1 Introduction
I read the article titled Top ten reasons why sharia is bad for all societies , as a dear friend of mine asked me to comment on. I give credit to the author for the research and effort in raising quite a few topics that would require a panel of subject matter experts to present on each of them. Too many ideas have been touched upon that overwhelm any reader and create more open-ended questions about Mohammad, Quran, Jihad, Woman, Sharia and capital punishment, just to name a few. As time permits, I intent to address some of these topics, in separate, structured posts, not as an expert rather a professional with decent resources and good understanding of Islam and Muslims.
2 Summary
The image and understanding of Islam and Muslims in America and the West have been broadcast through multitude of information outlets in an ever confusing message that depict both as violent and uncivilized ideology and people. To correct this inaccurate paradigm, a foundation for rational dialogue is presented. It is based on the differentiation between Islam and Muslims, understanding of the role of Prophet Mohammad and the conduct of his companions, that branch rulings change with time and place, values may differ from one society to another yet are treated similarly, Islamic faith is about the conviction of hearts not the coercion of the limbs, the original language of revelation and its understanding is the reference when translations fail to communicate the correct message.
Thereafter, comments have been presented on points #9, #3, and #1 in the article —the most problematic points for non-Muslims; namely
• #9. Islam allows husbands to hit their wives even if the husbands merely fear highhandedness in their wives.
• #3. Islam orders death for Muslim and possible death for non—Muslim critics of Muhammad and the Quran and even sharia itself.
• #1. Islam commands offensive and aggressive and unjust jihad.
The roots of misunderstandings have been highlighted in the comments. They are attributed to several reasons such as cutting and pasting segments of narrations to fit the author’s goal, rather than presenting the whole story and surrounding circumstances. The absence of the historical, social, political, and cultural aspects, in the author’s analysis, drives into inaccurate conclusions. False and unsupported accusations have been observed in the article.
3 Disseminated Perceptions about Islam and Muslims in the West
For the past 20+ years, since I moved to North America, the American minds have been programed into one frame of understanding Islam and Muslims, that is:
“Mohammad is just a man like any other, not a prophet of God, who invented a religion, puts its laws out of his own accord, fabricated a book called Quran—the holy book of Muslims—which sends a confusing message. Mohammad and his Companions, whom one would expect to be the “reference models” of application of Islam, are cruel. Therefore, it is a no brainer that extremism is the mindset of Muslims. Therefore, America has to keep it eyes open on these people, and it will be better off without them because they want to change our American way of life. Last but not least, that Muslims worship Allah which is not the God that Americans know, and pray in the name of Mohammad.”
The fillings of this frame are snippets of narrations placed in such a way to drive to the above conclusion; just an icing on the cake.
4 Foundation for Better Understanding
Before commenting on points of most interest to non-Muslims, some basic foundation for objective and rational of discussions has to be established.
4.1 “Man Takes as an Enemy what He Knows Not”
This is a saying attributed to Ali Ibn Abu-Taleb , that exactly describes the status and feelings of many Americans towards Islam and Muslims. This ambiguous enemy is further bloated, day after day, by “information systems” of all shapes and forms that feeds upon 9/11 images (with still open questions around it), Al-Qada, Taliban, suicide bombers, veiled women, long bearded Afghanis beating women with sticks in the streets, … you name it. Therefore, when watching CNN documentary “Unwelcome: The Muslims Next Door,” one would understand where the hate produced protest at Murfreesboro, TN, to the local Muslim community came from. In addition, Americans following Islam are short of presenting the message of their faith, integrating within the American society, and challenging the misleading propaganda. Worth mentioning, however, some efforts here and there to address these challenges, yet they are not proportionate to the rise of unwelcome messages throughout the country. The net sum, as we speak, is the “Bad for All Societies”. This will continue until the majority of people know where the truth is.
4.2 Islam is Different from Muslims
Two things to delimit, Islam as a system based on divine revelation along with reference model human implementation (at least as Muslims believe), and Muslims as people who want to live it, having their own shortcomings and potentially out of sync understanding.
The beginning of the 20th century is the lowest point of Muslims throughout their history where the fall of the Ottoman Empire, the guardian of Islamic system. Regardless how people may feel about the Ottomans, the downfall of the Muslim empire would have not happened unless there is an almost complete disconnect between the Muslim masses and government from the teaching of their faith. My generation and the previous one are byproducts of this era. Therefore, one can’t give a comprehensive and fair statement that “Islam commands”, as the author directly stated, based on reports on conducts of contemporary Muslim public and their government systems in this mediocre conditions. At the same time, when quoting from traditional text, scholastic honesty necessitates presenting the complete information within context of the situation addressed, not slicing part of the text to server a different purpose.
