxford Political Thought Seminar with myself with some anatomy and 2 00:00:13,990 --> 00:00:22,510 physiology who are the co-convenor of a series of seminars that discuss political thought in an Islamic hate register. 3 00:00:23,170 --> 00:00:31,000 We cover everything from pre-modern to modern Islam, and we are delighted to invite some of the world's leading authorities on Islamic thought. 4 00:00:31,600 --> 00:00:39,909 And they usually join us in pairs discussing contemporary Islamic and medieval Islamic political thought, followed by a discussion. 5 00:00:39,910 --> 00:00:44,470 And this week, I'm really absolutely delighted to be able to welcome Valerie Hoffmann, 6 00:00:45,100 --> 00:00:49,270 emeritus professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. 7 00:00:49,840 --> 00:00:53,770 And she is a specialist on a range of areas and covers, 8 00:00:53,770 --> 00:01:01,240 has covered a very broad array of areas and engaged in considerable amount of ethnographic ethnographic work, 9 00:01:01,630 --> 00:01:10,870 and particularly in Egypt, but also in sort of on the coast of Africa, Zanzibar and is today here to speak about about this. 10 00:01:10,870 --> 00:01:15,970 And so this week's seminar is on the theme of dissent. 11 00:01:16,540 --> 00:01:24,250 And Valerie is speaking on charges of radicalism, about the Wahhabi polemics and the articulation of identity. 12 00:01:24,550 --> 00:01:27,820 She is, of course, one of the world's leading authorities on about Islam, 13 00:01:28,300 --> 00:01:34,000 a branch of Islam, which is very often under studied and under taught as well. 14 00:01:34,000 --> 00:01:38,650 And I'm sure your students will not be able to complain that at the University of Illinois. 15 00:01:39,130 --> 00:01:44,650 But with that, we're really delighted to have you, Valerie, and we really look forward to your presentation. 16 00:01:44,920 --> 00:01:49,840 And then Faisal, my co-convenor, and I will join you in a discussion thereafter. 17 00:01:50,290 --> 00:01:58,450 For any audience members, I would like to just remind you that you're more than welcome to ask questions in the chat. 18 00:01:58,570 --> 00:02:05,410 Those will show up for me and I will put them to Valerie in the latter half of this discussion. 19 00:02:06,010 --> 00:02:10,659 I would really take advantage of this because we are very fortunate just to have Valerie this week. 20 00:02:10,660 --> 00:02:16,930 So there's plenty of time for discussion and we look forward to seeing you every two weeks during term time. 21 00:02:17,260 --> 00:02:23,500 But I would like to first thank again Valerie for making the time, and you can take it from here. 22 00:02:23,560 --> 00:02:26,620 Thank you. Okay. Well, thank you so much. 23 00:02:26,620 --> 00:02:30,729 It's really an honour to be speaking with you. 24 00:02:30,730 --> 00:02:40,660 So I'm going to begin by recalling some violent incidents that occurred in the Valley, Algeria, 25 00:02:40,690 --> 00:02:55,510 which is one of the North African enclaves of where about the communities remain from November 2013 to April 2014 and then again in March 2015. 26 00:02:55,930 --> 00:03:03,370 Multiple violent incidents that resulted in more than 20 deaths, scores of people wounded, 27 00:03:03,370 --> 00:03:14,170 the desecration of it by the tools and the burning of many shops and homes and forcing hundreds of families to flee and of course, 28 00:03:14,470 --> 00:03:20,080 damaging the livelihood of many people, particularly about the merchants. 29 00:03:20,440 --> 00:03:28,959 So these incidents, which are known as Aftermath, about a day and a half day of being both the name of the province where it occurs, 30 00:03:28,960 --> 00:03:43,600 as well as the capital city of that province, were described by the media as ethno sectarian violence between it all the amazing and Maliki Arabs. 31 00:03:43,990 --> 00:03:55,180 Now, many writers disputed the idea that that really was ethno sectarian violence because if these and Maliki's had enjoyed peaceful 32 00:03:55,180 --> 00:04:04,390 coexistence for centuries and so there were other explanations offered economic and political changes that caused various problems. 33 00:04:04,750 --> 00:04:16,120 Some blamed criminal elements from up a part of the town of Artesia, which is popularly called Mexico, because of the power of local drug cartels. 34 00:04:16,850 --> 00:04:24,700 But all of that raises the question of why would violence occur at this particular point in time in particular. 35 00:04:25,180 --> 00:04:35,319 And so many writers thought that foreign hands were involved in trying to to damage Algerian national 36 00:04:35,320 --> 00:04:43,510 unity at a time when there was a lot of sectarian violence in some other countries of the Muslim world, 37 00:04:43,840 --> 00:04:52,030 while others said this is typical deflection of blame from a problem that is really home-grown. 38 00:04:52,030 --> 00:05:04,540 So another explanation was that the incidents were actually engineered by the government in preparation for the presidential election in April 2014. 39 00:05:05,050 --> 00:05:14,630 In which. Abdul Aziz beautifully was running for a fourth term as president, even though he had had a stroke in 2013. 40 00:05:15,110 --> 00:05:23,960 And the violence was meant to strike fear in the local population and convince them that they can only be safe if the current regime is re-elected. 41 00:05:24,710 --> 00:05:32,270 So I and eyewitnesses spoke of the complicity of police and security forces who encouraged criminal 42 00:05:32,270 --> 00:05:40,759 elements to attack Abadi homes and businesses and help them by tossing tear gas canisters into houses. 43 00:05:40,760 --> 00:05:53,570 Standing by idly while Maliki's entered and about the mosque and announced over loudspeakers from the mosque a jihad against the Baathists. 44 00:05:54,020 --> 00:06:04,100 So suspicions of the government's culpability seemed to be confirmed by the fact that the violence ended abruptly on April 17th, 45 00:06:04,130 --> 00:06:07,580 2014, the day of the presidential election. 46 00:06:08,120 --> 00:06:14,000 So as we know, sectarian violence can never be reduced to a single cause. 47 00:06:14,450 --> 00:06:18,140 So more than one of these explanations is plausible. 48 00:06:18,590 --> 00:06:23,630 But for purposes of this talk, because I'm talking about about the Wahhabi polemics, 49 00:06:23,870 --> 00:06:33,889 I'm going to focus on one explanation in particular, and that was that some people said Salafi sheikhs stirred up hatred for anybody. 50 00:06:33,890 --> 00:06:45,140 So I should just pause and say that in this talk, I'm sort of I'm using Wahhabi when I'm specifically referring just to Saudis, 51 00:06:45,500 --> 00:06:48,590 I realise that Wahhabis don't like to be called Wahhabis. 52 00:06:48,590 --> 00:06:53,930 They call themselves Salafis. But the word Salafi has many different meanings, right? 53 00:06:54,230 --> 00:07:06,010 But when we have sheikhs in Algeria who identify with the ideology of Saudi Arabia, they are typically called Salafi, right, rather than Wahhabi. 54 00:07:06,020 --> 00:07:11,420 So I just recognise that the appellations can be complicated. 55 00:07:11,990 --> 00:07:21,770 But in any case, the Saudi owned channel, it was blamed for disseminating hatred in Algeria. 56 00:07:22,190 --> 00:07:29,570 At the end of October 2013, a conference was held in Amman, Jordan on the topic, 57 00:07:29,990 --> 00:07:35,210 the coverage and their persistence until the time of the Antichrist at the jail. 58 00:07:36,440 --> 00:07:40,670 And of course, this language is drawn from Hadith, right. 59 00:07:40,680 --> 00:07:47,010 So it was about what does it all mean? And this program, which was broadcast on it. 60 00:07:48,230 --> 00:07:55,850 In this program, an Algerian sheikh identified the bodies as the Claridge of our time, 61 00:07:56,330 --> 00:08:01,980 describing them as unbelievers beyond the pale of the Omar and the Miller. 62 00:08:02,000 --> 00:08:05,389 I mean that just not beyond the pale of proper Islamic belief, 63 00:08:05,390 --> 00:08:12,469 but they're not even in the humour of Islam and citing proof texts from Hadith that allow the shedding of their blood, 64 00:08:12,470 --> 00:08:15,530 the violation of their women and the plunder of their property. 65 00:08:16,130 --> 00:08:27,470 So one Algerian reporter wrote from the first time this was broadcast a month ago, the flames of fitna, of discord in our day have increased. 66 00:08:27,920 --> 00:08:37,760 It is not a coincidence that its rebroadcast three days ago coincided with the first violent incidents after fanning the flames of Fitna. 67 00:08:38,090 --> 00:08:43,399 Demonstrations began right after the broadcast after six citizens were killed, 68 00:08:43,400 --> 00:08:49,190 more than 60 wounded, stores burned, property looted, families forced out of their homes. 69 00:08:49,550 --> 00:09:02,629 The demonstrations were by followers of the prophet who repeated the slogan that in the in the law, above the law, meaning there is no God but Allah. 70 00:09:02,630 --> 00:09:05,810 And if all these are the enemies of all of Allah. 71 00:09:06,590 --> 00:09:15,320 Now there are hadiths, of course, in which the Prophet Muhammad predicted the emergence of a group labelled America, 72 00:09:15,680 --> 00:09:20,570 that America means to fly, shoot or penetrate. 73 00:09:21,080 --> 00:09:24,440 It's linked to an expression of Islam. 74 00:09:24,560 --> 00:09:28,730 The arrow has passed through, meaning the matter is finished. 75 00:09:29,030 --> 00:09:38,270 And so in a Hadith, the Prophet said that people from my myanma will leave the religion as fast as an arrow leaves the bow and it's shot. 76 00:09:38,690 --> 00:09:41,600 You will look at the place where it lands. You'll see nothing. 77 00:09:41,960 --> 00:09:49,850 Now, most authors interpret this as a reference to the radical cowards that had traits of early Islam. 78 00:09:50,690 --> 00:09:55,790 And some versions encourage the Muslims to kill America wherever they find them. 79 00:09:56,390 --> 00:10:04,800 Now, as this audience probably knows the marriage or had it, Shi'ites originally were those who abandoned Ali. 80 00:10:05,150 --> 00:10:09,470 The Battle of Spain in the year 657 of the Common Era. 81 00:10:10,010 --> 00:10:21,140 When he agreed with his nemesis, Malawi hubby Sofiane agreed to the proposal to submit their disagreement to human arbitration. 82 00:10:21,770 --> 00:10:28,700 Those who rejected the arbitration were called Alma-tadema because of their slogan. 83 00:10:29,060 --> 00:10:32,630 Their hope is that there is no judgement but gods. 84 00:10:33,170 --> 00:10:39,110 The meaning of the term had a je or or a edge in the plural has been debated. 