Tafakkur A forgotten talim of the Qur'an
To read the Qur’an without understanding means deliberately ignoring the clear order of Allah about Tafakkur (pondering). If we do not search for the real meaning of the Qur’an, to practice in our daily affairs, to regain the missing glories, how we will stand equal with the developed world? This article provides the guidance of the Qur’an, Aimmah Ahl al Bait (as) and their Du'at (r.a) in this regard. The process of Tafakkur shall continue in living nations while being completely prohibited in cults. Blind followers are militant by nature and they are addicted to the extent that they believe all those different from them will make their abode in Jahannam (Hell) and for them 72 beautiful virgins will wait in the Jannah (Heaven). Of course, this is again the result of the ignorance of the Talim of the Qur’an. May Allah grant us Taufiq of Tafakkur in the light of the Qur’an, Aameen.
The entire paper can be accessed at:
https://www.academia.edu/34208118/Tafak ... kly_digest
Interpretation of faith in Islam
Book
Authority without Territory: The Aga Khan Development Network and the Ismaili Imamate
Examining the connection between the concept of authority and the transformation of the Ismaili imamate, Authority without Territory is the first study of the imamate in contemporary times. With a particular focus on Aga Khan, the 49th hereditary leader of Shia Imami Ismaili Muslims, Daryoush Mohammad Poor shows how the Ismaili imamate surpasses the barriers and restrictions of the Weberian ideal-types and represents a novel image of a Shii Muslim community that has successfully adapted to modernity without losing its essential values or ethical commitments. Including interviews with key figures in the intellectual and administrative arms of the Ismaili imamate, this book sheds light on how these institutions develop and the challenges they face.
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Publication Date: Sep 18, 2014
Introduction at:
https://www.academia.edu/7899055/Author ... view-paper
Authority without Territory: The Aga Khan Development Network and the Ismaili Imamate
Examining the connection between the concept of authority and the transformation of the Ismaili imamate, Authority without Territory is the first study of the imamate in contemporary times. With a particular focus on Aga Khan, the 49th hereditary leader of Shia Imami Ismaili Muslims, Daryoush Mohammad Poor shows how the Ismaili imamate surpasses the barriers and restrictions of the Weberian ideal-types and represents a novel image of a Shii Muslim community that has successfully adapted to modernity without losing its essential values or ethical commitments. Including interviews with key figures in the intellectual and administrative arms of the Ismaili imamate, this book sheds light on how these institutions develop and the challenges they face.
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Publication Date: Sep 18, 2014
Introduction at:
https://www.academia.edu/7899055/Author ... view-paper
A Semiotics of Infinite Translucence: The Exoteric and Esoteric in Ismaili Muslim Hermeneutics
Karim H. Karim
Carleton University
ABSTRACT
The complex juxtaposition of private practice and public visibility/invisibility of contemporary Ismaili Muslims has certain parallels with other religious communities, but it exhibits unique features. This community adheres to an esotericism that has shaped its hermeneutic and communication practices. In a seeming paradox, the group is also exten-sively engaged in the public sphere. However, its communal institutions are limiting the dis-semination of texts pertaining to the religious addresses and biography of the group’s leader, Aga Khan IV. He is instead increasingly turning to architecture to communicate the commu-nity’s worldview through a symbolic use of design.
KEYWORDS
Islam; Hermeneutics; Semiotics; Public sphere; Private sphere
The entire article can be accessed at:
https://www.academia.edu/13550633/A_Sem ... card=title
Karim H. Karim
Carleton University
ABSTRACT
The complex juxtaposition of private practice and public visibility/invisibility of contemporary Ismaili Muslims has certain parallels with other religious communities, but it exhibits unique features. This community adheres to an esotericism that has shaped its hermeneutic and communication practices. In a seeming paradox, the group is also exten-sively engaged in the public sphere. However, its communal institutions are limiting the dis-semination of texts pertaining to the religious addresses and biography of the group’s leader, Aga Khan IV. He is instead increasingly turning to architecture to communicate the commu-nity’s worldview through a symbolic use of design.
KEYWORDS
Islam; Hermeneutics; Semiotics; Public sphere; Private sphere
The entire article can be accessed at:
https://www.academia.edu/13550633/A_Sem ... card=title
Review: Beyond the Qur'an: Early Ismaili Ta'wil and the Secrets of the Prophets by David Hollenberg ~ Islam and Christian–Muslim Relations
Khalil Andani
Scholarship on the history and doctrines of Shi‘i Ismaili Muslims has progressed at a dizzying pace over the last few decades. Most publications in the field to date are historical studies of particular periods of Ismaili history analysing Ismailism's socio-political activities, such as the famed Fatimid era or the Nizari state of Alamut. Relatively speaking, the study of Ismaili doctrine – theology, cosmology, hermeneutics and soteriology – remains in the early stages. In this context, David Hollenberg's monograph is a penetrating study focused on the intellectual contributions of Ismaili thinkers, primarily Jafar ibn Mansur al-Yaman (d. ca. 349/960), as well as a methodological intervention into the way Ismaili spiritual hermeneutics, known as tawil, is studied. Hollenberg's main argument, based on his analysis of tenth-century Fatimid Ismaili texts, is that Ismaili tawill is best conceptualized as a form of cognitive training and intellectual conditioning that brings about ‘new habits of mind’ among members of the Ismaili movement and engenders in them a sectarian sense of special identity.
The entire review can be accessed at:
https://www.academia.edu/35872127/Revie ... view-paper
Khalil Andani
Scholarship on the history and doctrines of Shi‘i Ismaili Muslims has progressed at a dizzying pace over the last few decades. Most publications in the field to date are historical studies of particular periods of Ismaili history analysing Ismailism's socio-political activities, such as the famed Fatimid era or the Nizari state of Alamut. Relatively speaking, the study of Ismaili doctrine – theology, cosmology, hermeneutics and soteriology – remains in the early stages. In this context, David Hollenberg's monograph is a penetrating study focused on the intellectual contributions of Ismaili thinkers, primarily Jafar ibn Mansur al-Yaman (d. ca. 349/960), as well as a methodological intervention into the way Ismaili spiritual hermeneutics, known as tawil, is studied. Hollenberg's main argument, based on his analysis of tenth-century Fatimid Ismaili texts, is that Ismaili tawill is best conceptualized as a form of cognitive training and intellectual conditioning that brings about ‘new habits of mind’ among members of the Ismaili movement and engenders in them a sectarian sense of special identity.
The entire review can be accessed at:
https://www.academia.edu/35872127/Revie ... view-paper
Ismaili Interpretations of the Shari'a: Between Abrogation and Affirmation
Khalil Andani
This paper is a historical study of how the Nizari Ismailis (hereafter called “Ismailis”), the second largest branch of Shia Muslims after the Twelvers, conceived of and practiced shari‘a through their storied history. The Ismailis present a unique case study on the topic given that the Ismaili Imams have abrogated parts of the shari‘a for their community on at least two occasions in their history. The most famous of these instances is the oft-misunderstood event of 17 Ramadan 559/1164 when the Ismaili Imam Hasan ‘ala dhikrihi al-salaam (d. 561/1166) declared qiyama (resurrection) for the Nizari Ismaili community and abrogated the ritual shar&i‘a. But this event was also an expression of a deeper and nuanced Ismaili theological orientation toward the shari‘a that has manifested in different ways throughout Ismaili history and has yet to be analyzed by modern scholars. In this study, I argue that the historical Ismaili attitude towards the shari‘a is one of systematic ambivalence: the Ismailis conceived the sharia as a prophetic composition of rules and regulations, a symbolic discourse representing higher level truths, and a mode of religious practice subject to the interpretation of the Ismaili Imams based on hiero-historical conditions and the socio-political environment in which the Ismaili community finds itself. Thus, the Ismailis interpreted the shari‘a as a means towards different ends at different times: sometimes the shari‘a served as a common discourse by which Ismailis related to a Sunni majority, presented their claims within the framework of Sunni legal discourse, or forged common religious and political ground with the Sunni Caliphate; in other instances, the Ismaili abrogation and noncompliance with the shari‘a served to demarcate Ismailis from other Muslims and strength Ismaili religious identity. This Ismaili orientation historically manifested both through the affirmation of the shari‘a and the partial abrogation of the shari‘a, depending upon the theological and socio-political contexts in which the community found itself.
The entire paper can be accessed at:
https://www.academia.edu/37689140/Ismai ... view-paper
Khalil Andani
This paper is a historical study of how the Nizari Ismailis (hereafter called “Ismailis”), the second largest branch of Shia Muslims after the Twelvers, conceived of and practiced shari‘a through their storied history. The Ismailis present a unique case study on the topic given that the Ismaili Imams have abrogated parts of the shari‘a for their community on at least two occasions in their history. The most famous of these instances is the oft-misunderstood event of 17 Ramadan 559/1164 when the Ismaili Imam Hasan ‘ala dhikrihi al-salaam (d. 561/1166) declared qiyama (resurrection) for the Nizari Ismaili community and abrogated the ritual shar&i‘a. But this event was also an expression of a deeper and nuanced Ismaili theological orientation toward the shari‘a that has manifested in different ways throughout Ismaili history and has yet to be analyzed by modern scholars. In this study, I argue that the historical Ismaili attitude towards the shari‘a is one of systematic ambivalence: the Ismailis conceived the sharia as a prophetic composition of rules and regulations, a symbolic discourse representing higher level truths, and a mode of religious practice subject to the interpretation of the Ismaili Imams based on hiero-historical conditions and the socio-political environment in which the Ismaili community finds itself. Thus, the Ismailis interpreted the shari‘a as a means towards different ends at different times: sometimes the shari‘a served as a common discourse by which Ismailis related to a Sunni majority, presented their claims within the framework of Sunni legal discourse, or forged common religious and political ground with the Sunni Caliphate; in other instances, the Ismaili abrogation and noncompliance with the shari‘a served to demarcate Ismailis from other Muslims and strength Ismaili religious identity. This Ismaili orientation historically manifested both through the affirmation of the shari‘a and the partial abrogation of the shari‘a, depending upon the theological and socio-political contexts in which the community found itself.
The entire paper can be accessed at:
https://www.academia.edu/37689140/Ismai ... view-paper
Everywhere in chains
Why Islamic debates over slavery matter to everyone
FOR ANY system of belief that vests ultimate authority in the past, slavery is a big moral problem. That goes for all three of the monotheistic faiths, and even for civil creeds such as traditional American patriotism, which is now wrestling hard with the fact that human equality’s most eloquent advocates, the republic’s founders, were also slave-owners.
For several reasons, this dilemma is an acute one for Muslims, as emerges in a scholarly but digestible new book, “Slavery and Islam”, by Jonathan Brown, a professor at Georgetown University and himself a Muslim convert. He focuses on both theology and history right up to the mid-19th century—when slavery became a bone of contention between European imperial powers, full of new-found abolitionist zeal, and traditional Muslim authorities across the Middle East and beyond. Like everything else about the Muslim encounter with European colonialism, this is a painful memory, and many Muslims insist that the European stance was patronising and hypocritical.
In certain cases, the Muslim sheikhs’ response to colonial pressure involved a tart recourse to Islam’s holy texts, in which the existence of slavery is taken as an inexorable feature of human society. If God tolerated this system, the traditional Islamic scholars said, it was surely not for any human authority to abolish it.
Others told their Western critics that slavery, as practised under Islam, was a far more humane phenomenon than the bondage endured by say, American plantation workers; therefore the Westerners had no moral standing.
More...
https://www.economist.com/erasmus/2019/ ... a/299052/n
Why Islamic debates over slavery matter to everyone
FOR ANY system of belief that vests ultimate authority in the past, slavery is a big moral problem. That goes for all three of the monotheistic faiths, and even for civil creeds such as traditional American patriotism, which is now wrestling hard with the fact that human equality’s most eloquent advocates, the republic’s founders, were also slave-owners.
For several reasons, this dilemma is an acute one for Muslims, as emerges in a scholarly but digestible new book, “Slavery and Islam”, by Jonathan Brown, a professor at Georgetown University and himself a Muslim convert. He focuses on both theology and history right up to the mid-19th century—when slavery became a bone of contention between European imperial powers, full of new-found abolitionist zeal, and traditional Muslim authorities across the Middle East and beyond. Like everything else about the Muslim encounter with European colonialism, this is a painful memory, and many Muslims insist that the European stance was patronising and hypocritical.
In certain cases, the Muslim sheikhs’ response to colonial pressure involved a tart recourse to Islam’s holy texts, in which the existence of slavery is taken as an inexorable feature of human society. If God tolerated this system, the traditional Islamic scholars said, it was surely not for any human authority to abolish it.
Others told their Western critics that slavery, as practised under Islam, was a far more humane phenomenon than the bondage endured by say, American plantation workers; therefore the Westerners had no moral standing.
More...
https://www.economist.com/erasmus/2019/ ... a/299052/n
BOOK REVIEW
Understanding Sharia, Islamic Law in a Globalised World
In 35 VOL. 28, NO. 1 - CANADIAN ARBITRATION AND MEDIATION JOURNAL
Canada, as a country committed to pluralism, today stands as a beacon of hope for all mankind. At the same time, there is much debate on the role of religion in the public sphere, most particularly in the field of private justice where arbitration and mediation are practised. Faith communities have generally shown a preference for ensuring that the ethics and values of their faith are engaged when disputes arise and their resolution is attempted. However, legitimate concerns with regard to human rights are expressed by those in Canadian society who feel that alternative forms of justice can be prejudicial to vulnerable groups such as women, minorities and children or those who are on the wrong side of the power balance. Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) has both supporters and detractors in these cases.
Over the years the issue of alternative forms of justice has become contentious with regard to family dispute resolution and the role Sharia, as portrayed in the popular media, plays in its deliberations. Sharia is viewed as a draconian, punitive and pre-modern system that has been defined over the years by a patriarchal interpretation. The deeper ethical values of Sharia are obfuscated and the fact that it has an inbuilt mechanism to respond both to necessity (darura) and to public interest (maslaha) and that each day in the Muslim world these mechanisms are used, is often overlooked.
Understanding Sharia, Islamic Law in a Globalised World is a book by two common law lawyers, a Canadian lawyer mediator and an English barrister, which has been written for the educated lay reader and which is both accessible and informative. The authors do not sidestep the controversial issues associated with Sharia but address them with reason, thought, and understanding.
More...
http://adric.ca/wp-content/uploads/2019 ... 28_No1.pdf
Understanding Sharia, Islamic Law in a Globalised World
In 35 VOL. 28, NO. 1 - CANADIAN ARBITRATION AND MEDIATION JOURNAL
Canada, as a country committed to pluralism, today stands as a beacon of hope for all mankind. At the same time, there is much debate on the role of religion in the public sphere, most particularly in the field of private justice where arbitration and mediation are practised. Faith communities have generally shown a preference for ensuring that the ethics and values of their faith are engaged when disputes arise and their resolution is attempted. However, legitimate concerns with regard to human rights are expressed by those in Canadian society who feel that alternative forms of justice can be prejudicial to vulnerable groups such as women, minorities and children or those who are on the wrong side of the power balance. Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) has both supporters and detractors in these cases.
Over the years the issue of alternative forms of justice has become contentious with regard to family dispute resolution and the role Sharia, as portrayed in the popular media, plays in its deliberations. Sharia is viewed as a draconian, punitive and pre-modern system that has been defined over the years by a patriarchal interpretation. The deeper ethical values of Sharia are obfuscated and the fact that it has an inbuilt mechanism to respond both to necessity (darura) and to public interest (maslaha) and that each day in the Muslim world these mechanisms are used, is often overlooked.
Understanding Sharia, Islamic Law in a Globalised World is a book by two common law lawyers, a Canadian lawyer mediator and an English barrister, which has been written for the educated lay reader and which is both accessible and informative. The authors do not sidestep the controversial issues associated with Sharia but address them with reason, thought, and understanding.
