Pontiffs on the offensive —Salman Akram Raja

There are certainly other Muslim voices but it needs to be realised that answers to the tangled question of violence and propagation of faith are more complex and problematic than is often imagined by ordinary Muslims

In drawing conclusions it is important to notice that Pope Benedict XVI did not denounce all violence in his lecture. He only declared the use of force for the propagation of faith to be unreasonable and against the nature of God. Since Islam has been charged with denial of this norm the intellectually appropriate response would have to either accept the permissibility of force in principle or present an Islamic statement of norm denying the acceptability of violence in the propagation of faith.

Is the charge against Islamic thought, as opposed to Islam in the abstract, entirely baseless? Consider.

The vast majority of ordinary Muslims continue to carry a deeply felt belief in the commitment of their faith to peace and comity. While there is awareness of wars and armed conflict in the history of Islam these are generally recalled as exceptional events necessitated by the defence of a persecuted nascent community. The later conquests are seen as events of no inherent religious significance though conducted by Muslim rulers. Empire building, after all, has been undertaken by various peoples and the need to do so, right or wrong, cuts across races and religions.

During the course of the last century, however, other discourses on the nature of war in Islamic history, more learned than the lightly tutored perceptions of the laity, have arisen. Over time these discourses, initiated not by western orientalists but by self-avowed Muslim revivalists, have moved from the fringe to the centre of Islamic thought. The difference between the Islamist activist and the traditionalist scholar has narrowed as both have increasingly diverged from the gentler folk creeds. It is in this context that reactions to the Pope’s lecture may be placed.

While the ordinary Muslim was shocked at the suggestion of programmatic violence in Islam the men of the pulpit were offended at the belittling of their claimed right to holy force as contrary to God’s nature.

Islamic thought in the modern era has several noteworthy exemplars. In the Pakistani context Abu al ala Maudoodi occupies a position of considerable prestige. His Tafhim-ul-Quran remains perhaps the most widely read commentary on the Holy Quran in the Urdu language. Several judgements of the superior courts have described him as a leading authority on Islam. Maudoodi’s Jihad fil Islam (Jihad in Islam), an early work, remains key to his later thought and his political legacy. In that text Maudoodi put forward the idea of muslihana jihad or jihad for the purpose of correction of error. The Holy Quran, in several verses, makes of the faithful the following demand: aqim ud din. For Shah Abdul Qadir, Shah Waliullah’s son and the first translator of the Holy Quran into Urdu in the early nineteenth century, the aqim ud din verses call upon the believers to stay steadfast in their faith. What is demanded is a private struggle and a personal resolve. Not so for Maudoodi. In Jihad fil Islam as well as his commentary Maudoodi was to translate aqim ud din as the command to establish the faith as a complete code of life on God’s earth. This is what distinguishes Islam as a din from mere mazhab or religion in a narrow sense. The latter are meek temple affairs. For him, Islam craves a state and the might to enforce the sharia as the universal order. This, for Maudoodi, calls for armed jihad that the Islamic state must conduct not for the purpose of defence but for correcting the errors of the world. This is the Divine will and to participate in the struggle the obligation of all Muslims.

Maulana Taqi Usmani, son and intellectual heir to Mufti Shafi — hailed in his time as the Mufti-e-Hind, is considered by many to be the leading Deobandi authority of the day. He was embraced by the Pakistani state and remained a judge of the Shariat Appellate Bench of the Supreme Court for nearly twenty years till 2002. During the recent Hudood controversy he was especially invited by the ruling party to head the committee of ulema set up to examine the amendment proposals. Given his background Taqi Usmani can hardly be considered a minor maverick. His Islam and Modernism, published in 2001, devotes a chapter to the purpose of jihad in Islam. The text is in the form of replies by the great Maulana to questions posed by those seeking enlightenment. A correspondent arguing in favour of peaceful missionary work and against offensive jihad had suggested:

Subjugating them (non-Muslims) to a Muslim government cannot achieve this (change of heart and mind) because in such a condition the subject people will be conscious of their subjugation and they will hardly have the inclination to hear about Islam with an attentive ear.

The Maulana’s response is chilling:

I understand from what you have written that jihad is not necessary when a non-Muslim country permits Muslim mission(ary) work to be conducted in it. If this is your opinion, I cannot agree with it. Obstacles in the way of mission(ary) work are not only legal ones. For a non-Muslim state to have more pomp and glory than a Muslim state is itself an obstacle. … Therefore, to shatter this grandeur is among the greater objectives of jihad … Another point to consider is whether during the time of the holy Prophet (peace be upon him) or of the companions there is any instance of a mission being sent after awaiting permission for it. … Was any missionary party sent to Rome before mounting an attack on that metropolis? … As far as my knowledge goes there is not a single instance throughout the entire history of Islam where the intention was announced that warfare would be stopped if the enemy conceded to this condition (permission to carry out peaceful missionary work).

There are certainly other Muslim voices that counter Maudoodi and Taqi Usmani’s call to incessant war till followers of all other faiths have been subjugated and forced into humiliation. At the same time intellectual support for aggression as a valid norm in Islam is by no means minuscule. It emerges, even if by inference, in writers that span a wide spectrum from Martin Lings to Ghulam Ahmad Parvez, otherwise Maudoodi’s great nemesis. What is clear is that supposedly learned answers to the tangled question of violence and propagation of faith are more problematic than is often imagined by ordinary Muslims whose hearts remain unburdened by what the pontiffs have to teach.

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page06\10\05\story_5-10-2006_pg3_2