Recently, the imam of a mosque in Kushtia was arrested for issuing a fatwa banning women from working on farms. Along with the imam, five mosque officials were also charged for attempting to prevent women working in the fields in the western town of Kumarkhali.

Astonishingly, the perspective of the imam is shared by many others even today. This kind of mindset or outlook usually arises out of a patriarchal social structure, which assumes that men are born to hold leadership roles while women perform household chores only.

Islam, although extensively misunderstood, actually allows and encourages a woman to use her potential to benefit herself and the society as a whole. In fact, it is clearly stated in the Holy Quran that whatever a woman earns is rightfully hers, which would mean that a woman cannot be confined indoors against her will; rather, she can work and have a career that pays.

In Verse 23 of the Surah Qasas, two women, the daughters of Prophet Shuaib (AS) are mentioned. These exemplary ladies of Islam led their lives as shepherds, a job that would be physically demanding even for 21st century women. Through Surah Qasas, we can take the lesson that it is permissible for women to leave their homes to earn a living. A confirmation of this view in Islam can be obtained by studying the life of Khadijah (RA), wife of the Prophet Mohammad (Pbuh) who lived as an independent and renowned businesswoman of Makkah at the time.

History, in such ways, has left for us enough evidence to believe and understand that it is indeed permissible for women in Islam to work. Some cultural practices, however, continue to teach the contrary.

Segregation at home
In fact, discriminatory gender roles and stereotypes are, to some extent, practised in every home. It is more likely that the daughter is asked to help around with household chores and to hone such skills so that she, too, may grow up to be a “proper” future wife and mother.

The son is hardly ever reminded about learning his responsibilities as a future husband.

No son is taught to do household chores to be able to assist his future wife, while a daughter is told to play hostess and help set the dinner table. Boys get the privilege of not having to even lift a finger to help with the household chores, while a daughter is asked to make her own bed, and the mother waits eagerly for her son to wake up so that she can tidy up the room for him.

Such cultural practices and role stereotypes have many adverse affects.

It teaches the boys of this generation to be over-dependent on their spouses. It portrays the idea that boys are meant for the outer world and girls belong indoors.
 

The gender division of labour displayed within the textbooks divulged a strong prevalence of female stereotypes. Women were portrayed in a narrow range of occupational roles — mostly seen engaged in household work

Our Prophet Muhammad (Pbuh) did not only do his own chores like sewing his garment, milking goat, and serving himself — but would also serve his wives and help them around with household work.

It is high time that we change this mindset and teach men that roles in a healthy family are not gender specific, and they need to be shared equally among members.

What do the books say? 
The sad reality is that we also see gender divide rife in textbooks for children, demonstrating just how deep rooted the problem of stereotyping is.

We are moulding our children into believing that certain roles are only appropriate for a certain gender. This is a grave concern in Bangladesh that needs to be addressed.

According to UNESCO’s Global Education Monitoring Report, which highlights the gender stereotypes in children’s textbooks in Bangladesh and other Asian countries (including Malaysia, India, and more), this has indeed become an alarming issue and needs to be addressed. The report scrutinises the contents of Bengali and English language secondary school textbooks in secular schools, recognised madrasas as well as unrecognised madrasas. Gender stereotypes were examined in terms of exclusion and misrepresentation of a particular gender in the textbook.

The gender division of labour displayed within the textbooks divulged a strong prevalence of female stereotypes. Women were portrayed in a narrow range of occupational roles — mostly seen engaged in household work. They rarely appeared as leading characters.

Distressing pro-male bias
On the other hand, occupational roles associated with power and prestige (eg king, professor, landlord) were represented by males. Only 15% of all the characters in the textbooks, used in unrecognised madrasas, were represented by females.

While in secular textbooks, two thirds of all the characters were depicted by males.

To recapitulate the findings of the report, all Bangladeshi school textbooks — whether based on a secular or religious curriculum — depicted a pro-male bias.

The same scenario can also be seen in Indian text books. The report mentions that in six mathematics books used in primary schools, men dominated activities representing commercial, occupational, and marketing situations; while not a single woman was portrayed as an executive, engineer, shopkeeper, or a merchant.

Thus, the UNESCO Global Education Monitoring Report highlights that it is of paramount importance for us to revise textbook content and encourage children to question gender stereotypes that are pervasive in our society.

We are in need of a stronger political leadership and support from civil society to eliminate gender bias existing in any form.

Tahsin Noor Salim is a Researcher in Bangladesh Institute of Law and International Affairs, BILIA.

This Article was first published on Dhaka Tribune
 

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The Ulema of Deoband have long been issuing retrogressive Fatwas and irrelevant theological edicts that make a mockery of the daily Muslim life. Yet again, they have come up with an irrelevant fatwa forbidding Muslim men and women from posting their or their families’
photographs on social media sites. The fatwa has been issued on Wednesday by the Deoband seminary in Saharanpur after a man approached it recently asking if posting photos on social media sites was allowed in the Islamic Shariah.

In this fatwa issued, one of the chief Islamic clerics at Deoband, Mufti Tariq Qasmi, stated that posting photos of one’s self or family on social media sites such as Facebook, WhatsApp is not allowed in Islam. He argues: “when clicking pictures unnecessarily is not allowed in Islam, how posting photos on social media can be permitted”.

In fact, such Fatwas relying on the medieval and misconstrued texts of the Islamic theology put the present-day Muslims to collective disgrace and cynicism. They actually cause greater defamation to Islam than the Islamophobic conspiracies bred by the outside vested interests. And this is also one of the reasons behind the stereotyped image of the Muslims in the wider world.

