Talk

An Islamic reader

Several practices in Islam have always befuddled my weak religious mind. In this entry I am going to try to list the rituals and their Koranic basis and origin. A glossary is at the end.

The black stone(aswad) During the hajj Muslims venerate a black stone. There is no Koranic basis for this act. A mixture of tradition and pagan(?) tradition have continued the execution of this act.

Stoning the Shai-tan (Satan): Muslims symbolize their rejection of polytheism by stoning 7 pebbles at the earthen symbols of the Devil. This practice has no Koranic basis. The prophet confirmed this practice.

Zam Zam: The so-called holy water collected and distributed around the world packaged with tall-tales of therapeutic values. Once again, no Koranic background. Legend has it that when Hagar and Ismael were abandoned by Abraham on Sarah's insistence, Hagar prayed to God for sustenance and the spring of Zam Zam came forth.

Animal Offerings: This practice has a Koranic background. God requires Muslims to offer the sacrifice and partake in the meat and distribute the meat to the less fortunate. My impression is that this follows the tradition of Abraham where this practice was/is common place.

Kaaba: The cube (60' x 60' x 60') shaped building in Mecca considered the house of God. The Koran says it was raised by Abraham.

Prayer (Salat) An interesting issue. The manner or content of Salat was never detailed in the Quran or the Hadith. Salat (as well as Zakaat (tithe/charity), Roza (fasting), Hajj) comes to Islam from Abraham. Salat was performed by the idolators of the Quraish. The implication spelled out is that Salat was secular and utilized by all the religions of the descendants of Abraham. That's why when you see a time-in-motion graphic of the jewish prayer you will see a striking similarity to the Muslim Salat!

Women:Hijab The most often quoted verse from the Quran regarding women is one that asks that women dress modestly. The wearing of the veil is more tradition (and misguided efforts to score brownie points with Allah) related than religion.

Women:inheritance In the absence of a will (this is a subtle but very important point) daughters get only half what the sons get. This is not a earth shattering revelation considering the partiarchial society we live in.

Women:trustworthiness Women are equal to men with respect to the law with one exception. In Financial matters two women are require to collaborate what would be accepted by one man.

Women: separation from Men Interesting enough the world over in muslim countries it seems to be the norm to separate the women from the men in social gatherings. This has no basis in the Quran as exemplified by the ritual of Haj where men and women perform the rites together.

Women:sex It is forbidden to have sex when a woman is menustrating. The Quran appears to have a very temporal and negative view ("unclean") of menstruation. Not a stretch considering the practice at the time.

Women: abortion It doesnt appear that Quran deals explicitly with abortion. Most "scholars" use verses relating to "children" to form their opinion. However, they fail to realize that in order to derive that equality you need to determine that the fetus is indeed alive and is a child. Abortion during the first 3 months seems to permitted.

Over all the Quran is quite progressive in its dealing with the female gender. There are plenty of verses that reveal an understanding of how relationships work (for eg: divorces have cooling off period during which retraction of divorce is simple). However, today the prophet would not have won support from any feminist groups.

Shariah
The Islamic law codified from the Quran and the Sunnah constitute the Shariah. Unfortunately (or obviously. please choose the lesser offensive of the two) the meaning gleaned from the Shariah is not unanimously accepted. This has resulted in the Shariah being interpreted and caused disputes. The Shariah can be considered as one of the foremost achievement of early Islamic society. The strength of Islamic law kept Muslim society free of chaos and unrest. However 1300 years later at the dawn of the 21st century Shariah threatens to keep Muslims entangled and backward because of their unquestioned faith in it.

Fiqh is based on four rules (usul):

1. Quran
2. Sunnah
3. ijma: consensus of the community
4. qiyas: analogical reasoning.

The first two components are superior to the rest. The system never attained perfect unanimity. Four schools (madhabs) formed that argued over the merits of their systems. The four were:

1. Hanifi: this school was more open to reasoning and interpretation. They use qiyas analogy to derive solutions.

2. Maliki: the most conservative of the schools. Example: marriages could only be contracted by parents and guardians (divorce was easy for the male). Their solutions were based completely on the Hadith

3. Shafi - this school attempted compromise between the Quran and aql (human reasoning)

4. Hanbali - this school focusses solely on the hadith with no room for use of reasoning.

A couple of interesting points. Early in the development of Islam Ijtihad(creative interpretation) was used. Later it was outlawed as bida (creation of new perversions). From this point onwards changes in law could only be according to the principle of taqlid (imitation of earlier rulings). This appears to be similar to the rules of precedence and introduces scholasticism into Islamic society. Fiqh classified all human actions into the following categories:

1. fard: obligatory and required acts. Omission of these acts is a sin.
2. haram: forbidden acts. performance of these acts is a sin
3. mandub: recommended acts to gain brownie points
4. makru: undesirable acts
5. mubah: all other unspecified acts of unknown quality (good or bad)

bi la kayf: without questioning why. This is another concept within fiqh which requires unquestioned obedience. (side note. Plato's Euthyphro questioned if something was good because God commanded it or did command it because it was good).

