Wan Ahmad Fayhsal bin Wan Ahmad Kamal
It is important to note that the true scholars of Islām (
ʿulamāʾ, sing.
ʿalīm) who are experts in the exegesis
(tafsīr) of Qurʿān are ever consistent in their interpretation and understanding on the meaning
“there is no compulsion in religion” (Q2: 256). One must be aware that such command by God in His Own Words in the Qurʾān
does not apply with regard to the Muslims who
are already in the state of submission (hence the very meaning of the name Muslim is
total and willing submission based on the
correct way as
decreed by Him through His Last Messenger – Prophet Muhammad) in the
religion of Islām. Instead the verse is informing the Muslims
not to coerce people from other religions to be submitted into Islām and becoming Muslim
unwillingly.
To make it clearer, this particular verse is intended to uphold the sanctity of Islamic missionary (
daʿwah:
literally means “making an invitation) and has proven to be imbued in
the central tenets of Muslim ethics in conducting their missionary works
for ages till present times – unlike, in contrast to the
notorious Spanish Inquisition of the medieval time. The myth of Islam
spread by the sword has long been dispelled even by the respected
Orientalist – Sir Thomas Arnold (1864-1930) in his work
“The Preaching of Islam: A History of the Propagation of the Muslim faith” (1896). Any attempt to invoke the notion of “intolerant” has no relevance whatsoever with regard to the verse above.
From
the authoritative exegesis attributed to Prophet Muhammad’s Companion –
Abdullāh b. Ibn ʿAbbās, who is considered to be the most knowledgeable
of the Companions in
tafsīr, as narrated by al-Fīrūzabādī (1329–1414) in
Tanwīr al-Miqbās min Tafsīr Ibn ʿAbbās in which the phrase
“there is no compulsion in religion” (Q2:
256) is understood to be referring upon the People of the
Book (Christians and Jews) and the Magians after the Arabs submitted
themselves into Islām. The scholars of
tafsīr clearly indicated that it is
addressed to the Muslims with regard to their treatment upon the non-Muslims in
matters of conversion to Islām. These views are resonated in many authoritative
tafāsīr (plural of
tafsīr
– exegeses of Qurʾān). And it has never ever being rendered in the
opposite direction as pandered by certain quarters of confused Muslims –
the likes of Islamic Renaissance Front (IRF) and Sisters in Islam (SIS)
– that merely bantering upon uncouth slogans of enlightenment and
reason in providing so-called alternative reading and understanding of
the verse mentioned.
Furthermore many confused Muslims have
distorted the established understanding of this verse as explained by
authoritative exegetes of Qurʾān (
mufassirūn, sing.
mufassir) by reading it in
piecemeal basis
without having a recourse of reading the verse in its totality and
organic whole via linking the verse with its precedents verses and the
following verses which carrying the same theme of
“truth and falsehood is clearly manifested.”
They tend to
essentialise the command of God as rendered in Qurʾān – meaning to divorce the Qurʾānic injunctions and exhortations from its
existential
realities. This is wrong, as Islām is a religion that comprises both
ideals and realities in which both are harmoniously linked in projecting
the true image of the religion of Islam as perfectly exemplified in the
living tradition of Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him!) and the heirs
of Prophetic knowledge and duties - the true scholars of Islam. This
worthy heir of Prophets (peace be upon them all) has been guaranteed by
himself in his saying:
al-ʿulamāʾ warith al-ānbiyāʾ - “Scholars
(of Islām) are heir of Prophets”. Such endeavor of interpreting
and rendering the best meaning of religious injunctions was first
completed by the Prophet Muhmmad himself and followed through now by his
apparent heir – the competent scholars of Islamic sciences who always
ensure their efforts, to the best of their abilities, are complying to
the basics of epistemology in Islām. It is not and can never be based
upon mere personal speculations and conjectures that sprung out from the
whims and fancy of its learned adherents i.e. Muslim scholars,
what more from the laity Muslims like the confused lot of IRF and SIS.
True Muslims – that is
true
to its namesake of ‘being a Muslim’ – are conscious enough, furthermore
willingly submit themselves under the established religious injunctions
and will know his or her limits in negotiating the boundaries
without ever transgressing the extremities or coming up short in
fulfilling their religious obligations as what have been delineated by
the Muslim scholars which have been deduced from and originally
based on the established knowledge and perfect practices of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him!)
Such religious rulings and injunctions (
aḥkām, sing.
