Sunday, December 5, 2010
Shaykh Mustafa Ceric
Shaykh Mustafa Ceric, Grand Mufti of Bosnia and Herzegovina
born 1952 in Visoko, Bosnia and Herzegovina, then Yugoslavia) is the Grand Mufti (reis-ul-ulema) of Bosnia-Herzegovina. He is serving his second 7-year term until 2013. He is fluent in Bosnian, English and Arabic, and cites a “passive knowledge” of Turkish, German and French. Cerić is married and has two daughters and a son.
Cerić graduated from the Madresa in Sarajevo and received a scholarship to Al-Azhar University in Cairo, Egypt. After his schooling there, he returned to his native Bosnia-Herzegovina, where he became an Imam. In 1981, he accepted the position of Imam at the Islamic Cultural Center of Greater Chicago in Northbrook, Illinois and settled in the United States for several years. He learned English and earned a Ph.D. at the University of Chicago in Islamic Studies. When he finished his studies, he returned to his homeland, leaving the ICC and becoming a practicing Imam in a learning center in Zagreb in 1987. He officially became the Grand Mufti of Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1999, although he has led the Islamic community in Bosnia since 1993
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Shaykh Mustafa Ceric, Grand Mufti of Bosnia and Herzegovina
born 1952 in Visoko, Bosnia and Herzegovina, then Yugoslavia) is the Grand Mufti (reis-ul-ulema) of Bosnia-Herzegovina. He is serving his second 7-year term until 2013. He is fluent in Bosnian, English and Arabic, and cites a “passive knowledge” of Turkish, German and French. Cerić is married and has two daughters and a son.
Cerić graduated from the Madresa in Sarajevo and received a scholarship to Al-Azhar University in Cairo, Egypt. After his schooling there, he returned to his native Bosnia-Herzegovina, where he became an Imam. In 1981, he accepted the position of Imam at the Islamic Cultural Center of Greater Chicago in Northbrook, Illinois and settled in the United States for several years. He learned English and earned a Ph.D. at the University of Chicago in Islamic Studies. When he finished his studies, he returned to his homeland, leaving the ICC and becoming a practicing Imam in a learning center in Zagreb in 1987. He officially became the Grand Mufti of Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1999, although he has led the Islamic community in Bosnia since 1993
Sheikh Ali Gomaa
Sheikh Ali Gomaa was born on March 3rd 1952 in Bani Suwaif, Upper Egypt. He was raised in a pious household that respected knowledge. His father, a lawyer specializing in personal status shariah law, transferred his love of books to his son whose private library now boasts over 30,000 titles and is sought out by students and researchers from around the world in need of rare texts.
Sheikh Ali began memorizing the Quran at the age of ten and, although he did not go to religious schools, by the time he graduated from high school he had studied the six canonical collections of hadith as well as Maliki jurisprudence. When it came time for him to go to college he had the choice to enter either the faculty engineering or the faculty of commerce. He chose commerce since it was a field that would allow him the spare time to continue his religious studies while he was in school.
After graduating from college Sheikh Ali enrolled in al-Azhar University. During his first year in al-Azhar he memorized many of the foundational texts that other students who had gone through the al-Alzhar high school system had already encountered. These included works in jurisprudence, Arabic grammar, Quranic recitation, and hadith methodology. After completing a second bachelor's degree from al-Azhar in 1979, Sheikh Ali enrolled in a master's degree program at the same university's department of shariah and law. He obtained his master's degree in 1985 followed by a PhD from the same department in 1988.
In addition to his official studies, Sheikh Ali spent time with many sheikhs and masters of the shariah sciences and the spiritual path outside of the university setting. The most influential of these sheikhs was the Moroccan hadith scholar and Sufi Sheikh Abdullah bin Siddiq al-Ghumari who considered Sheikh Ali to be one of his most accomplished students.
Other scholars that Sheikh Ali studied with include: Sheikh Abd al-Fattah Abu Ghuda, Sheikh Muhammad Abu Nur Zuhayr, Sheikh Jad al-Rabb Ramadan Goma', Sheikh al-Husayni Yusif al-Shaykh, Sheikh Muhammad Yasin al-Fadani, Sheikh Abd al-Jalil al-Qarnishawi al-Maliki, Sheikh al-Azhar Sheikh Jad al-Haqq Ali Jadd al-Haq, Sheikh Abd al-'Aziz al-Zayat, Sheikh Ahmed Muhammad Mursi al-Naqshibandi, Sheikh Muhammad Zaki Ibrahim, and Sheikh Muhammad Hafidh al-Tijani.
