Salam Masdusi

Assalamu'alaikum wa rahmatullah

I am just here to paste some information about this fellow Arab of Indian nationality. I think this guy explains my personality too. Everyone also reads about the traits of the admin of this site when reading about him except that the admin is not a great figure like him, haha. I am pasting all about these figures for everyone including myself to learn about qualities and values of simple living people. I have the same beliefs like this guy.... Though he is not a big name but he is a great figure at least in my heart...

Introduction

Mr. Salam bin Musdus al-Masudi al-Mohannad or simply Salam Masdusi (1909) was an Islamic scholar, a social activist, a leader, guide and philanthropist from Mahbubnagar, Andhra Pradesh (Telugu State), India. He studied in the Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi. 

He had a vast study of Islamic literature. He visited all famous institutes and libraries of the subcontinent in search of knowledge and contacted eminent ulamas (scholars). His life is dedicated in serving people around him, and to guide them and to form an ideal society, at least on a small scale in his own hometown. He set up different academies and organizations. His achievements in the creation of true Islamic temper in his colleagues, by his efforts. There was no religious or historic occasion, event in India not attended by him and his colleagues. He did not get big name nor famous like other people, because he never wanted name or fame neither he ever opted for any position. He always truly believed in and practiced, "Do your duty for the Almighty, but not for name or fame!".    

Vision

He had a very clear goal to spread the principles of Islam for which his aims and objectives were....

• To make his society and educated, self conscious and religious one.
• To perform Juma'a prayer at one place in a "Nahia" (now is known as Mandal) as laid down in jurisprudence of worship. 
• To set up an organization at each mandal level to consider and discuss the various problems of the locality and try to execute its decisions.
• To utilize Muslim endowment properties for construction of commercial complex for uplift of Muslim community.

Background

Family

He was born in 1909 in Mahboobnagar, India. His family is of Hadhrami Arab origin, Ba-Masdus, which migrated to Hyderabad in Deccan region from Hadramawt, Yemen. His father, Masdus bin Abdullah was a highly respected amir of the Ba-Masdus tribe as well as a qadhi (judge), motawalli and imam of the mosque of Old Palmoor in Mahboobnagar.

His father was very pious, honest and humble man, as well as a poet and was loved by one and all. After migration to India, he selected Mahboobnagar in Hyderabad for his residence along with his family and other relatives of his tribe. He purchased a vast land near the district jail of Mahboobnagar, and first constructed a mosque. Then he constructed the houses for his family and his tribesmen. He had two daughters and three sons. The sons are 'Ali, Ahmed, Abdullah and Salam. 

Ali went back to Hadramawt in his early days in order to obtain his ancestral legal rights. Ahmed received his early education in the town and then went to Hyderabad for higher education. During his high school education, he was the classmate of Mohammad Bahadur Khan who was later awarded with the title, Nawab Bahadur Yar Jung by the then ruler of the Hyderabad state and became the founder president of Majlis-e-Ittehad al-Muslimin. In Osmania University, Ahmed was the classmate of the famous Islamic scholar, Dr. Muhammad Hamidullah and Nawab Mir Ahmed Ali Khan, the former minister of Hyderabad State government. After receiving his bachelor's degree in law, he practiced first at Mahboobnagar then shifted to Hyderabad where he became a leading advocate and was nominated as an Executive of Majlis-e-Ittehad al-Muslimin. Prior to his shifting to Hyderabad, he along with his colleague, Muhammad Muniruddin, purchased a vast land comprising of 11 acres (45 000 m²) in Mahboobnagar by the side of Hyd-Raichur road and endowed it as Anjumam Khudamm-e-Millat in the year 1940 for the establishment of Muslim students hostel especially those who come to the town from rural areas. In 1949, he migrated to Pakistan. He had written few but competent books and served as Professor of Law in Karachi University.

Early Life

He studied his primary and middle school education in Mahboobnagar. Then, he went to Hyderabad for high school education since there was no high school in his hometown. Later, he joined the Dar al-Ulum high school in Hyderabad. He took admission in Jami'a Millia Islamia, New Delhi where he got the privilege of being taught by eminent scholars like Dr. Zakir Hussain (later became the Vice Chancellor of Aligarh Muslim University and then, the President of India). The others are Prof. Muhammad Mujib and Prof. Aslam Jairajpuri. He could continue his studies at Jami'a Millia Islamia hardly for a year or more but return to his home town due to his ill health. 

