Beware Muslims, had they won the Lina Joy case, Islam will cease to exists as we know it. I wrote this article a while ago, to answer a certain request made by a representative from The Brunei Times. Unfortunately, my article succeeded not in getting through the editor's filter. But instead of scrapping it, I'm posting it here, so that anyone interested in the facts of the case may access an abridged version of it. And most importantly, you would be able to understand what grave implications the case would have had in store for the rest of us Muslims had it been decided in Lina Joy's favour. (The implications of the case also happen to be something few people are aware of.)
I used very simple English and tried my best not to use any legal terms, so this should be a very accessible article. If anyone has any questions, feel free to ask, and I'll try my best to answer them. (I have direct access to the PPI lawyers, so if you have any questions of legal nature that I am unable to answer myself I will immediately forward it to them.)
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I think it better to grab than lose your attention, hence I will explain using layman's terms and refrain from bombarding you with legalese while I go about explaining the Lina Joy case.
Lina Joy, born 'Azlina Jailani', claimed to have embraced Christianity at the age of 26.
Over the years she has expressed her desire to enter into a legal marriage and have a child. However, she could not do this for the laws of Malaysia forbid inter-religious marriages.To this effect she then sought legal recognition of her faith from the National Registration Department (NRD), by applying for the removal of the word 'Islam' from her identity card. The NRD, thinking itself unfit to take religious affairs into its hands (being only an administrative body), insisted that she first produce a declaration from the Syariah court that acknowledged her renunciation of Islam, and went on to reject her application when she could not do so.
Lina refused to visit the Syariah court. She also claimed that it had become unfit to hear her matter, by virtue of her having left the Islamic faith. Thus began the legal battle that would span nearly a decade.
Lina Joy's claims were founded upon two grounds:
* 1) Whether the NRD had acted properly in rejecting her application, and
* 2) Her insistence that the provisions of Article 11 of the Constitution gave her the complete freedom to profess any religion of her choosing.
The respondents (the Majlis Agama Islam, the Government of Malaysia, and the NRD) based their claims upon these grounds:
* 1) Article 160 of the Constitution, which states that a Malay must be of none other than the Islamic faith - i.e. He or she must be Muslim, and
* 2) As the issue of apostasy falls under the category of Islamic matters and doctrine, the only means of recourse, as provided for by Article 121 (1A) of the Constitution, would be available to her only through the Syariah court.
The High Court dismissed Lina Joy's claims on the grounds that it had no jurisdiction to hear her matter. She appealed to the Court of Appeal, on the grounds of administrative law, but did not succeed there. She then appealed to the Federal Court.
The Federal Court's decision was handed down on the 30th of May 2007, with the majority judgment ruling in favour of dismissing Lina Joy's appeal. (One judge dissented.) In essence, the majority judgement came to these conclusions:
* 1) For a Muslim, his religious rights and duties prior to his conversion remains unchanged until he gets a declaration from the Syariah Court saying that he is no longer a Muslim.
* 2) Article 11 (1) does not give rise to absolute freedom of religion.
* 3) The right to profess and practice a religion is subject to the principles and practice of that religion.
Mention must also be made of the two languages employed to deliver the decision -- Bahasa Malaysia (by the Chief Justice) and English (Chief Judge of Sabah and Sarawak). (This has resulted in the dissenting judgment enjoying more immediate coverage than the former. )
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The multi-religious composition of Malaysia explains why there has been so much interest from the public since the very beginning.
For brevity's sake, perspective on this case could be said as coming from two camps: In the first, the Muslims, who feel enraged that Lina Joy has attempted to circumvent the jurisdiction of the Syariah court and hold that it amounts to an act of condescension towards the current dual-legal system in practice. In the second, the non-Muslims
and a small group of Malays (whose members fancy themselves 'liberal' Muslims), who endeavour to support Lina Joy's cause for it would champion issues such as human rights and fundamental liberties, which are dear to them.
I certainly beg to differ with the opinions of some who claim that at the heart of the Lina Joy case lies a dispute on religious freedom. I am inclined to offer this correction to them: that the case of Lina Joy has all along been concerned with the question as to which court has jurisdiction to try cases of apostasy involving Muslims, and that the issue of freedom of religion was auxiliary to this.
I must bring to light the fact that Lina Joy is not restricted from leaving the religion if she wishes for that. The decision affirms this contention of mine and makes lucid the fact that she needs to apply to visit the Syariah court to obtain a formal declaration to that effect, subject of course to the limits of jurisprudence.
Why then have some groups stretched the truth to fit their claims that the Lina Joy case amounts to obstructing altogether their right to freedom of religion? There has been much ado about this, especially on the Internet. (That's not taking into account their other interesting claims; for example, that the Lina Joy case has been decided unfairly
and has thus caused devastating implications to be wrought upon the citizens of this country.)
Unbeknownst to the masses, even ghastlier implications would have come to manifest had Lina Joy's appeal succeeded. I beg you to consider these, for instance:
* 1) The nullification of a vast array of laws - Abdul Hamid CAJ (as he then was) in Kamariah bte Ali v Kerajaan Negeri Kelantan, Malaysia opined that in allowing Article 11 to be construed so liberally would entail making invalid entire bodies of Islamic law; e.g. Zakat laws, marriage laws, et cetera. (In short, all Islamic laws would be rendered null and void.)
* 2) The coming to existence of a constitutional paradox - Article 160 of the Constitution states that a Malay must be a Muslim; thus, if a Malay person declares himself a non-Muslim, what race would he (legally) belong to then? As he cannot satisfy the constitutional criteria of a Malay, he would lose not only his Malay status but his Bumiputra privileges as well.
* 3) The diminution of the powers of the Syariah court - Not only would our Islamic court would be deprived of its right to adjudicate on matters of apostasy involving Muslims, said right would then be conferred to the civil court, whose judicial members are comprised of Muslims and non-Muslims trained in the intricacies of civil laws but not Islamic laws.
* 4) Of inheritance rights - Seeing as to the fact that Muslims and non-Muslims are governed by different inheritance laws, and the fact that non-Muslims cannot inherit from Muslims, one can easily imagine then the gory court battles that would emerge from disputes on inheritance.
* 5) The impossibility of religious enforcement - Consider perhaps, a man eating eating in public in the fasting month of Ramadhan who, when arrested by religious officers, professes to having left the Islamic faith. The religious officers would be unable to perform their duties if so.
One need not look more than twice at the above list to understand that it is the Muslims, comprising roughly 60% of the country's population, who would be adversely affected the most. (Article written by Mr Wan Zafran)
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Wednesday, June 25, 2008
The Lina Joy Case -- An 'Easy' Version
Official Stand On Position of Ahmadiyya/Qadyani
This is the position on Ahmadiyya/Qadyanni issued by scholars in Indonesia way back in 1935, when Qadyani was about to enter Indonesia. I have produced it in it's original language and i'd like to thank Ibnu Hasyim blogspot for taking the time to copy it down in your website.
Bagaimanakah pendapat dan putusan ahli-ahli Agama Islam terhadap Mirza Gulam Ahmad dan pengikut-pengikutnya?
KAOEM MOESLIMIN DAN MOESLIMAT SELOEROEHNJA.
Oentoek mendjelaskan dan menjatakan dengan seterang-terangnya tentang kepertjajaan dan i’tikad partai Ahmadiyah Al-Qadiany menoeroet poetoesan
‘Oelama-oelama Islam yang bersendikan Al-Quranoelkarim dan Al-Hadits beserta Idjma’ Oelama, teroetama oelama-oelama di Sumatera Timoer, maka oleh Komite Pembanteras i’tikad Ahmadiyah Al-Qadiany jang didirikan pada tanggal 10 Nopember di Medan telah mengemoekakan pertanjaan pada seloeroehnya oelama-oelama Islam terseboet dari keadaan i’tikad mereka itoe.
