Arab Bukan Bahasa Ibunda Agamawan Indonesia Kata Assim Al-Hakeem

 The following is a truncated version of a long article by Dr James Dorsey. You can read the full version here:   The Turbulent World with James M. Dorsey

Dr. James M. Dorsey is an Honorary Fellow at Singapore’s Middle East Institute-NUS, an Adjunct Senior Fellow at Nanyang Technological University’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, and the author of the syndicated column and podcast, The Turbulent World with James M. Dorsey.

 

This article is about a Saudi Arabian fellow named Assim Al-Hakeem who is a Salafi Wahabi preacher. My comments in blue. 

 

Sheikh Assim Al-Hakeem Saudi cleric
imam of a mosque in Jeddah
Al-Hakeem’s ultra-conservative, supremacist interpretation of religion
inward-looking, intolerant, misogynous, out of touch with modernity

woman who wear perfume where unrelated man could smell it is “fornicator”
"All I teach is knowledge to enter heaven" Al-Hakeem said
“we are ordered to love for the sake of Allah and to hate for the sake of Allah
According to Islamic law, Qur'an, Sunna, I'm obliged to hate him, Hakeem said

(OSTB : Where exactly in the Quran does it say such things?)

I have a lot of Christian friends... Are we best of friends? Of course not…
defended imposing extra tax on non-Muslim residents in a Muslim-majority country

• Al-Hakeem declined to comment on Nahdlatul Ulama's approach 
• 20,000 Nahdlatul Ulama scholars issued fatwa eliminating  kafir  in Sharia
• Indonesia was not an Arab country Al-Hakeem added
• They don't speak native Arabic. 
• Their scholars are not as well known 
• I don't know who qualifies as a scholar 
• trying to make an easy buck
• I would need to meet them to tell them what is right and wrong

• Al-Hakeem shied away from openly criticizing Bin Salman
• Saudi crack down harshly on freedom of expression?
• Saudis arrested Sheikh Badr Al-Meshari, outspoken critic of Bin Salman
• Saudis sentenced Salah al-Talib, imam of Grand Mosque in Mecca, 10 years prison
• sentencing to death of Muhammad al-Ghamdi, 54, for Twitter activity
• easing restrictions on freedom of expression not an immediate priority

• Al-Hakeem prides himself on relationships with fugitive Zakir Naik 
• with Bilal Philips an unindicted co-conspirator in 1993 WTC bombing
• with American Muslim preacher Yusuf Estes, barred entry into Singapore
  
• Al-Hakeem maintained these relationships over years

Al-Hakeem counsels 388,000 Facebook followers and 390,000 on Twitter 
At US$100 per half-hour, Al-Hakeem is happy to oblige
website notes he is open to invitations for lectures and seminars.
requires visa, hotel, business class on Saudi or Qatar Airlines, website says

 

Al-Hakeem associated with the Z _d online Islamic academy 
Co-founded by clerics who allegedly support Muslim Brotherhood

• Academy advocate female circumcision 
• (may help some females in sexual orientation Al-Hakeem said)
• orders women to walk on the side of the road 
• so as not to crowd men in the middle
• declared a woman’s face private
• rejects freedom of religion
• endorse death penalty for apostasy
• celebrates Muslim’s superiority over non-Muslim

In 2021, the Egyptian newspaper Al-Dustur quoted a Z_d Academy textbook as saying, “Enmity for God's enemies requires several things, including hating disbelief and its people and harboring enmity towards them, not having infidels as friends, and keeping separate from them, even if they are relatives.”


My Comments:

Assim al Hakeem is known to some people. I just want to focus on a couple of points that he mentioned. About the Indonesian religious fellows (the Nahdlatul Ulama) he said:

• 20,000 Nahdlatul Ulama scholars issued fatwa eliminating  kafir  in Sharia
• Indonesia was not an Arab country Al-Hakeem added
• They don't speak native Arabic. 
• Their scholars are not as well known 
• I would need to meet them to tell them what is right and wrong

So Indonesians are not native Arabic speakers and he would have to tell them what is right and wrong. Wow!!

Well his good friend Zakir Naik does not speak any Arabic at all. Whereas many of the Indonesians are fluent in Arabic.

But what I would like to point out is that Assim al Hakeem will swear by the hadith collection of Imam Bukhari. 

Imam Bukhari was not an Arab either. Bukhari was of Persian origins.  "An interesting fact is that he was ethnically a Persian, not Arab". Click here.

The full name of Imam Bukhari was Abu Abdullah Muhammad ibn Ismail ibn Ibrahim Ibn Al-Mughirah ibn Bardizyah Al-Jufri Al-Bukhari. His great grandfather, Al-Mughirah, settled in Bukhara after accepting Islam (click here). 

Some writers say that before accepting Islam his great-grandfather was a Zoroastrian fireworshipper which was a religion common to Persia. The name Bardizyah is Persian.

Many of the early scholars of Islam (say 9th to 11th century AD) were of Persian origins. They also lived in Khorasan (which was a largely Persian speaking area stretching from Baghdad into present day Iran, Central Asia and Afghanistan) and during the Abbasid Caliphate. 

For example the well known tafseer or interpretaion of the Quran was written by Imam Tabari. 

Tabari's full name was Abū Jaʿfar Muḥammad ibn Jarīr ibn Yazīd al-Ṭabarī also known as al-Tabari or in Persian as Tabari, 839–923 CE, was an influential Sunni scholar, historian and commentator on the Qur'an from Amol, Tabaristan (modern Mazandaran Province of Iran). Click here.

Many early scholars of Islam were Persian or Persian speaking peoples of Central Asia. Pashto the language of the Pushtun people in Afghanistan is also related to Persian. As a student in the US I had Iranian and Afghan friends who could understand each others languages.

Here are some paintings from the medieval to early modern Islamic periods from Persia. Notice the faces of the subjects in these paintings - they all look very Chinese or Central Asian. Even as late as the 17th century.

 

Couple by Reza Abbasi, 17th century Iran

Below : Medieval Persian Islamic art. The subjects look very Central Asian / Chinese and not like Arabs or 'Aryan' (Iran).

 

Below : More Chinese like faces in medieval Persian Islamic art.

There is a theory that although the Abbasid Caliphate was led by Arab Caliphs the lingua franca on the streets in Khorasan at that time was Persian or Persian dialects. And that the vast majority of the Muslim population in Khorasan at that time was of Central Asian origin (Uzbeks, Kazakh, Tajik, Kyrgyz). They all had very Chinese features.

There is so much we can learn from history.

The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of MMKtT.