Murabitun
Encyclopedia
The Murabitun is a worldwide Islam
ic movement founded by Shaykh Dr. Abdalqadir as-Sufi, leader of the Darqawi-Shadhili-Qadiri Tariqa
, with communities in around 20 different countries.
Its principal objectives include the restoration of Zakat
, Da’wa
, the practice of Bayat (allegiance) to an Amir
, the re-introduction of the Islamic currency of Gold Dinar
and Silver Dirham
, and the establishment of the ‘Amal Ahl al-Madinah.
” and derives from the famous Islamic movement led by Yusuf ibn Tashfin
, which restored Islam in Andalusia
.
The term Ribāṭ ("fortified outpost") is defined by Ibn Rushd al-Jadd (the grandfather of Ibn Rushd) as "holding fast to outposts of the Islamic lands in order to protect the Muslims therein," and also refers to the outposts themselves.
Its root appears in the Qur’an as the command rabitu..
in Meknes
around 1968, and was made Muqaddem and given the title “As-Sufi”. Shaykh ibn al-Habib said to him, “You can stay here with me, and something might happen. But go to England and see what will happen,” and so he went to London and gathered a group of new British Muslims, returning to Morocco in 1970. That group grew continuously, founding a learning centre in Bristol Gardens, London, in 1972, and another centre in Berkeley, California.
There was a constant flow of people into Islam around Muqaddem Abdalqadir as-Sufi, who during that period travelled constantly in Europe and America, held talks, and published works such as The Way of Muhammad and Islam Journal proposing that Islam could be understood, and entered, as the "completion of the Western intellectual and spiritual tradition". He also initiated some important translations into English of classical texts on Islamic Law and Sufism, including The Muwatta of Imam Malik and the Letters of Shaykh Darqawi, published as The Darqawi Way.
In 1982 Shaykh Abdalqadir as-Sufi held a series of talks in America which were to become the basis of his seminal work, Root Islamic Education. He had arrived at the position that the practice of Sufism led by necessity to a full working commitment to the establishment of the social practices and structures of Islam. Around that time the communities of Muslims founded by him began to organise themselves under the leadership of Amirs, in emulation of the practice of the first Muslim communities. This period saw the emergence of communities in Malaysia, South Africa, Denmark, and the growth of a strong community in Spain.
After periods in Spain and Scotland, Shaykh Dr. Abdalqadir as-Sufi moved to Cape Town, South Africa in 2002, from where he offers guidance to the Murabitun movement and to the world Muslim community in general.
Principally:
As their authority for this position the Murabitun cite a wide range of sources, beginning with the Qur’anic injunction to take Zakat, the Prophetic practice of Zakat-taking, the well-known position of the Khalif Abu Bakr as-Siddiq, and the established practice among the world Muslim community which was until relatively recently the assessment and collection of Zakat by the Leader and his collectors.
This they place in contradistinction to the currently prevailing practices of voluntary self-assessment, donation to the Zakat charity of one’s choice, and the placement of Zakat donations into interim or even long-term investment funds. This, they argue, destroys the political cohesion of the Muslim community, which is based primarily on the circulation of wealth along Divinely revealed lines. They also condemn Zakat investment funds as un-Islamic.
The Murabitun trace the bi-metallic currency back to the Messenger
Muhammad and the first Muslim community; its specific weights and
purities were formally recorded by ‘Umar Ibn al-Khattab, . They also cite the Dinar’s mention in the Qur’an, its use in the universally accepted fiqh to define the terms of Zakat, and its mention as currency throughout the entire body of Islamic Fiqh.
These models have been formulated in detail and include Awqaf for the funding of social welfare institutions, mosques and other public facilities; markets governed by rules such as the prohibition of charging rent for market-space; guilds as the natural form of professional organisation; and caravans, representing the movement of goods from point of purchase to point of sale as opposed to monopoly distribution.
Umar Ibrahim Vadillo has been instrumental in formulating these modules in terms of the modern technological world.
There are no formalised rules of membership or affiliation to the Murabitun, rather the movement consists of individuals and groupings seen as actively working towards the Murabitun’s aims while acknowledging affiliation. As such it is not a political party with official membership or a fixed programme or even ideology.
s of its founder, Shaykh Dr. Abdalqadir as-Sufi, and as such are also members of the Qadiri-Shadhili-Darqawi Tariqa.
