1. Date of Foun­da­tion and Founder of the Dan­darawi fam­ily
2. Why was the Dan­darawi fam­ily founded?
3. Where did the Dan­darawi fam­ily orig­i­nate?
4. When did the name of the ‘Dan­darawi fam­ily’ was intro­duced?
5. How is the Dan­darawi fam­ily cat­e­gorised among the four Islamic sects in the Mus­lim world? Is it a Salafist sect, a Sufi order, a char­ity asso­ci­a­tion, a polit­i­cal group­ing, or an entity of a fifth cat­e­gory dif­fer­ent from these four?
6. What is the Dan­darawi family’s vision of Islam?
7. What is the Dan­darawi family’s vision of human reform?
8. What is the iden­tity of the Dan­darawi man?
9. What are the aims of the Dan­darawi fam­ily?
10. How does the Dan­darawi fam­ily realise their goals?
11. What is the con­di­tion for join­ing the group of the Dan­darawi fam­ily?
12. What is the man­ner of join­ing the group of the Dan­darawi fam­ily?
13. Who are the human con­stituents of the group of the Dan­darawi fam­ily?
14. The Dan­darawi fam­ily and the Islamic Jurispru­dence Schools
15. The Dan­darawi fam­ily and Sufi orders
16. The Dan­darawi fam­ily and char­ity organ­i­sa­tions
17. The Dan­darawi fam­ily and social classes
18. The Dan­darawi fam­ily and nation­al­ist organ­i­sa­tions
19. The Dan­darawi fam­ily and eth­nic nation­alisms
20. The Dan­darawi fam­ily and the state
21. The Dan­darawi fam­ily and pol­i­tics
22. The Dan­darawi fam­ily and adher­ents of other reli­gions
23. The Dan­darawi fam­ily and women
LIST OF REFERENCES

1. Date of Foun­da­tion and Founder of the Dan­darawi family

The Mus­lim group known as the ‘Dan­darawi fam­ily’ (Al Usrah Al Dan­daraweyah) was estab­lished in the year 1292 AH /​1875 CE.

The founder of the Dan­darawi fam­ily is Al-​Sultan Muham­mad Ad-​Dandarawi, a descen­dent of Al-​Sultan Al-​Yusuf, the prog­en­i­tor of the tribes of ‘Al-​Ammara‘ in Dan­dara. Al-​Sultan Al-​Yusuf is a descen­dent of Al-​Sharif Idris the First, the founder of the Idrisi state in the Ara­bian Maghreb (Morocco) [1], the grand­son of Al-​Imam Al-​Hasan Ibn Ali Ibn Abu Talib, Allah be pleased with him.

The founder of the Dan­darawi fam­ily, Al-​Sultan Muham­mad Ad-​Dandarawi, was born in the vil­lage of Dan­dara in Upper Egypt around the year 1835 CE (AD). Ever since his early years, he was able to see the grave and grim state that the Mus­lim indi­vid­ual and theMus­lim Ummah (world com­mu­nity) had fallen into. He saw hatred, jeal­ousy, and sep­a­ra­tion tak­ing the place of love and broth­er­hood among those who were – till very recently – lov­ing broth­ers and friends. He also saw intel­lec­tual, class, and racial strife among those who had formed – till the near past – a coher­ent and solid unity.

That was why he – as one of the Mus­lim schol­ars – rose to under­take the mis­sion of reform, mak­ing it his spe­cial task to think about ways of get­ting out of this human dilemma. In his attempts to do this, he started a far-​reaching travel around Mus­lim coun­tries to find schol­ars who had found a solu­tion to the grave prob­lems of the Mus­lim com­mu­nity and who had taken steps towards imple­ment­ing this solution.

He spent more than twenty years study­ing the state­ments and argu­ments of reform­ers and exam­in­ing their pro­grammes and achieve­ments, in the hope of find­ing among those reform­ers some vision or pro­gramme that went along the same lines that he had been able to arrive at con­cern­ing the root of the prob­lem and the ways of deal­ing with it, ulti­mately hop­ing to join his efforts to theirs in the reform project.

Upon reach­ing the age of forty, in around the year 1292 AH/​1875 CE, he had arrived at a com­pre­hen­sive view of the reform projects that were active in the sec­ond half of the nine­teenth cen­tury, but could not find what he was look­ing for in any of the reform­ers’ projects or groups. That was why he founded his own Mus­lim group.

After tak­ing this step, and for thirty two years, he trav­elled widely in Mus­lim lands, near as well as dis­tant, imple­ment­ing his reform project per­son­ally. In addi­tion, he sent envoys to Mus­lim com­mu­ni­ties in the Far East.

In the year 1907 CE, after he had accom­plished his foun­da­tional activ­i­ties, he passed away in the city of Med­ina, and he was buried in his rest­ing place in the ceme­tery of Al-​Baqi’, leav­ing the task of lead­er­ship of the group to his son Al-​Imam Al-​Abbas Ad-​Dandarawi to carry on with the reform project. How­ever, as long as the Dan­darawi fam­ily per­sists, he remains the moral ances­tor of every Mus­lim who joins that group.

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2. Why was the Dan­darawi fam­ily founded?

Al-​Sultan Ad-​Dandarawi pro­claimed his reform motto to the Mus­lim world com­mu­nity: ‘return to your Prophet (Sayyid­ina Muham­mad) and your nation (Ummah) will return to you.’ Based on this, he founded a Mus­lim group embrac­ing all those who were con­vinced of his refor­ma­tory vision and were set to retrieve the val­ues of Islam and restore the value of Muslims.

The ques­tion arises: why did Al-​Sultan Ad-​Dandarawi choose to found a group (col­lec­tive) to attain his reform goals, and was not con­tent by merely pro­claim­ing his reform vision and call­ing peo­ple to it? Why did he found the group of the Dan­darawi family?

In answer­ing this ques­tion, we need to men­tion four pur­poses that were realised by found­ing the group:

The first pur­pose is pro­vid­ing con­crete evi­dence for the valid­ity of the Dan­darawi vision and its attainability.

The intel­lec­tual vision of any reformer – no mat­ter how log­i­cal it may sound and no mat­ter how deeply rooted in infal­li­ble sacred scrip­tures it may be – will, in the eyes of ordi­nary peo­ple, remain a mere col­lec­tion of the­o­ries that are in the realm of the prob­a­ble and that may have a chance of suc­cess in treat­ing the painful sit­u­a­tion that peo­ple suf­fer from.

Al-​Sultan Ad-​Dandarawi, then estab­lished his Mus­lim group to under­take the respon­si­bil­ity of evi­denc­ing for all Mus­lims the vision that the root of all our ail­ments lies in the fact that we have deserted our pre­vi­ous attach­ment to the per­son of Muham­mad the Mes­sen­ger of Allah peace be upon him, and that return­ing to this attach­ment is the way to restore unity and cohe­sion to the fibre of the Mus­lim com­mu­nity and retrieve it from dispersion.

The sec­ond pur­pose is cre­at­ing a work­ing human frame­work to embrace all those who are con­vinced of the Dan­darawi vision of reform. Al-​Sultan Ad-​Dandarawi realised that ris­ing to the chal­lenge of reform­ing the con­di­tions of the Mus­lim Ummah (world com­mu­nity) all over the globe was a task that went beyond the time lim­its of the age he lived in. That was why he made his reform vision a uni­ver­sal all-​encompassing vision addressed to all Mus­lims all over the world. On the other hand, he chose to per­form his refor­ma­tory project in prac­tice from within the frame­work of a Mus­lim group rep­re­sent­ing a por­tion of the Mus­lim Ummah, those who chose to answer his refor­ma­tory calls.

