I have just read Ibraheem Waziri�s article that
was ostensibly a rejoinder to my earlier paper, �Religious Discrimination in
Muslim Laws: Replying Christian Criticism.� It is not my intention to reply
to the many long passages in his paper that had at little or no bearing on
the content of mine, nor do I intend to go into any digressions on
�secularism� or �modernism�, even though the objective of giving labels and
making attacks ad hominem is obvious to me, as it should be to all
discerning readers. As for the comments on Christianity, my purpose in
writing my paper was neither to attack Christians nor to go into apologetics
for Islam. I sought merely to improve interreligious understanding,
something we seem to be in dire need of in Nigeria, what with born-again
Christian evangelists and fundamentalist Wahhabi elements having a field day
in shaping attitudes and religious identities in contemporary Nigeria. The
discussion on this therefore had but tenuous links to my paper.
Let mew first of all remind readers that I had
indicated in my paper that nothing in it was entirely original. Many of the
debates around apostasy are well-known to students of Muslim Law. The
question of whether the death punishment prescribed in Ibn Abbas� hadith is
a fixed (hadd) or discretionary (ta�zir) punishment is discussed at length
in the literature. I refer Waziri to Ibn Hajr�s commentary on the hadith in
Fathul Bari, as well as other commentaries such as Imam al-Shaukani�s Naylul
Autar. I have also referred in my paper to Sarakshi�s al-Mabsut, Ibn
Qudamah�s al-Mughni and Ibn Taimiya�s al-Sarim al-Maslul. Some works in
English that make reference to early sources include El-Awa�s Punishment in
Islamic Law and Mohammed Hashim Kamali�s Freedom of Expression in Islam.
The principal point in jurisprudence is the
following, as I tried to explain clearly in my paper: Is the punishment for
apostasy in Islam the death penalty as a hadd (fixed) punishment or is the
punishment discretionary (ta�zir)? A number of related points come up in
jurisprudence. First, if apostasy is taken as a crime against God (a
religious offence) and the hadith of Ibn �Abbas is taken as punishment for
this religious offence, then according to the rules governing hudud this
punishment must be carried out once the matter has been established before
the Imam. This is the case with other hudud like robbery, theft and
adultery. If, on the other hand, this sentence can be set aside after the
judgement of the Imam, then the punishment is not fixed, but discretionary.
Ibn Taimiya preferred the death sentence for apostasy, but he made it clear
that he considered the punishment discretionary, as compared with, say,
abusing the Prophet ( or any of the prophets), which carries the death
penalty as a fixed one. This position (that the penalty is a ta�zir penalty)
is also taken by Ibn al-Qayyim in view of the major differences among
scholars on the interpretation of the hadith.
Secondly, if the crime of apostasy is a
religious crime and the punishment is for the fact of changing faith, then
it would be immaterial if the apostate is male or female. But we have shown
that not only the Hanafites, but Ibn �Abbas himself, held that women
apostates should not be killed. So we have a situation in which scholars
have ruled that 1) an apostate should be given the opportunity to repent and
if he does he should not be killed and 2) according to some a woman apostate
should not be killed. These two positions are sufficient to establish that
the punishment is not a fixed punishment and it is not for the act of
renunciation alone, which is a religious offence.
The surprise to me is that Waziri, in writing
his long piece on my paper, actually contradicts himself on various points.
For example, after criticizing my argument that the death penalty is for
sedition and treason, he concludes his own argument with the following
words: �In my opinion and based on the aforementioned, if an apostate is to
be spared in anyway it is after signing a contract with the Muslim ummah
that he will not fight them in anyway possible�! Apart from the obvious
question as to the basis for this very modernist opinion, one must wonder
why an apostate should be spared on signing such a contract if the
punishment was not for sedition against the ummah! Surely if the punishment
for apostasy is for the religious crime of leaving the faith then signing
such a contract ought not be a basis for setting it aside. Similarly,
although the entire thrust of Waziri�s paper is to the effect that the death
penalty for apostasy is fixed, not discretionary, he makes the following
averment: ��.I believe our preceding arguments answered all except that of a
woman. That I believe should be left to the discretion of the Islamic state,
if the woman apostate represents serious danger to the cohesion of the
Muslim ummah by her known traits, then she should be put to death�..�! One
wonders why Waziri bothered to write a rejoinder at all if he is in such
complete agreement with me. The problem of course, I suspect, is in a lack
of understanding of Muslim jurisprudence. There will always be human beings
who must write to �defend� Islam against �modernists� even if this means
subjecting themselves to ridicule.
Take for example the following points made by
Waziri in his paper.
�Ayatollah Mutahhari and by extension(sic)
Mahmud Shaltut are those modern scholars who tried to read Islam, Qur�an and
Sunna using the paradigm provided by the secularists, materialists (sic)
western scholars. Mutahhari in many of his writing(sic) admitted being a
Marxist.�!
Sometimes I wonder why I waste my time
responding to some critics, but I have to because there is so much ignorance
in our society people can get away with blue murder! I doubt that anyone
familiar with the intellectual history of contemporary Iranian scholarship
will view with seriousness a person that sees Ayatollah Murtadha Mutahhari
as a modernist/secularist. I do not know which of the �many of his writing�
Waziri read to make him come to this conclusion. Is it his magnum opus, al-�Adl
al-Ilahi, or his many lectures and seminars in the days leading up to the
Iranian revolution? Mutahhari was Khomeini�s right-hand man and was
considered the leading ideologue of the clerical wing of page 2 the
revolution, fighting against the liberal and secular forces that also wanted
the overthrow of the Shah. Mutahhari, as we all know, led the fierce
criticism of the Iranian ulama against the Marxist Ali Shari�ati whom he
considered a �poisonous deviationist� who was dividing the ummah along class
lines. Mutahhari�s intellectual schema was based on the argument that Islam
is not a �class struggle�, and that the ummah was a community united be its
beliefs with difference only based on the fear of God. For some education on
the various and conflicting intellectual currents in revolutionary Iran,
including the conflict between the conservative axis led by Khomeini/Mutahhari
and the Marxist axis led by Shari�ati, I refer Waziri to my �Shariacracy in
Nigeria: The Intellectual Roots of Islamist Discourses� available on
gamji.com. I would request Waziri to please give us the references to
Mutahhari�s writings in which he referred to himself as a Marxist.
(Incidentally, I am ideologically opposed to Mutahhari and believe Shari�ati
had a better analysis of Iranian political economy than the clerics-but this
is neither here nor there). The same argument applies to the unscholarly use
of the phrase �by extension�, linking Mutahhari with Shaltut. The former was
a Shiite Ayatollah. The latter was (is?) Sunni and the Grand Shaykh of al-Azhar-so
what precisely does the phrase signify? This is all coming from a person who
purports to give me a lesson in how to make �scholarly� arguments!
This brings me to a number of unsubstantiated
arguments put up by Waziri, quite apart from these fabrications. Waziri
argues that the verse (4:137), �Those who believe, then disbelieve, then
believe again, then disbelieve�..� is evidence that an apostate can be given
the chance to repent. My request to him (I will not use the term challenge)
is to produce evidence from one single exegesis among early scholars that
gives this interpretation to this verse. What traditional exegetes have done
is to say that the verse refers to Jews who believed (in Moses) then
disbelieved (when they worshipped the Golden Calf), then believed (in Moses
after that) and then disbelieved (by rejecting Jesus) and increased in
disbelief (by rejecting the Prophet of Islam). A second example is where,
confronted by the report of the Prophet not killing the Bedouin who
renounced his faith, Waziri somewhat disingenuously argues that the Bedouin
�did not stay enough with Islam and with Muslims to be understood as one who
has faith.� So now Waziri introduces even more rules. How long, pray, does a
man/woman who joins Islam have to remain a Muslim before this tradition
becomes applicable? One week, one month, one year? With how many Muslims
does he have to live so as to be �understood as one who has faith� and who
is responsible for this understanding?
