This excerpt from Imam al-Asi’s course at the Decolonial Muslim Studies course in Granada in 2024 rewires Muslim thought in an age when migration has become the foremost political battleground

We are all familiar with Prophet Abraham (Nabi Ibrahim) alayhis salam. And we call him whichever religious background we come from, the Patriarch of Prophets, Abu al-Anbiya, correct? We believe that he is a very important prophetic figure.

So let us take a look at his life, because his life is going to explain a lot about what is happening today. My reference is the Quran. Those who have studied the history of Ibrahim and the history of Bani Isra’il – the children of Israel – and the history of biblical prophets, may agree with some or most of what I’m going to say. They may disagree with most or some of it. That doesn’t concern me at this point, because I’m trying to explain what we have here, the information that comes to us from the one and only God.

We are trying to decolonialize ourselves, but some of the words that we are using in our attempt to decolonialize ourselves are colonializing words. Granted, the best way to get out of this trap is to get out of the colonial language, but that’s not an easy task. Maybe if we were five or six years old, we could acquire another language very easily, or in our pre-teen years. But at an advanced age in our life, it’s not very simple to learn the language of the poor and/or to learn any other language.

Let’s look at Prophet Ibrahim. His name is mentioned in 63 verses of the Quran. It occurs 69 times because some verses have his name mentioned more than once. I would like to begin with an ayah from the third chapter of the Quran (verse 33 – 34) in which Allah Subhanahu wa ta’ala says:

۞ إِنَّ ٱللَّهَ ٱصْطَفَىٰٓ ءَادَمَ وَنُوحًۭا وَءَالَ إِبْرَٰهِيمَ وَءَالَ عِمْرَٰنَ عَلَى ٱلْعَـٰلَمِينَ ٣٣

ذُرِّيَّةًۢ بَعْضُهَا مِنۢ بَعْضٍۢ ۗ وَٱللَّهُ سَمِيعٌ عَلِيمٌ ٣٤

“(33) Behold, the One and Only God raised [the status] of Adam, and Noah, and the kindred spirits of Abraham, and the house of ‘Imran above all mankind: (34) In one line of descent [they all came] one after another – and the One and Only God is all hearing all knowing –“

The gist of this as far as the subject matter, is that Allah has given a preference of selection concerning Adam and Nuh and concerning Ibrahim and Imran, as far as their aal is concerned. There’s a word, aal, that’s used in the Qur’an. It’s a Qur’anic word and is also used in the hadiths of the Prophet, the statements of the last Prophet (may Allah’s peace and blessings be upon him and the rest of the Prophets). This word is one that exemplifies why I say we still use the language that is not accurate in conveying the meanings of the words in the Qur’an. The word aal, when you look at this word, you will find it is translated either as offspring, or descendants, or family, or progeny. It is translated in that group of synonyms. That’s not an accurate translation of the word aal.

I am not trying to open up a linguistic class, but this relates to the issue of racism that we’re going to encounter in the establishment of the Zionist regime in the Holy Land. It goes all the way back to this. So if aal doesn’t mean – as almost everyone thinks because of the alien thinking that has set in the Muslim mind and Muslim context – children, progeny etc., what does it mean?  The best that I could bring out as a translation into English is ‘kindred spirits’ or ‘soulmates’. That’s what that means.

I think you will not find (and I hope I’m wrong) someone who has translated the word and to mean something along the line of ‘kindred spirits’, or ‘soulmates’. If you are convinced that aal has to do with a family, then it’s easy to extend that to become a form of favouritism that can be also extended to become a special race which also can become racism.

So be cautious when you use this word and please re-educate your mind to understand that aal means kindred spirits and or soulmates – that is what aal means.  When we say Aal-e-Ibrahim, we don’t specifically mean (although it could include) his family, his children, his offspring or his progeny. It does not specifically mean that, even though it may include that.

This is demonstrated by another area in the Qur’an. In Surah al-Baqarah, the second chapter of the Quran (verse 124). The verse says:

۞ وَإِذِ ٱبْتَلَىٰٓ إِبْرَٰهِـۧمَ رَبُّهُۥ بِكَلِمَـٰتٍۢ فَأَتَمَّهُنَّ ۖ قَالَ إِنِّى جَاعِلُكَ لِلنَّاسِ إِمَامًۭا ۖ قَالَ وَمِن ذُرِّيَّتِى ۖ قَالَ لَا يَنَالُ عَهْدِى ٱلظَّـٰلِمِينَ ١٢٤

“And [bring to mind] when his Sustainer tried Abraham by his commandments and the latter fulfilled them. He the One and Only God said, “Behold I shall make you a leader for the people.” Abraham asked, “And [will you make leaders] of my offspring as well?” The One and Only God answered, “My covenant does not extend to include the evil doers (the violators of justice).”

