By Salman Ahmed Shaikh
(An extract)
Introduction
Postmodernism refers to a cultural, intellectual, and artistic state lacking a clear central hierarchy or organizing principle. It embodies extreme complexity, contradiction, ambiguity and diversity. It is a reaction to modernism, but it is not a different ideology from modernism in every sense. It is critical of few ideas of modernism and it proposes emancipation from oppression manifested in culture, language, laws, customs, religion etc. Eclecticism and freedom of expression, in reaction to the rigidity and aesthetic limitations of modernism, are the hallmarks of the postmodern thought.
Deconstruction is a term which is used to denote the application of postmodern ideas of criticism, or theory, to a "text" or "artifact". A deconstruction is meant to undermine the frame of reference and assumptions that underpin the text. Postmodernism philosophy is also critical of Enlightenment universals.
Postmodernism philosophy asserts truth doesn't exist in any objective sense but is created rather than discovered.” The postmodernists have given a new secular trinity of tolerance–diversity–choice.
Post Modernism ideas appear to have been conducive to, and strongly associated with, the feminist movement, racial equality movements, gay rights movements and even the peace movement, as well as various hybrids of these in the current anti-globalization movement.
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History does not give us a regular pattern of human struggle towards a just and fair political, social and economic setup as described by Marx. Kant also did not tell when we will be able to say that we are living in an enlightened age. These views of Marx and Kant were more relevant to Europe only. (On the other hand,) the Muslim world provided a socially, economically and politically just system to the world for at least 50 years in the rule of Caliphates. In the period after caliphates too, Muslim world provided (to the Dark ages) most things Kant asked for in an enlightened age.
However, one clear difference has to be appreciated between Muslims and Islam. Most of the laws in Christianity were mainly developed by humans themselves like St. Paul. Therefore, when thinkers of 15th century and afterwards criticized the church and the clergy, their criticism was also on religion and it was justified as the Christianity and the Clergy were the one and the same thing.
This is not the case with Islam and Muslims. Islam was not invented or created by Muhammad (P.B.U.H). It was the message of God as was Christianity with the difference that the divinity of Christianity was obscured and later modified by Christians. Islam as a message of God remained pure. However, Muslims as all other human beings have not been and are not perfect in their acts and systems. But, the acts of Muslims can not said to be representative of what Islam is as Islam was not invented by Muslims.
Therefore, a distinction is to be made between the Muslims and Islam. Muslims may or maybe acting truly on Islam and hence their actions do not determine what Islam is. When we study the ‘Pure Islam’, we will find that there is not a single thing in Islam that is irrational or unjust. In the following lines, I will just give the brief highlights of Islamic teachings which may or may not be truly present or found in Muslim world as Islam is the word of God and not how Muslims act and lead their lives.
The Building Blocks of Islamic Philosophy and Teachings which are viewed as most controversial and misunderstood dare briefly summarized hereunder:
1. Islam gives the following right to women:
a. Muslim women must educate themselves.
b. Choose an occupation and earn their livelihood
c. Own a property.
d. Choose their husbands and right to separate from their husbands.
e. Entitlement to ‘Mehr’ (wealth at the start of marriage), ‘wirasat’ (wealth at the death of husband, children or father).
f. Islam does not make it obligatory on women to earn for their family. However, they can earn for the family and yet they are not obliged to spend their earnings on the family. However, men are obliged to spend their earnings on the family and they are made responsible for earning the livelihood for their children and wives.
g. Mother must be respected three times more than the father.
h. No man is allowed to have extra-marital relationships with other women.
i. Adultery is a severe crime in Islam.
2. Islam gives following rights to non-Muslims:
a. Non-Muslims can worship at their worship places.
b. No non-Muslim can be forcibly converted to Islam.
c. Muslims believe in all Prophets sent by God including Moses and Christ.
3. Islam’s concept of Jihad
a. Holy Quran says that Jihad can only be for the sake of eliminating injustice.
b. It is not q fight against non-Muslims. It is fight against injustice.
c. It can only be undertaken as a last resort to eliminating injustice.
d. It can only be undertaken by the government and not by the community on its own.
e. In all great battles of Badr, Uhud, Ihzab etc., Muslims in the leadership of Prophet Muhammad (P.B.U.H) fought a defensive war as the war was imposed on Muslims.
f. Jihad can not be for the expansion of the state, against innocents, against noncombatants, against the contract of peace if it has been signed and it can not be sudden and unannounced. So, suicide bombing against civilians is unislamic.
4. Islam concept of equality:
a. All men are equal. No white has superiority over a black.
b. Only Piety and Righteousness are the attributes that will distinguish us before God.
c. No rich has superiority over a poor.
d. All men should have equal chance to earn their livelihood.
e. Interest which results in concentration of wealth is prohibited.
Responding to Post Modernism: The Islamic Perspective
1. Knowledge was the main reason why Muslims fared so well in history for almost a millennium. Knowledge is the basis of progress. Greek philosophers regarded Knowledge as virtue. Similarly, the west also took lead from east with progress in knowledge. By knowledge, I mean not only the knowledge of religion and its related fields, but also the knowledge in sciences including social and technical sciences.
2. Ijtihad was an important element in Islamic world in heydays. It kept Muslims updated and pace with the world. The decline in Muslim civilization resulted from refraining from Ijtihad later on.
3. Freedom of expression is necessary in Muslim societies to pave the way of Ijtihad. In revitalizing the process of Ijtihad, not only the Muslims scholars begiven the chance to contribute, but the philosophers and experts of material sciences be given a chance to contribute in Ijtihad.
4. The institution of Family system is the basis of the social order in Muslim society. Muslims should not lose it at any cost.
5. Muslims should relate their philosophies with philosophies like Humanism, Liberalism, Democracy and show that they are in line with Islamic teachings and hence Islam is not opposed to liberty, human rights, women rights, minority rights, etc.
6. The economic teachings of Islam in a period when late capitalism is weakening can provide an alternative system to the world economy.
7. Extremism as a matter of principle be avoided and non-violence should be the strategy in domestic and international politics.
8. West has made trade blocs to unite and gain from synergy. Muslims should also need to be on one platform so that if future gives them the opportunity to give a new system, they can offer the Revitalized and Restructured Islamic thought from one platform.
Monday, October 4, 2010
Friday, September 3, 2010
Postmodernism and "the Other"
Postmodernism and the Other
The New Imperialism of Western Culture
Reviewed By Joanne McEwan
Author : Ziauddin Sardar
Publisher : Pluto Press, London, 1998
Pages : 345
Postmodernism is one of the most difficult subjects to define and probably the most overplayed at that. With the multitude of academics from different disciplines contributing to the discourse it can be a dry and tediously deep subject.
Sardar, however, presents its definition in plain English. Not only that, he directly exposes postmodernism for what it really is and what it means to those of the non-west (the Other) it claims to champion.
Sardar states the principles of postmodernism clearly.
The first is that truth is relative, where fiction and narrative provide a better diction on human behavior than religion, philosophy and theory.
The second principle is the denial of reality where we see what we want to see.
The third is that the world is simulated into imagery and representations rather than a world that is real and tangible.
On this point Sardar states, “This means that the world has been transformed into a theatre where everything is artificially constructed. Politics is a stage-managed for mass consumption. Television documentaries are transformed and presented as entertainment. Journalism blurs the distinction between fact and fiction. Living individuals become characters in soap operas and fictional characters assume real lives. Everything happens instantaneously and everybody gets a live feed on everything that is happening in the global theatre.” (p. 23)
The fourth and fifth principles are life has no meaning and everything is doubtful which naturally follow from the previous three.
The fifth and last is that postmodernism is concerned with the multiplicity of everything. All differences are welcomed and privilege is replaced with equality in race, class, gender, ethnicity, religion, and sexual orientation.
The effect of these principles on the non-west is shown to be negative and threatening. The fifth principle, although appearing to be positive in concept, in reality, reeks with duplicity and hypocrisy.
Sardar removes these principles from the constraints of academia, and brings them all to life in vivid examples from international politics, film, literature, consumer lifestyle, popular culture, science and religion. Catchy and somewhat satirical headings make it lighter reading.
In the chapter “A Grand Memory for Forgetting” Sardar shows how history has been restructured to the tastes of postmodernism. Taking Disney's animated film Pocahontas as an example, he describes how the film is very different from the true story. This is not the first time we have heard this from critics but Sardar takes the discussion further.
He identifies the hints of the colonialist and orientalist past forming a film that stands for nothing more than white supremism. In approximately 40 pages Sardar analyses this film and the related historic content.
For example, he says, notice also how in the role of Pocahontas, the Native American girl, is meaningless until she has a white man to save from savages. Also, unlike any other Disney film, the animals don't talk to the human being, in this case Pocahontas. This realistic touch has added to a sense of ‘truth' in the tale.
Despite the common errors in the story, Disney is at the same accurate in many other aspects – for example, John Smith's compass and Pocahontas cart-wheeling around (historic records state these particular incidents, among others).
As Sardar surmises, “Their magical confabulation makes it possible to revisit history in a new, improved fashion, simultaneously it makes it more difficult to disentangle the mythical refashioning from recorded history and both confidence tricks operate to distract attention from the main import of the exercise…” (p. 92)
The images from this film are now fixated on the minds of children to the extent that the fairytale has become fact and the true story has become a myth.
Consumer lifestyle, which so dominates our lives, is discussed in the chapter “Recycling Shampoo.” In true postmodern fashion, the west absorbs the identity of the ‘Other' through consumerism in both the west and non-west.
Take a walk down the city high street in any western town and observe how the non-west is fashioned to the tastes of consumers. In the U.K. and the U.S. you will find the colonial past romanticized and glorified through cool, cotton, casual clothing in shops like Banana Republic, Safari Clothing, East India Company and British India. All sell merchandise that suggests an aura of nostalgia for the imperialist, triumphant past rather than a whiff of disgust for its barbarism.
The Body Shop is another example of postmodern hype. It exists solely from appropriating the products and experiences of cultures of the non-west. Its creams, oils and lotions are cleverly marketed as natural, ethnic and exotic with the help of the minimal packaging and short descriptions of their origins.
Now they have found their way ‘back' to non-western countries. But, as Sardar says, “it is when these products are exported back to the Third World that they lose their innocence. When Body Shop products arrive in a non-western country, they are no more natural than any other processed commodity. They have the cachet of a western product and are consumed by the natives as such: the inferiority of the indigenous product becomes worthy of consumption by the locals only when it is refined by the west is further entrenched.” (p. 125)
The non-west is a growing market with their proliferation in a youthful population compared to the diminishing youth in the west. Unlike during the modern period, where the Third World was told just to buy, in the postmodern period they are told to buy and change their culture. The Marlboro Man is an example, which not only sells a product western doctors have proven to be detrimental to one's health, but sells the complete get-up and image that goes along with it: the cowboy look with that distinct coolness.
Postmodernism's affect on the ‘Other' has a bleak prognosis. One can hardly imagine there is much of a cure. But what adds to the appeal of this book is the last chapter, “Surviving Postmodernism,” in which Sardar offers modest and positive conceptual ways for those of the non-west to counter this force.
He states that from the perspective of the non-western cultures, surviving postmodernism means moving towards tradition. This is apposed to traditionalism.
Tradition is, according to Sardar, changeable and proactive, whereas traditionalism is passive, rigid and reactionary. Sardar indicates the knee-jerk type reaction of movements (although he doesn't give any examples) that dwell on the past and hold fast to rules and regulations that are no longer appropriate.
This concept of turning to tradition to quell the wave of postmodernism is further explained with reference to the poetry and philosophy of Muhammad Iqbal on the Islamic concept of fitrah or innate nature.
This is unlike postmodernism where the individual's ego takes center stage. Says Sardar, “The notion of fitrah is the antithesis of western individualism, not because it denies individual freedom, personality, identity and responsibility – all these are basic ideas fundamental to an Islamic outlook – but because in the Islamic purview the individual is only conceivable within a web of essential relationships wherein their individuality is neither dominant nor the only significant consideration if the person is to be true to his or her innate nature.” (p. 275)
Sardar states that, according to Iqbal, a community can only be self-aware if it holds on to its memory, tradition and living history. Despite its Islamic roots this concept can be applied to non-Muslim cultures of the non-west.
Sardar also suggests the need for cultural autonomy and authenticity that should not be drowned by the dominant western culture that is over-shadowing the non-west today.
Lastly, the author suggests that the affected cultures and countries have to be aware and admit to the darker side of their past. The non-west has cultures that are valuable enough to hold on to, but there are aspects from the political to the social, that need to be addressed. And it is through self-assessment that they can improve and achieve.
Postmodernism and the ‘Other' is an immense read. It is packed with anecdotes and analogies referring to everyday life in the western or non-western world. Throughout the book, it is difficult not be appalled at the injustices and moral relativism of postmodernism.
As a Muslim academic, author and editor of some well-respected books on Islam, one can sense Sardar's convictions to Islamic thought; meanwhile appreciate his objectivity and interest in non-Muslim cultures, and other religions. The sections on the plight on the Native Americans and Aboriginals are good examples.
What is also impressive is the author's extensive knowledge on just about every discipline from popular culture to religion to the annals of science. Sardar's discourse is bold, polemic and objective: he doesn't mince his words. A trip to the Body Shop, or anything of similar import will never be the same again.
http://discover.islamonline.net/servlet/Satellite?c=Article_C&cid=1153698300038&pagename=Zone-English-Discover_Islam%2FDIELayout#ixzz0y8XMgql6
The New Imperialism of Western Culture
Reviewed By Joanne McEwan
Author : Ziauddin Sardar
Publisher : Pluto Press, London, 1998
Pages : 345
Postmodernism is one of the most difficult subjects to define and probably the most overplayed at that. With the multitude of academics from different disciplines contributing to the discourse it can be a dry and tediously deep subject.
Sardar, however, presents its definition in plain English. Not only that, he directly exposes postmodernism for what it really is and what it means to those of the non-west (the Other) it claims to champion.
Sardar states the principles of postmodernism clearly.
The first is that truth is relative, where fiction and narrative provide a better diction on human behavior than religion, philosophy and theory.
The second principle is the denial of reality where we see what we want to see.
The third is that the world is simulated into imagery and representations rather than a world that is real and tangible.
On this point Sardar states, “This means that the world has been transformed into a theatre where everything is artificially constructed. Politics is a stage-managed for mass consumption. Television documentaries are transformed and presented as entertainment. Journalism blurs the distinction between fact and fiction. Living individuals become characters in soap operas and fictional characters assume real lives. Everything happens instantaneously and everybody gets a live feed on everything that is happening in the global theatre.” (p. 23)
The fourth and fifth principles are life has no meaning and everything is doubtful which naturally follow from the previous three.
The fifth and last is that postmodernism is concerned with the multiplicity of everything. All differences are welcomed and privilege is replaced with equality in race, class, gender, ethnicity, religion, and sexual orientation.
The effect of these principles on the non-west is shown to be negative and threatening. The fifth principle, although appearing to be positive in concept, in reality, reeks with duplicity and hypocrisy.
Sardar removes these principles from the constraints of academia, and brings them all to life in vivid examples from international politics, film, literature, consumer lifestyle, popular culture, science and religion. Catchy and somewhat satirical headings make it lighter reading.
In the chapter “A Grand Memory for Forgetting” Sardar shows how history has been restructured to the tastes of postmodernism. Taking Disney's animated film Pocahontas as an example, he describes how the film is very different from the true story. This is not the first time we have heard this from critics but Sardar takes the discussion further.
He identifies the hints of the colonialist and orientalist past forming a film that stands for nothing more than white supremism. In approximately 40 pages Sardar analyses this film and the related historic content.
For example, he says, notice also how in the role of Pocahontas, the Native American girl, is meaningless until she has a white man to save from savages. Also, unlike any other Disney film, the animals don't talk to the human being, in this case Pocahontas. This realistic touch has added to a sense of ‘truth' in the tale.
Despite the common errors in the story, Disney is at the same accurate in many other aspects – for example, John Smith's compass and Pocahontas cart-wheeling around (historic records state these particular incidents, among others).
As Sardar surmises, “Their magical confabulation makes it possible to revisit history in a new, improved fashion, simultaneously it makes it more difficult to disentangle the mythical refashioning from recorded history and both confidence tricks operate to distract attention from the main import of the exercise…” (p. 92)
The images from this film are now fixated on the minds of children to the extent that the fairytale has become fact and the true story has become a myth.
Consumer lifestyle, which so dominates our lives, is discussed in the chapter “Recycling Shampoo.” In true postmodern fashion, the west absorbs the identity of the ‘Other' through consumerism in both the west and non-west.
Take a walk down the city high street in any western town and observe how the non-west is fashioned to the tastes of consumers. In the U.K. and the U.S. you will find the colonial past romanticized and glorified through cool, cotton, casual clothing in shops like Banana Republic, Safari Clothing, East India Company and British India. All sell merchandise that suggests an aura of nostalgia for the imperialist, triumphant past rather than a whiff of disgust for its barbarism.
The Body Shop is another example of postmodern hype. It exists solely from appropriating the products and experiences of cultures of the non-west. Its creams, oils and lotions are cleverly marketed as natural, ethnic and exotic with the help of the minimal packaging and short descriptions of their origins.
Now they have found their way ‘back' to non-western countries. But, as Sardar says, “it is when these products are exported back to the Third World that they lose their innocence. When Body Shop products arrive in a non-western country, they are no more natural than any other processed commodity. They have the cachet of a western product and are consumed by the natives as such: the inferiority of the indigenous product becomes worthy of consumption by the locals only when it is refined by the west is further entrenched.” (p. 125)
The non-west is a growing market with their proliferation in a youthful population compared to the diminishing youth in the west. Unlike during the modern period, where the Third World was told just to buy, in the postmodern period they are told to buy and change their culture. The Marlboro Man is an example, which not only sells a product western doctors have proven to be detrimental to one's health, but sells the complete get-up and image that goes along with it: the cowboy look with that distinct coolness.
Postmodernism's affect on the ‘Other' has a bleak prognosis. One can hardly imagine there is much of a cure. But what adds to the appeal of this book is the last chapter, “Surviving Postmodernism,” in which Sardar offers modest and positive conceptual ways for those of the non-west to counter this force.
He states that from the perspective of the non-western cultures, surviving postmodernism means moving towards tradition. This is apposed to traditionalism.
Tradition is, according to Sardar, changeable and proactive, whereas traditionalism is passive, rigid and reactionary. Sardar indicates the knee-jerk type reaction of movements (although he doesn't give any examples) that dwell on the past and hold fast to rules and regulations that are no longer appropriate.
This concept of turning to tradition to quell the wave of postmodernism is further explained with reference to the poetry and philosophy of Muhammad Iqbal on the Islamic concept of fitrah or innate nature.
