Popular Islam: a religion of the size of a shake
Returning to Rev. Spencer Trimingham's (1949) concept of popular Islam
Abdullah Ali Ibrahim
Translated by Muhammad Abdullah Ajaimi
For some time now, terms and descriptions have prevailed in writing about Sudanese culture that have not yet been subject to scrutiny. Among these terms is the book’s statement that the Islam of Sudanese Muslims is “Islamization,” that the Arabism of their Arabs is Arabization, and that the mixture of these two degrading fortunes is “Islam and Arabism.” The “ta” in the case of Islam and Arabization is the “t” of consonance. This is a risky judgment that does not come from knowledge or qualification, because no one knows the “amount” of Islam or Arabism that is required to be present in a human being in order for it to be correct to describe him as an Arab Muslim without the contradictory “t” as stated by Dr. Abdullah Al-Tayeb.
I fear that the spread of these terms is an effect of practical political battles, as the war of modernists and fundamentalist Arab Muslims has been raging for some time in the context of a hateful civil war. The modernists wanted to gain points over their religious opponents by saying that our religion is “half a religion” and our Arabism is hybrid, so do not betray us. If such an apology is valid due to the little we have gained from Islam and Arabism in the political struggle in Oman, then it is not permissible in the position of knowledge of things.
The terminology of secular modernists, such as Arabization and Islamization, is old even if it seems to have a luster among its new speakers. It is inherited from the colonial and missionary ethnography in which Harold McMichael was active with his book (A History of the Arabs in the Sudan, 1922) and the Anglican priest Trimingham with his book on Islam in the Sudan (1949). We did not mean to attribute the origin of these terms to colonial outposts, to say that those who adopt them in our days are tainted and alienated by the West. God forbid. What we want most in this regard is to say that these terms have branched out from the theories of “survivals,” the historical spread of culture, and the principles of functionalism, which prevailed in the early part of the last century, then their roots faded and people abandoned them for more guided and upright theories. Unfortunately, the donkey of our cultural vision stood in the way of these abandoned theories. We may attribute this to the fact that the Department of Anthropology at the University of Khartoum, which is the center for receiving new things in this science, has stopped caring for culture since it turned into a services department for Western relief organizations. The effort of most of its professors became focused on writing memoirs about the social backgrounds of the Sudanese who wanted to be helped or developed. Thus, the division stopped focusing on the cultural outlook that distinguished its first generation, such as Drs. Taj Al-Asfaia and Fahima Zahir. The reader will see the danger of such slowness in following up on the steady cultural outlook, which has led to us clinging to theories about our most specific characteristics that are outdated and people have thrown them into the dustbin of science, so to speak.
In two articles of mine in English, I have tried to localize our cultural perspective on the new science of identity and culture. My first talk was published in the English Journal of International African Studies in 1985. The second was published in a book edited by Drs. Sayyid Hamid Hariz and Al-Fateh Abdel Salam entitled in Arabic: “Ethnicity, Disagreement, and National Integration in Sudan” (1989). Their publication in English and the Arabic language published abroad has prevented them from finding their place in the discussions about identity that are taking place in full swing in our country. Aoun sought the help of Mr. Ezzedine Othman, the lawyer, to translate the first article, and Mr. Muhammad Abdullah Ajaimi to translate the second. Dr. Badr al-Din Ali and Mr. al-Khatim al-Mahdi also examined the Arabization. May God reward them with all goodness on my behalf. I reviewed the two translations so that I could bear the responsibility of publishing them alone. The first article, entitled “Breaking the Mikmaik Pen: A Return to the Identity of the Great Jaalis,” was published here in episodes some time ago. And here I am fulfilling my promise and publishing the second article entitled “Popular Islam: A Religion in the Size of Humor” in episodes here. The reader will not find a list of references, and the person seeking further information can inquire about one reference or another via the author’s email.
The current view of Northern Sudanese ethnic and religious identity is essentially the work of Harold A. McMichael (1922) (1) J. Spencer Trimingham (1946) (2). McMichael says that the greatest common denominator in the Arab-African hybrid, which arose from the mixing of the local Nuba and the Arabs, who settled on the Nile River from the ninth century until the fourteenth century AD, is that common Berber or Nubian origin that runs through all its elements in very varying proportions (1922:235). Trimingham called the religion of this hybrid "folk Islam" because it was imbued with African paganism. With this name, Trimingham wanted to say that it is another Islam in contrast to Orthodox Islam - ANTI-ORTHODOX, or that it is SYNCRETISTIC at the very least, or unconventional (UNORYHODOX 1949:108). This characterization of northerners' ethnic and cultural identity has been widely accepted by subsequent scholars: (Harold Barclay 1964:136-137; Yusuf Fadl Hassan 1967:152; Sayyid Hariz 1977:11,22; William Adams 1977:557,574,577; Ahmed al-Shahi and F. C. T. Moore 1978:32; Haider Ibrahim 1979: 15, 126; Ahmed Abd al-Rahim Nasr 1980: 88-91 and Sharaf al-Din Abd al-Salam 1983: 5, 10, 43) (3).
McMichael and Trimingham's characterization of the Greater Ja'ali identity stems from a corrupt hypothesis that is rooted not only in the observed fact of Arab-African intermingling in Sudan, but also in the negative connotations of the term MISCEGENATION in Anglo-Saxon culture. These white people, who have authority over thought and its concepts, inwardly deplore the mixture of races and consider it shameful and indecent (Ali Al-Mazroui 1973:58, 75). Accordingly, McMichael talks about the process of Arab-African mixing in Sudan and the race that resulted from it with terms such as: “degradation,” “racial purity,” “original race,” “pollution,” and what is going on. Its course: (1922: 195, 208, 223, 318, 336). This is the action of someone who, deep down, denounces the intermarriage and mixing of races. He even described a specific Sudanese ethnic group in which more African blood than Arab blood flows as “low or declining.” He said that by this description he meant that this group was simply and innocently “less Arab” than others. He justified his use of this term by the presumption that he was writing about the Arabs in Sudan and not about its Africans: “Since I am writing about the Arabs and not primarily about the Sudanese Africans who preceded them to Sudan, I use the expression “more inferior” as equivalent to “less Arab” (1922: 223).” Despite this disavowal, McMichael's work sometimes suggests that he views “Arab blood” as superior to “African blood.” He points out, for example, that most families with pale skin, whose amount of Arab blood is greater than their amount of African blood, are averse to contamination with blood that is a pure Sudanese mixture (1922: 199 318). Likewise, McMichael and Trimingham attribute the superiority of the Kangara, the Fur masters of western Sudan, to their first Arab origin (McMichael 1922:91; Trimingham 1949:32). It is clear that there is more meaning behind McMichael’s use of the term “denigration” than just a stylistic coincidence in writing about Arabs and not Africans. His adherence to the notion of cultural inferiority arising from this racial inferiority seems clearer when he describes the Islam of the “Arabs” of northern Sudan as “contaminated with the customs and superstitions of the various indigenous peoples who settled among them” (1922:195). According to Trimingham, the “Arab-Negroes” and “Hamitic-Arabs” in Sudan converted to Islam and imbued it with a great deal of their paganism (1922:10,149). The Islam of the Sudanese seemed to him to be imbued with African pagan elements, as they are in the Western understanding of the beliefs of Africans who are accused of attachment to superstition, emotional tendency, and susceptibility to collective inspiration (1949: 108, 149). In keeping with the same approach, Trimingham refers to the “fanaticism” of the Baggara toward the Mahdism and attributes it to the predominance of “Negro blood” among them (1949:30).
