Khatmiyya
Khatmiyya ( Arabic الختمية al-Chatmiyya , DMG al-Ḫatmīya ) or Mirghaniyya ( Arabic الميرغنية, DMG al-Mīrġanīya ) is an Islamic order ( Tariqa ) within Sufism , which is particularly widespread in eastern Sudan and parts of Eritrea . The founder of the order is Muhammad Uthman al-Mirghani (1793-1853). The religious center is near the city of Kassala .
Order founder
The Sufi scholar Ahmad ibn Idris (1760–1837), who was born in Morocco , founded the order of Idrisiyya named after him in Mecca , influenced by Wahhabi reforms . He had never been to Sudan himself, but had great influence as a teacher and indirectly caused the establishment of several Sufi orders. His most famous student was Muhammad as-Sanussi (1787-1859). He founded the Sanussiya - Order that but gained little influence in Sudan. The three most important of his students in terms of the spread of his teachings in Sudan were Muhammad al-Majdhub as-Sughayir (1796–1833), whose tomb in ad-Damir is still venerated by the Majdhubiya followers today; the Algerian Sheikh Ibrahim ar-Rashidi (1813–1874), who spread the Idrisiyya order of his master as Rashidiyya in Sudan; and Muhammad Uthman al-Mirghani. A branch of Rashidi's order spread under the name Salihiyya in Somalia from the end of the 19th century .
Al-Mirghani's family, which included some well-known Sufis, lived in Mecca and traced their ancestry back to the Prophet . After Muhammad Uthman al-Mirghani, also known as Al-Khatim, completed general Islamic studies, he turned to Sufism, was successively introduced into various Sufi orders until he later began to preach his own teachings. Initially he was sent by Ahmad ibn Idris to evangelize for the Idrisiyya teachings. Al-Mirghani first came to Sudan via Egypt , where he won followers in the north and in Sennar . It was through him that the first Bedjas found Islam in the East in 1817 . This journey began in southern Arabia, went north via Somalia on the Red Sea and on the way back through Ethiopia . When he returned to Mecca, he continued to serve his teacher there until he died in 1837. In the subsequent dispute, al-Mirghani was able to prevail against his rival Muhammad ibn Ali as-Sanussi , who founded the Sanussiya Brotherhood, while al-Mirghani made his own doctrine out of the Idrisiyya teachings, which he called the “Seal of all Tariqas” ( Khatim at Turuq, from which the name of the brotherhood is derived) and commissioned his sons with proselytizing.
Thus the new Khamtiyya brotherhood was spread in the west and south of Arabia and in northern Sudan. After al-Mirghani's death in 1853, the sons again quarreled about the succession. The order broke apart. The most important regional leader in Sudan was al-Hasan (1819–1869), son of a woman from Dongola in northern Sudan . At the age of 14, al-Hasan had traveled from Sudan to Mecca and was raised there by his father. He had had some visions, visited the tomb of the prophets in Medina while traveling through Arabia and had returned to Mecca, where his father had instructed him to spread the teaching in Sudan.
Al-Hasan al-Mirghani probably came near the present-day city of Kassala in 1840, where he founded the village of Khatmiyya at the foot of the Taka Mountains, which became the headquarters of the order. Since his death, Sidi Hasan has been venerated in a mausoleum at this point more than the actual founder of the Khatmiyya. His two sons, Ahmad and Ali, rebuilt the order in Kassala after the suppression of the Mahdi uprising (1899) , after which there was no longer any central leadership of the regional groups that were divided up within the family. Only members of the Mirghani family are allowed to preside over the order.
Spread
Through initiation by local religious leaders, the brotherhood was integrated into the social structures of Sudan despite the Arab origins of the Mirghani family. Al-Mirghani initially propagated his tariqa in the last years of the Funj empire , which was characterized by wars and unrest. When al-Hasan traveled to the country shortly afterwards as his father's representative, the traditional order of Sudan was destroyed under the Turkish-Egyptian rule (1821–1885). The strict order of the Khatmiyya order in connection with its charismatic preacher came at the right time to replace the lost traditional institutions and the sometimes dubious practices of individual Welsh .
