Speech in the Al Isra’ wal Mi’raj Asy Syarif Cel­e­bra­tions 1431H /​2010: Role of Al Usrah Al Dan­daraweyah in Society

All praises be to Allah, with all forms of praises that I know and those that I do not, will all His boun­ties that I know of and those that I do not. I bear wit­ness that there is no God to be wor­shipped except Allah, The One in His Uluhiyah, and Only in his Rubu­biyah. And I bear wit­ness that Sayyid­ina Muham­mad is Rasu­l­ul­lah, the unique owner of his Siyadah and sole owner of his Za’amah.

Last night, we have con­cluded our 38th local con­fer­ence held in con­junc­tion with our Al Isra’ wal Mi’raj cel­e­bra­tions. As for today, in fact, every sin­gle day, we, the assem­bly of tribes and fam­i­lies of Al Usrah Al Dan­daraweyah will always embrace Rasu­l­ul­lah Sol­lal­lahu ‘alahi wasal­lam by pre­sent­ing what we have achieved in our jour­ney for him Sol­lal­lahu ‘alahi wasal­lam with that, His Majesty Sol­lal­lahu ‘alahi wasal­lam will accept us among those who are hon­oured by car­ry­ing his ban­ner and those who will defend his A’tab An Nabawiyah.

Ver­ily, the Dan­drawi per­spec­tive views that Allah Jalla “Ulah has sent Rasu­l­ul­lah ‘alaihi Solawat­ul­lah with two inseper­a­ble roles for all Mus­lims: The first role as the Final­is­ing Rasul who estab­lishes Islam and the sec­ond as the Uni­fy­ing Za’im who unites the Mus­lim Ummah.

By con­nect­ing these two roles, every­one will com­pre­hend that the con­nec­tion sig­ni­fies the link between reli­gion and life.

The first role revolves around Tasyri’ (Islamic Jurispru­dence) which through His Majesty, Islam will be estab­lished, while the sec­ond role revolves around Insani (human­ity) which through His Majesty, human life will be well admin­is­tered. As for what we know, major­ity of Mus­lims live their life in two dif­fer­ent sys­tems. The first is the sys­tem of reli­gion and the sec­ond is the sys­tem of social life. With this, we are able to see that in this gen­er­a­tion, there are those among the Mus­lims who prays, per­forms Zakat, fasts and per­forms Hajj but at the same time, the moment he steps into work­ing life, he trans­forms into a dif­fer­ent per­son who is dri­ven by a dif­fer­ent sets of rules. This rule is what we call the rule of per­sonal gain. There­fore, he is will­ing to plan his steps in achiev­ing suc­cess with what­ever means nec­es­sary even if he has to go against Islamic virtues. To them, reli­gion and social life are two dif­fer­ent worlds with no con­nec­tion between both.

To fur­ther elab­o­rate these facts, the Dan­darawi per­spec­tive per­ceive that the Islamic jurispru­dence which was revealed by Rasu­l­ul­lah ‘alaihi Shallawat­ul­lah does not only com­prise of laws of rit­u­als. Instead, it also com­prised of the laws of Khu­luqi (demeanors), Ijtima’i (social inte­gra­tion) and Insani (humanity).

The Dan­darawi per­spec­tive stated that Islam cov­ers four aspect of human life:

• First is Maslak (rituals),
• Sec­ond is Suluk (demeanors),
• Third is Man­haj (social inte­gra­tion) and
• Fourth is Min­haj (global unity).

With these, the Dan­darawi per­spec­tive fur­ther empha­size that Islamic jurispru­dence does not oblig­ate a Mus­lim with only rit­u­als but demeanors, social inte­gra­tion and global unity are also compulsory.

