Just what are Her Majesty’s Forces for?
On Sunday evening, 12 July 2009, the Chief of the General Staff, General Sir Richard Dannatt, made some stinging remarks about the lack of leadership and direction given to the Armed Forces by the New Labour government. He also made some robust remarks about the manning levels and equipment provided to the British Army.
And Lord Owen called on Monday, 13 July, for the sacking of the lightweight Defence Secretary, Bob Ainsworth, and the Chief of the Defence Staff, Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup, who has seemed more interested in pleasing the politicians and fighting the RAF’s corner in the perennial war with the Treasury.
There has also been serious criticism about the vehicles provided, in particular an overpriced new purchase of 262 Huskies – rejected twice by the US Army as unsafe – to replace the Snatch Land Rovers in which so many British servicemen have died.
The problem faced by the soldiers is IEDs – improvised explosive devices. Yet just why the vehicles supplied are still so inadequately protected against these is to me a complete mystery.
The Taliban attack on Friday, 10 July, that killed five riflemen of 2Rifles was virtually a carbon copy of the PIRA’s 1979 Warrenpoint incident that killed some 16 soldiers of the Parachute Regiment and the Queen’s Own Highlanders.
In the long counter-guerrilla wars in southern Africa, the Rhodesian Army and the South African Defence Force were constantly beset by IEDs. As a solution, the South African company Krygskorps/Armscorps developed the Ratel armoured personnel carrier designed in such a way as to deflect the blast wave of an exploding device.
Would this design have provided a key to dealing with Taliban IEDs? Or is the merciless liberal vendetta against Rhodesia and white South Africans now being carried on into a new century and another world, to the extent that even their ideas are anathema? If so, it’s our servicemen and women who are actually paying the price for these vicious people’s smug self-indulgence.
On Monday, a senior officer, having called for a properly resourced army, made the pertinent observation that we “need the Prime Minister and the Cabinet to explain to the British people, as they have never convincingly tried to do, why we are in Afghanistan and what we are trying to do there.”
If we reflect for a moment on this, we come up with several general political questions, each connecting with the others. Let us consider, thus, the overarching questions of the United Kingdom’s defence profile in the early decades of the 21st Century. In other words, just what are Her Majesty’s Forces for?
Forget, although it is painful to say it, for the moment about the government’s persistent betrayal of the unstated and unwritten compact with the military not to send them into illegal wars, not to squander their lives wantonly, to look after their wounded, to care for their families, and to do the right thing by the veterans.
And also put aside the lying and deceit that Anthony Charles Linton Blair, James Gordon Brown and their cronies used to involve Her Majesty’s Forces in Iraq and Afghanistan on behalf of George Walker Bush’s imperial ambition; and thus the questions about the legality of these two wars.
It can be said that in making the United Kingdom into a satrapy of the USA, New Labour has directed the attentions of America’s enemies at us, making them ours too. Is this wise, and does it serve our real best interests?
Any defence profile derives from a dispassionate assessment of who might conceivably attack us, or more probably, our “interests” in Lord Palmerston’s usage. This is called a Threat Scenario. The trick is to reduce the number of threats on it so that countering them is manageable and affordable.
Certainly by involving ourselves in the ambitions of countries other than our own militates against this. We don’t need to add the enemies they create to those on our Threat Scenario.
Surely, the role of HMF is the defence of the realm and the protection of British interests, and not minding other people’s business? Where have all the Tories gone, because these were a traditional Tory posture?
Our ‘interests’ for a long time meant keeping good relations with those people we traded with, and ensuring the safety of the sea-lanes to the UK ports. This led, for various reasons many of which were specific to those times, inexorably to Empire.
However, this ‘arrangement’ does not necessarily apply to today’s world, and it should be possible to ensure the free-flow of trade without resorting to an imperial behaviour, pace the contemporary policies of the United States of America.
Worryingly, however, there is no sign that any of our politicians is reviewing not only the role of HMF and our defence posture, but also the general foreign policy that constrains it.
It is particularly concerning that no parliamentary debate is happening; but, furthermore, that decisions are being taken that will affect the lives of soldiers, sailors, marines, and airmen and women by people who have never served in the Armed Forces of the Crown and who can have no imagination as to what it is they are asking of these young men and women.
If ever there were a case or time for Robert A. Heinlein’s “qualification for citizenship” in Starship Troopers this is it (incidentally, Heinlein earned his place in the sun through his service in the US Navy).
Especially in the wake of the financial crises that blew up earlier this year, we urgently need to review our spending and one of the targets for cuts is inevitably going to be the Armed Forces.
If cuts are imposed on them, then they should be realistic according to what they are expected to do, and not eat away at the necessary equipment and training while deploying them in situations where those very things were vitally necessary.
Thus there needs to be a root-and-branch reappraisal of what we want them to do, how we are going to equip them to do it, and what is the best and wisest way of spending taxpayers’ money?
There is no evidence that any such strategic thinking is going on. So, what should be happening? Let us look at the Armed Services Act 2006 as a window into this world.
The Armed Forces Act 2006
On 1 January this year, the Armed Forces Act 2006 came into force to be fully implemented by October, replacing the various service acts that preceded it – including the Armed Forces Act 2001, which was specifically a revision of the Army Act 1955 and others.
The Preamble to the 2001 Act stated on 11 May 2001:
“An Act to continue the Army Act 1955, the Air Force Act 1955 and the Naval Discipline Act 1957; to make further provision in relation to the armed forces and the Ministry of Defence Police; and for connected purposes”.
Mr Kevan Jones (Parliamentary Under Secretary for the Minister of Defence) wrote in a written ministerial statement on 7 October 2008 about the 2006 Act (Hansard):
“The legislation will be brought into effect in October 2009. We do, however, plan to maintain momentum by making the necessary legislative changes to enable the director of service prosecutions, created under the Armed Forces Act 2006, to prosecute all cases under the existing Service Discipline Acts from 1 January 2009. We will bring before Parliament in the autumn the necessary secondary legislation to achieve this.”
There are two extremely serious flaws in this new Act and the thinking behind it, one of which is implied in the Preamble quoted above.
These flaws are, firstly, the virtually complete absence of a fresh appraisal or new thinking about the defence posture of Her Majesty’s Armed Forces in the 21st Century from the underlying assumptions of the 1950s-era service acts; and, secondly, as the Emplaw website (http://www.emplaw.co.uk/researchfree-redirector.aspx?StartPage=data%2f200506131.htm) commented on the 2006 Act:
“One of the most important purposes of the Armed Forces Act 2006 is to establish a single permanent Court Martial, covering all three Services, to replace the one-off courts martial that have previously had to be convened for each trial. The intention is that there should be “a single, harmonised system governing all members of the armed forces” (see para 16 of the explanatory notes to the 2006 Act (pdf version))”.
Mr Jones had commented in the statement quoted above:
“When it is implemented, the Armed Forces Act 2006 will allow us to replace the three current Service Discipline Acts and other armed forces legislation with a single system of service law. The Service Discipline Acts, which have provided the legal basis for discipline in the armed forces since the 1950s, will be repealed in due course.”
The implications of these seem to have escape comment by the “Tribunes of the People”, which further vitiates any claim to a cosy status as Lord Macaulay’s “Fourth Estate of the Realm”.
Second Flaw
To take the second flaw first; this appears to be a further capricious twist to New Labour’s revolutionary assault on the Common Law and Magna Carta.
Enshrined in these was the principle of the judgement of one’s peers, most clearly expressed through trial by jury.
The form of that peer judgement that evolved for the armed forces was the court martial, and the serviceman – and latterly woman – could rely on the panel of officers who made up the court being chosen from those who had faced the conditions, or similar ones, in which the indicted offence occurred.
