The project “Ijma‘=Concord” by Peter the Great Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography (Kunstkamera) is an attempt to gain an understanding of the tangle of problems connected with the modern Islam. It is an independent, non-governmental, civil initiative aimed at all of us, both Muslims and non-Muslims.
There are more than a billion Muslims living on the Earth nowadays. Every fifth person is a Muslim. News, broadcast by international TV channels, to a great extent, concerns Islam in this or that way. However, the greater part of it is about the so-called radical Islam. We witness many attempts to impose on Muslims all over the world, including Russian Muslims, traditions and customs, ritual practice and social points of reference that stem from the spiritual, social, and political experience of a numerically and culturally marginal section of the Islamic world.
Among radically-thinking Islamic intellectuals, many of whose distinguished leaders reside in European capitals, the idea of forming a new caliphate “from Mauritania to Xinjiang” is being worked out. Its aim is to become a new second power (instead of the USSR). Developing and facilitating this idea is generously financed by some private and governmental funds. Furthermore, the main goal of September 11 attacks, which resulted in so many victims and the change in our conception of terrorists’ abilities, was to manipulate Western governments and the mass media, aiming at destabilizing the situation in the Islamic world.
The status quo, existing before September 11, did not allow realization of this idea. A powerful impulse was needed to evoke response. Wars at Afghanistan and Iraq became this policy’s instruments, as they cause sufferings to thousands and thousands of Muslims, who die of “bombs and tanks of the unfaithful”.
We are witnessing the Third World War… The First one was won by Lenin. The USSR lost the second. The third, the information one, was started by Osama bin Laden.
Voluntarily or not the western mass media take part in this war. By their choice of stories and topics they quite often engender terror in their audience and readers, they impose the idea that Islam is a harsh totalitarian model, intrinsically hostile to western values. By the power of word and image a human being can be turned into a living bomb, and only by the power of the word and image can one prevent such transformations. Nowadays, day after day on almost any Arab news channel we can see boys fighting tanks with stones, western soldiers in alien-like outfit, explosions, crying children, we hear about hostages. The persistent set of stereotypes, both eastern and western, is to advantage of war parties in the USA, Europe and Muslim countries to such extent that there seems to be coordination of efforts.
In fact, terror has nothing to do with the basic Islamic values. Unlike “imported” Islam, its regional forms are usually self-sufficient and undoubtedly of equal worth. It is obvious that only a “local Islam,” nurtured by the full range of religious traditions and preferences, inextricably bound up with the history of a particular people with its victories and tragedies, can adequately meet the spiritual needs of the faithful. Only such a version of Islam can be an important force for stability in society
The Ijma’ = Concordia project was initiated by Peter the Great Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography, Russian Academy of Sciences. The museum expresses their gratitude to Russian Asiatic Society and Rosbalt News Agency for their support, especially during the initial, the most difficult period. The project consists of documentary shorts, based on interviews with most respected Islamic scholars, religious leaders and public men, living in Arab and Muslim countries as well as in Russia, China, the USA, Europe, and other countries. In general, the world of Islam will present its unanimous opinion — ijma. Representatives of other religions, leading scholars, writers, people of culture, politics and religion also take part in the project.
Series of documentaries is the most important part of the project. They will present the diversity of the Islamic world, which is now attacked by the “radical underground” first of all. Interviews of the leading Muslim authorities show full incompatibility of terror with the basic values of Islam. Documentaries as well as interviews will give us the possibility to see the most important world problems by the eyes of Muslims; concern overall situation in the world in general, and in the Islamic world in particular; Islam’s place and role in the historical heritage of the humankind, problems of multicultural and interconfessional cooperation. Every film is a story about museum collections, books and people’s lives. They all tell about Russia and Islamic world cooperation.
