KHUTAB IV: 17. MUṢȚAFÁ MAḤMŪD
17. MUṢȚAFÁ MAḤMŪD
(ANUMA 6.9.09)
Brothers in Islam
The Prophet said in a long h.adīth on the authority of Abu’l-
Dardā’ الْعُلَمَاءُ
وَرَثَةُ اْلأَنْبِيَاء (رواه أبو داؤد و الترمذي) “The ‘ulamā’ (Muslim scholars) are inheritors of
prophets” (Reported by
Abū Dā’ūd amd Tirmidhī). Last
Saturday, on 31 October 2009, the Muslim world has lost a great scholar, a
Muslim thinker, a physician, a writer, and a man of letters, Dr. Mus.t.afā Mah.mūd (27 December 1921 – 31 October
2009) at the age of 88. His full name is Muṣṭafá Kamāl Maḥmūd Ḥusayn Āl Maḥfūẓ,
one of the sharīf (descendants of the Prophet) through ‘Alī Zayn
al-Ābidīn b. al-Ḥusayn b. b. ‘Alī b. Abī
Ṭālib r.a. His twin brother died the year they were born. Hiss father
aḥmūd died in 1939 after several years of suffering from paralysis. He studied medicine and was graduated in 1953,
but he occupied himself exclusively with writing and doing researches in 1960.
He got married in 1961, but the marriage ended with divorce in 1973 with two
children, Amāl and Adham. Ten years later, in 1983 he married again, but again
ended with divorce in 1987.
His Life
Dr. Mus.t.afā Mah.mūd
lived in Tanta in Egypt near the well-known al-Sayyid
al-Badawi Mosque which is well frequented by Muslims, especially the Sufis.
This has influence on him. He was an outstanding student, and when his teacher
beat him he stopped attending school until the teacher moved to another school
three years later. At home he made a small soap and insect extermination
factory, and studied the anatomy of these insects. When he entered the faculty
of medicine he was nicknamed “the anatomist” for his staying long before the
corpses, raising questions directing to himself around the secret of life and
after-life, and of death and after-death. Among his 88 books are entitled لُغْزُ الْحَيَاة (The Mystery of Life) and لُغْزُ الْمَوْت (The Mystery of Death). When he was offered a ministerial post by
the late President Anwar Sadat, he declined saying that he failed in even a
minor institution, the institution of marriage, as he had marriage twice and
divorced twice.
His
Search for Allah
When the
materialistic trend of the philosophy of existentialism of the French
philosopher (Jean Paul Sartre) occurred in the sixties Dr. Mus.t.afā Mah.mūd
was not immune of its influence. He said that it took
him thirty years searching, reading books, spending thousands of nights alone
contemplating and changing ideas in every aspect in order to find the right but
thorny road to the truth. He read on Buddhism, Brahmanism, Zoroastrianism, the
Hindu philosophy of pantheism (وَحْدَةُ
الْوُجُوْد) , namely, Unity of Existence, the idea that
the Creator and the creatures are One, the Lord and the Universe are One, which
is the hidden force in every creature. In this period of confusion he never
doubted the existence of Allah, but he doubted whether He is the three divine
persons in the Christian doctrine of trinity, Yahweh of Judaism,
or Kali in Hinduism. In Judaism, it is a taboo to mention the personal name of
God, Elohim (in Arabic, Allah), so the Jews refer to Him as Yahweh
(in Arabic, according to late Ah.mad Deedat, يَا هُوَ “O
He”, and sounds like yahoo.com), and in English Jehovah. Kali is
the feminine form of the Sanskrit kala, meaning “time”; this word is
adopted in Malay-Indonesian language beside the term waktu which is from
Arabic waqt (وَقْت). Kali is the consort of the Hindu
god Shiva in her manifestation of the power of time. This reminds us of the
expression of the pagan Arabs in the early period of Islam when they denied the
Hereafter and said, “there would be nothing that would destroy us but time.” Kali
represents an aspect of the terror of Shakti, or the dynamic energy
of a Hindu god, personified as his female consort.[1]
This kind of
experience, living in doubt, confusion and unsettled mind in search of the
truth was not new. It happened to others like al-Imām al-Ghazālī and the philosopher
Descartes. However, al-Imām al-Ghazāli spent six months only, while Mus.t.afā Mah.mūd
spent thirty years in searching for the truth.