The prosecuting officer was one who was serving in a similar deployment, and the accused’s “friend” also came from just that environment. So everyone knew and had experienced what was on trial, and was as far as possible an expert in those matters.
All officers had to study the Manual of Military Law – or appropriate other service law – and King’s (or Queen’s) Regulations so as to be ready to serve either as prosecutor or defender. Professional lawyers were rarely involved, and when they were they tended to be servicemen themselves unless the offence was under the catch-all provision for “civil offences” – Section 70 of the Army Act 1955.
It would have been unthinkable to have the commanding officers of infantry battalions sitting in judgement on a naval captain whose ship had been involved in a collision, let alone civilian justices who had never served considering a refusal to obey under fire what the accused claimed was an unlawful command.
A simple, yet specific, conflict that might exist between civilian and military concepts can be illustrated by a vehicle accident. Who is in charge of the vehicle? The civilian court holds that it is the driver. Military Law quite specifically says that it is not the driver but the “vehicle commander”. Which should prevail? Or is the whole concept of military discipline to be overturned to satisfy the ignorance of the drafters of parliamentary legislation?
Yet these potential travesties are all too likely in “a single permanent Court Martial, covering all three Services, to replace the one-off courts martial that have previously had to be convened for each trial”.
And there are the additional dangers of senior officers detailed to this permanent Court Martial getting out of date (rapidly so in war time) and lacking experience of the actual current situations facing the servicemen and women – which would be prima facie unjust; and of letting loose professional lawyers into this world that is incomprehensible to the average civilian at the best of times.
There were, indeed, travesties that occurred under the “old” (pre-2006 Act) system.
A famous one was the Court Martial of Lt Harry “Breaker” Morant of the Bushveldt Carbineers in South Africa during the Second Boer War, and his subsequent execution at Pretoria Jail on 27 February 1902 by a firing squad provided by the Cameron Highlanders.
There were others where Military Law was used in an insurrectionary situation such as in Ireland in 1916-21.
In all probability, the IRA men who were shot would now be covered by the Protocol Additional to the Geneva Convention 1977 (APGC1977): assuming that is that the UK, unlike the USA, still abides by the Geneva Conventions.
It is relevant that later revisions and amendments of the Army Act 1955 stipulate quite unequivocally that all service personnel are bound under the Act by the Geneva Conventions Act 1957 which it incorporates.
It is to be hoped that this is preserved in the Armed Services Acts, and that the dangerous claim of Dr John Reid when he was Secretary of State for Defence that the Geneva Conventions were ‘out of date’ in the era of the Global War On Terrorism has been disregarded and scorned.
This point leads to the consideration of the First Flaw.
First Flaw
The Army Discipline Act under which Martial Law was being applied in the Ireland of the time of the Easter Rising 1916 had been passed in 1913 (and that in turn was based on the Army Act 1881).
It has been pointed out that the particular provisions of that were not repealed or modified until 1930, when the death penalty was removed for all offences other than mutiny and those civil offences for which capital punishment could be applied.
This is germane. The 1930 Army Act is the basic document out of which the 1955 Army Act grew.
The Armed Forces Acts 2001 and 2006 are virtually word-for-word the Army Act 1955. Can the flaw be seen, now?
The 1930 Act was the legal code under which the British Army conducted itself during the Second World War, the opening stages of the Vietnam War, the Partition of India, the early years of the Malayan Emergency, the Mau Mau Emergency in Kenya, EOKA in Cyprus, and the Korean War.
But the world that Her Majesty’s Forces were functioning in 50 years ago was very different from today.
The Korean War (1950-53), a sort of aftershock from World War II, had just finished when the 1955 Act was being drafted.
British forces had not long before (1948) left Indo-China where, under Major General Douglas Gracey commanding 20 (Indian) Infantry Division they had been involved in the initial phase of the Vietnam War, before handing over, reluctantly, to the French colonial authorities in the person of Admiral Darlan.
India had become independent in 1947 and had been partitioned into India, Ceylon, and Pakistan on Independence. There had been the dramatic escape of HMS Amethyst down the Yangtse River in 1949.
The Empire was metamorphosing into the Commonwealth, but quite considerable parts of it were yet to gain independence.
There were counter-insurgency wars going on in Cyprus, Kenya, Aden, and Malaya. The Suez Crisis (1956) had yet to happen, and British troops were still in occupation of the Canal Zone (the last troops didn’t leave until June 1956).
Sir Harold Wilson’s call for withdrawal from “East of Suez” didn’t take place until after he took office as Prime Minister in 1964.
There should therefore be an active, informed, and possibly spirited debate in Parliament as to whether the terms that might have been appropriate for the drafters of the 1955 Act are still a desirable means of describing the role of Her Majesty’s Forces today.
The British Empire was at its height, by many criteria, in 1940. We didn’t finally finish leaving the Empire until the mid-to-late 1960s. Some would quibble that we still haven’t left the last vestiges, such as Belize and the South Atlantic Dependencies, and there are many Irishmen who would point to Ulster.
Be that as it may, why is the role and posture of Her Majesty’s Armed Forces in the opening decade of the 21st Century being conditioned by thinking that might have been original in the closing decades of the 19th?
To state it baldly. The Army Acts of 1881, 1913, and 1930 were promulgated when Britain had that Empire upon which the Sun never set.
The thinking which they enshrined was suitable for an Army that was policing and defending such an Empire, and the Navy Acts of similar years were framed for the Royal Navy that was keeping the seaways safe for that Empire.
The Army Act 1955 still contains the underlying philosophy of Empire. And the Armed Forces Act 2006 is virtually word-for-word the same Act. Therefore, the concepts and assumptions which the new Act promulgates are, effectively, those of 1955, which were those of 1930, which were those of 1913, which were those of 1881.
Rorke’s Drift
So today’s Armed Forces are constrained by thinking that was fresh two years after the 28th Regiment of Foot (the South Wales Borderers) – ancestors of today’s Royal Regiment of Wales – had fought the Battle of Rorke’s Drift, immortalised in the film Zulu.
But – let me put it simply for any parliamentarians or central government bureaucrats who might read this – in 2009 Britain does not have an Empire. We have not had an Empire for about 50 years.
And Rorke’s Drift was 130 years ago.
So why do Her Majesty’s Armed Forces have an Imperial defence profile? Is it so that we can supply auxiliary legions for the USA?
There needs to be a fundamental – a root-and-branch – reappraisal of what HMF are for, and on which services most money needs to be spent. Which raises the serious and urgent question yet again, what, precisely, are Her Majesty’s Armed Forces for in 2001 and the rest of the 21st Century?
It should be contended that they have a number of key functions:
Firstly, the Defence of the Realm, that is the protection of the integrity of the United Kingdom, Crown Dependencies, and Dependant Territories from actual foreign attack and from domestic insurgency. Much of that defence posture can be done by the Territorial and Reserve Forces, recapitulating the role of the Militia of yesteryear and familiar from the novels of Jane Austen. The Army should not be being used to prosecute illegal wars of aggression against far-flung places.
Secondly, humanitarian aid and disaster relief. This has been identified as an area in which the military is uniquely well equipped for giving effective and instant support.
Thirdly, the protection of British interests at home and abroad.
Fourthly, the old activity of keeping the sea lanes open and protecting British sovereign waters. We need to keep the seaways safe for our trade and for the support of the dependencies.
The third and fourth functions mean an emphasis on the Royal Navy and Royal Marines – they also imply a key role for the Royal Naval Air Service and the Royal Air Force.
And within this simple statement of what HMF should be doing, it should not be beyond the wit of bureaucrats and politicians (although it may cause considerable strain to it) to produce a viable and affordable non-Imperial defence posture.
