The Great Theft: Wrestling Islam From the Extremists (16 page)

Much has been written about the justification for the pil- grimage. Most importantly, pilgrimage is a symbol of Muslim unity and of the basic equality of all Muslims. All Muslims go on the pilgrimage wearing the same kind of clothing so that there is no distinction between rich and poor; all stand next to each other before God while clothed in the same white shrouds for men and simple white dresses for women. The rites performed while at pilgrimage are designed to emphasize not just the unity of all Muslims, but also the basic unity of the Abrahamic faiths. The circumambulation performed by Muslims around the
Ka’ba
(the cubic structure in the center of Mecca) symbolizes the circumambulation of the universe and all of existence around God.

These five pillars constitute the backbone of the Islamic faith, and according to traditional Islamic law, all Muslims must at least strive to fulfill the five obligations honestly and with sin- cerity. Denying one of the five pillars takes one out of the Is- lamic faith, meaning that a Muslim, in principle, must accept the five pillars as obligatory. Actually
performing
the five pil- lars is a different matter. As long as one admits that the five pillars are the essence of Islam and pronounces the testament of faith, one is accepted into the fold of Islam. There is no sub- stantial difference between the moderates, conservatives, and puritans on this point. They do disagree, however, as to what, if anything, makes a Muslim an apostate.

The essential objective of the five pillars is to teach people to consistently work at developing a relationship with God; to learn piety, self-restraint, and humility; to emphasize the shared brotherhood of all Muslims; and to underscore the im- portance of service to others as a means of worshipping God. The five pillars have been described as the foundation upon

which the rest of Islam stands, because they open up the po- tential of realizing the truly sublime—for realizing Godliness in oneself by surrendering oneself to Divinity.

In discussing the main doctrines that unite all Muslims and that form the backbone of Islam, I should mention that cen- turies ago a considerable number of Muslims used to believe that Islam is founded on six and not five pillars. The sixth pil- lar is summed up in the proclamation that every Muslim has a duty to enjoin the good and forbid the evil. Today, all Muslims agree that enjoining the good and forbidding the evil is a solemn religious duty upon all Muslims, but few would still count it as the sixth pillar of Islam. In essence, this religious obligation is very similar to what Thomas Aquinas asserted as the first principle of natural law: that all people ought to do good and refrain from doing evil.

The Islamic precept, however, goes beyond an injunction to do or refrain from doing particular acts; it also includes addi- tional social and political obligations. Besides doing good and refraining from evil oneself, wherever and whenever possible, a Muslim is expected to encourage others to seek the good and to try to prevent others from doing evil. This duty is applicable at various levels—at the level of the family, society, and the state. Parents must discharge this religious obligation when dealing with their children, individuals owe both society and the state the same obligation, and the state owes society the same reciprocal obligation. As examples, at the family level parents fulfill this duty by providing proper moral guidance to their children and raising them well; at the social level, a Mus- lim might advise his friend to stop consuming alcohol or to start praying; at the state level, a Muslim might discharge his duty by speaking truthfully before the ruler and sincerely coun- seling him regarding state policies that are causing injustice and undue suffering. Emphasizing that in the political sphere the

duty of enjoining the good and forbidding the evil often entails serious sacrifice, the Prophet taught that a word of truth spo- ken before a tyrant is an act of great moral value; and if as a re- sult of doing so a Muslim loses his life, he dies a martyr.

Although all Muslims agree that enjoining the good and forbidding the evil is an Islamic obligation, this basic principle generated an enormous amount of debate and raised some of the most heated controversies among various theological and legal factions in Islamic history. This is not surprising, because this basic principle became implicated in controversies about political legitimacy, the role of law, methods of legal enforce- ment, and the legality of rebellion or disobedience. Further- more, this principle raised numerous questions as to the limits of social and political activism and the permissibility of self- help when one encounters behavior that arguably violates Is- lamic law. The question incessantly raised and debated was: Assuming that the state is weak, absent, or unwilling to en- force Islamic legal injunctions, may Islamic law legitimately be enforced by, for instance, individuals, or the head of a small community, like a village or a tribe?
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It is important to emphasize that the five or six pillars of Islam do not represent
all
that Muslims agree upon, and I am certainly not claiming that other than the pillars of Islam Mus- lims disagree about everything else. The range of edicts and principles that Muslims agree upon is very broad. For in- stance, all Muslims agree that good Muslims ought to honor their parents, respect the elderly, be decent and caring toward their neighbors, feel for and help the poor, speak the truth, keep their promises, abstain from consuming alcoholic bever- ages, and refrain from committing adultery, fornicating, cheat- ing, or stealing. All of these and many other ethical commandments are very important to Islam. All Muslims are expected to work hard to observe these commandments and

to instill these virtues in themselves and, in the course of doing so, set a good moral example for others. I have focused on the five pillars because they are often identified as the foundation of the faith, and because taken together they are also the dis- tinctive elements that define Islam.

What unites Muslims is substantial indeed. But the ways that any religion manifests itself in practice are always as varied as the personal psychologies and experiences that attempt to understand and absorb the teachings of that religion. People coming from different cultural and social contexts will live out the doctrines of the same faith in very different and varied ways. For instance, those growing up in despotic cultures will tend to understand their religious faith in ways that affirm their authoritarian experience. The same is true for people who grew up within a pluralist and democratic cultural experience; they will tend to understand their religion in ways that affirm toler- ance, personal choice, and greater individual freedom.

Having discussed what all Muslims hold in common, we will now turn to areas where there is a substantial amount of ideological variation within the faith. We will focus in particu- lar on the ideological outlooks and fundamental questions that separate moderate Muslims from puritans. It is important to note that on most theological issues, even those of greatest disagreement, there is a certain amount of shared territory be- tween moderates and puritans; there is hardly a theological question upon which they completely diverge without adher- ing to a set of common assumptions and beliefs. After all, pu- ritans and moderates still belong to the same religion; they believe in the same Holy Book; and they learn the same basic religious precepts. However, despite that degree of overlapping conviction, the beliefs of moderates and puritans often diverge widely because the two groups adhere to worldviews that are fundamentally at odds with each other. Often the differences

between puritans and moderates are due to the amount of em- phasis that each group assigns to principled moral imperatives as opposed to pragmatic political considerations; other differ- ences are frequently due to the amount of emphasis that each group places on the overall objectives of Islam as opposed to the technical specifics of the law.

In the chapters that follow, I will compare and contrast the moderate and puritan views on key issues that not only repre- sent critical tensions within Islam, but that (as we witness in the media every day) are often at the foundation of the prob- lems that Muslims and the rest of the world must contend with on a daily basis. As we go through this discussion, the point to bear in mind is that although on any given topic mod- erates and puritans will often start from the same or similar premises or precepts, for various reasons their ways quickly part and the gap between their ways of thinking becomes in- creasingly wide.

I will start with the most foundational and critical issue in Islamic theology, and also the issue that is at the core and heart of most of the disagreements between moderates and pu- ritans. This is the issue of God and the purpose of creation. The gap between puritans and moderates goes back to variant conceptions of the Divine Being—God’s Self. Although puri- tans and moderates read the same references contained in the Qur’an about God and God’s attributes, their respective un- derstandings of key issues related to God’s nature, what God wants from human beings, the purpose of creation, and the nature of the relationship between God and human beings di- verge very sharply. As we will see, these are not abstract theo- retical disagreements without real consequences to the lives of people. Far from it—these elementary and foundational ques- tions end up being at the very core of the problems that plague the lives of Muslims and non-Muslims today.

