by Ed Husain
In 2011, just after the revolution in Egypt, the largest Arab Muslim nation, a survey found that 87 per cent of the population wanted sharia to hold official legal authority.1 In Egypt, 88 per cent of people and in Jordan 83 per cent supported the death penalty for apostasy. Eighty per cent of Egyptians said they favoured stoning adulterers, while 70 per cent supported cutting hands off thieves. In 2012, when the new parliament drafted a constitution, the second article confirmed that the primary source of legislation would be ‘principles of the Islamic sharia’. For puritans, that clause was interpreted as a major defeat: the ‘principles’ were not sufficient; their demand was full sharia as law. This approach was the result of eight decades of popular activism by the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, embedding in the public imagination the idea that ‘The Quran is our constitution.’ Now, anything other than the Quran as ‘the constitution’ is seen as betrayal. Bowing to this sentiment, the Saudi monarch, King Salman, in 2015, in his first major speech, declared that Saudi Arabia’s constitution was the Quran. What does this mean in reality? The political freedom to question the king or the puritans with impunity is not yet available in most Arab lands.
Islamists have clung to this obsession with the ‘law of God’ since Imam Ali was killed in the name of the idea that ‘rule is for God alone’. In fact, as secular and ‘man-made law’ has become dominant in the West, Muslim activists have rallied under the sharia.
The first generation of Muslims had either direct access to the Prophet Mohamed, or one degree of separation. Questions of guidance that were not answered in the Quran were easily resolved directly by the Prophet himself or his companions. There were quandaries, but the solutions were within reach. If early Muslims continued to quiz the Prophet about personal life or matters that he felt were too worldly, he would often remain silent. At other times, he mildly reprimanded those who wanted answers to all the minutiae of life. ‘Istafti qalbak’– Ask your heart – he would say. The conscience was as good a guide as he to any moral dilemma. Famously, the Prophet taught his companions: ‘Antum a’lamoo bi umoori dunyakum’: You know best about the affairs of your world.
Muslim scholars would later see this as strong evidence that Islam did not seek to control every aspect of a believer’s life. Instead, Islam sought to provide broad principles of good morality, as in the Quran and as lived by the Prophet. But such breadth of view threatened the coherence of the new faith. The Quran was revealed in Mecca and Medina, when the Islamic community was still relatively small. Within a hundred years, however, Islam was an empire stretching from Spain to Central Asia. The battle of Karbala with its powerful centres lying in Kufa and Damascus showed that Mecca and Medina had become marginalised geopolitically within the Muslim world.
With the growth of the empire, the Prophet’s Islam became increasingly complex. From the eighth to the tenth centuries, Muslim thinkers expended much intellectual energy on this challenge: was it possible to devise a legal system to administer the empire, while maintaining local customs and tribal agreements, and remaining true to the Quran’s teachings and the Prophet’s life? The result of this search was the complex codification of the sharia.
Muslim jurists developed five responses to questions that the faithful might ask them, which were categorised in five ways. ‘Wajib’, or obligatory acts, such as prayers or almsgiving, were rewarded by God in the next life. ‘Mandub’ denoted acts rewarded by God that are not compulsory, such as keeping streets clean. ‘Makruh’ referred to acts it is preferable to avoid, but which are not sinful, such as smoking cigarettes. Acts that merited punishment from God in the next life, such as murder or theft, were ‘Haram’. Permissible acts were ‘Mubah’ or ‘Halal’. These classifications have stood the test of time, and in mosques across the Muslim world today imams answer queries from the faithful by selecting among Wajib, Mandub, Makruh, Haram or Halal.
Historically, the vast majority of Muslim jurists agreed, as have most Muslims, with the principle that everything is Halal except for a few limitations. This was not dissimilar to St Paul’s teaching that: ‘All things are permissible, but not all things are beneficial.’ But the rise of literalism and extremism (as will be discussed in the chapter on Salafism) among Muslims globally has resulted in an important shift. Now, for Muslim puritans and their followers, everything is prohibited – Haram – unless it is specifically permitted. Their slogan is: ‘Every action requires scriptural evidence.’
