Discussion on Jamia Hafsa

A religious discussion on Jamia Hafsa issue featuring Javed Ahmed Ghamidi and others will be aired on Geo TV tonight.

I’ll review main points of discussion after watching it. Insha’Allah.

I hope it is being broadcasted on Geo US and UK too.

Update 21/4/07: That was an enlightening discussion; instructive for those who are not familiar with Ghamidi’s methodology. As it was revealed, discussion would probably constitute few parts; at least two. I’ll obviously recapitulate after it finishes, which would be a week or two from now.

Filed under: Debates & Disputes, Land of the 'Pure'

Revisiting Fazlur Rahman’s Ordeal

An anonymous commentator has inquired about the ‘backstory’ of banning of Fazlur Rahman’s ‘Islam‘ and forced me to terminate my prolonged hiatus from blogging.

Anyone examining the newspapers of second half of 68′ would know with ease that the whole episode was one of the earliest and most unfortunate sagas of political hijacking of Islam. It is immaterial whether Fazlur Rahman was labeled a kaafir, an apostate or a religious hypocrite and how the political environment at that time overshadowed an otherwise academic issue; what is important however, that Fazlur Rahman proved to be a victim of misdirected traditionalist emotionalism and paid the heavy price of abandoning his cherished goal of transforming intellectual heritage of Muslims and deploying a modern religious education policy in Pakistan.

Tragically, he suffered a lot due to peculiarity of his dual associations; wherein he was an active proponent of reforming traditional understanding of primary religious sources while being an academic chairing a prestigious national institution (Central Institute of Islamic Research) at the same time. The tradionalist circles, in their blinded zeal to safeguard Islamic tradition, targeted him in person by unjustly questioning his intentions rather than postulating a fair and academic rebuttal to his thought and works. Additionally, he was misquoted by way of limiting his statements (made in his book) to specific meanings. Whereas these were deep philosophical assertions directed only to academics and students who were presumed to be technically familiar with that kind of discourse. It is also important to understand that Rahman was primarily trained in philosophy and two specific angles from which he analysed and re-evaluated the historical development of Islam are philosophy and education. He dealt with both these aspects throughout his writings and proved himself as one of the most important contemporary proponents of Islamic modernity.

Purposefully searching his works to find controversial parts is an intellectually trying experience and most of the times it is obvious that scholars who vociferously spoke against him did not take enough pain to read and understand him at all. For instance the objectionable parts in ‘Islam’ where Fazlur Rahman allegedly denied the physical existence of angels or doctrine of locomotive mir’aj are basically pointers towards the intellectual immaturity (according to Rahman) of orthodoxy and possiblities of better philosophical expositions of nature of Prophetic religious experiences. Moreover, all these arguments are rooted in the language of Quran and doubting his intentions is nothing but religious bigotry. Rahman’s assertions against the externality of revelation vis-à-vis the person of Prophet instigated most of the clamoring in traditional circles. Albeit, no direct denial of objectivity and verbal character of revelation came from him and he explicitly explained his views afterwards, controversialists argued incessantly that he has questioned the divine nature of revelation. Even if we suppose, for the sake of argument, that Rahman actually believed in divine revelation of meanings and Prophetic transmission of words, he would not have been the first one to contend so. Years before him Jalaluddin Suyuti recorded a similar opinion (one of three opinions) regarding nature of revelation in his magnum opus on Quranic studies. If language is understood to support such a belief 500 years ago, there is no academic justification whatsoever to blatantly disregard any of the textual interpretation in modern times.

On a different note, it is also true that parts of Rahman’s overall methodology can be disagreed with strongly. He was an intellectually honest scholar and kept no secrets while admiring the work of Joseph Schacht and other orientalists in general. It is interesting however that while positing a strong criticism against some of Schacht’s assertions he also ended up drawing heavily from one of his major works as well. I always remember a valuable comment by one of my teachers who wrote (while helping me to evaluate some of Rahman’s contentions):

Max Weber’s ‘methodology of history’ demonstrates that Rahman’s position on the method of historical research was seriously flawed. Harlad Motzki’s research on the reliability of hadith reports demonstrates that Rahman’s position on hadith was flawed. Rahman was part of that generation of scholars (both in the West and the Muslim world) who treated traditional sources of knowledge with great deal of skepticism. More recently developments, variously called the post-critical school or the Yale School, assert that while there are some problems in the traditional sources those problems are not egregious enough to discount the entire tradition. This is a position that has emerged within modern western secular academia. Those Muslims still taking Schacht and Goldziher seriously are way behind the times.

