A BRIEF GUIDE TO

ISLAM
History, Faith and Politics:
the Complete Introduction

Paul Grieve
While writing his critically successful novel Upon a Wheel on Fire, set
against the origins of World War Two, Paul Grieve became inter­
ested in similar events in the eastern Mediterranean, particularly the
collapse of the Ottoman Empire, and the origins of the State of
Israel. In order to understand the resulting conflicts through to the
present, Grieve decided to study Islam. After two years at the
Mosquee de Paris, he spent a further three years in the Middle East
studying Islamic history, jurisprudence, politics and Arabic, with
experts at Cairo University and the American University in Cairo.
The result is this book and a second novel. Grieve now lives in
London.
For my friends and mentors:

Abd al-Rahman Salem

Muhammad Serag
 CONTENTS

A Stroll Through the City ofGod 1

In the Beginning 6
I Muslims, Christians and Jews: Similarities 6
II Muslims. Christians and Jews: Differences 11
III The Torah, the Bible and the Qur’an 14
IV The Nature of Islam 17
V The Divide: Islam Misunderstood 21

The Coming of the Prophet 28

I Early History 28
II Islam and the Torah 32
III The Judeo-Christian Prophets and the Qur'an 34
The Messenger Isd 37
IV The Life of Muhammad 40
Islamic Dating 53
Appendix 1: The Constitution of Medina 72
Appendix 2: Muhammad's Wives 76

The Fundamentals of Faith 79

1 The Noble Qur’an 79
The Mysterious Letters 84
Qur’an Reciters 92
II The Hadith and the Sunna of the Prophet 94
III The Five Pillars of Islam 98
The Perils ofthe Pilgrimage 120
IV The Commandments of Islam 121
At the Heart ofFaith 125
Appendix 1: Examples of Secure Hadiths from
al-Bukhari and Muslim 129
Appendix 2: Surah 1, Al-Fdtiha (The Opening) 130
Appendix 3: Common Arabic Expressions
Invoking the Name of God 131
VM CONTENTS

Appendix 4: The Ninety-nine Beautiful Names

of Allah 133
Appendix 5: Muhammad’s Farewell Sermon 135

4 Islam in the Modem World 138

I The Spread of Islam 138
The Battle ofYarmuk 142
Islam in Medieval Europe 148
The Crusades through Arab Eyes 151
II Islam beyond the Empire 155
III The Arrival of the West in Dar al-Islam 157
IV The Great War and the Cairo Conference 158
Piracy an the Tyne 159
V Islam in the Modern World 163
Him as Hero 187
I1th September 2001 191
VI Muslim Communities in the West 194
Appendix: The Balfour Declaration 204

5 The Practice of Islam 205

I Faith without Priests, Feasts without Sacraments 205
II Understanding Shariah 213
Fatwas in modem rimes 216
ill Social Prohibitions 246
The Queen Boat 250
IV Women in Islam 252
V Islamic Banking 257
Shariah banking in Pakistan 261
VI Jihad 263

6 The Development of Islam 266

I Movements within Islam 266
The Death ofthe Imam al-Husayn, Prince ofMartyrs 268
That Turbulent Priest 286
The Oppressed and the Martyrs 292
The Life and Times ofBrother X 304
II What is a Fundamentalist? 306
III The Future 315
 CONTENTS IX

Powerless in Gaza 327

Under the Lid 335

7 Travelling in Dar al-Islam 338

1 Culture, Religion and Social Progress 338
n God Without an Image 341
ni Mosque Architecture 346
IV The Harams 349
The Mysterious Ending ofal-Hdkim bi-amr Allah 359
V Ten Treasures of Islam 364
VI Thirty-five Famous Muslims 370
VII Face to Face 397
Appendix: Excerpt from The Life ofMuhammad
by Emile Dermenghem 404

Glossary 407
Index 419
 A Stroll Through the City of God

The walled Old City of Jerusalem is beautiful, dramatic and bitter

Transfigured by a stark white light and surrounded by what were once
unforgiving rocky hillsides, good for nothing more than biblical sheep and
goats. Or for property development because today the Old Gty is also
bitterly and dramatically buried, taking on the role of religious theme
park to the banal, even ugfy conurbation with which the State of Israel
has enveloped the historical centre. Dull high-rises, marbled pseudo­
palace hotels, shopping malls and vast archipelagos of belligerent housing
settlements accessed by thickfy fenced bypass roads are now the Jewish
"built facts' that overshadow the Ottoman walls. So whether the real
estate was conquered, stolen or bought has lost all practical relevance.
The 120 square kilometres of development that has become 'Greater
Jerusalem' since the Arab-Israeli wars of 1948 and 1967 is now the
apparently irrefutable physical statement that the I square kilometre
within the stone walls belongs irreversibly to an exultant Israel, the
eternal 'City of David', nght up to the heavens.
Within the Old City, however, these recent encroachments are sur-
pnsingly shut out A distinctly petnfied atmosphere fills the narrow
pedestrian streets, with the Mamluk and Ottoman centunes still clearly
discernible behind the pervasive veneer of religious tourism.
But took deeper still and the terrible rivalries m the name of God
that have created this city are soon exposed. After only an hour or two
on foot the informed observer cannot remain a mere spectator. Such is
the power of Jerusalem, that by the end of the walk the pressing
presence of history has inspired either faith or revulsion.
Begin at the Dung Gate on the south side Pass through Israeli secu­
rity and an electronic search, show your passport and see in the heavily
armed policeman's bored expression that it is not you he is looking for.
Out on the polished stone plaza that leads to the Western Wall, walk the
ground where a Palestinian community once lived, stretching back to the
beginnings of recorded time, then bulldozed flat in a few days in 1967 to
create this large open space, glistening so impressively in the sunshine.
The former residents are invisible now, Irving only God knows where >n
a cinder block refugee camp
2 A SWX1 THOUGH THE OTY CT GOO

Facing Herod's huge foundation stones, now know as the Western

Wall, observe Jews at prayer, divided like Muslims between male and
female, each in their own enclosure Many carry automatic rifles over
their shoulders as they follow the detailed ntcs their God has prescribed
for the salvation of His chosen. Some, you will observe, wear on their
heads the knitted kippa of the Gush, showing their radical commitment
not |ust to a Greater Jerusalem, but to a raciafly pure Greater Israel
Through more security and past more weapons, climb a long ramp
towards the Haram, and the golden dome of the Muslim sanctuary Stand
here, up on Herod’s platform and admire the view across the Kidron
valley.The entire facing hillside is solid with the tombs of the Jewish faith­
ful who have had their bodies brought to Jerusalem for burial from all
over the world. For here is where the Jewish rising will take place when
the Messiah of the Torah comes, and those well placed at the front can
expea a headstart on eternity Now look around you and imagine thou­
sands of other bodies tilling the space between the two struaures of the
Haram. See the bodies of Jews and Muslims, piled five or ten high by the
victorious Crusaders on the stone flags under your feet Blood and gore
in the name of Jesus Christ so deep as to come up to the chest
Or »nagine you are standing on the same spot one thousand years
earlier again, and all around you is the Roman army, up on this same plat­
form, putting an end to four years of Jewish insurreaion ignited by the
purely religious questions of the sanctity of the holy of holies in Herod's
temple, and the ceremony of sacrifice.

While the Temple blazed, the victors plundered everything

that fell in their way. and slaughtered wholesale all who
were caught No pity was shown for age. no reverence for
rank: children and greybeards, laity and priests alike were
massacred.
(Josephus, War, VI, 5)

Then take the Haram tour, allow your Muslim guide to show you the
very place where al-Buraq, the winged ass, was tied up on the rught of
the Isni while God's chosen Prophet ascended to heaven on his MfrOf.
Run your fingers over the very iron nng. And once Inside the Umayyad
marvel that is the Dome of the Rock, see the very impnnts of
Muhammad's feet, magically etched into the rock from which he was
 A STROLL THROUGH THE CITY Of GOO

assumed heavenwards to be given God's instructions for the satvabon of

the world.
Before leaving the Haram, look down on the Jews praying at the wall
of their ruined temple below, and know that among those knitted skull­
caps down there are many who even at this moment are asking their
God to level everything around them, so that the Third Temple can be
built and the end of the world can begin. Run your hand over the bullet
holes in the walls from the last violent attempt by the Gush to lay their
foundation stone m the Haram courtyard, In the Haram museum inspect
the bloodstained clothes of the seventeen Muslims (but no Jews) who
were killed on that day.

The Haram and the Western Wall

Then back in the crush of the covered streets of the Arab quarter,
examine other faces, look into other eyes. Feel the fear and the hatred
that is everywhere. Know that the centunes of Muslim tolerance, even
though deemed by the Prophet himself are over and that a terrible
revenge would be taken on those same Jewish supplicants back at
Herod's wall if only these Palestinians all around you had the means.
4 A STROU THOUGH THE QTY Of GOO

And if this crowded scene were up in the new Jewish city, on Ben Yehuda
Street, or in Zion Square, the person standing next to you might at this
very moment be preparing to blow you straight to a Qur’anic paradise
of cool streams and attentive virgins. And here there are more of the flak
lackets and loaded automatics of the Israeli Defence Forces, itchily alert
behind their dark glasses, nervously covering every street comer.
Now move on to the Via Dolorosa and watch a group of Filipino
nuns struggling up the stone steps of the passage on their knees, cross­
ing themselves and mumbling their prayers at each Station of the Cross.
Here, they believe, their Redeemer earned a wooden beam towards his
coming hours of unspeakable suffering, of blood, nails and mockery But
an agony, they believe, that will be the salvation of all who have their par­
ticular brand of faith. Walk on to where the nuns are headed, the Church
of the Holy Sepulchre. A dense crowd fills the building and out into the
square in front They are lined up this tightly to kiss the floor Over the
tomb of the Son of God, then the place where the True Cross once
stood. But even the guidebooks know that they are all of them mistaken.
Via Dolorosa has taken many different routes over the centuries and the
present Via is merely the most convenient route for the capture of
tourist dollars by the tnnket-sellers. while the sacred tomb itself (not to
mention the tomb's alleged former occupant) rs nothing more than myth
and tradition. And the men who run this church in the name of that
same pacifist Redeemer are themselves so bitterly divided between
Romans, Greeks, Armenians. Syrians and Copts, that they need a Muslim
to lock and unlock the front door for them every morning and evening.
For centuries they have not even been able to agree on which one of
them should hold the key.
And further up, at the Jaffa Gate, you recognize the place where, in
1918, General Allenby, fresh from his victory over lite Ottoman Empire,
dismounted from his horse to enter Jerusalem on foot as his mark of
respect The Europeans were in charge once again. But although they
were to be better behaved than in 1099. Britain's subsequent thirty-year
Chnstian rule was to bnng to the City of Peace a century of hate
And here in this holy Jerusalem you really thought that you would
find calm, even some personal benediction from above. But instead, in
this other, this earthly Jerusalem, you are overwhelmed by a devilish frus­
tration. So strong, as you stand by the Damascus Gate at the north end
of the city, looking back over the route you have just walked, that rage is
 A STROLL THROUGH THE CITY OF GOD 5

overtaking you. Because what you have just seen, you come to realize, is
not the faith that you were looking for. the faith that should redeem
souls, move mountains, bring peace to the world. But, rather, all you have
found is a compassionless group amnesia that obliterates facts and con­
sumes reason, that manufactures deadly illusions, perverts texts, and
make curses out of the most sacred prayers. So that now a great sorrow
is rising up within you. mixed with the anger Then something like an
intenor fulmination deep within, and a sudden vision of how events could
and should have been. And in that same instant you also find you have a
prophecy for the future. Yes, now you know for certain that you alone
have the answer you are St John the Baptist come again, or the new
Imam, you are the awaited Messiah himself...
The popular definition of your condition is the Jerusalem Syndrome'.
Like hundreds of visitors before you, you have succumbed, and your cell
awaits.
 IN THE BEGINNING

I Muslims, Christians and Jews: Similarities

Islam is a significant presence in one hundred or more countries all

around the world, and die majority religion in over forty. There are
almost a billion believers, a figure comparable to Buddhism and
second only to Christianity. By the year 2020, if present trends con­
tinue, half the world will be Muslim. With such size and reach,
Islam is inevitably divided by politics, culture, language, history and
dogma, but nevertheless unshakably united in the central Muslim
credo: ‘There is no god but God and Muhammad is His Messenger.’
A simple way of making a start on this vast subject is to under­
stand that much of Islam consists of concepts familiar to a
Westerner, but seen in an unfamiliar light. To illustrate, here are ten
points of similarity between Islam and Judeo-Christianity.

1. Islam is an Arabic word meaning submission or commitment to

al-lldh, the God, or Allah. Islam is the humble recognition of the
relationship between man and his divine Creator and resonates with
the familiar words from Judaism and Christianity: ‘Almighty God,
Creator of heaven and earth’. But Islam goes beyond acknowledge­
ment and devotion. The true believer surrenders himself or herself
to the will of Allah, and in this way defines his or her identity as a
member of the community of the faithful, or the 'ummah. In
modern times the word Islam has come to mean the faith of the way
of al-Isldm, and those who observe the faith are muslim, or Muslims.

2. In Muslim belief, Muhammad was Allah’s chosen Messenger, or

Prophet, for the delivery of Allah’s Message which was revealed to
Muhammad little by little over a period of twenty-two years. The
revelations were recited by Muhammad as they were received and
memorized by his followers. After Muhammad's death the revela­
tions were assembled into a holy book called the Qur'an, the equiv­
alent of the word ‘Bible’, but taken from the Arabic word kuran.
 IN THE BEGINNING 7

meaning ‘recitation’. The Qur’an contains many references to stories

found in the Jewish Torah as well as the Christian New Testament.
Many of the characters familiar to readers of the Judeo-Christian
texts appear in the Muslim scripture, beginning with Adam.

3. Muhammad did not set out to found a new religion; rather he

saw himself as following on from the biblical patriarchs familiar to
both Christian and Jew, from Adam to Noah, to Abraham and
Moses, and including the teaching of Jesus Christ. Islamic tradition
recognizes prophets from any language and culture from around the
globe who submitted themselves to the will of God. But each of
these earlier revelations is considered by Islam not to have been final.
For Muslims, God only revealed His final message with the words of
the Qur’an, making Muhammad the last messenger in the prophetic
cycle by which God’s Word is believed to have been transmitted to
man over the millennia. Ironically, Muhammad saw the unfolding
revelation of the Qur’an as sent to unite and complete all that had
gone before, joining Arabs, Jews and Christians together. He
expected to be accepted as a prophet by both Jews and Christians, at
least to his own people. Islam only developed into a separate religion
when this concept of Muhammad as the final Prophet, and the
Qur’an as the Final Word, was rejected by the Christians and Jews
of his time.

4. The message of the Qur’an was delivered to Muhammad by the

angel Jibril or Gabriel who spoke in Arabic transmitting the words
of Allah, who never appeared to Muhammad directly. Many of the
verses of the Qur’an begin with Gabriel’s injunction to Muhammad
to speak with the word 'jS): Say or Recite, followed by the revealed
verses. This contrasts with the revelations of the preceding Judeo-
Christian prophets which were delivered by the indirect means of
human interpretation drawing on an internal inspiration, implicitly
claiming to be divine, but only occasionally purporting to speak
with the direct words of God. Even the words of Jesus Christ in the
New Testament are reported speech, however much emotion,
wisdom and intangible truth the narrative may contain. And the
record of Christ’s life comes to us from writers in a subsequent gen­
eration as well as through a number of intermediate languages,
giving rise to the possibility of faulty transmission. The Qur’an, in
 IN THE BEGINNING

contrast, is believed by Muslims to be the unerring and direct word

of God from start to finish.

5. Unlike the general Jewish view of the Torah and the Christian
view of the New Testament, therefore, the Qur’an is regarded by
Muslims as the literal word of God, revealed in Arabic. For this reason
translations should reproduce the original text above or alongside the
non-Arabic words. Such works may only be titled ‘The Meaning of
the Holy Qur’an' and cannot be represented as the Qur’an itself. No
other language is considered to be capable of providing a true rendi­
tion. That the Arabic words of the Qur’an are believed to have come
literally and directly from God the Creator is at the core of Islam, and
the key to understanding many aspects of the faith.

6. Through His words Allah shows that He wishes nothing more

than the reform of the world and the happiness of mankind, a theme
that is closely matched in the teachings of Jesus Christ: ‘Thy
Kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven.’
Similarly, Allah in the Qur’an, like the God of the New Testament,
is All-Forgiving and All-Merciful and these qualities in God form
the true basis of Islam, so often perverted by so-called Muslims and
so readily distorted by non-Muslims.

7. The Qur’an, like both the Torah and the New Testament, is lit­
erature of poise and beauty, and the work is unmatched in all Arabic
letters. An imperfect comparison would be to imagine Shakespeare
under divine command writing the Bible direcdy in English, creat­
ing the most sublime and defining language of our culture, as well
as setting out the basis of our religion. Yet Muhammad was a
Bedouin trader with no formal education who was certainly illiter­
ate when his ministry began.

8. 1 he Qur’an contains extensive references to and veneration of

Jesus Christ together with his mother Mary. But although the story
of the Virgin birth is repeated in the Muslim text, Jesus is treated as
a prophet not as a divine. ‘And they take as their Lord, Christ, the
son of Mary; Yet they were commanded to worship but One God'
(Al-Tawbah (The Repentance) Surah 9, verse 31). In the Qur’an,
Jesus speaks and specifically denies that he is anything but human
and he reproaches his disciples for treating him as God. Similarly,
 IN THE BEGNNING 9

although Jews originated the concept of a messiah, Judaism obvi­

ously does not accept Jesus Christ as the one.

9. Abraham, or Ibrahim, is acknowledged by the Qur’an as the

father of Islam, just as he is regarded as the original source of
Judaism and therefore of Christianity. ‘He was true in faith and
bowed his will to that of God (which is Islam) and he was not an
idolater’ (Al Imran (The Family of Imran) Surah 3, verse 67). But in
contrast to the Torah, in the parallel Muslim tradition, Abraham was
ordered by God to kill his eldest son, Ishmael, whose mother Hajar
was a Canaanite or Palestinian, not the youngest, Isaac, whose
mother Sarah was a Hebrew or a Jew. However, these details are not
given in the Qur’an, and the story may have been modified in a later
century to suit the purposes of Arab rulers. But in any event, the
importance of the story is to show Abrahams unquestioning obedi­
ence to God, rather than to score a political point. The substitution
by God of the ram as sacrifice in place of Ishmael (or Isaac) is the
basis of the Muslim Eid al-Adha, or Feast of the Sacrifice.

10. Geography is a further characteristic shared by all three reli­

gions. Muhammad reputedly said: 'There is not a prophet but that
he has dwelt in the desert’: the dry open spaces of what are now
Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Israel and Egypt were the training grounds of
the patriarchs, where God ‘teaches by taking away’. Whether the
colossi of our religious histories are mythical, factual or irrelevant, all
three religions agree that they lived in the same general area, under
the same conditions. This common thread stretches from
Muhammad, alone in his desert cave awaiting his revelations, back
to Jesus Christ, fasting and resisting temptation in the wilderness,
and back further through St John the Baptist, to Job and Moses, and
our most ancient traditions of deserts and deprivation.

At the moment of creation all are together - Muslim, Jew and

Christian - making up the vast majority of the population of the
globe.

Praise be to Allah, Who created the Heavens and the Earth

And made the darkness and the Light.
The Qur’an, Al-An'dm (The Cattle) Surah 6, verse 1
10 INTHEBEGINNING

To Him is due
The primal origin
Of the heavens and the earth.
When He decrceth a matter
He saith to it: ‘Be,’
And it is.
The Qur’an, Al-Baqarah (The Heifer) Surah 2, verse 117

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The
earth was a vast waste, darkness covered the deep and the
spirit of God hovered over the surface of the water. God said
‘Let there be Light’, and there was light; and God saw the
light was good and he separated light from darkness.
The Pentateuch, Book of Genesis, verse 1

In the beginning the Word already was. The Word was in

God’s presence, and what God was, the Word was. He was
God at the beginning, and through him all things came to
be; without him no created thing came into being. In him
was life, and that life was the light of mankind. The light
shines in the darkness and the darkness has never mastered it.
The New Testament, Gospel According to John, verse 1

These words express a universal human sentiment: our awareness of

an original force beyond ourselves that is the spring of faith.
Whether this consciousness is focused through the dogma of a
formal religion, left unresolved as a personal enigma, or approached
as a product of imperfectly understood natural laws, this is our con­
dition as human beings: tentative and mortal, here exposed in a few
short sentences at the bedrock of all three mighty religions; a
moment when all can agree, at least on the fundamental question,
before the detritus of history and the sands of time obscure our
sameness. Here is the moment of unity before the varying details of
each faith develop into bitter differences of culture and politics, gen­
eration after generation, century after century.
And the divisions come quickly. Genesis goes on to say, in verse
27, that God created man 'in his own image’, an insuperable heresy
to Islam in which God is described essentially in the negative: unsee­
able and unknowable; having no partner; not similar to His creation.
 IN THE BEGINNING

John claims in verse 16 that God the Father can only be known
through Jesus Christ, the Son. But the Christian Trinity of Father,
Son and Holy Ghost as both One and Three is a belief entirely repu­
diated by Jews and is complete anathema to Muslims for whom God
can only be One.
In the face of these direct contradictions and the thousands more
that follow, can anyone really be sure that the religion into which he
or she was born is right and all the others wrong? Or conversely,
does our Western cynicism and declining observance, which merely
obscures the issue rather than providing an explanation, permit us
to denigrate the intricacies in which others do find faith? Does cer­
tainty and salvation in whatever guise, religious or secular, really
belong only to one group?
After thousands of years of crimes perpetrated in the name of
rival gods by religions claiming to be based on love and forgiveness,
the answers to these questions must surely be self-evident. The
premise of this book, therefore, is that no absolute truth is to be
found in any faith. Rather, it is the very divergence of human belief
that really unites us, in our common inability to explain the cosmic
mystery of existence. By attempting to understand Islam, the trans-
cultural explorer begins to see how one man’s approach to such an
explanation has grown into the huge edifice of practice, history and
politics, that is today one of the most misunderstood pieces of a frac­
tured world.

II Muslims, Christians and Jews: Differences

The story, or metaphor, of the Creation is just one of a number of

beliefs shared by Judaism, Christianity and Islam, in principle if not
in detail. But the most important common ground between the
three is monotheism, the recognition of a single God whose revela­
tion replaced all that had gone before: the multiple gods of the
Greeks and the Romans, the sacred rocks and idols of the pre-
Islamic Arabs, or the many false gods with which the Jews were
tempted from time to time during the events described in the Old
Testament. The Christian God has three persons in one God; for
Jews, God has a special relationship with the Children of Israel; for
12 IN THE BEGINNING

Muslims, God speaks definitively only through the Arabic Qur’in.

But all three images are nevertheless linked by their monotheistic
essence.
All three faiths purport to set out God’s plan for the world,
involving commandments for life and specific methods of worship,
even though man, by his human nature, will inevitably fail to
meet these divine standards. And while penalties are prescribed for
transgressions, forgiveness and mercy are qualities ascribed to the
Almighty by all three faiths.
But it is differences between us, not the similarities, that attract
attention. Here are a few short statements of differentiation as an
overview.

Judaism was established amid the repeated disasters and enslave­

ments that befell the Children of Israel in the days of the Patriarchs,
mitigated by a few minor victories and the short-lived rule of the
House of David. Later, after the Babylonian captivity and the Roman
destruction of Jerusalem, the religion developed in an atmosphere of
homelessness and defensiveness, sustaining Jews who were spread
around the world in the diaspora. Judaism was solidified further
during the Christian era by the massacres of Jews in Britain during
the Crusades, by the Spanish Inquisition, the Russian pogroms and
finally by the Nazi Holocaust which led to the establishment of the
State of Israel and to the nominal end of the diaspora condition.
Christianity travelled up through the veins and arteries of
Rome, from the peripheries to the heart. Then Christianity pros­
pered as Europe prospered, intertwined with the artistic and politi­
cal developments of the last two thousand years. And starting in the
sixteenth century, European exploration and colonialization carried
Christianity to every continent of the world.
Islam grew as the simple belief of the illiterate desert dweller.
The message is easy to grasp, offering a universal brotherhood of
equality beyond race, beyond political hierarchy or ethnic origin.
The dramatic appeal of Islam to the poor and the powerless is read­
ily understandable.

Judaism speaks to one people, to the Jews. The history of Judaism

is the history of the Jewish people and the practice of Judaism was
 IN THE BEGINNING 13
developed over the three thousand years of their history, not deliv­
ered by any single prophet or saviour. While Judaism seldom prose­
lytizes and there are very few converts, the Jewish concept of God
the Creator, the all-powerful and the all-seeing, is the seed from
which Christianity and Islam have grown to encircle the globe.
The Christian God of the New Testament is personal, pacifist
and universally loving, although this central message is now diffused
across an incoherent spectrum of conflicting denominations. Unlike
Judaism and Islam, most Christian Churches carry extensive cen­
tralized hierarchies that claim control over dogma and many have
become institutions of substantial wealth and temporal power.
Sunni Islam, the faith of the vast majority of Muslims, exists
without any church structure. Muslims are held together by the
simple concept of the One God, by God’s Word as revealed directly
to man in the Qur’an, and by the uniform practice of the Five Pillars.

Judaism is characterized by God’s injunctions to the Jews to obey

His commandments as set out in the Torah, by which man may, in
time, rectify his original disobedience in the Garden of Eden.
Devout adherence to these laws will hasten the coming of the mes-
siah and the establishment of God’s kingdom on earth, an event in
which Jews believe they will have a special role, which is the essence
of the concept of the Election of Israel. But behind this emphasis on
practice, there is no ‘Jewish Creed’, making for a remarkable free­
dom of religious thought and a wide diversity of opinion within
Judaism on such topics as heaven and hell, the nature of evil and the
core problem of free will.
The essence of Christianity is that man who was born in sin can
only be redeemed by Christ through His own death and resurrec­
tion. Thus through faith, man may similarly overcome death to live
an eternal life in the presence of God. But beyond this central theme
of the life and death of Jesus Christ as the Son of God, Christian
beliefs and practices differ widely. A personal spirituality has come
to dominate modern Christianity while belief in the physical resur­
rection of the body, in a concrete heaven and a burning hell has gen­
erally declined together with church attendance. Christianity is
open to all, but some form of initiation is required, usually baptism,
symbolic or actual, together with instruction.
14 INTHEBEGINNING

Islam, like Judaism, emphasizes practice through ritual,

although the Five Pillars of Islam are much simpler than the multi­
ple laws of the Torah and the resulting Jewish rites. But unlike
Judaism, the Qur’an lays out a vivid and detailed system of belief in
addition to the external forms of observance. The Last Day is anti­
cipated in a physical sense, and heaven and hell are very real.

For the wrongdoer We

Have prepared the Fire
Whose smoke and flames
Like the walls and roof
Of a tent, will hem
Them in: if they implore
Relief they will be granted
Water like melted brass
That will scald their faces.
How dreadful the drink.
How uncomfortable a couch
To recline upon.
zl/-ASi/'/ (The Cave) Surah 18, verse 29

The culmination of the haj, or pilgrimage, is the rite of the

Standing, when the pilgrim asks God for forgiveness of his or her
sins, and this day is interpreted by many as a literal pre-enactment
of the events of the Day of Judgement. Conversion to Islam is the
simplest of all, requiring only the profession of the Shahadah from
the heart. ‘1 attest that there is no god but God and that
Muhammad is the Messenger of God.' Learning the faith begins
then, at conversion not necessarily before, and it is a Muslims duty
to improve his or her knowledge of the faith, and therefore of the
Qur’an, continuously over a lifetime.

Ill The Torah, the Bible and the Qur’an

The Hebrew Bible consists of the Torah or the ‘Five Books of Moses'
(Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy) followed
by the Prophets and the Writings. The Torah is the story of the
Creation, and of man's original sin of disobedience against God,
 IN THE BEGINNING 15
followed by the core mythology of Judaism: the enslavement of the
Jews in Egypt and their subsequent escape, followed by years of
wandering the Sinai desert, ended by the bloody invasion of Canaan
as the Promised Land. But for Jews these are also books of love,
enabling man to say 'yes’ to God by following the 248 positive and
365 negative commandments set out in the text, so moving towards
the dream of a new paradise on earth, a state which may eventually
replace the original paradise lost.
The Christian Bible opens with the Hebrew Bible as the Old
Testament (although some of the later Christian components of the
Old Testament are not part of the original Jewish twenty-two sacred
works), followed by the New Testament which consists principally
of the four Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John). Each Gospel
relates the life of Christ from a slightly different point of view and
each contains varying details and emphases. The Gospels are fol­
lowed by the writings of the early church leaders who first put
Christianity into practice, of whom St Paul is the dominant spirit.
The Qur an is entirely different, having no narrative thread in
the same sense as the Torah or the New Testament. There are fre­
quent references to the prophets who have gone before, and the
reader is presumed to be already familiar with the names. But rather
than a story, the Qur’an is an exhortation addressed to man by God,
urging a better world through a social and religious order that fol­
lows His will. These rules of conduct and of belief that will lead man
to everlasting life are to be found diffused throughout the book.
The Qur’an is approximately 120,000 words long, about the
same length as the four Christian Gospels together. To a western
reader, the Qur’an may seem obscure and repetitive, even contradic­
tory. Study and frequent reading are required to come to the message
that underlies the text. Faced with an apparent inconsistency or a
statement that appears to run against science or scholarship, the
devout Muslim may seek further interpretation, textual reconcilia­
tion, or the words may have been abrogated, but ultimately he or she
has only two choices: either he or she has faith that the words arc
divine and acknowledges that it is the reader who has yet to under­
stand, or he or she ceases to be a Muslim. This bare and inescapable
certainty in the Word of God lies at the heart of Islam and at the core
of many misunderstandings between Muslims and non-Muslims.
16 IN THE BEGINNING

Because Muhammad’s life is so clearly recorded making him the

only prophet to live in the full light of history, modern scholarship
has made little impression on the facts of his career as accepted by
Muslims. Whether or not the reader believes in the divine author­
ship of the Qur’an, the text has indisputably come down to us from
the seventh century ce, from the mouth of Muhammad and sub­
stantially unchanged.
In contrast, the status of both the Torah and the New Testament
have gradually deteriorated from ‘God-sent’ to myth. Only Jewish
(and Christian) literalists still assert that the five books of the Torah
were written by Moses and most modern scholarship places the
authorship between the years 800 and 150 bce, reaching full canon­
ical form only in the first or second century ce, and after much
adding and subtracting. This is nowhere near the beginnings of
recorded history, which in Mesopotamia and Egypt push back 2,000
years before even the oldest parts of the Torah. Further, the biblical
stories are not all original, but many compare with and draw upon
the ancient traditions of Babylon and Egypt as well as Phoenicia,
Canaan and Persia. Nor are there any archaeological or other records
to support such events as the construction of the first or the second
temple of Zion in Jerusalem, the Flood, or the Egyptian captivity
and release. And few Christians or Jews still believe in such events as
the seven-day Creation, which has foundered on the new truth of
evolution.
But the Torah succeeds brilliantly as great literature, giving form
and order to the myths of the Hebrews, while at the same time con­
structing a facade of justification for the Jewish claim to be the
Elected of God. Written for the most part during the days of low
morale following the collapse of the House of David and through
the captivity ofJudah in Babylon, the Torah can be viewed as a mas­
terpiece of uplifting propaganda. The books also work as a political
tract that conjures the moral title-deeds to Palestine, territory which
as Canaan, was in feet won and lost by the Jews on numerous occa­
sions through nothing more mysterious than force of arms: from the
legendary Hebrew invasion after the Exodus to the creation of the
modern State of Israel in 1948.
The New Testament was written between half a generation and
a full generation after the death of Christ and comes to us in a
 IN IK BEGINNING 17

language (Greek) different from that spoken by the participants in

the events described (Hebrew or Aramaic). The evangelists had no
direct personal knowledge of the content of their writing and many
assertions in the Gospels do not match historical fact, starting
with the date of the Nativity. While the Gospels may be ‘inspired',
no claim is now made for anything but human authorship.
Furthermore, the books were merely four of a number of contradic­
tory versions of the life and sayings of Christ that circulated in the
early Christian Church. Only during the first three centuries ce was
the present canon agreed upon, after which all texts other than
Matthew. Mark. Luke and John were banned by the church and
have since fallen into obscurity, or were destroyed at the time.

IV The Nature of Islam

At the heart of Islam is the wish to enlighten mankind to an aware­

ness of God.

Light upon Light

God guides to His light whom He will.
Al-Nur (The Light) Surah 24. verse 35

However, the text of the Qur’an and the beliefs of Islam are so
overlaid with misinterpretation and reinterpretation from both
inside and outside that this light is often obscured. The universal
message of Christianity would be similarly diminished to the point
of darkness if the faith were to be defined only by reference to the
sectarian murders in Northern Ireland, the history of the Spanish
Inquisition, or the sad stories of lust and greed in modem television
evangelism. So the following summary of the nature of Islam may
seem surprising, even dubious to a Western reader, but behind all
the inflammatory headlines and the misunderstandings, for a devout
Muslim, these are the true characteristics of his or her faith.

• Discipline. Laws are to be found throughout the text of the

Qur’an, which, as a divine revelation, arc therefore considered to be
the laws of God. These formal statements of law in the Qur'an are
IB IN THE BEGINNNG

supplemented by the Sunna, the sayings and reported actions of

Muhammad during his lifetime, which set out the derailed regula­
tions that complement the more general injunctions of the Qur’in.
The discipline expected of a Muslim starts with his or her personal
life: regular prayers: respect for the body by following rules of diet;
cleanliness in all things; politeness in public conduct. Then laws for
the family, which lie at the heart of Islam, followed by rules for soci­
ety as a whole, with an emphasis on the maintenance of public
order. The entire structure of Qur’anic law is accepted by Muslims
as God's will and is known collectively as the Shariah, literally the
Road'. This body of laws has an absolute 'God-given' character,
therefore, although softened by the possibility of forgiveness for
human frailty and the promise of paradise for repentant sinners.

Say. ‘If you love Allah,

Follow me Allah will love you
And forgive you your sins.
For Allah is Oft-Forgiving
Most Merciful.'
Al-Imran (The Family of 'Imran) Surah 3, verse 35

But unlike Christianity, Islam recognizes no intermediary

between man and God. Obedience to the will of Allah, as expressed
in the Shariah is confronted directly by the believer. There is no
equivalent to the Christian prayer formula, 'through Jesus Christ,
Our bird. Amen'.

And your Lord says:

'Call on Me; I
Will answer your prayer.
But those who are
Too arrogant to serve Me
Will surely find themselves
In Hell - in humiliation!'
Al-Ghafir (The Forgiver) Surah 40. verse 60

• Moderation. A practising Muslim believes in wasat, meaning

the way between two extremes.
 ■N THl BECJNNUG I?

And be moderate
In thy pace, and lower
Thy voice; for the harshest
Of sound without doubt
Is the braying of the ass.
I.uqman (LuqmSn the Wise) Surah 31. verse 19

Moderation takes the form of consensus in arriving at decisions, in

preferring the middle ground, in understanding a few things well
rather than many things superficially, in personal modesty and in
good relations with those whose life the devout Muslim touches.
This is the horizontal axis of the Muslim faith, the creation of good
relations between man and man. The vertical axis, the relationship
between man and the will of God, is of primary importance, but the
faith consists of maintaining both axes in equilibrium.

• Community. While each believer enjoys his or her own direct

relationship with God, Islam is also a commonwealth of the
'ummah, meaning the Muslims as a distinct society. Ideally, this
Muslim community forms a self-helping, sclf-rcgularing and self­
leveling society standing openly and solidly for the faith, The com­
bination of parity with solidarity is expressed through all aspects of
the practice of Islam and is emphasized frequently in the Qur’in.
The simple universality of the Muslim community is shown most
convincingly in the saying of daily prayers within fixed times, with
the entire brotherhood and sisterhood of believers facing toward
Mecca from all around the world, following the same prescribed for­
mula. The annual haj is another expression of the egalitarianism of
Islam, drawing millions together from the majority of the nations,
races, cultures and languages of the world to follow the orders of
God and His Prophet on an entirely equal basis.

• Tolerance. Throughout the history of Islam, racial prejudice has

been entirely absent and religious tolerance has been shown towards
Christians and Jews, both considered to be People of the Book.

Say, O Muslims: We believe in Allah

And that which is revealed unto us and that
Which was revealed unto Abraham,
20 IN THE BEGNNNG

And Ishmael and Isaac and Jacob

And the tribes and that which Moses
And Jesus received and that which
ITte Prophets received from their Lord.
We make no distinction between any of them
And unto Him we have surrendered.
Al-Haipnih (The Heifer) Surah 2. verse 36

There have been famous periods of conflict between Islam and other
faiths: during Muhammad's confrontation with the Jewish commu­
nities in Medina for example, during the Christian Crusades, in the
Balkans, in Spain when Asian Muslims fought against Catholic
Europeans. And in modern times the effective partition of Palestine
and the creation of the State of Israel has led to over eighty years of
political tension and violence between Muslims and Jews. But gen­
erally, over rhe centuries of Muslim rule in the southern and eastern
Mediterranean, Christian and Jewish communities, although usu­
ally subject to a special poll tax. have lived peacefully under Islamic
governments, carrying on their lives unmolested and frequendy
holding public office. Pogroms, ghettos, inquisitions and concentra­
tion camps are European inventions and have no equivalents in
Islam. The Qur’an expresses frustration at the continued divisions
between Christians, Jews and Muslims following the revelation of
Muhammad's message, but offers an optimistic view of potential
unity:

Say: 'We believe

In the Revelation which has
Come down to us and in that
Which came down to you:
Our God and your God
Is One: and it is to Him
Hut we bow in Islam.'
Al 'Ankahui (The Spider) Surah 29, verse 46

Muhammad himself decreed tolerance towards both Christians and

Jews living in the Muslim-controlled Commonwealth of Medina, as
well as ordering protection for their places of worship, provided that
the)' did not attempt to undermine the state. This historical
 INTHF BEGINMNG

sufferance goes against the popular Western view, yet the record of
Islam compares very favourably with the frequent Christian perse­
cutions of Muslims and Jews through the ages, reaching right down
to the twentieth century.

V The Divide: Islam Misunderstood

Islam has an entirely different image among many non-Muslims.

Muslims are frequently labelled as narrow-minded, extremist or
violence-prone, while the West, seen from a Muslim country, is
decadent and immoral, an evil menace.
Possibly the West is pre-conditioned to see Islam as hostile. Such
a view is certainly embedded in Western culture, with the heroic leg­
ends of the Crusades, the language of Shakespeare in Othello, of
Dante and of Voltaire, or in words derived from the Old Testament
such as 'Philistine', ‘Chosen People' and Promised Land'. Such
words have set Ishmaelite against Israelite from rhe start of biblical
history and the same words have set Arab against Jew in the Middle
East for the past century, right up to and including today.
Muslims are similarly programmed, usually seeing the godless
West only through the excesses of our scandal-loving media. Or we
appear as armed aggressors, from the colonial era through to the
West's apparently unconditional support for Israel, for example, in
the bombing of Libyan and Afghan civilians, the starving of Iraqi
children followed by the bombing and invasion of their country, and
the ruination of Chechnya, acts perpetrated against Muslims for the
purposes of easy domestic political advantage, while avoiding the
core issues of justice and true democracy. Even an elementary exam­
ination of some of the areas of conflict between Muslims and the
West through Muslim eyes, produces a quite contrary view.
Most acts of political violence within Muslim states, especially
attacks on tourists, are broadly intended to destabilize 'pro-Western'
corrupted regimes and to bring about government based on Islamic
shurd (meaning 'consensus', and to be discussed later) and the
Shariah. Such acts, starting with those of September 11th, 2001,
have then developed into attacks on foreign targets, but with the
same objective: to force the departure of foreign occupiers so that
22 INTHf BtGMNING

Islamic government can begin. However despicable in themselves,

these incidents are the expression of a deep tension springing from
a legitimate historical injustice. Most Muslim countries were liber­
ated from European colonial rule only within the last fifty years.
Liberation to what, though’ The nation-state that the West advo­
cates as the liberal solution for the problems of the world, a non­
religious administration subject (in theory) to democratic control, is
a system that took hundreds of years and untold millions of deaths
to develop in Europe and America. The idea that such a structure
could be imposed successfully on former colonies of a different cul­
ture over a single generation has proved to be wildly optimistic.
Further, the secular nation-state based on the Western model is
a concept that runs directly contrary to Muslim traditions, which
stretch back to the original community of the 'ummah, established,
as wc shall see, by the Prophet in Medina in the seventh century.
Here was the ideal Muslim society with no national boundaries and
a merged church and state, ruled by the laws of God. In contrast,
most of the recent attempts to create secular nation-states in coun­
tries with Muslim majorities have produced corrupt ruling elites
without a popular mandate, that are only nominally Muslim and
whose flawed leaders arc frequently supported by the West in the
name of ‘national security' and 'global stability'. There are many
examples both past and present, from the Shah of Iran to General
Suharto of Indonesia, to the rigged elections of Hosni Mubarak’s
Egypt, to Saddam Hussein himself, whose power was built up by the
West when it suited us, during the Iran-Iraq war of 1981-88. The
result is that in most Muslim countries, neither democracy nor
shura and Shariah have been achieved, neither the Western utopia
nor the Muslim version, but only new forms of dictatorship and
repression. Lurking instability and an intensification of violence in
the name of religion has been the inevitable result.
Islam is a system of rules for all aspects of life, based on faith,
forming an all-embracing ‘social project', whereas Western liberalism
specifically seeks to avoid the regulation of personal behaviour unless
the rights and freedoms of others arc affected. Islam can therefore
appear to be 'intolerant' in imposing restrictions that Westerners
would find unconscionable in their own lives. But in this view the
Western observer overlooks the core Muslim belief that the rules of
 IN THE BEGINNING 23

Islam originate with the direct word of God in the Qur’Jn. For a
believer, therefore, the rule of the Shariah is to be welcomed not
resented. And by extension, Western liberalism transgresses God’s
commandments in every possible way and is therefore ‘decadent’ and
‘culpable*.
This divide between Western ‘decadence’ and Islamic ‘repression’
also coincides generally with the division between the rich world
and the poor. Western democracy, political freedom, transparency
and a secular state appear to lead to wealthy societies with high levels
of personal consumption. In the Muslim view, however, the West
pays a price for these advances in the form of intangibles: declining
‘family values’, increasing rates of divorce and births out of wedlock,
drug and alcohol abuse, drunk driving, high crime statistics and loss
of community. These arc the very defects that the Western right­
wing perennially promises to repair, and values which are still very
much alive and well in most Islamic countries.
With the charges of ‘intolerance' against Muslims and ‘degener­
acy’ against the West go the popular but misinformed images.
Muslim women wearing the burqa, compared with the Western use
of the female form as a sales expedient; the apparent cruelty of the
Islamic penal code compared with the elevated levels of crime and
suffering in Western countries, to name but two. This is a divide that
can never be bridged, only understood. The West may think that the
spread of affluence and material comforts is die long-term solution
to the wrongs of the world, but in reality the ‘God-sent’ light of
Islam will give way to secular materialism only with die greatest of
difficulty, if ever. Each encroachment by the US-dominated world
produces the counter-reaction of a greater commitment among
Muslims to their code.
The Salman Rushdie affair encapsulated the divide perfectly.
Citizens in the West have struggled for centuries, and at great cost,
for the right to freedom of speech, which is now inalienable. The
West, and the UK in particular, was therefore infuriated by an
attempt ar censorship through a fatwa, a legal ruling that included a
death sentence, issued by a foreign cleric to punish the authorship of
a book published in London by a British citizen. While the fatwa is,
of course, indefensible, Rushdies novel. The Satanic Vents, mocks
the very essence of Islam (as well as the personalities of both
 IN THE EfGINNNC

Muhammad and the Ayatollah Khomeini), ridiculing exactly the

process by which God through Gabriel revealed the verses of the
Qur’an to Muhammad. For many believers who consider the Qur’an
to be a revelation from God. not just mere words or an option of
faith, this was a crime worse than murder. Further, in a society where
sexual reticence is the accepted standard, portraying Muhammad's
wives as prostitutes in a brothel ensured that Muslims would be out­
raged. The Satanic Versei is not an easy or a rewarding read and the
book would probably have dropped quickly out of sight, together
with the author, had the fatwa not been invoked. Instead. Rushdie
is now world-famous and commands huge advance payments for his
work and appearances. Ironically, the painfully constructed position
of Muslims in Britain as law-abiding and industrious citizens has
been deeply damaged by the actions of a few extremists in calling for
Rushdie’s death, creating (together with September 11th 2001 and
July 7th 2005) the opportunity for the conflict to develop in the
British press into the open denigration of Islam as a whole.
For the Pakistanis of Bradford, however, the Rushdie incident was
a dear example of Britain's reluctance to allow Muslims to defend
their own identity within society and the issue soon escalated on the
Muslim side to indude complaints about the funding of Muslim
schools, political representation and unemployment. (According to
British government figures, 60 per cent of the Pakistani and
Bangladeshi community in the UK live below the official poverty
line, compared with 16 per cent of whites as a whole.)
Muslims also argue that freedom of speech in Britain is not in
fact absolute, being already limited by laws against pornography,
racism, personal libel and national security. Meanwhile the govern­
ment has periodically attempted to criminalize hatred against a
group defined by religious beliefs, or 'religious hatred'. For Muslims,
therefore, adding an offence against religious sensibilities such as
blasphemy to the list of curtailed freedoms would be an extension of
the existing list of exceptions, rather than a fresh departure.
However the intention of British law is to protect the person not the
faith, while 'blasphemy’ involves the protection of a belief, and an
official judgement about that belief, which is well beyond the level
of intervention in private lives that the British electorate would
accept.
 IN THE BEGNNING 25

In many cases Westerners attribute such divergences to the

inflexible canon of Islam, when in fact the reasons for our differ­
ences are often the political and economic objectives of the West
itself. The Ayatollah Khomeini, former leader of the Islamic
Republic of Iran, called the United States the 'Great Shaytan’
because America had for so long supported the regime of the Shah,
a deeply corrupt ruler with precious little earned or inherited legit­
imacy. The Shah consistcndy suppressed the popular religious life of
Iran, calling the process modernization'. But to Khomeini and the
vast majority of Iranians, the Shah and his Western backers were
working against God's law, thus allying themselves with the devil.
But ail the while, the real reason for Western support of the Shah
was nothing to do with his social ideas, but because he maintained
pan of the front line against the USSR in the Cold War years, and
cooperated with British and American oil interests. Then, in order
to foster popular support for the policy of maintaining the Shah in
power against the will of his own people, the West 'manufactured
consent', by characterizing internal opposition to the Shalt as 'fun­
damentalist', 'revolutionary' and ‘Islamic’, when to Western govern­
ments the real issues were, in fact, purely strategic and economic.
This process of demonizing Islam has been repeated again and again
by the West: in Algeria, the Sudan, Iraq and Afghanistan, to name
but a few. A comparison closer to home is Ireland, where the words
'Catholic' or 'Protestant' usually precede all other descriptions of the
antagonists, whereas, in feet, the root cause from which the dispute
arises is not religion but relates to an historical injustice over the
confiscation of land and the imposition of outside rule and migra­
tion, perpetrated by force of arms by one people on another.
A further example of the misunderstandings between Islam and
the West is the refiisal of many teachers in France to conduct classes
attended by Muslim girls wearing headscarves (which are now pro­
hibited by law). The official reason scarves are considered a threat in
French schools is because church and state are strictly separated in
the Vth Republic, religion having no place therefore in a state-run
institution. But Muslims reply that miniskirts and exposed midriffs,
or necklaces with crosses or stars worn to school are equally sym­
bolic, although these infractions arc rarely prohibited. However,
many teachers assert that the real reason for their opposition to the
26 IN THE BEGINNING

scarf is because it is ‘imposed' on young Muslim girls by male-

ordered traditions. The possibility that the wearer of the scarf may
herself wish to follow the injunctions of the Qur’an as to personal
modest}' appears not to be taken into account. The headscarf
reached the pitch of a national scandal in France, once again sym­
bolizing the status of Muslims in Europe as eternal immigrants.
So is the West more advanced? Isn't an affirmative answer to this
question proved by the numbers of immigrants from Muslim coun­
tries living in the West and the almost total absence of the reverse?
Or by Western rates of per capita income which are up to fifty times
higher than those in the poorest Islamic states? The answer is indis­
putably yes. the West obviously w ahead, at least in a material sense.
But the question that follows is why. in a country like Egypt with a
5,000-year history, self-sufficiency in oil and ftxid, a friendly cohe­
sive population and a key geographical position, is the average per
capita income one twentieth of that of France? Why. when Egypt
and South Korea had much the same standard of living in 1950, is
South Korea's income per capita now over six times as high? I'he
answer that comes readily to a Western mind is: because of the back­
wardness of Islam. But in the opinion of this observer the exact
opposite is the case. Egypt is poor while South Korea is prospering
and France is rich because Islam is not followed in Egypt.
Muhammad 'Abduh, the great Egyptian mujtahid. or Islamic
thinker and innovator from the latc-nincteenth century, made the
following observation after his first trip to Europe: 'In France I saw
Islam without Muslims, but in Egypt I see Muslims without Islam.'
Islam decrees hard work, honesty and fairness; Islam prohibits polit­
ical repression and corruption: all the conditions that arc generally
to be found in the West. But in Egypt, for one example, and there
arc many others, corruption and waste at the top are a way of life,
sapping the energies of the people, limiting growth, diverting the
assets of the country into the pockets of the few, and converting the
country into a nation ofcheats from top to bottom. The poor grow
poorer, saying their prayers five times a day and hoping for justice in
the world to come, while the rich plunderers grow richer, openly
supported by us. the West. This is not the fault of Islam and the
injunctions of the Qur'an are clear:
 IN THE BEGINMNG 27

And do not car up

Your own property among yourselves
For vanities, nor use it
As bait for rulers
With intent that ye may
Eat up wrongfolly and knowingly
Other peoples property.
Al-Baqamh (The Heifer) Surah 2. verse 188
 2
THE COMING OF THE PROPHET

I Early History

The history of Islam begins with Muhammad and the Qur’an. The
low level of importance given by Muslims to the events before
Muhammad is illustrated by the Arabic term for the preceding cen­
tury: Jdhiliyyah, die Time of Ignorance.
Islam has no ordered pre-history to tell, no 'Muslim Old Test­
ament' in the Judeo-Christian sense, no pre-Revelation story to cover
the period between the Creation and the birth of Muhammad. This
is another example of the absolute primacy in Islam of the text of the
Qur’an and the life of the Prophet. Muhammad's message did not
flow from a religious continuum like the scriptures of the Hebrews,
or from a tradition of messianic expectation. Rather, Muhammad
physically overthrew the pre-existing pagan order in Arabia.
Jesus Christ was a Jew from the House of David, from an
‘Elected People' already 'Chosen of God', and from a culture with a
tradition and a history of prophecy purportedly stretching back to
the beginnings of time. This neat fit of faith and history has domin­
ated Western religious tradition for two thousand years, forming
until recent agnostic times die backbone of our collective psyche.
Christianity built a vast structure of belief on these foundations,
tying together an entire cycle of stories, from Adam's fall, represent­
ing the sins of mankind, to the potential redemption of the world
by the crucifixion of Christ.
Muslim early history is much sparser and more confused. No
writings have come down to us from the jdhiltyyah or the early years
of Islam that are even remotely comparable to the works of the early
Hebrews. The nearest equivalent to a 'Muslim Torah' is The Exegesis
ofTabari, written by Muhammad ibn Jarir al-Tabari in the tenth cen­
tury CE, almost three hundred years after the death of Muhammad.
This massive work, rccendy translated into English for the first
time, funded by UNESCO and the National Endowment for the
Humanities of the United States, runs to twenty-two volumes. There
 TK CQI-V'K, Qf THE PROPHET »

is, however, no central narrative running through the material; rather

the work consists of sayings, myths (known as lira iliyyat) and mul­
tiple layers of opinion relating to every surah in the Qur'an, the
sources for which are often obscure and unsubstantiated.
Before the revelation of the Qur’an Arabic existed as a grammati­
cal but almost exclusively oral language. No original documents
remain from the period, however, only anthologies and recollections
assembled by later generations. Poems composed to be recited in
public were greatly valued by early Arab society. Poetry was the
noblest expression of language, and language is the supreme Arab art.
known under Islam as sihr halal. the ‘permitted magic', even dtough
the early poets were probably illiterate, like Muhammad himself. In
the Jdhiliyyah, epic verse sustained the diwan, or collective memory
and honour of each tribe from generation to generation. The highest
form of this early poetry was the qasida, or ode, which was both
rhyming and metred, running to as many as sixty couplets or more.
The content of a qasida followed a well-understood form, bearing an
underlying message that spoke of the transience of life. First the poet
would evoke a faraway place, a deserted encampment or a lost or
distant love.

But what think you now ofthe Lady Nawar. so far away,
And every bond with her broken, new cord alike with old?
A Marrite she, who dwells now in Paid andfor neighbours takes
The Hejazi folk: how can you still aspire then to come to her?

Then a dangerous journey would be described in which the narra­

tor regains his equanimity in the face of the inevitability of death,
through feats of strength or endurance.

Then 1 pricked her on, to run like an ostrich andfleeter still

Until, when she was warm and her bones light and pliant.
Her saddle slipping about and her neck streaming with sweat,
And thefoam ofher perspiration drenching her leather girth;
She tosses her head and strains at the rein but rushes on.
As a desert dove flutters with the flight swiftly to water.

Finally, with the listeners’ attention assured, the poet launches into
his panegyric: lines in praise of a benefactor, in praise of nature and
the desert, or the poet’s tribe.
30 THE COMING Of THE PROPHET

When alarmed to battle, there they are with their helmets on

And their coats ofmail, the rings ofthem gleaming like stars.
Unsullied is their honour and their deeds are not ineffectual.
For their prudent minds incline not after capricious lust.
Excerpts from The Centenarian by Labid

To conclude that die Qur’an was an extension of this poetic trad­

ition is tempting. But even though the Qur’jn uses the high Arabic
language of poetry, transcending tribal variations, this would be an
error. For Muslims the word of God defies all human categorization.
Belief in a single paramount god preceded Islam. God was //to the
Babylonians and to the Canaanites, later to the Israelites he was £4
and to the primitive Bedouins he was al-lldh. This was the god of a
linear creation in which man is born and dies through divine will,
rather than participating in a recurring cycle of reincarnation. But
there were also hundreds of other lesser gods in pagan Arabia, form­
ing a richly diverse Arab religious culture. Many of these gods were
represented by stones or clay idols, though all were mere intermedi­
aries between man and al-lldh. The monotheism of the first Hebrew
Commandment. 'Thou shall have no other gods before me', took
many centuries for the Jews to refine. In Islam, in contrast, the move
from polytheism to the One God that almost overwhelms the
Qur’an, took place only from the commencement of the message, and
matured over a period of merely twenty-two years. Jewish and
Christian tradition may have assisted in the formulation of Allah, the
One God of Islam, but the concept itself was not issued to the Arabs
by any outside religion. Al-lldh of the Jdhiliyyah was understood to be
the ultimate source of power and above all other gods and may also
have been associated with certain dietar}’ laws and the rite of male cir­
cumcision, practices that were extended and codified by Islam.
The Ka’bah (literally cube ) is the rectangular chamber made of
hewn stone (measuring 13m X 10m X 7m high) that is now sur­
rounded by the vast courtyard of the Great Mosque in Mecca. The
Ka’bah is the physical centre of the Muslim world, and the city of
Mecca constitutes Islam's holiest haram or sanctuary, and was long
recognized in pre-Muslim Arabia as a place of pilgrimage and
sacrifice set apart from conflict. The building is evidence of a strong
Arab religious tradition, although in the era immediately before
 THE COMING OFTHF PROPHET 31

Muhammad the Arabs were ardently polytheist. The present-day

structure of the Ka’bah was already in existence long before the birth
of Muhammad, although periodically repaired and altered, and
there appears to be no historical explanation of the origin of the
structure in the Arab record to match against the Muslim legend. In
this legend, Abraham, in order to give thanks to God for His mercy
in sparing Ishmael from sacrifice, rebuilt the present Ka’bah on
foundations first laid by Adam, the original superstructure having
been washed away in the Hood.
Ibrahim, or Abraham, existed in Arabic mythology long before
his appearance in the Qur’an, although the tradition may have
derived from Arab contact with Jewish legends. To the early Arabs.
Abraham was the patriarch of the race and the builder of the Ka’bah
in Mecca. By the time al-Tabari was writing in the tenth century ce,
the story of Abraham had been spruced up to create the present
orthodoxy by which Abraham (who was conveniently neither a Jew
nor a Christian) is regarded as rhe father of both the Arabs and the
Jews, the former through Abraham’s oldest son Ishmael by his
Canaanite wife Hajar, the latter through the younger son Isaac by
Abraham's Hebrew wife Sarah. In the Muslim version of the story,
which may only have come into existence as Islam sought to create
traditions separate from Judaism, the aborted sacrifice took place on
the Mount of Mercy outside Mecca, not on the Temple Mount in
Jerusalem as in the Jewish tradition. And, as we have seen. Ishmael
the proto-Arab was the intended victim, not Isaac the proto-Jew.
A number of early Arab prophets are referred to in the Qur’iln
who do not appear in the Old Testament, with names such as Hud,
Salih, Dhu-’l-Kifl, Luqman, Idris and Shu'ayb. The reader is
expected to be familiar with these personalities and no coherent
explanation is given of the lives or teachings of these men, whose
detailed history is now lost. Muhammad's purpose in citing preced­
ing prophets was to reinforce the moral themes of the Qur’an, rather
than to tell a series of stories. Further, in order to present Islam as the
perfection of all that had gone before, God’s previous messengers are
represented as delivering the same essential message as Muhammad
and sharing some of his experiences. The Qur’an then reinterprets
the old teachings in the new light of God's final word: that on the
Last Day the righteous will be rewarded and the wicked punished.
32 TK COMING Of THE FWF

II Islam and the Torah

Islam has a forthright response to the 'missing' story that would link
the dawn of time to the birth of the Prophet. Since the Creation, in
the Muslim view, God in his wisdom has revealed to man, through
a succession of prophets from all cultures and races, that part of the
divine message which He deemed to be suitable for each age. Thus,
all who preceded Muhammad and believed in the One God were
‘inspired’, and even considered by Islam to be 'Muslim', in that they
submitted to the will of God. But from Adam to Jesus, none of the
earlier prophets possessed the definitive text because the moment of
ultimate revelation had not yet arrived. Not until God's revelation
to Muhammad did man receive the complete message. The Qur’an
is regarded therefore as definitive or ‘final', meaning that the mes­
sage is sufficient to carry us through to the Last Day with nothing
else needed for our salvation. This belief allows Islam to co-opt, yet
at the same time to reduce in importance, all that went before,
making the absence of a ‘Muslim Old Testament' irrelevant.
As a further response, Islam asserts that the God-sent messages
delivered by earlier prophets were perverted at the time, or misun­
derstood later, or diminished through imperfect transmission over
subsequent generations.

They change the words

From their right places
And forget a good part
Of the Message that was
Sent them, nor wilt thou
Cease to find them -
Barring a few - ever
Bent on new deceits.
Al-Mi'ulah (The Repast) Surah 5. verse 13

What we read in the Torah and the New Testament, therefore, in

Muslim belief, is a corrupted version of a pure truth that is now lost.
This human interference is then brought into further useful service
by Islam to account for rhe discrepancies between the Quranic ver­
sions of the patriarchal stories, and those found in the religious writ­
ings of the other two older faiths. For Muslims the most crucial of
 THECOMNG Of THE PROPKT 33

these wilful distortions relate to the teachings of the main Hebrew

prophets. Moses, for example, appearing as Musa in the Qur’an, is
also a prophet of Islam even though Jewish. But through the lens of
Islam, Musa's divinely inspired message of the One God was pur­
posely revised by the Jews into a narrow cult based on Hebrew trib­
alism, turning the ‘true word' to the support of such ethnocentric
concepts as the Chosen People, the Promised Land and the Election
of Israel. Thus, any discrepancies between the Qur’an and the Torah
or the New Testament that may be smugly pointed out by non­
Muslims as evidence of Muhammad's lack of qualifications, are
viewed by Islam as deviations on the part of the critics faith, not
deficiencies in Islam.
The idea that Moses’s message was wilfully corrupted by his fol­
lowers also accounts for the inclusion of the story of die Exodus in
the Qur’an, followed by the Hebrews' search for the Promised Land,
when Canaan, or Palestine, die territory the Jews finally invaded
with such savagery, was at the time occupied by Canaanite Arabs,
who the Jews then attempted to cleanse from the land. This would
seem to be an awkward reference in an Arab work, especially one
regarded as the Word of God. But once again, in the Muslim view,
human greed and ambition perverted the purity of God's original
message into the justification by the Jews for wholesale murder and
destruction.
This inclusion by Islam of all that preceded the Qur’an in other
faiths has produced the persistent criticism over the centuries
that Muhammad plagiarized the Torah, and to a lesser extent the
Gospels. Such complaints began in the Jewish community in
Medina during the Prophets lifetime, and developed into ridicule of
Muhammad and rhe Qur’an. The strands of a Muslim prehistory
can nevertheless be drawn together to produce a mythical story that
is similar to but different from the Judeo-Christian version, possibly
pointing to a common legendary source from outside either reli­
gious framework.
In the alternate Muslim version of the familiar Bible stories.
Adam and Eve are expelled from Paradise by Allah for yielding to the
temptation of ShaytAn, disobeying God and eating of the forbidden
fruit. They fall down to earth a long way apart, finding each other
again on the bare rocky plane of Arafat, a few miles from the site of
 THE COMISG CX THE PROPHET

the future city of Mecca. After one hundred years of remedial toil for
his sin, Adam is granted forgiveness by Allah, and builds a House of
Rest, which is the Ka’bah in Mecca, a location that is directly under
the throne in the celestial firmament. From there Adam and Eve’s
progeny populate the earth.
Later, the Flood washes the House of Rest away, but, the foun­
dations of the structure arc subsequently uncovered by Abraham, an
immigrant from Chaldees on the banks of the Euphrates and the
common father of both Jews and Arabs. Abraham rebuilds the struc­
ture which, subject to some damage and renovation over the mil­
lennia, is essentially the Ka'bah of today. Muslim legend goes on to
have Abraham, after the construction had been completed, under­
take the first pilgrimage to the Ka’bah, which is the original prece­
dent for the present-day haj.
After die establishment of monotheism by Abraham, the Arabs
fall back into polytheism and idolatry until the advent of
Muhammad, who cleanses die Ka'bah of the stone and clay images
of the Arab heathen gods, and both the monotheism and the pil­
grimage of Abraham are reintroduced. The haj in final form, as pre­
scribed by Muhammad, enacts in advance the Day of Judgement,
which some Muslims believe will take place physically on the same
plain of Arafat where according to legend, Adam and Eve met at the
beginning of the world. This informal belief seeks to tie the origins
of the sins of the world to the deansing pre-dcath’ experience of the
haj, in a way that is similar to the Christian ritual celebrating
Christ's redemption, through his death, of Adam's original sin.

Ill The Judeo-Christian Prophets and the Qur'an

With all lhat We relate to thee

Of the stories of the messengers
We make firm thy heart: in them conieth
To you the truth.
Mu/(The Prophet Hud) Surah 11, verse 120

The Qur’an refers to twenty-eight previous messengers and prophets

and these references take up a quarter of the work. As we have seen.
 TKCOMNGOTTK PROP** T 3S
Islam recognizes all prophets previous to Muhammad, although at a
lower level of importance.

We did aforetime send

Messengers before thee: of them
There are some whose story
We have related to thee
And some whose story we have not related
To thee.
Ghifir (Forgivet) Surah 40. verse 78

Adam is the first prophet of Islam and the story of the Fall coincides
with the Judeo-Christian version at the outset. Bur in the Qur’Jn,
Adam regrets his sins, is forgiven by God and becomes His Vice­
Regent on earth. In Muslim belief, therefore, man's original sin has
already been expunged and no equivalent of the Christian Redeemer
is necessary. Man is assured of happiness in this life and paradise in
the next if he follows the path prescribed in the Qur'in.
Noah struggles to deliver the message of the One God to his
contemporaries, whose failure to listen leads to their destruction by
flooding. He is preserved by God in the ark and conveyed safely to
dry land, and expresses his gratitude to the Almighty. (There is no
mention, however, as in the Torah, of the patriarch's weakness for
wine.)
Abraham occupies a special place as Muhammad’s spiritual pred­
ecessor and the father of all Arabs. He, like Muhammad would be
in his time, is jeered at and his life is endangered for his attempts to
replace the worship of idols with the message of monotheism.
The story of Joseph, the twelfth son of Jacob, is told, exception­
ally, in continuous narrative.
The birth of Moses and his encounters with Pharaoh take up the
most number of lines dedicated to the preceding prophets. The story
illustrates a number of core Qur’anic principles: that oppression
cannot last forever, that no temporal ruler, no matter how powerful,
can withstand the will of God. that he whom God blesses is bound
to succeed in the end.
Job is portrayed as die epitome of suffering and patience in rhe
name of Allah.
 THE COMI-J3 OF THE PROPHET

Jesus appears in the Qur’an as the Messenger Isi whose mission

is to restate and enlarge upon previous revelations, and to prepare
the world for the final word yet to come. The story of the virgin
birth is repeated, but Mary has no Joseph, giving birth on her own
under a palm tree, while in the care of angels. Mary is then accused
by her family of being unchaste, but the baby speaks from the
cradle, exonerating her and announcing his divine message. Jesus is
given special powers with which to convince the population of the
truth of his teaching. He cures leprosy, he makes birds out of clay
and breathes life into them. Jesus is not crucified; rather Judas
Iscariot (although not specifically named other than as the betrayer)
is transformed to look like Jesus and dies in his place, and Jesus is
later taken up into heaven. The Christian Trinity is specifically
denied and Jesus addresses Christians from the Qur’an, asking rhem
to stop associating him with the One God. The theme of God being
above having a son. is returned to frequently throughout the text.
Words attributed to Jesus in die New Testament, in John 16:
12-13, are considered by Muslims to be a justification of the
Qur'anic version of Jesus' life and proof that Jesus' mission was to
foretell the ministry of Muhammad.

I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear
them now.
Howbeit when he. the Spirit of truth is come, he will guide
you into all truth: for he will not speak of himself: but
whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will
shew you things to come.

The words ‘whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak’, are further
interpreted by Muslim scholars as referring explicitly to the method
by which the Qur’an was received.
To the contemporary reader these crossovers between Jewish,
Christian and traditional Arab stories may appear strained when
considered against the intervening centuries of hostility between
Christians. Muslims and Jews. And in modern times the implied
endorsement by Islam, through the life of Abraham, of the murder­
ous myth of the Promised Land on which the State of Israel is based,
and from which Palestinians have suffered for so long, is particularly
______________________ rxfc COMING Of •’< PROPHET____________________ 37

difficult to understand. But in the Muslim view the original Word

of God was manipulated by the Jews to justify their territorial ambi­
tions, while the Qur’an remains forthrightly ecumenical.

Say ye: 'We believe in Allah, and

The revelation given to us. and
To Abraham, Ismail, Isaac, Jacob
And the descendants (children
Of Jacob) and that given to
Moses and Jesus and that given
To all Prophets from their Lord:
We make no difference
Between one and another of them
And we bow to Allah in Islam.'
Al-Baqarah (The Heifer) Surah 2, verse 140

The Messenger Isa

The relationship between Islam and Jesus Christ, desenbed by Professor

Tanf Khalidi in his remarkable transcultural book, The Muslim Jesus, as 'a
love affair1, began with the appearance of Jesus as the Messenger Isa in
the Qur’an Later the story of Jesus became a living moral force m Islam,
identified with the 'Spirit' and the Word', as well as a focus of popular
piety and Sufist devotion.
But the relationship of Isa to Islam is much more significant than mere
interfaith sentimentality. Jesus m the Qur’an, by specifically rejecting as we
have seen, the very concept of the Trinity (thus his own deity, and so the
core of Christianity) plays a central role in the mission of the Qur'anic
text, which is to demolish polytheism. There is no Crucifixion, therefore,
m the Muslim story of Isi no Salvation or Son of God. but Jesus remains
nevertheless, very much the New Testament man of peace:

'So peace is on me
The day I was bom
The day that I die
And the Day that I
 Shall be raised up
To life agam.'
Maryam (Mary) Surah 19, verse 33

Jesus is also a prominent character in Muslim eschatology (the belief

in |udgement after death leading to an eternity of heaven or hell). The
Qur’an promises that |esus will reappear as a Sign of the Hour of
Judgement, and will prepare the way for the universal acceptance of
Islam. Further, the Shi‘a tradition within Islam, to be discussed in detail m
Chapter 6. has drawn heavily on the tradition of Jesus. In imitation of
Christ the Shi’a Imams are believed to have been bom with perfect
knowledge, and the last in line was taken into divine occultation, rather
than suffenng the finality of death. Only one Qur’amc story of Jesus, how­
ever, matches the New Testament verbatim: the parable comparing the
passage of the rich man into heaven with a camel passing through the
eye of a needle (although appearing in a different context).
Over the centuries, following the revelation of the Qur'an, hundreds
of fresh sayings and stones ascribed to Jesus appeared in Islamic litera­
ture. This growth in both the quantity and quality of Muslim writing on
Jesus well exceeds the treatment given by Islam to any other prophet,
except Muhammad himself.The source of much of this material is judged
by scholars to be the result of Islam's close contact with Christianity
dunng the first three centunes ah (principally in Syna, Iraq and Egypt),
reinforced by the conversion of many Christians to Islam who would
have brought their traditions of the life of Chnst with them Then, over
the years, the matenal was edited and polished by Muslim writers to
become a body of purely Islamic literature of a high order. By this route,
among others, the canon of the Muslim Jesus draws on gnostic sources
historically wider and culturally deeper than the four 'official' gospels of
Matthew. Mark. Luke and John, on which the present Chnstian tradition
rests.
For a Christian (or post-Chnstian), familiar with the life of Christ
through the front door of Christian tradition, a fascinating side view on
to the character of Jesus emerges from the Muslim sources. This Jesus
fears the Day of Judgement participates in debates about free will, the
problem of the sinful ruler, or the role of scholars in society. He is fiercely
ascetic, a sorrowing traveller for whom the world is a ruin. But he is also
a miracle worker, a healer and a social commentator
______________________ COMMG Qi THE PROPHET ______________________ 19

Satan passed by while Jesus was reclining with his head on a

stone.'So then Jesus, you have been satisfied with a stone in
the world!' Jesus removed the stone from beneath his head,
threw it at Satan and said, Take this stone, and the world
with it! I have no need of either' (Abu Bakr ibn Abi al-
Dunya)

The day that Jesus was raised to heaven, he left behind

nothing but a woollen garment a slingshot and two sandals.
(Hannad ibn ai-Sanyy)

Jesus said. Blessed is he who sees with his heart but his
heart is not in what he sees.' (Abdallah ibn Qutayba)

Jesus was asked, ’Spirit of God, who is the most seditious of

men’’ He replied. The scholar who is in error. If a scholar
errs, a host of people will fall into error because of him.'
(Abdallah ibn al-Mubarak)

Jesus used to say. ’Charity does not mean doing good to

him who does good to you, for this is to return good for
good. Charity means that you should do good to him who
does you harm.' (Ahmad ibn Hanbal)
(All translations by Professor Tarif Khalidi)

A further point of connection between Islam and the life of Jesus is

the Muslim belief that Jesus foretold, or prepared the way for
Muhammad, and that because of the significance of the relationship, no
prophets were sent by God between the two. The verse n the Gospel
of John, interpieted by Muslms as Jesus's announcement of the coming
of Muhammad, has already been given above The Qur’an makes a
matching claim, which is the basis for what Islam regards as a special affin­
ity between Muhammad and Jesus Christ

And remember, Jesus

The son of Mary, said:
'O children of Israel!
I am the messenger of Allah
40 7Ht COMING QI THt PBQPHH

Sent to you confirming

The law which came
Before me, and giving
Glad Tidings of a Messenger
To come after me
Whose name shall tie Ahmad.'
AJ-Saff (The Battle Array) Surah 61, verse 6

A popular Muslim assertion is that the early Christian Church sup­

pressed, for the sake of doctnnai and political unity, all versions of the life
of Christ except the four Trinitarian gospels remaining today. The Gospel
of St Barnabas, for example, allegedly written by a dose disciple of Christ
but repudiated by the Chnsbar. Church as a forgery from a much later
date, contains a specific prediction of the coming of a last Prophet,
named in the text as Muhammad.
The Muslim Jesus also has strong relevance to the twenty-first cen­
tury. As Professor Khalic* writes:'Amid the current tensions, it s salutary
to remind ourselves of an age and tradition when Christianity and Islam
were more open to each other more aware and reliant on each other's
witness'

IV The Life of Muhammad

The landscape
At the beginning of the seventh century CE, when Muhammad began
his ministry, the forbidding steppes of Arabia were an uncharted
territory. This was a landscape unchanged since the days of the myth­
ical Abraham, known only to the Bedouin and hardly touched by the
surrounding civilizations. To the nonh, the rich and settled lands of
the eastern Mediterranean were pan of the Roman Empire, bv then
ruled front Constantinople and called rhe Byzantine Empire, after
Byzantium, the original name for the city. The fertile plains of
Mesopotamia to the east, watered by the rivers Euphrates and Tigris,
were ruled by the Sassanians, forefathers of the modern Persians. To
the south, the kingdoms of Yemen and Ethiopia controlled cither
side of the Red Sea and, like the Byzantines and Sassanians, were
often at war with each other.
 THE COMirtG OF THt PROPHET 41

Nomadic Bedu society was brutal and fatalistic, summed up by

die description in the Qur’an of Jahiliyyah philosophy.

And thej- say: 'What is

There but our life
In this world?
We shall die and we live
And nothing but Time
Can destroy us.'
Al-Jathiyah (The Kneeling Down) Surah 45. verse 24

Each tribe raiding the other to plunder their mean resources was
the way of desert life, only saved from severe bloodshed and com­
plete anarchy by the development of rigid rules of engagement.
Manliness, honour, the protection of the weak and generous hospi­
tality are the famous attributes of nomadic Arabs which originate
with these primitive times. But the dark side included obsessional
hatreds and the vendetta as a chronic state of mind, destroying any
possibility of social advancement. This was an age with no state and
no controls, so that rhe ancient law of the unregulated, Zrar talionit,
was the only behavioural restraint: an eye for an eye, a tooth for
tooth. These words appear in both the Qur’an and the Torah.
Christian monks were known to retreat into the desert, and
Jewish communities originally expelled from Palestine by the
Romans in the first century cf. lived in the oases of western Arabia.
But the main point of contact between Arabia and the outside world
was through trade, and rhe centre of Arab trade was Mecca.
Muhammad’s birthplace. The town was controlled by the great mer­
chants of the Quraysh tribe, avaricious and corrupt by Muhammad's
time, certainly not keen to hear of any judgement day or the possi­
bility of eternal damnation as the penalty for sin.
The story of Muhammad’s life resonates with elements in the
lives of both the Old Testament prophets and the New Testament
story of Jesus Christ. But Muhammad was not only a religious
leader, he was also a politician who organized a community and pro­
tected his faithful through warfare. He invoked the name of God for
his assistance and he suffered both victory and defeat. He saw him­
self and his followers as fighters in the cause of Allah, a stance
42 THE COMING Of TK PflOPHET

towards the hostile and sceptical world that is articulated frequently

in the Qur'an.

Therefore listen not

To the unbelievers, but strive
Against them with the utmost
Strenuousness.
Al-Furqan (The Criterion) Surah 25. verse 52

But unlike the Hebrew warrior-prophets. .Muhammad only defended,

or he responded to threats to his community. He never initiated hos­
tilities or led his people in the name of God to live in an ethnically
cleansed land.
Muhammad was also a great conciliator and law-giver, establish­
ing unprecedented unity between tribes who had been mortal ene­
mies through centuries ofJohtliyyah. Muhammad sought a peaceful
solution wherever possible and displayed almost faultless magna­
nimity in victory. He was persecuted himself and on a number of
occasions only narrowly escaped assassination. Many of his contem­
porary followers were tortured and murdered for their beliefs.
Muhammad was broad and sturdy, his black hair and beard were
thick. He enjoyed a robust constitution which he attributed to time
spent in the desert in his early years. In his childhood, in the foster
care of the tribe of the Bani Sad. he accompanied his milk-brother
tending animals, then later in his teens he tended sheep and goats on
his own for his uncle Abu-’Iilib and for other Meccans. His eyes were
black with a touch of brown, his mouth was full and he usually wore
a smile. His manner was quick and economical, he always walked fest
and purposefully. But Muhammad was also given to sadness and to
long periods of silent thought, although when active he was always
occupied with some project, he was never idle and always determined.
In dealing with his followers he was tactful above all. with great
human feeling for the suffering of others. Accounts of his life relate
how he loved children and animals, yet he was courageous and res­
olute when tackling the spiritual and political affairs of the Muslims.

Muhammad as mortal
Muhammad never claimed to tie anything but monal.
 THE COHIMG Or THE PROPHET «3

1 tell you not that

With me arc the Treasures
Of Allah, nor do I know
What is hidden.
Nor claim I to be
An angel. Nor yet
Do I say, of those whom your eyes do despise
That Allah will not grant them
All that is good:
Allah knoweth best
What is in their souls.
/WfTlic Prophet Hud) Surah 11. verse 31

Inevitably, however, with the development of profound veneration

for both Muhammad’s person and his legacy, elaborations on the
facts of the Prophet s life have become widespread among Muslims,
especially the Muslims of Pakistan. The Sunna, the reported sayings
and doings of the Prophet, have been instrumental in ordering the
life of Muslims, as we shall see, but in more primitive societies stories
about Muhammad have magnified the man to majestic or supernat­
ural levels, so distorting the essential message of Islam. Yet even tor
those who avoid the extremes of devotion to Muhammad's person, a
central mystery remains: as a man he was illiterate (described by the
Qur’an as 'unlettered'), certainly until close to the end of his life, yet
over a period of twenty-three years he accumulated a work of pro­
found religious significance, in an Arabic of transcendental beauty,
unmatched before or since.
Unlike all previous prophets, the core events of Muhammad's life
are historical fact not myth. In addition to the record of the Qur’an,
Muhammad’s words and anecdotes of his life have been preserved as
recorded by over 800 of his followers, and the outline facts of
Muhammad’s biography appear in the records of contemporary civi­
lizations well beyond Arabia.

Childhood
Muhammad was born in 570 CE, or shortly after. The year was
known in Arabia as the Year of the Elephant, when the Ethiopian
viceroy and ruler of the Yemen marched north to threaten Mecca
with his army, which included an elephant.
44 THE COMING OF THE PROPHET

Muhammad had almost no family from a very early age. His

father died before he was born, his mother when he was six and his
grandfather and guardian two years later. At age nine, Muhammad
passed into the care of his uncle, Abu Tilib. head of the minor and
relatively impoverished Meccan clan of Hashim, a division of the
towns dominant Quraysh tribe.
There are a number of well-known legends about Muhammad’s
childhood: his recognition as a future holy man and the Seal (or Last)
of the Prophets by a Christian hermit in Syria; his foster mother
swelling with milk and her animals prospering from the time she
began as his wet nurse; the appearance of angels in the desert carry­
ing snow with which to wash Muhammad’s heart while he was with
his milk-brother following the flock; his mother visited by an angel
during her pregnancy, accompanied by a strong white light and the
instntetions to name her child Muhammad, meaning ‘The Praised’.
Substantiated facts about these years, however, are few.

Muhammad as trader
Similarly, only the barest outline is known of the period from
Muhammad's childhood to the time of the first revelations of the
Qur’an. As a poor boy without an active sponsor, even though he
came from a recognized clan. Muhammad's options were limited. In
the city of Mecca, surrounded by forbidding hills of untillable
barren granite, there was no route to prosperity other than through
trade. But Muhammad did not have sufficient capital to become a
trader in his own right and as the manager of the affairs of others he
felt that his talent for administration was not being sufficiently used.
His solution was to marry Khadijah. probably in 595 ce. when
Muhammad was twenty-five years old and Khadijah was ten or
more years older. Khadijah was both divorced and widowed, with
two daughters and a son. She was an independent woman of prop­
erty, however, and the partnership with Muhammad prospered for
the next fifteen years. Nothing is known of Muhammad’s travels or
his dealings, except that his honesty was highly regarded. Khadijah
bore Muhammad two boys who died young and four girls who
survived, and dearly Muhammad regarded his marriage as more
than just a useful arrangement. Khadijah was the first person to
accept that Muhammad's revelations came from God and during her
 THE COMWG OF THE PROPHET <5

lifetime Muhammad took no other wives. Khadijah died in 619 ce

when Muhammad was forty-nine, approximately eight years after
the revelation of the Qur’an began.

Muhammad as preacher
Muhammad's career as the Apostle of God falls into two distinct
periods: his years as a preacher in Mecca and his final years as leader
of the Muslims, based in Medina. Separating the two is the hijrah,
the Prophet's migration from Mecca to Medina to avoid assassina­
tion, and the event with which the Islamic era formally began.
For all his prosperity with Khadijah, Muhammad was dis­
satisfied with his life in Mecca and appalled by the all-consuming
thirst for wealth among the city’s traders. From time to time he took
to solitary contemplation in a cave a few miles from the city and
there his visitations began. Muhammad described his visions as
being of a ‘Glorious Being' or a 'Strong and Mighty One', who he
later identified as the angel Gabriel, rather than God Himself.
These first supernatural events, starting in 610 ce approximately, in
which the angel instructed Muhammad to recite the words revealed
to him, were the spring for all that came after. Later on in his min­
istry, when Muhammad suffered doubts, reversals and persecutions,
his memory of die initial visitations in the cave of Hira sustained
his belief in his divine mission.

O thou wrapped up
In a mantle!
Arise and deliver thy warning!
And thy laird
Do thou glorify
Al-Muddaththtr (The One Wrapped Up) Surah 74. vases 1-3

Although the Qur’an took more than two decades to complete,

none of the transmissions was as dramatic as the first, and many
were made without the agency of an apparition. The Qur’an refers
to God speaking from 'behind a veil', which is taken to mean that,
as the process continued. Muhammad found the words in his heart,
not from an external source. Muhammad’s revelations were often
accompanied by physical pain or by the sound of a bell ringing in
16 THE COMING OF THE PROPHET

his head, and observers reported beads of sweat on Muhammad's

brow during his periods of concentration, even on the coldest days.
Near the end of his life, Muhammad described the first revelations
to his wife. ‘A’isha: 'in the beginning the revelation for the
Messenger of God was true vision, coming like the break of dawn'.
In the beginning there were intervals between revelations, peri­
ods during which Muhammad would often be assailed by doubts as
well as by concerns for his sanity. But once the revelations resumed.
Muhammad regained his conviction that he was a divinely ordained
prophet.
His first converts to the One God and the new morality that
would become Islam, were his wife Khadijah, "Ali his cousin, his
freed slave and adopted son Zayd, and Abu Bakr, a friend and mod­
erately successful merchant, whose later services to the Muslim com­
munity were considerable. This group had expanded to about 200
believers, including their families, by the time Muhammad left
Mecca, made up of a cross-section of society that included young
men from merchant families, liberated slaves and a few women con­
verts. By no means, therefore, could early Islam be regarded as a
movement of disaffected 'down-and-outs’, or jealous 'have-nots’.
When Muhammad emerged from an initial period of uncer­
tainty following the first revelations, at the age of forty-three in
613 CF., he began to preach his message publicly. Mecca was in a
state of moral decay. The pursuit of greater and greater trading
wealth, and the power that wealth brings, had obliterated the tradi­
tional Arab concepts of honour and morality followed by the prim­
itive desert-dwelling tribes. The Qur’in directly addressed this
deteriorating condition, urging that an upright life in the present
and the attainment of Paradise in the life to come should replace the
existing humanistic malaise. Muhammad preached of God's good­
ness and absolute power, of the calamity that would befall unbeliev­
ers on the Last Day, of man's duty to worship God in obedience and
gratitude and of man’s duty of generosity to his fellows, even as God
is generous to man.
Io the men of Mecca in the top strata of wealth. Muhammad's
message was as much a political and economic threat as an exhort­
ation to spiritual improvement.
 ihe conr-iG at niF phopkt «7

Nay nay! But ye

Honour not the orphans!
Nor do ye encourage
One another
To feed the poor!
And ye devour inheritance
All with greed
And ye love wealth
With inordinate love.
Al Fajr (The Dawn) Surah 25. verses 17-20

In criticizing the behaviour of the ruling merchant class,

Muhammad was attacking a way of life. If the old tribal morals of
the desert were to be reintroduced, the wealthy would have to spend
time, energy and money on helping the poor and the weak. Then
there was the question of the haram, or traditional sanctuary of
Mecca: if the pagan gods were to be abandoned in favour of the One
God, would the city and the surrounding pagan shrines retain their
same lucrative attraction as places of pilgrimage and trade? Finally,
the religious power of Muhammad's message, with particular attrac­
tion for the poor, had the potential of making him into a rival polit­
ical power should he so choose. The tension created by these
underlying issues intensified as the doctrines of the Qur’in emerged,
blurring the border between religion and politics in a way that
would become an indelible characteristic of Islam.
The principal religious question raised by Muhammad’s preach­
ing was monotheism as opposed to polytheism, with the Meccans
arguing that Muhammad was deviating from the practices of their
polytheist forefathers. This is an argument that resonates strongly
in conservative Arab sensibility, illustrated by the word ikhtiLuj, of
which Muhammad was accused, which can mean 'heresy' to a con­
servative or 'innovation' to a liberal. In response Muhammad pressed
preceding prophets into service, replying that his message came from
a long tradition and he was not, therefore, preaching ikhtilaq. either
innovation or heresy.
Muhammad's opponents also ridiculed the proposition that a
long rotted body could be physically brought back to life for a Day
of Resurrection of rhe flesh. To this the Qur’an makes frequent
response:
48 THE COMING OF THE PROPHET

Does man think

That he will be left
Uncontrolled and without purpose?
Was he not a drop
Of sperm emitted
in lowly form?
Then did he become
A clinging clot.
Then did Allah make
And fashion him
In due proportion
And of him He made
Two sexes, male
And female,
Has not He the same
Power to give life
To the dead?
Al-lfyamah (The Resurrection) Surah 75, verses 36-40

Attempts were made to categorize Muhammad as merely another

soothsayer or sorcerer inspired by jinn, or traditional desert devils,
accusations which explain Muslims’ strong resentment of any
attempt to describe the Qur’an as self-inspired poetry. Muhammad
was also attacked as insincere and his claimed prophethood was
ridiculed as unsupported by any miracles. His real motivation was
alleged to be the wealth and power which had been denied him
during his previous career as a merchant. Muhammad did indeed
achieve wealth and power later on. but only when thrust upon him
by his position as leader of the victorious Muslims.
The famous satanic verses' fit into this early Meccan period.
Muhammad was a strong character, a powerful preacher and a rising
potential force opposed to the existing order. If. therefore, the ruling
class of Mecca had been able to co-opt him and make him one of
their own, the threat to the prevailing order would have been elim­
inated. Thus, when Muhammad declaimed the latest in his scries of
revelations, appearing to concede some form of compromise recog­
nition to three of the principal pagan gods of Mecca, al-I-at, al-Uzzi
and Manic, in the lines underscored in the excerpt quoted on
the opposite page, the ruling merchants perceived that a possible
 'HE CONING OF THE PROPHET «9

accommodation was opening up. Muhammad would be recognized

as a prophet and suitably rewarded, but the intercessory powers of
the three pagan gods with the Muslim supreme God would be
retained and the old and profitable order left undisturbed. So when,
shordy after the first recitation of die verse, the two lines were
denounced by Muhammad as coming from Shaytdn and withdrawn,
with further sardonic lines added (shown in italics) repudiating
the Meccan goddesses, the bitterness of die Meccans against
Muhammad was proportionately increased.

Have ye seen
Lit and L'zzJ
And another,
The third goddess Manit?
These are exalted females
Whose intercession is verily to be sought after
What! For you
The male sex
Andfor Him. the female?
Behold, such would be
Indeed a division
Most unfair.
But these are nothing other than names
Which ye have devised —
Ye andyour father! -
For which Allah has sent
Down no authority whatsoever.
Al-Najm (The Star) Surah 53, verses 19-23

Many Muslim commentators question the 'satanic' version of the

story. The)' maintain that the verse was delivered whole when first
recited, but without the ficticious underscored lines (which do not
appear in the Qur’an), and was intended as a repudiation of the
Meccan deities from the outset. In this version of the story there was
no two-part revelation and no change of heart, and subsequent his­
torians are accused of inventing the offending lines. This view is
supported by earlier verses in the same Surah, suggesting dial
Muhammad's message is infallible. ‘Nor does he say aught of his
own desire. It is no less than inspiration sent down to him' (Al-Najm
(The Star) Surah 53, verses 3-4).
SO THE COING Cf THE PROPHET

But in any event, there is surely nothing to deny or to suppress

in the 'satanic* version of the story, which can be compared to the
temptations of Christ- For Christ, too, was offered power and wealth
by the devil in the temporal world if he would only subvert the word
of God.

Again, the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high

mountain, and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world,
and the glory of them;
And saith unto him. All these things will I give thee, if thou
wilt fall down and worship me.
Matthew 4: 8—9

A solution to the growing hostility of the Meccans towards the new

religion of the Muslims had long troubled Muhammad. But if he
was tempted to compromise, he like Christ, withstood, and events
took their course. This incident, and possibly the temptation of
Christ, appears to be referred to in later revelations, in Surah 22
Al-Hajj, verse 52, for example: 'Never did We send a messenger or a
prophet before thee, but when he longed, Shaytan threw suggestion
into his longing.’
But, once again, the controversy over Rushdie's book was not
because the two 'satanic' lines were repeated in his text, since
die story of the verse is to be found in many works by devout
Muslim commentators. Rather, objection was taken to the insults
directed at Muhammad himself and his wives elsewhere in the
work, as well as to Rushdie's mockery of the process by which the
Qur’an was revealed. And, as has been noted, Rushdie also indulged
in five pages of wicked mockery of the Ayatollah Khomeini
personally.
In 615 CE, five years into Muhammad's ministry, leadership
of the Meccan merchants passed to a man of the same generation,
Abu-Jahl. Economic pressure was increased on all who supported
Muhammad, while those who fell outside the protection of the clan
system, slave converts for example, were physically suppressed.
During this period a number of Muslims were sent to Ethiopia to
escape persecution, most of whom returned later to join Muhammad
in Medina.
 TK COMNG Of THE PROPHET 51

At this time Muhammad was still under protection within his

clan, sponsored by his uncle Abu-TSJib, and therefore untouchable
by the hostile Meccans. Policing of Arab society before the intro­
duction of Qur’anic laws was based on the sure retribution of lex tal-
ionis. Only a miscreant’s own tribe could punish a member and, if
harmed by an outsider, the victims entire tribe was obliged to retal­
iate, For as long as the Hashim clan were not prepared to limit
Muhammad’s activities, therefore, he was free to continue.
So when Abu-Talib and Khadijah both died in the same year,
probably in 619 ce, and the protection of his clan could no longer
be relied upon, Muhammad's situation became perilous. He had no
alternative but to leave Mecca himself. During this dark time
Muhammad’s spiritual life apparently intensified, culminating with
the dream of a journey, or in Muslim tradition with Muhammad’s
miraculous physical transportation from Mecca to Jerusalem and
back again during a single night. The only reference in the Qur’an
to this important episode is very brief.

Glory to Allah
Who did take his Servant
For a journey by night
From the Sacred Mosque
To rhe Farthest Mosque
Whose precincts we did
Bless - in order that we
Might show him some
Of our Signs.
Al lira (The Night Journey) Surah 17. verse I

But from the Hadith and the subsequent embroidering of this

story, or Ism, or Night Journey, which now forms one of the core leg­
ends of Islam, has flowed the long-standing political controversy over
the status of the Haram at Jerusalem, comprising the Dome of the
Rock and al-Aqsa (or the Farthest) mosque. These famous buildings,
which give physical form to Muhammad's experiences, whether
mythical or existential, together constitute the third holiest site in
Islam after Mecca (the site of the Sacred Mosque containing the
Ka’bah) and Medina (the site of the Mosque of the Prophet
52 THE COMMG Of THE PROPHET

containing Muhammad's tomb). But the ground on which the two

Muslim structures stand in Jerusalem is also claimed by Jews to be
the Temple Mount, the central location in the Torah prophecies
relating to the Election of Israel. The political dimension of this emo­
tive question will be discussed later; here only the story of the Night
Journey itself is relevant.
In the dream, or the myth, or in fact, Multammad was awoken
by Gabriel during the night of the 27th of the lunar month of Rajab
in 621 ce to be transported from Mecca to Jerusalem on the back of
the buraq, a miraculous beast in the shape of an ass but with wings.
After arriving in Jerusalem, on the bare rock that is now enclosed
within the Dome, and after praying with Noah. Moses, Abraham
and the other patriarchs from former times, Muhammad was taken
up to heaven and to the outer presence of God. Muhammad's ascen­
sion to heaven following the Isrd, or Night Journey, is known in
Islam as the Mi 'raj. or Ascension. During the Mi'raj. God permit­
ted Muhammad a glimpse of Paradise and instructed him on how
his followers should say their prayers. Initially God prescribed fifty
prayers per day, with Moses's assistance this was negotiated down to
five per day, with each devout prayer counting for ten. The burdq
then returned Muhammad to his bed in Mecca, where his wife had
failed to notice his absence.

The hijrah
The Arabic word Hijrah. or the frequently used Latin equivalent
hegira. means more than 'flight' or 'emigration', rather giving a
sense of the severing of relations with a previous family or clan, and
attachment to another. 1 he hijrah to Medina was Muhammad's
response to his weak and vulnerable position in Mecca. The jour­
ney of about 400 kilometres, exposed to his enemies and without
tribal protection so that discovery would have certainly led to
his death, took place over ten or twelve days in September 622 CE
and the Muslim era dates from this event. The date is of more
significance in Islam than the date of Muhammad's birth, for
example, or the beginning of his ministry, since the hijrah was
the event that permitted the first implementation of the ideals of
the faith.
 THE COMIK, Of THE PROPHET

Islamic Dating

Primitive man had three alternative methods with which to mark the
passage of time. First, the terrestrial day the precise period from noon
to noon during which the earth completes a single revolution. Second,
the lunar month, the 29/ days that the moon takes for a single orbit
around the earth. Or third, the solar year, equal to the 365M days of the
journey of the earth around the sun. But 12 lunar months (12 x
29/ days = 354 days) do not equal one sdar year (365/ days) and as
civilization progressed a choice had to be made.
The Christian solution, since the introduction of Pope Gregory's cal­
endar in 1582. is to add a leap year every four to the standard year of
365 days (so making up the missing % day), then to divide the months
mto 28 (or 29). 30 and 31 days without reference to the moon put
matching the agncultural seasons. In the JdMiyyah, the Arabs divided time
into 12 lunar months, then added an extra month every two or three
years to keep the lunar cycle synchronized with the seasons, a process
known as 'intercalation'.
But there was no order to this system and the extra month was
manipulated by the Meccan Quraysh, who had traditional control over
practical implementation, to allow the holy months m which fighting
was prohibited to fall to suit short-term political and trade objectives
Intercalation was ended by a Qur’Smc injunction coming near the end
of Muhammad's life, which resulted In the Muslim calendar being
detached from the seasons so bringing a form of order to the previous
chaos
The consequence of the Quranic method is that the Muslim year of
12 lunar months is 11 days shorter than the solar year, and slightly
different again from the Gregorian or Western year This in turn sees the
festivals of Islam move backwards through the foil Western year, only
appeanng in the same place every 32 Gregonan years. Thus the timing
of the haj, for example, performed in the lunar month of Dhu’l-Hajja will
rotate over the years between summer and winter, substantially altering
the severity of the experience. More importantly, the rotation of the fast
dunng the month of Ramadan will fall dunng all seasons and the length­
ening and shortening days of fast will be equally borne over the years by
Muslims in both hemispheres.
54 THE COMING OF TK PROPHET

The Prophet embarked on the hi|rah. the event that opens the
Islamic era. during September 622 CT. But ’day one’ of Anno Hegtrak. or
ah, was not the day of Muhammad's departure from Mecca or the day
of his arrival m Medina almost two weeks later; but the first day of the
first lunar month (al-Muharram) of the pre-lslamtc year dunng which the
journey fell: 16 July 622 CE. over two months before. Then the years ah
have been calculated in lunar years ever since, with the consequence that
ah and CE are not only 622 years apart m history, but ah years are also
11 days (plus the small discrepancy between the solar and Gregorian cal­
culations) at odds with Western time.To translate from ah to CE, there­
fore. or in the opposite direction, the following formula is required:
AH = CE - 622 4- (ad - 622 over 32)
CE = ah + 622 - (ah over 33)
To find the equrvalent of a specific day between ah and CE is much
more complicated, however; as the Muslim calendar also adds a form of
leap year periodically, called a kobso year, to rectify the half day by which
a lunar month exceeds 29 full days. The kobisa year and the Gregorian
leap year do not coincide and the only practical solution is to consult
translation tables

At the same time that Muhammad had been looking for a solu­
tion to his troubles in .Mecca, the leaders of Medina had been
searching for a resolution to theirs. Medina, unlike barren Mecca, is
a large and productive agricultural oasis. By the opening of the sev­
enth century CE the oasis was divided into landholdings by clan and
tribe, each in a separate settlement rather than joined together in a
common city like Mecca. During the decades preceding the Hijrah,
population growth and the resulting pressure on the available arable
land had led to repeated civil war within die oasis and great loss
of life, overwhelming the traditional nomadic Irx talionis method of
conflict resolution, by taking a life for a life or by die payment of
blood money. Medina, like Mecca, had failed to develop a workable
urban way of life based on the inappropriate laws developed over
many generations for a completely different desert existence. To this
impasse, both the Qur’an and Muhammad's talents as arbiter of dis­
putes and eventual leader were directly relevant. The situation in
Medina was further complicated by the presence of Jewish clans
 TKCOHNG Of THE PROPHET 55

within the oasis, although the Jews like the Arabs were divided into
factions and could rarely agree among themselves.
Muhammad’s growing reputation in Mecca as a man of high
moral purpose, but repudiated by the leaders of his own people, led
a majority of the quarrelling factions within Medina to offer him the
position of judge of their internal divisions in return for military
protection against the anticipated Meccan hostility, as well as a place
to live. This was expressed in two successive pledges made between
Muhammad and delegations from Medina, visiting Mecca under
cover of the pre-Islamic pagan pilgrimage to the Ka’bah. In addition
to the political and security arrangements, the delegation under­
took to accept Muhammad's prophethood and to obey his decisions.
At the same time the nascent rules and practices of the Muslims
were accepted by the delegates as a creed. This commitment from
Medina permitted the hijrah to begin. Muhammad’s original sup­
porters in Mecca, subsequently to be known as rhe Emigrants, left
the city first, then later Muhammad and Abu Bakr slipped away at
night with the help of a pagan Bedouin guide, narrowly avoiding
an assassination attempt by the dominant Meccan clans acting in
concert.

