Guest articles

Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd and the Tradition of Religious Humanism

Thu, 02 Dec 2010 21:06:00 GMT

Professor Emiritus P.S. van Koningsveld

(Leiden Institute for the Study of Religion: LISOR)

One of the major methodological principles of the humanistic tradition of the study of texts, is often quoted in Latin as “e mente auctoris”. This principle underlines the necessity to understand texts “from the mind of the author”. Researchers are supposed not only to identify the author of a text, but also to study his/her biography, the society he or she was living in, in short his/her biography in order to grasp the text as fully as possible. This principle was also applied to the study of Biblical texts which for a long time, were regarded to be of Divine origin, a belief which is still shared by millions of people today. The de-sacralisation of the Divine Revelation formed an essential part of the process of secularization resulting in various forms of separation between State and Religion. This was a painful process marked by many conflicts and even wars. In view of the existing Christian fundamentalist movements and the political power they are able to mobilize until this very day, we cannot claim that this process has come to a full completion, even today. A Biblical scholar denying the resurrection of Jesus Christ, for instance, may still meet serious opposition.

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A Conservative Legacy

Mon, 26 Apr 2010 08:02:00 GMT

by Sohail H. Hashmi

A Response to The Place of Tolerance in Islam

I have long been intrigued by an exchange between Abraham and God that comes early in the Qur'an: "Behold! Abraham said: 'My lord! Show me how you give life to the dead.' [God] said: 'Do you not then have faith?' He said: 'Yes, but [I ask this] to satisfy my heart.' [God] replied: 'Take then four birds and teach them to incline toward [or obey] you. Then place a part of them on every hill around you, and then summon them. They will come flying to you. And know that God is almighty, wise'"(2:260). This verse follows several others and precedes many more in which Abraham is depicted as steadfast in his private faith and his public preaching—so much so that he is called khalil Allah (the friend of God) based on Q. 4:125. Why would the Qur'an even allude, I have wondered, to the possibility that this great prophet of God would harbor any doubts about God's power? Could it be that through this dialogue the Qur'an is intimating that skepticism and open questioning are intrinsic aspects of faith?

To me, this verse is one of the most powerful commandments for tolerance contained in the Qur'an, for if God can answer a prophet's troubled heart with such compassionate understanding, how much more likely is He to understand the doubts of ordinary humans? And if God understands, then how much more incumbent is it upon us human beings to do the same?

The Qur'an is a deep well from which Muslims may draw plentiful supplies of tolerance, pluralism, respect for diversity—even doubt. Khaled Abou El Fadl outlines these resources well in his thoughtful essay. I agree with him that such resources have been misappropriated by Muslim puritans and extremists. But his argument for misappropriation fails to account for the more widespread exclusivity and intolerance that we encounter in the Islamic intellectual heritage. Narrow and illiberal readings of the Qur'an are not exclusively the province of fringe elements. If that were so, the task of constructing liberal and tolerant societies among Muslim populations would be immeasurably easier. If contemporary Muslims are to realize the full "blessings" of the Qur'an's spirit, as Abou El Fadl urges, they must face up to the full "burden" of their political and intellectual history.

I want to be clear about my argument: I am not suggesting that Islamic history is one of intolerance. The historical record is clear that Islamic societies of the pre-modern period were generally as accommodating of diversity and religious freedom as their contemporaries in other parts of the world, and in many instances more so. The same cannot be said of modern Islamic states and societies, which lag far behind international standards of equality, democracy, and human rights. My point is that whether we are discussing tolerance, diversity, and freedom in pre-modern or modern Islamic societies, Muslims have generally fallen far short of qur'anic standards. And some of the responsibility for this failure in practice must be ascribed to the limitations in the interpretation of the Qur'an itself.

To return to Q. 2:260, for example: The most influential commentators have gone to great lengths to eliminate the faintest hint of doubt from Abraham's plea to God. Most classical and modern exegetes agree with al-Qurtubi (d. 1273) that Abraham's request does not signify doubt at all, only the desire "to rise from the knowledge of certainty ['ilm al-yaqin] to the reality of certainty ['ayn al-yaqin]."1 Underlying this exegetical activity is the orthodox dogma that prophets are protected from error and doubt. This principle has to be maintained even if it requires glossing over God's direct question to Abraham, "Do you not then have faith?" If God were to give Abraham "the reality of certainty," then Abraham would no longer require faith. Moreover, we ordinary humans cannot likewise petition God for proof to solidify our faith.

The Qur'an repeatedly points to the complexities and ambiguities of faith. It stresses throughout the narrow line separating righteousness from self-righteousness, and admonishes believers to be humble in the knowledge that no person nor even any creed can claim to have the full truth. Yet repeatedly, the tradition of qur'anic exegesis strains to prove the opposite.

Let us consider how two qur'anic verses cited by Abou El Fadl have been treated over the long history of exegesis. First, Q. 2:62: "Those who believe, and the Jews, the Christians, and the Sabians—any who believe in God and the Last Day, and act righteously shall have their reward with their Lord. On them shall be no fear, nor shall they grieve." The verse seems clearly to be extending God's salvation to all humans who profess faith and do good deeds. Nevertheless, the majority of classical commentators found ways to limit its promise. One method was to argue for what Jane McAuliffe calls "salvific stages": thus only Jews, Christians, and Sabians who had adhered to the "pristine" faith—which Islamic belief holds to be common to all prophets—before the advent of Islam are promised God's favor in the afterlife.2 Once Muhammad brought the final revelation, only true Muslims should consider this verse as applying to them.

A second means of circumscribing the verse's universality, which reinforces the first, is to argue that it has been abrogated by subsequent revelation, including Q. 3:85: "If anyone desires a religion other than Islam, never will it be accepted of him, and in the hereafter he will be among the losers." Instead of attempting to reconcile the verses by contextualizing them in time and in the full qur'anic text, many exegetes have employed the principle of abrogation as a blunt instrument. Hundreds of verses could, in this manner, be labeled "no longer relevant." The fact that Q. 2:62 is repeated almost verbatim in Q. 5:69, a verse believed to have been revealed after Q. 3:85, is conveniently forgotten.

Q. 2:62's message of tolerance is indirect; Muslims have no monopoly in the life to come and thus can claim no exclusive righteousness in this life. Another verse cited by Abou El Fadl, Q. 5:48, far more directly asserts that religious diversity is not something simply to be tolerated as a necessary evil, but a necessary good to be embraced by all who sincerely strive for the truth: "To each among you have We prescribed a law and an open path. If God had so willed, He would have made you one community. But [His plan is] to test you in what He has given you. So strive as in a race in all the virtues. The goal of you all is to God. It is He who will show you the truth of the matters in which you differ."

This verse is so arresting in its breadth, clarity, and self-confidence that it would seem to leave little room for controversy. Yet again, mainstream qur'anic interpreters found ways to problematize the clearest verses, whose meaning is buttressed by the thrust of qur'anic teaching, while upholding other verses of limited scope as authoritative. Thus, Ibn Kathir (d. 1373)—following a line of reasoning developed by al-Tabari (d. 923) and others—suggests that the separate communities addressed in this verse are pre-Muhammadan communities, and that with the advent of the Muslim community, all other previously valid courses had been annulled by Islam.3 The fact that the verse contains the imperative verb istabiqu, which conveys the sense of multiple, contemporaneous actors "vying" or "racing" toward virtue, is again conveniently glossed over.

There are of course a number of political and sociological reasons why the exegetical tradition tended toward conservatism and exclusivity when dealing with qur'anic views of the Other. These historical factors need not detain us here; what is most important is to acknowledge this legacy frankly and to chart a course that both responds to it and departs from it. Contemporary Muslim interpreters can ill afford to disregard the conservative legacy, or simply associate it with extremist forms of Islam, for the Qur'an still speaks to millions of the faithful through the voices of its classical commentators. But if modern Muslims are to build tolerant and pluralistic societies based on qur'anic teachings, they must also be prepared to chart a new exegetical course.<

Sohail H. Hashmi is Alumnae Foundation Associate Professor of International Relations at Mount Holyoke College.

Notes

1 Muhammad ibn Ahmad al-Qurtubi, al-Jami' li ahkam al-Qur'an, vol. 2 (Cairo: Dar al-Katib al-'Arabi, 1967), 299; translated by Mahmoud Ayoub, The Qur'an and Its Interpreters, vol. 1 (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1984), 265.

2 Jane Dammen McAuliffe, Qur'anic Christians: An Analysis of Classical and Modern Exegesis (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 111.

3 Isma'il ibn 'Umar ibn Kathir, Tafsir al-Qur'an al-'azim, vol. 2 (Beirut: Dar al-Andalus, 1966), 589; Cf. Muhammad ibn Jarir al-Tabari, Jami' al-bayan 'an tawil ay al-Qur'an, vol. 3 (Damascus: Dar al-Qalam, 1997), 248.

Beyond Interpretation

Mon, 26 Apr 2010 07:58:00 GMT

by Amina Wadud

A Response to The Place of Tolerance in Islam article.

I want to commend Dr. Khaled Abou El Fadl for his insightful assessment of the attacks on New York City and the Pentagon and especially for his parallel historicization of those events and the work of Qur'anic interpretation. The tendency to de-contextualize September 11—to treat it as a single random act of violence—has been challenged by Muslim thinkers, activists, and political analysts since September 12. Many have been condemned as apologists for the heinous act, as if understanding implies forgiveness.

What is unusual here, and what draws my interest to this particular discussion is Abou El Fadl's juxtaposition of the historical reading of political events with an interpretive imperative that calls for a similar historical reading of the Qur'an. Indeed, the absence of such an historical reading has provided, he argues, a partial catalyst for the intolerant, exclusivist and extremist rendition of Qur'anic meaning advanced by Muslim puritans, who proceed from that understanding to the most extreme Muslim practice and the perpetration of violent acts.

What Abou El Fadl does not point out is that such extremist interpretive modalities and their resulting social operations are as equally destructive within Muslim society as they are in non-Muslim communities. Within Muslim communities women are the primary victims. My own research on Qur'anic interpretation and implementation focuses on gender and the ways that exclusionary textual readings marginalize women's full human agency within society. Not only are non-Muslims subjected to sub-human standards and victimized by violent acts, but Muslim women are as well, as an outcome of practices that stem from the authoritarian voice of puritanical interpretations.

In explaining the distinction between tolerant and intolerant readings of the Qur'an, Abou El Fadl emphasizes that "puritans construct their exclusionary and intolerant theology by reading Qur'anic verses in isolation, as if the meaning of the verses were transparent—as if moral ideas and historical context were irrelevant to their interpretation." In contrast he asserts that it is "impossible to analyze these and other verses except in light of the overall moral thrust of the Qur'anic message" for certain general moral imperatives that, while not clearly defined, presume "a certain amount of moral probity on [the] part of the reader." Thus, he continues, "the idea that Muslims must stand up for justice even against their own self-interests is predicated on the notion that human beings…achieve a level of moral conscientiousness, which they will bring to their relationship with God.…[T]he Qur'anic text assumes that readers will bring a pre-existing, innate moral sense to the text. Hence, the text will morally enrich the reader, but only if the reader will morally enrich the text."

I agree that interpretation demands interaction between the text and reader on several different levels: intellectual, spiritual, linguistic, and moral. But I would locate the higher level of this exchange not between the reader and the text but within the text itself as part of the Divine origin of revelation. No matter how moral the reader is, he or she can only benefit maximally from this engagement with the text through surrender (islam) of the ego or of self-interest. Only then can the reader be witness to an unveiling of higher, deeper, and yet more subtle potentials of textual meaning for understanding and implementation.

This observation is fully consistent with Abou El Fadl's account of the mutual enrichment of text and reader. It merely states that religious belief, while ineffable and immeasurable, has a certain degree of significance to the enrichment that comes through reading. It presumes that the one who reads will be enriched more than the text being read. Furthermore, self-interest is a barrier to this enrichment of individual or collective reading and results, as Abou El Fadl puts it, in "emptying the Qur'an both of its historical and moral context…[and] transforming the text into a long list of morally non-committal legal commands."

Although textual meaning is not fixed, the actual utterances are immutable. Inevitably the reader has the greater flexibility and a greater potential for transformation than does the text. The Qur'an is an excellent catalyst in growth and transformation of moral consciousness but the manner of this enrichment remains part of the mystery of the Divine becoming known through the text. These observations about interpretation lead to my strongest note of caution about Abou El Fadl's argument. He says both that "the Qur'anic discourse…can readily support an ethic of diversity and tolerance" and that it "would be disingenuous to deny that the Qur'an and other Islamic sources offer possibilities of intolerant interpretation…exploited by contemporary puritans and supremacists." But this observation simply returns to our starting place. We are no closer to determining precisely how to sustain the moral trajectory, and cannot expect that contemporary Muslim interpreters will carry the entire substantial burden.

Taking all of Abou El Fadl's insights into consideration, then, a more tenable proposal would be to enact a modern version of the "essential lesson taught by Islamic history…that extremist groups are ejected from the mainstream of Islam; they are marginalized, and eventually treated as heretical aberration to the Islamic message." Along with contemporary liberatory interpretations of the text, this movement within the mainstream community would form a cohesive means of promoting the Qur'an's tolerant, inclusive message. What is needed, in short, is not simply an intellectual, interpretive enterprise—a less literal way to read the texts—but a deeply forged cooperation between intellectuals and lay Muslims—who after all number well over one billion and have been scrambling to reclaim the integrity of Islam from the acts committed by extremists, whose numbers cannot even amount to a fraction of a percent of their population. In other words, it is time for an historical moral imperative to come alive in contemporary Islam.<

Amina Wadud is professor of Islamic studies at Virginia Commonwealth University and author of Qur'an and Woman: Rereading the Sacred Text from a Woman's Perspective.