85 00:10:39,590 --> 00:10:44,840 Could mean leaving all these ami. Some say that it means they left the UN altogether. 86 00:10:44,870 --> 00:10:50,780 Some say it refers to their readiness to go out to wage jihad in the path of God. 87 00:10:51,650 --> 00:11:00,410 The adage split into various sects and the one that is most commonly thought of when people think of the fat, 88 00:11:00,410 --> 00:11:06,380 a giant label is the Salafis or Azhar, another group that was led by Nayef. 89 00:11:08,450 --> 00:11:12,319 And they, of course, are the most radical. 90 00:11:12,320 --> 00:11:18,379 They they're the ones who believe that the commission of grave sin or persistence in minor sin 91 00:11:18,380 --> 00:11:24,530 without repentance makes one an unbeliever who has committed apostasy and should be killed. 92 00:11:25,010 --> 00:11:30,440 And they said all true believers should migrate away from the society of unbelievers to 93 00:11:30,440 --> 00:11:38,540 their camp to do a new hijrah like the migration of the Muslims from Mecca to Medina in 622, 94 00:11:38,840 --> 00:11:42,710 and that they should wage war against the group's opponents. 95 00:11:42,980 --> 00:11:48,220 Those who did not join them should be killed, their property seized, their women and children enslaved. 96 00:11:48,800 --> 00:11:54,650 The Oslo police terrorised parts of what are today Iran and Iraq. 97 00:11:55,040 --> 00:11:59,720 But the movement was defeated and largely eliminated by the riots. 98 00:11:59,930 --> 00:12:04,790 Near the close of the second century. So they have existed for a very long time. 99 00:12:05,540 --> 00:12:10,070 Now other foreign Shiite groups rejected the necessity of a hijra. 100 00:12:10,700 --> 00:12:21,050 And although they also felt that the labels Muslim and believer should be reserved for observant members of their own group, 101 00:12:21,260 --> 00:12:24,890 and they felt, yes, it's a good thing to overthrow tyrants if possible. 102 00:12:25,070 --> 00:12:35,000 They also believed it is permissible to live peaceably together alongside other Muslims and to hide one's true beliefs in a hostile environment. 103 00:12:35,540 --> 00:12:41,450 And so that orientation includes the group that came to be called it Bodies. 104 00:12:41,900 --> 00:12:48,830 And today, if all these are the only remaining group that adheres to the position of the original Mahatma, 105 00:12:48,920 --> 00:12:53,719 those who rejected the arbitration bodies reject the label. 106 00:12:53,720 --> 00:12:59,060 Pat Achi Because people associate catechism with violence against other Muslims. 107 00:12:59,060 --> 00:13:05,250 And that's never been about the practice. It bodies, of course, are a distinct branch of Islam. 108 00:13:05,270 --> 00:13:13,820 They're not Sunni or Shiite, and they're a very tiny minority in the Muslim world, less than 1% of the world's Muslims. 109 00:13:14,480 --> 00:13:25,340 And although about ism emerged in Bosnia back in the eighth century, they were forced out of that region of southern Iraq through persecution. 110 00:13:25,670 --> 00:13:32,370 Most of them, since they were descended from tribes that had come from Arabia, went back to Arabia, but they had also. 111 00:13:32,450 --> 00:13:37,120 They also sent out missionaries, though, to North Africa, where about this? 112 00:13:37,120 --> 00:13:43,940 Some became a vehicle for indigenous people's rejection of the Arab conquests. 113 00:13:44,270 --> 00:13:55,520 And so upon the inmates, you know, states that were founded on the basis of liberalism were established in Oman, the remote Yemen and North Africa. 114 00:13:56,060 --> 00:14:03,350 But conquests by non embody groups and conversions out of a baptism to Sunni Islam 115 00:14:03,350 --> 00:14:09,830 led to a loss of about two sons hold on most of North Africa and all of Yemen. 116 00:14:10,610 --> 00:14:17,360 So the only state today that claims that the majority of its Muslims are anybody is the Sultanate of Oman, 117 00:14:17,900 --> 00:14:22,219 although there are disagreements about statistics. But that's what they claim. 118 00:14:22,220 --> 00:14:25,280 In any case in North Africa it bond. 119 00:14:25,280 --> 00:14:31,819 The communities may be found today in remote areas, the Mosab Valley in Algeria, 120 00:14:31,820 --> 00:14:43,160 the Nafusa mountains of northwest Libya and the island of Java in Tunisia as well, of course, as migrants to the capital cities of those countries. 121 00:14:43,820 --> 00:14:47,030 In addition, Omani rule in East Africa, 122 00:14:47,030 --> 00:14:53,870 which began as early as the 17th century and economic problems in Oman in the 19th 123 00:14:53,870 --> 00:15:00,080 century led to the migration of many bodies from the Omani interior to the Swahili coast. 124 00:15:00,380 --> 00:15:04,580 And there are some in market bodies that remain there today. Now, as. 125 00:15:04,970 --> 00:15:12,500 You may know had a G has been used as a pejorative label for all radical Muslim groups in the world today. 126 00:15:13,070 --> 00:15:19,190 Those that engage in terrorism against in violence against Muslim targets. 127 00:15:19,550 --> 00:15:26,930 So to call the about this whole adage is to imply that they are radical extremists that pose a danger to the Ummah. 128 00:15:27,860 --> 00:15:31,820 On the other hand, there have not been any the terrorist groups. 129 00:15:32,060 --> 00:15:41,330 On the contrary, most Muslim terrorists, as we know, have been inspired by Wahhabi Salafi attitudes and teachings. 130 00:15:42,170 --> 00:15:49,610 So if Bin Abdulwahab, the founder of the Wahhabi movement in the 18th century, as probably many of you know, 131 00:15:50,240 --> 00:15:57,560 drew on a humble tradition that deemed practice essential to faith, which is a point on which these actually agree. 132 00:15:57,980 --> 00:16:07,010 And whereas most Sunni Muslims would say that a muslim who doesn't pray, but who acknowledges the obligation of prayer is a negligent Muslim, 133 00:16:08,030 --> 00:16:14,600 I would say not just Wahhabi, but even many of the Hun bullets would say no such a. 134 00:16:14,840 --> 00:16:18,500 Anyone who abandons prayer is a Catholic is an unbeliever. 135 00:16:19,160 --> 00:16:22,910 The 12th century, Jose said such a person should be killed. 136 00:16:23,780 --> 00:16:28,460 And of course, as we know it, Abdullah Wahab, in the 18th century, 137 00:16:28,790 --> 00:16:38,450 considered popular veneration of holy places to be un-Islamic and to be tantamount to shift to polytheism. 138 00:16:39,050 --> 00:16:48,620 And he called on his supporters to fight against the polytheists until they adhere to monotheism, meaning the Wahhabi creed and way of life. 139 00:16:49,250 --> 00:16:56,719 He also didn't hesitate. Not in his theoretical writings, but in his sort of more informal, 140 00:16:56,720 --> 00:17:02,299 like his letters to denounce even humble scholars who didn't accept Wahhabi teachings, 141 00:17:02,300 --> 00:17:08,900 to denounce them as as far as not just Cathar, but guilty of [INAUDIBLE]. 142 00:17:08,990 --> 00:17:15,020 You know, I mean, Cathar talk about the meaning of that word a little bit later. 143 00:17:15,300 --> 00:17:18,000 Cathar is usually translated as unbelievers. 144 00:17:18,200 --> 00:17:25,910 In the case of a baptism, I prefer to use a different translation because Cathar can mean more than one thing anybody thought. 145 00:17:27,050 --> 00:17:34,760 Even Abdulwahab. Son Abdullah denied that Wahabis considered all other Muslims far. 146 00:17:35,540 --> 00:17:42,770 But Abdullah's son Sulaiman said that not only the Shia but non Wahhabi Sunnis are kofar. 147 00:17:43,430 --> 00:17:53,600 And when the Wahhabis captured Mecca in 1803, Sulaiman compelled all of these to give an oath of allegiance to the Wahhabi creep. 148 00:17:54,050 --> 00:17:58,160 And when they protested that they were being treated like Kafir, Sulaiman said, 149 00:17:58,160 --> 00:18:02,270 Well, we disavow all the people of our time except those who belong to our group. 150 00:18:02,630 --> 00:18:11,960 Yeah. So the the Egyptian Ottoman invasion of Wahhabi territory in the early 19th century 151 00:18:12,320 --> 00:18:17,740 led to the rise of a discourse of separation that had long lasting impact. 152 00:18:17,750 --> 00:18:28,459 I mean, right to this day, because Muhammad Ali, the ruler of Egypt who invaded Arabia on behalf of the Ottoman sultan, was successful. 153 00:18:28,460 --> 00:18:33,170 Many Saudi vassals sort of defected from the Wahhabi camp. 154 00:18:33,590 --> 00:18:39,260 And Suleiman saw this as a betrayal, not only of Wahhabism, but of Islam itself. 155 00:18:39,560 --> 00:18:45,620 He says that they said that such people have gone over to the enemy, to the land of idolatry, 156 00:18:45,950 --> 00:18:52,100 and he made it a requirement for all true Muslims to migrate to Wahhabi controlled territory. 157 00:18:52,820 --> 00:18:58,340 And, you know, this has had a long impact even into the 20th century. 158 00:18:58,970 --> 00:19:00,830 In the early 20th century, 159 00:19:00,830 --> 00:19:11,900 another Wahhabi sheikh expressed horror when he heard that some of the brethren who lived in Oman had made friends with their bodies. 160 00:19:12,140 --> 00:19:20,930 And he wrote that it's contrary to faith to be kind to Japanese bodies and to worshippers because they are kofar. 161 00:19:21,380 --> 00:19:31,100 And he cited Hadith that encourage true Muslims to kill such people, assuring them that they would be rewarded on the day of judgement. 162 00:19:31,850 --> 00:19:42,530 So Salafis have often regarded other groups, including their bodies, as part of a, you know, an insidious conspiracy to destroy Islam from within. 163 00:19:42,800 --> 00:19:46,100 And of course, they see themselves as the only ones who can save it. 164 00:19:46,460 --> 00:19:50,750 Now, the Saudi kingdom, of course, has moderated its practice. 165 00:19:50,750 --> 00:19:59,000 And I mean right with the beginning, beginning with the founder of the third Saudi state, Abdul Aziz Ansari. 166 00:20:00,100 --> 00:20:11,650 But Wahhabism, of course, in its doctrine, remains hostile to many deep rooted Islamic tendencies, including Sufism, Shi'ism, theology, 167 00:20:11,920 --> 00:20:18,729 etc. and really the hard won ethos of coexistence and tolerance, 168 00:20:18,730 --> 00:20:25,780 of a diversity of perspectives that really has characterised much of the history of Sunni Islam. 169 00:20:26,170 --> 00:20:35,350 Now, from the outset, Wahhabism critics compared Wahhabis to had its rights, by which they meant absolutely right. 