Mecca against Medina

In Medina, Muhammad built the first mosque, which doubled as his
office and residence (and has been expanded over the centuries into
the present huge Mosque of the Prophet), while continuing to
receive revelations that added to the Qur’an. From this time on, the
matters dealt with by the received surahs become more appropriate
to political and social issues than to the doctrinal arguments that
supported Muhammad's preaching in Mecca.
Despite the pledges by the delegation from Medina. Muhammad’s
position in the oasis community was not at first that of omnipotent
judge or ruler. His prestige only reached such a level after his success
in bringing peace and justice to the oasis. This was followed by
Muhammad’s initial triumph on the battlefield, in which he was
supported by the men of Medina because of his previous success as a
politician.
Most Medinans were, however, receptive to Muhammad’s arrival,
and were granted by the Muslims the honorific title of the Helpers.
St. THE CONK. Of 1H£ PHOPHET

(The Emigrants and the Helpers together form the category known
as the Companions of the Prophet, defined as any Muslim who
spoke to Muhammad at any time during his life.) A few men of
Medina, who foresaw that the)1 would lose power to Muhammad,
remained opposed to the arrangement while nominally embracing
Islam. Liter the Qur’an named this faction the Hypocrites, and
would regard them as worse offenders against Islam than the non­
believers who had never convened.
Muhammad's position in Medina was particularly precarious
during the initial months. First, the Jews rejected Muhammad's
prophethood and criticized the Qur’an as being inconsistent with
the older Jewish scriptures. Response was made to the effect that the
Jewish traditions were in error, not the word of God as revealed to
Muhammad, and the beginnings of a serious breach opened up.
This led eventually to the first Jewish rebellion against Muhammad
and the ensuing expulsion of the Jewish Qaynuqa tribe front the
oasis, although other significant Jewish tribes remained, protected
by Muhammad’s constitution.
The original principles of Islam, as enunciated in Mecca,
required modification to suit the conditions in Medina, and
Muhammad's abilities and strength of character did not register with
all the Medinans immediately. Nevertheless, he succeeded in nego­
tiating a comprehensive settlement to the troubles of Medina, sub­
sequently set out in a document that has come to be known as the
Constitution of Medina. Over die filllowing fourteen centuries to
the present day. from these modest beginnings, the concept of a
utopian Shariah community was to develop, militantly fusing reli­
gion and politics into a single 'divinely ordered' social scheme. The
tremendous nostalgic reverence given to this period by recent
Muslim societies justifies a close consideration of the text of the
constitution, which is reproduced in full at the end of this chapter
as Appendix 1.
‘1 he expression al-salafi al-salih. meaning the "pious forefathers',
has come into use during the last 150 years by Muslims seeking a
simpler, more certain and protected faith. So the word salafi, or
even salafist now describes the litcralist movement in Islam, giving
an ultra-conservative reading to the text based on the outward mean­
ing alone. This narrow view, usually focusing on bellicose language
 THE COMING Of TK PROfHfT ST

taken out of context, rejects centuries of Qur’inic interpretation by

which the basic principles of the text have been filtered into Shariah
jurisprudence for use in the real world. The rise of the salafist attempt
to return to the roots of Islam coincided in the nineteenth century
CE with the advancing threat of Western colonization, and the pres­
ent salafist trend in the twenty-first century may well be in reaction
to the increasing pressure on Islam from the West. In feet the 'pious
forefathers' treated the text of the Qur’an as flexible and tolerant, and
in the period of Muhammad's rule the new religion was stretched
and pulled to accommodate the needs of the emerging community.
This was followed by further innovation as the Muslim empire
expanded.
The most important feature of the constitution is die opening
paragraph, where the Muslims are said to be 'a single community
disdnet from all other people', although the religious toleration
demonstrated in die text, as well as the fusion of religion with poli­
tics, are also of significance for the future. Islam was overcoming the
old irreconcilable tribal dis'isions to create a new 'ummah, or com­
munity, subject to a new form of egalitarian law and justice that pre­
dates Magna Carta (the first attempt in post-medieval Europe at a
workable division of powers in the form of a written constitution)
by almost 600 years.
There was also the question of how the Emigrants were to sup­
port themselves since the Helpers could not afford to feed the new
arrivals for long. As part of the solution to this practical problem,
Muhammad took to raiding the caravans of the Meccan merchants.
But more as a form of business retaliation rather that piracy, seeking
to undermine the trade routes to and from Mecca in revenge for the
destruction of the livelihoods of those who had been forced to emi­
grate due to Meccan hostility, and who were being deprived of their
fractional clan ownership in the caravans under attack. This initia­
tive was supported by a timely divine revelation, but of only limited
application to rhe specific conditions then facing Muhammad (con­
trary to the aggressive salafist reading of the same verse, which is
often quoted in jihadi literature).

To those against whom

War is made, permission
 THE COMING OF THE PROPHET

Is given to fight, because

They are wronged - and verily
Allah is Most Powerful
For their aid.
They are those who have
Been expelled from their homes
In defiance of right -
For no cause except
That they say, 'Our Lord
Is Allah.''
Al Hajj (The Pilgrimage) Surah 17. verses 39-40

Muhammad's first ambush was against a small Meccan camel

train, achieved only after a number of failed attempts, and the attack
soon led to tension between the communities of Mecca and Medina.
After a further attempt by Muhammad on a much larger caravan led
by the Meccan noble Abu-Sufyan. the Muslim raiding force of a little
over 300 men met with a superior Meccan force of 1,000 men at the
site of a well near the settlement of Badr, on the coast road nonh to
Syria. While Muhammad prayed, his men routed the Meccans, who
had many of their leaders killed and many men of substance taken
prisoner, as well as great quantities of booty lost to the Muslims. The
Battle of Badr (16 March 624 ce) was a great turning point for the
Muslims who believed that Allah had endorsed their enterprise by
sending angels to assist in the fight against such overwhelming odds.

It was not ye who

Threw at them; it was Allah.
Al Anfal (The Spoils of War) Surah 8. verse 17

After Badr, during which Abu Jahl was killed, Abu-Sufyan, a

member of the ascendant Umayyad clan of the Quraysh tribe,
became leader of Mecca. His son Muawiyah was to become an
important figure in the history of Islam. While back in Medina.
Muhammad, as the victor of Badr, was able to consolidate absolute
power, and those Arabs from within the oasis who still resisted now
capitulated. The critical Qaynuqi’ Jews were expelled for clear
breaches of the constitution and Muhammad strengthened his
alliances further by various marriages.
 THE COMING Of THE PRQPKT 59

Skirmishing occupied the two sides for the following months

and a large Meccan caravan was captured by the Muslims. A year
after Badr, the men of Mecca set out to take their revenge on both
Muhammad and Medina with a force of 3,000 including cavalry. As
the Meccan army approached the oasis the)' were met in the desen
by a Muslim force of700 men, led by Muhammad himself, wearing
armour. The Muslims took up position on the hill of Uhud, after
which the battle was to be named. The course of the engagement
was very confused. Muslim tactics had the initial advantage, but,
thinking that the battle was won. Muhammad’s archers abandoned
their covering position on the high ground, thus allowing the
Meccan cavalry to attack from behind. At the end of the day more
Muslims had been killed than Meccans, and Muhammad was
wounded and had lost a tooth. But Abu SufyJn withdrew, having
failed to achieve either the destruction of Medina or the elimination
of Muhammad.
Uhud, however, was a spiritual defeat for the Muslims. How
could God allow such a result to befall his faithful? Where were the
angels of Badr? Muhammad’s answer was to predict that the
Meccans would nor benefit from rhe outcome (which was how
events rurned out) and to blame the Muslims themselves for their
lack of steadfastness.

Allah did indeed fulfil

His promise to you
When ye with His permission
Were about to annihilate
Your enemy - until ye flinched
And fell to disputing
About the order
And disobeyed it.
Al-lmriin (The Family of Imrln, Surah 3. verse 152

Following Uhud, the contest between Mecca and Medina

widened as Abu Sufyan sought assistance from distant nomadic
tribes to assemble an even larger force with which to renew the
attack on Muhammad. Plots, ambushes and assassinations followed,
during which a second Jewish clan within the oasis of Medina, the
an-Nadir, intrigued against Muhammad. The Jews were besieged by
s. THE COMING OFTHE PROPHFT

the Muslims and expelled, with their armour and their lands taken
over by poor Emigrants.
Two years after Uhud, Abu Sufyan was back. Despite
Muhammad’s diplomatic efforts with the desert tribes of the Hijaz,
the Meccans had been able to form a confederation to raise 10,000
men. including the exiled Jews of Medina. Muhammad could
muster only 3,000, with the remaining Jewish clan within the oasis,
the Qurayzah, purporting to remain neutral.
This time the Muslims did not offer pitched battle; instead they
prepared Medina for siege by digging a defensive trench across the
only level approach to the oasis accessible by cavalry, which was fur­
ther defended by infantry with spears and bows. This previously
unknown method of warfare frustrated the provisionlcss Meccans,
and their political confederation, camped out beyond the ditch, rap­
idly disintegrated into squabbling factions in the face of inaction.
Unseasonably cold April weather together with a wind storm has­
tened their departure.
During the siege, the Jewish Qurayzah dan attempted to shed
their promised neutrality, offering to let the confederate tribes into
the oasis at Muhammad's rear, which would have been fatal to the
entire Muslim cause, Once the enemy had departed, Muhammad
besieged the Jewish forts, from which the tribe asked to be allowed
to depart under the same conditions as had been applied to the
an-Nadir. Due to the mortal threat that the Jewish treachery had rep­
resented, this was refused, and a judge was appointed from an Arab
tribe having connections to the Qurayzah to preside over a trial of
the Jews. The sentence was death, justified ironically, by the applica­
tion of the vengeful terms of the Book of Deuteronomy. The Jewish
males were executed, with their women and children sold as slaves.
The decision was supported by the entire Muslim communit)’ and
was not unusual for either the times or die offence. Those smaller
groups of Jews within the oasis of Medina who had remained true to
the Commonwealth were permitted to stay unmolested.
Tlie Meccan cause was now lost. Their greatest efforts had not
unseated Muhammad and their trade mutes were no longer secure.
But rather than a war of vengeance, Muhammad launched a scries
of diplomatic, missionary and military deputations to die outly­
ing tribes, leading to the establishment of a blockade against
I HE COMISiG OF THE PRQR-iET

M a p o f th e H ija z
a THE COHING OF TK PROPHEI

Mecca, whose citizens were almost entirely dependent on overland

imports.
The first signs of a pax Islamica were emerging: traditional hostil­
ities between the tribes replaced by spiritual discipline and peaceful
economic expansion by treaty. Instead of destroying Mecca by star­
vation or invasion, Muhammad demonstrated his talents as a states­
man. With 1,600 men. and inspired by a dream, he approached the
city as an unarmed pilgrim, with the intention of performing the
lesser haj or 'umrahu the Ka’bah, in the pre-Islamic form. Religious
and political objectives had replaced the desert tradition of mere mil­
itary victory.
Muhammad halted at the well of al-Hudaybiyah where a treaty
was negotiated with Mecca, restoring peace. The Meccans were free
to resume their trade caravans, although their monopoly was now
lost, and in return the Medinans could make the pilgrimage unmo­
lested the following year, while the nomadic tribes were released from
the remains of their confederation with Mecca. In practice the effect
of this treaty was to bring almost all the tribes of the Hijaz over to
Muhammad, thus making him invincible, while undermining the
leaders of Mecca by demonstrating to the ordinary people of the city
that they had no reason to fear retribution by the Muslims. Islam
sought only their conversion, not their enslavement, with Mecca
invited to join with Medina at lite core of the new religion. For
Muhammad's ambitions for a larger Arab confederacy to succeed he
needed both the administrative abilities of the senior Meccans, as
well as the two principal cities of western Arabia, unified voluntarily
under him.
Die Treaty of al-Hudaybiyah was followed by the final con­
frontation with the Jews exiled from Medina. These tribes had
re-established themselves in the oasis of Khaybar to the north, where
they were again using their wealth and abilities to undermine Islam.
Apart from the security and material advantage that would flow
from their defeat, an irreconcilable conflict of ideas was also present.
The Jews regarded themselves as the Chosen of God, so if a true
prophet could appear from among the gentiles, their divinely
ordained primacy must collapse. Conversely for the Muslims, if the
Jews held a monopoly on relations with God then Muhammad
could not be God’s Messenger and the basis of Islam must collapse.
 THE COMING Of THE PROPHET 63

This contention had already found form in the rejection by the Jews
of Muhammad's ministry, and their subsequent military treachery.
In response, the Muslims had turned their backs on the Jews, quite
literally changing the direction of daily prayers in 624 ce from
Jerusalem to Mecca. Five years later Khaybar was besieged, reduced
to vassalage, and the power the Jewish opposition to Muhammad
was broken forever.
The ircaty of al-Hudaybiyah also enabled Muhammad to estab­
lish his own confederacy well beyond the immediate area of Medina.
By tradition he sent messengers as far as Egypt and Ethiopia, calling
the nations to Islam. Then in the following year, Muslims took up
their treaty rights to make the pilgrimage to the Ka’bah in Mecca,
with the Meccans withdrawing from the city for three days to avoid
tensions. The Muslim pilgrims were an impressively disciplined
force and Muhammad took the opportunity of the visit to reconcile
with his uncle al-‘Abbas with whom he had quarrelled earlier. Al-
'Abbas, patriarch of die ‘AbbSsid dynasty (to be of importance later
in the history of Islam), was to play a crucial part in the final
denouement that now followed.
I'he occasion for the final submission of Mecca came with the
renewal of a tribal dispute between a group within Muhammad's
confederacy and a Meccan clan. The terms of the Treaty of al-
Hudaybiyah were broken when rhe Meccans opened hostilities
against Muhammad's allies, placing Muhammad by custom in the
position of being able to invade the city in retribution. To forestall
inevitable disaster from Muhammad’s overwhelmingly superior
forces, the increasingly divided Meccan leadership sent Abu-Sufyan
in person to Medina to ask for leniency, an open admission of how
matters then stood. Abu-Sufyan reached an agreement with
Muhammad by which bloodshed was prevented, but from then on
the end was inevitable.
During January 630 CE Muhammad arrived before the city’ with
a force of 10,000 men. Abu-Sufyan came out to submit formally to
the Prophet of God as had been previously agreed in Medina, and
Mecca was occupied the next day, with amnesty given to those
who offered no resistance. There was little bloodshed and reprisals
were taken only against a few. a poet who had mocked Muhammad
among them. No plundering was permitted, but most importandy,
M THE COMING QTTK PROPHET

the polluted Ka’bah was cleansed of idols, reputedly 360 in number.

The grand idol Hubal was toppled, the false god to which Abu-Sufyan
had attributed his pyrrhic victory at Uhud. and the separate shrines
of the infamous al-l4t, al-Uzziand Manat were also destroyed. A new
order had arrived, t he tyranny of the rich had been abolished, and the
poor now embraced Islam in gratitude for their deliverance.
The image of rhe victorious Prophet overthrowing the pagan
idols with his own hand as he gave thanks to Allah remains a potent
force in Islam. From his apparently hopeless situation during the
hijrah. Muhammad, the hated self-styled prophet, had re-entered
the main city of Arabia as the all-conquering Apostle of Allah. In
modern Islamist rhetoric, America is often cast in the role of 'the
Hubal of the age', which in due course will be overthrown. American
materialism is thus equated with idolatry, and Arab leaders doing the
bidding of the West arc cast as the back-sliding Medinan Hypocrites.
Similarly, Muhammad's rise from nothing, through faith alone, was
used by Osama ibn laden to explain the successful October 2000
attack on the American destroyer USS Cole in Aden harbour, by a
motor boat. 'In this world,' he said, 'the destroyer represented the
capital of the West, and the small boat represented Muhammad.'
Immediately after the victory over Mecca, known as the 'open­
ing' due to the lack of bloodshed (although all subsequent Muslim
victories were to be called ‘openings', whether bloody or not)
Muhammad faced his greatest military challenge. The Hawazin tribe
from north of Mecca assembled a force of 20,000 men with the
intention of plundering the defeated city as the culmination of years
of a separate hostile rivalry; The Muslims, in seeking to protect their
new possession, were thus, within a month of their victory over the
Meccans, obliged to become the champions of their former enemies.
Muhammad's forces with Meccan reinforcements moved against the
Hawizin at Hunayn and indicted a defeat, the outcome of chc battle
turning on Muhammad's personal valour.
After Hunayn, the Hawazin also accepted Islam, together with the
remaining Meccans, many of whom were to become ardent Muslims,
rising to positions of great importance during the subsequent expan­
sion of the Arab empire. This second Muslim victory within a month
forced the pace of reconciliation between Mecca and Medina and
opened the way for Muhammad to achieve absolute power.
 Tl-f COINC Of THE PROPHET 65

Rather than sending delegations out to the tribes as in the early

days, the tribes now came to Muhammad and by the date of his death
the circle of Muslim alliances had spread through most of western
and northern Arabia. At the same time levies paid by the confeder­
ated tribes to the ‘treasury of God’ were increasing the community's
wealth. In addition, Muhammad followed the traditions of pagan
Mecca and kept for his own use, and to pay the costs of his leader­
ship obligations, one fifth of all booty from the Muslim conquests,
which was to be spent in the public interest. When Muhammad set
out on his last major expedition, toTabuk, to take control of the road
north to Syria, he commanded 30,000 foot-soldiers and 10,000
cavalry, compared with the mere 300 men and 2 horses available to
him at Badr.

The Commonwealth of Medina

All the traditional powers of the Quraysh tribe were now in
Muhammad's hands: the custody of the Holy House, control over
the pilgrimage and the intercalation of the year, generating a colour
of right and a due reverence from the other tribes even without die
Prophet's spiritual leadership and his ‘divinely guided' status.
During the remaining two years of his life Muhammad wove all
these elements together, pagan traditions with the new faith of
Islam, civil obedience with religious submission, to create the system
of combined faith and politics that was about to convulse the known
world. Islam was initiating a fusion of community structure, religion
and economics to create the seed of the 'social project’, or ’complete
way of life’ that would inspire the faithful down the centuries, while
the few years of Muhammad's Commonwealth, and the pattern of
Muslim society in rhe first decades after the Prophet's death, remain
acutely relevant to the political and religious aspirations of many
militant Muslims in the present day.
The original Constitution of Medina was expanded by the con­
tinuing revelation of the Qur’an as well as through Muhammad's
living words and his practice (the Sunna), together establishing the
broad principles that were to become the Shariah, or Islamic law. Later
Muslim societies, however, were left to struggle with the development
of both the theory and the details of the law, in a continuing attempt
to find solutions suitable for changing times and circumstances.
66 THE COMING OF THE PRQPKT

From the profusion of detailed sources available from the Mcdinan

period, the following general themes emerge from Muhammad's
rule:

• In place of the tics of the tribal system, formerly the only reposi­
tory of Arab loyalty, Muslims were to be brothers in the new
'ummah. This was the key social reform that ended inter-tribal war­
fare and unlocked the potential of Arabia. On this horizontal plane
of brother and brother, the highest standards of behaviour were
expected between Muslims, from personal politeness to absolute
respect for property and life. The fierce independence of the desert­
man was retained, however. There was to be no priesthood or hier­
archy in this society of equals, with prayers led by the military
commander or any other suitable person, as an equal. And where
before there had been internal strife between Arabs, now the faithful
were to apply their zeal to the protection of each other against the
outside world.

• On the vertical plane, between man and God. the rules of obser­
vance were established for Muslims to practise together as the
'ummah. Daily prayers were said in a set form, and the rituals and
procedures that now constitute the Five Pillars of Islam were initi­
ated. Following the example of the Prophet, God was to be recog­
nized at every stage of the day in both speech and action.

• The commandments of the Qur’an, universally accepted by the

last years of Muhammad’s life as the direct Word of God, were to be
obeyed without exception. This concept of the constitution of the
Muslim community as a 'divine order' gave the state a degree of sta­
bility that would have been impossible to achieve by mere human
agency. The surahs revealed during this late period establish rules for
a wide variety of situations. Especially protected are slaves, the poor
and the weak, and orphans, matching Muhammad’s condition as a
child. But beyond the frequently recurring subjects of inheritance,
marriage, slavery, murder, property and commercial issues, which
arc extensively legislated' in the text of the Qur’an, in practice
Muhammad treated legal issues on the merits of each individual
case. 1 his set the precedent in Islamic law by which case-specific
judgements had the 'punishment fit the crime', an approach that
 THE COMING Of THE PHOPKT 67

became at least as important as adherence to an overall legal theory.

Only later in the history of the Shariah were these case-by-casc deci­
sions by Muhammad analysed and codified into a form of Islamic
jurisprudence known as fiqh.

• In addition to the new equality between Muslims and the reduc­

tion of importance of tribal loyalties, all other religious groups were
to be tolerated. Jews, Christians, even pagans, provided that
Muhammad's position as head of state was accepted and provided
that there was no cooperation by non-Muslims with outside ene­
mies. The power of the desertman's old xenophobia was broken, and
Islam had found the basis on which entire peoples beyond the
boundaries of Arabia could be ruled.

At this point an explanation should be offered of rhe Muslim use of

the expression the Holy Land'. The Muslim term is equivalent to
the Christian version (the land where Christ lived in Palestine),
meaning the physical region where Muhammad lived in the Arabian
province of the Hijaz, or at least die two cities of Mecca and
Medina. But the difference between Muslim and Christian practice
is, of course, that there is no restriction on non-Christians visiting
Palestine (and the area is in any case inhabited by Jews and mostly
Muslim Arabs), while non-Musiims are strictly excluded from
Mecca and Medina, theoretically on pain of death (and in practice
from the whole of Arabia, which allows very little tourism and none
to the Hijaz).
During the Prophet's lifetime, however, no such restriction
existed, and Muhammad received Christians at his mosque in
Medina, most famously a delegation from Najran in Yemen who
were accommodated on the premises, while Jews lived in Medina
until they breached the terms of the Constitution. The same open­
ness would have applied to Mecca had the circumstances arisen. In
fact, the restriction of non-Muslims was initiated by the Caliph
‘Umar in the first decade after Muhammad's death, to prevent
infiltration by potential enemies into the Arab homeland while the
Muslim armies were in distant Syria attending to their conquests.
The rule excluding non-believers from the Muslim Holy Land has
since been widened and hardened, despite the absence of authority
68 THF COMING OF THf PROPHET

in the Qur’an or in any secure Hadith, which generally advocate a

high degree of inter-faith tolerance.

The death of Muhammad

The story of Muhammad’s last months is well known. He led the haj
again in March 632. known as the Farewell Pilgrimage, during
which the present-day form of the rite was finalized. Many of the
ancient pagan rituals were retained for continuity, but with all
trace of idolatry eliminated. On the last day of the pilgrimage
Muhammad preached his final sermon sitting on his camel on the
slopes of the Mount of Mercy in the middle of the plain of Arafat.
During his discourse the last revelation was received.

This day have 1

Perfected your religion
For you, completed
My favour upon you
And have chosen for you
Islam as your religion.
Al Ma'idah (The Repast) Surah 5. verse 3

On 8 June 632, after a short illness following his return to

Medina from the haj, Muhammad died, his head in ‘A’isha's lap.
Although in his sixties, he had appeared to be in good health until
very near the end. and his undiagnosed illness had been regarded as
nothing more serious than a passing ailment. The Muslims were
profoundly shaken, therefore, and many at first refused to accept the
stunning news, even though at heart none of the Companions
regarded Muhammad as anything more than mortal. The shock was
due more to the unexpectedness of the event, to the lack of prepa­
ration. the removal of the security that Muhammad's leadership had
provided, and to the prospect of an errant future that had suddenly
opened up before them.

Historical assessment
Until the twentieth century, Muhammad may have been the most
maligned man in history. He was the great enemy' to Christian
Byzantium and to Zoroastrian Persia. To medieval Europe
 THE COtNG OF THE PROPHET 69

Mohammad was a constant threat, as well as being the antichrist

occupier of the Christian Holy Land. Prejudices have possibly
waned in modern times, but Muhammad personally is still fre­
quently denigrated by non-Muslims. The criticisms fall into three
categories.
Firstly, Muhammad is said to have been insincere, to have con­
sciously composed the text of the Qur'an from his own imagination,
or by plagiarism, or both, then to have passed the work off as
coming from outside himself. The fortuitous arrival of certain
surahs to match the Prophets political needs or personal desires of
the moment is given as further evidence of falseness, as is the abro­
gation of earlier verses by later revelations, an issue that will be dis­
cussed in a subsequent chapter.
This criticism confuses the question of the claimed divine origins
of the work with the question of whether or not Muhammad himself
believed in the revelations. The response is to separate the two.
Whether the Qur’ln is accepted by the individual reader to be the
Word of God is a matter of personal faith. But Muhammad’s vast
achievements during his lifetime, his personal humility and even­
handedness, and his establishment of a powerful world religion
which has produced followers of great saintliness and devotion as
well as improving the lives of many, must surely resolve any doubts
about his own sincerity in the Prophet's favour.
Secondly, treachery and cruelty are obvious criticisms of
Muhammad's life. He attacked Meccan caravans during the pre-
Islamic holy month, war was waged on the assumption that God
approved of the bloodshed, the Qurayzah Jews were massacred and
so on. But arc these actions to be judged by the standards of seventh
century Arabia, or by Western ideals at rhe beginning of the twenty-
first century? If the former, then there is a practical reply to every
accusation. The holy month at the time was pagan, for example; the
Meccans initiated hostilities with their violent persecution of
Muhammad and Islam; and the intention of the Jewish Qurayzah
was the overthrow of Muhammad, which would have led to the
eradication of the entire Muslim community by the Meccans. If
judgement is on the latter contemporary basis, then the destruction
and loss of life perpetrated by the West, even in the recent past, in
order to promote 'freedom and democracy', which has yet to be
70 THE COMNG Of THE PRQEHFT

realized in such countries as Afghanistan. Iraq, Libya and Somalia,

to name but a few, makes the penalties paid in blood for the vast
improvement of conditions in Arabia brought about through
Muhammad's unification seem inconsequential.
Thirdly, the religious heritage of the West centres on the strong
image of Jesus Christ, the ultimate man of peace who 'turned the
other cheek’, who rendered unto 'Caesar the things which are
Caesar’s’, and unto God 'the things that arc God’s’. In the Christian
view therefore, how could Muhammad claim to be both the believ­
able Prophet of God and a warrior. But Christ avoided crossing the
line between the ideals of religion and the practicalities of politics.
On the high mountain He was tempted with civil power by the devil,
and He refused. Yet until Church was separated from State every
human attempt to implement Christianity in the political world,
from the persecution of early schismatics in the name of dogmatic
conformity, to centuries of doctrinal European wars, to the world­
wide destruction of native cultures by Christian missionaries, has
produced episodes of devastation in the name of the Christian God
unrivalled by any other human motivation. The difference between
Christianity and Islam is that in Islam the two parallel forces of reli­
gion and politics were recognized as fused from the start.
Finally, Muhammad’s wives represent a further difficulty, when
judged beside standards of Christian monogamy and the tradition of
celibate priests, motivated by the desire to emulate Jesus himself. But
this Christian ethic has created a link in the West between sex and
sin which is entirely absent in Islam, where there is forthright
acknowledgement of sexuality, within limits, as a gift from God.
Husbands and wives are instructed by the Qur’an to satisfy each
other’s desires, anecdotally evidenced, for example, by the multipli­
city of winsome lingerie shops along the main streets of conservative
Cairo. For Muslims, therefore, the Prophet's well-known sexual
appetite carries no overtones of immorality in itself. Muslim com­
mentators are unapologetic about Muhammad's strong interest in
women. In this view the revelation of the Qur’an to a man who
understood human indulgence is a further dimension to the miracle.
Muhammad had either eleven or thirteen wives, depending on
the definition. He may have been attracted to some of his wives
more than others, but all his marriages, after his first to Khadijah.
 THE COMING OF7HE PROPHET 1

had a political or charitable basis, as was usual in contemporary

Arabia, where divorce was common, and death for men was often
brutal and early, leaving many women vulnerable. Muslims empha­
size that Muhammad made every effort to follow the injunctions of
the Qur’an (which limited the number of wives to four only after
Muhammad had entered into his marriages) to treat all wives
equally, both materially and emotionally. Further, Muhammad’s
family group lived very frugal lives: Muhammad repaired his own
clothes, meals were simple and the first mosque where they lived was
a primitive structure. Sumptuous harems were created in Arab cul­
ture by corrupt rulers only in later centuries, justified by wilfully
perverse interpretations of the sources.
70 THE COMNG Of THE PRQEHFT

realized in such countries as Afghanistan. Iraq, Libya and Somalia,

to name but a few, makes the penalties paid in blood for the vast
improvement of conditions in Arabia brought about through
Muhammad's unification seem inconsequential.
Thirdly, the religious heritage of the West centres on the strong
image of Jesus Christ, the ultimate man of peace who 'turned the
other cheek’, who rendered unto 'Caesar the things which are
Caesar’s’, and unto God 'the things that arc God’s’. In the Christian
view therefore, how could Muhammad claim to be both the believ­
able Prophet of God and a warrior. But Christ avoided crossing the
line between the ideals of religion and the practicalities of politics.
On the high mountain He was tempted with civil power by the devil,
and He refused. Yet until Church was separated from State every
human attempt to implement Christianity in the political world,
from the persecution of early schismatics in the name of dogmatic
conformity, to centuries of doctrinal European wars, to the world­
wide destruction of native cultures by Christian missionaries, has
produced episodes of devastation in the name of the Christian God
unrivalled by any other human motivation. The difference between
Christianity and Islam is that in Islam the two parallel forces of reli­
gion and politics were recognized as fused from the start.
Finally, Muhammad’s wives represent a further difficulty, when
judged beside standards of Christian monogamy and the tradition of
celibate priests, motivated by the desire to emulate Jesus himself. But
this Christian ethic has created a link in the West between sex and
sin which is entirely absent in Islam, where there is forthright
acknowledgement of sexuality, within limits, as a gift from God.
Husbands and wives are instructed by the Qur’an to satisfy each
other’s desires, anecdotally evidenced, for example, by the multipli­
city of winsome lingerie shops along the main streets of conservative
Cairo. For Muslims, therefore, the Prophet's well-known sexual
appetite carries no overtones of immorality in itself. Muslim com­
mentators are unapologetic about Muhammad's strong interest in
women. In this view the revelation of the Qur’an to a man who
understood human indulgence is a further dimension to the miracle.
Muhammad had either eleven or thirteen wives, depending on
the definition. He may have been attracted to some of his wives
more than others, but all his marriages, after his first to Khadijah.
 THE COMING OF7HE PROPHET 1

had a political or charitable basis, as was usual in contemporary

Arabia, where divorce was common, and death for men was often
brutal and early, leaving many women vulnerable. Muslims empha­
size that Muhammad made every effort to follow the injunctions of
the Qur’an (which limited the number of wives to four only after
Muhammad had entered into his marriages) to treat all wives
equally, both materially and emotionally. Further, Muhammad’s
family group lived very frugal lives: Muhammad repaired his own
clothes, meals were simple and the first mosque where they lived was
a primitive structure. Sumptuous harems were created in Arab cul­
ture by corrupt rulers only in later centuries, justified by wilfully
perverse interpretations of the sources.
72 THE COMING Of THE PROPHET

Appendix I
The Constitution of Medina

In the name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate!

This is the writing of Muhammad the Prophet, between the believers
and the Muslims of the Quraysh (from Mecca) and from Yathrib
(Medina) and those who follow them and who fight with them.

1. They are a single community ('ummah') distinct from other people.

2. The Emigrants of the Quraysh, according to their former condi­

tion. pay jointly the blood money between them, and they, as a
group, ransom their captives, doing so with uprightness and justice
between the believers.

3. The Banu 'Awf, according to their former condition, pay jointly

the previous blood-wits, and each sub-clan ransoms its captives
doing so with uprightness and justice between the believers.

4. The Banu ‘1-Hirith, according to their former condition, pay

jointly... (as 3).

5. Banu Si'idah . . .(as 3).

6. Banu Jusham . . .(as 3).

7. Banu ‘n-Najjar . . .(as 3).

8. Banu ‘Amr b.’Awf. . .(as 3).

9. Banu 'n-Nabit. , .(as 3).

10. Banu‘l-Aws .. .(as 3).

11. The believers do not forsake a debtor among them, but give him
help according to what is fair for ransom and blood-wit.

12. A believer does not take as confederate the client of a believer with­
out the latter’s consent.

13. The God-fearing believers are against whoever of them acts wrong­
fully, plans an act that is unjust or treacherous or hostile or corrupt
among the believers; their hands are all against him. even if he is the
son of one of them.

14. A believer docs not kill a believer because of an unbeliever and does
not help an unbeliever against a believer.
__________________________ THE COMTMG Of THE PROPKT_______________________ 73

15. The security of God is one; chc granting of neighbourly protection

by the least of the believers is binding upon them; the believers are
clients of one another to the exclusion of other people.

16. Whoever ot the Jews follows us has the same help and support as
the believers, so long as the believer is not wronged by the Jew and
the Jew does not help others against the believer.

17. The peace of the believers is one; no believer makes peace apart
from another believer, where there is fighting in the way of God,
except in so far as equality and justice between them is maintained.

18. In every expedition made with us die parties take turns with one
another.

19. The believers exact vengeance for one another where a man gives
his blood in rhe way of God. The God-fearing believers are under
the best and most correct guidance.

20. No idolater gives neighbourly protection for goods or person to the

Quraysh. nor intervenes in a Qurashi's favour against a believer.

21. When anyone wrongfully kills a believer, the evidence being clear,
then he is liable to be killed in retaliation, unless the representative
of the murdered man is satisfied with a payment. The believers are
against the murderer entirely; nothing is permissible to them except
to oppose him.

22. It is not permissible for a believer who has agreed to what is in this
document and believes in God and the Last Day, to help a wrong­
doer or ro give him lodging. If anyone helps the wrong-doer and
gives him lodging, then upon this man is the curse of God and His
wrath of the Day of Resurrection, and from him nothing will be
accepted to make up for this punishment or to take its place.

23. 'X'hencvcr there is anything about which you differ, it is ro be

referred co God and to Muhammad (peace be upon him).

24. The Jews bear expenses along with the believers so long as they con­
tinue ar war.

25. The Jews of tile Banu ‘Awf are an ’ ummah along with die believers.
To the Jews their religion and die Muslims their religion. This
applies both to their clients and to diemselves, with die exception
of anyone who has done wrong or acted treacherously; he brings
evil only on himself and on his household.
74 THE COMING OS THE PROPHET

26. For the Jews of the Banu 'n-Najjar. the like of what is for the Jews
of the Banu 'Awf.

27. For the Jews of the Banu ‘l-Hirith the like . . .

28. For the Jews of the Banu Si'idah the like . . .

29. For the Jews of the Banu Jusham the like . . .

30. For the Jews of the Banu T-Aws the like . . .

31. For the Jews of the Banu Tha'labah the like of what is for the Jews
of die Banu 'Awf, with the exception of anyone who has done
wrong or acted treacherously, he brings evil only on himself and his
household.

32. Jafhah, a subdivision ofTha'labah, are like them.

33. For the Banu 'sh-Shutaybah the like of what is for the Jews of Banu
Awf; honourable dealing comes before treachery.

34. The clients of the Th’labah are like them.

35. The hitanah (or Arab entourage) of the Jews arc as themselves.

36. No one of the 'ummah may go out to war without the permission
of Muhammad (peace be upon him), but the ‘ummah is not
restrained from taking vengeance for wounds. Whoever acts rashly,
it involves only himself and his household, except where a man has
been wronged. God is the truest fulfiller of this documcnr.

37. It is for the Jews to bear their expenses and for the Muslims to bear
their expenses. Between one another there is help against whoever
wars against the people of this document. Between one another is
sincere friendship and honourable dealing, not treachery. A man
is not guilty of treachery through the act of his confederate. There
is help to be given to the person wronged.

38. The valley of Yathrib (Medina) is sacred for the people of this
document.

39. The protected neighbour is as the man himself so long as he does

no harm and does not act treacherously.

40. No woman is given neighbourly protection without the consent of

her people.
 THE CCWING Of THE FSOPHET 75

41. Whenever among the people of this document there occurs an inci­
dent or quarrel from which disaster for the 'ummah is to be feared,
it is to be referred to God and to Muhammad, rhe Messenger of
God (God bless and preserve him). God is the most scrupulous and
truest fulftller of what is in this document.

42. No neighbourly protection is given to Meccan Quraysh and those

who help them.

43. Between the people of this document is help against whoever sud­
denly attacks Yarhrib (Medina).

44. Whenever they are summoned to conclude and accept a treaty, they
conclude and accept it; when they in turn summon to the like, it is
a debt to them by the believers, except whoever wars about religion;
incumbent on each man is his share from the side which supports
him.

45. The Jews of al-Aws, both their clients and themselves are in the
same position as belongs to the people of this document for so long
as they are thoroughly honourable in their dealings with the people
of this document. Honourable dealing comes before treachery.

46. A person acquiring guilt acquires such guilt only against himself.
God is the most upright and truest fulfiller of what is in this docu­
ment. This writing docs not intervene to protect a wrong-doer or
traitor. He who goes out is safe, and he who sits still is safe in
Medina, except whoever does wrong and acts treacherously. God is
the protecting neighbour of him who acts honourably and fears
God and Muhammad is the Messenger of God (God bless and
preserve him).
76 THE COMMG »TH£ PRCTHF

Appendix 2
Muhammad's Wives

Khadijah was Muhammad's first wife, and the circumstances of the

marriage have already been related. Only one daughter. Fatima, survived
the Prophet. Fatima married 'Ali, the Prophet’s cousin and fourth
caliph. Reverence of Fatima played a significant role in the development
of the character of Shi'ism.
Upon the deach of Khadijah, Muhammad married Sawda. the
widow of one of his companions. She was over forty at the time of the
marriage. Sawda already had a son from her first marriage and she
looked after Muhammad’s children from his first marriage. She had no
children with Muhammad.
'A’isha was the daughter of Abu Bakr, companion of the Prophet
and the first caliph or successor to Muhammad. The betrothal was
intended to unite the families of Muhammad and Abu Bakr, even
though 'A’isha was only nine years old at the time. The marriage was
consummated when the bride was fifteen. 'A’isha. who was pretty, intel­
ligent and independent, became very close to the Prophet and is popu­
larly known as his 'favourite' wife. Muhammad died in her arms and
site contributed much to the development of Islam in rhe years that fol­
lowed. She bore no children and died at the age of sixty-six.
Hafsa was die widowed daughter of'Umar, trusted companion of
Muhammad and the second caliph. Hafsa's husband was killed at the
battle of Badr. The marriage was contracted in order to give protection
to Hafsa as a favour to 'Umar. Hafsa had no children and was reputedly
a disruptive influence on the menage, often arguing with the Prophet
himself.
Zainab was also the widow of a Muslim martyr. She was devoted to
caring for the poor and earned the name Ummu’l-Maslkin. Mother of
the Downtrodden. She died diree months after the marriage at the age
of thirty.
Umm Salama was another war widow. She had two children with
her first Meccan husband and as an early convert to Islam was badly
treated by the Meccans before being permitted to leave. Reputedly
Muhammad looked after Umm Salama’s children as if the)’ were his
own. She was the last of the Prophet’s wives to die.
Muhammad's seventh wife was the second Zainab. who was married
to his adopted son Zayd in a union arranged by Muhammad. Following
 THE COMNG Of THE PROPHET 77

Zayd s divorce from Zainab, Muhammad married her. allegedly smitten

by her beauty. The morality of this marriage has been criticized on die
basis that Zainab was Muhammad's daughter-in-law as well as his
cousin. The Prophet is further accused of promoting rhe divorce for his
own libidinous ends. A surah was received absolving Muhammad from
wrongdoing, and these lines are also cited as evidence of the falseness of
the Qur’an.

Then when Zayd

Had dissolved his marriage
With her with the necessary
Formality, We joined her
In marriage to thee.
In order that in future
There may be no difficulty
To the Believers in the matter
Of marriage with the wives
Of their adopted sons, when
The latter have dissolved,
With the necessary formality.
Their marriages with them.
And Allah's command must
Be fulfilled.
Al Ahzab (The Confederates) Surah 33, verse 37

But the purpose behind Muhammad's marriage to Zainab was legis­

lative. Verse 3 of the same surah prohibits legal adoption, which was
seen as erroneous because, 'Allah has not made for any man two hearts
in his one body’, meaning that no son or daughter could love two
mothers or fathers. The prohibition thereupon became part of the
Shariah, with the result that even in modern Muslim societies there is
no legal adoption procedure. Nothing prevents the charitable sheltering
of a child in need, but family status cannot be changed. Marriage to the
wife of an adopted son was prohibited in the Jahiliyyah. so by marrying
Zainab. Muhammad demonstrated that the old procedures for adoption
were no longer valid. This gives an entirely different meaning to the
surah quoted above.
There are also two responses to be made to the accusation that
Muhammad manipulated the divorce to satisfy his own sexual whim,
first. Zainab was Muhammad's cousin, whom he knew well, and he
78 TK CCMNG Of IHEPBOFHFT

could have married her ar a much earlier rime had he been so inclined.
Secondly, at the time of the marriage, after the Farewell Pilgrimage,
Muhammad was in poor health and close to death.
Juwairiya was taken as a prisoner of war from the hostile Banu’l-
Mustaliq tribe. As part of Muhammad's diplomatic initiatives as his
power increased, he married Juwairiya in order to confirm a peace set­
tlement with her tribe, of which her father was chief. She was instructed
in the faith by 'A’isha and became a devout Muslim.
Ramlah, belter known as Umm Habiba, was the daughter of the
infamous Abu SufySn. She embraced Islam early, in defiance of her
father, and spent time in Ethiopia during the years of persecution. On
her return, her husband having died during exile, Muhammad married
her as part of his peaceful 'opening' of Mecca.
Safiyyah was a Jewish princess all of whose male relatives were
killed during Muhammad’s last confrontation with the Jews at the
Barrie of Khaybar. From slavery she rose by force of personality to
marry Muhammad. Objections were raised because of her sums as the
daughter ot a Jewish enemy, bur on her conversion Muhammad treated
her as a Muslim and an equal.
Muhammad's eleventh wife. Maymunah, represented a further
alliance between Muhammad and rhe leading Meccan families, initiated
by ‘Abbls. Muhammad's unde. Maymunah was fifty-one when she
married and she devoted herself to improving the condition of slaves.
Mary was sent to Muhammad as a slave by the Christian Orthodox
Archbishop of Alexandria. Because Mary was a Copt the marriage has
been questioned, bur a son was born, Ibrahim, who died less than a
year old and for this reason the relationship is usually regarded as
marriage.
Muhammad's relationship with the Jewess Rayhana is similarly
unclear. She was a prisoner, taken after the capitulation of the
Qurayxah.
 3
THE FUNDAMENTALS OF FAITH

I The Noble Qur'an

For a non-Muslim with no knowledge of Arabic, the Qur’an in

translation is an exasperating, punishing read, apparently without
order, narrative or conclusion. Listen to the words chanted, how­
ever, by an accomplished muqri at a funeral, or even by chance over
the radio in a Cairo taxi, and the work is spell binding. An imper­
fect comparison could be made with the opaque words of the Old
Testament psalms, brought off the page and into life when intoned
as plainsong.
This experience of hearing rather than reading the words con­
nects the listener to the oral tradition that lies at the heart of
Qur’anic exposition. Arabs say of Arabic that when something is said
beaucifully the words are almost true already. And for Muhammad s
followers, the repeating of the revelations, the very sound of the
words, became their life and inspiration, with cadence almost as
important as content. This was the voice of Clod on their lips and
ringing in their ears, possessed with the same personal intensity that
Catholics feel with the transubstantiated body and blood of Christ
on the tongue. So once the words of the Qur'an were written down
and the inevitable dissection and interpretation began, the marvel
was rendered slightly less marvellous.
The magic of classical Arabic, in a modern example, was a strong
clement in rhe extraordinary power exerted over the Muslim world
by the televised tapes of Osama ibn laden speaking after the events
of September 11th 2001, an effect entirely lost on a Western viewer.
Despite the dead eyes and the blank expression, the man spoke an
incendiary Arabic, echoing the Qur’an in the way that the rolling epic
of Churchills wartime speeches echoed Shakespeare for the British.
Ultimately, therefore, reading the Qur’an is a matter of faith.
The New Testament, and much of the Torah, is made up of stories
generally understandable in their plain narrative meaning by any
reader of any faith. But for Muslims, the dense Arabic words of the
80 THE HJNCW^NTAIS OF FAItH

Qur’an hide an inner significance whose discernment requires the

gift of God’s grace as well as a pure and faithful heart. And this
deeper meaning, like God Himself, does not appear directly.

It is not fitting
For a man that Allah
Should speak to him
Except by inspiration
Or from behind a veil,
Al-Shuri (Consultation) Surah 42. verse 51

We have discussed the Qur’an as Muhammad's prophetic miracle'

and we have considered the setting in which the revelations were
received. The overwhelming significance of the Qur’an as the core
of the faith has also been touched on. as well as the legislative aspect
of the work as the basis of the Shariah. For Muslims individually, the
Qur’an is eternal', 'the Book of Wisdom', a ‘Message for any that
lias a heart', 'the Mother of Books', and 'Guidance Sure'. Now the
work will be examined in some detail.

How the Qur'an was assembled

The text of the Qur’an refers to a number of methods by which
Muhammad delivered the work: through the famous appearance
of the angel Gabriel, or by struggling during the night to receive
the right expression for die inspiration, or from an exterior mystic
suggestion'. All these experiences arc summarized in Surah 2,
Al-Baqarah (The Heifer) where Muhammad is told at verse 97 diat
the words of the Qur’an have been ‘brought down upon thy heart
by Allah's will’.
As the words were received, the pre-existing oral poetic tradition,
as well as the tenacious Arab memory, enabled the work to be mem­
orized by Muhammad's Companions. Each Companion became a
guardian of a part, widi a few able to recite the entire work as the
revelations unfolded over twenty-three years. Committing the whole
Qur’an to memory (and so becoming a 'reciter') has ever since been
regarded as one of the ultimate acts of Muslim devotion.
Contrary to popular presumption, reading and writing were
common in JMiyyah Mecca, though far from universal. By legend,
 THE FUNDAMENTALS OF FAITH

the most admired poems were reproduced in golden letters and sus­
pended from the side of the Ka’bah for all to admire. Some of the
Companions were fully literate and able to record excerpts of the
Qur’an in a more permanent form than recitation, but the entire
work was not assembled as a single document during the Prophet’s
lifetime.
Fhe first collection of the elements of the Qur’an was undertaken
by Zayd ibn-Thabit, Muhammad's principal amanuensis during his
later years, and who also seis ed Abu Bakr during the two years of his
caliphate as the first successor to the Prophet. This departure into
writing, for which there was no direct authority to follow, away from
the dominant oral tradition practised by Muhammad himself, was
justified by the loss of a number of reciters during the apostasy wars
that followed Muhammad's death. The community feared that die
Qur’an might be lost forever before the words could be passed on to
a new generation of reciters.
Sections were taken by Zayd from the 'hearts of men’ while the
words were still fresh in their memories, others from writing on
pieces of parchment, stones, bones and boards. And during his last
years in Medina, when the more complex legislative surahs were
revealed. Muhammad employed scribes, so that at least part of the
work had been written down as the revelations occurred. In Surah
10, Yunus (Jonah), at verse 38 those who claim that the Qur’an is
forged are challenged to 'Bring then a surah like unto it', from which
scholars have concluded that during his lifetime, Muhammad had
organized at least part of the work into recognizable surah divisions,
even if not in finished form. Probably the surahs were expanded
during the process of assembling the components, by adding those
memorized parts which did not appear in the incomplete written
records. This entire procedure, from the original revelations in sepa­
rate episodes over many years to collection from various sources and
allowing for later insertions, goes some way. in some commentaries,
to account for the disjointed character of the work.
But the story of Zayd’s collection is tradition only, no copy of the
original collection authorized by Abu Bakr has survived. There was
no definitive version of the Qur’an in circulation until the rule of
‘Uthman, the third caliph, which began twenty-three years after
•Muhammad’s death. He ordered an ‘official’ compilation as well as
B2 THE FUNDAMENTAtS OF FAITH

the destruction of the previous partial versions prepared by various

Companions (including the putative Abu Bakr version) in an
attempt to end disputes about the readings of the Qur’an that had
developed among the troops carrying Islams early expansion. The
‘Uthman version, overseen by Zayd ibn-Thabit once again, was
widely distributed, but took the form of a shorthand aide-memoire
for those already familiar with the work and was still not a complete
text in the modern sense. For the existing reciters, however, the
Qur’an continued to be the subject of a number of conflicting ‘read­
ings’, although the differences related to minor matters only.
Refinement of the text continued into the tenth century,
together with the Arabic language, lite oldest copy of the complete
Qur’an, written on gazelle skin and held by the Egyptian National
Library, dates from AD 688, fifty-eight years after the death of
Muhammad.
Native Arabic speakers who arc non-Muslim (Arab Christians,
for example) assert that this constant refinement of the text by great
scholars over two or three centuries was the means by which the
magnificent language of the Qur’an was produced, and not by the
original revelation or composition. In fact, emerging modern schol­
arship of early Islam provides some support for this view. Then later
in Muslim history, Shi'a would claim that verses favouring the
right of'Ali, Muhammad’s cousin, to the succession had been omit­
ted, although no evidence for this exists, and 'Ali himself, once he
became caliph, made no changes to the 'Uthman version. There
have also been questions raised by academics over die years. The
authenticity of certain surahs has been questioned, those predicting
Muhammad’s death for example, or praising Abu Bakr, and the pos­
sibility of omissions has been examined. Modern Western scholars
have ‘deconstructed’ rhe text and claim to have found inconsisten­
cies in style.
But all such questions are quibbles. No other work in history has
survived more than thirteen centuries from inception with so com­
paratively pure a text.

The form of the Qur’an

The text is divided into 114 surahs or chapters, subdivided into
or verses which range from long and complicated to short and blunt.
 THE FUNDAMENTALS OF FAITH 63

The work is also traditionally divided into thirty portions of approx­

imately equal length, indicated by a fraction sign in the margin. This
arrangement assists in reading the Qur’an right through over the
days of a lunar month.
The first surah, named Al-Fatiha (The Opening) is comparable
in Islam to the Lord's Prayer in Christianity. The Fdtiha is repro­
duced in the original, then phonetically, and then in translation in
Appendix 2 to this chapter.
The readers confusion begins at the second surah, with the dis­
covery that the order of Surahs 2-114 is mostly baser! on length,
with the longest, consisting of 286 verses, at the front and the short­
est, consisting of only 3 verses, at the back. But even this rule is not
precisely observed and there is no other relevance in the order of the
surahs - for example, by subject matter, chronology or place of rev­
elation. Further, the surahs are for the most part named by reference
to a prominent word in the text which often has little or nothing to
do with the contents (Surah 2, Al-Baqarah (the Heifer), for exam­
ple, or Surah 16, Al-Nahl (The Bee)). Then the composition of a
surah can be disjointed internally, full of apparently unrelated issues
and plagued by non-sequiturs. These difficulties can only be over­
come by careful study and by constant reading and rereading.
How far the order of the surahs was set by Muhammad himself
has not been determined. He certainly regarded certain surahs as
forming sequences, probably linked by the appearance of the myste­
rious letters in the opening lines (see the box on page 84). According
to Muslims. Gabriel reviewed the entire text with Muhammad during
his last Ramadan, and reciters during Muhammad's lifetime must
have given the surahs an order of which he approved, but there is no
tradition dealing with the question. Much research has been under­
taken to divide the surahs into those of Meccan origin and those
of Medinan origin to determine the correct chronology. The former
are generally shorter and inspirational, relevant to Muhammad's
role as preacher in Mecca; the latter are more prosaic, concerned with
the establishment and running of the community at Medina. But
even this method of categorization is im[»erfect since verses within
the surahs have been identified from different periods, as a result of
faulty collection or through revisions and insertions made during
Muhammad’s lifetime.
 THf RJNOAhtENTAlS OF FAITH

All surahs (except one, for historical reasons) open with the invo­
cation, known as the tasmtyah-. . ....................

Bi-smi Haiti r-rahmani r-rihim

In the name of God, the All-Merciful, the All-Compassionate

This formula is now in universal use in Islam for a range of purposes

(usually in the shortened version: baimala), from the opening invo­
cation in a letter, to the start of a personal prayer. A Hadith of the
Prophet says that any significant act undertaken without the saying
of the tasmiyah is deficient in the sight of God. But note that nei­
ther this invocation nor the titles of the surahs are considered to be
part of the revealed text.
The work is presented on the page in Arabic as continuous lines
of prose, broken only by the verse numbers which do not begin on a
new line, and no uniform metre is detectable. The verse breaks create
the pauses where the spoken word would rest naturally. Some lines
do rhyme and verses often end with repeated refrains, significant to
the recital of the text.

The Mysterious Letters

Twenty-nine surahs of the 114 begin with an Arabic letter standing alone,
or a group of separate letters. The first two verses of Surah Al-Boqorah
(The Heifer), for example, are written as follows:

I Alif Lam Mim (letters ALM)

2. Thrs is the Book
In it is guidance sure, without doubt

or Surah 26. Al-Shu’arS (The Poets):

1. Ta Sin Mim (lettersT S M)

2. These are the Verses of the Book
That makes things clear
 THE FUNDAXNTAIS Of FAITH 95

Patterns can be detected, and certain letters are repeated more than
others, while the surahs using the same letters are arranged generally m
sequential blocks But no satisfactory explanation for the significance of
the letters has been found in more than thirteen centunes of study.
Many theories have, of course, been put forward.The most convinc­
ing suggestion interprets the letters as referring to the reciters from
whom Zayd obtained the onginals. Academics have attempted to link
the tetters to specific individuals wrth such knowledge, but again, no sat­
isfactory scheme of explanation has emerged. Attempts have also been
made to show that the letters are contractions of previously used titles,
but no coherent rationale has been put forward. Tortuous but unsatis­
factory arguments have been made, purporting to show that the con­
tent of the surahs beginning with certain letters share a common thread
of sub|ect matter.
Muslim scholars are more prepared to grve the letters symbolic or
mystical significance, as possibly reproducing the signs from a heavenly
book, for example, to which Muhammad was given some form of access.
Then two of the letters have been linked to a Muslim battle-cry.’Ha mtm.
they shall not be aided', which has led to the interpretation that the let­
ters are signs from God that He will come to the assistance of Muslims
In a further interpretation, the letters could be from Synac or Hebrew
and refer to the texts in those languages wrth which the surahs >n ques­
tion may be linked.
The most, sympathetic construction is that the presence of the
letters reminds the reader that the Qur’an is made up of |ust such
common elements as letters, used by all Arabic speakers, yet the linguis­
tic skill of the Arabic text <s impossible to match. The eloquent among
Muhammad's detractors are challenged in the Qur'an to produce one
equivalent surah, or ten verses, or even one single verse, but none
succeeds.
No explanation fits exactly, however, and the mystery continues.

The voice’ of the Qur’in is generally that of an unidentified

party addressing Muhammad in the third person, which is consistent
with Muhammad's experience of the revelations coming to him from
outside himself. Muslim belief is that this is the voice of God. speak­
ing through Muhammad to mankind, via the agency of Gabriel.
84____________________ IHE RJNOAMfNTAlS Of FAITH______________________

Sometimes the voice speaks in die first person:

1 have only created

Jinns and men, that
They may serve me.
Al-Dhartyai (The Winds that Scatter) Surah 51. verse 56

But more often the regal third person is employed:

Wc created men from sounding day

From mud moulded into shape.
And the jinn race We had
Created before, from the lire
Of the scorching wind.
Al-Hijir (The Rock) Surah 15. verse 26

On other occasions the voice speaks directly to Muhammad in the

second person singular. This is the voice that instructs Muhammad to
recite, that encourages, that rebukes and gives advice. Sometimes the
voice turns from this second person singular ('O thou . . .' in biblical
language) to the second person plural ('O ye . . .')
Apparent difficulties arise in the frequent passages where God
speaks of Himself in the third person, or where the voice is clearly
that of the angels. Often the angels speak in the first person plural
as 'we', confusing their voices with that of God. Or on other occa­
sions God is referred to in the third person singular (as ‘the Lord', or
equivalent) then the form will change abruptly to the first person,
and again from singular to plural.

Now I do
Call to witness
The Lord of all points
In die East and the West,
That we can certainly
Substitute for them
Better men than they;
And Wc are not
To be defeated
In Our Plan.
Ai-Ma'arij (The Way of Ascent) Surah 70, verses 40-41
 rut HJNBAMfNFAl S OF FAITH 87

What is clear and consistent, however, is that Muhammad is

never more than the mouthpiece. The words only pass through him
and are never represented to the reader as being of his own compo­
sition. Even such a passage as Surah 11, Hud (The Prophet Hud)
verse 120 (quoted on page 34) where the speaker is clearly
Muhammad himself, the originating command from Gabriel on
behalf of God, ‘Recite' ensures that the reader understands clearly
that Muhammad’s position is that of the mere messenger for words
provided tor him. Thus all the voices which may appear to belong
to a speaker other than God arc in fact dramatic devices only. The
entire text is still believed by Muslims to be the direct word of God.
whatever the apparent form.

The content of the Qur'an

No discussion of the Qur’in can be complete without an attempt at
a minimum statement of the substance of the work. Richard Bell’s
authoritative Introduction to the Qur'iin, sums up the content under
five headings, which arc here summarized:

1. The One God, without peers or partners occupies most of the

work. He is Omnipotent, as demonstrated by His power to create.
His existence is evidenced by His Signs visible in the natural world:
rhe sun. the moon, night and day, etc. Man is utterly subordinate,
unable to do or will anything unless God allows, to which the only
correct response by man is complete surrender to His will.

2. Other spiritual beings arc described, jinns living in a parallel

world, similarly created by God, and who, like man, may be benign
or malevolent, either Muslim or unbeliever. Similarly, angels are rec­
ognized as further created creatures, consisting of pure goodness and
the direct servants of God. Shayldn, the fallen jinn, is permitted to
tempt man, seductively whispering his evil suggestions, and making
wrong fair-seeming.

3. Muhammad’s prophethood is stated and elaborated as bringing

the message of the One God to man. Man will be punished like
those before him if the Word of God is not heeded.

4. Muhammad is also the 'warner' of the Last Day. Omnipotent

God will restore man to life on that day to be judged and then cither
88 THE FUNDAMENTALS Of FAITH

rewarded with everlasting bliss or condemned to everlasting tor­

ment. Hell and Paradise arc frequently described in compelling
detail.

5. God prescribes laws by which the faithful are to live: the Five
Pillars, the commandments of Surah 17, prohibitions against certain
foods, against the drinking of alcohol and against usury, followed by
the detailed social provisions that have become the Shariah. But for
those who try and inevitably foil, God is Most Gracious and Most
Merciful.

To Bell's summan’, this observer presumes to add two further issues:

6. The history of salvation occupies a substantial portion of the

text. God has sent many messengers before Muhammad to guide
mankind and the lives of a few arc recounted in some detail. But
God's messengers have been ignored, or their warnings penerted to
some human end. Muhammad's ministry and the message of the
Qur’an, as the Last of the Last, now represents God's final word,
which man ignores at his peril.

7. The brotherhood of man is emphasized in numerous contexts.

Muslims arc specifically said to be brothers, beyond all other
affiliations (especially tribal or ethnic), united by their belief. Non­
believers arc nevertheless to be tolerated, with Christians and Jews
recognized as People of the Book, or believers sharing with Muslims
a common source of faith, and their prophets are accepted as men
of God. Those who profess faith with their lips, but not with their
hearts (The Medinan Hypocrites, for example) are threatened with
particularly harsh punishment on the Last Day.

The message of the Qur'an was hardly original, Jews and Christians
had followed monotheism for centuries. But to Muhammad's lis­
teners the message was largely new, and above all. Arab, while the
medium, the language, was captivating, adorned with proverbs,
recited with an almost musical elegance, and capturing all the power
of ancient desert lore.
__________________________ THE FUNDAMENTALS OF FAITH________________________ B9

The Meccan and Medinan periods

As we have seen, the revelation of the Qur’an covered both phases
of Muhammad's ministry: front the first revelation through to the
hijrah, the twclvc-ycar Meccan period; then from the hijrah through
to Muhammad's death, the ten years he spent in Medina, In Mecca,
Muhammad saw his task as calling his listeners to Islam, to righteous
conduct, to comprehension of the Oneness of God and away from
polytheism, and to an apprehension of the coming judgement. In
Medina, the Prophet's initial ministry to mankind as a whole gave
way to his concern for rhe establishment of the Muslim community.
The surahs from the two periods generally reflect these different
purposes.
Thus the Meccan surahs arc mostly short and exhorrational,
dealing with the fundamental questions of God's existence and the
authenticity of Muhammad’s message, addressed to all who will
listen:

O Mankind. It is
Ye chat have need
Of Allah: but Allah is
The One Free of all wants,
Worthy of all praise.
Fattr (The Originator of Creation) Surah 35. verse 15

Medinan surahs are longer, usually dealing with laws and social
issues, addressed to those who arc already members of the commu­
nity and who have accepted Muhammad as a prophet of God:

O ye who believe.
If ye fear Allah.
He will grant you a Criterion
To judge between right and wrong.
Remove from you all evil
That may afflict you
And forgive you:
For Allah is the Lord
Of grace unbounded.
Al-Anfal (The Spoils of War) Surah 8, verse 29
90 TK fCNDAMFNTAl S Of WTH

Interpretation of the Qur'5n

The process of determining what the Qur'an means, by attempting
to expose the themes that underlie the text, is as old and as complex
as the work itself. And since the Qur’an is also the source of the leg­
islation of Islam, interpretation quickly merges with jurisprudence
and the Shariah.
The Qur’an is first to be explained by the Qur’an itself. Difficult
passages should be read in conjunction with clear passages and ear­
lier episodes should be matched with later ones on the same subject
to produce a comprehensive whole. In Surah 2. Al-Baqarah (The
Heifer) at verse 37, for example, Adam learns unspecified words of
inspiration from his Lord. In Surah 7, Al-A’rdf(The Heights), the
reader learns at verse 23 what those words were:

They said, 'O Lord

We have wronged our own souls.
If Thou forgive us not
And bestow not upon us
Thy Mercy, we shall
Certainly be lost.'

An intimate knowledge of the Qur’an will allow the reader to link

such passages, creating a more coherent whole than is apparent on
first reading.
Secondly, the Qur’an is explained by the Prophet. There are
numerous examples of such explanations in the Sunna. but these
traditions are not all reliable, an issue to be discussed below.
Lastly the interpretations of experts may be considered. Clearly
the most significant interpretations are those of the Companions of
the Prophet, provided that authenticity can be established, followed
by the acknowledged masters from Muslim history, down to the
present. This process can. of course, degenerate into mere unsup­
ported opinion so that the status of the commentator is always of
great importance.
In some cases, Muslims acknowledge, God abrogated a few of
the earlier verses. Where a preceding injunction was of a temporary
nature, His commands changed with the changing circumstances of
the Muslims. This is accepted doctrine and docs not dilute in the
 THF njsriAMENIALS OF FAITH 91

Muslim view, the integrity of the work. Apparently abrogated verses

are retained in the Qur’an as the word of God, and God moreover
is free of all restraints.

Translations of the Qur'an

The Qur'an rendered in a language other than Arabic cannot
achieve the depth of the original, and loses many important charac­
teristics. Further, translation cuts the reader off from the oral tradi­
tion that originated with the revelation to Muhammad himself: the
sounds that can move the hardest desertmen to tears of ecstasy.
Rendering the work in another language is a tremendous challenge,
therefore, and the translator himself must first come to a precise
conclusion about the meaning of the Arabic words, which in turn
requires considerable knowledge of the wide dimensions of the lan­
guage. Three translations into English of the 'meaning of the
Qur'in’ from the twentieth century arc widely recognized, and from
each one, verse 22 of Surah 34, Saia (Sheba), is quoted for com­
parison and to demonstrate the difficulties, each is laid out in the
form favoured by the translator.

Muhammad Marmaduke Pickthall (1875—1936) This work is

especially valued by Muslims because Pickthall was a convert to
Islam as well as a Qur’anic expert and a native English speaker. His
volume is subtitled ‘An explanatory translation', and his foreword
warns bluntly that ‘the Qur’an cannot be translated'.

Say, O Muhammad: Call upon those whom ye set up besides

Allah. They possess not an atom’s weight either in the
heavens or on earth, nor have they any share in either, nor
hath He an auxiliary among them.

‘Abdullah Yusuf ‘All (d. 1953) This version by a truly bilingual

Indian scholar and devout Muslim is the translation followed
throughout this book. The revised 'Ali edition comes complete with
6,310 footnotes, the author’s verse commentary, a full index and the
Arabic text laid out alongside the translation. The tone is biblical,
but fluent and convincing.
91 THE FUNOANtNTALS Of FAITH

Say: 'Call upon rhe other gods

Whom ye fancy, besides Allah;
They have no power -
Not the weight of an atom
In the heavens or on the earth;
No sort of share have
They therein, nor is any of them
A helper to Allah.'

Arthur J. Arberry (1905-69) A profound and inspiring teacher at

the universities of London and Cambridge during the first half of
the twentieth century and the author of over sixty works on Persian
and Arabic topics. This version by a non-Muslim is more free-spir­
ited, but more readable.

Say; Call on those you have asserted

apart from God: they possess not so much
as the weight of an ant in the heavens
nor in the earth; they have no partnership
in either of them, nor has He in them
any supporter.

The translation by the well-known Orientalist Richard Bell, how­

ever, is suspect to Muslims. His version alters radically the order of
the surahs and asserts boldly in the commentary that Muhammad,
not God, was the author of the work.

Quran Reciters

An inadequate comparison was made in an earlier chapter between the

language of the Qur'an and that of a hypothetical 'Shakespeare under
divine command’. Thrs goes some way towards desenbing for a non-
ArabK speaker the richness of the text and the aphonsms, allegories and
nddles that are woven .nto the lines. Th<s simile could be taken further,
by companng the cultural positron of the Qur’an in Muslim life to the
combination, for an English speaker, of Shakespeare's King tew, Handel's
Messiah and The Gospel According to St Matthew, all rolled into one. But
 THE fundamentals of faith S3

even shen. the significance of the work would still not have been ade­
quately captured because almost all Muslims know large parts of the
work by heart to a degree that has never been matched for any Western
work in any age. And until recently the study and memorization of
the Qur’an made up a substantial part of the syllabus of a Muslim’s
education.
Only a brave man. therefore, stands up in public to recite.To satisfy
his inevitably knowledgeable listeners fas memory must be perfect down
to the last nuance of the reading that is to be followed, his diction must
be exact and between the lines his rendering must deliver meaning in a
way that meets the highest expectations for the Word of God. The tones
that result from this art wafting plaintively and tunelessly from tape play­
ers in shops and ateliers out mto the street, is one of the defining char­
acteristics of a Muslim city
Here is the living connection back to the Companions and to the
Prophet himself, returned from an all-night vigil in his cave to deliver him­
self of a fresh revelation before those sceptical existentialists in the dusty
streets of Mecca. Here also is where standard Western cynicism about
the way m which the Qur’an was collected after Muhammad’s death
meets the dimension of feith There must have been considerable dis­
crepancies between reciters, the criticism goes, so that the assembled
text must be a form of compromise, rather than accurately capturing the
Prophet’s original words. But even today, almost fourteen centunes later,
if a visitor to the humblest rural mosque were to make a mistake m his
recital, just a single word in a single passage, there would be present four
or five focal amateur reciters, or partial memonzers. able to correct the
error immediately. With such intensity of application and devotion, mis­
takes among the original reciters would have been impossible.
The Qur’an is the six times the length of Henry V. and takes about fifty
hours to deliver, or longer if a slow speed is chosen. The words can be
spoken as Mjwid, or intoned as tfowu,giving a quas>-melodic artistic embe<
lishment to the text Both farms follow strict rules that have been devel­
oped in response to the command of the text itself: And recite the
Qur’an in slow, measured rhythmic tones' (AI-AfozzammU (The Enfolded
One) Surah 73, verse 4). Detailed recital conventions cover the articula­
tion of consonants, the vocalization of syllables and the duration and
emphasis of individual sounds. These may vary from master to master,
linked to long-standing oral traditions reaching far back into Muslim history.
■H THE FUNDAMENTALS CT FAITH

Future reciters start as boys, first mastering the words themselves

Only haff a lifetime later is a reciter able to deliver a distinct and telling
resonance. Recital competitions take place all over the Muslim world and
are especially popular in Malaysia, where a famous contest is held each
Ramadan, The Egyptian government runs an annual competition, funded
by Saudi Arabia, offering substantial pnzes in a poor country.
Stnct rules cover personal readings, and begin with cleanliness’None
shall touch but those who are dean' (Al-Wdqi’ah (The Inevitable) Surah
56, verse 79). Women, for example, are not to handle the book or to
recite duhng menstruation. Next, learning reading and reciting out loud
must be approached with the correct intention: for the sake of Allah's
pleasure only and not for any other reason: free of all other preoccupa­
tions; m humility and respect while sitting on the ground, preferably feeing
Mecca. No believer’s day should pass without some reading, even if only
a few verses
The physical text itself is also to be respected. The Qur’an must
always be stored on a high shelf, never allowed to touch the floor and
nothing must be placed on top of the cover.

II The Hadith and the Sunna of the Prophet

If the Qur’an is the Word of God. then Muhammad was His chosen
instrument for the delivery of His Message, and Muhammad's
divinely appointed status is frequently confirmed in the text.
Muhammad is the ‘Iaimp spreading light', for example, the 'Seal of
the Prophets', and a ‘universal Messenger to men'. Believers are
enjoined by the Qur’an 'to obey Allah and obey the Messenger'.
Muhammad is regarded by Muslims as the "perfect man', so
inevitably the Prophet's life lias become a source of example and
emulation covering all aspects of the believers life, from religious
doctrine to personal politeness and cleanliness, from breaking wind
to yawning:

Abu Sa’id al-Khudri relates tliat the Holy Prophet said:

When one of you yawns he should close his mouth with his
hand, else Shayt'ln would enter.
(Muslim. RiyAdai-SaOhin 141/889)
 THE FUNDAMENTALS OF FAITH 95

The behaviour enjoined on a believer through the Prophets

example is long and detailed, covering amongst many other things,
how to dress, how to eat. preferred crockery to be used, how to pass
water, how to lie in bed, prohibitions against spitting, or wearing
silk, and so on. The list can be made to look petty and invasive, and
more sinisterly, questionable Hadiths can be resurrected from earlier
ages and different circumstances, or even invented, to support all
manner of unreasonable behaviour.
Nevertheless, if the life of Abraham, or the life of Jesus Christ
especially, as die postulated Son of God, had been contemporane­
ously observed in detail and recorded, no doubt traditions based on
those lives would have developed in a similar way. How did a man
in communication with God, or who is considered to be God
Himself in the case of Jesus Christ, deal with the trials of the mun­
dane world? What did such a man eat or wear, what was his attitude
towards women (all prophets and gods being male) or towards his
opponents? And most importantly, what light did die conduct of
the man's life shed on the message itself?
The Qur’an does not stand alone, therefore. The Word of God
may be supreme, but His Message in the Qur’an is generalized.
Form is given to the outlines laid down in the Qur’an by the Sunna
of the Prophet, by which is meant the precepts and examples that
Muhammad set during his lifetime. The traditional examples of the
Sunna explaining the Qur’an are those covering prayer and fasting.
Both are required of a believer by the Qur’an, but no detail is given
in the text itself is to how these devotions are to be accomplished.
Muslims rely on the instructions and actions of the Prophet which
enlarge on the general requirements in order ro create the practical
rules and procedures to be followed.
Sunna literally means ’path’ or 'beaten track’, and the practice of
recording tradition originates with pre-Islamic tribes who sought
to preserve their history and continuity by following the tribal cus­
toms of those who had gone before. The Sunna, therefore, is essen­
tially a conservative institution, favouring established practice over
innovation.
The source of the Sunna is the Haditli, but these words are
almost interchangeable and require careful explanation. The Sunna
refers to the practice of Islam, following the injunctions, actions.
96 IW FUNDAMENTALS OF FAITH

examples and tacit disapproval of certain practices, expressed by the

Prophet during his lifetime. As we have seen, the issues covered
range from the vital specifics of the practice of the Five Pillars, down
to very questionable minutiae of behaviour. The Hadith is the
vehicle that carries the Sunna, and consists of the written records,
from the secure to the dubious, from which the Sunna has been
extracted.
In the first years following the death of Muhammad the record­
ing of his sayings and his practices was considered to be a detraction
from the primacy of the Qur’an. Muhammad himself opposed the
development of any form of divinity based on his person. ‘Take from
me only the Qur’an’, he is supposed to have said, in the famous anti-
Hadith Hadith. But by the third and fourth centuries of the Islamic
era, the collection of reports that make up the Hadith had become a
vast and rising tide.
The task of codifying the Hadith was begun in the eighth cen­
tury CE, two hundred years after the death of Muhammad, princi­
pally by Muhammad ibn Isma'il al-Bukhari (810-70) and Muslim
ibn al-Hajjaj (d. 875). These scholars attempted to categorize the
hundreds of thousands of individual Hadiths in circulation into a
secure few thousand for which the chain of guarantors was dis­
cernible, reaching back to one or more Companions of the Prophet.
The following is an example of a secure Hadith:

Malik informed us that ibn Shihab reported from Abu Bakr,

born 'Ubaydallah, from 'Abdallah, born 'Umar, that the
Apostle of Allah (may the blessings and peace of Allah be
upon him) said: Whenever any of you eats, let him do so
with the right hand, and drink as well with the right hand,
for the devil eats and drinks with his left hand.

As in the example above, a secure Hadith must begin with an

identifiable chain of reputable transmission back to a known
Companion or Companions (here Abu Bakr and ‘Umar, the first
and second caliphs). This is often written in a form of shorthand,
naming only the reporter in cases when he is well known and reli­
able. More examples of secure Hadiths arc given in Appendix 1 to
this chapter.
 ~HE FCMDAMENTALS Of -AITH w

Modern analysts are sceptical of the origin of almost all Hadiths,

but this has done little to alter the practice of Islam. Informal
Hadiths are still a popular repository for every local proverb and
saying across the Muslim world, as well as for heroic anecdotes cred­
ited to Muhammad, in numbers that would has'c required many
lifetimes to fulfil. Here the search for purity struggles against popu­
lar piety and the need to humanize the unfathomable, in a way that
resonates with the ‘personal* Jesus and is thus contrary to pure Islam.
Purity must even struggle against abuse by unscrupulous salesmen,
for example, who will offer ‘lemons like the Prophet liked to cat’.
The highest form of Hadith is Hadith Qudsi, or Holy Hadith, in
which the Prophet relates in his own words what God has said or
done. This is not to be confused with the direct Word of God in the
Qur’in, which remains the ultimate authority. The following is an
example of Hadith Qudsr.

Abu Huraira reported that Allah’s Messenger (may peace be

upon him) said: 'Allah (Might)' and Exalted is He) said: If
my servant likes to meet me, I like to meet him. and if he
dislikes to meet me. I dislike to meet him.'

The Sunna is also the point of schism between ahi al-tunna, the
People of the Sunna, or Sunni Muslims, and the Shi‘a 'All, or Shi'ite
Muslims. Since, in the Shi'a view, as we shall see, the Companions
of the Prophet erred in electing Abu Bakr and his successors to the
caliphate over ‘Ali, the Prophet's cousin and son-in-law, then the
records of the Prophet's saying from those same Companions cannot
be trusted either. The Shi'a hold to their own form of Hadith, there­
fore. derived from ‘Ali and his separate line of successors.
But the importance of the Hadith goes beyond mere written
record. The fabric of both Sunni and Shi'a society, each in their
different way, has been created by the emulation of the reputed way
of life of the Prophet. In this way the Hadith has been more
influential than the Qur’an itself. From prayers to business, from
birth to death, the perceived conduct of the Prophet, his approval
and his disapproval, has been the basis of Muslim tradition for
almost 1,400 years.
98 THE FUNDAMENTAIS OF FAITH

III The Five Pillars of Islam

Islam as a practised faith consists of two fundamentals: iman, the

outward expression of belief and ihsan, doing right. Both are neces­
sary for a Muslim to fulfil the will of God and so to achieve God­
consciousness.
But what is meant by 'doing right' is not set out in any all-
embracing Muslim code, with the result that the moral concepts of
Islam cannot be definitively listed in a way that matches the official
catechisms of Christian churches. There have been attempts by
individual thinkers to encompass the moral basis of Islam, but
there is no Muslim equivalent of the central decision-making
hierarchy that is to be found in most Christian sects, responsible
for the generation of a detailed dogma in written form. Many of
the beliefs of Islam are quoted in this book, taken from the
Qur’an and the Sunna. Obedience, kindness, justice, tolerance,
modesty and consideration for others arc frequently mentioned.
But ultimately, the 'rightly guided’ life is a matter of conscience
between the believer and his God, Who is All-Seeing and All­
Hearing, who is 'doser to man than his jugular vein' (Qaf. Surah
50. verse 16).
Conversely, through the Qur’an and the Sunna, the external acts
required of a Muslim are defined down to the smallest detail. Thus,
based on these authorities, the outward manifestations of the faith
(without which a Muslim ceases to be a member of the 'ummah)
take on a ‘divinely ordered' importance without parallel in other
religions. There arc some general comparisons to be found in
Christianity and Judaism, where certain rituals are regarded as ini­
tiated by God directly. Christian Communion or Mass is an obvi­
ous example, based on the specific precedent set by Christ himself
at the Last Supper, although the import of the words Jesus report­
edly spoke has been a source of conflict since die Reformation and
the form of the ritual has changed dramatically over two millennia.
In Judaism there are the commands of Deuteronomy 5: ‘Now
therefore hearken, O Israel . . .’, the teaching of the young, the
‘binding of the arm' with the words of God 'which shall also
be frontlets between thine eyes', and there are many others. But
generally Christian and Jewish practice consist of intricate rituals
 THE RJNOAMfsrrALS O FAJIH 99

built up by the faithful over the centuries, rather than being based
on a claim that both content and detail follow specific divine com­
mand.
The ceremonial duties of Islam also serve as outward emblems of
personal and communal identity, opening into a form of worldwide
solidarity through universal and uniform practice. These observances
set Muslims visibly apart from other religions, but at the same time
the acts emphasize the equality of all believers before God, regardless
of race, status, birth or wealth. This levelling aspect of Islam is the
faiths dominant external characteristic and possibly one reason why
so many of the worlds poor and disadvantaged are such ardent
adherents-To them will come the ultimate rewards, regardless of the
present unjust ordering of things in this transitory life.
Muhammad said that Islam is ‘constructed on the Five’, which
have since come to be known as the Five Pillars of Islam.

Shahadah: The Open Testimony

The First Pillar is the believer’s confession of faith, reduced to a few
words that every member of the faithful from every continent and
background can understand, from the illiterate nomadic herdsman
in the deserts of northern Kenya to the sophisticated trilingual busi­
nessman of Paris or Riyadh.

<u>l lx»,*4 jl j dll 111 dll V <ji a$-ll

Ashhadu alia ilaha ilLt Llah, wa anna Muhammadan rasul’l-Ldh.

I bear witness that there is no god hut God and that

Muhammad is die messenger of God.

This is the essence of Islam, known as tawhid, the centra) act of

affirming Allah to be the One, absolute, transcendent Creator, laird
and Master of all there is. No words in chc entire world arc more
often uttered than these. These are the words that arc first heard by
a new-born and the last to be spoken by the dying. The saying of
these words from the heart is alone sufficient to make the speaker a
Muslim. The words form part of daily prayers, which means that
100 THE FUNDAMENTALS OF FAITH

the formula is repeated a minimum of twenty times each day by a

devout practitioner. The words arc also at the heart of the call to
prayer of the muezzin, and are the words on the lips of the mujahid,
the fighter in the cause of God. who thus becomes shaheed. or wit­
ness and martyr if subsequently killed in battle.
The specific words of the Shahadah come from the Sunna and
were established by Muhammad in the form that is used today. The
words in various similar forms also appear repeatedly throughout
the Qur’an underlining the essential creed that ‘there is no deity
but He'.
Muhammad used the word rasul in the Sbahadah to describe his
mission, which translates as 'messenger', even though he is com­
monly referred to in European languages as ’Prophet', which is tech­
nically incorrect but widely accepted. Muhammad carried a message
from God to man: his Function was not to prophesy the future,
except in the limited sense of warning of the punishments that await
sinners who ignore the message. The word 'messenger' also encom­
passes the idea of the place Muhammad claimed in the long line of
'messengers’ that had gone before him. from Noah to Jesus Christ.

Salat: Ritual daily prayer

The Second Pillar is the central act of righteousness in Islam, die
very essence of the life of a Muslim. In popular belief, a believer's
record of prayer will be the first question asked of him or her on the
Day of Judgement.
Here a significant difference with Christianity emerges. Many
Christians believe that through prayer they can enter into a 'conver­
sation with God from the heart', or 'come into the presence of God',
concurrent with almost any other daily activity. In contrast, a
Muslim prays only by way of performing certain prescribed physical
acts and spoken words. Observing a ritual serves to concentrate both
body and mind exclusively on God, devoting solely to Him, without
outside distraction, the few minutes required to complete the proce­
dure. For this reason, for therefore, die form of prayer cannot be
random or haphazard, and for a Muslim's prayer to be ‘accepted’ the
believer must accomplish a striedy disciplined routine. Ultimately
only the righteousness of the believer reaches God. but the execution
of the drill is the necessary means to that end.
 IHt IUHOAMFNTALS Of FAITH 01

Prayers are said five times each day. facing the direction of the
Ka bah in Mecca, so bringing the city into the very centre of day-to-
day Muslim life in a geographical as well as a spiritual sense. The
times for prayer '.•ary with the seasons and the progressively earlier
or later appearance of the sun. The specific times arc calculated in
advance and a prayer schedule is displayed in the entry of most
mosques, covering the following month or two, set out like an
almanac or a tide chart. The basis for calculating the due times for
prayers is as follows:

tubh When the sky is light but before sunrise. The test
for subh given in die Sunna is the moment when
disrinction can be made between a white and a
black thread.
zuhr After midday, with the sun at the highest point in
the sky.
'asr Between three and half past three in the
afternoon.
maghrrb In the evening, just after sunset.
'ishd' About one hour after sunset.

Apart from noon prayers on Fridays, the time that a believer

chooses to say his or her prayers is a matter of personal discretion. A
prayer is punctual if said at any time after the appointed time but
before the next prayer is due. Only the subh prayer has to be said
between dawn and sunrise. In practice, however, in large cities and
in many other modern circumstances, especially in the West, Islam
is coming to accept that men and women may be unable to stop for
prayers or to find a suitable place, and that the missing cycles may
then be caught up at home with the 'ft/w’praycrs. But the subh
prayer should still be said separately before the day's activities begin,
and before sunrise.
The prayers of a traditionally devout Muslim start with the
muezzin calling azan, for the faithful to congregate. The call is always
made at the due time, so that all the mosques in one area generally
call azan simultaneously. The muezzin is a volunteer who should be
a God-fearing man educated in Islam, but usually not the imam of
the mosque. He may receive a stipend if his functions prevent him
102 THE FUNDAMENTALS OF FAITH

from obtaining other employment. At the level of popular belief, the

muezzin who calls for God's pleasure only, not tor his own gain, is
declared to be 'free of hell-fire’.
The call of the muezzin from the balcony of the minaret of the
mosque was once a plaintive incantation of great inspiration and
beaut)', but in recent times tradition has been compromised by elec­
tronics. The artistry of the modern caller rarely survives the harsh
distortions, clicks and feedback that inevitably accompany the
amplified variety of the call, made into a microphone from ground
level and broadcast from speakers on the roof of the mosque or hung
on the minaret itself. While amplification may carry further and
thus embrace more of the faithful, once all the mosques in a city use
the same broadcast technique, whatever advantage there may have
been is lost.
Beyond die call to congregation, the azdn has a function similar
to the ringing of church bells in a Christian town to mark the pas­
sage of time (but not to announce a wedding or a funeral). In
Islamic culture, even if the individual listener has no plans to attend,
the voice of the muezzin assures him that he lives in a 'land of God’s
Peace’ from which, through the saying of prayers, 'the Devil is on the
run’. The call is also a reminder of the summons which the listener
will hear on rhe Day of Resurrection.
The dZi/n of the muezzin is only die audible half of a set of invo­
cations and responses that take place between the caller and the
faithful. The words, which must be in Arabic, are as follows:

MUEZZIN Allah" akbar. Alldhu akbar.

God is the Greatest. God is the Greatest.
(This frequendy used formula is known as the
Takbir.}

LISTENER Alldhu Akbar. AUdhu Akbar.

MUEZZIN Ashhadu alia ildha illa’Lldh. aihhadu olid illdh

iUa’Lldh
1 bear witness that there is no god but God, I bear
witness that there is no god but God.

LISTENER Ashhadu olid ildha iUa’Lldh, ashhadu alia illdh

iUa’Lldh.
 THE H.MOAMfNTALS Of FAITH

MUEZZIN Ashhadu anna Muhammadan rasul ‘l-Ldh. ashhadu

anna Muhammadan rasuu ’l-Ldh.
1 bear witness that Muhammad is the messenger of
God, I hear witness that Muhammad is the messen­
ger of God.

LISTENER Ashhadu anna Muhammadan rasul 'l-Ldh, ashhadu

anna. Muhammadan rasulu ‘l-Ldh.

MUEZZIN Hayy 'ala’ssaldh, hayy 'ala'ssaldh.

Come to prayer. Come to prayer.
Hayy 'ala’ ‘l-faldh, hayy 'ala' 'l-faldh.
Come to fulfilment. Come to fulfilment.
(For the suhh prayer, the words. ‘Prayer is better than
sleep’, are added.)
AUdhu Akbar, AUdhu Akbar.

LISTENER AUdhu Akbar. Alldhu Akbar. (Here the call is

acknowledged with the listener's niyyah or intention
to pray.)

MUEZZIN Id ildha ilia' lldh.

There is no god but God.

LISTENER Ld ildha iUa' lldh.

Ablutions, or ritual washing, which can either be performed

before leaving home or at the mosque, arc mandatory preconditions
to an acceptable prayer. The steps of ablution arc accompanied by a
further statement of intention through a similar formula of words.
Washing is a prerequisite to prayer under all circumstances, even in
the desert where clean sand may be substituted if the use of water
would create hardship. There are eight steps to ablution, extending
to the hands, mouth, nose, face, arms, cars and feet, with damp
hands passed over head. Every mosque is equipped with a minimum
of washing facilities, even in the poorest parts of the most decrepit
Muslim cities. After sexual intercourse and after menstruation the
entire body must be washed before prayers can be said. Women
cannot say prayers during menstruation.
Prayer consists of thirteen separate movements, together with the
repetition of the words that accompany each stage. The procedure
was developed by Muhammad during his ministry and he usually
104 THE FUNOAMENTAIS Of FAITH

led the prayers of the faithful in congregation himself. The words are
preferably learned in the Arabic original, but certainly for new con­
verts, the vernacular is acceptable for an initial period of time.
At the core of the prayer sequence is the physical act of islam,
with seven points of the body resting on rhe floor: forehead, palms,
knees and toes. There is no adequate word in English to describe rhe
position, so this observer has taken proiterner from French and
adapted to English to create the word 'prosternate-. This will serve
to remind readers of the intricacies of the act. which differs entirely
from prostration’, the English word usually used, which means
merely to lie flat on the ground.

I. At the start of each rak'a, or

cycle of prayer procedure, the
believer stands with hands lifted
to the height of the face and
says the Takhir.

2. With hands crossed flat

over the abdomen the Fatiha
is recited, followed in some
prayers but not others by other
verses from the Qur'an as may
be appropriate for a personal
circumstance.

3. Step one is then repeated as

a prelude to the inclining of the
body. The Takbir is repeated.

4. In the inclined position, the

following formula is repeated
three times: Subhana rabbidl-
'adhim (Glory and praise be to
the All-Powerful).
 Ttt FUNDAMENTALS Of FAITH

5. In preparation for the pro­

sternation of the entire body,
step one is repeated once again,
accompanied by the following
words: Sami a-l-lahu li man
hamidah (God will listen to
those who praise Him).

6. In the second stage of

preparation for prosternation,
the hands are left free, accom­
panied by the following words:
Rahbana wa laka-l-hamd (All
praise flows to God).

7. The third stage of prepara­

tion for prosternation, and
immediately before kneeling, is
to repeat the Takhir again.

8. Now the believer kneels

then prosternates in islam (sub­
mission) before God. The floor
is usually covered by a carpet
or other material, consistent
with the pre-praycr ablutions.
During prosternation the fol­
lowing words are repeated three
times: Subhana rabbia 'l-a la
(Praise and Glory be to God on
High).

9. Returning to the kneeling

position the believer repeats the
Takhir, followed by Subhana
rabbia ‘I- ‘adhim (I ask for for­
giveness O, God) three times.
106 THE FUNDAMENTALS OF FAITH

10. The prosternadon of step

eight Ls then repeated a further
three times together with the
same words.

11. Returning to the standing

position and the hands once
again level with the face, die
Takbir is repeated once again.
At this point a second rah'a
begins where required and vary­
ing with the prayer to be per­
formed, which consists of the
repetition of steps two to ten.

12. .After the second prosterna­

tion of die last rak'a, instead of
standing, the believer remains
kneeling and re|>eats the words
of the Tashahbud (a prayer for­
mula from the Hadith).

13. The final step of the entire

sequence is to take die sitting
position, turning the head to
the right with the words,
As-uiLimu alnykum wa rab-
matu-l-lah (May the peace and
forgiveness of God be upon
you). Then to the left with the
same invocation.
 THE WNDAMfNTALS Of FATTH 107

The number of rak'al (plural of rak’a) to be performed varies

with the time of day. 1 he words to be repeated are spoken in an
alternating audible and inaudible voice, which also follows a strict
pancm.
At the end of each prayer sequence, the believer who has fol­
lowed all the requirements precisely reaches a blessed moment, a
possibly transformed state and may make dud, or a supplication to
God of a personal nature, accompanied by further prayer formulas.
Traditionally, Muslims believe that God will always answer, so that
whatever may befall the believer thereafter will be better than the
worse fate that awaited had the intercession not been made. And
here again the difference between Islam and Christianity is clear.
Where a Christians prayers are essentially personal from the outset,
the consideration of oneself in Islam can only begin after the out­
ward formula has been followed and an acceptable’ prayer has been
accomplished.
During times of communal calamity, an extra rak’a may be said
in supplication or t/unut. asking for God's mercy, against Hood,
droughts or war, for example. 'May God destroy America', is a pop­
ular request.
The objective of the call of the muezzin is to gather men together
at the mosque to pray together in congregation. Women do not usu­
ally attend the mosque, and prayers are in any event segregated to
avoid distraction. Tradition emphasizes that women should pray at
home, but there is no impediment to praying at the mosque, and
this was rhe practice during the life of the Prophet.
Definite rules apply to the formation of congregations, covering
such questions as who leads, or the length of the wait between the
end of the call of the muezzin and the beginning of the prayers. But
the underlying purpose of the congregation is to reinforce the sense
of the Muslim community of the faithful as a cohesive self-aiding
society.
Congregations are very orderly and the faithful entering the
mosque in response to the azan quickly remove their shoes and
arrange themselves into neat straight rows facing the qibla, or prayer
niche, in the direction of Mecca. Men join shoulder to shoulder and
foot to foot, hands arc held to the side and eyes fixed on the place
on the floor that the forehead will touch. According to a Hadith
ioe tHf RJNDAMfNTALS OF FAITH

there are extra benefits to be gained from standing in the front row,
to which Allah and his angels send down blessings'.
The atmosphere in a mosque during prayer is calm and pious
and a conscious effort is made before the start to dear the mind of
all thoughts other than the love of God. leader is always chosen
for prayers, a man of strong character and respected religious know­
ledge, usually but not necessarily the imam of the mosque. He
stands at the front, his back to die ranks and his timing of the move­
ments is to be followed precisely. If any member of the congregation
makes a mistake in his prayers or is unsure, more experienced mem­
bers have a duty to correct or instruct.
Salat expresses some of the most important elements of the faith.
Discipline imposed from the outside was entirely alien to the desert­
man and his pride in his independence was a vital pan of his char­
acter. The straight rows of prayer and the act of islam. the most
abject position of submission imaginable, arc a powerful demon­
stration, therefore, of his obedience to the will of God. Similarly the
brotherhood of Muslims as equals, no longer divided by tribe or
race, is expressed in the solidity of the ranks and the unison per­
formance.
This communal dimension to the efficacy of prayer in Islam Ls
another deep distinction from Christianity, where the effort of the
individual is of primary importance. Muslims are obligated to attend
the mosque at least once a week and other prayers may be said alone,
but all prayer is always more acceptable to God in community.
I’he zuhr prayers on Fridays ar noon carry a particular import­
ance, and in practice a Muslim who may miss congregation on other
days will make a special effort to attend on Friday. This is the only
prayer of the week that strictly speaking is required to be in commu­
nity: a minimum number is needed to meet the definition of a
congregation, the figure varying from five to forty depending on
the interpretation followed. The Qur’an established Friday as the
Muslim holy day, which distinguishes Islam from Judaism (Saturday)
and Christianity (Sunday). But the day is not exactly comparable
with the biblical 'day of rest', since the faithful are enjoined by the
Qur’an when prayers arc over to 'disperse through the land and seek
the Bounty of Allah' (Al-Jumu ah (Friday) Surah 62 verse 10), in
effect, to return to business.
 THt HJNDAMfNTAI S CT FAHH 109

Prayers on Fridays arc heavily attended and on this occasion the

rak’at are preceded by a sermon or khutba lasting for about thirty
minutes. This is a stem, almost liturgical address by the imam of the
mosque, usually based on a verse of the Qur’an, but which may
extend to issues of concern to the particular congregation. In the
Friday khutba, religion and politics often mix or conflict, for exam­
ple when an imam instructs the faithful how to vote, or gives an
opinion on whether to accept or reject the current temporal power.
Frequently, one mosque will promote a more political agenda than
the majority, leading to political activism based on that institution
fuelled by radical religious interpretation. In many Muslim coun­
tries, however, the difficult border between religion and politics is
carefully controlled by the government.
With the Friday khutba, the distortions of the daily amplified
azdn are brought to an apocalypse as each imam bellows his sermon
through the amplification system used for the call to prayer, trying to
have his voice heard over the exhortations of the next mosque which
may be less than a hundred metres away. In Islamic Cairo, for exam­
ple, between noon and half past the hour on a Friday, the city almost
comes to a complete halt while hundreds of mosques overflow with
rows of the faithful out into the street. The air becomes one rever­
berating shimmer of competing declamations as over 400 mosques
launch into their khutbas simultaneously.
Apart from the personal spiritual experience, the defining charac­
teristic of prayer in congregation is equality: from the prosternation
of rich and poor side by side, right down to the last words. 'May the
peace and forgiveness of God be upon you, a greeting that recognizes
no rank and no hierarchy. Muslim prayers are a levelling experience,
shoulder to shoulder without class or category. With die personal lib­
erty and dignity of the desertman as the sociological bedrock of his
belief, each Muslim confronts his God, not through another divinity,
not through any priest or magisterium, but in a direct and individ­
ual way that goes beyond even the purity of Calvinism.
Since man cannot act other than through God's will, the name of
God is often on a Muslim's lips as a form of continuing prayer. Some
of the more common Arabic expressions giving effect to this all-per­
vading belief are given as Appendix 3 to this chapter. Another form
of frequent prayer outside the set procedure of the is the saying
 THE FUNDAMENTALS OF FAITH

of the tasbih, or Muslim rosary, that will often be seen in a Muslim's

hands. The chaplet usually consists of thirty-three beads, which are
passed around through die fingers three times in succession during
mediation. The longer version of the chaplet consisting of ninety-
nine beads is less common. Simultaneously with the fingering of the
beads, one of two prayer formulas is repeated. Either the Ninety-
Nine Beautiful Names of God can be said (given in full at the end of
this chapter as Appendix 4), or the following formulas thirty-three
times each:

Subbin'allah. (Glory be to God.)

Al-Hamdu lillih. (Praise be to God.)
AUahu akbar. (God is the Greatest.)

The three joints of the fingers of one hand, counted by the

thumb, are often used in place of a chaplet where the tasbih is said
after formal prayers.

Zakat: Poor-tax
The Third Pillar is prescribed alms or a poor-tax. by which the
believer gives back to Allah a portion of the bounty He has conferred.
The practice started during Muhammad's Meccan period as volun­
tary charity, but after the hijrah the position of the Emigrants in
Medinan society was so precarious that what was previously an act of
piety became a form of tithe. Then, as other tribes joined the faith.
zakat was expected as a fundamental obligation. Once Islam moved
towaid codified rules and the giving of alms was recognized as one of
the Five Pillars, the payment of the poor-tax became a stepping-stone
to righteousness and the character of the act changed.
Zakat is primarily an act of purification through the self­
mortification of parting with something that the believer wishes to
keep for himself. But in a wider sense the act also purifies the remain­
ing wealth of the donor, while at the same time the guilt associated
with possessions in societies of great diversity of circumstances is
relieved. Behind that again lies the concept that zakat makes the poor
less envious of the rich, for the richer the rich become, the greater the
alms that are due. The poor are also relieved of the humiliation of
taking charity by the belief that the rich in fact give to Allah Himself.
 THE EUNDAMENTA1S Of fAITH III

who then hands over die donation to the poor. To give is better than
to receive, therefore, the upper hand is better than the lower, and in
this way the receiver performs a valuable service to the giver. Then
again, what is poverty? Merely the absence of wealth, which can be
made up by righteousness in the present, and for which the believer
will be rewarded in die next eternal world.
The rules for who can receive zakat and the amount of die levy
were developed while Islam was still a desert religion. Although the
needy were always the principal beneficiaries, zakat was also used to
benefit slaves attempting to purchase their freedom, or to provide a
fund for hostile tribes that needed to be bought off. The tithe was
based on agrarian and nomadic revenues and was usually paid in
kind. Today zakat is often collected through the mosque for com­
munity work if not donated privately and amounts to approximately
2.5 per cent, and up to 10 per cent, of die donors after-tax income,
depending on the type of donation. Close friends or acquaintances
in difficulty are eligible as are many formal Islamic charities. Some
members of the donor's family are also eligible (uncles, aunts,
cousins and nephews) but others are not (fathers, mothers, children
and grandfathers).
Zakat can be criticized in modern terms as regressive, since an
equal percentage applies to the rich and the less rich alike. Or the
levy can be seen as the means by which the rich can purchase laisser-
jitire at the expense of the rest of society. But zakat has always been
payable in addition to all other state taxes, which arc usually pro­
gressive, and the obligation is spiritual, not fiscal. In some Muslim
countries such as Saudi Arabia and Malaysia, zakdtis now adminis­
tered by the government.
Zakat also collides with the modern Western world in the
attempts by the United States and allied governments to close down
the funding of Islamist organizations potentially involved in hostil­
ities against Israel or the West. Many organizations such as the
Palestinian Hamas and Lebanese Hizbullah, as well as engaging in
armed resistance, operate substantial social projects, among the
poor of Gaza and Beirut, and raise significant sums for these pur­
poses through zakat donations. Attempts at regulation of the
'divinely ordained' obligation of one of the Five Pillars, or the freez­
ing of assets derived from zakat, by or on behalf of a non-Muslim
112 THE RjNDAMgNTAlS Of FAfTH

power, will require care in order to avoid creating a great deal of

resentment with little achieved.

