“I am convinced about the veracity of my opinions, but I do consider it likely that they may turn out to be incorrect. Likewise, I am convinced about the incorrectness of the views different from mine, but I do concede the possibility that they may turn out to be correct.” — Imam Shafa’i
An ayah of the Quran frequently serves as the Unit of Quran. But as commonly, it needs the context before it for proper interpretation. This index ayah goes a step forward; it starts with “on that account” directing the reader to see what has been said earlier. It is the story of The Story of Habil (Abel)and Qabil (Cain), the two sons of Adam which the ayah is referring to.
Mufti Mohammed Shafi has delved on this story in his classical tafseer Ma’aariful Quran.
[3] Very briefly, there arose a dispute between the brothers on the selection of their marriage partners. Qabil refused to accept the official verdict. Hence they were asked to offer sacrifices to Allah; who ever’s sacrifice is accepted can have the disputed girl as his partner. They did so and that of Habil was accepted. Yet Qabil was adamant and rebellious; he went ahead and killed his brother, even though Habil had decided not to retaliate and had warned him of dire consequences in the Hereafter.
This story has a general lesson for all of us. If God Almighty favors somebody else with a blessing which you desired, accept HIS verdict gracefully without grudging the receiver; look within yourself for the reason. In other words hasad/jealousy is a total taboo for Muslims.
Also, the story brings out an important principle: the reward for your deeds and performance is subject to taqwaa. “The learned among the righteous elders (salaf) have said that this verse is a shot in the arms of those who are devoted to acts of worship and do deeds in the hope of finding the pleasure of Allah” according to Mufti Mohammed Shafi. Sayyidna Umar ibn Abdal Azizgave the following good counsel to a person in a letter he wrote to him: “I tell you to hold on to Taqwaa without which no deed is accepted; and mercy is not shown to anyone except those who observe Taqwaa and without it there is no Divine reward on anything. There are many who preach it but there are very few who practice it.”
This story of Habil and Qabil tells the story of Israel as it unfolded. They rejected their Messengers, insulted them and even killed them. In effect they rebelled against God Almighty. When HE cancelled his favor to them and transferred it to their cousins, it threw them further into the ditch. In this background, the index ayah gives some commands for the Children of Israel. In the first place it justifies human execution only on two grounds: first, as a punishment for deliberate murder of a human being and second, in retaliation of spreading corruption in land; this includes mischief, disorder and persecution in religion ie forcing or preventing religious views on or from others. Apart from these two reasons, the ayah clearly announces that murder of a single soul is equivalent to the murder of the whole humanity. Conversely saving of one life amounts to protecting all mankind. It is difficult to imagine a stronger denunciation of homicide. In the final analysis this principle and perspective is critical and crucial for the survival of mankind. In this ayah Allah Ta’aala Subhaanahoo equates the life of one human being with all other lives. Also it has to be noted that God has made the perpetration of corruption on earth as ghastly as murder.
As Dr. Mohammed Asad points out in his excellent tafseer The Message of Quran “The expression ‘We have ordained unto the children of Israel’ does not, of course, detract from the universal validity of this moral: it refers merely to its earliest enunciation”. In other words this golden and forceful principle is as valid for Muslims today as it was on the Jews centuries earlier. “It is a pity that the precious words which embody God’s ordinance are to be found nowhere in the Bible today. The Talmud, however, does mention this subject in the following words;……. The Talmud also mentions that in trials for murder, the Israelite judges used to address the witnesses as follows: Whoever kills one person, merits punishment as if he had slain all the men in the world.” comments Maulana Maudoodi in his remarkable tafseer “Tafheem-ul-Quran”.
The research scholar and mentor Javed Ghamdi emphasises this point further in his valuable tafseer Al – Bayan. He notes that this principle of one human death equal to that of whole mankind has always been a part of shari’ah of all the Prophets. Hence Sayyidna Nooh received the directives on this principle for his progeny in Genesis, Bible in the following words “ I will avenge the life of a man from the man and his community; whoever kills a man, his blood will be avenged from that man; because God has created man in HIS image”. He further elaborates a very crucial principle of Law from this ayah for any government or executive authority. Capital punishment is permissible in the shari’ah only for the two reasons—first degree murder and corruption/persecution in land. Apart from these two, Capital punishment cannot be given for any other crime.
This grand principle entails, as pointed by Imam Amin Hasan Islahi in his extensive tafseer Tadabbur-e-Quran a number of acts and undertakings by the community. First a single homicide should resonate in the whole community till the crime is avenged. Every soul should feel insecure till then. If law cannot be enforced and implemented, every soul is at risk. Second, the society as a whole is responsible for the search of the murderer for all of them are the virtual victims. Third, any soul cannot turn a blind eye if he sees somebody in danger as if it does not concern him. It is required of him to provide him whatever support and protection he can offer. As the ayah says, this deed will in effect will be for all the people including himself. Fourth, if anybody helps or protects the murderer in any form he will be tantamount to doing this to the killer of his father, brother or son as the crime has been committed against all of them. Fifth, one should try and and help the heirs of the victim and officials in the matter of “Qisaas”— compensation. This could be regarded as giving life to the victims. The Quran thus declares “there is life for you in Qisaas”.
