Reciprocal Knowledge and Interaction Between
Religious and Spiritual Traditions

Bismillah al Rahman al Rahim

His Excellency President Karimov, His Excellency Mufti Abdur-Rashid Kory Bakromov, and distinguished guests,

As salamu alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh. It is my distinct pleasure to again visit Uzbekistan, on the historic occasion of this highly significant conference. I carry the greetings and supplications from Muslims around the world, who are observing the vital restoration of Uzbekistan’s premier religious institutions and traditional Islamic scholarship, which remains the hallmark of Bukhara.

God is One
For All People, All Times and All Places

Since the beginning and for all time, Allah subhana wa ta`ala is One. Since the time of Adam alayhis salam, the Creator of all things is the same. He is called by different names, He is supplicated in different languages, but He is One. In Islam, we refer to this principle as “tawheed”, which means the Oneness of the True God who has no partner, Allah (swt).

In fact tawheed, the Oneness of God Almighty, was the primary educational message imparted by Prophet Muhammad (s) from the beginning of his prophetic mission. In Mecca, he encouraged all the Arab tribes and even peoples outside Arabia to abandon idol worship and instead to surrender their hearts to the One True God.

Another universal principle set forth in our Holy Book  the Qur`an – stresses there can be no compulsion in religion. In fact we find overwhelming evidence in the Prophet Muhammad’s (sallallahu alayhi was salam) life example of respect for the intimacy of one’s beliefs. The Prophet taught that anyone calling for his Lord with good intentions, seeking divine resolve or assistance, the judgment of his beliefs is a private matter reserved between him and his Lord.

It is out of profound respect for one’s personal beliefs that traditional Islam, as practiced by a majority of Muslims throughout the world, imparts tolerance and peaceful means in conflict resolution. When Prophet Muhammad (s) established his first government in Madinah, he set a high standard for inter-religious dialogue. Through his wise consultation of tribal elders, and cooperation with people of other faiths and views, he (s) strengthened respect for and trust in his leadership.

Throughout his mission the Prophet (s) called for peace and cooperation, and brought many dissenting parties to agreement. He implemented peace treaties and skillfully negotiated and end to many long-term, tribal disagreements. He commanded fair representation for all, and sought ways to bring people together towards the benefit of all. He heard the appeals of kings, princes, governors, common citizens, women, wayfarers, and even slaves.

The Prophet (s) never drew his sword until war was declared against him. Even then, he tried his best to avoid military conflict, and when pushed to defend himself the Prophet (s) demonstrated unprecedented morality in forbidding ill treatment of women and children, and issuing precise orders for the benevolent treatment of prisoners. In fact history narrates countless incidents of Christians, Jews, Zoroastrians and others who willingly converted to Islam out of admiration for the Prophet Muhammad’s (s) examples of justice, humility, sincerity, and above all, his reverence for the Oneness of God. In so doing, the Prophet (s) demonstrated effective leadership must be mindful of its beholding to the Creator.

In this way – through promotion of reciprocal knowledge, inter-religious dialogue, peaceful coexistence tolerance for other’s belief systems, and peaceful approaches to conflict resolution ‑ the moral fabric of society was quickly strengthened throughout the region, and later throughout much of the world.

Present Day Governance in Muslim Countries

In this day and age we find every Muslim country follows a system of governance wherein political and religious bodies are independent of one another. Politicians run the country while religious authorities advise the politicians. This independence between the two became necessary as the demands of economic trade, international relations, and civil development on a national scale grew to require expert attention.

When religious groups impose their ideologies and attempt to disrupt government, demanding (for example) a “state within a state”, in the absence of a Khalifah this principle is rejected in Islam.

Historical Background of Islam and tasawwuf in Central Asia

Islam first came to the Caucasus when forty of the Companions of the Prophet (sallallahu alayhi wa alihi was salam) rode northwards from Arabia to reach the gates of Derbent, on the Caspian Sea. Translated literally as “Iron Door”, this fortress town in today’s Dagestan became known as “the Northern Gate of the Islamic Caliphate”.

Within 100 years of the Prophet’s death, Bukhara, Samarqand, Kashgar (in today’s Xianjiang) and the shores of the Caucasus were all under Islamic rule. The graves of the Companions who reached these lands so distant from Arabia are sites of veneration for traditional Muslims, and are found in former Bukhara, and in Daghestan, along the Caspian Sea, and at Khokand.

