Stephen Schwartz replies to "Learning to Discriminate"

I didn't write any of this confidentially and don't care whether you post it, but if you do please use this version which includes one very minor copy-editing correction. And I would add one final comment: When people like Spencer want to attack Muslims they treat Bosnia as a major source of jihadism, infiltration of Western Europe, etc., but when it is shown that Bosnia contributed an important corpus of Islamic law mandating mutual respect between religions and acceptance of Western law, Bosnians are suddenly treated as a marginal element in Islam. I consider this a prime example of the tendentiousness visible in such polemics.

Stephen Schwartz

Greetings

I frankly dislike the increasing habit of subjecting well-known moderate Muslims like myself to inquisitorial religious tests. If our views were not plainly stated in the essay of mine you read, then the problem is one of your comprehension, and there is no particular reason for me to spend time elucidating these matters for you. It is extremely irritating to realize that without bothering to read any other of our extensive publications or otherwise research our views you fired off a religious interrogation based on your own amateur assumptions.

Nobody but a bigot or paranoid would imagine that given all of my and CIP's activities to fight radical Islam we should undergo a religious interrogation by an ill-schooled observer. But Qur'an says to argue quietly and with pleasant words in dealing with the ahl ul-kitab, because God hates wrath. So here are my replies to your queries as posted on your site. My replies are in bold italic.

Who provided the money to start your mosque?

CIP does not run a mosque. We are a 501(c)(3) and file form 990 annually.

Who holds the title to your mosque building and the land it is on?

NA

Who pays the salary of your imam and any other mosque employees?

NA

From what theological school did your imam graduate?

Clerics associated with CIP studied at Al-Azhar, at Najaf, and at the Faculty of Islamic Studies in Sarajevo, Bosnia-Hercegovina.

What is the relationship between you and/or your mosque and any organizations affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood (the Council on American Islamic Relations, the Islamic Society of North America and the North American Islamic Trust especially)?

We are well-known opponents of the MB. I, however, consider it a mistake to consider CAIR, ISNA, and NAIT as branches of the MB. The relationship defining radical Islam in the U.S. is triangular: Saudi money, South Asian functionaries, Brotherhood literature. The MB does not have a significant Egyptian or North African Muslim constituency in the U.S. and does not have resources to spend here. The MB provides literature because Saudi Wahhabi and South Asian jihadist literature is not easily understood or otherwise accessible to Westerners or even many ordinary Muslims. But the MB is not in charge. Right now, Pakistani jihadis are in charge.

Which school of Islamic jurisprudence do you consider to be authoritative in your practice of Islam?

I am an adherent of the Hanafi school as adopted in the Balkans, where I became Muslim. That means it applies to diet, form of prayer and related strictly spiritual matters, male circumcision, payment of charity, and burial. Balkan Muslims accept the primacy of Western civil law.

What are that school’s rulings on the desired status of Islamic law in non-Muslim countries?

The Bosnian Muslims formulated a major corpus of doctrine on the acceptance of Western civil law beginning with the occupation of the country by the Austrians in 1878. No attempt has been made to reintroduce Islamic law by any Balkan Muslim authority since the end of Shariah primacy in the Ottoman era.

Do you believe that Islamic law should be the highest law of the land, no matter where you live?

No, that would be a contravention of the advice of the Prophet Muhammad sallallahualeyhisalem, who said that Muslims living in non-Muslim countries must accept the laws and customs of the land in which they live. This is not subject to so-called abrogation.

Does Islamic law allow the use of force to spread Islam?

Qur'an states clearly that there is no compulsion in religion. Chapters of Islamic history in which conversions were apparently brought about by force are subject to debate. I am researching some interesting and important aspects of this historical debate. CIP does not consider compulsion in religion acceptable in any case.

Does your school of Islamic law support separation of religion and state?

