Islam in World Cultures: Comparative Perspectives - Islamic Books ...

6 6Islam i n World Cult u r e sThe pioneer of this puritanical stream of modern Islam was MuhammadIbn Abd al-Wahhab, an eighteenth-century reformer and client of the Sa’udf a m i l y. Al-Wahhab denounced what he saw as the superstitious reverence forsaints in the Sufism of his day, as well as the social inequality inherent in thepractice of discipleship to the families of charismatic Sufi leaders. Followinghis lead, present-day Yemeni Wahhabis denounce and sometimes disrupt ritualsat the graves of local Sufi saints. In doing this, they hearken back, likeSalafis everywhere, to their own constructed vision of the authentic practicesof the Prophet’s companions, which, they argue, have been corrupted overtime. But unlike other Muslim movements of similar orientation, such as theMuslim Brotherhood, Wahhabis in Yemen do not emphasize charitable activities,the use of technology, education, or scriptural interpretation. Contempora ry Sufi orders, on the other hand, maintain Sufi rituals but downplay its mysticaltheology, stressing instead the continuity of their local history, in contrastto that of the Salafis. They claim that their tradition is not ruptured from theimmediate past but, rather, maintains an unbroken line of authentic traditionstretching through previous generations to the first Muslims, a different way ofclaiming authentic historical practice. They criticize the Salafis as being foreigninspired and focus on the legacy of charity and outreach work of localSufi families, using to that end all the media technology and educational practicesusually associated with modernists (Knysh 2001).The constant crossing and transcending of boundaries and categories andthe reformulation of Islamic culture in new forms by new populations occursin official as well as unofficial institutions. In Egypt, and in most other countriesin the region, Islam is the official religion of the state. This means thatMiddle Eastern governments take responsibility for basic Islamic education,the maintenance of some portion of the countries’ mosques, the employmentof preachers, and the administration of financial structures that support religiouscauses. Until the late nineteenth century, this was very rare in the statesof the region. Tr a d i t i o n a l l y, mosques, shrines, m a d r a s as, and charitable organizationsin the Middle East had been supported by private endowments calledw a q f . These were tax-exempt bequests of land or other wealth for the supportof religious institutions, usually administered by members of the family whodonated them. Religious scholars made their livings variously as teachers,scribes, Qur’an reciters, or m u f t is. Over the course of the nineteenth and twentiethcenturies, most Middle Eastern governments have encroached on this“private sector” of religious institutions and taken over the responsibility of administeringw a q f properties and the institutions, individuals, and activities theyfund. Because of governments’ new roles in relation to the regulation of religionand society, conflicts of political interest expose them to sharp criticismby Muslims who oppose particular policies or practices perceived as being un-Islamic. Popular targets of such critiques include the governmental sanction of