Abdal Hakim Murad – Ahmed Bullock Paradigms of Leadership
AI: Summary ©
AI: Transcript ©
Bismillah al Rahman al Rahim Al hamdu lillah wa salatu salam ala
Rasulillah. Were early, he was Sufi woman while up.
In our rather complex journey through these various paradigms of
leadership, we've looked at a range of different human types,
some scholarly, some spiritual, some military, some inspirational
from the earliest time of Islam, including some of the hollow fat
down to modern times.
What I want to have a go at today is to look at another modern
figure, but one who, largely because of his own preference for
Hmong, or obscurity, is not particularly known in the wider
Ummah, or the various points of his long life, he engaged with
some some key thinkers. And this is somebody who is mentioned from
time to time at CMC.
If anybody was present at the opening of this building unity
house almost 10 years ago, now the grand CMC opening really,
they may recall that the dedicatory prayer for CMC and its
success and its acceptability to Allah subhanaw taala was given by
a very aged English gentleman by the name of Muhammad Bullock. And
it was a very extraordinary prayer. That despite the fact that
he was already
approaching his 90s
was delivered in a very strong and passionate voice ended with a kind
of
statement of optimism about the divine capacity to overturn
difficult circumstances and to open new gates he really loved to
CMC, and diploma graduates and CMC may well recall that every year,
we would make a trip with them to Oxford and one of the highlights
of the trip was always a visit to Chef Ackerman Bullock, who had
filled them in on what it was like to be the Imam of one of Britain's
oldest mosques, the Imam of the mosque in Oxford, back in the very
distant days of the 1950s.
And he always had some interesting anecdotes to share with our
students, a very unassuming person. So I'd like to go through
the events of his life, not least because two years ago, just over
2018 He made his final journey to the ACA
on first of August 1924, Oxford died 25th of October 2018 Oxford.
So he's buried in Brookwood, quite close to picked on and Quilliam
and some of those other sort of better known names of the Anglo
Muslim movement and quite close also to Idris Shah, who will be
able to talk about a little bit later on in this informal talk.
So if my bullet gets a figure of significance, really to CMC, and a
very interesting link to an age that we tend not to know enough
about, I think when we think about British Muslim history, we think
about unless we go really a long way back to the Barbary Corsairs.
We think about Quilliam and his community, which came to an end
before the First World War. And then we think about primary
migration and the flourishing of communities since the 1960s. But
what happens in that intermediate half century is kind of a gray
area. But there were amazing people, the weaker martyred Muslim
people of
Eastern Turkistan occupied by China are, of course very much in
the headlines, and we tend to forget that in 1935.
A British Muslim called Khalid Sheldrake was actually appointed
by the Uighur Muslims to be their salt on to be that Emir.
And he made a very adventurous journey Beijing and then moving
east through what was then the kind of warlord ridden and
unstable China getting as far as Gansu Province. And a little bit
further before a Soviet plot directed from from the Kremlin
itself,
conspired to close the borders and made it impossible for him
actually, to, as it were, assume his throne, but an English Muslim
king of the Uyghurs would have been certainly an interesting
beacon in the middle of what is otherwise a rather obscure period
in our history. So Sheikh Ahmed, who might had the benefit of
spending some time with Rahmatullahi, Ali was a kind of
living link to those very difficult different times, they
can 50s and even the 19 1940s so the bio data
insofar as it's possible to reconstruct the event
of the life of a very retiring man, who would generally only tell
things about himself when he wanted to make some extraneous
point he was from that older generation of British people that
really didn't like talking about themselves. And it's the opposite
of the modern work narcissistic culture where everything is about
me and my narrative of my story. As Megan says, my story, she
wasn't interested in his story.
But nonetheless, we have his papers in the archive here at CMC,
including some very interesting correspondence. So what we can do
in order to try and recreate the events of his life, and to think
about what it was like to be a kind of pioneering British Muslim
and one of the country's first Imams is that we can go through
the letters that he wrote, we wouldn't be able to do this for
our generation, of course, because everything will be d magnetized by
Google or Yahoo, or whoever. And our thoughts will be forever lost.
But he kept quite a lot of the correspondence that he entered
into with Muslim scholars, and particularly with his spiritual
director. So one of the things we'll be able to do is to look at
the
issue of what it was like to be a more read a spiritual disciple, in
the mid 20th century in Oxford. So it's a kind of unique perspective,
even though his figure figure has been somewhat in the shadows. So
he's he was not from a particularly
favored background in terms of economics, and he struggled with
with with significant economic challenges throughout his life.
His father had been a brewers clock.
So somewhere in the boundaries between an English caste systems
working class and the lower middle class, I suppose, even though he
was always beautifully spoken. He was an only child. And another
difficulty in reconstructing the events of his life is that he
never had children himself.
He was dedicated to the welfare of his wife, but she never had
children. And his mother lived with him until she died. But it
was basically him and the two ladies and no offspring.
So a solitary person in many ways, he went to Oxford high, which is
one of the good schools in Oxford, at the beginning of the First
World War, that in 14th 1942, passes his Oxford local
examinations. And in 1942, he takes his shahada, the
circumstances for that, at that time, rather unusual step we'll be
talking about a little bit later on.
But of course, this is the
the high point of the Second World War and at the age of 18, he is
called up September 1942. And he remains in the army until 1947.
When his D mob to His Majesty's armed forces, he was in the army,
the infantry and the artillery for five, five years a period that you
didn't enjoy particularly he was at the artillery school at lock
Hill on Salisbury plains Royal School of artillery, which is
where he did his basic training and learned how to deal with,
with,
with with the guns, so then he is thrown into the conflict. AFTER D
DAY, he's not there at D Day, and again, it was so difficult getting
him to talk about his war experience. He just kind of you
turned that page.
But we know that he was involved in the Allied thrust across
northern France, and at the end of 1944. He was stationed in the er
den just in time for the battle of the bolts, which was most
threatening German counter attack. And His unit was positioned right
opposite to the six SS Panzer Army, whose crack unit was the
first SS Panzer Division known as the Knightstown. Delta Adolf
Hitler. So Hitler's own bodyguard, the great guard unit of the SS was
the other side of the forest.
And these, this is the these are the authors of the Malmedy
massacre, which happened exactly at that time, a massacre of
unarmed American prisoners, which was one of the big war crimes, so
these were very formidable opponents, led by General Sepp
Dietrich, you can read about it, if you're interested until the
beavers book on the Battle of the Bulge. So he is there, but we
already get a sense that he is a kind of rather mischievous person,
and this seems to be why he never really progressed up the ranks.
In the army even though you could get a field commission and
progress quite quickly during the war, and he was in the thick of
the fighting this is sort of
through the cold it was a very cold winter
chucking grenades through windows mopping up with the machine going
house to house fighting. He was in the thick of that, but it seems
that he was quite insubordinate. He didn't like the army and its
discipline. He was an individual, an individualist. So one of the
things that is in his letters, as an anecdote is writing here to an
Italian Orientalist.
Well in the art, then I nearly got captured myself, we were in a
situation where the front was extremely fluid, and a driver went
off exploring looting, I suppose really. Anyway, we went down a
country road which led although we had no map right into the bolt
where the Germans were, we carried on and carried on a pass not
Highland division transports. 1550. Firth says Thailand division
was, was there or American. Then it dawned on us what we were
getting into. So he started to turn around as we did her, a
German tank appeared around a corner. So he made off back the
way we could come pretty damn quick. So a number of escapades
like that, indicating that he was and if not really enjoying the the
military discipline, and you remain that kind of individualist
opposed to authority, really, for the rest of his life. So after the
Battle of the bolt is involved in the Rhine crossings, and his
driver is killed,
that he did speak about when he was explaining why he was always
deaf in one ear. And he said, That's because of Adolf Hitler
made me deaf, because a shell from an 88 went off very close to the
Jeep, which his driver was driving the driver was killed, and he
himself was was wounded. And for that reason, communicating with
him to get on the right side of him, because he really was
profoundly deaf in one side, other stories that he would tell about
the war 1945 He went through Weimar. At the time when the
allies, the Western allies, and the Russians were meeting up and
one of his officers was basically kidnapped by the Russians and
roughed up they thought he was some kind of German. And through
various negotiations, they were able to get him back again. But
he'd been beaten up quite seriously. And his pen and his
watch had been stolen and so forth. So even after the war, he's
in a very kind of fluid and difficult situation. And he really
saw that now very
distant age, of course, we think about the Duke of Edinburgh, who
has recently left us who was one of the few people left from that
generation, almost an exact contemporary of Chef aftermath.
And again, because he saw active service, a living link with the
past anyway.
After he
is demobbed, he studies for a while in Cambridge at Pembroke
College, where he acquires a reputation again, of being a kind
of Naughty boy. He was one of the famous Knight climbers of Pembroke
at the time, and night climbing is something that students still do,
and we're still very angry with them when they do it. The idea is
that at night, usually it's the boys go out in their ordinary
clothes, not in climbing gear, and they climb up and down all of the
famous buildings of Cambridge and
she has made was famous for putting a chamber pot upside down
on top of one of the best known buildings of Cambridge and it took
the the
Proctor's a long time to get it down again. So not even in
Cambridge, but his main studies in the Western tradition word so as
he was enrolled there for the BA in Arabic studies, where he was
taught by a number of Orientalist of that generation and was having
endless arguments with Bernard Lewis, not the person who died
fairly recently, I think it was over 100.