Tolerance and Religious Freedom in Islam

Mon, 26 Apr 2010 07:54:00 GMT

Sadly, most Muslims do not think or reflect about this critical matter, but its proper interpretation and application is vital to the future of Islam and Muslims, especially in the UK. What is this inner disease within the Muslim community that is harmful to the personal upliftment of each believer and the social progress of the community?

The subject under discussion today deals with the key notions of freedom and tolerance. What does the Holy Qu’ran teach us about mutual co-existence and ideological pluralism? Far too often Muslims have not heeded the clarion call what their Sacred Scripture teaches them about philosophical diversity and intellectual freedom.

In the linguistic context the word tolerance means ‘to bear’. As a concept, it means respect, co-existence, acceptance and appreciation of the rich mosaic of global cultures, forms of expression and ways of being human. Tolerance does not mean condescension or indulgence. Since Islam emphasizes the establishment of justice, peace and equality regardless of race, colour, language or ethnic background, it therefore vigorously promotes these sublime and timeless principles. These objectives however, cannot be implemented without a real degree of tolerance. Islam uniquely among the major world religious accepted this (now fashionable) tenet of freedom of belief and religious liberty from its inception.

Any systematic study of Islam reveals that tolerance on all levels be it individual, communal, groups or states is deeply ingrained into the body-politic of the faith. In fact, tolerance within Islamic jurisprudence is a political imperative and legal necessity. Tolerance is the mechanism that upholds human rights, cultural pluralism and the rule of Law. From the beginning, Islamic law recognised the right of all people to life, property, family, basic human dignity and freedom of conscious. These are all God-given gifts and no human being is entitled to abrogate or deny them to any one else.

From the very outset of Islam, the notion of personal liberty –whether to believe or not to believe – has been integral to the faith. It has been enshrined in both the Holy Qur’an and in the Prophet Muhammad’s pronouncements and practices. Islam, unlike many other creeds, has made it clear that there can be no forced belief, no coerced allegiance in matters of faith. We read in the Holy Qur’an (2:256) that: There is no compulsion in religion. Truth stands out clear from error. Whoever rejects evil and believes in God has indeed grasped the most trustworthy hand-hold that never breaks. And God is all-hearing and all-knowing.

This unprecedented announcement was made over 1400 years ago. No other major faith or ideology gives this kind of latitude of belief – of acceptance or rejection – to individuals. This indeed is the Magna Carta of religious freedom, a landmark declaration showing Islam to be way ahead of its time. The Holy Qur’an’s unambiguous declaration legitimises freedom of belief and religion. It preceded by over 1300 years what the West has belated come to adopt.

This specific Qur’anic verse makes it explicit is that there cannot be forced belief of any kind. The Creator has endowed us all with free will and personal choice. We are free to choose, but with this liberty comes individual responsibility and personal consequences. The implementation of this (now) contemporary concept of ‘no compulsion in religion’ is illustrated in the exemplary life of the Prophet Muhammad himself when he signed the Charter of Madinah in 622. This historic document between the Muslims on the one side and the Christian, Jews and Pagans on the other side, inaugurated a very important principle and precedent. In return for collective loyalty and mutual self-defence, all signatories to and participants in this trail-blazing constitutional arrangement were granted complete freedom of religion and worship. Clearly, this pioneering constitution paved the way for philosophical diversity and religious pluralism in Islam. It allowed (an unheard of up to then) personal liberty and religious freedom, which Muslims could emulate and should duplicate, especially in the present time.

The Holy Qur’an devotes a great deal of attention to human freedom and religious liberty. There are over 120 verses in this connection. Freedom of religion is emphasized and repeated over and over again. In 2:62 and again in 5:69 we read: Those who believe and those who are Jews, and the Christians, and the Sabians, whoever believes in God and the Last Day and does good, they have their reward with their Lord and they shall not grieve.

All-embracing and inclusive salvation is therefore offered to anyone who admits the sovereignty of the Divine, pursues justice and goodness, and realizes that they will be held accountable for their deeds and misdeeds. This revolutionary and non-exclusivist concept is re-affirmed throughout Islam’s scripture. The Holy Qur’an declares (10:99): If it had been thy Lord’s will, humanity would all have believed, all who are on earth. Will you then compel people against their will to believe?

Perhaps the most emphatic enunciation from the Holy Qur’an that serves to reinforce the Islamic injunction of religious pluralism and philosophical diversity is found in 109:1-6: Say: O you who reject faith, I worship not that which you worship, nor will you worship that which I worship. And I will not worship that you worship, nor will you worship what I worship. To you your way and to me my way, to you your religion and to me mine.

From these inspirational Qur’anic directives cited here and from the perfect role model that the Prophet Muhammad has been for Muslims throughout the centuries, there is no denying that Islam has long been in the forefront of tolerance and diversity.

Unfortunately, under the influence of a bigoted and incompetent theological fraternity, many Muslims have been diverted from the true and tolerant path that is the hallmark of their faith. They have been conditioned to embrace a distorted ideology of intolerance and exclusivity as their new doctrine, at complete variance from the original precepts of Islam. Nothing can be further from the transcendent message of the Holy Qur’an and it is time that Muslims today return to the text of their Sacred Scripture and the teachings of Muhammad by rejecting the warped theology of misguided clerics bent on fostering hatred and violence, instead of love and tolerance.

Source

The Place of Tolerance in Islam On reading the Qur'an—and misreading it.

Mon, 26 Apr 2010 07:50:00 GMT

by Khaled Abou El Fadl

The terrorist attacks on New York City and the Pentagon have focused public attention on the state of Muslim theology. For most Americans, the utter indifference to the value of human life and the unmitigated hostility to the United States shown by some Muslims came as a great shock. Others were confirmed in their belief that we face a great struggle between civilizations. Islamic values, they say, are fundamentally at odds with Western liberal values. The terrorist attacks are symptomatic of a clash between Judeo-Christian civilization, with its values of individual freedom, pluralism, and secularism, and an amoral, un-Westernized, so-called "authentic Islam." Indeed, Islamic civilization is associated with the ideas of collective rights, individual duties, legalism, despotism, and intolerance that we associated with our former civilizational rival, the Soviet bloc. We seem to project onto the other everything we like to think that we are not.

This intellectual trap is easy to fall into when we deal with the theology of Osama Bin Laden, the Taliban, the Wahhabis of Saudi Arabia, and the Jihad organizations. The theologically-based attitudes of these Muslim puritans are fundamentally at odds not only with a Western way of life, but also with the very idea of an international society or the notion of universal human values. They display an intolerant exclusiveness, and a belligerent sense of supremacy vis-à-vis the other. According to their theologies, Islam is the only way of life, and must be pursued regardless of its impact on the rights and well-being of others. The straight path (al-sirat al-mustaqim) is fixed, they say, by a system of Divine laws (shari-ah) that trump any moral considerations or ethical values that are not fully codified in the law. God is manifested through a set of determinate legal commands that specify the right way to act in virtually all circumstances. The sole purpose of human life on earth is to realize the Divine manifestation by dutifully and faithfully implementing God's law. Morality itself begins and ends in the mechanics and technicalities of Islamic law (though different schools of Islamic law understand the content of those laws differently).

A life devoted to compliance with this legal code is considered inherently superior to all others, and the followers of any other way are considered either infidels (kuffar), hypocrites (munafiqun), or iniquitous (fasiqun). Anchored in the security and assuredness of a determinable law, it becomes fairly easy to differentiate between the rightly-guided and the misguided. The rightly-guided obey the law; the misguided either deny, attempt to dilute, or argue about the law. Naturally, the rightly-guided are superior because they have God on their side. The Muslim puritans imagine that God's perfection and immutability are fully attainable on earth—as if God's perfection had been deposited in the Divine law, and, by giving effect to this law, we could create a social order that mirrors Divine Truth. By attaching themselves to the Supreme Being, puritan groups are able to claim a self-righteous perfectionism that easily slips into a pretense of supremacy.

Extremism in Islamic history

Perhaps all firmly held systems of belief, especially those founded on religious conviction, are in some way supremacist: believers are understood to have some special virtue that distinguishes them from adherents of other faiths. But the supremacist creed of the puritan groups is distinctive and uniquely dangerous. The supremacist thinking of Muslim puritans has a powerful nationalist component, which is strongly oriented towards cultural and political dominance. These groups are not satisfied with living according to their own dictates, but are actively dissatisfied with all alternative ways of life. They do not merely seek self-empowerment, but aggressively seek to disempower, dominate, or destroy others. The crux of the matter is that all lives lived outside the law are considered an offense against God that must be actively resisted and fought.

The existence of Muslim puritanism is hardly surprising. Most religious systems have suffered at one time or another from absolutist extremism, and Islam is no exception. Within the first century of Islam, religious extremists known as the Khawarij (literally, the secessionists) slaughtered a large number of Muslims and non-Muslims, and were even responsible for the assassination of the Prophet's cousin and companion, the Caliph Ali b. Abi Talib. The descendants of the Khawarij exist today in Oman and Algeria, but after centuries of bloodshed, they became moderates if not pacifists. Similarly, the Qaramites and Assassins, for whom terror became a raison d'etre, earned unmitigated infamy in the writings of Muslim historians, theologians, and jurists. Again, after centuries of bloodshed, these two groups learned moderation, and they continue to exist in small numbers in North Africa and Iraq. The essential lesson taught by Islamic history is that extremist groups are ejected from the mainstream of Islam; they are marginalized, and eventually treated as heretical aberrations to the Islamic message.

But Islam is now living through a major shift, unlike any it has experienced in the past. The Islamic civilization has crumbled, and the traditional institutions that once sustained and propagated Islamic orthodoxy—and marginalized Islamic extremism—have been dismantled. Traditionally, Islamic epistemology tolerated and even celebrated divergent opinions and schools of thought. The guardians of the Islamic tradition were the jurists (fuqaha), whose legitimacy rested largely on their semi-independence from a decentralized political system, and their dual function of representing the interests of the state to the laity and the interests of the laity to the state.

But in Muslim countries today, the state has grown extremely powerful and meddlesome, and is centralized in ways that were inconceivable two centuries ago. In the vast majority of Muslim countries, the state now controls the private religious endowments (awqaf ) that once sustained the juristic class. Moreover, the state has co-opted the clergy, and transformed them into its salaried employees. This transformation has reduced the clergy's legitimacy, and produced a profound vacuum in religious authority. Hence, there is a state of virtual anarchy in modern Islam: it is not clear who speaks with authority on religious issues. Such a state of virtual religious anarchy is perhaps not problematic in secular societies where religion is essentially reduced to a private matter. But where religion remains central to the dynamics of public legitimacy and cultural meaning, the question of who represents the voice of God is of central significance.

Puritanism and Modern Islam

It would be wrong to say that fanatic supremacist groups such as the al-Qa'ida or al-Jihad organizations now fill the vacuum of authority in contemporary Islam. Though they are obviously able to commit highly visible acts of violence that command the public stage, fanatic groups remain sociologically and intellectually marginal in Islam. Still, they are extreme manifestations of more prevalent intellectual and theological currents in modern Islam.

Fanatic groups derive their theological premises from the intolerant puritanism of the Wahhabi and Salafi creeds. Wahhabism was founded by the eighteenth-century evangelist Muhammad ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab in the Arabian Peninsula. 'Abd al-Wahhab sought to rid Islam of the corruptions that he believed had crept into the religion. He advocated a strict literalism in which the text became the sole source of legitimate authority, and displayed an extreme hostility to intellectualism, mysticism, and any sectarian divisions within Islam. According to the Wahhabi creed, it was imperative to return to a presumed pristine, simple, straightforward Islam, which could be entirely reclaimed by literal implementation of the commands of the Prophet, and by strict adherence to correct ritual practice. Importantly, Wahhabism rejected any attempt to interpret the divine law historically or contextually, with attendant possibilities of reinterpretation under changed circumstances. It treated the vast majority of Islamic history as a corruption of the true and authentic Islam. Furthermore, Wahhabism narrowly defined orthodoxy, and was extremely intolerant of any creed that contradicted its own.

In the late eighteenth century, the Al Sa'ud family united with the Wahhabi movement and rebelled against Ottoman rule in Arabia. The rebellions were very bloody because the Wahhabis indiscriminately slaughtered and terrorized Muslims and non-Muslims alike. Interestingly, mainstream jurists writing at the time, such as the Hanafi Ibn 'Abidin and the Maliki al-Sawi, branded the Wahhabis the modern day Khawarij of Islam, and condemned their fanaticism and intolerance.1 In 1818, Egyptian forces under the leadership of Muhammad Ali defeated this rebellion, and Wahhabism seemed destined to become another fringe historical experience with no lasting impact on Islamic theology. But the Wahhabi creed was resuscitated in the early twentieth century under the leadership of 'Abd al-'Aziz ibn Sa'ud, who allied himself with Wahhabi militant rebels known as the Ikhwan, in the beginnings of what would become Saudi Arabia. Even with the formation of the Saudi state, Wahhabism remained a creed of limited influence until the mid-1970s when the sharp rise in oil prices, together with aggressive Saudi proselytizing, dramatically contributed to its wide dissemination in the Muslim world.

Wahhabism did not propagate itself as one school of thought or a particular orientation within Islam. Rather, it asserted itself as the orthodox "straight path" of Islam. By claiming literal fidelity to the Islamic text, it was able to make a credible claim to authenticity at a time when Islamic identity was contested. Moreover, the proponents of Wahhabism refused to be labeled or categorized as the followers of any particular figure including 'Abd al-Wahhab himself. Its proponents insisted that they were simply abiding by the dictates of al-salaf al-salih (the rightly-guided predecessors, namely the Prophet and his companions), and in doing so, Wahhabis were able to appropriate the symbolisms and categories of Salafism.

