Jihad & Ijtihad

[TruthSeeker]

Orthodoxy
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The word orthodox, from Greek orthodoxos "having the right opinion," from orthos ("right, true, straight") + doxa ("opinion, praise", related to dokein, "thinking"), is typically used to mean adhering to the accepted or traditional and established faith, especially in religion.

The term did not conventionally exist with any degree of formality (in the sense in which it is now used) prior to the advent of Christianity in the Greek-speaking world, though the word does occasionally show up in ancient literature in other, somewhat similar contexts. Orthodoxy is opposed to heterodoxy ("other teaching"), heresy and schism. People who deviate from orthodoxy by professing a doctrine considered to be false are most often called heretics or radicals, while those who deviate from orthodoxy by removing themselves from the perceived body of believers are called schismatics. The distinction in terminology pertains to the subject matter; if one is addressing corporate unity, the emphasis may be on schism; if one is addressing doctrinal coherence, the emphasis may be on heresy.

Apostasy, for example, is a violation of orthodoxy that takes the form of abandonment of the faith, a concept largely unknown before the adoption of Christianity as the state religion of Rome on February 27, 380 by Theodosius I, see also First seven Ecumenical Councils. A lighter deviation from orthodoxy than heresy is commonly called error, in the sense of not being grave enough to cause total estrangement, while yet seriously affecting communion. Sometimes error is also used to cover both full heresies and minor errors.

The concept of orthodoxy is the most prevalent and even inherently pervasive in nearly all forms of organized monotheism.
__________________________________

Sorry, but Muslims did not invent "orthodoxy". It's a Christian invention. Ha! Soooooooooooo, strike a blow against the kafirs and abandon Musim orthodoxy!!!! Let Islam break free!!!!

 

[muse]

I'm convinced it will happen, Muslims are required to engage in an ever expanding dailogue, debate, conversation about all items of interest with regard to Faith, a life in and of Faith and toward greater clarity to arrive at ethical and moral decisions.

The orthodoxy will want to recall islam is the original revolution, the original insurgent and at the heart of which is FAITH, the challenge of being in love, with Love.

 

[muse]

All readers who may be interested, are invited to comment on the piece below, whether we are Muslims of whatever sect or persuasion or persuaded by any other confession, I think the piece will be meaningful to you and may help better understand the titanic struggle for the heart and soul of Islam, to civil discourse, to a return to meaning for individual faithful:


Living with interpretation
Farish A Noor



These days we often hear the accusation that someone or another is doing something nasty by interpreting a book or a text out of context. The common refrain that follows goes something like this: “Who are you to interpret our holy book on your own without the guidance of our supreme religious elders who are so knowledgeable in scriptural knowledge that your own petty knowledge is like that of a gnat’s in comparison?”

From this bombastic salvo there usually follows the same train of accusations and slander, which include the following: Muslim/Christian/Buddhist/Hindu feminists are simply reading and re-reading the scriptures with their own agendas in mind; they are engaged in wilful and unregulated interpretation that goes against the orthodoxy, etc.

Before we deal with the political nature and consequences of such accusations, let us return to the original premise and deconstruct it a bit.

Interpretation of any text is necessarily a subjective, historically-determined and culturally-contextualised endeavour. Every act of reading is necessarily subjective and therefore contingent and we cannot escape from the possibility of error, misinterpretation and misappropriation. This is true of reading a holy scripture as it is true of reading the menu of a restaurant, for the fact is that reading is necessarily a risk-laden enterprise and this has more to do with the nature of the language as a social phenomenon than anything else.

Going back to the genesis of all the major religious belief-systems in the world, we see that the foundational movement of such religions entailed the act of reading and interpretation. From the very outset of revelation itself, the possibility of error and misunderstanding has always been there. This is simply because communication — even in the case of divine communication with mortal beings — carries with it the risk that the message may get lost.

With the passing of time however, religious texts in particular gain a certain degree of consistency in meaning because of the way that the reading, interpretation and dissemination of such texts is left in the hands of a few, who in turn are elevated to the status of experts. In the history of the Jewish faith, for instance, the interpretation of Jewish scripture was monopolised by the rabbinical classes; until the advent of Jesus who was the first to challenge the hegemonic grip of rabbinical authority.

Likewise in Hinduism, the interpretation of Vedantic texts was left in the hands of the Brahminical classes, and only challenged by the likes of Buddha who trespassed the norms of the discursive economy with his emphasis on the emotional-spiritual (as opposed to ritualistic) development of the individual.

