Broad Thrust of The Quran And Hadith Supports Religious Liberty
By
Abdullah Saeed
23 Oct 2018
The words
of the Qur'an and hadith contain rich resources for supporting the democratic
order. If Muslims are to embrace modernity, including life in a pluralistic,
democratic society, without abandoning their faith, they must take up the
argument for religious liberty that is embedded in their history and that
stands at the centre of their most sacred texts.
A Muslim woman reads the Qur'an
The capstone of the qur'anic case for religious liberty is the fact that
not even the Prophet Muhammad could impose or force people to profess Islam.
Marvin del Cid/Getty Images
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Although
the broad thrust of the Qur'an and hadith supports religious liberty, many
parts of these texts can be, and traditionally have been, interpreted as
denying it. One example is a qur'anic verse (9:29) that deals with the question
of the jizyah, a tax on non-Muslims:
Fight those
who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden which hath
been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger, nor acknowledge the religion of
Truth, (even if they are) of the People of the Book, until they pay the Jizyah
with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued.
The Prophet
reportedly sometimes demands the death penalty for apostasy, the most obvious
example of this being the hadith, "Whoever changes his religion, kill
him" (Bukhari, Sahih, 9, 84, hadith 57). Such problematic texts are
outweighed by the bulk of the texts and instruction provided by the two most
important authorities in Islam, the Qur'an and the Prophet Muhammad's actual
practice. Both are remarkably supportive of the idea of individual and personal
religious freedom.
Human
Freedom and Dignity
The bedrock
of the Islamic case for religious liberty is the Qur'an's vision of the human
person. The Qur'an's anthropology? which is shared by Christianity and Judaism?
views every human being as a creation of God, blessed with intellect and free
will. God created humans "in the best of moulds" (95:4) and in doing
so honoured humanity and conferred on it special favours (17:70). The Qur'an
emphasises that human beings have inherent worth and dignity. Further, it holds
that God gave humankind the intellect and ability to discern between right and
wrong (17:15; 6:104).
The Qur'an
emphasises free choice. "The truth [has now come] from your Sustainer:
Let, then, him who wills, believe in it, and let him who wills, reject
it," it says (18:29). And also: "Whoever chooses to follow the right
path follows it but for his own good; and whoever goes astray goes but astray
to his own hurt" (17:15). Resoundingly, the Qur'an declares that
"there shall be no coercion in matters of faith" (2:256). Belief is
an individual choice? or, rather, it is a choice involving the individual and
God. Therefore, forced conversions are simply unacceptable, and anyone who
would use force rather than persuasion to promote religion must ignore the view
of the person central to the Qur'an.
Coercion
The
capstone of the qur'anic case for religious liberty is the fact that not even
the Prophet Muhammad could impose or force people to profess Islam. When people
were unreceptive to the message of Islam, the Qur'an explicitly reminded him
that he was never to resort to coercion: "Your task is only to exhort; you
cannot compel them [to believe]" (88:21). Evidence from Islamic history
suggests that this view was held not only by Prophet Muhammad but also by his
political successors. In one recorded example, an elderly Christian woman came
to see the caliph Umar and then refused his invitation to embrace Islam. He
became anxious that she might have perceived his invitation as compulsion.
"O my Lord," he said, expressing his remorse, "I have not
intended to compel her, as I know that there must be no compulsion in religion
... [R]ighteousness has been explained and distinguished from
misguidance."
Unfortunately,
many Muslim-majority countries have failed to follow the Prophet's example.
Muslims in these states face penalties for blasphemy, heresy and, most
famously, apostasy. Non-Muslims are barred from proselytising and possessing or
importing unsanctioned religious items, including Bibles. They face
restrictions on the public practice of religion and strict limits on the
building or renovation of places of worship. The government monitors their
religious activities, raids private services and sometimes harasses or
imprisons non-Muslim believers simply for practicing their faith.
But the
Qur'an says much to undercut such restrictions. On a practical level, it
repeatedly emphasises the role of the Prophet as teaching people about God
rather than forcing them to convert to Islam. "The Apostle is not bound to
do more than clearly deliver the message [entrusted to him]" (24:54).
Similarly, it urges readers to "pay heed, then, unto God and pay heed unto
the Apostle; and if you turn away, [know that] Our Apostle's only duty is a
clear delivery of this message" (64:12).
In fact,
the Qur'an appears to afford a high degree of freedom to non-Muslims under
Muslim rule, particularly Jews and Christians (sometimes known as the
"people of the book"). Its relatively tolerant position gave way to
restrictions that emerged approximately one hundred years after the death of
Muhammad. At the time of the Prophet, the Qur'an clearly distinguished between
those non-Muslims who were hostile to the emerging Muslim community and were
prepared to use violence against it and those non-Muslims who desired to live
peaceably.
In passages
from the last two years of the Prophet's time in Medina (631-32 CE), the Qur'an
encouraged? even commanded? Muslims to bring these hostile forces under the
authority of the Muslim state. However, even when exhorting Muslims to fight
their opponents, the Qur'an did not suggest that those engaged in hostilities
should be forced to convert to Islam. Indeed, it drew a sharp line between
enforcing recognition of state authority and forcing any change of religious
belief.
Apostasy
So, the
Qur'an does not endorse use of the sword to force conversions to Islam. But
does it command such means to stop conversion from Islam? The answer, I
believe, is no. The Qur'an itself does not prescribe any worldly penalty? let
alone death? to those who leave Islam.
There are
two clear categories of apostasy in the Qur'an. The first concerns Muslims who
profess Islam outwardly but who then attempt to destroy the Muslim community
from within, using every opportunity to discredit the Prophet (2:8-18).
However, the Qur'an does not recommend the death penalty even for this group of
religious hypocrites, or Munafiqun. The other category of apostasy
concerns Muslims who reject Islam and then return to it, only to reject it
again a second or even a third time, seesawing back and forth between Islam and
their former religions (4:137). In the case of these serial apostates, the
Qur'an does not suggest the death penalty. It specifies only a severe
punishment that they will suffer in the life after death? the same
other-worldly punishment the Christian tradition reserved for apostates. In
fact, in the first centuries of Islam after the Prophet's death, when the
community was more threatened from outside forces, the laws prohibiting
apostasy, blasphemy and heresy were used often against political and
theological opponents; at other times, Muslim critics of Islam were allowed to
remain and function within the Muslim community despite their controversial
views.
That is the
qur'anic teaching. What do the hadith, the collected traditions and sayings of
the Prophet, say about religious liberty? Some appear to indicate that any
Muslim who changes his or her religion should be killed. However, the hadith
themselves offer no evidence to suggest that Prophet Muhammad himself ever
imposed the death penalty for the mere act of conversion from Islam. For
example, there is one hadith in Bukhari's collection (one of the most important
collections of hadith for Sunni Muslims) that tells of a man who came to Medina
and converted to Islam. Shortly after his arrival, however, he informed Prophet
Muhammad that he wanted to return to his former religion. Far from punishing
him with death, the Prophet let him go free, without imposing any penalty at
all (Bukhari, Sahih, 9, 92, hadith 424). A contradiction, therefore, exists
between certain sayings attributed to the Prophet and his actual conduct.
Of course,
there are instances when the Prophet did impose the death penalty. What are we
to make of them? In these cases, the accused had joined an enemy camp, or taken
up arms against the Muslim community, or done something else that made their
act more than a simple conversion. One version of an important hadith says:
"A man who leaves Islam and engages in fighting against God and His
Prophet shall be executed, crucified, or exiled" (Abu Duwad, Sunan, 33,
hadith 4339). The crime being singled out for punishment is not the simple
changing of one's faith, but rather the definite choice to engage in war
against the Muslim community. Another hadith (Sahih Muslim, 16, hadith 4152),
attributed to the Prophet, affirms the idea that it is not simply a change of
religion that warrants the death penalty for apostasy:
The blood
of a Muslim who professes that there is no God but Allah and I am His Messenger
is sacrosanct except in three cases: in the case of a married adulterer, one
who has killed a human being, and one who has abandoned his religion, while
splitting himself off from the community.
The
reference here to "splitting himself off from the community" is
interpreted to mean one who actively boycotts and challenges the community and
its legitimate leadership. The various hadith that appear to command Muslims to
kill apostates from Islam must, therefore, be understood in their proper
political context. Most Muslim scholars today rely on the legal reasoning of
the classical jurists without considering whether their reasoning should be
considered authoritative or how changed political and legal conditions should
shape our reception of that tradition's authoritative elements.
In the view
of a preacher from Egypt, Muhammad Mutawalli al-Sha'rawi, for example, the
liberty of a Muslim is restricted in that a Muslim may not leave Islam once he
becomes a Muslim. He argues that although a person is free to believe or not to
believe in Islam, once he has embraced the Islamic faith he is subject to all
its requirements, including the contemporary stand on apostasy and its
punishment.
At the time
of Prophet Muhammad there was no "state" as such. A tribal system was
in place in much of Arabia in the sixth and early seventh centuries. With the
rise of Islam and its consolidation in Medina during the last decade of the
Prophet's life (622-32 CE), converts to Islam from various tribes joined a
community that was political as well as religious. Given the ongoing hostility
between the Muslims and their opponents, conversion from Islam generally meant
that a person left the Muslim community and joined its opponents. Apostasy was
the equivalent of treason.