Ironically, Salafism was founded in the early twentieth century by al-Afghani, Muhammad Abduh, and Rashid Rida as a liberal theological orientation. To respond to the demands of modernity, they argued, Muslims needed to return to the original sources of the Qur'an and Sunnah (tradition of the Prophet), and engage in de novo interpretations of the text. By the 1970s, however, Wahhabism had succeeded in transforming Salafism from a liberal modernist orientation to a literalist, puritan, and conservative theology. The sharp rise in oil prices in 1975 enabled Saudi Arabia, the main proponent of Wahhabism, to disseminate the Wahhabi creed under a Salafi guise, which purported to revert back to the authentic fundamentals of religion uncorrupted by the accretions of historical practice. In reality, however, Saudi Arabia projected its own fairly conservative cultural practices onto the textual sources of Islam and went on to proselytize these projections as the embodiment of Islamic orthodoxy.

Despite its intolerance and rigidity, however, Wahhabism itself does not bear primary responsibility for the existence of terrorist groups in Islam today. To be sure, Wahhabism and its militant offshoots share both attitudinal and ideological orientations. Both insist on a normative particularism that is fundamentally text-centered; both reject the notion of universal human values; and both deal with the other, however defined, in a functionalist and even opportunistic fashion. But Wahhabism is distinctively inward-looking—although focused on power, it primarily asserts power over other Muslims. This is consistent with its obsession with orthodoxy and correct ritualistic practice. Militant puritan groups, however, are both introverted and extroverted—they attempt to assert power against both Muslims and non-Muslims. As populist movements, they are a reaction to the disempowerment most Muslims have suffered in the modern age at the hands of harshly despotic governments, and at the hands of interventionist foreign powers. These groups compensate for extreme feelings of disempowerment by extreme and vulgar claims to power. Fueled by supremacist and puritan theological creeds, their symbolic acts of power become uncompromisingly fanatic and violent.

The Theology of Intolerance

Islamic puritans, whether of the Wahhabi or more militant varieties, offer a set of textual references in support of their exclusionary and intolerant theological orientation. For instance, they frequently cite the Qur'anic verse that states: "O' you who believe, do not take the Jews and Christians as allies. They are allies of each other, and he amongst you who becomes their ally is one of them. Verily, God does not guide the unjust."2 Wahhabi and militant puritanism read this and similar Qur'anic verses literally and ahistorically, and therefore reach highly exclusionary conclusions. For example, while Muslims may elicit the support or aid of non-Muslims over particular issues when the self-interests of Muslims so require, they may not befriend or share the normative values of non-Muslims. This orientation often demands the performance of symbolic acts, which aim to distinguish Muslims from non-Muslims—for instance, dressing in a particular way or marking non-Muslims with distinctive symbols.

Islamic puritanism also often invokes the Qur'anic verse asserting that, "whomsoever follows a religion other than Islam this will not be accepted from him, and in the Hereafter he will be among the losers."3 This verse is invoked in arguing that the theology and rituals of Islam are the exclusive path to salvation. Moreover, a mere testament of faith or a general act of submission to God is insufficient to attain salvation in the Hereafter; rather, a person must comply with the particulars of the Divine law in order to qualify as a "true" believer. The puritan trend is thus uncompromising in its rejection of all forms of belief and ritual that do not qualify as the "true" religion of God.

As to the principles that should guide the interaction between Muslims and non-Muslims, the puritan trend cites the Qur'anic verse commanding Muslims to fight the unbelievers, "until there is no more tumult or oppression, and until faith and all judgment belongs to God."4 Moreover, justifying an essentially supremacist view towards non-Muslims, proponents of puritanism often quote the following Qur'anic injunction: "Fight those among the People of the Book (Jews and Christians) who do not believe in God or the Hereafter, who do not forbid what God and His Prophet have forbidden, and who do not acknowledge the religion of truth—fight them until they pay the poll tax (jizyah) with willing submission and feel themselves subdued."5

Relying on such textual evidence, Muslim puritans assert that Muslims are the inheritors of an objectively ascertainable and realizable Divine Truth; while Jews and Christians may be tolerated, they cannot be befriended. Ultimately, however, they must be subdued and forced to acknowledge Muslim supremacy by paying a poll tax. The puritan doctrine is not necessarily or entirely dismissive of the rights of non-Muslims, and it does not necessarily lead to the persecution of Jews and Christians. But it does assert a hierarchy of importance, and the commitment to toleration is correspondingly fragile and contingent. So it is conducive to an arrogance that can easily descend into a lack of respect or concern for the well-being or dignity of non-Muslims. When this arrogant orientation is coupled with textual sources that exhort Muslims to fight against unbelievers (kuffar), it can produce a radical belligerency.

The Place of Tolerance in Islam

The puritans construct their exclusionary and intolerant theology by reading Qur'anic verses in isolation, as if the meaning of the verses were transparent—as if moral ideas and historical context were irrelevant to their interpretation. In fact, however, it is impossible to analyze these and other verses except in light of the overall moral thrust of the Qur'anic message.

The Qur'an itself refers to general moral imperatives such as mercy, justice, kindness, or goodness. The Qur'an does not clearly define any of these categories, but presumes a certain amount of moral probity on part of the reader. For instance, the Qur'an persistently commands Muslims to enjoin the good. The word used for "the good" is ma'ruf, which means that which is commonly known to be good. Goodness, in the Qur'anic discourse, is part of what one may call a lived reality—it is the product of human experience and constructed normative understandings. Similarly, the Qur'anic term for kindness is ihsan, which literally means to beautify and improve upon. But beautification or improving upon can have meaning only in the context of a certain sociological understanding and practice.

In a further example, as to justice, the Qur'an states: "O you who believe, stand firmly for justice, as witnesses for God, even if it means testifying against yourselves, or your parents, or you kin, and whether it is against the rich or poor, for God prevails upon all. Follow not the lusts of your hearts, lest you swerve, and if you distort justice or decline to do justice, verily God knows what you do."6 The idea that Muslims must stand up for justice even against their own self-interests is predicated on the notion that human beings are capable of achieving a high level of moral agency. As agents, Muslims are expected to achieve a level of moral conscientiousness, which they will bring to their relationship with God. In regards to every ethical obligation, the Qur'anic text assumes that readers will bring a pre-existing, innate moral sense to the text. Hence, the text will morally enrich the reader, but only if the reader will morally enrich the text. The meaning of the religious text is not fixed simply by the literal meaning of its words, but depends, too, on the moral construction given to it by the reader. So if the reader approaches the text without moral commitments, it will almost inevitably yield nothing but discrete, legalistic, technical insights.

Similarly, it is imperative to analyze the historical circumstances in which specific Qur'anic ethical norms were negotiated. Many of the institutions referenced in the Qur'an—such as the poll tax or the formation of alliances with non-Muslims—can be understood only if the reader is aware of the historical practices surrounding the revelation of the text. By emptying the Qur'an both of its historical and moral context, the puritan trend ends up transforming the text into a long list of morally non-committal legal commands.

The Qur'anic discourse, for instance, can readily support an ethic of diversity and tolerance. The Qur'an not only expects, but even accepts the reality of difference and diversity within human society: "O humankind, God has created you from male and female and made you into diverse nations and tribes so that you may come to know each other. Verily, the most honored of you in the sight of God is he who is the most righteous."7 Elsewhere, the Qur'an asserts that diversity is part of the Divine intent and purpose in creation: "If thy Lord had willed, He would have made humankind into a single nation, but they will not cease to be diverse… And, for this God created them [humankind]."8 The classical commentators on the Qur'an did not fully explore the implications of this sanctioning of diversity, or the role of peaceful conflict resolution in perpetuating the type of social interaction that would result in people "knowing each other." Nor does the Qur'an provide specific rules or instructions about how "diverse nations and tribes" are to acquire such knowledge. In fact, the existence of diversity as a primary purpose of creation, as suggested by the verse above, remained underdeveloped in Islamic theology. Pre-modern Muslim scholars did not have a strong incentive to explore the meaning and implications of the Qur'anic endorsement of diversity and cross-cultural intercourse. This is partly because of the political dominance and superiority of the Islamic Civilization, which left Muslim scholars with a sense of self-sufficient confidence. Nevertheless, it is fair to say that the Islamic civilization was pluralistic and unusually tolerant of various social and religious denominations. Working out the implications of a commitment to human diversity and mutual knowledge under contemporary conditions requires moral reflection and attention to historical circumstance: precisely what is missing from puritan theology and doctrine.

Other than a general endorsement of human diversity, the Qur'an also accepted the more specific notion of a plurality of religious beliefs and laws. Although the Qur'an clearly claims that Islam is the Divine Truth, and demands belief in Muhammad as the final messenger in a long line of Abrahamic prophets, it does not completely exclude the possibility that there might be other paths to salvation. The Qur'an insists on God's unfettered discretion to accept in His mercy whomever He wishes. In a rather remarkable set of passages that, again, have not been adequately theorized by Muslim theologians, the Qur'an recognizes the legitimate multiplicity of religious convictions and laws. In one such passage, for example, the Qur'an asserts: "To each of you God has prescribed a Law and a Way. If God would have willed, He would have made you a single people. But God's purpose is to test you in what he has given each of you, so strive in the pursuit of virtue, and know that you will all return to God [in the Hereafter], and He will resolve all the matters in which you disagree."9 On this and other occasions the Qur'an goes on to state that it is possible for non-Muslims to attain the blessing of salvation: "Those who believe, those who follow Jewish scriptures, the Christians, the Sabians, and any who believe in God and the Final Day, and do good, all shall have their reward with their Lord and they will not come to fear or grief."10 Significantly, this passage occurs in the same chapter that instructs Muslims not to take the Jews and Christians as allies. How can these different verses be reconciled?

If we read the text with moral and historical guidance, we can see the different passages as part of a complex and layered discourse about reciprocity and its implications in the historical situation in Mohammed's Medina. In part, the chapter exhorts Muslims to support the newly established Muslim community in Medina. But its point is not to issue a blanket condemnation against Jews and Christians (who "shall have their reward with their Lord"). Instead, it accepts the distinctiveness of the Jewish and Christian communities and their laws, while also insisting that Muslims are entitled to the same treatment as those other communities. Thus it sets out an expectation of reciprocity for Muslims: while calling upon Muslims to support the Prophet of Islam against his Jewish and Christian detractors, it also recognizes the moral worth and rights of the non-Muslim "other."

The challenge most often invoked against an argument for tolerance in Islam is the issue of jihad. Jihad, especially as portrayed in the Western media, is often associated with the idea of a holy war that is propagated in the name of God against the unbelievers. Therefore, jihad is often equated with the most vulgar images of religious intolerance.

At the most rudimentary level, the Qur'an itself is explicit in prohibiting any form of coerced conversions to Islam. It contends that truth and falsity are clear and distinct, and so whomever wishes to believe may do so, but no duress is permitted in religion: "There is no compulsion in matter of faith."11 Of course, this response is incomplete—even if forced conversions to Islam are prohibited, aggressive warfare to spread Islamic power over non-believers might still be allowed. Does the Qur'an condone such expansionist wars?

Interestingly, Islamic tradition does not have a notion of holy war. "Jihad" simply means to strive hard or struggle in pursuit of a just cause, and according to the Prophet of Islam, the highest form of jihad is the struggle waged to cleanse oneself from the vices of the heart. Holy war (in Arabic al-harb al-muqaddasah) is not an expression used by the Qur'anic text or Muslim theologians. In Islamic theology, war is never holy; it is either justified or not, and if it is justified, those killed in battle are considered martyrs. The Qur'anic text does not recognize the idea of unlimited warfare, and does not consider the simple fact of the belligerent's Muslim identity to be sufficient to establish the justness of his cause. In other words, the Qur'an entertains the possibility that the Muslim combatant might be the unjust party in a conflict.

Moreover, while the Qur'an emphasizes that Muslims may fight those who fight them, it also insists that Muslims may not transgress.12 Transgression is an ambiguous term, but on several occasions the Qur'an intimates that in order not to transgress, Muslims must be constrained by a requirement of proportionality, even when the cause is just. For instance, it states, "Mandated is the law of equality, so that who transgresses against you, respond in kind, and fear God, and know that God is with those who exercise restraint."13

Despite the prohibition against transgression and the condemnation of unlimited warfare, many classical jurists adopted an imperialist orientation, which divided the world into the abode of Islam and the abode of war, and supported expansionist wars against unbelievers. But this view was not unanimous. Classical Muslim jurists debated whether unbelief is a sufficient justification for warfare, with a sizeable number of classical jurists arguing that non-Muslims may not be fought unless they pose a physical threat to Muslims. If non-Muslims seek peace, Muslims should make an effort to achieve such a peace. This discourse was partly inspired by the Qur'anic injunctions concerning peace. The Qur'an asserts that God does not prohibit Muslims from making peace with those who do not fight Muslims, but God does prohibit Muslims from making peace with those who have expelled Muslims from their homes and continue to persecute them.14 Elsewhere, the Qur'an pronounces a stronger mandate in favor of peace in stating: "If your enemy inclines towards peace, then you should seek peace and trust in God."15 Moreover, the Qur'an instructs Muslims not to haughtily turn away unbelievers who seek to make peace with Muslims, and reminds Muslims that, "If God would have willed, He would have given the unbelievers power over you [Muslims], and they would have fought you [Muslims]. Therefore, if they [the unbelievers] withdraw from you and refuse to fight you, and instead send you guarantees of peace, know that God has not given you a license [to fight them]."16 These discussions of peace would not make sense if Muslims were in a permanent state of war with non-believers, and if non-believers were a permanent enemy and always a legitimate target.

The other major issue on the point of tolerance in Islam is that of the poll tax (jizyah) imposed on the People of Book (Christians and Jews) who live in Muslim territory. When the Qur'an was revealed, it was common inside and outside of Arabia to levy poll taxes against alien groups. Building upon the historical practice, classical Muslim jurists argued that the poll tax is money collected by the Islamic polity from non-Muslims in return for the protection of the Muslim state. If the Muslim state was incapable of extending such protection to non-Muslims, it was not supposed to levy a poll tax. In fact, 'Umar (r. 13-23/634-644), the second Rightly-Guided Caliph and close companion of the Prophet, returned the poll tax to an Arab Christian tribe that he was incapable of protecting from Byzantine aggression.