More...
http://adric.ca/wp-content/uploads/2019 ... 28_No1.pdf
Assessing English Translations of the Qur'an
Multiple English translations of the Qur'an, Islam's scripture, line shelves at book stores. Amazon.com sells more than a dozen. Because of the growing Muslim communities in English-speaking countries, as well as greater academic interest in Islam, there has been a blossoming in recent years of English translations. Muslims view the Qur'an as God's direct words revealed in Arabic to the Prophet Muhammad (d. 632).[1] Because the Qur'an stresses its Arabic nature, Muslim scholars believe that any translation cannot be more than an approximate interpretation, intended only as a tool for the study and understanding of the original Arabic text.[2] Since fewer than 20 percent of Muslims speak Arabic, this means that most Muslims study the text only in translation. So how accurate are the Qur'an's renderings into English? The record is mixed. Some are simply poor translations. Others adopt sectarian biases, and those that are funded by Saudi Arabia often insert political annotation. Since translators seek to convey not only text but also meaning, many rely on the interpretation (tafsir) of medieval scholars in order to conform to an "orthodox" reading.
Contextualizing the Qur'an
No serious researcher denies that Muhammad came to a milieu that was highly influenced by Judeo-Christian ideas. Indeed, the Qur'an presupposes familiarity with Judeo-Christian ideas to the extent that it often does not give the full version of a narrative; there is no need to identify what is supposed to be common knowledge.[3] A typical example is in the verse that was only partially cited by Muslims commenting on news programs in the wake of the 9-11 terror attacks: "Whoever has killed a single human without just cause, it is as if he has killed the entire humankind."[4] In fact, the full verse is: "And for this reason, we ordained for the children of Israel that whoever has killed a single human without just cause, it is as if he has killed the entire humankind." Significantly, the complete verse refers to a divine edict not found in the Torah, but rather in the Mishnah, part of the Jewish oral tradition.[5]
Evidence of Muhammad's familiarity with Judaism is present in the Qur'an. One verse suggests that his contemporaries accused him of having a Jewish teacher.[6] When some Arabs challenged Muhammad's claim to be a prophet based on his mortality, he suggested that they consult Jewish scholars about history.[7] Early Muslims resorted to Jewish lore so heavily that they produced a genre of literature: the Isra'iliyat, loosely translated as the Judaic traditions.[8] An oral tradition was even attributed to Muhammad wherein he supposedly said, "Relate from the people of Israel, and there is no objection,"[9] thereby enabling Islamic scholars to cite precedents from Jewish scholarship.[10]
By the ninth century, this began to change. Muslim jurists, increasingly opposed to reliance upon Jewish lore, created new sayings from the Prophet and his companions that contradicted the original allowances. In one of these apocryphal traditions, Muhammad's face changes color when he sees his follower Umar reading the Torah. Muhammad declares that had Moses been their contemporary, he, too, would have followed the Muslim prophet.[11] An alternate version claims that the Prophet asked Umar, "Do you wish to rush to perdition as did the Jews and Christians? I have brought you white and clean hadiths [oral traditions]."[12] Despite the unreliability of this hadith, it has evolved into a position that any Muslim who questions it could be accused of heresy.
More...
https://www.meforum.org/717/assessing-e ... -the-quran
Multiple English translations of the Qur'an, Islam's scripture, line shelves at book stores. Amazon.com sells more than a dozen. Because of the growing Muslim communities in English-speaking countries, as well as greater academic interest in Islam, there has been a blossoming in recent years of English translations. Muslims view the Qur'an as God's direct words revealed in Arabic to the Prophet Muhammad (d. 632).[1] Because the Qur'an stresses its Arabic nature, Muslim scholars believe that any translation cannot be more than an approximate interpretation, intended only as a tool for the study and understanding of the original Arabic text.[2] Since fewer than 20 percent of Muslims speak Arabic, this means that most Muslims study the text only in translation. So how accurate are the Qur'an's renderings into English? The record is mixed. Some are simply poor translations. Others adopt sectarian biases, and those that are funded by Saudi Arabia often insert political annotation. Since translators seek to convey not only text but also meaning, many rely on the interpretation (tafsir) of medieval scholars in order to conform to an "orthodox" reading.
Contextualizing the Qur'an
No serious researcher denies that Muhammad came to a milieu that was highly influenced by Judeo-Christian ideas. Indeed, the Qur'an presupposes familiarity with Judeo-Christian ideas to the extent that it often does not give the full version of a narrative; there is no need to identify what is supposed to be common knowledge.[3] A typical example is in the verse that was only partially cited by Muslims commenting on news programs in the wake of the 9-11 terror attacks: "Whoever has killed a single human without just cause, it is as if he has killed the entire humankind."[4] In fact, the full verse is: "And for this reason, we ordained for the children of Israel that whoever has killed a single human without just cause, it is as if he has killed the entire humankind." Significantly, the complete verse refers to a divine edict not found in the Torah, but rather in the Mishnah, part of the Jewish oral tradition.[5]
Evidence of Muhammad's familiarity with Judaism is present in the Qur'an. One verse suggests that his contemporaries accused him of having a Jewish teacher.[6] When some Arabs challenged Muhammad's claim to be a prophet based on his mortality, he suggested that they consult Jewish scholars about history.[7] Early Muslims resorted to Jewish lore so heavily that they produced a genre of literature: the Isra'iliyat, loosely translated as the Judaic traditions.[8] An oral tradition was even attributed to Muhammad wherein he supposedly said, "Relate from the people of Israel, and there is no objection,"[9] thereby enabling Islamic scholars to cite precedents from Jewish scholarship.[10]
By the ninth century, this began to change. Muslim jurists, increasingly opposed to reliance upon Jewish lore, created new sayings from the Prophet and his companions that contradicted the original allowances. In one of these apocryphal traditions, Muhammad's face changes color when he sees his follower Umar reading the Torah. Muhammad declares that had Moses been their contemporary, he, too, would have followed the Muslim prophet.[11] An alternate version claims that the Prophet asked Umar, "Do you wish to rush to perdition as did the Jews and Christians? I have brought you white and clean hadiths [oral traditions]."[12] Despite the unreliability of this hadith, it has evolved into a position that any Muslim who questions it could be accused of heresy.
More...
https://www.meforum.org/717/assessing-e ... -the-quran
Suicide Bomber In the Light of the Shariah
Qazi Dr. Shaikh Abbas Borhany
Synopsis: It is the intolerant clergy of Madaris who are creating radical-militant-nature, the suicide bombers being the end product. Role of Madaris (seminaries) is very important in this regard. Frequent mental-health checkup of each and every faculty member of Madaris, Masjid-Imam and his immediate staff along with a vigilant eye on the activities of the suspicious clerics cannot be emphasized enough. Moreover, the media can play an important and constructive role if they stop inviting clerics who promote hate speeches and sectarian violence and hatred instead provide a platform to the enlightened scholars of international repute who have the ability to change the existing narrative.
The article can be accessed at:
https://www.academia.edu/35713139/Suici ... view-paper
Qazi Dr. Shaikh Abbas Borhany
Synopsis: It is the intolerant clergy of Madaris who are creating radical-militant-nature, the suicide bombers being the end product. Role of Madaris (seminaries) is very important in this regard. Frequent mental-health checkup of each and every faculty member of Madaris, Masjid-Imam and his immediate staff along with a vigilant eye on the activities of the suspicious clerics cannot be emphasized enough. Moreover, the media can play an important and constructive role if they stop inviting clerics who promote hate speeches and sectarian violence and hatred instead provide a platform to the enlightened scholars of international repute who have the ability to change the existing narrative.
The article can be accessed at:
https://www.academia.edu/35713139/Suici ... view-paper
Sufism, Spirituality and Consumerism: the case study of the Nimatullahiya and Naqshbandiya Sufi orders in Australia
This article is a comparative study of two well-known Sufi orders, the Khaniqahi (Nimatullahi) and Haqqani (Naqshbandi). This is a preliminary work that draws on in-depth qualitative interviews to examine the process of self-representation and localisation of Sufism in Australia. Despite the fact that these Sufi orders each have established global networks and cyberspace presence, they also demonstrate strong local identities and indications of adaptation and appropriation. Recognised Sufi orders have historically operated through a complex local social network, often with links into local politics. This initial study, based on fieldwork analysis across Sydney and Melbourne, offers insight into the changing attitude of two contemporary Sufi orders of Australia on issues to do with religion, spirituality, consumerism and westernisation.
The entire article can be accessed at:
https://www.academia.edu/14702758/Sufis ... view-paper
This article is a comparative study of two well-known Sufi orders, the Khaniqahi (Nimatullahi) and Haqqani (Naqshbandi). This is a preliminary work that draws on in-depth qualitative interviews to examine the process of self-representation and localisation of Sufism in Australia. Despite the fact that these Sufi orders each have established global networks and cyberspace presence, they also demonstrate strong local identities and indications of adaptation and appropriation. Recognised Sufi orders have historically operated through a complex local social network, often with links into local politics. This initial study, based on fieldwork analysis across Sydney and Melbourne, offers insight into the changing attitude of two contemporary Sufi orders of Australia on issues to do with religion, spirituality, consumerism and westernisation.
The entire article can be accessed at:
https://www.academia.edu/14702758/Sufis ... view-paper
The Role of Hadith in Islam - A Bibliography of the Works in English Language, Working Draft of 07.07.2019
Abu Raihan Muhammed Khalid
In Islam, the Arabic word hadith means prophetic tradition. Hadith are the practices performed and ordained by the Prophet (SA) that a Muslim must follow in fulfilment of his religious obligations. In the corpus of Muslim laws, the hadith stands right after the Quran Majid - the words of Allah Rabbul Alamin, as the second most important source of Islamic laws. However, there are significant differences of opinion among the Muslim regarding the authenticity of a great number of hadith. There are perhaps even more differences regarding the application of these hadith in today's world after fourteen hundred years of their pronouncement. As a result a Muslim is unsure and often embattled on what he should practice as his religious duty. This has caused significant rifts among the Muslim society throughout the world. It is therefore necessary to precisely determine the scope, breadth and methods of the Hadith in order to enable the Muslim to determine the role of the Hadith and its application in today's world. As the first part the project we are here preparing a bibliography of the works in English Language.
The entire article can be accessed at:
https://www.academia.edu/37650910/The_R ... view-paper
Abu Raihan Muhammed Khalid
In Islam, the Arabic word hadith means prophetic tradition. Hadith are the practices performed and ordained by the Prophet (SA) that a Muslim must follow in fulfilment of his religious obligations. In the corpus of Muslim laws, the hadith stands right after the Quran Majid - the words of Allah Rabbul Alamin, as the second most important source of Islamic laws. However, there are significant differences of opinion among the Muslim regarding the authenticity of a great number of hadith. There are perhaps even more differences regarding the application of these hadith in today's world after fourteen hundred years of their pronouncement. As a result a Muslim is unsure and often embattled on what he should practice as his religious duty. This has caused significant rifts among the Muslim society throughout the world. It is therefore necessary to precisely determine the scope, breadth and methods of the Hadith in order to enable the Muslim to determine the role of the Hadith and its application in today's world. As the first part the project we are here preparing a bibliography of the works in English Language.
The entire article can be accessed at:
https://www.academia.edu/37650910/The_R ... view-paper
Book
Islam in the Contemporary World.pdf
Saif Ullah
Zafarullah Khan
Book Foundation
Prelude to the Symphony of Being With Patients Ears Attend
Islam is the most recent (and final) revelation of divine guidance provided for humanity to shape their individual as well as collective lives. Its promise of peace and prosperity led to the formation of a pure and sublime community over 1400 years ago. In this setting, Muslims created an excellent and unmatched civilization that pushed the frontiers of human existence, knowledge and development. This community remained a beacon of light for humanity for almost a millennium. The world was watching this glorious civilization, embracing its discoveries of intellect and practice, but in meantime the civilization faltered, and Muslims slept. During this deep slumber, the Muslims, looking to their glorious past, cried: Our father was King. This claim did not and does not help the Muslims’ current situation at all. Past glory does not negate the need for ongoing growth and development. Muslims need to carry out a serious introspection and generate fresh ideas that will result in the creation of a new world. It is imperative for their survival, and to avoid the stagnation of a living death. In this book, you will find my dream of such a new world.
I began studying Islam at a very young age in a Madressa in the far off area of Multan, and my effort still continues. With the passage of time, the beautiful truth of Islam began dawning upon me and at the same time, I became convinced that the existing conservative interpretation of Islam was not only anachronistic but also anti-human and anti-development. Islam, the last mercy of the Lord for mankind, has become a tool for exploitation, poverty and even homicide through acts of terror. My conclusion is that Muslims are stuck to the past and, because of that position, they have failed to create a truly Islamic modern existence, even though Islam could have led the development of such an existence, if it had been properly understood and practiced by its followers. The lack of real ijtehad has deprived Muslims of living a peaceful and prosperous life, and with that, the opportunity to achieve their full potential.
The idea of writing a new narrative of Islam was the basis of a lecture I delivered in 2003 before a gathering of Ulema at International Islamic University, Islam and expanded version of this lecture was first published in Urdu (2004) and then in English (2008). When the government of Pakistan was developing a New Action Plan to fight extremism in Pakistan in 2014, there was a general consensus of the need to develop a counternarrative of Islam to curb the fanaticism, extremism and terrorism in Pakistan (and the world) as, unfortunately, Islam was (and is) being misused by certain extremist elements as justification for their ideology of terror. So far that counter-narrative has yet to appear. This book is my humble endeavor toward this objective, an endeavor informed by 40 years studying Islam, a study that continues to occupy my thinking (and my heart) every day and every night.
This book is divided into two parts: Part I is a description of the past and Part II examines the present and the future. In Part I (chapters one to five), I have tried to go through a process of historical deconstruction to gain a clear understanding of the past, so that we can begin to reimagine the future. In Part II (chapters six to twenty-three), I present a scheme of restructuring Islamic thought and Muslim societies.
The entire book can be accessed at:
https://www.academia.edu/31078971/Islam ... view-paper
Islam in the Contemporary World.pdf
Saif Ullah
Zafarullah Khan
Book Foundation
Prelude to the Symphony of Being With Patients Ears Attend
Islam is the most recent (and final) revelation of divine guidance provided for humanity to shape their individual as well as collective lives. Its promise of peace and prosperity led to the formation of a pure and sublime community over 1400 years ago. In this setting, Muslims created an excellent and unmatched civilization that pushed the frontiers of human existence, knowledge and development. This community remained a beacon of light for humanity for almost a millennium. The world was watching this glorious civilization, embracing its discoveries of intellect and practice, but in meantime the civilization faltered, and Muslims slept. During this deep slumber, the Muslims, looking to their glorious past, cried: Our father was King. This claim did not and does not help the Muslims’ current situation at all. Past glory does not negate the need for ongoing growth and development. Muslims need to carry out a serious introspection and generate fresh ideas that will result in the creation of a new world. It is imperative for their survival, and to avoid the stagnation of a living death. In this book, you will find my dream of such a new world.
I began studying Islam at a very young age in a Madressa in the far off area of Multan, and my effort still continues. With the passage of time, the beautiful truth of Islam began dawning upon me and at the same time, I became convinced that the existing conservative interpretation of Islam was not only anachronistic but also anti-human and anti-development. Islam, the last mercy of the Lord for mankind, has become a tool for exploitation, poverty and even homicide through acts of terror. My conclusion is that Muslims are stuck to the past and, because of that position, they have failed to create a truly Islamic modern existence, even though Islam could have led the development of such an existence, if it had been properly understood and practiced by its followers. The lack of real ijtehad has deprived Muslims of living a peaceful and prosperous life, and with that, the opportunity to achieve their full potential.
The idea of writing a new narrative of Islam was the basis of a lecture I delivered in 2003 before a gathering of Ulema at International Islamic University, Islam and expanded version of this lecture was first published in Urdu (2004) and then in English (2008). When the government of Pakistan was developing a New Action Plan to fight extremism in Pakistan in 2014, there was a general consensus of the need to develop a counternarrative of Islam to curb the fanaticism, extremism and terrorism in Pakistan (and the world) as, unfortunately, Islam was (and is) being misused by certain extremist elements as justification for their ideology of terror. So far that counter-narrative has yet to appear. This book is my humble endeavor toward this objective, an endeavor informed by 40 years studying Islam, a study that continues to occupy my thinking (and my heart) every day and every night.
This book is divided into two parts: Part I is a description of the past and Part II examines the present and the future. In Part I (chapters one to five), I have tried to go through a process of historical deconstruction to gain a clear understanding of the past, so that we can begin to reimagine the future. In Part II (chapters six to twenty-three), I present a scheme of restructuring Islamic thought and Muslim societies.
