Thus Spoke Muhammad

One evening during my graduate studies I was sitting in my apartment perusing through a short compilation of the Prophet Muhammad’s sayings (known in Arabic as hadith). Being always curious about religion, my roommate inquired me what I was up to. Upon hearing my response, she remarked that she had heard the most authentic hadith compilations in Islam were written down a couple of hundred years after the death of the Prophet Muhammad; and if that indeed was the case, how could I take what I was reading seriously and pretend that those were actually the words of Muhammad verbatim? I recalled that I had recently sat through a class on East Asian Religious Traditions wherein the Professor mentioned that the Buddhist texts were formally compiled and written down many centuries after Buddha’s death, and they were initially passed on orally by the monks down the generations. And this detail was added in quite a non-controversial, matter-of-fact manner: a sign of the centrality of orality in ancient cultures rather than a reason to doubt the authenticity of the religious literature in question. The exchange that followed with my friend got me ruminating about our widely prevalent, deep-seated, almost-reflexive modern bias which makes us disregard oral transmission as a reliable mode of knowledge transmission and treat only that which is committed to paper as truly authentic. I realized how important it is for us to appreciate the pre-modern emphasis on orality before we find ourselves tempted to suspect the authenticity of an entire religious literature based on a lack of early written records. Here I explore the role of orality in the formation of Islamic scriptural and religious tradition.

The word hadith lexically means speech or communication but gradually it came to mean the reports from the Prophet Muhammad in particular: the words he said, the actions he did, and also the actions by others he quietly approved. Being in awe of him, his companions who rubbed elbows with him and his followers who saw him on occasion keenly observed his behavior and felt it crucial to commit to memory anything, special or mundane, that could be reported about him — for pietistic or legal purposes. These people began to transmit the hadiths. Technically, every hadith is composed of the main text (called matn) of the report and the chain of transmission (called isnad) i.e. the full names of the transmitters who relayed the text.

The Prophet Muhammad died in 632 CE and the first two centuries after his death saw an emergence of ad hoc pamphlets and sporadic written records of his sayings. Then a little later a few thematic or transmitter-based compilations of the Prophetic sayings mixed with quotes from his companions (who the Muslims also revere) also appeared. In the absence of any particular filters of verification at this stage, both reliable as well as highly unreliable hadiths made their way into these compilations. Since this was a politically tumultuous time, a plethora of evidently forged hadiths began to emerge to support certain sectarian biases. Fabricated hadiths appeared for a whole host of other apolitical reasons too such as purely personal motivations. For example, an onion seller could stand to benefit from disseminating a fabrication attributing it to the Prophet Muhammad that whoever eats onions abundantly will have his/her sins forgiven and will be sent to heaven! At other times, an unintentional negligence or forgetfulness led people to confuse someone else’s saying with a hadith. This creeping of blatant forgeries or unwitting errors into the already amorphous body of hadiths began to trouble the concerned of the time. The upside of these pervasive fabrications was that some Muslim scholars got alarmed by the situation and intended to remedy it — before it gets further out of hand — by developing highly rigorous criteria for investigating the reliability of hadith. This led to a movement of authentication, most significant in the development of hadith literature, which produced the corpus considered the most accurate today. This stage was marked by meticulous standards and processes of authentication including investigation of each narration to sift the reliable from the unreliable. Reportedly this period also witnessed extensive travelling by the compilers to collect any bit of data needed for their investigation. All this flurry of scholarly activity eventually resulted in the compilation of six comprehensive canonical hadith collections.

While developing this collections, hadiths began to be classified and placed on a spectrum of authenticity. The four grades assigned to hadiths were sahih (sound/authentic), hasan (good), da’if (weak), and mawdu (fabricated). Sahih was the highest level of authenticity that was declared after the hadith was examined from multiple perspectives and passed various criteria: for instance the chain of transmission of the report was unbroken; the narrators were widely recognized as truthful and trustworthy; the report contained no outlandish content; it was consistent with the Quran, prophetic language, and the tests of historical evidence and so forth. Hasan grade was assigned to the hadiths that fell slightly short of the accuracy standards and fell in the second tier of reliability. The narrators of these reports were considered not to be completely unreliable but some doubt would persist concerning the retentiveness of their memory and accuracy of their reports. Ahadith would be classified as da’if if it failed to meet the requirements of the sahih and hasan classifications e.g. if its chain included one or more persons of highly questionable reliability. Finally, a mawdu hadith was the one known to be outright forged because it simply failed all criteria of establishing authenticity.

Since, the whole business of classifying hadithsdepended heavily, if not completely, on classifying people as good or bad transmitters, highly developed disciplines were formulated solely to examine the reliability of narrators e.g. ‘ilm al-rijal (the study of people) which dealt with the classification of narrators according to their levels of reliability and trustworthiness; and jarh wa al-ta’dil (impugning and validation) which did researched on personality evaluations bringing together grounds upon which narrators could potentially be disqualified or rendered unreliable — for instance, if a person had a reputation for lying, negligence, embellishment and fabrication, impious behavior or an absence of God-consciousness, obscurity or lack of personal identification, sectarian biases, or active involvement in political disputes etc. Based on these evaluations, reference books were compiled classifying transmitters according to their scores of trustworthiness.

Despite all the hard work that went into these processes of authentication, the scholars of hadith were realistic enough to admit that while sahih was the highest grade they could assign a hadith, a sahih status does not guarantee an absolute 100% reliability: even though highly sound, a sahih hadith was still considered probabilistic albeit with a very high possibility of reliability. The converse was true for the da’if hadiths in that while they were viewed as highly weak, they would not be outright rejected or considered totally unreliable with absolute certainty (unlike the mawdu hadiths which might get that treatment.) While the margin of error of a da’if hadith was significantly greater than that of sahih or hasan hadiths, it could not have been proven for sure to not have been said by the Prophet, most scholars agreed. So Muslim scholars by and large agreed to retain using weak hadiths for the innocuous ends of ‘encouraging virtuous actions’ but they would not be used for more serious purposes such as making law or establishing theological beliefs. While there is still a margin of error to sahih, hasan, and da’if hadiths, there is one category, containing merely a handful of hadiths, known as the mutawatir (ubiquitous or continuously recurrent) hadiths which the scholars unanimously agree to be absolutely reliable based on their frequency of narrations more than any other criterion. These were the narrations reported by such a large number of people in every generation which made them almost axiomatic hence precluding the possibility that they could be fabricated.

The two scholars who spearheaded the authentication movement and put together the most authentic hadith tomes were known as al-Bukhari (d. 870) and al-Muslim (d. 875). Comparing the years during which the Prophet Muhammad lived with the time when al-Bukhari and al-Muslim assembled their works, many might be tempted to conclude that the large time lapse must mean that hadiths are probably entirely fictitious since they had no way of being accurately preserved over all the years if they were not put down in black and white. In short, many aspersions on the integrity of a literature can be cast based simply on the fact that it was supposedly written down so late. This skeptical approach tends to ignore two important historical aspects. Firstly, during the entire two and half centuries that transpired between the Prophet’s death and the canonization of his speech, a lot of rudimentary work continued to be done to gather and preserve hadiths — and only because the hadiths were ultimately canonized and collated 250 years later, all this intermediary work through the previous years tends to get ignored. Secondly, viewing a formal systematized written record of something as the ultimate guarantor of its validity completely overlooks the role of orality in pre-modern civilizations in which oral discourses were predominant and reports and literatures would be carried down the generations through oral transmissions. In this context, it appears to be a modern, biased de-contextualization to insist that only that which has been committed to paper is true and credible knowledge. Our ancestors had different modes and standards for preserving and transmitting knowledge that must be evaluated on their own terms. Like many ancient peoples, historically the Arabs too — having a deep penchant for composing, reciting, and hearing poetry — generally had incredibly retentive memories so much so that it is said that many were able to recite tremendously long poems all by heart and considered it a disgrace, an unthinkable aberration, to have the need to preserve poetry in writing — much like the completely oral composition of poetry in the Greek Dark Ages. In ancient milieus such as the Athenian democracy, there was a reliance on oral communication rather than writing even in the domains of politics and law e.g. in establishing contracts, transactions, legal wills and witnesses etc. So a dependence on oral communication rather than the written word was a common pre-modern feature across cultures. Counterintuitive to modern sensibilities, a good memory was considered as a highly reliable tool to transmit knowledge across and down the generations. It is in this historical context that memorization as a mode of preservation of hadith in the first few centuries of Islam was not considered to be a lesser method. This also makes sense because reportedly no written tradition existed in Arabic before Islam in that there was no bureaucracy, no written archives, no court records, and most importantly there was no paper. Materials such as papyrus, parchment, wood, and bones were used for writing which were obviously in limited supply so they ought to be used scarcely and reports worth preserving were mostly committed to memory. Even while there are reports that some of the Prophet’s sayings were sporadically written here and there even during his lifetime (since some types of orality were not seen as mutually exclusive to some use of writing), generally things that were written down were not viewed as comprehensive records but merely as ad hoc aids to the memory. In the early hadith studies and circles, oral transmissions were considered to be superior to written ones: hearing (sama’a) a hadith from a teacher/narrator and relaying it orally was considered a more respectable practice than finding (wijada) a written report somewhere without audition and attempting to transmit it without authority. In contemporary language, the latter act could be conceived as equivalent to the modern academic offence of plagiarism that can significantly undermine ones credentials and respect in the eyes of their peers.

