Hasan as-Saffār

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Hasan ibn Mūsā as-Saffār ( Arabic حسن بن موسى الصفار, DMG Ḥasan ibn Mūsā aṣ-Ṣaffār born. 1958 in Qatīf in the Saudi Eastern Province ) is a Shiite activist, thinker and preacher of Saudi Arabia . In the 1980s he acted as the spiritual leader of the "Organization for the Islamic Revolution on the Arabian Peninsula" ( Munaẓẓamat aṯ-ṯaura al-islāmīya fī l-ǧazīra al-ʿArabīya ) and based himself on the revolutionary ideology of Ali Sharia . At the end of the 1980s he undertook an ideological realignment. Since that time he has advocated principles such as pluralism , freedom , human rights , religious tolerance and mutual respect among the various faiths of Islam. With his speeches and sermons, which he mainly disseminates over the Internet , Hasan as-Saffār has a great influence on the political discourse of the Shiites in Saudi Arabia.

Life

Origin and religious education

Hasan as-Saffār comes from a Qatīf religious family, his father worked as a small trader. In the late 1960s he read books by the Shiite Āyatollāh Muhammad asch-Schirāzī in his library for the first time and was enthusiastic about his activist theology. Around 1970 he accompanied his father on a trip to Iraq , where he met Ash-Shirazi personally. The encounter strengthened his will to embark on a religious career: in 1971 he moved to Najaf to begin religious education. Since Muhammad asch-Shirazi himself had already emigrated to Kuwait with his family because of the repression of the Iraqi regime, he enrolled in the school of Abū l-Qāsim al-Chū'ī . He also attended classes from various other Shiite authorities . Since the Iraqi secret service arrested foreign students who were engaged in political activities several times, al-Saffār decided after two years to leave Iraq together with other students from al-Qatīf and go to the Hauza of Qom . Here he took up studies with Muhammad Kāzim Sharīʿatmadārī , the most important Marjasch at-taqlīd of Iran at the time. In 1974, however, he left Iran again to visit the Hauzat ar-rasūl al-aʿzam teaching center in Kuwait, which was newly opened by Muhammad asch -Schirāzī .

Political activism in the 1970s and 1980s

In Kuwait, as-Saffār began to orient himself more politically, in particular through his constant contact with the Shiite activist Mohammad Taqi al-Modarresi, with whom he worked. He read the works of Sunni Islamists such as Hasan al-Bannā , Sayyid Qutb , Abū l-Aʿlā Maudūdī as well as Shiite thinkers such as Mūsā as-Sadr , Mehdi Bāzargān , Ali Shariati and Ruhollah Chomeini . He joined with other young Shiite scholars and intellectuals from Saudi Arabia in 1968 in Karbala founded "movement of the Mission vanguards" ( Harakat al-risālīyīn at-talā'i' in), which was active in Iraq and the Gulf region.

In 1974 the Bahraini trader ʿAbd ar-Ridā ʿUsfur invited him to Muscat in Oman, where he served as an imam for the small community of Shiite Bahrānīs, but was also active for the so-called Lawatīya, a Shiite group of Indian Muslims in Matrah . During his time in Oman, he spread an Islamic awareness, recruited new students for the Hauza of his teacher in Kuwait, built several Shiite libraries and encouraged the Lawatīya to hold public Ashura processions. In 1975 he founded the Shiite reform movement together with other students of al-Shirazis. Sermons recorded on cassette began to circulate in the Saudi Eastern Province from the mid-1970s and had a significant impact on the Shiite population. Since as-Saffār also preached against the cooperation of the traditional Shiite notables with the Saudi state, they turned to Abū l-Qāsim al-Chū'ī, then the highest marshaard of Najaf, who made several communiqées in the late 1970s whom he discredited Hasan as-Saffār and his teacher Muhammad asch-Shirāzī.

In 1979 Hasan as-Saffār led the Shiite uprising in the Saudi city of al-Qatīf. After this uprising was put down, he fled to Iran, where he stayed until 1988. Pamphlets from the late 1970s and early 1980s on al-Hussain ibn ʿAlī and the Twelfth Imam and other aspects of Islamic history show the influence of the revolutionary ideology of Ali Shariati on as-Saffār.