Earlier, the Deoband’s Darul Ifta (the fatwa-issuing department) decreed that women should be prohibited from going to the beauty parlours, plucking, trimming, shaping their eyebrows and cutting hair. The Ulema of Deoband termed all these activities as “against the tenets of Islam”. Head of the Darul Ifta, Mufti Arshad Faruqi stated that grooming the eyebrow to look beautiful is “against the tenets of Islam”. He said in his fatwa: “They (women) can trim the eyebrows if they have grown too long but doing it for the purpose of looking beautiful is un-Islamic. The same is expected from men too”. Surprisingly, many other Deoband clerics in Saharanpur endorsed the fatwa. Maulana Lutfur Rehman Sadiq Qasmi said: “Women visiting beauty parlours are sinful. This fatwa makes it clear that they shouldn’t do anything externally to look beautiful”, as reported in The Telegraph.

One wonders if the Ulema of Deoband are still stuck in the medieval age and are completely out of sync with the modern scientific advancements. While other religious communities in the world are grappling with vital social, cultural and geopolitical issues, the medieval-minded Ulema and ‘puritanical’ Islamic clergy continue to woo the Muslims in India through the theological polemics which are patently out of date. Their regressive clerical decrees only reinforce the deeply entrenched perception that Muslims are not open to progressive and fresh thoughts.

Apparently, the Deoband’s Darul Ifta has been on the lookout for the media limelight through the display of its absurd Fatwas.  In the past years, it was particularly in the media limelight as it passed a fatwa against the chanting of the nationalist slogans ‘Jan Gan Man’, ‘Vande Matram’, and ‘Bharat Mata Ki Jai’, which turned a politically charged issue at that time.

Given the unceasing fatwa trend in the clerical circle, it is important to trace the history of fatwa culture in the Indian subcontinent. An objective debate on the institution of Fatwa and muftis’ position in Islam is highly required.

While the Qur’an always exhorts reasoning and questioning over blind faith in the man-made theology, the ordinary practitioners of Islam do need proper guidance and consultation in matters of the religion. But at the same time, Indian Muslims need to ask the crucial question as to why India’s age-old, traditional spiritual Islam is losing its essence to the trail of Saudi-Wahhabi fatwa culture. It was in Saudi Arabia where a permanent committee for fatwa-issuing was launched, for the first time, by the kingdom’s clerics to issue the Islamic decrees and to advise the Saudi kings on religious matters. Nearly 21 Saudi Shaikhs and paid muftis were appointed, on lucrative salaries, by the theocratic government of the then King Fahd. According to a research work by Sadaqat Qadri, the Saudi muftis exported their views to as many as 80 percent of the non-Arab Muslims across the globe. Qadri writes in his book “Heaven on Earth: A Journey Through Shari’a Law from the Deserts of Ancient Arabia”: “They (Saudi clergy) reintroduced the advice of trained scholars to many Muslims who had turned to do-it-yourself religious interpretation, but also changed the nature of fatwa advice giving, which had traditionally been local and so relatively confidential and conditioned by customs.”

Ironically, there is no dearth of “online fatwa” services and websites today that transmit the Saudi Fatwas to the non-Arab Muslim societies, particularly in the Indian subcontinent, regardless of their local contexts, customs, cultures and national ethos. Such pronouncements can be stumbled upon the online fatwa portals such as IslamQA.info, fatwa-online.com, and AskImam.org and many more. Scores of Indian Maulvis are treading the path of the Saudi-Wahhabi muftis in running the online fatwa factories. This is a daunting challenge that Indian Muslims face in the wake of every fatwa of this nature. Therefore, we need to directly challenge the ideological infringement on our free religious rights that our Constitution confers upon all Indians. The right to profess and practice one’s religion with his/her Indian social and cultural ethos — which is the essence of  Article 25 in the Indian Constitution — is basically the point to be discussed and safeguarded in the Muslim community in India. The misplaced clergy in the Indian Muslim society like the muftis of Deoband are antithetical to this universal right. They are trying to denying it not only to the adherents of other religions living in the Muslim countries, but also to the Indian Muslims practicing Islam well-embedded in the country’s composite culture. The notorious Islamist televangelists and muftis in India often give unsolicited “Fatwas” in the name of “appeal” to the Indian Muslim masses. Remember how the 46 Maulvis of Assam signed a pamphlet, which they claimed was not an Islamic jurisprudential decree (fatwa) but only an appeal, against the young Muslim singer Nahid Afrin. Even if they considered it an ‘ethical appeal’, and not a fatwa, how could the 46 Maulvis be justified in invoking the “wrath of Allah” on Afrin and warning against that “her parents will not enter paradise” because of her “sinful act”?

At this critical juncture, the well-established Islamic jurists (Faqihs) who have nuanced understanding of the Muslim religious affairs require an honest introspection. They cannot overlook the deplorable threat of the fanatic Fatwas that looms large in India scaring a sizable section of the Muslim community. But the fact that most of the Islamic scholars don’t reflect on this deeper ideological crisis in the community is more appalling. Without brainstorming the effective ways to end this theological dilemma, the Muslim community’s socio-cultural development and integrity will remain merely a mirage. This situation calls for the Islamic clergy’s serious engagement in broadening a theological worldview incorporating the progressive Islamic traditions in full harmony with the established scientific advancements. Regrettably, while other faith leaders have opened their doors to fresh scientific ideas, Muslim theologians are still lacking the logical progression in their socio-religious thoughts.