And the teaching of Islam at the time at SAS was particularly
contentious and other Muslim students were very unhappy. So she
had had these arguments with Bernard Lewis, and eventually
decided that he wouldn't put up with this any longer and so he
left so as he never completed his degree, he never got a degree. So
he leaves London goes back to Oxford to stay with his mother
whose health is failing, and this becomes one of the themes of his
life that he is nursing his womenfolk. I remember visiting him
once, and he was his mother was long gone, but his wife, who had
never become a Muslim, and she was kind of scathing about Islam, but
he was old school and stuck with her. He regarded this as his duty
she had outside the US, but to nursed her to the end.
and dealt with that difficult situation just out of his sense of
sense of honor really got some basic work in the Morris car
factory in in Cali in Oxford in the early 1950s. He is taking the
bus regularly from Gloucester green in Oxford to Victoria and
then traveling on to seek an ulcer a chef who is in London at the
time she Harada who teaches him Arabic. And Chef Ahmed acquired a
tolerable speaking knowledge of Arabic but he's right written
Arabic was was better. There are letters that we have from him,
which are perfectly serviceable. Arabic, it was his main Eastern
language.
Solomon dunya, was also around. And there was a kind of migration
from these amongst these Egyptians, who had been sent by Al
Azhar to study at so as for the same kind of reason that she
didn't like the place, and Professor arbery here in
Cambridge, who is much more Muslim friendly. Welcome to them. And so
Ali Abdullah clowder, who she also knew, made the Hijra to Cambridge
and did his PhD in Cambridge and eventually became one of the first
directors of the Islamic Cultural Center in London, Chef Arabba did
the same Solomon dunya. So there's a small, even though it's very few
mosques, maybe two mosques in London and very few Muslims, Tower
Hamlets is not yet also different age. But he was very zealous in
attending these classes, even though he had to leave Oxford and
Sherif Ali Abdullah Carter was the one who seems to have put into his
head, the idea of actually going to the Middle East and studying
particularly in Cairo.
The next interesting incident in his life is 1954.
She has met a number of Muslim students in Oxford, including
somebody called Mujahid so worth and other people who are involved
with one Muslim Brotherhood, and he gets on with him. And in 1954,
by which time is really following Near Eastern politics after the
Egyptian revolution and decolonization it was a very
climactic time.
The new head of the hustle and bustle has an abundance
assassination and holiday be is arrested by Gamal Abdel Nasser and
sentenced to death.
So SHEIKH AHMED hatches, a harebrained scheme to rescue him.
And he gets in touch with some ex para friends of his and remember,
Ahmed has been in a fight, he knows how to handle himself in a
conflict situation. And they worked out how you would break
into Torah prison, in the heart of Cairo and spring, personhood at
the head of the Muslim Brotherhood and they reckon that it wasn't
going to be particularly difficult and they knew how to use
explosives and they had it worked out but they needed money to pay
these messages. These former Parachute Regiment guys Commandos,
and the money really was was the issue. Sadaqa Mati was another
friend of Sheikh Mohammed at the time,
at the Methodist tradition in Sudan, who suggested that his
grandfather said under a man in Sudan who was wealthy might be
able to help.
But unfortunately, the money didn't come through because of the
really difficult and indeed dangerous politics of this. This
is illegal.
Dogs of War type,
mercenary activity in the heart of Cairo and politically very
explosive. So the plan to get him out at the time they wanted to
take him to Iraq and never actually materialized so that the
commandos were, were stood down, but we can already see that she
had made is really interested in politics. He's pretty anti
Western,
and used to lecture Muslim students in Cambridge really until
his last days on the failings of the Western democratic system. So
he wrote for instance, the contention that truth emerges from
the dialectic is evidently false. The most competent rhetorician
carries the argument. And then later the consistent sidelining of
Parliament by the Blair government indicates the proportional
majority is not even allowed to have their representatives
contribute to legislation, lies spin. Confidence tricks are the
hallmark of the current version of parliamentary democracy practiced
in the UK. And this was really throughout his life. He was really
angry about Israel. He was angry about 1967. He was angry about the
first Gulf War about the Iraq debacle. He was not establishment.
He also quite often was tempted by conspiracy theories, so he thought
that movements like al Qaeda were actually created by the CIA and by
the Israelis in order to show
shatter the Muslim world and to justify continued Western hegemony
he was inclined to that sort of conspiratorial view. Anyway, in
1953, is just before the the jailbreak that never was he
marries NIF and we fan. She dies in 2005. She is buried next to
him, interestingly, in the Muslim bit of record, even though she
apparently never took her shahada
and much of his spiritual life really, as I say, is kind of
domestic but not in parenting, but rather than just caring for his
womenfolk with frequent medical issues, so even though he was
against the establishment and chafed under military discipline
in the army, he was somebody who had a very strong sense of duty
1956, the serious crisis. And he thinks that there's going to be a
full scale war with Egypt, and that as somebody who has the right
kind of experience is going to be called back into the army. He
doesn't want to fight against the Egyptians and fellow Muslims. And
so he leaves the UK, and he goes to Iraq, November 1956, he leaves
and goes to Iraq, where he has some friends, partly because of
the so off connection. And Mohamed Salah father with his friend is
actually head of the Muslim Brotherhood in Iraq at the time.
And later on, he continues his connection with Iraq, acquiring
books for his business, as came into being somewhat later from the
Iraqi National Academy on measurement. It keeps those
connections. So he writes, in one of his notebooks, I spent some
time some months enjoying the hospitality and protection of the
f1 in Iraq, before the revolution that in 1957, eight. So who else
was there there to
deepen his knowledge of Islam, there was somebody called Mohammed
Abu Mahdi, who was a very well known Palestinian poet and writer,
journalist involved with something called the gym I add in called
philosophy in which is a pro Palestinian right to return
movement. And he always was very passionate about about Palestine.
He also studied for a while with somebody called chef Amgen Zahawi,
who was a great Hanafi scholar of Baghdad, and just one of the two
founders of the Athlon in Iraq. He spent some time with Sheikh Abdul
Karim ze dan,
who is much better known really, and was a student of Sheikh
Mohammed Abu Zahra, author of the famous four books on the four
Imams and other things on faith.
And who was Dean of the Faculty of Sharia in Baghdad at the time and
later moved to Yemen. He died
2014 So quite recently, he must have been really old. And he was
the author of a book that a lot of Sharia students know and love and
wedgies he also knows what GSP or solid. So he's studying with some
quite significant people. But perhaps the most interesting
friendship that he developed when he was in Baghdad, was with
somebody called up here Dean al he Lally
taglia Dean and he literally is somebody whose name is known to
many today in the West as one of the CO translators of the official
Saudi translation of the Quran and also of Sahel Buhari. These are
distributed in Mega quantities, and he's one of the two
translators and he really gets to know Him. So who is talking to him
that he Lally is rockin from toughy Valley scholars right in
the south of Morocco to early age. He had studied Maliki felt but he
kind of converts to Salafism. And then he goes to Egypt and becomes
a leading student of Rasheed radar. And then after the Saudi
conquest of Makkah and Medina he teaches in Makkah and Medina and
is one of the spearheads of the Saudi campaign to replace the old
mother says, with institutions where the doctrines of Mohammed
bin Abdul Wahab can be taught and he's very instrumental in this.
He wants to get a PhD.
And he doesn't want to do it in England or France, because his
anti colonial French have actually imprisoned him for a while in, in
Morocco. So he goes to Germany.
So a Moroccan going to Germany in 1936, with a swastikas everywhere
and the Jews expelled and from positions in academe, but he
persists. And
in 1939, he's offered a job with radio Berlin,
in the Arabic service, which is an important part of Google's and
Hitler's strategy for creating it
dissatisfaction with British and French rule in North Africa and
the Near East. And he thinks about this role, but he actually agrees.
So for three years, he's one of the linchpins, of the Arabic
service of the Nazi Hoonah. Berlin, as people would hear it
in, in the Near East. And he would have to write his scripts, and
then they had to be translated into German for a kind of Nazi
commissar to read and to approve, and then he was able to broadcast
them, but he was given a lot of freedom. It's been some academic
interest in him at the time of the other Arabs in Berlin during the
Nazi period. And he said things like in Germany, the people are
truly free. Everybody is free to vote, Hitler was elected, didn't
mention that certain ethnic groups, Roma, Jews, and so forth
were excluded from that. So National Socialism, he said, is
not a dictatorship. That is expressiveness in very beautiful
mellifluous, classical Arabic, the Germans are, in his eyes a kind of
model of unity and energy. Exactly the qualities that the Arabs need
to emulate in order if they're going to check out the
colonialists was the British and the French are adaptable insane
near the enemies of humanity.
So you have the strange friendship after the war. He an ally is in
Baghdad,
and he befriends SHEIKH AHMED Bullock, even though they've been
on opposing sides during the war. And so athma writes, in his
description of these peoples he studied with mother OB, Salafi
scholar blind, knows me, well, teachers and Darwin, what are
liminal Alia, very helpful since they're Muslim.
So they both lived in the Amazon, the District of Baghdad so and
that connection seems to have continued to pick us for instance,
at one of the things that we have in the archives is a letter from
1968 from top end nuclear Hillel, his brother
Sheikh Mohammed Al Araby, Al Ali, who remains in Morocco and becomes
similarly a kind of
Salafist person and his in correspondence with him
for a period of time, well, Mother Curtatone mean other Mytho I mean,
nurse you are moral Islam or Mahabharata Himmler
vida, Lika.
And Aloha.
Aloha Runyan unhemmed al Islam, I'm Ron Azim wa Linji den so he
says what you have mentioned she is mad about people's
misunderstanding of the true nature of Islam and their
hostility to actually have read here is talking about the
prejudice that he met in Oxford.
Is is in connection with this you need to remember that Allah has no
need from them. Islam is a magnificent thing. Exalted, highly
exalted, and it can only be understood lay if humble halt, you
lost Hubble or call it Kabira while human Alia and can only be
understood by people of high minds and noble intentions, and then the
letter goes on to explain how she Ahmed should continue with his
struggle and mentions
that Scheffel RB would like to be with him while at an equal to
Morocco.