This importance of orality is also essential in our understanding of the primary scripture of Islam i.e. the Quran which the Muslims believe to be a revelation of God communicated to Prophet Muhammad which was subsequently memorized, transcribed, and preserved. The word Quran is derived from its trilateral root (q r ‘) lexically meaning something like ‘recitation’ and ‘reading’ arguably the meaning inclining more towards the idea of recitation. Reciting is seen as an activity distinct from reading in that the former can be done completely out of memory while the latter assumes that there is a written script from which the reading is done. When we think of Quran today, we imagine it in the form of a tangible book but it is important to know that historically before the Quran became a formally written scriptural reality, its oral dimensions were far more significant and it was viewed primarily as an oral communication. Its written records, which the Prophet had his scribes note down, were initially treated merely as an aid to the memory. During the 23 year period in which it gradually revealed, Prophet Muhammad and his companions experienced the Quran as a recitation and not as a cover-bound book as we encounter it today. After the Quran was organized and compiled following the Prophet’s death, it was the first ever book written in the Arabic language. Even while the Arabs were an ancient people, their central literary mode was oral poetry, as noted earlier; so naturally an oral Quran was more popular because of their high oral skills and their lack of reliance on writing.

Today we tend to associate scripture with written word because all religious traditions have come to have concrete scriptures, but the more we go back in history the more traditions we find where communities had a central word without having a written word — be it the Vedas of the Hindu Tradition or the Dhammapada of the Theravada Buddhist Tradition. The Quran was also predominantly oral in the beginning. Even while it was written down very early on, writing was not how it was taught or transmitted. This also explains why the ability to beautifully and mellifluously recite the Quran became a methodical and sought after skill. For the Muslims, Quran was the holiest of the holy words — the divine speech; and any mistakes could potentially desacralize or corrupt it. Written transmission was considered unwieldy and highly prone to scribal errors in the process of copying — so oral transmission was believed to a more practice, reliable, and intimate mode for learning and imparting the Quran. Again, this is reasonable in the aforesaid context wherein a deep reliance on memory retention is the natural upshot of an absence of a developed written tradition, resources, paper, or printing presses. There are still some places in the Muslim world where students learn and memorize the Quran by hearing it rather than interacting with its written form.

Those who are familiar with the early Arabic orthography would be quick to appreciate the centrality of an oral transmission of the Quran in its early stages. Quran was initially written in an early kufic script which is called ‘defective’ because of its highly inadequate nature in that it did not have diacritical marks or short vowels making it almost impossible to recognize the pronunciation of the word in case of a lack of prior familiarity with it. To give one small example: if one writes the word ‘elephant’ in Arabic without any diacritical marks or short vowels, there are many different permutations of how the word could be read; it could be read to mean ‘before,’ ‘it was said,’ ‘he murdered,’ ‘he was murdered’ and so on. Those who were orally familiar with the Quran having memorized it would know how to read a word as originally intended and could also transmit as such. When the fourth Muslim caliph sent the early Quranic manuscript to different regions that were coming under Muslim rule, he would also accompany an oral reciter with it to ensure the errors in pronunciation were minimized and the original meaning was preserved. Those who were encountering the text for the first time without the aid of an oral transmitter could not tell how to accurately read a word and this explains the eventual need to systematize and develop the script in a way that indicated the exact pronunciation. So, the early inadequate Arabic orthography demonstrates how crucial memorization must have been in the transmission of the Quran since the written text was less than enough to verify the extent of standardization that was eventually achieved.

In this historical context, relying on oral communication for the preservation and transmission of sacred knowledge was a norm rather than an aberration. This is true not only for the Quran and hadiths but also for another important genre of Muslim literature, sira i.e. the biography of the Prophet. The medieval sira literature was first crystalized between the late 8th through the early 10th centuries; so about 150 years transpired between Prophet Muhammad’s death and the formal emergence of sira as a genre of historical literature. Again, this substantial time lag could very well be an indictment of the authenticity of this literature, or it could also very well indicate that sira literature significantly drew onto memorized traditions and reports passed down the generations which the biographers then used to construct the narrative account of the Prophet’s life. These reports might or might not have been true. Ibn Ishaq (d. 768) who was the first to write formal sira biography of the widest scope got good deal of censure for his work. Some hadith scholars criticized his history-writing on the basis that his use of the chains of transmissions was inappropriate and his corroborations of events weak: that often he would not name the witness/narrator of a certain incident; attribute a certain report to a group of people rather than a single identifiable individual; use broken chains; or not mention the chain of transmitters for a report at all — all of this alleged laxity was not in line with the standards of the increasingly rigorous scholastic tradition of hadith but was tolerated within the conventions of sira. Many hadith scholars were shocked by Ibn Ishaq’s way of reporting and refused to deem his work worthy of too much credibility for their purposes. Yet, this work continued to remain influential even when some Muslims often also found certain incidents reported in the medieval sira to be controversial (much of which were redacted in the later development of sira literature). One historical view maintains that Muslim biographers and historians of that time were so meticulous about preserving history that they chose to report all the oral traditions they could gather — even it at times the report offended their own or the readers’ pious sensibilities, or even if the reports came without their proper citations of sources of information. They probably chose to let the generations of future scholars sort out the authentic from the inauthentic after the latter have access to all the written records at their disposal, rather than attempting to edit their data and lose historical material in the process. Ibn Ishaq reported in his book any oral traditions he could get his hands own, sometimes even two remarkably conflicting reports about the same event side by side (!) which is oddly different from the way we imagine a historical account in the modern context. So history writing in the context of orality appears to be a far cry from the modern demands of precision; and in a predominantly oral culture where history initially circulated in the form of oral reports, a reliance on orality to construct history does not seem like an anomaly.

While today we tend to treat written records as one of the most authentic forms of preservation of knowledge, it is good to keep in mind — particularly when looking at history of religion — that in pre-modern cultures writing was done much less frequently than modern people would like to assume. There was a time when oral transmission of literature and knowledge, of divine word, prophetic sayings, or historical events was considered to be perfectly acceptable and reasonable — perhaps even preferable — according to the standards of the time. It is wise to understand and appraise a culture — or a religion born out of that culture — according to its own terms, rather than viewing it through the lens of modern norms, treating it in isolation from its context, and undermining its complexity in the process.

Read; but I’m not a reader…

(a little poem produced in a fleeting moment of inspired epiphany)

‘Read’
‘But I’m not a reader’
‘Read’
‘But I’m not a reader’
‘Read’
‘But I’m not a reader’
‘Read, in the name of your Lord who created;
created human from a clot of congealed blood’
It wasn’t reading,
as if flipping through a hardbound book
from cover to cover
or poring over dead letters
typed on a fine paper…
It wasn’t reading –
like you read your daily news,
blind to the life and death it holds,
or the darkness it unfolds.
No, it was reading alone with the soul:
Reading the countless signs,
etched across the cosmos
and housed within one’s soul.
It was reading with a heart
emptied of itself..
It was reading at great depths,
the meaning of all existence..
It was reading the sole reality
of things, as they truly are…

The message-bearer persists only,
for the recipient is indeed a reader

“Are those who know equal to those who do not know?”: The Democratized Utopia of Scriptural Understanding

“Are those who know equal to those who do not know?” (Q 39:9)

Being a graduate student of the study of Religion, every day is an eye-opener for me – a stark reality check – about how much there is to learn and how negligible a proportion of it I have managed to know so far. Clearly, a two-year long degree programme was not going to make me an expert on the intricate matters of faith and, most certainly, I will not pretend that it has. However, perhaps not everybody shares my degree of self-doubt. Recently, I heard one of my class-fellows voice his opinion in the class to this effect: “We need to take the legal tradition of Islam from the scholars who have monopolized it and give it to the ordinary people.” This got me to ruminate the entire day on how problematic I find this opinion to be. This article is precisely a cathartic outlet to that very rumination.