This is unlike postmodernism where the individual's ego takes center stage. Says Sardar, “The notion of fitrah is the antithesis of western individualism, not because it denies individual freedom, personality, identity and responsibility – all these are basic ideas fundamental to an Islamic outlook – but because in the Islamic purview the individual is only conceivable within a web of essential relationships wherein their individuality is neither dominant nor the only significant consideration if the person is to be true to his or her innate nature.” (p. 275)
Sardar states that, according to Iqbal, a community can only be self-aware if it holds on to its memory, tradition and living history. Despite its Islamic roots this concept can be applied to non-Muslim cultures of the non-west.
Sardar also suggests the need for cultural autonomy and authenticity that should not be drowned by the dominant western culture that is over-shadowing the non-west today.
Lastly, the author suggests that the affected cultures and countries have to be aware and admit to the darker side of their past. The non-west has cultures that are valuable enough to hold on to, but there are aspects from the political to the social, that need to be addressed. And it is through self-assessment that they can improve and achieve.
Postmodernism and the ‘Other' is an immense read. It is packed with anecdotes and analogies referring to everyday life in the western or non-western world. Throughout the book, it is difficult not be appalled at the injustices and moral relativism of postmodernism.
As a Muslim academic, author and editor of some well-respected books on Islam, one can sense Sardar's convictions to Islamic thought; meanwhile appreciate his objectivity and interest in non-Muslim cultures, and other religions. The sections on the plight on the Native Americans and Aboriginals are good examples.
What is also impressive is the author's extensive knowledge on just about every discipline from popular culture to religion to the annals of science. Sardar's discourse is bold, polemic and objective: he doesn't mince his words. A trip to the Body Shop, or anything of similar import will never be the same again.
http://discover.islamonline.net/servlet/Satellite?c=Article_C&cid=1153698300038&pagename=Zone-English-Discover_Islam%2FDIELayout#ixzz0y8XMgql6
Wednesday, August 4, 2010
Islam, Muslims and Multiculturalism
Islam, Muslims and Multiculturalism: Conference Report
Yoginder Sikand
Much has been written about conflicts involving religious communities across the world by journalists, academics and security ‘experts’. Although these conflicts have local roots, and owe to a host of causes, some locally-specific, others regional and even global, a common factor that links all of them are supremacist notions of the religious ‘self’ and, associated with these, negative images of the religious ‘other’ that are deeply-rooted in dominant understandings of religion. Efforts to resolve these conflicts must, some time or the other, necessarily address head-on the notion of the ‘other’ in religious thought, to critique understandings that brand all non-believers as ‘enemies’ and dismiss their faiths as of no worth at all. This critique needs to go hand-in-hand with efforts to promote more positive understandings of the religious ‘other’ and of other faith traditions and belief systems. In short, while most conflicts involving people of different religious communities are rooted in political and economic factors, they cannot be reduced entirely to them. The crucial role that negative, exclusivist, intolerant and supremacist understandings of religion and the religious ‘other’ play in creating and in fanning these conflicts cannot be denied.
That, in short, was what I learnt at a conference in Singapore that I recently participated in. Organised by the official Islamic council of Singapore, the Majlis Ugama Islam Singapore (MUIS), the conference brought together several dozen academics and activists, Muslims as well as others, from across the world to deliberate on the vexed issue of Islam, Muslims and multiculturalism in our globalised world.
‘Islam is not simply about Muslims alone,’ stressed the well-known Oxford-based Islamic scholar Tariq Ramadan in his opening remarks. ‘Rather, it is about us and others working together constructing our common future. We need to dialogue—not just to talk to the other but also to listen to the other and to learn from the other.’ And, he went on, it was not enough just for Muslims and others to talk and listen to each other, but it was also necessary to be open to the possibility of changing and growing as a result of being in dialogic conversation with each other.
That inspiring message was echoed by Ustad Fatris Bakaram, Deputy Mufti of Singapore, who pointed out that multiculturalism was by no means a new experience for Muslims. Medina, where the Prophet and his companions shifted from Mecca, was a thriving multicultural and multi-religious society, as was Christian-ruled Abysinnia, where the Prophet instructed several of his companions to seek shelter, and where, for the first time, Muslims were able to practice their faith free from oppression. Critiquing the claims of radical Islamists (who are, of course, not known for any but the most stern views about non-Muslims and their religions), the Ustaz argued that the intention of the Prophet in migrating to Medina was not to set up ‘Islamic rule’ or Islamic political supremacy, as is often claimed. Rather, it was simply to seek a place where Muslims could practice their faith freely. It was thus wholly erroneous to argue, as Islamists do, the Ustaz explained, that only in an ‘Islamic state’, ruled according to shariah laws, and where Muslims were politically dominant, could Muslims willingly accept multiculturalism.
‘Muslims must learn to live with, and relate to, others amicably,’ the Ustaz insisted, arguing that unless this happened conflict, violent or otherwise, was inevitable. Muslims simply could not afford to continue to live in denial of the extremist tendencies that existed, he added, arguing that it was necessary for Muslims to critique and denounce radicalism and supremacism in the name of Islam that has now emerged as a global menace. ‘We cannot remain isolationist by seeking refuge in the comfort of our own communities,’ he argued. He lamented the fact that many Muslims, even in ‘progressive’ Singapore, hesitated to have close interaction with people of other faiths, with some even fearing that this was prohibited by Islam and that it was a threat to their identity as Muslims. A major issue that urgently cried out to be addressed in this regard, he said, was the widely-prevalent notion that Islam seeks or demands Islamic or Muslim domination over others. This powerful tool in the repertoire of self-styled Islamic radicals, he said, was a potent threat to multiculturalism.
The Ustaz was, likewise, critical of the marked tendency among Muslims to romanticize their past through which they implicitly sought to deny the very real problems in traditional Muslim thought and historical practice about the place and role of the religious ‘other’. In this regard, he insisted that several fiqh or juridical rules developed by the classical Islamic scholars in the early and medieval period with regard to non-Muslims urgently needed to be revised as not only were they not relevant to today’s context but they also conduced to conflictual relations with people of other faiths. The classical notion of non-Muslim territories or lands not ruled by the shariah as dar ul-harb or ‘land of war’, he opined, was, in today’s age, ‘unrealistic and archaic’. Arguing against those who might claim that his stance was tantamount to distorting the shariah, he pointed out that the notions of dar ul-islam and dar ul-harb find no mention at all in the Quran. Rather, he said, they were the product or ijtihad of later jurists, whose readings were based on the particular social and historical context in which they lived and to which they responded. To blindly accept their views, he opined, was sheer ‘ignorance’. The division of the world into dar ul-islam and dar ul-harb, so favoured by Islamists, he insisted, represented a binary thinking that had no basis in the Quran. It was also, he added, a major challenge to Muslims living as minorities, who were made to feel ‘guilty’ for living in what was termed dar ul-harb.
The Ustaz spoke about the need to understand Islamic injunctions by focusing on what are called ‘the intentions of the shariah’ (maqasid-e shariah), which would facilitate a much-need shift from a sternly literalist approach to legal matters. Accordingly, certain fiqh rules might need to change in changing contexts to uphold the underlying aims of the law. Critiquing scripturalist and legal literalism, he argued that numerous fiqh rules to do with relations with people of other faiths needed to be subjected to ijtihad or creative reasoning and re-interpretation in a contextually-appropriate manner in order to promote inter-community and inter-faith relations. This, he cautioned, was not a means to discard scripture, unlike what some Muslims might claim, but, rather, to re-read the scripture in today’s context in ‘an enlightened manner’. It was not tantamount to abandoning the shariah. Rather, it was a plea to realize the underlying aims of the shariah, which included justice, equality and friendly relations with others, in a contextually-sensitive manner.
While rethinking fiqh rules and received notions of other faiths and their adherents was a crucial task for Muslim scholars and activists to engage in so as to improve relations between Muslims and others, the Ustaz added that it was also crucial for Muslims to think beyond their own communities and work for the general good, collaborating together with people of other faiths in this task. In this way, he said, Muslims would learn to accept, even celebrate, religious diversity, to contribute to the welfare of the entire society (and not just of their own community), and to be, as he put it, ‘inclusive and adaptive, no matter in which environment they live in.’
Further dwelling on the importance of the task of critiquing supremacist notions of Islam and Muslim communal identity and of promoting alternate, more open interpretations of the religious ‘other’ in Islamic thought, Abdullah Saeed, Director of the National Centre for Excellence in Islamic Studies, Melbourne, Australia, pointed out that no religious tradition, Islam included, was a fixed, permanent and homogenous entity that had not undergone any transformation since its inception. Rather, he said, religious traditions are like living beings that emerge and grow over time and adapt to different contexts—although, of course, this is not how religious literalists and other ‘fundamentalists’ imagine them to be. In this regard, he added, in today’s context, where communities are in closer proximity than ever before, it was imperative for Muslims to develop new, and more positive, understandings of people of other faiths and their belief systems and of relations with them. A marked feature of today’s global context was the notion of common and equal citizenship, which is something entirely new. This, he said, necessitated the revision of several traditional Muslim understandings of the ‘other’, because these were rooted in a context of fundamental inequality between Muslims and other people. Mere tolerance of other faiths and their followers would no longer suffice, for it was not based on a positive value for engaging with the religious ‘other’. Rather, he argued, Muslims need to move beyond, to accept the ‘other’ and to champion religious pluralism based on common citizenship, while at the same time recognizing and respecting cultural differences. Yet, he said, multiculturalism has its clear limits, for, if stretched too far, it could lead to religious ghettoisation. It should be tempered, he suggested, with active engagement with people of other faiths for the common good.
Multiculturalism must not mean or lead to freezing communities into separate boxes or reifying religious traditions, argued Reuven Firestone, a trained Rabbi, who heads a centre for Jewish-Muslim Understanding in the USA. It must go beyond respecting cultural and religious differences to actively learning from and sharing with people of different faiths and cultures. This, he said, was precisely what the early Muslim Arabs did, because of which they were able to make marvelous strides in various fields of human activity. One of the major reasons for the later decline of Arab-Muslim civilization, he pointed out, was the shift to more exclusivist notions of the religious ‘other’ that did not conduce to learning from or interacting with them.
Lived Islam is a diverse discursive tradition, understood and expressed in diverse forms, and thus offers a variety of responses to, and interpretations of, other faiths and their adherents and relations with them, stressed the noted Indonesian scholar Azyumardi Azra, Professor at the Syarif Hidayatullah State Islamic University, Jakarta. These responses ranged from sternly exclusivist and hostile to open and inclusive, each of which presented itself as authoritatively and authentically ‘Islamic’. Critiquing exclusivist and hostile notions of the other in Muslim thought was a necessary task, Azra said, and there were tools available within the broader Islamic tradition, such as tajdid (renewal) and islah (reform) that could be used for this, although not in the strictly literalist manner as advocated by self-styled Salafis and the Wahhabis. This task needed to go along with attempts to ‘indigenise’ Islam to make it part of, and responsive to, local cultures instead of appearing to be a foreign, specifically Arab, cultural import. What he was probably hinting at was the tendency of Muslims to conflate Islam with Arabic language and culture. In this way, he opined, Muslims would be able to understand and live their faith in a manner suitable to the local cultural context that they shared with people of other religions and thus be culturally more integrated with them. Alongside this task of the ‘indigenisation’ of Islam in local cultures what was also required, Azra suggested, was for Muslim scholars to promote the Quranic concept of Muslims as the median or balanced community (ummatan wasatan), followers of the ‘middle path’. This ‘wasatiya Islam’, as Azra termed it, could serve as a powerful counter to Muslim or ‘Islamic’ exclusivism and supremacy.
The thrust of Tariq Ramadan’s presentation was a plea for rethinking fundamental categories in both secular as well as Muslim/Islamic thought. Dwelling on the latter, he argued that ‘reform’ (for which he used the terms islah and ihya) in Muslim/Islamic thought on the question of the religious ‘other’ is an indispensable necessity, although many might balk at this. While the Islamic texts could not be changed or ‘reformed’, what could, he said, were our understandings of them on certain matters. This is because religious understandings are a human product and so can change in response to changing social and historical contexts. Religious traditions, he noted, are a ‘moving reality’ and one’s understanding of one’s tradition is—or should be—also dynamic and open to being transformed with shifts in time and context. The ‘reform’ in Muslim thought with regard to the religious ‘other’ and the fact of religious pluralism that Ramadan suggested was, he said, not to adapt to standards set by others or to be accepted by them but, rather, to make the world a better place for all—for Muslims and for others. Hence, he clarified, what he was advocating was what he called ‘transformational reform’, which was distinct from ‘adaptational reform’. Arguing against those who see the shariah as a closed, fixed body of laws incapable of change and reform, he appealed for a fundamental reform in fiqh rules about people of other faiths and religious pluralism and a concomitant shift in focus in Islamic thought from the rules of fiqh to the basic ‘principles of fiqh’ (usul al-fiqh), through which more appropriate and positive fiqh rules could be formulated to promote inter-community dialogue and solidarity in accordance with today’s context of religious pluralism.
Echoing what several speakers before him had stressed, Ramadan called for the Islamic texts to be read in context and for what he called a new ‘Islamic applied ethics’ that would conduce to better relations between Muslims and others. Again, like numerous other speakers, he indicated the crucial need to critique and challenge certain classical ‘Islamic’ definitions and terms (most notably, the concept of the dars) that, he argued, were a product of a historical context that no longer exists and that militate against better relations with others. He also suggested that Muslims needed to broaden their imagination of what was ‘Islamic’: for instance, a just, egalitarian law could not be branded as ‘un-Islamic’ or ‘anti-shariah’ simply because it was formulated by a non-Muslim political authority. If it was indeed just and egalitarian, it must also be regarded as in accordance with the shariah or even as part of it.
A similar widening of approach and perspective was needed, Ramadan suggested, in Muslims’ understanding of the notion of the ummah. The Prophet Muhammad, he noted, included the Jews of Medina as part of the same ummah as the Muslims, thus suggesting that widely-held Muslim understandings of the notion were restrictive and narrow in a manner not warranted by the Prophet’s own practice. Likewise, he said, Muslims needed to broaden their horizons and be concerned not only for and about themselves but, indeed, for the whole of humankind. ‘Muslims will be respected by others if they contribute and work for not just themselves but for others as well, working for and with them, for siding with the poor, for struggling for freedom and justice for all,’ he very rightly remarked.
For me, the highlight of the conference was hearing the arrestingly charismatic Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, head of the New York-based Cordoba Initiative, speak. The soft-spoken but extremely articulate Egyptian-born and Britain-educated Imam has been in the forefront of efforts to promote dialogue between people of different faiths, inspired by a truly universalistic—and, so, to me, powerfully attractive—understanding of religion. He began by pointing out that Muslims are today perceived as a ‘problem’ the world over. Owing to the actions of self-styled Islamists, Islam is now regarded by many as a security threat. This perception, he said, cannot be denied or wished away simply through apologetic exercises. Across the world, Muslim groups, using the vocabulary of Islam, have spearheaded violent political movements in the name of Islam. This is why, he said, many non-Muslims perceive Islam to be synonymous with violence and even terror. This undeniable fact, he went on, is a challenge to Muslims concerned about their faith, who must act to rescue it from terrorists who use it to give it a bad name.
The Imam debunked certain key myths that many Muslims, wedded to a narrow, communal understanding of Islam, zealously uphold. He pointed out that the Quran addresses itself not to Muslims as a communal group, but, rather to what it calls ‘believers’ or muminun. And this, he argued, is what the companions of the Prophet Muhammad saw themselves as. Based on his interpretation of certain key Quranic verses, the Imam pointed out that the category of muminun was not limited to those who call themselves by the Arabic term ‘Muslim’, and who generally construe the term as referring to a particular community. Rather, he persuasively argued, the muminun that the Quran talks about, for which any other suitable term could be used in other languages, included everyone, no matter what rituals he followed, what language he worshipped in, or whatever name he called himself by, who believed in the one God and in divine accountability after death and practiced good. This, he said, was the basic religion taught by all the prophets of God. Various prophets might have had their own methods of prayer and rituals, but these should be seen not as separate religions or as the bases of separate communities. Rather, they were more like different schools of thought or, in Arabic, mazhabs, of the same religion, or different sunnahs or paths. ‘The various prophets had different signatures, but they shared the same message’, he explained. All the prophets, the Quran says, were of the same status, and, critiquing Muslim claims to supremacy, he argued that nowhere does the Quran declare the Prophet Muhammad to have been the best among them or the most superior—contrary to what many Muslims contend. In actual fact, he pointed out, the Quran warns people not to make any distinction between the prophets. To imagine that the ‘believers’, in the Quranic sense, referred to a particular community that practiced a particular set of rituals in a particular language, as most Muslims do, was, the Imam argued, not at all in accordance with what the Quran says.
The universalistic understanding of religion and the notion of ‘believer’ that he argued the Quran actually preached (which is in marked contrast to how many of those who call themselves ‘Muslims’ understand them), the Imam suggested, was a powerful counter to the communalistic interpretations of Islam that have been, and still are, powerfully dominant and that inherently conduce to conflict. It was, he contended, also a firm basis to bring together the muminun in different communities, no matter what communal label they defined themselves with, to work together for a better world.
A host of other speakers addressed the two-day conference, which was easily one of the most engaging and enriching that I have attended so far.
Yoginder Sikand
Much has been written about conflicts involving religious communities across the world by journalists, academics and security ‘experts’. Although these conflicts have local roots, and owe to a host of causes, some locally-specific, others regional and even global, a common factor that links all of them are supremacist notions of the religious ‘self’ and, associated with these, negative images of the religious ‘other’ that are deeply-rooted in dominant understandings of religion. Efforts to resolve these conflicts must, some time or the other, necessarily address head-on the notion of the ‘other’ in religious thought, to critique understandings that brand all non-believers as ‘enemies’ and dismiss their faiths as of no worth at all. This critique needs to go hand-in-hand with efforts to promote more positive understandings of the religious ‘other’ and of other faith traditions and belief systems. In short, while most conflicts involving people of different religious communities are rooted in political and economic factors, they cannot be reduced entirely to them. The crucial role that negative, exclusivist, intolerant and supremacist understandings of religion and the religious ‘other’ play in creating and in fanning these conflicts cannot be denied.
That, in short, was what I learnt at a conference in Singapore that I recently participated in. Organised by the official Islamic council of Singapore, the Majlis Ugama Islam Singapore (MUIS), the conference brought together several dozen academics and activists, Muslims as well as others, from across the world to deliberate on the vexed issue of Islam, Muslims and multiculturalism in our globalised world.
