Mincing moderation

The version of Islam most misunderstood

Late last year, US President Barack Obama issued a statement declaring that ISIS was not Islamic. This statement was lauded by millions of Muslims in the west and across the globe. Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia, an American ally and a nation considered by many Muslims to be very much within the fold of Islam, had broken all records in the number of people beheaded, beating ISIS by far. And for what offences, may we ask? The official figures from Saudi Arabia state that more than one in four people – 28 per cent since 1991 – have been executed for drug-related offences. But what gets pushed under the rug is that many death sentences have been given for other crimes not considered the “most serious” – or even illegal at all – under international standards. These include adultery, apostasy, witchcraft and, yes, sorcery.

So what do Muslim “moderates” mean when they declare ISIS to be un-Islamic? What are they referring to? I recently posted this very news item on my Facebook timeline — of how ISIS and Saudi Arabia have similar interpretations of Islamic law. Of course, many “moderate” Muslims were fuming. But when I mentioned that both Saudi Arabia and ISIS award the death penalty to apostates, blasphemers, adulterers and witches, the rebuttal came with references to ISIS not following due process in determining the guilt of the subject being executed. So here we are. That is moderation for some Muslims. So when Muslims say ISIS is not Islamic, it is not always a negation of executing apostates, blasphemers and other “sinners”, but rather many so called “moderates” in the Muslim world only oppose ISIS because they may perhaps view them as neither having the authority to dispense Islamic justice nor dispensing this according to due process as prescribed in Islamic law.

I can still understand this sentiment among many Muslims. Surely, ISIS must be breaking some procedure in Islamic jurisprudence if in fact qualified jurists are claiming that ISIS is not Islamic. But does the vast audience in the west understand this distinction? When we listen to certain groups in the US such as the Ahmadiyya community advocate “love for all and hatred for none”, must we not take into account that homosexuality is in fact considered an abomination in the Quran even if some Muslims may not agree in a punishment for it? When the Taliban’s swift punishment of a young girl was broadcast on TV in Pakistan, many moderate Pakistanis called it barbaric. The visual of a girl being whipped for fornication was condemned by all moderate voices. But was it not Ansar Abbasi himself who took offense on live TV when this form of punishment was called barbaric? The outright response was that this was a punishment prescribed in Islam and calling it barbaric was in fact insulting and against the law in Pakistan. Surely, there was something that the Taliban were doing that was Islamic, and therefore the watered down condemnation was that the Taliban had no authority and there were certain “technicalities” that were not followed. So we could safely say to the west that the Taliban in the video did not represent Islam. The viewers in the west need not be told that it was due to a technicality. But is this not intellectual dishonesty? And are we not deceiving ourselves when we promote this narrative under the garb of moderation?

And this approach is not just limited to the criticism of the Islamo-fascist outfits such as Al-Qaeda, the Taliban or ISIS. Moderate Muslims have, by and large, promoted a moderate narrative of Islam, perhaps not even knowing themselves that it is more reflective of the ethos of our times, this zeitgeist that we think Islam fits so well with, rather than what Islam truly may be. One striking example is the claim by many prominent Islamic leaders and clerics, when they come to speak on forums and on the media that the following verse in the Quran denounces killing and equates the slaying of one human life to that of genocide against the entirety of mankind: “If anyone slays a person, it would be as if he slew the whole people; and if any one saved a life, it would be as if he saved the life of the whole people.” The verse being referred to is in the 5^th chapter of the Quran (Surah Al Maidah) and the full text according to one translation reads:

“Because of that, We decreed upon the Children of Israel that whoever kills a soul unless for a soul or for corruption [done] in the land, it is as if he had slain mankind entirely. And whoever saves one, it is as if he had saved mankind entirely. And our messengers had certainly come to them with clear proofs. Then indeed many of them, [even] after that, throughout the land, were transgressors.”

Now what is omitted, overlooked or just hidden from the general public when this verse is quoted is that it’s written in the past tense and is clearly referring to what was ordained to “the Children of Israel”, the Jews who, according to Islam, received an earlier set of scriptures. And what is also many times not mentioned is that the very next verse actually does address Muslims and is in fact a warning to non-Muslims:

“Indeed, the penalty for those who wage war against Allah and His Messenger and strive upon earth [to cause] corruption is none but that they be killed or crucified or that their hands and feet be cut off from opposite sides or that they be exiled from the land. That is for them a disgrace in this world; and for them in the Hereafter is a great punishment.”

What we have here is a mincing of moderation. Clearly all narratives of moderation given to the west might not be accurate. Not all of those who are promoting Islam as a moderate and peaceful religion are being honest in their approach. What cannot be accepted is the intellectual dishonesty and deception being practised by many apologists of Islam when Islamic text is misinterpreted and a false impression promoted. If we are to confront Islamic extremism globally and intolerance within many Muslim societies, we need to come clean on how we are to address extremism and the threat of ISIS and the Taliban. The reason why these groups continue to grow is that there is a misunderstanding in the west and in moderate circles in the Muslim world about criticism of the Taliban, ISIS. This pertains to even certain Salafist Muslim organisations that are promoting their creed in madrassas across the Muslim world and even in Europe and North America. Disguised as critics of ISIS and the Taliban, many of these groups are in fact supporters of both the text and the overall strategies of these terrorist groups. In fact, what they disagree on is often the legitimacy of ISIS and the Taliban to dispense Islamic justice.