Its tricky to unbrace all the knots, articulate every disagreement and encompass each complication of this great scholar’s thought. I ramble on and eventually meander whenever I sit to do so. But while I drift and sway, I revisit some enlightened bits of Fazlur Rahman’s legacy and live over the bitterness of his times.

Filed under: Debates & Disputes, Islam & Modernity, Land of the 'Pure', Scholars

Pope should not waste time reading all the people who wrote about Ibn Hazm; he should instead read Ibn Hazm.

If Pope’s evidence (the famous 14th century dialogue) to beef up his argument against Islam being a violent religion was fragile, flimsier was this allusion that Islamic teachings defy all the inherent reason in the universe. In fact, his remarks were pathetically blatant lacking sufficient concern for historical reality and an in-depth knowledge of Muslim philosophy. After reading the text of Ratzinger’s speech quite a few times, I am still perplexed regarding the line of his reasoning; namely that faith in an absolutely transcendent God whose acts and will cannot be grasped completely by human reason can possibly lead one to conceive His images which are capricious and may be against all truth and goodness. The argument becomes further ironic as Pope strangely chooses to abduce views of a multifarious Muslim writer who can equally be classified as a quasi-liberal writer/poet, a literal jurist, a controversial philosopher, an innovative grammarian or above all a compassionate ethicist.

Even scanty readings of Ibn Hazm would fail to portray him primarily as an absolute fatalist which Joseph Ratzinger was able to do inadvertently for his Christian audience with such an ease. The intuitive reason which Ratzinger calls creative and self communicating when combined with sound human perception and understanding of language is the first and foremost source of all human knowledge according to Ibn Hazm. It was one of his earliest projects to advocate a sound system of logic so that the revealed word of God can be defended without taking refuge in circular arguments. Times right before his were famous for determining value of logic as a means for attaining absolute truth. There were debates, for instance between Christian logician Abu Bishr Matta bin Yunus and the Muslim philologist Abu Said al Sirafi in early tenth century, resolving controversies whether logic is a form of universal expression or not. Ibn Hazm wrote extensively against the holders of extreme view of man tamantaqa tazandaqa (whoever practices logic practices heresy). In reposnse to his opponents, who objected with the counter-argument that early generations of Muslims did not resort to demonstrative argumentation and proofs rooted firmly in logic, he replied that they witnessed the revelation directly and were not exposed to contrastive beliefs.

An alternate undertaking in parallel was to refute the philosophers and theologians who elevated logic to a station where it can be used independantly as a means for attaining truth thereby superceding and replacing revelation. Many consider him as a pioneer in methodological rejection of hellenistic metaphysics of that time which was voiced by many Muslim philosophers with slight shifts in semantics. Here, the Pope is partially right as Ibn Hazm advocates an unbridgeable gap between the Creator and creation. However the underlying aim in Ibn Hazm’s discourse is not to establish that human beings are not responsible for their own actions by being submitted to Divine Will but to define a supreme station for God where there is no room left for speculations. Ibn Hazm achieves this with ease as he has the revealed word of God to fall back to, and which he uses as a touchstone to establish veracity of any claim regarding His ultimate nature.

Ratzinger however speculates erroneously when he hypothesize that Ibn Hazm’s God could have done everything against the truth and virtue. Ibn Hazm does not push his God away in order to grant him more divinity (as the Pope contends) but asserts that we cannot comprehend fully the particulars of God’s wisdom and will instead remain in need of His favours always. He pits these arguments against some of the Mutizilites who were presumably in favor of basing ethics on human reasoning, even at the cost of statements in the Quran. His often misunderstood contention that God can reward evil and punish good is completely subjective as he never claimed that God in fact does so. His contentions are rooted in a constantly recurring theme that humanity always needs objectively sustainable communication from the Creator as we cannot achieve salvation through reason alone. He and his God calls it the divine mercy and love, on which depends the destiny of all creation; and that is the only real analogy as far as Ibn Hazm is concerned.

