Ikram Hawramani's Blog, page 39

Islam and freedom of speech

What is your opinion or view regarding freedom of speech and how does it affect humanity so far? Is there any good point to hold on to this principle? In my humble perception so far, it does harm more than good. It may be a good thing to point out things in an honest and straightforward way, but when it got brutal and offend and potentially break certain individual or group of people's hearts or mocks on their beliefs, I think it's when it gets too far.

Of course there are types of speech that are better left unsaid. But the problem is not there. The problem is with how we control speech. Who can we trust to control speech? Do we put it in the hands of clumsy and short-sighted politicians who will ban books, documentaries and films left and right according to their own ideas?

That is what happens whenever a country tries to control speech. So the solution, within our imperfect world, I believe is to defend the freedom of speech to the utmost. It is simply impossible within our human limitations to create a fair, just and ideal censorship system that only restricts harmful speech because such a system will always involve thousands of humans with their own ideas, agendas and shortcomings.

Rather than leaving it to the government to decide what books I can or cannot read, I want to decide for myself. If a book contains vile speech, then I will not read it. I do not want someone else to make this decision for me.

For these reasons I believe freedom of speech should be defended as one of the essential principles of any civilized system of government. If you try to restrict speech against a certain group because you consider their speech harmful, another group can easily do the same to you. A country for example may ban the Quran because it contains speech against homosexuality. The country may rule that the speech is offensive and harmful to the well-being of homosexuals so that it should be banned.

Can a Muslim-majority country be run by a non-Muslim?

Assalamu'alaykum wa rahmatullah. Brother, can a Muslim majority country be run by a non-Muslim? Do the Quran have any specific verse that applies to the prohibition of the non-Muslim to lead them or do the Quran allows them to? (Be it as a President of the whole republic, or as a governor/mayor of the regional area.)

Alaikumassalam wa rahmatullah wa barakatuh,

My view is that running a country is similar to running a family, a business or a village’s affairs. Nothing in Islam forces upon us a single form of government. Government, in my view, is just a tool for ensuring peace and prosperity, and whatever works best can be implemented. So there is nothing wrong with a non-Muslim president if he/she is the best that can be had. Rather than working for a fairy tale kingdom of caliphate ruled by a perfect person, I believe in each population doing what works best for them within the limits of their situation. Sometimes a non-Muslim leader can be better than all the Muslim alternatives. I would choose a kind, philosophical and pluralist non-Muslim over a radical and intolerant Muslim any day.

Is it permitted to read the Quran silently?

Brother, can I read the Quran just like I recite the surahs when I pray alone? I'm a little bit shy to recite the Quran loudly when someone is around.

Sure, you can do whatever works for you. I sometimes read it the way I read other books, with my eyes only and much faster than it is recited.

Feeling disdain for other Muslims

Salam. How do I get rid of the disdainful feeling when someone talks about Islam? I have been let down in the past by Muslims who I expect would act kindly towards me. My reality and view of Islam has changed since I met them. And how to I mend my defiant manner towards Islam?

Alaikumassalam wa rahmatullah,

I cannot be sure what the exact cause of your feelings are until I know more about it. But I believe that walking the spiritual path of Islam would solve your problem; read the Quran daily and struggle with it until you fully submit to God and achieve an open heart. The Quran helps uncover all the flaws in your character so that you can face them and focus on fixing them, and it will be your guide in that fixing. And once your heart is open, it will be very easy to face everyone else, Muslim and non-Muslim, with an open heart, without disdain or dislike. This is a long-term process that will take months and years, so do not expect immediate results.

The Discovery of Paradise in Islam by Christian Lange

A review of Christian Lange’s inaugural lecture “The Discovery of Paradise in Islam” at the University of Utrecht. 1

In his lecture, Lange refers to four unique aspects of the Quranic treatment of Paradise:

Paradise is not created at the end of time. It already exists.Paradise is not in a separate realm or dimension; it is co-extensive with our world.The nature of Paradise overlaps with the nature of our world (its architecture and material qualities). Rather than this being a result of a primitive Bedouin’s imagination, Lange argues that this is a deliberate strategy meant to stress the overlap between this world and the hereafter.The Quran intentionally blurs the division between this world and Paradise, preferring to speak of it as if it is something here and now, within reach.