I would like to believe that the speaker’s opinion came from a well-meaning place, but I wonder who is this ‘we’ who’s bent upon snatching the tradition away from the scholars? Is it not an alarming case of intellectual hubris when individuals in their 20s, with barely two to three semesters of training in a religious studies degree based in a Western institution not only deem themselves fully qualified to take the Islamic tradition away from the scholars but also believe that scholarly contributions to the tradition can be bypassed in favor of individual efforts and interpretations. Presumably, the aim of this endeavor is the democratization of knowledge. It is needless to say that this is not a novel suggestion. The Protestant idea of everyone being entitled to access the scripture individually on their own and interpret it for themselves, and the modernist emphasis on breaking the chains of centuries worth of scholarly tradition in order to eradicate the intellectual stasis is echoed on the other end of the spectrum of modern madness when enraged accountants and engineers convince groups to go on killing sprees based on their ‘interpretations’ of the book. The increasing radicalization in the Muslim world in the past century is the very fruit of unqualified individuals interpreting scripture on their own, without the requisite tools, bending it to all sorts of devious and heinous ends.

On the one hand, I wholeheartedly concede that that the Quran and the Sunnah of the Prophet is not a monopoly of the select few but a collective inheritance of the believers. On the other hand, I also firmly believe that that there has to be a systematic ethic with which this inheritance is to be viewed. Quran and hadith comprise not only of unequivocal general ethical exhortations but they also contain specific, legal, and deeply perplexing content, to comment on which scholars traditionally received training for decades within multiple religious sciences before they considered themselves qualified. And since everyone does not have the temperament, ability, or desire to possess these requisite tools, it is encouraged that when seeking clarity on crucial matters one asks those who do.

Certainly universal ethical principles can be consumed individually, but Quran and hadith are not entirely composed of ethical principles. How do ‘common people’ derive clear doctrinal precepts from scripture? Have they historically done so without utilizing the heritage of the scholars? Commenting on the verse 16:44 wherein the Prophet is reminded that Quran is sent down to him so that he may ‘explain it to the people,’ Taqi Usmani writes that “Had the interpretation of even this type of subjects (doctrinal issues) been open to everybody irrespective of the volume of his learning, the Holy Quran would not have entrusted the Holy Prophet with the functions of ‘teaching’ and ‘explaining’ the book.”

Even after the Prophet, Quran clearly encourages one to ask those who know and explicitly reminds that not everyone ‘knows’; undoubtedly, everyone is not at the same station of knowledge.

“Are those who know equal to those who do not know?” (Q 39:9)

“Question the people of the Remembrance, if it should be that you do not know..” (Q 16:43)

“And these similitudes We mention before the people. And nobody understands them except the learned.” (Q 29:43)

“Rather, the Qur’an is distinct verses [preserved] within the breasts of those who have been given knowledge. ” (Q 29:44)

The classical intellectual heritage of Islam owes its existence to the works of committed scholars. In my modest opinion, a handful of self-styled modern religious ‘scholars’ who use and abuse religion for political ends must not lead one to discredit an entire tradition standing on the efforts, commitment, and wisdom of those authentic scholars – classical, post-formative, and present – the ‘heirs of the Prophet’ according to the famous hadith – who worked sincerely and relentlessly to preserve the integrity of this extremely rich and beautiful tradition.

Not only is Quran a difficult book, the hadith and sunnah are even harder: Ibn Wahb (d. 813), an Egyptian jurist who travelled to Medina to study with Malik ibn Anas, noted that he learnt so many hadiths that they began to confuse him, and if it weren’t for Malik through which God rescued him, he would have destroyed himself. Malik used to guide him to study some hadiths and leave some.

Islamic tradition has been and will remain, if any meaningful understanding of it has to be acquired, a tradition learnt under the guidance of teachers – under the shadows of the scholars. One of the modern sages who’s been my constant source of inspiration quoted these Arabic verses recently which I find most germane to this issue under discussion:

العلم انتقل من الصدور الئ السطور / ولكن بقي الرجال مفاتيح لتلك السطور

(at some point) the knowledge was transferred from the breasts to lines (of books) / but humans still remain keys to those books

And Allah knows best.

The Great Creed of Inaction: The Use of Uselessness

Oscar Wilde wrote the following incredibly powerful words in an essay titled ‘A Chinese Sage’ published in Speaker on 8 February 1890:

“There is also this to be remembered — that the prizes of the world degrade a man as much as the world’s punishments. The age is rotten with its worship of success. As for education, true wisdom can neither be learnt nor taught. It is a spiritual state, to which he who lives in harmony with nature attains. Knowledge is shallow if we compare it with the extent of the unknown, and only the unknowable is of value. Society produces rogues, and education makes one rogue cleverer than another. That is the only result of School Boards. Besides, of what philosophic importance can education be, when it simply serves to make each man differ from his neighbour? We arrive ultimately at a chaos of opinions, doubt everything, and fall into the vulgar habit of arguing; and it is only the intellectually lost who ever argue.”

This essay was a review, as well as an eloquent encapsulation, of the text by the great Chinese philosopher who lived around 3rd or 4th century BCE named Zhuang Zhou, or Zhuangzi. When I encountered this text, I was fascinated by the beauty and elegance of its ideas, but the idea I found most fascinating in the text is ‘the use of uselessness’ in that how conventional notions of utility are a negation of the intrinsic value of the world and there is something deeply valuable about uselessness itself, an idea that would appear radically counterintuitive in the excessively ambitious character of the modern world; which is why it does not come as a surprise that Wilde describes Zhuangzi’s text as “the most caustic criticism of modern life.” Young adults surrounded by society’s implicit expectations and family’s relentless exhortations “So, what are you accomplishing next?” would find Zhuangzi’s cheerful acceptance of passivity and resignation to be like much-needed and extremely liberating fresh air.

 

‘In the World of Men’ narrates the story of an old, gnarled tree which was deemed useless because its chopped wood would serve no purpose at all and so it was left alone by the carpenter. Later, the tree appeared in his dream to unravel that “a long time to be of no use … is of great use to me.” Profitable trees are chopped and maimed to derive benefits out of them, and “their utility makes life miserable for them, and so they don’t get to finish out the years Heaven gave them.” The carpenter suggests that the old tree’s uselessness is its protective asset and that it must not be deemed lowly because of it: “it protects itself in a different way from ordinary people. If you try to judge it by conventional standards, you’ll be way off.” For instance, by modern standards of material success, we may deem somebody as unsuccessful while it may be that they are in a state of spiritual contentment. Conversely, many humans find themselves miserable, deeply dissatisfied, and compromise their true potentialities by finding themselves stuck in an endless rat race. The carpenter implied that there is a value in that tree merely resting which can be taken to mean that repose entails a state of harmony with nature. So, a perfect man for Zhuangzi is “passive and accepts the laws of life” in Wilde’s words. In the same vein, uselessness also guarantees a life free of pain and grief: ‘Free and Easy Wandering’ depicts a yak that only “knows how to be big, though it doesn’t know how to catch rats. Now you have this big tree and you’re distressed because it’s useless. Why don’t you… relax and do nothing by its side, or lie down for a free and easy sleep under it? Axes will never shorten its life and nothing can harm it. If there’s no use for it, how can it come to grief or pain?”

I found Wilde’s review article to be extremely powerful as well as helpful in viewing Zhuangzi’s philosophy in contradistinction to modern human condition, for the modern “age is rotten with its worship of success” while Zhuangzi “has nothing to do with modern sympathy with failures.” He is “preaching the great creed of inaction” and is marked by an evident “contempt for utilitarian systems.” However, since Zhuangzi was writing around 4^th century BCE, no one can accuse him of critiquing modernity, but we can conjecture that he was expressing his critique of the prevalent ideas of his age he found himself amidst. For instance, Confucian thought placed an overwhelming emphasis on structures and hierarchies and the need for humans to develop pro-active efforts directed towards changing self, communities, and governments. Zhuangzi’s philosophy opposes all these prescriptions for he seems to not only not endorse the role of governments, but he also seeks to keep the world original and simple, where humans are marked by attitudes of letting go, effortlessness, and equanimity.

