Al-Qaradawi’s Personality and Ethics of Science (2)

I explained - in an article last week - how Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi - may God Almighty have mercy on him - became a phenomenon, following the method of dating ideas.

As for this article, it deals with the personality of Al-Qaradawi through the literature of “the ethics of the world” that relates to the so-called “ethics of virtue.” I had previously taken the same path in a previous article when I wrote about our Sheikh, the scholar Nur al-Din Ater, may God Almighty have mercy on him.

The key word here to understand the personality of Al-Qaradawi is that he combined consideration and action in the language of the philosophers who divided wisdom (which leads to perfect virtue) into theoretical wisdom and practical wisdom, and Ibn Rushd expressed it to know the truth and act upon it.

Or that he combined knowledge and action in the language of Muslim scholars who insisted that consideration is required for the sake of action, and that action must be preceded by consideration;

There is no right action without knowledge.

With consideration it is possible to obtain correct opinions, and by action it is possible to obtain a virtuous body, and then the scholars considered that knowledge is “the imam of action, and action is its follower;

Because of this close relationship between consideration (or knowledge) and action, the philosophers bestowed on the philosopher the meanings of human perfection, who is more like the perfect virtuous in their view, just as Muslim scholars imparted the meanings of human perfection to the scientist who was created with knowledge until he had the faculty to deal with it without pretension, and the scientist would not be like that Unless he "believes in Sunni morals and abstains from worldly morals."

The scholars differ according to their differences in these morals, and the extent to which they are able to gain knowledge that is transformed into situations. For this reason, God Almighty said: “Only among His servants are scholars who fear God.”

The ethics of the world almost reduces this relationship between consideration and action to the perceptions of Muslim scholars, and therefore it branched out to include different parties, some of which I have already mentioned in my article on Sheikh Atr, but I have reconstructed it here through the conception presented by Abu Bakr Al-Ajri;

He summed it up with a very condensed phrase: that the world "uses in every case what it ought."

the conditions of the world are highly complex and complex;

It includes the morals that he must have in his pursuit of knowledge, and what he must do when his knowledge increases, and if he sits with scholars, how does he sit with them?

And if he learns, how does he learn?

How does others know?

And if he looks at others with knowledge, how does he compare?

And if he issued a fatwa, how?

And if he is afflicted with sitting with princes, how can he sit with them?

And if he cohabits with the common people without the people of knowledge, what are his obligatory attributes when cohabiting with them?

These conditions surround the outskirts of the movement of the world to form a complex network of ethics that meets the intertwining and complexities of the relationship of the scientist with himself first, and with knowledge and the ways of acquiring and increasing it in the second, and with scholars who are below, like or above him in third, and with princes and those in authority fourth, and the general people without knowledge in the fifth.

Al-Qaradawi took from it with great luck;

He combined them through three main issues, namely:

The first

: that he combined knowledge and movement with knowledge.

The second:

It combines science and religiosity.

The third:

He possessed personal qualities and virtues that fall within what Al-Ajri and others wrote in “Akhlaq al-Ulama”.

As for the first issue, which is the combination of science and movement with science, it is a path that we rarely knew with previous scholars such as Sheikh al-Islam al-Izz bin Abd al-Salam (d. 660 AH), and Sheikh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyya (d. 728 AH), even if he did not reach their level, with The changes and constraints that affected the movement in science in the public sphere under the modern state, and I will dedicate a separate article to this issue due to its importance.

As for the second issue, which is the combination of science and religiosity, Al-Qaradawi was balancing between science and worship, and he realized - as I think - what Imam Al-Ajri - may God Almighty have mercy on him - mentioned about the characteristics of the scientist when he said: “His concern is in reciting the words of God Almighty Understanding about God in what He commanded and prohibited, and [his main concern] in memorizing the Sunan and the Traditions is Fiqh, so that what He was commanded with would not be lost.”

Hence the Sheikh took care of the Book of God Almighty, understanding, contemplation and interpretation in some mosques and then in some of his books, especially since he wrote about “How do we deal with the Qur’an?”, and “How do we deal with the Prophet’s Sunnah?” He was solid in memorizing the Qur’an and had an abundant supply. From the hadiths and antiquities, the one who follows his lessons, meetings and books clearly notices the presence of the Qur’anic and Prophetic texts in them.