It has become clear that the terms “racial inferiority” and “cultural inferiority” are mutually exclusive in this discussion of the identity of the northern Sudanese. In Trimingham’s view, demagoguery and myths are inextricably linked (Trimmingham 1949:195). This paper will be limited to discussing the notion of cultural inferiority implied by the concept of popular Islam that Trimingham came up with to describe Sudanese Islam. We will discuss with criticism the method and concepts that underlie his statement about popular Islam. In addition, the paper will discuss the enthusiasm of Sudanese ethnographic studies in accepting this statement without reflection and criticism. This enthusiasm contradicts the best judgment of Trimingham, who warned against adopting some of his statements until detailed studies were conducted on popular Islam in its various regions (1949: 171). Needless to say, this silent acceptance of his statement also contradicts the best views that emerged from those same ethnographic studies. Our paper argues that understanding of Islam in Sudan, at a time when religion is playing an increasing role in the country's cultural and political life, will remain incomplete without a critical consideration of Trimingham's texts and ideas.
Trimingham believes that Islam in Sudan ranges between two poles: “popular” Islam and Orthodox Islam (ORTHODOX ISLAM). He explained the difference between the two in light of his general thesis about the historical coexistence between early missionary Islam and hybrid systems that branched out from it in the countries to which it spread. According to what this thesis says, a small pioneering few among the Arabs came with the message, that is, with the Qur’an and the Sunnah, so the masses took it to the regions of the world and invested it in their livelihood and returned to toiling hard for their Lord. Those who converted to Islam gave that message as an “anticipation of the world, which in turn infused religion into everything in life.” With the passage of time, according to Trimingham, Islam developed into the syncretic SYCRETISTIC SYSTEM that it has today. It is a system contrary to the imported Islamic message and the civilization it represents. In Trimingham's view, this hybrid is “something truly new that arose from their interaction and combination.” Trimingham describes this hybrid system as having an extraordinary inner power to represent and assimilate the foreign elements that enriched its original, alien concepts while, at the same time, retaining its own resolve to seek unity, organic unity, and a circumstantial view of the world. Trimingham decides that Sharia remains the symbol for the people of the hybrid system while customs and customs govern their lives (1949:106-107).
Trimingham seems to regard hybridization as a creative process when he discussed how Islam hybridized and developed within the two Hellenistic-Eastern civilizations (1949:106). However, he misconsidered the consequences of hybridization when he dealt with the hybrid Islam of Sudan SYNCRETISTIC ISLAM: “Islam was imbued with a strong tinge of African tendencies and tendencies, and its distinctive features were represented by Extravagant sentimentality and superstition... Islam came to a country without civilization (Sudan - Africa), where the people were devoid of any hidden heritage with which they could contribute to the upward advancement of the new religion” (1949:108) (4)
Trimingham added that those who spread Islam in Sudan not only did not come with Islam from the lowest levels, but they were themselves ignorant people whose imagination was limited without proper training in the orthodox doctrine of Islam. He continued by saying that these ignorant preachers had the perfect opportunity, among people without a cultural background, not only to accompany people’s superstitions and nonsense, but to embody them themselves in the form of righteous saints with dignity (1949:108).”
One of the researcher's first problems with the concept of "popular Islam" is that it is not accurate in convincingly capturing the phenomenon he set out to describe. Popular Islam, according to Trimingham and Salkley's approach, is a mostly Sufi Islam that also included distinctive pagan practices. It is known that Sufi men were the ones who mainly spread Islam in Sudan. We have previously examined the negative idea that Trimingham has about the achievement of these men. He described the Sufi orders, which to him are the opposite of Orthodoxy, as the organized expression of the religious life of the Sudanese. Trimingham classifies belief in Mahdism as part of popular Islam, although he calls Mahdism “primitive Islam” (similar to primitive Christianity persecuted under the Roman state), which according to him is the origin brought by the Prophet (PBUH) (1949:155). On the other hand, Trimingham does not consider “primitive Islam” to be orthodox Islam as long as it rejects the four schools of thought, as Al-Mahdi did (1949:162). Here is a major challenge to Trimingham. He introduces the concept of the Mahdi into popular Islam and then takes it out of it with a circular logic. Finally, Trimingham does not differentiate much between pure Sufism, which appeals to educated people, and the belief in saints and righteous people that is prevalent among the mass of people (1949:193). According to him, they are the same, which brings the educated people into the popular Islam community as well. But he believes that the common doctrine included Sufi concepts in a corrupt way (1949:210). In general, our prevailing academic point of view identifies popular Islam with Sufism, which researchers believe not only reached a people without civilization, but was itself going through a weak stage in its history, and popular Islam.
Researchers have various views on the alleged cultural misery of popular Islam. In the eyes of researchers, it is a low manifestation of missionary Islam in the ignorant Sudanese environment. When Islam became aware of our trick to achieve its orthodox, missionary or official example, it descended to the nadir of popularity. (Trimmingham 1949:115; Hariz 1972:22; Ibrahim 1979:126; Abdel Salam 1983:43). These researchers believe that the Sudanese ended up with a low Islam when they mixed Orthodox Islam with local customs.
In the 1940s, Trimingham could have delved into the hybridization of religion as he did. But there is no excuse for those who follow his path because recent academic studies on SYNCRETISM, and its manifestations in Islam in particular, are in contrast to the picture drawn by Trimingham of “popular” Islam in Sudan. Gee has set JAY SPAULDING has his finger, characteristically, on the flaw in the Trimingham treatment and treatments like it. Spaulding says that the presence of Sudanese Islamic practices, which may be blatant heresies, has led these researchers to draw the conclusion that either the Sudanese are non-practicing Muslims or that their Islam differs from the Islam of other peoples. Spaulding believes that the first issue is a matter left to the judgment of their Lord who created them, while the second is an example of circular proof - that is, one assumes in advance that the Sudanese are Muslims and then comes later to find out the nature and abnormalities of Sudanese Islam (1977:49).