Ghulam Rasool Dehlvi is a scholar of classical Islamic studies, cultural analyst, researcher in media and communication studies and regular columnist with www.NewAgeIslam.com

Courtesy: New Age Islam
 

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Using candid camera, the sting operation has videographic evidence of several molvis speaking to undercover India Today correspondents offering their one-night “service” to a victim of triple talaq for a “fee” ranging from Rs. 20,000 to Rs. 1.5 lakh.

It is said that during the time of the Prophet some men used to keep women on tenterhooks through the humiliating practice of divorcing their wives and remarrying them again and again. To put a check on this practice, the Quran stipulated that if a husband divorces his wife three times (marriage-divorce, remarriage-divorce, remarriage-divorce), she then becomes haraam (prohibited, illegal) for him. He can no longer remarry her yet again except under certain circumstances which are as follows: the divorced wife marries someone else, the marriage is consummated, the second marriage happens to end in a divorce or the husband happens to die. Only in such a situation does it become halal (permitted) for the original husband and wife who already have three divorces between them to remarry (nikaah). Thus, nikaah halala.

What was meant to be a check on the humiliation and exploitation of women has been turned on its head and women are the victims once again.

For some clerics, in India and elsewhere too, nikaah halala has come to simply mean that a husband can remarry his wife after triple talaq, provided she were to marry some other male, the marriage is consummated, followed by instant divorce. Bluntly stated, it means that a divorced wife must have sex with another man, even if only once, before she becomes halal once again to her husband.

It is for this consummation of the marriage for which several molvis from north India have been caught on candid camera offering to themselves sleep with the estranged wife for a night or even a few hours to complete the supposed procedure for nikaah halala.  

To understand the Islamic position on this shameful practice, Sabrang India spoke to two senior maulanas from Varanasi. Both maulanas issued a written fatwa is response to a written query and also spoke on camera denouncing the practice as un-Islamic, inhuman, anti-women, shameful, disgraceful.

Here below are the English translations of the operative parts of the two fatwas issued in Urdu:

Summary: Fatwa of Maulana Abdul Batin, Chief Mufti of Darul Ifta Ibrahimi, Varanasi

Summary: Fatwa of Maulana Mohammed Haroon Rashid Naqshbandi, Mufti and Imam Usmania Jama Masjid, Varanasi.  

If the allegations against the molvis are found to be true and correct, if for a fees (irrespective of the amount charged) and as a matter of business they are engaging in relations with an estranged wife in order to make her halal (legitimate) for the husband, then from an Islamic point of view such people are guilty of committing a very grave sin. Their conduct is totally haram and they are worthy of the most stringent punishment. It is the duty of Muslims to socially boycott such molvis for Allah has clearly directed believers not to associate with people who indulge in sinful acts.

Here are the copies of the original fatwa:

 

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Image: Inquilab Urdu

Maybe, maybe not. But Khurshid’s exuberance at the JD(U)-BJP reunion has proved to be short-lived. Faced with a strong backlash from the community he has had to make a quick U-turn, apologised to fellow Muslims and repented before maulanas in order to gain “re-entry” into Islam.

When criticised for his ‘Jai Shri Ram’ chant, Khurshid had earlier asserted: “If my ‘Jai Shri Ram’ can help some Muslims, I am willing to chant it morning, noon and night”. He added: “I worship Ram as I worship Rahim and I bow my head before all religious places in the country”.

The statement attracted a fatwa from Mufti Sohail Ahmed Qasmi of Bihar’s Imarat-e-Shariah, expelling Khurshid from Islam. The fatwa, among other things, meant that Khurshid’s wife was no longer “lawful” to him.

According to the Urdu daily Inquilab, Khurshid was slammed by infuriated fellow Muslims at a meeting of his own minorities affairs department convened by the chief minister on Sunday.

Khurshid initially protested saying he was not even given a chance to explain himself before the fatwa was issued against him. But this further inflamed sentiments. Nitish then reportedly advised Khurshid to apologise for causing hurt and seek the advice of the maulanas who were present at the meeting.

“The CM told me that if anyone felt hurt by my statement I should apologise. My intention was not to hurt anyone. I have come to serve the people,” said Khurshid.

As advised by some maulanas, the rattled minister presented himself before Mufti Qasmi and other ulema at Imarat-e-Shariah to apologise to them, repent, seek Allah’s forgiveness and recite the kalima afresh to gain reentry into Islam.

Following this, a statement issued by Mufti Qasmi stated that since Khurshid has repented, sought Allah’s forgiveness and has recited the kalima he should be treated as a Muslim by co-religionists. The statement also urged everyone to cooperate with Khurshid in the discharge of his duties as Minister for Minorities Affairs.
 
 

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One of the religious deliberation sessions. Photo: Dr Nur Rofiah. (Images courtesy openDemocracy)

Can women interpret Islamic law? This question would have been a ‘no-brainer’ to a Muslim from Damascus in the 12th century, when women served as renowned teachers of the Islamic tradition, and the opinions of women jurists on questions of Islamic law carried weight comparable to that of male jurists.Yet, if one asks a Muslim today: have you ever asked a woman for an interpretation of Islamic law?, the answer from Dakar to Dhaka, from Sarajevo to Cape Town, from Jakarta to Ann Arbor will usually be “no”.

Women are not asked to interpret Islamic law, and few expect them to do so. Very often, this is because women are not sufficiently trained for this work. If they are, they tend to be consulted only on so-called ‘women’s issues’ such as child rearing, a wife’s duties towards her husband and towards others in the family, household organisation, and hygiene.

In recent years, however, Muslims in different parts of the world have started to address gender imbalances in juristic expertise. In India, Turkey and Morocco, programs have been set up to train women as muftis (jurists who can issue fatwas or expert legal opinions). Judicial bureaucracies in Malaysia and the Palestinian Authority have begun to hire female judges in their sharia courts.