Any other roles need to be examined carefully and be constantly monitored by Parliament, but it should be stated clearly that breaching the historically accepted “laws and usages of war” and the Nuremberg Principles are not to be countenanced.
And although Coalition Defence has been an accepted posture since the founding on 4 April 1949 of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) in the wake of the Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Zhdanov’s Warsaw Declaration in 1947 and the Zhdanovishchina that followed, this does not mean that HMF can be used as proxy troops in someone’s imperial ambitions nor that NATO has a continuing role.
A new century needs fresh thinking, yet there is no evidence that this is taking place. It is not good enough for parliament and civil servants simply to keep resurrecting ideas and postures from the time of the end of the British Empire: that was over 40 years ago – practically two generations.
The Gallipoli Option
However, there is certainly one idea from the time of the Empire that could usefully be incorporated in any new thinking, and that is a “Conscience Clause” – what I have termed elsewhere a “Gallipoli Option”.
In his book on the Gallipoli Campaign, perhaps one of the best and most readable on the subject, Dr Robert Rhodes James wrote:
“On May 1st [1915],… the 29th Indian Brigade had disembarked. The Brigade consisted of the 14th Sikhs, the 69th and 89th Punjabis, and the 1/6th Gurkhas, but the 69th and 89th Punjabis contained two companies of Mahomedan troops, and General Cox [Maj Gen H. V. Cox] declined to accept responsibility for their loyalty against the Turks. The men were accordingly detailed for supply work on the beaches…” (James, Robert Rhodes, Gallipoli, B. T. Batsford, London, 1965, p 148).
69th Punjab Regiment was subsequently deployed to France, where it served in the line around Arras next to 1st/4th Black Watch.
The text is confusing. Each Punjab Regiment would have had two rifle companies of PMs (“Punjabi Mussulmans”) and the Support Company and Headquarters Company would have been mixed Sikhs, Hindus, and PMs, so the total numbers of Muslim all ranks involved would have been higher than Dr James initially implies. He seems to correct this impression when he continues “and the strength of the Indian Brigade was reduced by a quarter”.
Nevertheless, the point is valid and leads to a sensible policy.
There is no apparent reason why Muslim troops should not serve in a hostile environment in a Muslim country providing they are not engaging in direct armed operations beyond the carriage of weapons for their own protection and those they are guarding. In such circumstances it would be possible to reassign them to duties at aid posts, base hospitals, airfields, supply depots, and other rear area facilities.
This could be developed into a general Conscience Clause for all service men and women where religious considerations prevent their engaging in hostilities against their coreligionists as a serious moral dilemma.
This is separate, and distinct, from another variant of the Conscience Clause which allows service personnel to declare a conscientious objection to a particular Operation and opt (or request) to be deployed elsewhere instead – thus freeing up other personnel who do not have a similar objection to serve in the Operation.
Both of these should be considered by Parliament, and, in my opinion and advocacy, incorporated in any new Armed Forces legislation. There is no reason why either of these should be objected to, whether by military or civilian commentators, as they would be entirely in keeping with the Geneva Conventions Act 1957 and the Human Rights Act 1998.
Let’s see some independent thinking by our Parliamentarians, and some evidence that they are not in thrall to American neo-conservatism, which is a singularly inappropriate ideology for any British Labour, Liberal-Democrat, or Conservative politician and supporter.
© D Rosser-Owen 2009 All Rights Reserved
The Kilt Is A Sunnah?
Quite a few years ago now, in 1962 while stationed in Singapore, I nearly got caught in a downpour.
I was near the Padang by St Andrew’s Cathedral and the Singapore Cricket Club and I’d been collecting some shirts. Fortunately there was a bookshop handy in Stamford Road, so I ducked inside. About half and hour later I emerged, having spent a small fortune; such is the price of shelter from the rain.
About three years ago, in SheBu in west London, a similar thing happened. So I ducked into a nearby bookshop and started browsing. This turned out to be one of those Islamic information service places, and I found some of the titles fascinating.
Among all the works in Arabic and Urdu there was quite a small section of English publications.
One booklet in particular struck me by its massive irrelevance to the actual needs of Muslims living anywhere in the world, but especially in the West. Some character in Saudi Arabia had apparently felt driven to put word processor to paper and compose a tract on the importance of men’s lower garments coming above the ankle.
And someone else had felt motivated enough to render this tract into English.
This essential document seems to have contributed to a style of dress that my daughters named “mujahid chic”: trainers (usually Nike, but sometimes Adidas) or Timberland-style boots, ankle socks, trousers that end about mid-calf, a t-shirt (obscured in winter by a massive duvet anorak), long scruffy beard, shaved – or perhaps a Number 1 – head occasionally covered by a white or black qubba’a.
In the intervening time between then and now, a large Antipodean population has moved into the area and the normal dress – winter and summer – has become boardies, thongs, shades, and t-shirt. Sometimes a ball cap is added. And “mujahid chic” has metamorphosed into a sort of Muslim “GBR chic”: boardies, thongs, shades, and t-shirt.
The long scruffy beard is still there and so is the close-cropped normally bare head. Oh, and the angry faces. Unlike the Aussies who are a cheerful, terminally optimistic crowd.
Sadly one never seems to see the local Mussies frequenting the Aussie shops. Well, one wouldn’t expect them in the Walkie, or the local pubs, with the constant satellite feed TVs showing rugby (Mussies don’t seem to like rugby for some reason). But a local Australian pie shop has gone to the trouble of putting halal meat in their product – still no Mussies. Sad, really.
The key text of this peculiar booklet, above, was that hadith that contains the statement izaratu-l muslim ila nisfa saqihi (the lower garment of the Muslim comes half way down his leg).
The first (and probably second also) thought that struck me was that the author had completely missed the point. There are a couple of related hadiths that together give a complete picture. The Companion Abu Bakr al-Siddiq complains to the Prophet that he can’t keep the garment in question from slipping so that it often hangs below the ankle. To which the Prophet replies, ‘but you’re not one of those who wears it bi-l batar’. And in another hadith he condemns people who let anything trail bataran.
This phrase – bi-l batar or bataran – means “nose in the air”, “snootily”. In other words cockily, an arrogant ‘I’m better than you’ sort of thing, which is the Operative Concept of the whole. And should have been seen by the author as the point that he completely missed.
It strikes me that one can wear ‘mujahid chic’ – or niqab – in this manner, too.
Among the justifications trotted out for giving religious sanction to the niqabi face veil is that certain classical scholars considered it mandoub (desirable) in the contexts in which they were opining a couple of centuries and a different world ago.
Clearly the hadith of the booklet makes the wearing of the kilt mandoub – fèileadh beag or fèileadh mòr would be a matter of choice. So Scots and Irish – and those Welshmen and Bretons who’ve adopted the cilt – can rejoice that what they’re wearing has religious sanction.
We always knew that these were The Blessed Isles. And that Gàidhlig was the Language of Eden.
© D Rosser-Owen 2009 All Rights Reserved
Sharia Law or One Law for All
In the United Kingdom today, 29 June, the newspapers have been carrying write-ups about the latest Civitas Report “Sharia Law or One Law for All”, which claims that there are operating in Britain some 85 tribunals purporting to administer Sharia law, mostly in the contexts of financial and family disputes, and concludes that they should no longer be recognised under the Arbitration Act 1996.
Most of this media reportage shows, to my mind, an unwillingness to dig deeper than the superficial briefing that attended the launch, and the rather shallow content of the document itself.
There have been a couple of comments from politicians, too. Two of these were quoted in the Daily Mail, for example.
Patrick Mercer MP was reported to have said on Sunday, 28 June, “We have an established law of the land and a judiciary. Anything that operates outside that system must be viewed with great caution… In a sovereign state there must be one law and one law only”.