Ideological reorientation and participation in the national dialogue

Around 1989 as-Saffār changed its ideological orientation, turned away from the revolutionary rhetoric and approached liberal positions. Under the influence of the Lebanese Shiite thinker Muhammad Mahdī Shams ad-Dīn, he also brought the idea of ​​moderation to the fore. The first expression of his changed thinking was his book on "Pluralism and Freedom in Islam". In this book, however, he also criticized the Salafis and their focus on the Tawheed principle. He said that this focus on the unity of the fear of the Salafists against rationality, interpretation, diversity, discord and openness ( infitah embodies). In his criticism of Salafism, as-Saffār also referred to its Sunni scholars Yūsuf al-Qaradāwī and Muhammad Saʿīd Ramadān al-Būtī . As-Saffār accused the Salafis of forgetting that their understanding of the sacred texts was just an opinion that could be as wrong as it is right.

From 1992 as-Saffār worked towards an understanding with the Saudi leadership. In June 1992 he wrote in the magazine Al-Jazīra al-ʿArabīya ("The Arabian Peninsula") published by the Shiite reform movement : "We do not reject any initiative for dialogue between us and the government as long as we are talking about problems . " After an agreement was reached between the Saudi leadership and the Shiite community in 1993, as-Saffār was accepted into the newly formed Consultative Council . From this time on, as-Saffār tried harder to break down prejudices among Sunni scholars and intellectuals against the Shiites.

At the same time, in sermons distributed on tapes, as-Saffār emphasized the need for people to take responsibility for their own welfare in the form of civil society organizations. The effect of these sermons was reflected in a growing number of such organizations in the Shiite areas of Saudi Arabia in the late 1990s. In other sermons he discussed political concepts such as freedom and human rights . As-Saffār welcomed the Cairo Declaration of Human Rights in Islam by the Organization of the Islamic Conference of 1990 and stressed the need to continue down the path it had chosen. Contrary to what is stipulated in Article 10 of the Cairo Declaration, however, he called for absolute freedom of belief.

After the attacks by al-Qaeda on the Arabian Peninsula in 2003, Hasan as-Saffār took part twice in the meetings of the National Dialogue established by Crown Prince ʿAbdallāh . The concepts of dialogue, tolerance, condemnation of fanaticism ( taʿaṣṣub ) and religious extremism ( ġulūw ) promoted by ʿAbdallāh fit very well with the ideas discussed by Hasan as-Saffār and other reformist Shiites at the time. Together with Sunni reformists from Saudi Arabia, al-Saffār signed many of the petitions that circulated in 2003 and 2004. At the same time, he took over the discourse of the Sunni liberals, who focus on values ​​such as human rights, freedom and progress. He called on his followers to no longer accept the position of the oppressed ( al-mustaḍʿafūn ), to reject the group identity oriented towards suffering and to open up to the rest of Saudi society. Conversely, he also called on the state religious authorities to change their attitude towards the Shiites. For example, he complained that in a book published in 2002/2003 from among the council of great scholars it was declared that it was the task of the Sunnis ( ahl as-sunna ) to help the people of heretical innovations ( ahl al-bidaʿ ) to hate and despise them as Rāfidites and worshipers of tombs ( qubūrīyūn ).

In his book The Salafists and Shiites Towards a Better Relationship , published in 2006 , as-Saffār again emphasized the great importance of mutual respect for the peaceful coexistence of the various religious groups ( ṭawāʾif ). He urged the Salafis to break away from Ibn Taimīya's anti-Shiite views , which led to quarrels and discord.

In his book "The ideal monism in the religious field" from 2008, he advocated principles such as inclusion and openness ( infitāḥ ) as well as the institutionalization of criticism. He also criticized the Salafist claim to absoluteness and their practice of condemning all other Muslims who deviate from their teaching as supporters of heretical innovations.

Works

By 2009 Hasan as-Saffār had written 83 books and reviewed 4,000 tapes. His most famous books include:

  • at-Taʿaddudīya wa-l-ḥurrīya fī l-islām: baḥṯ ḥaula ḥurrīyat al-muʿtaqad wa-taʿaddud al-maḏāhib ("Pluralism and Freedom in Islam: Inquiry into Freedom of Faith and the Plurality of Teaching"), 1989.
  • Al-Maḏhab wa-l-waṭan: Mukāšafāt wa-ḥiwārāt ṣarīḥa maʿa samāḥat aš-šaiḫ Ḥasan as-Saffār aǧrā-hā ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz Qasīm ("Doctrine and Fatherland: Revelations of his ā €“ Hasrān, open dialogue, and emancipation of his "), 2005.
  • as-Salafīyūn wa-š-šīʿa naḥwa ʿalāqa afḍal ("The Salafists and Shiites Towards a Better Relationship"), 2006.
  • al-Aḥadīya al-fikrīya fī s-sāḥa ad-dīnīya ("The ideal monism in the religious field"), 2008.

