Muslims are in America to live their American dream, and NOT to dominate or impose Sharia Laws.
$5000 REWARD
The Neocons* are fabricating and propagating the idea that Muslims are invading America to dominate and impose Sharia Laws without any substantiation. Cashing in on fears is Neocon modus operandi. They know how to scare the devil out of those few self proclaimed conservative Americans, and get them to open their check books, and the poor suckers pay the ransom.
Muslims have no ambitions of making Islam a dominant religion or imposing Sharia Laws in the United States. A few individual may say that for a few claps, but for every creep who runs his mouth with a Muslim label, you will find a lot more of them with other faith labels. The good news is that there are thousands of Muslims out there who will speak out against such non-sense and I am one.
Full article: http://worldmuslimcongress.blogspot.com/2009/05/5000-reward.html
Mike Ghouse
Sounding off the voices of a majority of Muslims.
Mike presides the World Muslim Congress, a think tank with a mission, what is good for Muslims has got to be good for the World and vice-versa to sustain it. He believes that to be a Muslim is to be a peacemaker, one who constantly seeks to mitigate conflicts and nurtures goodwill for peaceful co-existence. God wants us to live in peace and harmony with his creation; life and mater. Indeed, that is the purpose of religion, any religion.
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Wednesday, June 3, 2009
Saturday, March 14, 2009
Shari'ah and Political System
The following article by Dr. Chandra Muzaffar has touched upon the evolution of Sharia and its implications in different political systems.
‘Religion in our Time’ in the Context of Asia
By Chandra Muzaffar.
I shall reflect on the topic, ‘Religion in our Time’ in the context of Asia --- the womb that gave birth to all the religions of the world. My observations will be confined to contemporary Asia. They will revolve around two questions.
1) How do most Asians understand their respective religions?
2) Has any religious community in Asia succeeded in establishing a harmonious relationship between religion and society?
It is important to emphasize at the outset that for the majority of Asians religion is important. Even in a country like China where state policy had at one time --- especially during the period of the Cultural Revolution --- targeted religion, there is a religious revivalism of sorts. While religious revivalism is taking place in certain countries and within certain strata of society, it is equally true that in many parts of the continent the masses have always remained attached to religion even if their elites are secular.
What does this attachment to religion mean for most Asians? There are perhaps four dimensions to it which we may want to note.
Four Dimensions
One, religion means identity to a lot of people.. It is a way of defining oneself, of naming oneself. Of course, religion is not the only identity marker for any religious community in Asia. Even in Iran, the only nation in the world that had undergone a popular revolution in the name of religion in the modern era, one’s religious identity competes with one’s national identity and perhaps even with one’s Persian identity which goes beyond Iran as a nation state. At a certain point in time, one’s religious identity may be one’s primary identity; at another moment it may evolve into one’s secondary identity. While there may be certain givens in one’s religious identity, such as a belief or a ritual, the larger environment also often shapes one’s understanding of one’s identity. For instance, if a religious community feels that it is under siege or that its values are being challenged by another culture, it may become more conscious of the need to defend its identity and its integrity.
Two, related to identity --- though not synonymous with it --- are the rituals, practices, forms and symbols of a religion to which most believers are attached, in one way or another. Practices such as fasting or symbols such as the cross are vital to a religion. When one adheres to prescribed religious practices one perceives oneself, and is perceived by others, as a faithful member of the religious community in question. It is because of the centrality of religious practices and symbols that communities seek to defend and protect them whatever the costs and consequences.
Three, for many Asians religion is also the source of morality. It is the ultimate measure of right and wrong. Religious standards and precepts determine good and evil. One judges a person’s private behaviour as well as his public conduct on the basis of values and principles embodied in religion. Thus, a Muslim who consumes alcohol is, in the eyes of fellow Muslims, someone who has done something wrong just as a serial rapist is an evil person from the perspective of all religions.
Four --- and perhaps most fundamental --- at a personal, intimate level, religion means faith in God, in a Divine Being, in a Transcendent Reality. It is faith in God, whatever the name one assigns to God, which is the bedrock of religion. In those most difficult moments of life, it is this faith that provides solace and sustenance. It is through faith in God and in God’s Love and Mercy that the believing person overcomes the sorrow of the loss of a loved one or comes to terms with the ordeal and anguish of a terminal illness.
While these four dimensions are important for most religious practitioners in Asia, for a lot of Muslims there is perhaps a fifth dimension that is also critical. What is that dimension? Islam for Muslims should also be the basis of law and public policy, of government and state. Why do many Muslims feel this way about their religion? I shall suggest five reasons though there may be many other explanations as well.
Five Reasons
The foundational principle in Islam --- there is no god but God --- is not just a statement of belief, the acknowledgement of which requires the Muslim to submit or to surrender totally to God. It is a principle that embodies an entire worldview, a worldview anchored in the oneness of God or Tawhid. No sphere of human existence is separable from Tawhid. What this means is that state and society, government and politics, the economy and culture, law and policy have to be based upon, and guided by, Tawhidic values or values such as justice and compassion, dignity and love, equality and unity which are all enshrined in the Noble Qur’an. Indeed, Tawhid, the Oneness of God, is the basic premise for the unity of the universes, the unity between the human being and his natural environment, the unity of humankind, the unity of the sexes, and the unity of the family. At another level, it is Tawhid that unites the material and the spiritual, life and death, this world and the next. Within such a worldview, divorcing life from God, or society from the Divine, would be anathema.
There is another reason why Muslims are so concerned about making their faith in God the basis of state and society. The Prophet Muhammad (may peace be upon him) himself had established a community in Medina which possessed some of the rudimentary characteristics of a state. A charter was formulated which sought to regulate relations between different communities, laws were enacted, public roles were assigned to individuals to manage the affairs of the community and even emissaries were dispatched to neighbouring kingdoms and states. Because Muhammad was more than a Prophet or Messenger of God --- he was a political leader, a military commander and a law giver --- Muslims have invariably associated state power and governance with the essential message of Islam.
This view of what Islam stands for was reinforced by the evolution of the shariah as a code of conduct a few decades after the death of the Prophet. Through laws and precepts, the shariah gave concrete expression to some of the values and principles contained in the Qur’an and in the example of the Prophet (the Sunnah). In the course of time, it emerged as a body of jurisprudence commanding its own autonomous authority on a whole gamut of issues affecting the life of a Muslim. In fact, the shariah today has become almost sacrosanct as Muslims in a number of countries clamour for its introduction --- especially its penal code ---in their quest for the establishment of so-called genuine Islamic states.
If there is any psychological force that propels this quest, it is the collective Muslim memory of what their civilization had accomplished in past centuries. Many Muslims know that there was a time when Islamic civilization was at the forefront of almost every sphere of human activity. Their past convinces them that their religion will once again reach the pinnacle. It is partly because of their civilizational memory that Muslims are persuaded that Islam is capable of addressing contemporary challenges.
At the same time however they are aware that their civilization has been vanquished. Ironically, defeat at the hands of the West was in a sense one of the factors that prompted Muslim scholars to visualize an ‘Islamic State’ as the antidote to Western colonial empires. It is significant that it was in the wake of the collapse of the Ottoman Empire in 1924, as a result of both colonial military power and colonial intrigue, that the Muslim intellectual Mustafa Raziq introduced the term ‘Islamic State’ --- a term that has no precedent in Muslim history. It is worth noting in this regard that the community-cum-state that the Prophet established in Medina was not described as an ‘Islamic polity’. The contemporary yearning for an ‘Islamic state’ is therefore --- to a certain extent at least --- a response to Western hegemony.
I have attempted to explain why many Muslims understand the role of religion in society in terms that are somewhat different from the majority of non-Muslims. The reasons, it is apparent, are complex. But both Muslims and non-Muslims, it should be reiterated, are attached to religion, and have been witness to its expanding role in present-day Asia.
With that as the backdrop let me now turn to my second question. I shall begin with non-Muslim majority states. Three states have been chosen at random. Each state will be discussed briefly, and in alphabetical order.
China
China’s rapid economic development has begun to generate serious problems. The environment has deteriorated. The gap between the rich and poor and between regions is widening. Corruption is rampant at certain levels of society. Greed is pervasive especially at the upper echelons.
The state itself and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) have pledged to address these challenges. Even if they are ameliorated to an extent, one cannot expect the powers-that-be to create a new moral ethos which will help to curb materialistic greed or stark selfishness. Neither the ideological thrust of the state which is obsessed with high growth development nor its bureaucratic structure would allow it to play such a role.
Religious groups are in a better position to undertake a moral mission of this kind. While there is a little bit of discussion in small intellectual circles about how Buddhism or Confucianism view greed or corruption, the vast majority of those who have turned to religion in recent years tend to focus upon religious rituals and practices. It is unlikely that a socially engaged Confucianism or Buddhism will emerge in China in the foreseeable future. Will we see the birth of a socially engaged Christianity or Islam? It is equally doubtful.
This is why it is still unclear how religion will impact upon development and society in China in the coming years.
India
Compared to China, religion has been more prominent in Indian public life since Independence in 1947.
However, the Indian Constitution was --- and remains --- avowedly secular. For the first 15 to 20 years of Independence, Indian politics was also largely secular. Indian secularism, it should be emphasized, did not imply antagonism towards, or disrespect for, religion. On the contrary, India’s secular leaders strove to protect the interests of both the majority Hindu and minority Muslim communities. While leadership was secular, the Hindu and Muslim masses and followers of other religions remained devoted to faith and practice.
It was mainly because the people were religious that Indian politicians began to manipulate religious sentiments for electoral support from the seventies onwards. The ruling Indian National Congress was perhaps the first to play the religious card. It exploited Sikh, Muslim and Hindu grievances as and when it suited its interests. The Congress’s inability to resolve fundamental socio-economic challenges --- the most significant of which was abject grassroots poverty --- was perhaps one of the main reasons why it began to resort to the exploitation of religion in electoral politics.
Soon other political parties got into the act. The Bharatiya Janata Party( BJP), a Hindu nationalist party, was bold and brazen in its belligerent attacks upon the Muslim minority, on the one hand, and its stark appeal to Hindu chauvinism, on the other. Within a decade and a half, in 1998, the BJP with its ideology of Hindutva was able to muster enough electoral support to come to power in New Delhi at the helm of an inter-party coalition. It promised to restore lost Hindu glory by revising school texts with the aim of giving Hindu kingdoms and empires pride of place. Rebuilding Hindu temples which were allegedly demolished to make way for Muslim mosques during the time when much of India was under Muslim rule, was yet another of the BJP’s pledges. In general, the BJP’s Hindutva meant projecting the Hindu face of India through history, culture and education.
The rise of Hindutva was not simply because of the inherent appeal of Hinduism to the majority community. The failure of the Congress to govern effectively was perhaps a more crucial factor. Apart from the persistence of abject poverty, elite corruption and abuse of power at district level had become widespread under Congress rule. The vote for the BJP was in that sense a protest vote. At the same time, certain communal stances adopted by elements within the Muslim community worked to the BJP’s advantage. New regional coalitions and inter-caste alliances had also emerged, benefiting the BJP and its allies.
But the BJP was defeated in the 2004 General Election and the Congress is now back in power with the support of the communists. A number of reasons explain the BJP’s defeat. The party had pursued an even more aggressive neo-liberal capitalist agenda than the Congress which made the poor even more destitute and widened further the chasm between the rich and poor. The disenfranchised revolted through the ballot box. The BJP’s chauvinistic policies which had contributed indirectly to inter-religious riots --- such as the Gujarat riot in 2002 --- alienated a huge chunk of the population, including a significant segment of the Hindu electorate. Besides, the Congress had presented the voters with a broad based platform and had succeeded in forging alliances with regional and national parties that boosted its standing.
The BJP’s defeat shows that religious chauvinism and extremism can be checked through the electoral process. There are strengths within the democratic system which can be mobilised to counter negative religious trends.. Nonetheless, the fact remains that religion is now a potent force in Indian politics. How India’s secular state structure deals with this force is one of the critical questions that will shape the future of the Indian polity.
As an aside, the BJP brings to mind another earlier attempt by no less a personality than Mahatma Gandhi to emphasize the universal, inclusive dimension of Hinduism and thereby forge ties with Muslims, Christians and other religious groups through an all-embracing inter-faith movement dedicated to the liberation of India from British rule. Why is it that such an approach to inter-religious cooperation has not struck root in independent India and instead it is Hindutva that now claims to speak on behalf of the religion?
Sri Lanka
Like India, Sri Lanka also began its post-colonial journey in 1948 as a secular state. Its early leaders, both Sinhala and Tamil, were secular in outlook. However, by the mid-fifties ethnic sentiments which were already quite pronounced in the body politic long before Independence, re-emerged with a vengeance.
In this regard, it is worth observing that though the assassin of Prime Minister Solomon Bandaranaike in 1959 was a Buddhist monk, Buddhism as such was not yet a force in Sri Lankan politics. Be that as it may, the assassination was an early indication of the symbiotic relationship between Sinhala nationalism and the Buddhist monkhood.
As the Sri Lankan economy declined in the seventies and political instability increased, ethnic tensions between the majority Sinhala community and the Tamil minority escalated. The Tamils, especially the Tamils of the Jaffna Peninsula in the north of the island, felt that they had been marginalized and discriminated in politics, public administration and in matters pertaining to language and culture by the Sinhala government. Sinhala identity, they contended, was becoming synonymous with Sri Lankan national identity. The Sinhala community, on the other hand, viewed the Tamils as an economically stronger and better educated community that wielded considerable influence upon national affairs. From the Sinhala standpoint, the Tamil minority was well entrenched and secure and their grievances were often exaggerated.
The Sinhala-Tamil conflict reached its crescendo in July 1983. A full-scale civil war erupted between a largely Sinhala government and a Jaffna Tamil rebel group, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam( LTTE). The LTTE demanded---and continues to demand--- the establishment of a separate Tamil homeland. The civil war has continued on and off for the last 24 years.
Caught in the cauldron of the civil war, Sinhala Buddhist monks decided to set up their own political party in 2004. Called the Jathika Hela Urumaya or Pure Sinhala National Heritage, the party believes in the supremacy of the Buddhist religion and the Sinhala majority, and is against any peace negotiations with the LTTE. Though it vows to protect the religious minorities, in reality it adopts an aggressive posture against Hindus, Christians and Muslims. It is particularly antagonistic towards the Tamils and has urged the military to finish off the LTTE.
In the April 2004 Parliamentary Election, the party won 9 seats. War weariness, disillusionment with existing political parties and the parlous state of the economy have been cited as some of the reasons for the credible performance of the Heritage party. Most of the support for the ‘monks’ party appears to have come from the Sri Lankan middle class.
Sri Lanka illustrates the nexus that obtains between religion and nationalism or rather it reveals how at times nationalism drives religion. There is a hint of this in Indian politics too. The Sri Lankan situation also shows that ethnic conflicts whose root causes may have nothing to do with religion may sometimes find expression through religion.
Having looked at three non-Muslim majority societies, let me now examine three Muslim majority states with the same query in mind: what sort of role does religion play in Afghanistan, Indonesia and Iran? The three countries have also been selected randomly and are discussed in alphabetical order.
Afghanistan
If there was a single event in contemporary Afghanistan that was decisive in shaping the relationship between religion and society, it was the invasion of Afghanistan by the Soviet Union in 1979. The invasion ignited the formation of a mass resistance movement that centred around Islam. The resisters, or freedom fighters (Mujahideen) saw themselves as defenders of the faith fighting an infidel army that was occupying their land. The label ‘infidel’ had an import of its own since the occupying army belonged to an atheistic state that espoused an atheistic ideology, namely, communism.
Though the majority of the freedom fighters were Afghans, there were also Muslims from dozens of other countries who regarded the liberation of Afghanistan as a ‘jihad’ (a struggle in the path of God). Their participation in the resistance was facilitated, it was alleged, by the CIA which provided both financial and logistical support. In fact, for the CIA and the US Administration the freedom fighters had to vanquish the Soviet army since Afghanistan was a critical battleground in the cold war between the US and the Soviet Union. After a 10 year struggle, the Afghan resistance won. The Soviet army was defeated and shortly afterwards the cold war came to an end, climaxing in the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.
It is not just in its implications for global politics and international relations that the Afghan resistance is historically significant. It also gave birth to a transnational Muslim movement with certain ideological characteristics. A commitment to liberation from occupation aside, sections of the movement were strongly influenced by Wahabism, a conservative, puritanical strain within Islam that originated in Arabia in the 18th century. Wahabism, in its present form, advocates a dogmatic adherence to the literal meaning of the Qur’anic text; relegates women to second class status; excludes non-Muslims from the protection of the state; and targets Shiites and Sufis as heretics. Wahabi dogmatism, needless to say, is antithetical to Islamic teachings.
Wahabism was disseminated through the Afghan resistance since as we have noted numerous Muslim nationalities were involved in the struggle. Before Afghanistan, Wahabism was confined largely to Saudi Arabia. Once it was transformed into a transnational ideology, it developed an international constituency. But because its approach to Islam is exclusive and bigoted, Wahabism has tarnished the religion.
Though the present Afghan leadership is not Wahabist, Wahabi thinking is still pervasive within Afghan society. The Taliban for instance which was part of the resistance to Soviet occupation and ruled Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001 when it was ousted by US and NATO forces, subscribes to Wahabism. Today, it constitutes the core of the resistance to US-NATO occupation of Afghanistan. By casting itself as a resister, the Taliban has acquired a degree of credibility. Similarly, Osama bin Laden, the head of Al-Qaeda, and the alleged mastermind behind the 9-11 episode, is also, from all accounts, a Wahabist. He was closely associated with the Taliban leadership when it was in power. Since he is viewed as an ardent opponent of US global hegemony he too commands a constituency and is perceived as a credible leader in certain circles. It is obvious that it is resistance to hegemony and occupation that provides a veneer of legitimacy to Wahabism.
Afghanistan’s significance to the contemporary Muslim world and global politics is tied to these two phenomena. One it has emerged as the arena of resistance to first Soviet occupation with its communist ideology and now to US-NATO occupation with its unstated goal of safeguarding global capitalism. Two, it is from the Afghan resistance that a distorted and perverted notion of Islam in the form of Wahabism has spread to other parts of the Muslim world.
Indonesia
Indonesia shares with Afghanistan a long and intimate historical relationship with Islam. Islamic movements played a pivotal role in the struggle against Dutch colonial rule. After Independence in 1945, one of the most hotly debated issues was the role that Islam would play in building a nation ninety percent of whose population was Muslim. Though a section of the elite wanted the shariah as the basis of the new Indonesian state, the founding fathers eventually settled for a vision of the nation that was not linked to any particular religion. The Panca Sila --- Five Principles --- was accepted as the nation’s ideology, with belief in the one God as the first principle. Islam, together with Buddhism, Hinduism, Catholicism and Protestantism were adopted as official religions. (Confucianism has now been added to the list).