The project was presented at the UNESCO headquarters in Paris as a part of the program of the international congress “Pluralism and Recognition” (June, 2006), at the World Public Forum “Dialogue of Civilizations” Fourth and Fifth Annual Sessions (October, 2006 and October, 2007, Rhodes, Greece), at the International Regional Conference of the «European Civilization Space: Baltic Dialogue» World Public Forum “Dialogue of Civilizations” (June, 2007, Tampere, Finland), at the International Conference “Intercultural and Interconfessional Dialogue Aiming at Sustainable Development” (UNESCO and the Academy of Public Administration attached to the President of the Russian Federation, Moscow, September, 2007). At the moment the project is carried with the support of Academician Eugeniy Primakov (Russia); Academician and the State Hermitage Museum Director Mikhail Piotrovsky (Russia), outstanding politician, philosopher and writer Prince Hassan bin Talal (Jordan), distinguished businessman and philanthropist Mr Juma al-Majid (Dubai), famous politicians and publicists Dr Ali al-Samman and Dr Nihad Fahmi (both Egypt).
As a part of the project topical art, ethnographical and photo exhibitions will be organized. The example of the latter is the exhibition “The Land of Incense.. Yemen: images of traditional culture”, organized by the Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography, Russian Academy of Sciences (St. Petersburg, Rhodes — 2007; Moscow, Surgut — 2008), as well as photo exposition “Ijma’ = Concordia” (photographer Tatiana Fedorova), which was a part of the World Public Forum “Dialogue of Civilizations” Fourth Annual Session (2006, Rhodes, Greece).
The project’s materials will be presented on the project’s web-site, published in Russian, Arabic and English. Several stories will appear in “the 60th parallel” journal.
Cairo – St. Petersburg
Not long ago one of the Arab journalists asked me why the project “Ijma=Concordia” started with the film about Egypt. The answer is short and simple – Egypt is, without any doubt, one of the key countries in the Islamic world, there is the largest Arab university al-Azhar, which was opened more than thousand years ago (to be exact, in 975). The university is governed by the Supreme Council chaired by Grand Imam. Nowadays Grand Imam of al-Azhar Muhammad Sayyid Tantawi’s authority among Muslims is often compared to the one of the Pope among Catholics. However, there can be a more elaborate answer given, which has connection to another university and another person, who had the same name – Tantawi.
I graduated the Faculty of Oriental Studies, St. Petersburg State University (former Leningrad State University). I remember really well how in 1975 I entered historical green building on the Neva embankment, holding a volume of works by Ignaty Yulianovich Krachkovsky, the patriarch of the Russian school of Arabic and Islamic studies. The first book, all would-be arabists read, is “Among Arabic Manuscripts. Memories of Libraries and Men”. The easiest way to find it is in the first volume of Krachkovsky’s selected works. There is a chapter in this book about the life of Muhammad Ayyad al-Tantawi, one of the first professors of the Oriental faculty and an al-Azhar graduate.
On August 22, 1840 in “St. Petersburg Vedomosti” there was written “You can ask me who this handsome man in an oriental garment, in a white turban, with coal black beard, lively eyes and intelligent face, suntanned not under our pale Northern sun is. You must have met him already twice strolling along the sunny side of Nevsky Prospekt. As a frequent walker on Nevsky Prospekt in good weather, you are sure to notice him and want to know who he is”. The author wrote that it was Sheikh al-Tantawi, who had just come from the Nile banks. At the end of the article, the author wrote, “Now you can learn Arabic without leaving St. Petersburg.”
A St. Petersburg Arab studies student learns this name for the whole life, his portrait is also well-remembered: the combination of an oriental costume and the Order of St. Anna on a neck ribbon is really unusual. The Sheikh himself wittily bantered at this in his couplet:
Indeed I saw a wonder in Petersburg:
There is a Sheikh who clasps Anna to his breast.
Surprisingly enough, in St. Petersburg, the Russian northern capital, there are many things connected with the East. Nikolay Gumilyov, an outstanding Russian poet, wrote
There is an Ethnography museum in this city
On the bank of the Neva as broad as the Nile.
When I am tired of being a poet only,
Nothing can be better for me.
