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Bismillahi Al-Rahmani Al-Rahim
Al-Harawi al-Ansari AL-HARAWI AL-ANSARI by GF Haddad - Qasyoun@ziplip.com- Rabi` al-Awwal 1424 `Abd Allāh ibn Muhammad ibn `Alī Abū Ismā`īl al-Harawī al-Ansārī al-Hanbalī (396-481), a major Sūfī shaykh, hadīth Master, Qur'ānic commentator, and philologist of the Hanbalī school eulogized by al-Dhahabī as "a genuine advocate of the transmitted sources" (atharī quhh). He used to distribute his wealth once a year to students and townspeople and was fearless in speaking the truth to princes He is one of those known as "Shaykh al-Islām" but Ibn al-Subkī said: "He does not deserve that title but was given out of fanaticism, in imitation of Abū `Uthmān [al-Sābūnī]."1 A fanatical censor of innovations, he was an arch-enemy of Ash`arīs in his time, against whom he wrote Dhamm al-Kalām ("The Blame of Dialectic Theology"), admired by al-Dhahabī but banned by Ibn Hajar - who forbade his students to read it - as a model of bad writing.2 Because of this enmity he was expelled from Balkh repeatedly and jailed together with his students Asked before Nizām al-Mulk's court why he cursed Abū al-Hasan al-Ash`arī, he replied: <<I do not know Abū al-Hasan, but I curse whoever does not firmly hold that Allāh is in the heaven, or that the Qur'ān is in the mushaf, and says that the Prophet - Allah bless and greet him - today is no longer a prophet!>> To hold that Allāh is located in, above, or below the heaven is anthropomorphism; to hold that the mushaf is pre-eternal is indwelling (hulūl); finally, al-Ash`arī and his School never held that the Prophet - Allah bless and greet him - today is no longer a prophet but the reverse.3 Another work al-Harawī compiled in refutation of Ash`arīs is al-Fārūq fīl-Sifāt - also known as al-Fārūq fīl-Farq bayn al-Muthbita wal-Mu`attila - in which he states: "Allāh is in the seventh heaven (fī al-samā' al-sābi`a) over the Throne (`alā al-`arsh) Himself (bi nafsihi)" and "in (fī) as well as over (`alā) the seventh heaven."4 A third work compiled against Ash`arīs, al-Arba`īn fīl-Tawhīd is replete, like the Fārūq, with blatant anthropomorphism and hadīth forgeries Perhaps the most extreme illustration of anthropomorphism ever authored by a purportedly Sunni authority, it contains about forty chapters, among them: "Exposition on the Fact that Allāh Most High is Something (shay')"; "Exposition of the Fact that Allāh Most High is a Person (shakhs)"; "Affirmation of the Fact that Allāh Most High has a Limit (hadd)"; "Affirmation of the Fact that Allāh Most High has Sides or Directions (jihāt)"; "Affirmation of the Fact that Allāh Most High has an Image (sūra)"; "Affirmation of His Handwriting (khatt)"; "Affirmation of the Fact that Allāh Most High has Fingers (asābi`)"; and - in conclusion - "The Prohibition of Delving Too Deep into the Divine Attributes"!5 Upon the encouragement of a female relative, Bībī Nāzānīn, al-Harawī al-Ansārī met then became the student of the unlettered Naqshbandī Shaykh, Khwājā Abū al-Hasan al-Kharqānī (d 425).6 He authored several treatises detailing the principles and methods of the Sūfī path Among them: o Manāzil al-Sā'irīn ilā al-Haqq al-Mubīn, frowned upon by Ibn al-Qayyim, al-Dhahabī, Ibn Rajab, and characterized by their teacher Ibn Taymiyya as "falling into the doctrine of incarnationism (hulūl)"7 and "ending up in literal merging with the Divine (haqīqat al-ittihād),"8 of which Ibn al-Qayyim wrote an expurged version -cum-critical commentary entitled Madārij al-Sālikīn. o Tabaqāt al-Sūfiyya ("Synchronical Layers of the Sūfī Masters"), the expanded version of an earlier work by the - Ash`arī - Shaykh Abū `Abd al-Rahmān al-Sulamī (d 411) bearing the same title. o `Ilal al-Maqāmāt ("The Pitfalls of Spiritual Stations"), his testament, describing the characteristics of spiritual states for the student and the teacher in the Sūfī path; Ibn Taymiyya in his Minhāj al-Sunna again said that al-Harawī filled it with notions of indwelling and union-with-the-Divine.9 o Sād Maydān (in Persian, "The Hundred Fields"), a commentary on the meanings of love in the verse: {If you love Allāh, follow me, and Allāh will love you} (3:31). This book collects al-Harawī's lectures in the years 447-448 at the Great Mosque of Herat (in present-day Afghanistan) in which he presents his most eloquent exposition of the necessity of following the Sūfī path. He is also said to have devoted three hundred and sixty sittings to the commentary of the verse {Lo! those unto whom kindness has gone forth before from Us, they will be far removed from thence [Hellfire]} (21:101). o Kashf al-Asrār wa `Uddat al-Abrār (in Persian, "The Unveiling of the Secrets and the Harness of the Righteous"), in ten volumes by al-Maybūdī, it contains al-Harawī's Qur'ānic commentary. Al-Harawī al-Ansārī is documented by al-Dhahabī in his Tārīkh al-Islām and Siyar A`lām al-Nubalā', Ibn Rajab in his Dhayl Tabaqāt al-Hanābila,10 and Jāmī in his book in Persian Manāqib-i Shaykh al-Islām Ansārī11 among others. Main source: Siyar 14:38-48 §4333. NOTES 1Ibn al-Subkī, Tabaqāt al-Shāfi`iyya al-Kubrā (4:272-273). 2As mentioned by Ibn Hajar's student al-Sakhāwī in the introduction to al-Jawāhir wal-Durar. 3See on these notions Shaykh Nuh Keller's article, "Is It Permissible for a Muslim to Believe that Allāh Is in the Sky in a Literal Sense?" at http://www.masud.co.uk/ and Ibn `Abd al-Salām's al-Mulha in general, especially the section entitled "Proofs Against Those Who Claim the mushaf is Pre-Eternal". On the attribution to Ash`arīs of the heretical notion that "the Prophet - upon him peace - today is no longer a prophet," see our notice on Ibn Fūrāk at https://www.livingislam.org/n/shf_e.html. 4As quoted by al-Dhahabī in Mukhtasar al-`Uluw (p. 278 §339 and p. 151 §150). 5More alarming yet is the characterization of the above as "Salafī doctrine" (al-`aqīda al-salafiyya) by al-Harawī's admirer `Abd Allāh ibn Muhammad al-Ansārī in his recent 5-volume edition of Dhamm al-Kalām (1:83, 1:86). 6The Naqshbandī chain of masters at the time of al-Kharqānī is as follows: Abū Yazīd al-Bistāmī > Abū al-Hasan al-Kharqānī > Abū `Alī al-Farmadī (al-Ghazzālī's teacher) > Abū Yūsuf al-Hamadānī > Abū al-`Abbās al-Khidr > `Abd al-Khāliq al-Ghujdawānī. 7In his Majmū` al-Fatāwā (5:126, 5:230, 14:11, cf. 5:485, 8:317). 8In his Minhāj al-Sunna (1986 ed 5:342). 9As quoted in al-Ghumārī's al-Burhān (p. 52). 10Ibn Rajab, Dhayl Tabaqāt al-Hanābila (1:64-85). 11Edited by A.J. Arberry, "Jami's Biography of Ansārī" in The Islamic Quarterly (July-December 1963) p. 57-82. Hajj Gibril |