Along with this demand from puritans for a fundamental change in attitude, Muslims face another major imposition. The Islamist agenda aims to enforce their interpretation of sharia through state law. For Islamists, Haram acts should be punished by the state in this world, as well as by God in the next. This is the difference between Islamists and ordinary Muslims. Most Muslims agree, for example, that drinking alcohol and homosexuality are forbidden by the sharia (although both practices are open to permissive interpretations). For Islamists, these acts should be made illegal and punished by the state in this world. This was not the historical attitude of most Muslims, however. We know this because in 700 years of Ottoman history there was only one case of an adulterer being stoned in public. The outrage it caused was such that it never occurred again under Ottoman rule. Through hundreds of years of history, Muslims understood that Haram was not to be made state law, but left to the believer’s conscience.
When the Salafi puritanism of forbidding everything unless it is expressly sanctioned by scripture is combined with Islamist legalism, the result is totalitarianism and fascism. Muslim leaders with moral courage and intellectual clarity have not shied away from identifying this as a form of fascism. For example, Salman bin Hamad al-Khalifa, the Crown Prince of Bahrain, has repeatedly warned of emerging ‘fascist theocracies’ unless we understand, define and counter this danger.2
The sharia is far more complex and constructive than mere binary prohibitions and permissions. When ordinary Muslims yearn for more sharia, they are reflecting an inner craving for the complexity and compassion they have encountered when putting questions to the ulama, the learned scholars of Islam. But that experience should not be translated into headlines that portray Muslims as fanatics wanting stonings and amputations.
Sunni legal experts refer to four sources to answer questions put to them by Muslims. A judgement, or fatwa, can only be reached after consulting all four. The first is the Quran, and though it prescribes behaviour on matters of marriage, divorce and inheritance, it does not address other details of life. Why should it? And indeed, if God wanted other details included, surely He could have included them. Muslims have debated whether the Quran is sufficient as guidance in life, but the first two centuries of Islam, when the empire was consolidated and laws codified, left Muslims with an appetite for more than the Quran. That legacy of wanting more than the Quran remains with Muslims today.
The second-most important source is the traditions of the Prophet Mohamed, meaning his sayings (hadiths), approvals and actions. Muslims know these as the Sunnah, or ‘ways’. The Quran teaches Muslims that if they wish to draw closer to God and to love God, they should emulate the ways of the Prophet. The difficulty is in knowing whether the Prophet really said the things attributed to him.
Some of the most popular hadiths among all Muslims today include:
‘He who has not thanked humans has not thanked God.’
‘To honour an old person is to show respect for God.’
‘Heaven lies at the feet of your mothers.’
‘God is beautiful and He loves beauty.’
‘The key to paradise is prayer.’
‘No person is a true believer unless he desires for his brother human that which he desires for himself.’
These hadiths, for instance, do not contradict the Quran, and seem fully in keeping with the spirit of the teachings of the Prophet. Such Quran-compliant hadith material is popular among Muslims and used widely in citations of books, sermons and other religious materials. But there are other alleged hadiths c
alling dogs and women filth, and condemning Jews, homosexuals and Christians, the authenticity of which is questionable. This matters because it directly influences Muslim belief and attitudes towards dogs, women, homosexuality, Jews and Christians. Verifying and questioning certain hadiths, therefore, is more than an academic exercise.
There are records of the Quran being written at the time of the Prophet, but the early caliphs forbade the writing of hadiths, which were mostly written 200 years after the Prophet died. They feared that Muslims would equate the Prophet with God, or the hadiths with the Quran. The caliph Omar punished and then banished to Bahrain a prominent hadith collector, Abu Hurayrah, for documenting alleged actions and sayings of the Prophet. The emphasis must be on the Quran.
And yet, despite these precautions, most Muslims wish to obey the Quran and Sunnah. The Islamist and Salafist movements around the world focus on these two strands of sharia. However, very little thought is given to the fact that the hadiths were written so long after the Prophet’s passing. Worse, there is very little criticism of the content of the hadiths. For example, the Quran does not mention stoning adulterers to death, killing apostates, or throwing homosexuals from tall buildings. Nor does it mention men growing their beards and wearing short robes, or women covering their hair. All these actions are derived from alleged sayings of the Prophet. Muslims have lost the courage to question hadiths that do not align with the Quran.
