The Great Theft: Wrestling Islam From the Extremists (39 page)

60:8; 9:108.

6 Qur’an 2:190; 2:205; 3:57; 16:23; 22:38; 28:77; 31:18; 42:40; 57:23.

7 Qur’an 3:31; 2:152.

8 Qur’an 2:165; 7:56; 9:24; 20:39.

9 Qur’an 2:186; 50:16; 56:85.

10 Qur’an 22:40.

11 Qur’an 5:64.

12 Qur’an 9:67; 58:19; 59:19; also see 7:51; 32;14; 45:34.

13 Qur’an 2:272; 6:90; 88:21–22; 12:104; 16:44; 36:69; 38:87; 51:55; 68:52;

73:19; also see 87:9; 80:4

14 Qur’an 25:43; 28:50; 30:29; 45:23; 47:14.

15 Common throughout the Middle East, and in particular in Syria, Jordan, and Pakistan, honor killings are killings where a male family member, often a brother or father, kills a female member of his family, often a sister or daughter, for having engaged in any “inappropriate” sexual relations. Because the inappropriate sexual relations in which the female engaged shamed the family, the act of killing her is said to reinstate her family’s honor in the eyes of society and God.

CHAPTER 7: THE NATURE OF LAW AND MORALITY

1. On the very selective readings of Hanbali sources by Salafi and Wahhabi groups, see al-Sayyid Muhammad al-Kuthayri,
   al-Salafiyya bayn Ahl al-Sunna wa al-‘Imamiyya
   (Beirut: al-Ghadir li’l Tiba’a, 1997), 352–54, 473–501.
   

2. Remarkably, puritan Shi’i movements are no less selective and opportunistic with the Ja’fari school of thought. Despite the sectarian differences, puritan Shi’is and puritan Sunnis, although they are extremely intolerant of one another and de- spise one other, adopt the same substantive positions and reach nearly identical conclusions.
   

3. Sahih al-Buthari
   is a multivolume compendium of Sunna and
   hadith
   ar- ranged by topic. This compendium was collected Muhammad bin Isma’il al- Bukhari (d. 256/870), and it is considered to be the most reliable and accurate collection of Prophetic traditions by Sunni Muslims.
   

4. See the discussion of the al-Ghazali controversy in Chapter 3. 5 Qur’an 88:21–22.
   

6 Al-Suyuti,
Asbab al-Nuzul,
commenting on 2:256. 7 Qur’an 2:256; 10:99; 18:29.

CHAPTER 8: APPROACHES TO HISTORY AND MODERNITY

1. Shi’i Muslims honor and respect ‘Ali, the Prophet’s cousin, and they also ad- mire ‘Umar ‘Abd al-‘Aziz, but they are critical of the first three caliphs because they believe that ‘Ali, as a member of the Prophet’s family, had a stronger claim to governance than they did. The label “Rightly Guided Caliphs” was invented in part as a response to Shi’i criticisms, in order to affirm the equal worth of four caliphs and thus defend Abu Bakr, ‘Umar, and ‘Uthman against Shi’i challenges to their political legitimacy as rulers.
   

2. To name just a few, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Algeria, Tunisia, Sudan, Mauritania, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, and Indonesia all have despotic regimes, and they have abysmal human rights records; and all these countries have produced more than their fair share of puritans.
   

3. At-will employment is a legal expression connoting an employment relation- ship according to which the employer retains or fires an employee at his/her sole
   

will and discretion. Most employment relationships in the United States are at- will.

CHAPTER 9: DEMOCRACY AND HUMAN RIGHTS

1 Among others, Samuel Huntington used the expression “false universalisms” in arguing that the Western belief in the universality of Western values is both im- moral and dangerous. See Samuel Huntington,
The Clash of Civilizations: Re- making of World Order
(New York: Touchstone Press, 1996), 310.

2 Qur’an 17:70.

3 Qur’an 4:97.

4 Qur’an 3:64.

CHAPTER 10: INTERACTING WITH NON-MUSLIMS AND SALVATION

1 Qur’an 49:13.

2 Qur’an 11:118–19.

3 Qur’an 10:99.

4 Qur’an 2:145.

5 Qur’an 5:49.

6 Qur’an 29:46.

7 Qur’an 16:125.

8 Qur’an 3:64.

9 For instance, Qur’an 25:63; 28:55; 43:89.

10 Qur’an 5:2.

11 Qur’an 5:43–48.

12 Qur’an 5:69; 2:62.

13 Qur’an 3:128–29. Also see 88:21–22.

14 Qur’an 22:67–68.

15 Qur’an 21:107.

16 Qur’an 2:105; 3:74; 35:2; 38:9; 39:38; 43:32.

17 Qur’an 22:34.

18 Qur’an 5:69; 2:62.

19 Qur’an 3:199.

CHAPTER 11: JIHAD, WARFARE, AND TERRORISM

1. Christendom, or more accurately Western Christendom, as a legal and theo- logical concept defined by the papal authority in Rome, played a critical role in the four Crusades, which were sanctioned by the pope, and also in what has been called the military missionizing of pagan tribes in the regions of northeastern Ger-
   

   many, the territories of the Slav, Liv, and Lett tribes, and the rest of Eastern Eu- rope. Military missionizing was a polite expression invented by historians to de- scribe the widespread practice, sanctioned by the pope, of forcing pagan and heathen tribes to convert to Christianity. These forced conversions were described by papal authorities and Catholic apologists as defending and extending the lands of Western Christendom. See Geoffrey Hindley,
   The Crusades: Islam and Chris- tianity in the Struggle for World Supremacy
   (New York: Carroll and Graf, 2003), 159–67.
   

