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Leave that which makes you doubt

Al-Mannaawi (may Allah have mercy on him) said: “Leave that which makes you doubt” means: refrain from that which you are uncertain as to whether it is good or bad, halaal or haraam for that which does not make you doubt. That is: turn instead to that about which you are not uncertain, that which you are sure is good and halaal for truth leads to reassurance.

if you find yourself doubting (and uncertain about) something, then leave it, for the heart of the believer is at ease with the truth and is doubtful about lies and falsehood.

Being doubtful about something is an indication that it may be false and wrong, so beware of it; and your feeling at ease with something is an indication that it is true, so take hold of it.

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Quran as a discourse

In this post, I am going to be dealing with parts of the Quran that are difficult to come to terms with for those who want to live with a progressive moral set and follow the no harm principle. These are also parts of the Quran that critics usually use to attack Muslims. So before doing that, let us first appreciate these beautiful verses. From Surah Al-Hujurat: "O mankind, indeed we have created you from male and female and made you peoples and tribes that you may know one another. Indeed, the most noble of you in the sight of Allah is the most righteous of you. Indeed, Allah is Knowing and Acquainted.". Surah Ash-Sharh: "So truly where there is hardship there is also ease".

Quran as a discourse

There is a distinction between the Quran as a scripture and the Quran as a discourse [1]. The Quran as a discourse is a conversation between the prophet Muhammed (P.B.U.H), the believers and unbelievers of the time, and the divine. This conversation is a process of arguing, debating, and agreeing on issues. It is the discourse that is holy, not the text itself which is a silent record. The scripture as we know it today was codified after the prophets death by the Caliph and companion of the prophet, Uthman ( May Allah be pleased with him ) who burnt other variants. When we fail to remember the Quran is a discourse, we become slaves of literalism and idolise scripture.

The Quran (Surah Nuh 4:11) states that women should get a half of the inheritance of a man, and that the testimony of one man is worth the testimony of two women. The Quran as scripture outlook leads to taking this as a literal ruling, but taking Quran as a discourse we see an attempt to persuade the 7th century Arabs of the time to actually consider the opinions of women, and to allocate them at least some inheritance. This was in a time where new born daughters were at risk of being buried in the dessert. The literal ruling is considered sexist in modern times but it was probably a compromise with the community. Change does not happen over night, and doing things slowly and in stages seems to be a common pattern in Islam. This is shown by the Quran not being revealed overnight, but over a period of 23 years. The overarching intention of the discourse is to give women more rights. The modern consequent of this is to have equal rights. We should be looking at the intention of the discourse between the revelation and the community of the time rather than the literalistic meaning.

The Quran states that slaves should be treated fairly, that it is good to free slaves, and that it is permissible to have sex with slaves. The intention of the discourse here is not to introduce slavery into the community, it already existed. It is to make the treatment of slaves better. That is the intention of the discourse. Therefore, when reading the Quran we should not take away that slavery is ok, but instead take away that the situation should be made fairer, the most moral conclusion from that discourse that has been accepted in modern times is to ban slavery.

But what about when we can't make it work?

What about when we find something that is incompatible with our morals, and we can not find any underlying idea that pushes for greater morals as in the example of the inheritance of women? Reject it. You heard me correctly. This does not mean sticking our heads in the sand and pretending it doesn't exist. It doesn't mean that we reject the Quran itself. It just means we are playing a role in the discourse. We instead acknowledge that it was part of the discourse on what makes a moral society by 7th century standards. When we read the Quran we become a party in that discourse, and therefore we have the right to say no, this is abhorrent and not fit for societies in the 21st century.

Let us look at the following verse which may trouble you. Surah An-Nur Verse 2: "The [unmarried] woman or [unmarried] man found guilty of sexual intercourse - lash each one of them with a hundred lashes, and do not be taken by pity for them in the religion of Allah, if you should believe in Allah and the Last Day. And let a group of the believers witness their punishment." When dealing with such a verse there are three camps of Muslims:

1. Those who accept it as a literal ruling to be applied in the modern day under a legitimate Islamic State. 2. Those who desperately try to justify it by playing mental gymnastics. This commonly involves looking for different meanings of words that differ from the meanings that have been accepted by the majority of Arabs for hundreds of years. 3. Those who understand the verse to be applicable to the discourse at the time with 7th century peoples who lack the advanced moral compass we have today and therefore reject it.

