Question 806 - The Enlightening Answer Across the Ether, Vol 7

Ahmed al-Hasan Response:

In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful. Praise be to Allah, Lord of the worlds, and may Allah send prayers upon Muhammad and the family of Muhammad, the Imams and the Mahdis, and grant them peace. First: Al Imran: ‘Indeed, the religion with Allah is Islam. Those who were given the Book did not differ except after knowledge had come to them, out of transgression among themselves. Whoever disbelieves in the signs of Allah-indeed, Allah is swift in reckoning’ [Al Imran 3:19]; ‘Do they seek a religion other than Allah’s, while whoever is in the heavens and the earth has submitted to Him, willingly or unwillingly, and to Him they will be returned?’ [Al Imran 3:83]; ‘Whoever seeks a religion other than Islam, it will never be accepted from him, and in the Hereafter he will be among the losers’ [Al Imran 3:85]. The meaning is: ‘Do they seek a religion other than Allah’s, while whoever is in the heavens and the earth has submitted to Him, willingly or unwillingly, and to Him they will be returned? Say: We believe in Allah and in what was sent down to us and what was sent down to Abraham, Ishmael, Isaac, Jacob, and the Tribes, and in what Moses, Jesus, and the prophets were given from their Lord. We make no distinction between any of them, and to Him we submit. Whoever seeks a religion other than Islam, it will never be accepted from him, and in the Hereafter he will be among the losers’ [Al Imran 3:83–85]. Verse 84 of Surat Al Imran clearly explains the meaning of Islam in these verses: submission to Allah and to Allah’s vicegerent in His earth in every age, appointed according to the law of Allah’s vicegerency in His earth that has existed since the first day of the first human being on this earth-the prophet of Allah Adam (peace be upon him), whom Allah appointed as a vicegerent in His earth. These verses are not concerned with marginalizing anyone or passing judgment on anyone. They are concerned with explaining the law of faith accepted by Allah: submission to Him and to His vicegerent in His earth. But if you consider the establishment of a law of faith to be marginalization of others who do not accept it, then your words mean that all adherents of a religion-inasmuch as they have a law of faith-marginalize everyone else. Indeed, the matter extends to every group that believes in a particular idea. Second: al-Tawbah: ‘Fight those who do not believe in Allah or the Last Day, who do not forbid what Allah and His Messenger have forbidden, and who do not profess the religion of truth, from among those who were given the Book, until they pay the jizyah by hand while humbled’ [al-Tawbah 9:29]. The meaning is: the Quran is an integrated whole. What the Wahhabis do to advance their false doctrines and their rulings permitting the killing of people, and what Christians and others do these days to attack the Quran, is the act of severing verses from a book that constitutes an integrated whole, from which no part can be taken in isolation from the whole or from the remaining parts. Allah has explained in the Quran that it is an integrated whole that cannot properly be divided, and that whoever divides it is a person with an ulterior purpose: either he wants to attack it in an arbitrary, random manner, like someone who says to a person who has said, ‘There is no god but Allah,’ ‘You are an unbeliever who denies Allah’s existence because you said, “There is no god,”’ or he is a person who wants to promote a corrupt doctrine or ruling for a purpose of his own, as the Wahhabis have done. These Quranic verses prohibit this deviant, self-interested conduct of dividing the Quran: ‘…Do you then believe in part of the Book and disbelieve in part? What is the recompense of those among you who do that except disgrace in the life of this world, and on the Day of Resurrection they will be returned to the severest punishment? Allah is not unaware of what you do’ [al-Baqarah 2:85]. Al-Hijr: ‘Those who have made the Quran into parts. So by your Lord, We will surely question them all about what they used to do’ [al-Hijr 15:91–93]. Now let us return to the verse mentioned-al-Tawbah 29-but together with the verses after it, so that we may see why Allah urged the believers to fight here: ‘Fight those who do not believe in Allah or the Last Day, who do not forbid what Allah and His Messenger have forbidden, and who do not profess the religion of truth, from among those who were given the Book, until they pay the jizyah by hand while humbled. The Jews say, “Ezra is the son of Allah,” and the Christians say, “The Messiah is the son of Allah.” That is their saying with their mouths; they imitate the saying of those who disbelieved before. May Allah fight them; how are they turned away? They have taken their rabbis and monks as lords apart from Allah, as well as the Messiah son of Mary, although they were commanded to worship only one God. There is no god but Him. Glory be to Him above what they associate. They desire to extinguish the light of Allah with their mouths, but Allah refuses except to perfect His light, even though the disbelievers dislike it. He is the One who sent His Messenger with guidance and the religion of truth to make it prevail over every religion, even though the polytheists dislike it’ [al-Tawbah 9:29–33]. Thus Allah urges fighting them because they are the ones who began the war: ‘They desire to extinguish the light of Allah with their mouths, but Allah refuses except to perfect His light, even though the disbelievers dislike it.’ I do not think that inciting the killing of another, preparing to kill another, or readying the means to kill another is not war; and I believe that their desire to extinguish Allah’s light with their mouths may include these things and more. Even if the preceding verses admit discussion and differing interpretations and are ambiguous, there is a clear, decisive verse showing that Allah urges the believers to fight those who fight them and forbids the believers from committing aggression against others; the ambiguous is referred back to the decisive. The Most High said: ‘Fight in the way of Allah those who fight you, but do not transgress. Indeed, Allah does not love the transgressors’ [al-Baqarah 2:190]. Moreover, the conduct of the Messenger Muhammad (may Allah send prayers upon him and his family) is clear: the Jews-who are People of the Book-lived safely with him in Medina, and he did not harm them until they began to fight him and assist those who fought him (may Allah send prayers upon him and his family). It must also be noted that Islam and the divine religion do not consider religion separate from politics. Rather, governance and politics are part of religion. Consequently, many verses in the Quran are military laws explaining the rights of a soldier in battle and what he is permitted to do toward those fighting him. The believer does not kill-even one who fights him-except by Allah’s command, so that he may be rewarded. For this reason Allah legislated for believers on the battlefield, in Quranic verses, the killing of those fighting them, just as states now, and before now, enact laws for their armies explaining the rights of their soldiers on the battlefield and what is and is not permitted, and so forth. Third: ‘You will find others who wish to be secure from you and secure from their own people. Whenever they are returned to the trial, they are plunged back into it. If they do not withdraw from you, offer you peace, and restrain their hands, then seize them and kill them wherever you find them. Against those We have given you clear authority’ [al-Nisaʾ 4:91]. Where is the problem in this verse? It urges fighting the hostile disbeliever who does not restrain his hand from harming the believers. In addition, the preceding verse also explains that it is permissible to make peace with one who seeks peace, does not fight the believers, and does not seek to harm them: ‘Except those who join a people between whom and you there is a covenant, or who come to you with their hearts shrinking from fighting you or fighting their own people. Had Allah willed, He could have given them power over you and they would have fought you. If they withdraw from you, do not fight you, and offer you peace, then Allah has made no way for you against them’ [al-Nisaʾ 4:90]. Fourth: ‘When you meet those who disbelieve, strike their necks until, when you have thoroughly subdued them, bind them firmly. Thereafter either release them as a favor or for ransom, until the war lays down its burdens. That is so. Had Allah willed, He could have taken vengeance upon them, but it is so that He may test some of you by means of others. Those killed in the way of Allah-He will never cause their deeds to be lost’ [Muhammad 47:4]. The meaning is: this verse explains some of the rights of believing soldiers on the battlefield during war. They have the right to kill the disbeliever who fights them. It also explains that they have the right to take prisoners and gives them freedom in dealing with prisoners: they may either release them without compensation, exchange them, ransom them, and so forth. So where is the problem in this verse? We have said that the Quran is a divine law not merely for worship; it also explains politics, divine governance, the rights of the believers, what is incumbent upon them, and so forth. Fifth: whoever says that woman has been wronged by a particular legislation, such as inheritance or testimony, must explain to us his scale and standard of measurement on whose basis he determines justice and injustice, and on whose basis he consequently decided and asserted that woman must be equal to man in everything, even though we all see that woman is not equal to man in everything. Furthermore, whoever wants to criticize a particular enactment within a legal and legislative system must consider that enactment as a part of the system and not sever that part and treat it in isolation from the system as a whole. At the least, one is supposed to consider women’s rights and duties under the divine law, rather than looking only at the rights and saying that woman was given fewer rights than man in the divine law. Why does he not look at the duties and say that man was burdened with more duties than woman in the divine law? For example, consider two people: you tasked one of them with constructing a building five stories high and the other with constructing one ten stories high. Would it be just to give them the same quantity of building materials and the same amount of money for construction? If you gave the person responsible for ten stories twice what you gave the person responsible for five, would it be valid for someone to come and say, ‘You are unjust because you did not make the two equal, although both work for you’? I believe that whoever says that woman has been wronged by this legislation speaks and decides offhandedly, far removed from precise scholarly investigation.