Not Peace but a Sword: The Great Chasm Between Christianity and Islam (17 page)

What’s more, Islamic morality allows for practices that Catholicism abhors, including contraception, child marriage, polygamy, female genital mutilation, and even sexual slavery of non-believing women.

Contraception

Some modern Muslim scholars hold that Islam forbids contraception, framing the argument in terms that will be familiar to orthodox Catholics, and giving hope to those who dream of allying with Islam to fight the spirit of the age:

In general, most forms of contraception and birth control are forbidden. But since Islam is a complete religion, we have the benefit of the Quran, the
hadith
and traditions of Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him), the companions, and many learned scholars to help us come to an informed decision.

First, any sort of permanent birth control that is not for medical reasons is forbidden. So any medical procedure that leads to complete sterilization and is not medically required, is not allowed. This goes against the teachings of our Prophet Muhammad and if not done for medical reasons, is usually done for vain, selfish or impractical purpose.

For instance, some people have the foolish notion that the world is becoming overpopulated and the earth’s resources are running out. But Allah has made His earth bountiful, and if we trust in Him, there is certainly enough food and water and air to go around.

Wherever there is starvation in the world, there is needless gluttony and waste elsewhere. So the problem is not a lack of resource but a lack of compassion for those who are less fortunate than us.
¹⁴⁴

But in reality, Islamic teaching regarding birth control and artificial contraception is ambiguous. The
hadith
, the voluminous collections of Muhammad’s words and deeds, are full of contradictory material in which Muhammad appears to speak in favor of both sides of a disputed issue. This is because much of the
hadith
material was composed well over a century after Muhammad is supposed to have lived, at a time when competing factions attempted to gain support for the positions they espoused by inventing sayings of Muhammad.

Since the ninth century, Islamic scholars have attempted to isolate authentic sayings of Muhammad and accounts of his actions on the basis of the chain of
isnad
: the list of people who have passed on the tradition in question from the time of Muhammad and the eyewitnesses who saw the event to the time that it was written down. A chain that is unbroken and contains names of people known for their reliability is considered evidence of an authentic tradition. No consideration is given to the possibility that the chain itself could be forged, as well as the tradition; but nonetheless, on the basis of study of the chain of transmitters, early medieval Islamic scholars have delineated a body of traditions that they generally regarded as authentic, and those have become normative for Muslim faith and practice.

Islamic law regarding artificial contraception is derived from several sayings of Muhammad regarding
coitus interruptus
(in Islamic law,
azl
); however, in these he seems to come down on both sides of the question. On one occasion one of the believers asks Muhammad: “O Allah’s Apostle! We get female captives as our share of booty, and we are interested in their prices, what is your opinion about
coitus interruptus
?” Muhammad answers: “Do you really do that? It is better for you not to do it. No soul that which Allah has destined to exist, but will surely come into existence.”
¹⁴⁵
Some of the early Muslims believed that Muhammad’s saying it was “better for you not to do it” amounted to a prohibition: “Yahya related to me from Malik from Nafi that Abdullah ibn Umar did not practice
coitus interruptus
and thought that it was disapproved.”
¹⁴⁶
Another concluded from Muhammad’s words: “By Allah, (it seems) as if there is upbraiding in it (for
azl
).”
¹⁴⁷

However, another Muslim asked Muhammad about this practice, mentioning that the Jews likened it to infanticide. Muhammad’s response was predictable in its venom against those whom the Qur’an terms the worst enemies of the Muslims (5:82): “The Jews told a lie. If Allah intends to create it, you cannot turn it away.”
¹⁴⁸

This was still ambiguous, but seemed to be more in favor of the practice. Completely unambiguous was the recollection of Jabir, one of Muhammad’s early companions, who in later life recalled, “We used to practice
azl
during the lifetime of Allah’s Messenger (may peace be upon him). This (the news of this practice) reached Allah’s Apostle (may peace be upon him), and he did not forbid us.”
¹⁴⁹

The early Muslim jurist Imam Malik declared the practice permissible with free women and wholly acceptable with slave girls, “Malik said, “A man does not practice
coitus interruptus
with a free woman unless she gives her permission. There is no harm in practicing
coitus interruptus
with a slave-girl without her permission. Someone who has someone else’s slave-girl as a wife, does not practice
coitus interruptus
with her unless her people give him permission.”
¹⁵⁰
The distinction here between the women from whom one must seek permission and those from whom one need not do so is based solely on the dignity of the free woman versus the slave, not on anything analogous to the Catholic understanding of the unitive and procreative ends of sexual intercourse.

The contemporary Muslim scholar Sa’diyya Shaikh, a professor of Islamic Studies and Feminist Theory at the University of Cape Town in South Africa, wrote in 2003 about the permissibility of contraception in Islam in terms that contrasted starkly with Catholic teaching:

Contraception has a long history in Islam that needs to be situated in relation to the broader Islamic ethos of marriage and sexuality. In Islam if one chooses to marry, this is not automatically linked to procreation. Within the Islamic view of marriage, an individual has the right to sexual pleasure within marriage, which is independent of one’s choice to have children. This type of approach to sexuality is compatible with a more tolerant approach to contraception and family planning.

