37. The Neo-Traditionalists

Wasatim

Rounding out the circuit of modern Muslim trends who continue to complicate the Muslims’ ability to recognize the true Sunni tradition, in addition to Salafis and Modernists, are the Neo-Tradiationalists, also known as Wasatism, providing the latest manifestation of the Hegelian Dialectic in Islam, as fierce opponents of the Salafis’ rejection of classical Islam, but in which they include some of the wayward traditions of Sufism. As pointed out by Walaa Quisay in Neo-Traditionalism in Islam in the West, in 2003, two neoconservative policy think tanks, the RAND Corporation and the Nixon Centre, produced reports on the most suitable form of Islam as an ally in the War on Terror. The author of the report RAND is Cheryl Benard, the wife of Zalmay Khalilzad, who worked closely with Zbigniew Brzezinski, the Carter administration's architect of Operation Cyclone.The Nixon Centre was established by former President Nixon in 1994 as the Nixon Center for Peace and Freedom, and was renamed was renamed in 2011 to the Centre for the National Interest (CFTNI), which is composed primarily of members of the CFR like Henry Kissinger, who was also associated with RAND. The CFTNI was since investigated by Robert Mueller’s Russia Probe, as a front for Russian influence on the Trump campaign. The Nixon Centre report was drafted from a conference gathered to show the ways in which Sufism can counteract “radical Islamism.” The keynote speakers were the famed orientalist historian Bernard Lewis and Shaykh Kabbani, the deputy leader of the Naqshbandi Haqqani Sufi order. According to Quisay “This marked the beginning of the political role some Sufi and neo-traditionalist figures and institutions would play in the Muslim world and the West.”[1]

While the Wasatim tend to be among the few defenders of adherence (Taqlid) to the four principal Sunni schools of law (Madhabs), and belief in one of the Ash’ari, Maturidi and Athari creeds, they tend to simultaneously defend some fringe traditions of Sufism, particularly Ibn Arabi, thus feeding into the dialectic dividing Islam. Such devotion to Ibn Arabi is exemplified in Sufis like Dr. Gibril Haddad and Muhammad Said Ramadan al-Bouti (1929 – 2013). Al-Bouti, a highly popular doctor of Islamic Law from the University of Damascus and a noted critic of Salafism, is listed among the Top 50 of the 500 most influential Muslims in the world. Al-Bouti is also affiliated to the Naqshbandi branch in Syria, the only Sufi organization in the country to be allowed freedom of action by the Asad regime, with whom it is closely associated. This is despite the fact that the Asad family are members of the Alawi sect. Sheikh al-Bouti is the leading Islamic scholar in Syria. An active opponent of the Salafis, al-Bouti is the author of Abandoning the Maddhabs is the Most Dangerous Bid’ah Threatening the Islamic Shari’ah.

Haddad, a well-known scholar and religious leader of Lebanese-American background who converted to Islam, was also listed amongst the inaugural 500 most influential Muslims in the world. After also exploring Shadhili Sufism, Haddad became a disciple of Sheikh Nazim Al-Haqqani, leader of the Naqshbandi-Haqqani Order. Haddad was also a former teacher on the traditional online Islamic institute Sunnipath, and is a major contributor to the website ESheikh.com, which gives traditional teachings on Islamic spirituality. Sheikh Kabbani supervises Sunnah.org, which touts itself as one of the top Islamic websites in the world. Also associated with Kabbani’s wing of Shaikh Haqqani’s Naqshbandi-Haqqani order is Stephen “Suleyman” Schwartz, Jewish convert to Islam and author who has been published in a variety of media, including The Wall Street Journal. Schwartz is also a vocal critic of the “Wahhabi lobby,” having written The Two Faces of Islam: The House of Sa’ud from Tradition to Terror, and a defense of Sufism titled The Other Islam: Sufism and the Road to Global Harmony.

