04-03-2006, 07:57 PM
Bismillah
Praise be to Allah Who Created Heavens and Earths, Who Created the universe, King of the Kings, and prayer and peace be upon our leader, teacher, and final Messenger of Allah Mohamed, his household and all Prophets and Messengers. I seek Allah’s Close guidance and assistance to Inspire me with the correct wordings.
Please note that I m not a scholar or near one, I m not but a humble Muslim who is striving to understand the Quran and Sunnah correctly.
To start with, I m not here to examine the reasons of how violence erupted from Muslims or compare between Muslims who resort to violence as first option versus other violent sources around the world. Nor I m going to examine how the surrounding environment affected Muslims’ behaviour. Because as such I will be talking about the attitude and behaviour of around 1.6 billion around the world which would certainly differ from one person to another.
But I d rather like to discuss and see whether or not Islam is a violence oriented religion. And let me make a note here to use the word violence oriented rather than adopting or fostering terrorism. The reason will be explained later Insh a Allah.
To do this, I will divide this piece into 3 points:
1. Islam is a system of life.
2. Rule of Ta`zeer.
3. Fighting /struggling in the name of Allah (Qital/jihad).
1. Islam is a system of life:
It is a system of life, a comprehensive one that includes the given regulation for any aspect as needed. I mean it regulates the interrelation with Muslims, non Muslims, parents, sisters and brothers, next of kin, neighbors, co workers, in peace and in war.
It even covers mannerism in terms of who to visit and eat with and when such as in:
“There is no restriction on the blind, nor any restriction on the lame, nor any restriction on the sick, nor on yourselves, if you eat from your houses, or the houses of your fathers, or the houses of your mothers, or the houses of your brothers, or the houses of your sisters, or the houses of your father's brothers, or the houses of your father's sisters, or the houses of your mother's brothers, or the houses of your mother's sisters, or (from that) whereof you hold keys, or (from the house) of a friend. No sin on you whether you eat together or apart. But when you enter the houses, greet one another with a greeting from Allah blessed and good. Thus Allah makes clear the Signs to you that you may understand.” (Quran 24:61)
“Made lawful to you this day are the good foods. The food (meats) of the People of the Scripture is lawful to you and yours is lawful to them” (Quran 5:5)
2. Rule of Ta`zeer:
Being a system of life that sets rules of even our mannerism, it must ensure as well the safety and security aspects either on the individual or state level.
To this effect, for the safety on the individual level, Islam sets the punishment for each and every possible crime that may be committed by mankind against each other. Note that in Islam, punishments are apparent and must be carried out in public. The whole idea is to deter others from following footsteps of the evil. Islam, being the only accepted and ordained religion from Allah, the Creator Who Created everything and everyone, deals with mankind taking in consideration that mankind carries between his/her ribs good and evil. Our task as human beings is to suppress the evil while foster and let good grow. In some cases mankind fails to do so, thus, in order to live in a stable society, we need an outsider factor that disciplines this evil and puts it to a halt in a serious manner.
According to the statements usually coming from the media, they labele any Muslim who resorts to violence as a terrorist (as far as I understand theyparticularly refer to Muslims carrying out violent operations against or in non Muslim countries). They even go farther in portraying Islam as a violence breeding religion.
In this, they base their argument on a number of Ayahs. According to them, violence is part and parcel of the Islamic teachings that no one can escape, since such Ayahs are taught at a very young age.
The Ayah is as follows are:
“The recompense of those who wage war against Allah and His Messenger and do mischief in the land is only that they shall be killed or crucified or their hands and their feet be cut off on the opposite sides, or be exiled from the land. That is their disgrace in this world, and a great torment is theirs in the Hereafter.” (Quran 5:33)
If you carefully look at this Ayah, it does not specify who are those who wage war against Allah and His Messenger, I mean it does not specifically define them as non believers, but rather any one who wages war against Allah and His Messenger which in such case will cover a Muslim who commits this type of a crime.
The above mentioned Ayah, didn’t specify actually which type of crime will make the perpetuator eligible for this punishment. Not that Allah Forgot to Do so, or that Allah Is not specific or that Quran is inaccurate. No but rather Allah by virtue of this Ayah granted a ruler the authority in crimes which are not clearly defined in Quran to choose from among such options of punishments as mentioned in the Ayah and enforce them. For instance, rape cases will be addressed through this rule which is called in Islamic law (Shari`a) as Ta`zeer. What I want to underline here, is that only the ruler is allowed by virtue of this Ayah to carry out the punishment. In a perfect example of an Islamic state, only the ruler is allowed after a fair trial that proves the individual guilty. As soon as this is decided, the ruler carries out the punishment and not any common individual. A ruler may see how grave the rapist situation is and apply the appropriate option. Other kinds of crimes would include fraud, blackmailing, embezzlement, abuse of power and administrative corruption on the state level.