“a whole Islam makes someone a sufi. You haven’t got an Islam until you have this.” Shaykh Abdalqadir as-Sufi Sufism heart of Islam, Channel 4, 1990

In this spirit of clarity and making it new, “The precise definition of the word, pictorially the sun’s lance coming to rest on the precise spot verbally” (Ezra Pound, MAKE IT NEW) this passage below by Shaykh ibn ‘Ajiba defines Sufism. It is taken from a recent translation of ibn ‘Ajiba by Aisha Bewley. Here is a comprehensive definition of sufism, that includes statements of the great sufis across fourteen centuries:

First Introduction: The Science of Tasawwuf

1. Definition:

Imam Al-Junayd said, “[Tasawwuf] is that the Real makes you die to yourself and live by Him.” He also said, “It is that you are with Allah without attachment.” It is said that it is adopting every exalted characteristic and relinquishing every base characteristic; that it is noble character appearing at a noble time among noble people; that it is that you own nothing and nothing owns you; and that it is abandoning the self to Allah so that it wants whatever He wills. It is also said that tasawwuf is based on three qualities: holding to poverty and loss, spending on and showing preference to others, and abandoning management and choice; that it is having all hope in Reality and no hope from creation; that it is dhikr through gathering, ecstasy through listening, and acting through following; that it is refusing to budge from the door of the Beloved even if He shuts you out. It is further said that it is the purity of proximity after the turbidity of remoteness; that it is sitting with Allah without worry; and that it is being protected from the sight of created existence.

Abu Hamza al-Baghdadi said, “The sign of the true Sufi is that he is poor after being wealthy, lowly after being mighty, and obscure after being well-known. The sign of the false Sufi is that he is wealthy after being poor, mighty after being lowly and well-known after being obscure.”

Al-Hasan ibn Mansur said, “The Sufi is alone in the Essence: no one accepts him and he accepts no one.” It is said that the Sufi is like the earth – all kinds of ugly things are thrown onto it but only beautiful things emerge from it, and both good and evil people tread upon it; and that there is nothing uglier under the sun than an avaricious Sufi.

Ash-Shibli said, “The Sufi is cut off from creation, connected to the Real, as is indicated by the words of the Almighty, ‘I have chosen you for Myself.’ (20:41)” He also said, “The Sufis are children in the lap of the Real.” It is said that a Sufi is someone whom the earth does not carry nor the sky cover over, meaning that he is not encompassed by created existence.

Shaykh Ahmad Zarruq said, “Tasawwuf has been defined, delineated and explained in about two thousand different ways. The basis of all of them, however, is true sincerity in turning to Allah Almighty. They are simply facets of this, and Allah knows best.” Then he said, “The fact that there is such great disagreement about the One Reality simply indicates how difficult it is to grasp its entirety. As all the different definitions derive from a single source, which contains within its compass everything that has been said about it, then the expression used is according to what has been grasped of it. Thus all the statements about it are actually a matter of detail rather than substance, each person expressing that which corresponds to his degree of knowledge, action, state, tasting and so forth. That is the source of the differences found within tasawwuf and that is why, when Abu Nu‘aym wrote about most of the people he deals with in his Hilya, he added a saying of theirs appropriate to their particular state. It is said that that is the nature of tasawwuf – it means that everyone with a portion of true sincerity in turning to Allah has a portion of tasawwuf and that everyone’s tasawwuf only consists in their true sincerity in turning to Allah, so understand that.”

Shaykh Zarruq also said, “A rule when it comes to sincere turning-to-Allah is that its precondition is that it must be done in a way which is pleasing to Allah Almighty and with means that are pleasing to Him. Anything which has a precondition is not valid without that precondition being fulfilled. Since ‘He is not pleased with thanklessness (kufr) in His slaves’ (38:7), it is necessary to make one’s faith true, ‘and if you are thankful, He will be pleased with you’. So acting according to Islam is essential. And because of this there can be no tasawwuf except with correct fiqh since the outward judgements of Allah Almighty can only be known through it. In the same way there can be no fiqh without tasawwuf since there can be no action without sincere turning-to-Allah. And neither of these are possible without faith since the validity of both of them is dependent on it. So they must be combined together due to their essential mutual dependence in law, just as spirits are inseparable from bodies – the spirit only knows existence through the body and the body only knows existence through the spirit, the one completes the other.”

Malik said regarding this matter: “If someone practises tasawwuf without fiqh, he is a heretic (zindiq); if someone practises fiqh without tasawwuf, he is a deviant (fasiq); and if someone combines the two then he achieves realisation.” The heresy of the first lies in his denial of personal responsibility by absolute attribution of all his actions to Allah (jabr), thereby denying Divine wisdom (hikma) and rulings. The deviancy of the second lies in the fact that his knowledge is devoid of the quality of sincere-turning-to Allah, which is the very thing that stops people disobeying Him, and is devoid of that sincerity which is a precondition for all action. And the realisation of the third lies in his embodiment of the reality (haqiqa) due to the absoluteness of his adherence to the Real. Therefore, recognise and understand that there can be no true reality (haqiqa) except through absolute adherence to the Real, and that no human being may achieve perfection except through the embodiment of that.

2. Subject matter

The subject matter of tasawwuf is the Sublime Essence itself since it seeks to know it either through evidential proof or through direct witnessing and vision, the former applying to those who are on the path and the latter to those who have arrived. It is also said that its subject matter is the self (nafs), heart (qalb) and spirit (ruh) since it seeks their purification and refinement. There is no great difference between this definition and the first since “he who knows himself knows his Lord.”