PENDAPATAN DAN KEPOETOESAN
Menoeroet penjelidikan dan pemeriksaan ahli-ahli Agama Islam maka njata dan teranglah menoeroet dalil-dalil (boekti-boekti) bahwa:
1. Mirza Gulam Ahmad Al-Qadiany jang mengaku dan mendakwakan dirinja Nabi (Rasul) dikemoedian Nabi Muhammad s.a.w. adalah pengakoean ini menjebabkan akan ianya murtad (kafir).
2. Demikian djuga pengikoet-pengikoetnja jang mereka itu mengakoei dan mempertjajai bahwa Mirza Gulam Ahmad Al-Gadiany berpangkat Nabi dan Rasoel dikemoedian Nabi Moehammad s.a.w maka dengan kepertjajaan ini mereka menjadi kafir.
KESIMPOELANNJA:
MIRZA GULAM AHMAD AL-QADIANY KAFIR (MOERTAD). PENGIKOET-PENGIKOETNJA DJUGA KAFIR (MOERTAD) BERLINDUNGLAH KITA DARI KEADAAN INI.
Di sinilah dinjatakan nama-nama oelama-oelama Islam jang telah mengkafirkan akan mereka itu;
1. J.M.T.Fachruddin Ketua Madjlis Syar’iy Kerajaan Serdang di Perbaungan.
2. Kadhi Perbaungan.
3. Sjech Al-Hadji Zainuddin bekas Mufti Kerajaan Serdang di Perbaungan.
4. Sjech Al-Hadji Mhd. Yunus Guru Besar Maktab Al-Islamiyah, Medan.
5. Sjech Al-Hadji Mhd. Ziadah bekas Guru Besar Madrasah Al-Maslurah Tandjung Pura, Langkat.
6. Sjech Abdullah Afifuddin Guru Besar Madrasah Al-Maslurah Tandjung Pura, Langkat.
7. Abd. Rahim Abdullah Guru Madrasah, Al-Maslurah Tandjung Pura, Langkat.
8. Al-Hadji Mhd. Nur Abd. Karim Kadhi Tandjung Pura, Langkat.
9. Al-Hadji Dja’far bekas Guru Besar Al-Islamiyah Medan Deli.
10. Madjlis Al-Fatwa Al-Djam. Washliyah Medan Deli.
11. Al-Hadji Abd. Madjid Abdullah Guru Agama Medan Deli.
12. Al-Hadji Abd. Karim Guru Agama Bindjai.
13. Al-Ustaz Al-Hadji Abd. Halim Hasan Guru Besar Madrasah Al-Ariyah Bindjai.
14. Abd. Rahim Hitamy Guru Madrasah Arabiyah Bindjai.
15. Zainal Arifin Abas Guru Madrasah Arabiyah Bindjai.
16. Al-Hadji Abd. Wahab Guru Agama Bandar Sinembah Bindjai.
17. Al-Hadji Mhd. Nur Khadi Bindjai
18. Al-Haji Mahmud Ismail Lubis Kadhi Sei. Kerah Medan.
19. Al-Hadji Islas Kadhi Suka Piring Medan.
20. Al-Hadji Zainal Abidin Kadhi Pematang Siantar, dan 33 oelama lainnya.
KAOEM MOESLIMIN DAN MOESLIMAT SELOEROEHNJA
Maka menilik keadaan ini terang dan njatalah:
1. Mirza Gulam Ahmad dan pengikoet-pengikoetnja kafir (keluar dari agama Islam).
2. Pengakoean (Asjsjahadah) mereka kepada Allah, yaitu dengan perkataan: “Asjhadu Alla Ilaaha Illalloh” binasa dan tiada diterima selama mereka tetap ber’itkad sebagai tersebut.
3. Pengakoean (Asjsjahadah) mereka kepada Nabi Muhammad s.a.w. dengan perkataan “Asjhaduanna Muhammadarrasuululloh”, djuga tidak makbul (sia-sia) selama mereka tetap beri’tikad sebagai tersebut.
4. Pergaulan dan perhubungan serta persaudaraan setjara Islam telah poetoeslah di antara umat Islam dengan mereka itu :
(i). Dua kalimah Asjsjahadah yaitu “Asjhadu Alla Illallooh wa asjhaduanna Muhammadarrasuullullooh” jang mereka otjapkan dan mereka tuliskan di papan-papan mereka jang tergantung di muka-muka rumah mereka itu, tidak lain melainkan sebagai umpan atau topeng untuk menjesatkan umat Islam terutama umat Islam jang kurang pengetahuannja.
(ii) Da’wah atau pengakuan mereka bahwa mereka itu orang Islam pengikut Nabi Muhammad s.a.w. dan pengikut Kitabullah Al-Quranul Karim, tidak benar dan kosong semata-mata. Hal ini tidak lain melainkan perkakas untuk penjesatkan umat Islam soepaja terdjerumus pada djaring mereka.
(iii) Segala perkataan-perkataan jang manis-manis baik jang diutjapkan dengan mulut mereka sendiri ataupun jang tertulis di dalam majalah-majalah dan soerat sebaran (maklumat) jang sengadja mereka terbitkan demikian djuga jang mereka masukkan di dalam surat-surat chabar jang dari kalimat-kalimatnja ada terbajang bahwa partai mereka ada tunduk di bawah pandji-pandji Islam dan pengikut Nabi Muhammad s.a.w. adalah doesta dan tipoean semata-mata.
KAOEM MOESLIMIN DAN MOESLIMAT SELOEROEHNJA
Sebagai telah njata dan terang bahwa Mirza Gulam Ahmad Al-Qadiany dan pengikoetnja adalah dengan sebab i’tikad mereka telah menjadi murtad (kafir). Oleh sebab itu mka segala perhoeboengan dan pertalian yang tiada diharoeskan pada Sjara’ antara oemat Islam dengan lain-lain Islam, maka tiada diharoeskan djuga dengan mereka itu. Soepaja umat Islam seluruhnja dapat mengetahui di sini diterangkan hal-hal yang terbesar misalnya.
1. Kalaoe mereka mati tidak harus (haram) disembahjangkan dan dikoeboerkan di tanah perkuburan (tanah wakaf orang Islam).
2. Perkawinan (nikah) mereka tidak sah dan tidak halal dengan orang Islam.
3. Sembelihan mereka tidak halal dimakan orang Islam.
4. Tidak harus dibebaskan mereka beribadat di Mesjid-mesjid dan langgar-langgar serta surau-surau wakaf orang Islam.
5. Kitab Al-Quran an Al-Hadis serta kitab-kitab Agama kepoenjaan orang Islam tidak haroes diserahkan ketangan mereka.
6. Oemat Islam tidak diharoeskan memberi salam kepada mereka.
7. Antara oemat Islam dengan mereka tidak poesaka mempoesakai.
8. Dan lain-lain. }
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Thursday, June 19, 2008
Haris’es Verses Don’t Negate Death Penalty for Apostates
Haris has provided a rebutal to my article entitled Haris Ibrahim Probably Will Have to Renounce Prophet Musa AS. His rebuttal is entitled Judge ye the tree by its fruit.
Haris says: I can almost hear Rahman screaming that we must give effect to a literal reading of Surah 2 verse 54.
Well, would Rahman also then give effect to a literal reading of the following, please?
‘Let there be no compulsion in religion: Truth stands out clear from Error: whoever rejects evil and believes in Allah hath grasped the most trustworthy hand-hold, that never breaks. And Allah heareth and knoweth all things.’ - Surah 2 verse 256
MY REPLY: In only says there is no compulsion to force others converting into Islam. Have nothing to do with death penalty to apostates. Sorry Harris.
Haris quotes:‘If it had been thy Lord’s will, they would all have believed,- all who are on earth! wilt thou then compel mankind, against their will, to believe?’ - Surah 10 verse 99
MY REPLY:Has nothing to do with apostasy at all. I do not see it at all with regards to Apostasy.
