Moral Policing in Islam is the Result of Misinterpretation of Quranic Injunctions
Iran, Saudi
Arabia and Afghanistan Have Institutionalised Moral Policing
Main
Points:
1. Mahsa Amini
of Iran was killed by the morality police.
2. A girl was
shot dead by morality police in Kabul for not wearing last year.
3. Islamic
jurists have brought prayers and fasting under moral policing.
-----
By
New Age Islam Staff Writer
3 January
2023
Masha Amini
-----
The Quran
often speaks of collective responsibility of Muslims in preventing social ills
and spreading and promoting good values. It uses two words --- Maruf and
Munkar --- to denote good practices or piety and bad practices or social
evils and moral vices respectively.
Pre- Islam
Arab era was pervaded by social and moral ills because people the society had
no order or discipline. Religion was confined to worshipping according to one'
s religious affiliations --- Judaism, Christianity and Polytheism. People were
not governed by any moral principles.
Islam
diagnosed the root of the moral vices and included moral teachings the part of
religious teachings. Apart from offering five prayers, paying Zakat and fasting
in the Ramadhan, he was also entrusted with the task of advising people to be
pious and abstain from evil practices.
This was called ' Amr bil Maruf and Nahy
an al Munkar. The word Amr is an imperative word meaning invite,
advise, encourage, preach and command. But the word was interpreted by
extremist exegetes as 'command' which implied forced imposition of moral rules.
On the other hand, the word ' Nahy ' means negate, discourage, forbid etc.
The exegetes again interpreted the word as forcibly prevent the evil practices.
The Quran prescribed physical punishment for adultery, theft, rioting or
murder.
But later
era exegetes included religious practices like fasting, Namaz and apostasy
under the ambit of Amr and Nahy. Those who did not pray or fast were declared
worthy to be killed or flogged. Gradually, this narrative attained the status
of the Nuss (injunction) of the Quran. In many countries, a group of '
pious Muslims ' punished Muslims for not praying, or for consuming tobacco or
wine or for committing other moral sins.
Gradually,
this extremist interpretation of Amr and Nahi was institutionalised by
the Islamic governments. Departments were set up to supervise moral behaviour
of people in public. Punishments were prescribed for immoral behaviour. People
were jailed, flogged and even killed for immoral behaviour. Quran 's principle
of 'no compulsion in religion' was ignored rather violated.
The
terrorist organisation executed two teenagers of Mosul for eating in public in
Ramadhan and a girl called Mahsa Amini was killed by the morality police in
Tehran. In this regard, both the terrorist organisations and democratic
governments of Islamic countries have the same approach. Mustafa Akyol
discusses the issue of moral policing in Islam and gives an account of the
origin and development of the institution of moral police in Islamic societies.
-----
The Dubious Roots of Religious
Police in Islam
By
Mustafa Akyol
December 5,
2022
On Sept.
16, 2022, thousands of protesters poured into the streets of Iran chanting, “I
will kill those who killed my sister.” They were referring to Mahsa Amini, the
22‐year‐old Kurdish Iranian woman arrested a
few days earlier by Tehran’s “Gasht‑e Ershad” (literally “guidance patrol,” also known as the “morality police”) on charges of insufficiently
covering her hair. She died in detention, following blows to her head, with
bruises on her corpse. The popular anger sparked by this atrocity soon turned
into nationwide civil unrest, which is still ongoing at the time of writing,
undertaken bravely by people from all walks of life, despite the brutal
response by security forces.
Over the
weekend, it was reported (or misreported) that Iran had decided to scrap its
morality police, which would mark a major concession to the protest movement,
if it were true. A number of Iranian analysts have since clarified these
reports were likely misguided and Iranian state media has formally denied them.
