Abu Ameenah Bilal Philips (born Dennis Bradley Philips; July 17, 1947) is a Jamaican-born Canadian Islamic scholar and author who is the founder and chancellor of the International Open University, and who lives in Qatar. He has been described as a Salafi who advocates a traditional, literal form of Islam.
He has written, translated and commented on over 50 Islamic books translated into multiple languages and available online, and has appeared or presented on numerous national and satellite television channels, including Saudi TV, Sharjah TV, Ajman TV, Islam Channel, Huda TV, and Peace TV.
Throughout his career, Philips has become the subject of many controversies, resulting in him being banned from entering the United Kingdom, Australia, Denmark and Kenya, banned from re-entering Germany, ordered to leave Bangladesh, and deported from the Philippines. He was also named by the US government as an unindicted co-conspirator in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. Despite restrictions put on him by Western states, his "ideas and activism are important in understanding Salafism" in the West and among the African diaspora.
Biography Early life Philips was born in Kingston, Jamaica, to high school teachers Bradley Philips and Joyce McDermott. Philips has one brother and one sister, as well as an adopted brother. Philips was raised a Christian, with his mother being an Anglican and his father a Presbyterian.
Philips spent the first 11 years of childhood in Jamaica, before migrating to Toronto, Ontario, Canada.Canadian imam Bilal Philips unwelcome in Philippines Ottawa Citizen He attended Jarvis Collegiate Institute for junior high and Northview Heights Collegiate Institute for high school from 1962 to 1965. Philips moved with his family to Sabah, East Malaysia in 1964, as his parents were part of the Colombo Plan.
Education Philips attended Simon Fraser University in Vancouver from 1967 to 1970, where he took biochemistry. Philips had been interested in communism and black nationalism in school, but encountered Islam several times in his travels. The book that won him over was Islam, The Misunderstood Religion by Muhammad QutbJ. M. Berger, Jihad Joe: Americans Who Go to War in the Name of Islam, p 51. (brother of Sayyid Qutb). He converted to Islam in February 1972, giving Shahada in the presence of Abdullah Hakim Quick.
He received his B.A. degree from the Islamic University of Madinah in 1979 and his M.A. in ʿAqīdah (Islamic Theology) from the King Saud University in Riyadh in 1985, then to the University of Wales, St. David's University College (now University of Wales, Trinity Saint David). There at the Lampeter Campus he completed his 1993 PhD thesis, Exorcism in Islam.WorldCat library listing: Exorcism in Islam (Book, 1993) | University of Wales, Trinity St. David, Lampeter Campus
Preaching and career Philips taught Islamic studies for a decade at Manarat al-Riyadh School in Riyadh and was an Arabic and Islamic studies teacher in the American University of Dubai for 10 years as well. He also lectures at the Ajman University (AU) in the United Arab Emirates. Philips set up an Islamic Studies department of Preston University in Ajman in 2002 and set up the Islamic Studies Academy in Qatar in 2007.
During the First Gulf War, Philips organized Islamic religious revival meetings for U.S. troops stationed in Dammam, Saudi Arabia, during which (according to Philips) over three thousand soldiers converted to Islam. According to counter-extremism author J.M. Berger, some of the US military men and women who participated in his revival program were later recruited as volunteer trainers in the 1992–95 Bosnian War. Philips founded and taught at the Islamic Information Center in Dubai, under the Dar al Ber Society, and in Qatar he was an Islamic consultant and lecturer for the Islamic Information wing of Sheikh Eid Charity.
Islamic Online University Philips founded the Islamic Online University in Qatar in the year of 2001.Marloes Janson, Islam, Youth and Modernity in the Gambia: The Tablighi Jama'at, p 251.
Views Western culture/civilization Bilal Philips has called himself a "moderate" in protest against allegations that he is an extremist, calling the accusations "appalling" and "baseless". According to The Courier-Mail newspaper (of Brisbane Australia), he "once wrote, 'Western culture, led by the United States, is the enemy of Islam'". Philips denied this in an interview in the Muslim online magazine MuslimMatters.org, claiming the statement comes from Samuel P. Huntington's ideas in his work the Clash of Civilisations, about the efforts of "globalized western civilization" to "impose" their "culture throughout the world".
Nonetheless, he is highly critical of Western society, alleging that western news magazines have proclaimed that "western culture and society is dying", listing as evidence the rise of wife swapping, teenage and illegitimate births, sexually transmitted disease; and that what westerners see as "progress" and "sophistication" is actually the "death throes" of western civilization. The Counter Extremism Project quotes him as saying "... Europeans, ... had gone around and smashed up everybody else's society, so they had to justify the destruction of human civilization by promoting their own superiority over others. Those feelings are expressed in much of their literature, in films, on television and so forth." He is on record as calling Jews "filth", according to the Jewish Chronicle.