Before his appointment as Grand Mufti of Egypt, Sheikh Ali was Professor of Juristic Methodologies at al-Azhar University. In addition to teaching classes on the university campus, in the mid-1990's Sheikh Ali reestablished the tradition of giving lessons in the al-Azhar mosque. For a decade Sheikh Ali could be found in one of the side rooms of the mosque teaching jurisprudence, juristic methodology, hadith and its sciences, theology, and spirituality from the early morning until noon six days a week. These lessons were open to the public and a number of students who had adopted an extremist approach to religion attended regularly. Sheikh Ali engaged these students challenging their understanding of Islam and offering alternative interpretations to extremist views. As a result many of these students renounced extremism and embraced the more moderate vision of Islam that Sheikh Ali taught. A close circle of young religious scholars who had adopted his approach soon formed around Sheikh Ali and now that much of his time is taken up with official duties, this group of scholars continues the tradition of giving informal lessons in the al-Azhar mosque.
In 1998 Sheikh Ali began delivering the Friday sermon at Cairo's Sultan Hasan Mosque, one of the city's grandest and most beautiful examples of Mamluk architecture. His sermons drew a crowd of hundreds, many of whom would remain after the prayer to attend his public lesson and question and answer session. In the ten years since he began delivering sermons there Cairenes from all walks of life have been drawn to Sultan Hasan to hear his message that emphasizes mercy, intelligence, and understanding when confronting the difficulties of the contemporary world.
In 2003 Sheikh Ali was appointed Grand Mufti of Egypt. Since taking on the position he has revolutionized the process of issuing fatwas in Egypt transforming Dar al-Ifta from a institution that was the extension of one individual (the Grand Mufti) to a modern institution with a fatwa council and a system of checks and balances. Sheikh Ali has also added a technological aspect to the institution by developing a sophisticated website and call center through which people can request fatwas even if they are unable to come to the institution personally. Over the last five years Sheikh Ali has overseen the issuance of many important, and some controversial, fatwas all of which share the common characteristic of striving to show the continued relevance of Islam for people living in the 21st century. The methodology according to which this is carried out can be characterized by a profound respect for the intellectual product of the past accompanied by a realization of its shortcomings, when they exist, and an understanding of the specific needs the times in which we live.
Sheikh Ali is a prolific author and writer on Islamic issues and he writes a weekly column in the Egyptian al-Ahram newspaper in which he discusses matters of current interest and religion.
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Sheikh Ali Gomaa
Sheikh Ali Gomaa was born on March 3rd 1952 in Bani Suwaif, Upper Egypt. He was raised in a pious household that respected knowledge. His father, a lawyer specializing in personal status shariah law, transferred his love of books to his son whose private library now boasts over 30,000 titles and is sought out by students and researchers from around the world in need of rare texts.
Sheikh Ali began memorizing the Quran at the age of ten and, although he did not go to religious schools, by the time he graduated from high school he had studied the six canonical collections of hadith as well as Maliki jurisprudence. When it came time for him to go to college he had the choice to enter either the faculty engineering or the faculty of commerce. He chose commerce since it was a field that would allow him the spare time to continue his religious studies while he was in school.
After graduating from college Sheikh Ali enrolled in al-Azhar University. During his first year in al-Azhar he memorized many of the foundational texts that other students who had gone through the al-Alzhar high school system had already encountered. These included works in jurisprudence, Arabic grammar, Quranic recitation, and hadith methodology. After completing a second bachelor's degree from al-Azhar in 1979, Sheikh Ali enrolled in a master's degree program at the same university's department of shariah and law. He obtained his master's degree in 1985 followed by a PhD from the same department in 1988.
In addition to his official studies, Sheikh Ali spent time with many sheikhs and masters of the shariah sciences and the spiritual path outside of the university setting. The most influential of these sheikhs was the Moroccan hadith scholar and Sufi Sheikh Abdullah bin Siddiq al-Ghumari who considered Sheikh Ali to be one of his most accomplished students.
Other scholars that Sheikh Ali studied with include: Sheikh Abd al-Fattah Abu Ghuda, Sheikh Muhammad Abu Nur Zuhayr, Sheikh Jad al-Rabb Ramadan Goma', Sheikh al-Husayni Yusif al-Shaykh, Sheikh Muhammad Yasin al-Fadani, Sheikh Abd al-Jalil al-Qarnishawi al-Maliki, Sheikh al-Azhar Sheikh Jad al-Haqq Ali Jadd al-Haq, Sheikh Abd al-'Aziz al-Zayat, Sheikh Ahmed Muhammad Mursi al-Naqshibandi, Sheikh Muhammad Zaki Ibrahim, and Sheikh Muhammad Hafidh al-Tijani.