Whatever the constitutional structure, at the level of the masses, political parties with an Islamic orientation proved to be immensely popular. In the 1955 parliamentary election for instance, the Masjumi and the Nahdatul Ulama (NU), together with a smaller Islamic party commanded more votes than the nationalist or communist parties. The Masjumi in particular presented a contemporary interpretation of Islam which emphasised social justice and freedom and appealed to a broad cross-section of the populace.
However the Indonesian President, Sukarno, and the vested interests that backed him were afraid that the Masjumi would undermine their position and sought to curb its influence. The party was banned in 1960. Then in 1965, right-wing generals in the powerful Indonesian armed forces staged a bloody coup which marginalised not only progressive Islamic elements but also the Indonesian communists and nationalists. Sukarno himself was overthrown. The coup had the strong support --- perhaps even the active collaboration --- of the CIA and the US government.
The post coup President, General Suharto, was determined to ensure that Islamic parties had no role in ‘the new order’. Islamic organizations were only allowed to undertake social and cultural activities --- under state surveillance. Consequently, Islamic grassroots programs flourished giving rise to powerful mass social movements like the restructured NU and the Muhammadiyyah. Since they were prohibited from seeking political power, both these movements --- NU with 40 million members and the Muhammadiyyah with 35 million --- focused upon strengthening universal Islamic values and principles at the grassroots, and in the process, helped to transform popular understanding of, and approaches towards, the religion.
After the fall of Suharto in 1998, and the restoration of democratic processes, a plethora of political parties have re-emerged. The vast majority of the 48 parties that participated in the 1999 legislative election and the 24 parties that took part in the 2004 election did not commit themselves to shariah rule or the imposition of the Islamic penal code, or hudud , as most political parties elsewhere that claim to be ideologically orientated towards Islam tend to do. The few that espoused an explicit Islamic program fared badly in the two polls. In fact, the top five performers in 1999 and 2004 sought to present Islam --- with varying degrees of emphasis --- as a universal, inclusive and accommodative faith that is in line with economic development and social change.
If there is any support for shariah and hudud it is in certain districts and provinces, such as Acheh. The Islamic laws that have been implemented in these places seem to revolve around personal and sexual morality. There is also of course a fringe within the Indonesian Muslim community that has resorted to violence in pursuit of its Islamic agenda. Needless to say, the overwhelming majority of Indonesian Muslims reject the politics of violence and terror, as demonstrated in a number of elections and opinion polls since 1998.
This does not mean that the situation will not change in the future. If economic disparities are not resolved, or if corruption becomes more serious, or if there is political chaos, it is not inconceivable that a less flexible, more rigid approach to Islam will gain more adherents. After all, it was because of economic turmoil and political instability in the late nineties that some Muslim groups turned to political terror.
The global environment is also bound to impact upon the attitudes of Indonesian Muslims. It is significant that almost all the terrorists convicted in the Bali bombing of October 2002 cited the injustices perpetrated by the US and Israel against Muslims in the Middle East --- especially the plight of the Palestinians --- as one of the principal reasons why they had sought radical solutions. Often, it is through the interplay of domestic and global factors ---one reinforcing the other --- that despair, frustration and anger reach a crescendo and lead to violence.
Iran
There are similarities and dissimilarities between Indonesia and Iran in their relationship to Islam. Iran owes a monumental debt to Islamic civilization which more than any other civilization has shaped Iranian society in the last thousand years or so. In defending Iranian sovereignty and independence against Western encroachments (Iran never became a formal colony of any Western power) in the early part of the twentieth century, Islam and Muslim religious elites played a significant role. At the same time however the suppression of Islamic movements by the Iranian monarch, Shah Pahlavi, in the sixties and seventies was much more severe and brutal than what transpired in Indonesia.
It was partly because the suppression was so severe that the Islamic Revolution of 1979 was so popular. While Islamic groups were at the core, the Revolution brought together a whole spectrum of dissident movements including communists, socialists, liberals and secular nationalists. Even among the Islamic groups there was considerable diversity. The most important were the traditional religious elites led by Ayatollah Khomeini --- the leader of the Revolution itself. There was also an Islamic group with a liberal-democratic orientation associated with Mehdi Bazargan, the first Prime Minister after the Revolution. A third group with a Left outlook was inspired by the speeches and writings of Ali Shariati.
Within 5 or 6 years, the traditional elites had succeeded in establishing total control over power and politics. How did this happen? Part of the explanation is linked to Khomeini’s role as the dominant, charismatic leader of the Revolution who was revered by the entire nation. But there were other reasons too. The traditional religious elites evoked a lot of sympathy from the people when some of their leading lights were assassinated allegedly by secular Left elements. As a group they were better organized, more focused on their ultimate goals, and most of all, commanded tremendous grassroots respect, compared to other actors in the Revolution. There was also an important external factor that helped the traditional religious elites to consolidate their power. Because Iraq under Saddam Hussein went to war against Iran without any provocation whatsoever in 1980, the Iranian people began to feel that they were under siege and that the values and identity of an unique Islamic revolution were in jeopardy. What aggravated this feeling was the wholehearted support that a number of Arab kingdoms and republics extended to Iraq. The US and other Western powers were also determined to ensure that Saddam defeated and destroyed the nascent Islamic republic. Financial and military assistance were made available to the Iraqi side by the US and some of its allies. Even the Soviet Union was more inclined towards the Iraqi leadership partly because of the latter’s secular, Baathist socialist orientation. Attacked from all sides, the Iranian people --- as it happens very often in other similar situations --- became even more supportive of the traditional religious elites at the core of the national leadership. They were perceived as the only ones who could be relied upon to defend Iranian identity and integrity.
It is true that the traditional religious elites were resolute in their defence of the integrity and sovereignty of the Islamic revolution and nation. Given the magnitude of the external threats against Iran and the immensity of the domestic challenges to the leadership in the eighties, it is remarkable that the elites --- and the people at large --- succeeded in protecting the Revolution. The religious elites also introduced significant changes to the economy from nationalising oil to redistributing incomes to strengthening rural cooperatives and welfare foundations which were all aimed at achieving a more just and equitable social order. At the same time however, power became more centralized in the hands of the religious elites especially since the Constitution itself allowed for a Supreme Leader to supervise all executive, legislative and even judicial functions aided by a council of eminent jurists, the Wilayat-al-Faqih. What this centralization of power meant was that in the ultimate analysis the elected President and the elected Legislature (the Majlis) were subservient to a religious supremo and to an elite religious stratum.
The adverse consequences of this centralization of power, in effect religious authoritarianism, were felt in almost every sphere of society. Dissent was circumscribed and survived only on the sufferance of the religious elite.. Accountability was observed more in its breach than its adherence. Corruption became more entrenched. Women were subjected to a variety of restrictions and regulations pertaining to their attire and to their public and political roles. Controls were also imposed upon inter-gender interaction and socialization. There were also curbs upon those cultural and artistic expressions that were deemed antithetical to Islam and the Revolution.
It was because of increasing religious authoritarianism that a reform movement of sorts was born which sought to demonstrate that Islam is opposed to dictatorship and cherishes freedom and individual liberties. The end of the Iraq-Iran war in 1988 and the death of Khomeini the following year provided some scope for Islamic reformist thinking. Iranian youth who constitute a huge slice of the population and women propelled this movement forward culminating in the election of a reform minded cleric, Mohamad Khatami, as president of the republic in 1997. He was re-elected in 2001. Khatami relaxed some of the controls upon the print media, provided more latitude for film-makers and television producers and encouraged the growth of independent civil society groups. But he could not make much headway. The authoritarian religious elites who felt threatened by his reforms stymied his moves. A high level of unemployment --- almost 14 percent of the workforce had no jobs --- and a woefully inadequate delivery system also dented Khatami’s credibility.
From 2002, the US Administration abetted by the Israeli government also increased pressure upon the Khatami leadership. In his State of the Union message in January of that year, President George Bush described Iran as part of ‘an axis of evil’ for allegedly colluding with terrorists and for its nuclear ambitions. Indeed, the US-led targeting of Iran’s nuclear program which the Washington and Tel Aviv are convinced is designed to manufacture nuclear weapons --- a charge which Tehran has strenuously denied --- has strengthened the hand of religious authoritarians who had always been contemptuous of Khatami’s openness and his willingness to dialogue with the West.
This was reflected in the 2005 presidential election which brought to the fore the hardliner, Mahmoud Ahmednejad. He was perceived by the Iranian masses as someone who had the guts to stand up to the US and Israel in a situation where dialogue and engagement with the US and the West --- they felt --- would jeopardize Iranian sovereignty. It is a matter of some significance that as the US and Israeli governments become more bellicose towards Iran, the support for religious elites and others who are seen as capable of protecting the Iranian nation has increased right across the board while the popularity of reformers like Khatami has diminished considerably.
Iran underscores two important characteristics of the Muslim world today. One, in Iran as in so many other contemporary Muslim societies, a struggle is going on between authoritarian often conservative religious groups with an exclusive outlook on the one hand and democratically inclined, reform oriented Islamic groups with an inclusive, universal approach on the other. Two, when the US, Israel or some of their other allies pursue their self-serving agendas vis-a-vis certain Muslim countries, it is often the authoritarian groups that benefit from their interference and manipulation to the detriment of the reform oriented elements.
Conclusions
Based upon our reflections on six Asian countries --- three with non-Muslim majorities and three with Muslim majorities --- we are now in a position to draw some tentative conclusions.
1) In a number of countries, at the time of Independence, the ruling elites were secular and religion was not central to politics. Because of socio-economic challenges, electoral politics and flawed governance, segments of society have over time turned more and more to religion which serves as an identity marker, a source of morality and an embodiment of the ideal.
2) The reconciliation between, or harmonisation of, religion and state is a major issue in a number of Muslim and non-Muslim societies. In some instances, it is a question of how religion will transform existing secular structures while in other cases it is a question of how the understanding of religion itself will be transformed by the secular environment.
3) In a few situations, the nexus between ethnic or cultural identity, on the one hand, and religion, on the other, has been manipulated or exploited to fuel communal conflicts. In these and other cases, religion often is not the primary cause of conflict but is absorbed into conflicts and sometimes exacerbates them.
4) The perpetuation of global domination by the US and its allies and the injustices it generates within the Muslim world (ummah) has induced a fringe within the ummah to resort to acts of terror which in turn has distorted perceptions of Islam among both Muslims and non-Muslims. Equally important, the US-Israeli agenda has been detrimental to reform movements within the ummah seeking to develop a more inclusive, universal vision of Islam.
5) In those instances when religious groups have succeeded to acquire power, the emphasis appears to be on protecting identity expressed through regulations pertaining to women or gender interaction or manifested in changes to prevailing conceptions of history and culture. Often, religion on the throne of power has led to authoritarianism arising from a desire to impose a certain doctrinal interpretation upon the rest of society. At the same time however, there are in all religions democratic approaches to the understanding and practice of faith which are sometimes part of the internal struggle within the tradition.
Our presentation has revealed that the role of religion in Asia at this juncture of history is far more complex than what the mainstream media suggests. This complexity is related to a large extent to the re-emergence of religion as an important player in the public arena.
(Chandra Muzaffar is a leading Malaysian intellectual. He is associated with the Universiti Sains Malaysia, Penang, and also runs the Just World Trust in Kuala Lumpur. He can be contacted on muza@po.jaring.my For details about the Just World Trust, see http://www.just-international.org/)
‘Religion in our Time’ in the Context of Asia
By Chandra Muzaffar.
I shall reflect on the topic, ‘Religion in our Time’ in the context of Asia --- the womb that gave birth to all the religions of the world. My observations will be confined to contemporary Asia. They will revolve around two questions.
1) How do most Asians understand their respective religions?
2) Has any religious community in Asia succeeded in establishing a harmonious relationship between religion and society?
It is important to emphasize at the outset that for the majority of Asians religion is important. Even in a country like China where state policy had at one time --- especially during the period of the Cultural Revolution --- targeted religion, there is a religious revivalism of sorts. While religious revivalism is taking place in certain countries and within certain strata of society, it is equally true that in many parts of the continent the masses have always remained attached to religion even if their elites are secular.
What does this attachment to religion mean for most Asians? There are perhaps four dimensions to it which we may want to note.
Four Dimensions
One, religion means identity to a lot of people.. It is a way of defining oneself, of naming oneself. Of course, religion is not the only identity marker for any religious community in Asia. Even in Iran, the only nation in the world that had undergone a popular revolution in the name of religion in the modern era, one’s religious identity competes with one’s national identity and perhaps even with one’s Persian identity which goes beyond Iran as a nation state. At a certain point in time, one’s religious identity may be one’s primary identity; at another moment it may evolve into one’s secondary identity. While there may be certain givens in one’s religious identity, such as a belief or a ritual, the larger environment also often shapes one’s understanding of one’s identity. For instance, if a religious community feels that it is under siege or that its values are being challenged by another culture, it may become more conscious of the need to defend its identity and its integrity.
Two, related to identity --- though not synonymous with it --- are the rituals, practices, forms and symbols of a religion to which most believers are attached, in one way or another. Practices such as fasting or symbols such as the cross are vital to a religion. When one adheres to prescribed religious practices one perceives oneself, and is perceived by others, as a faithful member of the religious community in question. It is because of the centrality of religious practices and symbols that communities seek to defend and protect them whatever the costs and consequences.
Three, for many Asians religion is also the source of morality. It is the ultimate measure of right and wrong. Religious standards and precepts determine good and evil. One judges a person’s private behaviour as well as his public conduct on the basis of values and principles embodied in religion. Thus, a Muslim who consumes alcohol is, in the eyes of fellow Muslims, someone who has done something wrong just as a serial rapist is an evil person from the perspective of all religions.
Four --- and perhaps most fundamental --- at a personal, intimate level, religion means faith in God, in a Divine Being, in a Transcendent Reality. It is faith in God, whatever the name one assigns to God, which is the bedrock of religion. In those most difficult moments of life, it is this faith that provides solace and sustenance. It is through faith in God and in God’s Love and Mercy that the believing person overcomes the sorrow of the loss of a loved one or comes to terms with the ordeal and anguish of a terminal illness.
While these four dimensions are important for most religious practitioners in Asia, for a lot of Muslims there is perhaps a fifth dimension that is also critical. What is that dimension? Islam for Muslims should also be the basis of law and public policy, of government and state. Why do many Muslims feel this way about their religion? I shall suggest five reasons though there may be many other explanations as well.
Five Reasons
The foundational principle in Islam --- there is no god but God --- is not just a statement of belief, the acknowledgement of which requires the Muslim to submit or to surrender totally to God. It is a principle that embodies an entire worldview, a worldview anchored in the oneness of God or Tawhid. No sphere of human existence is separable from Tawhid. What this means is that state and society, government and politics, the economy and culture, law and policy have to be based upon, and guided by, Tawhidic values or values such as justice and compassion, dignity and love, equality and unity which are all enshrined in the Noble Qur’an. Indeed, Tawhid, the Oneness of God, is the basic premise for the unity of the universes, the unity between the human being and his natural environment, the unity of humankind, the unity of the sexes, and the unity of the family. At another level, it is Tawhid that unites the material and the spiritual, life and death, this world and the next. Within such a worldview, divorcing life from God, or society from the Divine, would be anathema.
There is another reason why Muslims are so concerned about making their faith in God the basis of state and society. The Prophet Muhammad (may peace be upon him) himself had established a community in Medina which possessed some of the rudimentary characteristics of a state. A charter was formulated which sought to regulate relations between different communities, laws were enacted, public roles were assigned to individuals to manage the affairs of the community and even emissaries were dispatched to neighbouring kingdoms and states. Because Muhammad was more than a Prophet or Messenger of God --- he was a political leader, a military commander and a law giver --- Muslims have invariably associated state power and governance with the essential message of Islam.
This view of what Islam stands for was reinforced by the evolution of the shariah as a code of conduct a few decades after the death of the Prophet. Through laws and precepts, the shariah gave concrete expression to some of the values and principles contained in the Qur’an and in the example of the Prophet (the Sunnah). In the course of time, it emerged as a body of jurisprudence commanding its own autonomous authority on a whole gamut of issues affecting the life of a Muslim. In fact, the shariah today has become almost sacrosanct as Muslims in a number of countries clamour for its introduction --- especially its penal code ---in their quest for the establishment of so-called genuine Islamic states.
If there is any psychological force that propels this quest, it is the collective Muslim memory of what their civilization had accomplished in past centuries. Many Muslims know that there was a time when Islamic civilization was at the forefront of almost every sphere of human activity. Their past convinces them that their religion will once again reach the pinnacle. It is partly because of their civilizational memory that Muslims are persuaded that Islam is capable of addressing contemporary challenges.
At the same time however they are aware that their civilization has been vanquished. Ironically, defeat at the hands of the West was in a sense one of the factors that prompted Muslim scholars to visualize an ‘Islamic State’ as the antidote to Western colonial empires. It is significant that it was in the wake of the collapse of the Ottoman Empire in 1924, as a result of both colonial military power and colonial intrigue, that the Muslim intellectual Mustafa Raziq introduced the term ‘Islamic State’ --- a term that has no precedent in Muslim history. It is worth noting in this regard that the community-cum-state that the Prophet established in Medina was not described as an ‘Islamic polity’. The contemporary yearning for an ‘Islamic state’ is therefore --- to a certain extent at least --- a response to Western hegemony.
I have attempted to explain why many Muslims understand the role of religion in society in terms that are somewhat different from the majority of non-Muslims. The reasons, it is apparent, are complex. But both Muslims and non-Muslims, it should be reiterated, are attached to religion, and have been witness to its expanding role in present-day Asia.
With that as the backdrop let me now turn to my second question. I shall begin with non-Muslim majority states. Three states have been chosen at random. Each state will be discussed briefly, and in alphabetical order.
China
China’s rapid economic development has begun to generate serious problems. The environment has deteriorated. The gap between the rich and poor and between regions is widening. Corruption is rampant at certain levels of society. Greed is pervasive especially at the upper echelons.
The state itself and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) have pledged to address these challenges. Even if they are ameliorated to an extent, one cannot expect the powers-that-be to create a new moral ethos which will help to curb materialistic greed or stark selfishness. Neither the ideological thrust of the state which is obsessed with high growth development nor its bureaucratic structure would allow it to play such a role.
Religious groups are in a better position to undertake a moral mission of this kind. While there is a little bit of discussion in small intellectual circles about how Buddhism or Confucianism view greed or corruption, the vast majority of those who have turned to religion in recent years tend to focus upon religious rituals and practices. It is unlikely that a socially engaged Confucianism or Buddhism will emerge in China in the foreseeable future. Will we see the birth of a socially engaged Christianity or Islam? It is equally doubtful.