Scholars of Islam in East Asia have stood firmly against the idea that hybridization ultimately results in a second-class form of Islam. John Bousfield believes that the suggestion is that the early stages of Islamism in Southeast Asia carried within it the idea of a multiplicity of gods as much as there were a multiplicity of natural forces and laws. It is known as “polytheism” in monotheistic religions. Hence, it necessarily came with an “impure” Islam, which is an idea that has no basis for it (1985:207). On the other hand, Asim Roy blames scholars of Islam who focus on measuring the spread of Islam at the regional level using the rule of orthodox Islam. This analogy, says Roy, turns a very creative and complex process of cultural interaction between an invading religion and a local culture into a simple, inconclusive and non-objective matter of polarization between a type of “true” or “original” Islam and its deviant types called “popular” or “colloquial” (1983:249).
Moreover, the term “hybridity” may increasingly reveal a theoretical deficiency in analyzing how people change their beliefs and adopt a new religion. Indeed, STEPHEN GLAZIER finds the concept of hybridity misleading. Glazer took advantage of Lecox's Wife and Husband (1972:320) to conclude that the concept of hybridity fails to do justice to the creative process of people's conversion to religions, as it suggests that it is, rather, merely a mechanical process of assembling ideas from a mixture of the imported religion and the beliefs that preceded it among those who embraced this religion (Glazer 1985:60).
This polarity (ideal-realistic) could be more misleading if taken in isolation from the context of the discourse that produced it. Roy brilliantly explains that the ideal in Islam, or orthodoxy, is the creation of orientalists and early scholars of Islam who were not exposed to in-depth empirical research on Islam in the many regions of its people. These researchers, in Roy's opinion, sculpted the model of orthodox Islam in which they necessarily relied on the example of Sunni doctrine. This innovation, Orthodox Islam, became the criterion by which they measured the validity of all other Islamic manifestations (Roy 1983:5). Accordingly, the claim of this innovative entity to be the origin, the truth, and the “religion” is something that this same entity imposed on other forms of religiosity. These are types that are equally entitled to claim essential credibility and inner appeal to those who believe in them. Note that these researchers did not make Orthodox Islam synonymous with “religion” except in light of a prior criterion of validity linked to their concept of truth (Abdul Hamid Al-Zein 1977:248).
This is a foolish approach in Roy’s statement: “The fundamental shortcoming of this ideal Orientalist theory of religious-cultural interaction lies in its tendency to evaluate the Islamic phenomenon and the Muslim based on the degree of conformity with the ideals or standards of orthodox Islam. This deductive approach in the field of studying religious change suffers from insufficiency, as it begins with a prior definition of Islam and then accepts or rejects the Islam offered to them by Muslim peoples to the extent that it is consistent with that definition. Such an approach is incapable of explaining religion in a way that What religion means to those who believe in it, worship it, and revere it in their own lives. If the goal of studying a religion is not to define it, but rather to learn about it, then this standard research, which attempts to separate the “good” Muslim from the “bad” Muslim, is likely to take the wrong direction (1983: 5).
Therefore, the terms popular Islam and orthodox Islam do not fall under the relationship of the real versus the ideal, in keeping with the order. Rather, we have to look at them from the Muslim point of view as two different types or Islamic realities, as we will explain in detail later. We say, benefiting from a phrase by Michael Herzfeld, that popular Islam and orthodox Islam do not constitute a distinction between “realistic” and “ideal” as much as they represent a confrontation between two realities: that is, two ideas about what should be taken into account when trying to define what a Muslim is (1982:9).
Researchers' emphasis on the dichotomy between traditional Islam and popular Islam harms the attempt to understand a broader and more comprehensive understanding of Islam in Sudan. Trimingham's subsequent scholars, indiscriminately, reformulated his ideas even when they conflicted with their empirical insight from fieldwork among Muslim groups, as will gradually become clear. Trimingham's description of the performance of Islam in Sudan, and what subsequent researchers reproduced from it, without any significant difference, reveals two hints. The first is that Trimingham distinguishes between orthodox Islam and popular Islam at the national level or the "anthropological village" level, as they are two completely opposite institutions and realities. If you look at the elements of this polarity, you will see the extent of the historical prejudice of academic studies against the oppressed common people, stereotyping their ways, and belittling them in any way possible. The drawing extracted from these studies shows how these studies are biased against the pagan, the African, the illiterate, the practical, and the female when they are measured against the Muslim, the Arab, the educated, the theoretical, and the male (figures will not accompany the article).
The second bias in Trimingham's analysis is his subordination of religious practices according to their relative degree of acceptability among religious scholars (Barclay 1964:206). Thus, researchers rushed to identify heresy, forbidden, and deviations from the Qur’an in the practices of popular Islam according to what they thought was inconsistent with or contradictory to orthodox Islam (Trimmingham 1949: 127, 164, 166, 181, 210). Haider Ibrahim clearly says that he built his study of Shayqiyya Islam on his understanding of “where it intersects with Orthodox Islam and where it deviates from it or differs” (1979:134). Thus, by focusing on the dichotomy between the Orthodox and the popular, these researchers give the impression that the subject of their study is not Islam and the Sudanese, but rather Islam confronting the Sudanese. Dr. Akbar Ahmed comments on a similar trend in the study of Islam in Pakistan, saying that researchers are distorting the study of Islam and making it a religion that is contrary to the Islam of the Pashtun people of Pakistan. He adds: “For the tribal Pashtun, Islam represents a specific political, economic and religious formation through which he exercises his Pashtun identity. Islam and Pashtunism are consistent and harmonious such that they represent a logical formation for the Pashtun. The two are linked by a deep reciprocal relationship. Islam is also deeply embedded in the Pashtun structure, which suggests that the issue of separating them is out of the question (1982:193).”
Trimingham must have realized something of the strong attachment of Sudanese Muslims to their Islam. Although he explicitly says that Al-Sudani needs to be liberated from his “sentimental, inauthentic Islam” (1949:22) in order to realize his aesthetic potential, he describes Al-Sudani himself, at the same time, as a “true, solid Muslim” and not a pagan with a thin veneer of Islam (1949:108-109).
Even researchers who accept orthodox Islam as a valid and final concept in Islam reveal major shortcomings in their attempts to determine the orthodoxy of specific Islamic ideas and beliefs attributed to popular Islam in Sudan. Talal Asad demonstrated Harold Barclay’s ignorance of the orthodox Islamic ideas and concepts with which he wanted to judge the practices of popular Islam (1965:169). It suffices to mention here that the doctrine of angels stoning devils with meteors, which is proven by the text of a Qur’anic verse (1967:5), is what Berkeley considered a myth (1949:172) (6). It is clear from here that any assertions about the existence of a division between the Orthodox and popular religions require, in the first place, a comprehensive and in-depth knowledge of the jurisprudence of Orthodox Islam, upon which the rule is based. We will detail later the need for students of ethnic cultures in Islamic societies to have adequate training in matters of jurisprudence and Islamic law.