While at n equal to RT for lava Ling Li Xia first article, Malcolm
Fiji heard he come,
if only I was with you, if only I knew the English language so that
I could participate in your jihad. This is his Dawa, in Oxford and in
kind of embryonic situation of British Islam. So, this is where
he's networking with many people around the Islamic world begins
from Iraq in November 1957. He travels on to India, where he's
found a job teaching English to the children of a aristocratic
family that zinal Ali Reza family in Bombay. They spent about a year
in India, and then returned to the UK,
where he finds work at Blackwell's famous bookshop publisher in
Oxford in their Arabic and Islamic oriental books section.
But he finds that unsatisfying and recognizing that the growing
there's a growing need for books from that Arabic world. He starts
his own book dealership, and this is his bread and butter really for
most all of the rest of his life, and it becomes the decade
Britain's go to place for Islamic literature but Orientalist texts
and also literature in Arabic Farsi and
and Turkish
And he certainly knew Farsi and new Arabic I'm not sure how good
is Turkish was.
But it seems that he had a good working knowledge of French and
German as well. Largely through self study. He was a motivated
person. He hadn't needed it. So aspect he taught himself these
languages, and he also
became a calligrapher. So we have some examples of his Arabic
calligraphy. And it's at this point in his life, where he's a
little bit more mature, he's in his 30s. Now, he has a stable
although rather,
Spartan existence as the result of the money coming in from his book
dealership, he is able to indulge some of his lifelong passions,
archery in particular, and he became an expert on the Seljuk and
the Mongol composite bow.
Once and I visited him, he said he really couldn't understand why his
neighbors are so unhappy that they would find arrows in their back
gardens. rather frustrating, small, terraced house, Kilburn
Road in Cali, and of course these boats can shoot hundreds of
meters, used to go out to the halau organic farm, Willowbrook
farm in order to practice they needed it well into old age and
would teach young Muslims the art of Asana, art of archery as well.
Also, he was really into cats.
Lots of cats in his house and he was very fond of them. But in any
case, the next thing that is significant his life in his life
is his role as Imam
one of Britain's first Imams.
Oxford didn't really attract the kind of mass migration that
sometimes had but still developed a significant Muslim community
through the university and through the restaurant trade, which was
partly parasitical upon the university. So, the first Muslim
prayer room in Oxford was opened
at 108 Walton Street, the basement of what was then the dill dunya
restaurant, which then moved to the Cali road, I think, but he's
now Jamal's, I think it's still a Punjabi restaurant, Bangladeshi.
And they had a problem there, because of the Bangladesh is who
really were the first sort of significant Muslim presence to be
domiciled in Oxford, rather than Muslims who are birds of passage
from the study at the University for a while and then leave and
didn't really have a longtime investment in the town that might
encourage them to create a
mosque.
So
one of the Walton Street and sometimes he's leading the prayer
that after all, he started with some significant scholars.
1957 the premises at 10 bath Street is bought, which is in st.
Clements and is a larger establishment altogether as the
community began to grow.
It was a very mixed community though, because there was a large
Sudanese quite a religious Sudanese Maliki community I
mentioned sada and Maddie, but there were others. Noor Ali Salima
and for instance, who went on to become quite significant in
Sudanese history studied in Oxford at the time, they were Maliki. So
they needed 40 people, as they explained it for a Juma that
wasn't going to be possible in the little prayer room. And so, that
was the origin of the idea of the bath Street, mosque, and then from
the late 1950s, the 1960s in particular, you start to get as
well as the ongoing arrival of the Bangladesh is also Punjab is and
some near Bories.
So the demography is changing. She has made his kind of the elder
statesman of Islam in Oxford at this begins what might well be the
most interesting episode in his life. His attempt to hold
the field for these different groups of Muslims who are often
quite unaccustomed to dealing with people whose ethnicity or whose
traditions were other than their own. And this is a familiar
issue, of course, in many mosques nowadays 69, the Oxford mosque
society is created as the first sort of charity so registered
charity for another couple of years, but
Muhammad Mujahid so Werf
and some of Ahmed friends, they asked Ahmed Bullock to become the
president. And it's still in existence. We're still on the
register of charities. Slightly later, there's the Oxford
University Islamic union that then morphed into what's currently the
Oxford ISOC.
And then the proportion of the Pakistanis of the Bangladesh is
growing. And then 1971 Bangladesh independence creates quite a lot
of friction between these two groups.
and Punjab is tend to be quite strong. Pakistan People's Party
supporters.
Alma Bullock seems to have been quite quite in favor of Bangladesh
independence in new the Bangladesh is and didn't like the way in
which Pakistan had tried to hold on to East Pakistan by force.
That's another story but those were his loyalties. So
in Ramadan
1979
this tension which has been difficult for some time comes to a
head when our Pakistani half is brought
to record the interpret and at a studio and
seems to have been the one who introduces the Pakistani community
to the idea that actually they belong to a denomination and the
Sunnah. Welcome, ah Altamaha, or Elvis. Jeff Hoffman was quite
interesting. And reflecting on this, he said that before these
people came in the 70s, nobody really knew whether they were
deobandis or Brave is or what that meant. And they wouldn't have been
very interesting, interested. But partly it was a result of
Pakistani politics.
The these Imams and officers were coming and telling people that
they belong to a particular denomination. And this began a
division which was no longer ethnic, but was sectarian.
And she had has to kind of ride the
ship of the
Dean as it's going through these stormy waters with these different
different tensions, and particularly problem of tech fear
amongst many of the railways who would not pray with the
with those who came to understand themselves as deobandis, or most
of the Arab and other students who were present in Oxford at the
time. This came to a head in August 1982. And we have a lot
several fat files, including Charity Commission reports,
including letters from the home office, including police reports,
minutes from the various meetings, it's rather sorry story, but she
Hamid was determined to bring the groups together. And for the OMA
to be one. He had no natural affiliation to either of these
groups. He didn't see himself as Deobandi or mirror poori or
anything that the advantage or Braille.
So
1982 the Braille V group takes over the bath street mask more or
less by force, and I didn't really remember the controversy that that
created
at the time. So the events go on, as she had noted in his letters to
the Charity Commission 17th of March, the lock of the secure room
in the mosque is broken 20th of March door of the trustees Imam
wrong broken. So this is the official Imam and the door removed
and his books removed, Trustee beaten and bodily thrown out of
the mosque, an Arab student beaten up.
So then they have a kind of mediation to the Charity
Commission and they agree that there will be alternate prayers
Zohar, led by Deobandi us are led by a Braille v and this is the
sort of solution that seems as if it might work. There'll be two
dramas, one led by a Braille V and the other one led by a Dale bendy
but this doesn't seem to work. So he records daily violence. Police
were called to four or five of the daily prayers.
And
I want to skip some of this because it's quite
depressing. first of June, one of the trustees, trustees held by two
men and beaten. The rival Imam says Get him. The police are
called to arrest tomate
10th of June the brava Imam decides he's not going to allow
the Deobandi congregation after his
drama. The police are called force him to agree.
Mailboxes broken and a steel locked affair appeared to the
trustees could not receive their mail.
The bank account is frozen.
And then we have for instance, a letter from the Charity Commission
25th of March 1983. I have heard from the community officer at the
Oxford central police station, that in recent months there have
been a number of incidents involving both damage to property
and personal violence and that the situation is deteriorating. It
appears that the discussion between the two groups has now
reached the stage at which the property of the charity is
physically at risk. And the chances of resolving the dispute
by negotiation are receding rapidly.
So 23rd of June, the Bangladesh the Oxford Bangladesh Association
writes to the Prime Minister
I'm asking for the visa of the intruder Imam to be terminated.
And the letter says we would like to say that all Muslims realize or
should understand Islam does not allow any sort of ethnic
discrimination. But nonetheless, every few years this seems to rise
up in Oxford.
The 25th of June, a notice from the new pirate committee appears
in the NOSC mosque, foreign students are allowed prayers and
any other worships but would not be tolerated if they involve in
the affairs of mosques. So by this time that Arabic Turkish students
and others are not coming to this place, which seems to be to them
just ethnocentric and sectarian
Charity Commission then right, it's very disappointing to learn
of the further incidents of personal violence and the use of
force in relation to the charities property which have occurred since
the meeting on 29th of May. Under the breakdown in the arrangement
for showing the use of the mosque. It appears that the calling of the
election has had a divisive instead of unifying effect on the
two sides. And they then think, well, maybe they should go to
court to prove that the Mosque has been taken over and half med is
really heartbroken because he's done a lot to fundraise for the
original mosque and he's been the Imam there for many years and
believes that the Arab students and others should have the right
to attend Juma and T's
struggling with anger issues. So they consider legal action but the
Charity Commission think it's going to take so long that you're
going to exhaust all of the charities assets, you'll have to
actually have to sell the building in order to pay for the lawyers.
But in 84, the beginnings of the standy road community Mosque,
which is where the deobandis and the PTAB league is go.
Abu Hassan Ali nadwi comes to give a talk in Oxford at the
examination schools and Sheikh Mohammed tries to get him to
mediate that he's whisked away, apparently, and that becomes
impossible. So she had sought locally oppresses that we've seen
quite a lot in British mosque communities, which is that the
violent disagreements tend to diminish once the different groups
have their own mosques and their own establishment, the Bangladeshi
Mosque, the Punjabi Mosque, the mural poori Mosque,
the sectarian mosques, and that is a sort of solution, but it's not
one that he liked. He was very much against this ethnic sizing of
Islam. And
even though I've kind of drawn a veil over some of the things that
he had to get involved with, and he was a sensitive person and a
lover of Islam and was quite horrified to see this kind of
mafiosi behavior.
It is important to recognize the problematic nature of an ethnic or
sectarian mosque in Islam.