‘Islam is not simply about Muslims alone,’ stressed the well-known Oxford-based Islamic scholar Tariq Ramadan in his opening remarks. ‘Rather, it is about us and others working together constructing our common future. We need to dialogue—not just to talk to the other but also to listen to the other and to learn from the other.’ And, he went on, it was not enough just for Muslims and others to talk and listen to each other, but it was also necessary to be open to the possibility of changing and growing as a result of being in dialogic conversation with each other.
That inspiring message was echoed by Ustad Fatris Bakaram, Deputy Mufti of Singapore, who pointed out that multiculturalism was by no means a new experience for Muslims. Medina, where the Prophet and his companions shifted from Mecca, was a thriving multicultural and multi-religious society, as was Christian-ruled Abysinnia, where the Prophet instructed several of his companions to seek shelter, and where, for the first time, Muslims were able to practice their faith free from oppression. Critiquing the claims of radical Islamists (who are, of course, not known for any but the most stern views about non-Muslims and their religions), the Ustaz argued that the intention of the Prophet in migrating to Medina was not to set up ‘Islamic rule’ or Islamic political supremacy, as is often claimed. Rather, it was simply to seek a place where Muslims could practice their faith freely. It was thus wholly erroneous to argue, as Islamists do, the Ustaz explained, that only in an ‘Islamic state’, ruled according to shariah laws, and where Muslims were politically dominant, could Muslims willingly accept multiculturalism.
‘Muslims must learn to live with, and relate to, others amicably,’ the Ustaz insisted, arguing that unless this happened conflict, violent or otherwise, was inevitable. Muslims simply could not afford to continue to live in denial of the extremist tendencies that existed, he added, arguing that it was necessary for Muslims to critique and denounce radicalism and supremacism in the name of Islam that has now emerged as a global menace. ‘We cannot remain isolationist by seeking refuge in the comfort of our own communities,’ he argued. He lamented the fact that many Muslims, even in ‘progressive’ Singapore, hesitated to have close interaction with people of other faiths, with some even fearing that this was prohibited by Islam and that it was a threat to their identity as Muslims. A major issue that urgently cried out to be addressed in this regard, he said, was the widely-prevalent notion that Islam seeks or demands Islamic or Muslim domination over others. This powerful tool in the repertoire of self-styled Islamic radicals, he said, was a potent threat to multiculturalism.
The Ustaz was, likewise, critical of the marked tendency among Muslims to romanticize their past through which they implicitly sought to deny the very real problems in traditional Muslim thought and historical practice about the place and role of the religious ‘other’. In this regard, he insisted that several fiqh or juridical rules developed by the classical Islamic scholars in the early and medieval period with regard to non-Muslims urgently needed to be revised as not only were they not relevant to today’s context but they also conduced to conflictual relations with people of other faiths. The classical notion of non-Muslim territories or lands not ruled by the shariah as dar ul-harb or ‘land of war’, he opined, was, in today’s age, ‘unrealistic and archaic’. Arguing against those who might claim that his stance was tantamount to distorting the shariah, he pointed out that the notions of dar ul-islam and dar ul-harb find no mention at all in the Quran. Rather, he said, they were the product or ijtihad of later jurists, whose readings were based on the particular social and historical context in which they lived and to which they responded. To blindly accept their views, he opined, was sheer ‘ignorance’. The division of the world into dar ul-islam and dar ul-harb, so favoured by Islamists, he insisted, represented a binary thinking that had no basis in the Quran. It was also, he added, a major challenge to Muslims living as minorities, who were made to feel ‘guilty’ for living in what was termed dar ul-harb.
The Ustaz spoke about the need to understand Islamic injunctions by focusing on what are called ‘the intentions of the shariah’ (maqasid-e shariah), which would facilitate a much-need shift from a sternly literalist approach to legal matters. Accordingly, certain fiqh rules might need to change in changing contexts to uphold the underlying aims of the law. Critiquing scripturalist and legal literalism, he argued that numerous fiqh rules to do with relations with people of other faiths needed to be subjected to ijtihad or creative reasoning and re-interpretation in a contextually-appropriate manner in order to promote inter-community and inter-faith relations. This, he cautioned, was not a means to discard scripture, unlike what some Muslims might claim, but, rather, to re-read the scripture in today’s context in ‘an enlightened manner’. It was not tantamount to abandoning the shariah. Rather, it was a plea to realize the underlying aims of the shariah, which included justice, equality and friendly relations with others, in a contextually-sensitive manner.
While rethinking fiqh rules and received notions of other faiths and their adherents was a crucial task for Muslim scholars and activists to engage in so as to improve relations between Muslims and others, the Ustaz added that it was also crucial for Muslims to think beyond their own communities and work for the general good, collaborating together with people of other faiths in this task. In this way, he said, Muslims would learn to accept, even celebrate, religious diversity, to contribute to the welfare of the entire society (and not just of their own community), and to be, as he put it, ‘inclusive and adaptive, no matter in which environment they live in.’
Further dwelling on the importance of the task of critiquing supremacist notions of Islam and Muslim communal identity and of promoting alternate, more open interpretations of the religious ‘other’ in Islamic thought, Abdullah Saeed, Director of the National Centre for Excellence in Islamic Studies, Melbourne, Australia, pointed out that no religious tradition, Islam included, was a fixed, permanent and homogenous entity that had not undergone any transformation since its inception. Rather, he said, religious traditions are like living beings that emerge and grow over time and adapt to different contexts—although, of course, this is not how religious literalists and other ‘fundamentalists’ imagine them to be. In this regard, he added, in today’s context, where communities are in closer proximity than ever before, it was imperative for Muslims to develop new, and more positive, understandings of people of other faiths and their belief systems and of relations with them. A marked feature of today’s global context was the notion of common and equal citizenship, which is something entirely new. This, he said, necessitated the revision of several traditional Muslim understandings of the ‘other’, because these were rooted in a context of fundamental inequality between Muslims and other people. Mere tolerance of other faiths and their followers would no longer suffice, for it was not based on a positive value for engaging with the religious ‘other’. Rather, he argued, Muslims need to move beyond, to accept the ‘other’ and to champion religious pluralism based on common citizenship, while at the same time recognizing and respecting cultural differences. Yet, he said, multiculturalism has its clear limits, for, if stretched too far, it could lead to religious ghettoisation. It should be tempered, he suggested, with active engagement with people of other faiths for the common good.
Multiculturalism must not mean or lead to freezing communities into separate boxes or reifying religious traditions, argued Reuven Firestone, a trained Rabbi, who heads a centre for Jewish-Muslim Understanding in the USA. It must go beyond respecting cultural and religious differences to actively learning from and sharing with people of different faiths and cultures. This, he said, was precisely what the early Muslim Arabs did, because of which they were able to make marvelous strides in various fields of human activity. One of the major reasons for the later decline of Arab-Muslim civilization, he pointed out, was the shift to more exclusivist notions of the religious ‘other’ that did not conduce to learning from or interacting with them.
Lived Islam is a diverse discursive tradition, understood and expressed in diverse forms, and thus offers a variety of responses to, and interpretations of, other faiths and their adherents and relations with them, stressed the noted Indonesian scholar Azyumardi Azra, Professor at the Syarif Hidayatullah State Islamic University, Jakarta. These responses ranged from sternly exclusivist and hostile to open and inclusive, each of which presented itself as authoritatively and authentically ‘Islamic’. Critiquing exclusivist and hostile notions of the other in Muslim thought was a necessary task, Azra said, and there were tools available within the broader Islamic tradition, such as tajdid (renewal) and islah (reform) that could be used for this, although not in the strictly literalist manner as advocated by self-styled Salafis and the Wahhabis. This task needed to go along with attempts to ‘indigenise’ Islam to make it part of, and responsive to, local cultures instead of appearing to be a foreign, specifically Arab, cultural import. What he was probably hinting at was the tendency of Muslims to conflate Islam with Arabic language and culture. In this way, he opined, Muslims would be able to understand and live their faith in a manner suitable to the local cultural context that they shared with people of other religions and thus be culturally more integrated with them. Alongside this task of the ‘indigenisation’ of Islam in local cultures what was also required, Azra suggested, was for Muslim scholars to promote the Quranic concept of Muslims as the median or balanced community (ummatan wasatan), followers of the ‘middle path’. This ‘wasatiya Islam’, as Azra termed it, could serve as a powerful counter to Muslim or ‘Islamic’ exclusivism and supremacy.
The thrust of Tariq Ramadan’s presentation was a plea for rethinking fundamental categories in both secular as well as Muslim/Islamic thought. Dwelling on the latter, he argued that ‘reform’ (for which he used the terms islah and ihya) in Muslim/Islamic thought on the question of the religious ‘other’ is an indispensable necessity, although many might balk at this. While the Islamic texts could not be changed or ‘reformed’, what could, he said, were our understandings of them on certain matters. This is because religious understandings are a human product and so can change in response to changing social and historical contexts. Religious traditions, he noted, are a ‘moving reality’ and one’s understanding of one’s tradition is—or should be—also dynamic and open to being transformed with shifts in time and context. The ‘reform’ in Muslim thought with regard to the religious ‘other’ and the fact of religious pluralism that Ramadan suggested was, he said, not to adapt to standards set by others or to be accepted by them but, rather, to make the world a better place for all—for Muslims and for others. Hence, he clarified, what he was advocating was what he called ‘transformational reform’, which was distinct from ‘adaptational reform’. Arguing against those who see the shariah as a closed, fixed body of laws incapable of change and reform, he appealed for a fundamental reform in fiqh rules about people of other faiths and religious pluralism and a concomitant shift in focus in Islamic thought from the rules of fiqh to the basic ‘principles of fiqh’ (usul al-fiqh), through which more appropriate and positive fiqh rules could be formulated to promote inter-community dialogue and solidarity in accordance with today’s context of religious pluralism.
Echoing what several speakers before him had stressed, Ramadan called for the Islamic texts to be read in context and for what he called a new ‘Islamic applied ethics’ that would conduce to better relations between Muslims and others. Again, like numerous other speakers, he indicated the crucial need to critique and challenge certain classical ‘Islamic’ definitions and terms (most notably, the concept of the dars) that, he argued, were a product of a historical context that no longer exists and that militate against better relations with others. He also suggested that Muslims needed to broaden their imagination of what was ‘Islamic’: for instance, a just, egalitarian law could not be branded as ‘un-Islamic’ or ‘anti-shariah’ simply because it was formulated by a non-Muslim political authority. If it was indeed just and egalitarian, it must also be regarded as in accordance with the shariah or even as part of it.
A similar widening of approach and perspective was needed, Ramadan suggested, in Muslims’ understanding of the notion of the ummah. The Prophet Muhammad, he noted, included the Jews of Medina as part of the same ummah as the Muslims, thus suggesting that widely-held Muslim understandings of the notion were restrictive and narrow in a manner not warranted by the Prophet’s own practice. Likewise, he said, Muslims needed to broaden their horizons and be concerned not only for and about themselves but, indeed, for the whole of humankind. ‘Muslims will be respected by others if they contribute and work for not just themselves but for others as well, working for and with them, for siding with the poor, for struggling for freedom and justice for all,’ he very rightly remarked.
For me, the highlight of the conference was hearing the arrestingly charismatic Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, head of the New York-based Cordoba Initiative, speak. The soft-spoken but extremely articulate Egyptian-born and Britain-educated Imam has been in the forefront of efforts to promote dialogue between people of different faiths, inspired by a truly universalistic—and, so, to me, powerfully attractive—understanding of religion. He began by pointing out that Muslims are today perceived as a ‘problem’ the world over. Owing to the actions of self-styled Islamists, Islam is now regarded by many as a security threat. This perception, he said, cannot be denied or wished away simply through apologetic exercises. Across the world, Muslim groups, using the vocabulary of Islam, have spearheaded violent political movements in the name of Islam. This is why, he said, many non-Muslims perceive Islam to be synonymous with violence and even terror. This undeniable fact, he went on, is a challenge to Muslims concerned about their faith, who must act to rescue it from terrorists who use it to give it a bad name.
The Imam debunked certain key myths that many Muslims, wedded to a narrow, communal understanding of Islam, zealously uphold. He pointed out that the Quran addresses itself not to Muslims as a communal group, but, rather to what it calls ‘believers’ or muminun. And this, he argued, is what the companions of the Prophet Muhammad saw themselves as. Based on his interpretation of certain key Quranic verses, the Imam pointed out that the category of muminun was not limited to those who call themselves by the Arabic term ‘Muslim’, and who generally construe the term as referring to a particular community. Rather, he persuasively argued, the muminun that the Quran talks about, for which any other suitable term could be used in other languages, included everyone, no matter what rituals he followed, what language he worshipped in, or whatever name he called himself by, who believed in the one God and in divine accountability after death and practiced good. This, he said, was the basic religion taught by all the prophets of God. Various prophets might have had their own methods of prayer and rituals, but these should be seen not as separate religions or as the bases of separate communities. Rather, they were more like different schools of thought or, in Arabic, mazhabs, of the same religion, or different sunnahs or paths. ‘The various prophets had different signatures, but they shared the same message’, he explained. All the prophets, the Quran says, were of the same status, and, critiquing Muslim claims to supremacy, he argued that nowhere does the Quran declare the Prophet Muhammad to have been the best among them or the most superior—contrary to what many Muslims contend. In actual fact, he pointed out, the Quran warns people not to make any distinction between the prophets. To imagine that the ‘believers’, in the Quranic sense, referred to a particular community that practiced a particular set of rituals in a particular language, as most Muslims do, was, the Imam argued, not at all in accordance with what the Quran says.
The universalistic understanding of religion and the notion of ‘believer’ that he argued the Quran actually preached (which is in marked contrast to how many of those who call themselves ‘Muslims’ understand them), the Imam suggested, was a powerful counter to the communalistic interpretations of Islam that have been, and still are, powerfully dominant and that inherently conduce to conflict. It was, he contended, also a firm basis to bring together the muminun in different communities, no matter what communal label they defined themselves with, to work together for a better world.
A host of other speakers addressed the two-day conference, which was easily one of the most engaging and enriching that I have attended so far.
Friday, July 2, 2010
Social Transformation in Islam: Reform or Revolution?
By Maulana Waris Mazhari
A crucial issue that needs careful deliberation and clarification is: What is the appropriate method for social transformation according to the principles and teachings of Islam and the model of the Prophet Muhammad? Contemporary Islamic movements display considerable confusion in this regard. They believe that Islam aims at the extermination of falsehood and that it can, in no way, tolerate it. They believe that tolerating falsehood or remaining silent on it is tantamount to betraying the Islamic mission. This is why many of these movements regard revolution as the most important and potent method of social transformation. Accordingly, revolution is at the top of their agenda, or so they claim.
However, it is a bitter truth, and one that activists involved in Islamic groups are themselves increasingly beginning to realize, that the policies and activities of ‘revolutionary’ or radical Islamist groups are, far from advancing the cause of Islam, actually undermining it by creating increasingly insurmountable hurdles in its path. Despite the efforts of radical or self-styled ‘revolutionary’ Islamist groups over the last 70 to 80 years, no such revolution has taken place in the Sunni world. On the contrary, in most cases the radical activities of such ‘revolutionary’ groups and movements have had precisely the opposite results, proving to be entirely counter-productive. A good example is that of the Ikhwan ul-Muslimun or ‘Muslim Brethren’ in Egypt, which participated in the downfall of the regime of King Faruq, only to be later brutally crushed by the regime of Jamaluddin Abdul Nasser, whom it helped to come to power. One can cite numerous more such instances from other parts of the world.
The Islamic ‘revolution’ in Iran was marked by the deep impact of Shia theology. With the help of the doctrine of the wilayat al-faqih or the ‘guardianship of the jurist’, which was developed by Ayatollah Khomeini, the Iranian Shia ulema managed to acquire some sort of theocratic power. Due to major differences in outlook and theology between the Sunni and Shia understandings of Islam, this is not possible in the Sunni world. Nor, to my mind, is this in accordance with the basic principles of Islam. It is undoubtedly true that many Muslims in the Sunni world, particularly among the youth, were indeed inspired by the Iranian ‘revolution’. For its part, the new Iranian regime sought to export its ‘revolution’ to the Sunni world. However, nothing much actually came of this in practical terms, although this certainly emboldened Islamist groups while leading to heightened fears in the West over what was described as ‘the opening of the bottle containing the Islamic genie’, which was regarded as a threat to the West.
Coming to the question of whether or not revolution is the way prescribed in Islam for social transformation, it is crucial to understand what the term ‘revolution’ actually means. What, in reality, are the features of revolution? What are, or should be, its aims and objectives? Without clarifying these complex issues, one cannot discuss the appropriate method of social transformation in Islam.
The fact of the matter is that nowhere do the Quran and the Hadith use any word that connotes revolution. Nor do they advocate any concept of revolutionary transformation of society in the sense that contemporary Islamist movements understand it. The term ‘revolution’ as understood today connotes a struggle that aims fundamentally at the total transformation of the bases of governance and society. It suggests a complete and drastic change. The model for such change in modern times are the communist revolutions in countries such as Russia and China. Communism regards revolution as the means for social change. In contrast, and contrary to what radical or ‘revolutionary’ Islamist ideologues argue, the basis and means for social change in Islam is reform (islah), not revolution.
There are fundamental differences, indeed contradictions, between the reformist and revolutionary paths to social change. The principal objective of revolutionaries is to bring about change at the external level, particularly in the bases of political power, while reformists aim primarily at change at the internal level—in the inner consciousness and behaviour of individuals. While revolution stands for total and sudden change, reform stands for partial and gradual change or, at least, it does not oppose it. Reform is guided by concern and goodwill for others, while, typically, revolutions are fired by feelings of hatred or revenge.
The social change wrought by all the prophets, including the Prophet Muhammad, were instances of reform, rather than radicalism or revolution. Their reformist efforts aimed primarily at the transformation of the inner consciousness, beliefs and behaviour of individuals through education, moral instruction and purification. This is what the Quran regards as the aim behind God sending to humankind a long chain of prophets. As the Quran puts it, referring to the Prophet Muhammad:
‘Allah did confer a big favour on the believers when He sent among them a Messenger from among themselves, rehearsing unto them the signs of Allah, purifying them, and instructing them in scripture and wisdom, while, before that, they had been in manifest error’ (3:164).
The many prophets sent by God to guide humankind, the last of who was the Prophet Muhammad, did not make regime change or the capture of political power their aim. Rather, their primary focus was the reform of individuals, who, when suitably reformed, could form a society inspired to follow God’s teachings. Only then could a government that would rule according to the teachings of Islam. The Prophet Muhammad is said to have declared, ‘Those who rule over you will be just as you are’ (kama ta kununa kazalika yoammaru aleikum). In other words, people get the government or rulers they deserve, because the representatives of people emerge from and are chosen from among them. This clearly indicates that it is only through gradual and sustained reform at the level of individuals that society, and, then, the system of governance can be reformed. This is the natural system of bringing about social transformation.