We do not have a "school of Islamic law." In our view religious leaders should have legal status that allows protection of their institutions from government interference, but otherwise religious leaders should have no official standing. That said, there are countries that recognize several religions as "legal," like Indonesia, and in Israel the Israeli Arab Muslims and Druzes have official standing. Israel is defined as a Jewish state, in a religious sense, but has maintained Ottoman-era regulations between religions, including shariah courts for Muslims. Many Catholic and Orthodox countries have state churches, and on paper even the UK, Canada, Scandinavia and Germany still have state churches and state religious taxes. CIP supports the American principle of state noninterference with religion but also recognizes that American law does not cover the whole world and that the discussion of this matter should not be oversimplified.

Does your version of Islamic law require that your first allegiance should be to the Islamic Umma and not to the American (or any other non-Muslim) nation? Are Muslims who have moved to America immigrants or colonizers? Can you explain the Hijra as a model for Islamic immigration to non-Muslim countries?

We follow the classic Islamic guidance under which an individual's loyalty is owed first to his or her nation. I am an American Muslim, i.e. an American first and a Muslim second. That is true of everybody in CIP whether they are citizens of the U.S., Canada, UK, Germany, the Netherlands, the Balkan countries, Saudi Arabia, etc. CIP actively supports German citizenship for the children of Turkish immigrants. CIP also believes that Iranians do not owe loyalty to the present dictatorship. We cannot generalize as to how many Muslim immigrants to America are religious missionaries. We are not. But we are mainly not immigrants in any country where we are active.

The hijra is an exceedingly large and complex topic that cannot be explained in a few words. My own view is that hijra should be defined as a search for spiritual security. Muslims today gain greater personal security in non-Muslim countries than in most Muslim countries. So in that sense the migration of Muslims to the West is hijra. This is a controversial matter as this point has been misused by various MB and related types in Europe.

Can you explain the meaning of the terms Dar al Islam and Dar al Harb and the doctrine of Al Wala wal Bara (Loyalty and Enmity, Koran 60:4)?

Not in a questionnaire form. No religion is called upon to essentialize its principles on the spot except under inquisitorial terms, which I reject. The doctrine of dar al harb and dar al Islam has different applications. One aspect of it is that it forbids the importation of Shariah into non-Muslim countries. There is a global debate among Muslims about these concepts and it is very detailed and complex. Some very superficial aspects of it are treated in a CIP document, A GUIDE TO SHARIAH LAW AND ISLAMIST IDEOLOGY IN WESTERN EUROPE, 2007-2009, which you may read as a free download at http://www.islamicpluralism.org/documents/shariah-law-islamist-ideology-western-europe.pdf.

Do you support the three options allowed by Islamic law to non-Muslims when they are defeated in war by Muslims? (Conversion, payment of jizya to indicate submission or death).

I do not support non-Muslims telling me what is in or is not in Islamic law. Non-Muslims were defeated in war by Muslims in Algeria in 1962. None of these principles were imposed on them. The jizya tax does not exist anywhere in the world today. I consider the formulation of the question presumptuous. You clearly have little real knowledge of these matters. CIP does not support compulsion in religion, the jizya, or violence against non-Muslims except in direct self-defense, i.e. when directly attacked by force. CIP also recognizes that Arab states, rather than Israel, are the source of conflict between in Israel. The question is also complex and does not lend itself to short answers. Nothing important in the world does.

What punishment does Islamic law prescribe for Muslims who leave Islam?

We are not required to supply opinions on Islamic law. But we do not believe that any punishment should be imposed on anybody for their religious choices. The term "leaving Islam" is ambiguous in that large groups that are considered Muslim and members of which are included in CIP are now debating whether to constitute themselves as separate religious bodies from the Islamic community, which separation is a de jure situation for some in the Balkans and Western Europe. Trying to generalize on this question in a peremptory manner is a mistake. Apostasy as we know it today was not common in the Islamic past, and references to it in Islamic law usually refer to heresy rather than the specific act of leaving a religion. No religion is particularly approving of apostasy. These are also complex matters and CIP was founded to debate them, not to provide short answers about them by e-mail.

