Al-Ash’ari’s repudiation of Mu’tazilism was both comprehensive and monumentally effective. He composed more than ninety books and treatises on all aspects of Islamic beliefs (Aqidah) and theology (kalam), in refutation of the Mu’tazilite creed, and aspects of Islamic epistemology and philosophy.
Led by eminent Islamic scholars like Ahmad ibn Hanbal, the traditionalists vehemently opposed the philosophical interpretation of Islamic theological matters. Al-Ash’ari stated that the Qur’an was the uncreated (Ghair Makhluq), eternal Word of God, and that only the ink, paper and individual letters were created. The Mu’tazilite creed was eventually rooted out from the intellectual and cultural lives of Muslims.
Al-Ash’ari was not only an outstanding Islamic intellectual; he was also one of the greatest religious thinkers of all time. He died and was buried in a place close to Bab Al-Basrah (or ‘the Gate of Basrah’); he was sixty-eight at the time. Ash’arism became the most dominant religious theology in the Muslim world.
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Abul Hasan al-Mas’udi (895-957): After the emergence of Islam in seventh century Arabia, the once illiterate and uncivilized Bedouins of the desert burst onto the global stage under the banner of their new faith and transformed the course of human history. The Arabs crushed the mighty Roman and Persian Empires and carved out for themselves one of the greatest empires in history. Muslims prepared the way for the emergence of modern science, culture and civilization. The tenth century was one of the most intellectually productive periods in the history of Islam, for it was during this period that great Muslim thinkers like Ibn Sina, al-Farabi, al-Razi, al-Biruni and Ibn al-Haytham lived and thrived. Al-Mas’udi, the famous Muslim scholar and polymath, also lived during this period and contributed immensely to the development of science, philosophy, Islamic history, geology, geography and natural history.
Abul Hasan Ali ibn Hussain ibn Ali al-Mas’udi was born in Baghdad during the reign of the Abbasid Caliph Mu’tadid. Al-Mas’udi grew up at a time when the influence of Mu’tazilism was still very strong within the intellectual and cultural circles of Baghdad, which at the time was one of the Muslim world’s foremost centers of philosophical and scientific learning. After completing his formal education, he left his native Baghdad and travelled extensively in pursuit of knowledge. Like Ibn Sina, al-Razi and al-Biruni (who were his contemporaries), the incessant pursuit of knowledge and wisdom became his main preoccupation in life.
Everywhere he went al-Mas’udi carefully observed both the geographical and demographical make-up of the place, and took copious notes about the locals, their culture, traditions and social habits. Three centuries before Marco Polo and Ibn Batuttah were born, al-Mas’udi travelled across a significant part of the then-known world on his own. From his native Baghdad, he journeyed across Persia and reached India while he was still in his twenties. From India, he retreated to Kirman in Persia, where he stayed for a period of time before returning again to India. After a short stay in Madagascar, he set out for what is now the Gulf State of Oman, via Basrah. Al-Mas’udi then travelled across the Middle East and Asia in pursuit of knowledge, and in the process he became a pioneering cultural explorer as well as a great geographer.
Prior to al-Mas’udi’s time, some of the Muslim world’s great thinkers and scientists (like al-Khwarizmi, al-Kindi and al-Sarakhsi) had researched and written extensively on these subjects. Indeed, al-Khwarizmi’s celebrated book Kitab Surat al-Ard (Book on the Shape of Earth) was a pioneering work in the field of geography which later inspired other Muslim scientists and geographers to pursue advanced research in this subject.
It was during his stay in Basrah that al-Mas’udi recorded his ideas and thoughts on a wide range of subjects (including history, geology and geography) in the form of a book. He paved the way for other Muslim thinkers, such as Ibn Khaldun, to pursue their sociological analysis of culture and society. The accounts of his journeys were accurate, vivid and comprehensive. Considered to be one of the most comprehensive works ever written on the subject of history, geology and geography, al-Mas’udi completed the first draft of his book in 947. He later revised it in 956 and a French translation was published in Paris between 1861 and 1877 in nine bulky volumes.
