Praise be to Allah. May Allah’s peace and blessings be upon our master Muhammad and upon his family and companions.

There have been repeated requests for clarifications about my position regarding the injustice against our Uighur brothers and sisters, may Allah relieve their distress and lift harm from them. The requests have been made in the wake of a campaign of lies and distortions propagated by our brothers “who have transgressed against us” from the Brotherhood, the Sururis, some from amongst those who deem themselves to follow the Salaf, as well as other “Islamist” organisations and groups. May Allah rectify us all. Various well-known media platforms have been complicit in this multi-lingual campaign by taking advantage, as is their general habit, of the pain experienced by Muslims and the injustices perpetrated against them for their own side battles.

This issue arose after I answered a question about whether the coronavirus outbreak in China was Allah’s revenge for the treatment of the Uighurs in China. The question was posed in a university forum in Egypt. In my answer, I was clear about acknowledging the injustices perpetrated against our Uighur brothers and sisters while also affirming my refusal to declare it a divine punishment against China. In the course of my answer, I made a mistake about the percentage of Muslims in the East Turkestan region and their percentage among the Uighur population. I corrected this mistake through social media platforms after private correspondence and public remarks from some Turkestani brothers.

In light of the aforementioned campaigns as well as requests for clarification, I will like to restate my position on the issue and hope it suffices for those who want to understand.

1. Our Uighur brothers and sisters have and continue to suffer severe injustices against their rights. These injustices are unacceptable by any religion and unacceptable by humanity. The situation in past decades has been more severe than it is now. Gradual improvements have occurred in comparison to the past and this may allow progress on the issue, but any such improvement is still unsatisfactory and not all injustices have been lifted. This is a view that has been expressed by some non-politically aligned Uighur brothers with whom we have contact and it is one I agree with. In any case, the jurists have a principle: “passing judgment on something is contingent on having a correct conceptualisation of it.” In view of this, it is clear that it is difficult for the one who is honest with himself to claim he has attained a decisive comprehension of an issue in all its details. For this reason, cautious patience is advised in issuing decisive judgments and opinions about the truth of an issue.

2. Among the injustices perpetrated against the Uighurs: violations against their basic religious rights relating to their mosques, prayers, fasting, family commitments, child upbringing, and protecting their Muslim identity.

3. These heinous injustices did not start off as a religious war but a political one. China – despite its official rejection of religions – turns a blind eye to Muslims, Christians and Buddhists of other nationalities practicing their religious rites. It allows mosques to be built and expanded, Islamic schools to be opened, and permits the establishment of religious rites in many provinces where there are no political movements that demand secession or political independence from the state. However, political movements with such political demands are treated with religious repression and tightened security measures, regardless of the religion they belong to. The Chinese experience with Tibetan Buddhists for the last half a century is one example.

4. One of the most important reasons for this political war today is to employ the Uighur grievance in the political and economic battle between the West and China. The East Turkestan region (Xinjiang) is at the centre of China’s global economic endeavour and it presents an opportunity for Western states to take advantage of the Uighur grievance by employing it for their own ends. Some Western countries and international organisations claim to champion human rights in the Uighur case but stop short of providing a real solution to their plight. They only further provoke and encourage the clash between the Uighurs and the state, increasing the Uighur tragedy in the process. These same states and organisations pay no attention to the consequences of their positions. This type of behaviour between states in the international arena is not new. The examples of Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Bosnia, Burma, Syria, Rwanda, and Western and Central African countries are just a few examples. Hundreds of thousands of refugees in camps around the world are living witnesses to the crimes of the countries of the “developed” world.

5. The suffering of our Uighur brothers and sisters has also been amplified through the exploitation of their grievances by Islamist groups and organisations for their own local and regional conflicts. The outcome of this exploitation was many young Uighurs joining the likes of Al-Qaeda, ISIS and other such criminal outfits. Hundreds of these young Uighurs were killed in Afghanistan, Syria and Iraq under the banners of these groups. Ironically, these groups who claimed to support the Uighur cause and save their lives from the Chinese persecution were the very same groups pushing Uighurs towards their own death. The leader of the Islamist Turkestan party (Türkistan Islam Partiyisi) Hassan Makhdum, was killed in an Al-Qaeda training camp on the Afghan border after he pledged allegiance to Mullah Omar is only one example of such tampering with the fate of Muslim peoples and their grievances. To Allah we direct our complaints!