Fur­ther­more, since human group­ings that share com­mon ide­o­log­i­cal con­vic­tions are often likely to fall into a sit­u­a­tion where they tend to be con­fined and closed, to reject and refuse the other, and to reject plu­ral­ity and vari­ety, Al-​Sultan Ad-​Dandarawi wanted his group to be open and never exclude oth­ers, so that any like-​minded Mus­lim can join the group at any time.

The third pur­pose is to par­tic­i­pate in treat­ing the painful sit­u­a­tion of Muslims.

In fact, numer­ous are the reform­ers who were con­tent with intel­lec­tual work, whereby they would pro­duce ideas, call to their reform pro­grammes, and endeav­our in call­ing peo­ple – or cer­tain spe­cific groups of peo­ple – to these pro­grammes, to take them up and start some prac­ti­cal field work in the field of reform.

That was not the case with Al-​Sultan Ad-​Dandarawi, who diag­nosed the ail­ment, pre­scribed the treat­ment, and pro­ceeded to estab­lish his own group to take part in treat­ing the causes of inner strife and divi­sion and fail­ure within the major­ity of Muslims.

He was not con­tent with pro­duc­ing and dis­sem­i­nat­ing good knowl­edge, leav­ing the task of treat­ment to oth­ers who embraced those con­vic­tions; rather, he took it upon him­self to take part in prac­ti­cal reform work through the group that he founded.

The fourth pur­pose is ris­ing to under­take the task of defend­ing the per­son of the great­est indi­vid­ual of mankind, Prophet Muham­mad peace be upon him.

Thus As-​Sultan Ad-​Dandarawi founded his Mus­lim group to be the group devoted to the Prophet peace be upon him in the Mus­lim com­mu­nity, to take up the defence of the unique per­son­al­ity of the Prophet peace be upon him in the face of mount­ing attacks against the Prophet peace be upon him and his personality.

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3. Where did the Dan­darawi fam­ily originate?

As-​Sultan Ad-​Dandarawi founded the nucleus of his Mus­lim group known as the ‘Dan­darawi fam­ily ‘ in the vil­lage of Dan­dara in Upper Egypt. This is why the tribes­men of Ammara in Dan­dara, along with the Mus­lim fam­i­lies therein, are con­sid­ered the nub of the human tree of the Dan­darawi family.

How­ever, the group of the Dan­darawi fam­ily was not con­fined to the vil­lage of Dan­dara. Rather, the roots of this tree extended to reach the major­ity of the tribes of the south­ern Upper Egypt (the provinces of Qena, Aswan, and the Red Sea), and reached numer­ous fam­i­lies in Egypt. The branches of the tree then spread to reach all the places where Mus­lims live, in east as well as west.

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4. When did the name of the ‘Dan­darawi fam­ily’ was introduced?

When As-​Sultan Ad-​Dandarawi founded his Mus­lim group in the year 1875 CE, he did not give it a name. How­ever, when the group became known in the Islamic com­mu­ni­ties and its activ­i­ties became appar­ent all over the Islamic dias­pora, it was given dif­fer­ent names in dif­fer­ent com­mu­ni­ties in accor­dance with the reac­tion (neg­a­tive or pos­i­tive) of the peo­ple in each indi­vid­ual com­mu­nity to its activities.

From among the names that were given to the group we men­tion the fol­low­ing: ‘the salafist group­ing of the Dan­darawi fol­low­ers,’ ‘fol­low­ers of the Ahmadi order,’ ‘fol­low­ers of the Rashidi order,’ ‘soci­ety of the sons of Al-​Abbas,’ and the ‘Dan­darawi men.’

None of these names was found to suit the group founded by As-​Sultan Ad-​Dandarawi. That was why, in the year 1973 CE, his high­ness Prince Al-​Fadhl Ibn Al-​Abbas Ad-​Dandarawi, the prince (leader) of the group, with unan­i­mous con­sent of all mem­bers of the group, decided to give their group­ing a name that would be derived from their Muhammedan iden­tity and their Dan­darawi char­ac­ter. Their choice was: the Muhammedan Group (Jam’u Insan Muham­mad) – the Dan­darawi Fam­ily (Al Usrah Al Dan­daraweyah).

This double-​phrased appel­la­tion, which appeared in the year 1393 AH/​1973 CE, shows the dual iden­tity of the group: the first phrase indi­cates the Muhammedan iden­tity (Tak­win Muham­madi) while the sec­ond part points to its Dan­darawi features.

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5. How is the Dan­darawi fam­ily cat­e­gorised among the four Islamic sects in the Mus­lim world? Is it a Salafist sect, a Sufi order, a char­ity asso­ci­a­tion, a polit­i­cal group­ing, or an entity of a fifth cat­e­gory dif­fer­ent from these four?

Dur­ing the last three cen­turies, the Mus­lim world[S1] has expe­ri­enced four dif­fer­ent kinds of Islamic group­ings: group­ings attached to the Islamic jurispru­den­tial schools of thought, group­ings attached to the Sufi orders, group­ings attached to benevolent/​charity soci­eties, and group­ings attached to nation­al­ist patri­otic organ­i­sa­tions. These four cat­e­gories were exclu­sively the only cat­e­gories active in the Mus­lim world.

The Dan­darawi fam­ily does not belong to any of these cat­e­gories; nei­ther does it offer itself as an alter­na­tive to any of them. This said, how­ever, it is nei­ther dis­tant from nor con­tra­dic­tory to any of them.

Due to the over­lap­ping, sim­i­lar­ity, and diver­gence between the Dan­darawi fam­ily and the four spe­cialised group­ings, mem­bers of the Fam­ily have been find­ing dif­fi­cul­ties in explain­ing to their inter­locu­tors the fact that the Fam­ily, in its organ­i­sa­tion and iden­tity, dif­fers from any one of these groupings.

In cat­e­goris­ing the Dan­darawi fam­ily as an Islamic group­ing, we may say: the Dan­darawi fam­ily is a social frame­work that brings together Mus­lim indi­vid­u­als of a Muhammedan iden­tity (Tak­win Muham­madi), form­ing a micro­cosm of the one Mus­lim nation, despite the diver­gence of their intel­lec­tual paths, social classes, nation­al­i­ties, eth­nic­i­ties, and places of residence.

By found­ing this Mus­lim group, As-​Sultan Ad-​Dandarawi wished to illus­trate to every­body the pos­si­bil­ity of real­is­ing har­mony within diver­sity inside one cru­cible. He, fur­ther, wanted to show the neces­sity of doing pre­cisely this in order to be able to return to the sit­u­a­tion we were in before the col­lapse of the struc­ture of the Mus­lim communities.

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6. What is the Dan­darawi family’s vision of Islam?

The Dan­darawi fam­ily is a Mus­lim group that embraces belief in all the items of Islamic faith and is com­mit­ted to all the Islamic pre­scrip­tions that Mus­lims are required to per­form. Its ref­er­ence – in life as well as in intel­lec­tual mat­ters – is the Book of Allah (Al Quran) the Most Sub­lime and the state­ments of the Prophet peace be upon him.

The Dan­darawi fam­ily, then, is a part of the Mus­lim nation; it has not come up with a new reli­gion from out­side the con­sen­sual sources of Islam. Keep­ing this in mind, the Fam­ily endeav­oured to retrieve the ‘orig­i­nal form of Islam‘ imple­mented by the noble com­pan­ions of the Prophet peace be upon him in their life and by their fol­low­ers in the suc­ceed­ing generations.

The ques­tion then arises: what is the authen­tic ver­sion of Islam that was imple­mented by the com­pan­ions and their followers?