And Philip Davies MP, was quoted as saying, “Everyone should be deeply concerned about the extent of these courts. It leads to a segregated society. There should be one law, and that should be British law. Everyone should be equal under one law.”
I actually agree that the law should be universal, but it is either ignorant or disingenuous to take the approach that these two are supposed to have.
Since the 1950s, the arbitrations of the Beth Dins have been supported by the British legal system even though there has been some disquiet expressed within the Jewish communities about the rulings of some of these. It would be inequitable, in the context, to deny the Muslims the same privilege, whatever disquiet might be felt.
This isn’t to say that some ‘policing’ and regularising is not possible; in fact, these may very well be desirable – and urgently so – but the Report doesn’t address this.
Secondly, the United Kingdom has actually three legal systems – that of Northern Ireland, that applied in England and Wales, and Scottish Law. And within these there is the frequently frictional relationship between the ancient Common Law and a Statute law that is increasingly importing alien jurisprudential concepts from Europe – what I presume the Report is referring to when it states, “Sharia courts operating in Britain may be handling down rulings that are inappropriate to this country because they are linked to elements in Islamic law that are seriously out of step with trends in Western legislation”.
So, how actually did this problem come about; and what is it anyway? And how can it be ameliorated?
To deal with the last part first: Britain’s imperial history can provide the needed solutions, or rather the legacy of it can.
One of the things that marks out the Common Law countries from the rest is the importance of precedent established by Case Law. Rulings from one of these countries are often used to form an opinion in another. A case in point is the definition of ‘religion’ that was adduced in Australia and which is now used in New Zealand, and has been cited in Canada, the UK, and the USA.
There is a lot of such sharia Case Law.
And, let us remember, the Common Law was taken by King Henry II in the major part from the Maliki fiqh as administered in Caliphal Spain and its near neighbours in Sicily and north Africa. It can be said that for the most part British Common Law is “sharia compliant” (an awful phrase invented by one umbrella body).
In British India, there were two jurisprudential documents – the Indian Civil Code and the Indian Penal Code – that formed the law that was administered by the courts. Incorporated in these was the sharia according to the Hanafi, Shafi’i, and various Shi’ah rites as previously administered in the sub-continent. These courts were British Crown courts; and these legal codes and their precedents are available. This system has continued after Independence in 1947, and, in fact, the case law has continued to develop.
Malaysia has a system of sharia courts – the Mahkamah Syaria – that applies the civil law of the sharia, mostly of the Shafi’i, but with account taken for followers of the Hanafi school. This system is modelled on the British Courts. It also applies Case Law, many precedents being cited from British India and elsewhere in the Commonwealth; and, indeed, has generated its own body of Case Law.
With no difficulty at all, here is a system that can ameliorate the tribunals which are the subject of the Civitas Report. The obvious hurdles are enabling the Case Law, which can be done simply by Act of Parliament or even Order in Council; designing the tribunals in such a way that they fit into the British system, and I’m sure that the Malaysians would be most helpful in that; and the qualifications of those sitting on them. Herein lies the major problem, which is linked directly to the educational attainments of the imams of the mosques.
There needs to be a recognised means of certificating the imams as being fit to do their job, followed by continuation training to keep them abreast of the developments within the communities around them.
However, the imam of a mosque is not a judge and never has been necessarily a qadi. He may of course function in the ‘social worker’ role of the proverbial vicar or – more likely, vicar’s wife – giving advice and sorting out disputes, as is done by Christian ministers and Jewish rabbis.
I suspect it is this function that is being fingered by the Report as constituting most of the 85 sharia ‘courts’.
But for proper judgements through proper courts – if the authorities are truly interested in dealing with this – it would be necessary to have a body of quda (the plural of qadi) and muftis. These have to be trained and experienced, just as barristers, attorneys, and justices have to be. But most important they have to be ‘law officers of the Crown’.
It is a well-known principle of the Shariah that the law of the land must be obeyed. Unfortunately too many imams are ignorant or capriciously dismissive of this. This, as with many such problems that beset the mosques and their parishioners, is a regrettable consequence of the ignorance and stupidity of successive governments and their advisors for quite a long time. This doesn’t mean that it should be accepted or allowed to continue.
Although one is extremely reluctant to see Westminster extend any more its revolutionary grab for competence at the expense of the Constitution, and in particular of the Crown, there are two matters that are directly relevant to the subject of the Civitas Report.
These relate to the legitimacy of the British Crown in appointing qadis and imams, and an Office to oversee these people and their professions. Although such legalistic niceties are commonly derided in fashionable circles and their newspapers, for this to be acceptable to Muslims in the UK, let alone world-wide, under their Shariah such a competence would have to derive directly from the Caliphate.
And, as a matter of fact, this is actually the case.
Towards the end of the 19th Century, two significant events took place.
One was, in 1889, when the Caliph, Sultan Abdul Hamid II jannat makan, appointed Abdullah Quilliam to be the “Shaykhu-l Islam of the British Isles”, and this was endorsed by the Emir of Morocco, the King of Afghanistan, and the Qajar Shah of Persia. The Office of Shaykhu-l Islam was the adminstrator of the system of qadis, imams, and muftis in the Ottoman Empire, and the implications of using this title for the bestowal on Quilliam cannot have been missed. It is legitimate to speculate that it was, in fact, intentional.
At about the same time, the Caliph, conscious of the vast Muslim population of the British Empire, appointed the Queen-Empress a beylerbeyi: in essence a tributary ruler over Muslims under the Caliphate.
The authority to make Islamic religious appointments, and to regulate the administrations of mosques and tribunals, including the appointment of the Office of the Shaykhu-l Islam, in the United Kingdom and Crown Dependencies rests with Queen Elizabeth II as the great-great-granddaughter of Queen Victoria. And, by residuary sovereignty, in the Republic of Ireland with the President.
Perhaps it is time to petition HM to revive this august Office of State? It is, of course, predominantly administrative, and would bring in expert advisors as needed. It could even commission fatwas from such authoritative sources as the University of Al-Azhar, when needed. But the trouble is who has the stature to fill it?
Before he died in 2006, the obvious choice would have been Dr Muhammad Zaki Badawi KBE, yarhamahu-Llah. But who now? At the time of his death I said that we’d miss him more that people realised. But maybe the Man would grow into the Office?
Something needs to be done. The “Islamic specialists” clearly don’t have a clue, and I don’t think that this Civitas Report advances any valuable solutions to the problems identified. One could ask what therefore was the point of the Report, other than to further feed the barely disguised frenzy of Islamophobia in the media and among politicians? I hardly think that would have been its intention, although it might become its effect.
Civitas is a Latin word, meaning ‘citizenship’. So, in the same language, as Laocoon said to his countrymen according to Virgil, Equo ne credite, Teucri. Quidquid id est, timeo Danaos et dona ferentes: “Don’t trust the horse, Trojans. Whatever it is, I fear the Greeks even bearing gifts.”
He was, of course, right.
© D Rosser-Owen 2009 All Rights Reserved
Wherever you turn, there is the Face of God
An Curàn Gàidhlig Beannachte
Sir mi tèarmann le Allah Fhèin bho’n t-Sàtain clachte
An Dara Buaileag (An Agh)
An Ainm Allah an Nì Sàr-thruacanta ’s Sàr-thròcaireach
Agus tha an Ear is an Iar aig Dia; is mar sin ge b’ àite tionndaidh sibh, ‘s an àite sin Gnùis Dhé Fhéin. Gu dearbh tha Dia ‘na leathann-sgaoilteach is ‘n uile-fiosail.