It is those who reject the plain message of the
Qur�an in so many verses and try to interpret all those Qur�anic verses in a
manner that suits their interpretation of a single tradition (khabr wahid)
who are guilty of �semantic gymnastics.�
The Real Issue
The real issue is the following. Islam is a
religion that is based on a call to humanity to freely abandon worship of
deities other than the One True God and to accept the message of His prophet
Muhammad as revealed to him in the Qur�an. This faith is voluntary, and a
human being cannot be forced to have faith. A paerson who displays Islam but
conceals unbelief is a hypocrite and this is the worst breed of human being
according to the Qur�an. I have given examples of verses of the Qur�an that
clearly show that accepting the message is supposed to be a voluntary act of
faith and that the Prophet cannot force humans to believe. I have also shown
that in the time of the prophet and the companions people were known to have
left the religion but they were not killed.
Now the whole debate on the death punishment
for apostasy is based on a tradition reported by Ibn �Abbas, �he who changes
his religion, kill him� which I discussed at length in my paper. The simple
fact that there is so much dispute around the correct interpretation of that
tradition and its full implications is sufficient pointer to its problematic
nature. Given the obvious contradiction between the apparent meaning of this
tradition and the principle of freedom of religion in the Qur�an it seems to
me that the options before a Muslim confronted with this situation are the
following:
We can reject the tradition and its authority,
either by questioning its authenticity or by refusing to allow a single
report be the basis for negating Qur�anic injunctions. This would be a
position taken by, for example, a sceptic as to the authenticity of
tradition;
Secondly, we can deny that freedom of religion
is absolute in Islam. This is what Waziri has done by arguing that one is
free to join Islam or not join, but that once he joins he loses the right to
leave the faith. This is the interpretation given the hadith by many
scholars, and it remains today the official position of Wahhabism. It is an
interpretation that defies reason, because it presumes that a man can be
forced to believe, or that Islam values hypocrisy and would prefer that an
unbeliever pretend to believe in God because of fear of the state than that
he openly and honestly state that he does not believe. But as we have seen,
this claim is refuted by the action of the Prophet himself and his
companions�;
Third, we can interpret the tradition in a
manner that is consistent with revelation and reason. In doing this we would
be taking a leaf from the Mu�tazilites, many of whose best teachings have
been abandoned due to the manner in which they have been demonized by
Hanbalite/Wahhabite literalists in particular. In his systematic text on
Mu�tazilite thought, Kitab al-Usul al-Khamsa, the great Mu�tazilite al-Qadi
�Abd al-Jabbar discussed the question of the validity of tradition. The
Mu�tazilites accept multiple reports (Akhbar Mutawatira) in matters of
religion (diyanat/usul). They also accept single reports (Akhbar Ahad) in
matters of Law so long as they are authentic. In this they are in full
agreement with most Schools of Law. What interests me is the Qadi�s position
on traditions such as this one reported by Ibn �Abbas, traditions that are
�transmitted in conflict with the Book and rational evidence�. Such
traditions, he writes, �we will interpret in a sound manner, just as we
interpret the Book of God in accord with rational proof, not with that which
is in conflict with it.�
This is all I have tried to do in my article. I
have not claimed that my position is the only possible interpretation of the
tradition. I have not accused scholars, as Waziri mischievously suggests, of
ignorance of the Qur�an. I have not pretended that my chosen interpretation
is the view of the majority of early jurists, even if it is held by many
contemporary scholars. What I have said, is that in my opinion, this
interpretation is that which is most consistent with the message of the
Qur�an and the proofs of reason. I therefore repeat my position for clarity:
That faith in Islam is voluntary and all
persons are free to accept or reject the message and they do not lose this
freedom because they accept it;
That an apostate does not have the right to
undermine the community and destabilize it with false propaganda. If he/she
does then in law such a person has committed a criminal offence that is
punishable with, in the extreme, the death penalty, subject to the judgement
of the Imam as to the extent of damage done;
That an apostate or even a Muslim who abuses
the Prophet or any of God�s prophets deliberately has committed a crime with
the fixed punishment of death in Islamic Law.
Apostasy, therefore, is a political offence in
criminal law, punishable when accompanied by sedition. I will not repeat the
arguments I made in my paper and the sources here. The reader is advised to
read that paper for details. I rest my case.
Sanusi can be reached at [email protected]