From the Dan­darawi per­spec­tive, the gen­uine con­cept of Islam pre­scribes four inter­re­lated actions:

  • Hav­ing belief in the tenets expressed in the Quran and the tra­di­tions of the Prophet, peace be upon him,
  • Pro­claim­ing the tes­ti­mo­nial of monothe­ism : ‘I bear wit­ness that there is no deity besides (other than) Allah and that Muham­mad is His Messenger,
  • Build­ing life on Islamic prin­ci­ples by stick­ing to Islam’s sys­tem of life in wor­ship, trans­ac­tions, social cohe­sion, and national sol­i­dar­ity, and
  • Pre­serv­ing the organic unity of the Mus­lim Ummah (nation) by arriv­ing at a human for­ma­tion inter­act­ing pos­i­tively with the diver­sity and plu­ral­ity that are a human inevitabil­ity in any gen­eral human gathering.

In what fol­lows, we attempt a more detailed account of these four actions.

1. Belief in Allah the Most Sublime

We find a detailed account of the items of faith for the chil­dren of the Dan­darawi fam­ily in the first book and the three sec­tions of the sec­ond book of Al-​Wathiqa Al-​Baida’ (The White Document).

How­ever, in what fol­lows we cite their state­ment con­cern­ing faith in Allah the Most Sub­lime, which is the belief of the major­ity of Mus­lims [2]:

Every­one who embraces Islam should know that Allah – blessed be His Name – is the One Allah and Lord. He has no father and no son; He is above shape, form, simil­i­tude, and becom­ing; He is the One Allah with no part­ners; … He – blessed be His Name – has sub­jected all His crea­tures in the Domin­ion of the Heav­ens and the earth to His Will, Com­mand, and Per­mis­sion; He is also the One and only Lord, Lord of every­thing, Whose Lordly Power has no limit, … and from Whose Lordly Power no one can be excluded from.

He is the First Who has no begin­ning and the Last with no end­ing; … He is the Seen with­out man­i­fes­ta­tion and the Hid­den with­out con­ceal­ment; … He is the One Known by His Attrib­utes and wor­shipped by His Names.

He – blessed be His Name – is the One Who brought every exist­ing crea­ture into being and He is the Cre­ator of every father and child; He is the One Who gives power to whomever pros­trates him­self to Him, and the One Who brings into humil­i­a­tion any­one who sets up a wor­shipped idol with Him.

He – blessed be His Name – is the Liv­ing Who does not die, while any liv­ing being from among His crea­tures is cer­tain to die … No one should have any doubt in His Divine Being; He – blessed be His Name – has absolute Power over all His ser­vants, and no one has the right to con­tend with Him over His Lordly Power; He – blessed be His Name – is the One and Only Who has the right to dis­pose in His cre­ation … and it is impos­si­ble for any­one to have a share in His Domin­ion; He – blessed be His Name – is the sole Owner of the Domin­ion of the Heav­ens and the earth, and there is no pos­si­bil­ity for any­one to stand as a rival or peer to Him; no one can share His Domin­ion with Him.

2. Pro­claim­ing the tes­ti­mo­nial of Tawhid (monotheism)

It is insuf­fi­cient for one to have faith at heart in the one­ness of Allah and in Muham­mad, peace be upon Sayyid­ina Muham­mad, as His Mes­sen­ger; rather, it is a pre­scrip­tion that the believer should utter the dual tes­ti­mo­nial of monothe­ism: ‘I bear wit­ness that there is no deity besides (other than) Allah and that Muham­mad (peace be upon Sayyid­ina Muham­mad) is His Messenger.’

In fact, the dual tes­ti­mo­nial con­sists of two parts that form one insep­a­ra­ble state­ment. From the per­spec­tive of the Dan­darawi School, a per­son is not counted a Mus­lim if he utters only the first part ‘I bear wit­ness that there is no deity besides (other than) Allah,’ with­out the sec­ond part ‘Muham­mad (peace be upon Sayyid­ina Muham­mad) is His Messenger.’

3 & 4. Uphold­ing Islam and pre­serv­ing the unity of the cor­pus of the Mus­lim community

Hav­ing embraced the cor­rect dogma in belief in Allah and hav­ing embraced Islam by utter­ing the state­ment of monothe­ism, a per­son needs to know that Allah the Most Sub­lime has sent His noble Mes­sen­ger, peace be upon him, to per­form two roles in his life, two roles that are insep­a­ra­ble and nei­ther can do with­out the other: no Mus­lim is within his right to choose one of them while neglect­ing the other.

The first role is that Muham­mad, peace be upon Sayyid­ina Muham­mad, is the Last Mes­sen­ger sent by Allah to teach mankind sub­mis­sion to the Lord the Cre­ator and to estab­lish this con­cept in man’s con­scious­ness. The sec­ond role is that he, peace be upon him, is the Leader who brings all Mus­lims in one Ummah (com­mu­nity) that can be of value in the world.

It fol­lows from this that every Mus­lim, at all times, has the duty of pre­serv­ing both roles in his life: by uphold­ing Islam as an ide­ol­ogy and, at the same time, by endeav­our­ing towards erect­ing a human entity in which he will form a brick in the edi­fice of the com­mu­nity and a fibre in the tex­ture of the society.

How can a Mus­lim show his attach­ment to the first role (as the final­is­ing mes­sen­ger) by uphold­ing Islam in his soul?

There are four kinds of attach­ment that a Mus­lim has to uphold Islam in his con­scious­ness and that would demon­strate his response to the first role of the Mes­sen­ger of Allah, peace be upon him:

  • The first is by stick­ing to the Muhammedan Sunna (Maslak) in per­form­ing his pre­scribed devotions.
  • The sec­ond is by stick­ing to the Muhammedan char­ac­ter and con­duct (Suluk)in his trans­ac­tions with others.
  • The third is by stick­ing to the prin­ci­ple of Muhammedan com­mu­nal coher­ence (Man­haj) pre­scrib­ing sol­i­dar­ity and coop­er­a­tion among Mus­lims in the Mus­lim soci­ety in times of stress and adversity.
  • The fourth is stick­ing to the prin­ci­ple of Muhammedan com­mu­nal spirit (Min­haj)pre­scrib­ing empa­thy and mutual love among Mus­lims in var­i­ous lands.

How can a Mus­lim show his attach­ment to the sec­ond role of the Prophet, peace be upon him, (as a com­pre­hen­sive leader) by par­tic­i­pat­ing in improv­ing the qual­ity of life among Mus­lims to assert their value in the world?

In per­form­ing this role, a Mus­lim can start by engag­ing him­self to the char­ac­ter of Muham­mad, the Mes­sen­ger of Allah, peace be upon him, in two inter­re­lated ways that are apt to trans­form his human make-​up, thus becom­ing a ‘Muhammedan being (Insan Muham­madi),’ capa­ble of pos­i­tive inter­ac­tion with the intel­lec­tual and social class diver­sity and with eth­nic and ter­ri­to­r­ial plurality.

Since rul­ings and judge­ments in Islam depend exclu­sively on the appar­ent activ­i­ties of man, if a Mus­lim does not demon­strate his attach­ment in speech and deeds, or if he con­ducts him­self in a man­ner con­trary to his announced attach­ment, then he has only him­self to blame. This is because no judge­ment should be passed on someone’s attach­ment or cred­i­bil­ity except by what is appar­ent from his con­duct in public.

In what fol­lows we give a detailed account of these two attachments.

