A Closer Look at Islam

By Syed B Ali

Religious leaders and reformers have always had a hard time in their day. They have been ridiculed and rejected and many of those who supposedly accepted them have been either weak in spirit or manifest enemies in disguise. Subsequent generations of the faithful have clashed in their understanding of the master’s teachings, spawning the rise of different interpretations. Moses and Jesus were troubled not only by their enemies but also by weak people among the faithful. Islam was not destined to fare much better. Historical accuracy was sacrificed to meet the needs of a divided community. And in due course, Islam’s sacred scripture, essentially a compilation of revelations to Muhammad, was hijacked by literalists, who distorted its message.

A Closer Look at Islam attempts to show that the arguments of some critics are based largely on misinformation and that Islam would be better understood by a more serious study of its scripture and the lives of some of its role models. It also discusses poorly based conjectures that Muhammad was more myth than fact and the arguments of prominent atheists about the existence of a Supreme Creator.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris AU
• Release date: Nov 9, 2016
• ISBN: 9781524516970

Book preview

Copyright © 2016 by Syed B Ali.

Library of Congress Control Number:   2016914117

ISBN:                Hardcover                         978-1-5245-1699-4

                          Softcover                            978-1-5245-1698-7

                          eBook                                 978-1-5245-1697-0

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Rev. date: 01/11/2019

Xlibris

1-800-455-039

www.Xlibris.com.au

724555

CONTENTS

Introduction

I:        The Dilemma of Defence

II:       Muhammad – Man or Myth?

III:     The Timeless Question – God or No God?

IV:     What the Qur’an Really Says – I

V:       What the Qur’an Really Says – II

VI:     A Probe into Hadith and Seerat

VII:    Islamic Role Models – 1. Imam Ali

VIII:   Islamic Role Models – 2. Imam Husayn

IX:     Islamic Role Models – 3. Imam Ali Zayn al-Abidin

Postscript

APPENDICES

Appendix A – A Recap of the Teachings of the Qur’an

Appendix B – Islamic Sayings

Appendix C – Imam Ali’s Instructions to a Governor

Appendix D – Imam Ali’s instructions to his troops

Appendix E – Couplets by non-Muslim poet

This book is dedicated to the women and children of Karbala.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I am deeply grateful to Dr Chris Hewer who in spite of his extremely busy schedule and numerous commitments, has been gracious enough to patiently review an earlier draft and give me his valuable comments. Without his help, this work would still be a long way off from fruition.

I must also express my gratitude to Dr Fahima Haque and Dr Syed Khawar Hussain Shah for their help and suggestions at various points in the project.

And it would be very remiss of me if I did not thank my family for their patience with my time management. I must admit that a lot of my time that was rightfully theirs had to be redirected to other priorities, such as this project.

Thank you and God bless you all.

And may He be with you every step of the way.

God – there is no God but Him, the Living, the Eternal. He does not snooze nor does He sleep. Everything in the heavens and the earth belongs to him. Who is there who can intercede with Him except through His good pleasure? He knows what has passed and He knows what is yet to come, while they will not be privy to His knowledge, except what He will let them. His throne comprises the heavens and the earth, the preservation of which both does not tire Him. He is the High, the Mighty.

There is no compulsion in religion. The right path is henceforth distinct from error, Whoever therefore rejects [other] gods and believes in God, has grasped the firm handle which will not break away. God hears all and knows all.

God is the guardian of those who believe (in Him). He leads them from the darkness into the light. As for those who do not believe, the [other] gods are their patrons, leading them from the light into the darkness. They will be given over to the fire and they will remain there for ever.

(Q. 2:255–257)

Lord,

Thy name is a cure for all ailments

Thy remembrance is a panacea for all ills

Thy obedience is the best of all treasures.

Islam . . . let Hindus study it reverently, and they will love it even as I do.

Mahatma Gandhi

(Amitabh Pal, Islam Means Peace)

It is a far, far better thing that I do than I have ever done.

Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

INTRODUCTION

Do not comply with the wishes of those who treat you as a liar. They want you to yield to them, before they go easy on you. (Q. 68:8–9)

*     *     *

Do not be faint-hearted or sorrowful for you will have the upper hand if you believe. (Q. 3:139)

*     *     *

Religion seems to have a natural propensity to make enemies. Men of wisdom have worked hard to draw the attention of the masses to matters beyond the mundane. Books of history are replete with tales of hardship faced by those who have sought to lift human thought to new heights. But their success has been undermined by our undying love for worldly goods and amusements. And while we are not particularly happy about rules imposed on us, religion usually comes with a set of rules, which may not be compatible with our lifestyle and our worldly goals. And all too often, these rules require unquestioned obedience to an invisible and inaccessible God.

Islam has always had the unfortunate distinction of hosting a sizeable stash of enemies. And if that wasn’t enough, thanks to some Muslims on their wild rampage, it has, in recent times, managed to add to that pile. Finding fault with Islam has become a major preoccupation with some. And fortunately for them, Islam is indeed vulnerable and prone to misrepresentation.

Before we continue, we would like to inform our readers that all through the book, we will be making frequent references to the Qur’an (also spelt Koran). There are over 6,000 verses in the Qur’an, divided into 114 chapters (suras) that vary in size. In general, a given verse of the Qur’an is identified by the sura and verse numbers. For our purposes, they will be separated by a colon and preceded by the letter Q followed by a period and a space, as in Q. x:y, y being the verse number in sura x.

Thus Q. 49:13 will point to verse 13 in sura 49. Verse numbers separated by a comma or a hyphen belong to the same sura. Q. 49:10, 14 would therefore point to verses 10 and 14 of sura 49 and Q. 49:10–14 to all verses between 10 and 14 of the same sura. Verses from different suras will generally be separated by a semicolon. And Q. 49:10, 14; 50:1 would point to verses 10 and 14 of sura 49 and verse number 1 of sura 50.

A reference to a single verse could provide the reader with either the literal text or the implied sense of either a part or the complete verse and may be reworded, for clarity. Readers should also note that verse numbers sometimes vary from one edition of the Qur’an to another.

Arabic names are often spelt in a number of ways in English. The Prophet’s name, spelt generally as Muhammad, is sometimes written Muhammed, Mohammad, or Mohammed while Mahomet was used by early Europeans. Umar, Uthman and Aisha are also spelt Omar, Usman, and Ayesha. And as we will see in this book, there are several different ways of writing Husayn. And the city of Mecca is sometimes written Makka or Makkah. We have tried to be as consistent with our spellings as possible, except where the material is derived from an external source. The term Hazrat, which has been used a few times, is just an honorific of respect.

We will begin our discussion with a brief look into some of Islam’s weaknesses and how they have been abused.

History

There is no such thing as one version of Islamic history, and while multiple versions may be confusing to some, they are a godsend to others. A story may be accurately given in version A but distorted in B, another may be unflawed in B but doctored up in C. To add to the problems, the parameters determining the authenticity of a hadith vary from one school to another. (A hadith is a saying or anecdote relating to the Prophet or to members of his family or his Companions). In other words, there is no single book that can be seen as absolutely accurate. Some Muslims do believe that some hadith books represent the gospel truth, but there are others who don’t. Several non-Muslims share the latter view.

Sure enough, one could reasonably expect that compilers would have done their best to drop what they thought were unreliable hadiths. But however hard they tried, an individual work would still be the product of one man’s study and opinion. Besides, given the factious state of Muslim society at the time, it is hard to believe that their conclusions would have gone against their personal leanings.

Clearly, there never could be a consensus on such books. Some Muslims do support the assessment of an individual hadith on its merit but not a blank-cheque verdict on an entire corpus. As we will see in chapter VI, the climate was not very conducive for the dissemination of the truth. As for history, it developed in the same climate as hadith. The view that there are serious problems with both can hardly be refuted.

Some critics are clearly driven by some sort of an agenda – one which cannot quite be explained by either ignorance or misinformation. Thus, while they accept that there are serious problems with available material, they fervently use it to deflate Islam. That could be acceptable if they were to provide scholarly arguments justifying their use – not the meaningless guff that we will be seeing shortly. Otherwise their motives can only be deemed suspect and their approach unethical.

