Silenced: How Apostasy and Blasphemy Codes Are Choking Freedom Worldwide (62 page)

In this book, we do not analyze the development of notions of apostasy and blasphemy in Islamic or other history, nor do we assess their systematic treatment in Islamic jurisprudence and theology. Our concern is to survey the contemporary use of these notions to justify worldly punishments. Clearly, however, one important step in limiting or stopping their application to repress political and religious freedom is to show that such temporal punishments are not required by Islam. Consequently, we have asked three noted Muslim scholars to address this issue. They all condemn disrespect for others’ beliefs, but they argue that Islam does not require temporal punishments for such offenses or purported offenses. Two of these essays are given in
part IV
, and one, “God Needs No Defense,” by the late Kyai Haji Abdurrahman Wahid—the former president of Indonesia, the world’s largest Muslim country, and head of Nahdatul Ulama, the world’s largest Muslim organization—is the book’s foreword.

Wahid outlines the nature of belief itself and argues eloquently that God does not need our defense from human blasphemy or, indeed, anything else. Moreover, those who seek to force their limited understanding on others may themselves be committing blasphemy and certainly coarsen Muslim society. He holds that the origins of blasphemy restrictions lie in the political ramifications of early Islam, when apostasy was tantamount to desertion from the caliph’s army. In today’s very different situation, temporal punishments for blasphemy and apostasy threaten not only religious minorities but also the right of Muslims to speak freely about their faith; they also hinder faith itself, which always includes growth and seeking for the truth.

In
chapter 14
, “Renewing Qur’anic Studies in the Contemporary World,” the late Professor Abu-Zayd, who was on the receiving end of extremist
attacks and at one point was forced to flee his native Egypt, emphasizes that charges of apostasy and blasphemy are “strategically employed to prevent reform of Muslim societies” and “confine the world’s Muslim population to a bleak, colorless prison of sociocultural and political conformity.” He stresses the enormous social, cultural, and theological diversity in contemporary and historical Islam and outlines the patterns of interpretation used by Muslims. In particular, he argues against an “ahistorical” understanding of Islam and, while carefully never reducing Islam to history, stresses that we need to understand “its historical context … how it emerged and developed within Arabia and other parts of the world.” Only then can we understand how Islam should be manifest in our own situation and “liberate the ‘deep substance’ of the Holy Qur’an’s message.”

In
chapter 15
, “Rethinking Classical Muslim Law of Apostasy and the Death Penalty,” Abdullah Saeed, some of whose writings have been banned in his native Maldives, emphasizes that current human rights discourse is not merely a Western concern: “It is shared by a large number of Muslims as well.” He agrees with Abu-Zayd on the need to understand the political context of early Islam, in particular, the “post-prophetic period against which the classical Islamic law of apostasy was formulated” and which has “played a significant role in the development of this law and associated restrictions on freedom of religion.” In that setting of armed conflict among communities, to leave Islam and the Muslims and their allies was to join the opposition; hence, an apostate was “perceived to have automatically joined the non-Muslim side” and “deemed a serious social and political threat to the whole community.”

Similarly, the Abbasids curtailed theological debate lest it clash with their state ideology and thus their claim to legitimacy. Hence, “apostasy was more akin to treason,” and its punishment was due to its association with treason and rebellion. In contrast to these earlier settings, Muslim communities are not now closed tribes; Muslims move from one area to another, and from country to county, and often live among non-Muslims. Hence, apostasy is no longer akin to treason, is not a violation of state orthodoxy, and should not be subject to laws akin to those against treason.

From these brief essays by skilled scholars, we can see not only that Islam does not require temporal punishments for blasphemy and apostasy but also that such punishments can be understood as opposed to Islamic principles. Countering the use of such accusations and punishments in the Muslim world and the current attempts to spread them to the rest of the world, far from being an attack on Islam, can be seen as a defense of Islam, according to some of its leading scholars.