Aside from the juristic theory justifying the poll tax, the Qur'an does not, however, pronounce an absolute and unwavering rule in favor of such an institution. Once more, attention to historical circumstance is essential. The Qur'an endorsed a poll tax as a response to particular groups in Arabia who were persistently hostile to the early Muslims. Importantly, the Prophet did not collect a poll tax from every non-Muslim tribe that submitted to Muslim sovereignty, and in fact, in the case of a large number of non-Muslim but non-hostile tribes, he paid them a periodic sum of money or goods. These tribes were known as "those whose hearts have been reconciled." Furthermore, 'Umar entered into a peace settlement with Arab Christian tribes pursuant to which these tribes were obligated to pay the Islamic annual tax known as the zakah (almsgiving), and not the poll tax. Reportedly, although they refused to convert to Islam, the Christian tribes contended that paying the jizyah (poll tax) was degrading, and instead, asked to pay the zakah, and 'Umar accommodated their request.17

In short, there are various indicators that the poll tax is not a theologically mandated practice, but a functional solution that was adopted in response to a specific set of historical circumstances. Only an entirely ahistorical reading of the text could conclude that it is an essential element in a Divinely-sanctioned program of subordinating the non-believer.

Final Thoughts

Ultimately, the Qur'an, or any text, speaks through its reader. This ability of human beings to interpret texts is both a blessing and a burden. It is a blessing because it provides us with the flexibility to adapt texts to changing circumstances. It is a burden because the reader must take responsibility for the normative values he or she brings to the text. Any text, including those that are Islamic, provides possibilities for meaning, not inevitabilities. And those possibilities are exploited, developed and ultimately determined by the reader's efforts—good faith efforts, we hope—at making sense of the text's complexities. Consequently, the meaning of the text is often only as moral as its reader. If the reader is intolerant, hateful, or oppressive, so will be the interpretation of the text.

It would be disingenuous to deny that the Qur'an and other Islamic sources offer possibilities of intolerant interpretation. Clearly these possibilities are exploited by the contemporary puritans and supremacists. But the text does not command such intolerant readings. Historically, Islamic civilization has displayed a remarkable ability to recognize possibilities of tolerance, and to act upon these possibilities. Islamic civilization produced a moral and humanistic tradition that preserved Greek philosophy, and generated much science, art, and socially benevolent thought. Unfortunately, however, the modern puritans are dissipating and wasting this inspiring moral tradition. They are increasingly shutting off the possibilities for a tolerant interpretation of the Islamic tradition.

If we assess the moral trajectory of a civilization in light of its past record, then we have ample reason to be optimistic about the future. But the burden and blessing of sustaining that moral trajectory—of accentuating the Qur'anic message of tolerance and openness to the other—falls squarely on the shoulders of contemporary Muslim interpreters of the tradition.<

Khaled Abou El Fadl is the Omar and Azmeralda Alfi Distinguished Fellow in Islamic Law at UCLA and author of Rebellion and Violence in Islamic Law.

1 Muhammad Amin Ibn 'Abidin, Hashiyat Radd al-Muhtar (Cairo: Mustafa al-Babi 1966), 6:413; Ahmad al-Sawi, Hashiyat al-Sawi 'ala Tafsir al-Jalalayn (Beirut: Dar Ihya al-Turath al-Arabi, n.d.), 3 :307-308. See also Ahmad Dallal, "The Origins and Objectives of Islamic Revivalist Thought, 1750-1850," Journal of the American Oriental Society 113/3 (1993), who demonstrates that Wahhabism in the nineteenth century was considered a fringe fanatic group.

2 Qur'an 5:51.

3 Qur'an 3:85.

4 Qur'an 8:39.

5 Qur'an 9:29.

6 Qur'an 4:135.

7 Qur'an 49:13.

8 Qur'an 11:118-9.

9 Qur'an 5:49.

10 Qur'an 5:69; 2:62.

11 Qur'an 2:256; 10:99; 18:29.

12 Qur'an 2:190; 5:2.

13 Qur'an 2:194.

14 Qur'an 60:9.

15 Qur'an 8:61.

16 Qur'an 4:90. Also 4:94.

17 Abu Zakariyya al-Nawawi, Rawdat al-Talibin, 3rd edition, edited by Zuhayr al-Shawish (Beirut: al-Maktab al-Islami, 1991), 10:316-317.

Originally Published in December 2001/January 2002 issue of the Boston Review

Available Online on Boston Review Website: http://www.bostonreview.net/BR26.6/elfadl.html

Principles of Western Democracy and Islam

Mon, 26 Apr 2010 07:43:00 GMT

by Anna Jordan

The current issue (Dec.1998) of Life Magazine sports an interesting cover which poses the following question:

WHEN YOU THINK OF GOD WHAT DO YOU SEE?

The article by Frank McCourt of the same title could not be better timed for the purposes of this paper. The opening paragraph reads:

America’s God is vaguely defined. Ours is not a monocultural nation like, say Iran, Italy or Ireland, but a proudly diverse one. In many countries, the state, so entwined with a national religion, paints a picture of God no less stark than a portrait of the ayatollah, of the pope, of Saint Patrick. Everyone knows what God looks like, and accepts the image or leaves it alone - this latter option sometimes at one’s peril. America, meantime, makes it society’s business to support, protect and nurture minority viewpoints, values and traditions. Within these are many different views of God (sometimes Gods, plural; sometimes "exalted beings" possessing a divine essence). Americans answerable only to their God, can choose.

Depending on one’s religious persuasion, people may form many different images of God. Individuals often become so convinced that the image of God each holds dear is the right image, religious dogma replaces what can only be considered conjecture.

If one mentions the Quran , the holy book of Islam, it is quite likely many people will recall images of an ayatollah intolerant towards American government. Most people would be shocked if they were told that the Quran supports the eight principles of western democracy as outlined in Today’s Ism’s by William Ebenstein and Edwin Fogelman. Yet that is the thesis of this paper. What currently passes for Islam as practiced by the majority of Muslims is a form of religious dogma in contradiction to the teachings of the Quran.

It is hoped that by the conclusion of this paper, the reader will see Islam in a new light, not as a form of religious dogma, but as a guide to making choices based on intelligence and reason.

There are eight criteria or elements by which a democratic society can be evaluated or judged according to William Ebenstein and Edwin Fogelman.

1. Rational empiricism

2. Emphasis on the individual

3. Instrumental theory of the state

4. Voluntarism

5. The law behind the law

6. Emphasis on means

7. Discussion and consent in human relations

8. Basic equality of all human beings

1. Rational empiricism. All our knowledge comes from experience with the confidence to apply reason to human relations. Truth is not a given but is subject to change requiring continuous reevaluation and verification. What may seem true today may be altered tomorrow with the input of additional information or by changes in circumstances. Applied to a democracy, all sides must be heard on any issue, or at least as many as possible, thereby allowing for free speech, publication, assembly and association.

A dogmatist believes he knows the truth with absolute certainty and will accuse anyone who opposes his version of the truth guilty of intellectual subversion. Therefore, the dogmatist will not inquire further into matters. The only input he will allow is that information which will strengthen his position. It is this certainty of knowledge that opens the door to fanatic sentiment.

John Locke (1632-1704) believed that all our knowledge derives from experience.

"In this conception, truth ... is tentative, changing, and subject to constant checking and verification."

It follows that the rational empiricist believes that one never fully arrives at the truth, or the final answer to any question. In fact, the more one may learn about a given subject, the more ignorant one may realize he is. New awareness almost always creates more questions to answers than answers to questions. It is this mode of thinking that allows for scientific progress. In principle, a democratic process allows and encourages all questions and points of view, even those which challenge the principles of democracy, although this is the ideal more often than the reality. When the ideal is the reality, the process remains dynamic. In a dogmatic regime, the process becomes static, even in a supposedly democratic regime. The truth has been declared and no other point of view will shake it or change it.

The Quran makes the point for rational empiricism in short order:

You shall not accept any information, unless you verify it for yourself. I have given you the hearing, the eyesight, and the brain, and you are responsible for using them. 17:36

This verse describes the process of gaining empirical knowledge quite clearly. Our knowledge is gained from the evidence of our senses. What we see and what we hear are processed by the brain and become the foundation for what we know. We are responsible for the interpretation of what we see and hear. Generally, no one can ascertain the truth by one observation. If one observation is sufficient for drawing a conclusion it is because reason has been applied to previously gained information. For example, one might never have been an eye-witness to an automobile exploding, yet one’s knowledge and experience may be sufficient to know that if an automobile explodes in the course of impact with another vehicle, the occupants inside will likely come to be harmed, if not killed. However, in another example, a small child will not understand that placing her finger in a fire will burn her if she has never had any experience with fire.

The scientific method requires repeated testing with the outcomes remaining consistent before we can accept the results with any confidence. Likewise, truth can only be ascertained by examining all sides, or at least as many as are available for review. As it is always likely that one may never have all points of view at any given time, it is safe to infer that truth is always subject to revision. So, while we are expected to use our senses to receive information, we are also expected to apply that knowledge in a rational manner, remaining open to the possibility that new information may expand or change our understanding.

2. Emphasis on the individual. Ebenstein and Fogelman contrast liberal democracy with both authoritarian and totalitarian regimes. The latter two view the individual as the servant of the state. The individual lives to serve the state, being only one small part of the whole with the "concept of citizenship as duty, discipline, and death for the state." The state is not to be questioned but is to be obeyed.

Locke first emphasized the rights of the individual when he wrote in his essays that the individual had the right to pursue life, liberty and property; and if the individual was not happy with the laws under which he was living, he should be free to remove himself to a place where such laws could not compel him into compliance. However, he also believed that if a government usurped the rights of the people, the people had the right to revolt and change the government. This thinking became the foundation for what was to become the American Declaration of Independence. Thomas Jefferson, the principle drafter of that document, slightly modified Locke’s principles of individual rights, and Americans have come to accept that life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are inalienable rights. Like Locke, Jefferson believed that when a government interfered with these rights, the people had the right to alter or abolish that government and to institute a new one which would better secure their safety and happiness.

Locke’s contention that one should be free to move if one was unhappy with the conditions imposed on him is supported by the Quran, as well the right to revolt against the government if it usurps the rights of the people.

Anyone who emigrates in the cause of God will find on earth great bounties and richness. 4:100

Those who believe, and emigrate, and strive in the cause of God with their money and their lives, are far greater in rank in the sight of God. These are the winners. 9:20

O you who believe, you shall remain alert, and mobilize as individuals, or mobilize all together. 4:71

Those who believe are fighting for the cause of God, while those who disbelieve are fighting for the cause of tyranny. Therefore, you shall fight the devil’s allies; the devil’s power is nil. 4:76

While the Quran speaks of emigrating and fighting in the cause of God, it may seem misleading in the context of politics. No specific mention of government is made. There are several possible explanations for this. One reason is that at the time Muhammad begin reciting the Quran, the Arabs were primarily tribal nomads. Government as twentieth century Americans know it, or as Locke knew it in seventeenth century England, did not exist for them. Another reason that government is not specifically mentioned would be that these passages do not refer only to governments, but also to any conditions that would impose unfair limitations upon an individual or groups of individuals, as within a family, the tribe, the community, or the larger nation state. The fact that the term government is not specifically used does not mean that these passages do not support the right to leave or to abolish the state. What it does imply is a broad application. Tyranny is still tyranny be it on the personal level between spouses or between the ruler and the ruled. When Paine stated that he believed the Almighty would separate America from England because of the latter’s abuses against humanity, it was no less a spiritual plea for divine intervention. The Declaration of Independence states in part:

We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable [sic] Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness - That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed, that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its Foundation on such Principles, and organizing its Powers in such Forms, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient Causes; and accordingly all Experience hath shewn, that Mankind are more disposed to suffer, while Evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the Forms to which they are accustomed.

This document equates inalienable rights with God-given rights as stated in the first sentence above.

You may fight in the cause of God against those who attack you, but do not aggress. God does not love the aggressors. You may kill those who wage war against you, and you may evict them whence they evicted you. Oppression is worse than murder...If they refrain, then God is Forgiver, Most Merciful. You may also fight them to eliminate oppression, and to worship God freely. If they refrain, you shall not aggress; aggression is permitted only against the aggressors. 2:190-193

Does it seem a stretch of reason to apply the previous verses to the human condition of which history abounds with examples of abuse? Jefferson makes the point that people too often accept the status quo and allow themselves to continue suffering under oppressive forms of government rather than stand up and fight such oppression. Are we to assume that fighting oppression has nothing to do with God? If our inalienable rights are God-given as the Declaration of Independence asserts, then what right does a government, a group of individuals, or one individual have to abuse such rights? Are we not fighting in the cause of God when we defend that which we believe is God-given?

Why should you not fight in the cause of God when weak men, women, and children are imploring: "Our Lord, deliver us from this community whose people are oppressive, and be You our Lord and Master."

Those who believe are fighting for the cause of God, while those who disbelieve are fighting for the cause of tyranny. Therefore, you shall fight the devil’s allies; the devil’s power is nil. 4:75-76

Paine echoed similar words in his pamphlet Common Sense when

"he denounced the British ruling classes for exploiting the lower classes in America and in England, and urged the colonies to declare themselves free and independent states so that they might establish in America a haven of refuge for the oppressed peoples of Europe."