In the Islamic tradition, the monopoly over religious textual interpretation was guarded by the ulema, but often challenged by independent lay scholars who opened up and expanded the space of Muslim religious discourse and praxis.

It is therefore ironic that today Muslim women’s groups like Malaysia’s Sisters in Islam are deemed to have gone beyond the pale of religious normativity by allegedly interpreting the Quran in a manner that goes against tradition or the sanction of the religious scholars. But hasn’t this been the case with so many other Muslim intellectuals who were in fact pioneers in the process of modernising the Muslim mind?

If groups like Sisters in Islam are deemed guilty of ‘freely interpreting’ religious scripture, then what would we have to say about men like Jamaluddin al-Afghani, Muhammad Abduh and Sir Syed Ahmad Khan? Sir Syed Ahmad Khan — who founded the Aligarh Muslim University — was one of the first who claimed that unless and until Islamic thought could be measured and judged by the standards of modern science, it would not survive the modern age.

For his efforts to modernise our understanding of Islam, he was deemed a materialist and secular thinker; yet he was the one who built the first modern Islamic university in the world, which proudly stands until today in Aligarh, India.

Likewise, Abul Alaa Maududi and Syed Qutb were also Muslim thinkers well ahead of their time who broke from sedimented traditions and offered radically new and modern interpretations of Islam in their time. And when we look at their profiles, they were certainly not traditional ulema by any stretch of the imagination.

Maududi was trained as a journalist and worked as a pamphleteer for his cause. Qutb, on the other hand, was even accused of desecrating the Quran as he offered an activist-oriented exegesis of the text that went against what was then considered customary practice. But today, does anyone doubt the impact that both Maududi and Qutb have had on contemporary Muslim thought and praxis?

Closer to Southeast Asia we have thinkers like Syed Sheikh al-Hady and Sheikh Tahir Jalaluddin who were modern thinkers who wanted to adapt the Muslim mindset to the needs of the modern age. Syed Sheikh al-Hady even wrote the Hikayat Faridah Hanum, which remains as the first modern feminist novel in vernacular Malay literature. For his pioneering efforts to emancipate Muslim women from patriarchal tyranny, he too was deemed a secularist and modernist by the conservatives among his peers. But do we doubt or deny his achievements, or the achievements of any of these modernist thinkers today? Certainly not.

So let us clear the decks and understand some simple truths about textual analysis and exegesis: reading anything — be it a novel or a holy book — is necessarily a subjective process that is always going to be particular, historically-specific and necessarily contingent. No text can escape this, for the reason that reading involves an inter-subjective process of engagement with an author that is not present. We can try our best to remain true to the intended meaning of the text, but we cannot ever claim to have complete knowledge of it.
On that basis, no group can claim to have a monopoly over truth value, and no group can claim to be right simply because they have settled on an agreed consensus.

Traditional conservative scholars who live, work, and interact only among themselves and their closed circle of confidants and acolytes may think that they have closed off the process of interpretation simply because they have engineered a consensus among themselves. But this does not mean that the process of reading and interpretation is over and closed for good.

Furthermore consensus does not guarantee truth value, for even if the whole planet thinks that the earth is flat that does not make it so.

For the sake of keeping religious texts and scriptures alive and relevant to the needs of our times, alternative readings are required time and again. That was the intention of scholars like Maududi, Qutb, Sir Syed Ahmad Khan, Abduh and Sheikh al-Hady. And interestingly, that too happens to be the intention of religious activists like Sisters in Islam and other Muslim, Christian, Hindu and Buddhists activists today.


Dr Farish A Noor is a Senior Fellow at the S Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore; and one of the founders of the www.othermalaysia.org research site

 

[TruthSeeker]

Giving religious texts a "new" interpretation seems to be sometimes necessary in the light of new scientific, political and social developments. I.e., if slavery becomes an anathema to a society, and a religious text extols slavery, then something has to give. On the other hand, giving a new meaning to a text that rather completely confounds the "accepted" meaning, seems to me to be grounds for a schism. That is, the believers of the "new" interpretation should start calling themselves adherents of a "new" religion rather than "hijacking" the name and faith of the believers in the "old" or "accepted" interpretation. Of course this is a huge grey area depending on how radical the "new" interpretation is. Currently in my own Christian denomination, the Episcopal Church, we are have a schism forming over the "new" interpretation that avowed homosexuals can be ordained as priests and bishops. The "new" interpretation is that God's equal love of all his human children demands that sexual orientation not be considered a religiously significant character disqualifier, as it has been in the past.