3. Founder

The founder of this science was the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, taught to him by Allah through Divine revelation and direct inspiration. The first thing brought down by Gabriel was the shari‘a. When that was established, he then brought down the Reality (haqiqa), giving it to some people but not all. The first to speak about it openly was Sayyiduna ‘Ali, may Allah ennoble his face. Then Hasan al-Basri, whose mother Khayra was the client of Umm Salama, the wife of the Prophet and whose father was the client of Zayd ibn Thabit, took it from him. When Hasan al-Basri died in 110 AH, Habib al-‘Ajami took it on, and then Abu Sulayman Dawud at-Ta‘i took it from him. When he died in 160 AH, Abu Mahfuz Ma‘ruf ibn Fayruz al-Karkhi took it on, and then Abu-l-Hasan Sari ibn Maghlis as-Saqati took it from him. Then when he died in 251 AH, the baton was passed on to the Imam of this tariqa and the one who made the signs of the Reality manifest, Abu-l-Qasim Muhammad ibn al-Junayd al-Khazzaz.

Imam al-Junayd’s family came from Nihawand although he himself grew up in Iraq. He studied fiqh with Abu Thawr and gave fatwa according to his school, even though he spent a lot of time in the company of Imam ash-Shafi‘i. He then kept the company of his uncle, as-Saqati, and that of Abu-l-Harith al-Muhasibi and others. Imam al-Junayd’s words and deep insights are preserved in many books. He died, may Allah be pleased with him, in 297 AH and the location of his tomb in Baghdad is well-known and much visited. The knowledge of tasawwuf then spread through his companions and continued on from them and will remain ever-present until as long as the deen lasts. In an alternative chain, the knowledge was passed on from Sayyiduna ‘Ali to the first of the qutbs, his son al-Hasan; and then from him to Abu Muhammad Jabir; then to the qutb, al Ghazwani; then to the qutb, Fath as-Sa‘ud; then to the qutb, Sa‘d; then to the qutb, Sa‘id; then to the qutb, Sidi Ahmad al Marwani; then to Ibrahim al-Basri; then to Zaynu’d-din al Qazwini; then to the qutb, Shamsu’d-din; then to the qutb, Taju’d-din; then to the qutb, Nuru’d-din Abu-l-Hasan; then to the qutb, Fakhru’d-din; then to the qutb, Taqiyyu’d-din al Fuqayr; then to the qutb, Sidi ‘Abdu-r-Rahman al-Madani; then to the great qutb, Moulay ‘Abdu-s-Salam ibn Mashish; then to the famous qutb, Abu-l-Hasan ash-Shadhili; then to his successor, Abu-l-‘Abbas al-Mursi; then to the great gnostic, Sidi Ahmad ibn ‘Ata’allah; then to the great gnostic, Sidi Dawud al-Bakhili; then to the gnostic, Sidi Muhammad, the Sea of Purity; then to his son, the gnostic, Sidi ‘Ali ibn Wafa; then to the famous wali, Sidi Yahya al-Qadiri; then to the famous wali, Ahmad ibn ‘Uqba al-Hadrami; then to the great wali, Sidi Ahmad Zarruq; then to Sidi Ibrahim Afham; then to Sidi ‘Ali as-Sanhaji, known as ad-Dawwar; then to the great gnostic, Sidi ‘Abdu-r-Rahman al-Majdhub; then to the famous wali, Sidi Yusuf al-Fasi; then to the gnostic, Ahmad ibn ‘Abdullah; then to the gnostic, al-‘Arabi ibn ‘Abdullah; then to the great gnostic, Sidi ‘Ali ibn ‘Abdu-r-Rahman al ‘Amrani al-Hasani, [known as Sidi ‘Ali al-Jamal]; then to the famous gnostic, the shaykh of shaykhs, Sidi Moulay al ‘Arabi ad-Darqawi al-Hasani; then to the perfect realised gnostic, our Shaykh, Sidi Muhammad ibn Ahmad al-Buzidi al-Hasani; and finally to the slave of his Lord and the least of His slaves, Ahmad ibn Muhammad ibn ‘Ajiba al-Hasani, and from him many others have taken. All favour belongs to Allah, the High, the Great.

4. Name

The name of this science is tasawwuf although there is some disagreement about the etymology of this name. There are five main positions.

The first is that it is derived from sufa (a tuft of wool) because with Allah the Sufi is like a tuft of wool at the mercy of the wind, having no say in the direction of his own management.

The second is that it is derived from sufa (the hair of the back of the neck) because of its softness. So the Sufi is hidden and soft like that hair.

The third is that it is derived from sifa (attribute), since the Sufi embodies praiseworthy attributes and casts off blameworthy ones.

The fourth is that it is derived from safa’ (purity). This derivation is considered the soundest, and for this reason Abu-l-Fath al-Busti said in a verse of poetry:

People disagree about the word “Sufi”,

Ignorantly supposing it to come from wool (suf).

I give this name to no one but a pure (safi) young man,

who is purified (sufi) until Sufi becomes his name.

The fifth is that it is derived from the Suffa (verandah) of the Mosque of the Prophet, which was where the people of the Suffa lived. This is because the Sufi adopts the same characteristics as those attributed to them by Allah in the Qur’an, when He says about them: “Restrain yourself patiently with those who call on their Lord morning and evening, desiring His face.” (18:28) And, as Shaykh Zarruq maintained, this quality of theirs is the source of every derivation.