Dearbh Allah Fhèin gu fìrinneach
© D Rosser-Owen 2009 All Rights Reserved
Sufism, Wahhabi-ism, and Imperial Antics
The word “Sufism” is an Anglicism. Specifically it is the Englishing of a word, der Sufismus, invented by 19th Century German Orientalists – maybe Ignaz Goldziher or Gustav von Grünebaum – to render into their contemporary thought the Arabic word tasawwuf. This word itself is a kind of back-formation. It is an abstract verbal noun made up from sufi, meaning the kind of things Sufis do. And Sufi has an obscure etymology – in other words nobody knows what it came from. There have been various theories advanced, although there are three main ones.
One claims that it is an arabicisation of the Greek word σοφíα, meaning ‘wisdom’, though in this case the ‘s’ sound should be spelt with a ’sin’ not a ’sad’; another that it comes from the Arabic word souf, meaning ‘wool’, supposedly referring to the woollen garb they affected; the third suggestion would have it derived from the root verb safa (sad-fa-waw), ‘to become clear, unpolluted, pure’, though the verbal noun from this would properly be tasfiyya.
This last throws up the interesting cognate that gives the Aramaic nickname applied by Jesus to Simon bar Jonah – “Simon called Peter” – that is, Cephas, namely safwa or sifwa, meaning ‘the best’ or ‘choicest friend’, and by a typical semitic play on words safwa also means ‘rocks’ (πετρο∫ ‘petros’ being the Greek translation).
Naturally many latter-day Sufis opted for this last; though most academics prefer the ‘wool’ derivative. Whichever it came from, it seems to have been originally applied as a nickname, pejorative or otherwise, and eventually adopted by the people themselves.
An analogy for this comes from British-Irish-American-Canadian political history. In the 17th Century, about 1679, the English opponents of the succession of the Duke of York (later James II) to the throne, a group led by the 1st earl of Shaftesbury (Anthony Ashley Cooper), were derisively termed Whiggamores (shortened to Whigs) from whiggamor, a cattle driver. This was originally a term of abuse used for Scottish Covenanters earlier in the century.
In the 18th Century they in turn capped this by calling their political opponents Tories (from the Gaelic tóraidhe ‘outlaw, robber, footpad’ from the verb tóir ‘to pursue, chase after’). By the final quarter of that century, each political group was apparently quite happy to use its own nickname to refer to itself. Today, although Whig is no longer used, the Conservatives usually call themselves Tories.
However, for most of their existence Sufis have not called themselves Sufis, nor their way tasawwuf. They have normally used the Arabic terms faqir (poor man), salik (traveller, seeker), ahlu-t tariqah (follower of the Way), or the Farsi darwish (supplicant, beggar).
Detractors often make a big thing out of the novelty of the term Sufi, along the lines of “it doesn’t appear in the Quran” or “it doesn’t appear in the hadith”. However, it is not alone in this. There are other words and phrases in common use that don’t either: tajwid, fiqh, seerah, siyar, madrassah, qanoun, dawlah, madh’hab, for example. And a number that are used in a different way from that of the Quran or hadith: e.g. Shi’ah, Sunnah (as the shorthand term for the beliefs of the ahlu-s sunnah wa-l jama’ah), or salaf. These terms are in common use, and have been for centuries, because they are handy epistemological tools – they neatly describe the thing being talked about so that the hearer or reader knows exactly what it is that is being discussed.
Many of the major figures of Islamic history and jurisprudence would be described, were the describer to be consistent, as “Sufis”. Included among these would be Abu Hurayrah the Companion (who stated that he had received ‘two cups of knowledge’ from the Prophet: “the contents of one you know; if you knew the contents of the other, you would kill me”), Imam Ja’far al-Sadiq, Imam Muhammad ibn Abi Bakr, Imam Malik, Imam Abu Hamid Muhammad al-Ghazzali, or Imam ibn Hazm, for example.
Interestingly, considering their influence on the modernising movement known awkwardly as “Islamism”, one would have to include in this list Taqiyuddin ibn Taymiyyah, who was a follower of ‘Abdul Qadir al-Jaylani, Muhammad Rashid Rida, who was a Naqshbandi, and Hasan al-Banna al-shahid, who was a Shadhili-Hasafi.
There are, in essence, two ‘phases’ in the development of what would be called ‘Sufism’. The first would be up to the Mongol Invasions of the early to late 13th Century, and the second would be the period after that to the present day. The first was marked by individual seekers after wisdom, some of whom attracted pupils. Many are familiar with such names as Sari al-Saqati, Al Hasan al-Basri, Rabi’a al-‘Adawiyyah, Imam al-Junayd, and the like. Then came the catastrophic invasion of Khorasan, Fars, Mesopotamia, and the Levant by Hulagu Khan and his Mongol Hordes, which was followed by the Ilkhanids, and the Timurids, and others. The societal collapse that accompanied these, led to people seeking out centres and personages around which to rebuild communities. Thus the importance of mashayikh, zawaya, and tara’iq developed out of this chaos as a vehicle for restoring order, learning, and trade.
So this second ‘phase’ becomes marked by the prominence of “Sufi Orders”, especially in the East and Central Asia, such as the Qadiriyyah and Naqshbandiyyah. And it is noteworthy that the chains (silsilah) of transmission of these Orders include the prominenti of the ahlu-s salaf: Imam Ja’far al-Sadiq, Imam Qasim b. Muhammad b. Abi Bakr, Abu Hurayrah, Salman al-Farsi, ‘Ali b. Abi Talib, Abu Bakr al-Siddiq, and the Prophet Muhammad himself. The Naqshbandiyyah, for example, state that the first halqatu-dh dhikr took place in the Gharu-th Thawr during the Flight from Mecca involving the Prophet and his Companion Abu Bakr.
Among the criticisms directed at the Sufis are that they are an innovation, and that they are escapists spending all their time in the mosques and zawiyas and not engaging with the world. These are, however, difficult to sustain. The Naqshbandiyyah have frequently challenged the detractors to identify which of their dhikrs and practices are innovations without receiving any substantial indications. The Naqshbandis’ challenge remains open. General assertions are insufficient: which specific practices are innovations?
And given that all the anti-colonialist struggles of the later decades of the 19th Century and early 20th Century were led and conducted by Sufis the putative ‘otherworldliness’ is difficult to find: Imam Shamil in the Caucasus against the Russians in the 1830s, 40s, and 50s; Emir Abdel Qadir against the French in the 1830s in Algeria; the Banten Revolt in Java in 1888; Abdel Karim al-Khattabi in the Rif against the Spaniards and French in the 1920s; Omar al-Mukhtar against the Italians in Libya in the 1930s; and most of these leaders were acknowledged mainstream scholars and, in a couple of cases, judges.
The Basmachi Revolt against the Russian Communists in Central Asia from 1919 until about 1936 was almost entirely the work of the Naqshbandis. It is possible to see their influence in Sultangalievism, and it was certainly they along with the Qadiris (which the Soviets referred to as “the alternative religious leadership”) who kept Islam alive in Central Asia during the Communist hegemony. Many Sufis served in the Ottoman Armed Forces in World War 1 – in some cases whole battalions were manned by the followers of particular tariqahs.
It could be said that even with this history of resistance, they maintained a dialogue with the colonialists aimed at keeping the independence as far as possible, but certainly the integrity, of their peoples under foreign occupation, while learning as much as possible that was good and beneficial from the new power. They stood for continuity and tradition back to the Prophet, but with organic change and development, and the mitigation of the damage to their communities done by exposure to the colonialists.
It could be said that their methodology was that of a grudging retreat through a series of last ditches against the onslaught, relinquishing at each as little as possible while teaching and preserving the possibility of bouncing back to some status quo ante when the colonialists left, as they believed they would.
In marked contrast are the figures associated with the misnamed Salafi Movement.
