May 2010 
Year 16    No.151
Editorial


Coexistence, not conflict

Abattle is clearly on within the world of Islam for the hearts and minds of Muslims. While extremists continue to justify terrorism in the name of Islam, numerous fatwas have been issued by Muslim religious leaders across the world in recent years emphasising that Islam  strictly prohibits the targeting of innocents, no matter what or how justified the grievance. Some Muslim extremist outfits resort to literal and completely out-of-context interpretations of a few passages in the Koran to justify their crude ideology of a permanent targeting of all  ‘infidels’. Most western scholars are of the view that the real inspiration for most modern-day Muslim extremists can be traced back to the violence-endorsing ‘Mardin fatwas’ of the outstanding Islamic scholar and jurist from the medieval era, Ibn Taimiyah (1263-1328).

A little theological and historical background will perhaps help the uninitiated to better appreciate the context of the Mardin fatwas and their significance for today’s radicals. During the heyday of Islamic rule the widely prevalent view among its jurists was that the entire world was divided into two camps or territories: the ‘Abode of Peace’ (Dar ul-Salaam) and the ‘Abode of War’ (Dar ul-Harb). Though not much attention was paid to it while Islam was at its zenith, a third kind of territory was also conceived: the ‘Abode of Treaty’ (Dar ul-Sulah). As is evident from the nomenclatures, for Muslims, the region where Islamic rule prevailed was the ideal Abode of Peace, where non-Muslims ruled was hostile territory (Abode of War) and where different religious communities peacefully coexisted through a treaty was an acceptable Dar ul-Sulah.

As long as Muslim power was in the ascendant, the first two ‘abodes’ seemed to be the only relevant ones while the third appeared to have been forgotten. But then came the brutal savaging of Baghdad – the seat of the Abbasid caliphate – by the Mongols in the mid-1200s. This stunned the Muslim world, plunging the Abode of Peace into turmoil and chaos. It was into this world of a traumatised ummah that Ibn Taimiyah was born, five years after the sacking of the then centre of Islamic civilisation. Growing up as he did with an acute sense of Muslim disempowerment, Taimiyah believed that straying from “true Islam” had been the cause of his community’s downfall. Today’s Muslim extremist, living amidst an ummah that feels disempowered and dispossessed, believes he is reliving the Taimiyah times.

The Mardin fatwas are so named because they were given in response to a question asked of Taimiyah: whether Mardin – a fortress in South-east Turkey with a mixed population – was an Abode of Peace or an Abode of War. Suffice it to say here that both western critics and Muslim extremist admirers of Taimiyah interpret these centuries-old fatwas as endorsing violence against unjust and despotic rulers. For the radical Muslim, what was valid then remains valid now.

Fast-forward to the present day to register the significance of 15 leading Muslim scholars from across the globe symbolically reassembling in Mardin over a month ago (March 27-28) to issue a ‘Mardin Declaration’ condemning all acts of terror and calling upon Taimiyah’s misguided admirers to get real. We are today living at a different point in history; it is an altogether different world in which the categories delineated by classical jurists, if interpreted out of historical context, are not only meaningless but dangerous too.

Without underplaying the symbolism of the Mardin Declaration, it must be said that its greater significance lies in that it is part of an ongoing battle within Islam the world over. Terrorism, heinous crimes committed in the name of Islam in recent years, is increasingly producing its own antidote. A growing number of Muslim men and women, scholars, religious leaders and lay people alike, are engaged in saying an emphatic no to violence and rediscovering the tolerant tradition within Islam: an Islam that is at home with the world, an Islam the world can be at home with. This is especially evident from the bold assertion by many Muslims that in our present-day world, several secular countries are better ‘Abodes of Peace’ for Muslims than many so-called ‘Islamic states’.

As regular readers of this journal are aware, Communalism Combat does not privilege one religion above another or the believer above the agnostic or atheist. Rather, the journal celebrates diversity and pluralism and offers space to voices in support of mutual respect and peaceful coexistence. We are especially happy to note that the winds of change that have been blowing across the global Muslim mindscape now seem to have hit the Indian landscape too. This much seems evident from the writings of a young Indian maulana, Waris Mazhari. Although CC does not agree with everything he says, we believe our readers will find in his writings a refreshing willingness to engage with others in a spirit of mutuality. We are grateful to both Waris Mazhari and Yoginder Sikand, who has translated Maulana Mazhari’s writings from the Urdu, for permission to publish English translations of the articles here.

— EDITORS

 


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