The Neva and the Nile…. In the mind of a St. Petersburg citizen Nikolay Gumilyov’s image arouses a set of pictures: sphinxes near the Academy of Arts, Shemyakin’s sphinxes on Robespierre’s embankment, famous Egyptian bridge. If you leave St. Petersburg, you come to Tsarskoye Selo through the Egyptian Gates. Resembling pylons in form, they make you believe that you are entering an Ancient Egyptian temple. Egyptian houses on Zakhar’evskaya and Zverinskaya streets are nice examples of the Russian art nouveau. There is rich Egyptian collection in the Hermitage, whose windows are reflected in the still Neva waters. Previously the most of the collection was in the Kunstkamera Museum, where was one of the first in Europe Egyptian museums. In the city there are many educational and research institutions studying the Islamic East,.
Of course, as an Oriental faculty graduate, I couldn’t help thinking about Petersburg Tantawi, both when I was planning the project “Ijma=Concordia”, and when was sitting in the reception room of Grand Imam of al-Azhar Sheikh Muhammad Sayyid Tantawi, the namesake of my teacher’s teacher (“Petersburg sheikh” and Grand Imam are from the same Egypt town of Tanta, that is why they have a common part in their names, in Arabic it’s nisba). Grand Imam of al-Azhar kindly agreed to give us a short interview.
Answering the question “What are the three main issues in the Islamic world, to your mind?” Sheikh Tantawi answered,
“The distemper in Iraq – there lies a first problem. We are also praying for the possibility for our Palestinian brethren to create an independent state as soon as possible. There are several problems in Afghanistan, let Allah help them to be solved.”
Al-Azhar is not only the oldest university but also a sort of headquarters of the Islamic world, a sort of Vatican for Muslims. It is Sheikh Tantawi whom the Pope thinks to be his equal in interconfessional dialogue. Local sheikhs are the most authoritative in the modern Islam. The main issues of the Islamic world are discussed and solved here.
Our talks in al-Azhar turned into some kind of dialogue between St. Petersburg citizens and Muslim scholars, working in the largest Islamic university. Not long before our trip we asked people on St. Petersburg streets what their associations with the word ‘Islam’ were today. These are the most common answers:
“To my mind, Islam is a very different world.”
“Islam is terror, jihad, Chechnya, Afghanistan….”
“We should not equal a faithful Muslim with those bastards that made my brothers suffer and whom I fought against in Afghanistan.”
“Islam … varies a lot. There are great philosophers, humanists but also terrorists. And they all refer to the Quran! “
And this is what Doctor Ali El Samman, one of the key Egyptian political figures, foreign relations Adviser of the Presidents Nasser, Sadat, and Moubarak, General Secretary of the Association for Economic Information (Europe - Egypt) said,
“Islam’s main problem lies in selective practical usage of Islamic texts, taken out of the context. Only one ayah[1] of the Quran is taken, and basing on it all the actions are justified, without taking into account all other ayat. The Quran is an indivisible, whole entity!”
St. Petersburg old lady, having put her heavy bag on the ground, said quite categorically,
‘For me Islam is nothing else but fright, terrorism, and war. Watch TV!’
Dr. Ali El Samman, “… Muslim religious authorities, their supreme representatives have to denounce extremism without any rippling, without using language of terrorism, and without making rough generalizations. It is necessary to make every effort to find the most precise words to separate the notion of justified resistance from the notion of terrorism.”
“When September 11 happened, the Imam’s statement to the world, concerning all the tragic events, was strongly-worded and determined, he discarded any connections between Islam and the attacks. However, he did not try to vindicate our religion, he rejected any attempts to use the word “Islamic” in regards to these events.”
“I want to tell any Muslim, who can hear me, that dialogue is a part of the Quranic ethics and philosophy. Allah was engaged in dialogues with the Prophet, the Prophet had dialogue to those near him, Allah and the Prophet talked to people, Allah conducted a dialogue even with Shaitan.”
St. Petersburg citizens,
“A dialogue is always possible with normal sane people.”
“It is important to compare, collate and find things that Islam and other religions have in common.”
“There is some threat, but Islam is the same danger as America.”
