Since the foundation of Catholic morality is equal dignity of all human beings before God, this also strikes at the heart of the compatibility on life issues that many Catholics assume exists between Catholicism and Islam.
What’s more, at its very core Islamic morality owes more to coercion and conformity than to the cultivation of genuine virtue and as such stands yet again at the polar opposite of Christian morality.
The empire of fear
The Mufti of Australia, Sheikh Taj al-Din al-Hilali, once complained that “Australian law guarantees freedoms up to a crazy level.”134 (A “mufti” is a Sunni Muslim scholar who interprets Islamic law in a way that his followers regard as authoritative.) Yet freedom is an indispensable prerequisite for any cultivation of real virtue. Thus, in guaranteeing freedom even a post-Christian West makes it more possible to be virtuous than the seemingly more upright Islamic world. With its stonings, amputations, and death penalties for an array of offenses including apostasy, Islam has created not a framework in which people can become genuinely good but an empire of fear.
Muslims don’t dare step out of line; not because of love for God or a real desire to please him, but because they are afraid of what would happen to them if they departed from Islam’s vision of morality. Catholics concur with Muslims on many of the sins for which Islam prescribes these draconian punishments; there is no disagreement between the two on whether theft or adultery or blasphemy is sinful. But when the punishments for them are as harsh as Islam commands, the obedience that follows is not the free decision of the human being to choose the good but a simple conformism of terror.
That kind of conformism is the foundation of Islamic morality. For theft, the divinely ordained penalty is amputation: “And the thief, male and female: cut off the hands of both, as a recompense for what they have earned, and a punishment exemplary from God; God is All-mighty, All-wise” (Qur’an 5:38). This is also the penalty, along with crucifixion, for the ill-defined sin of doing corruption on Earth: “This is the recompense of those who fight against God and His Messenger, and hasten about the earth, to do corruption there: they shall be slaughtered, or crucified, or their hands and feet shall alternately be struck off; or they shall be banished from the land. That is a degradation for them in this world; and in the world to come awaits them a mighty chastisement” (5:33).
The Qur’an does not contain a command to stone adulterers, but this penalty is prescribed in Islamic law as based on Muhammad’s example. One hadith explains:
The Jews brought to the Prophet a man and a woman from among them who had committed illegal sexual intercourse. The Prophet said to them, “How do you usually punish the one amongst you who has committed illegal sexual intercourse?” They replied, “We blacken their faces with coal and beat them.” He said, “Don’t you find the order of Ar-Rajm (i.e., stoning to death) in the Taurat (Torah)?” They replied, “We do not find anything in it.” ‘Abdullah bin Salam (after hearing this conversation) said to them, “You have told a lie! Bring here the Taurat and recite it if you are truthful.” (So the Jews brought the Taurat.) And the religious teacher who was teaching it to them put his hand over the Verse of Ar-Rajm and started reading what was written above and below the place hidden with his hand, but he did not read the Verse of Ar-Rajm. ‘Abdullah bin Salam removed his (i.e., the teacher’s) hand from the Verse of Ar-Rajm and said, “What is this?” So when the Jews saw that Verse, they said, “This is the Verse of Ar-Rajm.” So the Prophet ordered both the adulterer and the adulteress to be stoned to death, and they were stoned to death near the place where biers used to be placed near the mosque. I saw her companion (i.e., the adulterer) bowing over her so as to protect her from the stones.135
Another hadith places the command to stone adulterers in the original Qur’an: Ubayy ibn Ka’b, whom Islamic tradition identifies as an early compiler of the Qur’an, explained that the Muslim holy book’s thirty-third chapter once contained 213 additional verses, including this one: “The fornicators among the married men (ash-shaikh) and married women (ash-shaikhah), stone them as an exemplary punishment from Allah, and Allah is Mighty and Wise.”136
The second caliph, Umar, was worried:
I am afraid that after a long time has passed, people may say, “We do not find the Verses of the Rajam (stoning to death) in the Holy Book.” And consequently they may go astray by leaving an obligation that Allah has revealed. Lo! I confirm that the penalty of Rajam be inflicted on him who commits illegal sexual intercourse, if he is already married and the crime is proved by witnesses or pregnancy or confession. . . . Surely Allah’s Apostle carried out the penalty of Rajam, and so did we after him.137
The Christian, in rejecting these harsh punishments, must not allow himself to be maneuvered into the opposite extreme position that society has no right or responsibility to proscribe immoral activity. Certainly in the past there were Western societies more Christian than our own that set forth strict moral codes. Still, in the Christian scheme, for moral choices to be a manifestation of virtue they must be made in freedom, out of a desire to do good—not merely to avoid punishment, or under the power of coercion.