If we were to mea­sure the com­mit­ment of a Mus­lim towards Islam we should take into account these four aspects and not just one. Hence, a Mus­lim can­not be deemed com­mit­ted if he per­forms only his rit­u­als but at the same time, he still pri­or­i­tize him­self, ignores his demeanor, his social inte­gra­tion and his global unity. In the eyes of Al Usrah Al Dan­daraweyah, a good Mus­lim is a per­son who per­forms his rit­ual oblig­a­tion, a per­son who does not pri­or­i­tize him­self, a per­son who is of noble char­ac­ter, a per­son who always strive to strengthen ties with his broth­ers of the same reli­gion of dif­fer­ent nationalities.

As for the sec­ond role of Rasul­lul­lah Sol­lal­lahu ‘alahi wasal­lam, it is called the role of The Uni­fy­ing Zaim who unites Mus­lims. This role oblig­ates us to Irt­ibat (bind) with the self of Rasu­l­ul­lah ‘alaihi Solawatullah.

To Irt­ibat with the self of Rasu­l­ul­lah is not exclu­sive to Dan­darawi only but is an oblig­a­tion to all Muslims.

When a Mus­lim has achieved this Irt­ibat with His Majesty Sol­lal­lahu ‘alaihi wasal­lam, his self for­ma­tion will change and he will be the owner of Tak­win Muham­madi (Muham­madi self for­ma­tion). With this, we are able to under­stand that Irt­ibat can change a person’s self formation.

As from what we have under­stood, the self for­ma­tion of a human com­prises of four elements:

• The first is his body,
• Sec­ond is his soul,
• Third is his desire and
• Fourth is his mind.

The self for­ma­tion of a human also cov­ers the aspects of how with these four ele­ments he inter­acts with other peo­ple around him.

When a Mus­lim starts to bind with the self of His Majesty Sol­lal­lahu ‘alaihi wasal­lam, he is indeed striv­ing to change his self for­ma­tion so that:

• His body will achieve ‘Afiah (resoulte health)
• His soul will achieve Syafafiyah (transparency)
• His desire will achieve Sya­mailiyah (self­less­ness) and
• His mind will achieve Nuraniyah (enlightenment).

Besides that, he is also striv­ing to reg­u­late the inter­ac­tions of the four ele­ments when he starts to social­ize with other peo­ple. Therefore:

• His mind will be able to com­pre­hend what he was not able to com­pre­hend before.
• His desire will be able to feel what he had not felt before.
• His soul will be able to accus­tom itself with any­one whom he was not able to be accus­tomed to before and
• His body will be able to with­stand what he was not able to with­stand before.

To elab­o­rate fur­ther, I have cho­sen two ele­ments of self for­ma­tion for dis­cus­sion as these two are prone to be the cause of human con­flicts. They are the mind and the desire.

The human mind always inter­act with opin­ions and views pre­sented. Some­times it will accept and sup­port and other times it will reject, become fanatic with its own views or go to extremes. What is worse is when it starts to accuse oth­ers of blas­phemy. Hence, when a per­son begins to Irt­ibat with the self of His Majesty ‘alaihi Solawat­ul­lah, his mind will com­pre­hend the ben­e­fits of hav­ing dif­fer­ent ide­o­log­i­cal sects in his soci­ety. There­fore, he will par­tic­i­pate in their con­gre­ga­tions because his mind is pre­pared to accept the diver­si­ties of opin­ions exist­ing in those ide­o­log­i­cal sects. Not only his mind is pre­pared to under­stand the diver­si­ties of opin­ions pre­sented but he is also able to dis­cover the ben­e­fits of those opin­ions because he com­pre­hends that humans pos­sess dif­fer­ent views. With that, he will not hastily object to the opin­ions of others.

How beau­ti­ful it is for the mind of this per­son in a time where most peo­ple com­fort­ably accuse oth­ers of apos­tasy, while some oth­ers tend to belit­tle the opin­ions of oth­ers and oth­ers find it dif­fi­cult to accept the diver­si­ties of opinions.

