Can a Muslim treat a Non-Muslim like Brother?

I first came across the sentiment I want to talk about in a video of a lecture by Zaid Shakir or someone, in which a young person asks him, after his lecture, if he heard him right when he said that it is our duty, as Muslims, to be kind and just (I forget the exact words) in our dealings with people. The young man's question was whether it was a duty to deal well with Muslims or all of humanity.

And now there's a quite a discussion going on at the Muslim Bloggers Alliance blog (and a cross-post at the author's own blog) about a very similar issue.

The question, in this instance, is whether a hadith (a report of something The Prophet said or did) that says "No one truly believes until he wants for his brother what he wants for himself." applies only to fellow Muslims or to any human being.

While that hadith in itself, since it refers to a "brother", and is easily interpreted to mean a brother in faith, the question is important.

It is very exasperating for people like me to hear things like "we Muslims have far too long advocated an exclusivist philosophy".

Funny thing is, most young American Muslims often dismiss the way Islam was traditionally interpreted and practised (Hanafi, Shafi'i, Maliki, Hanbali, and the two Shi'a schools) as either "medieval" or "bid'a-ridden". I am not a scholar so I can't speak of whole schools, but I am a person brought up by traditional Hanafi parents (South Asians--who make up a good 30-50% of the Ummah) and who had my early education in government schools in (then traditionally Maliki) Northern Nigeria. And I have always understood "brother" in the hadith in question to mean "the next man". Man. Not Muslim.

And the curriculum in Northern Nigeria, my parents' upbringing--all of that was not put in place because "political considerations have come into play". It was what a *lot* of very traditional Muslims held to be their faith.

I know WHY he did it, but it is very vexing that my brother Naeem has to say things like "...this otherwise excellent posting..." and "Before somebody accuses me of reinterpreting this hadith for my own purposes, they should know that this is the understanding of the scholars from centuries back."

I say that in a lot of these matters, we only need look back half a century to what the conventional wisdom was in the Muslim world. And I am not defending the misogyny, illiteracy, and corruption that a lot of Muslim cultures were ridden with. I am an activist who grew up in Northern Nigeria and Pakistan and have worked in the field of human rights on the ground in Pakistan. I follow affairs in India very closely and have friends and relatives there.

But American and Western Muslim friends have often asked me in the last few years, as I got involved in organizations and efforts that carried the "progressive Muslim" label, "..but, but Islam is progressive in its nature; why do you need to say 'progressive Muslim'?" This kind of issue is exactly why.

I have often had to say to people: Islam told us to be nice to our neighbours. Not to our *Muslim neighbours*. The Prophet and Awliya and Ulema down the centuries have set an example of good conduct and actively looking out for the welfare of even their Jewish neighbours. A story is told of one aalim, of how he had a neighbour, who just happened to be Jewish, who would intentionally disturb him, especially during worship. Then, for a few days, the disturbance stopped. The aalim took it upon himself to find out and discovered that the man was ill or something--I forget the exact details--and took it upon himself to help. THAT was the Islam I was brought up in. And I am thirty-six. My upbringing was not changed because of events in 2001 or since. Today, do most of us even know the names of our non-Muslim next door neighbours?

Islam is by definition progressive and humanistic; but how we often understand it, especially how we have come to understand it in the last 2 or 3 decades, and how Muslims have come to practise it, is not at all humanistic, humane or compassionate. Looking out for your own tribe is not compassion. It is not Ihsan. It is parochialism. Being just only to members of your own tribe is not adl. It is discrimination.

Wa Allah Aalam, but in my very "naqis" opinion, one thing should be pretty obvious to anyone who reads the Qur'an--and most of the folks on that site seem much more formally educated in what we called "Islamic Religious Knowledge" in in the Nigerian educational system. Where the Qur'an wants to refer or address Muslims, it says "Ya Ayyuhal Momineen", or "Ya Ayyuhal Muslimeen". But in other places, it refers very clearly to "Rabbin Nas, Malikin Nas". Do go back and read the verses on compassion. For example:

Surah 60, Verse 8: 8. Allah forbids you not, with regard to those who fight you not for (your) Faith nor drive you out of your homes, from dealing kindly and justly with them: for Allah loveth those who are just.

Tell me He is not telling you that he will love you for being kind to non-Muslims--who are not belligerent towards you.

In my late 30s, and having lived under more than half a dozen military dictators, all forms of corruption in the Third World, and at the receiving end of the American Media, there is little that surprises me. But I have to admit that it amazes me no end that whether a Muslim should be kind and humane towards non-Muslims is even a question.

Wa Allahu Aalam, indeed!

