Saudi Reforms Signal a Major Theological Shift - If Implemented Successfully, Will Prove To Be a Watershed Moment in the History of Sunni Islam
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By A.
Faizur Rahman
February
17, 2021
It would
appear from recent reports that Saudi Arabia’s crown prince, Mohammed bin
Salman, is making good on his 2017 promise that he would return the country to
a moderate Islam and “eradicate promoters of extremist thoughts.” Last month,
The Washington Post disclosed that the kingdom had started purging its
textbooks of anti-Semitic and misogynistic content, and this month Reuters
revealed that four new laws — the personal status law, the civil transactions
law, the penal code of discretionary sanctions and the law of evidence — are
being finalised with the ultimate aim of codifying the entire Muslim law in
consonance with the principles of shariah and best international practices.
Saudi women have welcomed the move, with lawyer Dimah Al-Sharif expressing the
hope that it will empower both women and society in general.
The crown prince’s announcement is also a courageous attempt to break
the state-ulema nexus that has been the cause of Muslim intellectual and
economic backwardness for centuries.
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There can
be no doubt that these reforms signal a major theological shift, and if
implemented successfully, will prove to be a watershed moment in the history of
Sunni Islam. The crown prince’s announcement is also a courageous attempt to
break the state-ulema nexus that has been the cause of Muslim intellectual and
economic backwardness for centuries — a fact convincingly exposed by scholar
Ahmet T Kuru in his new book Islam, Authoritarianism and Underdevelopment. It
was this nexus that buttressed the post-Prophetic Muslim expansionism started
by Muawiya in 661 CE with the launch of the Umayyad Caliphate. Questionable
traditions (hadiths) were fabricated in the name of the Prophet to scripturally
entrench the dynastic ambitions of the ruling family. These hadiths otherised
rival tribes and communities, and marginalised women.
Quran’s
original Arabic text is free of misogyny and does not encourage any kind of
ethnically directed hostility. In fact, it speaks of salvific inclusivity and
shows respect for non-Muslim places of worship (2:62, 5:69, 22:40), besides
inviting “people of the book” (an inclusive term for followers of all
religions) to coexist peacefully on the basis of commonalities in their value
systems (3:64).
If Muslims
find themselves estranged from this equalitarian message, it is thanks to the
havoc wrought over the centuries by exegetical interpolations which relied on
dubious hadiths to introduce sectarian ideas into Quranic translations. For
instance, an eschatological hadith in the collection Sahih Muslim attributes an
anti-Jewish comment to the Prophet. Yet another hadith in Sahih Bukhari states
that the Prophet considered women to be intellectually deficient because “the
evidence of two women is equal to the witness of one man.”
The
anti-Jewish statements attributed to the Prophet go against the verses
mentioned above, and the misogynist hadith is based on a complete
misunderstanding of the verse 2:282 which instructed Muslims of that period to
have their legal agreements witnessed by two men, and “if two men are not
available, then a man and two women witnesses of your choice so that if one of
them errs (An Tazilla), the other can remind her (Fatu Zakkira).”
A careful
reading of this verse would show that there is nothing in it that alludes to
the inferiority or the intellectual inadequacy of women. Thanks to centuries of
suppression, women of that period were not conversant with the intricacies of
business transactions. Islam sought to change this. Men were asked to accord
legal status to women by recognising their right to give evidence which was so
far denied to them.
The
prescription that there may be two female witnesses in case a male witness is
not available, was, therefore, a convenience given to women. The verse makes it
clear that the second woman will come into play only if the first one “errs”
and if she does not, then the transaction will be concluded with a male and a
female witness.
This is
proved by the fact that in three other contexts (4:15, 24:4, & 65:2), the
Quran speaks of witnesses in gender-neutral terms. Put differently, the
evidentiary stipulation mentioned in 2:282 was specific to those times, and
only for legal or financial transactions. It cannot be generalised and made
applicable in perpetuity to lower the intellectual or legal status of women.
One hopes
that the historic attempt by Saudi Arabia to theologically defenestrate
anti-Semitic and misogynist content, and codify the Muslim law in line with the
egalitarian principles of the Quran will go a long way in restoring the
Prophetic originality of Islam and influence Muslim societies across the world
to do the same.
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A.
Faizur Rahman is an independent researcher and the secretary-general of the
Islamic Forum for the Promotion of Moderate Thought
Original
Headline: Attempt in Saudi Arabia to restore and reform Islamic law is welcome
Source: The Indian Express
URL: https://www.newageislam.com/islamic-society/saudi-reforms-signal-major-theological/d/124326