Newsletter of the Claremont Main Road Mosque · ‘Id-al Adha Edition - October 2012/1433
Vol.2 No.2
The Obliteration Of Our Muslim Heritage Bashir Sacranie When you go on Hajj, you will be circumambulating the Ka’aba, the first House of Allah, a small stone cube first built by hand by the Prophet Ibrahim (ra) and his son Isma’il (ra), some 3,500 years ago. You will have come, like millions of others, from a distant land, to make an outer as well as an inner journey in the hope that, being in that place, at that time, will bring about a sense of communion with the One and Only. Pause, and imagine that the Ka’aba, which you can now touch, and all the other symbolic sites and structures that you will encounter on your pilgrimage, including the Hajr al-Aswad and the pillars representing the Shaytan that you will pelt, had been obliterated and razed to the ground by someone who considered your act of devotion a form of idolatry, and in its place was a barren, featureless space, tiled over with the most expensive marble that money can buy. Would it offer the same sense of occasion and stir your spirit, or give you the sense that you had performed your pilgrimage? Overlooking you while you circumambulate the Ka’aba will be the recently built, 700 meters tall, Royal Mecca Clock Tower, a monument to the Saudi Royalty and a symbol all-at-once of their absolute dominion over Saudi Arabia (formerly Hijaz), their immeasurable wealth and their dedication and devotion to modernity. The Tower dwarfs the Ka’aba both in size as well as grandness. Whilst you marvel at the magnitude of vision and wealth that inspired this structure and wonder at the mindset of its owners, ask yourself whether this towering monument to power and wealth, and the glittering array of other high-rises that crowd round the Haram, add to your experience and are spiritually uplifting. Ask yourself, also, what must have been bulldozed and subsumed to make way for the five-star hotels, shopping malls and arcades, and consider what you have lost, of the houses of the Prophet (pbuh), his family and companions, and the places and sites where they conducted their struggle, suffered and sought refuge and were laid to rest. Those are gone forever, stripped from our consciousness, and can never be recreated.
For decades now, in the Arabian Peninsula, a systematic and rapacious program has been underway. Much has been destroyed of historical residences, mosques, graveyards and landmarks and what remains is under baleful scrutiny. Some 3000 historical sites have been obliterated. Amongst the remaining few, al-Masjid al-Nabwi and Jabl an-Noor and lovingly constructed extensions and embellishments of Ottoman and Abbasid times are under threat. A juggernaut is savagely sweeping across the environs of mosques in this sacred region and demolishing everything in its path to make way for the most glitzy and glittering structures that so alter the character of Makkah and Madinah that they are reminiscent of luxury-bloated, upmarket tourist resorts of the likes of Las Vegas.
“Today in the sacred cities of Makkah and Madinah there is little to remind future generations of the legacy of Islam.” What has been happening in the Hijaz over the last several decades echoes the inconstancy and deeply rooted ignorance, greed and bigotry that the Prophet (pbuh) encountered in the Bedouin tribes. More significantly for us, it began in the 19th Century when Wahabism made a pact with the tribe of Saud. It unleashed what can only be described as a visceral hatred and ever since then the heritage and institutions of Islam have been under threat. Today in the sacred cities of Makkah and Madinah there is little to remind future generations of the legacy of Islam. The ancient ziyarah places have all gone. As Shafiq Morton (October 2011) points out, the places where the Prophet (pbuh) and his noble Companions lived, prayed, fought battles, drank from wells and witnessed miracles to found one of the world’s greatest civilisations, are blessed historical footprints that have been swept away forever, and we are all the poorer for it. In a well-known hadith, recorded in the collection of Imam Muslim, the Prophet
Editorial The months of Hajj this year coincided with our celebrations of Heritage Day on 24 September 2012. This edition of Al-Mizan thus leads with an article by Bashir Sacranie that provides a sobering reflection on the ongoing destruction of Islamic heritage sites in the sacred cities of Makkah and Madinah. Today our hujjaj are denied the opportunity to visit many ziyarah places that have been destroyed over the years with very little left to remind future generations of the great legacy of Islam. In keeping with celebrations of our heritage, we have also included an extract from Hoosain Ebrahim’s book that provides a glimpse of the many challenges that the first hujjaj from the shores of Cape Town experienced in the 19th century. Last month also saw the Muslim world thrown into turmoil by the release of a vile and offensive antiIslam video on YouTube. Imam Rashied Omar reflects on the lessons we can learn from the many protests that followed.
Once again we report on a range of masjid and madrasa activities and can look on positively at the gains we are making in our ongoing Jihad Against Poverty and Social Justice Programmes. We wish you all ‘Id Sa’id Wa Mubarak
We pray that Allah grants all the hujjaj a Hajj Mabrur, Insha-Allah
CMRM Established 1854 (pbuh) is reported to have said: ‘The signs of the Hour (End-times) will be that Bedouin shepherds will vie with each other in building the tallest buildings”. These towers and gargantuan edifices that are hastily erected over what should be lovingly preserved and tended… whom do they glorify? Are we currently witnessing the ‘signs of the Hour’ in the obliteration of our sacred Muslim heritage, justified through ‘fears of idolatory’ and ‘in the name of modernisation’?
40-42 Main Road, Claremont, 7708 • 021 683 8384 • www.cmrm.co.za