Published in Daily News Monitoring Service on February11, 2004
The dogmas of Fatwa and Sharia Laws still dominate
million of Muslim lives
No doubt, early Islam possessed many fine and noble attributes. But Islam
couldn't have swept Arabia and its adjacent lands so fabulously if Sharia
Laws and Fatwa had been the models of Islamic edicts at that time.
It is an irony to iron-out the deep wrinkles of Islam, we know today.
Corrupted beliefs are too profoundly ingrained in Islam. The dogmas of Fatwa
and Sharia Laws still dominate million of Muslim lives and the vulnerable
ones get succumb to Fatwa's claws.
A year before his death and before the Koran was compiled, Prophet Muhammad
made his last pilgrimage from Medina to Mecca. There He made a great sermon
to his people. The sermon breathed a spirit of generosity. The Muslims
created a society more free from widespread cruelty and social oppression
than any society had ever been in the world before.
But that was then - the prophetic Islam. Today, Islam encompasses numerous
fragments, interpretations and the dreadful echoes of Sharia Laws. The
Sharia Laws are much heavier on one side. It is the side that is not the
Koran but the Hadith. It might surprize the readers that "stoning to death"
cannot be traced anywhere in the Koran, but it is profusely enshrined
in the pages of the Hadith. Obviously the Hadith narrators borrowed it from
a famous story in the Christian Bible - the New Testament, and passed it in
the name of Prophet Muhammad.
The story (John: 8) tells us that some Jewish crowd brought a woman who had
been caught in adultery. They made her stand before Jesus, and then said to
him: "Now, master, this woman has been caught in adultery, in the very act.
According to the Law, Moses commanded us to stone such women to death. Now,
what do you say about it?' After they persisted in their questioning, Jesus
finally straightened up and said simply, "Let the one among you who has
never sinned throw the first stone at her."
The Hadith literature is imposingly believed to be the words of Prophet
Muhammad, transmitted through his companions. A number of these sayings,
purportedly made in the name of the Prophet, can actually be traced to
Zoroastrian culture, the Christian Bible and even the laws and rituals of
the Byzantine. Deeply merged in it, are the arbitrary laws, induced by the
Muslim emperors and kings of their own. In a manner of speaking, the limited
legislation in the Koran, occupy very little room in the whole canon of
Sharia Laws. A vast bulk of it comes from the Hadith, and significantly from
Bukhari, recorded about 200 years after the death of the Prophet
Islamic history, though not antique, is not immune from history's rubbles.
Within the rubbles are the remains that depict the truth behind the
development of Islamic customs, creeds and laws. We have very little choice
other than to join the events of Islamic rulers. This, in fact, is the only
way to approaching the mysteries of the Sharia Laws.
While we take comfort in the strength of Islam as the torchbearer during the
'Dark Ages', the compilations of the Sharia Laws and their origins are
merged with conspiracy and administrative convenience. History's mystery is
that the Sharia Laws never existed during the Caliphates of 'Rashidun'. This
period started with the death of Prophet Muhammad and continued about 30
years. Four Caliphs prevailed during this period.
The compilation of the Koran started with Omar, the second Caliph and
completed by Othman, the third Caliph. Obviously, there was none who could
claim to know more about Islam than these Caliphs. So what about Sharia Laws
and Fatwa? Was there any Ulema superseding the Caliphs? Obviously the
perception of Sharia Laws did not exist during their periods. Whatever they
did, that too crept into Sharia Laws and gained the seal of Islam.
Then started the caliphates of the Umayyads in 660 AD and ended in 750 AD.
During these 90 years of caliphate, there were 13 Caliphs ruling the Islamic
domains from this dynasty. Caliph Abd-al Malik had "Dome of the Rock" built
in Jerusalem. He then encouraged the shifting of the rituals of Hajj from
Mecca to Jerusalem. His son, al-Walid, financed the building of the Mosque
near the Dome in 711 AD. He named it al-Aqsa, and proclaimed its divinity to
Prophet Muhammad in a brilliant way to attracting the pilgrims from Mecca to
Jerusalem.
Business and economic interest topped more to their inspiration than the
perspiration of introducing Sharia Laws. Their administrative centre was in
Damascus but the centre of Islamic traditions was in Medina. Here Malik
ibn-Anas, a companion of the prophet, had high respects as the authority on
Islamic matters. But it was not a hesitation to Hazaz ibn-Yussouf, the
governor of Iraq, to threat Malik ibn-Anas. He was bullied to have his skull
crushed under a grinder if he complained too often about Umayyads' way of
doing things that deviated from Koranic laws. Obviously, when Malik ibn-Anas
was not spared from threats of the Caliphs at that time, did the Umayyads
care for any opinion of those impoverished Ulemas?
History tells us that the Caliphate of Harun ar-Rashid marks one of the
great periods of Islam. Ironically, until the death of Harun ar-Rashid in
809 AD, there was nothing like 'Fatwa' or 'Sharia Laws' in the Muslim
domain. Even when appointing Harthama as the governor of Khorasan, Harun ar-Rashid
gave him a copy of the Koran and not a book of Sharia laws.