In addition to being a pioneering explorer, a gifted geologist and an outstanding geographer, al-Mas’udi was also a historian of the highest caliber. Along with al-Baladhuri, al-Tabari, al-Isfahani, Ibn al-Athir and Ibn Khaldun, he is today considered to be one of the Muslim world’s greatest historians.
Hailed as a masterpiece, al-Mas’udi’s work has recently been published in English in thirty-eight volumes. He did not collect a large quantity of information and compile it in chronological order; instead he adopted a critical approach to writing and interpreting history.
Toward the end of his life, al-Mas’udi left Basrah and moved to Syria for a period. He then went to Cairo where he composed another voluminous work on history. Entitled Akhbar al-Zaman (An Account of Times), this work on history and culture consisted of around thirty volumes.
Al-Mas’udi became known as the ‘Herodotus and Pliny of the Arabs’. He died at the age of sixty-two and was buried in al-Fustat, Egypt.
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Abul Hasan al-Shadhili (1197-1258): According to a famous Prophetic tradition (Hadith), at the turn of every century there will emerge a Mujaddid (or religious regenerator) who will call the Muslims back to the original, pristine message of Islam. Eminent Sufi sages like Hasan al-Basri, Abd al-Qadir al-Jilani, Jalal al-Din Rumi, Khwajah Naqshband, Shihab al-Din Umar Suhrawardi, Mu’in al-Din Chishti and Najm al-Din Kubra (who contributed immensely to the preservation and dissemination of Islam as a religion and a way of life) were not considered to be Mujaddid. Of the numerous Sufi Orders (Tariqah) which emerged in the Muslim world over the last fourteen centuries, the Qadiriyyah, Naqshbandiyyah and the Chishtiyyah are considered to be the most popular and prominent. However, the Sufi Order founded by Abul Hasan al-Shadhili, the great North African Sufi scholar and sage, also played a pivotal role in the preservation of Islamic thought and practices in North Africa, as well as the dissemination of Islam across Europe and America.
Abul Hasan Ali ibn Abdullah al-Shadhili, known as Imam Shadhili for short, was born in the district of Ghumara, located close to modern Ceuta in Morocco. Living during this relatively peaceful rule of the al-Mohads (this dynasty was founded in the middle of the twelfth century by Abu Abdullah Muhammad ibn Abdullah ibn Tumart, a prominent North African Islamic reformer of the time), Shadhili became a devout student of Islam from an early age.
His time with Shaykh Mashish represented a major turning point in Shadhili’s life, for it was during this period that he mastered the rigorous methods of Sufism and began to experience Islamic spirituality in its highest form. After completing his training with Shaykh Mashish, Shadhili left his native Morocco and moved to a town called Shadhila in Tunisia; henceforth he became known as Imam Shadhili. The movement started by him later became known as Tariqah al-Shadhiliyyah (or the Shadhiliyyah Sufi Order). Islamic spirituality – as championed by Shadhili – thus spread across Tunisia, Morocco and many other parts of North Africa during his own lifetime.
In 1244, at the age of forty-seven, Shadhili claimed to have been blessed with another vision wherein he was instructed to leave Tunisia and go to Egypt to propagate Islam there. Accompanied by his family, friends and disciples, he left North Africa and moved to Alexandria where he established a Shadhiliyyah Zawiyyah.
To prove there was no contradiction between the Prophetic way (Minhaj al-sunnah) and the ways of Tasawwuf, Shadhili took part in the Battle of al-Mansura, where the Muslims fought against the Crusaders led by St. Louis of France. He insisted on taking part in the battle, despite being blind, and thereby proved that one does not have to become a hermit to be a Sufi.
The age of Shadhili was indeed one of the most significant periods in the annals of Sufism. These influential Sufis inspired the Muslim masses to reject the forces of materialism and self-indulgence which threatened to overwhelm Islamic societies both in the East and the West. At the same time, the Muslim world