During the last weekend of March 2010 a prominent group
of Muslim academics, scholars and theologians from across the Muslim world
convened in the historical city of Mardin to discuss the implications of
the ‘Mardin’ fatwa (legal edict) penned by the Hanbali Sheikh ul-Islam,
Taqi ud-Din Ahmad Ibn Abd ul-Halim Ibn Taimiyah (d. 1328) in particular,
and the rules of writing and understanding legal edicts in general.
The conference, tellingly titled ‘Mardin: The Abode of
Peace’, was hosted by the city’s newly founded Artuklu University and
aired live on Al Jazeera television.
The famous ‘Mardin fatwa’, given in the early 14th
century by Islamic scholar Ibn Taimiyah against the Mongol rulers of the
town, has been used by some extremist groups such as Al-Qaeda to justify
terrorism.
The way Ibn Taimiyah denounced the Mongol rulers of his
time, who claimed to be Muslim to placate those whose lands they had taken
over, has provided justification for some radical groups to denounce as
“apostates” those Muslims they consider less strict in their beliefs.
The conference closed with the signing of a New Mardin
Declaration which, among other things, urged the faithful to live up to
Islam’s high moral and ethical values, condemned in the strongest terms
the vigilantism of radicals and urged all to foster greater peace and
conviviality.
“Actions of terrorist groups are not jihad but
arbitrary murder,” the declaration said, also noting that Islam
“unequivocally forbids indiscriminate killing and murder” and that
“terrorists are destroying their own faith and disparaging the honour of
Islam”.
Commenting on the choice of Mardin and Turkey as the
venue for the conference, a spokesperson said that outside of the obvious
connection between the fatwa of Ibn Taimiyah and the city of Mardin,
“since the advent of Islam here, Mardin has been a place where members of
different religions, cultures, ethnic groups, have lived together. In
Mardin today, Turks, Arabs and Kurds live together; there are Muslims,
Syriacs and Yezidis here. Mardin is a symbolic city of peace.”
Turkey’s Religious Affairs Directorate disagreed with
the premise of the conference and refused to directly organise it. The
directorate cited two principal reasons: It said it was groundless to
blame all post-September 11 violence on Ibn Taimiyah’s fatwa when
political, social and economic reasons also played a major role, and that
no one in Anatolia or the rest of the Islamic world remembered a fatwa
issued seven centuries ago.
The full text of the declaration can be accessed at:
www.mardin-fatwa.com.
We reproduce here a paper presented by one of the
delegates at the conference.
BY AREF ALI NAYED
Beautiful Mardin is indeed an abode of peace. May god keep
Mardin peaceful! Yet like all worldly abodes, Mardin is a temporary and
fleeting
abode. The eternal and constant abode of peace is the hereafter garden of
paradise with its ultimate peace of joyfully seeing the divine
manifestation of the lord himself, the Peace.
It is to that hereafter peace that god invites us. The
true hereafter abode of peace, ‘dar ul-salaam’, is also the true
abode of Islam, ‘dar ul-Islam’.
Yes, as we strive to gratefully respond to god’s
invitation to the eternal place of peace: dar ul-salaam/dar ul-Islam,
we are called upon to construct, maintain and grow environments of worldly
peace like Mardin. Such environments offer ecologies of peace, compassion
and blessing for a wounded humanity and we are called upon to grow them
with all our hearts, minds and hands.
However, important as they are, such worldly abodes must
never be mistaken for the ultimate, eternal one. If we ever get fixated on
any worldly abode, we risk missing out on dwelling in the true eternal
one.
Yes, we must grow and inhabit such abodes because they
offer the best environments for living in constant remembrance of god and
according to his divine normativity and thereby prepare for the eternal
peace. However, we must never reduce our goal to the worldly
power-obsessed goals of mere political ideologies.
Yes, geographically carved out abodes of peace were
historically important and will always be important. Islam always needs a
strong worldly stronghold. However, Islam must never be conceived of
merely geographically because it is beyond geography. It pertains to the
pure and constant worship and remembrance of the one true god and to the
longing for his proximity in the hereafter. We must never reduce the abode
of peace to a worldly dar ul-Islam, conceived of as merely a
geographically distinct empire or state.
We must remember that the true dar ul-Islam is the
dar ul-salaam of the hereafter. We must also remember that all
worldly abodes make sense, and have value, only as places where we prepare
for and strive towards our eternal abode. Key to the healthy and holy
living within our worldly abodes is always remembering that it is the
hearts of the dwellers of such abodes that must themselves be in dwellings
of peace. Without an interiority of the remembrance of god, and an inner
conviction in the normativity of his way, there can be no peace in hearts
and no peace in any abodes.
