Inspiration From The Koran: Command Good and Forbid Evil

Inspiration From The Koran:  Command Good and Forbid Evil
M. Bakri Musa
www.bakrimusa.com

[Presented at the South Valley Islamic Community Iftar, Morgan Hill, California, Sunday, June 12, 2016.]

Ramadan is the month of the Koran. Its first few verses were revealed to Prophet Muhammad (s.a.w.) during this month. Thus it is a tradition for Muslims to recite the Koran communally during this time.
            A few years ago I was in a panel discussion where one of the panelists asked a group of students to think of the Koran from a different perspective. He challenged them to cite the one ayat (verse) in the Holy Book that meant the most to them, and why.
            It was remarkable that no two individuals quoted the same verse. Each gave compelling arguments and heartfelt reasons for their choice. That reflected the vast richness of the Koran as a source of inspiration to Muslims.
            For example, one student related his visit to the Grand Canyon, enraptured by its breathtaking sights. It recalled for him the Koranic verse on the beauty and grandeur of Allah’s creation. He was referring to Surah Al Ra’d, “He it is Who spread out the earth and placed therein firm mountains and streams ….” (13:3)
That verse transformed for him what was a popular tourist destination to one filled with reverence. Indeed to Native Americans, the Grand Canyon is holy.
            Before that, the verse affected him no differently than those other six thousand ones in the Koran. Through the spectacular sights and overwhelming silence of the Grand Canyon he felt the presence of Allah, manifested by that particular creation in all its infinite beauty and mystery.
            Another recalled his first day in a New York City classroom. He was astounded that his fellow classmates came from literally all corners of the earth, spoke strange languages, wore bewildering colors and style of clothing, and ate exotic foods that they had brought from home. The cacophony of attires, faces and voices intimidated him.
            Then he remembered the eloquent verse in the Koran which said, approximately translated, that Allah could have created mankind as clones of each other (Surah Al Maidah 5:48, among others). Instead He created us in our different tribes, cultures, languages, preferences, and yes, skin color so we could learn from each other. Then we would not only appreciate our differences but also embrace them, thereby enriching our lives. That was Allah’s grand design that he saw in his class that day.
            The most touching was the inspiration of a student who was a recent refugee. She described her harrowing journey to escape the chaos and tyranny of her native land, of staying ahead of killer agents of the state, and of crossing treacherous seas.
            Throughout it all what kept her sane and determined was Allah’s command, expressed in Surah Al Nisa, “. . . Was not God’s earth vast enough that you might have migrated therein? . . .  ” (4:97) She was also inspired by the Prophet’s own hijra, of being driven away from his birthplace.  
            Three individuals from different parts of the world with totally different experiences and emotions, yet all drawing their inspirations and words of comfort from the Koran.
            That simple exercise had me thinking. Which ayat in the Koran meant the most to me and why? That prompted me to re-read the Koran in a different light. My Arabic is rudimentary and the Koran is in classical Arabic. Even if I were to be fluent in Arabic I would no more understand the Koran than a native English speaker would the subtleties of Shakespeare’s sonnets. I would need guidance.
We are blessed today to have many excellent translations of and commentaries on the Koran.
My inspirational ayat is not a full one but a phrase incorporated in a handful of ayats. Amr bil Ma'ruf wa Nahy an al Munkar
( المنكر  عن نهى و  بالمعروف امر )
Simply and briefly but too far off translated as “Command good, forbid evil!”
Amr means to make it a practice or let it be your norm, a part of you; ma’ruf, fair, just, right, decent or honorable; nahi, to distance yourself; and mungkar, bad, foul, evil, wrong, unjust, indecent, or dishonorable.
To me that phrase is the essence of the Koran, its thesis sentence if you will. I draw the greatest inspiration from that phrase, its words to live by. That phrase also encapsulates for me the meaning of being a Muslim. It is Islam’s Golden Rule.
Chronologically it first appeared in the Meccan Surah Luqman (31:17) relating the advice Prophet Luqman gave his son, “O my son! Perform the prayer, enjoin right and forbid wrong, and bear patiently whatever may befall you!”
In the Koran that phrase first appeared in Surah Al’Imran (3:104): “Let there be among you a community calling to the good, enjoining the right, and forbidding wrong. It is they who shall prosper.”