ḥukm)
could only be derived by the able and eligible scholars that have
fulfilled the fundamental and necessary requirements to perform what
technically is termed as
ijtihād (deriving the injunctions from established sources of knowledge in Islam) – or issuing legal opinions (
fatwā), as outlined in the pristine tradition of religious sciences in Islām.
Qurʾān is not a book of quotations that simply can be cherry-picked by any Muslims
to form their own personal interpretation on religious rulings and injunctions.
Laymen that have not possessed the right knowledge, mental
and spiritual aptitude are not adept to put forth their views (in truth
it is just their personal conjecture) without having recourse to the
previous scholarships on the exegeses of Qurʿān.
To the inept –
especially current politicians and poser-Muslim scholars who have not
endured rigorous and specialized training of issuing Islamic legal
opinions and interpretations – the depth and systematic intricacies of
Quran will never be manifested upon them as God the Almighty have said
in the the Qurʾān: “But none knows its true interpretation, save only
God and those who are
firmly rooted in knowledge (rāsikhūn fī’l-ʿilm)." (Q3:7)
Of course such exhortations above are not binding upon non-Muslims and they have total freedom
in relation
to the general precepts of the established Muslim scholarship with
regard to the verse discussed here but it is a different case altogether
for Muslims, as they must have recourse upon proper authorities in
knowledge pertaining to it. One of the authorities that have untangled
this confusion was Shāykh Amīn Aḥsan Iṣlāḥī (1904-1997), the celebrated
author of
Tadabbur-e-Qurʾān (“Pondering over the Qurʾān”),
which made use of his late teacher Mawlānā Ḥamīduddīn Farāhī’s
(1863-1930) scholarship on the idea of thematic and structural coherence
in Qurʾān.
Referring to the verse 256 in chapter 2 of the Qurʾān,
Iṣlāḥī is fully aware of the tendency for confused Muslims throughout
the ages of using the notion of
“there is no compulsion in religion” in making the religion of Islām
conform to their fancy, whims and desires:
“Some
people unfortunately take this verse away from this sense and try to
use it for rejecting all legal constraints. They argue that since there
is no compulsion in Islām, any attempts to invoke punishments for
certain acts are invalid in Islām and are, moreover, mere fabrications
on the part of ‘mullahs’ (note: Muslim scholar title that is widely used
in India and Pakistan). If this line of argument is accepted as valid,
it would mean that the Islamic Sharīʿah (i.e. Law) is without any
prescribed punishments and penalties and that it allows people to
behave and act as they please without imposing any restrains on them.”
(pg. 601-602. Iṣlāḥī, Amīn Aḥsan,
Tadabbur-e-Qurʾān, “Pondering over the Qurʾān”, trans. Mohammad Saleem Kayani, Kuala Lumpur: IBT, 2007)
Iṣlāḥī further explains such understanding is totally unfounded in Islamic tradition:
“This
is a fallacious argument, because we all know that Islām has a
whole system and a penal code of its own, the implementation of which is
a most important and basic Islamic obligation. An Islamic government
can punish a Muslim if he fails to observe Prayer (note: especially the
obligatory communal Friday prayer for men) or fasting. And this does not
at all contravene the principle that
“there is no compulsion in religion”.
Undoubtedly, Islām does not sanction the use of any compulsion to
convert others. At the same time, however, it does not allow anyone
entering its fold to behave in any manner they fancy without being
questioned or held accountable for their conduct.” (pg. 602.
Iṣlāḥī, Amīn Aḥsan,
Tadabbur-e-Qurʾān, “Pondering over the Qurʾān”, trans. Mohammad Saleem Kayani, Kuala Lumpur: IBT, 2007)
This
observation by Iṣlāḥī is not a mere theoretical exegesis but can be
further corroborated with ample historical evidences on the
real practices
of the Muslim throughout the ages – especially in the past where
Islamic government was firmly established. This legal injunction of
delivering and maintaining religious practices falls under the rubric of
maintaining public duties in Islām or technically called
“Ḥisba”.
Such acts that falls under the rubric of
ḥisba
has strong Qurʿānic bases (Q3:104, Q3:110, Q3:114, Q7:157, Q9:71,
Q9:112, Q22:41, Q31:17) and is considered to be one of the most
important tenets after the Five Pillars of Islām (
arkān al-Islām) and Six Pillars of Faith (
arkān al-Imān) in Islām which is called “enjoining good and forbidding evil” (
al-amr bi’l-maʿrūf wa’l-nahy ʿan al-munkar).
