The question mark in
the caption above says it all! There is a widespread undercurrent of doubts,
even among Muslims, on the relevance of Islam in the world today. Muslims may
not give expression to those doubts openly, but the doubts do assail a majority
of them.
2. They see that Islam,
as they understand it, prohibits interest; and the highest court in the Muslim
country of Pakistan had even directed its government to realign its economic
policies on that basis. The government was given some two years to do that; but
at the end of the stipulated period the government pleaded its inability. The
matter is dragging on indecisively there for years now!
3. In Islam,
homosexuality is a crime that militates against the divine scheme. The Qur’aan
speaks of an entire people – Prophet Lot’s – destroyed because of their open
advocacy and virulent practice of this crime. But, in this modern world, nation
after nation is coming up to accept the aberration in sexual behaviour as
natural. Same sex marriages are openly celebrated. Open practice of
homosexuality is no longer considered a crime.
4. The Qur’aan says
that natural calamities like the earthquake happen with the knowledge, and
under the direction, of the Creator of all things, Allah. HE uses these to
punish people transgressing divinely laid down law beyond a limit, and to warn
others against such transgression. But the modernists dismiss the Qur’aanic
assertions as superstitious beliefs. They claim that the calamities are
geophysical natural phenomena and have nothing to do with any Intelligent Power
exercising any conscious power over them. They, in fact, tend to deny the very
existence of any such Power!
5. The Qur’aan
prescribes cutting off of hand as punishment for theft and lashes for adultery.
Except for a very few countries like Saudi Arabia, such punishments have been
abolished in all other countries. The Qur’aanic punishments are now considered
barbaric and inhuman.
6. A sister gets half
the share of a brother under the Qur’aanic Law of Inheritance. And, one man’s
evidence is equated to two women’s, for financial transactions, in the Holy
Book. The modern world considers that Islam thus perpetuates an obvious gender
inequality.
7. Mentioned above are
the points, that occur to me presently, on the basis of which modern world
generally considers Islam irrelevant now. Readers may like to apprise me of
other points they have come across. But, in the meantime, let me critically
examine the points mentioned herein above, one by one.
8. First and foremost,
there is the economics question of levying interest on money lent or borrowed.
If this interest is prohibited, the entire banking business, as it now stands,
would come to a grinding halt. Some Islamic countries have obviated this problem
by establishing what they call sharia-compliant
banks. What these banks do is instead of lending money on interest as any other
commercial bank does, they adopt other means like buying their clients’
requirements themselves and handing over these to their clients. For example,
if a client wants to buy a residential flat, the bank will buy it and then give
it to the client for use. The client then repays the bank in several instalments
extending to a longish period of time. By the time all instalments get paid,
the client ends up paying more than what the bank had paid originally for the
flat. The difference could even be more than the total amount of interest that
a commercial bank would have charged for the deal. So, the sharia-compliant bank gets its dues – not as interest, but as its
margin of profit! There are other dubious ways in which such banks carry on
their business by getting their dues anyhow, but nominally not as interest.
9. But is it interest
that Islam prohibits? This is the question that Muslims themselves have
unfortunately failed to examine critically. Their religious leaders have said
that the Qur’aan does not define Ar-Riba
it prohibits. So these leaders have themselves defined it to include interest
in its ambit. But the Qur’aan repeatedly reiterates that it explains or
clarifies everything so that its edicts are easily and clearly understood and
implemented by the common people (refer Qur’aanic Verses 6:38, 16:89, 18:1,
18:54, 41:3, 54:18, 57:17 and there are other such Verses besides). So all
those who say that the Arabic term Ar-Riba
is not defined in the Qur’aan, do in fact contradict the Book they consider
divine and therefore incontrovertible.
10. My studies of the
Holy Book reveal that it does define the term Ar-Riba in Verse 30:39. I have detailed my findings in the book ISLAM
AND INTEREST, the first chapter What
is Ar-Riba of which explains how the said Qur’aanic Verse defines the
term as gain that any party to a transaction contrives or manipulates
to get by usurping the rightful dues, earnings or possessions of others. It is this Ar-Riba so defined – and not interest per se – that is
prohibited in Islam.
11. As regards homosexuality, one need not be extraordinarily
knowledgeable to understand that Nature has imbued the sexual urge in living
beings for the specific purpose of propagating their respective species.