6. The exploitation of people’s pain and grievances, trading in their blood, manipulating and employing the umma’s causes in power rivalries and local, regional and international disputes is an abhorrent affair that has neither a religious nor humane basis. This sad reality is recurring in our all our causes by people of our own kind. It has only resulted in harming and destroying those very causes. It is not just the Uighurs’ grievances that are being manipulated. The destruction of the Palestinian cause in the hearts of younger generations is another example. Its manipulation has occurred through it becoming the play of election campaigns of Islamist organisations, and their using it as a tool to apply pressure on governments for decades and a means of youth recruitment. The fate of Afghanistan and Somalia for more than a quarter of a century with all the resulting atrocities is another example. Similar issues of exploitation put the Muslim identity of future generations in the Balkans at risk of disappearing. In Europe and the West, devout Muslim congregations have been used by such organisations as tools in the pursuit of power or as instruments of pressure. The use of humanitarian charities as fronts for ideological organisations has wasted the rights of the destitute and the afflicted and exploited the sincerity of the youth who volunteer in these efforts.

These examples have existed in our umma and were undertaken by our own. They falsely attributed their actions to Allah’s true religion and His merciful law. They were knowingly or unknowingly serving the ummah’s adversaries but not the ummah itself.

In closing, these are the positions that have been distorted and misrepresented in the media efforts of our brothers “who have transgressed against us.” Allah’s help is sought. He is the One we place our hopes in to relieve distress, lift calamity, and rectify the situation we find ourselves in.

May Allah send peace and blessings upon our master Muhammad and upon his family and companions and peace. Praise be to Allah, Lord of the worlds.

Last week I issued a general statement on the murder of worshipers in Christchurch, New Zealand. It included some analyses and requirements related to the incident and its causes and its treatment.

This statement is directed towards the hearts, in the hope they follow the course of comprehending the Divine path in dealing with events in a way that is connected to the meaning of us being Muslims:

On the first Friday after the Christchurch massacre, let us go to the mosque as early as possible, cleansed of physical impurity by taking the sunna bath beforehand, and cleansed of the inward impurities of hatred and rancour by the water of love of God and His Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him and his family).

Let us fill our mosques with worshipers in a show of declaration that the acts of criminals will not prevent us from remembering God and performing the prayer, and that terrorism, no matter how dark it is, will not terrorise hearts that believe in God and are rooted in certainty that there is none who can repel His decree. God reminds us:

“There is a time set for every people: they cannot hasten it, nor, when it comes, will they be able to delay it for a single moment.”

“Every soul is certain to taste death: We test you all through the bad and the good, and to Us you will all return.”

“O you, soul at peace: return to your Lord well pleased and well pleasing; enter the abode of My servants; enter into My Paradise”

Let us contemplate another meaning of the events of last Friday. The deceased were in God’s house, on a Friday, and in devotion to Him; some were bowing while others were prostrating. If we reflect on this, perhaps our souls may long for the paradise of God’s contentment and salvation. And may we realise that the darkness of hatred only harms its bearer; the more one has a desire to vent their hatred and inner illness by harming others, the more they will only increase the rank of those they hate.

The crime that took place last week bestowed the honour of death in God’s way upon the deceased. It mobilised the world against people and groups that spout the disease of hatred and even earned the censure of some extremists. And as we saw, anyone who tried to justify this heinous crime was quickly denounced by people around the world.

We have a dire need to engage in a moment of reflection on the events last week. Let our reflection bring us to reject all types of discourse that incite people towards hatred. Let it reject any attempt for hatred to settle in our hearts, for the heart has a purpose more sacred than this: God’s intimate knowledge. And let it reject any attempt for hatred to stain our souls, for they have been ennobled by the Divine breath that carries the beauty of His love into the world in which he appointed us as stewards.

Let us make this Friday a declaration of our steadfastness and determination to populate the mosques of God with prayer and remembrance, undeterred by terrorism or threat, and with hearts that do not accept hatred and do not pay any attention to those who call to it from the pulpit of a mosque, church, synagogue, parliament, or a political rally or electoral campaign. Even if this hatred is repeated through the media, let us reject it because the media has become a place that has stripped the freedom of expression from responsibility. And let us reject the political exploitation of these tragic events.