“Kill them wherever you find them”: Violence in the Quran? The wise speak only of what they know…

Following is the set of verses in Surah al-Baqarah, Chapter 2 of the Quran, that is often cited to highlight the so-called ‘controversial’ and potentially violent character of the Quran:

2:191: And slay them wheresoever you come upon them, and expel them whence they expelled you, for strife is worse than slaying. But do not fight with them near the Sacred Mosque until they fight with you there. But if they fight you, then slay them. Such is the recompense of the disbelievers. 2:192: But if they desist, then truly God is Forgiving, Merciful.

Many exegetes have suggested that these verses were revealed against the backdrop of Treaty of Hudaybiyah when many Muslims feared an attack from the Meccans. So these verses laid out the guidelines for a prospective combat. For instance, even though fighting was forbidden in and near the Sacred Mosque, Muslims were enjoined to fight back if they were attacked near the Mosque. It has also been argued that these verses are describing the limits of warfare by emphasizing 2:194: “So whosoever transgresses against you, transgress against him in like manner as he transgressed against you…” as a reminder that this is an authorization for a commensurate response to aggression, rather than a license for inordinate carnage. Aforementioned verses also appear strikingly similar to another set of verses from Surah al-Nisa:

4:89: They wish that you should disbelieve, even as they disbelieve, that you may be on a level with them. So take them not as protectors till they migrate in the way of God. But if they turn their backs, then seize them wherever you find them, and take no protector or helper from among them. 4:90…. If they withdraw from you, and do no fight you, and offer peace, God allows you no way against them.

Arguably, these verses were also revealed in a very specific context when a group of ‘hypocrites’ in Medina acted like war traitors, and thus their alliance was to be avoided. Again, the qualifier in 4:90 reiterates that if these deserters are not fighting against the Muslims, then peace should be extended.

Since these verses were revealed in very specific contexts, breach of a treaty or the imminence of a war, they have no universal import and hence they cannot be invoked during times of peace in order to justify the initiation of aggression. However, these ayat remain problematic because of what Lesley Hazleton refers to as the “yellow highlighter” version of reading the Quran: cherry-picking of isolated verses leading to misunderstood perceptions causing fear of Islam on one end of the spectrum, and the abused, de-contextualized misunderstanding of the text to justify violence, on the other. These are particular context-based verses which arguably come in contradistinction with the more universal principles such as the sanctity of human life (5:32, 6:151). This observation gives rise to questions about any measures taken by the traditional Quranic exegetical sciences to resolve tensions when a universal principle comes in conflict with a particular verse. Moreover, the presence of such verses also highlights the possibility that scripture in general, not just Quran, can be a dangerous text if approached without formal instruction, adequate interpretive tools, or historical background. As Huston Smith aptly notes in his ‘World’s Religions’ that Quran is not the kind of book that you would just casually decide to curl up and read by the window on one rainy evening. Traditionally, Suyuti (d. 911/1505) listed 12 disciplines that must be mastered for an individual to be considered qualified as a Quranic exegete: 1. Lexicology 2. Grammar 3. Morphology 4. Etymology 5. Semantics / Linguistic Pragmatics 6. Imagery and Figurative Language 7. Rhetorical Embellishments 8. Modes of Recitation 9. Theology 10.Legal Methodology 11.Circumstances of Revelation 12.Abrogation. This makes one wonder to what extent a modern, novice reader of this text is qualified to interpret its intricacies with the only  tool at his disposal being prejudiced ignorance and unapologetic hubris.

In this context, it also needs to be asked whether or not can the Protestant idea, of everyone being entitled to access the scripture individually on their own and interpret it for themselves, be extended to Quran as well.

I argue that the role of supplementary exegetical guidance is absolutely indispensable for Quranic readers, Muslims or non-Muslims, if they are seeking to develop any meaningful understanding of it or its so-called ‘controversies’ that do not live up to their 21st century sensibilities. The sciences of fiqh have developed stipulations such as asbaab (causes), shuroot (conditions), mawaana’i (restrictions), rukhas (licenses), and azaayem (firmness) to determine whether or not a decree in the Quran holds applicability in any given situation: khitaab-al-wada (the situational discourse). The necessity of these complementary interpretive tools ought to be all the more imperative when it comes to studying the Quranic decrees widely held ‘controversial’ because they highlight the historical character of the so-called ‘verses of the ‘sword in the Quran as well as the restrictions on their applicability outside of the context of their revelation.

Interesting, Quran itself seems to acknowledge the idea that the readers of the text can use it to do both good and evil; that the same message can both guide and mislead. 2:26: “… He misleads many by it, and He guides many by it, and He misleads none but the iniquitous.”  So, without the informed historical context and well-developed interpretive tools, most readers are likely to insert their own values, biases, and motives into the text, ending up potentially misguided and misguiding.

Upaya: Lessons from Buddhist Tradition about Skillful Teaching

Sarah K.

Whereas Theravada tradition allegedly concerned its arhats with only their personal enlightenment, Mahayana tradition avowed to awaken and save all sentient beings. Thus, it is clear that Lotus Sutra’s emphasis is not on achieving wisdom, concentration, and nirvana merely for and within one’s own selves, which may be seen as arrogant or self-centered, but complete enlightenment entails that one strives to teach in order to awaken all beings. Now, one might wonder how to carry out this teaching effectively?

In this context I have been particularly fascinated with the idea of upaya or skillful means. Bhagavat Buddha explains that after attaining buddhahood he expounded the teaching extensively with various “explanations and illustrations using skilful means (upaya)” (970) to lead sentient beings to abandon their attachments. The necessity of upaya in teaching the Buddhist doctrine can be understood in the light of i) the unintelligibility of Dharma for a layperson, as Buddha explains Dharma is profound and hard to understand and ii) the varying capacities of humans in that “not all of sentient beings can accept it (Dharma)” (975). Humans suffer from various limitations such as “sentient beings are not aware, shocked, startled, or disgusted nor do they seek release” (973); “they have no wisdom” (979); “people have little knowledge” (981); and they have deluded sensory attachments. However Buddha teaches nirvana to all of them and everyone has a potentiality to become a Buddha. Hence, because of the abstruse nature of dharma and nirvana, and people’s varying capabilities to understand, the principles must be taught in terms in which the listeners can understand them. In the parable of burning house, being immersed in playing the children refused to listen to the exhortations of the elder man and leave the house on fire. The elder man, employing skilful means, enticed the children with the allure of chariots outside and succeeded to draw them out. Buddha entreats all his heirs, or boddhisatvas, to treat attached sentient beings as their children stuck in fire, where fire appears to be a symbol of worldly desires and attachments, suffering, or the samsara.

Within this parable, I found the multiple deeper meanings of skilful means extremely interesting: i) some individuals may find it difficult, owing to a different spiritual temperament, to grasp or believe the metaphysical expositions of Reality, in which case, in order to be fruitful, the preliminary teaching ought to ideally begin with straightforward yet striking ideas rather than true but complicated descriptions of Reality, ii) the elder man did not use his physical strength even when he had it (973) to drag the children outside and render them safe, rather he devised means out of which they leave the house, and their ill-informed attachments, out of their own volition. It may be taken to mean that strident sermonizing may not be useful in effecting a change of hearts from the outside, and an enduring change in humans is motivated mostly from within (even when personal reasoning inside one’s mind is triggered by an external stimulus), iii) the elder knew the children closely and thus was aware of those children’s fascination with chariots; so he could come up with such an effective strategy. Thus, a good teacher or boddhisatva does not teach with a cookie-cutter one-size-fits-all approach, rather he, being familiar that every student/disciple will have different dispositions, inclinations, and capacities, will cleverly frame his teaching whereby he will appeal to the different needs of different individuals, even when the eventual goal is the same.