The leading exponent in this camp is Nuh Ha Mim Keller, an American convert to Islam who resides in Amman, Jordan, and was also a signatory of the Amman Message. Keller has cited the writings of Seyyed Hossein Nasr as one of the reasons for his conversion to Islam.[2] Keller initiated into the Shadhili Sufi order by Sheikh Abd al Rahman Al Shaghouri, a student of Ahmed al-Alawi, who was a friend of René Guénon and who initiated Frithjof Schuon, founder of the Maryamiyya. Keller denounces the universalist teachings of Guénon and Schuon, but nevertheless defends Ibn Arabi and Freemason Abdul Qadir al Jazairi. In order to corroborate his claim that Sufism is a legitimate aspect of Islamic study, Keller likes to quote the eminent historian Ibn Khaldun to the effect that Sufism is “dedication to worship, total dedication to Allah most High, disregard for the finery and ornament of the world, abstinence from the pleasure, wealth, and prestige sought by most men, and retiring from others to worship alone.”[3] However, the Ibn Khaldun differentiated practices founded in the Sunnah from those that characterized many of the Sufis of his time, criticizing that, “Among the followers of the Sufis are a group of simple fellows and idiots who resemble the insane more than they do rational people…,” and issued a Fatwa that Ibn Arabi’s books ought to be burned.[4] Keller established a Zawiya (seminary) in Amman, Jordan, in the early 2000s, but in 2022 dozens of former adherents left the organization after complaints of children as young as two were being subjected to beatings.[5]

 

Islamic Eschatology

Islam is being exploited by the agents of Traditionalism in both camps of the concocted Clash of Civilizations. An apocalyptic vision is being orchestrated by the Russian state, by Seyyed Hossein Nasr’s friend and Maryamiyya member, Putin’s Rasputin Alexander Dugin as part of his plan to rebuild a revived Eastern Bloc, by proposing an alliance between Muslims and the peoples of Eastern Europe and Central Asia, known as the Eurasian Union. To that end, Dugin has also aligned himself with a popular exponent of End Times prophecies, a self-professed expert in “Islamic eschatology.” His name is Imran Hosein, who has gained a wide following in the Islamic world for his interpretations of Islamic traditions about the Akhiru Zaman (“Last Days”).

According to a Pew Research survey conducted in 2012, in most countries surveyed in the Middle East and North Africa, South Asia and Southeast Asia, half or more Muslims believe they will live to see the return of the Mahdi in their own lifetimes.[6] However, while the Mahdi is mentioned in several canonical compilations of Hadith, he is absent from the Quran and the two most-revered Sunni hadith collections, Sahih al-Bukhari and Sahih Muslim. Thus, some Sunni theologians have questioned the orthodoxy of the Mahdi.[7] In a chapter of his Muqaddimah, Ibn Khaldun concluded that the expectation of the Mahdi was a heretical innovation introduced by the Sufis, and attributable to Shiism, where it is an essential.[8] Among the Sunnis, the idea of a Mahdi, as Goldziher pointed out, has never become accepted as a dogma: “it never appears but as the mythological ornament of an ideal future, as an accessory to the system which follows from the orthodox conception of the universe.”[9] As Kedourie points out, “But whatever their varying conceptions, both Shi’ites and Sunnis are agreed that the mahdi, if he is anything, is a religious leader, that his coming heralds the renewal of the religious life in an Islamic community henceforth entirely guided by the precepts of the shari’a.”[10]

