I’m a big fan of Dr. Umar Faruq’s writing, so imagine my delight when I stumbled upon his dissertation from the University of Chicago on Malik’s Concept of Amal in the Light of Maliki Legal Theory. Spiffiness!
As much as I’d love to respond to this, posting on CF really isn’t good for my iman. Also not good for one’s iman is nutters like those mentioned in the post. What is good for my iman then? Sh. Nuh Keller, may Allah (swt) be pleased with him. There is rarely a time when I listen to his lectures and I don’t come away feeling my ruh lifted and enlivened.
If you haven’t listened to Sh. Nuh’s lecture entitled “This is Jihad?” DO IT NOW! The first half is a review of the rise and effects of wahabism, and the second talks about the rules and nature of jihad. I’ve only listened through once, but it’s so chock full of good stuff, I’ll probably listen to it a few more times and take notes.
I’d love to post this on CF, as the sheikh clearly and equivically teaches the opposite of what nutters in said post are preaching, but I worry that it’s too technical for non muslims, and even muslims in general. If any of my readers listen to this lecture (do I have any readers left?), please leave some feedback on the accessablitily of the lecture. jazakAllah khair.
[rant]
“Seventh Century”
As in…
“…governed by seventh century rules…”
“…stuck in the seventh century…”
etc etc etc
Usually said or written in a derogatory manner towards those seeking to live their lives by sharia, or when some group of muzzies somewhere attempts to enforce their vision of sharia (usually in a barbaric manner that in all actuallity has no basis in sharia).
Why is this a pet peeve? Because it shows a complete lack of understanding as to how sharia was formed and how it developed, nay, dare I stay, is developing. Heck, one doesn’t even need to get all in depth with it. A quick glance at good ol Wikipedia will show that sharia developed over several centuries. Even if the gates of ijtihad were closed (which is debatable), they were closed in or around the 10th century, which is certainly not the 7th century.
[/rant]
…breathe it. The thoughts of Sh. Murad, from the BBC via Seeker’s Digest:
The controversy over the Archbishop’s remarks on Shari’a rumble on. Last week, in the hours before the full text became available, concerned voices were raised, worried that he was advocating legal separateness for Britain’s largest minority. Many commentators became understandably angry.
As the weekend wore on, however, my impression was that the mood slowly shifted. There were signs that more people were actually reading the Archbishop’s lecture, which was written as a subtle reflection on the right relationship between faith, law, and citizenship in the modern state. And the criticisms grew more muted.
Many leapt to his defence. Others took the view that Dr Williams might well be right, but should have expressed himself in a way that could not have been misinterpreted.
It is now clear to most that Dr Williams, far from recommending some kind of parallel law for Muslims, was pointing out that informal religious tribunals which already adjudicate on a limited number of civil - never criminal - matters, in a way which is entirely legal under arbitration laws, should be more systematically brought under the regulation of the legal system. He was not commending greater separateness, or an expansion of Muslim courts - quite the opposite.
Although his prose is sometimes dense, I know he thinks this because a few weeks ago I was with him in Singapore, where we were shown how many of the city’s religious minorities, including the Muslims, have their own courts to deal with civil matters such as marriage and divorce. He is interested in the challenge that religious diversity poses to a secular legal system. But he is sure that social cohesion is best served when there is a mechanism by which arbitration conducted within communities can be formally related to national law.
A storm in a teacup, then? Not quite. The issue of how faith is acknowledged in law will continue to be a tricky one, and not just for Muslims. For instance, one recent poll showed that nine percent of Americans think that the Bible should be their country’s only source of law, and that percentage is growing.
For me, my major reaction to this dispute has been a sadness that so many of us so readily leap to judgement.
In the Koran itself, we read: ‘O people of faith! If a person brings you some news, inquire into it carefully, lest you should harm others unwittingly, and afterwards be sorry for what you did.’
So what will be the fallout? One can only hope for something positive. Muslims know that their heritage of legal wisdom, the Shari’a, bears many very different interpretations. Secular law is the same. So in the midst of this flexibility, there is hope for a constructive dialogue. And if the Archbishop has helped that process along, many of us, of whatever faith, will be grateful.