Sheikh Fawzi al-Zafzaf, President of the Permanent Committee of Al-Azhar for Dialogue with the Monotheistic Religions, Representative of Grand Imam of Al-Azhar to International Interfaith Organizations said, “Please, forget about it, gentlemen! All the religions – Islam, Christianity, and Judaism – are innocent, have no connections with terrorism, are not supporting terrorism and are against terrorism! We should connect terror with those who did it!”
St. Petersburg citizens:
“Terrorism and Islam have nothing in common as I understand.”
“I have a profound respect for both their religion and for Muslims themselves, because by my side in Afghanistan there were guys, Muslims, fighting, they took me out of the battle, pulled me out of the burning APC. Muslims. Our Soviet soldiers…”
We admired Muslim architecture of Cairo, breathed in fragrance of spices at Khan al-Khalili, a huge oriental market that appeared here more than 700 years ago. We couldn’t help recollecting the Egyptian sheikh, who worked in St. Petersburg in the middle of the 19th century. There were legends about him in Russia. It was rumoured that he bought a slave girl, while getting ready to coming to St. Petersburg, sent her to Paris for education and then got married to her. Among Tantawi works there is a list entitled “A gift to the bright with stories about Russia”. In his work the Sheikh described in detail his journey from Cairo to St. Petersburg, his impressions on Russia and Russians. He gave a detailed account of Russian history at his age and drew maps of St. Petersburg. All this was accompanied by lively and vivid facts that are still invaluable to us nowadays. This book shows us the talent of Tantawi. It was written in classical language, but, nevertheless, is easy to read. It is full with grace. The author adds a lot of his poems to th text. Tantawi really has a good sense of humour in addition to good observation skills.
He wrote the first Arabic grammar in Russian. He is one of the founders of Arabic dialectology. Working in St. Petersburg, Tantawi met distinguished Tartar cultural workers, who came to the capital or lived there. Not long ago in Kazan his work “Fifty two pearls” was published in Tartar language. Almost a century after being written, it was translated from Arabic by a famous Tartar philosopher Zakir Kadiri.
We entered the great Cairo mosque, where for so many centuries traditional Muslim sciences were kept and handed down, and where “Petersburg Tantawi” once attended lectures. Hardly anybody knew at that time that many years later in al-Azhar, the sheikh’s alma mater, tragic events in Russian town Beslan will be discussed and assessed.
Dr. Ahmed Sadek al-Kosheri, leading Egyptian jurist, scholar and statesman said, “If you want to have a juridical assessment, then we have to refer to international law, approved by the international community and being in power in the world we live. A part of this law is Islamic law, and it has the same view on the events as the international law and agrees with it.”
“Not a single sura[2] in the Quran can justify this, whatever might be the pretext for a reasonable man to commit a crime against innocent people. What was children’s and women’s guilt? What were the teachers guilty for? Why did they have to be killed by those who had no idea about a person’s life value?”
“This is monstrous crime and somebody has to be punished for it. Punished, following the international law, the law of all the states, the Islamic law! I have no doubt that whatever the reason might have been for those people to take the weapon, to seize school, to take children hostage; it cannot be justified in any way.”
St. Petersburg citizens:
“Once I’ve heard from an orthodox priest that Islam is a religion of Woman. There is even a saying there, ‘Where is the Heaven? The heaven is at your mother’s feet.’”
“There is a strange duality in Islam: worshiping Woman, on the one hand; and limiting her freedom, on the other. This may only seem to us. To understand another religion or culture, you need to be in it.”
Prof. Tayseir M. Mandour, Head of Physiology Dept. Medical Faculty Al-Azhar University, Member of Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs, Member of Inteconfessional Dialogue Commission: “I always come across inaccurate, negative view in the West on the women position in Islam. If we look at the rights which Islam gives to a woman, they are really great. But the problem is not connected with the rights which are granted by Islam to a woman; the problem is in another matter. First, she does not know her rights in Islam. Secondly, even if she knows them they are not realized in full. I think, we should aim at informing women on their rights, and then the situation will change. It is one of the main issues for the Islamic world.”
