The Islamist

by Ed Husain

  Sufi-oriented scholars helped me anchor my soul after five years of political Islamism, a shallow, anger-ridden, aggression-fuelled form of political belief, based on exploiting Islam’s adherents but remote from Islam’s teachings.

  St Augustine said that ‘the true philosopher is the lover of God’, and the Muslim Sufis certainly knew how to love God. At rihla programmes, or spiritual retreats, I saw grown men weep with yearning for God and his apostle Mohammed. Where Jesus of Nazareth had washed the feet of his disciples, Muslim Sufis kissed the hands of their brethren, a sign of deep humility and recognition that they knew not who was most loved among them in God’s sight. Now, to bow and prostrate myself in prayer had meaning for me: abject humility, total lack of vanity in following the Prophet Mohammed’s motions of prayer before the unseen but all-seeing God. The Prophet had prescribed humility as an antidote to the haughtiness of the Arabs in Mecca. Refusing to bow, they rejected him. Now, in humility, I found a new energy. Suddenly there was sweetness to prayers, nourishment for the soul, when previously they had been a dull chore necessary to obtain acceptance in mosques, a mask of religiosity to attract potential recruits to the Islamist cause.

  For the first time in my life I began eagerly to anticipate the next of the five daily prayers. The Prophet had taught that a servant is closest to God in prostration, when one’s forehead, the bearer of intellect, is bowed in recognition of a higher knowledge, a celestial realm. In such a posture, deeply conscious that I was not following an ideology but an age-old tradition passed down from generation to generation from the Prophet, I was able to unearth inner harmony in life.

  After my horrible experiences as an Islamist I remained wary. I marvelled at Sufi-oriented scholars from a distance but was not quite ready to commit myself, fearing the same trap of a personality cult that I had fallen into with Omar Bakri. In public I remained distant from these great masters of the Muslim spiritual tradition. Privately, I listened to their speeches, read their articles, and bought their books.

  In August 2000 Faye and I were married and spent our honeymoon in Turkey. While exploring the Turkish cultural capital we met Sufis of the Naqshbandi order in most mosques. I asked a shopkeeper near the Blue Mosque where the real awliya, people of God, were in Istanbul and he took me to Charshamba, on the hilltops of Istanbul’s Fatih district. There, old men with long white beards and radiant faces welcomed us to their humble community. Their daughters were hospitable to Faye, attempting to speak to her through gestures and showing her around the bazaar. Inside the main mosque in Charshamba there was a spiritual presence that I had not experienced before. In corners of the mosque men in white turbans sat in deep meditation, facing Mecca. Students of the Turkish saint popularly known as Mahmud Effendi, they practised the silent remembrance of God in the way of the Naqshbandis, based on an intensely spiritual breathing exercise in which each breath is used by the Naqshbandi aspirant to remember God.

  At the entrances to the mosque were frames of photos of the tomb of the Prophet Mohammed. I felt that I was in a different world, a different time. The silence, the dimly lit interior, the rows of oak shelving holding old manuscripts of the Koran calmed my soul. But I still felt contrition. Most of the men were much older than me and they had led a lifetime of prayer and meditation. They had escaped the persecution of the extremist secularism of the post-1924 Turkish state and found inner calm among the chaos of the city. Would I be able to lead such a life? I doubted it. But I knew I wanted to.

  After evening prayers the men humbly walked out of the prayer hall, untied their cotton turbans, and hid them inside their cloak pockets. The fundamentalist secularist Mustafa Kemal Ataturk had banned expressions of religion in Turkey, including the wearing of turbans and headscarves. Still the spirit of Islam whirled like a dervish in the hearts and minds of its most God-loving adherents, the Turkish Sufis.

  An elderly worshipper at a mosque, noticing my intense interest in Sufism, told me a story that has never left me. Beside the Sea of Marmara, sitting at the steps of the tomb of a Sufi, the old man pointed to the boats out at sea and told me how the great sultan, Suleiman the Magnificent, a contemporary of King Henry VIII, had once sat on a boat with a Sufi.

  ‘How I yearn to have the peaceful heart that you have. My worries are ceaseless, my kingdom troublesome,’ said the sultan.

  ‘Do you really want inner peace?’ asked the Sufi.

