The Murabitun World Movement is an Islamic movement founded by Abdalqadir as-Sufi (born as Ian Dallas), a branch of the Shādhilī–Darqāwī Sufi order with communities in Europe, South America, Southeast Asia, and South Africa, where it is officially based. Its heartland is Spain. The number of its followers may amount, according to one estimate, to around 10,000.
The main objective of the movement is to promote Islam in non-Muslim societies, strengthen its political role, and unite Muslims against perceived threats in contemporary global civilization. While the rhetoric and ideological foundations of Murabitun share similarities with traditionalism, Murabitun emphasize the need for active social and political engagement instead of escapism."
The name of the movement is a reference to the historic Almoravid dynasty (al-Murābiṭūn), whose rise to power began with a revolt, and whose rule was characterized by the renewal of Islam in al-Andalus and West Africa. In general, the term "Murabitun" refers to Muslims who united in frontiers (rubuṭ, plural of ribāṭ) to defend the community from enemy attacks.
Background The founder of the Murabitun World Movement is Abdalqadir as-Sufi, a convert to Islam born Ian Dallas in Ayr, Scotland, in 1930. He met his first shaykh, Muhammad ibn al-Habib, in Meknes around 1968, and was made a muqaddam and given the title "as-Sufi".
In 1972, returning to England after the shaykh's death, Abdalqadir, together with his friend and associate Abdalhaqq Bewley, established a Darqāwī community in London, where, in a reconstructed Moroccan-style zāwiya, members of the community gathered for prayers and Sufi practices. These gatherings at first had more of a countercultural student community character and even contributed to several music albums stylised as Sufi chants.
In 1976, the community left London and settled in Northern Norfolk, where it bought a large house and a farm. The first ribāṭ (frontier) was established as a compact settlement of British Muslims, consisting of about two hundred families. The commune practiced the study of religion, strove for self-sufficiency, and sought to embody the Islamic way of life.
From 1977 Abdalqadir began to consider himself an independent spiritual guide. The name "Murabitun" became the official name of the movement at this point.
In the mid-1980s Abdalqadir settled in Spain, where, with the support of a group of local converts and after receiving legal recognition from the Ministry of Justice, he founded an association called Sociedad para el Retorno al Islam en España ("Society for the Return of Islam in Spain"). Thus a second ribāṭ was founded in Granada.
A third ribāṭ was established in Johannesburg, after the shaykh moved to South Africa in 2006, founded the JumuꜤa Mosque of Cape Town and got involved in setting up the Dallas College, "a 'post-madrasa' education system capable of equipping Muslims for 'leadership in the modern world'".
A branch (zāwiya) of the Ḥabībīya-Darqāwīyya order was also opened in Berkeley, California. Over time, communities were established in Russia, Mexico, and Indonesia, with a total of about 10,000 followers.
Abdalqadir as-Sufi travelled in Europe and America, held talks, and published works such as The Way of MuhammadThe Way of Muhammad and Islam Journal proposing that Islam could be understood, and entered, as the "completion of the Western intellectual and spiritual tradition". He also initiated translations into English of classical texts on Islamic law and Sufism, including the Muwatta Imam Malik.The Muwatta of Imam Malik
In 1982 Abdalqadir as-Sufi held a series of talks in America which were to become the basis of his work, Root Islamic Education.Root Islamic Education
The movement was strongly tied to the charisma of its founder. Towards the end of his life, Abdalqadir became increasingly withdrawn, and the established communities and projects took on a life of their own. The Sufi order (ṭarīqa) was handed over to a young Moroccan shaykh and lost its political orientation.
Ideas and activities
Nature of Islam Abdalqadir and his disciples are characterized by a holistic understanding of Islam. Unlike modern Muslim literature, in Murabitun writings, the word "Islam" does not appear as often as the Arabic word Dīn, which translates as "path" or "way". Islam, from Murabitun's point of view, is a complete and perfect system that needs revitalization but not reformation. The particular emphasis of Murabitun's approach is on Sufism as an internal dimension of Islam and an experience of spiritual knowledge.
Jurisprudence: strict Malikism Abdalqadir as-Sufi's advocacy of Malik's school of Madinah is explained at length in his work Root Islamic Education. On the one hand, this is due to Abdalqadir's experience in North Africa, where this school traditionally prevails. On the other hand, the shaykh and his followers advocated Malikism as a prototypical über-maḏhab, which Abdalhaqq Bewley called "the closest possible exposition of Islam as it was actually lived by the Prophet and his Companions." Malikism is regarded as the sole tradition with the capacity to preserve the authentic Islamic revelation due to the attention it pays to the tradition of ʿAmal Ahl al-Madinah (Practice of the people of Medina).
Shaykh Abdalqadir's early criticism of both the other three schools of law and some Maliki scholars who allegedly departed from the original purity of the madhhab gives some researchers reason to say that Murabitun created a fifth, "Medinan" madhhab. The Murabitun do not, however, in any way dispute the validity of the other legal schools,Discourse on the Four Madh'habs by Abdalhaqq Bewley nor is adherence to or advocacy of the madhhab of Malik a condition of membership of the Murabitun.
