The Islamic Fundamentalism of the Wahhabi Movement

Dr. Jaafar Sheikh Idris

IN TR ODU C TI ON

The word fundamentalist was originally used, as is well known, to

describe an American Protestant movement which is said to have arisen
out of the millenarian movement[1] of the 19th century, and which came
into its own in the early twentieth century in opposition to modernist
tendencies in American religious and secular life[2] The term is derived
from a series of tracts, The Fundamentals, published in the USA in 1909.
[3]
However, fundamentalism in the sense of a return to the fundamentals of a
religion and a rejection of secularism, was soon discovered to be a worldwide phenomenon. There are among adherents of all religions of the world
some who have been disillusioned with secularism and who have decided,
therefore, to go back to their respective religions, and not only to reject
secularism but to organize themselves and fight it, each from the point of
view of his religion, and to provide alternatives to it. Thus there are
fundamentalist Jews, fundamentalist Buddhists, fundamentalist Hindus,
and so on. But the fundamentalism that is always in the news, and with
which Western scholars, journalists, and policy makers are more
concerned, is without a doubt Muslim fundamentalism. It would be a gross
mistake, however, to think, as some people do, that Islamic
fundamentalists form a homogeneous movement with common beliefs,
common objectives and a united leadership. No groups which call
themselves Islamic are farther apart from each other than the Shii
fundamentalists and the Sunni fundamentalists. But even within the
Sunnis, and also within the Shiis, there are disparate groups and
movements, all of which are dubbed by Western media fundamentalist.
What is it, then, that justifies the use of this one term to describe these
diverse Muslim groups and organizations, and even states? Rejection of
secularism is, no doubt, common to all of them; but in this rejection they
are at one even with non-Islamic fundamentalist movements. Religious
fundamentalism is by definition anti-secular.
But because so-called Muslim fundamentalists, as well as their opponents
in the Muslim world and in the West, usually confuse anti-secular with

anti-Western, or anti-American, the defining characteristic of Muslim

fundamentalism has come to be that it is anti-Western, and thus a threat to
Western civilization. It is paradoxical that this position is often taken, even
by some in the West, who are themselves opposed to the extremes of
secularism in their own countries. This equation
of Western with secular does not, in my opinion, do justice to the West itself, since there is much in Western civilization that is more important and
of greater value to the West, as well as other nations, than secularism.
And because the emphasis in characterizing Muslim fundamentalism has
come to be placed on this supposed anti-Western standpoint, it was easy to
move from that to dubbing as fundamentalist any Muslim individual or
group that takes a non- Western position on any vital issue, policy or
principle. Take, for example, the important question of democracy. No
sane person would condemn everything democratic, because there is much
in democracy that is of fundamental importance to human
beings qua human beings; but it is surely chauvinistic to assume that any
people in the world are enemies of the West who do not have democratic
institutions and values that are identical with those that happen to be
preferred by Western nations in the twentieth century.
Worse still, Islamic fundamentalism has come to be associated in many
peoples minds with terrorism, while the truth is that some of those actions
which are truly terrorist, make a genuine Muslim shudder, first because he
is a human being with a feeling heart, and second because the killing of
innocent people who do not engage in actual combat with Muslims is
strongly condemned by the Prophet of Islam, even when Muslims are
actually at war with an enemy.
But to say all this is not to deny the fact that there is a phenomenon in the
Muslim world which can be described as fundamentalist. The question is
about the proper characterization of that phenomenon, not about it
existence.
ISLAMIC FUNDAMENTALISM : TOWARDS A DEFINITION .

What, then, is Islamic fundamentalism? Let us start by seeing how it

compares with Christian fundamentalism.
The Christian fundamentalist movement is said to have been characterized
by the belief that every word in the Bible is the word of God, and that the

Bible is therefore infallible, by a literalist interpretation of the Bible, by

belief in the virgin birth of Christ, in his second coming, in eternal
punishment in Hell, and in the necessity of evangelical activities.
But the belief that the Quran is the infallible word of God in the literal
sense is common to all Muslims. Their method of interpreting its verses is
mainly that which is called literalist. They all believe in the virgin birth of
Christ, and, though they are not millenarians, they all believe in his second
coming. No Muslim denies punishment in Hell. And though not every
Muslim is evangelical, Muslims on the whole have no objection in
principle to evangelism. And so, if judged by these Christian criteria of
fundamentalism, all Muslims are necessarily fundamentalists.
In what sense, then, can fundamentalism be a special characteristic of
some Muslim individuals, or groups or movements? Only, I think, in the
sense of their militancy in advocating, as fundamentals of Islam, some
beliefs which they genuinely believe to be justified by a literal
understanding of the texts, but which many other Muslims neglect, are ignorant of, or do not believe to be either Islamic or fundamental. One merit
of the definition here is that it is broad enough not to confine this
phenomenon to a particular age, or make it a reaction against an external
culture, but is at the same time limited enough not to include all forms of
genuine adherence to religion.

CHARACTERISTICS OF

ABD

AL - WAH H A B S F U N D A M E NTAL I S M

Judged by this special characterization of Islamic fundamentalism, Ibn

Abd Al-Wahhab, the religious founder of Saudi Arabia, was a paragon of
Muslim fundamentalist leaders. Here are some of the salient features of his
fundamentalism:
a. If the Christian fundamentalists were so-called because they laid down
their main beliefs in tracts called The Fundamentals , Abd Al-Wahhabs
movement deserves that name in view of the fact that the word
fundamental appears in many of his influential tracts.
b. He spent most of his long life, from 1703 to 1792, concentrating on
Islamic fundamentals: the fundamentals of faith, the method of obtaining
religious knowledge, the necessity of establishing a strong state to

propagate and defend the faith, and so on. He devoted his life to teaching
those fundamentals, explaining them, arguing for them, urging people to
believe in and act on them, and rebutting objections to them.
c. He started one of the strongest, if not the strongest, modern Islamic
movements that ultimately even had to engage in war with its opponents.
d. Though his movement succeeded more than any other Islamic
movement in modern times in achieving its goals in the land which was its
field of activity, and though the movement which he started is to this day
making good headway among Muslims worldwide, it is nevertheless still
rejected by many as a dangerous aberration from the Islam with which
they are familiar. But to be rejected by some adherents of the religion to
which it belongs is a hallmark of a truly fundamentalist movement.
e. His interpretation of sacred texts, especially in relation to divine
attributes, is that which is called literal.
f. He was very much aware of the fact that he was not a mere preacher or
arm-chair scholar but the leader of a movement that sought to effect a real
change in society, and that, though the dissemination of knowledge was a
first step and necessary condition for that change, it was not enough. Like
all practical social reformers he was convinced of the necessity of power
for the realization of the goals which he advocated. Though he had
followers, he did not organize them in the form of modern-day activist
societies or political parties. He sought that power instead in the support of
tribal chiefs, who were the counterparts of todays heads of state. One of
them, Muhammad Ibn Saud, the ruler of Diriya, accepted his teachings
and promised to implement the Shariah and defend the movement, thus
laying the foundation of the state that was later to be known as the
Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
g. Todays fundamentalism, whether Islamic or non-Islamic, is
characterized, as we saw, by its rejection of Western secularism. But Ibn
Abd Al-Wahhab did not face that problem. Western civilization, for him
was non existent. He was not, in fact, concerned even with other parts of
the Arab or Muslim world. His was a very local movement. But he
nevertheless faced a secularism of another brand, which he
called jahiliyyah. Jahiliyyah, literally ignorance, is the Islamic term for
any system of social life which is based on human ideas and whims, and

not on divine guidance. The governance of those tribal chiefs was jahili, or
secular, because they did not implement Islamic law.
For example, resort to deception to deprive females of their legitimate
shares of inheritance, was widespread among their subjects, but none of
them prohibited it or punished those who did it; the Islamic penal code was
not applied. Thus, when Abd Al-Wahhab ordered the Islamic punishment
to be applied to a woman who confessed to committing adultery, there was
an uproar among those chiefs, so much so that a powerful one of them
threatened the chief in whose territory that punishment took place, to
either kill the sheikh who ordered it, banish him, or face the consequences.
He chose to banish him.
h. The mark of a good teacher is to pay close attention to the nature of his
audience, and have the ability to address each type of them in the most
appropriate manner. Ali, the fourth caliph after the Prophet, is reported to
have said, Speak to people in a way they can understand. Do you want
them to disbelieve God and His Prophet ?[4] Abd Al-Wahhab heeded
that advice to the maximum, and had the ability to put it into practice.
Thus, whenever he wrote to scholars outside his Bedouin community, in
Iraq, say, he would use classical Arabic of a high quality; but when he
addressed his own people, even in writing, he would use very simple
language, and would not even hesitate to use colloquial words and
expressions.
This persistent attention to the importance of conveying his message in a
manner appropriate to his audience comes out very clearly in the fact that
though he had the highest respect for a man like Ibn Taymiyyah, and
though he very often quoted him extensively, his style was very different
from his. Ibn Taymiyyah had lived in Damascus at a time when it was
teeming with philosophers, philosophical theologians, Sufis, Christian and
Jewish scholars, scientists, and so on.
But Ibn Abd Al-Wahhab lived in a simple cultural milieu where there was
no such erudition. He therefore steered clear of Ibn Taymiyyahs style.
While Ibn Taymiyyah resorted to elaborate, and in many cases rational,
arguments to buttress and defend Quranic teachings on theological
matters, Abd Al-Wahhab was mostly content with religious evidence. He
avoided the subject of philosophical theology altogether. With the

exception of his personal letters, his style is legalistic, concise, and

somewhat terse.
i. Leaders of social reform movements usually come with ideas with which
people are not familiar, and they are therefore prone to encounter
challenge, criticism and opposition. While the leader and the elite around
him might be able to defend their new thinking in the face of this
opposition, the rank and file of the movement cannot do so. But the
movement consists mainly of these common people, and the opposition
might adopt a strategy of defying and embarrassing them by asking them
questions they cannot answer, in the hope of weakening their hold on those
new beliefs, and thus weakening the movement. This happened to Abd
Al-Wahhabs followers, and he realized the importance of giving these
people confidence in themselves and arming them with simple arguments
they could understand and use effectively, even against people who were
much more learned than they were. He encouraged them not to be
intimidated by people who were known to be more learned than they
because even a learned person is weak so long as he is on the side of
falsehood, and a lay person is strong so long as he adheres to the truth. To
this end he divided arguments for them into two categories: general
arguments which even a lay person could use to answer any objection, and
specific answers to the most commonly raised questions.
j. Many movements, Islamic and non-Islamic, are very short-lived. The
beliefs and thoughts on which they are based do not have a strong hold
even on the minds of those who join the movement. So once they face
adverse circumstances, or even when the special circumstances which
induced them to first join the movement change, they leave it and forget
about it. But the teachings of other movements continue to have a strong
hold on generation after generation of its members. Such was definitely
the Wahhabi movement.
i. Twice in its history the movement, in the form of the Saudi state which
was founded on it, was not only defeated by its enemies, but completely
routed, its political and religious leaders killed or taken prisoner. But after
each such defeat, the remaining members of the movement would come
together and start all over again, advocating the same teachings with the
same old conviction and zeal, and succeed once again in wielding power
and forming a new Islamic state.

ii. Like Muslim scholars everywhere, the Islamic scholars of contemporary

Saudi Arabia may differ in their opinions or their points of view on certain
political issues, or on the proper Islamic ruling on something, but thanks to
the Wahhabi movement there is a consensus among them on the
fundamentals of faith and method, the like of which is nowhere to be
found in any other part of the Muslim world.
iii.
And thanks again to that movement, Saudi society, though not
an ideal Islamic society, is the one that is more immune than any other
Islamic society to the popular forms of shirk (the worshipping of other
deities besides God) which the founder of the movement condemned.
iv. Far from fading, waning or shrinking, the movement, in its essentials,
long ago transcended the boundaries of its homeland, and is still gaining
momentum and flourishing in different parts of the world, and influencing
other movements.
TAWHI D , OR I S LA MI C MON OTHEI S M

Every Muslim says la ilaha illa Allah, Muhammadur rasulu Allah. This
witnessing of the fact that there is no deity worthy of worship except God,
is the fundamental pillar of the whole edifice of Islam. Abd Al-Wahhab
said that it is not enough to profess this statement verbally; it is not enough
to understand its true meaning, not enough to admit its truth, not enough
even to actually worship none but God: one must add to all this ones
denial of every other object of worship. One must also abstain from any
belief, speech or act which violates ones profession of that belief. But he
realized[5] that the belief of most Muslims of his time with whom he came
in contact, including the ulama (scholars of religion), did not satisfy all
those conditions.[6] Fundamentalists of his persuasion would say the same
about Muslims of our day. To be a true believer in the Islamic sense of the
word, one must:
a. Believe in God as the only creator and sustainer of every thing that
exists. But this was admitted even by the idolatrous Arabs before the
advent of Muhammad, and is accepted by the majority of human beings all
over the world, so by itself this does not make a person a believer in the
sense in which all messengers of God wanted them to be.[7]
b. Believe that no one other than God deserves to be worshipped. To do so,
one has to fulfill two main conditions:

1. Believe that God alone is worthy of worship, which means that it is not
enough to worship Him, but you have to worship none besides Him. This,
he explained, is the core of tawhid, it is the tawhidwhich all messengers of
God advocated and the tawhid over which there was enmity between them
and those who denied it. However, the majority of those who call
themselves Muslims, including the ulama, are ignorant of this and do not
therefore satisfy this condition, i.e., they do worship others besides God.
But those Muslims would indignantly and emphatically deny such an
accusation and insist that they worship none but Allah. The crucial
question then becomes: what does worshipping consist of? Explanation of
this point is a recurring theme of Abd Al-Wahhabs writings. Here are
examples of the feelings and acts which, he explains, are expressions of
worship and which, as such, are Gods, and no one elses due:
i. Love. It is natural for a person to love many people and many things
besides loving God. But he does not become a believer in God if he loves
anything as much as or more than he loves Him. A persons utmost love
must be for God only. The Quran says, There are some people who
associate partners (with God), whom they love as deeply as they love God.
But those who believe love God more deeply (than they love anything
else). Commenting on this verse Abd Al-Wahhab observes that God
stated that they love God as they love those they took as equal to Him,
which means that their love for God was great, but that did not make them
Muslims. What, then, about one who loves a compeer more than He loves
God? And what about the one who loves the compeer only, to the
exclusion of God?[8]
ii. Fear. The Sheikh counts fear among acts of worship,[9] and quotes the
Quran: Do not fear them; fear me [2:150]. But this should not be taken
to mean that one should not fear anything besides God it is impossible to
do so; rather, it should be taken to mean that one should not fear anything
other than God as much as or more than one fears God, because only in
this case would it interfere with ones obedience to God. The Quran itself
says, Surely we will try you with something of fear and hunger, and
diminution of goods and lives and fruits [2:155].[10]
iii. Supplication and invocation. Call on those whom you claimed (to be
gods) apart from Him. They have no power to remove affliction from you
or to transfer it. Those they call upon are themselves seeking the means to
come to their Lord, which of them shall be nearer; they hope for His

mercy, and fear His chastisement. Surely your Lords chastisement is a

thing to beware of [17:56-7].[11] Abd Al-Wahhab says that this is a clear
indictment of the associationists who pray to the righteous, and that the
verse states clearly that this supplication is a form of the
major shirk (violation of tawhid).[12]
iv. Obedience. Referring to some of the Christians and Jews the Quran
says that they took their rabbis and monks as well as Jesus as lords besides
God, whereas they were commanded to worship none but God [9:31]. In
what way did they take them as gods? Only in the sense of obeying them
in doing what God forbade.[13] This means that absolute obedience is due
to God only. To obey anyone other than Him in such an absolute way is to
take that one as a god besides God.
2. The Islamic State. It is because of this principle of obedience being due
to God only that Muslims reject the Western, secular idea of the separation
of church and state. Divine commandments are to be obeyed irrespective
of the aspect of life to which they pertain. No one, not an individual
dictator, an elected national body, or a scholar of religion, has the right to
make any legislation that contradicts what is stated in the Quran or the
Hadith of the Prophet. If they do so they are putting themselves in Gods
place, and are as such committing an act of grave shirk..[14] And the same
goes for those who voluntarily obey them or believe that they have such a
right.
The Quran describes as taghut any one or any thing that is worshipped
besides God. Ibn Abd Al-Wahhab says that there are many taghuts, but
that the main ones are five: Satan, because he invites people to worship
gods other than God; the unjust ruler who distorts Gods rulings; one who
rules in accordance with other than what God sent down, because God
says Anyone who judges according to other than what God sent down is
an unbeliever,[15] one who claims to know the ghayb (that which is
beyond human senses), and one who approves of being worshipped
besides God.[16]We see from this that three of the five main forms of
violations of tawhid are related to government.
i. Sacrifice. Because animal sacrifice is a form of worship, slaughtering
them for the sake of anyone other than God is a form of shirk. The Quran
says to the Prophet, Pray to your Lord and sacrifice.[17] And the

Prophet himself says, May God curse anyone who sacrifices to other than
God.[18]
Many of those who venerate saints in any of these or similar ways would
emphatically deny that they are thereby worshipping them. Rather, they
would say, as they used to say at the time of Ibn Abd Al-Wahhab, and as
they are still saying, we know that they are not gods, that they do not have
any power independently of Gods, but we turn to them because they have
a special place with God. They are not our gods, but our intermediaries to
God. Abd Al-Wahhab replied by saying that that was exactly the
argument of the idolatrous Arabs. They claimed that they worshipped idols
only so that they bring them nearer and closer to God [39:3].
Remember, says the Sheikh, that the form of shirk committed by the
associationists whom the Prophet battled against was that they made
supplication to God, but also to idols and saints like Jesus and his mother,
and to the angels, saying that they were their intermediaries with God.
They did believe that God, exalted He is, is the One Who benefits and
harms and disposes (of all affairs). God stated this about them in His
saying, Say: Who provides you out of heaven and earth, or who has
power over hearing and sight, and who brings forth the living from the
dead or the dead from the living, and who disposes of affairs? They will
surely say, God' [10:31][19],[20]
ii. Believe that God must be worshipped in the manner prescribed by His
Prophet. Here comes the importance of professing faith in Muhammads
prophethood. The meaning of this profession, according to the Sheikh, is
to obey his orders, to believe what he says, to avoid what he forbids, and
not to worship God except in the way He prescribes.[21]
iii. Believe in the names and attributes which God ascribed to Himself:
To God belong the names most beautiful; so call Him by them, and leave
those who blaspheme His names [7:180].[22] A true believer is, therefore,
one who takes these names and attributes as they are, without likening
them to the attributes of created things (otherwise one would be an
anthropomorphist), and without explaining them away as being only
metaphorical, which amounts to denying them.[23]

TWO MOD ER N AC CU S ATI ON S

Some modern critics of Abd Al-Wahhab accuse him of being a literalist,

yet others say that he failed to distinguish between what is properly
Islamic and what is merely Arabian. To what extent is this true?
A . LI T E R A LI S M

This term is used in a pejorative way by opponents of the fundamentalists,

whether they be Christians or Muslims, to condemn their method of
interpreting Scripture. But the method that is being condemned as literalist
is, in fact, the method that all of us use most of the time in interpreting any
discourse. How do we usually interpret what other people say? By giving
the words and expressions they use, the meanings that are usually intended
by them in contexts that are similar to the context in which they used those
words and expressions.
We deviate from this normal procedure only
when it becomes clear to us that the speaker or writer whose words we are
trying to understand did not, for some reason, use those words in the usual
way we use them. Thus, it is only after we have interpreted a speakers
discourse in the so-called literalist way that we judge whether what he said
was right or wrong, good or bad, appropriate or inappropriate, etc. This
method is thus not peculiar to so-called fundamentalists. As a matter of
fact, it is not peculiar to them even in the interpretation of Scripture,
because even those who reject a religion start by interpreting its language
in this so-called literalist way, and only then come to the conclusion that it
is not acceptable to them.
So-called liberal interpretation is thus no more than self-deception,
because the liberal starts by interpreting the statements of Scripture in this
normal way that he calls literalist, but when he finds the meaning of a
statement unacceptable to him or to his contemporary culture, he
reinterprets it so as to make it more in tune with the requirements of his
personal prejudices or the prejudices of his contemporary culture. But such
a person will only be deceiving himself, even if the motive is to make the
religion more acceptable to his contemporaries, because the religion that
they accept after this new interpretation is not the original religion that is
called Islam, or Christianity or Judaism, but a distorted form of it. He will,
in fact, be inviting people to a religion of his own making, which he
dishonestly attributes to God, or Jesus or Muhammad. God warns His
Prophet against such distortion: O Messenger! Convey that which was

sent down to you from your lord, otherwise you will not be conveying His
Message [5:67].
This normal method of interpreting texts, which is said to be literalist,
should not be confused with another method that is also sometimes
described as literal, and which is indeed an irrational method. This is when
the interpreter isolates the speakers or writers words from their context,
especially in idiomatic phrases, or when he pays no attention to the special
uses of words or phrases by a certain speaker or a certain community. But
fundamentalists are not usually accused of this kind of literalism, since
their main aim is to understand what is really meant by the words which
they take to be words of God or of one of His true prophets. As a matter of
fact, it is so-called liberals who resort to this kind of irrational
interpretation.
B . AR A BI S M .