Within the ecumenical millenarianism of the New Age, the Mahdi is variously equated with the “Christ,” regarded as a reincarnation of the Comte de St. Germain, is known as Lord Maitreya, and said to be awaited also by Jews, Muslims, Buddhists and Hindus, though he is known by these believers respectively as the Messiah, the fifth Buddha, or Krishna. Sheikh Nazim believed in the coming of the Mahdi was immanent, and gives his followers the impression that he is in spiritual contact with him.[11] Sheikh Nazim consistently refers to the Mahdi, which he has detailed his biography. The Mahdi was supposedly born in approximately 1945 in Wadi Fatima, Saudi Arabia, to a mother and father from the line of Hassan and Hussein, the grandsons of the Prophet Mohammed. At an early age, he began to display miraculous capabilities, and was taken behind Mount Qaf, where he lived with some Sufi saints, protected by Jinn. Mount Qaf is a legendary mountain in the popular mythology of the Middle East. In Islamic tradition, Mount Qaf is said to be the homeland of the jinn and was created by God out of shining emerald.[12] According to Sheikh Nazim, the Mahdi’s first appearance to the world took place in 1960, when he appeared on Mt. Arafat in Mecca. This was a private appearance for the Sufi saints, where 124,000 swore allegiance to him, including both Sheikh Nazim and Sheikh ad Daghestani.[13]

Dugin’s “Israeli Traditionalist” friend Avigdor Eskin has also collaborated with Adnan Oktar, a Turkish Muslim author who goes by the pen name Harun Yahya, who hints that he might be the Mahdi, and who has been published in Dugin’s Katehon. Despite his former anti-Semitism, Oktar has been embraced by Israeli figures. Oktar has gained some notoriety in the international media, for leading a “feminist” cult or “Muslim sex cult.” He maintains a bevy of heavily made-up women in revealing attire he calls “kittens,” who appear on his shows with blank expressions, and who dance robotically between breaks. The cult is accused of maintaining ties with Fethulla Gülen. There were also lawsuits filed against them that included testimonies to the effect that cult members lured young women into taking part in filmed orgies, which recordings were then used to blackmail the participants into obeying Oktar’s demands. Former members of Oktar’s cult explained to Israel’s Haaretz newspaper their reasons for exposing their former leader, “We only wanted to tell you what’s going on inside, because unfortunately your government and people in your government are helping him, both financially and otherwise. And as they keep receiving this aid, they keep reaching out to new young people and destroying new families.”[14]

Oktar tweeted, “Dugin, foreign policy advisor to Putin, is a person who supports Islamic Union. Being part of the Islamic Union is the right thing for Russia.”[15] In a lecture he gave at Moscow State University, at the invitation of Dugin, Imran Hosein went so far as to interpret Russia as the new “Rome,” therefore encouraging Muslims to lend their support to Russia’s imperial ambitions as a moral obligation, in order to combat the forces of Dajjal in America and Britain.[16]

Speaking of his association with Dugin and Alain Soral in France, a Franco-Swiss right-wing activist, Hosein explained:

 

I can only hope and pray that our areas of agreement with each other - Mr Soral in France, Prof Alexander Dugin in Moscow, and others elsewhere who are already showing great interest in our Islamic eschatology - may benefit our common cause of struggling to liberate the oppressed of the earth from an oppression the likes of which have never been experienced by mankind ever since the time of Pharaoh.[17]

 

Soral, who is also associated with Christian Bouchet, used to belong to the Central Committee of the National Front, before leaving it due to ideological differences. In 2007, he founded the group Equality and Reconciliation (ER), whose strategy is summarized in the title of an article written by the founder of the organization: “Left for the workers and Right for morals.” They advocate the union of the “Labour left” and the “Moral Right” in response to globalization, on the model of the Proudhon Circle, which brought together trade unionists, anarchists, and Maurrassians, whose political doctrine derived from Charles Maurras, most closely associated with the Action Française. ER supports the FN and its president Marine Le Pen, and also expressed their approval of non-aligned countries, such as the Russia of Vladimir Putin.[18]

 