Here, this per­son is able to free him­self from ide­o­log­i­cal fanati­cism. With this, he also will be able to free him­self from accus­ing oth­ers of apos­tasy, Bid’ah, blas­phemy and being astray.

All these have fur­ther proved that Al Usrah Al Dan­daraweyah is mould­ing peo­ple who potray readi­ness to accept diver­si­ties of opin­ions through their self formation.

The sec­ond ele­ment is the desire. The desire of a human always inter­acts in the aspect of social sta­tus. Some­times, we can see that some peo­ple only social­ize with those who are of the same social strata, iso­lat­ing him­self from oth­ers who dif­fered from his.

Hence­forth, we are able to note how the com­mu­nity inter­acts today where the intel­lects only social­ize with them­selves, dis­tanc­ing them­selves from the illit­er­ate. The same is the sit­u­a­tion between the rich and the poor, the strong and the weak and the lead­ers and the followers.

These inter­ac­tions will dam­age the human com­mu­nity because it will seg­re­gate each social class from one another. Each social class resem­bles an iso­late island with no bridges con­nect­ing them to the gen­eral com­mu­nity. The seg­re­ga­tion of these classes will fur­ther weaken that com­mu­nity and hin­der its devel­op­ment and progress. Not only that, it may also elim­i­nate their iden­tity and turn them into vic­tims of col­o­niza­tion or turn them into back­ward societies.

When a per­son begins to Irt­ibat with His Majesty Sol­lal­lahu ‘alaihi wasal­lam, his desire will feel the fair­ness of diver­si­ties in social life. He will be able to accept that humans are born with social sta­tuses. How­ever, these sta­tuses do not rep­re­sent the value of a per­son. Instead, they are only dif­fer­ent in liv­ing conditions.

There­fore, he will not envy his broth­ers who are of dif­fer­ent social sta­tus. With this, his Irt­ibat with the self of Rasu­l­ul­lah ’alaihi Sha­lawat­ul­lah becomes a guar­an­tee which pre­vents him to be a cause in any con­flict or at least, he will not con­tribute any­thing towards the seg­re­ga­tion between mem­bers of a social status.

With this, a per­son who Irt­ibat will pos­sess the readi­ness to accept diver­si­ties of stan­dards of liv­ing in a soci­ety and he will also be able to embrace the fair­ness from these diver­si­ties. Fur­ther­more, he will turn them into cat­a­lyst which will pro­pel the progress of his society.

Indeed, fanati­cism, ten­den­cies to reject and extrem­ism stems from within a per­son. How­ever, it will sur­face when the four ele­ments of a human start to inter­act. So if a per­son pos­sesses these neg­a­tive traits, he will cer­tainly be the cause of the seg­re­ga­tion of his soci­ety and Ummah. Hence, Al Usrah Al Dan­daraweyah always stress the impor­tance of Irt­ibat with the self of Rasu­l­ul­lah ‘alaihi Solawat­ul­lah in mould­ing indi­vid­u­als who pos­sess the readi­ness to accept diver­si­ties of opin­ions and stan­dards of liv­ing, indi­vid­u­als who are far from the traits of enmity, indi­vid­u­als who are open minded and ready to unite with oth­ers who want to build a strong com­mu­nity and Ummah.

Ver­ily, the Dan­darawi per­spec­tive is able to pro­duce good cit­i­zens who abide the laws of the coun­try who are able to under­stand pol­i­tics but do not prac­tice pol­i­tics. By dis­tanc­ing them­selves from the polit­i­cal are­nas, Al Usrah Al Dan­daraweyah is able to pre­serve its assem­blies from polit­i­cal tur­moil no mat­ter who­ever gov­erns a coun­try. This is one of the secrets as to why Al Usrah Al Dan­daraweyah is able to exist more than a hun­dred over years in Islamic com­mu­ni­ties in var­i­ous countries.

