Islamic Movement

Seerah conferences in Colombo and Karachi highlight the Islamic movement’s need for intellectual revolution

By Iqbal Siddiqui
[Crescent International, July 1-15, 2000.]

The Institute of Contemporary Islamic Thought (ICIT) and Crescent International took their international conference program on the road last month — to the air would probably be a more appropriate figure of speech— with conferences on ‘The Seerah: A Power Perspective’ in Colombo, Sri Lanka, and Karachi, Pakistan. The Colombo conference, which lasted for three days from June 16-18, was a regional conference for Asia, co-hosted by the local Al-Islam Foundation. This was followed a week later by a local conference in Karachi on June 25.

The Muslim community in Sri Lanka has a long record of taking an interest in, and supporting, the affairs of the global Islamic movement, dating back to the Unity Conference held there in the immediate aftermath of the Islamic Revolution in Iran, which was attended by the late Dr Kalim Siddiqui and speakers from around the world. The Al-Islam Foundation, chaired by Hamza Haniffa, an academic specialising in mass communications, publishes a twice-monthly newspaper, Al-Islam, and runs major teaching and youth projects. The three-day conference, at the Bandranaike International Memorial Confer-ence Halls, was the Al-Islam Foundation’s largest event to date, and is intended as the first of a series over the next few years.

It was appropriate, therefore, that Br Hamza Haniffa, in his introductory comments at the opening of the conference, referred to Dr Kalim’s contribution and paid tribute to the impact of Dr Kalim’s work in Sri Lanka and other places. He also welcomed Dr Kalim’s widow, Mrs Suraiya Siddiqui, a trustee of the ICIT, who attended the conference from London and addressed a Sisters’ meeting after the main conference.

The keynote speeches in Colombo were given by Zafar Bangash, who also chaired the conference, and Imam al-Asi. Zafar Bangash spoke on ‘The Concept of Leader and Leadership in Islam’, drawing on the Seerah of the Prophet (saw), while Imam al-Asi’s paper was ‘The Unknown Prophet: Forgotten Dimensions of the Seerah’. Imam al-Asi’s paper was an excellent and dynamic presentation of the need for re-interpreting the Seerah in order to re-strategise the contemporary Islamic movement along the pattern set by the Prophet himself. In the process he also highlighted some of the absurdities that can crop up through thoughtless, uncritical and theoretical interpretations of the Seerah with no reference to the spirit and ethos of the Prophetic mission. Zafar Bangash’s paper was a more detailed exposition of issues surrounding leadership based on the Seerah.

The other major paper presented during the opening session of the conference was ‘Review of Traditional Seerah Literature’ by Wan Kamal Mujani of the Faculty of Islamic Studies, University Kebangsaan Malaysia. Other major papers during the three days included a speech by Ayatullah Amid Zanjani, a senior alim from Islamic Iran, on ‘Aspects of the Seerah’; a paper on ‘The Application of the Seerah in the contemporary situation’ by Hujjatul-Islam Saeed Bahmanpour of Cambridge University in the UK; a paper on ‘The Finality of Prophethood and its implications’ by Dr Zafarul Islam Khan of New Delhi; ‘The impact of marginalising women in Islamic movements’ by Waheeda Carvello of the Al-Ghazali College, Erasmia, South Africa; ‘The Prophet’s Pursuit of Power’ by Dr M. Jawad Sahlani of Sherif Technical University, Iran; ‘The Prophet’s Negotiations and Treaties in the Seerah’ by Rohimi Shapiee of University Kebangsaan Malaysia; ‘The legal system in Malaysia and the implementation of Islamic law’ by Sr Noor Inayah Yaakub, also of University Kebangsaan Malaysia; and ‘Hisbah: the duty of ‘amr bil ma’ruf wa nahy anil munkar’ by Dr Ahmed Che Yaacob of MARA Technical University in Malaysia.

The second session of June 17 was dedicated to discussion of the contemporary Islamic movement. The session was introduced by Crescent editor Iqbal Siddiqui, who said that no contemporary conference could concentrate purely on intellectual issues without also discussing the contemporary Muslim situation. The papers in this section included an assessment of the experience of the ABIM Islamic movement in Malaysia, by Dr Badlihisham Mohammad Nasr, of the University Kebangsaan Malaysia, and updates on the situations in India and Kashmir by Zawahir Siddique of the Indian Muslim on-line magazine Resurgence (www.resurgence-online.com), and Shaikh Tajamalul Islam, the director of the Institute of Kashmir Affairs in Pakistan.

The conference also benefited from papers from local speakers, including Dr K M H Kalideen, Dean of the Faculty of Arts, University of South East Sri Lanka, and Zulkifli Nazim of Al-Islam Foundation.

Zafar Bangash, Director of the ICIT, said after the conference that the proceedings would be published both in book form and on the ICIT website. This should bring them to a far wider audience than the 500 or so people who could attend the actual session.

He also said that the Colombo conference was one of a series planned on the Seerah which should make a major impact on the intellectual work of the Islamic movement. "Such conferences show, above all, the need for more such work," he said.

A full report and papers presented at the conference will be available on the ICIT website at www.islamicthought.org