—Shaykh ibn ‘Ajiba, may Allah be pleased with him, translated by Aisha Bewley. The full text can be bought here.

“Riba affects every aspect of our life and it is traceable to two main institutions: the Bank and the State. Despite its importance this understanding remains superficial for most Muslims. Most people simply think that riba is merely interest. The reality of riba is a much more complex affair. This misunderstanding is not just a miscalculation; it is the product of a mis-education and indoctrination which has resulted from two phenomena: one, the destruction of the political power of the Khalifate, and two, the process of the so-called “Islamic reform” which followed. This misunderstanding opened the gates to the islamisation of the most important institution of capitalism: the bank. What the open market-place is to trading, the bank is to riba. A ‘reformed riba’ would allow the new promoters of the Islamic bank to justify their actions. It is for this reason essential to return to a correct understanding of this key term in the fiqh, that can allow us to discern what is haram and what is halal. This is crucial to overcome capitalism, and its illusion of power.”—Shaykh Umar Vadillo, The Judgement on Riba

This is essentially a simple topic. There is nothing quite so mysterious as the ‘power of money’ and nothing more everyday. You are meant to think that the Banks and the Stock Exchange do complicated things, but they do not.

Readers would be right to ask why the title of this article combines the English word usury with the Arabic word riba. Surely the Oxford English Dictionary is enough. Why the need to compare the OED definition to the definition of riba-usury in Arabic, Muslim sources? The Muslim definition of usury, taken from clear verses in Qur’an, and the recorded judgments in the primal record of early Islam, Al Muwatta, is clearly defined in the Muslim fiqh, making Islam the largest and most comprehensive body of writing on usury. This is another proof that Islam abrogates Christianity. Despite historical prohibition in the Catholic Church, Christian law has always been woefully vague, and thus unable to maintain a consistent position, on usury. This is reflected in the vague definition in the OED, and the rampant tolerance of usury since the nineteenth century when inhibitions against it were finally dropped by both Christian monarchs and Muslim reformers. The nineteenth century “age of usury”—Ezra Pound—saw financiers who practiced usury enter the courts of both Queen Victoria and the Ottoman sultans, both figureheads of now (at time of writing) vanished empires.

To the definition. The OED defines usury as:

1. 1303–The fact or practice of lending money at interest; esp. in later use, the practice of charging, taking, or contracting to receive, excessive or illegal rates of interest for money on loan.

There is nothing there about usury being promissory delay and increasethe practice of fractional reserve banking, or using ‘money’ as a commodity. Yet, the OED is clear on the moral prohibition on usury, providing many examples of the word’s early life. For instance the OED provides a 1303 example from R. Mannyng, Handlyng Synne 2417:

To whom þat vsery ys lefe, Gostely he ys a þefe.

(To whom that usury is life [or given leave, permitted], ghostly [truly] he is a thief)

The OED points in the right direction, but clearly encourages the inadequate understanding that usury and interest are the same thing. The OED points out, vaguely, that in “later use”—exactly when would have been better—usury came to mean “excessive or illegal rates of interest for money on loan.”

Yet what authority is allowed to say when rates of interest are “excessive or illegal”? To a rich man or a poor man excessive interest rates would be different, and what about the length of time it would take someone to repay? Usury is older than the Bank of England—only established in 1694 to finance the military and naval defence of England against a prospective Jacobite invasion—but the Bank sets the Bank Rate which is, according to their website “the core interest rate in the UK and it is our job to set it.” Commercial banks, building societies, and other financial institutions will raise or lower interest rates depending on how likely they think their customer is going to pay back their loan and set this against the guidance of the Bank Rate. However there remains no objective definition of “excessive or illegal” rates of interest. Furthermore, given that interest and usury are not the same thing, the OED definition leads away from a clear explanation of what usury itself is.

Usury is a much older practice than the Stank of England’s ‘bank rate’, it is referred to prohibitively in the Bible. Curiously the modern Chabad translation of the Hebrew bible gives us “interest” instead of usury. Much like the translations of Qur’an by the, now politically defunct, modernist wahhabi printing houses Saheeh International and The Clear Quran which also translated riba as “interest” in contrast to the translations of Pickthall, Abdullah Yusuf Ali and the recent Oxford World Classics translation by M.A.S. Abdel Haleem who all translate riba as usury.1 Unfortunately for chabad, the King James Bible of 1611, the first official translation of the Bible into English, gives “usury” for the same verse in Deuteronomy, which on the Chabad translation from hebrew is merely “interest.”

“Unto a stranger thou mayest lend upon usury; but unto thy brother thou shalt not lend upon usury”—Deuteronomy, xxiii, 20. King James Bible.

“You may [however] give interest to a gentile, but to your brother you shall not give interest”—Davarim, 20, verse 21. ref. Chabad.org.

The moral condemnation of usury is inherent in the hebrew word for usury used in Deuteronomy, “neschek”—meaning literally “biting.” Ezra Pound, in one of his last cantos wrote:

“The Evil is usury, neschek

the serpent

neschek whose name is known, the defiler,

beyond race and against race

The defiler

Tokos hic mali medium est

Here is the core of evil, the burning hell without let-up

The canker corrupting all things, Fafner the worm,

Syphilis of the State, of all kingdoms,

Wart of the common-weal,

Wenn-maker, corrupter of all things.”—Ezra Pound, Addendum for Canto C. Pound ends the poem, which was published in Drafts and Fragments, his final book of poems, proof that the issue of usury concerned him throughout his long life:

“All other sins are open,

Usura alone not understood.