If you’re like me, you’ve been avoiding reading about Archbishop Rowan William’s statements re: Sharia in Britain. I’m avoiding it for several reasons - many of the negative responses border on islamophobia, which I’m sick and tired of, and that it’s all a big overblown, misunderstood mess that I quite frankly don’t have the time, nor the energy to muck through. I’m just tired of all of these kerfluffles.
Luckily, for the lazy blogger such as myself - FaithWorld, Reuter’s religion news blog, has a good post rounding up what they consider to be the best religion coverage of the issue. *warning before you click on the link - contains picture of the Sun cover which includes scantily clad woman on the cover* From a brief scan of the articles, they all seem to be “anti sharia,” but not in an “those ebil muzzies are trying to take over” sort of way.
…chose a madhab? For all my blurkers out there (and I know you exist), if you follow a madhab, how did you chose it?
My development as a new muslim was rather haphazard, as I didn’t really have a single guide offering a monolythic perspective on Islam. It seems that converts are often guided towards a particular perspective on islamic practice, based on who they hang out with and what materials they are given to study. Oftentimes, here in the US at least, the path they’re lead on tends to be salafi in orientation.
Instead, I dabbled, reading things here and there, until I finally settled on “traditional islam,” and determined that I should pick a madhab to start getting everything right with Allah (swt). Originally, I tended towards the hanafi madhab, because it seemed to have the most books available in english, as well as a good fatwa resource at SunniPath.
However, I now would consider myself shafi’i. Why? I wish I could say that it is because I studied all the madhabs in depth and found that the rulings of the shafi’is were more sound. Alas no, I’m attracted to the shafi’i madhab because my favorite islamic scholar, Imam al Ghazali, was a shafi’i. If it was good enough for him, then it’s good enough for me.
Of course, now that I know what I’m looking for, I’ve found a decent amount of shafi’i resources - SunniPath, Al Maqasid, and Reliance of the Traveler - that provide enough for the seeker such as myself.
Via Imam Suihab’s website, we have a weblog that looks like it will provide simple lesson outlines on Usul al-Fiqh. Literally “the roots of law,” usul al-fiqh is the sources of Islamic jurisprudence (fiqh), such as the Qur’an and Sunnah, as well as ijma and qiyas, and the methods that are used to perform ijtihad to formulate sharia.
Will download when I get home tonight, stick it on my ipod and listen on my commute next week:
Nawawi Foundation - Video and Audio - Islamic Law in the West: Theory, Doctrine, and Practice
On the weekend of February 2nd, Dr. Umar Abd-Allah was invited to be the keynote speaker at the Washington College of Law at American University annual Founder’s Conference. With the theme of “Islamic Law and the West,†this conference addressed contemporary issues in the Muslim world related to Islamic law, development, human rights, women’s rights and international law. Speakers addressed the current state of Islamic law and its possibilities for survival and advancement in the modern world. Dr. Umar’s keynote address and panel presentation are provided at the links below, courtesy of the American University Washington College of Law.
Keynote – Muslims in the Mainstream -As more Muslims and persons of non-Christian faiths enter the public arena, we are observing a bitter reaction from mainstream America. While the founding fathers had strong religious grounding, their intentions were not to make religious requirements for public service. Over time, the fact that one religious group has dominated creates traditions that are more akin to a certain religious understanding and practice, particularly the Christian faith; however, such traditions are not constitutionally mandated. The traditions and practice have become the accepted norm, and any deviation - while permissible and legally accepted - cause tension. As the number of American-born Muslims increases to create an indigenous Muslim community, the number of Muslims in public office and in mainstream society must increase to accurately represent this growing community of citizens.Audio (16.7MB)
Islam and Gender Politics - Issues such as women’s rights and gender equality are at the forefront of the current debate in the development of the Islamic world. This session will discuss the impact of culture and custom in Muslim practices worldwide. Additionally, this session will examine the tension between international human rights norms under CEDAW and Islamic law and its impact on Muslim women worldwide. Audio (28.2MB)
Panel with Speakers - Dr. Anouar Majid (Professor, University of New England, Maine) - Anne Goldstein (International Association of Women Judges, Washington, D.C.)
