copresident of the World Conference of Religion
for Peace in 1999 and was a delegate to the United
Nations Millennium Peace Summit in 2000.
The Haqqani Naqshbandi order now claims
to have some 70 centers and branches in North
America, South America, Europe (including Rus-
sia), Africa, Sri Lanka, Southeast Asia, Australia,
and Japan. The order has small followings in
Syria, egypt, and pakistan. Its U.S. headquarters
is located in Washington, D.C., and it is directed
by his deputy Muhammad Hisham Kabbani, chair-
man of the Supreme Islamic Council of America.
Despite his global journeys, Al-Haqqani still calls
Cyprus his home.
Al-Haqqani was given the title “cosmic axis”
(qutb) by Shaykh al-Daghistani, but he has since
acquired other honorific titles from his follow-
ers that underscore his saintly status, including
“Sultan of Saints” (Sultan al-Awliya), “Unveiler
of Secrets,” and “Keeper of Light.” He is also
called the religious “renewer” (mujaddid) of
the technological age. Moreover, the Haqqani-
Naqshbandi order considers him to be the 40th
sufi shaykh of the Naqshbandi sacred lineage,
which they believe was inaugurated by Muham-
mad in the seventh century. Al-Haqqani lectures
widely, and his talks are recorded and published
in books and pamphlets and on the Internet. In
addition to teaching about Sufi understandings
of love, faith, compassion, wisdom, and spiritual
practices, he has also included controversial
statements about the coming of a third world
war and the return of JesUs and the mahdi, the
Muslim messiah. This apocalyptic strand of
thinking can be traced to Shaykh Daghistani, his
spiritual guide.
See also dialogUe.
Further reading: Ron Geaves, “The Haqqani Naqsh-
bandis: A Study of Apocalyptic Millennialism with
Islam.” In Faith in the Millennium, edited by Stanley
E. Porter, Michael A. Hayes and David Tombs, 215–
231 (Sheffield, U.K.: Sheffield Academic Press, 2001);
Muhammad Hisham Kabbani, Classical Islam and the
Naqshbandi Sufi Tradition (Washington, D.C.: Islamic
Supreme Council of America, 2003).haram
The great French sociologist Emile Durkheim
(d. 1917) proposed that religious life was based
on an absolute division between the sacred and
the profane. The sacred, he argued, encompasses
those things “which are protected and isolated by
prohibitions.” In Islam, the term that most nearly
conveys this meaning of the sacred is haram and
other words formed from the Arabic root h-r-m.
It is used to describe the sacred quality of the
Grand Mosque in mecca and the kaaba as well as
other sacred places, such as the Prophet’s Mosque
in medina and the Noble Sanctuary (al-haram
al-sharif) in JerUsalem. Performing the haJJ ritu-
als in Mecca requires that pilgrims enter into a
sacred condition called ihram before entering
the city. They must desacralize themselves when
they complete the pilgrimage. In many Muslim
cultures, such as egypt, even a family’s home is
said to have its sacredness (hurma). This means
that such places are considered to be set apart
from others and that access to them is restricted
and governed by rules and prohibitions designed
to uphold their sacred or forbidden character. Its
significance extends to female family members
and spouses who are considered to be legally
forbidden to others. This idea is reflected in the
word harim, which refers to either a sacred place
or Women. The English word harem is related to it
etymologically. Haram is also used with respect to
sacred months in the year, such as ramadan, the
month of fasting, and Dhu al-Hijja, the month of
the haJJ to Mecca.
In Islamic law and ethics, haram has been
used to classify forbidden and unlawful practices,
in contrast to halal, which is used for lawful and
permitted ones. The qUran established the scrip-
tural basis for this distinction, mainly in regard
to ritual, dietary laWs, and family law. Muslims
therefore hold that the determination of what isK 290 haram