Monotheism/Tawheed
Philips stresses that tawheed (monotheism) is of crucial importance in Islamic belief and "the basis" of the religion of Islam, in his work The Fundamentals of Tawheed. Those who have deviated from Islam, joining or founding heretical sects, try to "neutralize" tawheed. Philips warns that some seek the "destruction of Islam and misguidance of its followers", but being unable to oppose and destroy Islam militarily, "outwardly" pretend to accept Islam while working in secret "to destroy the religion from within".
Monotheism may be defined as the belief that there is only one God, but actually involves much more. Some of the concepts of tawhid (Philips believes) include: Predestination (qadar), the belief that all of life's events have been determined ("written") by God ahead of time. Whether an occurrence appears to be good fortune or bad fortune, fair and unfair, appears to be logical or make no sense at all, it is all part of God's plan. Believers will experience "fear, hunger, loss of wealth and life" (Q.2:155) as tests from God. Consequently, common popular habits that might appear to be harmless — believing in charms, amulets, and omens (rabbits' feet, black cats, broken mirrors) as good or bad luck — are actually "grave sins" against tawheed. Opposition to belief in "free will" (jabriyya). The idea (that human beings have a "free will") may have infiltrated Islam from an early Christian convert. Literal belief in the attributes of God mentioned in scripture – such as seeing and hearing. Belief that these are figures of speech is heresy (bid'ah). Divine law (shari'ah) and the need for its reintroduction. In the many "so-called" Muslim countries, governments now rule according to "imported capitalist or communist constitutions", and Islamic law is either "totally extinct" or relegated to a few areas of "minor importance". Accepting non-Islamic law is shirk and an act of kufr (disbelief), and violation of a type of tawheed called Tawhid al-Ibadah. This is because shirk is not just praying to/worshiping more than one God, it is obeying anyone other than God. It is fard (obligatory) for "those in a position to reintroduced Islamic law" to do so; it is obligatory for those not in a position to act to speak out against non-Islamic law (i.e. the rule of kufr), and call for the implementation of shari'ah."
Marriage, women, sex Philips bemoans the fact that in western society very few women
He preaches that the physical differences between men and women mean that rather than their being equal, as contemporary Western society teaches, under Islamic law the two genders have different but "complementary roles" in society, and that a natural hierarchy gives men the role of leading and women the role of obeying. In support of his position he quotes a sahih hadith where Muhammad says:
Other roles of men include being "protectors and maintainers of women" (as long as the women are obedient), being "kind, gentle and helpful" to wives, and being prepared to "defend and enlarge the borders of Islam to the point of bearing arms".
Obedience to husbands (Philips believes) is both an important role and religious duty of wives. Attending to the needs of her husband is the wife's primary responsibility in marriage. A woman is thus forbidden to leave her husband's home to visit friends or relatives without her husband's permission; there is no such thing as rape in marriage in Islam, because it is the husband's right to have sex with his wife when he pleases. Philips points out another Sahih hadith where Muhammad states:
She must also obey his orders to bathe after intercourse, after menstruation or childbirth so as to achieve ritual purity; she must seek his permission before fasting (fasting may weaken her ability to have sex), keep his home "comfortable and pleasant", and not present herself to her husband with "unkempt hair or slovenly appearance". The hierarchy also explains the greater inheritance that men receive according to Islamic law.
On the subject of physical discipline of wives, Philips emphasizes that any beating of a wife "must be light" (lashing is forbidden) and quotes a hadith forbidding men from hitting their wife "in her face".
Philips explains that the (in his view) the "fragile emotional make-up" of a woman
On the subject of women and statecraft, Philips admits that while it is true that there have been some female heads of state, "these cases represent the exception and not the norm which Allah addresses".
Despite his emphasis on the importance of women being subordination to men, Philips also condemns the socioeconomic practices "riddled through" Western society that "oppress women". He also mentions a few issues where Islamic law does not require a woman to obey her husband (according to Philips); he must not practice Coitus interruptus without her consent and if he fails to provide her and her children enough support, she is allowed to pilfer from his wealth without his "permission and knowledge".
Polygamy Philips is a strong supporter of a husband's right to take up to four wives (polygyny) in Islam and has written a book in defense of this view (Polygamy in Marriage). Philips argues: that the surplus number of women in society (for example, in one country – the UK – females make up 3% more of the population than males), will lead to a weakening of the "western family structure" from the surplus population of women "unable to fulfill their sexual and psychological needs" unless marriages of more than one wife are allowed; that denying this right to multiple wives is tantamount to denying "the wisdom of divine decree" (which allows polygyny); in answer to the question: "If God is good and wishes good for His creatures, why did he legislate something (polygyny) which would be harmful to most women?", Philips replies that "Divine legislation" seeks to benefit "the majority of society", even if this may cause some "emotional harm to a minority" (women). that the "vehement" opposition to polygyny in Western society comes not from concern for women's rights, but from the "male dominated society" where men would rather be married to one woman and cheat on her, than have multiple wives to satisfy their desires and be faithful to them.
Age to marry