It is safer for us not to digress from our real discussion above on the issue of
“there is no compulsion in religion”. For thorough reading on
ḥisba,
please refer to Muhtar Holland’s “Public Duties in Islam” (Leicester:
Islamic Foundation, 1982) a translation of a legal treatise entitled
al-Ḥisba fī al-Islām by the famed Muslim jurist of 13th century – Taqī al-Dīn Ibn Taymīyah.
Alas suffice here for us to be really aware that interpretations made on the discussed verse
“there is no compulsion in religion” by certain quarters of the confused Muslim is not as simple as they think, especially when it comes to really grasping the
understanding of a particular verse
in relation to
other preceding and posterior verses, what more reading that particular
verse in the light of the gestalt of Qurʾān where the dictum “the whole
is larger than the sum of its part” rings louder than any kind of book
ever existed in the history of man – be it religious or secular.
If
we want to understand Qur’ān correctly, one must resort to various
other analytical tools not just limiting it to plain-dry modern notions
of “analysis” that dicing things out beforehand in order to examine and
arrive at the crux of the matter. Some of the analytical tools that are
firmly established since day immemorial of Prophet Muhammad (peace be
upon him!) resided in the science of interpretation (
tafsīr) of Qurʾān. Such analytical and exegetical devices, the likes of the reasons of revelation (
asbāb al-nuzūl) and abrogations (
nasikh wa al-mansūkh) are strictly unique in the religion of Islām.
Those devices (some became science of itself, e.g.
ʿilm al-rijāl - knowledge on evaluating the credibility of narrators of the
hadīth) have been laboriously refined by Muslim scholars via countless numbers of commentaries (
shurūh, sing.
sharḥ), super-commentaries and glosses (
ḥawāshī, sing.
ḥāshīah) and the findings have been infused into many other Islamic sciences notably jurisprudence (
fiqh).
That is why the learned scholar of Islām, Professor Syed Muhammad Naquib Al-Attas keeps emphasizing that the science of
tafsīr is based on
established knowledge
not conjecture and it is not the same as hermeneutics; which means only
the competent – not just among the lay Muslims but moreover among the
Learned Muslim (ʿ
ulamāʾ) whom themselves have mastered
various branches of Islamic sciences – have the rights to deliver their
interpretation upon such verses, especially on the subject of this
discussion that falls under one of the most basic tenets of faith (
imān) and deemed to be unclear to many especially in these modern times.
It is best for all Muslims especially the confused lot to pay heed to Prophet Muhammad's (peace be upon him!) saying (
ḥadīth)
– which is the second most important source of knowledge in Islamic
sciences after Qur'ān – as narrated by al-Bayhaqī: “This knowledge (the
religious) will be held in every generation by those who are just
(meaning – the Learned [ʿ
ulamāʾ]) and they shall protect it against the falsification of the extremists (
taḥrīf al-ghālīn), the fabrication of the deceivers (
intiḥāl al-mubṭilīn) and the misinterpretation of the ignorant (
taʾwīl al-jāhilīn).
If
the confused Muslims keep railing about this despite umpteenth times
being censured by authoritative Muslim scholars on their reckless and
half-truths (which is more dangerous than plain error!) interpretations,
then they are no better than the extremists who took the verse:
“kill the idolaters wherever you find them”
(Q9:5) by decontextualizing and accepting it based on mere face
value in order to justify their anger and the continuance of their act
of manslaughter in the name of religion (God forbid!).
Indeed, if
they continue to affirm and latch upon errors without having any thought
to relinquish them and seeking the truth of the matter through proper
ways and means – as explained above – they will go astray from
the consensus (
ijmāʿ) of the Muslim scholars in matters of creed (
ʿaqīdah)
where there has never been disagreement and indulgence whatsoever in
matters of distinguishing and affirming the truth from the error. Verily
Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him!) has stated, as narrated by Ibn
Majāh: “My Community shall never agree upon misguidance, therefore, if
you see divergences, you must follow the overwhelming majority of
Believers (
al-sawwād al-āʿẓam)”
The writer is a
research fellow at Himpunan Keilmuan Muslim (HAKIM). He currently reads
Islamic Thought and Civilization at Centre for Advanced Studies on
Islam, Science and Civilization (CASIS-UTM) as well a lecturer at
Kolej Universiti Islam Selangor (KUIS).
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