Normally, this sexual urge is heterosexual between males and females, the two
being suitably fashioned for playing their respective roles in propagation of
the species. In such a circumstance, sexual attraction between two persons of
the same sex is obviously an aberration. So long as this aberration remains
shrouded in privacy, the society in general need not be proactively
antagonistic, but if it is practised openly and aggressively, society can ill
afford to simply sit back and wait for its inevitable ill effects. The Qur’aan
speaks of the destruction of the ancient people of Lot, as those people had
become aggressively homosexual en masse. It would be wrong to condone this
aberration as an individual’s natural inclination or orientation. One could
then even say that an individual is naturally inclined or oriented to have
sexual relations with all sexually attractive individuals of the other sex. But
human society, as we know it, cannot bear the burden of such unbridled
heterosexual relations. It will no longer remain human. Homosexuality, if
unchecked, too has similarly the potential to destroy human society.
12. As regards the point raised in paragraph 4 above, it is essentially
an offshoot of the belief in a super-intelligent Creator of the entire universe
and of all things therein. Being the Creator, He has absolute control over
every item of His creation. Naturally, those who do not have this belief,
condemn it as mere superstition. The inevitable question then that arises is as
to why one should have a belief in such Creator. It is a vast subject, which
can only be dealt with in no less than a book. Let me then present you the
online booklet WHY
DO I BELIEVE IN ISLAM. I have tried therein to deal with this question
here as succinctly and briefly as possible. Human knowledge is pitiably
limited. It cannot provide answers to many, many things that happen. A renowned
scientist had once admitted that what scientists are doing is just pick up some
pebbles in the vast seashore of knowledge. They are in no position to predict
accurately when, why, where and how strongly an earthquake will happen next. In
the dismal absence of such wherewithal, mankind cannot but believe in what the
Creator says in revealed Scriptures.
13. The Qur’aanic Verse 5:38 prescribes hand-cutting of a thief as an
exemplary punishment from the Wise Creator. In view of the very next Verse 5:39, this punishment is to be meted out
only to such an incorrigible thief who is unrepentant for his crime or indulges
in it repeatedly despite declaring his repentance of earlier crimes. The
punishment to such a thief has necessarily to be exemplary, so that others,
seeing his amputated arm, are effectively discouraged from committing the
crime. Modern-day governments, in the name of humanitarianism, have very light
penal provisions of imprisonment for a limited period. A hardened criminal
takes it in his stride, goes to prison, and duly resumes his criminal activity
afresh after being released. And, with his ill-gotten wealth, he may grease the
palms of the police, and thus evade imprisonment again. And seeing his apparent
prosperity, others may emulate him. Allah-given law is always better than
man-made laws. So is the Allah-given penal provision of giving lashes to a
person indulging in adultery! This latter punishment is to be meted out in
public. The shame of such a punishment would be an effective deterrent for
anyone inclined to commit the offence. And remember, the crime, to deserve this
punishment, has to be so openly committed as to provide witnesses thereto!
14. A family constitutes the basic unit of society. The Qur’aan confers
on the husband the position of the head of this unit. One cannot but admit that
it is a natural conferment in view of the undeniable fact that he has been
endowed with a greater physical strength than the wife. The Qur’aan, however,
makes it abundantly clear that the wife has rights over the husband just as the
husband has over her. The husband’s authority is only a shade above the wife’s
just as the prime minister, in a parliamentary form of government, has over
other ministers. This slight difference in their respective powers is essential
for the smooth conduct of affairs within this basic unit of society.
15. Along with the conferment as head of the family, the Qur’aan puts the
responsibility of adequately providing for the entire needs of the family on
the shoulders of the husband. That is even when the wife may have her own
source of income! In the circumstance, it serves due ends of justice for a man
to have a greater share in ancestral property than a woman.
16. The Qur’aan, moreover, generally envisages a distinct division of
work between a man and a woman. And their bodies are suitably fashioned
accordingly. This does not mean that a woman cannot do a man’s job. She can,
but the divine scheme apparently is to make it an exception rather than the
rule. In the divine scheme of things, giving evidence on anything, monetarily
related or otherwise, is normally a man’s job. A woman comes in only as an
exception. It is only in such a situation, where she is obliged to do a thing
to which she is not accustomed to, another woman is brought in as an additional
help.
17. Once when I was hospitalised for
some ailment, the doctor remarked that the count of my white blood corpuscles
(wbc) was high and that it was a worrisome factor. I couldn’t understand. The
wbc is the body’s defence mechanism. The more, the better, I said. The doctor
laughed at my ignorance and informed me that the higher wbc count was
indicative of greater infection. God is ingenious, he told me.
18. Allah is indeed ingenious. But the
trouble is, man thinks he is more ingenious!
Mohammad Shafi
Author
of QUR’AANIC STUDIES - A Modern Tafsir