Saving a life mentioned in this ayah can take many forms like rescuing somebody from fire or drowning. If a kin of a murdered person forgives the perpetrator or even if he spares his life and settles for compensation, it will be regarded as saving a life.
The outstanding scholar, Sayyid Qutb in the interpretation of this ayah in his monumental tafseer Fee Zilalil Quran makes a very controversial statement “It should be clarified here that this rule applies to people in the land of Islam, whether Muslim or not, as long as they are living under the rule and protection of the Islamic authority. As for those who are in a land hostile to Islam, neither their lives nor their properties are protected unless they have concluded a peace treaty with the land of Islam. This legislative rule should be well remembered. We should also remember that the land of Islam is that in which the rule of Islam prevails and Islamic law is implemented. The hostile land is that which does not implement Islamic law”. In the present day and age the division of the world into Dar-ul-Islam and Dar-ul-Kufr sounds very archaic and totally impractical.
After enunciating this important principle, the ayah declares that the children of Israel persisted in their conduct of committing excesses in the land despite the warning of the Messengers who were striving to lead them to the correct path. The last word of the ayah “la-musrifun” indicates their “continuously committing excesses” and has been rendered by Dr. Asad as “they go on committing” them. These excesses or crimes refer to their ruthless killing of humans.
This ayah is addressed directly to Bani Israel. But we have learnt that this Principle and its consequences are applicable to us Muslims also. I invite the members of Ummah to pause and think and do some soul searching. Unfortunately, the vast majority of us have completely blotted out this very crucial practice of self-analysis from our minds. Worse, we think otherwise. (Recently, during a discussion, a religious, bright and intelligent member of our social group shocked me by stating that introspection is a common practice among Muslims. I have migrated to US about ten years ago. We have monthly halaqua sessions. I cannot recollect any occasion of introspection in our meetings. Whenever I have tried to do this, I am abruptly cut off and the conversation is shifted to the behaviour of non-Muslims.) Are we Muslims not worst than our cousins, Bani Israel in our disregard and rebuff of this great Divine principle enunciated in the index ayah. We seem to justify and demand a human life without much thought at various levels and situations e.g.: “has left our religion”, kill him; “adultery by married people”, stone them to death; “desecrated the Holy Quran”, lynch him/her; (The tormented final hours of Farkhunda Malikzada, a 27-year-old aspiring student of Islam who was accused of burning a Quran in a Muslim shrine, shocked Afghans across the country. That is because many of her killers filmed one another beating her and posted clips of her broken body on social media. Hundreds of other men watched, holding their phones aloft to try to get a glimpse of the violence, but never making a move to intervene. Those standing by included several police officers.) “opposes blasphemy law of Pakistan”, shoot him. (Punjab governor Salman Taseer, was shot dead in January last year by one of his police bodyguards for opposing the blasphemy law. The funeral of his killer matched that of Qaid-e-Azam in numbers).
Our renowned and celebrated scholars like Maulana Maudoodi, Dr. Israr Ahmed, Sayyid Qutb and Hasan al Banna of the “Muslim Brothers” have unequivocally declared that the role of Islam and duty of every Muslim is to establish the rule of Islam over the whole world. According to these scholars non-Muslims are free to follow their own religion in their private lives. But they have no right to rule over the world because they have a fraudulent system (baatil nizaam). It is the privilege of Muslims to rule on the basis of their religion and to get there with force and violence. (Therefore, the goal of the Muslim Brotherhood is to ‘restore Islam’. “You all know that our main and overall mission as Muslim Brothers is to empower God’s religion on Earth, to organize our life and the lives of people on the basis of Islam, to establish the Nahda of the Ummah and its civilization on the basis of Islam, and to subjugate the people to God on Earth.”) Dr. Israr Ahmed declared in his Quran tafseer videos that it is “haram” for Muslims to accept and tolerate non-Muslim rule anywhere in the land. Except the minimum need for them and their families, he added they must use all their time, energy and money to prepare themselves for this task. (My respect for his scholarship was severely jolted when I heard this on the TV. I wonder if he does not realise the most natural reaction of the non-Muslims to his plan. Will they or should they not wipe out the Muslims while they can, if they take Dr. Israr seriously.) These scholars label the national states as “kufr” and visualize a single “khilaafat” over the whole planet. When I first read this view in Maulana Maudoodi’s marvelous Tafheemul Quran my immediate reaction as a young Muslim (who by the grace of God Almighty knew HIS book) was “how can that be” It is against the fundamental and basic teaching of Islam; in fact is a negation of them. It is also totally against democracy, the prevailing rule and style of governance. But this Maudoodi dictum turned out to be very popular and was very enthusiastically embraced by a large segment of Muslims. And why not; it catered to one 0f the two basic drives, as enunciated by Sigmund Freud that serve to motivate all human thoughts, emotions, and behavior ; simply put, these two are sex and aggression/the urge to dominate. Hence this popularity does not reflect the love for their religion in the masses. This movement caused a lot of agitation in the ummah in several countries and execution of many great leaders for a long time. On the whole this crusade has lost its vigour after the demise of the outstanding leaders mentioned above.