If you think about the first mosque that was established in
Islam, the masjid and never we,
this was
chosen by the Holy Prophet specifically to be a non tribal
space. The first non tribal space in Arabia, even in the Haram in
Makkah, the different tribes had their own places where they put
their statue and they had the area. But the Holy Prophet alayhi
salatu, Salam in Medina create something that must have blown the
minds of many people, when they saw that it really didn't matter
at all, which tribe you are from. And then what is in was an
African. And there was Salman and Pharisee. And there was Sahib the
Greek and they could go wherever they wanted. It was a very
extraordinary radical thing, but this is the meaning of the word
jam out. The word for mosque, jam out means inclusive,
and even the masjid there are the other mosque that was established
by groups of more than 15, in a kind of murky story in the Holy
Prophet ordered it to be burnt down. Imagine the Holy Prophet is
saying, burn a mosque. It's because it was an alignment of
certain Muslims certain of the unsavoury, not for all of the
believers. And it's absolutely essential in Islam, that a mosque
be JAMA, and not a kind of race temple or a place where people of
a particular ethnicity, white, black, Malay, or whatever it might
be, can do their thing without including other Muslims. And this
has been a major barrier to the Dawa process and to the loyalty of
the younger generation, who are pretty British now and really
identify with older generations ethnicities and sectarian issues.
So she Ahmed saw really the way forward for Islam being what he
tried to do, originally at the birthrate mosque was to was to
create a jam out where everybody could come together.
Anyway
he was
passionate
About this and actually, he continued to fight. He didn't like
the idea that a rival group of trustees had taken over. And the
original trustees had never been fired.
So he kept on and the final letter from the Charity Commission, which
resolved it, whether this happens in 1979, which is in our files as
dated 28th of February 2011.
Letter from the Charity Commission which finally confirms the
original trustees including Akhmad Bullock, so that's the wheels of
British bureaucracy turning for four decades and you finally get a
resolution from the state.
But by that time, he didn't really want to resume giving Cottbus and
so forth, he was in a kind of Kalwa mode and his health was
beginning to fail. Although Hamdulillah he kept his mental
alertness throughout his throughout his life under Lula.
But he was very passionate about Muslim unity. So in the mid 1980s
era, jotted this down. I've observed that Islam seems in a
worse state than when I became Muslim 45 years ago, in spite of
many Muslim peoples having gained political independence, most
contemporary Muslim movements regard themselves as the only
Muslims so that the Islamic Unity Allah enjoins does not exist. All
historical lessons indicate Islam succeeds under United leadership.
So he was hurt
by this, one of the things that he had to engage with was
sectarian matters, including the ongoing Qadiani issue because for
many years,
the most active mosque or sort of para mosque in the UK had been run
by the Lahore faction of Medea.
They're working, working Islamic Center, and they produce a lot of
publications and a journal and kind of claimed the mantle of the
Islamic Center of Britain. Now,
this is something that
Sheikh Mohammed wrote later on, indicating that he wasn't enjoying
being in the in the army in about 1943. My teacher, this is Sade
Serdar Ali Shah, who will meet shortly before himself to get me
out of the army to preserve my well being you understand. So he
approached the Imam of the cardia Nia who had a mosque in Putney,
with the story that he knew of an English convert who was showing
signs of serious interest in the teachings of midazolam achmad,
deplorable as this might be, etc, but he thought he might like to
know. Now, this brought the gentleman to a state of high
excitement, since an English convert will be a distinct feather
in the Qadiani cap, then the Sierra dar evidently thought
better of the idea of realizing that out forever be damned, as a
Qadiani. So the plan was dropped. I learned of this long afterwards,
the point being that a converted adherent of a pacifist sect, could
scarcely be expected to engage in warlike pursuits, even by the
British establishment, and remember, partition had not been
taken place. So who knew when the paddy Ania would be needed again.
And he also wrote, sometimes he would write letters to the times
and this is one that has survived dated 26th of October 1958,
which is where he's complaining about the misrepresentation of by
an author in the, in the times of the doctrine of the uncreated
pneus of the Quran. And it's interesting just to take a
paragraph out of this to indicate that, you know, he did know his
scholarly material.
Regarding the uncreated nature of the Quran, one is aware that the
views of the media to which your correspondent belongs, in certain
other important respects, place them quite outside the bounds of
the Islamic community. Evidently, their heresy is also extended to
this issue. This question falls among the beliefs, which have
contradicted involve heresy, but do not render the hold of beyond
the pale of all metal Islam.
The latter statement accords with a very orthodox Abu Bakr al
Baghdadi in his alforque, Boehner al Faruq.
The relevant issues arising from verse seven of Surah Al Imran,
they're unequivocal verses. They're the mother of the book and
other verses which are allegorical and so forth. So then he talks
about and I don't think this letter could ever been published
because it's quite technical and referring to the difference
between allegorical and Mafikeng verses of the Quran, but he's
certainly indicating that he understands this
Yep, saying that it's
translation can offer guidance only to the unequivocal verses
from which dogma and law are derived or yours faithfully.
Bullock so yeah, and
activist, certainly
another issue that he has was when in 1968.
the directorship of the Regent's Park Islamic Cultural Center is
given to somebody called the Roger of my border bad. There was well
known and supported lot of converts at the time.
And Sheikh Mohammed teacher, Elisha told him not to pray behind
him because he was a Shia. But it seems Ahmed regarded this as a
little bit tough. And in fact, he enters into a correspondence with
him that Roger stays with Ahmed when he comes to Oxford, and once
even lent him 200 pounds to stave off the bankruptcy of his book
business. And then another interesting event that could have
been quite significant for the community 1969 The Roger of
morbido Bad invites Imam Ahmed Bullock to become the Imam of the
woking mosque.
And again, his teacher says accept only if there is a guaranteed
salary and the use of the Imams house, otherwise, stay in Oxford
with your business and your women. So he doesn't do this because it
seems that the job security on offer in working was not really
very clear.
What I want to do now is to talk about what kind of inner life he's
leading and because we have some of his notes and translations to
help him with his languages, he would sometimes make his own
translations of classical texts and we've got a few notebooks from
that which have survived.
It's very interesting to note that there's a very strong Naqshbandi
and really only knocked Bandy lineage at work here and we'll
explain why when I come to talk about his his teacher a little bit
later.
And in this notebook, for instance, he is translating, or
paraphrasing a translation of the target Alia offering the dean of
Thor
and the things that he's noting down,
I think, offer a clue into how he in his other solitary life
conducted his
spiritual progress, which I came to believe was not inconsiderable,
when I saw him a few months before his death. He was really very
luminous and remembering God and remembering God's mercy and God's
universal presence Hammer was to use quoting from the Persian
poets. It was very moving actually. He was very close to God
at that time.
So how did he get there from having been the son of a brewers
clock?
Here's part of the translated text after the recitation of the Quran,
Sharif, and the Hadith of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi
wasallam. Nothing is to be found to compare with the sayings of the
Sufi doctors, because these come from an inner illumination, higher
law, and not from a verbal tradition, from a perception
enlightened by the truth, and not a doctrinal explanation, since
they emanate directly from the source of the mysteries and not
from transmission. This is Dooney not knowledge acquired by study
CASB. Further the Sufis are the heritage of the Prophet sallallahu
alayhi wa sallam.
And then he takes down this passage from Avatar, where author
is explaining why he wrote his book, which is a kind of set of
edifying biographies of the early saints. We wish that this book
should remain his memorial in the hope that if any of the readers
bless our memory, we might have the happiness of profiting from
the prayer of a Muslim so that Allah Allah because of that
prayer, would show mercy and pardon our sins. It is related
that yeah, Heaven more Earth was the Imam of Herat, and who is the
shape of Abdullah and Saudi Herati was seen by a saintly person in a
dream who asked him yeah, here, What did Allah say to you? And he
replied, The Lord said to me, yeah, here I would have shown
terrible things to you. But one day when you were preaching, and
were praising and glorifying me in the presence of My servants, one
of my faithful experienced an interior joy from that and it is
therefore, I have accorded him your forgiveness. Otherwise, you
have seen what we should have done with the.
Chef Junaid above dead he was asked about what the disciples
could learn from the sayings of the Sufi
Doctors, the words of the doctors should you even applied give back
life to the broken hearts of the disciples and revive their
ability to walk in the ways of ALLAH.
Whenever someone makes a bad impression upon you, this
impression that he leaves upon your heart is not forgotten by
you, even after many years.
Good words also leave an impression upon the heart of him
who hears them, but this is 100 times stronger.
One day, Abdul Rahman Al Arab, said, as was asked if a man
reading the Quran Sharif but not understanding the sense, does that
recital nonetheless produce an effect upon his heart? He replied,
Yes, most certainly, exactly as a medicine drunk by sick person act
upon him, although he is ignorant of its nature. It is the same for
the Quran Sharif, which act upon the heart even when the sense is
not understood, but which has a vastly more powerful effect when
one penetrates that meaning.
One day I will use of Hamadani was asked when the Sufis leave this
world to go to the next what should we do to assure our safety?
He said, if you read six leaves of the term, skeletal Alia,
negligence will be uprooted from your heart and you will be on the
way of safety.
From an early age, I've always held the Sufi doctors in
veneration and I've been given to reading their sayings
and there's more than one can.
One can read and
what what this seems to have meant for him is that if you're alone,
more or less, you've converted to Islam in Oxford in 1942, and the
Ummah is far away and there's a war and you're basically on your
own.
You don't have a Muslim family
and the possibility of local Target class seems so
complex
that one can adopt what is known as an OAC principle. So he takes
down specifically, our Tyrus zikr Zicree Okay, so currently on
Calculate Toba in Vancouver we are buying off of tabi pan Han on hen
Neff is a rough man. His section you can see his Farsi handwriting
here. On always an irony Why him
we know that Chef behind induction band.
