A Muslim Ideal of Non-Violence
Copyright 2003 by Zeeshan Hasan. First published in Bangladesh
in the February 7th, 2003 issue of Star Magazine.
Some of the most successful political movements in the twentieth
century have been based upon the principle of non-violence. However,
Islamic political movements have remained relatively unaffected by
widespread ideological moves towards non-violence, as these were
generally developed in non-Muslim contexts; Mahatma Gandhi's peaceful
resistance against the British, for example, was never integrated
into a Muslim religious framework. In the post 9/11 geopolitical
scenario, however, it is important to remember that Islam, like all
great religious traditions, contains a fundamental message of peace
and tolerance; one which can in fact be developed theologically into
a full-blown Muslim theory of non-violence. In examining this issue,
first we need to look at particular Qur'anic passages which support
non-violence. Then we may try to understand some of the historical
reasons why Muslim ideals of non-violence have not been realized.
My own development of an Islamic theory of non-violence will be
based on the Qur'anic story of Cain and Abel. Since Islam views
itself as the fulfillment of the Judeo-Christian tradition, the
Qur'an, which Muslims believe to be the word of God as revealed to
his prophet Muhammad, is full of stories which are immediately
recognizable from the Bible. The Qur'anic stories are often similar
to the Biblical ones, but in fact it is the differences between
Biblical and Qur'anic versions which are often the most interesting
in theological terms. The Cain and Abel story is significant in that
it tells of the first violent act in the Biblical narrative; the
murder of one of the sons of Adam by the other. As it contains the
prototypical act of violence, this story represents the ideal text
from which to develop non-violent theology.
Let us quickly go over the story of Adam's sons Cain and Abel as
told in the Bible:
'Now Abel was a keeper of sheep, and Cain a tiller of the ground.
In the course of time Cain brought to the Lord an offering of the
fruit of the ground, and Abel for his part brought of the firstlings
of his flock, their fat portions. And the Lord had regard for Abel
and his offering, but for Cain and his offering he had no regard. So
Cain was very angry, and his countenance fell. The Lord said to Cain,
"Why are you angry, and why has your countenance fallen? If you
do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is
lurking at the door; its desire is for you, but you must master it."
Cain said to his brother, Abel, "Let us go out to the field."
And when they were in the field, Cain rose up against his brother
Abel, and killed him. Then the Lord said to Cain, "Where is your
brother Abel?" He said, "I do not know; am I my brother's
keeper?" (Genesis 4:2-11)
Two themes of the above Biblical story bear elaboration, as they
will become very significant when we look at the same story in the
Qur'an. Most important is that the story is not just about murder,
but about sacrifice. Ritual sacrifice was an important part of
religious practice in the ancient near east. It often meant making
burnt offerings of animals to the gods, thus pleasing them and
warding off floods and other forms of divine punishment. For
Israelite religion in particular, sacrifice involved making burnt
offerings at the Temple of Jerusalem in order to be absolved of
various types of uncleanliness or sin. The Cain and Abel story
contains the first occurrence of sacrifice in the story of the Bible,
and thus was important in establishing the Israelite ritual of
sacrifice as primordial practice. The Biblical Cain and Abel story
also focuses on the merit of the animal sacrifice of Abel versus the
plant sacrifice of Cain, in accordance with their distinct
professions. The passage thus seems to reflect social tensions
between the sendentary farming and pastoral nomadic communities of
Biblical times.
Another important theme of the Biblical Cain and Abel story is
that of Cain's responsibility for his brother's death. This theme
underlies Cain's famous words that he is not his "brother's
keeper", which is simply a false denial of responsibility on his
part. But in the end, Cain is punished because he is in fact
responsible for Abel's death. His punishment is the loss of his
ability to farm, which again returns us to the agrarian vs. pastoral
tension underlying the Biblical passage. A subsequent verse, Genesis
4:20, mentions of one Cain's descendants that "he was the
ancestor of those who live in tents and have livestock". So in
effect Abel has a pyrrhic victory, since his animal-rearing lifestyle
wins out over Cain's crop farming.
When we get to the Qur'anic account however, we find a very
interesting retelling that changes particular features pertaining to
sacrifice as well as the nature of Cain's responsibility for his dead
brother.