The Salaf is the term used to describe the three generations of the Companions of the Prophet (the Sahabahs), the generation that followed them (the Followers, or Tabi’een), and the generation that followed that (the Followers of the Followers, or Tabi’eenu-t Tabi’een). In these three generations are to be found the ‘founders’ – or, more accurately, the eponymuses – of the four major Schools of Sunni jurisprudence (the madh’habs of the Malikis, Hanafis, Shafi’is, and Hanbalis) and many of the early Imams of the Shi’ah. It makes little sense, therefore, in the pursuit of a claim to be trying to restore the Salaf that these madh’habs should be rejected. Where else would one look for the Way of the Salaf?
This rejection can only be subversive of the structure of Islamic society, given that the madh’habs form the basis of Muslim communities across the world from west and north Africa to central China and South East Asia. And this is the role played by Wahhabi-ism since its inception.
Each of the major ‘names’ of this Salafi Movement is associated with ideas and practices that could only serve the interests of those alien powers that had the emasculation and reduction of Islam and Islamic communities as an aim of policy.
These names are Muhammad bin Abdul Wahhab (1703-1792), Jamaluddin Afghani (Sayyid Muhammad bin Safdar Husayni Asadabadi)(1838-1897), Muhammad ‘Abduh (1849-1905), and Muhammad Rashid Rida (1865-1935); of whom Muhammad bin Abdul Wahhab is the key, hence the movement is often, and perhaps more accurately, called Wahhabi-ism.
He was born at Uyayna in the Najd (hence he is often called the Shaykh of the Najd) in the Banu Tamim tribe in 1703. His father, Abdul Wahhab al-Tamimi was a scholar at Medina and his brother Sulaiman eventually was a qadi (judge). Muhammad seems to have been taught at home and by attending the classes of certain other scholars in Medina, one of whom was the famous Jawi shaykh who became the Mufti of Mecca, Ahmad bin Zaini Dahlan. It was he who expelled Muhammad from Medina and the Jazeera as having severely heretical views, a decision that was endorsed by the man’s father (who disowned him) and brother.
At some point in his education Muhammad had developed some strange ideas, this may have been while travelling in Basra (where he also studied), Baghdad, and other places.
He resurrected the teachings of Taqiyuddin ibn Taymiyyah (1263-1328), an obscure scholar from Mongol times who was noteworthy among his contemporaries for espousing the doctrine of tashabbuh (that is that the attributes of God are physical ones, so that when the Quran says “God’s hand is above them” it means that literally). His contemporary namesake, the Shafi’ite jurisprudent Taqiyuddin ibnu-s Subki stated that because of the extent of his knowledge ibn Taymiyyah might just save himself from the Fire, but any who followed him were in danger of it.
It seems unlikely that Muhammad would have come across this figure unaided, and so it’s probable that he was being schooled with the ideas he eventually became notorious for. Who had been doing this remains conjectural.
After his expulsion from the Jazeera he went to Basra and Kuwait, where the Honourable East India Company had a factory that also served as an agency for the Intelligence Section of the Maritime Service of the Company. He received significant support from the Factor, acting on orders from Bombay, and Muhammad was eventually reinserted into the Jazeera to his birth place at Uyayna in 1740. But he was expelled from the place later that year, and invited to settle at Dar’iyyah (now Riyadh) by Muhammad ibn Saud, a client of the HEIC.
It is almost certain that the HEIC had spotted the opportunity for disruption and trouble-making in Ottoman domains, though it is unlikely that it realised at the time just how disruptive and corrosive Wahhabi-ism would prove to be.
The Banu Saud proved to be powerful partners, and eventually – nearly 200 years of bloody strife and chaos later – took over the whole peninsula making Wahhabi-ism the official religion. Oil wealth enabled them to spread the doctrine world-wide, buying control of access and the teaching of Islam in favour of Wahhabi-ism. They now teach that Muhammad’s father and brother recanted and accepted his doctrine, which is unlikely short of force majeure.
The Ottoman authorities then, and later during the 19th and 20th Centuries, pronounced with sound argumentation that Wahhabi-ism was a dangerous heresy and zandaqah.
After a lot of fighting, the Ottomans eventually regained control of the Arabian Peninsula from the Saud and Wahhabis, but not before those had massacred the populations of Taif, Mecca and destroyed many of the graves of the Companions in Medina. At one point the Ottoman rearguard during the withdrawal from Medina in 1813 was commanded by a Scot (Thomas Keith, sometime armourer with 78th Highlanders, the Ross-shire Buffs), known as Ibrahim Agha. For a while the Wahhabis were driven out. Some of them found a refuge in British India, others in Qajar Iran.
Later, towards the middle of the 19th Century, Sayyid Muhammad Safdar Husayni Asadabadi (known as Jamaluddin Afghani, and identified by the British as a Russian agent), who had been brought up in Iran as a Shiah, became influenced by Wahhabi-ism probably during his sojourn in Kabul. In 1868, while travelling at a leisurely pace from Kabul to Istanbul via Cairo, he met and inspired Muhammad ‘Abduh, who later became the Rector of Al Azhar University where Muhammad Rashid Rida from Tarablus in Syria (now Lebanon) became his pupil.
Afghani also introduced Abduh to the thinking and teachings of European revolutionary socialism associated with the Risorgiamento, Giuseppe Mazzini, and the Giovine Italia (“Young Italy”) movement. Giovine Italia became the blueprint for the Young Egypt and Young Turks movements. Abduh spent some time in Paris, where he published the newsletter Al Manar, before returning to Cairo and Al Azhar, where he eventually became Grand Master of the Cairo Masonic Lodge. Afghani died in Istanbul in an Ottoman prison.
Wahhabi-ism has proved to be a corrosive influence in the Muslim World, working solely for the interest of alien powers, and with their encompassing of the downfall of the Ottoman Empire during World War 1 there remains no political or religious authority to stem its spread or to check its constant mutation into more extreme and destructive forms of takfir.
As the hadith states, “from the Najd comes fitnah (turmoil) and nifaq (hypocrisy) [or in a variant “in that place are earthquakes (zalazil), and seditions (fitan)], and in that place shall rise the devil’s horn [qarnu-sh shaytan].”
The Wahhabis have tried for some time to claim that the Najd referred to is not in the Jazeera but in Iraq, and have attempted to flood reference works with this. However this claim of theirs doesn’t stand up to informed analysis, and even their hero Taqiyuddin ibn Taymiyyah was quite clear and categorical that the Najd was in the Jazeera and was quite different from Iraq.
© D Rosser-Owen 2009 All Rights Reserved
Am Buaileag An t-Àm: Souratu-l ‘Asr
An Curàn Gàidhlig Beannachte
Sir mi tèarmann le Allah Fhèin bho’n t-Sàtain clachte
An Ceudamh Buaileag thar an Trì (103):
An t-Àm
An Ainm Allah an Nì Sàr-thruacanta ’s Sàr-thròcaireach
Air an t-Àm,
‘S ann a tha an cinneadh-daonna air chall,
Saor o iad a’ creidsinn is a’ dèanamh deagh-bheusan
Agus ag earalachadh air an fhìrinn,
Agus ag earalachadh air an fhoighidinn.
Dearbh Allah Fhèin gu fìrinneach
© D Rosser-Owen 2009 All Rights Reserved
The Eighth Day [An Ochdamh Latha]
One really shouldn’t preach, I suppose, because it annoys people for one thing and maybe gets their backs up. It’s really best if they find out for themselves, like a sort of epiphany.
However, I am a little irritated by the sneering casualness with which far too many “Muslims” bandy around the epithet “kafir” (and its derivatives) about the indigenous cultures of these islands, and the indigenes who represent them.