Sowm: The Fast

The annual fast takes place during the lunar month of Ramadan, the
holiest month in the Islamic calendar. During Ramadan. Muslims
say. the gates of hell are dosed and the gates of heaven are open. This
is the month during which Muhammad received his first revelation
and the occasion is celebrated during the fast as Lailat al-Qadr. or
the Night of Power, on the twenty-sixth of the month, the most
solemn festival of Islam.
The objective of the fast is to diminish the believers love for
the world and reduce his or her dependence on material things. This
underlying message of withdrawal from the world of the flesh in
preparation for death is also echoed in various stages of the
Pilgrimage. In fact, Ramadan is a favourite time of year for most
Muslims when the twenty-nine days of the month become a nightly
round of celebrations and family visits, starting with iftar. the trad­
itional evening meal that breaks the fast, followed before dawn with
sohour. the meal that precedes the resumption of the fast at day­
break. In modern Muslim cities the hours of effective work decrease
during the month as many people are up for most of the night,
and the consumption of groceries and restaurant meals actually
increases. And. just like the annual protests against the seculariza­
tion of Christ’s birthday, Muslim clerics can be heard railing in the
background during Ramadan against the commercialization of
self-denial.
Charitable donations arc also given at the end of Ramadan, in
addition to the obligation of zakat, when every Muslim who can has
a duty to help the poor. Many wealthy individuals set up dining
tables in the street every night of the month, to feed those with no
other means. Fasting further serves to remind the well-fed of the
suffering of the needy, and to create a place for them in more
affluent hearts.
The rules of the fast arc simple. The duration is from dawn to
dusk, which is from after the subh prayer to the moment the
muezzin calls the maghreb prayer. In some larger Muslim communi­
ties other means are used to signal the start and end of the fast, the
 THE FUNOAMENTALS OF FAITH 113

Ramadan Cannon in Cairo, for example, or street criers. During the

prescribed period of daylight, nothing may pass the lips: no food, no
water, no cigarette smoke, nothing whatsoever. Sexual intercourse is
also prohibited during daylight hours, but a married couple holding
hands is acceptable in most Muslim societies, even in public. There
are exemptions from fasting during sickness or pregnancy and
women do not fast during menstruation, although the missed days
must be made up before the following Ramadan.
But beyond the physical deprivation, the emphasis is on spiritual
enrichment. A devout Muslim will say that he or she fasts ‘not with
the stomach, but with the heart'.
Fasting in Islam began in 2 AH, then developed further with the
adoption by Muhammad of the Jewish fast of ‘Ashura or Day of
Atonement. Then, after the break with Judaism, when Muhammad
failed to win recognition as a universal prophet, the month of
Ramadan was substituted:

O ye who believe,
Fasting is prescribed for you
As it was prescribed
To those before you
That ye may learn
Self-restraint.
Al-Baqanih (The Heifer) Surah 2. verse 183

The words. ‘To those before you’, probably refer to the Eastern
Christians who fasted for thirty-six days each year during Lent.
There was no tradition of fasting in the Arab Jdhiliyyah.
Ramadan starts with the new moon at the end of the previous
calendar month of Sha'ban. Although modern techniques could be
used to predict the precise time for the start of the month, the tra­
ditional method is preferred: if the new moon is seen on the 29th
day of Sha'ban, then Ramadan starts the next day, if not, then
Sha'ban will last thirty days and Ramadan will start the day after.
This can lead to different readings in different countries, resulting in
Ramadan starting and ending a day earlier in cloudless Saudi Arabia,
for example, than in soggy Britain.
IM TK FUNDAMENTALS OF FAITH

Haj: The Pilgrimage

The pilgrimage to Mecca is the Fifth Pillar, a once-in-a-lifctimc obli­
gation for every able-bodied Muslim, both men and women, with
the means to make the journey. In the haj, all the elements of Islam
come together during eight days or longer of intense observance and
prayer.
To summarize the importance of Mecca, the city is taken by
some Muslims to be the mythical site where Adam and Eve found
each other after their expulsion from the Garden of Eden. According
to this legend, Adam built the first Ka’bah in the barren hills of
the Hijaz on the instructions of God, as a house of worship and
rest after a century of redemptive labour for his sin of pride. The
structure was later swept away in the Flood. More importantly,
Mecca is where Abraham offered his son as sacrifice following Gods
instructions. To thank God for His mercy after the angel Gabriel’s
intervention with the ram. Abraham built, or rebuilt, the Ka’bah,
inserting a meteorite into the north-west corner of the building
which is now venerated as the Black Stone. /Ml the elements of the
present-day ritual were determined by Abraham during that first pil­
grimage and were performed in the presence of Gabriel. And here
the legend of Abraham gives way to the words of the Qur’an, which
for a Muslim is fact:

And remember Abraham

And 'IsmJ'il raised
The foundations of the House
With this prayer: 'O Lord!
Accept this service from us:
For Thou an the All-Hearing.
The All Knowing.
O Lord! Make of us
Muslims, bowing to Thy Will.
And of our progeny a people
Muslim, bowing to Thy will:
And show us our places of due rites
And turn unto us in Mercy
For Thou are rhe Oft-Returning.
Most Merciful.'
Al-Haqarjh (The Heifer) Surah 2. verses 127-K
 THE RJN&AMENTAUS OF FAITH
12
I hen two or three thousand legendary years later Mecca was the
birthplace of the Prophet who cleansed the Ka’bah of idolatry upon
the opening of the city when the monotheism of Abraham was rein­
stated. The pilgrimage represents not only a return to man's physical
and religious origins, therefore, but also a recapitulation of the spiritual
journey of man on earth. Just as the holy journey of the pilgrim on the
haj leads to the presence of the Sacred, facing the Ka’bah, so man’s life
leads to death and to a corresponding encounter with chc Divine. Thus
for Muslims, the simple oblong stone structure, hung with a black silk
covering, embroidered with verses from the Qur'an and changed annu­
ally. has become the primordial Temple, the House of God.
In Mecca and then Medina the religion of the One was perfected
by the revelation of the Qur’an. The two cities are therefore the
symbol of the entire prophetic cycle from Adam to Abraham to
Muhammad.
While making their pilgrimage to Mecca, Muslims also visit the
sacred places of Islam, first and foremost the Ka’bah itself, the spirit­
ual centre to which they have turned in prayer every day of their
lives. Then the cave of Hira, outside Mecca, where Muhammad
first received his Message, the battle sites of Badr and Uhud
where Muhammad defended his faithful from their enemies, his
place of birth, also in Mecca, and in Medina the first mosque, built
with the Prophets own hands (still standing but vastly overlaid and
increased in size over the centuries) and containing the Prophets
tomb. Muslims report that the two cities are permeated with a
mystic baraka, an atmosphere of grace, similar to the feelings of a
Christian visiting Assisi or Lourdes for example, or the Western Wall
of the Temple for a Jew. For this reason the cities are known as
Mecca the Most Honoured and Medina the Radiant.
Just as prayer is the outward manifestation of the believer's faith,
so the pilgrimage to the centre and origin is an outward exertion in
the path of God, or jihad, a concept that will be considered in a sub­
sequent chapter. The haj renders physical and visible the invisible
line that joins every corner of the world to the Ka’bah, which in
another popular legend lies directly on the vertical axis under the
Throne of God.
In addition to recapitulating both the spiritual life of man as a
whole and of the believer in particular, the pilgrimage also improves
 16 THS FlAIDAMENTALS OF FAITH

the believer's life by preparing him or her for death, He or she stands
before the Creator metaphorically naked in simple garments and
accepts his or her mortal condition. For this reason the simple
clothes worn during the haj are often washed in water from the holy
well of Zamzam and retained for use as a burial shroud.
Each year almost two million Muslims make the pilgrimage,
from every corner, race, culture and language of the world, from the
mountains of Java to the deserts of Mauritania. And here the simple
pilgrimage vestments and the dense throng of bodies serve to erad­
icate differences between the faithful, emphasizing brotherhood and
sisterhood in Islam across all boundaries. In the pilgrim camps ideas
and experiences from around the world arc shared.
By the taivaf, the circumambulation of the Ka'bah, man fol­
lows the direct orders of God and his Prophets, Abraham and
Muhammad, physically expressing submission to His will. The heart
is emptied of evil, just as the Prophet emptied the Ka’bah of idols
and the believer attempts to be sufficiently worthy to receive the
Divine Presence.

Such is the Pilgrimage:

Whoever honours the sacred
Rites of Allah, for him
It is good in the sight
Of the Lord.
Al’Hajj (The Pilgrimage) Surah 22, verse 30

The pilgrimage is also an organizational task of immense pro­

portions, starting at Jiddah airport, which welcomes over a million
pilgrims in a matter of days as the rituals begin, while a further
million or more arrive overland or by sea. In addition to immigra­
tion formalities, die organizers provide the pilgrims with ablutions,
clothes and food. Then, for the next eight days, the organizers
supply camps, transport, toilets, security, medical facilities, water,
cooling, shade and communications. The haj takes place during the
lunar month of Dhu’l-Hajja, which rotates with the Muslim calen­
dar. When the pilgrimage falls during August, the organizers take on
responsibility for the very survival of weaker pilgrims.
 THE FLNDAMtNTAl S Of FAITH 117

Since the discovery of oil in Saudi Arabia, billions have been

spent on both pilgrimage facilities and on the massive rebuilding
and extension of the mosques of Mecca and Medina (for which the
principal contractor was the Binladen Group), using the very best
materials from around the world. Unfortunately this same affluence
has led to the vulgar commercialization of the two cities, with high-
rises, shopping centres and neon signs crowding against the holy
sites, and land values well in excess of London or New York.
The holy cities arc never without pilgrims. The lesser pilgrimage
of al-umrah is performed year round, ensuring, as the Prophet
ordered, that the Great Mosque at Mecca is never empty. In modern
times, with die tremendous growth of Islam, there is a constant
throng around the Ka’bah day and night, without interruption.

The haj consists of six stages:

1. Before his or her arrival at the boundaries of al-haram, the holy

precinct of Mecca, the pilgrim performs a complete ritual ablution
to wash away the impurities of the world. Then worldly clothes and
jewellery are removed, replaced by two pieces of seamless white cloth
worn around the waist and over the shoulders, with plain leather
sandals. Women keep their own clothes provided they are simple
and cover the body except for hands and face. From now on die pil­
grim is in a consecrated state known as ihrdm and must put away all
evil thoughts, free from the cares of the world and from sexual pas­
sion. The simplicity and colour of the garments signify a death to
the outside world and nakedness before God.

2. Upon entering Mecca the pilgrim makes tawdfot seven circum-

ambulations of the Ka’bah and attempts to kiss the Black Stone,
from which he or she may be separated by a dense fast-moving
crowd. The circulation is counter-clockwise to symbolize the
unwinding of the fall of man as well as the accumulated sins of the
individual. The pilgrim may pray during the walk, or cry out, lab-
bayka alldhumma labbayk. 'at Thy service, O Lord, at Thy service'.

3. The la'y is the rapid walk following a set route (now within the
Great Mosque itself and air-conditioned) to celebrate the desperate
search by Hajar (Abrahams Canaanite wife, abandoned on the
orders of Allah) for water for her son Ishmael up and down the bare
I IB THE FUNDAMENTALS OF FAETH

mountains of the Hijaz. The spring of Zamzam, which traditionally

sprang from under the boy’s heels as he beat the ground in frustra­
tion, lies beneath the mosque and water from the source is often
taken home by pilgrims as a blessing for their families.

4. On the ninth day of the month, the pilgrims assemble together

for the Standing, in a vast congregation on the plain of Arafat where
the deepest prayers of the pilgrimage are said and the climax of the
ritual is reached. This event, lasting from noon until dusk, takes
place on the ground where, in popular myth, all mankind will stand
before God on the Day ofJudgement or Mahshar. On this Last Day,
the believer will face God's judgement without worldly rank or
belongings, his or her only possession being the record of his or her
actions as a mortal. The experience of the Standing is the believers
preparation for the day when he or she will meet the Creator in a
physical sense. The site of the Standing is also important as the place
where the Prophet's farewell sermon was delivered, inviting all men
to peace and brotherhood. An account of Muhammad’s last address
is to be found as Appendix 5 to this chapter.

5. At Mina, where the Prophet uttered his last words in public

during his final pilgrimage, the pilgrim throws pebbles against stone
pillars representing Shaytan. This is an external remembrance of
Abraham’s escape from the devil and a representation of the believers
lifelong inner battle against sin, an unforgettable experience for a
believer and a powerful weapon in the future trials of life.

6. Finally, there is the sacrifice of an animal, repeating the sacrifice

of the ram by Abraham - but this is now satisfied by a donation for
food for the poor. This rite coincides with Eid al-Adha throughout
the Islamic world, the Feast of the Sacrifice, associated through the
haj with the Day of Resurrection and with the incarnate state of the
pilgrim at the end of his or her observances, as the purified servant
of God.

Muslims draw great strength from the pilgrimage. Setting eyes

on the Ka’bah is next only to facing God Himself, while leaving for
Mecca and saying goodbye to friends and family is a foretaste of
death. Standing on the plain of Arafat is a physical reminder of the
 THE FUNDAMENTALS OF FAITH II?

o
Relief plan of the Ho; route

- N
120 TK FUNDAMENTALS OF FAITH

Last Day, and is the physical form of the moral force of Islam for
good in the world.
The haj ends with a farewell visit to the Ka’bah to seal the
remembrance of the Centre, preceded by the ceremonial shaving of
heads and paring of nails, with the proceeds buried at Mina. The pil­
grim should now be addressed as haj, or hajah for women, and if the
haj has been performed solely to please God rather than for personal
vanity, his or her sins have been forgiven. On returning home the
pilgrim is visited by friends and relations anxious to experience even
indirectly, something of the baraka (or special atmosphere) of the
holy cities.

The Perils of the Pilgrimage

The Al-Saud family, rulers of Saudi Arabia, founded their kingdom on

assassination and bloody desert conquest all in the name of God. But
today Saudi Arabia is super-affluent and superficially peaceful, although in
the awkward position of being both a vital ally of the United States as
well as the leading influence in the Muslim world.The Saudi kings are the
Guardians of the Two Holy Shrines as well as major patrons of many
Islamic causes worldwide For this reason the Saudis come under con­
stant attack from elements withm Islam, especiaMy from Shi'a, who
famously combine religious fervour with political action, and the haj is
where the mixture becomes combustible. Revive the great divine politi­
cal tradition of haj: the Ayatollah Khomeini declared. Inform the pdgnms
of their great duties to confront the aggressors and international plun­
derers,' refemng to the United States and to Saudi Arabia as the
American client state.
Demonstrations dunng the haj m recent years have frequently
turned violent Control of the holy city of Mecca by the al-Saud family
was first challenged in 1979 by a group of radical Saudis from the clan­
destine religious-political opposition, one of whom claimed to be the
Mahdi or'Expected One".The group of neo-lkhwan, or'brothers', took
possession of the Grand Mosque and denounced ai-Saud rule through
the speakers on the minarets of the mosque, ironically echoing the
politico-religious zeal on which al-Saud rule had been founded. After
 THE FUNDAMENTALS OF FAITH 21

two weeks of fitting, with a substantial number of Saudi serwcemen

killed or wounded, the attackers were contained in the cellars of the
mosque and the demonstration was finally subdued. Of those captured,
sixty-three were publicly beheaded, some in each of the principal cities
of the kingdom. Reputedly the (non-Muslim) French CRS police force
was called tn when Saudt forces were unable to capture the last of the
militants. The lower levels of the mosque where the they were hiding
were flooded and the water was then electrified. They floated out like
kippers,' a witness reported.
In 1981 and 1982 prtgnms again disturbed the haj, beginning with the
unfurling of banners from the walls of the mosque reading 'DEATH TO
THE USA' and 'DEATH TO ISRAEL', In 1987 and 1988 over 400 pilgnms
were killed during Saudi suppression of demonstrations and 16 of the
leaders, mostly Iranian, were also publicly beheaded
Accidents also claim lives during the pilgnmage, In 1990 more than
1,400 were crushed to death by the collapse of a bodge and 270 were
killed by a falling overhead walkway in 1994. In 1997, 300 pilgrims weie
killed and 1.500 injured when fire swept through the tent cities at Mma.
Outrage followed the Saudi attempt to explain these events as 'God's
unavoidable will'. The double-decked structure where the stoning of
Shoytdi takes place is especially dangerous, with the huge crowd often in
a perturbed state after the emotional hours of the Standing In 200I, for
example, 35 pilgnms were crushed to death m a stampede before con­
trol could be re-established.

IV The Commandments of Islam

The Commandments in the Qur’an are not clearly numbered or as

famously emphasiz.ed as the Ten Commandments in the Torah, and
subsequently in Christianity. Twelve commandments do appear,
however, in Surah 17 Al-fart (The Night Journey) at verses 22-38.
quoted or excerpted below on the left, and make an interesting com­
parison with the well-known ten of Judaism, given on the right.
A further list of commandments appears in Surah 6. Al-Anam
(The Cattle) starting at verse 151. Here ten only are given, with 3.
4, 6, 9, 11 and 12 missing from the commandments of Surah 17.
and four substituted: to observe justice, to fulfil the Covenant of
122 THE FUNDAMENTALS OF FAITH

God, to follow no other paths, and to come not near to pollutions,

outward or inward. In practice, however, the two lists overlap and
the longer is the more specific and interesting, although the com­
mandment to avoid pollutions in Surah 6 at verse 151 has been
interpreted to give the Qur’an modern relevance.

The Qur an The Torah

1. Thy I.ord hath decreed that ye 1. Thou shall have no other gods
worship none but him. before me.

2. Thou shall not make unto thee

any graven images or any likeness
of anything that is in heaven
above or that is in the earth
beneath.

2. Be kind to parents. If one or 5. Honour thy father and thy

both attain old age in your mother, that thy days may be long
dwelling, show them no sign of upon the land which the Lord thy
impatience, nor rebuke them, bur God giveth thee.
speak to them kind words. Treat
them with humility and
tenderness and say: 'Lord be
merciful to them. They nursed me
when I was an infant'.

3. Render to the kindred No equivalent.

their due rights, as also to
those in want, and to the wayfarer.

4. Make not thy hand tied No equivalent.

like a niggards to thy neck,
but squander not your
wealth in the manner of the
spenddtrift,

5. Kill not your children for fear No equivalent.

of want.
 THE FUNDAMENTALS Of FAITH 123

The Qur'an contd. The Torah contd.

6. Nor come nigh to unlawful 7. Thou shall not commit
sex, for it is a shameful deed, and adultery.
an evil opening of the road.

7. Nor take life, which Allah had 6. Thou shall not kill.
made sacred — except for just cause.

8. Do not interfere with the

property of orphans, except with
the best of motives, until they
reach maturity.

9. Fulfil every engagement, for ■> 8. Thou shall not steal.

every engagement will be enquired
into on the Day of Reckoning.

10. Give full measure when ye

measure, and weigh with even
scales. J

11. Pursue not that of which thou No equivalent.

hast no knowledge.

12. Nor walk the earth with No equivalent.

insolence, for thou canst not
cleave the earth, nor reach the
mountains in height.

No equivalent. 3. Thou shall not take the name

of the Lord thy God in vain.

Equivalent Day of Assembly on 4. Remember the Sabbath to keep

Friday prescribed in Surah 62, the day holy.
Al-Jumu'ah (Friday) at verse 9.

Covered generally by 8. Thou shall not steal.

commandments 8. 9 and 10.

No equivalent. 9. Thou shall not bear false

witness against your neighbour.

No equivalent. 10. Thou shall not covet thy

neighbour's house.
124 THf FIJNDAMEN1ALS OF FAITH

T)ie first and most obvious conclusion to be drawn from the

comparison is that where an equivalent injunction is missing from
either the Judeo-Christian list or the Muslim list, this does not mean
that Islam permits the bearing of false witness, for example, or that
Judaism and Christianity condone pride, or the killing of children.
These matters arc dealt with elsewhere in general form in the scrip­
tures and traditions of the respective faiths. There are, for example,
several verses in the Qur’an condemning false witness, and theft is
subject to the well-known fixed punishment of amputation.
Less self-evident is what lies behind both the differences and the
similarities.
The first Qur’inic commandment confirms Islam's place as the
third of the worlds three monotheistic religions, claiming heritage,
as we have seen, from Abraham. Moses and Adam, although in
the Muslim view Islam finalizes and perfects what went before. The
self-helping nature of Muslim society is confirmed by die second
commandment, and this is then extended by the third command­
ment to the 1 ummah of all Muslims, and. ideally, to all of mankind
beyond. Commandment four refers to the frequent Arab practice
of families mining themselves to provide sumptuous weddings or
funerals regardless of the financial consequences in the future.
Commandment five ends the Jahiliyyah practice of female infanti­
cide, a daughter being of no value in a society that was perpetually
at war. The extremely conservative sexual code in Muslim society
begins with commandment six. with no distinction made between
fornication and adultery. Commandment seven, not to take life
without just cause is the practical version of the Judeo-Christian
sixth commandment, not to kill, whose absolute nature is, of course,
constantly breached by so-called Christian societies that go to war or
inflict capital punishment. In commandments eight, nine and ten
can clearly be seen Muhammad's origins as an orphan and a trader.
Commandments eleven and twelve combine a warning against
pride, mans original sin, and an injunction against futility, the waste
of the believer's God-given talents.
 TK fl^gJAMENTAlS Of WTH QJ

At the Heart ofFaith

In 2001 Pope John Paul II set foot in a mosque, the Umayyad Great
Mosque in Damascus, where St John the Baptist is buried (his head, his
body, or both, depending on which legend is followed). This was the first
such event m the history of Christianity and could be interpreted as con­
ferring 'holy' status on the building, since according to the Vatican, the
Pope only visits 'sacred places'. But will the chasm of dogma ever close
between a devout monotheistic Christian and a devout monotheistic
Muslim? What are the specific beliefs that separate the two?

• The first difficulty must be the central Muslim belief that the
Qur’an is the Word of God. The work may be accepted as 'true' in
a historical sense, or'inspired', or studying the Qur’an may open
the Western reader to a greater understanding of Muslims. But
embracing the belief that God actively intervened in the life of
mankind through the agency of Gabriel to reveal the specific text
of the Qur'an to Muhammad, in the Hi)az, m Arabic, probably rep­
resents a high barrier.

• Many Chnstans believe in saints on a sentimental level, but would

have difficulty in accepting the Muslim dogma of angels and |>nns as
God-created creatures with parallel but unseen physical lives, based
on the frequent references to this other world m the Qur'an.
Similarly with belief m a living Shoytdn. or a three-dimensional
Heaven, a perpetually burning Hell, or a crowded last Day. The
Judeo-Chnsban equivalents have become widely accepted as
metaphors for those questions which humans cannot answer, and
the texts are no longer taken to be the literal truth.

• The Will of Allah may be the most difficult of all.The Qur'an says in
Surah 81. AJ-Tofcwir (The Folding Up) at verse 29:6 "but ye shall not
will except as Allah wills - the Cherisher of the Worlds', and in
Surah 87 ALA'Ia (The Most High) at verse 2:6 'God hath created
and balanced all things, and hath fixed their destinies and guided
them'. The Sunna goes so far as to say that certain people were
created 'for Hell' and others 'for Paradise'. Belief in a specific formula
lit ME FUNDAMENTALS Of FAIM

for predestination is not. however. a core requirement for faith

since Islam has no satisfactory answer to the contradiction
between an omnipotent God who controls all destiny, and man's
responsibility for h<s own actions. Both pomts of view are postu­
lated together in the text without resolution. But can any of the
monotheistic religions provide an answer? This impasse has con­
tributed to the decline of Christianity in the West and to the nse of
economics, materialism and humamtananism in place of faith as the
potential (but as yet unrealized) remedies for the problems of the
world. Muslims take the opposite view, saying that they rely on
Allah. Most Gracious. Most Merciful, not on the uncertain works of
mere men. and that God is not subject to human logic. However,
the Hadith,'first tie up your camel, then trust in God', seems to
show that the Prophet himself was perplexed by the problem of
predestination.

• The image of a new-bom baby already stained by sin <s a harsh

Chnstian doctnne. But without onginal sin the concept of man's
redemption by the death of Christ would not have been necessary,
and the meaning of the Christian narrative would disappear The
Muslim, with the authonty of the Qur’an ringing m his ears,
prostemates himself before the unknowable Ultimate Truth, relying
on the lofty concept of God's justice for his forgiveness and salva­
tion. The Christian confides in a personal Redeemer with a human
face, who knows and loves him or her as an individual, but yet as a
sinner.Thus both Muslim and Christian are offered access to salva­
tion. only the routes differ , the Muslim through a holy book alleged
to be the Word of God. the Chnstian through a legend of
Crucifixion and Resurrection.

• Creationism is still part of Muslim belief, although not in the sense

of an obligatory dogma. But according to the polls the same afflic­
tion also applies to a majority of Americans. In Europe, however
evolution is generally accepted as a scientific feet, similar to the
earth's orbit around the sun. or the existence of the force of grav­
ity. even though few individuals possess the knowledge to prove
these postulations for themselves. Nor do these scientific facts
 TUF R>N0AM6NrAlS Of FAITH 127

necessarily preclude belief m God. What happened 'before the

beginning' is equally as unanswerable today as at any time m history.
Darwin himself, at the end of his life, hovered between agnosticism
and atheism, considering the existence of God to be beyond
anyone's understanding. Islam may even go so far as to accept that
nature has evolved from a primordial slime on a cooling planet to
produce the present environment but in the words of the Qur’an.
God created Adam ’from sounding day. from mud moulded into
shape' (Al Hijr (The Rock) Surah 15, verse 33). Man, therefore, is
different from all other living things, and man's creation was ijdz, by
a process 'Known only to God’. The scientific information available
about the ongins of Homo sapiens is considered by Muslims to be
too slight (despite the recent completion of the human genome
sequence, clearly Imtang man to the animal world) to reduce the
words of the Qur’an to metaphor. On in agreement with Cardinal
Schonborn of the Vatican Congregation for Catholic Education (and
a close adviser to Pope Benedict XVI). Muslims argue that evolu­
tion is too blind an instrument to have forged by way of an entirely
random natural selection process such a complexity as human con­
sciousness. Higher forces, or an 'Intelligent Designer', must be at
work beyond what can be demonstrated by bare science (even
though many American states are under pressure to teach ID as an
'alternate science-). Possibly this doubt about evolution may
decrease among Muslims with time and with the acceptance of sci­
entific fact The basis certainly exists in the Qur’an for such an
advance.

Do not the Unbelievers see

That the heavens and the earth
Were |oined together as one
Unit of Creation, before
We clove them asunder?
We made from water
Every living thing Will they
Not then believe?
AJ-Anbiyd (The Prophets) Surah 21, verse 30
126 THE FUNDAMENTALS OF FA/TH

So are these really tiie differences that launched a thousand conflicts? Or

should we look inwards for the reasons for the hundreds of years of con­
frontation between Chnstianity and Islam: to our own imperialist history,
to colonialism and to failed politics, the subject of the next chapters?
 THE FLNDAMENTAI.S Of FAITH 129

Appendix I
Examples of Secure Hadiths from al-Bukhari and Muslim

We are informed by Abd-us-Salam b. Mutahhar, who had it from

'Umar b. ‘Aly. through M‘an b. Muhammad al-Ghifari, through Sa'id
b. Abu Sa’id al-Maqburi, through Abu Hurairah. from the Prophet
(Allah bless him and give him peace), who said:
Truly Islam is a religion whose burden is light, for no one can be
too rigorous in the practice of it, without being overcome by it.
Therefore be ye upright and moderate, and hope for your reward. Call
to your aid the early morning and the evening prayers, also the prayers
in the night. (Al-Bukhari. chapter on al-lman)

We are informed by Ahmad b. Muhammad al-Makki. who had it from

'Amr b. Yahya b. 'Amr al-Makki, through his grandfather, through Abu
Hurairah, who said:
I once followed the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace)
when he went out to relive his necessity. He went on without looking
around. When I approached him he said: 'Fetch me some stones, for
my absternation’ (or some words to that effect) but do not bring me
any bones or animal dung. I therefore brought him some stones in the
fold of my gown and placing them beside him, then I left him, When
he had finished, he made use of the stones. (Al-Bukhari, chapter on
ablution)

It is narrated on rhe authority of Abu-Huraira that the Messenger of

Allah said to his uncle at the time of his death: Make a profession that
there is no god but Allah and 1 will bear testimony of you being a
Muslim on the Day of Judgement. But Abu-'Ialib refused to do so.
Then Allah revealed this verse:

Verily thou canst not guide to the right path whom dtou
Invest. And it is Allah Who guideth whom He will, and He
knoweth best who are the guided.
Al-Qasas (The Narrations) Surah 28. verse 56)
(Muslim, chapter of al-lman)
I» THE RJNnAMENtALS OF FAITH

Appendix 2
Surah l,AI-Fdtiha (The Opening)

Alii a—F
1.
Bismi-l-Lahir-Rahmdni-r- Rahim
In (he name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful.

2 <11 ak^li
Al-hamdu li'Llahi Rabbi-l- alamin-
Praisc be to Allah, the Chcrisher and Sustainer of the Worlds;

3.
Ar-Rahmani-r-Rahim
Most Glorious. Most Merciful;

4. Jr*!1 tu
MalikiYawmi-d-Din
Master of the Day of Judgement.

5. j A“u *^1
'LyydJtd na'budu ma 'lyyaka nasta'in
Thee do we worship and Thine aid do we seek.

f, I im
Ihdind-i-Siniia-l-Muitaquim
Show us the right way,

7. jXili Tj a*^ jf.

Sirata' Uadhina anamta 'alihim ghain Imaghdubi 'alaihm mala’
ddallin
The way of those on whom
Thou hast bestowed Thy Grace,
Those whose (portion)
Is not wrath.
And who go nor astray

Amin
Amen
______________________ THE RJNOAMENTAtS Of FAITH___________________ 131

Appendix 3
Common Arabic Expressions Invoking the Name of God

A'udbu billdhi min al-Shaytan nl-rajim

May God protect me against Satan, he who should be
stoned.

This expression is used to ward off anger, the urge to violence, or any
temptation that should be resisted. The image is of the devil taking
hold of the believer from within, and the believer calling on God for
assistance.

La hawla wala quwwata ilia billdh

There is no power but that of Allah

This phrase serves as an exclamation ar the arrival of rhe unforeseen,

and to defeat feelings of frustration. Or the words can be used to mean
‘I am unable to help you’, or 'everyone is powerless in rhe face of God's
destiny', the equivalent of'tough luck'.

Al-hamdu lillah
Thanks be to Got!

Usually used in reply to the question 'how are you?' The response indi­
cates both that the speaker is well and that this is due to God's bounty
alone. The phrase also serves as the equivalent of Christian 'grace'
before meals, or in similar circumstances of receiving.

Inshah'alUh
As God wills

The most common Arabic expression of all and connected to the irre­
solvable debate about predestination, free will and the will of God, dealt
with earlier in this chapter. The words usually accompany an expressed
intention, to travel, for example, to see a friend again on parting, or to
invoke God's blessing on any future undertaking. The expression finds
direct authority in the Qur’an in Surah 18, AI-KahfXThc Cave), verses
23 and 24:
132 TK RJNCBMENTALS OF FAHH

Nor say of anything

'I shall be sure to do
So and so tomorrow' -
Without adding, 'So please Allah'.

Bismiliah

In the name of God

This is the short version of Bl-smi UM arRrahndni ar-RMm. rhe

Tasmiyah, which has been examined earlier in this chapter in the con­
text of the form of the Qur’in. These words, spoken before an action,
give effect to a Hadith, that only an act done in rhe name of God has
any validity. The expression has a universal application as a preamble,
from saying prayers to making love (but only to one’s wife or husband,
of course).

Tawakkaltu ala-AUdh

In God we trust

This expression is similar to the preceding words, but applies more to a

situation where a decision has been taken to proceed, on a journey, for
example, or with a project, and die speaker seeks God's blessing.
These expressions are heartfelt among Muslims and far from the routine
blasphemies so common in the West. A Western traveller in a Muslim
country (even non-Arabic speaking) would be surprised at rhe warm
reception he or she receives in response to the use of one or more these
terms, even mixed in with English.
 THE FUNDAMENTALS OF FAP

Appendix 4
The Ninety-nine Beautiful Names of Allah

Allah Al-Bahiih The Raiser from

Death
Ar-Rahman The Merciful Ath-Shuhid The Witness
Ar-Rohtm The Compassionate Al-Haq The Truth
AI-Malik The King of Kings Al-Wihil The Guardian
Al-Qudda, The Holy One Al-Kau>i The Almighty
At-Sulum The Peace Al-Mutnn The Firm
Ai-Maumin The Faithful Al-VC'uli The Nearest Friend
Al-Mu' min The Faithful Al-Humid The All-Praiseworthy
Al-Adhim The Mighty Al-Mahsi The Accountant
Al-Jabbar The All-Compelling Al-Muhdi The Beginner
Al-MutakMtr The Majestic Al-Muhtd The Restorer
Al-Khalik The Creator Al-Mdhyl The Quickener
Al-Burt The Artificer Al-Muml t The Slayer
Al-Musawwir The Fashioner Al-Hot, The Ever-Living
Al-Ghaffar The Forgiver Al-Kai,um The Self-Subsisting
Ai-QMar The Dominant Ai-mbid 'lhe All-Perceiving
Al-Wahhab The Bestower At-Samad The Eternal
Ar-RazzOk The Provider Al-Kudur Providence
Al-h'allUh The Opener Al-Mukmdtr The All-Powerfill
Al-Alim The All-Knowing Al-Mukuddim The Forewarncr
Al-Kubiz The Closer Al-Muakltkhir Ihe Fulfiller
Al-Botit The Uncloser Al-Awwal The First
Al-Khafiz The Abase r Al-Akhir The Last
Ar-Rafi The Exalter Ath Mir The Manifest
Al-Muhizz The Honourer Al-Bdttn The Hidden
Al-Muzlll The Leader Astray Ai-vab The All-Governing
Ai-Suml'h The All-Hearing Al-Mutdhuli The One Above
Reproach
IM THS FUNDAMENTALS Of FAITH

Al-Bail r The All-Seeing Al-Barr The Good

Al-Hdhim The Judge of All Al-Taurwdb The Relenting
Al-liodil The Equitable Al-Muntahim The Avenger
Al-Laiif The Gracious One Al-Ghafoor The Rewarder
Al-Khablr He who is Aware Al-Rawsf The Ever-Indulgent
AI-Hj/im The Clement MAlik-ul-Mulhi King of the Kingdom
Al- Aziz The Strong DHljMwa Lord of Splendid
Iknim Power
Al-Gafir Tlic Pardoner Al-Mukiit rhe Equitable
AJi-Shakir Tlic Thankful Al-Jami'h Tlte Gatherer
Al-Alee The Exalted Al-Ghanl The All-Sufficing
AI-Kablr The Very Great Al-Mughni The Sufficer
Al-Hifiz The Preserver Al-Muhn The Provider
Al-Muhlt The Maintainer Al-Maui'h The Wirhholder
Al-Hoab The Reckoner An-Nifih The Propitious
Al-Jamil The Beneficent Az-Zarr The Harmful
Al-Karim The Bountiful An-Noar The Light
Ar-Raklb The Watchful Al-Hadi The Guide
Al-Mujib The Hearer of Prayer Al-Azali Eternal in the Past
Ai-Wih The All- Al-Baki Eternal in the Future
Coinprehending
Al-Hakim a! The Judge of Judges Al-Warilh The Inheritor
Mullah

Al-Wail, oil The Loving Ar-KaihiJ The Unerring

Al-Majid The All-Glorious Ai-Sabmir The Patient
 THE FUNDAMENTALS CT FAITH US

Appendix 5
Muhammad's Farewell Sermon

On the eighth day of Dhu’l-Hajja, Muhammad went to Mi nA and

spent the day and the night in that locality. Iliere he performed all rhe
prayers incumbent during that period. The following day Muhammad
recited his dawn prayer and. at sunrise, proceeded on his camel, al
Qaswa’, to the Mount of Arafat, followed by all the pilgrims. As he
ascended the mountain, he was surrounded by thousands of compan­
ions reciting the talbiyah and the lakbir. The Prophet naturally heard
their recitations but made no effort either to stop them or to encourage
them. He commanded some of the Companions to put up a tent for
him on the east side of the mountain at a spot called Namirah. When
rhe sun passed the zenith, he ordered his camel to be saddled, and rode
on ir until he reached the valley of'Uranabh.
It was there that he. while sitting on his camel, delivered his sermon
in a loud voice to his people. Rabi’ah ibn Umayyah ibn Khakai
repeated the sermon after him. sentence by sentence. He began by
praising God and thanking I lim, and then turning to the people he
said:
'O Men, listen to my words, for I do not know whether I shall meet
you again on such an occasion in the future. O Men. your lives and
your property shall be inviolate until you meet your lord. The safety
of your lives and your property shall he inviolate as this holy day and
holy month. Remember that you will indeed meet your Lord, and that
He will indeed reckon your deeds, Thus do 1 warn you. Whoever of
you is keeping a trust for someone else shall return that trust to its
rightful owner. All interest obligation shall henceforth be waived. Your
capital, however, is yours to keep. You will neither inflict nor suffer
inequity. God has judged that there shall be no interest and that all the
interest due to ‘Abbas al Muttalib shall henceforth be waived. Every
right arising out of homicide in pre-Islamic days is henceforth waived.
And the first such right dial I waive is that arising from rhe murder of
Rabi'ah ibn al Harith ibn 'Abd Muttalib. O Men. the devil has lost all
hope of ever being worshipped in this land of yours. Nevertheless he is
still anxious to determine the lesser of your deeds. Beware of him,
therefore, for the safety of your religion. O Men, intercalation, or tam­
pering with the calendar is evidence of great unbelief and confirms the
unbelievers in their misguidance. They indulge in ir one year and forbid
136 THt HAIDAWENTACS Of FAITH

it the next in order to make permissible that which God forbade, and to
forbid that which God lias made permissible. The pattern according to
which the time is reckoned is always rhe same. With God. the months
are twelve in number. Four of them are holy. Three of these are succes­
sive and one occurs singly between the months of Jumida and Sha'bin.
O Men, to you a right belongs with respect to your women, and to
your women a right with respect to you. It is your right that they not
fraternize widi any one of whom you do not approve, as well as never
to commit adultery. But if they do, then God has permitted you to iso­
late them within their homes and to chastise them without cruelty. But
if they abide by your right, then to them belongs the right to be fed and
clothed in kindness. Do treat your women well and be kind to diem,
for they arc your partners and committed helpers. Remember dtat you
have taken them as your wives and enjoyed their flesh only under God's
trust and with His permission. Reason well, therefore. O Men. and
ponder my words which I now convey to you. I am leaving you with
rhe Book of God and the Sunna of His Prophet. If you follow them,
you will never go astray. O Men, hearken well to my words. Learn that
every Muslim is a brother to every Muslim and that the Muslims con­
stitute one brotherhood. Nothing shall be legitimate to a Muslim which
belongs to a fellow Muslim unless it was given freely and willingly. Do
not. therefore, do injustice to your own selves. O God. have I conveyed
Your message?’
As the Prophet delivered his speech, Rabi’ah repeated it sentence by
sentence and asked the people every now and then whether they had
understood the Prophet’s words and committed them to memory. In
order to make sure that die people understood and remembered, the
Prophet would ask his crier to say: 'The Prophet of God asks. “Do you
know which day this is?"’ Hie audience would answer. ’Today is rhe day
of the great pilgrimage.’ The Prophet would then say. ’ Tell them that
God has declared inviolate your lives and your property until the day
you will meet your Lord; that he lias made the safety of your property
and your lives as inviolate as this day.’ Ar the end of his speech, the
Prophet asked ’() God. have I conveyed Your message?’ And the people
answered from all corners, ’Indeed so! God be witness.’
When the Prophet finished his sermon, he dismounted and per­
formed both the noon and the afternoon prayers. 1 le then remounted
his camel and proceeded to al-Sakharit where he recited to the people
the concluding divine revelation: ’Today 1 have completed for you
your religion, and granted you the last of my blessings. Today I have
 rut rUMOAMfN'AlS Qt FAITH

accepted for you Islam as the religion.' When Abu Bakr heard this
verse, he realized that with the completion of the divine message, the
Prophets life was soon to come to a close.

(Extract from Thr Lift ofMuhamnudfy

Muhammad Huscin Haykal)
 4

ISLAM IN THE MODERN WORLD

I The Spread of Islam

The problem of succession

In the Commonwealth of Medina. Muhammad was prophet, law­
giver, prayer leader, commander of the army and head of state. So
when he died, leaving only one surviving child, his daughter Fatima,
and without providing for a successor or clarifying beyond doubt the
method by which a successor should be appointed, the ' ummah fell
into dissention. The unity of Islam would never recover from the
events that were to follow over the next two decades and no satisfac­
tory answer would ever be found to the question of the legitimacy of
subsequent Muslim rulers. This uncertainty, combining religion and
politics in equal measure, as well as touching on the question of free
will and the nature of God, is still present in modern Islam, as veneer
democracy alternates with tyranny, occupation and corruption. For
how can the utopia of the ’divinely ordained' Commonwealth ever
be recreated without Muhammad's presence as the "divinely guided’
ruler? Yet if God is All-Powerful and All-Knowing, does it not follow
that the less-than-perfect rulers who have in fact taken power must
be expressions of His will?
Succession by male bloodline was not the automatic practice in
pre-lslamic Arabia, and an heir would in any event be required to
seek confirmation as a ‘first among equals' after a shuni, or consult­
ation, among the tribe or tribal group. But in the case of the suc­
cession to Muhammad there was no male heir to consider, and two
main factions came forward to claim the caliphate: the Emigrants
on the one hand, represented by Abu Bakr, those first Meccan con­
verts and participants during Islams darkest hours, and the Helpers
or Medinans on the other hand, represented by Sa‘d ibn Ubadah.
who had protected and sustained the Muslims when they had
nowhere else to turn. There was also support for * Ali, Muhammad's
cousin, the first Qurayshite man to accept Islam, and married to
Muhammad's daughter. Fatima. (Some Muslim historians name
 ISLAM IN 1K MODERN WORLD 122
Abu Bakr as the first Qurayshitc man to embrace Islam, in which
case ‘Ali, young at the time, was chc first boy to do so.) Fatima cam­
paigned for ‘Ali’s election among the Companions (the Emigrants
and the Helpers combined), but she was not successful. Fatima died
shortly thereafter, reputedly full of bitterness, forcher coloured by a
dispute with Abu Bakr over her property inheritance. Later, this
would be seen in retrospect as the start of the great schism between
Sunni and Shi'a.
The Emigrants prevailed, electing Abu Bakr as First Caliph, or
‘successor' to Muhammad's temporal, but not his spiritual authority.
Abu Bakr was a pious man and father of Muhammad's wife ‘A’isha.
He ruled for two years until his death, followed by Caliph ‘Umar for
ten years and Caliph ‘Uthman for eleven. /Ml diree were former close
Companions of Muhammad as well as members of the dominant
Meccan tribe of the Quraysh, and each was elected by the same
shurd procedure. ‘Ali was finally elected in 656 CE on the death of
‘Uthman, but shortly after this fourth improvised solution to rhe
problem of succession, the shurd consensus system disintegrated.
What is now the mainstream Sunni branch of Islam regard these
first four caliphs as ‘rightly guided’, since, through their closeness to
Muhammad, the influence of the Prophet, and therefore of God,
could still be felt. But here the great divide within Islam opens up.
The events that followed the election of ‘Ali as the Fourth Caliph
were to lead to the permanent division within Islam between Sunni
and Shi'a, that still exists so vividly today. The absorbing and much
misunderstood issues surrounding die origins of the schism will be
considered in Chapter 6.
During the twenty-nine year rule of the first four caliphs, Islam
expanded and changed in ways that would have been unimaginable
on the day of Muhammad's death, when Muslim power was still
contained within the Arabian peninsula. Further, the Arabs came to
understand during the years of the first caliphs that they had been
‘saved’ from their endless barbaric rounds of tribal vendetta and
counter-vendetta. They were becoming a self-aware cultural fact,
with an Arabic Qur’an to match the spiritual possessions of their
more civilized Christian and Jewish neighbours and the)- could
assure themselves that diey were no longer excluded from the divine
plan. By submitting to the will of Allah, their obscure Arab race
140 ISLAM W THE MOOERN WOP.LD

from beyond the borders of rhe known world would change the
course of history within one generation. The character of Islam
developed during this period, from what could have ended as noth­
ing more than an inconsequential social experiment in remote
Medina, to become a recognizable, if still unrefined, religious and
political system that was ready to address the world.
First Abu Bakr undertook the Riddah, or Wars of Apostasy,
against the tribes of Arabia beyond the Hijaz who attempted to
re-establish their autonomy after the death of the Prophet, or who
had never sworn loyalty to Muhammad during his lifetime. The
unity that resulted from these campaigns was to bring to a final end
the ancient business of inter-tribal raiding and warfare.
Then die move north began, creating over the next decades the
core of the vast Muslim Empire that was to last, in various forms, for
centuries. Western historians typically explain the break-out from
the Arabian peninsula after the death of Muhammad as brought on
by hunger. In this view, since many desert tribes had had no liveli­
hood other than raiding their neighbours, and since this was now
prohibited, but warfare still remained a way of life, the attraction of
the fertile lands on the northern and eastern boundaries of Arabia
became irresistible. Primary Muslim sources, however, give a more
complicated picture.
In his last years Muhammad had sent envoys to the Arab Christian
tribes on the borders of Sassanid Persia and Christian Byzantium,
urging them to convert to Islam. The response had been the murder
of one of his envoys, leading to the dispatch of a punitive expedition
to take revenge, and to the first contest between the Muslims and
the imperial forces of the Eastern Roman, or Byzantine Empire. The
opening battle was fought at Mu’tah in what is now Jordan, and the
small Muslim army was defeated, the remnants withdrawing only
with some difficulty against greatly superior numbers. To maintain his
prestige and safeguard Medina from attack in this moment of per­
ceived weakness, Muhammad mounted a second campaign north in
630 ce, which he led himself, but he only reached as far as Tabuk,
well inside what is now Saudi Arabia. The expedition, in harsh
summer conditions, and suffering from hasty and incomplete organ­
ization. was unsuccessful in finding the Byzantine imperial army and
avenging Mu’tah. But as a result of the campaign, the border tribes.
 ISLAM IN THE MOOERN WOHJ-D 141

together with some fringe Jewish and Christian communities, were

brought under Muslim control.
Shortly before his death, Muhammad sent a third expedition
against the northern Arabs, under the leadership of 'Usamah ibn
Zayd. but the Prophet’s death halted the expedition. Abu Bakr felt
obliged therefore, upon his accession, to remount the campaign and
was further motivated by the news that the Byzantine army was
gathering for a pre-emptive invasion of Arabia.
In the event, the Muslim army was unopposed as it moved north
into Syria, opening the way for the great advances that were to
come. When ' Umar became caliph, on the death of Abu Bakr, the
campaign continued and the Muslims came under counter-attack
from Byzantium. Soon a full-scale engagement was under way, cul­
minating during 'Uthman's caliphate with the successful Muslim
penetration into the distant north-east and west of Syria and Persia.
‘Umar was murdered by a Persian slave and succeeded by
‘Uthman. But 'Uthman favoured his own dan of the Umayyah, the
Meccan late-comers under Abu-Sufyan who had held out against
Muhammad until rhe very end (although ’Uthman himself had
been an early convert to Islam). The result was that commanders of
the victorious army were passed over in favour of 'Uthman's
Umayyad relatives who were appointed to positions of regional
authority in the new territories. The ensuing discontent, aggravated
by the tight control exercised over the troops in the rich new lands
in order to prevent looting, led to ‘Uthman’s assassination.
The astonishing advances by the Arabs into what is now Egypt,
Israel, Jordan, Syria, Iraq. Iran and central Asia (and what was
Palestine) were driven by the variety of internal motivations dis­
cussed above. But these moves were only made possible by a series
of external historical accidents working in the Muslims’ favour.
The Persian Sassanid Empire, predominantly Zoroastrian by
belief, occupied the fertile plains between the rivers Tigris and
Euphrates in what is now the heartland of modern Iraq, as well as the
mountainous hinterland beyond, that is now in Iran. The Sassanid
Empire had been weakened by years of war with the Byzantine
Christian Empire, which had ruled the eastern end of the
Mediterranean from the capital of Constantinople since the first half
of the fourth century CE. At the same time, Persian agriculture was
142 ISiZM IN IX MCCXRN WORLD

in decline following repealed flooding, and erosion had destroyed

large areas of productive terracing.
Similarly, the Byzantine Empire, in addition to suffering from
exhaustion by plagues, earthquakes and the military campaigns of
the Byzantine Emperor Heradius against the Persians, had created
internal weakness by the persecution of both Jews and schismatic
Christian sects. Further, the Arab tribes on the southern borders of
the Empire, often employed as mercenaries by Constantinople, as
well as by the Sassanians, changed allegiance once the Muslims
arrived in force, leaving die defences of both eastern and southern
borders inadequately defended against the unexpected invasion
from the desert.
The historical moment was dramatic. With two great battles, the
first and most important being Yarmuk in 636 ce, the Arabs over­
turned 1,000 years of rule by the Christian West in the eastern
Mediterranean, while at the same dme the way was opened for
Islam to become the inheritor of the Sassanid Persian Empire. The
second crucial batdc of the two, at Qadisiyyah in modem Iraq in
637 ce, led to the fall of the Persian capital Ctesiphon and the final
opening up of Persia. Suddenly, a small town in the distant Hijaz
ruled the entire fertile crescent, including Ctesiphon. Jerusalem.
Alexandria and Damascus, as well as vast territories beyond, stretch­
ing in the cast from Herat in Afghanistan and Sind in India to
modern Libya in the west.

The Battle of Yarmuk

This battle, m August 636 CL was one of the turning points of world his­
tory, leading to the eventual end of the Byzantine Empire and the dom­
inance of Islam in what is now the Middle East But despite the favourable
circumstances created by the decline of both Persia and Byzantium, this
great Arab victory by an inferior desert force over a professional impe­
rial army was no accident The Apostasy Wars fought by Abu Bakr had
transformed the anarchic Arabs from a bickering tnbal horde into an
organized fighting machine. The campaigns against dissident tubes withm
Arabia, following the death of the Prophet also produced Muslim
 ISLAM IN THE MODERN VOW M3

commanders of genius, while having lhe further effect of turning Arabia

into an armed camp. The Arabs had also mastered the use of cavalry in
a way that the Byzantines never matched, and camels carrying recently
invented wood-frame saddles gave lhe Muslims the advantage of self-
sufficiency. when the Byzantines were dependent on long lines of supply
Finally, the Muslims were ferocious fighters, fearless m the face of death,
armed with the belief that the sensual paradise described in the Qur’an
awaited the martyrs of Islam The Muslims were thus able to accept a
much higher level of casualties than their opponents
The Muslim forces, initially under Abu Bakr, had first moved into
Palestine and Syria divided into four independent armies with the group
under the commander Khalid ibn al-Walid crossing the wastes of the
Great Nalud to open the campaign by surprising and overwhelming the
city of Busra from the undefended south. In response to further minor
defeats inflicted on the Byzantine armies by the Muslims under ’Umar
dunng 635 and the first half of 636, Emperor Heradius assembled a large
army for the counter-attack with which he intended to recapture Syria
liar the Chnstian Empire. In response, the Muslims who had already taken
Damascus chose to withdraw to a site straddling the deep gorge of the
Yarmuk River m southern Syria. The Byzantines followed, taking up a
strong position on a peninsular projecting into the river escarpment
After two months of stalemate, attempted subversions, espionage and
counter-espionage, which sapped the energy of the Christians but not
the well-supplied Arabs, the two sides aligned for battle on the high plain
above the river Heraclius was able to field 50.000 troops against 20.000
Arabs, but in the heat and dust of August the desen Muslims had a dis­
tinct advantage.The Arabs initially fell back on their flanks towards their
camps, but here they were met by their womenfolk, who mocked their
manhood and themselves took up the fight against the enemy with tent
poles and cooking pots. On the sixth day. the Chnstians collapsed, after
the Arabs had captured a key bndge to their rear, so blocking the arrival
of reinforcements as well as escape. The defeated Christian army
attempted to flee south along the river, losing many of their number over
the cliffs of the gorge.
Despair engulfed the Byzantine high command, which had so recently
been successful against the Sassanians. Within two years of the battle of
Yarmuk all the fortified towns of Syria and Palestine had surrendered and
the Muslims had become the masters of a great new empire.
144 ISLAM N TMF MODFRN WW

At first, the character of this new Muslim Empire was entirely

different from what had gone before. There was no wholesale plunder
of the conquered lands by the new rulers. Instead, the Arab armies
were contained in disciplined garrison towns, Fusrat in Egypt, for
example, or Kufah in Iraq. Religious persecution of minorities by the
Greek Orthodox Church came to an immediate end and tolerance
was declared following the injunctions of the Qur’an. Muslims had
no preferences between the intricate factions that had formed among
both Christians and Jews, ironically respecting both as 'people of the
Book', despite their military defeat. (The 'Book' is not the Christian
Bible or Jewish Torah, but the mystical ‘divine text' from which all
scriptures, including the Qur’in, flow.) The occupied non-Muslims
were, however, required to pay the jizyah, a tax levied on income in
return for protection. But the levy was generally less than the previ­
ous fiscal impositions of the departing Persians and Byzantines, and
non-Muslims were exempt from paying zakat. Islam was nor forced
upon the population, rather the early conversions were as a result of
the personal and community examples set by the Muslims and the
case with which this powerful new religion could be understood.
Even converts, however, were not exempted from the protection tax
which was needed to fund the operation of the new empire.

The Umayyads (661-750 CE)

With the assassination of ‘Uthman, the Third Caliph. Muslim
progress was halted and the unit)- of the 'ummah was about to be
irrevocably shattered. ‘Ali was proclaimed caliph following a shurd
and began to rule, attempting to maintain the discipline of his pre­
decessors while emphasizing pure Qur’anic standards. But for all
his piety and his indirect blood relationship with the Prophet as
the father of Muhammad's grandchildren. 'Ali was opposed by
the Umayyad clan, now led by Mu’jwiyah, son of Muhammad’s
old enemy Abu-Sufyin, and cousin of ‘Uthman, who had earlier
appointed Mu'iwiyah governor of Syria. Here was the classic con­
frontation between realpolitik and idealism: between the wealth,
organizational power and ability of the Umayyad clan on the one
hand, and the simple-hearted ‘Ali on the other, relying on his supe­
rior claim in blood and in religion, as well as his close association
with the Prophet, and his shurd appointment.
 ISLAM <MTHt MCHXRN WORLD ms

Civil war between factions within the 'ummah was a shocking

prospect for Muslims, however, running directly contrary to the
Word of God and the teachings of the Prophet, by which Muslims
were to treat each other as brothers. Thus, in the first major con­
frontation between the two sides, Mu’awiyah’s forces broke off the
engagement as an expression of their frustration. An attempt was
made to arbitrate the dispute, but the negotiations raised the unan­
swerable questions touched on earlier, to do with the nature of God.
free will, the relationship between piety and political power, and the
negotiations were thus inconclusive. Mu'awiyah once again pressed
his advance into Iraq and Arabia against ‘Ali and his supporters,
whereupon the opposition crumbled. Then shortly thereafter ‘Ali
was murdered by a dissenting group from within his own party,
known as the Kharijitcs or 'Seceders', who had objected from the
stan to the ‘Will of God’ being subjected to human arbitration.
Mu’iwiyah, the Umayyad, became the fifth Caliph and the
r/>«ra-bascd or ‘republican’ period of the caliphate was over, to be
replaced by dynasties until the abolition of the caliphate by the
Turkish Assembly in 1924. Similarly, Damascus now replaced
Medina as the capital of the Muslim Empire, symbolic to many of
the faithful of the shift away from the ideals of Islam towards the
power, wealth and corruption of the outside world beyond Arabia.
Over the centuries ‘Ali and his son al-Husayn (who was also mur­
dered by the Umayyads at a later date as a low-level civil war con­
tinued) would come to represent the tragically lost utopia, the
vanished purity of the Commonwealth of Medina and the spurned
injunctions of the God-sent Qur’an. And just as early Islam com­
bined politics and religion in the person of Muhammad, now polit­
ical opposition within Islam took on the cloak of religious dissident,
a Muslim characteristic which remains strong in modern times. The
name given to the disinherited followers of'Ali was Shi‘at-Ali, or the
Party of'Ali, later to become the permanently disaffected Shi'a com­
munity, always seeking the impossible and impractical political
implementation of God's law, and the return to some ill-defined
lost ideal.
Although Mu’Swiyah can be judged harshly by Qur’inic stand­
ards as opportunistic, unjust, secular, dynastic and tyrannical, and
although he claimed no special relationship with the Prophet, he was
146 ISLAM IN TK MODERN WOULD

a brilliant ruler and a devout believer. Moreover, the Qur’an could be

interpreted to justify the rule of the de facto holder of power.

Say: ‘O Allah!
Lord of Power and Rule,
Thou givest power
To whom Thou pleascst.
Al'ImrJn (The Family of Imrln) Surah 2, verse 26

Mu’awiyah pacified and unified the empire after the horrors of the
civil war, although the condition was to be only temporary. Arabic
became the majority language of the new Muslim lands, overpower­
ing Greek and Persian, while Islam spread to become the predomin­
ant religion among Arabs and non-Arabs alike, replacing Persian
Zoroastrianism and to a lesser extent, Byzantine Christianity.
The years of Umayyad rule achieved the Arabization of the new
empire, and the adaptation of Byzantine and Sassanid administra­
tion to .Muslim rule. The influence of the Umayyads was limited by
contests for power within the dynasty as well as by frequent external
rebellions by disaffected followers of 'Aii and his descendants. But.
nevertheless, the Umayyads developed a sound system of govern­
ment that was to last for centuries, as well as the central Muslim
concept of the mosque, now to be found all around the globe.
Umayyad caliphs demonstrated a passion for architecture, elevating
the simple design of the Medina praver-hall. that doubled as the
dwelling of the Prophet and his wives, to the splendour and dignity
of the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem and the Great Mosque of
Damascus, both still standing today. And a subsequent branch of
the Umayyad dynasty was to bring four hundred years of peace,
prosperity and outstanding cultural achievement to Spain.

The Abbasids (750-1258 ce)

Umayyad rule came to a bloody end eighty-nine years after
Mu’awiyah’s accession, and was replaced by the ‘Abblsid dynasty,
who initially promised a return to the utopian ideals of the proto-
Shi'a Party of ‘Ali. while claiming legitimate descent and 'divine
right' from ‘AbbSs, the Prophet's uncle who had assisted with the
opening of Mecca. This was the final outcome of the civil war
 Muhammad's family tree

between 'Ali and Mu’Swiyah, and at the time it looked as if the par­
tisans of 'Ali had won and that a new universal age of 'Alid equal­
ity, righteousness and justice would prevail. But this ideal state never
came into being and eventually Shi'ism would for the most part
retreat behind the borders of the old Sassanid Persian Empire, leav­
ing the majority of rhe Muslim world as Sunni.
The ‘Abbasids moved die capital of the empire once again, from
Damascus to Baghdad, where a large palace was built as pan of
the famous Round City. But although coming to power as self-
proclaimed religious purists, the ‘Abbasids quickly turned to every­
thing that the Umayyads had practised and the ascetic Prophet had
iaa 51AM IN MWOOWCWMO

abhorred: luxury, corruption and vicious tyranny. The army became

a professional body of ruthless Turkish slaves and ex-slaves (later to
be known as Mamluks), imported to pacify both the Persian proto-
Shi'a and the Arab proto-Sunnis, and owing loyalty only to the
person of the caliph. But during the first two hundred years of
'Abbasid rule the empire enjoyed political stability and economic-
expansion. The 'Abbisids became the most celebrated of the Muslim
dynasties, although more Persian than Arab in character. Science
and the arts were patronized and Muslims made more technical and
scientific progress during this time than in all the previous years of
recorded history combined. Islam grasped the inheritance of Greek
learning, eventually transmitting to Renaissance Europe treasures
that would have otherwise been lost during the northern Dark Ages.
Fiqh developed, the jurisprudential definition and application of the
Shariah, and, as will be seen later, the great Islamic debate about
ijrihad (open-mindedness) began, between progressives and strict
legal constructionists.

Islam in Medieval Europe

Muslim expansion into Spam was Isiam’s most dramatic move westward.
Only seven years (710-16 CE) separated the first Arab reconnaissance
of Spam from their North African base from the establishment of
al-Andalus as a province of the Umayyad caliphate in Damascus. The
speed of the victory reflected the ill will of the native Spanish for their
Visigoth rulers, who. upon their defeat, were marched back to Syria by
the victorious Arabs as captives, complete with their gold. Spanish Jews
who had been continuously persecuted and subiected to forced
Chnstian conversions by the previous regime also welcomed the Arabs.
Then, from their new forward base in Spain, Muslim horsemen raided
north across the Pyrenees into modem France. The Arabs captured
Narbonne and Toulouse m 718 a, but their excursions were stopped
by the Frankish General Charles Martel at the battle of Poitiers (732 CE).
Much has been made of this battle in the West the implication being thal
had it not been for the valiant French, the Muslims would have
conquered their way along the northern shore of the Mediterranean
______________________ SIAM INTK MQQEBN WORLD___________________ 149

and back to Damascus, encircling the Mediterranean and establishing

mosques in Pans. London and Rome as they progressed. Conversely.
Muslim historians maintain that the dark ages of Europe date from the
Muslim defeat lost centuries that would have been avoided had the light
of Islam been permitted to spread and shine, In reality the battle changed
nothing the impetus of Arab expansion was in any case already spent
and the north was a cold and uninviting Sand. Nor did the defeat serve
to remove the Arab presence from France, which continued in the lands
north of the Pyrenees mountains for a further twenty-five years.
Certainly Islamic Spain was spared the bleak fate of the rest of Europe
during the Middle Ages, stretching from the ninth to the eleventh cen­
turies CE-The great era of Muslim rule in Spain, soon independent of the
Iraqi-based caliphate that was by then controlled by the ‘AbbJsids, began
with the first Iberian Umayyad. ‘Abd-af-RahmSn I (756-788 a). He had
escaped as a young man from the massacre of his family as the 'Abbasids
came to power in Damascus m 750 CE. when the Umayyad caliphate was
overthrown. After wandering penniless across North Afnca pursued by
spies and assassins, ‘Abd-al-RahmSn crossed to Spam where, under hi$
leadership, dissident Berber and Arab troops defeated the ruling 'Abbasid
govemor.The Umayyads established their capital in Cordoba. which was
to become the largest richest and most civilized city m Europe dunng the
two centunes up to the end of the first millennium. The great mosque of
La Mezquita was built in the city centre, one of the most beautiful build­
ings in the world until punctured by a Christian church during the six­
teenth century CE on the orders of Charles V, the Holy Roman Emperor
(who on visiting the site came to regret his actions, even before the roof
of the church was on). Islamic religious and racial tolerance formed the
basis of a brilliant Arab-lbenan civilization Science flourished, with
advances made m botany, medicine, philosophy, irrigated agnculture and
astronomical mathematics. Later. Spain was to contribute this fund of
.nvaluable knowledge to the reawakening of Europe during the
Renaissance. Arts of all kinds were practised: poetry, song (which has influ­
enced Spanish flamenco and Portuguese fado to this day), ceramics, tex­
tiles and most famously of alt. architecture. The Alhambra Palace m
Granada was the culmination of Moonsh achievement in Spam and the
basis for Western Gothic architecture in subsequent centunes
Unified Umayyad rule disappeared from Spain m 1031 to be
replaced by fractured Arab-ruled kingdoms and principalities squabbling
ISO ISLAM INTHf MODtRN WORLD

among themselves The last of these, based in Granada, was overthrown

in 1492 by the strengthening native Catholic powers from the north.
Under Spanish rule, starting with King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella
Islamic tolerance came to an abrupt end. Converssons to Christianity
were once again forced, books were burned, the Inquisition was estab­
lished, and all non-Chnstian practices suppressed Even regular washing
was suspect, linked to the Muslim practice of ablutions before prayers.
After a number of protest risings against Catholic persecution, the entire
Muslim and Jewish populations of Spain were expelled The Moors were
banished: for a while Christian Spain shone on. but like the moon with a
borrowed light Then came the eclipse, and in that darkness Spain has
grovelled ever since ' (Lane-Poole, Moors in Spain, 1934)

The decline of the Empire

Front the beginning of the tenth century cb the Muslim Empire
slowly disintegrated, until the caliph's writ hardly ran beyond the
boundaries of Iraq. During this long decline, real power passed to a
succession of militarily powerful factions within the core lands,
many under temporary Shi'a influence. At the same time the distant
peripheries achieved de facto independence under local sultans, or
‘holders of power’, giving allegiance in name only to a caliphate that
no longer had any real claim to succession by bloodline from the
Prophet (the Shi'a requirement for a rulers legitimacy to be elabor­
ated in the following chapter). The decline of the position of the
caliph, from powerfol and often absolute ruler to mere figurehead,
led to a relaxing of the mesh between religion and politics. Islam was
becoming fractured politically but more unified spiritually. Under
little threat from the outside, before the later invasion of the
Mongols, while temporal regimes came and went, Muslims could
practise their religion unmolested in Dar al-Islam (the abode' of
Islam, as opposed to Dar al-I larb, the ‘abode’ of war, or the territory
beyond the borders of Dar al-lslatn). Only in modern times, with
Muslims once again threatened by the West, has the fervour of the
Prophet's Commonwealth been reignited. Whether the threat is real
or imagined, militant Islam now seeks to reclaim the simple days of
Muhammad in Medina, rather than the Muslim empires that fol­
lowed. however large and powerful.
 ISLAM INTHF MODERN WORLD

The process of disintegration gathered speed with the Fatimids

(909-1171), initially Shi'a dissidents (now known as lsmai’ilis) who
claimed to be descendants of‘Ali and his wife Fatima, the daughter
of the Prophet. Their rule began in Nonh Africa and eventually
included Egypt, Palestine and Syria, extending south to control the
holy cities of Mecca and Medina. The new Fatamid capital of Cairo
was prosperous and culturally developed, and al-Azhar university
was built in 970, now the oldest seat of learning in the world and
the centre of Sunni Qur’inic scholarship. But after a short interreg­
num by the Avyubids, the former Fatimid lands were conquered
and ruled by the Mamluks (1250-1517), die samurai-like descen­
dants of the former Turkish slaves employed by the 'Abblsids as
a professional army. The Mamluks were implacable professional
fighters who turned back the advance of the Mongols. And a
Fatimid caliph had destroyed the Church of the Holy Sepulchre
covering the traditional site of Christs crucifixion, so providing one
of the pretexts for the launch of the First Crusade. The Mamluks
were the force that would finally drive the last of the Crusaders
from Palestine.
Shordy before this period another Turkish tribe, the Seljuks, con­
solidated a large Muslim territory on the eastern Hank of the crum­
bling empire. Their rule stretched from Central Asia to Baghdad,
acknowledging the last of the 'AbbSsids as nominal caliphs only. The
Seljuk viziers were orthodox or Sunni Muslims who rolled back die
influence of the Shi'a and established Sunni religious schools deep in
traditional Shi'a territory to the cast. But Seljuk rule was short-lived,
dependent on nomadic forces with little interest in empire-building.

The Crusades through Arab Eyes

Muslim historians record that the Finnj took the holy city of Jerusalem
for the first time on 22nd Sha'ban 492 ah (15 July 1099 CE). Hundreds
of fair-haired warriors spilled through the gates, sword in hand. Two
days later; not a single Muslim or Jew was left in the city. All had been
killed or taken as slaves, wrth their property shared among the Chnstans.
Outside al-Aqsa mosque and through the streets. 30.000 citizens were
152 ISLAM IN THE MOOEHN WOULD

slaughtered. Blood and gore rose to the height of the invaders' knees,
sitting on their horses. With the killing over, the firinj sang canticles and
gave thanks to God at the site of the destroyed Church of the Holy
Sepulchre, the traditional location of Calvary, for the next five months
putrefying bodies lay unbuned and the stench of death hung over the city
where Christian, |ew and Muslim had lived harmoniously under Pox
Islarnca for almost 500 years. The Dome of the Rock, together with all
the mosques of the city, were turned into Christian churches, and al-Aqsa
mosque became a palace for the wctonous knights The city became
exclusively Christian, and m contrast to the tolerance of Muslim rule, the
practice of Judaism, and of Islam, was prohibited.
The Crusades accomplished nothing but death and destruction, not
even proto-colonialism, and the much-admired Crusader castles were m
fact built by the enslaved Muslim population at a great cost m human suf­
fering. The Chnstian Church preached the Crusades, not out of religious
conviction, but in response to drought and famine in Europe, and the
misery and brevity of eleventh-century life. Killing and plundering beyond
the borders of Europe was the solution, or at least a diversion So wars
fought at the bidding of the Church became meritorious for the souls of
those who took part while those who died in holy war would achieve
paradise.
In Europe, however the true facts of what was happening were
obscured, and the Crusades (literalfy ‘taking the Cross') were |ustified in
ways that have affected the West's view of Islam (and vice-versa) down
through the centuries. Despite the unprovoked Christian invasion and
the slaughter, scholar-monks wrote of Islam as mherentiy violent and
intolerant','only established by the sword’, and conversions made 'on pain
of beheading'. Muslims were 'fanatical and intolerant' and they had met
the 'fate they had long deserved’
These groundless attacks from Europe, together with the hypocritical
moral and religious |UStificauon that went with them, remains vivid in the
Muslim psyche, even though m the West this part of our history has
become little more than an asterisk to the remote Middle Ages.
But alSalibyyah. the Arabic word for the Crusades, has been readily
applied to every subsequent invasion of Muslim lands by European non­
believers; from the French invasion of North Africa m the nineteenth
century, to General Allenby's advance through Palestine and Syria in 1917
and 1918 that led to the final fractunng of Dar al-lslam. to the forte
 ISLAM IN TX MOOtRN WORLD 153

assembled in Arabia in 1991 to reverse the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, to the

American military presence in Saudi Arabia, to the latest invasion of Iraq.
The Firm) occupied Jerusalem for eighty-eight years until driven out
by Salah al-Din al-Ayyubi (known in the West as Saladin) in 1187 CE
Eartier Saladin had also put an end to Shi'a Fabmid rule in Egypt to be
replaced by die Sunni Ayyubids (1169-1252). Egypt and Syria were
united under Saladin's rule and the previously suppressed religious fer­
vour of Sunni Islam was channelled against the Crusaders. Saladin first
destroyed the Firinj army at the battle of Hittm. then one after the other
took most of the pnncipal Crusader cities and castles, almost all without
bloodshed. Jerusalem held out at first threatening to destroy the Haram,
but surrendered after only eight days of siege. Saladin, in emulation of
Caliph Umar, entered the city m peace (and coincidentally; on 27th
Rajab, the day on which the mystical night journey of the Prophet from
Mecca to Jerusalem, the fsrd. is celebrated). The Dome of the Rock and
al-Aqsa mosque were restored to Islam, but there was no retribution
other than the conversion of two churches to mosques, there were no
massacres, and even ransom was waived fix the poor Christians and
jews were permitted to remain and worship freely, while the city
resumed life under the timelessness of Muslim rule.The bloody Crusader
interval was over.
This final victory of Islam over the invading Westerners has left a fur
ther impression on Muslim consciousness, as a model in the perennial
search for the strong but pious leader who will bnng ultimate redemp­
tion to the confused state of the Muslim world. During his first years as
Egypt's Strong Man', the shadow of Saladin was seen behind Nasser, for
example, or in recent times behind Saddam Hussein or Yassir Arafat (for
whom the new Crusaders’ were the Jewish colonists of lsraef).W<th each
new hero the rhetonc builds up expectations among Muslims for a
miraculous 'God-sent' deliverance, but events always end with pre
dictable human failure, with corruption, with repression, and. in the Arab
view, with fresh manipulation by the West.

The fragmentation of the Empire

During the thirteenth century ce. slow disintegration gave way to
the complete separation of the components of the Muslim Empire,
a fragmented condition that lasted for three hundred years until the
rise of the Ottoman Empire.
IM ISLAM MTHE MOOERN WORLD

Only the main threads of these turbulent times have made a

recognizable impression on the character of modern Islam. In
the first decade of the thirteenth century Mongol horsemen from
Central Asia entered Muslim history by overwhelming the Seljuks.
Genghis Khan was proclaimed supreme Mongol chief in 1206,
claiming that he would 'rule the world’. He created a vast empire,
incorporating most of Russia, China, Afghanistan and Persia. Then,
under his successors. Baghdad was sacked in 1258, with Persia and
Iraq occupied.
The Mongols were originally pagan, but in the middle of the
fourteenth century their leaders became Muslim, and Islam was sub­
sequently bourne eastward as far as China by Mongol agency. After
the retreat of the Mongols, Islam was sustained in die near east by
the Timurids (1370-1506), rulers of Persia and Iraq. The famous
Timurid leader Timur Lang (or Tamerlane in English) claimed to be
descended from Genghis. Both the Mongol and Timurid dynasties
destroyed much and built little new. but the invasions facilitated the
spread of Islam 'backwards' through vast areas of Asia.
This eastward transmission of Islam was completed by die
Mughals (1526-1858), another group descended from the Mongols,
who ruled Afghanistan, northern India and what is now Pakistan.
Contemporaneously the Safavids (1501-1732) followed after the
Timurids in the near east, giving Persia a distinct character and set­
tled borders, able at a later date to resist incorporation into the
Ottoman Empire.

The Ottoman Empire (1281-1924)

The Ottomans were Turkish Muslim tribesmen whose original ter­
ritory in Anatolia was created by resisting the Mongols in the east
and pushing back the remains of the Byzantine Empire in the west.
From primitive tribal beginnings during the eleventh century ce,
Ottoman power rose out of the defeat of the Seljuks in eastern
Anatolia, and in 1453 the capture in the west of Constantinople
(renamed to match the Turkish pronunciation of the word as
'Costan-puH', or Istanbul), followed by the invasion of Eastern
Europe. Istanbul served as the Ottoman capital for the next 470
years, until the creation of the modem state of Turkes' and the end
of the Ottoman Empire in 1924.
 ISLAM IS THE MODERN WORLD 155

In 1517 Sultan Selim the Grim extended Ottoman rule into

Syria and Egypt by defeating the Mamluks, using the innovation of
light artillery. The last of the ‘Abbasid caliphs, by then powerless,
was brought to Istanbul from Baghdad to give an appearance of
legitimacy to the new empire. Subsequent Ottoman expansion fur­
ther to the west took in Libya. Tunisia and Algeria, but progress was
halted with rhe defeat of the Ottoman navy by a coalition of
European powers at the naval battle of Lepanto in 1571.
Ottoman power peaked under Siileyman the Magnificent
(1520-66). both territorially as well as culturally, with the sultan's
vast construction projects, which included the rebuilding of the
walls of Jerusalem.
Ottoman rule was passive and cruel, but strongly Muslim, cov­
ering the entire Middle East and extending as far down Arabia as
the holy cities of Medina and Mecca, where the Arab tribes enjoyed
considerable freedom but were still Ottoman subjects. Religion and
politics were combined in the person of the Ottoman Sultan, ‘the
Shadow of God upon Earth', while a hierarchy of qadi adminis­
tered his empire, whose roles included judge, prosecutor. Qur’anic
interpreter, superintendent of public works, food distributor and
enforcer of military conscription.
The Ottoman Empire was seen as a constant threat by Europe
and in 1683 the 'Muslim hordes' famously reached the gates of
Vienna. In reality, starting with the first Ottoman defeats on the
battlefield of Eastern Europe shortly thereaiter. the Empire was in
decline for the next two centuries.

II Islam beyond the Empire

By the end of rhe fifteenth century CE, Islam was the largest ideo­
logical block in the world. On a map that did not then include the
New World, Muslims worshipping the One God were to be found
far beyond the limits reached by the Arab horsemen of the seventh
century.
The Ottoman Turks, after capturing Constantinople had sub­
dued Serbia and the Balkans as well as becoming the rulers of Greece
and later Hungary. The old Eastern Roman or Byzantine Empire
IS6 ISLAM IN IMF MODERN WOfiLD

had ceased to exist. The Safavid dynasty was establishing their rule
in Persia, defining the Shi'a character of the country that has become
contemporary Iran. The Mughals had created a Muslim empire in
Northern India extending from die Hindu Kush to the Arabian Sea.
The hinterland of Asia that today consists of the Muslim-influenced
provinces of Western China and the Muslim republics of the former
Soviet Union had already been convened with the 'reverse conquest'
of the Mongol empire by Islam.
In East Africa, where Muhammad had sent a number of his
Meccan supporters for safety during the years of persecution before
the hijrah. Islam extended south along the coast from Ethiopia,
through what is now Somalia, to the ports of modem Kenya,
Tanzania and Mozambique. In West Africa, Muslim traders, every­
one a missionary for the faith, had brought Islam south across the
Sahara to Mali and Ghana. Trading centres flourished at Timbuktu
and Gao, mosques were built and schools for Qur'anic study estab­
lished.
The same process of trade combined with missionary zeal had
brought Islam to Malaysia and the Indonesian archipelago, in the
thirteenth century CE, or earlier. During his return from China in
1292 Marco Polo found entire Muslim towns on the island of
Sumatra. Over the centuries almost the entire population of the
Indonesian islands was converted from Hinduism, which has
given a particular character to South Asian Islam, in which many
Hindu practices remain, filled out with Muslim prayers. Later the
Europeans established forts along the trade routes to the China and
Japan and dislodged the Muslim sailors, but Islam continued to
spread inland and Indonesia is today the most populous Muslim
country in the world. Catholicism was able to halt this advance only
in the Spanish Philippines.
But only the casc-by-case facts of this expansion arc notable.
Although the underlying faith was undoubtedly strong. Islam was
unable to exert cohesive political power commensurate with the
extent of the faith, and was soon to be dominated both economi­
cally and militarily by the West. Further, the imposition of
Twelvers Shi'ism, to be discussed later, as the state religion of the
Safavid Empire (and thus of modern Iran) brought the two main
communities of Islam into a debilitating formal conflict, similar to
 ISLAM IN I HE MODERN WORLD 157

the Protestant-Catholic confrontation that was developing in

III The Arrival of the West in Dar al-lslam

By the end of the seventeenth century, two hundred years after this
high point of expansion had been reached, the three great Muslim
empires were in decline. The Ottoman Empire was withdrawing from
Hungary. Transylvania and the Ukraine, the Safavids had lost control
of Afghanistan, while Persia itself was decaying and disintegrating. An
attempt to impose Islam on the Hindu subjects of the Mughal Empire
had led to widespread revolts and the rise of separate Indian states.
There were attempts at Muslim renewal during the eighteenth
century, mostly by reforming preachers who advocated a return to
the purer traditional Islam and the utopia of Medina. But religion
alone was not able to reverse die inevitable, and another turning
point in the history of Islam was approaching.
As the Muslim powers dissolved, Europe was growing in strength.
Exploration of die boundaries of the old world by European sailors
had turned into colonization around the globe. And soon the
Industrial Revolution would provide the economic and technologi­
cal advantage by which the European powers would come to rule
almost the entire Muslim world.
Napoleons occupation of Egypt in 1798 was the first occasion
since the Crusades, 700 years before, that a European power had
controlled any part of the central Muslim lands. The French with­
drew in 1801, but the torpor of the Ottoman centuries had been
irrevocably disturbed. Muhammad Ali took power in Egypt in 1805
and began the modernization process which led to the massacre of
the last of the Mamluks. He Europeanized the country’s administra­
tion and his successors built the Cairo Opera House, so symbolic
of Western influence. The construction of the Suez Canal would
later lead to full occupation by Britain.
Other losses of Muslim independence were to come in quick
succession: France conquered Algeria (1830-47), Italy occupied
Libya (1911-12), and Tunisia became a French protectorate (1881).
Serbia became autonomous in 1830, Greece gained independence
 ISLAM IN THE MODERN WORLD

from Ottoman rule in 1829, Bulgaria came into existence in 1878,

and Austria annexed Bosnia and Herzegovina the same year.
In India, the British had established colonial control over both
Muslims and Hindus by 1848, then British power was extended over
rhe Malay states starting in 1874. The Dutch completed the colo­
nization of Indonesia in 1908. France had established French West
Africa by 1912, and during the same period in Central Asia, Russia
annexed the territories of the Muslim Kazakhs, the Turkomans and
the Tajiks.
In few of these cases was the practice of Islam prohibited, the
principal exception being in the .Asian republics of the USSR. But
the mere presence of Christian powers in Muslim lands would soon
lead to the regeneration of the same mix of dissident politics and
passionate religion with which the original Islamic empire had
begun.

IV The Great War and the Cairo Conference

The Ottoman Empire and the preceding Christian Byzantine

Empire had been under pressure from Russia for one thousand years
over the issue of control of die Bosporus, the narrow strait that gives
access to the Mediterranean from the Black Sea. and from the only
year-round, ice-free Russian ports. The Russians had long referred to
Constantinople possessively as 'Czargrad', as if the city and the strait
had already been conquered, annexed and renamed. When, there­
fore. war began in 1914 between Germany and Austria as the Central
Powers on the one side, and the Entente of Britain, France and
Russia on the other, the Ottoman Empire attempted to remain neu­
tral. Britain had protected Turkey from Russia for many years, but if
the Entente were to prevail over the Central Powers, Turkey feared
the consequences of a victorious Russia. But a series of minor events
was to destabilize Turkey's preference for neutrality and the Ottoman
Empire joined the Central Powers, calling on all Muslims to join in
a jihad against Britain. France and Russia. So began the process that
would bring on the final destruction of the Ottoman Empire, fol­
lowed by the occupation of the core Muslim lands by the British, and
the re-demonization of Islam in the modern era.
 ISlAM IN I HE MODERN WOfUD 59

Piracy on the Tyne

During the summer of 1914 the new revolutionary rulers of the

Ottoman Empire, the Young Turks, who had overthrown the old order
during the previous decade, wished to avoid the decision to jom one side
or the other in the coming World War. On one hand, they mistrusted
Germany’s Berlin-to-Baghdad military ambitions. On the other hand,
the British were the traditional protectors ofTurkey. and had protected
the Ottoman Empire from Russian aggression at great cost through the
Crimean War But half a century on. Bntain was losing patience with her
cruel and ramshackle client and was considering the annexation of Egypt
nominally an Ottoman province, while Russia now Britain's ally, once
again coveted Istanbul and the Bosporus Turkey had offered Britain a
permanent alliance in 1911, but the very idea of a relationship had been
summarily dismissed by the British cabinet in high impenal style, as
unworthy'. Germany was keen, however. Under the threatening shadow
of a two-front war the Kaiser was anxious to recruit any allies available.
Turkey's ruling Committee of Union and Progress accepted the German
offer of alliance in principle but then dithered over the formalities hoping
for some early indication of which s<de might be the more likely to win.
Winston Churchill, then First Lord of the Admiralty, made the Turks'
minds up for them.
The revolution in Turkey that had begun m 1908 promised a secu­
larized and modernized state, and was to lead to the deposing of the last
caliph in the line that had started with Abu Bakr in Medina. A new navy
was to be developed following the Tirkish defeat in the Balkan Wars of
1912, when the Ottoman Empire had been expelled from the last
Muslim temtones in Europe,Two battleships were ordered from Bntain.
to be built by shipyards on the Tyne and armed to the standard of the
most powerful new warships m the British Navy. The huge cost of the
ships was met by zakat subscription, with contributions made by every
subject of the Empire, however poor. The Sultan Osman and the
Reshodieh were completed in May 1914, but a senes of excuses was
made by the British to avoid delivery, even though a substantial payment
had been made and 500 Turkish sailors were waiting to board their ships
and sail home. In July, a week before the outbreak of the European war,
Churchill seized the battleships which were renamed and turned over to
|£0 ISLW INTK MODERN WORLD

the Admiralty, ready for active servsce. When the news reached Turkey.
England immediately became the popular enemy, a sentiment which,
mixed with revived religious intensity, was to end so bloodily on the
beaches of Gallipoli. Sir Edward Grey, the British Foreign Minister, sent a
note to the Turkish government, explaining that Britain, 'with sincere
regret', required the battleships 'for her own needs during the present
crisis'The Turkish crew was interned and financial compensation was not
even mentioned. Grey's telegram arrived in Constantinople on 3 August
1914. Turkey signed the German treaty on the same day.

Although the First World War went well for Turkey initially, with
the defeat of a British force in Palestine, the defeat of a second
British force in Iraq, and a third victory over Britain at Gallipoli,
Turkey's declaration of war nevertheless precipitated the formal
annexation of Egypt by Britain and the beginning of the end of
empire. By 1918 the Ottoman army had been defeated in both Iraq
and Palestine, with the Ottoman territories occupied as far north as
the borders of Anatolia.
At first the British war aim in the Middle East had been to 'roll­
up' the Ottoman Empire, starting from Egypt, with an advance
around the eastern end of the Mediterranean Sea, leading to the
opening of a second front against Germany and Austria in the 'soft
underbelly' of the Balkans. This became especially urgent for the
Allies as the Russian army collapsed in the period leading up to the
Revolution of 1917, which allowed the Germans to intensify pres­
sure on rhe Allied trench lines in northern France with troops no
longer required to lace the Russians in the east. In order to hasten
the opening of the planned Balkan second front, the British enlisted
the help of the Arabs against the Turks, promising the Amir of
Mecca (Guardian of the Holy Places but nevertheless an Arab
Ottoman official) the kingship of a united and liberated Arabia in
return for the declaration of an Arab Revolt backed by a jihad to
counteract the earlier jihad of the Ottoman caliph against the Allies.
The correspondence between Sir Henry McMahon, on behalf of the
British government, and al-Hussein ibn Ali, the Amir, promised to
‘uphold the independence of the Arabs’ and to 'guarantee the Holy
Places'. The latter assurance included Jerusalem.
 IStAM IN Tut MO06RN WORLD 161

But almost concurrently with this first promise. Britain negotiated

a secret treaty with France, the Sykes-Picot Agreement, by which the
Ottoman territories in the Middle East would be divided between the
two powers after the war had been won, and not given to the Arabs.
And in a third document (the Balfour Declaration, see Appendix 1),
Britain promised the Jews of the world a ‘national home' in Arab
Palestine with the objective of hastening American entry into the war
and gaining general Jewish support for the British war effort.
After the war was over and Britain was in occupation of the
Middle East from Cairo to Damascus to Baghdad, the three con­
flicting promises were considered by a conference convened in Cairo
in 1921 by Winston Churchill, then Secretary of the Colonies. The
‘solution to rhe problem adopted by the conference led to almost a
century ofviolent conflict and remains the root cause of Middle East
unrest in present times.
The Arab provinces of the defeated Ottoman Empire were
divided up and effectively colonized, rather than liberated. France,
despite fierce local opposition, occupied I-cbanon and Syria, which
were split into separate countries. Britain established control over
the newly imposed states of Transjordan and Iraq, while claiming
Iran as a sphere of influence. At the same time, Zionism, the mass
emigration of Jews from around the world into Palestine (another
new British colony) to create the promised 'national home’, was
adopted as British policy. Thus, despite the solemn promise made
during the war, the Arabs who had been Britain's only allies in the
field against the lurks, found that they were to be denied both free­
dom and unity, and that Islam's holy city of Jerusalem was to be
taken out of Muslim control.
A further long-term tragedy rooted in the outcome of the Cairo
conference was the failure to implement Kurdish nationhood, which
would have been possible at a time when Britain had direct or indi­
rect control over almost all the Kurdish lands. Instead, the Kurds
were arbitrarily divided by the final Cairo settlement between the
emerging nation-states ofTurkey, Syria and Iraq, with further tribes
spread into Iran, which was also under British influence at the time.
Decades of oppression, war and misery for the Kurdish people were
to flow from this decision, lasting up ro the present day, still with no
nationhood in sight.
 ISLAM IN THE MODERN WORLD

Maps of the Middle East showing results of the Cairo

Conference, 1921
 __________________________ 6LAM IN TKMOOWM WORLD______________________ 14)

V Islam in the Modern World

By the 1920s European colonization in various forms had prevailed

over almost the entire Muslim world. Boundaries, where few or
none had existed before, were imposed by the imperial powers, and
later became the national boundaries of the states that make up the
present map of Islam. Britain, France, Spain, Portugal, Holland and
the former USSR all played a role.
Then, in a true historical irony, by fighting for or otherwise
accepting self-rule within these new boundaries, the process by
which independence was gained by the Muslim world worked to
confirm the colonizers' policy of dividing Islam into separate syn­
thetic ‘states'. In addition, most emerging countries were simultane­
ously squeezed into the Western mould of a secular political system
with no official place for religion. In this way the Europeans had, by
the 1950s, effectively overturned fourteen centuries of Muslim his­
tory and tradition within one generation.
The further ironic consequence of this new 'historical geography'
is that recently created and unstable nation-states with all-Muslim
populations occupy a central strategic position on the face of the
globe. Muslim states, moreover, control huge reserves of low-cost oil
and gas in the Persian Gulf and these conventional supplies will con­
tinue long after all other non-Arab sources have been exhausted.
During 2004, America already imported 56 per cent of oil and gas for
domestic consumption and came into increasing competition with
the Republic of China for sources of supply. (By the invasion of Iraq
in 2003 the US wiped out China's entire investments in Iraqi oil pro­
duction under Saddam.) The inexorable statistics of oil, mixed in
with Muslims' unfulfilled spiritual and political hopes left over from
the decolonization process, make it certain that Islam's effect on world
events will remain significant for the foreseeable future. Ilie only
energy alternative lies in increased reliance on non-conventional oil
supplies, principally the heavy oil reserves of Canada and Venezuela.
(By 2030 Canadian production is projected to match current Saudi
output.)
The sweeping political changes of the twentieth century were
responsible for the creation of almost every one of rhe countries listed
on p. 164.
 ISLAM IN THE MOMKN WCTLD

• Countries with an almost entirely Muslim population:

Djibouti Libya Iran

Qatar Jordan Turkey'
The Maldives Somali Republic Pakistan
United Arab Emirates Tunisia Indonesia
Bahrain North Yemen Comoro Islands
The Gambia Saudi Arabia Bangladesh
Sultanate of Oman Iraq Western Sahara
Kuwait Algeria Afghanistan
Mauritania Morocco Yemen
Mali

• Countries with an Islamic majority:

Egypt Niger Turkmenistan

Senegal Azerbaijan Tajikistan
Syria Guinea
Sudan Uzbekistan
Chad Albania

• Countries with a 1Muslim population of 25-50%:

Guinea-Bissau Gabon Kazakhstan

Sierra Leone Angola Kyrgyzstan
Ivory Coast Ethiopia Malaysia
Nigeria Albania Lebanon

Before rhe arrival of the Europeans, almost none of these countries

had existed as a separate state within their present boundaries. Most
Muslim populations were passed by the hand of history directly from
their previous condition as subjects of 'native' empires, first to colo­
nial status, then to independence within an artificial nation-state,
subject to a received form of Western political ideology. Ansi these
events, by their very nature, were ordered from the outside, rather
than as a result of any form of internal popular choice.
Most Arabs, for example, were the subjects of the Ottoman
Empire until 1918; the Muslims of India before the arrival of the
British were part of various Asian empires that included many
other religions; while Africans and Indonesians in pre-colonial times
were generally grouped by tribe. These Arab. Indian, African and
 6LAM IN1HE MODtRN VOW 165

Indonesian populations then passed front native' rule to European

colonial rule, contained within new frontiers determined in distant
European capitals with little regard tor history, culture or religion.
On gaining independence these colonial units became the 'nation­
states of Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq, Brunei, Sudan, Nigeria,
Algeria and so on.
Only in the second half of the twentieth century did Muslim
populations emerge from their previous subjections with both
political independence and an Islamic majority. This has created
opportunities not experienced since the days of the Prophet's
Commonwealth to implement Islam as a social and political project
as well as a personal religion. But the possibility of a return’ to the
imagined utopia of Medina in the seventh century ce, widely hoped
for by Muslims, has come up against practical, national and inter­
national limitations.
Like most colonies, the future Muslim states struggled violently
for their political independence from their colonizers, obscuring for
the rime being the question of what influence Islam would have on
the regimes that were to follow the retreat of the imperial powers.
This drive for independence resulted in widespread violence and
almost all the principal Muslim states of the present day were born of
armed conflict of some kind, from fierce all-out war in Algeria to the
partition massacres in India and Pakistan. These events in turn threw
up post-independence regimes of secular dictators, often nominally
socialist, emerging victorious from anti-colonial campaigns, who held
together their nation-states by force. Many such brutal arrangements
were then consolidated with arms and money by either the West or
the East during the Cold War. Syria, Algeria and Elgypt, for example,
'went socialist’, while Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Indonesia were 'pro-
Western'. And in the worldwide strategic confrontation of the 1960s,
1970s and 1980s, appalling examples of repression and mismanage­
ment in Muslim countries were overlooked by both East and West in
the name of cither the ‘free world' or 'anti-imperialism', with Islam
once again ignored as a possible alternative form of government.
During the 1980s, the same economics that brought down the
Berlin Wall also ended both American or Soviet support for many
Third World dictatorships. Erom Yemen to Algeria, from Iran to
Indonesia dictators fell or were seriously weakened. With this
166 ISLAM IN THE MOMRN WOftP

unwinding of the aligned' and 'non-aligned' divisions, the opportu­

nity finally appeared for Islam to emerge as a system for running, or
even merely influencing, society. The chance had come to sweep
away the unwanted impositions, from foreign occupation to inter­
nal dictatorship, and to return to the laws that were established by
the Prophet.
The concept of rule by a divine Qur’in-bascd constitution, as we
have seen, is what is meant by the Shariah in the widest sense. But
instead of the emergence of the Shariah as the basis of a constitutional
solution in the post-native empire, post-colonial, and post-C-old War
Muslim world, the twentieth-century concept of the secular state has
been reinforced by the West. The former bloody excesses of dictators
may be retreating, but the old military men, taking advantage of
the former ideological divide between communism and capitalism,
have been succeeded by a new ruling elite of civilians who have
replaced overt repression with state corruption, backed by formidable
police powers. Once again, abuses that would be unthinkable within
Western countries themselves are tolerated by the West: the absence
of financial accountability, censorship of the press, ubiquitous para­
military presence, straw parliamentary parties winning 95 per cent of
the vote and full of businessmen on the make, and so on.
On the streets of Cairo or Lahore, of course, the perpetrator of
all these misdeeds and injustices is not the 'West' in the general sense
used here, but America specifically. America's pragmatic self-interest
has frequendy led to support for men like Saddam Hussein, the
former Shah of Iran, or the rulers of Saudi Arabia, but then at a later
date the same motivation has produced a change, ignoring the
resulting injustices to the subject populations. And since American
policy is consistently promoted in terms of 'democracy' and ‘free­
dom’. wc can hardly be surprised that Muslims do not sec the
future paths of their societies as following the West into the dark
side of these words: pacification by consumption, political half­
truths and declining religious observance. In any event, materialist
liberalism is a convenient belief for those already rich, but the creed
has yet to offer any real solution to the impoverished majority of the
world. Rather, the reality is that in almost all of the Islamic coun­
tries now controlled by questionable voting and corruption, a strong
majority of the population would vote for the establishment of some
 ______________________ ISLAM IN THE MCOERN WOR1.D___________________ 167

form of Islamic state under the Shariah out of sheer frustration, if

truly free elections were held.
There is. however, very little possibility that this will happen.
Sitting rulers have the power of the state available to them at elec­
tion time and the purist Muslim opposition is usually doctrinally
split, or subject to crippling security restrictions. And, of course, the
corrupt are quick to invoke the Qur’an themselves, making a true
contest between the existing hypocritical order and what are seen as
God's laws almost impossible.
Fhus in no Muslim country has the Shariah been given the time
or the opportunity to prove whether or not the system can achieve
a workable balance. Even in Iran and Saudi Arabia the historical
legacy of ultra-conservatism has weighed down the possibilities of
the Shariah with dogmatic rigidity and thus precipitated wide­
spread, if suppressed, discontent.

To illustrate the general political impasse reached by much of Islam

in the modern world, here arc potted histories of eight Muslim
states. These are countries whose problems arc often sensationalized
by the Western press, while the origins of their present conditions
are ignored.

Algeria was united into the Umayyad dynasty and gradually con­
vened to Islam during the eighth century ce, but stood for cen­
turies on the edge of the events in both the Muslim and European
spheres. In 1962 Algeria emerged from 132 years of French colonial
ntle after a bloody war of liberation. The economy of the country
was destroyed and at least two million Algerians were killed. A
significant number of the victims, as recently been revealed to the
French public by a retired and bcmedallcd general, were tortured to
death by French troops. And although French politicians claimed to
be 'deeply shocked' and 'horrified' at the revelation, the events
occurred during the time when a former President of the Republic
was Minister of Justice, and the President in office at the time of
writing served as an Intelligence officer in Algeria during the war.
(The general, Paul Aussaresses, was tried and convicted following
the publication, not for his activities in Algeria, but for writing the
book, and thus ‘condoning war crimes'.)
168 ISLAM IN THf MODERN WORLD

In the forty years since independence, the leadership of the vic­

torious Algerian army, through the National Liberation Front
(FLN), has ruled aggressively in the name of state socialism. During
this time the secular ideals of democracy and equality that were
promised by the revolutionary leaders at the end of the war have
given way to stagnation and corruption, with the result that the
country remains bitter and impoverished. The opposition to the
present military oligarchy, the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS), has
grown steadily, operating from a network of radical mosques in the
principal northern cities. The party advocates the implementation of
the Shariah as the political ideology of the country, combined with
a form of democracy and economic reform. In 1990, in the first free
elections ever ro be held in Algeria, the FIS took power in a major­
ity of the municipalities across the country. In the first round of
national elections in 1991 the FIS gained 188 of 435 seats (although
with only 25 per cent of the popular vote), but the army intervened
to remove the civilian FLN government and impose martial law.
The President of the country was deposed, the leaders of the FIS
were imprisoned and all religious organizations proscribed. The
French government and the Western press were jubilant, offering
immediate support to the new military dictatorship in the fight
against 'fundamentalism'. In a European country such a coup would
have caused international outrage.
A militant group broke away from the FIS and a guerrilla war
began against the Algerian military (including the bombing of targets
in Paris) that cost over 100,000 lives up ro the end of 2001. The
deaths included the massacre of the entire population of a number of
rural villages, including women and children, which were at first pre­
sumed to lie the work of the ex-FIS guerrillas, the Ci IA (supported,
of course, according ro the Algerian government, by al-Qaeda). But
in the last few years even the French press has speculated that these
endless murders, for which no suspect has ever been arrested, much
less publicly tried and convicted, may in fact have been the work of
the Algerian military, attempting to discredit the GIA in the eyes of
the outside world and at the same time terrorize the population at
home. Further, the unrestrained campaign by the Algerian govern­
ment against any dissent, with thousands of suspects executed with­
out trial, has had the effect of driving many young Algerian men
 ISLAM THE MOOERN WORLD 169

abroad to become the foot-soldiers of Islamist insurgency worldwide.

Yet France, fearing above all another flood of Muslim emigration
across the Mediterranean, continues to support the existing military-
backed regime with arms, cash and trade.
In September 2005 the Algerian government attempted to bring
an end to both the civil war and to unanswered questions about the
many unsolved atrocities and over 6,000 disappearances'. Not
through any form of'truth and reconciliation commission', but with
a plebiscite praising the Algerian army for 'saving the country'. No
outside observers were permitted to monitor the poll, which
inevitably resulted in the granting of unconditional amnesty to the
army for all previous crimes by a '97 per cent yes' vote.
Meanwhile, with bald cynicism, the government of Algeria
rushed to embrace America's 'War on Terrorism'. Subsequent sup­
port front the US for the continuation of the Algerian pouvoir cul­
minated in Operation Flintlock in 2005, a major training operation
in the southern Sahara in partnership with the Algerian and other
national armies. The considerable cost of the exercise, complete with
planes, tanks, helicopters and extensive support facilities, contrasted
with a tragic period of drought and starvation in Niger and Chad,
for which, ironically, a charitable appeal was launched on US televi­
sion. The opportunity for Algerians to settle their method of gov­
ernment for themselves by a free election, that would undoubtedly
return a pro-Shariah majority, seems as remote as in colonial days.

Pakistan (meaning Land of the Pure) formed part of the unified

Indian Raj under British rule for 300 years until the middle of the
twentieth century. After the Second World War, however, Britain
was no longer able to maintain her empire cither financially or
morally. But in the rush to unload imperial responsibility for India
and to avoid the further expensive entanglement that may have
resulted from the proper maintenance of public security, sectarian
violence brought on by approaching independence was left to spread
unchecked. This in turn led Muslims to believe that a hijrah to a sep­
arate Islamic state was their only safeguard against the Hindu major­
ity. Then Britain's heinous incompetence in managing the ensuing
partition of the country during the two years of post-imperial panic
as Pakistan and India moved towards independence, resulted in the
I?Q______________________ ISlAM THf MOOtRN WXt D

expulsion or death of millions from both communities. The new

state of Pakistan, born of bloodshed, was to 'return to the original
purity of Islam' in rhe words of Muhammad Iqbal, the intellec­
tual founder of iMuslim independence. The 1956 constitution
declared Pakistan to be an ‘Islamic Republic’, but a state ruled by the
Qur'an turned out to be beyond the reach of imperfect politicians.
The ideal of an Islamic state was compromised from the start by the
very upper-class and military oligarchy that had first promoted the
concept. Once the unaccountable institutions of the former Raj were
in their hands, the concept of the Shariah turned from being an
objective to become a threat to the existing order and only token
reforms have ever been implemented, often by merely changing the
titles and headings of existing legislation. Pakistan's ideal has been
further compromised by the retention of virtual feudalism in the
Punjab, distrust of the central government by the strongly Muslim
tribes of the North West frontier, and the conduct and expense of
three wars with India over the province of Kashmir, a further legacy
of the Raj.
Reformist Islamist movements never took hold in Pakistan, as in
Egypt, for example, the new country being too traumatized at birth
(and remaining on a war footing against India ever since) or dis­
tracted by extreme poverty and the violent break-awav of East
Pakistan (on the other side of the Indian sub-continent) to become
Bangladesh. Instead, Pakistan has developed a deeply conservative
and stagnant Muslim culture, inward-looking, fearful of India and
the West, and convinced that the slightest deviation from orthodoxy
will sweep the country away.
Pakistan's recent history has been dominated by tension between
the secular management of the state on the one hand (often by the
pro-Western army), covered by a thin veneer of Islam but internally
riddled with corruption, and a desire by the majority on the other
for some unspecified Islamic titivbid or theo-democracy, based on
the security of a traditional way of life. Thus the Shariah has made
little progress, only trotted out when the government seeks a diver­
sion away from any number of recurring crises. The implementation
of an Islamic state is further frustrated by dashes between the
minority Shi'a and majority Sunni, and between the natives of Sind
and Karachi with the Muhajirs (immigrants from India from the
______________________ BtAMurm hcxxrnwcmd izi

time of partition). In addition, Pakistan's conduct of proxy wars

with a religious character in both Afghanistan and Kashmir has
resulted in the import into Pakistan of destabilizing armed militancy
and drug-related gangsterism (not to mention, reputedly, Osama
ibn Laden himself). Islamism has also been dangerously manipu­
lated internally by successive governments and their security services
as a source of political support in the wilder regions, and military
support in Kashmir.
During the Cold War and the occupation of Aighanistan by rhe
USSR. Pakistan was able to exploit geography in order to keep aid
and arms flowing from the West, without any serious criticism of
internal policies. In the twenty-first century Pakistan's combination
of nuclear power and Muslim militancy has the capacity to frighten
the West into continued support. Although this brinkmanship is
often taken to the very edge, the West ultimately has no alternative.
The active support given by Pakistan's military government to
America's overthrow of the Afghan Taliban (former clients of
Pakistan) is a further example of the same cycle. In return. Pakistan’s
profile in the west has been raised from isolated state to strategic ally,
and the country's external debt has once again been renegotiated,
without any commitment extracted to democratic reform and an end
to military rule. Even the West's obsession with Pakistan’s 10,000
madrasahs has resulted in very little change, with General Pervez
Musharraf still dependent on right-wing religious support for his
control over the mainstream political panics.
Kashmir, described by a Mughal emperor as a paradise on eanh.
attempted (under a Hindu Maharaja imposed a century earlier by
the British Raj) to gain independence at the same time as India and
Pakistan. When the overwhelmingly Muslim population objected,
some violently, the Maharaja asked for help from the Indian Army.
The first Indo-Pakistan war followed, with both sides claiming the
whole of Kashmir. A Line of Control was established by a UN
ceasefire in 1949. which divided the state between India and
Pakistan. Both countries promptly assimilated their share, while still
claiming the portion given to the other. Further fighting in 1965
resulted in a second deadlock. The Indian portion of Kashmir,
renamed Jammu and Kashmir, the only Muslim majority state in the
county, has been in a virtual state of uprising ever since, resulting in
 ISLAM 'N THE MODERN'WORLD
1Z1
direct rule by the Hindu-dominated Union government in New
Delhi. This is justified on the basis that Kashmir is essential to the
country’s defence against China, and that India is a secular democ­
racy and religion irrelevant. But at the same time India has consis­
tently refused to hold the plebiscite mandated by United Nations
resolution as part of the 1949 ceasefire, and specifically promised to
Kashmiris at the time. Yet opponents of Indian rule are referred to
as ’terrorists', and Kashmir has long been subject to appalling
human rights abuses and corruption by the Indian Army. This, in
turn, has provoked further violence, leading to thousands of deaths
annually, as well as the inevitable collapse of tourism, once the core
of the Kashmiri economy. At the same time Pakistan claims Kashmir
as unfinished business from the catastrophic British withdrawal of
1947, and as a vital element of the state that was set up specifically
to offer a refuge to Muslims. In another version of the name,
Pakistan stands for Punjabis, Afghans, Kashmiris. Sindis and the
people of Balukhistan.