Moreover, some writers added ambiguity and ambiguity to the concept of Orthodoxy itself, when they created, without justification, an internal conflict between the known elements of this concept of the Qur’an, Sunnah, analogy, and ijtihad. There is no agreement between these writers regarding the attribution of the practices they study to Orthodox and to popular Islam. Sharaf al-Din Abdul Salam says that the belief in saints and righteous people has nothing to support it in the Qur’an, but it does not, however, suggest that this belief is incompatible with orthodox Islam (1983:63). According to Barclay, the Qur’anic elements consistent with belief in saints and righteous people - in contrast to the non-Qur’anic elements - are completely acceptable to religious scholars (1964:206). Regarding the concept of Mahdism, on the other hand, Trimingham sees it as a great conflict between a strict orthodoxy that rejects it and a lenient orthodoxy that accommodates and accommodates it (1949:148). The matter becomes even more confusing when Trimingham divides most Sudanese into two categories: the Orthodox on the one hand, and the ultra-Orthodox on the other. It is not surprising that this division in the concept of Orthodox Islam spoils their statement by distinguishing and estranging it from popular Islam. The Orthodox, as we saw in his breakdown above, has degrees and levels, including extreme ones that are strict and minor ones that are lenient. Its minor degrees may overlap with popular Islam.
The confusion in the concepts of orthodox and popular Islam stems from some of the ways in which the book describes some of the beliefs of the people. Some scholars of Islam sometimes use the passive voice when talking about specific beliefs held by villagers (Barclay 1964: 146, 152; Haider Ibrahim 1979: 18, 145). This linguistic usage is often misleading. It may lead to the belief that these beliefs are unique to popular Islam, when in fact this is not the case. For example, Barclay says: “Some villagers believe that group prayer is better than individual prayer, by twenty-seven degrees to be precise” (1964:146). In reality, this is the ruling of Sharia law, but Barclay’s wording suggests that it may have been merely a popular belief. The issue of sorting the elements of popular Islam from the orthodox reaches the level of randomness in the scholars’ approach to Al-Ain Al-Hara. Scholars, in general, consider belief in it to be something that is not part of orthodox Islam in any way and consider it to be either one of the doctrines of popular Islam (Haider Ibrahim: 126, 145, 149), or a superstitious, pagan practice that remained alive after the introduction of Islam (Trimmingham 1949: 166, 170-171; Barclay 1964: 195; Sayyid Hariz 1977: 7; Adams). 1977:577; Sharaf al-Din Abdel Salam 1983:86-89). On the other hand, the Islamic Encyclopedia states that the evil eye is proven in Islam (p. 786), but it incorrectly states that “the Sunnah denounces belief in it” (p. 786).
In short, those institutions that researchers have called Orthodox Islam can be accurately called “official” Islam, which arose under the colonial administration that followed the Mahdist state (1885-1898). It is not without significance here that both Trimingham and Sayyid Hariz use the terms “official” and “orthodox” interchangeably (Trimmingham 1949:202; Hariz 1977:7). The union of the two terms, or their interchange of positions, has its roots in the emergence of the governmental religious institution in Sudan during the colonial era. Norman Daniel traced, with penetrating insight, the contrast between orthodoxy (religion) and fanaticism (non-religion) in the context of Islam and politics in Sudan and brought it back to the days of the propaganda war waged by English advocates of intervention in Sudan at the end of the nineteenth century to convince British public opinion and the government of the necessity of eliminating the Mahdist state (1966: 423-448). This propaganda portrayed the Mahdism in Sudan as a misguided movement full of fanaticism and calling people to what was described, specifically, as undesirable to the right religion (Daniel 1966: 428, 435, 438). After the elimination of the Mahdia, the colonial administration wanted to hedge against any armed rebellion like the Mahdia in the future, fueled by Sufi sects (which were considered part of popular Islam). Therefore, the colonial administration decided to encourage what it called “Orthodox” Islam. Gabriel Warburg describes this type of Islam as follows: “This Islam is based, firstly, by scholars who mainly studied at Al-Azhar. Their mission was to preside over the religious hierarchy in Sudan and prevent the emergence of apostolic movements, such as the Mahdism. Secondly, it is based on a network of Sharia courts headed by qualified judges in order to prevent Sudanese Muslims from resorting to the sheikhs of Sufi orders... The colonial authorities also stressed the necessity of establishing mosques in important centers in northern Sudan to reduce the importance of the Zawiya. Sufism” (1971:95). It is clear to us from the above that official - Orthodox - Islam is a political reality more than a matter of belief or doctrine. It is also an administrative tool, meaning that, represented by Sharia, it has become the “civil” or “customary” law that governs the personal and family lives of the Sudanese (FLUEHR- LOBBAN 1981:69). Therefore, official Islam cannot be claimed except with difficulty as being Orthodox Islam as long as we want it to conform to the universality and integrity of the faith.
What is regrettable is that the researchers’ focus on the popular/Orthodox dichotomy, at the level of the “anthropological village,” contradicts the best empirical results reached by the researchers themselves. In this context, Barclay captured what he called “the essence of Orthodox Islam” in Buri Al-Lamap (the well-known Khartoum neighborhood that was rural when the researcher visited it in the 1950s) in light of his field investigations into the extent of the villagers’ commitment to the five pillars of Islam (1964:137-145). Despite the fact that Barclay found the villagers to be on the right path to Islam in this respect, he nonetheless clings to the old dualism between orthodox Islam and popular village Islam, saying: “The people of Bri Llamab are Muslims who practice their rituals according to the Sunni or orthodox faith and follow the Maliki school of thought, but the religious behavior in the village cannot be precisely explained according to any basic concept of orthodox Islam” (1949:136). Adams claims, without scrutiny, that the Muslims of Sudan are more attached to the dignity and conduct of saints and righteous people than to the example of the Prophet (PBUH) (Trimmingham 1949:127; Adams 1977:579). This is at a time when Barclay draws attention to the villagers’ absolute belief in the ideal model of the Prophet (PBUH) (1964:138).
The exaggeration of the orthodox-popular dichotomy is governed by considerations that have no basis in Islam itself as far as it relates to the method of scholars’ investigations and the classification of their anthropological books. Researchers into village Islam usually devote a chapter to the religion of the villagers in which they describe their superstitions and aspects of their practices, which they say are not compatible with orthodox Islam. On the other hand, in many cases, they bring what they consider “orthodox” Islamic practices from Sahih al-Din into other chapters that are not the village religion chapter described as popular. For example, we find Berkeley presenting Islam’s legal position on justice between wives, and the relationship of slaves with masters, in the separate chapters on kinship ties and the hierarchy of social strata in his book. If the idea of the dichotomy of popular and orthodox religion had not taken hold of Berkeley, he would have expanded his separation from village religion (which according to him is an unrighteous religion and separates from the serious) to include Islam’s guidance on polygamy, slavery, kinship, and kinship (1964: 122, 126, 129).