Over the last 80-odd years, Islamist movements have never ceased from raising emotionally-driven slogans of what they call ‘Islamic Revolution’. Because they ignored the natural method of social transformation, the slogans raised by these movements remained precisely that—mere slogans that could not be actualized. Consequently, today many Muslims are growing weary of such clichéd slogans, and are losing faith in the claims of those who never tire of mouthing them.
In today’s world, political and radical or revolutionary interpretations of Islam are proving to be a major source of chaos, conflict and strife, or what the Quran terms fitna. The major ideologue of this politically-oriented version of Islam was an Indian (who later migrated to Pakistan), Maulana Syed Abul ‘Ala Maududi, founder of the Islamist Jama‘at-e Islami. In his hugely influential, and, at the same time, enormously controversial book Islami Nizam-e Zindagi Aur Uske Buniyadi Tasavvurat (‘The Islamic Way of Life and its Basic Conceptions’), Maududi projected Islam as a revolutionary ideology and the Muslim ummah as a revolutionary party. On this basis, he called for Muslims to struggle for what he termed as ‘Islamic Revolution’ throughout the world. He considered all the prophets of God to have been revolutionary political leaders. If one were to take this obviously erroneous claim to be true, one would have to admit that, with a very few exceptions, none of the prophets were successful in their mission because they were not accepted as political leaders by their people, and nor were they able to establish Islamic political rule. Obviously, no sensible Muslim can believe that the prophets were failures and that they were unable to do what God had sent them to the world to accomplish.
To claim, as Maududi does, that Muslims are ‘not a band of preachers and missionaries, but, rather, a party of soldiers of God’ is to betray ignorance, and, indeed, transgression of, the basic truths of Islam. The major difference between the truly Islamic method of social transformation, as followed by the prophets, and the radical method of present-day politically-oriented Islamist movements is that the former is gradual and aims at reforms from below, from the individual to the social and then to the political plane, while the latter is radical and seeks to impose change in individuals and in the society from above, using political power for this purpose. The latter method is unnatural, unrealistic and impracticable, and inevitably results in strife and much bloodshed and destruction. That, indeed, is the fate of any movement that uses unnatural methods, no matter how noble its aims may be. It is also apparent that any revolution wrought by such means can never be long-lasting. Revolutions are generally sooner or later subverted, ironically often by those who played key roles in bringing them about in the first place.
All this clearly suggests that Islamic movements and groups that are engaged in, or so they claim, in ‘revolutionary’ action to capture power must seriously revisit their methods and their ideology. Such radicalism is proving, as the case of Pakistan today, for instance, so tragically shows, to be entirely counter-productive for Islam and its adherents. If at all any ‘revolution’ occurs as a result of the activities of these ‘revolutionary’ self-styled Islamist groups, the true lovers of Islam will, one can be sure, desperately seek safety from it and from ‘political Islam’, an obvious parody of authentic Islam, on which it would be based.
(Translated from Urdu by Yoginder Sikand/Noor Mohammad Sikand)
----------
Maulana Waris Mazhari is the editor of the New Delhi-based monthly Tarjuman Dar ul-Uloom, the official organ of the Graduates’ Association of the Deoband madrasa. He can be contacted on w.mazhari@gmail.com
Yoginder Sikand works with the Centre for the Study of Social Exclusion at the National Law School, Bangalore.
A crucial issue that needs careful deliberation and clarification is: What is the appropriate method for social transformation according to the principles and teachings of Islam and the model of the Prophet Muhammad? Contemporary Islamic movements display considerable confusion in this regard. They believe that Islam aims at the extermination of falsehood and that it can, in no way, tolerate it. They believe that tolerating falsehood or remaining silent on it is tantamount to betraying the Islamic mission. This is why many of these movements regard revolution as the most important and potent method of social transformation. Accordingly, revolution is at the top of their agenda, or so they claim.
However, it is a bitter truth, and one that activists involved in Islamic groups are themselves increasingly beginning to realize, that the policies and activities of ‘revolutionary’ or radical Islamist groups are, far from advancing the cause of Islam, actually undermining it by creating increasingly insurmountable hurdles in its path. Despite the efforts of radical or self-styled ‘revolutionary’ Islamist groups over the last 70 to 80 years, no such revolution has taken place in the Sunni world. On the contrary, in most cases the radical activities of such ‘revolutionary’ groups and movements have had precisely the opposite results, proving to be entirely counter-productive. A good example is that of the Ikhwan ul-Muslimun or ‘Muslim Brethren’ in Egypt, which participated in the downfall of the regime of King Faruq, only to be later brutally crushed by the regime of Jamaluddin Abdul Nasser, whom it helped to come to power. One can cite numerous more such instances from other parts of the world.
The Islamic ‘revolution’ in Iran was marked by the deep impact of Shia theology. With the help of the doctrine of the wilayat al-faqih or the ‘guardianship of the jurist’, which was developed by Ayatollah Khomeini, the Iranian Shia ulema managed to acquire some sort of theocratic power. Due to major differences in outlook and theology between the Sunni and Shia understandings of Islam, this is not possible in the Sunni world. Nor, to my mind, is this in accordance with the basic principles of Islam. It is undoubtedly true that many Muslims in the Sunni world, particularly among the youth, were indeed inspired by the Iranian ‘revolution’. For its part, the new Iranian regime sought to export its ‘revolution’ to the Sunni world. However, nothing much actually came of this in practical terms, although this certainly emboldened Islamist groups while leading to heightened fears in the West over what was described as ‘the opening of the bottle containing the Islamic genie’, which was regarded as a threat to the West.
Coming to the question of whether or not revolution is the way prescribed in Islam for social transformation, it is crucial to understand what the term ‘revolution’ actually means. What, in reality, are the features of revolution? What are, or should be, its aims and objectives? Without clarifying these complex issues, one cannot discuss the appropriate method of social transformation in Islam.
The fact of the matter is that nowhere do the Quran and the Hadith use any word that connotes revolution. Nor do they advocate any concept of revolutionary transformation of society in the sense that contemporary Islamist movements understand it. The term ‘revolution’ as understood today connotes a struggle that aims fundamentally at the total transformation of the bases of governance and society. It suggests a complete and drastic change. The model for such change in modern times are the communist revolutions in countries such as Russia and China. Communism regards revolution as the means for social change. In contrast, and contrary to what radical or ‘revolutionary’ Islamist ideologues argue, the basis and means for social change in Islam is reform (islah), not revolution.
There are fundamental differences, indeed contradictions, between the reformist and revolutionary paths to social change. The principal objective of revolutionaries is to bring about change at the external level, particularly in the bases of political power, while reformists aim primarily at change at the internal level—in the inner consciousness and behaviour of individuals. While revolution stands for total and sudden change, reform stands for partial and gradual change or, at least, it does not oppose it. Reform is guided by concern and goodwill for others, while, typically, revolutions are fired by feelings of hatred or revenge.
The social change wrought by all the prophets, including the Prophet Muhammad, were instances of reform, rather than radicalism or revolution. Their reformist efforts aimed primarily at the transformation of the inner consciousness, beliefs and behaviour of individuals through education, moral instruction and purification. This is what the Quran regards as the aim behind God sending to humankind a long chain of prophets. As the Quran puts it, referring to the Prophet Muhammad:
‘Allah did confer a big favour on the believers when He sent among them a Messenger from among themselves, rehearsing unto them the signs of Allah, purifying them, and instructing them in scripture and wisdom, while, before that, they had been in manifest error’ (3:164).
The many prophets sent by God to guide humankind, the last of who was the Prophet Muhammad, did not make regime change or the capture of political power their aim. Rather, their primary focus was the reform of individuals, who, when suitably reformed, could form a society inspired to follow God’s teachings. Only then could a government that would rule according to the teachings of Islam. The Prophet Muhammad is said to have declared, ‘Those who rule over you will be just as you are’ (kama ta kununa kazalika yoammaru aleikum). In other words, people get the government or rulers they deserve, because the representatives of people emerge from and are chosen from among them. This clearly indicates that it is only through gradual and sustained reform at the level of individuals that society, and, then, the system of governance can be reformed. This is the natural system of bringing about social transformation.
Over the last 80-odd years, Islamist movements have never ceased from raising emotionally-driven slogans of what they call ‘Islamic Revolution’. Because they ignored the natural method of social transformation, the slogans raised by these movements remained precisely that—mere slogans that could not be actualized. Consequently, today many Muslims are growing weary of such clichéd slogans, and are losing faith in the claims of those who never tire of mouthing them.
In today’s world, political and radical or revolutionary interpretations of Islam are proving to be a major source of chaos, conflict and strife, or what the Quran terms fitna. The major ideologue of this politically-oriented version of Islam was an Indian (who later migrated to Pakistan), Maulana Syed Abul ‘Ala Maududi, founder of the Islamist Jama‘at-e Islami. In his hugely influential, and, at the same time, enormously controversial book Islami Nizam-e Zindagi Aur Uske Buniyadi Tasavvurat (‘The Islamic Way of Life and its Basic Conceptions’), Maududi projected Islam as a revolutionary ideology and the Muslim ummah as a revolutionary party. On this basis, he called for Muslims to struggle for what he termed as ‘Islamic Revolution’ throughout the world. He considered all the prophets of God to have been revolutionary political leaders. If one were to take this obviously erroneous claim to be true, one would have to admit that, with a very few exceptions, none of the prophets were successful in their mission because they were not accepted as political leaders by their people, and nor were they able to establish Islamic political rule. Obviously, no sensible Muslim can believe that the prophets were failures and that they were unable to do what God had sent them to the world to accomplish.
To claim, as Maududi does, that Muslims are ‘not a band of preachers and missionaries, but, rather, a party of soldiers of God’ is to betray ignorance, and, indeed, transgression of, the basic truths of Islam. The major difference between the truly Islamic method of social transformation, as followed by the prophets, and the radical method of present-day politically-oriented Islamist movements is that the former is gradual and aims at reforms from below, from the individual to the social and then to the political plane, while the latter is radical and seeks to impose change in individuals and in the society from above, using political power for this purpose. The latter method is unnatural, unrealistic and impracticable, and inevitably results in strife and much bloodshed and destruction. That, indeed, is the fate of any movement that uses unnatural methods, no matter how noble its aims may be. It is also apparent that any revolution wrought by such means can never be long-lasting. Revolutions are generally sooner or later subverted, ironically often by those who played key roles in bringing them about in the first place.
All this clearly suggests that Islamic movements and groups that are engaged in, or so they claim, in ‘revolutionary’ action to capture power must seriously revisit their methods and their ideology. Such radicalism is proving, as the case of Pakistan today, for instance, so tragically shows, to be entirely counter-productive for Islam and its adherents. If at all any ‘revolution’ occurs as a result of the activities of these ‘revolutionary’ self-styled Islamist groups, the true lovers of Islam will, one can be sure, desperately seek safety from it and from ‘political Islam’, an obvious parody of authentic Islam, on which it would be based.
(Translated from Urdu by Yoginder Sikand/Noor Mohammad Sikand)
----------
Maulana Waris Mazhari is the editor of the New Delhi-based monthly Tarjuman Dar ul-Uloom, the official organ of the Graduates’ Association of the Deoband madrasa. He can be contacted on w.mazhari@gmail.com
Yoginder Sikand works with the Centre for the Study of Social Exclusion at the National Law School, Bangalore.
Wednesday, June 2, 2010
The Myth of Moderate Islam and Idealism
by Vincenzo Oliveti
(author of Terror’s Source: The Ideology of Wahabi-Salafism and its Consequences)
19 September 2008
This article first appeared in ISLAMICA Magazine.
Patrick Sookhdeo’s article (July 30, 2005) in London’s The Spectator, “The Myth of a Moderate Islam” reflects a dangerous trend in the war on terror. Under the guise of informing Westerners about Islam, he is in fact spreading the very same disinformation that anti-Islamic polemics have been based upon for over 1,000 years. This plays directly into the hands of Osama bin Laden, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and others, for it encourages the “clash of civilizations” they so appallingly desire. It is indeed of the utmost importance that we learn more about Islam and fight the scourge of extremism with all the tools possible. But Sookhdeo and those like him corrupt this process, seeking to advance their own agenda by turning the war on terror into an ideological war against Islam.
Muslim Violence
Sookhdeo’s bias is evident from the outset. He argues that terrorists truly represent Islam, writing: “If they say they do it in the name of Islam, we must believe them. Is it not the height of illiberalism and arrogance to deny them the right to define themselves?” The remainder of the essay, however, is an extensive effort to deny other Muslims the right to define themselves by rejecting extremist interpretations of Islam. In fact, less than 5% of Muslims could be classified as fundamentalist in outlook, and of that 5%, less than 0.01% have shown any tendency toward enacting terrorism or “religious violence”. It is thus “the height of illiberalism” to define as terrorists over 1.3 billion Muslims who have nothing to do with “religious violence” because of the misdeeds of a fringe minority of 0.005%. At most, one in every 200,000 Muslims can be accused of terrorism. That is to say there are a maximum of about 65,000 terrorists worldwide — roughly the same figure as the number of murderers on the loose in the U.S. alone, with over 20,000 homicides a year and a population of only 300 million.
Sookhdeo claims that Muslims “must with honesty recognize the violence that has existed in their history.” However, given that the majority of books that record the transgressions of Muslims have been written by Muslims, it is difficult to argue that Muslims have chosen en masse to ignore the atrocities of their past. Of course, there are Muslims who deny many parts of this past, just as there are British people who still deny the atrocities of colonialism; Americans who deny the massacre of the Native Americans; and Germans who deny the Holocaust of 6 million Jews. But the fact remains that Christian civilization has given rise to many more atrocities than has Islamic civilization, even relative to its greater population and longer age.
Christian Violence
Nowhere in Islamic history can one find a doctrine similar to Saint Augustine’s cognite intrare (”lead them in” — i.e. “force them to convert”). In fact the Qur’an says the exact opposite: “There is no compulsion in religion” (2:256). Augustine’s frightening idea that all must be compelled to “conform” to the “true Christian faith” has unleashed centuries of unparalleled bloodshed.
Indeed, Christians have suffered more under the rule of Christian civilization than under pre-Christian Roman rule or any other rule in history. Millions were tortured and slaughtered in the name of Christianity during the periods of the Arian, Donatist and Albigensian heresies, to say nothing of the various Inquisitions, or the Crusades, when the European armies were saying, as they slaughtered both Christian and Muslim Arabs: “Kill them all, God will know his own.” Needless to say, these transgressions — and indeed all the transgressions of Christians throughout the ages — have absolutely nothing to do with Jesus Christ and or even the New Testament as such. Indeed, no Muslim by definition would ever or will ever blame this on Jesus Christ (the Word made Flesh, for Christians and Muslims). So how is it that Sookhdeo blames Muslim transgressions (even though far less than “Christian” ones) on the Qur’an (the Word made Book, for Muslims)?
By no means was such indiscriminate violence limited to Europe’s “Dark Ages” or to one period of Christian history. The Reformation and Counter Reformation took inter- Christian slaughter to new extremes; two thirds of the Christian population of Europe being slaughtered during this time. Then there were (among many others wars, pogroms, revolutions and genocides) the Napoleonic Wars (1792-1815); the African slave trade that claimed the lives of 10 million; and the Colonial Conquests. Estimates for the number of Native Americans slaughtered by the Europeans in North, Central and South America run as high as 20 million within three generations. Despite the ravages of Europe’s violent past, in the 20th century, Western Civilization took warfare to new extremes. A conservative estimate puts the total number of brutal deaths in the 20 th century at more than 250 million. Of these, Muslims are responsible for less than 10 million deaths. Christians, or those coming from Christian backgrounds account for more than 200 million of these! The greatest death totals come from World War I (about 20 million, at least 90% of which were inflicted by “Christians”) and World War II (90 million, at least 50% of which were inflicted by “Christians,” the majority of the rest occurring in the Far East). Given this grim history, it appears that we Europeans must all come to grips with the fact that Islamic civilization has actually been incomparably less brutal than Christian civilization. Did the Holocaust of over 6 million Jews occur out of the background of a Muslim Civilization?
In the 20th century alone, Western and/or Christian powers have been responsible for at least twenty times more deaths than have Muslim powers. In this most brutal of centuries, we created incomparably more civilian casualties than have Muslims in the whole of Islamic history. This continues even in our day — witness the slaughter of 900,000 Rwandans in 1994 in a population that was over 90% Christian; or the genocide of over 300,000 Muslims and systematic rape of over 100,000 Muslim women by Christian Serbs in Bosnia between 1992 and 1995. The horrible truth is that, numerically and statistically speaking, Christian Civilization is the bloodiest and most violent of all civilizations in all of history, and is responsible for hundreds of millions of deaths. The production and use of nuclear weapons alone should be enough to make the West stand in shame before the rest of the world. America created nuclear weapons. America is the only country ever to have used nuclear weapons, and Western countries strive to maintain a monopoly over them. As the record stands, we have no moral grounds for objecting to the acquisition of such weapons until we prove willing to forfeit them entirely.
It should also be mentioned that although Islam has the concept of legitimate war in self-defense (as does Christianity, and even Buddhism), nowhere in Islamic culture (or in other cultures that survive today) is there latent the idealization, and perhaps idolization, of violence that exists in Western Culture. Westerners think of themselves as peaceful, but in fact the gentleness and sublimity of the New Testament, and the peace-loving nature of the principles of democracy, are scarcely reflected in Western popular culture. Rather, the entire inclination of popular culture — Hollywood movies, Western television, video games, popular music and sports entertainment — is to glorify and inculcate violence. Accordingly, the relative rates of murder (especially random and serial murder) are higher in the Western World (particularly in the U.S., but even in Europe, taken as a whole) than they are in the Islamic world in counties that are not suffering civil wars, and this is true despite the much greater wealth of the West. So has Sookhdeo ever read the following words?:
Judge not, that ye be not judged. For with what judgement ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again. And why beholdest thou the mote in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye? Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye? Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast the mote out of thy brother’s eye. (Matthew 7:1-5)
The Qur’an and the Use of Force
Like most anti-Islamic polemics, the rest of Sookhdeo’s article is a mix of fact and fiction. For example, he argues that many of the Qur’anic verses that advocate peace were abrogated by later verses. It is true that many Muslim scholars claim later verses abrogate earlier verses, but the extent of abrogation is greatly debated. Some scholars say that only five verses have ever been abrogated. Some say that over 150 have been abrogated. Sookhdeo’s claim that “wherever contradictions are found, the later-dated text abrogates the earlier one” is thus a gross simplification. To claim that all of the peaceful verses are earlier revelations that have been abrogated by later militant verses is simply false. For example, verses revealed in the last two years of Muhammad’s mission enjoin Muslims to not seek vengeance against those who had driven them from their homes:
Let not the hatred of the people — because they hindered you from the Sacred Mosque — incite you to transgress. Help one another in goodness and reverence, and do not help one another in sin and aggression”(Qur’an 5:2).