Ibn Hazm can easily be misunderstood if his different positions are not disentangled carefully. Moreover his various intellectual stances can be put forth as an evidence for contradictory assertions. He tried all his life to bridge gaps between reason and revelation and describe the human condition and thought in relation to revealed word of God. His literature is depictive of human beauty and love of God. According to Ibn Hazm, we constantly need God to reveal us who He is, why He created us and what should we do and what we should not in order to attain His pleasure. It is one of His favors that He gave us the power to reason and contemplate both within our selves and with others. However all human contemplation, cogitation and criticism should take revelation as the starting point.

******

On a different note, I completely agree with what thabet has said and do share his feelings. Pope’s speech may have been full of inaccurate assertions and misreadings of Muslim theology (kalam) yet he has asked some challenging question which should be responded satisfactorily by contemporary Muslim scholarship. His major contention is that Islamic weltanschauung incorporates violence as a valid methodology and this world view is theologically rooted in the understanding of God’s nature and character. Why should these questions invoke anger, hate and murder instead of inciting positive and objective confrontation on intellectual fronts.

Among 20+ people that I have asked in the past week, none cared to read what Pope has actually said though they were aware that he has said something very wrong. A Christian member of Pakistan’s parliament who proposed the house to ask clarification from Vatican before passing a unanimous resolution of condemnation was forced to sit in protest. No major or minor newspaper (of Pakistan) took pains to translate and publish the entire speech or even its controversial parts. However none of them failed to make a great news story out of it. Its sad that Muslims of the world seems to be a big rabble lead by the pirates of intellect. Even sadder is the realization that there is still no light at the end of the tunnel.

Filed under: Criticism & Comments, Debates & Disputes, Ilm al-Ikhtilaf, Philosophy, Scholars, Traditional Islam

Reviewing the Debate on Hudood Ordinance

If the premise was that Hudood Ordinance is problematic, the debate was a non sequitur. But it doesn’t come as a great surprise because debates and discussions are never the usual movers towards reaching conclusions in Pakistan. However this debate was not irksome like the most of the rest which we compulsively witness everyday on tv in search of a tinge of wisdom.

Javed Ahmed Ghamidi and Dr Muhammad Tufail Hashmi were teamed up to object the ordinance and its implementation and Mufti Muneeb ul Rahman and Maulana Abdul Malik were there to defend it.

The Initial Remarks:
Dr Hashmi and Mufti Muneeb were alloted 5 minutes each to make their respectives stands clear to the house. The first speaker Dr Hashmi said that the contentions of ordinance being within the injunctions of Quran and Sunnah are grossly erroneous. 81 out of its 101 clauses are not related in any way to Quran and Sunnah. These procedural clauses are subject to change by judiciary and legislature any time. The rest which are presented as hudud have been incoherently picked up from Quran & Sunnah without reflecting upon the nature of crime and criminal. As a result hundreds of women were kept in jails for years waiting for hadd to be implemented. There is a deterioration in the state of law and order as enactment of the law itself gives loopholes to misuse it. The resentment compiled over years ultimately led different groups of society to talk against the Islamic law in general.

Rather than commenting on the ordinance, Mufti Muneeb began with a protest (in his alloted time) that hearts of the people of Pakistan are deeply attached with Islam. Since no one can talk openly against the hudud due to fear of inviting strong criticism from people, they are actually trying to get the complete ordinance repealed. It is similar how many people who want to criticise Islam end up criticising the maulvi. There wont be any new revelation delineating the procedures for implementation of punishments. Experts can only comment on the errors in implementation but complete ordinance cannot be revoked. He rejected it as a propaganda that women were mistreated using the ordinance per se. He confirmed the juristic ruling that women should not be put in jails and said that taazira’at in the ordinance should be removed and made part of the Pakistan Penal Code instead. Rather than discussing the ambiguities related to zina bil raza (adultery) and zina bil jabr (rape) in ordinance he irrelevantly went into history of Islamic law and gave an example or two that both crimes were differentiated by Islamic jurists throughout history.