170 00:20:35,560 --> 00:20:43,600 And so the Ottomans call them a despicable had a child sect referred to there had its swords that wreaked havoc 171 00:20:44,020 --> 00:20:52,120 on Muslim countries and it bothers also likened the Wahhabis to the Azhar in their practice of talk fear. 172 00:20:52,420 --> 00:20:55,290 I think, you know, Takfiri is a term so many of us use now. 173 00:20:55,290 --> 00:21:02,140 It probably doesn't need explanation, but it means accusing, calling other people unbelievers or polytheists. 174 00:21:02,620 --> 00:21:11,230 And also the demand of Hitler to their own territory was similar to the Azad and their bloody wars against other Muslims. 175 00:21:11,620 --> 00:21:19,029 So when the Wahhabis in the late 18th and early 19th century conquered much of what today is 176 00:21:19,030 --> 00:21:26,170 the Sultanate of Oman and convince many people in that area to embrace Wahhabi doctrines. 177 00:21:26,530 --> 00:21:37,329 The leading body scholar of Oman at the time, Abu Nabil Han Al-Harazi, rejected the idea that the Wahhabis could become bullies because he said, 178 00:21:37,330 --> 00:21:43,899 he believes don't declare the people of the people to be unbelievers or deem it permissible to kill them, 179 00:21:43,900 --> 00:21:53,110 enslave their children and plunder their wealth. So he said, these are US-Iraqi practices, which means that they've taken some things from humble ism, 180 00:21:53,110 --> 00:21:58,149 some things from us, some, and created something new. 181 00:21:58,150 --> 00:22:00,760 And he called Wahhabism a terrible calamity. 182 00:22:01,330 --> 00:22:10,390 And he said that there is no basis in religion to label members of the AUM as Muslim Muslim king polytheists. 183 00:22:10,710 --> 00:22:15,010 And so he said that Wahhabi are the metaphor of the Hadith. 184 00:22:15,010 --> 00:22:22,150 Right. And they are the real. So what you know, and that idea was adopted by other bodies as well. 185 00:22:22,420 --> 00:22:28,870 So we have an ironic situation in which the Baathists and Wahhabis accuse each other of being had a Shiite, 186 00:22:29,140 --> 00:22:36,820 meaning radical, while each group claims to be the only one that preserves the original Islam of the self. 187 00:22:37,360 --> 00:22:39,670 Okay. So the pious ancestors. 188 00:22:41,360 --> 00:22:50,510 Now, one thing I found interesting as I was learning about I look very much at the history, the history of the 19th century in Oman. 189 00:22:50,520 --> 00:23:01,640 It's one area that I really looked at a lot. British officers in the 19th centuries saw a great deal of similarity between Wahhabis antibodies, 190 00:23:02,000 --> 00:23:06,440 including a tendency toward Puritanism, if you like, 191 00:23:06,440 --> 00:23:14,990 and stern application of the law, prohibitions against smoking and against decorating mosques and tombs, 192 00:23:15,230 --> 00:23:18,900 a lack of veneration of saints and belief in their intercession. 193 00:23:19,520 --> 00:23:26,540 And some British observers even conflated the two groups thinking, for example, that hasn't been the case. 194 00:23:26,960 --> 00:23:39,900 Who was brought to power in 1868 as a result of concerns about the uprising that overthrew the ruler of Oman and put him in power as the imam? 195 00:23:40,460 --> 00:23:48,290 The British resident in the Gulf at the time described him as having strong Wahhabi views and tendencies. 196 00:23:48,290 --> 00:23:50,900 And so, you know, this idea that they're really the same. 197 00:23:52,890 --> 00:24:01,890 And so both groups do believe that only those who fulfil their religious obligations should properly be called Muslims and believers. 198 00:24:02,250 --> 00:24:09,840 Both groups prioritise the Koranic imperative of commanding the right, forbidding the wrong, and the abandoning. 199 00:24:09,840 --> 00:24:19,980 Conservatives who led a series of uprisings against the Sultanate of Oman in the 19th and early 20th century, referred to themselves as al-Mukhtar. 200 00:24:20,490 --> 00:24:29,520 Those who enforce obedience, which is a clear echo of the Wahhabi use of the term and the British political agent and must, 201 00:24:29,880 --> 00:24:33,690 when Hasan had been placed, was in power as the abad. 202 00:24:33,690 --> 00:24:40,290 The imam says that the metal restorer held the populace in Muscat in a vise of fear, 203 00:24:40,620 --> 00:24:48,840 issuing strict regulations about dress and public behaviour, prohibiting the use of tobacco and prohibiting music in public. 204 00:24:49,320 --> 00:24:55,140 They zealously strode the streets, cane in hand, vigilantly looking for backsliders. 205 00:24:55,860 --> 00:25:01,139 This description is quite resonant, isn't it, of Saudi Arabia's religious police. 206 00:25:01,140 --> 00:25:09,630 So you can understand perhaps some of this. Another thing that embodies the Wahhabi share is a strong emphasis on. 207 00:25:10,600 --> 00:25:20,780 The doctrine of alala or wala, as the Wahhabi say, which means loyalty or affiliation or association. 208 00:25:20,800 --> 00:25:27,860 On the one hand, Walla Walla here with Muslims and Bora Bora Bora Bora. 209 00:25:28,330 --> 00:25:37,120 Meaning dissociation or disavowal of those who are considered the enemies of God in order to maintain the purity of their communities. 210 00:25:37,150 --> 00:25:43,299 Both of them have really emphasised this doctrine and have a strong preoccupation 211 00:25:43,300 --> 00:25:47,530 with this distinction between those who were in and those who were out of the group. 212 00:25:49,280 --> 00:25:54,500 And so of course there is a chronic basis for these concepts. 213 00:25:55,250 --> 00:26:05,900 I'll just read a little description written by a 10th century Ebony scholar describing the behaviour appropriate to dissociation. 214 00:26:06,230 --> 00:26:16,100 He says the enmity of the Muslims for infidels, if they do the deeds of infidelity, is demonstrated by speaking harshly to them, 215 00:26:16,820 --> 00:26:24,720 hating them, separating from them, avoiding sitting with them, fighting them until they return to work on his command. 216 00:26:25,190 --> 00:26:35,450 Now, if out of fear the Muslims must practice dissimulation, hiding their views, then they'll just separate from them in their hearts and hate them. 217 00:26:35,450 --> 00:26:38,590 Deem them as miscreants, but not do not fight them. 218 00:26:38,600 --> 00:26:41,600 Right, because you have to have a certain strength to be able to fight them. 219 00:26:42,080 --> 00:26:47,900 And he says whoever doesn't dissociate from infidels is not a muslim. 220 00:26:48,230 --> 00:26:56,719 In God's eyes, one must separate and associate from anyone who commits a grave sin or persists in any act of disobedience to God, 221 00:26:56,720 --> 00:27:00,230 no matter who he is living or dead. Father or son. 222 00:27:00,230 --> 00:27:07,090 Distant or near. And this is somewhat similar to what Ethan Abdulwahab wrote. 223 00:27:07,480 --> 00:27:15,810 He wrote, A person's Islam is not sound, even if he is a monotheist towards God and deserts polytheism, 224 00:27:16,150 --> 00:27:22,390 unless he is hostile to polytheists and declares to them his hostility and hatred. 225 00:27:23,640 --> 00:27:31,890 So the Wahhabis had this belief that society was composed of antithetical forces, of true Muslims on the one hand, 226 00:27:31,890 --> 00:27:38,340 and polytheists on the other, and then those, of course, who pretended to be true Muslims, the hypocrites. 227 00:27:38,340 --> 00:27:48,590 Right? Okay. Now, about these don't condone violence against anyone except oppressive rulers and their supporters. 228 00:27:48,740 --> 00:27:58,430 And then only if you have an adequate number of people who have pledged themselves to the cause to make it potentially successful. 229 00:27:59,180 --> 00:28:07,500 But their writings nonetheless reflect a similarly stark perspective of a society composed of antithetical forces of good and evil. 230 00:28:07,520 --> 00:28:12,320 At least the writings from the pre-modern period certainly do that. 231 00:28:12,650 --> 00:28:21,620 And so the liberal system strengthens the feeling of being a member of a closed and cohesive community. 232 00:28:22,040 --> 00:28:30,140 Those who violated community laws, especially in North African communities, would be excommunicated. 233 00:28:31,810 --> 00:28:40,070 Anybody in the. Mosab told me that in former times, a person who deviated from community laws would be denounced publicly in the mosque. 234 00:28:40,280 --> 00:28:45,560 The entire community would dissociate from him and even his wife, but would not speak to him, 235 00:28:46,040 --> 00:28:51,140 which encouraged the miscreants hasty public repentance and restoration to the community. 236 00:28:51,170 --> 00:29:00,050 So in this way, the community was sort of kept very cohesive and the religious scholars had a great deal of authority. 237 00:29:00,320 --> 00:29:06,530 Now this type of bara as communication no longer exists among all these, 238 00:29:07,010 --> 00:29:16,159 but some of the commentators on those violent incidents in Calderdale describe Sunni resentment of the insularity 239 00:29:16,160 --> 00:29:23,000 of about the communities in the Mosab and the refusal of IT bodies to marry outside their own community. 240 00:29:23,600 --> 00:29:25,460 So I find that rather interesting. 241 00:29:25,910 --> 00:29:32,960 Now, despite the alleged, you know, the similarities that are there between the bodies and Wahabis that the British observed, 242 00:29:33,170 --> 00:29:40,880 the British also commented favourably on about the friendliness and tolerance, you know, so that. 243 00:29:41,900 --> 00:29:45,559 Actually, I read one quote in particular because I really like this one. 244 00:29:45,560 --> 00:29:52,880 The British official, W.H. Ingram, who spent time, a lot of time in Zanzibar as well as in the hadramout, 245 00:29:53,420 --> 00:29:57,889 said he would rather live among it bodies than among Baptists or Methodists, 246 00:29:57,890 --> 00:30:04,610 because in his experience, if all these are the most tolerant people in the matter of religion, I have known. 247 00:30:05,300 --> 00:30:08,090 So now this may strike you as odd, 248 00:30:08,090 --> 00:30:16,340 considering everything I just said about Wilayat and Bara and the idea that only pious if all these could really be Muslims and believers. 249 00:30:16,670 --> 00:30:27,620 I will acknowledge that there is a certain disconnect between sort of the theoretical aspects of it, but the belief in its classical versions. 