Zaytuna College

Islamic neo-traditionalism emerged in the West during the 1990s following the return of several Muslim scholars who had studied at traditionalist centers of Islamic learning in the Arab world. Leading examples of Wasatim include Hamza Yusuf, Abdal Hakim Murad and Umar Faruq Abd-Allah, who intended to disseminate the knowledge they had learned throughout their communities. Yusuf is co-founder with Zaid Shakir (born Ricky Daryl Mitchell) of Zaytuna College, which has featured sessions by Alan Godlas, another member of Schuon’s Maryamiyya.[19] The college was built on the foundation of an educational institute, founded in 1996 by Hamza Yusuf and Hesham Alalusi as Zaytuna Institute. Describing itself as “the first Muslim liberal arts college in the West,” Zaytuna College was influenced by the Great Books course.[20] Yusuf studied philosophy and educational theory with Mortimer Adler, a pioneer of the Great Books program, and co-founder of the Aspen Institute with Robert Maynard Hutchins, chancellor of the Rockefeller-funded University of Chicago.[21] Yusuf was even named after a Columbia professor influenced by the Great Books movement, Mark Van Doren (1894 – 1972), and has taught classes on Adler’s How to Read a Book.[22]

In September 2001, shortly after after 9/11, Yusuf’s prominence led him to take on the role as the sole Muslim representative in a delegation of religious leaders who met President George W. Bush and endorsed his decision to launch a military campaign against “terrorism.” Yusuf also served as a member in Mike Pompeo’s Committee of Unalienable Rights, created under the U.S. State Department in July 2019. The State Department announced its intention to create the commission after it hosted its first annual Ministerial to Advance Religious Freedom July 2018. At a Heritage Foundation panel discussion, the Christian conservative attorney Benjamin Bull claimed that the left-wing was using “newly manufactured human rights” to “crush” the “traditional” and “natural” rights recognized by Christians.[23] When Trump was elected president in 2016, Yusuf discouraged protesting against an administration that was elected on a promise to erode the rights of the most vulnerable. “We have too much work to do, not protesting, not lighting fires, not saying, ‘Trump is not my president,’” he wrote on his website. “He is, and that is how our system works: by accepting the results and moving on.”[24] In 2017, Yusuf caused substantial backlash on social media for his comments on the Black Lives Matter protests. “The United States is probably, in terms of its laws, one of the least racist societies in the world,” he insisted. “We have between 15,000 and 18,000 homicides per year. Fifty percent are black-on-black crime, literally… There are twice as many whites that have been shot by police, but nobody ever shows those videos.” According to Yusuf, “It’s the assumption that the police are racist. It’s not always the case. Any police now that shoots a black is immediately considered a racist.”[25]

Yusuf worked closely with converts Umar Faruq Abd-Allah and Abdal Hakim Murad. Born Wymann-Landgraf, Abd-Allah converted to Islam and earned a PhD on the origins of Islamic law from the University of Chicago. In 1982, he left for Spain, where he taught Arabic in Ian Dallas’ Murabitun community.[26] In 1984, he was appointed to the Department of Islamic Studies at King Abdul-Aziz University in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.[27] In 2000, Umar Faruq returned to the United States to work with the Nawawi Foundation in Chicago, where he remained for over a decade. From 2002 to 2013, he taught Islamic studies at Darul Qasim Institute in Chicago. In 2019, Abd-Allah traveled to Pakistan with his shaykh, Muhammad Hydara Al-Jilani of the Qadiriyya Sufi order in Gambia, to discuss the Prime Minister of Pakistan Imran Khan’s plan to build Al-Qadir University near Islamabad. Although the university seems to only offer a BS (Hons) in Management, it has a “Centre of Islamic Spirituality” devoted to classical Sufi literature. The university’s global advisory board includes several neo-traditionalist and Traditionalist shaykhs and scholars, including Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Hamza Yusuf, Abdal Hakim Murad, Firas AlKhateb, Amin Kholwaida, and Recep Senturk, who was among the authors of CSIS’s Islam and Human Rights.[28]