Recently, Indonesian organisations also joined forces to convene the Muslim world’s first congress of ulama perempuan: women Islamic scholars.

This historic event, held in late April in Cirebon, West Java, was nothing short of a breakthrough in terms of re-establishing the long-lost juristic authority of women to produce Islamic legal recommendations and rulings. It concluded with the issuance of three historic fatwas – against sexual violence, child marriage, and environmental degradation exacerbating gender inequality.  
Between us, we have studied Islamic authority and gender for decades. We interviewed several of the women scholars, as well as some of the male attendees, involved in the event to learn more about it and the deliberations process. We have also been able to analyse some of the copious explanatory material issued by the congress.

It was nothing short of a breakthrough in terms of re-establishing women's juristic authority

Women’s juristic authority was squarely on the agenda. Such authority can manifest itself in Islam in several ways including by leading prayer, reciting the Qur’an, delivering a sermon, transmitting a hadith (a saying of the prophet). The pinnacle of this authority is the ability to interpret Islamic sources to make recommendations of behaviour in the here and now.

Also read: How Muslim women clerics are increasingly challenging traditional narratives.

In most contemporary Muslim societies, this is exercised in two main ways. The first is by issuing fatwas. These are legal recommendations based typically on interpretations of the Qur’an and hadith. (Different sects in Islam regard different hadiths as authentic, and therefore the specific source material differs from sect to sect.)

A person trained to issue a fatwa is called a mufti, with the feminine form in Arabic muftiya. Fatwas are only recommendations and they are not binding. But they can carry great weight. In some countries, policy makers take fatwas of leading Islamic authorities into account when, for example, considering reforms to family law, inheritance, Islamic finance or food and medicines regulations.  

The second way this authority is exercised is by serving as a judge in an Islamic court. This requires deep engagement and expertise interpreting religious sources, and the needed erudition and experience can take decades of study and training to acquire.

In Indonesia, for instance, family courts for the Muslim majority apply Islamic law (non-Muslims are subject to civil family law). Since the 1950s, judges for these courts have been trained in the country’s Islamic state institutes.

Although female judges of Islamic law were unheard of at the time – and remain a minority – admission to these institutes was not restricted to men. And so women also completed this advanced training and, from the 1960s, some have been appointed judges in Indonesia’s Islamic courts.
 

Women ulama visit the Indonesian minister of religious affairs before the congress. Photo: Dr Nur Rofiah.

In 1970, Sudan also appointed women as judges in courts applying what’s known as “non-codified” Islamic law (under which judges must interpret original sources, as there is no codified text issued by the state, like a statute or book of law).However, it would take another 35 years before women would be appointed to Islamic courts in other countries. Malaysia did so in 2005, the Palestinian Authority in 2009, and Israel just a few months ago appointed the first woman judge to its Islamic courts.

The congress in Indonesia aimed to raise awareness about these developments and strengthen local initiatives to promote women’s juristic authority in Islam. Importantly, it showed that it’s not only women who stand behind this struggle. Male scholars, while a minority, were also among the speakers and attendees.

It’s not only women who stand behind this struggle. Male scholars were also at the congress.

It’s not only women who stand behind this struggle. Male scholars were also at the congress.  At the congress’s core was “musyawarah keagamaan” (religious deliberation) to formulate fatwas. In many Muslim countries fatwas are associated with individual Islamic leaders, but Indonesia has a long tradition of fatwas issued by Islamic institutions’ ‘fatwa commissions.’

The women ulama at the congress issued three fatwas. This in itself was historic as fatwa issuing has long been monopolised by male clerics. (There are, for example, only seven women ulama out of 67 members of the fatwa commission of Majelis Ulama Indonesia (MUI) – a prominent Islamic organisation, set up by the government in the 1970s).

The first fatwa issued focused on sexual violence. It emphasises that such violence including within marriage (marital rape) is forbidden under Islamic law (haram). It also distinguishes zina (adultery and fornication) from rape. It emphasises that victims must receive psychological, physical and social support – not punishment.

The second fatwa concerns child marriage. It says these practices bring harm (mudarat) to society. The ulama’s accompanying commentary calls for raising the Indonesian legal marriage age for girls from 16 to 18 years. Importantly, as most child marriages are not registered with the state in the first place, the fatwa also tells ordinary Muslims and imams that it is obligatory (wajib) to prevent them.   

The third fatwa links environmental destruction and social inequality. It describes environmental degradation for economic gain as haram and says it has in recent decades in Indonesia exacerbated economic disparity with women the most affected. It notes how drought, for example, adds to the burdens of rural women typically responsible for preparing food and fetching water.

Participants told us that deliberations on this fatwa also touched on issues of land and forest governance, and how deforestation affects women in particular. It demanded that the Indonesian government should impose strict punishments on perpetrators of environmental destruction. Among other things, the discussion noted illegal deforestation campaigns in Indonesia to make space for vast palm oil plantations.

Like the best judges in any society, the women ulama are also experts in diverse contemporary issues.

The women ulama based their religious interpretations on four sources: the verses of the Qur’an, hadith, aqwal ‘ulama (views of religious scholars), and the Indonesian constitution. They used a methodology called “unrestricted reasoning” (istidlal), with stated aims to maximise maslaha (public interest) and reduce mudarat (harm) to arrive at rulings.

The three fatwas show that women ulama also have the ability and the expertise in Islamic sources to formulate these recommendations. They also show that the ulama perempuan do not restrict themselves to the Qur’an, hadith, other classical Islamic texts, and talking about the past. Like the best judges in any society, they are also experts in diverse contemporary issues.