So… open your eyes and ears, and look around you; now, to quote Terry Pratchett, open them again.
These islands – what Ibn ‘Arabi called Al ‘Arin, and described as the home of a metaphysical realm – are a Celtic culture; and are The Blessed Isles [Eileanan an Àigh] known to many ancient cultures of the Mediterranean Basin.
They are, according to both Tertullian (Quintus Septimius Florens Tertullianus)(c160 – c220 AD) and Gildas (Gildas Bandonicus)(c504-570 AD)(in Concerning the Ruination of Britain (De Excidio Britanniae)), the recipients of the authentic message of Jesus Christ preached during or slightly after his Mission (during the reign of Emperor Tiberius, d. 37 AD). So, be a bit careful with the concepts you bhat about.
Professor Akbar Ahmed once gave a keynote speech to the Annual General Meeting of the Union of Muslim Organisations of the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland (UMO). During it he paused and asked, presumably rhetorically as nobody answered, “How many of the delegates here today have ever taken three minutes to reflect on what makes the British tick?” A good question, which I fear is rarely asked by the guests in these Islands.
Do they appreciate that, in spite of labelling to the contrary, British and Irish culture is profoundly Celtic? And so it is through trying to understand these strangely metaphysical peoples that an answer to the ‘ticking’ of the Islanders may be had; or do they not care to find out? They should.
Years ago, a Turkish friend of mine – exasperated by the boorish behaviour of a couple of Arab and Pakistani students – exploded after one jumu’ah at the university, saying, as politely as he could manage through clenched teeth, “You know, if Allah Almighty had sent Malays and Turks here the whole country would be Muslim by now, but in His Infinite Wisdom He sent Arabs and Pakistanis.”
For years I’ve wondered at the hikmah contained in this outburst; and for some time it has been my belief that the sending of these people here has been less for the benefit of the Celtic Islanders and more that these people would learn from the Islanders the true meaning of the Immanence of the Divine: that everything is a window that lets one look upon The One Face [An Aon Gnùis] – a typical expression of Celtic mysticism – if one is willing to see.
A simple collection of tales – it actually dates from 1937, and was reprinted once in 1999 – by Rev Alistair MacLean, father of the once famous novelist, and a Church of Scotland minister in the Hebrides, is called Hebridean Altars. Here are some of my thoughts on the matter about the inherent indigenous spirituality of the Islands.
Selections from Hebridean Altars by Rev Alistair MacLean (1937):
Whoever brings a gentle mind to what is written here, may He bless, who loves us all, and, as they read, may catch a vision of The One Face [An Aon Gnùis](p 7)
The Eighth Day [An Ochdamh Latha] p 11-13
Since he [John of the Cattle, from Mull] it was who taught me that, in his essence, a man is a spirit, and that the essence of spirit is truth and beauty and love. The legend of the veil of the purple light was his story, as was the reason why the King of the Elements [Rìgh nan Dùil] made the Hebrides. A fanciful reason, you may urge, and with as much weight in it as thistledown. I agree. Yet the man and the day and the scene gave it such an air of sincerity, not to speak of glamour, that I was clean cast under a spell – so deep a spell and witching that I sometimes think I have not wakened from it yet.
‘These islands,’ he breathed, with a gesture towards the North, ‘aye, ‘tis myself that is as fond of them as a mother of her baby-child, and, mind you, they are the great favourites with the Good One [An Nì Math] above us as well.’
‘Indeed,’ said I.
‘Yes,’ he went on, ‘or rather, as I should say, the greatest favourites of all. Now,’ he raised his forefinger impressively, ‘listen to what I am telling you. The Good One made the Hebrides on the eighth day.’
‘The eighth day!’ I cried, ‘but the Bible…’
He waved his hand for silence. ‘The Bible is a grand book entirely, and the stories of Samson and the other noble heroes in it are warming to the heart. But, mark you, lad, a man who writes a large book cannot mind everything and’ – he hummed a little at this point – ‘and, like enough, the decent man forgot about the Islands being made on the eighth day. But they were, and this was the way of it. The world was finished and the Good One was mighty tired and took a rest and, while He was resting, He thought “Well, I have let my earth-children see the power of my mind, in rock and mountain and tree and wind and flower. And I have shown them the likeness of my mind, for I have made theirs like my own. And I have shown them the love of my mind, for I have made them happy. But halt,” says the Good One to Himself, “I have not shown them the beauty of my mind.” So the next day, and that was the eighth day, He takes up a handful of jewels and opens a window in the sky and throws them down into the sea. And those jewels are the Hebrides. I had the story of it from my father’s father,’ he went on. ‘An extra fine man, and terrible strong for the truth.’
The Three Wonders (p55)
‘If a man has the fortune to come by a vision of the three wonders: the wonder that God is; the wonder a woman is; the wonder that he is in himself, there is a radiance in his spirit which breaks through his thought and his eyes and his speech.’ He was a simple upland farmer who said the words and his face glowed at the truth of them.
Though the dawn breaks cheerless on this Isle today, my spirit walks upon a path of light. For I know my greatness. Thou hast built me a throne within Thy heart. I dwell safely within the circle of Thy care. I cannot for a moment fall out of Thine everlasting arms. I am on my way to Thy glory.
To the Celt each new day is a gift, a flower; above all, a mystery which calls for the companioning of God, if a man would see it well through. Hence the old prayer:
God be with me
In this, Thy day,
Every day,
And every way,
With me and for me,
In this, Thy day. (p62)
The Love of God is Broader than the Measure of Man’s Mind (p82)
The creeds have never put the Islesman’s faith in shackles. Nor priest nor presbyter can rob him of the hope that before the last darkness falls the Tireless Herdsman will bring his sheep and lambs into the inner fold, not one miscounted. Of inseeing did any ever say a lovelier thing than the old Highland mother who comforted herself for her son dead in war. ‘He was ever a rover,’ she whispered as she stirred the peat ash, ‘and the blood warm in the veins of him, yet ‘twas he who had the mirthful laugh and the giving hand. So, to my thinking, his feet kept God’s road. Some journey in sunshine, and fair is their travel; and some, like my lad, push on through the shadows. But it is the same road, and leads at last to an Eternal Town.’ The generous man, Columba said, is sure of heaven, for his life is the gospel. And sure too is he who kindles at beauty: he who never sees a man but wishes him well: and he who cries heartily to the wanderer ‘Come thou in, brother, and let the night go by.’
‘There is a mother’s heart in the heart of God. And ‘tis his delight to break the bread of love and truth for his children.’ – A Hebridean Mother (p92)
Suns ever at their noon (p106)
A Gaelic saying, chiselled out of the rock of experience and perfect in its tenderness, is, ‘An dà mhaireann, gaol na máthar agus grádh Dhè’ – ‘The Immortal Twain, the mother’s love and the love of God.’
The Motherhood of God (p 107)
I have a secret joy in Thee, my God. For, if Thou art my Father, Thou art my Mother too. And of Thy tenderness and healing and patience there is no end at all.
© D Rosser-Owen 2009
Pwy Ydyn Ni, Y Moslemoedd yng Ngymru?
I originally wrote this for, and posted it on, the Facebook group “Muslims in Wales and friends”:
Pardon my pitiful attempt at Welsh, but I thought that starting a discussion thread about just who we see ourselves as, these Muslims of/in Wales, should begin from there, with yr hen iaith.
My problem with it is that, although I was born and spent the first few years of my life in and around Swansea, the only Welsh I really remember is from the rather pathetic attempts to teach me (and others) at Bishop Gore’s School. My non-English language (actually my first language) is Gaelic; but that’s another story.