The first attach­ment is faith-​related: it is that a Mus­lim should have belief in the fact that the Prophetic self is a unique human self, and thus com­mits him­self to it in mat­ters of faith. Then this faith-​related attach­ment is demon­strated in his endeav­our to have the four com­po­nents of his self – body, spirit, soul, and mind – moulded in the shape of the attrib­utes of the unique Prophetic self. To do this, he has to per­form four kinds of activities.

  • The first is to pre­serve the well-​being of his body by fol­low­ing the exam­ple of the clean­li­ness of the Prophet, peace be upon him, and the purity of his prayers.
  • The sec­ond is to purify his spirit by remem­ber­ing and men­tion­ing Allah in abun­dance, fol­low­ing the exam­ple of the Prophet’s prayers, and by repeat­ing con­tin­u­ously salu­ta­tions to the Prophet, peace be upon him.
  • The third is to refine his soul by impress­ing on it the beauty and per­fec­tion of the actions and instances of quiet­ness of the Prophet, peace be upon him.
  • The fourth is to inform his mind with the knowl­edge of the infal­li­ble Quran that was revealed to the Prophet, peace be upon him, and the instruc­tions inscribed in his state­ments and traditions.

The sec­ond attach­ment is related to the sense of belong­ing: it means that the Mus­lim should nur­ture a sense of belong­ing to the unique Prophetic self. This makes it incum­bent on him to purify his per­sonal views from self­ish­ness, indi­vid­u­al­ism, and single-​mindedness, and from any form of neg­a­tive inter­ac­tion with oth­ers. He has to endeav­our to have his inter­ac­tion with his human sur­round­ings in line with the instruc­tions of the leader of the Mus­lim Ummah, peace be upon him, in the field of inter­per­sonal rela­tion­ships as follows:

  • The first inter­ac­tion is that of the mind with the intel­lec­tual sec­tar­ian group­ings in the Mus­lim com­mu­nity. In this domain, a Mus­lim who belongs to the unique Prophetic self under­stands and appre­ci­ates the ben­e­fits of the intel­lec­tual diver­sity inher­ent in the var­i­ous reli­gious group­ings in the com­mu­nity: Salafi, Sufi, char­i­ta­ble asso­ci­a­tions, and nation­al­ist organ­i­sa­tions etc, and never has a big­oted self-​defensive atti­tude towards them.
  • The sec­ond inter­ac­tion is that with the var­i­ous social classes. In this domain, a Mus­lim who belongs to the unique Prophetic self is pro­foundly aware of the innate jus­tice of the social sys­tem in hav­ing dif­fer­ent classes, thus he would never with­draw into his own class aban­don­ing other classes.
  • The third inter­ac­tion is that of the spirit with the eth­nic nation­al­i­ties. In this respect, a Mus­lim who is com­mit­ted to the unique Prophetic self feels pro­foundly famil­iar and com­fort­able with the plu­ral­ity of eth­nic­i­ties and is never big­oted for his race against other races.
  • The fourth inter­ac­tion is that of the body with the geo­graph­i­cal and ter­ri­to­r­ial char­ac­ter­is­tics. In this respect, a Mus­lim who is com­mit­ted to the unique Prophetic self has his body appro­pri­ately accli­ma­tised with plu­ral­ity of ter­ri­to­r­ial traits and would never with­draw into his nar­row home ter­ri­tory aban­don­ing other localities.

Thus we see that the Muslim’s attach­ment to the self of the Prophet, peace be upon him, is not a mere word or a claim with no evi­dence; rather, it is a faith and a sense of belong­ing. The proper proof for it would be man chang­ing his build-​up to achieve a Muhammedan build-​up (Tak­win Muham­madi) that would firmly estab­lish the val­ues of Islam in his soul and give root to the value of Mus­lims in this world.

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7. What is the Dan­darawi family’s vision of human reform?

Hav­ing toured in Mus­lim lands, hav­ing seen the crum­bling of their social struc­tures and the lac­er­a­tion of the fibre of their com­mu­nity, and hav­ing observed the prac­tices of Mus­lims – indi­vid­u­als and groups – con­cern­ing the affairs of their reli­gion, the founder of the Dan­darawi fam­ily, As-​Sultan Ad-​Dandarawi, realised that the cause behind the degen­er­a­tion of the Mus­lim affairs was their aban­don­ing of the sec­ond role/​function of the Prophet, peace be upon him, in their lives. Most Mus­lims have dis­en­gaged them­selves from the attach­ment to the Prophet, peace be upon him, and the out­come was that:

Most Mus­lims were apply­ing the teach­ings of Islam in accor­dance with their own under­stand­ing. Some of them would restrict their view of Islam to the estab­lished pre­scribed acts of wor­ship and some moral val­ues. Oth­ers would extend the view to include devo­tions, social man­ners, and com­mu­nal coop­er­a­tion. How­ever, it was only in very rare cases that the con­tem­po­rary Mus­lim felt that he – by being a Mus­lim – belongs organ­i­cally to the sin­gle cor­pus of the Mus­lim com­mu­nity and that he has to respond pos­i­tively to any threat/​illness that might come up to imperil this corpus.

Most Mus­lims have come to for­mu­late the com­po­nents of their selves as dic­tated by their own per­sonal rea­son­ing, thus fol­low­ing the exam­ple of human role mod­els that they see fit. This way they were never safe from inter­nal strife in their souls between var­i­ous role mod­els that diverged in val­ues and practices.

Most Mus­lims have come to for­mu­late their sys­tems of rela­tion­ships and inter­ac­tion with their human sur­round­ings accord­ing to per­sonal whims and ten­den­cies that may not be free from per­sonal benefit-​seeking and inclinations.

Thus, instead of being a source of peace and secu­rity to all, Islam turned, with the indi­vid­u­al­is­tic trends of thought and behav­iour and with plu­ral­ism of axes of ref­er­ence, to a space for intel­lec­tual, social, and national strife of which vir­tu­ally none of the Mus­lim com­mu­ni­ties was safe. And instead of being a sin­gle whole mutu­ally sup­port­ive body, the com­mu­nity of Mus­lims suf­fered from what looked very much like a rodent ulcer or gan­grene, and its parts became mutu­ally self-​destructive.

That is why – accord­ing to the founder of the Dan­darawi fam­ily – human reform lies in retriev­ing our orig­i­nal under­stand­ing of the authen­tic Islam and in hav­ing aware­ness of the cen­tral­ity of the two func­tions of the Mes­sen­ger of Allah, peace be upon him, in the Mus­lim individual’s life. Then, based on this aware­ness, comes the role of the human will to be com­mit­ted to and to put into action the intel­lec­tual con­vic­tions and to be com­mit­ted to the trust of both roles.

Thus, reform – accord­ing to the vision of the founder of the Dan­darawi fam­ily – starts with the human being, and any attempt at reform that over­looks or mar­gin­alises the per­son­al­ity of man can be noth­ing but a tem­po­rary reform open to col­lapse at any time. The Dan­darawi vision of reform, then, is essen­tially human, where every human being is respon­si­ble for the sought reform and where every human being takes part in the reform process. Fur­ther­more, the out­come of this reform will nec­es­sar­ily over­flow to cover the whole of mankind, espe­cially tak­ing into con­sid­er­a­tion the fact that Mus­lims make up over a quar­ter of the pop­u­la­tion of the globe and the inter­nal sta­bil­ity of Mus­lims is bound to be reflected in inter­na­tional sta­bil­ity and peace.

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8. What is the iden­tity of the Dan­darawi man?

We live in a time when dif­fer­ent direc­tions and ori­en­ta­tions strug­gle to for­mu­late the Mus­lim man’s iden­tity. This is why we would like to assert that a Dan­darawi man is a Mus­lim with a Muhammedan con­sti­tu­tion (Tak­win Muham­madi), who takes great care to have his Muhammedan con­sti­tu­tion (Tak­win Muham­madi) reflected in every one of actions, whether in the pri­vate per­sonal domain or in the pub­lic sphere.