O ye who believe, be upright for God witnesses injustice; and let not hatred of a people cause you to be unjust. Be just — that is closer to piety” (Qur’an 5:8).
One can hardly imagine a more emphatic message of justice, forgiveness and reconciliation.
Moreover, many highly qualified Muslim scholars have cited the earlier verses advocating peace to dissuade young Muslims from answering the call of the extremists. Would Sookhdeo prefer that these young Muslims listen to those who explain these verses away by applying his truncated version of abrogation?
Significantly enough, like extremist interpreters of Islam, Sookhdeo misrepresents Qur’anic verses by citing them out of context. He claims that Qu’ranic verses 8:59-60 condone terrorism. Verse 8:60 does indeed condone fighting one’s enemies, but it is followed by verse 8:61: “And if they incline unto peace then incline unto it” — another later revelation. In this context, verse 8:60 is advocating that one not take the course of passivism when threatened by an enemy, but 8:61 then limits the application. This hardly constitutes terrorism. Perhaps if Sookhdeo knew Arabic properly, he would have the capacity to read the Qur’an more clearly. But he does not. This makes it difficult to accept him as an authority on Islamic teachings, whatever may be his post or title.
Sookhdeo goes on to claim that one can pick between Qur’anic verses that support violence and those that support peace. This is true, but one would be hard pressed to demonstrate that the Qur’an condones violence more than the Old Testament (say, for example, the Book of Leviticus or the Book of Joshua). And if we say that the Qur’an condones violence, what are we to think of the passages of the Bible that directly command slaughter and genocide? In Numbers 31:17 Moses says (of the Midianite captives, whose menfolk the Israelites have already slaughtered): “Now therefore kill every male among the little ones, and every woman who has known a man intimately.” I Samuel 15:1-9 tells the story of the Prophet Samuel commanding King Saul to eradicate the Amalekites as follows: “Slay both men and women, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and donkey.”
Such extremes were forbidden by the Prophet Muhammad who ordered his community: “Fight in the way of God against those who disbelieve in God! Do not act brutally! Do not exceed the proper bounds! Do not mutilate! Do not kill children and hermits! And likewise, “Attack in the Name of God, but do not revert to treachery; do not kill a child; neither kill a woman; do not wish to confront the enemy.”
To claim that the warfare advocated in some Qur’anic verses is a justification for wanton acts of violence fails to acknowledge that classical interpretations have always limited the scope of such verses. For example, a verse that is often misinterpreted in the modern era is 2:191-92:
Slay the polytheists wherever you find them, and capture them and blockade them, and watch for them at every lookout. But if they repent and establish the prayer and give alms, then let them go their way.
On the one hand, extremists employ this verse to sanction shedding innocent blood. On the other hand, it is employed by non-Muslim polemicists to portray the Qur’an as a bellicose declaration of perpetual warfare. But according to the classical Islamic tradition, this verse cannot be taken as a carte blanche to fight non-Muslims. It can only be applied to the specific polytheists who opposed the early Muslim community and threatened the very survival of Islam. As one authoritative jurisprudent Qadi Abu Bakr Ibn Al-‘Arabi of the 11th - 12th century CE writes:
This verse is general regarding the polytheists, but is restricted by the Prophet’s prohibition of the killing of women, children, religious adherents, and non-combatants. But understood also are those who do not fight you nor are preparing to fight you or harm you. The verse actually means, “Slay the polytheists who are attempting to slay you.”
Such interpretations could be cited ad infinitum. They clearly demonstrate that Sookhdeo’s equation of “radical Muslims” with “medieval jurists” who claim that “Islam is war” is not only unfounded, but an utter distortion. Either Sookhdeo is not qualified to analyze the classical Islamic tradition and compare it to modern deviations, or he is intentionally distorting Islamic teachings. Either way, he proves himself to be completely unreliable.
Dubious Scholarship
Sookhdeo’s dubious scholarship is on display throughout this article, particularly when he uses the hackneyed distinction between Dar al-Islam (the abode of Islam) and Dar al-Harb (the abode of war) to argue that Muslims accept nothing but war or triumph. These are important classical terms, but Muslim scholars also wrote of many other abodes between them. Some classifications include three abodes, some five, and some seven. In the modern era, Europe and America have been regarded by the vast majority of Muslim scholars as the Dar al-Sulh, or “the abode of treaty.” This means that a Muslim can engage with this world on many levels and should abide by the laws of the land if he or she chooses to live there or to visit. Using this distinction, Muslim scholars have even declared that Muslims can serve in the U.S. Army, even when combating other Muslim countries. Only those who seek conflict continue to misinform the public by limiting the world to Dar al-Islam and Dar al-Harb.
Islamic Scholarship
Sookhdeo’s miscomprehension is also revealed when he discusses the recent conference of Islamic scholars in Jordan, which issued a final declaration that opposed the practice of calling other Muslims non-believers and clarified the qualifications for issuing fatwas. He argues that this has “negated a very helpful fatwa which had been issued in March by the Spanish Islamic scholars declaring Osama bin Laden an apostate.” However, a war of words wherein Muslims begin calling other Muslims unbelievers is precisely what Al-Qaida and other extremists desire. This way they can brand as apostate and kill everyone who disagrees with them. Let us not forget how two days before 9/11, Al-Qaida assassinated Ahmed Shah Massoud. This was no mere coincidence; it was a strategic imperative. By removing the most charismatic representative of traditional Islam in Afghanistan, Al-Qaida removed the greatest obstacle to their distortions of Islam, a credible leader who would expose the spurious nature of their claim to represent Islam.
In order to avoid people being killed over even petty faults or sins, classical Islamic law does not allow one to “ex-communicate” another Muslim for sinning nor to declare him or her to be a non-believer. By reaffirming this and removing the possibility of takfir (calling someone an apostate) in our age, King Abdullah’s conference has made the world a safer place. This is true not just for traditional, “moderate” Muslims — the only ones in fact who can effectively isolate the extremists and thus protect non-Muslims — but also for others, such as Jews and Christians whom the Qur’an (and the greatest classical scholars of Islam, such as the famous al-Ghazali) regards as “fellow believers.” Sookhdeo desires to keep this “door” open so that Muslims he does not like can be “ex-communicated.” He wants to keep this “sword” — in effect — unsheathed, completely forgetting that all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword (Matthew 26:52).
Sookhdeo further displays a complete lack of understanding of Islamic law when he asks: “Could not the King reconvene his conference and ask them to issue a fatwa banning violence against non-Muslims also?” In fact this is exactly what did happen by the scholars declaring that the fatwas issued in support of wanton violence are illegitimate. For everyone who commits an act of terrorism in the name of Islam attempts to first justify that act through the issuance — and misuse — of a fatwa, and no one commits terrorist acts without being convinced that terrorism is justified.
The conference reaffirmed that all fatwas must necessarily be bound by a triple system of internal “checks and balances”: all those issuing fatwas must have certain, stringent personal and educational credentials; they must all follow the methodology of the eight Madhahib or tradional schools of Islamic jurisprudence; and no fatwa may go outside the bounds of what the traditional Madhahib allow—precisely what the extremist fatwa s attempt to do. The conference assembled over 180 major scholars from 45 countries, and garnered 17 major fatwas from the greatest Islamic Authorities in the world (including the Sheikh Al-Azhar, Ayatollah Sistani, and Sheikh Yusuf al-Qardawi) to declare this. The conference thus not only de-legitimized the extremists de jure, but, to quote Fareed Zakaria in Newsweek (July 18,2005), constituted “a frontal attack on Al-Qaida’s theological methods.” This is surely a vital tool in the war against extremism, and so the King and his conference are very much to be commended.
Eradicating Extremism
Isolating and eradicating extremists does not, however, appear to be Sookhdeo’s agenda. Rather he wishes to misrepresent the Qur’an, history, and contemporary Muslims in order to substantiate his own claim that terrorism and extremism are inherent to Islam. Following this approach is exactly how we will lose the war on terrorism. The true war is the war of ideas.
The lynch-pin in the arguments of Bin Laden, Zarqawi and others is that they think they represent Islam. Traditional Muslim scholars from around the world have confirmed that such deviant ideologies and actions violate the very principles of Islam. By working with such scholars we can help them to consolidate the traditional middle ground of Islam and further expose the extremists for being just that. This is the most efficient, most peaceful and most effective weapon in the war against extremist interpretations of Islam. If we do not use it, we will have surrendered the higher ground in the war of ideas. By responding with extremism of another kind, Sookhdeo and those like him allow the extremists to determine the general inter-religious ambiance and thus the course of events. Rather than providing a realistic presentation of the challenges we face and their possible peaceful solutions, they take advantage of the situation to advance their own hidden polemical agenda and prejudices. In doing so they work not only against Muslims and Islam, but against the whole of humanity, Christians included (or perhaps especially). Onward Christian soldiers, Reverend Sookhdeo?
(author of Terror’s Source: The Ideology of Wahabi-Salafism and its Consequences)
19 September 2008
This article first appeared in ISLAMICA Magazine.
Patrick Sookhdeo’s article (July 30, 2005) in London’s The Spectator, “The Myth of a Moderate Islam” reflects a dangerous trend in the war on terror. Under the guise of informing Westerners about Islam, he is in fact spreading the very same disinformation that anti-Islamic polemics have been based upon for over 1,000 years. This plays directly into the hands of Osama bin Laden, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and others, for it encourages the “clash of civilizations” they so appallingly desire. It is indeed of the utmost importance that we learn more about Islam and fight the scourge of extremism with all the tools possible. But Sookhdeo and those like him corrupt this process, seeking to advance their own agenda by turning the war on terror into an ideological war against Islam.
Muslim Violence
Sookhdeo’s bias is evident from the outset. He argues that terrorists truly represent Islam, writing: “If they say they do it in the name of Islam, we must believe them. Is it not the height of illiberalism and arrogance to deny them the right to define themselves?” The remainder of the essay, however, is an extensive effort to deny other Muslims the right to define themselves by rejecting extremist interpretations of Islam. In fact, less than 5% of Muslims could be classified as fundamentalist in outlook, and of that 5%, less than 0.01% have shown any tendency toward enacting terrorism or “religious violence”. It is thus “the height of illiberalism” to define as terrorists over 1.3 billion Muslims who have nothing to do with “religious violence” because of the misdeeds of a fringe minority of 0.005%. At most, one in every 200,000 Muslims can be accused of terrorism. That is to say there are a maximum of about 65,000 terrorists worldwide — roughly the same figure as the number of murderers on the loose in the U.S. alone, with over 20,000 homicides a year and a population of only 300 million.
Sookhdeo claims that Muslims “must with honesty recognize the violence that has existed in their history.” However, given that the majority of books that record the transgressions of Muslims have been written by Muslims, it is difficult to argue that Muslims have chosen en masse to ignore the atrocities of their past. Of course, there are Muslims who deny many parts of this past, just as there are British people who still deny the atrocities of colonialism; Americans who deny the massacre of the Native Americans; and Germans who deny the Holocaust of 6 million Jews. But the fact remains that Christian civilization has given rise to many more atrocities than has Islamic civilization, even relative to its greater population and longer age.
Christian Violence
Nowhere in Islamic history can one find a doctrine similar to Saint Augustine’s cognite intrare (”lead them in” — i.e. “force them to convert”). In fact the Qur’an says the exact opposite: “There is no compulsion in religion” (2:256). Augustine’s frightening idea that all must be compelled to “conform” to the “true Christian faith” has unleashed centuries of unparalleled bloodshed.
Indeed, Christians have suffered more under the rule of Christian civilization than under pre-Christian Roman rule or any other rule in history. Millions were tortured and slaughtered in the name of Christianity during the periods of the Arian, Donatist and Albigensian heresies, to say nothing of the various Inquisitions, or the Crusades, when the European armies were saying, as they slaughtered both Christian and Muslim Arabs: “Kill them all, God will know his own.” Needless to say, these transgressions — and indeed all the transgressions of Christians throughout the ages — have absolutely nothing to do with Jesus Christ and or even the New Testament as such. Indeed, no Muslim by definition would ever or will ever blame this on Jesus Christ (the Word made Flesh, for Christians and Muslims). So how is it that Sookhdeo blames Muslim transgressions (even though far less than “Christian” ones) on the Qur’an (the Word made Book, for Muslims)?
By no means was such indiscriminate violence limited to Europe’s “Dark Ages” or to one period of Christian history. The Reformation and Counter Reformation took inter- Christian slaughter to new extremes; two thirds of the Christian population of Europe being slaughtered during this time. Then there were (among many others wars, pogroms, revolutions and genocides) the Napoleonic Wars (1792-1815); the African slave trade that claimed the lives of 10 million; and the Colonial Conquests. Estimates for the number of Native Americans slaughtered by the Europeans in North, Central and South America run as high as 20 million within three generations. Despite the ravages of Europe’s violent past, in the 20th century, Western Civilization took warfare to new extremes. A conservative estimate puts the total number of brutal deaths in the 20 th century at more than 250 million. Of these, Muslims are responsible for less than 10 million deaths. Christians, or those coming from Christian backgrounds account for more than 200 million of these! The greatest death totals come from World War I (about 20 million, at least 90% of which were inflicted by “Christians”) and World War II (90 million, at least 50% of which were inflicted by “Christians,” the majority of the rest occurring in the Far East). Given this grim history, it appears that we Europeans must all come to grips with the fact that Islamic civilization has actually been incomparably less brutal than Christian civilization. Did the Holocaust of over 6 million Jews occur out of the background of a Muslim Civilization?
In the 20th century alone, Western and/or Christian powers have been responsible for at least twenty times more deaths than have Muslim powers. In this most brutal of centuries, we created incomparably more civilian casualties than have Muslims in the whole of Islamic history. This continues even in our day — witness the slaughter of 900,000 Rwandans in 1994 in a population that was over 90% Christian; or the genocide of over 300,000 Muslims and systematic rape of over 100,000 Muslim women by Christian Serbs in Bosnia between 1992 and 1995. The horrible truth is that, numerically and statistically speaking, Christian Civilization is the bloodiest and most violent of all civilizations in all of history, and is responsible for hundreds of millions of deaths. The production and use of nuclear weapons alone should be enough to make the West stand in shame before the rest of the world. America created nuclear weapons. America is the only country ever to have used nuclear weapons, and Western countries strive to maintain a monopoly over them. As the record stands, we have no moral grounds for objecting to the acquisition of such weapons until we prove willing to forfeit them entirely.
It should also be mentioned that although Islam has the concept of legitimate war in self-defense (as does Christianity, and even Buddhism), nowhere in Islamic culture (or in other cultures that survive today) is there latent the idealization, and perhaps idolization, of violence that exists in Western Culture. Westerners think of themselves as peaceful, but in fact the gentleness and sublimity of the New Testament, and the peace-loving nature of the principles of democracy, are scarcely reflected in Western popular culture. Rather, the entire inclination of popular culture — Hollywood movies, Western television, video games, popular music and sports entertainment — is to glorify and inculcate violence. Accordingly, the relative rates of murder (especially random and serial murder) are higher in the Western World (particularly in the U.S., but even in Europe, taken as a whole) than they are in the Islamic world in counties that are not suffering civil wars, and this is true despite the much greater wealth of the West. So has Sookhdeo ever read the following words?:
Judge not, that ye be not judged. For with what judgement ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again. And why beholdest thou the mote in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye? Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye? Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast the mote out of thy brother’s eye. (Matthew 7:1-5)
The Qur’an and the Use of Force
Like most anti-Islamic polemics, the rest of Sookhdeo’s article is a mix of fact and fiction. For example, he argues that many of the Qur’anic verses that advocate peace were abrogated by later verses. It is true that many Muslim scholars claim later verses abrogate earlier verses, but the extent of abrogation is greatly debated. Some scholars say that only five verses have ever been abrogated. Some say that over 150 have been abrogated. Sookhdeo’s claim that “wherever contradictions are found, the later-dated text abrogates the earlier one” is thus a gross simplification. To claim that all of the peaceful verses are earlier revelations that have been abrogated by later militant verses is simply false. For example, verses revealed in the last two years of Muhammad’s mission enjoin Muslims to not seek vengeance against those who had driven them from their homes:
Let not the hatred of the people — because they hindered you from the Sacred Mosque — incite you to transgress. Help one another in goodness and reverence, and do not help one another in sin and aggression”(Qur’an 5:2).
O ye who believe, be upright for God witnesses injustice; and let not hatred of a people cause you to be unjust. Be just — that is closer to piety” (Qur’an 5:8).
One can hardly imagine a more emphatic message of justice, forgiveness and reconciliation.
Moreover, many highly qualified Muslim scholars have cited the earlier verses advocating peace to dissuade young Muslims from answering the call of the extremists. Would Sookhdeo prefer that these young Muslims listen to those who explain these verses away by applying his truncated version of abrogation?
Significantly enough, like extremist interpreters of Islam, Sookhdeo misrepresents Qur’anic verses by citing them out of context. He claims that Qu’ranic verses 8:59-60 condone terrorism. Verse 8:60 does indeed condone fighting one’s enemies, but it is followed by verse 8:61: “And if they incline unto peace then incline unto it” — another later revelation. In this context, verse 8:60 is advocating that one not take the course of passivism when threatened by an enemy, but 8:61 then limits the application. This hardly constitutes terrorism. Perhaps if Sookhdeo knew Arabic properly, he would have the capacity to read the Qur’an more clearly. But he does not. This makes it difficult to accept him as an authority on Islamic teachings, whatever may be his post or title.
Sookhdeo goes on to claim that one can pick between Qur’anic verses that support violence and those that support peace. This is true, but one would be hard pressed to demonstrate that the Qur’an condones violence more than the Old Testament (say, for example, the Book of Leviticus or the Book of Joshua). And if we say that the Qur’an condones violence, what are we to think of the passages of the Bible that directly command slaughter and genocide? In Numbers 31:17 Moses says (of the Midianite captives, whose menfolk the Israelites have already slaughtered): “Now therefore kill every male among the little ones, and every woman who has known a man intimately.” I Samuel 15:1-9 tells the story of the Prophet Samuel commanding King Saul to eradicate the Amalekites as follows: “Slay both men and women, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and donkey.”
Such extremes were forbidden by the Prophet Muhammad who ordered his community: “Fight in the way of God against those who disbelieve in God! Do not act brutally! Do not exceed the proper bounds! Do not mutilate! Do not kill children and hermits! And likewise, “Attack in the Name of God, but do not revert to treachery; do not kill a child; neither kill a woman; do not wish to confront the enemy.”