What the Companions established, an Islamic milieu and way of life, flourished and grew under their direction and that of their successors. Over centuries, Islam’s teachings were propagated through pious scholars of moderate, mainstream Islam. As the heart of Central Asia, for centuries Uzbekistan has been the locus for educating and promoting Islam throughout the region. As the center of Islamic scholarship moved eastward and northward from Baghdad to Tus, to Merv, finally settling for a long stay in Bukhara, Samarqand, and further south in Herat, Islam continued to grow in the hearts of the people, spread primarily by the teaching and propagation efforts of those pious scholars.

In the Caucasus, the spread of Islam was arrested in large part by the Caucasus Mountains. However, east of the Caspian, Islam spread northwards through both conquest and resettlement. With the conquests of the Golden Horde and their conversion to Islam en masse at the hands of pious masters of Islam from Bukhara, there was a sudden expansion of Islamic territories north and west. Kazakhstan, Tatarstan and even the approaches to Moscow fell under Muslim sway. Similarly under Babur and his successors, much of the Indian subcontinent came under Muslim rule.

Uzbekistan: The Spiritual Heart of Islam

With the conquest of these vast areas of territory by Muslim rulers, the real work of propagating Islam among peoples holding a wide range of beliefs began in earnest. This task fell to these pious masters and their students, who sought out the most difficult living conditions and locations to settle, and thus provided inspirational examples to the indigenous peoples. Building forts or khaniqahs in remote areas, the great masters, beginning with Yusuf Hamadani and Sa`ad al-Din Kashgari, dispatched delegations to present the perfection of Islam, known as the station of Ihsan, mentioned in the famous hadith of Sayyidina Gibril, who narrated that Ihsan is “to worship Allah as if you see him…”.

We find some of these teachers had their origins in Central Asia in Samarqand, Bukhara, Merv, Tus, Herat - all cities that rose to become great centers of Islamic learning. The names and powers of these great scholars surpassed even the kings of these lands. Shah Bahauddin and the Naqshbandi school came to dominate much of the Central Asian area, along with its branches, Yasaviyya, Samaniyya and Uwaisiyya, accompanied to a lesser degree by the Qadiriyya and the Suhrawardi.

This situation persisted until the end of the 18th century. While the locus of Islamic learning migrated from Central Asia eastward to India, westward to Damascus, and southward to the Hijaz and Yemen, the political center moved to Anatolia under the Ottomans. However, the spiritual heart of Islam remained to a large degree fixed, right in the heart of Central Asia.

Islam Preserved Through The Mujahid Saints Of Central Asia

When medieval times saw Islamic lands devastated by the onslaught of the Mongols, in wave after wave over several centuries, it was the pious masters and their students who proved the mainstays of Islam’s survival, often standing untouched and implacable as the terror swirled around them. Thus it was, at the behest of a moderate scholar of internal and external knowledge, Ghazan Khan forsook the primordial religion of the steppes and entered the fold of the believers, followed as if in one step by the entire nation of Mongols.

So while Genghiz Khan slaughtered ‘as a punishment on the followers of the Prophet for having forsaken their religion,’ Timurlane conquered with the flag of Islam flying in the fore. Of this wondrous transformation, Hafez wrote: “From the poisonous winds that blew over the rose-garden, it is strange and a wonder that the color of the rose and the scent of the jasmine still remain.” 

The Nation of Two Wings

For more than a thousand years, the Uzbeki understanding of mainstream Islam has been based on the teachings of the Prophet Muhammad, sallallahu alayhi wa alihi was salam, placing great emphasis on the spiritual dimension of Islamic knowledge known as tasawwuf. For this reason, Uzbekistan is renowned throughout the Muslim world as “the nation of two wings”.

One wing signifies the works of Imam Muhammad ibn Ismail al-Bukhari (814 - 885), who collected the traditions of the Prophet in what is considered the most authentic book of Islamic knowledge after the Holy Qur`an. The other wing signifies the great shaykh Shah Bahauddin Naqshband, (1317 - 1388) who disseminated both external knowledge of Islam and internal gnosis. He permeated the entire region with teachings of love, and viewed all of humanity as one family created by Allah Almighty.