Islam does not see virtue this way. Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini once thundered, “Whatever good there is exists thanks to the sword and in the shadow of the sword! People cannot be made obedient except with the sword! The sword is the key to Paradise, which can be opened only for the Holy Warriors!”138 Thus, it is no surprise that hardline Muslim groups like the Taliban in Pakistan and Afghanistan, al-Shabaab in Somalia and Kenya, and others like them enforce Islamic morality by means of terror. The headlines give us no shortage of recent examples: Al-Shabaab in May 2012 bombed a Mombasa nightclub that served alcohol, just as Muslims in Lebanon the previous month bombed a Christian-owned restaurant that served alcohol.139 In January 2012, a Muslim named Sami Osmakac was arrested in Florida with a plan to bomb Tampa-area nightclubs.140Also in May 2012, a group of devout Muslims in Morocco stoned and assaulted a woman whom they thought was dressed in too revealing a manner, stripping her naked in public.141
Such instances are distressingly common in the Islamic world. Needless to say, the idea of enforcing moral codes by violence and terror is utterly alien to the spirit of Catholicism.
Even Dinesh D’Souza, perhaps before he came to agree with the Islamic critique of Western immorality, wrote in 2004, “Consider the woman in Afghanistan or Iran who is required to wear the veil. There is no real modesty in this, because the woman is being compelled. Compulsion cannot produce virtue; it can only produce the outward semblance of virtue.”142 Yet three years later D’Souza warned, “When you make America synonymous with permissiveness, when you dismiss serious moral offenses with a no-big-deal attitude . . . you are driving the traditional Muslims into the arms of the radicals.”143
D’Souza appeared to be unaware that something quite similar to Western “permissiveness” was already written into Islamic law, albeit with a fig leaf of morality over it.
A similar Muslim fig leaf lies over the objective evils found in that area where many Christians most strongly presume to have an ally in Islam: marriage and sexual morality.
7
A Shared Sexual Ethic?
Indeed, in the area of sexual morality, the correspondence of Islamic statutes with Catholic teaching seems exact. The Qur’an instructs:
And approach not fornication; surely it is an indecency, and evil as a way. (17:32)
Fornication, adultery, the sanctity of marriage, the importance of bearing children—in all such areas, many Catholics believe that Catholic and Muslim moral teaching are essentially identical. Yet, there are serious differences that have up to now received far less attention than the similarities, although they are no less important. For although fornication and adultery are indeed forbidden in Islam as in Christianity, and there are other apparent moral similarities between the two religions, the Muslim understanding of marriage and sexual morality differs so greatly from the Christian understandin
g that it renders those similarities void of meaning.
What’s more, Islamic morality allows for practices that Catholicism abhors, including contraception, child marriage, polygamy, female genital mutilation, and even sexual slavery of non-believing women.
Contraception
Some modern Muslim scholars hold that Islam forbids contraception, framing the argument in terms that will be familiar to orthodox Catholics, and giving hope to those who dream of allying with Islam to fight the spirit of the age:
In general, most forms of contraception and birth control are forbidden. But since Islam is a complete religion, we have the benefit of the Quran, the hadith and traditions of Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him), the companions, and many learned scholars to help us come to an informed decision.
