Introduction to the Italian edition as yet unpublished
This series of talks by Shaykh Abdalqadir as-Sufi was the turning point for the Deen of Islam in our time. A bold statement, but none the less not without merit. It is based upon the observation of the decline of sovereign Islam under the Ottomans and its final dissolution with the fall of the last great Sultan and Khalif of the Muslims, Abdul Hamid Khan II, breaking up the unified Ummah of Sayyidina Muhammad, sallallahu alayhi wa sallim, into separate nation states operating under kafir international law. A loss of sovereignty of Book and Sunnah and identity as a single nation, led by a man of authority, a Khalif, subservient only to the Qur’an and the example of the Prophet Muhammad, sallallahu alayhi wa sallim, as embodied by the men of knowledge, responsible for judgements and decisions upon which a ruler can act.
There have been many efforts to hybridise Islam within this global pattern of usury capitalism by such groups as the Modernists, Muslim Brotherhood, et al, as the new phenomenon of Islam as terrorism had not yet been created by the current dominant socie. All these only led to the obscuring of Islam as the only clarification of man’s existence and purpose on this planet in this time and any yet to come.
Shaykh Dr. Abdalqadir as-Sufi states in the beginning of the preface to the publication of these talks, sweeping aside all these erroneous efforts to include Islam within the modern atheist, usurious world:
Islam is not and can never be, by definition, in crisis or need of revisionist change. Islam, Kitab wa Sunna, is immutable in all places until the end of time. It is itself a critique and balance-principle against which all human ventures must be measured and themselves revised and changed.
This simple didactic statement puts directly the truth of what Islam is amid a morass of ideas, theories and ignorant practices introduced among Muslims by its enemies and some of its own dubious scholars.
If it is no longer in place now, it was successfully and fruitfully established many times in many places since its original implementation by the Rasulullah himself and his companions and proved efficacious by their followers and a third generation. The proof is there and the blueprint.
These talks are calling us back to Madinah al-Munawwara of those first three generations, not in the simplistic sense of going back in time but forward with the original plan that has proven itself over and over again, to a pattern that will change the present and future according to what our Creator has called us to and not dreamed up theories we have of existence or misunderstanding of the nature of the phenomenal world.
The agency of this for Shaykh Abdalqadir was Qadi ‘Iyad al-Yaḥsūbi of the Murᾱbitūn of Spain and Morocco, who outlined, a thousand years ago, the demography of the coming of revelation and its implementation up until his time through the quality of men and women who followed guidance.
These talks delivered outside San Antonio, Texas in 1982 ostensibly to a Sufi gathering and because of that not initially well received, pointed out a direction from variance and conflict to a universally acceptable model to reconnect to the original manifestation of the implementation of Allah’s commands. A genuine Salafi position prior to Madhhab, even that which developed from Imam Malik ibn Anas himself, may Allah be pleased with him and bless his efforts with continuity, based upon the lived experience and example of its establishment under Allah’s Messenger, sallallahu alayhi wa sallim, and what was established of normative behaviour following his pattern that emerged from the revelation of Qur’an to him and his putting it into practice among his companions. His closest companions continued and expanded his direction post revelation as his most knowledgeable followers, as did their children and grandchildren, all within the precincts of Madinah al-Munawwara, at the same time as a diaspora formed in Iraq and elsewhere.
Behaviour from revealed knowledge demonstrated by the receiver of that knowledge among men and women who brought it into their daily lives and established a just society who loved their Creator, His Messenger and each other. What put things right then is what will put things right now.
Shaykh Issa Bryce
Yawm ath-Thalatha, 17th Ramadan 1446
Tuesday, 18th March 2025
Shaykh Issa - for the Fuqara 