This is why it is still unclear how religion will impact upon development and society in China in the coming years.
India
Compared to China, religion has been more prominent in Indian public life since Independence in 1947.
However, the Indian Constitution was --- and remains --- avowedly secular. For the first 15 to 20 years of Independence, Indian politics was also largely secular. Indian secularism, it should be emphasized, did not imply antagonism towards, or disrespect for, religion. On the contrary, India’s secular leaders strove to protect the interests of both the majority Hindu and minority Muslim communities. While leadership was secular, the Hindu and Muslim masses and followers of other religions remained devoted to faith and practice.
It was mainly because the people were religious that Indian politicians began to manipulate religious sentiments for electoral support from the seventies onwards. The ruling Indian National Congress was perhaps the first to play the religious card. It exploited Sikh, Muslim and Hindu grievances as and when it suited its interests. The Congress’s inability to resolve fundamental socio-economic challenges --- the most significant of which was abject grassroots poverty --- was perhaps one of the main reasons why it began to resort to the exploitation of religion in electoral politics.
Soon other political parties got into the act. The Bharatiya Janata Party( BJP), a Hindu nationalist party, was bold and brazen in its belligerent attacks upon the Muslim minority, on the one hand, and its stark appeal to Hindu chauvinism, on the other. Within a decade and a half, in 1998, the BJP with its ideology of Hindutva was able to muster enough electoral support to come to power in New Delhi at the helm of an inter-party coalition. It promised to restore lost Hindu glory by revising school texts with the aim of giving Hindu kingdoms and empires pride of place. Rebuilding Hindu temples which were allegedly demolished to make way for Muslim mosques during the time when much of India was under Muslim rule, was yet another of the BJP’s pledges. In general, the BJP’s Hindutva meant projecting the Hindu face of India through history, culture and education.
The rise of Hindutva was not simply because of the inherent appeal of Hinduism to the majority community. The failure of the Congress to govern effectively was perhaps a more crucial factor. Apart from the persistence of abject poverty, elite corruption and abuse of power at district level had become widespread under Congress rule. The vote for the BJP was in that sense a protest vote. At the same time, certain communal stances adopted by elements within the Muslim community worked to the BJP’s advantage. New regional coalitions and inter-caste alliances had also emerged, benefiting the BJP and its allies.
But the BJP was defeated in the 2004 General Election and the Congress is now back in power with the support of the communists. A number of reasons explain the BJP’s defeat. The party had pursued an even more aggressive neo-liberal capitalist agenda than the Congress which made the poor even more destitute and widened further the chasm between the rich and poor. The disenfranchised revolted through the ballot box. The BJP’s chauvinistic policies which had contributed indirectly to inter-religious riots --- such as the Gujarat riot in 2002 --- alienated a huge chunk of the population, including a significant segment of the Hindu electorate. Besides, the Congress had presented the voters with a broad based platform and had succeeded in forging alliances with regional and national parties that boosted its standing.
The BJP’s defeat shows that religious chauvinism and extremism can be checked through the electoral process. There are strengths within the democratic system which can be mobilised to counter negative religious trends.. Nonetheless, the fact remains that religion is now a potent force in Indian politics. How India’s secular state structure deals with this force is one of the critical questions that will shape the future of the Indian polity.
As an aside, the BJP brings to mind another earlier attempt by no less a personality than Mahatma Gandhi to emphasize the universal, inclusive dimension of Hinduism and thereby forge ties with Muslims, Christians and other religious groups through an all-embracing inter-faith movement dedicated to the liberation of India from British rule. Why is it that such an approach to inter-religious cooperation has not struck root in independent India and instead it is Hindutva that now claims to speak on behalf of the religion?
Sri Lanka
Like India, Sri Lanka also began its post-colonial journey in 1948 as a secular state. Its early leaders, both Sinhala and Tamil, were secular in outlook. However, by the mid-fifties ethnic sentiments which were already quite pronounced in the body politic long before Independence, re-emerged with a vengeance.
In this regard, it is worth observing that though the assassin of Prime Minister Solomon Bandaranaike in 1959 was a Buddhist monk, Buddhism as such was not yet a force in Sri Lankan politics. Be that as it may, the assassination was an early indication of the symbiotic relationship between Sinhala nationalism and the Buddhist monkhood.
As the Sri Lankan economy declined in the seventies and political instability increased, ethnic tensions between the majority Sinhala community and the Tamil minority escalated. The Tamils, especially the Tamils of the Jaffna Peninsula in the north of the island, felt that they had been marginalized and discriminated in politics, public administration and in matters pertaining to language and culture by the Sinhala government. Sinhala identity, they contended, was becoming synonymous with Sri Lankan national identity. The Sinhala community, on the other hand, viewed the Tamils as an economically stronger and better educated community that wielded considerable influence upon national affairs. From the Sinhala standpoint, the Tamil minority was well entrenched and secure and their grievances were often exaggerated.
The Sinhala-Tamil conflict reached its crescendo in July 1983. A full-scale civil war erupted between a largely Sinhala government and a Jaffna Tamil rebel group, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam( LTTE). The LTTE demanded---and continues to demand--- the establishment of a separate Tamil homeland. The civil war has continued on and off for the last 24 years.
Caught in the cauldron of the civil war, Sinhala Buddhist monks decided to set up their own political party in 2004. Called the Jathika Hela Urumaya or Pure Sinhala National Heritage, the party believes in the supremacy of the Buddhist religion and the Sinhala majority, and is against any peace negotiations with the LTTE. Though it vows to protect the religious minorities, in reality it adopts an aggressive posture against Hindus, Christians and Muslims. It is particularly antagonistic towards the Tamils and has urged the military to finish off the LTTE.
In the April 2004 Parliamentary Election, the party won 9 seats. War weariness, disillusionment with existing political parties and the parlous state of the economy have been cited as some of the reasons for the credible performance of the Heritage party. Most of the support for the ‘monks’ party appears to have come from the Sri Lankan middle class.
Sri Lanka illustrates the nexus that obtains between religion and nationalism or rather it reveals how at times nationalism drives religion. There is a hint of this in Indian politics too. The Sri Lankan situation also shows that ethnic conflicts whose root causes may have nothing to do with religion may sometimes find expression through religion.
Having looked at three non-Muslim majority societies, let me now examine three Muslim majority states with the same query in mind: what sort of role does religion play in Afghanistan, Indonesia and Iran? The three countries have also been selected randomly and are discussed in alphabetical order.
Afghanistan
If there was a single event in contemporary Afghanistan that was decisive in shaping the relationship between religion and society, it was the invasion of Afghanistan by the Soviet Union in 1979. The invasion ignited the formation of a mass resistance movement that centred around Islam. The resisters, or freedom fighters (Mujahideen) saw themselves as defenders of the faith fighting an infidel army that was occupying their land. The label ‘infidel’ had an import of its own since the occupying army belonged to an atheistic state that espoused an atheistic ideology, namely, communism.
Though the majority of the freedom fighters were Afghans, there were also Muslims from dozens of other countries who regarded the liberation of Afghanistan as a ‘jihad’ (a struggle in the path of God). Their participation in the resistance was facilitated, it was alleged, by the CIA which provided both financial and logistical support. In fact, for the CIA and the US Administration the freedom fighters had to vanquish the Soviet army since Afghanistan was a critical battleground in the cold war between the US and the Soviet Union. After a 10 year struggle, the Afghan resistance won. The Soviet army was defeated and shortly afterwards the cold war came to an end, climaxing in the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.
It is not just in its implications for global politics and international relations that the Afghan resistance is historically significant. It also gave birth to a transnational Muslim movement with certain ideological characteristics. A commitment to liberation from occupation aside, sections of the movement were strongly influenced by Wahabism, a conservative, puritanical strain within Islam that originated in Arabia in the 18th century. Wahabism, in its present form, advocates a dogmatic adherence to the literal meaning of the Qur’anic text; relegates women to second class status; excludes non-Muslims from the protection of the state; and targets Shiites and Sufis as heretics. Wahabi dogmatism, needless to say, is antithetical to Islamic teachings.
Wahabism was disseminated through the Afghan resistance since as we have noted numerous Muslim nationalities were involved in the struggle. Before Afghanistan, Wahabism was confined largely to Saudi Arabia. Once it was transformed into a transnational ideology, it developed an international constituency. But because its approach to Islam is exclusive and bigoted, Wahabism has tarnished the religion.
Though the present Afghan leadership is not Wahabist, Wahabi thinking is still pervasive within Afghan society. The Taliban for instance which was part of the resistance to Soviet occupation and ruled Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001 when it was ousted by US and NATO forces, subscribes to Wahabism. Today, it constitutes the core of the resistance to US-NATO occupation of Afghanistan. By casting itself as a resister, the Taliban has acquired a degree of credibility. Similarly, Osama bin Laden, the head of Al-Qaeda, and the alleged mastermind behind the 9-11 episode, is also, from all accounts, a Wahabist. He was closely associated with the Taliban leadership when it was in power. Since he is viewed as an ardent opponent of US global hegemony he too commands a constituency and is perceived as a credible leader in certain circles. It is obvious that it is resistance to hegemony and occupation that provides a veneer of legitimacy to Wahabism.
Afghanistan’s significance to the contemporary Muslim world and global politics is tied to these two phenomena. One it has emerged as the arena of resistance to first Soviet occupation with its communist ideology and now to US-NATO occupation with its unstated goal of safeguarding global capitalism. Two, it is from the Afghan resistance that a distorted and perverted notion of Islam in the form of Wahabism has spread to other parts of the Muslim world.
Indonesia
Indonesia shares with Afghanistan a long and intimate historical relationship with Islam. Islamic movements played a pivotal role in the struggle against Dutch colonial rule. After Independence in 1945, one of the most hotly debated issues was the role that Islam would play in building a nation ninety percent of whose population was Muslim. Though a section of the elite wanted the shariah as the basis of the new Indonesian state, the founding fathers eventually settled for a vision of the nation that was not linked to any particular religion. The Panca Sila --- Five Principles --- was accepted as the nation’s ideology, with belief in the one God as the first principle. Islam, together with Buddhism, Hinduism, Catholicism and Protestantism were adopted as official religions. (Confucianism has now been added to the list).
Whatever the constitutional structure, at the level of the masses, political parties with an Islamic orientation proved to be immensely popular. In the 1955 parliamentary election for instance, the Masjumi and the Nahdatul Ulama (NU), together with a smaller Islamic party commanded more votes than the nationalist or communist parties. The Masjumi in particular presented a contemporary interpretation of Islam which emphasised social justice and freedom and appealed to a broad cross-section of the populace.
However the Indonesian President, Sukarno, and the vested interests that backed him were afraid that the Masjumi would undermine their position and sought to curb its influence. The party was banned in 1960. Then in 1965, right-wing generals in the powerful Indonesian armed forces staged a bloody coup which marginalised not only progressive Islamic elements but also the Indonesian communists and nationalists. Sukarno himself was overthrown. The coup had the strong support --- perhaps even the active collaboration --- of the CIA and the US government.
The post coup President, General Suharto, was determined to ensure that Islamic parties had no role in ‘the new order’. Islamic organizations were only allowed to undertake social and cultural activities --- under state surveillance. Consequently, Islamic grassroots programs flourished giving rise to powerful mass social movements like the restructured NU and the Muhammadiyyah. Since they were prohibited from seeking political power, both these movements --- NU with 40 million members and the Muhammadiyyah with 35 million --- focused upon strengthening universal Islamic values and principles at the grassroots, and in the process, helped to transform popular understanding of, and approaches towards, the religion.
After the fall of Suharto in 1998, and the restoration of democratic processes, a plethora of political parties have re-emerged. The vast majority of the 48 parties that participated in the 1999 legislative election and the 24 parties that took part in the 2004 election did not commit themselves to shariah rule or the imposition of the Islamic penal code, or hudud , as most political parties elsewhere that claim to be ideologically orientated towards Islam tend to do. The few that espoused an explicit Islamic program fared badly in the two polls. In fact, the top five performers in 1999 and 2004 sought to present Islam --- with varying degrees of emphasis --- as a universal, inclusive and accommodative faith that is in line with economic development and social change.
If there is any support for shariah and hudud it is in certain districts and provinces, such as Acheh. The Islamic laws that have been implemented in these places seem to revolve around personal and sexual morality. There is also of course a fringe within the Indonesian Muslim community that has resorted to violence in pursuit of its Islamic agenda. Needless to say, the overwhelming majority of Indonesian Muslims reject the politics of violence and terror, as demonstrated in a number of elections and opinion polls since 1998.
This does not mean that the situation will not change in the future. If economic disparities are not resolved, or if corruption becomes more serious, or if there is political chaos, it is not inconceivable that a less flexible, more rigid approach to Islam will gain more adherents. After all, it was because of economic turmoil and political instability in the late nineties that some Muslim groups turned to political terror.
The global environment is also bound to impact upon the attitudes of Indonesian Muslims. It is significant that almost all the terrorists convicted in the Bali bombing of October 2002 cited the injustices perpetrated by the US and Israel against Muslims in the Middle East --- especially the plight of the Palestinians --- as one of the principal reasons why they had sought radical solutions. Often, it is through the interplay of domestic and global factors ---one reinforcing the other --- that despair, frustration and anger reach a crescendo and lead to violence.
Iran
There are similarities and dissimilarities between Indonesia and Iran in their relationship to Islam. Iran owes a monumental debt to Islamic civilization which more than any other civilization has shaped Iranian society in the last thousand years or so. In defending Iranian sovereignty and independence against Western encroachments (Iran never became a formal colony of any Western power) in the early part of the twentieth century, Islam and Muslim religious elites played a significant role. At the same time however the suppression of Islamic movements by the Iranian monarch, Shah Pahlavi, in the sixties and seventies was much more severe and brutal than what transpired in Indonesia.
It was partly because the suppression was so severe that the Islamic Revolution of 1979 was so popular. While Islamic groups were at the core, the Revolution brought together a whole spectrum of dissident movements including communists, socialists, liberals and secular nationalists. Even among the Islamic groups there was considerable diversity. The most important were the traditional religious elites led by Ayatollah Khomeini --- the leader of the Revolution itself. There was also an Islamic group with a liberal-democratic orientation associated with Mehdi Bazargan, the first Prime Minister after the Revolution. A third group with a Left outlook was inspired by the speeches and writings of Ali Shariati.
Within 5 or 6 years, the traditional elites had succeeded in establishing total control over power and politics. How did this happen? Part of the explanation is linked to Khomeini’s role as the dominant, charismatic leader of the Revolution who was revered by the entire nation. But there were other reasons too. The traditional religious elites evoked a lot of sympathy from the people when some of their leading lights were assassinated allegedly by secular Left elements. As a group they were better organized, more focused on their ultimate goals, and most of all, commanded tremendous grassroots respect, compared to other actors in the Revolution. There was also an important external factor that helped the traditional religious elites to consolidate their power. Because Iraq under Saddam Hussein went to war against Iran without any provocation whatsoever in 1980, the Iranian people began to feel that they were under siege and that the values and identity of an unique Islamic revolution were in jeopardy. What aggravated this feeling was the wholehearted support that a number of Arab kingdoms and republics extended to Iraq. The US and other Western powers were also determined to ensure that Saddam defeated and destroyed the nascent Islamic republic. Financial and military assistance were made available to the Iraqi side by the US and some of its allies. Even the Soviet Union was more inclined towards the Iraqi leadership partly because of the latter’s secular, Baathist socialist orientation. Attacked from all sides, the Iranian people --- as it happens very often in other similar situations --- became even more supportive of the traditional religious elites at the core of the national leadership. They were perceived as the only ones who could be relied upon to defend Iranian identity and integrity.
It is true that the traditional religious elites were resolute in their defence of the integrity and sovereignty of the Islamic revolution and nation. Given the magnitude of the external threats against Iran and the immensity of the domestic challenges to the leadership in the eighties, it is remarkable that the elites --- and the people at large --- succeeded in protecting the Revolution. The religious elites also introduced significant changes to the economy from nationalising oil to redistributing incomes to strengthening rural cooperatives and welfare foundations which were all aimed at achieving a more just and equitable social order. At the same time however, power became more centralized in the hands of the religious elites especially since the Constitution itself allowed for a Supreme Leader to supervise all executive, legislative and even judicial functions aided by a council of eminent jurists, the Wilayat-al-Faqih. What this centralization of power meant was that in the ultimate analysis the elected President and the elected Legislature (the Majlis) were subservient to a religious supremo and to an elite religious stratum.
The adverse consequences of this centralization of power, in effect religious authoritarianism, were felt in almost every sphere of society. Dissent was circumscribed and survived only on the sufferance of the religious elite.. Accountability was observed more in its breach than its adherence. Corruption became more entrenched. Women were subjected to a variety of restrictions and regulations pertaining to their attire and to their public and political roles. Controls were also imposed upon inter-gender interaction and socialization. There were also curbs upon those cultural and artistic expressions that were deemed antithetical to Islam and the Revolution.
It was because of increasing religious authoritarianism that a reform movement of sorts was born which sought to demonstrate that Islam is opposed to dictatorship and cherishes freedom and individual liberties. The end of the Iraq-Iran war in 1988 and the death of Khomeini the following year provided some scope for Islamic reformist thinking. Iranian youth who constitute a huge slice of the population and women propelled this movement forward culminating in the election of a reform minded cleric, Mohamad Khatami, as president of the republic in 1997. He was re-elected in 2001. Khatami relaxed some of the controls upon the print media, provided more latitude for film-makers and television producers and encouraged the growth of independent civil society groups. But he could not make much headway. The authoritarian religious elites who felt threatened by his reforms stymied his moves. A high level of unemployment --- almost 14 percent of the workforce had no jobs --- and a woefully inadequate delivery system also dented Khatami’s credibility.
From 2002, the US Administration abetted by the Israeli government also increased pressure upon the Khatami leadership. In his State of the Union message in January of that year, President George Bush described Iran as part of ‘an axis of evil’ for allegedly colluding with terrorists and for its nuclear ambitions. Indeed, the US-led targeting of Iran’s nuclear program which the Washington and Tel Aviv are convinced is designed to manufacture nuclear weapons --- a charge which Tehran has strenuously denied --- has strengthened the hand of religious authoritarians who had always been contemptuous of Khatami’s openness and his willingness to dialogue with the West.
This was reflected in the 2005 presidential election which brought to the fore the hardliner, Mahmoud Ahmednejad. He was perceived by the Iranian masses as someone who had the guts to stand up to the US and Israel in a situation where dialogue and engagement with the US and the West --- they felt --- would jeopardize Iranian sovereignty. It is a matter of some significance that as the US and Israeli governments become more bellicose towards Iran, the support for religious elites and others who are seen as capable of protecting the Iranian nation has increased right across the board while the popularity of reformers like Khatami has diminished considerably.