This accusation is sometimes leveled against fundamentalists by some

non-Muslim scholars, but it is leveled most of the time by modernist
Muslims. Whenever the latter find something in Islam which they deem to
be unsuitable for modern times, they are prone to say that it is merely a
facet of Arab culture that found its way into Islam through the Arab
ulama.
But the fact of the matter is that most of what these modernists dismiss as
merely Arab culture was in fact a culture that the Arabs adopted after the
advent of Islam, and because of it. It is a fact, though it might seem
paradoxical, that nothing is more similar to contemporary secular culture
than the purely Arab culture that was prevailing before the advent of Islam.
It is that culture which Islam condemned as jahiliyyah (ignorance) and
which it replaced with a culture based on true moral values. And it is
this jahili culture which fundamentalists like Abd Al-Wahhab fight
against whenever they see it recurring.
In that jahili culture women used to mix freely with men, as they do now.
They used to dress in the same way as women in the secular societies now
dress, i.e., exposing many parts of their bodies; they would even
sometimes go in the nude. It was only after the advent of Islam that it
became the custom for Arab women to spend most of their time at home,
to cover their bodies, and to keep away from men. But you will now find

some who tells you that the hijab (womens Islamic dress, covering the
head and the body) is an Arab custom, and not an Islamic requirement.
T HE WAH HA BI MO VE MEN T TOD AY

Prophet Muhammad is reported to have said that after every hundred

years, God sends people to the Muslim nation to revive the religion.
Sheikh Muhammad Ibn Abd Al-Wahhab is considered to be one such
revivalist, the revivalist of his century, the twefth Islamic century. A
revivalist, or renewer (mujaddid), is by definition not an innovator. He
does not come with anything substantially new. His task is only to take
people of his time back to the true religion and explicate it for them in a
manner and in a language they can understand and appreciate. It is for this
reason that many of those who accept Sheikh Ibn Abd Al-Wahhab as
an imam (leader) and a mujaddid (renewer) and there are hundreds of
them now in Saudi Arabia and other parts of the Muslim World are
averse to being called Wahhabis, because this might give the impression
that they are following some special teachings or doctrines which were of
Ibn Abd Al-Wahhabs making.
The so-called Wahhabi ulama do not really follow any special teachings of
Ibn Abd Al-Wahhab, but only his call for going back to the fundamental
sources of the Islamic religion. This is amply demonstrated in their attitude
towards his writings. They read them, but not necessarily all of them; they
do not confine themselves to them, but go to the original sources whence
he got his teachings, and to the earlier great scholars who helped him
shape his views and teachings; they do not confine themselves to the
problems which he tackled, but deal with the problems of their times, each
in his own manner and style. While having great deference for him, they
do not hesitate to differ with him on some points. But this in itself is a
good measure of the success of Ibn Abd Al-Wahhabs movement.
1 In the 1830s and 1840s a great deal of excitement was generated in the United States by
expectations of the Second Advent of Christ and an ensuing thousand years of of peace (the
millennium)Micropaedia, Encyclopedia Britannica, 1992.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Alan Bullock, et al., The Fontana Dictionary of Modern Thought, second edition, 1990, London.
[4] Fath al-Bari, Vol. 1: 127.

[5] Unless otherwise indicated, the source of all quotes from the Sheikhs writings is volume 1 of the
collection of his works, called, Mualafat al-Shaykh Muhammad Ibn Abd Al-Wahhab, Imam
Muhammad Ibn Saud Islamic University, Riyadh,
[6] p. 399.
[7] p. 200.
[8] p. 25.
[9] p. 189.
[10] A.J. Arberry, The Koran Interpreted, George Allen and Unwin, 1955.
[11] Arberry, (with minor changes).
[12] op. cit., p. 25.
[13] loc. cit.
[14] It is for this reason that in Saudi Arabia the oath of allegiance is foumulated in a way that takes
account of this important Islamic fact: I pledge allegiance to God, then to my king and my country,
and to obey my superiors, except in matters of disobedience (to God).
[15] 5:44.
[16] p. 377f.
[17] 108:2.
[18] p. 35.
[19] Arberry and A. Y. Ali, The Holy Quran, English Translation of the Meanings and
Commentary (with minor changes).
[20] p. 398f.
[21] p. 190.
[22] Arberry.
[23] Al-Shaykh Sulayman Ibn Abd Allah Ibn Muhammad Ibn Abd Al-Wahhab,Taysir al-Aziz alHamid fi Sharhi Kitabi al-Tawhid. Al-Maktab al-Islami, Beirut, 1988, pp. 636, 645ff

Shoora and Democracy: A conceptual analysis

Dr. Jaafar Sheikh Idris
What is shoora?
Shoora comes from an Arabic word shara whose original meaning,
according to classical Arabic dictionaries was to extract honey from
hives. The word then acquired secondary meanings all of which are
related to that original one. One of these secondary meanings is
consultation and deliberation. The way consultation and deliberation bring
forth ideas and opinions from peoples minds must have been seen to be
analogous to the extracting of honey from hives. It might also have been
thought that good ideas and opinions were as sweet and precious as honey.

According to this purely linguistic meaning, shoora is no more than a

procedure of making decisions. It can thus be defined as the procedure of
making decisions by consultation and deliberation among those who have
an interest in the matter on which a decision is to be taken, or others
who can help them to reach such a decision.
The important matter on which shoora is made can be either a matter
which concerns an individual, or a matter which concerns a group of
individuals, or a matter that is of interest to the whole public. Let us call
the first individual shoora, the second group shoora, and the third public
shoora.
Thus formally understood, shoora has nothing to do with the kind of
matter to be decided upon, or the basis on which those consulted make
their decisions, or the decision reached, because it is a mere procedure, a
tool you might say, that can be used by any group of people a gang of
robbers, a military junta, an American Senate or a council of Muslim
representatives.
There is thus nothing in the concept which makes it intrinsically Islamic.
And as a matter of fact shoora in one form or the other was practiced even
before Islam. An Arab Bedouin is reported to have said, Never do I
suffer a misfortune that is not suffered by my people. When asked how
come, he said, Because I never do anything until I consult
them,astasheerahum.. It is also said that Arab noblemen used to be
greatly distressed if a matter was decided without their shoora. Non Arabs

also practiced it. The Queen of Sheba was, according to the Quran, in the
habit of never making a decision without consulting her chieftains.
What is democracy?
What is democracy? The usual definition is rule, kratos, by the
people, demos. On the face of it, then, democracy has nothing to do with
shoora. But once we ask: How do the people rule? we begin to see the
connection.
Ruling implies ruling over someone or some group, and if all the people
rule, over whom is it that they rule? (Barry, 208)
The answer on which almost all democracy theorists are agreed is that
what is meant by rule here is that they make basic decisions on matters of
public policy. How do they make those decisions? Ideally by discussion
and deliberation in face-to-face meetings of the people, as was the case in
Athens.
Similarities
Democracy, then, has also to do with decisions taken after deliberation.
But this is what an Arab would have described as shoora. It might be
thought that there still seem to be some differences between shoora and
democracy, because the latter seems to be confined to political matters.
But the concept of democracy can easily be extended to other aspects of
life, because a people who choose to give the power of decision-making
on political matters to the whole population, should not hesitate to give
similar power to individuals who form a smaller organization, if the matter
is of interest to each one of them. The concept of democracy can be and is,
therefore, extended to include such groups as political parties, charitable
organizations and trade unions. Thus broadly understood, democracy is
almost identical with shoora. There is thus nothing in the primary or
extended meaning of democracy which makes it intrinsically Western or
secular. If shoora can take a secular form, so can democracy take an
Islamic form.
Islam and secular democracy
Basic differences
What is it that characterizes shoora when it takes an Islamic form, what is
it that characterizes democracy when it takes a secular form, and what are
the differences between these forms, and the similarities, if any? What

would each of them take, if put in the framework of the other? I cannot go
into all the details of this here. Let me concentrate therefore on some of
the vital issues which separate Islam and secularism as world outlooks,
and therefore give democracy and shoora those special forms when placed
within their frameworks.
Let us understand by secularism the belief that religion should not have
anything to do with public policy, and should at most be tolerated only as a
private matter. The first point to realize here is that there is no logical
connection between secularism and democracy. Secularism is as
compatible with despotism and tyranny as it is compatible with
democracy. A people who believe in secularism can therefore without any
violation of it choose to be ruled tyrannically.
Suppose they choose to have a democratic system. Here they have two
choices:
a. They can choose to make the people absolutely supreme, in the sense
that they or their representatives are absolutely free to decide with
majority vote on any issue, or pass or repeal any laws. This form of
democracy is the antithesis of Islam because it puts what it calls the people
in the place of God; in Islam only God has this absolute power of
legislation. Anyone who claims such a right is claiming to be God, and any
one who gives him that right is thereby accepting him as God. But then the
same thing would happen if such a secular community accepted the
principle of shoora, because they would not then exclude any matter from
its domain, and there is nothing in the concept of shoora which makes that
a violation of it.
b. Alternatively those secular people can choose a form of democracy in
which the right of the people to legislate is limited by what is believed by
society to be a higher law to which human law is subordinate and should
not therefore violate. Whether such a democracy is compatible with Islam
or not depends on the nature and scope of the limits, and on what is
believed to be a higher law.
In liberal democracy not even the majority of the whole population has the
right to deprive a minority, even if it be one individual, of what is believed
to be their inalienable human rights. Belief in such rights has nothing to do
with secularism, which is perfectly compatible, as we saw, with a
democracy without limits. There is a basic difference between Islam and

this form of democracy, and there are minor differences, but there are also
similarities.
The basic difference is that in Islam it is Gods law as expressed in the
Quran and the Sunna that is the supreme law within the limits of which
people have the right to legislate. No one can be a Muslim who makes, or
freely accepts, or believes that anyone has the right to make or accept,
legislation that is contrary to that Divine law. Examples of such violations
include the legalization of alcoholic drinks, gambling, homosexuality,
usury or interest, and even adoption.
When some Muslims object to democracy and describe it as un-Islamic, it
is these kinds of legislation that they have in mind. A shoora without
restriction or a liberal shoora would, however, be as un-Islamic as a liberal
or an unconstrained democracy. The problem is with secularism or
liberalism, not with democracy, and will not therefore disappear by
adoption of shoora instead of democracy.
Another basic difference, which is a corollary of this, is that unlike liberal
democracy, Islamic shoora is not a political system, because most of the
principles and values according to which society is to be organized, and by
which it should abide, are stated in that higher law. The proper description
of a political system that is based on those principles is that it is Islamic
and not shooraic, because shoora is only one component of it.
This characteristic of Islam made society immune to absolute tyranny and
dictatorship. There have been Muslim rulers who were despotic, but they
were so only in that they were not chosen by the true representatives of the
Muslim people, or that they were not strict in abiding by some of the
Islamic teachings; but none of those who called themselves Muslim rulers
dared, or perhaps even wanted, to abolish the Islamic law.
This emphasis on the law stood in the way of absolute tyranny in another
way. It gave the ulama so much legislative power that it was their word,
and not that of the ruler that was final on many matters. An interesting
section of one of al Bukharis chapters reads: If the ruler makes a decision
that is contrary to that of people of knowledge, his decision is to be
rejected.
Walter Lippman considers it a weakness of democracy that it laid more
emphasis on the origin of government rather than on what it should do. He
says (Rossiter, 1982, p. 21) :

The democratic fallacy has been its preoccupation with the origin of
government rather than the processes and results. The democrat has always
assumed that if political power could be derived in the right way, it would
be beneficent. His whole attention has been on the source of power, since
he is hypnotized by the belief that the great thing is to express the will of
the people, first because expression is the highest interest of man, and
second because the will is instinctively good. But no amount of regulation
at the source of a river will completely control its behavior, and while
democrats have been absorbed in trying to find a good mechanism of
originating social power, that is to say, a good mechanism of voting and
representation, they neglected almost every other interest of men.
Similarities
So much for the basic differences, we now come to the similarities, and
some of the less basic or minor differences.
Islam and liberalism share certain values, basically those which the
concepts of democracy and shoora entail.
In liberal democracy there are rights which individuals have as
individuals, even if they are in a minority. These rights are said to be
inalienable and cannot, therefore, theoretically speaking, be violated, even
by the overwhelming majority of the population. Such violation, even if
embodied in a constitution, makes the government undemocratic, even
tyrannical. One might think that the idea of inalienable rights is not
compatible with the basic concept of democracy as rule of the people,
because if the people choose, by majority vote, to deny some section of
the population some of what the liberals call their human rights, then that
is the rule of the people, and it would thus be undemocratic to not to let it
pass. But on close inspection one can see that this is not so. It is not so
because the concept of democracy entails that of equality. It is because the
people are equal in having the right to express their opinion as to how they
should be ruled that democracy is the rule of the people. But surely
individuals have rights that are more basic than participating in decision
making whether directly or indirectly. To participate they must be alive,
they must be able to express themselves, and so on. There is thus no
contradiction between the concept of democracy or shoora and the idea of
inalienable rights that sets limits on majority rule, because the former is
more basic to democracy than the latter.

If I am right in saying that these values are entailed by democracy and

shoora, it follows that absolute democracy, democracy that is not
constrained by those values, is a contradiction in terms.
Islamic shoora agrees with liberal democracy that among the important
issues to be decided by the people is that of choosing their rulers. This was
understood from the fact that the Prophet chose not to appoint his
successor, but left it to the Muslims to do so, and this was what they did in
a general meeting in his town al-Madina. When it was reported to Umar,
the second Caliph, that someone said that if Umar died he would give
allegiance to so and so as Caliph, he got very angry and said that he would
warn the Muslims against those who want to forcibly deny them (their
right). He later made a public speech in which he said,
If a person give allegiance to a man, as ruler, without a consultative
approval of the Muslims, ala ghayri mashoorati-n min al muslimeen, then
neither he nor the man to whom he gave allegiance should be followed
( Bukhari, al muharibeen)
As far as my knowledge goes the manner in which this public right is to be
exercised, is not specified in any authoritative statements or practice. The
first four, The exemplary Caliphs were chosen in different ways.

Is the Islamic state democratic?

Can a country that abides by the principle of shoora constrained by Islamic
values be described as democratic? Yes, if democracy is broadly defined in
terms of decision-making by the people. No, if it is arbitrarily defined in
a way that identifies it with the contemporary Western brands of it. Such
definitions commit what Holden (1988, p. 4) calls the definitional fallacy.
In essence it is the fallacy of believing that the meaning of democracy is
to be found simply by examining the systems usually called democracies.
A common example of this is the idea that if you want to know what
democracy is, you simply have a look at the political systems of Britain
and America. There are some deep-rooted misconceptions involved here.
Apart from anything else, though, such an idea involves the absurdity of
being unable to ask whether Britain and America are democracies: if
democracy means , say, like the British political system we cannot ask
if Britain is a democracy.

An example of a definition which commits this fallacy is that of Fukuyama

(1992,p. 43)
In judging which countries are democratic, we will use a strictly formal
definition of democracy. A country is democratic if it grants its people the
right to choose their own government through periodic secret-ballot, multiparty elections on the basis of universal and equal adult suffrage.
There was no universal suffrage in Athens where women, slaves, and
aliens were excluded; no universal suffrage in America until 1920, in
Britain until 1918 or 1928, and in Switzerland until 1971. Fukuyamas
definition would exclude all these, and would apply only to contemporary
Western democracies or ones that are copies of them.
I called such a definition arbitrary because it selected, without any rational
criterion, only those features which are common to the Western
democracies, but not those on which they differ, and made them necessary
conditions for a country being democratic. Otherwise instead of
government, it could have said their own president, but that would have
excluded Britain and some other European democracies. It could also have
been specific on the periods of time between elections , but that would
again have excluded some Western democracies.
Why should the right to form political parties be a condition for
democracy? Suppose that a country gave its people, as individuals, and
not as party members, the right to freely choose their government, why
should that exclude it from being a democracy?
Why should government elections be periodic? Cant a country be
democratic and set no limit to the term of its ruler so long as he was doing
his job in a satisfactory manner, but gave the elected body that chose him
the power to remove him if and whenever they thought that he was no
longer fit for the job?
Having said all this, I must add that I do not set any great store on the
epithet democratic. What is important to me is the extent to which a
country is Islamic, the extent to which it abides by Islamic principles, of
which decision making by the people is only one component and, though
important, is not the most important.