 

[fhassan]

The "new" interpretation is that God's equal love of all his human children demands that sexual orientation not be considered a religiously significant character disqualifier, as it has been in the past.

How do you as a Christian reconcile verses from the Bible that indicate no such flexibility with regards to laws:

“For truly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass the law until all is accomplished. Whoever then relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but he who does them and teaches them shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 5:18-19 RSV)

"It is easier for Heaven and Earth to pass away than for the smallest part of the letter of the law to become invalid." (Luke 16:17 NAB)

There are in fact numerous verses that seem to prohibit changing laws just to suit the “accepted norms” of the time. Jesus (peace be upon him) himself says:

"Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have come not to abolish but to fulfill. Amen, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest part or the smallest part of a letter will pass from the law, until all things have taken place." (Matthew 5:17 NAB)

Question is – how do you as a Christian reconcile the contradiction between Church and Bible?

 

[muse]

let us clear the decks and understand some simple truths about textual analysis and exegesis: reading anything — be it a novel or a holy book — is necessarily a subjective process that is always going to be particular, historically-specific and necessarily contingent. No text can escape this, for the reason that reading involves an inter-subjective process of engagement with an author that is not present. We can try our best to remain true to the intended meaning of the text, but we cannot ever claim to have complete knowledge of it.
On that basis, no group can claim to have a monopoly over truth value, and no group can claim to be right simply because they have settled on an agreed consensus

Sometimes highlighting particular words or sentences can help convey to the reader, a signal, to pay special attention to those words, to understand the meaning being conveyed.

 

[TruthSeeker]

How do you as a Christian reconcile verses from the Bible that indicate no such flexibility with regards to laws?

Well, I, personally, do not agree with the "new" interpretation in my Episcopal Church that it is God's will that homosexual people be acceptable as priests. OTOH, if it is proved, by science, that homosexuals are they way they are from birth, because of genetic factors over which they have no control, then I will have to re-evaluate. That is, if it is clear that God has made some people homosexual, then who am I to deny their equal acceptability to Him?? Today, I do not know or understand why some people are homosexual. So, I can accept the "old" teaching that they have chosen a wrong path, and should not be accepted into positions where they are role models for young people.

Also, fhassan, your quotes are from the Christian Bible "New Testament", the sayings and teachings of Jesus. The prohibitions against homosexuality are found in the Jewish portion on our Bible, the "Old Testament". Old Testament teachings are rather easily superseded by "new" interpretations in Christian thinking, as compared to New Testament teachings, since Jesus, Himself, re-interpreted many Old Testament teachings..

 

[muse]

Repackaging Islamism
Rafia Zakaria



The headquarters of IslamOnline.net is palatial building located on the outskirts of Cairo. Away from the dirt and unrelenting traffic of the bustling Egyptian capital, its shiny and brand new campus is located across the street from an equally palatial mosque. If you’ve spent any time in Cairo, the glass ensconced air-conditioned office of this Qatari-funded online empire can be a welcome respite from the desert heat, undoubtedly for both the casual visitor as well as the nearly one hundred Egyptian men and women who work here.

According to its publicity materials, IslamOnline strives for “an Islamic renaissance” and envisions itself as becoming the largest and most “credible reference on Islam and its peoples”. The website hosts a number of features from “news” to “politics in depth” to “family” and “art and culture”. A whole section is devoted to “Euro-Muslims”, even though the website is based in the Middle East; assumedly perhaps because much of traffic for the website comes not from Egypt itself but from Muslims living in Europe.

The technology is slick, the graphics trendy and the young, energetic staff quite committed to the avowed project of rebranding Islam. Words like “moderate” “diverse” and “plural” are recurrent in the vocabulary of the editors, used repeatedly to describe both their mission and their purpose.

These two facets of IslamOnline, its Egyptian staff and Western consumers and the conscious rebranding of Islam are worthy of attention.

Take first the savvy rhetorical repackaging that is insistent on the fact that the “Islam” it is peddling is both “moderate” and “diverse”. When questioned regarding what constitutes “moderate” Islam, however, the editors are resolute in providing synonyms instead of concrete responses. Ignored thus is the idea that diversity, in essence, stands for the representation of a variety of views that include the extremes, while moderation stands for a particular selection which avoids the extremes.