By that time the Middle School Mahboobnagar was upgraded as High School and therefore he took admission in the high school. Fortunately, he got the opportunity of being taught by a famous Urdu poet and teacher Mr. Mohd. Ismail Shareef Azal who found talents in him. Due to his special attention and sincere teachings Salam Masdoosi was inclined towards Urdu poetry and started writing verses and ghazals under the pen name first as "Shaheen" and then "Aasi". To promote literary talents of his school mates, he started a monthly magazine by name " Tarjuman-e-Bazm " in which the student writers used to write their articles and verses in their own handwriting. By the by he started his activities in religious and national movements. In the religious matters he was a strict follower of the teachings of Mohaddis Dehelwi as well as the teachings of Moulana Hussain Ahmed Madani and Moulana Abul Kalam Azad. As regards his political interest he was the follower of one nation theory whereas his elder brother Ahmed Abdullah Al Masdoosi was in favor of two nations theory and the partition of country. On the other hand Salam Masdoosi was a pure nationalist and a supporter of All India National Congress and took active part in the freedom struggle of the country and was imprisoned also.

Badi' al-Zaman Sa'id Nursi

Assalaamu'alaikum wa rahmatullah

I had long ago read about this figure. He was Muslim theologian from Turkey but of Kurdish descent and his school of jurisprudence is the school of Shafi'ie. He was born around 18th century in Ottoman empire part of Kurdistan. I have a huge respect to this man too though I cannot speak Turkish. I try to learn Persian myself because these people also speak in Persian language other than Kurdish. 

Background

He was born in a Kurdish village in Ottoman empire, known as Nurs in eastern Anatolia. His early education was in his hometown where he is talented in theological debates. He has profound knowledge of religious and positive sciences which he learned since early with scholars of his time. He has a sharp memory and he memorized the Arabic dictionary until the letter, "sin".

There was once where he was invited by the governor of Wilayet of Van to stay in the residency. He gained access of scientific knowledge in the library there. He also learned proper Turkish language there. At that time, he developed a plan for university education for Eastern provinces of the Ottoman empire. Through the combination of Islamic education and scientific knowledge, the planned university was expected to advance the philosophical thoughts of these regions. 

Nevertheless, he was put on trial around 1909 because of his obvious involvement in 1909 events on the side opposing the Committee of Union and Progress. However, he was acquitted and released. He was very active during Ottoman caliphate as an educational reformer and he advocates unity of the peoples in the Empire.

Badi' al-Zaman was quite a worry to the leader of Turkish Republic, Mr. Kamal Ataturk, and he see that it is necessary to control this scholar by offering him the position of "Minister of Religious Affairs" for the eastern provinces of Turkey. He refused the post and he even split himself from the ideology held by Kamal supporters. Now, people could see why "pious" scholars were afraid of position in the government. Because they will be controlled and have to prostrate to worldly needs which will eventually make them far from the God the Highest. Thus, their life is taken by people around as miserable and poor. This is what I had been experiencing and being looked down upon though I am not even close to a scholar like this pious man or any other scholars of the past. During the WWI, he was a member of the Special Organization of the Ottoman Empire. 

Badi' al-Zaman heard that a British Secretary for the colonies, Mr. Gladstone, had even said in the newspaper, "So long as the Muslims have the Quran with them, nobody shall be able to dominate them. Thus, we must take it away from them or make them losing their love to the scripture". And because of this irresponsible statement, he declared, "I shall prove and demonstrate to the world that the Glorious Quran is an undying, inexhaustible Sun!" He later wrote his masterpiece known as the Risale-i-Nur.

The "New Sa'id"

Finally, he was expelled to the village Barla in Isparta Province. His teachings attracted many people in the area. These manuscripts of Risale-i-Nur were sent to Sav, another village in the region where dozens of people duplicated them in Arabic script. 

The finished manuscript were sent to his disciples all over Turkey through postal system. His studies on science and his involvement with philosophy is seen in the context of increasing Western influence in Ottoman Empire at the end of 19th century and early 20th centuries and also the attacks which were being made on the Glorious Quran and Islam in the name of science, materialism, and Positivist philosophy in particular. His activity was intended to provide Islamic answer to those attacks. When Mustafa Kamal and his supporters founded the Turkish Republic in 1923, the drive of Westernization received a strong support. 

The method of his movement was summarized in two phrases which is manawi jihad referring to non-physical struggle and positive actions. It is almost comparable to the ahimsa concept of ancient Indian and satyagraha of Mr. Gandhi from Mata Bharat (India). He considered the true enemies of this age of science, reason, and civilization to be materialism and atheism. And their source is materialist philosophy. Materialist philosophy is not a new thing at all. There was a variety of Carvaka philosophy in ancient Indian subcontinent since thousands of years ago which is more or less having the same feature with the "modern materialism and atheism". Most of all I agree with Sa'id Nursi, but I am also familiar with this philosophy. I found that those who hold this philosophy as their principle of life are heartless, inhuman and cruel.    

He wrote the Risale-i-Nur to strengthen Muslim from within and raising it to the highest value besides to counter the corrupt society caused by these enemies. He taught his students to avoid any use of force and never act in disruptive ways in their struggle. He believes in the positive action and maintenance of public order and security, and we Muslim should repair the supposed damage caused by the forces of unbelief through the "healing" truths and facts of the Quran. He was arrested because of his position in this issue around 1930 and 1950.

Later Life

In 1949, he was released. He stayed in the city of Isparta. After the introduction of the multi-party system, he advised his disciples to vote for the Democratic Party of Adnan Menderes which gained the support of rural and conservative populations. He considered communism as the greatest threat of the time, and he also supported the pro-Western orientation Democrats, leading to his support of NATO, CENTO and Turkey's participation in Korean war as peace keeper. He also tried hard to unite Muslims and Christians in the struggle against materialism and communism and therefore he corresponded with the Papal of the Greek Orthodox Patriarch in Turkey. In 1956, his writings receive permission for publication. His books are compiled under the name of Letters of Light.

He passed away after traveling to Urfa and buried on the premises of prophet Abraham's nativity. After military coup d'etat in Turkey around 1960, a group of soldiers led by the later extreme right-wing politician Mr. Alp Arslan Turkesh opened his grave and buried his body at an unknown place near Isparta during July 1960 to prevent popular veneration and movements from gathering and forming new forces which is believed could threaten the government.

His followers reported to have found his grave after years of searching, and took his remains to a secret place in an effort to protect the body from being disturbed further. Interesting point here is that, he also wrote in his treaty that no one should know where his tomb is. 

Perspectives

Theology 

Said Nursi’s pathway was impose to community religious beliefs and practices supported by a strong logical implications and explanations. For example, referring to the five daily prayers (Namaz), emphasizes that how necessary it is for humanitarian and for religious duty, but ignores that prayers shape, quantity, how much and how long assumed, as well as details and discussions on it. The same approach may be seen on many religious issues such as tithe, Islamic veiling, fasting, and others.

According to some theologians, he was in efforts of renovation and restoration of the religion without any debugging of baseless innovations and superstitions, or he was one of the sources of superstitions himself.

Women

From evaluations of the natural wear of rural women as openness by Nursi,  may be reached to the conclusion of the understanding of the Islamic veiling by him, as an "absolute veil and covers" with no exceptions.

In Risale-i Nur, women are handled in issues of Islamic veiling, sharia's inheritance law and in such bets; "Also, seven out of ten women are either old or ugly and they do not want to show their age or unsightliness to everyone. Or they are jealous, and they do not want to appear ugly in relation to others who are more beautiful. Or they are frightened of assault or aspersions, and want by nature to cover themselves so as not to suffer assault, nor to be accused of unfaithfulness by their husbands. While only two or three out of ten women are both young and beautiful and do not feel uncomfortable at displaying themselves. "However, women from provincial and cold hometown may be excluded from this imperative provision because they do not excite men". According to Nursi, giving women the half share of men of sharia inheritance law, is righteous and appropriate justice.

In Nur community, besides other features, women, who shows their beauties to the other guys (except her husband), are seen as sources of evils, strifes and troubles, and refuged in Allah from them, three times in the morning and evening every day.

Closing

So these are among the things that I could collect from public encyclopedia, wikipedia about this great man. He had also discussed many things with a Jew noble man in Turkey and his imprisonment in Russia but I cannot remember the detail from the working paper brought home by my father when I was a young boy. Yet the working paper was written in Arabic and English and my language skill at that time was not so much better as compared to today's skill.

Allahumma salli 'alaa Muhammad wa 'alaa ali Muhammad....

Sealed with prayers for mercy, peace and love, amin!

Chinese Muslim Nationalist Figure: Imam Hu Songshan

Assalaamu'alaikum wa Rahmatullah!