The initial temptation after reading the parable is to characterize as patronizing or infantilizing, the tone of Buddha Bhagavat towards the laity in terms of some individual’s prospective lack of capacity or comprehension to understand or internalize the Dharma doctrine. However, it is perhaps more helpful to view upaya as a pragmatic tool to begin working with people where they are presently at and then gradually work the way up in unfolding the Ultimate Truth. If a tradition is presented starting from the end, it will probably attract little appeal and acceptance.

An Examination into Quranic Criticism of Jews, Christians, and Polytheists

N.B.: This was originally written for a class assignment.

One of the recurrent themes in the Quran is that of prophets being sent in the past, by the same God, to various communities to guide them and the subsequent deviation of some among those communities from that guidance: “Mankind was one community; then God sent the prophets as bearers of glad tidings and as warners. And with them He sent down the Book in truth, to judge among mankind concerning that wherein they differed concerning it, after clear proofs came to them, out of envy among themselves” (2:213). Apart from this deviation, Quran also seems unhappy with the rivalries between Jews and Christians that must have been prevalent during the time of its revelation: “The Jews say, “The Christians stand on nothing,” and the Christians say, “The Jews stand on nothing,” though they recite the Book… God will judge between them on the Day of Resurrection concerning that wherein they differed” (2:113). Against this backdrop of divergence and rivalry, Quran sees itself as a final reminder attempting to correct what has been, in its view, distorted in the Divine message in the Abrahamic tradition. Additionally, it also sought to reform the polytheistic character of the milieu in which it was revealed. It appears to summon people towards what is believes to be the essence to every messenger’s teaching: monotheism. “We indeed sent a messenger unto every community, “Worship God, and shun false deities!” Then among them were those whom were deserving of error” (16:36).

A number of verses in Quran attempt to make a case for what can be seen as establishing Islam’s supremacy over past traditions and, by extension, directing disapproving polemic towards certain Jews and Christians, which is certainly not unexpected: If Quran had to establish its tradition as a corrective to the ‘distortions’ of the past, it perhaps felt pressed to be unreserved in its description and criticism of what and who, according to its view, were the causes of this distortion. Examining the specific beliefs and acts which Quran deems a deviation from or a rejection of the Divine guidance, this paper will analyze the critical outlook of the Quran towards Jews, Christians, and polytheists, and will also attempt to understand the motivation behind such outlook. It will also attempt to classify the criticism into two broad categories: i) theological criticism: criticism over alleged doctrinal innovation and distortion of Divine Message which presumably necessitated the Revelation of the Quran, and ii) polemic criticism: criticism over certain ‘wrath-invoking’ actions, independent of any doctrinal disagreement, serving as a tool for admonition.

Preliminary considerations

“And indeed We gave Moses the Book and caused a succession of messengers to follow him. And We gave Jesus son of Mary clear proofs, and strengthened him with the Holy Spirit. Is it not so that whenever a messenger brought you something your souls did not desire, you waxed arrogant, and some you denied and some you slew” (2:87). This verse illustrates Quran’s honouring the prophets and the traditions they brought on one hand, and its simultaneous censure of some of the recipients of those traditions on the other. Before exploring the Quranic criticism of Jews and Christians, it is important to preface the discussion by making a case that rather than making a universal judgment of condemnation for every single one the followers of Judaism and Christianity, Quran seems to criticize those followers who either, according to Quranic perspective, distorted the message, failed to live up to God’s message to them, or collectively committed acts displeasing to God. This distinction is evident in a number of verses: “And [remember] when We made a covenant with the Children of Israel… Then you turned away, save a few of you, swerving aside” (emphasis added) (2:83). ‘Save a few of you’ implies that even though Quran makes a distinction between those Jews of ancient Israel who went astray and those who did not, it holds that most of them were in the wrong. It is perhaps the idea of majority being deviant which, in Quran’s view, necessitated its own revelation. Moreover, the verse “Neither the disbelievers among the People of the Book nor the polytheists wish that any good be sent down to you from your Lord” (2:105) alludes to the distinction between the ‘disbelievers’ and ‘believers’ among the People of the Book (Jews and Christians). In the Quranic view, ‘upright religion’ to which Jews were called entailed monotheism, worship, and alms as exemplified by hanifs or primordial monotheists: “They [Jews and Christians] were not commanded but to worship God, devoting religion entirely to Him, as hanifs, and to perform the prayer, and to give the alms – that is the upright religion. Truly the disbelievers among the People of the Book and the idolaters are in the Fire of Hell, abiding therein; it is they who are the worst of creation” (emphasis added) (98:3-6). Arguably, those Jews and Christians who stayed true to this upright faith, as per the Quranic point of view, are guaranteed salvation by God of the Quran: “Truly those who believe, and those who are Jews, and the Christians, and the Sabeans – whosoever believes in God and the Last Day and works righteousness shall have their reward with their Lord. No fear shall come upon them, nor shall they grieve” (2:62).

Criticism of Jews:

Following are some of the reasons of criticism of Jews this paper identifies in the Quran: a sense of arrogance and complacence about being God’s chosen people and excessive attachment to the world, distortion of scripture, transgression of Divine Law, and ungratefulness and fickleness.

1. i) Complacence about being God’s special people, and attachment to the world: Quran repeatedly reminds the Jews of the favour God extended to them by emancipating them from slavery as well as elevating them above other nations: “O Children of Israel! Remember My Blessing which I bestowed upon you, and that I favoured you above the worlds” (2:47). However, Quran also reminds them that even though they had been blessed by God in the past, this should not give them a cause to be so complacent about the hope of being undoubtedly saved through prophetic intercession (2:122-3), for when Abraham inquired God about assuring eternal well-being for all his progeny, God qualified his covenant with Abraham by reminding him that “My covenant does not include the wrongdoers” (2:124). Thus, being historically chosen for Divine favour should not lead to a sense of arrogance and false security about eternal salvation regardless of one’s actions, Quran suggests. It can be inferred that Jews in Medina must have been outspoken in expressing their belief of Jews being God’s special people and therefore successful in the Hereafter, from the instruction God issues to Prophet Muhammad to tell them: “Say, “If the Abode of the Hereafter with God is yours alone to the exclusion of other people, then long for death, if you are truthful. But they will not long for it … You will find them the most covetous of people for life, [even] more than those who are idolaters. Each one of them would wish to live a thousand years” (2:94-6). In other words, if you believe you are saved in the Life after Death by virtue of being dear to God, why are you so attached to this worldly life and heedless about the next one? Quran refers to the Jews in Medina as ‘most covetous for life’ among all people. “It is they [these Jews excessively attached to the world] who have purchased the world at the price of the Hereafter” (2:86). The considerable weight attached to the eschatological themes in the Quran and its approach towards the finality of death and the transience of this life indicate why Quran would rebuke as deluded those individuals it finds excessively attached to this world.
2. ii) Distortion of scripture: In its second chapter, Quran alleges that the Jews’ scripture is not in its pure form preserved as it was revealed, and makes repeated references to their deliberate distortion of the Divine word: “But those who did wrong substituted a word other than that which had been said unto them. So We sent down a torment from Heaven upon those who did wrong for the iniquity they committed” (2:59). “A party of them would hear the Word of God and then distort it after they had understood it, knowingly?” (2:75). “So woe unto those who write the book with their hands, then say, “This is from God,” that they may sell it for a paltry price. So woe unto them” (2:79). Quranic criticism of Jews allegedly changing their scripture over time, which it terms an ‘iniquity’, explains why God decided a Last Reminder was necessary in the form of a scripture believed to be purely the Word of God untainted by human redaction that He promised He will himself preserve and guard against corruption (15:9).

iii) Transgression of Divine Law: Even when God commanded the Jews not to kill of their own, Quran frowns on a murder committed by the community of Jews in Israel followed by them casting blame upon each other (2:72). God appears particularly displeased when the Jews, allegedly, killed their prophets (2:61, Matthew 23:37 also makes a reference to this killing of prophets by the Jews of Jerusalem). Moreover, 2:65-6 suggest that God was extremely wrathful when the Jews “transgressed in the matter of Sabbath” and so as a punishment, God “made it an exemplary punishment for their time and for times to come.”

iv)Ungratefulness and fickleness: The Jews of Israel were granted a special food by God, the manna, according to the Quranic narrative. 2:61 narrates that these Jews, supposedly blessed, complained to Moses that they “shall not endure one food” and that he should intercede to God to provide them with a variety of delicious foods, to which Moses responded: “Would you substitute what is lesser for what is better? Go down to a town, and you will have what you ask for.” Seemingly, as a consequence of this ingratitude to God’s blessing and greediness for better, “they were struck with abasement and poverty, and earned a burden of wrath from God” (2:61).