2. In the medieval world order, these options were not unusual. The paying of tribute to avoid military conflict was an accepted practice to the extent that when in 1147, in the context of fighting the pagan Slavs, Bernard of Clairvaux urged Christian forces not to accept tribute while stating, “We utterly forbid that for any reason whatsoever a truce should be made with these peoples, either for the sake of money, or for the sake of tribute, until such a time as, by God’s help, they shall be either converted or wiped out”—historians and Christian theologians considered this statement very extreme and problematic. As in the Islamic context, the paying of a monetary sum by the weaker to the stronger party was the usual practice even in concluding peace treaties. See Jonathan Phillips,
   The Crusades, 1095–1197
   (London: Pearson Education, 2002), 71–72.
   

3. On this subject, see Khaled Abou El Fadl, “Islamic Law and Muslim Minori-
   

   ties: The Juristic Discourse on Muslim Minorities from the Second/Eighth to the Eleventh/Seventeenth Centuries,”
   Islamic Law and Society
   1, no. 2 (1994): 141–87.
   

4. On this subject, see Khaled Abou El Fadl, “The Rules of Killing at War: An
   

   Inquiry into Classical Sources,”
   The Muslim World
   89, no. 2 (1999): 144–57; Khaled Abou El Fadl, “Holy War Versus Jihad: A Review of James Johnson’s ‘The Holy War Idea in the Western & Islamic Traditions,’”
   Ethics and International Affairs
   14 (2000): 133–40.
   

5. Qur’an 6:54; 43:89; 36:58. The expression “God has decreed mercy upon God’s Self” is rather ambiguous, and it inspired a considerable debate in the Is- lamic tradition. Muslim scholars agreed that at a minimum the expression is in- tended to emphasize the critical importance of mercy in Islam. If God has committed Himself to be merciful in all matters, those who seek to pursue Godli- ness in their lives must do the same. Confronted by any challenge or problem, they must commit themselves to act in the most merciful way, and they should not be misled by anger, hostility, or vengeance to abandon mercy as the rightful course of action in any given situation.
   

6. Qur’an 5:8.
   

7. Qur’an 5:2.
   

8 For instance, Qur’an 2:190; 5:87; 7:55.

9 Qur’an 2:192–93.

10 Qur’an 2:195.

11 Qur’an 41:34–36.

12 Qur’an 7:199.

13 Qur’an 6:108.

14 Qur’an 22:40.

1. Qur’an 5:64
   

2. For instance, see Qur’an 2:27; 2:205; 5:32. 17 Qur’an 2:27.
   

18 Qur’an 13:25.

19 Qur’an 22:39; 60:8; 2:246.

20 Qur’an 2:190; 2:194; 5:87

21 Qur’an 60:9.

22 Qur’an 8:61.

23 Qur’an 4:90.

24 Qur’an 4:94.

25 Qur’an 4:90.

26 For those interested in this abrogation argument and its logic, see Abid Ullah Jan, “The Limits of Tolerance,” in
The Place of Tolerance in Islam,
ed. Joshua Cohen and Ian Lague (Boston: Beacon Press, 2002): 42–50.

27 Qur’an 6:164; 17:15; 35:18; 39:7; 53:38.

28 Today, Saudi Arabia and to a lesser extent Iran and Nigeria are the only Muslim countries that enforce the stoning penalty. Most Muslim countries have found stoning to be cruel and shocking to the modern conscience. Puritans con- sider this a sign of moral weakness, while moderates consider it to be a form of moral growth.

CHAPTER 12: THE NATURE AND ROLE OF WOMEN

1 On the modern origins of the
mutawwa‘un,
and their often violent practices, see Michael Cook, “The Expansion of the First Saudi State: The Case of
Washm,
” in C. E. Bosworth and others, eds.,
Essays in Honor of Bernard Lewis: The Is- lamic World from Classical to Modern Times
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989), 672–75; and Ameen Fares Rihani,
The Maker of Modern Arabia
(New York: Greenwood Publishing, 1983), 203. William Gifford Palgrave,
Per- sonal Narrative of a Year’s Journey Through Central and Eastern Arabia
(Lon- don: Gregg Publishers, 1883), 243–50, 316–18, reports that during the reign of King Faysal bin Turki (r. 1249–1254/1834–1838 and 1259–1282/1843–1865), in response to a cholera outbreak, twenty-two so-called zealots were selected to combat vice in Mecca and elsewhere. Apparently, this was beginning of the system

of the
mutawwa‘un
. Also see Michael Cook, “On the Origins of Wahhabism,”

Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society
3, no. 2 (1992).

