Fatawa-e-Alamgiri, from an Islamic perspective.

(In the Name of God, the Most Beneficent, the Most Merciful)

format_quote Originally Posted by cooterhein

Why exactly is this Islamophobic?

Glad you asked.

It's the tone and the recent posts - not this one post, btw, which you quoted - things like when you say you're incredulous at Muslims-Hindus being friends in the words "still tell me a story about how Hindus loved their Muslim-invader brothers, it was really the British that screwed things up by slowing down the rate of enslavement and introducing democracy." Uhhh, no. Like I explained to you by analogy, blacks enslaved by whites in America vs. the situation today with blacks and whites. Not to mention, yes, the British did screw it up and that book which I'd quoted to explain to you this matter was completely rubbished when it is a fact based on historical research conducted by authors well-oriented in Indian history.

Also, what world is the one in which you're living in which the British introduced democracy to India? The British did not bring democracy to India but rather subjugated India to British Raj and rule. Not to mention, the British were hated in India to the point that Muslims and Hindus (whom you refused to see could be friends!) even united to fight the British domination that led to India's Independence in 1947.

I believe I am justified in holding Islam, as a religion, responsible for some Sharia law that is morally reprehensible. It wasn't political, it wasn't society or culture, it was religious scholars doing something with their religious authority that was awful. What is it that makes this Islamophobic? Do you find that to be a term that's useful and precise, or is it just a word that you use when someone makes you feel criticized, regardless of whether the criticism is well-founded?

Again, I disagree with you. Despite me giving you hadiths that clearly show Islamic scholars should not align themselves with any rulers, you still say it wasn't political. Hell, yes, it was political.

No, I don't mind criticism. It's the tone of your posts that I called Islamophobic. For example, sis LaSorcia, who btw is a Christian kindly called your attention to the fact that Christians have similarly seen slavery justified in the name of religion and you shut her down. Now, you may think you were reminding her to stay on topic. I think you were doing that but also something like...when X who is a Muslim does it, you think it's wrong and cringe-worthy. But when it's Y who is a Christian justifies something in the name of religion, I'm assuming you think there is a good explanation as your subsequent posts showed when you offered me those "good" explanations about slavery in the context of Christian history:

For example, you say, "That's a technically imprecise statement, slavery existed by rule of law in places where Jews and Christians lived. There is a very important distinction between that, and extremely authoritative religious teaching (specifically religious teaching)[....]" And of course, I called you out on it in a subsequent post with the link to the book in my TBR pile that shows you are incorrect.

Next, you also admit in the same post which I mentioned that Protestants and Catholics owned slaves in another breath but then go on again to tell me how it is different. What do you think I should conclude from your posts?

I'll tell you why I used the term Islamophobic to describe your tone and recent posts: Let's switch places for a second: I'm the Christian now and you're the Muslim. Do you think your argument about explaining away slavery in the context of Christian history is more justifiable and more okay than the Muslim history? It's still slavery at the end of the day.

Yes, we can switch places again and you can breathe a sigh of relief that you no longer have to be in my shoes *tongue-in-cheek.*

Islamophobia I'd say at its most benign form is a term used to describe a close-minded prejudice against this religion and/or its adherents. Well, I'd say you in many places equate Islamic history with Islam, hence, I used the term Islamphobic. Do you think the Inquisition is representative of Christianity? If not, right there is your answer.

I'm sure you have in the past encountered atheists/agnostics equating such in Christian history as therefore proof of how the religion is itself horrifying and therefore to be eschewed. You'd not fare well if you discussed Christian history or the Biblical exegesis in an atheist/agnostic board, mate; so, I also find your criticisms not oriented in anything but a hair-trigger mentality that does not apply the same logic and reasoning to Islamic history or Islam. This is what I meant when I called you Islamophobic - a term I used in exactitude of what I felt from and observed in your posts.

Do you acknowledge that Islam- as a religion, as far as its religious leaders go- is sometimes at fault, and sometimes deserving of well-founded criticism?

