When all else fails…

There’s the recourse to Islam

By Feb 2011, the Raymond Davis affair had become a persistent headache for the government. He had murdered two Pakistanis, and if that was not bad enough a third had been killed by his ‘rescuers’. The drama had happened in front of eye-witnesses. Of course he had to be allowed to walk free – with his US citizenship and the CIA connection, that much was never in doubt – but there appeared to be no way for the government to let him go without copping severe criticism for selling out. That is, until somebody looked towards Islam for help. Once on this track, it was only a matter of time before enlightenment struck. The rest, as the cliché goes, is history. In what proved to be highly satisfactory for all parties, the diyat law was invoked, and Islam had effected a spectacular rescue.

Of course it was not the first – nor the last – time that the day was saved by Islam. In the 70s, a palatable justification to reverse Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto’s land reforms was proving to be elusive – before seeking inspiration from the right quarters. When it was pointed out that the land reforms were un-Islamic as they infringed on the right to own, use and enjoy property, the Supreme Court had to nod in agreement. Maulana Maududi had shown the way, decades earlier, by opposing Liaquat Ali Khan’s proposed reforms citing the sanctity of private property. (India, with no such recourse to Islam, has had much more success in this matter.)

The power of religion to defend the indefensible is by no means confined to such high profile public cases; instead it extends to domestic disputes as well, which makes it a matter of universal and timeless application. It is not rare that one is absolutely convinced of the correctness of one’s course of action without having any presentable justification for the same. To be able to find a way out of this difficulty is to eliminate a major source of frustration.

Consider, for example, a difficult domestic issue and its disarmingly simple eventual resolution, a charming account of which was narrated to me the other day. A youngish wife, who has a pronounced religious bent, tells her husband in no uncertain terms that she can no-longer bear to live with his parents. When the husband protests that his parents are sick and need to be taken care of, she reminds him that according to Islam his parents are not her responsibility; and furthermore, he is obliged to get her a separate portion, if not a separate house. The husband gets the point, and they shift to their new home. After a few months, the wife’s parents fall ill. She tells the husband that she now needs to relocate to her folks’ house to take care of them. When he reminds her that she was not exactly sensitive regarding the health of his parents, she ends the debate by saying that Islam makes it incumbent upon her to take care of her own parents. The out-witted husband is left licking his wounds.

Thanks to the type of Islamic preaching favoured by the mushrooming professional outfits that are always looking to increase the number of their adherents, more and more people have started profitably looking towards Islam to justify what they would do in a certain situation anyway. This philosophy isn’t unduly burdened by anything outside the strictly ‘legal’ conceptions of rights and duties, and is refreshingly free of any thoughts of the larger humanitarian concerns or of matters of good or bad taste.

A word of forewarning is in order here. With the rising levels of the aforementioned awareness, you will sometimes find your match (or more) in your adversary, who is perfectly capable of turning the tables on you. Let me demonstrate this by employing another true-story that I heard recently: A wife tells his husband not to expect her to do anything for his parents since Islam explicitly defines the scope of her responsibilities, and his parents are outside it. The husband, who is equally enlightened, assures her that he would be perfectly happy if she does justice to her Islamic JD; as for his parents, he intends to exercise his right of polygamy (also given to him by Islam) and find a second wife who would be willing to take care of his parents.

Should you find yourself bettered in an argument like this, don’t despair. Instead, take it as a cue to come up next time with a better Islamic justification for your predetermined course of action. Even if you repeatedly find yourself second-best, you can revel in the fact that you are contributing to the rising intelligence-level of the discourse.