In Islamic law, are unbelievers considered to be unclean?

People of the Book (Jews and Christians) are not defined as unclean in Qur'an. Shia Muslims have contamination issues. Whether real unbelievers such as Nazis, Communists, etc. are unclean is a matter for debate. This is also a highly abstruse and complicated matter.

In Islamic law, what is the punishment for blasphemy? Do you support the death penalty fatwa against Salman Rushdie for writing The Satanic Verses? Do you support the calls for punishment of critics of Islam such as Trey Parker, Matt Stone, Geert Wilders, Kurt Westergaard and Lars Vilks? Was the killing of Theo Van Gogh justified in Islamic law?

I am not interested in conducting a dialogue with you about your presumptions regarding Islamic law. It is knavish and insulting to suggest that I or anybody at CIP supports sanctions against any of these people or would have supported the murder of Theo Van Gogh. We have never supported any such thing.

According to your version of Islamic law, do women have rights equal to men and is polygny allowed? Is wife beating allowed?

We support equal rights for women. It is stated in our publications and visible in our work. We encourage Muslim women in the UK to go to non-Muslim authorities for help rather than to shariah courts. That is a matter of record.

What does Islamic law prescribe as punishment for homosexuality?

I am not required to discuss this matter with you in the terms you present. We are against interference with people because of their private sexual conduct. Homosexuality is a matter of differing attitudes in Muslim countries, e.g. Morocco. Islamic law is not absolute anywhere, even in Saudi Arabia. What is written in Islamic law and what happens in practical daily life are often at odds. One reason for this is that any religion presents a standard of conduct in contrast with the way most people live. Another is that the need for social stability in Muslim countries dictates pragmatic evasions of Islamic law.

According to your school of Islamic law, what limitations should be placed on artistic expression?

We do not believe in any limitations on creative expression. Muslims excelled for centuries in every form of art, music, etc. I am a published poet, art critic, and historian of music.

Can you explain the doctrine of abrogation in Islamic law and its relationship to the two stages (Meccan and Medinan) in which the Koran was revealed to Mohammed?

The so-called doctrine of abrogation was never accepted by the majority of Muslims and was refuted by the classical theological argument that the surahs that establish the basis of the religion cannot be overriden by surahs dealing with personal relations between specific people.

Can you explain why no Muslim-majority country subscribes to the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights?

Yes. They are mainly corrupt dictatorships. On the other hand, the UN is a deeply corrupt body that does not live by its supposed principles, which were never realistic in the first place, because the UN puts peace before freedom. Americans should put freedom before peace. I personally support U.S. disaffiliation from the UN. But if one wants to play these games, one may ask why the U.S. does not support various UN declarations and resolutions.

Are Hamas and Hizballah terrorist organizations according to Islamic law?

This is a tendentious manner of phrasing a simple question. Hamas and Hezbollah are terrorist groups representing extremist interpretations of Islam. I don't know or particularly care about the process required to produce an Islamic legal opinion on this, and don't think anybody else in CIP does either. The solution to the terrorism of both groups is found in the public law of states, not in religious law. Banditry is forbidden in Islamic law and as far as I am concerned Hamas and Hezbollah are bandits.

Have you or has your mosque given zakat to any charity (such as the Holy Land Foundation) that supports jihad (violence against infidels) with the funds?

Your question is irrelevant. We do not contribute to jihadists. CIP and most Muslims do not consider Jews, Christians, Zoroastrians, Hindus, or Buddhists to be infidels. I would consider my support for the war in Iraq and Afghanistan to be support for a war against infidels who mock Islam by claiming its mantle while pursuing terrorism.

Does your school of Islamic law allow jihad to be waged “to rid the land of unbelief”?

I am not interested in pursuing complex, abstract discussions of Islamic law with you. This last query is simply irrelevant to me. Jihad can only be waged when it is called by a khalifa or an emir. There is no khalifa or emir today. There is no legitimate armed jihad today. That is my view.

