Sunnis... between the pulse of the past and the stagnation of the present

The state that just emerged from the challenge raised the banner of “Ahl al-Sunnah” over its institutions, to become an icon of its political, social, doctrinal and doctrinal system that enabled it to build societies that accommodate different races and religions.

Following the early challenge* faced by the Islamic State, which the Messenger - may God’s prayers and peace be upon him - had said is a challenge in which piety is mixed with dogmatic apostasy when he said: “One of you despises his prayer with theirs… They pass from the religion as an arrow passes from the shooter,” the term “Ahl al-Sunnah” emerged. And the group” as a title for doctrinal concepts and political visions that diagnosed the challenge and described the treatment for it.

The title given by the great companion Abdullah bin Abbas - may God be pleased with them - from the heart of the political battle, his birth came as a politician. He - may God be pleased with him - said in the interpretation of the Almighty’s saying: {On the day when faces will be whitened and faces will be blackened} that is, “the faces of the Sunnis will be whitened, and the faces of the Sunnis will be blackened.” The heresy (the Kharijites)", to develop after that the title from a field banner to the name of a school of doctrine and jurisprudence, and then settles to be a banner for the middle spectrum of the nation in belief and politics.

The incident of conspiracy against the second source of the constitution - the hadith - was the inauguration of the era of institution building.

When the state declared a state of emergency, set up (cultural) checkpoints, and launched a vetting campaign on personal status identities.

The state that has just emerged from the challenge raised the banner of “Ahl al-Sunnah” above its institutions to become an icon of its political, social, doctrinal and doctrinal system, which enabled it to build societies that accommodate different races and religions and play the role of “the great” (a social concept), and for these societies to be an oasis of political asylum. When the nations of the earth received - or summoned - their armies because they were liberated from the oppression of kin, as happened with the Christians of the Levant, Egypt, Andalusia, and the Armenians in Anatolia.

This performance embodied, in an applied manner, the concept of human rights and minorities before it was carved in the twentieth century, and then the social and political aspect formed a huge door in the concepts of "Ahl al-Sunnah wal-Jama'ah" that dominated the doctrinal aspect, and was a milestone distinguished by international historians about civilizations other.

base stations

Those who faced the challenge (Ahl al-Sunnah) turned into a beehive, and began to build the edifices of their state, and their work was distinguished by the fact that they were inventing new art at every new challenge, and that they responded to the need by invention, and the state witnessed the establishment of institutions that protected its strategic pillars.

Foundation for the Protection of the Constitution

The incident of conspiracy against the second source of the constitution - the hadith - was the inauguration of the era of institution building.

When the state declared a state of emergency, set up (cultural) checkpoints, and launched a vetting campaign on personal status identities;

The great follower Ibn Sirin says, “We were not asking about the chain of transmission. When sedition appeared, we said: Name us your men.” This was a process of surveying the community to uncover pockets of conspiracy, during which the world witnessed the birth of the first security information base;

It specializes in monitoring the personal status of the narrators of the Prophet’s hadith and transcribing their scientific, behavioral, social, livelihood and mental biographies. Known as “Al-Jarh wal-Ta’deel” and “Tabaqat Al-Rijal”, it is an art unique to Sunnis among the nations.

Management Foundation

After the expansion of the Islamic conquests in the caliphate of the Commander of the Faithful Omar Ibn Al-Khattab - may God be pleased with him - and the influx of funds from the conquests, the state faced an administrative crisis in the process of distributing the spoils, so it proceeded to quote administrative structures (diwans) from the cities of the conquered countries.

It is an administrative body responsible for carrying out the administrative, financial and military actions of the state. The administrative institution whose foundations were laid by Omar - may God be pleased with him - is the basic nucleus of the Islamic nation's social and political entity, and the first form of the new administration.

The state put its feet on the path of management and archiving systems, and this system reached its climax in the archives institution in the Ottoman Empire.

With the expansion of the state and the entry of non-Arab peoples into Islam and their mixing with the Arabs, the danger of melody appeared in the Arabic language and the ability of Muslims to understand the legal texts accurately declined, so the science of grammar was established to protect the Arabic language, as it is a subject of Islam.

Sharia Law Institute

With the increasing temporal distance in the third century AH between the state and the era of “the work of the people of Medina” which is the source of jurisprudence that is similar to the Prophet’s guidance, the founders created an art (Usoul al-Fiqh) whose task is to derive legal rulings from its correct evidence - the Qur’an and Sunnah - in later ages, to be With the specifications of Medina after the Companions used to take rulings directly from the Messenger - may God bless him and grant him peace - and then the followers took them directly from them.

With this art, the jurist is able to return the legal ruling (which came from the Messenger - may God’s prayers and peace be upon him - or the Companions) to its primary elements and reproduce it in a different time and under new circumstances, and this art is what the twentieth century person noticed and is known as “reverse engineering” where he can A Chinese engineer - for example - by which he dismantled a German-made device and reproduced it with specifications identical to the original.