Quran also cites a number of anecdotes wherein Jews behaved with fickleness invoking God’s displeasure with them. In 2:246-7 it is narrated that the Jews of Israel asked their prophet to bring a king for them so they would fight in God’s way. However, when Saul was raised as king above them, the same Jews became resentful of him being made sovereign because of their contempt for his poverty and conceit for their own wealth. Save a few, most of them also turned their backs to fighting in God’s way in violation of their earlier promises.

In another instance, when Moses was away for forty nights, his followers took up a calf and began worshipping him at which the God of the Quran seemed disappointed but He chose to pardon them so that they be grateful (2:51-2).

Then “aforetime they (Jews) used to ask for victory over those who disbelieve – so when victory came to them that which they recognized, they disbelieved in it. So may the curse of God be upon the disbelievers” (2:89). This verse is seen as referring to the contemporary Jews living in Medina at the time of Quranic revelation. They were known to have been fighting with the idolaters trustful in the hope of an imminent messenger who would support their cause, but when that Prophet Muhammad began preaching, most of them refused to believe in the truth of his message. Quran views this all of this inconsistent behavior with stern disapproval. It can be argued whether Quran expected, from Jews and Christians of Arabia, ‘religious conversion’ to Islam in complete and modern sense, or merely a belief in the truth of Prophet Muhammad’s prophethood and message while retaining their own identities. For them, the latter probably meant the former which explains their hesitation to believe in Prophet Muhammad.

Criticism of Christians:

Quranic criticism directed towards Christians does not appear to be as elaborate as that for the Jews. It mainly pertains to the doctrinal points of their ascribing the status of God’s Son to Jesus, the idea of Trinity, and their alleged alteration of their scripture as well.

Quran views the Christian idea of ‘incarnational sonship’ (viewing Jesus as God’s word made flesh and His son simultaneously) with disapproval because it goes against not only the absolute monotheism of Islam but also one of its fundamental ideas that God does not beget children (112:3). Quran acknowledges the truthfulness of Jesus as a Prophet, grants him an exalted position (4:171), and prefers him above other prophets by degrees (2:253), but it describes asserting the idea that God has taken a son as a “terrible thing” (19:89). This is because the idea of sonship of Jesus tampers with the Quranic idea of the wholly otherness of the God: “That is Jesus son of Mary – a statement of truth, which they doubt. It is not for God to take a child. Glory be to Him!” (19:34-5, also 2:116). Quran’s rejection of idea in Christian doctrine of Jesus’ sonship comes out of its believing that Christians view this concept in a literal sense. It can be argued whether this idea is a popular perception, or a normative concept: whether Christian theologians treat this idea literally (For instance, many Christian theologians consider the word ‘begotten’ son in the Gospel of John (1:18) as a later interpolation) or simply as a reality which cannot be taken in a physical sense. In any case, Quran discourages parental images for God, and does not employ them even metaphorically.

Christian view of Trinity is also explicitly criticized: “So believe in God and His messengers, and say not “Three.” Refrain! It is better for you. God is only one God (4:171).” Quran assumes this doctrine to be also in violation of the uncompromising tawhid that Islam stands for. It will be beyond the scope of this paper to examine the normative view of Trinity but it is interesting to point out that some formulations of the Trinitarian doctrine claim to both assert and preserve God’s unity, viewing God one and three at the same time, simultaneously manifested in the idea of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost. Quran’s insistence on Oneness, however, leaves no room for any such triune symbols.

Like Jews, Christians are also accused of losing or changing their scripture, some of it may have been a result of innocent forgetfulness: “they forgot part of that whereof they were reminded (5:14)” and some of deliberate concealment: “Our Messenger has come unto you, making clear to you much of what you once hid of the Book (5:15).”

Before we go on to examine the significance of this criticism, it will be important to examine Quran’s view of Abraham. Quran strives to distinguish itself from both Jews and Christians and claim the symbol of Abraham for itself. God tells the Prophet Muhammad that Jews and Christians will only be happy with him if he follows their creed (2:120), and he is commanded to respond to them by saying “Rather [ours is] the creed of Abraham, a hanif” (2:135). When the Jews and Christians claimed that prophets including Abraham were Jews or Christians, the Prophet was instructed to rhetorically ask if they believe they know more than God (2:140). This implies that the God of the Quran does not consider Abraham to be Jew or a Christian, but simply a hanif, a primordial monotheist, and the Muslims to be the true followers of his creed. In light of this contest to claim the symbol of Abraham, it does not come as a surprise that Muslims are required to send blessings on Abraham five times a day during their ritual prayers at the same time when they send blessings on the Prophet Muhammad.

Criticism of polytheists:

Though Jews and Christians are chastised by the Quran for distorting God’s guidance to them and failing to act in line with His commands, the polytheists in Arabia are seen as people who had not been warned earlier and Prophet Muhammad was sent to guide them: “that thou [Muhammad] mayest warn a people whose fathers were not warned; so they were heedless” (55:6). Thus, criticism towards these polytheists does not arise of any historical deviation from guidance on their part, but their stubbornness in not responding to the Prophet Muhammad’s message of monotheism. They are reprimanded mainly for i) associating partners with God and expecting intercession through them, and ii) being stubbornly ungrateful to God’s bounties.

Pre-Islamic Arab polytheists believed in a pantheon of deities and Allah was considered to be a supreme deity in a polytheistic pantheon. Other deities, particularly the three goddesses Al-‘Uzza, al-Lat and Manah were believed to be able to make intercession to the high God. Quran severely rejects this practice of associating partners with God in the hope of any benefit to be received from these deities: “Then on the Day of Resurrection He will disgrace them and say, “Where are My partners on whose account you were defiant?”” (19:27). Quran intended for polytheists to center the divine within a single God, but monotheism cannot be seen as an innovative idea put forth by the Quran in Arabia since historically there were some hanifs in that region who subscribed to that position already. Quran was, in fact, more radically so stressing on a complete elimination of idols from the religious milieu of Arabia which is evident in its uncompromising tone it adopts towards polytheism.

Moreover Quran, interestingly, equates the absence of monotheism to a lack of gratitude and insight. Quran urges the polytheists to ponder upon the logic of their beliefs by reflecting whether the idols they worship seem capable to them of creating the wonderfully intricate world they observe around them: “And they worship, apart from God, that which has no power over any provision that may come to them from the heavens and the earth; nor are they capable [of such] (16:73).” Quran seems to argue that once people begin to reflect on the ‘signs’ in the universe, that is natural world, and the numerous blessings they are bestowed with, it becomes almost commonsense to have faith in One Omnipotent God. This is why Quran finds it surprising that the polytheists enjoy all the blessings of this world, the assistance provided by the cattle, the variety of foods and drinks they enjoy and “yet they have taken gods other than God, that perhaps they may be helped. They cannot help them,” (36:74-5). Thus, evidently, Quran equates polytheism with ingratitude, and suggests that polytheists’ ascribing partners to God is an act of ungratefulness: “behold, a group among you ascribes partners to God. So let them be ungrateful for that which We have given them: “Enjoy yourselves! For soon you will know””(16:54-5). In the same vein, it is interesting to note that the Arabic word ‘kafir’ generally rendered as ‘infidel’ or ‘disbeliever’ has a root meaning of kufr which signifies ‘lack of gratitude’. Lack of belief, in God’s eyes, is intrinsically intertwined with lack of thankfulness: gratitude for bounties of life should ideally lead one to reflect on the source of those bounties which in turn leads to reverence for and faith in that Source.

Conclusion

After having analyzed the Quranic criticism towards Jews, Christians, and polytheists, it is important to briefly conjecture the possible motivations behind these objections in order to put them into perspective. Criticism advanced towards Jews and Christians can be seen in two broad categories: Doctrinal criticism which can be seen as an end in itself, and polemical criticism which can be viewed as a tool employed as a means to another end.