250 00:30:27,620 --> 00:30:32,720 I think that the has changed a great deal, especially in Oman. 251 00:30:33,500 --> 00:30:37,610 So disconnect between that theory and actual practice in actual practice. 252 00:30:37,910 --> 00:30:45,770 You really don't see any signs of disapproval, even let alone a disavowal of anybody's. 253 00:30:46,430 --> 00:30:54,980 And there are also important differences. And one of the biggest differences is the interpretation of Kufr, which is usually translated as unbelief. 254 00:30:55,430 --> 00:31:04,870 I prefer to translate Kufr as infidelity or unfaithfulness because the parties distinguish that [INAUDIBLE] would be, 255 00:31:05,000 --> 00:31:08,870 which would be the unfaithfulness of unbelief. 256 00:31:09,140 --> 00:31:15,710 On the one hand that would be polytheism. And they say no member of the old man should ever be accused of polytheism. 257 00:31:17,190 --> 00:31:23,730 That's one type. But then those who are either have errors in their doctrine. 258 00:31:23,910 --> 00:31:32,010 They're not advancing. Or if all these who commit grave sins and don't repent are also unfaithful to God. 259 00:31:32,490 --> 00:31:42,480 And so that type of infidelity is called for, if not the unfaithfulness of hypocrisy or NAMA. 260 00:31:42,810 --> 00:31:48,540 And here Kufuor means ingratitude, you know, just as the Koran contrasts a shackling. 261 00:31:48,840 --> 00:31:52,260 Catherine Right. The grateful and the ungrateful. 262 00:31:52,440 --> 00:31:58,350 So in this case, the Kofar Nama are those who are ungrateful to God for His blessings. 263 00:31:59,040 --> 00:32:06,149 So they also insist that all members of the honour should have the same legal rights, 264 00:32:06,150 --> 00:32:11,820 regardless of their sect or their level of piety, including the rights of intermarriage. 265 00:32:11,820 --> 00:32:19,860 In theory, which is interesting, since I just said Sunnis complain that their bodies won't let probably their daughters marry Barry. 266 00:32:19,860 --> 00:32:26,370 Not bodies. But in theory, intermarriage, mutual inheritance, praying together. 267 00:32:26,880 --> 00:32:37,470 No problem. Bodies have no problem. Praying behind a on body let behind anonymously the Imam Mosque prayer for their dead burial in cemeteries. 268 00:32:37,470 --> 00:32:42,960 Greeting with the Muslim greeting all of these and of course, eating the meat that they sacrificed. 269 00:32:43,200 --> 00:32:47,070 All of these are rights for all the entire Ummah. 270 00:32:47,550 --> 00:32:54,780 The Wahhabis, on the other hand, have at least historically regarded those who did not embrace their doctrines as polytheists. 271 00:32:54,780 --> 00:33:02,850 And the Sheikh Abdul-Aziz bin vase, who was the Saudi mufti and probably the most important, the leading Saudi scholar of the 20th century. 272 00:33:03,510 --> 00:33:10,980 When asked if it was permissible to pray with the party, said, no, it is not permissible to pray with the parties. 273 00:33:11,460 --> 00:33:19,260 Other embodied doctrines that distinguish them from the hobbies are they deny that the prophet will intercede for grave sinners. 274 00:33:19,620 --> 00:33:23,520 And so anyone who's in hellfire is going to remain there. 275 00:33:23,790 --> 00:33:30,180 And they reject all anthropomorphic descriptions of God as being literally true. 276 00:33:30,210 --> 00:33:34,680 So they're similar to the Montezuma and in interpreting them in a metaphorical fashion. 277 00:33:34,950 --> 00:33:38,760 They deny the possibility of seeing God in the afterlife. 278 00:33:39,570 --> 00:33:44,220 They also say the Quran is a creative expression of God's speech. 279 00:33:44,230 --> 00:33:47,940 It's not identical with an eternal divine attribute of speech, 280 00:33:48,330 --> 00:33:57,450 and they have confidence in the efficacy of human reason to know of the existence of God and something of His nature. 281 00:33:58,930 --> 00:34:03,310 And there are minor differences in practice, which is usually what people are aware of. 282 00:34:03,640 --> 00:34:07,030 If artists play with their hands, stamp out their sides, things like this. 283 00:34:08,940 --> 00:34:15,360 And it parties, even though they don't have Sufi orders and they don't make pilgrimages to tombs. 284 00:34:16,140 --> 00:34:22,350 Nonetheless, many bodies have been drawn to Sufi teachings, to a sort of mystical sense. 285 00:34:22,380 --> 00:34:31,440 And the leading party scholars in Oman in the 19th century and early 20th century, many of them were, 286 00:34:31,620 --> 00:34:37,440 you know, composed, mystical poetry, wrote commentaries on April 14th, poetry, things like this. 287 00:34:38,270 --> 00:34:43,550 And this is a strong contrast with Wahhabi rejection of mysticism in any form. 288 00:34:44,090 --> 00:34:48,739 And who has said it bombed? These are not literalists in matters of theology, 289 00:34:48,740 --> 00:34:57,110 and they dismiss Wahhabis and handbills and anyone else who takes the anthropomorphic descriptions of God literally as hushed. 290 00:34:57,130 --> 00:35:02,660 We're dealing with an irrational acceptance of literal texts. 291 00:35:03,690 --> 00:35:10,860 And. Whereas, Sunni Muslims idealise the generation of the prophet and his companions and say that the great fitna, 292 00:35:10,860 --> 00:35:20,010 the great Civil War that broke out mere 34 years after the Prophet's death was a legitimate disagreement in matters of each to have. 293 00:35:20,640 --> 00:35:25,140 That's often what is said among people who were all righteously abhor these. 294 00:35:26,040 --> 00:35:30,299 Don't accept that. They believe that the third caliph, Osman Ibn, 295 00:35:30,300 --> 00:35:35,640 often abandoned righteousness after the first six years of his rule that ultimately 296 00:35:35,640 --> 00:35:41,520 he deserved to be assassinated when he refused either to abdicate or to repent. 297 00:35:42,180 --> 00:35:50,060 And that Marwa and his supporters. Who rejected the rightful imamate of the fourth Caliph Ali. 298 00:35:50,330 --> 00:35:53,030 Were rebels who committed grave injustices. 299 00:35:54,540 --> 00:36:00,089 You know, one thing that I do want to say is that, of course, doctrines and practices aren't static, right? 300 00:36:00,090 --> 00:36:03,540 They're subject to social and political influences. 301 00:36:03,870 --> 00:36:09,870 And, you know, the founder of the third Saudi state rejected a lot of the precedent. 302 00:36:09,870 --> 00:36:12,930 He lifted travel restrictions to other countries. 303 00:36:13,380 --> 00:36:18,959 He sent his sons on diplomatic missions. He had Arab advisers from Ottoman lands. 304 00:36:18,960 --> 00:36:22,410 He had Westerners come in and advise on economic development. 305 00:36:22,710 --> 00:36:26,070 He abstained from treating the Shia as idolaters. 306 00:36:26,910 --> 00:36:28,350 But in doing this, of course, 307 00:36:28,350 --> 00:36:38,759 he rejected parts of the Wahhabi heritage that have been preserved by either more conservative ulema or by radical jihadi groups, 308 00:36:38,760 --> 00:36:41,210 as we know, the nicest today. 309 00:36:42,980 --> 00:36:55,879 In East Africa, a textbook that was written by anybody in 1920, said that it's okay to feel love in one's heart for a non-white body. 310 00:36:55,880 --> 00:37:05,660 If he's nice to you that that doesn't matter. As long as you also in your heart have acknowledged that this is not a religious affiliation, 311 00:37:06,080 --> 00:37:09,799 that it doesn't affect behaviour, that the prophet was kind to everyone. 312 00:37:09,800 --> 00:37:19,590 We can be too. And finally, in Oman, since Sultan Qaboos came to power in 1970, one of some big changes, 313 00:37:19,590 --> 00:37:29,540 there's been a dramatic sectarian ascension of people to some so that no sectarian teachings are allowed in schools or mosques. 314 00:37:29,900 --> 00:37:35,330 And this has led to the rise of a whole generation of Omani two generations 315 00:37:35,330 --> 00:37:40,160 even who don't really know what makes a body so different from anybody else. 316 00:37:40,820 --> 00:37:50,450 And so if bodies have come to see, look at all of these sectarian borders as kind of ridiculous as well as horrifying. 317 00:37:51,520 --> 00:38:01,140 They see themselves as the moderates par excellence, tolerant of everyone, able to mediate in the sectarian disputes of the Middle East. 318 00:38:01,150 --> 00:38:10,810 And the one thing, though, the mufti of Oman, who's been the same person since 1975, Sheikh Ahmed Al-khalili, 319 00:38:11,650 --> 00:38:21,910 says that dissociation is important from those who are unjust and therefore scholars who support unjust rulers. 320 00:38:21,910 --> 00:38:26,740 And plenty of that in the Middle East. Right should be subject to dissociation. 321 00:38:26,980 --> 00:38:32,410 So he denies that if bodies dissociated from Sunnis or Shia. 322 00:38:33,660 --> 00:38:47,580 He supports the unification of the OMA, but he believes that it is totally wrong to endorse the policies or support the unjust ruler. 323 00:38:47,610 --> 00:38:52,680 So I'm going to end at this point. There is a lot more that could be said, but. 324 00:38:53,730 --> 00:38:59,820 We'll stop here and let's. I'd be very happy to hear your questions and comments. 325 00:39:00,360 --> 00:39:01,769 Thank you so much, Valerie. 326 00:39:01,770 --> 00:39:09,750 That's really a wonderful kaleidoscopic view of both the sort of early theological debates and the resonances with some of the 327 00:39:10,230 --> 00:39:18,629 other theological traditions from early Islam down to the present current geopolitical concerns across different nations. 328 00:39:18,630 --> 00:39:26,100 And I'm really happy that you got a call now because I'm going to probably ask a question about him soon enough. 329 00:39:26,490 --> 00:39:35,520 But first, I wanted to invite you if you wanted to ask any questions, and I naturally have a whole host of questions related to this. 330 00:39:35,520 --> 00:39:41,819 And I wanted to also let the participants know the sort of people who are joining us from around the world. 331 00:39:41,820 --> 00:39:49,020 Actually, if you have any questions, please feel free to put them in the chat and we'll definitely come to them if you'd actually like to, 332 00:39:49,020 --> 00:39:56,730 because there's a sort of a relatively familiar crowd with us this afternoon. 333 00:39:57,000 --> 00:40:04,020 If you'd like to ask a question in person, I can let you sort of get hold of the mic at some point since we have a bit of time as well. 334 00:40:04,260 --> 00:40:09,299 But first, let me turn to you face at least thanks very much for some and thanks very much, Valerie. 