The Dutch colonialization of Indonesia, that began with spice

trading in the seventeenth century, came to an abrupt halt with the
Japanese invasion of 1942. Ironically, the Japanese, however brutal
their occupation of the Indonesian archipelago may have been,
respected Islam as an anti-Europcan force, and in the period up to
the defeat of Japan by the Allies in 1945 the idea began to develop
among Indonesians of Indonesia as a united and independent
Islamic nation. Independence was declared from Holland rhe same
year with the acquiescence of the departing Japanese, but the Dutch
attempted a return after the war to punish the collaborators', and
complete native sovereignty was only conceded after another four
years of futile colonial brutality. The country that the new inde­
pendent government inherited consists of 13,000 islands of varying
historical backgrounds that had never constituted a united political
entity before colonization. 'lite result is that Hindu. Buddhist,
pagan and Christian societies are closely mixed with the worlds
largest Muslim population, which had reached an estimated 180
million at the turn of the twentieth century. This history has given
Indonesian Islam a tolerant folkloric character, split into many
conflicting doctrinal groups. But recently outside pressure and a
______________________ SLAM IN THE MOCfRN WOTID___________________ IH

worldwide Muslim self-consciousness has led to stricter Sunni

observance. The development of extreme literalist elements has fol­
lowed specifically the Jemmah Islamiah and the Islam Defenders
Front, leading to an escalation in violent confrontation with the
heretical ways of the past, almost unchecked by the central govern­
ment. The Bali nightclub bombing of October 2004 was one tragic
outcome.
Indonesia reversed die usual course of post-colonial history by
starting with a period of political instability under President
Sukarno, from 1950 to 1965, and following with a 'strong man' dic­
tatorship. President Suharto came to power in 1965 with his New
Order, suppressing the chaotic Old Order with great ferocity during
which, it is now estimated, one million civilians were killed. But
rigged elections and support from the West and from the
Association of South Eastern Nations (ASEAN, a Pacific version of
NATO), together with considerable oil revenues, gave the regime
the appearance of legitimacy and the brutal rule of the army was
ignored by the rest of the world. In the name of ‘development’ and
stability’, rigid central authority was imposed on all regions, mil­
lions were forcibly resettled from urban to hostile rural areas, for
which purpose large tracts of land were appropriated from their
peasant owners.
But the stability of the New Order and the status of the country
as an ‘Asian Tiger' with a miracle economy proved to be a corrupt
illusion and civil order collapsed during the Souch-east Asian eco­
nomic recession which began in 1997. Most regions beyond Java
have demanded devolution or outright independence from central
control and many have also called for the implementation of the
Shariah as the solution to Indonesia’s chronic problems, once again
raising the utopian ideal of the Prophets Commonwealth. As his­
tory began to unravel with the end of Suharto's rule in 1998, com­
munal violence spread, especially in Aceh, Kalimantan (Borneo) and
the Moluccas. Despite the extremely bloody record of the Suharto
government, which was heavily supported by Europe and the US for
thirty years, news reporting in the West has fixed the responsibility
for the current unrest on 'Muslim aggression’ or ‘militant Islam’. In
fact the tolerant Indonesian verion of Islam is prospering under the
beginnings of democracy, and regional disturbances are the product
174 tSl AM IN THt MQC^RNWCWID

of decades of criminal mismanagement and forced internal cross-

cultural immigration, resulting in violent disputes about the owner­
ship of land.

From the time of the division of the Roman Empire into east and
west in 395 ce, the territory that is modern Turkey was the core of
the Eastern Roman or Byzantine Christian Empire. Byzantium
steadily gave way to Islam, until by the 1500s the Ottoman Empire
had entirely replaced the previous Christian empire in Turkey as well
as in the Balkans (Greece, Macedonia. Albania, Bosnia, Bulgaria)
and in the eastern Mediterranean and across North Africa. But by
the end of the First World War only metropolitan Turkey remained
of the old Ottoman Empire, ironically the only part to achieve full
and immediate post-war independence. As a sequel to the Young
Turks' revolution of 1908, a Republic was declared in 1923 under
Mustafa Kemal (later known as Ataturk) to resist the punitive terms
imposed by the victorious Allies.
The new national state of Turkey was defined by Ataturk as an
uncompromisingly lay society with no official place for Islam, thus
signifying a turn away from the Arab world and a conscious wish to
be considered a part of Europe. The call to prayer was banned,
Sunday rather than Friday became the official day of rest, and reli­
gious schools were closed. But almost eighty years on, the strongly
centralized army-influenced state has become ossified, corrupt and
violently repressive, the very afflictions that Atatiirk sought to abol­
ish with his revolution. The way in which the Turkish state deals
with Islam has led to particularly bizarre results. The population is
97 per cent Muslim, yet the army men, much cosseted by the West
when Turkey was on the front line of the Cold War against the
USSR, impose comprehensive restrictions on all forms of Muslim
observance, supposedly to protect the state against irtica, a nebulous
fundamentalist threat that is apparently about to overtake the coun­
try at any minute. Hcadscarvcs are banned, beards and turbans arc
risky, mosques arc strictly controlled, and heavy penalties have been
imposed for the use of the word jihad in public. Protestors, from
MPs to street demonstrators, have been jailed under inhuman con­
ditions or removed from politics for life, and a hidden dirty war con­
tinues between the army and Kurds advocating cultural freedom.
 INTHE MODfcAM WORLD 175
much less political independence. In their frustration, dissidents
express the ironic opinion that membership of the European Union
will guarantee civil rights, and thus permit the liberation of Islam as
well as the preservation of Kurdish identity. The absence of religious
and political freedom in Turkey is indeed one of the obstacles to
Union membership, brought into focus once again by the arrest in
2005 of the author Orhan Pamuk for daring to suggest that rhe
Armenian Massacre by Turkish troops in 1908 may be a historical
fact. But in any event, popular European public opinion, reacting to
friction svith the existing .Muslim minorities, is a long way from
accepting an Islamic member, even under the moderate government
elected in 2002. And with hundreds of reporters in Turkish prisons,
a constitution edited by the military, and civil liberties viewed by
even elected governments as a subversive concept, Turkey’s applica­
tion to join Europe remains firmly at the bottom of the list. But the
historic opportunity will be lost to hinge Europe and the Middle
East through Turkey as an Islamic EU member.

Afghanistan’s Muslim history has been ’typical’ (from native empire

to European dominance, then passing through a bloody war of inde­
pendence to an unstable present) but to an extreme degree not
matched in any other modern Muslim nation-state, except possibly
Somalia. Almost all the conquerors in the history of Islam have
crossed through the country’s mountain passes, including the
Umayyads and the ’Abbasids, the Mongols, the Mughals and the
Persian Safavids, leaving behind them tribes of widely different
ethnic origin: from the Turkic peoples of the north, connected to the
nomads of Central Asia, to the Shi'a in the west (Dari speakers of
Persian origin) to the Pashtuns of the south (Sunnis claiming
descent from Oways, a Companion of the Prophet). Afghanistan's
violent history has created a deeply cherished warrior tradition of
self-reliance, combined with the Islamic ideals of equality and jus­
tice. while invasion and counter-invasion to and from Persia have
produced a historic hostility berween the majority Sunni tribes and
the minority Shi’ites.
In the eighteenth century a recognizable Afghan state under the
Pashtun Durrani dynasty finally emerged from the preceding
empires, but from early in rhe nineteenth century on, the Durranis
176 tSl AM IN THE MODERN WORLD

were besieger! and manipulated by both Russia from the north and
Britain from India in the south, in the era of geo-political competi­
tion known as the Great Game. The outcome was British domi­
nation of the country and the violent suppression of non-Pashtun
tribes with British support. The Pashtun Durranis were deposed in
1973 and a Republic was declared by the northern tribes, who
turned to the USSR for assistance, while the Pashtuns, now in oppo­
sition, were supported by Pakistan. Afghanistan thus fell into the
Soviet orbit and a scries of coups brought a communist government
to power.This in turn led to rebellion by the devout Sunni Pashtuns
and others, against the communist 'infidels', precipitating the Soviet
response of invasion in 1979. The country was then at the very
centre of the Cold War, with the Pashtun Mujahidin, or Fighters in
the Cause of God, as the rebels called themselves, fighting directly
against the Soviet army, backed in their jihad by the US, China and
Saudi Arabia. During this period any inconvenience to US policy,
such as mujahidin war crimes or drug-trafficking, was ignored.
And a further product of US support was the creation of the
'Arab Afghans'. This cadre of 20,000 zealous warriors from mostly
Arab countries, armed by America and funded by Saudi Arabia, was,
however, devoted to a concept of Muslim destiny that found
common cause with America against the Soviets only temporarily.
Their number included twenty-six-year-old Osama ibn Laden,
master propagandist, inspired quartermaster and tactician.
Al-Kifah was formed in the early 1980s to recruit new members,
to be replaced by the secure inner circle of al-Qaeda in 1989 after
al-Kifah had been penetrated by the secret services of Arab govern­
ments. Utter, after ibn laden's disillusionment with America follow­
ing the abandonment of the victorious Afghan Muslims and the
establishment of American bases in the Prophet's holy land of
Arabia, the concept now known as al-Qaeda spread out into thirty
or more countries, seeking the implementation of the Shariah in the
Muslim world.
In the vacuum left in Afghanistan by the precipitous departure
of both the Russians and the Americans, a vicious civil war was
waged between the armed ethnic and tribal groups and their respec­
tive warlords, until the country had been reduced to a scries of
fiefdoms, with what remained of both the agricultural and the urban
 6LRMIN THE MODERN WORLD _______ \T>
infrastructures utterly devastated. The former mujahidin command­
ers now became the new oppressors and the flood of the dispossessed
into Pakistan, that had begun in 1973, intensified. During the next
twenty years a new generation came of age in the hopeless refugee
camps on the Pakistan side of the border. These were the sons of dis­
enchanted mujahidin foot soldiers, for whom the only available
education was as a salib, or student of Islam, in madrasahs run by
half-literate mullahs whose sole source was the text of the Qur’an,
misread against a backdrop of continuous war and extreme personal
suffering. This group, calling themselves Taliban (plural of talib),
began with sixteen rifles in 1994, seeing their first action with the
rescue of village girls held in Kandahar in sexual slavery by a regional
strong-man. But by early 1997, after a ferocious advance against the
northern tribes and the rump of communism, and supported by
Iran, the Taliban were in control of 90 per cent of Afghanistan,
including Kabul. Their leaders immediately set about the imple­
mentation of their interpretation of the Qur’an in an attempt to
turn back the clock to a mythical time when Afghanistan was peace­
ful and united, based on the even more distant utopia of the
Prophets Commonwealth of Medina.
But the brutal zeal of the Taliban met with a level of inter­
national criticism, relating to such single issues as women's rights or
the demolition of Buddhist statues, that failed entirely to take into
account the highly destructive manipulation of Afghanistan by out­
side powers in the recent past (or the earlier more widespread
destruction of Afghanistan’s cultural heritage by the mujahidin
during the time when they were important to the West). The West
was delighted with the defeat of the Soviet army in Afghanistan, as
the Russians had now suffered their ‘own Vietnam'. In fact the vic­
tory of the mujahidin contributed significantly to the fall of the
Berlin Wall and the end of communism. This was only made possi­
ble, however, by using die Pashtun rebels as the West's proxy
fighters, supported by a flood of arms into Afghanistan through rhe
West's client, Pakistan. And it was the Afghanis, not rhe West who
paid the price for this terrible Cold War victory: with the destruc­
tion of Herat, for example, during which over 20,000 people died
and one of the oldest cities in the world was devastated, or with the
ruinous mining of Kandahar and the surrounding farmlands. There
178 rSlAM<MT>« MOOKN

were terrible tragedies both communal and individual during these

years, with millions killed and injured, including many of the lead­
ership of the Taliban, most of whom were missing a limb or an eye.
Under these circumstances the status of women and the destruc­
tion of statues were surely irrelevant to the need for peaceful recon­
struction. By abandoning their valiant former proxies the US had
created a new level of tragedy. Regional powers (Iran and Pakistan in
particular) were free to wield power and perpetuate the fighting,
international insurgency and drug-dealing had found a new sanctu­
ary, and threatened with Islamist destabilization, the cx-USSR
Central Asian republics were able to justify their harsh regimes.
With the events of September 11th 2001, Afghanistan again
became the centre ofworld attention. The refusal of the Taliban gov­
ernment to give up Osama ibn Laden, presumed to be responsible
for the strikes on New York and Washington, together with other
members of al-Qaeda, led to an American attack on the country.
Heavy bombing completed the devastation of the previous two
decades, and within three months, according to Human Rights
Watch, more innocent Afghan civilians had been killed than had
died in the suicide attacks on New York and Washington. The enor­
mous disparity between the power of America and the primitive
resources of the Taliban resulted in the speedy collapse of the regime,
which was replaced by an interim Western-friendly inter-tribal gov­
ernment, but with a very limited writ beyond Kabul. And the new
power in the land included a disturbing number of the mujahidin
elements responsible for the collapse of the country into chaos and
drug-production prior to the arrival of the Taliban. Further, while
the role of religion in government, the original motivation of the
Ialiban, may be temporarily obscured by plans for reconstruction,
this core issue has not been settled by American bombs or ‘regime
change'.

Syria has been at the centre of Middle East history since the dawn of
time, forming part of the Phoenician, Persian, Greek. Roman and
Brantine Empires, among others. Syria was the first territory to
come under Muslim rule dunng the expansion of Islam in the
seventh century and has been continuously Muslim ever since. Under
the Ottoman Empire, Syria was a quasi-independent vilayet, or
 151 AM IN IK TOW WORLD 179
administrative district, run by Arabs but under a Turkish governor.
On the defeat of rhe Turks in 1918, the British occupied Damascus,
but passed Syria to France under the Sykes-Picot Agreement, rather
than back to the Arabs as previously promised. France maintained
Syria as a colony until 1946, despite unrelenting Arab opposition and
great loss of life on both sides. The Syrian army ruled for the first
twenty years after the defeat of the French, during which time the
country suffered ten coups, the last of which, in 1970, brought Hafez
al-Assad and the Ba'th Party to power, A fiercely repressive regime
followed, nominally socialist and pro-Soviet, turning in the 1980s to
superficial economic reforms and wholesale corruption, with the
development of a patronage system based on oil revenues. The elite
around the President, and particularly his own Alawite clan, grew
immensely rich while the average per capita income declined steadily
and military expenditure consumed 50 per cent of government
revenues.
Islamist opposition was especially targeted by Syria’s dozen or
more secret services. An insurrection by the Muslim Brotherhood
in Hama in 1982 was put down with the full force of the Syrian
military, 10,000 people were killed and the town destroyed. Syria
intervened in the civil war in Lebanon and occupied that country
for twenty-eight years to 2005. Yet none of these obscene actions
disqualified al-Assad as a suitable partner for the West in the Gulf
War of 1990, and in 2001 Syria was chosen to sit on the Security
Council of the United Nations.
During the 1980s Syria took virtual control of Lebanese politics
initially to suppress the ambitions of the Muslim left and the
Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), but later came into direct
conflict with Israel, following Israel's invasion of the South. Syria has
opposed the existence of Israel since 1948. participating in all three
Aral>-lsraeli wars, and losing in 1967 a large part of Southern Syria
to Israeli invasion, and the de facto annexation of large areas of
Syrian territory for Jewish settlements. Syria’s participation is thus at
vital to any comprehensive peace in the Middle East.
Repression in Syria of both Muslim aspirations and human
rights continues under al-Assad’s son Bashshar al-Assad. whose suc­
cession in 2001 created the first ‘republican monarchy’ in the Arab
world. Syria has recently come under pressure from the United
IK> ISL'V"’ IN THE MOOtWM WOULD

States, but not to rectify internal injustices, or to ensure free elec­

tions. Rather, the opportunity was provided by the assassination in
Beirut of Rafik al-Hariri, the former Lebanese prime minister (and
outspoken opponent of Syrian influence in Lebanon) to remove
Bashshar through apparently legitimate means, so ending Syrias
opposition to Israeli expansion as well as Syrian support for
Hizbullah. If the United Nations investigation into the huge explo­
sion that killed al-Hariri and his bodyguard (on St Valentine’s Day
2004) can be traced to Damascus, a repeat of the sanctions and
no-fly zones used against Iraq may be expected. And in a possible
US exit strategy' from Iraq, unable to prevent the break-up of that
artificial state, the Iraqi ‘Sunni triangle' could only be permitted
inevitable association with Syria if that country's regime were first
rendered 'user friendly’ to American policy.

Egypt gained limited independence from Britain in 1923 as a con­

stitutional monarchy. The new state was based on the Western-style
secular nation-state, rather than on the Shariah which was clearly the
preference of the majority. Instead, Islam was relegated to one clause
in the new constitution, which also provided for religious appoint­
ments to be controlled by the state. An elite with European tastes
took power, and political repression with a religious veneer forced the
opposition to turn to the Society of Muslim Brothers, which
preached rejection of the post-colonial state as a new Jahiliyyah, and
the building of a new state ‘under God's law'. The post-colonial con­
stitution was overthrown in 1952 by a coup led by Ncguib and the
Free Officers, the monarchy was abolished in 1953, and in 1954
Jamal 'Abd Nasser came to power. Nasser enjoyed great popularity in
Egypt, for nationalising the banks and the Suez Canal, and for his
apparent defeat of Britain and France in the Suez Crisis of 1956. His
Revolutionary Command Council was initially supported by rhe
Brotherhood, but the RCC's failure to implement the Shariah and
other social reforms as promised, together with Nasser's failures
against Israel, especially the disaster of the 1967 war. led to violent
dissension. An unconvincing attempt on the life of Nasser, probably
staged by his own police, provided the opportunity for the
Brotherhood to be crushed, with many imprisoned and their leaders
tortured and hanged, including Sayyid Qutb, the uncompromising
 ISIAM UTHE MOOERN WORLO

intellectual theorist of the movement (whose sister was gang-raped in

front of him in a Cairo jail).
Anwar Sadat came to power following Nassers death in 1970
with a 'corrective coup', after which Soviet influence was ended and
the economy was opened to the West. The immediate result was that
the poor became poorer and the rich richer, while political repres­
sion continued - though cynically combined with populist Islam in
an attempt to improve the regimes image. Protest continued never­
theless, culminating in the assassination of Sadat and the start of
the current regime under Hosni Mubarak, a former air-force gen­
eral. At the opening of the twenty-first century Egypt is America's
heavily subsidized protege to the tune of $2 billion per year, much
of which is spent on infrastructure, although the programme is
deeply compromised by the corruption of the state from top to
bottom. And every two years, except for 2003, the year of the inva­
sion of Iraq, American and Egyptian forces hold joint exercises in
die Western Desert, codenamed Bright Star. The war games are the
largest joint training exercises in the world.
But the price of even mild economic reform has been a further
division between rich and poor, with public services crumbling, held
together by a twenty-ycar state of emergency which prohibits all
deviation, from homosexuality to demonstrations in support of the
Palestinian inrifada. Democracy is a sham, even after an attempted
intervention by the judiciary, and in any event parliament operates
on the same level as a European municipal council. The West appears
to be influencing the separation of state and mosque in Egypt but the
US clearly prefers cosmetic change to profound reform, so that polit­
ical liberalization is a further sham. The main opposition party, the
Muslim Brotherhood (which renounced violence a generation ago) Ls
banned, every attempt at peaceful demonstration is outnumbered
and broken up by police, detention and torture are common, while
the President continues to maintain that his measures are all that
stand between civil order and Islamist chaos. The government
manipulates all the important issues: the budget, the media, the
armed forces and patronage, while the rate of unemployment among
young men is catastrophic. These arc the conditions that brought on
the revolution of fifty years ago.
82 ISLAM INTHI MODERN

Iraq became an independent state in 1932, following centuries of

Ottoman rule ending with the Turkish defeat of 1918. and fourteen
years of British rule as a I.eague of Nations Mandate. But with inde­
pendence Iraq inherited the poisonous seeds of turmoil and misery
that have endured up to the present day. As part of the Ottoman
Empire, what is now Iraq had been loosely administered as three dis­
tinct vilayets centred on Mosul, Baghdad and Basra, respectively
containing majorities of three different peoples with little in
common: Kurds in the north, politically dominant Arab Sunnis,
and poor southern Shi'a. As the frontline between the Ottoman
Empire and Safavid Persia, the area that is the present lraq/lran
border had been the subject of endless armed contention, leading to
the capture by the Turks of the Shi'a shrines of Najaf and Karbala
and the forcible inclusion of a substantial Shi'a Persian population
under Ottoman rule, who were then savagely persecuted by the
lurks over the following centuries as enemy aliens. The border
demarcation question remained unresolved, however, to be passed
on to the new state via Churchill’s Cairo Conference ot 1921. Thus
Iraq began statehood with a ready-made source of dispute with Iran,
as well as unjustified national borders that packaged the three
former Ottoman vilayets into an artificial nation-state. A form of
the British 'first past the post’ parliamentary system of government
was imposed on the new state, wholly alien to Iraqi culture. Also
imposed on Iraq was a king (Eaisal, son of Husain the Amir of
Mecca), who came from the far side of Arabia and whose
confirmation by plebiscite was openly manipulated by the British
administration. Further, during the British ‘period of assistance'
(1918-32) political violence became a way of life with internal
opposition suppressed by the British army and the Royal Air Force
with great loss of native life. Even during the interim period of
direct British military rule, 1918-21, before a League of Nations
Mandate was imposed, 10,000 Iraqis were killed by British occupa­
tion using air power and poisonous gas.
Independence on this synthetic basis resulted in classic instabil­
ity. Coup followed coup as dominant Sunni groups competed for
power and wealth, with the majority Shi'a mostly excluded. All-out
war between Baghdad and die Kurdish minority in the north-east
of the country (where two thirds of Iraq's oil reserves are located)
 Siam in tHf MODgtN W3H1D 183
alternated with unworkable peace treaties. The British reoccupied
during the Second World War in order to control oil supplies, then
in 1958 the monarchy was overthrown and Faisal’s grandson.
Faisal II, was executed. Bur the new order that replaced the monar­
chists and their British imperialist patrons was republican only in
name. General Abd al-Karim Qasim held power as a military' dicta­
tor, establishing a form of fascist grip on all aspects of Iraqi life
through tentacles of patronage extending into every level of society,
including control of the traditional tribal sheikhs. Promises of
reform (principally land redistribution and elections) were aban­
doned. political activity was suppressed and the army put down
protests from the country’s ethnic and religious groups with great
ferocity. Civil war began once again between the northern Kurds
and the Sunni rulers. Qasim was armed by the USSR, who also sup­
ported Iraq’s renewed border claims against monarchist Iran (sup­
ported by the US), as well as Iraq’s demand that oil-rich Kuwait
(newly independent from, and supported by, Britain) should be
‘returned’ to Iraq, on the historically inaccurate basis that Kuwait
had formed pan of the original Ottoman vilayet of Basra. Five years
later Qasim was overthrown and shot by a Ba’th or Renaissance
Party coup in the name of‘Freedom, Unity, Socialism’, supported by
a group of younger army officers. Nevertheless, under a scries of
Ba’thist dictators, the patronage system based on oil revenues, the
persecution of the Shi’a and the war against the Kurds all continued
unchanged, despite the rhetoric of popular socialism.
Saddam Hussein had joined the Arab Ba’th Socialist Party
(ABSP) as a young operative in 1958. taking part in a failed 1959
attempt on the life of Qasim. After a short exile which ended with
the successful 1963 Ba’thist coup. Saddam moved up rapidly,
developing his own patron-client system based on financial and
political influence. By 1975 Saddam was effective ruler of Iraq
behind the ailing President Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr, and in exclusive
control of oil revenues and arms purchases, as well as the security
services. The Iranian Revolution of 1979 threatened Iraq with
Shi'ite unrest and Saddam took the opportunity to remove al-Bakr
and to proclaim himself President. At the same time Shi'a demon­
strations were suppressed by the army and over 500 senior Ba’thists
from rival patronage groups were executed, many arrested during a
181______________________ ISLAM IN THE MODERN WOWD__________________________

party conference, as Saddam, smoking a large cigar, and feigning

tears, looked on from the podium. He was forty-two, the son of
peasants and without military experience, but poisonously charm­
ing, capriciously generous and murderously ruthless. The Ba thist
form of fascist rule was tightened up, centred on the person of
Saddam, who exercised control down to the grass roots through the
expansion of the ABSP organization.
Iran under Khomeini, following the overthrow of the Shah,
while already providing support to Kurdish and Shi'a dissidents
within Iraq, rapidly became a revolutionary threat to the oligarchical
Gulf States as well. In order to increase his international stature as a
Sunni Arab leader and unite Iraq behind him, Saddam reopened the
centuries-old border dispute with Iran. In September 1981, under
the impression that Iran had been weakened by the Revolution, and
with logistical support from both the USSR and the West, as well as
financial support from the Gulf States. Iraq invaded the disputed
border territory, the navigable Shatt al-Arab, or Arab River, the
delta where the Tigris and Euphrates rivers flow into the Gulf.
But Saddam had miscalculated: war had the effect of consolidating
the Iranian Revolution and fanatical Iranian counter-attacks soon
threatened both the Iraqi state and Saddams rule. Iraq rearmed
(including preparations for bacterial warfare) looking to die oil-rich
Arab states for contributions following the destruction of many of
Iraq’s own oil facilities by Iran. Saddam also intensified nuclear
development, but the principal Iraqi plant was destroyed by the
Israeli air force while still under construction. An cight-ycar war of
attrition with Iran followed, with great loss of life, especially on the
Iranian side. Revolutionary Iran had now become an active military
threat to the Gulf States, to the stability of the Muslim states of the
USSR on Iran's northern border, and to world oil supplies. The US
navy intervened to destroy half the Iranian navy, and the West, with
support from Saudi Arabia, began fresh arms shipments to Iraq, as
well as providing satellite intelligence. Iran, facing such overwhelm­
ing odds, reluctantly agreed to a UN ceasefire in which neither side
made any territorial gains.
With the end of the conflict Saddams domestic unpopularity
could not be disguised by his claim to victory' and he moved to
reconsolidatc his position. His Republican Guard devastated those
 61AM IN THE NOMEN WORLD 185
parts of the Kurdish territories, supported by Iran, which had
revolted during the war. Shi'a dissent within Iraq was also suppressed
once again, and the officer corps was purged of potential rivals and
their supporters. But the Iraqi economy was in ruins, more than
S80 billion in debt during a period of low oil prices, as well as
suffering from runaway inflation and high unemployment. When
menaced by Iran, the Gulf States had appeared willing to forgive
Iraq’s growing war debt and assist in post-war reconstruction, but
once the Iranian threat had been contained, the promises were side­
stepped. Simultaneously, Kuwait began to flout OPEC-allocated oil
production quotas, to Iraq’s detriment, as well as reopening an old
frontier dispute based on the nineteenth-century Ottoman borders.
In desperation Saddam ordered the occupation of Kuwait, which
was completed in under eight hours. Saddam anticipated that his
move would extract from Saudi Arabia and the smaller oil producers
of the Gulf sufficient economic concessions to rebuild his patronage
system, and he apparently understood (from US Ambassador April
Glaspic) that his wartime ally, the United States, would remain neu­
tral. Kuwait was formally annexed to Iraq, justified by propaganda
about ‘Arab unity’, correcting the ‘British imperialism’ that had sep­
arated Kuwait from the former vilayet of Basra in 1921, and linking
the occupation of Kuwait to Israeli occupation of Palestine. But
Saddam had made an even more spectacular miscalculation than his
invasion of Iran. A Western Coalition led by America, and supported
by UN authority, expelled Iraq from Kuwait within four days of the
launch of Operation Desert Saber in February 1991, following an
intense bombardment of Iraqi infrastructure (subsequently referred
to by Iraqi propaganda as the 'Mother of All Battles’ and ‘The
Thirty-Country Aggression'). Iraq suffered 62.000 casualties, the
Coalition 97.
Perceiving the regime of Saddam Hussein to be defeated, spon­
taneous revolts broke out in the Shi'a south and Kurdish north, but
Saddams National Guard had been held in reserve to deal with
internal security and the Western Coalition could not agree between
themselves on an advance beyond the borders of Kuwait into Iraq.
Further, in order to build Arab support for Desert Saber, the US had
promised to limit the action to the relief of Kuwait. The result was
the ferocious and unchecked suppression of the Iraqi rebels by
186 ISIAM INTHt MODEKN WOULD

Saddam’s military, with great loss of life. A ’no-fly’ zone was imposed
on northern Iraq by the Coalition, later extended to the south, in an
attempt to protect the Kurdish and Shi'a communities, but no other
assistance was offered to the rebels. Once the threat from Iraq
against the ruling families of Kuwait, Saudi Arabia (now grown into
an elite over 30,000 strong) and the United Arab Emirates had
been removed, the US-led Coalition effectively chose to allow the
continuation of the Iraqi regime (although Saddam Hussein himself
was the target for a number of American-backed assassination
attempts) over the prospect of civil war.
Internal turmoil in Iraq would, it was feared, lead to intervention
by, and the strengthening of, Iran. The US also feared invasion of
Iraq by Turke}1 to suppress Kurdish independence before the revolt
could spread, while Saudi Arabia wished to prevent elections or rev­
olution in Iraq that would lead to a Shi'a government on its border.
Iraq was, therefore, to be contained by economic sanctions, imposed
through the agency of the UN with die expressed aim of extracting
reparations for Kuwait, paying the UN's administrative costs, and
removing Saddam’s ability to build weapons of mass destruction.
Inspections of Iraq by a UN Special Commission (Unscom) and the
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) began in May 1991,
searching for chemical, biological and nuclear weapons, and ballis
tic missiles. Over the following six years much of Iraq's capability
was destroyed, but the activities of Unscom nevertheless ended in
stalemate. In 1997 Unscom claimed that a residual biological war­
fare programme with the potential to manufacture anthrax, botulin
and VX nerve gas was being concealed by Iraq. Although no direct
proof was produced by Unscom. Iraq had allegedly not accounted
for 17 tonnes of imported biological growth medium. But at the
same time Saddam released evidence showing that the UN inspec­
tion team had been used by the American CIA and NSA for clan­
destine espionage beyond the UN mandate (intelligence which was
then shared with Israel, Iraq's arch-enemy), and in December 1998
Iraqi cooperation with Unscom was withdrawn. President Clinton
thereupon resumed the bombing of Iraq (without UN approval and
using information gathered by Unscom to locate targets) to coincide
with and to attempt to postpone the impeachment debate in the US
House of Representatives following the Monica Lewinsky scandal.
__ ___________________ SIAM IN THE MODtBN WOULD___________________ IB7

This crass manipulation of both the inspection process and the

response was to lead to a precipitous increase in Arab resentment of
America throughout the Middle East.
When, therefore, following the occupation of Iraq in 2003 by
the US coalition of the willing', the destruction of much of the
country and the death of over 25.000 innocent civilians, the US and
Britain were forced to admit that no weapons of mass destruction
had been found, resentment turned to outright Arab hatred, from
which American foreign policy may never recover. Nor have Arabs
forgotten that the monstrous Saddam regime was originally created
by the West during the 1980s in order to contain Iran, bringing
about the conditions under which Saddams patron and client
system, the Umana' Saddam (Saddam’s faithful) could survive and
prosper by the corruption of the porous sanctions system, and the
subsequent ‘oil for food’ programme begun in 1997. Meanwhile the
people of Iraq, victims of forces beyond their control since the days
of the Ottoman Empire, have been left to suffer repression, govern­
ment manipulation of food and medicine supplies, shocking rates of
infant mortality, near starvation, cluster bombs and fire bombs from
the air, followed by occupation and virtual civil war, and die com­
plete collapse of all government services.
This significant human tragedy has continued for over twelve
years. This is hardly the background against which America can suc­
cessfully preach ‘democracy’ to the Iraqis or to any other Arab nation.

Hiro as Hero

This observer has been consistently disappointed by the torrent of titles

on Islam that have been published since September 11 th 2001.The more
the author; preferably with a familiar media face, has placed himself at the
centre of his (or occasionally her) work, the more the book has been
reviewed and presumably read. But on turning the last page, has the
reader's understanding of Islam been advanced? Does the reader, for
example, now appreciate even one or two differences between Sunni
and Shi’a? Does the reader new recognize the significance of the
Prophets Commonwealth or the importance of Jerusalem?
 ISLAM INTO MCOERN WORLD

In this vast new publishing enterprise that attempts to explain or to

exploit Islam, one author shines, for clarity and readability, for detail and
insight Dilip Hiro, who never appears in his books, s recommended to
all who seek detailed answers to the common rhetorical questions, such
as What do they want?' or'Hcw did this happenfTo illustrate. Hiro's sixth
work on the Middle East Secrets and Lies. specifically on the origins of
the occupation o< Iraq, contains a detailed rebuttal of the pivotal speech
made by US Secretary of State Colin Powell to the Security Council of
the United Nations on 5 February 2CO3. justifying the coming invasion of
Iraq. The following is a brief summary
Powell: Iraq offers sanctuary to members of al-Qaeda, who run a
poison factory in Khurmal, and teach chemical weapons techniques.
Fact Khurmal, in Iraqi Kurdistan, which is allied to the US. was subse­
quently visited by journalists and US inspectors. Only a derelict ware­
house was found, with no trace of chenucals. No link between Iraq and
al-Qaeda was ever discovered, untii. ironically, the start of the resistance
to the US occupation of Sunni Iraq
Powell: Rocket launchers with warheads containing biological agents
have been disbursed to sites throughout western Iraq.
Fact: No such weapons have ever been found by occupying forces,
anywhere in Iraq
Powell In order to avoid discovery by UN inspectors. Iraq uses at
least seven mobile laboratories to produce chemical and biological
agents, consisting of seventeen trucks.
Fact Two suspicious vehicles were found, but on examination con­
tained no relevant equipment or any traces of pathogens. The units
turned out to be equipment sold to Iraq by Britain in 1987 and used for
the manufacture of hydrogen to fill artillery balloons.
Powell: The Iraqi military is consistently hiding munitions immediately
before the arrival of inspectors, and usmg 'chemical decontamination
trucks' to hide toxic traces.
FoctThe pictures of such a location shown by Pbwell (Taji. north of
Baghdad) were taken weeks apart, not hours, and the movement of arms
was a routine matter known to the inspectors. The 'decontamination'
vehicle turned out to be a fire engine.
Pbwell: Iraq is prepanng ballistic missiles to deliver chemical, biologi­
cal and 'if we let him. nuclear warheads',
 SAM INI HE MODERN WOULD ]89

FoctThe UN inspectors had wsrted the same site (Al-Rafeh, west of

Baghdad) five times, and no prohibited weapons were discovered then
or later. (And after the invasion the documents allegedly proving that Iraq
had attempted to buy potential nuclear materials from Niger were
shown to be forgeries.)
Powell Iraqi scientists are threatened with death for discussing
weapons programmes with the UN inspectors.
Foct Not one such scientist has been produced in public before or
dunng the occupation.
Powell: Iraq can convert lighter jets to spraying anthrax, and possesses
drones capable of spreading chemical weapons over a large area,
Fact One model drone (not equipped for spraying) had already
been destroyed by the UN inspectors, and ground forces during the
occupation never found the jets or the agents to have been used in the
alleged spraying
Powell: The US is relying, in part, on Tony Biair's 'meticulously
researched’ dossier about Iraqi weapons capabilities.
Fact Ninety per cent of the famous dossier was created from,
sources available on the internet pnor to 2000, even using the original
spelling and punctuation. The texts were then 'sexed-up' by Downing
Street staff to indicate that Iraq was supporting terror groups against the
West, and by implication al-Qaeda.
In response, the Amencan public watching the speech on television
embraced the prospect of war by over 60 per cent The European diplo­
mats present at the UN, with their own intelligence sources and some
with personal knowledge of Iraq, maintained a diplomatic silence, while
their peoples took to the streets in protest, although with no result In
the Muslim world there was total disbelief, soon to be confirmed into a
bottomless spnng of anger and hatred

Morocco, or the Maghreb in Arabic, was at the far end of first the
Roman Empire, then the Muslim Empire. The country once cov­
ered most of north-west Africa west ofTunisia, which was formerly
the mast distant Roman province of Ifriqiya. Conquered by the
Arabs at the end of the seventh century ce, the pagan Berber popu­
lation of Morocco quickly converted to Islam. But with the end of
the Umayyad dynasty, followed by the contraction of the power of
the 'Abbasids centred on distant Baghdad. Morocco fell out of the
190 ISLAM T'4 THE MODERN WORLD

mainstream of history. For hundreds of years local dynasties came

and went, administering a loose and autocratic version of Islamic
law, culminating in the rule of the present Alawite dynasty (not to
be confused with the Alawite sect of Syria).
At the beginning of the twentieth century France and Spain par­
titioned Morocco between them, imposing the borders that would
create the modern states of Algeria and Morocco, as well as the bit­
terly disputed Polisario territory that was Spanish Sahara. Although
die Alawite sultans were retained in nominal power by die French
administrators, agitation and rioting in support of self-rule led to the
withdrawal of the French in 1956. The Alawite sultan Muhammad V
succeeded in shifting his position to ally himself with the anti-French
movement. On independence he became king, quickly reassuming
the feudal power of former centuries. When the earlier anti-French
sentiment turned into protests against the tyrannical rule of the
monarchy in the 1960s, King Hassan (son of King Muhammad V
and father of the present King Muhammad VI) suspended the sham
and ineffective representative institutions and openly took absolute
power. Dissidents disappeared into remote desert forts and bodies
were dumped in the Atlantic from helicopters. In another well-
documented episode in French post-colonial history, the Moroccan
opposition leader Ben Barka was kidnapped outside a Paris brasserie
and tortured to death in a suburban villa, watched over by the French
secret service.
But King Hassan was protected from international scrutiny by
virtue of his service to American policy by the provision of naval
bases, by his cooperation against anti-Western Muslim leaders with
the Israeli secret service (who arranged the kidnapping in Paris) and
his general obedience to the West, and to French interests in partic­
ular. Hassan also accumulated enough personal wealth at the expense
of his own people to be able to pay off the national debt three times
over, when over 30 per cent of the country’s annual budget is taken
up with interest payments, so that basic services such as health and
education are left to suffer. The illiteracy rate is 70 per cent, clean
water available to no more than 60 per cent, and 90 per cent of
Moroccans arc not served by electricity. Yet this man. who person­
ally took part in the murder and torture of his political opponents,
was invited in 1998 (the year before he died) to stand alongside
__________________________ 'SLAM IN THE MODERN WORLD_______________________ 191

President Chirac of France to take the salute at the annual Bastille

Day military parade in Paris.

The utopian mission of Islam to create a single community of

believers bound together by the Shariah under God seems to have
no future. Muslims can look back fondly from the new Jahiliyyah of
modern times to the mythical era of the Prophet or to die time of
the 'rightly guided caliphs' (in the Sunni version), but history
appears to have doomed Islam to be ruled by a dysfunctional version
of the Western ideal of the nation-state.
Opponents of existing regimes mix religion with politics to
demand in the name of Islam an end to Western impositions, the
elimination of tyranny and corruption and die advent of the Shariah
and social justice. But even if power were ever to be transferred dem­
ocratically to an opposition group, once in power die same alter­
natives would face the new leaders as faced the old: either a return
to the bankruptcy of socialism under an Islamic guise, or following
the path set by the International Monetary Fund toward neo-
libcralism and the mirage of Western-style prosperity. In this harsh
existential world the anguished desire of Muslims to return to the
purity of God’s commandments can amount to little more than
minor Shariah-based changes to personal and family law, to the
rc-clothing of women, and laws against blasphemy, all inevitably
accompanied by hollow expressions of piety.

11th September 2001

Commentators have predicted that the pictures of the World Trade

Center towers crashing to the ground in Manhattan will join the other
key images that define popular post-Second World War American his­
tory. such as Jackie Kennedy covered in blood at Johnson’s impromptu
swearing-in. the assassination of Martin Luther King, or Neil Armstrong
stepping onto the moon. But those events did not change the world,
while the attacks on New York and Washington have resulted in a global
realignment compared by US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld with
192 ISLAM IN 1HE MOKRN WOULD

the new alliances created at the end of the Second World War So m this
post-9/11 world, has the desperate idealistic act of a few Muslim radicals
improved or worsened the condition of Islam!
The significance of September 11 th in the opinion of this observer,
was that the after-effects of US foreign policy suddenly became an inter­
nal disaster for 'homeland' America. The shattering consequences of
decisions made m Washington were no longer felt only on the Shatt-al-
Arab, in Mogadishu or Gaza, but in Amenta as well. At first the results
appeared to benefit ordinary Muslims. President Bush appeared in a
mosque to urge tolerance, then almost endorsed the concept of a
viable independent Palestinian state. Subsequently, however, the optimism
has faded The War on Terror has developed into America's undisguised
assumption of the role of global enforcer The US government according
to John Pike of Global-Security, discovered in Afghanistan the instant for­
mula for changing uncooperative governments "You add airpower,
microwave for three minutes, and hey. you've got a new regime'. Previous
actions against the 'rogue states' (the bombing of Serbia, for example, or
the liberation of Kuwait) although Amencan led. were nominally under­
taken by international coalitions and sanctioned by the UN or NATO.
Afghanistan, m contrast, was bombed by America alone, and in Iraq
America bears the weight of the occupation virtually single-handed.
A single US earner task force consists of 14 ships, 70 aircraft. 14,000
men, 2 submarines, as well as marine landing forces and helicopters
There are 12 such American flotillas. B-l bombers can fly non-stop
around the world, B-S2s are available overhead anywhere within hours,
from a worldwide network of bases far exceeding the reach of the
British Empire at full stretch. For a non-democratic regime, therefore,
obedience has become more urgent than repentance, and the rewards
for unconditional loyalty soon follow
There are some ironic examples in the new order An early volun­
teer for America's War on Terror was Muhammad VI. feudal king of
Morocco, who was rewarded by the withdrawal of UN support for the
Polisano, the organization representing the indigenous people of
Western Sahara, the former Spanish colony on Morocco's southern
boundary, illegally occupied by Muhammad's father in 1975. But m a
changed world, the Polisano have become the 'terrorists', and after ten
years and half a billion dollars expended on a referendum that has never
taken place, the UN has approved a plan recreating Western Sahara as
 ISLAM IN THE MODERN WORLD 193

'the southern provinces of Morocco'. French and American oil compa­

nies with Moroccan licences have immediately begun prospecting. This
shift in favour of Morocco was expedited by an American warming
towards the government of Algeria, the former protectors of the
Pol.-sano, because Algerian President Bouteflika also hastened to join
the WoT. his cooperation recognized by two personal invitations to the
White House in quick succession.
Similarly, criticism of the harsh treatment of dissidents by military
courts under emergency laws in both Syria and Egypt is no longer heard,
now that Amenca has begun the same process in the infamous military
pnsons of Iraq. Afghanistan and Cuba. And jordan, already the recipient
of substantial American largesse, has been able to amend the country’s
penal code without any international criticism, giwng dramatic new tem­
porary’ powers to the government to deal with dissenters and control
the press. Pakistan, as we have seen earlier m this chapter changed sides'
to join the WoT and was quickly rewarded. While the Philippines and
Indonesia (with the massacres m East Timor by the Indonesian army
almost forgotten) have come under stronger American influence
through the means of providing arms and assistance against Muslim polit­
ical groups and secessionists. Even Libya has applied to join the WoT.
seeking the return from asylum in the West of the regime’s political
opponents, who are, of course, according to the Libyan |ustice ministry,
'terrorists' with 'links to al-Qaeda' Return would be to a certain and
gruesome death.
Most importantly however. Israel succeeded in equating Yassir Arafat,
the Palestinian Authority, and the movements m opposition to Israeli
occupation, with al-Qaeda. Palestinians under Israeli military rule have
become ’terrorists' once again. 'It is a fact that we killed fourteen
Palestinians today’, said Israel Defence Minister Ben Etezir following an
incident shortly after September 11 th, ’with the world remaining
absolutely silent'.
Osama ibn Laden (the presumed mastermind of September 11 th)
would surely have beer, displeased with such rotten fruit from h-s enter­
prise. Even the Muslim regimes he may have supported directly, in the
Yemen and the Sudan, cooperate with America out of fear of retribution,
and the Taliban are gone. The human tragedy of Iraq continues well into
a second decade. The increase in the US defence budget alone for each
year since 2002 has matched the total of all aid from the West to the
I'M ISLAM IN THE MODERN WORLD

poor nations of the world in the previous year. While the Saudi Arabian
monarchy, further weakened by the events of that fateful day, in which at
least fifteen Saudis took pan. has become more dependent than ever on
Amencan weapons supply and logistical protection.
In addition to the thousands of innocent Muslim civilians killed since
September 11 th 2001. there are the secondary consequences that have
rebounded on Muslims more than any other group: international travel
restnctions. economic decline, rising poverty and dangerous levels of
unemployment the decimation of the tourist industry m the Middle East
and the increased isolation of many Muslim communities in Europe and
America. These are the very conditions in which idealistic desperation
thrives.

VI Muslim Communities in the West

The negative generalizations that have been made about Islam in

the international press cannot fail to have an effect on domestic pol­
itics in the West. Millions of Muslims live in Europe and the US.
generally ‘counter-colonists’, refugees from post-colonial conditions
already described. Or, as in the case of Germany, they were permit­
ted to enter for the economic advantage of an industrial country
short of unskilled labour on what was anticipated to be a temporary
basis. Now. however, the typical emigrant group has become a per­
manent presence for which no satisfactory long-term solution has
been found.
The common characteristic shared by Muslim minorities in the
West is the unresolved conflict between the desire of Muslims to
become full participating citizens of their new countries while at the
same time preserving their Islamic culture and religion, a legacy to
be handed down through the following generations. To this die host
countries tacitly object, being broadly prepared to accept emigrants
from non-white races as full citizens, but not from foreign cultures
that are not prepared to blend.
In France there are ministers with Italian and Polish names, men
and women who have reached the highest levels of power within
three generations of the original (and at the time, unwelcome) emi­
gration. But when a Frenchman is confronted with the prospect that
 <iA^INTI< MQCXaNWXtP

one day a Boubakeur or a Bcncheikh may become the Minister of the

Interior following die same process, the usual reaction is outrage. But
since the presence of significant Muslim communities in France, in
excess of 10 per cent of the population, is now irreversible, are entire
sections of the population to be regarded as immigrants for ever?

Of all the countries in Europe with a Muslim minority, France pres­

ents the greatest paradox. Despite the violence that accompanied the
colonization and subsequent liberation of north Africa, France has
left a substantial legacy to the Maghreb in the form of culture. Large
segments of Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco are Francophone and
Francophile, regarding France as the home of liberty and social jus­
tice, literature, human dignity, croissants and caft! erfcme. But for the
six million Arab residents of France, Europe’s largest Muslim com­
munity, reality has been very different. Frenchmen have resented
Arab immigration since the early 1960s, even though French
attempts to make North Africa part of metropolitan France precipi­
tated the war and the resulting emigration in the first place. Arabs
have been moved into sterile tower blocks in the suburbs of Marseille.
Paris and other main cities, unemployment has remained twice die
national average among Arab and North African youths, and the
largest right-wing party in Europe (although now split), the National
Front, was formed with the principal aim of forcing the return of all
Arabs to their country of origin. 'The worst of the overtly racist anti­
Arab sentiments, almost hysterical during the bombings in Paris in
1995, have receded. After the riots of 2005, Islam has become the
target of a lower-key but broadly popular hostility in the media, often
with a fine pseudo-intellectual gloss about culture, but all with a sim­
ilar message: Arab » Muslim = trouble. Added to this is the continu­
ing aid by France, for reasons already discussed, to the despotic
regimes which many Arabs emigrated to escape. There is widespread
speculation in the Arab community that the 1995 bombings in Paris
were originated by the Algerian secret services themselves, with the
knowledge of the French authorities, to ensure continuing French
support for the existing Algerian regime and their war against ‘terror­
ist organizations' and renewed emigration.
The symbolic issue of hcadscarvcs in schools, and the response
that Church and State arc separate in the Vth Republic, intended to
196_______________________ ISLAM IN THE MODERN WOULD__________________________

accelerate integration, in fact confirms the long-term position of

Muslims in France as aliens, leading to more radicalism and violence
among second and third generations not less. The French state has
concordats with both Jews and Protestants, both with lower mem­
bership than Islam, but has only recently agreed to negotiate a sim­
ilar status for Muslims through the newly formed French Council of
the Muslim Faith. Further, France has yet to elect a single Muslim
to the National Assembly and in the centralized French system
applications to build mosques have been blocked, imams in prisons
arc rare, no state support is offered for Muslim schools, police
powers arc heavily employed against Muslim minorities and state aid
is inconsistently applied to cultural activities. The absence of the
negotiating channel that would be provided by a concordat has led
to an uncertain relationship between Islamic family laws and those
of the French state. Polygamous marriages, for example, which were
unilaterally outlawed retroactively in 1992, well after most polyga­
mous Muslim immigrants had already established residency. All this
cannot help bur lead to more unrest among French Muslims, stem­
ming from a deep insecurity about their position in society.

The Muslim minority in Germany, predominantly Turkish and

Kurdish, is the hardest case in Europe. Turkeys ill-fated decision in
1914 to join Germany and the Central Powers against Britain,
France and Russia has resulted in an almost post-colonial relation­
ship between Turkey and Germany, expressed in practical terms by
the direct rail fink from Istanbul to Berlin. So when the German
economy began to boom in the mid-1950s. Turkey was the obvious
source to fill the demand for unskilled labour. These factors pro­
duced, over the next forty-five years, a Gastarbeiter force of Muslim
emigrants that is now 3.2 million strong. The word, ‘guest-labourer’,
speaks volumes, revealing the uncompromisingly economic and
essentially temporary basis on which Germany presumed the migra­
tion would take place. Chancellor Kohl himself said many times
that Germany is 'not an emigration country', despite what was in
fact taking place. Now. at the start of the twenty-first century, the
Turkish presence which was originally economic and temporary has
become permanent and cultural, and German’s Muslim minority,
well into a second and third generation of confident Euro-Turks, has
 ISCMIINTHE MODERN WORLD 197
no intention of leaving. Recognition of this reality has been slow
and reluctant. Ethno-pluralism' is the buzz-word used in the
German media, which is double-speak for retaining die status quo
and avoiding any decisions about permanent status.
However, qualification for citizenship in Germany is still based
on the concept of the Volk bloodline, derived from the Imperial
Naturalization Act of 1913, making Germany, together with Israel,
ironically, the only Western countries where citizenship is based on
race. This makes any attempt at full integration by Muslims not born
in Germany very difficult, especially since an applicant is obliged to
renounce his or her citizenship of origin when he or she is able to
qualify even as a conditional' citizen, after eight years' residency. Few
Turks arc willing to do this, with the result that 9 per cent of the pop­
ulation arc not citizens. If citizenship is to be awarded as an excep­
tion to a rule based on race, then the status could one day be taken
away again for the same reasons, as happened to the Jews in Germany
in the 1930s. Thus Muslims in Germany have become a marked-out
and marginalized community, right in the heart of the new Europe,
and still a long way from integration. Turks especially are then bir­
ther menaced into protective groupings by the rabble-rousing lan­
guage of hate from the Republikaner Party, die German People's
Union in the east, or the Freedom Party in Austria. Violent actions
by neo-Nazis and skinheads have resulted in the arson deaths of
many Turkish men, women and children, with racist attacks on indi­
viduals across the country running into hundreds per year. Even the
main German political parties have attracted little Turkish support.
The Christian Democratic Union is seen as anti-Muslim because of
the name of rhe party, in addition to explicit CDU opposition to
Turkish membership of the EU, while the SPD precondition, an
apology by Turkey for the Armenian Massacre more than ninety
years ago, has the same result.

The Muslim community in Britain is composed of two distinct ele­

ments, broadly represented by London and Birmingham.
Freedom of speech has been a frequent casualty of Muslim his­
tory, with the result that the opponents of despotic regimes in
Muslim countries (those who arc not in domestic jails) arc invariably
emigrants or refugees abroad. This has had the effect of making
IW ISLAM IN THE MODEHNWW.P

London an intellectual hub for the Middle East. The advantages

offered by the city arc many: the transportation hub of Heathrow
Airport; a tradition of Arab scholarship; historical and colonial con­
nections and, most importantly, a liberal political climate that con­
dones all expression short of violence and arms dealing. Here arc to
be found opposition groups of every stripe: radical nat ionalists, pan­
Arabists, Islamists, liberals, Ba’thists, monarchists and every shade of
/Vab, Iranian, Kurdish and Turkish dissident. While these commu­
nities may add to the multi-cultural mosaic of the city and bring
substantial amounts of investment to Britain, individual residency is
intended for the most part to be temporary. Since September 11th
2001, however, and then again after July 7th 2005, ‘Londonistan'
has become less attractive, with dozens of'visitors' held on suspicion
of supporting terrorism. Changes in the law allow non-national
jihadis to be held indefinitely without trial as security Category ‘A
prisoners, when even in Egypt charges must be brought within
forty-five days. And in the months after the London bombings, the
British government proposed yet more powerful measures against
suspects, challenging centuries of freedoms and European human
rights standards. But polls in Britain showed that few believed the
attack was merely the work of individuals who could have been
restrained by such laws, or had nothing to do with domestic Muslim
alienation, and British involvement in US foreign policy.
Birmingham, on the other hand, is competing with Bradford
and Leicester to becoming Britain's first 'majority-minority' city.
Starting forty years ago with the emigration to the city of 100,000
Pakistanis from Kashmir, displaced by the Azad dam. the city has
become home to an Asian and predominantly Muslim community
of a million or more in what has been an overall success story. One
third of the city businesses are now owned by Asians and there is a
huge emphasis within the community on the education of the next
generation and on making Birmingham a permanent home. At the
same time this has been accomplished with very little surrender of
religious values, so that on the changing face of Birmingham the
dome and minaret of a newly built mosque now take a central place.
But the penalty for Birmingham's success is 'ghettoization' by which
Islam is contained within a few Midland cities, some fractiously
on the edge of poverty and racial confrontation, while leaving the
 SIAM IN THE MQOt.-Vs WOBID 1*5

country as a whole unchanged. 'Illis merely practical solution to the

problem, which produced the four suicide bombers of July
7th 2005, cannot be accurately described as integration.

Islam in the United States is a quite different case from the situations
considered above. There is no universal Catholic culture to be
offended, there is no bloodline requirement to US citizenship, the
space limitations of Britain are absent, yet Muslims in America
are still a precarious and distinct minority. There may be as many as
six million Muslims in America, making Islam the second largest
religious minority after Judaism, outnumbering Presbyterians,
or the Mormons. Quakers, Unitarians. Seventh-day Adventists,
Mennonitcs, Jehovah's Witnesses and Christian Scientists all com­
bined. Approximately 44 per cent of American Muslims arc native-
born Americans, the majority of whom are black and arc still on the
edges of the mainstream of Islam. The remaining 56 per cent repre­
sent Muslims from all over the world, mostly from South Asia, with
only 12 per cent from Arab countries. Muslims and their mosques are
spread across the country, not grouped in communities like Britain.
Nevertheless Islam in the United States faces stronger challenges than
in Europe. Internally, the conservative family-based Muslim culture
is under constant pressure from the surrounding society where,
despite the appearance of piety on Sundays, almost anything goes,
from gay pride to teenage sex to widespread drug use and the unre­
lenting pursuit of wealth: the values of Mammon have been raised in
America to the level of a secular religion. This hedonism may be resis­
ted by the first generation of Muslim emigrants, but the next and the
next, in such a large and alien territory, are increasingly tempted to
lapse. Further, Islam in America is the subject of even greater misun­
derstanding and prejudice than in any European country. The pub­
licity tltat used to be given to the Nation of Islam, for example
(see Chapter 6), has created the impression that the overtly racist
and theologically absurd views of Louis Farrakhan are those of all
black Muslims, when the Nation of Islam membership is in fact no
more than 50,000. While for Muslims who are brown, there is a sep­
arate line of prejudgement: all Muslims are potential terrorists. The
repercussions of the events of September 11th 2001 and the demo­
nization of Osama ibn Laden to a worldwide degree never before
TOO SLAM IN THE MODERN WORLD

seen, together with the accompanying media hysteria, have created

an atmosphere of hate from which Muslims will escape only slowly,
if ever.

The long-term success of Muslim immigrant societies in Europe will

depend on a combination of adaptation by the one and acceptance
by the other, for which sufficient commitment (so avoiding perma­
nent abrasion) may or may not be found. But on the troublesome
threshold of Europe, Muslims are natives, not racial intruders. In
Bosnia, Kosovo and Albania. Islam is as European as Christianity
and as long established as Protestantism in Northern Europe. The
message of Jesus Christ began among die Jewish Semites of Palestine
and only later became European by progressing up the arteries of
imperial Rome towards the heart. Similarly, as we have seen.
Muhammad’s message and the religion of the desert Arab was dis­
seminated through the means of temporal power, culminating with
the Ottoman Empire. And just as the provinces of Rome accepted
Christianity in the fourth century ce. significant parts of the
European territories forming part of the Ottoman Empire voluntar­
ily embraced Islam, principally Bosnia, Kosovo and Albania. There
arc substantial elements among European Muslims with Turkish or
'foreign' roots, but native Albanians, for example, who are 80 per
cent Muslim, are as indigenous to their region of Europe as
Orthodox Serbs or Catholic Croats are to theirs. Nationalist politi­
cians who seek to enforce a 'greater Serbia’ or a ’pure Croatian state’
might wish that this were not the case and that Muslims could be
told to 'go home to Turkey’, but the facts of history are against them.
Language has been pressed into the sinister service of this bigotry, so
that in most Balkan vernaculars the word for 'Muslim' has become
the equivalent of 'Turkish’.
But the vexed history of the Balkans tells a different story. When
the region rose against the Turks widi the support of ?\ustria at
the end of the nineteenth century, Bosnian and Albanian Muslims
fought against the retreating Ottoman Empire side by side with
Serbs and Croats. When, fifty years later, the Balkans threw off
Austrian rule, Muslims were similarly involved and formed an inte­
gral pan of the new multi-ethnic state that governed between
the world wars (the Kingdom of Yugoslavia), and after 1945 (the
 SCAN IN TH- MODERN WORLD JOI

communist Republic ofYugoslavia), both of which included Bosnia

and Kosovo.
Albania ran a parallel course, achieving independence after the
Balkan wars against Turkey, first under King Zog and later, follow­
ing the expulsion of the Germans, as a maniacal and xenophobic
communist regime under Enver Hoxha, with followers of Islam
harshly persecuted. After the collapse of communism in Europe,
Serb and Croat nationalistic enmity (exacerbated by recent history
in which Croats had generally been supported by Nazi Germany
and Serbs had been brought to power by the victorious Soviets)
came into the open with Muslims falling victim to the ambitions of
both sides. Serbs, then later Croats, attempted to ‘cleanse’ Bosnia-
Herzegovina and to ghettoize Muslims, and later again Serb forces
attempted to expel the Muslim population from Kosovo into
Albania. Despite the intervention of the West, hundreds of thou­
sands of lives were lost, millions displaced, entire communities
destroyed and cities ruined. In attempting to find a workable solu­
tion to the ethnic and religious patchwork left by centuries of his­
tory and an end to the destruction, many mistakes were made by the
European alliance, with the Muslim communities as the principal
victims. The five days in July 1995, when Serb forces were able to
massacre 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men under nominal UN protec­
tion in Srebrenica, finally galvanized Europe into the necessary scale
of operation to stop Serb aggression, although the event had been
widely forgotten by the tenth anniversary. Nor is the result of
European and American military intervention fully satisfactory, pro­
ducing a fractured and unworkable Bosnia, and a de facto Muslim
Kosovo in what will always be claimed by Serbs as the inalienable
heartland of their history. But the spectacle of a massive intervention
by the West against the Christian Serbs on behalf of a Muslim
minority (even if European) is an encouraging counter-weight to the
many other situations in the world where the injustices to Islam are
not recognized, and certainly not acted upon.

The Caucasus, the neck of land between the Black Sea and the
Caspian Sea, came under Ottoman control for less than 100 years
(1514-1603 CF.). But as imperial Russia pushed the boundaries of
the Ottoman Empire steadily south and eventually back to the
xi ISLAM IN THE MODERN WORLD

borders of Anatolia, much of the reconquered territory remained

strongly Muslim. Tsarist Russia made a number of attempts to erad­
icate Islam in the southern provinces, a cause that was taken up by
the Soviet government from the 1920s on, with extreme brutality.
‘In thirty years,' the Secretary of the Communist Party declared in
1928. ‘Islam in Russia will only be a bad memory from long ago.'
Merely owning a Qur’an, or saying prayers, earned a Muslim a long
term in a Soviet jail. Nevertheless, when the Communist govern­
ment collapsed in the 1990s, sixty million Muslims remained,
spread across all of southern Russia as well as the Caucasus, forming
the majority in the six republics that declared independence in the
south as the Soviet empire crumbled (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan.
Tajikistan, Uzbekistan. Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan).
The new Russian state succeeded in retaining control of a
number of Muslim provinces adjacent to the new republics, moti­
vated by nothing more logical or strategic than hurt imperial pride.
Of these, Chechnya in the central Caucasus has proven the most
obstinate, declaring in 1990. in response to a long history of harsh
occupation, unilateral independence from Moscow as the Republic
of Ichkeria. A President was elected, promising the implementation
of the Shariah and by 1995 the Chechens had expelled die Russian
army, but at a cost of 80,000 mosdy civilian lives and the destruc­
tion of the capital Grozny. The Soviet army attacked again in
October 1999 after 300 civilians were killed by bomb attacks in four
Moscow apartment blocks. The deaths were blamed on die 'Muslim
fanatics' of Chechnya (although nothing has been proven and
Ichkeria has denied responsibility) while the timing of the Russian
'strong-man' response ensured the election of Vladimir Putin as
Russian President. By the third year of the renewed war, however,
the Russian army was in trouble again, sustaining heavy casualties
and unable to win. but politically unable to withdraw. The destruc­
tion continued, with Grozny becoming a new Dresden and over
200,000 Chechens made homeless. Despite resolute attempts by
Russian security services to exclude all reporters and foreign visitors
(including kidnappings and beatings), the activities of the Russian
army began to attract attention in the West. Detailed reports from
both Russian and Western journalists told of mass torture, rape,
wholesale theft of civilian possessions, and the imprisonment in pits
__________________________ ISLAM IN THE MODERN WOftLO______________________ 203

and summary executions of suspected Muslim figliters. Senior staff

officers finally admitted that the frustrated Russian army had turned
to brutal revenge against civilians and was guilty of war crimes. In
the Council of Europe, the expulsion of Russia was considered in an
attempt to force a political solution to the Chechen war by recog­
nizing the human rights and cultural aspirations of Muslim
Chechens. But in return for Russia’s support for the international
campaign against terrorism following the events of September 11th
2001, the tone immediately softened. Chechens became 'Islamist
fundamentalists', European leaders called for 'a more differentiated
evaluation in world opinion’, and took the issue off their agenda.
We face a common foe,' President Putin declared recently to the
German Parliament, and suddenly no European politician chose to
disagree. The long tradition of Russian persecution of Islam (now
over 15 per cent of the population) had become invisible once again.
 ISLAM IN THE MCOERN WORLD__________________________

Appendix
The Balfour Declaration

London 2nd November 1917

Dear Lord Rothschild.

I have much pleasure in conveying to you, on behalf of His Majesty's
Government, the following declaration of sympathy with the Jewish
Zionist aspirations, which have been submitted ro and approved by the
Cabinet: 'His Majesty's Government view with favour the establishment
in Palestine of a national home for die Jewish people, and will use their
best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, ir being
clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the
civil and religious rights of the existing non-Jewish communities in
Palestine, or rhe rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other
country,'
I should be grateful if you would bring this declaration to die know­
ledge of the Zionist Federation.

A. J. Balfour
Secretary of State
His Majesty's Britannic Government
London
 5

THE PRACTICE OF ISLAM

I Faith without Priests, Feasts without

Sacraments

The desertmans profound sense of equality and self-reliance on

which Sunni Islam is based presented the development of any Sunni
version of a church hierarchy. There is no mystical ritual in main­
stream Islam, there are no human intermediaries or divine interced­
es between man and God. There are no sacraments to be
administered by die ordained few to the supplicant many. If God (in
the Muslim version) forgave Adam for his transgression at the time,
then man cannot be inherently evil, or bom in ‘original sin. So, like
Adam, all men can be forgiven their sins direcdy by God without
the need for intervention by any third party, whether a Redeemer on
a cross, a virgin with child, or a priestly delegate operating through
the medium of a confession box.

That Allah may forgive thee

Thy faults of che past
And diose to follow;
Fulfil His favour to thee
And guide thee
On the Straight Way.
Al-k'ath (The Victory) Surah 48. verse 2

This unadorned relationship cancels the need for baptism,

confirmation, confession, extreme unction and the central Christian
act of communion, as well the functions of a ministering priest­
hood. For many Christians, Christ bequeathed the foundation of
a future church in the person of St Peter, and He ordained the
method of access to the divine with the ritual of holy communion.
Only through the Church, therefore, as the successor to St Peter, can
salvation (and dius everlasting life) be obtained. But in the Qur’an.
Christ is merely the Messenger Isa and the sacred text itself, in
mt the ntAcnct c* isiam

Muslim belief, is God’s legacy to man. unreservedly accessible to

all in the Arabic vernacular. For a Muslim, therefore, the central act
of devotion is not to be found in following any supervised rite or
sacrament, but by reading and contemplating God's direct word to
man, set out in a book which he can open, read and interpret for
himself.
Conversion to Islam, as a practical example of this straightfor­
wardness, follows a simple formula. After repeating the words of
the Shahadah from the heart (/ confess that there is no god but God.
and that Muhammad is the messenger ofGod) the speaker has become
a Muslim, responsible for gathering his belief for himself dirccdy
from the original sources of the Qur'an and Sunna. although this
process may, of course, be assisted by the writings or teachings of
expens.

Mosques and imams

Rather than suffering configuration by a theocracy from above.
Sunni Islam is organized down at the community level only, on an
informal self-help basis centred on the masjid, or mosque, meaning
place of prosternation. The Prophet ordered that a mosque should
be built in every location where Muslims live, and upon his arrival
in Medina Muhammad provided the example to be followed by
constructing the first mosque in Islam with his own hands.
The existing inventory of mosques was for the most part built
by rulers or by successful businessmen, although the names of the
benefactors are rarely to be found displayed on the building. More
recently, community action or central governments have been the
moving forces. Once complete the premises 'belong inalienably to
God’ and fall outside the scope of any land title or trading system.
Only the pure intention to create a mosque for the good of the com­
munity is required on the part of those carrying out the project, and
in theory no sanctification or commissioning by a higher authorin'
is necessary for the mosque to become operational.
Behind many mosques stands, or once stood, a u/aqfot religious
benevolent endowment association, supported by the local resi­
dents. to which property could be donated or bequeathed, so creat­
ing a reliable income stream with which to sustain operations.
In many cases the ti’aqf itself was responsible for building the
 TTIE PRACTICE Of 6LAM 207

mosque from donations, or where the building was pre-existing

the organization may fund at least the maintenance of die fabric and
die provision of light and water. In most contemporary Muslim
countries, however, a version of a Ministry of Religious Affairs has
taken control of the traditional waqfi, and often pocketed their
assets. This accounts for the poor condition of most religious build­
ings, and under such regimes donors cannot now stipulate the
specific use to which their funds are to be put.
Similarly a man who perceives himself as having a religious call­
ing typically follows up his basic education with a period of study at
a Qu’ranic school and upon graduation seeks out a position directly
in a community without any formal ordination. The man may have
been the student of a well-known teacher, who may then allow the
student to teach in his turn in his own mosque in the teacher’s
name. This affords the student the opportunity to work towards
becoming well-known himself, attracting students who would in
turn continue with the teachings of the original teacher, and so on.
In this way various schools of Islamic thought have developed, and
modern teachers can often claim a connection back through gener­
ations of teachers to the original revered experts.
Upon his appointment by the community, the newly trained
teacher can call himself mullah, sheikh or imam, depending on local
usage. At one level all three words mean 'minister’ in the Protestant
sense and arc interchangeable, 'mullah' being the Persian version of
the Arabic ‘sheikh’. But the word 'sheikh' also means a secular
‘holder of power’ in the wider political sense, and imam, or 'spiritual
guide’, is also used in Shi'a Islam to describe the true caliph or suc­
cessor to rhe Prophet.
The principal responsibility of the mullah, imam or sheikh of a
mosque is to deliver the khutba during Friday prayers. He may also
give courses on the Qur'an in the mosque or teach local children.
The imam would be available to attend family functions, but only if
invited, and his presence is not essential. His duties often include
leading the prayers in the mosque five times per day and most
importantly at noon on Fridays, but any male member of the com­
munity who is acceptable to the other worshippers may also lead
prayers. Alternatively, the imam of a mosque may simply be a
devout Muslim with a separate full-time occupation, a man who is
308 7K PRACTICE Of ISLAM

sufficiently knowledgeable and is prepared to devote the necessary

time to the community.
This effective and egalitarian system has, however, also been cor­
rupted by big government, light control is exercised over the oper­
ation of mosques in order to suppress political dissent. And whereas
ideally the members of a community should decide on an imam for
themselves and the imam should preach according to his own learn­
ing and beliefs, in practice in most Muslim countries no imam can
be appointed to an established mosque without government
approval, and the content of Friday khutbaht are censored, so that
only the brave speak out. The political power that can be achieved
over the faithful through the political control of the mosque is
clearly demonstrated in the case of Afghanistan. Xenophobic
Taliban propaganda disseminated from pulpits across the country
was able to keep the population in line for a number of years, despite
the complete devastation of the country, physically, culturally and
economically.
Sunni practice as outlined above, docs not apply to the 10 per
cent of Islam that is Shi'a. As we have seen, Sunni Muslims accepted
the de facto caliphate of Muawiyah after the murder of ‘Ali, the
last of the 'rightly guided’ caliphs, and thus achieved a limited form
of practical separation between secular and religious authority. From
the Umayyad caliphate on. secular power passed from dynasty to
dynasty but religious authority began to fragment across the length
and breadth of the Sunni Muslim territories. This in turn drove the
organization of Islam down to the self-directing community level
that prevails today.
The followers of ‘Ali, on the other hand, opposed Umayyad
power based on the belief that both spiritual and temporal power
were transmitted by God together, and exclusively through the
family of the Prophet. From this belief a Shi'a hierarchy has devel­
oped, combining both political and religious power, and behind
which is seen God's guiding hand. In this way the two quite
different religious atmospheres of Sunni and Shi'a have evolved, to
be explored further in the following chapter.
Neither Sunni nor Shi'a recognize the equivalent of monks or
nuns, and Islam has no monasteries or nunneries. All Muslim men
and women are urged to marry unless subject to a physical defect.
 THE FSWCTCE OFIStAM 209

The Christian idea of virtuous celibacy permitting the individual to

pay full attention to spiritual ends is entirely alien to Islam.

Family rites
In matters relating to the family the same self-help culture prevails
in Sunni Islam, since there is no ‘church’ to intervene, to dispense
approval or sacraments. The passage from birth to death in the pres­
ence of God concerns the individual alone, without any mediation
required. Muslim social ceremonies, rather than being formally
religious in character, are intended to strengthen the concept of
belonging to the continuing communit)' of Islam in which religion
is ever-present. This contrasts with twilight Christianity or liberal
Judaism where religion is absent from everyday life, the connection
being made only when the rites of birth, marriage and death are
performed.
Marriage is a great feast and celebration throughout the Muslim
world, emphasizing the importance of the family as the cornerstone
of the community. A marriage feast brings together groups beyond
the immediate families involved in a way not duplicated in any
other Islamic festival. But Muslim marriage is forthrightly contract­
ual and not overtly religious. The relationship between bride and
groom is based on a nuptial agreement that establishes the terms of
the marriage within the limits of the law. In all marriages the wife's
property is strictly separated from that of the husband, and the
agreement may provide for the woman to enjoy the same right to
divorce as the man. as well as prohibiting further wives. The con­
tract may be formalized cither at the mosque or equally validly at
home, but a semi-official ma’dhun. or marriage contract specialist, is
required for registration. The importance among Muslims of the
extended family, in contrast to the Western ‘nuclear family' concept,
means that the choice of partner is a matter tliat has implications
beyond the lives of the individuals, since the two families will then
be closely associated. Although modern conditions have reduced the
prevalence of arranged marriages, the consent of the respective fam­
ilies to a union is still very important in most Muslim societies.
Divorce is regarded as a great tragedy (and ‘most hated by God',
according to a Hadith) so tliat when difficulties arise, the Qur’an
urges that every effort be made to achieve reconciliation. Three acts
210 THE PRACTICE Of ISLAM

of divorce must be completed at separate times before the separation

is absolute.
The birth of a child is another joyful event, a male especially.
Celebrations include a feast and the distribution of food to the poor.
By tradition, the words of die azan, the prayer that the Muslim will
repeat all his life, are whispered into his or her car at birth. The child
is named by the parents without any ceremony comparable to
Christian baptism. For males, one of the names of the Prophet is usu­
ally chosen as a first given name (Muhammad, Mahmud, Ahmed,
Mustafa), and one of the Beautiful Names of Allah as the basis for
a second. Girls often receive the name of one of the women in
Muhammad’s family (Khadijah, Fatima, ‘A'ishah, Zaynab, etc.).
In early Muslim society male circumcision was performed as a
rite of passage. (Female circumcision has never been an accepted
Muslim practice, an issue which will be discussed later in this chap­
ter.) In modern times rhe procedure is undertaken in hospital as pan
of the birth, or by the midwife if the birth is at home. Circumcision
is required for reasons of cleanliness only and has no religious
significance, although supported by a Hadith. (In a contemporary
twist to the ancient practice, statistics on the spread of HIV in
Africa, although incomplete, appear to show that male circumcision
at least slows the spread of the virus.)
Traditional Muslim education was almost exclusively religious,
learned at the feet ol a master in the courtyard of the mosque, The
syllabus would consist of memorizing excerpts of the Qur’an, ele­
mentary interpretation, logic, grammar, literature and rhetoric. The
ability to recite extensively from the Qur’an by memory, or even
recite the entire work, would mark the passage from childhood to
adulthood. Most Muslim schools are now westernized (with some
notable exceptions) and increasingly influenced by technology, with
religious matters dealt with in special part-time schools or
madrasahs. In modern times Qur’an recital as a mark of graduation
has been replaced by the granting of an academic certificate or
degree, followed by the start of a working life. There is no equiva­
lent of the bar mitzvah or Confirmation in Islam.
Death is not of itself regarded as a punishment in Islam, as in
Christianity. Death simply brings to an end a stage in the process
extending from birth to Gods final judgement on the Last Day.
 TK PRAC11CF Of ISLAM 211

Muslim rites of death are, therefore, principally intended to improve

the deceased's chance of gaining credit on Judgement Day, and once
again, no sheikh or mullah is required. The body is washed then
wrapped in a simple white shtoud, and may be dressed in the plain
white clothes of the pilgrimage if the deceased had performed the
haj. There is no casket and the expense of the burial is to be kept to
a bare minimum. During preparation the body is traditionally
instructed on what to say when questioned by the angels, Nakir
and Monkar. who are responsible for preparing die life record that
will be the believers sole possession on the Day of die Resurrection.
In the grave the body is laid on the side, hieing Mecca, as a further
indication that the deceased was a Muslim. Traditional Muslim
practice discourages tombstones: ideally the burial place should
merely blend hack unmarked into the desert sands. Although
modern urban practice is to erect monuments, even in the most
affluent Muslim cities funerary decorarion falls far short of the intri­
cacies and opulence of a Christian cemetery. Before burial, prayers
are said at the graveside, and usually the body is first taken into the
mosque at prayer time. A feast may be held in honour of the
deceased and alms given to the poor. Mourning is inconsistent with
belief in the will of Cod and the final resurrection, although grief is
inevitable on a human level. Verses from the Qur’Sn are read at such
times, emphasizing patience, strength and fortitude. Cremation is
forbidden out of respect for the body.

Feasts
The great feasts of Islam follow the same pattern as family rites. The
saying of prayers is a vital part of every celebration, and congrega­
tional prayers are usual led by a sheikh or mullah, often followed by
a khutba. The organization of the more important annual feasts
overlays religion with a strong social aspect, reflecting the Muslim
community way.
Eid al-Adha, the Feast of the Sacrifice, the principal feast of
Islam, takes place on the tenth day of the Muslim lunar month of
Dhu’l-Hajja, and falls at the same time as the end of the annual
Pilgrimage, when Abraham's sacrifice of the ram in place of his son
Ibrahim is re-enacted. This concurrence reminds Muslims every­
where of the essential message of the haj: the renewal of faith, and
212 THE PRACTICE OF SLAM

the importance, while experiencing 'pre-death'. of how life is lived.

The feast is celebrated literally with a banquet held in each family
(and preceded in the more traditional areas by the sacrifice of an
animal), in which the poor, as at every Muslim festival, arc invited
to share.
The second most popular Muslim feast is Eid al-Fitr, literally the
Feast of Fast-Breaking, on the first day of Shawwil. This event falls
on the day after the end of the Fast of Ramadan, which, as we have
seen in a preceding chapter, can also be a form of month-long feast.
Traditionally, new clothes arc worn on this day following the exam
pie of the Prophet. Before the start of Ramadan religious buildings
should be cleaned, but with the heavy hand of governments con­
trolling the tvaqfi this is rarely done. Decorative lights are hung, or
Ramadan lanterns (now mostly made in China).
Mawlid al-Nabiyy, the Prophets Birthday on the twelfth day of
the month of Rabi’ al-Awwal, began to be celebrated in the tenth
century CE by the Fatamids in Egypt to demonstrate their close
blood relationship with the Prophet. The feast also grew in impor­
tance in response to the growing Christian rite of Christ's birthday.
The celebration is opposed by purists as magnifying the cult of
Muhammad contrary to the true basis of Islam in which there are no
intermediaries between man and God, with Muhammad regarded as
nothing more than human. The feast is more popular in sentimen­
tal Pakistan, for example, than in the austere atmosphere of Saudi
Arabia, where Mawlid is actively opposed.
The principal Shi'a feast of the Day of'Ashura on the tenth day
of al-Muharram, originally a Jewish feast day also observed by the
early Muslims, now commemorates the death of the Imam al-
Husayn, the Prophets grandson. The day has become a major festi­
val in Shi'a countries and Karbala, the site of the Imams death, has
become a place of annual pilgrimage dial rivals Mecca for numbers
of pilgrims. The central feature of the festival is a cathartic passion
play depicting die event, together with a sombre street parade
during which groups of young men cut their flesh and beat their
bodies in mortification at the triumph of corruption over piety.
Such display is regarded by Sunnis as contrary to Islam.
Lailat al-Qadr, or the Night of Power, is the anniversary of the
first revelation of the Qur'an to the Prophet through the agency
 TH€ PRACTICE Of SLAM 213

of the angel Gabriel. Falling towards the end of the month of

Ramadan, this is a night of intense devotion and prayer. 'Whosoever
prays during this night,’ Muhammad is reported to have said, ‘in
true faith and hope, will be pardoned his previous errors.’

II Understanding Shariah

Shariah, as we have seen, is the name given to a system of laws based

on rhe Qur’in and the Sunna, and constitutes the core of the ’social
project’ of Islam.

We made for you a law

So follow the Way
And not the fancies of those
Who have no knowledge.
Al-Jathtynh (The Kneeling Down) Surah 45. verse 18

From the belief that the Qur’an is the direct Word of God. the
conclusion must follow that the laws to be found in the text are
those prescribed by God for man. Similarly, since Muhammad is
regarded as the Apostle of God. the guidance given to his followers
through his Sunna must be divinely inspired. This in turn makes the
concept of the Shariah spiritually irresistible for a Muslim as
fulfilling the will of God, and simple believers often have difficulty
understanding why political obstacles are so regularly placed in the
way of achieving God’s will on earth through the implementation of
His laws.
In an ideal Muslim state the Shariah would govern all aspects of
both personal religious practice and Muslim society at large by
combining all the branches of law together. Thus under Shariah no
distinction is made between the religious and the secular, between a
sin against God. with which a Western legal system does not con­
cern itself (blasphemy, for example) and a wrong done to society
(theft, for example), nor between the regulation of a personal prac­
tice (saying prayers, for example) which falls far outside the scope
of Western laws, and die terms of a civil obligation (paying taxes,
for example). Under Shariah both blend into a single legal system of
JH THE PRACTICE Of ISLAM

obligations, rules and punishments. Since all of creation, in Muslim

belief, is an expression of the will of God. God cannot be excluded
from any part of the life of the individual or the functioning of
society.
Muslim law based on the Shariah has been compared in earlier
chapters with the Common Law of England. The Common Law
grew from a basic power (the once absolute and 'divinely ordained’
power of the king) into a comprehensive civil and criminal system as
well as a structure of constitutional practice around which the state
was organized. Similarly the Shariah grew from a basic power (the
Word of God in the Qur’an and the ‘divinely inspired' injunctions of
the Prophet in the Sunna) into a detailed civil, criminal and consti­
tutional system capable of governing all aspects of the state.
The Qur'an contains almost eighty verses setting out pure law
and approximately 500 verses of a general ethical and ritual nature,
spread through almost all the Medinan Surahs. These general prin­
ciples. as we have seen, are then elaborated and explained in a prac­
tical sense by the Prophet s Sunna. The Qur’an and the Sunna, as the
'basic law' legislation of Islam, cover religious observance, inheri­
tance, marriage, the condition of orphans, the emancipation of
slaves, crime and punishment, property, international relations, and
some economic and commercial matters. But this source of law
ended, of course, with the final revelation of the Qur’an and the
death of Muhammad.
The development oi both the Common Law and die Shariah
after the original sources had disappeared (the 'divine rule' of kings,
and the ‘divinely inspired’ Muhammad) was achieved by building
on 'precedent', or the legal rulings and interpretations that had gone
before. Precedent was then expanded and modified over time to
meet evolving contemporary requirements, effectively building up
new law on the foundations of the old. like the formation of a coral
reef. This then led to the extraction of unifying legal principles from
the body of accumulated precedent, a discipline known as fiqh to the
Shariah, or jurisprudence in the case of the Common Law.
The bureaucracy of both legal systems also developed along par­
allel lines. As new law accumulated under the precedent system new
institutions were required for implementation: courts, avenues of
appeal, a system of suit and counter-suit, prosecution, defence and
 THE PRACTlg Or ISLAM 215

enforcement. Then these developing institutions, requiring rules

with which to operate, themselves drove the further deepening and
widening of the law. which in turn expanded the scope of the
administration, and so on.
The need for a successor to Muhammad's temporal power created
the caliphate. Once in existence, the caliphate expanded the laws
originated by the agency of .Muhammad, extending the precedents of
his case by case decisions as recorded in the Sunna into new areas of
law such as financial systems and criminal punishments (other than
the fixed penalties already set by the Qur’an). To administer and
enforce the decisions of the caliphs as the Muslim empires expanded,
a bureaucracy of experts was in turn requited: judges, lawyers, legal
consultants, scribes and secretaries. Then as the caliphate became
absorbed in power and splendour under the 'Abbasids, the bureau­
cracy. together with the end of Muslim expansionism, slowly ate
away at the role of the caliphs themselves until they became mere
figureheads. Then, during the political fragmentation of the Muslim
empires, the Shariah evolved into a separate institution, no longer
dependent on the caliphate. Only 400 years later, under the
Ottoman Empire, was partial unity of Islam restored, but by this
time the Shariah had come to mean a legal system independent of
and superior to any individual transient ruler.
As early as the tenth century CE, the jurisprudential concept of
the Shariah had emerged from the three preceding centuries of
Qur’an and Sunna-bascd ad hoc decisions. The unfolding Qur’an,
rhe leadership of Muhammad and the Constitution of Medina may
have provided for the relatively simple problems of a seventh­
century society, but 300 years on the Shariah had developed into a
form of comprehensive Muslim constitution, breaking away from
the idiosyncrasies of individual rulers.
In the case of both the Common Law and the Shariah, however,
the modern world has compromised the purity of the original legal
organism. Legislation has overlaid the Common Law with multiple
statutes, although the power of Parliament to create statute law is
itself derived from the Common Law. Statutes now deal with the
complexities of contemporary society which proved to be beyond
the power of the courts to deal with through the precedent system
(obvious examples are traffic regulations and the tax code). Similarly,
216 THE PRACTICE OF biAM

conquest, colonialism ancl the process of gaining political independ­

ence in the twentieth century have overlaid the Shariah in Muslim
countries with layers of legislation and codes, most imported from
non-Muslim systems, making the practical difficulties of "starting
again' or ‘returning to the purity of God's laws' insuperable in
practice.

Fatwas in modem times

A fatwa delivered by a qualified mufti, is an important source for a prac­

titioner >n Islamic lav; searching for a precedent, or a pnnciple on which
to build a lodgement or an argument. But modem fatwas go further,
intended to guide Muslims in matters of faith and law as encountered
in them everyday lives. When faced with a family, business or personal
problem, most Muslims do not have the knowledge or the resources to
bring a court action or to engage the services of a lawyer (who would
inevitably complicate the issue further still) Even for the wealthy, the
prospect of litigation is daunting. In heavily bureaucratic Egypt, for exam­
ple, and many Middle Eastern countries suffering from the same affliction,
there are over 15 million outstanding cases bottled up in the courts
involving, therefore, at least 30 million litigants, out of a total population
of 70 million. Cases can take years, and are sometimes passed from gen­
eration to generation before final judgement is reached. An informal
system of fatwas has. therefore, developed to bypass the sclerotic court
system, For simple family matters, the sheikh of the local mosque can be
consulted. But should the resulting fatwa be unsatisfactory, or for com­
plicated issues, more sophisticated avenues are available.The party seek­
ing redress can apply for a fatwa to a national newspaper (Al Ahram,
for example, the Middle East equivalent of the London Times) which
usually has a panel of experts available to consider issues presented, and
may reply to. or print the result. Many broadcasting stations operate a
similar service. In many large cities, religious universities operate a branch
of Dor al-lfta. the equivalent of a legal aid clinic, which originated with
Al-Azhar University m Cairo, to which the problem can be taken, leading
to the issue of a fatwa on the spot Once an autfiontative fatwa has
been secured, in most cases the matter will be settled by direct negoti­
ation between the parties following the ruling, helped along, no doubt.
by the inaccessibility of the courts, and the religious overtones of the
fatwa.
Here are two exampies to illustrate the way the fatwa 'works
Mustafa works in a bank, in a lowly position for which he is cner qual­
ified, but unemployment in his town is more than 30 per cent and noth­
ing better is remotely available. His wife Zamab has no job and stays at
home.They live frugally on his very meagre salary. Mustafa is deeply frus­
trated by his life, and tends to be short with his wife. He returns home
one evening from work, even more stressed than usual, to find Zainab,
with her friends in a neighbouring flat and no dinner ready. He loses his
temper with Zainab. and in front of her fnends screams at her.'I divorce
you. I divorce you. I divorce you.' Zainab. with the help of her friends,
packs her suitcase and moves back to her parents' house in the suburbs
that same mght Mustafa is soon very regretful of his actions and pleads
with Zainab to return. He is lonely and he misses her, and if the divorce
really is to proceed, his nuptial agreement requires that he must pay to
Zamab the deferred part of her dowry, which he cannot do. Zainab how­
ever refuses, partly because she feels publicly insulted, but more impor­
tantly because she is concerned that if Mustafa's public acts of divorce
mean that she is in fact divorced, she would now be committing fornica­
tion should she return to the flat This in turn would lead to scandal and
social ostracism. Mustafa seeks help from the sheikh of his mosque, but
the sheikh feds unqualified to make a ruling. Mustafa then applies to a
committee of local experts in the Shariah attached to a well-known
madrasah, who consider the problem and issue a fatwa in Mustafa's
favour.They conclude that since the Qur'an fo Ai Boqoruh (The Heifer) at
Surah 2, verse 230, requires that divorce must be irrevocable, and since
Mustafa spoke his words in anger and the purported acts of divorce
were committed together and not at separate times, only a single act of
divorce has been performed, and no divorce, therefore, has taken place.
Zainab, who by now is not happy Irving with her parents and does not
want to be a'divorced woman', agrees to reactivate the marriage, once
she is convinced that she will not be committing a sin. Just as importantly,
she has the fatwa to show to any doubting members of her community.
Farouk is a wealthy old mar., a widower, and the owner of a large
agricultural property managed by his only son Muhammad Farouk also
has a daughter Ramlah. who has made a bad marriage to a man with few
prospects and poor health. Farouk disnkes his son-in-law and has refused
 THE wucncf OF ISLAH

over the years to offer any support to the couple, even though his
daughter lives in reduced circumstances. Farouk des, and under the
Shanah, Ramlah is entitled to one haff of the amount due to Muhammad,
or one third of the whole estate But Muhammad, already in possession
of the farm as the manager, takes over all the assets of the estate, refus­
ing to make any provision for Ramlah. Ramlah, who lacks the means to
go to court and aware how long a suit will take, applies to the Dar al-
Ifta by tetter for a fatwa,The fatwa received in reply is stem, quoting Ai-
Msd (The Women) Surah 4 at verse 10.

Those who unjustly

Eat up the property
Of orphans, eat up
A fire into their own
Bodies; they will soon
Be enduring a blazing Fire,

But even though Rami,th is now an orphan, and the words of the
Qur’an appear to fit the facts precisely, Muhammad is unmoved. He still
refuses to make allowance for Ramlah. challenging her to tell her story in
court, which, as lie well knows, she cannot afford to do. either in terms
of time or money.

Fiqh
The comparison between the Shariah and the Common Law begins
to break down, however, over the issue of jurisprudence or fiqh. In
England rhe Common Law has built up a refined hierarchy of
decision-making, stretching from the lowly Magistrates Court to the
I louse of Lords. Decisions and their reasons are recorded at each level
and over a period of time inconsistencies are eliminated by a system
of appeals based on jurisprudential analysis, or in some cases legisla­
tion intervenes. But England is a small country with a unified legal
administration. Islam, on the other hand, after receiving the basis of
the Shariah through the revelation of the Qur’Jn and the develop­
ment of the Sunna. immediately spread out across Arabia and into
Syria, Palestine and Persia. For the first 200 years after the death of
the Prophet, therefore, a unified legal system was impossible. Judges
 THE PRACTICE OF IStAM 219

from Mecca to Damascus to Kufa and beyond inevitably laid down

a widely diverging range of decisions based on conflicting interpreta­
tions of the basic Shariah laws. The Caliph 'Umar, anticipating the
growing problem, wrote to one of his senior judges in the early years
of Muslim expansion, attempting to establish a basis for uniformity.
The loner is a remarkable statement of emerging Islamic
jurisprudence and is worth reproducing here, both for the value of
what is said, and as a window on the struggle for justice faced by
early Islam, almost overwhelmed by the startling territorial progress
die faith had made.

In the name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful

From, the Slave of Allah. -Um3r ibn Al-Khattab. the Pnnce of the
Faithful,
To, AbdullSh ibn Quays.
SotaamAleto.
By these present know that judgeship is the burdensome duty
placed upon you, but one which you have accepted. You are
charged to analyse whatsoever matter comes before you, and
once you have reached a clear decision, your judgement is to be
executed.There can be no rights before the law without
implementation by the law. Judge evenly between those who
plead before you, and let not your face betray any preference, so
that the nobleman seeking redress before you receives no
favours over the poor man. and the weak will not therefore
despair of justice. Make evidence the burden of the party which
alleges, and place under oath he who denies the claim,
Settlement of disputes between the parties, before judgement is
rendered, shall be permitted between Muslims, except where
matters contrary to the public good are concerned. Whosoever
relies on evidence that is not present before the court grant him
a fixed period of grace m which to make good his claim, and if
produced, consider such evidence on the merits, but if not
produced within the allowed time, dismiss the cfaim.Thus will you
establish the true facts of every case to come before you.
Where a previous judgement is subsequently found to be
insecure, be not under obligation to follow your error. Justice is
eternal and cannot be erased by contradictory precedent Better
to return to the right path, than to perpetuate injustice.
220 the pwAcna of islam

Evidence given by Muslims shall be presumed to be reliable,

except in the case of those Imown to have given false testimony
m the past or those who have been subject to fixed
punishments, or those deemed to be of untruthful character For
Allah alone knows the intentions of men, and on His guidance
we rely to avoid the punishment of the innocent.
Exercise your discretion where a matter before you finds no
guidance in the Book of Allah, or in the traditions of His Prophet
Employ analogy and deduction to extend the Shariah in the way
of justice and the love of Allah,
Avoid sitting in judgement when angered, or lacking in
resolution, and let not your ire rise against those appeanng
before you. For a judge must be just and so magnify the Word of
Allah.There will surely be a great reward reserved for he who is
sincere in the love of justice, even as against himself. Allah will
assist him and vouchsafe him against harm from those whom he
judges. But Allah does not countenance he who dissembles, and
such a man's defects will be exposed, for Allah accepts only acts
that are sincere.
If you pursue such justice, wrth what grace may Allah bless you
both in this world and the next
Way Safoam.

(Translated by Paul Grieve and Dr Muhammad Scrag)

During this early period, emphasis was on the personal merits

of the individual coming before the court, on finding the appropri­
ate just solution, despite the possibility of differing results in
different geographical jurisdictions. Individual justice based on his
personal knowledge of the parties and their circumstances was how
Muhammad himself had approached his decisions, except for the
cases where a clear and specific law from the Qur’an applied.
In addition to the problem of fragmentation, in the first two
Islamic centuries, fiqh was hampered by the sheer quantity of unor­
ganized sources. We have seen how the Hadith. encompassing the
Sunna, became a vast rising sea of reports of the Prophet’s words and
actions, few of which were reliable. To this the law was rapidly
adding another substantial archive of decisions.
 fit PRACTICE OE ISLAM 221

A legal practitioner in the Shariah during the early years of Islam,

seeking to argue on behalf of a client, or to adjudicate the ease before
him, would pick and choose from the wide variety of sources in his
search, since no consistent hierarchical system of reported cases was
available. First the Qur’an would lie consulted as die Word of God,
and if nothing was found relevant to a particular case, the Sunna
of the Prophet would be examined. If no answer was to be found
there either, general precedent from Medina would be sifted, and if
there was no suitable comparison to be found from that source,
lesser levels of local case precedent could be used, leading finally to
the personal decision of the judge when all else failed.
During the high 'Abbasid period of the eighth and ninth cen­
turies CE (the diird and fourth centuries AH) numerous schools of
interpretation, or madhabs, appeared, attempting to rationalize this
diversity. Four definitive schools of Islamic law finally formed, each
offering a rationalized version of the sources, and differing only in
emphasis and detail. These four schools srill have relevance and are
applicable today, even though their methodology is based on the
teaching of eighth or ninth century scholars. And some of rhe orig­
inal scholars themselves have come to lie regarded over the centuries
as ’Muslim saints', elaborately sanctified by hagiographies and leg­
ends, and usually referred to as ‘imam’, giving tile word a further
shade of meaning.
The Hanafi or Kufan School (from Kufa, a great literary centre in
Iraq) was founded by Abu Hanifa (d. 767), but the school’s principal
theorist, Muhammad ibn al-Hassan ash-Shaybani (d. 804), is equally
well known. Hanifi advocates an equitable and flexible approach to
interpretation using ‘legal discretion’ or iiiihdin, to permit, where
appropriate, a scuse of abstract fairness to prevail over legal rigidity.
Similarly, Hanafi emphasizes interior faith over outward acts of devo­
tion. Since such teaching might appear to involve a choice being
made between the original sources, the school emphasized a general
Qur’inic basis for their method.

Those who listen

To the word
And follow
The best meaning in it,
220 the pwAcna of islam

Evidence given by Muslims shall be presumed to be reliable,

except in the case of those Imown to have given false testimony
m the past or those who have been subject to fixed
punishments, or those deemed to be of untruthful character For
Allah alone knows the intentions of men, and on His guidance
we rely to avoid the punishment of the innocent.
Exercise your discretion where a matter before you finds no
guidance in the Book of Allah, or in the traditions of His Prophet
Employ analogy and deduction to extend the Shariah in the way
of justice and the love of Allah,
Avoid sitting in judgement when angered, or lacking in
resolution, and let not your ire rise against those appeanng
before you. For a judge must be just and so magnify the Word of
Allah.There will surely be a great reward reserved for he who is
sincere in the love of justice, even as against himself. Allah will
assist him and vouchsafe him against harm from those whom he
judges. But Allah does not countenance he who dissembles, and
such a man's defects will be exposed, for Allah accepts only acts
that are sincere.
If you pursue such justice, with what grace may Allah bless you
both in this world and the next
Way Safoam.

(Translated by Paul Grieve and Dr Muhammad Scrag)

During this early period, emphasis was on the personal merits

of the individual coming before the court, on finding the appropri­
ate just solution, despite the possibility of differing results in
different geographical jurisdictions. Individual justice based on his
personal knowledge of the parties and their circumstances was how
Muhammad himself had approached his decisions, except for the
cases where a clear and specific law from the Qur’an applied.
In addition to the problem of fragmentation, in the first two
Islamic centuries, fiqh was hampered by the sheer quantity of unor­
ganized sources. We have seen how the Hadith. encompassing the
Sunna, became a vast rising sea of reports of the Prophet’s words and
actions, few of which were reliable. To this the law was rapidly
adding another substantial archive of decisions.
 fit PRACTICE OE ISLAM 221

A legal practitioner in the Shariah during the early years of Islam,

seeking to argue on behalf of a client, or to adjudicate the ease before
him, would pick and choose from the wide variety of sources in his
search, since no consistent hierarchical system of reported cases was
available. First the Qur’an would lie consulted as die Word of God,
and if nothing was found relevant to a particular case, the Sunna
of the Prophet would be examined. If no answer was to be found
there either, general precedent from Medina would be sifted, and if
there was no suitable comparison to be found from that source,
lesser levels of local case precedent could be used, leading finally to
the personal decision of the judge when all else failed.
During the high 'Abbasid period of the eighth and ninth cen­
turies CE (the diird and fourth centuries AH) numerous schools of
interpretation, or madhabs, appeared, attempting to rationalize this
diversity. Four definitive schools of Islamic law finally formed, each
offering a rationalized version of the sources, and differing only in
emphasis and detail. These four schools srill have relevance and are
applicable today, even though their methodology is based on the
teaching of eighth or ninth century scholars. And some of rhe orig­
inal scholars themselves have come to lie regarded over the centuries
as ’Muslim saints', elaborately sanctified by hagiographies and leg­
ends, and usually referred to as ‘imam’, giving tile word a further
shade of meaning.
The Hanafi or Kufan School (from Kufa, a great literary centre in
Iraq) was founded by Abu Hanifa (d. 767), but the school’s principal
theorist, Muhammad ibn al-Hassan ash-Shaybani (d. 804), is equally
well known. Hanifi advocates an equitable and flexible approach to
interpretation using ‘legal discretion’ or iiiihdin, to permit, where
appropriate, a scuse of abstract fairness to prevail over legal rigidity.
Similarly, Hanafi emphasizes interior faith over outward acts of devo­
tion. Since such teaching might appear to involve a choice being
made between the original sources, the school emphasized a general
Qur’inic basis for their method.