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9. What are the aims of the Dan­darawi family?

The fact is that the vast major­ity of Mus­lims did not dis­en­gage from their attach­ment to the per­son of the Mes­sen­ger of Allah, peace be upon him, overnight, decid­ing to stay com­mit­ted to his role as the last of Allah’s mes­sen­gers and aban­don his role as a leader for the Mus­lim world com­mu­nity. In fact, this aban­don­ment came in the after­maths of a series of attacks – from inter­nal as well as exter­nal quar­ters – against the per­son of the Mes­sen­ger of Allah, peace be upon him. Some of these assaults came around some three hun­dred years ago with the rise of claims warn­ing Mus­lims of dan­gers threat­en­ing their monothe­is­tic (Tawhid) beliefs if and when they com­mit them­selves to the per­son of the cho­sen Prophet, peace be upon him.

The White Doc­u­ment’ (Al-​Wathiqa Al-​Baida’) points to these claims as the ‘dark and errant sus­pi­cion‘; and states that the major­ity of Mus­lims have fallen prey to this sus­pi­cion and dis­en­gaged them­selves from the per­son of the Prophet, peace be upon him, that was the embod­i­ment of Islam.

This way, the Mus­lim man became one of two per­sons: either one deriv­ing guid­ance from per­sonal pious feel­ings, or one mak­ing his guid­ance go by his own incli­na­tion; and this state of affairs resulted in Islam becom­ing strange for mul­ti­tudes of Mus­lims. [3]

Fac­ing this real­ity, and to counter the errant assaults against the per­son of the Cho­sen Mes­sen­ger, peace be upon him, the Dan­darawi fam­ily pro­ceeded to under­take the mis­sion of stand­ing for the ‘Muhammedan Cause, (Al Qad­hiyyah Al Muham­madiyah)’ mak­ing the defence of the Prophetic Domain (Al A’taab An Nabawiyah) at the top of its pri­or­i­ties . This is because the val­ues of Islam can­not be estab­lished in man’s con­science; nei­ther can the fab­ric of the Mus­lim com­mu­nity become coher­ent and solid, away from the pres­ence of the per­son of the Cho­sen Mes­sen­ger and Selected Leader, peace be upon him.

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10. How does the Dan­darawi fam­ily realise their goals?

The main goal of the founder of the Dan­darawi fam­ily was estab­lish­ing a group that would say through actions – not by the­o­ries – to those around that Mus­lims are capa­ble of restor­ing the firm­ness of Islamic val­ues in man’s con­science and retriev­ing the coher­ence and sol­i­dar­ity that can boost the value of Mus­lims in the world if they return to their attach­ment to the per­son of the final Mes­sen­ger and assem­bling Leader peace be upon him. For this rea­son, he may Allah have mercy on his soul defined two actions – or, rather, courses of action – that are together inter­re­lat­edly incum­bent on each one of the Dan­darawi fam­ily: one pri­vate and per­sonal and the other pub­lic and communal.

The pri­vate course (Masirah Zatiyyah) starts with the indi­vid­ual Mus­lim being com­mit­ted to the per­son of Muham­mad the Mes­sen­ger of Allah, peace be upon him, in order to restore the Muhammedan con­sti­tu­tion (Tak­win Muham­madi) that was the model for the noble com­pan­ions and the right­eous fore­fa­thers. This is because this human con­sti­tu­tion is the only fac­tor capa­ble of real­is­ing the mis­sion that is the goal of found­ing the Dan­darawi fam­ily. By being com­mit­ted to the per­son of the Cho­sen Prophet, peace be upon him, a Mus­lim would enable his four per­sonal com­po­nents – body, spirit, soul, and mind – to be impressed by activ­i­ties that would firmly estab­lish in his con­science the four Islamic val­ues [devo­tions, trans­ac­tions, coop­er­a­tion, coher­ence], and enable – at the same time – his four vision­ary capa­bil­i­ties to be affected by inter­ac­tions that would restore sol­i­dar­ity to the struc­ture of the soci­ety and coher­ence to the fab­ric of the nation, thus boost­ing the value of the Mus­lim com­mu­nity in the world.

This pri­vate course (Masirah Zatiyyah) is started with a per­sonal deci­sion that the indi­vid­ual takes; it is then fol­lowed up by con­tin­ual care and watch­ful­ness in a way that is apt to pre­serve the course and the individual’s steps from trip­ping under the influ­ence of a pre­vi­ous bad habit or a lapse in awareness.

The per­fec­tion that each sin­gle mem­ber of the Dan­darawi fam­ily dis­plays in his pri­vate course is likely to make of him a mir­ror reflect­ing the Muhammedan con­sti­tu­tion (Tak­win Muham­madi) to his human sur­round­ings and would illus­trate the effect of hav­ing this con­sti­tu­tion for the indi­vid­ual and the community.

On the other hand, the com­mu­nal course (Masirah Jama’iyyah) is the human frame­work that enables each mem­ber of the Dan­darawi fam­ily to go along his per­sonal course. When the com­mu­nal course starts with its steps to realise the unity of ranks and the homo­gene­ity of move­ment, each one of the fields of the Dan­darawi fam­ily becomes – in its human sur­round­ing – a bea­con for the ‘group of the Muhammedan men (Jam’u Insan Muham­mad),’ to be joined by any Mus­lim resolv­ing to enter into a attach­ment with the per­son of the Prophet peace be upon him with the inten­tion of par­tic­i­pat­ing in com­pre­hen­sive human reform.

The Dan­darawi fam­ily has out­lined the pro­gramme of its com­mu­nal course in four stages: dis­clo­sure (Al Izhar), repute (Al Isyti­har), fusion (Al Insi­har), and spread­ing (Al Intisyar).

Dis­clo­sure (Al Izhar) per­tains to the stage when the Dan­darawi fam­ily shows the iden­tity of its con­sti­tu­tion being a group­ing of the ‘group of Muhammedan men (Jam’u Insan Muhammad).’

Repute (Al Isyti­har) sig­ni­fies the stage when the fam­ily becomes known in its human sur­round­ings by what it had pre­vi­ously dis­closed about its identity.

Fusion (Al Insi­har) takes place when good for the mul­ti­tude becomes good for the indi­vid­ual and adver­sity for the indi­vid­ual becomes adver­sity for the community.

Spread­ing (Al Intisyar) occurs with the incre­ment in the branches of the firm human tree of the Dan­darawi family.

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11. What is the con­di­tion for join­ing the group of the Dan­darawi family?

The founder of the Dan­darawi fam­ily, As-​Sultan Ad-​Dandarawi, put only one con­di­tion for join­ing his Mus­lim group: that the indi­vid­ual Mus­lim wish­ing to join the ranks of the group should have a dual attach­ment (Irt­ibat) to the per­son of Muham­mad the Mes­sen­ger of Allah: attach­ment of belief in the unique Prophetic self and attach­ment of belong­ing to the unique Prophetic self.

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12. What is the man­ner of join­ing the group of the Dan­darawi family?

A Mus­lim indi­vid­ual resolv­ing to enter into attach­ment with the per­son of Muham­mad, the Mes­sen­ger of Allah, peace be upon him, can join the group of the Dan­darawi fam­ily by morally belong­ing to its founder, As-​Sultan Ad-​Dandarawi .