Historically the various Islamic legal schools with an overwhelming majority have permitted
coitus interruptus
, called
azl
, as a method of contraception. This was a contraceptive technique practiced by pre-Islamic Arabs and continued to be used during the time of the Prophet with his knowledge and without his prohibition.
¹⁵¹

Likewise, the Shi’ite scholar S. M. Rizvi writes:

According to the Shi’ah
fiqh
[jurisprudence], family planning as a private measure to space or regulate the family size for health or economic reasons is permissible. Neither is there any Qur’anic verse or
hadith
against birth control, nor is it
wajib
[absolutely required] to have children in marriage. So basically, birth control would come under the category of
ja
’
iz,
lawful acts. Moreover, we have some
ahadith
(especially on the issue of
azl, coitus interruptus
) which categorically prove that birth control is permissible.
¹⁵²

Thus, the average Muslim who goes to his local imam and asks about the permissibility of artificial contraception will likely be told that it is just fine, since, after all, Muhammad—who is the supreme example of conduct for believers—allowed for
coitus interruptus
. Foreign to Islam is the Catholic idea of the inseparability of the unitive and procreative aspects of the marital act.

This is not really surprising, since in general Islam lacks a marital/sexual teleology. As we have seen, there is no extensive tradition of rational theology in Islam. Allah rules by fiat, and one does not question, or reason from, his commands.

Abortion

Unfortunately, the same situation prevails with abortion, even though many Catholics believe that Muslims are pro-life and thus reliable comrades-in-arms on life issues—and indeed, the Qur’an repeatedly warns of the heinousness of killing one’s own children. One poetic early passage about the last day and the divine judgment condemns the pagan Arab practice of burying alive girl infants:

When the sun shall be darkened,

when the stars shall be thrown down,

when the mountains shall be set moving,

when the pregnant camels shall be neglected,

when the savage beasts shall be mustered,

when the seas shall be set boiling,

when the souls shall be coupled,

when the buried infant shall be asked

for what sin she was slain,

when the scrolls shall be unrolled,

when heaven shall be stripped off;

when Hell shall be set blazing,

when Paradise shall be brought nigh,

then shall a soul know what it has produced. (81:1-14)

Another passage condemns child-killing in a straightforward manner:

And slay not your children for fear of poverty; We will provide for you and them; surely the slaying of them is a grievous sin. (17:31)

Yet this does not carry over to abortion. The Muslim scholar Sayyid Sabiq summarizes Islam’s classic view of abortion as being something to avoid, but not impermissible in the first trimester, since Islamic belief is that Allah blows the spirit into a soul only after that point:

Abortion is not allowed after four months have passed since conception because at that time it is akin to taking a life, an act that entails penalty in this world and in the Hereafter. As regards the matter of abortion before this period elapses, it is considered allowed if necessary. However, in the absence of a reasonable excuse it is detestable.

The best he can offer pro-lifers is a difference of opinion among traditional jurists over whether early abortion is
allowable:

The author of “Subul-ul-Maram” writes: “A woman’s treatment for aborting a pregnancy before the spirit has been blown into it is a matter upon which scholars differed on account of difference of opinion on the matter of ‘
azal
(i.e., measures to hinder conception). Those who allow ‘
azal
consider abortion as allowable and vice versa.” The same ruling should be applicable for women deciding on sterilization. Imam Ghazzali opines: “Induced abortion is a sin after conception.” He further says: “The sin incurred thus can be of degrees. When the sperm enters the ovaries [sic], mixes with the ovum and acquires potential of life, its removal would be a sin. Aborting it after it grows into a germ or a leech would be a graver sin and the graveness of the sin increases very much if one does so after the stage when the spirit is blown into the fetus and it acquires human form and faculties.”
¹⁵³

The contemporary Islamic scholar Azizah al-Hibri sums up the prevailing view: “The majority of Muslim scholars permit abortion, although they differ on the stage of fetal development beyond which it becomes prohibited.” Furthermore, says al-Hibri, all the schools of Islamic jurisprudence “permit abortion for exigencies such as saving the mother’s life.”
¹⁵⁴
Another Islamic scholar, the American convert Sherman Jackson, explains that only a “minority of jurists” believe that Islam forbids abortion “even during the first trimester,” and counsels Muslims against engaging in any kind of pro-life activism:

[W]hile abortion, even during the first trimester, is forbidden according to a minority of jurists, it is not held to be an offense for which there are criminal or even civil sanctions. On this understanding, Muslim-Americans who oppose abortion should assiduously limit their activism to the moral sphere and avoid supporting positions that favor the imposition of criminal or civil sanctions in an area into which Islamic law itself never contemplated injecting these.
¹⁵⁵

In light of all this, it is hard to understand why the idea is so widespread among conservative Catholics that Muslims would make good partners for action on life issues. In reality, the Islamic moral schema differs so sharply from the Catholic one that they have hardly any common ground at all. That is why, as we have seen, at the Beijing conference “many conference delegates said the Vatican seriously miscalculated its potential clout in the debate, especially among . . . Islamic governments to which it had appealed for support.”
¹⁵⁶
The Muslims opposed Vatican efforts to call for an end to abortion in all circumstances.