Haris quotes:"‘Do not make excuses; you have denied indeed after you had believed; if We pardon a party of you, We will chastise (another) party because they are guilty. The hypocritical men and the hypocritical women are all alike; they enjoin evil and forbid good and withhold their hands; they have forsaken Allah, so He has forsaken them; surely the hypocrites are the transgressors. Allah has promised the hypocritical men and the hypocritical women and the unbelievers the fire of hell to abide therein; it is enough for them; and Allah has cursed them and they shall have lasting punishment.’ -Surah 9 verses 66-68.
MY REPLY:The verse speaks about the Hypocrites, which are Muslims on the outside but kufr on the inside. In other words, hypocrites are those who do not express their kufr feeling to Allah. They project an image of being a Muslim but in their hearts they reject Islam.
How then can they be punished for crime of apostasy when they do not express their riddah?
If they expose their true beliefs then they will be subjected to the laws of apostasy. If they don’t then there is no evidence, is there?
Haris says: Also, could Rahman reconcile his obsession with killing the apostates against the following command of God?
‘Tell those who believe to forgive those who hope not for the days of Allah; in order that He may requite folk what they used to earn.’ - Surah 45 verse 14
MY REPLY: I struggle to find what this verse has anything to do with apostasy? The term “hope not for the days of Allah” could mean Muslims who are not prepared for the Day of Judgement.
Haris says: Finally, perhaps Rahman would care to share with us why, when so many verses heavily point to God dealing with apostates to the exclusion of all others, he would choose to read one verse as an imperative to kill?
MY REPLY: First of all, none of the verses Haris quoted “heavily point to God dealing with apostates”. It is only Haris’s interpretation of the verses. Nothing more.
Second, it is a Sunnah shown by the Prophet SAW and Sunnah is part of God’s revelations as stated in 62:02 and many more. And not to mention, Saidina Musa does it too as reported in 02:54.
In conclusion, there are no verses in the Quran that supports Haris’s case at all. Haris will be struggling to find his justification from the Quran’s perspective.
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Saturday, June 14, 2008
Problems With Anti Hadeeth Methods When Interpreting The Quran
The Anti Hadeeth have a deep believe that the Quran must only be interpreted by the Quran. Any other external information must never be applied to the Quran as it is not from God.
The trouble with this method is that it will translate into the Quran having a lot of contradictions.
For example:
1) In 5:69 "Innal-laziina 'aamanuu wal-laziina haaduu was-Saabi'uuna wan-Nasaaraa man 'aamana bilaahi wal-Yawmil-'Aakhiri wa 'amila saali-hanfalaa khaw-fun 'alay-him wa laa hum yah-zanuun."
You notice that the word was written Saabi'uuna in 5:69 and was written Saabi'iina in 2:62 and 22:17. In the last two verses the word was declined correctly because the word inna in the beginning of the sentence causes a form of declension called "nasb" (as in cases of accusative or subjunctive) and the "yeh" is the "sign of nasb". But the word Saabi'uuna in 5:69 was given the 'uu, waw which is the sign of "raf'a" (as in cases of nominative or indicative).
Based on Anti Hadeeth methods, this will result in contradictions in the Quran
2) In 7:56 "The mercy of God is near."
"... inna rahmata Allahi qaribun min al-mohseneen."
The above verse is a nominal clause. In such a clause the predicate should match the subject (rahmata) of the nominal clause in gender. The word qaribun (meaning "near") is the predicate of rahmata Allahi ("mercy of Allah"), they should match each other in gender. But this is not the case in the Arabic text. Rahmata is feminine in Arabic and so the word qaribun (which is masculine) should instead be qaribah (its feminine form). This rule was correctly observed in other Qur'anic verses. For example, in 9:40 we read: "Kalemat ul-llah heya al-'ulya."Here both Kalemat and heya are feminine. To say instead: "Kalemat ul-llah howa al-'a'la" would never be correct. That would be just as wrong as saying: "... inna rahmata Allahi qaribun min ... "
Based on Anti Hadeeth methods, there’s a contradiction in the Quran
3) In 41:11 "Then He lifted Himself to heaven when it was smoke, and said to it and to the earth,'come willingly, or unwillingly!' They said, 'we come willingly.'"
"... faqal laha wa lel-Arad 'iteya taw'aan aw karha qalata atayna ta'e'een."
Heaven and earth in Arabic are feminine nouns, the verb said in "they said" is accordingly feminine and dual (qalata), but the adjective "willing" at the end of the verse is masculine and plural (ta'e'een), being at variance with the rule that the adjectives should match their nouns in number in gender, thus ta'e'een which is used for plural, should be ta'e'aat which is used for feminine dual.
Based on Anti Hadeeth methods, there’s a contradiction in the Quran
4) In 20:63 "They communed secretly saying, 'These two men are sorcerers'." (Arberry)
"Qaaluuu inna haazaani la-saahiraani ..."
The word saahiraan should be saahirayn. The word saahiraan was declined incorrectly because the word inna in the beginning of the nominal sentence causes a form of declension called "nasb" to the nominative and the "yeh" is the "sign of nasb". The entire Quran observes the singular, dual and plural rule?
Based on Anti Hadeeth methods, there are contradiction in the Quran as showed above.
As a reminder, the pathetic accusations above are taken from anti Islam websites (not to say that anti hadeeth themselves are not anti Islam). Answers have been provided adequately and I long to see how Anti hadeeth can rebut this effectively based on their methodology.
But, as an initial conclusion, suffice to say that anti hadeeth beliefs are useful to anti islam elements of the world as they will never be able to defend the Quran effectively. It will then result in the Quran being rejected and mocked beyond any recognition.
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Sunday, June 1, 2008
Respond to Some Blogger's Comments on Al Hadeeth An Nabawy
Question 1:There are many scientific and logical errors and contradictions in the Book of Bukhari, as well as the other books. Some examples:a.The prophet according to Bukhari in one of the narration tells his companion Abu- Dharr Ghafari that the sun goes around the earth, in the apparent description that he gives (Hadith 421, pg. 283, vol. 4 of M.Muhsin Khan's translation of Sahih Bukhari). This erroneous view was very popular at the time Bukhari compiled his collection. However this is absurd, we know today that the earth rotates around the sun, proven by scientific evidence. The Koran not only corrected this erroneous notion but also gave an accurate description of a round earth centuries before scientists discovered it.
Answer: Isn’t it a scientific fact that the sun has it’s own orbit and revolves around the center of the universe? Anyways the wording of the hadeeth does not say outrightly that the “sun revolves around the earth”
Question 1b. According to Hadith no disease is contagious [Adwa]. This as we all know is inaccurate. What about the common cold and viruses like Ebola etc. [Hadith 649, page 435, volume7]
Answer: This is why it is important to understand Arabic before interpreting the hadeeth. When the Prophet SAW says “no disease is contagious” he was referring to a specific disease plaguing the people of Makkah at that time. He did not speak of it in general terms.But since he is speaking in Arabic, everyone understood it in it’s right context.
Question 1c:Books of Hadith contain many home-remedies, according to ideas prevalent at that time, which are scientifically absurd. The Hadith mentions there being a cure for every ailment in black cumin seed [Hadith 591, pg.400, vol 7]. This is evidently not true. Can it cure cancer or AIDS, not to mention even the common cold?
Answer: Please bear in mind that the list of diseases known to the people of Mekkah and Madinah at that time is NOT THE SAME as list of diseases known to us. The Hadeeth was meant for the consumption of the people of makkah and madinah of that time.All this was before we discovered antibiotics.
Question 1d:Hadith suggests that we drink "camel-urine" to recuperate after an illness [Hadith 590, pg.399, vol.7]. This is disgusting, naturally speaking. Urine is toxic stuff. The Koran places extreme importance on cleanliness and clean eating (tayyab).