Indeed, Nur Rofi’ah, an expert in Qur’anic and gender studies who took part in the congress, told us that it produced more than fatwas, which usually consist of only a few pages of argumentation.

The congress considered a larger range of sources during its deliberations, including evidence of conditions and challenges faced by women. It also produced far longer and more in-depth textual explanations.

Some Indonesian gender rights activists, and Indonesian fatwa committees themselves, use the term sikap keagamaan (religious views) for recommendations that come out of this more complex deliberation process and outcome.

But whether one calls these fatwas or sikap keagamaan, their significance was clear: This congress was a historic step towards reestablishing the long-lost juristic authority of women to produce Islamic legal recommendations and rulings.

Dr. Mirjam Künkler is senior research fellow at the Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study and author of Democracy and Islam in Indonesia, (Columbia University Press, 2013). She has recently published a special journal issue on female Islamic authority in southeast Asia, in the Asian Studies Review 40, 4 (December 2016).

This article was first published on openDemocracy.
 

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Courtesy: Scroll.in

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Image: thecommentator.com
 
Fifteen years after 9/11, the scourge of violent Islamist extremism has become even more complex and deadly. The alacrity with which 30,000 Muslims from around the world joined the so-called Islamic State’s war against humanity has puzzled many. How could a peaceful, pluralistic religion be subverted so easily to create inhuman monsters?
 
Among many factors, social, economic, political, psychological, the one common feature is a brainwashing of vulnerable people on the basis of a supremacist, xenophobic, intolerant, exclusivist and totalitarian Jihadi theology. This is a blatant misuse of Islam, a spiritual path to salvation, that 1.6 billion Muslims believe, teaches peace, pluralism, co-existence and good neighbourliness.
 
There has to be a reason why jihadi ideology has gained acceptance so quickly; why fatwas issued by reputed moderate scholars prove so ineffective? Clearly we Muslims need to rethink some basic features of our theology.

But there has to be a reason why jihadi ideology has gained acceptance so quickly; why fatwas issued by reputed moderate scholars prove so ineffective? How are Jihadis able to create a 100 percent certainty in the minds of some Muslims that violence against innocent people, including Muslims, whom they consider infidel, will please God and lead them to heaven?
 
Clearly we Muslims need to rethink some basic features of our theology. Success of jihadism lies in the fact that, at its core, the jihadi theology is not very different from the consensus theology of all other schools of Islamic thought. For instance,  jihadists are able to misuse the intolerant, xenophobic, war-time verses of the holy Quran, as Muslims believe that all verses, regardless of the context, are of universal applicability. Indeed, the Islamic theology of consensus, taught in all madrassas, says that Quran is uncreated, meaning that it is just an aspect of God; and so, divine like God Himself.
 

The corollary is that no verse of the Quran can be questioned in terms of its universality and applicability. Indeed, that any Muslim who tries to do so is committing blasphemy and deserves no less than death. Quran on earth is said to be just a copy of the one lying safe in a divine vault in Heaven called Lauh-e-Mahfooz.
 
This is completely irrational. Suppose Meccan elite had not responded to Islam’s message of equality with violence and persecution, leading to Prophet Mohammad fleeing to Madina. There would have been no battles in Prophet’s lifetime and no war-time verses would have been required. How can these verses then acquire universal applicability and eternal value?
 
Not only that. There is also a near-consensus in Islamic theology around the so-called Doctrine of Abrogation whereby all peaceful, pluralistic Meccan verses, at least 124, are considered abrogated by the later confrontational Medinan verses. This is most damaging for Islam and useful for jihadism.
 
Wherever a Muslim turns, from al-Ghazali, Ibn-e-Taimiyya, Abdul Wahhab, Sheikh Sarhindi, Shah Waliullah to Syed Qutb and Maulana Maududi, he or she gets the same Islam-supremacist message.

How do Islamic theologians reconcile the uncreatedness of Quran, its total, unquestionable divinity, with the Doctrine of Abrogation is beyond a rational person’s understanding. This is a belief with hardly any basis in Quran. It evolved hundreds of years after the demise of the Prophet.
 
The same is true of the divinity and universal applicability attached to Hadith, the so-called sayings of the Prophet, and Sharia laws. Narrations of Hadith were recorded decades and centuries after the Prophet passed away. Almost the last verse of the Quran (5:3) says that God has now completed the religion of Islam. How can we write books centuries after that and give them the status of revealed literature? Yet, all ulema are agreed that Hadith is akin to revelation. This is clearly the height of irrationality.
 
Similarly Sharia was first codified 120 years after the demise of the Prophet, based on some verses of the Quran and Arab practices of that era. This has been changing from country to country and age to age.  How can we Muslims be told, as we are by a multitude of scholars, that it is a Muslim’s prime religious duty to see that this Sharia is established in the world?   
 
Wherever a Muslim turns, from al-Ghazali, Ibn-e-Taimiyya, Abdul Wahhab, Sheikh Sarhindi, Shah Waliullah to Syed Qutb and Maulana Maududi, he or she gets the same Islam-supremacist message.
 
Let us see what some of these learned ulema of yore, most revered by all schools of thought, tell us:
 
Imam Abu Hamid al-Ghazali (1058-1111): Considered the greatest of all Sufi theologians, and by many as next only to Prophet Mohammad in his understanding of Islam:

One must go on jihad at least once a year

 
Imam Ibn Taymiyya (1263-1328): Most revered Hanbali jurist and scholar among Wahhabi-Salafi Muslims whose influence has recently grown immensely with the propagation of his creed by the Saudi monarchy:

People of the Book and the Zoroastrians are to be fought until they become Muslims or pay the tribute (jizya) … and have been humbled…

The post If Islam Means Peace, How Did So Many of its Revered Ulema Preach Hatred and Violence? appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Illustration: Amili Setalvad
 
The magnitude of the terrorist attack on America has forced Muslims to take a critical look at themselves. Why have we repeatedly turned a blind eye to the evil within our societies? Why have we allowed the sacred terms of Islam, such as fatwa and jihad, to be hijacked by obscurantist, fanatic extremists?
 