Ebenstein and Fogelman state that the historical roots of individualism stem from three sources:

First, the Jewish concept of one God leads to the idea that all men, as children of God, are brothers to each other. Second, the Christian doctrine of the
indestructibility of the human soul maintains that whatever social, economic,
and political inequalities may exist, all men posses a spiritual equality and
uniqueness that no earthly power can override. Third, in the stoic view, the
one principle of action that governs all things is to be at one with oneself, to
know oneself, and to act in conformity with one’s rational principles and
purposes. The true self of man, according to the stoics, is not flesh or bones, but
the faculty that uses them, the reason, the part that more than anything else
characterizes one as human.

At no time, of course, has this individualism been fully accepted, and the counterforces of collective solidarity always threaten it.

Although the Quran is supportive of the Judeao-Christian ideas expressed above, Ebenstein and Fogelman do not demonstrate how individualism has developed from either of the first two sources. That all men are brothers does not clarify the concept of individualism. That all men possess a spiritual equality does not sufficiently support the premise for individualism. The stoic view comes closer to establishing a precedent for individualism and it is this point of view which is supported by the Quran:

Did they not roam the earth, then use their minds to understand, and use their ears to hear? Indeed, the real blindness is not the blindness of the eyes, but the blindness of the hearts inside the chests. 22:46

The blindness of the hearts inside the chest is the metaphorical description of the faculty of reason, and failure to use it is an individual dilemma, although many individuals may be guilty of such failure.

3. The instrumental theory of the state. This is the view that the state is a mechanism to be used for ends higher than itself. In order to accept this theory, one must reject the concept of the state as the ultimate authority. One must also define ends higher than itself. Returning to the Judeao-Christian viewpoint, "the highest values in man’s life relate to God and that no earthly law can claim to supersede God’s. From the rational-humanist viewpoint, the instrumentalist theory of the state affirms that the ability of the individual to use his reason in discovering what is right and wrong is the ultimate test of political authority."

The Most Gracious. Teacher of the Quran. Creator of the human beings. He taught them how to distinguish. The sun and moon are perfectly calculated. The stars and the trees prostrate. He constructed the sky and established the law. He created the earth for all creatures. 55:1-10

The heavens and the earth are full of proofs for the believers. We then appointed you to establish the correct laws; you shall follow this, and do not follow the wishes of those who do not know. They cannot help you at all against God. It is the transgressors who ally themselves with one another, while God is the Lord of the righteous. This provides enlightenments for the people, and guidance, and mercy for those who are certain. 45:3,18-20

These verses support the premise that no earthly law is higher than God’s law. He taught them how to distinguish affirms that the individual must use his reason in discovering what is right and wrong.

4. Voluntarism. This principle first meant the freedom to associate religiously with any group the individual chose. It has since come to represent the freedom to associate with any group of one’s choosing, be it political, educational, or economic in nature, to name a few. Generally, it represents an association with a smaller group that is influenced more by localized input and less by a centralized government. As the name implies, association is voluntary, an important principle in the concept of democracy. It is this voluntary association which also has a charitable connotation.

They ask you about giving: say, "The charity you give shall go to the parents, the relatives, the orphans, the poor, and the traveling alien." Any good you do, God is fully aware thereof. 2:215

O you who believe, you shall give to charity from the good things you earn, and from what we have produced for you from the earth. Do not pick out the bad therein to give away, when you yourselves do not accept it unless your eyes are closed. You should know that God is Rich, Praiseworthy. 2:267

The following verse makes the point for freedom to associate with whomever the individual chooses.

You are not responsible for guiding anyone. God is the only one who guides whoever chooses (to be guided). 2:272

Any community that believes will surely be rewarded for believing...Had your Lord willed, all the people on earth would have believed. Do you want to force the people to become believers? 10:98,99

The state cannot turn evil into good or wrong into right solely because it possesses the means of physical coercion...in the classical liberal doctrine...the state is to step in only when the voluntary efforts of society fail."

We then appointed you to establish the correct laws; you shall follow this, and do not follow the wishes of those who do not know. 45:18

O you who believe, you shall remain alert, and mobilize as individuals, or mobilize all together. 4:71

The state is not explicitly mentioned above but the admonition to be alert to changing conditions is apparent and the command, or authorization if one prefers, to take action on the individual level or on the broader level, be it on the state or national level is clear when warranted. Mobilizing is not limited to warfare as in military-style warfare. We may mobilize to bring aid and assistance to victims of earthquakes, floods, and hurricanes or we may participate in a nationwide Great American Smoke Out Day.

5. The law behind the law. This concept stems from the federal view of state and society in classical liberalism which considers society to be basically self-sufficient. The state is an essentially voluntary body with its authority being derived from the consent of the governed. Because classic liberalism has always adhered to the idea that the relations between state and society, between government and individual, are ultimately defined by a law higher than that of the state...the law is not the product of the state, but precedes it.

As stated earlier in the introduction, the Declaration of Independence mentions this higher authority as Divine Providence. The Constitution also discusses this concept in defining due process whereby the rights of all are protected based on the principles of reason. No laws can be legislated that violate those basic rights.

Our God: possessor of all sovereignty. You grant sovereignty to whomever You choose, You remove sovereignty from whomever You choose. You grant dignity to whomever you choose, and commit to humiliation whomever You choose. In your hand are all provisions 3:26

Have you noted those who exalt themselves? Instead, God is the One who exalts whomever He wills, without the least injustice.

Note how they fabricate lies about God; what a gross offense this is!

It is they who incurred God’s condemnation, and whomever God condemns, you will not find any helper for him.

Do they own a share of the sovereignty? If they did, they would not give the people as much as a grain. 4:49,50,52,53

To God belongs the sovereignty of the heavens and the earth. He controls life and death. You have none beside God as Lord and Master. 9:120

The founding fathers shunned the dogma of existing religions when they established the new American government. They considered God the only moral authority to which they owed any accounting. Consider this next verse in light of this thinking:

God promises those among you who believe and lead a righteous life, that He will make them sovereigns on earth, as He did for those before them, and will establish for them the religion He has chosen for them, and will substitute peace and security for them in place of fear. All this because they worship Me alone; they never set up any idols beside Me. Those who disbelieve after this are the truly wicked. 25:55

Today the American people are sovereign with respect to the government. No one religion dominates our society. We have been a melting pot for European and African cultures since our inception as a nation. We are increasingly becoming a multi-ethnic, multi-cultural society with the continued flow of Asian, Middle Eastern and

Indo-European cultures. Tolerance and respect for one another is a two-way conduit; it must take precedence in our relationships within society if our peace and security is to continue.

6. Emphasis on the means. The state does not have the right to achieve it’s objectives by any means no matter how desirable the end may be. This relates back to the rational-humanist viewpoint in determining the use of political authority, where the individual uses his reason to determine what is right and wrong. The state cannot justifiably force an outcome through physical coercion just because it has the physical power to do so. Any ends achieved must be accomplished through due process.

An example is given in the Quran that illustrates its support for due process. King David was asked to settle a dispute:

When they entered his (David’s) room, he was startled. They said, "Have no fear. We are feuding with one another, and we are seeking your fair judgment. Do not wrong us, and guide us in the right path.

"This brother of mine owns ninety nine sheep, while I own one sheep. He wants to mix my sheep with his, and continues to pressure me."

(David) said, "He is being unfair to you by asking to combine your sheep with his. Most people who combine their properties treat each other unfairly, except those who believe and work righteousness, and these are so few." Afterward, David wondered if he made the right judgment. He thought that we were testing him. He then implored his Lord for forgiveness, bowed down, and repented.

O David, we have made you a ruler on earth. Therefore, you shall judge among the people equitably, and do not follow your personal opinion, lest it diverts you from the way of God. Surely, those who stray off the way of God incur severe retribution for forgetting the Day of Reckoning. 38:22-24,26,27

Although David questioned his own decision, he was reminded that his personal biases had no place in judging between the disputes of the people. He was admonished to judge equitably. What is equitable? The process demands evaluation of all known

material evidence, the chance to give testimony, the right to an impartial hearing by either a jury or an unbiased judge, and the right to appeal after the judgment if warranted. Another verse addresses the importance of fairness and an unbiased attitude:

O you who believe, you shall be absolutely equitable, and observe God, when you serve as witnesses, even against yourselves, or your parents, or your relatives. Whether the accused is rich or poor, God takes care of both. Therefore, do not be biased by your personal wishes. If you deviate or disregard (this commandment), then God is fully Cognizant of everything you do. 4:135

Another verse supports the rights of the accused:

O you who believe, if a wicked person brings any news to you, you shall first investigate, lest you commit injustice towards some people, out of ignorance, then become sorry and remorseful for what you have done. 49:6

Obviously, not all people who bring charges against other people are wicked. Nonetheless, everyone, including the guilty, are entitled to have any charges brought against them investigated and examined. This verse requires that any information that would be detrimental to any individual or group of individuals be thoroughly reviewed before drawing conclusions.

7. Discussion and consent. Basically this means lay all the cards on the table, discuss the variety of options available, and then compromise if necessary to settle any differences. As stated earlier, truth is not a given but is subject to change. Since it is doubtful that any one individual ever knows all there is to know on any one issue, a democratic society operates on the premise that all individuals have the right to be heard, all available views must be aired followed with the necessary discussion. The reality is such that total agreement among individuals is rare, if not impossible, but discussion and consent allows for an exchange of information and provides for new information to be considered. This is not entirely unlike due process, but due process is more a guarantee for fair treatment under the law in legal situations, whereas discussion and consent is a code of behavior for daily problem solving in all aspects of society, from the House of Representatives to the classroom.

Citing a different example, this time speaking to Muhammad, the need for discussion and consent is addressed:

It was mercy from God that you became compassionate towards them. Had you been harsh and mean-hearted, they would have abandoned you. Therefore, ...you shall consult them. Once you make a decision, carry out your plan, and trust in God. God loves those who trust in Him. 3:159

...Their affairs are decided after due consultation among themselves... 42:38

The Quran has given support for the democratic principle of discussion and consent. When oppression is present and discussion has failed, the Quran has given society the authority to use aggression. Just as Locke suggests that the people have the right to change the government when it abuses their rights, the Quran supports this belief, also.

8. Basic equality of all human beings. This democratic doctrine is frequently misunderstood according to Ebenstein and Fogelman. People are not identical, but they have certain inalienable rights as human beings. The Jewish-Christian tradition states that all people are equal before God; "God’s challenge to every human being is the same, although individual responses to it vary enormously." The Quran states:

Their Lord responded to them: "I never fail to reward any worker among you for any work you do, be you male or female - you are equal to one another. 3:195

O people, we created you from the same male and female, and rendered you distinct peoples and tribes, that you may recognize one another. The best among you in the sight of God is the most righteous. God is omniscient, Cognizant. 49:13

Tell My servants to treat each other in the best possible manner, for the devil will always try to drive a wedge among them. Surely, the devil is man’s most ardent enemy. 17:53.

O you who believe, no people shall ridicule other people, for they may be better than they. Nor shall any women ridicule other women, for they may be better than they. Nor shall you mock one another, or make fun of your names. Evil indeed is the reversion to wickedness after attaining faith. Anyone who does not repent after this, these are the transgressors.

O you who believe, you shall avoid any suspicion, for even a little bit of suspicion is sinful. You shall not spy on one another, nor shall you backbite one another; this is as abominable as eating the flesh of your dead brother. You certainly abhor this. You shall observe God. God is Redeemer, Most Merciful. 49:11-12

You shall not treat the people with arrogance, nor shall you roam the earth proudly. God does not like the arrogant showoffs. Walk humbly and lower your voice. 31:18-19

Thus basic equality is not the guarantee that all people will have equal property, the same jobs with the same pay, or the same size houses. Equality means that all individuals are of equal worth. The inalienable rights of life and liberty does not mean that no one can take either away. It means that all individuals are endowed with those rights just as each are endowed with the faculties to reason and rationalize, even though many will fail to use those faculties wisely. Individuals may be called upon singly or in groups to defend those rights. It is incumbent upon the individual and the society in which one operates and associates to respect the rights of all individuals and to submit to the higher laws of Creation, to those of the Creator. That many individuals fail to do so does not alter the fact that those inalienable rights still exist and are there for the taking.

Our differences in color, culture, gender, skills and talents are blessings that are supposed to enrich our lives. In the course of two hundred or so years, we have abolished slavery, opened the doors of education and employment to both genders and people of all ethnicity. Furthermore, we are admonished to respect the privacy of individuals. Spying and entrapment, name-calling and other forms of social intolerance are denounced, as is suspicion without any basis.

There is one last point to note before concluding. The U.S. Constitution contains what is called a necessary and proper clause, or an elastic clause. It reads in Article I, Section 8, Clause 18:

To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or any Department or Officer thereof.

The addition of this clause provided for future contingencies. It specified nothing other than the right to write laws in the future as times and conditions changed. It is interesting to note that the Quran also contains an elastic clause for just the same reason. Islamic scholars have tried to interpret every word of the Quran over the last fourteen hundred years based on the prevailing knowledge and understanding of each successive generation. Thus arose a dogma which is evident today that in no way resembles the true message of the Quran. It is for this reason that Islam is so grossly misunderstood and misrepresented. The Quran’s elastic clause reads:

O you who believe, do not ask about matters which, if revealed to you prematurely, would hurt you. If you ask about them in light of the Quran, they will become obvious to you. God has deliberately overlooked them. God is Forgiver, Clement. 5:101.

Quoting Kassim Ahmad, a Malaysian writer,

"God does not mention some things...because such things concern the forms their principles take at different times and different places. These forms are therefore decided by the society’s council or by customs or by personal preference."

He cites another writer in his book in the following:

"As Islam discouraged religious practices, such as monastic life, it also prohibited questions relating to details on many points which would require this or that practice to be made obligatory, and much was left to the individual will or circumstances of the time and place. The exercise of judgment occupies a very important place in Islam and this gives ample scope to different nations and communities to frame laws for themselves and to meet new and changed situations."