  ‘Yes!’ replied the sultan. ‘Can you offer it to me?’

  ‘Pass me that ring on your finger,’ said the Sufi.

  Looking puzzled, the sultan removed his diamond ring and handed it over to the Sufi, half hoping that this was the price of inner calm. The Sufi stared the sultan in the eyes and, without warning, dropped the priceless ring into the sea.

  ‘How dare you?’ yelled the sultan in a frenzy.

  The Sufi smiled, unperturbed. The sultan called upon the members of his entourage to dive overboard and recover it. The Sufi raised his hand, indicating that the sultan should hold back his courtiers. Calmly, the Sufi put his hand into the water and miraculously pulled out the ring.

  ‘As long as this ring is of any worth to you, O Suleiman, you will not have inner peace. Inner contentment is derived from our detachment.’

  Detachment from the material world was a key plank of Sufi teaching. Walking the Sufi path, I realized, was not going to be easy.

  During our time in Turkey I met an American convert to Islam. Initially, he had been a Salafi, studying in Saudi Arabia. In the Prophet’s Mosque in Medina he met Mahmud Effendi and left Saudi Arabia to study traditional Islam under him. Shaikh Naeem Abdul Wali, originally Gary Edwards from Indiana, took me to Bursa to meet his shaikh.

  Mahmud Effendi was a frail old man who walked with the support of his disciples, who held his hands as he slowly moved forward. In a cool mountaintop house he spent his summer with some of his disciples, away from the heat of Istanbul. My moments with him were brief, as he had to return to rest, but I felt an overawing presence in his company. He made me feel pure, clean, and gentle. His facial movements were soft, like those of a child, and his smile was innocent and sincere. He walked into the guestroom, where Faye and I had been waiting with others, and his humble majesty overcame us. Simply to look upon him reduced Faye to tears.

  Such were the real men of God, able to move hearts, bring forth tears of joy, and purify the inner realms of those who visited them. My long trip to Bursa had been more than worthwhile.

  I spent as much time with Shaikh Naeem as I could. I had to use my discretion - this was our honeymoon, after all - but Faye was more than gracious in appreciating what I was trying to do: understand Sufism and Islam in Turkey.

  Shaikh Naeem, like his spiritual master, wore a turban and dressed in a long, flowing robe in emulation of the Prophet. Grandpa had done the same. And I couldn’t help noticing other similarities between him and my first spiritual teacher. Had Grandpa been right all along? Shaikh Naeem venerated his teacher as my father honoured Grandpa. The gentle conduct of the Turkish Sufis in Charshamba, their pristine turbans, their attachment to the Prophet, all brought back buried memories of my own childhood with Grandpa.

  Faye and I enjoyed our honeymoon in Istanbul, and we both returned to London with a treasure we had not previously possessed. Throughout Istanbul we came across people selling poetry and portraits of someone they called ‘Mevlana’, ‘our master’. Who was he? Again, a man in robe, turban, and flowing white beard. During our last visit to the Blue Mosque and its immediate surroundings, I saw a young woman selling pictures of ‘Mevlana’ with his poetry, some of which was in English. One in particular caught my eye and I immediately bought it as a souvenir:

  Everyone is so frightened of death,

  But the true Sufis just laugh;

  Nothing overpowers their hearts.

  What strikes the oyster shell

  Does not harm the pearl.

  ‘Mevlana’ had addressed my own dread of death. I liked his parables: the oyster shell
for the human body and the pearl for our soul. But what did he know about the pearl? What is our soul? I set about learning more about this poet. I discovered that his name was Jalal al-Din Rumi and he lived in the thirteenth century. Rumi today is the best known, most widely read Muslim mystical poet in the world. He is also the founder of the Mevlevi order, known to us in the West as ‘whirling dervishes’. How did Rumi overcome his fear of death? Why did he rejoice? I returned to London and collected as much of Rumi’s poetry as I could. For a thirteenth-century Muslim scholar, Rumi was remarkably liberal and insightful. He was not, however, without the blemishes of his time, particularly in relation to gender equality.

  Now, no longer a mental prisoner of Islamism, I was able to put people in their historical context. If Shakespeare had been racist and anti-Semitic in his plays, then it was because he reflected his times. If Rumi had expressed sexist sentiments, he too had been a product of his period. I tried to avoid judging the past through contemporary lenses.