Muslims are quick to note the double standards of America — its support for despotic regimes, its partiality towards Israel, and the covert operations that have undermined democratic movements in the Muslim world. But we seldom question our own double standards. For example, Muslims are proud that Islam is the fastest growing religion in the West. Evangelical Muslims, from Saudi Arabia to Pakistan, happily spread their constricted interpretations of Islam. But Christian missionaries in Muslim countries are another matter. They have to be banned or imprisoned. Those who burn effigies of President Bush will be first in the queue for an American visa.
 

The psychotic young men, members of such extremist organisations as Al-Muhajiroun and ‘Supporters of Sharia’, shouting fascist obscenities outside the Pakistan embassy, are enjoying the fruits of Western freedom of expression. Their declared aim is to establish ‘Islamic states’. But in any self–proclaimed Islamic state, they would be ruthlessly silenced.
 

This is not the first time concerned Muslims have raised such questions. But we have been forced to ignore them for two main reasons. In a world where it is always open season for prejudice and discrimination against Muslims and Islam, our main task has seemed to be to defend Islam.
 

The other reason concerns ummah, the global Muslim community. We have to highlight, the argument goes, the despair and suffering of the Muslim people — their poverty and plight as refugees and the horror of war–torn societies.
 

So, all good and concerned Muslims are implicated in the unchecked rise of fanaticism in Muslim societies. We have given free reign to fascism within our midst, and failed to denounce fanatics who distort the most sacred concepts of our faith. We have been silent as they proclaim themselves martyrs, mangling beyond recognition the most sacred meaning of what it is to be a Muslim.
 

But the events of September 11 have freed us from any further obligation to this misapplied conscience. The insistence by the Muslim Council of Britain that the Islamic cause is best served by the Taliban handing over Osama bin Laden, is indicative of this shift.
 

The devotion with which so many Muslims, young and old, in Europe and America, are organising meetings and conferences to discuss how to unleash the best intentions, the essential values of Islam, from the rhetoric of jihad, hatred and insularity, is another.
 

But we have to go further. Muslims are in the best position to take the lead in the common cause against terrorism. The terrorists are among us, the Muslim communities of the world. They are part of our body politic. And it is our duty to stand up against them.

The psychotic young men, members of such extremist organisations as Al-Muhajiroun and ‘Supporters of Sharia’, shouting fascist obscenities outside the Pakistan embassy, are enjoying the fruits of Western freedom of expression. Their declared aim is to establish ‘Islamic states’.

We must also reclaim a more balanced view of Islamic terms like fatwa. A fatwa is simply a legal opinion based on religious reasoning. It is the opinion of one individual and is binding on only the person who gives it. But, since the Rushdie affair, it has come to be associated in the West solely with a death sentence. Now that Islam has become beset with the fatwa culture, it becomes necessary for moderate voices to issue their own fatwas.
 

So, let me take the first step. To Muslims everywhere I issue this fatwa: any Muslim involved in the planning, financing, training, recruiting, support or harbouring of those who commit acts of indiscriminate violence against persons or the apparatus or infrastructure of states is guilty of terror and no part of the ummah. It is the duty of every Muslim to spare no effort in hunting down, apprehending and bringing such criminals to justice.
 

If you see something reprehensible, said the Prophet Muhammad, then change it with your hand; if you are not capable of that then use your tongue (speak out against it); and if you are not capable of that then detest it in your heart.
 

The silent Muslim majority must now become vocal. The rest of the world could help by adopting a more balanced tone. The rhetoric that paints America as a personification of innocence and goodness, a god–like power that can do no wrong, not only undermines the new shift but threatens to foreclose all our futures. 

Archived from Communalism Combat, October 2001 Year 8  No. 72, Cover Story 2

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The US government refuses to admit its central role in creating the vicious movement that spawned bin Laden, the Taliban and Islamic fundamentalist terrorists

"Throughout the world … its agents, client states and satellites are on the defensive — on the moral defensive, the intellectual defensive, and the political and economic defensive. Freedom movements arise and assert themselves. They’re doing so on almost every continent populated by man — in the hills of Afghanistan, in Angola, in Kampuchea, in Central America … (They are freedom fighters.)"

Is this a call to jihad taken from one of Islamic fundamentalist Osama bin Laden’s notorious fatwas? Or perhaps a communique issued by the repressive Taliban regime in Kabul?

In fact, this glowing praise of the murderous exploits of today’s supporters of arch-terrorist bin Laden and his Taliban collaborators, and their holy war against the evil empire, was issued by US President Ronald Reagan on March 8, 1985. The evil empire was the Soviet Union, as well as Third World movements fighting US-backed colonialism, apartheid and dictatorship.

How things change. In the aftermath of a series of terrorist atrocities, the most despicable being the mass murder of more than 6,000 working people in New York and Washington on September 11, bin Laden the freedom fighter is now lambasted by US leaders and the Western mass media as a terrorist mastermind and an evil-doer.

Yet the US government refuses to admit its central role in creating the vicious movement that spawned bin Laden, the Taliban and Islamic fundamentalist terrorists that plague Algeria and Egypt and perhaps the disaster that befell New York.