Before his appointment as Grand Mufti of Egypt, Sheikh Ali was Professor of Juristic Methodologies at al-Azhar University. In addition to teaching classes on the university campus, in the mid-1990's Sheikh Ali reestablished the tradition of giving lessons in the al-Azhar mosque. For a decade Sheikh Ali could be found in one of the side rooms of the mosque teaching jurisprudence, juristic methodology, hadith and its sciences, theology, and spirituality from the early morning until noon six days a week. These lessons were open to the public and a number of students who had adopted an extremist approach to religion attended regularly. Sheikh Ali engaged these students challenging their understanding of Islam and offering alternative interpretations to extremist views. As a result many of these students renounced extremism and embraced the more moderate vision of Islam that Sheikh Ali taught. A close circle of young religious scholars who had adopted his approach soon formed around Sheikh Ali and now that much of his time is taken up with official duties, this group of scholars continues the tradition of giving informal lessons in the al-Azhar mosque.
In 1998 Sheikh Ali began delivering the Friday sermon at Cairo's Sultan Hasan Mosque, one of the city's grandest and most beautiful examples of Mamluk architecture. His sermons drew a crowd of hundreds, many of whom would remain after the prayer to attend his public lesson and question and answer session. In the ten years since he began delivering sermons there Cairenes from all walks of life have been drawn to Sultan Hasan to hear his message that emphasizes mercy, intelligence, and understanding when confronting the difficulties of the contemporary world.
In 2003 Sheikh Ali was appointed Grand Mufti of Egypt. Since taking on the position he has revolutionized the process of issuing fatwas in Egypt transforming Dar al-Ifta from a institution that was the extension of one individual (the Grand Mufti) to a modern institution with a fatwa council and a system of checks and balances. Sheikh Ali has also added a technological aspect to the institution by developing a sophisticated website and call center through which people can request fatwas even if they are unable to come to the institution personally. Over the last five years Sheikh Ali has overseen the issuance of many important, and some controversial, fatwas all of which share the common characteristic of striving to show the continued relevance of Islam for people living in the 21st century. The methodology according to which this is carried out can be characterized by a profound respect for the intellectual product of the past accompanied by a realization of its shortcomings, when they exist, and an understanding of the specific needs the times in which we live.
Sheikh Ali is a prolific author and writer on Islamic issues and he writes a weekly column in the Egyptian al-Ahram newspaper in which he discusses matters of current interest and religion.
Martin Lings aka Abu Bakr Siraj Ad-Din
Martin Lings aka Abu Bakr Siraj Ad-Din
(January 24, 1909 – May 12, 2005)
Sidi Martin Lings was born in Burnage, Manchester in 1909 to a Protestant family. The young Lings gained an introduction to travelling at a young age, spending significant time in the United States due to his father's employment.
Lings attended Clifton College and went on to Magdalen College, Oxford, where he gained a BA in English Language and Literature. At Magdalen, he was a student and then a close friend of C. S. Lewis. After graduating from Oxford Lings went to Vytautas Magnus University, in Lithuania, where he taught Anglo-Saxon and Middle English.
For Lings himself, however, the most important event whilst at Oxford was his discovery of the writings of the René Guénon, a French metaphysician and Muslim convert, and those of Frithjof Schuon, a German spiritual authority, metaphysician and Perennialist. In 1938, Lings went to Basle to make Schuon's acquaintance and he remained Frithjof Schuon's disciple and expositor for the rest of his life.
In 1939, Lings went to Cairo, Egypt, in order to visit a friend who was an assistant of René Guénon. Not long after arriving in Cairo, his friend died and Lings began studying Arabic.
Cairo became his home for over a decade; he became an English language teacher at the University of Cairo and produced Shakespeare plays annually. Lings married Lesley Smalley in 1944 and lived with her in a village near the pyramids. Despite having settled comfortably in Egypt, Lings was forced to leave in 1952 after anti-British disturbances.
Upon returning to the United Kingdom he continued his education, earning a BA in Arabic and a PhD from the School of Oriental and African Studies (University of London). His doctoral thesis became a well-received book on Algerian Sufi Ahmad al-Alawi. After completing his doctorate, Lings worked at the British Museum and later British Library, overseeing eastern manuscripts and other textual works, rising to the position of Keeper of Oriental Printed Books and Manuscripts 1970-73. He was also a frequent contributor to the journal, Studies in Comparative Religion.
