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*update: please take notethat my use of specific ayats is to ‘cater’ to the argument parameters set forth by those I am discussing with. I am arguing for the permissibility of things established in Islamic Law. As far as the applicability, this is a secondary concern and not one that is part of the discourse.
It is truly amazing the direction this conversation has taken.
Haroon has responded at Avari/Namehto the conversation with eteraz.
I’m not a writer per se, andI don’t plan on selling any books in my lifetime. With this post I respond now to another accomplished writer whose command of that very same language far outstrips mine. On the other hand, I like to think my comments are grounded in rationality, and I adore bullet style points and responses. It appeals to my computer-science trained brain.
So that is how I will approach this.
Thabet led me to a fierce if somewhat hollow assault on Eteraz by Yursil, of Mind, Body, Soul; be sure to read the comments section for one especially brutal note. However, Eteraz is not one to take any of this bending over — he slams back, both here and then here, making it clear that he wasn’t taken too seriously by Yursil, to Yursil’s disadvantage. (Then Eteraz receives his response; I am upset that Yursil has to qualify what Muslims can tolerate, vis-a-vis the Divine, as the specific respect exclusive, by implication if not deduction, of the traditionalist.)
I would recommend that Haroon first catch up as to what occurred here. My post responded to a direct assault on traditional Islam.
I-S-L-A-M.
The beliefs, laws, rules, guidelines of Islam. My faith.Excuse me for being passionate about it.
Haroon’sboxing-style commentary of the discussion is quite entertaining, but fairly inaccurate. Several questions have been left unanswered by eteraz, and his last comments on my previous post speak volumes as to where the conversation ended.
While he might have his reasons to accuse Eteraz of practicing in, or agreeing to, an imperfect or erroneous Islam (by and large according to his traditionalist model), the debate is not, and has never been, about who is the good Muslim and who is going to heaven and when and after how long in what level of hellfire.
In the first part Haroon speaks of determining a perfect or erroneous Islam, and in the next we are speaking of good or bad Muslims. This is a disingenuous transition for Haroon, as the topic, since Eteraz decided to attack traditional Islam in the post-that-started-it-all-for-me, has been just that:
Is my ‘Islam’ barbaric, backwards and deserving such denigration?
What is the correct ‘Islam’, the ‘progressive’ understanding or the ‘traditional’ one?
The topic was not whether I am a better Muslim, personally, than Eteraz.
The difference (that Haroon chooses to ignore) is that Eteraz presents his personal ideals as the true Islam or at least truer than what he considers ‘traditional Islam’. In his mind,eteraz’s’Islam’ far outweighs us traditional barbarians insocial justice and moral legitimacy.
Of course, his gauge for this judgementis Western humanisticmorality.
Frankly, this seems more of a support-your-blog-buddy type post than I would have expected from Haroon.
Not being aware of the initial attack on traditionalism, and then trying to redefine the debate to one that Haroon is more comfortable with (traditionalists scholars take on history) is quite alarming.
Where did Eteraz bring up these points? Why didn’t he? Because it wasn’t relevant, I wasn’t discussing a utopian society of some time past.
I understand Haroon’s criticism of ‘traditionalism’ in terms of historical idealism, heck I may agree with him. But what does that have to dowith Aqidah, Fiqh,Adab and our basic fundamental understanding of the Quran?
[In his responses, Eteraz is brilliant: He points out that traditional Islam had its strengths, but also its weaknesses, and globalization and modernization are sufficient to force us to change our paradigms.]
Ego-stroking. We know from previous praise where Haroon stands on Eteraz. He may wish to reconsider this opinion.
Honestly Haroon, I appreciate your command of history and the English language, but history as irrelevant to this conversation.
This, to me,is about belief, sacredness, and deviation. Not what occurred a 100 years ago or 200 years ago, or even500 years ago. This is about what occurred 1400 years ago when the Prophet Muhummad (S) received a Divine Message from God.
This is the age olddebate between Muslims who have encountered other civilizations, other ideas they deem superior to their own Tawheed-based philosophy. Is the Quran is a complete metaphor, designed for the uneducated masses… which a new, ‘enlightened intellectual elite’ can rise above or see through?
Islam is from God; the Qur’an is from God; the Sunnah is from God through His Prophet, peace be upon him, and the course of the Prophet’s mission was of course divinely intended. But how do we draw the lines between where context begins and immanence ends? What is reason and what is revelation? What makes the Qur’an God’s word? By which I mean — what type of speech is God’s speech, if God’s speech is being delivered in a language developed by humans over centuries? (I don’t mean to be impious, and I don’t want to be taken impiously. I want to point out the fuzziness of our boundaries.)
Haroon gets a bit more on topic here.
Haroon may have fuzzy boundaries, but he probably would not be surprised by the fact that I am not fuzzy on these subjects at all. The Quran is God’s speech. It is delivered in a language that He declared:
Surely We have revealed it– an Arabic Quran– that you may understand.” Surah Yusuf
Can we say that thisverse is’fuzzy’? Not to me. It means the Almighty gave us the Quran in Arabic at that time and place for a purpose.