I think frankly think no one should be immune from criticism. For example, Caliph Umar (may God be pleased with him) used to walk the nights in the street concealing his identity to see how the subjects under his rule were faring because he cared and thought that no injustice should happen under his rule. Once he heard a woman who was complaining and vilifying Caliph Umar without knowing that he's that man, and he patiently listened to her without telling her anything. The reason this woman was complaining and hating on him was because she and her baby were hungry, and so Caliph Umar dressed as an ordinary man carried the bag of grain to her home all the way so that she and her child would not remain hungry and left without telling her his identity. However, she later found out. Frankly, this to me is Islam.

Or is this something that you consider categorically outside the bounds of reality, something that can only come from a diseased mind or a wrong way of thinking?

Like I've explained, I do not consider criticizing Islamic scholars something that necessarily comes from a diseased mind or a wrong way of thinking. I think frankly there have been many times absurd fatwas (legal rulings) which have been issued by Islamic scholars. For example, one that comes to mind is the fatwa that came from the Indian subcontinent in the 1900s that said learning English is kufr (disbelief) and haram (forbidden). There are more examples of these types of fatwas, but this is one that I could think off of the top of my head. And of course, unsurprisingly, if I actually believed this fatwa or if the administrators or moderators of IB believed this fatwa, we would not have even be having this discussion because IB would probably not exist as an English-speaking board.

format_quote Originally Posted by Search

(In the Name of God, the Most Beneficent, the Most Merciful)



First of all, I do not accept what you've said here because despite Aurangzeb's desire to have "best and authoritative shariah possible" as you say he created, he made two Islamic no-nos: (1) The document allowed the ruler to issue legal doctrine that overruled fatwas (legal rulings). (2) Islamic scholars were not allowed to issue discretionary fatwas (legal rulings). Both of these aspects I personally consider Islamically unacceptable and reprehensible for two reasons: (a) Islamically, a ruler is subject to Islam, and Islam cannot be made subject to the ruler or his worldview. (b) Islamically, scholars are allowed to use discretionary fatwas - in fact, the entire point is that they are able to review religious proofs in favor or against a position and then make the best determination at their discretion. Why eliminate this discretion that is the right of the Islamic scholar?

Ok, first, I have just recently learned that Aurangzeb was an Islamic scholar in his own right. Which is to say, along with being a powerful ruler, he was also recognized as an actual scholar, and then instead of creating all this Sharia himself (or at the very least dominating the process), he went out of his way to bring in 100 scholars from Medinah and 100 scholars from Baghdad, joining 300 scholars from South Asia in order to put this together.

So why would he as a ruler take it on himself to overrule fatwahs and exclude discretionary fatwahs from other scholars? Perhaps because he, as an actual scholar himself, was in a unique situation for a ruler. Such a ruler is not usually a scholar himself, correct? And perhaps he wished to exclude any further input from Medinah and Baghdad, limiting those scholars to their role in the initial creation of this Sharia. Have you read it carefully enough to determine if these unique powers were just for him, or if they were tied to his position for all time? Do you know if all other scholars were excluded from their usual discretionary fatwahs, or is it possible that it only limited the scholars who were not actually from there?

That's your assumption. What's the proof, mate? Also, I question what type of Islamic scholar be okay with the two things above that I've enumerated for you in the above paragraph. It raises my eyebrows for obvious reasons.

At that time, in that situation, and considering how much trouble it was to transport that many people over that type of distance and to coordinate such a large meeting, those 200 scholars from the Middle East (and the other 300 that had less of a journey) must have had an extremely valuable service to render upon arrival, if someone is going to all that trouble in order to get them there. When searching for the service that might be so valuable, it is entirely reasonable to observe that they did exactly one thing once they got there which was the stated goal all along, and to conclude that they were well regarded as being extremely valuable in this exact capacity.

It's a solid assumption. Why would you want to assume something else?