Iran underscores two important characteristics of the Muslim world today. One, in Iran as in so many other contemporary Muslim societies, a struggle is going on between authoritarian often conservative religious groups with an exclusive outlook on the one hand and democratically inclined, reform oriented Islamic groups with an inclusive, universal approach on the other. Two, when the US, Israel or some of their other allies pursue their self-serving agendas vis-a-vis certain Muslim countries, it is often the authoritarian groups that benefit from their interference and manipulation to the detriment of the reform oriented elements.
Conclusions
Based upon our reflections on six Asian countries --- three with non-Muslim majorities and three with Muslim majorities --- we are now in a position to draw some tentative conclusions.
1) In a number of countries, at the time of Independence, the ruling elites were secular and religion was not central to politics. Because of socio-economic challenges, electoral politics and flawed governance, segments of society have over time turned more and more to religion which serves as an identity marker, a source of morality and an embodiment of the ideal.
2) The reconciliation between, or harmonisation of, religion and state is a major issue in a number of Muslim and non-Muslim societies. In some instances, it is a question of how religion will transform existing secular structures while in other cases it is a question of how the understanding of religion itself will be transformed by the secular environment.
3) In a few situations, the nexus between ethnic or cultural identity, on the one hand, and religion, on the other, has been manipulated or exploited to fuel communal conflicts. In these and other cases, religion often is not the primary cause of conflict but is absorbed into conflicts and sometimes exacerbates them.
4) The perpetuation of global domination by the US and its allies and the injustices it generates within the Muslim world (ummah) has induced a fringe within the ummah to resort to acts of terror which in turn has distorted perceptions of Islam among both Muslims and non-Muslims. Equally important, the US-Israeli agenda has been detrimental to reform movements within the ummah seeking to develop a more inclusive, universal vision of Islam.
5) In those instances when religious groups have succeeded to acquire power, the emphasis appears to be on protecting identity expressed through regulations pertaining to women or gender interaction or manifested in changes to prevailing conceptions of history and culture. Often, religion on the throne of power has led to authoritarianism arising from a desire to impose a certain doctrinal interpretation upon the rest of society. At the same time however, there are in all religions democratic approaches to the understanding and practice of faith which are sometimes part of the internal struggle within the tradition.
Our presentation has revealed that the role of religion in Asia at this juncture of history is far more complex than what the mainstream media suggests. This complexity is related to a large extent to the re-emergence of religion as an important player in the public arena.
(Chandra Muzaffar is a leading Malaysian intellectual. He is associated with the Universiti Sains Malaysia, Penang, and also runs the Just World Trust in Kuala Lumpur. He can be contacted on muza@po.jaring.my For details about the Just World Trust, see http://www.just-international.org/)
Sunday, October 19, 2008
Taqlid, Ijtihad and Democracy
http://sharialaws.blogspot.com/2008/10/taqlid-ijtihad-and-democracy.html
I have read a few articles by Maulana Wahiduddin Khan, and each one was filled with wisdom. It is so enlightening to read. Thanks to Yogi Sikand to bring this to the fore. The article Taqlid, Ijtihad and Democracy follows my comments.
A few self proclaimed guardians of Islam by virtue of their heading Shari’ah and Fiqh councils have been able to keep the lid on the box and do not show any sort of independence. They do not believe that Shari’ah was man-made interpretations of God’s words and Hadiths. To them Shari’ah is the absolute law from God, and they have successfully dumped this idea on to average Muslims (ones who does not have the time to question, but gulp what is given) who believe in it.
Shari’ah Laws: Private and Public
For the sake of convenience, Sharia Laws can be divided into private and public “The Private Sharia deals with how one performs prayers, observes fasts, makes the pilgrimage to Mecca and participates in Zakat (tithe/ charity). Individuals follow those guidelines and appreciate the existence of such guidelines. We can certainly nit pick on the details, but the essence more or less remains close to it.
Whereas the Public Shari’ah deals with the community affairs; such as marriage, divorce, inheritance, conversion, apostates and other rules. This Shari’ah is applicable when more than one individual is involved in the issue. The intent is always Justice and fairness to members of the society. However, The American civic laws are founded on Justice and most Muslims feel that the American laws work for them and are a great substitute- to serve justice. Hence, they do not feel the need for Shari’ah laws for public governance.
The Neocons need not fear and create imaginary conflict scenarios to cash in from the gullibles ones. We believe that only God’s word is final and no one feels the need to discuss it, as it is the right guidance for humanity. However, all else is open to discussion. It is our God given right to understand as we are individually responsible on the day of reckoning, and to understand we have to discuss and learn. Discussion is the hallmark of freedom and the Prophet (pbuh) had encouraged it. We cannot forget that Prophet (pbuh) had liberated us from the clutches of Clergy aka self appointed Guardians of religion.
The traditional Dawah approach needs re-examining. However, we want to uplift ourselves through learning to be a people who care about others, who focus on harmony among God’s creation; people and matter. Look at all the models of Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) from lifting Aswad up into the wall to Madinah treaty – what do you find? Mitigating conflicts and nurturing goodwill. Madinah Treaty exemplifies co-existence. Surah Kafirun is the ultimate in respecting other people and civil conduct. http://quraan-today.blogspot.com/2008/07/sura-kafirun-un-believers.html.
Maulana has quoted Qur’aan on the subject of Dawah that makes good sense “The Qur’aan advises us to engage in Dawah and propagation of Islam with wisdom (Hikma) and it adds that the result of this would be that one’s foes would become one’s friends Thus, it declares, ‘And O Prophet, goodness and evil are not equal. Repel evil with what is best. You will see that he with whom you had enmity has become your closest friend’ (Surah Fussilat: 34).” If it breeds conflict, then it cannot be called Dawah.
Enhancing knowledge is not Biddah, it is an instant bomb frequently thrown on average Muslims to shut up. Indeed, enhancing knowledge is a requirement suggested by the Prophet (pbuh).
I stand as a moderate, because of that I work with both conservative and liberal views, but predominantly it is the moderate views that most Muslims subscribe to. I think there has got to be an effort, education and a time line to bring Muslims on par with the common civil code in India and elsewhere dealing with the public Shari’ah.
Mike Ghouse
______________________________________________
Taqlid, Ijtihad and Democracy
By Maulana Wahiduddin Khan
(Translated by Yoginder Sikand)
In the wake of the industrial Revolution in Europe, Western countries established their political and cultural domination over much of the rest of the world, leading to the establishment of European colonial empires. This posed a new and major challenge for Muslims. At that time, numerous Muslim leaders in various countries emerged, inspired with just one mission—to engage in armed jihad—thinking that to be the only solution to the challenge of Western imperialism. But despite two hundred years of armed struggle against the West, Muslims did not gain substantially.
If this problem is examined in the light of the Qur’aan and Hadith it is clear that the solution lay somewhere else—in peaceful Dawah or missionary work. The Prophet was faced with a similar predicament, and the Qur'aans instruction to him in this context was to present the message of God to the people, for this would be the guarantee of his protection (Surah Al-Maidah: 67). The Qur’aan advises us to engage in Dawah and propagation of Islam with wisdom (Hikma), and it adds that the result of this would be that one’s foes would become one’s friends. Thus, it declares, ‘And O Prophet, goodness and evil are not equal. Repel evil with what is best. You will see that he with whom you had enmity has become your closest friend’ (Surah Fussilat: 34).
It would not be wrong to say that the Qur’aan indicates that Dawah is the only solution. Why is it, then, that modern-day Muslims could not understand this? Why did they take to jihad, in the sense of physical warfare or qital, instead of Dawah, especially when it was not difficult to realize that in the given conditions violence would cause even more destruction for Muslims and nothing else? Why is it that modern-day Muslim leaders made such a terrible blunder by adopting the slogan that violent jihad was the only solution?
In my opinion, one of the main reasons for this was that these leaders considered that Ijtihad-e mutlaq or directly deriving rules from the Qur’aan and Hadith to be prohibited for them. In accordance with their deeply-rooted taqlidi mentality, they believed that they had to strictly follow the guidance and rules of the established corpus of Fiqh. Now these books of Fiqh were full of rules and commandments about jihad, in the sense of qital. In contrast, they hardly contained any rules that could provide guidance for the task of Dawah. They had long and detailed chapters on jihad, in the sense of qital, but none at all on Dawah and tabling.
These leaders could have learnt about the need to engage in Dawah in the Qur’aan, but they viewed the Qur’aan simply as a book of laws. For rules for new issues they turned not to the Qur’aan, but, instead, to the established corpus of Fiqh, which, as I said, does not contain any guidance for Dawah work. From this it can be gauged how useful and essential Ijtihad, in the sense of directly deriving rules from the Qur’aan and Hadith, is, and, contrarily, how harmful Taqlid, regarding the established corpus of Fiqh as the sole source of rules, can be.
This same mistake was made by many Indian Muslim leaders who, in the wake of the establishment of British rule, declared India to be dar ul-harb or ‘abode of war’. In 1823 Shah Abdul Aziz issued a fatwa, opining that India had now turned into dar ul-harb. Thereafter, 500 Indian ulema signed a fatwa claiming that it had now become obligatory for the Indian Muslims to engage in jihad, in the sense of qital, against the British. Consequently, many Muslims began being involved in violent anti-British activities, thinking this to be their religious duty. This carried on for over a hundred years but it proved to be completely fruitless. Despite this, it is shocking to see how some Muslims still believe, and some even openly announce, that India is dar ul-harb and that they can solve their problems through jihad.
The reason for this peculiar situation is that the minds of these people are still stuck in the groove of the traditional corpus of Fiqh based on the established maslaks, or schools of thought, whose views on Taqlid and Ijtihad they consider themselves duty bound to follow. And according to this tradition of Fiqh, countries like India are categorized as dar ul-harb. Had these Muslim leaders gone back even before the formation of the schools of Fiqh, directly to the Qur’aan and Sunnah, they would undoubtedly have realized that the status of a country like India is not that of dar ul-harb, but, rather, that of dar ul-Dawah, ‘abode of missionary work’ by inviting others to the faith. But this they did not do because they considered Ijtihad, in the sense of directly approaching the Qur’aan and Sunnah to derive rules, to be prohibited to them. In accordance with their taqlidi approach, they limited themselves wholly to the corpus of established Fiqh for guidance. And, as is known, this corpus of Fiqh speaks in detail about dar ul-harb but not at all about dar ul-Dawah.
Present-Day Fiqh Is Not Enough
The present corpus of fiqh was compiled by the second or third [Islamic] centuries. Many Muslims erroneously believe that this fiqh is complete and that it contains all the teachings of the Quran and Hadith related to human life. This reflects the belief that, following the compilation of this corpus of fiqh, the doors of ijtihad-e mutlaq or ‘absolute ijtihad’ were fully closed, and that now only ijtihad-e muqayyad or ijtihad within the established schools of fiqh or what can be called taqlidi ijtihad, is permissible.
This belief might have been seen as appropriate in the past, but when social conditions began to undergo massive changes with the passing of the traditional age and the advent of modern science, it proved to be extremely harmful for Muslims. Muslims had come to view the corpus of fiqh as a complete legal system, and believed that there was no need to look beyond it for solutions to all their problems. Because of this, modern-day Muslims were unable to access guidance on numerous issues which was present in the Quran and Sunnah but not in the established corpus of fiqh.
Let me cite one instance in this regard. The political revolutions that accompanied the advent of the modern age brought about democracy as a new political system. Our corpus of fiqh had been developed in a prior age, that of monarchy. That is why it had no conception of modern democracy. Consequently, Muslims who thought in terms of the established corpus of fiqh could not appreciate or understand the importance of democracy. That is why some of them branded it as irreligious (la-dini) and even as ‘prohibited’ (haram). Others denounced it as a system of counting heads, where numbers are given the importance that quality deserves.
But, in fact, democracy has the potential of being a blessing for Muslims. In contrast to the old monarchical system, democracy is based on the principle of power-sharing. It offers Muslims the opportunity to gain political importance if they act wisely. But because of the lack of ijtihadi insight Muslims failed to do so. Instead, their taqlidi approach led them to talk about such plans as launching a movement to establish the Caliphate in America and to change the name of California to Caliph-ornia and dreaming up similar laughable schemes. But they failed to see how by participating in democratic governance and getting involved in democratic processes they might be able to make a place for themselves in democratic countries.
The reason for this terrible backwardness of present-day Muslim thought is the refusal to engage in ijtihad, to come out of the boundaries of the established corpus of fiqh and to gain guidance directly from the Quran and Hadith. But for this Muslims would have been able to ponder on the Quran, and this would have taught them that the Quran provides appropriate guidance in this regard.
The Quran says that at the time of the Prophet Yusuf (Joseph), Egypt was ruled by a certain king, who, although a polytheist (mushrik), appointed the Prophet Yusuf to a high political position. He was made in-charge of food and agriculture, but he had more powers than this, acting, in a sense, as the deputy of the king, because in the ancient agricultural age the economy of countries was based essentially on agriculture. In other words, the Prophet Yusuf’s position in the political system was that of the highest official.
If modern-day Muslims did not bind themselves to taqlid but, instead, approached the Quran in a spirit of ijtihad and pondered on it carefully, they would have realized that this incident about the Prophet Yusuf is a prophetic example for them to seek to emulate. They should understand that they can use the principle of power-sharing of modern democracy for their benefit, being confident that doing so is in accordance with a prophetic practice.
This is a translation of a portion of a chapter• titled Taqlid Aur Ijtihad in Maulana Wahiduddin Khan’s book Din-o-Shariat: Din-e Islam Ka Ek Fikri Muta‘ala [Goodword Books, New Delhi, 2003, pp.224-228].
For more writings in English by Maulana Wahiduddin• Khan, see www.cpsglobal.org. See also www.islampeaceandjustice.blogspot.com
I have read a few articles by Maulana Wahiduddin Khan, and each one was filled with wisdom. It is so enlightening to read. Thanks to Yogi Sikand to bring this to the fore. The article Taqlid, Ijtihad and Democracy follows my comments.
A few self proclaimed guardians of Islam by virtue of their heading Shari’ah and Fiqh councils have been able to keep the lid on the box and do not show any sort of independence. They do not believe that Shari’ah was man-made interpretations of God’s words and Hadiths. To them Shari’ah is the absolute law from God, and they have successfully dumped this idea on to average Muslims (ones who does not have the time to question, but gulp what is given) who believe in it.
Shari’ah Laws: Private and Public
For the sake of convenience, Sharia Laws can be divided into private and public “The Private Sharia deals with how one performs prayers, observes fasts, makes the pilgrimage to Mecca and participates in Zakat (tithe/ charity). Individuals follow those guidelines and appreciate the existence of such guidelines. We can certainly nit pick on the details, but the essence more or less remains close to it.
Whereas the Public Shari’ah deals with the community affairs; such as marriage, divorce, inheritance, conversion, apostates and other rules. This Shari’ah is applicable when more than one individual is involved in the issue. The intent is always Justice and fairness to members of the society. However, The American civic laws are founded on Justice and most Muslims feel that the American laws work for them and are a great substitute- to serve justice. Hence, they do not feel the need for Shari’ah laws for public governance.
The Neocons need not fear and create imaginary conflict scenarios to cash in from the gullibles ones. We believe that only God’s word is final and no one feels the need to discuss it, as it is the right guidance for humanity. However, all else is open to discussion. It is our God given right to understand as we are individually responsible on the day of reckoning, and to understand we have to discuss and learn. Discussion is the hallmark of freedom and the Prophet (pbuh) had encouraged it. We cannot forget that Prophet (pbuh) had liberated us from the clutches of Clergy aka self appointed Guardians of religion.
The traditional Dawah approach needs re-examining. However, we want to uplift ourselves through learning to be a people who care about others, who focus on harmony among God’s creation; people and matter. Look at all the models of Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) from lifting Aswad up into the wall to Madinah treaty – what do you find? Mitigating conflicts and nurturing goodwill. Madinah Treaty exemplifies co-existence. Surah Kafirun is the ultimate in respecting other people and civil conduct. http://quraan-today.blogspot.com/2008/07/sura-kafirun-un-believers.html.
Maulana has quoted Qur’aan on the subject of Dawah that makes good sense “The Qur’aan advises us to engage in Dawah and propagation of Islam with wisdom (Hikma) and it adds that the result of this would be that one’s foes would become one’s friends Thus, it declares, ‘And O Prophet, goodness and evil are not equal. Repel evil with what is best. You will see that he with whom you had enmity has become your closest friend’ (Surah Fussilat: 34).” If it breeds conflict, then it cannot be called Dawah.
Enhancing knowledge is not Biddah, it is an instant bomb frequently thrown on average Muslims to shut up. Indeed, enhancing knowledge is a requirement suggested by the Prophet (pbuh).
I stand as a moderate, because of that I work with both conservative and liberal views, but predominantly it is the moderate views that most Muslims subscribe to. I think there has got to be an effort, education and a time line to bring Muslims on par with the common civil code in India and elsewhere dealing with the public Shari’ah.
Mike Ghouse
______________________________________________
Taqlid, Ijtihad and Democracy
By Maulana Wahiduddin Khan
(Translated by Yoginder Sikand)
In the wake of the industrial Revolution in Europe, Western countries established their political and cultural domination over much of the rest of the world, leading to the establishment of European colonial empires. This posed a new and major challenge for Muslims. At that time, numerous Muslim leaders in various countries emerged, inspired with just one mission—to engage in armed jihad—thinking that to be the only solution to the challenge of Western imperialism. But despite two hundred years of armed struggle against the West, Muslims did not gain substantially.
If this problem is examined in the light of the Qur’aan and Hadith it is clear that the solution lay somewhere else—in peaceful Dawah or missionary work. The Prophet was faced with a similar predicament, and the Qur'aans instruction to him in this context was to present the message of God to the people, for this would be the guarantee of his protection (Surah Al-Maidah: 67). The Qur’aan advises us to engage in Dawah and propagation of Islam with wisdom (Hikma), and it adds that the result of this would be that one’s foes would become one’s friends. Thus, it declares, ‘And O Prophet, goodness and evil are not equal. Repel evil with what is best. You will see that he with whom you had enmity has become your closest friend’ (Surah Fussilat: 34).
It would not be wrong to say that the Qur’aan indicates that Dawah is the only solution. Why is it, then, that modern-day Muslims could not understand this? Why did they take to jihad, in the sense of physical warfare or qital, instead of Dawah, especially when it was not difficult to realize that in the given conditions violence would cause even more destruction for Muslims and nothing else? Why is it that modern-day Muslim leaders made such a terrible blunder by adopting the slogan that violent jihad was the only solution?