In closing, the criminals who commit acts of hate towards you might succeed in inflicting physical harm on you, but they cannot inflict any harm to your humanity and nor can they fill your heart with hatred and rancour unless you allow them to do so and are willing for their darkness to triumph over you, defeat you and strip your heart of light.

Remember God’s words: “Those who are aware of God think of Him when Satan prompts them to do something and immediately they can see [straight]” and “God will deliver those who took heed of Him to their place of safety: no harm will touch them, nor will they grieve.”

May God have mercy on those that have returned unto him while they were in a place of His worship and peacefully praying. May He accept them as martyrs and unite them with the prophets, truthful, and righteous people. May He grant the hearts of their loved ones the spiritual succour that He honoured the deceased with at the moment they met with Him, and may the peace and tranquillity of submission and contentment cover them.

I ask God to make us of those He honours with understanding and truthfulness; and that He grants our souls to experience a portion of His love; an experience whose intimacy is never wrested away, nor its light extinguished. May He guide those who have gone astray, bring those who are remote near, turn to those who turn away, and purify the hearts of people with His love. He is the Guardian and the Omnipotent.

A day after the conference issued its final declarative statement, countless allegations were made about the origins and purpose of the conference and many of its participants were subject to vehement attacks and abuse on Arab social media channels. The conference was accused of everything from being a Russian and/or Iranian plot to define a new version of Islam, a declaration of war against the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and an attempt to narrowly define Sunni Islam to the point it excludes those who do not fit its definition, to a fulfilment of the 2006 RAND report recommendation for the West to forge alliance with ’sufis’ among many other things.

I would like to take this opportunity to set the record straight on the Chechnya Conference and correct the rumours, fabrications and accusations that many media outlets in the East and West have propagated.

Why Chechnya?

To understand why this conference took place in Chechnya we need to consider two things: first, that the Russian Federation is home to approximately 25 million Muslims who, unlike many other countries in the Western world, are native Russians, and second, Chechnya’s recent history.

After the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, Chechnya, like other republics, declared its independence. A brutal two-year conflict followed, ending with a peace treaty between the Russian government and the Chechen resistance.

Chechnya entered a difficult period following the conflict and had to contend with the issue of Arab foreign fighters who remained in the country despite the end of the war. Tensions intensified as the Arab fighters became more candid and insistent about their Takfirist ideology among a population for whom it was completely alien.

Three years later those Arab fighters, led by figures such as Ibn al-Khattab and aided by local Chechens under the leadership of Shamil Basayev, violated the treaty by invading Daghestan in pursuit of establishing a so-called Islamic state in the Caucasus. The treaty was withdrawn and Russian forces entered Chechnya once again.

The Mufti of Chechnya at the time, Shaykh Ahmad Kadyrov, issued a strong condemnation of the Daghestan invasion, stating that it will bring only further destruction to Chechnya and its people. He said that since Muslims broke the treaty, and as Muslims are bound by their religion to faithfully adhere to any treaties and pacts they enter into, the perpetrators were guilty of a transgression against Islamic law and must be brought to justice. In recognition of their support for the Chechen people during the first war, he offered the Arab insurgents amnesty if they surrendered their arms. If they did not agree, they would be asked to leave the country. His offer was refused. The Second Chechen war began and continued without mercy. Chechnya’s leaders and countless civilians were killed with over 98% of Grozny’s infrastructure obliterated.

Shaykh Ahmad Kadyrov and the scholars of Chechnya were united in their stance on the second Chechen war. They viewed the rebels, led by Ibn al-Khattab and Shamil Basayev, as engaging in an illegitimate cause driven by self-interest because resistance was no longer about the sovereignty and best-interest of the Chechen people. Thus, he intervened on behalf of his people and brought the war to an end through negotiating a political solution with the Russian Federation. He was assassinated by Takfirist rebels in 2004 after they passed a verdict that he was a traitor to Ahl al-Sunna (mainstream Sunni Islam) and an apostate. His successor was also assassinated.

Today’s Chechnya has progressed. Whatever grievances the international community may have with Ramzan Kadyrov, the country has witnessed a restoration of peace, order and stability. Houses, buildings, schools and mosques have been rebuilt, and the Chechen people live their lives with a normalcy that was unimaginable just a decade ago. This side to Chechnya leaves much to think about.