Relating this to the experience of the first student, knowing the Grand Canyon to be Allah’s creation, he would do much good by respecting it, as in not not polluting or defacing it. He would certainly do great harm if he were to bulldoze its majestic columns and imposing ridges, or through careless acts of littering and carving of graffiti.
As for the second student, seeing human diversity as Allah’s grand design, he would do good by embracing it. He would certainly do great harm if he were to insist that others dress like him or share his belief.
The third student best lived the command to do no evil. When evil is all around it is difficult to be on the straight path. We cannot always prevent evil or when in so doing we would endanger ourselves, but we can always distance ourselves from it, as she did by emigrating.
An oft quoted hadith has it that when we see evil being perpetrated we should use our hands to prevent it, meaning, physically. If unable to do so or if in so doing we put ourselves in harm’s way, then we must voice our disapproval. Where even that could lead us to danger, as in Malaysia with its notorious Internal Security Act, then we should disapprove it in our hearts, though that is the least favored by Allah.
How does the injunction “Command good and forbid evil” relate to the five pillars of our faith?
There is nothing intrinsically good in the act of declaring the shahada, professing our faith in God and Prophet Muhammad as His Last Messenger. It is good only if in so doing we were to be reminded of His message and to follow it. The same could be said of praying.
Shahada and prayers are but professions of intent. Unless translated into deeds, they would be nothing more than vibrations of our vocal cords, only slightly better than a recording being re-played.
I remember an incident a few decades ago when Imam Anwar, the father of our present Imam Ilyas, was giving a sermon. There were kids running around interfering with his delivery. Imam Anwar quietly tucked away his prepared sermon and shifted to an impromptu lecture on mosque etiquette.
It was good that kids came to mosques, he said, but they must learn the proper behavior. They were never too young to start learning. If they were to run around and disturb others praying, then their parents should interrupt their prayer to control their kids. That would do more good to more people than for their parents to continue praying while ignoring their misbehaving children.
I just saw a video going viral of a woman collapsing while doing her Taraweeh prayer in a Malaysian mosque. It was caught on its closed-circuit camera. Not one of her fellow congregants stopped their prayer to help! They continued on as if nothing had happened. Eventually a lady from the rear rushed to help her. The Imam too was oblivious of the raucous back in the women’s section; he continued on.
Once as a surgeon in Malaysia, I reprimanded a junior doctor for abandoning his patient in the emergency room while he was off for his Friday prayer. To that doctor, his personal salvation came ahead of his patient’s safety.
In a similar fashion, what were they thinking when they yelled “Allah hu Akhbar” (God is Great!) and then slit their victim’s throat or go on rampages? Those actions mock our great faith!
As for fasting, the only intrinsic good to the act is the reduced caloric intake that would be good to our health and longevity. If during Ramadan we were to go further and reflect on the Koran and translate its messages into deeds, then we would be on to something good beyond ourselves.
As for Hajj, its inherent good is akin to a tourist contributing to the travel industry, with jobs and economic activities created therefrom. If in performing it you pollute the holy city, elbowed your way to the Kaaba, and on returning you are back to your old wily ways, then you mock the sanctity of your pilgrimage; likewise if you were to finance your Hajj with illicit funds.
The one pillar of our faith whose execution is intrinsically good is zakat, the giving of tithe. The goodness of the act is obvious to its recipients; less obvious are the many benefits to society. The Koran says that tithe purifies your wealth. Stagnant wealth, like water, is unhealthy. Economists talk of keeping money circulating, and measure the vigor of an economy by how fast money exchanges hands, its velocity. Enlightened policymakers advocate guaranteed minimum income for the same reason. Zakat does both; that is its inherent virtue.
I am blessed that as a physician I could execute this Koranic injunction in the most personal way to serve my fellow humans. The same could be said of teachers and nurses.
There is yet another reason for my choosing that ayat. When I translate it into my native Malay, it parallels the exquisite brevity of the original Arabic, in addition to its unabashed assertiveness and arresting alliteration: Biasakan yang baik, jauhi yang jahat. Make good your norm and distance yourself from evil.
That remains my challenge as well as guidance.