Answer: If any it only exhibits the miracle of the Prophet Mohd SAW. The hadeeth DOES NOT suggest anyone to drink camel-urine to cure illness. The camel urine drinking incident only happens that one time.e.
Question 1e: The Hadith mentions that "fever" is from the "heat of hell" [Hadith 621,622, page 417, vol 7]. Atrocious!
Answer: That’s because it was a common saying at that time that when someone is having a high fever, he is having a “heat from hell”. It was just a local saying at that time. Nothing to be taken in literal.
Question 1f:The Hadith books insult the prophet by giving him a contradictory personality. In one instance it mentions that the prophet ate with a leper and in another it mentions that he refused to meet with a leper who had come to take allegiance at his hand and accept Islam. He told the man to leave and accepted his allegiance in absentia.
Answer: I have not seen this hadeeth yet. Can u quote me please.
Question 1g:The famous Hadith about the fly: "If a fly falls into the vessel of any of you, let him dip all of it (in the vessel) and then throw it away [and use the material in the vessel], for in one of its wings there is a disease and in the other there is a healing [Bukhari, Hadith 673, pg. 452, vol 7]Beware world, there is going to be an outbreak of typhoid and cholera if people take the above as "Hadith-truth", just like "gospel truth" made some people get castrated just because it reports Jesus saying, "....and there are some who make themselves eunuchs for the Kingdom of God." Beware these myths can harm you!
Answer: The fact that the fly is mentioned to carry disease shows that the hadeeth is extrodinary. Remember, it is only about 200 years ago that people discover that flies carry disease. Refer to this link entitled "Hadeeth on Flies" for further explanation.
Sheikh Yusuf Qardhawi in his famous book “Al fatawa al maasirah” has explained this hadeeth. He quoted a research from a Professor in University of Alexandria on extraction of antidote from flies. Please read his answer cause it’s very interestingh.
Question 2:Why muslims are divided? 2.1 Madzhab2.2 Syiah – Sunnah
Answer: Muslims are divided because they are also humans.
Question 3:Dear Ali Cordoba:Can you kindly clarify a point? Are the hadith what the prophet s.a.w actually said, or are those statements are what some people (like Muslim, Bukhari, etc) said the prophet was presumed to have uttered? Al hadeeth are reports of what the prophet actually said, done or agreed upon.I am of course excepting the hadith qudzi, that is, those referenced in the Quran.Incidentally the collections of Bukhari are widely viewed to be the most sahih "authentic," but the poor soul was not even born till about 200 years after the prophet's death.
Answer: The collection of Al Hadeeth is done since the time the Prophet was still alive. Refer to book from MM Azami. Al Imam Al Bukhari came up with the As Sahih to fit the requirement at that time.Further, is it true that in the preamble to his extensive collections, Bukhkari humbly declared that he may have omitted some valid hadiths and incldued some false ones?This may be true but it is not applicable to his book As Sahih. Al Bukhari has also other collections i.e. At Tarikh Al Kabeer, Al Adabul Mufrad and many more.
Question 4:I must give credit to this Rahman guy from celcom. He is a very smart. I'm not talking about his interpretation/understanding of the religion, but his cunning move of leading this whole polemic into linguistic issue.I find this very interesting, and can't wait what the other party has to say.
Answer: The Arabic language is the language of the Quran. It is said so in the Quran 10 times. If one where to try to interpret the Quran, one must be able to understand it in it’s original language. To interpret the Quran in it’s translated form is a sure way of introducing mistakes and misunderstanding of the true meanings of the quran.
Question 5:bananaeel wrote:Menurut sebuah hadith, (kononnya) Nabi Muhammad bersabda, "Umatku akan berpecah kepada 73 kumpulan dan kesemua kumpulan ini akan masuk neraka kecuali satu kumpulan".Hadith translation : "My community will be divided into 73 sects and each of them will end up in Hell save one".
Answer: Again another confusion caused by ignorance of the Arabic language. Arabs uses the word “seventy” to mean “numerous”.
Question 6:Various accusations from Rentap against Abu Hurairah, unsubstantiated, of course.All of the issues raised by Rentap are based on lies and hearsay, including the incident where Umar was allegedly to beat up Abu Hurairah.Refer to this url for more explanation http://www.allaahuakbar.net/shiites/in_defense_of_abu_hurairah.htmSuffice to say that scholars who studies the classical texts in it’s original language have a completely good opinion of Abu Hurairah. Scholars such as:(a) Dr. Mustafa al-Siba'i (founder of the Muslim Brotherhood in Syria), in his thesis, al-Sunna wa Makanatuha fi l-Tashri' al-Islami, (Cairo: 1380/1961); (b) 'Abd al-Razzaq Hamza (the head of Dar al-Ahaadeeth in Makka and Imam of Masjid al-Haram),Zulumat Abi Raya amam Adwa' al-Sunna al-Muhammadiya, (Cairo: n.d.); and (c) the definitive response by 'Abd al-Rahman ibn Yahya al-Mu'allami al-Yamani (the Librarian of Masjid al-Haram), al-Anwar al-Kashifa lima fi Kitab Adwa' 'ala al-Sunna min al-Zallal wa l-Tadlil wa l-Mujazafa, (Cairo: 1378) - may Allah have mercy with them all.Wallahualam bissawab.
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Wednesday, May 28, 2008
The Myth Of Arab Influence In Islam
We have read time and time again in this forum the word Arabism mentioned and linked to Islam and Islamists. Those responsible for mentioning it keep repeating this line over and over again. Yet, rarely do we see any form of evidence or even credible opinions from respected researchers to support such thesis.
Historically, such accusation is not new. Back in the late 1800’s orientalists like Goldzeiher and J Satch had tried to forward such theories. But, unfortunately, their attempt failed miserably due to the fact, they lack any evidence for such claim.
I’ve also decided to accept MarinaMeir’s advice and refrain from my “he is an idiot” course. Suffice to say that my coming postings will prove detractors of Islam to be just that. This posting is about those who repeatedly float the nauseating beliefs that Islam is derived from Arabism
GO AHEAD AND REJECT THE QURAN, THEN
Now it seems the accusation has re-appeared. Sadly, it is being uttered by those who claim to profess faith in Islam. They do not realize what they’re doing contradicts their own faith.
One notable reason for this is the fact that the Quran is sent down by God in the ARABIC LANGUAGE. The Quran itself testifies to this in at least 10 verses. To quote one:
12:02. We have sent it down as an Arabic Qur'an, in order that ye may learn wisdom.
Clearly, those who are not comfortable with influence of Arabs in Islam should opt to discard the Quran altogether. This is due to the fact that the Quran itself UNEQUIVOCALLY state that it is in the Arabic language. Moreover, it’s stated 10 times, at least, in the Quran.
The correct understanding of the Quran must be made from its original language standpoint, not from it’s translation. Otherwise, the gist of its meaning will be lost.
POSSIBLE REASONS FOR SUCH ACCUSATIONS
Farouk and his likes decides to adopt this outrageous accusations for reasons that still evades most of us. To date, we have seen no evident whatsoever.
One possible theory is that Islamists adopts a clear methodology when interpreting the Quran. A methodology that is steeped into the Arabic language discipline. In other words, when the Quran is understood in it’s original language, it results in beliefs and teachings that contradicts the prevalent secular liberal reality.
For instance, the acceptance of Al Hadeeth An Nabawi is a product of clear understanding of the Quran from an Arabic language standpoint. In other words, when the Quran is understood in it’s original language, it makes acceptance of Al Hadeeth An Nabawi as automatic.
Muslim modernists do not want to accept hadeeth. Such refusal is motivated by a myriad of reasons, which I will expose later in my later postings. On the other hand, they must extract their justification from the Quran itself to gain legitimacy (on their ideas).
The best way of doing so is by reinterpreting the Quran from its translations rather from it’s original text and language.