Due to the influence of these spiritual giants and those who followed them, the Islamic schools founded in Uzbekistan have always stressed a higher morality inculcated through patience, love, respect, tolerance and peace. While avoiding extremism and militancy, this deep-rooted cultural tradition spread throughout the region and led many to accept Islam, including the conquering Mongol emperors, whose hearts softened under the influence of these highly spiritual Islamic teachings.

The Impact of Communism and its Fall

With the conquest of much of Central Asia in the mid-19th century, the Islamic centers of learning known as “khaniqahs”, “waqfs” and “madrasas” came under the rule of the Russian Czar.  While not resulting in open conflict as in the Caucasus, their efforts did create a tremendous feeling of oppression. The Czar, distrusting the power wielded by the spiritual leaders, sought to curtail their economic holdings as a way of limiting their influence among the people.

With the advent of communism Islam was banned, forced to go underground, and throughout most of Central Asia actually disappeared. Traditions were kept alive orally, as most books were inaccessible to the common citizen, particularly with the imposition of the Cyrillic alphabet. Atheist communism had no esteem for scholars, mullahs or spiritual guides for it rejected outright belief in God, and thus scholars were systematically jailed, exiled, or executed.

The measure of any society, in Marx’s view, was its means of production, which in agrarian societies like Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan consisted of its farms and workers. Communist-based schooling, the overwhelming focus on agricultural production and the elimination of religious teaching resulted in a society nearly cut off from the treasures of its spiritual heritage. In less than 70 years, most Central Asians lost the connection to their origins, except for what was passed down through oral tradition.

Independence and Islamic Renaissance

The Uzbeki’s great love for their Islamic leaders and tasawwuf kindled deep spiritual traditions in their hearts, particularly during the brutal 70-year period of Soviet Communist rule, when religious teaching was officially banned. Despite efforts to eradicate religion, an unprecedented revival of interest in Islamic practices, especially the spiritual traditions of tasawwuf, followed the downfall of the Soviet Union. Some of the former Soviet states are eager to satisfy their thirst for spirituality, providing full support to the resurrected Islamic establishments in order to rebuild the deconstructed Islamic institutions.

Uzbekistan is foremost in this effort, having spent literally millions of dollars in reconstructing mosques, madrasas, and holy shrines of prominent saints. At the same time, the bookstalls of Tashkent, Samarqand and Bukhara are filled with newly published books about the Naqshbandi and Yasavi Sufi Orders, religious poetry, explanations of the Qur`an and Prophetic traditions, as well as various modernist Islamic writings. As if to catch up on 70 years of disconnection, the Muslim intelligentsia and the common man are both devouring information on the Islamic traditions, whose remembrance thrilled generations, even in communism’s darkest era.

Nonetheless the disconnection remains, for Islam by nature cannot remain a literary tradition since it relies so heavily on the human pursuit of moral excellence. Without authentic teachers to transmit their teachings, the Islamic centers of higher learning are only shells of their former reality. Therefore, the revival of interest in Islam throughout Central Asia and the Caucasus, although spirited, remains incomplete.

Obstacles to Interaction Between Religious and Spiritual Traditions

Shortly after the Soviet Union’s war with Afghanistan, Uzbekistan experienced the unfortunate influx of Afghan Arabs, who introduced a foreign ideology known as “Wahhabism”, viewed as strange and radical. This facilitated confrontations between Uzbek authorities and the foreigners, who inspired Uzbek youth to indulge in this narrow ideology, which is rejected by the majority of traditional Islamic scholars throughout the world. These groups imposed their radical interpretation of Islam through military confrontations, a strategy that no government can tolerate.

The extremists declare war against anyone who holds contrary views, even governments. In Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Pakistan, Algeria, and now in the Caucasus and Central Asia, Wahhabi-minded groups oppose their governments. The strategy of these movements is to infiltrate mosques, traditional centers of learning, and charitable organizations from where they indoctrinate the religiously oriented. They forcefully impose their views on weak societies, in hopes of conquering one and establishing a centralized base.