'And recite thou to them the story of the two sons of Adam
truthfully, when they offered a sacrifice, and it was accepted of one
of them, and not accepted of the other. "I will surely slay
thee," said one. "God accepts only the godfearing,"
said the other. "Yet if thou stretchest out thy hand against me,
to slay me, I will not stretch out my hand against thee, to slay
thee; I fear God, the Lord of all Being. I desire that thou shouldst
be laden with my sin and thy sin, and so become an inhabitant of the
Fire; that is the recompense of the evildoers." Then his soul
prompted him to slay his brother, and he slew him, and became one of
the losers.' (Qur'an 5:31-33)
In fact, the retelling of the Cain and Abel story in the Qur'an
introduces a new theological meaning to it; that of forgiveness of
sin through non-violent death. This interpretation hinges on the
words that Abel utters when he explains why he does not kill his
brother rather than be killed by him: "I desire that thou
shouldst be laden with my sin and thy sin." The second part of
this statement is very clear; by killing Abel, Cain is committing the
sin of murder. Obviously, this is what Abel refers to as Cain's sin.
But Abel's first phrase, "I desire that thou shouldst be laden
with my sin", is altogether remarkable. How can Cain bear Abel's
sin? The Qur'anic message on ethics and moral responsibility is very
clear and repeated over and over; each person is responsible for his
or her own actions, and will be judged by God accordingly for any
wrongdoing.
God charges no soul save to its capacity; standing to its account
is what is has earned, and against its account what it has merited.
(Qur'an 2:286)
If each person can only be responsible for their own sins, what on
earth is Abel talking about? Interpretation does allow a way out of
this, if we realize that Cain's bearing of Abel's sin does not mean
that Cain will be punished for Abel's wrongdoing. Rather, Cain's
bearing of Abel's sin seems to mean that Abel, by allowing his
brother to kill him and not raising his hand in retaliation, is
forgiven of his sins. The Cain and Abel story in the Qur'an is thus
transformed from a Biblical story about the relative merits of Cain
and Abel's plant and animal sacrifices into a story about Abel's
sacrifice of himself in order to be forgiven of his own sins.
This is a really remarkable theological development. Among other
things, it has the interesting consequence of bringing an element
into Qur'anic theology which is reminiscent of the Christian concept
that Jesus accepted death on the cross in order that humanity be
forgiven of its sins through the sacrifice of his life. The Qur'an
never mentions this Christian doctrine of forgiveness of humanity's
sin through the crucifixion of Jesus. Although this belief forms the
basis of Christianity, Muslims tend to find it quite bizarre as
Qur'an explicitly denies the divinity of Jesus, and in fact views
him, Moses and Muhammad simply as human prophets of God. As a result,
there is no reason in Islam for Jesus' crucifixion to have the huge
theological impact that it does in the New Testament. Nonetheless,
what we see in the Qur'anic story of Cain and Abel is something very
similar to the sacrifice of Jesus wiping out the sins of humanity;
but here the figure of Abel is both the sacrifice and the recipient
of divine forgiveness.
And Abel, of course, is the child of Adam, just as all people are
meant to be; so by extension, any other child of Adam should also be
able to avail of divine forgiveness by accepting death through
non-violence. So the Qur'anic Cain and Abel story gives us an
interpretation of Islam which holds that all of one's sins can be
forgiven by acceptance of non-violent death. This a far cry from
common Western stereotyping of Islam, which routinely "explains"
terrorism and suicide bombing by citing the beliefs of the radical
fringe that such acts of violence result in the perpetrator's access
to heaven.