John Winter, also known as Abdal Hakim Murad, is the Founder and Dean of the Cambridge Muslim College, Aziz Foundation Professor of Islamic studies at both Cambridge Muslim College and Ebrahim College, Director of Studies at Wolfson College and the Shaykh Zayed Lecturer of Islamic Studies in the Faculty of Divinity at University of Cambridge. Murad also directs the Quilliam Press, named after British convert Abdullah Quilliam, a Freemason and member of Crowley’s OTO, and founder of the Royal Oriental Order of the Sat B’hai.[29] In March 2016, at the Cambridge Muslim College Retreat, Murad delivered a lecture on the challenges of modernity, titled “Riding the Tiger,” pulled from a similar book title from Julius Evola.[30] While rejecting his racist ideas, Murad describes Evola as a “prophetic yet tragic figure,” and insists that “Evola is a point of reference for those who are seeking an alternative” to modernity, even if “much of his analysis is alien and difficult.”[31] Murad goes so far as to explain the applicability of Evola’s notion of the Kali Yuga, a concept he developed from Left-Hand Tantra.[32]

Murad also often draws attention to far-right activists who have made positive comments about Islamic values, or even converted, claiming they are “often they are principled people.”[33] Murad cites the example of Joram van Klaveren, former right-hand man of Geert Wilders, the notorious Dutch Islamophobe and leader of the Netherland’s Freedom Party (PVV), who said he made his decision to convert to Islam halfway through writing an anti-Islam book.[34] In 2019, Klaveren published his book Apostate: From Christianity to Islam in Times of Secularisation and Terror, about his conversion, with forewords by both Hamza Yusuf and Murad. Murad and Yusuf’s lectures are published on white supremacist Muslim movement called Islam4European.

On December 28, 2021, Yusuf and Canadian right-wing psychologist Jordan Peterson recorded a highly-anticipated interview in which they talked about Islam and postmodernity. Canadian author Troy Parfitt has conclusively demonstrated that not only does Peterson repeatedly betrays his admiration for Hitler, but he has extensively plagiarized his ideas from Aleister Crowley.[35] Peterson, a professor of psychology at the University of Toronto, attained notoriety after a video appeared of him refusing to use gender-neutral pronouns at a university protest.  As summarized by Walaa Quisay, “Dubbed ‘custodian of the patriarchy,’ Peterson decries the attack on masculinity and the purported attempts to feminize men by the Left. This distinct critique of feminism attracted young men across cultures—including many of Yusuf’s avid fans.”[36]

Yusuf and the Zaytuna College, like the Cambridge Muslim College and the online Islamic seminary SeekersGuidance, are considered considered exponents of Islamic “neo-traditionalism,” also known as Wasatism, a contemporary movement within Sunni Islam. Younger scholars who are linked to neo-traditionalism include Hasan Spiker and Yahya Rhodus.[37] Yasir Qadhi, also consistently been listed in the annual listicle The 500 Most Influential Muslims, was previously a Salafi, but now identifies himself as a Wasatist, though he has also referred to himself as “post-Madhab.”[38] Qadhi studied at the Islamic University of Madinah in Saudi Arabia, earned his PhD from Yale University where his dissertation focused on the writings of Ibn Taymiyyah.

 

Abrahamic Family House  

In 2018, Bin Bayyah and his student Hamza Yusuf co-founded the Forum for Promoting Peace in Muslim Societies (FPPMS), which has attracted significant controversy for its sponsorship from the Foreign Minister of the United Arab Emirates, Abdullah Bin Zayed al-Nahyan, also known as MBZ, is the third son of Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, the founding father and the principal driving force behind the formation of the UAE, and the original financier of BCCI.[39] In August 2020, Yusuf came under a barrage of criticism for his endorsement of the UAE’s decision to normalize ties with Israel. In a statement released by FPPMS, which begins by heaping praise MBZ and his brother Abdullah bin Zayed, stated that normalization “stopped Israel from extending its sovereignty over Palestinian lands,” and was a means to “promote peace and stability across the world.”[40]