NASR HAMID ABU-ZAYD

The events of 9/11 and subsequent terrorist violence have stimulated tremendous interest and concern regarding the sociopolitical and intellectual conditions of the Muslim world and how they impact the West. Yet confusion about the “true” nature of Islam, and the threat we are facing, remains prevalent among Western policy makers, journalists, and the general public. To a substantial extent, this confusion among Western observers arises from the fact that Muslim fundamentalists deliberately and consistently promote a “reading” of Islam whereby every sociopolitical issue must be viewed through a suffocatingly narrow theological lens. As a result, all too many analysts in the West have displayed the unfortunate tendency to conflate the religion of Islam with “Muslims” and “the Muslim world,” employing these terms loosely and interchangeably when describing a variety of pathologies that afflict contemporary Muslim societies. This, in turn, has the effect of converting sociopolitical controversies into theological ones, and thereby generating within non-Muslims a profound unease with and mistrust of Islam and its adherents, as well as blindness on how to address the problem of Muslim radicalism.

Promoting the notion of a single unified entity called the
ummah
, the “Community of Believers,” Muslim fundamentalists ignore the enormous social, cultural, and theological diversity that exists both within and between the world’s various Muslim-majority states. Even within the Arab Middle East, Saudi Arabia’s official Wahhabi Islam is highly distinctive and characterized by numerous features completely at odds with the traditional Islam historically practiced by most inhabitants of Mecca, Medina, and the wider Arab and Islamic world. The Wahhabis, like other Muslim fundamentalists, propagate the naive concept of an ideal and ahistorical Islam, which is narrowly defined, restrictive, legalistic, monolithic, compulsory, and supremacist vis-à-vis not only those of other faiths, but
even the vast majority of Muslims, who remain traditional in their beliefs. This version of Islam is that of the “sword,” as is prominently displayed in the flag of Saudi Arabia. The Islam of mercy, compassion, and profound spiritual devotion, which regards the world’s cultural and religious diversity as a divine blessing, is far beyond the reach of the fundamentalists’ narrow vision.

Indonesia’s former president, Kyai Haji Abdurrahman Wahid, rightly identified this “extreme and perverse ideology in the minds of fanatics”—widely propagated throughout the world, with the aid of Arab petrodollars—as the source of a compelling threat not only to the West but also to Muslims and Islam itself: “This crisis of misunderstanding—of Islam by Muslims themselves—is compounded by the failure of governments, people of other faiths, and the majority of well-intentioned Muslims to resist, isolate and discredit this dangerous ideology. The crisis thus afflicts Muslims and non-Muslims alike, with tragic consequences. Failure to understand the true nature of Islam permits the continued radicalization of Muslims world-wide, while blinding the rest of humanity to a solution which hides in plain sight.”
¹

It is imperative that Muslims and non-Muslims alike free themselves from the framework of the fundamentalists’ monolithic discourse on Islam. Otherwise, we will either misjudge Islam by conflating it with the dominant discourse of the radicals—just as Dutch parliamentarian Geert Wilders, in his video
Fitna
, mirrors the ideology of Osama bin Laden—or we will adopt an unrealistic and apologetic stance, decontextualizing Islam from past and present circumstances, so as to convince ourselves that it is “purely a religion of peace,” divorced from the violence so often committed in its name.

The first view maintains that Islam is evil, dangerous, and incapable of being reformed. This “anti-Islam discourse” mirrors and echoes the Islamist viewpoint, which is thus taken for granted as representing the one and only “true” Islam. The second approach is equally unrealistic, presenting Islam as a well-defined ethical, spiritual, and purely idealistic ahistorical religious phenomenon. The problem with this approach is that it totally ignores the reality on the ground in the Muslim world, where radicals have often succeeded in donning a mantle of religious authenticity and are rapidly advancing toward their goal of “welding” Islam to their virulent sociopolitical ideology.

Rather than fall into the trap of either demonizing or idealizing Islam and Muslims in general, we must realistically assess conditions in the Muslim world and develop a balanced, mature understanding of Islam itself, consistent with the needs of humanity and life in the modern world.