Despite the progress, Chechnya and the broader Caucasus region is still facing a real threat from Takfiri extremist groups.  Over fifty senior scholars have been assassinated over the last fifteen years in Daghestan alone. The latest assassination took place only a few months ago. Scholars were killed either in the mosque, on their way to the mosque or returning from the mosque. During a visit to Chechnya last year, I met the father of Daghestan’s Mufti. He told me how his grandson was killed on the doorstep of his local mosque as he went to offer the Friday prayer. The reason for the killing? The Mufti represented a ‘misguided’ and ‘erroneous’ understanding of Islam and deserved to be excommunicated from the religion.

In a case from the second Chechen war, one of the most senior scholars of Chechnya, Shaykh Abdul-Wahid Bin Mud, was killed outside his home by a man named Abu al-Walid. Abu al-Walid used to be presented as one of the great Arab resistance fighters aiding the Chechen people. Abu al-Walid went to the home of Shaykh Abdul-Wahid, dragged him out and offered him an ultimatum: either he issues a fatwa legitimising the actions of Abu al-Walid’s faction as jihad, or he will be killed. Shaykh Abdul-Wahid defiantly refused, stating that he will not change his original fatwa condemning their illegitimate actions; and that they are not in a jihad because they are the ones who breached the peace treaty. He was shot eleven times at point-blank range. I visited Shaykh Abdul-Wahid’s home and saw the exact spot where they killed him, and met his wife who was forced to witness her husband’s grotesque murder.

The coherence of the Caucasus’ religious tradition is remarkable and, unfortunately, the target of extreme takfiri groups, who consider the indigenous Islamic tradition as erroneous and misguided. They justified targeted killings of traditional Sunni scholars under the pretext of ‘defending normative Sunni Islam (Ar: Ahl al-Sunna wa’l-Jama’a) from misguided scholars and erroneous understandings of the faith’. Scholars and religious leaders throughout the Caucasus were worried and concerned about the influence and spread of takfiri ideology. They wanted to address the issue and so they reached out to their peers from the Arab world with a proposal— convene a series of biennial scholarly conferences in Grozny with one clear purpose: reviving and reinvigorating the legacy of traditional Sunni scholarship as represented by the classical institutions of knowledge like Al-Azhar, Qarawiyyin and Zaitouna. We obliged and the first conference was convened in 2014. This year’s conference, the second in the series, has been two years in the making.

The Theme

The theme for the Chechnya Conference was chosen based on current needs in the Caucasus region and an assessment of previous international conferences in the Muslim world

In the years following the 9/11 attacks, and subsequent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the Muslim world experienced great turmoil. There was a dire need to create a united front against the internal sectarian and exclusionist divisions that were threatening to tear apart our communities and societies.

The Amman Message fulfilled this need. Led by King Hussein and Prince Ghazi bin Muhammad of Jordan, the Amman Message answered the question ‘Who is a Muslim?’ by reaffirming the classical Sunni position that anyone who prays towards the qibla is a Muslim. It gave official recognition to the eight schools of sharia that Al-Azhar affirms as representative of the broader body of Muslims: the four Sunni schools, Ibadi, Jafari, Zaydi and Zahiri. The Amman Message was endorsed by the International Islamic Fiqh Academy at the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation and included in the Makkah Declaration that was led by the late King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia.

In 2007, following Pope Benedict’s unfortunate remarks in Regensburg, Germany, scholars and leaders from the Muslim world took the important step of creating ‘A Common Word’, an interreligious dialogue initiative to promote mutual respect and understanding among Muslim and Christian faith communities.

In the decade since the Amman Message, Makkah Declaration and A Common Word, a further, more specific danger has arisen: an ideology of takfir that shrouds itself in the garb of Ahl al-Sunna and lays [false] claim to this noble title. The proponents of this ideology have misled the faithful, governments and ordinary people into believing that they represent the mainstream Sunni tradition. Their espousal of this noble term has, with great regret, been used as a basis to discredit, marginalise, excommunicate and kill scholars and laity alike. The Chechen people bore witness to this before the Arabs.