So it is certainly possible to develop an Qur'anic theory of
non-violence. The next question to ask is what problems arise in an
Islamic context when we try to apply non-violence as a religious
principle? The difficulty that one comes across is "jihad",
which everyone is most likely familiar with. Jihad is commonly
translated as "holy war", and if such a concept as holy war
exists in Islam, any Muslim theory of non-violence will have to deal
with it. Let's take a quick look at the word "jihad". It
comes from the Arabic verbal root jahada, which means "to
strive", or "to struggle", and not just in a military
sense. The Arabic word for Qur'anic interpretation, ijtihad, is a
derivative of the same root, since the act of interpretation implies
a debate within one's mind for the true or correct meaning of a
scriptural verse. In particular, the word jihad, commonly translated
as "holy war", simply means to struggle with another, and
can be used to describe a debate or disagreement as well as a
physical struggle. So the "holy war" interpretation of
jihad comes not just from the linguistic background of the word, but
from its historical usage. Jihad is used in the Qur'an to describe
the conflicts which Muhammad and the early Muslim community found
themselves in. Its historical usage was later extended beyond the
lifetime of Muhammad, and applied to justify the expansionary
conquests of the early Islamic empire. Now the question to be
answered is, how "Islamic" were the wars of the early
Muslim community, and the subsequent Muslim empire-building? Is jihad
in the sense of "holy war" a necessary part of Islam?
This becomes a complex question, because the legacy of Islam is
difficult to separate from the religion's associations with statehood
and empire. The problem begins with Muhammad's own lifetime, during
which he and his early Muslim community were engaged in conflict with
both pagan Arab tribes of Mecca as well as Jewish tribes around
Medina. Since these battles were fought by Muhammad himself, and
since Muslims regard the example of his life in high esteem as the
deeds of a divinely-guided prophet, the battles of this formative
period of Islam might seem to justify a concept of "holy war"
in Islam. However, when we look at the Qur'anic verses which
justified these battles, we do not find an unequivocal justification
of warfare.
Fight in the way of God with those who fight with you, but aggress
not; God loves not the aggressors. And slay them wherever you come
upon them, and expel them from where they expelled you; persecution
is more grievous than slaying. (Qur'an 2:186-187)
If they withdraw from you, and do not fight you, and offer you
peace, then God assigns not any way to you against them. (Qur'an
4:92)
In the first verses quoted above, the right to engage in battle is
contingent upon a greater good being served. In particular, the
criterion which must be met is the existence of "persecution"
which can be ended by war. It is made explicit that wars of
aggression are not justified. The second verse quoted is also
explicit in denying justification to violence if peace is offered as
an alternative.
Given these Qur'anic restrictions on violence, an Islamic ideal of
non-violence is still feasible. In fact, any responsible ethic of
non-violence must deal with the fact that one's choice to be
non-violent involves not only to leaving oneself open to violent
attack, but also in the vulnerability of others who may be unable to
defend themselves without one's forceful assistance. Any ideal of
non-violence will have to leave this judgement to be made according
to circumstances. In the case of Muhammad and his early Muslim
community, it is apparent that the Qur'anic view is that the
circumstances of persecution which resulted in the flight of Muslims
from Mecca to Medina constituted sufficient persecution to justify
the subsequent state of war between the two cities. However, this
only means that some wars (in particular, Muhammad's wars) may be
justified under some circumstances. But this is simply a commonsense
observation. It certainly does not imply that there is a general
Qur'anic principal of "jihad" by which any war against
non-Muslims becomes a justified as a "holy war". The citing
of Muhammad's wars and warlike Qur'anic verses out of their
historical context by both Muslim radicals and Western Islamophobes
should accordingly be treated with skepticism.
Next, let us look at the question of whether or not holy war, as
used to describe the early Muslim imperial expansion after Muhammad,
should be considered "Islamic". The Muslim empire expanded
rapidly after Muhammad's death, and there can be no doubt that this
expansion found the history of Muhammad's wars to be a convenient
example. The resulting development of the concept of jihad as
imperialist holy war allowed huge accumulation of wealth and
territories by expansionist caliphs.
It should be recalled, however, that early Muslim empire-building
was also not a purely religious expansion. In fact, conquering Arab
armies in the early years of Islam tended to stay aloof and isolated
in military encampments from the people whom they conquered.
Religious conversion of the local populace was not the issue. The
separation of the conquering Muslims from the conquered non-Muslims
allowed the populace considerable freedom to continuing practicing
their religion as they saw fit. All that was demanded of them was a
higher rate of tax, which reveals the real motive of medieval Muslim
"jihad"; namely extraction of wealth from conquered
territories. Since the primary objective of the early Islamic wars
was not correcting any situation of "persecution", and
especially since the motive was not to convert conquered people to
Islam in any case, the early Islamic empires obviously had no
legitimate claim to jihad.