Scripture

The Qur’an is actually a treatise of great depth. Lesley Hazleton says that the whole of the Qur’an is far more subtle than non-Muslims have been led to believe . . . this is why extremist fundamentalism is not only dangerous but dull. It dulls the mind with its insistence on the literal . . . If we insist on the most literal readings, then we kill that capacity to grasp the imagination, to go beyond the shell to the soul. So, if you have no feeling for metaphors, then fundamentalism is for you.¹

Critics generally begin their study by probing the literal text of a verse. That is understandable but they think they can fully grasp the intended sense by reading it as if it had nothing to do with the rest of the text. This is known as cherry-picking. The fact that a verse could be part of a broader text is one of the many impediments to understanding the Qur’an, more of which have been discussed in chapter IV. Unfortunately therefore, one would need a fair amount of patience and perseverance for a proper study.

We can see the same problem in common speech. If you pick one clause from a sentence or one sentence from a paragraph or if you ignore the context of the conversation, you could land in some very muddy waters. But that is exactly what some people do – pick a verse, look around smugly, and say, ‘hey, look what the Qur’an says.’ Except when the reason is ignorance, that is very dishonest and, quite often, plainly mischievous.

This very approach led Himangshu Kishore Chakraborty to file a petition with the government of West Bengal in 1984 asking for a proscription of the Qur’an.² The petition was supported by a list of verses, allegedly detrimental to the maintenance of peace in India’s heterogeneous society. Some months later, Chandmal Chopra reminded the government of Chakraborty’s petition.³ The judge at the Calcutta High Court referred to Q. 9:5, noting that according to scholarly opinion, it does not refer to the general massacre of all polytheists and idolaters, that is all non-Muslims, but it speaks only of those non-Muslims who were waging war at the time with the Muslims treacherously by breaking previous agreement.⁴ He categorically used the expression out of context in his judgment – it is dangerous for any court to pass its judgement on such a book by merely looking at certain passages out of context.⁵ His acceptance of the contextual nature of the Qur’an is a clear indictment of the widely used cherry-picking technique.

One political heavyweight, a player on the international stage, claims that the Qur’an states explicitly that non-Muslims are to be treated much worse than Muslims⁶ and he quotes two verses in support of his claim – Q. 5:51 and Q. 9:5. If he is truly interested, the former has been discussed in the next chapter and the latter in chapter IV. More importantly, this man has no idea that plucking verses out of context is a very silly approach. And it is obvious that his reading is very selective. Clearly, he has not read Q. 2:62, Q. 3:113–115, Q. 5:69, or some others which have been documented in chapter V (section E).

In chapter VII, we will see that Imam Ali had established the rights of disabled non-Muslims to state support and reprimanded a governor for mistreating heathens and polytheists. It is widely believed that his Jewish and Christian subjects simply loved him. And in one of his famous letters, he instructed a governor to show compassion both to his Muslim as well as to his non-Muslim subjects (appendix C). There is absolutely no such thing as mistreatment of non-Muslims in Islam. If Muslims mistreat anyone, they are going against the teachings of their faith.

As Karen Armstrong says, Islam is a religion of social justice.⁷

Penal Code

A third line of attack is Islam’s penal code, which forms part of what is commonly known as the sharia. For one thing, like history, there is no such thing as a uniform sharia across the board. It varies from one school to another and sometimes within a given school. Annemarie Schimmel clearly understands the differences. Speaking about the punishment for adultery, she says that it is a hundred lashes or, according to the more rigid schools, death by stoning.⁸

There is a common concern that many punishments do not fit the crime. Speaking of the faith of his forebears, one leads the charge, making a similar point about the Bible – how many literalists have read enough of the Bible to know that the death penalty is prescribed for adultery, for gathering sticks on the sabbath and for cheeking your parents?⁹ Sharia punishments are also severe though a bit less, but people seem to be unaware of the part played by remorse. Remorse may not apply in all offences but it does in some.

A quick browse of world history tells us that quite often, men in power have inflicted excessive pain on their enemies and even religious authorities have had no qualms doing so – torture has often been the universal norm. Sleep deprivation, waterboarding, sexual humiliation, and solitary confinement may be new techniques but torture of sorts has always been and is still widely used all over the world. Men in power and their henchmen rarely have any qualms inflicting pain and heartbreak, killing six million over a number of years, as in the Holocaust, or a quarter of a million in a few seconds, as in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Those who exploit the weaker sections of society likewise have little or no compunction for their actions, whether it is the physical and sexual abuse of children, the abduction of boys and girls into slavery and prostitution, or the subhuman treatment of refugees and the homeless.