And to cover their tracks, they harp on issues like Arabism creeping into Islam, making funny and defective terms like pace-ism, calling true muslims as kufr and rejector of the Quran.
These are, in truth, strategies adopted by “modernist muslims” to cover their own deficiencies in understanding the Quran: understanding the Quran NOT IN THE QURAN’s LANGUAGE.
In truth, the rejection of Islamists view of things is simply because of the Islamist’s insistence of understanding the Quran in the way the Quran has prescribed. And not the way the liberal secularists have expected Muslims to understand their religion, a’la agnostics.
We can also safely conclude that M Bakri Musa, Farouk Peru and the rest represent the agnostic elements in the muslim world.
SHIP OF OXYMORONS
From a cultural standpoint, it is highly difficult to swallow such theory as well. This is because Islam was severely resisted by the Arabs when it first came to them.
The main reason behind such resistance is the fact that Arab culture and norms at the time was in sharp contrast to Islam. The Islamic teachings brought by the Prophet pbuh contradicts most of what the Arabs had believed in for so long.
For instance, the Arabs were steeped in:
a. Gambling
b. Intoxication
c. Fornication
d. Usury
e. Adultery
f. Prostitution
g. Murder
h. Infanticide (now they call it abortion but it’s basically the same thing)
i. Idol worshipping
j. Illiteracy
k. Corruption
l. Practice in meaningless wars
m. Homosexuality
and many more.
When Islam came, Islam came and changed all this. Islam went through difficulties in changing the Arab ways like above, but eventually Islam prevailed.
In actual fact, Arabism is closer to the Liberal West rather than Islam. That explains Syed Qutb’s view on creeping westernization into Islam. He views them as “Jahilliya” and with Muslims accepting westernization, they are actually going back to ways of the “Jahilliya”.
It’s not true that Islam is influenced by Arab cultures and norms. But, the truth is actually the reverse. Arabs were changed and adopted Islam as their dominant culture. The Arabs were transformed beyond recognition from their former self making their former Jahilliyya self vanished and what is prevalent in them is Islam.
That is, until they started to adopt Westernization.
Therefore, to claim that Islam is influenced by Arabism is an OXYMORON, by definition. Those responsible for such accusation deserves the named as “morons”
SILLY TERMS AND NAMES MADE OUT OF NOTHING.
We know the likes of Farouk came out with terms such as “pace-ism” which only make himself look like a fool for doing so. Personally, I think sit sounds more like a broken medical apparatus. My wife thinks that it sounds more like a disease.
One will see that the likes of Farouk, M Bakri Musa and the rest fail to provide any evidence to support their claim or their terminology. They float such term with hope that the mass will accept them without question.
But, now I hope readers will not adopt their ways for you will only book yourself for a permanent cruise on the ship of oxymorons.
REPLY TO FAROUK’S LATEST RANTINGS
I shall quote a number of his statement but not all. I believe the article above is enough to destroy his whole reason for existence considering he is bent on cleaning Islam from fictitious elements or Arabism, to which until today he hasn’t been able to provide any evidence for.
Also, please remember that in spite of what Farouk says about the previous Caliphates, Muslims have fared better in the worst of the Caliphates as compared to the present. That is living under secular leaders ruling nation states created by the West in line with their Neo Colonialism policies.
No matter what Farouk says, this is something Farouk can never disapprove.
Quote #1
“I forgot you are Rahman al-Muadheen as well, the guy who reads the Quran in shreds. 24/55 ends by saying ‘waman kafara baAAda thalika faola-ika humu alfasiqoona’.
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My Reply: So are u saying that the failure of Prophet Nuh to convice his people is because he went back to being a “Fasiqeen”? Is that why? Can we say the same about Prophet Ibrahim, Ismail, Ishaq, Yaacub, Yusuf, Ayub etc?
Anyways, the phrase above is not even close to a timeline. Anyone who reads it will tell u that it’s far from being a timeline, it’s just an indicator.
Quote #2:
Rahman:
Also, maybe Farouk would like to curse Prophet Isa (Jesus) AS for “failing” in his duties since Isa AS didn’t get any “inheritance of power” from God? Is Isa AS also not adhering to the teachings of Allah? IS that why he didn’t get any inheritance of power from Allah SWT?
Me:
I don’t know where you got that information but Isaa and his people achieved victory over their enemies. See 61/14 please. Maybe now you’ll stop calling other people ‘idiots’.
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My Reply: Tell me what part of 04:157 do you not understand? How do u explain Jesus being raised up to Allah as equal to “inheriting power” in 22:54??
Also, tell me what part of 61:06 do you not understand?. What part of “qalu haza sihrun mubeen” in 61:06 didn’t u understand, Farouk. ( 61:06 : ….they say ( the Bani Israel , the people of Isa) this is evident sorcery!"
Farouk took 61:14 but he didn’t take 61:06. And he calls me “taking the Quran in shreds”.
Farouk takes the Quran in pieces. Therefore, your’re a bona fide “mukassar”?
And he has a very bad mouth too, calling people what he is completely guilty of.
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Quote # 3: Good question. If you analyse the developments which went on during Umayyad and Abbasid periods, you will find that the national and academic developments happened in a certain period. This was the period where the rationalism of the Mutazilah held sway over the empire.
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Then, u do admit that the pre-islam arab has no similarities to the Chaliphates political and administration structure? At last you’re admitting your past mistakes. That’s a good progress.
And u say Muktazilah held sway? Can u show me when and where did this happened? When was the last time the Abbasid or the Ummayid or the Ottoman has ever been a Muktazili?
Or do u have any evidence to show that the Muktazili is behind all of the greatness of the Islamic empire? Because I am hard pressed to find any.
The Muktazili, historically, broke into so many divisions and groups. This is a historical fact. In short, their belief structure was so fragile and unfounded, that they were unable to maintain unity within their ideology. The muktazili were calling each other’s faction as heretics and “unbelievers”.
How can a weak and decadent belief structure like the Muktazili be able to generate strength and greatness when they are rotten to the core?
As usual, no proof but mere empty rhetoric much like your pace-ism terminology.
Quote #4: Again, it existed in NAME ONLY. Just like ‘the Muslim ummah’ is an ummah in NAME ONLY. There are plenty of people named ‘Salih’ in Malaysia. Are they saliheen, Rahman? I hope your answer is ‘no’.
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In name? How do u explain the real life government which existence has been confirmed by NUMEROUS sources? What are u trying to do, denying something that has actually existed?.
Farouk you are trying to deny the existence of an entity that has touched the lives of MILLION of people. It’s your word against the MILLION OF PEOPLE.
I think you’re the first individual that has actually dare to come out with such ridiculous claim. No wonder you’re a minority.
In any village, idiots are always a minority.
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Quote #5 : What a great judiciary it must have been that gave the fatwa to Yazid not to attack Hussain at Karbala, huh?
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My Reply: I thought the order was given by Yazid? The army is under the control of the King not the Judiciary?. Err do you know what a Judiciary mean, Farouk?.
Recent non-shia sources unearthed have shown that Yazid did not give the order, instead it was the Shia of Kuffah who is responsible for the death of Saidina Hussin.
Most of the story of Saidina Hussin incident is taken from At Tabari which rely most on a Shia source. His Shia source did not even witness the incident and reported based on what they received from other Shia sources.
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Quote #6 : These systems which Rahman mentioned only expressed themselves at certain times in the Islamic empire. Umar Ibn Abdul Aziz’s period was one of them, Harun al-Rashid was another. At other times, it was as good as Pak Lah’s administration. Absolute power.
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Really, that’s news to me because the judiciary institution existed all the way until the “Tanzeemat” of the Ottoman which is in the mid-1800s.
I think Farouk is again taking crap information from sources only he himself knows. Everybody knows that courts under the Chaliphate existed and operated all over the empire throughout the course of the empire.