Technorati tags applicable to this post: Ijtema.net - Progressive Muslim Thought - Exclusivist Thought in Islam

Enemies of The Faith, Fire and Brimstone

In terms of who is a moderate and who is not--and things like one recent global survey about the acceptability of strikes on civilian targets in various countries--here's something I had reason to say on a mailing list I am on:

On vacation this winter, I went "home" to Pakistan and India, which together have more than about 330 million Muslims (based on semi-official and official figures--cf. The Sachar Report on "Social, Economic and Educational Status of the MuslimCommunity of India" and various figures for Pakistan's population). Having actually lived in those countries, it is my starting assumption that most Muslims in those countries are moderates. But it can still be startling how moderate the vast majority of Muslims are, despite the inroads made by the Maududists, Qutbists, Wahabis, etc.

There's a very fiery Mullah who gives sermons you can hear from inside my parents' home in Karachi. This is the kind of guy that, amongst other things, condemned Nawaz Sharif for having the temerity to lead an "Islamic Republic" while starting each day with a "gunah-e-kabira" (grevious sin)--shaving his face clean every morning. (Heard this with my own ears, by the way--and you have to remember that NS was the right-leaning half of our political yin-yang back then.) Anyway, so I had the opportunity to attend Friday prayers in "his" mosque again this December. (Take a look at the picture above; see the little yellow'ish gate next to the mosque? My parents live 8 townhouses down the row behind it.) When he led the faithful in prayer at the end of the congregation, he, of course ended with "O Allah, help Muslims wherever they are in trouble and where they are oppressed," etc. And then, where I would challenge you to find a Western preacher (Muslim OR Christian) who would not have followed that up with a "...and bring down your wrath on the oppressors of my brothers," this gentleman went on to say "And the oppressors; Allah, give them guidance, help them see the light."

Now you tell me the man's an unredeemable militant fanatic and/or terrorist.

[The picture above is from the following BBC story, based in part on the institution in the picture: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4135004.stm.]

Technorati tags applicable to this post: Moderate Muslims - Pakistan

What Does a Muslim Moderate Sound Like?

Playing catch-up, and having just returned from a lecture by Reza Aslan at Stanford's Abbasi Program on Islamic Studies, I found the following in the draft folder from the days of the discussion on the Pope's much-discussed speech. It's sort of a continuation of an earlier post, which you might want to read, too:

In case anyone is wondering what a discussion between someone like Irshad Manji, Wafa Sultan and/or Ayan Hirsi Ali on the one hand and a moderate Muslim on the other sounds like, please take a listen to the last hour of this program:

http://www.wnyc.org/shows/bl/episodes/2006/09/22#segment64495

During the program, Fawaz Gerges points out that the protest in Cairo, at or near Al-Azhar, was organized and attended by the Islamists. And points to Islamists saying (Kamal Saeed Al Habibi) that they had thought of the Pope a leader in the fight against secularism, and worked with him, for example, during discussions on family planning at WHO conferences and the like. But now they have their doubts.

And the Vatican correspondent, even though he explicates and explains what the pope was trying to do, still says the same thing I was saying at the time, or that Fawaz G or Reza Aslan (see below) were saying: it wasn't smart to use that quote to make his point. And says that the University professor has yet to come to terms with being the Pope. Terrible failure of sensitivity" is the phrase he uses. He hopes that what will come out of this is that Pope will come up with a better vocabulary.

And FG also points out that people in the Muslim world are following this closely: and while this was what the rabble rousers and the mob instigaters are capitalizing on (ain't capital-ism great?!), the masses in the Muslim world are not thinking if this speech; they also remember very clearly his not including Islamic civilization in his list of civilizations in his first speech as Pope--and, not least, his opposition to Turkey and Bosnia's entry into the EU.

And at this point, even Brian Lehrer, the host, is taking jabs at Irshad, who seems to be the only one "defending" the Pope's speech in an unqualified manner.

Reza Aslan points out that unqualified, unsympathetic, un-well-thought-out, really, critiques of Islam make it impossible to reach out to Moderate Muslims--not the fanatics, who will never listen anyway.

Vatican Correspondent Guy says the Vatican is wondering "Where is all the goodwill we earned by being against the Iraq War and calling for an immediate ceasefire in Lebanon?" My answer tot hat is: See http://iFaqeer.blogspot.com under "Tet Offensive" and "Holy Father, please stop feeding the bears." Especially since Gerges says that the speakers at Al Azhar said "Let's do this peacefully; and we'll keep up the dialogue."

And Reza A points out that violence broke out over this issue in Gaza and Somalia--the two most lawless places on earth.

Technorati tags applicable to this post: Moderate Muslims - Reza Aslan - Fawaz Gerges - Irshad Manji