The Prophet’s Mission Provides A Comprehensive Model For All Situations
By Naseer Ahmed, New Age Islam
30 July 2022
The Detractors Of Islam Misapply The
Verses That Relate To A Different Situation Such As War Or The Judgment Phase
To The Present Condition Which Is Of Peace
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This is a rejoinder to Arshad Alam’s
article, “How Relevant is
the Prophetic Model Today?” The Prophet’s Model covers not one, but
five distinct situations covering five distinct phases of his mission, and with
these five phases, it covers every possible situation that Muslims anywhere in
the world are likely to find themselves in.
It is because of the comprehensiveness of his mission covering every
possible circumstance, that he was declared the seal of the prophets and the
religion of Islam both completed and perfected with him.
The detractors of Islam misapply the verses
that relate to a different situation such as war or the judgment phase to the
present condition which is of peace. The present condition for most Muslims
corresponds to the final phase which was, “The Return to Peace” if they are the
religious majority, or the very first phase if they are living as a religious
minority. This is covered in my articles:
1. The Importance of Classification for Gaining a Correct
Understanding of the Quran
2. Pre-destination and the question, ‘Was
Muhammad (pbuh) Pre-Destined To Be The Seal Of The Prophets?’
Model When Living As A Religious
Minority
Phase one corresponds to living as a
religious minority. In this phase, there is total prohibition on retaliation of
any kind for any wrong. The virtues of patience are emphasised. This continues
to be the model for all Muslims living as a religious minority.
Legislative Phase
Phase two was the legislative phase when
the Prophet had become the ruler of the people of Medina and in a position to
legislate and implement the laws. The laws relating to marriage, inheritance,
the family, diet and sexual conduct apply to all the Muslims. The
administration of criminal justice is the domain of the State and not a concern
of the individual Muslim. Those living as a minority are not prevented from
following their personal laws but the State may not allow the personal laws to
become legally enforceable and make only their own laws legally enforceable. In
such a case there is no problem in following your own laws as long as there is
no dispute but if any party takes a dispute to the court, it will have to be
settled according to the law of the land. The model of living as a minority is
that you submit to the conditions imposed.
Just War
Phase three covered a just war which is any
war to liberate an oppressed people from the oppression of their oppressors.
The verses are faith neutral. For example, India’s war to liberate Bangladesh
will qualify as a just war, even though the war was against the Muslim
oppressors of another Muslim community which was being oppressed. A war can
only be waged by a ruler and non-state actors are specifically barred from
making war. Please read the following article:
The Principles of War from the Quran
Judgment on the Vanquished of Just War
Phase four was the judgment phase. It
covers judgment on the people who waged a war in violation of their treaties
with the Muslims. This is covered by verses 9:1 to 30. An amnesty of four
months is declared during which the war criminals are free to move around and
migrate to a neighbouring country if they so choose. Verse 9:5 is a command to
kill all the Mushrikin who remain with the exception of those who never
violated their treaty (9:4) or those who seek asylum with the Muslims (9:6).
The asylum seekers are to be treated merely as people “without knowledge” even
though they may have fought in contravention of their treaty and are to be
conducted to places of safety. With such liberal conditions, none remained to be
killed as per 9:5. Arshad Alam chooses to be guided by only 9:5 and that too
outside its context. These verses are a historic record of a judgment on the
vanquished people and a guide to future situations when dealing with the war
criminals. You will not a find a more generous way to deal with war criminals
in the annals of all history. Please read the following article:
The
Nuances of Quranic The Correct Understanding of the So Called ‘Sword’
Verses of Surah Taubah
Return to Peace
Phase five is “The Return to Peace” phase
where the Muslims are now a religious majority and the emphasis shifts to
rendering absolute secular justice to the minorities disregarding all previous
animosities. A “Return to Peace" phase is different from the “war" or
"the judgment" phase. You are asked to shift gears and behave
magnanimously when earlier you were asked to keep your distance from those who
behaved like enemy. The verses taken from these two different phases will
appear to contradict each other but once you understand them in their proper
context, there is no contradiction. Please read:
The Importance of Rendering Justice in Islam
Post Prophet Period
Ridda means rejection and what some tribes
rejected after the Prophet’s death was not the religion of Islam but the authority
of the Caliph saying that their oath of fealty was only to the Prophet which
ended with his death. In their eyes, the authority did not automatically pass
to the chosen Caliph. It was a political rebellion that was put down. Arabia
was a tribal society before and only under the Prophet it was in the nascent
stages of becoming a nation state. The rebellion had to be put down to prevent
a return to tribal society.
It would appear from Arshad Alam’s article
that Islamic society was about to explode and had to be kept together by the
sword which is far from the truth. On the contrary, it was cohesive and strong
enough to take head-on, the two imperial powers of the day. They were still a
very small army when they embarked upon one of the most astonishing series of
conquests in human history. To the northeast of Arabia, they conquered the
Persian Empire of the Sassanid by crushing the Persian armies in the battles of
Qadisiya in 637 and Nehavend in 642.