Reflections on Ramadan: Beyond The Fast

Reflections on Ramadan: Beyond The Fast

M. Bakri Musa

www.bakrimusa

[First presented at the South Valley Islamic Community’s Iftar, Morgan Hill, Ca, July 13, 2013. Reposted]

When giving religious talks during Ramadan, it is customary to quote the Koran and hadith generously. In deference to those whose tajweed is exquisite and those who are far more knowledgeable on hadith, I will depart from tradition. I do not wish to strain their patience!

Instead I will share my perspective on Ramadan drawing on three sources:  one, my earlier experience as a surgeon in an Oregon lumber town; two, the findings from a landmark experiment in social psychology; and three, comparing Ramadan in Malaysia to that in America.

I will also depart from tradition in that being a physician, I will not enumerate the numerous and obvious health benefits to reduced caloric intake, a consequence of fasting.

Surgeon in Oregon

As a young surgeon in Oregon, I treated many workers with severe injuries from the huge local sawmill. To better understand the mechanisms of their injuries, the manager took me on a tour of his factory.

Those massive logs were effortlessly thrown by giant cranes onto steel conveyors with the ease of your tossing away used chopsticks. The logs were then spun around by rollers with studs to be de-barked, much like a housewife peeling carrots. High-speed circular saws would slice the logs back and forth, reducing them to pieces of lumber. If not for the bone-shaking floor vibrations, the high-pitched sound reminded me of a plugged-up vacuum cleaner.

Those pieces were then mechanically sorted and forced through yet more spinning saws to be cut into specified lengths. Then as they rolled to the finishing line they were subjected to the human touch and scrutiny, with pieces that were broken, uneven, or otherwise blemished shunted aside. The final products were then stacked in a special room to be “cured.”

This curing room was quiet and cool, its humidity, temperature and airflow strictly controlled. The lack of noise and vibrations was instantly felt; it was a tranquil oasis in marked contrast to the rest of the mill. On the factory floor we shouted and hand-gestured; in the curing room we whispered and cupped our mouths. Even the rhythm of our walk changed, from brisk noisy strides to soft silent steps, as in a mosque. We feared disturbing the sanctity of the room.

The manager told me that after the stresses of being cut, pushed, spun and thrown around in the mill, the lumber needed “rest time” so they could withstand the inevitable subsequent stresses at the construction sites or furniture factories. Without this curing, the lumber would readily bend, splinter or even break, soiling the factory’s brand.

Now if an inanimate object – wood – has to be “cured” before it faces its next phase of stress, imagine how much more humans would need this time and space. This is what Ramadan means to me; a “time out” so we could pause and reflect after having been through the mill in our regular daily lives!

Plants and trees too need this equivalent change of pace. The forced dormancy of the long cold weather ensures a full bloom come spring, and with that a bountiful harvest. Winter is the plants’ Ramadan.

Children and their Marshmallows

My second thought comes from reading about the Stanford marshmallow study on preschool children. They were each given a marshmallow, with instructions that should they refrain from eating it for 15 minutes, they would be rewarded with an extra one. As expected, some devoured theirs right away, others took longer. Nonetheless there were those who successfully restrained themselves and were thus duly rewarded. The study reveals that marked individual differences towards instant gratification could be discerned at a very early age.

If that was the only conclusion, the study would not be regarded as “one of the most successful behavioral experiments.”

Years later when those kids were of college age, the lead experimenter, prompted by anecdotal accounts, did a follow-up study. It turned out those “impulse controlled” children (those who successfully deferred devouring their treats) did better academically as well as disciplinary-wise in school. Indeed, the ability to delay eating marshmallows was a better predictor of scholastic achievement than IQ tests or parent’s educational level!