[In my view, Dr Hashmi's presentation was accurate enough keeping in view the scarcity of time. His main points can be understood further in the light of his book. I dont want to be accused of pleonasm in trying to prove the absurdity of Mufti Muneeb's method of argument. As I have already said in the start, it was not a classical argument in favor of the ordinance - it was just an irrelevance indulgence into emotionalism.]

Role of Police in Implementing the Ordinance:
A movie was played showing women who were in jails since three years (and more) without evidence. The recent case proceedings of Aruna and Muazzam Ali (who were present on the occassion) were also shown. In response to moderators’ questions Aruna replied that both of them (she and her husband Muazzam) were caught by the police after an FIR was launched under hudud ordinance by her parents who said that Muazzam has kidnapped their daughter. In the courtroom magistrate didn’t pay heed to whatever she said and kept looking at her father. The overall response of judiciary was pathetic and she thought about requesting the mainstream ulema to help her.

In response to a question regarding how to resolve complications arising due to false FIRs, Maulana Abdul Malik said that police should never chase the adulterers at first place. Totally disregarding that an ambiguous ordinance adds to the complications, he put the entire blame on the system of police reminding the house that its a British system. Making this comment further absurd, he added that police should be well versant with Quran and Sunnah [thereby agreeing, though he would be unaware of this subtlety, that requisite awareness about any law may be a prerequisite of its application]. Mufti Muneeb said that Anglo-Saxon law equates FIR with a nass (reasoning from a known injunction – a valid shari’i evidence).

In response to another question whether police should record the FIR for adultery at all, Dr Hashmi said that police has no role in cases of zina bil raza. Javed Ghamidi said that police should demand four witnesses before recording the FIR and Quran is clear on this. That was perhaps the only point in the complete debate where all the panelists agreed.

The Issue of Qadhaf:
The point of concern before the house was that qadhaf (punishment for slander) in Zina Ordinance cannot be exercised unless the case is re-prosecuted. That was perhaps the best part in the complete debate in terms of mirthfulness as well as deep frustration. I present this diatribe here from my notes.

Abdul Malik: No seperate legislation should be done for qadhaf. Prophet (pbuh) applied qadhaf as well as hadd in cases of zina. Judge is a legislator as well as an implementer of law.
Mufti Muneeb: It is necessary that people like Aruna should come to judge and ask for their qisaas (retaliation) because qadhaf is a kind of qisaas.
Javed Ghamidi: No. It may not be necessary that women should come to judge as this is against their honor according to norms of our society. In addition to that its an issue of procedural law and there is nothing in Quran and Sunnah which can be used to establish that women should come to judge demanding hadd-e-qadhaf to be implemented on one who has blamed them falsely.
Tufail Hashmi: The complete ordinance of qadhaf is ambiguous. Did Ayesha (r) formally demanded the hadd-e-qadhaf. The case of Mughira bin Shu’ba (r) is another example when hadd-e-qadhaf was implemented automatically.
Javed Ghamidi: The court has all the right to exercise hadd-e-qadhaf without a formal petition.
Mufti Muneeb asks Javed Ghamidi: How can court send forces to identify people who are falsely blaming others?
Javed Ghamidi: I am talking about a specific case which is already in court and it has been proved that accuser was wrong.
Abdul Malik: Ideally a judge should be a mujtahid (an independant jurist) in limited capacity.
Javed Ghamidi: I have been stating categorically since few years now that either the requisite amendments should be made in the ordinance or the complete ordinance should be repealed.
Abdul Malik [outbursts]: He [while poiniting towards Ghamidi] is actually opining that hudud Allah should be repealed.
Javed Ghamidi: I have no doubt that implementation of hudud Allah is obligatory but the ordinance under discussion is made according to human understanding and can be repealed or amended.
Abdul Malik [shouts]: This is a conspiracy against hudud of Allah and we would never let it happen in this country.

[After that moderators intervened and sought clarification from Javed Ghamidi who re-clarified his already clarified stance which had been grasped by everyone viewing the debate except the two opposing panelists.]