In addition to a reading wish list a mile long, I have a list of things that I’d like to learn, Islam-wise. I signed up for a Sunnipath course last spring, but with work, paralegal courses, and marriage, I couldn’t find the time to finish it. Thankfully, there have been several small, free lectures this past year that I’ve had the chance to take advantage of, Alhamdulilah.
I would like to get more in depth into aqidah, especially the hadith of Gabriel. I would love to develop a course for converts based on this hadith. I mean, this hadith has everything a muslim should know, and yet, I didn’t know about it for several years. Maybe I just haven’t been reading the right stuff. *shrugs*
I would like to explore tasawwuf. So much of the materials aimed towards converts lean heavily on the fiqhi aspects of Islam, halal and haram, don’t do this, don’t do that. All of that is well and good, but something is lacking. When I envision what I want my deeny life to be, I want it to be a deep relationship with the Almighty, my Lord (swt). While following God’s laws are certainly a part of that, it doesn’t fill me. My husband isn’t a big sufi fan, despite having some sufi sheikhs in his family tree. But, I’m slowly working on him ;)
And, although I’m a wee bit exhausted from the “don’t do this, don’t do that” Islam that I’ve been following since I converted, I would like to delve deeper into Islamic Jurisprudence. I’m a quasi-paralegal (do the paralegal work without the title) and in the future, I’m thinking of going to law school. Law and the development of law fascinates me. I never knew how complex the laws of the United States were, especially case law. While studying for my paralegal certification, I spent many a Saturdays in a local law library. The first time I went, I stood in awe at the thousands upon thousands of books full of court decisions, all interpreting and fleshing out US law. While we have the basics - the US consitituion and the US code, it’s the case law that really makes things complex and exciting.
Islamic Jurisprudence is the same. There are our basics, the Qur’an and the Sunnah of our Prophet (saws), and then we thousands upon thousands of books and scholars who interpret this. It would be fascinating to delve deeper into the issues that are presented as so black and white to converts - don’t do this, don’t do that - and study the sources and the commentary over history…
…which brings me to the article that I was originally going to blog about. Can you tell I tend to ramble? Shaykh Faraz Rabbani is uber spiffy. He teaches several courses on Sunnipath, as well as many of the free lectures they do from time to time. He answers a question on witnesses for rape that leaves my mind racing - what is the history of rape laws in islamic jurisprudence? What influences it and how has it changed over time? I’m definately going to have to look up Mufti Taqi Usmani’s work on this. I think it’s floating somewhere out in cyberspace. I’m definately going to play around in english works for the time being, but I really need to dedicate myself to serious arabic studies. Bah.
Q. If a woman is raped, does she have to bring up 4 witnesses to get the rapist convicted? If so, what is if she gets pregnant. Will she get punishment since juridicaly she is guilty of adultery? And can modern technics be used in order to proof that she was being raped. I read somewhere else, that she has to bring up 4 witnesses, but it seems very unlikely, since if there were 4 witnesses theese would obviously done something to help her. Can u please bring some light into this whole complicated topic.
A. Walaikum assalam wa rahmatullah,
I pray this finds you in the best of health and spirits. This is a common myth about Islamic criminal law. Rather, the four witness requirement applies only to the prescribed hadd punishment (which in the case of a married person could be death and for the non-married, 100 lashes). [Marghinani, Hidaya] This punishment is only applied in very rare cases, as is clear, and is meant to be a social deterrent, above
all.As the classical and contemporary jurists (such as Mufti Taqi Usmani) have made clear, a rapist can be convicted on lesser evidence (including scientific evidence, such as DNA tests and medical reports) for discretionary punishments. These discretionary punishments are left up to the legal system to determine.
However, it is a myth to say that Islam would in any way condone rape, or allow a rapist to go free for this terrible crime against an innocent human being and against society.
And Allah alone gives success.
Faraz Rabbani
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