We do not need to speak about the fist camp, we must be patient and wait for their condition to change whilst setting a good example. The second camp are in a sad state. There is nothing wrong with looking for hidden and metaphorical meanings, as long as you are being honest with others and more importantly yourself. But, if you are constantly jumping through hoops and making things up to justify things that don't look right, you will eventually grow tired of your own incoherence. At that stage most people either regress to fundamentalism or drift away from their Islamic identity, some becoming ex-muslims. These are the hipsters who look at a verse and say "No brother, actually the root word of this means that, and the kasra is missing, and therefore what it says it means isn't actually what it means, but instead it means a tree that has been born of a seed that has been excreted by an animal". If you are in this camp, I beg you to visit the third camp and drink tea with us. Here our religious belief is completely consistent with living with modern progressive values, without the hypocrisy. This is the only camp which has a chance of reforming societies and contributing to the development of Muslim civilisation.

I advocate for the third camp. It is practiced by millions of Muslims around the world but sadly rarely articulated or encouraged. I reject the verse above as a ruling, as it is incompatible with my conscience and moral compass, and I hope that it is also incompatible with yours. This doesn't take me out of the fold of Islam, I am simply taking part in the discourse that is the Quran. This doesn't make my prayers any less meaningful, or negatively affect my relationship with God.

There is something interesting about the third camp. We are disliked by both anti-muslim bigots and fundamental Daeshi mentality Muslims alike. The anti-muslim bigots try to make us look bad by presenting hadiths and versus about whipping fornicators, executing apostates, and stoning. When we respond with, “yes those exist, but we Muslims accept these as dated rulings and don't follow them”, the anti-muslim bigot suddenly loses his cannon fodder and has nothing left to attack us with. They hate us as we do not fit into their modal of the Muslim who is incompatible with liberal values. On the other hand, you have the Daeshi mentality Muslims who hate us for not taking everything literally. The anti-muslim bigots love these fundamentalists as they fit the mould for their propaganda. The irony. The Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) said, “Never be extreme regarding religion. Many nations have been destroyed before you only because of extremism in religion.”

Sources

[1] - Humanistic hermeneutics of the Quran - Nasr Abu Zayd. I fist encountered the idea of Qu'ran as a discourse here so I must attribute it. Although the thoughts expressed in the second half of the post are not the views of that author (Allah yarhamo). If you are interested in a more academic read about the Qu'ran as a discourse I recommend this 60 page read.

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Taking the good and leaving the bad, no matter the source

In common Islamic practice, there is a constant stream of reminders from scholars, parents, and self-righteous average joes about what you should and shouldn't do. The entirety of Islamic practice is boiled down to avoiding sins, and doing good, but only out of fear. You mustn't listen to music, you mustn't eat the meat at your friend's barbecue, you mustn't take friends of non-muslims, you mustn't dance, you mustn't clap ( if you are a man ), you mustn't hold hands before you are married, you must enter the bathroom with your right foot, you must sit in a certain way when eating, and you should fart in a certain direction.

The individual does these things out of a sense that they are doing good or through a feeling of fear. This kind of Islamic practice is toxic, and not conducive to living a fulfilling life or making you a better person. Why is adherence to these obsessive-compulsive rules so important? I choose not to do this, but to follow a moral code derived by my own intellect, inspired by Islamic principals. This constant badgering from others to follow these puritanical and controlling rule set nearly drove me away from Islam forever. But, I found another path that brought me back that is more driven by using Islam as a guide for spiritual fulfillment rather than an instructional manual of Dos and Donts.

It was said that your moral code should be developed through your own intellect, but guided by Islam. This means throwing away reliance on the interpretations of scriptures by others. Instead, you should use scripture as a trigger for your own independent and rational thought process. The Qu'ran says, surah 47 verse 24: "Do they not then think deeply in the Quran, or are their hearts locked up (from understanding it)?". It is up to you how to interpret any part to fit with your conscience, you do not have to accept everything, and remember that stories such as Noah's arc and the people of Lot are allegorical. That means they aren't actually accounts of history, but stories that have hidden meaning that must be rooted out by thought.