, former Prime Minister of Malaysia, Dr Necmettin Erbakan, former Prime Minister of Turkey, and King Hasan II of Morocco, during their terms of office or rule issued public statements in favour of the Gold Dinar as a currency for Muslim nations. Dr Mahathir and King Hasan II also initiated programmes and activities towards the currency’s implementation, the latter as a means to correct Zakat.
Islam
Islam . The most common are and . : Arabic pronunciation varies regionally. The first vowel ranges from ~~. The second vowel ranges from ~~~...
ic movement founded by Shaykh Dr. Abdalqadir as-Sufi, leader of the Darqawi-Shadhili-Qadiri Tariqa
Darqawa
The Darqawiyya or Darqawa Sufi order was a revivalist branch of the Shadhiliyah brotherhood. The Darqawa consisted of the followers of Sheikh Muhammad al-Arabi al-Darqawi . The movement, which became one of the leading orders in Morocco, exalted poverty and asceticism. It gained widespread support...
, with communities in around 20 different countries.
Its principal objectives include the restoration of Zakat
Zakat
Zakāt , one of the Five Pillars of Islam, is the giving of a fixed portion of one's wealth to charity, generally to the poor and needy.-History:Zakat, a practice initiated by Muhammed himself, has played an important role throughout Islamic history...
, Da’wa
Dawah
Da‘wah or Dawah usually denotes the preaching of Islam. Da‘wah literally means "issuing a summons" or "making an invitation", being the active participle of a verb meaning variously "to summon" or "to invite"...
, the practice of Bayat (allegiance) to an Amir
Emir
Emir , meaning "commander", "general", or "prince"; also transliterated as Amir, Aamir or Ameer) is a title of high office, used throughout the Muslim world...
, the re-introduction of the Islamic currency of Gold Dinar
Islamic gold dinar
The modern Islamic gold dinar is a currency that aims to revive the historical gold dinar which was a leading coin of early Islam. They consist of minted gold coins, Dinar, and silver coins, Dirham.-Dinar history:According to Islamic law, the Islamic dinar is a coin of pure gold weighing...
and Silver Dirham
Islamic dirham
The Islamic dirham is a specific weight of pure silver equivalent to ....
, and the establishment of the ‘Amal Ahl al-Madinah.
Heritage and Historical Antecedents
The name Murabitun means “People of the RibāṭRibat
A ribat is an Arabic term for a small fortification as built along a frontier during the first years of the Muslim conquest of North Africa to house military volunteers, called the murabitun...
” and derives from the famous Islamic movement led by Yusuf ibn Tashfin
Yusuf ibn Tashfin
Yusef ibn Tashfin also, Tashafin, or Teshufin; or Yusuf; was a king of the Almoravid empire, he founded the city of Marrakech and led the Muslim forces in the Battle of Zallaqa....
, which restored Islam in Andalusia
Al-Andalus
Al-Andalus was the Arabic name given to a nation and territorial region also commonly referred to as Moorish Iberia. The name describes parts of the Iberian Peninsula and Septimania governed by Muslims , at various times in the period between 711 and 1492, although the territorial boundaries...
.
The term Ribāṭ ("fortified outpost") is defined by Ibn Rushd al-Jadd (the grandfather of Ibn Rushd) as "holding fast to outposts of the Islamic lands in order to protect the Muslims therein," and also refers to the outposts themselves.
Its root appears in the Qur’an as the command rabitu..