Opium Shanghai, opium Singapore…”

It takes a poet to be able to draw the connection between the widespread cover up of core financial practices, Biblical sin, the destruction of nature and historical examples drawn from Imperial China’s attempt to destroy the opium stocks of the East India Company. A private mercantile company, chartered and financed by future trading so that their stock was sold on the market not only before the goods had exchanged hands, but before the crops have even been planted let alone harvested and stored (standard practice in the global economy, though the opium listing is going to be hard to find on the stock exchange, this is how cash crops, for instance the coffee harvest, of many countries are bought and sold). These are the core financial practices which are not either usurious or “interest free”, but are all usury.

The Bible, for some another work of poetry, is clear in its prohibition. Psalm 15 sings that only “He that putteth not out his money to usury, nor taketh reward against the innocent” will be allowed to enter the tabernacle by God. That is, he who does not give his money to usurers. Yet if it is not simply interest, what is usury?

More moral condemnation of usury is found in writing of the Ancient Greeks. However the Ancient Greek condemnation is explained in a way that remains clearer than most modern voices, pin pointing the use of money as a commodity and not as a means of exchange as usurious. In Chapter X of his Politics, Aristotle writes:

“…for usury is most reasonably detested, as it is increasing our fortune by money itself, and not employing it for the purpose it was originally intended, namely exchange.

And this is the explanation of the name (TOKOS), which means the breeding of money. For as offspring resemble their parents, so usury is money bred of money. Whence of all forms of money-making it is most against nature.”—Aristotle, Politics, translated by William Ellis, 1912.

At last something clear. Aristotle explains the Greek word for usury τόκος, used by Pound in his canto above, meant offspring or birth, money “bred of money.” The Aristotelian definition brings us much closer to the Muslim understanding of usury, proof that Islam comes to clarify what is not clear in the previous religions and to affirm what is true in our own traditions. The Graeco-Roman inheritance, expressed by Aristotle, aligns with the Muslim prohibition of usury so closely that those intent on portraying Islam as something foreign to Europe will have to blame history itself for being so inconvenient.

Islam addressed the failure of Christian authority to give the world a clear definition of usury. This is explained below by the only Muslim figure to completely and clearly explain the usurious nature of modern finance, Shaykh Umar Vadillo:

“Canon Law, as inherited from scholastic writers and the fathers of the christian church, regarded the matter of usury as being almost identical to interest. This interpretation was already a departure from the most comprehensive Aristotelian ‘paradigm’ that demanded that the value and the counter-value must be identical. The Aristotelian view was gradually abandoned in favour of a simpler and more practical definition of ‘usury as interest’. Finally the Protestant revolution redefined usury from being any interest (independent of the amount) to only ‘excessive interest’. The Protestant interpretation consented that any interest that was in accordance with the market rate was permissible, and only the interest that was in ‘excessive’ disparity to the market was considered usury. But in practice, without an upper limit beyond which people can agree that usury is taking place, the definition has proved pointless.”—Shaykh Umar Vadillo, Fatwa on Banking

The rescue comes from Islam. Usury, as riba, is condemned unequivocally and in the strongest terms in Qur’an and in the Sunna, as recorded in the primal blueprint of early Islam The Muwatta of Imam Malik (711-795). Because of the urgent command to forbid usury in Qur’an and in the Sunna, it was necessary to define it unambiguously. Shaykh Umar Vadillo’s work refers to two of the most significant Muslim jurists from Muslim Spain, Ibn Rushd (1126-1198) and Qadi Abu Bakr ibn al-Arabi (1076-1148) for a definition of usury.

It is irrefutable that the Muslim definition of usury is far more comprehensive and clearer than the current OED definition and the older (pre-reformation) Catholic definition as recorded in Canon Law. Today Islam is the only force that prohibits usury in the world. This is because, despite the absence of any Muslim authority for over one hundred years, obedience to Allah matters to every Muslim. This is the undefeatable element of those who love Allah and love his Messenger, salallahu alayhi wa salam, and this is a magnificent protection for mankind. Allah tells us in Qur’an:

The extensive examples from the Sunna are recorded in the Muwatta of Imam Malik and can be read in the attached articles by Shaykh Umar Vadillo. He remains the only Muslim authority in our time who has collated the material, examined the terms, referred to the unequivocal fiqh and put on record the definition of riba. A clear definition is given in his Judgement on Riba:

“Riba literally means ‘excess’ in Arabic.

Qadi Abu Bakr ibn al-Arabi, in his Ahkamul Qur’an defines it as: any excess between the value of the goods given and their countervalue (the value of the goods received). This excess refers to two matters:

1. an extra benefit arising from unjustified increase in the weight or measure, and

2. an extra benefit arising from unjustified delay.

These two aspects have led our scholars to define two types of riba.

Ibn Rushd said: ‘The jurists unanimously agreed about riba in bay’ (trade) that it is of two kinds: delayed (nasi’ah) and stipulated excess (tafadul).’

That is to say, there are two types of riba:

1. Riba al-Fadl (excess of surplus)

2. Riba al-Nasiah (excess of delay)

Riba al-fadl refers to quantities. Riba al-nasiah refers to time delay.”

A complete explanation of the two forms of usury is given in the excellent Judgement on Riba by Shaykh Umar Vadillo. (Read in full here). This work and the array of others by the author are to this day the only Muslim effort to counter the widespread misconception that usury, riba, is simply interest and the only duty the Muslim has is to avoid paying interest.