335 00:40:09,300 --> 00:40:15,960 That really was fantastic. And you know, as he was speaking, I thought to myself in so many ways, 336 00:40:17,100 --> 00:40:26,160 some of these tensions seem to be as a manifestation of what Freud might have called the narcissism of minor differences. 337 00:40:27,720 --> 00:40:35,040 And it's precisely, as it were, the similarities that create the conflict rather than the differences. 338 00:40:35,040 --> 00:40:45,119 Because the problem is how do you actually signify and identify the differences in in this situation, especially in contemporary times, 339 00:40:45,120 --> 00:40:54,150 when you know the name courage, your courage has become almost a kind of universal term of castigation. 340 00:40:54,270 --> 00:41:01,260 Right? Anyone can be called it, as you so nicely pointed out, embody and call a Wahhabi authority. 341 00:41:01,830 --> 00:41:12,090 You know, so-called moderate Muslims can call militant ones, al ISIS prodigy, and they do very frequently and the reverse. 342 00:41:12,420 --> 00:41:19,890 So in a way, it's almost as if the terminology has become a universal identifier that I find really fascinating. 343 00:41:21,360 --> 00:41:33,879 It's a such an ancient term and B belongs, as you nicely point out, to such a small less than 1% of the current population of Muslims in the world. 344 00:41:33,880 --> 00:41:37,140 So there's something, bizarrely, if you will. 345 00:41:37,170 --> 00:41:41,129 Apart from the theological and political issues involved, 346 00:41:41,130 --> 00:41:49,500 there's something of a psychic or psychological nature or ideological see that allows for this kind of thing to happen. 347 00:41:49,980 --> 00:41:55,290 And I just want to add one more thing and then ask you to comment, which is that, you know, 348 00:41:55,290 --> 00:41:59,729 when you're describing the British officials who are well disposed towards the bodies, 349 00:41:59,730 --> 00:42:05,160 of course, many of the same ones are also well disposed to the lobbies and some of the reasons, 350 00:42:05,160 --> 00:42:10,530 because they see them as harking back to their own Protestant and Puritan past. 351 00:42:11,430 --> 00:42:22,440 And as a result, perhaps you see modernist Muslims falling into the same kind of logic where, you know, Wahhabism gets to be seen. 352 00:42:22,980 --> 00:42:31,020 The philosopher Muhammad Iqbal or a writes in in colonial India as the first problem of modernity in Islam. 353 00:42:32,360 --> 00:42:43,670 It's interesting because your story could tell give us an alternative genealogy of such a modernity if we want to go down that road at all, 354 00:42:43,880 --> 00:42:51,020 you know, through descent and through what scholars have indeed done through the idea of the republic or Republicanism. 355 00:42:51,410 --> 00:42:53,299 And so I find it really fascinating, 356 00:42:53,300 --> 00:43:00,560 just as I have always been or regularly been seen since the 19th century in Western scholarship as being rationalists, 357 00:43:01,130 --> 00:43:05,960 the embodies or the coverage have often been seen as being the first Republicans. 358 00:43:06,950 --> 00:43:08,780 And surely this tells upon, 359 00:43:08,870 --> 00:43:19,610 I'm sure it's entirely anachronistic to use these terms held on the modernist Muslim scholarship and perhaps one on sort of more diffuse. 360 00:43:20,600 --> 00:43:24,770 Ideas among diverse Muslim populations. 361 00:43:24,780 --> 00:43:33,499 And so it's a bit of a shaggy dog question, but I just wanted to get in the different ways in which terms like coverage or 362 00:43:33,500 --> 00:43:39,810 indeed Wahhabi have been deployed from the 19th century until today and then ask, 363 00:43:39,830 --> 00:43:47,630 you know, how those deployments actually might effect the strange similarities that you pointed out. 364 00:43:48,140 --> 00:43:51,650 Right, conflicts that come out of similarity rather than difference. 365 00:43:52,520 --> 00:44:00,260 Well, I think you're raising Freud's phrase narcissism of minor differences is so perfect because 366 00:44:01,130 --> 00:44:08,000 my husband is a psychoanalytic psychologist and we have long conversations on these issues. 367 00:44:08,000 --> 00:44:13,790 And I don't claim to really fully understand it. But what I have found is that there's been. 368 00:44:15,100 --> 00:44:25,659 Quite an interesting literature in the last decade, couple of decades on trying to explain the rise of fundamentalism not just in the Muslim world, 369 00:44:25,660 --> 00:44:30,670 but in the world at large from a psychoanalytic perspective. 370 00:44:31,930 --> 00:44:45,310 I'm interested also in trying to understand why we're about this able to give up this idea of purity as the main goal. 371 00:44:46,570 --> 00:44:49,620 You know, purification, of course, never ends, right? 372 00:44:50,230 --> 00:45:01,720 No one is ever going to get to the certification of the entire world and globalisation where you are constantly encountering other points of view. 373 00:45:02,140 --> 00:45:05,210 Despite the closed worlds we create on social media, 374 00:45:05,230 --> 00:45:15,490 we still encounter others and are therefore challenged with regard to our own ideas of uniquely holding on to the truth. 375 00:45:16,030 --> 00:45:25,389 And that dynamic can lead either to more openness or to more closeness, really, 376 00:45:25,390 --> 00:45:32,200 depending on the extent to which you identify this as a threat to who you are. 377 00:45:33,160 --> 00:45:41,110 So I am interested in, you know, one thing I haven't talked about, and it's not really a matter of reinterpreting it this. 378 00:45:41,740 --> 00:45:50,080 But what I find very interesting is that the Ministry of Religious Affairs in Oman has, you know, 379 00:45:50,080 --> 00:45:56,260 it had a travelling exhibit, I don't know if you saw it in England on religious tolerance in Oman. 380 00:45:57,010 --> 00:46:02,530 And the Omani version of Islam is total tolerance. 381 00:46:02,530 --> 00:46:09,399 And in a way this is really true. I mean, in Oman, the sultan has given lands to Hindus to build temples. 382 00:46:09,400 --> 00:46:16,600 Buddhists can practice, anyone can practice. So it goes even beyond what we would normally consider the monotheistic religions. 383 00:46:16,600 --> 00:46:23,380 Although I should note that Jews and Christians are called mystical in classical, partly literature. 384 00:46:23,560 --> 00:46:25,720 So they're not just Cathar, they're musical. 385 00:46:26,200 --> 00:46:39,310 But the journal that was published and actually edited by Abderrahmane me from the ministry was called a found Mutual Understanding. 386 00:46:40,180 --> 00:46:46,810 And that was really actually it was Abdel Rahman Hassan, his uncle Abdullah me. 387 00:46:47,980 --> 00:46:51,100 Who wrote a book called. 388 00:46:52,160 --> 00:47:00,400 Religious tolerance, a vision for a new world in which he said that without understanding each other's religious point of view, 389 00:47:00,410 --> 00:47:07,400 he said, all religions aim to promote good morals and kindness, etc. love. 390 00:47:07,820 --> 00:47:13,220 And therefore we need to understand each other and not feel threatened by each other. 391 00:47:13,400 --> 00:47:17,810 He felt that the future of humanity was really premised on this. 392 00:47:18,200 --> 00:47:21,620 So I feel that that is very interesting. 393 00:47:21,860 --> 00:47:31,849 So this has been a part of of Oman's present self-presentation to the world and John Wilkinson in his book on it. 394 00:47:31,850 --> 00:47:32,320 But this I mean, 395 00:47:32,330 --> 00:47:40,219 it was just a minor point that he said at the end when he talked about how if all of these present themselves as peaceful and they are moderate, 396 00:47:40,220 --> 00:47:48,250 they are nice people. And he said, I wonder if niceness is going to be enough to excite young people in Oman. 397 00:47:48,980 --> 00:47:51,560 I thought that was an interesting question. 398 00:47:52,310 --> 00:48:04,340 But whatever I think the question of not only what causes groups to radicalise, but what causes groups to embrace moderation and openness. 399 00:48:04,700 --> 00:48:07,790 It's part, of course, a strategic thing. Right. 400 00:48:07,880 --> 00:48:12,020 Bodies are a tiny minority. And in the you know, 401 00:48:12,020 --> 00:48:23,270 in their bodies until the mid-19th century called themselves film in which they were a had a giant sect according to their own literature, 402 00:48:23,270 --> 00:48:29,660 for the most part. Sometimes, however, they also used outrage as a code term for the Azhar. 403 00:48:30,800 --> 00:48:40,170 But in the late 19th century, with the growth of pan Islamic sentiment, we start having the issuance of a body works. 404 00:48:40,190 --> 00:48:46,520 Talk about the difference between the apologies and the whole adage that if all these are not and that is, 405 00:48:47,270 --> 00:48:51,560 you know, like a gut reaction now just because we are not caloric. 406 00:48:52,010 --> 00:49:00,540 And even Abdirahman Salameh objected in an article that I wrote to my even saying that they were he said, 407 00:49:00,560 --> 00:49:05,960 don't use the word Houthis, use the word Mahatma. I said that no one's going to know what that means. 408 00:49:06,020 --> 00:49:19,700 At least they know what it means. So in any case, I think that, yes, as one psychoanalyst who deals with international diplomacy actually make Vulcan. 409 00:49:20,730 --> 00:49:28,730 An emeritus professor at the University of Virginia. He uses the image of a tent that we all have these different identities, right? 410 00:49:28,740 --> 00:49:37,950 And so there is the big tent and then there's the smaller tent. And at each level, you have to have symbols to to show what group this is. 411 00:49:38,310 --> 00:49:48,090 So that when there are, as he said, similar to what Floyd was saying, when there are minor differences or seemingly minor differences, 412 00:49:48,090 --> 00:49:52,560 it becomes even all the more important to symbolically differentiate. 413 00:49:53,040 --> 00:49:59,729 Now, in this case, I think in terms of. Attitudes towards others about these. 414 00:49:59,730 --> 00:50:09,870 And what happens today are very, very different. So in spite of all of this theoretical similarity in the language, you know, 415 00:50:09,880 --> 00:50:19,950 another advocate scholar in common with whom I was co-writing an article objected to my saying that anybody's regard. 416 00:50:20,490 --> 00:50:22,680 No, anybody's as far. 417 00:50:23,790 --> 00:50:32,970 So I gave him a whole bunch of quotes from different ibs-c literature, past and recent, and he finally went, okay, so you know the literature, okay. 418 00:50:33,360 --> 00:50:44,010 So clearly he didn't want me to spread what he knew to be true because it does not reflect contemporary upon the attitudes at all. 419 00:50:44,550 --> 00:50:48,240 And I think it's interesting that Nepal is a very proud of the baptism. 