During the apocalypse, the Quran suggests that Paradise and Hell collapse into our world. It is not a merging of two realities. It is just a reshuffling of space. Paradise is already there, waiting until the time it is brought near by God. We do not have to be flown into a different reality to enter Paradise; our world, as it exists, will simply open up and merge with Paradise and Hell.

The Quran’s sensual Paradise has been criticized for its apparent celebration of base human desires; food and sensual pleasure appear to be the most important things in it. Lange says:

The sensuality of the Qurʾānic paradise does not result, in other words, from a bedouin’s vision of a decadent life filled with wine, women and poetry. Rather, it evokes an ideal, a perfectly structured and ideally harmonious world, a world that humans, in the happiest moments of their life, can already see before them.

The Quran, therefore, does not try to suggest a separation between our physical realm and the spiritual realm. They co-exist side by side, within the same reality and the same universe. The pleasures of this life are a taste of Paradise:

Say, “Who forbade God’s finery which He has produced for His servants, and the delights of livelihood?” Say, “They are for those who believe, in this present world, but exclusively theirs on the Day of Resurrection.” We thus detail the revelations for people who know.

The Quran, verse 7:32.

The Quran tells us that since all humans wish for a continuation of the best pleasures they enjoy in this world, it is only wise and rational for them to work toward Paradise. A day will come when the sky will open up and Paradise and Hell will crash in around us. On that day, those who took the wise choice will walk from the bliss of this world into a similar, but better, bliss–continuous and everlasting.

The Quran’s structure has been criticized for its apparent disorganization. Western critics see this as a result of the clumsy process of authorship and collation that took place during after the death of the Prophet PBUH. But Christian Lange disagrees, preferring to see the organization of the Quran as a unique literary accomplishment. He quotes Seyyed Hossein Nasr, who says:

The text of the Qurʾān reveals human language crushed by the power of the Divine Word… as if human language were scattered into a thousand fragments like a wave scattered into drops against the rocks at sea.

He goes on to quote Norman O. Brown (d. 2002), the American scholar of literature:

In consequence, what the recipient of the Qurʾānic experiences is a “totum simul, simultaneous totality: the whole in every part.”

Brown says that the Quran, like Jame Joyce’s Finnegans Wake, is

dumbfounding. Leaving us wonderstruck as a thunder, yunder. Well, all be dumbed! The destruction or the deconstruction of human language. It’s the Qur’an, it’s Joycean defiant exultation and incomprehensibility.

I agree with Lange that the Quran is not as incomprehensible as Brown seems to suggest. But the comparison with Jame Joyce is extremely helpful for Western readers wishing to understand the Quran.

To use a programming metaphor from Paul Graham, the Quran is not written in Arabic, it is written into Arabic. It is as if it is written by someone who knows all there is to know about Arabic, and about other languages, and who then feels free to do whatever he likes to Arabic, considering it a mere tool for expressing himself, rather than a defining framework for expression. The Arabic language is turned into a plaything. Rather than living up to our expectations of what Arabic prose should like, it constantly defies it and does its own thing.

I would say a good clue to the nature of the Quran is its name al-qurʾān, which means “the recitation”. The Quran is meant to be experienced. Like a symphony, every part of it is designed to create a certain state in the listener, while always reminding that listener, through its thematic background, that they are listening to this specific symphony. The Quran is not a history or an informational text, it is a carrier of an experience that is meant to shatter the listener’s understanding and experience of reality to reorder it and color it with the pigment of God.

If they believe in the same as you have believed in, then they have been guided. But if they turn away, then they are in schism. God will protect you against them; for He is the Hearer, the Knower.

The pigment of God. And who gives a better pigment than God? “And we are devoted to Him.”

The Quran, verses 2:137-138.

The Quran is a divine intervention in a world that shows us the smallness of our perspectives and understanding. And by taking us into a new realm of experience that no human could have created, it calls us to admit its divine origin and to humbly submit to its demands.

God has sent down the best of speech: A Scripture consistent and paired. The skins of those who reverence their Lord shiver from it, then their skins and their hearts soften up to the remembrance of God. Such is God’s guidance; He guides with it whomever He wills. But whomever God leaves astray, for him there is no guide.

The Quran, verse 39:23.

In conclusion, Lange displays a wonderfully sophisticated understanding of the Quran. He shows us how far Western Islamic studies has come.