This mistranslation of riba as interest leads to the spectacular farce of ‘Islamic Banking’ where customers pay higher rates of interest than with the larger banks, in the name of ‘murabaha’—which is a type of loan disguised under the pretence of a sale, a trick used to cover over the fact that the transaction provided by the ‘Islamic Bank’ involves the bank demanding a higher value back from the customer after lending them a smaller amount of ‘money.’ This usurious loan is called a sale to cover it up.

The full Judgement on Riba by Shaykh Umar Vadillo explains succinctly and clearly that even ‘money’ needs to be defined, as paper money is a form of riba itself. Although this was written over twenty years ago, no political thinking nor financial wizardry has caught up with this shattering pronouncement.

Although there is a growing sense by those familiar with the stock exchange that the worldwide financial system that relies on currencies being traded as commodities with fluctuating ‘values’ is on the bring of collapse, Muslim reformers have rushed to embrace the paper and digital currencies, and have abandoned the contra-usura ordinances of the deen of Islam.

This, not Israel, nor colonialism, is the true cause of the complete absence of Muslim power in the world in the last two centuries. The loss of Muslim power has resulted in the total absence of protection for the Muslims wherever Muslims are unfortunate enough to live in one of the small failed states established by Sykes Picot after the First World War. Protection for Muslims in those parts of the world, being one of the primary objectives of governance, is distressingly absent. Yet there is not one political struggle waged by Muslims that has sought to confront usury—except now in Burkina Faso. Even the first president of Bosnia, when his country gained independence and fought victoriously against attack on both borders, signed an agreement accepting VAT and an IMF loan simultaneous with the first proclamation of Bosnia as a recognised nation state—these clauses were in the same document, right beneath the definition of ‘Bosnia’ as a national entity.

In his Fatwa on Banking Shaykh Umar comprehensively explains that the financial system depends on usury; why religious reformism in both Christianity and later among the Muslims coerced Muslims into a contradictory acceptance of usury; why a misunderstanding of what usury is—that it is simply interest on personal loans only—has resulted in the complete disempowerment of the world Muslim community and punctures the myth that usury has given the world prosperity:

“…from the point of view of material wealth, things have never been better than they are today. This is assumed, despite just having traversed the most murderous century in human history, which saw for the first time the use of weapons of mass destruction on civilian populations, the colossal annihilation of the eco-system and fauna, and the largest numbers of starvation victims known in history. All past and present miseries are forgotten before the general assumption that the average person today enjoys a standard of living not equalled in any other time.

However, it has not been the same for all the people of the world. While a material improvement has been achieved for a relatively small portion of mankind, the bottom half still lives below the poverty-line of 2 USD a day, and earn less collectively than the 387 largest individual earners. This disequilibrium in wealth goes hand in hand with a corresponding political and military imbalance that has turned one nation in particular into the police-ruler of the world.

During this period of a massive shift of wealth to a small corner of the world, the Muslims have lost an immense part of their past economic and political status. The political unity represented by the Khalifate, which granted Muslims a voice in world affairs, was devastated, and instead a plethora of tiny nations emerged under the auspices and new legal frame of the United Nations. Large parts of our population belong to the bottom half of world earners, and our combined Gross Domestic Product does not reach one tenth of the GDP of the USA. Politically divided, and losers in the economic share-out, Muslims face only the prospect of being underdogs in the present economic system. Under this regime a continuous erosion of our social and cultural life is inevitable, which in turn results in the increased anger and frustration of our youth.

This present system of economic disequilibrium is self-preserved by diverting people’s attention away from economic matters and towards political matters. The economic system which causes the imbalance is taken for granted, and individual political tyrants become the focus of political struggle. Under these circumstances the economic system remains unquestioned and therefore its continuation is guaranteed.

At its core, this system of disequilibrium which we call capitalism is based on Riba. Riba is in itself disequilibrium. Mechanised usury through the banking system has turned a criminal contract into a means of economic domination. As long as we remain slaves of Riba, our Muslim nation will remain enslaved.

A society which misunderstands the dynamics of the world will find it difficult to focus on establishing its goals. These are swept away in the emotion of the moment. And so, acts which are intended ‘to do good’ are lost to a lack of direction. Under such circumstances, no amount of effort will prove fruitful.”—Shaykh Umar Vadillo, Fatwa on Banking

Other significant forerunners such as the poet Ezra Pound, and before him the short lived Social Credit Movement in Britain which had the support of T.S. Eliot, have sought to illuminate the central place usury holds in the world financial system. The writer Hilaire Belloc was likewise a notable figure against what he termed ‘the Money-power’.

Although it is a simple deceit, definition of usury is elusive because it is the engine of the world financial system. Discussion of usury hardly takes place, not one university has produced a thesis confronting it despite a plethora of academics calls for ‘decolonisation’ of great literature there is not one academic call for ‘decolonisation’ of finance.

In a recent edition of the Times Literary Supplement one author, referring to T.S. Eliot’s interest in Social Credit, stated that just to use the words “money power” was “anti-semitic”, even if Jews were not mentioned in the discourse. Emotional force is weaponised to stop discussion on usury.

To be accurate, it is not that only Islam is a challenge to usury but that through taking on a true and complete Islam any man or woman who has awe (taqwa) of Allah and love for His Messenger, salallahu alayhi wa salam, cannot be a part of the usurious system. Islam does not fix or measure usury by interest rates alone—Islam utterly prohibits it, and there is no going round it.