Also ignored is the reality that selecting what is moderate therefore inherently invokes a judgement and an interpretation regarding what is considered to be so. For instance, on the issue of hijab, the editors of IslamOnline state that the moderate position is that all Muslim women are required to wear the hijab; this is also, they insist, the “majority” position but the process of enumerating what a “majority” means, or why conflicting interpretations are ignored is again left unexplained. The same women who denounce the intolerance of Europeans toward women who wear the headscarf are thus unwilling to tolerate that a Muslim woman can refuse to wear one and still practice her faith.

This lack of self-awareness among the editors of IslamOnline and the self-described promoters of the “correct” and “moderate” Islam is disturbing given the stated aims of the organisation. It is difficult indeed to discern whether the editors and staff of this web-based dawa organisation are being deliberately evasive regarding their project of proffering a particular definition of “moderate” Islam or truly ignorant of their own role in advancing a project whose strings are being pulled by their financiers.

The geographical dynamics of both the headquarters of IslamOnline as well as the constituents of its staff add further complications to the question. 180 Egyptians, men and women, some commuting up to two hours each way, brave the heat and dust of Cairo to work in this air-conditioned glass building reeking of Gulf money. Sitting in neat cubicles, they collect news articles and fatwas for Muslims around the world, most notably in the West.

Their writings say little or nothing at all about the rising unemployment in Cairo, the blatant poverty visible on every city street, or the lack of political process in their country. In fact, these proximate realities, experienced undoubtedly by editors and staff, are all not represented in the conversation and largely the content of IslamOnline. In the deliberate divorce of these two realities then, IslamOnline, in the real and not virtual sense, represents outsourcing at its best: the relegation of dawa to Egyptian Muslims propagating an Islam envisioned by their Gulf financiers.

The disjunction is obvious not simply in the economic disparity between the largely Egyptian producers of IslamOnline, its Qatari backers and its largely Western consumers, but also in the avowed rhetoric of diversity versus its project of propagating the “correct” Islam. The Sharia section, which according to their own statistics is the most popular section of the website, is run by a doctoral student from Al-Azhar University. In his words, the process of compiling the “diverse” and “moderate” views espoused by IslamOnline stands for the effort to combine “authentic” opinions on various subjects from all four Sunni mazhabs. Shiite schools of thought fail to make this authenticity cut and hence are not represented.

A similar conclusion could be reached about the propagators of “authentic” Islam of IslamOnline; a document retrieved from IslamOnline reveals that nearly ninety percent of the sheikhs recruited to provide fatwas are Arab sheikhs with little or no representation for Southeast Asians, South Asians and Muslims from other non-Arab ethnicities.

In conclusion then, the Islam of IslamOnline stands for Islam as understood largely by Sunni Arabs. There is indeed nothing wrong with such a project; Sunni Arabs just like Iranian Shiites or South Asian Sufis have the right to propagate and disseminate information about their particular take on the Islamic faith. Indeed, there is something laudable and commendable also about providing Egyptian Muslim youth with a well funded and inviting workplace where they can interact and earn good livelihoods while living their faith.

The pernicious aspects of projects like IslamOnline lie in the unsaid agendas that undergird their stated goals. Calling a website “IslamOnline” instead of “MuslimsOnline” makes a very particular claim about representing a single and correct doctrinal position whose truth is substantiated by a particular interpretation of religious text. Disguising such a claim in the glib rhetoric of “diversity” and “plurality” while simultaneously excluding entire swathes of Muslim practice such as Shiite theology suggests a deceptive condescension toward both Muslims and non-Muslims consumers of the website.

In larger terms, projects like IslamOnline represent a novel new turn taken by the Islamist project that consciously seeks to redefine itself as “moderate”. Couched in a corporate structure that relies on savvy marketing, attractive rhetoric and smart, modern packaging, it represents the effort to change in appearance and language what remains the same in substance. This new and repackaged Islamism thus continues to privilege Sunni and Arab interpretations of Islam as ultimately authentic and correct but under the glib pretence of being committed to both moderation and diversity.

Rafia Zakaria is an attorney living in the United States where she teaches courses on Constitutional Law and Political Philosophy. She can be contacted at rafia.zakaria@gmail.com

 

[DarkStar]

Well, I, personally, do not agree with the "new" interpretation in my Episcopal Church that it is God's will that homosexual people be acceptable as priests. OTOH, if it is proved, by science, that homosexuals are they way they are from birth, because of genetic factors over which they have no control, then I will have to re-evaluate. That is, if it is clear that God has made some people homosexual, then who am I to deny their equal acceptability to Him?? Today, I do not know or understand why some people are homosexual. So, I can accept the "old" teaching that they have chosen a wrong path, and should not be accepted into positions where they are role models for young people.