The Islamization Of The Sciences: Its Philosophy And

Methodology
(The American Journal of Islamic Sciences Vol. 4, No. 2 1987 pp. 201208)

Introduction
The idea of Islamizing the sciences, whether they be natural or social,
raises some philosophical and methodological questions which must, in
my view, be settled before any serious program of Islamization can be
carried out.
I shall, in this paper, do no more than give examples of these fundamental
questions, give brief answers to some of them and throw out hints as to
how others can be answered. In doing so I shall do my best to keep as
close as possible to the Quran and the Sunnah, but I cannot claim that
whatever answers I give are the Islamic answers to the questions I raise.
Philosophical Questions
What does it mean to Islamize knowledge?
The elucidation of this question and the answer to it are given in the
following imaginary dialogue between a Western philosopher, call him W,
and a Muslim propounder of the Islamization of knowledge, call him M.
W: Is Islam compatible with all forms of truth?
M: Certainly.
W: Would you agree that if something is known, then it is true, i.e. that
knowledge implies truth?
M: I agree provided that you make a distinction between knowledge and
claims to knowledge and provided that you agree that there are degrees of
truth.
W: I accept the qualifications, but if knowledge implies truth, and truth in
all its forms is compatible with Islam, then knowledge in all its forms is
Islamic. But if this is so, what does it mean then to Islamize knowledge?
How do you make something Islamic which is already so? Or is it your
intention merely to give each form of knowledge an Islamic flavour by

injecting an ayat here, imposing a hadith there, making an opening with

bismillahi-rrahmani-rrahim and a closing with alhamdu lillahi rabbilblamin?
M: No, that certainly is not all that we mean by Islamizing knowledge.
You dont invite chefs and gastronomes to an international conference to
advise you on how to add flavour to well known dishes, but to think out
new ones and give you their chefdoevres.
W: What then does the Islamization of knowledge consist of to which we
are devoting all these seminars?
M: This is a large question but I shall attempt to give you a brief answer.
What we call knowledge today is knowledge within the framework of the
atheistic materialistic philosophy now prevailing in the West.
Philosophical frameworks influence our concepts of truth, of evidence, of
facts, and through their values, influence our choice of fields of research,
our priorities, etc. Since the materialistic atheistic philosophy is based, in
our view, on false assumptions, we are endeavoring to replace it by a
world-view that is based on truth and right values. We believe, and have
the evidence, to show that Islam is such a world-view.
We would like thus to Islamize knowledge by, (a) resting it on the solid
foundations of Islam, and thus widen its scope, purge it of falsehoods masquerading as truths, discover new facts and see old ones in the light of the
new world-view: and (b) abiding by Islamic values in our search for it, in
our choice of fields of research, in our priorities, and in the use we make of
it. Islamized knowledge is not knowledge tinted with a prejudice that happens to be called Islamic. Nay, it is knowledge par excellence; it is
knowledge that is conducive to mans material as well as spiritual
development.
To see how knowledge is well-rooted in Islam and how the latter has its
own distinct conception of it, let us review its answers to some of the fundamental questions of the theory of knowledge.
Is knowledge possible?
For there to be knowledge at all there must be
(a) a source from which it is to be derived; and
(b) a human capacity to know; and in some cases

(c) a method by which knowledge is obtained from those sources by

means of that capacity.
Many writers, old and new, have confused these three conditions of
knowledge. Thus, some of them speak of perception as a source of
knowledge, or put revelation alongside reason and the senses. But
perception and reason are capacities while revelation is a source. We
cannot obtain knowledge either from the world or from revelation without
these capacities or means.
Is all knowledge acquired? Or is some of it inborn?
The Quranic answer to these questions is most clearly given in this verse:
Allah brought you out of the wombs of your mothers knowing
nothing, and He gave you sight, hearing and minds. (16:78)
The answer to the first question has vexed many Western as well as
Muslim thinkers. Western Rationalists claim that man is born with innate
ideas or inborn knowledge, while the Empiricists claim that the mind, at
the hour of birth, is a mere tabula rasa on which the senses write what
they wish.
The first part of our verse tells us that man is born knowing nothing. Does
this mean that it supports the Empiricists view? No, because the Quran
does not say that the mind is a mere passive blank sheet on which the
senses write what they wish. Though we are not born with any innate
knowledge in the proper sense of the word, yet our minds have a definite
structure, called in the Quran and the Sunnah, the firtah. And so, just as
the senses develop and thus enable us to perceive things, so does the mind
develop; and as it does so we come to be aware of certain truths that do not
come to us from the outside world, although that world helps us in
becoming so aware of them. These mental truths, in their turn, help us to
understand the world; in fact no such understanding is possible without
them.
We acquire knowledge of the natural world, of society, of history, of
revealed truths, and of any other type of external facts or truths through the
medium of the senses as well as the mind. Perception in which the mind
takes no pan -if that is at all possible- does not supply us with knowledge
but with mere sense data. Condemning the unbelievers for not
comprehending the words of Allah conveyed to them by His Prophet,

peace be upon him, the Quran likens them to a herd which understands
nothing of what the shepherd tells them but hears only voices[1].
The senses mentioned in the above quoted ayat and in many other ayat of
the Quran, which speak about the acquisition of knowledge, are the most
important senses, hearing and sight. The other senses are mentioned in
other ayat[2]
This illustrates that the Quran recognizes the authority of the senses in
bringing to us knowledge from outside ourselves. This means that
everything which is empirically proved becomes a fact which is un-Islamic
to deny. One cannot therefore be a Muslim and a complete skeptic about
the authority of the senses. We should therefore forget about those doubts
which Al-Ghazali cast on the authority of the senses, and which he himself
never took seriously any way. This does not of course mean that our senses
never err; they do; but it is through them that we discover and rectify those
errors.
What are the sources of our knowledge?
Our knowledge has two main sources: The world and revelation. I must
repeat here that these are sources from which we obtain knowledge and are
not to be confused with our senses and our minds which are our means for
obtaining knowledge from those sources.
The world, as a source of knowledge, can be divided into the following
subsources:
1. The natural or physical world.
2. Our internal states; pain, pleasure, envy, etc.
3. Human beings, as physical objects, as informants, etc.
4. Dreams: As Muslims, we have no doubt about the fact that some
dreams come true and that as such they are sources of knowledge,
but since we human beings -excepting Gods Prophets -can never be
sure about the truth of our dreams, we cannot take them as
independent sources of objective knowledge neither in the field of
religion nor in that of the world, but we may benefit from them
personally.
5. Minds: The mind has three functions.
A. it is a means for acquiring knowledge.

B. it is also a store of knowledge.

C. but is as well a secondary source of knowledge, and it is in this
respect that we are considering it here now.
The main types of knowledge which come to us independently of the external world, but are confirmed by our knowledge of it and of revealed
knowledge, is based upon the fact that there is only one God and that He
alone is worthy of being worshipped. This is the essence of our
fitrah (original nature), but it is also the basis of our religion; hence Islam
is called the religion of human nature.
Besides this nucleus of our fitrah we have other forms of a priori
knowledge which are consistent with it and which confirm it. These
include the laws of thought, basic moral values, and aesthetic values.
The fact that these latter three are considered Islamically to be a priori, can
be seen in the fact that the Quran assumes that the people it is addressing
are thinking moral beings in possession of aesthetic taste, and hence it condemns any of them who shows signs of intentional deviation from the requirements of these natural endowments. But the Quranic teachings which
are based on these natural endowments, help, in their turn, to strengthen
and develop them. Hence being a good Muslim consists, among other
things, in being thoughtful, morally upright, and aesthetically refined.
What is a scientific method?
A scientific method would be that which links our means of acquiring
knowledge (the mind and the senses) to the sources of our knowledge (the
world and revelation). The nature of the method depends therefore on the
source and perhaps also on the nature of the knowledge to be obtained
from that source. Thus if I claim to have discovered a fact in the physical
world. I must be able to show others a way, either of observing that fact, or
of deducing its truth from the truth of other well known facts: that is
because these are the only ways by which we ordinary folk can discover
physical facts. But if I say that it is obligatory on a Muslim to do thus and
so, then I must be able to support my claim by Quranic or Prophetic texts,
or show that it can be deduced from such texts. I must also be able to show
that my understanding of the text is a correct one, that, in case of Prophetic
traditions, they are authentic and, if my argument was based on a
deduction from texts, that I have followed the right procedure.

Just as there are scientific ways of ascertaining the truth of our claims to
knowledge of nature or society, there are ways of ascertaining the truth of
religious knowledge. Scientific method is not therefore confined to the socalled empirical procedures followed by the natural or social scientists.
This is as it should be, if our claim is true that the Quran is the word of
Allah and that Muhammad, peace be upon him, is His Prophet, because
given this belief, religious knowledge has objective sources, and hence
there must be objective ways of obtaining it from those sources. It is of
paramount importance for everyone interested in the Islamization of the
social sciences or in the relationship between Islam and the natural
sciences, to be aware of these procedures if he wants to be sure that what
he attributes to Islam is valid or most probably so.
Procedure Of The Islamization Of The Sciences
Equipped with the kind of background knowledge that was our concern in
the first pan of this paper, we can now go to the main business of showing
how our program of Islamizing the sciences can be realized. Here are some
of the steps which we, as an Islamic scientific community, must take to
reach our goal:
1. Accept as true all the empirically or rationally discovered facts
whether they be natural, physical, psychological, social,
mathematical or otherwise, irrespective of who discovered them.
2. Add to this in respective fields and relevant places facts stated in the
Quran and authentic traditions.
3. Research Quran and Sunnah laws under which these facts can be
sub-summed and explained.
4. Discover or develop theories which explain these laws and facts.
5. Beware of the non-Islamic philosophical assumptions and statements
of Western scientists that might come to us in the cloak of scientific
facts or theories
6. Put all these facts, laws and theories in an Islamic framework. This
will enable us to see them in a new light and infer from them new
facts which otherwise would have no relevance within the prevailing
Western materialistic and atheistic framework. The Quran says that
the unbelieving Arabs who passed by the town of Sodom did not
perceive the lesson to be gained from its destruction. Why? Did

they not actually see it, asks the Quran, and it answers, Nay, but
they expected not the resurrection.[3] This shows that a number
of people can be aware of the same empirical facts and yet differ in
the conclusions they draw from them because of the differences in
their world-views.
7. Since we have two sources of knowledge, the world
and wahy (Divine revelation) we must be very clear about the
relationship between them. What should we do if an empirical
statement about the world contradicts a religious statement about it?
Which of the two should we put before the other? Early Muslim
theologians and philosophers made extensive discussions of this
problem. What I take to be the right position can be summarized in
the following points:[4]
A. There can be no contradiction between true statements.
B. Since the world is the creation of God, and religion is the word
of God, genuine empirical statements describing the world,
and authentic religious statements must necessarily be true,
and cannot therefore contradict one another.
C. The contradiction between religious and rational or empirical
statements cannot therefore be real; it is always only apparent,
and it is due either to the fact that what we thought was a
religious statement was not in fact an authentic one (such as a
weak or fabricated hadith) or because the meaning we
attributed to it was not the correct one. Or perhaps because
what we thought was an empirical or rational statement was in
fact not so. But how do we resolve this contradiction even if
we take it to be only apparent?
Since the contradiction is not real, it cannot be between two statements
known for certain to be true. It can therefore be only between two
statements, one of which is known for certain to be true (qati ), and a
statement whose truth is only probable (zanni ) , or between
twozanni statements. If this is so then we should, according to Ibn
Taymiya:
1. Give priority to what is known to be absolutely true. (the qati)
irrespective of whether it is the religious or the rational or empirical.

2. And in case of two probable statements (the zanni) give priority to

whichever has the stronger evidence behind it, again irrespective of
whether it is the religious or the rational or empirical.
3. We should endeavour to give our science strong roots in the Muslim
society by acquainting ourselves with the Quran and the Sunnah
and the history of Islamic thought and by choosing areas of research
that are more pertinent to the intellectual and practical needs of the
Muslim Ummah, while at the same time keeping abreast of world
developments in our respective fields of specialization.
4. Since we have two sources of knowledge for our science, we should
accept as true any fact which we are sure to be in either of them. We
should not make it a methodological rule to look for empirical facts
supportive of religious statements, or religious texts which support
empirically established facts, though we may sometimes do so
(especially to show the miraculous nature of the Quran or to prove
the authenticity of Muhammads, peace be upon him, claim to
Prophethood). I say we should not make it a methodological rule
because it is a rule which it is impossible to apply in practice; and
because trying to do the impossible is sure, in this case, to put us in
one of two equally dangerous positions: Either to give scientific
statements far-fetched meanings in order to make them suit religious
claims or twist religious statements to force them to lend support to
scientific facts.
5. We should not put the ideas of human beings, even if they be the
greatest of ourulamah, on par with the Quran and
the Sunnah, especially in regard to worldly matters which are our
concern here. The writings of al-Ghazali, of al-Muhasibi on
psychology, of Ibn Khaldun on sociology and history, or of alMutakallimun (Muslim theologians) and so-called Muslim
Philosophers on reason, epistemology, morality, etc., should be
considered as human endeavours, not to be accepted on trust, but
only to the degree they are supported by rational or empirical
evidence, or evidence from the Quran and the Sunnah.
6. To admit something as a piece of knowledge, either in the field of
religion or of the world, we do not have to be absolutely certain of
its truth. For practical purposes, knowledge based on strong
probability is as good as knowledge based on certainty; and most of
our knowledge, even our religious knowledge, is of the first type. We

know for certain that the book we call the Quran contains the words
that Allah revealed to His Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him,
we know for certain that whatever Allah says is true; we know for
certain concerning some ahadith that the Prophet peace be upon him
uttered them, and we know for certain that whatever the Prophet
peace be upon him said is true. But our knowledge of many of what
we consider to be authentic ahadith is not based on certainty, neither
is our knowledge of the meanings of all the Quranic ayats and
Prophetic traditions. But rationality and prudence demand that we
act upon them. This should not be any cause for misgivings
regarding religious knowledge because the same applies to what we
call scientific knowledge and to the knowledge on which we act in
our daily life. If someone who is not known to be mad enters a
crowded hall and shouts: Fire! Fire! The people surely will not sit by
calmly until his claim is empirically proved.
We should not therefore expect our Islamizised sciences to consist of absolutely true statements. There can be, on the same issue, different Islamic
points of view and different Islamic scientific theories. The one nearest to
Islam will be the one with the stronger evidence behind it. Some Islamic
theories or views advanced by honest, learned and intelligent Muslim
scientists, and some facts accepted by them as true, can often be proved to
be false. This has happened in the field of purely religious matters whose
sole source is revelation and it will ipso facto happen in the fields of the
worldly sciences.
[1] 2:171
[2] see for example 6:7 for touch, 7:22 for taste, and 12:94 for touch
[3] 25:41
[4] I am here almost paraphrasing Ibn Taymias position, especially in his.
Daru taarudhilaqIi wa-nnaql. edited by Dr. Muhammad Rashad Salim.
Riyadh: Imam Muhammad Ibn Saud Islamic University. 1399 AH-I979 AD.
vol. I. pp, 4-8, 78-80, 86-92.

Atheists are Polytheists!

Dr. Jaafar Sheikh Idris
Manar As-Sabeel V 1, No. 6, p.9. Jumada 1413 H. December 1992.

An atheist is said to be someone who denies the existence of the Creator.

This is a good definition, provided that we mean by it that the creator
whose existence they deny is the only God ofreligion, the one true
Creator. Otherwise, atheists do believe in creators, albeit they do not
recognize them under that appellation. This is so because atheists, in their
endeavor to find alternatives to God for explaining the existence of the
temporal things we see around us, invent some imaginary entities and give
them some of the essential attributes of God.
Thus materialistic atheists used to believe in matter as such a god. But this
matter-god of theirs is not the matter with which we are familiar in our
daily life; it is something that is eternal and everlasting, hence the
statement, which used to masquerade as a scientific fact, matter is neither
created nor destroyed. But when you ask them to point this eternal and
everlasting matter you discover that they are only chasing a will-o-thewisp. The matter that we can recognize and to which we can point is
matter in the form of the large heavenly bodies, in the form of earthly
physical things, and in the form of the constituents of these things:
molecules, atoms, subatomic particles, photons, etc., none of which is
eternal. Atheistic materialists used to believe in an eternal matter behind
all such material things which come and go, but the advent of the big
bang theory shattered all hopes in the existence of such matter. Scientists
now believe that everythingmatter, energy, even space and timehad a
beginning. In fact they speak about a moment of creation of all these
things.
Another such imaginary god is Nature (with a capital N). The nature with
which we are familiar is the totality of natural things. But when we are
told that Nature does this or that, as atheists are prone to say, we find
ourselves at a loss. What is this Nature? If it be the one we know, how
can it cause or create itself? But if it is something else, then we want to
have proof of its existence.
The same applies to Evolution. Now evolution, scientifically speaking, is
[t]he gradual process by which the present diversity of plant and animal
life arose from the earliest and most primary organisms (Concise
Science Dictionary) But the Evolution of the atheists is not this process;

rather it is the agent which brings about the process. Only in this
unscientific and imaginary sense can evolution take the place of God;
otherwise, a believer who accepts the theory of evolution can easily
reconcile it with his belief in God, by saying that that process is itself the
work of the Creator.
There are, on the other hand, atheists who say in a misleading way that
they believe in God; but on inspection, their god turns out to be the god of
the atheists. I am referring here to people like Einstein, who is said by
some to have been a believer, but whose god was in fact not God the
Creator in whom we all believe. Einstein declared that he believed in
Spinozas god, i.e. in a god that is identical with the universe, and who
does not thus interfere from outside in its working. The man who is
thoroughly convinced of the universal operation of the law of causation,
says Einstein, cannot for a moment entertain the idea of a being who
interferes in the course of events. [Quoted by Hans Kung, Does God
Exist? Vantage Books, 1981, p. 629]
Thus all atheists are in fact polytheists, or mushriks. A mushrik, according
to Islam, is one who believes in a god or gods besides, or to the exclusion
of, the one true God, or who worships such gods, even if he also worships
the true God. That perhaps is the reason why the Quran never talks about
atheists, but only about mushriks (or polytheists)

Clash or Peaceful Coexistence?