Shaykh Umar Vadillo writes: “In Islam money cannot be rented or interest charged upon a loan. The new challenge which arises from Islamic Law itself is: Why do we need banks at all? The elimination of these usurious institutions is our main task for the next century. Banks need to be eliminated and new institutions be born to replace some of the services which are acceptable, like guarding money against a danger of theft or transferring and transporting money from one place to another. The new institutions will not be able to expand the money held by them, nor to charge interest on possible loans, thus eliminating the desire to lend money in the first place.”

DEFINITION: 1. The setting of bounds; limitation (rare) -1483 — Oxford English Dictionary

If we then go to the OED, the dictionary lists five ways in which definition is used in the English language:

1. c1386–1483

† The setting of bounds or limits; limitation, restriction. Obsolete. rare.

2. c1384–

The action of determining a controversy or question at issue; determination, decision; spec. a formal decision or pronouncement of an ecclesiastical authority. Obsolete except in specific use.

3. 1645–

Logic, etc. The action of defining, or stating exactly what a thing is, or what a word means.

4.a. 1398–

A precise statement of the essential nature of a thing; a statement or form of words by which anything is defined.

4.b. 1546–

A declaration or formal explanation of the signification of a word or phrase. [Not recognised by Johnson.]

5.a. 1859–

The action of making definite; the condition of being made, or of being definite, in visual form or outline; distinctness; spec. the defining power of a lens or optical instrument, i.e. its capacity to render an object or image distinct to the eye.

5.b. 1866–

gen. Definiteness, precision, exactitude. rare.

5.c. 1889–

The degree of distinctness of the details in a photograph, film, television picture, etc.; so high-definition, low-definition, used to designate television systems using different numbers of scanning lines.

The final sense of the word signals the meeting with technology, the arrival of the camera lens. We could say that the first meaning given to definition in the dictionary, which Eliot places on the title page almost as a challenge to our own culture, is a gateway through which we must pass. Definition is thus the setting of boundaries. Eliot, a revolutionary poet who broke many boundaries before becoming more English than the English, was with Notes towards the Definition of Culture either atoning for his younger self or as is more likely keen to try and halt the sense of a boundless flood submerging his own contemporary world.

As well as a determination or decision pronounced by an authority, definition is the act of defining or stating exactly what a thing is, or what a word means.

Without definition, the task of the poet, the philosopher and the historian recedes. Culture loses its bounds, becomes nowhere lived but everywhere worried about. The world becomes smaller.

I would like to risk saying that the true historian is a philosopher of the facts. That is, the true historian is conversant with the facts and makes sense of them through their gifts of sensitivity and insight. This enables the historian to envision the true nature of events. This is not different to the role the poet plays; both the historian and the poet have mastered the word. Thus the true historian’s account is that of the poet.

Gerhard Loose, writing of the historian Orelli in Jünger’s Heliopolis, says “in Orelli the protagonist recognises the true historian: the philosopher in command of the facts and endowed with the power of the poetic word.”

There are a number of terms used to prop up the mass produced understanding of world events. The much vaunted words democracy, education, civilisation, liberty, freedom of speech—which are threatened by terror—are the flying buttresses of the terror dialectic.

Despite the energetic concern that surrounds these words, there is little or no definition. There is a lot of supposedly private opinion, that often proceeds verbatim along the lines of mass indoctrination. When pressed, definition becomes scarce. Asking for it is regarded as a threat. This should come as no surprise to us. Nevertheless, it remains the task, the challenge of us all to be able to define them. For if we cannot define words that we claim to live by, then we can hardly be said to live by them at all.

In his book Guide to Kulchur [spelling intentional] Ezra Pound opens with a story from ancient China:

Fan Tchai asked Kung the master (viz Confucius) for instruction in farming. Said the Master: “I know less than any old peasant. He made the same reply about gardening: An old gardener knows more than I do.”

Tseu-Lou asked: “If the Prince of Mei appointed you head of the government, to what wd. you first set your mind?”

KUNG: “To call people and things by their names, that is by the correct denominations, to see that the terminology was exact.”

“You mean that is the first?” Said Tseu-leu. “Aren’t you dodging the question? What’s the use of that?”

KUNG: “You are a blank. An intelligent man hesitates to talk of what he don’t understand, he feels embarrassment.

“If the terminology be not exact, if it fit not the things the governmental instructions will not be explicit, if the instructions aren’t clear and the names don’t fit, you can not conduct business properly.

“If business is not properly run the rites and music will not be honoured, if the rites and music be not honoured, penalties and punishments will not achieve their intended effects, if penalties and punishments do not produce equity and justice, the people won’t know where to put their feet or what to lay hold of or to whom they shd. stretch out their hands.

“That is why an intelligent man cares for his terminology and gives instructions that fit. When his orders are clear and explicit they can be put into effect. An intelligent man is neither inconsiderate of others nor futile in his commanding.”

Commenting on this, Pound writes:

“The chi’ing ming text can mean also that functionaries shd. be called by their proper titles, that is to say a man should not be called controller of currency unless he really controls it. The ch’ing is used continually against ambiguity.”

Pound was slurred by those who could not understand his poetry to be ‘a poet who became an economist’. Do not let this judgment of the halfwits deceive you. What Pound realised, hinted at not all that subtly above, was that if a society could not explain who controls the money they use on a daily basis then they were not free. Three years ago in Britain we saw that a Prime Minister was deposed within 43 days for supposedly wrecking the currency—this was the mass produced version of events sold on the front page of every newspaper. Yet what only very few people noted was the Prime Minister in Britain is not in control of the currency anyway. Nevertheless, blame was poured on her and despite all the institutions of higher education no one with a PhD. or Prof. to their name could point out the basic error in terms. The lack of definition enabled a version of events to be sold that obscured the political reality of what had happened.

