Great Muslims of the West: Makers of Western Islam

468 Pages·2017·3.6 MB·English

by  Muhammad Mojlum Khan

GREAT
MUSLIMS
OF THE
WEST
Makers of Western Islam
MUHAMMAD MOJLUM KHAN
Great Muslims of the West: Makers of Western Islam
First published in England by
Kube Publishing Ltd
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© Muhammad Mojlum Khan, 2017 All rights reserved
The right of Muhammad Mojlum Khan to be identified as the author of this work has been
asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents act, 1988.
Cataloguing-in-Publication Data is available from the British library
ISBN 978-1-84774-113-4 casebound
ISBN 978-1-84774-112-7 paperback
ISBN 978-1-84774-114-1 ebook
Book Design: © Fatima Jamadar
Cover Design: Inspiral Design
Typesetting: Nasir Cadir
Printed by: IMAK Ofset, Turkey
This book is dedicated to:
MRS FULESA KHANUM
my mother, for her love and sacrifices.
FAHMIDA KHAN AND MUHAMMAD ABDUL WAHID
for their kindness and encouragement.
ASEFA AND MOHAMMAD ALI QAYYUM
for their support and co-operation.
May the Islamic world and the West
continue to learn and promote knowledge,
understanding and co-operation
for the benefit of the whole of humanity!