Rather, I mentioned this under the combination of science and religiosity;

Because the higher purpose of the text of the revelation is its jurisprudence and the verification of its commands and prohibitions, that is, we have returned to the relationship between science and action, and both of them expand the framework of religious understanding and action together;

For one is a servant to the other, so looking expands knowledge, action transforms knowledge into a state, condition and knowledge generate knowledge, and so forth.

Imam Al-Ajri explained to us that he who “expanded in the sciences accumulated in his heart the understandings, so he was ashamed of the eternal truth.”

With regard to the third issue, which is the personal and scientific virtues, which are especially the scholars, we can mention five characteristics here:

The first characteristic: Al-Qaradawi was very vigilant

His case translates the characteristic of vigilance (which is the opposite of heedlessness) that the hadith scholars talked about in the description of the narrator, and the one who awakened the Sheikh was that he was very aware of the details of what was going on around him and had reached eighty at the time, and was very attentive to those who spoke to him;

Even as if he stores everything he hears and brings it out when he needs it.

An example of this is that we came across once - without prior knowledge or arrangement - when getting off the plane at Cairo Airport, then we walked together, so the more people progressed around him until a nation of them gathered, and whenever someone approached him, they moved away from him until the distance between us, then I left the airport without saying goodbye.

When I called him about two weeks later from Germany, he said to me: Where did you go?

It's like he's telling me that I left without saying goodbye.

I thought that with these crowds, he would not realize the details of what was around him while he was an old sheikh, and if this indicated something, it indicated his vigilance on the one hand, and his intense interest in those around him on the other.

Another example of this is that it was my habit to suggest to him some topics every week to discuss in the weekly “Shari’a and Life” program on Al-Jazeera. you have for this week?

I presented him with several proposals once and then he chose one of them, so if we came to the next week to suggest new topics to him, I was surprised by him returning to an old proposal of mine I had thought he had not paid attention to, but it turned out that he stuck in his mind and kept thinking about it between himself and himself!

The second feature:

that he was in reality, contrary to what appears in the media

He was a little talkative and very attentive, not interfering in what did not concern him.

Imam Al-Ajri mentioned that one of the characteristics of a scholar is that he is “a long silent about what does not concern him, until his companion misses his speech. If he increases in knowledge, he fears the firmness of the argument, so he is pitying in his knowledge. The more knowledge he increases, the more compassion he becomes.”

The Sheikh - as I witnessed myself - did not interfere with my work on the "Shari'a and Life" program, and I worked with him through Al-Jazeera from December 2004 until August 2013 when the program was suspended.

He never once objected to a question I wrote to him;

Although my questions were sharp criticism in the first stage, and then eased their intensity in a later stage, they preserved their critical character of the movement and even sometimes.

It was my habit to send him and the program’s announcer the text of the episode (with its introduction, themes and questions) every Thursday evening, and he did not interfere once in determining who would succeed him in the program in the event of his absence, and did so only once during that period that extended for about nine years, And he did it bluntly;

He suggested a name to me;

He explained his excuse for that, which is that the named so-and-so thinks that the sheikh is the one who stands between him and the program, so the sheikh wanted to remove this illusion from him;

For the sake of risk.

People were flocking to him to ask for his mediation to appear in "Shari'a and Life", but he did not interfere!

The third quality: He was very polite

He does not mention anyone badly, and this is my testimony within the limits of my experience with him, but rather the experience of some of the people of knowledge whom I asked about him who are not in agreement with him in his ideas and his drink, and he was - for example - very polite with the late secular thinker Sadiq Jalal Al-Azm, when he went out with him in A television debate on Al-Jazeera in 1996, although he was sharp in his early books with the secularists;

His sharpness was directed at their thoughts, not at their people or detracting from them.

This is the case of the people of knowledge;

His constant questions to those who visit him from among the scholars are questions of knowledge and books;

Seeking something new, studying science, or being preoccupied with the conditions of Muslims and praying for them, he was keen to go to the book fair in Doha - for example - at the end of his life while he was in a wheelchair.