Al-Ghazālī talked about the inner inspiration that rescued him, whereas
Mus.t.afā Mah.mūd relied on fit.rah, the natural disposition in
man in finding the truth.
His career:
1.
He wrote 89 books in
his 88 years on various subjects: science, religion, philosophy, society,
politic, stories, plays, and travel stories.
In
addition, he presented 400 series of lectures (courses) on TV called al-‘Ilm
wa ’l-Īmān (Knowledge and Faith).
2. In 1979 he built his mosque in Cairo which he called Masjid
Maḥmud in memory of his father, but known as Masjid Musṭafā Maḥmūd.
Then he built three medical centres with various specialization for treating
people with low income where patients come for their medical reputation,
attended by 16 physicians. Besides, he also built four astronomical
observatories, and a geological museum run by specialists. The museum contains
a collection of granite rocks, embalmed butterflies, and some sea creatures.
3.
He also founded a
charitable organization called Musṭafā Maḥmūd Charitable
Foundation (جَمْعِيَّةُ مُصْطَفَى مَحْمُوْد
ْالخَيْرِيَّة)
Among
Dr. Musṭafā Maḥmūd’s books are:
اللهُ. الطبعة الأولى. بيروت : دار العودة ، ١٩٧٢.(Allāh, Beirut, 1972)
حَوارٌ مَعَ صَدِيْقِي ْاُلْمُْلْحِد. الطبعة الأولى. بيروت :دار العودة ،١٩٧٤.
(A Dialogue with My Atheist Friend, Beirut,
1974)
لُغزُ ْالُمْوت .القاهرة : دار الجيل للطباعة ، ١٩٦١ , The
Mystery of Death
Cairo,
1961)
الْمَارْكِسِيَّةُ وَ اْلإسْلام. القاهرة : دار المعارف ، ١٩٧٥.
(Marxism and Islam, Cairo, 1975)
الْقُرْآنُ : مُحَاوَلَةٌ ِلفَهْمٍ عَصْرِيٍّ. بيروت و القاهرة : دار الشروق: ١٣٩٤/١٩٧٤
(The Qur’ān: An Attempt to Understand It
thorough
Modern Perception, Beirut and Cairo, 1394/1974)
اْلوُجُوْدُ وَ اْلعَدَم . القاهرة: دار المعارف ، ١٩٧٦.
(Existence
and non-Existencet, Cairo, 1976)
رِحْلَتِيْ مِنْ الَّشكِّ
إلَى ْالإيْمَان (My Journey from Doubt to Faith)
In his book حَوارٌ مَعَ صَدِيْقِي ْاُلْمُْلْحِد (A
Dialogue with My Atheist Friend) he
deals with the question raised by those who do not believe in God, i.e., “If
God exists, then who creates God?” his answer can be outlined as follows:
a.
The question itself is wrong, because: 1) the Creator cannot be, at the
same time, created; 2) God who created time and space is not subject to them; 3)
God who creates the law of causality (قَانُونُ السَّبَبية) is not subject to it.
b. Emmanuel Kant (1724-1804 CE)
himself admitted that reason cannot encompass the infinite truths. Reason in
its nature is only capable of perceiving جُزْئِيَّات (juz’iyyāt, particles), not the absolute existence (الوُجُودُ الكُلِّيّ), the existence of God. Kant asserted further that it is through
conscience and not through reason that we perceive God, like the occurrence of
thirst indicates the existence of water.
c. Aristotle (348-322 BC) in his
sequent digression of causes said that the chair is made of wood, wood is from
the tree which, in turn, is from a seed, and the seed is from the farmer, and
so on, until this sequence ends with a first mover which does not need a cause,
primum mubile. This, according to Mus.t.afā Mah.mūd,
is God.[2]
There are many reasonsthat lead the atheists to reject the existence of God.