But why
does Iran have a “guidance patrol” in the first place? Is this institution
really a requirement of Islam, as the Iranian regime claims? These questions
are important for the future not only of Iran, but also the broader Muslim
world, because Iran is not the only country which employs religious police:
They are also active in Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Nigeria, Malaysia and the
Aceh Province of Indonesia. Their strictness may vary, but they all act on the
assumption that Islamic religious requirements — as they define them — should
be enforced by the state. Thus women should be forced to cover up, alcohol
drinkers should be punished and “subversive” books must be banned. In the
1990s, during their first reign in Afghanistan, the Taliban movement went as
far as destroying all musical instruments (and punishing their players), chess
boards and even kites. Today, back in power for the second time, they claim to
be milder but the observable differences are minimal. No wonder female
university students in Afghanistan, who are forbidden to receive an education
if they do not wear a full‐body cover, or burqa, chant the same slogans as the protestors in Iran: “Woman, life, freedom!”
Meanwhile,
in many other Muslim countries from the Arab world to Pakistan, there may be no
distinct religious police per se, yet the regular police — or its “Adaab”
(decency) units — still inspect and punish religious misdeeds, such as dancing
“seductively” on TikTok or eating or drinking in public during daylight hours
in the holy month of Ramadan.
To many
Muslims living in the West, especially those accustomed to civil liberties, all
these religious dictates often seem baffling. What is the point of any
religious practice, many may think, if it is not freely chosen? They might also
recall the oft‐quoted phrase from the Quran, “There is no compulsion in religion” (2:256) and conclude that any
compulsion in religion must therefore be a deviation from the “real Islam.” Yet to question religious coercion
in Islam requires a much deeper discussion, because its advocates have long
justified it with two authoritative references: the Quranic duty of “commanding
the right and forbidding the wrong” and the institution known as the “Hisba.”
Let’s begin
with the Quran. Variations of the phrase (or references to the concept of) “Al‐Amr Bi‐L‐Maaruf Wa‐N‐Nahy Ani‐L‐Munkar” (“commanding the right and forbidding
the wrong”) appear in eight separate verses (3:104, 3:110, 3:114, 7:157, 9:71,
9:112, 22:41, 31:17), either as a feature of true believers or a duty incumbent
upon them. The first of these verses, 3:104, is probably the most definitive,
as it calls for a specific group to carry out the duty: “Let there arise out
of you a band of people inviting to all that is good, enjoining what is right,
and forbidding what is wrong: they are the ones to attain felicity.”
It is on
the basis of this verse that Saudi Arabia’s religious police, popularly known
as the “Mutawwah,” call themselves the “Committee for the Promotion of
Virtue and the Prevention of Vice.” (Since 2016, their powers have been curbed,
but by royal decree rather than religious reform per se, and only as an excuse
for deepening authoritarianism on the political side.) Similarly, the Taliban
has its “Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice.”
The Iranian “guidance patrol,” too, is based on Article 8 of the Iranian
Constitution, which proclaims the same concept of “commanding the right and
forbidding the wrong” to be “a universal and reciprocal duty.”
Yet there
is a crucial question that all these religious police forces appear to have
answered all too quickly: What is “right” and what is “wrong”? How do we know?
Who decides it? And do these interpretations of religion really correspond to
all the religious commandments and prohibitions of Islam?
These
questions are pertinent, not least due to the terminology found in the Quran.
The word used for the “right” that is to be “commanded” is “Maaruf,”
which literally means “the known,” implying conventional ethical norms. The
concept existed well before Islam, as pre‐Islamic Arabs used the term Maruf
for commonly known ethical values, such as gentleness and charitableness.
Hence the Arab lexicographer Ibn Manzur (d. 1312) defined Maruf as
“things that people find beneficial, likable.” Its opposite, “Munkar,”
he defined as abhorrent things that offend human conscience.
Due to this
elusiveness of vice and virtue, there emerged different views in the early
centuries of Islam about the duty, as examined by Michael Cook, whose 700‐page book, “Commanding Right and Forbidding
Wrong in Islamic Thought,” is the most comprehensive study on the topic.