Islamic Future, Safar 1417 (July 1996)
Dr. Jaafar Sheikh Idris

Are Muslims and the West bound to clash? Dr Jaafar Sheikh Idris,
professor of Islamic studies, Institute of Islamic and Arabic Sciences,
Washington, gives an answer which supports the idea of peaceful
coexistence.
Is it possible for the inhabitants of our global village to live peacefully
together and reap the fruits of science and technology whose pace of
advancement is ever increasing? Or are their religious, cultural and
civilization differences bound to create clashes and wars among them? The
matter is so important that it behooves Muslim intellectuals and statesmen
to give it serious thought.
Western intellectuals are very much concerned with this question. But they
are by no means agreed on the answer. One view is that the clash between
Western civilization and others is inevitable, nay that it is already under
way. Another view is that the real clash is within Western culture itself.
A third view is that people all over the world are heading toward Western
political liberalism and economic capitalism, and that these systems
constitute the end of history in these respects. A fourth view is that
peaceful coexistence among people of different cultures and civilizations
is possible provided they adopt secular pluralistic democracy.
What is the Islamic standpoint on this important and urgent issue? This
paper is an attempt to give a brief answer to that question. But I am not
speaking here as a social scientist who describes and explains actual
reality; rather I am attempting to describe only theoretically what I
consider to be the Islamic standpoint on this issue in our present
circumstances. And my short answer is that it is a standpoint that is

unequivocally on the side of peaceful coexistence. But to live peacefully

with others you need sometimes to be fully prepared for war against them.
REASONS FOR PEACEFUL COEXISTENCE
1. Rationality is an inseparable part of the Islamic religion, and its
rationality does include that important ingredient of judging actions by
their consequences. but it is of course a rationality which is guided by
other Islamic values. The preferred action is always the action which
results in the greatest good, or the least evil. The main goods to be
achieved in Islam for example, are ones which would be acceptable, in
their general sense, to most people. These are: Spiritual well-being, mental
well-being, human life, human wealth and honor. Judged by this rational
standard and those values, peaceful coexistence and cooperation is
definitely to be preferred over wars and clashes in normal circumstances.
2. While some religions, secular ideologies and psychological theories
teach that the human person is born evil; while some teach that he is born
neutral between good and evil and it is society which directs him one way
or the other; and while yet others believe that there is no such thing as
human nature; while some brazenly racist and others are discriminatory in
other respects, the Islamic position in the words of its Prophet is that every
child is born good. Whatever his or her present beliefs or cultural milieu,
every human person is a potential Muslim. In viewing people of other
beliefs and cultures, Muslims should not forget to see the original nature
which lies behind the facade of those cultures.
3. The best favor that a Muslim can therefore do to a non-Muslim is to
invite him to Islam, to persuade him or her to come back to their original
nature. But in doing so a Muslim is required to bear in mind certain facts,
and to abide by certain principles, among which is the fact that since faith
is a matter of the heart, no one can be compelled to accept it. This is
understood from the verse which reads, And invite to the way of your
Lord with wisdom, and good admonition, and argue with them in the best
of ways. How can this be achieved except in a peaceful atmosphere?
4. God tells his Prophet that however keen he is on people accepting the
faith, most of them will not. All the same, He tells His Prophet that he is
sent as a mercy to them, and that his main task is to never tire of inviting
them to the truth.

5. Peaceful coexistence among people belonging to different religions and

civilizations makes it easy for them to exchange material and intellectual
benefits. It also helps them to cooperate in solving the problems which
face them as inhabitants of a global village: Drugs, diseases, pollution, etc.
But his ideal picture of peaceful coexistence and cooperation cannot be
realized if the West lives in constant fear lest its hegemony be lost, and
therefore do its best to prevent others from developing.
6. No rational person who has an idea of the amount of destructive
weapons available in the world and the extent of the damage they can
cause would hesitate to be against all kinds of wars, local or worldwide. To
avoid wars however we must try to eradicate as many of their causes as we
can. We must thus stand for justice and against all kinds of unfair
treatment and aggression.
7. Muslims should play a big role in this because they are qualified to do
so. Islam is a religion which does not compromise on moral values like
truth and justice. Believers in Islam are urged to be allies to each other
irrespective of race or time or place.
8. Muslims, in my view, have a special stake in peace. If peace prevails,
Islam will have a better chance of being heard and accepted in the West,
and elsewhere. Many people in the West and other parts of the world are
coming back to religion so much so that what is called fundamentalism has
become a universal phenomenon. People have discovered that science
much as it is respected and valued by them cannot replace religion.
REASONS FOR BEING POWERFUL
Islam is however too realistic a religion to be pacifist. It is one thing to
want to live peacefully with others, but quite another to make them have
the same attitude toward you. On the whole, people of every culture desire
to be more powerful than those who are culturally opposed to them. They
take all steps which they deem necessary for the preservation of their
cultural identity, and for the subjugation of others. In his new classic paper
on clash of civilizations, Huntington tells us with unusual candidness that,
The West is now at an extraordinary peak of power in relation to other
civilizations. Apart from Japan the West has no economic challenge. It
dominates international political and security institutions, and with Japan
economic institutions.

And: In the post-Cold War, the primary objective of arms control is to

prevent the development by non-Western societies of military capabilities
that would threaten Western interests. The West attempts to do this through
international agreements, economic pressure and controls on the transfer
of arms and weapons technologies.
Muslims are therefore enjoined to be materially powerful so as to deter
those who might resort to aggression against Muslims or who are prone to
use force to subjugate others. Material power can and should thus be an
ally to the cause of spiritual development and not a contradictory of it.

Names & Attributes of God

An Islamic Point of View
Dr. Jaafar Sheikh Idris

(In Sontage, Frederick and M. Darrol Bryant, editors, God, the Contemporary Discussion.
The Rose of Sharon Press Inc., New York, 1982. Updated by Dr. Idris. August 2001.)

Prior to the modern age very few people disputed the fact that the
world has a creator. This fact was for them as obvious as a logical truth or
an observed phenomenon. They only differed about the nature of this
creator and about the appropriate attitude people should have towards
Him. But now the very existence of a creator is disputed.
Why? This is not an easy question to answer. However, I tend to
agree with those contemporary writers who trace the origins of modern
atheism in the West to the ideas of some influential Western philosophers,
some of whom were themselves believers. But these believer argued in
such a way as to make people at least doubt , if not reject, some of the
facts belief in which used to be considered of the essence of being
rational .
Good reasons for belief in the Creator, whether they be strictly
rational or otherwise, used to be related to those facts. Belief in God was
based on the fact that there was something in our nature and in the nature
of the world which points to a transcendent Creator whom we should
worship. The claim of the new thinking was that our world is in every
respect a closed system that cannot therefore point to anything outside
itself.
The first step toward this separation of heaven and earth was
perhaps Descartes mechanistic conception of the world in which it is
claimed that it is possible to explain natural phenomena by reference to
matter and motion and their laws. Hume widened the distance between
heaven and earth by claiming that the causal principle by which we make
such explanation of natural phenomena was nothing but observed regular
succession.

God cannot therefore be a cause since His creation or effect, is not

observed to occur after Him. Kant took the final step by arguing that the
concept of causation cannot apply to anything outside the world of our
experience. This atheistic philosophy then became, as it were, the official
philosophy of science. And since ordinary people, and even many
scientists, do not see the distinction between the facts which science
establishes and the philosophies which scientists adopt, especially when
such philosophies become popular among great scientists, this atheistic
philosophy was believed by the public to be the philosophy which science
demands or even the philosophy whose truth it has establish.
Many believers accepted the atheistic assumptions of this philosophy
but nevertheless maintained their belief in God hoping to find a place for
Him in the realms which science could not yet conquer. But the atheists
argued, with some strength, that since science was rapidly progressing in
giving us rational explanations of phenomena which we used to believe
to the works of God, it was only a matter of time before everything would
be so explained, thus driving God completely out of our world.
The severance of the relation between God and the world was thus,
on the one hand, a result of a new conception of the nature of our world.
But on the other hand it led some believers to a new conception of the
nature of God. God, as a result of this new thinking became more and
more of an abstract idea rather than a living person. But this in its turn
strengthened the atheistic trend. Who is interested in a God that is a mere
idea, who has no active role to play either on the level of our intellects and
behavior or on the level of nature.
But the idea that our world is a closed system, that it does not point
to transcendent creatior, has received a serious blow from the big bang
theory, which is being more and more accepted by scientists as the most
plausible scientific cosmological theory. According to this theory our
natural world had a definite beginning. And if so it would not be
illegitimate to ask: Who started it? But this means that the world itself is
telling us that it is not self-sufficient, i.e., it is pointing to something
beyond itself. But this fact, as we said earlier, was taken for granted by
early thinkers. They did not have to wait for a twentieth-century scientific
theory to prove it. Almost everything around them pointed to the fact our
world had a beginning, and could not therefore be self-sufficient.
I think that it will soon be obvious that those who denied the
existence of the Creator cannot support their claim by any scientific facts.

But mere belief in the existence of a creator is not of much consequence.

We need to know who this creator is so that we can establish appropriate
relations with Him, relations that would make a difference in our life.
It is to this end that thinking believers should henceforth direct their
energies. We must overcome the pre Big Bang complex which induced
many of us to think of God as an abstract idea, and start expounding and
defending the ordinary believers conception of Him as a living and loving
Person.[1]
I believe that there is much in the writings of early Muslim theologians,
especially those of the Sunnite School, from which all those who believe
in the existence of the Creator can benefit in this respect. And it is towards
this end that I am writing the rest of this paper. I shall attempt to give
contemporary believers an idea about the way early Muslim theologians
thought about an issue in which we are still interested, namely, the nature
of God and His attributes.
There were three major views concerning the nature of divine attributes
among Muslims. These are the views of the mujassima or
anthropomorphists, muattila or negators, and the muthbita or affirmers:
(a) The physicalistic or anthropomorphistic view likens God to a huge
human being, and thus attributes to Him the human form of attributes like
hearing, seeing, speaking, having eyes, etc. The difference between Him
and ordinary human beings, according to this view, is not of kind but of
degree. Only a few influential people held such a view in the history of
Islam, and they were immediately condemned as idol worshippers. Since
this view is no longer taken seriously by any contemporary believers, it
need not detain us. The only important point to mention here, because it
relates to the two following views, is the reason behind such a view, i.e.,
the assumption that only physical things with which we are familiar exist,
and since God exists He must be physical in this sense, and his attributes
cannot but take the forms of those of physical things.
(b) The negators view assumes that all the attributes we express in the
Arabic language or any other human language are attributes of physical
existents. But God is not physical. When He attributes to Himself, in the
Quran, things like hearing, seeing, being above His throne, having hands
or eyes, etc., He is addressing us in the only language we can understand,

but He is not using words describing these qualities in any real sense.
What are we then to understand by such words and expressions when we
use them in relation to God? Nothing, according to the extreme advocates
of this view. This view, though it was not known until about the third
century of Islam, soon became, especially in its milder forms, very
influential and popular among many theologians and educated Muslims. It
is sometimes wrongly assumed to be the only alternative to the first view.
(c) The affirmers view says that when God describes Himself as being
capable of seeing, hearing, etc., He is using these words in a real sense,
because God really sees and hears. He has a real face and real hands. But
since nothing is like Him, His attributes, though real, are not like the
attributes of human beings or any other created things. This is the view of
the early generations of Muslims and of all the great Sunniteulama who
followed in their footsteps. It is, I believe, the view of all believers in their
hours of worship. But it is no longer popular among theologians and
modernist believers. One reason for this, as I have said, is that it is
confused with the anthropomorphist view, which is obviously untenable. It
is this view which I am going to briefly expound and defend against the
second view.
Does God exist ? The extremist advocates of the second view would
refuse to answer in the affirmative, because existence in the real sense is
ascribed, in their view, to natural things only. Since God is not like them
we cannot even describe Him as existent. What is He then? We cannot say
anything positive about Him, they say: we can only say what He is not.
The affirmer says that by refusing to liken Him to any physical existent,
you end up likening Him to non-existents because it is only in reference to
non-existents that we cannot say anything positive.
A contemporary philosopher might think that what the negators are saying
is that it is a categorical mistake to describe God as existent and therefore
it would be equally wrong to describe Him as non-existent. The affirmers
may respond that: we did not say that negators liken God to non-existents
merely because they refused to describe Him as existent, but because of
their argument for doing so, namely, that nothing positive can be said
about God.
Our claim is that this description applies only to non-existents. The
affirmers say, more over that the claim that a category mistake is being
committed must be supported by showing that the nature of the thing to
which a certain attribute is wrongly applied is different in at least one

relevant aspect from the things to which this attribute is rightly applied,
i.e., that they belong to different categories.
But to claim that two things belong to different categories you must
know something positive about each one of them. If the only thing you
know about one of them is that nothing which applies to anything applies
to it in a real sense, you are saying that it belongs to the category of
nothingness.
That is why the famous Imam Ahmad said in replying to
the Jahmiyyah, a very influential school of negators, that a thing which is
not like anything else is not a thing at all.[i] Admittedly, there is a verse
in the Quran which says that Nothing is like Him.[ii] The Jahmiyyah
took this to be a Quranic support for their negativist view, but this verse
does not say that nothing which is said of other things can be said of God,
in any real sense. That is why after saying that Nothing is Like Him, it
goes on to say He is the All-Hearing, All-Seeing. All that the verse is
saying is that God is not to be likened to His creation. But you do not
liken Him to them by merely saying that He exists and they exist, or that
He knows and some of created things know. You do so only if you take
His existence to be as ephemeral and dependent as the existence of created
things and that His knowledge is to be as limited as theirs.
The Affirmers second objection to the negators refusal to describe
God as existent is that anyone who takes such a belief seriously cannot
really worship God. How can a person worship, love, fear, turn for
guidance to, depend on, or pray to something about which he cannot say,
even to himself, that it exists? This is not to say that they do not actually
worship God; many of them do, but only at the expense of their theoretical
standpoint.
The third objection is that since as Muslims you read the Quran and
believe in its divine source, what do you understand by expressions which
attribute to God things like knowing, hearing, acting, creating, speaking,
seeing, etc.? Some negators would say that since God is completely
different from anything we know, His real attributes cannot be couched in
human language because human languages are necessarily confined to
things which fall within our sense experience. But since this language is
the only one we understand, God is using it to give us a glimpse of
something which is really beyond our comprehension. The question is
how our human language can succeed in giving us even such a glimpse. If
the words and expressions of our language do not apply to God in any real

sense, then they cannot convey to us anything about Him. And in that
case, God would be revealing to us a mere string of words which have no
meaning. But no one who really believes in God would attribute to Him
such a folly. On the other hand, if they do convey to us even a glimpse,
there must be a relationship between them and the real attribute of God.
Other negators would acknowledge the existence of such a relation, but
would say that the words are used in their metaphorical and not in their
real sense. For example, when it is said in the Quran of God that He sees
or hears, what is meant is that He knows,[iii] because seeing and hearing
in their real senses apply to animals only. There are three objections to
this view.
(a) It can easily be shown that to see is linguistically different from to
hear, and both are different from, though related to, knowing.[iv]
(b) If it is claimed that all the words of our language are used in the
metaphorical sense when they apply to God, this would lead either to an
infinite regress or an impasse. If every word or expression in our language
had a metaphorical sense, then once a word, say X, is used in a sacred
book to describe God, we must look for its metaphorical sense, but that
metaphorical sense must be expressed in yet other words whose
metaphorical senses are expressed in other words and so on, ad infinitum.
But if you stop the regress by giving some words their real meanings, you
violate your principle.
(c) If the claim is that this applies to some and not all words and
expressions describing God, then a valid argument must be given to the
difference between the two. But no such argument exists. The truth is that,
as Ibn Taymiyyah showed clearly in his ar-risalatu attadmuriyyah, whatever is said of some Divine attributes can be said of the
others, as we will presently show.
This leads us to a milder version of negationism. Propounders of this
milder version are ready to attribute to God things like existence,
knowledge, life, power, will, seeing and hearing in their real sense, but
would take as metaphorical attributes such as love, pleasure, anger and
hate. The reply to a person who makes such a distinction between these
two classes of attributes affirming the former and denying the latter is
to say there is no difference between what you affirmed and what you
denied. What applies to one of them does indeed apply to the other. If you
say that His will is like the will of human beings, so also would be His

love and pleasure. But this is anthropomorphism. But if you say that He
has a will that suits Him just as a human being has a will that suits him, it
will be said to you: He also has a love that suits Him, and an anger that
suits Him; and the human being has an anger that suits him.[v] If one
interprets things like love, hate and anger in an anthropmorhistic way, we
say that the same can be said about will, knowledge and power.[vi]
People like Ibn Taymiyyah, the author of the above quotations, are
often mistakenly described by their opponents and by some modern
scholars as being literalists, or even worse, anthropomorhists. Those who
say this assume that the only alternative to negationism or allegoricalism is
literalism or anthropomorphism.
But it is clear from Ibn Taymiyyahs statement that when he affirms
that God loves or hates in a real sense and not in a metaphorical sense, he
is not, thereby, likening Him to human beings. He rejects the view that
language cannot be used in a real sense except when it applies to created
things. He thinks that some descriptive words have general meanings
which as abstract meanings do not apply to anything in particular, whether
it be human or divine. But when they are used to describe a particular,
then they describe something which is peculiar to the particular in
question.[vii]
For example, if we describe two persons, X and Y, as learned, the
connotation of learned when it applies to X is not the same as its
connotation when it applies to Y. Does this mean that all words are
equivocal? No, by no means. Ibn Taymiyyah thinks that though the
referents are different, the word has an abstract meaning that is common to
both referents. This, he thinks, applies even in the case of God. When we
describe Him as loving, for example, we are not likening Him to Human
beings, i.e., we are not saying that he loves in the same way as humans
love. It is wrong, he insists, to think that the real meanings of such words
are their meanings when they apply to human beings. Descriptive words,
as such, are neutral. They take their specific forms according to the
particulars which they describe. And just as there are differences between
particular created things, there are differences and greater ones
between God and the world of created things.
How do we know about the attributes of God? According to the
school of Ahl as-Sunnah, also called the people of affirmation, some of
the Divine attributes can be known by reason alone, though most of them
are known by revelation also. Other attributes of God are not known

except through the Divine revelation to Gods chosen Prophets or

Messengers. Those which can be known by reason alone may be divided
into three categories: Gods attributes as existent, His attributes as a living
being, and His attributes as a creator and the object of our worship.
It is of paramount importance to see the difference between the
attributes of something as an existent and its attributes under other
descriptions or headings. Failure to see this has led both believers and
atheists into confusion about their conceptions of God. The mistake starts
when either the theist or the atheist assumes that all the attributes of the
physical are limited to its attributes under this physical description. Once
this mistake is committed, it is easy to argue from it that since God is not
physical, nothing which is said of physical things can be said of Him in
any real sense. Thus, Lenin, seeing that the progress of science was
creating havoc for the materialists conception of matter, thought of
defining the latter in a way which no scientific discovery could render
obsolete. He came to the conclusion that the material was anything that
existed objectively, i.e., outside our mind.[viii] But, this is not a definition
of the material; it is a necessary condition of every existent. If
communists took Lenins definition seriously, the difference between them
and the believers would be only verbal, i.e., whether it is proper to say of
God that He is material or not. But they do not take their own view
seriously. In fact, they insist on having their cake and eating it. Thus, if
you tell them that you are ready to say that God is material according to
their definition of this word, because you believe that He exists
objectively, they would react by asking you to show Him to them, thus
reverting back to an earlier definition of the material.
Because material things exist objectively, and God is not material, then His
existence must be only subjective. It seems that Lenin argued in this way.
Some theistic theologians argued in a manner that is rather similar to this.
In their attempt to exalt God above all material things, they ended up
depriving Him of the very necessary attributes of the existent thus making
Him a mere word that designates nothing. The Ahl as-Sunnah were very
much against this trend, and they dubbed the people who followed
it muattila, i.e., negators. In contrast the Ahl as-Sunnah called themselves
the people of ithbat, i.e., affirmation. The negators talk of God only in
negative terms: All they say about God is that He does not have the
attributes that material things have. The affirmers, on the other hand,
believe that the basic attributes of God are positive ones. The negative
attributes which God is said not to have are only the negations of these

positive attributes and what is logically implied by these negatations.