Economics: the revival of the Mu'amalat The cornerstone of the movement is the great emphasis on MuꜤāmalāt: the Islamic monetary, commercial, and social system. Murabitun is the only religious group in history with financial theory at the centre of its ideology. Abdalqadir and his followers believe that the modern world is based on an illusion regarding the reality of wealth and a global psychosis around money. "For Abdalqadir, the malaise of the modern secular world is [...] not so much that we do not believe in God. The problem is more fundamentally: that we believe so much in money." Islam is seen by Murabitun as the only force capable of resisting the rapidly expanding "world state."
The movement's ultimate goal is the gradual transformation of the modern capitalist financial system. Criticism has been directed not just at the banking system based on usury, which is forbidden in Islam, but also at the practice of paper money itself, which, unlike gold and silver, valuable in themselves, are essentially receipts of debt and are also rooted in forbidden interests.
Position on Zakāt The political and social work of the Murabitun centres around the restoration of the "fallen pillar"Bewley, Abdalhaqq, Zakat: raising a fallen pillar, Black Stone Press, UK, 2001. of Zakāt, which, it is claimed, has been abandoned on several primary counts.
According to the Murabitun conservative approach: Zakāt in monetary form should be paid exclusively in gold or silver. A fatwa was issued by Umar Vadillo that Zakāt should not be paid in paper money of banknotes, which are essentially receipts of debt, since Zakāt cannot be discharged by passing on a token of debt owed to a third party. It must be disbursed immediately. Zakāt should be collected by the amir (leader of Muslims), which means that the re-establishment of Islamic authority becomes a necessity."
As their authority for this position the Murabitun cite a wide range of sources, beginning with the Qur'anic injunction to take Zakāt ("Take zakat from their wealth" Surat Tawba 9:103), the Prophetic practice of Zakāt-taking, the well-known position of the Caliph Abu Bakr as-Siddiq,"Fight them if they retain only a hobbling-rope of what was collected before." Al-Bukhari in his Sahih in the Book of Zakat, in the chapter on the obligatory nature of zakat. and the established practice among the world Muslim community which was until relatively recently the assessment and collection of Zakāt by the Leader and his collectors.
This places them in contradistinction to the currently prevailing practices of voluntary self-assessment, donation to the Zakāt charity of one's choice, and the placement of Zakāt donations into interim or even long-term investment funds. This, they argue, destroys the political cohesion of the Muslim community, which is based primarily on the circulation of wealth along divinely revealed lines.Shaykh Abdalqadir as-Sufi, Sultaniyya, Madinah Press 2001. They also condemn Zakāt investment funds as un-Islamic.
Position on shari'ah currency Murabitun previously connected their position on Zakāt with promotion of the Islamic gold dinar and silver dirham, which was developed above all by the scholar Umar Ibrahim Vadillo, who has written extensivelyA fatwa on banking in Islam by Umar Ibrahim Vadillo is available here, Fatwa on Banking on the origins of paper money and the Islamic position on money.
As an alternative to paper money, Vadillo justified the need for Islamic countries to switch to a unified bi-metallic currency. The main goal of the project was the accumulation of capital in the Islamic world. The project was supported by former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad and former Turkish Prime Minister Nezhmetdin Erbakan, as well as King Hassan II of Morocco. In 2006, the minting of the gold dinar was announced in the Malaysian state of Kelantan, the project had enthusiastic supporters among local businesses, but the federal government and the Central Bank of Malaysia hindered its development.
As for the Islamic banking that spread in Muslim world in the 1970s, Murabitun describes it as a facade that masks the global usury system and misleads Muslims. In February 2014, however, shaykh Dr. Abdalqadir as-Sufi distanced himself from the dinar and dirham movement, saying, "So, I now dis-associate myself from all activity involving the Islamic gold dinar and silver dirham"."THE ISLAMIC DINAR – A WAY-STAGE PASSED" Shaykh Dr. Abdalqadir as-Sufi
Islamic trading and social welfare The Murabitun advocate a revival of the forms of trading and social welfare practiced during the first generations of Muslims and for most of the history of Islam, proposing that these are the natural modes of human activity and rejecting the dialectical categorisation of "ancient" or "modern", a set of opposites whose application to Islam they consider irrelevant and misleading.Ian Dallas, The Time of the Bedouin, Budgate Press 2006.
These models have been formulated in detail and include awqaf for the funding of social welfare institutions, mosques and other public facilities.
Politics: the return of the Caliphate The Murabitun advocate personal rule as the Islamic and indeed natural form of human governance,Sultaniyya is a modern statement on leadership in Islam. Abdalqadir surveys Islam under the chapter headings Deen, Dawla (polity), Waqf, Trade, the Sultan — personal rule — and Tasawwuf. (Madinah Press, Cape Town, 2002, OCLC: 50875888)Sultaniyya taking authority for this position from extensive Qur'anic references.Surat An-Nisa 4:58
Abdalqadir's early work Jihad: A Groundplan, despite its strongly Islamist title, rather continues the Western tradition of criticising capitalism and democracy, where "one can trace a remarkably diverse set of philosophical inspirations; from Nietzsche to Jünger [...] to a keen attention to Heidegger's critical theory."