Modern History
The founder of the modern Murabitun movement, Shaykh Dr. Abdalqadir as-Sufi (a convert to Islam born Ian Dallas in Ayr, Scotland), met his first Shaykh, Muhammad ibn al-HabibMuhammad Ibn al-Habib
Sayyidi Muhammad ibn al-Habib ibn as-Siddiq al-Amghari al-Idrisi al-Hasani was an Islamic teacher, author, and shaykh of the Darqawa tariqa in Morocco.-Background:...
in Meknes
Meknes
Meknes is a city in northern Morocco, located from the capital Rabat and from Fes. It is served by the A2 expressway between those two cities and by the corresponding railway. Meknes was the capital of Morocco under the reign of Moulay Ismail , before it was relocated to Marrakech. The...
around 1968, and was made Muqaddem and given the title “As-Sufi”. Shaykh ibn al-Habib said to him, “You can stay here with me, and something might happen. But go to England and see what will happen,” and so he went to London and gathered a group of new British Muslims, returning to Morocco in 1970. That group grew continuously, founding a learning centre in Bristol Gardens, London, in 1972, and another centre in Berkeley, California.
There was a constant flow of people into Islam around Muqaddem Abdalqadir as-Sufi, who during that period travelled constantly in Europe and America, held talks, and published works such as The Way of Muhammad and Islam Journal proposing that Islam could be understood, and entered, as the "completion of the Western intellectual and spiritual tradition". He also initiated some important translations into English of classical texts on Islamic Law and Sufism, including The Muwatta of Imam Malik and the Letters of Shaykh Darqawi, published as The Darqawi Way.
In 1982 Shaykh Abdalqadir as-Sufi held a series of talks in America which were to become the basis of his seminal work, Root Islamic Education. He had arrived at the position that the practice of Sufism led by necessity to a full working commitment to the establishment of the social practices and structures of Islam. Around that time the communities of Muslims founded by him began to organise themselves under the leadership of Amirs, in emulation of the practice of the first Muslim communities. This period saw the emergence of communities in Malaysia, South Africa, Denmark, and the growth of a strong community in Spain.
After periods in Spain and Scotland, Shaykh Dr. Abdalqadir as-Sufi moved to Cape Town, South Africa in 2002, from where he offers guidance to the Murabitun movement and to the world Muslim community in general.
Position on Zakat
The political and social work of the Murabitun centres around the restoration of the “fallen pillar” of Zakat, which, it is claimed, has been abandoned on several primary counts.Principally:
- that it must be taken by an Amir
- that if it is on money it must be taken in gold and silver
- that it must be disbursed immediately.
As their authority for this position the Murabitun cite a wide range of sources, beginning with the Qur’anic injunction to take Zakat, the Prophetic practice of Zakat-taking, the well-known position of the Khalif Abu Bakr as-Siddiq, and the established practice among the world Muslim community which was until relatively recently the assessment and collection of Zakat by the Leader and his collectors.
This they place in contradistinction to the currently prevailing practices of voluntary self-assessment, donation to the Zakat charity of one’s choice, and the placement of Zakat donations into interim or even long-term investment funds. This, they argue, destroys the political cohesion of the Muslim community, which is based primarily on the circulation of wealth along Divinely revealed lines. They also condemn Zakat investment funds as un-Islamic.
Shari‘ah Currency
Connected with their position on Zakat is their perhaps more widely known work promoting the Islamic Gold Dinar and Silver Dirham, which has been developed above all by the scholar Umar Ibrahim Vadillo. Paper money, since actually a promise of payment written on paper, can from the point of view of Zakat only be considered in terms of its value as paper, since Zakat cannot be discharged by passing on a token of debt owed to a third party. Vadillo has written extensively on the origins of paper money and the Islamic position on money.The Murabitun trace the bi-metallic currency back to the Messenger
Muhammad and the first Muslim community; its specific weights and
purities were formally recorded by ‘Umar Ibn al-Khattab, . They also cite the Dinar’s mention in the Qur’an, its use in the universally accepted fiqh to define the terms of Zakat, and its mention as currency throughout the entire body of Islamic Fiqh.