One highly effective way to accomplish these objectives is to reject the fundamentalists’ dogmatic framework and instead locate Islam within its historical context in order to understand how it emerged and developed within Arabia and other parts of the world. In particular, this requires us to approach the Qur’an, Islam’s foundational scripture, from an objective historical perspective, examining how it was transmitted, propagated, codified, and ultimately
canonized. Through this process, we can begin to determine the “spheres” and limitations of the meanings it provides and thus ascertain its significance within the context of various contemporary societies, free of extremist dogma and the ideology of religious hatred, yet richly imbued with moral and spiritual import.

Such a mature, spiritual, and “contextualized” understanding of the Qur’an will displace the fundamentalists’ monolithic and ahistorical worldview. Widely disseminated, it will allow pluralism and tolerance to become the dominant discourse within Muslim societies worldwide. This understanding also represents an appropriate way to respond to criticism of Islam, the Qur’an, and the prophet. Intellectually sound responses that convey the spiritual message of Islam should be employed rather than angry rhetoric, which only encourages violence.

According to Islamic belief, the Qur’an is the speech of God, which conveys the “message” revealed to humans through Muhammad, who was the messenger of God, and human himself. A message represents a communicative link between a speaker and recipient, delivered via a code or linguistic system. Without such a code, messages will not be intelligible to recipients. In the case of the Qur’an, the Arabic language—the human code of the recipient—is the code of communication between the Divine and humans, simply because the Divine code, if any, is unlikely to be comprehended by humans. Besides, the message was not intended for the recipient (Muhammad) alone; rather, it was meant to be transmitted to the recipient’s community and beyond. Therefore, it had to be comprehended by the Arabic-speaking community of Mecca and the Arabian Peninsula in general. “We never sent a messenger but with the language of his people, that he might make it clear for them,” states the Qur’an (14:4).
²

Since the speaker, God, cannot be the object of scientific study, it is only possible for scholars to approach the message as encoded in the language of the recipient and his community. To accomplish that objective, scholars need all available information about the first recipient, Muhammad, and his surrounding community. In other words, scholars must begin their analysis of the Qur’anic message by studying its contextual reality and seventh-century Arab culture. “Reality” here refers to the sociopolitical conditions that encompassed those who were addressed by the Qur’an, including its first recipient, and which framed their lives, thoughts, and actions. Culture includes the conceptual framework embodied in a language, in this case, the language in which the Qur’an is expressed.

To analyze the Qur’anic message by studying its sociopolitical and cultural reality is to start with empirical facts. The scholarly analysis of such facts can help
us achieve an accurate understanding of the Qur’an, including the realization that the Qur’an is a product of seventh-century Arab culture.

The overarching reality, however, is far more complex than this. While arising within the particular seventh-century culture of Arabia, the Qur’an was taken to heart by its recipients and in turn produced a
new
culture, imbued with profound spiritual as well as sociopolitical and cultural dimensions. The Qur’an’s linguistics exhibit a number of unique characteristics that were widely acknowledged and admired by contemporary Arabs, including some of Muhammad’s opponents. From this uniqueness emerged the notion of the absolute “inimitability”—
i’jaz
—of the Qur’an.

Although it is necessary to analyse and interpret the Qur’an within the contextual environment in which it originated, the understanding of the Qur’an possessed by the first and subsequent generations of Muslims should by no means be considered absolute or final. The specific linguistic encoding dynamics of the Qur’an allow an endless process of decoding. In this process, we should not simplify or ignore its contextual sociopolitical and cultural meaning; in fact, this “meaning” is vital to indicate the direction of any “new” or contemporary message of the text. This direction facilitates our transition from the text’s literal “meaning” to its “significance” in any given sociocultural context, including the present. It also enables the interpreter to correctly and efficiently extract the “historical” and “temporal” elements of the message, which carry no significance in the present context.