In a real sense, the building of early Muslim empires was simply a
continuation of the economic logic of tribal warfare in seventh
century Arabia. Caravan raiding and the consequent trade in prisoners
and slaves were an important part of pre-Islamic desert economy.
Caravan raiding was thus an integral part of tribal culture, as in
7th century arabia there were few other resources available to
bedouin communities. Hence the pre-Islamic ethic of "muruwwah",
literally manliness, which idealized such traits as generosity in
sharing one's posessions with one's tribe as well as fearlessness and
ferocity in battle. These are precisely the the attributes of the
successful caravan raider who ensures the material well-being of his
tribe. After Muhammad's lifetime, the multitude of local tribes had
effectively been united into a single Muslim tribe, requiring that
the tribal caravan raiding now had to focus on external territories;
unification under the banner of the Islamic caliphate gave them the
strength they needed for this. Then as now, political leaders found
that religious zeal was a useful thing; hence the branding of
territorial expansion and war as "jihad" which
unfortunately continues to this day. Nostalgia for past influence and
empire still makes Muslims prone look to the Caliphate as a
romanticized, idealized past. This is understandable to the extent
that the age of Islamic empire did bring about much development in
the material well-being of Muslims, and consequent improvements in
their arts, sciences, literature and material culture. But in fact
there is nothing terribly religious or Islamic about spreading empire
by conquest. The nostalgia that persists and leads to the
glorification of an Empire long since gone is no more Islamic when
indulged in by Muslims than by, say, the British.
So it seems that our Muslim theology of non-violence is quite
robust in face of historical objections. But then how do we
understand the current realities of the Muslim world? In many Muslim
countries there are supposedly "Islamic" movements which
often advocate violent opposition to both their own governments as
well as the West. Western stereotypes tend to lay the blame for these
supposedly "fundamentalist" movements on the religion of
Islam, which is thus assumed to be naturally violent and regressive.
But the above analysis reveals this to be a false generalization, and
it would be sensible to explore alternative explanations for radical
"Islamist" movements.
In fact, Muslim fundamentalism is much too complex a phenomenon to
be explained away by a reductionist blaming of religion. Like most
prominent social movements, it has underlying socio-economic causes
which have to be considered. Most Muslim societies are stricken with
the poverty, corruption and social disparities that are endemic to
the developing world. The result is a tremendous amount of
frustration on the part of the middle classes, who can see that they
will struggle all their lives to eke out a basic existence. At the
same time, in most of these societies there exists a ruling class
which controls virtually all government, industrial and military
institutions and supports itself lavishly by consuming a huge
proportion of society's resources. In these circumstances it is only
natural for class struggle to erupt through the desire to replace the
ruling classes.
This is exactly the state of affairs which led to widespread
Marxist agitation all over the developing world only a few decades
ago. However, the end of the Cold War has made Marxism untenable as a
political philosophy in most countries. In the Muslim world, it is
only natural that class dissatisfaction expresses itself in religious
"fundamentalist" terms, as Islamist movements also tend to
support the removal of current ruling classes. There is only one
difference from the Marxist case; the Islamist's explicit
justification for removing the upper class is that it is composed of
a Westernized elite and insufficiently "Islamic". But this
is only really a rhetorical distinction. This analysis brings out the
absurdity of any Western attempt to eliminate "fundamentalism"
in Afghanistan, Iran or elsewhere. If "fundamentalism" is
essentially a Marxist movement, then it is only successful economic
development and a consequent alleviation of class inequalities in
Muslim societies which will end it.
The other dimension to "fundamentalist" movements is
external rather than internal. Muslims perceive the West and its new
ex-Soviet allies to be responsible for imperialist policies directed
at politically and economically suppressing Muslim populations. This
is particularly resented in the case of US support for Israeli
policies in the occupied territories, and its uncritical stance
towards the brutal Russian campaign against the Chechens. The looming
threat of attack on Iraq is the newest issue adding fuel to the fire
of public opinion in the Muslim world. Anger at these Western
policies fuels religious extremism and regressive views of jihad all
over the world, which effectively silences alternative and
non-violent interpretations of Islam everywhere. There will have to
be peaceful and just solutions to all these conflicts to end the
Muslim world's attraction to violent and anti-Western stances of
Islamist "fundamentalism".
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