Also, what I'd note is that this document was created at a time by Aurangzeb when religious conservatism was ripe to be adopted. Why do I say this? Because nothing happens in a vacuum: There are always many factors at play out of the view that lead a ruler or a country to the path in which they find themselves. For Aurangzeb, I think that meant the construction of this document because as the sixth Emperor he was not pleased with the direction in which the Empire had moved in historical terms: Emperor Akbar, the third Emperor, had created a new religion called Din-i Ilahi instead of ruling by Islam and up to the Shah Jahan, fifth Emperor, who despite moving away from the liberalism of the third Emperor, had moved so in a token manner. Aurangzeb, however, seems to have a clear vision of how things should be in his Empire and that included bringing in religious conservationism because he was unhappy with liberal policies.

Very nice, I was not aware of this Din-i Ilahi. I didn't know that any emperors in India tried the path of syncretism. Good to know.

So by contrast, Aurangzeb was not at all syncretic, he was very much a defender of pure unadulterated Islam, and he gathered 500 Hanafi Sunni scholars to himself so that true Islam and nothing else would be spoken taught and propagated.

You know, this puts the onus pretty squarely on Islam and literally nothing else. If you had told me (just hypothetically) that Aurangzeb is not reduced to a staunch defender of Islam, and that he had other religious motives or some sort of syncretic bent, then I would have to conclude that it's not just Islam we're looking at here. He's brought something else to the equation. But instead, we have a series of explanations that restate and reaffirm the idea that it's Islam, it's Islam, and it's Islam. Is it something else? Anything else? No, just Islam.

You have a right to be disoriented from a moral standpoint; but I'd also like to point out that we should remember that we do not have the moral high ground here: It's not like we didn't have slavery in Christianity and Judaism, and it's also not like we didn't have slavery in America. Glass houses and all that.

I actually wasn't defending my right to be disoriented, I was defending my right to consistently say I am not disoriented, because I know what's right and I know when it's time to take responsibility for something that's wrong. That might have been a typo from you though, I'm not sure.

We did have slavery in America. What we did not have was any sort of meeting of prominent US Christian scholars who issued a resolution that slavery is OK with them, here's where everyone signed it. That document does not exist, such a meeting does not exist, and although there is always some credence to the glass houses caution in religious dialogue, Christian scholars of the United States 1700-1900 do not remotely occupy the same situation as Hanafi Sunni Islamic scholars from India and the Middle East 1700-1900. Separation of church and state is quite significant, their roles were completely not the same and these two different types of scholars do not remotely compare in terms of what they did, or even in terms of what they were capable of doing. In what alternate reality is a sitting United States President going to relieve Congress of its legislative duties and put it in the hands of a group of Christian scholars? It's just not going to happen, it doesn't even become a conversation that involves such scholars in a meaningful decision-making legislative role.

Now, with regard to when that really might happen, there are some jokes that could be made about Ted Cruz....I will acknowledge that he seems like the kind of person who might actually like the idea in principle, but even someone like him wouldn't be able to bring it off. That's where the Supreme Court comes in.

Just to summarize, it is not appropriate to hold Christianity responsible for legislative decisions that are made in a secular democracy that happens to be mostly Christian, unless there is a clear trend of support for a controversial issue among its scholars. On the other hand, it is entirely appropriate to hold Islam responsible for its Sharia law, and with it the Islamic scholars who created it. That is not the same as looking at Muslims who behave badly, and hold Islam responsible for them. That is not right. Looking at a technically-Islamic ruler who favored syncretism, and holding Islam responsible for his actions- that is not right. But when Islamic scholars create Sharia law, which to this day is regarded by most Pakistani Muslims as originating from God himself rather than from the crude work of mere men, that is exactly what Islam can, is, and ought to be held responsible for.

format_quote Originally Posted by Search

(In the Name of God, the Most Beneficent, the Most Merciful)


Glad you asked.