A few of the issues at hand.
“Marry women of your choice, two, or three, or four; but if you fear that you shall not be able to deal justly (with them), then only one.” (4:3)
When condemning polygamy, does Haroon join Eteraz? Can we blame this on a ‘fuzzy’ understanding of Arabic, or is there more to it? Thisverse directly deals with polygamy.
Etereaz complains that it is permitted here and here.. Why is there even a doubt as to whether it is permitted in his mind?
“And who guard theirprivate-parts – Save from their wives or the (slaves) that their right hands possess.” (23:5-6)
The same, except the topic is slavery. Here we are shown we can expose ourselves to wives and the slaves our right hand posses. Is there doubt to this? Etereaz condemns that it is permitted here and here.. I could understand doubts by a lack of knowledge, but there is no doubt here. This is condemnation.
Allah enjoins you about [the share of inheritance of] your children: A male’s share shall equal that of two females — in case there are only daughters, more than two shall have two-thirds of what has been left behind…. (4:11)
Woman’s inheritance,a condemnation in his original post here.
…party liable is mentally deficient, or weak, or unable Himself to dictate, Let his guardian dictate faithfully, and get two witnesses, out of your own men, and if there are not two men, then a man and two women, such as ye choose, for witnesses… (2:282).
Eteraz complains about the witness of a woman being (according to the traditional understanding, in certain cases) less than a man. The Quran is pretty clear on this above. Do we think time and such have made the Quran less valuable or less clear?
Eteraz already essentiallytosses out hadith for determining anything of substance, so these are direct QURANIC ayats. What is the response? Nothing. Sidetracking issues.
Thereis an outstandingquestion of whatEteraz considers such verses tomean. If he ignores them, then we might as wellbe speaking to the atheist Eteraz that once was. When we don’t have a common ground on even a sacred text we have a problem with terminology, “Muslim” is being misused.
Let’s put aside my original responses on FGM not existing within traditional Islam, Islam providing a means out of slavery (and the West’s debt-slavery replacement program), and finally that the West also puts different norms for female and male dress.
When he criticizes these things, he is in my opinion, directly criticizing God’s word. Does Haroon see this differently? Are we sure this is the man we want to be defending?
Joking or not, should Islam be morphed into something that allows us to casually say:
“There are times when I dont believe in God (its an organic relationship).”
Should the Almighty betreated with such reckless abandon thatHis words areactually mocked and thatHis name is even on the same line as a ‘pimp’? Shouldthe rewards of Paradise be mocked and rejected, whilewestay silent?Is this the man/Islam that Haroon endorses?
Conclusions to these and other questions, for a believing Muslim should be clear.
I recommend Haroon re-read thedialogue with some more context.
And while I love reading his excellentprose (Allah hasBlessedHaroon, and he should be grateful) Ihope he manages to stay on topic.
Here is the post again, Haroon. Brilliant.
An excellent piece found on SunniPath,by Fethullah Gulen, reflecting many things my SheykhAbdul Kerim has said about the West’s “new slavery”:
Ah yes, our critics will say, it may be so, but now there are exchanges of prisoners if there are wars, now the institution of slavery does not exist, so are not the Islamic injunctions, however good, an irrelevance? No, indeed. There is nothing in Islam whose origin is in the commands and guidance of the Quran which can ever become irrelevant. Rather, we would say to these critics: open your eyes, study by what subtle means wars are now conducted, by what cunning devices whole nations are now conquered; how they are reduced to a state of absolute slavery (which is yet not called slavery) and made to devote their whole energies, indeed to dedicate the lives of their children for generations to come, to sustain their masters (who are yet not called masters) in a lifestyle of unbelievable affluence. We say, study how national currencies are bought and sold, how impossible sums of money are lent on terms of extraordinary brutality, not in order to help the poor nations, but in order to permanently entrap them in a state of dependence. To those who say, now there is no slavery, we say look into the faces of the earths poor peasants, striving to grow (in an increasingly barren soil) commodities which are not food for themselves but luxuries for the rich, and only if they have grown enough of these, have they some hope of buying something to eat-but there are still millions of others too poor to be poor peasants, who live upon mountains of urban rubbish, earn from it, eat from it. If you study the expressions of such people, locked in endless, fruitless toil, you will understand that slavery is not an evil that Western civilisation has eradicated, rather one which Western civilization has ably disguised and distanced from itself.
I enjoyed looking into this term I read from Husnu Ali Prince’s comment in one of the NY Times responses.
“Consensus Reality”
An excerpt from Wikipedia
Consider this example: reality is different for people who believe in God than for those who believe that science and mathematics are sufficient for explaining life, the universe and everything. In societies where God-centered religions are dominant, that understanding would be the consensus reality, while the religious worldview would remain the nonconsensus (or alternative) reality in a predominently secular society where the consensus reality is grounded in science.