They think that as a Creator, God must exist and exist objectively. To exist
objectively God must have all the attributes of objective existents. God
must therefore be somewhere and cannot thus be everywhere. Why not?
Because to be everywhere is to fail to be distinguished from other existents
and thus not to have a special identity. To believe that He is everywhere
leads, moreover, to yet other absurdities. If God was everywhere before
He created some things, then where did He create them? To say that He
created them inside Himself is absurd. To say that He created them outside
Himself contradicts the statement that He is everywhere. To say that God
shrank to leave some space for them is absurd. At least it contradicts the
assumption that He is infinite. It also leads to the absurdity that whenever
anything passes out of existence God extends Himself to fill the empty
space.
Where is God then? The Ahl as-Sunnah do not hesitate to answer that He
is above His throne in heaven. Does this mean that He is limited? If by
this is meant His person, then the answer is yes. But although His person
is confined to a particular region, His power, knowledge and other
attributes are not so limited. God is in heaven, but His power and
knowledge are everywhere. He cannot in this sense, therefore, he said to
be limited.
The negators believe that God cannot at all be known by the five senses
because they thought that to be thus known is to be physical. The
affirmers agreed that He cannot be observed by us while we are in this
world. But this is not because it is in His nature not to be observed; it is
rather because of our own present nature. There are verses in the Quran
and the authentic sayings of the Prophet Muhammad which affirm that
believers shall behold God in the Hereafter. In fact, beholding Him would
be their greatest joy. They would be able to behold Him because their
nature would be different from what it is now.
The affirmers do not depend on this religious argument alone. They also
believe that it is a contradiction in terms to say that something exists
objectively and yet cannot in principle be observed. It is only nonexistents which cannot in principle be observed, or as al-Darimi says, a
thing which cannot be observed, yudrak, by any of the senses, is
nothing.[ix] As an existent, then, God must exist outside our minds, i.e.
He cannot be a mere idea or an abstract concept. Secondly, He must have
some defining qualities.[x] Thirdly, He must exist in a place, that is

distinct from places occupied by other existents.[xi] Otherwise, He would

be one with them and hence could not be anything in His own right.
Fourthly, He must be in principle observable.
God is not only an existent. He is a Living existent. And as a Living
existent He must have the attributes of willing, knowing, seeing, hearing,
etc. In short, God must have all the attributes which living things
necessarily have as living things, and not because of their materiality or
animality.
But God is the Creator of everything. As such He must be eternal and
hence self-sufficient, unique and perfect. All the other attributes that He
has must be seen in the light of these basic attributes. Thus if we say that
He knows, His knowledge must be different from that of any of His
creatures in that it must be knowledge which is not preceded by ignorance
and thus acquired through the senses or any other means. And so on. The
same must be said of all the other attributes. That is why it is one of the
pillars of the Muslim faith to believe that God is unique in His person as
well as in His attributes. Just as none of His creation resembles Him, so
none of their attributes resemble His attributes. And so while we know the
meanings of the divine attributes, we do not know their modality or the
form which they take when they apply to His unique person.
Some of the attributes of God we cannot know except through His own
words revealed to chosen prophets. In Islam these words are confined to
the Quran and the Sunnah, the sayings of the Prophet Muhammad. These
sources attribute to God things like being above His Throne, having hands,
smiling, etc.. The negators take all these attributes to be metaphorical, but
the Ahl as-Sunnahs position is to affirm about God whatever He affirms
about Himself in the Quran or through His prophet without tashbih, i.e.,
likening Him to created things, or tatil, i.e., explaining away His attributes
as metaphorical. We understand them, affirmers say, in the light of the
principle stated in the verse Nothing is like Him, the All-hearing, the Allseeing.[xii]
Let me end this paper by quoting some famous Quranic verses about
Gods attributes which every practicing Muslim knows by heart and
repeats on many occasions as an expression of his devotion to God:
Say: He is God, one God the Everlasting Refuge, Who has not begotten,
and has not been begotten, and equal to Him is not any one.[xiii]

God, there is no God but He, the Living, the Everlasting, slumber seizes
Him not, neither sleep; to Him belongs all that is in the Heavens and the
earth. Who is there that shall intercede with Him save by His leave? He
knows what lies before them and what lies after them, and they
comprehend not anything of His knowledge save such as He wills. His
throne comprises the heavens and the earth; the preserving of them
oppresses Him not; He is the All-High, the All-Glorious.[xiv]

[1] By person I do not of course mean that God is a human or like a human
person. Person is used here in the general sense of an actual existent with
definite characteristics in contradistiction to an abstract idea. Allah is
described in some ahadith of the Prophet as being that and as having
a shakhs (personality)
[i] Imam Ahamd, ar-rad ala-az-zanadigati wa-ljahmiyyah, p.68.
[ii] The Quran ayah (verse) 11: Surah (Chapter) 42.
[iii] See Ibn Qurtayba, Kitab al-ikhtilaf fil-lafaz ar-rad ala-ljahmiyya
Wa-l-mushabbiha, in the collection, Aqaid as-salaf, ed. Ali Sami
Nashshar and Ammar JamI Talibi (Alexandria, 1971), p.233.
[iv] Ibid. p. 233.
[v] Ibn Taymiyyah, op. cit., p. 21.
[vi] Ibid., p. 22.
[vii] Ibid., p. 80.
[viii] V.I. Lenin, Materialism and Empiro-Criticism (Moscow: Foreign
Languages Publ. House, n.d.), pp. 269-70.
[ix] Abu Said Ad-Darimi, Kitab al-rad ala-l-jahmiyyah, AqaidusSalaf and Kitab ar-radi-l-Imami-d-Darimi, Uthman Ibn Said ala-lmarisil-anid, p. 570.
[x] Ibid., p.508.
[xi] Ibid., p. 249.

[xii] The Quran ayah 11: Surah 42.

[xiii] Chapter CXII of the Quran, trans. Arthur J. Arberry, The Quran
Interpreted (Oxford Univ. Press, 1964), p. 667.
[xiv] Ibid., trans. Verse 255, chapter 11, p.37

Secularism and Moral Values

MORAL values, such as honesty, trustworthiness, justice and

chastity, are originally innate values which Allah planted in the hearts of
mankind; then He sent His messengers with a system of life in accord with
this innate disposition to affirm it.
So set your face toward the religion, as one by nature upright; the
instinctive (religion) which Allah has created in mankind. There is no
altering (the laws) of Allahs creation. That is the right religion but most
people do not know.
[Surat Ar-Rum:30].
A believer adheres to these moral values because his nature, fortified by
faith, induces him to do so, and because the religion he believes in
commands him with them and promises him a reward for them in the
Hereafter.
Secularism, on the other hand, even in its less virulent form that
satisfies itself with removing religion from political life, rejecting it and
the innate values as a basis for legislation, undermines the two foundations
for moral values in the hearts of mankind.
As for secularism in its extreme atheistic form, it completely
demolishes these two foundations and replaces them with human whims,
either the whims of a few rulers in dictatorial systems or the whims of the
majority in democratic systems.
Have you seen the one who has taken his own desire as his god? Would
you then be a guardian over him?[Al-Furqan:43].
Since whims and desires are by their nature constantly changing, the
values and behaviors based on them are also mutable.
What is considered today to be a crime, punishable by law with the
severest of penalties, and causes its practitioners to be deprived of certain
rights granted to others, becomes permissible tomorrow, or even
praiseworthy, and the one who objects to it becomes politically
incorrect.
This shift from one point of view to its opposite, as a result of
societys estrangement from innate religious values, is a frequent
occurrence. However ignorant a traditional society may be, it, or many of
its members, will maintain some innate values; but the further a society

penetrates into secularism, the fewer such individuals will become, and the
more marginal their influence will be, until the society collectively rebels
against those same innate religious values it used to uphold.
There may be another reason for some traditional Jahili cultures to
maintain innate religious values: they might appeal to their desires, or they
represent their heritage and do not conflict with their desires.
And when they are called to Allah and His Messenger to judge
between them, Lo! a party of them refuse and turn away. But if the
right is with them they come to Him willingly.[Al-Nur: 48-49].
Their relationship with truth is similar to Satans, as described by the
Prophet (sallallahu alayhe wa sallam) to Abu Hurairah, whom Satan had
advised to recite Ayat al-Kursi when going to bed: He told you the truth,
even though he is an inveterate liar.
Contemporary Western, secular societies are the clearest examples of
the shifting, self-contradictory nature of jahili civilization. From one angle
it views culture and the values it rests upon as a relative, variable
phenomenon. However, from another angle it characterizes some values as
human values, views their violation as shocking, and punishes their
violators severely.
The sources of this problem are two fundamental principles which
democratic secular societies rely upon. The first is majority rule as a
standard for right and wrong in speech and behavior; the second is the
principle of individual freedom. These two principles will necessarily
conflict with each other if they are not subordinated to another principle
that will judge between them.
Secularism, by its very nature, rejects religion, and in its Western
form it does not consider fitrah (innate values) a criterion for what is
beneficial or harmful for humanity. It has no alternative but to make these
two principles an absolute standard for what behavior is permissible and
appropriate, and what isnt.
The contradiction and conflict between these two principles is
showing itself plainly in some of the current hot issues in these societies.
Those who advocate the acceptance of homosexuality and the granting to
avowed homosexuals equal rights and opportunities in every aspect of life,
including military service, base their argument on the principle of

individual rights. They see no one as having the right to concern

themselves with what they call their sexual orientation.
The same argument is made by supporters of abortion. You
frequently hear them say incredulously, How can I be prohibited from
freedom of choice in my own affairs and over my own body? What right
do legal authorities have to involve themselves in such personal matters?
The only argument their opponents can muster is that this behavior
contradicts the values held by the majority of the population. Even though
the basis for many peoples opposition to abortion is moral or religious,
they cant come out and say so openly, nor can they employ religious or
moral arguments, since secular society finds neither of them acceptable.
If we accept that there is no basis for values except individual or
majority opinion, and that it is therefore possible for all values to change
from one era to another, and from one society to another, this means there
is no connection between values and what will benefit or harm people in
their material and spiritual lives, which in turn means that all values are
equality valid and it doesnt matter which values a given society accepts or
rejects.
However, this means that all behavior considered abhorrent by
secular societies today, such as sexual molestation of children and rape of
women for which it has serious penalties, are considered repulsive only
because of current inclination, which might change tomorrow, so certain
serious crimes may become acceptable, based on the principle of
individual freedom.
The reason a secularist is confused when posed with certain
questions is that his repugnance toward such crimes is not really based on
these two principles, which have become the only accepted bases for
argument in societies dominated by secularism; the real reason for it is the
remnants of the moral feelings he still possesses from the original nature
with which Allah endowed him, and which linger on in spite of his
secularism.
Perhaps the confusion of the secularist would increase if he were
asked for what reason he had given such precedence to these democratic
values, until he made them the standard by which all other values and
behaviors are judged. If he says his reverence for them is based merely on
current personal preference and inclination, or on cultural chauvinism, he
will have no reply to one who opposes him on the basis of his

contradictory personal preferences, or because the norms of his society

differ from those of the other.
The flimsy foundation of values in secular societies makes them
liable to turn at any time against all the values they currently hold dear. It
also paves the way for them to descend to their practices of the occupation
and colonization of weaker nations. There is nothing to make them refrain
from doing so. Once one of them stands up and announces that there is a
nationalist benefit to be gained by it and a large number of fellow citizens
believe him. His policy proposal becomes official policy, based on the
standard of majority approval. It is, however, as you can see, an approval
based on nothing more than greed. This has been the justification for every
transgression in history. In fact it is the basis on which any animal attacks
another.
Personal freedom and majority rule are not, then, the fundamental
values on which secular culture is based. That is because freedom entails
choice, but it is not the criterion for that choice. I mean that whoever is
given the freedom to choose needs a standard that he can use as the
criterion for his choice. Likewise, majority opinion is not itself the
standard; it is merely the result of many individual choices made on the
basis of some standard.
So what is the basis for the choices of a free individual and a free society
in the secular system? It is, without the slightest doubt, those whims and
desires which have taken the place of the real Deity
Manar As-Sabeel V4, No. .
Translated by Riaz Ansary

Our Humanness: Unalterable Essence and Changeable

Actuality
Developments in the science of genetics have aroused the interest of
scientists, as well as the rest of us in some fundamental questions of our
life and given them some urgency.
What does our humanity consist in?
Do we have an unalterable nature in virtue of which we can be considered
the humans we are, or is our nature a tabula rasa on which culture, the
environment and now genetic engineering dictate what they want?
Do we have a soul, and if so what is the difference between it and our
bodies? What is its relationship with the body?
It was natural for believers in God to be more concerned with such
questions, and to give answers to them based on the teachings of their
religions. I am glad to be given the honor of participating in this vital
discussion and to be given the opportunity to present what I consider to be
an authentic Islamic view on these important issues.
I am concerned here mainly with the question of human nature. If the
nature of a thing is the collection of qualities which make it the thing that
it is, then everything must necessarily have a nature. We might differ about
some of the qualities of a thing, whether they can be counted among those
that form its nature, but we cannot say of something that we know and deal
with that it has no nature at all, or that its nature is constantly changing.
This is a matter of logic. There should therefore be no dispute about the
fact that human beings have a nature that makes them the beings they are.
There should also be no dispute about the fact that this nature must be
fixed, because if it changes then the thing that has the new nature must be
something different from a human being, just as water or oxygen must be

something different from the water or oxygen that we know and deal with
if their nature changes.
The question should not therefore be about whether or not humans have a
nature, or whether or not that nature is changing: it should be about the
kind of qualities that make them the beings they are.
We are all agreed that we have bodies, and that these bodies have a nature
in virtue of which they need for example certain things for their existence.
We are also agreed on the fact that we have certain mental qualities
without which we cannot be the human beings that we are. A being that is
intrinsically unable to think, or will, or know, cannot be a human being
even if it had a body that looked exactly like that of a human, and even if it
had some of the other mental qualities of humans. Thus if genetic
engineering could bring some being like these, we should not say that it
changed the nature of humans, but that it came up with a new being that
has nothing to do with us. Assuming this to happen, it will not abolish
human beings; normal humans will continue to exist and be reproduced in
the natural way they have always been.
The question would then be: is it in our interest, as normal humans, to
allow something like this to happen?
The answer of a believer in God would be an emphatic no! Why? Because
he believes that no being can have a nature that is even equal, let alone
superior, to that of a human being. Anyway, this should be the position of a
Muslim.
Humans, according to Islam, have many qualities that distinguish them
from other creation, but these qualities are not of equal importance. Let us
start with what, according to Islam, is spiritually common to all creation
and then deal with humans as a special creation.
All Creation is Muslim
Every created thing worships its Lord; each according to its special
makeup. The Quran gives us some details of this worshipping that is
common to all creation.
Submission. (Islam)
003.083 Seek they other than the religion of God, when to Him
submit (aslama) whosoever is in the heavens and the earth, willingly
or unwillingly, and to Him they will be returned.

Glorification
59:1 All that is in the heavens and all that is in the earth glorifies
God.
Prostration.
022.018 Have you not seen that to God prostrate whosoever is in the
heavens and whosoever is in the earth, and the sun, and the moon, and the
stars, and the hills, and the trees, and the beasts, and many of mankind,
Obedience.
030.026 To Him belongs whosoever is in the heavens and the earth.
All
are obedient to Him
Humans, a Special Creation
Human beings are a special creation; but they are no exception to the
fact that their essence is that of being servants of God. They are however
distinguished from all other creation by certain qualities that make them
the special beings they are with a degree above other created things.
First, Adam, the father of all human beings was created in a special way.
God tells us that He created him with his own hands (38:75 )
Second, He told the angels to prostrate themselves to him once he was
created (2:34)
Third, He breathed into him a spirit (called in Arabic rooh) with which He
did not endow any other animal. (38:71-2 )
Fourth, He made all that is on the earth subservient to humans:
002.029 He it is Who created for you all that is in the earth
Fifth, He endowed them with dignity:
017.070 Verily we have honored the Children of Adam. We carry
them on the land and the sea, and have made provision of good
things for them, and have preferred them above many of those whom
We created with a marked preferment.
Sixth, He taught him what the Quran calls the names of things in virtue of
which he became more knowledgeable than the angels:

002.031 And He taught Adam all the names, then showed them to
the angels,saying: Inform Me of the names of these, if you are
truthful.
002.032 They said: Be glorified! We have no knowledge saving that
which You have taught us. Lo! You, only You are the Knower, the
Wise.
002.033 He said: O Adam! Inform them of their names, and when he
had
informed them of their names, He said: Did I not tell you that I know
the
secret of the heavens and the earth ? And I know that which you
disclose
and which you hide.

Body and Soul

The human body and the human soul are two different entities with
different sets of attributes and functions, but they are in many ways
connected and interdependent.
The fact that they are distinct is stated in many Islamic texts:
First, in the creation of Adam, the soul, rooh, was breathed into an already
created body:
015.029 So, when I have made him and have breathed into him of
My Spirit,do ye fall down, prostrating yourselves unto him.
Second, when a human child is born it is born as a living thing but without
a soul. The soul is breathed into it when it is about forty days old[1]
Third, when a person dies, his soul leaves his body.
039.042 God receives (mens) souls at the time of their death, and
that(soul) which dies not (yet) in its sleep. He keeps that (soul) for
which He has ordained death and dismisses the rest till an appointed
term. Lo! herein verily are portents for people who take thought.

Fourth, if a person goes to paradise he will have a body with a nature

different from his present worldly body, though he will continue to have
the same soul.

The Human Soul

Human beings, according to Islam, are born good. This goodness is an
attribute of the human soul; it consists in being
1. born with a natural capacity to be aware of the fact that they are
servants of God, their sole Creator who alone is to be worshipped.
All the other good human qualities are related to this basic quality. I
mean the qualities of cognition and volition, of morality and
prudence, of rationality and of the aesthetic taste, and so on. They
are related to it in the sense that they are strengthened by it, in the
sense that they are justified by it, and in the sense that they act as
avenues that lead to it. They are thus used in the Quran as standards
on which it bases its arguments for inviting people to its truths
2. created with a wholesome soul,
3. given the capacity to distinguish between what is morally good , and
what is morally bad:
091.007 And by the soul and Him Who perfected it
091.008 And inspired it (with conscience of) what is wrong for it and(what
is) right for it.
091.009 He is indeed successful who causes it to grow,
091.010 And he is indeed a failure who stuns it.
All of Gods commands and prohibitions in Scripture have their
foundation in this original good nature of the human soul. It is because of
this that the religion to which Prophets like Muhammad invite people is
called the religion of human nature:
030.030 So direct your face toward the religion, (thus) turning to the truth,
a religion that is the fitra (original good nature) upon which he created
human beings; there is no changing of Gods creation. That is the true
religion but most people know

And it is because of this Divine commands and prohibitions are justified in

the Quran in terms of their compatibility with the good qualities of this
original human nature. Gambling and alcoholic drinks are for example
prohibited because Satan, the archenemy of human beings, uses them to
create enmity and hatred among people (5:90-91) who are born to be
faithful brothers. The justification that is given for killing the killer is that
it saves life (2:179).The relatives of the killed person are given the right to
forgive or take ransom, because in this way even more lives are saved.
Prayer helps to prevent them from committing grave sins. Being mindful
of God gives peace to their hearts. And so on and so forth.
1. Humans, however, are created as willful beings; they are therefore
given the choice either to live an actual life that is a reflection of
their natural humanness, or to rebel against their human essence and
live a life of alienation.
God likes for them to choose to worship Him, and He helps them in many
ways to make this right choice:
First, He does not create them neutral between these alternatives, but
makes this choice the natural thing for them to prefer; it is the one that
makes them live in peace with themselves.
Second, He makes His whole creation consist of signs of His existence and
His attributes of perfection, and provides in it evidence for the truthfulness
of the Prophets whom He sends, and the Messages with which they come.
Third, He makes belief in God the only alternative that is compatible with
all the good qualities they have: reason, the moral values of justice, mercy,
wisdom and so on.
Fourth, He sends Prophets with messages that describe for them in detail
the good life that is compatible with their good essence, give them reasons
for their being so, and adduces arguments against the alternative of
rebelling against their Creator and therefore their own human essence.
Fifth, If they make the wrong choice, still however much their actual life is
perverted, their essence remains incorrigible; they always have the
chance to make the decision to come back to their it so long as they are
alive, and their all-Merciful God will always accept them.

