Hisham Kabbani ...The connection bridge between Sufism and America

Muhammad Hisham Kabbani is the chairman of the Islamic Supreme Council of America, a religious organization founded in 1997 with offices in Washington, D.C., and Michigan.

A scholar and Sufi sheikh of the Naqshbandi order, he was born in 1945 in Beirut, Lebanon. He received an undergraduate degree from the American University of Beirut in chemistry, studied medicine at the University of Louvain in Belgium, and earned a degree in Islamic law from Damascus University. In 1991, he moved to the United States to establish traditional Islamic teaching and the Naqshbandi Sufi order, opening Islamic centers, founding a humanitarian aid organization, and engaging in interreligious dialogue. Sheikh Kabbani lives in California and the Midwest.

He is also the founder/chairman of the Islamic Supreme Council of America (ISCA), a non-profit, non-governmental educational organization dedicated to teaching personal moral excellence. ISCA has spearheaded a number of peace initiatives, hosted notable conferences, actively engages in inter-religious dialogue, and promotes traditional and moderate Islamic views.

He is known for his ongoing contacts with senior international politicians such as former US President George W. Bush, former US presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, Prince Charles II, Queen Elizabeth II, and other leaders who deal with him as an activist in the fight against extremism and terrorism.

After completing his study of chemistry at the American University in the Lebanese capital of Beirut, where he was born on January 28, 1945, Kabbani traveled to Belgium to complete his education. He traveled to several countries and led his scientific trips to the meeting of the sheikh of Naqshbandi in Europe Nazem Haqqani (1922-2014) The teachings of Sufism and marry his daughter, Mrs. Nazihah Haqqani; thus drawing his way as a new leader of Nashabandia in the Western world.

Under the guidance of Nazim al-Haqqani, Hisham traveled to the United States in 1991 and founded the Supreme Islamic Council of America, known as "ISCA", a non-profit, non-governmental organization dedicated to Muslims, as well as non-Muslims in the country ; To promote respect and affection among all cultures and religions, and to preserve the common heritage of Islam, Christianity and Judaism (as approved by the Council on its official web page).

Political role

Through the presidency of the Council, Kabbani became the official sponsor of the Sufism movement in the United States, and even became the Islamic trend in general in most conferences and political and public events.

In particular, the Islamic Council has enjoyed wide political patronage by US officials, such as former President Bill Clinton, who hosted him and presented to his administration representative in Hisham Kabbani several invitations to attend meetings and meetings at the US State Department.

Even during the reign of former US President George W. Bush, especially after the events of September 11, 2001, Kabbani remained close to the Authority by attending intensive meetings with Vice President Dick Cheney. Most of these meetings were about the role of the Islamic Council and the Sufi movement in combating extremism and violence.

Hisham Kabbani's role was not only to foster the rapprochement between the authorities and Sufism in the United States of America, but also to play the same role in the United Kingdom by remaining in the status of the spiritual father of the entity, which was officially supported by the British authority, the Sufi Islamic Council (SMC) 19 July 2006.

The conflict with the American Brotherhood

Hisham Kabbani has a long tradition of opposing extremist Islamist currents, especially the Muslim Brotherhood and its organizations, which he accused of not having sufficient and fair visibility to show their own funding. Through the official meetings attended by Kabbani with the US and European politicians, Of the various reactions; he delivered a speech within the US State Department on the role of the Muslim Brotherhood and radical groups in controlling the mosques of the country and turning them into introductions to polarize and nurture extremism; which angered the Brotherhood's institutions at the time; N the Council on American-Islamic Relations «CAIR», the Islamic Society of North America «ISNA», and the Muslim Student Association «MSA», the Islamic Society of North America «ICNA», and other community bodies, to publish a formal statement objecting against what he said in a speech Kabbani.

Hisham Kabbani accused the Brotherhood of lying and misleading, pointing out that these institutions have violated the etiquette of the Islamic dispute, and followed the path of defamation and cut off the ahaadeeth from its context. He pointed out that the group's organizations seek to impose their ideology on society, regardless of respect for human freedom. It has the ability to formulate evidence to explain what Sheikh Kabbani described, especially with regard to the suspicious funding issues surrounding the group's institutions, such as ISNA, which did not submit accounting reports denying suspicions of haraam financing, but exploited this speech to show it as an enemy of Islam. The role of Islamophobia in American society is usually used by the Brotherhood to refute the charges against them.

Kabbani said Western societies and their leaders were not anti-Islamic, but citizens were fed up with the extremist policies of the Islamist groups that controlled the houses of worship, and published extensively books and publications containing their destructive ideas.

It is worth mentioning that the opposition received by Kabbani in the United States is also very similar in Britain by the institutions of the group also, which speaks of men as a political tool for the West; in a clear attempt to distort and present as a pro-foreign powers occupied Iraq, in reference to the American invasion For Iraq 2003; the group demonstrates the state of understanding between the Bush and Bush administration as a complicity in the invasion by emptying facts and facts of their content.

Roles and organizations

Although the Islamic Council is the most important platform of Kabbani, there are many other institutions led by the Sufi leader, such as the Sufi Center in Montreal, the Sufi Center in Vancouver and the Center for Spirituality and Cultural Progress (CSCA), in addition to overseeing a number of private websites And his wife, Mrs. Naziha, runs a charity to provide material aid and educational and cultural supplies to those in need.

Hisham Kabbani has provided many educational and educational lectures in some important universities, such as Oxford, California, Columbia and others. He has also participated in a number of governments in the development of anti-extremism programs, and a large collection of books that describe Sufi literature, And the guide in the traditions of Naqshbandi, the history of the leaders of Naqshbandi, pearls and coral, and the keys of the divided Kingdom, Islamic jurisprudence, and other books.

Hisham Kabbani enjoys wide acceptance among African countries, their citizens and their leaders. He organizes trips there; he also organizes seminars to train mourners and followers of Naqshbandi, visiting mosques of Sufis, meetings with government officials, and dialogues with the African media.

In 2010, Kabbani organized a tour during which he visited Ivory Coast, met with President Laurent Jaboujo, visited Kenya, met with Prime Minister Odinga and traveled to Ghana and other countries.

Egyptian Convergence

As the Egyptian state, the most important and prominent African entities that correspond to the objectives of Kabbani in the fight against terrorism, so it occupied an important position on the map of relations sought by Hisham Kabbani on the continent. In the late 1990s, Kabbani headed a delegation of the Supreme Islamic Council to visit the Sheikh of Al-Azhar, During which the late Sheikh Mohamed Sayed Tantawi and the Minister of Awqaf, Hamdi Zaqzouq, and Kabbani carry a lot of friendliness and understanding with the famous Sufis, such as Dr. Ali Gomaa, who occupies a full page of his role in rooting the current on one of the pages of the website Ni Hisham Kabbani.