They justify their militant acts and criminal means of fundraising by claiming to wage a “jihad” for the preservation of Islam. We find many examples of this phenomenon today, through vigilante groups declaring “death to America”, or coming against their governments in various parts of the Muslim world, including Central Asia. This contradicts the explicit teaching of the Prophet Muhammad (s), who instructed Muslims to never oppose a ruler, even if he commits injustice, as long as he does not prevent the performance of prayer. Thus, those under the Wahhabi influence exploit Islam when it suits them and likewise contravene it at their convenience.

Uzbek authorities have responded accordingly in their goal to maintain law and order, and towards guarding their Ahl as-Sunnah wal Jama`at heritage. Many of these radical elements have been jailed or deported in the government’s attempt to isolate and diffuse external-financed attempts to break down mainstream Islamic institutions throughout Uzbekistan.

Jihad in Islam

“Jihad al-Akbar”, the great struggle, is in fact an Islamic principle primarily applied to one’s struggle to achieve a higher moral and spiritual state, waging war on one’s own bad characteristics.

In fact we find some of the greatest teachers of this discipline originated in Central Asia and the Bokhara region. We quote here some relevant sayings of Shah Naqshband, in whose memory, and in the shadow of whose school, this conference has gathered.

Traveling the Path

He said,
“What is behind the meaning of the Prophet’s  narration, ‘Part of faith is to remove what is harmful from the Way’? What he meant by ‘the harmful’ is the ego, and what he meant by ‘the Way’ is the Way of God, as He said to Bayazid al-Bistami, ‘leave your ego and come to Us.’

He was once asked,
“What is meant by traveling the path?” He said, “The details in spiritual knowledge.” They asked him, “What are the details in spiritual knowledge?” He said, “The one who knows and accepts what he knows will be raised from the state of evidence and proof to the state of vision.”

He said,
“Whoever asks to be in the Way of God has asked for the way of affliction. It was narrated by the Prophet , ‘Whoever loves me I will burden him.’ One person came to the Prophet  and said, ‘O Prophet I love you,’ and the Prophet  said, ‘Then prepare yourself to be poor.’ Another time a person came to the Prophet  and said, ‘O Prophet I love God,’ and the Prophet said, ‘Then prepare yourself for affliction.’”

He recited a verse:
“Everyone desires the good, But no one has attained the Ascension, Except by loving The One who created the good.”

He said,
“Everyone who likes himself must deny himself, and whoever wants other than himself  wants in reality only himself.”

On Spiritual Stations

Shah Naqshband once said,
“How do the People of God look at the hidden actions and the whispers of the heart?” He said, “By the light of the vision that Allah granted them, as mentioned in the Holy Hadith, ‘Beware of the vision of the Believer, because he looks with the light of God.’”

He was asked about showing miraculous powers. He said,
“What more miraculous powers do you want than that we are still walking this earth with all these sins upon us and around us.”

He was asked,
“Who is the reciter and who is the Sufi in the saying of Junayd, ‘Disconnect yourself from the reciters of books, and accompany the Sufis?’“ He said, “The reciter is the one busy with the words and names, and the Sufi is the one who is busy with the essence of the names.”

He warned,
“If a murid, a shaykh or anyone speaks about a state that he has not attained, Allah will forbid him to reach that state.”

He said,
“The mirror of every shaykh has two directions. But our mirror has six directions.”

He said,
“What is meant by the Holy Hadith, ‘I am with the one who remembers Me,’ is a clear evidence and a proof supporting the people of the heart who remember Him always. And the other saying of the Prophet speaking on behalf of God, as-sawmu li (‘the fast is for Me’) is an affirmation that the true fast is to fast from all that is other than God.”

On Spiritual Poverty

Shah Naqshband once said,
“Who is the spiritually poor one?” No one answered him. He said, “The one whose inside is always in struggle and whose external is always at peace.”

On Proper Manners With One’s Spiritual Guide, the Shaykh

Shah Naqshband said,
“It is impossible to reach the love of the people of God until you come out of yourself.”

He said,
“In Our Way there are three categories of conduct (adab):

Good conduct with Allah Almighty and Exalted, requires that the murid be externally and internally perfect in his worship, keeping away from all that is forbidden and keeping all that has been ordered and leaving all that is other than God.