It seems from this that no external factor can change or corrupt the human
soul and deprive it of some or all of its good qualities. Only the person
himself can corrupt himself by his willful acts.

The Human Body

The soul, we said, is of a nature that is completely different from that of
the body. But it needs a body to make the actual life of the human person
an expression of the humanness of his soul. The body that it needs is not
however any body; it is a special body that is designed to suit that soul.
1. Though this body is in many ways like that of animals, it is the one
with the best form, as the Quran says.
2. Because it is a special body it is to be treated with respect even when
it is dead. To cut off part of a dead human body, the Prophet tells us,
is (as sinful as) cutting it off a living body.
3. When a person dies and his soul leaves his body, that dead body is to
be washed and cleaned; it is to be wrapped in clean cloth, and be
berried. People are told to stand up when a funeral passes by
irrespective of whose funeral it is.
4. Human bodies are not to be mutilated even in war.
5. Because the soul uses the body, many of its acts are attributed to
some bodily parts, especially the heart. But the language used leaves
one in no doubt that what is meant is not the physical body part.
6. Human beings are advised not to degrade themselves by behaving
like animals especially when performing acts of worship. We are
told not to raise our voices the way donkeys do. The Prophet saw
someone leading another by a rope; he cut the rope and told him to
lead him by his hand. He tells us that, when performing prayer, we
should not make any act that looks like that of an animal. We are
thus told not to come down for prostration as a camel does, not to
make our acts of prostration like the pecking of a crow, not to sit as a
dog sits, and so on. We are even told by the Prophet not to wear
beast hide that makes us look like them
This is not to be taken as unfair prejudice against animals; it is only meant
to advise the human to behave in the way that suits his human nature. He

is however encouraged and even ordered to care for animals and show
mercy towards them. The Prophet tells us of a prostitute whom God
forgave and even caused to enter paradise because she descended into a
well and brought water in her shoes to quench the thirst of an almost dying
dog. He tells us on the other hand of a woman who went to hell-fire
because she kept a cat that she neither fed nor allowed to seek food for
itself. Animal bodies are not to be maimed, neither are their faces to be
branded. When the Prophet saw a brand on the face of a donkey, he cursed
the person who branded it.

Genetic Engineering
There are in Islam, some general principles that help to guide us in our
dealings with Gods creation, and that can thus help us in the position we
take regarding genetic engineering. These include the fact that
1. Everything God creates He creates in the best of ways.(32:7)
2. All of Gods creation around us is created to serve human beings.
3. This creation should not therefore be altered.
4. There are close relations and links not only among the constituents
of an individual creation, but also among all creation
5. Experience tells us that the results of all such alterations have been
harmful.
You might say that we do, we have to, till the land, plant crops, kill
animals, dig wells and canals, build bridges, and so on. Yes indeed but in
doing all this we are working within the natural order not disrupting it. We
do the same when we fix something that goes wrong; we seek cures for
our ailments and the ailments of our animals; we might to that end even
have to cut off some parts of our bodies. This is because though God
creation is the best, it cannot, in the nature of things, be as perfect as its
Creator is.
Genes should be dealt with in the same way. There is no harm in replacing
genes that are not working properly with better ones. Genetic engineering
should not aim at perfecting nature; it will only distort it.
If the human person, body and soul, is the best of Gods creation, any
tampering with it will only make it worse. We are warned in the Quran of

making any alterations in Gods creation. One reason for this might be the
fact :that there are close relations and links not by only among the
constituents of an individual creation, but also among almost all kinds of
Gods creation.
Genetic engineering should not therefore aim at perfecting nature; it will
only distort it. It should only be resorted to for therapeutic purposes.
As to human cloning there is in my view nothing that justifies it and much
that is against it. The way a human being is naturally reproduced is a way
is a way that is very well connected to nature; it involves sexual urge,
close intimacy between two individuals, growth in the uterus of a natural
mother, love, suckling, caring and the joy of childish behavior; it has
father and mother, brothers and sisters and relatives. But a cloned being
lacks many of these qualities and relations.
What kind of a creature is that going to be? And what is the need for it?
Isnt it really odd that while we try to control natural birth, we encourage
un-natural production of creatures that, to say the least, lack some of the
qualities of naturally reproduced humans?

[1] \Bukhari, Book of Creation

THE PILLARS OF FAITH

By: Dr. Jaafar Sheikh Idris
Introduction
Belief in God
Belief in the Angels
Belief in Divine Books
Belief in the Messengers
Belief in the Hereafter
Belief in Qadar
Conclusion (Effect of Faith on outward behavior)

Introduction
The pillars of Faith, Iman, enumerated in many verses of the Quran and
sayings of the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, are belief in God,
in Gods Angels, His Books, His Messengers, in the Hereafter and
in Qadar (Destiny).
These are familiar terms; but the non-Muslim reader would be
mistaken if he thought that the Islamic concepts designated by them are
the same as those of other religions and philosophies. It is hoped that the
following exposition, which is itself made in the light of the Quran and
the sayings of the Prophet, will make this point clear. It will also make
clear the fact that the Islamic concept of faith itself is, in many ways,
different from the popular Western one.
In the West faith is usually contrasted to reason and knowledge. But
according to the Quran true faith is that which is based on knowledge and
supported by argument. Any belief which is not so based and supported is
considered by the Quran to be mere caprice and whim which a thinking
person must avoid. True faith can therefore be gained through reflection
and the acquisition of knowledge, and not by blind and irrational

commitment. A person armed with such an enlightened faith can enter with
great confidence into rational discussion with people who do not share his
beliefs with the hope of showing them their mistakes and weaknesses and
winning them over to truth. If this paper helps to take the reader a step in
that direction it will have achieved its purpose, and all praise is due to
God.
BELIEF IN GOD
Muhammad, peace be upon him, was sent to invite people to God and to
teach them how to perform the task for which they were created, namely to
worship God. Many of the people whom he addressed had a hazy idea of
God. Some did believe in Him, though they associated other lesser gods
with Him, but a few of them were downright atheists, or materialists,
whose creed was, we live and we die and nothing causes our death except
Time. [Jathiya XLV: 24] Before inviting such atheists to God one must
first convince them that there is such being. What reason do you have for
believing that there is a God? This, logically, is the first question which a
theistic view of life should address itself to. The Quranic answer to it is
given in the following words:
. . were they created out of nothing? Or were they the creator (of
themselves) or did they create the heavens and earth. [Tur, Lll: 36]

The Quran is here saying that for everything like man that has a
beginning in time, there are only three ways of explaining how it came to
be.
a.
Either it is created, or made, or caused by nothing at all i.e. it
came out of nothing.
b.

Or it is the creator of itself.

c.

Or it has a creator, cause, or maker, outside itself.

The third possibility is not mentioned in the quoted verse but it is

understood because the verse is addressed to people who deny the
existence of a creator and it is telling them that if there is no creator then
only two possibilities remain. But the Quran does not go into the details
of showing why the first two positions are untenable. Clarity of expression
often convinces people of the truth or untruth of a statement. Mental
seeing here, more than physical seeing, is believing (or rejecting). This is

borne out in the case of these Quranic words by a historical event. Jubayr
Ibn Mut`im, until then, a non-Muslim was sent by Quraysh on a mission to
the Muslims at Madina. He says that when he arrived he heard the Prophet,
who was leading the evening prayer, reading Surat al-Tur and when he
reached the foregoing verses my heart was almost rent asunder.] Shortly
after that Jubayr embraced Islam.
Why did this happen to him? Probably because the verse made things clear
to him for the first time. It is inconceivable for something to come out of
or be made by nothing at all, he realized, and it is even more inconceivable
that it should bring itself into being. Hence the only conclusion is that it
must have a creator outside itself.
A thesis is therefore untenable if it means the denial of any maker or cause
whatsoever. But admitting that this is indeed so, one might still wonder
why should that cause or maker or creator be the God to whom
Muhammad was inviting people? Why shouldnt it be one of the many
other gods in whom people believe or why shouldnt it even be the
matter of the materialists? Almost the entire Quran deals with this
question but we shall do our best to give a brief answer which would
provide the reader with the basics of the Quranic position. In a nutshell
the answer is as follows: to explain the coming into being of temporal
things, the creator (or cause or maker) for which we are looking, must
(logically must) have the attribute of the God to whom Muhammad invites
us. How so?
The creator must be of a different nature from the things created because,
if he is of the same nature as they are, he will have to be temporal and
therefore need a maker. It follows that
Nothing is like Him. [Shura, XLII: 11]
If the maker is not temporal then he must be eternal. But if he is eternal, he
cannot be caused, and if nothing causes him to come into existence,
nothing causes him to continue to exist, which means that he must be self
sufficient. And if he does not depend on anything for the continuance of
his existence, then that existence can have no end.
The creator is therefore eternal and everlasting:
He is the first and the last. [Hadid, LVII: 3]

All that dwells upon the earth is perishing, yet still abides the Face of thy
Lord, majestic, splendid. [Rahman, LV: 26-27]
There are two ways in which causes produce their effects. Either they
produce them naturally or intentionally. The maker that has the attributes
we have enumerated cannot be a natural cause. Because if things of this
world flow from Him naturally and spontaneously, they cannot be but of
the same nature as He is. And if like all natural causes He causes only
under certain conditions, then His power is limited. It follows that He must
be a willful agent. But intention implies knowledge and both imply life.
So, that maker must be a living all-knowing agent with a will that is
absolutely free.
Thus God according to the Quran does everything with intention and for a
purpose.
Surely We have created everything in (due) measure. [Qamar, LXIV: 49]
What, did you think that We created you only for sport? [Muminun,
XXIII: 115]
He is absolutely free to do whatever he wills [Hud, Xl: 107] and is aware
of every movement of His creation.
He knows what is in land and sea; not a leaf falls, but He knows it. Not a
grain in the earths shadow, not a thing fresh or withered, but it is in a
Book Manifest. It is He who recalls you by night, and He knows what you
work by day.[Anam, Vl: 59-60]
GOD IS LIVING:
There is no God but He, the living, the everlasting. Slumber seizes Him
not, neither sleep; to Him belongs all that is in the heavens and the earth.
Who is there that shall intercede with Him save by His leave? He knows
what lies before them and what is after them, and they comprehend not
anything of His knowledge save such as He wills. His throne comprises
the heavens and earth; the preserving of them oppresses Him not; He is the
All-high, the All-Glorious.[Baqara, II: 255]
God is not only willing and powerful, He is also Just in that He does not
punish a sinner for more than his crime. He is merciful and His mercy, in
the words of the Prophet overcame his punishment. So He does not
punish us for whatever we do, but forgives and erases our sins, and
magnifies and multiplies our good deeds.

The likeness of those who expend their wealth in the way of God is as the
likeness of a grain of corn that sprouts seven ears, in every ear a hundred
grains, so God multiplies unto whom He will; God is All-embracing, Allknowing. [Baqara, Il: 261]
These, and many others which can be arrived at in a similar way, are the
attributes which the true creator must possess. Any other being or object
which is alleged to be a god or an ultimate cause and which necessarily
lacks some of them cannot in actual fact be what it is believed to be. Thus,
having shown clearly what the true God should be like, the Quran goes on
to show why there cannot be any god but He, and reveals the falsity of all
alleged gods.
To the worshipers of man-made objects it says:
Do you worship what you have carved out and God created you and what
you make? [Saffat, XXXVIl: 95]
and
have they taken unto themselves others beside Him who create
nothing, who are themselves created, who cannot protect them, nor can
they protect themselves.
[A`raf, Vll: 191-192]
To the worshipers of heavenly bodies it relates as a reminder the story of
Abraham:
When night outspread over him he saw a star and said, This is my Lord.
But when it set he said, l love not the setters. When he saw the moon
rising, he said, This is my Lord. But when it set he said, If my Lord does
not guide me I shall surely be of the people gone astray. when he saw the
sun rising, he said, This is my Lord; this is greater! But when it set he
said, O my people, surely I am quit of what you associate with God. I
have turned my face to Him who originated the heavens and the earth, a
man of pure faith; I am not of the idolaters. [An`am, Vl: 76-79]
And when, later on, the Prophet comes into contact with the Jews and
Christians, the Quran condemns their belief in the divine nature of
human-beings.
The Jews say, Ezra is the son of God.[1] The Christians say, The
Messiah is the son of God. That is the utterance of their mouths,

conforming with the unbelievers before them. God assail them! How they
are perverted. [Tawba, IX: 30]
It tells them that if everything is created by God then it must be His
servant and cannot, therefore be his son, [Maryam, XIX: 88-95].
It then goes on to explain to the Christians the real nature of Jesus.
Truly, the likeness of Jesus in Gods sight is as Adams likeness; He
created him of dust, then said He unto him Be! and he was. [Aal `Imran,
Ill: 59]
For someone to take something as a god, it is not necessary that he should
acknowledge it as such or worship it in a ritualistic way; it is enough for
him to follow its dictates obediently, or devote to it acts or have towards it
feelings which should be devoted to or felt towards God only. There are
many such unacknowledged gods.
Hast thou seen him who has taken his caprice to be his God? Wilt thou be
a guardian over him? [Furqan,] XXV: 43]
They have taken their rabbis and their monks as lords apart from God,
and the Messiah, Marys son, and they were commanded to serve but one
God.[Tawba, IX: 31]
Thus to be a Muslim i.e.. to surrender oneself to God it is necessary to
believe in the unity of God in the sense of His being the only creator,
preserver and nourisher. But this belief later on called tawhid arrububiyya is not enough. In fact many of the idolaters did know and
believe that it is the supreme God alone who can do all this. But that was
not enough to make them Muslims. To tawhid ar-rububiyya one must add
tawhid al uluhiyya i.e. one must acknowledge the fact that it is this God
alone who deserves to be worshiped, and therefore abstain from directing
any of ones acts of worship to someone or something else. In the Quran
the argument for tawhid al-uluhiyya is based on tawhid ar-rububiyya i.e. if
it is God alone who creates and controls everything why then and to what
end do you worship others beside Him?
O you men, serve your Lord who created you, and those that were before
you; haply so you will be god-fearing; who assigned to you the earth for a
couch, and heaven for an edifice, and sent down out of heaven water,
wherewith He brought forth fruits for your provision; so set not up rivals
to God wittingly. [al-Baqara, Il: 21-22]

Having known the true God, man is called upon to affirm what he knows
i.e. to believe and have faith in God, and not allow any ulterior motives to
induce him to deny a fact which he knows to be true.
that they who have been given knowledge may know it is the truth
from thy Lord and so believe in it, and thus their hearts become humble
unto him.[Hajj, XXII: 54]
But when our signs came to them visibly, they said, This is a manifest
sorcery; end they denied them, though their souls acknowledged them,
wrongfully and out of pride. [Naml, XXVII: 14]
When faith enters a persons heart, it causes therein certain mental states,
which result in certain apparent actions, both of which are the proof of true
faith.
Foremost among those mental states is the feeling of gratitude towards
God, which could be said to be the essence of ibada (worshiping or
serving God).
This feeling of gratitude is so important that a nonbeliever is
called kafir which means, one who denies a truth and also one who is
ungrateful. One can understand why this is so when one reads in the
Quran that the main motive for denying the existence of God is that of
unjustified pride. Such a proud person feels that it does not become him to
be created or governed by a being whom he must thus acknowledge to be
greater than himself and to whom he must be grateful.
Those who dispute concerning the signs of God without any authority
come to them, in their hearts is only pride that they shall never
attain.[Ghafir, XL: 56]
With the feeling of gratitude goes that of love.
There are some people who take to themselves (for worship) others apart
from God loving them as they should love God: But those who believe,
love God more ardently than they love anything else.[Baqara, Il: 165]
A believer loves and is grateful to God for His bounties, but being aware
of the fact that his good deeds, whether mental or physical, are far from
being commensurate with Divine favors, he is always anxious lest because
of his sins God should withhold from him some of these favors or punish
him in the hereafter. He therefore fears Him, surrenders himself to Him,
and serves Him with great humility.

Your God is one God, so to Him surrender. And give thou good tidings
unto the humble who, when God is mentioned, their hearts quake.[Anfal,
Vll: 2]
One cannot be in such a mental state, without being almost all the time
mindful of God. Remembering God is thus the life-force of faith, without
which it fades and might even wither away.
So,
The faithful are those who remember God, standing and sitting, and on
their sides.[Aal `Imran, Ill: 191]
The Quran therefore prescribes and describes, in great detail ways and
means of helping man to remember God and keep his faith alive. All
Quranic and Prophetic injunctions and prohibitions which extend to all
aspects of human life acts of worship and personal matters, social
relations, political order, etc., etc. are designed to put man in a state
which is conducive to Gods remembrance. The details of this Islamic way
of life were expounded in the Madina period, and we shall not therefore be
concerned with them now. But the main principles of this new order were
already laid down in the Makkan period, and will be summarized at the
end of this chapter.
We shall now go on to deal with the other pillars of faith. These are belief
in life after death, in Gods angels, His books, His messengers and
His qadar, the arguments for all of which are almost entirely based on the
assumption that the audience believes in God.

BELIEF IN THE ANGELS

These are beings of a different nature from man. While man is created
from soil they are created from light. [Sahih Muslim, Kitab az-Zuhd,
1227] And thus human beings-except Prophetscannot see them in their
original nature, but may see them if they take a physical form. Our
knowledge of them is therefore almost entirely based on What Cod and
His Prophets tell us about them.
But why should we bother to know about them?
Because they play a very big role in conducting our affair. To know about
them could perhaps be said to be useful to us in the same manner as

knowledge of the working of natural causes and other peoples behavior is

useful.
We are told that these almost innumerable beings who are extremely
powerful are created in such a way that they always obey and never go
against Divine commands, and continuously server and never tire of
serving the Lord. [Anbiya, XXI, 19-20; Tahrim, LXVI:6].
But in spite of this they areas a speciesin a lower degree than the human
species, and this is symbolized in the fact that when Adam was created
they were ordered to prostrate themselves before him as a sign of greeting
and respect.[This verse Isra, XVII:70] has been given (by some) as
evidence or the fact that the human species is better than the species of
angels. Ibn Kathir in his tafsir of al-Quran al-`Azim].
Here are some of their activities in connection with human beings.