When I was small (and even later after I’d left the Regular Army – then a Muslim) about the only Muslims in Wales were the Welsh-Yemenis and Welsh-Somalis in Tiger Bay, Cardiff, latterly gathered around the suhba of Shaykh Saleh. They had had no problem with intermarrying with Welsh women and becoming a truly Welsh Muslim community. So where do things stand now? Was this emerging Welsh Muslim community brushed aside, just like the emerging communities of Muslims elsewhere in the UK, to ’start again from scratch’?
It’s not right to import the political and cultural problems of the sub-continent into the UK in general and, in this case, Wales in particular, especially when there were existing host Muslim communities.
When the Muslims went to South-East Asia and East Africa, for examples, they intermarried and integrated and in the process “islamised” the native cultures, but didn’t transplant cultural things from “back home”: nor import spouses and imams from ‘back home’ either. Thus, we have the distinctive Malay-Indonesian-Phillipino-Thai-Cambodian-Vietnamese autochthonous culture of mainland and island South-East Asia.
Now, of course, these things don’t happen overnight – this is a generational process. So, we have an opportunity to nudge the development of this Welsh Muslim Community in the direction of being a truly Welsh, Muslim, community.
And this means embracing the resurgence of the language, along with all the other proud Welshmen and women (or rather Cymry and Cymraesau) so that we have Muslim Cymreigiwyr.
And, of course, playing rugby and supporting the WRFU (and Ospreys, which amounts to the same thing).
In regard to the language and culture, Welsh Muslims could take a leaf from the ‘Save Gaelic’ movement. One of the leading lights was Ali Abbasi, yarhamahu-Llah, who settled in Scotland from Pakistan in the 1950s and who died in 2004. He lived in Glasgow and worked as a motoring correspondent on the Radio, and learnt Gaelic because he felt that it was an essential part of Scottish culture and becoming a Scot (Muslims in Scotland are Muslim Scots to an extent that leaves the rest of the kingdom standing). He also took parts in just about every Gaelic-language sitcom, and TV show.
This Thread is intentionally rambling, because it’s not really about me. I may be the seniormost (or, in other words, oldest) Welsh (after a fashion) Muslim convert, but I live in London. I come down to Wales maybe four or five times a year to visit relatives and tend to the family graves. My family home (The Rhyddings in Brynmill) got taken over by the Council at the tail-end of WW2 as “bomb-damaged property” (it wasn’t really: all the windows had been blown out, but that was about all) and turned into “social housing”, and the stables and coaching block became a pub (quite a successful one it seems from the outside), so I have no real roots left in Swansea and Gower other than history and sentiment. But I think it does give me the moral right to participate in things as a “Welsh Muslim”.
On my last visit to Swansea, I noticed that the Al-Khoei Foundation have turned an old church (by Joe’s Ice Cream Parlour) into a Shiah Centre.
So what happened to the scheme to turn St Andrew’s Presbyterian Church in George Street into a mosque and Muslim cultural centre? That was the church I used to attend as a boy, and where my grandfather was an Elder and my greatuncle the Session Clerk and the old codgers of the congregation used to talk to me in Gaelic. Sentiment and history again. I would have liked to pray there as a mosque having prayed there as a Scots Presbyterian.
© D Rosser-Owen 2009
Membrancing from the Lebar Gabala Erenn
I came across this remembrance in the Lebar Gabala Erenn. I thought it was inspirational, so I copied it and offer it up with a modern Gaelic version and the English translation.
Athair cāich, Coimsid Nime,
in Rī uasal ainglige,
ār Cuingid, ār Coimde, ār Cend,
cen tūs, cen crīch, cen forcend.
Athair de gach nì, Triath Nèimh,
an Rìgh uasal aingealach,
ar Curaidh, ar Tighearna, ar Ceann,
gun tùs, gun chrìoch, gun chrioslaich.
Father of all, Master of Heaven,
the noble angelic King,
our Champion, our Lord, our Head,
without beginning, end, or termination.
Why is the Conservative Party silent while our old liberties fall among thieves?
This letter from the Earl of Onslow to David Cameron appeared in The Guardian “Comment is Free” section in 2006. The questions he raises are more urgently demanding of an answer now than they were three years ago, as the General Election that must be held by June 2010 gets ever nearer.
An open letter to the Conservative leader
A leading Tory peer tells David Cameron that he should be restoring the party’s traditional values on liberties
Dear Mr Cameron,
You and I are Conservatives. It could even be said that we both had a traditional upbringing. I have always understood that we Conservatives have been at our best when we use conservative and traditional methods for constructive change. From our beginnings in the Restoration parliament as defenders of church and king, we have seen ancient liberties as the key to the advancement of our fellow citizens.
Throughout the centuries, that Conservative-Tory tradition has been used for the immense benefit of our people. Peel’s Tamworth Manifesto stated that so clearly in 1834. That is why we have been the most successful and long-lasting political party in history. From the Stuart kings to the modern, mass-political democracy, our great party has defended our constitution and benefited our country.
Something is missing from our rhetoric. We have a government by a party that reinvented itself by being ashamed of its roots and determinedly betrayed the traditions and ideas of its founders. They may well have been right so to do, but they cannot be trusted to hold dear the traditions of others.
In no order of awfulness, this government has emasculated the House of Commons by the permanent use of guillotines. On the whim of the Prime Minister, the Lord Chancellorship has been neutered, removing a voice of law from the cabinet.
Those instances are on the parliamentary front, but what the government has done to the liberty of the subject is far worse. Note that I say liberty of the subject, not the rights of the citizen. That is because liberties are boundless unless circumscribed by law and rights are, by their nature, circumscribed.
It has repealed the law on double jeopardy. With Asbos, it has sent to prison some of the young on hearsay evidence for things that are not even criminal. It has created a centralised register held by the government on all citizens and proposes to force them to have ID cards. It has formed a police force with unprecedented powers of arrest – the Serious Organised Crime Agency – over which the Home Secretary has authority no predecessor has previously enjoyed.
Through its control orders, it has introduced a system of deprivation of liberty without trial on the say-so of the executive. It has passed the Civil Contingencies Act that allows a minister to override any statute after the calling of a state of emergency and now there is the Regulatory Reform Bill, which has been described as ‘the abolition of parliament bill’ and against which our party did not even vote at second reading. This gives gauleiter-like powers to ministers which we are blandly told will not be used.
The government has allowed the retention by the police of DNA details of thousands of innocents and it has given us section 81 (6) of the Asylum and Immigration (Treatment of Claims) Act 2004 which amends the Nationality, Immigration and Asylums Act 2002, creating a single-tier appeals procedure which Lord Steyn, in a recent lecture, described as, in effect, ousting the jurisdiction of ordinary courts. The government has introduced anti-terrorism stop-and-search powers that are constantly being misused, such as when the elderly Walter Wolfgang was ejected from the Labour conference.
This list is by no means comprehensive. What surprises, worries and depresses me is the apparent relative quietude on the part of the Conservative party on these issues. I repeat – it did not vote against the Regulatory Reform Bill on second reading. It has not remembered the great Edward Gibbon’s comment on Augustus Caesar’s Rome: ‘The principles of a free constitution are irrecoverably lost when the legislative power is nominated by the executive.’
It was dozy on the Civil Contingencies Act until the excellent Peta Buscombe in our house took it up; this from the party which, since the restoration of Charles II, has been so jealous of our constitution. Have we a guilty secret?
Remember Burke saying: ‘All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.’ Why are we not shouting from the hustings that we will return to the people their ancient liberties?
Why, Mr Cameron, is the Conservative party passing by on the other side while our old liberties fall among thieves?
Yours sincerely, Onslow
· The Earl of Onslow is one of the 92 hereditary peers and takes the Conservative whip.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2006/apr/23/comment.conservatives