Example of the Shariah: If someone is found guilty of stealing their hand is lopped off. The proponents of Shariah claim that such punishment is a great dissuading force. They claim that when a theif is sent to prison the children in the house are deprived of a father figure and are without a bread winner. The logic is quite easily assailable. While I am tempted to leave the counter points as an exercise to the reader I'll try to enumerate a couple of my observations:

1. If stealing constituted a part of the cash flow to the family then the father was not an effective breadwinner.
2. The simplistic manner in which this issue is addressed leaves no room for distinction between simple crimes to serious ones.

I concede the point that a person could only be found guilty of stealing twice under Shariah. After that the thief becomes dependent on the state for his/her every need.

Islamic scholars make a big issue of how Islam appeals to the intellect while other religions require unquestioned faith. Here is something to think about. The punishment for renouncing Islam (and converting to another religion) is punishable by death under Shariah. I can see how an intellectual man would hesitate before commiting apostacy.

Punishment in Islam:
Punishment in Islam falls under the following categories:
1. Hudud (fixed penalties)

The offenses under Hudud are adultery, fornication, drinking alcohol, theft, rebellion against Islamic authority and apostacy. Punishment ranges from lashes, stoning, amputation and death. Progression of punishment in theft is as follows. First offence results in the loss of 4 fingers of the right hand. Second offence will cause the loss of the left foot from the ankle joint. A third time will result in imprisonment for life. Theft in prison will earn the death penalty.

The prescribed treatment of homosexuality and adultery is death.

2. qisas (retribution)
The offences are premeditated murder, seemingly premeditated murder , erroneous murder and intended and unintented other offenses. The victime has the option of retribution, blood money or neither.

3. ta'zir (discretionary sentences )
All other crimes allow the judge to decide what punishment can be prescribed.

Intercession is undesirable according to the Quran.

Glossary
eschatology: branch of theology concerned with the final events of mankind. for eg: the day of judgement in the Christian faith
weltanschauung: comprehensive understanding and conception of the world from a specific point. Essentially Quranic weltanschauung would refer to the understanding Islam displays of the whole world.
manichaean: a believer of religious or philosophical dualism

5 pillars: The essential practices of a Muslim
Hajj: Once in a lifetime visit to Mecca required by Islam as part of the 5 pillars.
Abraham: Ibrahim in the Koran
Ishmael: Ismael
Hijab: the term used for the veil worn by muslim women.
Quran/Koran: Quran is the preferred reference to the holy book. It contains 114 chapters
Tafseer: exegesis (explanation) of Quran
Sunnah: denotes the way the prophet lived his life. Islamic jurisprudence uses the Sunnah as the second source of knowledge.
Hadith: Narrations about episodes in the prophet life. Used as parables.
Fiqh: Islamic jurisprudence.

Misc info:
"Researchers" have tried to find a mathematical framework in the Quran. The recurring theme appears to be the number 19.

The number of chapters is 114 = 9 x 6
The total number of verses is 6,346 = 19 x 334
The number of times the word "Allah" appears is 2,698 = 19 x 142

The claim is that nothing in the Quran can be modified without altering the mathematical authentication built into the text. While I applaud the zeal of these Quranic number crunchers I find that none of their "authentication scheme" work on the total number of letters or words! If I were to add more text to a verse without altering the number of chapters or mentioning Allah (or mentioning Allah 19x times) then the change would not be detectable.

Notes:

The Koran (Quran) pays a lot of attention to Abraham. Abraham received the covenant from God.

Further reading:
Shalom and Salaam: Judaism and IslamI and II: A comparitive study of the two monotheistic religions.
Islamic Finance
Islam exposed is an anti-Islam site that may have a contrarian perspective
Info on Shariah
Itjihad- Muslim freethinking
Secular Islam A movement to modernize the religion. The testimonials of the people who have left Islam are enlightening.
Alternative views on Islam
Information on Hadith
Virtual Library at the Witness-Pioneer
muslim philosophy

Sources
Islam in the World - Malise Ruthven
Islamic Law in the contemporary world - Sayed Hassan Amin
Riyad-us-Saliheen - compilation of Hadith.

To the reader: All factual errors in this entry are mine. While the text may carry the tone of confirmed factual evidence it is wholly not the case. The constant apologetic interjection of "I think", "it appears" and other mechanisms of informing the lack of unalloyed conviction are unappealing to the author. If you wish to contribute constructively and reform any questionable facts please use the comment forum. Your response will be absorbed and your contribution duly noted.