The mass media has also downplayed the origins of bin Laden and his toxic brand of Islamic fundamentalism.

Mujahedin

In April 1978, the People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) seized power in Afghanistan in reaction to a crackdown against the party by that country’s repressive government.

The PDPA was committed to a radical land reform that favoured the peasants, trade union rights, an expansion of education and social services, equality for women and the separation of church and state. The PDPA also supported strengthening Afghanistan’s relationship with the Soviet Union.

Such policies enraged the wealthy semi–feudal landlords, the Muslim religious establishment (many mullahs were also big landlords) and the tribal chiefs. They immediately began organising resistance to the government’s progressive policies, under the guise of defending Islam.

Washington, fearing the spread of Soviet influence (and worse the new government’s radical example) to its allies in Pakistan, Iran and the Gulf states, immediately offered support to the Afghan Mujahedin, as the contra force was known.

Following an internal PDPA power struggle in December 1979 which toppled Afghanistan’s leader, thousands of Soviet troops entered the country to prevent the new government’s fall. This only galvanised the disparate fundamentalist factions. Their reactionary jihad now gained legitimacy as a national liberation struggle in the eyes of many Afghans.

The Soviet Union was eventually to withdraw from Afghanistan in 1989 and the Mujahedin captured the capital, Kabul, in 1992.

Between 1978 and 1992, the US government poured at least US$6 billion (some estimates range as high as $20 billion) worth of arms, training and funds to prop up the Mujahedin factions. Other Western governments, as well as oil–rich Saudi Arabia, kicked in as much again. Wealthy Arab fanatics, like Osama bin Laden, provided millions more.

Washington’s policy in Afghanistan was shaped by US President Jimmy Carter’s national security advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski, and was continued by his successors. His plan went far beyond simply forcing Soviet troops to withdraw; rather it aimed to foster an international movement to spread Islamic fanaticism into the Muslim Central Asian Soviet republics to destabilise the Soviet Union.

Brzezinski’s grand plan coincided with Pakistan military dictator General Zia–ul–Haq’s own ambitions to dominate the region. US–run Radio Liberty and Radio Free Europe beamed Islamic fundamentalist tirades across Central Asia (while paradoxically denouncing the Islamic revolution that toppled the pro–US Shah of Iran in 1979).

Washington’s favoured Mujahedin faction was one of the most extreme, led by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. The West’s distaste for terrorism did not apply to this unsavoury freedom fighter. Hekmatyar was notorious in the 1970s for throwing acid in the faces of women who refused to wear the veil.

After the Mujahedin took Kabul in 1992, Hekmatyar’s forces rained US–supplied missiles and rockets on that city killing at least 2,000 civilians until the new government agreed to give him the post of prime minister. Osama bin Laden was a close associate of Hekmatyar and his faction.

Hekmatyar was also infamous for his side trade in the cultivation and trafficking in opium. Backing of the Mujahedin from the CIA coincided with a boom in the drug business. Within two years, the Afghanistan–Pakistan border was the world’s single largest source of heroin, supplying 60 per cent of US drug users.

In 1995, the former director of the CIA’s operation in Afghanistan was unrepentant about the explosion in the flow of drugs: Our main mission was to do as much damage as possible to the Soviets… There was a fallout in terms of drugs, yes. But the main objective was accomplished. The Soviets left Afghanistan.

Bin Laden has simply continued to do the job he was asked to do in Afghanistan during the 1980s — fund, feed and train mercenaries. All that has changed is his primary customer. Then it was the ISI and, behind the scenes, the CIA. Today, his services are utilised primarily by the reactionary Taliban regime

Made in the USA

According to Ahmed Rashid, a correspondent for the Far Eastern Economic Review in 1986, CIA chief William Casey committed CIA support to a long-standing ISI proposal to recruit from around the world to join the Afghan jihad. At least 100,000 Islamic militants flocked to Pakistan between 1982 and 1992 (some 60,000 attended fundamentalist schools in Pakistan without necessarily taking part in the fighting).

John Cooley, a former journalist with the US ABC television network and author of Unholy Wars: Afghanistan, America and International Terrorism, has revealed that Muslims recruited in the US for the Mujahedin were sent to Camp Peary, the CIA’s spy training camp in Virginia, where young Afghans, Arabs from Egypt and Jordan, and even some African-American black Muslims were taught sabotage skills.

The November 1, 1998, the British Independent reported that one of those charged with the 1998 bombings of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, Ali Mohammed, had trained bin Laden’s operatives in 1989.

These operatives were recruited at the al Kifah Refugee Centre in Brooklyn, New York, given paramilitary training in the New York area and then sent to Afghanistan with US assistance to join Hekmatyar’s forces. Mohammed was a member of the US army’s elite Green Berets.

The program, reported the Independent, was part of a Washington-approved plan called Operation Cyclone.

In Pakistan, recruits, money and equipment were distributed to the Mujahedin factions by an organisation known as Maktab al Khidamar (Office of Services, MAK).

MAK was a front for Pakistan’s CIA, the Inter–Service Intelligence directorate. The ISI was the first recipient of the vast bulk of CIA and Saudi Arabian covert assistance for the Afghan contras. Bin Laden was one of three people who ran MAK. In 1989, he took overall charge of MAK.

Among those trained by Mohammed were El Sayyid Nosair, who was jailed in 1995 for killing Israeli rightist Rabbi Meir Kahane and plotting with others to bomb New York landmarks, including the World Trade Center in 1993.