To claim that the warfare advocated in some Qur’anic verses is a justification for wanton acts of violence fails to acknowledge that classical interpretations have always limited the scope of such verses. For example, a verse that is often misinterpreted in the modern era is 2:191-92:
Slay the polytheists wherever you find them, and capture them and blockade them, and watch for them at every lookout. But if they repent and establish the prayer and give alms, then let them go their way.
On the one hand, extremists employ this verse to sanction shedding innocent blood. On the other hand, it is employed by non-Muslim polemicists to portray the Qur’an as a bellicose declaration of perpetual warfare. But according to the classical Islamic tradition, this verse cannot be taken as a carte blanche to fight non-Muslims. It can only be applied to the specific polytheists who opposed the early Muslim community and threatened the very survival of Islam. As one authoritative jurisprudent Qadi Abu Bakr Ibn Al-‘Arabi of the 11th - 12th century CE writes:
This verse is general regarding the polytheists, but is restricted by the Prophet’s prohibition of the killing of women, children, religious adherents, and non-combatants. But understood also are those who do not fight you nor are preparing to fight you or harm you. The verse actually means, “Slay the polytheists who are attempting to slay you.”
Such interpretations could be cited ad infinitum. They clearly demonstrate that Sookhdeo’s equation of “radical Muslims” with “medieval jurists” who claim that “Islam is war” is not only unfounded, but an utter distortion. Either Sookhdeo is not qualified to analyze the classical Islamic tradition and compare it to modern deviations, or he is intentionally distorting Islamic teachings. Either way, he proves himself to be completely unreliable.
Dubious Scholarship
Sookhdeo’s dubious scholarship is on display throughout this article, particularly when he uses the hackneyed distinction between Dar al-Islam (the abode of Islam) and Dar al-Harb (the abode of war) to argue that Muslims accept nothing but war or triumph. These are important classical terms, but Muslim scholars also wrote of many other abodes between them. Some classifications include three abodes, some five, and some seven. In the modern era, Europe and America have been regarded by the vast majority of Muslim scholars as the Dar al-Sulh, or “the abode of treaty.” This means that a Muslim can engage with this world on many levels and should abide by the laws of the land if he or she chooses to live there or to visit. Using this distinction, Muslim scholars have even declared that Muslims can serve in the U.S. Army, even when combating other Muslim countries. Only those who seek conflict continue to misinform the public by limiting the world to Dar al-Islam and Dar al-Harb.
Islamic Scholarship
Sookhdeo’s miscomprehension is also revealed when he discusses the recent conference of Islamic scholars in Jordan, which issued a final declaration that opposed the practice of calling other Muslims non-believers and clarified the qualifications for issuing fatwas. He argues that this has “negated a very helpful fatwa which had been issued in March by the Spanish Islamic scholars declaring Osama bin Laden an apostate.” However, a war of words wherein Muslims begin calling other Muslims unbelievers is precisely what Al-Qaida and other extremists desire. This way they can brand as apostate and kill everyone who disagrees with them. Let us not forget how two days before 9/11, Al-Qaida assassinated Ahmed Shah Massoud. This was no mere coincidence; it was a strategic imperative. By removing the most charismatic representative of traditional Islam in Afghanistan, Al-Qaida removed the greatest obstacle to their distortions of Islam, a credible leader who would expose the spurious nature of their claim to represent Islam.
In order to avoid people being killed over even petty faults or sins, classical Islamic law does not allow one to “ex-communicate” another Muslim for sinning nor to declare him or her to be a non-believer. By reaffirming this and removing the possibility of takfir (calling someone an apostate) in our age, King Abdullah’s conference has made the world a safer place. This is true not just for traditional, “moderate” Muslims — the only ones in fact who can effectively isolate the extremists and thus protect non-Muslims — but also for others, such as Jews and Christians whom the Qur’an (and the greatest classical scholars of Islam, such as the famous al-Ghazali) regards as “fellow believers.” Sookhdeo desires to keep this “door” open so that Muslims he does not like can be “ex-communicated.” He wants to keep this “sword” — in effect — unsheathed, completely forgetting that all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword (Matthew 26:52).
Sookhdeo further displays a complete lack of understanding of Islamic law when he asks: “Could not the King reconvene his conference and ask them to issue a fatwa banning violence against non-Muslims also?” In fact this is exactly what did happen by the scholars declaring that the fatwas issued in support of wanton violence are illegitimate. For everyone who commits an act of terrorism in the name of Islam attempts to first justify that act through the issuance — and misuse — of a fatwa, and no one commits terrorist acts without being convinced that terrorism is justified.
The conference reaffirmed that all fatwas must necessarily be bound by a triple system of internal “checks and balances”: all those issuing fatwas must have certain, stringent personal and educational credentials; they must all follow the methodology of the eight Madhahib or tradional schools of Islamic jurisprudence; and no fatwa may go outside the bounds of what the traditional Madhahib allow—precisely what the extremist fatwa s attempt to do. The conference assembled over 180 major scholars from 45 countries, and garnered 17 major fatwas from the greatest Islamic Authorities in the world (including the Sheikh Al-Azhar, Ayatollah Sistani, and Sheikh Yusuf al-Qardawi) to declare this. The conference thus not only de-legitimized the extremists de jure, but, to quote Fareed Zakaria in Newsweek (July 18,2005), constituted “a frontal attack on Al-Qaida’s theological methods.” This is surely a vital tool in the war against extremism, and so the King and his conference are very much to be commended.
Eradicating Extremism
Isolating and eradicating extremists does not, however, appear to be Sookhdeo’s agenda. Rather he wishes to misrepresent the Qur’an, history, and contemporary Muslims in order to substantiate his own claim that terrorism and extremism are inherent to Islam. Following this approach is exactly how we will lose the war on terrorism. The true war is the war of ideas.
The lynch-pin in the arguments of Bin Laden, Zarqawi and others is that they think they represent Islam. Traditional Muslim scholars from around the world have confirmed that such deviant ideologies and actions violate the very principles of Islam. By working with such scholars we can help them to consolidate the traditional middle ground of Islam and further expose the extremists for being just that. This is the most efficient, most peaceful and most effective weapon in the war against extremist interpretations of Islam. If we do not use it, we will have surrendered the higher ground in the war of ideas. By responding with extremism of another kind, Sookhdeo and those like him allow the extremists to determine the general inter-religious ambiance and thus the course of events. Rather than providing a realistic presentation of the challenges we face and their possible peaceful solutions, they take advantage of the situation to advance their own hidden polemical agenda and prejudices. In doing so they work not only against Muslims and Islam, but against the whole of humanity, Christians included (or perhaps especially). Onward Christian soldiers, Reverend Sookhdeo?
Thursday, May 6, 2010
Islam and Muslim Women’s Social Roles
By Maulana Waris Mazhari
(Translated from Urdu by Yoginder Sikand)
The issue of Muslim women’s freedom is a much-debated subject today. The traditional ulema and the modern educated Muslim intelligentsia appear to be completely at loggerheads on the issue. The former insist that women must be controlled as much as possible in order to protect Muslim society from immorality and sexual licentiousness, and that they must remain confined to their homes. They believe that women must play no social roles outside the domestic sphere whatsoever. If women are permitted to do so, they argue, it would open to floodgates of chaos and lead to a breakdown of society. On the other hand, the modern-educated Muslim intelligentsia is in favour of expanding women’s roles outside the narrow domestic sphere, and many of them go so far as to consider the hijab or modest dress for women as a symbol of oppression.
The female personality, it must be admitted, is extremely sensitive. On women the character of a society depends as much as it does on men. It must also be admitted that the attitude of Muslim religious circles towards women and women’s issues is influenced less by Islam and shariah norms than by other factors, among these being a marked reaction to the perceived widespread immorality in the West as a result of the free intermingling of sexes in Western societies. While in the West women have made important gains in several respects, it cannot be denied that in the name of women’s liberation and freedom they have been turned into sexual beings and commodities. This unfortunate phenomenon has led to a reaction among the ulema, leading them to insist on the control of women and on confining them to the domestic sphere as a defence mechanism for fear of Muslim society also falling prey to the same social ills that today plague the West. This stance may have had some temporary benefits, but it has caused a tragic loss to the Muslim community by denying half its population—Muslim women—the opportunity to develop and put to proper use their talents, skills and capacities.
It is not just the traditional ulema who, because of their excessively defensive and cautious approach to women’s social roles, have caused such damage to Muslim women and to the wider Muslim society. Even the supposedly ‘enlightened’ and more ‘modern’ Islamist scholar, Maulana Syed Abul ‘Ala Maududi shared similar views. In fact, in his widely-red book Purdah Maududi comes across as even more stern and extreme in his opposition to women’s freedom than the traditional ulema. For instance, the putative founders of the four major schools of Sunni Muslim jurisprudence and their followers all allowed for Muslim women to keep their faces unveiled, while Maududi stiffly opposed this, along with several modern ulema, claiming that a woman’s face was the centre of her beauty and, hence, a principal source of fitna or strife. It is striking to note that the classical ulema did not consider this argument as worthy of attention. However, going against their opinion, the influential twentieth century Deobandi scholar Maulana Ashraf Ali Thanwi even went to the extent of insisting that a woman’s name must never be mentioned in a newspaper. An ideal woman, according to him, is one who hides in her own home and is so unknown outside that her neighbours are not even aware of her existence. He allowed for girls to acquire only basic literacy skills but not to advance beyond that. Thanwi’s contemporary and virulent opponent, Ahmad Raza Khan, the leading figure of the Barelvi sect, was even more dismissive of women, going so far as to demean them. So opposed to women’s rights were some of these ulema of relatively recent times, who are still immensely popular among their followers today, that they upheld and propagated a completely baseless and utterly laughable theory that women’s voices were also to be ‘veiled’. It can be confidently said that their approach towards women and their rights and roles was in marked contrast to that of the early ulema, who were clearly more accommodative and accepting of women and their social roles.
How this strong misogynist streak and extreme defensiveness and sensitivity with regard to women emerge among the ulema is a subject that requires close and detailed historical scrutiny. The origins of this lie far back in history, in the medieval period, when, in the wake of the Tatar invasions and devastation of Muslim lands, chaos reigned supreme. It was perhaps but natural that a marked defensiveness and insularity emerged at this time in order to consolidate Muslim society that had suffered such widespread destruction and bloodshed. This was reflected in increasing restrictions on women, which were absent in the early Islamic period, including at the time of the Prophet. It was at this time that questions such as the permissibility or otherwise of women learning to read were hotly-debated. The renowned medieval Hanafi scholar Mulla Ali Qari went so far as to issue a fatwa declaring it impermissible for women to learn to write, and even wrote an entire book on the subject to justify his point, although there had been notable literate women in the early Islamic period, many of who were, in fact, the teachers of renowned male ulema. For over six hundred years the ulema continued to inconclusively debate whether women were permitted to read and write, and it was only in the late nineteenth century that a fatwa was issued, by the noted Indian scholar Maulana Abdul Haye Firanghi Mahali, abrogating the fatwa of Mulla Ali Qari.
Islam, it must be stressed, does not support the sort of emancipation of women as is current in the West, but nor does it stand for the sort of extreme restrictions on women, tantamount to imprisonment, that many traditionalist Islamic scholars advocate. The Islamic position is somewhat in between these two extremes. It stands for freedom of women at the social level within certain limits and with certain conditions. If the issue is looked at from the perspective of the Quran and the practice of the Prophet and the early Muslims, it would be evident that Islam does not place any restriction on the physical movement of women. It also outlines women’s social roles in considerable detail, roles that early Muslim played, not being bound within the four walls of their homes. A good illustration of this is the appointment of a woman, Shifa Bint Abdullah al-‘Adawiya, by Umar, the second Caliph of the Sunnis, as the superintendent of the market of Medina, the then capital of the Islamic Caliphate. Today’s traditional ulema might regard the marketplace as the most potent site of fitna or chaos, but yet this woman was appointed to oversee Medina’s commercial hub. At the time of the Prophet, women were free to pray in mosques and even offered their services on the battlefield. They would listen to the sermons of the Prophet in the presence of men, without any restriction, and would ask the Prophet questions. Umm-e Haram, a woman companion of the Prophet, requested him to pray for her so that she might be able to participate in jihad in the path of God. During the Caliphate of Uthman, the third Sunni Caliph, she sailed to Cyprus, where she participated in a battle. Asma, daughter of Abu Bakr, father-in-law of the Prophet and the first Sunni Caliph, helped her husband Zubayr Bin al-Awa‘am in his work outside their home, and would even massage his horses and travel a long distance to get grains for them to eat, which she would carry on her head. The case of the Caliph Umar being corrected by a woman while delivering a sermon and making him admit his error is well-known.
From these instances, it is clear that in this period of Muslim history women’s minds and voices were not ‘veiled’. Nor was there any discussion of keeping men and women rigidly separate from each other. The books of Hadith are replete with narrations that clearly indicate that at this time men and women saw each other’s faces, spoke to each other, engaged in transactions with each other and assisted each other in different activities. The wives of the Prophet, known as the ‘mothers of the believers’ (ummhat al-mu‘minin), were specially required, as the Quran indicates, to observe purdah, but this did not stop male companions of the Prophet from appearing before them and learning from them. The youngest of the Prophet’s wives, Ayesha, had many male disciples, to whom she related numerous narrations of and about the Prophet.
Besides these examples from early Muslim history, one can cite references in the Quran to prove the point that certain forms of interaction between men and women is indeed permissible in Islam, in contrast to what many traditionalist ulema might argue, Thus, for instance, the Quran talks about the meeting between the prophet Solomon and Bilqis, Queen of Sheba and their conversation; the meeting between Zachariah and Mary, mother of Jesus; and the meeting and discussion between the daughter of Shoeb and Moses and of the former taking the help of the latter to provide water to her animals. Since the Quran exhorts Muslims to emulate the practice of the previous prophets, it is obvious that these forms of interaction between men and women are also permitted to Muslims.
The Quran states: ‘The believers, men and women, are protectors, one of another: they enjoin what is just, and forbid what is evil’ (9:71). The Quran considers it the responsibility of both men and women to perform various social roles, the performance of which is not possible without their common participation and mutual assistance. Given this, the extreme hesitation or reluctance of some Islamic scholars to allow Muslim women to play these legitimate roles has, to a large extent, to do with local cultural mores rather than with the teachings of Islam or the practice of the Prophet and the early Muslims.
It is a fact that misogyny has been in existence for centuries, and traces of it remained in societies that later became Muslim even after accepting Islam. At the same time, it is also undeniable that, for the first time, Islam sought to provide women with their legitimate rights, and to provide them an elevated status in society. The Prophet and his companions strove to combat deep-rooted prejudices against women, not just on the ideological plane but also in practical terms. However, after the early Islamic period, when Muslim society entered a phase of decline, women’s status suffered a major set-back. Just as Islamic justice demanded that slavery be abolished but, yet, slavery still remained, so, too, while Islam sought to emancipate women, anti-women prejudice could not be fully rooted out from Muslim society. To buttress this prejudice, many narrations were concocted and were falsely attributed to the Prophet and to his companions that projected women in an extremely derogatory fashion. One such false narration, which, lamentably, is still often quoted in traditionalist ulema circles, exhorts: ‘Take the advice of women but do the precise opposite of what they advise.’ Another such tradition declares: ‘To obey a woman is a matter of shame.’ A third such fabricated narration declares: ‘Men were destroyed when they obeyed women’. Yet another such concocted narration claims: ‘If women did not exist, the right of God to be worshipped would have been performed in a better way.’ Likewise, the following statement was falsely attributed to the Imam Ali: ‘Woman is wholly bad.’
In this light of all this, it is incumbent on Islamic scholars to review their position on and understanding of women and critique and challenge the deep-rooted misogyny that is, unfortunately and wrongly, seen as inseparable from Islam. It is imperative that our traditionalist scholars no longer stand in the way of Muslim women being able to access the rights granted to them by Islam, and which they enjoyed at the time of the Prophet.
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Maulana Waris Mazhari is the editor of the New Delhi-based monthly Tarjuman Darul-Uloom, the official organ of the Graduates' Association of the Deoband madrasa.
Yoginder Sikand works with the Centre for the Study of Social Exclusion at the National Law School, Bangalore.
(Translated from Urdu by Yoginder Sikand)
The issue of Muslim women’s freedom is a much-debated subject today. The traditional ulema and the modern educated Muslim intelligentsia appear to be completely at loggerheads on the issue. The former insist that women must be controlled as much as possible in order to protect Muslim society from immorality and sexual licentiousness, and that they must remain confined to their homes. They believe that women must play no social roles outside the domestic sphere whatsoever. If women are permitted to do so, they argue, it would open to floodgates of chaos and lead to a breakdown of society. On the other hand, the modern-educated Muslim intelligentsia is in favour of expanding women’s roles outside the narrow domestic sphere, and many of them go so far as to consider the hijab or modest dress for women as a symbol of oppression.
The female personality, it must be admitted, is extremely sensitive. On women the character of a society depends as much as it does on men. It must also be admitted that the attitude of Muslim religious circles towards women and women’s issues is influenced less by Islam and shariah norms than by other factors, among these being a marked reaction to the perceived widespread immorality in the West as a result of the free intermingling of sexes in Western societies. While in the West women have made important gains in several respects, it cannot be denied that in the name of women’s liberation and freedom they have been turned into sexual beings and commodities. This unfortunate phenomenon has led to a reaction among the ulema, leading them to insist on the control of women and on confining them to the domestic sphere as a defence mechanism for fear of Muslim society also falling prey to the same social ills that today plague the West. This stance may have had some temporary benefits, but it has caused a tragic loss to the Muslim community by denying half its population—Muslim women—the opportunity to develop and put to proper use their talents, skills and capacities.
It is not just the traditional ulema who, because of their excessively defensive and cautious approach to women’s social roles, have caused such damage to Muslim women and to the wider Muslim society. Even the supposedly ‘enlightened’ and more ‘modern’ Islamist scholar, Maulana Syed Abul ‘Ala Maududi shared similar views. In fact, in his widely-red book Purdah Maududi comes across as even more stern and extreme in his opposition to women’s freedom than the traditional ulema. For instance, the putative founders of the four major schools of Sunni Muslim jurisprudence and their followers all allowed for Muslim women to keep their faces unveiled, while Maududi stiffly opposed this, along with several modern ulema, claiming that a woman’s face was the centre of her beauty and, hence, a principal source of fitna or strife. It is striking to note that the classical ulema did not consider this argument as worthy of attention. However, going against their opinion, the influential twentieth century Deobandi scholar Maulana Ashraf Ali Thanwi even went to the extent of insisting that a woman’s name must never be mentioned in a newspaper. An ideal woman, according to him, is one who hides in her own home and is so unknown outside that her neighbours are not even aware of her existence. He allowed for girls to acquire only basic literacy skills but not to advance beyond that. Thanwi’s contemporary and virulent opponent, Ahmad Raza Khan, the leading figure of the Barelvi sect, was even more dismissive of women, going so far as to demean them. So opposed to women’s rights were some of these ulema of relatively recent times, who are still immensely popular among their followers today, that they upheld and propagated a completely baseless and utterly laughable theory that women’s voices were also to be ‘veiled’. It can be confidently said that their approach towards women and their rights and roles was in marked contrast to that of the early ulema, who were clearly more accommodative and accepting of women and their social roles.