Those who listen

To the word
And follow
The best meaning in it,
m THE PRACTICE Of ISLAM

Those arc the ones

Whom Allah has guided, and those
Are the ones imbued
With understanding.
zf/ Zunur (Crowds) Surah 39. verse 18

Hanafi also argues, based on the general provisions in the Qur’an,

that law could be created by an ijmd or a consensus of qualified legal
authorities in successive generations, thus shaping the Shariah to suit
changing circumstances.
Hanafi became the official school of the ‘Abbasid era and of die
Ottoman Empire and is thus the most widespread in the Muslim
world. Tlte system is used today in the legal systems of Syria, Jordan.
Egypt and Pakistan, encompassing more than one third of the
Islamic world. Hanafi also worked towards the codification of com­
mercial laws relating ro the traditional long-distance movement of
goods and trade.
The Maliki or Mcdinan School is named after Malik h. Anas
(716-95 CE) who lived his life in Medina. Malik was appointed as a
judge and collected his decisions into a corpus on which the school
is grounded, the Muwatta, the first written compendium of laws in
Islam. Malik’s interpretation of was based on adherence to the
literal word of the Qur’an, the Sunna and legal precedents, drawn
from decisions in Medina only, with emphasis on the decisions of
rhe Companions of the Prophet. Maliks method was therefore based
on as the source of law, like Hanafi. But Malik restricted the
scope of consensus only to those practising law in Medina, past and
present.
Iitihsdn was not permitted. 'Hie only departure from tradition
contemplated by Malik was istislah, the accommodation of the
public interest, provided that such new laws were strictly consistent
with the core sources and were intended to protect the essential
values of religion, life, intellect, lineage and property.
The Maliki School is dominant in Upper (or southern) Egypt and
North Africa, Inti no longer in Medina (now within the Kingdom of
Saudi Arabia).
The Shafi’i School is based on the writings of the Muslim thinker
Muhammad b. Idris al-Shafi’i (d. 820 CE). whose principal work was
 W PRACTICE OF ISLAM H3
Al-Riiala (The Treatue). Al-Shafi’i was a resident of Cairo, but was
born in Palestine. He studied in Mecca, in Medina under Malik, in
Iraq and Syria, and he was an expert in all the contemporary schools
otfiijh. Al-Shafi’i was the most important jurist of Islam as well as a
poet and a revered holy man. His memory remains forever popular
with the poor of Cairo, among whom he is buried. Letters of suppli­
cation asking for relief from injustices suffered arc still addressed to
him and his tomb is considered to have the power to cure sickness,
although this is contrary to strict Islam. Al-Shafi’i established the
importance of the Sunna to the Shariah as complementary to the
Qur’an, and the mature concept of Sunni Islam can be said to orig­
inate with his work and that of his immediate followers. By restating
and clarifying the ‘divinely ordained' laws of the Qur’an and the
Sunna, al-Shafi’i sought to unify legal interpretation (although this
was ultimately impossible across such a culturally and geographically
diverse empire) and to resolve the growing conflict between fiqh
based on the Qur’an alone and tradition based on the reported prac­
tice of the Prophet. Further, the spread of forged Hadiths to justify
unsound individual teachings threatened the unity and coherence of
Islam. For this reason Al-Shafi’i sought to reduce the Sunna to only
those sayings of the Prophet with a provable origin. He also
attempted to limit the scope of scholars to impose their views
through ijma, by requiring that rhe necessary consensus should cover
the entire community of legal scholars, which was patently impracti­
cal, rendering ijma unworkable in practice.
Al-Shafi’i’s greatest contribution to Jlqh was in the development
of qiyas as a rational basis for legal analogy. He did not approve of
the narrow public interest requirement of the Malik school for the
creation of new law, but he did not endorse the liberal hr/Auinnf the
Hanafi school. Al-Shafi’i’s influence as a unifier was such that his
legacy prevented the legal systems based on Medina or Kufa from
breaking away completely from the mainstream. Nevertheless, in
requiring that a judgement must conform to a secure Hadith to be
valid, the Shafi’ite school imposed severe limitations on the adapta­
tion of the Shariah to new situations. And indirectly, with the
enhancement of the prestige of the Hadith, Shafi’ite rigidity con­
tributed to the continuing manufacture of Hadith to support
unorthodox views, the very abuse that al-Shafi’i sought to curb.
22S THE PBACnCf OF ISUVi

Shafi’i’s modern influence is strong in Syria. Malaysia and

Indonesia.
The Hanbali School was established by the followers of Ahmad
ibn Hanbal (d. 855) whose career was devoted to compiling trad­
itional Hadiths. He travelled extensively in what is now the Middle
East, verifying or rejecting a wide variety of traditions to produce his
authoritative collection. Ibn Hanbal was a pupil of al-Shafi’i. but
placed even more reliance on the traditional texts than his master.
(Ibn Hanbals extreme reverence for Muhammad led him. for exam­
ple, to dye his hair dark red in reputed emulation of the Prophet.)
In ibn Hanbals view, the literal meaning of the core texts could not
be departed from even by ijma. and only in the rarest cases by ^ryru.
Hanbali was opposed to all forms of speculative theology and eso­
teric Sufism that could show no direct authority in the Qur’an and
the Sunna. This narrow and rigid reading of the Shariah is known as
taqlid, or imitation, which can be translated as unswerving faith in
the 'rightly guided’ precedents, or as elosed-mindedness, depending
on your point of view. Hanbali is the opposing position to Hanafi.
emphasizing good works and exterior acts over interior conviction as
the true manifestation of faith.
After centuries of neglect, ibn Hanbals extreme conservatism
was adopted by ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhab (d. 1792) via the writings of
the Hanbali jurist ihnTaymiya (d. 1327). The followers of ibn ‘Abd
al-Wahhab, the ultra-puritan Wahhabi sect, became the ferocious
power on which ibn Saud built his kingdom, and thus the Hanbali
School came to be recognized as the official source of fitjh for Saudi
Arabia. The Hanbali school has found modern relevance beyond
Arabia, by advocating complete freedom in commercial matters,
unrestricted by the contractual norms of precedent and the original
sources.
Within Sunni Islam all four schools are generally tolerated in all
jurisdictions. Where Shariah is practised, a combination of the social
interpretation of Hanafi and the commercial laissrr-faire of Hanbali
prevails.
There is no disagreement between the inadhabi as to fundamen­
tals, although courts in different jurisdictions can produce widely
differing results. Pluralism is reinforced by a well-established Hadith
of the Prophet: 'The differences of opinion among the learned within
 THE PRACTICE Of AM 325

my community are a sign of God’s Grace.' This independence and

flexibility prevented the schools from being subverted to suit the
ambitions of transient temporal rulers. During the wars of religion
that started in Europe in the sixteenth century, differing interpreta­
tions of the Christian scriptures were employed to justify competing
acts of violence. In the Muslim world, however, this did not occur.
Battles for temporal power within the fragmenting empire took place
mostly outside the sphere of enduring faith.
Shi'a fiqh, like the Shi'a branch of Islam, took a different course
from mainstream Sunni. The central difference between Shi'a and
Sunni began, as we have seen, with the schism over the succession to
Muhammad, with Shi'a belief recognizing only 'Ali and his succes­
sors as inheritors from the Prophet. From 'Ali. regarded by Shi'a as
the First Imam, then through his sons al-Hasan and al-Husayn, the
Second and Third Shi'a Imams, a line of twelve imams led the
emerging community, the last from a continuing hidden state or
'occultation', to be discussed in more detail in the following chapter.
Abu Hanifa studied under the sixth Shi'a Imam, Ja’far al Sadiq, the
founder of Shi'a fiqh. But Shi'a rejects all four Sunni schools because,
in the Shi'a view, only Shi’ite Imams can make fundamental deci­
sions regarding the law.
Shi'a fiqh has considered and rejected both consensus and anal­
ogy in favour of the strict interpretation of the original sources, but
subject to die elaborations of the first twelve Shi'a Imams.
Traditionally the Shi'a idea of God's justice was rational, with God
himself subject to natural law. obliged to punish evil and reward
good. In modern times, however, Shi'a fiqh as a scholarly discipline
has been overtaken by die theory of the vilayat-e faqth, by which
ultimate interpretation of the Shi'a Shariah is in the hands of a
supreme religious authority or Faqih, who alone is considered capa­
ble of producing the right solutions for the time. Although this is
represented as ijtihad, allowing the sources to Ire reinterpreted, in
practice the result is that the Shi'a clergy have given themselves wide
scope to alter almost any law or opinion to suit the prevailing need.
Before the arrival of European colonialism during the nineteenth
century, there was no universal 'rule of law' in Muslim societies, in the
modern sense of those in power being themselves subject to the law,
although, as will be discussed below, no ruler could rule successfully
lit,____________________ TK (KACTICf CT ISLAH____________________________

without the acquiescence of those who occupied positions in the

institutions of society. But for the individual, the fortunes of war and
the capriciousness of rulers were the overwhelming realities of the age.
In practice this meant that the private law of the Shariah system (mar­
riage. contract, inheritance, etc.) was constant, while public law
(criminal, fiscal, international, etc.) was usually subject to change
with each regime. Nevertheless, beneath the ups and downs of his­
tory, at an administrative level, the theory of fiqh developed the fol­
lowing legal framework for the Shariah, common to all the main
schools of interpretation.

Furu al-fiqh, the 'branches of jurisprudence', codified the texts of the

laws, the original sources of the Qur’an and the Sunna. together with
subsequent precedents, into qanun. classified under seven headings:

• 'ihadat - personal acts of worship and the laws

governing the performance of the Five Pillars
• mu 'amalat - relations and transactions between
individuals
• munikahat - family law from marriage to inheritance
• jara’im - criminal law and fixed punishments
• ityar - international relations, die rules of war and peace,
international treaties and die treatment of captives
• qada‘ - defined the rules of evidence and the burden of
proof, a subject with which the Islamic legal system was
deeply concerned, as well as procedures for the
appointment and dismissal of judges
• maliyyat - determined the sources of fiscal law. including
rules for payment of the fizyah tax for non-Muslims and
the zakat for Muslims, as well as the kharaj, or land tax.
the principal source of revenues for die Muslim empires

Usui al-fiqh, the 'principles of jurisprudence', defined the under­

lying principles by which fitru al-fiqh was formulated, by employing
the following disciplines:

• 'Ahkam categorized the law, which was principally

divided between forbidden (haram), obligatory (fanland
wajih). recommended (mandub and muitahabb),
 TKPRACTig Of ISI AM

permitted {mubahind jd'iz) and disliked or frowned

upon (makruh}. ’Ahkam also covers analysis of
causation, guilt)' intent, impediments to guilt such as
insanity, sanctions and punishments, and compensation.
• ‘Adillah defined the sources of the law and the methods
by which the law is to be determined front the texts:
qiyas- the principle of interpretation of the sources
(the Qur’an, the Sunna and precedents) by analog)',
consensus, or by reference to public policy. By using
qivai a judge might exercise his discretion to extend
the ruling of one case to the facts of another by virtue
of a common clement linking the two situations. Or,
when confronted by a situation not covered directly
by the sources, departures into new practice might be
justified by ijmd, the consent of the community,
generally meaning the ulama, or recognized religious
scholars. Alternately, ijtihadoffered a more liberal
solution to the same situation, contemplating, under
certain circumstances, the exercise of independent
judgement outside the scope of the original sources,
to deal with a new situation. This method was widely
used in the early days of Islam to incorporate into the
Shariah the laws and customs of subjugated peoples.
turuq al-tafiir - covered the rules for the
construction of documents, such matters as the
consistent interpretation of words, the rules governing
legalese, die significance of headings, appendices and
notes, and similar technical issues.
al-mujtahid- dealt with the qualifications required
of a practitioner in the law. from senior judges who
were authorized to make decisions based on ijtihad, to
the more junior levels, restricted to taqlid or
following established authorirv.

The institutions of the Shariah

Islam expects every believer to take part in collective responsibility
for security and public order.

Ye are the best

Of peoples, evolved
118 THE PRACTICE OF ISIAM

For mankind.
Enjoining what is right
Forbidding what is wrong.
And believing in Allah.
Al 'hnrin (The Family of Imran) Surah 3. verse 110

In an ideal god-fearing Muslim society, therefore, the function of

the institutions of the Shariah related more to guidance and com­
munity improvement in the sight of Allah titan to enforcement. The
principal institutions of the Shariah in a typical prc-colonial Muslim
society were as follows:
The family was (and still is) the principal building block of Islam.
The traditional family structure was uncompromisingly patriarchal,
but widely inclusive, so that generally every citizen of a traditional
society would have been a member of an active family providing ar
least minimum nourishment, care and support. Much of the direct
law of the Qur’an and the Sunna is devoted to the improvement of
family life. Inheritance laws for example, ensured that assets were dis­
tributed upon the death of the patriarch rather than passed to one
individual, so that the whole family was protected.
Behind family life, centred on the mosque, stood the u.iqf. or
religious charity, as the ultimate source of support. Property donated
to the waqf 'belonged to God*, and could not subsequently be sold
or transferred. The income was for the benefit of the poor and
needy, or for the common good in the form of the construction of
a school, or drinking fountain, for example.
Civil order at the local level was in the hands of the muhtasib.
somewhere between a market inspector and an ombudsman. With
his assistants he was responsible for public order, for weights and
measures, public health and moral standards.
Qadis, or judges, filled a wider role than a modern judge, presid­
ing in a courtroom as well as overseeing the administration of the
waqfi, and the welfare of orphans. As has been seen, the qadi’s func­
tion became more than the just disposition of the cases before him.
As the Shariah developed, the qadi became the administrator of a
settled and detailed legal system with an established body of law.
Where a qadi, or a ruler, or an individual, required a legal opin­
ion, in much the same circumstances as a specialist barrister might be
 THE FOACTCt OF ISLAM 229

consulted in the UK today, a mufti would be retained to give a fatwa.

Fatwas were unenforceable unless adopted by a qadi as a judgement,
and rival fatwas obtained by contending litigants were common,
often from rival schools of fiqh. Only under the Ottoman Empire
were muftis given official status and rank. The position of Grand
Mufti was often created by a Muslim ruler, giving the holder the
authority to issue fatwas on wider national issues. Nevertheless, the
position was often compromised by the political manipulation of
the appointee’s decisions.
The bureaucrats of the Shariah system (the clerks, assistants,
sheikhs and teachers) received their education at a nuidrasah or
Qur’jnic college, usually attached to a mosque and often physically
divided into four parts, one for each of the main schools of fiqh.
Below them the working population received a minimal education
through the mosques, while above, merchant families employed
tutors for their young. Practitioners in the law received an ijdza, or
licence to practice after higher education at a Shariah college.
The elite of the systems became members of the 'ularnU (alim,
singular), the body of traditionally trained scholars who became
jurists, judges, muftis or the administrators of waqfi. The 'ulam&
who acted as the guardians of the Islamic heritage, had no forum for
the delivery of a unified opinion, but the tendency of individuals was
strongly toward conservatism. Conservative elements of the 'uiama
resisted the introduction of printing, for example, the foundation on
which the Western Reformation and Enlightenment were built.
Indirectly, reaction to this conservative attitude led to the establish­
ment of modern secular education, starting in Turkey and Egypt.
In most Muslim cities, trades and crafts - both manufacturers
and sellers - were strictly ranked and separated topographically, with
the nobler, such as the candle, incense and perfume merchants, closer
to the mosque and the blacksmiths and potters set further away. A
common interest built these sectors into guilds and professions,
forming over the years a solid layer of society centred on the souk or
bazaar. In practice, a ruler of traditional Muslim society would
require the support of the bazaaris in order to achieve stability and
exercise effective power, as the bazaar also operated as a bank, or even
as a primitive form of central bank. At rhe end of the twentieth cen­
tury, the influence of the bazaar could still be felt. The withdrawal of
230 THE PRACTICE OF IStAH

support by the merchants ofTehran from the Shah during the 1970s,
and the financial support given to Khomeini in the early days of his
exile, and later to his government-in-waiting in France, was ulti­
mately crucial to the success of the Iranian Revolution.
At the core of the Shariah system was the shurd. or consultation
process. In an earlier chapter, one of the reasons put forward for
Muhammad's death without appointing a successor was that the
Qur’an in Surah 42. Al-Shurd, provided a framework by which the
community itself could decide how to be governed. Muslims are
enjoined at verse 38. to conduct their affairs by mutual consultation.
The form that this consultation is to follow is not specified, however,
and has been variously interpreted as meaning consultation between
chiefs or family patriarchs, or between the ‘uLimd, the scholarly com­
munity, and so on. Had European colonialism not intervened, there
is no reason why the shurd system could not have developed into a
wider form of franchise, similar to a Western democracy, as the gen­
eral level of education and sophistication of the population increased.
At the apex of the system, a ruler presided over his people as
sultan, or, in the early days before the position became that of a
figurehead only, as caliph. Ideally such a ruler would have seen him­
self as nothing more than a trustee, whose duty was to uphold the
Shariah, not to rule as an autocrat. The words of Abu Bakr on taking
power as the first caliph on the death of Muhammad come close to
expressing the Muslim ideal: 'You made me your leader although in
no way am I superior to you. Cooperate with me when 1 am right
but correct me when I commit error: obey me so long as I follow the
commandments of Allah and His Prophet, turn away from me when
I deviate.'
But despite the injunction of the Qur’an that a ruler should
‘enjoin the good and forbid the evil’, many were cruel, arbitrary
and corrupt, although the fusion of law and morals in Islam, of reli­
gion and civil society, meant that a ruler could not rule without
some level of consent from the ruled, and at least appear to be obey­
ing the laws of God in the Shariah. Even when a tyrant ruled with­
out such a consensus (a phenomenon that is hardly unknown even
in the present day) the Qur’an promotes obedience over revolution.
Those in power must be endured, and ultimately the}' will be pun­
ished by God.
 PRACTICE Of ISIAM 231

And thou wilt see them

Brought forward to the Penalty
In a humble frame of mind
Because of their disgrace.
Al-Shuri (The Consultation) Surah 42. verse 45

In practice, the administration of the Shariah continued undis­

turbed in the hands of the 'ulama at the level of religious practice,
family law. commerce and inheritance. In the areas of criminal law,
property and taxation a ruler may have been in a position to impose
his own will within a certain geographical area, although die possi­
bility exists in fiqh for the establishment of a mazalim. or complaints
court. This tribunal operated in much the same way as the original
Chancery Courts of England, applying the rules of equity where the
common law courts had become deficient and rigid.
The familiar Western element that was missing from the institu­
tions of the Shariah was the concept of the legal corporation: the
trading company, the city, the state, the body that would transcend
any one life, no matter how important that life might be in the pres­
ent. Traditional Muslim tribal organization centred on the person of
the chief and Islam was founded on the personality of one man of
immense leadership capabilities. In the early years, the caliphate
system followed the same pattern, with the fortunes of Muslim soci­
ety closely tied to die fortunes of the leader.
There may be some substance to die dieory that the corporate
body’ so common in every aspect of society in the West, from
monarchy or presidency, to parliament and municipality, through
social and charitable bodies, down to the humblest incorporated
enterprise, derived from the Christian idea of a church', with a
continuity separate from the personality of those temporarily in
charge. Sunni Islam, in contrast, developed no tradition of corpo­
rate continuity, no 'church' or 'legal personality', being the religion
of the individual standing in the local mosque who confronts his
God directly, without the benefit or distraction of an ecclesiastical
structure. The closest parallel to the continuum of the European
‘corporate body’ is the waqf.but the objective of the waqfvm char­
itable not commercial and the concept never escaped into the
mainstream of the Shariah.
232 THE rWCHCE OHSIAM

A practical result of this cultural difference can be seen in the

layout of a traditional Muslim city. Without a municipal corpora­
tion there was no forward planning, no dedicated public open
spaces, for example, no grand boulevards. Rather, those individuals
or families with the power to do so built where they pleased, princi­
pally houses and mosques, without being answerable to a higher
guardian of the wider community interest.

The Shariah and Muslim nation-states

In the centuries after the establishment of the four principal Sunni
schools offiqh (and four further minor schools) no new school came
into existence. Rather the four main methods of interpretation drew
closer to each other to form the classical fiqh of the Shariah. This
period is often portrayed as a time of stagnation, leading to the
common belief, even among Muslims, that rhe Islamic legal system
made no advance in over a thousand years from the tenth century
CE to the present, and the period is sometimes referred to as the
'closing of die gates of ijtihad'ot initiative.
The move toward conformity was in part a reaction to the devas­
tating force of the Mongol invasion in rhe thirteenth century CE,
when Muslim scholars sought to protect the core of Islam from
destructive outside influences by adhering rigidly to precedent. But
during the 400 years before the arrival of European colonization in
Dar al-Islam in the nineteenth century, new law was indeed created by
the exercise of ijma, istihsdn, qiyas, and even ijtihad. For almost half a
millennium, Ottoman law, following rhe Hanafi school, improved
and systematized commercial and criminal law to produce a consistent
application throughout the empire. The Mughal Empire in India also
made advances with the rationalization and codification of the law.
But the underlying conservatism of the Shariah also made a con­
tribution to the success of the system, regulating lives, societies and
commerce for 1.200 years, with such effect that Muslim culture
became synonymous with legal order. Only in the nineteenth cen­
tury was the conservative strength of die Shariah to become a weak­
ness, making speedy adaptation to the arrival of the Western world
almost impossible. Then, whatever response the Islamic legal system
could have made to changing world circumstances, was frustrated by
the rapid imposition of colonization and foreign legal systems on
 THE PRACTICE Of ISLAM 233

top of the historic layers of fiqh. This produced a confusion which

many Muslim countries have yet to resolve over 100 years later.
The move away from pure Islamic law began with a round of legal
reforms by the Ottoman Empire at the end of the nineteenth century,
replacing mosr of the criminal laws of the Shariah with the French
penal code, and attempting to rationalize Hanafi private law in the
Turkish Mejelle code. This was soon followed by the imposition of
British, French and Dutch law in the newly colonized Muslim terri­
tories, as well as the simplification and restriction of Islamic laws in
order to make fiqh more easily administrate by European bureau­
cracies. As these new conditions appeared, Muslim modernists advo­
cated the expanded use of ijtihid to replace the influence of die four
traditional schools in order to meet the challenge of the times, but
the move came too late.
The following potted histories give a brief overview of the pres­
ent confused and fragmented position of the Shariah in four of the
Muslim national states that emerged during the twentieth century.

From the conquest of Egypt by the Muslims in 640, until the arrival
of the British in 1882, the country was ruled by the Shariah (princi­
pally the Hanafi school) which developed into a fully functioning
system under the Ottoman Empire, although the Mejelle code was
resisted by the Egyptian Khedives as part of their efforts towards
independence from Turkey. But rather than gaining independence
from Turkish rule, Egypt was occupied by the French, then the
British, and the jurisprudence of the Islamic system was replaced
with the Code Napoleon, together with some parts of the Italian
legal code, translated into English and Arabic. Egypt became self-
governing in the 1920s and by 1949 had put into effect the Egyptian
Civil Law, which became a standard for the twentieth-century Arab
world. This new code (dealing with civil matters other than family
law, which remained under the Shariah) was prepared by the famous
jurist Abdur al-Razzaq al-Sanhuri (die principal exponent of recon­
ciliation between Muslim tradition and colonial reality). The code
revised the inherited European system as well as reintroducing the
principles of the Shariah, combined with the possibility of
invoking precedents from as far back as the twelfth century CE. A fur­
ther revision process based on the fiqh of the Shariah has continued
JJ1 1HE PRACTICE O ISLAM

over the years and is now formally recognized by the Constitutional

Amendment of 1980, which requires that all enactments subsequent
to that date conform to rhe Shariah. One anomalous result is that
dancing girls arc permined on the television under the old laws,
while at the same time the Qur’an is the basic source of Egyptian law
for the new. Another is that the Supreme Constitutional Court,
responsible for hearing appeals based on the Shariah has come to be
regarded as the guardian of personal liberties against the increasingly
repressive legislation of the Egyptian government. The viability of
this system of compromise owes much to the tolerant Egyptian char­
acter. but whether the resulting amalgam represents solid gradualism,
or in fact satisfies no one, has yet to be determined.
After the creation of Transjordan by the British following the
Cairo Conference of 1921, the old Ottoman legal system, based on
the Mejellr. was continued. A process of revision of tire Ottoman
laws led to the adoption in 1976 of a new legal code for Jordan
Based loosely on the Egyptian Civil Code, the Jordanian Code
extends much further, encompassing all branches of law. including
the constitution. The principles of Shariah arc specifically linked to
the provisions of the code, and supported by administrative memo­
randa explaining the connection and giving the Shariah jurispru­
dence to which the new laws arc related. Nevertheless, much of the
criminal law section of the Code is based on European practice, and
administrative regulations from the Highway Code to tax laws have
also been imported wholesale from abroad. A hierarchical court
system, based on the British model, was introduced at the same
time, hut here the connection between theory and practice has
broken down. Although the Jordanian constitution provides for an
independent judiciary, the government openly influences the courts,
and permanent 'state of emergency’ legislation, similar to that in
Egypt and much of the Middle East, ensures that the entire system
produces a result satisfactory to those in power. Of note is the adop­
tion by the United Arab Emirates of the entire Jordanian Code, with
only the names and the headings changed.
What is now Pakistan formed part of the Indian Raj, adminis­
tered by the British separately from what is now India, using a
codified version of Hanafi Shariah up to the middle of the nineteenth
century, when a version of the English Common Law codified for
 THE PflACTiCE Of BEAM 2»

export' was introduced. After the creation of Pakistan in 1948 as an

independent country partitioned from India, the Common Law
system was continued, despite the fact that the original ideal behind
the establishment of Pakistan as a separate state was the utopian ideal
of implementing the Shariah, which would allow Muslims to live
‘under God's law'. Subsequent governments nevertheless continued
the move away from Islamic law and towards a European form of
legal code. During the 1980s an attempt to reverse this trend was
made by General Zia al-Haq. who came to power by military coup.
When his generals turned out to be as inept as their civilian prede­
cessors, al-Haq announced the 'return to the Shariah' in an attempt
to regain popularity and 'bring blessings' to Pakistan. In practice this
meant little more than an amendment to the criminal code to pro­
vide for Islamic fixed punishments, and the imposition of mandatory
zakat, to be collected by the state for charitable purposes. But no
fixed punishment has ever been administered in Pakistan, and while
some proceeds of the zakat arc distributed to the poor, much of the
money collected disappears into the state’s murky accounts. Al-Haq's
'reforms' also included the establishment of a Federal Shariah Court
as well as a Shariah bench in the Supreme Court, charged with bring­
ing the old code into conformity with the Shariah, as well as hearing
appeals based on Islamic law, Under al-Haq's civilian and military
successors, the legal system in Pakistan has become increasingly com­
plicated and sclerotic. This has been further aggravated by the intro­
duction of mandatory Islamic banking regulations on comparatively
short notice, to be discussed below.
The Ottoman Empire rejuvenated die Shariah after a long period
of decline during the rule of the later ‘Abbasid caliphs. Anatolia, or
Turkey, benefited the most from Ottoman attention to legal codi­
fication and improvements which were based on the Hanafi school.
The Ottoman legal system reached maturity in the sixteenth century
CE under Suleyman the Magnificent, known in the Muslim world as
Suleyman the Lawyer. Changes and improvements to the law were
issued during the nineteenth century as a series of firmans, or juri­
sprudential decrees, with effect throughout the empire, achieving in
this way partial codification and the start of the Afr/e/Zr system, pro­
moted by the famous Muslim jurist Abu Sa’ud al-'Imady. Toward
the end of the nineteenth century European law was progressively
236 THE PRACTICE Of ISLAM

adopted parallel to the Mejelle, as areas of the law were withdrawn

from the Shariah. After the defeat ofTurkey in 1918 and the loss of
empire, Ataturk initiated comprehensive reforms, attempting to
create a modem state closely aligned with Europe, leaving the old
Muslim world behind. As part of the reforms, the Shariah was
entirely abolished in 1928, and the Swiss Civil Code was adopted,
together with the Italian Criminal Code. This was an almost random
arrangement, with Swiss law chosen merely because the Minister of
Justice at the time had been educated in Switzerland. The code has
nevertheless continued in use ever since, and comprehensive revi­
sions came into effect on 1 January 2002 to conform with the stan­
dards of the European Community, although popular acceptance has
been slow. The traditional Shariah system is still used in rural areas,
three or four generations since abolition, as the basis of marriage law,
womens rights, inheritance and property rights. The Turkish legal
system does not recognize Shariah customs, however, and there is no
provision in the code for a parallel system, or for appeals based on
Shariah principles.

The Shariah today

In Western consciousness Shariah means something quite different
from a comprehensive legal system thirteen centuries old. The
Western press focuses instead on the well-known fixed corporal pun­
ishments prescribed in die Qur’an. The Qur’An does indeed set
harsh penalties for certain crimes, which arc, therefore, accepted as
'divinely specified’.

As to the thief.
Male or female,
Cut off his or her hands:
A punishment by way
Of example, from Allah
For their crime:
And Allah is Exalted in Power,
Full of Wisdom.
At-Maidah (The Repast) Surah 5. verse 38

In the era of the Jdhiliyyah, before Muhammad's ministry Arabia

was ruled by Irx talionis. the law of the lawless desert, with no civil
 THE PRACTICE Of 61AM 237

power such as a police force to restrain crime, so that only the cer­
tainty of all-out retribution from the victim's tribe or family main­
tained order. As we have seen, the Qur’an reformed the Arab instinct
to vendetta and intertribal warfare, diverting the desertman's ener­
gies from self-destruction to self-improvement. Savage fixed punish­
ments derived from lex talionis were the means by which traditional
tribal vengeance was controlled by the Qur’an and channelled into
a legal system acceptable to all. The victims family could have their
customary blood, but following a predetermined scale rather than
through wholesale slaughter. The presumption of scholars is that the
concept was taken from Judaism and the Torah, which contains die
original statements of codified retribution.

And if any mischief follow, then thou shall give life for life.
Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot,
Burning for burning, wound for wound, stripe for stripe.
Exodus 21: 23-5

But the Shariah has moved on since the death of the Prophet in
632 CE, as has the Common Law, During the sixteenth century in
England, a political opponent of die Crown could be tortured to
death in public, or in the eighteenth century the penalty for mock­
ing a Chelsea Pensioner could be death by hanging, or the punish­
ment for a minor crime could be transportation to Australia. Though
rhe legal provisions of the Qur’an, unlike the Common Law, are con­
sidered to be divinely inspired and, dierefore, cannot be 'repealed', in
pracuce, repeal has been achieved by the progressive recognition over
the centuries that the extreme penalties specified in the Qur’an
merely serve as symbols to emphasize the seriousness of certain
crimes before God. Attempts by bloodthirsty Muslim literalists to
implement such punishments, much to the delight of the Western
press, are as abhorrent to Islam (die population of Saudi Arabia and
Yemen excepted) as the spectacle would be in the West of a fringe
community, the Isle of Man for example, under some ‘law and order'
government reverting to the old Common Law punishments of
hanging and Hogging in an attempt to recreate a mythical lost age of
civil obedience and harmony.
Muhammad himself asserted that corporal punishments should be
imposed only in the most blatant cases and preconditions were
238 THE FRACTKl OF ISLAM

developed by precedent even in the early years of Islam that prevented

implementation. In the case of adultery', for example, for which the
Qur’anic penalty is 100 lashes, the sentence could be imposed only if
the accused confessed, or if four witnesses gave direct evidence of
penetration. Since adultery is preferably a private act. such a require­
ment was unlikely ever to be met, and in addition a witness ran die
risk of receiving 80 lashes himself if the accusation was found to be
false and the accused acquitted. In the present day, in contemporary
Pakistan for example, where amputation for theft is theoretically pro­
vided for by law, the preconditions required for implementation arc
such that the penalty has never been imposed. The thief must believe
the victim to lie unaware of the theft taking place; the stolen property-
must be of substantial value in a very poor country: the theft must
have been from a place of safe-keeping: two witnesses arc required to
the act itself, and the punishment must not endanger the life of the
criminal. Mitigation and mercy arc urged repeatedly by both the
Qur’an and the Sunna and, in another interpretation, amputation as
punishment for theft should not be implemented until all are well fed
in a land of plenty’. A well-known Hadith says that rather a hundred
guilty men should go free than one innocent be punished.
While the traditional Shariah punishments are thus unenforce­
able in a developed Muslim society, the United States, in the Muslim
view, perpetrates much more shocking injustices in the present day.
The American legal sy stem is seen as favouring the rich and impos­
ing capital punishment (which is supported by approximately 70
per cent of American voters) on the less fortunate almost exclusively,
often after an extended wait on death row.

Over the centuries Muhammad's Commonwealth of Medina has

come to be seen as the utopian state in which the hand of God was
present, directing a social system that realized God's plan for man on
earth, leading to the promise of eternal paradise in the life hereafter.
Since the death of the Prophet, Islam has endured a history of des­
potism and oppression in the name of God. similar to the uneven
record of Christian rulers claiming divine authority to justify-
tyranny. But unlike the West, where the secular rule of law is now
established and church and state firmly separated, in many Muslim
countries the spirit of Shariah lives on. A few examples of the
 THE PRACTICE Of ISLAM 2W

attempts in modern times to implement die Shariah as ‘social

reform’ (in contrast to the purely legal implementation in the exam­
ples given above) will illustrate the difficulties.
In Iran, the regime of the Shah collapsed in 1978. He was a ‘friend
of America' and supported by the West, but by the mid-1970s his
regime was a hollow faptde that had lost all moral strengtli, for rea­
sons that will be discussed in the next chapter. In the years following
the resolution, the Islamic Republic was established to implement the
Shariah, but almost twenty-live years later, the attempt has produced
mismanagement on a huge scale, bmtal repression and an adminis­
trative inflexibility that has brought most productive contacts with
the oursidc world to a halt, while the country's misery index has risen
to levels well in excess of anything experienced under the Shah.
However, this failure, which is indisputable on a material level, is
more attributable to the dark character of Shi'ism than to the inade­
quacy of the Shariah itself. In 1978 Khomeini was installed as Wali
Faqih, ‘chief jurisconsult', or the inheritor in some respects of the
‘divinely-guided’ Shi'ite Imams who began with 'Ali, Muhammad’s
son-in-law. Khomeini was even popularly seen as rhe representative
on earth of the twelfth or Hidden Imam (although Khomeini never
quite articulated a claim to infallibility). Who better, therefore, to lead
the state in a hijrah to a new social order under God's law? In prac­
tice, however, pure Shariah was not implemented by the new state.
Much of the civil code from the Shah's regime was retained and three
conflicting court systems were allowed to develop: the old civil courts:
Shariah courts intended to bring the law in line with the principles of
the Shariah; and ‘revolutionary courts' where no jurisprudence was
followed and death sentences were swiftly passed on those considered
inconvenient to the new regime. Moreover, during the two and a half
decades of the Islamic Republic, the question of the implementation
of the Shariah has been overshadowed by a struggle to resolve the
riddle that lies at the core of the Iranian Revolution. How can the
claim by the 'ulanui and the Wali Faqih to absolute religious power
cohabit with the will of the people, in whose name the revolution was
nominally made? So long as Khomeini was alive, commanding obe­
dience through the power of history and the force of his personality
(similar to the position of .Muhammad himself in Medina) the
conflict was not visible. After Khomeini's death in 1989, however, an
240 vhe wocnct pt

undisguised contest for power developed, having little to do with the

ideals of the Shariah. On one side the conservative and theocratic
'uLtma wield rhe weapon of the ‘Word of God', and on the other, the
almost democratically elected representatives of the people seek mate­
rial improvement in what should be a rich country. To the credit of
the people of Iran, this contest has taken place mostly within the
framework of the revolutionary constitution, rather than through the
use of armed force, as in many Arab countries. But the result has been
to bring disgrace to the Shi'a clerical hierarchy, who were so ascetic in
opposition, but who have demonstrated inevitable human weakness
once in power, maintaining their position through abduction, murder
and intimidation by show trial, while accumulating wealth and luxury
for their membership through their control of state assets.
Afghanistan has a long history of devout Muslim observance,
with 90 per cent of the population traditionally following the
Hanafi school of Islam, which favours ijtihad and tolerance. An
almost pure form of the Shariah was the law of the land until 1925
when a form of European civil code was introduced under British
influence. A faculty was established at Kabul University to lead the
integration of the traditional with the modern and to provide train­
ing for qadis. Sufism, the mystic side of Islam, was also very popular
in Afghanistan.
Islam was also the motivating and unify ing force through which
British domination was finally broken. But with a similar though
more urgent call to jihad to resist the Russian invasion of 1979. the
old Muslim consensus was shattered. The arms and money pipeline
from the American Central Intelligence Agency and Saudi Arabia
via Pakistan promoted the idea of Islamic revolution rather than
nationalist or tribal resistance to occupation, merely accompanied
by belief. The influences were the violent Jamaat-e-Islamia Party of
Pakistan, and the Sunni purists of Saudi Arabia, fanatically opposed
to both Sufism and Shi'ism. Religious indoctrination combined
with military training followed, creating the mujahidin, the fero­
cious fighting force that defeated Soviet Russia.
But the mujahidin were only successful on the battlefield.
Their programme for the Islamiciz.it ion of Afghanistan that was
to follow the expulsion of the Russians was a complete failure. The
attempt to impose a single interpretation of Islam on a diverse
 the practice or ewi 2<l

people was defeated by the strength of tribalism, while the tradi­

tional weakness of the Saudis, dependent on a single charismatic
leader, was exposed when no such Afghani saviour appeared. Pure
Sunni, Sufism and traditionally tolerant Hanafi all collapsed and the
mujahidin became nothing more than corrupt and cruel warlords in
a fragmented country.
The Taliban moved into this vacuum as a new force for Islamic
reform, drawing on the stark teaching learned in the refugee
madrasahi in Pakistan (of which at one time there were over 30,000).
A comparison could be made with certain Christian sects, whose
reading of the Bible concentrates on Creationism, accompanied by
fire and brimstone, and who can always produce an obscure quote
from the depths of the Old Testament to justify an extreme right­
wing view. But the Taliban had nothing in common with
Afghanistan's liberal Muslim roots. The essential driving force behind
the movement was their interpretation of die life of Muhammad,
who had himself taken up arms against an oppressive and corrupt
oligarchy. And from within this new power die necessary charismatic
leader appeared, the element that the former mujahidin had lacked.
Mullah Omar, the Taliban leader, demanded total personal alle­
giance, effectively replacing the sburd consultation system with
which the movement had started with his own decisions. Omar pre­
sumed to have himself named Amir-ul-Momineen, the Commander
of die Faithful, or the 'head of Islam’, the title taken by the early
caliphs. On one occasion Omar even appeared before his followers
from a rooftop wrapped in the cloak of the Prophet, a famous
Afghani relic plundered from a sanctuary for the purpose.
The Taliban version of the Shariah concentrated on the literal
text of the famously bellicose verses of the Qur'an that date from
Mecca's military threat to Medina, while ignoring fourteen centuries
of development of Shariah fiqh. Rigidity and uncompromising
extremism are contrary to the ideals of Islam, as we have seen, not
to mention civil repression and the murder of Muslim by Muslim.
No justification whatsoever for the Taliban is to be found in the text
of the Qur’an, or in the Shariah, other than the fixed criminal pun­
ishments discussed above and long out of use.
The reasons for this state of affairs can be explained, at least, by
the initial desire of the talib body to cleanse Afghanistan of the
2*2 THE PHOCTKt Of ISLAM

ungodly destruction and corruption, fuelled by the West, that had

gripped rhe country for the previous twenty-five years, from an era
before most of the Taliban rank and file were born. And no matter
how ardently the West may have wished to link the Taliban mental­
ity with mainstream Islam, dwelling so often on the smashing of TV
sets, public executions, the mandatory growing of beards and the
reclothing of women, the image was no more valid than blaming the
Vatican Curia (or the Archbishop of Canterbury) for the gunmen of
Belfast.
Saudi Arabia is the most famous example in modern times of a
state run under Islamic law. Ibn Sa’ud forged Saudi Arabia by
alliances with, or victories over, most of the tribes of the Arabian
peninsula, rather than by inheriting a post-colonial state within bor­
ders set by a European power, following the usual post-colonial
experience. The Shariah in Saudi Arabia has thus been untouched
by external influence and held in isolation by geography and history.
The only non-indigenous laws are the traffic code and certain com­
mercial regulations imported from Jordan and Egypt.
Ibn Sa’ud's all-conquering army consisted principally of warriors
from the violent and puritanical Wahhabi sect, whose objective was
the elimination of all ‘innovation in Islam and a return ro the purity
of the laws of rhe Qur’an, as in the much idealized days of the
Prophets Commonwealth. As the price of battlefield victory there­
fore, the new state followed the ideology of the Hanbali school of
Shariah, known as the most rigid form of Qur’anic law and the
interpretation on which Wahhabism is based. ( Tradition says that
Ahmed ibn Hanbal, the scholar who founded the movement, of
whom ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhab was a zealous disciple, refused to eat
watermelon, that mast innocent of fruit, since there was no exact
precedent for such consumption to be found in the Sunna.) The
result is a living example of taqlid, the rule of inflexibility and silence
at the ultra conservative end of the possible interpretations of the
Shariah. The social forces of the modern world beyond the bound­
aries of the state arc physically excluded and simply not recognized.
The Saudi royal family rules absolutely and publishes no accounts.
The only consultative body, the majlis-al-shurii, is appointed by the
king, anti the 700 Saudi religious judges arc a rigid seif-protecting
priesthood, mostly drawn from Qasecm, a region deep in the central
 TK PRACTICE OE ISLAM 243

desert and the stronghold of Wahhabism. Legal procedures arc shab­

bily opaque and punishments brutal, women have few rights (are
not permitted driving licences, for example), reform is heavily resis­
ted and the police are barely controlled. Precedent is not standard­
ized so that decisions are inconsistent, and the cosy state monopolies
are invariably protected. Under these circumstances, and in order to
keep the country functioning, special tribunals have been estab­
lished to deal with commercial matters, insurance claims, labour
laws and patents, so bypassing the Shariah courts.
The Saudi reaction to the iconoclastic internet summarizes per­
fectly the dilemma. Even Hanbalis cannot reject new technology out
of hand while claiming chat Islam is a religion for all ages, yet at the
same time freedom of information cannot be tolerated. The response
from the government has been to block access from Saudi servers to
hundreds of thousands of sites worldwide, a form of censorship that
is surely unsustainable.
When the borders of Sudan were drawn by the European powers
in the nineteenth century, the animist Nilotic tribes in the pastoral
south were arbitrarily combined with the ethnic Arab Muslim popu­
lation of the north to create a new British colony, resisting the
French to the west and the Ethiopian Amhars to the east. The north
of the country had converted to Sunni Islam in the fifteenth century,
and British occupation 350 years later was initially resisted with
a religious fervour inspired by a self-styled Mahdi, or Messiah,
Muhammad Ahmed. Once subjugated, British administrators kept
the peoples of the north and the south separate, treating the south
(by then partly Christian,1 in the same manner as the neighbouring
'black' colonics of Kenya and Uganda, while administering a codified
form of the Shariah in the ‘Arab’ north under rhe Moh.immaden Ltw
Courts Ordinance.
Even before independence from Britain in 1956, however, the
dangerously artificial nature of the country was exposed when the
south began a revolt against the domination of the north. Fifty years
later a devastating civil war continues, resulting in a huge popula­
tion of internal refugees (second in the world only to Afghanistan),
This racial and religious division of the country was exacerbated by
the announcement of the introduction of the Shariah by the
Khartoum government during the 1980s. Although the Shariah is
?44 THE PRACTICE Of ‘SIAM,

supported by the northern tribes, among whom Sufism (known in

Sudan as Ansar) is a long tradition, the reality has been something
less than utopian. The announcement was nothing but opportunis­
tic political cover for a mismanaged and failing economy, similar to
the case of Pakistan, and resulted in little more than the pouring of
alcohol stocks into the Nile and the inevitable reclothing of women,
accompanied by the establishment of a committee to examine the
existing patchwork of inherited colonial laws in the light of the prin­
ciples of the Shariah. The country’s constitution was in any event
suspended and a state of emergency declared shortly after another in
the series of coups that have followed one another since independ­
ence. But to the outside world rhe 'implementation of the Shariah'
in Sudan quickly became synonymous with the terrible record of the
military-backed government for genocidal civil war. the wholesale
abuse of human rights (including murder, torture, mass abductions
and slavery), the persecution of Christianity, and the reduction of
much of the country to an aid-dependent dust-bowl.

Yet the problems encountered in these experiments do nothing to

blunt the appeal of die Shariah to the majority of Muslims. The
dream of a just and equitable theocratic society lives on. undimmed
even by the record of the harsh dictatorships and narrow theocracies
that have resulted. The alternative, the despotic suppression of such
aspirations for the Shariah by force if necessary, may result in a tem­
porary appearance of calm and order in the streets, but leaves the
core issue dangerously unresolved.

The Shariah and human rights

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted by the United
Nations on 10 December 1948 was the product of centuries of strug­
gle by subjects against their rulers. States based on physical coercion
or a claimed 'divine right' to rule have largely been replaced in the
West by societies theoretically organized on the basis of'natural law',
by which rulers only rule with the consent of the ruled, and even
then subject to definite limits, principally the concept of human
rights. The contrasting position of Islam is that the basis of a ruler's
power is his trusteeship of the Shariah, by the will of God rather than
by the consent of the ruled. Thus in theory, if not in practice, the
 THF PRACTICE Of 61AM 2«

treatment a subject may expect at the hands of the Muslim state

should be a matter of divine law, not of human social contract.
The Qur’in and the Sunna bear no apparent resemblance to a
conventional legal code, or to a declaration of rights. But many of
the core concepts of Islam, expressed almost 1,400 years ago, never­
theless match the high ideals of the UN Declaration.

• Slavery is not categorically prohibited by die Qur’an, for

seventh-century economic reasons, but slaver)' is judged to be
against Gods will and freeing a slave is extolled as a charity and a
virtue. Small-scale domestic slavery nevertheless endured in the Arab
heardand, and Prince Feisal, subsequently King of Iraq, famously
appeared at the Versailles Treaty negotiations in 1919 accompanied
by his slave. In the West, in contrast, active commercial slavery
involving great numbers of captives, and sanctioned by law. contin­
ued through to the middle of the nineteenth century.

• The right to life and property was summarized in Muhammad’s

farewell address in the following words: ‘Your blood and your prop­
erty’ are sacrosanct until you meet your Lord.’

• The right to take part in government is covered by the Shariah

institution of the shura, discussed above.
• The shura principle is only meaningful, however, if consultation
takes place with freedom of expression. The Prophet himself allowed
full discussion between his followers of the issues facing the
Commonwealth of Medina. On subjects where a divine revelation
in the Qur’Sn had provided guidance, however, the will of God was
not open to debate.

• The right to freedom of religion and conscience is specifically

set our in the Qur’an:

Let there be no compulsion

In religion: Truth stands out
Clear from error.
Al-RMjanih (The Heifer) Surah 2. verse 256
• The concept of fundamental human equality is repeated many
times in both the Qur’an and the Sunna, specifically summarized.
2*6 IHE WACntf OF ISLAM

once again, in the Prophet's farewell address. 'No Arab has superior­
ity over a non-Arab as no non-Arab has superiority over an Arab, nei­
ther docs a man of brown colour enjoy superiority over a man of black
colour, nor docs a black man enjoy superiority' over a man of white
colour except by piety.’ The last three words of the quote raise an
inevitable Muslim reservation to the concept of total human equality:

Verily the most honoured of you

In the sight of Allah
Is he who is lhe most
Righteous of you.
Al-Hu/urai (The Chambers) Surah 49, verse 13

All men are equal before the law, therefore, but personal superiority
can be earned through righteousness.
By the standards of today, however, there are serious omissions in
the Muslim version of human rights such as the treatment of non­
Muslim minorities, or the specific discrimination against women in
inheritance and legal testimony. The blurring of the line between
crime and sin is also problematic, as in the case of blasphemy, where
freedom of expression under conformist Shariah soon comes up
against limits far short of those regarded as inalienable by the West.
The advance made by the Qur’an in creating personal rights
under the conditions of the seventh century can be readily appreci­
ated, coming long before similar measures were even considered in
Europe. Ironically, the call for the implementation of strict Shariah
in modern Muslim societies is often in response to the abuse of those
same basic rights by nominally Muslim governments more than
thirteen centuries later.

Ill Social Prohibitions

The well-known social prohibitions of Islam can now be seen in con­

text as part of the Shariah, believed by Muslims to have a divine
origin based on the words of the Qur’an. Most of the prohibitions
cut directly across Western practice, which regards the right of the
individual to the ’life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness’ as a
 THE PRACTICE OF ISLAM M7

self-evident tnith having moral force, provided, of course, that no

harm is done to others. For a Muslim the compulsion is reversed.
Certain rules have been ordained by God and man, therefore, cannot
criticize based on human logic or morality. A devout .Muslim will
explain that neither health nor social improvement is the reason for
his or her obedience, nor is fear of punishment. God’s commands are
to be followed bi Li kayf. 'without questioning how’, leaving God to
'understand His own mystery'.
The more familiar prohibitions of Islam are as follows:

• Various meats are proscribed.

He hath only forbidden to you

Dead meat, and blood
And rhe flesh of swine
And that on which
Another name hath been invoked
Besides that of Allah.
Al-Baqarah (The Heifer) Surah 2, verse 173

The flesh of donkeys and horses is prohibited, but camels arc permit­
ted. Birds with talons are not permitted, nor arc animals with incisor
teeth. The slaughtering of animals must be performed to certain stan­
dards, known as halal, covering cleanliness, the training of the slaugh­
terman. the avoidance of suffering, and with the words Bi-simi llahi
ar-rahmani ar-rabim, repeated as the animal is despatched. Sunni
Islam allows the consumption of all forms of seafood, but Shi'a prac­
tice follows Judaism and prohibits the consumption of bottom feed­
ers without fins or scales.

• The prohibition of alcohol was introduced progressively during

Muhammad’s ministry. By tradition, the reason for this was to allow
the new community to renounce alcohol over a period of time. At
first wine was permitted.

And from the fruit

Of the date palm and the vine
Ye get out a wholesome drink.
Al-NM (The Bees) Surah 16, verse 67
248 THE PWCTCE Of ISLAM

Indeed, wine was foreseen as one of the pleasures of paradise.

Here is a parable
Of the Garden which
The righteous are promised:
In it are rivers
Of wine, a joy
To those who drink
Muhamnuui, Surah 47, verse 15

Drunkenness was then prohibited at prayers.

O ye who believe!
Approach not prayers
With a mind befogged
Until ye can understand
All that they say -
Al-Niai (The Women) Surah 4. verse 43

Then finally alcohol was prohibited absolutely.

O ye who believe!
Intoxicants and gambling
Dedication of stones
And divination by arrows
Are an abomination
Of Satan's handiwork;
Eschew such abomination
That ye may prosper.
AlrMa'uUh (The Repast) Surah 5. verse 90

The traditional punishment for wine drinkers is flogging. This is not

specified in the Qur’an, however, or in the Sunna. but was intro­
duced by 'Umar, the second caliph.

• Neither drugs nor tobacco were known in Medina, and no pro­

hibition, therefore, appears in the Qur’An or the Sunna. Drugs have,
however, been considered as haram by Islam ft»r centuries using
qiyas, or the rules of interpretation, to equate hallucinogens with
alcohol. Cigarettes are also theoretically prohibited as inflicting
 TK PRACTICE Of ISLAM

harm on the body, and thus contrary to Islam. The ruling is widely
ignored, however, especially in the Middle East where, apparently,
lung cancer has yet to be discovered.

• Homosexuality both between men and between women is

specifically prohibited by both the Qur’an and die Sunna. as is ped­
erasty and anal penetration of a woman by a man. The Qur’inic pun­
ishment was house arrest until the perpetrator repented and, as with
adultery, four witnesses were required to the act itself. Homosexuality
is now prohibited by the criminal codes of most Muslim states.

• Sex outside marriage is strictly forbidden, including between

unmarried partners. The offence is widely defined, beginning svith
penetration:

There is no sin after die association of other gods with Allah

greater in the eyes of God than a drop of semen which a
man places in the womb which is not lawfully for him.
(Al-Bukhln, Kitab al Hudud, The Book of Punishments)

and extending to lustful thoughts:

Even to look at a woman with a passionate look is a sin.

(AIBukhiri, Kitab al Hudud)

The prohibition can be circumvented by the urfi or informal (and

usually temporary) marriage, in which there is no public declaration
or registration. Although the arrangement is permitted by the
Shariah and is the ambition of many university students in Cairo,
for example, the families of the couple are usually hostile once they
find out, and the long-term prospect of the bride in an extremely
conservative Muslim society can be severely harmed if the relation­
ship docs not survive. Cairo newspapers frequently carry stories
about urfi relationships ending in tears, and the bride seeking a
backstreet hymen-repair operation.
An equivalent to urfi marriage is permitted by Shi'a fiqb. the mwii
or temporary marriage, expressly entered into for a fixed term. The
custom is said to have existed during the time of the Prophet, but was
banned by the second Sunni caliph ‘Umar, which is probably why the
exception was adopted by Twelver Shi'ism, who reject the authority of
250 THE PKACTTCt OF ISLAM

the first proto-Sunni caliphs. The practice is justified on the grounds

that in this way human urges are recognized, while the children of
such a union are legitimized and protected to the full extent of the law.

• Contraception is permitted by Islam, as sex is regarded as a gift

from God, not merely for procreation. Abortion, however, is con­
sidered to be haram for destroying a life. Fatwas have suggested that
no life can be considered to be present during the first forty days of
pregnancy, and so early abortions should be allowed. But the current
trend in Islam is to say that life begins with conception and that
abortion is, therefore, not permitted under any circumstances,
except where the health of the mother is endangered, certified by a
doctor. Abortion is generally against the law in Muslim countries.

• Gambling is prohibited, defined as payment for an unknown

return, which can vary from a large reward to nothing. Investing in
stocks and shares, on the other hand, although risky, is permitted,
since the investor at least receives a share certificate, whatever the
final value of the paper may turn out to be.

Cairo is a dirty, dusty, crumbling metropolis of over 16 million people, so

overcrowded that more than two million In® m the cemeteries known
as the City of the Dead. The erty is also deeply conservative and very
straight There is little privacy at almost any level, especially for young
people. Under such close living conditions, with cheap housing away
from parents in short supply everyone in each neighbourhood usually
knows everybody else's business. There is very little nightife, therefore,
outside the heavily guarded and very expensive American hotels, and
there are few bars or dubs in the Western sense The Nile, however, is
wide where the dirty brown river passes through the heart of the city:
three times as wide as the Thames, more than five times as wide as the
Seme. So a river boat offers the seclusion not available on shore,
In the eai+y hours of 11 May 2001, Egyptian security forces from the
Interior Ministry stormed the Queen Bout, a floating bar and restaurant
arresting fifty-four male patrons. Many were beaten on the spot and
 THE PRACTICE Of ISLAM 25

others jumped overboard into the filthy waterWhile the men were held
incommunicado by the police, the Cairo press (heavily scrutinized as well
as prompted by the government) presumed their guilt with an immedi­
ate and popular campaign. The prisoners were devil worshippers' who
practised ’debauched rituals' and 'gay weddings'. Homosexuals, a colum­
nist urged, should ’face the death penalty' Many of those arrested were
allegedly from the 'privileged upper class' and had 'visited Israel' Their
names and photographs were published, with some pictures manipulated
to show the subject wearing an Israeli uniform. All confessed'within 12
hours', but during the subsequent trial evidence was produced showing
that many had been whipped and subjected to electrical shocks or
threatened with dogs, and 'medical examinations' had been carried out
to prove that the men had performed 'immoral anal acts'.
In July the prisoners were put on tnal. handcuffed and dressed all in
white The two main defendants were charged with exploiting the Islamic
religion to spread extremist ideas', and practising homosexual sex'as part
of the group's rituals in front of the remaining defendants with the aim
of insulting the heavenly religions and sparking civil strife" The rest were
accused of 'practising debauchery with men', as Egyptian law does not
expressly prohibit homosexual acts. After a short hearing dunng which
the defence accused the state of fabricating evidence, thirty-four men
were convicted and received sentences from one to five years. Some of
the defendants, the tnal revealed, had not even been on the boat on ttve
night in question, but were merely 'known homosexuals',
But n the opinion of many observers the use of the State Security
Courts for the tnal. from which there is no nght of appeal, disclosed the
Egyptian government's real motivation for the arrests. The State Security
Courts were established twenty years ago to deal swiftly with terrorism,
and the system has been used pnncipafry against the Muslim Brotherhood,
Jama'ah Isiamiyyah and Egyptian Islamic jihad. After a long and brutal cam­
paign against Islamism m Egypt the government in 2001 declared victory.
But stall, under the repressive conditions within the country the
Brotherhood especially represents a continuing threat to secunty and
attracts popular support m times of economic difficulty. By moving against
homosexuals the government intended to undermine fundamentalist agi­
tation based on the deterioration of public morals, demonstrating that the
continuing state of emergency is not aimed only at fundamentalists, but
protects society as a whole from undesirables of all kinds.
252 TK PRACTICF Cf ISLAM

Human rights organizations with international connections were

reluctant to become involved for fear of being accused of 'introducing
homosexuality into Egypt' Nor was the international community of
much help to those convideo Thirty US congressmen signed a letter in
July 2001 protesting the arrests. But after the events of September 11 th.
no further complaints were heard.

IV Women in Islam

As pan of the recent swing in Europe and America towards total

equality between the sexes, the status of women in Islam is fre­
quently scrutinized by the Western press and consistently found to
be deficient. Certainly by ideal Western standards of equality and
freedom, women in Muslim countries live their lives as second-class
citizens.
Muslim commentators make two useful preliminary points relev­
ant to an examination of this issue from the outside. First, that mar­
riage under Islam is not made in heaven, but is contractual. The
arrangement should be viewed as similar to the 'partner’ relationship
in the modern Western sense, a couple living together only for as
long as the relationship is worthwhile. In die poorer sectors of
Muslim society (that is, among over 90 per cent of the population)
the relationship is more a practical matter, with both parties work­
ing together in agriculture, for example, or small-scale commerce.
Women under these conditions traditionally had recourse to the
courts to end the relationship simply and speedily if the arrangement
ceased to be satisfactory. In modern times, with the court system less
accessible, rhe same end can be achieved with a suitable fatwa.
Therefore, to regard married Muslim women in general as locked
into tyrannical marriages as virtual servants is not a correct percep­
tion. Second, there is a direct link between wealth and the status of
married women. An explanation for the limited freedom of women
in some Muslim societies is that there are no jobs available for women
in either a very wealthy society or in a very poor and backward soci­
ety. Male-run governments, by keeping women at home, limit the
workforce and mask economic failure. In Saudi Arabia, for example,
women make up 50 per cent of university graduates, but only 4 per
 THE PHACTICE OF ISLAM 253

cent of the workforce, while unemployment among young Saudi

males is unofficially over 30 per cent. In an open market, therefore,
with no discrimination by sex, the unemployment figure would
become unmanageable.
For all the contemporary criticism of the sexually unequal provi­
sions of the Qur’an. Islam greatly improved the position of women
over the conditions prevailing in the Jdhiliyyah of the sixth century
CE. Through Islam, women gained economic rights as individuals
(to own their own property, for example, free of interference from
their husbands) even if women were not hilly equal to men, who
were regarded as being in greater need as warriors and providers.
Although traditionally women did nor take part in shura consulta­
tions. they enjoyed the right of bay it. the opportunity to endorse, or
otherwise, the result of the male shura by shaking the hand of the
leader, or abstaining in the event of disagreement. In theory, should
enough women withhold bay a, the authority of the shura decision
would be effectively compromised.
Under Islam women could give evidence in court, possibly for
the first time in Arab society, but in some cases the word of two
women was required to match the gravitas of a single male witness.
Tlie wholesale sexual exploitation of women, especially of captives,
was replaced by a strict system limiting sex to the confines of mar­
riage, although still favouring the male who is famously allowed four
wives under the Shariah, and an easier divorce procedure. The
Qur’an addressed men and women equally, and sexual relations were
to be conducted on the basis of equality and mutual fulfilment.
Most importantly, the family and protection by the family, was
made the centre of religious and social life: 'marriage is the half of
religion', a popular Hadith confirms.
In the sixth-century Commonwealth of Medina, therefore, the
Qur’Sn represented substantial progress for women and enhanced
status in a deeply patriarchal society. The perception of discrimina­
tion has only arisen subsequently as the world has changed, but the
text of the Qur'in as the ‘word of Cod', has not. Thus in rhe twenty-
first century, a narrow reading of the seventh-century text, as well as
the many Hadiths on the subject of women, can easily become a
rationale for misogyny, and 'proof that men arc spiritually and intel­
lectually superior to women. Examples of such prejudice arc many:
2S« TK PRACTICE Of ISLAM

until recently women were confined to the home in Afghanistan,

consistendy refused the vote in Oman, barred from owning land in
Bangladesh, prevented from travelling without the permission of a
male relative in Saudi Arabia, or unable in almost all Muslim soci­
eties to enter into a formal marriage without the permission of a male
guardian.
But even the limited improvements in the status of women made
by the Qur’an were soon eroded by conservative male society. The
schools of legal interpretation that grew up in the centuries after
Muhammad generally narrowed womens economic rights on mar­
riage and upon divorce, for example. Stria rules were developed for
the exclusion of women from prayer, from fasting or even touching
the Qur’an during menstruation, that were not to be found in the
original authorities. Restrictive customs practised in the newly
absorbed territories of the expanding Muslim empire were allowed
to remain, all harking back towards the conditions of rhe Jahiliyyah,
when a woman was more a chattel than a person.
Judaism, Christianity and Islam are male-dominated religions
rooted in ancient patriarchal traditions from a more primitive age.
God is male (although theoretically neither male nor female in
Islam) as are His various guises (Son and Holy Ghost), as are His
disciples, prophets, priests, messengers, evangelists, caliphs and so
on. possibly excepting some angels. Even at rhe beginning of the
twenty-first century, more than half of Christendom (and 100 per
cent of Jewry) matches Islam in excluding women from ecclesiasti­
cal authority, even though there is no direct rationale for such a
policy to be found in the Gospels. In fact, the Qur'in makes a con­
sistent effort at gender equality, and the ironic verse 35 of Surah 33,
Al-Ahzab (The Confederates) was reputedly revealed in response to
criticism from Muhammad's wife Umm Salama, who complained of
gender bias in the revelations to date:

For Muslim men and women

For believing men and women
For devout men and women
For true men and women
For men and women who are
Patient and constant, for men
 THE PRACTICE Of ISLAM 255

And women who humble themselves

For men and women who give
In charity; for men and women
Who fast, and deny themselves
For men and women who
Guard their chastity, and
For men and women who
Engage much in Allah’s praise
For them has Allah prepared
Forgiveness and a great reward.

Women and the veil

An apposite instance of the patriarchal manipulation of history, reli­
gion and culture is the veil, which has become emblematic of the
entire question of women’s dress in Muslim society, and thus female
status. The veil (or some other form of head covering) is one of the
first issues to be taken up by male pressure groups demanding the
implementation of the Shariah, since women in conservative
Muslim societies have had the misfortune to become an icon of cul­
tural identity and of family ‘honour’. How women behave and
appear in the street is often the emotive focus of the Shariah debate,
with the much more significant question about how an alternative
legal system would function in practice in a twenty-first-ccntury
state taking second place.
The word hijab (meaning veil or screen) occurs seven times in
the text of the Qur’in, but on only one occasion does the context
refer to women, and then specifically to the Prophet’s wives.

And when ye
Ask his ladies
For anything ye want
Ask them from before
A screen: that makes
For greater purity for
Your hearts and for theirs.
Al-Ahzab (The Confederates) Surah 33. verse 53

The injunction of this verse is exceptional, nor universal, consistent

with the Muhammad’s struggle to have the privacy of his household
256 tHE PRACTICE OF ISLAM

respected even though he was a very public figure and lived in

rooms behind the mosque, yet at the same time he wished to remain
accessible.
The Qur’in does enjoin modesty, however, instructing women
(as well as men) in Surah 24, Al-Nur (The Light) at verses 30-1, to
'lower their gazes and be mindful of their chastity'. Women should
not ‘display their beauty and ornaments', but should 'draw their
head-covering over their bosoms', except in the presence of their
immediate family. A similar injunction occurs in Surah 33 Al-Ahzab
(The Confederates) at verse 59.

O Prophet! Jell
Thy wives and daughters
And the believing women
That they should cast
Their outer garments over
Their persons when abroad:
That is most convenient.
That they should be known
As such, and nor molested
And Allah is Oft-forgiving
And Most Merciful.

There is simply no Qur’anic justification, then, for the veiling and

segregation of women practised by many Muslims for centuries and
still continued in some contemporary societies. In fact, there is evi­
dence in the original Muslim sources that in Medina during
Muhammad's lifetime women mixed freely and unveiled with men.
Nevertheless, the West should not assume that all women in
Muslim societies wish to behave in the same way as women in
London or Paris, for example. In traditional Muslim societies the
veil is often welcome as distinguishing a woman as a member of the
wealthy and privileged elite, a concept that reaches back to the his­
torical distinction in dress between wives and slaves.
Voluntary female modesty as a form of self-protection is not
unknown even among the liberated women of the West. There is,
after all, an atavistic truth in Charlie Chaplin's observation that
every man, on meeting an eligible female, calculates at some level
and even if for no more than a fleeting moment, what his chances
 THE PRACTICE Of ISLAM 2S7

might be. This permanent biological readiness on the part of men is

surely the real core of the problem. And the imposition of a conser­
vative dress code on women is the matching admission by the men
of such a society that the)', rather than the women, cannot be trusted
to control themselves and preserve order.

Female circumcision
The Qur’an makes no mention whatsoever of female circumcision
(or of the male version either) and no support is to be found for the
practice in any secure Hadith. The point of connection is merely
that the primitive practice of female circumcision is continued in
some societies that also claim to follow Islam, almost exclusively in
Africa. The practice expresses deep male fear of female sexuality,
which is thereby acknowledged to be a force so strong that, should
male control be lost, and women gain freedom of choice in their
sexual expression, the prevailing patriarchal social structure would
be overturned. Thus with the removal of the clitoris and often part
of the labia minor as well, the demon is exorcized and the victim
prevented for life from experiencing, and therefore seeking, orgasm.
Such a result runs directly against the strong Muslim concept of
mutuality in sexual fulfilment, for which there is definite and
unequivocal authority to be found in the Qur’an.

V Islamic Banking

The commercial provisions of the Qur’an reflect Muhammad's years

as a trader. Contractual obligations arc extensively covered in the
jurisprudential interpretation of the Qur'an and the Sunna, together
with surety guarantees, promissory notes, bills of exchange and con­
tracts of deposit. From these outline concepts, the Shariah jurists,
notably the Hanafi school, developed the details of commercial
instruments that facilitated the movement of goods over long dis­
tances, as well as warehousing, manufacturing and distribution.
With these provisions Islam was hundreds of years ahead of Europe.
The best known of the commercial laws in the Qur’an is the pro­
hibition against riba, or usury, by which is meant collecting interest
on money loaned.
25B_________________________ THE PB/Cta OF ISLAM

O ye who believe!
Devour not usury.
Doubled and multiplied:
But fear Allah; that
Ye may really prosper.
Al 'Imr.in (The Family of‘Imrtn) Surah 3. verse 130

The conditions that produced this prohibition may be explained

in modern terms. Lex lalionis, the pre-Islamic law of the lawless
desert, already discussed, recognized no bankruptcy procedure by
which a debtors indebtedness could be ended. Rather, a bankrupt
could be imprisoned or enslaved, with the unpaid debt carried for­
ward into the succeeding generation or generations. If, for example,
a merchant were to incur a loss in an unsuccessfol trading expedi­
tion, even through no fault of his own, such as in the case of rob­
bery or a natural disaster, should any of his capital have been
borrowed, the debt would nevertheless still have been owed, and
traditionally doubled as the penalty for failure to pay on time.
Compounding interest, which could not be ended by declaring
bankruptcy, as would be die case today, would dien have had the
potential for destroying the man and his family in times when there
was no state support, no insurance, or even zakat to fall back on.
Maybe Muhammad had seen such tragedies for himself.
The Qur'an sought to prevent such commercial ruin by requir­
ing first, that the collection of debts be limited to the physical assets
of the debtor, with imprisonment or slavery for debt abolished, and
second, that the investor could only be recompensed through a share
of the profits, while taking an equal share of the risks. Thus in the
example of misfortune given above, had all or part of the capital
for the trader's expedition been supplied by an investor under the
rules of the Shariah, the investor would have lost along with the bor­
rower, rather than being able to recover his loan from the merchant's
other assets, which, if insufficient, would have led to bankruptcy.
Had the expedition been successful, however, the investor could
have claimed his share of the profits rather than merely his interest.
The arrangement was not limited to any fixed ratio between entre­
preneur and investor, but could be made in any proportion agreed
between the parties.
 THE PRA7TICF Of ISLAM 259

This may not have been an investors preferred method of invest­

ing. since such an investment would require substantially more dili­
gence than a loan secured against readily available and valuable assets.
But if all were bound by the same rules, there would have been no
alternative source of investment for those with capital and the system
would have to work. Sharing risk and profit required honesty and
trust, characteristics for which Muslim traders became famous
throughout the world from the earliest days of Islam, setting an exam­
ple wherever they went and as a result making converts the length and
breath of their trade routes.
The ban on usury also touches on the question of the will of
God. To charge a fixed rate of interest is to attempt to predetermine
the future. But the future is known only to God, so how can rates
be set in advance? The commercial practices established by the
Qur’an also had a moral dimension: profit is justified only when
based on risk.
The modern application of this aspect of the Shariah is not so
simple, of course, since the rule against usury has been strength­
ened by interpretation over the years to prohibit all risk-free non-
participatory lending. The economic justification for this is that
capital that participates in commerce contributes to the generation
of community wealth, whereas money deposited in a bank at inter­
est is out of circulation. In fact, the function of a modern bank is to
recycle deposits as personal and corporate loans, and the depositor
participates by running the theoretical risk that the bank will fail
(although in practice this risk is often covered by government
guarantees). But such conventional arrangements do not satisfy
advocates of Islamic banking. All financial contracts must, on their
face, share the risk between the parties. Equipment leasing or hire-
purchase, for example, arc recognized as within the Shariah, but an
interest-bearing savings account is not.
In the wealthier Muslim countries, such as Saudi Arabia,
Malaysia and the Gulf States, Islamic banking is available as an alter­
native to Western banking, but not forced upon the population, as
is the case in Iran and the Sudan, and recently in Pakistan. Many
international Islamic banking investment funds have developed over
the past twenty-five years, including some run by Western banks,
and managing billions of dollars, although the sector is still
260 THF PRACTICE Of ISLAM

infinitesimally small compared with total worldwide investment.

Even the size of the largest fund (Al-Ahli Global Trading of Saudi
Arabia) has only recently passed the $1.0 billion mark. The fund as
the investor, and the entrepreneur as the initiator and manager of
the enterprise, share the risk, and the depositors behind the fund,
who provide the capital, are paid a portion of the profit rather than
a fixed rate of interest. Islamic funds arc well suited to conventional
trade in goods, for example, and have also extended their activities
to include real estate and equity financing.
Shariah-approved transactions for the small consumer typically
take the form of the purchase by the Islamic bank of an asset
required by the consumer (who would in the West be the borrower
with the funds borrowed secured against the asset). The customer
then buys the article back from the bank at a 'mark-up’ price, with
payment of principal and 'mark-up' spread over a period of time.
This double contract arrangement is very common in most Muslim
countries, whether or nor the Shariah is mandator}', and is much the
same as an interest-bearing loan in everything but name.
For the equivalent of business operating loans, however, Islamic
banking provisions require a much closer relationship between the
parties than between conventional lenders and borrowers. This has
the perverse effect of making Shariah funds assailable to fewer clients
than before, only to those who arc able to persuade the lender that
there will be sufficient profits (together with the original investment)
from which to repay the stake, rather than sufficient assets outside
the transaction with which to secure and repay the loan regardless of
success or failure, as in the conventional banking system. The value
of an asset as security is, of course, much easier for a bank to estab­
lish than future profits, and thus the shared risk relationship under
the Shariah requires a longer view of the customers business. The
Islamic bank, being compensated only from profit which usually
comes in last, is thus committed for the cycle of the transaction and
cannot call in the loan unexpectedly, as is the case with the promis­
sory note system in conventional Western banking. (The famous
'banker’s umbrella’: loaned on a sunny day, but immediately with­
drawn when the rain begins.) The investor in a Shariah transaction
is, however, a full partner with the entrepreneur and can influence
the course of the venture commensurate with the investment.
 THE PRACTICE Of 61AM J6I

The principal difficulty with Shariah hanking is in relations with

the outside world. Iran’s poor management of the country’s economy,
for example, has led to the need for loans from western governments
as well as private bond issues at interest in order to finance imports.
More interest-bearing debt will follow as the country privatizes loss­
making state enterprises. The government of the Islamic Republic
has, therefore, been obliged to enter into contracts contrary to the
Shariah or see their economy collapse. This dilemma has been ration­
alized by die ruling mullahs as acceptable since the lender is not
Muslim, a reasoning that follows in the long Muslim tradition of leav­
ing the financial details of business to Jews, Christians or Hindus.

Shariah banking in Pakistan

In 1999 Pakistan's Supreme Court ordered that onfy Shanah banking

methods were to be used, starting in July 2001. Citizens assumed that little
would change, as Pakistan had made failed attempts to convert to inter­
est-free banking on previous occasions. But this time the military regime
of General Pervez Musharraf backed Islamicization to increase political
support and the change 6 being actively perused, even though the trans­
fer to the new system will inevitably drag on indefinitely Even before
implementation began, however, the government was obliged to head off
wholesale bank withdrawals by confirming that the country’s (interest-
bearing) external and internal public debts would not be affected. But
commercial loans to Pakistan have dried up nevertheless, leaving the
country heavily dependent on funds from the West as soft loans or aid (a
factor in Pakistan's rapid decision to |Oin America's War on Terror)
A further problem has been the largely nationalized banking system,
already weighed down by a high level of unpaid loans as a result of
wholesale corruption. A process of privatization has begun, nominally to
facilitate Shanah banking, with non-performing loans being transferred to
the state to the tune of over J4 billion. (The preferred method of loot­
ing the state in the developing world is for those in power to grant their
friends and relatives loans from a state-owned bank. The debts are never
repaid, but the bank is then bailed out by the country’s central bankers
and by international institutions behind them.'to protect the stability of
262 THE PRACTW Of ISLAM

the country's economy'. The individuals debts are then written off the
accounts of the bank.) Islamic punsts in Pakistan look forward to the day
when every bank is a pock, or pure bank operated by Muslims for
Muslims. But with the banks' profitability based on the success or failure
of customers rather than on secured assets accompanied by the regular
payment of interest, few may wish to invest in such institutions.
The changes to be made to the legal system in order to implement
Shanah financing also raise practical difficulties. Under the Shariah the
investor or 'co-venturer. cannot secure and recover his investment
against the assets of the borrower beyond the assets m the venture m
question, since the source of repayment is to be by division of the pro­
ceeds and profit (or loss) only If other assets could be seized m the event
of failure then the nsk would not be shared, and the very situation that
the Qur’an sought to avoid would have been recreated. Nor does Islamic
law provide for the investor to be given security against the other assets
of the entrepreneur even to ensure that the terms of the contract are
met (rather than as security for the principal), with the inevitable result
that Shanah funding is often difficult to raise
But one beneficial result of the tightening of credit since the intro­
duction of Shanah is to make businessmen more self-reliant, a very Muslim
charactenstic Informal 'committees' of Muslim traders are now common
m Pakistan, raising capital between themselves, which is then invested with
members in rotation, to be repaid with a portion of the user's profits.
Problems also confront a Shanah compliant Pakistan on a macro-
economic level By dedanng the economy to be interest-free', the gov­
ernment has at one stroke emasculated control over monetary policy
through the manipulation of interest rates (the most powerful weapon
in the central banker's armoury). Further, if Pakistan wishes in the future
to iom the World Trade Organization in order to boost exports, the gov­
ernment will be obliged to allow foreign banks access to the domestic
market, offering fixed interest returns.
Nevertheless, the move towards Islamic banking remains very popu­
lar m Pakistan. When the first 'nba-free' bank, the single-branch Meezen
Bank, was launched in February 2002 after approval from the State Bank
of Pakistan, expectations were high This Bank.' said Naib Amir of the
influential |amaat-e-lslamia party,'will get nd of the interest-based system,
•which is the root cause of the financial cnsis the world over'
 THE PRACTICE Of ISLAM M

Insurance has also come up against Islamic law, as providing

against unforeseen events, which is to take a bet against the will of
God. Insurance contains an dement of gambling, since the policy-
holder has no idea in advance what he or she will receive in return
for payment of the premium. In practice these doubts have tradi­
tionally been answered by groups joining together to share the risk,
through a primitive form of mutual self-insurance. In recent times
more sophisticated Islamic insurance companies have been estab­
lished, setting premiums for risk that vary with the profits earned by
the insurer, so coming within the Shariah.
Islam is not opposed to worldly wealth, and the prohibition
against riba has no socialist overtones. The Qur’an praises the man
who takes responsibility for himself and his family. Zakat and
voluntary donations purify the accumulation of wealth and the
sanctity of private property is expressly assured. Affluence, like
sexual fulfilment, is a God-given pleasure to be enjoyed. The consti­
pated pace of development in the Muslim economics is caused by
nothing more mysterious than the man-made impediments dis­
cussed earlier: the historic absence of the concept of the legal per­
sonality (principally the commercial corporation), the need to
transcend the ‘big basha' cult of the leader, and the failure of the big
bashas in power to adhere to the core principles of the faith by elim­
inating tyranny and corruption.

VI Jihad

lake ‘fatwa’ and ‘Shariah’, die word ‘jihad’, popularly believed to

mean ‘holy war’, has passed into the English language. And like the
others two examples, jihad, in the Westernized interpretation of rhe
word, carries overtones of violence and extremism. In this view,
jihad is a form of reverse Crusade by Muslims against the unbeliev­
ers. There is certainly an clement of military language in die Qur’an,
since Muhammad’s Commonwealth was only preserved through
armed self-defence.

To those against whom

War is made, permission
264 THE WACT1CE O ISLAM

Is given to fight, because

They are wronged - and verily
Allah is Most Powerful
For their aid,
Al-Hajj (The Pilgrimage) Surah 22, verse 39

Fighting maintained the unity of the early community, provided

booty to cover the operating costs of the new state, and offered the
reward of paradise eternal for those killed in 'God's service', although
suicide operations were unknown in Muhammad's Commonwealth.
With the jihad, the energies used for intertribal raiding were con­
verted in the name of religion to the preservation and the expansion
of Islam. Later, jihad was brought into service to intensify the wars
against external competitors, from Abu Bakr's first conflicts with
Byzantium, to rhe defence of the Ottoman Empire against the
British in the nineteenth century, to the expulsion of Soviet Russia
from Afghanistan by the mujahidin during the 1980s, and to the
recent desperate attempts to drive the British and Americans from
Iraq.
Such injunctions as the quotation given above can of course be
interpreted in the present day as divine authority for heinous acts of
violence. But the words themselves, which were revealed to
Muhammad in the specific context of the attacks by pagan Mecca
against Muslim Medina, do not make Islam as a faith responsible for
the actions of a few. In fact, the Qur’an intends that violence should
be used only for defence, not for aggression.

Fight in rhe cause of Allah

Those who fight you
But do not transgress limits:
For, verily. Allah loveth not aggressors.
Al-faqanih (The Heifer) Surah 2, verse 190

In contrast. Judeo-Christian mythology is rooted in the rewards

promised by God to the Hebrews for their entirely unprovoked
attacks against the Canaanites and the Philistines. Nothing in the
Qur’an can match Yahweh's bloodthirsty authorization to the Jews
in the Book of Deuteronomy for the violent occupation of Palestine,
to be discussed in the following chapter.
 THE PRACTICE OF (SAM 261

But the core concept of jihad is neither physical nor violent.

Rather the word refers to the inner exertion of the individual to
improve both himself and his community through moral discipline
and commitment to Islam. The literal meaning of the word jihad is
simply struggle’, conveying the idea of a drawn-out contest with an
intimate enemy who might at any time prevail. But that intimate
enemy is the self, constantly subjected to the whispered temptations
of Shaytan. Muhammad referred to this internal struggle as the
'major jihad’, and regarded the physical defence of the Muslim com­
munity as the ‘minor jihad’ in comparison.
As we have seen, there is no church organization in Sunni Islam,
no priests controlling the sacerdotal meditation by which salvation
may be attained. Rather. Islam is achieved by attempting to live the
pure Muslim life in the exterior material world. This requires a con­
stant 'struggle in the way of Allah', involving all the believer’s assets.
His body is to be well maintained, his physical energies are to be
directed toward the external obligations of the faith, from daily
prayers to the haj. to the support of his family and the poor. His
goods are to be used for the same purposes, while his spirit is to fight
against temptation and strive for the ideals of Islam that have already
been enumerated, from compassion to moderation. This incessant
personal struggle for goodness is the true meaning of the word jihad.

That ye believe in Allah

And His Messenger, and that
Ye strive your utmost
In the Cause of Allah,
With your property
And your persons:
That will be best for you
If ye but knew.
AI-SaffCThc Battle Array) Surah 61. verse 11

Jihad also has a communal meaning, often associated with

reformist movements that seek to purify Islamic society, usually by
the imposition of stricter Shariah. Here the word takes on a politi­
cal character, supported by a Hadith of the Prophet: ‘The highest
kind of jihad is to speak up for truth in the face of an unjust Sultan.'
 6
THE DEVELOPMENT OF ISLAM

I Movements within Islam

The Shi'a: the way of the Imams

We have seen in an earlier chapter how *Ali, cousin of Muhammad
and married to his youngest daughter (and only surviving child)
Fatima, was passed over by the Companions during the thuri con­
sultations that led to the appointment of Abu Bakr as the first
caliph, following the death of the Prophet. And how, twenty-four
years later, after the successive assassination of the second and third
caliphs, Umar and ‘Uthman, 'Aii was finally elected as the fourth
caliph or successor to Muhammad, only to have his rule contested
by Mu’awiyah, the man who was to become the fifth. We have also
touched on 'Ali’s subsequent murder by one of his own disaffected
supporters, and on the later and even more significant incident
when 'Ali’s son, al-Husayn. rhe grandson of the Prophet, and many
other members of his family were killed under dramatically tragic
circumstances by the Umayyad usurpers of the caliphate.
At the heart of Shi'a, or the Party of‘Ali, therefore, is a tradition
of tragic and irreparable wrong. From the Shi'a point of view, these
black events represent God’s testing of the faithful in anticipation of
a great salvation to come.
On the death of ‘Uthman, the third caliph, two groups had
claimed the caliphate. On the one hand, the Emigrants and the
Helpers (collectively known as the Companions), by then old men.
asserted the right to make the appointment by traditional shura con­
sultation in favour of 'Alt. On the other hand, the Umayyad clan of
the Meccan Quraysh tribe claimed to inherit power through their
clansman 'Uthman. 'Uthman himself was a devout man and was
married to Muhammad’s daughter Raqaiyya. He had been one of the
first to join Muhammad in the early days, breaking away from his
Umayyad clansmen, the traditional holders of wealth and power in
Jahiliyyah Mecca. Later 'Uthman was forced into exile in Ethiopia to
avoid persecution. But he was old and weak by the time of his
 THE DEVELOPMENT Of 6LW J67

appointment as caliph and his rule was compromised by the corrup­

tion of some of his Umayyad relatives, especially Marwan ibn
al-Hakam, who was to be the seventh caliph. The resulting unpopu­
larity of ‘Uthman's caliphate among the .Muslims produced the up­
rising that led to his murder. For the Umayyads to claim that the
caliphate was now theirs, through a fraudulent shurd held among a
few close supporters only, was an affront to Islam. This was especially
so since Mu’awiyah, the Umayyad claimant, who was 'Uthman's
cousin and governor of Syria, was the son of the deeply mistrusted
Abu-Sufyln. the latecomer to Islam who had opposed Muhammad
right up to die day of the opening of Mecca.
The initial outcome of the shurd process favoured the
Companions and ‘Ali became caliph, but soon after his appoint­
ment the Umayyads began their opposition. They claimed that ‘Ali,
who was present in Medina at the time, was morally responsible for
‘Uthman's murder and that as caliph he had done nodiing to bring
the culprit to trial and avenge the deadi of their clansman.
(Although the Umayyads, once in power, did nothing to solve the
murder either.)
As rhe dispute grew. 'Ali moved his headquarters into the former
Sassanid Persian territories, while Mu’awiyah assembled his forces in
Damascus. Battle was joined at Siffin in 657 CE where, legend has it,
the Umayyad forces rode into battle with manuscripts of the Qur’an
wrapped around the points of their lances to show their frustration
with civil war between Muslims. In fact, this manoeuvre was only
conceived by the unscrupulous Mu’awiyah halfway through the
battle, when he saw that he was losing to ‘Ali's superior forces.
Hostilities were nevertheless broken off inconclusively when the
scrolls of the holy text appeared. The succession, as we have also
seen, was then referred to arbitration, with die outcome confounded
by the conflict between religion and politics, and by the irreconcil­
able concepts of free will, predestination and the will of God. After
the collapse of the negotiations, without any resolution having been
accepted by the negotiating parties, Mu’awiyah rearmed and was
soon in a strong enough position to advance against ‘Ali once again.
But before the fighting could resume 'Ali was assassinated by dis­
senters among his own supporters who had opposed the arbitration,
and Mu’awiyah thereupon proclaimed himself caliph.
266 THf MVtlWMINT Of 6LAH

The civil war did not stop with the death of‘Ali, but continued
under his eldest son al-Hasan. and then under the younger son
al-Husayn. who took the title of Imam. Al-Hasan's opposition lasted
only a short time before he retired to Medina, bought off by
Mu’awiyah with a substantial pension and a succession of women
(al-Hasan reputedly married and divorced a hundred times).
Al-Husayn also withdrew from politics during Mu’jwiyah's lifetime
and lived quietly in the Hijaz. But during his later years Mu’Swiyah
had appointed his son Yazid as the next caliph, supported by another
manipulated and fraudulent shurd, so when Yazid took power on his
father’s death al-Husayn renewed the family opposition to Umayyad
rule, with the fatal results described below. When Mu’iwiyah had
proclaimed Yazid as his heir, claiming that the decision was in the
best interests of the 'ummah, he had been opposed by Abdul
Raliman ibn Abu Bakr, son of the first caliph. 'By Allah,’ Abdul
Rahman is reported to have cried, 'you are not concerned with any
interest of the 'ummah, you plan to convert our system to the
Heradian. When one Heraclius diet!, another replaced him.’
Muslims date the change in the system of caliphate succession from
shurd to inheritance from this well-known jibe.

The Death ofthe Imam al-Husayn,

Prince ofMartyrs

In Shi'a Iran the death of al-Husayn at the hands of the Umayyads is 'cel­
ebrated' annually by passion plays and narrations, in which every painful
detail of the story is drawn out in an agony of wcanous suffering, with
the audience sobbing and slapping their foreheads at each poignant
pause. Often a criminal is released from jail on the day of the obser­
vance, on the condition that he plays the part of the arch-fiend (and
Sunni) Yazid.
The incident took place at Karbala', Iraq, on the tenth day fAshuri) of
the lunar month of Muharram in 61 ah (10 October 680 a). The
UmayyadYazid had been declared caliph as the son of Mu'Jwiyah. an even
more tyrannical, corrupt (and wine-drinking) individual in Shi‘a legend than
his father. After ai-Hasan’s abdication as Imam m favour of his worldly
 THE DEVfl OPMFNT Ct ISLAM 269

pursuits, the position of leader of the House of ‘Ali had passed to al-
Husayn, ‘Ali’s second son. al-Husayn now raised the standard of revolt
against the Umayyads, even though his promised support from the Muslim
army m Iraq had failed to matenalize. He claimed the right to the caliphate
as the Prophet's grandson and preached 'death as martyrdom, and life with
these oppressors as tribulation', After a short campaign,Yazid's army com­
mander the ruthless ibn Ziyad, cut off the remains of al-Husayn's family
and his few supporters in the desert and the drama began
Al-Husayn. understanding his hopeless situation, washed and per­
fumed himself wrth musk and ambergris, then donned Muhammad's
sacred shawl, which had come to him through ‘Ali. his father Claiming to
be under instructions from the Prophet received m a vision, al-Husayn
rode out on his great white horse towards the Umayyad army, with his
baby son, ‘All bin as-Husayn, Muhammad’s great-grandson, on the saddle
in front of him,The Imam called to ibn Ziyad that the baby was innocent
and should be given water and preserved from harm, having regard to
his great heritage. The response was an arrow which wounded the child
and then al-Husayn himself. The Imam returned to his wife and handed
her the baby, whereupon, by tradition, she sang a mournful song of
womanly lament for the unfolding tragedy, although the baby was to
survive as All Zayn al-Abidm All Asghar, the third Shi'ite Imam (and the
only Shi'ite Imam to die m his bed)
The Imam then rode out again, together with his small band, to face
he enemies. A storm of arrows rained down, so thick that when al-
Husayn fell from his horse he was held dear of the ground by the mul­
tiple shafts protruding from hrs body. His head was cut off and presented
to his young daughter; Ruqayyah, who was waiting behind the battlefield.
She fell upon her father's remains, moaning and sobbing with such force
that she too expired, still dutchmg the severed head. Every one of al-
Hvsayn's companions was also put to death.
The brooding character of Shi'rsm which Hows from this dark history
is poignantly expressed in the lines.

Every day is ‘Asfiuni and

Every place is Karbala.

Dunng Khomeini's campaign to topple the Shah of Iran during

the 1970s. he made compelling use of the imagery of Karbala He cast
2« WE DEVELOPMENT OF SIAM

himself as al-Husayn, the Shah as Yazxi, and those being killed in the
streets of Tehran by the Shah's troops as the martyrs at al-Husayn's side.
The response was dramatic, and the heavity armed (and Israeli trained)
forces at the Shah's disposal were overwhelmed, although at the cost of
many civilian lives,

After the death of al-Husayn, a subsequent revolt under al-Zubayr

by supporters of the ‘old religion’ (by which was meant the Prophet's
Commonwealth) and the 'legitimate succession’ (by which was meant
the shura) led to a brief period when there were two rival caliphates,
but the dissenters were finally suppressed by Umayyad forces with
great ferocity, which included the partial demolition of the Ka’bah in
Mecca where the last of the proto-Shi'a forces had taken refuge. The
Ka’bah was rebuilt, but the schism between Sunni and Shi'a would
never be repaired.
The powerful tradition of Shi'ism had begun: a disciplined and
ascetic inner life combined with stubborn political opposition
against apparently overwhelming external odds, sustained by belief
in the ultimate justice of God. For how could a state that had mur­
dered the descendants of the Prophet in order to usurp power, and
whose leaders were living in corruption and luxury while excluding
the faithful from participation in the new 'divinely ordered' state,
represent the will of God?
The key historical question that lies at the root of these events is
why Muhammad died intestate.
During the weeks of his last illness Muhammad had ample
opportunity to address the situation, and although he is known to
have favoured Abu Bakr. Muhammad must have been aware that
without specifically endorsing an heir, he would leave Islam in a
state of crisis. Possibly Muhammad considered that the principles he
had laid down during his ministry were strong enough to guide
Muslims to the right choice: shura specifically was by then a deeply
rooted Islamic observance explicitly advocated by the Qur’an. Or
possibly Muhammad recognized that should he appoint a successor
who then failed. Islam would be in even greater danger. But what­
ever the reason, Muhammad cannot have anticipated the depth of
the schism that was to follow.
 THE OEVELOPMLM Of ELAM

Muhammad is reputed to have recognized 'Ali as his successor in

front of his followers at a place called Ghadir Khumm, during the
return to Medina from the Farewell Pilgrimage to Mecca, and there
were other possible indications of the Prophets preference. But the
words used on each occasion were tragically ambiguous, and had
Muhammad’s intention been clear, the Companions would not have
hesitated to carry out his instructions. Yet from these obscure and
undocumented incidents, the Shi'a came to believe that Muhammad
had designated 'Ali as his successor, and that this was a 'divinely
ordered act' and not merely a personal choice. And while ‘Ali was
certainly a blood relative of the Prophet and the first or second
Qurayshite male to accept his ministry, he was Muhammad's cousin
not his son. Further, ‘Ali was only a young man in his early thirties
at the time of the first shura, an untested idealist and an inappropri­
ate ruler for the experienced Companions who were in their forties
and fifties.
The later armed opposition to ‘Ali as the appointed caliph, by
Mu'awiyah, when both right and might were on Ali’s side, was an
entirely different circumstance. But again the House of‘Ali lost, this
time through the cynical manipulations of the Umayyads. Here the
Shi'a claim to have been wronged has substance. But the essence of
Shi'a tradition and literature is that the injustice started with the
appointment of Abu Bakr, and for this reason Shi'a do not recognize
the first three caliphs who preceded ‘Ali as 'rightly guided' by God,
or even as legitimately appointed in a constitutional sense.
There was also a nationalist or racial element to the usurpation of
'Ali’s title. Two decades previously the Sassanid Persian Empire had
collapsed very suddenly when first penetrated by die forces of Abu
Bakr, with complete control of the territory subsequently consoli­
dated quite easily under 'Umar. The political and economic reasons
behind the tremendous Arab conquests after the death of
Muhammad have been explored in an earlier chapter. But there was
a further religious reason for the quick Arab conquest of racially
different Persia: the Zoroastrian faith was deeply unsatisfactory,
based on a form of fire worship and a mythical future and final battle
between good and evil, but offering little in the way of scripture or
inspiration in the present. When, therefore, the all-conquering
Muslim Arabs arrived with the strong and simple faith of Islam and
m THE OtVELOWFNT OF SLAM

the Qur’Sn, with which they were overwhelming the Levantine

world, almost the entire Persian population were converted. Yet the
Persians were not Arabs, and with their long history of civilization
they still regarded the invaders as a lesser, primitive people.
It was against this background that'Ali moved to Kufah, in what
is now Iraq, (formerly within the Sassanid Empire) to gather his forces
against Mu'jwiyah, drawing key warriors principally from among the
Arabs, but largely supported by the Persians of the old Sassanid lands.
This gave the ensuing civil war and the period of Umayyad rule that

Worldwide Shi a Populations

Country Population Muslims % Muslim Shi'a % Shi'a

Afghanistan 29.928,987 29,629,697 99 5.926.697 20

Bahrain 688,345 688,345 100 481842 70

Brazil 186,112,794 29,778 0.02 11.912 40

Ghana 21.029,853 3.364,776 16 1.000,000 30

India 1,080.264,388 129.631,727 12 19.444.727 15
Indonesia 241.973,879 212.937.014 88 1,000.000 0.5
Iran 68.017.8(d) 66.657.000 98 60,535.590 91
Iraq 26.074,906 25.292,659 97 16,296.816 65
Jordan 5,759,732 5,414,148 94 115,195 2
Kuwait 2.335.648 1.985.301 85 595,590 40
Oman 3,001,583 2.851,504 95 43,741 1.5
Pakistan 162,419.946 157.543.348 97 32.484,348 20
Syria I8,448?52 16.603.877 90 2.951.801 18
Tajikistan 7,163.506 6.805.331 95 716,351 10
UAE 2.563,212 2,460,684 96 410.114 17
Yemen 20,727,063 20.623,428 99 6,888.228 33

These figures (fur 2005) have been researched from public sources and arc sub­
ject i<> dispute by both Sunni and Shi'a organizations. The worldwide division
within Islam is estimated as 89% Sunni and 11 % Shi'a of all denominations.
 THE DEVELOPMENT Of SIAM 273

followed the flavour of Persian against Arab that remains today in the
general division between Shi'a and Sunni. (Over time Shi'a was to
divide internally but for the present purposes Shi'a means the major­
ity Ithnd'ashriyyah. or'lwclvers, the national religion of modern Iran.)
This latent racial aspect to che conflict between ‘Ali and
Mu’awiyah goes some way to explain how Mu’awiyah was able to
recast ‘Ali so cleverly to his Arab followers, from blood relative and
son-in-law of the Prophet as well as duly appointed caliph into a
‘pretender’ and the leader of a ‘rebellion’. ITiis also accounts for the
speed with which the Arab Umayyads were able to consolidate
power behind them so successfully after Mu’Ssviyah became caliph
follosving ‘Ali’s murder (although not by the hand of an Umayyad)
when their moral claim to rule was so patently thin.

Shfa and Catholics

This early history of Shi'a has moulded the character and faith of the
sea into a form substantially different from Sunni Islam, even
though the two branches both practise the Five Pillars and share a
common belief in the divine nature of the Qur’an. In order to pen­
etrate the differences between the two, there is a rough parallel to be
explored between Shi'a and Catholicism on the one hand and Sunni
and Protestantism on the other. The comparison may be superficial
and not always a perfect fit, but for an observer from a post-
C.hristian culture, the analysis is revealing nevertheless.

• Central to Shi'ism arc a scries of tragically wrongful deaths, start­

ing with 'Ali and al-Husayn. The murders of the Prophet’s direct
descendants, truly shocking when measured against Muslim venera­
tion of Muhammad as God's Apostle, have produced in the Shi'a a
morbidity of character comparable to the Catholic obsession with
suffering and death. Primitive Mediterranean Catholicism is usually
replete with gory carvings of the Crucifixion, or darkly coloured pic­
tures of Christ in his agony, or elaborate models of pierced and bleed­
ing hearts. The Shi'a equivalent to this Catholic symbolism of
suffering is copious quantities of blood: the blood of the martyr al-
Husayn, to which is attributed the power of healing, or the red-dyed
fountains in the martyrs' cemeteries for the war dead of Iran, for
example, or the raising of blood through self-flagellation of the chests
271 THE DEVELOPMENT Of .SIAM

and backs of young Shi'a men during street parades on the Day of
'Ashura, usually accompanied by a saddled and decorated white horse
representing the Imam’s vacant stallion, also drenched in blood. Such
dramatic devices are entirely alien to both Sunnis and Protestants.

• The tragedy of Karbali has became the ‘original sin’ of Shi'ism

matching the Catholic concept which, as we have seen, is entirely alien
to Sunni Muslims who, like Low Church Protestants, petition God
directly for their forgiveness as sin arises. Karbala, in contrast, was a
sin, in the Shi'a view, that will remain unforgivable and unredeemable
until the day of salvation at the end of the world. And like the Catholic
belief of Original Sin which sets the tone of the faith and creates the
need for salvation and thus for the Crucifixion of Christ, from the
tragedy of Karbala flows the entire structure and character of Shi'ism.

• In Shi'a belief, and directly contrary to the essence of Sunni

Islam, God continued to convey His divine will to man even after the
last words of the Qur'an had been received by Muhammad. In place
of the ‘corrupt’ Sunni caliphate line, Shi'a regard 'Ali as the first of
a line of Twelve Imams, sent by God to interpret and direct, follow­
ing the death of the Prophet. Thus the Shi'ite Imams, like the
Catholic Popes making their 'infallible' pronouncements ex cathedra
as the inheritors of Sr Peter, built up a body of ‘unerring’ Shi'a law
and textual elucidation over the first centuries of the Muslim era,
that diverges from the Sunna-bascd interpretation of mainstream
Sunni Islam. This Shi'a claim to a divinely inspired succession to
Muhammad contrasts with the more limited political powers of the
Sunni caliphs, who arc acknowledged to have been of this world
only. And since the Sunni Hadith was initially collected under
caliphs not recognized by Shi'a, the Hadith that Sunnis narrate is
also rejected. Rather, the Shi'a follow the teachings of their Twelve
Imams, from which the name for the main branch of Shi'a has devel­
oped: Ithna'ashriffah, or Twelvers. The Shi'a leaders who came after
the Twelve imams, stretching up to the modern day. are considered
to have inherited at least part of the mantle of the Twelve, leading to
the compelling conclusion that a man with such 'rightly-guided'
qualities should also be the temporal ruler of the Shi'a state. Sunnis,
in contrast, believe that Muhammad was the Last of the Prophets
and that the Qur’Sn is the Final Word of God, just as Protestants do
 THE DEVELOPMENT CT ISAM 27S

not recognize the appointment of St Peter by Jesus as the first Pope,

or tlie subsequent ability of the popes as St Peters successors, to
receive continuing direction from above in the form of infallible
dogma.

• The veneration by Shi'a of Fatima, daughter of Muhammad and

wife of‘Ali, is readily comparable to the Catholic cult of the Virgin
Mary. Fatima, according to legend, led a pure and blameless life and
her son was cruelly put ro death because of his inheritance. Even the
term 'the Virgin Fatima’ is used by Shi'a writers (although possibly
meant in the sense of ‘chaste’ within her marriage, since Fatima
had three children) as is the expression ‘Holy Family', meaning
Muhammad, his daughter Fatima, 'Ali his son-in-law, and the Imam
al-Husayn, their son, together with his son 'Ali al-Asghar. This con­
cept reaches into the heart of Shi'a practice and belief. The Shi'a
version of the Shahadah, for example, is: 'I bear witness that there is
no god but God, that Muhammad is the messenger of God, and that
'Ali is beloved of God.' The adoration of the ‘pure woman' in
the person of Mary or Fatima is also subdv connected in both
Catholicism and Shi'ism with the tradition of cultural discrimina­
tion against women as protected objects performing limited roles.

• We have seen how a Sunni, like a Low Church Protestant, faces

his God one to one, and is able to live his religious life quite satisfac­
torily without the assistance of sheikh or mullah. Shi'a, on the other
hand, have developed an all-powerful ecclesiastical hierarchy based on
the claimed inheritance of the divine power of the Twelve Imams.
Shi'a arc dependent on their mullahs for access to truth and salvation
in almost the same way that access to the sacraments is in the exclu­
sive hands of the Catholic priesthood. The Faqih or Marjt is the ulti­
mate authority on fiqh and Qur’anic interpretation, but the names
also apply to any experienced Shi'a jurist qualified to issue a fatwa. Six
ranks of clerics make up the formidable priesthood below, down to
talib alim, or religious student. The effect of this hierarchy or hawza,
on believers is that obedience to guidance given from above, in both
religious matters and politics, provides a pure and certain course of
action, almost absolving the faithful from personal responsibility. The
resulting political power in the hands of a senior grand ayatollah
who is also a Marji’, (Ayatollah Ali as-Sistam in occupied Iraq, for
276 THE DEVELOPMENT OE ISLAM

example) parallels the crucial intervention by Pope John Paul II to

bring about the relatively peaceful liberation of Poland from Soviet
control during the end of the Cold War. (John Paul is reputed to have
threatened the Russians with personal jihad from the barricades,
should Moscow have attempted the violent suppression of Solidarity.)