The entire book can be accessed at:
https://www.academia.edu/31078971/Islam ... view-paper
The Fanatical ISIS through the Lens of Islamic Law
AHM ERSHAD UDDIN
ABSTRACT
Series of attacks under the disguise of Islam; ISIS created an outrage throughout the world, bombings in a number of places, beheading innocent citizens, kidnapping women and children of different sects of Muslims for the cause of harassment and assault, also,burning non-Muslims alive and drowning, then upload those video clips of murder-in-action in the name of the so-called revival of Khilafah and post Quranic verses has raised questions like is conflict one of the principles of Islam? During and after the propagation of Islam did the prophet Muhammad (s.a.w.) ever behead a non-Muslim and present it to a ruler in order to accept Islam? Does Islam allow to amputate any human body who claims the prophet a liar or who talks against him? Furthermore, it is concluded that ISIS misinterprets the fundamentals of Islam and misrepresents them to the world either go against Islam or form the ideal of massacre. This paper intends to comprehend the fanaticism and radical terrorists’ frequent murders of ISIS that is statistically increasing daily, its brutality and more importantly creating a phobia of Islam with their bestial activities, critically, if Islam allows it and how it objectifies this in the light of Islamic law. As well as to lay out a content of Islam as religion and where it stands today under shari'ah.
Keywords: extremism, fanaticism, ISIS, radicalism, shari’ah, terrorism
The article can be accessed at:
https://www.academia.edu/37161911/IJIT_ ... view-paper
AHM ERSHAD UDDIN
ABSTRACT
Series of attacks under the disguise of Islam; ISIS created an outrage throughout the world, bombings in a number of places, beheading innocent citizens, kidnapping women and children of different sects of Muslims for the cause of harassment and assault, also,burning non-Muslims alive and drowning, then upload those video clips of murder-in-action in the name of the so-called revival of Khilafah and post Quranic verses has raised questions like is conflict one of the principles of Islam? During and after the propagation of Islam did the prophet Muhammad (s.a.w.) ever behead a non-Muslim and present it to a ruler in order to accept Islam? Does Islam allow to amputate any human body who claims the prophet a liar or who talks against him? Furthermore, it is concluded that ISIS misinterprets the fundamentals of Islam and misrepresents them to the world either go against Islam or form the ideal of massacre. This paper intends to comprehend the fanaticism and radical terrorists’ frequent murders of ISIS that is statistically increasing daily, its brutality and more importantly creating a phobia of Islam with their bestial activities, critically, if Islam allows it and how it objectifies this in the light of Islamic law. As well as to lay out a content of Islam as religion and where it stands today under shari'ah.
Keywords: extremism, fanaticism, ISIS, radicalism, shari’ah, terrorism
The article can be accessed at:
https://www.academia.edu/37161911/IJIT_ ... view-paper
Video Speech: MHI on the Generosity of Free Interpretation of the Qur'an
Video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6OoEEZaCodw
‘Word of God, Art of Man: The Qur’an and its Creative Expressions’ - An International Colloquium organised by The Institute of Ismaili Studies
Video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6OoEEZaCodw
‘Word of God, Art of Man: The Qur’an and its Creative Expressions’ - An International Colloquium organised by The Institute of Ismaili Studies
Yasir Qadhi on Faith in the Modern World
EDITORS’ NOTE: Yasir Qadhi — Dean of the Islamic Seminary of America, an international Islamic educational institution and a doctoral graduate of Yale University, specializing in Islamic intellectual history and thought — discusses his insights on Muslims in America, challenges people of faith face in the West, academic vs. seminary study of Islam, religious pluralism, interfaith dialogue, intra-faith (Muslim to Muslim) relationships, Ibn Taymiyyah’s understanding of reason vs. revelation, and his vision for the future.
Audio discussion at:
https://sahilbadruddin.com/yasir-qadhi- ... ern-world/
Interview Questions
1. To start, I want to generally talk your experience growing up in America. How are things the same and how are they now different for you?
Follow Up: Has you seen the way in which Muslims define “Muslim-ness” evolve in the last 20 years (let’s say since 9/11)?
Follow Up: What would you see as markers of Muslim identity for Islam in the 21st century? Both at the general level and more specifically in the West.
2. In the past decade, especially, Muslims, have engaged in robust outreach initiatives to help correct the perception of Islam in the West. How do we change perceptions perhaps more quickly? You’ve mentioned it starts locally. And what areas would you, personally, like to see more Muslim presence?
3. Another challenge especially in the west that people face, people of religion face, and particularly the youth, is the influence of atheism, secularism, and a growing antipathy towards faith, that religion lacks intellectual merit.
It feels as though religion is fighting a losing battle, an ideological tsunami. Given your decades of work again, what, if anything, can be done to create a robust response to this antipathy towards faith?
4. How did your exposure to the study of Islam in an academic institution like Yale University, change your views about Islam or how Islam should be approached (for example, the role of historical context in situating Muslim-ness and expressions and ideas of Muslim identity through time and place)?
5. You’ve written a chapter entitled: “The Path of Allah or the Paths of Allah: Revisiting Classical and Medieval Sunni Approaches to the Salvation of Others” in a book called “Between Heaven and Hell. Could you share your insights on religious pluralism you share in chapter?
6. What are your thoughts on inter-faith dialogue? Some people are all for it, while others feel that it has its limitations. Where do you lie on the spectrum?
Follow Up: So if we think about humanity at large and think about how every person seeks a better or improved quality of life – however we define this – but even if it be purely in material terms, how powerful do you think this concept can be in bringing communities together around a common purpose. So moving from a lens of theology to a lens of improving the quality of life of all people – And the Qur’an speaks about this, as all of humankind being made from a Single Soul (as in Sura an-Nisa Ayah 1)
7. How do you understand the relationship between the unity of humankind as well as the diversity inherent within it? How do you feel this may connect to the notion of respect for the “other” and the notion of pluralism not just between different faiths but also within Islam?
Follow Up: What can be done to improve those relationships and, in these times, how can Muslims, especially in America, better support each other?
8. Your explored how Ibn Taymiyyah understood the perennial debate between what is usually referred to as “reason versus revelation” – I wonder if you would be happy to share some of your thoughts regarding the relationship between “Reason” and “the Intellect” and how Ibn Taymiyyah defines ‘aql vis-a-vis revelation?
Follow Up: In your understanding, as Sunni thinker and scholar, how do you view the role of the intellect in the understanding and practice of one’s faith?
9. If I may ask, what would be a question, even a faith-related question, that you are still searching for a satisfying answer to and for which you would even welcome other perspectives on?
10. And finally, we need to think about a vision for the future. We end up talking about these in general terms, but could you name a specific objective, perhaps, you see the world can achieve, let’s say in 25 years, and what insights and suggestions would you offer that might help achieve this vision?
EDITORS’ NOTE: Yasir Qadhi — Dean of the Islamic Seminary of America, an international Islamic educational institution and a doctoral graduate of Yale University, specializing in Islamic intellectual history and thought — discusses his insights on Muslims in America, challenges people of faith face in the West, academic vs. seminary study of Islam, religious pluralism, interfaith dialogue, intra-faith (Muslim to Muslim) relationships, Ibn Taymiyyah’s understanding of reason vs. revelation, and his vision for the future.
Audio discussion at:
https://sahilbadruddin.com/yasir-qadhi- ... ern-world/
Interview Questions
1. To start, I want to generally talk your experience growing up in America. How are things the same and how are they now different for you?
Follow Up: Has you seen the way in which Muslims define “Muslim-ness” evolve in the last 20 years (let’s say since 9/11)?
Follow Up: What would you see as markers of Muslim identity for Islam in the 21st century? Both at the general level and more specifically in the West.
2. In the past decade, especially, Muslims, have engaged in robust outreach initiatives to help correct the perception of Islam in the West. How do we change perceptions perhaps more quickly? You’ve mentioned it starts locally. And what areas would you, personally, like to see more Muslim presence?
3. Another challenge especially in the west that people face, people of religion face, and particularly the youth, is the influence of atheism, secularism, and a growing antipathy towards faith, that religion lacks intellectual merit.
It feels as though religion is fighting a losing battle, an ideological tsunami. Given your decades of work again, what, if anything, can be done to create a robust response to this antipathy towards faith?
4. How did your exposure to the study of Islam in an academic institution like Yale University, change your views about Islam or how Islam should be approached (for example, the role of historical context in situating Muslim-ness and expressions and ideas of Muslim identity through time and place)?
5. You’ve written a chapter entitled: “The Path of Allah or the Paths of Allah: Revisiting Classical and Medieval Sunni Approaches to the Salvation of Others” in a book called “Between Heaven and Hell. Could you share your insights on religious pluralism you share in chapter?
6. What are your thoughts on inter-faith dialogue? Some people are all for it, while others feel that it has its limitations. Where do you lie on the spectrum?
Follow Up: So if we think about humanity at large and think about how every person seeks a better or improved quality of life – however we define this – but even if it be purely in material terms, how powerful do you think this concept can be in bringing communities together around a common purpose. So moving from a lens of theology to a lens of improving the quality of life of all people – And the Qur’an speaks about this, as all of humankind being made from a Single Soul (as in Sura an-Nisa Ayah 1)
7. How do you understand the relationship between the unity of humankind as well as the diversity inherent within it? How do you feel this may connect to the notion of respect for the “other” and the notion of pluralism not just between different faiths but also within Islam?
Follow Up: What can be done to improve those relationships and, in these times, how can Muslims, especially in America, better support each other?
8. Your explored how Ibn Taymiyyah understood the perennial debate between what is usually referred to as “reason versus revelation” – I wonder if you would be happy to share some of your thoughts regarding the relationship between “Reason” and “the Intellect” and how Ibn Taymiyyah defines ‘aql vis-a-vis revelation?
Follow Up: In your understanding, as Sunni thinker and scholar, how do you view the role of the intellect in the understanding and practice of one’s faith?
9. If I may ask, what would be a question, even a faith-related question, that you are still searching for a satisfying answer to and for which you would even welcome other perspectives on?
10. And finally, we need to think about a vision for the future. We end up talking about these in general terms, but could you name a specific objective, perhaps, you see the world can achieve, let’s say in 25 years, and what insights and suggestions would you offer that might help achieve this vision?
Saudi Arabia bans flogging as form of punishment
Saudi Arabia is to abolish flogging as a form of criminal punishment, according to legal documents.
The state-sanctioned lashings will be replaced by prison sentences or fines, a directive from the Gulf kingdom’s Supreme Court says.
“The decision is an extension of the human rights reforms introduced under the direction of King Salman … [and will] bring the kingdom into line with international human rights norms,” the document is reported to state.
Other forms of capital and corporal punishment — including beheading for murder and amputations for theft — will remain in use.
While analysts will see the new decision as a further attempt by de facto ruler Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to present the country as modernising, critics have already pointed out that the kingdom’s human rights record remains among the worst in the world.
Anti-government dissent is banned, and those who dare to criticise the country’s rulers are routinely subject to arbitrary arrest. Other freedom of expression is severely curtailed.
In 2019, some 184 people were executed — a record number for the kingdom in a year when such government-approved killings were in decline almost everywhere else in the world.
More...
https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/world/sa ... ailsignout
Saudi Arabia is to abolish flogging as a form of criminal punishment, according to legal documents.
The state-sanctioned lashings will be replaced by prison sentences or fines, a directive from the Gulf kingdom’s Supreme Court says.
“The decision is an extension of the human rights reforms introduced under the direction of King Salman … [and will] bring the kingdom into line with international human rights norms,” the document is reported to state.
Other forms of capital and corporal punishment — including beheading for murder and amputations for theft — will remain in use.
While analysts will see the new decision as a further attempt by de facto ruler Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to present the country as modernising, critics have already pointed out that the kingdom’s human rights record remains among the worst in the world.
Anti-government dissent is banned, and those who dare to criticise the country’s rulers are routinely subject to arbitrary arrest. Other freedom of expression is severely curtailed.
In 2019, some 184 people were executed — a record number for the kingdom in a year when such government-approved killings were in decline almost everywhere else in the world.
More...
https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/world/sa ... ailsignout
Book
The Qur’an and its Readers Worldwide
Contemporary Commentaries and Translations
The IIS was involved in the publication of the book.
One of the articles in it:
“Persian Qurʾanic Networks, Modernity, and the Writings of ‘an Iranian Lady’, Nusrat Amin Khanum (d. 1983),”
More about the book and the article at:
https://www.academia.edu/27570788/_Pers ... view-paper
The Qur’an and its Readers Worldwide
Contemporary Commentaries and Translations
The IIS was involved in the publication of the book.
One of the articles in it:
“Persian Qurʾanic Networks, Modernity, and the Writings of ‘an Iranian Lady’, Nusrat Amin Khanum (d. 1983),”
More about the book and the article at:
https://www.academia.edu/27570788/_Pers ... view-paper
The Art of Translation: An Early Persian Commentary of the Quran
Alya Karame
Edinburgh College of Art, The University of Edinburgh, Scotland
[email protected]
Travis Zadeh
Haverford College, Haverford, Pennsylvania,
[email protected]
Abstract
This article presents a description and analysis of a Persian translation and commentary of the Quran, entitled Tafsir-i munir , by Abu Nasr al-Haddadi (d. after 400/1009),the earliest exegetical work in Persian whose author can be identified. A manuscript of this multivolume work housed in the Topkapi Palace Museum of Istanbul offers an important historical testament to the calligraphic development of Persian exegetical writing and the manners in which scholars and authorities sought creative ways to visually balance the sacred Arabic text of the Quran with vernacular exegetic material.The manuscript also reveals a good deal about Quranic book art, as well as the development of Persian commentaries and translations, thus offering further insight into the history of the Quran across the frontiers of Central Asia and Khurasan.
Keywords
Book art – calligraphy – Ghaznavids – Persia – Quranic exegesis – translation
The article can be accessed at:
https://www.academia.edu/27570110/_The_ ... view-paper
Alya Karame
Edinburgh College of Art, The University of Edinburgh, Scotland
[email protected]
Travis Zadeh
Haverford College, Haverford, Pennsylvania,
[email protected]
Abstract
This article presents a description and analysis of a Persian translation and commentary of the Quran, entitled Tafsir-i munir , by Abu Nasr al-Haddadi (d. after 400/1009),the earliest exegetical work in Persian whose author can be identified. A manuscript of this multivolume work housed in the Topkapi Palace Museum of Istanbul offers an important historical testament to the calligraphic development of Persian exegetical writing and the manners in which scholars and authorities sought creative ways to visually balance the sacred Arabic text of the Quran with vernacular exegetic material.The manuscript also reveals a good deal about Quranic book art, as well as the development of Persian commentaries and translations, thus offering further insight into the history of the Quran across the frontiers of Central Asia and Khurasan.
Keywords
Book art – calligraphy – Ghaznavids – Persia – Quranic exegesis – translation
The article can be accessed at:
https://www.academia.edu/27570110/_The_ ... view-paper
Book
A Reflexive Islamic Modernity
Academic Knowledge and Religious Subjectivity in the Global Ismaili Community
Abstract
Nizari Ismailis are one of most active Muslim communities in academic education and knowledge production in the fields of Islamic studies and humanities. For this purpose, the community runs two academic institutions based in London: The Institute of Ismaili Studies and the Institute for the Study of Muslim Civilisations. Drawing on sociological approaches to religion and knowledge, this study examines the academic discourse of these two institutes an the religious subjectivities of their international body of students. It shows that the Ismaili community is navigating challenges along three axes: its relationship to secular modernity, to mainstream Islam, and to itself (its own history and identity). The Ismaili response to this three-dimensional challenge is interpreted as a process of reflexive modernization, whereby Islam is discursively reconceptualized as culture rather than religion and uncertainty is internalized into individual religious subjectivity.
https://www.nomos-elibrary.de/10.5771/9 ... -modernity
A Reflexive Islamic Modernity
Academic Knowledge and Religious Subjectivity in the Global Ismaili Community
Abstract
Nizari Ismailis are one of most active Muslim communities in academic education and knowledge production in the fields of Islamic studies and humanities. For this purpose, the community runs two academic institutions based in London: The Institute of Ismaili Studies and the Institute for the Study of Muslim Civilisations. Drawing on sociological approaches to religion and knowledge, this study examines the academic discourse of these two institutes an the religious subjectivities of their international body of students. It shows that the Ismaili community is navigating challenges along three axes: its relationship to secular modernity, to mainstream Islam, and to itself (its own history and identity). The Ismaili response to this three-dimensional challenge is interpreted as a process of reflexive modernization, whereby Islam is discursively reconceptualized as culture rather than religion and uncertainty is internalized into individual religious subjectivity.
https://www.nomos-elibrary.de/10.5771/9 ... -modernity
Where the Powerful Can Kill the Weak, as Long as They Pay
The Quran introduced blood money as a path to “mercy” and to end tribal conflicts — not as impunity for the rich.