Does Zina bil Jabr Invoke Hadd?
Speaking first, Javed Ahmed Ghamidi said that zina bi jabr should be dealt with under the law of hiraabah (maleficence in land) as expounded by verse 5:33. He explained that rape is a multiple crime involving adultery as well as harassment and molestation and Prophet (pbuh) himself defferentiated between both on number of occassions. Dr Hashmi said that evidence in cases of zina and zina bil jabr are different. The ayah that noble women should come out of their houses covered was specifically revealed so that they should not be a subject of sexual harrassment. He gave examples of Maliki Jurists like Qadi Iya’d and Qadi Ibn Arabi (the jurist and not the sufi) who believed that rape should be dealt with under the law of hiraabah. Mufti Muneeb disagreed and said that zina bil jabr if proved invokes rajm (stonning to death). Abdul Malik said that there is no need to do ijtihad when Quran is clear.

Amendments Proposed by Panelists:
Mufti Muneeb suggested that all the procedural clauses and punsihments which are not hudud (therefore taaziraat) should be excluded from the ordinance and made part of PPC and a qadi who is also a qualified jurist should be included in the system. There is no question of repealing the complete law. Maulana Abdul Malik said that he agrees with Mufti Muneeb and gave another emotive political statement (which has now become a trademark of MMA) that no disguised conspiracy against Hudud would be tolerated. He reiterated that police and judges should be trained according to Islam.

Javed Ghamidi quickly presented five of his main objections against the ordinance. These are:
1. Adultery should be explicitly differentiated with rape not only in terms of definition (which it does now) but in terms of procedural methods and their implementation.
2. The ordinance in its current form applies punishment according to the degree of evidence. It should be recodified to invoke punishment on presence or absense of punishment.
3. There should be no gender discrimination in the application of ordinance.
4. Cases of rape should be dealt with according to law of hiraabah.
5. Appropriate clauses should be added to the ordinance to explicate the degree of doubt that can be given for the benefit of the accused.

Dr Hashmi while agreeing with Ghamidi said that any new law should not be projected as a law of Allah so that there will always remain the room for improvement and change.

Viewing the debate was another very frustrating experiencing for me. Not because the lack of objective scholasticism on part of panelists in favour of the ordinance but lack of sense in people of media regarding how to conduct and organise such debates. First of all the title “Grand Debate on Hudood Ordinance” was a misnomer as the Ordinance of Zina was the actual topic of discussion. Not even a brief summary of the agenda was presented to educate the panelists as well as audience to avoid repetitive digression. The choice of hosts was also confusing as both were journalists specialised in political and social issues rather than discussing conflicting religious interpretations. As a result it was more of an informal discussion based on conventional wisdom rather than sources of religion and law. I still fail to find the reason why a person like Maulana Abdul Malik was invited as a panelist who just kept on nodding his head in favour of whatever Mufti Muneeb uttered. Not to mention his funny and caustic remarks against panelists on other side.The only good that can come out of such debates is the exposure of actual depth of scholarship of mainstream ulema who have more excess to people due to their politicised and emotive slogans. The in-depth scholarship is not popular enough to come out of the books and reach streets even in cases where lines of religious interpretation and social reforms crisscross. This was a indeed a good platform for people to get acquainted with faces representing religion on a different intellectual plane and for a different cause than meeting twice a year for sighting moons.

Filed under: Criticism & Comments, Debates & Disputes, Land of the 'Pure'

Grand Debate on Hudood Ordinance

Zara Sochieye (think for a moment) is a series of debates/discussions on various conflicts within Pakistani society arising due to contradicting interpretations. Here is an excerpt of the ad from Geo TV website:

The Hudood Ordinance was enforced in 1979 during the rule of Gen. Zia ul Haq. Since its inception there has been a great debate on the Hudood laws – a debate that has involved people belonging to all walks of life – religious scholars, lawyers and human rights activists. The debate continues, without any resolution, till this day.GEO aims to bridge the gaps that have been created within the Pakistani society and bring people together to the same platform to discuss matters with knowledge, tolerance and integrity. GEO will focus its programming and discussion on the most controversial law within the Hudood, which is the Zina Ordinance. There is one group of people who believe that the injunctions within the Ordinance are in accordance with the Quran and Sunnah. There is another group that believes that the Hudood Ordinance is man made which has lead to a misrepresentation of Islam.