• The principal festival of Shi'ism, the Day of ‘Ashura, marking

the death of al-Husayn, is remarkably similar to the self-inculpating
and cathartic tradition of a high Catholic Good Friday. In both rites
the living take on guilt for causing the death of God’s representatives
on earth, abandoned to their respective betrayals at their moment of
need by inadequate humans. Catholics suffer vicariously for the
death of Christ, with crepe-draped statues, sombre music and even
self-inflicted punishments, while Shi'a parade through the streets
whipping themselves until their backs run with blood. Defeat in
both Shi'ism and Catholicism is celebrated in a way that presents
the deaths of Christ and of al-Husayn as redemptive acts ordained
by God, so that through their suffering good will finally prevail over
evil and justice over oppression. In this way martyrdom turns a
death that may appear historically to be a terminal loss, into a living
victory, inspiring adherents through the generations with the prom­
ise of everlasting life, so that the cause of the slain lives on forever.

• Just xs the Catholic Church for centuries regarded the priesthood

as the sole custodian and interpreter of the Bible, similarly authorized
Shi'a versions ot the Qur'Sn depart from the plain and apparent mean­
ing of the Arabic text so revered by Sunnis. For Shi'a the text has a
deeper meaning than the visible words, a hidden and esoteric truth
only discernible by the initiated ' ulamd, who are free of the dross of
human imperfections. Thus a modern Shi'a interpretation of Al-lira
(The Night Journey) Surah 17, verse 8, has no difficulty in extending
the references to Jewish history to be found in this and the preceding
surah, to cover the injustices of modern-day politics. The Shi'a version
is given on the left and the conventional Sunni version on the right.

After this ignominious defeat, it It may be that your Lord

may be that God will nirn to you May yet show Mercy
once more in His Mercy and Unto you; but if ye
deliver you. But if you Jews Revert to your sins
 THE OtVELOP^NT Of ISLAM

continue with your designs on that We shall revert

promised land', spreading To Our punishments;
corruption and spilling blood in And We have made
the process. We shall hammer you Hell
with the same power dial We had A prison for those who
granted you before, obliterating Reject all Faith.
your race from the face of the
earth. We have made the burning
fires of Hell a prison for the
unbelievers — a prison from which
the)- will never be able to escape.
(Exegesis by Muhammad Biepr Behhudi)

• Saints, relics and miracles arc very much a part of Catholic prac­
tice, providing a means of intercession with God and a connection
back to a simpler and more pious age. Protestants arc more sceptical,
generally regarding all such veneration as mumbo-jumbo that
obscures rather than clarifies. In Islam the same divergence is readily
apparent. The Twelve Shi'a Imams occupy, like Christian saints, a
midway point between the human and the divine, and powers are
attributed to them which arc not accepted by Sunnis. The great
Umayyad mosque in Damascus, for example, contains a shrine said to
contain the severed head of the Imam al-Husayn (although the head
is also claimed to be in the al-Husayn mosque in Cairo) and is there­
fore a place of pilgrimage for many Shi'a. with the result that the
mosque is frequented by both sects. In the rooms surrounding the
claimed relic, Shi'a men with their dark beards and dark clothes, their
attendant women in black from head to toe, beat their breasts as they
recite their dirges calling for the Imam’s miraculous intercession, tears
rolling down their cheeks. The Sunni faithful remain unmoved, how­
ever. saying their individual prayers quietly in the adjacent main
prayer room, but just as able to perform their devotions here as in the
barest hall of the least inspiring corner mosque in the city.

Despite these similarities, there is at least one central Haw in

these comparisons. Shi'a are the minority in Islam, whereas in
Christianity Catholics arc the majority, and the exploitation of the
moral superiority of permanent minority status as a form of victim­
hood is very much a part of the Shi'a outlook
278 THE DEVELOPMENT Of 6LAM

Further, the character of Shi'ism is more overtly political than

Catholicism, claiming to stand for absolute justice over all forms of
worldly accommodation. Shi'a account for approximately 10 per cent
of Muslims, but produce proportionately a great deal more heat. This
is borne out in the present day with tire refusal of the Shi a Hizbullah
forces in Lebanon to agree to any compromise with the State of Israel;
by the 25 year economic and political stand-off between Iran and the
USA, the Great Shayt’in: and by continuous Shi'a opposition to the
claim by the House of Sa’ud to be the legitimate Keepers of the Holy
Places of Mecca and Medina despite 85 years of Saudi occupation.

The Imamite inheritance

Shi'a belief maintains that God has always provided His faithful with
a Prophet, ever since Adam and the beginning of the world, and that
He has promised that at no time will mankind be deprived of hujjat,
or ‘proof. Alter Muhammad, the Shi'a also maintain, all subsequent
guidance from God will be sent only through Muhammad's blood
descendants, based on the Shi'a interpretation of verse 23 of Surah
42. Al-Shurd (The Consultation), which is not, of course, accepted
by Sunnis:

Say: ‘No reward do I

Ask of you for this
Except the love
Of those near of kin.'

The Prophets family', in the Shi'a view, includes 'Ali. al-Husayn,

and the following ten Imams descended through al-Husayn for a
total of twelve. Through their heritage the Twelve Imams arc con­
sidered to be infallible mediators between Allah and His creation
and to have possessed the only true understanding of the hidden
meanings of the Qur'an.
When, therefore, the line of Imams appeared to come to an end
at the dose of the ninth century CE on the death of al-Hassan al-
'Askari, the eleventh Imam, who had no apparent heir, the Shi'a
community fell into profound disagreement about how to respond.
Over time the answer evolved from a confusion of completing cults
as the doctrine of the Twelfth or Hidden Imam, which remains the
 THE DEVELOPMENT Of ISLAM 279

belief of the majority of Shi'a today. According to this doctrine, al-

Askari did not in fact die without an heir, rather he had a son and
designated successor, but the child's birth was concealed because of
the troubled times and fear of Sunni persecution. The son, however,
named Muhammad, and known as the Imam Mahdi or Divinely
Guided One. decided that he would have no successors and would
not reveal himself to his followers, but would remain hidden, or in
'occultation'. In Shi'a belief the Imam Mahdi has remained alive
since the ninth century ce. but in hiding, from where he retains
control over the affairs of the world. He will reappear one day in
Mecca, when absolute justice will be established, marking die end of
terrestrial time and 'all religion in the world will belong to Allah'.
This may be a difficult belief to credit from the outside. But the
doctrine has a messianic quality which thus resonates with Judaism
and with Christianity, which also claims that Christ (after rising from
the dead) was taken from earth alive and will appear again at the end
of the world. As an allegory, however, the construct reflects Shi'a his­
tory and character most poignantly, len of the eleven Shi'a Imams
before die Imam Mahdi were martyred (the later ones following 'Ali
and al-Husayn were reputedly stabbed or poisoned by die Umayyads
or the ‘Abblsids) and Shi'a consider that their community has
suffered centuries of usurpation and persecution at the hands of the
'illegitimate' regimes of the Sunni majority. Is not occultation until
the coming of paradise an understandable response, therefore, to the
tribulations of such an unjust world?
In practice, and in the absence of the hidden Imam Mahdi, the
task of guiding the Shi'a community falls upon the 'ulamA, consist­
ing of the hierarchy of pious Shi'a scholars and jurists mentioned
above. And although an obvious difference in status is drawn by Shi'a
doctrine between the Imam Mahdi and his temporary ‘vice-regents’
on earth, the mystical presence of the 'divinely guided' Imams
stands behind and reinforces the present-day rulings of the ‘ulamA
Similarly, and to make a final comparison between Shi'ism and
Catholicism, the papal claim to authority through St Peter, based on
the claim that St Peter's ordination was by Christ (and therefore by
God himself), forms the core validity of the Catholic Church, as well
as the central dispute with Protestants.
280 THE DEVELOPMENT Of ISLAM

Shi'a has not always been in the minority in Islam. The fourth cen­
tury AH (falling across the tenth and eleventh centuries CE) was the
'Shi'a century', when for short periods dissident regimes claiming
legitimacy through the family of ‘Ali controlled large pans of the
Muslim Empire, principally the Fatimids in Egypt and Nonh Africa
from 907 to 1171 CE, and the Buayhids in Persia, from 932 to 1062
CE. These regimes diverged from Sunni Islam over the legitimacy of
the crumbling Abblsid caliphate, and combined both religious and
political dissent in typical Shi'a fashion.
Fully developed Twelvers Shi'a did not combine with the power
of the Persian state until the beginning of the sixteenth century CE,
with the rise of the |x>werful Safavid dynasty. During the next two
centuries Shi'ism was placed on a firm footing within the Persian­
speaking territories (roughly equivalent to modern Iran), and the
'u/ama consolidated their role in religion, law and education as the
inheritors of the Imams. The Safavids were in this way successfol in
turning the Shi'a longing for salvation and freedom from tyranny
into a force against the outside world. The Safavid Shahs achieved
internal stability partly by force and partly by representing them­
selves as descendants of the seventh Imam. Later the divergent char­
acter of Shi'ism. and the separate religious identity of the Persian
territories that resulted, would motivate the Shi'a to resist for 500
years incorporation into the Sunni Ottoman Empire, leading to the
modern state of Iran and the country’s distinct character.
Over the course of Shi'a history the 'ultima have alternated
between complete indifference to temporal power, regarding the
state as unauthorized by the Imam Mahdi and therefore illegitimate,
and seizing political control in order to establish the rule of God.
The most recent swing from passive to active came in 1979 with the
Iranian Revolution.

Schism and division

Today Islam is popularly seen as divided into Sunni and Shi'a (the
latter usually referring to the Iranian Twelver version of Shi'ism, the
largest modern-day sect of dissenters from the Sunni mainstream).
But Twelver or Imamite Shi'ism is only one of the divisions of the
modern Shi'a oi 'Ali. and only one of many schismatic groups to be
found in the history of Islam, or in the present-day Muslim landscape.
 THE DEVELOPMENT OF -ScAM

Chart of the Shi a Imams

The Kharijites (‘secessionists’) were rhe first to reject the com­
promises made by Islam after the death of Muhammad, demanding
that a successor be elected by all the Muslims, rather than bv the
established Companions through the shurA process based on only a
limited franchise. A Kharijitc, svas responsible for the murder of
'Ali in retaliation for his negotiation with Mu’awiyah, both of
whom the Kharijites rejected. Like the Wahhabis of Saudi Arabia in
a later century, the Kharijites counted many poor but fiercely pious
Qur’an reciters among their number, and combined extreme desen
Puritanism with suicidal bravery during their repeated and ill-fated
rebellions against superior caliphate forces. Acts of piety were
stressed over inner faith, and sinners (by which Kharijites meant
most Muslims) were considered to have forfeited their membership
of Islam and thus become kuffar, or ‘those who rejects the faith’.
282 THE DEVEtOPMEfJT Of ISLAM

Kharijirc's influence is most strongly felt today through the 'Islamist'

or ‘fundamentalist’ movements to be discussed below.
The Murj’itcs (‘suspenders of judgement') took the opposite
point of view from the Kharijites in the debate about who was to be
considered a Muslim. Murj’ites accepted anyone as a Muslim who
had a 'knowledge of Allah in his heart', loved Him and submitted to
Him, and who acknowledged this state orally. Acts of faith and good
works could be 'postponed'. This view, later discredited as too per­
missive by Sunni Islam, served to facilitate conversions in the vast
new lands being absorbed by the Muslim Empire.
Two other groups of early Muslims argued about another funda­
mental question: the nature of God and the degree to which man exer­
cises free will. The rationalist Mu'tazilites attempted to resolve the
ambiguity between God’s unknowable essence and the references in
the Qur’an to God's body. His hands and face, and His throne (upon
which He presumably sits like a human) by interpreting such sections
of the text as metaphoric rather than literal. Even on the Last Day. fol­
lowing Mu'tazalite interpretation, man will see God only in his heart.
Similarly Mu'tazalites refused to accept that the Qur’an was eternal,
for this would be to set a second eternal entity beside God Himself, a
form of polytheism which is the worst sin of all. Rather, die book was
believed to have been created by God, although at some point in time
before the text was revealed to Muhammad, a conclusion based on
Surah 85, Al-Buruj (The Constellations), verses 21 and 22.

Nay, this is
A Glorious Qur’an
Inscribed in
A Tablet Preserved

Mu'tazalites also argued that man must be able to exercise free will,
otherwise the exhortations to do good in the Qur’an, and the threat­
ened punishments for transgression, would be unjust. Of course,
this problem cannot be reconciled in any faith that believes in the
concept of an absolute deity.
Such rationalism was rejected by the 'AslTaritcs. based on the
writings of Abu’l-Hasan al-Ash'arl (d. 935), who supported the literal
meaning of the Qur’an, bypassing the resulting difficulties by
 THE DEVELOPMENT OF SLAM 283

asserting that only God can know how the apparent conflicts arc
resolved. The references to God’s appearance on the Last Day and His
physical attributes are to be taken at face value. Similarly, the Qur’an
was considered by the ‘/Ksh'arites to be eternal rather than created, a
seemingly arcane issue that nevertheless came to have wide political
consequences. Al-Ash'ari attempted to resolve the issue of free will by
maintaining that there is no contradiction between God's omnipo­
tence and man’s freedom to act. The soul ’gets every good that it earns
and it suffers every ill that it cams' (Al-Baqarnh (The Heifer) Surah 2,
verse 286). God has given man the perception of good and evil, and
man is, therefore, free to choose within his own soul, even though
God, in His omnipotence, must know what the predestined outcome
will be. This ‘Ash'arire view prevailed over the rationalist Mu'tazilite
arguments and is unfortunately the form of unsatisfactory belief
followed by most Sunni Muslims in modern times.
After the murders of‘Ali and al-Husayn, the Party of‘Ali became
the focus of political opposition to the de facto holders of power
down the centuries, supported by an activist version of the Qur’anic
message. A revolutionary seeking to overthrow the existing order
could always be sure of enthusiastic support if claiming to be
descended from a usurped line in the Prophet’s family (the nominal
basis on which the ‘Abbasids overthrew the Umayyads), or. even more
effectively, if claiming to be the awaited Mahdi himself. Manipulated
in this way, Shi'ism gradually divided into separate sects centred on
claimed inheritance from different members of the Prophet’s family
and various different forms of messianic mahdism. The isma' ilis were
the earliest recognizable Shi'a schismatics, also known as Sevcncrs for
their belief that IsmS'il, the son of rhe fifth Imam. Ja'far al-Sadiq,
should have been the next in line, rather than his younger brother
Musa. But Ismail died during the life of his father Ja’far. so that Musa
is regarded by the Twelvers as the legitimate line. But Isma il, as the
eldest son, is believed by the Isma'ilis to be the Seventh Imam as a
matter of divine revelation, which is where the Sevener line ends (for
now) with Ismi'il's occultation. Isma'ilis themselves break up into
differing sub-sects over this complex issue. For the Nizari Isma 'ilis. or
Khojas, the Aga Khan represents the living successor to their claimed
line of Imams. The present Aga Khan is the forty-ninth successor, a
very modern religious leader who is also head of a vast business and
284 THE DEVH-OPMENT CT ISLAM

philanthropic conglomerate (incorporated under Swiss law) that sus­

tains die sect as well as performing good works all over the world.
More extreme versions of imamism which arc really beyond the
pale of Islam, the 'Alawis and the Druzes, for example, raised ‘Ali
and various combinations of imams to levels approaching deity.
Similarly, Baha’i, originating in nineteenth-century Iran, is based on
claims by Sayyid Ali Muhammad Shirazi (executed 1850) and Mirza
al-Husayn Ali (1817-92) to be the Bab and Bahi'u’llJh, or versions
of the Hidden Imam. Baha'i, a form of pantheism and therefore
ferociously persecuted in Shi‘a Iran, is now to be found in pockets
around the world from New Delhi to Vancouver.
During the tenth and eleventh centuries CE, the Farimid Shi'a
ruled Egypt and most of North Africa, and for a short time even
Mecca, Medina and Baghdad. The Fatimids claimed their religious
legitimacy and imamhood through Fatima, daughter of Muhammad
and wife of'Ali. For most of this short period of Shi'ite ascendancy,
Iraq and Persia were ruled by the Shi'ite Buyids, a dynasty whose
power was more military than religious. Both sects dissolved into
disputes over succession, and Sunni influence resumed in most of
the Arab territories.

The case of Iran

Once something of the character and history of Shi'ism is under­
stood. the modern history of Iran falls more easily into place.
Shi'ism is messianic and thus above politics, yet at the same time
Shi'ism can be turned into a strong political force in the hands of
the 'nlamd. who claim to exercise power in the name of the Imam
in occultation. Further, the use of Twelver Shi'ism by the Safavid
Shahs ro underpin their political control handed substantial prac­
tical power to the ' ulama as the legal experts and judges of the
regime, in return tor their support, lite ' ulamd gained the right to
collect certain taxes and administer the wealth of the waqfi, as well
as the right to give bast, or sanctuary in holy places.
Safavid rule (1501-1666) enjoyed a period of glory and unity
under Shah ‘Abbas I (1588-1629) when Isfahan was one of the
most extravagant capitals in the world, with 160 mosques. 50 col­
leges and 1,800 caravanserais. After the death of'Abbas II in 1666,
however, the Peacock throne was occupied by a series of debauched
 THE DEVELOPMENT OF SLAM 285

drunkards and military opportunists. Persia fell into a period of

instability, fragmenting along tribal lines, with economic decline
lasting until 1794 when order and unity were reimposed by the
Qajar Shahs. During this period a number of centres of Shi'a learn­
ing and shrine cities of pilgrimage fell under Ottoman rule, Najaf
and Karbala, for example, beyond the western border of modern
Iran. These cities subsequently passed from the Turkish to the
British sphere of influence at the beginning of the twentieth century,
and following the Cairo Conference of 1921 are today in Iraq,
accounting for that country's mixture of Sunni minority and 60 per
cent Shi'a majority (although no recent or reliable census is available
to confirm this commonly accepted figure).
During the decline of the Safavids and the political chaos that
followed, Shi'a fiqh began to question the legitimacy of any tempo­
ral rule other than that of the divinely guided Twelve Imams. This
in turn led to the theory that in the absence of the Twelfth Imam
in protective concealment, only the ' ulama could rule in his place,
ultimately preparing the way for the Iranian Revolution of 1979
and the theory of theocratic dictatorship underlying the rule of
Ayatollah Khomeini.
This doctrinal undermining of temporal power by the Shi'a clergy
began in earnest under the Qajar Shahs (1794-1906). who, unlike
the Safavids, did not even pretend to derive legitimacy through
descent from the line of Imams. The power of the mullahs increased,
supported by the wealth of the waqfi. and control over the collection
of zakat. The office of supreme authority in the Shi'a hierarchy was
developed, the Wali I-’aqih or ‘Vice-regent of the Hidden Imam', cre­
ating a potential rival to the Shah. The final decline of Qajar rule into
corruption and chaos precipitated the first popular uprising in Persian
history and an experiment with constitutional rule, though still sub­
ject to the power of the mullahs to oversee all new laws to ensure con­
formity with the Shariah. This attempt at an alternative system of
government was short-lived, however, overthrown in 1925 by a coup
supported by the Cossack Brigades and backed by the political power
of Russia and Britain, who then divided the country between them
into eastern and western spheres of influence.
An obscure cavalry colonel. Reza Khan Pahlavi, became Shah.
Reza Khan made no dynastic claim of any kind, but he was a
286 THE DEVELOPMENT Qf SIAM

successful military man and for a while he was popular as the ‘strong
man' rhe country appeared to need. He set out to create a central­
ized secular state and a powerful army following the example of
Atattirk in Turkey, ruling in the absolute manner of the Safavids.
while at the same time accumulating great personal wealth. The ear­
lier constitutional advances were ignored and the influence of Islam
and the power of the mullahs was suppressed. But in 1941 Britain
and Russia replaced Shah Reza, whose pro-German leanings threat­
ened the Allies' control of the Iranian oil fields. In the absence of any
alternative, Reza Khan's young and pliable son. Muhammad Reza,
became Shah. Now the final contest for power began between
mosque and palace, that would lead to a revolution thirty-eight
years later, an event comparable in significance in twentieth-century
Muslim history with the fall of the Berlin Wall in Europe.

That Turbulent Priest

Sayyed Ruholiah Musavi Khomeini was bom in 1902 m the small town of
Khomein in arid central Iran The family were local landowning notables,
claiming as soyyed to be descended from the Prophet Ruhollah's father
was murdered by bandits dunng the lawless and semi-feudal era of the
Qaiar Shahs, when the boy was six months old. He was raised by his
strong-willed mother, who took him. some years later, to witness the
public hanging of his father's murderer Khomeini's early schooling con­
sisted of learning by heart large sections of the Qur'an in Arabic and the
sayings of the Shi'a Imams in Persian, backed by a regime of harsh phys­
ical punishments that would today be considered abuse. But as a result
his memory for the standard texts was so complete that he could liter­
ally recite backwards.
At seventeen, Khomeini entered the seminary m Qom as an orphan,
both his mother and aunt having died of cholera. Within three years, m
1922, he had been permitted to wear the long clerical coat of the initi­
ated tokibeh. or seekers, and the Nack turban of the sayyed By 1936
Khomeini had completed an arduous cycle of formal studies which had
earned him the middle-ranking title of hc^ot-oHsfam. or Proof of Islam.
He had also mamed Qodsi. the fifteen-year-old daughter of a wealthy
 THE DEVELOPMENT OF 61AM 287

Tehran cleric who was persuaded to end her opposition to the

proposed relationship through a ciream in which Fatima, the Prophet’s
daughter urged her to many Qodsi was to be Khomeini's only wife and
the marriage lasted sixty years
Khomeini was also a poet and a student of mysticism. While never
openly claiming to have completed the fourth of the Four Sufi Journeys
(see below). Khomeini, according to hrs son. believed himself to en|oy a
special relationship or ixuon with God. As a consequence. Khomeini suf­
fered isolation in the Qom seminary for many years, considered unfit by
his peers to become a senior theologian. He developed an austere cfis-
sident voice, attracting a growing following of young radical clerics. He
preached m favour of the Shanah and against the matenalism and
corruption of Shah Reza's rule, which he referred to ironically as the
'golden age'.
As an orphan Khomeini had already emulated the Prophet, and his
ministry followed the same pattern as that of Muhammad, who made
little progress as a prophet until he became a politician, while hts even­
tual political success turned on his acceptance by his followers as a holy
man and a prophet Similarly, in 1961 after decades of preparatory
preaching Khomeini's political activism began.
After a weak start as an eighteen-year-old. Shah Muhammad Reza set
out to implement Western-inspired reforms, known as the White
Revolution. Women were to be given the vote, literacy encouraged in
the countryside, state enterprises pnvatized and large land holdings
redistributed, Military cooperation with the United States was increases
and oil supplies to the West guaranteed, providing the Shah's regime
and the Shah personally, with enormous wealth. As popular protest
grew against the reforms. Khomeini emerged as the leader of the anti-
government movement His sermons combined relipon with attacks on
the opulent corrupt wme-dnnking, womanizing, dog-owning Shah who
had styled himself'His Majesty the Shadow of God'
As Khomeini's stature and popufanty eclipsed the othei senior cler­
ics of Qom, he moved up the ranks, to Ayatollah and to Grand Ayatollah,
virtually, but not explicitly, claiming to speak on behalf of the Hidden
Imam Mahdi. After two years of demonstrations and nots, Khomeim was
exiled, briefly in Turkey and then to the Shi'a shnne city of Najaf m Iraq,
where the Imam 'Ah is buned. He kept m dose touch with the oppos-
ition within Iran, while at the same time amassing a substantial cash
288 THf DEVtlOfMtNr OF ISLAH

reserve through donations that flowed into his bank accounts from all
over the Muslim world. Khomeini became the focus for dissent within
Iran, openly preaching the theory of velayot-e frxjin. ‘government by the
vice-regency of the qualified )urisconsutt’ dunng the continuing absence
of the Imam Mahdi. Only after the impetus of revolution had brought
Khomeini to absolute power would the Shah's opponents on the secu­
lar left discover that there was no room in this narrow vision of Iranian
society for anything other than Shi'ite theocracy.
In the following years political oppression increased within Iran, The
SAVAK. the Shah's security service, was pervas/ve, and opponents of the
regime were impnsoncd, tortured or executed without trial, including
Khomeini’s son, Mustafa, who died of a ‘bean attack' during a visit from
the Shah's agents, But Khomeini described the toss as'God's hidden prov­
idence', and he may have exploited his son's natural death for political
advantage,
The chI boom, starting in 1973. increased the Shah's expenditure on
public infrastructure, but in practice the nch became ncher and the poor
suffered from high inflation. Small shopkeepers were imprisoned in a
futile attempt to curb rising paces, and overnight a secular non-lslamic
calendar was imposed, replacing the year ah with the date of the estab­
lishment of the Persian Empire by Cyrus the Great m 550 BCE from
whom the Shah now claimed descent
Guerrilla activity began agamst the regime, and in response, m
1975, the Shah imposed a fascist form of political control through the
abolition of all political parties, replaced by a single state organization, the
Resurgence Party. All citizens were obliged to join and to subscribe, effec­
tively alienating the entire population
Khomeini began to issue fatwas from Najaf on smuggled tapes, con­
tradicting government edicts. Iran pressured Iraq into curbing Khomeini’s
activities, leading to his move to France where he enicryed full political
freedom A form of government in waiting soon to be known as the
Islamic Revolutionary Council, was set up in Pans, and an Islamic Republic
was promised for Iran that would bring 'freedom, independence and
social justice'.
By January 1979 the Shah was a broken man, hated by elements
from every level of society He was also suffering from cancer, and under
President Carter he no longer enjoyed Amencan support The Shah left
Iran for treatment in America, never to return. He died in Egypt the
 THE DEVELOPMENT O’ ISLAM 289

following year and is buned in a Cairo mosque. Within two weeks

Khomeini had landed m Tehran, after his hijrah from Pans, welcomed by
a crowd of two million.
To the masses. Khomeini was The Imam', with all the messianic mean­
ing that word carries m Twelver Shi’ism. But what the Imam really stood
for was widely misunderstood,
Within months the answer became clear, under a new regime of
Hizbullah thugs and the Revolutionary Guard administering public flog­
gings and amputations. Wholesale summary tnals of political opponents
were followed by immediate executions. And rather than democracy,
Khomeini ngged public approval for a theocratic constitution that
opened the way for dictatorship. He was installed as the Wa!i Faqih. or
"vice-regent on behalf of the Hidden Imam', following the theories he
preached dunng his days in Qom. An appointed Council of Guardians
was created, consisting of reactionary mullahs, to ensure that the deci­
sions of the elected representatives of the people conformed to their
idea of the Shariah. This was 'God's government', so that resistance
became blasphemy, punishable by death. And instead of the promised
rule of law, the white male staff members of the American embassy were
taken hostage (with the women and blacks released), creating a national
emergency and an international sensation that Khomeini manipulated in
order to silence, m the name of national unity, all internal opposition to
his sacred revolution.
Following on from the hostage crisis, an historic border dispute with
Iraq escalated into an eight-year war.The initial attack by Iraq was taken
by Khomeini to be 'God’s hidden gift', allowing him to extend the national
emergency and continue intense political repression indefinitely.
Enormous physical damage was inflicted on western Iran during the war
and almost one million young soldiers were killed or maimed.
At the same time, violent opposition to the Islamic Republic began.
The assassination of mullahs by the People's Mujahidin was answered by
the mass execution of political prisoners already in the hands of the gov­
ernment and by the establishment of neighbourhood committees to
control the population to a degree never approached by the Shah. By
1988. in response to the complexities and frustrations of government.
Khomeini finally went so far as to claim outright that he ruled as the
absolute 'vice-regent' of Muhammad, with the power, on behalf of the
Islamic state, to overrule or modify any previous laws, including those
288 THf DEVtlOfMtNr OF ISLAH

reserve through donations that flowed into his bank accounts from all
over the Muslim world. Khomeini became the focus for dissent within
Iran, openly preaching the theory of velayot-e frxjin. ‘government by the
vice-regency of the qualified )urisconsutt’ dunng the continuing absence
of the Imam Mahdi. Only after lhe impetus of revolution had brought
Khomeini to absolute power would the Shah's opponents on the secu­
lar left discover that there was no room in this narrow vision of Iranian
society for anything other than Shi'ite theocracy.
In the following years political oppression increased within Iran, The
SAVAK. the Shah's security service, was pervas/ve, and opponents of the
regime were impnsoncd, tortured or executed without trial, including
Khomeini’s son, Mustafa, who died of a ‘bean attack' during a visit from
the Shah's agents, But Khomeini described the toss as'God's hidden prov­
idence', and he may have exploited his son's natural death for political
advantage,
The chI boom, starting in 1973. increased the Shah's expenditure on
public infrastructure, but in practice the nch became ncher and the poor
suffered from high inflation. Small shopkeepers were imprisoned in a
futile attempt to curb rising paces, and overnight a secular non-lslamic
calendar was imposed, replacing the year ah with the date of the estab­
lishment of the Persian Empire by Cyrus the Great m 550 BCE from
whom the Shah now claimed descent
Guerrilla activity began agamst the regime, and in response, m
1975, the Shah imposed a fascist form of political control through the
abolition of all political parties, replaced by a single state organization, the
Resurgence Party. All citizens were obliged to join and to subscribe, effec­
tively alienating the entire population
Khomeini began to issue fatwas from Najaf on smuggled tapes, con­
tradicting government edicts. Iran pressured Iraq into curbing Khomeini’s
activities, leading to his move to France where he enicryed full political
freedom A form of government in waiting soon to be known as the
Islamic Revolutionary Council, was set up in Pans, and an Islamic Republic
was promised for Iran that would bring 'freedom, independence and
social justice'.
By January 1979 the Shah was a broken man, hated by elements
from every level of society He was also suffering from cancer, and under
President Carter he no longer enjoyed Amencan support The Shah left
Iran for treatment in America, never to return. He died in Egypt the
 THE DEVELOPMENT O’ ISLAM 289

following year and is buned in a Cairo mosque. Within two weeks

Khomeini had landed m Tehran, after his hijrah from Pans, welcomed by
a crowd of two million.
To the masses. Khomeini was The Imam', with all the messianic mean­
ing that word carries m Twelver Shi’ism. But what the Imam really stood
for was widely misunderstood,
Within months the answer became clear, under a new regime of
Hizbullah thugs and the Revolutionary Guard administering public flog­
gings and amputations. Wholesale summary tnals of political opponents
were followed by immediate executions. And rather than democracy,
Khomeini ngged public approval for a theocratic constitution that
opened the way for dictatorship. He was installed as the Wa!i Faqih. or
"vice-regent on behalf of the Hidden Imam', following the theories he
preached dunng his days in Qom. An appointed Council of Guardians
was created, consisting of reactionary mullahs, to ensure that the deci­
sions of the elected representatives of the people conformed to their
idea of the Shariah. This was 'God's government', so that resistance
became blasphemy, punishable by death. And instead of the promised
rule of law, the white male staff members of the American embassy were
taken hostage (with the women and blacks released), creating a national
emergency and an international sensation that Khomeini manipulated in
order to silence, m the name of national unity, all internal opposition to
his sacred revolution.
Following on from the hostage crisis, an historic border dispute with
Iraq escalated into an eight-year war.The initial attack by Iraq was taken
by Khomeini to be 'God’s hidden gift', allowing him to extend the national
emergency and continue intense political repression indefinitely.
Enormous physical damage was inflicted on western Iran during the war
and almost one million young soldiers were killed or maimed.
At the same time, violent opposition to the Islamic Republic began.
The assassination of mullahs by the People's Mujahidin was answered by
the mass execution of political prisoners already in the hands of the gov­
ernment and by the establishment of neighbourhood committees to
control the population to a degree never approached by the Shah. By
1988. in response to the complexities and frustrations of government.
Khomeini finally went so far as to claim outright that he ruled as the
absolute 'vice-regent' of Muhammad, with the power, on behalf of the
Islamic state, to overrule or modify any previous laws, including those
no THE DEVELOPMENT Of ISLAM

based on interpretations of the Qur’anic text Religion was now at the

service of state rather than the state serving religion, which had been the
proclaimed basis of the Revolution.
Iran's war against Iraq (with Saddam Hussein, the Iraqi leader: sup­
plied by the West and actively supported by the US Navy from the
Persian Gulf) ended in stalemate.'l dnnk this chahce of potson.’ Khomeini
told the Iranian people, referring to the ceasefire that halted the fighting
without any territorial advantage gained,‘for the Almighty and for His sat­
isfaction.' Shortly thereafter Khomeini fell ill with cancer and heart prob­
lems- He never spoke in public again.
As the end approached. Iran was falling into confusion. A new
episode of terror began following an unsuccessful attempt by the
People s Mujahidin to march on Tehran from the Iraq border as the war
ended. Tens of thousands of young men already in jail for previous polit­
ical transgressions were accused of counter-revolutionary sympathies
and summarily shot or hanged.
Khomeini began to retreat into his Sufist mysticism and his cosmic
vision, leading to his open criticism of 'stupid reactionary mullahs' who
were failing to implement his will.These were, of course, the very words
used by the Shah to describe the clergy before the Revolution, and
exactly how the Western press viewed the Ayatollah himself
On the day of Khomeini's death. 3 June 1989, there were scenes of
orgiastic Shi'a grief across the country, repeated day after day, dunng
which hundreds were killed and many injured. After a final frenzy at the
Martyr's Cemetery in Tehran, when the Imam's body was almost lost to
the insatiable crowds, Khomeini was finally laid sideways into his grave,
facing Mecca to await the Last Day. Like the Commonwealth of Medina
on the death of Muhammad, the Revolution was left to confront the
future without the 'great architect'.

Iran's tumultuous example, die fusion of black Shi'a fatalism with

violent world-challenging revolution, all sanctified by the will of
God’, has yet to be digested by Islam, more than twenty-six years
after the overthrow of the Shah. However, the appointment of ‘Ali
Khamene’i as the Wali Faqih has in effect signalled the beginning of
a separation of mosque and state, or the severing of the two different
 THE DEVELOPMENT Of (SLAM 291

models of Shi'a Islam, active and passive, that had temporarily fused
to provide the basis for the Revolution. Since ‘Ali Khamcne’i was
only an undistinguished Hojjat-al-Islam, a middle-ranking cleric, at
the time of his appointment, and not a Grand Ayatollah or a sayyed
claiming descent from the Prophet’s 'family’ (both of which formed
part of Khomeini's theoretical rationale for taking power) the con­
cept that die supreme political ruler should also be the supreme spir­
itual authority had been breached. Khamene’i. still in office at the
time of writing, makes none of Khomeini's veiled claims to rule on
behalf of the Hidden Imam, or to be infallible. Rather, he merely fills
an office under the constitution, and the perceived 'guiding hand of
God’ is no longer present.
Nevertheless, this has not prevented a determined clerical ele­
ment, centred in Qom and on the mullahs of die Council of
Guardians, from attempting to continue the exercise of Khomeini’s
absolute power in the implied name of the Hidden Imam. Opposing
the theocrats are the 'liberals', who advocate a democratic working
out of the religious and political legacy of rhe Revolution while
taking into account the real-world secular problems of a misman­
aged economy, lack of oil-production technology, international iso­
lation, hidden unemployment well over 20 per cent, an accelerating
brain-drain, a rapidly rising birth rate and 40 per cent of the popu­
lation living in poverty.
The liberals have at times been able to command the support of
the majority of the people. In 2001 for example, 77 per cent of voters
supported the re-election of the reformist President Mohammad
Khatami, himself a cleric. The West immediately regarded his suc­
cessor, the austere Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, elected in 2005, as a set­
back for liberal reform. But the reformists had only themselves to
blame. In the Khatami years the poor and unemployed were largely
ignored in favour of elite 'liberal' politics, with the superficial seduc­
tion of Western culture appearing in the streets of Tehran, widely
reported and photographed. But the new young Iran' obscured the
continuing evil threat that America represents to most poor Iranians,
which translated into a strong conservative vote.
But while the democratic institutions of the constitution may
function more effectively in Iran than in almost any other Muslim
country, real power is not in the hands of those elected. The unelected
m THE DEVELOPMENT OF 61AM

Wali Faqih controls the army, die judiciary (which has jailed members
of parliament for criticizing the administration), rhe security forces,
and the country's contentious nuclear programme. The Wali Faqih
also makes the final decisions on all economic and international
affairs, and most importantly, he appoints the members of the
Council of Guardians who can overturn any decision by any elected
body, depose the president, or disqualify without cause any candidate
from running for election. The basis for such rulings is that die action
in question does not conform with the Shariah.

The Oppressed and the Martyrs

EJut there is an entirely different analysis possible of the politics of post­

revolutionary Iran, In this version, the power struggle m Tehran has noth­
ing to do with religion, with 'liberals’ or'conservatives', but has everything
to do with power and money.
The wealth of Iran under the Safavid and Qajar shahs was drvided
between the shah's court and the well-endowed waqfs. administered by
the mullahs, forming separate 'estates’ of the political system. But wlien
Reza Shah, the first Pahlavi, came to power by a coup, he was popular
with the masses, supported by armed force, and he owed nothing to
either the wnpfs or the court He could merely take possession, there­
fore. of whatever lands he coveted in the name of civil refoim. with no
distinction made between Reza's new personal assets and those of the
government In this way Reza became immensely nch. although claiming
of course, that he acted only as a kind of trustee on behalf of the
common good. Part of his wealth was indeed used to stimulate mdustnal
devefopment in Iran, and to build theTrans-lraman Railway (1927 -38) for
example, But in the process the Shah retained significant interests for
himself in the projects he approved and financed, After Muhammad
Reza Shah came to power in 1941. the accumulation of royal wealth con­
tinued. formalized in 1964 with the establishment of the Pahlavi
Foundation. The Foundation, or Bonyad in Farsi, assumed ownership of
the Shah’s assets, amounting to more than 10 per cent of the entire value
of the country.The Pahlavi Foundation built housing for the poor, pro­
moted education and incubated industries, but at the same time diverted
 THE DEVECOPMENt Of SIAM 2»3

oil revenues. Western aid. defence contracts and a vast range of domes­
tic business interests to create an even greater fund of wealth, much of
which was moved out of the country into bank accounts controlled
directly by the Shah and his family. And a new class of well-connected
Iranians also grew wealthy in the process, controlling a high percentage
of the companies listed on the Tehran Stock Exchange, and, like the Shah,
secreting large sums abroad.The activities of this inside group effectively
ended the previous monopoly of the bazaaris. the currency traders and
import-export businessmen who had generously supported the reli-
g>ous establishment and supported politically the pre-Pahlavi regimes.
The result was strong backing for Khomeini from the Tehran bazaar so
crucial to his eventual success.
Almost immediately upon Khomeini’s return to Iran in 1979 he cre­
ated by special decree the Bonyod e Mostozafan m Janbazan. or the
Foundation, for the Oppressed and the Martyrs, known as the MJF,
Within months the MJF had taken over the billions in assets of the Pahlavi
Foundation together with much of the cash found in the Central Bank,
and the further billions m businesses, cars, jewellery and private villas
belonging the businessmen connected to the Shah, who had fled or been
caught and executed.The MJF suddenly employed over 400,000 workers
and reached into almost every Iranian household At the same tune the
overseas assets of the Pahlavi Foundation (including the SKah's magnifi­
cent office tower at 650 5th Avenue. New York) were taken over by a
subsidiary of the MJF. mostly with the acquiescence of foreign govern­
ments. anxious at the time not to offend the new Iranian government
By 2002 the MJF had grown to employ 700,000 workers m 800 sub­
sidiaries (mduding fourteen prisons), controlling industry, mines, trans­
portation. general commerce, agnculture, tourism, construction, black­
market contraband and further favourable state pnvatizations Yet the
MJF publishes no accounts and pays no taxes, has no public shareholders
and operates outside all government regulations The MJF also operates
large enterprises outside Iran, principally in Germany and the US. which
are convenient tools for avoiding international sanctions and prohibitions,
or for channelling funds to support revolutionary causes such as the
Hizbullah of Lebanon, or the Shi'a tribes of Afghanisun
Control over the membership of the board of the MJF lies with the
’conservative’ mullahs and the state security apparatus, who together
hold ultimate political power under the Revolutionary constitution.
 THE OEVEIOPMENT OF 8LW

(But not forgetting the bazaaris who now have the same relationship
with those in power as the formerly favoured courtiers of the Shah,
even, in the ultimate revenge, taking control of the Tehran Stock
Exchange.) In the cynical view, them own survival is now more important
to this nomenclature than any remaining Islamic ideals, and certainly
more important than the case of the oppressed and the war wounded
(most of whom, far from being helped, work in MJF manufacturing plants
at slave wages outside the law). In this interpretation, the much-lionized
crusading 'liberals' in Iran, previously led by President Khatami, are as
much a part of (or are attempting to jom) the ruling elite as the 'con­
servatives'. since no one can participate in Iranian politics who does not
accept the absolute power of the Wali Faqih m the first place, and is thus
in fact 'conservative'. In this alternate version the arguments about
'reform' are seen as mere cover for both sides m the maintenance of
lavish lifestyles and wide powers: a precise re-creation of the conditions
which precipitated the 1979 Revolution.

The way of the Sufi

Sufism is 'Islam of the heart’, the hidden counterpan to Muslim
orthodoxy and the Shariah, This is the reverse side of the formality
of the prayer routine and the other minutely choreographed external
practices of the believer. Sufism is the desire to disconnect with the
outside world and to connect directly and personally with the expe­
rience of God, independent of dogma. According to ibn Battuta,
the fourteenth-century travel writer, 'the fundamental aim of the Sufi
life is to pierce the veils of human sense which shut man off from the
Divine and so to obtain communion and absorption into God’.
Sufism goes some way to bridge the divide between the unseeable
and unknowable but ‘just’ and 'merciful’ God of Islam, and the per­
sonal loving’ God of Christianity, by making the religious experience
essentially individual, centred on the love of God for the world of
His creation. There arc traces of Christian monasticism in Sufism
and Muhammad himself is known to have had great respect for the
Christian ascetics, such as the legendary monk Bahira. Hindu and
Buddhist rituals also played a part in the development of Sufism.
The name comes from the Arabic word rtf/ meaning wool, refer­
ring to the patched garments of coarse wool worn by the ascetic who
 fHE DEVELOPMENl OF 61AM 29S

has turned his hack on the silken comforts of the world. Hence
Sufism is 'to possess nothing and to be possessed by nothing', or the
‘turning away of the heart from things to the Lord of all things’.
The substance of Sufism, therefore, beyond such inevitably
unsatisfactory attempts to define rhe subject, is the journey of the
spiritual traveller seeking God. If the Shariah is the main spiritual
highway, leading the believer through the practice of the Five Pillars,
through obedience to the divine laws, and through pious works, to
achieve a state of blessedness in the world to come, then Sufism is
the path that branches off. leading the seeker on an internal course
towards personal knowledge of the eternal, while still in the present
world. Mystic writing offers many variations on the theme of the
path and rhe 'stages' or 'states' through which the journey passes, but
for the purposes of this book four main ‘stations’ are identified.
The First Station on the seeker's path consists of repentance, not
only for his or her sins, but also for the penitent’s general ‘heedless­
ness of Allah'. This state of fundamental repentance is accompanied
by a complete re-submission to the will of God, and a corresponding
reduction in the consciousness of self, or the ego, evidenced by
immersion in piety and asceticism. The Prophet seeking illumin­
ation in his bare cave, was instructed in Surah 73, Al Muzzammil
(The Enfolded One) at verses I and 2 to 'stand to prayer by
night , . . and chant the Qur’an in measured tones, and to remem­
ber the name of your Lord and devote yourself with complete devo­
tion'. From this and many similar injunctions in the Qur in, the
Sufi practice of dhikr developed, meaning 'the remembrance of
God', a popular method by which die first Sufi station may be
approached. From simple continuous chanting, alone or in groups,
dhikr has become almost liturgical in form, while other varieties of
ecstatic ritual extend to instrumental music and poetry recital, as
well as to the famous trance-inducing dance, performed by Mcvlevi
Sufis and referred to in die West by the corrupted name whirling
dervishes’ (from the Persian word darvish, or beggar). Modern-day
practice usually involves the constant repetition of the names of
God, to be found as Appendix 4 to Chapter 3, or the chanting of
the tahlil from the first Pillar of Islam, it ilaha ilia' Llah. accompa­
nied by controlled breathing which, as in yoga, limits the supply of
oxygen to the brain and induces a form of ecstatic trance.
2% THE DfvFtOPMFNT Of SIAM

The following verse from the Qur’an is widely quoted as the

beginning of the path of Sufism.

Allah is the Light

Of the heavens and the earth.
The parable of His Light
Is as if there were a Niche
And within a Lamp
The Lamp enclosed in Glass;
The glass as it were
A brilliant star
Lit from a blessed Tree
An Olive, neither of the East
Nor of the West
Whose oil is well-nigh
Luminous
Though fire scarce touched it.
Light upon Light
Allah doth guide whom He will
To His light.
M-Nur (The Light) Surah 24. verse 35

There is also a Hadith of the Prophet relevant to dhikr. ‘There is a

way of polishing everything and removing rust, and that which pol­
ishes the heart is rhe invocation of Allah.'
The Second Station of the sufi's journey is complete trust in
God, which is described as abandoning every refuge except Allah',
from obsession with the minutiae of dogma to all forms of personal
wealth and comfort. The traveller attempts to leave the physical
world and to cross into the metaphysical, challenging the spiritual
barriers that separate man from God. To achieve this state of grace
man must make dud ’, or supplicate Got!, so defining the status of
servanthood. Here God may reveal the true nature of the world
through a way of understanding that is beyond the intellect. The
seeker may be shown love, anger, frustration, fear and hope, which
may then become visible to him in those around him. corresponding
with the distance from, or proximity to God. of the soul in question.
In the Third Station the traveller returns from the state of
worldly renunciation to fulfil God’s will. He or she is once more a
 THE DEVELOPMENT OT ISLAM 297

part of the world, but no longer separated from God. who is now
omnipresent to the traveller. Here the seeker’s ambition is to become
to God as the corpse in the hands of the washer'.
The Fourth or Final Station of the Sufi journey is fana, or pass­
ing into God, the ultimate aim of the successful mystic. God is loved
for His own sake, not through fear of hell or hope of heaven, as in
conventional subject-object worship. Here all impediments fall
away and the traveller ceases to be aware of his or her own physical
existence.

I am hr whom I love, and He whom I love is I

We are two spirits dwelling in one body
When thou teat me. thou sees! Him.
And when thou sent Him, thou sent us both.
Louis Massignon, 1983 La Passion de I'al-HaUij
Martyr et Mystique de t'ldam

This is the station at which the traveller becomes the teacher, able to
guide and help others to reach God, just as Muhammad returned to
preach to the men of Mecca after his experiences in the desert cave.
This is the point at which the Ayatollah Khomeini considered him­
self to be ready to assume the velayat-e fatjih or ‘vice-regency on
behalf of the Hidden Imam’.
When all the stages of the journey are complete the initial asceti­
cism may be relaxed, and many well-known Sufi teachers have mar­
ried. so founding saintly lineages.
In modern times Sufism might be considered to be ‘low church'
Islam, almost a form of folk religion, where devotion is more impor­
tant than procedure, where religious ecstasy is sought and the niceties
of doctrine are irrelevant. This contrasts with the purists typified by
the Hanbali school and the puritanical Wahhabi sect of Saudi Arabia,
for whom any deviation from the Shariah highway is apostasy, a crime
which, until well into the twentieth century in Saudi Arabia, was
punishable by death. This division of high and low church tends to
follow racial lines, with African, Indian and Persian Muslims more
attracted to Sufi practice, and the austere minimalist form of conven­
tional Islam being almost exclusively Arab. For the same reason, few
differences exist between Shi'a and Sunni Sufi practice.
298 THE DEVELOPMENT OF ISLAM

A Sufi is taught by a sheikh, with the pupil-teacher relationship

often lasting for years. Personal loyalty to a sheikh endures for life.
Famous sheikhs have enjoyed wide reputations, passing their teach­
ings down through the generations by way of their students and their
students' students. Some have attained the status of saints, complete
with elaborate tombs and a tradition of miracles, attracting a flow of
pilgrims and regular supplicants.
In a modern context a Sufi practitioner might invite a friend to a
khalwah, or Sufi meeting, of his tariqah (meaning 'path') or brother­
hood, where the rites would be performed beginning with dhikr. The
friend might then decide to join, in which case he would receive
instruction from the sheikh of the brotherhood who would become his
mentor. The new member would receive a 'covenant' from the sheikh,
and in rerum the initiate would agree to obey the sheikh uncondi­
tionally. In this way some tariqahs maintain the pure origins of Sufism,
linking members through their loyalty back to the founding sheikh,
who is usually regarded by the membership as a saint. The Mevlcvi, for
example, or 'whirling dervishes', take Rumi himself (sec below) as their
founder and saint, and his ecstatic energy as their baraka, or blessing.
Other modern brotherhoods are corrupt, however, both financially
and spiritually, with the sheikh contributing little to the lives of the
members, while living well on donations. Members of uriqahs will
help each other in the outside society if possible, in very much the
same way that members of European and American religious societies
such as the Freemasons or Opus Dei come to each other’s assistance.
From this short description it should be clear why Sufism has been
so ardently persecuted in die past by Sunni Muslim orthodoxy. The
gruesome execution of the Sufi master Mansur al-Hallaj, quoted above,
in 922 CE (his hands and feet were cut off before he was hanged) is a
well-known example. He was condemned for uttering the words ana
al-Haqq, or '1 am the Truth', which he also chanted as the execution
proceeded, as if he felt no pain. The words were taken to be extreme
heresy against the guiding Muslim principle of the One God who
‘hath not partners’. Sufi practices were also seen by Muslim orthodoxy
as undermining die central importance of the mosque, creating a reli­
gion within a religion, and the cult of Sufi saints, who were (and still
are) almost worshipped at their tombs, seemed to be reviving the old
intercessionary religion of the day idols of al-Lit, al-Uzza and Manat.
 THE DEVELOPMENT Of ISLAM W

In response to persecution. Sufism retreated into poetic allegory,

using wine, song and human love as a code for religious ecstasy,
which in many cases only added to the hostility of the strongly
moralistic mainstream. To the conservative Shi'a clergy, Sufism was
especially alarming, potentially bypassing the entire hierarchical
apparatus of the chain of Shi'a Imams and their present-day dog­
matic spokesmen, through direct fusion with the godhead.
The philosopher Abu-Hamid al-GhazaJi (1058-1111 CE) was the
master exponent of Sufism. His writing attempts to bridge the divide
between the mystic and the orthodox, and between 'sober' and
'drunken' Sufis. In much the same way that St Augustine (354-430
CE) and the Augustinian monk Martin Luther (1483-1546 CE)
re-evaluated Christian doctrines, al-Ghazali re-examined the conven­
tional Shariah highway, in which he found little religious truth, seek­
ing a more satisfying path to direct knowledge of the divine.
Al-Ghazali abandoned the wealth and prestige of his professional life
to wander from place to place, preaching doser communion with
God by the suppression of the self. His reinterpretation of the
Qur’an and the Sunna in the light of Sufism was initially seen as an
outright heresy by the orthodox mainstream. Later his work was to
be more widely appreciated as giving a hidden mystic dimension
to the standard outward acts of worship. Al-Ghazali also strove to
define the Sufi vocabulary of dhikr : du a (supplication to Allah),
qiraah (Qur’an recitation), JUtr (meditation). (real hope) and
‘ubudiyyah (servanthood).
Jalal al-Din Rumi (1207-73 CE) is generally considered to be the
greatest of the Sufi poets. His large volume of work, especially the
Masnavi-I Ma'navi (Rhyming Couplets of Spiritual Meaning)
excerpted below, as translated from Persian by Reynold Nicholson,
expresses the ecstasy of the 'drunken' Sufi seeking reunification with
God, reaching beyond the bounds of Islam for a universal truth. The
sea is a frequently used metaphor for the eternal in Rumi s poetry,
giving form to the concept of human consciousness as an extension
of the divine.
The griefofthe dead it not on account ofdeath; it is because
they dwelt upon the phenomenalforms ofexistence
And never perceived that all this foam is moved andfed by
300 THE DMLOPMEM Of ISW1

When the sea has cast these foam-flakes on the shore, go to the
graveyard and behold them!
Say to them: 'Where is your swirling onrush now!' and then hear
them answer mutely: 'Ask this question ofthe sea. not ofus.'
For how should the foam fly without the wave! How should the
dust rise to the zenith without the wind!
Now, since you have seen the dust, perceive the wind; since you
have seen thefoam, perceive the ocean.

Sufism in Africa
Sufism is also the principal medium for the spread of Islam in the
present day, principally in Africa, but increasingly around the world.
By the end of the colonial era in the middle of the twentieth cen­
tury. imperial history had divided Africa into the Sunni Muslim and
Arabic-speaking north, and the largely Christian south, the latter
split between a large range of denominations from Catholic to
Seventh Day Adventist. FOCUS, a branch of the Islamic Foundation
ot Leicester, England, estimated that in 2000 there were 347 million
Muslims in Africa (more than in the Middle East) and 359 million
Christians. Islam is thought to have increased its membership ahead
of Christianity since that date.
The frontier between Islam and Christianity, which generally
coincides with the racial boundary between Africans of Arab blood
and pure black, turns violent as the line passes through Sudan, as
discussed in an earlier chapter. Nigeria also suffers from permanent
tension between the Hausa-speaking Muslims in rhe north and the
Christian Ibo and Yoruba tribes of the south, although jealousy over
access to the privileges of the state is as much a factor in both
conflicts as religion. Even though Islam is very much in the minor­
ity in sub-Sahe! black Africa, competition with Christianity for con­
verts is fierce. For both faiths this is now the principal missionary
'growth area' remaining in the world.
Christian communities in black Africa tend to Ire folksy versions
of European churches, led by white or white-trained priests or min­
isters, who are part of an international church hierarchy. In addition.
Christian missions often run clinics or schools. Converts are taught
the elements of the faith before being formally received by bap­
tism, and communal services are held on Sundays, punctuated by
 THE DEVKOPMENT Of 221

rhythmic hymn-singing and hand-dapping. Bells toll across rhe

African landscape in imitation of Europe, and an adapted version of
a European or American script is usually followed for services.
Missionary Islam, in contrast, relies on local African marabouts in
the Sufist tradition, equipped with nothing more than a prayer rug.
making simple rZr'wah. the call to worship Allah by following His
Messenger. Conversion is a gradual process as local customs blend
with die new religion, and there arc many examples of whole tribes
slowly converting together over one or two generations. Under Sufi
influence, primitive belief in a primal animist force becomes the One
God. with lesser pagan gods becoming Allah's attributes. Local spir­
its and ancestor-worship merge with the jinns. devils and angels of
the Qur’an, while witch-doctors and practitioners of healing cults
turn into Sufi saints whose tombs become places of pilgrimage and
haraka. Tribal incantations become Sufi dhikr, and polygamy can be
retained. This is the same process, after all. by which many of the
(non-idolatrous) customs of pre-Islamic Arabia were incorporated
into the Shariah. And rather than the confusing array of Christian
denominations, each with a different and more complicated dogma,
but all requiring an immediate change in customary behaviour, Islam
offers simplicity and gradualism, as well as a connection to the great
traditions and mysteries of the anti-American and pre-colonial
Muslim world. Entry is easy and instant, with the mere recital from
the heart of the few words of the Shahndah. God is One carries a
simple compulsion for the nomadic illiterate and the short ritual of
Muslim prayer can be performed anywhere, regulated by the passage
of the sun. Most importantly, there is no imposition from above by
a foreign white missionary superstructure, or even by a priest. Islam
thus becomes a purely African religion, spread by Africans to
Africans, free of any taint of colonialism or racism.
In the context of missionary Islam, the Tablighi Jamaat (or pros­
elytizing party’) should be mentioned, described darkly by The
Economist as one of the most important and obscure of the world s
Islamic movements'. In fact, theTablighi is a non-organization, with
no command, no publications, no officers and no funds. Rather the
name refers to the practice by young Muslims of travelling for a year
or more after school with the intention of strengthening the faith
in other countries. The young preachers pay their own expenses,
302 THF KVaOPMENT Of KLAM

stay in mosques or the homes of imams in the host countries and

organize their own programmes. While Muslim solidarity and unity
is the objective, there is usually little of practical value in this world
to show for the effort expended. The Tablighi does not operate as a
volunteer workforce undertaking social improvement projects or
teaching like the Peace Corp, and usually a severe language barrier
exists between the mostly Arab-speaking travellers and local believ­
ers. Despite Western suspicions, Tablighi Jamaat is entirely non­
political, and tolerated by all Muslim regimes, even the most
repressive.

Black Muslims
The Lost-Found Nation of Islam, known as Black Muslims, is a
response to the deeply felt need in the African-American commu­
nity for pride based on identity, and for a black interpretation of the
long and tragic history of slavery.
The Middle Passage, by which slaves were transported across the
Atlantic under the harshest of conditions, was arguably the greatest
wrong ever perpetrated on one ethnic group by another, yet the
enormity of this chapter of Western history is dramatically obscure.
Eight to ten million died in the transfer of slaves from West Africa
to the Americas, but no dedicated memorial to the event has been
erected in the United States (compared with over 250 to the
Holocaust). Similarly, the issue of reparations for slavery (or even an
apology), based on the precedent of the billions paid to the victims
of Nazi brutality, never reaches the public agenda. The question,
says the White House, is ‘hopelessly mired in the past'.
There is little evidence, however, to support the assertion that
Africans transported from West Africa brought Islam to America
with them, or spoke Arabic. Islam was present in West Africa during
the slaving centuries only along the borders of the Sahel desert, far
from the coast. Slaves from East Africa, where the traders were
mostly Arabs, were sent east and north, and not to the Americas.
The twentieth-century origin of the Black Muslim movement
was an impression of Islam was taken up by black community lead­
ers in America during the 1930s and 1940s. Although they had little
detailed knowledge of the faith, they considered Islam to be the nat­
ural religion for the black man', since Christianity, in sharp contrast.
 THE DEVELOPMENT Of ISLAM 303

had betrayed die universal ideals of Christ by becoming the ‘white

man's religion'. The ‘racial pride' doctrines of the Nation of Islam,
combined with rigid rules of self-discipline based on Islam, would,
it was believed, combat the poverty and denigration to which blacks
had long been subject, conditions which were worsening during
the Great Depression of die 19.30s, more than seventy years after
emancipation.
The Nation of Islam was established in 1930 by Wallace D. Hard,
an enigmatic black preacher from Detroit. He styled himself Farad
Muhammad and claimed to have come to America from Mecca to
save die black race by giving them an Islamic identity. Fard's doc­
trines, however, were entirely contrary to the all-inclusive and
‘racially blind' basis of true Islam. He claimed that a Black God who
had created the black race was the source of all light and power,
while the white race was the creation of the devil in the form of a
malign black scientist named Yacub, in rebellion against the will of
the Black God. Farad acknowledged the Prophet Muhammad and
the status of the Qur’an as the Word of God, but claimed for him­
self the sole right to interpret the text. The solution to the black
man's condition was seen as the complete separation of the races,
either within North America or by the migration of African blacks
back to the original paradise of .Africa. Farad disappeared in 1934,
reputedly returning to Mecca, after passing his ministry to his suc­
cessor, Elijah Poole, a former Baptist minister and son of an itiner­
ant Baptist minister, who renamed himself Elijah Muhammad and
claimed to be the last of the prophets.
During the 1950s the organization turned militant, becoming
openly black supremacist, anti-white and especially anti-Jewish,
under the movement's most dynamic personality, Malcolm X. 1 he
movement began to split following the assassination of Malcolm X
in 1965 and the death of Elijah Muhammad in 1975. In 1977
Minister Louis Farrakhan broke away, but the name 'the Nation of
Islam’ was maintained by the schismatics, as well as the aggressive
racial rhetoric of Malcolm X. Thereafter, the leadership of the
majority mainstream Black Muslims passed to Elijah Muhammad's
son, Wallace Muhammad, who has since renamed himself
Warith Deen Muhammad. Under Warith, some one million Black
Muslims (including the boxer Muhammad Ali, formerly named
XX THE DEVELOPMENT Of ISLAM

Cassius Clay and formerly the Nation of Islam spokesman) have

renounced racism, renamed their organization the American
Muslim Society and moved closer to the four or five million Sunni
orthodox Muslims of America. But however bizarre the message of
die Nation of Islam may appear, this fiercely conservative and disci­
plined faith has in many cases offered the hope of human dignity to
the ghetto dweller, the drug addict, the prisoner, to all blacks
battered and suffocated by the overwhelming dominance of the
white man.

The Life and Times ofBrother X

Malcolm Little was bom in Michigan in 1925, the seventh child of the
Reverend Earl Little, a one-eyed Baptist minister who preached black­
race purity and a return to Africa on the Black Tram Homeward'.
Malcolm's father and five of his six uncles were murdered, or lynched by
the Klan, and his mother was the product of a violent sexual assault by a
white man, which accounted far Malcolm's reddy-brown complexion,
and he came to hate every drop of that white rapist's blood that is in
me'. The Reverend beat hrs wife and children savagely and regularly, and
Malcolm also grew up hating Christianity.
After his father's death Malcolm's family fell into complete poverty,
often eating nothing more than boiled dandelion greens. His mother
went insane and the children were placed in foster homes. Malcolm left
school at fifteen and moved to Boston where he began as a shoe-shine
boy, moving up to a life of hustling and petty enme in New York. He grew
tall and handsome, he wore a zoot suit and conked his hair to look like
a white man. He became a well-known Imdy-hoppmg hipster on booze
and reefers, and he found himself a white girl with shiny red lips and a
Cadillac convertible. When America went to war, Malcolm persuaded an
army psychiatnst that he was insane like his mother, and his climb up the
Harlem enme hierarchy continued unbroken, graduating to bank hold­
ups. running liquor, the white-on-black sex trade and hard drugs.
While Malcolm was serving ten years in jail on fourteen counts, from
armed robbery to possession of firearms, his brothers and sisters iomed
the Nation of Islam. Dunng visits to the jail they converted Malcolm to
 TH£ DtVtLOPMtNT Of ISLAM 305

the creed of Wallace D. FarcL A correspondence subsequently began

with Elijah Muhammad, and Malcolm was persuaded to see himself as
the personification of evil, and Elijah Muhammad as dwine. He started to
pray facing the east gave up cigarettes and ate no more pork. He taught
himself to read and wnte by copying out the dictionary in the pnson
library and he developed a revisionist explanation of world history that
expanded on the black eugenics theory originated by Farad (who often
appeared to Malcolm in his cell in a vision). In the pnson debating soci­
ety Malcolm learned how to speak m public.
Released on parole in 1953. Malcolm joined Detroit Temple Number
One of the Nation of Islam. He renounced the name of Little, the name
presumed to have been given by slave owners to his slave ancestors, and
was given his 'X'. representing his lost African name. Two years later,
Malcolm became Minister X, sent by Elijah Muhammad back to New
York to open Temple Number Seven, where Malcolm turned his '|ungle
mind' and his talents as a street hustler to proselytizing and organizing.
He was an emotionally charged speaker inventing catchphrases such as
'Black is beautiful', 'respect', 'tell it like it is' and 'the power within', that
were to come into general use by young whites m the 1960s
In 1959 the reverse-racist 'white devil' message of Use Nation of Islam
(named 'Black Muslims' by the press) exploded in the Amencan media,
and Malcolm X became both a black star for his combative speeches, and
an object of white fear and hate, as well as a target for FBI and Internal
Revenue Service surveillance. By the early 1960s there were over one
hundred Nation Mosques (as the Temples were renamed) and Minister
X now a national figure, was seen as the power behind the ailing Elijah
Muhammad. Jealousy began inside the organization, followed by death
threats from both within and without and when Malcolm X uncovered
Elijah Muhammad's secret life of debauchery in his mansion in Phoenix
(justified by quotations from the scriptures), he was ejected.
Before launching his own organization, the Muslim Mosque Inc.,
Malcolm performed the haj in Mecca (where he was popularly taken to
be Cassius Clay), where he found the true religion' of the Oneness of
man under God in the multiracial, multicultural brotherhood of the pil­
grimage. From Mecca. Malcolm wrote to the Nation of Islam repudiating
the race-based doctrines of Elijah Muhammad. He changed his name to
El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz and he dropped the word 'negro' from his
vocabulary in favour of Afro-American'. He returned to Amenca after a
3CE. THE DEVELOPMENT Of ISLAM

tour of emerging African states. to the 'long hot summer of 1964. with
racial tension coming up to the boil He was repeatedly accused of'stir­
ring up the Negroes' and called 'the angriest Negro in America', while hrs
arguments in favour of Muslim orthodoxy based on his personal experi­
ences were breaking the power of the Nation of Islam within the
African-American community.
By early 1965 Shabazz was preaching that Mississippi was 'anywhere
south of the Canadian border', while attacking Eli|ah Muhammad for'reli­
gious fakery’, and he knew that his life was in danger from aJI sides
Armed clashes began in Harlem between supporters of the Nation of
Islam and the Muslim Mosque Inc., and Shabazz's house was fire-bombed.
But the New York Police Department refused to respond to the
repeated death-threats and offered no protection That same year
Shabazz was gunned down as he began a speech to an all-black audience
at the Audubon Ballroom. 'Afaykum Salaam' he shouted immediately
before the shots were fired, as if he knew what was about to happen:
'Peace be with you'.The assassins escaped and were never apprehended,
but that night the Nation of Islam Mosque Number Seven was burned
to the ground.
In 1999 the US Postal Service issued a commemorative stamp in
honour of Malcolm X.Thc radical had become respectable

II What is a Fundamentalist?

Discussion of this difficult topic should begin with definitions. The

very nature of Islam, the direct relationship of Man to God, is ‘fun­
damentalist’ in that all Muslims believe in the 'fundamentals’ of the
Qur’an as the Word of God, which they can read and obey for them­
selves. But in arriving at a personal and often militant meaning of
the Qur’an, without reference to the methods of interpretation
described earlier, the reader is disregarding the centuries of accumu­
lated wisdom of Islam. Such a reader should more correctly be
referred to as a 'literalist'. believing in the superficial meaning of the
words. Well-known examples of literalist interpretation among
the monotheistic religions arc belief in the Seven Day Creation, or
the Judgement on the Last Day. But 'fundamentalist' is the popular
tag, and cannot be avoided.
 THE DEVELOPMENT OF IS--M 307

Accusations of naivety and narrow-mindedness arc often aimed

at fundamentalism, but interpretation is also at the heart of conflict
in the religious mainstream, both in Islam and in Christianity.
St Matthews Gospel 16:18, reports that Christ said to Simon Bar-
jona, his principal disciple, 'Thou art Peter, and upon this rock 1 will
build my church'. Then in Matthew 26:26, Christ takes bread,
which he blesses and breaks, saying, ‘Take, eat; this is my body'.
These words are accepted by all Christians as part of the Gospel, yet
a literalist interpretation has led to the Catholic doctrines of papal
authority and transubstantiation, both of which are rejected by
Protestants. Opposing meanings given to the words were then used
as the religious gloss to centuries of political and economic wars
between rival Christian kingdoms, and remain at the core of die
issues that still separate Catholics and Protestants today.
Similarly, the Qur’an in Surah 33. Al-Ahzab (The Confederates),
verse 33 describes God’s intentions for Muhammad's family as
follows:

And Allah only wishes

To remove all abomination
From you, ye Members
Of die Family, and to make
You pure and spotless

From these innocent-seeming words endless dissent and bloodshed

was to flow as die Party of ‘Ali broke from the proto-Sunm majority
to become the predominantly Persian proto-Shi a minority, claiming
that only the descendants of 'Ali and the ‘family’ of Muhammad
could interpret the ultimate truth of the Qur'an. Then the original
conflict would lead to centuries of further conflict on various pretexts,
down to the meaningless massacres of Iranian teenage troops during
rhe Iran-Iraq war of 1980 to 1988. urged forward by their religious
leaders' promises of 'martyrdom' and a 'place next to Ali in paradise.
In modern-day Islam, fundamentalism is the reaction against
compromise with modern secular society as well as the expression of
a desire to maintain or rediscover the core values of the faith. From
the early schism over the succession to Muhammad, to the over­
whelming of Dar al-lslam by the materialist West in the twentieth
306 THE DEVELOPMENT Of ISOM

century, Muslims have been subjected to division, discredit, imperi­

alism, colonialism, tyranny, corruption, and more recently to reoc­
cupation, both economic and military. Islamic fundamentalism
seeks to sweep away this flawed history and re-establish al-Islam,
submission to the will of God, following the pure principles embed­
ded in the Qur’an and (for Sunnis) in the Sunna. This is a force
within Islam that goes back to the first days of the Party of'Ali and
the Kharijitcs, or usually back further again to the "rightly guided"
Commonwealth of Medina. But how the rule of God on earth is to
be accomplished, and whose interpretation of the will of God is be
followed arc, of course, the reefs upon which such voyages have
repeatedly foundered.
Current fundamentalism comes from disillusion and despair,
therefore. Faced with the continuing victory of ungodliness and
injustice, a fanatical minority feels driven to undertake acts of vio­
lent defiance. Nor is this radicalizing process unique to Islam, but is
to be found at the fringes of many other religions where politics and
ideology cross over: the Real IRA, for example, the breakaway group
from the Irish Republican Army; the Bajrang Dal, associated
through die Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh with the Hindu
Bharatiya Janata Party, once the leading party in the political coali­
tion in power in India; the Branch Davidians of the Scvcnth-Day
Adventist Church: or the Jewish "settlers' of Gush Emunim (The
Block of the Faithfol), murderously inserting themselves into occu­
pied Palestine in the name of God, to name but a few.
And for the fanatical litcralist. Islam offers ready comforts. Surah
42 Al-Shuri (The Consultation) relates at verse 13 that Islam was
"enjoined on Abraham, Moses and Jesus'. Even before the Qur’an,
therefore, man was Muslim, and, as to the future, "to Allah we
belong and to Him is our return" (Al-Baqarah (The Heifer) Surah 2,
verse 155). Thus no absolute dividing line is recognized between the
time before an individual life, the time of present life, and the time
of the afterlife. The will of God stretches back to creation and for­
ward into infinity. If. therefore, religious duty is believed to embrace
an act that will result in the perpetrator's suicide (or is so manipu­
lated by others), the result is not the finality of death, but martyr­
dom. rewarded by instant and everlasting reunification with God at
the push of a button, confirmed by His own words:
 THE DEVELOPMENT Of SIAM 309

Think not of those

Who arc slain in Allah’s way

As dead. Nay they live.
Finding their sustenance
In the presence of their Lord.
Al-Baqarah (The Heifer) Surah 2, verse 154

But the significance of this verse and others similar, depends once
again on interpretation. A .Muslim scholar could argue from history
that nothing in Muhammad's life justifies extending the meaning of
the word 'slain' in the text, to die carrying out of a deliberate act of
suicide. Certainly Muhammad never ordered or manipulated a
Companion into committing intentional suicide for the Muslim
cause (to be distinguished from personal bravery on the batdcfield).
The first Islamist organizations of the twentieth century were the
Society of Muslim Brothers in Egypt, founded by Hasan al-Banna
(assassinated by the Egyptian state in 1949), and the Jammat-c-
lslamia in Pakistan led by Sayyid Abu’l-A'la al-Maududi (d. 1979).
Both men came from religious families with strong tics to Sufism,
and both began by interpreting British imperialism as a new crusade
against Muslim values. Both organizations opposed the imposition
of the Western-style nation-state on to die emerging independent
Muslim entities of Egypt and Pakistan. They also opposed die moral
decay of the nationalist leaders of Egypt and Pakistan who cooper­
ated with the departing British, then ttxik power themselves, only to
produce, in so many Muslim countries, the gross mismanagement
and corruption that has been discussed earlier.
Not surprisingly, therefore, both the Muslim Brothers and the
|ammat-i-lsl.Tmi have been suppressed on various occasions, first by
the British and then by the subsequent nationalist rulers. The
Muslim Brothers, although in permanent and sometimes violent
opposition to the nation-state, have attempted to offer a practical
and moral alternative to the governments in power by establishing a
network of small cooperative industrial enterprises throughout
Egypt, as well as schools, athletic programmes, public health initia­
tives and social services for the poor. These charitable, almost secu­
lar activities, and many like them run by fundamentalists across the
Middle East, represent a move to soften the extremism of the last
310 THE DEVELOPMENT Of SUM

Twenty years. Many Islamist groups arc similarly seeking to put into
action the often repeated maxim of Muslim reformers, who wish not
to modernize Islam, but to 'lslamicizc modernity’. The programmes
are also intended to show that Islam works and corrupt secular gov­
ernments do not.
The Islamist organizations with the highest international profile
have emerged nor as might be expected, from the slums of Cairo or
Casablanca, but from the conflict between the State of Israel and the
Palestinians, discussed below in more detail. Beyond the specific
injustices perpetrated on the Palestinian people by the British and
subsequently by the establishment of the State of Israel, the mere
presence of Israel in what svas once Arab territory, stretching pristine
and Muslim from Syria to the Yemen, has come to stand for all the
humiliations that Arabs believe they have suffered during the past
century at the hands of the West. Here politics, religion and utopian
ideals, together with guerrilla action, all combine to produce the
unstable conditions that began with the frustrated Arab Revolt
against Turkish rule in 1917. and still make up our newspaper head­
lines day after day.
Fatah (the Palestine National Liberation Movement) began at
Cairo University in the early 1950s with the assistance of tile
Muslim Brothers. Fatah, however, has always seen itself as a classic­
liberation movement fighting a colonial power (the State of Israel)
with the religious dimension present but playing a secondary role.
Hie organization under the late Yasir Arafat exercised complete
control over the umbrella resistance group, the Palestine Liberation
Organization (PLO) from the late 1960s, but under what is now the
old guard’ of Arafat men, Fatah lacks effective power over most of
the armed splinters nominally within the organization and Rin by
the next generations. Until the first mass uprising, or intifada of
200], Fatah defined the nature of Palestinian opposition to Israel,
which has moved through three stages. Fatah first began with direct
commando raids against Israel, but was soon diverted by a second
stage of armed action against other more reluctant Arab countries,
notably Jordan, which expelled the Palestinian militias in 1970 in
order to avoid domestic chaos and another war with Israel (which
came anyway). After a second expulsion of Fatah, from Tripoli to
lunis following the Israeli invasion of Lebanon, the third stage
 THE DEVELOPMENT OF ISLAM

began in the mid 1980s when political negotiations with Israel

opened, based on Fatah's renunciation of violence and recognition of
the Jewish State. The resulting Oslo peace process led to the estab­
lishment of the Palestinian Authority, an embryonic independent
state, dominated by the old Fatah. But Oslo put off the difficult
issues of the ‘final status’ of Jerusalem, Israels permanent borders,
and the question of Jewish settlements within Palestinian territory
(which Israel permitted to double in number during the ten years of
Oslo, and to accelerate further since), and the right of refugee
return. So when negotiations with Israel broke down, wide
Palestinian discontent at the entire process surfaced in the form of
the second intifada, precipitated by the armed entry of General Ariel
Sharon (who subsequently became the Israeli prime minister) into
the Muslim Haram al-Sharif, also claimed by Judaism as the Temple
Mount, the duality of which is discussed below. Armed organiza­
tions within Fatah (the Tanzim, Force 17, the Hawari Special
Operations Group, etc.) once again came into direct confrontation
with the Israeli Defence Forces. The massive destruction of
Palestinian towns in response to the resistance led to loss of both
control and respect by the Palestinian Authority, which is prevented
by Israel from carrying weapons, deprived of transportation and
communications, and used by Fatah bosses as a job patronage
scheme in a ruined and impoverished society.
Hizbullah (the Party of God) is a Lebanese Shi'ite organization,
inspired and financed by Iran's Revolutionary Government. The
organization began in 1983 with devastating attacks on American,
French and Israeli forces in occupation of Lebanon, and Hizbullah
was principally responsible for Israel's withdrawal from South
Lebanon in 2000. This quasi-victory over the all-powerful Israeli
Defence Forces showed resistance groups in Palestine that the mili­
tary defeat of Israel might be possible, and contributed to the erup­
tion of the second intifada of 2001, even though the direct influence
of Shi'a Hizbullah in Sunni and Christian Palestine was limited.
Here was another example of how a popular movement supported
by religious conviction could overcome a superior and better
equipped force, just as the Iranian Revolution had defeated the Shah
(and by association the US), just as the Mujahidin of Afghanistan
had defeated the Russians, and just as Israel itself had defeated the
31J IHt DEVtLOPMENr Of ISLAM

combined Arab forces in 1948, 1967 and 1973 (although the word
'defeat’ is disputed by Arabs in relation to the 1973 war).
The civil war in Lebanon (1975-90), followed by the Israeli
occupation, produced devastation and poverty in the Shi'a commu­
nities of South Lebanon. The non-military pan of Hizbullah
attempted to ameliorate the situation with ambitious programmes
for housing, schools, help for small farmers and the reconstruction
of mosques, extending down to the distribution of food, water and
care for die families of ‘martyrs against Israel'. However, with Israel
departed, and Iran's vital financial contributions limited by perma­
nent domestic political and financial crisis and confrontation with
the America. Hizbullah’s support among Lebanese Shi'a has
dropped well below 40 per cent, and the entire Shi'a community is
probably less than half of the population of Lebanon (no reliable
census is available). The nominal objective of Hizbullah remains to
establish an Islamic revolutionary government in Lebanon, but this
has been further frustrated by the start of reasonably successful
country-wide and multicultural elections.
Hamas is the informal name of the Islamic Resistance
Movement. The word is an acronym of the official name, spelling
'zeal’ in Arabic, which is popularly interpreted to mean 'exaltation
or enthusiasm'. The Movement was established in 1988 by the Gaza
branch of the Muslim Brothers, left over from the earlier Egyptian
occupation of Gaza. The spiritual head of the movement was Sheikh
Ahmad Yassin, a partially blind, quadriplegic imam, who was mur­
dered in his wheelchair by Israel in 2003. Hamas runs educational,
social and religious programmes in occupied Palestine as well as
vocational training, job creation schemes and small businesses. In
Gaza, in the absence of formal government, Hamas Ls one of
the main providers of social services, from schools to clinics. But the
organization is best known for uncompromising opposition to the
Oslo peace process and to the PLO recognition of Israel, backed by
frequent attacks on both Israel and the PLO, intended to expose the
weakness of the PLO and to stop any further compromise with
Israel. Hamas was first active during the later stages of the first
intifada that began in 1987, and played a large part in the second
intifada of 2001, The Battalions of 'Lzz al-Din al-Qassam is the
branch of Hamas that specializes in training suicide bombers
 THE DEVELOPMENT OF ELAM 313

(named after a Palestinian guerrilla leader, killed by the British in

1935). Despite the overwhelming Israeli reprisals against Palestinian
civilians in response to suicide attacks, Hamas is extremely popular
in the West Bank and Gaza and represents the only serious (and
incorruptible) threat to the (corrupt) power of the PLO and the
Palestinian Authority. The Palestinian Authority alternates between
trying to co-opt and corrupt Hamas, and doing Israel’s bidding by
imprisoning members. But on another level Hamas is useful to Israel
as the new demon of the peace, now that the PLO no longer oper­
ates as a resistance organization, allowing Israel to continue to
equate opposition to occupation with ‘international terrorism'. The
strong social arm of Hamas has given rhe organization the opportu­
nity to begin a successful campaign to gain political control through
elections. This, and other examples to be discussed later, will soon
rest the honesty of American preaching of‘democracy’ in the Middle
East, when Hamas becomes the dominant political force in the
Palestinian territories through democratic elections.
Palestine Islamic Jihad (PIJ) began in the 1970s among the
disaffected youth of Gaza, fenced in by the Israeli Defence Forces
under atrocious prison gulag conditions (the fourth most densely
populated urban area in the world). The movement is related to
Islamic Jihad, a militant anti-Western protest group present in vari­
ous independent incarnations in a number of Muslim countries
from Egypt to Indonesia. Considered the most complex, secret and
dangerous of the Palestinian activists, the PIJ stands for uncompro­
mising armed opposition to the very existence of the State of Israel,
expressed by Sheikh Tamimi. one of the founders of the movement,
as a refusal to accede to a Jewish state on our land, even if it is only
one village’. The PIJ is reputed to be funded by Iran, even though
the movement is predominantly Sunni and based in Damascus. 1 he
movement's first operations were conducted in Lebanon during the
1980s, in conjunction with Hizbullah. Recent PIJ operations
include burning Israeli crops, the murder of Palestinian collabor­
ators, attacks on Israeli buses and suicide missions against Israeli tar­
gets. The PIJ's objective is a united Islamic state covering all the Arab
territory previously ruled by the Ottoman Empire. Hie spiritual
leader of the PIJ, Fathi Shaqaqi, was murdered by the Israeli secret
service in Malta in 1995.
311 THE DEVELOPMENT Of ISLAM

Al-Qaeda (the Base) is now an all-consuming idea, a salafi

rallying cry across the Muslim world that will never be suppressed.
Al-Qaeda is a franchise, and not the worldwide organization sought
by the American government as an ideological opponent to replace
communism, and so continue the domestic crowd control justified
by perpetual war under a 'war President' (the ultimate Orwellian
achievement).
The original radical Muslim complaint was against the presence
of US forces in Arabia, the Muslim Holy Land, but opposition to the
State of Israel, and to ?\merica as Israel's backer, became die princi­
pal expressed grievance from 2000 on. Then the American occupa­
tion of Iraq, causing at least 25.000 civilian deaths so for, together
with vast civil destruction, has provided the hot opportunity for the
idealistic call to arms to be implemented.
The precise stimulus for such acts as those of September 11 th,
2001 in New York, and July 7th 2005 in London, and the daily sui­
cide operations in Iraq, may still be beyond comprehension in the
west. Certainly 'criminal' or 'terrorist' arc patently unsatisfactory
and simplistic labels, as well as historically self-serving. But the
murkiest outlines of the motivation of the perpetrators may be per­
ceived by considering the cumulative impact of a number of events
in Muslim history discussed earlier: the status of die Qur’an as
the undiluted Word of God, yet open to gross misinterpretation;
Muhammad's absolute victory over the power and corruption of the
Meccan Jihiliyyah from an initial position of almost complete isola­
tion and weakness: and the reverence of Muslims for the Holy Land
of the Hijaz, therefore of Arabia, and by extension, of all Muslim
lands. To this the tragic history of Afghanistan acted as a catalyst for
the formation of al-Qaeda, creating the Arab Afghans' already
referred to, young men trained, hardened and financed, whose deep
beliefs, together with their frustrations at the new JMiyyah of
Western influence, saw no other means of expression. They became
the 50 cells around the world' of al-Qaeda, allegedly consisting of
over 70,000 members, that US Defence Secretary Donald
Rumsfeld attempted to identify in October 2001. But subsequent
events, especially the new running sore of Iraq, have demonstrated
that this phantom will never be destroyed, even if the personal inspi­
ration of Osama ibn laden were to be eliminated.
 THE DEVELOPMENT OF ISLAM JIS

Marxist-Leninist liberation movements such as the PFLP

(Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine) are not. of course,
Islamist- Despite such high-profile actions as the assassination of a
right-wing minister in the Israeli government in October 2001, a
combination of the shock of the capitulation at Oslo together with
the demise of the Soviet Union has led to the effective collapse of the
nationalist groups, leaving the field to the religious organizations.
Whatever the specific short-term operational objectives of an
armed Islamist organization may be, the ultimate ideal always
remains: to correct what Muslims see as the injustice of Western
impositions on Muslim societies and to reverse what the West sees as
the irreversible process of Westernization of the worldwide nation­
state based on the separation of politics and religion. This raises, once
again, the unanswerable question about what would replace the
nation-state in the Islamist vision, and the adequacy of the Shariah to
operate a modern society. As a broad generalization, the Palestinian
resistance movements described above express to various degrees an
intention to reinterpret the Shariah to produce some as yet undefined
system of government relevant to modern conditions, rather than
proposing to reconstruct an archaic vision of the Prophet’s seventh­
century Commonwealth in the style of the former Taliban.

Ill The Future

Clearly Islam faces the general challenge of withstanding the counter­

spiritual effect of rising materialism and increasing personal freedom
that has reduced Christianity in Europe to little more than cultural
and historical texture. But even if Islam can stand up to the seductive
power ofWestern culture, there are three principal areas of tension in
the Muslim world where the outcome could have a decisive effect on
the character of Islam in the twenty-first century: Muslims in
Europe: Palestine and the State of Israel, and Islam and Democracy.
The 'dash of civilizations’, so famously predicted by the .American
political scientist Samuel P. Huntington during the 1990s, has not
come to pass. No revitalized and unified Islam has emerged as a threat
to the liberal materialist values of the West, equal to the former pres­
sure from communism, despite the repeated use of the words 'war' and
316 THE DEVELOPMENT Of SIAM

‘crusade’ by President Bush following September 11th, 2001. and

matching apocalyptic language from Osama ibn Laden and the former
Taliban government of Afghanistan, calling on every Muslim to 'rise
up to defend his religion. There is little danger of a new Warsaw Pact
of cohering Islamist governments joining together effectively against
the West. But progress (by the West as well as by Muslims) on the vital
issues to be discussed below may influence whether Islam is to main­
tain the fever pitch of turmoil that started in the 1980s and still boils
on. Will this unjust world, in the view of many Muslims, continue to
be divided between die 'us and them' of Dar al-Islam (the abode of
Islam) and Dar al-Harb (the abode of unbelievers), or move toward a
workable balance between faith and realpolitik?

Muslims in Europe
A recurring joke in Prance is that the enarques (graduates of the
Ecole Nationale d'Administration), the country’s famously highly
trained corp of senior civil servants, are so clever that they have cal­
culated the precise date on which the French social system will go
bust (popularly believed to be Bastille Day 2025). The birthrate in
France, like all European countries, has fallen to a level that will no
longer sustain current population figures, which arc projected to
start falling by the year 2010. By 2030. if the projections are accu­
rate. 30 per cent of French men and women will be over sixty as
against 18 per cent in 2000. and there will be under three workers
to support each retiree, rather than the present four. There are three
possible alternatives for Europe in response to these figures. First,
the economics of Europe could shrink, leading to a commensurate
reduction in living standards, accompanied by the abandonment of
entire towns and villages; secondly, government social services
including healthcare could reduce by 50 per cent or more, com­
bined with a rise in the pensionable age to seventy or seventy-five:
thirdly immigration could be substantially increased.
None of these solutions will be welcomed by European voters and
no forthright policy proposals are therefore likely to be put forward
by any politician who wishes to be re-elected. In practice, however,
the shrinking economy will no doubt be avoided at all costs. At the
same time, government pensions will be reformed and privatized, but
only reluctantly and only slightly ahead of the demographic curve
 THE DEVEtOmtNT Of (SLAM JI7

and the growing crisis. And through all this, immigration will be per­
mitted to rise, in addition to increasing illegally.
According to a recent UN study. Germany, for example, requires
over three million immigrants per year in order to maintain the
present ratio of workers to pensioners (although the calculation was
made without counting on rhe politically difficult possibility of
extending working lives and reforming services, which is now the
central issue in German politics). However, the consequence of even
one million immigrants per year into Germany, the rate forecast by
the respected DIW think tank of Berlin as required by 2020 merely
to maintain the present workforce, would bring about a significant
change in the character of German society, further accentuated over
the following generations if immigrant birthrates were to prove
higher than those of the ethnic population, as has liecn the case
during the last decades. The present immigrant (and mostly
Muslim) population of Germany already makes up 8 per cent of tile
total, and even that proponion has resulted in an extremely high
level of racial tension, as discussed earlier.
If, or when, such increases in (mostly Muslim) immigration into
Europe occur, the present cycle of alienation among new arrivals
will become much more serious unless there is a far-reaching
modification in the attitude of host countries. Typically, the first
adult members of an immigrating family consider themselves lucky
to have escaped the violence and poverty of their homeland and they
work hard in their new country, generally living quietly in a
depressed urban area close to others from the same country of origin.
Their children, however, who in many cases are not automatically
citizens under present laws, find themselves in a concrete ghetto, iso­
lated between two cultures. They cannot adopt their parents' experi­
ences and values, acquired under quite different circumstances, yet
are unable ro succeed in a Western culture, a problem often made
worse by viciously competitive school systems that stream the less
articulate away from access to better jobs at an early age.
The result is chronic disaffection and unemployment, often
expressed in wholesale community violence, which is usually hidden
from view as fist as possible. On Bastille Day in France in 2001, for
example. 130 cars were burned in Paris alone, by rioters of over­
whelmingly North African Muslim origin. But little was reported in
318 THE DEVELOPMENT Of ISLAM

the press, and beyond the standard call for more police, no public dis­
cussion about rhe reasons for the riot took place. The shocked ‘law and
order’ response by the French government to the much more serious
riots of 2005. which were too big to hide (10,000 cars were torched)
may develop into a furtiter method by which French leader can avoid
Facing this core problem of twenty-first century European society.
In Oldham and Bradford in the British Midlands, millions of
pounds of damage was done by white versus Pakistani versus police
riots in 2001. All sides acknowledged in the press over the following
days that nothing had changed since the last round of riots five years
previously, and that the ghettoization of rhe Pakistani and Bangladeshi
communities was deteriorating not improving. This cycle is then com­
pleted by young second and third generation immigrants, who feel
themselves permanently excluded by society and turn to Islam,
making the religion into a badge of protest, misinterpreted to justify
aggression, but at the same time confirming the faith as the culture of
the segregated underclass.
A further difficulty is that Islam itself has little precedent for par­
ticipating in society as a minority religion. The life of a good
Muslim is ideally lived under the Shariah, where all aspects of life,
internal and external, from religious observance to family and crim­
inal law, are defined by a single system. Without the acceptance of a
boundary between civil law and religious obligations, combined
with the core belief that the unerring Word of God is expressed in
the Qur’an, Islam is difficult to accommodate in a determinedly
secular Western society where almost all views are equally respected
and none is seen as cither right or wrong.
Nevertheless, the further Islamicization of Europe appears to be
demographically inevitable, with Muslims rapidly becoming the
largest practising religious community in most European countries.
This will obviously bring dramatic change, from an increase in the
number of minarets competing with church spires on the skyline of
European cities (or in the suburbs anyway) to streets filled with a
much more hybrid and multiracial population. Failure to meet this
challenge and to make the accommodations necessary could sour
relations between Islam and the post-Christian world even further,
and undermine the very social viability and continuity that immi­
gration is intended to promote.
 THE DEVELOPMENT Of SLAM 319

Palestine and the State of Israel

The Pentateuch tells the story of the Hebrews, one of the many
Semitic tribes that established themselves tour to seven thousand
years ago in the Fertile Crescent that is now Lebanon, Syria, Iraq.
Jordan, Israel, Gaza and the Occupied West Bank. The books relate
how the Hebrews become a captive slave-race in Egypt, then after
their escape they are promised the land of Canaan for their own in
perpetuity, the legendary land of milk and honey.
But Canaan, Philistia or Palestine, was already occupied by die
indigenous Canaanites, Jebusites and Philistines (among others) and
a protracted and bloody battle for possession followed, fuelled, on
the Jewish side, by the purported instructions of the Hebrew God as
related in the Book of Deuteronomy.

When the Lord thy God shall bring thee into die land
whither thou gocst to possess it. and hath cast out many
nations before thee, the Hittites, and the Girgashites, and
the Amoritcs, and rhe Canaanites and the Perizzitcs, and the
Hivitcs, and the Jebusites, seven nations greater and mightier
than thou:
And when the Lord thy God shall deliver them before
thee, diou shall smite them and utterly destroy them:
thou slialt make no covenant with them, nor shew mercy
unto them.
(Deuteronomy 7: 1-2)

A succession ofJewish prophets and rulers follows the invasion, and

the name of the land in the Jewish text is changed from Canaan to
Israel and Judah, with Samaria added later.
The Palestinian side to this saga is much less well known, since
the non-Jewish written record is almost non-existent, a defect that
has weakened the Palestinian cause right down to modern times, in
which the Palestinians consistently lose the propaganda (as well as
the physical) war. So that the Pentateuch, whether fiction, fraud or
historical fact, has become the framework within which all other
theories and sources are placed. Nevertheless, the Palestinians, even
in the Torah, are the proto-inhabitants of Canaan, supported by the
archaeological record of Jericho, for example, which takes Canaanite
and Jcbusitc occupation back 7,000 years.
320 THS DEVELOPMENT Of ISLAM

But during the last three centuries BCE, as Palestine became a

part of the Persian Empire, then fell into the empire of Alexander
the Great, then came under the Egyptian Ptolemies, followed by the
advance of the Roman Empire into the Eastern Mediterranean, the
history of Palestine moves out from under the shadow of the Torah.
Myth gives way to historical fact. The Romans took possession of
Jerusalem in 63 BCE and were to rule Palestine for the next 700
years, until the defeat of Byzantium by the advancing Muslims in
636 CE, with the surrender of Jerusalem accepted by the Caliph
‘Umar two years later.
In 39 BCE the Emperor Augustus appointed Herod as King of
Judea (the southern part of Palestine) on behalf of Rome. Herod
ruled for thirty-five years until 4 BCE, during which time he built
Jerusalem into a substantial city. The centrepiece of Herod's work was
a large stone platform extending high above the city, on the site of the
present-day structure of the Muslim Haram al-Sharif, the Dome of
the Rock and al-Aqsa mosque. Herod's project included a forum and
a market up on the platform as well as a form of Jewish temple.
After Herod’s death. Rome took back direct control of the whole
of Palestine. The Jews resisted imperial rule and major rebellions
were put down with great force by the Roman army in 70 and 135
CE. On the first occasion Jerusalem, which the Jews had used as a
fortress, was largely destroyed. Herod's temple was burned and the
remains pulled down, although the structure of the platform still
stood. On the second occasion the Hebrew element of the popula­
tion was expelled from Jerusalem by the Romans with die edict: 'It
is forbidden for ail circumcised persons to enter the city and to stay
within the city.’ Jerusalem was then rebuilt as a Roman city and
renamed Aelia Capitolina, dedicated to the pagan god Jupiter
Capitolinus. Jews were permitted to enter the new city only once
each year to lament the destruction.
So began the Jewish worldwide diaspora, but semi-voluntarily.
since Jews were not expelled by the Romans from greater Palestine,
only from the City of Jerusalem. The State of Israel claimed to end
the Jewish diaspora condition by the Proclamation of Independence
of 1948, referring to the Jews as 'exiled from the Land of Israel’,
but this was not quite truthful. Pagan Rome continued to rule
Palestine until 324 CE, after which the Empire became Christian
 TK DEVElOPHENT Of ELAM 321

and Christianity then claimed Jerusalem until the arrival of Islam a

further 300 years later.
There was no trace of Herod's temple or even the temple to Jupiter
remaining by the time the Caliph ‘Umar entered the city to take pos­
session half a millennium after the Roman destruction and rebuilding.
Merely the outline of Herod’s platform had survived, on which, after
reconstruction, the Umayyads built the Haram still standing today.
In the diaspora. Jews maintained their traditions of ’divinely’
ordained superiority, keeping themselves to themselves and rarely
integrating with their hosts, while succeeding in a range of intellec­
tual and business endeavours, being barred from most others. In
Europe the Christian response was resentment, persecution, expul­
sion and murder, of which some of the more infamous examples arc
the Spanish Inquisition, the massacres ofJews in England during the
Crusades, the Jewish pogroms in Eastern Europe and Russia in rhe
nineteenth centuty, culminating in the Holocaust of 1933 to 1945.
Meanwhile, in Palestine, over the centuries following the Roman
destruction of Jerusalem, the non-Jewish population of Palestinians
continued to live on their land as landlords and peasants, just as they
had done for the preceding millennia, and converting from pagan­
ism or Christianity to Islam with the arrival of the Muslims. Some
Jews moved back to Jerusalem during later Roman Christian rule,
and subsequent Muslim rule, but Jews made up no more than 15
per cent of the city’s population under the Turks, and were not pres­
ent in any significant numbers in the surrounding countryside.
At the end of the First World War in 1918, with the defeat of the
Ottoman Empire, Palestine was divided from the previous Turkish
ruled Arab territories and became a separate British colony, although
technically a I-eague of Nations Mandate. Zionism, the movement
by Jews to colonize Palestine as a solution to persecutions in Russia
and Poland, had begun on a small scale at the end of the nineteenth
century, and Jewish immigration was encouraged by Britain starting
in 1921. Jews began to arrive in Palestine in what were then large
numbers, despite opposition from the native Palestinian population.
Britain's policy was devised almost single-handedly by Churchill,
whose personal support for Zionism served to reward the political
and financial assistance which both he and his father had received
from the Jewish community in Britain. Jewish enterprise, Churchill
322 THE DEVELOPMENT OF ISLAM

predicted, would soon improve the lot of the backward Arab peas­
ants. Meanwhile Prime Minister Lloyd George's endorsement of
Churchill’s initiative was based on his low church (and Welsh) belief
in the Old Testament as the Word of God. Biblical mysticism link­
ing the return of the Jews to the Promised Land with the Second
Coming had been popular in Victorian England, and the influential
cult of Freemasonry was based on a detailed elaboration of the myth
of Solomons Temple, which a number of British expeditions had
attempted unsuccessfully to find. Lloyd George had also represented
the Zionist movement as the society's solicitor in Britain in the years
before he joined the government.
During the 1930s Britain progressively lost control of Palestine,
and following the end of the Second World War and the revelation
of the horrors of the Holocaust, Britain was unable to resist whole­
sale Jewish immigration into Palestine. The resulting proposal by the
UN to divide Palestine between Jews and Arabs was opposed by the
Arab nations on the basis that partition would reward progressive
Jewish usurpation. War followed in 1948 between the armed Jewish
settlers and the Arab armies. Chronic political disunity and lack of
military organization among the Arabs, together with Western polit­
ical and material support tor the Jews (the British left them arms and
equipment, for example) led to the defeat of the Arab armies and the
declaration of the State of Israel. Further defeats were inflicted on
the Arabs by the smaller but better equipped Israeli Defence Forces
in 1967 and 1973. During the course of these wars a majority of
Palestinians were expelled from their lands and villages by the victo­
rious Jews, to become permanent refugees on the West Bank, in
Gaza. Jordan, Syria and Lebanon.
The wars of 1948 and 1967 have become the core of the dispute
between Israel and the Palestinians. Jewish historians claim, and
Israeli children are taught, that the Palestinians ran away before the
arrival of the advancing victorious Israeli army, voluntarily vacating
their properties which were then expropriated by the new Jewish
state. The Palestinians, on the other hand, claim that a free people
was forcibly evicted by Jewish wars of conquest motivated by the
desire to take over Palestinian lands and possessions right down to
the household furniture. Palestinians also suspect dial under the
right international circumstances, such as another major Islamist
 THE OevtLOPtltNT Of ISLAM 323

attack on America, Israel could launch a further war of conquest and

push the remaining Arab population of the West Bank out into
F-gJ'P1 and Jordan, to create Erctz Yisrael. or Greater Israel. (This
proposal for 'population transfer’ is referred to by the Israeli right­
wing as the Jordanian solution').
These events resonate precisely with the words of Deuteronomy
quoted earlier and the Torah is unashamedly used, even in modern
times, as die justification for Israel’s actions. ‘This country exists as
the accomplishment of a promise made by God Himself,' Golda
Meir claimed when prime minister of Israel. ‘It would be absurd
therefore to call its legitimacy into account.'
In 1948 the State of Israel was immediately recognized by
America and the European nations. The horrors of the Holocaust
were seen as giving the Jews a moral force, with the Palestinians left
to their fate, and the new State of Israel expressly linked the creation
of the new state to the recent genocide in Germany and Poland. The
huge museum in Jerusalem to the Holocaust, for example, ends
the story with the declaration of the State of Israel and the defeat of
the Arabs, two years after the liberaton of the camps. ‘People pur­
sued by a monster,' the Jewish writer Isaac Deutscher explained,
‘cannot help trampling on those who arc in the way.'
But in the Palestinian view, starting in 1948 Israel became an
imperial military power and a settler-racist state, with no more moral,
historical or hereditary right to exist than any other armed aggressor
of history. In this interpretation, Israel’s appetite for territory and the
harsh treatment and expulsion of the indigenous occupants of the
conquered lands match the years of white rule in South Africa, the
Chinese occupation of Tibet, or the ethnic cleansing of Kosovo by
the Serbs. Only world reaction, led by America, is different.
Palestinians claim that the true nature of the State of Israel, from
violent origins through occupation and repression, is obscured from
the world by the influence of the Jewish community on American
domestic politics, especially through the well-funded activities of
I-APAC (the Israel America Political Action Committee) and the
political and financial support of millions of evangelical Christian
Zionists in America whose belief, once again, is that the Second
Coming is linked to Jewish possession of the Christian Holy Lind.
Press reports regularly portray Israel as 'under artack’, ‘moderate’.
 324
THE DEVELOPMENT OF 6LAM

I. Jewish settlements at the time of the Balfour 2. Borders of Israel after 1948 war
Declaration, 1917
 IHL DEVELOPMENT Or ISLAM

I. Borders of Israel after 1967 war 4. Remaining Palestinian controlled areas 2005
32b THE DEVELOPMENT Of RAM

'democratic' and 'Western', while the Palestinians are denigrated as

'terrorists’ and 'fundamentalists'.
The confrontation between Israel and the Palestinians attracts
disproportionate interest in the West because of a unique blend of
characteristics. Palestine is the cradle of Judaism and Christianity,
and to a lesser extent of Islam, while Jerusalem is claimed as requi­
site to all three faiths. The territory occupied by Israel thus com­
mands the attention of 1.0 billion Muslims, 1.7 billion Christians
and 13 million Jews. Palestine is also the flashpoint between two his­
torically cantankerous cultures, and where an apparently Western.
First World and heavily armed nuclear power faces the Muslim
threat. Palestine is also the physical centre of the old world, as well
as calling up the economic issue of the West's security of oil supply.
The Palestinian cause, along with the liberation of Tibet, is the last
of the great anti-colonial movements of nineteenth and twentieth
cenrury history, stirring the idealism of many on the left in the West,
as well as connecting to a legacy of freedom-fighting by which many
Arab states gained independence. While the State of Israel itself, in
the words of the London Guardian, is 'an American colony’, sup­
ported by billions of American dollars and endless American arms,
and therefore cannot be allowed to fail.
Even more mortifying for Arabs, the continuing crisis with Israel
demonstrates the internal weakness of Arab society itself and exposes
the impotence of the sound and firry with which the nattily suited
Arab leaders and their 'semi-official' presses respond. The Palestinians
have been dispossessed for fifty-seven years, and under military occu­
pation for thirty-eight of those years, yet in all that time the com­
bined forces of the oversized Arab armies, the economic power of oil,
and Arab diplomatic efforts, have produced no relief whatsoever.
Ironically, the State of Israel, riven by deep internal dissension over
religion and politics, holds together in large part only because of the
external threat from the surrounding Arab countries.
But should a genuine peace (resolving the 'final status' issues of
a viable Palestinian state: the Jewish settlements in the West Bank,
the status of Jerusalem, and the right of refugee return) evet be
agreed between Israel and the Palestinians, the core of the tension
between Islam and the West would be removed at a stroke. All the
other conflicts in which the name of Islam is invoked would be
 THE DEVELOPMENT Of fiLXM m
reduced to the status of mere regional questions. Arab governments
would no longer be able to exploit the issue of Israel in order to
divert attention from their own internal failures and the appalling
conditions under which most Arabs live. Then the core values of
Islam, which this book has attempted to explain, would have to
prove themselves out in the open.