In October 2018, the world was shocked by news of the gruesome murder of a prominent Saudi journalist: Jamal Khashoggi, a critic of Saudi Arabia’s ambitious crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman. Mr. Khashoggi had been in exile, fearing for his safety, but he was lured to his country’s consulate in Istanbul with hopes of getting documents for his planned marriage. Instead, he was slain and dismembered.
This appalling murder sent shock waves through the West, which only set off a Saudi effort at a cover-up. The kingdom’s authorities first denied that Mr. Khashoggi had disappeared in the consulate. Then they had to admit that he was killed by a special squad, but said it was without the knowledge of the crown prince.
Last month, Salah Khashoggi, the victim’s eldest son, who still lives in Saudi Arabia, announced that he had “pardoned” his father’s murderers, an act that may be enough to close the case under Saudi law. In April, The Times had published reports that Salah Khashoggi and his siblings had received tens of thousands of dollars and real estate worth millions of dollars from the rulers of the kingdom as compensation for the murder of their father.
How can a murder case be closed through a mere “pardon” by a family member? And how is it acceptable, legally and culturally, that the family member gets handsomely paid for it?
The answer is in the notion of “diya,” or “blood money,” which has been used in Saudi Arabia for decades to cover up grave crimes.
Diya is built on the idea that murder is not always a crime to be prosecuted; instead, it can be treated as a tort to be privately compensated. In other words, if I kill your daughter, I owe you something. You can ask for my execution or accept a negotiated amount of blood money from me. If I pay the agreed price, we are even, and I walk away.
While defenders of this practice with ancient roots say it provides a form of justice, it allows an affront that no modern code of justice would dare to codify: The powerful can easily kill the weak if they pay to do so.
In 2013, Saudi society saw a horrendous example: Fayhan al-Ghamdi, a preacher, tortured and killed his own 5-year-old daughter, Lama, then walked free by paying blood money to her mother. Only after a public outcry, raised under the Twitter hashtag #AnaLama, was the killer sentenced to eight years in jail and 800 lashes.
The more usual scene in Saudi Arabia is that a wealthy killer saves himself by offering the victim’s family big sums of blood money while raising the money from relatives as an act of “charity” and creating a lucrative business for middlemen. The overall result is a culture that “mitigates the atrocious behavior of killers and criminals,” as a Saudi journalist, Hani Alhadri, described last year.
In 1990, the problem was exported to Pakistan, with its Qisas and Diyat Ordinance, a law that made blood money a legal option to close cases of murder. It soon proved to be a perfect cover for so-called honor killings: Once a family decided to kill their daughter for their twisted notion of “honor,” the brother could do the job, and the father could simply “pardon” him.
In 2012, Pakistan was shocked by the story of Shahzeb Khan, a young university student who protected his sisters from drunken thugs, only to be killed by them. But the thugs’ powerful family threatened Mr. Khan’s poor family that they would kill the Khan daughters as well unless the Khans accepted blood money to close the case.
Cases like those have led a Pakistani scholar, Hassan Javid, to call for ending all blood money laws, which are in effect in Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Iran, because they “provide the rich and powerful with the means by which to evade responsibility for any crimes that they might commit.”
However, there is a major obstacle to such legal reform: the notion of blood money comes from the Quran, and for some Muslims, that ends any discussion. But those Muslims are missing something important: The Quran, a scripture with a human context of the seventh century, appealed to a very different society, in which blood money served a very different purpose.
We can understand this context through The Great Exegesis by the 12th- century Sunni scholar Fakhr al-Din al-Razi: Before Islam, Arabia was a war zone of tribes, lacking any central authority, police force or court system. Murder among these tribes was punished with “qisas,” the principle of “life for a life, eye for an eye.” However, tribes had different claims to “honor,” and the haughtier ones demanded two or more lives for one of their fallen. This led to disputes and blood feuds that went on for generations.
That is why, as the Islamic history expert Montgomery Watt, alluding to a custom among early Anglo-Saxons, noted: “The wiser and more progressive men of the time seem to have recognized the advantages of substituting a blood-wit for the actual taking of a life.” Which is exactly what the Quran did. It authorized the law of retaliation, but also added:
“But if any remission is made by the brother of the slain, then grant any reasonable demand, and compensate him with handsome gratitude, this is a concession and a mercy from your Lord.” (2:178)
In other words, the Quran introduced blood money as “mercy” and a way to end tribal conflicts — not to give immunity to rich thugs, families who kill their own daughters or rulers who kill their critics.
Yet a literalist application of scripture can lead to horrific outcomes, as we are seeing now.
So what must be done? First, understand that Quranic commandments are not ends in themselves but means for a higher end: achieving justice. And different contexts may require different means for achieving justice.
This was realized by the Ottoman Empire, the last seat of the Caliphate, which introduced modern laws and secular courts in the 19th century. A big step was a new penal code in 1858 that said even if a murder is settled with blood money, secular courts can still punish the killer. Two decades later, under the pious Sultan Abdul Hamid II, the empire also introduced the office of public prosecutor to indict for crimes regardless of any bargain or cover-up.
Today, Saudi Arabia represents the deep troubles of an archaic Islamic tradition that bypassed many of these modern reforms. Its crown prince may try to close the gap cosmetically, by allowing women to drive or dance, which is fine. But real reform for the kingdom will be accepting the rule of law and freedom of speech. That would include not murdering critical journalists and not covering up their murders by paying blood money.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/30/opin ... ogin-email
The Quran introduced blood money as a path to “mercy” and to end tribal conflicts — not as impunity for the rich.
In October 2018, the world was shocked by news of the gruesome murder of a prominent Saudi journalist: Jamal Khashoggi, a critic of Saudi Arabia’s ambitious crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman. Mr. Khashoggi had been in exile, fearing for his safety, but he was lured to his country’s consulate in Istanbul with hopes of getting documents for his planned marriage. Instead, he was slain and dismembered.
This appalling murder sent shock waves through the West, which only set off a Saudi effort at a cover-up. The kingdom’s authorities first denied that Mr. Khashoggi had disappeared in the consulate. Then they had to admit that he was killed by a special squad, but said it was without the knowledge of the crown prince.
Last month, Salah Khashoggi, the victim’s eldest son, who still lives in Saudi Arabia, announced that he had “pardoned” his father’s murderers, an act that may be enough to close the case under Saudi law. In April, The Times had published reports that Salah Khashoggi and his siblings had received tens of thousands of dollars and real estate worth millions of dollars from the rulers of the kingdom as compensation for the murder of their father.
How can a murder case be closed through a mere “pardon” by a family member? And how is it acceptable, legally and culturally, that the family member gets handsomely paid for it?
The answer is in the notion of “diya,” or “blood money,” which has been used in Saudi Arabia for decades to cover up grave crimes.
Diya is built on the idea that murder is not always a crime to be prosecuted; instead, it can be treated as a tort to be privately compensated. In other words, if I kill your daughter, I owe you something. You can ask for my execution or accept a negotiated amount of blood money from me. If I pay the agreed price, we are even, and I walk away.
While defenders of this practice with ancient roots say it provides a form of justice, it allows an affront that no modern code of justice would dare to codify: The powerful can easily kill the weak if they pay to do so.
In 2013, Saudi society saw a horrendous example: Fayhan al-Ghamdi, a preacher, tortured and killed his own 5-year-old daughter, Lama, then walked free by paying blood money to her mother. Only after a public outcry, raised under the Twitter hashtag #AnaLama, was the killer sentenced to eight years in jail and 800 lashes.
The more usual scene in Saudi Arabia is that a wealthy killer saves himself by offering the victim’s family big sums of blood money while raising the money from relatives as an act of “charity” and creating a lucrative business for middlemen. The overall result is a culture that “mitigates the atrocious behavior of killers and criminals,” as a Saudi journalist, Hani Alhadri, described last year.
In 1990, the problem was exported to Pakistan, with its Qisas and Diyat Ordinance, a law that made blood money a legal option to close cases of murder. It soon proved to be a perfect cover for so-called honor killings: Once a family decided to kill their daughter for their twisted notion of “honor,” the brother could do the job, and the father could simply “pardon” him.
In 2012, Pakistan was shocked by the story of Shahzeb Khan, a young university student who protected his sisters from drunken thugs, only to be killed by them. But the thugs’ powerful family threatened Mr. Khan’s poor family that they would kill the Khan daughters as well unless the Khans accepted blood money to close the case.
Cases like those have led a Pakistani scholar, Hassan Javid, to call for ending all blood money laws, which are in effect in Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Iran, because they “provide the rich and powerful with the means by which to evade responsibility for any crimes that they might commit.”
However, there is a major obstacle to such legal reform: the notion of blood money comes from the Quran, and for some Muslims, that ends any discussion. But those Muslims are missing something important: The Quran, a scripture with a human context of the seventh century, appealed to a very different society, in which blood money served a very different purpose.
We can understand this context through The Great Exegesis by the 12th- century Sunni scholar Fakhr al-Din al-Razi: Before Islam, Arabia was a war zone of tribes, lacking any central authority, police force or court system. Murder among these tribes was punished with “qisas,” the principle of “life for a life, eye for an eye.” However, tribes had different claims to “honor,” and the haughtier ones demanded two or more lives for one of their fallen. This led to disputes and blood feuds that went on for generations.
That is why, as the Islamic history expert Montgomery Watt, alluding to a custom among early Anglo-Saxons, noted: “The wiser and more progressive men of the time seem to have recognized the advantages of substituting a blood-wit for the actual taking of a life.” Which is exactly what the Quran did. It authorized the law of retaliation, but also added:
“But if any remission is made by the brother of the slain, then grant any reasonable demand, and compensate him with handsome gratitude, this is a concession and a mercy from your Lord.” (2:178)
In other words, the Quran introduced blood money as “mercy” and a way to end tribal conflicts — not to give immunity to rich thugs, families who kill their own daughters or rulers who kill their critics.
Yet a literalist application of scripture can lead to horrific outcomes, as we are seeing now.
So what must be done? First, understand that Quranic commandments are not ends in themselves but means for a higher end: achieving justice. And different contexts may require different means for achieving justice.
This was realized by the Ottoman Empire, the last seat of the Caliphate, which introduced modern laws and secular courts in the 19th century. A big step was a new penal code in 1858 that said even if a murder is settled with blood money, secular courts can still punish the killer. Two decades later, under the pious Sultan Abdul Hamid II, the empire also introduced the office of public prosecutor to indict for crimes regardless of any bargain or cover-up.
Today, Saudi Arabia represents the deep troubles of an archaic Islamic tradition that bypassed many of these modern reforms. Its crown prince may try to close the gap cosmetically, by allowing women to drive or dance, which is fine. But real reform for the kingdom will be accepting the rule of law and freedom of speech. That would include not murdering critical journalists and not covering up their murders by paying blood money.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/30/opin ... ogin-email
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TODAY'S PAPER | JULY 29, 2020
Widespread criticism over rationale for new law to ‘protect’ Islam
The Newspaper's Staff ReporterUpdated 27 Jul 2020
ISLAMABAD: Various sections of society, including a federal minister, have criticised the passage of the Punjab Tahaffuz-i-Bunyad-i-Islam (protecting the foundation of Islam) Bill 2020 by the Punjab Assembly, warning that such trends would fan extremism.
Federal Minister for Science and Technology Fawad Chaudhry in a tweet stated: “An environment has been created in the Parliament, particularly in the Punjab Assembly, where every [other] member comes up with a motion on a daily basis warning that Islam will be in danger if it is not passed. This is a dangerous trend and it will plunge us deep into sectarianism and religious extremism.”
In response to another tweet criticising the act of passing the bill making publishing of objectionable and/or hate material punishable, Mr Chaudhry stated: “Islam in Pakistan is neither facing any danger from TikTok nor from books. We are facing a danger because of the division on the basis of sectarianism and extremism.
“Those living in palaces must exercise caution and do not fan the fire that burn themselves.”
In a statement, National Party’s Punjab president Ayub Malik said the new law would fan sectarianism besides stoking hatred against minorities in the largest and most populous province of the country that had a history of religious hatred against the marginalised sections of society.
Minister says such trends will plunge nation into extremism
Mr Malik said the country had already suffered a lot due to the retrogressive policies of military dictator General Ziaul Haq that encouraged obscurantist elements of society to badly damage the vision of Jinnah’s Pakistan.
“Now with this new law, the concept of Jinnah’s Pakistan has been pushed towards the verge of complete destruction, paving the way for more hatred against minorities and other sections of society,” he added.
He questioned the rationale of enacting the law when Islamic injunctions of 1973 Constitution along with Section 505(2) of the PPC and Section 8 of the Anti-Terrorism Act already penalise racial and sectarian hatred.
Chief of Tehreek Nifaz Fiqh Jafaria Agha Syed Hamid Ali Shah Moosavi in a statement termed the bill contrary to Quran and Sunnah and an attack on the Constitution.
He also announced that peaceful protests would be held across Pakistan on Friday against this law. “We will not shy away from taking any big step to save the foundations of the religion and the motherland,” he said, demanding that “this vicious bill be withdrawn forthwith”.
Agha Moosavi said the passage of the bill just before Muharram was aimed at thwarting the efforts of the government to maintain law and order during the month.
The Women Democratic Front (WDF), a civil society organisation working for women’s rights, also expressed deep concerns over, what it called, “the blatant attempt at increased state censorship through the Tahaffuz-i-Bunyad-i-Islam Bill”.
It said the bill was a transparent ploy to attack the already shrinking space for intellectual independence and religious freedom by threatening to monitor and censor books, magazines, pamphlets and other reading material published and imported into Pakistan in the name of protection of religion.
Through the passage of this bill, it said, the state wished to trample even further on freedom of thought and expression in the country and stifle any dissenting discourse.
The WDF called upon the Punjab governor to not ratify the bill and condemned those political parties which claimed to fight for the rights of minorities and yet voted for the bill.
“It is no secret that religious, intellectual, academic and political freedoms are under attack in Pakistan. Efforts to silence academics, journalists and political workers through force have been increasing while rightwing forces are making it harder for non-Muslim Pakistanis to practice their religion freely,” the statement said. It called upon all progressive forces in the country to join hands in calling upon the legislators to repeal this bill with immediate effect and stand with the forces of freedom rather than against them.
The law passed on July 22 makes “desecration” of any prophet, any of the four divine books, family and companions of Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him), as well as abetting or glorification of terrorists, and promoting sectarianism in any book punishable with a maximum of five-year jail terms and up to Rs500,000 fine. It makes the use of the words “Khatam-un-Nabiyyeen” mandatory whenever the name of Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) is mentioned.
Published in Dawn, July 27th, 2020
https://www.dawn.com/news/1571343/wides ... tect-islam
Widespread criticism over rationale for new law to ‘protect’ Islam
The Newspaper's Staff ReporterUpdated 27 Jul 2020
ISLAMABAD: Various sections of society, including a federal minister, have criticised the passage of the Punjab Tahaffuz-i-Bunyad-i-Islam (protecting the foundation of Islam) Bill 2020 by the Punjab Assembly, warning that such trends would fan extremism.
Federal Minister for Science and Technology Fawad Chaudhry in a tweet stated: “An environment has been created in the Parliament, particularly in the Punjab Assembly, where every [other] member comes up with a motion on a daily basis warning that Islam will be in danger if it is not passed. This is a dangerous trend and it will plunge us deep into sectarianism and religious extremism.”
In response to another tweet criticising the act of passing the bill making publishing of objectionable and/or hate material punishable, Mr Chaudhry stated: “Islam in Pakistan is neither facing any danger from TikTok nor from books. We are facing a danger because of the division on the basis of sectarianism and extremism.
“Those living in palaces must exercise caution and do not fan the fire that burn themselves.”
In a statement, National Party’s Punjab president Ayub Malik said the new law would fan sectarianism besides stoking hatred against minorities in the largest and most populous province of the country that had a history of religious hatred against the marginalised sections of society.