When a heart is alive and luminescent with god’s
remembrance and is content to live according to his guidance, that heart
is already an abode of peace – dar salaam and dar Islam. It
is the faithful heart that can already, in this world, link up with and
live in longing for the eternal vision of the Peace. Such a heart is
constantly drawing near towards that ultimate proximity that can only be
achieved in the hereafter.
The interior abodes of peace in the hearts of the faithful
are the essential seeds from which worldly peaceful environments grow and
through which the eternal abode is prepared for. Such interior abodes can
live and grow within a multiplicity of worldly situations and need not be,
and cannot really be, limited to geographically delimitated zones of the
world, ‘dar Islam’. The ‘Muslim World’ is the entire cosmos
and is no mere worldly empire. Every human heart and even every creaturely
sign (aya) that adores, remembers and glorifies the one true god is
already an abode of peace and is already a ‘Muslim world’.
The historical fact that Muslims did establish and grow
empires must not blind us to the fact that Islam is beyond empire and as a
matter of fact is originally and fundamentally a ‘dispersed divine light’
and not a mere worldly political force. It is said in several Hadiths that
originally god dispersed of his own light sparks of compassion and
guidance. Wherever those sparks of light are, that is an abode of peace.
The astonishing phenomenon of cultural and religious
diaspora that we clearly witness today must not be viewed negatively. We
must not be obsessed with an Islam conceived of only geographically and
politically and must remember also an Islam conceived of ‘luminescently’
and spiritually. Such a luminescent Islam can shine wherever and whenever
it happens to be. Such an Islam is always oriented towards and always
conducive to the eternal abode of ultimate peace, dar ul-salaam, to
which god invites us.
The scattered sparks of dispersed light are a source of
guidance even in the darkest corners of the earth. It is very important to
remember that the state of such sparks of light, as strange luminescent
spots in what are often oceans of darkness, is not an abnormal or
anomalous state to be in. “Islam began a stranger and shall be a stranger,
blessed are the strangers!” is a Hadith that we often forget.
Being alienated, estranged, unsettled and always on the
way is not a pathological state to be in. Rather, it is the very state of
healthy Islamic living. We must stop lamenting alienation and begin to
realise that such alienation is a sign of healthy and righteous living. If
we ever feel at home and settled in any worldly abode, even if it happens
to be an abode of peace, we are very likely to be in a state of temptation
that distracts us from striving towards our true eternal peace.
This is why living in diaspora is often more conducive to
healthy and sincere Muslim living. Empires and carved out ‘Islamic states’
often make us complacent and can actually become a hindrance rather than a
help to sincere Muslim living.
Indeed it is classical scholarly consensus that it is not
permissible for a Muslim to live in a hostile disbelieving environment (dar
ul-kufr). However, it is a fact that today many liberal environments
are actually more conducive to Muslim living and worshipping than many
so-called ‘Muslim countries’. As a matter of fact, many Muslims today are
actually forced to move to non-Muslim countries because of political or
economic insecurity. At least up to 9/11, and in many places even after
it, many ‘non-Muslim’ countries fare better than many so-called ‘Muslim
countries’, and even ‘Muslim states’, in allowing Muslim living.
There is a very important lesson to learn from the often
forgotten first Hijrah. Prophet Muhammad asked his persecuted early
followers to seek refuge (jiwar) in the kingdom of Axum, ruled by a
Christian king from Nagash (and hence the Arabic name: Najashi). King
Najashi was a wise and noble host to his early Muslim guests. As a
companion of the prophet put it, “When we resided in the land of
Abyssinia, we took refuge (jawarna) with a goodly and protective
neighbour (jar), Najashi; he made us safe in our religion and we
were able to worship God without being harmed or hearing anything hurtful
whatsoever.”
A liberal welcoming environment in which a Muslim can
freely practise his religion, in which he is neither persecuted nor
humiliated, is an environment that offers a sort of abode of peace even in
the very midst of, and often because of, its liberal secularism.
Muslims today must remember that not all types of
secularisms are anti-religious.
Anglo-American common law secularisms define secularism as
separation of state and religion but are also open to the free practise of
all religions. For example, it is precisely because Christianity is not
allowed to be the ‘established religion’ of the United States of America
that there is room for Muslims, Jews, Buddhists and Hindus to thrive
there.
Yes, there are still in our world today forms of
French-revolution-like secularisms that are anti-religious and because
they are anti-religious, they are often anti-Islamic. Historically,
anti-religious secularism has often matured towards wiser and more
generous and accommodating liberal forms. Muslims must dialogically and
compassionately engage such secularisms to help them mature towards higher
forms that are open to religiosity and to Islam.
