Abdel-Halim Mahmoud
ʿ Abd al - Halim Mahmūd (Arabic عبد الحليم محمود, DMG ʿ Abd al - Halim Mahmud * 1910, † 1978) was an Egyptian Sufi scholar of Schadhiliyya - Order, which since the late 1960s a major role in the Islamic discourse on the application of Sharia played and held from 1973 to 1978 the office of Sheikh al -Azhar. His admirers gave him the honorific nickname " al -Ghazali of the 20th century " in order to honor his contributions to the balance between Sufism and Islamic jurisprudence.
Life
The Sufi phase
Mahmūd was born in 1910 in a village in the province of al- Sharqiyah east of Ismailia Canal. His father was a trained at al- Azhar University Qadi, who owned a farm in the village. ʿ Abd al - Halim Mahmūd attended Koranic school ( Kuttab ) of the village, but also wrong in the circles of the Sufis who came to visit his father. After he had memorized the Koran at age 13, he attended an institute of the Al-Azhar University and enrolled in a Teacher Training Institute in Zagazig.
Subsequently, he studied at Al- Azhar University, among others, at Mahmūd Schaltūt and Muhammad Mustafa al - Maraghi. During this time he also maintained contact with Farid Wadschdī, a vehement opponent of atheism and materialism, and visited the society of young Muslim men. After he had in 1932 received the ʿ ālimīya Diploma of Azhar, he traveled to France, where he graduated in the fields of psychology, sociology and history of religion continued at the Sorbonne. In 1940 Mahmūd earned his doctorate under Louis Massignon with a dissertation on the Iraqi Sufi al - Harith al - Muhasibi ( 781-857 ). The book was in the same year in Paris under the title Al- Moḥâsibî. Un mystique musulman religieux et moraliste published. During his time in France Mahmūd had also contacted the French mystics and Sufi Rene Guenon and was greatly influenced by him. In 1954 he published a book on Guénon, in which he presented this as " Muslim philosophers " ( failasūf muslim ).
From 1941 to 1951 Mahmūd taught as a professor at Al-Azhar University Philosophy and Psychology from 1951 to 1964. At the same time kept his interest in the Sufism. In 1960 he met the Sufi master ʿ Abd al - Fattah al -Qadi ( 1899-1964 ) and was introduced in the branch of Schādhiliyya the Order established in the village in the Nile Delta Schiblandscha.
In 1964 he was appointed Dean of the Faculty of Theology ( Usool ad - dīn ) Al-Azhar University. While he held this office, he wrote a two -volume work on the "Rules and Secrets " ( Ahkam wa - Asrār ) of Islamic worship, in particular dhikr, ʿ ā ʾ You, lettuce, Zakat, Fasting, Hajj and Jihad. Here he trod a middle ground between a legal representation and mystical interpretation of cultic regulations of Islam.
Change for the proponents of Sharia
In the late 1960s experienced Mahmūd a rapid rise in the religious administration of Egypt. He was appointed Secretary General of the Egyptian " Academy for Islamic Studies " ( maǧma ʿ al - al - Islamiya buḥūṯ ) 1968, which was at that time one of the most important instruments of Nasser's religious policy. Under his leadership, experienced the Academy, which organized annual international conferences since 1964, an important change of direction. Namely, while in the mid- 1960, the responsibility for an Islamic behavior to individuals and transmitted as an ideal forming an "Islamic personality " ( šaḫṣīya Islamiya ) was propagated, the demand for imposition of Sharia law was at the conference of 1968 for the first time by the State levied. In March 1969 Mahmūd appointed a commission of four scholars, whom he charged with the codification of Sharia according to the four schools of law.
1970 Mahmūd President of al -Azhar University, from 1971 to 1973 he served as Minister of foundations and Azhar Affairs. In 1972 he initiated in this office a commission to draw up a draft constitution for an Islamic Egypt.
Until October 1978 held from April 1973 Mahmūd finally the Office of the United sheikhs of the Azhar, who is responsible for both the al -Azhar University as well as al -Azhar mosque and standing at the top of the Azhar hierarchy. His insistence on the application of the Sharia project earned him the distrust of President Anwar al - Sadat, who by decree eluded him in July 1974, the control of the Azhar and they imputed to the Minister of Religious Endowments. Since Mahmūd pointed out that this was a violation of the Azhar Act of 1961, and threatened to resign, the President made him a short time later in his full rights and awarded him in 1975 under a new implementing law for the Azhar Act of 1961 even ministerial rank.
Mid -1970s, Mahmūd dealt intensively with communism and condemned him as a godless ideology. In a fatwa, which was published in 1976, he had announced: "Communism is unbelief, and all who follow him, do not have a piece of faith. " Conversely, he tried to find a balance with the Islamic groups. In 1977, the extremist group Takfir wa'l - Hijra at- the former Minister Muhammad Husain Foundation Dhahabi murdered, the military court asked him for a fatwa condemning the perpetrators as infidels. However Mahmūd refused, arguing that unbelief is a matter of thinking and so far he first must examine the thoughts of this group before he could issue such a fatwa. Finally, he called for a dialogue with the group, so that idea could be made against thought.
He also sought further by the Islamization of law. In 1976, he established a " High Commission " to a revision and modification of positive law in Egypt. This Commission presented in 1977 a draft for a criminal law, in which the hadd punishments were. Shortly before his death in 1978 founded Mahmūd at Al-Azhar University has its own faculty of Islamic mission.
Selected Works
- Al- Moḥâsibî. Un mystique musulman religieux et moraliste. Paris: Paul Geuthner 1940.
- Al- ʿ Ibada. Ahkam wa - Asrār. 2 vols Cairo in 1968/69.
- Fatawa ʿ at aš - Suyu ʿ iya. Cairo 1976. Advisory opinion on Communism.