Restrictions
on Religious Liberty
If the
Qur'an does not speak against religious liberty, and if the evidence from
relevant hadith is weak, how can we account for the restrictions on religious
liberty in Muslim-majority states? Most of these restrictions can be traced
back to classical Islamic law. The classical legal texts from each of the
surviving schools of Islamic law provide a range of restrictions on the
religious liberty of both non-Muslims and Muslims. These are not inevitable
developments of Islam's two most authoritative sources, the Qur'an and the
Prophet's actual practice, but rather a contestable departure from them.
About one
hundred years after the death of the Prophet, Muslim theologians and jurists
during the Umayyad dynasty began to define Muslim and community. Discussions of
relations between Muslims and non-Muslims and of Islam's superiority over other
religions were intertwined with theological debates over matters such as free
will, predestination and the nature of God. These debates produced a wide range
of positions and schools of thought. It was within this context of religious
pluralism and conflict that Muslims had to deal with the problem of religious
liberty.
Over time,
limits on religious liberty for non-Muslims were added. These included
restrictions on the building of places of worship, public readings of Scripture
and the ability of non-Muslims to engage publicly in certain activities that
Muslims considered forbidden (such as drinking alcohol) if these non-Muslims
were living in Muslim communities. It is far from clear how consistently or
stringently these restrictions were applied in practice. Like apostasy law,
they may have been used only at particular times of uncertainty, difficulty or
tensions with an external enemy.
Although
these restrictions have come to form an influential part of classical Islamic
law, non-Muslims under Muslim rule generally have been granted the prerogative
to manage their own affairs (including religious affairs) from the time of the
Prophet Muhammad onward. This practice was adhered to in various Muslim empires
(from the Umayyad through to the Abbasid and the Ottoman).
One example
is the "millet system" established by the Ottoman Empire. One of the
major challenges for the Ottomans was finding ways to govern the broad array of
people, religions, cultures and languages contained within their empire. Under
the millet system, the Ottomans gave people of various religious traditions the
right to practice their own religion and preserved their places of worship,
provided they recognised the Ottoman state and the superiority of Islam. With
these arrangements in place, Ottoman society remained generally free of
large-scale religious conflict for centuries. Even the Jews fleeing persecution
in Spain found that they were welcome in Ottoman lands. This tolerance did not
necessarily result in full equality or equal citizenship? which are, in any
case, relatively modern concepts even in the West? but non-Muslims nonetheless
rose to prominence in many Muslim states.
Returning
to The Islamic Sources of Authority
Today,
there is some movement toward Muslim acceptance of religious liberty. In global
legal terms, religious liberty receives its primary definition from Article 18
of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which has been incorporated into
other international instruments such as the International Covenant on Civil and
Political Rights (ICCPR) and the UN Declaration on the Elimination of All Forms
of Intolerance and Discrimination Based on Religion or Belief. Many
Muslim-majority states have even signed and ratified the ICCPR, which contains
the wording of Article 18 of the Universal Declaration, with some minor
changes. The article reads:
Everyone
has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right
includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or
in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or
belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.
Though they
may continue to flout these ideals, the many Muslim-majority countries that
have accepted this statement have, in some minimal legal sense, already
committed themselves to the ideal of religious liberty.
Sadly, the
implementation of this standard continues to be painfully slow because of
certain trends within Islam. At a time when a number of ultraconservative
voices appear to be dominating the discourse in many parts of the Muslim world,
Muslim scholars who advocate for religious liberty are fiercely opposed. They
are often labelled as stooges of the West or accused of being apostates or
heretics. Many such scholars in Muslim nations are imprisoned for their views
or have their publications banned. My book Freedom of Religion and Apostasy in
Islam was banned in the Maldives in 2008 after a targeted campaign against my
co-author (and brother) Hassan Saeed by certain politicians and an
ultraconservative group.
Despite
current challenges, the degree of freedom available to many Muslims,
particularly those who are based in intellectually free societies (many of
which are in the West), can be used to challenge those who threaten religious
liberty. Muslims, who now make up roughly 20% of the world's population, have a
political and religious duty to take into account the important values and
norms that have extensive grounding in Islam's most sacred texts and its own
tradition. In doing so, Muslim thinkers will be returning to their most
important sources of authority, the Qur'an and the Prophet, in support of
tolerance and religious liberty.
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Abdullah
Saeed is the Foundation Chair of the Sultan of Oman Endowed Chair in Arab and
Islamic Studies at the University of Melbourne, and Director of the National
Centre of Excellence for Islamic Studies. He is the author of Reading the
Qur'an in the Twenty-First Century: A Contextualist Approach and The Qur'an: An
Introduction, and co-author (with Hassan Saeed) of Freedom of Religion and
Apostasy in Islam and (with Rowan Gould and Adis Duderija) of Islamic Teachings
on Contemporary Issues for Young Muslims.
Original
Headline: Religious freedom in Islam: The witness of the Qur'an and the Prophet
Source: The ABC Net
URL: https://newageislam.com/islam-human-rights/broad-thrust-quran-hadith-supports/d/122836
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