Amirate, Sultaniyya, Khalifate
The Murabitun advocate Personal Rule as the Islamic and indeed natural form of human governance, taking authority for this position from extensive Qur’anic references, the Sunna of the Prophet himself, extensive Hadith, the consensus of the scholars, and the practice of all the subsequent Khalifs, Sultans and Amirs of every significant Muslim society until the cessation of effective Ottoman sultaniyya in 1909.Da’wa
The Murabitun began as and remains a Da’wa movement, inviting people of all races and social walks to accept Islam. Their gatherings are characteristically multi-racial, and their largest numbers of adherents are from the indigenous tribes of Southern Africa and the Central American Indians, while indigenous European Muslims of the first and second generation also feature prominently.‘Amal Ahl al-Madinah
Shaykh Abdalqadir as-Sufi entered Islam in Morocco, and this has been misinterpreted as the reason for his promotion of the school of jurisprudence of Imam Malik. His advocacy of Malik’s School of Madinah is explained at length in his seminal work Root Islamic Education, in which he argues that the record left by Malik – as the inheritor of the lived social reality of the first three generations of Muslims in the city of the Prophet (as opposed to the other Schools, which were formulated in other places), and as the first formulator of Islamic Law – is necessarily and far and away the closest to the complete Islamic blueprint required for the revival of Islam in times of advanced degeneration (i.e. the present day). The Murabitun do not, however, in any way dispute the validity of the other legal Schools, nor is adherence to or advocacy of the Madhhab of Malik a condition of membership of the Murabitun.Islamic Trading and Social Welfare
The Murabitun advocate a revival of the forms of trading and social welfare practiced during the first generations of Muslims and for most of the history of Islam, proposing that these are the natural modes of human activity and rejecting the dielectical categorisation of “ancient” or “modern”, a set of opposites whose application to Islam they consider irrelevant and misleading.These models have been formulated in detail and include Awqaf for the funding of social welfare institutions, mosques and other public facilities; markets governed by rules such as the prohibition of charging rent for market-space; guilds as the natural form of professional organisation; and caravans, representing the movement of goods from point of purchase to point of sale as opposed to monopoly distribution.
Umar Ibrahim Vadillo has been instrumental in formulating these modules in terms of the modern technological world.
Position Against Terrorism
Shaykh Dr. Abdalqadir as-Sufi has consistently identified terrorism and suicide tactics as forbidden in and alien to Islam, and indeed as a phenomenon with no precursor in Muslim history. Instead, he then states, its original appearance as a tactic and a psychology was among the Isma‘ili sect of the Shi‘a religion, and it later emerged among the Russian nihilists of the late 19th century. The Murabitun have also consistently separated themselves from the personnel and ideology of terrorism.Organizational Form
The Murabitun advocate Bayat (allegiance) to Amirs and leaders among the Muslims in general, arguing that this is and always has been the mainstay of Islamic political organisation. Accordingly they also organise themselves around Amirs. This is distinct from the role of the movement’s founder, Shaykh Dr. Abdalqadir as-Sufi, who, while exercising an undoubted influence, is a spiritual guide rather than a political leader – an arrangement common throughout the history of Islam.There are no formalised rules of membership or affiliation to the Murabitun, rather the movement consists of individuals and groupings seen as actively working towards the Murabitun’s aims while acknowledging affiliation. As such it is not a political party with official membership or a fixed programme or even ideology.
Tariqa
Many but not all members of the Murabitun are also Sufic muridMurid
Murid is a Sufi term meaning 'committed one' from the root meaning "willpower" or "self-esteem". It refers to a person who is committed to a Murshid in a Tariqa of Sufism. Also known as a Salik , a murid is an initiate into the mystic philosophy of Sufism. When the Talib makes a pledge to a...
s of its founder, Shaykh Dr. Abdalqadir as-Sufi, and as such are also members of the Qadiri-Shadhili-Darqawi Tariqa.
Political Influence
The Murabitun have had considerable political influence, principally in the sphere of the Islamic Gold Dinar and Silver Dirham. Dr. Mahathir MohamedMahathir bin Mohamad
Tun Dr. Mahathir bin Mohamad . is a Malaysian politician who was the fourth Prime Minister of Malaysia. He held the post for 22 years from 1981 to 2003, making him Malaysia's longest serving Prime Minister. His political career spanned almost 40 years.Born and raised in Alor Setar, Kedah, Mahathir...
, former Prime Minister of Malaysia, Dr Necmettin Erbakan, former Prime Minister of Turkey, and King Hasan II of Morocco, during their terms of office or rule issued public statements in favour of the Gold Dinar as a currency for Muslim nations. Dr Mahathir and King Hasan II also initiated programmes and activities towards the currency’s implementation, the latter as a means to correct Zakat.