It was pointed out earlier in this paper that certain passages from the Quran did not specifically mention government by name in determining the right of the individual to revolt or change the government if it became oppressive. Nor did it say specifically that individuals had the right to emigrate if the government usurped the rights of the people. Fourteen hundred years is a long time for a document to endure. Governments come and go; entire civilizations rise and fall; scientific advances are made. In order for a written guideline to have staying power, it is necessary that it be applicable to as many situations as possible. The U.S. Constitution has lasted for over two hundred years because it is a general guideline which allows for laws to be made or phased out as circumstances warrant. Thus, as one reads the Quran, it is up to the individual to use reason and common sense in applying the principles it supports.

What passes for Islam today is not reliance on the Quran alone. Centuries of myth, superstition and cultural traditions have crept into the practice of Islam, so that a

strict religious dogma based on numerous volumes of theological interpretation apart from the Quran have been established as part and parcel of Islam.

While the Quran might seem to be just another religious book to some, perhaps to many, it is an endorsement for the rights of individuals and a guide to the authoritative allocation of values and resources for a society. It provides a way to deal with conflict without destroying society. It is a guideline calling upon the individual to think things through and use the faculties and the brain before making decisions or taking action. It is not a step-by-step book with all the answers spelled out. It does not tell us by name what type of government to form, but it does tell us how to treat one another, and thereby we can deduce from it what is appropriate and best for all concerned. It may be that one day no government will be necessary. Should that day ever come, the Quran will still be applicable in determining right conduct between individuals and societies.

Whether one accepts the Quran as God’s word or that of an unknown source, it is hoped that enough proof has been given that the reader will come to view Islam in a new light, as a guiding principle of reason, tolerance, open-mindedness and fairness, which supports rational thinking, the rights of the individual, and an open democratic process, and not the man-made dogma that currently poses as Islam.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

1. Ahmad, Kassim. Hadith: A Re-evaluation. Translated by Monotheist Productions International: Tucson, Arizona, 1997. California: Universal Unity, 1997, p. 466

2. Ebenstein, William, and Fogelman, Edwin. Today’s Isms. New Jersey: Prentiss-Hall, Inc., 1980, pp 170-178.

3. Foner, Philip S. Introduction, The Age of Reason, by Thomas Paine. New Jersey: Carol Publishing Group, 1997, pp 11-12.

4. Jefferson, Thomas. The Declaration of Independence. 1776.

5. McCourt, Frank. "When You Think of God What Do You See?" Life Magazine, December 1998, p. 63.

6. Paine, Thomas. "A Serious Thought." Pennsylvania Journal, October 18, 1775

7. Schmidt, Steffen W., Shelley, Mack C., II, Bardes, Barbara A. American Government and Politics Today. USA: 1997, p. 6.

8. Quran, The Final Testament. Translated by Rashad Khalifa, Ph.D., California: Universal Unity, p. 424.

9. The Holy Quran. Editorial note, Muhammad Ali, p. 271, note 240.

10. Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary. Massachusetts: G. & C. Merriam Co., 1979.

The True, Peaceful Face Of Islam

Wed, 21 Apr 2010 12:08:00 GMT

By Karen Armstrong

There are 1.2 billion Muslims in the world, and Islam is the world's fastest-growing religion. If the evil carnage we witnessed on Sept. 11 were typical of the faith, and Islam truly inspired and justified such violence, its growth and the increasing presence of Muslims in both Europe and the U.S. would be a terrifying prospect. Fortunately, this is not the case.

The very word Islam, which means "surrender," is related to the Arabic salam, or peace. When the Prophet Muhammad brought the inspired scripture known as the Koran to the Arabs in the early 7th century A.D., a major part of his mission was devoted precisely to bringing an end to the kind of mass slaughter we witnessed in New York City and Washington. Pre-Islamic Arabia was caught up in a vicious cycle of warfare, in which tribe fought tribe in a pattern of vendetta and counter-vendetta. Muhammad himself survived several assassination attempts, and the early Muslim community narrowly escaped extermination by the powerful city of Mecca. The Prophet had to fight a deadly war in order to survive, but as soon as he felt his people were probably safe, he devoted his attention to building up a peaceful coalition of tribes and achieved victory by an ingenious and inspiring campaign of nonviolence. When he died in 632, he had almost single-handedly brought peace to war-torn Arabia.

Because the Koran was revealed in the context of an all-out war, several passages deal with the conduct of armed struggle. Warfare was a desperate business on the Arabian Peninsula. A chieftain was not expected to spare survivors after a battle, and some of the Koranic injunctions seem to share this spirit. Muslims are ordered by God to "slay [enemies] wherever you find them!" (4:89). Extremists such as Osama bin Laden like to quote such verses but do so selectively. They do not include the exhortations to peace, which in almost every case follow these more ferocious passages: "Thus, if they let you be, and do not make war on you, and offer you peace, God does not allow you to harm them" (4:90).

In the Koran, therefore, the only permissible war is one of self-defense. Muslims may not begin hostilities (2:190). Warfare is always evil, but sometimes you have to fight in order to avoid the kind of persecution that Mecca inflicted on the Muslims (2:191; 2:217) or to preserve decent values (4:75; 22:40). The Koran quotes the Torah, the Jewish scriptures, which permits people to retaliate eye for eye, tooth for tooth, but like the Gospels, the Koran suggests that it is meritorious to forgo revenge in a spirit of charity (5:45). Hostilities must be brought to an end as quickly as possible and must cease the minute the enemy sues for peace (2:192-3).

Islam is not addicted to war, and jihad is not one of its "pillars," or essential practices. The primary meaning of the word jihad is not "holy war" but "struggle." It refers to the difficult effort that is needed to put God's will into practice at every level-personal and social as well as political. A very important and much quoted tradition has Muhammad telling his companions as they go home after a battle, "We are returning from the lesser jihad [the battle] to the greater jihad," the far more urgent and momentous task of extirpating wrongdoing from one's own society and one's own heart.

Islam did not impose itself by the sword. In a statement in which the Arabic is extremely emphatic, the Koran insists, "There must be no coercion in matters of faith!" (2: 256). Constantly Muslims are enjoined to respect Jews and Christians, the "People of the Book," who worship the same God (29:46). In words quoted by Muhammad in one of his last public sermons, God tells all human beings, "O people! We have formed you into nations and tribes so that you may know one another" (49:13)-not to conquer, convert, subjugate, revile or slaughter but to reach out toward others with intelligence and understanding.

So why the suicide bombing, the hijacking and the massacre of innocent civilians? Far from being endorsed by the Koran, this killing violates some of its most sacred precepts. But during the 20th century, the militant form of piety often known as fundamentalism erupted in every major religion as a rebellion against modernity. Every fundamentalist movement I have studied in Judaism, Christianity and Islam is convinced that liberal, secular society is determined to wipe out religion. Fighting, as they imagine, a battle for survival, fundamentalists often feel justified in ignoring the more compassionate principles of their faith. But in amplifying the more aggressive passages that exist in all our scriptures, they distort the tradition.

It would be as grave a mistake to see Osama bin Laden as an authentic representative of Islam as to consider James Kopp, the alleged killer of an abortion provider in Buffalo, N.Y., a typical Christian or Baruch Goldstein, who shot 29 worshipers in the Hebron mosque in 1994 and died in the attack, a true martyr of Israel. The vast majority of Muslims, who are horrified by the atrocity of Sept. 11, must reclaim their faith from those who have so violently hijacked it.

Source

The Enemies of Islam according to the Quran-Pluralism or Prosecution?

Tue, 13 Apr 2010 13:44:00 GMT

by Reaz Islam

A major misconception amongst some Muslims and some non Muslims is that Islam is at war with all other religions and ways of life. I wish to challenge this misconception by studying and identifying the characteristics of the enemies of Islam as described in the Quran.

What is the nature of the enemies of Islam in the Quran? According to the Quran who did the prophet Muhammad and earlier prophets fight and for what reason? Did the prophets fight disbelievers simply because they were disbelievers or were there other reasons? What were the reasons for the war?

The Quran repeatedly describes the enemy disbelievers, not just through the events in the life of the prophet Muhammad but also through the stories of the earlier prophets. This article analyzes the characteristics of the enemies of Islam.

The enemies of Islam as described in the Quran are disbelievers, but these disbelievers do not simply deny the call of the prophets, they persecute the prophets and the believers In the events of prophet Muhammad's life as well as in the stories of the earlier prophets we repeatedly find that the disbelievers are intolerant and they persecute Muslims.

According to the Quran the enemies of Islam are those who persecute the prophets and the followers of the prophets. In the Quranic stories the mindset of the enemy is clearly intolerant. The enemies of Islam do not allow the prophets to preach a peaceful message, they threaten to expel or kill the prophets. The enemies of Islam use (or threaten to use) violent force to stop the message of the prophets. This is the true definition of enemy of Islam. The enemy of Islam is not simply disbelief but intolerance, persecution and violence used to stop a peaceful message.

This definition of enemy of Islam then raises the question whether modern democracies can be the enemy of Islam. Some modern democracies consign religion to the private sphere but all modern democracies allow freedom of speech and do not permit religious or other form of persecution. If we understand the repeated message of the Quran correctly then we must conclude that the enemy of Islam is intolerance, persecution and the threat to "drive out". As such, Liberal Democracies which have as their ideological core the concept of human rights and tolerance and non persecution, cannot be the enemy of Islam.

The story of the Quran that I am suggesting is significantly different from the commonly accepted story of the Quran. The commonly accepted version of the Quranic story is the Shariah centric view of Islam. The Shariah centric view suggests that the prophet was meant to establish a Muslim society in Medina and guide this society with the Shariah. So whether the Meccans were tolerant or not, the formation of the Muslim society and the formulation of the Shariah was the core reason of the prophet's mission. So even if Mecca was tolerant, as long as Mecca did not accept the prophet and the Shariah as the code of life the prophet would have to go to war with Mecca. The core of Islam and the core of the prophet's Mission is understood to be the Shariah and the formation of a Muslim society that lives according to the Shariah. It was imperative that the prophet become the ruler and the Shariah be institutionalized. The question of tolerance and coexistence is immaterial because the ultimate purpose of Islam is to establish the Shariah, the rule of Allah according to which all Muslims are supposed to live.

According to the Sharia centric view whether modern liberal democracies have instituted tolerance and banned persecution is immaterial. What is important is the establishment of the rule of Shariah, any system that attempts to hinder or stop the establishment of the Shariah is the enemy of Islam.

Let us examine the characteristics of the disbelievers as described in the Quran.

Beginning of the call - situation in Mecca

The pagan Quraish were antagonistic towards the prophet from the beginning of his prophet hood. Initially the prophet's family protected him from the rest of Quraish. The prophet's uncle Abu Talib was the leader of Banu Hashim and Banu Hashim was one of the sub tribes that constituted the larger tribe of Quraish. Each sub tribe had the right and responsibility to protect its members. The tribe of Banu Hashim under the leadership of the prophet's uncle Abu Talib protected the prophet. But after the death of the prophet's uncle and protector Abu Talib the pagan Quraish threatened to kill or exile the prophet.

During this period the prophet or the early Muslims were not a threat to th= e rest of Quraish society. Although the Quran threatened the pagans with hellfire in the afterlife the prophet and the early Muslims were peaceful and law (or custom) abiding citizens of Mecca. For example, although the Quran spoke very harshly against the pagan custom of female infanticide the Quran didn't urge Muslims to forcefully stop any pagan from practicing female infanticide.

The threat on the prophet's life is described in the following ayats:

Prophet Muhammad Mecca - Plotting against the Prophet

"And when those who disbelieve plot against thee (O Muhammad) to wound thee fatally, or to kill thee or to drive thee forth; they plot, but Allah (also) plotteth; and Allah is the best of plotters." - Qur'an 8:30

"[76] And they indeed wished to scare thee from the land that they might drive thee forth from thence, and then they would have stayed (there) but a little after thee. [77] (Such was Our) method in the case of those whom We sent before thee (to mankind), and thou wilt not find for Our method aught of power to change." - Qur'an 17:76-77

"And how many a township stronger than thy township (O Muhammad) which hath cast thee out, have We destroyed, and they had no helper!" - Qur'an 47:13

The Quran contains stories of prophets before Muhammad. The stories of these prophets show that the earlier prophets faced opposition similar to what prophet Muhammad faced. The stories of Noah, Hud, Shueyb Salih and Lot also show that the enemies of these earlier prophets threatened to drive out or kill the prophets as well.
Earlier prophets Noah, Hud, Shuyeb, Salih and Lot

Prophet Noah's tribe denied him and his call to ward off evil. Noah declared himself to be the messenger of Allah and a plain warner. Noah's tribe threatened him "If you cease not, Noah, you will surely be among those stoned to death."

Noah

"[105] Noah's folk denied the messengers (of Allah), [106] When their brother Noah said unto them: Will ye not ward off (evil)? [107] Lo! I am a faithful messenger unto you, [108] So keep your duty to Allah, and obey me. [...] [115] I am only a plain warner. [116] They said: If thou cease not, O Noah, thou wilt surely be among those stoned (to death)." - Qur'an 26:105-116

Prophet Shu'eyb called to his people in Midian. Shu'eyb called his tribe to serve Allah alone, to not defraud people. But his tribe denied him and his message to believe in Allah and to not commit fraud. At one point the leaders of his tribe threaten him "Surely we will drive you out, Shueyb, and those who believe with you, from our town, unless you return to our religion."