Just as the entire Muslim community, Sunni and Shia alike, stood against division with the Amman Message, the Sunni scholarly community has an obligation before it today to answer the question “Who  are the Ahl al-Sunna?” It is only by restoring and revivifying the classical technical definition of normative Sunni Islam that we can firmly and confidently reject the error of groups that falsely act in the noble name of Ahl al-Sunna and tarnish its honour. . The intent behind the Chechnya Conference was to address this question with the scholarly rigour it deserves.. Together, the Amman Message and the Chechnya Conference are complimentary initiatives, not conflictual. By reaffirming the classical definition of Ahl al-Sunna, the Chechnya conference declaration was reasserting the inclusivity of Sunni Islam that the Amman Message sought to uphold.

Some accused  the conference  of inciting further division and sectarianism by categorising Islam  into ‘groups’ and ‘sects’ like the Ash’aris or Shafi’i’s, etc.  . Indeed, a common retort to this categorisation is “rather than be Sunni or Shia, Hanafi or Shafi’i, Ashari or Athari, I will be a Muslim.”

This is a mistaken approach and a misunderstanding of the purpose behind the categorisation. The various schools within Sunni Islam do not represent groups, factions or sects. They represent a methodical code, a set of scholastic principles, a theory through which Islamic source texts are understood. Their attribution to the names of luminary scholars was merely functional, since the named scholar was the one who codified the method of a scholastic tradition that preceded him and so became the symbolic representation of that method. He did not invent nor innovate a new understanding.

The existence of plurality in our understandings of Iman, Islam and Ihsan, notwithstanding doctrinal and legal universals, expand the scope of the religion and manifest its mercy.  In essence, the problem does not lie in there being a plurality of opinion, creed and understanding. Rather, it is our inability to embrace the inherent plurality of Islam that fosters divisiveness and discord.

The community of Sunni Islam represents the vast majority of Muslims in the world. Its scholars, institutions and seminaries have produced knowledge and advanced religious and intellectual sciences for over fourteen centuries. The sophisticated scholastic traditions that evolved over this time eventually settled in the form of four primary schools of law, two primary schools of doctrinal theology and the mainstream Islamic spiritual tradition. The academic term that defined this collective was Ahl al-Sunna wa’l Jam’a. In the face of new theological trends, innovations and influences, Ahl al-Sunna became the standard measure for understanding normative Islam.

For these reasons the conference theme was not, and could not be, exclusionist. This was one of the false allegations raised against the conference Neither the presentations, papers nor discussions involved any suggestion  of creating a definition of Islam, or Sunni Islam, that restricts the inclusivity of the faith and excludes swathes of Muslims.  I invite anyone to watch the videos of the conference’s proceedings, read its papers and contact attendees to verify this. The objective of the conference was simply to define Sunni Islam through the tripartite paradigm of the religion – faith (iman), law (islam), and spirituality (ihsan) – as has been understood and adopted by generations of Muslims from the beginning of Islam until the contemporary age. The conference was merely reaffirming definitions penned by earlier generations of Muslim scholars, such as al-Zabidi, al-Safarini,al-Amadi, al-Iji and others.

The classical definition of Sunni Islam reaffirmed in the Chechnya Conference is the most authoritative rejection of takfirism today. The reckless takfirism of extremist ideologies in the Muslim world are falsely justified through inaccurate interpretations of Islamic source texts, whereas the normative Islamic tradition, embodied in the Ahl al-Sunna, views takfir as a matter of grave consequence and has defined stringent criteria to guard against its exploitation. The Sunni doctrinal tradition affirms that ‘One who commits a sin is not excommunicated’ and ‘A person exits Islam only by negating the very statement he/she entered it by’.

The Ahl al-Hadith and Ahl al-Sunna

Ahl al-Hadith is a technical term used to denote the scholars of hadith science. In terms of doctrine, it came to denote the specialist scholars of hadith whose main adopted doctrinal position regarding God’s attributes was that of tafwīd, consignment. The term Athari is used interchangeably with Ahl al-Hadith.

It was argued that the final declaration of the conference deliberately excluded the Ahl al-Hadith and ceased to consider them among the broad corpus of the Ahl al-Sunna.