Farouk will be hard pressed to provide evidence Caliphates do not have a fully functional independent judiciary.
Quote #7:
Civil war? Ah yes, so whats the penalty for intentionally killing believers, Rahman? Have a look at 4/93 and you can see for yourself where these ‘civil war’ people will be going.
How many people died in the battle of the camel rahman? This oh-so-perfect Islamic empire of yours, in its EARLIEST days, 30, 000 people were killed and the umm al-mumineen was sentenced to house arrest by the caliph himself. Come on laaa, stop all this fakery. You need to rely on Arab perfection has brought you to this.
++++++++++++++++++++
Again Farouk gets his source from the Shia. And please Farouk, I’ve pointed out your mistakes in understanding Islam SO MANY TIMES.
Please don’t let do it again with 04:93. You should go back and correct your understanding on 02:02 which u have fouled up big time.
I mean you can’t even tell the difference between “Al Kitab” and “Kitab”, how do u expect me to believe that you will be correct on 04:93.
And it was a civil war which led to the toppling of a Caliphate which has lost his qualification based on the fatwa of scholars of the time.
Read Al Mawardi, “Al Ahkam Al Sultan”.
I think I’ll stop here for now. Enough point above to show how weak Farouk’s argument is. Enough evidence above to prove my earlier thesis that Farouk and his likes are “idiots”.
Anyways, dah malam and I am tired cause satu hari melayan orang datang ke rumah. Al maklumlah, kita Ahlus Sunnah boleh merayakan Aidil Fitri sebab kita terima Al Hadeeth An Nabawi.
For Anti Hadeeth to celebrate Aidil Fitri, it will be an act of hypocrisy.
Wassalam
RAHMAN CELCOM
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Saturday, May 24, 2008
Why Shariah: An Article Refuting Those Who Doubt The Shariah
NOTE: This article was published in the New York Times Entitled "Why Syariah" by Noah Feldman, a contributing writer for the magazine, is a law professor at Harvard University and an adjunct senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. This essay is adapted from his book “The Fall and Rise of the Islamic State,” which will be published later.
WHY SHARIAH by Noah Feldman
Last month, Rowan Williams, the archbishop of Canterbury, gave a nuanced, scholarly lecture in London about whether the British legal system should allow non-Christian courts to decide certain matters of family law. Britain has no constitutional separation of church and state. The archbishop noted that “the law of the Church of England is the law of the land” there; indeed, ecclesiastical courts that once handled marriage and divorce are still integrated into the British legal system, deciding matters of church property and doctrine. His tentative suggestion was that, subject to the agreement of all parties and the strict requirement of protecting equal rights for women, it might be a good idea to consider allowing Islamic and Orthodox Jewish courts to handle marriage and divorce.
Then all hell broke loose. From politicians across the spectrum to senior church figures and the ubiquitous British tabloids came calls for the leader of the world’s second largest Christian denomination to issue a retraction or even resign. Williams has spent the last couple of years trying to hold together the global Anglican Communion in the face of continuing controversies about ordaining gay priests and recognizing same-sex marriages. Yet little in that contentious battle subjected him to the kind of outcry that his reference to religious courts unleashed. Needless to say, the outrage was not occasioned by Williams’s mention of Orthodox Jewish law. For the purposes of public discussion, it was the word “Shariah” that was radioactive.
In fact, for most of its history, Islamic law offered the most liberal and humane legal principles available anywhere in the world. Today, when we invoke the harsh punishments prescribed by Shariah for a handful of offenses, we rarely acknowledge the high standards of proof necessary for their implementation. Before an adultery conviction can typically be obtained, for example, the accused must confess four times or four adult male witnesses of good character must testify that they directly observed the sex act. The extremes of our own legal system — like life sentences for relatively minor drug crimes, in some cases — are routinely ignored. We neglect to mention the recent vintage of our tentative improvements in family law. It sometimes seems as if we need Shariah as Westerners have long needed Islam: as a canvas on which to project our ideas of the horrible, and as a foil to make us look good.
In the Muslim world, on the other hand, the reputation of Shariah has undergone an extraordinary revival in recent years. A century ago, forward-looking Muslims thought of Shariah as outdated, in need of reform or maybe abandonment. Today, 66 percent of Egyptians, 60 percent of Pakistanis and 54 percent of Jordanians say that Shariah should be the only source of legislation in their countries. Islamist political parties, like those associated with the transnational Muslim Brotherhood, make the adoption of Shariah the most prominent plank in their political platforms. And the message resonates. Wherever Islamists have been allowed to run for office in Arabic-speaking countries, they have tended to win almost as many seats as the governments have let them contest. The Islamist movement in its various incarnations — from moderate to radical — is easily the fastest growing and most vital in the Muslim world; the return to Shariah is its calling card.
How is it that what so many Westerners see as the most unappealing and premodern aspect of Islam is, to many Muslims, the vibrant, attractive core of a global movement of Islamic revival? The explanation surely must go beyond the oversimplified assumption that Muslims want to use Shariah to reverse feminism and control women — especially since large numbers of women support the Islamists in general and the ideal of Shariah in particular.
Is Shariah the Rule of Law?
One reason for the divergence between Western and Muslim views of Shariah is that we are not all using the word to mean the same thing. Although it is commonplace to use the word “Shariah” and the phrase “Islamic law” interchangeably, this prosaic English translation does not capture the full set of associations that the term “Shariah” conjures for the believer. Shariah, properly understood, is not just a set of legal rules. To believing Muslims, it is something deeper and higher, infused with moral and metaphysical purpose. At its core, Shariah represents the idea that all human beings — and all human governments — are subject to justice under the law.
In fact, “Shariah” is not the word traditionally used in Arabic to refer to the processes of Islamic legal reasoning or the rulings produced through it: that word is fiqh, meaning something like Islamic jurisprudence. The word “Shariah” connotes a connection to the divine, a set of unchanging beliefs and principles that order life in accordance with God’s will. Westerners typically imagine that Shariah advocates simply want to use the Koran as their legal code. But the reality is much more complicated. Islamist politicians tend to be very vague about exactly what it would mean for Shariah to be the source for the law of the land — and with good reason, because just adopting such a principle would not determine how the legal system would actually operate.
Shariah is best understood as a kind of higher law, albeit one that includes some specific, worldly commands. All Muslims would agree, for example, that it prohibits lending money at interest — though not investments in which risks and returns are shared; and the ban on Muslims drinking alcohol is an example of an unequivocal ritual prohibition, even for liberal interpreters of the faith. Some rules associated with Shariah are undoubtedly old-fashioned and harsh. Men and women are treated unequally, for example, by making it hard for women to initiate divorce without forfeiting alimony. The prohibition on sodomy, though historically often unenforced, makes recognition of same-sex relationships difficult to contemplate. But Shariah also prohibits bribery or special favors in court. It demands equal treatment for rich and poor. It condemns the vigilante-style honor killings that still occur in some Middle Eastern countries. And it protects everyone’s property — including women’s — from being taken from them. Unlike in Iran, where wearing a head scarf is legally mandated and enforced by special religious police, the Islamist view in most other Muslim countries is that the head scarf is one way of implementing the religious duty to dress modestly — a desirable social norm, not an enforceable legal rule. And mandating capital punishment for apostasy is not on the agenda of most elected Islamists. For many Muslims today, living in corrupt autocracies, the call for Shariah is not a call for sexism, obscurantism or savage punishment but for an Islamic version of what the West considers its most prized principle of political justice: the rule of law.
The Sway of the Scholars
To understand Shariah’s deep appeal, we need to ask a crucial question that is rarely addressed in the West: What, in fact, is the system of Islamic law? In his lifetime, the Prophet Muhammad was both the religious and the political leader of the community of Muslim believers. His revelation, the Koran, contained some laws, pertaining especially to ritual matters and inheritance; but it was not primarily a legal book and did not include a lengthy legal code of the kind that can be found in parts of the Hebrew Bible. When the first generation of believers needed guidance on a subject that was not addressed by revelation, they went directly to Muhammad. He either answered of his own accord or, if he was unsure, awaited divine guidance in the form of a new revelation.