This insight is leveraged by enlightened educators. The largest operator of charter schools in America, KIPP (Knowledge is Power Program), emphasized character building as well as a rigorous curriculum. Part of that character building is teaching children the equivalent of not eating their marshmallows right away, to defer their gratifications. The school has been remarkably successful despite its students coming from disadvantaged backgrounds.

This marshmallow study has other and wider implications. If a culture is predisposed to immediate gratification, its members would not likely to save their earnings. The consequent low capital formation (from lack of savings) leads to economic stagnation, the bane of many Third World societies.

The marshmallow study also helps explain why those who acquire wealth through inheritance, lottery, or preferential treatment rarely keep it while those who acquire it through hard work do. The latter have self-discipline – key to their success – and more importantly, to maintaining that success.

If the ability to delay devouring marshmallows for fifteen minutes among preschoolers is strongly associated with later academic and other successes, imagine the good if we could delay it for the entire daylight hours! That is the value and significance of Ramadan; to instill self-discipline and acquire the habit of delayed gratification.

That this trait could be detected as early as the preschool age suggests that it is more “nature” than “nurture,” or stated differently, more genetic than environmental. This is reinforced by an earlier study (substituting candies for marshmallows) comparing Black and Indian (subcontinent) children in Jamaica. As a group, the Black children had difficulty restraining themselves. Another significant variable was the absence of a father in the house. Surprisingly, socio-economic status was not a factor. In Jamaica there are significant differences in the economic, educational and other achievements between those two ethnic groups.

In a recent twist to this classic study, the children were first “primed,” and using crayons instead of marshmallows. They were randomly assigned into a “reliable” or “unreliable” group. In both, the children were each given a bag of crayons with instructions that if they were not to open it until the supervisor returned, they would be given, in addition, a bigger and newer set.

For the “reliable” group, the supervisor would duly return, and as promised the successful children were rewarded. For the “unreliable” group however, the adult would return but apologize profusely for not being able to bring the promised bigger and newer bag to those who had been successful.

This crayon experiment was then repeated, this time using stickers. This done, the two groups were tested as per the original marshmallow study.

Nine of the 14 children in the “reliable” group successfully delayed eating their marshmallows, as compared to only one in the “unreliable” group. Children in the “reliable” group also waited longer (four times more) than those in the “unreliable” group before eating their treats.

This suggests that we can train our young to delay their gratification; meaning, we can effectively instill self-discipline at a very young age. This tilts the balance towards “nurture” over “nature,” contrary to the Jamaican data. For this training to be effective however, you must first establish an atmosphere of trust. The children must first have faith in the adults of their lives.

Relating to Ramadan, when we encourage our young to fast, we are training them to delay their gratification; we are instilling self-discipline.

There is yet another insight to the marshmallow study, and it comes not from the quantitative data rather from directly observing those children. The “impulse controlled” kids were busy actively distracting themselves as with singing, sitting on their hands (lest they be tempted to grab the marshmallow), closing their eyes, or kneading their skirts, analogous to mythical Greek sailors stuffing their ears with bee’s wax and Ulysses tying himself to the mast to restrain themselves from the call of the Siren song.

Relating this to Ramadan, it is easier to fast if we are working or otherwise occupied. Indeed, the Koran and hadith exhort us not to sleep or idle ourselves when fasting. That would be makhruh (non-meritorious). Instead we are to continue on with our daily routine.

Fasting in a Muslim Versus Secular Society

Last, I draw from my experience of Ramadan in a religiously-obsessed society, Malaysia, versus in a secular Western one, America.

In Malaysia, the moral squads are out in full force during Ramadan. If you are caught not fasting, you will be paraded around town in a hearse (to remind you of death), quite apart from being fined, jailed or even whipped. Never mind that you may be a diabetic or had just stepped off a trans-Pacific flight. This cruel punitive streak, alas far too common, is the antithesis of the Ramadan spirit.