Let me state clearly that the conference did not cast the Ahl al-Hadith outside the fold of Ahl al-Sunna. Shaykh al-Azhar Ahmad al-Tayyab’s opening framework-setting speech very clearly stated the Ahl al-Hadith is within the fold of Ahl al-Sunna. The original final declaration did not mention Ahl al-Hadith because it was not considered technically precise nor useful. Historically, the Ahl al-Hadith were a community of Hadith scholars, experts in the science of hadith. They did not have a distinct doctrinal theological position that differed to the traditional Ash’ari or Maturidi schools. Upon close inspection of the doctrinal positions held by the community of Hadith scholars—the likes of al-Daraqutni, al-Hakim, al-Bayhaqi, al-Khatib al-Baghdadi, Ibn Asakir, Ibn Salah, al-Nawawi, Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani, al-Zabidi and others—it is clearly evident that one of two doctrinal positions on God’s attributes were upheld: ta’wīl or tafwīd (consignment). Both are established and official positions of the Ash’ari and Maturidi schools. Notably, there was a rare development in the Hanbali school of jurisprudence; a branch of hadith scholars inclined towards antropomorphism (tashbih) or corporealism (tajsim). However, this was wholly unrepresentative of the Ahl al-Hadith as a whole. Given this, at the time of drafting the final declaration, the scholars involved felt that there was no need to add the Ahl al-Hadith as another category since they did not represent a distinct or different theological position. More importantly, the declaration did not state that the creed of Ahl al-Hadith is not from the creed of the Ahl al-Sunna; this, instead, was merely assumed by the conference’s detractors.

Shaykh al-Azhar’s inclusion of the Ahl al-Hadith in his definition was deliberate and borrowed from classical definitons of the Ahl al-Sunna that sought to be descriptive as opposed to technical in their presentation. Hence, they would mention that Ahl al-Sunna ‘encompasses the scholars of hadith (Ahl al-Hadith), the scholars of Arabic language (Ahl al-Lugha), and grammar (Ahl al-Nahw) etc. The final declaration of the Chechnya Conference sought to present a technical, scholastic definition of Ahl al-Sunna as opposed to descriptive and populist, hence the reason for no mention of the Ahl al-Hadith. However, the application of this technique was unduly exploited by some as ‘evidence’ of a malicious campaign against the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and ‘confirmation’ that the 200 scholars gathered in Grozny excluded the Ahl al-Hadith from the realm of Ahl al-Sunna. In light of these attempts to sow seeds of discord among the ranks of Muslim scholars and communities, the conference organisers, in the interest of preserving harmony and after consulting senior scholars, did not hesitate to issue a second draft of the declaration that included mention of the Ahl al-Hadith. Shaykh al-Azhar remarked that though the Ahl al-Hadith have no distinct creed than that of the Ashari and Maturidi schools, he included them in the opening speech to avoid giving detractors an opportunity to fan the flames of discord.

Falsifying a message or news with the intent of creating discord is not only dishonest and deceitful, but a direct violation of the Prophet Muhammad’s ethical teachings, who said, “A person who makes a false statement with malicious intent will not enter the Garden.”

The Participants

Over 200 scholars from across the Caucasus region and the broader Muslim world attended the conference. The participants were highly representative of the plurality of thought that defines Sunni Islam.. This plurality is a distinguishing feature of the normative Islamic scholastic tradition and a strong demonstration of its universality.

Nevertheless, the Chechen context and the tumult that some countries in the Caucasus region are currently experiencing bridled the conference.  The Muslims of the Caucasus region are adherents of traditional Sunni Islam and have been throughout their history—that is Shafi’i or Hanafi in jurisprudence, and Ash’ari in theology. This is the tradition that the scholars of the region are trained in. When local scholars were invited to attend the conference, this was the pool of scholars available for selection. Foreign scholars were selected in line with their expertise on topics that were designated for the various panels in the conference. It would have been particularly odd, and would have defeated the purpose of the conference, to have scholars attend who view the Ashari tradition as being a sect that is unrepresentative of Sunni Islamic theology, as is the view of adherents of contemporary Salafism.

One of the false allegations against the conference was that it excluded Saudi Arabia. The conference was accused of plotting against the Kingdom and working to the favour of its enemies at a time when the country and region are going through a very tumultuous period.

The conference did not invite states to participate—it invited scholars in their personal or institutional capacity to attend. Individual scholars from Saudi Arabia were part of the conference.  The claim that Saudi Arabia, as a state, was not invited is as nonsensical as saying Egypt, United Arab Emirates, Indonesia, or India were not invited. It is regretful that detractors resorted to framing the conference as an attempt to shun to Saudi Arabia, especially as the issue of states and the scholars that represent them was not discussed, at all, during the conference.

