Al-Awlaqi and the Rebbetzin?
[ by Charles Cameron — tracking an al-Awlaqi quote through Jewish, Christian, Islamic and Hindu sources ]
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I was reading JM Berger‘s CTC Sentinel piece about al-Awlaqi‘s Constants on the Path of Jihad, which is itself an expansion of al-Uyayri‘s original text, and found myself feeling vaguely uneasy about one of al-Awlaqi’s interpolations.
Berger’s example of how al-Awlaqi frequently “expanded al-‘Uyayri’s citations into living, breathing stories, often at significantly greater length, transforming the legalistic argument into an emotionally and politically loaded discourse” concerns the “People of the Ditch” motif found in the Qur’an and hadith:
In the story, a king is persecuting believers in Allah. He orders them to renounce their religion or be thrown into a flaming ditch or trench to die. All of the believers throw themselves in. One woman, carrying her baby, hesitates, and Allah inspires the baby to speak to her, saying “Oh Mother! You are following al-Haqq [the truth]! So be firm!” As a result, she carries him into the fire and succeeds in achieving martyrdom.
Al-Uyayri makes a brief mention of this story; Al-Awlaqi expands on it, transforming (in Berger’s words) “al-‘Uyayri’s perfunctory citation into an emotional journey that engages the listener and broadens the original point to emphasize the importance of taking even one step toward jihad.” He does this by commenting:
This woman, because she took the first step, and that is the willingness to jump in the trench, when she was about to retreat, Allah helped her. So if you take that first step towards Allah, Allah will make many steps towards you. If you walk towards Allah, Allah will run towards you.
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So far so good. But isn’t al-Awlaqi quoting someone here? I had an itch in the back of my head…
I thought I should check, and what I found frankly surprised me. I mean, was he really quoting the Rebbetzin Esther Jungreis?
We have a promise from HaShem that if we take just one step toward Him, He will take two steps toward us.
Not likely.
Perhaps it was a Christian source he had in mind…
A common saying in my church and in many Christian circles is the following: “Take One Step Toward God and He Takes Two Steps Toward You”
Nope. Surely, it must have been a Hadith:
Allah (swt) says: “Take one step towards me, I will take ten steps towards you. Walk towards me, I will run towards you.”
After all, he can hardly have been quoting the Hare Krishna devotees, can he?
in 1972 In Denver, I remember hearing all the time from the temple devotees to encourage me as a new bhakta… “you take one step towards Krsna and He’ll take 10 steps towards you”.
And no, that particular phrase doesn’t seem to be in the Routledge Dictionary of Religious and Spiritual Quotations — perhaps because it’s hard to know quite where to put it…
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My own favorite among cross-religious commonalities of this sort, fwiw, is this one:
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BTW, nice to see both Berger and Chris Anzalone in the Sentinel — and the Flagg Miller cover-piece on early bin Laden tapes is interesting, too.
November 4th, 2011 at 2:36 am
I’m still looking for attestations. The earliest I can find so far is James 4:8
November 4th, 2011 at 7:13 am
Thanks, Dave!
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With that hint (James 4.8, "Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you") I can get us back a little further, to:
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Zechariah 1. 3: "Therefore say thou unto them, Thus saith the LORD of hosts; Turn ye unto me, saith the LORD of hosts, and I will turn unto you, saith the LORD of hosts."
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and Malachi 3.7: "Return unto me, and I will return unto you, saith the LORD of hosts."
November 4th, 2011 at 4:47 pm
It occurred to me that it might be useful to track down the hadith version that I quoted in my original post, so I have done that, and find that the most authoritative of the hadith collections, the Sahih al-Bukhari, presents the hadith in this form (Bukhari Volume 9, Book 93, Number 502):
It should be noted that within this hadith, the Prophet quotes God speaking directly to him: it is thus a "Hadith Qudsi" — defined as a hadith proclaiming "that which Allah the Almighty has communicated to His Prophet through revelation or in dream, and he, peace be upon him, has communicated it in his own words."
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Furthermore, since this hadith praises the remembrance of God (zikr), I would expect it to be a favorite of the Sufis — and indeed, if you go to this page on Zikr in the Ahadith at SufiZikr.org, you will find it is the first hadith listed.
November 4th, 2011 at 6:32 pm
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November 6th, 2011 at 6:34 pm
Many thanks, Aaron.
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I can no longer count the number of note- and quote-worthy articles I have found via Aaron Zelin’s "articles of the week" roundups on his Jihadology blog.
November 6th, 2011 at 6:43 pm
I am indebted to a friend for pointing out to me that Ibn Arabi, as cited in William Chittick’s The Sufi path of knowledge: Ibn al-?Arabi’s metaphysics of imagination, writes (p. 109):
Chittick, on the same page, quotes Ibn Arabi citing both Qur’an (2:186) and hadith on the remembrance:
and: