You Think You Know Islam?

By Dr. Ali Al-Tarafi

Scanning the media in the non-Islamic world, you may perceive the image of Islam as a religion living in the Dark Ages at war with itself and humanity. It is often portrayed as a brutal religion associated with extremism and terrorism. Acts like those of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and al-Qaedaknown for chopping non-Muslim and Muslim heads, conducting suicide bombings on civilians, and attacking and killing innocent people across the worldare highlighted as examples. Muslims may call Islam a religion of peace; however, the media describe it as a religion of war and atrocities, a religion that spreads by the sword.

Reading the media, you would also think that Islam subjugates women, treats them as second-class citizens, ascribes them the status of a servant, forces them to wear hijab, mutilates their genitals, ascribes them little or no rightsbasically living in a chauvinistic mans world.

You would also think that Islam religious practices are out of date, meaningless, and arduous practices that are difficult to follow in our current socioeconomic environment. Islamic sharia law is out of alignment with current society, representing practices of the seventh to the twelfth centuries and therefore has no place in todays world.

If this is the image you have of Islam, including those who consider themselves as Muslims, then think again. You certainly dont know Islam. This book is for you.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris AU
• Release date: Jul 5, 2016
• ISBN: 9781514497104

Dr. Ali Al-Tarafi

Dr Ali Al-Tarafi has a BSc in telecommunications (University of London) and a PhD in non-linear systems and multidimensional topology (University of London). He has worked for twenty years as a senior director of Hewlett Packard, at the time the largest computer company in the world; two years as managing director of BEA Systems Australia, the sixth largest software company in the world; and six years as a vice president at Oracle Corporation Asia Pacific, the second largest software company in the world.

Book preview

You Think

You Know Islam

?

Dr Ali Al-Tarafi

Copyright © 2016 by Dr Ali Al-Tarafi.

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: 08/15/2016

Xlibris

1-800-455-039

www.Xlibris.com.au

739010

CONTENTS

Introduction: Another Book on Islam: Why?

Chapter 1:   The Islamic Faith

Chapter 2:   Islam’s Guiding Principles

Chapter 3:   Islam’s Guiding Rules

Chapter 4:   Islam the Religion

Chapter 5:   Political Islam

Chapter 6:   Islam: War and Peace

Chapter 7:   Where Do Muslims Go from Here?

Chapter 8:   Conclusion

References

INTRODUCTION

Another Book on Islam: Why?

The idea for this book started with a question from my daughter, who is a medical GP and has two children. The question was: All I see about Islam in the media is a religion that encourages terrorism, has some very unsavoury views about the rest of humanity, disrespects women, and treats them as second class citizens or as subservient. If this is Islam, why are there 1.4 billion people in this religion? Why do we see considerable numbers of highly intellectual people in this religion? Why do you, Dad, believe there is a God? Why do you believe in Islam? My answer to her was: what you see in the media, these deviant practices, is not Islam. Islam is a religion of justice and peace that was a pioneer in establishing women’s rights. In some areas, Islam is still ahead of Western rights for women. What you see in the form of terrorism are politically inspired movements, using Islam as a tool for recruitment and funding. These people have no relationship to the Islamic faith.

My daughter came back a few weeks later and asked, Where can I read about Islam, specifically in the areas you explained earlier?

I said, You have a copy of the Quran in English (Holy Quran by MH Shakir); read it.

She asked, Have you read the English version?

I said no.

She asked, Can you please read it and let me know?

I have read the Quran, in the original Arabic language, over twenty times, and for a long time, I have taken notes in a small book, from which I can readily answer my wife, daughter, or son when they ask questions. My wife and daughter were particularly interested in the Quran’s treatment of women. Considering that we are not a religious family and liberal in our thinking and approach, it was odd to my family, and indeed for the people who know me, that I read the Quran in such detail and took notes; they are surprised that I can answer some detailed questions. It would also be a revelation to my friends that I researched the various aspects of Islam, across different Islamic sects, and understand their views (except for the Salafi sect, I had little knowledge of them).

Armed with this background, I decided to read the English version of the Quran. I had a good Arabic education and understood Arabic words more than the average Arabic-educated person. I also had my BSC and PhD in the UK and have worked in senior executive positions in various computer and communication companies in Australia for thirty-two years. English is, therefore, my primary language. As I read the English version, that of my daughter, I grew disappointed. This version had both English and Arabic text next to each other. This English translation lacked the power of the original Quran words; the sentences looked disjointed and, for the uninitiated with no background, confusing and unintelligible. The sentences were weak and the meaning was not inspiring. I could see the translator tried very hard to translate the individual words and stay true to the original wording of the Quran. However, words do not make a legible language; it is the cultural use of these words, which transforms a meaning from pedestrian to poetry. The power of the Quran in Arabic is lost in this translation.

I went to the Internet and decided to choose other web-based versions. Some are tragic in their translation, such as ClearQuran.com; others are better, such as quran.com; however, all translations lack the strength that you read in the Arabic version. I decided to use the Quran.com version in this book, as it is the closest to the Arabic meaning (with the appropriate corrections)

I had just retired, and following this experience, I decided to see if this was only related to the English version or did it also happen in other versions. I talked to a Turkish friend and an Iranians acquaintance, and I realised that the problem is endemic. In these discussions, something critical dawned on me: My Turkish friend and the Iranian based most of their understanding of Islam on what they read in their books about the Hadeeth (the sermons of the Prophet and the first four rulers after the Prophet, called Rashidun Caliphs: Abu Baker, Omar, Othman, and Ali, or the Sermons of the Imams). I also realised how easily people can be misled. They have no real reference except what their sect or the education system teaches them.

Then I looked at the education system and was horrified. Some of the schools in the Arabian Gulf teach hate: hate and infidelity of all other religions (and some other Islamic sects). This is a conservative approach to Islam based on the Hadeeth, the Salafi (Hanbali), and Wahhabi interpretation of Islam. I looked across to Pakistan, and I saw the kids are educated in Islamic schools that preach, in most cases, the Salafi doctrine, building a generation of humanity haters. I see Salafi mosques spreading throughout Europe and the United States, in the main preaching hate (not all Salafi teach hate; however, most do). I saw in all the Muslim world teaching of history is politically developed and inspired. This history is driven mainly by the sectarian view of Islam. Islamic history in Iran, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia seems so different based on their sectarian views. Yet no one is willing to challenge Islamic history. People are afraid of being called infidels if they challenge it.

The question in my mind was, what had happened to Islam, the faith of justice and peace? How did we get to this abyss?

The Second Encounter

Even with this realisation, I could not get myself to write a book on Islam. I am an engineer and scientist. New scientific discoveries, astronomy, quantum physics, string theory, and genetic engineering are hobbies of mine. I read more about these subjects than any other activities in my pastime. However, an encounter with one of my relatives, an emergency consulting doctor, convinced me I should write this book.

This doctor was educated in the Arabian Gulf, came from a liberal but mildly religious family, used to pray five times a day, and has studied the Quran in detail. One night during a dinner party, the topic of Islam came up, as it does often considering the events in the Middle East, and he said to me, There is no God. I only believe in humanity. We are all a product of evolution and nothing else. As a scientist, how can you believe God created the universe or the earth in six days, as per the Quran? How can you believe that Adam and Eve came down from heaven and not evolution? How can God be everywhere? How can his angels write what you do? These are all nonsense in science.

I said, You read the Quran in detail; don’t you believe there are clear answers to your questions?

He said, The Quran was written by Mohammed, a very clever and capable philosopher. He reused the stories of the Torah and the Bible; it is no more than rewriting history. Then he said, The meaning in the Quran is subject to interpretation; the only part which is clear is heaven and hell: the carrot and the stick. He said I listened to Sam Harris and subscribed to his philosophical views. Considering I also read books by Richard Dawkins, with similar conceptual views to Sam Harris, I understood his thought process. This was the moment when I realised that many people may read the Quran; however, they do not connect the sentences and the verses to form a concept of what the Quran is saying. I thought surely with fourteen hundred years of Islamic literature, there must be ample answers to these questions. I am sure these questions have been repeated thousands of times.

I went to the web again, to explore and rebut these statements. I found a wealth of articles and books that focused mainly on the miracle of the Quran, in terms of the structure, the words, some of the scientific facts. However, nothing in the English language connects all these questions together and provides a consistent, broad answer. In fact, I found a very unsavoury description of God by Ibn Taymiyyah,⁴, ⁵ an insult to our intelligence and to Islam.

I also started listening to some of the more intellectual speakers on Islam and in particular their response to ISIL (TV stations like Al-Jazeera and on YouTube from Al-Azhar ³). The battle seemed to centre on the Hadeeth. I was not educated on the Hadeeth. In fact, I would have known only half a dozen Hadeeths from my high school days. My education in history, came from British authors’ description of the Islamic period.⁶, ⁷, ⁸, ⁹, ¹⁰, ¹¹, ¹² The Hadeeth was never a strong source of my information. I decided to investigate the Hadeeth, and that became a revelation for me.

I looked at a large number of sources and articles, no less than thirty-three different major ones, in Arabic only. None of these sources had a definitive number of Hadeeths, it ranged from 4,400 to 40,000, with most accepting around 6,106 (IslamWeb.net ²) and 11,830 (Ibnamin.com ¹) Hadeeths from the nine books,¹, ², ³ being the original sources of the Hadeeths, all written at the turn of the first millennia (over a thousand years). The most famous and the first two books were by Al-Bukhari ¹³ and Muslim Al-Hajaj.¹⁴ The first collection of the Hadeeth, from mainly verbal recital, was 229 years after the Prophet’s death. Most of these recitals passed through five to ten generations of people, over a period of two centuries. Then came the surprise that Al-Bukhari and Muslim have distilled their combined true Hadeeths (Sehah) of 2,980 from 500,000 to 650,000 Hadeeths they recorded.², ³ There is no accuracy in any of these numbers, as each source seems to record a different number. I went to the site of Dar Al-Ifta’ (the Egyptian site of Al-Azhar, or Dar Al-Ifta (Islamopedia on line) and Islamweb.net, to base some of these numbers. Inaccuracy is the name of the game when it comes to Islamic history and information on the Hadeeth. The confusion comes mainly from what is considered a repeat (different wording, or different source/way, same instructions), what is considered weak (one of the sources deemed unreliable, based on sectarian, historical, or language basis), and what is considered unreliable. The criteria for selection is very subjective, as we will discuss later.

Being the main source of the Hadeeth, I started reading some of the Hadeeth in Sehah Al-Bukhari and looked at the methodology of collection. Certainly, if Al-Bukhari distilled these Hadeeths from 650,000, this is a gigantic work, which took sixteen years, according to his students.¹ However, it would have been a scientific miracle if the same words uttered by the Prophet survived verbally through ten generations of people over 229 years. Some of the Hadeeth seems to be contradictory to clear statements in the Quran. Not being an expert in the field, I will not comment on this aspect. The rule in Islam, as I understand it,³ the Quran is the source, and the Hadeeth is there to explain some of its aspects; again, this is a statement from Dar Al-Ifta’.³ As we will discuss later, none of this should have much impact on the Muslim.

Then I looked at Islamic history, from the Arabic point of view, and the first recording of Islamic history in Arabic seems to be by Aban Ben Othman Ibn Affan.¹⁹ He was asked to compile this by the Umayyad Caliph Abdul Al-Malik Ben Marwan, after being appointed the governor of Hijaz (Mecca and Medina the most important Islamic cities) as a reward for joining the fight against the fourth Rashidun Caliph, Ali Ben Ibi Talib, and supporting Yazid Ben Muawiyah (second caliph of the Umayyads) in his attack on Medina, to write the history of the Prophet and early Islam, about 66 years after the Prophet’s death. Aban’s record was destroyed by the son of the caliph, and the only records left are those of his student. Various collection of information, including that of Aban, was used in the second and third Islamic century, by al-Tabari (923) and Al-Waqidi (823),¹⁶, ¹⁷ to record much of the first Islamic history. The recording was mostly from verbally collected stories.¹⁸ This is no different from any historical collection at the time, with the bias towards the rulers of the day. In fact, it was more advanced than those in the rest of the world. However, the rest of the world revised much of the history based on analysing events and historical relics. This courtesy has not been extended, in the same rigour, to the history of Islam.¹⁸

I listened to some of the preaching of the Salafi and Wahhabi clerics and their continuous reference to the Hadeeth, added to the Sunna (conduct and rulings) of Abu Baker and Omar. It dawned on me that what is driving the Wahhabi, ISIL and Al-Qaida is not Islam: It is the use of Islam as a political tool. They could not change the Quran, so they used the manipulation of the Hadeeth to achieve their objectives. This is political Islam, which is driving much of the current views of Islam. The Wahhabi are not the only political force using Islam. There is a whole spectrum of forces, each using Islam in a different way to advance their cause.

The focus of these forces is not Islam the faith, but rather Islam the religion. The faith is represented by the principles and philosophy that drives the behaviour of the followers. The religion is represented by the practices of the faithful, such as prayers, pilgrims, fasting, and so on. They focus on differentiation and identification through religious practices, to gain followers, funding, and sponsorship. They also focus on the Sharia (the Islamic law) and use the Hadeeth to define the Sharia, as we will discuss later, therefore negating every other aspect of the faith: a clever approach that took over fourteen hundred years to perfect.

It is therefore critical that we define the Islamic faith: its basis, its principles, and its rules. It is also critical that we differentiate between the faith and the religion. In Islam, the religious practices are the tools to keep the faithful within the bounds of the faith.

I did not find this differentiation between the faith and the religion in any of the sources I studied. I also did not find full coverage of the linkage between the Hadeeth, history, and sectarian and politically motivated movements. Each sect in Islam focuses on the differences to justify their beliefs.

There is a wealth of books, articles, and websites that covers every aspect of Islam at different levels of depth. However, I could not find a nonsectarian book that distilled the essence of the faith and the religion to the general public. So I decided to write this book.

I tried to keep this book short to allow the reader to obtain an overall view, rather than dive into unnecessary details. As you will see by the conclusion of this book, if you are a Muslim who does not desire to be driven by political forces and desires to keep the faith, then you will not need these details and the people who peddle them for their own interest.

In this book, I do not imply or justify any Islamic ruling or Sharia. I use existing information from the main Islamic sects, being Sunni and Shia, as presented (see references), to propose some outcomes. As the reader would appreciate, these sects’ views in some cases are wildly divergent. I focused on those that justify their views based on the Quran alone. The exception is that of the description of God and the writing of the Quran, in which I used my scientific knowledge to pose questions and propose a hypothesis.

Happy reading.

CHAPTER 1

The Islamic Faith

A Muslim is considered to have become a follower of Islam if he or she pronounces the Shahada, which is basically, I declare that there is no God but Allah and declare that Muhammad is God’s messenger. God as declared by the Quran is the same God of the Jews and Christians.⁶ Actually, Allah in Arabic is used by all non-Islamic faiths to mean God. The concept argued by some that Allah is somehow different from God is meaningless and argued by people who do not fully understand the Arabic language. The recent court case in Malaysia,²¹ in which a judge ruled that Allah is exclusive to Muslims, shows a high level of ignorance. It clearly states in the Quran that Muslims believe in all God’s messengers; it does not differentiate between them. This means Muslims believe, for example, that Ibrahim, Jacob, Moses, and Jesus are prophets and messengers of God; they accept their message and their God as per the Quran, chapter 2, verse 285. In the rest of the book, we use the word God to mean Allah.

2/285 The Messenger [Mohammad] believes in what has been sent to him from his Lord, and [so do] the believers. Each one believes in Allah, Allah Angels, Books, and Messengers. They say, We make no distinction between any of the Messengers – and say, We hear, and we obey. We seek Your Forgiveness, our Lord, and to You is the return. (Quran 2/285)

²⁰

You don’t have to pronounce the Shahada in the presence of anyone. There are no priests in Islam. There are people with theological knowledge, but not priests. Your declaration is to God and not to any human being. You are free to declare you are a Muslim or keep it to yourself. Declaring you are a Muslim to others shows more faith, provided that it does not place you in