Buhari was also called Al OAC al Buhari, one of the techniques of
the Naqshbandi Way is said to be the capacity to learn from
teachers who are a one doesn't meet in person, but who are far
away geographically or in time.
So one of Shabbat, Dean's teachers was * Abdul Khalid Divani, who
died 100 years earlier, but from whom he learned very many things
this can be in a dream or through other some other kind of
perception. And this is called the OAC way, or the VC MeshLab.
There's plenty of Turks nowadays who follow this. And then Albania
and the Balkans as well.
comes from the Hadith in which way so currently, it has heard of the
messenger Alayhi Salatu was Salam, and is coming to Medina but never
meet Him, the Holy Prophet dies. But the Holy Prophet says I detect
the breath of the rough man coming from Yemen.
So this in the complex, profound landscape of Islamic spirituality
is not something that's formally infects or Arpita, but is more a
kind of personal experience of benefiting in what may be a very
mysterious way simply from reading the lives of great ones of the
past. We decree him tansy, Allah Rama, that in some strange way
some kind of spiritual connection can be established.
So that I think, was very important to Sheikh Ahmed, and
that perhaps this is a subject for another lecture, we might reflect
on what might be appropriate styles of Islamic spirituality in
an age such as ours, where the sheiks seem to be no longer with
us and the sencillas are becoming extinct. Where do we go? We read
these books and we visit these places, but where is the reality
of guidance? Well, one possibility that Alma has always been aware
of, which is this very subtle one, but which tends to be linked to a
very
absolute, committed Sharia compliance, it's very Noma centric
is this VC MeasureUp this OAC way whereby people can be mysteriously
benefited, but upheld and helped in their Ibadah to help them that
is still karma to some kind of unseen mysterious connection to
people who may not any longer be alive and the vindication of this
is that the focus becomes more and more on, on the creator of Allah
subhanaw taala. And one's realization that the greatness of
the holy out of past ages was because they really weren't there.
That gone. There was no person left, they're just Allah subhanaw
taala was that direction. So it's a very good way of enhancing the
reality of one's tell heed. But in any case, that's a kind of
speculation about where he was religiously, which I find
interesting. But what I want to turn to now it's really the last
sort of significant dimension of his life that I think is worth
worth sharing.
Is his relationship with the shaft family.
Okay, his spiritual director, at least the one with whom he
exchanged correspondence, and we have dozens of letters, detailed
lesson letters between him and his teacher, very much in that notch
Bandy tradition was somebody who had come to Oxford in 1940
because of the Blitz fewer bombs on Oxford and this is the man
called Seed Iqbal, Ali Shah, who was originally from a Afghan
family
which had not Wendy connections, but which had an estate not far
from Delhi, Santana Delhi. So and the some of this guy's books are
still available, his book Islamic Sufism
and you can see the kind of Naqshbandi trait
author's preface
faqeer Sade Akbar London September the 10th 1933. I would say this is
the first book ever to be written in English that addresses Sufism
in its natural homeland of Quran and Hadith, Islamic Sufism. In
conclusion, I particularly invite the reader's attention to the
title of this book, whereas I am that in authentic and illegitimate
senses, there is no form of Sufism other than Islamic. I was
compelled to use the adjective Islamic before Sufism, so that the
uninitiated may not confuse it with some such non Islamic
movement, which due to utter ignorance of style Sufism, for a
Sufi must of necessity be a Muslim. And the universal
application of the Sufi thought is comprehensive, in the same
undoubted extent, as is Islam, according to all correct
doctrines, then the Quran is the first and the last textbook of
Sufism. And the Prophet Muhammad, the greatest Sufi of all times.
Whosoever therefore does not subscribe to this idea, despite
the fact that he may be following an occult way is not a Sufi. So
we're clearly dealing with something that is Sharia compliant
and very Islamic. This isn't like some of the movements that have
been knocking around amongst the Edwardian intelligencia of doing
mystical Sufi dances. But having nothing to do with that dreadful
thing, organized religion. This guy from his writing is clearly
coming from an authentic place. So he's an Oxford
and he's married a Scottish woman.
Just to indicate how traditional and Afghan these people are, he
was his father,
saying, I want to marry this girl. She's from Scotland, the father
wires back saying, Yes, but I have two questions. Will she become
Muslim? And can she defend a fortress?
Who can say is really traditional Afghan warlord? And she says, Yes,
I can do both of those things. And so they get married, and it turns
into a very good marriage. So they're an Oxford 1940. And their
son, Idris Shah, who becomes really well known in the 60s and
70s, is also at Oxford City High along with Sheikh Mohammed. In
fact, their exact contemporaries this, I think, six weeks between
them. They become close friends, and the teenaged Achmed Roy, as he
still was, would visit their home in the terminal is a street in
central Oxford. And it seems that in the Oxford evenings during the
blackout, the Sardar Iqbal, Ali Shah and his wife convinced Roy to
become Ahmed and that's where he took his shahada in 1942 in the
presence of Idris was a witness. So as aged 18
About Alicia was kind of known in Oxford he knew the orientalist
there he knew. Pretty Beeston who some people will still recall as
the great Arabist and new professors, Xena disagreed with
Zeno's idea that Sufism was some kind of Hindu outgrowth. Sometimes
he'd write for the times, on Afghanistan, moved around a bit
and after the 40s moved to bath for a bit and then to London to
kind of Belsize Park
area.
And then, he goes to India, this is st Koba in order to try and
sell his ancestral home. And he finds out that the home is
occupied by a usurper. And he has to go to the Indian courts, which
is never easy, particularly after partition. And that the usurper
has also pinched some walk land. And because he's afraid that
people might have hurt him for doing this. He always goes around
the streets of Delhi accompanied by two guards withdrawn swords. So
he's dealing with a tough guy, but it seems that the case proceeds
successfully. This is a cabal Manziel.
And then we have basically from 1958 to 1969 quite intense
correspondence between Sheikh Ahmed and Sardar Akbar Ali Shah,
which is one of the few Naqshbandi style mactel Bat correspondences
that we have in the English language. Our mobile app sometimes
works in Arabic more often in Farsi but but usually in English.
1960 after the Scottish woman dies, he moves to Tangiers.
First to the Hotel Cecil
famous people like Tennessee Williams, Paul Bowles, this is
Tangiers. The Cosmopolitan East Meets West Pillars of Hercules
strange space, which recalls an age when the Muslim world was seen
as being more tolerant than the Christian world.
And then he finds a house where he seems to have established some
kind of little local Sufi Hulka, which he calls the data error fan.
And he writes to say athma, the place has many advantages or good
climate and amongst Muslims.
He also gets to know somebody who again, many Anglo Muslims will
remember if only by repute
Michael Scott, Abdullah Scott, one could if one only had access to
the right archives,
do another paradigm lecture. Just about city, Abdullah Michael
Scott.
Michael Scott had been in Tangiers, and much of his life his
father had been served basil Scott, who was chief justice of
Bombay a pillar of the Raj, who then retired to Tangiers, and
refurbished and extended house, which became one of the most
famous houses in Morocco really beta aqueous and I used to stay
there myself it was really palatial it there like 50
bedrooms.
The House of rainbows nowadays they call it the Scott house.
And city Abdullah had become a Muslim was involved with the tiny
city Hamza bhootish, used to take me to the different gatherings and
we would go to the mosque together and had been a war hero. Rather
like Sheikh Mohammed, they were contemporaries had fought in the
western desert in the Guards Regiment and
had saved one of his men under heavy German fire lost an ice
Ahmed last year. City, Abdullah lawston, I used to walk around
with a black patch, but he also had the ancestral home in our
island model, which is still there, and house in Cambridge and
Chesterton, so he would often drive to mold them Tangiers, and
this beat up Volkswagen van who never seem to have any money, even
though he used to go riding with Princess Margaret, he was from
that world.
And he would stop off in Cambridge, and he would attend
Juma with us and we remember how fast he used to walk. He was
archetypal guardsman round, ramrod straight and stride and we'd go
through a meal after Juma and it was difficult for me to catch up
with him he was extraordinary guy but full of stories and very kind
of easy territory minded.
Lows in Tangier, staying with him once he introduced me to one of
the world's best known mermaid spotters was this young Australian
guy because just down the coast cups about well beyond Marcia and
we're the house the Scott
Taos is there's a famous beach which is one of the best places in
the world. City Abdullah assured me for seeing mermaids. So he was
involved in all of that kind of world. He was interested in the
ley lines of South Cambridgeshire. But anyway, he connects with
the Sierra dar Iqbal Ali Shah.
Although Scott is pretty convinced that there's no documentary
presence in
in 10 years, and Scott seems to be the one who arranges a janazah for
the Sarah Doris wife, but an absent vibe virgin as in Tangiers.
Yep, so he wrote to Sheikh Ahmed it appears to me though, that all
things being equal this tonne of Tangier could very well become a
center for our studies and endeavors. We might think about it
that Amani hold our bar sheet was salam Sardar about So he had this
idea of creating some kind of Sufi center in Tangiers, which was of
course full of hashish, smokers and alternative people and when
going to Salah was there at the time.
Writing in conda Hollyanne, Spain's greatest 20th century
author, a novelist, was famously pro Muslim, but the rest of his
life in Morocco. And he wrote this novel which praises the heat
figure for traditional Spanish nationalists, who was count
Julian, who was the one who enabled the Muslims to invade
Spain. Cote sola said it's a shame that the Muslims didn't stay in
Spain, because what we've got now is Franco anyway, so a lot of
exiles and people like that. So he's in an interesting place.