What this ayah is saying is, Allah has put Ibrahim to test, on two occasions, and Ibrahim passed those tests. So Allah said to him, I shall render you to become an imam of the people, or peoples. Ibrahim said, Ibrahim, “wa min dhurriyati?”The word dhurriya means descendants. It means offspring. He didn’t say wa min Aali. That he said min Aali, it’s finished, it’s known. His soulmates. his kindred spirits qualifying to become leaders, to become Imams. But he didn’t say that, he said, “wa min dhurriyati” And the response of Allah was, “ لَا يَنَالُ عَهْدِى ٱلظَّـٰلِمِينَ”: “My pledge to you now is not to be extended to those who are wrongdoers, who are oppressors, who are justice violators.” It doesn’t include them.

And that’s why we have three words in the Quran, and  because of the interference of colonial power and wealth, into our internal minds and selves, we don’t distinguish, we don’t make a difference between these three words: aal, dhurriya and asbaat. When you come across these ayaat in the Quran or the statements, the authentic statements attributed to our beloved prophet, take your time. Don’t rush and create some type of discriminatory definition that goes along with the word, which is being done even in the Muslim context.

We know that prophet Ibrahim or Abraham, was born in a family that was not conforming to Allah’s will. So he was born in a family and in a society that was not conforming to its creator. He took issue with his father or uncle, and he took issue with his own society because he wanted to conform to Allah, he wanted to yield to the authority of Allah, and they did not want that.

So there was a back and forth that went on, and what did that result in? It resulted in his own people, Ibrahim’s own society, deciding that they’re going to incinerate him. They were going to burn him alive. And so whatever there was: fuel, logs, wood, lumber, they made a pile out of it, and then they torched it, it began flaming. They wanted to throw him in it, and they actually went through the motions of doing everything, but he did not burn.

From here on is where the issue of belonging to your land and belonging to your people begins in this common history. Because of that, he no longer could live with his own people, with his own family, so he left. He was forced to leave. So Prophet Ibrahim was, as far as we know, the first person who suffered what will later on become known as a diaspora. Prophet Ibrahim was the first person to enter into the status of statelessness. He didn’t have a place to go. Prophets are commissioned by the Almighty to guide their own people, but what happens here when there’s been a separation between the people and the prophet?

They tell us Ibrahim and his people were in what is geographically known today as Northern Iraq. So, he left that area and obviously he went southwards, which would mean he travelled from Northern Iraq to the area now generally referred to as the Holy Land or the Levant or Bilad us-Shaam. That’s where he finally settles.

He got married. There’s no information that tells us his first wife’s ‘nationality’ was (I am going back to Columbus’ language here with the term ‘nationality’). We have to also remember that when, in the geo-linguistic make-up of that area, Ibrahim may have been speaking one language with his people and then relocating to another society, he may have had to learn another language. So, he may have been bilingual or trilingual and we don’t know that. But from the fact that we know is that he no longer lives with his own people and now he’s living with other people. So, bring in again that colonial idiom, he was a ‘foreigner’. Ibrahim was a foreigner.

How did societies in those days treat foreigners? Could we extend our logic and say, well, probably the same way societies today treat foreigners? Obviously, we have maybe a little more technology here, and we can register foreigners very easily, and keep an eye on them, etc. In those days, that process was not there, but still human relations are a thing. It’s still a human-to-human contact and interaction. But still, Ibrahim was in diaspora.

Ibrahim, after he gets married, he doesn’t have any children. It is complicated, because you are living in a strange land, and you think if you have a family, it is a little relief here. You can go home, and you have children, you have a wife, and you are going to have grandchildren, but that wasn’t the case. So not only was he a social foreigner, but he was also a psychological foreigner.