The fourth quality: accepting criticism

From my experience with him at least;

He was dealing with my critical questions referred to earlier during the “Shari’ah and Life” program, as they are without asking to reformulate them, especially since he had read them before he came and wrote some heads of ideas on his printed copy of the episode’s text, and I was also putting him Heads of ideas and information under some questions to enrich the discussion, so he takes them sometimes and leaves them, and I have previously criticized the modern aspect of his writings, during the celebration held for him on the occasion of his 80th birthday, and he was present and listening.

I also asked on the same occasion the question of who will succeed Al-Qaradawi, or in my words at the time: “What is after Al-Qaradawi?” He was sitting to my left on the podium, in the presence of a crowd of people and during a live broadcast.

For the sake of my critical tendency, he was keen to write to me - when he gave me a book of his - “to the diligent critical researcher brother”, and here we must distinguish between two levels: criticism, which is an intellectual act and its starting point is intellectual, and between hostility, which is a psychological position motivated by different psychological motives such as envy, hatred and desire Fear and greed, which characterizes many of the positions of his opponents and those who fight in it today after his death, even those who changed and contradicted themselves in it did not change based on changing ideas, but based on changing times and policies!

Fifth quality: His extreme humility, with an apparent prestige on his personality, for those who approached him

Nevertheless, he remained "The Son of the Village and the Writers" in his dealings with people, which is the title he chose for his lengthy autobiography, on which I made some critical comments in my book about him, which was published in 2009 and I gave him a copy of it.

He kept identifying himself and behaving as if he were still "the son of the village and the book";

Although he lived in Qatar for more than sixty years, during which time he became a global figure, and perhaps this personal nature brought him some problems - in my opinion - as his globality required him some caution and reservation in the relationship with those who enter him, and he was frequented by people from all sides and from all over the world. Different religions, nationalities, and locations, with different motives and purposes.

The Sheikh was keen - for example - to communicate personally with everyone who invites him to a feast or occasion that he organizes in his home. He does this with everyone, no matter how young or old, and he also does the same in condolences and congratulations on social occasions;

To show concern for the conditions of those around him, to redress people’s thoughts and to bring joy to their hearts;

He was a real country boy.

In 2008, in light of the tension that erupted between Sunnis and Shiites due to what was happening in Iraq, he called me to tell me that he had read my article on that, and that he had some notes on it (related to my criticism of Sheikh Hassan al-Banna);

Despite his admiration for him, his stature, his age and my young age at the time did not prevent him from telling me: “Your article introduced new things that we did not know.”

If the Sheikh reported a piece of information from some of his students or those around him, he attributed it to him and thanked him for it, and Imam Al-Ajri mentioned in the Ethics of the Scholar that if he learned from the scholars, “Teach them that I have benefited greatly, then thank them for that.”

I tried to highlight the positive side of the Sheikh in the manner of the translation scholars with a renewal in the curriculum, without claiming that Al-Qaradawi reached the goal in this;

Like all other human beings who suffer from shortcomings that prove their humanity and establish the distinction between them, but it suffices me here that I highlighted the virtues for two purposes:

The first: that this helps to understand the personality of the sheikh, especially for those who did not approach him. Indeed, some people may have fallen into confusion in the face of this tension that occurred in him - after his death - between two groups: a group that is free from all criticism, and another that frees it from the mercy of God!

The second: that such a style of writing helps to draw an aspect of the ethics of virtue through personalities we have lived through.

What may motivate students of knowledge to imitate some of the characteristics of the contemporary world that I have compared - here - with their theoretical origin, which constitutes for us the model to be emulated. Theoretical or historical literature, and I tried to put some of these criteria on personalities I knew closely, as I did with Sheikh Atar before, and with Sheikh Al-Qaradawi here, on the difference between the two men: an approach, diligence and practice, and I studied for the first and worked with the second through a specific program He left his mark on millions.

These are some of the requirements of fulfilling the duty of people on the one hand, and some of the requirements of the right of knowledge on the other hand, and to make it clear that the criticism of ideas - which I hope to expand on later - does not contradict the recognition of the virtues of people;

It brings us out of focusing on people to focusing on the same ideas and virtues, and discussing people and their product through a theoretical origin that can be referenced and measured against, which allows people to also sometimes go beyond what is more correct and to change ijtihad with the change of age and time.

May God have mercy on the two sheikhs and reward them for their efforts and efforts and forgive us and them.