This moral attach­ment (Inti­sab Ma’nawi) to the founder of the Dan­darawi fam­ily bestows on the mem­ber the title of ‘ Dan­darawi‘, which would pre­cede his name but would not replace his sur­name; thus we would refer to such a mem­ber by the name ‘Ad-​Dandarawi so-​and-​so son of so-​and-​so.’

Fur­ther­more, this moral belong­ing makes of the founder of the Dan­darawi fam­ily – As-​Sultan Ad-​Dandarawi may Allah have mercy on his soul – the moral fore­fa­ther for all mem­bers of his group. Thus, the sec­ond Dan­darawi, his son Al-​Imam Al-​Abbas, would be the spir­i­tual father for all the chil­dren of the Dan­darawi fam­ily; and the third Dan­darawi, his grand­son, his high­ness Al-​Fadhl Ibn Al-​Abbas Ad-​Dandarawi , the great brother of the group­ings of the clans and fam­i­lies of the Dan­darawi over­all family.

The founder of the Dan­darawi fam­ily may Allah have mercy on his soul has decreed that mem­ber­ship of the group should be left open for all the masses of monothe­is­tic believ­ers in the unity of Allah till the end of time Allah will­ing, so that any­one who wishes to join the group can do that at any time, in accor­dance with above-​mentioned stipulation.

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13. Who are the human con­stituents of the group of the Dan­darawi family?

It has always been the prac­tice of founders of human group­ings to direct their atten­tion towards attract­ing cer­tain cat­e­gories of peo­ple: the young, uni­ver­sity stu­dents, promi­nent busi­ness­men, or the afflu­ent and influ­en­tial – never heed­ing the weak or the under­priv­i­leged. Oth­ers would accept none in their group­ings except the pious and vir­tu­ous and refuse to become pre­oc­cu­pied with reform­ing those who are less than vir­tu­ous. And it is amaz­ing how this cat­e­gor­i­cal pat­tern­ing in human group­ing comes out clearly when­ever we come in con­tact with some of these groups on a social occa­sion, for example.

On the other hand, the founder of the Dan­darawi fam­ily addressed his reform call to any Mus­lim who is approach­able and is likely to be inter­ested. That was because he wanted for his group to reflect the pic­ture of the fab­ric of the Mus­lim world com­mu­nity and the struc­ture of the soci­ety. That was why he may Allah have mercy on his soul took spe­cial care of a num­ber of prac­ti­cal prin­ci­ples that we enu­mer­ate in what follows:

That the human struc­ture of his group should embrace Mus­lims belong­ing to all four Islamicintel­lec­tual trends: Salafi schools, Sufi orders, char­ity organ­i­sa­tions, and nation­al­ist patri­otic organisations.

That the human struc­ture of his group should embrace peo­ple from all social classes: the rich and poor, the priv­i­leged and under­priv­i­leged, the edu­cated and illit­er­ate, the rulers and subjects.

That the human struc­ture of his group should embrace peo­ple from all human races and colours: white, black, red, and yellow.

That the human struc­ture of his group should embrace Mus­lims from all quar­ters of the globe and from all ter­ri­to­r­ial habi­tats: east, west, north, and south; inhab­i­tants of moun­tain­ous areas, val­leys, plains, or coastal areas.

That the human struc­ture of his group should embrace Mus­lims from all national or land struc­tures: tribes, clans, or fam­i­lies. Thus the Dan­darawi fam­ily will com­prise closely formed ranks of clans and fam­i­lies moulded into one human struc­tural group, attached morally to the founder of the Dan­darawi family.

Thus we see that the human struc­ture of the Dan­darawi fam­ily is formed of Mus­lims of Muhammedan con­sti­tu­tion (Tak­win Muham­madi), belong­ing to var­i­ous clans and fam­i­lies, descend­ing from all races of the world in all their four colours, spread in all four quar­ters of the globe, com­ing from var­i­ous liv­ing stan­dards and social classes.

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14. The Dan­darawi fam­ily and the Islamic Jurispru­dence Schools

The Dan­darawi fam­ily sees the four Islamic jurispru­dence sects as schools wherein a Mus­lim may learn the rul­ings of the Islamic Shariah law in acts of wor­ship and deal­ings in accor­dance with the teach­ings of the Prophetic Sunna.

In the Dan­darawi vision, Prophet Muham­mad, peace be upon him, has drawn four aspects for his way (Sunna) and Allah the Most Sub­lime guided each one of the four major jurispru­dents to one of these aspects; and a Mus­lim can embrace the straight Muhammedan path through the aspect that is within his capa­bil­ity, that matches his per­sonal nature, and that matches his cli­matic sur­round­ings at the same time, all in mod­er­a­tion with­out exaggeration.

The founder of the Dan­darawi fam­ily, As-​Sultan Ad-​Dandarawi, him­self fol­lowed the Syafi’e school teach­ings in his devo­tions, and gave each one in his group free­dom to fol­low any school in his acts of wor­ship, with the cau­tion that no mem­ber of the fam­ily should take a hos­tile atti­tude towards other schools; this is because the dif­fer­ence between the schools is one of com­ple­men­ta­tion and not of hostility.

Thus we see that the Dan­darawi fam­ily is not a new jurispru­dence school and that its human struc­ture is left open and ready to adopt and adapt any­one who wishes to embrace its teach­ings from among the fol­low­ers of the four jurispru­dence schools any time he wishes to do so. This way, every­one would dis­play the cen­tral­ity of attach­ment to the per­son of the Cho­sen Mes­sen­ger and Leader peace be upon him in restor­ing the coher­ence of the fab­ric of the Mus­lim nation, and what ensues from this coher­ence of devel­op­ment in con­struc­tion and glory among the nations of the world.

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15. The Dan­darawi fam­ily and Sufi orders

The Dan­darawi fam­ily sees the var­i­ous Sufi ways as schools for Muhammedan gra­cious man­ners that teach a Mus­lim the fun­da­men­tals of the rul­ings of Islam by fol­low­ing the Muhammedan exam­ple and gives him high taste in terms of under­stand­ing and sub­lime res­o­lu­tion in terms of will. These orders, fur­ther­more, nour­ishes the soul with their devo­tions, prayers, and invo­ca­tions; and uplifts the prac­tis­ing Mus­lim from the lows of his earthly exis­tence to high human spir­i­tual levels.

In dis­play­ing the impor­tance and neces­sity of fol­low­ing the ways of a spe­cific Sufi order for a Mus­lim, he com­mit­ted him­self and his kin to the Ahmadi Idrisi way, but gave other mem­bers of the group free­dom of choice of the Sufi way whose spe­cific devo­tions would best suit them in nour­ish­ing their souls and bring­ing their Islamic prac­tice into perfection.

Thus we see that the Dan­darawi fam­ily is not a Sufi way/​order; how­ever, its chil­dren indi­vid­u­ally fol­low one of the known Sufi orders – most of them fol­low the Ahmadi Idrisi way. None of them, more­over, cling fanat­i­cally to one of the orders while view­ing other ways with hos­til­ity; they deal with all Mus­lims fol­low­ing all other pure Sufi orders as brethren, friends, com­pan­ions, and neigh­bours. By tol­er­at­ing this plu­ral­ity of ways of tast­ing Islamic spir­i­tual val­ues, the human struc­ture of the Dan­darawi fam­ily remains open to and will­ing to embrace any­one who wishes to join the group from among the adher­ents of var­i­ous Sufi orders at the time that suits him best. The goal is that the nation, with this coher­ence, restores the essence of the unity of its fab­ric and its sta­tus among nations of the world.