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) is considered one of the closest US allies in the Middle East. UAE’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, also known as MBZ, is the third son of Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan.  MBZ also helped lift his protégé Saudi Arabia’s new Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS), who has attained notoriety in the West, especially since American intelligence agencies concluded that he ordered the killing of the dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi.[41] Trump said of MBZ, “He is special. I respect him, and I’ve known him for a long time.”[42] On December 15, 2016, also at Trump Tower, Kushner, Michael Flynn and Steve Bannon met with MBZ. The meeting was arranged by MBZ’s adviser, Lebanese-American businessman and convicted pedophile George Nader.[43] Nader is also a consultant to Blackwater founder Erik Prince. Prince was an avid supporter of Trump. Erik Prince is a friend of Peter Thiel and very close to Robert Mercer.[44] As reported by Adam Entous, the purpose of the December 15 meeting at Trump Tower was to allow MBZ to let Trump’s advisers to know that he and MBS were committed to working with the new Administration to roll back Iran’s influence.[45] UAE and Saudi Arabia were working together behind the scenes with Mossad to counter Iranian influence.[46] The UAE and Israel are “like brothers,” said one of Abu Dhabi’s senior military general.[47]

In January 2020, Trump announced the Trump Peace Plan for the Middle East in a joint press conference with Netanyahu. The plan, which was authored by a team led by Jared Kushner, provided for a unified Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and Israeli sovereignty over the Jordan Valley and the principal Jewish settlements in the West Bank, amounting to annexation of roughly thirty percent of the territory. When Netanyahu took office in May, he hinted that his cabinet would begin discussing annexation of parts of the West Bank, as proposed in the plan. At the end of June, Emirati ambassador to the US Yousef Al Otaiba, known to be extremely close with Kushner, told him and his assistant Avi Berkowitz that the Emirates “would agree to normalization with Israel in return for an Israeli announcement that West Bank annexation was off the table.”[48] Otaiba has become one of the most powerful and well-connected men in Washington. Otaiba’s father was the UAE’s first Minister of Petroleum, Mana Saeed Al Otaiba, as well as a close confidant to MBZ’s father. A group of hackers calling themselves “GlobalLeaks” stole e-mails in June 2017 from Otaiba, which show a clear picture of the back-channels the UAE has taken to ensure the country’s interests are promoted abroad. Some of the more controversial e-mails released show a link between the UAE and the Israeli political firm, the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), which was financed by Sheldon Adelson.[49]

A mutual opposition to Iran helped Otaiba, Kushner and Berkowitz identify an alternative solution that ultimately resulted in a normalization agreement reached in August 2020. On September 11, Kushner and Berkowitz negotiated closing a deal between Trump, Netanyahu, Emerati Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Co-operation, and the king of Bahrain.[50] Netanyahu, and MBZ’s brother, Emirati foreign minister Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan, along with Bahraini foreign minister Abdullatif bin Rashid Al Zayani, former secretary general of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), signed the Abraham Accords on September 15, 2020. The signing was hosted by Trump on the Truman Balcony of the White House, in an elaborate ceremony intended to reflect the historical significance of the event.[51] As part of the two agreements, the Emirates and Bahrain recognized Israel’s sovereignty, enabling the establishment of full diplomatic relations.

The Abraham Accords reinforced the broader regional efforts toward interfaith dialogue and cooperation. On February 5, 2019, Abdullah bin Zayed announced plans to build the Abrahamic Family House, an interfaith complex on Saadiyat Island in Abu Dhabi, housing a mosque, church and synagogue. The project grew out of the Document on Human Fraternity for World Peace and Living Together, also known as the Abu Dhabi declaration, signed the previous day by Pope Francis and Sheikh Ahmed el-Tayeb, Grand Imam of Al-Azhar. To fulfill the aspirations of the Document, the Higher Committee of Human Fraternity (HCHF) was established in August 2019. The HCHF, which is constituted by both religious and civil leaders from different countries and creeds, awards the Zayed Award for Human Fraternity among other initiatives. Members of the HCHF include Jewish Reform rabbi Bruce Lustig, who previously served as Senior Rabbi at the Washington Hebrew Congregation (WHC); Irina Georgieva Bokova, a Bulgarian politician and a former Director-General of UNESCO; Leymah Gbowee, a Liberian activist who was awarded the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize; and Ioan Sauca, general secretary of the World Council of Churches (WCC).