The same thing is repeated in Haider Ibrahim’s book on Al-Shaiqiya (1979). The book presents the beliefs and guidance of Orthodox Islam through its chapters that deal with the arrangement of social strata, the cycle of life, and social systems. Haider did not want these beliefs to permeate his chapter devoted to religion. It goes without saying that limiting the discussion of Islam to a single chapter on religion means separating it from social practice. Moreover, the scholars sought to present as many examples of Orthodox Islam as would meet the needs of their own research, and they did not want to limit it. If they wanted to limit it, they would have brought many elements inspired by Sharia law in the lives of the people of the villages. We will conclude that Orthodoxy is widespread and that it has control over popular Islam when we consider the many types of Islamic practices among ordinary Muslims that have their origin in Orthodox Islam without a statement or declaration. For example, I have believed, for a long time, that the criticism we received from our elders when we ate while standing or lying on our side was nothing more than a form of urging good table manners, if not a myth. Then I discovered that it was required by Sharia law.
In addition to the flaw that we saw in the research attempts to define orthodox Islamic practices, the view of scholars of “popular Islam” in Sudan towards popular beliefs, which are the basis of popular Islam in their view, was perhaps their greatest mistake. They fall short of analyzing these beliefs in light of the characteristics of their literary or folklore genres because they cut them out of their oral context in their circulation among people and make them abstract, self-sufficient beliefs. Folklorists are very clear that a rational view of the beliefs of the common people depends on such an analysis of all the traditions that these beliefs contain. This severity of emphasis goes back to C. W. van Sydow (1948), and he was favorably followed by Lauri Hunko, who said: “Before making any general judgment about the beliefs of the Inkrians (a Finnish ethnic group), one must know which type of tradition provides the most valuable evidence for belief and which, on the other hand, is of secondary value in some way” (1964:7).
The aforementioned criticism applies to Trimingham's characterization of what constitutes "the doctrines of the Sudanese." It is a reluctance to analyze the literary genres described. In his synthesis of what he called popular Islam, we find Trimingham extracting his beliefs from the folkloric genres that bear it, such as the dignity of the saints and the righteous (1949: 135-136), common proverbs (p. 158), dreams (p. 143), omens (p. 145), prophecies (p. 158), fables (p. 173), riddles (p. 173), and tales (p. 173). Except for some brief comments about the reliability of the saints’ dignity and “superstitions,” he completely neglects criticism of the sources of popular beliefs. As a result, he ended up, as we mentioned before, considering what was stated in the Qur’anic verses about meteors and demons, in addition to the hurricane demon, as a myth, and they are a religious right (1949: 172). In addition, the vow does not indicate complete submission to the ruler, as Trimingham wanted us to understand. Otherwise, Haider Ibrahim believes that the followers of the saints are somewhat cunning and their relationship with their masters is characterized by utilitarianism and practicality. Evidence of this is what Haider said about the villagers’ threat to the guardian during the vow-making ritual that they would switch from him to another allegiance if he failed to meet their needs. It has been said that a famous saint complained about the villagers’ abuse and provocation against him (Haider Ibrahim 1979: 156). Sayyid Hariz’s analysis of the Mysteries of the Ja’aliyin (1977) and Sharaf al-Din Abdel Salam’s The Karamat of Saints (1983) are considered a praiseworthy advance in the field of analysis of folklore genres, although they did not stray far from loyalty to Trimingham’s thesis in their presentation of the doctrines of popular Islam.
A new look at the problem of popular Islam/orthodox Islam
We previously summarized some of the mistakes that researchers made when trying to base their studies on behavior in the Sudanese village on a preconceived concept based on the popular/orthodox Islam dichotomy. We also discussed some of the problems inherent in assuming such dualism. On the other hand, some researchers have recently questioned the usefulness of the concept of “Orthodoxy” itself, whether for the study or practice of Islam. Some researchers say that using the concept of Orthodox Islam has become either impossible or an issue subject to a strict and precise definition thanks to the attention paid by social historians and ethnographers to drawing an accurate picture of Islam in its diverse and complex terrain, and from local contexts and not from legal books alone.
This discomfort with the concept of “orthodox” has taken an extreme turn in some cases. Abd al-Hamid al-Zein, for example, suggests abandoning the exhaustive, inclusive term “Islam” defined by the alif and the lam in order to better understand the diverse experiences of Muslims in the many negative forms of their Islam (1977: 227). His proposal essentially aims to displace what is called Orthodox Islam from its distinct position as Islam - that is, that which is defined by the Alif and the Lam. Many researchers have drawn attention to the extreme nature of Al-Zein's proposal (EICKELMAN 1981:1; Asad 1986:1; Akbar Ahmed 1987:220). Moreover, Al-Zein’s proposal to invent an Islamic “popular theology” seems difficult to achieve. This popular theology, which is similar to official theology, means for him “going beyond the sacred text in favor of a direct insight into the world system” (1977: 248). Perhaps one of the drawbacks of this hypothesis of popular theology is that it maintains the duality of popular/orthodox Islam, which Al-Zein himself set out to demolish. By suggesting that popular theology might be “true Islam” (previous source: 246), he causes great harm to his case calling for Islam to be various manifestations, each of which is true in relation to the religion.
Despite the flaw in Al-Zein's argument, folk theology may prove to be a promising field of research and study. I have collected, for example, aphorisms and proverbs formulated in line with the Sunnah of the Prophet. However, saying that there are two distinct theologies in Islam is difficult to prove. As Michael Gilsnan has brilliantly shown, the teachings of the Qur’an, the Sunnah, and the legal rulings have penetrated, through the power of oral culture, into the fabric of Muslim life and become a part of it (1982: 35-36). Thus, it is true to say that what we call “popular theology” is rather just elite theology that has entered the oral discourse of the public. Perhaps one of the interesting upcoming research tasks will be to investigate the ways in which the public took Islamic theology and made it a valid part of its culture and practices.
Other researchers believe that the issue of Orthodoxy itself as a concept and practice is alien to Islamic studies (Smith 1957:20; Eckelman 1981a:213; TURNER 1974:62). Accordingly, they believe that it is more appropriate to talk about Orthodoxy rather than Orthodoxy when it comes to Islam. Orthopraxy is a concept that means the participation of religious people in worship and rituals more than their participation in theological doctrines that are not disputed (Eckelman 1981: 204). Although Dale Eckelman contributed to formulating this hypothesis, he rightly draws attention to its shortcomings (previous source: 204). Basically, it separates rituals and doctrine, which in fact represent two indispensable aspects in any religious life worthy of the name (The ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RELIGION:187). The idea of making Islam a unity of rituals rather than doctrines will not succeed in explaining the doctrinal tribulations to which Muslim scholars and Sufis have been exposed throughout history. There is the plight of Ahmad ibn Hanbal, the sheikh of the Hanbali school of thought, the plight of Ibn Taymiyyah, the fourteenth-century Hanbali, and the plight and execution of Al-Hallaj - the tenth-century Sufi. These are ordeals whose focus was on the validity of the doctrine, not on the payment of the practice. As an alternative to abandoning this concept of Orthodoxy altogether, some researchers have tried to introduce modifications to it. Islam can, without a doubt, use the concept in a sense different from that which has been used until now. This may, of course, require radical modifications to it that may end up replacing it with another, more suitable one.