The current debate (which will be in Urdu) primarily features Javed Ahmed Ghamidi and Mufti Muneeb ul Rahman (a mainstream barelwi scholar from Pakistan). There are few other speakers also and a considerable portion of time is alloted to views/grievances of audience which are mainly lawyers and feminist activists.

I hope it will be aired on Geo US and Geo UK as well. Please confirm local TV schedules.

Filed under: Debates & Disputes, Land of the 'Pure'

In Defense of Abdul Rahman and Truth

By the time I’ll post this entry, Abdul Rahman would have been released and reaching Italy where he would remain under asylum. His excommunication was not facilitated through a religious process which would set some meaningful precedent for times to come. Rather it was orchestrated through judicial twists under immense pressure of international community.

Abdul Rahman, the Afghani national who was recently put on trial for his conversion to Chirstianity has asserted in his first statement to court that he is not an apostate and still believes in Allah. There has been mixed reactions from the world from subdued whispering concerns to an attitude of utter nonchalance. It would provoke a much needed amuse if MMA of Pakistan choose to favor President Karzai’s government smelling a compliance of Shariah from his strangest remark that he would not intervene. Silver lining in this cloud enshrouding Abdul Rahman was the expression of tolerance by the trial judge Ansarullah Mawlazezadah. The respected judge has all the right to throw a seemingly chesty yet undeniably tolerant statement that A. Rahman would be acquitted if he repents. He seems to be proud of the fact that he is ultimately going to decide whether the defendant has adequately defended himself to the point of turning apostate yet again – only this time, from Christianity.

Do we have some one among the ranks of ahl al-dhikr (people of knowledge) to tell these hate-mongers that they are plainly demanding ‘death’ for a Christian whose faith is 16 year old or trying to force him to commit intellectual apostasy. Is it the apprehension of going disloyal to dogmatism or lack of enough zeal, that stops the traditional Muslim scholarship to dig out their sources yet again. Especially in the light of the fact that they have been doing it in the past. I hope we are not on the verge of tearing pages from the book of history where the opinions of people like Ibrahim al-Nakha’i, Sufian al-Thawri and Ibn Taymiah are recorded?

The mere fact that there is no compulsion in religion and had Allah willed, all the people on earth would have belonged to same faith, is enough to debunk the notion that a man should be killed for sticking with what his intellect leads him to. But even from a strict pseudo-literalist perspective, if we execute a man for his conversion to any other religion, we are making a strong statement with utmost surity that he cannot come back to Islam ever again. In my opinion it is a subconscious claim for the station of omniscience for ourselves in some capacity. Anyway, the complexities are multitudinous and certainly hard to disembroil.

A running theme among the traditional Muslim clerisy is to seperate the application and the content of particular religious opinion with a big ‘BUT’. Here is a perfect outline. A bunch of Quranic verses and few ahadith from Prophet (pbuh) are usually quoted to establish the one liner ruling in the first para. The seeker sleeps well, clasping the ruling as a prized medal on his chest – persumably a nice addition to his collection of fatawa. However what he leaves behind are calm utterances that follows the ‘But’. The bass and pitch of these utterances can vary from issue to issue, and therefore the importance. Usually in case of apostasy, these utterances comprise mainly of an appeasing admonisher that only Caliph of an Islamic State can exercise this punishment and sometimes followed by a hype about a utopian Islamic environment. If they are unable to opine in favor of the ‘apostate’ due to fear of going against countless mugged up references from the past, directed towards the desired course book ruling, they can surely say ‘I dont know’, to keep alive the tradition of Imam Malik in giving religious opinions.

A contrastive motif is played by drumbeaters among skeptics, who come up with new ways to doubt everything that belongs to the tradition. Their unintentional bias usually make them escape with slogans like ‘Its not in Quran‘ or the hoopla about ‘Weakness in Hadith Chains (Isnaad)‘. Bringing about different outcomes depending upon their employment, some of these slogans are shared among the skeptics and our neo-Pharisee brethren.