Are these practices right or even necessary today? Were they originally cultural or religious? Apostasy was treachery – but why is it upheld now with death as penalty for apostates, when people are free to proselytise and, equally, to apostasise? What benefit is there if a woman who covers herself is just as likely to be molested in Cairo as one who does not wear the veil? Re-examination or questioning of recorded hadiths has been abandoned in favour of a suspension of intelligence on these issues. This has become the norm among most Muslims. Adversely, hadith content, or matn, is not cross-referenced for logical validity and consistency with the Quran. As long as the sanad, or chain of narration – the provenance – is considered to be accurate, then a hadith is accepted.3 This method has led to thousands of fabricated pseudo-hadiths entering the Muslim consciousness.
The third additional source of the sharia is analogy, or ‘Qiyas’. When jurists encountered a situation for which there was no previous precedent in the Quran and Sunnah, they reached a new conclusion on the basis of Qiyas. The Muslim jurist Imam Abu Hanifa (d. 767), founder of one of the main Islamic schools of law, introduced this element of human reasoning into Islamic legal thinking. He based it on the instructions the Prophet gave to Muadh when he set off for Yemen. For example, Qiyas is applied to the Quranic prohibition on drinking wine, expanding it to forbid the use of cocaine and other drugs. In the absence of a clear reference in the scripture, the scholars use Qiyas as guidance for believers.
The last supplementary source is the consensus of the Muslim community, or ‘Ijma’. The Prophet was thought to have declared that his community would not agree on an error. In an attempt to maintain Islamic practices, Ijma became the fourth strand of the sharia. The application of Ijma is found, for example, in how and when Muslims pray. Among scholars, however, there is debate on precise definitions of Ijma: should it be the Ijma of ordinary Muslims, or only the leading scholars, for instance?
These four sources of the sharia – the Quran, Sunnah, Qiyas, Ijma – are agreed upon by the vast majority of Sunni Muslims. They were pioneered and systematised by Abu Hanifa and his students. But as with any human endeavour, not everybody agrees on everything. Most Muslims today believe that the Quran and Sunnah are the main sources of the sharia, the former being indisputable, the latter open to debate. But adherents of other schools of Islamic law suggest that Qiyas is too heavily influenced by logic and Islam’s early Greek-influenced logicians, the Mutazilites. Meanwhile, the school of Imam Malik (d. 795) rejects Qiyas altogether, preferring to follow the practice of the people of Medina, the city of the Prophet.
Along with these four, various schools of thought refer to other sources of sharia. These include ‘rai’i al-sahabah’, or an opinion of a notable companion of the Prophet; ‘Urf’ or ‘Aada’, meaning customs or habits; ‘sharia man qablana’, or the laws of those who went before Muslims; and ‘sadd al-dara’i’, which means blocking pathways to wrongdoing. For many Muslim jurists, all these depend upon on yet another source: Istihsan, meaning good or beautiful. Juristically, Istihsan is a way of exercising personal opinion in order to avoid rigidity or unfairness as a result of the literal enforcement of law. Istihsan might, therefore, be called juristic preference or discretion. Istihsan aims to serve ideals of justice and what is in the public interest.
These principles come from references in a number of places in the Quran that seek to reassure Muslims that Islam is about Yusr – ease – not difficulty, which is Usr. Muslims cite verses of the Quran such as: ‘God intends felicity and ease for you and He does not want to put you in hardship’ when seeking sharia rulings. All of these Islamic legal precepts are woven into the assorted schools of law, or madhabs, to which the vast majority of Muslims adhere.
For Sunni Muslims, four great imams have led these schools of thought. They were Imam Abu Hanifa (d. 767), Imam Anas Malik (d. 795), Imam Idris al-Shafi’i (d. 820) and Imam Ahmed bin Hanbal (d. 855). Hundreds of schools of thought on the sharia developed over the centuries, but these four stood the test of time. Between them, they govern and instruct the vast majority of today’s Muslims. These jurists are not abstract academics: they are household names that form part of mainstream Muslim identity. After first identifying as Sunni, the majority of Muslims will be adherents of one of these four schools.