As far as Islam is concerned, causing any hurt beyond the prescribed limits of the law is not acceptable. We will see in chapter VII how Imam Ali treated his killer – with care and compassion. In the process, he demonstrated one of the important aspects of Islamic justice. The court is, of course, entitled to sentence an offender suitably. But that is it – he will not be subjected to any other form of pain, discomfort, or torture, as has always been, and still is, common all over the world. Security reasons, however paramount, cannot be used as an excuse to inflict pain. Modern-day interrogation techniques used in some high-profile prisons have absolutely no place in Islam.

The Reckoning

The severity of Afterlife punishments is yet another detractor. Now let us think for a moment.

If there is no such thing as death in the Afterlife and if hell dwellers will never be reduced to ash, as is the common perception, then clearly the laws of nature in this new world will be very different to what we are used to. In other words, the level of pain or pleasure in the Afterlife cannot be determined by our earthly parameters. So no one really knows exactly what heaven or hell will be like.

*     *     *

Some critics are indeed quite honest with their views on Islam. With its mangled history, favourable views cannot always be expected and therefore even the most Islam-friendly do sometimes come up with conclusions that Muslims may not be comfortable with. Dishonest reporting, on the other hand, is very different. It is the outcome of ill will and antipathy, which like love, are hard to conceal. The face is famously known as the index of the mind and so is one’s style – spoken as well as written. However much we may try to peddle our opinions as objective, the style would give us away. A steady flow of hateful words, insinuations, snide remarks, and outright condemnation do not speak of a very objective approach. The inability to give the benefit of the doubt, where possible, is another giveaway. And glossing over the multitude of anecdotes that speak of the Prophet’s magnanimity and forgiveness, his wisdom and forbearance, does very little to help. The gross manipulations and misrepresentations that have infiltrated into our history books will continue to plague Islam for a long time to come. But it is one thing to quote those accounts and quite another to derive prejudiced opinions or to magnify and manipulate them.

Now let us go through a few examples and see how critics go about their business.

We will begin with one who refers to the Prophet as a womanizer¹⁰ and a child molester.¹¹ Does this person know what either word really means? According to the dictionary, a womanizer often has temporary sexual relationships with women or tries to get women to have sex with him,¹² and to molest is to touch or attack someone in a sexual way against their wishes.¹³ So will this person be good enough to give us details of at least one incident where the Prophet’s behaviour conforms to either of those definitions? The fact is that there is absolutely no way that either charge can be sustained, even remotely. Marrying a number of women does not make one either a womanizer or a molester.

The amorous disposition begins pretty early in life, the most stressful period probably in the teens and early twenties. During this period of the Prophet’s life, there is absolutely no record of a dalliance or an indiscretion. With his first relationship commencing at the age of twenty-five and all subsequent ones after fifty, the charges are nothing more than contemptuous drivel. Clearly, the Prophet’s profile does not fit that of a man given to the pleasures of the flesh.

Referring to the Prophet’s marriage with Safiya, another detractor tries to deliver a coup de grâce but the attempt fizzles out in its own mendacity. This man tells the story of a Muslim lady he met on the Internet who, when she read an article he wrote about Mohammad’s rape of a Jewish woman (after he had killed her father and husband, he tried to force himself on her on the same day) she was shocked.¹⁴

Indeed, this is a perfect example of hate spilling out into lies. As for her father and her husband, they had been hostile and insidious and had acted treacherously. Treason always was punishable by death. And as for Safiya, the Prophet did not force himself on her – he married her. There is no evidence that he ever tried to grope or canoodle her. A rape is not possible without some sort of bodily contact, made without the consent of the other party. No reliable accounts suggest anything even remotely on those lines.