Numerically, the Arabs were no match for their opponents and were often
outnumbered 1:6. On the field of battle, though, the inspired Arabs rapidly
conquered all of Mesopotamia, Syria, and Palestine. By 642, Egypt was taken
from the Byzantine Empire. By 711, the Arab armies had swept completely across
North Africa to the Atlantic Ocean. There they turned north and, crossing the
Strait of Gibraltar, overwhelmed the Visigothic kingdom in Spain.
“Muslim expansion into Spain was Islam’s most
dramatic move westward. The speed of the victory reflected the ill will of the
native Spanish for their Visigoth rulers. Spanish Jews who had been
continuously persecuted and subjected to forced Christian conversions by the
previous regime also welcomed the Arabs. Then from their new forward base in
Spain, Muslim horsemen raided north across the Pyrenees into modern France. The
Arabs captured Narbonne and Toulouse in 718 CE, but their excursions were
stopped by the Frankish General Martel at the battle of Poitiers (732 CE).
Muslim historians maintain that the dark ages of Europe date from the Muslim
defeat: lost centuries that would have been avoided had the light of Islam been
permitted to shine”. Paul Grieves book –
Islam (History, Faith and Politics: the complete introduction)
In just about eighty years, these Arabs,
had conquered many lands and built an empire starting from the borders of India
and Afghanistan in the east to the Atlantic Ocean. It was larger than the Roman
Empire at its peak which had taken the Romans a thousand years to build.
“The character of this new Muslim Empire
was entirely different from what had gone before. There was no wholesale
plunder of the conquered lands by the new rulers. Instead, the Arab armies were
contained in disciplined garrison towns, Fustat in Egypt, for example, or Kufah
in Iraq. Religious persecution of minorities by the Greek Orthodox Church came
to an immediate end and tolerance was declared following the injunctions of the
Quran. Muslims had no preference between the intricate factions that had formed
among both Christians and Jews, ironically respecting both as `people of the
Book’, despite their military defeat. The occupied non-Muslims were, however,
required to pay the Jiziyah, a tax levied on income in return for protection.
But the levy was generally less than the previous fiscal impositions of the
departing Persians and Byzantines, and non-Muslims were exempted from paying
Zakat. Islam was not forced upon the population, rather the early conversions
were as a result of the personal and community examples set by the Muslims and
the ease with which this powerful new religion could be understood. Even
converts, however, were not exempted from the protection tax which was needed
to fund the operation of the new empire.” Robert Grieve
“In art and
architecture, in philosophy, in medicine, science and literature, in
government, the original Arabians had nothing to teach and everything to learn
… these Muslim Arabians in collaboration with and by the help of their subject
peoples began to assimilate (and) adapt …” (Hitti, Philip K. History of the
Arabs).
The Arabs were quick learners. They
displayed an attitude of respect towards the conquered for their learning and
achievements. The conquered found the new system of control under the Arabs
fairer than the oppression they had been living under. The Arabs built upon
what they learnt. The Belgian-born American historian of science George Sarton
(1884-1956) who founded the history of science in America, in "The
Incubation of Western Culture in the Middle East: a George C. Keiser Foundation
Lecture", March 29, 1950, Washington DCSarton says “The achievements of
the Arabic speaking peoples between the ninth and the twelfth centuries are so
great as to baffle our understanding”
In the first half of the tenth century, the
Muslims were at the peak of their achievements.
“The main task of mankind was accomplished
by Muslims. The greatest philosopher, Al Farabi was a Muslim; the greatest
mathematicians, Abu Kamil and Ibrahim Ibn Sinan were Muslims; the greatest
geographer and encyclopaedist, Al_masudi was a Muslim; the great historian,
Al-Tabari was still a Muslim.
The other notables of the period were
Al-Ashari, Al Hamdani, Abu Dulaf, Abu Al-Faraj Al-Isfahani, Ibn Duraid, Ibn
Rusta, ibn Al-Faqih, Abu Zaid, Abu Bakr Al-Razi, Al-Balkhi, Al-Jaihani,
Al_farabi, Ibn-Amajur and many others.
Thus was Muslim culture highest of those
days stretching from Central Asia to the Western end of the world” (Sarton)
“The rapid and almost miraculous
development of the human mind was the inevitable consequence of a policy based
on those principles whose application had promoted the wonderful progress of
every nation ruled by the enlightened successors of Muhammad.” (Scott)
Let us examine what “those principles whose
application had promoted the wonderful progress of every nation ruled by the
enlightened successors of Muhammad” were.
Human Rights in Islam
1.
Slavery is not categorically prohibited by the Quran, for seventh
century economic, moral and humanitarian reasons, but slavery is judged to be
against God’s will and freeing a slave is extolled as a charity and a virtue.
Without prisons and slavery, war prisoners would have been put to death.
Slavery was therefore a necessity. A slave was however treated as a member of
the family. Ill treatment by slapping for example required the slave to be
freed in expiation of the ‘sin’. They had the right to `earn’ or `buy out’
their freedom. There was therefore, great incentive for them to give off their
best and not merely be a provider of cheap muscle power. Slaves also rose to
occupy important administrative positions and they also became rulers.