A writer throughout this period, Lings' output increased in the last quarter of his life. While his thesis work on Ahmad al-Alawi had been well-regarded, his most famous work was a biography of Muhammad, written in 1983, which earned him acclaim in the Muslim world and prizes from the governments of Pakistan and Egypt. His work was hailed as the "best biography of the prophet in English" at the National Seerat Conference in Islamabad. He also continued travelling extensively, although he made his home in Kent. He died in 2005.
In addition to his writings on Sufism, Lings was a Shakespeare scholar. His contribution to Shakespeare scholarship was to point out the deeper esoteric meanings found in Shakespeare's plays, and the spirituality of Shakespeare himself. More recent editions of Lings's books on Shakespeare include a foreword by Charles, Prince of Wales. Just before his death he gave an interview on this topic, which was posthumously made into the film Shakespeare's Spirituality: A Perspective.
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Martin Lings aka Abu Bakr Siraj Ad-Din
(January 24, 1909 – May 12, 2005)
Sidi Martin Lings was born in Burnage, Manchester in 1909 to a Protestant family. The young Lings gained an introduction to travelling at a young age, spending significant time in the United States due to his father's employment.
Lings attended Clifton College and went on to Magdalen College, Oxford, where he gained a BA in English Language and Literature. At Magdalen, he was a student and then a close friend of C. S. Lewis. After graduating from Oxford Lings went to Vytautas Magnus University, in Lithuania, where he taught Anglo-Saxon and Middle English.
For Lings himself, however, the most important event whilst at Oxford was his discovery of the writings of the René Guénon, a French metaphysician and Muslim convert, and those of Frithjof Schuon, a German spiritual authority, metaphysician and Perennialist. In 1938, Lings went to Basle to make Schuon's acquaintance and he remained Frithjof Schuon's disciple and expositor for the rest of his life.
In 1939, Lings went to Cairo, Egypt, in order to visit a friend who was an assistant of René Guénon. Not long after arriving in Cairo, his friend died and Lings began studying Arabic.
Cairo became his home for over a decade; he became an English language teacher at the University of Cairo and produced Shakespeare plays annually. Lings married Lesley Smalley in 1944 and lived with her in a village near the pyramids. Despite having settled comfortably in Egypt, Lings was forced to leave in 1952 after anti-British disturbances.
Upon returning to the United Kingdom he continued his education, earning a BA in Arabic and a PhD from the School of Oriental and African Studies (University of London). His doctoral thesis became a well-received book on Algerian Sufi Ahmad al-Alawi. After completing his doctorate, Lings worked at the British Museum and later British Library, overseeing eastern manuscripts and other textual works, rising to the position of Keeper of Oriental Printed Books and Manuscripts 1970-73. He was also a frequent contributor to the journal, Studies in Comparative Religion.
A writer throughout this period, Lings' output increased in the last quarter of his life. While his thesis work on Ahmad al-Alawi had been well-regarded, his most famous work was a biography of Muhammad, written in 1983, which earned him acclaim in the Muslim world and prizes from the governments of Pakistan and Egypt. His work was hailed as the "best biography of the prophet in English" at the National Seerat Conference in Islamabad. He also continued travelling extensively, although he made his home in Kent. He died in 2005.
In addition to his writings on Sufism, Lings was a Shakespeare scholar. His contribution to Shakespeare scholarship was to point out the deeper esoteric meanings found in Shakespeare's plays, and the spirituality of Shakespeare himself. More recent editions of Lings's books on Shakespeare include a foreword by Charles, Prince of Wales. Just before his death he gave an interview on this topic, which was posthumously made into the film Shakespeare's Spirituality: A Perspective.
Sidi Ibrahim Titus Burckhardt
Sidi Ibrahim Titus Burckhardt
German Swiss, was born in Florence, Italy in 1908 and died in Lausanne, Switzerland in 1984. He devoted all his life to the study and exposition of the different aspects of Wisdom and Tradition.
In literary and philosophic terms, he was an eminent member of the "traditionalist school" of twentieth-century authors. He was a frequent contributor to the journal Studies in Comparative Religion along with other prominent members of the school. He compiled and published work from the sufi masters: Ibn Arabi (1165–1240), Abd-al-karim Jili (1365–1424) and Muhammad al-Arabi al-Darqawi (1760–1823).
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