Here we will begin to relay despatches on the definitions of key terms, to give definition so that the bounds may be set. A reading of the definition of definition above indicates that without definition we cannot settle controversy—rather without definition we live in a situation intolerable to rational people, perpetual controversy.

“The child of the age — say that age was the last half of the “age of usury” (XIXth century) or the first third of this one (the XXth) — is so accustomed to the loose waftiness of demoliberal ideology that it takes sharp speech to open his mind to the thousand and more years of Europe, during which the intellectual hard work of the West occurred INSIDE the Church Catholic.

And here we shd. set out two axes of reference.

I. There flourished during the best age of “scholastic thought” a very great and high verbal culture. Having almost nothing but words to deal with, the ecclesiastical doctors cared for (that is took care of) their terminology. A method of using words, a method of definition arose,or was kept, tended, developed, and we, today, lose a great deal by not knowing it, I mean by not knowing it as deeply and finely as they did.

II. The Church declined, as a force social, as a force intellectual, when its hierarchy ceased to believe their own dogmas.

Free, gratis, and as if it were thrown here from another section of these notes I set down another axis, which will to most readers seem wholly irrelevant and fortuitous.

I suggest that finer and future critics of art will be able to tell from the quality of a painting the degree of tolerance or intolerance of usury extant in the age and milieu that produced it.

That perhaps is the first clue the reader has had that these are notes for a totalitarian treatise and that I am in fact considering the New Learning or the New Paideuma . . . not simply abridging extant encyclopedias or condensing two dozen more detailed volumes.

Pound’s intentionally combative style, typical of all of his prose writing throughout the 1930s, would change dramatically following his arrest and detainment by the U.S. military authorities at the end of the war. Phrases like “another axis” and a “totalitarian treatise” should not jump out at the reader as some sort of proof of an insidious intent behind Pound’s broadside on “the waftiness of demoliberal ideology.” It is quite conceivable that the deliberate, controversial phrasing is meant to bring to the subject matter a new urgency, something writers tend to do. While Pound’s understanding of usury was never abandoned, one of the final Cantos begins “The evil is usury, neschek”, Pound did leave behind him the controversies of the bygone political causes that he had once taken up so enthusiastically. Our first words were on Eliot, let the last go back to him now:

It is not to ring the bell backward
Nor is it an incantation
To summon the spectre of a Rose.
We cannot revive old factions
We cannot restore old policies
Or follow an antique drum.
These men, and those who opposed them
And those whom they opposed
Accept the constitution of silence — Little Gidding, III.

For Pound “totalitarian” is clearly not used to refer to a one-party state but to a total body of knowledge as exemplified in the Confucian analect above. In Confucius, Pound saw a total body of knowledge that offered a way of life and disposition toward nature and man and a system for dealing with both. He used the word “totalitarian” to rescue the philosophy that he loved in Confucius from the reputation philosophy had acquired in the England and America of his day: highbrow study, cut off both from life and wisdom.

No one can argue knowledge, a “New Learning or New Paideuma,” that imparts a way of life—a disposition toward nature and man and a system for dealing with both—is worthless. As we have shown with the excerpts from Heliopolis, a new education is needed. This has nothing to do with the bygone political ideologies of the last century. Heliopolis was written in the wreck and rubble created by twelve years of party rule in Germany. Pound’s own love of wisdom saw him rise above the utter desolation in the war’s wake and remain the poet’s poet in spite of all he had said on Rome Radio. In fact, after his release, in the last ten years of his life, Pound attained an incontestable profundity.1

On 2nd May 1945 as he walked out of his house in Rapallo, arrested by two armed partisans, to hand himself over to the U.S. command post in Lavagna, Pound thrust his Confucius and dictionary into his pocket, before following the men down the path. Imprisoned he begged notebooks from his guards, folded them down the centre and with a very sharp pencil wrote fair copies of new Cantos on the right half of the right hand page, and when he translated Confucius he turned the book around so that the left hand page became the right. So in prison, the Pisan Cantos ran through the notebooks in one direction, the Great Digest and Unwobbling Pivot of Confucius in the other.2

Toward a definition. Next despatch, the definition of usury.

“The ordering of knowledge so that the next man (or generation) can most readily find the live part of it, and waste the least possible time among obsolete issues.” - Ezra Pound, on the function of criticism.

In an essay on criticism (literary) Date Line, Ezra Pound writes:

“Criticism so far as I have discovered has two functions.”

Of the first — the theoretical forerunning of artistic composition, serving as “gun-sight” and giving “foresight” to artists seeking to compose a specific form of art, say the epic poem for instance — Pound writes “there is, I believe, no recorded instance of this foresight having EVER been of the slightest use save to actual composers.” That is, most formulations of a theory of art, or principles of composition are impossibly dim and further criticism only dilutes the principle. Unless, Pound writes, “the one who formulates any forward reach of co-ordinating principle is the man who produces the demonstration.” Thus, Mr T.S. Eliot’s essays on criticism would be of more use to poets and readers than one by an academic who cannot write poetry. This may remind you of Borges’ lectures on the riddle of poetry, which are likewise of more interest and substance to poets - though often Borges declines to offer any critical principles and prefers to quote and relate stories from the lives and letters of the poets he loved, and perhaps worshipped. Speaking of critics, Borges said he often had the impression when reading them of reading the works of astronomers who had not looked at the stars.