As Cook notes, the earliest commentators on the Quran did not necessarily
interpret the duty as religious policing. Instead, some understood it “as
simply one of enjoining belief in God and His Prophet.” One such commentator
was Abu al‐Aliya (died 712 CE), who was among the “Tabiun,” or the first generation after the direct
companions of the Prophet Muhammad, who reportedly described the duty as
“calling people from polytheism to Islam and … forbidding the worship of idols
and devils.” A little later, Muqatil ibn Sulayman (died 767 CE), whose three‐volume book is one of the oldest
commentaries on the Quran, similarly defined the duty in limited terms. For
him, “commanding the right” meant “enjoining belief in the unity of God,”
whereas forbidding wrong meant “forbidding polytheism.”
A political
interpretation of “commanding the right and forbidding the wrong” also emerged
in the early centuries of Islam. In this view, the duty primarily involved
speaking out against tyrants and even launching rebellions against them. In
fact, as Cook observes, “it was quite common in the early centuries of Islam
for rebels to adopt forbidding wrong as their slogan.” Among the advocates of
this stance were the rationalist Mutazilites, who blamed their traditionalist
opponents for preaching that “obedience is due to whoever wins, even if he is
an oppressor.”
This idea
of quietist political obedience was indeed established by certain hadiths, or
narrations attributed to the prophet. “He who insults a ruler,” one of them
read, “Allah will insult him.” Another one ruled: “Listen to the ruler and
carry out his orders; even if your back is flogged and your wealth is
snatched.” With such guidelines, the Hanafi scholar Imam al‐Tahawi (died 933 CE) in his widely
accepted statement of the Sunni creed, wrote, “We do not permit rebellion against
our leaders or those in charge of our public affairs even if they are
oppressors.” There was also a legitimate rationale beneath this doctrine: Early
civil wars in Islam, caused by rebellions, had proven disastrous. But seeking
peace only in obedience — as long as the ruler upheld the basic tenets of Islam
— built an authoritarian political culture that has endured in the Sunni world
to the present day.
On the one
hand, then, “commanding the right and forbidding the wrong” proved to be a
politically modest duty in Sunni Islam. On the other, it was fervently enforced
against sinners and heretics. The Hanbalis, who were often the most hardline
Sunnis, were the leading example.
In the 10th
and 11th centuries in Baghdad, the Hanbalis became notorious for plundering
shops or homes to seek and destroy wine bottles, breaking musical instruments
or chess boards, challenging men and women who walked together in public and
disrupting Shiite practices.
Conceptually,
this full‐scale religious imposition was accompanied by the equation of “Maruf”
(the known good) with all the commandments of the Sharia. The third‐century Sunni Quranic exegete al‐Tabari reflected this view when he
argued, in Cook’s paraphrasing, “‘commanding right’ refers to all that God and His
Prophet have commanded, and ‘forbidding wrong’ to all that they have
forbidden.” In other words, the duty required the enforcement of all piety, and
the punishment of all impiety, at least in public eyes. (The privacy of the
home, meanwhile, was generally respected, thanks to the Quranic directives
against spying and entering homes without permission.)
To get a
sense of this expansion of enforcement, one needs to look at the very beginning
of the story: the Quran. It decrees many commandments to its believers, and
expects obedience from them out of their belief in God and hope for salvation
in the afterlife — not out of any earthly coercive measure.
For
example, believing in God is the very first commandment of Islam, yet the Quran
threatens unbelievers or apostates only with the wrath of God in the afterlife.
Similarly, Muslims are commanded to pray and fast, and to abstain from drinking
or gambling, but the Quran does not specify any punishment for violations of
these commands. The Quran also orders Muslim women to dress modestly but,
again, decrees no earthly consequence for those who don’t.
By
contrast, the Quran does decree earthly punishments for five specific misdeeds,
four of which later became enshrined in Islamic law as “al‐Hudud,” or “the boundaries” of God. These are murder or injury,
banditry, theft, adultery and false accusations of adultery. All are to be
punished corporally, as was the norm in the Quran’s historical context.