I should
quote, some of his letters to share afterward at the time
where he's giving him
advice. It is therefore, the first mission to cultivate those
qualities in order to get sufficient illumination to be
absorbed in God. And this is the first mission in comparison to
guiding others or preaching to others, because the first duty of
a man is towards himself, and he should get about getting
illuminated before death overtakes him, I feel that I should make
haste in that direction. If during this endeavor, I could be of any
direction to anyone. Well, of course, I should be happy to be
assigned, signpost and
and say here is the path. You see outward time is to reexamine
oneself and start by human action to refine oneself, refined by
cultivating the well known excellences of human behavior,
meaning toleration, party of AI and thought, non aggression, not
considering oneself as the most excellent person and so on. But
this is a big subject, come again, when your domestic duties allow a
lobby with you all affectionately, ethnobiol. So one of the things
that he's stressing to his Marines, this is now a kind of
formal relationship is the need to work on himself. And to put that
before all of his dealings with the Oxford mosque communities and
his his business, other things, and I think it's worth spending a
little bit of time on this. This is Sayed Akbar Ali chars letter of
seventh August 1963.
Which is on the occasion of the moulage he says earlier mobilock
Feed me lead
so he's describing the Millard internship here's
the old women before whom are neatly piled tomatoes green
chilies windfall, half ripe little apples, and little after the late
afternoon prayer winding their way home woods in groups of threes and
fours. This time laden with city shops produce salt dried mint, a
small can of crude oil for the lamps of the hillside cottage
homes. Only this time they are writing their donkeys, their men
folks with their flowing and hooded robes of brown black goat
hair geladas following these eminent Amazon's of the rough
range a few miles beyond Tangier, not, however, without reading
their beasts of burden to hear the hurdy gurdy of Wayside molded
fare, with fairy lights on all the moods of sweets and fruit, or pity
the gamblers who could not throw their dice upon a glass jar or
flowerpot or cheap bracelet, made of Central African ivory, a
veritable Hampstead Heath, there are new people by the sons and
daughters of Morocco. This is all in honor of four days, Molad
celebrations here a picture once seen, that could not be forgotten.
So there's kind of local color in some of these letters, as well.
And sometimes the senator interestingly would write to Alma
Bullock's wife and he really stressed the importance of
kindness too.
to his wife and and his mother. So he writes, I hope that you have
taken note of my oft repeated advice that the two ladies should
continue to be your first and constant duty.
And then
notice 67 shift outwards, mother dies and this is the letter of
condolence written by a cabal.
Do not Allah bless you, I know an orphan but I'm still alive. trust
in Allah. Do not grieve my son, you have done your duty towards
that saintly mother of yours. And I shall bear witness on the day of
judgment that you have acted with full consciousness as a good son,
God will reward you in this and the other world. For the rest
remember that read our meaning submission to the will and purpose
of Allah is an important rule in the Sufi path. Also bear in
patients for God is with the submarine.
1968 Achmed and his wife traveled together to Gibraltar and then to
10 years where they stay at the Bristol hotel. And at that time,
and really throughout the correspondence you find shift
outward, asking the chef for advice on his leadership, and
particularly, how to give a hotbar how to lead the prayer correctly,
what kind of subjects to be discussing with his community,
which is actually very different to himself. So here's an example
of this
correspondence.
This is from the sheikh, the sermon should be short, divided
into two parts of say 10 minutes each, exhorting the people to do
pious acts, and give them advice. On Up To Date facts is affecting
their lives in England. A practical way of life and advice
with Muslim spirit is the essence of modern life, which will make
their religion purposeful to them. Meaning as to how best to cope
with everyday problems as Muslims, otherwise, who does not know of
Heaven and *, the Day of Judgment, the movi type of sermons
have had their day, you should try and make your sermon useful.
That's an interesting piece of advice is talking to these people
who have simple backgrounds and have simple jobs and he says,
Don't give them the Heaven and * rant they've heard that many
times, give them in their heart bursts, something that enables
them to see how Islam is solving their practical day to day
problems.
So he sent in from Tangiers, that kind of Moroccan gel lab and a cap
in which to give his Hotspurs.
And he also writes, concentrate on Indian and Pakistani Muslims in
Oxford and nearby, leave the students alone. They are always
show offs and being raw in mind are bad material. As they may grow
in age and experience and getting several buffets things. They will
either become good Muslims or go to the dogs. you cultivate your
own path and God will help.
Here's another letter
which is where he's wanting him not to go to working.
I've sent you a cable yesterday saying leave alone, which is that
you are not to go to working to join the activities of that
nefarious institution. If you do not know the place, and it's
working from its very inception dot lightness time, you certainly
know something about it for the last 20 years and that is enough.
Keep away from it. It is a foul drain, do not file your clean
hands with it. God has given you a clean field in Oxford concentrate
on it and you will succeed shut your eyes against everything,
everything else and fasten your eyes only on Oxford. The programme
of committees which we have involved about working hand in
Oxford is good work on it and inshallah it will succeed.
So he's advising him not to take on too much and to take on
preaching or activities outside Oxford and to be aware of the
necessary
boundaries.
So here's another letter in which he offers practical advice 15th of
August 1968 Dear Achmed, thank you for your letter, your intention to
establish a mosque and the center in Oxford has my wholehearted
approval. This is a pious and worthy action which I expect from
you, but go at it with utmost speed and determination. Your
coworkers may disappoint me in your course but do not turn back
or give it up. It is God's work and he will help you. Then your
faith in Him and 100% faith not 99% A full and unqualified faith
and then you cannot fail. You should not fail in any way that I
my friends and relatives can help you can be assured of that.
Therefore go ahead with the practical form of it and at once.
Start holding the Friday prayers and making a small library of
Islamic literature even in your own house. Nice
will contribute Islamic books in order to give simple lectures to
them on Sundays, nothing very high, not not sure about heaven
and *, but how practical Islamic practices can help them
Muslim immigrants in a difficult task in England give attention
forthwith to the religious education of their children and
their wives. This is important, SHA Islam will benefit these
people 1000s of miles away from their homes. This is the kind of
preaching That is wanted. If I come to England, it will be a
great pleasure to me to give these men a course of Islamic religion
in order to maybe that I could come to England for that purpose
for two or three weeks, if my economy is settled a bit, but that
is in the lap of ALLAH.
So he also recommends that he pursues his Sufi interests and
what seems to be this knock Bundy OIDC path, but in a way that's
detached from the mosque he doesn't want them to be linked.
Now by this time, at the Sara Doris sun, Idris has established
or come by a center at a place called Coombs springs. And he
wants the Oxford center to be kind of complimentary to the Coombe
string spring the center but to be quiet. So he writes only do not
beat a big drum about it. It is quietly movement against no
religion and against no one, it gives hope to those who are
unhappy. In fact, it helps a person in his daily life and even
worldly affairs. For in it one has to be in the world and not have it
classical term. Go ahead therefore, in this God's work and
God will help you do not forget your vicar five minutes every four
hours at the least.
So this is another letter from him shortly after his
bereavement.
After months lonely distress I discovered that I was to live on
according to my belief for the holy book says we have created the
gyms and human beings for no other purpose than to do a better now
from my point of view, a bad is twofold one duty towards God and
the like duty towards fellow creatures. Our duty as enjoined by
the holy book is usual prayers, fasting, etc, etc, and pasties in
general. And I feel that our equally great duty is to make the
fellow human beings happy in all respects. In the pious way, of
course, my duty therefore is to try and impart such happiness to
those dear and near to my late wife as I can. Financially Alas,
I'm unable to impart that happiness for I live like a
Darwish. But even then, there might be other ways in which my
usefulness may impart happiness and guidance to you as to the boys
and Amina. Therefore, I shall continue to do this to the end of
my day in sha Allah, I feel that you should entrust yourself more
and more towards the Indian Muslims in Oxford and their
spiritual uplift. I do not think that the guidance that you can
give to them in the spiritual avenues can be given by that
mandala that they've got as the Imam of their prayer.
Start a class of spiritual interpretation in Oxford to invite
also the Englishmen and women and Indians can come also, in short,
start a school of wisdom or a Sufi society at once you have my
blessings and permission to do so. Do this as an additional work but
do not neglect your activities. Were with you earn your bread be
in the world, but be not of it. God will help this, but keep it in
tune with English conditions, do not done the haircut that Darwish
it will be odd in Oxford an oddity is not necessary. Message is the
real thing. Tackle ordinary factor of everyday life equal to the
mentality of your audience, or do not go into discussions with them
for your class should not degenerate into an intellectual
exercise, but a positive contribution to a better everyday
life. Go forth in the name of God and you will succeed. Let me hear
about this by return post and I've written to Idris John to convey
the same message to you in case you do not perceive this letter.
So his letters at this stage become more and more frequent. And
we find
him insisting that he not neglect his dunya you say that your book
trade business is in a mess. It is I'm sure duty or not giving as
much attention to it as you should. You see, my dear son your
Sufi training insists that you should be in the world they're not
of it. The Naqshbandi idea the truth in it is never to be
forgotten. Indeed, you should write it in a large cardboard with
very bold letters written on it and hang the slogan in your
bedroom. So that the very first thing that you might see on waking
up is that slogan.
And there's other reminders of the necessity of earning one's halau
risk rather than focusing all that
one on ones, religious activities
I'm happy to have had your news what I have in view as a simple
beginning about interesting the non Muslim in Islam, and
reemphasizing Islam to the Muslims call it the Islamic Society of
Oxford. It's advice should be to both Muslims and non Muslims. That
is all those who wish to hear about Islam as a simple and a
practical truth. Sufi thought practice and preaching is not for
the kind of people that want gets at Oxford. What I mean is that the
world has strayed so far away from spirituality, that the first step
is to bring them to an orbit of simple spiritual atmosphere. Start
therefore on these lines, higher studies come very much later, for
your zikr your Salam, meaning, oh, thou the complete one is a good
dhikr 1000 times a day.