The first function of criticism is perhaps not relevant to us seeking to rescue speech about Islam from the malicious intent to obfuscate, confuse and perjure what it really is — and the stated desire in Britain by some journalists and ex-politicians to criminalise Muslims who are convinced that Islam is not simply a private religion practiced at home. This brief enquiry aims to raise the urgent question whether it is possible for Muslims in the English speaking world, in Britain and the other English speaking realms and territories - Canada, South Africa, New Zealand, Australia, Pakistan, and the federal states of our cousins that took the Mayflower - to speak about Islam with exact, clear and concrete language. If definitions are allowed to slip, if the definition of extremism becomes vaguer and vaguer, if Islam cannot be expressed clearly then we are in for a rough time ahead.

The second function of criticism, according to Mr Pound, is that of “Excernment.” This word does not appear at all in the OED, and is clearly a Poundian riposte upon discernment:

discernment 1. 1570–

The action or faculty of perceiving or noting a distinction between things; discrimination, differentiation; an instance of this. Chiefly with between, of.

In discernment, discerning the Latin prefix dis - apart, and the Latin root cernere - to sift, to separate is used to describe good judgment. Discernment in language should lead to clear, accurate usage.

With Pound’s own word to describe the second function of criticism, Excernment, the Latin prefix ex - either means out of as in “ex-nihilo”, or without and exclusive of, as in “ex-dividend” - however this second meaning is less likely and it only appears in relation to financial transactions; ex-dividends, ex-stamps, ex-coupon etc.

Pound, as the inventor of the word, surely has the prerogative of defining it, which he does as:

“Excernment. The general ordering and weeding out of what has actually been performed. The elimination of repetitions. The work analogous to that which a good hanging committee or a curator would perform in a National Gallery or in a biological museum.”

Now we by no means think, or want the reader to think that we think, Islam is to be confined to the museum. This would make us cultural muslims. Likewise Mr Pound by no means thought that art be confined to National Galleries or University Libraries. Rather for Pound the art gallery, the art exhibition, could be a living visit to the wellsprings of culture - a culture that should flow out of the glass doors of the museum and impinge on the social process. Education, “culture”, a paideuma should make society better, not leave it unchecked or unchallenged. Pound compared a volume of poetry to an art gallery, arranged by a curator or poet for

“The ordering of knowledge so that the next man (or generation) can most readily find the live part of it, and waste the least possible time among obsolete issues.”

In this sense, Pound’s war volume of Chinese poems (and one Anglo Saxon) in translation Cathay, was a volume of poetry akin to an art gallery arranged and sequenced to allow the reader to walk and see for themselves a select, lean choice of the most highly charged exhibits. Without some excernment, we risk being left with a concept and thesis of Islam that “has been altered intellectually and politically throughout the ages and has gathered a portmanteau effect which has weighed it down until you have a ship which is so full of intellectual luggage, so full of methodology, but nowhere impinging on the social process, that the ship sinks.”1

Pound continues in Date Line that what is most important is the correct use of language. “Used to conceal meaning, used to blur meaning, to produce the complete and utter inferno of the past century…discussion of which would lead me out of the bounds of this volume…against which SOLELY a care for language, for accurate registration by language avails.”

When beginning The Muslim Despatch I had the idea for a regular feature in the style of a French sotisse - a page in literary magazines of the 1920s dedicated to simply reprinting quotes in isolation to expose their nonsense and hilarity. I would have easily farmed out articles from the Spectator Coffeehouse (under the new editor) and other areas of the journalistic world with brilliant examples of the sort of nonsense that is said in all seriousness about Islam. I would have also gleaned some brilliant passages from a whole host of Muslim writers, imams and politicians in Britain who have failed, flopped or chosen not to speak about Islam clearly. I have by no means shelved this idea.

On care for language, Pound continues, “And if men too long neglect it their children will find themselves begging and their offspring betrayed.”

“Language is not a mere cabinet curio or museum exhibit. It does definitely function in all human life from the tribal state onward. You cannot govern without it, you cannot make laws without it. That is you make laws, and they become mere mare’s nests for graft and discussion.”

There is certainly some hope, and this will form part of the sophisticated approach by those of us who want to rescue (distinguish) Islam from islamism, Jihad from terror:

“As language becomes the most powerful instrument of perfidy, so language can riddle and cut through the meshes.”

It might seem that we are speaking about two separate matters, Pound’s essay on exact literary criticism to bring about a new renaissance, and our concern for clear language that can cut through the meshes and perfidy that surrounds all talk about Islam. Islam is the poem of existence. Muslims, wherever they have governed with the legitimate authority that exists beyond ideology, the commonwealth form of government - caliphate - that had nothing to do with the dark and lonely imaginings of enlightenment thinkers, saw societies that produced glorious poetry. In fact, Ezra Pound saw that poetry and art had all but become impossible in Europe and America in his own century and this formed part of The Cantos central message. The first word of Qur’an is “Read”, Allah swears “by the pen and what they write” and Allah exalted be He, commands the believers in Surat al Ahzab to “speak words that hit the mark.” (Qur’an 33:70)

Muslims are also warned in Qur’an not to be like the previous communities that were sent prophets and messengers. Allah tells us in Surat al Ma’ida:

“But because of their breaking of their covenant,

We have cursed them and made their hearts hard.

They distort the true meaning of words

and have forgotten a good portion

of what they were reminded of.” (Qur’an, 5:13)