  Rumi wrote much on the subject of death and the afterlife. He went so far as to admonish his followers:

  Do not cry, ‘Alas, you are gone!’ at my graveside:

  For me, this is a time for joyful meeting!

  Do not bid me ‘Farewell’ when I am lowered into my grave:

  I have passed through the curtain to eternal grace.

  Rumi’s firm belief, his certainty, did not have a place in my heart. That old Islamist trait, knowing all the answers, still lingered in the depths of my mind. To this dithering, Rumi answered:

  When you put a cargo on board a ship, you make that venture on trust,

  For you do not know whether you will be drowned or safely reach the other shore.

  If you say, ‘I will not embark till I am certain of my fate,’ then you will do no trade:

  The secret of these two destinies is never disclosed.

  The faint-hearted merchant neither gains nor loses; nay he loses,

  For he is deprived of his fortune. Only those who are zealous in their search, who faithfully seek the flame, find the light.

  Since all affairs turn upon hope, surely faith is the worthiest object of hope, for thereby you win salvation.

  Sufism was about hope and faith. Life itself was about hope and faith.

  Rumi’s poetry conveyed deep spiritual meanings. Growing up in Britain, I was not introduced to Rumi and his contemporaries, for there were many such scholars. Rather, my introductions were to Mawdudi, Qutb, Nabhani - all of whom loathed Rumi’s tradition of tolerance and tranquillity. Rumi taught that ‘the religion of Love transcends all other religions: for lovers, the only religion and belief is God’. To Islamists, such all-encompassing wisdom was anathema.

  Later that year, Shaikh Naeem was invited to Britain for the first time to address students at Hounslow mosque. As I continued to learn more about Sufism and tried to walk the Sufi path with the distant aid of Rumi and living Sufi teachers such as Imam Hanson and Shaikh Nuh Keller, I began to frequent this serene west London mosque. After teaching at Hounslow for a fortnight Shaikh Naeem stayed on for a week and I was honoured to have him as a guest in our house.

  My parents had noticed my increasing calmness, aversion to watching much television, and immersion in the works of Rumi and the speeches of Imam Hanson and Shaikh Keller. My father was initially sceptical that I had really renounced Islamism, but he was slowly beginning to discern a change deep within me, much deeper than anything he had previously witnessed. My mother knew this sooner than my father, and lavished me with love as though I were a newborn child. All the while Faye continued to motivate me, always eager to share my latest discoveries and insights.

  When Shaikh Naeem came to stay with us that year, my father’s doubt was washed away. He had expected an Islamist of sorts, a modernist political Muslim. Shaikh Naeem’s appearance, based like Grandpa’s on the Prophet’s, put his fears to rest. He was overjoyed that his long lost son had, at last, truly come home again.

  The Sufis taught me a great deal about the habits of the Prophet. I knew of no other Muslim group that brought him to life as the Sufis did. To them, he was al-Habib, the Beloved.

  In my Islamist days I spoke about al-Habib a lot, but I really had no conception of who he was, other than a political leader. The man and his life were just abstract constructs to me. But in the company of Sufis I discovered who the most misunderstood man in history really was. I continued to meet people who internalized every single one of the Prophet’s traits: happiness, compassion, love, fairness, gentility, and an aura of inner contentment. The Prophet was alive in their hearts, and found expression in their conduct.

  I accompanied Shaikh Naeem to as many places as possible, and tried to learn from him all I could. He was another example of an American who had embraced Islam and was now setting a fine example to so-called born Muslims such as myself. I went with him to the University of Cambridge to meet the renowned Muslim scholar Dr Tim Winter, whose articles, translations of classical Muslim texts, and taped lectures had helped me embrace classical, traditional Islam.

  We met him in his office at the Faculty of Divinity and talked for a long time. It was a Friday, so we went together to weekly congregational prayers at the local mosque. I was expecting to be addressed by an imam from the local Bangladeshi community but, to my surprise and delight, it was Dr Winter who delivered the sermon, in both Arabic and English, and led prayer in the sweetest harmony I had heard from a convert to Islam.