With the death of Muhammad, divine revelation to the Muslim community stopped. The role of the political-religious leader passed to a series of caliphs (Arabic for “substitute”) who stood in the prophet’s stead. That left the caliph in a tricky position when it came to resolving difficult legal matters. The caliph possessed Muhammad’s authority but not his access to revelation. It also left the community in something of a bind. If the Koran did not speak clearly to a particular question, how was the law to be determined?
The answer that developed over the first couple of centuries of Islam was that the Koran could be supplemented by reference to the prophet’s life — his sunna, his path. (The word “sunna” is the source of the designation Sunni — one who follows the prophet’s path.) His actions and words were captured in an oral tradition, beginning presumably with a person who witnessed the action or statement firsthand. Accurate reports had to be distinguished from false ones. But of course even a trustworthy report on a particular situation could not directly resolve most new legal problems that arose later. To address such problems, it was necessary to reason by analogy from one situation to another. There was also the possibility that a communal consensus existed on what to do under particular circumstances, and that, too, was thought to have substantial weight.
This fourfold combination — the Koran, the path of the prophet as captured in the collections of reports, analogical reasoning and consensus — amounted to a basis for a legal system. But who would be able to say how these four factors fit together? Indeed, who had the authority to say that these factors and not others formed the sources of the law? The first four caliphs, who knew the prophet personally, might have been able to make this claim for themselves. But after them, the caliphs were faced with a growing group of specialists who asserted that they, collectively, could ascertain the law from the available sources. This self-appointed group came to be known as the scholars — and over the course of a few generations, they got the caliphs to acknowledge them as the guardians of the law. By interpreting a law that originated with God, they gained control over the legal system as it actually existed. That made them, and not the caliphs, into “the heirs of the prophets.”
Among the Sunnis, this model took effect very early and persisted until modern times. For the Shiites, who believe that the succession of power followed the prophet’s lineage, the prophet had several successors who claimed extraordinary divine authority. Once they were gone, however, the Shiite scholars came to occupy a role not unlike that of their Sunni counterparts.
Under the constitutional theory that the scholars developed to explain the division of labor in the Islamic state, the caliph had paramount responsibility to fulfill the divine injunction to “command the right and prohibit the wrong.” But this was not a task he could accomplish on his own. It required him to delegate responsibility to scholarly judges, who would apply God’s law as they interpreted it. The caliph could promote or fire them as he wished, but he could not dictate legal results: judicial authority came from the caliph, but the law came from the scholars.
The caliphs — and eventually the sultans who came to rule once the caliphate lost most of its worldly influence — still had plenty of power. They handled foreign affairs more or less at their discretion. And they could also issue what were effectively administrative regulations — provided these regulations did not contradict what the scholars said Shariah required. The regulations addressed areas where Shariah was silent. They also enabled the state to regulate social conduct without having to put every case before the courts, where convictions would often be impossible to obtain because of the strict standards of proof required for punishment. As a result of these regulations, many legal matters (perhaps most) fell outside the rules given specifically by Shariah.
The upshot is that the system of Islamic law as it came to exist allowed a great deal of leeway. That is why today’s advocates of Shariah as the source of law are not actually recommending the adoption of a comprehensive legal code derived from or dictated by Shariah — because nothing so comprehensive has ever existed in Islamic history. To the Islamist politicians who advocate it or for the public that supports it, Shariah generally means something else. It means establishing a legal system in which God’s law sets the ground rules, authorizing and validating everyday laws passed by an elected legislature. In other words, for them, Shariah is expected to function as something like a modern constitution.
The Rights of Humans and the Rights of God
So in contemporary Islamic politics, the call for Shariah does not only or primarily mean mandating the veiling of women or the use of corporal punishment — it has an essential constitutional dimension as well. But what is the particular appeal of placing Shariah above ordinary law?
The answer lies in a little-remarked feature of traditional Islamic government: that a state under Shariah was, for more than a thousand years, subject to a version of the rule of law. And as a rule-of-law government, the traditional Islamic state had an advantage that has been lost in the dictatorships and autocratic monarchies that have governed so much of the Muslim world for the last century. Islamic government was legitimate, in the dual sense that it generally respected the individual legal rights of its subjects and was seen by them as doing so. These individual legal rights, known as “the rights of humans” (in contrast to “the rights of God” to such things as ritual obedience), included basic entitlements to life, property and legal process — the protections from arbitrary government oppression sought by people all over the world for centuries.
Of course, merely declaring the ruler subject to the law was not enough on its own; the ruler actually had to follow the law. For that, he needed incentives. And as it happened, the system of government gave him a big one, in the form of a balance of power with the scholars. The ruler might be able to use pressure once in a while to get the results he wanted in particular cases. But because the scholars were in charge of the law, and he was not, the ruler could pervert the course of justice only at the high cost of being seen to violate God’s law — thereby undermining the very basis of his rule.
In practice, the scholars’ leverage to demand respect for the law came from the fact that the caliphate was not hereditary as of right. That afforded the scholars major influence at the transitional moments when a caliph was being chosen or challenged. On taking office, a new ruler — even one designated by his dead predecessor — had to fend off competing claimants. The first thing he would need was affirmation of the legitimacy of his assumption of power. The scholars were prepared to offer just that, in exchange for the ruler’s promise to follow the law.
Once in office, rulers faced the inevitable threat of invasion or a palace coup. The caliph would need the scholars to declare a religious obligation to protect the state in a defensive jihad. Having the scholars on his side in times of crisis was a tremendous asset for the ruler who could be said to follow the law. Even if the ruler was not law-abiding, the scholars still did not spontaneously declare a sitting caliph disqualified. This would have been foolish, especially in view of the fact that the scholars had no armies at their disposal and the sitting caliph did. But their silence could easily be interpreted as an invitation for a challenger to step forward and be validated.
The scholars’ insistence that the ruler obey Shariah was motivated largely by their belief that it was God’s will. But it was God’s will as they interpreted it. As a confident, self-defined elite that controlled and administered the law according to well-settled rules, the scholars were agents of stability and predictability — crucial in societies where the transition from one ruler to the next could be disorderly and even violent. And by controlling the law, the scholars could limit the ability of the executive to expropriate the property of private citizens. This, in turn, induced the executive to rely on lawful taxation to raise revenues, which itself forced the rulers to be responsive to their subjects’ concerns. The scholars and their law were thus absolutely essential to the tremendous success that Islamic society enjoyed from its inception into the 19th century. Without Shariah, there would have been no Haroun al-Rashid in Baghdad, no golden age of Muslim Spain, no reign of Suleiman the Magnificent in Istanbul.
For generations, Western students of the traditional Islamic constitution have assumed that the scholars could offer no meaningful check on the ruler. As one historian has recently put it, although Shariah functioned as a constitution, “the constitution was not enforceable,” because neither scholars nor subjects could “compel their ruler to observe the law in the exercise of government.” But almost no constitution anywhere in the world enables judges or nongovernmental actors to “compel” the obedience of an executive who controls the means of force. The Supreme Court of the United States has no army behind it. Institutions that lack the power of the sword must use more subtle means to constrain executives. Like the American constitutional balance of powers, the traditional Islamic balance was maintained by words and ideas, and not just by forcible compulsion.
So today’s Muslims are not being completely fanciful when they act and speak as though Shariah can structure a constitutional state subject to the rule of law. One big reason that Islamist political parties do so well running on a Shariah platform is that their constituents recognize that Shariah once augured a balanced state in which legal rights were respected.