Minister says such trends will plunge nation into extremism
Mr Malik said the country had already suffered a lot due to the retrogressive policies of military dictator General Ziaul Haq that encouraged obscurantist elements of society to badly damage the vision of Jinnah’s Pakistan.
“Now with this new law, the concept of Jinnah’s Pakistan has been pushed towards the verge of complete destruction, paving the way for more hatred against minorities and other sections of society,” he added.
He questioned the rationale of enacting the law when Islamic injunctions of 1973 Constitution along with Section 505(2) of the PPC and Section 8 of the Anti-Terrorism Act already penalise racial and sectarian hatred.
Chief of Tehreek Nifaz Fiqh Jafaria Agha Syed Hamid Ali Shah Moosavi in a statement termed the bill contrary to Quran and Sunnah and an attack on the Constitution.
He also announced that peaceful protests would be held across Pakistan on Friday against this law. “We will not shy away from taking any big step to save the foundations of the religion and the motherland,” he said, demanding that “this vicious bill be withdrawn forthwith”.
Agha Moosavi said the passage of the bill just before Muharram was aimed at thwarting the efforts of the government to maintain law and order during the month.
The Women Democratic Front (WDF), a civil society organisation working for women’s rights, also expressed deep concerns over, what it called, “the blatant attempt at increased state censorship through the Tahaffuz-i-Bunyad-i-Islam Bill”.
It said the bill was a transparent ploy to attack the already shrinking space for intellectual independence and religious freedom by threatening to monitor and censor books, magazines, pamphlets and other reading material published and imported into Pakistan in the name of protection of religion.
Through the passage of this bill, it said, the state wished to trample even further on freedom of thought and expression in the country and stifle any dissenting discourse.
The WDF called upon the Punjab governor to not ratify the bill and condemned those political parties which claimed to fight for the rights of minorities and yet voted for the bill.
“It is no secret that religious, intellectual, academic and political freedoms are under attack in Pakistan. Efforts to silence academics, journalists and political workers through force have been increasing while rightwing forces are making it harder for non-Muslim Pakistanis to practice their religion freely,” the statement said. It called upon all progressive forces in the country to join hands in calling upon the legislators to repeal this bill with immediate effect and stand with the forces of freedom rather than against them.
The law passed on July 22 makes “desecration” of any prophet, any of the four divine books, family and companions of Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him), as well as abetting or glorification of terrorists, and promoting sectarianism in any book punishable with a maximum of five-year jail terms and up to Rs500,000 fine. It makes the use of the words “Khatam-un-Nabiyyeen” mandatory whenever the name of Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) is mentioned.
Published in Dawn, July 27th, 2020
https://www.dawn.com/news/1571343/wides ... tect-islam
Webinar October 15, 2020: Muslims and Mediation: Diversity, Practice and Contemporary Challenges #Conflictresolutionday
Conflict Resolution Day is recognized annually on the third Thursday in October. It was initiated in 2005 by the Association for Conflict Resolution (ACR) and is now an annual global event promoting the concept of peaceful conflict resolution.
Conflict Resolution Day is recognized annually on the third Thursday in October. It was initiated in 2005 by the Association for Conflict Resolution (ACR) and is now an annual global event promoting the concept of peaceful conflict resolution.
Leading Muslim Thinker Ebrahim Moosa to give Keynote Address at IIS Short Course on Shari‘a
3rd February 2021
Page from Akhlaq-i Nasiri
Professor Ebrahim Moosa, a leading exponent of contemporary Muslim thought, will be giving the keynote address for the 2021 IIS Short Course on “Shari‘a: Development of Fiqh and Ethics in Muslim Contexts”, which will run online between April 12th and 30th.
One of the 500 most influential Muslims in the world, according to The Muslim 500, he is a Professor of Islamic Thought and Muslim Societies at the University of Notre Dame in the Department of History and the Kroc Institute of International Studies. Professor Moosa was previously a Professor of Religion at Duke University in North Carolina, and was also a Visiting Professor at Stanford University, California, in 1998-2001.
A respected author, Professor Moosa’s book Ghazali and the Poetics of Imagination won the American Academy of Religion’s Best First Book in the History of Religions Award in 2006. He has also written extensively on the thought of Muslim modernist Fazlur Rahman and co-authored the book Islam in the Modern World with Jeffrey Kenney in 2013.
The IIS Short Course on shari‘a https://www.iis.ac.uk/short-courses/sha ... paign=SC21, now in its third consecutive year, will run online this year owing to the Covid-19 pandemic, but will continue to be led by well-known specialists in their respective fields. These include:
- UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights, Professor Mashood Baderin of the School Of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS);
- Well-known Islamic feminist Dr Ziba Mir-Hosseini, founding member of the Musawah global women’s movement and lecturer at Cambridge and Columbia Universities;
- Dr Iqbal Asaria, a leading practitioner of Islamic finance with a focus on Sustainable Development Goals;
- Dr Hadi Enayat, lecturer at Aga Khan University, Institute for the Study of Muslim Civilisations, focusing on constitutional development in the Muslim world.
The course will take a multi-disciplinary approach to the understanding of shari‘a, providing multiple perspectives through the work of outstanding Muslim scholars who have spearheaded new thinking on issues of contemporary relevance to Muslim communities. It will demonstrate that, contrary to popular belief, shari‘a​​​​​​​ was never a frozen phenomenon but has within it mechanisms to address new issues through the principles of darura (necessity) and maslaha (public interest), which Muslim societies utilised historically through the process of ijtihad (independent reasoning and exertion of the mind).
The Shia understanding of shari‘a​​​​​​​ and its interpretation through the Imams from the progeny of the Prophet Muhammad, the ahl al-bayt, will be fully explained in this course in the context of Islam’s juridical history. Contemporary issues will be covered through a presentation by a recipient of a vital organ who championed the cause of organ donation for 23 years, finally succeeding in getting a fatwa passed to show that organ donation is not prohibited in Muslim jurisprudence.
The course is directed by Dr Mohamed Keshavjee, co-author of the book Understanding Shari‘a​​​​​​​: Islamic Law in a Globalised World, reviewed in the Financial Times. The course is aimed at professional members of the Jamat and those who work in academia, government, civil society, and Jamati and AKDN institutions. It will be spaced over a 20-day period with lectures held every alternate day, thus giving participants enough time to absorb the lectures and to catch up with relevant readings as they get more fully into the course.
Find out more and apply for “Shari‘a​​​​​​​: Development of Fiqh and Ethics in Muslim Contexts” here.
Explore and apply for other IIS Short Courses on offer here https://www.iis.ac.uk/short-courses/sha ... paign=SC21
https://www.iis.ac.uk/news/leading-musl ... ria-course
3rd February 2021
Page from Akhlaq-i Nasiri
Professor Ebrahim Moosa, a leading exponent of contemporary Muslim thought, will be giving the keynote address for the 2021 IIS Short Course on “Shari‘a: Development of Fiqh and Ethics in Muslim Contexts”, which will run online between April 12th and 30th.
One of the 500 most influential Muslims in the world, according to The Muslim 500, he is a Professor of Islamic Thought and Muslim Societies at the University of Notre Dame in the Department of History and the Kroc Institute of International Studies. Professor Moosa was previously a Professor of Religion at Duke University in North Carolina, and was also a Visiting Professor at Stanford University, California, in 1998-2001.
A respected author, Professor Moosa’s book Ghazali and the Poetics of Imagination won the American Academy of Religion’s Best First Book in the History of Religions Award in 2006. He has also written extensively on the thought of Muslim modernist Fazlur Rahman and co-authored the book Islam in the Modern World with Jeffrey Kenney in 2013.
The IIS Short Course on shari‘a https://www.iis.ac.uk/short-courses/sha ... paign=SC21, now in its third consecutive year, will run online this year owing to the Covid-19 pandemic, but will continue to be led by well-known specialists in their respective fields. These include:
- UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights, Professor Mashood Baderin of the School Of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS);
- Well-known Islamic feminist Dr Ziba Mir-Hosseini, founding member of the Musawah global women’s movement and lecturer at Cambridge and Columbia Universities;
- Dr Iqbal Asaria, a leading practitioner of Islamic finance with a focus on Sustainable Development Goals;
- Dr Hadi Enayat, lecturer at Aga Khan University, Institute for the Study of Muslim Civilisations, focusing on constitutional development in the Muslim world.
The course will take a multi-disciplinary approach to the understanding of shari‘a, providing multiple perspectives through the work of outstanding Muslim scholars who have spearheaded new thinking on issues of contemporary relevance to Muslim communities. It will demonstrate that, contrary to popular belief, shari‘a​​​​​​​ was never a frozen phenomenon but has within it mechanisms to address new issues through the principles of darura (necessity) and maslaha (public interest), which Muslim societies utilised historically through the process of ijtihad (independent reasoning and exertion of the mind).
The Shia understanding of shari‘a​​​​​​​ and its interpretation through the Imams from the progeny of the Prophet Muhammad, the ahl al-bayt, will be fully explained in this course in the context of Islam’s juridical history. Contemporary issues will be covered through a presentation by a recipient of a vital organ who championed the cause of organ donation for 23 years, finally succeeding in getting a fatwa passed to show that organ donation is not prohibited in Muslim jurisprudence.
The course is directed by Dr Mohamed Keshavjee, co-author of the book Understanding Shari‘a​​​​​​​: Islamic Law in a Globalised World, reviewed in the Financial Times. The course is aimed at professional members of the Jamat and those who work in academia, government, civil society, and Jamati and AKDN institutions. It will be spaced over a 20-day period with lectures held every alternate day, thus giving participants enough time to absorb the lectures and to catch up with relevant readings as they get more fully into the course.
Find out more and apply for “Shari‘a​​​​​​​: Development of Fiqh and Ethics in Muslim Contexts” here.
Explore and apply for other IIS Short Courses on offer here https://www.iis.ac.uk/short-courses/sha ... paign=SC21
https://www.iis.ac.uk/news/leading-musl ... ria-course
Understanding Shari‘a: Webinar Demystifies Much Misunderstood Concept
There are few concepts as widely misunderstood as shari‘a. This is the case among both Muslims and non-Muslims; in the West, especially, misconceptions surrounding shari‘a—which literally translates as “the way”—have evoked fear and hostility, and fed into Islamophobia.
“Sadly, shari‘a has become a metaphor today”, says Dr Keshavjee, a scholar affiliated with The Institute for Ismaili Studies (IIS), “for the erroneous perception that Muslims are unable to live their faith in harmony with the exigencies of the modern world”.
There is therefore an urgent need to delineate what shari‘a is and what it is not, and this is the purpose of the recent Understanding Shari‘a webinar. The discussion brings together leading thinkers in the field: Dr Mohamed Keshavjee; Abdullah Saeed, the Sultan of Oman Professor of Arab and Islamic Studies at the University of Melbourne; Dr Ziba Mir-Hosseini, Professorial Research Associate at the Centre for Islamic and Middle Eastern Law, SOAS; and Laila Arstall, Counsel with the international offshore law firm Carey Olsen.
Moderated by Matthew Nelson, Associate Professor in the Asia Institute at the University of Melbourne, the webinar centres on Dr Keshavjee’s publication Understanding Shari‘a and outlines some of its key arguments. Reviewing Understanding Shari‘a in the Financial Times, David Gardner writes “This rich and important book is a lucidly argued and accessibly written corrective [to popular misconceptions of shari‘a].” Reviews have also appeared in The Times Literary Supplement, the Mail & Guardian, the Canadian Arbitration and Mediation Journal, and Muslim News.
In the webinar, Dr Keshavjee outlines the reality of shari‘a. He addresses the important difference between the ideal moral vision of shari‘a and its jurisprudential understanding—or human interpretation—known as fiqh.
Successive generations of Muslims have interpreted shari‘a according to the times in which they have lived, and in his book Dr Keshavjee takes the reader through the historical development of shari‘a and its interactions with a variety of Muslim cultures and societies.
The webinar—and book—also looks at the status of shari‘a today, including the role of women in regard to fiqh and discussions about shari‘a, and the relationship between shari‘a and identity for contemporary Muslims, among other topics.
The webinar is free to view on the IIS website. It is hoped that it will help scholars, students and other interested parties develop a sound baseline of understanding about shari‘a, from which more thoughtful and productive discussions about Islamic law will arise.
Watch Webinar:
https://www.iis.ac.uk/info/understanding-sharia
There are few concepts as widely misunderstood as shari‘a. This is the case among both Muslims and non-Muslims; in the West, especially, misconceptions surrounding shari‘a—which literally translates as “the way”—have evoked fear and hostility, and fed into Islamophobia.
“Sadly, shari‘a has become a metaphor today”, says Dr Keshavjee, a scholar affiliated with The Institute for Ismaili Studies (IIS), “for the erroneous perception that Muslims are unable to live their faith in harmony with the exigencies of the modern world”.
There is therefore an urgent need to delineate what shari‘a is and what it is not, and this is the purpose of the recent Understanding Shari‘a webinar. The discussion brings together leading thinkers in the field: Dr Mohamed Keshavjee; Abdullah Saeed, the Sultan of Oman Professor of Arab and Islamic Studies at the University of Melbourne; Dr Ziba Mir-Hosseini, Professorial Research Associate at the Centre for Islamic and Middle Eastern Law, SOAS; and Laila Arstall, Counsel with the international offshore law firm Carey Olsen.
Moderated by Matthew Nelson, Associate Professor in the Asia Institute at the University of Melbourne, the webinar centres on Dr Keshavjee’s publication Understanding Shari‘a and outlines some of its key arguments. Reviewing Understanding Shari‘a in the Financial Times, David Gardner writes “This rich and important book is a lucidly argued and accessibly written corrective [to popular misconceptions of shari‘a].” Reviews have also appeared in The Times Literary Supplement, the Mail & Guardian, the Canadian Arbitration and Mediation Journal, and Muslim News.
In the webinar, Dr Keshavjee outlines the reality of shari‘a. He addresses the important difference between the ideal moral vision of shari‘a and its jurisprudential understanding—or human interpretation—known as fiqh.
Successive generations of Muslims have interpreted shari‘a according to the times in which they have lived, and in his book Dr Keshavjee takes the reader through the historical development of shari‘a and its interactions with a variety of Muslim cultures and societies.
The webinar—and book—also looks at the status of shari‘a today, including the role of women in regard to fiqh and discussions about shari‘a, and the relationship between shari‘a and identity for contemporary Muslims, among other topics.
The webinar is free to view on the IIS website. It is hoped that it will help scholars, students and other interested parties develop a sound baseline of understanding about shari‘a, from which more thoughtful and productive discussions about Islamic law will arise.
Watch Webinar:
https://www.iis.ac.uk/info/understanding-sharia
Algerian academic gets 3 years in jail for 'offending Islam'
A renowned Algerian scholar on Islam, Said Djabelkhir, was handed a three-year prison sentence on Thursday for “offending Islam”, but pledged to appeal and keep fighting for “freedom” of thought.
Djabelkhir, 53, who has called for “reflection” on Islam's founding texts, was put on trial after seven lawyers and a fellow academic made complaints against him.
Speaking to AFP after the verdict, Djabelkhir, who was released on bail, said he was surprised by the severity of the sentence and that he would appeal to the Court of Cassation if necessary.
“The fight for freedom of conscience is non-negotiable,” the academic, a specialist on Sufi Islam, said. “It is a fight which must continue.”
A little earlier, Djabelkhir's lawyer Moumen Chadi, who also expressed shock over the ruling, said his client had “been sentenced to three years in prison ... [for] offending the precepts of Islam.” “There is no proof,” the lawyer said, describing the case as baseless.
The offence he was convicted of can be punished by up to five years in prison.
The scholar, author of two well-known works, was criticised for writing that the sacrifice of sheep predates Islam and for criticising practices including the marriage of pre-pubescent girls in some Muslim societies.
Algerian law stipulates a three to five-year prison term and/or a fine for “anyone who offends the Prophet (PBUH) or denigrates the dogmatic precepts of Islam, whether it be by writings, drawings, a statement or another means”.
During his trial in April, Djabelkhir defended himself against accusations that he had “harmed Islam”, the religion of the Algerian state, arguing he had only provided “academic reflections”.
He has said that he was targeted by accusers who “have no expertise on religious matters”.
In a recent interview with AFP, he said that “a very great effort of new reflection on the founding texts of Islam is necessary.”