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16. The Dan­darawi fam­ily and char­ity organisations

The chil­dren of the Dan­darawi fam­ily are com­mit­ted to social coher­ence because it is an Islamic oblig­a­tion, which is a pre-​requisite for man liv­ing Islam in his life. They are com­mit­ted to social coher­ence not only amongst them­selves but also with every­body in their com­mu­nity. This coher­ence takes the shape of coop­er­a­tion in times of fear and sol­i­dar­ity in times of adversity.

How­ever, despite the great attach­ment of the Dan­darawi chil­dren to social coher­ence, the Dan­darawi fam­ily, in its con­sti­tu­tion, is not to be seen as a char­ity organ­i­sa­tion. More­over, this does not mean that the fam­ily does not appre­ci­ate the efforts of gen­uine phil­an­thropic organ­i­sa­tions or that it stands in hos­til­ity to the benev­o­lent asso­ci­a­tions. On the con­trary, the fam­ily leaves its ranks open to any mem­ber of any benev­o­lent asso­ci­a­tion who wishes to join the ranks of the family.

In the final analy­sis, it is part of the sys­tem of the Dan­darawi fam­ily to have full respect to all gen­uine phil­an­thropic assem­blies; and the chil­dren of the fam­ily deal with the mem­bers of these assem­blies as brethren, friends, neigh­bours, or com­pan­ions when­ever they are in their social surroundings.

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17. The Dan­darawi fam­ily and social classes

Dur­ing his trav­els in Mus­lim coun­tries, the founder of the Dan­darawi fam­ily saw that the liv­ing con­di­tions in many of their soci­eties have led to a kind of class dis­tinc­tion whereby peo­ple of sim­i­lar liv­ing cir­cum­stances tended to group together, iso­lat­ing them­selves from – and some­times feel­ing hos­tile to – peo­ple of other classes. This phe­nom­e­non has impacted neg­a­tively on the struc­ture of the soci­ety as a whole, lead­ing to cor­ro­sion in its coher­ence and to depriv­ing the com­mu­nity from the process of con­tin­ued development.

This obser­va­tion led the founder of the fam­ily to take spe­cial care to make his group reflect the struc­ture of the true Mus­lim com­mu­nity. This resulted in the Dan­darawi fam­ily being an all-​embracing social con­struc­tion includ­ing peo­ple from all social classes and not an exclu­sive social construction.

Thus the Dan­darawi fam­ily embraces in its sin­gle con­struc­tion peo­ple from var­i­ous social groups or classes, and cares to make it clear to any­one who is in con­tact with its fields of action in any com­mu­nity that man, by gen­uine attach­ment to the per­son of the Prophet peace be upon him, can over­come the bar­ri­ers of social class dis­tinc­tion and com­mu­ni­cate from his posi­tion with peo­ple from all classes. This will occur as a result of man reform­ing and refin­ing his soul by fol­low­ing the model of the Prophetic man­ners and con­trol­ling it in a way to make it feel the jus­tice in the sys­tem of class vari­ety in the society.

Such a com­mu­nity is not likely to expe­ri­ence and suf­fer from envy: no poor per­son would envy the rich; no weak per­son would envy the strong, no une­d­u­cated per­son would envy schol­ars, and sub­jects would not look with envy towards rulers.

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18. The Dan­darawi fam­ily and nation­al­ist organisations

The chil­dren of the Dan­darawi fam­ily are com­mit­ted to the unity of the Mus­lim nation because it is an Islamic oblig­a­tion, which is a pre-​requisite for man liv­ing Islam in his life. They are thus com­mit­ted to sol­i­dar­ity with their brethren in Mus­lim com­mu­ni­ties across the bor­ders with rela­tion­ships of empa­thy and love, as this is the spin­dle that weaves the fab­ric of the Mus­lim nation in a sin­gle corpus.

How­ever, despite the great attach­ment of the Dan­darawi chil­dren to Islamic unity and national har­mony across var­i­ous nations, the Dan­darawi fam­ily is not to be seen as a nation­al­ist organ­i­sa­tion. Fur­ther­more, this should not mean that it takes a hos­tile atti­tude towards nation­al­ist group­ings or that it rejects those work­ing in polit­i­cal nation­al­ist activ­ity; on the con­trary, it leaves its ranks open to any mem­ber in any gen­uine nation­al­ist organ­i­sa­tion who wishes to join the Dan­darawi group to par­tic­i­pate in retriev­ing the essence of the Mus­lim nation.

In the final analy­sis, it is part of the sys­tem of the Dan­darawi fam­ily to have full respect to all gen­uine nation­al­ist group­ings; and the chil­dren of the fam­ily deal with mem­bers of these assem­blies as brethren, friends, neigh­bours, or com­pan­ions when­ever they are in their social surroundings.

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19. The Dan­darawi fam­ily and eth­nic nationalisms

It is nat­ural that traits of peo­ple dif­fer in accor­dance with the dif­fer­ence in their racial iden­ti­ties; how­ever, this does not mean that this dif­fer­ence should lead to some hier­ar­chi­cal clas­si­fi­ca­tion of eth­nic­i­ties whereby cer­tain races would be con­sid­ered higher and bet­ter than other races. The Dan­darawi fam­ily sees that all the eth­nic­i­ties of all the nations of the world are equal in terms of human value; no one race is to be favoured over any other race except by good vir­tu­ous deeds.

Since the fab­ric of the Mus­lim nation is weaved of peo­ples from the four races of peo­ple (white, black, red, yel­low), the founder of the Dan­darawi fam­ily took spe­cial care that his Mus­lim group should reflect the essence of the Mus­lim nation; this is why he made it a social entity encom­pass­ing all the races with their four colours, not an exclu­sive nation­al­ist entity for one ethnicity.

Thus the Dan­darawi fam­ily embraces sev­eral eth­nic­i­ties within its uni­fied struc­ture, and it aims to make it clear to any­one who attends any of its gen­eral con­fer­ences and sees eth­nic plu­ral­ity in its ranks that man, through gen­uine attach­ment to the Prophet, peace be upon him, can over­come the hur­dle of nation­al­ist big­otry and can min­gle with peo­ple from all other eth­nic­i­ties with­out los­ing his own eth­nic iden­tity and char­ac­ter. This is done through the refine­ment – lead­ing to trans­parency – of the soul, through accep­tance of var­i­ous eth­nic­i­ties, and rejec­tion of eth­nic pride and fanati­cism against other eth­nic iden­ti­ties.

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20. The Dan­darawi fam­ily and the state

A Muslim’s mem­ber­ship in the Dan­darawi fam­ily strength­ens his loy­alty to the legit­i­mate state of which he is a sub­ject and empha­sises his attach­ment to all its laws and sys­tems. Such a peace­ful rela­tion­ship with the state – free of all con­flict or fric­tion – is likely to pro­vide the healthy and whole­some cli­mate for the state to go about prac­tis­ing its required func­tions and per­form­ing its national oblig­a­tions by endeav­our­ing to attain durable secu­rity con­di­tions for the cit­i­zens and achiev­ing last­ing suit­able work­ing con­di­tions for them. It is a known fact that man needs both these con­di­tions to per­sist in a ful­fill­ing life where his indi­vid­ual dig­nity and his abil­ity to progress in devel­op­ment could be guar­an­teed: durable secu­rity and fit­ting sta­ble means of obtain­ing livelihood.

The axiomatic Dan­darawi state­ment runs : ‘The sta­bil­ity of man’s con­fi­dence con­cern­ing his last­ing safety is a fort for his human dig­nity … and his assured con­fi­dence in the sta­bil­ity of his liveli­hood is a for­ward push for his move­ment in life.’