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GOD AND

THE PURPOSE OF CRE ATION

T

he relationship of the individual to God is the most signif- icant dynamic in Islam. There is no disagreement that God is immutable, omnipresent, indivisible, and eternal. Belief in the oneness, completeness, and perfection of God is central to the Islamic faith. God has no partners, associates, or equals, and He is neither begotten nor a begetter. God has many at- tributes, but it is fair to say that the attributes most empha- sized in the Qur’an are the mercy and compassion of God. God is the Merciful, the Compassionate, the Kind, the Indul- gent, and the Gracious. God is the Forgiver and the Avenger— the Just and the Punisher. God is Serenity and Peace and the Lover and the Beloved. God is purified and unadulterated Light; God is Beautiful and loves beauty. God is the Generous Giver and the Majestic Inventor; God is the Creator and the source of all goodness; the Sustainer, the Protector, the All-

Powerful, and the All-Knowing.
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The Qur’an emphasizes that human beings must submit to God and yield to God’s commands, and it warns that people should not subjugate God to their own whims. In other words, human beings should seek to understand God as God is, and not invent God as they would like God to be and then whimsically follow their own desires. There is no question

that in this relationship, God is the Superior and Supreme, and human beings must approach God with submission, humility, and gratitude.

This much is clear, and I believe that conservatives, puri- tans, and moderates would be in agreement. But what follows from this? What is the nature of the relationship between God and human beings, and what is the potential of that relation- ship? What does God want from human beings, and what is the ultimate objective behind submitting to God?

Puritans treat the relationship between God and humans as straightforward enough. Humans were created to submit to God through worship, they say. Ritual practice is the demon- strative proof of total submission to God, and so perfection of ritual practice is the ultimate objective. Importantly, since submission to God is hinged on correct ritual practice, sub- mission is not possible unless one accepts Islam. The road to submission is available only through Islam and therefore, only by becoming Muslim does one gain the opportunity to submit to God.

In the puritan conception, the rules of submission are found in the sacred law (the Shari’a). Therefore, it is imperative that the Shari’a be precise and exact on most points. The Shari’a must set out the code for submission in precise and exact terms so that Muslims may obey it, and attain salvation.
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Through meticulous obedience, Muslims will avoid punish- ment in the Hereafter and will enter Heaven. On this point, the puritan conception is nearly mathematical. By performing acts of submission, Muslims earn good points, and by dis- obeying God they earn sins (or bad points). In the Final Day, God will total up the good points and the sins. Heaven or Hell is determined by the balance of points so that a single point can make the difference between Heaven and Hell. Puritans also dwell on Prophetic traditions that claim that in the Final

Day people will be made to walk on a thin rope, and then, los- ing their balance, people will fall into either Hell or Heaven. Moderates, however, challenge the authenticity of these tradi- tions, which make the fate of human beings in the Hereafter a by-product of mathematical equations or the end result of ac- robatics performed on a thin rope. While moderates consider these traditions to be inconsistent with the Qur’an, and no more than historical fabrications, puritans accept the histori- cal veracity of these traditions and read and understand them in a rigid and literal way.

In the puritan paradigm, the relationship with God is formal and distant; it is strictly the relationship between a Su- perior and an inferior. God is to be feared and obeyed, and it is the fear of God’s vengeance that defines true piety. As for God’s mercy and compassion, the puritans believe that these two qualities have already been incorporated into the law. And since God’s mercy and compassion are already contained in the law decreed by God, by definition the law must be con- sidered compassionate and merciful. In the puritan view, it is not up to humans to reflect upon or think about the nature of God’s mercy or compassion or the implications of this Divine mercy and compassion. All humans need to do is study the law, because the law is already the full embodiment of both God’s mercy and compassion. It is as if God took whatever mercy and compassion that human beings might need in life, and put it all in the Divine law. Therefore, if one needs to find, experience, or feel this Divine mercy, all one needs to do is to obey and follow the law. By applying the Divine law, human beings attain a full measure of God’s mercy and compassion— through obedience to law, humans will necessarily enjoy God’s mercy and compassion.