For years, we have had good research and studies on the types of local Islam and the experiences of “popular” Islam and Islam in the borders. These studies led researchers to the idea that there are general normative beliefs that underlie all of these local forms of Islam (Eckelman 1982:1). But this review does not necessarily require a return to the old concept of Orthodoxy, which we have just criticized. There is no point in saying that Orthodoxy is a foundation in Islam. Talal Asad says that Orthodoxy certainly has a presence in Islam. According to him, it manifests itself “wherever Muslims have the power to control and elevate the status of their religion or demand adherence to the true religion and adapt to its requirements, or they use that power to denounce deviation in their religion, restrict it, undermine it, or replace the true religion in its place” (1986:15). Orthodoxy, as Asad sees it, is a DISCURSIVE TRADITION tradition in which even an illiterate Muslim can contribute by sorting out the truth of the religion and adhering to it (the previous source). He goes on to describe it as a “distinctive relationship - a relationship of power” and not just jurisprudence, Sharia, and belief (the previous source). This idea of Asad clearly contradicts the meaning of orthodoxy, which we objected to in this chapter. We have long understood it as a structure of knowledge, texts, or institutions whose only guardians are religious scholars. In Asad’s definition of Orthodoxy, the religious scholar, who was previously the sole guardian and guardian of Islamic teachings, becomes only one string in the “bow of the Islamic tradition,” as stated by Gilsnan (1982:46).
However, it seems that Asad was not completely correct in his correspondence between rhetorical traditions and Orthodoxy. Orthodoxy has necessary jurisprudential and political procedures to be established and implemented. Accordingly, the vocabulary of the rhetorical tradition may or may not be included in Orthodoxy based on the images of the thorn that supports it and makes it an effective and followed law. Both Sunnis and Shiites in Türkiye, for example, deplore the practices of the Alawites and exile them from Islam. With this ruling on the Alawites, these Sunnis and Shiites have expressed their opinion about what is the correct religion and participated in the discourse that wants to preserve the essence of this correct religion (Eckelman 1981a: 220-221). But one needs more than just this disapproval and denial of religion to include the opinion of the Sunnis and Shiites described in Orthodoxy. Among Sudanese leaders, I have come across phrases said by senior women of a past generation as a form of prayer as folkloric nonsense that has no religion. But the researcher needs more than just the Turkish Sunnis and Shiites’ denial of the Alawites from religion in order to include this opinion in Orthodoxy. In both cases, we find Muslims specifying the true religion, that is, the discursive traditions, without these traditions taking the form of inclusive, prohibitive orthodoxy.
It seems that the relationship between the discursive tradition and orthodoxy in Islam raises a real dilemma for researchers. Hodgson, who faced this dilemma before Asad, gave these discursive traditions the term “legal Islam” (1963:229), a designation that spread like wildfire and was agreed upon by a number of researchers (Turner 1974:105; Eckelman 1981a: 221; Busfield 1985:207). Hodgson defines this type of Islam as a comprehensive, complex entity of systems of behavior and thinking that is characteristic of those Muslims who believe that Sharia has the highest status in religion and life. (Hodgson 1974:351). Although, according to Hodgson, Sharia Islam is not the only form of Islam, it has acquired a special status among other forms of Islam. He took control of the ruling on true religion from others. It is He who is in control of whether the practices and beliefs of Muslims agree or deviate from the path of Islam. (Previous source: 224). However, Hodgson truly states that Sharia Islam is not orthodoxy, contrary to the incorrect assumptions of some scholars in this regard (previous source: 350-351). On the other hand, Hodgson reserves the term “orthodox” in the study of Islam, using it in cases where a particular belief or practice has become established and consolidated, either officially or socially, which justifies describing it as orthodox. Such a conditional use of the term “Orthodox,” according to Hodgson, does not necessarily coincide, in any case, with “legitimacy.” (Previous source: 351). Hodgson's distinction here between orthodoxy and discursive traditions is interesting, but it will not satisfy the researcher who wants to know how the vocabulary of discursive legal traditions makes their way into orthodoxy in Islam. Hodgson did not elaborate on the institution or institutions that have a stake in determining what is Orthodox. He also did not address the cultural traditions on which that institution or institutions were based in order for it to be designated. It is not clear from Hodgson's diligence on the matter how far this orthodoxy will extend when it occurs.
There is no doubt the importance of the task of redefining the term Orthodoxy as a cultural tool on the one hand, and in a way that takes into account the specificity of the Islamic religion on the other hand. There is not enough space here to address the important questions raised by this project. However, I will briefly highlight some of the issues emanating from this review. Here we must keep in mind that we are dealing, with regard to Islam in general, with a discursive tradition that Dr. Brian Turner depicted as having a “fundamental looseness” (1974:226). There is no pope to whom Muslims can turn to regarding the correct doctrine, nor the theological councils at which the people of solution and agreement come together. Accordingly, we must, for example, determine how Islam seeks to achieve consensus on the correctness of its belief, how it achieves consensus on that, how it maintains and consolidates it, and with what chance of success. It is indisputable that major ordeals such as the ordeal of Ibn Hanbal, Al-Hallaj, and Ibn Taymiyyah, which we referred to above, will have great value in anthropological investigations that aim to identify the various forms of Islam. It is useful in our treatment of Islam’s method of establishing consensus based on its authenticity to know why Ibn Taymiyyah, the Hanbali, four centuries after Al-Hallaj was executed for his Sufi beliefs, felt the need to criticize the man and harshly criticize his mention. Perhaps Ibn Taymiyyah resorted to this spiteful plan due to the love of the Hanbalis from his group for Al-Hallaj after all that time had passed since his ordeal (Massignon 1982:45).