Secondly, there is no homogeneity in the rich scholarship that exists within the Saudi borders. There are ancient scholastic traditions that can be found in the Hijaz and Ahsa regions for example. Even within the dominant Salafi understanding, adherents are not a monolithic and differ. If the conference really did ostracise Saudi Arabia then it would have contradicted its own final declaration since Saudi scholarship itself embodies the diversity and plurality of Islamic thought and understanding.

Another fabrication that was raised against the conference was the alleged participation of Syria’s Grand Mufti, Shaykh Ahmad Hassoun. Shaykh Hassoun did not attend nor was an invitation extended to him. The invitations were at the discretion of the Chechen organisers and Shaykh Ahmad Hassoun did not figure. However, the issue is not with who came and who didn’t. The greater issue here is tarnishing a conference because of its participants and their personal political or social stances. This principle does not guide our decision making even if it is the measure by which others judge our endeavours. Holding a particular view on a current affairs does not preclude a person from speaking objectively on a theological topic nor does it invalidate their theological expertise. The conference was purposively and absolutely apolitical.  The theme and conversational framework was explicitly theological, rooted in the Islamic scriptural sources, and not political beliefs and worldviews.

Arrangements

The conference was jointly organised by the Shaykh Ahmad Kaydrov Regional Charitable Fund and the Foundation for Chechen Islamic Culture and Education. The office of Chechnya’s president offered assistance with logistical arrangements.

The Mufti of Chechnya and Shaykh Adam Shahidov consulted me on the theme and I offered my support and confirmation of attendance. A formal request was made from the organising parties asking for Tabah Foundation’s assistance in communicating with and inviting Arab scholars.

The conference was fully funded by the organisers. Neither Tabah Foundation, the United Arab Emirates nor any other organisation, institution or country contributed financial support.

Closing

In closing, the landmark conference that was convened in Grozny, Chechnya, was another significant development in the attempt to restore balance to contemporary religious understandings and reinstate scholastic authority to the normative Islamic tradition. By endorsing classical definitions of Ahl al-Sunna we took a firm stand against sectarianism and Takfiri religious discourse. The noble intent of the conference endures and we expect many more to take place in the future.

In light of the vitriol against individual participants and the conference as a whole, and all the attempts to frame it as a ‘declaration of war’ against Salafism or Arab nation states, I extend this message to my brothers and sisters from across the spectrum of the Islamic da’wa field: are we all able to have conviction in the paths we have chosen without excluding each other from the fold of Islam and fostering discord amongst each other? Can we not sit together, in brotherhood and mutual respect, under the umbrella of our expansive faith, and come to an understanding whereby we delineate the exact points of debate and contention between us? Not to incite disharmony but to determine whether our areas of difference are from the roots (usul) of faith (iman) or its branches (furu’). Any attempt at creating harmony and unity will only stem from the point of acknowledging the validity of ikhtilaf. I believe that there are enough sincere servants among you for this to take place, and so I offer unreservedly the hand of accommodation and not the fist of separation.

The second season of Ayuhal Mureed, which means “Oh Seeker”, is produced by the UAE-based Tabah Foundation, and taks the form of majlis lessons ­attended by an audience of Islamic students and officials. The final episode was attended by the president of Chechnya, where the first season of the show was held.

On the programme, Mr Al Jifri discusses ways to overcome obstacles facing individuals in their journey to God, without falling into the extremism trap.

“The main message is the importance of purifying the self and the heart, and that ­religiousness is not limited to acts of worship but connected with the state of the heart that reflects on how one deals with people and their perspective of the world,” Mr Al ­Jifri said.

While the first season focused on educating viewers on purification, this Ramadan it will draw a “road map and the practical stages” one has to take to achieve that.

“We hope that it will draw a deeper understanding of religion, and etiquettes of dealing with Allah, and linking religiousness to manners and ethical behaviour,” Mr Al Jifri said.

“The concept behind the show is to treat wrong religious devotion with a dose of rightful devotion,” said the programme’s supervisor, ­Mohammed AlSaqaf.

The first season took place in Chechnya after a request by its government, in an attempt to clarify misconceptions among youth in the region.