Also, fhassan, your quotes are from the Christian Bible "New Testament", the sayings and teachings of Jesus. The prohibitions against homosexuality are found in the Jewish portion on our Bible, the "Old Testament". Old Testament teachings are rather easily superseded by "new" interpretations in Christian thinking, as compared to New Testament teachings, since Jesus, Himself, re-interpreted many Old Testament teachings..

Jesus re-interpreting Old Testament teachings should in no way give license for others to do so. Last I heard, Christian fathers and priests have refrained from claiming themselves to be the Son of God.

Claiming that the re-interpretation by Jesus could be on a par with re-inrepretations of others sounds blasphemous to me. Although I approach it with a muslim's attitude to religion.

Regarding your earlier point, to use scientific theory/experimentation/claimed knowledge as a criterion through which to accept or reject God's teachings in the Torah would also seem problematic to me. That would mean a Scientist's word supercedes God's word.

 

[muse]

The pernicious aspects of projects like IslamOnline lie in the unsaid agendas that undergird their stated goals. Calling a website “IslamOnline” instead of “MuslimsOnline” makes a very particular claim about representing a single and correct doctrinal position whose truth is substantiated by a particular interpretation of religious text. Disguising such a claim in the glib rhetoric of “diversity” and “plurality” while simultaneously excluding entire swathes of Muslim practice such as Shiite theology suggests a deceptive condescension toward both Muslims and non-Muslims consumers of the website.

In larger terms, projects like IslamOnline represent a novel new turn taken by the Islamist project that consciously seeks to redefine itself as “moderate”. Couched in a corporate structure that relies on savvy marketing, attractive rhetoric and smart, modern packaging, it represents the effort to change in appearance and language what remains the same in substance. This new and repackaged Islamism thus continues to privilege Sunni and Arab interpretations of Islam as ultimately authentic and correct but under the glib pretence of being committed to both moderation and diversity

Which is why there is a worldwide reaction against the Wahabi/salafi by muslims.

 

[muse]

And "Ijtihad"? Who can declare that?

 

[TruthSeeker]

I have often looked at IslamOnLine to read the fatwas that are generated to cover every minute aspect of living a person's daily life. I marvel at how the questioners ask for the guidance of the Islamic scholars at IOI for things like: "Is it permissible to pet your non-Muslim neighbors dog?", or "May I show my brother a cell phone picture of my female classmate who is doing a school project with me?" It is just so hard to imagine putting my Christian minister in charge of deciding everything I am permitted to do. It seems so stifling. Anyway, thank you, muse, for the article on IOI. I did not know whether or not to consider this website as moderate or extreme. After reading the article, I still don't know......

 

[muse]

TS

It's a cowardly approach to BEING Muslim, a preoccupation with the peripheral at the expense of the central -- It takes courage and clear headedness to think through the challeneges -- those who cannot understand that to be human is to fail as well as succeed, are always looking at those kinds of things in which failure and success is meaningless and the only quality expressed is power to coerse into mindlessness:


Caning, flogging and starving

Rafia Zakaria



It’s been an eventful summer for Muslim women around the world. On August 14, 2009, Afghan President Hamid Karzai signed into law the Shia Personal Status Law, making it legal for Afghan men to starve their wives if they refused to have sexual relations with them. On July 29, 2009, Lubna Ahmed Hussein, a widowed Sudanese journalist, was threatened with forty lashes by Sudanese authorities for having worn dress pants in a public place. Finally, to look forward to next week, the caning of Malaysian model Kartika Shukarno for drinking beer in a nightclub in the eastern Malaysian state of Pahang.

Consider first the Shia Personal Status Law enacted into law by President Karzai, assumedly to appease a hard-line Shia cleric. The law not only grants exclusive rights to child custody to the father or grandfather but also requires women to ask for their husband or father’s permission before leaving the home. The only time a woman would be allowed to leave home without such permission is if she has “reasonable legal reasons” which are conveniently left unspecified.

Other provisions of the law are even more alarming. In the words of women’s rights activist Wazhma Frough, “the law allows men to even deny food or any support to their wives if they refuse to have sex with them”. Other provisions of the law allow also make it possible for men to legally marry children enabling the custom of child marriage pervasive in rural Afghanistan.