In addition, we need to study the priestly structure (related to the management of the universal Church in Christian expression) in every Islamic expression or institution. It seems that the Shiite scholars enjoy an institutional “priestly” power that guarantees them the cohesion of the mass of their followers, much greater than what their Sunni scholars enjoy. This will lead us to a series of useful, necessary, and fertile research on the extent to which the fatwas of scholars extend and the degree of their effectiveness, the brutality and obstinacy of the inspection councils held by scholars to investigate the commitment of specific individuals to the true religion, and the status of the rule of apostasy in general. 12 Perhaps we also need to examine well-established Islamic terms, such as “extremism,” “moderation,” and “exceeding the limit of religion,” as limits that help us distinguish what is permissible. The delegate and the one who is forbidden in Islam, let us accompany her in the discussions of Orthodoxy and its implications in Islam. Moreover, Eckelman pointed out, brilliantly, that the impact of Saudi money, which supported the Wahhabi doctrine in parts of the House of Islam, in establishing a visible Islamic consistency regarding the true religion, is one of the topics that has not received sufficient study (1982: 11). Study of the areas referred to above is required in order to accurately describe how the concept of Orthodoxy works in Islam before we are certain of its presence in the religion or its absence by stoning or relying on other religious traditions.
We previously indicated that ethnographers are clinging more and more to the normative beliefs in Islam as they dig into local environments and describe their Islam as popular. This, in turn, requires them to diversify their training, including familiarization with the texts of Islam labeled as non-Orthodox ISLAM. Such training will undoubtedly jeopardize the division of research work on Islam as envisioned by the American anthropologist Robert Redfield (1985). According to Redfield, the cultural object is either “large,” meaning the culture of the private, or “small,” meaning the culture of the public. Redfield embodied the interaction between the two sayings, “the great” and “the little,” in their Islamic reality, as a meeting between Von Grunbaum and Westermark. As for the first, he is a student of the eloquent heritage of Islam and its most important books, interpretations, texts, and its sober and awe-inspiring footnotes. As for the second, he is an anthropologist whose interest focused on popular, local, and superstitious traditions. For example, they studied the issue of the interaction between the belief in saints and righteous people and the concept of Islamic law, both from its angle and from what suits its perspective and approach (1985: 48-49). Whatever the case may be, Redfield's aphorisms “The Great” and “The Little” have very little chance of being widely known in the anthropological literature on Islam. It was accepted by scholars of Islam, Dr. Joseph Roger, who recommended that the term help us as an acceptable framework for understanding some of the common beliefs. However, Roger did not comment on Redfield's dualism in a prominent scholarly way (1981: 88). Eckelman, on the other hand, believes that it means nothing more than an insufficient and insufficient collection of statements about Islam's own beliefs, as popularized by Orientalists, and contrasting them with another comprehensive list of general beliefs that anthropologists have deduced. In the cases that took place in this interview between the two poles of the duality (as in Haider Ibrahim’s investigation into the concept of magic in his Sudanese village (1979: 135-143), for example), one would doubt the legitimacy of dividing Islam into popular/traditional. In contrast to the encounter between belief and myth that Redfield prepared for in the form of the meeting of Von Garnbaum and Westermack, the encounter between the list of elite Islam and the Islam of the masses is closer to the scene of a person who sees his image in the mirror or meets himself on the other side of the circle.
Eckelman links anthropology's increasing tendency to become a "native" project, that is, what the people of the country do on behalf of their country instead of its monopoly in the hands of European researchers, and the fundamental changes that must occur in the study and analysis of popular religious currents (1981a: 234). Perhaps he had in mind when he said with this connection the contribution of the late Egyptian anthropologist Abdel Hamid El-Zein (1935-1975) and his promise, which was quickly defeated by death and withered. We say this about Eckelman based on what Eckelman wrote about Al-Zein, in addition to his other writings. Aikleman is aware not only of what Al-Zein intended to change the method of studying popular Islam, but also of the extreme limits to which Al-Zein might have gone to implement his aforementioned approach if he had not died. (1981:365). Al-Zein proposed a treatment of the system of religious symbols on the approach of the structuralist school. It is a school that sees these symbols as expressions of relationships in the structure of society as a whole. Al-Zein says:
“We must start, in this case, from the NATIVE model of Islam and analyze the relationships that determine its meaning. Based on this assumption, we can enter the world of non-Islam and explore its depths from any point, as there is no absolute discontinuity anywhere within it. There are no independent entities within that system, and every point in it can be reached, in the end, from any other point. With this understanding, meanings will not have rigid functions. Isolating them from each other completely or simply returning them to any unit of analysis, whether it is a symbol, institution, or social process, unless we impose this imposed on the aforementioned functions, and we end up with an external arrangement for it that overshadows the cultural system, Islam, artificially and from above. In other words, the structures of the Islamic cultural system and the nature of its constituent vocabulary are the same thing, that is, the logic of the system is its content, meaning that every term and every entity within the system is the result of structural relationships between entities and other terms. And so on, the system has no beginning and no end at any given absolute point” (1977: 251-252).
Al-Zein suggests here that such an artificial arrangement that is alien to the system is what happens to us whenever we unnecessarily cling to the Orthodox/popular dichotomy.
What is also important is that Abdul Hamid Al-Zein was not content to bridge the gap between “popular Islam” and “official Islam.” Rather, he also sought to heal the schism in the anthropologist himself, through his research, in his later days, to obtain an academic degree in Islamic jurisprudence and legislation (Eckelman 1981b: 365). He wanted to become acquainted with these legal sciences so that he would not hand over the matter of understanding the religion, when his personal Islam was presented to him, to the religious scholars, believing in a role they had adorned for themselves as guardians of Islam, without whom he would have no understanding or comment on their words. This is a role assigned to them by Pakistani anthropologist Akbar Ahmed, who said: “Correcting the misunderstanding of Islam among Muslim tribesmen is the task of orthodox Islamic scholars. As for us, as anthropologists, we are concerned with how society understands religion and not with how religion sees itself” (1982:198). Unlike Al-Zein, Ahmad localizes religious scholars in their project as guardians of the true religion. Religious scholars continued to “consider the misuse of Islam or the misunderstanding of it among the tribesmen” to be at the heart of “popular” or misguided Islam. This is a platform that will preserve the Orthodox-popular duality. In order to get out of it, we must turn to a better study of how society understands religion, or a better study of popular religion, which will require going beyond the limits suggested by Ahmed. The legal and jurisprudential qualification that Al-Zein aspired to in the later years of his life strongly indicates the urgent need to break the boundaries of the protocol dividing the study of religion between Gunn Kornbaum and Westermarck.