How this strong misogynist streak and extreme defensiveness and sensitivity with regard to women emerge among the ulema is a subject that requires close and detailed historical scrutiny. The origins of this lie far back in history, in the medieval period, when, in the wake of the Tatar invasions and devastation of Muslim lands, chaos reigned supreme. It was perhaps but natural that a marked defensiveness and insularity emerged at this time in order to consolidate Muslim society that had suffered such widespread destruction and bloodshed. This was reflected in increasing restrictions on women, which were absent in the early Islamic period, including at the time of the Prophet. It was at this time that questions such as the permissibility or otherwise of women learning to read were hotly-debated. The renowned medieval Hanafi scholar Mulla Ali Qari went so far as to issue a fatwa declaring it impermissible for women to learn to write, and even wrote an entire book on the subject to justify his point, although there had been notable literate women in the early Islamic period, many of who were, in fact, the teachers of renowned male ulema. For over six hundred years the ulema continued to inconclusively debate whether women were permitted to read and write, and it was only in the late nineteenth century that a fatwa was issued, by the noted Indian scholar Maulana Abdul Haye Firanghi Mahali, abrogating the fatwa of Mulla Ali Qari.
Islam, it must be stressed, does not support the sort of emancipation of women as is current in the West, but nor does it stand for the sort of extreme restrictions on women, tantamount to imprisonment, that many traditionalist Islamic scholars advocate. The Islamic position is somewhat in between these two extremes. It stands for freedom of women at the social level within certain limits and with certain conditions. If the issue is looked at from the perspective of the Quran and the practice of the Prophet and the early Muslims, it would be evident that Islam does not place any restriction on the physical movement of women. It also outlines women’s social roles in considerable detail, roles that early Muslim played, not being bound within the four walls of their homes. A good illustration of this is the appointment of a woman, Shifa Bint Abdullah al-‘Adawiya, by Umar, the second Caliph of the Sunnis, as the superintendent of the market of Medina, the then capital of the Islamic Caliphate. Today’s traditional ulema might regard the marketplace as the most potent site of fitna or chaos, but yet this woman was appointed to oversee Medina’s commercial hub. At the time of the Prophet, women were free to pray in mosques and even offered their services on the battlefield. They would listen to the sermons of the Prophet in the presence of men, without any restriction, and would ask the Prophet questions. Umm-e Haram, a woman companion of the Prophet, requested him to pray for her so that she might be able to participate in jihad in the path of God. During the Caliphate of Uthman, the third Sunni Caliph, she sailed to Cyprus, where she participated in a battle. Asma, daughter of Abu Bakr, father-in-law of the Prophet and the first Sunni Caliph, helped her husband Zubayr Bin al-Awa‘am in his work outside their home, and would even massage his horses and travel a long distance to get grains for them to eat, which she would carry on her head. The case of the Caliph Umar being corrected by a woman while delivering a sermon and making him admit his error is well-known.
From these instances, it is clear that in this period of Muslim history women’s minds and voices were not ‘veiled’. Nor was there any discussion of keeping men and women rigidly separate from each other. The books of Hadith are replete with narrations that clearly indicate that at this time men and women saw each other’s faces, spoke to each other, engaged in transactions with each other and assisted each other in different activities. The wives of the Prophet, known as the ‘mothers of the believers’ (ummhat al-mu‘minin), were specially required, as the Quran indicates, to observe purdah, but this did not stop male companions of the Prophet from appearing before them and learning from them. The youngest of the Prophet’s wives, Ayesha, had many male disciples, to whom she related numerous narrations of and about the Prophet.
Besides these examples from early Muslim history, one can cite references in the Quran to prove the point that certain forms of interaction between men and women is indeed permissible in Islam, in contrast to what many traditionalist ulema might argue, Thus, for instance, the Quran talks about the meeting between the prophet Solomon and Bilqis, Queen of Sheba and their conversation; the meeting between Zachariah and Mary, mother of Jesus; and the meeting and discussion between the daughter of Shoeb and Moses and of the former taking the help of the latter to provide water to her animals. Since the Quran exhorts Muslims to emulate the practice of the previous prophets, it is obvious that these forms of interaction between men and women are also permitted to Muslims.
The Quran states: ‘The believers, men and women, are protectors, one of another: they enjoin what is just, and forbid what is evil’ (9:71). The Quran considers it the responsibility of both men and women to perform various social roles, the performance of which is not possible without their common participation and mutual assistance. Given this, the extreme hesitation or reluctance of some Islamic scholars to allow Muslim women to play these legitimate roles has, to a large extent, to do with local cultural mores rather than with the teachings of Islam or the practice of the Prophet and the early Muslims.
It is a fact that misogyny has been in existence for centuries, and traces of it remained in societies that later became Muslim even after accepting Islam. At the same time, it is also undeniable that, for the first time, Islam sought to provide women with their legitimate rights, and to provide them an elevated status in society. The Prophet and his companions strove to combat deep-rooted prejudices against women, not just on the ideological plane but also in practical terms. However, after the early Islamic period, when Muslim society entered a phase of decline, women’s status suffered a major set-back. Just as Islamic justice demanded that slavery be abolished but, yet, slavery still remained, so, too, while Islam sought to emancipate women, anti-women prejudice could not be fully rooted out from Muslim society. To buttress this prejudice, many narrations were concocted and were falsely attributed to the Prophet and to his companions that projected women in an extremely derogatory fashion. One such false narration, which, lamentably, is still often quoted in traditionalist ulema circles, exhorts: ‘Take the advice of women but do the precise opposite of what they advise.’ Another such tradition declares: ‘To obey a woman is a matter of shame.’ A third such fabricated narration declares: ‘Men were destroyed when they obeyed women’. Yet another such concocted narration claims: ‘If women did not exist, the right of God to be worshipped would have been performed in a better way.’ Likewise, the following statement was falsely attributed to the Imam Ali: ‘Woman is wholly bad.’
In this light of all this, it is incumbent on Islamic scholars to review their position on and understanding of women and critique and challenge the deep-rooted misogyny that is, unfortunately and wrongly, seen as inseparable from Islam. It is imperative that our traditionalist scholars no longer stand in the way of Muslim women being able to access the rights granted to them by Islam, and which they enjoyed at the time of the Prophet.
----------------
Maulana Waris Mazhari is the editor of the New Delhi-based monthly Tarjuman Darul-Uloom, the official organ of the Graduates' Association of the Deoband madrasa.
Yoginder Sikand works with the Centre for the Study of Social Exclusion at the National Law School, Bangalore.
Friday, April 2, 2010
Feminism: Confrontation or Cooperation?
ISLAMIC TRADITIONS AND THE FEMINIST MOVEMENT
CONFRONTATION OR COOPERATION?
by Dr. Lois Lamya' al Faruqi
Whether living in the Middle East or Africa, in Central Asia, in Pakistan, in Southeast Asia, or in Europe and the Americas, Muslim women tend to view the feminist movement with some apprehension. Although there are some features of the feminist cause with which we as Muslims would wish to join hands, other features generate our disappointment and even opposition. There is therefore no simple or "pat" answer to the question of the future cooperation or competition which feminism may meet in an Islamic environment.
There are however a number of social, psychological, and economic traditions which govern the thinking of most Muslims and which are particularly affective of woman's status and role in Islamic society. Understanding these can help us understand the issues which affect male and female status and roles, and how we should react to movements which seek to improve the situation of women in any of the countries where Muslims live.
THE FAMILY SYSTEM:
One of the Islamic traditions which will affect the way in which Muslim women respond to feminist ideas is the advocacy in Islamic culture of an extended rather than a nuclear family system. Some Muslim families are "residentially extended" - that is, their members live communally with three or more generations of relatives (grandparents, parents, uncles, aunts, and their offspring) in a single building or compound. Even when this residential version of the extended family is not possible or adhered to, family connections
reaching far beyond the nuclear unit are evident in strong psychological, social, economic, and even political ties. Mutual supports and responsibilities affecting these larger consanguine groups are not just considered desirable, but they are made legally incumbent on members of the society by Islamic law. The Holy Quran itself exhorts to extended family solidarity; in addition it specifies the extent of such responsibilities and contains prescriptive measures for inheritance, support, and other close interdependencies within the
extended family.[1]
Our Islamic traditions also prescribe a much stronger participation of the family in the contracting and preservation of marriages. While most Western feminists would decry family participation or arranged
marriage as a negative influence because of its apparent restriction of individualistic freedom and responsibility, as Muslims we would argue that such participation is advantageous for both individuals and
groups within the society. Not only does it ensure marriages based on sounder principles than physical attraction and sexual infatuation, but it provides other safeguards for successful marital continuity.
Members of the family provide diverse companionship as well as ready sources of advice and sympathy for the newly married as they adjust to each others' way. One party of the marriage cannot easily pursue an
eccentric course at the expense of the spouse since such behavior would rally opposition from the larger group. Quarrels are never so devastating to the marriage bond since other adult family members act as mediators and provide alternative sources of companionship and counsel following disagreements. The problems of parenting and generational incompatibility are also alleviated, and singles clubs and dating bureaus would be unnecessary props for social interaction. There is no need in the extended family for children of working parents to be unguarded, unattended, or inadequately loved and socialized because the extended family home is never empty. There is therefore no feeling of guilt which the working parent often feels in a nuclear or single-parent organization. Tragedy, even divorce, is not so debilitating to either adults or children since the larger social unit absorbs the residual numbers with much greater ease than a
nuclear family organization can ever provide.
The move away from the cohesiveness which the family formerly enjoyed in Western society, the rise of usually smaller alternative family styles, and the accompanying rise in individualism which many
feminists advocate or at least practice, are at odds with these deep-rooted Islamic customs and traditions. If feminism in the Muslim world chooses to espouse the Western family models, it should and would certainly be strongly challenged by Muslim women's groups and by Islamic society as a whole.
INDIVIDUALISM VS. THE LARGER ORGANIZATION:
The traditional support of the large and intricately interrelated family organization is correlative to another Islamic tradition which seems to run counter to recent Western trends and to feminist ideology. Islam and Muslim women generally advocate molding of individual goals and interests to accord with the welfare of the larger group and its members. Instead of holding the goals of the individual supreme, Islam instills in the adherent a sense of his or her place within the family and of a responsibility to that group. This is not perceived or experienced by Muslims as repression of the individual. Other traditions which will be discussed later guarantee his or her legal personality. Feminism, therefore, would not be espoused by Muslim women as a goal to be pursued without regard for the relation of the female to the other members of her family. The Muslim woman regards her goals as necessitating a balance with, or even subordination to, those of the family group. The rampant individualism often experienced in contemporary life, that which treats the goals of the individual in isolation from other factors, or as utterly supreme, runs against a deep Islamic commitment to social interdependence.
DIFFERENTIATION OF SEX ROLES:
A third Islamic tradition which affects the future of any feminist movement in an Islamic environment is that it specifies a differentiation of male and female roles and responsibilities in society. Feminism, as represented in Western society, has generally denied any such differentiation and has demanded a move toward a unisex society in order to achieve equal rights for women. By "unisex society," I mean one in which a single set of roles and concerns are given preference and esteem by both sexes and are pursued by all members of the society regardless of sex and age differentials. In the case of Western feminism, the preferred goals have been those traditionally fulfilled by the male members of society. The roles of providing financial support, of success in career, and of decision making have been given overwhelming respect and concern while those dealing with domestic matters, with child care, with aesthetic and psychological refreshment, with social interrelationships, were devalued and even despised. Both men and women have been forced into a single mold which is perhaps more restrictive, rigid and coercive than that which formerly assigned men to one type of role and women to another.
This is a new brand of male chauvenism with which Islamic traditions cannot conform. Islam instead maintains that both types of roles are equally deserving of pursuit and respect and that when accompanied by the equity demanded by the religion, a division of labor along sex lines is generally beneficial to all members of the society.
This might be regarded by the feminist as opening the door to discrimination, but as Muslims we regard Islamic traditions as standing clearly and unequivocally for the support of male-female equity. In the Quran, no difference whatever is made between the sexes in relation to God. "For men who submit [to God] and for women who submit [to God], for believing men and believing women, for devout men and devout women, for truthful men and truthful women, for steadfast men and steadfast women, for humble men and humble women, for charitable men and charitable women, for men who fast and women who fast, for men who guard their chastity and women who guard, for men who remember God much and for women who remember - for them God has prepared forgiveness and a mighty reward" (33:35). "Whoever performs good deeds, whether male or female and is a believer, We shall surely make him live a good life and We will certainly reward them for the best of what they did" (16:97).[2]
It is only in relation to each other and society that a difference is made - a difference of role or function. The rights and responsibilities of a woman are equal to those of a man, but they are not necessarily identical with them. Equality and identity are two different things, Islamic traditions maintain - the former desirable, the latter not. Men and women should therefore be complementary to each other in a multi-function organization rather than competitive with each other in a uni-function society.
The equality demanded by Islamic traditions must, however, be seen in its larger context if it is to be understood properly. Since Muslims regard a differentiation of sexual roles to be natural and desirable in the majority of cases, the economic responsibilities of male and female members differ to provide a balance for the physical differences between men and women and for the greater responsibility which women carry in the reproductive and rearing activities so necessary to the well-being of the society. To maintain, therefore, that the men of the family are responsible for providing economically for the women or that women are not equally responsible, is not a dislocation or denial of sexual equity. It is instead a duty to be fulfilled by men as compensation for another responsibility which involves the special ability of women. Likewise the different inheritance rates for males and females, which is so often sited as an example of discrimination against women, must not be seen as an isolated prescription.[3] It is but one part of a comprehensive system in which women carry no legal responsibility to support other members of the family, but in which men are bound by law as well as custom to provide for all their female relatives.
Does this mean that Islamic traditions necessarily prescribe maintaining the status quo in the Islamic societies that exist today? The answer is a definite "No." Many thinking Muslims - both men and women - would agree that their societies do not fulfill the Islamic ideals and traditions laid down in the Quran and reinforced by the example and directives of the Prophet Muhammad, salallahu alehi wasallam. It is reported in the Quran and from history that women not only expressed their opinions freely in the Prophet's presence but also argued and participated in serious discussions with the Prophet himself and with other Muslim leaders of the time (58:1). Muslim women are known to have even stood in opposition to certain caliphs, who later accepted the sound arguments of those women. A specific example took place during the caliphate of 'Umar ibn al Khattab.[4] The Quran reproached those who believed woman to be inferior to men (16:57-59) and repeatedly gives expression to the need for treating men and women with equity (2:228, 231; 4:19, and so on). Therefore, if Muslim women experience discrimination in any place or time, they do not and should not lay the blame on Islam, but on the un-Islamic nature of their societies and the failure of Muslims to fulfill its directives.
SEPARATE LEGAL STATUS FOR WOMEN:
A fourth Islamic tradition affecting the future of feminism in Muslim societies is the separate legal status for women which is demanded by the Quran and the Shari'ah. Every Muslim individual, whether male of female, retains a separate identity from cradle to grave. This separate legal personality prescribes for every woman the right to contract, to conduct business, to earn and possess property independently. Marriage has no effect on her legal status, her property, her earnings - or even on her name. If she commits any civil offense, her penalty is no less or no more than a man's in a similar case (5:83; 24:2). If she is wronged or harmed, she is entitled to compensation just like a man (4:92-93; see also Mustafa al Siba'i 1976:38; Darwazah n.d.:78). The feminist demand for separate legal status for women is therefore one that is equally espoused by Islamic traditions.
POLYGYNY:
Although the taking of plural wives by a man is commonly called polygamy, the more correct sociological designation is polygyny. This institution is probably the Islamic tradition most misunderstood and vehemently condemned by non-Muslims. It is one which the Hollywood stereotypes "play upon" in their ridicule of Islamic society. The first image conjured up in the mind of the Westerner when the subject of Islam and marriage is approached is that of a religion which advocates the sexual indulgence of the male members of the society and the subjugation of its females through this institution.
Islamic tradition does indeed allow a man to marry more than one woman at a time. This leniency is even established by the Quran (4:3).[5] But the use and perception of that institution is far from the Hollywood stereotype. Polygyny is certainly not imposed by Islam; nor is it a universal practice. It is instead regarded as the exception to the norm of monogamy , and its exercise is strongly controlled by social pressures.[6] If utilized by Muslim men to facilitate or condone sexual promiscuity, it is not less Islamically condemnable than serial polygyny and adultery, and no less detrimental to the society. Muslims view polygyny as an institution which is to be called into use only under extraordinary circumstances. As such, it has not been generally regarded by Muslim women as a threat. Attempts by the feminist movement to focus on eradication of this institution in order to improve the status of women would therefore meet with little sympathy or support.
II. DIRECTIVES FOR THE FEMINIST MOVEMENT IN AN ISLAMIC ENVIRONMENT
What can be learned about the future compatibility or incongruity of feminism in a Muslim environment from these facts about Islamic traditions? Are there any general principles to be gained, any directives to be taken, by those who work for women's rights and human rights in the world?
INTERCULTURAL INCOMPATIBILITY OF WESTERN FEMINISM:
The first and foremost principle would seem to be that many of the goals of feminism as conceived in Western society are not necessarily relevant or exportable across cultural boundaries. Feminism as a Western movement originated in England during the 18th century and had as one of its main goals the eradication of legal disabilities imposed upon women by English common law. These laws were especially discriminatory of married women. They derived in part from Biblical sources (e.g., the idea of man and woman becoming "one flesh," and the attribution of an inferior and even evil nature to Eve and all her female descendants) and in part from feudal customs (e.g., the importance of carrying and supplying arms for battle and the concomitant devaluation of the female contributions to society). The Industrial Revolution and its need for women's contribution to the work force brought strength to the feminist movement and helped its advocates gradually break down most of those discriminatory laws.
Since the history and heritage of Muslim peoples have been radically different from that of Western Europe and America, the feminism which would appeal to Muslim women and to the society generally must be correspondingly different. Those legal rights which Western women sought in reform of English common law were already granted to Muslim women in the 7th century. Such a struggle therefore holds little interest for the Muslim woman. In addition, it would be useless to try to interest us in ideas or reforms that run in diametrical opposition to those traditions which form an important part of our cultural and religious heritage. There has been a good deal of opposition to any changes in Muslim personal status laws since these embody and reinforce the very traditions which we have been discussing. In other words, if feminism is to succeed in an Islamic environment, it must be an indigenous form of feminism, rather than one conceived and nurtured in an alien environment with different problems and different solutions and goals.