And the science of the principles of jurisprudence is responsible for the harmony in the jurisprudential rulings of the Sunnis throughout the ages.

Arabia Protection Foundation

Civil Society Foundation

In the fourth century AH, the state found itself under the control of militias (the Buyid Shiites who occupied Baghdad) and unable to resolve a philosophical and doctrinal conflict run by the militias against the institutions (ministeries) of the state. Evidence was that the establishment of governance at the top was losing the mechanism of communication and influence on the street below. The solution came as an administrative innovation that reshaped society by creating a social segment that would be a bond between the institution of governance and the street. So, regular schools were established, which are educational institutions independent of the political system, consisting of scholars and students of science, who provided them with scholarships and formed a mass scientific situation that restored the street. What the regular schools did was the first image of civil society organizations (NGOs) in human history, which decided the pillars of the battle to restore state sovereignty: creating a bond between the institution of governance and the people, correcting the cultural compass of the street, and mobilizing it for the reform process.These three pillars are the pillars of the stability of states. As for the subsequent outcome, it is attributed to the regular schools the cultural and political recovery of the nation and the creation of the generation of scholars and leaders that liberated Jerusalem from the Crusaders. The regular schools have another essential and creative aspect, which is the request for external intervention from outside the political map of the state (but from within the civilized map) when the Arab Abbasid Caliph sent an invitation to the Turkish Seljuk Sultan to enter Arab Baghdad “to intervene, spread justice and reform the people” and the Arab-Turkish political and cultural Qur’an signed And that was one of the most fertile cultural periods that led to social revival in the Islamic state.The regular schools have another essential and creative aspect, which is the request for external intervention from outside the political map of the state (but from within the civilized map) when the Arab Abbasid Caliph sent an invitation to the Turkish Seljuk Sultan to enter Arab Baghdad “to intervene, spread justice and reform the people” and the Arab-Turkish political and cultural Qur’an signed And that was one of the most fertile cultural periods that led to social revival in the Islamic state.The regular schools have another essential and creative aspect, which is the request for external intervention from outside the political map of the state (but from within the civilized map) when the Arab Abbasid Caliph sent an invitation to the Turkish Seljuk Sultan to enter Arab Baghdad “to intervene, spread justice and reform the people” and the Arab-Turkish political and cultural Qur’an signed And that was one of the most fertile cultural periods that led to social revival in the Islamic state.

Institutions formed the outer (solid) protective shell of the sensitive interior of the state - the systems of society, the judiciary and culture - just as the steel shield of a watch protects its precise parts from shocks, and the founding era was characterized by a forward-looking and vigilant outlook, which are two of the conditions for the success of any project.

The formation of the personality of the Sunnis

The era of foundation began in the Rashidun Caliphate and extended over the Umayyad Caliphate and part of the Abbasid Caliphate, and reached its climax in the middle of the third century AH.

The three stages witnessed - in general - the identification of the jurisprudential and intellectual school of the Sunnis with their political system, which it created and then was in its protection, and established the atmosphere of identification with the Sunnis from the stage of minority, caution, preparedness and migration - to the land of Abyssinia - in the Meccan era to the stage of mastery and political stability in Medina Then Damascus and Baghdad, in which the peoples of the earth condemned them, spoke in their tongues, and studied in their institutes.

During the psychological leap, the elements of the “majority personality” of the Sunnis were formed, which cling to their personality and shaped its behavior, and non-Muslims lived under it and found in it a common space of civil concepts, which made the Sunni community a social melting pot, and it is not surprising that the contemporary concept of “citizenship” is a Sunni commodity that was born in The (Ottoman) society was recognized by the Westerners through the "Mili system" and contemporary Europe benefited from it in building its multicultural societies.

The following social sequence summarizes the Sunni character: In order for everyone to accept your judgment, you must be tolerant, and to be tolerant requires that you be confident, and to be confident requires that you be the most followed, and to be the most followed requires that you be correct, and right - in the Muslim community - requires to be Sunni.

Inverse relationship

On the other hand, the era of empowerment and stability created the traditional atmosphere in which the elements of the majority personality are being eroded, in which it moves to an individual dependent personality - a social disease in which nations pass and has entered Europe today - and with the Islamic state entering its fourth century, apathy had acquired the spirit of competition and vigilance in it, and it stagnated To its opponents in solving its problems and the atmosphere of the “beehive” was removed from it, and the Sunnis entered the personality of individual and collective dependence on the state - which was already declining - and the dependence was reflected on their civil and civilized performance. Their civilization is the product of civil society and not the product of political regimes. Periods of political decline did not prevent society from producing science and scholars.

The strategic success of the Islamic state in its early stages was in managing the formative contradiction between the relaxation caused by the majority society and the sustainable preparedness required by state security, and this equation is the basis of the national security theory of the advanced contemporary state, which keeps society under strict security guard without disturbing civil life. .