2.
The right to life and property was made sacrosanct. This right is
recognized as a very important right which incentivizes man to develop his land
and create wealth for self and posterity. It encourages entrepreneurship. The
positive difference that this right has made under the ‘capitalist’ system and
the negative influence from a lack of these rights in communist systems is well
known.
3.
The right to take part in government was instituted by the Shura. The
Shura or the advisory council consisted of tribal leaders who were true
representatives of their people in every sense of the term. Representative
democracy was thus the form of government until the fourth Caliph after which
it became dynastic.
4.
The right to freedom of religion and conscience is specifically set out
in the Quran:
Let there be no compulsion in religion,
Truth stands out clear from error 2:256
Muslims were freed from the tyranny of
priests and enjoy individual liberty in the matter of their religion. “The
Quran is God's legacy to man, unreservedly available to all. For a Muslim
therefore, the central act of devotion is not to be found in following any
supervised rite or sacrament, but by reading and contemplating God's direct
word to man, set out in a book which he can open, read and interpret for
himself” (Robert Grieve).
5.
The concept of fundamental human equality is repeated many times in both
the Quran and the Sunna, specifically summarized one again in the Prophet’s
farewell address. ‘No Arab has superiority over a non-Arab, neither does a man
of brown colour enjoy superiority over a man of black colour, nor does a black
man enjoy superiority over a man of white colour except by piety.’
‘Verily, the most honoured of you in the
sight of Allah is he who is most righteous of you’ 49:13
6.
In law, non-Muslims had equal rights and there is a famous case in which
Hazrat Ali (RA) who was the Caliph at the time, lost a case to a Jew in an
Islamic court. The allegation against the Jew was that he had stolen Ali’s
shield and since the Jew had possession of the shield, possession was taken as
50% proof of ownership and Ali’s word against the Jew’s word was given equal
importance. The Jew therefore had 50% proof of ownership and Hazrat Ali just
had his word and that of his son against the Jew. The son was not treated as an
independent witness and his word therefore did not count.
7.
Islam was the first to give women rights as an individual to own and
inherit property and to give testimony, right to choose husband, right to
divorce, right to remarry, right to support by members of her family.
8.
Killing by burning is banned in Islam. In medieval Europe killing by
burning as part of their `judicial process’ was common till the eighteenth
century. Killing by torture including emasculation was also common for male
prisoners in Europe.
9.
The government’s rights to raise revenue (zakat and Jizya) and manner of
spending is prescribed in the Quran. The Hadiths are very specific in
forbidding high taxes. According to M
Asad, “in the Islamic Empire there was no privileged nation, nor a centre of power
enriching itself at the cost of acquired territories. All this forces upon us
the conclusion that the inner strength and social soundness of the Islamic
world were superior to anything mankind had hitherto experienced by way of
social organization. “There was therefore every incentive for the people to
work for improving their own environment. The revenues from the people
belonging to one administrative block were spent on the people from the same
block.
10.
Rudimentary social security was introduced by Umar bin Khattab (RA). He
supported the old including non-Muslims by granting pension from the state
treasury.
The advance made by the Quran in creating
personal rights under the conditions of the seventh century can be readily
appreciated, coming a thousand years before similar measures were even
considered in Europe. The thread that runs through all the 10 major points is
freedom – of which each is an aspect or facet. These freedoms were a great
improvement in the life of the people (the conquerors as well as the conquered)
releasing enormous creative energies that were responsible for “the
achievements so great that baffle our understanding.” The integrated society
comprising the conquerors and the conquered was in perfect equilibrium being
more prosperous, more advanced in every respect and enjoying greater freedoms
than any other people in other parts of the world.
Islam took the Arabs and the Islamic world
to pre-eminence in science, scholarship, medicine, universal education through
its system of madrasas, law and jurisprudence and in wealth creation due to
trade which was helped in no small measure by the fact that the caravans of
trade could travel in utmost safety throughout the length of the vast empire.
This gain in pre-eminence went on during the ninth, tenth and eleventh centuries.
What the Arabs had done was far more than to revive ancient Greek science. They
had created an entirely new scientific world of their own and developed
hitherto unknown avenues of research and philosophy.
Those interested in systematically studying
the Prophet’s mission from the Quran may read the following articles:
1. The Story of the Prophetic mission of Muhammad (pbuh)
from the Qu’ran (part 1): The early opposition
4. The Story of the Prophetic Mission of Muhammad (Pbuh) In the Qu’ran (Part 4): The
Medinian Period
5.
The Story of the Prophetic Mission of Muhammad (pbuh) in
the Qu’ran (Concluding Part) Summary
Do not let some fake Islamic scholar
mislead you about the religion of Islam.
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A frequent
contributor to NewAgeIslam.com, Naseer Ahmed is an Engineering graduate from
IIT Kanpur and is an independent IT consultant after having served in both the
Public and Private sector in responsible positions for over three decades. He
has spent years studying Quran in-depth and made seminal contributions to its
interpretation.
URL:
https://newageislam.com/the-war-within-islam/prophet-mission-comprehensive-model-/d/127609
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