THE FORM OF AN ISLAMIC FEMINISM:
If the goals of Western feminism are not viable for Muslim women, what form should a feminist movement take to ensure success?
Above all, the movement must recognize that, whereas in the West, the mainstream of the women's movement has viewed religion as one of the chief enemies of its progress and well-being, Muslim women view the teachings of Islam as their best friend and supporter. The prescriptions that are found in the Quran and in the example of the Prophet Muhammad, salallahu alehi wasallam, are regarded as the ideal to which contemporary women wish to return. As far as Muslim women are concerned, the source of any difficulties experienced today is not Islam and its traditions, but certain alien ideological intrusions on our societies, ignorance, and distortion of the true Islam, or exploitation by individuals within the society. It is a lack of an
appreciation for this fact that caused such misunderstanding and mutual distress when women's movement representatives from the West visited Iran both before and after the Islamic Revolution.
Second, any feminism which is to succeed in an Islamic environment must be one which does not work chauvenistically for women's interest alone. Islamic traditions would dictate that women's progress be achieved in tandem with the wider struggle to benefit all members of the society. The good of the group or totality is always more crucial than the good of any one sector of the society. In fact, the society is seen as an organic whole in which the welfare of each member or organ is necessary for the health and well being of every other part. Disadventagous circumstances of women therefore should always be countered in conjunction with attempt to alleviate those factors which adversely affect men and other segments of the society.
Third, Islam is an ideology which influences much more than the ritual life of a people. It is equally affective of their social, political, economic, psychological, and aesthetic life. "Din," which is usually regarded as an equivalent for the English term "religion," is a concept which includes, in addition to those ideas and practices customarily associated in our minds with religion, a wide spectrum of practices and ideas which affect almost every aspect of the daily life of the Muslim individual. Islam and Islamic traditions therefore are seen today by many Muslims as the main source of cohesiveness for nurturing an identity and stability to confront intruding alien influences and the cooperation needed to solve their numerous contemporary problems. To fail to note this fact, or to fail to be fully appreciative of its importance for the average Muslim - whether male or female - would be to commit any movement advocating improvement of women's position in Islamic lands to certain failure. It is only through establishing that identity and stability that self-respect can be achieved and a more healthy climate for both Muslim men and Muslim women will emerge.
NOTES
[1]. For example, see Quran 2:177; 4:7,176; 8:41; 16:90; 17:26; 24:22.
[2]. See also Quran 2:195; 4:124,32; 9:71-72.
[3]. "God (thus) directs you as regards your children's (inheritance): to the male, a proportion equal to that of two females..." (Quran 4:11).
[4]. Kamal 'Awn 1955:129.
[5]. "... Marry women of your choice, two, or three, or four; but if you fear that you shall not be able to deal justly (with them), then only one, or (a captive) that your right hands possess. That will be more suitable, to prevent you from doing injustice."
[6]. It should be remembered that any woman who wants her marriage to remain monogamous can provide for this condition under Islamic law.
REFERENCES
Kamal Ahmad 'Awn, Al Mar'ah fi al Islam (Tanta: Sha'raw Press, 1955)
Muhammad 'Izzat Darwazah, Al Dastur al Quran fi Shu'un al Hayat (Cairo: 'Isa al Babi al Halabi, n.d.).
Mustafa al Siba'i, Al Mar'ah baynal Fiqh wal Qanun (Aleppo: Al Maktabah al 'Arabiyyah, first pub. 1962).
Acknowledgment: This page was downloaded from www.jannah.org and reformatted for www.islam101.com
CONFRONTATION OR COOPERATION?
by Dr. Lois Lamya' al Faruqi
Whether living in the Middle East or Africa, in Central Asia, in Pakistan, in Southeast Asia, or in Europe and the Americas, Muslim women tend to view the feminist movement with some apprehension. Although there are some features of the feminist cause with which we as Muslims would wish to join hands, other features generate our disappointment and even opposition. There is therefore no simple or "pat" answer to the question of the future cooperation or competition which feminism may meet in an Islamic environment.
There are however a number of social, psychological, and economic traditions which govern the thinking of most Muslims and which are particularly affective of woman's status and role in Islamic society. Understanding these can help us understand the issues which affect male and female status and roles, and how we should react to movements which seek to improve the situation of women in any of the countries where Muslims live.
THE FAMILY SYSTEM:
One of the Islamic traditions which will affect the way in which Muslim women respond to feminist ideas is the advocacy in Islamic culture of an extended rather than a nuclear family system. Some Muslim families are "residentially extended" - that is, their members live communally with three or more generations of relatives (grandparents, parents, uncles, aunts, and their offspring) in a single building or compound. Even when this residential version of the extended family is not possible or adhered to, family connections
reaching far beyond the nuclear unit are evident in strong psychological, social, economic, and even political ties. Mutual supports and responsibilities affecting these larger consanguine groups are not just considered desirable, but they are made legally incumbent on members of the society by Islamic law. The Holy Quran itself exhorts to extended family solidarity; in addition it specifies the extent of such responsibilities and contains prescriptive measures for inheritance, support, and other close interdependencies within the
extended family.[1]
Our Islamic traditions also prescribe a much stronger participation of the family in the contracting and preservation of marriages. While most Western feminists would decry family participation or arranged
marriage as a negative influence because of its apparent restriction of individualistic freedom and responsibility, as Muslims we would argue that such participation is advantageous for both individuals and
groups within the society. Not only does it ensure marriages based on sounder principles than physical attraction and sexual infatuation, but it provides other safeguards for successful marital continuity.
Members of the family provide diverse companionship as well as ready sources of advice and sympathy for the newly married as they adjust to each others' way. One party of the marriage cannot easily pursue an
eccentric course at the expense of the spouse since such behavior would rally opposition from the larger group. Quarrels are never so devastating to the marriage bond since other adult family members act as mediators and provide alternative sources of companionship and counsel following disagreements. The problems of parenting and generational incompatibility are also alleviated, and singles clubs and dating bureaus would be unnecessary props for social interaction. There is no need in the extended family for children of working parents to be unguarded, unattended, or inadequately loved and socialized because the extended family home is never empty. There is therefore no feeling of guilt which the working parent often feels in a nuclear or single-parent organization. Tragedy, even divorce, is not so debilitating to either adults or children since the larger social unit absorbs the residual numbers with much greater ease than a
nuclear family organization can ever provide.
The move away from the cohesiveness which the family formerly enjoyed in Western society, the rise of usually smaller alternative family styles, and the accompanying rise in individualism which many
feminists advocate or at least practice, are at odds with these deep-rooted Islamic customs and traditions. If feminism in the Muslim world chooses to espouse the Western family models, it should and would certainly be strongly challenged by Muslim women's groups and by Islamic society as a whole.
INDIVIDUALISM VS. THE LARGER ORGANIZATION:
The traditional support of the large and intricately interrelated family organization is correlative to another Islamic tradition which seems to run counter to recent Western trends and to feminist ideology. Islam and Muslim women generally advocate molding of individual goals and interests to accord with the welfare of the larger group and its members. Instead of holding the goals of the individual supreme, Islam instills in the adherent a sense of his or her place within the family and of a responsibility to that group. This is not perceived or experienced by Muslims as repression of the individual. Other traditions which will be discussed later guarantee his or her legal personality. Feminism, therefore, would not be espoused by Muslim women as a goal to be pursued without regard for the relation of the female to the other members of her family. The Muslim woman regards her goals as necessitating a balance with, or even subordination to, those of the family group. The rampant individualism often experienced in contemporary life, that which treats the goals of the individual in isolation from other factors, or as utterly supreme, runs against a deep Islamic commitment to social interdependence.
DIFFERENTIATION OF SEX ROLES:
A third Islamic tradition which affects the future of any feminist movement in an Islamic environment is that it specifies a differentiation of male and female roles and responsibilities in society. Feminism, as represented in Western society, has generally denied any such differentiation and has demanded a move toward a unisex society in order to achieve equal rights for women. By "unisex society," I mean one in which a single set of roles and concerns are given preference and esteem by both sexes and are pursued by all members of the society regardless of sex and age differentials. In the case of Western feminism, the preferred goals have been those traditionally fulfilled by the male members of society. The roles of providing financial support, of success in career, and of decision making have been given overwhelming respect and concern while those dealing with domestic matters, with child care, with aesthetic and psychological refreshment, with social interrelationships, were devalued and even despised. Both men and women have been forced into a single mold which is perhaps more restrictive, rigid and coercive than that which formerly assigned men to one type of role and women to another.
This is a new brand of male chauvenism with which Islamic traditions cannot conform. Islam instead maintains that both types of roles are equally deserving of pursuit and respect and that when accompanied by the equity demanded by the religion, a division of labor along sex lines is generally beneficial to all members of the society.
This might be regarded by the feminist as opening the door to discrimination, but as Muslims we regard Islamic traditions as standing clearly and unequivocally for the support of male-female equity. In the Quran, no difference whatever is made between the sexes in relation to God. "For men who submit [to God] and for women who submit [to God], for believing men and believing women, for devout men and devout women, for truthful men and truthful women, for steadfast men and steadfast women, for humble men and humble women, for charitable men and charitable women, for men who fast and women who fast, for men who guard their chastity and women who guard, for men who remember God much and for women who remember - for them God has prepared forgiveness and a mighty reward" (33:35). "Whoever performs good deeds, whether male or female and is a believer, We shall surely make him live a good life and We will certainly reward them for the best of what they did" (16:97).[2]
It is only in relation to each other and society that a difference is made - a difference of role or function. The rights and responsibilities of a woman are equal to those of a man, but they are not necessarily identical with them. Equality and identity are two different things, Islamic traditions maintain - the former desirable, the latter not. Men and women should therefore be complementary to each other in a multi-function organization rather than competitive with each other in a uni-function society.
The equality demanded by Islamic traditions must, however, be seen in its larger context if it is to be understood properly. Since Muslims regard a differentiation of sexual roles to be natural and desirable in the majority of cases, the economic responsibilities of male and female members differ to provide a balance for the physical differences between men and women and for the greater responsibility which women carry in the reproductive and rearing activities so necessary to the well-being of the society. To maintain, therefore, that the men of the family are responsible for providing economically for the women or that women are not equally responsible, is not a dislocation or denial of sexual equity. It is instead a duty to be fulfilled by men as compensation for another responsibility which involves the special ability of women. Likewise the different inheritance rates for males and females, which is so often sited as an example of discrimination against women, must not be seen as an isolated prescription.[3] It is but one part of a comprehensive system in which women carry no legal responsibility to support other members of the family, but in which men are bound by law as well as custom to provide for all their female relatives.
Does this mean that Islamic traditions necessarily prescribe maintaining the status quo in the Islamic societies that exist today? The answer is a definite "No." Many thinking Muslims - both men and women - would agree that their societies do not fulfill the Islamic ideals and traditions laid down in the Quran and reinforced by the example and directives of the Prophet Muhammad, salallahu alehi wasallam. It is reported in the Quran and from history that women not only expressed their opinions freely in the Prophet's presence but also argued and participated in serious discussions with the Prophet himself and with other Muslim leaders of the time (58:1). Muslim women are known to have even stood in opposition to certain caliphs, who later accepted the sound arguments of those women. A specific example took place during the caliphate of 'Umar ibn al Khattab.[4] The Quran reproached those who believed woman to be inferior to men (16:57-59) and repeatedly gives expression to the need for treating men and women with equity (2:228, 231; 4:19, and so on). Therefore, if Muslim women experience discrimination in any place or time, they do not and should not lay the blame on Islam, but on the un-Islamic nature of their societies and the failure of Muslims to fulfill its directives.
SEPARATE LEGAL STATUS FOR WOMEN:
A fourth Islamic tradition affecting the future of feminism in Muslim societies is the separate legal status for women which is demanded by the Quran and the Shari'ah. Every Muslim individual, whether male of female, retains a separate identity from cradle to grave. This separate legal personality prescribes for every woman the right to contract, to conduct business, to earn and possess property independently. Marriage has no effect on her legal status, her property, her earnings - or even on her name. If she commits any civil offense, her penalty is no less or no more than a man's in a similar case (5:83; 24:2). If she is wronged or harmed, she is entitled to compensation just like a man (4:92-93; see also Mustafa al Siba'i 1976:38; Darwazah n.d.:78). The feminist demand for separate legal status for women is therefore one that is equally espoused by Islamic traditions.
POLYGYNY:
Although the taking of plural wives by a man is commonly called polygamy, the more correct sociological designation is polygyny. This institution is probably the Islamic tradition most misunderstood and vehemently condemned by non-Muslims. It is one which the Hollywood stereotypes "play upon" in their ridicule of Islamic society. The first image conjured up in the mind of the Westerner when the subject of Islam and marriage is approached is that of a religion which advocates the sexual indulgence of the male members of the society and the subjugation of its females through this institution.
Islamic tradition does indeed allow a man to marry more than one woman at a time. This leniency is even established by the Quran (4:3).[5] But the use and perception of that institution is far from the Hollywood stereotype. Polygyny is certainly not imposed by Islam; nor is it a universal practice. It is instead regarded as the exception to the norm of monogamy , and its exercise is strongly controlled by social pressures.[6] If utilized by Muslim men to facilitate or condone sexual promiscuity, it is not less Islamically condemnable than serial polygyny and adultery, and no less detrimental to the society. Muslims view polygyny as an institution which is to be called into use only under extraordinary circumstances. As such, it has not been generally regarded by Muslim women as a threat. Attempts by the feminist movement to focus on eradication of this institution in order to improve the status of women would therefore meet with little sympathy or support.
II. DIRECTIVES FOR THE FEMINIST MOVEMENT IN AN ISLAMIC ENVIRONMENT
What can be learned about the future compatibility or incongruity of feminism in a Muslim environment from these facts about Islamic traditions? Are there any general principles to be gained, any directives to be taken, by those who work for women's rights and human rights in the world?
INTERCULTURAL INCOMPATIBILITY OF WESTERN FEMINISM:
The first and foremost principle would seem to be that many of the goals of feminism as conceived in Western society are not necessarily relevant or exportable across cultural boundaries. Feminism as a Western movement originated in England during the 18th century and had as one of its main goals the eradication of legal disabilities imposed upon women by English common law. These laws were especially discriminatory of married women. They derived in part from Biblical sources (e.g., the idea of man and woman becoming "one flesh," and the attribution of an inferior and even evil nature to Eve and all her female descendants) and in part from feudal customs (e.g., the importance of carrying and supplying arms for battle and the concomitant devaluation of the female contributions to society). The Industrial Revolution and its need for women's contribution to the work force brought strength to the feminist movement and helped its advocates gradually break down most of those discriminatory laws.
Since the history and heritage of Muslim peoples have been radically different from that of Western Europe and America, the feminism which would appeal to Muslim women and to the society generally must be correspondingly different. Those legal rights which Western women sought in reform of English common law were already granted to Muslim women in the 7th century. Such a struggle therefore holds little interest for the Muslim woman. In addition, it would be useless to try to interest us in ideas or reforms that run in diametrical opposition to those traditions which form an important part of our cultural and religious heritage. There has been a good deal of opposition to any changes in Muslim personal status laws since these embody and reinforce the very traditions which we have been discussing. In other words, if feminism is to succeed in an Islamic environment, it must be an indigenous form of feminism, rather than one conceived and nurtured in an alien environment with different problems and different solutions and goals.
THE FORM OF AN ISLAMIC FEMINISM:
If the goals of Western feminism are not viable for Muslim women, what form should a feminist movement take to ensure success?
Above all, the movement must recognize that, whereas in the West, the mainstream of the women's movement has viewed religion as one of the chief enemies of its progress and well-being, Muslim women view the teachings of Islam as their best friend and supporter. The prescriptions that are found in the Quran and in the example of the Prophet Muhammad, salallahu alehi wasallam, are regarded as the ideal to which contemporary women wish to return. As far as Muslim women are concerned, the source of any difficulties experienced today is not Islam and its traditions, but certain alien ideological intrusions on our societies, ignorance, and distortion of the true Islam, or exploitation by individuals within the society. It is a lack of an
appreciation for this fact that caused such misunderstanding and mutual distress when women's movement representatives from the West visited Iran both before and after the Islamic Revolution.
Second, any feminism which is to succeed in an Islamic environment must be one which does not work chauvenistically for women's interest alone. Islamic traditions would dictate that women's progress be achieved in tandem with the wider struggle to benefit all members of the society. The good of the group or totality is always more crucial than the good of any one sector of the society. In fact, the society is seen as an organic whole in which the welfare of each member or organ is necessary for the health and well being of every other part. Disadventagous circumstances of women therefore should always be countered in conjunction with attempt to alleviate those factors which adversely affect men and other segments of the society.
Third, Islam is an ideology which influences much more than the ritual life of a people. It is equally affective of their social, political, economic, psychological, and aesthetic life. "Din," which is usually regarded as an equivalent for the English term "religion," is a concept which includes, in addition to those ideas and practices customarily associated in our minds with religion, a wide spectrum of practices and ideas which affect almost every aspect of the daily life of the Muslim individual. Islam and Islamic traditions therefore are seen today by many Muslims as the main source of cohesiveness for nurturing an identity and stability to confront intruding alien influences and the cooperation needed to solve their numerous contemporary problems. To fail to note this fact, or to fail to be fully appreciative of its importance for the average Muslim - whether male or female - would be to commit any movement advocating improvement of women's position in Islamic lands to certain failure. It is only through establishing that identity and stability that self-respect can be achieved and a more healthy climate for both Muslim men and Muslim women will emerge.
NOTES
[1]. For example, see Quran 2:177; 4:7,176; 8:41; 16:90; 17:26; 24:22.
[2]. See also Quran 2:195; 4:124,32; 9:71-72.
[3]. "God (thus) directs you as regards your children's (inheritance): to the male, a proportion equal to that of two females..." (Quran 4:11).
[4]. Kamal 'Awn 1955:129.
[5]. "... Marry women of your choice, two, or three, or four; but if you fear that you shall not be able to deal justly (with them), then only one, or (a captive) that your right hands possess. That will be more suitable, to prevent you from doing injustice."
[6]. It should be remembered that any woman who wants her marriage to remain monogamous can provide for this condition under Islamic law.
REFERENCES
Kamal Ahmad 'Awn, Al Mar'ah fi al Islam (Tanta: Sha'raw Press, 1955)
Muhammad 'Izzat Darwazah, Al Dastur al Quran fi Shu'un al Hayat (Cairo: 'Isa al Babi al Halabi, n.d.).
Mustafa al Siba'i, Al Mar'ah baynal Fiqh wal Qanun (Aleppo: Al Maktabah al 'Arabiyyah, first pub. 1962).
Acknowledgment: This page was downloaded from www.jannah.org and reformatted for www.islam101.com
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