The trouble with Islam

By:Irshad Maji

St. Martin Press

The teaching of the Madrassa in Canada, and the Islamic traditions at home were the starting point of the revolt in the life of the  Pakistani Muslim girl who became a successful Canadian TV personality.

In her new book “The trouble with Islam” published by St. Martin Press, Irshad Maji, became annoyed of the teaching that called for hating non Muslims.

This conclusion by the author was one of the misunderstanding of Islam.  The Quran in various chapters commend the people of the books who believe in one God. And required that Muslims believes in the previous books and the previous Prophets; Jesus, Moses. all of them.  The Quran in number of chapters confirmed the above requirements.  Also, The Prophet’ saying and teaching stressed these facts.

In Islam, as in Judaism and as in Christianity, there are groups or sects who deviated from the true teaching, and practice ill deeds and misunderstood the true meaning of the Books or the Prophets sayings or interpreted them differently by intention or by ignorance.  The history is full of stories of the corrupted religious kings and leaders.   Those are the kind of people who condemned by Islam. 

As an example: A group of Jews deviated from God’s teaching related to the Sabbath.  In Surah two, the Quran said” And you know well those amongst you who transgressed in the matter of the Sabbath.  We said to them “Be you apes, despised and rejected.”

Any person will understand that this applies only to those groups of Jews who transgressed in the matter of Sabbath, not all the Jews.  This an example of how ill minded people are accusing Islam of hating the Jews, and had the guts to request that this Surah be eliminated from the Quran.  An obvious of  the ignorance of the real meaning of the Quran.  Islam did not say all Jews are apes, despised and rejected.  The real meaning of this Surah is that any human being regardless of his religion who deviated from the teaching of his religion deserves to be Ape, despised and rejected. 

Irshad wrote about the History of Islamic civilization and the relation with non-Muslims.  “Jews rejoiced when Muslims invaded Jerusalem in the year 638 C.E.  and snatched the city of David away from the Byzantine, who had desecrated sacred Jewish sites by using them as garbage dumps.  The Victorian Muslims cleaned up the place and invited Jewish families to return.”

Jews helped Muslims extremely very well when they invaded Spain “with intelligence gathered from Jews, Muslims sacked Spain in 711 C.E.”

Muslim leaders in Turkey, Egypt and other countries worked hand in hand with Jewish experts in science and finance.  Jews held high office such as Prime ministers, ministers and officers.  During the Islamic civilization, which spread to a big portion of the globe, Muslims leaders adopted open thinking and open doors.  They do not discriminate because of the religion, and they allowed every non-Muslim to practice his religion freely.  Their army includes various nationalities.  This kind of policies opened the way for development and advancement and invention.

The other fact that was misunderstood by Ms. Maji is about the Gezia.  In the beginning and in the early stages of the Islamic outreach, the Muslim leaders imposed the Gezia, which is a some of monies collected from non-Muslims for not serving in war.  At that time, there was unacceptance and a resistance from some people to Islam, which is understandable.  Any human being usually does not accept change easily especially if the change is related to the religion.  This happened then and happened now.

Therefore, to make it easy for every one, Muslim asked for the Gezia in return for not to serve in the military. The reasons were very obvious; one is that the person who does not believe in the new religion and converted will not have the drive to fight for Islam.  As a matter of fact, in Egypt some times ago, young Egyptians Muslims themselves who do not wish to serve in the military have to pay a sum of monies to the Government?  Therefore, the concept of the Gezia is not a discriminatory action or meant to protect Christians and Jews.

The deterioration of the Islamic countries, which is a fact these days, makes every one wonder.  The majority of the Muslim countries have no democratic systems.  The partial democratic process in a few Muslim countries is corrupted and not working.  In addition, in most of the Muslim Countries, there is no advancement in science, in finance and no such things as inventions.

There are many reasons for that, one of  them is the closing doors of Igtihad. Igtihad is the continuing research and the continuing new look and new meaning in interpreting the Quran and the saying of the Prophets.

Unfortunately the igtihad stopped some centuries ago when one of the Muslim rulers forbid the igtihad and made it limited to a few picked religious men and no women involved ever until today except in the time of the Prophets and his Caliphs.  Aisha, the wife of the Prophet contributed considerably to the Islamic interpretations and was one of the major founders of the real meaning of the interoperation of the Quran and the Prophets Sayings and practices.

Before Islam, Arabs used to slaughter their daughters.  When they informed that their wives born girls, their faces used to turn black from shame and disappointment.  Islam forbids that.  Islam honors women and said that Paradise is under the feet of the mothers.  Islam requested from Muslims to cherish, respect and care of the woman, the mother, the sister, the daughter and the wife.  There are certain practices in the Islamic world such as the veil.  Most of Muslim scholars attributed this practice to traditions and believed that it has no basis in Islam, until today, arguments still active between Islamic groups about this issue.  One Group believes that veil is only for the wives of the prophet. The other group believes that veil is for every Muslim woman.  Naturally, the extremist sided with the veil for every woman.

Khadiga, the first wife of the Prophet used to do international trade.  Islam and the Prophet did not forbid her from continuing doing her business after the message came to the prophet.  The Quran did not call for other wise.  Furthermore, the Quran instructions called for women earning to be volunteered in participation in the well living of the family, otherwise, they can keep their earning for them selves.  Naturally, a Muslim woman would not accumulate their earning and not help financially in sending their children to good schools, live in suitable homes and eating suitable meals.

The freeze of the research and new interpretations of the Quran  forbidden Centuries ago.  The reason was that the uneducated and unknowledgeable people of the religion and the language came up with matters far from the true teaching of Islam and created widespread confusions.  The advantage of the new research is to open doors for fresh interpretation within the real content of the Quran, which would be suitable in the modern ages.  In Saudi Arabic they beat the individuals who they found eating in the month of Ramadan-the fasting month.  The Quran gave permission to break the fast under numbers of cases.  The Saudis authorities do not investigate that before beating those who are not fasting.

Islam called for freedom of religion and very clearly said that is no force should be exercised to convert people to Islam.  “Let there be no compulsion in religion”.

Even in marriage, Islam called for a peaceful separation if all other reconciliation means failed.  In the mean time Islam stressed very strongly that God blessed the marriage and discourage strongly divorce.

God created the whole world with different races and different colors and different languages”if God had pleased, he would have made you all one people, but He has done otherwise”.

Ms. Maji went to Israel.  The Palestinian issue, which exists for over fifty years still one of the major problems to the Islamic countries in the Middle East.  Naturally, she found an advance Jewish nation and most importantly a democratic nation.  She compared the Jewish nation which is created in 1948 with an Islamic nation created in 1947 – Pakistan.  A huge difference as far the advancement and the quality of life. 

This explained the real need of the reform by able, educated and knowledgeable Muslims not dictated by outsiders.  

 Kamal Aboelnaga, CPA