The question that immediately sprang to my mind when I read the news that Zardari had agreed to let 'Shariah' law be implemented in Swat was, "Who is he to decide that?".
Unfortunately, on reflecting for a couple of minutes, the conclusion was that we gave him the mandate. Personally I wouldn't vote for Zardari if somebody put a gun to my head, but for better or worse (mostly for worse) he is the elected representative of this pathetic little unfortunate banana republic of ours.
I think Zardari, along with George W. Bush, is probably the best example in the world of why democracy is not all it's cracked up to be. If a loser with the IQ of a Gnat, and a looter without any compunction or shame can so easily come (repeatedly) into power through democracy, the system cannot be very good. It might be Ok for a first world country, where (theoretically) a system of checks and balances insures that the damage is not irreversible, but in a third world country like Pakistan, where no systems exist and the basic machinery of Govt. grinds to a standstill at the whim of every Tom, Dick and Harry, democracy just doesn't work. (For Dick read Mullah, the biggest Dicks in the world).
So let's see what is "Shariah Law"? Shariah, funnily enough means the 'path to the water' (gives you a good idea of how provincial Islam (and all religions for that matter) really are when stripped of their false grandeur) or more generally it means, 'the way'. Muslims agree that Shariah comes from the Quran and Sunnah, but it gets really murky, really fast after that. Some Muslims (Sunnis) believe that Ijmah (consensus) and Qiyas (analogy) have a very important place in Shariah Law, others (Shias and a major Sunni sect) don't.
Let me start at the "fountain" of all knowledge first, the Quran and Sunnah. In many many matters of law, there is no help from these sources, most contemporary subjects are obviously not touched upon. When there is something said about a particular subject, it is often vague and amenable to interpretation. Things can mean this or that, depending on the translator and his stance. A classical example is Muttah. Read a Sunni translation of the Quran and the valid surah 4:24 seems obviously against any such practice, read a Shia translation and it sounds murky but possible. (Anybody who comes up with the stupid argument that you need to become a scholar in Arabic to know the right answer is of course full of it for several reasons; 1. God’s word should be clearer, 2. After becoming a scholar it’ll still be amenable to my particular interpretation)
For more serious stuff there is either absolutely nothing in the fountains of knowledge or vague platitudes. Abortion, for example. The Quran says on separate occasions, 'Do not kill your children', but it always adds 'for fear of want'. (6:151 and 17:31) So is it allowed for other reasons? How about euthanasia to end a child's suffering, or abortion of a child of rape? And how to interpret the word 'children'? How does Islam deal with the question of when life begins, is a foetus a child? The Quran obviously is befittingly silent. And even when it says do not kill your children for fear of want, the reason given is that it is God's job to provide it sustenance, but as we all know that is patently not the case, in say Ethopia or other third World countries. So if God has failed to live up to his promise, does abortion become OK? Clearly then not all answers are available in the Quran and Sunnah, and that's when we enter the slippery slope.
In the face of this obvious vagueness, Islamic scholars had to come up with a better system and thus different schools of Law came into existence, the thing is which one is Shariah Law?
Amongst Sunnis, there's Hanafi, Hanbali, Maliki and Shafii schools of thought, which pray should one follow, and more importantly which one will be used in Swat? And if you think for a second that the differences amongst them are trivial, think again. And this is just the Sunni's, the Shia's which make up a substantial 20+% of this country are on a completely different tangent altogether.
Abu Hanifa, the originator of the Hanafi school, believed that wine was prohibited but it was allowed to drink small amounts of other alcoholic drinks. (Later Hanafi's disagreed with this and decided all alcohol was prohibited). So under "Shariah Law" would a Muslim following the beliefs of the premier jurist in Islam be allowed to drink in moderation? Abu Hanifa believed you could do the namaz in any language, would the Swat Shariah allow the recitation out loud of namaz in Urdu or Punjabi? The Shaafi's (Ahl-Hadith) form 28% of the Muslim World and believe there is no room for new interpretations in Islam and reject Qiyas and Abu-Hanifa's method, and narrow down the possibility of interpretations. The Maliki's pray with hands held to the side. The Hanbali's prefer a very strict, very narrow interpretation. They're representatives used to patrol the streets and smash musical instruments, chessboards and utensils that could be used for drinking alcohol. Each school in short views Shariah differently. So which version are we going to come up with? How will the consensus be reached? What happens when a large proportion of the population doesn't agree with a particular interpretation?
Muhammad is quoted in the Tirmazi as stating, “My community will never agree in error", ... err.... they elected Zardari, Benazir and Nawaz Sharif, need I say more?
3 comments:
VERY GOOD POINTS MY FREIND.. AS AN INDIAN I'M WATCHING THE DEVELOPMENTS IN PAK VERY CLOSELY CUZ IT AFFECTS INDIA AS WELL.
AND AS A BORN HINDU WHO NOW DOUBTS EVRY RELIGION IN THE WORLD INCLUDING MY OWN I AGREE WITH THE RATIONALE YOU SHOWCASE ABOUT ISLAM'S INTERPRETATION.
WHEN WILL THE WORLD GROW UP AND REALISE THE REAL RELIGIONS ARE HUMANITY AND LOVE
GOD HELP PAKISTAN... AND INDIA
Good post which raises many questions that arise in the minds of common people but are reluctant to be asked due to our traditional 'values' of not raising such questions. Issues like these should be discussed freely in the media and among the masses.
First of all, I don't think that Zardari is to be held responsible for the Swat fiasco. The trouble started, like most of our other current troubles, during Musharraf's regime and the present rulers have to clean up the mess. According to sources, 'Sharia Laws' had already been in place in Swat since 1999, the present Provincial Government has only vowed to implement the same. Please also keep in mind that Swat is a part of PATA (Provincially Administered Tribal Area) and can have different laws than the Pakistani laws according to the article 247 of the constitution of Pakistan. As far as my opinion goes, anything is okay if it is able to stop the conflict in Swat.
I would strongly disagree with your comments regarding democracy not being the best system of governance. What other option would you suggest? What do you exactly mean by "It might be Ok for a first world country, where (theoretically) a system of checks and balances insures that the damage is not irreversible". Do you seriously believe that the mess created by the Bush administration, for instance, can be cleaned in the foreseeable future. People make choices, sometimes right, sometimes not so right. They have to live with the choices they make. Why can't they make collective choices on the State level? Nawaz Sharif, Benazir, Zardari (well not him actually) were all choices made by people. It is very easy to point out the errors in hindsight, it is also very easy to say what other option do we have? When people like us do nothing but argue on internet forums, we really don't have a right to criticize whatever options we have at the moment.
You have raised some specific issues regarding Abortion, Muttah, Differences between Shariah and Fiqh, etc. The web is full of material discussing these issues in detail. The interested reader should go through some of that to make up his/her own mind. Here I will make some general remarks:
Any sentence or word in Arabic, like any other language of the world, can be interpreted in a number of (sometimes diagonally opposite) ways, especially when taken out of context. That is the inherent problem (or beauty as I see it) with the language. The message of Allah had to be conveyed to the humans in a human language, more precisely, in the language which the people of the time understood. Moreover, the narration had to be in a way so that the people of the time found it meaningful. Every language changes drastically every few decades. Being from a literary family, I am sure you would be able to appreciate this fact in a better way. So, verses of the Quran will be
interpreted differently due to this fact and also due to the general difference of understanding, just like in any other secular issue. If we can go by what the majority thinks is right in the secular issues, why should religion be an exception. If an individual or a group thinks that a particular religious understanding prevalent in the society is not right, then they should try to change the opinion of the majority by debate and discussion, again just like any non-religious issue. If the majority wants Sharia, give them Sharia, whatever version of it the majority wants. There is a dire need for open religious debate in our country, and most other Muslim countries, and non-Muslim countries too, for that matter.
On a lighter note, you don't seriously think that when the Prophet (PBUH) said "My community will never agree in error", he meant political decisions?
It is interesting how you apologists for religion come up with ridiculous excuses. On one hand you cry from every pulpit that this is the universal religion and your Prophet is the last one and the religion has been made complete and all that bull and on the other hand you apologize for the language and context of the Koran being meant for its time and era. Make up your mind.
If it is a religion for all times to come, since that 's what it obviously is, else God in his infinite wisdom would have sent more Prophets, then why should the context not be universal and not bound by time? Who was stopping your God from sending more Prophets into the world?
If the Arabic language and all other human languages are so amenable to interpretation why not send in a few things in a universal language, say Mathematics? 99% of the world's population doesn't understand Arabic, the same might be said for Maths, so there wasn't any reason not to send in the solution to, say, the Goldbach Conjecture or the Riemann Hypothesis, or the Universal Law of Gravitation, along with all the rest of the stuff. You know just as a divine signal.
Obviously you didn't understand the argument I was making in the blog. There is no such thing as a universal Sharia. You are advocating consensus to reach religious answers but large proportions of the Muslim world don't believe in consensus (and I do mean large, close to 40%+). Basically what you're saying is YOU think consensus is the way to go, so bottom line your interpretation of religion is the correct way to go. Just like everybody else.
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