The Dan­darawi per­spec­tive also is able to pro­duce exem­plary indi­vid­u­als who are mod­er­ate and well-​balanced. A Dan­darawi is not some­one who is extra­or­di­nary but is nor­mal in his phys­i­cal appear­ance where peo­ple around him feel he is one of them. How­ever, those around him will be able to feel his dif­fer­ence and spe­cial­i­ties once they start to inter­act with him. They will also be able to observe that he is ready to embrace diver­si­ties of ide­olo­gies, stan­dards of liv­ing, eth­nic­i­ties and nationalities.

A Dan­darawi Mus­lim exists every­where because Al Usrah Al Dan­daraweyah is not an exclu­sive social model for cer­tain group of peo­ple. Al Usrah Al Dan­daraweyah is indeed a soci­ety model which is all encom­pass­ing where it is able to bridge and net­work with any groups of people.

Al Usrah Al Dan­daraweyah also encom­passes peo­ple from all walks of life with dif­fer­ent pro­fes­sions. There are some who are aca­d­e­mics, trades in busi­ness, man­u­fac­tur­ing, agri­cul­ture and so on and so forth. This fur­ther proves that Al Usrah Al Dan­daraweyah exists within the soci­ety. Owing to that, the influ­ence Al Usrah Al Dan­daraweyah has on the soci­ety is very strong if all Dan­darawi indi­vid­u­als play their part by por­tray­ing Tak­win Muham­madi. This will pro­mote Intisyar (spreading).

Indeed, Al Usrah Al Dan­daraweyah com­prises of tribes and fam­i­lies. This real­ity can be seen from its names and ter­mi­nolo­gies used like ‘Amir Qabail wa A’ilat Al Usrah Al Dan­daraweyah (The prince of the tribes and fam­i­lies of Al Usrah Al Dan­daraweyah) and many oth­ers. This assem­bly which unites var­i­ous tribes and fam­i­lies is unde­ni­ably ben­e­fi­cial in this era because it is preva­lent upon us that tribes are con­stantly in con­flict and so are fam­i­lies. With this, Al Usrah Al Dan­daraweyah plays an impor­tant role in pre­serv­ing the con­ti­nu­ity of the next gen­er­a­tion for tribes and families.

Other than that, the Dan­darawi per­spec­tive does not only pri­or­i­tize its mem­bers only, it also pri­or­i­tizes the Anshar (sup­port­ers) of Al Usrah Al Dan­daraweyah. We can also say that Al Usrah Al Dan­daraweyah pays more atten­tion to gain sup­port­ers more than actual mem­bers them­selves because we always view them as com­pan­ions who mon­i­tor our Masirah and cor­rect us when­ever we divert from our objectives.

Finally, I give my Salam to all sons and daugh­ters of Al Usrah Al Dan­daraweyah who have achieved Tak­win Muham­madi to steer our Masirah towards the glory of Islam and nobil­ity of Mus­lims in their respec­tive com­mu­ni­ties and the Ummah. With that, thank you.

أَقُولُ قَوْلِي هَذَا وَأَسْتَغْفِرُ اللهَ الْعَظِيمَ لِي وَلَكُمْ. وَالسَّلاَمُ عَلَيْكُمْ وَرَحْمَةُ اللهِ وَبَرَكَاتُهُ

This speech was addressed by Al-​Amir Hashem ibn Al-​Fadl ibn Al-​Abbas El Dan­darawy, An Naib Al Am for Sumuwwul Amir of the Tribes and Familes of Al Usrah Al Dan­daraweyah in 2010 and Head of the Inter­na­tional Dan­dara Cul­tural Cen­tres. Now, he is the cur­rent Sumuwwul Amir of this assem­bly. To under­stand more about the two roles of Rasu­l­ul­lah ‘alaihi Solawat­ul­lah, Al Irt­ibat and Al Usrah Al Dan­daraweyah, please click here to read Trans­la­tion of Al Wat­siqah Al Baidha’ For­ma­tion and Model © 2013

More Speeches

Back to top