The
pertinent question for our discussion is this: Why does the Quran penalize
theft but not, say, giving up prayer? The Quran itself gives us no answer. But
we can reasonably infer the difference: Theft is a punishable crime, in almost
every society, because it violates another person’s rights. Prayer, on the
other hand, is a private connection between a person and God, which harms no
other person when it is not performed. (The same is true, in fact, for all
matters of faith and worship. As Thomas Jefferson once put it, “It does me no
injury for my neighbor to say there are 20 gods or no God. It neither picks my
pocket nor breaks my leg.”)
Yet the
Quran was only the beginning of Islamic law. In the first few centuries that
followed it, the scope of earthly punishments grew dramatically, often based on
hadiths, most of which came from solitary reports (as opposed to widely
transmitted ones) and were hence open to doubt. (Apostasy became a capital
crime, for example, due to the report, “Whomever changes his religion, kill
him.”) Almost all religious commandments also turned into enforceable laws, due
to the latter‐day interpretation of “commanding the right and forbidding the wrong.”
This was
how giving up the daily prayers, for example, became a grave crime, as the
prominent 11th‐century jurist al‐Mawardi explained in his book, “al‐Ahkam al‐Sultaniyyah” (“Ordinances of Government”), a standard Sunni text on Islamic
political theory:
If the
person abandons [the prayer], claiming that it is not an obligation, then he is
a nonbeliever; and the same ruling as that governing the apostate applies—that
is, he is killed for his denial, unless he turns for forgiveness. If he has not
done it because he claims it is too difficult to do, but while acknowledging
its obligation, then the jurists differ as to the ruling: Abu Hanifa considers
that he should be beaten at the time of every prayer, but that he is not
killed; Ahmad ibn Hanbal and a group of his later followers say that he becomes
a Kafir by his abandoning it, and is killed for this denial … Al‐Shafiʿi considers… he is not put to death until he has
been asked to turn in repentance … If he refuses to make repentance, and does not
accept to do the prayer; then he is killed for abandoning it—immediately, according to some,
after three days, according to others. He is killed in cold blood by the sword,
although Abu’ Abbas ibn Surayj says that he is beaten with a wooden stick until
he dies.
What about
fasting in the holy month of Ramadan? Al‐Mawardi wrote that the Muslim who
refuses to fast “is not put to death,” but is still “given a discretionary
punishment to teach him a lesson.” Such punishments in Islamic law, called “Tazir,”
meaning discretionary rules set by the authorities rather than scripture,
typically included lashes or short prison sentences.
Who were
the authorities responsible for implementing these laws? There were courts
ruled by Qazis, or judges, but they did not go after lawbreakers
themselves. The latter task, which al‐Mawardi described as “one of the fundamental matters of
the religion,” was called “Hisba,” to be carried out by “those who do Hisba,”
or the “Muhtasibs.” While the duty of “commanding the right and
forbidding the wrong” was incumbent on all Muslims, it was these state‐appointed officials who physically
enforced the rules.
What, then,
is Hisba? Among the many meanings cited by Ibn Manzur, the word implies
enforcing and managing limits, as well as sufficiency, monitoring and
reckoning. Both classical and contemporary Muslim sources define it as a kind
of law enforcement, established by the prophet. However, when we look carefully
into the prophetic practice, we see something rather different from religious
policing: market inspection.
The
marketplace was a fundamental institution in nascent Islam, thanks to the fact
that many of the first Muslims, including the prophet himself, were long-time
merchants. No wonder that, soon after settling in Medina after his historic
Hijra (migration) from Mecca, Muhammad designated a spot in the city,
declaring: “This is your market, let it not be narrowed, and let no tax be
taken on it.” He also began frequenting the market in person to prohibit any
fraudulent practices, which the Quran rebuked severely in a number of verses.
This is
also why the prophet appointed some of his companions to oversee the market and
prevent the occurrence of fraud. Interestingly, one of these inspectors was
reportedly a woman named Samra bint Nuhayk al‐Asadiyya — a notable example of the prominent
public roles played by early Muslim women. A few decades later, the Caliph Umar
also appointed a woman, al‐Shifa bint Abd Allah, in addition to three men, to oversee the Medinan
market.