It's the tone and the recent posts - not this one post, btw, which you quoted - things like when you say you're incredulous at Muslims-Hindus being friends in the words "still tell me a story about how Hindus loved their Muslim-invader brothers, it was really the British that screwed things up by slowing down the rate of enslavement and introducing democracy." Uhhh, no. Like I explained to you by analogy, blacks enslaved by whites in America vs. the situation today with blacks and whites. Not to mention, yes, the British did screw it up and that book which I'd quoted to explain to you this matter was completely rubbished when it is a fact based on historical research conducted by authors well-oriented in Indian history.

Also, what world is the one in which you're living in which the British introduced democracy to India? The British did not bring democracy to India but rather subjugated India to British Raj and rule. Not to mention, the British were hated in India to the point that Muslims and Hindus (whom you refused to see could be friends!) even united to fight the British domination that led to India's Independence in 1947.

That's an excellent point about the British, I was careless in how I was talking about it.

It has come to my attention, however, that the fate of religious minorities was very different in India than it was in Pakistan or Bangladesh (east and west Pakistan at the time). The Muslim majority undertook a cleansing of the Christians, Sikhs, and yes Hindus. In India, there was no cleansing and religious minorities were treated with decency- by comparison at least. If that was the fault of the British....well, I don't really think that part was, to be quite honest.

Again, I disagree with you. Despite me giving you hadiths that clearly show Islamic scholars should not align themselves with any rulers, you still say it wasn't political. Hell, yes, it was political.

Were you aware that Aurangzeb was a scholar himself? I will also point out that, as per the information you gave me (and thank you for that), he was readjusting a previously syncretic course, and perhaps he wanted to ensure that scholars in favor of syncretism would be minimized.

No, I don't mind criticism. It's the tone of your posts that I called Islamophobic. For example, sis LaSorcia, who btw is a Christian kindly called your attention to the fact that Christians have similarly seen slavery justified in the name of religion and you shut her down. Now, you may think you were reminding her to stay on topic. I think you were doing that but also something like...when X who is a Muslim does it, you think it's wrong and cringe-worthy. But when it's Y who is a Christian justifies something in the name of religion, I'm assuming you think there is a good explanation as your subsequent posts showed when you offered me those "good" explanations about slavery in the context of Christian history:

For example, you say, "That's a technically imprecise statement, slavery existed by rule of law in places where Jews and Christians lived. There is a very important distinction between that, and extremely authoritative religious teaching (specifically religious teaching)[....]" And of course, I called you out on it in a subsequent post with the link to the book in my TBR pile that shows you are incorrect.

Oh come now. Christians have never ever ever demonstrated unity in their scholarship when it comes to the issue of slavery, and in the US at least, they haven't been positioned to create and enact laws relevant to that.

This is not an exercise in looking at similar outcomes and seeing if there are people of any given religion nearby. This is about agency, it is about responsibility, it is about determining the extent to which those who speak for a religion are responsible, directly or otherwise, for some of the evil things that happen in the world. Christians were half wrong in an indirect sense for supporting slavery or for remaining silent, but with the OP in question, Islamic scholars were directly and completely responsible for what happened.

I'll say it again, it is not appropriate to hold Christianity responsible for legislative decisions that are made in a secular democracy that happens to be mostly Christian, unless there is a clear trend of support for a controversial issue among its scholars. On the other hand, it is entirely appropriate to hold Islam responsible for its Sharia law, and with it the Islamic scholars who created it. Additionally, just by having this particular bit of Sharia in its regional history, Pakistani Muslims absolutely Must rethink their favored position on Sharia as if it were something divine that originated from God.

Next, you also admit in the same post which I mentioned that Protestants and Catholics owned slaves in another breath but then go on again to tell me how it is different. What do you think I should conclude from your posts?

I hope you conclude that it's a well thought out position that is clearly explained.

I'll tell you why I used the term Islamophobic to describe your tone and recent posts: Let's switch places for a second: I'm the Christian now and you're the Muslim. Do you think your argument about explaining away slavery in the context of Christian history is more justifiable and more okay than the Muslim history? It's still slavery at the end of the day.

It is slavery- well, not just the same exactly, one is racial slavery and the other is slavery that can easily end if you'll just submit to Islam and be a Muslim. Of course slavery is slavery, but there are different types of slavery and one type of slavery gets religion involved right from the outset, just in terms of what it is.

And as I said before, this is an exercise in determining agency and the degree of responsibility for a given outcome from one religion to another. If we had switched positions, I don't know how I would go about removing responsibility from Aurangzeb and the 500 Islamic scholars. And I don't think I would be able to place the same sort of responsibility on Christian scholars in the US. They didn't create an American version of Sharia, thankfully. That is relevant.

Yes, we can switch places again and you can breathe a sigh of relief that you no longer have to be in my shoes *tongue-in-cheek.*

Ah, that's nice, In all honesty though- and you may not like this- I actually am, without joking at all, quite glad that I am not a Pakistani Muslim, or any other Muslim on the subcontinent. If I was, and if I knew my history, I would probably have to assume that Islam entered my family tree when a conqueror forced one of my ancestors to convert. Or....when a conqueror took one of my ancestors as a slave, raped her, and then became one of my ancestors too. Or....when a conqueror enslaved one of my ancestors and she agreed to convert and become free, as one of his many wives, and in all these different permutations the children of the conquered people are forced to be Muslim and killed if they leave, their children are forced to be Muslim and killed if they leave, and now I am forced to be Muslim and potentially killed by an extra-judicial knife-wielding maniac if I leave. And of course I am expected to raise my children to be Muslims and prevent them from ever leaving it too.

If I was in your shoes- especially if I was from any of the regions where mass enslavement was integral to the spread of Islam- I would feel like I was trapped in a religion, and that my ancestry was some combination of slave and oppressor.

In complete honesty, I am very glad to have my religious freedom, and I am even more glad that I don't have to think about whether any of my ancestors were slaves, or if slavery was the route by which I eventually acquired my religion.

It really is nice to be in my shoes, thank you for reminding me.

Islamophobia I'd say at its most benign form is a term used to describe a close-minded prejudice against this religion and/or its adherents. Well, I'd say you in many places equate Islamic history with Islam, hence, I used the term Islamphobic.

Well, I am making a point of identifying something that a massive amount of Islamic scholars were responsible for, and they are in effect responsible for speaking and acting on behalf of Islam, to the point where the things they say and do (so long as there is consensus) is one and the same as the things for which Islam, qua Islam, can be rightly evaluated.

I am really zeroing in on a particular bit of Sharia here. I'm not just saying "Well Muslims did this." I am saying 500 Muslim (Sunni Hanafi) scholars created this, which is the obvious reason why Muslims did exactly what they were told to within it, and their actions are consequently not just incidental to their religion, but the exact reason for it. Again, Islam qua Islam.

Islam is not responsible for random nutjobs. Islam is responsible for its Sharia, provided that this Sharia is truly the product of Islamic scholars speaking on behalf of Islam and determining what Muslims will do in obedience to these teachings. These are the limitations, and I think you haven't properly understood exactly what it is I'm dong here. You must have been thinking I was flailing wildly at this, and look, anyone can flail wildly at a religion. Look at me as I flail back at you, and isn't that what you were doing in the first place? No, actually, it was not.

Do you think the Inquisition is representative of Christianity? If not, right there is your answer.

Ah, but the Inquisition is representative of Christianity. Who else would it be representative of? I'm glad that I'm a Protestant, which is a reform movement that came into existence after the Inquisition, but at that point in time the Inquisition represented all of Christianity proper and there is no one else it could possibly be.

Fortunately, since that time Christianity has differentiated itself and there's many different branches that have split off in different directions, and it would not be a bad summary to suggest that they did so in order to escape association with the excesses and wrongdoings of the Catholic Church.