Powerless in Gaza

Slums ofthe poor world have filled this observer w*th overwhelming but
almost inadmissible emotions: pity, disgust frustration, human shame, and
most strongly of alt, the desire to run and to forget. The same feelings
that might grip a meat-eater on visiting an abattoir And deeper still there
is racism. Britain too once had terrible slums, but through enlightened
(white Anglo) self-interest all have gone. They' (post-colonial black
Afncans of the Kibera slum in Nairobi, for example) are to blame there­
fore, not 'us': in the end, we say. only they can help themselves.
Beyond the personal confusion brought on by the experience, the
slum is where the harsh gnp of the world status quo on the individual is
most vividly demonstrated. So that walking through a slum totalizes all
other forms of political observation. Because the slum illuminates from
the bottom the true nature of the society above: the history, the injus­
tice, the greed, the callousness, the ignorance and the self-delusion.
But the slum that re Gaza is different This is a form of open prison for
an entire inconvenient people that no secret theory of racial superiority
can explain away. Here 1,4 million indigenous Palestinians are squeezed
into a barren sandy strip between row upon row of electnfied wire on the
land side, and the sea on the other, patrolled by the Israeli navy equipped
with the latest and fastest American vessels. Here the former owners of
the whole land of Palestine live in cinder block hovels, blown with garbage,
and sewage running down the streets under the donkey carts Latticed by
wires, decorated with 3D graffiti and punctuated by carbonized car wrecks
from Israeli helicopter assassinations. Populated by extended families
whose escaped relatives on the outside have proven themselves world-
wxie as doctors, teachers, professionals and businessmen. Then every few
streets a low building behind a high wall is decorated with verses from the
Qur’an on green and yellow banners. Hamas (and a locked United
 THF DCVELOPMENI OF 61AM

Nations food distribution centre) is the only organizing presence to be

seen, the only sign of hope or help m this dreadful claustrophobic place.
And once again the light of perception shines from below, out from
the windows of these jailhouses, to illtxninate the truth Here in Gaza, out
at the unseen edge of the repression of the Palestinians, the secular
majority of metropolitan Israelis could no longer support the religious
crazies of the Gush minority, who haw: so successfully hijacked the levers
of the Israeli state in recent years. Three soldiers were required to pro­
tect every one of the 8,000 Jewish former settlers' in Gaza against the
surrounding Palestinian population who outnumbered them 200 times.
This was a situation that could no longer be sustained, making disengage­
ment inevitable Even the Israeli god of the Torah did not promise Gaza
to the invading Jews (Joshua 10:41. etc ), only Judea and Samana. now
central Israel and the occupied West Bank. But the Gush and their cap­
tive government m Jerusalem were never going to give up territory for
nothmg. even if the land m question was illegally occupied, of no value and
unprotectable. So in return for the withdrawal that was inevitable anyway,
but widely praised around the world as opening the way for peace', and
'courageous' or 'histone', what payment did the Gush extract m return!

• In the short term, an opportunity was provided for worldwide pub­

licity, and for the power of victimhood to be enhanced, Hour after
hour on American television Jewish settlers, clutching at their prayer
books and screaming then lines, were carefully earned away one by
one by five or six Israeli Defence Force soldiers. But no Jew died in
the protest, or was even hurt and all have been compensated, so
the lie-ins meant nothing compared with the hugely destructive
treatment visited on the Palestinians for over fifty years at the hands
of the same army, but hidden from view, Attempt to equate, for
example, the vacating of the Gaza Jewish settlements with the regu­
lar demolition of Palestinian houses The residents of the former left
m moving trucks, together with all their possessions, far a new
home provided by the state, and up to $300,000 per family in com­
pensation financed by America The latter are given no more than
five minutes to remove a few clothes, a few pots and pans before
an Amencan Caterpillar tractor tears into the house, leaving the
destitute residents weeping in the muddy street In any event Israel
harcky 'withdrew' Israeli forces still seal the iand borders of Gaza
 THE DEVELOPMENT Of ISLAM 329

and the coast with the self-reserved ‘right’ to reoccupy should the
Gaza Palestinians protest their fate with any form of counter-attack.
No airport is permitted, and the small sea ports are blockaded, with
even deep-sea fishing prohibited.

• No Jewish-built house was to be occupied by Palestinians, so that

no moving-in scenes with overtones of victory could follow the
tragedy' of the moving out Despite the hundreds of Palestinian
homes occupied by Jews since 1948. most without any compensa­
tion whatsoever, and despite the desperate housing shortage in
impovenshed Gaza, all the Jewish houses in Gaza were wantonly
destroyed and left as rubble.

• The withdrawal liberated 8.000 militant Jewish settlers with cash in

their pockets and religiously sanctioned vengeance on their minds
to reinforce the settlers of East Jerusalem and the West Bank. And
the huge but harmless drama of Gaza will ensure that no further
'retreat' is ever agam politically possible

• As has been discussed, the Palestinian Authority has been pre­

vented from maintaining order in Palestinian-controlled areas.The
force has been emasculated by Israel and corrupted and factional-
ized from within. The PA will fail therefore to police the expanded
Gaza society and the incorruptible Hamas programmes will pros­
per both on the ground and politically. But then Israel and America,
who have made every attempt to blacken Hamas to the world, will
be able to say.'You see what happens when we try to trust the
Palestinians’The terrorists take over

• Most significantly of all. dunng the month of August 2005. as the

world watched the charade in Gaza, the Jerusalem Envelope was
completed in record time, Israeli crews working on the 25-faot
high concrete barrier day and night As Gaza was left behind by
Israel, Jerusalem was entirely surrounded. More Palestinian familes
were split or isolated by the route of the apartheid wall', and
another 150.000 jews were added from illegal West Bank settle­
ments to Greater Jerusalem (including Ma’ale Adorrum, the largest
settlement in the West Bank with a population of 30.000). So that a
core condition to Middle East peace was physically violated, the
heart of any future Palestinian state cut out before birth.
330 TK DEVHOPMtNT OF ISLAM

Prime Minister Sharon of Israel described the events in Gaza as

heartbreaking'. Palestinians have shed few tears,

Islam and Democracy

In a previous chapter the extravagant claim was made that if free dem­
ocratic elections were ever to be held in the Muslim world, some ver­
sion of an Islamist party, proposing to implement the Shariah, would
come to power in almost even- Muslim country. But what would
happen then? How would such governments bring the Shariah into the
twenty-first century? And. more importantly, would a government that
considered its programmes to be ‘implementing God's law', be pre­
pared to leave office peacefully after a subsequent democratic defeat?
This is unlikely to be tested, however, since democracy and Islam
arc kept firmly apart by history, culture, the corruption of the cur­
rent crew of Muslim rulers, and ironically, the intervention of
America forcing a democratic charade at the end of a gun. The
twenty-two Arab Muslim states are the least democratic ethnic group
in the world. At the end of the twentieth century the average tenure
of their rulers was a feudal twenty years, with Syria becoming the first
'hereditary Muslim republic' with the accession to power of Bashshar
al-Assad. While in 2001, six of the eight most repressive countries in
the world, according to World Audit, were under Muslim regimes:
Afghanistan (under the former Taliban). Iraq (under the former
Ba’thist regime). Libya. Saudi Arabia, Somalia and Sudan.
The building block of traditional Arab society was the desert
tribe with the sheikh at the head, achieving his position partly
through inheritance and partly through strength of character. Ibn
Saud, the most powerful Arab ruler of modern times, died intestate
like Muhammad. 'After my death,' he told his family, 'let the best
man win.’ The contest would, however, have been limited to a small
group of direct male heirs, and the winner would have to gain sup­
port from key members of the tribe based on his physical and
mental qualities, his leadership abilities, and above all on the per­
ception of his baraka. or luck and charisma. Once in power the
sheikh's supporters would become his 'clients’ and to a large extent
he could only rule effectively with their continuing consent. A net­
work of benefits would therefore develop, through which the sheikh
 THE CtVELOWENt OF ISLAM 331

would maintain loyalty. Such benefits would range from delegated

power to regular gifts, to privileged personal access, while down at
the level of the ordinary tribesman, the sheikh would have to prove
himself the ‘father of his people'. A successful sheikh would know
the history and troubles of each family, regular feasts would be held,
and the sheikhs wives would ensure the loyalty of the women of die
tribe with visits and gifts. A sheikh's prestige and authority would
never recover from the reputation of bakhil. or ‘sting}' one’.
Once the sheikh was in power, however, there was no easy way to
be rid of him. There is authority for the entire 'ummah to decide that
their ruler should be replaced for not following the laws of God. But
in a contemporary political context even the preliminary meetings
necessary to establish such a consensus would be broken up by the
existing government and the participants imprisoned. And the Qur’in
offers little encouragement for violent revolution or coup d'etat.

Oh ye who believe!
Obey Allah, and obey the Messenger,
And those charged
With authority among you.
Al-Nud* (The Women) Surah 4, verse 59

In modern times, this traditional power hierarchy can be readily

perverted to the creation of a dictatorship based on a quasi-fascist
system of channelled support. The extraordinary resilience of the
regime of Saddam Hussein in Iraq, for example, only brought down
by the external might of the US, was based on a network of clients
spread throughout the country following the tribal pattern. Clients
were rewarded for loyalty and tied into the fortunes of their leader
through the award of key government posts, or state contracts, or
import licences and control over foreign exchange, among other
benefits. Hussein’s clients among the rural sheikhs sverc similarly
implicated, with grants of land and recognition of authority. Then
each senior client developed lesser clients down the line. At the same
time, ultimate security for the regime was the responsibility of mem­
bers of Hussein’s Tikrit clan, whose fortunes were directly merged
with those of their leader. It is estimated that Iraq’s population of 20
million was in this way controlled by a cadre of no more than
332 THE DEVELOPMENT Of ISLAM

500,000 people, despite a Sunni-Shi'a divide and sustaining dread­

ful damage during a number of wars, as well as the economic devas­
tation (and corruption) of UN sanctions.
Iraq, of course, was an extreme example, but a version of the
leader-client system is at the root of the corrupt tyrannies that
control many Muslim countries, often reinforced by exaggerating
the absolute rule of the Prophet, misquoting the Hadith, and mis­
interpreting the words of the Qur’an. ‘Sixty years with an unjust
Imam.’ Muhammad is reported as saying, ‘is better than a single
night of anarchy.' But this is not a secure Hadith.
Yet Islam appears to accommodate the concept of democracy.
The Qur’an provides at least a starting point for democratic devel­
opment, although the limited passages relating to the shurd. or
process of consultation, are imprecise.

So pass over
Their faults, and ask
For Allah’s forgiveness
For them; and consult
Them in affairs of moment.
Then, when thou hast
Taken a decision
Put thy trust in Allah.
For Allah loves those
Who put their trust in Him.
Al 'Imran (The Family of 'Imran) Surah 3. verse 159

Wide claims arc made based on such verses: that Islam invented
democracy, or that shurd is the foundation of the Shariah, and there­
fore comparable with any Western system. In fact there are only two
references in the text of the Qur’an to shurd. Both arc of a general
nature and in the case of Surah 3, above, apparently addressed to a
figure of traditional authority already in power rather than to any
upwardly hopeful member of the rank and file.
But even if the Shariah, through a liberal ijtihdd based on the
shurd principle, had developed a Muslim tradition of democracy,
before colonialism and subsequent post-colonial liberation
imposed a perverted veneer of the Western version, the concept
 THE OEVROPMENT Of ISt>M 333

would have been severely limited. Because the core difficulty with
‘democratic Islam' is that the will of the people can never be
supreme, but must always be subject to rhe will of God, from
whom flows all power.

Allah has promised, to those

Among you who believe
And work righteous deeds, that He
Will, of a surety, grant them
In the land, inheritance
Of power.
.4/-A'ar(The Light) Surah 24, verse 55

Similarly, a secure Hadith declares unequivocally that 'no one is

entitled to obedience if he disobeys his Creator'.
But who is to judge who ‘among you believe’, and who is
qualified to exercise power as God's vice-regent on earth? Who is to
interpret what God meant in the inexplicit words of the Qur’in?
Who is to judge whether a ruler is obeying or disobeying his
Creator? This is the precise point where liberal and conservative,
democracy and theocracy, collide in Iran, the leading example of an
attempt in the Muslim world at a functioning Islamic state.
The British Parliament, as the supreme power in the land, could
legalize any innovative social activity desired or tolerated by the
voters who arc the ultimate source of that body’s power: gay
marriage, for example (which has already been achieved) the unre­
stricted sale and consumption of drugs, the legalization of prostitu­
tion and so on. But in a Shariah state even the unanimous vote of
an elected parliament could not pass such laws because such activi­
ties are contrary to the Qur’in. This, therefore, is where the chasm
opens, for if the power of the democratically elected representatives
of the people is to be limited, who is to define those limits? Who is
to interpret what is and is not the will of God?
In the Iranian example, as we have seen, the answer to these
questions is that the ultimate power to interpret falls into the hands
of a few mullahs and jurists, the Council of Guardians, and finally
to one man, the Wali Faqih, a cleric in power for life and responsible
to no one other than God. Elected governments may come and go.
3X THE DEVELOPMENT Of ISLAM

bur final authority docs not pass, and the will of the people cannot
dislodge those who have appointed themselves to act in the name of
God.
The ideal ruler in Islamic tradition, as envisaged by the Qur’an,
under whom shura would function as a form of democracy within
the bounds of the Shariah, would be a man (although the Qur’an
docs not prevent a woman from ruling) knowledgeable in the law
and possessed of the qualities of justice, virtue and piety. But this is
merely to restate the threadbare concept of utopia, while in practice
in the real modem examples, the consequences have been dire: a dic­
tatorship of clerics, extravagant abuse of human rights, diplomatic
isolation, gross economic mismanagement and increasing poverty,
all accompanied by the perversion of everything egalitarian that
Islam ideally stands for.
In the Western view there is only one solution to this dilemma:
the separation of church and state, with the will of the people
supreme. Tire secular state becomes a purely political creation, mer­
cifully free of divine help, with personal salvation bv whatever
means left to the discretion of the individual. But. as we have seen,
this is a concept that contradicts the very basis of Qur’snic law and
die very text of the Qur’an. In the Islamic ideal, not only is there no
distinction between 'the things which are Caesar’s’ and ’the things
that are God’s' (Matthew 22:21) but rather the laws of God in Islam
are to replace the purely man-made state. ‘Say’, Muhammad is
instructed in Surah 6; Al An am (The Cattle) at verse 71: ‘Allah’s
guidance is the only guidance and we have been directed to submit
ourselves to the Lord of the worlds.’
The virtuous upward circle of peace, prosperity, accountable sec­
ular democracy, tolerance, and the rule of law. leading to more peace,
more prosperity and so on, has been vindicated by many examples
over the last century, and not only in the West. But in many Muslim
countries, the apparendy irresolvable conflict between Islam and
democracy has developed into a diabolic downward circle of vio­
lence, intolerance and dictatorship while we the West, who could
easily exert influence on our Muslim client-states to reform, in fact
fear the outcome of the very democratic measures which we so regu­
larly preach. For if a truly free election imposed from the outside will
inevitably transform a passive but corrupt virtual dictatorship into an
 THF DEVELOPMENT Of ISLAM 135

unstable and probably undemocratic Islamist state, is it not better to

ensure that democracy and the rule of law remain nothing more than
rhetoric? Or, as internal pressure mounts in a corrupt Muslim state
for reform, which might in turn lead to elections and so to reactive
Islamism, is it nor better for the West to continue support for an
existing compliant and familiar regime regardless of a few excesses
and inconveniences’
This is how hypocrisy is justified, how corrupt ruling elites arc
propped up in many Muslim countries, and ‘extremists’ suppressed,
with the financial markets reassured and the somnambulist citizens
of the West promised that all will soon be right with the world. But
this is also how Muslim anger rises under the lid. These were the
conditions that led to the Iranian Revolution, for example, with the
disastrous results already described.

Under the Lid

Stand of the edge ofThahrir Square in Cairo, at the centre of a city of

17 million, at the cultural heart of 1,400 years of Islam, but among the
ordinary men and women of Egypt for whom life never seems to
improve. How does the Muslim world look from here? How could the
daily routine of violence and corruption be made to disappear? And if
the will of the people, expressed freely and democratically, really were to
be implemented in Muslim countnes. as America purports to wish, how
could the Muslim world look?

• In place of a repressed minority divided between Turkey, Iraq and

Iran, the Kurds would be a new nation with a seat at the UN.
Kurdistan would thrive in peace, with human rights and religious
freedom restored

• In place of absolute nomadic poverty and constant hostility from

Algeria. Morocco, Mak and Niger, the Tuaregs would be another
new nation, able to relate the plight of their people to the outside
world. The Polisario of the former Spanish Sahara would also be
free of Moroccan repression and possibly joined with the Tuareg in
a free southern Saharan nation.
336 THE DEVELOPMENT Of IS1AM

• In place of the National Democratic Party, which would vanish

instantly. Egypt would be free of neopharaonic rulers and
governed by a coalition of able professionals led by the Muslim
Brotherhood The new government would struggle with Egypt’s
bureaucracy, with the armed forces, with poverty and unemploy­
ment and with much reduced American help

• In place of the State of Israel, a new multicultural state would

bonder Egypt Jordan and Lebanon, in which Jews would be a
minority (after the exercise of the Palestinian nght of return) but
accepted as full citizens in a tolerant society inspired by the many
precedents in Islamic history in which Jews have participated in
Muslim admmrstrations (although the reverse has never once been
the case).

• In pace of the bloodstained pouvoir, Algeria would be governed by

the FIS. and no doubt many in the secular middle class would leave
for France. But Europe needs suitable migrants much more urgently
than the obsolete concept of racial punty.

• In place of the unsustainable expense of the House of Saud. Arabia

would be ruled by conservative Bedouin methods based on shuri
Women would not be liberated in the Western sense, full elections
would never be held, nor accounts published, but the instability of
the country, so feared by the West would be gone

• In place of Iraq, the eighty-year-old hangover from the Churchill's

Cairo Conference would finally be cured.The Kurds would leave for
independence, the Shi’a would ally with or join Iran, and the Sunnis
would pin with an expanded Syria in a quasi-Shariah state free of
Alawite rule.

• In place of the state wide repression of the al-Sabbah family.

Kuwaitis would complete the transition to a form of Shanah
democracy, now impeded by their rulers.

• In place of a constant state of emergency, the Jordanian constitution

would be upheld, the king would play a constitutional role only, and
middie-class technocrats allied to the Muslim Brotherhood would
take power.
_______________________ ~»<f DEVELOPMENT O ISLAM___________________ 337

• In place of military rule. Pakistan would muddle along as an ineffi­

cient democracy, with power alternating between the People's
Party and the Muslim League. The threat from India that justifies
Pakistani military and nuclear power would be eliminated because
Kashmir would have voted to leave Indian control and ;om Pakistan.

• In place of American hegemony, Afghanistan would be independent

but still not a democracy, ruled by warlords and an overlord in
Kabul. Poppy production and internal strife would dominate the
state, which would be Islam's basketcase for the foreseeable future,
overwhelmed by history, race, climate and decades of destruction.

Small wonder, therefore, that few Arabs believe American rhetoric as

meaning anything more than sham elections in which US interests are
given the veneer of local approval The most recent example of US
democracy in the Middle East was the re-election of the client regime of
Hosni Mubarak in Egypt in 2005. when the hugely popular opposition,
the Muslim Brotherhood, was banned, with the leader of the party,
Hassan el-Brince. impnsoned for the duration together with fifty-seven
other senior members of the party,
 7

TRAVELLING IN DARAL-ISLAM

I Culture, Religion and Social Progress

Although relegated to the last chapter of this book, the culture of

twenty-first century Dar al-lslam, or the Muslim world, is important.
Culture in the wider sense of way of life’ can either facilitate or
hinder social progress, and the culture of a country is what the trav­
eller sees on the streets, meeting the people and visiting the sites.
A comparison was made in Chapter 1 between the economies of
South Korea and Egypt, which in 1950 shared the same level of
GDP, as well as similar levels of foreign aid. But now. more than half
a century later, the two countries return figures of $9,400 GDP per
head and $1,290 respectively, according to The Economist. World in
Figures.
Despite Egypt's superior location, self-sufficiency in oil, and the
'unearned' benefits from the Suez Canal, South Korea has moved
ahead to become the twelfth largest economy in the world, through
the development of a sophisticated manufacturing sector producing
everything from vehicles to electronics. Egypt, in contrast, now lan­
guishes in forty-first position, and with an ominous fertility rate
almost double that of Nonh Korea. There are. no doubt, many sec­
ondary reasons for this startling discrepancy, but surely the primary
explanation must be South Korea’s culture of thrift, hard work, lack
of tolerance for corruption, education and discipline, increasingly
consolidated by democracy, and the fact that most of these charac­
teristics are largely missing in Egypt.
The European culture of learning and improving is the bedrock
of the industrial and knowledge revolutions that have come to dom­
inate the world. Similarly the disciplined self-reliant desert culture
of Arabia, released by Islam from the self-defeating bondage of inter­
tribal warfare, carried the seventh century Muslim horsemen into
the heart of the Byzantine and Sassanid empires to create the
caliphate as a new world power. How wrong, therefore, the Nazi
writer Hans Johst was, when in 1934 he had one of his characters
 TRAVELLING IN DAX ALISLAM

say, 'whenever I hear the word culture... 1 release the safety-catch

on my pistol'. In retrospect the words could be seen as carrying a
prediction of the great wreckage that was to follow on from the
National Socialist hijacking of centuries of German culture.
The core of the complicated and controversial link between cul­
ture and social progress has rarely been better expressed than in the
words of Daniel Patrick Moynihan, twenty-four years an American
senator, and that extinct beast among politicians, an intellectual free
of preconceptions: ‘The central conservative truth is that culture not
politics determines the success of a society. The central liberal truth
is that politics can change a culture and save it from itself.’
Moynihans conservative truth is certainly self-evident in most
Muslim societies. The question facing Islam is whether the inherited
culture of the Qur’an is capable of incubating the liberal changes
necessary for social success in the twenry-first century, as was the
case in the seventh century example given above, when Islam
adapted fast to new circumstances.
As we have seen throughout this book, many of the right ingre­
dients are theoretically present in Islam to support progress, from
honesty and hard work to group social responsibility, but these pos­
sibilities are all too frequently frustrated by human agency. The gen­
eral failure of Muslim society to educate women, for example, and
give access to the workforce (not to mention political power), when
there is no Qur’anic justification for such practices, is a clear exam­
ple of culture, rather than Islam, impeding economic progress.
Another illustration, the 'Big Basha', or ‘Saladin Syndrome' in
Muslim society, which has also been considered, visibly undermines
individuality and initiative, while tacitly condoning all manner of
abuses, none of which is justified by pure Islam.
To explain the diverging paths of progress in South Korea and
Egypt as the social result of inshah'allah. or 'if Allah wishes' would
be tempting. For if God, following His own inscrutable reasoning,
has willed a man to be poor, ignorant and malnourished, that is how
he will be and nothing can be done. Protestantism in general and
Calvinism in particular were also once based on belief in the pre­
destination of the pre-damned' and the pre-saved'. Yet the values of
Northern Europe, subsequently spread to North America, have gone
on to create the greatest bastions of wealth and progress the world
3«0 TRAVELLING IN OAR Al-ISLAM

has ever known, by inverting the culture to define the pre-saved' as

men and women demonstrating such qualities as self-motivation,
honesty, patience, tenacity, hard work, competitiveness and so on.
But Sunni Islam, as we have seen, has no cultural hierarchy from
which such practical leadership could How, with the result that even
the most prominent Muslim scholars are mere individuals, deploy­
ing deep spiritual training and human compassion, but with link
knowledge of, or influence over the outside world.
Possibly the question is so complex, a combination of religion,
history, politics, psychology, anthropology, geography and probably
a lot more, that no clear explanation can be given for the difference
between the present conditions of North Korea and Egypt. But
progress does not have to be measured solely in terms of Gross
Domestic Product. A Muslim would point to the many aspects of his
or her culture that are considered to be more important than worldly
wealth. A Westerner would certainly answer that this is merely to
restate lhe problem, because productivity in the Western view is the
ultimate source of civilization, in the form of good healthcare, a live­
able urban environment, education, arts, civil rights, recreation, and
all the other existential benefits that make up the backbone of an
improved 'way of life’. (Although, to take a different viewpoint,
stressed South Korea has more than ten times the Western average of
alcohol-related vehicle accidents, and Egypt has none.)
America has also flirted with cultural importance. Less than a
month after the attacks on Washington and New York on September
11 th, 2001. as their massive military response was in preparation,
the civil response was announced: the US was to be rebranded.
A Madison Avenue sage (Charlotte Beers, former head of both
J. Walter Thompson and Ogilvy and Mather, whose career was
established by her successful brand marketing of Uncle Ben’s Rice)
was installed as the Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy,
to pull off the biggest assignment in advertising history. Rather than
Barbie, Baywatch and Chicken McNuggets, America was to be
known henceforth for tolerance, democracy and freedom: the qual­
ities which for the American people, whatever the rest of the world
may think, define their society. Possibly, however, the nature of the
mandate said more about the true nature of American culture than
the ensuing publicity campaign ever could. Charlotte Beers and her
 IRAVtUJNG IN DAR Al-ISCAM
211
successor left after only months in office, to be succeeded in 2005
by Karen Hughes from the senior management of the Bush re-elec­
tion campaign. At her nomination hearing only two senators were
present, confirming that the office has lost its effectiveness (and
budgetary priority). To the Muslim world, what the US does is more
important than what the government says.
Muslims, on the other hand, look to their faith and their history
for the exact mirror image of Americas ambitions as a defence
against the strength of the ‘universal culture’ of die liberal West.
Probably at no other time in the history of Islam, which for cen­
turies was a dominant force and rarely a defensive one, has culture
been so important to the Muslim world. ‘We will be modern,’ this
observer is told by Muslims time and time again, ‘but we will not be
you.' But how social and economic progress will be speeded up in
Muslim countries in the ‘knowledge era’ without deep penetration
by the West is never convincingly explained.

II God Without an Image

Even though America is probably die most religious country in the

Western world, with 85 per cent of the population professing belief
in a god, religion was not considered in Ms Beers’ mandate as form­
ing part of American culture. Religion in America is considered to
be entirely contained within the word ‘freedom’, the basis of the
United States Constitution (which does not once mendon the word
‘god’). Faith for Americans is a free personal choice and therefore, in
theory, has no place in the group activities of national politics and
culture. Even school prayer is banned by a long-standing Supreme
Court interpretation of the Constitution. In practice, of course. US
elections arc won and lost through religious support, as if the
President’s job description included ‘Chaplain-in-Chicf’. And a
low-level battle rages constantly in US courts and legislatures
between secularists attempting to uphold the strict separation of
church and state, and religious groups intent on government fund­
ing for religious schools and ‘faith-based’ initiatives.
But in Islam culture is religion anti the two cannot be separated.
Just as mosque and state fuse in the ideal Shariah society to become
3« TRAVtUING IM DAR AL-ISLAM

a complete ‘way of life’, so all cultural expression in Islam should

similarly centre on tawhid, the very core of belief, the affirmation of
the Oneness of God, the Unknowable, the Unseeable, the transcen­
dent Creator, encapsulated by the words of the First Pillar of Islam:
‘1 bear witness that there is no god but God and that Muhammad is
the messenger of God.’
When a Muslim artist views his an through this inescapable
prism of belief, therefore, his task Ls to portray tauihid But exactly
contrary to Christian practice, rite Oneness of God is not to be
found reflected in the human form, as in the Christian tradition of
man created in the ‘image of God’, or God 'made flesh’ in the form
of Christ, a universal subject of Western art. Animal form is also
beyond the reach of Muslim art as part of God’s animate creation,
and the stricter interpretations of Islam even regard the reproduc­
tion of trees, flowers and landscape as offensive. Rather, the entity of
the Muslim God is by definition beyond definition, and simply
inexpressible, so the inexpressible is what the Muslim artist must find
a way to express. (This should not be confused, however, with the
attributes of God. many of which are detailed in rhe Qur'an.)
The traditional solution to this conundrum is to stylize the impal­
pable Godhead with the arabesque' geometric design (see p. 406) that
extends away in all directions ad infinitum, giving the impression that
there is no boundary between this world and the next. The object dec­
orated in this way. textile for example, wood, ceramic tiling, pillars,
domes, pottery, or the page of a book, becomes a weightless transparent
statement of tau’hid, with no distinction between the physical and the
spiritual, and thus exudes a sense of profound tranquillity. The pattern
has no static focal point, but moves seamlessly from one module to the
next, providing an artistic rendering of the frequently repeated Qur’anic
concept, that wherever one turns, there is the presence of Allah.
In Islam, therefore, portraying the physical world through exam­
ples from nature or the human form is at best a mere secular effort,
at worst a vain and self-centred pursuit. There is no Muslim equiv­
alent of Picasso, or el Greco or Fra Angelico (and certainly no Rodin
or Toulouse-Lautrec) because what is seen as the slavish representa­
tion of extant creation by Western artists is of no value in a religious
culture that seeks to reach for the divine and bypass everything that
is not God. Victorious Muslims first entering the churches and
 t RAVELLING M DARAL-1SLAM M3

palaces of the Byzantines, and coming face to face with the intrica­
cies of Christian religious representational art, must have thought
themselves to be in the very shrines of idolatry. But, nevertheless, the
works of art of Christendom were left unmolested, since between
the peoples who share Allah's book. His angels and His Messengers,
'We make no distinction between one and the other’ (Al-Ii<iqarah
(The Heifer) Surah 2, verse 285).
Modern Western scholars have attempted to link the arabesque to
molecular patterns seen under a microscope, or natural crystalline
formations, concluding that Islamic art 'unknowingly imitated tlte
work of God’. But this line of analysis is in itself contrary to the true
motivation of Muslim art. Rather, a parallel could be drawn with the
work of Paul Klee, Rothko or Joan Mir6, whose patterned art and
reductionist ambitions resonate mote closely with Muslim objectives.
This sensitive Islamic theory of inexpressibility developed over
time into a body of rules that specifically prohibited the depiction of
animal and human life-forms in mosques. Both al-Bokhari and
Muslim report that die Prophet said: 'Those who make pictures will
be chastised on the Day of Judgement and it will be said to them,
"Now put life into that which you have made”.'
Over the Muslim centuries rhe status of representational an
depicting animals or human ponrairurc has deteriorated from being
merely extra-religious to become against Islam'. So, by extension,
any creativity not harnessed to a communal religious objective has
come to be discouraged by Muslim culture as a deviation from the
true path of submission. Representational art is not specifically pro­
hibited by the Qur’an, but once this 'God-centred' attitude had
developed, well-known passages like the lines below were used to
support the idea that the descriptive artist blasphemes with his an.
by coming close to competing with God.

To Him is due
The primal origin
Of the heavens and the earth.
When He dccrccth a matter
He saith to it: 'Be,'
And it is.
At-BiUjanh (The Hcifct) Surah 2. verse 117
 TRAVELLING IN DAR AL-ISLAM

This interpretation explains the skill and the inspiration lavished by

Muslim craftsmen on the ornamentation of such non-contentious
and faceless objects as weapons, furniture, metal work, stone and
ceramics.
Representational art, sculpture, and carving in particular, is also
uncomfortably dose to the creation of idols. The overthrow of idol­
atry in favour of the One God is the central message of Islam, and
was the apogee of Muhammad’s career, Ibn Sa'd (d. 844 CE), an
early biographer of the Prophet, describes the scene:

The Prophet, may the prayer and peace of Allah be with

him, entered Mecca as the conqueror; the people convened
to Islam, some willingly and some reluctandy. The Prophet,
may rhe prayer and peace of .Allah be with him. still on
his mount, made the ritual circuits around the Ka’bah,
where 360 idols were displayed. And every time he passed
by an idol, pointing his cane be declaimed, ‘Truth has come
and falsehood has vanished, for falsehood by its nature is
bound to vanish.' And as this sentence was pronounced,
each idol slid from its pedestal and smashed to the

This event was the symbolic implementation of monotheism in

Arabia, but a more sinister interpretation of these events can also be
made. In the chaotic pagan world of the Juhiliyyah, every household
and every man and woman had their individual god. to be touched
or spoken to at every turn: when travelling, when entering or leav­
ing the home, and especially in times of stress. These idols in their
thousands and their hundreds of thousands were personal and each
one was different, so that idolatry thus represented a form of free­
dom of thought, or s/wfc But the word shirk, which appears 160
times in the Qur’an, was reconstructed by Islam to mean something
completely different: the eternally unforgivable wrong of worship­
ping something or someone other than, or as a partner with. Allah.
Believers, like the men of Mecca themselves after die opening of
their city, are offered peace and security by Islam, as well as the
promise of paradise eternal. But the penalty is obedience to God and
His Prophet in the present, and the relinquishing of freedom of
thought on an artistic level. More dangerously, as wc have seen, this
 IHAVHJMG IN OAR Al-61AM MS

can be developed into die concept of religious conformity to be

manipulated by tyrants into acceptance by their subjects of limits to
economic enterprise, civil rights and democracy.
Exceptions to the prohibition against animal and human
figurative an do exist, however, particularly among the first and
second generations of Muslims following rhe death of rhe Prophet,
and later quite widely among non-Arab Muslims. Most famously, the
Umayyads from primitive Mecca, unsophisticated by the standards
of their recently acquired Byzantine subjects, hired Christian artists
to embellish their new monuments. The floor and walls of the court­
yard of the Great Mosque in Damascus (completed in 714 Ct) were
originally covered with a green and gold mosaic depicting a popu­
lated Qur’anic paradise against a background of fantastic succulent
trees and multi-hued flowers. At the end of the nineteenth century,
however, fire destroyed this great work except for a few perimeter
wall sections. 'It was surely the hand of God,' this observer’s official
guide concluded as we stood together on the edge of the renovated
courtyard, now relaid in stark marble, desert bare and blindingly
white in the summer heat. In Umayyad Spain, in another example,
great lions were carved to support the basin in the Court of Lions in
the Alhambra palace in Granada.
After the European Renaissance of the sixteenth century GE,
some forms of representational art spread to the Muslim world, but
neither character nor emotion were ever fully expressed. The Hadith
that became a tradition, or a rule, had effectively removed interpre­
tive art from the Muslim repertoire, even when some representation
was tolerated. Even today no Muslim text attempts to illuminate
religion with pictures. No pictures of the Prophet hang on the walls
of mosques or in the homes of any Muslim. Photography is now
widely accepted, however, and even the most conservative of
Muslim newspapers includes photographs of the men and women in
the news. The absolute prohibition remaining in the modem day is
against human statuary. although even this is occasionally breached
by egomaniacal political bosses.
On the other hand, Muslim abstract art of all kinds, shows a pro­
found appreciation of colour and light, with the most successful cre­
ating the impression of an opening to the infinite. In the opinion of
experts the brilliant hues of Persian and Turkish pottery have rarely
Mt TRAVELLING IN OAR AL-6LAM

been surpassed anywhere in the world, for example, and the use of
colour by Muslim artists in the design of prayer rugs, carpets and
illuminated books is without comparison.

Ill Mosque Architecture

The highest form of Muslim an, however, is mosque architecture.

With the design and construction of a mosque the artist magnifies
God. the mosque provides the physical setting for the practice of
Islam, and usually stands at the heart of a Muslim community.
Further, those involved with such a project follow the example of the
Prophet himself from the early days of the Medina Commonwealth,
when Muhammad built the first mosque with his own hands.
For these reasons Muslim cities are everywhere dotted with infor­
mal mosques, in addition to the readily visible free-standing mosques.
These little prayer rooms are situated in basements and alleyways, in
office buildings and petrol filling-stations. As we have seen, no dedi­
cation of a mosque is needed beyond pious intention, making die
process of establishing a corner mosque very simple. In fact the whole
earth is considered to be a mosque and prayers can take place in any
suitable location (except bathhouses, camel pens and any odier
unclean place). In addition, many Muslim regimes offer a tax conces­
sion for the building containing such a mosque, although dtis in turn
brings both mosque and mullah to the notice of the authorities. Verse
18 of Surah 9 Al-Tatubah (The Repentance) is commonly found dis­
played in an informal mosque to show that the area is set aside for
worship.

The mosques of Allah

Shall be visited and maintained
By such as believe in Allah
And the Last Day. establish
Regular prayers and practice
Regular charity, and fear
None at all except Allah.

Formal mosque design, on the other hand, al-masjid al-jami'.

intended for use by an entire community, falls into three categories.
 TRAVELING IN LIAR AL4SLAM 347

• The courtyard mosque follows Muhammad's original layout and

is common in hot climates. The building consists of a rectangular
court ol which one wall faces the qibla, or direction of prayer
towards Mecca. The qibla end is roofed, or enclosed for some dis­
tance back, with aisles created by the supporting columns. In
normal daily use, this part of the mosque, which is often carpeted,
is of sufficient size for those wishing to pray. On Fridays or feast days
the courtyard is used to accommodate extra rows of the faithful,
lined up to match the covered aisles. In more sophisticated vari­
ations on the design, a cloister of columns rather than a bare wall
encloses other three sides of the courtyard.

• The cruciform madrasah mosque, widely used in Persia and

Egypt from the twelfth century, consists of a courtyard, usually open
to the sky, enclosed by four large covered halls, each of equal size,
opening on to the central courtyard. The halls arc free of columns
and usually raised by one step above the level of the courtyard. One
of the four halls will contain the qibla wall and will be in constant
use. The other halls are filled when necessary with rows matching
those facing the qibla. The origin of the design was as a madrasah
with one hall each for the four principal schools offiqh, often with
accommodation for the students on other floors behind or above.
Lessons would be held in the halls by the mullah of each school,

• The third type, the domed mosque, favoured by the Ottoman

sultans, is entirely enclosed, and is thus the design usually followed
in temperate climates. The typical profile of a European mosque is
a dome in copper or marble over a rectangle. The prayer hall is
under the dome and consists of one large room with few columns,
in which the faithful line up facing the qtbla wall.

The elements of a mosque consist of the prayer hall facing Mecca,

with the qibla wall designated by rhe mihrab, an empty niche, often
made of intricately carved stone. A minbarot pulpit, usually made of
wood and ornately decorated, faces the congregation, from which the
Friday khutba is given. A few aisles back from the qibla wall a
maqsura, or raised platform, accommodates Qur’an reciters, local
chieftains, or a speaker who will repeat the words of the khutba, ot
the invocations during prayers, as the}- arc spoken to those further
Mg TRAVELLING IN OAR Al SLAM

away (but made redundant in modern times by die dubious advance

of electronic amplification). Women, who are always segregated at
prayer, are usually provided with a balcony above the prayer hall, or
a screened area to one side. Modern mosques include extensive
plumbed washing facilities for ablutions, separated from the main
part of the mosque or hidden in the basement in the case of modern
buildings. In early mosques an ablution fountain often stood at the
entrance to the courtyard, or in the case of the cruciform madrasah
design, in the middle of the courtyard. Ablution fountains were often
free standing roofed structures of great artistic merit. The most easily
distinguished feature of a mosque is the minaret, from which (before
the advent of amplification) the muezzin called the azan five times
per day. Minarets provide a simple method by which the origin,
influence and dating of a mosque can be readily established.

Minaret detign
 OWt U ING N DARALISI AM W

IV The Harams

Mecca and Medina

Mecca (or more correctly. Makkah al-Mukarramah, Makkah rhe
Blessed) and Madina (Madinat al-Nabiyy. the City of the Prophet,
also known as al-Madinat ab-Munaunvarah, Medina the Radiant, or
the Radiant City) stand apart from all other Muslim holy places.
These arc the cities where irrefutably Muhammad was born, under­
took his ministry, created his ideal Commonwealth, died and is
buried. For this reason Mecca and Medina, each centred on a much
extended and now vast mosque, arc haram, or sacred precincts. Non­
Muslims may not enter, and for believers special rules of behaviour
apply.
Standing before the Ka'bah in Mecca is an overwhelming expe­
rience: for a believer, the structure is the Primordial Temple,
reflecting the presence of God, and lies on the cosmic axis connect­
ing heaven and earth. The pilgrim is at the very centre of Islam, the
qibla of prayer from all around the world, and at the final destina­
tion of his or her pilgrimage. History is all around, stretching back,
in Muslim legend, to the very beginnings of human existence on
earth. A few kilometres outside the city, on the plain of Arafat.
/\dam and Eve found each other again after tailing from the Garden
of Paradise. The city is where, in fact as in legend, Adam built the
first 'house of rest’, the original Ka'bah, on the present site, and later
again, this is where Noah’s ark settled after the flood. Here also,
Ibrahim, the father of monotheism, brought Hajar and her son
Ismi'il at the direction of God. abandoning them in the desert to
His mercy, which was fulfilled in the form of the well of Zamzam.
Later, when the child had grown into a boy, Ibrahim prepared to
offer IsmS'il in sacrifice, again on divine orders. Then, in thanks to
God for His intervention, preventing the consummation of the
sacrifice, Ibrahim rebuilt Adam’s Ka'bah and initiated the haj.
Finally Muhammad, born and raised in the city, returned victorious
from Medina as the Messenger of Allah to cleanse the Ka’bah and
reinstate the haj. together with the religion of the One God.
Since the death of Muhammad, through fourteen centuries of
tumultuous Muslim history, the title of the Custodian of the Two
Holy Mosques' of Mecca and Medina has ranked in importance
350 TRAVELLING IN DAR AL-ISLAM

second only to that of Caliph. And since the abolition of the caliphate
in 1924 the office of Custodian may be said to be the most impor­
tant in Islam. Although traditionally associated with Muhammad's
Hashemite clan of the Meccan Quraysh tribe, the al-Saud family
assumed the role when in 1926 the British permitted the expulsion by
ibn Saud's forces of al-Hussein ibn Ali, the last Hashemite Amir of
Mecca. The entire Ottoman vilayet of the Hijaz was then merged into
what was shortly to become Saudi Arabia.
The site of the city of Mecca is described in the Qur’an through
the words of Ibrahim himself as 'an infertile vale'. The city sits in a
hard rocky valley, and the surrounding area is incapable of any
agricultural production, even with the modern provision of copious
water. Rather it was the presence of the Ka’bah that determined
the original position of the city, and trade and service industries
connected to religion have sustained the population ever since,
stretching back into the days of the Johiliyyah. Fear of the loss of
revenues from religious tourism and associated trade fairs, should
the religion of the One God prevail over the idolatry of the many,
was at the heart of the Qurayshite opposition to monotheism and
Muhammad's ministry.
The economic base of the city today is not significantly different,
although tremendous physical changes have overtaken Mecca
during the last fifty years. Pilgrims have increased from 100,000
during die haj season of 1950 to 3 million in 2004, of whom more
than half come from countries other than Saudi Arabia, ite
reccndy imposed country quotas. The lesser pilgrimage of the ‘umru
attracts a further 3 million visitors each year, a figure which is grow­
ing at the rate of 25-30 per cent per annum. Prince Sultan ibn
Salman, head of the Saudi tourist promotion agency, predicts a total
of 34 million visitors to Mecca annually by the year 2020.
The al-Saud family has spent over S35 billion in recent years on
pilgrimage facilities and on extensions to the mosques of both
Mecca and Medina, but still more is required to accommodate the
anticipated growth. Hie hospitality trade to pilgrims now employs
four times as many workers as Saudi Arabia's oil industry, and new

the traditional narrow streets and brick houses of old Mecca, creat­
ing yet more economic activity. In parts of the city, land is now
 TRAVELLING IN DAR AL-S.LAM

priced at $60,000 per square metre, many times more than values in
the centre of Hong Kong, London or New York,
The Holy Mosque, the largest in the world, is more a feat of
accommodation than architecture. After the second Saudi extension
was completed in 1995, the mosque has become a vast open-air
amphitheatre accommodating more than 500,000 worshippers at
once on multiple levels, lacing the Ka’bah in the centre. The exte­
rior walls of the building are topped by five pairs of huge minarets,
and plazas around the exterior provide space to pray for further hun­
dreds of thousands of pilgrims.
The materials and finishes of the entire structure are of the high­
est quality, set to last for centuries. Marble, granite and mosaic,
brought from the best sources all over the world, often worked with
the most intricate designs, cover every surface. The mosque is also
supplied by services to a matching standard of excellence: air condi­
tioning. toilets and ablutions (the latter fed by the water of the well
of Zamzam), lighting systems, crowd control systems, sound sys­
tems, CCTV, emergency exits, a bus depot and multiple under­
ground parking garages.

Medina, in contrast to Mecca, is surrounded by greenery. The

Medinan oasis is fed by bountiful deep wells of fresh water and the
sandy soil when irrigated produces famous pomegranates, dates and
sugar-sweet grapes. Although here, too, real estate development has
changed the face of the city and now covers many of the formerly
productive orchards.
Medina is often referred to as soft, or ‘feminine, to accentuate
the contrast with the harshness of Mecca, 320 kilometres distant.
Medina, for a believer, flows with the special baraka of Muhammad.
His presence is felt everywhere, while the ground is sanctified by his
remains. These sentiments explain the name ‘Medina the Radiant'.
Although not forming part of the route of the haj, Medina is usu­
ally visited by pilgrims after the rituals at Mecca are complete. The
central attraction of the city is the Prophet's Mosque, of which the
core is the building constructed with Muhammad's own hands in
the years after the hijrah, and which became the model for mosques
the world over. The Prophet's Mosque has been hugely enlarged
over the years (and the original construction by the Prophet is no
3S2 tRAVtlUNG H DAB AL-ISLAM

longer visible), again using materials of the finest quality. But in all
respects, size, elaboration, services and impact, the Prophets Mosque
ranks second to the Holy Mosque ot Mecca. The Prophet’s Mosque
contains the Prophets tomb, with Abu Bakr and ‘Umar, the first and
second caliphs, lying beside him. Pilgrims cannot enter the tomb, and
must offer their prayers from outside a series of elaborate golden gates.
The Prophets Mosque is entirely enclosed and heavily air-
conditioned, topped by a dome in a deep dusty green, the shade that
has become the colour of Islam, representing precious desen fecun­
dity and thus the Mercy of Allah (although the dome is now
dwarfed by the ten enormous minarets of the later extensions). A
large plaza behind the mosque, there being more space in Medina
than in the Hint)’ valley that limits Mecca, brings the total number
of believers that can be accommodated simultaneously at the
mosque for prayers to one million.

Jerusalem: lira and Mi'raj

The two great Muslim buildings of Jerusalem, the Dome of the
Rock and al-Aqsa Mosque, known together al-Haram ai-Sharif, the
Noble Sanctuary, constitute the third haram of Islam. The 'Rock' for
which die Dome is named is a dark wedge of natural bedrock, rising
almost two metres out of the ground directly under the Dome. Here
the traveller encounters the very spot where Judaism (and therefore
Christianity) and Islam intersect. This, in Muslim legend, was the
destination of the Prophet’s Night Journey, or Isrd, and the depar­
ture point for the Prophet’s ascension to heaven, or Mi'raj. But this
is also the same rock that in Jewish belief Abraham used as the altar
for the sacrifice of Isaac (which in Muslim belief took place outside
Mecca). ’Al-Aqsa' Mosque, the second building, means the Farthest’
Mosque, named by reference to the opening lines of Surah 17, Al-
Isra (The Night Journey):

Glory to Allah who did take His Servant for a Journey by

night from the Sacred Mosque (in Mecca) to the Farthest
Mosque (in Jerusalem).

The Jerusalem site is considered by Muslims to lie a haram

because by tradition Muhammad was present in the city, as he was
 TRAVEUING IN DAR At-ISLAM 3S3

in Mecca and Medina. For this reason, informally among Muslims

and often in the Western press, the Jerusalem Haram is referred to
as the ‘third holiest site in Islam’. But the presence of the Prophet in
the city, whether mythical or existential, is unresolved, so that
Jerusalem is of lesser importance, and unlike Mecca or Medina, has
never been an exclusively Muslim city.
Although Islam is currently in possession of the Haram, under­
lying ownership is claimed by the State of Israel. Jews, together with
many Christians, know the site as the 'Temple Mount’, referring
back to purported Jewish use of the site in pre-Islamic times. The
place is also referred to by Torah and Old Testament enthusiasts as
'Mount Moriah' after Genesis 22:2, where the description of
Abraham's sacrifice begins, even though only the 'land of Moriah' is
referred to in the story, and not any 'mount'. But these apparently
minor nuances conceal an explosive potency, even in the twenty-first
century. The militaristic penetration of the Jerusalem Haram in
2000 by General Sharon (later Israeli prime minister, and frequently
described by President George W. Bush as a 'man of peace’) in order
to assert Israel's 'eternal' ownership of the site ‘up to the heavens',
was the event that sparked what came to be known as the al-Aqsa
intifada. The uprising resulted in the violent deaths of more than a
thousand non-combatant civilians. (Sharon had also contributed to
the start of the earlier intifada of 1987, by moving into a requisi­
tioned house in the Arab quarter of the city.)
The competing claim to the Haram by Palestinians begins with
the indigenous residence of their Jebusite ancestors. Excavation has
uncovered the Jebusitc acropolis of Sion, south of the present wails
of the Old City of Jerusalem, linked to an established settlement
named for the Jebusite pagan god Shalem (making the city Ur-
Shalem, from which the name Jerusalem is derived) and constitut­
ing a recognizable pre-Jewish civilization dating from the fourteenth
century BCE, or possibly earlier.
Jebusite civilization was followed by occupation of the same
ground by successor tribes of proto-Palesrinians, of which the best
known are the Canaanites and the Philistines. The tribal name
'Philistine' is the origin of the word Palestine, from the 'land of
Filistia’ (and manipulated by Torah propagandists to mean, accord­
ing to the Oxford English Dictionary, ‘uncultured person, one whose
3S< TRAVELLING IN DAR. AC-ISLAM

interests are material and commonplace', a derogatory term that is

surely well overdue for oblivion like 'nigger' or 'yid'). Then recog­
nizable Palestinians appear after the conquest of Palestine by
Alexander the Great in the fourth century BCE, followed by the
Egyptian Ptolemies and the Greek Sclcucids. Finally, Palestinians
live in the full light of history from Roman times onward.
The period of more than 1,300 years stretching from the Jebusitc
settlement of Ur-Shalem to the arrival in Palestine of the Roman
Empire in 63 BCE, is the period allegedly occupied by the Torah sto­
ries: the leadership of Moses, the Exile and the Wandering, David
then Solomon's rule from Jerusalem, the establishment of the Twelve
Tribes of Jacob, the construction of the First Jerusalem Temple, the
construction, destruction and reconstruction of the Second Temple,
and a few subsequent periods ofJewish political rule. But other than
the text of the Torah, no support whatever exists for these events,
either on the ground (one of the most ardently excavated areas in the
world), or in the records of neighbours who arc claimed to have been
involved, principally Assyria. Egypt and Babylon.
In die Palestinian view, therefore, the Torah stories are entirely
unsubstantiated. Rather. Judaism is considered to have emerged
from a monotheistic tribal cult which slowly divided the Yahwist
Hebrew tribe from the pre-existing pagan Jebusite and Canaanite
tribes to become the Jewish faith. In the Palestinian view, Hebrew
history was created retroactively, taken from various scraps, myths
and the traditions of others, to form the books of the Torah, and
only assembled in final form during the first century CE, with the
presence of the discommodious Canaanites explained away as the
progeny of the non-Hcbrew concubines of the mythical Abraham.
By the time the first outside conquerors arrived in Palestine from
the northern coast of the Mediterranean in the fourth century BCE,
the Hebrews were an organized elite society, and various accommo­
dations were made with the new powers, beginning with Alexander
the Great in 332 BCE, But in 164 BCE, during the decline of the
Greek Seleucid Empire that followed Alexander and his successors,
the Egyptian Ptolemies, the Hebrews revolted against outside dom­
ination under the leadership of Judah Maccabee who established a
short-lived Jewish state. The Maccabees then evolved into the
aggressive House of Hasmon, which forced the population of much
 TRAVtlLING IN DAA Al -ISLAM 155

of Palestine to choose between conversion to Judaism and expulsion,

in an attempt to create a permanent Jewish majority. With these
events the 1,300 pages of the Old Testament and the Apocrypha
come to an end and only then merge with archaeologically and inde­
pendently supported history.
The defeat of the Jewish House of Hasmon by the Roman general
Pompes' in 63 BCE led indirectly to the appointment of Herod the
Great as king of Judea by the Roman Senate in 40 BCE, a character
well known to every Christian for the story of his legendary attempt
to murder the baby Jesus. Seven hundred years of Roman rule in
Palestine were now about to begin and the Christian era was dawn­
ing. Over the following two millennia after their defeat by Rome,
Jews would be only a tiny minority in Palestine, and hardly present
even in Jerusalem, with Palestinian possession, as the overwhelming
majority, continuing as before, reaching back to the start of history.
From an outsider's point of view, however, this Muslim counter
to the Torah tradition is clouded by the unambiguous reference in
the Qur’an ('the unerring Word of God') to the Promised Land,
which is the principal founding myth of Israel (Surah 5, Al-Ma idah
(The Repast), verses 20-26, and Surah 17. Al-lsra (The Night
Journey), verses 2-8). Then the construction of the Dome of the
Rock directly over die rocky outcrop claimed by Judaism as sacred
was a clear statement of Muslim belief, at least at the time of the
construction, that on this same site had once stood one or more
Jewish temples (in the last of which Christ, in the Christian version,
had preached and overturned the tables of the moneylenders). By
choosing this particular place, therefore, Islam was giving physical
substance to the claim of the new faith in the Qur’an to be die
inheritor and perfcctor of all that had gone before. The Palestinian
explanation of the present state of affairs in Jerusalem, based on
archaeology, may therefore appear to be inconsistent with the
Qur’anic version. But die Qur’an expects all three Abrahamic' reli­
gions to be dealt with equally and to cooperate, rather than to allow
differences to become a source of territorial contention.
The Christian claim to Jerusalem receives the same Muslim
response, since Jesus in the Qur’an was not the Son of God, but 'no
more than a Messenger.' In this version Jesus was taken alive up to
heaven and not crucified, thus eliminating at a stroke the sanctity of
 rRAVtLLING IN DARAL-ISL*M

such key Christian sites in Jerusalem as the Via Dolorosa of the

Stations of the Cross and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. And in
any case, Muslims also emphasize, no evidence exists to support the
story of Christ in Jerusalem (or anywhere else). Here again the
Dome of the Rock gives physical substance to Islam's mission to
'correct' the misinterpretations of previous beliefs by emblazoning
the admonishing words of Al-Nisa (The Women). Surah 4. verse
171 (among others) around the inside of the Dome.

So believe
In Allah and His Messengers
Say not 'Trinity': desist
It will be better for you.
For Allah is One God
Glory be to Him:
Far Exalted is He above
Having a son.

Herod ruled the southern part of Judea from his capital of

Jerusalem on behalf of Rome until 4 BCE. He undertook the recon­
struction of die city, including most importantly the great project
that today constitutes the 10-hectarc platform on which the Haram
sits, originally the site of a form ofJewish temple. But Herod, whose
father was a non-Jewish Idumean and whose mother was a pagan
Arabian princess, corrupted pure Jewish values, and he also built
pagan temples, including one to the god' Augustus Caesar. Herod's
last patron. Only well after Herod's death was the temple project
completed and finally adopted as fully Jewish, a mere ten or so years
before the temple was then destroyed by the Romans. There is no
evidence of any kind to define what was on the site before Herods
work began, certainly nothing has been found to substantiate the
Jewish claim diat the rebuilt Second Temple preceded Herod’s
temple in the same location. The Jewish Western Wall, or Wailing
Wall, is only from this period therefore, and no earlier.
After die two Jewish uprisings against Rome, and devastation of
70 and 135 CE that followed, no Jews were left in Jerusalem, and the
forced converts to Judaism from Hasmon rule soon resumed their
pagan ways. Rome then converted from paganism to Christianity
in 324, together with some Palestinian natives, and Jerusalem
 rRAVEUJNG W DAR Al-SLAM 3S7

quickly became a very Christian city, then a part of the Byzantine

Empire, the inheritors of Rome in die eastern Mediterranean.
Churches were built, most famously the Church of the Holy
Sepulchre, and the city filled up with monks and nuns.
With the defeat of the Byzantines by the Muslims in 636, the
Palestinians step forward from the shadows of history to become
Arabized, mostly converted to Islam, and subjects of the caliphate.
Muslim rule of Palestine was to last for the next thirteen centuries,
significantly interrupted only by the bloody episode of the Crusades,
and ending with the defeat of Turkey by the British in 1918, pre­
cipitating the end of the Ottoman Empire. During these Islamic
centuries, while the practice of Judaism and Christianity continued,
Jerusalem became an important centre for Sufi study, a scat of
Shariah jurisprudence and was famous for specialized crafts such as
bookbinding.
The most visible legacy of the Islamic centuries, after the glow­
ing presence of the Haram, is the fortified wall that surrounds the
Old City, built by the Ottoman Sultan, Suleyman the Magnificent
between 1536 and 1540. A truly remarkable, although perilous,
walk can be taken (when the Israeli Defence Forces permit) along
the top of the ramparts around three sides of the city from the Stork
Tower to the Dung Gate.
‘Umar ibn al-Khattab, the second caliph of Islam, entered
Jerusalem probably early in 638, five years after the death of
Muhammad and two years after the battle of Yarmuk, with the
proclamation: 'You arc guaranteed your life, your goods and your
churches, which will be neither occupied nor destroyed, as long as
you do not do anything blameworthy.’ Full freedom of worship was
declared, there was no bloodshed, and even the monks and nuns
could stay. According to Muslim tradition ‘Umar was then taken to
Herod’s platform where he recognized the place as that described to
him by Muhammad as the destination of the hra, and the site of the
Mi'raj. There was no building to be seen, neither pagan Roman, nor
Herodian. and 'Umar and his men set about clearing dung and rub­
bish from the site. A rudimentary wooden mosque was built, incor­
porating the rock outcropping at one end.
Over fifty years later the Umayyad dynasty set out to give
physical form to the Muslim attachment to Jerusalem with the
 TRAVELING IN DAR AL ISLAM

Map of the Old City ofJerusalem,The Haram, Western

Wall and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre

construction of the Dome of the Rock and al-Aqsa Mosque.

Although the true motivation for the extravagant attention given to
Jerusalem by the Umayyads may have been to undermine the
prominence of Mecca and Medina during the time of the schismatic
caliphate based in the Hijaz, following the murder of the Imams 'Ali
and al-Husayn. From a distance, the great golden cupola of the
Dome, seen against the grey and white stone of the packed buildings
and multiple steeples behind, gives the city an aura of transfigured
 TRAVELLING IN QAR AL451AM J59

sanctity, as if rising above the minutiae of dogma and politics. But

this is a tragic illusion.
The Dome is the oldest example of Islamic architecture, and
consists of a support cylinder, then the dome above, set on an octag­
onal ambulatory, the prototype of die Ottoman domed mosque.
The external fabric has been extensively refurbished over the cen­
turies with great dedication to craft, so that now the finishes on both
interior and exterior arc blindingly rich and complex. The golden
cladding of the Dome, although the most famous element of the
mosque, is only recent, daring from rhe 1920s and paid for by
public subscription from Muslims all over the world.
Al-Aqsa Mosque is a lesser structure, although, unlike the Dome,
it serves as a functioning mosque for the remains of the Palestinian
community of the Old City. The mosque was built shortly after the
Dome, but was twice destroyed by earthquakes within the first sixty
years, as well as on a number of occasions subsequently, then die
building was partly burned by a deranged Australian tourist in 1969.
The present building is unremarkable, therefore, notable only for
the marble columns donated by Benito Mussolini in the 1930s and
for the elaborately painted ceiling commissioned by King 1'arouk of
Egypt.

The Mysterious Ending ofal-Hdkim bi-amr

Allah

Muslim rule of Jerusalem was not without episodes of violence. The

most turbulent period began with the coming to power in Egypt of the
Fatimid caliph al-Hakim (996-1021 a). At the age of fifteen al-Hakim
had his regent assassinated and began his rule as an absolute despot fol­
lowing only his mood of the moment. He embraced Shi'a fanaticism and
instigated severe repression of Christians and Jews, both wealthy minor­
ity communities. He ordered the destruction of churches, convents,
monasteries and synagogues, wine and beer were prohibited to all, shoes
for women were banned, jewellery was outlawed, as were singing girls,
raisins, honey, rocket salad, lupines, barking dogs, chess and walking at
360________________________rRAVailNG M PAX AL-6LAM___________________________

night Government officials were frequently executed or publicly muti­

lated for no apparent reason, so that the entire population lived in uncer­
tainty and fear
Near the end of his reign al-Hakim allowed himself to be persuaded
by Shi'a IsmJ'ili extremists that be was the reincarnation of the Divinity
He no longer washed or changed his clothes and wandered alone for
days m the hills outside the city. During one of these absences al-HSam
simply disappeared.The popular explanation on the Cairo street was that
he had been assassinated by his libertine sister who feared for her life,
or according to another rumour al-Hakim had entered a monastery
under an alias, where he ended his days.
But al-HSum's extraordinary rule is more than a footnote to history
A saintly or even divine interpretation of the life of aLH3am led to the
formation of the Duruz or Druze sect within Shi'a Islam. As part of his
final delusions. al-Hakim permitted a supporter Hamza ibn "All. to elevate
his status beyond that of mam to the level of the One. a higher degree
than even the Prophet After al-Hikim’s disappearance, the Druze
(named after Muhammad ibn IsmJ'H al-Darazi. the first Druze sheikh)
became a separate religion from both Shi'ism and Sunn, based on
the projected return of aFHSkim as the messiah. After Hamza himself
withdrew, in order he claimed, to return with al-HSkim, the preparation
for al-Hakim's return was adopted as the religious rationale for a
series of rebellions agamst the caliphate. Over many subsequent genera­
tions a Druze orthodoxy evolved, and the rebels of Syria became an
entrenched community in the mountainous back country of the
Lebanon. The Druze remain an aggressive force in modem Synan and
Lebanese politics.
The Roman Emperor Constantine, in addition to h1s conversion of
the Empire to Chnstianity, also restored Christian unity with the Council
of Nicea (modem Nice) in 325, ending a senes of schisms over the nature
of God and the Trinity The most substantial of the works commissioned
by Constantine was a church to mark the reputed but deputed place of
Christ’s bunal, In 1009 the richness of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre,
by then almost 700 years old and the object of centimes of pilgrimage
and donation, came to the caliph’s attention. AJ-HJk>m was infuriated by
reports that the Christian pnests of the Holy Sepulchre were claiming
supenority for their religion by appeanng to bnng 'Holy Fire’ down on to
the altar of the church dunng an annual rite named the Saturday of the
 TRAVELLING IN OAR Al ISLAM 361

Light commemorating the removal of Christ's body from the Cross. The
trick, a blasphemous outrage in the Muslim view, was achieved by igniting
balsam oil with oil of jasmine to produce an astonishingly bright combus­
tion from a suspended tamp controlled by a pulley, giv-.ng the effect of a
miraculous white presence descending from heaven. Orders were issued
from Cairo for the demolition of the structure, which was quickly accom­
plished stone by stone. Centuries of Muslim tolerance in the city had
been fatally undone m just a few months
Under af-Hafcim’s successors the Church of the Holy Sepulchre was
rebuilt by the Jerusalem Christian community a disappointing structure
compared with the original church built by Constantine. But even though
the new construction was complete more than forty years before
Jerusalem fell to the Franks of the First Crusade, with such disastrous
results for all sides, al-Hakim‘s actions had lit a fetal fuse. 'An accursed
race', Pope Urban II declared in 1095 in his announcement of the First
Crusade,’has destroyed the Church of God’.

The tradition of the Prophet’s lira and his Mi'raj. chat lies at the
heart of .Muslim Jerusalem, is little known or appreciated in the West.
But the underlying message is undeniably pluralistic: during his
mythical travels Muhammad meets and takes advice from a number
of acknowledged Judeo-Christian prophets, and Muhammad clearly
yearns to bring Muslims into the heart of mainstream monotheism
from the isolation of pagan Arabia. The story already related on page
52, is a fixture in Muslim culture, resulting in a deeply felt connec­
tion to physical Jerusalem. The Isra and the Mi'raj were the proof
given by Saladin, for example, in a letter to Richard Coeur de Lion of
Muslim ownership of the city.
As an example of the extent to which Islamic tradition has
embellished the story of the Ism and the Mi'raj, the Appendix to
this chapter reproduces a version of die tale from The Life oj
Muhammad by Emile Dermcnghcm, which in turn draws on a
number of original and litde-known sources.
Jerusalem also remained in the forefront of the consciousness of
diaspora Jews during their almost total absence from the city for two
thousand years following the Roman destruction. And in the ultra­
orthodox view, the coming of die Messiah and the end of the world
ia TRAVELLING IN DAR AL-6LAM

will be hastened by the construction of a Third Temple on the site

of the alleged previous temples, now occupied by the Haram. This
literalist belief in the Second Coming, linked to the construction of
rhe Third Temple, is also shared by many American fundamentalist
Christian Zionists, located principally in the South and the Mid­
west of the US, and forming a substantial pro-lsracl lobby exercising
great influence in the Republican Party.
The Haram and the Western Wall were captured by Israel by
armed force during the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, and added to the
parts of the Old City already captured in 1948 (described by Israel
as the ‘unification’ of Jerusalem). Ever since, every effort has been
made by Israel to de-Arabize and Judaizc Jerusalem, and to persuade
the world to recognize the city as the capital of the Jewish state,
rather than Tel Aviv, the first capital of Israel. A number of small
Jerusalem mosques have been destroyed by Israel since 1967. with­
out any serious local or international repercussions, but the connec­
tion of the Prophet himself to the Dome of the Rock has (so far)
made the Haram untouchable by Israel, despite severe and unre­
lenting pressure on the Israeli government from the ultra-orthodox
messianic right, intent on building the Third Temple. This observer
has been warned many times, that should the Dome of the Rock
be touched by Israel, global Muslim anger would rise to a level
that would threaten world order. ’Every Arab would be ready for
martyrdom.’

This contention over the title deeds to Jerusalem can be summarized

as three sets of unanswerable questions:

1. The claim by each of the three religions to a divine connection

with Jerusalem is based on belief only. There is nothing tangible in
the city to authenticate the story of Abraham, the First or the
Second Jewish Temple, the execution of Jesus Christ or the Night
Journey and the Ascension of the Prophet. Thus the three sites, the
Western Wall, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and the Haram,
which mark these alleged events, are physical incarnations of faith,
not of provable fact. Can faith alone create title to territory? And if
so, which one of the three contenders should prevail?
 TRAVELLING IN OR AL-ISLAM 363

2. If the answer to the preceding questions is a logical no', then

Israel’s present occupation of Jerusalem is based on nothing more
than conquest by force of arms in 1948 and again in 1967. But is
not the Palestinian, or the Muslim, claim to possession of Jerusalem
also based on armed force, in the form of the defeat by the Caliph
‘Umar of the Byzantine Empire? Do not the Israeli victories of 1948
and 1967 (and the prior facilitating British victory of 1918) merely
reverse the earlier Muslim military victory? Should not Muslims
accept defeat, therefore, just as they previously accepted victory? The
differences, however, between the events of 636 and 1948/1967,
between ‘Umar’s possession of the city and the arrival of the Israeli
Defence Forces at the gates of the Haram, are significant. First, the
Muslims opened, or ’liberated’, rather than conquered Jerusalem in
636. in that the native Palestinian population was thereafter no
longer under the rule of European Byzantine Christians, but under
the Arab Caliphs and the Shariah. No population transfers were pre­
cipitated, and all three faiths were still free to worship in their
Jerusalem shrines, and live their lives as they pleased. The arrival of
Israel in 1948 and 1967, on the other hand, represented occupation
by force by an essentially Western power and by a religion with a
long history of hostility and intolerance. Muslim property was
confiscated wholesale by the State of Israel, Muslim houses were
immediately demolished to make way for the plaza that now faces
the Western Wall, and more than half of the Palestinian population
of Jerusalem became permanent refugees. If, therefore, Israel’s pos­
session ofJerusalem is permitted to stand, how is this different from
such recent precedents as Kuwait, the Falkland Islands, Kosovo and
East ‘Timor, where world opinion and righteous arms reversed
unjust occupations?

3. This characterization of Israeli behaviour as ’occupation’ might

be seen in a different light, however, if Hebrew and Jewish history
could be said to confer aboriginal title on Israel, as the country’s
constitution claims, by referring to ‘ancestral lands', the right to
"reconstitute a National Home' and 'the redemption of Israel’. This
would mean that the present spectacle is really nothing more than
cousins fighting over a common heritage, rather than a colonial power
occupying conquered lands after subjugating a native people. Even
W TRAVELLING IN DAR AL ISLAM

the extremist revisions of Palestinian history recognize some common

Semitic ancestry with Jews, and in modern terminology the Jews who
resisted Rome were freedom fighters and the Romans were colonists.
Certainly a classic historic injustice was done by the Romans to the
Jews upon their defeat, with hundreds of settlements razed according
to the historian Dio Cassius, and over half a million Jews killed. But
like faith, does ancient history create title? Should the events from
1,900 years ago allow, in the present, a man from Russia. Ethiopia or
the United States, who claims a Jewish mother and thus qualifies for
immediate Israeli citizenship, to dispossess indigenous Palestinians
from their houses and farms by force of arms, when those who in fact
committed the original offence, the Romans, are long gone? And are
those who resist such forcible displacement on this occasion freedom
fighters or terrorists? Certainly the leaders of the revolt against Rome
arc celebrated as heroes in modem Israel. And even Israel does not
claim that Jews were the sole indigenous inhabitants of Palestine, or
that the Palestinians (as Canaanites and Philistines) were the ones
who invaded from Sinai and appropriated their Jewish lands.

V Ten Treasures of Islam

Beyond the three harams. Islam has created a vast architectural her­
itage, to which this guide cannot begin to do justice. However, many
great Muslim sites are effectively inaccessible to most tourists, being
either too remote, as in the case of Samarkand or Bukhara, or behind
a political barrier or in a war zone, as in the case of Herat. Samarra
or Baghdad. As a compromise, therefore, ten treasures of Islam have
been selected, that encompass a substantial part of the geographical
stretch of Islamic history, but arc accessible at the present

1. The Great Mosque of Damascus. Syria. Built by the Umayyad

Caliph al-Walid 1 from 706 to 715. On completion, this breathtaking
structure was understandably regarded by Arabs as one of the wonders
of the world. 'I he transept, dome and aisles reflect church architecture
of the late Byzantine period, and much of the workmanship was
undertaken by craftsmen sent to work in Damascus by the Byzantine
Roman Emperor. The mosque replaced the basilica of St John the
 TRAVELLING IN DAR AL-6LAM 36S

Baptist, shared for decades between Islam and Christianity, and the
mosque still reputedly encompasses the tomb containing St John's
head. The earlier Christian church incorporated walls from a Roman
temple to Jupiter, which were then integrated into die mosque. The
floor and walls of the courtyard were once decorated with over 44,000
square feet (4,000 square metres) of gold mosaic, depicting die entire
Islamic world of the period set in a paradise of lush vegetation. Most
of the mosaic was destroyed in the fire of 1893.

2. The Mosque of ibn Tulun, Cairo, Egypt. Built between 876 and
879 by the ‘Abbasid governor of Egypt, Ahmad ibn Tulun (835-84)
who began in the Caliph's service as a slave, The mosque reflects the
design of the great courtyard mosque in Samarra (Iraq), the ‘Abbasid
capital during the period, and has, therefore, been interpreted as a
deliberate symbol of 'Abbasid rule over Egypt. However, contempo­
rary historians record that the concept of the mosque came to ibn
Tulun in a dream, and that no political message was intended. There
arc, however, dear indications that Samarra influenced the design.
Brick piers rendered with stucco in the Mesopotamian style support
the roof of the prayer hall and the surrounding cloister, in place of
the stone columns traditionally used by Egyptian builders, and many
of the carvings follow earlier motifs from Samarra. But the Samarra
mosque, now in ruins, is not only of substantially different propor­
tions to the mosque of ibn Tulun, but also has a quite different
atmosphere. Samarra is bare yet triumphal, the walls supported by a
pattern of obese brick towers, with overtones of fortification. I’he
mosque of ibn Tulun, on the other hand, is serene, a remarkable
expression of the infinite in built form, making subtly powerful use
of light and shadow, and contrasting with the chaos of the sur­
rounding city. The building has recently been extensively renovated,
without any reduction in architectural impact.

3. The Great Mosque (La Mezquita), Cordoba. Spain. La

Mezquita, on the other hand, was a definite political statement, the
centre of Muslim Cordoba, which by the tenth century CE was the
largest city in western Islam, and many times the size of the modern
town. The mosque was built in 786 by Abd al-Rahman I, founder of
the Spanish Umayyad dynasty, in place of the church of San
Vincente in the south of the city, which until then was shared by
M TRAVUX/MG IN OAR ALISCAM

both Muslims and Christians. The Alcazar, the centre of Umayyad

government, was built alongside the new mosque, symbolically
fusing mosque and state in the Shariah tradition. Every subsequent
ruler of Muslim Spain claiming descent from Abd al-Rahman
I added to the structure, showing special respect for his memory. The
pernicious piercing of the mosque by a Christian cathedral, which
took 300 years to complete, has already been discussed (page 149).
But in an alternative interpretation of the effect of this addition, the
presence of a Christian shrine may have saved the Muslim structure
from neglect and decay after Cordoba reverted to Christianity, to be
followed later by the expulsion of the Moors from Spain and then by
the bigoted days of the Inquisition. The qibla end of the courtyard is
covered with a scries of saddle roofs creating rows of two-storey
arcades, giving a luminous, weightless feel to the prayer hall, a phys­
ical opening on to the infinite. Of great interest are the support
columns, recycled from Roman and Visigoth periods, mostly mis­
matched as to capitals and circumference, and buried at various
depths into the floor to provide a uniform spring point for the rows
of brick and stone arches that arc the dominant feature of the inte­
rior design. Ironically, following the history of Muslim tolerance in
Spain, and the sharing of churches and mosques. I a Mczquita today
is heavily patrolled by armed guards, not against 'terrorism', but to
prevent any attempt at Muslim-style prayers, for which offence the
perpetrator is immediately put back on his feet and arrested.

4. Sultan Hasan Mosque. Cairo. This great building is the classical

example of a madrasah mosque, built to accommodate students
from the four schools offiqh. Each school was housed in a separate
wing facing on to a large main courtyard dominated by an elaborate
and still original ablution fountain. The instruction areas are vaulted
enclosures 130 feet high (40 metres) open to the front, with living
accommodation behind and above. A prayer hall of immense pro­
portions completes cite facility. Following the Mongol destruction of
Baghdad in 1258. Cairo had become the world centre for Muslim
studies, and from this madrasah students dispersed throughout
Islam bearing their knowledge of the Qur’an, the Hadith and the
Shariah. Completed in 1363 CE by the Mameluk rulers of
Egypt, keen to overcome their lowly slave origins, the structure is as
 tHAVEUING IN PAR AL-61AM 367

brilliant a feat of architecture as the European Gothic cathedrals

from the same era, combining the built environment with the ever­
blue open sky to create a glimpse of infinity. The mosque is almost
deserted except on Fridays, so that the visitor can sit uninterrupted
and sense the peaceful power of the place. Even the jostle of Cairo
traffic fails to penetrate the tranquillity.

5. The Dome of the Rock and al-Aqsa Mosque, in Jerusalem have

been described earlier in this chapter. Of great interest to the traveller
in Dar al-lslam is that this site may he visited and the mosques
entered, despite the status of haram, when the other two harams in
Mecca and Medina are strictly forbidden to non-Muslims. The
Jerusalem Haram is closely guarded by the Israeli Defence Forces,
and subject to capricious decisions about who can and who cannot
enter, Muslims, other than young men, are usually allowed access, so
that wearing a Palestinian scarf and clutching a Qur'in will usually
result in permission at the door, even if accompanied, in the case of
a white visitor, by a sceptical look and a body search.

6. Kutubiya Mosque. Marrakesh, Morocco. This is the outstanding

work of the Almohad dynasty, rulers of Morocco together with parts
of Islamic Spain and what is now Algeria and Tunisia from 1130 to
1269 CE. The administrative and spiritual capital of the empire was
Marrakesh, and the Kumbiya Mosque, built in 1158, was the prin­
cipal mosque of the city, replacing an earlier mosque built on the
same site in 1147, but which was razed when the Sultan discovered
that the orientation of the qibLi towards Mecca was incorrect (by
only 10 degrees or less). The Almohads were Berber Muslim purists,
prohibiting all architectural decoration other than geometric. The
stark arresting design that resulted, relieved only by rows of multifoil
arches, makes sensational use of the bright light and open skies of the
city. The 220 ft (67.5 metre) square minaret of the mosque, topped
with intricately intersecting arches and a smaller 'lantern' tower,
defines the skyline of Marrakesh. The Almohads were driven from
Spain by the Christians in 1212, but left behind a second great
mosque and minaret in Seville, known as the Giralda.

7. The Alhambra. Granada, Spain. This great fortified city up on

the spine of a hill overlooking the city of Granada, backed by die
3S9 TRAVELLING IN DAR AL-ISLAM

snow-covered Sierra Nevada beyond, is the culmination of Islamic

architecture in Spain, The excitement of seeing the walls and towers
from the highway, appearing above the deep green Mediterranean
trees is more than fulfilled walking through the Pucrta de la Justicia.
The wonders of the interior demand at least two full days of appre­
ciation: the Palacio de Comares and the Torre de la Cautiva built by
Yusuf (1333-54 CE) from the Nasarid family responsible for the
completion of the complex after more than 300 years of construc­
tion from the eleventh century on; the Palacio de los Leones, a mas­
terpiece of Islamic decoration and culture; the military garrison, the
Alcazaba, looking down on Granada from the battlements; the
Palace of Charles V, from the height of the European Renaissance
after Spain was lost to the Muslims during the fiftenth century. The
Spanish government operates a parador in one of the buildings in
the centre of the fortress, where even one summer night spent after
the departure of the tourists, and one dawn, can give the traveller
some dim idea of the achievement and splendour that was once
Muslim Spain.

8. Taj Mahal. Agra, India, 'the honour of the terrestrial world . . .

in a garden bearing the works of Paradise . . The story of this mau­
soleum is well known: the great love of the Mughal Shah Jahan for
his wife Mumtaz Mahal, who died delivering her fourteenth child,
and the Shah’s overwhelming sorrow, so strong that his hair turned
white in three days, followed by the arrival of Mahal’s body in Agra
and the Shah’s resolve to build a version of paradise on earth for his
beloved. The result, eleven years later (built 1632-43 CE) was the Taj
Mahal, drawing on the substantial wealth and sophistication of the
Mughal Empire, which covered a larger area than modern India and
ruled hundreds of millions of people. The complex originally con­
sisted of tombs for Mahal and Jahan, a mosque, subsidiary tombs
intended for the Shahs other wives, a guesthouse, the famous garden
and pool, the four equally famous minarets. Then outside the walls
a waqfestate consisted of bazaars and caravanserais as well as thirty
villages to pay rents to cover the cost of the maintenance, services,
charities and recitings of the Qur’in ordered by the Shah in perpe­
tuity in the mosque (but long since discontinued). The inlaid stone
that covers the building is also familiar, but less well known are the
 TRAVflUNG IN OAR AV®. AM 3W

plant designs that decorate the interior walls, and the calligraphy of
extensive excerpts from the Qur’an woven everywhere into the dec­
oration. The monument became a shrine to femininity over the fol­
lowing years and a Mughal dynastic sanctuary until the end of
the Empire. The last Mughal emperor was captured by the British
in the gardens in 1857 and taken to Rangoon where he died in
captivity. Today the Taj Mahal is threatened by tourist exploitation,
surrounding development and pollution, as well as a low level of
interest from the Indian state against the background of continuing
Hindu-Muslim tensions.

9. Shah Mosque, Isfahan, Iran (now renamed the Imam Mosque

by the Iranian Revolutionary government). Isfahan under die six­
teenth and seventeenth century Safavid Shahs was one of the largest
cities in the world and the principal trading hub between the East
and Europe. Shah Abbas 1 (1587-1620), in addition to consolidat­
ing Shi'a as the national religion of the Persian Empire, undertook
vast urban renewal works in Isfahan, which included the construc­
tion of a maidan, or central city square larger than I iananmen
Square in Beijing. The largest building in the project, the mosque,
is centred on the back line of the square, then turns internally by
45 degrees so that the qsbla faces Mecca. This monumental mosque,
built between 1611 and 1630, was intended as the centre of the city.
A great swan, or portico, leads in from the square flanked by two
minarets, then to a second portico entrance with matching minarets
behind, and on into the domed prayer hall, flanked by smaller
chambers for winter prayer and madrasahs. The decoration of the
building is transcendent, entirely executed in mosaic and tile using
a full colour range, but with blue predominant. The designs include
vases, vines, prayer mats and extensive stylized excerpts from the
Qur’an. The tiles at the back of the prayer hall appear to suffer in
quality, possibly because the building was completed after the death
of Abbas, and because many tiles were replaced during die 1930s.
Isfahan declined after the siege and capture of the city by the
Afghans in 1722, then trade collapsed with the introduction of ship
transport between China and Europe. The city and the mosque were
extensively renovated by Shah Pahlavi Reza in the twentieth century,
and Isfahan was recently designated by the United Nations as a
370 TRAVtUSMG IN OAR Al-VAH

World Heritage Site. The city is very cold in the winter (with little
heating) and very hot in the summer, and visits require extensive
planning and visa negotiations.

10. Bad Shahi Mosque, Lahore, Pakistan. This huge building is

regarded as the finest (and last) of the Mughal works. Constructed
between 1672 and 1674. the completion coincided with the start of
the decline of the Empire, marked by the abandonment of more dis­
tant provinces in a time of financial over-extension, leading a cen­
tury later to the evolution of Lahore into the capital of Sikhism. The
building is a courtyard mosque in red sandstone, entered through
domed portals in contrasting marble and approached by three-sided
monumental steps that seem to foreshadow the Victorian architec­
ture of the British Raj. The interior decoration of the cusped arches
at the entries display semi-abstract floral designs of a quality equal
to the Taj Mahal. The mosque holds 5,000 of the faithful, and is the
largest mosque on the Indian subcontinent.

VI Thirty-five Famous Muslims

Culture also finds a strong human dimension in the people who

characterize an age, by weakness or strength, for good or for evil.
Westerners are familiar with the men and women who make up a
picture of their own times and history. Churchill. Hitler and Stalin,
most famously, stand at the heart of twentieth-century history, then
Ronald Reagan, the Hollywood actor who became one of the most
popular presidents in American history and presided over the end of
communism; de Gaulle remains a symbol of Gallic intransigence
and European reconstruction; Mozart, the billiards player who
could carry a complete opera in his head, or Beethoven or Picasso
the eternal modernist; and Newton, Darwin and Einstein, whose
scientific discoveries precipitated the long decline of Christianity.
But who are the equivalent names in Muslim culture? The men and
women Muslims would describe with little hesitation as rooted in
their consciousness?
Few of the names that follow will be familiar to Westerners, and
others may not seem to be suitable icons. Many others not included
 TRAVELLING LN PAR AL-ISLAN 171

here have already been mentioned in earlier chapters, such as Abu

Bakr, 'Ali. and Nasser. But these entries were chosen by the many
Muslims who were consulted in the preparation of this book (all
Sunni except one Shi'a who chose Fatima). Some Muslims replied,
of course, that only God can judge who is admirable and who is not.
As al-Ghazali wrote, never despise any human creature, for Allah
has hidden sainthood among His bondsmen, and it may be that the
person your eye scorns is one of His saints'. This is how the devout
cleaner and humble bringer of tea at the American University in
Cairo comes to appear on the list. On a practical level, these arc also
some of the well-known personalities that a traveller in a Muslim
country will encounter, as street names, for example, or in conver­
sation as heros celebrated in Muslim history for bravery, piety,
vision, or even those who stand for the way Islam should not be.

Muhammad (Muhammad ibn ‘Abd Allah 571-632) Messenger of

Allah and so named by God. The last in a line of prophets stretching
back to Adam and the Creation. His character and his religious and
political achievements arc set out in this book as in so many others.

‘Umar (‘Umar ibn al-Khattab, d. 644). Second caliph from 634, fol­
lowing Muhammad and Abu Bakr. Father of Muhammad's wife.
Hafsa. In a parallel with St Paul and the early Christians, ‘Umar
was a persecutor of Muhammad on behalf of rhe pagan Meccan
clans, who then converted to Islam with great conviction, in self­
revulsion after wounding his sister and her husband, who were
believers. He was inspired by verses 1-7 of Surah 20, then rccendy
revealed, which the couple had been attempting to conceal in their
clothing.
‘Umar became one of Muhammad's strongest supporters and as
caliph he was responsible for the spread of Islam into Syria. Persia
and Egypt, taking possession ofJerusalem personally with his famous
ecumenical entry into the city in 638. He was taller than his follow­
ers and powerfully built, he had a passionate and impetuous nature,
but the example of his predecessor, the shrewd and patient Abu Bakr,
gave ‘Umar the example he needed to combine statesmanship with
personal leadership to such effect. ‘Umar established the diwan, or
Register of Muslims, the basis for both the distribution of wealth
372 TRAVELING IN DAR AL SLAM

captured during the conquests, and for a definitive tribal genealogy

reaching down to the modern day. ’Umar continued Abu Bakr's
efforts to collect the elements of the Qur’in into a coherent whole.
’Umar as caliph became ascetic and disciplined, he scourged his own
son (who subsequently died of his wounds) for drinking wine and he
attempted to impose order on his conquering armies. He was mur­
dered by a deranged Persian slave.

Fatima. Daughter of Muhammad and his first wife Khadijah. wife

of 'Ali ibn Abi TSlib, mother of al-Hasan and al-Husayn. The only
child of Muhammad to establish a line of descendants. All his other
children either died in infancy, or their first generation of descen­
dants suffered the same end. Fatima became the object of veneration
throughout the Muslim community due to her closeness to the prin­
cipals of the early community and the events that shaped the subse­
quent history of Islam. References to Fatima in Islam are punctuated
with the appellation al-Zahr3'. the Shining One. Parallels have also
been drawn earlier between the traditional veneration of Fatima,
especially by the Shi’a, and the Virgin Mary. Fatima, like Mary, is
the eternally bereaved and sorrowing mother (specifically for the
death of her mother and father and the murder of both her husband
and her second son), personifying the secret and forever unfulfilled
wishes of womanhood, in contrast to the unceasing aggression and
destructive nature of man.
Fatima was probably born five years before the Stan of
Muhammad's ministry, the fourth of Khadijah's four daughters. She
is said to have cleaned off the refuse, excrement and sheep's entrails
thrown over Muhammad during the period of his rejection by the
men of Mecca, and to have moved to Medina after the hijrah,
suffering humiliation in Mecca before her departure. In Medina,
both Abu Bakr and ‘Umar asked Muhammad for Fatima's hand in
marriage, but ‘Ali was chosen as learned and wise, and the first to
embrace Islam (although according to other sources, this honour
goes to Abu Bakr, with 'Ali as the second). ‘Ali and Fatima, like most
of the Emigrants, were initially very poor, living in primitive condi­
tions, until the first military successes. The marriage produced the
two famous sons, al-Hasan and al-Husayn, two daughters and
a third son, still-born. Hie marriage was famously rocky and
 TRAVELLING IN DAB AL ISLAM 22
'Ali sought permission to take a second wife, but was refiiscd by
Muhammad who is reported as saying ‘what offends Fatima, offends
me also’. ‘Ali in his frustration would follow arguments with his wife
by lying on the ground outside their house, his clothes covered with
dust. On one such occasion Muhammad brought ‘Ali to his feet,
brushed the dust from him. and teased him as Abu Turab, or the
Dusty One. Fatima tended Muhammad’s wounds after the battle of
Uhud, and took to sorrowing in the cemetery of Medina for the
Muslim dead. According to Shi'a legend, Fatima took a divinely
ordered part in the Prophet's ministry, first as one of the five People
of the House, or the family of the Prophet (Muhammad, ‘Ali,
Fatima. al-Hasan and al-Husayn) and secondly as a witness at the
Mubihala. a contest to be held between Muhammad and the
Christians of NajrJn to determine the primacy of either the new reli­
gion or the old. The contest was to have been preceded with a curse,
‘May God curse over the one that is wrong . . .'. which it was
believed would destroy one or other of the communities. In the
event the Christians capitulated before the contest, and the event
was subsequently mysticized by Shi'a interpretation to make the
People of the House into God's witnesses- confirming that the line
of succession was to be from the ‘Holy Family’ only, the basis of the
schism between Sunni and Shi'a.
Fatima was dominated by love of her father, and has come to be
known as Umm Abihi, Mother of her Father (unsatisfactorily com­
pared in popular devotions with the role of Mary as Mother of
Christ). Her sole political act was to refuse to acknowledge the shura
of Abu Bakr as the first caliph, chosen rather than 'Ali for whom she
had campaigned. When approached by Abu Bakr asking for her
bay a, she refused and ‘Umar threatened to bum her house. These
events were to deepen the hatred by the proto-Shi’a for the first
three caliphs, which was aggravated further by a subsequent dispute
between Fatima and Abu Bakr over land owned by Muhammad,
which Fatima claimed as her inheritance, but which Abu Bakr
retained for the benefit of the entire community. Fatima died shortly
after the Prophet in 11 AH and was buried in Medina, but the loca­
tion has been lost.
The legends surrounding the life of Fatima arc many, especially
among the Shi'a. Angels assisted at her birth because no Meccans
IM TRAVEUJSG IN OAR AL-&.AM

would help the wife of the hated Muhammad, the choice of‘Ali as
her husband was announced by the angel Gabriel, the wedding was
attended by 70,000 angels, and food was provided from heaven, she
did not menstruate, lost no blood during birthing and produced her
children through the left thigh (Mary produced hers through her
right). Miracles are attributed to Fatima, and she is said to be the
first to enter paradise after the Resurrection. Fatima is associated
with light: she is a lamp tliat illuminates the heavens, or the horizon,
or the light of God’s creation falls upon her as upon all members of
the Prophet’s family.

'Aisha (‘A’isha bint Abu Bakr 614—78). The third, and popularly
believed to be the ’favourite' of Muhammad's wives. 'A’isha became
Muhammad’s principal or 'managing' wife, deriving this position
from a combination of her father's prominence in the Muslim com­
munity, her personality and her beauty. ‘A’isha’s relationship to the
Prophet has been touched on elsewhere, including her alleged
infidelity and Muhammad's ensuing revelation, but she also played
an important role in Muslim history after Muhammad's death.
'A’isha was born in Mecca, the daughter of Abu Bakr, and was
married to Muhammad at the age of six. although the relationship
was not consummated until ‘A’isha was at least ten. By agreement
among Muhammad's wives, ‘A’isha nursed the Prophet during his
final illness and he was buried in the floor of her simple single cham­
ber. Muhammad's wives achieved great sums during his lifetime,
coming to be known as ’mothers of the believers’, a title still in use
today. The penalty, however, was that none was permitted to
remarry, and on Muhammad’s death. ‘A’isha was left a childless
widow of eighteen.
During the rule of the first two caliphs, her father Abu Bakr for
two years, and then ‘Umar, with whom she was on good terms for
ten, ‘A’isha played no part in community politics. During the rule
of ‘Uthman, however, 'Aisha sided with the opposition to the
increasing domination of the Umayyads, although she was not a
supporter of ‘Ali, and did not condone 'Uthman's assassination. In
Mecca she organized a small army to avenge ‘Uthman's death and
marched to Basra in Iraq, where 'Ali had established his headquar­
ters (in Kufa), for the coming battle with the Umayyads under
 TRAVHJJNG IN DAR AL ISLAM 375

Mu’awiyah. 1 All’s forces engaged ‘Aisha’s party in what was to be

known as the Battle of the Camel as the fiercest fighting took place
around ‘A’isha’s litter. 'Ali prevailed, but treated ‘A’isha with respect,
although her commanders were killed. Thereafter she lived quietly
in Medina, reconciled first with 'Ali. and then with Mu’awiyah,
after 'Ali’s assassination. In her later years 'A’isha became noted for
her learning, her ability to recite the Qur’an, as well as a large selec­
tion ot Arab poetry. Twelve hundred Hadiths were ascribed to her,
but only 300 were retained by al-Bukhari as authentic. 'A’isha died
during Ramadan 678. and even up to the last, her approval or dis­
approval was important to community leaders.

Jabir ibn Hayyan (Abu Musa 721-815) was known among the
Christians of the Middle Ages as Geber. as a famous alchemist and
practitioner of medicine. He was a student of the Shi'ite Imam Ja'far
al-Sadiq, of the Shi'a imaniite inheritance, from whom he learned
the way of the Sufi. He first practised his craft under the Umayyads,
and is reported to have collaborated with Khalid ibn Yazid ibn
Mu'iwiyah who shared the same interest. After the end of Umayyad
rule. Jabir ibn Hayyan was patronised by die 'Abbisids who showed
great interest in science and culture, and in particular by the
Baramkid family promoted by the ‘Abblsids. Jibir ibn Hayyan made
great contributions to the emerging sciences of chemistry, astron­
omy and philosophy, as part of the Islamic centuries of progress
influenced by Greek texts, with the result passed back to Europe at
the stan of the Renaissance.

Harun al-Rashid (Harun bin Muhammad bin ‘Abd Allah,

786-809). The 'good' Harun al-Rashid of the Arabian Nights, and
fifth ‘AbbSsid caliph. Many pivotal events in the history of Islam
took place during al-Rashid’s reign, which also marked the accelera­
tion of the corruption and decline of the 'Abblsid dynasty, and the
start of the disintegration of the united caliphate that had begun
with Abu Bakr and the ’rightly guided’ caliphs. Al-Rashid became
caliph in his early twenties, and his rule is famous for ceremony and
splendour, elaborated and exaggerated by the tales told by Muslim
merchants who were by then travelling all over the levant, and as far
as China. But in fact his authority was consistently challenged by
376 TRAVELLING IN DAR ALISLAK

uprisings in both Syria in the east (where much of the population

still held Umayyad sympathies) and in the west in Ifriqiya, with fre­
quent Kharijite and Alid rising in response to poor government
administration and high taxation. New dynasties broke away from
the caliphate in the Maghreb and along the North African coast in
what is now Tunisia. At the same time, the Yemen was in rebellion
for a decade.
Al-Rashid’s fame as a caliph lies in his campaigns against the
Byzantines to the north, which he led personally, achieving many
battlefield victories. He is reputed to have established diplomatic
contact with Charlemagne, whose subjects were permitted to under­
take the Christian pilgrimage to Jerusalem. The result at the end of
his reign, however, was that Dar al-Islam had made no progress
against Dar al-Harb, and the borders remained unchanged. The dis­
integration of the caliphate was accelerated on al-Rashid’s death by
his decision to divide the Muslim lands between his two sons.

Al-Kindi (Abu Yusuf Ya'qub ibn Ishaq. 801—73). prominent Arab

philosopher of the ‘Abbisid Caliphate. Al-Kindi was born in Kufah
in Iraq where his father was an 'Abbasid governor and descendant of
the royal Yamanite Kindah tribe from southern Arabia. He was sent
to Baghdad as a young man to complete his training, where his
scholarship brought him to the attention of the 'Abbasid caliph al-
Ma mun. I’he caliph founded an observatory and an extensive
library in Baghdad, the House of Wisdom, the only major library to
be established since the great library of the Ptolemies in Alexandria,
which was burned during the later Roman Empire. Al-Kindi was
appointed to the library as a young man. with responsibility for
curating and translating the caliphate’s collection of Greek manu­
scripts. He never left Baghdad, continuing with his studies and his
writing while in and out of favour under successive caliphs. Al-Kindi
was the 'Arab Philosopher’ and the only pure blood Arab to achieve
such status in the field. He wrote commentaries to translations of
Aristotle and Plato, and developed his own theories in arithmetic,
astronomy, optics, space and time, medicine and music. His most
important work is A Book on First Philosophy, defending the devel­
opment of philosophy and answering those who denigrated the sub­
ject. Al-Kindi is honoured in Islam for his theories of convergence
 TRAVELING IN tWt AL ISLAM 377

between Greek philosophy and Islamic teaching, and for his formu­
lation of a technical and philosophical vocabulary in Arabic

Abu Ja far al-Tabari (839-923), Muslim polymath and historian of

Persian origin from Tabaristan (now in northern Iran), who devoted
his life to writing on law. medicine, poetry, history, grammar, ethics
and mathematics. He was persecuted in Baghdad for attempting to
establish a school of jurisprudence to challenge the Hanbalis and
Shafi’ites. Al-Tabari's most famous work is the History ofthe World,
reputedly consisting of the lost text of over one hundred original
volumes. The work begins with the early prophets, covers the pre-
Islamic rulers of Persia, followed by the life of Muhammad (includ­
ing extensive commentary on the Qur’anic verses relating to the
subject) and ending with the Muslim era to the year 915 CE. Al-
Tabari combined oral sources gathered during this extensive travels
with earlier written histories, including a Persian translation of the
Book of Kings from the Torah. The History of the World makes no
attempt to join the sources together into a coherent narrative, but
the multiple and often contradictory versions of the same events
offer a rich view of the depths of Arab tradition. Much of the recon­
struction of the history of the early period of Islam is based on mate­
rial collected by al-Tabari.

Abd al-Rahman 111 (Al-Nasir li-Din Allah 'z\bd al-Rahman,

889-961), the most famous caliph of Muslim Spain and the first
caliph of a united al-Andalus. ‘Abd al-Rahman 111 came to power at
the age of twenty-three, and ruled for more than half a century,
912-61. He completed the pacification and unification of southern
Spain by defeating rival Arab aristocrats and occupying their centres
of local power. He consolidated the borders of al-Andalus with the
Christians to the north, and he fought the Egyptian Fatimid dynasty
for influence over the Maghreb. 'Abd al-Rahman turned Cordoba
into a sophisticated Muslim metropolis, rivalling the great cities of
Islam in the cast and certainly far grander than any contemporary
European city. The culture of Umayyad Spain has been touched on
earlier, made possible by the peace and political unity established by
'Abd al-Rahman.
379 TRAVELING IN DAR Al -61AM

Abu 1-Kasim al-Firdawsi (932-1021), Persian poet fromTus. who

lived a modest life on an inherited estate. Firdawsi was commis­
sioned to set the Book of Kings from the Torah into verse, which led
to his composition of Shdhndmah (the Book of Kings, but an origi­
nal work not to be confused with the Torah), an epic poem of sixty
thousand lines covering the entire history of pre-Islamic Persia,
including myths and legends, ending with the Arab conquest in the
seventh century CE.