When it comes to Haidths, only follow those that you deem to be moral, good, and beneficial to your life. This is because no one really knows which hadiths are authentic or not, they might claim to, but anyone with intellect will know that recording words passed down through mouth to mouth hundreds of years after the prophets death is susceptible to fabrication, the Chinese whispers effect, and just plain old being completely out of context. If the hadith is authentic, we have no idea if the Prophet just meant those words for a certain situation.

If I ever pass down hadiths to my children it will be ones like this: "I heard the Messenger of Allah (saw) say, “Allah the Almighty has said: ‘O Son of Adam, as long as you invoke Me and ask of Me, I shall forgive you for what you have done, and I shall not mind. O Son of Adam, were your sins to reach the clouds of the sky and you then asked forgiveness from Me, I would forgive you. O Son of Adam, were you to come to Me with sins nearly as great as the Earth, and were you then to face Me, ascribing no partner to Me, I would bring you forgiveness nearly as great as it [too].’ ”. Beautiful. I would not pass down: "the Prophet ordered the two adulterers to be stoned to death, and they were stoned to death near the place where biers used to be placed near the Mosque. I saw her companion (i.e. the adulterer) bowing over her so as to protect her from the stones." That hadith is from Sahih al-Bukhari, Book 60 page 79 ( https://muflihun.com/bukhari/60/79 ). It is considered Sahih by most orthodox Suni religious leaders of our time. I do not need any explanation to justify this to me. It says very clearly that one of the lovers protected the others from the stones, whilst their peers continued to stone them, allegedly on command by the Prophet. As a Muslim, I will say straight that this is abhorrent, the only act that showed morality was the adulterer who was being stoned protecting her lover. I reject this disgusting account, imagine if you lived in such a country, where people were dragged into a field to be stoned for "illegal sexual intercourse". This is the kind of hadiths ISIS (Daesh) used to justify their ways. Most Muslims are great in condemning ISIS, but unfortunately, most have not made the jump to condemning hadiths like that which is the bread and butter of Daeshi mentality.

I will pass down:  “The best of people are those that bring most benefit to the rest of mankind.” (Daraqutni, Hasan) and not "Some Zanadiqa (atheists) were brought to `Ali and he burnt them. The news of this event, reached Ibn `Abbas who said, "If I had been in his place, I would not have burnt them, as Allah's Messenger (ﷺ) forbade it, saying, 'Do not punish anybody with Allah's punishment (fire).' I would have killed them according to the statement of Allah's Messenger (ﷺ), 'Whoever changed his Islamic religion, then kill him.'" ( Book 84 hadith 57 sahahi Bukhari ). No thank you, Freedom of religion for everyone is more moral, whilst killing someone for leaving their religion is immoral.

I am a Muslim who is in a pre-marital relationship, has drunk wine in moderation, and enjoys listening to music, and I do not feel bad or ashamed for it. I do not find any of these things immoral. I do not need anyone to "guide" me to the so-called light. I don't judge others who do or do not do these things, as long as they abide by their personal moral code and do no harm to others. I do not pray out of fear of burning in some everlasting hellfire, I pray because it gives me spiritual fulfillment, and I find the best place to find that is in Jam’ah (congregation) at the mosque. I feel their is great benefit in the support of a merciful God through good and bad times. I do not think the mark of a good person is how much of the Qu'ran they have memorized, but rather it is in how they treat others. I am not a Sunni, Shia, or Quran'ist. I am just a Muslim who takes what is good from orthodox Islam and Muslim culture and discards everything else in favor of his own rationality. Islam enhances my life, it doesn’t limit it and make me act horribly to those around me.

The Qu'ran says: "People, We created you all from a single man and a single woman, and made you into races and tribes so that you should recognize one another. In God’s eyes, the most honored of you are the ones most mindful of Him: God is all knowing, all aware". God is the most moral and high, to be mindful of him is to question and judge your internal thoughts and external actions to your own moral code. No one really knows what religious rulings are authentic, so as a Muslim I simply take what is beneficial and leave out everything else. No matter if it is from Sahih Bukhari or the most respected of tafsirs (Quranic interpretations). What I am left with is concepts to live life by, such as Jihad of the nafs (Combat with the self), Prayer, and developing good akhlaq ( characteristics ), and not an outdated list of Dos and Donts.