  After prayers we resumed our discussions. Dr Winter also spoke Persian and Ottoman Turkish, and was a specialist in European Islam as well as medieval schools of theology. He and Shaikh Naeem discussed religion, history, current affairs, and literature as I listened and learnt, occasionally asking for clarification.

  I discovered much that day at Cambridge, but one simple but crucial phrase stands out: ‘it depends’. This was how Dr Winter began his answer to nearly every question we asked, before going on to consider various alternatives. To a former Islamist with a polarized view of the world, Dr Winter’s nuanced response was a mighty eye-opener. To this day I remain bewildered why Dr Winter, also known as Shaikh Abdal-Hakim Murad, is not considered the scholastic authority for Islam in Britain. He has impeccable credentials, having studied with leading scholars in the Arab world, and is at home with mainstream British Muslims. Instead, the media turn to unqualified, shallow, robotic Islamists to explain Islam to their audiences.

  By the middle of 2001 I was committed to spiritual Islam. I was determined to leave Britain and study Arabic and traditional Islam in the Middle East. I had nothing to do with Islamists, kept my distance from all forms of Muslim politicking, and simply concentrated on memorizing the Koran and observing the divine presence that is God, trying always to grow in love and veneration of the Prophet. Islamism, as far as I was concerned, was distant, buried history. But modern Britain was receding as well.

  That year I left my job at HSBC and downgraded to a clerical job in local government so that I could concentrate on my Koranic studies in the absence of sales targets and overtime. As the months passed an immense spiritual energy grew within me. I was at peace with myself and the world around me; my soul was tranquil and no amount of pressure caused me stress. I would wake at dawn and revise the previous day’s chapters. In the evenings I would work on new chapters. Faye and my youngest sister Rashida would listen to my readings before I went to see my Koran teacher on Saturday afternoons. I maintained this spiritual discipline for over two years and tried to emerge a better person: I felt - I knew - I was closer to God than I had ever been, and the spiritual void I experienced while in Islamism had been filled. I no longer categorized people as Muslims and non-Muslims, as I had done as an Islamist, but simply as people.

  We were all God’s creation, children of Adam. We had a common heritage, honoured by God in the Koran. My belief in humanity expanded my horizons, made me feel a more complete human being in service to God and creation.

  I also became a better Brit
on. One day, on my way back to London from Cambridge with a Sufi teacher, I did not stop at a red light, a hangover from my Hizb days when it was common practice to ignore the law of the land. The Sufi gently touched my arm, smiled and said, ‘Our master, the Prophet, came to perfect our manners. Breaking the law, even a minor traffic violation, is bad adab, discourtesy.’ I blushed in embarrassment. The Sufi approach was so gentle, and yet so overpowering. There was no grand explanation - just simple humility. As the Chicago-born Shaikh Nuh Keller said, ‘Sufism is about you. It is about falling in love with the divine.’

  Eventually I memorized almost half of the Koran. The more I learnt, the more I felt that this knowledge was a trust, a gift from God. My memory was too weak to retain 3,000 verses, and yet with God’s mercy it did. I supplemented my Koranic studies with frequent visits to gatherings of spiritually inclined Muslims. I regularly attended seminars of visiting teachers from various Sufi pathways, and of Sufis who did not adhere to any particular spiritual order. They taught the secrets of travelling the spiritual path: humility, repentance, awe, kindness, hope, and yearning for visions of the Messenger of God. I tried my utmost to exhibit all those traits, but learnt also the need for constant vigilance against one’s own shortcomings, errors, falls from grace, and moments of desolation, and that I must remain open to correction, guidance, and advice from my superiors in my journey towards God. ‘The life not tested by criticism’, Socrates once said, ‘is not worth living.’

  As far as I was concerned, Islamism had now been completely flushed out of me. I could not have been more wrong.

  12.

  9/11

  Whoever kills an innocent person, it is as though he has killed entire humanity.

  The Koran

  It was extraordinary that the Muslims of the Sufi tradition who helped me regain my sanity were all Americans. They may have led me to other mainstream Muslim scholars who were English, such as Dr Tim Winter, and others who were Yemeni, Syrian, or Egyptian, but the primary reintroduction to what I consider true, spiritual Islam, the essence of the faith, came to me from American Muslims who had discovered Islam through the Sufis they had met.