I am unable to yield enough energy to put myself deep into the task of drawing even succinct comparison between few traditional texts that I have read directly or undirectly. But it is pertinent to draw readers’ attention towards some contemporary efforts to understand the religion better in present circumstances. Hashim Kamali in his book Freedom of Expression in Islam has dedicated a complete section to Freedom of Religion (al-Hurriyah al-Diniyyah). Though he did not aim it to be a detailed monograph on the subject, it serves the purpose of directing us to a number of traditional sources dealing directly with the issue of temporal punishment for apostates. He has compiled the valuable conclusions that have been drawn by various traditional and contemporary scholars. Kamali asserts that there are enough incidents from Prophet’s life where he has pardoned those who renounced Islam after pledging their allegiance to him. These include people like Abdullah ibn Abi Sarh, the foster brother of Uthman Ibn Affan. Ibn Taymiyah has even claimed non deliberate consensus (ijmaa) of Companions in relation to masses of people who turned apostate immediately after the death of Prophet [1]. A list of those whom Prophet pardoned can also be seen in Sirah of Ibn Hisham as Kamali cites.

According to Kamali, an unmistakeable implication can be drawn from this verse of Quran:

Those who believe, then reject faith, then believe (again) and (again) reject faith, and go on increasing in unbelief,- Allah will not forgive them nor guide them nor guide them on the way (Al-Quran, 4: 137)

One truly wonders how Quran can accomodate the notion of repeated acts of apostasy if death is the prescription on first instance.

There are innumerable other issues directly related with the issue of dealing coercively with apostates. Again, I cannot dwell more into traditional discussions related to high treason (hirabah) and asking apostates to repent. I would just like to add that the most important point infront of Muslim jurists dealing with issue of apostasy is regarding how much time should be given to an apostate to repent and revert. Jurists take the offer for repentance in context with the re-presentation of Islam to the apostate. With how much force Islam should be posited before the apostate? For how long? and who will judge the veracity of his re-pronouncement of faith if he is eventually doing it in order to avert the obvious coercion?

These questions, in turn, create larger issues which are out of scope of this particular entry. However a hint is Imam Malik’s discussion of asking repentance from an apostate. He acknowledges the fact that the hadith ‘Whosoever changes his religion, kill him’ can be applied to a person who converts from Christianity to Judaism, if one chooses to remain perfectly literal. Abu Zahra has discussed Malik’s opinions in some length and can be found in his monograph on Malik and his methodology. This of course is must for an interested reader.

Perhaps it would be an apposite end of this brief defense of our Christian brother Abdul Rahman, whose faith we leave for Allah to judge with prayers that he may be shown the light of Islam once again, with a quote from Hanafi Jurist Shams al-Din Sarakhsi:

The prescribed penalties (Hudood) are generally not suspended because of repentance, especially when they are reported and become known to the head of state. The punishment of highway robbery, for instance, is not suspended because of repentance; it is only by the return of property to the owner prior to arrest{…}Renunciation of the faith and conversion to disbelief is admittedly the greatest of offenses, yet it is a matter between man and his Creator, and its punishment is postponed to the day of judgement. Punishments that are enforced in this life are those which protect people’s interest, such as just retaliation, which is designed to protect life…[2]

My feeling at the moment, if I am able to describe concretely, is a blend of utter sadness with optimism on fringes. Sorrow – to see humanity making unfathomable judgements against each other regarding matters which are beyond their realm and Optimism – because Allah has his own ways of bringing forth good from the worst. The canons of religion, without a smidge of doubt, are eternal. Yet the people who are ascribing to, deducing from and applying these canons are not eternal. No matter how subtle they seem to a skeptic eye, but there are methods in our traditional methodology which are a source of dynamism for all the times to come. It depends however on us whether we are ready to revisit some of the dogmas whose coarse ruling we keep so close to our hearts with its application and persumable advantage to society at our backs.
________________________
1. Ibn Taymiyah, al-Sarim al-Maslul ‘ala Shatim al-Rasul as cited by Kamali in Freedom of Expression in Islam.
2. al-Sarakhsi, al-Mabsut as cited by Kamali in Freedom of Expression in Islam.