So yes, the Inquisition does represent all of Christianity, in the West at least (remember that I also specified Sunni and Hanafi on several occasions when it was going the other way). It was horrible, and in western Europe, it did effectively represent all of Christianity. The proper thing to do in response to that is have reform movements and create different branches of your religion that will move you away from the awful thing, and I will acknowledge that the Ahmadi community in Pakistan has been doing just that. So just in order to temper what I said about Pakistani Muslims earlier, I will now add that I don't hold Ahmadi Muslims responsible for anything that happened before 1889, and I commend them for putting some distance between themselves and some of the awful things in their family history.

I'm sure you have in the past encountered atheists/agnostics equating such in Christian history as therefore proof of how the religion is itself horrifying and therefore to be eschewed.

Of course.

You'd not fare well if you discussed Christian history or the Biblical exegesis in an atheist/agnostic board, mate;

You might be surprised. My biggest problem in those situations has been disruptive trolls who just derail things, but I have also been able to engage in some private conversations over a period of time that actually went quite well for both of us.

so, I also find your criticisms not oriented in anything but a hair-trigger mentality that does not apply the same logic and reasoning to Islamic history or Islam.

Respectfully, you reached that conclusion well before you properly asked me to do any sort of analysis of Christian history.

I think frankly think no one should be immune from criticism. For example, Caliph Umar (may God be pleased with him) used to walk the nights in the street concealing his identity to see how the subjects under his rule were faring because he cared and thought that no injustice should happen under his rule. Once he heard a woman who was complaining and vilifying Caliph Umar without knowing that he's that man, and he patiently listened to her without telling her anything. The reason this woman was complaining and hating on him was because she and her baby were hungry, and so Caliph Umar dressed as an ordinary man carried the bag of grain to her home all the way so that she and her child would not remain hungry and left without telling her his identity. However, she later found out. Frankly, this to me is Islam.

That sounds like a very nice thing, and I would assume that his good actions can be traced to Islamic scholars who issued Islamic law that he faithfully followed and implemented in his life.

I would assume that to be the case, and I recommend that you include that part of the process in your argument. A Muslim who happens to be nice may be a coincidence, what you want to demonstrate is that the official teachings of Islam and the actual laws and guidance of Islam caused him to do this, because he chose to be a faithful Muslim and go where that was supposed to take him.

I hope that you can follow the same sort of logic when All of That is in place, but it leads to a horrible conclusion and the obvious reason is horrible Sharia. Agency, responsibility, causality. That is the analysis. Why do you think I chose to hone in on Sharia law that was created by 500 Hanafi Sunni scholars?

Like I've explained, I do not consider criticizing Islamic scholars something that necessarily comes from a diseased mind or a wrong way of thinking. I think frankly there have been many times absurd fatwas (legal rulings) which have been issued by Islamic scholars. For example, one that comes to mind is the fatwa that came from the Indian subcontinent in the 1900s that said learning English is kufr (disbelief) and haram (forbidden).

I can see why. Learning English, especially if Western education comes along with it, does wind up being a pretty reliable path out of Islam. If you want to find the most Christian states in India, for example, start with the states in India where English is spoken by the most people. There's a couple of states in southern India and several in the seven sister states region right by Bangladesh, Nagaland seems to be the best example of things happening there. So I can understand the strategy from a protectionist standpoint....setting aside for the moment that protectionism is wrong in and of itself, even if your religion is completely right.

There are more examples of these types of fatwas, but this is one that I could think off of the top of my head. And of course, unsurprisingly, if I actually believed this fatwa or if the administrators or moderators of IB believed this fatwa, we would not have even be having this discussion because IB would probably not exist as an English-speaking board.

Well, that's true. But with this particular fatwah, can you think of any reasons why it would not properly represent Islam as a whole? Aside from the fact that it's bad teaching, of course, or your own personal judgment. Is there a real reason that allows you to know this is not something that Islam must claim responsibility for?

Edit- on the topic of atheist and agnostic type forums, would you care to test your theory and visit one together? We can see just exactly how it really does go. It's not like I haven't done this sort of thing before, but getting involved with that alongside a Muslim would be quite a new experience. I see what you do, and you see what I do. Then we don't have to guess.