One of them is the existence of evil. The atheists contend that since this
world is full of evil it cannot be created by a Creator who is Wise, All
Knowing, Merciful and Generous. In refuting this statement I have given his
arguments in one of my khutbahs: that judging a play by watching only one act of it is misleading; without wrong-doing (إسَاءَة), hurting (أَلَم) and
injustice (ظُلُم) there would be no forgiveness, mercy and justice; a thing that
seems to be a defect in a partial view is actually a blessing and goodness in
the whole sight; evil is one aspect of the nature of freedom given to man by
God; good and evil are two sides of one coin, as evil in its pure origin does
not exist. There is only lack of goodness.[3]
With regard to God’s Most Beautiful Names (الأَسْمَاءُ ْالحُسْنَى), which also indicate His attributes, among the ninety-nine
names mentioned in the Qur’ān, some of them are
applicable to man. A man can also be generous, merciful, and so on, but cannot
be Allah. This is because Allah is the
name of God’s Essence, while other names are the names of His divine
attributes. However, he contends that although man shares some of God’s
attributes, man’s attributes are limited, while those of God are
unlimited. Man can be generous, but his
generosity is limited to what Allah has given him, while Allah’s generosity is
unlimited to unlimited creatures.[4]
Speaking about Allah’s attribute العَدْل (al-‘Adl, the Just) in his book Allah, Dr. Mus.t.afá Mah.mūd says that the occurrence of
justice cannot be imagined except with and from God Himself, because He
encompasses everything with His knowledge. Any worldly disaster has goodness in
it, because that disaster is a work of mercy and justice. Cursing with the occurrence of misfortune is
a childish attitude. He says that there are many handicapped persons who are
endowed with special gift and ability.
Moreover, some diseases create trace in the body of the infected one.
The body secretes a kind of substance to defend itself against a certain
disease after it has been infected by it.
(We have to remember that he was a physician).[5]
Speaking about the
present situation of Islam and the Muslims he says that the believers see this
world as a play in on the stage and a place to do good for the sake of the
Hereafter, but very few of them do it. The majority of them has deviated from
the right way and has been attached to this world, and their intellectuals have
lost their identity, have forgotten their past and have denied their history
and see the only way to reach success is through Western secularity. Their eyes
have become blind of the dark side of secular life, such as sexual deviation,
crime, mental sickness, suicide, spiritual emptiness, family disintegration,
and the death of spirit out of thirst. At the same time we see that in the
heart of the secular fortress in the West some people look at Islam as a
solution, among them scholars, thinkers, politicians like Garoudy, Leopold
Weis, and Maurice Buccaille. On the contrary educated Muslims in our country
turned to atheistic materialism, and look scornfully at those who bring Islamic
mission to the West.
Dr. Mus.t.afá Mah.mūd
says further that we are living in the era where religious and intellectual
trends are at the cross-road led by two big trends: Islamic trend brought by
poor, weak and helpless people, whereas the secular trend is brought by
powerful, intelligent, oppressive, watchful and immoral people. A merchandise
of good quality brought by poor, barefoot traders wearing shabby clothes is being
displayed on the sidewalk where flies sleep, whereas a merchandise of bad
quality is being brought by traders who are rich, very intelligent, very tricky,
and know very well how to advertise their commodity.
The merchandise of bad quality is the one in demand
and becomes dominant because of the intelligence and the great authority of its
owners; this merchandise is secularism. The merchandise of good quality, i.e.,
Islam becomes unsalable (dead stock) because of the weakness and poor condition
of its owner.
His Death
Dr. Mus.t.afá Mah.mūd
passed away at 7.30 in the morning of Saturday 2nd of Dhu ‘l-Qi‘dah
1430 AH corresponding to 31 October 2009 CE after several months of undergoing medical
treatment, at the age of close to 88 years. His funeral procession started from
his own mosque at Madīnat al-Muhandisīn quarter in a suburb of Cairo.
Bibliography:
Funk &
Wagnalls New Encyclopedia, s.v. kali.
الدكتور مصطفى محمود. حَِوارٌ مَعَ
صَدِيْقِي ْاُلْمُْلْحِد. الطبعة الأولى. بيروت :دار العودة
،١٩٧٤.
________. اللهُ. الطبعة الأولى. بيروت : دار العودة ، ١٩٧٢.
________. الْْقُرْآنُ : مُحَاوَلَةٌ ِلفَهْمٍ عَصْرِيٍّ. بيروت و القاهرة : دار الشروق: ١٣٩٤/١٩٧٤
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