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The widely reported attempt by Turkey to reinterpret the shariah by liberating it from traditional medievalism is in fact a step towards realizing Iqbal’s vision of modernizing Islam.
This interesting query was raised by Sir Mohammad Iqbal, the great philosopher –poet of Islam, in his historic Madras lectures delivered in 1930 and published under the title, The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam. Answering in the affirmative, he called upon Muslim theologians “to reinterpret the foundational legal principles [of Islam], in the light of their own experience and the altered conditions of modern life.”
The widely reported attempt by Turkey to reinterpret the shariah by liberating it from traditional medievalism is in fact a step towards realizing Iqbal’s vision of modernizing Islam. It is possible that Turkey’s initiative may displease some conservative Muslim ulema who may even be contemplating a fatwa of blasphemy against the Diyanet’s theologians. But it must be realised that correcting centuries old misinterpretations does not amount to tampering with the shariah or creating a new Islam.
If such a fear exists among the Muslims, it is because of the misconception that the hadith-centric present day shariah - be it capital punishment for apostasy, stoning to death for adultery, the legitimacy of triple talaq or even the sanction of child marriage - has divine origins and hence immutable. In fact the problem of incompatibility of the shariah with modern values is because of it not being based on the egalitarian teachings of the Quran. This can be proved by going back to the Quran and studying its pronouncements on some major issues which are in conflict with the provisions of the shariah
Adultery: The Quran in surah 24 (Al- Noor) prescribes a hundred stripes to be administered in public to both parties indulging in illicit sex, but only if evidenced by four eye witnesses. The purpose of this injunction is to deter future offenders by publicly humiliating the adulterers and not to lash a person to death. Explaining this verse in his commentary Dawatul Quran, renowned scholar Shams Pirzada says that the word Jalda (which comes from Jild meaning skin in Arabic) used for stripes in the surah 24 “means to strike with such a thing whose effect will be only on the skin and would not exceed it. This purpose can be achieved by a whip or a cane, provided that the lash or the strike is not given with such a force that the skin is split and the body bleeds.” A hadith in Kitabul Hudood of Al-Bukhari supports this view. It says that when a man was ordered to be lashed by the Prophet for drinking, people used hands and twisted clothing to beat him.
This is in stark contrast to the stoning to death resorted to by most Muslim countries based on reports that the Prophet stoned the adulterers to death and whipped the fornicators. Surprisingly, there is no statement of the Prophet clarifying that the Quranic punishment was meant only for fornicators. It is difficult to accept that the Quran should mention only the smaller punishment of hundred lashes while allowing the Prophet to apply the ultimate penalty of death without any scriptural legitimacy.
Apostasy: The Quran addresses the issue of apostasy in several places and nowhere does it talk of any mundane punishment for it. It only warns renegades of sad consequences in the next life thereby effectively giving them an entire lifetime to revert back to Islam (2:217). This is consistent with the Quranic concept of laa ikraaha fiddeen (there is no compulsion in religion) wherein any person including a Muslim, without violently threatening the Islamic order, enjoys the free will and the fundamental right to profess, practice and propagate the religion of his choice including atheism.
Triple Talaq: The concept of triple talaq in one sitting is alien to Islam as it goes against the very spirit of the procedure of divorce laid down in surahs 2, 4 and 65 of the Quran which is to give the parties maximum time and opportunity for reconciliation.
It may therefore be legitimate to ask why these Quranic decrees do not find a place in the shariah. The answer to that lies in the belief of Muslim theologians that hadiths have an overriding effect on the Quran. (See Abu Ammar Yasir Qadhi’s An Introduction to the Sciences of the Quran in which he writes that the Sunnah of the prophet can abrogate the Quran). The truth is that the Quran being the locus classicus of Islam, no authority can supersede it. Even the Prophet was commanded to follow the Quran and judge by it (4:105, 5:49, 6:50, 7:203). In several other verses the Prophet is described as a teacher and interpreter (muallim) of the Quran and its wisdom (2:151, 3:164, 16:44).
The question is, if hadiths were only explanations of the Quran how could they go against the Quran itself? That is, how could the Prophet prescribe capital punishment for adultery when he was only supposed to expound and apply the law of hundred lashes of surah 24, or kill an apostate when he was only allowed to explain to him the consequences of apostasy in the next life?
The same could be said of misogynous traditions. For instance, Al-Bukhari (Kitabul Jihad) reports that “evil omen is in three things; horse, woman and the house”. Another tradition in Al-Bukhari claims that the majority of those entering Hell would be women (Kitabun Nikah). Yet another report in Al-Muslim (Kitabun Nikah) asserts that had it not been for Eve, women would not have betrayed their husbands.
It is obvious from the insulting nature of these statements that they could never have emanated from the Prophet given his exemplary character as seen from the following hadiths. “If anybody had a female child and does not bury her alive, nor treats her unjustly, nor prefers his sons over her, Allah would admit him in Paradise (Abu Dawood)” And, talking about unfortunate divorcees, the Prophet said, “the best form of charity is to maintain your daughter who has been returned to you, particularly when she has no earning member except you (Ibn Maaja)”. This proves that the authenticity of the gender biased hadiths referred above is suspect.
The Quran claims that it is a book for all periods and therefore, it supports the notion that any law formulated on the basis of its philosophy has to evolve from time to time. For this to happen the doors of ijthihad (independent interpretation) must be reopened, and the entire corpus of hadiths must be reevaluated to discredit all such hadiths that are antithetical to the spirit of justice, equity and fairness embodied in Quranic universalism.
(The writer is a Chennai based peace activist and a student of comparative religion. He can be reached at email.faiz@gmail.com)
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