420 00:50:48,450 --> 00:50:54,360 The state of Oman promotes the publication of about the same as a part of Omani heritage. 421 00:50:54,720 --> 00:50:59,160 But there are parts of that heritage that they don't want disseminate it. 422 00:50:59,170 --> 00:51:10,650 There's one book that was written in, I think, the 15th, 16th century that is really adamant about how horrible all nine groups are. 423 00:51:10,800 --> 00:51:16,400 That book is banned in Oman, even though at first they published it that they went, Oops, that was mistake. 424 00:51:16,410 --> 00:51:27,510 Let's get rid of that one. Likewise, back in 2005, there was an announcement of a discovery of a plot to overthrow the government. 425 00:51:27,960 --> 00:51:35,670 Wow. What is that? Well, it was just a study group of intellectuals who were studying the requirements of the traditional way by the imamate. 426 00:51:35,970 --> 00:51:43,170 That is a threatening thing to do in a sultanate about ISM theoretically does not endorse dynastic rule at all. 427 00:51:44,130 --> 00:51:48,720 So Oman was a very wise ruler. 428 00:51:49,290 --> 00:51:55,890 He was, yes, had a little power in his hands, but he also knew how to exercise it with a great deal of wisdom. 429 00:51:56,160 --> 00:52:00,060 So after these people were all sentenced to prison terms or whatever. 430 00:52:01,450 --> 00:52:05,919 He swooped in and pardoned them all and took their leaders and gave them official 431 00:52:05,920 --> 00:52:10,870 positions in the Ministry of Religious Affairs and thereby co-opting them. 432 00:52:10,870 --> 00:52:14,470 And so he was very, very, very smart. 433 00:52:14,680 --> 00:52:24,790 When he came to power, there was still a significant a body rebellion that was being conducted mainly from Saudi Arabia. 434 00:52:24,820 --> 00:52:32,110 Interestingly enough, the the leaders of the former, if not the inmate who were defeated by Sultan Qaboos, 435 00:52:32,110 --> 00:52:40,120 his father, the in Timor in the late 1950s, had fled into exile in Saudi Arabia. 436 00:52:40,510 --> 00:52:51,820 And Saudi Arabia didn't mind agitating things, you know, roiling the situation there in Oman and Sultan Qaboos, however. 437 00:52:53,150 --> 00:53:02,420 Through offering positions and offering money, was able to get some of the inmates supporters to come back and help build a new country. 438 00:53:03,750 --> 00:53:05,219 Others never came back. 439 00:53:05,220 --> 00:53:20,340 But he was ultimately recognised by the son of the leader of the last rebellion that established the separate imamate in Oman in 1913. 440 00:53:20,850 --> 00:53:21,989 His son Mohammed, 441 00:53:21,990 --> 00:53:30,750 who had earlier written about how Imamate and Sultanate are constantly at odds because they're based on such totally different ideas. 442 00:53:31,320 --> 00:53:41,310 But ultimately, he met with Probus and recited a poem which I found written in his own hand in his library in Oman, 443 00:53:42,030 --> 00:53:45,330 in which he praised purpose for his justice. 444 00:53:45,810 --> 00:53:51,660 And so to praise him for his justice, that's an acknowledgement that he is a legitimate, good man. 445 00:53:52,530 --> 00:53:58,260 So I feel like, you know, it's very interesting the changes that have happened to them. 446 00:53:58,620 --> 00:54:03,989 One brief question, if I may, Osama as a by myself, I just would like to think, 447 00:54:03,990 --> 00:54:11,640 but I may be completely wrong that some of these changes you describe actually may have originated in Zanzibar, 448 00:54:12,930 --> 00:54:14,790 because, of course, they occurred there first. 449 00:54:16,020 --> 00:54:25,200 And then after the revolution in 1964, you have the migration of many Zanzibar east to Oman, where they established in the civil service. 450 00:54:25,320 --> 00:54:32,720 You know the story better than I do. And in Zanzibar, of course, there wasn't an absolute monarchy by the time of the revolution. 451 00:54:32,730 --> 00:54:36,420 It was a constitutional monarchy with political parties. 452 00:54:36,450 --> 00:54:40,330 It was not an experiment that ended well. And this is now exile. 453 00:54:40,980 --> 00:54:49,670 But it just makes me wonder whether actually the peculiar circumstances of East Africa that became a kind of laboratory for sure. 454 00:54:49,990 --> 00:54:53,380 All the reform. I agree with you. 455 00:54:53,400 --> 00:55:04,680 I think that we really see this in the of just say the leader of the the uprising of 1913 was Nordine Salame, 456 00:55:05,580 --> 00:55:09,300 who was actually the great grandfather of the man of Salame, by the way. 457 00:55:09,570 --> 00:55:17,610 And so it was his grandson who became the Minister of Religious Affairs, Abdullah Salame. 458 00:55:17,970 --> 00:55:21,510 Until recently he stepped down from that position. 459 00:55:21,510 --> 00:55:30,690 But but the new Minister of Religious Affairs was one of the organisers of the Religious Tolerance in Oman exhibit. 460 00:55:30,690 --> 00:55:35,100 So I anticipate that there will be continuity there. 461 00:55:35,940 --> 00:55:49,050 In any case, what? I guess some Iraqis in Zanzibar had written to the Salame because he was the leading scholar of that generation. 462 00:55:49,740 --> 00:55:54,660 In the very beginning of the 20th century and said, you know, 463 00:55:55,410 --> 00:56:06,720 is there are some there are Muslims here who send their children to schools that have been set up by the Christians, meaning, you know, Europeans. 464 00:56:08,250 --> 00:56:12,420 And by then, of course, Zanzibar was a British protectorate, 465 00:56:12,810 --> 00:56:18,990 but there had been missionary groups of various types that had had a set up schools and hospitals. 466 00:56:19,410 --> 00:56:31,290 And people are learning foreign languages and people are modifying their dress to include a European style jacket on top of their, 467 00:56:32,370 --> 00:56:36,510 you know, the dishwasher, the the robe that they're wearing. 468 00:56:36,520 --> 00:56:44,890 So. And he replied, Oh, and some people are even trimming their beards, so. 469 00:56:45,130 --> 00:56:50,320 And no, Regina Salame replied that none of this is acceptable. 470 00:56:50,440 --> 00:57:02,530 Down a bit and you really see, you know, here he is a blind scholar in the interior of Oman and you are contrasting this this environment. 471 00:57:02,530 --> 00:57:10,599 And he, of course, was a was the leader of a land uprising that didn't manage to conquer all of Oman, 472 00:57:10,600 --> 00:57:17,710 but managed to conquer the interior and establish an image in the interior while the Sultanate remained on the coast. 473 00:57:18,160 --> 00:57:24,250 And so the distinction between the interior and the coast became very important. 474 00:57:24,460 --> 00:57:30,640 But I think, yes, in Zanzibar, in Zanzibar was so incredibly cosmopolitan, really. 475 00:57:30,640 --> 00:57:36,610 And so I think that the amount of interaction, the friendships that were formed, 476 00:57:36,970 --> 00:57:44,820 really strong friendships between the bodies and other people, other Muslim groups, including amongst all the. 477 00:57:45,310 --> 00:57:55,240 I think that you're right. It has you know, and sometimes I, I see some contradictions in the person, for example, of Abu Mazen, 478 00:57:55,240 --> 00:58:01,960 a Bahraini who was a great poet, but also a judge and a religious scholar in Zanzibar. 479 00:58:02,200 --> 00:58:08,080 He's the one who wrote that textbook saying, you know, it's okay to have affection just in that kind of thing. 480 00:58:08,090 --> 00:58:17,440 But he was a big supporter of Noureddine Asylum's Uprising, considered himself the poet of of the revolution. 481 00:58:17,440 --> 00:58:22,000 And all of this the the Hassan have been savage of this new uprising. 482 00:58:22,300 --> 00:58:36,610 But he also wrote to encourage Muslims to unify, to face colonialism and even for Egyptian Muslims and Copts to unify and to make common cause. 483 00:58:37,000 --> 00:58:48,280 And so, you know, these apparent contradictions are, I think, a reflection of the compartmentalisation of the self that we all do. 484 00:58:48,310 --> 00:58:59,770 Right? We we all wear many hats and sometimes we wear the professor hat, sometimes we wear the parent hat or or the, you know, the national hat. 485 00:58:59,770 --> 00:59:06,520 So whatever hat it is or the religious identifier, hat, whatever it is that you're wearing. 486 00:59:07,480 --> 00:59:12,219 And so he could, at the same time, be an aunt and support him. 487 00:59:12,220 --> 00:59:23,650 You should read his poetry, how he praises the martyrs of the massacre who were slaughtered by Ali at at number one. 488 00:59:24,160 --> 00:59:29,559 And he says, We are thirsting to drink from the waters of Nero one. 489 00:59:29,560 --> 00:59:41,740 He's number one, which was Halley's massacre of the early house, which is becomes as symbolically important as Karbala for the for the Shia. 490 00:59:41,830 --> 00:59:47,530 Right. And so this desire to participate in that, I mean, that is about as sectarian as you can get. 491 00:59:47,800 --> 01:00:00,040 But on the other hand, he also promotes pan-Islamic sentiment and even nationalist sentiment when it is favours, when it's a good thing to do. 492 01:00:00,670 --> 01:00:05,520 I didn't really answer your question, but I think it it's an it fascinating thing this reflection of complicated. 493 01:00:06,070 --> 01:00:09,160 But I did want to say one thing about the Zanzibar and and Oman. 494 01:00:10,990 --> 01:00:20,920 I happened to sit in on an audience that Sheikh Abdullah me, when he was minister of religious affairs, gave to a visiting professor, 495 01:00:21,100 --> 01:00:34,210 a muslim professor from the US who had a group of students with him and one of and the professor asked him a question about autism and he replied, 496 01:00:34,900 --> 01:00:43,510 It's in Arabic. But he replied, The autism of Oman is unlike the about autism that you see elsewhere, because we are people of the sea. 497 01:00:44,770 --> 01:00:51,879 And so this influence of maritime culture that we interact and I felt this was incredibly interesting because he was 498 01:00:51,880 --> 01:00:58,440 the grandson of the man who set up the Imamate in the interior of Oman in opposition to the Sultanate of the coast. 499 01:00:58,450 --> 01:01:05,430 And so but he says we are people of the sea and therefore our Arabism is different from that of others. 