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21. The Dan­darawi fam­ily and politics

The Dan­darawi fam­ily does not deal with pol­i­tics at the level of its group­ings in the coun­tries where it has an active exis­tence; nei­ther is it pre­oc­cu­pied with polit­i­cal affairs as this is not its cause. How­ever, hav­ing said that, the fam­ily does not for­bid any of its mem­bers from deal­ing in pol­i­tics, pro­vided he does that as his own per­sonal affair and that he does not demand the mem­bers of the Dan­darawi group­ings to take his side for polit­i­cal benefits.

The Dan­darawi fam­ily is a social not polit­i­cal entity; and when one of its mem­bers prac­tices pol­i­tics, he does so in his own per­sonal capac­ity. The Dan­darawi fam­ily sees that polit­i­cal activ­ity is a pro­fes­sion, like any other pro­fes­sion, nec­es­sary for the well­be­ing of the over­all human exis­tence, and, like all other pro­fes­sions, it should be sub­jected to all nec­es­sary epis­te­mo­log­i­cal and eth­i­cal reg­u­la­tions and conditions.

The axiomatic Dan­darawi state­ment runs: ‘We have knowl­edge of pol­i­tics but we do not prac­tise it.’

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22. The Dan­darawi fam­ily and adher­ents of other religions

From the Dan­darawi per­spec­tive, a Mus­lim com­mu­nity is a plu­ral­is­tic one with Mus­lims and non-​Muslims liv­ing side by side. Never in any of Islam’s scrip­tures do we have a stip­u­la­tion for a Mus­lim to live in a single-​religion exclu­sive soci­ety from which adher­ents of other reli­gions are ban­ished. More­over, the blessed Prophetic Sunna teaches us that the soci­ety that Islam wants to estab­lish is a plu­ral­is­tic one and that the respon­si­bil­ity of devel­op­ing it lies on the shoul­ders of all its members.

This is why the atti­tude of the Dan­darawi fam­ily towards adher­ents of other reli­gions was one of part­ner­ship in the com­mu­nity, and this is the offi­cial rul­ing accord­ing to the major­ity of Mus­lims schol­ars. In brief terms, this atti­tude means that Mus­lims should never force or harass any­one to become a Mus­lim: the Quran states unequiv­o­cally that there should be no coer­cion in reli­gion. Add to this the atti­tude that any Mus­lim who extends harm to any­one of the adher­ents of the other heav­enly reli­gions for no other rea­son than being a non-​Muslim, and then gives him­self the lib­erty to do that based on a per­sonal or group opinion/​verdict not endorsed by offi­cial legit­i­mate author­i­ties, would be extend­ing harm to the Mes­sen­ger of Allah, peace be upon him, per­son­ally as he, peace be upon him, has stated that he is per­son­ally the guardian for any non-​Muslim who lives in a Mus­lim community.

Hav­ing respect to the non-​Muslim part­ner in the com­mu­nity, guard­ing his life, and pro­vid­ing him with secu­rity, and deal­ing with him with good will and good neigh­bourli­ness, all this is part of the Islamic sys­tem of social life. It is not accept­able – nei­ther legally nor by rea­son­ing – to mod­ify this sys­tem, in deal­ing with any group – by chang­ing from a peace­ful rela­tion­ship to one of war – except by a deci­sion on the level of the legit­i­mate state author­ity and after the dec­la­ra­tion of hos­til­ity and war by that group.

The Dan­darawi fam­ily, despite its being a social entity com­pris­ing of only Mus­lim mem­bers, teaches that all its group­ings in all the com­mu­ni­ties where they exist should live in good neigh­bourly rela­tions with their non-​Muslim com­mu­nal part­ners and compatriots.

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23. The Dan­darawi fam­ily and women

The Dan­darawi fam­ily is a social entity in the shape of a tribe whose clans and fam­i­lies have spread in var­i­ous coun­tries. Since the fam­ily usu­ally com­prises the human being – man or woman – in their four known gen­er­a­tions: the elderly, the grown up, the youth, and the infant; the founder of the Dan­darawi fam­ily addressed his reform call to any approach­able and will­ing Mus­lim to join the ranks of the Dan­darawi fam­ily with his household.

The Dan­darawi fam­ily thus is not a non-​governmental organ­i­sa­tion estab­lished for activ­i­ties meant for the empow­er­ment of women, refin­ing her tal­ents and skills, and improv­ing her liv­ing con­di­tions. But, with all appre­ci­a­tion to organ­i­sa­tions con­cerned with the woman sta­tus, the Dan­darawi fam­ily is a social entity in whose human struc­ture woman – in her four gen­er­a­tions – forms a vital part.

Women in the Dan­darawi fam­ily, then, is man’s part­ner in the real­i­sa­tion of human reform; and, with him, by gen­uine attach­ment to the per­son of the Prophet, peace be upon him, she stands in chal­lenge against all ail­ments that afflict and lac­er­ate mod­ern man’s con­science and all crush­ing dis­eases that make his life a field of dis­union and strife among indi­vid­u­als as well as groups.

In the Dan­darawi fam­ily, women is a mem­ber of the col­lec­tive of the Mus­lim com­mu­nity; and, exactly like her male coun­ter­part, she is respon­si­ble for ris­ing to realise social and national reform. How­ever, the Dan­darawi fam­ily was not estab­lished for the cause of the women but for the cause of the human being in both its sexes and in all their four generations.

Any­one who has fol­lowed the progress of the march of the Dan­darawi fam­ily since its first annual gen­eral con­fer­ence that was held in 1973 con­comi­tantly with the cel­e­bra­tions for the Prophet’s Birth­day (Al Maulid An Nabawi Asy Syarif) , up to the present day, would see clearly the progress that women has attained in her sta­tus, whether in her active par­tic­i­pa­tion in the con­fer­ence or in her teach­ing and edu­ca­tional activ­i­ties in the group­ings of the Dan­darawi fam­ily all over the coun­tries where the fam­ily has wide­spread existence.

In the Dan­darawi fam­ily, women has the same rights and duties as regards her social group as man: her view­point is respected and appre­ci­ated in gen­eral con­fer­ences as well as in all fields of activ­ity. More­over, she is held account­able for any short­com­ing or fail­ure, and is held in dig­nity for any suc­cess and hon­ourable deed. In gen­eral cel­e­bra­tions and occa­sions, she – within the frame­work of Shariah rul­ings – would ascend to podi­ums to deliver lec­tures or would express her opin­ions from her place set aside for the women on gen­eral occa­sions, which is kept apart from the place of men across a legal partition.

The Dan­darawi fam­ily sees that the process of human reform – which demands effect­ing change on all lev­els, change that would re-​establish the present on the basis of the fun­da­men­tals of life – can­not suc­ceed and pro­ceed with­out the part­ner­ship of woman with her four gen­er­a­tions, irre­spec­tive of her race, colour, geo­graph­i­cal loca­tion, pat­tern of life, liv­ing con­di­tions, the sect she fol­lows, the way of her per­for­mance, the coop­er­a­tive organ­i­sa­tion she belongs to, or the polit­i­cal organ­i­sa­tion she strug­gles with, and regard­less of whether she tends to be intro­verted or open in her deal­ings with her community.

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LIST OF REFERENCES

  1. The Idrisi state: some eighty-​four years after the intro­duc­tion of Islam to the lands of the Maghreb, the first Idrisi, Idris Ibn Abdul­lah Ibn Al-​Hasan Ibn Al-​Hasan Ibn Ali Ibn Abu Taleb, founded the first state in the Maghreb in the year 172 AH /​788 CE. It is known by the name of the Idrisi state, and ruled for about 200 years.
  2. See the first sec­tion of the sec­ond book of The White Document.
  3. See The White Doc­u­ment, Book One, page 34