“They are very concerned about correcting the image that has been attributed to them,” Mr AlSaqaf said. “Whenever someone mentions Chechnya, people subconsciously think of ISIL and terrorism.”

Chechnya, Mr Al Saqaf said, was witnessing a shift from phases of war and destruction.

“Scholars and the state have adopted educational religious speech, which is consistent with what was presented in the ­majlises.”

Adam Shakhidov, the religious adviser to the Chechnya president, said they were keen on hosting the show because Mr Al Jifri was highly influential among Muslims in the region because “we wanted to revive … the true image of Islam that we inherited from our scholars for the new generations”.

The programme will be broadcast daily during Ramadan on several channels including CBC, Palestine TV and Al Irth Al Nabawi.

Every day in Ramadan an episode will be shown. The lectures were delivered in Arabic. All episodes have been translated and subtitled in English. Please watch this page for timings and channels. (Admin)

(Note: Ayyuhal Murid One was filmed in Damascus, Syria in 2008)

Habib Ali’s role in politics, presently and in the past, has been to offer religious advice where and when necessary and required. His statements during Mohammad Morsi’s rule were directed at the ruling party’s usage of religion for political purposes. Similarly, when an Egyptian scholar publicly stated that it was an obligation (wajib) for a husband to divorce his wife if she is affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood Habib Ali publicly rebuked his statement and called it a ‘play with religion’. Habib Ali does not participate in the political process in any way, shape or form and does not comment on government policy. This has been the method of his teachers for centuries and continues until today.

A prayer for tawfiq is a prayer asking God to enable a ruler with the efficacy to do good and guide him towards doing that which pleases God. It is not asking God to give him power and dominance. Imams such as Qadi ‘Iyad, Abu Ja’far al-Tahawi, Ibn Hajar al-’Asqalani and Fudhayl ibn ‘Iyad have expounded on this issue in their relative works. Furthermore, writing a prayer for a ruler does not negate the duty people have to bring a ruler’s mistakes to his attention. The manifestation of this duty differs according to the role each person has. An ordinary citizen, a scholar who has access to the ruler, a scholar who does not and a political figure from the opposition can not all respond in the same way when and if the goal is to rectify the mistake. Those with experience can appreciate the nuance. If the goal is to attack the personage of the ruler then there is no difference between them.

We wholly welcome constructive criticism, respectful disagreement and open discussion as long as it is based on fact and not baseless allegations or misinformed personal interpretation. We do not condone attacks on people’s integrity or prayers for their ruin. Religious representatives, teachers and students have a religious and moral obligation to check their sources before they cast an opinion upon a person’s character and deen. Their words have an impact on the umma and therefore they are a trust that should be closely guarded.

False allegations that Habib Ali turned a blind eye to events in Rabaa in August 2013 are a lie and we ask those who forged it and spread it to fear God. Habib Ali’s statement, issued on the same day it occurred, can be found at facebook. He stated:

“To God we belong and to Him we shall return. The blood which has flowed today in Egypt pains the heart, be it the blood of our brothers and sisters protesting or our brothers in the police. I was told that two cousins died – one was a policeman and the other a sit-in protestor. They were from the same country, drank from the same lake, and ate from the same land. There are no winners in this calamity. ِBoth sides saw their actions as a necessity because they deemed their stance as correct. If the heart of any one of us is not hurt by the losses on both sides today then let them closely inspect the state of their hearts, the soundness of their humanity, the perfection of their faith and the wellness of their nature (fitra).” He closed his statement with the prayer, “Oh Allah, extinguish the fire of strife, that which is apparent from it and that which is hidden. Stem the shedding of blood and favour us with the purification of the souls which have been lost. Have mercy upon those who have passed to the abode of truth, let them be succeeded by righteous offspring and descend tranquility upon their spirits. By the comfort of Your gentleness wipe the tears of the mother whose pillow has become wet from her cries. Lord, do not let the blood that was shed invite more bloodshed, rather, let the pain felt by relatives of the lost ones be a means by which tribulation is lifted.”

May God have mercy upon the Prophet’s nation and aid the oppressed wherever they may be.

- Posted by Admin

Note: This statement was reviewed and approved by Habib Ali. He added: “This statement is enough of a clarification. Until when will we allow political wrangling and factionalism to divert us from our ultimate duty to carry on the call to God and His messenger, upon him be peace?”