Malaysians must fast; it is the law and not as it should be, a matter of faith and personal conviction. Consequently, the spiritual value is often missed, or worse, corrupted as manifested by culinary extravaganzas and ostentatious piety. Malaysians simply rearrange their gluttony from daytime to nighttime. Ramadan’s spirit of restraint is conspicuous by its absence, and its replacement with exuberant excesses.

Fasting in America poses its own challenges. Your co-workers having their usual lunches and the ubiquitous tantalizing food commercials aside, there is the matter of the seasons. When in Canada and Ramadan was in midsummer (nearly 24 hours of daylight), I wrote my father of my theological dilemma. He gently reminded me that fasting is not Allah’s torture test and that if it is too stressful then I should follow Malaysian time. My late father grasped intuitively the essence of Ramadan. May Allah bless his soul for that wise and practical counsel!

Obsessed with the rituals, Malaysians have reduced fasting to a series of acts to accumulate religious Brownie points. Fasting is more than a ritual; it is a process. As important as fasting is, the greater import is where it would take us. It should take us to heightened faith and greater compassion. It should take us deeper into the revelation of the Koran, for it was during this holy month that our Prophet Mohammad, s.a.w., first received his revelation from Allah.

Fasting is good not because the Koran says so, rather fasting is good and that is why the Koran exhorts us to observe Ramadan.

The Myth of the Islamic State

Emory University's Professor Andullahi An-Naim was recently in Malaysia and commented on the current hudud controversy triggered by PAS leader Abdul Hadi's private member's bill in Parliament. I re-post my earlier book review of An-Naim's "The Myth of the Islamic State" that appeared in 2009.
Sunday, October 19, 2008

The Myth of The Islamic State

M. Bakri Musa (www.bakrimusa.com)

Book Review: Islam And The Secular State: Negotiating The Future of Shari’a, by Abdullahi Ahmed An-Naim
Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA
324 pp, Indexed, US $35.00, 2008.

Every so often I would read a book that would profoundly affect me. I have yet however, to get two such books written by the same author, that is, until now.

In 1990 I came across a paperback, Toward an Islamic Reformation: Civil Liberties, Human Rights, and International Law, by Abdullahi A. An-Naim. I do not remember what prompted me to browse through let alone buy the book. Its cover design was nondescript, and neither its author nor publisher (University of Syracuse Press) was exactly well known. But bought the book I did, after scanning only a few pages.

     Despite being only 255 pages, it took me awhile to finish it. I have read it over many times since. It is not that An-Naim’s prose is dense (far from it!) rather that the ideas he expounds are breathtakingly refreshing. They also appeal to my intellectual understanding of my faith.

     That book resurrected my faith in Islam. Brought up under the traditional teachings of my village Imam, I had difficulty reconciling that with the worldview inculcated in me through my Western liberal education. The certitudes that had comforted me as a youngster were becoming increasingly less so as an adult.

     I knew however, a religion that gave my parents and grandparents (as well as millions of others) their anchoring stability despite the terrible turbulences in their life must have something substantive to offer. I took that as a matter of faith. It was just that I was not getting the message, until I read An-Naim’s book.

     I discovered that many of the issues I had wrestled with were shared with and have been dissected by many great minds in Islam of the past. This realization reassured me. Far from weakening my faith, those doubts ironically strengthened it.

Shari’a: A Human Endeavor

In that earlier book, An-Naim developed further the thesis of his mentor, Sudanese reformer Mahmoud Mohamad Taha, that while the Shari’a was based on the Quran and the Sunnah (sayings and practices of the prophet), nonetheless it remains the works of mortals. As such the Shari’a suffers from all the limitations inherent in such endeavors. It is time to revisit it using the same rigorous intellectual tools used by our earlier scholars, while cognizant of today’s universally accepted norms of constitutionalism, gender equality, and human rights, among others.

     That is exactly what An-Naim has been doing with his “The Future of Shari’a Project” at Emory University, Atlanta, where he is the Charles Howard Candler Professor of Law. Islam And The Secular State: Negotiating The Future of Shari’a is the culmination of his scholarly effort.

     Like that earlier book, this one is also a slow read despite being written in highly readable prose. The book is packed with substantive and innovative ideas that require some digesting and much contemplation. An-Naim’s writing is also precise and concise; he conveys in one sentence what others would take two or three, or even a paragraph.