The Egyptian troops had triumphed against the Shaqiyya, a brotherhood from northern Sudan, on their advance along the Nile . Some of the Shayqiyya (from the Khojalab family) then defected to the Khatmiyya order because al-Mirghani had connections with the Egyptians.
In 1840 al-Hasan came to Taka at the same time as an Egyptian military expedition under Governor General Ahmad Pasha Abu Widan. The goal of complete subjugation of the Hadendoa who settled there was not achieved, but the city of Kassala was established as the administrative center in Eastern Sudan. Contemporary sources reported that the governor asked a holy man to persuade the Hadendoa clan chief into submission. The holy man was probably al-Hasan. History shows his influence back then.
Al-Hasan undertook several mission tours through Sudan in the years after 1840. He was warmly welcomed in Berber and married a woman from an influential family with whom he moved to Shendi . Overall, the Khatmiyya benefited from the pacified state under Egyptian rule. The Khatmiyya Brotherhood became the main opponent of the Mahdiya of Muhammad Ahmad and his successor within Sudan . In Eastern Sudan they competed with the Majdhubiya (from ad-Damir) who fought on the side of the Mahdi and also destroyed al-Hasan's tomb. The leaders of the Khatmiyya fled to Egypt and did not return until the Mahdi uprising was put down. The Sufi brotherhoods, which fought bitterly here, arose from the same teaching tradition of the influential Ahmad ibn Idris.
It is uncertain whether Uthman al-Mirghani was in Eritrea. The Islamic renewal movement in the 19th century came to Eritrea through the two orders Qadiriyya and Khatmiyya and spread there among the Beni Amer, who belong to the Bedscha, and among the Tigray . The Khatmiyya was introduced into Massaua by al-Hasan around 1860 and was the dominant order in the area at that time. Little is known about the current distribution of the Khatmiyya in Eritrea; there may be small centers in Massaua and Keren . One connection could be Ibrahim al-Mukhtar bin Umar (1909–1969). He was the country's most important scholar of Islam and a mufti from 1940, and enjoyed his early training with the Mirghani family in Kassala.
Religious doctrine
All brotherhoods split off from the Idrisiyya reject the legal interpretation by imitation ( Taqlid ) demanded by Sunni religious rules and demand that the "gate of Idschtihad " be reopened, that is, to allow the possibility of interpretation. The tradition and lineage of the al-Mirghani family stipulate that all of their religious leaders are venerated as holy and have the same unique baraka . Khatmiyya followers were banned from participating in rituals of other Sufi brotherhoods. Uthman al-Mirghani showed in his writings more influences of an Eastern, ecstatic Sufism and thus had distanced himself far from the strict, reform-oriented goals of his teacher. For Sidi Hasan, numerous places in North Sudan where the saint manifested himself, i.e. H. where he was seen in a dream, built shrines. A strong belief in the magical power of the word is expressed in Dhikr ceremonies. The direct successors of the founder bear the title Sirr al-Khatim ("the secret of the seal"), which expresses their mystical powers based on their own descent.
Political role
At the end of the 19th century, two political groups opposed each other in Sudan, both of which had emerged from religious reform movements within Sufism. The Mahdi’s messianic expectations of salvation were ideologically incompatible with the status of the Khatmiyya founder Uthman al-Mirghani, whose family tree indicated that he was created out of the “light of the Prophet”. While the Mahdiya was popularized by sheikhs and followers of various Sufi orders because they hoped the Mahdi militias would liberate the country from the Egyptian ulama (most of the legal scholars were sent from al-Azhar University ), were from the Khatmiyya - Supporters many part of a new middle-class social class whose economic interests were linked to those of the Egyptians. The Khatmiyya leaders, Muhammad Uthman II and Muhammad Sirr al-Khatim, carried out propaganda against the Mahdi rule at this time, initially from their headquarters near Kassala, later from exile in Egypt. Contrary to the Majdhubiya, who offered political resistance, the Khatmiyya worked together with the Egyptian regime and with the English colonial power. All other tariqas were politically neutral.