We admired the majestic Nile, met our colleagues, and rather often heard good words about our country.
Dr. Ali El Samman said, “I must tell you, even though communist regime declined some time ago, there is still a pole in Arabic, called “Russian pole”. And it is strong enough to balance the forces in the world and to make it more robust.”
“When a nation loses its history, it loses its present and future as well. And the history shows the role the USSR played, being side by side with Egyptians and all the Arabs during the biggest military operations in the region.”
“I do believe that we should not forget the important role of the USSR that helped Egypt and other Arab countries to free our lands occupied in 1967. We will always remember it, it’s a part of our past that is intrinsically connected with our present. I hope those who are listening will regard my address as words coming not from the mind or reason but from the very heart. I say to you – we love you and are much obliged to you.”
We returned home and came to our Department, where many years ago the sheikh from al-Azhar worked and taught. Besides his mother tongue, he mastered French, Russian, German, Persian and Turkish. Among his students were distinguished orientalists, such as Fresnel, Perron, Weil. Tantawi also taught a Finnish arabist and traveller George August Wallin. Prof Eugeniy Zelenev, The Dean of Oriental faculty of St. Petersburg State University, told us that 150 storage units in the faculty manuscript collection are given to Sheikh Tantawi collection.
Tantawi came to Russia when he was rather young, only 30 years old. He brought his wife, Umm Khasan, with him, his son Ahmad was born and lived all his life here. The Sheikh’s granddaughter Helen was conferred a title of nobility for her grandfather’s services.
For his teaching and research work Tantawi received ranks and decorations usual for those times. Sometimes he was granted special awards. For example, he was given a diamond ring from the Russian Crown Prince for “special services in arranging a Turkish room in the palace in Tsarskoe Selo”. The walls in the famous Turkish cabinet of Alexander rooms in the Catherine palace, the interiors of which were destroyed during WWII, were decorated with Tantawi’s autographs. It was a series of occasional odes about court life, calligraphically copied by him. Some of his manuscripts and books were kept in the niche.
A fine lithographic portrait by Martynov, dated the end of 1853, can help us understand the impression, the sheikh’s exotic figure produced in St. Petersburg.
At the end of his life Tantawi fell seriously ill. His legs were paralyzed, arms weakened, but the scholar kept on working till the very end. It is known as there are notes written in handwriting of a terminally ill person.
About Tantawi’s last years Krachkovsky wrote, “It was painful to watch that it was more and more difficult for him to make notes. A pen wouldn’t write sticking into the paper. He tried to trace out an Arabic or Russian letter, but his hand jerked and some strange crooked line crossed the page. ”
There is the sheikh’s grave on the Tartar cemetery in St. Petersburg. The epitaph says both in Arabic and Russian, “St. Petersburg University Professor in ordinary (full professor)[3], counsellor of State, Sheikh Muhammad Ayad Tantawi. Died October 27th, 1861, at the age of 50”. Nowadays this modest gravestone with Arabic ligature is included in the Russian national list of objects of cultural and historical heritage along with famous monuments and palaces in St. Petersburg.
Here ended the long and unusual life which started half a century before in a small village near Tanta in Egypt.
It seems sometimes that the big world shrank to the size of a TV screen nowadays. Other people’s pain and joy come to us in no time. However, to understand somebody else’s joy and pain it is important to know the neighbours really well. Today in St. Petersburg dozens of scholars study Arabic language and culture, customs and traditions, every day life. Outstanding museum and manuscript collections, connected with the Islamic world, can be found here. Many thousand Arab students got an excellent education in Leningrad and St. Petersburg. A beam of knowledge, once lit by the sheikh from al-Azhar, is kept by his Russian disciples and followers till our time.
[1] Verse of the Qur’an
[2] Chapter in the Quran
[3] Professor in ordinary – professor of higher rank, full faculty member, who took part in the academic counsel, they could be elected Rector Mafnificus and Deans (Department heads).