     An-Naim is a solid scholar but the book is written for a general audience, Muslims and non-Muslims alike. He uses Arabic phrases sparingly, and there are adequate references in English, Arabic, and other traditionally native Islamic languages including Bahasa (Indonesia).

     An-Naim asserts, “The historical reality is that there has never been an Islamic state, from the state of Abu Bakr, the first caliph in Medina, to Iran, Saudi Arabia, and any other state that claims to be Islamic today. This obvious reality is due to the incoherence of the idea itself and the practical impossibility of realizing it, not simply to bad experiments that can be rectified in the future.”

     The immediate rebuttal by many Muslims is that there is historical precedent – and a very excellent one – of an Islamic state, that of the first Muslim community in Medinah. Muslims rightly hold that as the ideal, but it cannot possibly be replicated, led as it was by Prophet Muhammad, s.a.w. He was both spiritual and political leader. To have a similar state today would require us to be endowed with another prophet, a blasphemous assumption in Islam.

     Not only is an Islamic state not achievable, it is also not desirable. The very idea of an Islamic state, according to An-Naim, is based on later European concept of the nation-state and the law, not on Shari’a or Islamic tradition.

     Throughout Islamic (indeed, world) history, there has always been tension between ulamas (and religious establishment generally) versus the state and its rulers, with each trying to use the other to further their own ends. Caliphs and sultans have co-opted ulamas to justify their (rulers’) power, while ulamas are not shy in maximizing the bounty they get from the state from such collaborations.

     In Malaysia for example, they vie with ministers and mandarins for government-issued worldly trinkets as the plushest bungalows, sleekest sedans, and most exalted royal titles.

     A few ulamas have been known to leave their mimbar (pulpit) for political office. Some like Kelantan’s Nik Aziz do not even bother to separate their roles. Islam is actively being subjugated by political rulers while religious functionaries eagerly prostituted themselves to the state.

     “As a Muslim, I need a secular state in order to live in accordance with Shari’a out of my own genuine conviction and free choice,” An-Naim declares, “… which is the only valid and legitimate way of being a Muslim. Belief in Islam, or any other religion, logically requires the possibility of disbelief, because belief has no value if it is coerced.”

     He goes on, “Maintaining institutional separation between Islam and the state while regulating the permanent connection of Islam and politics is a necessary condition for achieving the positive role of the Shari’a now and in the future.”

     Caution here, before hurling the epithets! An-Naim’s “secular” state does not mean the atheistic communist regime of the Soviet Empire where religion is completely vanished from public sphere, rather one where the state is “morally neutral” with respect to religion.

     America proudly cites its “strict” separation of state and church. The reality is far different. Prayers are regularly offered at opening sessions of Congress, and as the current presidential campaign demonstrates, religion is never far from voters’ considerations.

     Muslims yearn for an Islamic state without having the foggiest idea of what that would entail, except for some vague mumbling about it being based on the Quran, Sunnah, and Shari’a. The reason for the longing is obvious; most so-called Muslim states today fail miserably in the basic task of governing. Worse, they regularly trample with impunity on the basic rights of their citizens.

     Perversely, this obsession with the Islamic state detracts these leaders from their basic task of governing, and citizens from taking their leaders to task for this elemental failure. Such fundamental and pressing needs as providing heath care, housing, education, development, and a modicum of freedom are best handled less by fussing over the Shari’a or the Islamic state and more with acquiring the skills of modern management. Today’s Islamists would get closer to achieving their vision of an Islamic state if they would first learn how to build effective and enduring institutions of governance.

Negotiations, Not Religious Fiat

While An-Naim advocates the separation of Islam and Shari’a on one hand from the politics and the state on the other, nonetheless he actively encourages nurturing the relationship between the two, including the state’s regulating the public role of Islam.