Another member of the HCHF is Miguel Ángel Ayuso Guixot, a Spanish prelate of the Catholic Church and a historian of Islam who is President of the Dicastery for Interreligious Dialogue of the Holy See, previously named Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue. The Dicastery is the central office of the Catholic Church for promoting interreligious dialogue in accordance with the spirit of the Second Vatican Council, in particular the declaration Nostra aetate. Also titled the Declaration on the Relation of the Church with Non-Christian Religions, Nostra aetate is an official declaration of the Vatican II, promulgated in 1965 by Pope Paul VI, in response to lobbying on the part of Jewish organizations such as the AJC, B’nai B’rith, and the World Jewish Congress (WJC).[52] Nostra aetate was produced during Vatican II as the result of extensive discussions between the AJC’s Rabbi Heschel and Cardinal Bea, whose private secretary was Jesuit and Zionist agent Malachi Martin, a close friend of Maryamiyya member Rama Coomaraswamy the son of Ananda Coomaraswamy, who was one of the founders of the Traditionalist School, following René Guénon and a friend of Aleister Crowley.

In 2022, six months after leaving the White House as a senior adviser to his father-in-law Donald Trump, Kushner secured a $2 billion investment for his newly formed private equity firm, Affinity Partners, from the Saudi government’s sovereign wealth fund, Public Investment Fund, led by MBS, who was a close ally.[53] Affinity received commitments of more than $3 billion by the end of 2021 to invest in American and Israeli companies seeking to expand in India, Africa, the Middle East and other parts of Asia. Kushner stated that he hopes to open an “investment corridor between Saudi Arabia and Israel,”[54] seen internationally as a “sign of warming ties between two historic rivals.”[55] Officials who head the Public Investment Fund objected the investment, but MBS overruled them.[56] Ethics experts have pointed out the obvious, that such a deal creates the appearance of payback. Kushner played a leading role inside the Trump administration defending MBS after US intelligence agencies concluded that he had approved the 2018 assassination and dismemberment of Jamal Khashoggi, a Saudi columnist for The Washington Post and resident of Virginia who had been critical the kingdom’s rulers.[57]

 


[1] Walaa Quisay. Neo-Traditionalism in Islam in the West: Orthodoxy, Spirituality and Politics (Edinburgh University Press, 2023), p. 181.

[2] Kasper Mathiesen. “Anglo-American ‘Traditional Islam’ and Its Discourse of Orthodoxy.” Journal of Arabic and Islamic Studies. 13 (2013), pp. 191–219.

[3] Nuh Ha Mim Keller, “The Place of Tasawwuf in Traditional Islamic Sciences,” www.masud.co.uk.

[4] Muqaddimah Q I 201-202, and M. al-Tanji’s edition of the Shifa’ al-Sa’il fi Tahdhib al-Masa’il, (Istanbul, 1958), pp. 110-11 quoted from James W. Morris. “An Arab ‘Machiavelli’.”

[5] Areeb Ullah. “Jordan: Sufi community led by US scholar faces child abuse complaints.” Middle East Eye (May 30, 2022). Retrieved from https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/jordan-sufi-community-us-scholar-led-faces-child-abuse-complaints

[6] “The World’s Muslims: Unity and Diversity. Chapter 3: Articles of Faith.” Pew Research Center (August 9, 2012). Retrieved from https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2012/08/09/the-worlds-muslims-unity-and-diversity-3-articles-of-faith/

 [7] Editors. “Mahdo.” Encyclopedia Britannica (November 8, 2024). Retrieved from https://www.britannica.com/topic/mahdi

[8] James W. Morris. “An Arab “Machiavelli”?: Rhetoric, Philosophy and Politics in Ibn Khaldun’s Critique of ‘Sufism’.” In Roy Mottahedeh (ed.). Proceedings of the Harvard Ibn Khaldun Conference (Cambridge, Harvard, 2003).