This was “because the traditional readings no longer meet the expectations, needs and questions of modern man”.
“The Salafists want to impose on Muslims their reading of texts as being the absolute truth,” he said. “It is this that I do not cease to contest in my writings,” he added.
His lawyers argued before the court that the complaint against him was inadmissible because it came from individuals and not from the public prosecutor.
They also warned against the trial becoming a launchpad for courts becoming an arena for “religious debates”.
Djabelkhir has received the backing of many academic colleagues and Algerian politicians since the accusations against him surfaced.
Opponents, however, accuse him of disrespecting the Holy Quran and the five pillars of Islam, including the annual Haj pilgrimage.
https://www.dawn.com/news/1619718/alger ... ding-islam
A renowned Algerian scholar on Islam, Said Djabelkhir, was handed a three-year prison sentence on Thursday for “offending Islam”, but pledged to appeal and keep fighting for “freedom” of thought.
Djabelkhir, 53, who has called for “reflection” on Islam's founding texts, was put on trial after seven lawyers and a fellow academic made complaints against him.
Speaking to AFP after the verdict, Djabelkhir, who was released on bail, said he was surprised by the severity of the sentence and that he would appeal to the Court of Cassation if necessary.
“The fight for freedom of conscience is non-negotiable,” the academic, a specialist on Sufi Islam, said. “It is a fight which must continue.”
A little earlier, Djabelkhir's lawyer Moumen Chadi, who also expressed shock over the ruling, said his client had “been sentenced to three years in prison ... [for] offending the precepts of Islam.” “There is no proof,” the lawyer said, describing the case as baseless.
The offence he was convicted of can be punished by up to five years in prison.
The scholar, author of two well-known works, was criticised for writing that the sacrifice of sheep predates Islam and for criticising practices including the marriage of pre-pubescent girls in some Muslim societies.
Algerian law stipulates a three to five-year prison term and/or a fine for “anyone who offends the Prophet (PBUH) or denigrates the dogmatic precepts of Islam, whether it be by writings, drawings, a statement or another means”.
During his trial in April, Djabelkhir defended himself against accusations that he had “harmed Islam”, the religion of the Algerian state, arguing he had only provided “academic reflections”.
He has said that he was targeted by accusers who “have no expertise on religious matters”.
In a recent interview with AFP, he said that “a very great effort of new reflection on the founding texts of Islam is necessary.”
This was “because the traditional readings no longer meet the expectations, needs and questions of modern man”.
“The Salafists want to impose on Muslims their reading of texts as being the absolute truth,” he said. “It is this that I do not cease to contest in my writings,” he added.
His lawyers argued before the court that the complaint against him was inadmissible because it came from individuals and not from the public prosecutor.
They also warned against the trial becoming a launchpad for courts becoming an arena for “religious debates”.
Djabelkhir has received the backing of many academic colleagues and Algerian politicians since the accusations against him surfaced.
Opponents, however, accuse him of disrespecting the Holy Quran and the five pillars of Islam, including the annual Haj pilgrimage.
https://www.dawn.com/news/1619718/alger ... ding-islam
In the excerpt of the interview below, Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman discusses the role of the sharia in general and the hadiths in particular in the matters of governance in Saudi Arabia suggesting broad reforms.
https://www.arabnews.com/node/1850146/media
AAM: Welcome again to this special interview with His Royal Highness Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Your Royal Highness, you spoke previously about moderation. What is the concept of moderation in your opinion?
CP: Of course, this is a broad term. All Muslim jurists and scholars have been talking about the concept of moderation for over a thousand years. So, I do not think I am in a position to clarify this concept, as much as I can ... abide by the Saudi constitution, which is the Quran, the Sunnah, and our basic governance system and to implement it fully in a broad sense that is inclusive of everybody.
AAM: This leads me to another question, namely the space Sharia occupies in the State. Meaning, on the level of the constitution, the judiciary, the public space, and on the level of freedoms of individuals.
CP: As I said earlier, our constitution is the Quran, has been, still is, and will continue to be so forever. And our basic system of governance stipulates this very clearly. We, as a government, or the Shura Council as a legislator, or the King as a reference for the three authorities, we are bound to implement the Quran in some form or another. But in social and personal affairs, we are only obliged to implement stipulations that are clearly stated in the Quran. So, I cannot enforce a Sharia punishment without a clear Quranic stipulation or an explicit stipulation from the Sunnah. When I talk about an explicit stipulation from the Sunnah, most hadith writers classify hadith based on their own typology, like Bukhari, Muslim and others, into correct hadith or weak hadith. But there is another classification which is more important, namely whether a tradition or hadith has been narrated by many people or a single narrator, and this is a main reference for jurisprudence for deducing regulations, Sharia-wise.
CP: So, when we talk about a Mutawater hadith, i.e., narrated and handed down from one group to another group to another starting with the Prophet, PBUH, these hadiths are very few in number, but they are strong in terms of veracity, and their interpretations vary based on the time and place they were revealed and how the hadith was understood at the time. But when we talk about Ahad hadiths, which is handed down from a single person to another starting with the Prophet PBUH, or from a group to a group to a single individual then another group etc. starting with the Prophet PBUH, so that there’s and individual in the chain. This is called ahad hadith. And this is broken down into many classifications, such as correct, weak, or good hadith. And this type of hadith, the ahad, is not as compelling as the mutawater hadiths; the ones narrated by a chain of groups, unless paired with clear Quranic stipulations and a clear mundane or worldly good to be had, especially if it’s a correct ahad hadith.
CP: And this is also a small portion of the body of hadith. While a “khabar” is a hadith handed down from a single person to another single person etc. to an unknown source, starting with the Prophet PBUH, or from a group to a group, then a person to another person, and so on, starting with the Prophet PBUH, so that there’s a missing link. This represents the majority of hadith and this type of hadith is unreliable whatsoever, in the sense that its veracity is not established and that it isn’t binding. And in the biography of the Prophet PBUH, when the hadith was first recorded the Prophet PBUH ordered those records to be burnt and forbade the writing of hadith, and that should apply even more so to “khabar” hadiths so that people are not obliged to implement them from a Sharia perspective, since they also might be used as ammunition to dispute God Almighty’s power to produce teachings that are fit for every time and place.
CP: Hence, the government, where Sharia is concerned, has to implement Quran regulations and teachings in mutawater hadiths, and to look into the veracity and reliability of ahad hadiths, and to disregard “khabar” hadiths entirely, unless if a clear benefit is derived from it for humanity. So, there should be no punishment related to a religious matter except when there is clear Quranic stipulation, and this penalty will be implemented based on the way that the Prophet PBUH applied it. So, let me give you an example: Adultery. The unmarried adulterer is flogged, the married adulterer is killed. And this is a clear stipulation, but when the woman adulterer came to the Prophet PBUH and she told the Prophet PBUF that she had committed adultery, he delayed judgment several times. She eventually insisted and then he told her to go and check if she was pregnant, and then she came back to him and the same scenario was repeated. She came back to him and he told her to come back after she’d weaned the baby. She could have not returned, but he did not ask about her name or who she was.
CP: So, to take a Quranic stipulation and implement it in manner other than the manner followed by the Prophet PBUH and look for the person to prove a certain charge against them, whereas the Prophet PBUH was approached by the perpetrator confessing her crime and yet he treated her in that manner, then that is not what God has ordained.
https://www.arabnews.com/node/1850146/media
AAM: Welcome again to this special interview with His Royal Highness Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Your Royal Highness, you spoke previously about moderation. What is the concept of moderation in your opinion?
CP: Of course, this is a broad term. All Muslim jurists and scholars have been talking about the concept of moderation for over a thousand years. So, I do not think I am in a position to clarify this concept, as much as I can ... abide by the Saudi constitution, which is the Quran, the Sunnah, and our basic governance system and to implement it fully in a broad sense that is inclusive of everybody.
AAM: This leads me to another question, namely the space Sharia occupies in the State. Meaning, on the level of the constitution, the judiciary, the public space, and on the level of freedoms of individuals.
CP: As I said earlier, our constitution is the Quran, has been, still is, and will continue to be so forever. And our basic system of governance stipulates this very clearly. We, as a government, or the Shura Council as a legislator, or the King as a reference for the three authorities, we are bound to implement the Quran in some form or another. But in social and personal affairs, we are only obliged to implement stipulations that are clearly stated in the Quran. So, I cannot enforce a Sharia punishment without a clear Quranic stipulation or an explicit stipulation from the Sunnah. When I talk about an explicit stipulation from the Sunnah, most hadith writers classify hadith based on their own typology, like Bukhari, Muslim and others, into correct hadith or weak hadith. But there is another classification which is more important, namely whether a tradition or hadith has been narrated by many people or a single narrator, and this is a main reference for jurisprudence for deducing regulations, Sharia-wise.
CP: So, when we talk about a Mutawater hadith, i.e., narrated and handed down from one group to another group to another starting with the Prophet, PBUH, these hadiths are very few in number, but they are strong in terms of veracity, and their interpretations vary based on the time and place they were revealed and how the hadith was understood at the time. But when we talk about Ahad hadiths, which is handed down from a single person to another starting with the Prophet PBUH, or from a group to a group to a single individual then another group etc. starting with the Prophet PBUH, so that there’s and individual in the chain. This is called ahad hadith. And this is broken down into many classifications, such as correct, weak, or good hadith. And this type of hadith, the ahad, is not as compelling as the mutawater hadiths; the ones narrated by a chain of groups, unless paired with clear Quranic stipulations and a clear mundane or worldly good to be had, especially if it’s a correct ahad hadith.
CP: And this is also a small portion of the body of hadith. While a “khabar” is a hadith handed down from a single person to another single person etc. to an unknown source, starting with the Prophet PBUH, or from a group to a group, then a person to another person, and so on, starting with the Prophet PBUH, so that there’s a missing link. This represents the majority of hadith and this type of hadith is unreliable whatsoever, in the sense that its veracity is not established and that it isn’t binding. And in the biography of the Prophet PBUH, when the hadith was first recorded the Prophet PBUH ordered those records to be burnt and forbade the writing of hadith, and that should apply even more so to “khabar” hadiths so that people are not obliged to implement them from a Sharia perspective, since they also might be used as ammunition to dispute God Almighty’s power to produce teachings that are fit for every time and place.
CP: Hence, the government, where Sharia is concerned, has to implement Quran regulations and teachings in mutawater hadiths, and to look into the veracity and reliability of ahad hadiths, and to disregard “khabar” hadiths entirely, unless if a clear benefit is derived from it for humanity. So, there should be no punishment related to a religious matter except when there is clear Quranic stipulation, and this penalty will be implemented based on the way that the Prophet PBUH applied it. So, let me give you an example: Adultery. The unmarried adulterer is flogged, the married adulterer is killed. And this is a clear stipulation, but when the woman adulterer came to the Prophet PBUH and she told the Prophet PBUF that she had committed adultery, he delayed judgment several times. She eventually insisted and then he told her to go and check if she was pregnant, and then she came back to him and the same scenario was repeated. She came back to him and he told her to come back after she’d weaned the baby. She could have not returned, but he did not ask about her name or who she was.
CP: So, to take a Quranic stipulation and implement it in manner other than the manner followed by the Prophet PBUH and look for the person to prove a certain charge against them, whereas the Prophet PBUH was approached by the perpetrator confessing her crime and yet he treated her in that manner, then that is not what God has ordained.
Mawlana Sultan Muhammad Shah: “We stuck to our rites and ceremonies… forgetting the other half of our faith”
Posted by Nimira Dewji
“… following the guidance of the Holy Quran, there was freedom of enquiry and research. The result was a magnificent flowering of artistic and intellectual activity throughout the Umma….“
Mawlana Hazar Imam
Acceptance of Charter of Aga Khan University, Karachi, March 16, 1983
Speech
“From the seventh century to the thirteenth century, the Muslim civilizations dominated world culture, accepting, adopting, using and preserving all preceding study of mathematics, philosophy, medicine and astronomy, among other areas of learning. The Islamic field of thought and knowledge included and added to much of the information on which all civilisations are founded. “
Mawlana Hazar Imam
Brown University, Providence, USA, May 26, 1996
Speech
The question arises why the West sprang forward while Islamic societies lagged. Historians agree that several factors are involved. Makdisi notes that one of the factors was the system of perpetuity. Islam had only one form of perpetuity, the waqf, while the West, at the end of the thirteenth century, had two forms: the corporation as well as the charitable trust.
Another major factor was the ‘closing of the gate’ to the scholastic method – freedom of thought and discussion, the freedom of its practice of ijtihad. “The thirteenth century was for the West a century of corporations while for Islam, it was the century that brought into existence the first governmental post of the mufti. The freedom inherent in the function of the mufti gradually weakened and an end was eventually brought to the free play of opinions… The scholastic method eventually disappeared from the scene as a dynamic element in education … On the other hand, the scholastic method was kept alive in the West during the Renaissance of the fifteenth century in the college-universities, long after it had disappeared from the land in which it originated” (Makdisi, The Rise of Colleges, Edinburgh University Press p 290)
Mawlana Sultan Muhammad Shah. Photo: Daftary, The Ismaili Imams
“Islam is fundamentally in its very nature a natural religion. Throughout the Quran, God’s signs (ayat) are referred to as natural phenomena, the law and order of the universe, the exactitudes and consequences of the relations between natural phenomena in cause and effect. The stars, sun, moon, earthquakes, fruits of the earth and trees are repeatedly mentioned as the signs of divine power, divine law and order…. During the great ages of Islam, Muslims did not forget these principles of their religion.
Under the Khalif Muavia and the great Omaiyyad Khalifs of Damascus, the Islamic navy was supreme in the Mediterranean; better ships, better knowledge of wind and tide were placed at the disposal of the Muslim navy and thus the land conquests of half of Western Europe rendered possible and easy…
But at the end of the 17th century and the beginning of the 18th century, the European Renaissance rapidly advanced in knowledge of nature, namely all those very Ayats of God to which the Quran refers, when Muslims forgot the Ayats, namely natural phenomenon, its law and order which are the proofs of divine guidance used in the Quran, but we stuck to our rites and ceremonies, to our prayers and fast alone, forgetting the other half of our faith. Thus during those 200/300 years, Europe and the West got an advance out of all proportion to the Muslim world and we found everywhere in Islam (in spite of our humble prayers, our moral standard, our kindliness and gentleness towards the poor) constant deterioration of one form or another and the Muslim world went down. Why? Because we forgot the law and order of nature to which the Quran refers as proof of God’s existence and we went against God’s natural laws. This and this alone has led to the disastrous consequences we have seen….
“… we look upon Islamic principles as only rites and ceremonies and forget the real Ayats of God’s natural phenomenon… there is no unity of soul without which there can be no greatness…
Remember that in the great first century they knew more about the sea and wind than Europe ever did for hundreds of years to come. Today where are you? Unless our universities have the best graduated Ulema school for men brought up in the same atmosphere as the science students, realizing the fundamental truth that Islam is a natural religion of which the Ayats are the universe in which we live and move and have our being, the same causes will lead to the same disastrous results.”
Letter to the President of the Arabiyya Jamiyyat, Karachi, 4 April 1952
Selected Speeches and Writings of Sir Sultan Muhammad Shah, Edited by K.K. Aziz, Kegan Paul International, London, p 1290-1293
~*~*~
Mawlana Hazar Imam speaking at Mindanao State University. Photo: AKDN/H. Merchant
“The Universities in Damascus and Baghdad, and later those of Cairo, Tehran, Cordova and Istanbul were centres of learning unparalleled anywhere else. Even in those days, once the brute force of the armies had been withdrawn, it was the power of the intellectual elite which took over and governed, ran and maintained the State.
During the two Khalifates, the Muslim Universities were producing the best scholars, doctors, astronomers and philosophers. Today where are we? Have we institutions of learning which can compare with the Sorbonne, Harvard, Yale, Cambridge, Oxford, M.I.T.?…
I am afraid that the torch of intellectual discovery, the attraction of the unknown, the desire for intellectual self-protection have left us.”