According to Afghan female parliamentarian Shinkai Karokhail, the current law is still an improvement from the previous version which had made it impossible for women to leave the home without male permission under any circumstances and required them to have sexual relations with their husbands once every four days.

Moving on to Sudan, where Lubna Hussein, a journalist, was arrested on July 3, 2009 along with eighteen other women because she was wearing dress pants. There was nothing provocative about the tailored pants that fully covered her legs and yet Lubna Hussein stands threatened to be sentenced to forty lashes under the charge of “being dressed indecently”. Her name has been put on a travel blacklist by the ruling regime and she is now prohibited from leaving the country.

Ten of the women who were with Ms Hussein at the time of the arrest chose to plead guilty to “indecency”, paid a fine and were lashed ten times. Ms Hussein and another woman have chosen to fight the charges to bring attention to the plight of tens of thousands of women who have been lashed in the past decade under the country’s indecency laws. The Islamist government in Sudan has routinely imposed draconian laws on Sudanese women to testify to their “Islamic” credential regardless of the law’s actual relationship with Islamic doctrine. In the words of Ms Hussein: “These laws were made by this current regime which uses it to humiliate the people and especially women. These tyrants are here to distort the real image of Islam.”

Finally, take the case of Malaysia, a functioning democracy, relatively speaking, where Islamic courts function alongside civil courts. The consumption of alcohol is forbidden to Muslims but permitted to the country’s Christian and Hindu minority. Ms Shukarno has been fined the equivalent of $1,400 and six strokes with a rattan cane. Ms Shukarno, who is married and a mother of two, was found guilty of drinking a beer in a hotel bar. In the northern Malaysian state of Kelyantan, Muslim women have also been forbidden from wearing bright lipstick and high heeled shoes that may make noise in order to promote public morality. According to Mohamed Isa Ralip, president of the Shariah Lawyers Association of Malaysia, “it’s not about causing pain, it is about educating others and about teaching the person a lesson”.

The three contexts under discussion are undoubtedly different in demography, culture, geography and historical context. But they are all post-colonial Muslim states fraught with a crisis of authenticity that consistently leads them to believe that public displays of religious piety are at the core of religious practice. What easier targets to centre these expressions of piety and pristine public morality than the private and public behaviour of women?

The Afghan law essentially gives the state the right to enter the private sphere of the family and control even what happens between husbands and wives. It legislates essentially the nature of the relationship and creates a particular power dynamic that makes the woman an appendage to a man with her duties circumscribed entirely and completely by her gender. Political machinations aside, the law is an expression of an unapologetic patriarchal system where such subjugation enshrined in law is considered an expression of Afghan Islamic identity, legislated and signed into law through democratic process.

Similar tactics underlie the Sudanese and Malaysian cases. Ultimately, both represent the relegation of public morality as a task to be accomplished through legislation and enforced through instruments of the state such law courts. The underlying logic of all three cases is that if all temptations are forbidden by law, then all need for individual conscience will conveniently be eviscerated. The assumption is that in a perfect Islamic society, there would be no need for an individual conscience at all. If women are covered from head to toe, it is assumed, few would be tempted to engage in sexual promiscuity. If there is no bright lipstick, noisy high-heeled shoes, and women dressed in pants, it seems all Muslim men will suddenly become better believers and more eligible for heaven. If wives submit easily, can never refuse sex and are forced by the state to obey their husbands, then it is assumed men will be even less likely to covet other women.

The injustices in these scenarios are numerous, from the public subjugation of Muslim women as an expression of a society’s piety to the fact that the system is designed entirely to facilitate the journey of men (not women) to heaven. But what is most notable in the framework is the desire on the part of Muslim publics in all three countries to have the state as a stand in for the conscience of the individual believer.

The lack of questioning of the blatant disregard for gender disparity so visible in all of these incidents is not the only cause for deep dejection. Equally disturbing is the desire to make being a good Muslim not an issue of individual effort but of robotic obedience. Few bother to ask whether giving Zakat, and abstaining from alcohol or sexual promiscuity really are exercises of obeying Divine Guidance when they are enforced by the state and are not questions of free will. Are robotic Muslims lulled into obedience by the threat of starvation, the fear of being caned or flogged at the same level of religious devotion as those who freely choose to abstain from forbidden acts?