Do you believe that any of these Islamic legal positions need to be reformed and why?

The relations between faith and law in Islam are a matter of a widespread debate in which CIP participates actively. The matter cannot be reduced to an e-mail.

I have one final question.

Robert Spencer, a prominent critic of Islam, says this:

The one thing that Western non-Muslims assume exists and is widely accepted, an Islamic theological and legal argument against jihad warfare and Islamic supremacism in general, establishing the principle that Muslims should live as equals with non-believers in a non-Sharia society on an indefinite basis, has never actually been produced, except in the non-traditional presentations of individual scholars who have no significant following in the Islamic world.

Can you supply rulings by jurists from any of the recognized Sunni or Shi’ite madhahib, declaring that jihad is not to be waged against unbelievers in order to bring them under the authority of Sharia, but rather that non-Muslims and Muslims are to coexist peacefully as equals under the law on an indefinite basis, even when the law of the land is not Sharia. Can you show evidence of any orthodox sect or school of jurisprudence that teaches this?

This is typical of the bluffing manner pursued by Spencer. An entire body of Islamic law exists having to do with the life of Tatar, Bashkir, and Kazakh Muslims under Russian tsarist rule, beginning with the establishment of an Islamic representative body by tsarina Catherine at the end of the 18th century. This corpus is not "non-traditional" or produced by "individual scholars who have no significant following in the Islamic world." It follows Hanafiyya. Spencer misuses language at an amazing rate; he applies the term "traditional" according to his own personal, improvised definition of what he thinks is traditional in Islam; he does the same with references to alleged individuals with, according to him, no significant following in the Islamic world. How would he presume to make such sweeping judgements?

You conflate individual opinions with the "teachings of the schools of jurisprudence." Most of the teachings of the schools of jurisprudence have to do with aqida, or the theological description of the world and the requirements of faith, not with legal relations between people. There is a different between the teachings and the texts or decisions derived from them.

Robert Spencer is an Edward Said turned upside down: the same claim of omniscience that masks ignorance, the same kind of prejudices masked as opinions, the same slippery, weasel words and constant recourse to personal abuse.

Islamic legal debates over the status of Muslims in lands that have passed to non-Muslim control began most notably with the fall of al-Andalus in Spain. Some scholars adhered to the belief that Muslims should leave for Muslim territory. The crazy Wahhabi Al-Albani in Saudi Arabia notably recommended this to the Israeli Arabs and Palestinians -- they were not amused. The Maliki scholars in Spain and Morocco held that the Muslims should remain in Spain but they were able to do so only until the early 17th century, for various reasons.

The Tatar-Kazakh debates are known and studied by all serious scholars in the Islamic world, especially in Turkey, the former Soviet Union, Pakistan, and India. The idea that these debates and decisions are unknown or disregarded in the Muslim world is simply false. The reforming movement in Russian Islam known as jadidism is universally known and discussed by Muslim intellectuals.

The body of Bosnian Islamic legal thought on the submission of Muslims to non-Muslim rulers and the equality of citizens of all faiths, beginning in 1878, is known throughout the Balkans and in Turkey. The writings of those who developed it, like Dzemaludin Causevic, are in print and for sale everywhere in those countries. They are the subject of frequent articles and commentaries. They are in Bosnian, not English. I don't expect Spencer to know about them but I also don't accept him treating them as if they do not exist or are irrelevant.

I am not required to show or demonstrate anything to rude and hostile people who send me e-mails comprising prolix and improvised religious interrogatories. The Tatar, Bashkir, Kazakh, and Bosnian Muslims are perfectly fine Muslims. It is obvious that you have no awareness that the concept of orthodoxy as it exists in Judaism and Christianity is absent from classical Islam, or was until very recently.

I certainly don't have the time or the desire to prepare documentation on these matters at your demand.

Enough. Have a nice day. And try to do more reading and studying before appointing yourself a judge of other people's religious views. Privacy of faith used to be an American principle.

Stephen Suleyman Schwartz