Good conduct with the Prophet Muhammad requires the murid to fly in the state of in kuntum tuhibbun Allah fa-t-tabi^cunee (‘If you want to love Allah then follow me’) [3:31]. He has to follow all the states of the Prophet. He must know that the Prophet is the bridge between God and His creation and that everything in this universe is under His high orders.

Good conduct with shaykhs is a requirement for every seeker. The shaykhs are the causes and the means for following in the footsteps of the Prophet . It is a duty for the seeker, in their presence or their absence, to keep the orders of the shaykh.”

Shah Naqshband said,
“One time one of my followers greeted me. I didn’t respond to him, though it is a requirement of the Sunnah to respond if someone greets you. This made my follower upset. I sent someone after him to apologize, saying to him, ‘At that time, when you greeted me, my mind, my heart, my spirit, my body, my soul were completely lost in the Divine Presence, listening to what Allah was saying to me. This made me so engrossed in the Speech of God that I was unable to respond to anyone.”

On Intention

He said,
“To correct the intentions is very important, because intentions are from the Unseen World, not from the Material World.” “For that reason,” he said, “Ibn Sireen (author of a book on the interpretation of dreams) didn’t pray at the funeral prayer of Hasan al-Basri. He said, ‘How can I pray when my intention has not yet reached me connecting me to the   Unseen?’“

He continued,
“Intention (niyyah) is very important, because it consists of three letters: Nun, which represents nurullah, the Light of God; ya, which represents yadullah, the hand of God; and ha, which represents hidayatullah, the Guidance of Allah. The niyyah is the Breeze of the Soul.”

On the Duties of Saints

He said,
“Allah created me to destroy the materialistic life but people want me to build their materialistic life.”

He said,
“The people of God carry the burden of creation for creation to learn from them. Allah looks at the heart of his saints with his lights, and whoever is around that saint will get the blessing of that   light.”

He said,
“The shaykh must know the state of his murid in three categories: in the past; in the present and in the future in order for him to raise him   up.”

He said,
“Whoever is initiated by us and follows us and loves us, whether he is near or far, wherever he is, even if he is in the East and we are in the West, we nourish from the stream of love and give him light in his daily life.”

On Loud and Silent Dhikr

He said,
“From the presence of al-^cAzizan there are two methods of dhikr: the silent and the audible. I preferred the silent because it is stronger and more advisable.”

He said,
“The permission for the dhikr must be given by the Perfected One, in order to influence the one who is using it, just as the arrow from a Master of Archery is better than the arrow thrown from the bow of an ordinary person.”

Conclusion

Throughout the Muslim world, Uzbekistan stands as a bastion of faith, a survivor of unthinkable injustice and challenge imposed on its religious identity. As Uzbekistan continues to demonstrate the power of its spiritual heritage and revives its glory of past eras, Muslims from every point of the globe observe the courageous dedication and continued triumphs of its people, who are with all certainty inspired by the life examples and guidance of their spiritual ancestors going back to the time of the Prophet (s).

This great land, which a thousand years ago gave birth to an unprecedented era of tasawwuf, still bears the marks of Imam Bukhari, Shah Naqshband, Imam Tirmidhi (q) and other spiritual masters. As a pivotal Central Asian power, Uzbekistan now stands on the brink of spiritual revival that not only honors the ancestral tradition of struggle in Allah’s Way, but carries the blessing of Islam’s greatest saints in a time when the world is heavy with disbelief and the Muslim Ummah is rife with its own enemies from within.

Your struggle is the greatest tribute to your ancestors, those pious awliya, saints, who have carried the Torch of Islam from this great region. I stand here with you today carrying a message of hope from Muslims around the world, for your triumph once again over those enemies whose mission is to extinguish the Light of Islam and replace it with the Darkness of Ignorance.

May you triumph not only in the memory of former generations who walked the soil of this great nation, but in the name of Islam, which carries the divine support of our beloved Prophet Muhammad (s). Your struggle serves as a great example to us all, Muslims and others, who endeavor to build bridges of understanding between all peoples.

I am honored to have addressed you, and throughout my travels I will carry your message to Muslims far and wide.  

copyright Islamic Supreme Council of America, 2000

For more information, please visit the ISCA Web site at http://www.islamicsupremecouncil.org and UNESCO http://www.unesco.org/culture/dialogue/religion/html_eng/meeting.htm