Barnaby Rogerson says very matter-of-factly that Safiya (who had successively lost father, brother and now husband to the swords of the Muslims), was chosen by the Prophet to join the company of his wives.¹⁵

Yet another critic insinuates that the Prophet’s self-control in his youth says nothing about his behavior as an older man. After all, Henry VIII had no trouble becoming an elderly libertine.¹⁶ Is this man trying to say that the king was a very honourable man in his early years? In fact, this elderly libertine had already had several mistresses before he began his chase of Anne Boleyn. And he then connived to falsely accuse her of adultery and incest. He was fond of women very early in life and his weakness did not show up all of a sudden in his later years. So the reference is plain tripe.

And is it really possible to defend the use of the word lechery¹⁷ in reference to the Prophet? The dictionary defines a lecher as one given to excessive sexual indulgence; a lascivious or licentious man.¹⁸ By this definition, a lecher would need to have had a number of sexual encounters outside wedlock. As far as the Prophet is concerned, there is absolutely no evidence of even one such relationship. No reports of a roving eye or a propensity for amative craving were ever noticed. After he was married at the age of twenty-five, he had a sole monogamous relationship that endured till her death, when he was over fifty. It was a marriage made in heaven and history is replete with accounts of the extremely high regard he had for her. And as long as she lived, he did not marry another woman. In absence of other pointers, it is extremely unlikely that someone who maintains a strict monogamous relationship till his fifties would suddenly lose track at that age. After all, life expectancy in those days was low. Fifty was time to hang up your boots. Based on a very special and endearing relationship, the consensus is that if she had lived on, he might have never married again.

With that sort of résumé, the probability of a womanizing or lecherous tendency is infinitesimally small. Considering his extraordinary faithfulness to Lady Khadija, an honest critic would, at the very least, give him the benefit of doubt – in that his subsequent marriages may have come about due to other reasons, such as, for example, the political environment in which he found himself. But clearly, impartiality and honesty cannot be expected from those who are motivated by hatred or bigotry. It should be noted that all but one of his wives were widows or divorcees and he did not have a very easy time as a husband. Some critics do take a positive view of the Prophet’s marriages, pointing to the need to forge tribal relationships, among other reasons. Indeed, we would be acting very irresponsibly if we were to refer to everyone who marries a number of times as a womanizer, rapist, or lecher. As Karen Armstrong says, Muhammad was not the perverse lecher of Western legend.¹⁹

Another critic tells us that the Belgian priest Lammens is often criticised for accepting uncritically any material that disparaged the Prophet.²⁰ In his defence, Lammens had pleaded that "pious Traditionalists and sira writers could not have invented information that reflected poorly on Muhammad; and therefore, any such information which may have slipped in must be true."²¹

Not quite. There was a large number of narrators who had contributed to the hadith corpus. Any suggestion that they were all pious is plainly absurd. A narrator did not need to pass an integrity test to prove his veracity. Anyone in the general public could be a narrator, as long as he was (or claimed to be) the recipient of information passed down to him, by a chain of narrators. The chain would need to have been initiated by someone who lived in the time of the Prophet. Since compilers obtained their information from these narrators, directly or indirectly, it is plain nonsense to suggest that whatever they said or wrote must be true. The same goes for sira writers who, by and large, relied on the same sources of information.

Our critic also tells us that in Fatima et les filles de Mahomet, Lammens set out to prove that Fatima was not the favourite daughter of Muhammad, and that the Prophet had never planned his succession through her progeny.²² This is not the place to discuss the divisive subject of succession but all schools agree that Fatima was the apple of her father’s eye.

We are also told that Lammens subjected "all hadith and sira material favourable to Fatima, ‘Ali, and their sons . . . to a searching criticism"²³ and found that the Prophet cared neither for Fatima nor ‘Ali.²⁴ That premise would be very hard to support. The Prophet’s exceptionally high regard for both is widely known. It was very nearly proverbial. Ali was the Prophet’s alter ego and as for Fatima, the Prophet’s words The contentment of Fatima is my contentment, her anger is my anger. Whosoever loves my daughter Fatima loves me. Whosoever makes Fatima content makes me content. Whosoever makes Fatima unhappy makes me unhappy. Fatima is a part of my body. Whosoever hurts her, has hurt me,²⁵ say clearly how he felt about her. There are numerous other hadiths indicating her place in her father’s heart. While the hadiths may have their variants, that is the perception across the board. For her part, Fatima cared for her father and loved