And then
an indication of his necessary wazifa make yourself in tune at
Isha time for that hour, I shall recall you always being in tune
means that you should do your vicar 303 times the name of God
and consider that you are sitting with me then a contact is
established. That takes a little time but it can be done. This is
the Naqshbandi principle of Robert or the idea that one imagines
oneself actually in the presence of the teacher to aid
concentration and connection
to the third of December 1958.
This is after the Sheikh Ahmed had written a rather complicated
letter asking for interpretation of some difficult Quranic verses.
It's very pleasing to me that you desire to have an explanation of
certain eyelets. But my advice is to leave off this sort of quest
meantime, the reason is that any explanation that may be given will
be
short within
the confines of an air letter and may thereby leave you thirsty as
it were. All this can be much better explained by word of mouth
when Insha Allah we meet. For the time being, however, my advice is
most rigid regularity, to be observed in the five daily prayers
and the wealth effect. And then he gives the wazifa. And this again
is a characteristic of the relationship that the student
wants to do too much and to engage with too many projects and to
understand things that are subtle and not really necessary. And it's
more important to begin with and to maintain
the basics.
In conclusion, this is 29th of January 1969, the end of 1969. The
Sardar dies in a traffic accident. So this is in his last year.
You're marked out to be a leader of the Muslims in Oxford, lead
them on the path of Islam. They should know their God first get in
tune with him before they may have time to try and know about other
things, or the cause of the decline of the Muslim people. Know
thyself first, and then you will know thy God. Walk gently my son
as I've already said, the atmosphere is surcharged with
adverse emotions. Men are in a fog of their own making. Worship the
way Omar and Ali worshipped, they achieved what Islam can and will
give to every Muslim to you and to me also stand firm on Quran and
Sunnah the rest does not matter and Allah your refuge and
protector
Yup, this is where he's writing again about Sheikh Ahmed and the
need to
maintain
positive, compassionate ties with parents. You and she and not to
people therefore keep with cherisher and thank God that you
have. I'm getting to my end, maybe a month a year. After that all
that remains is button memory. Think little my son of money of
possessions and lack of possessions. My forefathers, when
the web's I'm a fifth, Moab, we had horses, elephants landed
property titles, where are they? Where am I? And what do they
possess now in their graves? And what would I distress yourself?
No more and think of reality. You are of an age when you can think
clearly deeply. Strive for that which a man takes with himself not
that which he must Perforce leave behind. cultivate love deeper and
deeper of those who love you. For that is all that anyone has left
behind him ever. alone gives 45 million Englishmen food and
shelter. He will not forget you. It is worry that kills a man and
worry for things that perish. Think of that. Be of good cheer,
do good for goodness sake, and give devotion and loyalty
To those who deserve it. That is why I'm on my wife, a supremely
insan camel, loyal, truthful, pious, I live frugally here, and
if only because she has placed a mission upon my shoulders, to see
that you all have an anchor that affected the job is finished, and
I go, live with affection and devotion towards your mother and
others. And God should never be forgotten. Right when you can
forget us from you, or like your kindly visit and enliven my SAT
hours, especially in the darkness of evenings when I'm alone, and
quietness
descends upon the earth. And her photograph talks to me. Give my
salutations to your dear mother and your wife, Allah is with you
all.
So
novelette 21st seventh of 1969
writing to shave my head, use your holiday time, the social welfare
of the immigrant Muslims, especially their children who have
neglected will grow up as more than heathens. Now the proper
Muslims nor yet Christians, that social problem of these Indian and
Pakistani Muslims is not fully appreciated, till these children
will grow up like several I'd seen that working as specimens of the
worst type of EastEnders, till one was ashamed to be in their
company. So he was afraid of the outcome of bad education of the
second generation, when the first generation were not themselves
particularly educated. And indeed, in Oxford, they've had
dozens of grooming convictions and so forth, it's not not a happy
place. And so, here the Sardar is kind of foretelling that, that
affliction
you know, we should close shortly. So many of these are really worth
preserving for posterity.
I must remind you that you should keep Sufism strictly to yourself.
As I pointed out to you in one of my previous letters, Sufism is a
postgraduate course, so that those who are to attend your center are
a long way behind this course. For the next four to five years, they
have to do simple authentic, be simple orthodox followers of
simple Islamic prayers. Any form of vicar, however simple will
confuse them, and will put you in a position in which you would be
misunderstood. Leave it alone, those Thursday dhikr meetings,
anything of that kind will harm the movement from the very
beginning. You can give lectures on purely Islamic subjects, but
nothing of the mystic law to be introduced me and meantime, I hope
that you realize how grateful you should be that God has given you
this opportunity to make the Muslims better Muslims.
There's more that about the Roger of mortar that so now the final
section is some letters exchanged between Ahmed and Idris Shah.
Idris Shah, by far the best known of any of the individuals who
emerged from this little crucible in Oxford and Idris Shah usually
is regarded by Muslims on comparative religion as academics
as a sort of dilettante or a popularizer, who tried to ride the
wave of the 60s counterculture by providing mystical wisdom from the
east that was stripped of its Islamic matrix. And indeed, many
of his books can appear to be that that Quran and Sunnah have been
taken out and the Sufi stories and recast to make it look like some
sort of universal wisdom, but what we're going to see in this
correspondence is that that may be a premature judgement
his
we can only look at a few of these, but there's quite a few.
Here's one from Idris Shah in Farsi, Avaya. mataram, Achmed,
John Salam aleikum, US Good afternoon, October Holly, so it's
my prayers for your family etc. Digger Kabbalah
diety Raja Beatty direct had Ahmed as purely market me go yard kid or
hub deed care yet rules?
Pull bid ask the ACMA John Mira sattva ASAN Paul. Yet this
metadata the theory behind Mubarak ha had showed
this seems to be reference to
Idris saying that his father had seen in a dream that Achmed would
begin his
book business and that this would be lucrative and would be
sufficient for him. So in a sense, it's the chef's dream but mediated
interestingly, through this Farsi letter by Idris, more could be
said but unaware that time is
pressing
Here's an interesting note undated by xi Asmat. In his difficult
handwriting, where he talks about what Idris who is awful like his
best friend is school chum
is up to with his propagation of Sufi stories
in a time when the political or any other sort of unity of Islam
has patiently ceased, and the balance of human security is
uniquely precarious, provision does continue for survival.
This does not mean that in this age, Muslim fundamentalist
hegemony is to be looked for, or that some sort of socialist
capitalist amalgam could evolve for world government. These are
systems and as such subject to corruption and decay. And new
learning is essential not just for revival in the dark age of
technology, but for human survival. The new learning is, in
fact the current projection of the old learning. But this learning
has to be imbibed and practiced by a greater proportion of humanity
as a necessity.
Again, there's more that he writes here, but in the context of his
writing about the spiritual role of Idris Shah, and the necessity
in our age for promoting on as wide a basis as possible of at
least the fragrance of the recollection of the shakes.
People are closed to strict religious preaching nowadays,
people consider themselves above organized religion,
which they think is a restraint on their precious autonomy and
freedom.
The world is becoming secularized. If one is to resect you realize
it, it seems one needs to get into their souls at some level of
recollection of the names of the great trio. And this may be what
Chef Ahmed thought was Idris chars role in producing these
bestsellers, and influencing people like Doris Lessing, Richard
Williams and others, that just by spreading the names of these
people, as altara suggested, the decree him tansy Rama that some
kind of spiritual reconfiguration in these otherwise, very Western
and hardened egotistic souls can be
promoted and is interesting that in these letters from Idris see
comes across as an observant and a practicing Muslim and he begins
always with 786, as you'd expect,
but quite often with the number 40 786 And beneath at 40 and then
a Salam o aleikum yaki is a letter from Idris.
The 40 is a number related to the unseen, a potter appear in seats
that Abdallah at whom there are 40 mentioned in a hadith, who are in
some mysterious and ungraspable since the custodians of the age.
Exactly why Idris is using the 14th and the relevance of the
alphabet 18 here, but we've already noted that Arbaeen is a
principle connected to that way, sia and the idea that one can
without formal initiation benefit in some spiritually effulgent way
from the spirit or even from the name of a great saint that has
passed. So here is Idris sharp writing to
say Achmed Salam aleykum you
and then he says under these circumstances, it's customary to
recite in the Naqshbandi Tariqah. That as Matthew Hofner reading
them if one does not know them, at which is at each essence wants to
dwell in the mind upon the quality represented by the invocant you
have olive is for those who haven't buffalo yeah for tough is
for those who are closed in and so on. That isn't will respond in
accordance with its own vet, its essence in harmony with the needs
of the invocant and not his wishes, as it were, the element of
insha Allah I would make a practice of doing a weird of the
ESMA
Elsner every day. Two or three times I would say oh log of the
baraka of this operation to the mini into the Olia and to those
who are in need. This was ephah should be carried out for 40 days
after calming oneself a little and remembering that the Berikut of
hazards the feather is always with a good intention of the Sufis.
That's another way see, principal shader is the present guide. The
truth and dem of the Salic is really the word of the Tariqa. And
by its forced the marches at which are the karamat which have taken
place are uncountable. Well, Kareem or Rahim, Amin was Saddam
Idris. So this is a voice that's coming absolutely from the heart
of an Islamic Naqshbandi tradition. But this is not the
face that Idris turns to the world when he was dealing with big ego.
BBC interviews and
and novelists and the like, who needed just a little fraction of
the sugar on the pill but really would not be able to sustain
something like the full tradition of an authentic world religion.
Another letter Idris shout at Ahmed Bullock dava Kobelco. Doc,
I'm happy to say that my prayers have been accepted and the first
insuperable problems were mercifully reduced. You've spoken
to the inability to concentrate in prayer I've had a demonstration
that this is no obstacle to the acceptance of supplication alone,
and yet not lonely. I've been able Alhamdulillah to do much and
sorely troubled by conscience for I've put all my troubles on the
shoulders of others, knee asthma and Idris.