     This would first involve reexamining the Shari’a. “For Muslims, Shari’a should be known and experienced as a source of liberation and self realization,” writes An-Naim, “not a heavy burden of oppressive restriction and harsh punishment. No action or omission is valid from a Shari’a perspective unless it is completely voluntary, and there is no religious merit in coercive compliance.” The emphasis is mine, and I would have it in huge fonts framed in every JAKIM office!

     In its time the Shari’a represented a quantum leap in intellectual as well as juridical achievements. It emancipated women. Whereas before, women were part of her husband’s inheritance, to be disposed off like the rest of his estate; under the Shari’a they were entitled to their own rightful shares.

     As that other law professor, Harvard’s Noah Feldman, wrote in his Fall and Rise of the Islamic State, “ … for most of its history, Islamic law offered the most liberal and humane legal principles available anywhere in the world.”

     Feldman notes further that with Shari’a the scholars provided the crucial and fundamental checks and balances on the powers of the rulers. This is exactly what is glaringly absent in many Muslim countries today. Consequently, self-professed Islamic states like Iran and Saudi Arabia have more in common with fascist Germany and totalitarian Russia, both in the traits of the regimes as well as the tendencies of their leaders.

     It was the genius of those early scholars to be able to reconcile the apparent contradictions in the Quran and Sunnah by resorting to “abrogation,” where certain verses of the Quran “override” earlier ones. With that they formulated a coherent body of laws that had served the community well for centuries. They successfully reconciled the earlier Meccan verses that there be no compulsion in matters of faith to the latter Medinah ones relating to apostasy. Likewise, the latter verses relating to the differential treatment of inheritance between sons and daughters to the earlier verses that declare everyone is equal in the eyes of Allah.

     Abrogation was the tool devised by the ancient scholars; it was not a divine mandate. Today’s scholars should likewise use their insights and intellectual prowess to formulate a new Shari’a which should also be based on the Quran and the Sunnah. This is the only basis to make it acceptable to Muslims and not violate our basic beliefs and traditions. Such an exercise must be inclusive, with engagement of the entire community, utilizing the insights from various disciplines.

     If we were to incorporate the Shari’a into the laws of our country, the objective of advocates of an Islamic state, such “negotiations,” as An-Naim puts it, must necessarily also include non-Muslims, especially for a plural society like Malaysia. The consequence of this is that the Shari’a formulated for Malaysia would necessarily be different from those for homogenously Muslim countries like Saudi Arabia, just like there are significant variations in the Shari’a in the various fighs (jurisprudence) in Islam.

     In short, An-Naim separates the concept versus content of Shari’a. The concept is readily apparent: a body of just laws applicable to all based on divine revelations (Quran) and the sunnahs. All Muslims agree to that, while most non-Muslims could be readily persuaded to the viewpoint of “just laws applicable to all.” The content however, must necessarily vary with time, place, and culture. That is An-Naim’s central message.

     The central enduring values of the concept of the Shari’a are regularly missed and often confused by Muslims and non-Muslims alike. In the West, as Feldman noted, the Shari’a is caricatured by such odious hudud laws as stoning to death for adultery while ignoring the Shari’a stringent standards for conviction. Contrast that to the gross perversion of justice in many capital convictions in America today, as revealed by the Innocence Project.

     The central premise of the Shari’a is that all – ruler and ruled alike – are subject to its rule. That is the rule of law at its most fundamental level. That is a novel concept in the West for most of its history (the prince being above law) as well as in today’s self-professed Islamic states. Malaysia amended its constitution removing the sultans’ immunity with respect to their personal conduct only in 1993.

     An-Naim has advanced and elevated the debate on the Shari’a and the Islamic state by a quantum leap. His is a much-needed intellectual antidote to those who would mindlessly exhort “Islam is the answer!” to every political problem, as well as those who delude themselves that the myriad problems facing Muslims today would magically disappear once we establish an Islamic state or a caliphate.

     This book will be widely read in the West. I hope it will also reach a wide audience in the Islamic world. Muslims – especially leaders – would do well to expend the necessary intellectual diligence to ponder the totality of the ideas and concepts presented in this book. We should not dismiss them because they challenge our comfortable assumptions.