It is to be noted that objections such as distortion of scripture by the Jews and Christians, and towards Christian belief of Jesus’ sonship and the Trinity can be seen as indispensable points of theological disagreement from the perspective of Quran.  As seen earlier, the Christian doctrines were disapproved by the Quran because of their alleged violation of monotheistic principles. Quran views itself not only as a continuation of the Old and New Testaments but its culmination; it sees its message to be in line with the original Torah (2:89). However, it also asserts that these earlier revelations were not preserved in their original form, and that they were corrupted in transmission. Thus, Quran viewed its message as the word of God through Prophet Muhammad and as a corrective reform to the alleged distortion of Divine message by the past communities. It is in this spirit that Quran seems eager to elaborate on those distortions because these elaborations acted as justifications for the need of the Quran, almost its raison d’être. If Quran had agreed with all the subsequent developments in the Christian and Jewish theologies, including the scriptural redactions as well as doctrinal innovations, it would have failed to furnish adequate reason and urgency for the need of a new Revelation from the God of Jews and Christians.

Moreover, Quran’s emphasis on the alleged defects and limitations, irrespective of whether due to deliberate or circumstantial reasons, in these earlier scriptures helped it develop this contrast whereby it could present itself as the final and infallible revelation by God (5:48, 15:9). The infallibility of Quran is an important idea which has led the Muslims to live as a scripture-centered community. Quran’s casting doubts on the purity of earlier scriptures can be attributed to its viewing scripture having a central importance in a tradition; a loss of scripture means the loss of tradition. This importance of scripture can be seen in the way Quran, instead of opening with “In the beginning there was …”, commences with “This is the Book in which there is no doubt, a guidance for the reverent” (Chapter 2 considered as formal beginning). Also, in an interestingly unique way Quran appears to be self-conscious of its status as a scripture: it repeatedly refers to itself as book or scripture throughout the text even when it was revealed piecemeal. Quran’s reference to Jews and Christians as ‘People of the Book’ is another telling notion pointing not only to Quran’s emphasis on the centrality of scripture but also its role as a linkage between Abrahamic traditions.

On the other hand, the second category of criticism pointing to alleged human failings of historical Jewish communities and highlighting their certain qualities and acts such as the sense of complacence, transgression of laws, ungratefulness, and fickleness of the Jews can be seen as polemical rhetoric unrelated to any theological disagreements. Arguably, these are not the points of criticism that could help Quran establish the basis for its need: such flaws and failings may creep into a section of any community that, arguably, do not necessarily have to trigger the need for a new Revelation reminding the basic precepts of God’s message as long as the message itself remained intact normatively. The reason of the inclusion of these accounts can be viewed as didactic: a tool for warning against certain patterns of behavior marked by ingratitude, too much attachment to the world, and transgression for instance. According to the Quran, these failings incurred God’s wrath and hence should serve as “an admonition to the reverent” (2:66): to remind to the followers of Quran to be warned against the consequences of displeasing God by bearing in mind the example of Jews. This is evident in the strong language Quran invokes when narrating these historical accounts. Quran, in its overall character, is to be viewed as predominantly doctrinal and indirectly historical, unlike other Abrahamic scriptures which are the reverse. The historical anecdotes in the Quran are interspersed into various places, not as linear narratives but, as references in order to support the ideas. In view of this framework, Quranic anecdotes chastising historical Jews can also be viewed as having a purpose beyond themselves: moral instruction through inculcating the fear of divine retribution.

Lastly, Quran’s criticism of the Arabian polytheists for ascribing partners with God, linking it with lack of discernment and gratitude, seems expected in the light of the unqualified urgency Quran attaches to its idea of absolute and uncompromising monotheism. Quran’s plain refusal to accommodate or negotiate over any polytheistic practices of Arabia is, again, expected in light of its purported aim, which was to reestablish the monotheistic legacy of Abraham, the prime idol-breaker.

References

Nasr, Seyyed Hossein., Carner K. Dagli, Maria Massi Dakake, Joseph E.B. Lumbard, and Mohammed Rustom, eds. The Study Quran: A New Translation with Notes and Commentary. New York: HarperCollins, 2015. Print.

Random reflections on Islamic Mysticism and Divine Attributes

Chittick’s exposition of the differences between conventional Islamic theologians and mystics – in terms of conceiving God – is helpful in tracing one strand of theological underpinnings of the rivalry still existent between these two camps, whereby the former continues to criticize practices associated with the latter, and the latter accuses the former of preoccupying themselves with hollow legalities while disregarding the true essence of faith. The divergence appears to be as old as the formative period of Islamic thought: orthodox theologians, while maintaining God’s transcendence, opposed the mystics’ attempt to conceive God in terms of imagery in the Quran which ascribes human qualities to God. The mystics’ response to it was that it is best to conceive and recognize God in God’s disclosure of himself: His qualities which He reveals in the Quran. Mystics’ emphasize on the third level of Islam (three levels being, Islam: submission, Iman: faith, Ihsan: doing what is beautiful), that is Ihsan, which translates into ‘doing what is beautiful’ but is explained by the Prophet to mean living and worshipping as if you see God, and if not that, then God sees you. This symbolism attached with ‘seeing God’ was something unacceptable to the orthodox school which maintained that such mundane attempts to perceive God must be given up. In this backdrop, I found it interesting to note that the motivating force behind both the Islamic mystic and the orthodox beliefs has been tawhid – the oneness and uniqueness of God. One contemporary group staunchly opposed to sufi beliefs calls itself muwahiddun (people of tawhid). Mystics on the other hand, consider union with God, the attainment of highest spiritual state, as a final realization of tawhid, and therefore tawhid is as central to mysticism, which is also evident in Ibn Arabi’s theory of wahdat al-wujud or Bulleh Shah’s verse ‘It’s all in One contained’.  Even though the orthodox camp frames its objection to the popular practices of shrine-visiting in terms of alleged violation of tawhid, this disagreement perhaps deals with finer points related to the permissibility of intercession, and not because (ideally) shrine-based practices violate tawhid.

Another point I found worth highlighting is the mystics’ overwhelming emphasis on the jamal (beauty) –based attributes of God including love, mercy, beauty, generosity , even though God has also revealed his jalal (awe-inspiring)- based qualities, such as power, majesty, absoluteness. This emphasis can be seen in the light of the mystics’ aforementioned belief that God must be recognized in his own disclosure of Himself, in which context, the verse “My mercy takes precedence over my wrath” is given significant attention. Mystics’ ceaseless emphasis on the God’s ‘gentle’ qualities, and the presence of this duality of God’s characteristics reminded me of this interesting discussion by S. H. Nasr whereby he maintained that this duality in the principles of Divine Nature is manifested at the microcosmic level as male and female: such that “God is both Absolute and Infinite. Absoluteness and Majesty, which is inseparable from it, is manifested most directly in the masculine state, and Infinity and Beauty in the feminine state” and human, by virtue of being made in God’s reflection possesses complementarily both qualities, however Infinity is more feminine and Absoluteness is more masculine; root of both femininity and masculinity are to be found in Divine Nature, which transcends the duality between them by virtue of God being neither male nor female. In the same vein, Ibn Arabi highlighting the notion of divinity in the female face went to the extent of saying that “man’s contemplation of God in woman is the most perfect”. This telling comment ties in with Schimmel’s observation about vernacular poetry and spiritualization of medieval folk tales whereby she observed that in Arab culture love for God is represented by the motif of a man’s longing for a beautiful woman. This contrasted with the Indo-Muslim tradition (Heer, sassi, sohni, or even virahini) in which the human soul is represented by a woman who yearns for the Divine Beloved represented by a male. This difference across cultures between the symbolisms of gender to depict divine love is quite remarkable; in any case, the Arabic conception shows that the Islamic understanding of God is not confined to a patriarchal image. As far as sufis’ apparent overwhelming emphasis on divine qualities of gentleness, mercy and bounty overshadowing his severity, wrath and justice is concerned, Samani and Maybudi, while recasting the entire story of creation and Adam’s fall in the language of love, note that even the ‘severe’ qualities of God have to be appreciated in the path of Love: “Love in his heart drove him to embrace the full wealth of the divine attributes, not just the gentleness of proximity and union… Adam knew that he could not become a lover without pain and suffering.” Thus the relationship between God’s gentle and awe-inspiring qualities, and the human’s relationship with both of them in the sufi framework seem more complex than it appears in the first glance.

Sufism ‘versus’ Islam?

If I’d get a penny for every time I hear someone declare the need for disseminating the ‘sufi’ interpretation of Islam as a way to counteract the trends of radicalism, I’d be a millionaire now. It irks me because this springs from a misinformed perception which not only reeks of foreign, political influences but also of complete unfamiliarity with the tradition.