Imam Abu Hanifa was of Persian origin. Born in Kufa, he helped build the city of Baghdad, where he died. His school, the Hanafi, is considered to be the first school of interpretation and is closest to the time of the Prophet. He focused on incorporating logic into the sharia. He was very popular among Muslims in the past, and remains so. The Ottomans and Mughals were Hanafis. Muslims from the Indian subcontinent and Turkosphere are still mostly Hanafis, and therefore the followers of this imam form easily the majority of the world’s Sunni Muslims.
Imam Malik came from Medina. He died there, and based his school of sharia on the observed practices of the city’s inhabitants. His approach was conservative. The Maliki school is popular mostly in North and West Africa. Imam Malik taught his students to stand in prayer with their hands at their sides.
Imam Shafi’i came from Gaza and died in Cairo. He completed and perfected methods of jurisprudence. The Shafi’i school is hugely popular among Egyptians, Malays in South East Asia, and Indonesians. The Hanbali school derived from Imam Hanbal, who came from Baghdad, and has a very strict interpretation of the sharia. It is based solely on the Quran and hadiths. Most of its few adherents are in the Arabian Gulf.
All four are approaches to the sharia that help a believer live life as a Muslim. In essence, they are methodologies that emphasise logic and analogy (Hanafi), practices of the people of Medina, the city of the Prophet (Maliki), or rigorous emphasis on hadiths (Shafi’i), and opinions of the companions of the Prophet (hanbalis). These great imams did not always reach final conclusions, but bequeathed methodologies their students used to advance and apply sharia at all times.
Let us consider how the traditional methodology of a madhab works in reality. In the modern world, most people assume that all alcohol is completely forbidden for all Muslims. I don’t drink alcohol, but I recognise Islamic opinions of past scholars that allow for drinking. The perceived prohibition stems from the meaning of the word khamr, forbidden in the Quran and widely assumed to mean alcohol. Early Hanafi scholars of the Quran sought precision and were convinced that khamr only applied to wine, not to other alcoholic drinks.4 They therefore permitted ales, beers and spirits to be consumed in moderate proportions. Other jurists from alternative schools argued that these drinks cause intoxication, ca
n lead to social and bodily harm, and therefore must be forbidden. The Ottoman caliphate embodied Hanafi teachings, and to this day raki, an alcoholic beverage, remains Turkey’s national drink. There was a distinct lack of absolutism and banning of alcoholic drinks in the past. Indeed, some religious scholars and caliphs drank alcohol, and others did not. A genuine pluralism and flexibility of opinion thrived.5
Present-day Muslims have lost the sophistication of the principles and variables of the four madhabs. Historically, among those who took an interest in these schools of thought, the differences were about methodology. Today, the infighting among the schools’ adherents can be observed in mosques. This derives from two sources: widespread ignorance about the role of the madhabs, and the rise of Salafi literalism. Traditionally, Muslims adopted the schools’ methods to understand an answer to a question of religious observation. Now, in the name of the Salafi clarion call to ‘return to the sources’, a generation of Muslims is deeply suspicious of following a madhab. But since most Muslims undergo no formal training on the underlying philosophical principles, the place of these great schools has been reduced to the equivalent of bickering between rival clubs.
One typical argument centres on the way that Muslims pray, and particularly where Muslim men place their hands when standing before God. A Hanafi places his hands across his navel, a Maliki rests them at his sides, and a Shafi’i places them on his lower chest. To a Salafi, the obsession with rituals and outward examples of faith means that all three are wrong. The Hanbali placement on the chest is closest to Salafi practice. According to their literal reading of hadith, hands must be placed firmly on the upper chest.
What is overlooked is that the Hanafi, Maliki and Shafi’i each have their own evidence and valid reasoning for where, why and how they place their hands. This may seem a minor detail, but the Salafi disregard of other traditional schools of Islamic law leads to daily battles in mosques fought where Salafis evangelise against the madhabs. An assault upon an Islam of age-old pluralism is under way. This happens away from the glare of cameras. Very few outside the House of Islam understand the conflict.