literature

  • Mamoun Fandy: Saudi Arabia and the Politics of Dissent . Palgrave, New York, 1999. pp. 195-228.
  • Laurence Louër: Transnational Shia Politics: Religious and Political Networks in the Gulf . Hurst, London, 2008. pp. 145-148.
  • Toby Mathiesen: The other Saudis. Shiism, dissent and sectarianism. Cambridge University Press, New York, 2015. pp. 94-101.
  • Roel Meijer and Joas Wagemakers: The Struggle for Citizenship of the Shiites of Saudi Arabia in Brigitte Maréchal and Sami Zemni (ed.): The Dynamics of Sunni-Shia Relationships. Doctrine, Transnationalism, Intellectuals and the Media . Hurst & Company, London, 2013. pp. 117-138. Here pp. 121–129.
  • Menno Preuschaft: Religion, Nation and Identity: an investigation of the contemporary Saudi discourse on dealing with religious plurality . Ergon, Würzburg, 2014. pp. 319-335.
  • Guido Steinberg: "The Wahhabiyya and Shi'ism, from 1744/45 to 2008" in Ofra Bengio and Meir Litvak (eds.): The Sunna and Shi'a in History: Division and Ecumenism in the Muslim Middle East . Palgrave Macmillan, New York, 2011. pp. 163-182. Here pp. 175–178.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Cf. Mathiesen: The other Saudis. 2015, pp. 95f.
  2. ↑ Cf. Mathiesen: The other Saudis . 2015, p. 96.
  3. ↑ See Meijer / Wagemakers: The Struggle for Citizenship . 2013, p. 121.
  4. ↑ See Meijer / Wagemakers: The Struggle for Citizenship . 2013, p. 121.
  5. ↑ Cf. Mathiesen: The other Saudis . 2015, p. 100.
  6. ↑ See Steinberg: "The Wahhabiyya and Shi'ism". 2011, p. 175.
  7. ↑ Cf. Mathiesen: The other Saudis . 2015, p. 100.
  8. ↑ Cf. Mathiesen: The other Saudis . 2015, p. 100.
  9. ↑ See Meijer / Wagemakers: The Struggle for Citizenship . 2013, p. 122f.
  10. ↑ See the autobiography as-Saffārs on his website .
  11. ↑ Cf. Mathiesen: The other Saudis . 2015, p. 97.
  12. ↑ See Meijer / Wagemakers: The Struggle for Citizenship . 2013, p. 121.
  13. ↑ See Meijer / Wagemakers: The Struggle for Citizenship . 2013, p. 126.
  14. ↑ See Meijer / Wagemakers: The Struggle for Citizenship . 2013, p. 126.
  15. ↑ Quoted from Fandy: Saudi Arabia and the Politics of Dissent . 1999, p. 200.
  16. ↑ See Fandy: Saudi Arabia and the Politics of Dissent . 1999, p. 198.
  17. ↑ Cf. Mathiesen: The other Saudis . 2015, p. 97.
  18. ↑ See Fandy: Saudi Arabia and the Politics of Dissent . 1999, pp. 211-213.
  19. ↑ See Fandy: Saudi Arabia and the Politics of Dissent . 1999, pp. 215, 218.
  20. ↑ See Fandy: Saudi Arabia and the Politics of Dissent . 1999, p. 219.
  21. ↑ See Fandy: Saudi Arabia and the Politics of Dissent . 1999, p. 223.
  22. ↑ See Meijer / Wagemakers: The Struggle for Citizenship . 2013, p. 124.
  23. ↑ See Meijer / Wagemakers: The Struggle for Citizenship . 2013, p. 124f.
  24. ↑ See Meijer / Wagemakers: The Struggle for Citizenship . 2013, p. 127.
  25. ↑ See Meijer / Wagemakers: The Struggle for Citizenship . 2013, p. 126.
  26. ↑ See Meijer / Wagemakers: The Struggle for Citizenship . 2013, p. 123.
  27. ↑ See Meijer / Wagemakers: The Struggle for Citizenship . 2013, p. 128.
  28. ↑ See Meijer / Wagemakers: The Struggle for Citizenship . 2013, p. 124.
  29. ↑ See Meijer / Wagemakers: The Struggle for Citizenship . 2013, p. 126.
  30. ↑ See Meijer / Wagemakers: The Struggle for Citizenship . 2013, p. 125.
personal data
SURNAME Saffār, Hasan as-
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Saffār, Hasan ibn Mūsā as- (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Shiite activist, thinker and preacher of Saudi Arabia
DATE OF BIRTH 1958
PLACE OF BIRTH Qatīf, Ash-Sharqiyya Province