The Sunni Diversity

I wrote two previous posts on the Sunni Identity: The Era of Confusion and Are Sunnis an Islamic Sect? The first post reflected on the current confusion on the Sunni identity and the second argued for the importance of viewing Sunnis in a non-sectarian manner. Unsurprisingly they have received very minimum interest. I can think of two reasons. It is viewed as a philosophical topic which is difficult to have practical implications, and secondly most similar topics are thought to be divisive and against the concept of unity.

In short, discussions on identity are vital and if the coming generations are clear on their identity (i.e. belief, practice, spirituality, nationality, history, loyalty) then we have more space for contribution and allocation of our Muslim resources. The Quran speaks about the Muslim identity, but not through the PowerPoint style of having bullets. It is the shade of the verses and its theme. The prophet peace be upon him taught the companions their identity, because we need to know who we are before what to do? The presence of the Meccan period and then the Medina period is what we are talking about. It does not matter if the topic is labelled philosophical as long as we get something out of this discussion.

It is unfair to seek unity through omitting differences. This will never happen by the words of the Quran. It is unfortunate that most of our Islamic centers and organizations seek absolute unity. What we should seek for instead is unity through differences. Clearing this concept is the objective of the series of these posts and we ask Him for help and support.

Before going into the details of this new post, I want to record that I find many discussions on diversity very funny. Diversity is thought of as bringing some few black, Indian and Latino folks and then taking the biggest photo while hugging each other. Another model is to add few Halal, Kosher and Sushi to the chief’s menu. After that it does not matter if we practice all types of alienation and discrimination. Our current Islamic situation is no better. Let us meet in the classy hotels presenting conference papers and talking about unity. At the end of the day, we fail to wipe hatred, we still participate in political and military conflicts, we still spread writings of cursing each other, and finally we will appear smiling in the photo of the closing conference session.

Diversity, tolerance, acceptance and whatever new name to appear, are fake if not transformed into a way of life.

Sunnism is diverse by nature. To repeat, Sunnism cannot exist without diversity. To iterate in a third style, diversity is in the backbone of Sunnism.

Let us investigate this more.

There are ten recitation styles (qiraat) for reading the Quran. Each style is attributed to one great historical recitor who transmitted his knowledge to two smart students, which we call narrators (rawah). This gives us total of twenty methods for reading the Quran. These methods differ in pronunciation rules, verse locations, grammatical vowels and even the structure of some words. In most of the Muslim lands, the narration of Hafs through Assem is dominant. In the African Muslim lands the narration of Warsh through Nafe is dominant. In Libya and parts of Tunisa the narration of Qaloon through Nafe has a strong presence, and finally in some areas of Sudan and Somalia the narration of Al Dory through Abu Amer is widely practiced. The other narrations are still taught in specialized centres around the Muslim world. It is part of the Sunni belief to affirm the authenticity of all of these narrations and allow its practice without the least objection. Allah Almighty could have revealed His words in one style but He has wisdom in all His actions. We thank Him that this specific form of diversity is not subject to dispute amongst the Sunnis, and even amongst the general Muslims.

In terms of the Sunni belief (i.e. theology) we have three distinct schools of thought which differ in their method of presenting the agreed upon tenants of faith. These schools are the Asharites, Maturidis and Atharis (or Ahlu Al Hadith). The first two schools (with minor differences) followed an outstanding approach of presenting the tenants of faith through logical and textual evidences that are beneficial for implementation in different places and times. The third approach followed a genuine approach which emphasized simple and clear presentation of the beliefs far from the theological arguments. Since the emergence of these schools by the end of the second Islamic century, Sunnism was known to be presented theologically by these three schools. It is regrettable that many Sunnis of our time (even the educated) do not know about these schools. Even worse, we have a strong stream that innovatively claims that the Asharites and Maturidis are not Sunnis. Recognizing that ninety percent of our previous and current scholars are followers of these two schools shows the incorrectness of this accusation and at the same time its dangerous consequence. What is important for this article is to emphasize that regardless of the strictness of the Sunni belief there was room for differences in some issues and the Sunnis did not view this as a sign of disunity or a cause for inhomogeneity amongst the Sunnis.

The most obvious example of the Sunni diversity is found in the rulings of Fiqeh (Jurisprudence). We have strongly four flourished schools of thought: Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi and Hanabli that have their own discrete method of analyzing the texts, deducing the rulings and practicing the details of the religion. History tells us that there were more jurist schools of thought such as: Al Awzaey, Al Tabari, Ibn Thawr, Al Laith bin Saad, Jaafar Al Saddiq and others which could not survive due to various reasons.
The differences are extended to almost every detail of the acts of worship, even the manifest rituals like the call of the prayer (adhan), the pillars of the prayer and the financial and marriage contract. This is a huge legacy of diversity and one of the longest historical phenomena of diverse peaceful life and practice which we should be proud of. Again, this source of diversity is subject to much confusion in our time. With the explosive random nature of fatwas a foggy picture of the limits of this diversity haunts many Sunnis. Nevertheless, this does not deny the mere fact that Fiqeh would not have existed without these differences.

Spirituality (i.e. Sufism) provides us with a similar bright diverse environment. There are many spiritual Sunni schools that thrived throughout our Muslim history. This include the Qadri, Shadhili, Rifaey, Naqshabandy, Khalwaty and many other influential spiritual leaders such as Al Junaid and Al Ghazali. These schools differed in their way of purifying oneself, perfecting the Islamic obligations, abandoning the impressible acts and reaching highest states of love and obedience towards Allah, The Real. Even in our contemporary times, these schools exist peacefully beside each other and still share their teachings and methods of education. It is regrettable to find that many Sunnis are not aware of this specific historical narration and even go far to disassociate Sufism from Sunnism. We will get back to this specific point in future posts insha’Allah.

These are four forms of diversity within the Sunni community: the Quran, theology, Fiqeh and Sufism. There are other forms which can be found in hadith methodologies, language and arts which we have overcome due to its specialized nature. Moreover, the political, ethnic, cultural and social aspects are important to this discussion which I leave for more qualified writers to spot light on them.

I would like to conclude this post with two points.

The first is the magnitude of building a guardian culture if we would like to see tolerance and diversity implemented in our societies. The core of any culture is education. The market, the state and the media are only tools for education. To start with the personal education, I humbly believe that every (educated) Sunni should have minimum background on the theological, juridical and spiritual Sunni schools of thought. It is shame to find highly educated Sunnis unaware of their background or fed with inaccurate information. Our children and schools should be our next step. However, this is too early to discuss because we cannot teach them something we do not practice or more precisely we are not fully aware of.

The second is the need for careful definition of the boundaries of the Sunni school in all its forms: juridical, theological and spiritual. Diversity does not mean accepting every opinion just because its owner is a Sunni. At the same time, it does not mean rejecting every opinion that is said by a non-Sunni. Sunnism is a collection of principles based on the Islamic sources of knowledge (i.e. Quran, Sunnah, consensus and legal reasoning) that form a dynamic framework for ijtihad. We should not become the sponge that soaks every liquid. This is what we are now, and we need to change it.