Being a night person as a Muslim

Salamu alaikum. Brother, is there a thing such as a "nocturnal person"? What do you think of such person who is wide awake at night and sleeping during the day? Is it mentioned in the Quran whether it is prohibited or not?

Alaikumassalam wa rahmatullah,

That is often caused by having caffeine late in the day. As for the Islamic view, I know of no Quranic verses or hadiths that apply directly to it.

During Ramadan I often stay up the whole night until fajr because I am unable to work (programming and writing) when I am fasting, and to avoid spending an entire month unproductively, I switch my schedule so that I stay up at night and sleep during the day. I know some preachers speak against this, but since there is no clear evidence against it, and since my intention is not to avoid the difficulties of fasting but to be able to work, I believe it is fine.

The ruling on working for non-Muslims

Assalamu alaikum. What is the ruling for a Muslim working for non-Muslims?

There is no issue with working for non-Muslims or being partners in business with them. The Prophet PBUH and his Companions used to be involved in all kinds of businesses with non-Muslims; trade, rent and hiring.

Source:

Fatwa from the Qatari Fatwa Authority (Arabic PDF)

On the Arab Spring

This might not be relevant anymore, but I just want to know what are your thoughts and opinion about the Arab Spring?

Personally I have a historian’s view of history; I look at society in terms of generations and centuries. So to me revolutions are never something to celebrate; they are just a violent expression of changes that would happen with or without them. As an example, if the American Revolution had never happened, hundreds of thousands of lives would have been saved and the United States would still have acquired its independence sooner or later.

The Arab Spring is just an expression of changes happening in the Middle East especially due to the spread of university education and Internet usage. Western powers love revolutions and use their intelligence agencies to support them and take them in the direction they want since it means they can install new governments that are more friendly to their interests. So for a nation, revolution is a plunge in the dark that makes the nation extremely vulnerable to foreign powers.

Revolution or upheaval never leads to some magical new government that solves the problems of the past. It leads to a reshuffling of the elite while the old problems remain just as before. Things slowly change as society changes with or without revolution.

So for me the Arab Spring is nothing to celebrate. It is just fireworks that represents the slow process of change that has been taking place decade by decade. While some are disheartened by the “failure” of the Arab Spring, personally I have no such feelings toward it. I am optimistic about the future of the Middle East since change is taking place. I don’t care about the fireworks, but about the structural changes taking place deep within society.

Is it better to delay salah until you are in the mood for it?

Which one is better: delaying salah until we do it in the mood or forcing ourselves to salah and feel compelled to do it? And why?

I would say doing it as soon as the time comes in is better because the Quran says:

The prayer is a timed obligation upon the believers.

The Quran, verse 4:103.

An important part of the prayer is to subdue the ego’s desires and break one’s routine for the sake of God. Doing this as soon as the time comes in is the best way to achieve it. As for how you feel about it, this is not as important; the point is to be able to force the ego to perform this act of worship regardless of what the ego wants. I believe this is the best way of proving to God one’s submission and eagerness to please Him.

The responsibility of the oldest child in Islam toward their family

Salaam. Brother, I want to ask you something. Does the eldest child have to be the backbone of the family? What if the eldest child is a girl and both her parents are still working, and her siblings are still students, what does Islam say regarding this and what are your personal opinion about women being the breadwinner? Thank you for your time.

Alaikumassalam wa rahmatullah,

There is no special legal obligation on the oldest child. A non-legal obligation may arise from their situation; for example the oldest child may be in a position to help the younger children and take care of them in some ways, this is a moral rather than legal obligation and would apply equally to both males and females and carrying it out would be an act of charity, while not doing it may or may not be sinful.

Children, however, have a legal obligation to financially take care of their elderly parents according to their ability and applies to both male and female children.

Additionally, males have a legal duty to financially take care of their needy sisters and other female relatives that they would inherit from in case of the female person’s death. But this is a matter of disagreement among the scholars.

Regarding women being breadwinners: if this is something that they arrange with their spouses/families then there is no issue with it. A woman’s earnings that go to her family would be considered charity since it is not her duty to earn money (while for a man it is a legal duty).

Sources:

Fatwa 1 from the Qatari Fatwa Authority (Arabic PDF)Fatwa 2 from the Qatari Fatwa Authority (Arabic PDF)Fatwa 3 from the Qatari Fatwa Authority (Arabic PDF)