 Imam Hu Songshan

I believe that not many people are familiar with Muslim Chinese who were involved in Chinese Nationalism in China and Taiwan. I know few of them because they are from Western China provinces. I talked with few friends from Gansu since before I return home from pilgrimage season when I was in lower six around 2005. Some of them were the students of International Islamic University (IIUM). Some are the students of Nilam Puri in Kelantan and they speak Malay too. I respect them because they are committed with Islamic teachings although their province is in a country with non-Muslim majority population. 

Why did I put this up? Just a sharing about the history of modern China as many of our brothers and sisters don't know that there are Muslim Chinese in Guomindang movement and I wish that we stop bickering about things that divide us but begin to establish amity among each other. This biography about the imam is only for us to take heed that we should only be a nation, we must treat brothers and sisters equally. Avoid hurting their feelings. We will see how this imam feel when he was in Holy Mecca and why I don't like to talk about difference in negativity but making them as a point for everyone to know each other. Besides, we must also respect our Muslim Chinese brothers and sisters feeling when we talk about assimilation into Malay customs when they revert to the path of prophets and His messengers. Most Chinese elders in Penang Island were actually the followers of Guomindang movement or at least having some sympathy to the movement. They are not Communists. That is why we could see many memorial buildings dedicated to Sun Yat Sen in Penang Island. Nowadays, many of Chinese youths are just like Malay or Indian youth or any other youngsters around the world. They don't care about politics anymore.

For us the Arab descents in Malayan Peninsula, we were also assimilated into Malay mainstream society although we might also have Indian, Siamese or Chinese maternal line. We have no specific identification for our ethnicity like those Huis in China since British in Kedah Sultanate had used their nation-state concept in registration. Some were registered as Malay and identified as Arab descents who had been in the sultanate since few centuries before British came in, some were Arabs since they were new-comers who came from Egypt, Medina, or Mecca, and etc according to flows of migration. In certain part of our community life like marriage, some of us are still practicing endogamy marriage. For my family, endogamy marriage had stopped at my father generation because no more specific elders to enforce the customs. My eldest sister married a Siamese Malay from Perlis, and now my third sister married a Malay from Kedah which is also our beloved state. Most Arab descents in Malayan Peninsula also practiced polygamy but it is very rare now when some of our people are exposed to Egyptian moderate thoughts. Anyway, we would talk about Arabs in Northern Malaysian states separately if He permits it.  

This simple biography I would like to share with brothers and sisters in faith is about Imam Hu Songshan 虎嵩山 who was a member of Muslim brotherhood or Ikhwani. I can't recall his Islamic name but if I am not mistaken, it is like Salahuddin. Imam Hu Songshan is a Hui Chinese and his father was an imam from a sub-group of Naqshabandi sufi order in China. However he is not fond of sufism and he himself destroyed the tomb of his father in Tongxin county in Ningxia autonomous region. He performed hajj pilgrimage in holy Mecca around 1925 but he didn't feel any solidarity feeling with other Muslims as he was treated with racism by other Muslims. So, he decided to be a Chinese nationalist when he returned home in China. Arab nations are also racist and if we do not disband this thaghut (idolatry) from our selves, we are not even a complete nation. I would say that we would just dream off about caliphate until He orders Isa a.s to be the qadhi before He destroys this Universe!

Imam Hu didn't promote any Islamic state anymore but he just rallied for a strong China because he saw that both Hui and Han ethnics were treated the same and abused by foreigners. He rallied with the Chinese government at that time which was under the leading of Guomindang nationalist party toward Chinese unity regardless ethnicity. This is how Chinese people around the world were politically and socially united in the early 19th century. 

Imam Hu opposed foreign imperialism and when Japan invaded China in 1937 during Sino-Japanese war, he issued a guideline for Chinese flag to be saluted during fajr prayer. We could understand the situation at that time needs him taking these measures. 

What I found as interesting in this figure is that he promotes education and independence from foreign power. He encourages the learning of Chinese among Muslim Chinese students. Before that, Muslim Chinese students only learned about Quranic studies and Arabic in their Islamic formal curriculum. He added modern subjects into madrasas system like maths, foreign languages and foreign sciences. Besides they begin to translate Islamic texts into Chinese.

Allah please be in contact with prophet Muhammad s.a.w. and his family and his companion. May Allah bless brothers and sisters in faith. Sealed with prayers for peace, mercy, and love for brothers and sisters in faith.