Women and their subjugation have become the visible symbols of Islamic statehood and the piety of the Muslims that live in them. Instead of outrage, such incidents are met with approbation and lauded as efforts to Islamise society. If the worth of women and the tragedy of their subjugation is not enough for Muslims to be shocked out of their apathy, then perhaps the notion of a lulled ummah cornered into obedience out of fear rather than religious devotion should be.

Rafia Zakaria is an attorney living in the United States where she teaches courses on Constitutional Law and Political Philosophy. She can be contacted at rafia.zakaria***********

 

[muse]

Miracle of language in Quran —by Robert B Reich

The Quran in its Historical Context; Edited by Gabriel Said Reynolds
Routledge 2008
Pp294; Price £75
Available at bookstores in Pakistan

For Ibn Khaldun in the 14th century, the Nabataeans were the native inhabitants of Mesopotamia before the Islamic conquest of Iraq. Assyrians, Babylonians and Chaldaeans are called Nabataeans. They were renowned for their magical practices

No one has studied the Arabic language better than the Arabs in history. In the field of etymology they have done immeasurably better than the Iranians with regard to Persian and Pakistanis with regard to Urdu. In Pakistan, interest in lexicography excludes any interest in the origin of Urdu words. But the Arabs always showed inquisitiveness about the origin of the words of the Quran.

The first person who focused on the foreign words in the Quran was none other than Islam’s foremost exegete, Imam Al Shafei, who came to the conclusion that no one knew exactly how many words had come in from other languages. He says: “Of all tongues, that of the Arabs is the richest and the most extensive. Knowledge of this tongue to the Arabs is like the knowledge of the sunna to the jurists. We know of no one who possesses knowledge of all the sunna without missing a portion of it. In like manner is the knowledge concerning the tongue of the Arabs by the scholars and the public. No part of it will be missed by them all, nor should it be sought from other people; for no one can learn this tongue save he who has learned it from the Arabs.” (Al-Shafei, Risala, 27-8).

Persian words were soon discovered because of the Arab-Persian contact in Iraq. For instance, ‘istabraq’ meaning ‘silk brocade’; ‘barzakh’, meaning ‘barrier’, used three times; and ‘firdaws’, meaning ‘paradise’. Other Quranic words that were deemed derived from other languages included ‘tannur’ in the sense of ‘oven’; ‘jibt’ meaning ‘idol’; and ‘rahiq’ meaning ‘wine’.

Many languages are isolated by the classical grammarians and lexicographers as sources of Arabic words. Among them is Syriac. Syriac, referred to as suryani or nabati, appears to have been well-known as a spoken language according to anecdotes found in the works of Ibn Qutayba and Ibn Durayd, both living in the tenth century. The association of Syriac with Christianity is also clear in the work of the eleventh century writer Al Biruni.

For Ibn Khaldun in the 14th century, the Nabataeans were the native inhabitants of Mesopotamia before the Islamic conquest of Iraq. Assyrians, Babylonians and Chaldaeans are called Nabataeans. They were renowned for their magical practices. Other writers make it apparent that this designation was not linguistic exclusively but rather an ancient group of people distinguished by their agricultural practice, as opposed to pastoral or military life. (p.255)

Al-Suyuti, who died in 1505, edited in several different versions lists of foreign words in the Quran. One of his works is called al-Mutawakkil fima warada fil-Quran bil-lughat. The treatise, named after the caliph al-Mutawakkill who died in 943/1536 who ordered the author to compile the work, is a list of Quranic words that are ‘to be found in the speech of the Ethiopians, the Persians or any other people other than the Arabs’. (p.256)

Another list has nineteen Hebrew words, including two from the Suryani list. The vocabulary is as follows: ‘Ran’ meaning ‘river’; ‘taha’ meaning ‘O Man’; ‘annat’ meaning vineyard and grapes. ‘Hawn’ meaning ‘wise men’ ‘layta laka’ meaning ‘come here’; ‘wa-lata’ meaning ‘and there is not’; ‘ahwan’ meaning ‘tranquil’; ‘Sujjad’ meaning ‘with uplifted heads’; ‘qayyum’ meaning ‘one who does not slumber’; ‘asfar’ meaning ‘books’; ‘qummal’ meaning ‘fly, bee’; ‘shahr’ meaning ‘month’; ‘yamm’ meaning ‘sea’; ‘salawat’ meaning ‘synagogues’; ‘qintar’ meaning ‘bull’s hide full of gold or silver’, etc.