In this way, different individuals and communities, at different developmental stages, have fundamentally different world views.[1] These are not merely more mature view, but fundamentally different ones, with fundamentally different comprehensions of the world around them, and of the constructs within which they live. Thus, in terms of consensus reality, a society that is (for example) secular and one which believes every eventuality is due to gods and devils, will have very different consensus realities, and their entire beliefs on issues from science to slavery through to human sacrifice may differ in direct consequence because of the differences in consensus concerning the world they live in.
What is your reality?
Cosmology is defined as:
The study of the universe as a whole, of the contents, structure, and evolution of the universe from the beginning of time to the future.
It is indeed a very interesting scientific and philosophical area of study, especially in regards to today’s environment of secular science. As today’s society continues to polarize itself into the ‘atheist’ and ‘theist’ camps, it becomes ever more important to take note of the congruencies present with religion and science.
Consider the example of George Ellis, professor of applied mathematics and cosmology at the University of Cape Town. An accomplished academic, he is a winner of the Templeton Prize and has co-authored work with Stephen Hawking, one of the most famous cosmologists of today.
On the origin of the universe George Ellis has some interesting viewpoints. He demonstrates in numerous ways the idea that the key factors, constants, and laws which defined our universe are unusually set at values which support the creation of life.
One thing which must be kept in mind is that, according to cosmologists, when the universe was first forming the constants and laws which we take for granted today were very much flexible. This means that during the “Big Bang” many numbers could have easily been set at values which would have created a universe with too little matter, too much matter, too much gas, or too strong an affect of gravity. The current set of constants is “unusual” because given the vast possibile values for these constants and laws, it is odd that we live in a universe where everything is set ‘just right’ for life. It is clear that even the smallest changes to certain variables would have resulted in a universe where there were no galaxies, no stars and no planets.
George Ellis (British astrophysicist): “Amazing fine tuning occurs in the laws that make this [complexity] possible. Realization of the complexity of what is accomplished makes it very difficult not to use the word ‘miraculous’ without taking a stand as to the ontological status of the word.”
Before it seems we begin to repeat the Intelligent Design (ID) argument, it is important to realize that there are specific questions raised in analysis of the Big Bang that are not raised in the ID argument with evolution. Of course, there are still possibilities and explanations that atheists can stick to (religously?) for each of the questions and concerns raised by theistic cosmologists, but there is something else I found in George Ellis’s approach which was most fascinating.
Not only does Professor Ellis discuss the possible explanations for such precision (parallel universes, an unknown theory, God), but he does take it a step further to by emphasizing the importance of ethics in relationship to the universe.
As a scientist, he raises the interesting question: were ethics, aesthetics, and “meaning” something hard-coded into the universe, just as some of these cosmological constants have been? If so, they seem to be well outside of science’s boundaries of collection, examination, and definition (much less experimentation). This is, George Ellis says, the very important place for religion and it’s sciences.
It is in defining treatment of man to his fellow man, and living in a congruency with the universe that we find a place for religion. And is this not the Shariah and Islam itself?
Although Ellis takes an extremely pluralistic approach to this topic (regarding various religions), I found the discussion to have special consequences for Muslims. Specifically, I find the concept that ethics and “meaning” are hardcoded into the very definition of the universe (gravity) as directly Islamic. Is it not our belief that the natural state of man is to recognize God and know the generalities of right and wrong? Ellis notes the combined understanding of ethics from all three major faiths to be extremely similar, another pointer to the idea that we have all been receiving the same information. For Islam this is simply a manifestation of the continuing communication between God and man.
The topic itself brings up the interesting point of how society without religion would define ethics, if it even could. It seems clear that even today’s atheists struggle with an ethical standard imposed by cultural and legal limits. It should be made abundantly clear that such vague ethical standards have strong religious roots, owning to centuries of religious influence on their surrounding environment. As atheists become further distanced from those roots we will see new and strange ethical standards become adopted (or could they end up with no ethics at all?)
Having changing ethical standards has many consequences. For example, what does this mean to the moral standards of our forefathers? Can we excuse slavery, apartheid, the holocaust because we begin to define morality for each society, for each generation? Indeed, what does it mean to the morals of any generation if they can simply be superseded by the next? In a godless, ethically malleable society, will the only recognition of our forefathers be of scientific accomplishment, and not of their moral steadfastness? If we can already assume that our ethics are not necessarily universal, then do we have to be ethical at all?
Interesting questions indeed. Of course for the Muslim, awareness that the proper, ethical. way to live has been transmitted to us is a comforting notion.
It is even more comforting (for this Muslim) is knowing that God created every single thing, from all these scientific laws to the laws of right and wrong.
George Ellis is the co-author of “On the Moral Nature of the Universe: Theology, Cosmology & Ethics“
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