First, any sort of permanent birth control that is not for medical reasons is forbidden. So any medical procedure that leads to complete sterilization and is not medically required, is not allowed. This goes against the teachings of our Prophet Muhammad and if not done for medical reasons, is usually done for vain, selfish or impractical purpose.
For instance, some people have the foolish notion that the world is becoming overpopulated and the earth’s resources are running out. But Allah has made His earth bountiful, and if we trust in Him, there is certainly enough food and water and air to go around.
Wherever there is starvation in the world, there is needless gluttony and waste elsewhere. So the problem is not a lack of resource but a lack of compassion for those who are less fortunate than us.144
But in reality, Islamic teaching regarding birth control and artificial contraception is ambiguous. The hadith, the voluminous collections of Muhammad’s words and deeds, are full of contradictory material in which Muhammad appears to speak in favor of both sides of a disputed issue. This is because much of the hadith material was composed well over a century after Muhammad is supposed to have lived, at a time when competing factions attempted to gain support for the positions they espoused by inventing sayings of Muhammad.
Since the ninth century, Islamic scholars have attempted to isolate authentic sayings of Muhammad and accounts of his actions on the basis of the chain of isnad: the list of people who have passed on the tradition in question from the time of Muhammad and the eyewitnesses who saw the event to the time that it was written down. A chain that is unbroken and contains names of people known for their reliability is considered evidence of an authentic tradition. No consideration is given to the possibility that the chain itself could be forged, as well as the tradition; but nonetheless, on the basis of study of the chain of transmitters, early medieval Islamic scholars have delineated a body of traditions that they generally regarded as authentic, and those have become normative for Muslim faith and practice.
Islamic law regarding artificial contraception is derived from several sayings of Muhammad regarding coitus interruptus (in Islamic law, azl); however, in these he seems to come down on both sides of the question. On one occasion one of the believers asks Muhammad: “O Allah’s Apostle! We get female captives as our share of booty, and we are interested in their prices, what is your opinion about coitus interruptus?” Muhammad answers: “Do you really do that? It is better for you not to do it. No soul that which Allah has destined to exist, but will surely come into existence.”145 Some of the early Muslims believed that Muhammad’s saying it was “better for you not to do it” amounted to a prohibition: “Yahya related to me from Malik from Nafi that Abdullah ibn Umar did not practice coitus interruptus and thought that it was disapproved.”146 Another concluded from Muhammad’s words: “By Allah, (it seems) as if there is upbraiding in it (for azl).”147
However, another Muslim asked Muhammad about this practice, mentioning that the Jews likened it to infanticide. Muhammad’s response was predictable in its venom against those whom the Qur’an terms the worst enemies of the Muslims (5:82): “The Jews told a lie. If Allah intends to create it, you cannot turn it away.”148
This was still ambiguous, but seemed to be more in favor of the practice. Completely unambiguous was the recollection of Jabir, one of Muhammad’s early companions, who in later life recalled, “We used to practice azl during the lifetime of Allah’s Messenger (may peace be upon him). This (the news of this practice) reached Allah’s Apostle (may peace be upon him), and he did not forbid us.”149
The early Muslim jurist Imam Malik declared the practice permissible with free women and wholly acceptable with slave girls, “Malik said, “A man does not practice coitus interruptus with a free woman unless she gives her permission. There is no harm in practicing coitus interruptus with a slave-girl without her permission. Someone who has someone else’s slave-girl as a wife, does not practice coitus interruptus with her unless her people give him permission.”150 The distinction here between the women from whom one must seek permission and those from whom one need not do so is based solely on the dignity of the free woman versus the slave, not on anything analogous to the Catholic understanding of the unitive and procreative ends of sexual intercourse.
The contemporary Muslim scholar Sa’diyya Shaikh, a professor of Islamic Studies and Feminist Theory at the University of Cape Town in South Africa, wrote in 2003 about the permissibility of contraception in Islam in terms that contrasted starkly with Catholic teaching:
Contraception has a long history in Islam that needs to be situated in relation to the broader Islamic ethos of marriage and sexuality. In Islam if one chooses to marry, this is not automatically linked to procreation. Within the Islamic view of marriage, an individual has the right to sexual pleasure within marriage, which is independent of one’s choice to have children. This type of approach to sexuality is compatible with a more tolerant approach to contraception and family planning.