Eventually he wants a family and his wife wants a family. So he gets married again, and he marries Hajra. Hajra is the mother of his new born, his firstborn, Ismail (in English Ishmael). Ismail is Ibrahim’s eldest son. After he has Ismail, Ibrahim takes the only society that he has, his wife and his son, to a specific area in the Arabian Peninsula. He didn’t just take them somewhere in the Arabian Peninsula.  This was not a random place that he decided upon, he was divinely guided to place them in that area that is called Makkah today.  As evidenced by another ayah in the Qur’an (Chapter 22 (Hajj), verse 26):

وَإِذْ بَوَّأْنَا لِإِبْرَٰهِيمَ مَكَانَ ٱلْبَيْتِ أَن لَّا تُشْرِكْ بِى شَيْـًۭٔا وَطَهِّرْ بَيْتِىَ لِلطَّآئِفِينَ وَٱلْقَآئِمِينَ وَٱلرُّكَّعِ ٱلسُّجُودِ ٢٦

“And call to mind [the fact] that We located the place of the [Sacred] Sanctuary for Abraham, [saying to him purposefully], “[O Abraham] do not correlate anything [or anyone] with Me,” and furthermore, “Purge My Sanctuary [of all noxious notions] for those who go there and revolve around it, and those who reside in its vicinity, and those who bow and genuflect in devotion to me.

“And bear in mind that we had Ibrahim locate the place of the inviolable house of Allah…”

So that place there, Makkah was already designated by Allah. It wasn’t Ibrahim who founded Makkah, or al-Bayt, al-Bayt was already there as a piece of land. The location was there as a piece of land.  Ibrahim now finds a place that he can call home, which means that Makkah itself is the anti-diaspora. It was meant for people who don’t have a state and who don’t have a home.

Of course, this meaning has been lost. This has just become a place of pilgrimage. Muslims go there once a year for Hajj and then on the other times of the year that we can go there it’s called the Umrah. This meaning itself, that when we go to Makkah, whoever goes, do you / they carry with you the idea that I’m going to a place that offers a home to the homeless? This is a very significant thought, not least for the times we live in.  It applies when we talk about Palestine today, about Gaza, the West Bank, Palestine proper, etc, are we thinking that we’re talking about some people who don’t have a home, who want a home? Some people who don’t have a homeland, who want a homeland? Some people who have a homeland, they don’t have a homeland anymore. Some people who are in a diaspora and are not in it now, some people who are not in a diaspora and are in it right now. These types of ideas circulate.

What has happened to this very significant idea?  Incidentally there are other details to Al-Bayt Al-Haram and Makkah and the Kaaba that are very meaningful and they have to do also with survival, not just accommodation, but also with survival itself.

Ibrahim said, and this is a verse in the Quran (Chapter 14 (Abraham), verse 37):

رَّبَّنَآ إِنِّىٓ أَسْكَنتُ مِن ذُرِّيَّتِى بِوَادٍ غَيْرِ ذِى زَرْعٍ عِندَ بَيْتِكَ ٱلْمُحَرَّمِ رَبَّنَا لِيُقِيمُوا۟ ٱلصَّلَوٰةَ فَٱجْعَلْ أَفْـِٔدَةًۭ مِّنَ ٱلنَّاسِ تَهْوِىٓ إِلَيْهِمْ وَٱرْزُقْهُم مِّنَ ٱلثَّمَرَٰتِ لَعَلَّهُمْ يَشْكُرُونَ ٣٧

This statement by Ibrahim says something like this: “Oh my Sustainer, I have settled of my offspring in a barren valley that has no agriculture, in the vicinity of your sanctified residence. Oh my Sustainer, have them actualize their relationship with you and have the passions of people gravitate towards them, and grant them flourishing sustenance, so that they may have cause to be grateful.”

فَٱجْعَلْ أَفْـِٔدَةًۭ مِّنَ ٱلنَّاسِ تَهْوِىٓ إِلَيْهِمْ

“have the passions of people gravitate towards them”

Ibrahim is saying, I finally found my home and my homeland, so, Oh my Sustainer, even though this is an arid area, there are no plants, there are no shrubs, there is no greenery, nothing. Still at the end he says, وَٱرْزُقْهُم مِّنَ ٱلثَّمَرَٰتِ, but before that he says: have the hearts of people flock towards them.

But there are barriers now: you think any person that wants to go to Makkah can go to Makkah? Why can’t we just follow the meanings of these ayaat in the Quran and open up Makkah for people who are homeless, for people who are stateless, for people who think they are or actually are living in a diaspora? Why can’t that happen? It can’t happen because the Muslims themselves have been infected with alien understanding: an alien understanding of their own religious text, this Qur’an. That’s why we have what is happening today.

So, this is our approach, and our approach meaning those of us who read and try to understand the Quran in the context of this segment of history.

Imam Muhammad al-Asi is currently working on the first-ever English Tafsir of the Qur’an titled: The Ascendant Qur’an: Realigning Man to the Divine Power Culture.  Imam Asi has also published a translation of the Qur’an.  Both the tafseer volumes and translation are published by ICIT.  Imam is based in Washington D.C.