500 01:01:05,440 --> 01:01:10,630 I found that really fascinating. Thank you so much, Valerie. 501 01:01:10,780 --> 01:01:16,569 I mean, I've got so many questions, but we've only got around 20 minutes or so. 502 01:01:16,570 --> 01:01:20,350 So, I mean, I'm sure we'll be able to cover a lot of terrain, 503 01:01:20,770 --> 01:01:28,330 but I also don't want to sort of prevent this from coming back because I was really enjoying that discussion on both of your parts. 504 01:01:29,020 --> 01:01:34,090 Just the last thing you mentioned about poetry and saying poetry in praise of, you know, another one. 505 01:01:34,570 --> 01:01:37,440 It reminded me of and even had who? 506 01:01:37,510 --> 01:01:44,140 Is a sort of prominent hierarchy from the earliest generations get exactly when he died and he has a famous kind of poem. 507 01:01:44,800 --> 01:01:50,420 I'll just read the first line. Yeah. A little button. Yeah, that'll better mean the theme rather than the other logo. 508 01:01:50,440 --> 01:01:53,090 I mean, the luxury liner was a, you know, 509 01:01:53,110 --> 01:02:01,270 what a wonderful strike from a man of Toccoa who didn't want to do anything but give contentment to his lord or something like that. 510 01:02:02,020 --> 01:02:06,309 This was in praise of the killer of Ali. Right. And and that I love. 511 01:02:06,310 --> 01:02:11,080 And Hepburn is someone who is highly regarded as a narrator by Sunnis as well. 512 01:02:11,590 --> 01:02:21,280 But they always say, you know, they can be trusted in transmitting because they think anyone who sort of like commits a major sin is outside the deen. 513 01:02:21,820 --> 01:02:30,219 So we can certainly trust them as transmitters of Hadith. But it's just fascinating the the diversity of sort of perspectives that you have. 514 01:02:30,220 --> 01:02:36,370 And I guess, I mean, like the question that I spend some time thinking about is at what point does a position become sectarian? 515 01:02:36,970 --> 01:02:40,250 And that's just so contingent on so many different dimensions. 516 01:02:40,810 --> 01:02:46,270 One of the things that you mentioned was that, you know, in a sense, brothers and by becoming moderates. 517 01:02:46,570 --> 01:02:50,000 Now, the question for the next generation is, well, why should I be above? 518 01:02:50,140 --> 01:02:55,810 Like, what's special about this? This is just like anodyne, you know, liberalism, shall we say? 519 01:02:55,840 --> 01:03:04,450 Right. I mean, like this one of the closing paragraphs in Francis Fukuyama, this book saying the end of history is going to be a boring place, right? 520 01:03:05,710 --> 01:03:13,060 No, there's nothing nothing will excite people. It's just going to be about calculation and sort of like profit margins and things like that. 521 01:03:13,640 --> 01:03:20,500 Of course, we're seeing the resurgence of European right and we're seeing the resurgence of all sorts of problematic movements around the world. 522 01:03:21,340 --> 01:03:27,640 And I think I guess one of the questions I had was, what does the future hold now that, you know, bodies have reached the end of history? 523 01:03:27,700 --> 01:03:34,479 Right. But besides that, I also wanted to sort of query one of the points you made earlier, 524 01:03:34,480 --> 01:03:42,160 saying that the abandonment and abandonment of Salat or prayer is what constituted cover for the Wahhabis. 525 01:03:42,550 --> 01:03:50,140 And you were saying, yes, some of the said this medieval era, but it's actually not too dissimilar to what a lot of Sunnis say more generally. 526 01:03:50,560 --> 01:03:57,370 It's just I guess the Wahhabis would put those words in action because there's an explicit Hadith from the prophet, 527 01:03:57,370 --> 01:03:59,280 which the Sunnis at least would consider canonical. 528 01:03:59,290 --> 01:04:06,370 I'm not sure about the traditions, but I expect the above these too as well, where the Prophet says a lot of you were being venomous. 529 01:04:06,470 --> 01:04:14,200 Salah commentary together you know, the, the covenant that they've taken with me, meaning the believers is prayer. 530 01:04:14,260 --> 01:04:15,670 Whoever leaves it is a disbeliever. 531 01:04:16,210 --> 01:04:21,640 And, you know, this is the same problem that you have with various hadiths where the prophet says such and such an act is Kufr. 532 01:04:21,940 --> 01:04:24,970 Is that literally kafir or is it some kind of metaphorical effect? 533 01:04:25,570 --> 01:04:29,770 And so the early jurists, including Ahmed Hamdan, said this is actually Kufr. 534 01:04:30,490 --> 01:04:36,220 In fact, most of the jurists, as far as I know, said that, you know, someone who does this and persists is non-believer and should be killed. 535 01:04:36,700 --> 01:04:43,850 Only the hanafi talking Sunni jurists. Only the Hanafi say it's kufr, but they should be imprisoned and beaten until they stop praying. 536 01:04:44,770 --> 01:04:49,210 Right. Which so. So the jurists, actually, it is pretty standard for opinion. 537 01:04:49,540 --> 01:04:55,000 I think the you know, in practice, it must have been on it in the breach more than in the observance. 538 01:04:55,510 --> 01:05:03,550 And that's why when the Wallabies come and start practising this and you know, in reality it really shocks the, shocks people's consciousnesses. 539 01:05:03,880 --> 01:05:10,120 So I just want to maybe a reflection on that and you know, if we have some more time we can go into other things. 540 01:05:10,120 --> 01:05:14,230 But I think, you know, I don't want to prevent myself from coming back. 541 01:05:14,470 --> 01:05:19,410 It's fine. So please. Not sure I have a real response. 542 01:05:19,410 --> 01:05:24,149 I think that you raise some. Interesting points. 543 01:05:24,150 --> 01:05:29,400 I think it's still the case that in the discussion of the meaning of email, 544 01:05:30,600 --> 01:05:39,719 it is Sunnis who non-random Sunnis have said Imam is, you know, the acknowledgement of belief. 545 01:05:39,720 --> 01:05:50,640 The profession of faith is just fowl. Whereas the humble said it was you know I'm a and so the about these are similar that way but I think you're 546 01:05:50,640 --> 01:05:57,630 right of course that to articulate it is one thing is it actually going to be practised is another issue. 547 01:05:57,690 --> 01:06:03,030 So yeah, I agree with that. Any speculations on the future of the baptism in the context? 548 01:06:03,030 --> 01:06:06,390 It's like it just became maybe not distinct in any way in a sense. 549 01:06:06,960 --> 01:06:11,910 Well, actually, I think it these are. 550 01:06:12,910 --> 01:06:22,620 Very proud of their of their beliefs. You know, the mufti actually has written a lot of in defence of evangelism, 551 01:06:22,660 --> 01:06:34,059 but his most recent work as Magnum Opus is a multi-volume work called Borehole Hut The Demonstration of the Truth, 552 01:06:34,060 --> 01:06:39,760 in which he devotes an entire volume to a single aspect of Dr. No. 553 01:06:39,760 --> 01:06:47,079 He's finished the theology parts now. He's getting into the into the fifth part, which is less interesting to me personally. 554 01:06:47,080 --> 01:06:59,200 Sorry. But, you know, he has this belief that any reasonable person who really will look without fanaticism or excessive 555 01:06:59,470 --> 01:07:06,340 allegiance to the amounts of his school will will recognise the reasonableness of the body doctrine. 556 01:07:06,550 --> 01:07:09,490 And there are many people who agree with him on this. 557 01:07:09,970 --> 01:07:20,500 So I think even though that doesn't in any way prevent harmonious coexistence with many other people, 558 01:07:20,500 --> 01:07:29,260 I think that many of the intellectuals are still very, very firm about their distinctiveness. 559 01:07:29,260 --> 01:07:33,729 Now, this is just the intellectuals I did, you know, until recently, 560 01:07:33,730 --> 01:07:43,060 there was no way to pursue a post bachelor degree in Islamic studies and theology in Beaumont. 561 01:07:43,090 --> 01:07:48,340 Now, that has changed. They now have one at public university. 562 01:07:48,670 --> 01:07:55,360 So they have the the College of Study of Sciences, which used to be an independent institute, 563 01:07:55,360 --> 01:08:00,400 and now it's a college that's been incorporated into some sort of university. 564 01:08:00,730 --> 01:08:05,990 And they have a faculty of about the non-party faculty there. 565 01:08:06,400 --> 01:08:11,250 So so at that time, when there was no way of, 566 01:08:11,260 --> 01:08:20,919 of pursuing a master's or doctorate in Islamic studies without going to another country where you're inevitably going to study in a Sunni institution. 567 01:08:20,920 --> 01:08:24,879 Now, they didn't go to Saudi Arabia for, I think perhaps understandable reasons. 568 01:08:24,880 --> 01:08:31,210 They tended to prefer the best university in Jordan or the Zaytuna University in Tunis. 569 01:08:32,020 --> 01:08:38,169 But I asked the mufti, are you at all afraid about that? 570 01:08:38,170 --> 01:08:44,220 People will be converted to Sunni Islam will fall away, that there will be no future for him? 571 01:08:44,230 --> 01:08:53,590 And he was unconcerned, which I thought was interesting. I interviewed a number of Alema Abadi alumni who had done their studies. 572 01:08:53,590 --> 01:08:57,430 I asked about their experience of doing it and what it made them think. 573 01:08:57,430 --> 01:09:03,280 Most of them, interestingly enough, ended up writing their dissertations on a subject related to modernism. 574 01:09:03,490 --> 01:09:09,550 But there have, of course, been converted to Sunni Islam. 575 01:09:11,850 --> 01:09:22,670 You know, I asked the former dean of law at Sultan Corpus University about I said, you know, asked him about the future of the baptism. 576 01:09:23,010 --> 01:09:26,620 Right. And his reaction was, who cares? 577 01:09:26,640 --> 01:09:30,030 The differences are secondary issues that no one cares about anymore. 578 01:09:31,240 --> 01:09:37,680 I mean, so I mean, can I can I actually add to the anecdote you mentioned of the you know, 579 01:09:37,950 --> 01:09:44,220 that I think you said the mufti seeming unconcerned that they would potentially leave a body Islam to something like mainstream citizen. 580 01:09:44,580 --> 01:09:49,100 And I mean, this may be a result of that sort of an attitude. 