Third of August 1960, Ahmed Bullock writes to Idris Shah
asking for him to interpret a dream.
Sometime sometimes correspond in Persian sometimes Ahmed wrote them
in Arabic, which I suspect the Idris really didn't know.
20th of May 1963 Bismillah R Rahman Rahim, Salam or Aleikum
as an anonymous donation for from a Muslim for a Muslim bookseller
here is a psalm no loan no interest no repayment only
condition it should be mentioned to nobody at all.
Salutations to all from us all Idris so he's kind of supporting
his struggling book business as a Muslim.
Sometimes also, we find Idris asking Achmed for information
about books. And we can interpret the evident wide reading of Idris
Shah in his Sufi storytelling books as benefiting massively from
the fact that he did have access to text that was supplied to him
from his
school friend. Here's another interesting letter. Idris shot
Ahmed Bullock 23rd of February 1959.
Went to the record people this morning did not clinch deal
because it's with an HP company who charge rubber and the sellers
won't do it any other way. Total price if done this way works out
at ribber. So what do you advise? I suggest that we avoid this
obvious rubber. If we can't make a collection to buy for cash leave
it alone.
Sounds like at least at this stage, he was scrupulous. What
Awara and Sharia compliant.
There were nonetheless disagreements, that sometimes the
Sardar would attempt to mediate between the two friends.
We don't have many of Ahmed's letters, but it seems that there
was an argument between them about one of Idris his earliest books
which he called oriental magic,
which is an apparently kind of occult dabbling in various
shamanistic and Juju practices of different cultures.
And
as a result of this argument, she had my thought that he had no
business writing a book about magic What's the benefit? Is it 18
February, my dear brother note friend, Salam o alaikum I hope
that you are well your family are all well, this is Idris to achmad.
There should be no difference between us and if there is a
misunderstanding or feeling of disharmony, such a thing should
subside and should have no real being. Do not let the sun set on
your anger, Hadith. If there is any disunity between us, we
evaluated our greatest principle, that of unity. This unity is only
the absence from the mind temporarily of a sense of unity.
Such a sense of unity being as it is fundamental to man and Islam is
and Islam is the natural state and its return is therefore not
difficult. It is other people who make human beings at odds with one
another through envy or malice. It is only by envy or malice or
misunderstanding that such a feeling in ourselves can be fed,
we should denied such nutrition.
As far as I'm aware, there is nobody who knows that there has
been any sense of estrangement between us. Let us therefore
reclaim it once our sense of brotherhood and cherish it as we
cherish, cherish each other. While Tasleem will be humbly Lehi, Jimmy
and while at a thorough coup, which is the Quran, they both
would have known that meaning hold fast to Allah's rope and do not be
separated. Reconciliation is the Sunnah so far as I'm concerned,
there is no difference among us or between us.
I remember she saying to his father, Noni. FARC only a default.
We've been friends for too long now for NIF arc have we reclaimed
ittefaq I feel we have we have wassalam your brother Idris you
can see the closeness between
Namenda frankness that is really trying to
overcome this anger that she Ahmed had regarding this book about
magic which can be seen from this perhaps slightly speculative
perspective that this is a sort of a way see way of indicating to
people that there is something beyond just the formal structure
of things and that some people do need to begin with ghosts and
spirits and things that are easily verifiable and seem to be far away
from that detested thing.
Organized religion, I remember somebody I met a few times to
Chevron or Sitwell, who was another of these sort of bright
young things from that, that that that generation, great art
historian wrote a book on poltergeists he was himself
embarked in a religious quest and just found the most useful way of
breaking the sun to stick idea that matter is all that exists to
be looking at things like ghosts and spirits as a kind of
interrogation of scientific reductionism. Anyway, so they
obviously disagreed on whether this was a valid method or not.
And here is a letter from Sardar abahlali Shah, also trying to
bring about
this reconciliation, your letter has reached me its contents
distressed me, I know you and I know my children, all of you have
grown in my lap as it were. There is none of my children who is not
as deep and affection for you, as you have for them, addressed John
is no exception. For many occasion he impelled me to do this or that
for you. If there's any difference of opinion between you and him,
it's natural between two egos. But there can never be a profound
cleavage. If you strike a stream of water with a walking stick, the
flowing water cannot be cut into two pieces. You are one and
indivisible. And then he goes on, do not mix to sell off with a book
trade. So again, the father is perfectly aware of how close she
Achmed wants to Idris even though this was never part of the formal
ministry, as it were of Idris, which is this seeding of the
Western intelligencia with the thought that well, perhaps there
is a God and mentioning the names of these, these Sufi saints. So
we're drawing to a close now, and unfortunately, some of the Idris
Shah correspondence and can't be, can't be shared.
Here's an interesting this interesting indications in the
correspondence of the kind of less public aspect of what Idris was
doing on the surface. And we have I think, all of his books in the
library here at CMC, and people are sometimes asking us what
they're here for, because it seems to be a kind of bowdlerized over
simplified form of Sufism, that really doesn't compete well with
classic texts. Nowadays, people want to read Henry Bayman or
Eskil, Shweta, Ma, or the the newer generation of Sufi writers
in the West. But
the purpose which I'm speculating about was to as it were, through
these pearls as widely as possible in the hope that a few people
might get the fragrance of these names and take more serious
interest. So it's a kind of seeding exercise, but there are
interesting instances of what's going on behind the scenes of
Coombs springs and all of these other communities and various
shenanigans. So here is a letter from Idris to Akhmed, would you
please help in an Islamic matter?
Write out the solat in full in typewriting this is for an English
person to learn. woking has the book. So I think as the cultural
center send it to Squadron Leader, so and so. Mark all the passages
which have to be learned by heart
includes a letter saying that the text must be committed to memory.
The actual pronunciation can be improved later. Tight in if you
can read the prayer postures the memorizing however, is most
important at this stage. Also summary of the shahada and five
principles say at the recommendation of Idris Shah, I
suggest Fatiha Caltha and if last for the Quranic parts will be more
in touch soon inshallah Idris. So you can see that his fishing in
this large muddy pond of big egos who want to learn Eastern oriental
wisdom and making money from these bestsellers as well. But set this
where people are really serious. There are people who he directs
towards the reality of tariqa but kind of discreetly and behind the
scenes.
And I remember
one of his disciples, Richard Williams, who was a great
draft and and one of the great animators really of the 20th
century who did the animation for the who killed Roger Rabbit film
and the animated titles for the Pink Panther films. He was really
one of the greats and had a big studio in Soho. And I remember
praying with him came up to Cambridge and we prayed together,
I said, Richard jamaludin How did you come into Islam? That is it's
to Idris challenge his teachings that jamaludin had actually done
the illustrations to Idris chars, not redeemed books, brilliant
illustrations, and it was through that that he started to detect
more more clearly the fragrance of true to so of being basically pure
hearted and decent guys. So that was an example of somebody who was
actually hooked as it were, by this, this this complex and to
many controversial, Dawa strategy. And here's another we're almost
done.
It's Ramadan, and I can see the cameraman starting to nod, but
we're almost there.
This is a letter from Idris to armored Bullock.
786 and I'm Ali Kumar rahmatullah wa barakato.
Ramadan, Mubarak,
etc. Thank you for your letter, and then one paragraph stands out
failure who should be machesney Danny DeVito stia kakai. Shula
Dalva the harsh us one iota, Allah Mykonian ki Nurul, Islam be daily
odofin Shabbat.
So Idris is saying,
I'm really happy to hear
about
the your honorable and respected uncle. And it is my prayer and
wish from God that the light of Islam will enter his heart.
So this is on this perspective, where it reads shall really is in
his private correspondence that is praying for people's relatives to
experience the light of Islam in their hearts. And there's other
cases that one could cite. And
there's more material that we haven't sifted through. And no
doubt much has been lost. But I think it's not an unrealistic
expectation of this OAC nakshi lineage
that it was tasked with casting as it were the bait very broadly over
the turbulent pond of the British and American intelligencia in the
middle of the 20th century. And some people were attracted to
Sufism, in the first instance by reading these books that might the
rest of us seem a little bit kind of superficial and
knowing.
And, no doubt the spreading of the names of the great Alia, the names
of the Naqshbandi foger, garner the names of the for Jehoiada for
Hala fat amongst people who otherwise would never have touched
a book about any religion has had an effect in this OAC way and
demonstratively people have come into Islam. This way. A friend of
mine in Spain 100 allows good, observant Muslim, and has been for
decades now came into Islam after first learning about Sufism, from
the books of Idris Shah, and there are many other examples.
So
he does right, this is Sri Ahmed. And this is the final word about
his reflection on himself, and what he thought was the most
significant thing in his life.
While I cannot claim celebrity like Abdullah Quilliam, the first
and the only shameful Islam of the British Isles, nor of Mamadou
pictoral, nor of Martin Ling's note of guy eatin, I can boast
some 13 and a half years of hands on experience of running one of
the most fissiparous of Muslim communities here in Oxford. That's
really is where he saw his legacy, trying to keep a Muslim community
with different ethnicities, different politics, different
sects on an even keel, and he really struggled for that.
So he was 100, a supporter of CMC and prayed for us at our opening.
And Charla, we've seen some of the blessings of his art because I
believe that he was a simple hearted person who loved God and
His messenger. And I don't believe that the prayer of such a heroic
soul, who was basically a solitary and had in many ways a difficult
life
would would not be answered by Heaven. So alhamdulillah May Allah
subhanaw taala cover him with his mercy and inshallah if we're
awkward and we visit pick tall and Idris Shah is there and get eaten
Is that and others insha Allah will refer to her for she awkward
when next with her in sha Allah. Baraka lofi COME ON OFF woman cool
was salam or aleikum wa rahmatullah wa barakato.
Cambridge Muslim College, training the next generation of Muslim
thinkers