Mawlana Hazar Imam
Mindanao University, the Philippines, November 24, 1963
Speech
“Some of the best minds and creative spirits from every corner of the world, independent of ethnic or religious identities, were brought together at great Muslim centres of learning. My own ancestors, the Fatimids, founded one of the world’s oldest universities, Al-Azhar in Cairo, over a thousand years ago. In fields of learning from mathematics to astronomy, from philosophy to medicine Muslim scholars sharpened the cutting edge of human knowledge. They were the equivalents of thinkers like Plato and Aristotle, Galileo and Newton.“
Mawlana Hazar Imam
Brown University, Providence, USA, March 10, 2014
Speech
“In Islamic belief, knowledge is two-fold. There is that revealed through the Holy Prophet [Salla-llahu ‘alayhi wa- sallam] and that which man discovers by virtue of his own intellect. Nor do these two involve any contradiction, provided man remembers that his own mind is itself the creation of God. Without this humility, no balance is possible. With it, there are no barriers. Indeed one strength of Islam has always lain in its belief that creation is not static but continuous, that through scientific and other endeavours, God has opened and continues to open new windows for us to see the marvels of His creation.”
Mawlana Hazar Imam
Acceptance of the Charter of the Aga Khan University, Karachi, March 16, 1983
Speech
Further reading:
White and gold were official colours of the Fatimids, Mawlana Hazar Imam’s ancestors
Mawlana Hazar Imam: “From the seventh century to the thirteenth century, the Muslim civilizations dominated world culture”
Mawlana Hazar Imam: Freedom of inquiry gave rise to “magnificent flowering of artistic and intellectual activity”
https://nimirasblog.wordpress.com/2021/ ... our-faith/
Posted by Nimira Dewji
“… following the guidance of the Holy Quran, there was freedom of enquiry and research. The result was a magnificent flowering of artistic and intellectual activity throughout the Umma….“
Mawlana Hazar Imam
Acceptance of Charter of Aga Khan University, Karachi, March 16, 1983
Speech
“From the seventh century to the thirteenth century, the Muslim civilizations dominated world culture, accepting, adopting, using and preserving all preceding study of mathematics, philosophy, medicine and astronomy, among other areas of learning. The Islamic field of thought and knowledge included and added to much of the information on which all civilisations are founded. “
Mawlana Hazar Imam
Brown University, Providence, USA, May 26, 1996
Speech
The question arises why the West sprang forward while Islamic societies lagged. Historians agree that several factors are involved. Makdisi notes that one of the factors was the system of perpetuity. Islam had only one form of perpetuity, the waqf, while the West, at the end of the thirteenth century, had two forms: the corporation as well as the charitable trust.
Another major factor was the ‘closing of the gate’ to the scholastic method – freedom of thought and discussion, the freedom of its practice of ijtihad. “The thirteenth century was for the West a century of corporations while for Islam, it was the century that brought into existence the first governmental post of the mufti. The freedom inherent in the function of the mufti gradually weakened and an end was eventually brought to the free play of opinions… The scholastic method eventually disappeared from the scene as a dynamic element in education … On the other hand, the scholastic method was kept alive in the West during the Renaissance of the fifteenth century in the college-universities, long after it had disappeared from the land in which it originated” (Makdisi, The Rise of Colleges, Edinburgh University Press p 290)
Mawlana Sultan Muhammad Shah. Photo: Daftary, The Ismaili Imams
“Islam is fundamentally in its very nature a natural religion. Throughout the Quran, God’s signs (ayat) are referred to as natural phenomena, the law and order of the universe, the exactitudes and consequences of the relations between natural phenomena in cause and effect. The stars, sun, moon, earthquakes, fruits of the earth and trees are repeatedly mentioned as the signs of divine power, divine law and order…. During the great ages of Islam, Muslims did not forget these principles of their religion.
Under the Khalif Muavia and the great Omaiyyad Khalifs of Damascus, the Islamic navy was supreme in the Mediterranean; better ships, better knowledge of wind and tide were placed at the disposal of the Muslim navy and thus the land conquests of half of Western Europe rendered possible and easy…
But at the end of the 17th century and the beginning of the 18th century, the European Renaissance rapidly advanced in knowledge of nature, namely all those very Ayats of God to which the Quran refers, when Muslims forgot the Ayats, namely natural phenomenon, its law and order which are the proofs of divine guidance used in the Quran, but we stuck to our rites and ceremonies, to our prayers and fast alone, forgetting the other half of our faith. Thus during those 200/300 years, Europe and the West got an advance out of all proportion to the Muslim world and we found everywhere in Islam (in spite of our humble prayers, our moral standard, our kindliness and gentleness towards the poor) constant deterioration of one form or another and the Muslim world went down. Why? Because we forgot the law and order of nature to which the Quran refers as proof of God’s existence and we went against God’s natural laws. This and this alone has led to the disastrous consequences we have seen….
“… we look upon Islamic principles as only rites and ceremonies and forget the real Ayats of God’s natural phenomenon… there is no unity of soul without which there can be no greatness…
Remember that in the great first century they knew more about the sea and wind than Europe ever did for hundreds of years to come. Today where are you? Unless our universities have the best graduated Ulema school for men brought up in the same atmosphere as the science students, realizing the fundamental truth that Islam is a natural religion of which the Ayats are the universe in which we live and move and have our being, the same causes will lead to the same disastrous results.”
Letter to the President of the Arabiyya Jamiyyat, Karachi, 4 April 1952
Selected Speeches and Writings of Sir Sultan Muhammad Shah, Edited by K.K. Aziz, Kegan Paul International, London, p 1290-1293
~*~*~
Mawlana Hazar Imam speaking at Mindanao State University. Photo: AKDN/H. Merchant
“The Universities in Damascus and Baghdad, and later those of Cairo, Tehran, Cordova and Istanbul were centres of learning unparalleled anywhere else. Even in those days, once the brute force of the armies had been withdrawn, it was the power of the intellectual elite which took over and governed, ran and maintained the State.
During the two Khalifates, the Muslim Universities were producing the best scholars, doctors, astronomers and philosophers. Today where are we? Have we institutions of learning which can compare with the Sorbonne, Harvard, Yale, Cambridge, Oxford, M.I.T.?…
I am afraid that the torch of intellectual discovery, the attraction of the unknown, the desire for intellectual self-protection have left us.”
Mawlana Hazar Imam
Mindanao University, the Philippines, November 24, 1963
Speech
“Some of the best minds and creative spirits from every corner of the world, independent of ethnic or religious identities, were brought together at great Muslim centres of learning. My own ancestors, the Fatimids, founded one of the world’s oldest universities, Al-Azhar in Cairo, over a thousand years ago. In fields of learning from mathematics to astronomy, from philosophy to medicine Muslim scholars sharpened the cutting edge of human knowledge. They were the equivalents of thinkers like Plato and Aristotle, Galileo and Newton.“
Mawlana Hazar Imam
Brown University, Providence, USA, March 10, 2014
Speech
“In Islamic belief, knowledge is two-fold. There is that revealed through the Holy Prophet [Salla-llahu ‘alayhi wa- sallam] and that which man discovers by virtue of his own intellect. Nor do these two involve any contradiction, provided man remembers that his own mind is itself the creation of God. Without this humility, no balance is possible. With it, there are no barriers. Indeed one strength of Islam has always lain in its belief that creation is not static but continuous, that through scientific and other endeavours, God has opened and continues to open new windows for us to see the marvels of His creation.”
Mawlana Hazar Imam
Acceptance of the Charter of the Aga Khan University, Karachi, March 16, 1983
Speech
Further reading:
White and gold were official colours of the Fatimids, Mawlana Hazar Imam’s ancestors
Mawlana Hazar Imam: “From the seventh century to the thirteenth century, the Muslim civilizations dominated world culture”
Mawlana Hazar Imam: Freedom of inquiry gave rise to “magnificent flowering of artistic and intellectual activity”
https://nimirasblog.wordpress.com/2021/ ... our-faith/
UAE decriminalises premarital sexual relations among 40 legal changes in reform push
The United Arab Emirates on Saturday said a new criminal code would come into force in January as part of what it called the most sweeping legal reform in the Gulf state's history.
Major changes so far included decriminalising premarital sexual relations and alcohol consumption, and cancelling provisions for leniency when dealing with so-called “honour killings” in November 2020.
State news agency WAM reported the government is changing 40 laws this year. It did not make clear, however, which of the changes — which concern commercial companies, online security, trade, copyright, residency, narcotics and social issues — were new and which had been previously reported.
Read more: UAE relaxes Islamic laws to 'boost tolerance'
UAE relaxes Islamic laws to ‘boost tolerance’
DUBAI: The United Arab Emirates announced on Saturday a major overhaul of the country’s Islamic personal laws, allowing unmarried couples to cohabitate, loosening alcohol restrictions and criminalising honour killings.
The broadening of personal freedoms reflects the changing profile of a country that has sought to bill itself as a westernised destination for tourists, fortune-seekers and businesses despite its Islamic legal code that has previously triggered court cases against foreigners and outrage in their home countries.
“The reforms aim to boost the country’s economic and social standing and consolidate the UAE’s principles of tolerance,” state-run WAM news agency reported, which offered only minimal details in the surprise weekend announcement.
The government decrees behind the changes were outlined extensively in state-linked newspaper The National, which did not cite its source.
The move follows a historic US-brokered deal to normalise relations between the UAE and Israel, which is expected to bring an influx of Israeli tourists and investment. It also comes as skyscraper-studded Dubai gets ready to host the World Expo. The high-stakes event, expected to bring a flurry of commercial activity and some 25 million visitors to the country, was initially scheduled for October, but was pushed back a year because of the coronavirus pandemic.
The changes, which The National said would take immediate effect, also reflect the efforts of the Emirates rulers to keep pace with a rapidly changing society at home.
“I could not be happier for these new laws that are progressive and proactive,” said Emirati filmmaker Abdallah Al Kaabi, whose art has tackled taboo topics like homosexual love and gender identity.
“The present year has been tough and transformative for the UAE,” he added.
Changes include scrapping penalties for alcohol consumption, sales and possession for those 21 and over. Although liquor and beer are widely available in bars and clubs in the UAE’s luxuriant coastal cities, individuals previously needed a government-issued licence to purchase, transport or have alcohol in their homes. The new rule would apparently allow Muslims who have been barred from obtaining licences to drink alcoholic beverages freely.
Another amendment allows for cohabitation of unmarried couples, which has long been a crime in the UAE. Authorities, especially in the more freewheeling financial hub of Dubai, often looked the other way when it came to foreigners, but the threat of punishment still lingered. Attempted suicide, forbidden in Islamic law, would also be decriminalised, The National reported.
In a move to better protect women’s rights, the government said it also decided to get rid of laws defending honour crimes, a widely criticised tribal custom in which a male relative may evade prosecution for assaulting a woman seen as dishonouring a family. The punishment for a crime committed to eradicate a woman’s shame,” for promiscuity or disobeying religious and cultural strictures, will now be the same for any other kind of assault.
Published in Dawn, November 8th, 2020
https://www.dawn.com/news/1589223
The United Arab Emirates on Saturday said a new criminal code would come into force in January as part of what it called the most sweeping legal reform in the Gulf state's history.
Major changes so far included decriminalising premarital sexual relations and alcohol consumption, and cancelling provisions for leniency when dealing with so-called “honour killings” in November 2020.
State news agency WAM reported the government is changing 40 laws this year. It did not make clear, however, which of the changes — which concern commercial companies, online security, trade, copyright, residency, narcotics and social issues — were new and which had been previously reported.
Read more: UAE relaxes Islamic laws to 'boost tolerance'
UAE relaxes Islamic laws to ‘boost tolerance’
DUBAI: The United Arab Emirates announced on Saturday a major overhaul of the country’s Islamic personal laws, allowing unmarried couples to cohabitate, loosening alcohol restrictions and criminalising honour killings.
The broadening of personal freedoms reflects the changing profile of a country that has sought to bill itself as a westernised destination for tourists, fortune-seekers and businesses despite its Islamic legal code that has previously triggered court cases against foreigners and outrage in their home countries.
“The reforms aim to boost the country’s economic and social standing and consolidate the UAE’s principles of tolerance,” state-run WAM news agency reported, which offered only minimal details in the surprise weekend announcement.
The government decrees behind the changes were outlined extensively in state-linked newspaper The National, which did not cite its source.
The move follows a historic US-brokered deal to normalise relations between the UAE and Israel, which is expected to bring an influx of Israeli tourists and investment. It also comes as skyscraper-studded Dubai gets ready to host the World Expo. The high-stakes event, expected to bring a flurry of commercial activity and some 25 million visitors to the country, was initially scheduled for October, but was pushed back a year because of the coronavirus pandemic.
The changes, which The National said would take immediate effect, also reflect the efforts of the Emirates rulers to keep pace with a rapidly changing society at home.
“I could not be happier for these new laws that are progressive and proactive,” said Emirati filmmaker Abdallah Al Kaabi, whose art has tackled taboo topics like homosexual love and gender identity.
“The present year has been tough and transformative for the UAE,” he added.
Changes include scrapping penalties for alcohol consumption, sales and possession for those 21 and over. Although liquor and beer are widely available in bars and clubs in the UAE’s luxuriant coastal cities, individuals previously needed a government-issued licence to purchase, transport or have alcohol in their homes. The new rule would apparently allow Muslims who have been barred from obtaining licences to drink alcoholic beverages freely.
Another amendment allows for cohabitation of unmarried couples, which has long been a crime in the UAE. Authorities, especially in the more freewheeling financial hub of Dubai, often looked the other way when it came to foreigners, but the threat of punishment still lingered. Attempted suicide, forbidden in Islamic law, would also be decriminalised, The National reported.
In a move to better protect women’s rights, the government said it also decided to get rid of laws defending honour crimes, a widely criticised tribal custom in which a male relative may evade prosecution for assaulting a woman seen as dishonouring a family. The punishment for a crime committed to eradicate a woman’s shame,” for promiscuity or disobeying religious and cultural strictures, will now be the same for any other kind of assault.
Published in Dawn, November 8th, 2020
https://www.dawn.com/news/1589223
How Do Saudis Celebrate Christmas? Quietly, but Less So.
“Am I in Saudi Arabia?” Once officially banned, Christmas is coming out of hiding in the kingdom, as its ultra-constrictive religious rules are eased.
Umniah Alzahery and her husband, Mike Bounacklie, putting a Christmas sweater on their dog as they prepared to celebrate Christmas in their home in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.Credit...Iman Al-Dabbagh for The New York
JEDDAH, Saudi Arabia — The lights had been strung, the guest list was set and the Santa hats were ready to go. For the first Christmas party they would openly throw in Saudi Arabia, Umniah Alzahery and Mike Bounacklie had even bought an ugly (but, of course, adorable) Christmas sweater for their Bernese mountain dog, Nova.
The only problem was the tree, which they had to procure in whispers from a gift store proprietor who quietly produced one from a darkened room.
“Everything was banned and we were confused, but Santa was a nice guy always,” said Ms. Alzahery, 35, recalling how her mother used to smuggle presents into her bed every Dec. 25 when she was growing up — this in a country famous for its ultraconservative form of Islam. “It doesn’t snow here, but I don’t think that Christmas has a location, honestly.”
Saudis and their government have long played peekaboo over certain behaviors that were officially banned, but privately widespread. These days, however, Christmas — long celebrated covertly among foreign workers and by a few Saudis with ties to the West — is bursting out of the shadows.
Over the last year or so, shop windows in Riyadh, the starchy capital, have begun to display wink-wink-nod-nod gift boxes in red and green and advent calendars, while cafes dispense gingerbread cookies and florists advertise “holiday trees.”
It is all possible because of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who prosecuted a disastrous war against Yemen and has been accused of ordering the killing of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi, but has won over millions of young Saudis by relaxing some of the stricter religious rules, showcasing what he hopes will be seen as a newly tolerant, moderate Saudi Arabia to attract foreign investment and tourists.
In recent years, the government has granted Saudi women more freedoms (while still locking up women’s rights advocates), introduced once-forbidden entertainments like electronic music concerts (while silencing conservative dissenters) and muzzled the virtue-and-vice police, who used occasionally to launch raids on non-Muslim religious gatherings. Many Saudis expect that even alcohol, once among the reddest of lines, will soon become legal.
But if most of the changes have been handed down from on high by the crown prince, they went down smoothly in part because many ordinary Saudis had long ago sneaked them into their lives.
Deprived of cinemas at home, Saudis would drive to Bahrain or fly to Dubai to see movies. In liberal circles, men and women mixed freely in private even as they remained segregated in public, while women went hijab-less overseas. And some Saudis who had lived or traveled in the West or learned about Western traditions from friends or pop culture would dress up for Halloween, throw their children birthday parties and exchange gifts on Christmas Day.