581 01:09:49,110 --> 01:09:56,700 When I was a student as an undergraduate at Oxford and this is back in the 2000, I was studying with a scholar, 582 01:09:56,700 --> 01:10:03,180 Mohammed Akram, that we who was at the Centre for Islamic Studies, and he once commented that, 583 01:10:03,510 --> 01:10:12,450 you know, I, I've had like a buddies come here and visit me with converts to Islam saying, oh, you know, 584 01:10:12,450 --> 01:10:17,180 this person converted after spending time with us and we'd like you to take care of sort of teaching him. 585 01:10:17,190 --> 01:10:24,140 And this was a South Asian Hanafi. And I mean, he just was very admiring of the openness. 586 01:10:24,150 --> 01:10:27,150 He was saying that they're not sectarian at all. Right. 587 01:10:27,690 --> 01:10:34,169 And and so he has he maintains sort of good relations with a lot of about these who are you know, 588 01:10:34,170 --> 01:10:40,049 this Oxford Centre for some studies is interesting because it's kind of like a constellation of funding from throughout the Muslim world, 589 01:10:40,050 --> 01:10:46,380 including probably online at some point. So they'll have scholars associated with there in different orientations coming in attending. 590 01:10:47,100 --> 01:10:53,069 And he says that he always loves his sort of Abadi compatriot Abadi colleagues 591 01:10:53,070 --> 01:10:57,180 when they join because he always finds them so open minded and so sort of like, 592 01:10:57,630 --> 01:11:03,560 you know, there's no sense of we're not Sunni either. And this is where I mean, like you were also saying earlier that, you know, 593 01:11:03,570 --> 01:11:10,200 they are historically they're very distinct from Sunnis and they're very much in the Martha City tradition. 594 01:11:10,210 --> 01:11:17,100 And you kind of expect that with the hierarchy sort of history, except with regard to predestination, 595 01:11:17,460 --> 01:11:23,860 they're they are like the ascetic, sexually and well-fed modelling, said Alicia. 596 01:11:23,880 --> 01:11:28,080 He took his doctrine from the abilities that the apostles had at first. 597 01:11:28,710 --> 01:11:32,750 Okay. All right. So I'm sorry, who said this modelling? 598 01:11:32,760 --> 01:11:36,960 Said this model, then said yes. All right. So I'm going to have to look that one up. 599 01:11:37,530 --> 01:11:40,980 Madeleine, as always, the careful surgical reader. 600 01:11:41,820 --> 01:11:47,940 Yes. But just in terms of like, you know, that history, 601 01:11:48,120 --> 01:11:52,920 I wanted to ask you specifically about the transition or the democratic transition of the last century and a half. 602 01:11:52,930 --> 01:12:00,390 So the Wahhabis emerge and suddenly encourages them is a dirty word, because the Ottomans, the Saudis, everyone's sort of accusing the Saudis. 603 01:12:00,660 --> 01:12:04,070 And I use that term advisedly. I mean. Right, right, right. 604 01:12:04,650 --> 01:12:06,660 But they're accusing them of being carnage. 605 01:12:07,200 --> 01:12:15,059 And this continues, of course, in the present because not towards the sort of Saudi Salafi tendency as much anymore. 606 01:12:15,060 --> 01:12:18,060 But now in the middle of the 20th century. 607 01:12:18,450 --> 01:12:20,760 Geoffrey Canada has a wonderful book called Muslim Rebels, 608 01:12:21,120 --> 01:12:26,130 where he looks at the way the Egyptian as her state starts attacking the Muslim Brotherhood. 609 01:12:26,640 --> 01:12:29,850 And this has been revived in the post revolutionary context. 610 01:12:30,340 --> 01:12:35,820 And so the term I was very interested to hear that you were saying is being deployed against cyber these in 2014. 611 01:12:36,180 --> 01:12:40,320 This mirrors exactly what's going on in Egypt in 2013 against the Muslim Brotherhood. 612 01:12:40,860 --> 01:12:49,409 And so I sort of wonder now that term is completely sort of like so sullied in the public imagination that they're saying, 613 01:12:49,410 --> 01:12:53,010 look, you know, don't associate us with the holidays. You've got nothing to do with them. 614 01:12:53,430 --> 01:13:02,040 And doesn't that have a fundamental it does not represent a fundamental shift in how you sort of identify your own genealogy historically. 615 01:13:02,040 --> 01:13:06,090 I wonder about that question as well and your own view. 616 01:13:07,090 --> 01:13:13,500 Know that would be my last sort of question. Well, yes, I don't know. 617 01:13:13,580 --> 01:13:15,360 Is it a fundamental difference? 618 01:13:15,720 --> 01:13:27,060 I mean, even some very early epistles written by about these scholars talk about alpha wattage when they really mean all the other events, you know. 619 01:13:28,300 --> 01:13:41,810 So. And they have always stressed the difference between them because the coverage allowed the killing of Muslims, etc., etc. and and pardon. 620 01:13:42,760 --> 01:13:47,640 You know, that's really the America not is really the exotica. 621 01:13:47,970 --> 01:13:52,680 And yet sometimes I have found that in the early about the epistles, 622 01:13:52,680 --> 01:13:58,440 they simply talk about shortage, meaning that sometimes they talk specifically about other groups. 623 01:13:58,920 --> 01:14:10,020 They also tend to lump the nature that and the are sometimes even the three who are really we don't even know of any differences, 624 01:14:10,020 --> 01:14:17,549 doctrinally speaking, between the Sufi and the we don't even know much about the Sufi except that there were three states, 625 01:14:17,550 --> 01:14:24,620 you know, political entities in North Africa, and there were safaris for a while in Oman as well. 626 01:14:24,630 --> 01:14:33,510 But so sometimes they want to make such a distinction that we are the ones who know the proper thing, and that even if we're at war, 627 01:14:33,780 --> 01:14:39,989 we may kill someone in war, but we're not going to go and enslave his wife and children or destroy his property, you know? 628 01:14:39,990 --> 01:14:42,300 So they make this absolute distinction. 629 01:14:42,660 --> 01:14:50,930 One thing I just thought of something interesting, because despite the the fact that these don't go around saying, you know, 630 01:14:50,940 --> 01:15:03,240 we dissociate from Sunnis or or emphasising that distinction, I was invited to participate in a panel on evolving tafsir when the world. 631 01:15:04,850 --> 01:15:13,520 Middle East Studies Congress the block miss World Congress on Middle East studies was held in Ankara back in I don't know again, 632 01:15:13,850 --> 01:15:25,190 it was a number of years ago now but they and then in the Turkish organiser of that panel had me and the 633 01:15:25,190 --> 01:15:34,430 other panellist who is an Omani Abadi and some of his friends over for dinner and after we had eaten. 634 01:15:35,760 --> 01:15:41,730 They got into an argument over the verse, the chronic verse that talks about. 635 01:15:42,770 --> 01:15:50,360 A radical right, you know, and that whole question of who can know, you know, 636 01:15:51,800 --> 01:16:01,100 because there's no period is that are those well who are well-grounded knowledge, do they simply acknowledge God or can they know something? 637 01:16:01,400 --> 01:16:07,550 They got into a big argument over it. The about this scholar upholding the idea that our intellects are able to know. 638 01:16:07,910 --> 01:16:18,379 Right. And the Sunni scholars insisting that we cannot, especially in one of the Sunnis, was really quite Salafi in orientation, actually. 639 01:16:18,380 --> 01:16:21,890 So I found that very interesting. 640 01:16:22,130 --> 01:16:25,760 I finally put an end to it because I had to get back and go to bed. 641 01:16:25,760 --> 01:16:30,740 I was leaving at three in the morning, but it could have just gone on and on and on. 642 01:16:31,040 --> 01:16:38,419 I think I just found it fascinating so that they could that this is a very important distinction. 643 01:16:38,420 --> 01:16:44,870 It's something that for that is only going to be of significance to scholars, of course, right to the whole up. 644 01:16:44,870 --> 01:16:56,719 But for anybody either to insist that Islam is right, at least on theology, interestingly enough, 645 01:16:56,720 --> 01:17:02,600 on matters of law, they say we just have to accept we don't know the difference between right and wrong. 646 01:17:02,600 --> 01:17:09,590 We just have to accept what God commands. But on matters of theology, they insist on the efficacy of human intellect. 647 01:17:09,920 --> 01:17:19,700 And so I think that this has become this is a very important part of the about these scholars self-perception, that we are rational. 648 01:17:20,330 --> 01:17:25,370 And if only everybody else would open their minds, they could be convinced to. 649 01:17:28,780 --> 01:17:36,700 Thank you so much, Valerie. This has really been a sort of wonderful, wide ranging discussion on so many dimensions of about this. 650 01:17:36,700 --> 01:17:39,820 And I don't know if they said if you'd like to add anything to that. 651 01:17:41,130 --> 01:17:46,620 It's a face that is shaking his head just so that the audience is understanding what's going on, 652 01:17:46,620 --> 01:17:54,629 because they'll only be able to people who are speaking. I guess I would love to conclude by first thanking Valerie for really illuminating 653 01:17:54,630 --> 01:17:58,770 hour and a half of reflections on the developments within about this. 654 01:17:58,770 --> 01:18:04,110 And I'm just going to briefly sort of mention what's going to come up in two weeks time. 655 01:18:04,110 --> 01:18:06,030 So we're having fortnightly presentations. 656 01:18:06,450 --> 01:18:14,700 So just as we conclude, I want to mention that we're having bodyboarding with Nadia Abu Ali talking about the left in Islamic political thought. 657 01:18:14,970 --> 01:18:18,360 So Fadi will be talking about a nation class and community, 658 01:18:18,780 --> 01:18:27,060 and Nadia will be speaking talking about speaking on is is the heart for the east and reason for the West. 659 01:18:27,390 --> 01:18:33,870 So a very different sort of we're trying to do sort of pre-modern and then modern than pre-modern. 660 01:18:33,870 --> 01:18:39,790 Modern. But of course, Valerie, your own presentation covered just the whole swathe, the history. 661 01:18:39,900 --> 01:18:43,590 So we got a lucky break this week, shall we say. 662 01:18:44,250 --> 01:18:48,390 So just wanted to conclude again by thanking you for giving your time, 663 01:18:48,660 --> 01:18:54,120 illuminating us and thanking all the participants this week who are attending 664 01:18:54,120 --> 01:18:58,200 from around the world and looking forward to seeing you in two weeks time. 665 01:18:58,590 --> 01:19:02,160 But with that, I'll bring preceding circles for this evening. 666 01:19:02,670 --> 01:19:05,760 Thanks again, Valerie. Thank you. Thank you very much. 667 01:19:05,760 --> 01:19:06,390 That was great.