Historically the various Islamic legal schools with an overwhelming majority have permitted coitus interruptus, called azl, as a method of contraception. This was a contraceptive technique practiced by pre-Islamic Arabs and continued to be used during the time of the Prophet with his knowledge and without his prohibition.151
Likewise, the Shi’ite scholar S. M. Rizvi writes:
According to the Shi’ah fiqh [jurisprudence], family planning as a private measure to space or regulate the family size for health or economic reasons is permissible. Neither is there any Qur’anic verse or hadith against birth control, nor is it wajib [absolutely required] to have children in marriage. So basically, birth control would come under the category of ja’iz, lawful acts. Moreover, we have some ahadith (especially on the issue of azl, coitus interruptus) which categorically prove that birth control is permissible.152
Thus, the average Muslim who goes to his local imam and asks about the permissibility of artificial contraception will likely be told that it is just fine, since, after all, Muhammad—who is the supreme example of conduct for believers—allowed for coitus interruptus. Foreign to Islam is the Catholic idea of the inseparability of the unitive and procreative aspects of the marital act.
This is not really surprising, since in general Islam lacks a marital/sexual teleology. As we have seen, there is no extensive tradition of rational theology in Islam. Allah rules by fiat, and one does not question, or reason from, his commands.
Abortion
Unfortunately, the same situation prevails with abortion, even though many Catholics believe that Muslims are pro-life and thus reliable comrades-in-arms on life issues—and indeed, the Qur’an repeatedly warns of the heinousness of killing one’s own children. One poetic early passage about the last day and the divine judgment condemns the pagan Arab practice of burying alive girl infants:
When the sun shall be darkened,
when the stars shall be thrown down,
when the mountains shall be set moving,
when the pregnant camels shall be neglected,
when the savage beasts shall be mustered,
when the seas shall be set boiling,
when the souls shall be coupled,
> when the buried infant shall be asked
for what sin she was slain,
when the scrolls shall be unrolled,
when heaven shall be stripped off;
when Hell shall be set blazing,
when Paradise shall be brought nigh,
then shall a soul know what it has produced. (81:1-14)
Another passage condemns child-killing in a straightforward manner:
And slay not your children for fear of poverty; We will provide for you and them; surely the slaying of them is a grievous sin. (17:31)
Yet this does not carry over to abortion. The Muslim scholar Sayyid Sabiq summarizes Islam’s classic view of abortion as being something to avoid, but not impermissible in the first trimester, since Islamic belief is that Allah blows the spirit into a soul only after that point:
Abortion is not allowed after four months have passed since conception because at that time it is akin to taking a life, an act that entails penalty in this world and in the Hereafter. As regards the matter of abortion before this period elapses, it is considered allowed if necessary. However, in the absence of a reasonable excuse it is detestable.
The best he can offer pro-lifers is a difference of opinion among traditional jurists over whether early abortion is
allowable:
The author of “Subul-ul-Maram” writes: “A woman’s treatment for aborting a pregnancy before the spirit has been blown into it is a matter upon which scholars differed on account of difference of opinion on the matter of ‘azal (i.e., measures to hinder conception). Those who allow ‘azal consider abortion as allowable and vice versa.” The same ruling should be applicable for women deciding on sterilization. Imam Ghazzali opines: “Induced abortion is a sin after conception.” He further says: “The sin incurred thus can be of degrees. When the sperm enters the ovaries [sic], mixes with the ovum and acquires potential of life, its removal would be a sin. Aborting it after it grows into a germ or a leech would be a graver sin and the graveness of the sin increases very much if one does so after the stage when the spirit is blown into the fetus and it acquires human form and faculties.”153
Not Peace but a Sword: The Great Chasm Between Christianity and Islam Page 12