In the
first century of Islam, these market inspectors were called “Aamil Al‐Suq,” or “overseer of the market.” In Muslim Spain, they
were also called “Sahib Al‐Suq,” or “master of the market.” Their functions were described by
the Cordoban scholar Yahya ibn Umar (died 901 CE), who wrote about “the orderly running of the
marketplace, particularly with regard to weights, measures and scales.”
Significantly, he did not mention any religious policing.
Yet the
latter function would soon appear. As the historian Abbas Hamdani observed,
while “in his previous role as sahib al‐suq, the market inspector had mainly
material, not spiritual considerations,” a shift later took place. “In the late
ninth century, we find that the office of the market inspector begins to be
regarded as a religious office and the inspector is now called Muhtasib, a
person who takes count of the right and wrong deeds of the people and brings
them to book.”
This dual
function of the Muhtasib was also observed by the historian Yassine Essid, who
wrote:
In reading the different treatises devoted to
the Hisba we discover two categories of responsibilities, or rather, we
find ourselves looking at two different figures: the censor of morals who
breaks musical instruments, pours out wine, beats the libertine and tears off
his silken clothing, and the modest market provost, a man who controls weights
and measures, inspects the quality of the foods on sale, ensures that the
markets are well supplied.
As time
went on, religious policing even became the principal duty of the Muhtasib,
whereas market supervising turned trivial. This was evident in “The Revival of
Religious Sciences,” the highly influential book by the Imam Abu Hamid al‐Ghazali (died 1111 CE), one of the
towering scholars of the Sunni tradition. Al‐Ghazali wrote a whole chapter on Hisba,
which he defined as “prevent[ing] an evildoing for the sake of God’s right in order to
safeguard the prevented from committing sin.” Thus, everything that is
considered sin is to be targeted, from drinking wine to leaving prayer. In
retribution for such acts, al‐Ghazali proposed “direct” punishments, such as “breaking the musical
instruments, spilling over the wine, and snatching the silk garment from him
who is wearing it.”
Al‐Ghazali also justified “Hisba against the religious
innovations,” meaning heresies. This was, in fact, even “more important than against all the
other evildoings.”
In short, Hisba,
which began under Muhammad with the limited function of market inspection,
turned only much later into full‐fledged religious coercion — against not only impieties, but
also heresies.
Yet
wouldn’t religious coercion infringe on an Islamic value, also cherished by
pious scholars such as al‐Ghazali himself: the sincerity of intentions behind acts of worship?
What would be the value of prayer, for example, if it were performed only out
of fear of the Muhtasib, not fear of God? And if the suppression of
heresy were justified, would this not lead to endless religious conflict among
Muslims, since one sect’s “heresy” was another’s true faith?
These
questions appear to have been asked only rarely in the classical age of Islamic
civilization, though there were a few scholars who noticed the problem with
coercion.
One was the
Ottoman Hanafi‐Sufi scholar Abd al‐Ghani al‐Nabulsi (died 1731), who was
troubled by the Istanbul‐based Kadizadeli movement, a zealous
religious group that created much disturbance in 17th‐century Ottoman society. Influenced
by Ibn Taymiyya (died 1328), the prominent Hanbali scholar, these were puritans
who blamed the Ottomans’ decline on “innovations” in Islam, such as Sufi orders that
used religious music, “rational sciences” such as philosophy and mathematics,
and perceived social vices such as coffee and tobacco, which had become quite
popular across the empire. For a while, the Kadizadelis influenced Sultan Murad
IV, who destroyed all the coffeehouses in Istanbul and executed tobacco
smokers, not to mention wine drinkers. (Ironically, he himself was a heavy
drinker, who died of cirrhosis at the age of 27.) In the late 17th century, the
Kadizadeli militancy would decline, but not totally vanish.