All very quietly.
On a recent evening, Maha Aljishi, 36, and her 13-year-old daughter were wandering through Riyadh Boulevard, an enormous new shopping, dining and entertainment complex that attracts throngs of Saudis until the small hours every night, when they stumbled on a giant gingerbread house and a herd of twinkling reindeer.
They were the kind of decorations Ms. Aljishi and her relatives once feared getting caught putting up at home. Ms. Aljishi, who studied in the United States, decorates a small Christmas tree every year that she used to hide when guests came over for dinner.
“Am I in Saudi Arabia?” Ms. Aljishi wondered aloud at the Boulevard. “Is this a dream?”
Her daughter asked what she meant.
“I said, ‘Just a few years ago, this was all haram,’” Ms. Aljishi recalled, using the Arabic word meaning forbidden by Islamic law.
Of course, Christmas is still officially haram in Saudi Arabia. Or perhaps, more accurately, like many social novelties that the authorities have not sanctioned but that Saudis are increasingly emboldened to try, it is not yet fully not haram.
That may explain why the word “Christmas” never appears at the Boulevard, nor in the shops and cafes that sell gingerbread men (the British chain Costa Coffee), “festive flavors” (Starbucks) and advent calendars stuffed with sweets (Bateel, a gourmet date retailer).
Once upon a time in the kingdom, almost no holidays were allowed, shunned as pagan customs. That included most of the Muslim ones, other than the two major feasts of Eid al-Fitr, marking the end of the holy fasting month of Ramadan, and Eid al-Adha, after the annual pilgrimage to Mecca.
In other Arab countries across the region, many with Christian minorities, Christmas is a festive season even for some Muslims, who consider Jesus an important prophet.
But for Saudi clerics, Halloween was an alien import, Christmas was strictly taboo and New Year’s — because it did not square with the Islamic calendar, which differs from the Gregorian one — simply irrelevant. Celebrating even the Prophet’s birthday was prohibited; celebrating your own could get you labeled an infidel.
Raids on non-Muslim religious gatherings, textbooks that insulted Christians and Jews as “apes” or worse and seizures of holiday décor by customs authorities added to the atmosphere of intolerance.
Still, besides Christmas festivities held by foreigners, there have been some discreet Saudi celebrations for years in the country’s Eastern Province, where the American-founded oil giant Saudi Aramco exerted an Americanizing influence, and in the Red Sea city of Jeddah, which has always stood out for its slightly more permissive atmosphere.
And for all the religious authorities’ efforts, the Christmas spirit tended to seep into Saudi homes by way of Hollywood and social media.
Revan Moha, 19, has never left Saudi Arabia, but nonetheless was desperate to find a Christmas tree in Riyadh this December.
“Oh,” she said recently, “I wish it would snow!”
She was delighted to learn that trees were readily available in party supply stores and through Instagram sellers — artificial ones, of course.
Covert Christmas demand was apparently such that in 2018, the Saudi customs authorities were forced to warn on Twitter that Christmas trees were prohibited from entering the kingdom. Ridicule ensued.
In October 2020, a Riyadh party supply store, the Good Ship Lollipop, dared to display four Christmas trees, including one in the front window. Chris Congco, an employee, said he sold 30 fake trees that year. But then, at a nudge from the authorities, a Grinchy directive arrived from the owner: Take down the window display.
“I cannot question it,” Mr. Congco, 42, a Filipino from Manila who has celebrated Christmas privately every year during his decade working in Saudi Arabia, said on a recent evening. “In just 15 to 30 minutes, I collapsed the tree and put it in the back.”
This year, they decided to display the trees again, along with aisles crammed with elf hats, reindeer antlers, fake holly, snowmen, pine cones, glittery ornaments, nutcrackers and Santa hats. The only reason they have not sold as many trees as last year, Mr. Congco said, is that other Riyadh stores have joined the market, stiffening the competition.
Still, Christmas items accounted for about 70 percent of his sales for the last month, bought by a few Saudis as well as by expatriates.
If the authorities complain about the tree in the window this year, Mr. Congco has a plan: He will tell them it is “just a pine tree with snow.” He has strategically placed another plant next to it, so as to pass it off as a “forest” display if need be. “And it’s cold now,” he explained, “so we can say it’s winter.”
But he doubted it would come to that.
“It might not be officially allowed,” he said, “but it’s OK, yes, I think and I feel.”
For some uncountable number of Saudis, it is still very much not OK.
As the holiday season loomed last year, Assim Alhakeem, a Jeddah-based sheikh who fields religious queries online, published a YouTube video ruling against saying “Merry Christmas,” even as a polite greeting to Christian friends.
“People say that Christmas is not a religious festival anymore, New Year’s is OK to celebrate and to congratulate. This is total bogus,” he said. “It’s a major sin to imitate, to congratulate, to participate. You have your own religion, and I have my own religion.”
By contrast, the Saudi authorities appear to have moved on: The customs authorities’ anti-tree tweet was, at some point, quietly taken down.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/24/worl ... 778d3e6de3
“Am I in Saudi Arabia?” Once officially banned, Christmas is coming out of hiding in the kingdom, as its ultra-constrictive religious rules are eased.
Umniah Alzahery and her husband, Mike Bounacklie, putting a Christmas sweater on their dog as they prepared to celebrate Christmas in their home in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.Credit...Iman Al-Dabbagh for The New York
JEDDAH, Saudi Arabia — The lights had been strung, the guest list was set and the Santa hats were ready to go. For the first Christmas party they would openly throw in Saudi Arabia, Umniah Alzahery and Mike Bounacklie had even bought an ugly (but, of course, adorable) Christmas sweater for their Bernese mountain dog, Nova.
The only problem was the tree, which they had to procure in whispers from a gift store proprietor who quietly produced one from a darkened room.
“Everything was banned and we were confused, but Santa was a nice guy always,” said Ms. Alzahery, 35, recalling how her mother used to smuggle presents into her bed every Dec. 25 when she was growing up — this in a country famous for its ultraconservative form of Islam. “It doesn’t snow here, but I don’t think that Christmas has a location, honestly.”
Saudis and their government have long played peekaboo over certain behaviors that were officially banned, but privately widespread. These days, however, Christmas — long celebrated covertly among foreign workers and by a few Saudis with ties to the West — is bursting out of the shadows.
Over the last year or so, shop windows in Riyadh, the starchy capital, have begun to display wink-wink-nod-nod gift boxes in red and green and advent calendars, while cafes dispense gingerbread cookies and florists advertise “holiday trees.”
It is all possible because of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who prosecuted a disastrous war against Yemen and has been accused of ordering the killing of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi, but has won over millions of young Saudis by relaxing some of the stricter religious rules, showcasing what he hopes will be seen as a newly tolerant, moderate Saudi Arabia to attract foreign investment and tourists.
In recent years, the government has granted Saudi women more freedoms (while still locking up women’s rights advocates), introduced once-forbidden entertainments like electronic music concerts (while silencing conservative dissenters) and muzzled the virtue-and-vice police, who used occasionally to launch raids on non-Muslim religious gatherings. Many Saudis expect that even alcohol, once among the reddest of lines, will soon become legal.
But if most of the changes have been handed down from on high by the crown prince, they went down smoothly in part because many ordinary Saudis had long ago sneaked them into their lives.
Deprived of cinemas at home, Saudis would drive to Bahrain or fly to Dubai to see movies. In liberal circles, men and women mixed freely in private even as they remained segregated in public, while women went hijab-less overseas. And some Saudis who had lived or traveled in the West or learned about Western traditions from friends or pop culture would dress up for Halloween, throw their children birthday parties and exchange gifts on Christmas Day.
All very quietly.
On a recent evening, Maha Aljishi, 36, and her 13-year-old daughter were wandering through Riyadh Boulevard, an enormous new shopping, dining and entertainment complex that attracts throngs of Saudis until the small hours every night, when they stumbled on a giant gingerbread house and a herd of twinkling reindeer.
They were the kind of decorations Ms. Aljishi and her relatives once feared getting caught putting up at home. Ms. Aljishi, who studied in the United States, decorates a small Christmas tree every year that she used to hide when guests came over for dinner.
“Am I in Saudi Arabia?” Ms. Aljishi wondered aloud at the Boulevard. “Is this a dream?”
Her daughter asked what she meant.
“I said, ‘Just a few years ago, this was all haram,’” Ms. Aljishi recalled, using the Arabic word meaning forbidden by Islamic law.
Of course, Christmas is still officially haram in Saudi Arabia. Or perhaps, more accurately, like many social novelties that the authorities have not sanctioned but that Saudis are increasingly emboldened to try, it is not yet fully not haram.
That may explain why the word “Christmas” never appears at the Boulevard, nor in the shops and cafes that sell gingerbread men (the British chain Costa Coffee), “festive flavors” (Starbucks) and advent calendars stuffed with sweets (Bateel, a gourmet date retailer).
Once upon a time in the kingdom, almost no holidays were allowed, shunned as pagan customs. That included most of the Muslim ones, other than the two major feasts of Eid al-Fitr, marking the end of the holy fasting month of Ramadan, and Eid al-Adha, after the annual pilgrimage to Mecca.
In other Arab countries across the region, many with Christian minorities, Christmas is a festive season even for some Muslims, who consider Jesus an important prophet.
But for Saudi clerics, Halloween was an alien import, Christmas was strictly taboo and New Year’s — because it did not square with the Islamic calendar, which differs from the Gregorian one — simply irrelevant. Celebrating even the Prophet’s birthday was prohibited; celebrating your own could get you labeled an infidel.
Raids on non-Muslim religious gatherings, textbooks that insulted Christians and Jews as “apes” or worse and seizures of holiday décor by customs authorities added to the atmosphere of intolerance.
Still, besides Christmas festivities held by foreigners, there have been some discreet Saudi celebrations for years in the country’s Eastern Province, where the American-founded oil giant Saudi Aramco exerted an Americanizing influence, and in the Red Sea city of Jeddah, which has always stood out for its slightly more permissive atmosphere.
And for all the religious authorities’ efforts, the Christmas spirit tended to seep into Saudi homes by way of Hollywood and social media.
Revan Moha, 19, has never left Saudi Arabia, but nonetheless was desperate to find a Christmas tree in Riyadh this December.
“Oh,” she said recently, “I wish it would snow!”
She was delighted to learn that trees were readily available in party supply stores and through Instagram sellers — artificial ones, of course.
Covert Christmas demand was apparently such that in 2018, the Saudi customs authorities were forced to warn on Twitter that Christmas trees were prohibited from entering the kingdom. Ridicule ensued.
In October 2020, a Riyadh party supply store, the Good Ship Lollipop, dared to display four Christmas trees, including one in the front window. Chris Congco, an employee, said he sold 30 fake trees that year. But then, at a nudge from the authorities, a Grinchy directive arrived from the owner: Take down the window display.
“I cannot question it,” Mr. Congco, 42, a Filipino from Manila who has celebrated Christmas privately every year during his decade working in Saudi Arabia, said on a recent evening. “In just 15 to 30 minutes, I collapsed the tree and put it in the back.”
This year, they decided to display the trees again, along with aisles crammed with elf hats, reindeer antlers, fake holly, snowmen, pine cones, glittery ornaments, nutcrackers and Santa hats. The only reason they have not sold as many trees as last year, Mr. Congco said, is that other Riyadh stores have joined the market, stiffening the competition.
Still, Christmas items accounted for about 70 percent of his sales for the last month, bought by a few Saudis as well as by expatriates.
If the authorities complain about the tree in the window this year, Mr. Congco has a plan: He will tell them it is “just a pine tree with snow.” He has strategically placed another plant next to it, so as to pass it off as a “forest” display if need be. “And it’s cold now,” he explained, “so we can say it’s winter.”
But he doubted it would come to that.
“It might not be officially allowed,” he said, “but it’s OK, yes, I think and I feel.”
For some uncountable number of Saudis, it is still very much not OK.
As the holiday season loomed last year, Assim Alhakeem, a Jeddah-based sheikh who fields religious queries online, published a YouTube video ruling against saying “Merry Christmas,” even as a polite greeting to Christian friends.
“People say that Christmas is not a religious festival anymore, New Year’s is OK to celebrate and to congratulate. This is total bogus,” he said. “It’s a major sin to imitate, to congratulate, to participate. You have your own religion, and I have my own religion.”
By contrast, the Saudi authorities appear to have moved on: The customs authorities’ anti-tree tweet was, at some point, quietly taken down.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/24/worl ... 778d3e6de3
Re: Interpretation of faith in Islam
Qur'anic Interpretation and the Problem of Literalism: Ibn Rushd and the Enlightenment Project in the Islamic World
This article examines the claim that Ibn Rushd of Cordoba (“Averroës,” 12th century B.C.) is a precursor of the Enlightenment and a source of inspiration for the emancipation of contemporary Islamic societies. The paper critically discusses the fascination that Ibn Rushd has exercised on several thinkers, from Ernest Renan to Salman
Abstract:
This article examines the claim that Ibn Rushd of Cordoba (“Averroës,” 12thcentury B.C.) is a precursor of the Enlightenment and a source of inspiration for the emancipation of contemporary Islamic societies. The paper critically discusses the fascination that Ibn Rushd has exercised on several thinkers, from Ernest Renan to Salman Rushdie, and highlights the problem of literalism in Qur’anic interpretation. Based on IbnRushd’s
Decisive Treatise ( Fasl al-maqal ), the paper investigates Ibn Rushd’s proposed division of (Muslim) society into three distinct classes. The main question here is whether there is a substantial link between the people of the Muslim community, given the three distinct kinds of assent (tasd iq) introduced by Ibn Rushd. I argue that if such a link cannot be supplied, then it is hard to see in Ibn Rushd an enlightened social model for today’s Muslim societies. Furthermore, that the great majority of people are prevented from having any contact with non-literal interpretation of the Scripture and non-revealed ways of thinking. The latter position, though, does not seem to bring Ibn Rushd close to the Enlightenment. My analysis of religious language is inspired by Wittgenstein’s position that the meaning of a term cannot be detached from its use. I suggest that given the different lives of people belonging to Ibn Rushd’s different classes, the terms they use can mean quite different things. This argument in fact weakens Ibn Rushd’s association with the Enlightenment.
Keywords:
Averroës; enlightenment; equivocation; Qur’anic interpretation; literalism;harmonization of philosophy and religion
The entire article can be accessed at:
https://www.academia.edu/19979346/Quran ... card=title
This article examines the claim that Ibn Rushd of Cordoba (“Averroës,” 12th century B.C.) is a precursor of the Enlightenment and a source of inspiration for the emancipation of contemporary Islamic societies. The paper critically discusses the fascination that Ibn Rushd has exercised on several thinkers, from Ernest Renan to Salman
Abstract:
This article examines the claim that Ibn Rushd of Cordoba (“Averroës,” 12thcentury B.C.) is a precursor of the Enlightenment and a source of inspiration for the emancipation of contemporary Islamic societies. The paper critically discusses the fascination that Ibn Rushd has exercised on several thinkers, from Ernest Renan to Salman Rushdie, and highlights the problem of literalism in Qur’anic interpretation. Based on IbnRushd’s
Decisive Treatise ( Fasl al-maqal ), the paper investigates Ibn Rushd’s proposed division of (Muslim) society into three distinct classes. The main question here is whether there is a substantial link between the people of the Muslim community, given the three distinct kinds of assent (tasd iq) introduced by Ibn Rushd. I argue that if such a link cannot be supplied, then it is hard to see in Ibn Rushd an enlightened social model for today’s Muslim societies. Furthermore, that the great majority of people are prevented from having any contact with non-literal interpretation of the Scripture and non-revealed ways of thinking. The latter position, though, does not seem to bring Ibn Rushd close to the Enlightenment. My analysis of religious language is inspired by Wittgenstein’s position that the meaning of a term cannot be detached from its use. I suggest that given the different lives of people belonging to Ibn Rushd’s different classes, the terms they use can mean quite different things. This argument in fact weakens Ibn Rushd’s association with the Enlightenment.
Keywords:
Averroës; enlightenment; equivocation; Qur’anic interpretation; literalism;harmonization of philosophy and religion
The entire article can be accessed at:
https://www.academia.edu/19979346/Quran ... card=title