In my opinion, one of the main reasons for this was that these leaders considered that Ijtihad-e mutlaq or directly deriving rules from the Qur’aan and Hadith to be prohibited for them. In accordance with their deeply-rooted taqlidi mentality, they believed that they had to strictly follow the guidance and rules of the established corpus of Fiqh. Now these books of Fiqh were full of rules and commandments about jihad, in the sense of qital. In contrast, they hardly contained any rules that could provide guidance for the task of Dawah. They had long and detailed chapters on jihad, in the sense of qital, but none at all on Dawah and tabling.
These leaders could have learnt about the need to engage in Dawah in the Qur’aan, but they viewed the Qur’aan simply as a book of laws. For rules for new issues they turned not to the Qur’aan, but, instead, to the established corpus of Fiqh, which, as I said, does not contain any guidance for Dawah work. From this it can be gauged how useful and essential Ijtihad, in the sense of directly deriving rules from the Qur’aan and Hadith, is, and, contrarily, how harmful Taqlid, regarding the established corpus of Fiqh as the sole source of rules, can be.
This same mistake was made by many Indian Muslim leaders who, in the wake of the establishment of British rule, declared India to be dar ul-harb or ‘abode of war’. In 1823 Shah Abdul Aziz issued a fatwa, opining that India had now turned into dar ul-harb. Thereafter, 500 Indian ulema signed a fatwa claiming that it had now become obligatory for the Indian Muslims to engage in jihad, in the sense of qital, against the British. Consequently, many Muslims began being involved in violent anti-British activities, thinking this to be their religious duty. This carried on for over a hundred years but it proved to be completely fruitless. Despite this, it is shocking to see how some Muslims still believe, and some even openly announce, that India is dar ul-harb and that they can solve their problems through jihad.
The reason for this peculiar situation is that the minds of these people are still stuck in the groove of the traditional corpus of Fiqh based on the established maslaks, or schools of thought, whose views on Taqlid and Ijtihad they consider themselves duty bound to follow. And according to this tradition of Fiqh, countries like India are categorized as dar ul-harb. Had these Muslim leaders gone back even before the formation of the schools of Fiqh, directly to the Qur’aan and Sunnah, they would undoubtedly have realized that the status of a country like India is not that of dar ul-harb, but, rather, that of dar ul-Dawah, ‘abode of missionary work’ by inviting others to the faith. But this they did not do because they considered Ijtihad, in the sense of directly approaching the Qur’aan and Sunnah to derive rules, to be prohibited to them. In accordance with their taqlidi approach, they limited themselves wholly to the corpus of established Fiqh for guidance. And, as is known, this corpus of Fiqh speaks in detail about dar ul-harb but not at all about dar ul-Dawah.
Present-Day Fiqh Is Not Enough
The present corpus of fiqh was compiled by the second or third [Islamic] centuries. Many Muslims erroneously believe that this fiqh is complete and that it contains all the teachings of the Quran and Hadith related to human life. This reflects the belief that, following the compilation of this corpus of fiqh, the doors of ijtihad-e mutlaq or ‘absolute ijtihad’ were fully closed, and that now only ijtihad-e muqayyad or ijtihad within the established schools of fiqh or what can be called taqlidi ijtihad, is permissible.
This belief might have been seen as appropriate in the past, but when social conditions began to undergo massive changes with the passing of the traditional age and the advent of modern science, it proved to be extremely harmful for Muslims. Muslims had come to view the corpus of fiqh as a complete legal system, and believed that there was no need to look beyond it for solutions to all their problems. Because of this, modern-day Muslims were unable to access guidance on numerous issues which was present in the Quran and Sunnah but not in the established corpus of fiqh.
Let me cite one instance in this regard. The political revolutions that accompanied the advent of the modern age brought about democracy as a new political system. Our corpus of fiqh had been developed in a prior age, that of monarchy. That is why it had no conception of modern democracy. Consequently, Muslims who thought in terms of the established corpus of fiqh could not appreciate or understand the importance of democracy. That is why some of them branded it as irreligious (la-dini) and even as ‘prohibited’ (haram). Others denounced it as a system of counting heads, where numbers are given the importance that quality deserves.
But, in fact, democracy has the potential of being a blessing for Muslims. In contrast to the old monarchical system, democracy is based on the principle of power-sharing. It offers Muslims the opportunity to gain political importance if they act wisely. But because of the lack of ijtihadi insight Muslims failed to do so. Instead, their taqlidi approach led them to talk about such plans as launching a movement to establish the Caliphate in America and to change the name of California to Caliph-ornia and dreaming up similar laughable schemes. But they failed to see how by participating in democratic governance and getting involved in democratic processes they might be able to make a place for themselves in democratic countries.
The reason for this terrible backwardness of present-day Muslim thought is the refusal to engage in ijtihad, to come out of the boundaries of the established corpus of fiqh and to gain guidance directly from the Quran and Hadith. But for this Muslims would have been able to ponder on the Quran, and this would have taught them that the Quran provides appropriate guidance in this regard.
The Quran says that at the time of the Prophet Yusuf (Joseph), Egypt was ruled by a certain king, who, although a polytheist (mushrik), appointed the Prophet Yusuf to a high political position. He was made in-charge of food and agriculture, but he had more powers than this, acting, in a sense, as the deputy of the king, because in the ancient agricultural age the economy of countries was based essentially on agriculture. In other words, the Prophet Yusuf’s position in the political system was that of the highest official.
If modern-day Muslims did not bind themselves to taqlid but, instead, approached the Quran in a spirit of ijtihad and pondered on it carefully, they would have realized that this incident about the Prophet Yusuf is a prophetic example for them to seek to emulate. They should understand that they can use the principle of power-sharing of modern democracy for their benefit, being confident that doing so is in accordance with a prophetic practice.
This is a translation of a portion of a chapter• titled Taqlid Aur Ijtihad in Maulana Wahiduddin Khan’s book Din-o-Shariat: Din-e Islam Ka Ek Fikri Muta‘ala [Goodword Books, New Delhi, 2003, pp.224-228].
For more writings in English by Maulana Wahiduddin• Khan, see www.cpsglobal.org. See also www.islampeaceandjustice.blogspot.com
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Shari’ah in America
Foreword: I have been very careful in what is published at the World Muslim Congress website, blog and the discussion forum. A few times, I have regretted releasing the information without a comment on subtleties. In the last five years, Mohammad Irtaza, who compiled the article below has been a great help in our efforts to make the Moderate Muslim voice, the voice of Muslims.
I have included a few references at the bottom for further reading, however, I urge you to read Dr. Mohammad Omar Farooq’s “Sharia Value” to get a grasp of the basics.
Comments on the following posting:– If there is a translation of a verse does not sound right, I have developed the habit of referring to a few other translations, first I go to Mohammad Asad, If I am satisfied, I will end the search, for finding the truth is one’s own responsibility, it brings salvation and freedom from anguish and incomplete information.
Comments are my own, I do not claim to be a scholar, nor do I have a degree in Islam. However, I am confident about my knowledge of Islam that I have gained over the years. I feel I am in tune with the essence of Islam; Justice and peace.
Sharia Laws
For the sake of convenience, Sharia Laws can be divided into private and public – The private Sharia deals with how one performs prayers, observes fasts, performs Hajj, and participates in Zakat (tithe – charity). Individuals follow those guidelines and appreciate the existence of such guidelines.
Whereas the Public Sharia deals with the community affairs; such as marriage, divorce, inheritance, conversion, apostates and other rules that deal when more than one individual is involved in the issue. The intent is always Justice and fairness to members of the society. The American civic laws are founded on Justice and most Muslims feel that the American laws work for them and are a great substitute. Hence, they do not feel the need for another set of laws for public governance. It ain’t going to happen. The Neocons need not fear and create imaginary war scenarios to cash in from the gullibles.
Mike Ghouse is a Speaker, Thinker and a Writer. He is president of the Foundation for Pluralism and is a frequent guest on talk radio and local television network discussing interfaith, political and civic issues. He is the founding president of World Muslim Congress with a simple theme: Good for Muslims and good for the world. His comments, news analysis and columns can be found on the Websites and Blogs listed at his personal website www.MikeGhouse.net. Mike is a Dallasite for nearly three decades and Carrollton is his home town. He can be reached at MikeGhouse@gmail.com
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Sharia in America
Contributed by Mohammad Irtaza, Tuscon, AZ
Salamun Alykum,
The Quran is an endorsement for the rights and responsibilities of individuals. It is a guide to the authoritative allocation of values and resources for a community. The Quran is a guideline calling upon the individual to use the faculties and the brain before making decisions or taking action.
[16:78] GOD brought you out of your mothers' bellies knowing nothing, and He gave you the hearing, the eyesight, and the brains, that you may be appreciative.
[42:38]They respond to their Lord by observing the contact prayer (salat). Their affairs are decided after due consultation among themselves, and from our provisions to them they give (to charity).
[17:36] You shall not accept any information, unless you verify it for yourself. I have given you the hearing, the eyesight, and the brain, and you are responsible for using them....
The Quran is not a step-by-step book with all the answers spelled out. It does not tell us by name what type of government to form. But, it does tell us how to treat one another, and thereby we can derive from it what is appropriate and best for all concerned. It is hoped that after reviewing some of the following Quranic verses, the readers will come to appreciate Islam in a new light, as a guiding principle of reason, tolerance, open-mindedness and fairness, which supports rational thinking, the rights of the individual, and an open democratic process.
1. Equality of human beings -
[49:13] O people, we created you from the same male and female, and rendered you distinct peoples and tribes, that you may recognize one another. The best among you in the sight of God is the most righteous. God is omniscient, Cognizant.
[3:195] Their Lord responded to them: "I never fail to reward any worker among you for any work you do, be you male or female - you are equal to one another.…
2. Freedom of expression -
[2:256] There shall be no compulsion in religion: the right way is now distinct from the wrong way. Anyone who denounces the devil and believes in GOD has grasped the strongest bond; one that never breaks. GOD is Hearer, Omniscient.
[18:29] Proclaim: "This is the truth from your Lord," then whoever wills let him believe, and whoever wills let him disbelieve....
3. Civil laws -
[4:4] You shall give the women their due dowries, equitably. If they willingly forfeit anything, then you may accept it; it is rightfully yours
[2:226] Those who intend to divorce their wives shall wait four months (cooling off); if they change their minds and reconcile, then GOD is Forgiver, Merciful.
[2:227] If they go through with the divorce, then GOD is Hearer, Knower.
[2:180] It is decreed that when death approaches, you shall write a will for the benefit of the parents and relatives, equitably. This is a duty upon the righteous...
5. Criminal laws -
[2:178] O you who believe, equivalence is the law decreed for you when dealing with murder - the free for the free, the slave for the slave, the female for the female. If one is pardoned by the victim's kin, an appreciative response is in order, and an equitable compensation shall be paid. This is an alleviation from your Lord and mercy. Anyone who transgresses beyond this incurs a painful retribution.
[24:2] The adulteress and the adulterer you shall whip each of them a hundred lashes. Do not be swayed by pity from carrying out GOD's law, if you truly believe in GOD and the Last Day. And let a group of believers witness their penalty...
6. Military justice -
[47:4] If you encounter (in war) those who disbelieve, you may strike the necks. If you take them as captives you may set them free or ransom them, until the war ends. Had GOD willed, He could have granted you victory, without war. But He thus tests you by one another. As for those who get killed in the cause of GOD, He will never put their sacrifice to waste.
Moderator Mike Ghouse’ comment added – The first sentence above was not clear. Here is Mohammad Asad’s translation; the [4] is explained in the note below by Asad. 47:4 NOW WHEN you meet [in war] those who are bent on denying the truth, [4] smite their necks until you overcome them fully, and then tighten their bonds; but thereafter [set them free,] either by an act of grace or against ransom, so that the burden of war may be lifted: thus [shall it be]. And [know that] had God so willed, He could indeed punish them [Himself]; but [He wills you to struggle] so as to test you [all] by means of one another. And as for those who are slain in God’s cause, never will He let their deeds go to waste:
[4] "and on barring [others] from the path of God" - thus connecting with verse 1 and laying down the fundamental condition which alone justifies physical warfare: namely, a defense of the Faith and of freedom (cf. in this connection see note 167 on 2:190). In other words, when "those who are bent on denying the truth" try to deprive the Muslims of their social and political liberty and thus to make it impossible for them to live in accordance with the principles of their faith, a just war (jihad) becomes allowable and, more than that, a duty. The whole of the above verse relates to war actually in progress (cf. note 168 on the first part of 2:191); and there is no doubt that it was revealed after 22:39-40, the earliest Quranic reference to physical warfare.(Quran Ref: 47:4 )
[17:33] You shall not kill any person - for GOD has made life sacred - except in the course of justice. If one is killed unjustly, then we give his heir authority to enforce justice. Thus, he shall not exceed the limits in avenging the murder, he will be helped.
[2:191] You may kill those who wage war against you, and you may evict them whence they evicted you. Oppression is worse than murder…
7. Fair business practice -
[2:275] Those who charge usury are in the same position as those controlled by the devil's influence. This is because they claim that usury is the same as commerce. However, God permits commerce, and prohibits usury. Thus, whoever heeds this commandment from his Lord, and refrains usury, he may keep his past earnings, and his judgment rests with God. as for those who persist in usury, they incur Hell, wherein they abide forever.
Mike Ghouse: Muslims are divided on this, it is a contentious issue – There is a group that believes “Usury” is not permitted in Islam, whereas some believes, the interest on money itself is not permitted. If we look at the American Laws, it is easy to understand the public protection in this guidance, there is a limit set on what one can charge as an interest beyond that, it is illegal as it ruins the borrower financially effectively hurting the whole economy.
[11:85] "O my people, you shall give full measure and full weight, equitably. Do not cheat the people out of their rights, and do not roam the earth corrupting.
[4:29] O you who believe, do not consume each others' properties illicitly - only mutually acceptable transactions are permitted. You shall not kill yourselves. GOD is Merciful towards you....
8. Distribution of wealth -
[2:215] They ask you about giving: say, "The charity you give shall go to the parents, the relatives, the orphans, the poor, and the traveling alien." Any good you do, God is fully aware thereof.
[2:267] O you who believe, you shall give to charity from the good things you earn, and from what we have produced for you from the earth. Do not pick out the bad therein to give away, when you yourselves do not accept it unless your eyes are closed. You should know that God is Rich, Praiseworthy. ...
9. Discussion and consent -
[3:159] It was mercy from GOD that you became compassionate towards them. Had you been harsh and mean-hearted, they would have abandoned you. Therefore, you shall pardon them and ask forgiveness for them, and consult them….
[42:38]They respond to their Lord by observing the contact prayer (salat). Their affairs are decided after due consultation among themselves and from our provisions to them they give (to charity)....
10. Uphold righteousness and forbid evil -
[3:110] You are the best community ever raised among the people: you advocate righteousness and forbid evil, and you believe in God. If the followers of the scripture believed, it would be better for them. Some of them do believe, but the majority of them are wicked.
[4:135] O you who believe, you shall be absolutely equitable, and observe GOD, when you serve as witnesses, even against yourselves, or your parents, or your relatives. Whether the accused is rich or poor, GOD takes care of both. Therefore, do not be biased by your personal wishes. If you deviate or disregard (this commandment), then GOD is fully Cognizant of everything you do.
Mike Ghouse – there is no taking the 5th. One has to tell the truth even it goes against himself or herself.
[17:53] Tell My servants to treat each other in the best possible manner, for the devil will always try to drive a wedge among them. Surely, the devil is man’s most ardent enemy.
[49:11] O you who believe, no people shall ridicule other people, for they may be better than they. Nor shall any women ridicule other women, for they may be better than they. Nor shall you mock one another, or make fun of your names. Evil indeed is the reversion to wickedness after attaining faith. Anyone who does not repent after this, these are the transgressors.
[7:26] O children of Adam, we have provided you with garments to cover your bodies, as well as for luxury. But the best garment is the garment of righteousness. These are some of GOD's signs, that they may take heed.
[7:80-81] "Lot said to his people, "You commit such an abomination; no one in the world has done it before! "You practice sex with the men, instead of the women. Indeed, you are a transgressing people."
Mike Ghouse – Most people are not comfortable in dealing with this issue. This topic is being researched heavily about the intent and the significance of the verse. There is an advocacy group that presents the idea “ that the intent to call gay and lesbian activity evil was, it stops procreation of human race but today, with so many orphans, one can adopt a child and procreation is not an issue.”. In most states including the Islamic and a few here within the United States it is not an acceptable, however, the public has made an allowance for that at this time. It may change as the tolerance threshold increases.
[49:12] O you who believe, you shall avoid any suspicion, for even a little bit of suspicion is sinful. You shall not spy on one another, nor shall you backbite one another; this is as abominable as eating the flesh of your dead brother. You certainly abhor this. You shall observe GOD. GOD is Redeemer, Most Merciful. ...
[31:18,19] You shall not treat the people with arrogance, nor shall you roam the earth proudly. God does not like the arrogant showoffs. Walk humbly and lower your
voice....
The Quran does not support the man-made dogma that currently exists in so-called "Islamic" countries all over the world. Rejecting the Quran and upholding man made "Sharia" court, "Fatwa" council, "Islamic" bank, "halal" KFC, "Mecca" Cola and so on, will not shower any blessing upon us.
[10:98] Any community that believes will surely be rewarded for believing. For example, the people of Jonah: when they believed, we relieved the humiliating retribution they had been suffering in this world, and we made them prosperous.
[5:65] If only the people of the scripture believe and lead a righteous life, we will then remit their sins, and admit them into gardens of bliss.
[5:66] If only they would uphold the Torah and the Gospel, and what is sent down to them herein from their Lord, they would be showered with blessings from above them and from beneath their feet. Some of them are righteous, but many of them are evildoers.
Mike Ghouse – evil doing is as human as doing the good. One has to choose the right path, that which brings peace of mind and salvation.
Thank you and may God guide all of us,
Muhammed Irtaza
~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-
--- On Mon, 10/13/08, kaukab siddique <> wrote:
Q & A
Unusual Question from a Veteran Christian Activist and Writer: How Would Shari’ah Affect us in America?
Dr. Siddique;
I would like your advice and knowledge regarding Sharia law for the purpose of setting the record straight. As you may have surmised by now - my 'fellow' Americans are - on the whole - I'm ashamed to say -IDIOTS! We were not always like this. Our Zionist controlled educations system ( if one can seriously call it that today) has been Jew controlled now for at least an entire generation. We are a nation of short term memory - instant gratification - materialistic - immature imbeciles.
Mike Ghouse – The above comment in itself is hateful against Jews and I do not subscribe to it nor the World Muslim Congress. It is included merely to make a comment about its anti-semitic nature. I would like the reader to make a note of it and not allow this to kind of rhetoric to grow. If we let evil in our minds, it will not leave you or me, it will envelope every one.