Early references to Arabic by Christians are traced. For example, fourth-century writer Uranius notes that the place name Motho means death ‘in the speech of the Arabs’ (he arabon phone). His near contemporaries Ipiphanius of Salamis and Jerome also make reference to Arabic, the former in connection with a virgin goddess whom the inhabitants of Petra and Elusa praise in the arabike dialektos and call her in Arabic Kaabou (‘buxom maiden’). And the Jewish Talmud adduces a number of words said to be from the speech of the Arabs, and a few Arabicisms enter the Syriac language of this period. (p.54)

It is noteworthy that the Quran itself is self-conscious with respect to the language in which it is written stressing that it is an ‘arabi recitation’ (12:2), an ‘arabi decree’ (13:37), composed in the ‘arabi tongue’ (20:195), which has been made easy for Muhammad (19:97, 44:58) and is the language of his people (14:4). (p.63)

When Muhammad (PBUH) had his first revelatory experience, his wife Hazrat Khadija took him to her cousin Waraqa bin Nawfal. The passage on this event is given in the Maghazi of the historian Ibn Ishaq (d. 150/767), in the section on Muhammad’s ‘invocation to mission’ or ‘call’ (al-mab’ath), within a longer narrative on his call, translated here according to the version (transmission) of Ibn Hisham (d. 218/834), in the account of the storyteller (qass) ‘Ubayd b. Umayr b. al-Laythi (d. 68/687). (p.91)

In another report Hazrat Khadija gives to Abu Bakr RA the order to go with Muhammad (PBUH) to Waraqa, and when Waraqa hears the account of Muhammad he cries: ‘All-Perfect! All-perfect!’ (sabbuh or subbuh). These events are given as proof of contact with a person who knew languages other than Arabic.

A great part of the technical terms on the Quran as a book are also not of Arabic origin, according to the book. The word ‘quran’ is a loanword, as is ‘mushaf’ (codex). One of the supposed collectors of the Quran, Salim bin Ubayd (or: bin Ma’qil), mawla of abu Hudhayfa, is supposed to have been the first to give the name ‘mushaf’ (codex) to the Quran as a collected book, a word he learned in Ethiopia. Finally, neither ‘sura’, nor ‘aya’ are of Arabic origin (Claude Gilliot on page 94).

The Quran’s evocation of the legend of the ‘Companions of the Cave’ comes close to the beginning of Surat al-Kahf (18:9-26), where Allah addresses Muhammad PBUH with the following question: “Do you reckon that the companions of the cave (ashab al-kahf) and of the inscription are wondrously among Our signs?”

The parable is also known through Jacob of Serugh in Syriac who called the story The Youths of Ephesus (p.122). The word ‘aya’ is a keyword in Islamo-Christian revelation. One finds it 77 times in the New Testament, especially in the Gospel of John, and 287 times in the Quran (however somewhat rarely in the first Meccan suras). (p.145)

It is the gnostic gospels where the echo of the Quran is felt more strikingly. 1) Jesus was not crucified; someone who looked like him was crucified in his place. 2) He is therefore not dead, but was raised up to God. 3) At the end of the world, he will return to earth, fight the Antichrist, proclaim Islam as the true religion. 4) He will proclaim the coming of the Hour of Judgement, and die. 5) He will be raised on the day of the final resurrection. The text most evocative of the Quranic passage is that of the Gnostic Judaeo-Christian Basilides, reported by Irenaeus of Lyon at the end of the second century.

Suleiman Nadwi was the Indian Muslim scholar who had enough knowledge of Arabic to write about the Sanskrit words appearing in the Quran. He thought that since these words occurred where the Quran describes Paradise, the idea of Paradise must be located in India. But the word Paradise was taken from the Persians by the Greeks, and as Muhammad Hussain Azad would confirm if he were alive today, the Aryans of Persia and the Aryans of India would agree on the very mundane Hindi word Pradesh also meaning a far-off country. But for us the word has become Firdaws, the best of the many versions of Eden described in the Quran.

 

[TruthSeeker]

From my readings about the Quran, I have thought that there is a very strong prohibition among the Ulama against modern textual analysis of the Quran. The Christian New Testament has been pulled apart word for word for most of the 20th century. But I was of the impression that this had not been done by Islamic scholars for the Quran on grounds that this would be heresy. Is my impression true? Is the above article a sign that this is changing? I was especially interested in the scholarly work done on the first surviving written Quran. I found that the gathering of the bits and pieces of writings to create the first written Quran after Mohammed's death (by abu Bakr?), and the relationship to the earliest surviving complete copy, had barely been studied. Amazing.