There are problems with the historical, and in some ways on-going, attempts to use Sufism as a political tool, both by Western and ‘enlightened-moderate’ Pakistani governments in the past. At the offset of the 21st century, American foreign policy is known to have formally viewed, and attempted to use, Sufism as an “exploitable fissure”; an approach I find to be infinitely problematic and, frankly, quite sinister. It reminds me of the phrase by Dhu’l-Nun al-Misri, one of the greatest Sufis, condemning turrahat al-Sufiyya, loosely translated as travesties of the Sufis, by which he meant the ‘appropriation of Sufism by the unworthy’. This whole political project of formulating and propagating a mindset, presumably to counter radicalism, which views Sufism and traditional Islam in mutually exclusive, dichotomous, and antagonistic terms, does a great disservice to both. For many skeptics, there is a narrow window between Islamic orthodoxy to turn into radicalism – this fear springing from a worldview grounded in hatred and ignorance. I feel that pushing Sufism as an ‘antidote’ to Islamic orthodoxy assumes that the former has an independent existence. Many like myself would contend otherwise (as I particularly speak of the so-called ‘sober’ Junayd’s school of spirituality). It seems like marshaling a branch of a religious tradition and using it as a political tool against that very tradition out of which it emerged. Celebrating the cultural appeal of sufi music as an end in itself is one thing, and viewing it as a political tool as a means to another end, wholly another. This project, of West making Sufism its ally, has important social implications. The West’s political adoption of Sufism for its own use, at home and abroad, has been felt by the perceptive (as it was quite conspicuous during the Musharraf regime) and has made the term ‘sufism’ and its certain manifestations suspect in the eyes of traditional people. You may find out that, in Pakistan for example, you cannot have a conversation with the spiritually inclined, some even initiated into various sufi orders, elders of your family without using the term ‘tasawwuf’ in place of ‘sufism’ (reminiscent of George Orwell’s incisive observation that any word that ends with an -ism reeks of propaganda), and without explicitly admitting as a preface that you view sufi spirituality as a central component of as well as vitalizing influence on Islam, and not as its antithesis.

Reading about western foreign policy’s channeling large funds in various directions to ‘transform Islam from within’ for me has been reminiscent of another campaign, not so long ago, with reversed aims, whereby massive funds and arms were channeled during the time of Afghan jihad in which it suited US interests to support and propagate the so-called ‘jihadi’ narrative in Islam. It is not a distant memory when books, published in the US, were disseminated across seminaries in Pakistan, the introductory alphabet alif bay lesson of which taught: alif for Allah, jeem for jihad, kaaf for Kalashnikov. I wonder if the massive and deep-rooted havoc wreaked in my part of the world and beyond, through these warped policies, can be undone by globally applauding to alif Allah chambray di booti and patronizing ‘sufi concerts’. Masses in traditional Muslim societies do not look at Western governments abroad or Westernized governments at home to interpret Islam for them or inform them as to which reading of Islam is superior to others. The reasons for such deep-seated suspicion are understandably historically rooted and cannot necessarily be attributed to a plain unthinking anti-Western sentiment. US foreign policy’s history of indulging different configurations of Islam at different points in history, in politically self-serving ways, does not lend it any credibility in the eyes of those who claim to live Islam on their own terms.  Based on what I have gathered, even sufis don’t like ‘state-sponsored sufism’. Sufi tradition can arguably have a more broad-based appeal when left alone by the state departments. Responding to overwhelmingly political problems with theological ‘exploitations’ or cultural magic bullets seems not only a superficial response but also a misdirected and misinformed one. In what ways can sufi songs possibly act as a counteractive to militancy and radicalism?

Reflections on the Islamic Ethic of Animal Sacrifice and Meat-eating

 (Photo by Robertus Pudyanto/Getty Images)

 

P.S. : This is a Rambling-on-Facebook-status-turned-blog-post.

A few gentle reminders to myself first and foremost, and friends and family at home celebrating ‘Id al-Adha 🙂

The whole idea of pronouncing God’s name over the animal while killing it for the purposes of food is not just a ritual to officially legitimize the slaughter; the wisdom underlying this is for us to develop not only an ecological sensitivity but also understand the gravity and implications of the idea that you are taking the life of a fully-fledged sentient being, a breathing creature of God, and it is by no means a trivial matter.

Let us be mindful this ‘Id that a large number of Prophet’s sayings deal with admonitions and rules regarding a sensitive concern for animals, their treatment, rights, natural dignity and interestingly even their unique individual identities (!).

Traditionally, Muslims would deem it ideal to slaughter their animals by themselves, rather than hiring a butcher or conveniently receiving their meat on the kitchen-counter heedless if any unethical practice went into the production of their meat and completely oblivious to the process we all like to call a ‘sacrifice’ without really asking the question as to what really did ‘we’ sacrifice, and without really fully understanding the essence and import of what a sacrifice must entail.

The corpus of Hadith also presents very detailed ethics of slaughtering prescribed by the Prophet, because for someone who wiped the mouth of his animals with his personal cloth and urged tying them with a long rope to avoid causing them discomfort, it is only natural to expect the exhortations for minimum suffering. When slaughtering your animal for food, “use a good method” he said, and that give it “as little pain as possible”. According to this Prophetic tradition, it is reprehensible to slaughter one animal in front of the other, or to even sharpen your knife in front of an animal. “Do you wish to slaughter the animal twice: once by sharpening your blade in front of it and another time by cutting its throat?” “How many deaths do you intend that this animal should die? Why did you not sharpen your knife before you put the animal down?” We could tell from these exhortations that the Prophet was sensitive not only to the bodily pain of the cattle but also to their psychological suffering; thus, according to fiqh-legislation it is makruh to unnecessarily augment the pain of the animal, physical or psychological.

Another wisdom inherent in the suggested necessity of personally handling your own Dhabh (sacrifice) is to closely observe and feel on your skin the immense magnitude of the idea of killing a sentient being of God, that this process has deep symbolic meaning, and that it cannot be carried on mindlessly, immoderately, and unnecessarily to satisfy the meat addictions and immoderate appetites of the affluent.

This is perhaps a good opportunity to bring up an important related idea: Despite the common assumption that meat eating, particularly cow meat, is an integral part of Muslim life; and in the context of South Asia, even synonymous to being Muslim, Prophet Muhammad has been described by traditional Islamic scholars as a semi-vegetarian as evident from the study of his sira, someone who never ate beef (and as Muslims we believe there has to be a hikmah in whatever the Prophet did), and ate other types of meat only very rarely on special occasions. This is not to push vegetarianism or reconcile it with Islam for we all know Prophet’s most preferred piece of meat was a lamb’s shoulder 🙂, but to reflect on whether or not excessive meat consumption is in line with Islamic ethics. Various madhhabib (schools of law) of Islam even stipulate the ideal amounts of meat intake which can sometimes look like ‘once a week’ (!). The idea is moderation and mindfulness, and not swearing off.

This is also to reflect on the health problems caused by excessive meat consumption and the unethical practices associated with meat production in the context of the modern world, and to be always reminded of the Quranic injunction “do not transgress the balance” (55:9).

Let us be generous this year with the portions of our ‘id meat prescribed for the poor and under-fed, and when running into the risk of ‘id celebration, or our lives in general, descending into an orgy of meaty gluttony, it might be helpful to remember these telling words by Imam ‘Ali in which he urges us to “not make your stomach a graveyard of animals.”

Also, let us be reminded that the essence of sacrifice on ‘Id is to commemorate an event which urges believers to be willing to sacrifice their most cherished possessions if that is what God wills from them. A logical prerequisite to genuinely living this spirit on ‘Id is to be able to cherish your qurbani animals first, viewing them as much a handiwork of God as we consider ourselves to be, and thus as much worthy of ethical treatment as prescribed by sunnah.

On a comical (and a slightly politically incorrect) note: in our traditional belief-system, cattle is happy to be made useful as food for human inasmuch as it can become, in the form of energy, part of a pious, God-conscious, individuals. So, if you are a horrible human being, you are probably doing gross injustice to a mute creature anyway by going against its most important desires, and should probably consider swearing off meat altogether. *laughs*

Have an infinitely happy, blessed, and deeply God-conscious ‘Id.

‘Id Mubarak 🙂