Avicenna (Abu 'Ali al-Husayn ibn 'Abd Allah ibn Sina, known as
Avicenna from the Hebrew Aven Sina, 980-1037), the most
influential of all Muslim philosophers, both on Islamic thought and
on medieval Christian philosophy. An Isma'ili from Bukhara (now
in Uzbekistan), Avicenna had mastered all the sciences of his time
and memorized the Qur’an by the age of sixteen or seventeen. He
practised medicine as well as serving in various court capacities and
he concurrendy compiled a universal encyclopedia of philosophy.
His works on medicine were influential down to the seventeenth
century. Avicenna attempted to resolve the problem of how the
imperfect existential world could have derived from the Unity of
God. He wrote extensively on psychology, following Aristotle by
dividing man’s nature into vegetative, animal and rational, and he
analysed the phenomenon of prophethood in Islam, attempting to
define the components of prophetic character. Avicenna died in jail
during a dispute with his patron, the ruler of Isfahan in Persia.

Al-Sharif al-ldrisi, geographer of the twelfth century CE. thought to

have been born in 1100. He worked in the court of Roger II.
Norman King of Sicily, who drove the Muslims off die island but
retained the services of Muslim scholars. Al-ldrisi produced the first
known comprehensive work of descriptive geography, the Book of
Roger, after his protector. How far al-ldrisi travelled is not clear, but
he wrote with admiration of Rome as a place of 1,200 churches and
10,000 baths, and the palace of a prince called pope'.

Al-Ghazali (Abu-Hamid Muhammad bin Muhammad al-Tusi al-

Ghazali. 1058-1111). in his early twenties. al-Ghazali rejected the
Sufi tradition of his native Tus (now in modern Iran) and became an
 TRAVtUJMG IN DAR AIJ5LAM 373

absolute sceptic. He moved to Baghdad where he was recognized as

an intellectual and teacher of canon law. But by the age of forty.
'God had restored to him his belief and he returned to the way of
the Sufi. Al-Ghazali took up the life of the wandering dervish, leav­
ing the pleasures of the city and his brilliant career behind. He
replaced philosophy, which he found to be flawed and inadequate,
with ‘experience’ and direct perception of the love of God. From this
base al-Ghazali preached reform of the rising rigidity of Islamic
thought, the restoration of simple faith and die inclusion within
Islam of all those who embraced the broad principles, rather than
the outward acts of practice. Religious certainty could only be found
through ecstatic experience, rather than through obsession with
form or reason. In this al-Ghazali built on the teaching of al-Shafi’i,
and his devotion to intellectual and emotional freedom informed
indirectly the works of Thomas Aquinas and Pascal.

Avenpacc (Abu Bakr Muhammad bin Yahia bin al-Ss’igh al-Tujibi

al-Andalusi al-Saraqusti ibn Bajah. d. 1139), ranked as a philoso­
pher by ibn Khaldun equal to Avcrroes in the West and Avicenna in
the East. Also known for his poetry and popular songs, as well as for
his works on mathematics, astronomy and botany. The details of his
life are obscure, but he served as vizier to a succession of Muslim
rulers in the principal towns of Muslim southern Spain. Avenpace
(his Latinized name) was bom in Saragossa and died in Fez in the
Maghreb. Many of his works survive, however, a few in the original
Arabic, some in Hebrew and Latin. His most famous work is Tadbir
al-Mutawahbid (Rule of the Solitary), which describes the path bv
which the soul may unite with the Divine. The route is described in
Neoplatonic terms of increasing abstraction from the physical
world, until finally the Active Intellect is reached.

Ibn Tufayl (cl 110-86), philosopher of the Maghreb, but bom in

Spain, of whose family and education nothing is known. He served
as adviser to a number of North African rulers, and promoted the
career of Averroes. Ibn Tufayls fame rests on his authorship of
Hayy ibn Yaqzdn (meaning the living son of the wakeful one', or
Allah), a work of philosophical romantic fiction and probably the
first novel ever written in Arabic. The plot of the book is based on
380 TRAVELLING IN DARAL-ISLAM

the discovery of Arab Neoplatonic philosophy through the device

of an intelligent man placed alone on an island from childhood.
Through reason alone the narrator constructs the whole of the
Muslim system of Greek-influenced philosophy for himself. The
child narrator is fed by a fawn, which then ages, dies and decays, a
process for which the author searches for meaning.

Saladin (Al-Malik al-Nassir Yusuf bin Ayyub Salah al-Din,

1138-93). Born in Kurdish Tikrit (now in modem Iraq). Saladin
was the son of a senior functionary of the ‘Abbasid dynasty, but little
is known of his youth. During the decline of the 'Abbasids, Saladin,
a Sunni, emerged to overthrow the Farimids, the Shi'ite lsmS'ili
dynasty that ruled Egypt from Cairo. Saladin’s eventual Ayyubid
empire covered much of the modern Middle East, although nom­
inally still under the caliph of Baghdad. Saladin is most famous
among Muslims for his jihad against the Crusader occupation of
Palestine. The combined Crusader armies were defeated at the battle
of Hittin (1187) and subsequently expelled from Jerusalem. This
reversal was responsible for the failure of the Third Crusade. But
there were eight Crusades in all. and the Franks were not driven
from the Arab lands until over a century after Hittin. The final
defeat of the Franks was accomplished by the Mameluks. who also
overthrew Saladin's Ayyubid empire. Saladin was deeply religious, at
once compassionate and ruthless, but his personality has been
obscured by later romanticization, including Western writings such
as Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott.

Averroes (Abu ‘l-Walid Muhammad ibn Ahmad ibn Muhammad

ibn Rushd 1126-98). Born in Cordoba, Averroes was the intellectual
star of Umayyad Spain. After studying law and medicine he turned
to philosophy when asked by the caliph whether the universe was
eternal, or had a beginning. 'I was so overcome with terror,’ Averroes
recounted later, 'that I could not answer.’ He wrote commentaries on
Aristotle, and on Plato's Republic, as well as on works of Greek sci­
ence, the body of work for which he is most famous. Although his
own philosophical ideas arc not considered to be original, his
attempts to show that the Creation was a continuing force rather
than a single event in the past, earned him the compliment of
 TRAVELLING IN DARAL-ISLAN )8I

condemnation by both Muslim and Christian orthodoxy. Averroes

also wrote extensively on the nature of the human soul, bur decided
finally that the answers to his questions could only be provided by
revelation. He died in Marrakesh in the service of the Almohad
caliph, after a period of banishment and persecution for his views.
Averroes’ rationalism influenced the Jewish scholar Maimonides as
well as Thomas Aquinas.

Ibn Arabi (Abu Bakr Muhammad ibn 'Ali, Muhyi ‘1-Din al-
Hatimi al-Ta’i al-Andalusi. 1165-1240), celebrated Sufi pantheist
and mystic. Born in Spain he lived for over thirty years in Seville,
but then made a visit to die East from which he did not return. He
professed Muslim belief and practised Islam, but believed that man's
'inner light', with which he considered himself to be illuminated in
a special way. was the sole guide to faith. He regarded all being as
One and all religions as equal and in this was associated with
the Qidiriyya Sufi order. Ibn 'Arabi claimed to have seen the
beatified Muhammad and to have learned the final (and the 100th)
Greatest Name of Allah. His views inevitably offended many, he was
often denounced as a heretic, and in Egypt groups formed to carry
out his assassination. Ibn ‘Arabi wrote extensively, his most famous
works were a complete system of mystic knowledge in 560 chapters
and a series of poems addressed to a Meccan lady scholar with whom
he fell in love.

Jalal aJ-Din Rumi (1207-73), the third and best known of the trio
of Sufi masters of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries whose
influence has spread throughout Islam, of whom ibn 'Arabi was the
first and ibn al-Firid the second. As a boy, Rumi fled with his father,
also a Sufi mystic, before the Mongol invasion, to settle in Konya,
now in central Turkey. Whereas ibn ‘Arabi wrote with the fixed pur­
pose of discovering definitive philosophical and logical responses,
Rumi's journey was mystical and experimental, intended to lead to
gnosis, or the direct intuition of God. Rumi’s poetry, reportedly
composed under the influence of mystical rapture and written down
by his students, throbs with passion and life, reaching, according to
the late Professor R. A. Nicholson, 'the utmost heights of which a
poetry inspired by vision and rapture is capable, which alone would
 TRAVEU ING IN DAR AL-ISLAM

have made him the unchallenged laureate of mysticism'. A long lyric

on the theme of sacred love, for example, begins:

/ was all tears, I became all laughter

I was dead. I became alive;

Rumi remains extraordinary popular today. Translations of his

poetry by the American Coleman Bark have made Rumi one of the
bestselling poets in the US for several years.

Ibn Taymiya (Taqiyy al-Din Ahmad ibn Taymiya. 1268-1328), a

prominent activist in the line of Muslim reformers that stretches from
Ahmad bin Hanbal in the ninth century CE to Muhammad 'Abduh
who died in the twentieth century, and forward again to those advo­
cating the renewal of Islamic principles today, from the sophisticated
militant to the humblest marabout. Some in the historical line, like
ibn Taymiya, were regarded as mujahid during their lifetimes, others
have been revered as mujahid only in later generations.
The objective of ibn Taymiya’s reform, or tsldh, is to return to the
principles of the Qur’an and the Sunna as the immutable word of
God and His Prophet, based on the famous verses:

let there arise out of you

A band of people
Inviting to all that is good
Enjoining what is right
And forbidding what is wrong:
They are the ones
To attain felicity.

Ye are the best

Of Peoples evolved
For mankind
Enjoining what is right
Forbidding what is wrong
And believing in Allah.
If only the People of the Book
 1 KAVILLING IN DAR Al ISLAM W

Had faith, it were best

For them: among them
Are some who have faith
But most of them
Are perverted transgressors.
Al-lmran (The Family of Imran) Surah 3, verses 1(M and 110

Salafiyya, of which ibn Taymiya is widely regarded as the origi­

nator, is a movement within Islah taken from the expression al-uilaf
al-salih, the 'pious forefathers' (discussed in Chapter 2). By Salafiyyu
ibn Taymiya meant those who transmitted the core of the faith in
any generation, together with the ideals for living the virtuous life.
Salafiyya is a particular interpretation of the general islah concept of
a return to first principles of Islam, as well as representing an
attempt at the reconciliation and agreement within Islam advocated
frequently by the Qur’an.
Ibn Taymiya was born in Damascus to a family of refugees from
the Mongol invasion. He attained the status of expert in the Qur’an
and the Hanbali jurisprudence by the age of rwency-onc, when he
began teaching at the Umayyad Great Mosque. He sought to elim­
inate from Islam all innovations since the times of the ‘pious ances­
tors’, including the system of Hanbali jurisprudence in which he
had been educated, as well as the fiqh of the other three schools. Ibn
Taymiya considered that truth was to be found only in the text of
the Qur’an and the Sunna, which could be applied directly to con­
temporary conditions by ijtihdd. This view was an effective repudi­
ation of the prevailing orthodoxy, which preferred to view the
original sources through the lens of accumulated precedent and
practice, with the result that ibn Taymiya suffered numerous periods
of incarceration in the jails of the regional rulers of Egypt and Syria
who followed the disintegration of the 'Abb.isid caliphate. He died
a prisoner in the Citadel in Damascus.
Ibn Taymiya emphasized obedience to God and His prophet, and
to those in authority, following the words of the Qur’an, but he
regarded the proper exercise of power as a religious duty, requiring
the ruler to follow the will of God, through the Shariah as the laws
of God. The ruler enjoys validity therefore, only for so long as he is
the instrument for the Muslim community to implement God's
38« THAVBUMG IN OAR AL-SLAM

commandments. This concept, in particular, has provided substan­

tial support to those opposed to corrupt Muslim regimes in the
modern day, and was a notable factor in the assassination of Anwar
Sadat, President of Egypt. Although mystical revelation was accepted
as a valid path to religious knowledge, ibn Taymiya ferociously
opposed all Sufi innovations, such as saints, elaborate memorials and
intercession, as contrary to the absolute Oneness of God. The
Mu'razilites, the Shi'a. the Kharijitcs and Muslims influenced by
Greek philosophy were also vilified as deviationist. He was the author
of numerous religious works, many written in prison, and even the
few that have survived are still influential in the twenty-first century.

Ibn Battuta (Shams al-Din Abu Abdullah ibn Abdullah al-Tanji,

1304-77). born and educated in Tangier, from the Berber tribe of
LawSta. Ibn Battuta graduated from the Maliki school of fiqh and
could have followed his father who was a judge. But ibn Battuta
immediately left Morocco, apparently intending to perform the haj.
In Alexandria he began to dream of flying on a big bird towards
Yemen, then east and south. As an ambitious traveller he had the
portable skill of a trained Islamic judge, while his journeys fell during
the exhausted peace following the Mongol invasions and withdrawal.
After a long stay in Mecca, where he fell in love and performed the
haj five times, he began his first epic journey, to the Yemen and across
the Indian Ocean to what is now Kenya, through rhe Persian Gulf to
the Crimea, to Afghanistan and finally to Delhi. A later journey took
ibn Battuta to the Maldives, India once again. Bengal. Indonesia and
China, returning to Morocco by way of Europe during the Black
Death. He completed a further journey across the Sahara and
back before recording his adventures in a book famous throughout
Islam, The Travels. Along the way he was tempted by numerous dis­
tractions, from the Sufi life, to women. But ibn Battuta retained his
faith and his testless spirit, and he developed a wide tolerance which
shines through the text. The book was translated by the British
Orientalist H. A. R. Gibb in the nineteenth century, and recently
reissued in a much more readable and abridged version by Tim
Mackintosh-Smith.
Ibn Battuta died in .Marrakesh, and nothing is known of his
career after his return.
 TRAVELLING IN DAR AL-6LAM 385

Ibn Khaldun (‘Abd al-RahmSn ibn Khaldun Waliyy al-Din,

1332-1406), North African judge, administrator, historian and
adventurer. Ibn Khaldun held a number of senior administrative
posts in the fractured sultanates of the Maghreb and Spain. He
earned a reputation for treachery and manipulation and spent
periods in jail, but he ended his career as a civil servant and states­
man as Grand Qadi of the Malikite school in Cairo. He lost his
entire family in a shipwreck soon after his last appointment and
devoted the rest of his life to pious works and his writing. Ibn
Khaldun's most famous book, Muqaddimab, deals with all
branches of Arab sciences and literature, treating sociology as a
science, but religion as a spiritual mystery beyond reason.
Miujaddimab was the book of the age. and ibn Khalduns judge­
ment and depth of thought have ensured that the work remains
one of the foundations of Islamic philosophy, inspiring eminent
modern historians and analysts of Islam including Marshall
Hodgson, Albert Hourani and Malise Ruthven.

Muhammad ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab (1703-92), born in what is now

Saudi Arabia, but for many years an itinerant teacher in Iraq and
Persia. Abd al-Wahhab was strongly influenced by the writings of ibn
Taymiya, and like his mentor sought to reform Islam through the
elimination of all innovation since the days of al-salafal-salib. But
Abd al-Wahhab narrowed the meaning of the term to the Prophet,
his Companions and their immediate heirs, and took the Prophet's
seventh-century CE Medina Commonwealth as the best possible
model for society achievable on earth. Axiomatically, no subsequent
variations could represent an improvement. Similarly, the Hadith
carrying the Sunna was to be followed in every detail (even though,
as we have seen, many of the Hadith were fabricated). In this way,
ibn Taymiya’s relatively open-minded search for truth behind the
current orthodoxy, through the re-examination of the original texts,
became in the hands of Abd al-Wahhab a new rigidity of terrifying
intensity. Claiming to be the instigator of new thinking based on a
return to the holy texts, Abd al-Wahhab became instead a blinkered
follower of the minutiae of a byegone era.
As with ibn Taymiya, the main targets of Abd al-Wahhab's call
for a 'return to God’s law’, were Sufi saints, the construction of
386 TRAVELLING IN (JAR AL.ISLAW

elaborate mosques and tombs, all practices and traditions not

specifically authorized by the Qur’an and the Hadith. as well as such
practices as smoking and the use of prayer beads. Abd al-Wahhib's
extreme puritanical views led to his expulsion from his native
‘Uyayna oasis, to which he had returned from his wanderings to
preach. He left with his family and made an alliance with
Muhammad ibn Saud, who soon became ruler of the central
Arabian Nafud. Under their arrangement. Abd al-Wahhib would
provide the religious motivation for al-Sauds political ambitions,
and in return Abd al-Wahhab would set religious policy for the con­
quered territories, which would become a ‘theocratic state’.
Abd al-Wahhib's fortunes now rose along with the House of ai-
Saud, and after his death at the age of eighty-nine, Wahhabiyya. or
Wahhabism, grew to be the dominant religious force in the entire
Arabian peninsula, and was subsequently exported to Afghanistan
under the Taliban regime. The religious zeal of Wahhabism was the
principal inspiration of the Saudi forces that eventually reunited
Arabia after centuries of fracture. No prisoners were taken as the
ferocious Wahhabist Brotherhood (or Ikbwan) consolidated power,
massacring all opponents as deviants and infidels. Abd al-Wahhib
also emphasized the commendable Islamic principles of equality and
cooperation, but even this positive aspect of the movement was
quickly eroded by the development of privilege in Saudi Arabia
based on pedigree of birth.

Al-Afghani (Jamal al-Din al-Afghani. 1839-97), one of the most

influential Muslim activists of the nineteenth century, devoting his
life to the renewal of Islam, and the ideal of replacing colonialism
with a reunited Muslim empire, including both Sunni and Shi'a. Al-
Afghani was a Persian Shi'ite, despite his name, but he concealed his
origins in order to be able to advocate Islamic unity. He was cultured
but ascetic, and well read in Muslim medieval philosophy. He
taught and lectured widely, and was at the same time involved in
resistance against foreign domination and domestic oppression in
Afghanistan. India. Persia and Egypt. He preached wherever he went
in an inflammatory style for a return to first Islamic principles.
Al-Afghani was the inspiration for the modern regeneration of the
mlafiyya movement and for the Muslim Brotherhood, as well as the
 TRAVELLING IN OAR AL-ISLAM 387

personal mcnror of Muhammad ‘Abduh, in the Sufi tradition of pir

and murid (master and disciple). He ended his wide travels as the
guest, then the virtual prisoner, of the Ottoman sultanate. He was
charged with directing the assassination of the Shah of Persia in
1896, but died of cancer while awaiting extradition from Turkey. AI-
Afghani s great concern was with Islam as an entire way of life, rather
than with the detailed formulation of dogma. He wished to dose the
gates on the West and rebuild the crumbling edifice of Islam in a
new and different way. He died disappointed by the internal divi­
sions of Islam that prevented the realization of his vision. He is
claimed as the intellectual source for many of the advocates of
salafiyya today, but cerebrally he belongs to none of them.

Muhammad 'Abduh (1849—1905). 'Abduh gained a place at al-

Azhar University. Cairo, although he was from a poor country back­
ground. He was an Egyptian modernist and reformer who
attempted to prepare Islam for the advent of the modern world.
‘z\bduh drew a distinction between the essential doctrines of Islam
(belief in God, the revelation of the Qur’an as completing the
prophetic cycle, moral responsibility and final judgement) and the
social teachings of the faith, including the laws of the Shariah. But
in contrast to the core beliefs, passed down by a line beginning with
the Companions of the Prophet and thus immutable, ‘Abduh
regarded social morality and the Shariah as relating to particular cir­
cumstances and so open to change as circumstances changed.
‘Abduh’s movement follows in the salafiyya tradition therefore, but
in this case the objective of the call for a return to the original
immutable texts is to move forward not backward.
The essence of‘Abduh’s intention for contemporary Islam was to
meet the scientific and political challenge from the advancing West by
modernizing, while at the same time adhering to the famous maxim
of Malik ibn Anas, 'the later success of this (Muslim) Community
will only ensue through those elements which made for their initial
success'. Thus the original sources of the Qur'in and the Sunna arc to
be applied through piety and trust to modern questions through
ijtihad, or innovation, replacing taqlid. or the slavish imitation of past
tradition and practice (into which the Wahhabist version of salafiyya
had fallen, although claiming the contrary). ‘Abduh’s version of
 mwaiMG IN DAR AL ISLAM

salafiyya became the inspiration for nationalist anti-colonial move­

ments in Tunisia, Morocco and especially Algeria, placing emphasis
on political rights, political action and education. The Muslim
Brotherhood, operating principally in Egypt through to the present
day, was a direct outgrowth of ‘Abduh's version of salafirfa, and is
what is generally meant today by salafi.
But 'Abduh would not have been encouraged by the modem
salafi movement, since he ultimately embraced Western rule by
returning to British Egypt after extensive travels, entering the legal
profession, rising to become a judge and finally the Mufti of Egypt,
an imperial appointment. His famous rulings, based on the Maliki
school, allowed public interest to overrule the constraints of prece­
dent. and he attempted to separate social progress from the practice
of religion, the formula, he believed, that had allowed the West to
progress. Lord Cromer, the British Consul General in Cairo, and the
virtual ruler of the country went so far as to describe 'Abduh. in his
memoirs, as an agnostic.

Muhammad Iqbal (1873-1938). Born in the Indian province of

Punjab, now in Pakistan. Iqbal grew up during the period when
Islam in British India was in decline. His life was dedicated to the
restoration of the faith as both a spiritual and a temporal order. He
studied philosophy at Cambridge University, received a doctorate
from Heidelberg University where he was a student of Nietzsche,
and was called to the London bar in 1908. On his return to India
he was the first advocate of a separate state for Muslims, but he was
not considered a threat to imperial order by the British and he was
knighted for services to education. Iqbal’s main legacy is poetry,
written in the mystical Persian style, offering an explanation of
human destiny that made him a cultural hero. Religion is presented
as the only source of salvation and emancipation. Iqbal idealized
the early Muslim community, in which he saw the realization of
man’s spiritual and worldly potential, with the perfection of the
soul reflected in the excellence of social relations. The inner truth of
Islam had. in this view, been hidden from subsequent generations
by obscurantist religious interpretation and wayward rulers. Only
by reconnecting with the root values of Islam, could the perfect
society be recreated. Iqbal was. therefore drawn into the argument.
 TRAVELING IN OAR AllSLAM 389
that history is not a product of divine will, the general Muslim
view, but rather lives and destinies could be directed by the indi­
vidual. Iqbal used the language of Sufism, but avoided the tradi­
tions with his message that improvement could only be achieved by
embracing the problems of the existential world, not by their
rejection.
Iqbal is regarded as the intellectual father of Pakistan, but he did
not live to witness the terrible birth of his nation, which was left to
'Ali Jinna. leader of the Muslim League. Iqbal did not believe that
Pakistan would prosper under upper-class Westernized Muslims as
inheritors of the British Raj, but at the very least the creation of the
state offered the opportunity for social improvement through a
‘return to the original purity of Islam'.

Sayyid Qutb (1906-66), Egyptian exponent of the ‘just Islamic

society’ and principal influence on the Muslim Brothers, following
the assassination of the founder Hasan al-Banna (1906-49). He
preached that man could only be free when released from all forms
of oppression, from colonialism to corruption, from human desires
to the 'priesthood' (by which Qutb meant the religious establish­
ment centred on al-Azhar University in Cairo), and subjected only
to the laws of God, as expressed in the Qur’an and the Sunna.
Qutb's famous treatise Signpons on the Path (written in prison and
contributing to his execution) is seen as the beginning of revolu­
tionary Islamism. ‘The Western Age is finished.' he wrote, 'only
Islam offers hope for the world.' Qutb based his political mission on
his core concepts of jdhiliyyah and hakimiyya. both adapted from
Maududi (see below)and strengthened.
By jdhiliyyah Qutb meant the corruption of all aspects of Muslim
life by decadent Western culture, creating a society as rotten as that
destroyed by Muhammad in Mecca. But he advocated more than
‘defending Islam’, to embrace aggressive action in order to eliminate
the cancer, just as Medina overcame Mecca. Qutb went so far as pur­
posely to misinterpret rhe Qur'an to justify individual action against
injustice. Surah 5 Al-Md’ulah (The Repast) at verse 45 reads:

And if any fail to judge

By the light of what Allah
WO 1HAWLLNG IN DA« At.ISi.AM

Hath revealed, they are

No better than wrongdoers.

Qutb interpreted die word 'judge' to read 'rule', giving apparent

authority to declare the ruler kafir, or an unbeliever, so justifying
violent means. In any event, the passage in context clearly refers to
the standard of behaviour required of Jews and Christians.
By hakimiyya Qutb meant divine 'sovereignty on earth’, which he
believed would be achieved through the force for good in the Qur’an.
From this has developed the rejuvenating Qur’anic concept by which
a true Islamic state will be worked out when the opportunity arises by
the committed professional classes of the modem age (rather than
through traditionalist mullahs and sheikhs), using the core concepts
of Islam in ways that have never before been attempted. This experi­
ment could possibly begin immediately upon the outcome of a tree
vote in most Muslim countries, if such a referendum were ever to take
place. Hakimiyya has become a militant slogan throughtout Islam for
the opposition to the status quo, but does not answer the practical
questions.
Qutb was nothing if not committed, and since he gave his life
for his beliefs he has achieved the status of shabeedor martyr (espe­
cially as he was imprisoned twice, horribly tortured and humiliated,
tried by a politically rigged court, and underwent a barbaric execu­
tion). Qutb moved from being a supporter of the revolution of
Nasser to an opponent, and during a period of civil unrest in the
mid-1960s he was arrested. His followers prepared for violence
and martyrdom to achieve their version of social justice, but were
held in check by a ruthless state of emergency which is still in force
today. Later members of the Brotherhood were accused of directing
the assassination of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat in 1981,
although the actual perpetrators were not members. The Muslim
Brotherhood was also responsible for an attempt to overthrow the
dictatorial regime of Syrian President Hafiz al-Assad in 1981, which
was put down with great loss of life.
Qutb was also an influential literary critic, and was the first to pro­
mote the works of Neguib Mahfouz, initiating the Egyptian literary
revival ot the 1940s and 1950s. latter Qutb rejected his literary work
and claimed to wish that he had never made the effort.
 TRAVELLING IN BAR ALISLAM 391

Umm Kulthum (Dakhliyya Tamayya z-Zahira, 1904-75), the

most treasured Arab musician of the twentieth century. Umm
Kulthum's genius for interpretation of classic songs occupies a place
in the hearts of Arabic speakers comparable to Western appreciation
of Ella Fitzgerald (for her impeccable scats) combined with Kathleen
Ferrier (for her lyrical renditions of traditional songs). Daughter of
a village imam and mukri in rural Egypt, she began performing as a
young Qur'an reciter, dressed as a boy. But the unusual timbre of her
singing voice and the force of her interpretations freed her from tra­
ditional social restrictions, propelling her to national prominence
shortly after moving to Cairo. Umm Kalthum usually sang with a
large orchestra skilfully conducted to accompany her famously
spontaneous improvisations on classic qasa'id literature that could
extend a song for an hour or more before a rapt audience following
every nuance. But she was also 'popular', able, like Sinatra or
Pavarotti, to speak directly to the heart of the uninitiated listener
through her monthly radio concerts and ultimately through motion
picture musicals. Her career lasted over fifty years and her love songs
and poetry recitals arc still heard nightly on radio stations through­
out the Arabic-speaking world. Umm Kulthum supported Nasser
and the 1952 Egyptian coup, and she was largely responsible for
maintaining Arab solidarity after the defeat of the Six Day War of
1967, with a tumultuous tour of the affected countries. The grief at
her funeral in Cairo in 1975 exceeded the street emotion at Nasser's
death five years earlier.

Sayyid Abu'1-A'la al-Maududi (1903-79). also known as Jamaat-

e-Islamia, and founder of the Jamaat Islamia party in Pakistan which
has been active since the inception of the state in 1947. The goal of
the party is the conversion of Pakistan from a Muslim homeland to
an Islamic state and the establishment of the Shariah as the sole law
of the land. The Jamaat has an extensive network in Britain, based
on the Islamic Mission and the Islamic Foundation in Leicester. The
party is backed by Saudi Arabia and has links to Dawlatul-lslam, the
Bangladeshi political party advocating the same policies.
Maududi’s writings explain Islam as an entirely self-contained
system of laws, beliefs and social practice requiring application
rather than innovation or dilution by outside ideas, especially any
3W TRAVELLING IN OAR AL-ISLAM

influence from the corrupted West. For this reason Maududi is

widely read by Sunni activists and he is one of the few non-Arab
writers on Islam to be translated into Arabic.
Maududi's political career began with the ambition to convert
the whole of India to Islam, and he only reluctantly accepted the
establishment of Pakistan as a separate Muslim state. Like Iqbal he
had little confidence in the rulers left behind by the Raj to advance
the cause of Islam. Maududi was imprisoned for sectarian agitation
(his death sentence was commuted) and the fortunes of the Jamaat
only rose when harnessed by General Zia ul Haqq to gain support
for his military rule. Since Maududi s death the Jamaat has become
a minority party associated with factionalism and violence against
the Shi'a minority.

Anwar Sadat (1918-81), President of Egypt from 1970. Born in a

poor Delta village, Sadat became an army officer, commissioned at
twenty. He opposed British rule and joined the Muslim
Brotherhood, attempting various political assassinations and collab­
oration with the German forces in Africa under General Rommel.
Sadat participated in Nassers July Resolution of 1952 and was a
member of die Revolutionary Command Council. On Nassers death
Sadat became President. He severed ties with Russia and moved the
economy towards capitalism. Sadat was responsible for the attack on
Israel in October 1973, which after initial Arab success ended with
the Israeli forces only sixty miles from Cairo. Economic reforms after
the war promoted by the West led to inflation, lowering of public
morals and riots, with Egyptian troops firing on their own citizens.
At the same time the cost of living rose sharply to the detriment of
the poor and the advantage of the rich. After armed attacks on the
government, Sadat attempted to appease the opposition by allowing
Brotherhood exiles to return, and moderate Brotherhood pro­
grammes to develop.
By diplomacy Sadat reopened the Suez canal and recovered the
Sinai peninsula captured by Israel, through an Egyptian-Israeli
Peace Treaty and a spectacular but outrageous visit to Israel in 1977.
The central Palestinian question was left unresolved, and Sadat
was filmed praying in the al-Aqsa Mosque under Israeli guard, so
implying Israeli sovereignty over the Haram. Sadat became increas-
 TRAVtlllNG IN PAR AL-ISLOH W3

ingly dependent on America and out of touch with the worsening

problems of ordinary Egyptians, surrounding himself with corrupt
courtiers. He began to respond to political opposition by re-arrest­
ing Brotherhood members and by Nasseritc torture, imprisonment
and execution of dissidents, while at the same time attempting to
present himself to the people as a village patriarch who understood
the intricacies of crops and livestock. Sadat was assassinated while
reviewing troops on the eighth anniversary of the 1973 ‘victory’ over
Israel. Sadat became a ridiculous figure, criticized for his meaning­
less titles, splendid uniforms and his attempts to bring quotes from
the Qur’Sn into his speeches, but in the decade after his death his
reputation recovered and he is seen today as ending the oppressive
Socialism of Nasserism.

Yassir Arafat (Muhammad Abd al-Rauf Arafat al-Qudwa). born to

Palestinian parents in Egypt in 1929 and attended Cairo University
after taking part in the 1948 Isracl-zVrab war. He was President of
Palestinian Students' Union (1952-57), served in the Egyptian army
and later founded Fatah in Kuwait and subsequently became
Cihairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization in 1969. He
attempted to accommodate all points of view within the PLO, with
the result that the PLO was unable to set a consistent policy and was
constantly under attack from within by radical factions. Fatah was
expelled from Jordan when operations against Israel began to desta­
bilize the Jordanian state and Arafat moved to Lebanon, taking over
much of the south of the country, which he ran as a state within a
state. When Israel invaded Lebanon. Arafat and his supporters were
cornered and evacuated to Tunis. From Tunisia Arafit lost touch
with ordinary Palestinians suffering under Israeli military occupa­
tion in the West Bank and Gaza. When he returned, as head of the
Palestine Authority established by the Olso peace process as a stage
towards Palestinian statehood, he was seen by his own people as
largely irrelevant and corrupt, while the construction of Israeli set­
tlements in occupied Palestine and the expropriation of Palestinian
land continued.
The administration of the PA turned out to be as ineffective
and as corrupt as the PLO, unable to bring the various elements
in rhe Palestinian resistance together. The result has been the
394 TRAVELLING IN OAR AUKAM

deterioration of relations with Israel, leading to the closure of

Palestinian towns by the Israel Defence Forces, severe economic
hardship, and frequent violent incursions by the IDF into
Palestinian territory. At the beginning of 2002, with Arafat virtually
imprisoned in Ramallah and considered by Israel to be ‘irrelevant’,
a ‘terrorist’ and a 'murderer', the solution to the impasse between
Israel and the Palestinians seemed to be as far away as ever.
Arafat died in Paris tn 2004 and was buried in Ramallah with full
honours. A moderate from the PLO, Mahmoud Abbas, was elected
in his place. But within months the same canard reappeared. Abbas
would only be a suitable ‘partner for peace' with Israel and America
if, under conditions of Israeli occupation, internal economic col­
lapse, military balkanization and the continued expansion of Israeli
settlements, Palestine first transformed itself into a functioning
democratic state, disarmed and compliant.

Naguib Mahfouz (b. 1911), Cairo-based novelist and for many

years employed by various Egyptian ministries. Author of over thirty
novels and thirteen collections of short stories, the first published in
1939. His work is Arabic narrative of universal appeal, rich in
nuance and flowing smoodtly from realism to ambiguity and back.
Many of the characters created by Mahfouz are expressions of the
hopes and frustrations of Egyptians and Arabs generally, and appeal
to a wide audience. The view of the world is generally gloomy, occa­
sionally illuminated by minor advances towards the author's distant
and probably unachievable utopia. The strongest characters have a
sense of their own impalement by time and politics, while the vil­
lains arc ambitious, shallow and usually successful.
Mahfouz is best known for The Cairo Trilogy, three novels almost
filling the function of a social history of Egypt from the end of the
First World War until the overthrow of King Farouk by Nasser in
1950. This achievement alone brings Mahfouz up to the stature of
Dickens, Balzac or Tolstoy. Mahfouz was awarded the Nobel Prize
for Literature in 1988, the first Arab to be honoured (although for
a novel written thirty years earlier). In 1994 Mahfouz was stabbed
in the neck by two Egyptian fanatics who accused him of blas­
phemy. Mahfouz survived, but his health has never fully recovered.
 tRAVUUNG IN DAR AL-ISlAM 395

Mohammed ElBaradei (b. 1942), Director General of the

international Atomic Energy Agency (the IAEA, a United Nations
organization composed of 139 nations, reporting to the Security
Council on nuclear arms proliferation and working to promote
peaceful nuclear use). From a prominent Cairo family and son of a
former president of the Egyptian Bar Association, ElBaradei rose
from law school graduate of Cairo University to a specialist in inter­
national law with the United Nations. He began his third term as
Director General in May 2005, despite US opposition due to
Elbaradei's assertions early in the Iraq crisis of 2003, that, following
IAEA inspections, no weapons of mass destruction were to be found
in Iraq. ElBaradei has subsequently refused to condemn the alleged
nuclear arms programme in Iran before proof of such activities has
been found, and was thus able to maintain working relations with
the Iranian government. Elbaradei is admired for his methodical and
entirely fair ‘non-aligned’ approach to international difficulties,
summarized by the following excerpt from his essay in the New
York Times in February 2004: 'We must abandon the unworkable
notion that it is morally reprehensible for some countries to pursue
weapons of mass destruction, yet morally acceptable for others to
rely on them for security.' For his fearless efforts Dr ElBaradei,
together with the IAEA, was awarded the 2005 Nobel Peace Prize.
Seen by many as a criticism of US policy, ElBaradei interpreted the
rationale of the award as a message from the Nobel committee to
‘keep doing what you are doing'.

Ahmad Zuweil (b. 1946). born and educated in Egypt, Zuweil

earned his PhD at the University of Pennsylvania, and is at the time
of writing Linus Pauling Chair Professor at the National Science
Foundation Laboratory of Molecular Science at the California
Institute of Technolog)-. Pasadena, California, directing a team of
150 postgraduate researchers. Zuweil became known worldwide
with his award of the Nobel Prize for Chemistr)- in 1999 for his
work in the field of atomic research, 'making it possible to observe
the movement of the individual atom in a femto-second (invented
by Zuweil): a split second that is a millionth of a billionth of a
second’. Zuweil lives in the US with his wife, a physician in public
health, and his four children. He is the first scientist of Arab origin
 TRAVFUJNG IN DAR ALJSLAM

to win a Nobel Prize in the sciences. During the celebrations he said

that he owed his determination to his mother, who placed a sign
reading Doctor Ahmad Zutveilon his bedroom door when he was ten
years old.

Shchta (Shchta Morsi Tolba, b. 1964), the eldest son of a farming

family in the peasant village of Manzal HayyJn-Hihya in the
Govcrnatc of Sharqiyya in northern Egypt. 100 km from Cairo. The
family, consisting of his father and mother, brother, sister-in-law,
Shehta and his wife, and a total of six children, live together in the
family house on a farm of less than one acre. The farm has been in
the family for generations and in the last decade has received elec­
tricity and improved irrigation, although the farm has never paid
any taxes. Shchta's father works the farm which provides the family
with food and some surplus to barter. Shehta received no education,
helping his father from the age of eight until drafted into the army
at the age of eighteen. L.ike his father, Shehta could neither read nor
write until taught elementary Arabic by the army. On discharge,
Shehta found a position at the University as a cleaner, and holds the
same position twenty years later. He commutes to and from Cairo
every week earning Si00 per month, which, with his brothers small
salary as a government worker, is the only income the family has.
Like his father, who attends the village mosque for every one of
the five prayers every day, Shehta is innately devout. His first task in
the University was to clean the ablutions in a dormitory for girls
where he earned the girls' respect by his complete discretion and
modesty. The future Queen Noor of Jordan attended the University
and subsequently remembered Shehta on a visit to her old school by
assisting his family with a small donation. Shchta is regarded by the
Arabic language Department where he now works as a paragon of
honesty and trustworthiness.
Shehta chose his wife for himself, merely by sight, but sought the
permission of her father before even talking to the young ladv her­
self. They were married a year later and now have three small boys.
Shehta and his brother work on the farm on Fridays and Saturdays
so that the children are free to go to a new village school where they
learn Arabic. English and Arithmetic. The eldest child has excelled
by learning the first half of the Qur’an by the age of eleven.
 TRAVtlUNG IN OAR AL-6LAM 397

Two questions interested this observer after Shehta had related

his life story.
‘Have you consciously ever given in to Shayt'an?'
'When I was engaged to my wife, I did not even sit next to her
for one year.'
'What is your ambition for the future?'
'1 would like my father to perform the haj, if God wills. And 1
would like my children to be taught at school.'

VII Face to Face

Muslims arc notoriously touchy about their faith, although a more

sympathetic comment would be to say that Muslim beliefs are
deeply held, and that this can have the effect of elevating some seem­
ingly minor matters of protocol into important issues. The traveller
in Muslim countries generally, and Arab countries in particular,
needs to know how to avoid giving offence and how to establish a
rapport based on respect for the religion and culture of Islam.
But behaviour varies widely between Muslim communities
around the world, just as life in Marseille differs from life in
Edinburgh even though both cities are European and nominally
Christian. The factor common to all Muslim countries is that the
religious dimension to everyday life is much stronger titan the
Christian equivalent. The key is to lie aware of the difference
between those observances derived from the Qur’an and those that
are little more than regional superstitions.
Dress code. Moderation is urged by the Qur’an in all things. To
regard Muslim attitudes to dress as 'sexist' or old-fashioned' is
unproductive therefore, since the rationale for the code, if not for
the minor details that vary from culture to culture, is ordained by
God for the stability of the community. Sexual display and appetite
are treated by Islam as similar to the appetite for food or drink: a
basic instinct to be recognized frankly and enjoyed under the right
circumstances. But sexuality is to be restrained in the interest of the
higher attainments of which humans are capable: public order and
personal dignity, for example. This contrasts sharply with Western
values which usually put the freedom of the individual ahead of
 TRAVELLING IN DAR Al-ISLAM

community standards, which arc themselves often ill defined. But in

all Muslim countries an unnecessary display of female flesh will be
seen as offensive rather than liberated, while in some communities
the reaction will be outright confrontation. What may be normal
around a swimming pool at an American hotel in Beirut will rapidly
become a provocation on the streets of Lahore. A suitable outfit for
a woman for outings in an Islamic country would be a dress with a
high neckline and a hem down to the calf with arms covered to the
wrist. A head of exotic flowing hair is much more arousing in a
Muslim country than in the West and coiffure should be at least
restrained if not covered, in order to avoid disconcerting looks or
even attempts to touch. Men should avoid wearing shorts in cities
and certainly on Fridays. A Muslim cannot enter a mosque or pray
with bare legs, or arms exposed up to the shoulder. This makes most
leisurewear unworkable for a believer since prayers take place five
times per day. The wearer of shorts in a Muslim country will there­
fore be an exception on the street and should not be surprised if he
finds that he or she is attracting attention.
A strong sense of personal privacy goes with Qur'anic modesty:
knocking and awaiting permission to enter a room, for example,
excusing oneself before leaving the presence of others; not standing
in a doorway and blocking the passage of others. In the early days of
the Prophet’s ministry, his door was always open, which he found to
be an increasing hardship especially since his household included a
number of women who should not have been exposed to random
visitors. Later, a verse of die Qur’an was revealed giving Muhammad
permission to require visitors to knock and await his invitation to
enter.
A more cultural than religious custom governs the use of the left
and right hands. Traditionally heaven is on the right hand and hell
on the left, finding some common ground with the double meaning
of the word ‘right’ in English and droit in French and the older asso­
ciation in both languages of left with ‘sinister’ or lintsrre. Thus the
left hand is reserved for unclean acts, wiping the anus, carrying shoes
or anything soiled. Conversely the right hand is used for eating, for
shaking hands and for passing items into the hand of another
person. Less importantly, the right foot should pass over the thresh­
old first on entering or leaving home, showing respect for one’s
 THAVT1I ING IN W. Al-lSlAM W

dwelling and invoking protection from the dangers that lie beyond.
A Muslim might accompany his arrival or departure, or any other
activity of the day, with the words ' bismi'IM', ‘in the name of God'.
This right-biased instinct is also present on a crowded street in a
Muslim city. Moving to your left to allow another pedestrian to pass
on your right will generally result in the reciprocal reaction from
those approaching. Moving to your right will often result in a colli­
sion because in popular Muslim mythology the devil’s power is neu­
tralized if he is passed by on the stronger right. Arabic writing begins
on the right of the page and any serious composition will probably
begin with an invocation to God, also starting from the right-hand
side of the page. This practice has an eerie resonance in modern sci­
ence, which has linked left-handedness with a propensity to schizo­
phrenia, dyslexia and stuttering.
Elaborate greetings are pan of Arabic legend and apply to
Muslims in general, Behind the myth lies another Qur’anic injunc­
tion: to have respect both for yourself and for others. This is
reflected in a high standard of politeness at a personal level that can
easily be construed by a Westerner as being phoney. Muslims usually
take the time, for example, to wish you good-day or goodbye in a
style that is communicated directly and with conviction. Shaking
hands as a greeting is normal, while between Arabs especially kissing
expresses close personal friendship. However, this would never apply
between a man and woman who arc not married, and even between
men the kiss is usually placed on the shoulder or in the air and not
on to the check.
On the other hand, frequent warnings in the Qur’an against
hypocrisy form another important aspect of Muslim personal pro­
tocol. 'God is closer to you than the vein in your neck.' the Qur’an
says and He alone knows your intentions, rendering the acting
out of a falsehood purposeless. Compliments should, therefore, not
be given if not meant but should never be omitted where due.
A Muslim should accept without difficulty a politely expressed
difference of opinion, or a frank expression of negative or upset
feelings.
A common misunderstanding between Westerners and Arabs,
but not all Muslims of course, centres on communication. Arabs
will attempt to avoid a direct 'no' to a request, especially to a friend
<00 TRAvauNG IN DAR AL-ISLAM

or colleague. The answer may in fact be ‘no’, but another way must
be found to express the position. This may take the form of point­
ing out difficulties, or adding conditions then doing nothing. In this
way the willingness shown by the words is more important than the
action, which may not take place anyway for many different reasons,
and in the mean time the friendship has not been impaired by
poinr-blank refusal. In the other direction, the same applies: if the
requestee is unwilling to perform an act, and makes that dear indi­
rectly, he or she will not be pressed, and a superficial excuse will be
accepted. The universal expression inshah’ allah expresses exactly the
uncertainty that covers over a refusal. A request may take on a
deeper meaning, however, when asked ‘for my sake' by the requestor,
and such expressions reveal a certain urgency, as well as the acknow­
ledgement of a reciprocal debt to the requestee. The frustration of a
Westerner trying to ‘get to the bottom line' or to ‘cut to the chase'
is therefore predestined, and to break the code is both unproductive
and rude.
God is woven into every aspect of Muslim life. Almost every
Muslim born becomes a believer, whether or not he or she is a
devout practitioner. So there arc many everyday expressions that
carry religious significance. Examples of such phrases, that can be
easily memorized and would cam the speaker instant appreciation,
arc given in Appendix 3 to Chapter 3.
There arc no uniform or text-based rules for visits to mosques
by non-Muslims. Practice differs from culture to culture but a wel­
come is usual to other Peoples of the Book'. Visiting is specifically
prohibited in Morocco and Tunisia, as well at most Shi'a shrines.
Certain universal rules apply to the behaviour of the visitor, whether
the mosque to be entered is in general use or a historical monument.
Fridays must be avoided as well as times of daily prescribed prayers
which are announced by the call of the muezzin. In a mosque the
dress code mentioned above is obligatory, with the addition for
women of a scarf tied dose around the face. Men should not wear
shorts and should cover their arms down to the elbow. Shoes must
be removed even though some sites frequented by tourists may
provide shoe covers or slippers. The question of foot infection from
slippers is sometimes raised by Western visitors, but this is not valid
from a religious point of view and the choice is between following
 TRAVtUJNG IN DAR Al ISLAM <01

the rules in your socks or bare feet, or not entering the mosque. In
addition, the visitor should show respect for the mosque by behav­
ing quietly and modestly and children should be controlled. No
photographs should be taken of Muslims at prayer in a mosque.
Relationships. Here the wide difference between what is usual
in the West and what is acceptable in a Muslim country is quickly
apparent. Once again this is not a question of ‘backwardness’ or
'repression' but a sincerely and universally held belief based in faith
as to the correct way in which relationships should be initiated and
conducted. Men and women may hold hands in public without
giving offence, but an embrace or kissing is completely unaccept­
able. Relations between husbands and wives are private and sacred
and should never be displayed in a public place. Such relations
between unmarried people are prohibited anyway, so that the issue
of public display does not arise. Women holding hands or linking
arms are unremarkable, even between two men this is taken as a
sign of friendship because os'ert gay behaviour in public is almost
unknown. Unmarried men and women can meet in formal situ­
ations, even through a casual acquaintance at work or in a shop, but
any attempt to ‘pick up' on the street will lead to nothing more
rewarding than severe embarrassment for both sides, even in a large
modern city like Cairo.
Travelling as an unmarried couple or gay couple. Homo­
sexuality is not a personal matter of ‘choice’ in Islam as the Qur’an
prohibits such behaviour, which is viewed as a threat to the com­
munity. The difficulties encountered by a gay couple in a Muslim
country will depend on both the country visited and the facilities
used. International hotels will probably be accommodating in all
except the countries following the Shariah. In a hotel with local
management two men or two women sharing a room would proba­
bly be accepted without comment as no sexual relationship would
be suspected unless deliberate evidence were given. However, a man
and a woman with different names on their passports would usually
be prohibited from taking a room together unless proven to be mar­
ried or brother and sister.
A woman travelling on her own must first take all the personal
safety precautions recommended for any journey, from New York to
Paris, but in a Muslim country, in addition, the dress code should be
40? TRAVfLUNG IN DAR ALJSLAZ4

followed closely at all times. In the vast majority of situations, a

woman in the street wearing long clothes and a headscarf will receive
full respect and encounter no difficulties. In most Muslim societies
cafes are the customary preserve of men only, but in a restaurant
women should be able to obtain service on their own with no awk­
wardness. However, street society is largely male and this may lead
to discomfort for a single woman, especially in crowded places at
night. In many Muslim countries trains and buses have separate
compartments for women, with the balance of the coaches mixed
rather than separated.
Visiting a Muslim home. The visitor can expect to be over­
whelmed by food and drink, starting with the welcoming offering of
fruit juice made from natural products: tamarisk, licorice or guava,
rather than a bought bottled drink. In response the visitor should
bring a small gift, candy, flowers in the more affluent societies, or
fruit, but never alcohol. The nature of the invitation should also be
considered carefully. If a man is invited without reference to his wife
or partner, he should go alone and expect to find that the occasion
is for men only with the women of die house elsewhere. If the invi­
tation is expressly for a couple then the company will generally be
mixed, but may separate later.
Bargaining in a Muslim country is another subject of legend
when in fact the practice only applies to bazaars or sometimes taxis.
The Qur’an prescribes that fair measure be given, so although bar­
gaining for price is acceptable, representations as to quality, weight
or refinement should be accepted as offered. If there is any reason for
doubt, it would be preferable not to buy the article than to question
the definition that has been given. Some guidebooks recommend an
elaborate bargaining procedure in which the tourist offers half the
asking price then goes through the charade of walking away. None
of this is necessary and bargaining should begin with the purchaser
comparing prices in die market and developing a reasonable expect­
ation of final price that does not insult the seller. Bargaining should
be done on a friendly and straightforward basis and will be accepted
in the same spirit.
Official and unofficial guides. At some tourist destinations the
visitor is overwhelmed by souvenir sellers, touts and self-styled
guides, at the Pyramids in Giza, for example, or approaching the
 TRAVELLING IN OAR Al ISLAM 403

souk at Marrakesh. The annoyance of saying 'no, thank you’ every

few seconds, or even having your path blocked by a donkey, a camel
or a shop agent until you acquiesce, can be overcome by engaging
the services ot an official guide. In his or her company there is
instant peace. Be sure, however, to choose a guide licensed by the
government with a card, a badge and photograph ID.
Tipping. Here judgement should be based on Western practice,
with one important distinction. Attempting to tip an inappropriate
level of service can give deep offence. If in doubt, your appreciation
should be expressed with nothing more than a sincere ‘thank you'.
Some examples of who should not be tipped are language teachers,
private drivers, officials, police, office workers and hotel managers.
Style of address. The intimae)’ intended in the West by using a
first name does not apply in Arabic, where a person's full name will
consist of his or her personal name, the personal name of the father
and the grandfather, followed by the family name for a very wide
family. His or her first name, dierefore, is die only personal name he
or she has. This applies equally to both males and females, and a
woman does not change the composition of her name on marriage.
The names of earlier generations listed in the name can be preceded
by ibn as 'son of' or bint as ‘daughter of, which can lead to an
impossibly long recitation, so that in practice earlier generations are
dropped successively. First names arc usually used with the prefix Mr
or Mrs or Professor or Doctor where a level of formality exists. T he
family name, which in some cases may not exist, may reflect an
origin or a metier, such as Hijazi (from the Hijaz) Halaby (from
Aleppo) Najjar (carpenter) or Tawil (tall). The common prefix to the
family name of al- is merely the definite article, and carries no con­
notation of past or present nobility or distinction. The names given
above could equally be written as al-Hijazi, al-Halaby, al-Najjar, or
al-Tawil.
404 TRAVtUXG IN DAR AL BIAM

Appendix
Excerpt from The Life of Muhammad by Emile
Dermenghem

In the middle of a solemn quiet night when even the night-birds and
die rambling beasts were quiet, when the streams had stopped murmur­
ing and no breezes played. Mahomet was awakened by a voice crying,
'Sleeper awake'. And before him stood the Angel Gabriel, with radiant
forehead, countenance white as snow, blond hair floating, in garments
sewn with pearls and embroidered in gold. Manifold wings of every
colour stood out quivering from his body.
Gabriel led a fantastical steed, Buraq (Lightning), with a human
head and two eagles' wings; it approached Mahomet, allowed him to
mount and was off like an arrow over the mountains of Mecca and the
sands of the desert towards the North ... the Angel accompanied them
on this prodigious flight. On the summit of Mt Sinai, where God had
spoken to Moses. Gabriel stopped Mahomet for prayer, and again at
Bethlehem where Jesus was born, before resuming their course in the
air. Mysterious voices attempted to detain the Prophet, who was so
wrapped up in his mission that he felt that God alone had the right to
stop his steed. When they reached Jerusalem Mahomet tethered Buraq
and prayed on the ruins of the temple of Solomon, with Abraham,
Moses and Jesus. Seeing an endless ladder appear upon Jacob’s rock, the
Prophet was enabled to mount rapidly to rhe heavens.
I he first heaven was of pure silver and the stars suspended from its
vault by chains of gold; in each one an angel lay awake to prevent the
demons from climbing into the holy dwelling places and the spirits
from listening indiscreetly to celestial secrets. There, Mahomet greeted
Adam. And in the six other heavens the Prophet met Noah, Aaron,
Moses, Abraham. David, Solomon, Idris, Yahya (John the Baptist) and
Jesus. He saw the Angel of Death, Azrail, so huge that his eyes were
separated by 70,000 marching days. He commanded 100,000 battalions
and passed his time writing in an immense book the names of those
dying or being born. He saw the Angel of Tears who wept for the sins
of the world; the Angel of Vengeance with brazen face, covered with
warts, who presides over the elements of fire and sits on a throne of
flames; and another immense angel made up half of snow and half of
fire, surrounded by a heavenly choir continually crying. ‘O God, Thou
hast united snow and fire, united all Thy servants in obedience to Thy
 TRAVELLING IN DAR AL ISLAM 40S

laws'. In the seventh heaven where the souls of the just resided was an
angel larger than the entire world, with 70.000 heads; each head had
70,000 mouths and each mouth had 70.000 tongues and each tongue
spoke in 70,000 different idioms singing endlessly the praises of the
Most High.
While contemplating this extraordinary being, Mahomet was carried
to the top of the Lote-Tree of Heaven flowering at the right side of
God's invisible throne and shading myriads of angelic spirits. Then after
having crossed in a twinkling of an eye the widest seas, regions of
dazzling light and deepest darkness, traversed millions of clouds of
hyacinths, of gauze, of shadows, of fire, of air. of water, of void, each
one separated by 500 marching years, he then passed more clouds - of
beauty, of perfection, of supremacy, of immensity, of unity, behind
which were 70,000 choirs of angels bowed down and motionless in
complete silence. The ground began to heave and he felt himself carried
into the light of his Lord, where he was transfixed, paralysed. From here
heaven and earth together appeared as if imperceptible to him. as if
melted into nothingness and reduced to the size of a grain of mustard
seed in the middle of a field. And this is how Mahomet admits having
been before the Throne of the lord of the World.
He was in rhe presence of the Throne ‘at a distance of two bosvs'
length or yet nearer', beholding God with his souls eyes and seeing things
which the tongue cannot express, surpassing all human understanding.
The Almighty placed one hand on Mahomet's breast and the other on his
shoulder - to the ver)1 marrow of his bones he felt an icy chill, followed
by an inexpressible feeling of calm and ecstatic annihilation.
After a conversation whose ineffabiliry is not honoured by too
precise tradition, the Prophet received the command from God that all
believers must say fifty prayers each day. Upon coming down from
heaven Mahomet met Moses, who spoke with him on the subject.
'How do you hope to make your followers say fifty prayers each
day? I have had experience with mankind before you. I tried everything
with the children of Israel that it was possible to try. Take my word,
return to our Lord and ask for a reduction.'
Mahomet returned and the number of prayers was reduced to forty.
But Moses thought that this was still too many and made his successor
go back to God a number of times. In rhe end, God exacted no more
than five prayers.
Gabriel then took the Prophet to Paradise where the faithful rejoice
after their resurrection - an immense garden with silver soil, gravel of
*06 TRAVELLING M DAR AL-ISLAM

pearls, mountains of amber, filled with golden palaces and precious

stones.
Finally, after returning by the luminous ladder to the earth,
Mahomet untethered Buraq. mounted the saddle and rode into
Jerusalem on the winged steed.

Arabesque decoration on the dome of a mosque

 GLOSSARY

General note on use of accents

’: sign of hamza, creating a stop between letters.
': sign of ain. creating a guttural edge to the following letter.

Abraham: (or Ibrahim in Arabic) patriarch of both Muslims and

Jews, father of Ishmael born of his Canaanite wife Hajar, and of
Isaac bom of his Hebrew wife Sarah. Extolled in the Qur’an as obe­
dient to Allah, and his story is therefore a matter of faith.

AH: Anno Hegirae, in or since the year of the hijrah, the emigration
of Muhammad from Mecca to Medina, and the start of the Muslim
calendar.

Alawi: schismatic Shi'ite sect of northern Syria, forming the power

base for the Syrian Ba’th Party and the al-Assad family, past and
present rulers of Syria. Not to be confused with the Sunni Alawite
dynasty, present-day kings of Morocco.

‘alini: (plural 'ultimo) a recognized man of knowledge in in the

interpretation of the Qur'an, or in the history of Islam. A scholar.

‘Ash'arite: schismatic Sunni sect following al-'Ash'art, a literalist

interpreter of the Qur’an.

'Ashura: the tenth day of the lunar month of Muharram. The day
of die martyrdom of the Imam al-Husayn, and a day of Shi'ite
mourning and fasting.

aya.' (plural ayat) a verse in the Qur’an, with the secondary meaning
of‘sigh (from Allah).

azan: call by the muezzin of a mosque to prayer in congregation.

«oe GLOSSARY

Ba'th: meaning 'renaissance'. The name of a political movement,

principally in Iraq and Syria, the Ba’thist Party, taking power as
nominally socialist, but ending in tyranny and corruption.

Baha’i: a Shi'ite schism, following Sayyid ?Mi Muhammad Shirazi

(executed 1850) who preached pantheism and world peace.
Ferociously persecuted in Iran and now spread worldwide.

baraka: blessings or spiritual energy flowing from an event, person

or a place, attributed to the Mercy of Allah.

basmala: contraction of the widely used expression 'In the name of

Allah, the All-Mercifitl, the All-Compassionate’.

bay'a:z handshake to recognize a consensus or to acknowledge alle­

giance. The female version of shurd.

burdq: the miraculous beast which transported Muhammad during

the Zrr<r. Mythically in the form of an ass with wings.

burqa: a loose outer garment for females covering the entire body,
with a grill for the eyes. A version of which is worn by many Muslim
women, most famously in Afghanistan.

CE: Common Era. meaning the Western method of calculation of

years, but expressed without religious bias. Also BCE. Before the
Common Era.

da'wa: a simple form of proselytization by the call to prayer, usually

by a marabout, or penniless wandering missionary. The method by
which Sufi Islam has spread in Africa.

Dar al l larb: the 'House (or land) of Conflict' meaning the borders
of Islam where the faith confronts non-Muslims.

Dar al-Islam: the 'House (or land) of Islam’ where the faith and
Shariah reign.
 GLOSSARY 409

dhikr: rhe remembrance of Allah, by mental discipline, song, dance,

spoken invocation, or rhythmic repetition, among other methods.

diwan: the collective memory of a tribe, a family, or of Islam,

expressed as poetry. Also as Diwan, the muster-roll ofsoldiers during
the early expansion of Islam, becoming a tribal genealogy still main­
tained in Mecca.

Eid al-Adha: the Festival of the Sacrifice, die celebrarion at the end
of the haj, or pilgrimage, falling on the tendi of the lunar month of
Dhu'i-Hijja, associated with the sacrifice of an animal to commem­
orate Abraham’s aborted sacrifice of Ishmael.

Eid al-Fitr: festival ending the fast of Ramadan, falling on the first
day of the next lunar month of Shawwal.

/rmi'.'Sufi self-obliteration in the love of Allah, based on the inter­

pretation of a Qur’anic verse.

Fatiha: the first surah of the Qur’an, used as a general form of

prayer, similar to the Lord's Prayer.

Fatimid: lsma'ili dynast)' claiming descent from Fatima, daughter of

Muhammad. Rulers of parts of North Africa, including Egypt from
the ninth to eleventh centuries CE.

fatwa: (plural, fatawa) a legal ruling covering a current issue based

on the fiqh rules of interpretation. Much mis-used for political pur­
poses.

fiqh: jurisprudential core of the Shariah, based on the Qur’an, the

Sunna for Sunni fiqh. and on the writings of the Imams for Shi'a
fiqh.

firman: a form of fatwa issued by the Ottoman Empire, with the

status of legislation.

Five Pillars: described by Muhammad as ‘the Five’. The basis of

410 GLOSSARY

Muslim practice consisting of shahadah (profession of faith), salat

(daily prayers), zakat (poor tax), sau/m (fasting) and haj (pilgrim­
age).

hadith: the reported sayings of the Prophet. Hadith Qudsi (or Holy
Sayings) are hadith that report the words of Allah as given by
Muhammad.

haj see the Five Pillars.

hakimiyya: 'divine sovereignty on earth’. A twentieth-century politi­

cal slogan supporting the movement toward the implementation of
the Shariah.

halal: consumption permitted by the Shariah, usually meaning the

required method of butchering animals and preparing food. Similar
to 'kosher.

haram: forbidden by the Shariah.

Haram al-Sharif: the Holy Sanctuary (haram: sanctuary) by which

is meant the Dome of the Rock and al-Aqsa mosque, both standing
on the same enclosed platform above the Old City of Jerusalem.

Hijaz: the province of the Ottoman Empire on the Red Sea. for­
merly an independent part of Arabia drserta, containing the cities of
Mecca and Medina, where Muhammad was born, assumed his
prophethood, and died. Now part of Saudi Arabia.

hijrah: also hegira in Latin and used to describe Muhammad's

departure from Mecca and his journey to settle in Medina.

hujjat: meaning the proof’ by which Allah will always provide guid­
ance to the world. Also used for a middle rank (hujjat-al-Islam)
within the Shi'a hierarchy of mullahs.

ibram: the rules of behaviour and the state of mind required for the
observance of the rituals of the haj and the 'umrah.
 GLOSSARY 411

ihsdn: the state of complete sincerity before Allah, as he sees the

believer, and the believer sees Him.

ijdz; uniqueness, as applied to the Qur’in and to mankind.

ijma': consensus among die '(llama on areas offiqh.

ijtihdd: the process of innovation by which the Shariah can be

extended to subjects not directly covered by Qur’anic precedent, or
by oilier clear authority.

imam: another word for sheikh or mullah, as religious and political

leader. Also as Imam, meaning the successive leaders of the Shi'a, all
descended from ‘Ali.

imdn: acceptance of the faith of al-Islam.

inshah’alldh:\f Allah wills.'

intifada: uprising, usually with reference to resistance by

Palestinians against Zionist occupation.

Isa: Jesus Christ, a Jewish prophet of Islam.

Isma'ilis: a schismatic sect from Shi'a, following the seventh Imam,

rather than the twelfth Imam of the Shi'a majority.

Isrd: the Night Journey of the Prophet from Mecca to Jerusalem and
back on the twenty-seventh of the lunar month of Rajab. The Mi'rdj
of the Prophet, in which he was admitted to the outer levels of par­
adise, took place during the lira.

istibsdn: legal discretion, to permit where appropriate, a sense of

abstract fairness or equity, to prevail over legal rigidity.

istislah: the accommodation of the public interest in legal decisions,

provided that the essential values of religion, life, intellect, lineage
and property arc protected.
412 GIOSSARY

Jdhiliyyah: the Time of Ignorance in Arabia, covering chc one or two

centuries before the ministry of the Prophet, during which the Arabs
abandoned the monotheistic religion of Abraham and practised
polytheism and idolatry.

jihad: struggle, both personal and military. Associated with resist­

ance by the individual to temptation, and with the battles fought by
the first Muslims to protect their religion.

jinn: residents of an invisible parallel world, referred to in the

Qur’an, and therefore a matter of faith.

jizyah: protection tax paid by non-Muslim residents to the Muslim

empires. Generally equivalent in value to zakat, from which non­
Muslims were exempt (sec the Five Pillars).

Ka'bah: the stone cube, now at the centre of die Great Mosque of
Mecca, built by Adam to mark his forgiveness by Allah, later
restored by Abraham. The holiest place in Islam.

kafir: (plural kuffdr) more than a non-believer, a person who specif­

ically rejects Allah and the Prophet.

khaliva: spiritual retreat from the world in order to remember Allah.

Kharijites: the first Muslim schismatics, advocating pure salafist

Islam (see salafi) and rejecting as non-believers all who depart from
the Shariah, even in minor matters.

khutba: a sermon delivered before noon prayers, especially on

Fridays, following a set form and rendered in austere language.

lex talionis: the law of the lawless desert based on retribution and
like for like.

madhab: school of jurisprudential interpretation of the Shariah

based on the work of an original master. The four main Sunni
schools are Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi’i and Hanbali.
 GLOSSARY 413

madrasah: a traditional school for boys and girls based on study of

the Qur’an.

marabout: see da'wa.

masjid: place of prosternation, or mosque.

mibrdb: niche or other marking in the wall of a mosque showing die

direction of prayer toward Mecca, or qibla.

minbar: raised chair, or steps from which the khutba is delivered,

often a highly decorated structure in the Arabesque manner.

Mir'dj: see Isrd.

muezzin: faithfol member of a mosque congregation trusted to

make the call to prayer.

mujahid: a fighter in the name of Allah, who participates in a jihad,

covering both personal and external struggles.

mujtahid: a scholar qualified in fiqh to undertake ijtihad. Many dif­

ferent levels of accomplishment are recognized, in all specialist areas
of the Shariah.

mullah: see imam.

Murj’ites: liberal interpreters of the Qur’an who ‘suspend judge­

ment- of individuals, and accept anyone as a Muslim who has a
'knowledge of Allah in his heart’.

Mutazilites: rationalist interpreters of the Qur'an, believing for

example that on the Last Day, man will see God only in his heart.

prostemation: a word coined in this book to describe the core act of

prayer, with seven points of the body on the floor.

qasida: extended rhyming ode of prc-Islamic Arabia, recited from

114 GLOSSARY

memory and generally praising a benefactor, desert life, or a partic­

ular tribe.

qibla: the direction of prayer, toward the Ka’bah in Mecca.

qiyas: logical deduction by analogy, a method by which fiqh may be

extended to cover new situations not specifically dealt with by then
existing legal texts and authorities.

Quraysh: one of the principal tribes of Arabia based in Mecca, of

which Muhammad was a member. Holders of great power and
wealth both before and after the advent of Islam.

rak‘a: (plural raka't) the prayer routine consisting of thirteen differ­

ent postures accompanied by recitals and whispered prayers.

Ramadan: the lunar month during which Muslims fast through the
day. See the Five Pillars.

rasul: messenger, the title by which Muhammad referred to himself,

rather than the more popular, but striedy incorrect. ’Prophet’.

rightly-guided: the term used for the first four caliphs (successors to
Muhammad) who were appointed by shura. and uniquely qualified
through their personal association with Muhammad. Sunnis accept
all four. Shi'a accept 'Ali only (the fourth caliph).

salafi: from the Arabic expression al-salafi al-salih. meaning ’the

pious forefathers’ and referring to the Companions of the Prophet
and their way of life in Medina under the Muslim Commonwealth
from the hijrah to the death of Muhammad. Adopted during the
twentieth century as ’salafist’ of‘salafiyya'. to mean a movement that
seeks a return to the (perceived) original values of Islam.

say: a stage in the haj and the ‘umrab that involves walking seven
times between two of the hills of Mecca to commemorate the search
by Abraham’s wife Hajar for water for the baby Ishmael.
 GLOSSARY 415

sayyed: a Muslim able to trace his, or her family history back to the
family of the Prophet. Secondary meaning of teacher.

Sha'ban: the eighth lunar month of the Muslim calendar.

Shahadah: the affirmation of Muslim belief, ‘I bear witness that

there is no god but God, and that Muhammad is the messenger of
God’. Sec also the Five Pillars

shabeed: martyr who dies fighting a jihad. The term was never
applied to suicide during the early days of Islam, when such 'opera­
tions’ were unknown.

Shariah: system of Islamic law, comparable to the Common Law of

England, based on the Qur’an, the Sunna for Sunni, and the exeget-
ics of the Imams for Shi'ites.

Shaytan: the devil, mythically Ibis, the fallen angel. Comparable

with the story of Lucifer.

Sheikh: sec imam, with a secondary meaning of leader or

superior.

Shi'a: schism from mainstream (Sunni) Islam, following disagree­

ment over the appointment of the first caliph after the death of
Muhammad, and who was (or is) qualified to lead Muslims.
Followers of 'Ali ibn Abu Talib.

shirk: idolatry in the Jdhiliyyah, redefined by Islam to mean the eter­

nally unforgivable wrong of worshipping something or someone
other than, or as a partner with, Allah.

shura: consultation process for making communal decisions estab­

lished by the Shariah, similar to a limited form of democracy.

skullcap: kippa in Hebrew. The small round covering worn on the

crown of the head by traditional Jewish males, especially on the
Sabbath. The knitted version denotes membership in the Gush, the
<16 GLOSSARY

Zionist settler movement advocating the violent creation of a

Greater Israel, including Gaza and the West Bank.

souk: market place, also known as a medsna in North African cities

such as Marrakech.

Sufi: a follower of Sufism, the mystical aspect of Islam, practising

internal rather than external religion. Liberal and individual, thus
contrary to traditional Sunni or Shi'a practice.

Sunna: die example of the life of the Prophet, from his actions and
his sayings, the latter gathered as the Hadith. The source of the divi­
sion between Sunni and Shi'a Islam, the latter accepting only guid­
ance from descendants of the Prophet (see also Shi'a).

surah: chapter of the Qur’an, which consists of 114 surahs.

Tablighi Jamaat: non-political gap year' programme for young

Muslims to visit other Muslim countries and explore differences and
similarities. Also operates as a form of low-profile missionary move­
ment.

tajwid: one school in the art of Qur’an recital, giving each conso­
nant full value.

Takbir: the name for the Arabic expression, Allabu Akbar. Allah is
the Greater'.

taqlid: imitation, or a narrow reading of the Shariah based on

unswerving faith in the rightly-guided' precedents. Seen as closcd-
mindedness by advocates of ijtihad

tariqah: as Tariqah, meaning the Way or die Path of Sufism, or as

tariqah meaning a Sufi brotherhood following a parucular sheikh.

tasmiyah: the invocation that opens all surahs of the Qur’an (except
one) in the name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate'. Also
see basmala. die shortened version.
 Glossary 417

tawaf: the first rite of the haj, seven passages around the Ka’bah
(anti-clockwise).

tawhid: the core of Muslim belief, the affirmation of the Oneness of

God, the Unknowable, the Unseeable, the transcendent Creator,
encapsulated by the words of the First Pillar of Islam.

tilawa: a school in the art of Qur’an recital with a varying pitch,

similar to plainsong.

Touareg: nomadic Berber tribe of the Sahara and the Sahel. Famous
for bravery and independence. A race deprived of a homeland by the
legacy of colonialism.

Twelvers: Ithnaashriyyah, or the Shi'a majority following the teach­

ings of twelve imams, descendents of 'Ali. The national religion of
modern Iran.

Umayyad: the Umayyah clan of the Arabian Quraysh tribe. The

wealthiest grouping within the tribe and traditional holders of
power in Mecca. Opponents of Muhammad, but later forming the
first dynastic (Sunni) caliphate after the murder of'Ali.

ummah: the body of Muslims worldwide as a distinct and cohesive

community.

umrah: the lesser pilgrimage to Mecca, similar to the haj. but can
be performed at any time of year.

urfi: temporary marriage based on a contractual agreement. Often

leading to the subsequent compromise of the female party as a
divorced woman.

Vilayet: a large administrative district or province in the Ottoman

Empire, usually headed by a Turkish governor, but generally admin­
istered by native functionaries.

Wahhbis: adherents to the Qur’anic exegesis of ibn ‘Abd al-

418 GLOSSARY

Wahhab, a zealous literalist, and founder of the ideology on which

the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has been built, based on taqluL

Wali Faqih: the Vice-Regent of the Hidden Imam, the ultimate

authority in Twelver Shi'ism. Based on the Shi'a belief in the occlu­
sion of the Twelfth Imam. The power that overthrew the Pahlavi
dynasty in Iran.

u>aqf: a religious trust supported by public subscription that stands

behind every mosque, for the purpose of owning and maintaining
the building and supporting charitable works.

wasat: the way between two extremes covering consensus in deci­

sions, personal modesty, and peace between Muslims. Based on
Surah 31. verse 19 of the Qur’an, and many other examples.

zakat: see the Five Pillars.

Zamzam: The well opened by Allah (and now under the Great
Mosque in Mecca thus) saving the life of the baby Ishmael. Also sec
 INDEX

al-‘Abbas 63, 146 Aga Khan 283—4

Abbas, Mahmoud 394 Ahmadinejad, Mahmoud 291
‘Abbasids 63, 146-8, 149, 'A’isha 46, 52, 68. 76. 139,
155.215, 221 374-5
'Abd al-Rahman I 149, 365, Al-Kifah 176
366 Al-Qaeda 168, 176, 178,
‘Abd al-Rahman III 377 188, 193,314
‘Abd al-Wahhab 224,242, ‘Alawis 284
385-6 Alawite dynasty 190
‘Abduh, Muhammad 26, Albania 200,201
387-8 alcohol 247-8
ablutions 103,150,348 Algeria 155, 157, 164, 165,
abortion 250 167-9, 193, 195. 336
Abraham (Ibrahim) 9, 31, 34. Alhambra Palace 149,345,
35.36, 52, 114, 118,211, 367-8
352 ‘Ali ibn Abi Talib Caliph 46,
Abu Bakr (Caliph) 46, 55, 76, 82,97, 138, 139, 144,
76,96, 137, 138, 139, 145. 147, 151,208, 225,
140, 141, 143, 230, 264, 266, 267, 271-2. 272,
266. 270, 271,352, 373 273, 274, 287, 372-3,
Abu Hanifa 221, 225 375
Abu-Jahl 50,58 ‘Ali.‘Abdullah Yusuf 91-2
Abu-Sufyan 58, 59, 60, 63, ‘Ali Khamene’i 290-1
64, 78, 141, 144 Ali, Muhammad (Cassius Clay)
Abu-Ialib 44,51 304
Adam 7,31,33-4,35,114, Allah see God
127, 205, 349 Allenby. General 4. 152
adoption 77 Almohads 367
adultery 238 amputation, judicial 238
Al-Afghani 386-7 angels 87,125,301,373^4
Afghanistan 21, 158. 171. see also Gabriel
175-8, 192, 208, 240-2, animal slaughter 247
254, 264, 330, 337 Arabic language 29, 146
420 INDEX

Arafat. Yassir 153.193.310. Hebrew see Torah

393-4 birth rituals 210
Arbcrry, Arthur J. 92 Black Muslims 199, 302-6
art, Muslim 342-6 blasphemy 24,213,246
‘Ash’arites 282-3 Bosnia 158.200.201
al-Assad, Bashshar 179, 180, Bouteflika, President 193
330 Branch Davidians 308
al-Assad. Hafez 179, 390 Britain 158. 159-60, 161,
Aratilrk, Mustafa Kemal 174, 169. 176. 179, 182. 183.
236, 286 189
Aussaresscs, Paul 167 Common Law 214,215,
Avenpace 379 218, 234-5. 237
Averrocs 380-1 London bombings 198.
Avicenna 378 314
Ayyubids 153 Muslim community 24,
azan 101.102,109,210.348 197-9, 318
Azerbaijan 202 brotherhood of man 88
Buddhism 294
Ba’athists 179, 183 Bulgaria 158
Bad Shahi Mosque, Lahore Bush. George W. 192,316.
370 353
Badr, battle of 58,65.115 Buwayhids 280
Baghdad 147, 154 Buyids 284
Baha’i 284 Byzantine Empire 40. 140.
Bajrang Dal 308 141, 142, 143. 155-6.
Balkan Wars (1912) 159 158, 174
Bangladesh 254
banking 257-63 Cairo 151.157.365.366-7
bankruptcy 258 Cairo Conference (1921)
al-Banna. Hasan 309, 389 161, 162, 182, 285
bargaining 402 calendars
Barka, Ben 190 Gregorian 53. 54
bazaaris 229-30,294 Islamic 53-4
Bedouins 30.41 caliphate 150,215.231.350
Bell. Richard 92 Calvinism 339
Bible Canaanites 30,33,319,353.
Christian 7,8,10,15,16. 354
16-17,21,32, 33 Caucasus 201-2
 INO€X 421

celibacy 209 Constantinople/lstanbul 154,

Charlemagne 376 155, 158
Chechnya 21,202-3 contraception 250
Christianity 13, 70, 205 conversion to Islam 14.38,
African communities 144. 206, 301
300-1 Cordoba 149,355-6.377
Bible ree Bible corporal punishment 23. 236.
Byzantine 146 237-8
Catholicism 273-9.307 creation account 9-10,11,
Christian God 11,12,13 16, 126-7
early Islamic contact with Croatia 200,201
38 Crusades 2,12,20,21,263,
establishment 12 321,357,380
nature of 13,17 Arab perceptions 151-3
Protestantism 274,275, culture
277, 307, 339 American 340— I
rituals 98-9 Islamic 148, 149. 338-41
women and 254 Custodian of the Two Holy
Churchill, Winston 79,159, Mosques 349-50
161,321
circumcision 30,210 Damascus 145, 179
female 210, 257 Great Mosque 125,146,
city layouts 232 277, 345, 364-5
‘clash of civilizations' 315 Daral-Harb 150,316
Clinton, Bill 186 Daral-lslam 150,152,232,
colonialism 157, 158, 163, 307-8, 316
164, 165.216, 233 dating, Islamic 53-54
post-independence regimes Day of 'ashiira 113,212. 276
165-6, 167 death and burial 210-11
communism, collapse of 177, democracy 330-7
201 Dermenghem. Emile 361,
community 19 404-6
see also 'ummah desert culture 9.41,338
Companions of the Prophet dhikr 295, 296, 298, 299,
56. 80. 81. 82, 90. 96. 301
139. 266 dictatorships 22,164-6,331,
confession of faith 99-100 334
Constantine, Emperor 360 dietary laws 30, 247
422 iNDtX

discipline. Islamic 17-18 Farrakhan, Louis 199, 303

see also law fasting 95.112-13,212
divorce 209-10,253 Fatah 310-11,393
diwan 29.371-2 Fatima 76, 138. 139, 151.
dress codes 397-8. 400, 275. 284, 372-4
401-2 Fatimids 151,153.212,280.

drugs 248 284, 380

Druzes 284.360 fatwas 23.24,216-18.229
Durranis 175-6 feasts 211-13
fiqh 67.148,214.218-27.
education 177.210,229,241 231.233
Egypt 22,26,151.153.155. funs al-fiqh 226
157, 159. 165, 180-1. Shi'a^A 225,249,285
193, 198. 222, 229. Sunni fiqh 232
233-4. 309. 335-6, 337. usul al-fiqh 226-7
338 al-Firdawsi, Abu ‘l-Kasim 378
Eid al-Adha (Feast of Sacrifice) First World War 158.159,
9, 118,211-12 160
Eid al-Fitr (Feast of Fast- Five Pillars of Islam 13. 14,
Breaking) 212 66. 88. 98-113. 273. 342
ElBaradei. Mohammed 395 Flood 34. 114, 349
Emigrants 55. 56, 57. 110, France 157.158,161.167.
138. 139, 266 169, 179,316
equality 19.99,109,208. Muslim community 25-6,
245-6 194-6.317-18
Europe Paris bombings 168,195
medieval Europe 148-50 freedom of speech 23, 24
Muslim communities fundamentalism
194-9, 200-3,316-18 American 362
wars of religion 225 Muslim 237,306-15
evolutionary theory 126-7
77>e Exegesis of Tabari 28-9 Gabriel (Jibril) 7. 24. 45. 52.
Exodus story 33 80. 83
gambling 250, 263
Faisal, King of Iraq 182 Gaza 327-8
the Fall 35 Genghis Khan 154
families 209-11.228 Germany: Muslim community
Farewell Pilgrimage 68. 135 194,196-7.317
 INOEX

al-Ghazali, Abu-Hamid 299, Haram 349-64

371.378-9 see also Jerusalem; Mecca;
God Medina
Allah 8.30 al-Hariri, Rafik 180
attributes 8,342 Harun al-Rashid 375-6
Christian God 11,12,13 al-Hasan 225, 268, 372
Jewish God 11,13 Hasmon. House of 354-5
names of God 131-4, 295, Hassan, King of Morocco 190
400 hcadscarves issue 25-6,
Trinity 11,36,37 195-6
Will of Allah 125-6,145, Heaven and Hell 14. 125
214, 259,308 Helpers 55-6,57,138.139,
Greece 157 266
Greek Orthodox Church 144 Heraclius, Emperor 143
greetings 399 heresy 47
guides, tourist 402-3 Herod, king ofJudea 320,
Gulf Wars 163, 184, 185-6 355. 356
Gush Emunim 2, 3, 308, 328 Herzegovina 158
Hidden Imam 225, 239,
Hadith 95.96-7,129,220, 278-9, 280, 284, 287, 291
224, 238, 274. 296, 333, Hijaz 61,62
345, 385 hijrah (hegira) 45. 52-3, 54,
Hajar 9.31,117,349 55
haj 14,19,34,53,114-21, Hinduism 294
350-1 Hira 45,115
al-Hakim bi-amr Allah Hiro, Dilip 188
359-61 Hittin, battle of 153, 380
hakimiyya 390 Hizbullah 111,278,311.
halal 247 312
al-Hallaj, Mansur 297, 298 Holocaust 12, 321.323
Hamas 111.312.313.327, Holy Land 67-8.314
329 homes, Muslim, visiting 402
Hanafi school offii/h 221-2, homosexuality 249.251.333,
223, 224, 233, 235. 240 401
Hanbali school offiqb 224, Al-Hudaybiyah, treaty of 62,
242, 243, 297 63
hands, use of left and right human rights 244-6
398-9 Hunayn, battle of 64
424 INDEX

al-Husayn (Imam) 145, 212, Iran 25, 156. 161, 167. 178,
225, 266. 268-70, 273. 184,259, 284-94,313.
277.372 333-4, 369-70
al-Hussein ibn Ali 160, 350 hostage crisis 289
Hypocrites 56, 64, 88 Iranian Revolution (1979)
183, 230, 239, 280.311.
Ibn‘Arabi 381 335
Ibn Battuta 294, 384 Shariah 239-40
Ibn Hanbal, Ahmed 224, 242 Shi'ism 239,285
Ibn Jarir al-Tabari 28.31 White Revolution 287
Ibn Khaldun 385 Iran-Iraq war (1981 -8) 22,
Ibn Saud 224, 242. 330, 350 184. 289, 290.307
Ibn Taymiya 224, 382-4 Iraq 21,153,161. 182-9,
Ibn-Thabit, Zayd 81.82 264, 285. 314, 330,
IbnTufayl 379-80 331-2, 336
Ibn Tulun, Ahmad 365 GulfWars 163, 184.
Ichkeria, Republic of 202 185-6
ideal ruler 230,334 Kurds 183, 185. 186
al-Idrisi 378 Shi’ism 182.183.185.285
ihsan 98 Sunni Islam 182
ijtihad 148,225.227,232, Ireland 25
233, 332, 383 Isaac 9.31
imams 109, 207-8. 225 Ishmael 9. 31
see also Hidden Imam; Islam
Twelver Shi'ism early history 12,28-31
iman 98 Islamic populations 6,
immigrants, Muslim 26, 194, 164-5. 300
196, 197, 200,316 and Judeo-Christianity,
India 156. 157. 158. 164, compared 6-13. 100,
172. 232 107, 108. 125-7
lndo-Pakistan wars 170,171 nature of 6, 14. 17-21,
Indonesia 22. 156, 158, 164, 306
165. 172-4. 193 non-Muslim view of 21—7.
inheritance laws 228 158
inshah 'alLih 400 religion-politics fusion 47,
insurance 263 70. 109. 150. 158
Iqbal, Muhammad 170, spread of 139-41. 142,
388-9 146, 155-7
 INCtX «25

Islamic Jihad 251,313 Haram 3,51,321.352-64,

Isma'ilis 151.283 367
Isni (Night Journey) 2, 51-2, Old City 1-5, 358
121,276. 352. 361 temple 2,320,322,356
Israel 21,193.336 Temple Mount 52, 311,
borders 324,325 353
Election of Israel 13,16. Western Wall 3, 356, 362
28, 33, 52 Jerusalem Envelope 329
establishment 12, 16, 20, Jesus Christ 28. 50. 70
320, 322 affinity with Muhammad
founding myth 355 39-40
see also Jerusalem Muslim Jesus 8, 36, 37-40,
Israeli-Palestinian conflict 205
179,310-12. 322-9,362, New Testament account 7,
393-4 15
istihsan 222, 223, 232 Jcws/Judaism
diaspora 12,320.321
Jabir ibn Hayyan 375 emergence 12,354
Jahiliyyah 28, 29, 30, 42. 53. Jewish God 11,13
113, 236, 253. 344 messianism 9
new Jdhiliyyah 180,191, nature of 12-13
314, 389 opposition to Muhammad
Jalal al-Din Rumi 298, 20, 56, 62-3
299-300, 381-2 persecution 12,321
Jamaat-e-Islamia 240.309. rituals 98-9
391 Spanish Jews 148
Jebusites 319,353 jihad 115,263-5
Jerusalem 1-5, 161 jinn 87,125,301
Al-Aqsa mosque 51, 152. Job 9,35
352. 358, 359. 367 John the Baptist 9, 125, 365
Church of the Holy John Paul II. Pope 125,276
Sepulchre 4, 151.356, Jordan 193,222,234,336
357, 360-1 Joseph 35
claims to 355—6. 362—4 judges 228,242
Crusaders 151-3
Dome of the Rock 2-3, 51, Karbala 182,212,268,269,
146. 152.352. 356,358, 274. 285
359. 362, 367 Kashmir 171-2
<36 INOEX

Kazakhstan 202 schools of law 221 -4

Khadijah 44-5.46.51,70, tee also fatwas; fiqb, Shariah;
76 Sunna
Khalidi, Tarif 37-40 1-ailac al-Qadr (Night of Power)
Kharijites 145,281-2,308 112,212-13
Khatami. Mohammad 291, Ixbanon 161,179,278,311,
294 312,313
Khaybar 62,63 Lepanto, battle of 155
Khojas 283 Libya 21.155,157.193,330
Khomeini, Ayatollah 24, 25, literalist movement 56-7,
50, 120, 230, 239. 173. 306, 308, 362
269-70, 285, 286-90. Lloyd George. David 321
293, 297
khutba 109.207,208,211 Maccabees 354
al-Kindi 376-7 madrasah 177.210.229,241
Kosovo 200,201 madrasah mosques 347, 348,
Kurds 161. 174, 175, 182. 366
183. 185, 186, 335. 336 Maghreb 189-91. 195
Kutubiya Mosque, Marrakesh Mahfouz, Naguib 390, 394
367 Malaysia 156.259
Kuwait 153, 183. 185. 186, Malcolm X 303, 304-6
336 Maliki school of fiqh 222.
Kyrgyzstan 202 223, 388
Mamluks 148. 151, 155, 157.
Lailat al-Qadr 112 380
Last Day 14. 31. 32. 34. marabouts 301
87-8. 118, 125 marriage 208, 209, 249-50,
law 252, 254
bureaucracy 214-15 martyrdom 276,308-9
commercial law 257-63 materialism. Western 23. 64.
law-morals fusion 230 315
lex talionit 41. 51, 54, al-Maududi, Sayyid Abu’l-A'la
236-7. 258 309. 391-2
penal code 23, 236, 237-8 Mawlid al-Nabiyy 212
pluralism 224-5 meats, proscribed 247
precedent 214, 221 Mecca 41,44,45.46,48.
Qur’anic provisions 17-18, 350
66. 80. 88. 90. 214. 237 haj 114-21,350-1
 r«x

haram 349-51 Morocco 189-91, 192-3,

Holy Mosque 351 195. 367
Ka’bah 30-1,34,63-4, Moses 9, 16. 33, 35, 52
101, 115, 116. 117, 349, mosques 206-7
350 architecture 346-8
Mecca-Medina antagonism congregations 107-8
57-64 informal mosques 346
non-Mustim exclusion 67 non-Muslim visitors
Medina 54-6 400-1
Commonwealth of Medina Moynihan, Daniel Patrick
56, 57, 65-7, 72-5, 138, 339
145, 150, 238.245. 253, Mu’awiyah 58, 144, 145-6,
263, 308 147, 208, 266, 267, 268,
haram 351-2 272, 273
Jewish dans 55, 56, 58. Mubarak, Hosni 22.181,337
59-60, 62, 67 muezzin 101-3, 107
Mecca-Medina antagonism muftis 229
57-64 Mughal Empire 154, 156,
Mosque of the Prophet 55. 157, 232
115, 206, 351-2 Muhajirs 170-1
non-Muslim exclusion 67 Muhammad 20,213.349,
tomb of the Prophet 115, 371
352 cult of 43.212
Meir, Golda 323 death 68
messianism 9,279 family tree 147
La Mczquita, Cordoba 149, Farewell Pilgrimage 68.
365-6 271
Mina 118,120 hijrah 45.52-3.54.55
minarets 348-9 historical assessment 68-71
minority religion status 194, Judeo-Christian rejection of
318 7
miracles 277,374 last sermon 118,135-7.
Mi'rdj (Ascension) 2, 52, 352, 246
361 law-giver 42
missionary Islam 301-2 life of 42.43-52.54-65.
moderation 18-19 68
Mongols 151,154,232 military successes 55.58.
monotheism 11, 30, 34, 47 64
<28 HOEX

Muhammad (row.) Nasser, Jamal 'Abd 153. 180.

Night Journey 51-2, 121, 392
276, 352, 361 Nation of Islam 199, 302.
political authority 41-2 303-4, 305
preaching 46-7 Nicea, Council of (325) 360
prophetic status 6, 7. 87 Nigeria 300
religious tolerance 20 Night of Power 112,212
revelations see Qur'an Noah 35, 52
succession to 138-9, 267,
270-3 oil and gas reserves 163
wives 44-5,70-1,76-8 Oman 254
Muhammad V of Morocco Omar. Mullah 241
190 original sin 35, 126. 274
Muhammad VI of Morocco Osama ibn Laden 64, 79,
192 171, 176, 178, 193, 199,
Muhammad, Elijah 303, 305 314,316
Muhammad, Farad 303 Ottoman Empire 154-5,
mujahid 100 157, 158, 159. 160, 161,
Mujahidin 176, 177, 178, 164. 174, 178, 200. 201,
240,241,264,311 215, 232, 233, 235. 264,
mullahs 207, 275, 285 357
Murj’itcs 282
Musharraf, General Pervez Pahlavi, Muhammad Reza Shah
171 22, 25. 166. 230, 239.
Muslim Brotherhood 179, 286, 287, 288, 292. 293
180, 181,309,310,312, Pahlavi. Reza Shah 285-6,
336, 337, 386. 388, 389, 292. 369
390, 392 Pakistan 164, 165, 169-71,
Muslim Empire 140, 142, 172, 178, 193,212, 222,
144-54 234-5, 238, 240, 241,
decline of 150-1,153-4 259, 261-2, 309, 336-7.
Mu’tali 140 370, 389
Mu'taziliies 282 Palestine 20,67.161,319-29
Balfour Declaration 161,
Najaf 182,275.285,287 204
names history 319-22,353-7
ofGod 131-4 proto-Palestinians 319.
personal 210,403 353-4
 INDEX 429

resistance movements 193, Friday prayers 108-9, 207

310-15 ritual movements 103-6
see also Israeli-Palestinian women and 103, 107, 254,
conflict 348
Palestine Islamic Jihad (PIJ) predestination 126
313 privacy, personal 398
Palestine Liberation Promised Land 33, 36. 355
Organization (PLO) prophetic tradition 7. 28, 31,
179,310.312,313. 393 32. 33. 34-7
Palestinian Authority (PA) Prophet s Birthday 212
193.311.313,329, 393 Protestantism 273, 275, 277.
Pamuk, Orhan 175 307. 339
Pashtuns 175, 176. 177 Putin, Vladimir 202, 203
patron-client system 187,
331.332 Qadisiyyah, bank of 142
pax Islamica 62, 152 Qajar Shahs 285
Philippines 156, 193 qiyas 223.227,232
Philistines 319.353-4 Qur’an 6-7,9-10,14,20,
Pickthall, Muhammad 26-7, 28,31.32, 46,
Marmaduke 91 47-8, 79-94. 254-6, 276.
pilgrimage see haj 296. 332
poetic tradition 29-30, 79. abrogations 15. 69, 90-1
80 accounts of Jesus 8, 36,
Poitiers, banlc of 148-9 37-40, 205
Polisario 192,335 assembly 45,80-2
polygamy 196,253,301 commandments 66, 121-4
polytheism 30, 34, 47 content 87-8
poor-tax 110-12,144,235, direct word of God 8, 12,
263, 285 13, 15,23. 125, 206,213,
Popular Front for the 221
Liberation of Palestine form 82-7
(PFLP) 315 interpretation 56-7,90-1
Powell, Colin 188-9 legal provisions 17-18, 66,
prayers 95 80, 88, 90, 214, 237
Christian practice 100, mysterious letters 84-5
107, 108 patriarchal and prophetic
daily prayers 19, 66, accounts 32-7
99-110 poetic quality 8, 30
<30____________________________ k>ex

Qur’an (cont.) Saladin (Salah al-Din al-

reciters and recital Ayyubi) 153, 361, 380
conventions 80, 85, Saladin Syndrome 339
92-4. 210 salafiyya 57,383.387.388
revelations 24. 45-6, 55, salvation 35.88.126
57. 65. 68, 89 Sarah 9,31
satanic verses 48-50 Sassanid Empire 40. 141,
study and memorization 142, 146, 147, 272
93. 210 The Satanic Verses (Rushdie)
surahs 55,66,81,82, 23-4, 50
8.3-4, 89 Saudi Arabia 120, 165. 166,
translations 91-2 167, 186, 194.212, 224,
‘voice' 85-7 237, 240, 242-3, 252-3.
Quraysh tribe 41, 5.3, 65, 254, 259, 297, 330, 336,
139, 266 350
Qurayzah tribe 60 sawm 112-13
Qutb, Sayyid 180-1,389-90 Second Coming 362
secular stare model 22,166,
Ramadan 53,112-13,212 170, 334
relationships 401 Seljuks 151, 154
see also families: marriage September 11th, 2001 terrorist
religious tolerance 19-21,57, attacks 21. 178, 191-2,
67. 68, 245 199,314,316
Resurrection of the flesh 47-8 Serbia 157,201
rosary 110 sermons 109
Rumsfeld, Donald 192, 314 sexuality 24,70.113.124.
Rushdie. Salman 23—4, 50 249, 257. 397
Russia 158,159,202-3 Shafi’i school of fiqh 222-4
Shah Mosque, Isfahan
Sadat, Anwar 181, 390, 369-70
392-3 Shahadah 99-100,301
Saddam Hussein 22, 15.3, Shaqaqi, Fathi 313
166, 183, 184-5, 186, Shariah 18,21.23,56.65,
290, 331 67, 90. 166, 167, 168,
Safavids 154,156,157.280. 191.213-46. 295,315,
284-5 318
saints 277.298.301,385 administration 231
salat 100-10 banking 260-3
 INDEX 431

bureaucracy 214-15.229 slavery 245,302

conservatism 232 social prohibitions 246-52
and human rights 244-6 social project 22, 65, 66, 111,
institutions 227-32 213, 309.312
mosque-state fusion 341-2 Somalia 330
private law 226 South Korea 26, 338, 340
public law 226 Spain, Islamic 146, 148-50,
punishments 236-8 365-6
teligious-secular blend Srebrenica 201
213-14 Standing, rite of the 14, 1 18
ihura (consultation) 21, Sudan 243-4, 259, 300, 330
230, 245, 253. 332. 334 Suez Canal 157,180,338,
social prohibitions 246-52 392
Western view of 236 Sufism 224, 240, 244,
Sharon, Ariel 311,329,353 294- 302, 357
Shaytan 49,87,118,125 in Africa 300-2
sheikhs 207,298.330-1 dhikr 295.296.298,299,
Shi'ism 97, 139, 145, 148, 301
150, 170, 175, 182, 183, Four Sufi Journeys 287,
185, 239,247, 266-92, 295- 7
285 Mehlevi Sufis (whirling
character 278 dervishes) 295, 298
divisions 280-4 persecution 298-9
fatalism 290 poets 299-300,381-2
global populations 272 saints 298.301,385
hierarchy 208 Suharto, General 22
Isma'ilis 151,283 suicide 309
Shi'a-Catholicism parallels suicide bombers 312-13
273-8 Sukarno, President 173
Sunni-Shi'a schism 139, Siileyman the Magnificent
270 155, 235. 357
Twelver Shi'ism 156, Sultan Hasan Mosque 366-7
249-50, 273, 274, 275, Sunna 18,43,65.95-6.97,
277, 278, 280, 284. 285 214,215, 221.238
shirk 344 Sunni Islam 13, 97. 139. 147,
shurd 21,230,245,253,332, 148, 151. 170, 182, 205,
334 247, 340
Siffin, battle of 267 caliphs 139,274
<32 «SDfX

Sunni Islam (cont.) tribal organization 231,

organization 206-8 330-1
schools of law 224 Tuaregs 335
Sunni Hadith 274 Tunisia 155,157,195
Sunni-Protestantism parallels Turkey 158, 159, 160, 161,
273. 275 174-5, 196, 229, 235-6,
Sunni-Shi'a schism 139, 357
270 Turkmenistan 202
Sykes-Picot Agreement 161. Turkomans 158
179 Twelver Shi'ism 156, 249-50,
Syria 153. 155. 161, 165, 273, 274, 275, 277, 278,
178-80, 193, 222, 330 280, 284, 285

al-Tabari. Abu Ja'far 31, 377 Uhud. battle of 59, 115

Tablighi Jamaar 301-2 'tdamd 229,231,239.240,
Taj Mahal 368-9 279. 280. 284
Tajikistan 202 'Umar Caliph 67, 76. 96,
Taliban 171.177,178,208. 139, 141.219-20,248,
241,242.315,316 249, 320-1,352, 357,
Tamimi, Sheikh 313 371-2
taqlid 224,242 Umayyads 141, 144-6,
tatbih 110 149, 167, 208, 266, 267,
tasmiyah 84, 132 269, 272. 273. 345.
tawhtd 99.342 357-8
taxes Urnrn Kulthum 391
jizyah 144 ‘ummah 6.19,22,57.66,
zakat 110-12.144,235. 331
263, 285 United Arab Emirates 186,
Timur Lang (Tamerlane) 154 234
Timurids 154 United States
tipping 403 Middle East politics 163,
tobacco 248-9 166, 181, 184. 185-6,
Tolba, Shehta Morsi 396-7 186, 323. 326
Torah 7.8,13,14-15.16. Muslim community
32-3. 319. 323, 354 199-200
trade 156,229 Muslim view of 25, 64,
travellers in Muslim countries 187, 238
397-403 religion 341
 INDEX 433

War on Terrorism 166, Christianity and 254

169, 192-4 circumcision 210, 257
USS Cole 64 discriminator)' treatment
urfi relationships 249 246, 252-4, 339
usury 257,259.263 economic rights 253
'Uthman, Caliph 81-2, 139, headscarf issue 25-6,
141. 144, 266-7.374 195-6
Uzbekistan 202 menstruation 103.113.
254
veil 23.255-7 prayers 103, 107, 254,
virgin birth 8, 36 348
virgin mary cult 275, 372 and the Qur’an 94, 254-6
sexual exploitation 253
Wahhabism 224, 242, 243, and the veil 23, 255—7
297. 386. 387 wives of Muhammad 70-1
Wali Faqih 239, 285, 289, women travellers 401-2
290, 291-2, 294, 333
warf 206-7,212.228.231, Yarmuk, battle of 142-4
285 Yassin. Ahmad 312
Warith Deen Muhammad Yemen 43,237
303-4
Wars of Apostasy 140,141. zakat 110-12,144.235,263,
142 285
wealth 263 Zamzam 116, 118. 349
Western ‘decadence’ 23 Zayd ibn Thabit 82
Western Muslim communities Zia al-Haq, General 235
194-203,316-18 Zionism 161,321,322,323,
whirling dervishes (Mehlevi 362
Sufis) 295,298 Zoroastrianism 141,146,272
women 252-7 Zuweil, Ahmad 395-6
The most comprehensive general
guide available
Exploring rhe beliefs, history and politics of the ordinary people of
Muslim countries. Grieve cuts through the complexities as he examines
all aspects of Islam. He also addresses the big issues: can Islam support
true democracy? Is true democracy what the West really wants for
Muslim countries or arc we merely seeking a cover of legitimacy for a
policy of'might is right’?

Paul Grieve is an unbeliever - he is not a born-again Muslim, a

proselytizer or a frustrated desert romantic. His aim is to inform. The
result is an accessible but never simplistic guide that challenges
stereotypical views, from women and banking to war and Malcolm X.
Complete with advice for visitors to Muslim countries, and with
carefully chosen primary sources, maps and illustrations, this is the ideal
summary for the reader looking for an unbiased overview of the religious
and political world issues that have become pan of our everyday lives.

A sympathetic and sensitive treatment of a difficult subject:

exploratory as well as explanatory, well-informed, confidently
narrated and well-written.' David Gardner, Middle East
Correspondent, Financial Times