From Shariah to Despotism
But if Shariah is popular among many Muslims in large part because of its historical association with the rule of law, can it actually do the same work today? Here there is reason for caution and skepticism. The problem is that the traditional Islamic constitution rested on a balance of powers between a ruler subject to law and a class of scholars who interpreted and administered that law. The governments of most contemporary majority-Muslim states, however, have lost these features. Rulers govern as if they were above the law, not subject to it, and the scholars who once wielded so much influence are much reduced in status. If they have judicial posts at all, it is usually as judges in the family-law courts.
In only two important instances do scholars today exercise real power, and in both cases we can see a deviation from their traditional role. The first is Iran, where Ayatollah Khomeini, himself a distinguished scholar, assumed executive power and became supreme leader after the 1979 revolution. The result of this configuration, unique in the history of the Islamic world, is that the scholarly ruler had no counterbalance and so became as unjust as any secular ruler with no check on his authority. The other is Saudi Arabia, where the scholars retain a certain degree of power. The unfortunate outcome is that they can slow any government initiative for reform, however minor, but cannot do much to keep the government responsive to its citizens. The oil-rich state does not need to obtain tax revenues from its citizens to operate — and thus has little reason to keep their interests in mind.
How the scholars lost their exalted status as keepers of the law is a complex story, but it can be summed up in the adage that partial reforms are sometimes worse than none at all. In the early 19th century, the Ottoman empire responded to military setbacks with an internal reform movement. The most important reform was the attempt to codify Shariah. This Westernizing process, foreign to the Islamic legal tradition, sought to transform Shariah from a body of doctrines and principles to be discovered by the human efforts of the scholars into a set of rules that could be looked up in a book.
Once the law existed in codified form, however, the law itself was able to replace the scholars as the source of authority. Codification took from the scholars their all-important claim to have the final say over the content of the law and transferred that power to the state. To placate the scholars, the government kept the Shariah courts running but restricted them to handling family-law matters. This strategy paralleled the British colonial approach of allowing religious courts to handle matters of personal status. Today, in countries as far apart as Kenya and Pakistan, Shariah courts still administer family law — a small subset of their original historical jurisdiction.
Codification signaled the death knell for the scholarly class, but it did not destroy the balance of powers on its own. Promulgated in 1876, the Ottoman constitution created a legislature composed of two lawmaking bodies — one elected, one appointed by the sultan. This amounted to the first democratic institution in the Muslim world; had it established itself, it might have popularized the notion that the people represent the ultimate source of legal authority. Then the legislature could have replaced the scholars as the institutional balance to the executive.
But that was not to be. Less than a year after the legislature first met, Sultan Abdulhamid II suspended its operation — and for good measure, he suspended the constitution the following year. Yet the sultan did not restore the scholars to the position they once occupied. With the scholars out of the way and no legislature to replace them, the sultan found himself in the position of near-absolute ruler. This arrangement set the pattern for government in the Muslim world after the Ottoman empire fell. Law became a tool of the ruler, not an authority over him. What followed, perhaps unsurprisingly, was dictatorship and other forms of executive dominance — the state of affairs confronted by the Islamists who seek to restore Shariah.
A Democratic Shariah?
The Islamists today, partly out of realism, partly because they are rarely scholars themselves, seem to have little interest in restoring the scholars to their old role as the constitutional balance to the executive. The Islamist movement, like other modern ideologies, seeks to capture the existing state and then transform society through the tools of modern government. Its vision for bringing Shariah to bear therefore incorporates two common features of modern government: the legislature and the constitution.
The mainstream Sunni Islamist position, found, for example, in the electoral platforms of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and the Justice and Development Party in Morocco, is that an elected legislature should draft and pass laws that are consistent with the spirit of Islamic law. On questions where Islamic law does not provide clear direction, the democratically chosen legislature is supposed to use its discretion to adopt laws infused by Islamic values.
The result is a profound change in the theoretical structure underlying Islamic law: Shariah is democratized in that its care is given to a popularly elected legislature. In Iraq, for example, where the constitution declares Shariah to be “the source of law,” it is in principle up to the National Assembly to pass laws that reflect its spirit.
In case the assembly gets it wrong, however, the Islamists often recommend the judicial review of legislative actions to guarantee that they do not violate Islamic law or values. What is sometimes called a “repugnancy clause,” mandating that a judicial body overturn laws repugnant to Islam, has made its way into several recent constitutions that seek to reconcile Islam and democracy. It may be found, for example, in the Afghan Constitution of 2004 and the Iraqi Constitution of 2005. (I had a small role advising the Iraqi drafters.) Islamic judicial review transforms the highest judicial body of the state into a guarantor of conformity with Islamic law. The high court can then use this power to push for a conservative vision of Islamic law, as in Afghanistan, or for a more moderate version, as in Pakistan.
Islamic judicial review puts the court in a position resembling the one that scholars once occupied. Like the scholars, the judges of the reviewing court present their actions as interpretations of Islamic law. But of course the judges engaged in Islamic judicial review are not the scholars but ordinary judges (as in Iraq) or a mix of judges and scholars (as in Afghanistan). In contrast to the traditional arrangement, the judges’ authority comes not from Shariah itself but from a written constitution that gives them the power of judicial review.
The modern incarnation of Shariah is nostalgic in its invocation of the rule of law but forward-looking in how it seeks to bring this result about. What the Islamists generally do not acknowledge, though, is that such institutions on their own cannot deliver the rule of law. The executive authority also has to develop a commitment to obeying legal and constitutional judgments. That will take real-world incentives, not just a warm feeling for the values associated with Shariah.
How that happens — how an executive administration accustomed to overweening power can be given incentives to subordinate itself to the rule of law — is one of the great mysteries of constitutional development worldwide. Total revolution has an extremely bad track record in recent decades, at least in majority-Muslim states. The revolution that replaced the shah in Iran created an oppressively top-heavy constitutional structure. And the equally revolutionary dreams some entertained for Iraq — dreams of a liberal secular state or of a functioning Islamic democracy — still seem far from fruition.
Gradual change therefore increasingly looks like the best of some bad options. And most of today’s political Islamists — the ones running for office in Morocco or Jordan or Egypt and even Iraq — are gradualists. They wish to adapt existing political institutions by infusing them with Islamic values and some modicum of Islamic law. Of course, such parties are also generally hostile to the United States, at least where we have worked against their interests. (Iraq is an obvious exception — many Shiite Islamists there are our close allies.) But this is a separate question from whether they can become a force for promoting the rule of law. It is possible to imagine the electoral success of Islamist parties putting pressure on executives to satisfy the demand for law-based government embodied in Koranic law. This might bring about a transformation of the judiciary, in which judges would come to think of themselves as agents of the law rather than as agents of the state.
Something of the sort may slowly be happening in Turkey. The Islamists there are much more liberal than anywhere else in the Muslim world; they do not even advocate the adoption of Shariah (a position that would get their government closed down by the staunchly secular military). Yet their central focus is the rule of law and the expansion of basic rights against the Turkish tradition of state-centered secularism. The courts are under increasing pressure to go along with that vision.
Can Shariah provide the necessary resources for such a rethinking of the judicial role? In its essence, Shariah aspires to be a law that applies equally to every human, great or small, ruler or ruled. No one is above it, and everyone at all times is bound by it. But the history of Shariah also shows that the ideals of the rule of law cannot be implemented in a vacuum. For that, a state needs actually effective institutions, which must be reinforced by regular practice and by the recognition of actors within the system that they have more to gain by remaining faithful to its dictates than by deviating from them.
The odds of success in the endeavor to deliver the rule of law are never high. Nothing is harder than creating new institutions with the capacity to balance executive dominance — except perhaps avoiding the temptation to overreach once in power. In Iran, the Islamists have discredited their faith among many ordinary people, and a similar process may be under way in Iraq. Still, with all its risks and dangers, the Islamists’ aspiration to renew old ideas of the rule of law while coming to terms with contemporary circumstances is bold and noble — and may represent a path to just and legitimate government in much of the Muslim world.
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