Al‐Nabulsi patiently argued against
these puritans in his book, “al‐Hadiqa al‐Nadiyya” (“The Dew‐Moistened Garden”). First, he opposed the conflation
of “commanding the right and forbidding the wrong” with Hisba, which had become the
standard view since al‐Ghazali. In al-Nabulsi’s view, the duty was only a “matter of the tongue,” with no enforcement. In return,
people could either heed the advice or not — it was their choice, because “There is no compulsion in religion.” According to Cook, this reference
by al‐Nabulsi to
Quran 2:256 may be the very first use of this verse against coercion in Islam.
Traditionally, it had been cited only to rule out forced conversions to Islam
of Jews, Christians or others.
Al‐Nabulsi also referred, in a letter,
to a Quranic verse often downplayed by religious enforcers: “You who believe,
you are responsible for your own souls; if anyone else goes astray it will not
harm you so long as you follow the guidance.” (5:105) The lesson, al‐Nabulsi argued, is that instead of
judging others, Muslims would be better off spending time examining their own
souls.
Al‐Nabulsi also deconstructed the
ostensible piety of the Kadizadelis. Zealots of their kind set out to command
and forbid, he argued, in Cook’s paraphrasing, “because they crave an ego
trip, or see it as a way to establish a role of power and dominance in society,
or to gain the attention of important people.” Beneath their claims to
righteousness, in other words, lay only self‐righteousness.
Another
Ottoman scholar, the famous polymath Katip Çelebi (died 1657), had also seen
Kadizadeli militancy even more closely, and minced no words against it. In his
book, “Mîzânü’l‑Hak,” or “The Balance of Truth,” he wrote:
The most noble Prophet used to deal kindly and
generously with his community. The arrogant men of later time, not seeing the
disgrace of running counter to him, label some of the community as infidels,
some as heretics, some as profligates, for trifling reasons … They bring the
people to the grievous state of fanaticism, and cause dissension. Ordinary folk
know nothing of these rules and conditions; thinking that it is obligatory in
every case to enjoin right and forbid wrong, they quarrel and are pertinacious
with one another. The baseless wrangling in which they engage, with stone‐like stupidity, sometimes leads to
bloodshed. Most fighting and strife between Muslims arises from this cause.
Today,
almost four centuries later, it is remarkable to read this sharp critique by
Katip Çelebi. It is also sad, because it remains true today that “most fighting
and strife between Muslims arises from this cause,” which is religious zealotry
and coercion. Various Islamic regimes or parties, from West Africa to Southeast
Asia, struggle with each other, and with secular forces, to “command the right
and forbid the wrong,” in the narrow way they define it. In the meantime, they
hardly make anyone more faithful or pious, if that is really their goal. On the
contrary, as seen in Iran today, in the hijabs defiantly burned by the women on
whom they are imposed, they only make people lose respect for Islam.
As such, I
believe the way forward for Islamic civilization lies in divorcing “commanding
the right and forbidding the wrong” from religious coercion. Sure, in any
society, certain things have to be coercively “commanded,” such as honesty in
trade, or “forbidden,” such as theft, murder or oppression. These are literally
Maaruf, in terms of being “known” to all humanity as common sense. But
how people believe in God and worship him are matters of their own conscience,
which should be left to their private minds to freely determine.
While this
argument may sound to some like a big “innovation” in Islam, it has firm roots
in the earliest interpretations of the Quranic duty of “commanding the right
and forbidding the wrong,” and in fact aligns with the original meaning of Hisba.
It is also strongly grounded in the Quranic dictum rightly expounded by al‐Nabulsi: “There is no compulsion in religion.” Properly understood, this means
there should really be no compulsion in religion. People should be at liberty
to practice it, or not, based on their sincere convictions and free choices.
-----
Mustafa
Akyol is a Senior Fellow, Centre for Global Liberty and Prosperity, Cato
Institute
Source: The Dubious Roots of Religious
Police in Islam
New Age Islam, Islam Online, Islamic
Website, African
Muslim News, Arab
World News, South
Asia News, Indian
Muslim News, World
Muslim News, Women in Islam, Islamic
Feminism, Arab Women, Women In Arab, Islamophobia
in America, Muslim Women in West, Islam
Women and Feminism