Rethinking the Jurisprudence of Islam

Islam is the third of the three Abrahamic faiths. They share the heritage of monotheism. But Muslims are perceived with concern. They experience tensions not just with non-Muslims, but also with Muslims of related persuasions. The RAND Corporation Report highlights a range of challenges of the umma. These challenges stem from the politicisation of religion. Hawkish ulama re-interpreted Islam to justify unlawful wars of territorial expansion of the empire. Hawkish jurists reinvented Islam as Islamism, as a religion of war rather than peace. They misinterpreted the teaching of Islam by recourse to tradition and the teaching of abrogation. Revelation was "interpreted" to endorse practices that are against Islam. These encompass treating the refusal to pay zakat as deserving the death penalty. It also includes waging wars of aggression to "propagate" Islam by the sword. The Book of Allah refrains from treating apostasy as a crime punishable by death. The prophet did not take any person's life for apostasy, either. Prescribing the death penalty for apostasy required by-passing revelation. Recourse to tradition enabled politicised ulama to produce "traditional Islam." Recourse to the teaching of the "abrogation" of the verses of reconciliation by verse 9:5 enabled hawkish ulama to re-interpret Islam as a manifesto for war and a justification for territorial expansion. Replacing the rulings in the Book of Allah required the treatment of tradition as "revelation" and therefore as a "second" root of the law. But treating tradition as "revelation" (wahy) is not enough to derive religious rulings from tradition. For religious rulings require being derived from what Allah "sent down" (tanzil). This is clear from verses 44, 45 and 47 of chapter 5 of the Book of Allah. By contrast, wahy (inspiration) could be provided by evil beings, too. By deriving rulings of the sharia from tradition, jurists treated traditions not merely as wahy (inspiration) but as tanzil or what Allah "sent down." But enacting law in religion is the exclusive prerogative of Allah. Treating tradition as a root of legislation defies the teaching of the Book of Allah. For the Book teaches that we are to "judge" exclusively by tanzil, (what Allah sent down). But Allah sent down the Book of Allah; he did not "send down" books of traditions. Blasphemy, adultery and apostasy do not merit capital punishment in the Book of Allah. These rulings represent a corruption of Islamic law. This requires attention. Islamic law requires rehabilitation to ensure that all legislation related to religion is firmly rooted in revelation and only in revelation. Prescribing capital punishment in cases of blasphemy, adultery and apostasy disregards the Book of Allah and encroaches upon tawhid, the principle that the authority to enact laws in religion belongs to Allah alone. Is treating tradition as a "second" root of legislation in keeping with tauhid? Thus, the sharia requires rehabilitation. It is necessary to emphasize justice. It is necessary to restore the Book of Allah as the only root of legislation in all matters related to religion. Following tradition in preference to revelation brought disasters upon the umma. The Mongols devastated the Abbasid empire after the murder of a caravan of Mongol traders and ambassadors sent by Genghis Khan to request justice for the killers of the traders and ambassadors. The Abbasids perpetrated these transgressions because they followed the tradition which says that "the blood of the kafir is halal for the believer" in preference to the Book of Allah that teaches that "Allah does not love wrongdoers." The Abbasids paid dearly for confusing tradition with revelation and following tradition in preference to revelation. Even to this day, acts of terrorism elicit a disproportionate response against Muslims.