Furthermore, the struggle Muslims are going through, in predominantly Muslim countries, is the presence of forms of interpreting Islam that lacks the dynamics of understanding and application to contemporary issues. This doesn’t require making changes in the constants of the religion, rather using its tools and devising new derivatives to solve current problems and to communicate in today’s terminologies, after an absence of practical Religion Applications Research for decades.
4.3 Mohammad is a Teacher, His Companions are His Disciples
The mission of Prophet Mohammad was education and reform. He developed the character of his companions as a teacher takes care of his students. Their actions could be right, wrong, or improper. His role is to approve or correct their behavior. Therefore, when we evaluate an incident, we have to look at it from end-to-end, not to pin point the error, and not integrate the nature of people, the admonitions and the lessons learned. So, in some of the reports we can see the Companions conduct that was not right, this shouldn’t be surprising, as one would see how the Prophet took the necessary approach to adjust it. If they were perfect from day one, there wouldn’t have been a need for the prophet or the message. Furthermore, it presents the application of character development methodologies in a world of imperfections that we can leverage off in our modern time.
The take away point in this is Quran and Mohammad have been able to transform an ignorant, illiterate feudal tribes, with no predominant precedence on the human history map into a virtuous nation (contrary to what have been propagated about in this article) that spread from east to west over 25% of earth’s landscape, that lead the transition and revival of ancient civilizations, during dark ages and handed the Paton to modern civilization we are enjoying its luxuries in the 21st century. This is a phenomenon worth questioning and studying how and what could have made this transformation happen from an illiterate person who presented the Quran as a divine revelation, not of his own accord, and himself as messenger of God who have no other mission but to deliver the message.
4.4 Branch Rulings Change with Time and/or Place
In Islamic laws, Branch Rulings is different from Fundamental Rulings. The former changes based on time and/or place to work out for the best interest of the people. There definitely is a room for research in this area that is yet to be started, as mentioned earlier, to answer novelties we are exposed to in the diverse global village. Quoting Branch Rulings on issues a millennium old will not be a rational approach to look at present situations. Even at the same place, same time, legislators and scholars opinions may differ. This leaves open options for the executive authorities to choose what they believe server best the overall welfare of the people and social stability and peace.
Another factor, in terms of the application of laws, is the extent of the problem being addressed. A localized, i.e., impacting the person only is addressed differently than if this person is publicizing it and creating social corruption. An example would be someone consuming pornographic material at home, versus at work, disseminating it in school for teens, selling it, or offering prostitution in the neighborhood. In the first case, the USA has constitutional laws that protect private life. On the other hand it will incriminate, and deal differently in the remaining cases with measures comparable to how sever the violations are to the moral and social norms, for the best interest of people.
4.5 National Values may Differ from One Society to Another
Each society has red-lines that none shall cross. If you ask an American should we cancel the constitution, reestablish slavery, the North should be separate from the South, or California should become independent from the USA, what would be the response? It has become the nation’s facts that these are the untouchables because they are of utmost interest to the social justice; national unity and peace; there are no questions about their validity and soundness through our national experience, and falls in line with the minds and hearts of all Americans. Similarly are the army’s strength, national security, etc… These are natural, and our nation’s experience that shall be protected.
For Muslims, their knowledge of the prophet, revelation, and God are constants that have to be protect. Means include memorization, documentation, taking lawful measures in defending it, etc… This is not only for the person of Prophet Mohammad only, but also for all other prophets. Quran commanded not to curse the idols of those who call others besides God (Allah) so that they don’t curse God Himself. But for this to become a line and a stream breaking in the state, it should be stopped.
In some cases, however, the interest and expected outcome dictates the action, while in others silence would be the best response. So when the legitimacy and the conditions are present, not just the idea, but the immediate threat the call for appropriate action is no longer a thought. Another factor to consider, when ruling, is the state of mind of the accused. There is a difference in ruling when, e.g., insulting the prophet because of ignorance or knowingly planning to do so for creating unrest. This is judged buy subject matter experts.
During Islamic history, under the Islamic System, some people differed on the main constants of Islam, and grouped around their ideas (called Feraq). None touched them until they posed a negative impact by injecting corruption to the understanding as presented by authentic Islamic teachings, and causing cracks in the state. At this point of time scholars had to exert their efforts to determine what is the legal ruling within the frameworks of Islam.
4.6 Islam is after Submission of the Hearts, not Surrendering of the Molds
Quran explains to Mohammad his role is a reminder, a witness, a warner and a giver of glad tidings not to control people and force them on a practice they don’t want. Reminding people about their duty to God, and the accountability before Him on the Day of Judgment, based on their choices and actions in life. After presenting clear proofs and signs of the honesty of the messenger, and truthfulness of the message, everyone fate is his own hand.
Coercing religion on people, who are not convinced with the call, builds a community of hypocrites conducting practices filled with vacuum. Had Islam been built on enforcing superficial practices, the believing minorities In Mecca wouldn’t have been able to withstand the physical, economical, and social abuses for 10 years—the first decade in Mohammad’s mission.