Shueyb

"[85] Midian (We sent) their brother, Shu'eyb. He said: O my people! Serve Allah. Ye have no other God save Him. Lo! a clear proof hath come unto you from your Lord; so give full measure and full weight and wrong not mankind in their goods, and work not confusion in the earth after the fair ordering thereof. That will be better for you, if ye are believers. [86] Lurk not on every road to threaten (wayfarers), and to turn away from Allah's path him who believeth in Him, and to seek to make it crooked. And remember, when ye were but few, how He did multiply you. And see the nature of the consequence for the corrupters! [87] And if there is a party of you which believeth in that wherewith I have been sent, and there is a party which believeth not, then have patience until Allah judge between us. He is the Best of all who deal in judgment. [88] The chieftains of his people, who were scornful, said: Surely we will drive thee out, O Shu'eyb, and those who believe with thee, from our township, unless ye return to our religion. He said: Even though we hate it?" - Qur'an 7:85-88

Allah sent Salih to his tribe Thamud. Salih called his people to worship Allah. His tribe denied the call of the prophet. Later a group of nine persons swore to attack him and his family by night.

Salih

"[45] And We verily sent unto Thamud their brother Salih, saying: Worship Allah. And lo! they (then became two parties quarrelling. [46] He said: O my people! Why will ye hasten on the evil rather than the good ? Why will ye not ask pardon of Allah, that ye may receive mercy. [47] They said: We augur evil of thee and those with thee. He said: Your evil augury is with Allah. Nay, but ye are folk that are being tested. [48] And there were in the city nine persons who made mischief in the land and reformed not. [49] They said: Swear one to another by Allah that we verily will attack him and his household by night, and afterward we will surely say unto his friend: We witnessed not the destruction of his household. And lo! we are truthtellers. [50] So they plotted a plot: and We plotted a plot, while they perceived not. [51] Then see the nature of the consequence of their plotting, for lo! We destroyed them and their people, every one." - Qur'an 27:45-51

Lot called on his people to give up their perverse sexual practice. His people denied the prophet and threatened to "Turn them out of your township".

Lot

"[80] And Lot! (Remember) when he said unto his folk: Will ye commit abomination such as no creature ever did before you ? [81] Lo! ye come with lust unto men instead of women. Nay, but ye are wanton folk. [82] And the answer of his people was only that they said (one to another): Turn them out of your township. They are folk, forsooth, who keep pure. [83] And We rescued him and his household, save his wife, who was of those who stayed behind. [84] And We rained a rain upon them. See now the nature of the consequence of evil-doers!" - Qur'an 7:80-84

Sura 14 ayat 11 to 13 describes an often repeated pattern of behavior described in the Quran. All prophets call peacefully to their to believe in Allah but the tribe becomes intolerant, they threaten to drive out the prophet unless they return to the religion of the tribe.

Prophets in general

"[11] Their messengers said unto them: We are but mortals like you, but Allah giveth grace unto whom He will of His slaves. It is not ours to bring you a warrant unless by the permission of Allah. In Allah let believers put their trust! [12] How should we not put our trust in Allah when He hath shown us our ways ? We surely will endure the hurt ye do us. In Allah let the trusting put their trust. [13] And those who disbelieved said unto their messengers: Verily we will drive you out from our land, unless ye return to our religion. Then their Lord inspired them, (saying): Verily we shall destroy the wrong-doers, [...]" - Qur'an 14:11-13

Saul, David and the Children of Israel - "Why should we not fight ... when we have been driven from our dwellings"

In the story of Saul, David and the Children of Israel we find a change in the often repeated Quran story. In the story of Saul, David and the Children of Israel we find that the Children of Israel have been driven out of their homes by Goliath. In the stories of Noah, Hud, Shueyb, Salih and Lot Allah intervenes and destroys the persecutors, but in the story of Saul, David and the Children of Israel, the persecuted Israelites fight back against the persecutor Goliath. The justification for war pronounced by the Children of Israel is "Why should we not fight in Allah's way when we have been driven from our dwellings ...?" Under the leadership of David the Children of Israel defeat Goliath. (these verses also show that the Jews are not the enemy of Islam, but more on this later)

Saul, David and the Children of Israel

"[246] Bethink thee of the leaders of the Children of Israel after Moses, how they said unto a prophet whom they had: Set up for us a king and we wil= l fight in Allah's way. He said: Would ye then refrain from fighting if fighting were prescribed for you ? They said: Why should we not fight in Allah's way when we have been driven from our dwellings with our children? Yet, when fighting was prescribed for them, they turned away, all save a few of them. Allah is aware of evil-doers. [...] [250] And when they went into the field against Goliath and his hosts they said: Our Lord! Bestow on us endurance, make our foothold sure, and give us help against the disbelieving folk. [251] So they routed them by Allah's leave and David slew Goliath; and Allah gave him the kingdom and wisdom, and taught him of that which He willeth. And if Allah had not repelled some men by others the earth would have been corrupted. But Allah is a Lord of Kindness to (His) creatures." - Qur'an 2:246-251

Justification for war against the Meccans

In Medinan verses the reason for the war against the Meccan Quraish echoes the call of the Children of Israel "Why should we not fight in Allah's way when we have been driven from our dwellings". As shown below almost all verses that urge Muslims to fight and kill disbelievers also refers to how the Muslims were driven out of Mecca. The reason for the war with the Meccans is not disbelief but intolerance, persecution and "driving out".

Ayats like the one below is very easy to misunderstand. The very first phrase "slay them wherever ye find them" and the last phrase "such is the reward of disbelievers" give the impression that the Quran is advocating the killing of all disbelievers. But the second phrase "drive them out of the places whence they drove you out" clearly supports the argument that the prophet and the Muslims fought the enemy disbelievers because they had driven the prophet out of Mecca. The third phrase "for persecution is worse than slaughter" points out that the Muslims fought back because they had been persecuted. Most likely "driving out" is the "persecution" that the ayat refers to. The later parts of the ayat "And fight not with them in the Inviolable Place of Worship until they first attack you there, but if they attack you (there) then slay them" - this shows that the Muslims abided by the pagan Arab and Muslim norm of non violence in the precinct of the Kaba. But that if the enemy disbelievers attacked Muslims here then the Muslims are asked to fight back as they had been attacked.

"And slay them wherever ye find them, and drive them out of the places whence they drove you out, for persecution is worse than slaughter. And fight not with them at the Inviolable Place of Worship until they first attack you there, but if they attack you (there) then slay them. Such is the reward of disbelievers." - Qur'an 2:191

In the below ayat one of the reasons for "warfare in the sacred month" is to fight those who "expel His people from thence" meaning expelling the Muslims from Mecca and the Kaaba. There are other reasons as well, the first phrase "to turn (men) from the way of Allah" - this may be related to the attempts of the enemy disbelievers to force Muslims to recant their faith. The second phrase "to disbelieve in Him and in the Inviolable Place of Worship" (Masjid ul Haram - Kaba) - this suggests that the war with the enemy disbelievers= is because of their lack of faith, but as I have shown through the discussion on Sirat Rasul Allah, the war could not have been due to lack of faith alone. The third phrase "for persecution is worse than killing" this phrase points out that Muslims fought back because they had been persecuted. The fourth phrase "they will not cease fighting against you till they have made you renegades from your religion, if they can" - this points to the intolerance of the enemy disbelievers towards Islam. According to the Quran the primary reason for the enemy disbelievers fighting was not to gain wealth, power, material goods or even security, they were fighting to force Muslims from Islam and thereby bring an end to Islam.

"They question thee (O Muhammad) with regard to warfare in the sacred month. Say: Warfare therein is a great (transgression), but to turn (men) from the way of Allah, and to disbelieve in Him and in the Inviolable Place of Worship, and to expel His people thence, is a greater with Allah; for persecution is worse than killing. And they will not cease from fighting against you till they have made you renegades from your religion, if they can. And whoso becometh a renegade and dieth in his disbelief: such are they whose works have fallen both in the world and the Hereafter. Such are rightful owners of the Fire: they will abide therein." - Qur'an 2:217

The ayat below challenges the Muslims to fight "Will ye not fight a folk who broke their solemn pledges, and purposed to drive out the messenger and did attack you first?" The justifications for war as follows: The first phrase "broke their solemn pledges" this may refer to the pledge of the tribe to protect its members. The greater Quraysh tribe reneged on its pledge to protect the prophet. The second phrase "purposed to drive out the messenger" this clearly refers to the enemy disbelievers forcing the prophet to leave Mecca. The third phrase "and did attack you first" I am not certain how and where but according to this ayat the Meccans first attacked the Muslims

"Will ye not fight a folk who broke their solemn pledges, and purposed to drive out the messenger and did attack you first ? What ! Fear ye them ? Now Allah hath more right that ye should fear Him, if ye are believers" - Qur'an 9:13

Here the Muslims are urged to fight and help the prophet in his battles against the Quraysh. "Allah helped him when those who disbelieve drove him forth, the second of two; when they two were in the cave, when he said unto his comrade: Grieve not. Lo! Allah is with us." - This ayat discusses the prophet fleeing from Mecca with Abu Bakr and hiding in the cave to escape the Meccans. This ayat clearly states "when those who disbelieve drove him forth" meaning that the prophet and Muslims were forced to migrate.

"[38] O ye who believe! What aileth you that when it is said unto you: Go forth in the way of Allah, ye are bowed down to the ground with heaviness. Take ye pleasure in the life of the world rather than in the Hereafter ? The comfort of the life of the world is but little in the Hereafter. [...] [40] If ye help him not, still Allah helped him when those who disbelieve drove him forth, the second of two; when they two were in the cave, when he said unto his comrade: Grieve not. Lo! Allah is with us. Then Allah caused His peace of reassurance to descend upon him and supported him with hosts ye cannot see, and made the word of those who disbelieved the nethermost, whil= e Allah's Word it was that became the uppermost. Allah is Mighty, Wise." - Qur'an 9:38-40

In the below ayats Allah declares, "Sanction is given unto those who fight because they have been wronged" clearly, the reason for war is not disbelief but the wrong committed by the enemy disbelievers. Fighting is justified for those who "have been driven from their homes unjustly only because they said: Our Lord is Allah" - this clearly defines the "wrong" mentioned earlier, and, that is the Muslims were driven from their homes unjustly.

" [39] Sanction is given unto those who fight because they have been wronged; and Allah is indeed Able to give them victory; [40] Those who have been driven from their homes unjustly only because they said: Our Lord is Allah - For had it not been for Allah's repelling some men by means of others, cloisters and churches and oratories and mosques, wherein the name of Allah is oft mentioned, would assuredly have been pulled down. Verily Allah helpeth one who helpeth Him. Lo! Allah is Strong, Almighty" - Qur'an 22:39-40

Below Muslims are warned not to choose enemy disbeliever for allies. The reason is the enemy disbeliever "driving out the messenger and you because ye believe in Allah". Often the ayats of the Quran will include two reasons together -"Do ye give them friendship when they disbelieve in that truth which hath come unto you, driving out the messenger and you because ye believe in Allah" - here the justification for war may be thought to be (1) "disbelieve in that truth which hath come unto you" and (2) "driving out the messenger and you because ye believe in Allah" - I would like to argue peaceful and tolerant disbelieve is not the reason for the fighting. The second ayat also describes the state of mind of the enemy disbelievers "If they have the upper hand of you, they will be your foes, and will stretch out their hands and their tongues toward you with evil (intent), and they long for you to disbelieve."

"[1] O ye who believe! Choose not My enemy and your enemy for allies. Do ye give them friendship when they disbelieve in that truth which hath come unto you, driving out the messenger and you because ye believe in Allah, your Lord ? If ye have come forth to strive in My way and seeking My good pleasure, (show them not friendship). Do ye show friendship unto them in secret, when I am Best Aware of what ye hide and what ye proclaim ? And whosoever doeth it among you, he verily hath strayed from the right way. [2] If they have the upper hand of you, they will be your foes, and will stretch out their hands and their tongues toward you with evil (intent), and they long for you to disbelieve." - Qur'an 6:1-2

The below ayat clearly makes a distinction between "those who warred not against you on account of religion and drove you not out from your homes" and the ayat clearly states "Allah forbiddeth you only those who warred against you on account of religion and have driven you out from your homes and helped to drive you out, that ye make friends of them". So the reason for the enmity is very clear and in this ayat the Quran makes the distinction between enemy disbelievers and neutral disbelievers.

"[8] Allah forbiddeth you not those who warred not against you on account of religion and drove you not out from your homes, that ye should show them kindness and deal justly with them. Lo! Allah loveth the just dealers. [9] Allah forbiddeth you only those who warred against you on account of religion and have driven you out from your homes and helped to drive you out, that ye make friends of them. Whosoever maketh friends of them - (All) such are wrong-doers." - Qur'an 6:8-9

The Quran is very careful about giving the reasons for war with the disbelievers in most places where war is mentioned.

Realizing the true definition of "enemy of Islam" that the Quran provides is essential for today's Muslim world. The combination of disbelief, intolerance, persecution and violence is not the dominant mode of thought in today's world. Western Democracies have learned from their own history the ills of intolerance and persecution and Democracies have built safeguards against intolerance and persecution deep into the foundation of their system of government.

These questions are specially relevant in today's world. In today's world the intolerance of the disbelieving Quraysh is no longer the dominant mode of thought. Liberal democracies are tolerant, within liberal democracies many different religions and world views coexist peacefully. Under this circumstance it does not make sense that Islam should continue to see the Islam and liberal democracies as warring forces.

Mr Reaz Islam is an IT professional from Dhaka, Bangladesh.

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Islamic Law: An Ever-Evolving Science Under The Light of Divine Revelation and Human Reason

Tue, 13 Apr 2010 13:39:00 GMT

by Havva G. Guney-Ruebenacker

It is a matter of fact that each era in human history has its own predominant logic and rational that manifests itself in the philosophy, culture, art and law of that era. Islamic law is not an exception. Islamic law is not a sacred nor a mystic science, but a human science that is produced and developed by people and influenced by the predominant culture and the rational of each era in the Islamic history. In this sense, it shares all the characteristics of other human sciences. In other words, the Qur'an is the last word of God to humanity until the end of human history, therefore its text is divine and immutable, while the interpretations of that text are human and subject for a constant change.