Filed under: Debates & Disputes, Islam & Modernity, Sociology of Religion, Traditional Islam

Creation of Quran – Mutazilite Perspective

In the end of 846 AD, a motley fool named Ibaadah entered the court of Wathiq and said “May Allah increase the reward of Amir ul Mumineen in hereafter in regards to his favors on Quran when it (the Quran) is still alive”. “What do you mean”, Wathiq asked in obvious confusion, “Do you think Quran is perishable somehow”. The jester explained wearing a solemn look on his face, “O’ Amir of the faithful, every creation is bound to perish and I am afraid how Muslims will observe Taraweeh prayers in Ramadhan after the sudden death of Quran”. Wathiq laughed and kicked him out of the court with some peculiar vocal insults that was the characteristic lingo at that time.

That was the drop scene of the drama that began in the time of Mamun and ended at the time of Wathiq with Mutasam maintaining status quo in between. Reading through the letters of Mamun to Ishaq who was his governor in Baghdad, helped me grasp and analyze the matter more profoundly. The political dimension is the one that keeps coming up in the history books as Ibn Abi Dawood influenced Mamum considerably to use coercive methods against the noble scholars of that time, Ahmed Bin Hanbal being on top of the list. However the theological dimension does not hit the surface so often. An unbiased reader of history might agree if I assert that Mutazilites were not so insincere in their intellectual approach towards the whole matter of creation of Quran.

The theological debates between Mutazilite school with Christian missionaries made them look towards the matter in a different way. They sincerely believed that the idea of Quran not being created would make them closer to canons of Christian belief. It would in a way make the Quran eternal which ultimately means that there are numerous eternals rather then a single one. That seems close to Christian dogma of trinity which is a union of three eternals. A peculiar methodology of dialog by John of Damascus is mentioned in Kitab al-Tiraas which he used to propose to Christian missionaries in their debates with Muslims. The hypothetical dialog as visualised by the author of the book can be concised as follows:

Arab Muslim: What is your belief regarding Jesus Christ?
Christian Missionary: He is the word of God. What does your Quran states about him?
Arab Muslim: [hesitates for a moment and after thinking a lot recites a part of this verse]… “Christ Jesus the son of Mary was a messenger of Allah, and His Word, which He bestowed on Mary, and a spirit proceeding from Him…” [al-Quran 4: 171]
Christian Missionary: What is the word of Allah, and what is ’spirit’ and are these created or not created?

The rest of the exchange is pretty obvious as If the Muslim replies that it is not created, he would himself give a weapon into the hands of missionary of multiple eternal entities. If on the other hand he resorts to the choice of created word of God, debate might continue and missionary can always switch to circular arguments that the all three can’t be created simultaneously.

Such inter-faith theological debates were the common practice among adherents of Mutazilite methodology. They strongly believed that whoever holds the opinion that Quran was not created actually gives the weapon of multiple eternals in the hands of Christians and thus makes their argument stronger. Jahiz while explaining the shrewdness and nefariousness of missionary approach simplifies the whole argument as were seen by fresh Christian converts as well as Muslim skeptics of that era:

The complete word of God is eternal and as Jesus is the word of God, he is also eternal and this ideology seems to be affirmed by Quran.

However this apprehension of Mutazilites moved them to take coercive actions against the scholars who disagreed with them by insisting calmly that word of God should be taken as such and no external ideologies should be mixed into it. Analysis of these discourses is not the subject of this article and should be left to some other time.

Damiri writes in kitab al-haywan that Wathiq discontinued shoving his ideas into the minds of others before his death. A stranger once indulged in a debate with Ibn Abi Dawood regarding creation of Quran in the court of Wathiq few days before his death. He boldly said to Ibn Abi Dawood, “How do you claim to force an ideology which was not forced by the Prophet and neither by the righteous caliphs succeeding him? If the Salaf were familiar with this ideology and chose to keep quiet, you should also do the same. If on the other hand you believe that they did not know it at first place, how can you claim to know the issues of faith better then them”.

It is said that Wathiq jumped up from his seat as if this was a new revelation to him and conciliated his opinion with the opinion of the Salaf. I have a hard time believing in such an undramatic ending but that’s how the sages narrate it.

Filed under: Debates & Disputes, Ilm al-Ikhtilaf, Quran, Traditional Islam