Our recent leaders are a perfect example and proof of what I say. We have become as corrupt as any of the worst countries i have visited in the past 55 years.
I am constantly editorializing in hopes that the TRUTH will ultimately permeate this suffocating cloud of hate - lies - propaganda and rancid Zionist disinformation.
My next 'project' is the truth about Sharia law - and how it may or may not affect us here in America. What I need from you is the type of comprehensive explanation of ALL major aspects of anything the law would affect. The one concerning marriage was EXACTLY the kind of information i need - but on a multiplicity of topics - civil and criminal.
Thank you in advance for your time and knowledge. In my 70 years an varied background experiences - I have watched my country - under Zionist influence - go from greatness and goodness to becoming a garbage dump of Zio-robotic useful idiots - headed for the trash heap of history. I simply want my country back and to see us cast out these Zionist occupiers. We are as occupied by the Jew as Gaza ( I have been there also). The only difference is that the violence has not started here against TRUE Christians ( the horrific hatred and Zionist diatribes coming from Baptist pulpits is NOT REMOTELY 'Christian' teaching).
As sala'amu alaikum
Joe Cortina [Tampa Bay, Florida]
~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-
Response by Dr. Kaukab Siddique
Basic Facts about Shari'ia [Islamic Law].
1. Muslims believe that the Qur'an is the Word of Allah, the One God who created the universe and all humans, whatever their race.
2. The Qur'an was revealed in Arabia to Muhammad, peace be on him. His understanding of the purpose and implementation of the Qur'an was compiled by his Companions [sahabah in Arabic] in the form of the Hadith and is the decisive factor in all Islamic rulings.
The Qur'an and the Hadith are the primary sources of Islamic Law [Shari’ah] which encompasses every aspect of human life from marriage and divorce to economics and finance.
3. Islamic scholars in various countries and during various epochs in Muslim history studied the Qur'an and Hadith and gave rulings about how Shari’ah would solve the problems of their nations. This jurisprudence [or fiqh in Arabic] indicates the understanding various scholars had of the relevance of Shari’ah to their times.
Shari’ah is not imposed on non-Muslims unless they want to be included in its ambit. The Qur'an says there is no compulsion in religion.
Mike Ghouse – It should not be imposed on any one including Muslims.
Contributed by Mohammad Irtaza, Tuscon, AZ
Salamun Alykum,
The Quran is an endorsement for the rights and responsibilities of individuals. It is a guide to the authoritative allocation of values and resources for a community. The Quran is a guideline calling upon the individual to use the faculties and the brain before making decisions or taking action.
[16:78] GOD brought you out of your mothers' bellies knowing nothing, and He gave you the hearing, the eyesight, and the brains, that you may be appreciative.
[42:38]They respond to their Lord by observing the contact prayer (salat). Their affairs are decided after due consultation among themselves, and from our provisions to them they give (to charity).
[17:36] You shall not accept any information, unless you verify it for yourself. I have given you the hearing, the eyesight, and the brain, and you are responsible for using them....
The Quran is not a step-by-step book with all the answers spelled out. It does not tell us by name what type of government to form. But, it does tell us how to treat one another, and thereby we can derive from it what is appropriate and best for all concerned. It is hoped that after reviewing some of the following Quranic verses, the readers will come to appreciate Islam in a new light, as a guiding principle of reason, tolerance, open-mindedness and fairness, which supports rational thinking, the rights of the individual, and an open democratic process.
1. Equality of human beings -
[49:13] O people, we created you from the same male and female, and rendered you distinct peoples and tribes, that you may recognize one another. The best among you in the sight of God is the most righteous. God is omniscient, Cognizant.
[3:195] Their Lord responded to them: "I never fail to reward any worker among you for any work you do, be you male or female - you are equal to one another.…
2. Freedom of expression -
[2:256] There shall be no compulsion in religion: the right way is now distinct from the wrong way. Anyone who denounces the devil and believes in GOD has grasped the strongest bond; one that never breaks. GOD is Hearer, Omniscient.
[18:29] Proclaim: "This is the truth from your Lord," then whoever wills let him believe, and whoever wills let him disbelieve....
3. Civil laws -
[4:4] You shall give the women their due dowries, equitably. If they willingly forfeit anything, then you may accept it; it is rightfully yours
[2:226] Those who intend to divorce their wives shall wait four months (cooling off); if they change their minds and reconcile, then GOD is Forgiver, Merciful.
[2:227] If they go through with the divorce, then GOD is Hearer, Knower.
[2:180] It is decreed that when death approaches, you shall write a will for the benefit of the parents and relatives, equitably. This is a duty upon the righteous...
5. Criminal laws -
[2:178] O you who believe, equivalence is the law decreed for you when dealing with murder - the free for the free, the slave for the slave, the female for the female. If one is pardoned by the victim's kin, an appreciative response is in order, and an equitable compensation shall be paid. This is an alleviation from your Lord and mercy. Anyone who transgresses beyond this incurs a painful retribution.
[24:2] The adulteress and the adulterer you shall whip each of them a hundred lashes. Do not be swayed by pity from carrying out GOD's law, if you truly believe in GOD and the Last Day. And let a group of believers witness their penalty...
6. Military justice -
[47:4] If you encounter (in war) those who disbelieve, you may strike the necks. If you take them as captives you may set them free or ransom them, until the war ends. Had GOD willed, He could have granted you victory, without war. But He thus tests you by one another. As for those who get killed in the cause of GOD, He will never put their sacrifice to waste.
Moderator Mike Ghouse’ comment added – The first sentence above was not clear. Here is Mohammad Asad’s translation; the [4] is explained in the note below by Asad. 47:4 NOW WHEN you meet [in war] those who are bent on denying the truth, [4] smite their necks until you overcome them fully, and then tighten their bonds; but thereafter [set them free,] either by an act of grace or against ransom, so that the burden of war may be lifted: thus [shall it be]. And [know that] had God so willed, He could indeed punish them [Himself]; but [He wills you to struggle] so as to test you [all] by means of one another. And as for those who are slain in God’s cause, never will He let their deeds go to waste:
[4] "and on barring [others] from the path of God" - thus connecting with verse 1 and laying down the fundamental condition which alone justifies physical warfare: namely, a defense of the Faith and of freedom (cf. in this connection see note 167 on 2:190). In other words, when "those who are bent on denying the truth" try to deprive the Muslims of their social and political liberty and thus to make it impossible for them to live in accordance with the principles of their faith, a just war (jihad) becomes allowable and, more than that, a duty. The whole of the above verse relates to war actually in progress (cf. note 168 on the first part of 2:191); and there is no doubt that it was revealed after 22:39-40, the earliest Quranic reference to physical warfare.(Quran Ref: 47:4 )
[17:33] You shall not kill any person - for GOD has made life sacred - except in the course of justice. If one is killed unjustly, then we give his heir authority to enforce justice. Thus, he shall not exceed the limits in avenging the murder, he will be helped.
[2:191] You may kill those who wage war against you, and you may evict them whence they evicted you. Oppression is worse than murder…
7. Fair business practice -
[2:275] Those who charge usury are in the same position as those controlled by the devil's influence. This is because they claim that usury is the same as commerce. However, God permits commerce, and prohibits usury. Thus, whoever heeds this commandment from his Lord, and refrains usury, he may keep his past earnings, and his judgment rests with God. as for those who persist in usury, they incur Hell, wherein they abide forever.
Mike Ghouse: Muslims are divided on this, it is a contentious issue – There is a group that believes “Usury” is not permitted in Islam, whereas some believes, the interest on money itself is not permitted. If we look at the American Laws, it is easy to understand the public protection in this guidance, there is a limit set on what one can charge as an interest beyond that, it is illegal as it ruins the borrower financially effectively hurting the whole economy.
[11:85] "O my people, you shall give full measure and full weight, equitably. Do not cheat the people out of their rights, and do not roam the earth corrupting.
[4:29] O you who believe, do not consume each others' properties illicitly - only mutually acceptable transactions are permitted. You shall not kill yourselves. GOD is Merciful towards you....
8. Distribution of wealth -
[2:215] They ask you about giving: say, "The charity you give shall go to the parents, the relatives, the orphans, the poor, and the traveling alien." Any good you do, God is fully aware thereof.
[2:267] O you who believe, you shall give to charity from the good things you earn, and from what we have produced for you from the earth. Do not pick out the bad therein to give away, when you yourselves do not accept it unless your eyes are closed. You should know that God is Rich, Praiseworthy. ...
9. Discussion and consent -
[3:159] It was mercy from GOD that you became compassionate towards them. Had you been harsh and mean-hearted, they would have abandoned you. Therefore, you shall pardon them and ask forgiveness for them, and consult them….
[42:38]They respond to their Lord by observing the contact prayer (salat). Their affairs are decided after due consultation among themselves and from our provisions to them they give (to charity)....
10. Uphold righteousness and forbid evil -
[3:110] You are the best community ever raised among the people: you advocate righteousness and forbid evil, and you believe in God. If the followers of the scripture believed, it would be better for them. Some of them do believe, but the majority of them are wicked.
[4:135] O you who believe, you shall be absolutely equitable, and observe GOD, when you serve as witnesses, even against yourselves, or your parents, or your relatives. Whether the accused is rich or poor, GOD takes care of both. Therefore, do not be biased by your personal wishes. If you deviate or disregard (this commandment), then GOD is fully Cognizant of everything you do.
Mike Ghouse – there is no taking the 5th. One has to tell the truth even it goes against himself or herself.
[17:53] Tell My servants to treat each other in the best possible manner, for the devil will always try to drive a wedge among them. Surely, the devil is man’s most ardent enemy.
[49:11] O you who believe, no people shall ridicule other people, for they may be better than they. Nor shall any women ridicule other women, for they may be better than they. Nor shall you mock one another, or make fun of your names. Evil indeed is the reversion to wickedness after attaining faith. Anyone who does not repent after this, these are the transgressors.
[7:26] O children of Adam, we have provided you with garments to cover your bodies, as well as for luxury. But the best garment is the garment of righteousness. These are some of GOD's signs, that they may take heed.
[7:80-81] "Lot said to his people, "You commit such an abomination; no one in the world has done it before! "You practice sex with the men, instead of the women. Indeed, you are a transgressing people."
Mike Ghouse – Most people are not comfortable in dealing with this issue. This topic is being researched heavily about the intent and the significance of the verse. There is an advocacy group that presents the idea “ that the intent to call gay and lesbian activity evil was, it stops procreation of human race but today, with so many orphans, one can adopt a child and procreation is not an issue.”. In most states including the Islamic and a few here within the United States it is not an acceptable, however, the public has made an allowance for that at this time. It may change as the tolerance threshold increases.
[49:12] O you who believe, you shall avoid any suspicion, for even a little bit of suspicion is sinful. You shall not spy on one another, nor shall you backbite one another; this is as abominable as eating the flesh of your dead brother. You certainly abhor this. You shall observe GOD. GOD is Redeemer, Most Merciful. ...
[31:18,19] You shall not treat the people with arrogance, nor shall you roam the earth proudly. God does not like the arrogant showoffs. Walk humbly and lower your
voice....
The Quran does not support the man-made dogma that currently exists in so-called "Islamic" countries all over the world. Rejecting the Quran and upholding man made "Sharia" court, "Fatwa" council, "Islamic" bank, "halal" KFC, "Mecca" Cola and so on, will not shower any blessing upon us.
[10:98] Any community that believes will surely be rewarded for believing. For example, the people of Jonah: when they believed, we relieved the humiliating retribution they had been suffering in this world, and we made them prosperous.
[5:65] If only the people of the scripture believe and lead a righteous life, we will then remit their sins, and admit them into gardens of bliss.
[5:66] If only they would uphold the Torah and the Gospel, and what is sent down to them herein from their Lord, they would be showered with blessings from above them and from beneath their feet. Some of them are righteous, but many of them are evildoers.
Mike Ghouse – evil doing is as human as doing the good. One has to choose the right path, that which brings peace of mind and salvation.
Thank you and may God guide all of us,
Muhammed Irtaza
~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-
--- On Mon, 10/13/08, kaukab siddique <> wrote:
Q & A
Unusual Question from a Veteran Christian Activist and Writer: How Would Shari’ah Affect us in America?
Dr. Siddique;
I would like your advice and knowledge regarding Sharia law for the purpose of setting the record straight. As you may have surmised by now - my 'fellow' Americans are - on the whole - I'm ashamed to say -IDIOTS! We were not always like this. Our Zionist controlled educations system ( if one can seriously call it that today) has been Jew controlled now for at least an entire generation. We are a nation of short term memory - instant gratification - materialistic - immature imbeciles.
Mike Ghouse – The above comment in itself is hateful against Jews and I do not subscribe to it nor the World Muslim Congress. It is included merely to make a comment about its anti-semitic nature. I would like the reader to make a note of it and not allow this to kind of rhetoric to grow. If we let evil in our minds, it will not leave you or me, it will envelope every one.
Our recent leaders are a perfect example and proof of what I say. We have become as corrupt as any of the worst countries i have visited in the past 55 years.
I am constantly editorializing in hopes that the TRUTH will ultimately permeate this suffocating cloud of hate - lies - propaganda and rancid Zionist disinformation.
My next 'project' is the truth about Sharia law - and how it may or may not affect us here in America. What I need from you is the type of comprehensive explanation of ALL major aspects of anything the law would affect. The one concerning marriage was EXACTLY the kind of information i need - but on a multiplicity of topics - civil and criminal.
Thank you in advance for your time and knowledge. In my 70 years an varied background experiences - I have watched my country - under Zionist influence - go from greatness and goodness to becoming a garbage dump of Zio-robotic useful idiots - headed for the trash heap of history. I simply want my country back and to see us cast out these Zionist occupiers. We are as occupied by the Jew as Gaza ( I have been there also). The only difference is that the violence has not started here against TRUE Christians ( the horrific hatred and Zionist diatribes coming from Baptist pulpits is NOT REMOTELY 'Christian' teaching).
As sala'amu alaikum
Joe Cortina [Tampa Bay, Florida]
~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-
Response by Dr. Kaukab Siddique
Basic Facts about Shari'ia [Islamic Law].
1. Muslims believe that the Qur'an is the Word of Allah, the One God who created the universe and all humans, whatever their race.
2. The Qur'an was revealed in Arabia to Muhammad, peace be on him. His understanding of the purpose and implementation of the Qur'an was compiled by his Companions [sahabah in Arabic] in the form of the Hadith and is the decisive factor in all Islamic rulings.
The Qur'an and the Hadith are the primary sources of Islamic Law [Shari’ah] which encompasses every aspect of human life from marriage and divorce to economics and finance.
3. Islamic scholars in various countries and during various epochs in Muslim history studied the Qur'an and Hadith and gave rulings about how Shari’ah would solve the problems of their nations. This jurisprudence [or fiqh in Arabic] indicates the understanding various scholars had of the relevance of Shari’ah to their times.
Shari’ah is not imposed on non-Muslims unless they want to be included in its ambit. The Qur'an says there is no compulsion in religion.
Mike Ghouse – It should not be imposed on any one including Muslims.
4. Shari’ah is gradualist. All of it is not implemented at once. The social conditions are ameliorated by Islamic reformers before Shari’ah is implemented. The intent of the Shari’ah is often enough to help Muslims to see how they should behave. For instance, most Muslims do not take intoxicants even though Shari’ah is not being implemented where they live [such as in the USA].
5. During war time and where predatory groups try to destroy a Just Islamic system based on the people's consent, deterrent Islamic punishments are implemented by Islamic authorities. We see some of this in Afghanistan where Mullah Umar, leader of the Taliban, carried out Shari’ah punishments to stop bandits from carrying out rape, murder and pillage.
Mike Ghouse – He almost killed Abdul Rahman abusing the same Sharia laws, when Rahman converted to Christianity. Due to international pressure on Karzai, they did not carry it out. Same thing happened in Malaysia, the girl was saved. In the first place, it should not be a crime to convert, one should be free to choose, the Prophet had allowed a man to convert, re-convert and convert out again without any punishment. There is no compulsion in the matters of faith. Read the extensive work on the subject at: www.ApostasyandIslam.com
6. Shari’ah is often the target of Zionist fear mongering against Islam because Shari’ah does not tolerate adultery, fornication and homosexuality. As the Zionists are in support of these activities which are fragmenting American society, they see Shari’ah as a threat to the process they are carrying out on a daily basis through the media which they control.
Mike Ghouse – Again this comment is not acceptable. The evil element is part of any given society; blaming Zionism is baseless, as if Zionism has a literature that promotes promiscuity and adultery. I strongly recommend Dr. Kaukab Siddiqi to avoid this language from his heart. It is not needed. I always get the counter argument about the hate and lies a few Jews propagate about Islam, some do no doubt, but there others who stop it as well. It does not make our propagation right. We have to be right for ourselves not because others are, or are not.
7. Shari’ahh should be accepted in America to help the several million Muslims who live here. The rights of Muslim women, the rights to inheritance as enunciated by the Qur'an, the right to take off from work on days of prayer [such as the Eid festivals] and other rights of Muslims would be safeguarded.
Mike Ghouse – For the sake of convenience, Sharia Laws can be divided into private and public – The private Sharia deals with how one performs prayers, observes fasts, performs Haj, participates in Zakat (tithe – charity) as enunciated by Dr. Siddiqi above. Individuals follow those guidelines and appreciate the existence of such guidelines.
Whereas the Public Sharia deals with the community affairs; such as marriage, divorce, inheritance, conversion, apostates and other rules that deal when more than one individual is involved in the issue. The intent is always Justice and fairness to members of the society. The American civic laws are founded on Justice and most Muslims feel that the American laws are best suited for them and are a great substitute. Hence, they do not feel the need for another set of laws for public governance. It ain’t going to happen. The Neocons need not fear and create imaginary war scenarios to cash in from the gullibles against this dream enemy, they don’t need to cook up.
8. Would Shari’ah harm America's non-Muslims in any way? Not at all. Islam does not permit Muslims to violate the rights of neighbors or to break the laws of America which Muslims accept under oath when acquiring citizenship.
If you have any specific issues in mind, let me know.
Sincerely
Kaukab Siddique
~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-
References:
Sharia Value by Dr. Mohammad Omar Farooq
http://sharialaws.blogspot.com/2008/03/sharia-value.html
Why Sharia – comments by Mike article by Noah Feldman
http://sharialaws.blogspot.com/2008/03/why-shariah.html
Thursday, March 20, 2008
Harvard’s capitulation to Sharia
Harvard’s capitulation to Sharia
Article follows my comments:
I believe this quote is pulled out of thin air and there are a few more mistakes in the article. It should not be passed on as "truthful" reflection of the situaion. “Here is a discussion of the ceremonial for collection of the jizya by the 13th century Shafi’i jurist an-Nawawi: “…The infidel who wishes to pay his poll tax must be treated with disdain by the collector: the collector remains seated and the infidel remains standing in front of him, his head bowed and his back bent.” formed the discriminatory system of dhimmitude imposed upon non-Muslims- Jews, Christians, Zoroastrians, Hindus, and Buddhists- subjugated by jihad.