Introduction
The Early Period
1. Abd al-Rahman I
2. Ziryab
3. Ibn Firnas
4. Abd al-Rahman III
5. Abulcasis
6. Almanzor
7. Ibn Hazm
8. Wallada bint al-Mustakfi
9. Avenzoar
10. Avempace
11. Dreses
12. Abubacer
13. Averroes
14. Ibn Jubayr
15. Bitar
16. Abu Ishaq al-Shatibi
17. Khayr al-Din Barbarossa
18. Gazi Husrev Bey
19. Roxelana
20. Hasan Kafi Prusac
21. Safiye Sultan
22. Evliya Celebi
The Modern Period
23. Ayuba Sulaiman Diallo
24. Lord Henry Stanley of Alderley
25. Alexander Russell Webb
26. Ismail Bey Gaspirali
27. William Henry Quilliam
28. Philippe Grenier
29. Lady Evelyn Cobbold
30. Mehmed Dzemaludin Causevic
31. Hafiz Ali Korca
32. John Yahya Parkinson
33. Marmaduke William Pickthall
34. Musa Jarullah
35. Yusuf Ziyaeddin Ezheri
36. Julius Germanus
37. Harry St John Philby
38. Rene Guenon
39. Leopold Weiss
40. Abdullah Ali al-Hakimi
41. Knud Holmboe
42. Mehmed Handzic
43. Martin Lings
44. Husein Dozo
45. Noor Inayat Khan
46. Thomas Ballantine Irving
47. Alija Izetbegovic
48. Lois Ibsen al-Faruqi
49. W. D. Muhammad
50. Muhammad Ali
51. Honourable Mentions
Al-Hakam II
Ibn Hayyan
Ibn al-Arabi
Al-Qurtubi
Al-Gharnati
Ibn al-Khatib
Koprulu Mehmed Pasha
Jozef Z. Bem
Amherst D. Tyssen
Sami Frasheri
Lord Headley
Rizaeddin bin Fakhreddin
J. W. Lovegrove
Ivan Agueli
William Richard Williamson
Sir Charles Archibald Hamilton
Isabelle Eberhardt
Khalid Sheldrake
Muhammad Hamidullah
Knut Bernstrom
Smail Balic
Adil Bey Zulfikarpasic
Zaki Badawi
Malcolm X
Khurram Murad
Conclusion
Brief Chronology of Western Islam
Select Bibliography
Index
INTRODUCTION
The study of history can be traced back to the origin of humanity because, ultimately, it is the
study of the record or recollection of man’s actions, deeds, misdeeds and endeavours since the
beginning of his journey on earth. That is why humanity has always been preoccupied in the
study of history since the beginning of time. Indeed, man’s longing for immortality is clearly
reflected in his efforts to undertake positive and, at times, negative actions so as to leave his
indelible mark; to stand out from the rest of the crowd, so to speak. However, it is equally true
that the study of history requires sound knowledge and an understanding of a wide range of
subjects and disciplines including relevant linguistic skills. That explains why most of the
world’s greatest philosophers, thinkers and writers have also been prominent historians
because our present condition can only be properly understood and appreciated when it is
explored and analysed in the light of our past.
But what actually is history? In his classic study, also entitled What is History? (1961), the
British historian Edward H. Carr (1892–1982) wrote, ‘History consists of a corpus of
ascertained facts. The facts are available to the historian in documents, inscriptions and so on,
like fish on the fishmonger’s slab. The historian collects them, takes them home and cooks and
serves them in whatever style appeals to him.’1 This raises another question: who decides
what is ‘fact’ or ‘fiction’? Again, Carr argued that the ‘facts do not, as is sometimes said,
speak for themselves, or if they do, it is the historian who decides which facts shall speak – he
cannot give the floor to them all.’2 Why?
Simply because there is no such thing as pure objectivity in the study and exploration of the
past, present and the future. In other words, the historian’s experiences, background, education,
approach and personal biases often play a far greater role in the formulation of their point of
view than is generally appreciated. That is why – in addition to a sound knowledge of the
‘past’ – an awareness and understanding of the ‘self’ and its place in relation to the whole is
essential for developing a rounded view of history and its relevance to the present and future.
Indeed, the philosopher and historian, Robin G. Collingwood (1889–1943), argued in his Idea
of History (1946) that, ‘Knowing yourself means knowing what you can do; and since nobody
knows what he can do until he tries, the only clue to what man can do is what man has done.’3
However, according to other historians, history is nothing more than a story of the
development of humanity through the passage of time, taking note of their rise and decline,
achievements and failures, deeds and misdeeds. To them, ‘history’, or the ‘past’, is a sequence
of events that have unfolded one after another, whilst the professional historians, unlike the
annalists, are more interested in the ‘why’ and ‘how’ of history rather than only the ‘what’ and
‘when’. Although Sir Isaiah Berlin (1909–1997), the Russian-British intellectual historian and
author of The Proper Study of Mankind: An Anthology of Essays (1997), was of the opinion
that humans possessed a unique capacity for moral choice, which enabled them to maintain
some independence from impersonal forces. However, Edward Carr argued that ‘while
historical events were of course set in motion by the individual wills, whether of great men or
of ordinary people, the historian must go behind the individual wills and inquire into the
reasons which made the individuals will and act as they did, and study the factors or forces
which explain individual behaviour.’4
Moving away from individual action to collective behaviour, the celebrated fourteenth
century historian, Abd al-Rahman ibn Khaldun (1332–1406), explained in his pioneering
Muqaddimah fi Ta’rikh (Introduction to History) that cultures and civilisations rise and
decline based on a number of factors including the political, economic, social, spiritual and
moral condition of that society. His cyclical theory of history later inspired Sir Arnold Joseph
Toynbee (1889–1975) to argue in his A Study of History (1934) and Civilisation on Trial
(1948) that civilisations do not emerge in a vacuum; rather, a civilisation arises and flourishes
only after coming in contact with another decaying or extinct one, which, in turn, leads to a new
impetus or renaissance. In other words, according to Toynbee, the rise and development of
Western civilisation took place as a result of its contact and encounters with other living
civilisations, albeit weaker and decaying ones.
By comparison, in The Rise of the West, William Hardy McNeill (1917–2016) attempted
to transcend both Oswald Spengler’s (1880–1936) historical pessimism (see his The Decline
of the West, 1918) as well as Toynbee’s cyclical approach (see his A Study of History, 1934–
1961), by formulating a more integrated and nuanced approach to the study of history. Based on
the concept of cultural diffusion, he argued that civilisations emerge through the diffusion of
cultural ideas and values that are common to humanity as a whole. Such an integrated approach
enabled McNeill to explain the rise of the West as a convergence rather than the culmination of
Eurocentrism. That is to say, McNeill’s work shifted our attention away from European or
Western exceptionalism to multicultural encounter and civilisational interdependence.
Deploying a similar approach to Islamic culture and civilisation, in The Venture of Islam:
Conscience and History in a World Civilization (1975), the celebrated American historian,
Marshall G. S. Hodgson (1922–1968), situated Islam in its global context rather than
projecting it essentially as a Middle Eastern phenomenon. In his Rethinking World History:
Essays on Europe, Islam, and World History (published posthumously in 1993), Hodgson
went further and challenged both Eurocentrists and Multiculturalists to rethink their views on
Western history in the global context. Simply tracing the origins of Western civilisation from
the ancient Greeks to the Renaissance was nothing short of an ‘optical illusion’ without
reference to other global cultures and histories, he argued.
Despite McNeill and Hodgson’s efforts to move away from an exceptionalist, essentialist
or Eurocentrist approach to history, most European or Western historians have continued to
explain the development of Western civilisation from an entirely exceptionalist perspective
without giving due consideration to other cultural and civilisational influences. Despite
Norman Davies’ contention that Eurocentrism is a matter of attitude rather than content, the
majority of Western historians, both of the past and present, have interpreted the ‘rise of the
West’ as the culmination of human civilisation and, in so doing, they have blurred the line
between individual attitude and the interpretation of historical facts.
For example, in his Civilisation: A Personal View (1969), Kenneth Clark (1903–1983)
had traced the origins of Western civilisation to its ancient Greek and Roman roots, completely