From the doctrinal-Islamic goals of the two, power struggles in the state remain as legacies to this day. Both shaped popular Islam in Sudan in the 20th century and at the same time fought for power with their respective political parties. It was not until the 1950s that the traditionalist Muslim Brotherhood, based on the Egyptian model, joined as a third religious force and later as a party in parliament. The Madhiya founded the Umma party as a political wing, the Mirghani family was represented by the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP). Only in order to overthrow the first Prime Minister Ismail al-Azhari of the independent Sudan after six months in office , they put aside their differences and reached an agreement that led to a coalition government of the two opposing parties (under Abdullah Chalil ) in 1956 . From 1950 the Khatmiyya received religious competition from the rapidly expanding order of the Tijaniyya Niassiyya, an eschatological movement whose leadership preached the appearance of the expected Mahdi.
After the initially socialist President Numairi came to power in 1969, DUP leader Ahmad al-Mirghani fled into exile and did not return until the mid-1970s. In the 1989 military coup against Sadiq al-Mahdi , which was carried out by Omar al-Bashir , the two parties came together in opposition to the National Democratic Alliance . Ahmad al-Mirghani was the head of the Khatmiyya until his death in November 2008.
literature
- John Spencer Trimingham: Islam in the Sudan. London 1949. After the 2nd edition 1965 online at Universal Library
- Ali Salih Karrar: The Sufi Brotherhoods in the Sudan. C. Hurst Publishing House, London 2002
- Rex S. O'Fahey: Ahmad Ibn Idris and the Idrisi Tradition. Northwestern University Press, Evanston (USA) 1990, pp. 130-153
- Helen Chapin Metz (Ed.): Sudan: A Country Study. Washington, Library of Congress 1991. Chapter: Islamic Movements and Religious Orders. On-line
Web links
- Martin Fitzenreiter: History, Religion and Monuments of the Islamic Period in Northern Sudan. Part II: Islam in Sudan. MittSAG 7, 1997
- Albrecht Hofheinz: Saints on the mountain drop. Kassala and the Khatmiyya. 1988/1995 (PDF file; 107 kB)
- Albrecht Hofheinz: More on the Idrisi tradition in the Sudan. Sudanic Africa 2, 1991
Individual evidence
- ↑ Trimingham, pp. 232f
- ↑ Karrer, p. 75
- ^ Trimingham, p. 234
- ↑ Karrer, p. 76
- ^ History of the Sudan. Sudan, 1821-1882. World History at KLMA
- ↑ Karrer, p. 77
- ↑ Fitzenreiter, p. 50
- ↑ Lidwien Kapteijns: Ethiopia and the Horn of Africa. In: Nehemia Levtzion and Randall L. Pouwels (eds.): The History of Islam in Africa. Ohio University Press, Athens (Ohio) 2000, p. 234
- ↑ RS O'Fahey: Sudanese (and some other) Sources for Eritrean History: A Bibliographical note. In: Sudanic Africa. A Journal of Historic Sources, Bergen (Norway) Vol. 11, 2000, pp. 131-142. Online ( Memento of the original from January 17, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Trimingham, pp. 234f
- ^ Gabriel Warburg: Islam, Sectarianism, and Politics in Sudan Since the Mahdiyya. C. Hurst Verlag, London 2003, p. 34
- ↑ Abdel Salam Sidahmed and Alsir Sidahmed: Sudan. Routledge Curzon, London 2005, pp. 30f
- ↑ Knut S. Vikor: Sufi Brotherhoods in Africa. In: Nehemia Leftzion and Randall L. Pouwels: The History of Islam in Africa. Ohio University Press, Athens (Ohio) 2000, p. 458