Their main task, the one from which their name is derived is that of
conveying Gods messages to His chosen prophets. This great honor
is assigned mainly to their leader Gabriel (or Jibril as the name is
pronounced in Arabic).
A noble messenger having power, with the Lord of the Throne, secure,
obeyed there (in heaven) and trusty. [Takwir, LXXXI: 19-21]

A message carried by beings of such a nature is sure to reach its

destination intact.
They attend to and watch over us. They keep a record of our good
and bad deeds, and never a word we mention passes without being
registered by them either for or against us. [Qaf, L: 17-18
They play a role in the causation and happening of seemingly purely
natural phenomena, like wind and rain and death. [Naziat, LXXIX:
1-5]
And to them is assigned the role of helping the believers to the extent
of fighting on their side in times of war. [Al lmran, 11: 124], and of
protecting them [Rad, XIII: 11], and praying for them [Ghafir, XL:
7].
BELIEF IN DIVINE BOOKS

A Muslim believes that the Quran is the word of God. But it is not the
only word. God sent many prophets before Muhammad and He spoke to
them as He spoke to him. So a Muslim also believes (in fact he would not
be a Muslim if he did not believe) in these earlier books, like the Torah and
the Gospel, since the true believers are those who believe in what has
been sent down to thee (Muhammad) and what has been sent down before
thee [al Baqara, IV: 4].
Say: We believe in God, and that which has been sent down on us, and
sent down on Abraham and Ishmael, Isaac and Jacob, and the Tribes, and
in that which was given to Moses and Jesus, and the prophets, of their
Lord; we make no division between any of them. [al Baqara, II: 136]
God created men so that they may serve Him. His being a servant of God
constitutes the essence of man. Man cannot therefore attain to his true
humanity and acquire peace of mind unless he realizes this aim for which
he was created. But how can he do this! God, being merciful and Just, has
helped him in many ways. He granted him as we said before an originally
good nature that is inclined to know and serve its true Lord. He granted
him a mind that possesses a moral sense and the ability to reason. He made
the whole universe a natural book full of signs that lead a thinking person
to God. But to make things more specific, to give him more detailed
knowledge of his Lord, and to show him in a more detailed manner how to
serve Him, God has been sending down verbal messages through His
prophets chosen from among men, ever since the creation of man. Hence
the description of these messages in the Quran as guidance, light, signs,
reminders, etc.
All these books advocated basically the same message,
And we sent never a Mesenger before thee except that we revealed to
him, saying, there is no God but I so serve Me.' [Anbiya, XXI: 25]
And the religion which they all expounded is Islam i.e. surrender to God,
The true religion with God is Islam. [Al-`Imran, III:19]
Thus Noah (X:72) Abraham (III: 67), Jacob and his sons (II: 133), the
Apostles (V: 111), etc. were all Muslims.
Islam in this sense is in fact the religion of the universe.
What! do they desire another religion than Gods and to Him has
surrendered (aslama = became a Muslim) whatsoever is in the heavens and

the earth, willingly or unwillingly, anti to Him they shall be returned. [Al`Imran, III:83]
If the religion of all prophets is the same in its essence and basic
foundation, not so are the ways of life based upon it. [Maida, V: 48]
One last important point about books is that with the exception of the
Quran they have not been preserved intact, but have either been
completely lost or else suffered distortion and corruption. As to the Quran
God has decreed that it shall never be subjected to such distortion but shall
be preserved by Him. [Hijr, XV: 9]

BELIEF IN THE MESSENGERS

Messengers are human beings chosen by God who have the honor of
conveying Gods message to other men and women. Being such a
Messenger is not a position that one attains by any consciously designed
effort. It is a grace from God, but God grants this grace to those who are
deserving of it.
Messengers are not then, like the rank and file of us. True, they are men
but they are men of an extremely high moral, spiritual and intellectual
standard that qualifies themin the eyes of Godto be the bearers of His
light to the world. When God chooses any of them, He supports the
messenger with a clear sign [Hadid, LVII: 25] that proves the truth of his
claim, and distinguishes him from false prophets, sorcerers and
soothsayers [Taghabun, LXIV:41-42], [Taha, XX: 69]. None of them
betrays the message or falls short of being exemplary in practicing what he
preaches. [Hud, XI: 88].
Asked about prophet Muhammads conduct his wife Ayesha said, It was
the Quran, meaning that he embodied all the ideals which the Quran
presents.
Two related points about messengers which the Quran stresses, and which
therefore deserve some elaboration are the humanity of prophets and the
nature of their task.

Despite the vast spiritual, moral and intellectual difference between them
and ordinary men, and despite the special relation with God that they
enjoy, prophets are nonetheless humans with all that this term implies.
They beget and are begotten; they eat and drink and go about in market
plates [Furqan, XXV: 20]; they sleep and they die [Anbiya, XXI: 34]; they
forget and they err [Taha, XX: 121), [Kahf, XVIII: 34].
Their knowledge is limited; and can therefore tell only that part of the
future which God reveals to them [Jin, LXXII: 26-27]. They cannot
intercede with God on behalf of any person except with His permission
[Jin, LXXII: 26-27], and it is not left to them to cause people to go in the
right path [Qasas, XXVIII: 56]. In short, they have no part to play in the
running of the affairs of the universe [Al-lmran, III:128]. Many early
Muslim scholars have observed that to emphasize the humanity of the
Prophet the Quran called him servant of God on the three occasions on
which he was honored.
Blessed be He who has sent down the Salvation [Quran] upon His
servant. [Furqan, XXV: 1]
Glory be to Him, who carried His servant by night from the Holy Mosque
to the Further Mosque the precints of which We have blessed, that We
might show him some of Our signs. [Israa, XVII, 1]
When the servant of God stood calling on Him, they were well-nigh upon
him in swarms. [Jinn, LXII:119]
A Prophet whose humanity is specially emphasized is Jesus. He was
created in the same manner as Adam was created, from soil [Al-lmran:
III, 59j; he is the son of Mary not of God [Nisa, IV: 157]; he and his
mother used to eat food IMaida, V: 75]; he is indeed the word of God
[Baqara, II: 45j but since he is a human being in the full sense of the word,
this should not be interpreted to mean that there is a Divine element in
him. He is the word of God only in the sense that God said Be and he
was. But in that sense everything is the word of God. Why then is he in
particular called the word of God! Because, as many scholars have, rightly
explained, he came more directly as a result of this word. Jesus is thus a
loyal servant of God who never claimed that he was in any sense divine.
[Maida, V:116-117]

Messengers are entrusted, we said, with the task of conveying Gods word
to other people. But this is not as simple as it looks. It implies many things
which are not at first sight clear, and which the Quran therefore expounds
and elaborates.
The most important point of which all Messengers are reminded, and
which is very easy to forget or be heedless of, is that since their duty is
only to convey the message they are not responsible for peoples reaction
to it, once they have made it clear to them. God has given man the power
to understand the difference between truth and falsehood, especially in
matters religious, once this has been explained to him. God has also given
him the ability, by reason of his free-will, either to accept or reject this
truth. And since it is only God who knows what goes on in peoples minds,
it is only He who can judge who is worthy of being guided and who
deserves to be left groping in the dark; and it is God who according to this
knowledge guides whom He will and withholds His guidance from Whom
He will. A prophet has no such power, and cannot, therefore, guide whom
he loves. [Qasas, XXVIII: 56].
Then remind them thou are only one who reminds, thou art not charged to
oversee them. [Gashiya, LXXXVIII: 21-22].
He should not, therefore feel sad if people turn away from him, or impute
falsehoods to his message [Anam, VI: 33-34]. But this is a most difficult
rule to abide by. We love to be accepted by the community in which we
live; many of us must have experienced that strange feeling of sadness,
loneliness, and being lost when we come to live as aliens in a new
community. We undergo a similar but more intense feeling, when as a
result of our intellectual convictions we come to hold about life views that
are entirely different from those of our own community. One easy and
usual escape from the psychological and other hardships of such a life is to
live in seclusion from society.
Those who, for some reason cannot afford such a withdrawal, more often
than not, sacrifice intellectual honesty for conformity with their
community. Prophets have of course to live in the midst of the people for
whom they are sent and they do not of course go to the extent of betraying
their message. To have to cling tenaciously to the word of God, and yet
live in the midst of people, is perhaps the greatest difficulty they have to
put up with. This is made evident by the fact that most of the few
occasions on which the Quran expresses Gods disapproval of a certain

line of behavior taken by the Prophet Muhammad are related to his being
so keen to win adherents as to verge on exceeding the desirable limits.

Yet perchance if they believe wilt consume thyself, following not in this
tiding, thou alter them of grief. [Kahf, XVIII: 6].
Indeed they were near to seducing thee from that We revealed to thee,
that thou mightest, forge against Us another, and then they would surely
have taken thee as a friend. And had We not confirmed thee, surely thou
were near to inclining unto them a very little; then would We have let thee
taste the double of life and the double of death; and then thou wouldst
have found none to help thee against Us. [Isra, XVII: 73-74].

BELIEF IN THE HEREAFTER

The Quranic arguments for the reality of another life after death are
intended to prove that it is possible and also desirable that there should be
such a life, and that without believing in it our belief in the true God
cannot be complete.
i. Many of the people whom the Prophet addressed in Makkah did believe
as we said before in a supreme God, but many of them thought that it
was impossible for their dead and disintegrated bodies to be resurrected.
They therefore mocked and laughed at the Prophet when he told them
about it.
The Quranic reply was that there was no reason for such astonishment
and mockery because resurrection is not only logically but physically
possible for the following reasons:
a. It if is God who created man in the first place, why should it be
impossible for him to recreate him when he dies? Resurrection should be
easier than original creation.
He it is He who originates creation, then brings it back again and this (the
latter) is easier for Him. [Rum, XXX: 27]
b.
If you think about it carefully, you will come to see that the
bringing of life to the dead is a common natural phenomenon. To believe
in the possibility of the resurrection of human beings, a thinking person

does not need to see a person coming to life again. It is enough to see other
dead bodies coming to life.
And of His signs is that thou seest the earth humble; then, when we send
down water upon it, it quivers and swells. Surely He who quickens it is He
who quickens the dead; surely He is powerful over everything. [Fussilat,
XLI: 39]
Was he not a sperm-drop ? Then he was a blood clot, and He created and
formed and He made of him two kinds, male and female. What! is He not
able to quicken the dead? [Qiyama, LXXV: 37-40]
ii. Why is resurrection desirable?
Simply because without it, God would not be the Just and Wise and
merciful God He is. God created men and made them responsible for their
actions; some behaved well but others did not. If there is no future life in
which the virtuous are rewarded and the vicious are punished, there would
be no justice and the creation of men in that way and the sending of
Prophets to them would be to no purpose at all. But this kind of behavior is
not expected of a man known to be rational and just, let alone the Perfect
Creator.
What! does man reckon he shall be left to roam at will! What! did you
think that we created you only for sport and that you would not be returned
to Us? [Muminun, XXIII: 115]
Surely for the God, fearing shall be gardens of bliss with their Lord.
What! shall we make those who have surrendered like to the sinners? What
ails you then, how you judge? [Qaf: LXVIII: 34-36]
We have not created the heavens and earth, and what is between them, for
vanity; such is the thought of the unbelievers. [Sad, XXXVIII: 27]
iii. Is the real and only motive for denying the reality of a life after death
that which is expressed by the arguments which the deniers put forward,
and to which the Quran replies! By no means, says the Quran. The real
motive is often a psychological one. Those who do evil do not wish to be
punished and it is this wishful thinking that leads them to deny the reality
of a time when such punishment shall take place.
Does man reckon We shall not gather his bones! Nay, but man desires to
continue on as a libertine, asking, When shall be the Day of

Resurrection! [Qiyama, LXXV: 3-6] And none cries lies to it (the day of
judgment) but every guilty aggressor. [Mutaffifin, LXXXIII: 12]
A question that is often raised in connection with reward and punishment
in the hereafter and which causes some people to doubt the desirability if
not the truth of such a life is, Do we do what is good because it is good or
for fear of punishment and expectation of reward! If we do it for the
former, then what is the use of believing in the hereafter, and if we do it for
the latter we will not be acting morally. The answer to this question
depends on whether God enjoins us to do an act because it is good, or
whether it is this Divine injunction which makes the action good. And it
seems to me to be very clear that the goodness of an act is logically prior
to its being an object of a Divine injunction. Otherwise it would be a
tautology to say God enjoins what is good because it would only mean
God enjoins what He enjoins. But the Quran abounds in statements like
the former, and it is very clear that they are not intended to be tautological.
The answer to our original question then is that we do what is good
because it is good. But since to give good for good is itself good, there is
no contradiction in saying that one does good because the God whom he
loves and in Whom he puts his trust tells him to do it, and because he
expects to be rewarded by Him for doing it.
According to the Quran God created man in an original nature
-called fitra which possesses what we might call a moral sense, which
enables man to recognize without any external aid certain acts like telling
the truth and being grateful as good, and by reason of which he is inclined
to do good once he comes to know it. True religion is built on the basis of
this original human nature. Religion strengthens nature and brings to
fruition the seeds of virtue that reside in it. That is why Islam is said in the
Quran to be fitrat-Allah and why the Prophet says that he was sent only to
perfect good conduct. The Quran praises those in whom this moral sense
is sharp and condemns those in whom it has become so blunt that the
ugliness of vice becomes in their eyes the model of beauty:
But God has endeared to you belief, decking it fair in your hearts, and He
has made detestable to you unbelief and ungodliness and disobedience.
Those they are the right minded, by Gods favour and blessing, God is Allknowing, All-wise. [Hujurat, XLIX: 7-8]

Say: Shall we tell you who will be the greatest losers in their works.
Those whose striving goes astray in the present life while they think that
they are working good deeds. [Kahf, XVIII: 103-104]
And when he turns his back, he hastens about the earth, to do corruption
there, and to destroy the tillage and the stock; and God loves not
corruption. [Baqara, 11: 205]
So a Muslim does good because he is endeared to it, and eschews vice
because it is detestable to him. But since a Muslim surrenders himself to
God and loves and fears Him, and since God loves virtue and enjoins it
and hates vice and forbids it, he does the former and avoids the latter in
obedience to his Lord. And since those who do good shallin the
hereafterlive a life of bliss, the highest type of which would be the state
of being near to God and enjoying His sight, while those who lead an evil
life shall suffer all kinds of chastisement the most terrible of which shall
be the state of being deprived from that sight, a Muslim would be wise to
always have that future and eternal life in mind and endeavor to do here all
kinds of work that would help to elevate his position there.
Say: Is there any of your associates who guides to the truth? Say: God
-He guides to the truth; and which is worthier to be followed- he who
guides to the truth, or he who guides not unless he is guided? what then
ails you, how you judge? [Yunus, X: 35]
Say. If you love God, follow me and God will love you, and forgive you,
your sins; [Al-`Imran, III:31]
Surely the pious shall be in bliss, upon couches gazing (at their Lord);
thou knowest in their faces the radiancy of bliss as they are given to drink
of a wine sealed, whose seal is musk. So after that let the strivers strive.
[Mutaffifun, LXXXIII: 22-26]
Why should one who did good live in such bliss, one might ask? and the
Prompt Quranic answer is:
Shall the recompense of goodness be other than goodness. [Rahman, LV:
60
BELIEF IN QADAR
The original meaning of the word Qadar is specified measure or amount
whether of quantities or qualities. It has many other usages which branch
out from this core. Thus yuqad-dir means, among other things, to measure

or decide the quantity, quality, position, etc. of something before you

actually make it. And it is this latter sense which interests us here.
God is the creator of everything, but whatever He creates, He creates
with qadar. [Qamar, LIV: 49]
He knows before creating it, that He is going to create it and that it shall be
of such and such magnitude, quality or nature etc. and specifies the time of
its coming into being and passing away, and the place of its occurrence. If
so, then one who believes in the true God should believe that there are no
accidents in nature. If something disagreeable happens to him, he should
say God qad-dara (ordained), and He did what He willed and not waste
himself over wishing that it had not occurred, or worrying why it should
occur. If on the other hand something agreeable happens to him he should
not boast of it, but thank God for it.
No affliction befalls in the earth or in yourselves, but it is in a Book,
before We create it; that is easy for God; that you may not grieve for what
escapes you, nor rejoice (vaingloriously) in what has been given to you,
God loves not any man proud and boastful. [Hadid, LVII: 23].
If God yuqad-dir (predestines, predetermines etc.) everything, that
includes our so called free actions. But if so in what way can they be said
to be free, and how are we responsible for them? This question occasioned
the appearance, at a very early history of Islam, of two extreme theological
sects. One of them, called the Qadariya, asserted mans free will and
responsibility to the extent of denying Gods foreknowledge, and claiming
that God knows our free made actions only after we have performed them.
The other, called the Jabriyya, did just the opposite and claimed that there
was no difference between the motions of inanimate things and our
movements in performing so-called free actions, and that when we use
intentional language we speak only metaphorically.
But there is no need to go to such extremes, since it is not difficult to
reconcile Divine Qadar and human responsibility. God decided to create
man as a free agent, but He knows (and how can He not know!) before
creating every man how he is going to use his free will; what, for instance,
his reaction would be when a Prophet clarifies Gods message to him. This
foreknowledge and its registering in a Book is called Qadar. But if we
are free to use our will a Qadari might say, We may use it in ways that
contradict Gods will, and in that case we would not be right in claiming
that everything is willed or decreed by God. The Quran answers this

question by reminding us that it was God who willed that we shall be

willful, and it is He who allows us to use our will.
Surely, this is a Reminder; so he who will, takes unto his Lord a way, but
you will not unless God wills. [lnsan, LXXVI: 29-30].
If so, says a Qadari, He could have prevented us from doing evil. Yes
indeed He could.
Had God willed, He would have brought them all together to the
guidance; if thy Lord had willed whoever is in the earth would have
believed, all of them, all together. [Yunus, X: 99].
Had God willed, they were not idolaters; and we have not appointed thee
a watcher over them neither art thou their guardian. [Anam, VI: 107]
But He had willed that men shall be free especially in regard to matters of
belief and disbelief.
Say: The truth is from your Lord; so let whosoever will believe, and let
whosoever will disbelieve. [Kahf, XVIII: 29].
But men would not be so free if whenever any of them wills to do evil God
prevents him from doing it and compels him to do good
If our actions are willed by God, someone might say, then they are in
fact His actions. This objection is based on a confusion God wills what
we will in the sense of granting us the will to choose and enabling us to
execute that will i.e. He creates all that makes it possible for us to do it. He
does not will it in the sense of doing it, otherwise it would be quite in order
to say, when we drink or eat or sleep for instance that God performed these
actions. God creates them, He does not do or perform them.
Another objection, based on another confusion, is that if God allows us to
do evil, then He approves of it and likes it. But to will something in the
sense of allowing a person to do it is one thing; and to approve of his
action and commend it, is quite another Not everything that God wills He
likes. He has, as we have just read in the Quran, granted man the choice
between belief and disbelief, but He does not, of course, like men to
disbelieve (to be thankless).
If you art unthankful, God is independent of you. Yet He approves not
unthankfullness in His servants; but if you are thankful, He will approve it
in you. [Zumar, XXXIX: 7].

