Illuminations

By Ahmed Sheikh Bangura

“Your secret is your prisoner. When you tell it, you become its prisoner.” (ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib)

Illuminations is a collection of inspirational quotes and short stories about attaining happiness through a wise and virtuous life. It covers a variety of topics including the importance of knowledge, elements of a healthy society, inner self-cultivation, kinship, love and friendship, coping with pain and loss, as well as cultivating a balanced spirituality.

Ahmed Sheikh Bangura was born in Sierra Leone, where he completed his undergraduate studies. He earned a PhD in Comparative Literature from the University of Alberta in 1994. In 2017, he took early retirement from the University of San Francisco, where he had been a professor since 1994, and had taught courses in French, Literature, Islamic studies and Arabic. His first book, Islam and West African Fiction: The Politics of Representation (Lynne Rienner 2000), was a work in literary criticism. Among his other publications is: “Orientalism, Africa, Black,” a contribution to the New Dictionary of the History of Ideas (Thompson-Gale, 2004). For the past ten years, he has focused on the study of Islamic spirituality and ethics. He is also the founder and chair of the Ihsan Foundation for West Africa.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ahmed Sheikh Bangura
• Release date: Feb 27, 2022
• ISBN: 9781005634537

Book preview

ILLUMINATIONS

ILLUMINATIONS

Great Anecdotes and Quotes from

al-Māwardī’s Adab al-Dunya wa al-Din

Ahmed Sheikh Bangura

Copyright © 2021 Ahmed Sheikh Bangura

Published by Ahmed Sheikh Bangura Publishing at Smashwords

First edition 2021

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or any information storage or retrieval system without permission from the copyright holder.

The Author has made every effort to trace and acknowledge sources/resources/individuals. In the event that any images/information have been incorrectly attributed or credited, the Author will be pleased to rectify these omissions at the earliest opportunity.

Published by Ahmed Sheikh Bangura using Reach Publishers’ services,

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Edited by Jane Goodfellow for Reach Publishers

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Ahmed Sheikh Bangura

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The enmity of a wise person is less harmful than the love of the foolish.

Table of Contents

1. Knowledge, Ignorance, and the lower self

2. Spiritual Matters

3. The Ways of the World

4. Tending the Heart and the Refinement of Character

Preface

Illuminations is a collection of inspirational quotes and short stories about attaining happiness through a wise and virtuous life. It covers a variety of topics including the importance of knowledge, elements of a healthy society, inner self-cultivation, kinship, love and friendship, coping with pain and loss, as well as cultivating a balanced spirituality.

All the quotes, including poetic snippets, are selected from the Adab al-Dunya wa al-Din, the great Arabic classic of Abu Hasan al-Māwardī.

Māwardī was born in Basrah in today’s Iraq in 972 and died in Baghdad in 1058. He was a prolific writer, but is mostly remembered for his masterpiece, The Ordinances of Government, which is considered the most significant classical theoretical explanation of public law in relation to political theory in the Muslim world.

He held several public offices, including that of chief judge of Baghdad, the capital of the great Abbasid Empire. He lived in an age of political uncertainty and great cultural diversity in what was then one of the world’s most important centres of power, culture and thought.

This compilation is not necessarily in the words of Māwardī himself. Rather, it comprises utterances from a diverse body of philosophers, thinkers, spiritual masters, sages, and poets whom Māwardī has quoted in his work. He also quoted from the Qur’an and other traditional Muslim sources. Islam provides the overarching worldview of his otherwise culturally eclectic book.

One of the great things that attracted me to this work is its cultural openness and its relevance in current times. One finds in it wisdom by Kisra, the Zoroastrian leader of Persia at the advent of Islam, side by side with wisdom of other non-Muslim sages and Muslim moralists, prophets, poets, philosophers, and thinkers.

This compilation is a rich tapestry of anecdotes, wise sayings, views, and proverbs. The collection transports the reader to the past to see what prophets, sages, rulers, poets, and ordinary people have felt and thought about a variety of issues dealing with the perennial topic of happiness and the human condition.

Some of these texts are part of the folklore of the Middle East, while others can be found in the rich literature of the region. Moreover, I was quite delighted when I recently heard one of the quotes in this collection in a speech delivered by someone living in a very small town in my native Sierra Leone. This wisdom has possibly found a home in lands and cultures that are far away from its places of origin.

If some of the texts sometimes contradict each other, it is because Māwardī is keen to present different perspectives on issues. The reader gets to decide which perspective he or she identifies with.

I have divided the book into four chapters and introduced each chapter through a prologue that summarises and briefly comments on the main themes of the chapter. A chapter is further divided into sections with their own headings. The headings capture the subject of each section.

The topics covered in this book are bound to stimulate interesting cross-cultural discussions in college classes in the fields of culture, philosophy, sociology, and Middle Eastern studies. It is also my hope that Illuminations can serve as an introduction to a rich heritage of thought and literature for readers coming from different backgrounds and cultures.

Living wisely, a more complete translation of Māwardī’s work, is forthcoming. Meanwhile, I hope that Illuminations will serve as an enjoyable introduction to the style and the world of that engaging masterpiece.

Happy reading, pondering and reflection!

Translator’s Clarifications

1. I have indicated the title of the book indicated by the author as the source of each quote, or written the name of the person to whom he attributes the quote at the end of the quote. Many quotes are however not attributed to specific persons. For such, I usually write ‘unknown.’

2. You will see both Allah and God used in this book. They both refer to the same reality, the transcendent originator of everything. There are differences in the way that the two terms are used in their respective cultures. It is however worth noting that Arab Christians use the word Allah just as Muslims do to mean God.

3. I have used the Arabic symbol ﷺ after the words ‘Prophet Muhammad’, ‘the Messenger of God’, ‘the Prophet’, and ‘Muhammad’. It means ‘Peace and blessings be upon him,’ and can be transliterated as salla Allahu ‘alayhi wa sallam. Similar reverential invocations are routinely used by Muslim after the mention of Biblical prophets like Moses, Abraham and in the Muslim perspective, Jesus. Radhi Allahu ‘a hu/ha (May Allah be pleased with him/her) is often used after the mention of the companions of the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ. I have not used them in this book to avoid repetitiveness that might disturb the flow of the narratives.

4. I have occasionally included Arabic words in parenthesis when the translation in English is deemed inadequate.

ONE

Knowledge, Ignorance, and the lower self

Prologue

This book starts with an ode to the human intellect and knowledge. Al-Māwardī, throughout the book, appeals to the reader’s reason, which he believes to be mankind's greatest gift. It, therefore, should come as no surprise that he launches his book by first asserting the grandeur of its basic instrument of persuasion, reason. Through proper reasoning and correct application of knowledge, man understands the world in which he lives, and finds common ground with his fellow beings. The intellect (‘agl) is contrasted with the lower passions, which it is supposed to discipline. The human being does not always do what he knows is good for him. His lower self/caprice, clouds his judgement, leading him sometimes to do things that are unworthy of him and inflict harm on himself and others in the bargain. The intellect when truly actualised controls the inclinations of the lower self. Knowledge