Mike Ghouse
Harvard: America’s “Hub” For Sharia?
By Andrew Bostom Monday, March 10, 2008
http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/2184
Right on the heels of Harvard’s capitulation to Sharia mores at its Quadrangle Recreational Athletic Center, the Harvard “academic” community indulged an ideologue with much grander aspirations for implementing Sharia, UCLA Professor of Law, Khaled Abou el Fadl.
My dear friend and colleague Hillel Stavis had the morbidly fascinating experience of witnessing this pseudo-academic fraud peddle his paltry wares March 5, 2008 at Harvard’s Divinity School, during a lecture entitled, non-sequitur, “Conceptualizing Islamic Theology: Sharia and Human Rights Doctrine”
Here are Hillel Stavis’ cogent first hand observations, in his own words:
Of all the evasions, obfuscations and diversions uttered by UCLA’s Professor of Law Khaled Abou el Fadl yesterday [ i.e., March 5, 2008] at the Harvard Divinity School, none was more revealing than his opening declaration that Sharia Law’s compatibility or incompatibility with human rights was wholly “vacuous” and “irrelevant”. None of the 60 or so, mostly Muslim attendees, seemed to have had a problem with this statement. The audience reaction, from both Mr. Fadl’s academic colleagues (among whom was Harvard’s Roy Mottahedeh, Gurney Professor of History, a specialist in Persian history) and students was more disturbing than the actual presentation.
Professor Mottahedeh lamented the fact that Muslims have spent too much time trying to reconcile Shari’ah with the UN Declaration of Human Rights, urging the world to supplement it with the Muslim version. Of course, the former is truly universal, the latter particularistic.
And so, a Harvard tenured professor would essentially replace one with the other in a kind of perfecting process.
Nearly 5-years ago now, I warned that El Fadl’s much ballyhooed reputation as a reformer was completely unjustified. Specifically, I noted his pattern of uniformed or deliberately deceitful presentation:
Recently El Fadl elucidated his “construction” of the tolerant tradition in Islam as part of an essay collection. He focused this presentation, appropriately, on two of the most obvious challenges to any such construction, i.e. jihad, and the poll tax (jizya) levied on non-Muslims under Islamic rule. El Fadl’s arguments regarding both jihad and the jizya in this essay merit close scrutiny, as these institutions are integrated into the corpus of the Shari’a, or sacred Islamic law. I believe his omissions of evidence in this essay, combined with an excessive reliance on sacralized, whitewashed historiography, refutes the prevailing notion that El Fadl is engaged in a sincere effort to instill fundamental change in Islam.
El Fadl states categorically: “..Islamic tradition does not have a notion of holy war. Jihad simply means to strive hard or struggle in pursuit of a just cause...Holy war (al-harb al-muqaddasah) is not an expression used by the Qur’anic text or Muslim theologians. In Islamic theology war is never holy; it is either justified or not...” This contention cannot be supported on either theological-juridical, or historical grounds, and in fact contradicts the conclusion of an earlier essay by El Fadl.
El Fadl’s discussion of jihad is rendered meaningless by a blatant historical negationism of both Muslim and non-Muslim sources. In his analysis of the poll tax (jizya), he relies exclusively upon the sacralized early Muslim historiography of this institution. El Fadl thus attempts to uphold the “virtuous” aspects of the jizya, omitting any reference to the consistent, intentionally humiliating character of its application…El Fadl’s presentation excludes discussion of how the jizya was viewed by classical Muslim jurists. There was in fact a basic consensus among the four schools of Islamic jurisprudence regarding the intimate relationship between the institutions of jihad against the infidels, and jizya. El Fadl ignores these extensive writings, and instead asserts whimsically, “…there are various indicators that the poll tax is not a theologically mandated practice, but a functional solution that was adopted in response to a specific set of historical circumstances. Only an ahistorical reading of the text could conclude that it is an essential element in a divinely sanctioned program of subordinating the non-believer.”
Another important aspect of the jizya that El Fadl ignores is the widely upheld, although not unanimous view of the classical schools of Islamic jurisprudence about the “humiliating” imposition and procurement of this tax. Here is a discussion of the ceremonial for collection of the jizya by the 13th century Shafi’i jurist an-Nawawi: “…The infidel who wishes to pay his poll tax must be treated with disdain by the collector: the collector remains seated and the infidel remains standing in front of him, his head bowed and his back bent. The infidel personally must place the money on the scales, while the collector holds him by the beard, and strikes him on both cheeks…”
El Fadl also fails to discuss how the “contract of the jizyah”, or “dhimma” encompassed other obligatory and recommended obligations for the conquered non-Muslim “dhimmi” peoples. Collectively, these “obligations” formed the discriminatory system of dhimmitude imposed upon non-Muslims- Jews, Christians, Zoroastrians, Hindus, and Buddhists- subjugated by jihad. Some of the more prominent features of the system of dhimmitude include: the prohibition of arms for the vanquished non-Muslims (dhimmis), and of church bells; the restrictions concerning the building and restoration of churches and synagogues; the inequality between Muslims and non-Muslims with regard to overall taxation, and penal law; the refusal of dhimmi testimony by Muslim courts; the obligation for Jews and Christians to wear special clothes; and their overall humiliation and abasement.
And I concluded with this relevant assessment:
It should be abundantly clear that Professor El Fadl’s disingenuous revisionism hardly qualifies as a sincere effort to promote a meaningful Islamic “Reformation”. Intended or not, his whitewashed, “ahistorical” presentation is dangerous, and serves to justify alarming contemporary Muslim assessments of dhimmitude, and its appropriate application, even today! For example, Palestinian Authority (PA) Undersecretary for Awqaf [Religious Endowment], Sheik Yussef Salamah, representing the PA at a May 1999 “Inter-Cultural Conference,” in Tehran, praised the 7th century system of Ahl Al-Dhimma (i.e, the system of dhimmitude), as the proper paradigm for relations between present day Muslims and Christians 58. Palestinian Authority employee, Sheik Muhammad Ibrahim Al-Madhi later reiterated these sentiments with regard to Jews during a Friday sermon broadcasted live on June 6, 2001 on PA TV, from the Sheik ‘Ijlin Mosque in Gaza:"We welcome, as we did in the past, any Jew who wants to live in this land as a dhimmi, just as the Jews have lived in our countries, as dhimmis, and have earned appreciation, and some of them have even reached the positions of counselor or minister here and there. We welcome the Jews to live as dhimmis, but the rule in this land and in all the Muslim countries must be the rule of Allah.”
One needs simply to contrast El Fadl’s meager revisionist approach with the unequivocal statements of a Muslim academic such as Professor Bassam Tibi. Professor Tibi possesses the insight and courage to acknowledge that a meaningfully reformed Islam must embrace the pluralistic spirit of the Western Enlightenment:
“..In the context of religious tolerance-and I write this as a Muslim- there can be no place in Europe for Shari’a …Shari’a is at odds with the secular identity of Europe and is diametrically opposed to secular European constitutions formulated by the people… I hold out for the superiority of common sense over religious faith (i.e., absolute religious precepts); individual human rights (i.e., not collective human rights); secular democracy based on the separation of religion from politics; a universally accepted pluralism; and a mutually accepted secular tolerance. The acceptance of these values is the foundation of a civil society..”
Professor Tibi’s comments underscore basic truths that apologists for the Shari’a such as El Fadl refuse to acknowledge. For example, the 1990 Cairo Declaration of Human Rights in Islam maintains that the Shari’a has primacy over the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and includes the specific proclamation that God has made the umma (Islamic community) the best nation, whose role is to “guide” humanity. This statement captures the indelible influence of jihad ideology on the Shari’a, rendering sacred and permanent the notion of inequality between the community of Allah, and the infidels. Thus we can see clearly the differences between the Shari’a-inspired Cairo Declaration, and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which does not refer to any religion or to the superiority of any group over another, while stressing the absolute equality of all human beings. Indeed a Senegalese jurist (and Muslim), Adama Dieng, (then serving as secretary-general to the Geneva-based International Commission of Jurists), courageously declared in 1992 that the Cairo Declaration introduced an intolerable discrimination against non-Muslims and women.
Subsequently, Daniel Pipes elaborated on El Fadl’s so-called “anti-Wahhabism,” which is negated by his continued apologetics for jihad terrorism, and open espousal of the implementation of Sharia in non-Muslim societies, as a leading pseudo-academic, cultural jihadist. Pipes highlighted, for example the fact that Sheikh Muhammad al-Ghazali (1917-96), an important 20th century Egyptian cleric, remains one of Abou El Fadl’s chief intellectual influences. However, as I have noted, the “anti-Wahhabi” al-Ghazali, then an official of Al Azhar University, supported the July 1994 vigilante murder of secular Egyptian writer Farag Foda. Testifying on behalf of Farag Foda’s murderer, al-Ghazali stated, unabashedly, “A secularist represents a danger to society and the nation that must be eliminated. It is the duty of the government to kill him.”
Over fifty years ago (i.e., circa 1955), Gustave von Grunebaum (d. 1972), a major scholar of Islam, well prepared to make sound judgments on matters related to Islamic societies, issued this prescient warning based upon actually studying the writings of the Muslim ideologues of his day, including El Fadl’s ideological inspiration, Muhammad al-Ghazali. [Gustave von Grunebaum, Journal of Near Eastern Studies, 1955, Vol. 14, p. 202, (Book Review of Muhammad Al-Ghazzali’s, Our Beginning in Wisdom, 1953, translated by Ismail R. al-Faruqi)]:
The political constellation of the moment which is likely to continue for some not inconsiderable length of time has induced us to envisage ourselves in a world of an “either…or.” We concern ourselves with the compatibility or otherwise of Islam with communism and regardless of the conclusion in which we acquiesce, we are apt to overlook the fact that the Muslim circles most emphatically opposed to communism are at the same time potentially if not actually the most formidable stronghold of hostility to the West. Ghazzali’s tirade against American Democracy (pp. 60-62) with its warning “against the spreading American ways,” with its condemnation of “the domestic as well as foreign policy of America” as “actually a systematic violation of every virtue humanity has ever known” should make us aware that the Muslim “extremists” will be with the West not because of any recognized affinity but merely out of momentary political considerations. Ultimately, the self-conscious world of Islam would wish to consolidate into a power center strong enough to set itself up by the side of the Russian and the Western blocks, strong enough to determine for itself what its primary political concerns should be, and strong enough perhaps to be no longer compelled to westernize for the sake of survival. The hot-headed half-truths of Ghazzali must not delude us into considering absurd the aspiration of those who feel that for its revival Islam needs less rather than more gifts of the West.
At present, more than fifty years later, the distressingly stupid leaders of our universities remain oblivious to (or if ever aware, hostile to) von Grunebaum’s profound insights, allowing post-Edward Saidian pseudo-scholars like El Fadl and Mottahedeh, to blissfully pursue their university-supported efforts aimed at “peacefully” subverting the US to Islamic Law.
Let me state bluntly, and humorlessly, I have lost all patience with such fraudulent “presentations,” and their utterly ridiculous academic patina—they are pernicious.
Mr El Fadl, and his equally deficient Harvard host Roy Mottahedeh want nothing less than for our liberal democracy to willfully impose upon itself the Ur-Fascistic totalitarianism of Sharia. Only the most empty-headed buffoons, their minds melted away by ceaselessly and uncritically imbibing the cultural relativism that prevails in our “academy,” and “public discourse,” would even begin to entertain El Fadl’s premise. And yet there he was, at Harvard, no less, espousing such hideous ideas along with the dangerously ludicrous Mr. Mottahedeh, who endorsed them.
Hillel Stavis sent me this apposite closing observation shortly after hearing El Fadl’s lecture, and the equally inane commentary of his host, Mottahedeh:
Harvard seems to have heard Mr. Mottahedeh’s message recently when it accorded exclusionary rights to Muslims by banning men from one of its gyms at designated hours to accommodate Muslim women. Given the professor’s desired trajectory of Islamic “ethics”, we might even see the ultimate penalty for apostasy applied to those foolhardy students who decide to change their religion while at Harvard.
Article follows my comments:
I believe this quote is pulled out of thin air and there are a few more mistakes in the article. It should not be passed on as "truthful" reflection of the situaion. “Here is a discussion of the ceremonial for collection of the jizya by the 13th century Shafi’i jurist an-Nawawi: “…The infidel who wishes to pay his poll tax must be treated with disdain by the collector: the collector remains seated and the infidel remains standing in front of him, his head bowed and his back bent.” formed the discriminatory system of dhimmitude imposed upon non-Muslims- Jews, Christians, Zoroastrians, Hindus, and Buddhists- subjugated by jihad.
Mike Ghouse
Harvard: America’s “Hub” For Sharia?
By Andrew Bostom Monday, March 10, 2008
http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/2184
Right on the heels of Harvard’s capitulation to Sharia mores at its Quadrangle Recreational Athletic Center, the Harvard “academic” community indulged an ideologue with much grander aspirations for implementing Sharia, UCLA Professor of Law, Khaled Abou el Fadl.
My dear friend and colleague Hillel Stavis had the morbidly fascinating experience of witnessing this pseudo-academic fraud peddle his paltry wares March 5, 2008 at Harvard’s Divinity School, during a lecture entitled, non-sequitur, “Conceptualizing Islamic Theology: Sharia and Human Rights Doctrine”
Here are Hillel Stavis’ cogent first hand observations, in his own words:
Of all the evasions, obfuscations and diversions uttered by UCLA’s Professor of Law Khaled Abou el Fadl yesterday [ i.e., March 5, 2008] at the Harvard Divinity School, none was more revealing than his opening declaration that Sharia Law’s compatibility or incompatibility with human rights was wholly “vacuous” and “irrelevant”. None of the 60 or so, mostly Muslim attendees, seemed to have had a problem with this statement. The audience reaction, from both Mr. Fadl’s academic colleagues (among whom was Harvard’s Roy Mottahedeh, Gurney Professor of History, a specialist in Persian history) and students was more disturbing than the actual presentation.
Professor Mottahedeh lamented the fact that Muslims have spent too much time trying to reconcile Shari’ah with the UN Declaration of Human Rights, urging the world to supplement it with the Muslim version. Of course, the former is truly universal, the latter particularistic.
And so, a Harvard tenured professor would essentially replace one with the other in a kind of perfecting process.
Nearly 5-years ago now, I warned that El Fadl’s much ballyhooed reputation as a reformer was completely unjustified. Specifically, I noted his pattern of uniformed or deliberately deceitful presentation:
Recently El Fadl elucidated his “construction” of the tolerant tradition in Islam as part of an essay collection. He focused this presentation, appropriately, on two of the most obvious challenges to any such construction, i.e. jihad, and the poll tax (jizya) levied on non-Muslims under Islamic rule. El Fadl’s arguments regarding both jihad and the jizya in this essay merit close scrutiny, as these institutions are integrated into the corpus of the Shari’a, or sacred Islamic law. I believe his omissions of evidence in this essay, combined with an excessive reliance on sacralized, whitewashed historiography, refutes the prevailing notion that El Fadl is engaged in a sincere effort to instill fundamental change in Islam.
El Fadl states categorically: “..Islamic tradition does not have a notion of holy war. Jihad simply means to strive hard or struggle in pursuit of a just cause...Holy war (al-harb al-muqaddasah) is not an expression used by the Qur’anic text or Muslim theologians. In Islamic theology war is never holy; it is either justified or not...” This contention cannot be supported on either theological-juridical, or historical grounds, and in fact contradicts the conclusion of an earlier essay by El Fadl.
El Fadl’s discussion of jihad is rendered meaningless by a blatant historical negationism of both Muslim and non-Muslim sources. In his analysis of the poll tax (jizya), he relies exclusively upon the sacralized early Muslim historiography of this institution. El Fadl thus attempts to uphold the “virtuous” aspects of the jizya, omitting any reference to the consistent, intentionally humiliating character of its application…El Fadl’s presentation excludes discussion of how the jizya was viewed by classical Muslim jurists. There was in fact a basic consensus among the four schools of Islamic jurisprudence regarding the intimate relationship between the institutions of jihad against the infidels, and jizya. El Fadl ignores these extensive writings, and instead asserts whimsically, “…there are various indicators that the poll tax is not a theologically mandated practice, but a functional solution that was adopted in response to a specific set of historical circumstances. Only an ahistorical reading of the text could conclude that it is an essential element in a divinely sanctioned program of subordinating the non-believer.”
Another important aspect of the jizya that El Fadl ignores is the widely upheld, although not unanimous view of the classical schools of Islamic jurisprudence about the “humiliating” imposition and procurement of this tax. Here is a discussion of the ceremonial for collection of the jizya by the 13th century Shafi’i jurist an-Nawawi: “…The infidel who wishes to pay his poll tax must be treated with disdain by the collector: the collector remains seated and the infidel remains standing in front of him, his head bowed and his back bent. The infidel personally must place the money on the scales, while the collector holds him by the beard, and strikes him on both cheeks…”
El Fadl also fails to discuss how the “contract of the jizyah”, or “dhimma” encompassed other obligatory and recommended obligations for the conquered non-Muslim “dhimmi” peoples. Collectively, these “obligations” formed the discriminatory system of dhimmitude imposed upon non-Muslims- Jews, Christians, Zoroastrians, Hindus, and Buddhists- subjugated by jihad. Some of the more prominent features of the system of dhimmitude include: the prohibition of arms for the vanquished non-Muslims (dhimmis), and of church bells; the restrictions concerning the building and restoration of churches and synagogues; the inequality between Muslims and non-Muslims with regard to overall taxation, and penal law; the refusal of dhimmi testimony by Muslim courts; the obligation for Jews and Christians to wear special clothes; and their overall humiliation and abasement.
And I concluded with this relevant assessment:
It should be abundantly clear that Professor El Fadl’s disingenuous revisionism hardly qualifies as a sincere effort to promote a meaningful Islamic “Reformation”. Intended or not, his whitewashed, “ahistorical” presentation is dangerous, and serves to justify alarming contemporary Muslim assessments of dhimmitude, and its appropriate application, even today! For example, Palestinian Authority (PA) Undersecretary for Awqaf [Religious Endowment], Sheik Yussef Salamah, representing the PA at a May 1999 “Inter-Cultural Conference,” in Tehran, praised the 7th century system of Ahl Al-Dhimma (i.e, the system of dhimmitude), as the proper paradigm for relations between present day Muslims and Christians 58. Palestinian Authority employee, Sheik Muhammad Ibrahim Al-Madhi later reiterated these sentiments with regard to Jews during a Friday sermon broadcasted live on June 6, 2001 on PA TV, from the Sheik ‘Ijlin Mosque in Gaza:"We welcome, as we did in the past, any Jew who wants to live in this land as a dhimmi, just as the Jews have lived in our countries, as dhimmis, and have earned appreciation, and some of them have even reached the positions of counselor or minister here and there. We welcome the Jews to live as dhimmis, but the rule in this land and in all the Muslim countries must be the rule of Allah.”