2 On the tragedy, its causes, and its aftermath, see Eleanor Doumato, “Saudi Sex-Segregation Can be Fatal,”
http://www.projo.com/opinion/contributors/con- tent/projo_20020331_ctdou31.1032e23f.html (Mar. 31, 2002); Tarek Al-Issawi, “Saudi Schoolgirls’ Fire Death Decried,”
Washington Times,
Mar. 18, 2002, at http://www
.washtimes.com/world; Mona Eltahwy, “They Died for Lack of a Head Scarf,”
Washington Post,
Mar. 19, 2002, at http://www.washingtonpost

.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A47458 – 2002Mar 18¬Found=true; “Muslims Allow Girls to Burn to Death in So-Called Mod- erate Saudi Arabia,”
The Welch Report,
Mar. 18, 2002, at http://www.welchre- port.com/pastnews_c.cfm?rank=287; “Saudi Police Stopped Fire Rescue,”
BBC News,
Mar. 15, 2002, at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/1874471.stm.

3 Qur’an 5:32.

4 On the doctrine of necessity (
darura
) see Subhi Mahmassani,
The Philosophy of Jurisprudence in Islam,
trans. Farhat Ziadeh (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1961), 152– 59; Mohammad Hashim Kamali,
Principles of Islamic Jurisprudence
(Cambridge, UK: Islamic Texts Society, 1991), 267–81. Also see Khaled Abou El Fadl,
Speak- ing in God’s Name: Islamic Law, Authority and Women
(Oxford: Oneworld Press, 2001), 196–97; Khaled Abou El Fadl, “Constitutionalism and the Islamic Sunni Legacy,”
UCLA Journal of Islamic and Near Eastern Law
1, no. 1 (Fall/Winter 2001–2002): 86–92.

5 Qur’an 33:59.

1. For a systematic analysis of this issue, see Abou El Fadl
   , Speaking in God’s Name,
   170–249.
   

2. The honorific title
   shaykh
   does not always refer to jurists. Sometimes it is a designation given to the elderly or to respected members of society. Every jurist is a
   shaykh,
   but not every
   shaykh
   is a jurist.
   

3. Ali Al-Ahmed, “Author of Saudi Curriculums Advocates Slavery,” http://
   www.arabianews.org/english/article.cfm?qid=132&sid=2, Dec. 4, 2003.
   

4. These domestic workers are typically female and they come from a variety of countries, including India, Bangladesh, the Philippines, and Sri Lanka.
   

5. Puritans ignore the fact that it was not just Western countries that champi- oned the various international conventions prohibiting the practice of slavery. All of the world’s nations became signatories to international treaties prohibiting slav- ery in all its forms. The prohibition of slavery is a
   universal
   ethical norm.
   

6. See Muhammad bin ‘Abd al-Wahhab,
   Mu’allafat al-Shaykh al-Imam
   

   Muhammad bin ‘Abd al-Wahhab: Qism al-Hadith
   (Riyadh: Jami‘at al-Imam Muhammad bin Sa‘ud al-Islamiyya, n.d.), pt. 4, 141–51.
   

7. Al-Sadiq ‘Abd al-Rahman al-Ghiryani,
   Fatawa min Hayat al-Mar’ah al-Mus- limah
   (Beirut: Dar al-Rayyan, 2001): 47, 59–60, 62, 63, 77, 82–83, 86–87, 111– 12, 116–17, 122, 130, 137–38, 146, 149.
   

13 Qur’an 4:32.

14 Qur’an 2:228.

15 Qur’an 9:71.

1. On the active role of women in Medina at the time of the Prophet, see Muhammad Ibn Sa’d,
   The Women of Medina
   (London: Ta-Ha Publishers, 1997). The Prophet’s first wife, Khadija, was much older than he was. After Khadija died the Prophet took several wives, all of whom he married for political reasons or to provide them social security and safety.
   

2. See al-Suyuti,
   Asbab al-Nuzul,
   in his discussion of
   Surat al-Nisa’
   . 18 Qur’an 4:32.
   

19 Qur’an 4:34.

20 Qur’an 13:11; 8:53; 12:11.

21 Qur’an 2:231. These traditions and others discussed below are discussed in the major Qur’anic commentaries and in all of the books on the topic of occasions for revelation. For a source that succinctly summarizes these traditions, see al- Suyuti,
Asbab al-Nuzul,
which mentions these traditions in commenting on 2:229 and 2:231.

22 Qur’an 2:229.

23 Qur’an 2:231.

1. Qur’an 4:19. The occasion for revelation is mentioned in al-Suyuti,
   Asbab al- Nuzul,
   in his discussion of
   Surat al-Nisa’
   .
   

2. This is mentioned in al-Suyuti,
   Asbab al-Nuzul,
   discussing verse 4:4.
   

3. Qur’an 2:229; also see al-Suyuti,
   Asbab al-Nuzul,
   commenting on this verse.
   

4. Qur’an 2:241; also see al-Suyuti,
   Asbab al-Nuzul,
   commenting on this verse.