No legal system may exist nor survive without a basic philosophy, which feeds its growth and gives that legal system a certain horizon and a direction. All divine messages and books share the same basic philosophy and logic, yet differ in their methods of implementation and application of that essential philosophy to the ever-changing realities of human being.

As the last message of God to all humanity, the Qur'an, like all earlier divine messages, contains, first of all, a set of- what we call in law-basic principles, purposes and policies; and also a basic code of rights and duties. It is important to note that, the Qur'an is not a book of philosophy, science, politics nor a detailed law text. It is a book of faith and spiritual guidance at the first place. Fundamental faith issues, such as the cardinal principle of oneness of God, to believe in angels, all prophets of God, resurrection and the Day of Judgment are the major and the essential part of the Qur'an. Verses that are related to legal issues constitute a very small and minor part of the Qur'an. These highly concentrated legal verses render the Qur'an a condensed Constitution, and not a detailed law book.

The Qur'an deals with legal and social issues at a secondary level and only to the extent necessary to give some guide lines to pursue the higher principles, purposes and policies of divine revelation, called "Maqasid al-Shari'ah," such as protection of human life, human reason, offspring, right to property and freedom of speech. Any interpretation or approach to those Qur'anic verses that disregard the divine wisdom and the ultimate divine goals exist behind those legal rules would automatically become a superficial, rigid and unrealistic interpretation and would fail to serve the progress and prosperity of human being.

Although the ultimate divine goals and policies that are implicitly or explicitly mentioned in the Qur'an do not change, the best means and methods to achieve those goals may change according to the changing social, economic and political circumstances of people. Here comes the indispensable role of ijtihad (independent legal reasoning), a legal mechanism and a legal tool that has been one of the key factors of the development and evolution of Islamic law and Islamic civilization throughout history. The early Muslim jurists painstakingly worked to discover, under the light of the dominant wisdom and culture of their time, the divine wisdom and the rational behind the rules and laws that are mentioned in the Qur'an. They also constantly created legal doctrines, theories and mechanisms that suited the particular conditions of their own time and served the adoption of the divine principles and policies.

The issue of testimony is a good example to illuminate this aspect of Islamic law. Contrary to the common misconception, the testimony of women is not less reliable than the testimony of men in the Qur'an. According to the Qur'an, the criterion in choosing and accepting testimony at the Courts is the "expertise" and the "righteousness", not gender, race and social class of witnesses. In all verses about testimony no reference to gender is made, but only the required number of witnesses for the validity of testimony is mentioned. (5:106 when writing the will; 24:4 to prove the commitment of the crime of adultery; 24:6-9 when one of the mates is the only witness to the crime of adultery of his or her partner.)

"O you who believe! call to witness between you when death draws nigh to one of you, at the time of making the will, two just persons from among you, or two others from among others than you, if you are traveling in the land and the calamity of death befalls you." (5:106)

"And those who accuse honorable women but bring no four witnesses (to support their allegations),- flog them with eighty stripes." (24:4)

"And as for those who accuse their own wives [of adultery], but have no witnesses except themthese [accusers] call God four times to witness that he is indeed telling the truth, and the fifth time, that God's curse be upon him if he is telling a lie. But [as for the wife, all] chastisement shall be averted from her by her calling God four times to witness that he is indeed telling a lie, and the fifth [time], that God's curse be upon her if he is telling the truth." (24:6-9)

[As Muhammad Asad explains in his The Message of the Qur'an, that this procedural rule in case of slander among spouses "leaves the question of guilt legally undecided, both parties are absolved of all the legal consequences otherwise attending upon adultery - resp. an unproven accusation of adultery - the only consequence being a mandatory divorce."]

There is nothing in the first and the second examples that can support the claim as to the superiority of men's testimony on that of women. It is a basic linguistic fact of the Arabic language, and also an accepted premise by all classic scholars of Islam, that when the address is a masculine one, it is considered to be a general address that addresses both men and women, unless otherwise is explicitly mentioned. In the third example, for instance, the equal legal value of their testimony is even explicitly emphasized.

The only verse, in which the gender of witnesses is mentioned as a factor to determine the number of witnesses, is the verse on the issue of debt:

"You who believe, whenever you contract a debt for a stated period, write it down. Let some literate person write [what goes on] between you properly......If the borrower is feeble-minded or incapacitated or cannot manage to dictate himself, then let his guardian dictate it in all fairness, and seek out two witnesses from among your men-folk to act as witnesses. If there are not two men [available], then one man and two women [may serve] as witnesses from anyone you may approve of, so that if either of them should slip up, then the other woman may remind the other." (2:282)

This is different than the other verses that were revealed on the same issue of testimony. While the other verses make no reference to gender as a criterion in choosing witnesses, this verse explicitly states that factor. Why? Is there a contradiction in God's message? Of course not. We should seek the reason of this difference in the subject matter of the occasion that needs testimony. The rational of this difference is actually mentioned in the very verse itself,

"so that if either of them should slip up, then the other woman may remind the other."

This is a conditional phrase for a specific issue, meaning that, if there is a fear that one of the female witnesses may not have the required expertise and qualifications to testify on the issue of debt, then her testimony might be supported by another woman. But if there is no such fear and possibility, then the general rule applies, which is gender neutral. Having taken into consideration all the related verses on the issue of testimony from a larger and a coherent perspective, it is easy to notice that, while all the other verses establish the basic and the general rule of testimony that is applicable in all circumstances, this specific verse gives the exceptional rule that is applicable only in the specific relevant context, provided that the specific conditions of the exceptional rule exist. Otherwise, the general rule would apply.

The reason for this difference between male and female witnesses in this particular issue is neither the "natural deficiency" nor the "mental or moral inferiority" of women to men. Otherwise, the same gender difference should have mentioned in the other verses about testimony as well. It is the nature of this specific issue that makes the difference.

At the time of the revelation, women of that era, save some exceptions, were not actively and extensively involved in economic affairs in their societies. Not to mention the fact that the rate of illiteracy among women was far higher than that of men at that time. Therefore, they lacked the required expertise on economic issues. People also were extremely reluctant to leave their economic relations and transactions to be influenced by women, whose professional abilities on economic affairs were highly doubted. So, instead of a total exclusion of women from giving testimony on economic affairs, the Divine Legislator suggests another way that would not exclude women, on a contrary would encourage their gradual involvement in economic affairs, and also would not disturb the required clarity and accuracy of the economic transactions.

As a result, in case that the expertise of a given female witness in an economic or a financial case is suspected, the exceptional rule applies, so that her testimony does not become invalidated, instead it is corroborated by a second testimony. If there is no such doubt, then the general gender neutral rule of testimony applies.

If the social, economic and cultural circumstances of the society changes, so that the social and educational gap between genders becomes closer, then the Muslim legislative authority may render the general gender neutral rule of testimony the only applicable rule for all cases, regardless the subject matter of the cases, and annul the exceptional rule-- a result that has been the ultimate goal and policy of the Divine Legislator as all the relevant verses on the issue of testimony inevitably indicate. While the general rule of testimony is the most desirable one for progressed societies, the exceptional rule is made for societies, whose social and cultural realities still do not reach the desirable level. The Qur'an enjoins people to adopt the idealist goals and principles of the divine message through realistic, gradual methods and conscious policies that acknowledge the deficiencies of human societies and social realities of people, and also endeavors to find the best means to cure and improve those deficiencies and undesirable realities.

This is one of the unique aspects of the Qur'an. The flexible language of the Qur'anic text makes its rules and principles adoptable in all various cultural and social circumstances, and in all different eras of the evolution of human intellect. A rigid text, obviously, could not be a universal one.

If the general Qur'anic rule was that testimony of women equals that of men, then women should have been commanded, in 24:6-9, to take an oath for eight times, and not only four times like men, to refuse the accusation of adultery made by their spouses. But we know that this is not the case and that the text of the Qur'an is unequivocal about the equality of testimony of men and women in the case of slander.

If the main Qur'anic rules of testimony are based on equality of men and women, then where did the inequality of women's testimony come from? This inequality is based on the opinions of classic scholars of Islamic law, and not on the Qur'an. Under the impact of the widely shared premises of their time about women's mental inferiority to men, our classic scholars generalized the exceptional narrow rule mentioned in 2:282 and wrongly rendered it the default rule for all criminal and civil law cases [1]. Moreover, even though the equal value of men and women's testimony is clearly established in the text of verses on the crime of slander in 24:6-9, classic scholars not only rendered the value of women's testimony to be half that of men, but they also categorically disqualified women from giving any testimony in all major criminal law cases, such as murder, theft and adultery. Obviously, these discriminatory classic opinions would not have survived and implemented without the acceptance of women themselves. There is no recorded objection by women to these legal opinions of classic scholars until the nineteenth-century.

Islamic law is a very sophisticated legal science and it has, like all other legal disciplines, very close ties with all other human sciences such as philosophy, sociology, theology, history and linguistics. Literal and formalistic readings of a sophisticated text such as the Qur'an, cannot penetrate to all existing various layers of this rich divine message and cannot grasp the spirit and the essence of that message. The Qur'anic exegesis that read the text from a shallow and a narrow perspective, and only from the point of view of a particular cultural context or a certain historical period would inevitably become imprisoned within that particular culture and time and would become out of use very soon.

Therefore, the earlier Muslim jurists were receiving a good education about all the other significant human sciences of their time and were constantly creating new doctrines and legal theories in order to adopt the divine law to the changing realities or human life. However, it is undeniable fact that, since most of the jurists have traditionally been men, and those jurists were, in a way or another, were influenced by the predominant culture and logic of their own time, the interpretations of the Qur'anic text have inevitably been a reflection of the male voice and the dominant culture of the pre-modern era. There is nothing wrong with studying and benefiting, to the extent possible, from the painstaking work and heritage of the earlier legal authorities. The common mistake of today's Muslims is to halt the evolution of Islamic law at this point and sanctify Islamic law as a sacred and unchangeable knowledge, forgetting the fact that Islamic law, like any other legal system in the world, is a human science and a product of the human intellect, notwithstanding its divine source of inspiration.

Fortunately, there is an increasing awareness among Muslims to these points. Dr. Muhammad Shahrour, a contemporary Muslim scholar, for instance, has developed a "theory of limits" to be adopted to the Quranic verses on legal issues. It is a very complicated legal theory, which I will refrain from a full explanation here. However, to summarize it briefly, its basic idea is that the legal rules that are mentioned in the Qur'an are, as the Qur'an itself explicitly states, "limits" and the "boundaries" (hudud), which we should not step beyond them. Yet Dr. Shahrour classifies those limits to two categories: the maximum limits and the minimum limits.

Death penalty, for instance, is the maximum possible penalty that could be given to a murderer. This establishes the principle of individuality of penalty and annuls the collective punishment that was practiced in earlier societies. Yet, this does not mean that a less severe punishment cannot be issued. The legislator cannot exceed the maximum limit set up by the Qur'an, yet he may legislate below that limit according to the existing circumstances and the general interest of the society.

As an example of a civil law matter, the share of woman from the inheritance of her parents, which is less than that of her brother under some circumstance, as defined in the Qur'an is the minimum share that can be given to a woman, meaning that any share issued to women should not fall below this minimum limits under any circumstance, yet the legislative authority may determine more for women to the extent that is consistent with the changing economic and social roles and responsibilities of women in a given society.

In result, any human legislation that does not contradict these wide maximum and minimum divine limits set up in the Qur'an would be completely permissible [2].

Throughout Islamic history, Muslim scholars interpreted the Qur'anic verses under the light of the dominant cultural values and concepts of their time and also the socio-economic realities of their societies. Since mental inferiority of women was a generally accepted premise in all over the pre-modern world and women's presence in political, social, economic and intellectual areas of life was relatively less visible than that of men, Qur'anic verses on legal issues were interpreted by our classic scholars under the influence of social realities of women and the widely shared gender premises of the time which were not seriously questioned until the nineteenth-century. Their interpretations worked well for their own circumstances and were sufficient to establish justice within the conceptual framework and world view which shaped the concept of justice in their own culture and in accordance with the roles played by men and women in their own society. It is the task of contemporary Muslim jurists to continue the legacy of classic Muslim scholars and the evolution of Islamic legal system by producing legal theories and principles from the Qur'an under the light of new human values and moral premises widely shared in today's world and in accordance with the higher universal principles of the Qur'anic message and the Prophetic teachings.

Footnotes:

[1] In cases where usually women are present and men are barred either culturally or legally from being present, such as cases of birth, fosterage and examination of virginity of women, some classic scholars regarded the testimony of one woman to be sufficient. This opinion is not indicative of scholars' belief in the principle of equality of women vis-en, but rather is an exceptional rule based on the principle of necessity applied in very few occasions where men due to the nature of the situation cannot be present or rarely are present.

[2] More explanation can be found at Dr. Shahrour's official site, http://www.shahrour.org/, and his book, al-Kitab wa al-Qur'an. Also, a brief explanation in English can be found at http://www.islam21.net/pages/keyissues/key2-10.htm

Mrs. Havva G. Guney-Ruebenacker is an S.J.D candidate at Harvard Law School. Her thesis is a comparative research of theories of legal change in Islamic and western jurisprudence, reviewing the nineteenth-century codification and legal reformation movements in Islamic world, especially in the area of family law and women rights. She studied Islamic law in Saudi Arabia and Iran, and European Law at University of Cambridge. She worked as a researcher at such human rights institutions as the European Court of Human Rights and the International Commission of Jurists. She can be reached at hguney@law.harvard.edu

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What is briefly written in the Qur'an

Tue, 06 Apr 2010 11:11:00 GMT

The Qur’an presents

A living and Lasting God (2:256)

The Lord of all creation (1:2)

The Gracious, the Merciful (1:3)

The Almighty (29:43)

All-hearing, all-knowing (5:77)

The Wise (34:2)

The Forgiving (34:3)

The Bountiful (27:41)

The Loving (11:91)

More...