One needs simply to contrast El Fadl’s meager revisionist approach with the unequivocal statements of a Muslim academic such as Professor Bassam Tibi. Professor Tibi possesses the insight and courage to acknowledge that a meaningfully reformed Islam must embrace the pluralistic spirit of the Western Enlightenment:
“..In the context of religious tolerance-and I write this as a Muslim- there can be no place in Europe for Shari’a …Shari’a is at odds with the secular identity of Europe and is diametrically opposed to secular European constitutions formulated by the people… I hold out for the superiority of common sense over religious faith (i.e., absolute religious precepts); individual human rights (i.e., not collective human rights); secular democracy based on the separation of religion from politics; a universally accepted pluralism; and a mutually accepted secular tolerance. The acceptance of these values is the foundation of a civil society..”
Professor Tibi’s comments underscore basic truths that apologists for the Shari’a such as El Fadl refuse to acknowledge. For example, the 1990 Cairo Declaration of Human Rights in Islam maintains that the Shari’a has primacy over the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and includes the specific proclamation that God has made the umma (Islamic community) the best nation, whose role is to “guide” humanity. This statement captures the indelible influence of jihad ideology on the Shari’a, rendering sacred and permanent the notion of inequality between the community of Allah, and the infidels. Thus we can see clearly the differences between the Shari’a-inspired Cairo Declaration, and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which does not refer to any religion or to the superiority of any group over another, while stressing the absolute equality of all human beings. Indeed a Senegalese jurist (and Muslim), Adama Dieng, (then serving as secretary-general to the Geneva-based International Commission of Jurists), courageously declared in 1992 that the Cairo Declaration introduced an intolerable discrimination against non-Muslims and women.
Subsequently, Daniel Pipes elaborated on El Fadl’s so-called “anti-Wahhabism,” which is negated by his continued apologetics for jihad terrorism, and open espousal of the implementation of Sharia in non-Muslim societies, as a leading pseudo-academic, cultural jihadist. Pipes highlighted, for example the fact that Sheikh Muhammad al-Ghazali (1917-96), an important 20th century Egyptian cleric, remains one of Abou El Fadl’s chief intellectual influences. However, as I have noted, the “anti-Wahhabi” al-Ghazali, then an official of Al Azhar University, supported the July 1994 vigilante murder of secular Egyptian writer Farag Foda. Testifying on behalf of Farag Foda’s murderer, al-Ghazali stated, unabashedly, “A secularist represents a danger to society and the nation that must be eliminated. It is the duty of the government to kill him.”
Over fifty years ago (i.e., circa 1955), Gustave von Grunebaum (d. 1972), a major scholar of Islam, well prepared to make sound judgments on matters related to Islamic societies, issued this prescient warning based upon actually studying the writings of the Muslim ideologues of his day, including El Fadl’s ideological inspiration, Muhammad al-Ghazali. [Gustave von Grunebaum, Journal of Near Eastern Studies, 1955, Vol. 14, p. 202, (Book Review of Muhammad Al-Ghazzali’s, Our Beginning in Wisdom, 1953, translated by Ismail R. al-Faruqi)]:
The political constellation of the moment which is likely to continue for some not inconsiderable length of time has induced us to envisage ourselves in a world of an “either…or.” We concern ourselves with the compatibility or otherwise of Islam with communism and regardless of the conclusion in which we acquiesce, we are apt to overlook the fact that the Muslim circles most emphatically opposed to communism are at the same time potentially if not actually the most formidable stronghold of hostility to the West. Ghazzali’s tirade against American Democracy (pp. 60-62) with its warning “against the spreading American ways,” with its condemnation of “the domestic as well as foreign policy of America” as “actually a systematic violation of every virtue humanity has ever known” should make us aware that the Muslim “extremists” will be with the West not because of any recognized affinity but merely out of momentary political considerations. Ultimately, the self-conscious world of Islam would wish to consolidate into a power center strong enough to set itself up by the side of the Russian and the Western blocks, strong enough to determine for itself what its primary political concerns should be, and strong enough perhaps to be no longer compelled to westernize for the sake of survival. The hot-headed half-truths of Ghazzali must not delude us into considering absurd the aspiration of those who feel that for its revival Islam needs less rather than more gifts of the West.
At present, more than fifty years later, the distressingly stupid leaders of our universities remain oblivious to (or if ever aware, hostile to) von Grunebaum’s profound insights, allowing post-Edward Saidian pseudo-scholars like El Fadl and Mottahedeh, to blissfully pursue their university-supported efforts aimed at “peacefully” subverting the US to Islamic Law.
Let me state bluntly, and humorlessly, I have lost all patience with such fraudulent “presentations,” and their utterly ridiculous academic patina—they are pernicious.
Mr El Fadl, and his equally deficient Harvard host Roy Mottahedeh want nothing less than for our liberal democracy to willfully impose upon itself the Ur-Fascistic totalitarianism of Sharia. Only the most empty-headed buffoons, their minds melted away by ceaselessly and uncritically imbibing the cultural relativism that prevails in our “academy,” and “public discourse,” would even begin to entertain El Fadl’s premise. And yet there he was, at Harvard, no less, espousing such hideous ideas along with the dangerously ludicrous Mr. Mottahedeh, who endorsed them.
Hillel Stavis sent me this apposite closing observation shortly after hearing El Fadl’s lecture, and the equally inane commentary of his host, Mottahedeh:
Harvard seems to have heard Mr. Mottahedeh’s message recently when it accorded exclusionary rights to Muslims by banning men from one of its gyms at designated hours to accommodate Muslim women. Given the professor’s desired trajectory of Islamic “ethics”, we might even see the ultimate penalty for apostasy applied to those foolhardy students who decide to change their religion while at Harvard.
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Is that Sharia?
Although the concept of justices is good with Sharia, Why are the labor laws being sidelined? What is the need for Sharia's application in this situation?
Mike Ghouse
Is that Sharia?
Kim Bobo
http://religiondispatches.org/Gui/Content.aspx?Page=AR&Id=132&SP=1
In popular parlance the phrase “Is this kosher?” has nothing to do with food, or with ritual purity; it refers to the 'rightness', or justice, of something.
Of course 'kosher' never did refer only to a certain slaughtering process or a particular set of prayers; it involves a whole set of ethical standards. Kosher meat processing owners discovered this broader principle when their workers sought to organize unions. Two years ago in the midwest, the Twin Cities Workers’ Interfaith Network organized a Passover seder outside a kosher food processing plant challenging the owner’s kosher certification.
For more than a decade, a conservative rabbi from Minneapolis, Rabbi Morris Allen, has been trying to get the entire Jewish community to take seriously this concept of kosher. He argues that the humane treatment of animals is not enough in the determining of kosher standards--they should also ensure that the workers at the meatpacking plants and slaughterhouses are treated with respect and dignity.
In Islam, there is the concept of "shariah", referring to the guiding principles revealed in the Quran. On the most basic level, it refers to whether or not something is clean or just. (As with “kosher,” the word is often used in conjunction with food, although the word "halal" refers specifically to the process of ensuring that food itself is clean.)
Islamic or shariah-compliant investing, therefore, prohibits business activities--like gambling, alcohol and usury--that result in undignified moral behavior. In the Muslim world, more and more companies and financial institutions are aiming toward shariah-compliance, with millions of dollars at stake. Huge conferences are organized among business leaders to discuss and review shariah compliance, while in the U.S., Harvard University runs an annual conference on the matter.
Now, as Islamic investing makes its way into the mainstream, worker justice advocates are looking at how the principle of shariah can help workers. Indianapolis, smack in the heart of America, is now the center of such a discussion: a small group of janitors claim shariah should apply to them and are challenging the owner of the building where they clean to allow them to organize a union.
A little more than two years ago, janitors across Indianapolis began organizing to improve wages, benefits, and working conditions. The janitors, who were making less than $7.50 an hour at the time with no benefits, looked with envy at the salaries of unionized janitors in Chicago, just a few hours up the road, who were making as much as $12.50 an hour, with health care and pension. They had seen what the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) had done to help janitors in Houston in 2006 when 5000 janitors organized and wages jumped from $6.25 (with less work hours) to $7.25. By January 2009, Houston janitors will receive $7.75 and hour. If janitors could organize in Houston, why not Indianapolis?
The religious community had been instrumental in janitor contracts in Houston and Chicago. The workers and SEIU reached out seeking support to religious leaders, including the Islamic Society of North America, which is headquartered outside Indianapolis. (Again, who would guess that one of the nation’s largest Islamic organization is headquartered in Indianapolis?)
The religious community did what it often does in such janitor campaigns; it met with janitors to hear their stories and encourage them to stand up for their rights; it led prayers at public events and rallies; it organized delegations to building owners encouraging them to allow the workers to organize without having to use the cumbersome National Labor Relations Board process (NLRB). This faithful band of Indianapolis religious leaders, led by Rev. Darren Cushman Wood, pastor of Speedway United Methodist Church and organizer Rev. C.J. Hawking, now the director of the Chicago Interfaith Committee on Worker Issues, called itself the Indianapolis Clergy Committee. During one delegation, the clergy members even got themselves arrested--possibly a first in Indianapolis activist history.
One company that was visited (“delegated”) several times by religious delegations was the international real estate company HDG Mansur, the second largest property owner in Indianapolis. This company contracts with Executive Management Services (EMS) for its building cleaning services. EMS has vehemently opposed the organizing efforts of the workers; the janitors and their religious supporters claim EMS intimidates and threatens workers who have sought a union contract.
In the midst of the janitors' struggle, the religious community learned that HDG Mansur planned to launch the first-ever publicly-traded shariah-compliant investment fund, Al-Umran Global Property Fund Limited, on the London and Dubai stock exchanges. The Indianapolis religious leaders quickly studied the concept of shariah, and it appeared to them that shariah compliance should include justice to workers, given the clear teachings of the Prophet Muhammad.
Prophet Muhammad said, “Allah said, ‘I will be an opponent to three types of people on the Day of Resurrection: one who makes a covenant in My name but proves treacherous; one who sells a free person and eats his price; and one who employs a worker and takes full work from him but does not pay him for his labor’” (Al-Bukhari). As part of its effort to promote its shariah-compliance certification, Mr. Harold Garrison, the Executive Director of HDG Mansur, attended at the Islamic Real Estate Finance Conference in London. So too did Rev. C.J. Hawking, the Indianapolis clergy organizer, and Sheik Abdool Khan,officially representing the Islamic Society of North America. They met with investors and shariah scholars to reiterate the importance of the worker justice component in determining a company’s shariah compliance.
In a letter to prospective investors, Sheikh Abdool Khan, an Islamic scholar with the Islamic Foundation, said shariah compliance should not be reflective of the end product alone, but of the entire process in general. In the case of HDG Mansur, its hiring of a cleaning company that violates basic labor rights comes in conflict to the principles of shariah. “To blindly sign them off as shariah compliant would do a disservice to the spirit of Islamic shariah, not to mention the disservice to poor helpless janitors and their families,” Sheikh Khan said.
The ISNA Secretary General, Dr. Muneer Fareed, shares this concern. In a letter to investors, he said, “The unjust treatment of workers poses a threat to both the integrity and reputation of Islamic investment practices, but also to Islam’s vision of social justice.”
In the Middle East, shariah compliance is provided by shariah boards composed of scholars. In the U.S. the official certification procedures are just being put into place. A Fiqh council--the Fiqh Council of North America--has been organized with 18 national Islamic scholars and leaders to oversee the shariah compliance certification process. The case of the Indianapolis janitors has brought new urgency to this council.
Meanwhile, despite HDG Mansur’s continued recalcitrance, janitor in Indianapolis are negotiating with a council of building contractors and a first ever Indianapolis janitors contract is expected soon.
It might be only a matter of time before "Is this shariah?" becomes as common an expression as “Is this kosher?”.
Kim Bobo, Founder and Executive Director for Interfaith Worker Justice, is the author of Lives Matter: A Handbook for Christian Organizing, and co-author of the best-selling organizing manual in the country, Organizing for Social Change. Ms. Bobo earned her BA in Religion from Barnard College, Columbia University and her MA in Economics from the New School for Social Research.
Mike Ghouse
Is that Sharia?
Kim Bobo
http://religiondispatches.org/Gui/Content.aspx?Page=AR&Id=132&SP=1
In popular parlance the phrase “Is this kosher?” has nothing to do with food, or with ritual purity; it refers to the 'rightness', or justice, of something.
Of course 'kosher' never did refer only to a certain slaughtering process or a particular set of prayers; it involves a whole set of ethical standards. Kosher meat processing owners discovered this broader principle when their workers sought to organize unions. Two years ago in the midwest, the Twin Cities Workers’ Interfaith Network organized a Passover seder outside a kosher food processing plant challenging the owner’s kosher certification.
For more than a decade, a conservative rabbi from Minneapolis, Rabbi Morris Allen, has been trying to get the entire Jewish community to take seriously this concept of kosher. He argues that the humane treatment of animals is not enough in the determining of kosher standards--they should also ensure that the workers at the meatpacking plants and slaughterhouses are treated with respect and dignity.
In Islam, there is the concept of "shariah", referring to the guiding principles revealed in the Quran. On the most basic level, it refers to whether or not something is clean or just. (As with “kosher,” the word is often used in conjunction with food, although the word "halal" refers specifically to the process of ensuring that food itself is clean.)
Islamic or shariah-compliant investing, therefore, prohibits business activities--like gambling, alcohol and usury--that result in undignified moral behavior. In the Muslim world, more and more companies and financial institutions are aiming toward shariah-compliance, with millions of dollars at stake. Huge conferences are organized among business leaders to discuss and review shariah compliance, while in the U.S., Harvard University runs an annual conference on the matter.
Now, as Islamic investing makes its way into the mainstream, worker justice advocates are looking at how the principle of shariah can help workers. Indianapolis, smack in the heart of America, is now the center of such a discussion: a small group of janitors claim shariah should apply to them and are challenging the owner of the building where they clean to allow them to organize a union.
A little more than two years ago, janitors across Indianapolis began organizing to improve wages, benefits, and working conditions. The janitors, who were making less than $7.50 an hour at the time with no benefits, looked with envy at the salaries of unionized janitors in Chicago, just a few hours up the road, who were making as much as $12.50 an hour, with health care and pension. They had seen what the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) had done to help janitors in Houston in 2006 when 5000 janitors organized and wages jumped from $6.25 (with less work hours) to $7.25. By January 2009, Houston janitors will receive $7.75 and hour. If janitors could organize in Houston, why not Indianapolis?
The religious community had been instrumental in janitor contracts in Houston and Chicago. The workers and SEIU reached out seeking support to religious leaders, including the Islamic Society of North America, which is headquartered outside Indianapolis. (Again, who would guess that one of the nation’s largest Islamic organization is headquartered in Indianapolis?)
The religious community did what it often does in such janitor campaigns; it met with janitors to hear their stories and encourage them to stand up for their rights; it led prayers at public events and rallies; it organized delegations to building owners encouraging them to allow the workers to organize without having to use the cumbersome National Labor Relations Board process (NLRB). This faithful band of Indianapolis religious leaders, led by Rev. Darren Cushman Wood, pastor of Speedway United Methodist Church and organizer Rev. C.J. Hawking, now the director of the Chicago Interfaith Committee on Worker Issues, called itself the Indianapolis Clergy Committee. During one delegation, the clergy members even got themselves arrested--possibly a first in Indianapolis activist history.
One company that was visited (“delegated”) several times by religious delegations was the international real estate company HDG Mansur, the second largest property owner in Indianapolis. This company contracts with Executive Management Services (EMS) for its building cleaning services. EMS has vehemently opposed the organizing efforts of the workers; the janitors and their religious supporters claim EMS intimidates and threatens workers who have sought a union contract.
In the midst of the janitors' struggle, the religious community learned that HDG Mansur planned to launch the first-ever publicly-traded shariah-compliant investment fund, Al-Umran Global Property Fund Limited, on the London and Dubai stock exchanges. The Indianapolis religious leaders quickly studied the concept of shariah, and it appeared to them that shariah compliance should include justice to workers, given the clear teachings of the Prophet Muhammad.
Prophet Muhammad said, “Allah said, ‘I will be an opponent to three types of people on the Day of Resurrection: one who makes a covenant in My name but proves treacherous; one who sells a free person and eats his price; and one who employs a worker and takes full work from him but does not pay him for his labor’” (Al-Bukhari). As part of its effort to promote its shariah-compliance certification, Mr. Harold Garrison, the Executive Director of HDG Mansur, attended at the Islamic Real Estate Finance Conference in London. So too did Rev. C.J. Hawking, the Indianapolis clergy organizer, and Sheik Abdool Khan,officially representing the Islamic Society of North America. They met with investors and shariah scholars to reiterate the importance of the worker justice component in determining a company’s shariah compliance.
In a letter to prospective investors, Sheikh Abdool Khan, an Islamic scholar with the Islamic Foundation, said shariah compliance should not be reflective of the end product alone, but of the entire process in general. In the case of HDG Mansur, its hiring of a cleaning company that violates basic labor rights comes in conflict to the principles of shariah. “To blindly sign them off as shariah compliant would do a disservice to the spirit of Islamic shariah, not to mention the disservice to poor helpless janitors and their families,” Sheikh Khan said.
The ISNA Secretary General, Dr. Muneer Fareed, shares this concern. In a letter to investors, he said, “The unjust treatment of workers poses a threat to both the integrity and reputation of Islamic investment practices, but also to Islam’s vision of social justice.”
In the Middle East, shariah compliance is provided by shariah boards composed of scholars. In the U.S. the official certification procedures are just being put into place. A Fiqh council--the Fiqh Council of North America--has been organized with 18 national Islamic scholars and leaders to oversee the shariah compliance certification process. The case of the Indianapolis janitors has brought new urgency to this council.
Meanwhile, despite HDG Mansur’s continued recalcitrance, janitor in Indianapolis are negotiating with a council of building contractors and a first ever Indianapolis janitors contract is expected soon.
It might be only a matter of time before "Is this shariah?" becomes as common an expression as “Is this kosher?”.
Kim Bobo, Founder and Executive Director for Interfaith Worker Justice, is the author of Lives Matter: A Handbook for Christian Organizing, and co-author of the best-selling organizing manual in the country, Organizing for Social Change. Ms. Bobo earned her BA in Religion from Barnard College, Columbia University and her MA in Economics from the New School for Social Research.
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