The crawling of Sharia Laws into Islam, spans over sever centuries. There is
a long history behind Sharia Laws becoming Islamic paradigm. In short it
started after 809 AD. About seven years before his death, Harun ar-Rashid,
the Caliph of Baghdad, made a Will. His eldest son al-Amin, was given the
caliphate and the Arab lands. His other son, al-Ma'mun, from a Persian
concubine, got the Persian territories and not the Caliphate.
Al-Ma'mun could not compromise with his father's Will. Consequently, with
the help of Iranian army from Khorasan, he marched into Baghdad and had his
brother al-Amin killed. As a result, this brutal murder caused severe
antagonism between the Arabs and the Iranians.
Obviously, trusting the Arabs was totally out in Al-Ma'mun's strategy. After
realizing that it would not be safe to depend solely on the Khorasani army,
Ma'mun decided to have mercenaries. The Central Asiatic Turks, the only
people easily approachable and sufficiently numerous, were recruited into
the army of the caliph including the administrative positions. Invariably,
this provoked enormous tensions in Baghdad.
The rapid growth of Turkish influence in the administration, court ,and army
eventually made the Caliph merely a puppet in the hands of the Turkish
generals. He remained banished in Samarra - far away from Baghdad. With his
absence from the power-point, Islamic laws started brewing in the cauldron
of the Turks - basically, Nestorian Christians with extended ties to Rome.
The Popes in Rome never viewed Islam with the ideals of Jesus. To them,
Islam was a threat to Christianity and papal power.
The Turkish judges and high-ranking officers had very little knowledge about
the new religion of Islam. Besides, corrupting Islam with the elements of
Papal practices was conducive to their interest. To understand the scenarios
of Islam's Sharia Laws and Fatwa, it would be helpful for the Muslims to
look at the Christendom and go back a few centuries of early Christianity.
Peter was one of the twelve disciples of Jesus. We find, in the development
of Papacy, a hierarchy or ruling body of clergy headed by a bishop. And in
time, the Bishop of Rome, claiming to be a successor to Peter, was
acknowledged as the supreme Bishop - the Pope.
In fact, the Bishopric began to function in a kind of monarchical system.
With the passage of time, an era of religious persecution resulted in
abuses, murder, robbery, torture and the slow death of thousands who dared
believe differently from the church. Freedom of religious expression was
considered heretic and was brutally stifled.
A system of expressing Papal power was introduced. A dreadful power of the
Pope was the issuance of the 'Bull' - a Papal ordinance to anyone in the
Christendom to explain before a religious court.
Let us now return back to Islam. By the tenth century the traditional
material of Muslims had swollen beyond all manageable proportions and
critical sifting became essential for the administration of the empire. As a
recourse, the Islamic rulers looked towards Europe and were thrilled to
discover the effectiveness of the Roman Pope's power in the name of
religion. His instrument of promulgating the 'Bull' transformed into 'Fatwa'
in the Sharia Laws.
Now the religious hypocrisy, borrowed from Rome, was more powerful in
quelling down any decedent than the power of army. Any innocent people could
have been charged and punished with treason or heresy. This atmosphere
generated a class of professionals and was called the "Ulema" towards the
dying days of the Abbasid dynasty.
The Ulemas often referred to Prophet Muhammad's sayings and deeds in their
Fatwa. After two hundred years after his death, there were no significant
records of those sayings. As a result, a new investigative euphoria evolved
and certain legislation was traced back to the sayings of the Prophet.
Almost imperceptibly, these circumstances created enormous enthusiasm for
the collections of Prophet Muhammad's sayings by such men as Bukhari and
Muslim.
During the period from 933 to 937, a number of small but influential
mercenary leaders erupted around Caspian and Persian-sea. They were knows as
the Buyids, Ghaznavids and Seljuqs.
The Buyids had taken over the power in Iraq at the invitation of the Caliph.
Systematically, they had formulated their theological and juridical ideas in
the name of Islam. And more than ever the 'Ulemas' functioned as the brokers
for authenticating the Caliphs' rule as consistent with the Prophet's
precedents.
The prevalence of the Sharia Laws, during the dying days of the Abbasid,
deeply soaked the Muslim-minds with the beliefs that these laws are of
divine nature. While in reality, the foundation of Sharia Laws owes its
hallmark to some Papal dogma in Rome, marinated with the hearsay of the
Prophet, befitting for the Buyids, Ghaznavids and Seljuqs.
Despite the fact that the Sharia Laws contain some references to the Koran,
its entirety cannot be revered as the divine laws of Islam. The Koran says:
"Verily We have coined for mankind in the Qur'an all kinds of similitude,
that haply they may reflect" (Az-Zumar 27). Obviously, the belief that all
the Koranic laws are static and universal, is not supported by the Koran
itself.
[Sources: A Manual of Hadith, Maulana Muhammad Ali. The Muslim Creed, A.J.
Wensinck. History of Islamic People, Carl Brockelmann. Classical Islam, Von
Grunebaum. Muslim Theology, Duncan B. Macdonald. The Outline of History, H.G.
Wells.]
mesbah_uddin@hotmail.com
Mesbah Uddin A researcher and a freelance writer has contributed this article
from the United Kingdom.