However, an offshoot of this struggle has resulted in stark disregard of the principles mentioned in the index ayah; this is the main reason for bringing this movement in our discussion. Inspired by the message of Maulana Maudoodi and others certain non-state groups took up on themselves the task of completing the unfinished job and start enforcing Muslim rule across the land. The Talibaan, Al Qaeda and ISIS are in the forefront. In the process they left no stone unturned to challenge and refute this ayah. Muslims were their primary targets. Murdering was their main strategy; they relished videoing their crimes, reveled in their cruelty and boasted of their mass killings in order to terrorize their opponents. One of the most shocking of many sadistic videos shot and publicised by ISIS in which its gunmen are seen executing their victims was at the Camp Speicher massacre on 12 June 2014 when ISIS murdered 1,700 army recruits in a former palace compound of Saddam Hussein. The period when ISIS held the most territory coincided with 35 ISIS-linked attacks in Europe and the United States, which killed or injured roughly 2,000 people. On 8 August 1998 the Taliban launched an attack on Mazar-i Sharif; of 1500 defenders only 100 survived the engagement. The ethnic cleansing that followed left an estimated 5,000 to 6,000 dead. A U.N report released on August 10 revealed that over 3,000 Afghan civilians have died in the shootings, killings, suicide bombings that the Taliban carry out with impunity in areas which they control. An average of 74 men, women and children were killed every day in Afghanistan throughout the month of August 2019, according to the BBC. A 2017 report by the PLOS Medical Journal estimated between 2,100 and 4,400 deaths and 4,200 and 10,800 abductions of Yazidi men, women and children. (All this will sound nonsense to those who prefer a state of denial. Totally ignoring the media takes you to a cave to live in.)
It may be argued that these are small groups and do not represent general Muslim approach. I will agree. But what has been the response of the Ummah to the activities of these groups? How many of us were reminded of the index ayah at this time? Are we prepared to condemn these activities honestly and wholeheartedly? Dr. Israr is on record for admiring the Taliban for their attempt at promulgation of the Islamic Shari’ah. Do not Muslims in general think the same? While most of us do not have an appetite for the depraved and perverted style of beheadings, torture and mass murder, most of us, openly or tacitly elevate them as Mujaahids fighting for the supremacy of Muslims. They see in Khalifa Abubakr Baghdadi a General fighting for for our cause. The Taliban, Al Qaeeda and ISIS are thankfully seen as providing foot soldiers for the celebrated Grand Design of Muslim supremacy conceived, formulated and practiced by the great leader Maulana Maudoodi and fully supported by few of his contemporaries. Our strong sentiments against US as an anti-Muslim force has a very strong role in shaping our views. Hence none of us is prepared to clearly and outright condemn and disown these three organizations for the utmost damage they have done to the image and message of Islam and the death, destruction and catastrophe that they have brought over large section of Muslims.
Before I conclude I would like to repeat a few examples from my personal experience to support my views expressed above. I feel they are samples of what is happening across the board in Muslim societies. All the brothers that I have referred to here are practicing, intelligent well placed and well respected Muslims.
First, I asked a brother at the end of a halaqua with children “what was the topic today?” “Children asked today about Talibaan” was the reply. “And what did you tell them”? Out came the reply “they are not as bad as the media makes them. After all they fully controlled the production of poppy seeds!” Never mind if they have killed 3000 men, women and children, destroyed as many girl schools as they could, forced women to stay indoors at the cost of public slogging, forced men to grow beards and massacred one hundred and forty children at gun point in a public school. Second, I could see pain on the face of a brother when he was describing the plight of Palestinians. But in my discussion on ISIS with him, he had no hurt for the state of Iraqis and Syrians (who were worst hit) but came out with this shocking statement “why blame ISIS, blame US; if they had not manufactured all these weapons, ISIS could not have done all this damage”. Third, a shot in the head of a young girl defying the vicious Talibaan with her drive for female education was a very obvious sinister crime by any standards. It clearly and certainly comes within
the range and orbit of the ayah under discussion. The day it happened I told about it to a brother sitting next to me at a dinner party. Listen carefully to the immediate answer from this respectable Muslim “Why do they not stop their drone attacks”. I rest my case here.
……..and Allah knows best.
May Allah Ta’aala bless us with true understanding–“fahm”–of our Deen, Aameen.
Dr. Khalid Mitha