Successful strategy but subject to review

The other characteristic of the personality of the Sunnis comes from the nature of the intellectual formation of the majority, which is the care of assets, and in the case of Islam, it is represented in the relationship of man with his Creator and the reasons for his existence - worshiping the Creator and observing his laws - {Say that my prayer, my sacrifice, my life and my death are for God, the Lord of the worlds}, and both worship and laws require the existence A political system that protects the message, expands its scope and defends it, meaning that the political system is a servant of the origin.

On this basis, the Sunnis set their strategy, and their institutions focused on the origin of the message;

It is the natural state for nations in a time of stability, when scientific institutions swell and security institutions atrophy, but it is a strategy that is subject to change in the hour of emergency, and this is the opposite of the strategy of minorities. The origin of Shiism - for example - is a political sign aimed at undermining the state. It sticks to the life of the simple Shiite person, and politics is mixed with ritual revenge from society, meaning that political opposition is the origin and belief is its servant, so the strategy of minorities remains inflamed, and in a permanent mobilization to undermine the state at the moment of opportunity.

double bowl

Upon the complete demise of the Islamic state, its multiple and complex political tasks reverted at once to the religious institution - specialized in origins - which created an imbalance in the ruling equation, and revealed a weakness in political jurisprudence - applied - among Sunni jurists after the identification between the two institutions of jurisprudence and governance was blocking a dead end. that.

After the demise of the state

The social and security earthquake, which resulted from the collapse of the state in Islamic societies in the twenty-first century, as in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen, was delayed by the nation-state that was established after the collapse of the Islamic state in its last (Ottoman) form.

The nation-state represented a transitional phase, and with its collapse, the path opened for the militias to control the state and society. In this earthquake, the Sunni personality entered the stage of inactivity, and the reason is that it and the state constitute an effective bimetallic alloy;

The cleavage of the alloy does not lead to the distribution of its active properties on the two metals equally, but rather the return of each of them to its initial inert state.

Unique track

The path taken by the first founders and the middle character with which they were infiltrated and their political system was veiled are conditions required for building civil society and the state, and it is no coincidence that this character brought - despite social theories - out of the sterility of ethnic mosaics a multi-ethnic civilization, which is, in general, one of the greatest On the face of the earth, it has also extracted from the social fragility of the minority community a coherent and effective alloy, and the combination of scientific progress, political cohesion and security vigilance (the strategic mixture achieved by the early Islamic state) is the summary of what the nations of the earth have reached in our contemporary time, and this mixture is implemented in different forms Starting with monitoring the intellectual identity of the citizen in smart ways and ending with monitoring his public hobbies and preserving them using digital techniques and monitoring his whereabouts.

Innovation disrupted

Despite the profound change that affected the formation of the state and society together, and despite the development of methods of challenge by opponents, the institutions established by the first founders to protect the state fall - in universities and institutes today - outside the framework of the vital stimuli that were the reason for their existence. These institutions do not represent the Muslim youth today - who He could be a doctor, an engineer, or a student at the Faculty of Sharia - more than a means of getting close to God (and she is) delving into its arts, but outside its intellectual molds and outside the base of "necessity is the mother of invention" that those institutions embody. Taking off the state in the beginning was not an easy process, and it will not be today.

Sunnis cannot live with the agendas of others, for their state is not separated from two responsibilities; As for the first, it is the system that protects their egg, and the other is that they are the vessel that protects the ethnic, religious and sectarian mosaic, and in the integrity of the vessel lies the well-being of everyone, and in its failure, everyone will relapse, and a third responsibility is to hold the files of civilization and be alone in the ability to manage a real dialogue of civilizations with other nations and serve global stability from which everyone benefits .

The way the Sunnis view themselves today has to do with their lack of pulse and impulse to innovate. Nations study the "Ahl al-Sunnah" in the context of social theories and as an international player capable of establishing civilizations and civilizations outside its geographical area without erasing local cultures; They are a civilized phenomenon that benefits all of humanity and not only Muslims; Therefore, the Sunnis remain an international civilized match, but the majority of the Sunnis today - from the reality of educational curricula and national culture - see themselves as adherents of a jurisprudential doctrine from among the sects only, and are content to enter under the low intellectual ceilings of others, thinking that by this they will find common solutions. The truth of the matter is that they put their civilized tools - which brought them into the Club of Civilizations - outside their real container, and they disable them, so they lose and those who live with them in their social oasis and who have realized today what life is like outside this oasis, lose.

The presence of the state in the first century AH prevented the creedal deviation - the Kharijites - from turning into unruly militias, and the creation of civil society in the fourth century AH restored the state from the grip of unruly militias.

In the beginning, the state rose up to confront a perverted but truthful opponent (the Kharijites), and today it is threatened by a perverted and false opponent (the new Safavids).

The battle is supposed to be easier and its equation has not changed: the state versus the militias, but innovation is missing.

* Challenging the Kharijites in excommunicating the great actor and starting from it to change the political system.