CONCLUSION (Effect Of Faith On Outward Behavior)

These in resume are the basic truths to which the Prophet Muhammad
invited his people. The best proof -besides the foregoing arguments- of
their being truths, and very important truths for man, is the good effect
which they produce in mans internal state, and thus his outward behavior.
We have already, in dealing with belief in God, pointed to some of the
feelings towards Him, brought about by belief in His existence and His
attributes of perfection. Since mans attitude in relation to his fellowhuman beings is very much connected with his attitude towards God, that
belief in God with resulting feelings towards the Divine, is bound to
produce in mans heart feelings towards other men that are appropriate to
it. And since mans outward behavior regarding God and other men is
generated by his real beliefs about and feelings towards them, it is only to
be expected of true religion to call for a set of behavior that is both a
natural outcome of its set of beliefs and a factor of strengthening them.
The internal state to which Muhammad invited men is called eman (faith
or belief). The external behavior based on it is called Islam. At the Makkan
period he concentrated mostly on the first, without entirely neglecting the
second, which he elaborated at Madina when the first Muslim independent
community was formed. Even at Makkah the Prophet Muhammad was
directed by God to invite people to the following acts of worship and
moral behavior.

1. To keep their faith alive and strengthen it Muslims were told to recite
the Quran and study it carefully, to learn from the Prophet and say as
often as possible, and especially on some specified occasions, certain
prayers, and to perform prayer in the manner which Gabriel demonstrated
to the Prophet. All this is salat in its widest sense.

2. After salat the serving of God, comes zakaat which in its broadest sense
includes any act of service to other men. Being good to men is the fruit
and therefore the proof of the tree of faith. He is not truthful who harms
men and yet claims to believe in and love God.

Hast thou seen him who does not believe in retribution (in the hereafter)?
That is he who repulses the orphan and urges not the feeding of the needy.
So woe to those that pray and are heedless of their prayers, to those who
make display and refuse charity. [Maun, CVII].

Tile first three verses of this Sura were revealed at Makkah and the rest at
Madina. The Madinan verses speak about the hypocrites who perform
outward acts of worship that do not originate from any sincere faith. But
their behavior betrays them, since it is the same as that of the Makkan
professed unbelievers.

Following are a few examples of Zakaat which the Quran advocated at

this early period.

Acquisition of wealth for its own sake or so that it may increase the worth
of its collector is condemned. Mere acquisition of wealth counts nothing in
the sight of God. It does not give man any merit whether here or in the
hereafter.
Who gathered riches and counted them over thinking that his riches have
made him immortal. [Humaza, CIV: 2-3].

Those who amassed and hoarded wealth in this life are to he called in
the hereafter by a furnace that scathes away the scalp [Maarij, LXX: 1518]. Wealth for its own sake is among the vices of men which can be
eradicated only by the kind of belief and practices which Muhammad
taught. [Maarij, LXX: 19-27].

Man should acquire wealth with the intention of spending it on his own
needs, and the needs of others. Man, the Prophet tells us, says: My
wealth! My wealth! Have you any wealth except that which you wear and
tear, eat and consume up, give as alms and thus preserve! Wealth should
be spent on the needy (specially if they are parents or relatives), on
orphans and those who ask owl ng to poverty, on the freeing of slaves etc.
The following verses were among the earliest that were addressed to the
Prophet.

As for the orphan, do not oppress him, as for the beggar, scold him not.
[(Dhuha, XCIII: 9-10]

Among the qualities that characterize a true believer is the quality of

giving the needy and the outcast, as their right, a specified portion of his
wealth. [Maarij, LXX: 24-25].

There is on the way to success in the hereafter a steep path that can be
attempted only by one who performs the following deeds:
The freeing of a slave, or giving food upon a day of hunger to an orphan
near of kin or a needy man in misery
And then become of those who believe and council each other to be
steadfast, and counsel each other to be merciful. [Balad, XC: 13-17].

Besides helping his fellowmen in this way man should also be truthful and
honest with them and fulfill his promises to them. [Maarij, LXX: 32-33].
He should not infringe upon their rights especially those of life [LXXX:
83], and of decency. [Maarij, LXX: 29-31].

That briefly, is the message which Muhammad addressed to his Makkan

audience.

[1] The reference is here to a Jewish sect who lived in Arabia and who
used to hold such a belief.

Relativism and the Understanding of Islam

A speaker at one of the group meetings of the Middle Eastern
Studies Association was criticizing those whom he termed Muslim
fundamentalists in Egypt. His main objection to them was their
absolutism: they take their interpretation of the Quran to be the only
acceptable interpretation, while everyone, in his opinion, is entitled to his
own interpretation. I asked whether that kind of relativistic interpretation
applied to all texts, or only to the Quran, and went on to say something to
the effect that if there were no criteria for correct semantic interpretation of
statements, then language would lose its function as a means of
communication amongst people. Would the gentleman apply the same
principle of relativism to the interpretation of the American Constitution
and American laws? And the answer was: Why not? I went on to say,
Why then have a Supreme Court; why even study law? If the judge tells
me that I am convicted according to such and such a law, I can retort by
saying But that is your interpretation of the law, your honor; my
interpretation is different from yours. What right have you to impose your
interpretation of me and convict me?
I thought that that was an isolated incident, but I found to my
surprise that the same kind of relativistic argument was used by many
other Arabist and Islamist scholars, both Muslim and non-Muslim, on
many other occasions. Being to some extent acquainted with Western
philosophy, I have not been unaware of the currency of relativism among
many Western intellectuals, and about its influence on intellectuals
elsewhere, even in my own country, Sudan. I have also learned from Alan
Blooms book, The Closing of the American Mind, about its great
popularity amongst American university students.
There is one thing a professor can be absolutely certain of: almost every
student entering the university believes, or says he believes, that truth is
relative. If this belief is put into question, one can count on the students
reaction: they will be uncomprehending. That anyone should regard the
proposition as not self-evident astonished them, as though he were calling
into question 2 + 2 = 4 (p. 25).
Many Muslim students who go to American universities have told
me the same; but in spite of this, I really never thought that relativism in
that nave and obviously false form, which has been called by some

vulgar relativism, would be so widespread among social scientists the

Islamists among them anyway.
To what extent is it true to say that truth is relative? What are the
consequences of this claim when applied to the study of religion, and
to Islam in particular? And to what extent can one consistently adhere to
such a principle? These are some of the issues that I propose to touch on in
this short paper.
Of the three kinds of relativism, cognitive, ethical, and aesthetic, we are
interested here in the first. The claim is that the truth value of a statement
is relative to its context. There are certain kinds of contexts about whose
relevance to the truth value of the majority of statements we are all agreed.
No one doubts the truth value of a statement like the sun is rising is
relative to the place of the speaker, or that a statement like the door is
open is relative to the time of the speaker. I cannot think of a statement
that is not relative to time and place except some of the statements about
God. God exists is absolutely true because He has been eternally, and
will be everlastingly existing. The problematic form of relativism is the
one which makes truth subjective, which implies that there is no truth out
there to which we can point even if we happen to be agreed on the spatiotemporal context of our statement. The context, whatever it is, to which
truth is claimed to be relative, is said to act like spectacles which make us
see things if there is anything out there to be seen in a certain color,
which can be different from the color seen by the person next to us if his
context happens to be different. This context is sometimes taken to be our
culture. But culture in such a usage is a very vague term. What is it
specifically in our culture which makes us see things differently from
other people who dont share that culture?
It is said that the most fundamental thing about which cultures differ are
religious beliefs. Does my belief, as a Muslim, that there is no god worthy
of worship except God the Creator make me see the world differently from
an atheist or a polytheist? Indeed it does, but not in any relativistic sense.
The atheist and I see the same physical trees, rivers, and mountains. But
while he sees them merely as objects which occupy space and time, I see
them as signs which point to their Creator. The atheist can understand why
I see them in that way, and can see the relevance of my belief to such
viewing. This is very much like the difference between a scientist and a lay
person when they see, a falling leaf, say. The scientist sees in it much more
than the lay person next to him, but this is only because he has more

knowledge. The religious belief can, however, have such an effect even if
it were false, in which case what the believer sees would not be a
reflection of reality, but a figment of his imagination caused by that false
belief. But beliefs are not things like our brains which we cannot do
anything about. If our religious beliefs cannot condemn us to see the facts
differently, no other elements of our culture can. But all of this is a far cry
from the extreme relativistic claim which makes us live in different worlds
among which there can be no communication, and no commensurable
standards.
The statement truth is relative suffers from the paradox of self-reference:
if it is true that truth is relative, then the statement truth is relative is
itself relative. But if truth is relative is not relative then it is false,
because there is at least one truth that is not relative, namely, truth is
relative.
Also, if it were true that every human society is locked up in a cultural
compartment which makes it impossible for it to see truth except through
its own windows, then it would be impossible for anyone to know that the
truth is relative. To know this one must be able to have a trans-cultural
vantage point which enables one to see how different cultures or contexts
determine the way that one sees reality, whether it be the reality of spatiotemporal things or the reality of meanings. The very fact that we are able
to communicate with people who differ with us culturally, and even
translate what they say into our own language, is itself a proof that truth is
not relative in any absolute sense.
The best evidence against relativism is the very activity of
anthropologists, while the best evidence for relativism [is] in the writings
of anthropologists In retracing their steps [in their works],
anthropologists transform into unfathomable gaps the shallow and
irregular cultural boundaries they had not found so difficult to cross [in the
field], thereby protecting their own sense of identity, and providing their
philosophical and lay audience with just what they want to hear. [Sperber,
Rationality: 180, as quoted by Geertz in Relativism:29]
Belief in relativism is sometimes seen as a means of justifying and
encouraging tolerance towards other cultures. The motive behind the
belief can be commendable, but the fact remains that if relativism is taken
to its logical conclusions, it will breed nothing but intolerance. If what is
true or right or beautiful is determined for me by my cultural environment,
then I cannot help but see that which is different from mine as false or

wrong or ugly. When I come to appreciate or respect or even adopt some

of what I find in other cultures, it will be because some of my most basic
standards of the true or right or the beautiful, are human, and as such
shared by people who belong to other cultures.
If the motive behind the advocacy of relativism is a plea for tolerance by
some good-natured souls, it is sometimes used by other, not-so-goodnatured souls only as a weapon against beliefs, which they find distasteful,
and in defense of beliefs they approve of, when they find themselves
devoid of the intellectual weapons by which to attack the former or defend
the latter.
Let me now say something about the interpretation of Islamic texts
which prompted all this theoretical discussion of relativism. The proper
attitude towards a text, any text, in which one is seriously interested, is to
do ones best to understand its meaning as conveyed by its language, and,
where possible, as intended by the author of the text. This is what we
habitually do with the books we read, be they fiction or non-fiction; it is
what we do with articles and scientific papers; it is what we do with the
bills we receive; it is what we do even with old texts of extinct languages.
I find it strange that, in the West, this normal way of consuming texts is
dubbed literalism or fundamentalism in the pejorative sense when it comes
to the interpretation of Scripture. The liberal construal which is preferred
to fundamentalism is in fact a distortion of the meaning and an indulgence
in self-deception. The liberal starts he has to by first understanding the
text in the normal, literal or fundamentalist way. Only after he or she
has understood the real meaning in what is called the literal sense, and
found it not to his/her liking, for whatever reason, does he/she resort to
liberal interpretation. The normal and honest thing we do, and these
liberals must do most of the time, is to declare ones disapproval of what
one has found, but not to change it to suit ones beliefs or desires. In
defending a literal construal of the language of science, Fraassen rightly
says:
Not every philosophical position concerning science which insists on a
literal construal of the language of science is a realist position. For this
insistence relates not at all to our epistemic attitudes towards theories, nor
to the aim we pursue in constructing theories, but only to the correct
understanding of what a theory says. (The fundamentalist theist, the
agnostic, and the atheist agree with each other (although not with liberal
theologians) in their understanding of the statement that God, or gods, or

angels exist.) After deciding that the language of science must be literally
understood, we can still say there is no need to believe good theories to be
true, nor to believe ipso facto that the entities they postulate are real.
[Image: 11]
If you really believe that the Bible is the word of God, then you should try
to do your best to find out what God is saying. The last book you would be
inclined to tamper with is a book which you believe contains Gods word.
If, on the other hand, you come to the conclusion that it is not, or not every
word in it is, the word of God, then you should leave those expressions
which you do not approve of as they are and declare your unbelief in them.
You cannot with any honesty attribute to God words which you know to be
your own.
As to the Quran, literal interpretation of its verses is a must. It is a
fundamental requirement of being a Muslim to believe that the Quran is
the word of God in the literal sense; if you believe that any verse of it is
not the word of God, or if you doubt its being the word of God, or if you
do not approve of it, then you are no longer a Muslim. If this be
fundamentalism, then everyone who professes to be a Muslim is bound by
the religion itself to be a fundamentalist; there is no room for liberals. The
Quran, like genuine Divine books before it, is a message from God to His
servants; its words, like the words of any speaker, are the vehicles which
carry that message. The intended meaning of the message is therefore as
objective as any object of the external world; the task of the believer is to
endeavor to find that meaning. God does not convey to His Messengers a
string of hollow words and leave it for human creatures to fill it with the
meanings they deem to be fit according to their times and places and
personal whims. He might as well not send a Message or a Messenger at
all, but leave it to humans to do what they want the way they want. No, the
words of the Quran, and also those of Prophet Muhammad, do hold
objective meaning. It is a meaning the Quran urges us to try to understand
and hold fast to, and never be swayed from:
Hold fast to what has been revealed to you; you are on the right
path. [43:43]
It warns believers in it against being like some of those before them who
knowingly distort the meanings of divine words even after they understood
them [2:75; 4:46].

If the Quran carries a message with a meaning that can be understood by

humans, then there must be an objective way of reaching that meaning;
there must be rational criteria which we apply to find that meaning.
Fortunately, those rational criteria are laid down in the book itself. Any
one who reads Arabic can easily see that the Quran is an Arabic book; but
the Quran itself confirms and emphasizes fact.
We have sent it down as an Arabic Quran so that you may understand
(it). [12:2]
The Arabic referred to is of course the Arabic spoken by the people whom
the Quran first addressed. That is why early scholars say that any
interpretation of the Quran according to a meaning that one of its terms
acquired after that period is wrong. The second criterion is that of
consistency: since the Quran is the word of God, there can be no
contradictions in it:
Had it been from other than God, they would have found many
discrepancies in it. [4:82]
One should not, therefore, interpret a verse in a way which makes it
contradict other verses. Isnt this what we actually do, even with works of
human thinkers whom we respect; we assume that they are consistent until
the contrary is proven? Even non-Muslim students of Islam should,
therefore, do their best to abide by this criterion in their understanding of
the Quran and the Sunnah.
The Quran tells us that Prophet Muhammad is entrusted with the task of
explaining it by his words as well as his deeds. The third criterion of
interpretation is, therefore, to give the verses the meanings which his
words give them or his acts imply.
The fourth and last criterion is to give priority to the interpretations of the
Companions of the Prophet. This is not because it is believed that they
were in any way infallible, but because of the special place they were
privileged to have. The language of the Quran was their native tongue;
they knew about the circumstances in which the Quranic verses were
revealed or the Prophetic sayings were uttered; as a group they were
considered to be the best of Muslim generations.
Two points need to be emphasized here. These are necessary conditions to
be fulfilled for a correct understanding of the Quran. Like methodological
rules, however, they do not ensure that all those who abide by them are

always right, but they do enable them to enter into rational discussion with
others who abide by them, and thus to correct or be corrected.
The rules enable one to understand what might be called the basic
meanings of the texts; they are not an alternative to reflection, further
understanding, deduction, ijtihad, and so on, but a prerequisite to all of
this. It is only after one has grasped the basic meaning of a text that one
can comment on it or compare it with other texts, or compare what it says
with reality, or use it to issue Islamic rulings on new issues. Ijtihad in
particular is not, and cannot apply to the basic meanings of Islamic texts
since it is based on them. How can one who has no basic knowledge of
Islamic texts start to make even the rudiments of ijtihad?
All of this is in sharp contradiction to that vulgar relativistic approach to
the interpretation of texts. Vulgar relativism in particular, and unlike
some sophisticated forms of relativism, makes havoc of texts if taken
seriously. This is because, while the sophisticated relativism which is
advocated by some anthropologists, historians of science or other social
scientists, whether they be ethical or cognitive or aesthetic, is one which
relates these matters to factors like natural environment, social context,
language or form of life, all of which apply to human societies. Vulgar
relativism (of the kind which is assumed by the people I referred to at the
beginning of this paper), on the other hand, relates cognition or
interpretation to individuals. Advocates of sophisticated relativism do not
take the barriers between groups of human beings to be forever
insurmountable. Once can put oneself in the natural environment of an
Eskimo and understand why they have thirty words for snow (if indeed
they have), or one can learn the language of a people, or study their
culture, and thus be able to put oneself in their place and see things from
within that culture as they do. But if I am not the individual you are, and I
do not have the faintest clue as to why you see things the way you do, and
cannot therefore put myself in your place or be you, then we cannot at all
communicate, let alone argue about or appreciate each others standpoints,
unless something miraculous happens to me that makes me identical with
you or vice versa.
Vulgar relativism is not and cannot be taken seriously by any thinking
person. It is often used by people who do not really believe in the message
conveyed by the Islamic texts, and therefore resort to relativism only as a
pretext to reject them or trim and truncate Islam to fit into the molds of

their own beliefs and prejudices, whether they be religious, secular, or

broadly cultural.
As a result of relativism and the absolute egalitarianism that is sometimes
associated with it, all Muslims sects and groups are said to have equal
rights to be Muslim even if they hold diametrically opposite and even
contradictory beliefs on the fundamental matters of faith. When
discrimination is made, it is not based on what the Islamic sources say, but
on the extent one is nearer to and further from Western values and
interests. It is one thing to be scientific in giving a true picture of the
reality of Muslim peoples as well as one can see it, but quite another to
judge them to have equal rights in their claim to be Muslims just because
they say they are. Truth should never be compromised; but to state the
truth is not necessarily to be intolerant, or to refuse to co-exist with those
with whom we differ on fundamental issues. The communists used to
describe their political system as being democratic, but they were not
judged by other to be so, or to be as democratic as Western countries just
because they gave themselves, in fact appropriated to themselves the label
of true democracy.

References
The Holy Quran.
Bloom, Allan (1987). The Closing of the American Mind. Simon and
Schusster. New York.
Van Fraassen, Bas C. (1980). The Scientific Image. Clarendon Press.
Oxford.
Krausz, Michael (ed.) (1989). Relativism: Interpretation and
Confrontation. U. of Notre Dame Press. Notre Dame.
M. Hollis and S Lukes (eds) (1982). Rationality and Relativism. MIT
Press. Cambridge, Mass