The Independent also suggested that Shiekh Omar Abdel–Rahman, an Egyptian religious leader also jailed for the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center, was also part of Operation Cyclone. He entered the US in 1990 with the CIA’s approval. A confidential CIA report concluded that the agency was partly culpable for the 1993 World Trade Center blast, the Independent reported.

Bin Laden

Osama bin Laden, one of 20 sons of a billionaire construction magnate, arrived in Afghanistan to join the jihad in 1980. An austere religious fanatic and business tycoon, bin Laden specialised in recruiting, financing and training the estimated 35,000 non–Afghan mercenaries who joined the Mujahedin. The bin Laden family is a prominent pillar of the Saudi Arabian ruling class, with close personal, financial and political ties to that country’s pro–US royal family.

Bin Laden senior was appointed Saudi Arabia’s minister of public works as a favour by King Faisal. The new minister awarded his own construction companies lucrative contracts to rebuild Islam’s holiest mosques in Mecca and Medina. In the process, the bin Laden family company in 1966 became the world’s largest private construction company.

Osama bin Laden’s father died in 1968. Until 1994, he had access to the dividends from this ill–gotten business empire.

(Bin Laden junior’s oft–quoted personal fortune of US$200–300 million has been arrived at by the US State Department by dividing today’s value of the bin Laden family net worth estimated to be US$5 billion by the number of bin Laden senior’s sons. A fact rarely mentioned is that in 1994 the bin Laden family disowned Osama and took control of his share.)

Osama’s military and business adventures in Afghanistan had the blessing of the bin Laden dynasty and the reactionary Saudi Arabian regime. His close working relationship with MAK also meant that the CIA was fully aware of his activities.

Milt Bearden, the CIA’s station chief in Pakistan from 1986 to 1989, admitted to the January 24, 2000, New Yorker that while he never personally met bin Laden, "Did I know that he was out there? Yes, I did… [Guys like] bin Laden were bringing $20-$25 million a month from other Saudis and Gulf Arabs to underwrite the war. And that is a lot of money. It’s an extra $200–$300 million a year. And this is what bin Laden did."

In 1986, bin Laden brought heavy construction equipment from Saudi Arabia to Afghanistan. Using his extensive knowledge of construction techniques (he has a degree in civil engineering), he built training camps, some dug deep into the sides of mountains, and built roads to reach them.

These camps, now dubbed terrorist universities by Washington, were built in collaboration with the ISI and the CIA. The Afghan contra fighters, including the tens of thousands of mercenaries recruited and paid for by bin Laden, were armed by the CIA. Pakistan, the US and Britain provided military trainers.

Tom Carew, a former British SAS soldier who secretly fought for the Mujahedin told the August 13, 2000, British Observer, "The Americans were keen to teach the Afghans the techniques of urban terrorism, car bombing and so on so that they could strike at the Russians in major towns…" Many of them are now using their knowledge and expertise to wage war on everything they hate.

Al Qaeda (the Base), bin Laden’s organisation, was established in 1987-88 to run the camps and other business enterprises. It is a tightly–run capitalist holding company albeit one that integrates the operations of a mercenary force and related logistical services with legitimate business operations.

Bin Laden has simply continued to do the job he was asked to do in Afghanistan during the 1980s — fund, feed and train mercenaries. All that has changed is his primary customer. Then it was the ISI and, behind the scenes, the CIA. Today, his services are utilised primarily by the reactionary Taliban regime.

Bin Laden only became a terrorist in US eyes when he fell out with the Saudi royal family over its decision to allow more than 540,000 US troops to be stationed on Saudi soil following Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait.

When thousands of US troops remained in Saudi Arabia after the end of the Gulf War, bin Laden’s anger turned to outright opposition. He declared that Saudi Arabia and other regimes such as Egypt in the Middle East were puppets of the US, just as the PDPA government of Afghanistan had been a puppet of the Soviet Union.

He called for the overthrow of these client regimes and declared it the duty of all Muslims to drive the US out of the Gulf states. In 1994, he was stripped of his Saudi citizenship and forced to leave the country. His assets there were frozen.

After a period in Sudan, he returned to Afghanistan in May 1996. He refurbished the camps he had helped build during the Afghan war and offered the facilities and services and thousands of his mercenaries to the Taliban, which took power that September.

Today, bin Laden’s private army of non–Afghan religious fanatics is a key prop of the Taliban regime.

Prior to the devastating September 11 attack on the twin towers of World Trade Center, US ruling-class figures remained unrepentant about the consequences of their dirty deals with the likes of bin Laden, Hekmatyar and the Taliban. Since the awful attack, they have been downright hypocritical.

In an August 28, 1998, report posted on MSNBC, Michael Moran quotes Senator Orrin Hatch, who was a senior member of the Senate Intelligence Committee which approved US dealings with the Mujahedin, as saying he would make the same call again, even knowing what bin Laden would become.

"It was worth it. Those were very important, pivotal matters that played an important role in the downfall of the Soviet Union."

Hatch today is one of the most gung-ho voices demanding military retaliation. Another face that has appeared repeatedly on television screens since the attack has been Vincent Cannistrano, described as a former CIA chief of counter-terrorism operations.

Cannistrano is certainly an expert on terrorists like bin Laden, because he directed their work. He was in charge of the CIA–backed Nicaraguan contras during the early 1980s. In 1984, he became the supervisor of covert aid to the Afghan Mujahedin for the US National Security Council.

The last word goes to Zbigniew Brzezinski: "What was more important in the world view of history? The Taliban or the fall of the Soviet Empire? A few stirred up Muslims or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the Cold War?" 

(This article has been put out by the Forum of Indian Leftists (FOIL).

Archived from Communalism Combat, October 2001 Year 8  No. 72, Cover Story 7

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