Muslims must remember that so long as the Catholic church
dominated Europe, Muslims, like Jews, did not stand a chance of
comfortable living in Europe. It is only after liberal secular states
managed to overcome the dominance of the Catholic church that
Muslims managed to live in Europe with more comfort and
safety. We must not see secular liberalism as hostile to Islam. We must
help secularisms mature to become more and more accepting of religious
values in life. Much has been lost because of the lumping together of all
sorts of secularism under the negative generic rubric of ‘al-ilmaniya’.
A great deal of discernment and wisdom is called for in this regard.
The companions of the prophet found it sufficient for
Najashi to offer them freedom of religious practice for them to see him as
a good neighbourly protector. Yes, many of them moved along to Medina when
there was an environment in which they could live their religiosity more
fully, at the political level. However, no one can claim that their
religiosity under Najashi was in any way questionable or deficient.
Not only this, but they were encouraged by the prophet to
be loyal and supportive to the Christian king who offered them refuge. The
companions lived loyally under that king until Medina offered them a
better place to live. To this day Nagash offers concrete evidence, in the
form of a recently excavated ancient cemetery, of the fact that the early
Muslim community continued to thrive in Nagash even after the Muslim
community was well established in Medina.
An Islamic state is not an end in itself but is a means to
establishing environments in which Muslims can freely and fully live their
Islam. If non-Muslim states happen to offer such environments and are
welcoming of a Muslim diaspora, we must not belittle them or be hostile to
them in any way but live respectfully within them, loyally and
supportively, as proactive, productive and cooperative citizens.
Now, in such non-hostile, conducive and accepting liberal
environments, how is a Muslim supposed to live with others and what duties
does a Muslim have towards others?
For the discernment of proper conduct towards others, the
traditional discourse of ‘abodes’ was indeed very helpful in the past and
may still be helpful under certain conditions and situations. However, I
would like to suggest here, for scholarly reflection, discussion,
correction and expansion, the idea that a fresh discourse on ‘neighbourliness’
and ‘duties of proximity’ may be more helpful in many situations in
our world of today. The rights and duties associated with neighbourliness,
what can be called ‘rights and duties of proximity’, are very important
and can be very helpful to us.
No one questions that there are rights and duties of
neighbourliness in Islam. The Koran, the Hadith and the traditions are
very rich sources of myriad gems of wisdom in this regard. However, some
mistakenly think that such rights and duties are limited to
neighbourliness within a Muslim community and only amongst Muslims. This
is simply not the case and must be clarified from the very outset if we
are to make any progress.
The best Koranic evidence for the fact that the rights and
duties of neighbourliness include non-Muslims is the Koranic phrase ‘al-jar
al-junub’ (literally: ‘the distant neighbour’). Yes, there are
scholarly differences of opinion as to how this phrase is to be
understood. However, as the great exegete Al-Qurtubi puts it: “The best
opinion, and most worthy of being correct, is the opinion that ‘junub’,
in this context, means ‘the stranger and distant’, be he Muslim,
Polytheist, Jew or Christian.”
The best Hadith evidence that the duties of proximity
extend to non-Muslim neighbours is the prophet’s instruction to his
companions: “Get up! Let us go visit our ill Jewish neighbour.”
The best evidence that the companions understood the
prophetic teachings regarding the duties of proximity to include
non-Muslim neighbours are plenty but it is sufficient to cite the fact
that whenever the companion Abdullah Ibn Amr, who had a Jewish neighbour,
slaughtered a lamb, he would say to his household: “Take some of it to our
neighbour, for I heard the Messenger of God saying: ‘[Angel] Jibril kept
asking me to take care of the neighbour to the point where I thought that
we would make him an inheritor [like close kin]’.”
There is also plenty of evidence that such generosity was
also reciprocated by non-Muslim neighbours and accepted by the companions
with no hesitation. The story of Asma Bint Abu Bakr craving for, and
receiving, a grilled piece of lamb from a Jewish neighbouring household
suffices in this regard.
So the limiting of duties of proximity to only Muslims has
no basis in the Koran, Hadith, or the traditions. Some Hadith teachings
that may seem negative regarding the Jews of Medina must not be
generalised but must be read according to the specific hostile
circumstances of the post-Al-Ahzab situation.
Now that we have got the limiting of the scope of the
duties of proximity out of the way, let us actually look at what these
duties are. There is an entire literature on the rights of neighbours and
the duties of proximity and we cannot possibly do them justice here.
However, there is a comprehensive Hadith that conveniently
and authoritatively summarises them for us and it can actually be written
in the form of a list. Prophet Muhammad says:
“Do you know what the right of the neighbour is?