[9] D. B. MacDonald. “Mahdi” Encyclopaedia of Islam; and S. Margoliouth. “Mahdi.” Hastings’ Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics; and C. Snouck Hurgronje. Mohammedanism (New York, 1916), p. 107; cited in Kedourie. “Further Light on Afghani,” p. 195.

[10] Kedourie. “Further Light on Afghani,” p. 195.

[11] Itzchak Weismann. The Naqshbandiyya: Orthodoxy and Activism in a Worldwide Sufi Tradition (London: Routledge, 2007) p. 170.

[12] Robert Lebling. Legends of the Fire Spirits: Jinn and Genies from Arabia to Zanzibar (I.B.Tauris), pp. 24–28.

[13] Cited in Rhiannon Conner. “From Amuq to Glastonbury: Situating the apocalypticism of Shaykh Nazim and the Naqshbandi-Haqqaniyya.” PhD thesis submitted to University of Exeter (May 2015).

[14] Asaf Ronel. “Orgies, Blackmail and anti-Semitism: Inside the Islamic Cult Whose Leader Is Embraced by Israeli Figures.” Ha’aretz (April 03, 2018).

[15] Harun Yahya (@harun_yahya). Twitter (2:30 PM, August 14, 2016).

[16] “Islamic Alliance With Eastern Orthodox Christianity Russia by Sheikh Imran Hosein.” (April 17, 2018). Retrieved from https://archive.org/details/IslamicAllianceWithEasternOrthodoxChristianityRussiabySheikhImranHosein

[17] “A Message for my students in France” Iman Husein (Sunday, 20 Muharram 1435). Retrieved from http://www.imranhosein.org/news/474-a-message-for-my-students-in-france.html

[18] Abel Mestre et Caroline Monnot. “Duprat, the idol of soraliens; Sidos on CD and other digital news”, blog “Extreme Rightist(s)” of journalists from the daily Le Monde published by the site on 12 February 2010.

[19] Wahid Azal. “Dugin’s Occult Fascism and the Hijacking of Left Anti-Imperialism and Muslim Anti-Salafism.” Counter Punch (February 10, 2016).

[20] Mark Damien Delp. “Great Books and Small Colleges.” Revovatio (December 8, 2017). Retrieved from https://renovatio.zaytuna.edu/article/great-books-and-small-colleges-delp

[21] “Hamza Yusuf.” Zaytuna College. Retrieved from https://zaytuna.edu/faculty-details/Hamza-Yusuf

[22] Jacob Williams. “Islamic Traditionalists: ‘Against the Modern World’?” Muslim World, 113 (2023). Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1111/muwo.12475

[23] Sarah Posner. Unholy: Why White Evangelicals Worship at the Altar of Donald Trump (Random House, 2020).

[24] Maha Hilal. “It’s time for Muslim Americans to condemn Hamza Yusuf.” Al Jazeera (July 15, 2019). Retrieved from https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2019/7/15/its-time-for-muslim-americans-to-condemn-hamza-yusuf

[25] Emma Green. “Muslim Americans Are United by Trump—and Divided by Race.” The Atlantic (March 11, 2017). Retrieved from https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/03/muslim-americans-race/519282/

[26] Quisay. Neo-Traditionalism in Islam in the West, p. 31.

[27] Ibid., p. 3.

[28] Ibid., p. 184.

[29] “About the Quilliam Press.” Quillam Press. Retrieved from https://quilliampress.com/about/

[30] Sami Omais. “Shaykh Abdal Hakim Murad on Riding the Tiger of Modernity.” Traversing Tradition (February 18, 2019). https://traversingtradition.com/2019/02/18/shaykh-abdal-hakim-murad-on-riding-the-tiger-of-modernity/

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Divide & Conquer