Mick Hartley

One response to “Distorting Islam”

1. 

   Mohammed Yunus

   October 7, 2009

   This is in response to the foregoing.
   The concluding sentence of a recently published book, Essential Message of Islam (featured by Amazon.com) declares, “the violent extremists – the modern Kharijites and Qaramites of Islam are no more than poisonous sediments of history, and like their counterparts of almost a millennium ago, they are bound to be increasingly marginalized, and eventually jettisoned from the world of Islam.” To bring the historical allusions into the current perspective, the statement needs some clarification.
   The Kharijites and the Qaramites were, what we call today, terrorist outfits that created havoc in the early history of Islam. Like the contemporary terrorist movement, each evolved in response to protracted injustice and oppression, as has been the case with practically all armed struggles.
   The Kharijites broke away from mainstream Islam in less than three decades after the death of Muhammad (632 CE) in the protest of the incumbent Caliph Ali’s assent to go into an arbitration with a rebel governor, who unlawfully claimed the Caliphate. Philip K. Hitti describes them as a brutally fanatic sect, who readily killed their opponents and “caused rivers of blood to flow in the first three centuries of Islam.” [History of the Arabs, 1937, 10th edition; London 1993, p. 247]. The Qaramites of Iraq hated Arab domination and influence, and waged a Bolshevik style revolutionary movement “that developed into a most malignant growth into the body of political Islam,” … “and kept Syria and al-Iraq drenched in blood.” [Ibid., p. 445]. However, we do not hear of these sects any more: they lost ground with time and were eventually removed from the face of Islam.
   While this may be reassuring to the global society, let alone the Western world, two fundamental questions remain to be answered: 1) Does the Islamic message promote wanton terrorism by splinter groups to accomplish a lawful goal? And 2) How to rid Islam of the distortions that provide the fuel for wanton violence, targeted against civilians or civilian amenities? This paper attempts to answer this from the perspective of the Quran, which is Islam’s revealed scripture, the primary source of guidance for all Muslims, and the final authority in Islamic law.
   1. As commented by Sheikh Abu El Fadl, Professor of Law, UCLA in his introductory remarks in the above referred publication (p.xvii), “the Qur’an consistently teaches, one injustice cannot justify another” … “and no amount of persecution or oppression may excuse or justify the harming or terrorizing of civilians in order to protest an injustice.” No doubt, a number of Qur’anic verses seemingly encourage violence against the Kuffar (the Quraysh, who persistently denied the revelation) and the People of the Book (the contemporaneous Christians and the Jews). But these verses must be read in their historical context, as the Qur’an, apart from conveying the different facets of divine guidance, also counseled Muhammad in defending against the attacks of his powerful enemies that included his clansmen (the Quraysh), the nomadic Arab tribes and some (not all) of the contemporaneous Jewish and Christian tribes. The noted work, attempts to place such verses in their historical perspective and brings into sharp focus the concluding universal declarations of the Qur’an (notably the verses 5:2, 5:8, 5:48, 49:13, 60:8-9) that clearly and conclusively espouse a plurality of faiths and universal brotherhood of humanity, and categorically forbid injustice and terrorism in return of injustice and oppression.
   Unfortunately both traditional Islamic as well as secular scholarship have drawn heavily on Prophet Muhammad’s classical biography, that describes him as a great and even ruthless warrior, ostensibly to legitimize the military ambitions of the dynastic rulers of the times. But the earliest biography of the Prophet Muhammad, compiled more than 150 years after his death, was based on oral accounts that were embellished and exaggerated in consonance with the rhetorical style of the era. Thus the terror inspiring image of Islam is no more than an emotionally surcharged and rhetorically steeped reflection of history that is far from accurate, and purports to distort the message of Islam, as enshrined in the Qur’an and preached by its Prophet. The referred work attempts to evolve a biography of the Prophet by drawing primarily on the Qur’anic allusions (some 250 verses) to contemporaneous events – an exercise that is designed to give a far more accurate representation of the Prophetic mission than the classical biography.
   2. How to rid Islam of its distortion
   There are two ways to answer this question.
   If Islam is defined as a religion, preached by Prophet Muhammad and preserved in the text of the Qur’an, it should be possible to remove much of the distortions by an objective study of, or investigation into the text of the Qur’an against the historical context of Prophet Muhammad’s mission. The accuracy of such work could be further enhanced by 1) adopting the internal vocabulary of the Qur’an: how the Qur’an uses its different words and phrases across its text, and 2) drawing on the various illustrations and cross references of the Qur’an to explain its critical and sensitive verses. The referred to work (Essential Message of Islam) presents an exercise in these lines and may be sourced by any who wish to have an insight into the diverse facets of Islamic message free from any distortions.
   On the other hand, however, if Islam is as it stands today – a diverse spectrum of theological, juristic, exegetic and political discourses and polemics, It will stand out as a highly – in fact, endlessly sprawling and complex faith system where every small group of Muslims have their own interpretations of their faith and the only thing that is common among the global Muslim community is the so-called five pillars (the believe in Oneness of God, payer, fasting, charity and pilgrimage). This complex faith-system is ridden with distortions brought into the faith by the countless converts who entered Islam with vestiges of their pre-Islamic beliefs and notions. Since these ‘distortions’ have been incorporated, and, with time, deeply entrenched into the ever expanding domain of Islamic theology in the form of doctrinal, spiritual, mystical, juristic, philosophical notions, rituals, customs, festivals and practices, it will be simply impossible to remove all these distortions from the extended fabric of Islam as practiced today.
   The global Muslim community has thus to choose from two broad options: Either take the broad, but clearly stated and illustrated ethical, moral and invigorating paradigms of the Qur’an that fuelled its rapid, welcome and irreversible penetration into the contemporaneous world soon after its birth, or to remain grouted into its the diverse and ever expanding theological domains that can be selectively used to justify all kinds of crimes including wanton oppression of women, institutionalized prostitution under the seal of temporary lawful marriage to child abuse and acts of terror. This path, may, with time, reduce the Muslims into a cult that could be a great burden upon the global society, spawn hatred and terrorism, and place civilian population at the terror and destruction of unlawful terrorism and lawful war.
   Since it is too late in history to get rid of this faith, a ‘reformed and unified’ Islam is far better and safer than the present form of rein-less Islam in which any mullah/imam (one who leads prayer in a mosque) can give any ruling by drawing on a convenient mix from Islamic theological discourses to justify even the most heinous crimes, let alone terrorism, and a section of them will remain active to reinstall Sharia law across the world, the world leaders must leverage their Muslim counterparts to treat their theological domains in their historical perspective and turn to the broad message of the Qur’an for guidance, and remodel their religious schools (madrassas) curriculum accordingly.
   Mohammed Yunus

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