Conclusion: -
This paper stems from doubts about the effectiveness of the concept of popular Islam, which was launched by Trimingham in 1949 AD to describe the “Arab-African” religion in northern Sudan. It has become clear that this concept is inextricably linked to a broader negative point of view that denounces the hybrid nature of these people, considering them the product of tainted incestuous blood in which the purity of both the Arab and African races has been compromised. As a result, their Islam was shaped in their image and became “feminized,” that is, full of paganism and lacking in culture. In addition, the paper believes that the concepts of syncretism and orthodoxy have restricted the path of studying Islam in Sudan by imposing on the research material an arbitrary, external, and false arrangement. Accordingly, these studies, which were based on the dualism of the popular and the Orthodox, can be described as dealing with Islam in conflict with the Sudanese and not the Islam of the Sudanese. Because anthropologists accepted the popular/orthodox dichotomy in advance, they descended into an irrational search for what Westerners call “butterfly hunting,” tracking down strange, deviant, and superstitious beliefs to gather them in a separate chapter on the Islam of the village they are studying. This is a stricter approach that removes Islam from the totality of the lives of the people of the village in their marriage and contracts, the upbringing of their sons and daughters, their death and its rituals, that is, in their livelihood and their days. The article argues that in order to study more skillfully what we have come to know as popular Islam, anthropologists must improve their knowledge of what they call orthodox Islam and train in its arts so that they do not unnecessarily appoint religious scholars as guardians in a vital field of their science.
Footnotes
1 McMichael (1892-1969) entered the service of the Sudanese (British colonial) government in 1905 and rose through the ranks until he assumed the position of administrative secretary in 1926.
2 Trimingham (1904) joined the service of the Church Missionary Society and became Secretary General of the missionary societies in northern Sudan in the years 1937-1949, Egypt in the years 1949-1951, and then West Africa in the years 1951-1952, where academic research occupied him ever since. It is astonishing that Mubasher's image of Islam in Sudan has remained consistent and not tainted by doubt or correction over the decades that have passed since the 1950s, and during a turbulent period throughout the era of independence in which the issue of religion became dominant in the political arena. It is no mistake that Trimingham's missionary biases are clearly carried through his work. It is sufficient to point out his statement that if the Sudanese were “liberated from his religious heritage, the development of his thought and imagination would be easy” (1949:22). It goes without saying that this “liberation” is the starting point for any missionary. It is clear that Trimingham's image of Sudanese Islam retained a powerful appeal whose allure varied depending on who was captured by it. It seemed to me that the pioneers of the national movement and the leftists liked the separation between popular and official or Orthodox Islam. Such a separation allows them to take the side of popular religion and denounce the class of religious scholars who are accused by them of favoring colonialism or religious extremism. As for the Islamists, they have strengthened their determination to educate or incite people to follow the true religion because of the deviation from it that popular Islam represents. Ethnographers, on the other hand, have found that popular Islam was cut from the same marginal rural cloth that is the subject of their research. This multifaceted appeal of popular Islam constitutes an interesting topic for research in itself.
3 Adams calls it “popular religion” (1977:574,577). Barclay believes that Sufi orders are not a “popular” religion in every sense of the word, as they have roots in the intellectual history of Muslims (1964: 137).
4 Researchers differed in defining the cultural class that hybridized with Islam during its delegations to the land of Nubia. Some of them described it as paganism or magic (Trimmingham 1949:111; Barclay 1964:266; Abdel-Hay 1976:28; Harez 1977:52,60; Ibrahim 1979:126; Nasr 1980:91; Abdel-Salam 1983:10). It seems that Adams is the only one who believed that it was a cohesive Christian culture that influenced its people and interacted strongly with the incoming Islam (1977: 591). What is surprising to him is that these writers, unlike Adam, questioned Sudanese Christianity, which was the religion of the Sudanese for about eight centuries before Islam, and attributed it to paganism or magic. The apparent reason for this insult to Sudanese Christianity is that these writers believed that Sudanese Christianity was superficial in its impact and did not succeed in uprooting the roots of paganism that preceded it. Trimingham said that Sudanese Christianity was nothing but a state religion, while the people were not following the religion of their kings and continued to retain their pagan animism (1949:77).
5 Haidar Ibrahim mentions this perspective of believers, in passing, and without focus, in his treatment of it during the framing of his study of Islam in his village of Shayqiya. He rightly draws attention, however, to the fact that each sect of Muslims in the village considers itself alone to know the true religion and claims the Hawzat al-Sadad to know that true religion to the exclusion of others (1979: 127). Unfortunately, he did not investigate this important point correctly, but rather went beyond it, adhering to the duality of the popular and the orthodox (1979: 126).
6 Trimingham believes that the unique characteristic of African Islam is that its embrace causes only a small amount of internal vibration in social life and the adage of the African man living on nature. The reason for this is that this Islam does not refrain from adopting the basic features of paganism and hybridizing them in its true belief (1949:249). Thus, Trimingham explains the great success of Islam in Africa because the African’s conversion to it does not remove him in one sentence from its most pagan beliefs (1949: 165). However, Trimingham contradicts himself when he forgets his statement about this innate leniency of Islam in accepting hybridity when he interpreted the southern Sudanese as his own. He said that this departure was due to the natural resistance of the Negro tribes to Islam, “since pagan spiritualism is very conservative, while Islam destroys pagan institutions” (1949: 104).
7 It seems that the lack of precision in defining what is orthodox Islam and what is not is fascism. Michael MEEKER believes that performing the Hajj several times is not part of Orthodox Islam. It is also stated without support that stopping at Arafat during Hajj is prohibited in Sahih al-Islam (1979: 266). Both rulings are wrong from the point of view of Islam, which is described as orthodox.
8 JACQUES WAARDEBURG provides a broader intellectual framework for the absurd designation of orthodoxy in Islam by explaining the reasons for the little contribution of Western academic research in deepening the understanding of the close relationships between popular Islam and orthodox Islam. Wardberg says: “Since the people of the social sciences rarely knew the peremptory Islamic texts... they continued to focus their investigations on popular Islam, as they found it full of its ‘primitive’ elements... Anthropologists consider popular, popular Islam to be the real Islam of the people, while they consider official (orthodox) Islam to be religious ideals held by some legislators and religious scholars far from the people (1978:335338).
9 The sources relied upon by the Islamic Encyclopedia do not, in fact, approve of its ruling that the eye is a superstition that is not part of religion. Ibn al-Atheer and al-Muttaqi, among whom the writer of the article “The Hot Eye” in the Encyclopedia referred, did nothing more than say that the person afflicted with it resorts to Dharib al-Wada’ for protection from it (Ibn al-Atheer 1893: 202, al-Muttaqi 1969, 4: 220). In addition to this precaution, Al-Muttaqi provides a summary of most of the Prophet’s hadiths that state that the evil eye is a right (1971: 744, 746).
10 Eckelman believes, for example, that Almoravidism, which is the Moroccan term for the people’s belief in Sufi saints, has no relation to orthodox Islam. According to him, it is at best a type of orthodoxy and follows an established ritual ritual (1981a: 225).
11 The following is mentioned in the establishment of prayer:
Prayer is your prayer
And the wattage is your wattage
We fall and rise upon your glory
Translated from English by Mahmoud Al-Amin in “Sufism in Sudan, SUFISM IN THE SUDAN,” a paper for obtaining an honors degree, American University of Beirut, 1970.
12 For a recent application of these religious punitive powers, see Mahmoud Muhammad Taha (1987