Islam, the West and the Challenges of Modernity. Tariq Ramadan

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      The order of the universe and the sacredness of the elements which ought to be respected, the limits that ought not to be transgressed, are in the consciousness of the faithful the rights of God on the whole creation. In Islam this consciousness is marked, from the beginning and beyond any adherence to a specific religion, by the acknowledgement of transcendence. Whosoever makes his way towards the origin will find in himself this natural aspiration (fitra) towards God:

And when thy Lord took from the Children of Adam, from their loins, their seed, and made them testify touching themselves, ‘Am I not your Lord?’ They said, ‘Yes, we testify’ – lest you should say on the Day of Resurrection, ‘As for us we were heedless of this.’ ²³ (Qur’ān, 7:172)

      To make one’s life and freedom a daily witness of this acknowledgement is the responsibility of man. His manner, by memory and gesture, should be to sing the praises of his Creator with the same chanting that frees the flapping of a bird’s wings, the succession of days and nights, or a grain when it splits open giving life:

      The seven heavens and the earth, and whosoever in them is, extol Him; nothing is, that does not proclaim His praise, but you do not understand their extolling. Surely He is All-clement, All-forgiving. (Qur’ān, 17:44); It is God who splits the grain and the date-stone, brings forth the living from the dead; He brings forth the dead too from the living. So that then is God; then how are you perverted? He splits the sky into dawn, and has made the night for a repose, and the sun and the moon for a reckoning. That is the ordaining of the All-mighty, the All-knowing. It is He who has appointed for you the stars, that by them you might be guided in the shadows of lands and sea. We have distinguished the signs for a people who know. It is He who produced you from one living soul, and then a lodging-place, and then a repository. We have distinguished the signs for a people who understand. (Qur’ān, 6:95–8)

      To say that God has rights, is to say that the essence of man is at one and the same time free and responsible. Clearly, man has got the responsibility – the duty – to give an account of his freedom.

This formulation, paradoxical in appearance, conveys well enough the meaning of human life. God willed the order of the world as it is, He decided the diversity of colours and religions; it is the expression of His right. Man, being free, should acknowledge this order and respect, in the other, the right of God. So here we can see the perspectives reversed. There is here no question of tolerance ²⁴ that the believer may condescendingly have towards others. The right “to be” is given to all and the duty of each towards God is to acknowledge it. To give oneself the right to tolerate, is transgressing a limit … it is violating, inwardly, the right of God:

      To every one of you We have appointed a right way and an open road. If God willed, He would have made you one nation; but that He may try you in what has come to you. So be you forward in good works; unto God shall you return, all together; and He will tell you of that whereon you were at variance. (Qur’ān, 5:48)

      The differences of peoples and nations, the specificities of cultures, the particularities of customs are willed by God. It is a richness, but it is also a trial, in that it is difficult for man to conceive of and to live the difference in all its aspects. It is a fact and a challenge. The Qur’ān indicates here that the best way of pointing out and addressing this aspect of terrestrial life is to vie with one another in goodness. And this in all our acts and in the depth of our thoughts; with our gestures, words and hearts. There is no need for tolerance, for there is in everything and before everyone, in all horizons and colours, a need to witness the exigency of truth, goodness and justice.

       Notes

1. The Times and the French L’Express have increased this kind of title.

2. This shift in university specialisation is more and more frequent. The specialists of socio-political Islamic movements have become specialists of contemporary Islam. All this happens as if the Muslims of today do not think any more, do not rethink their sources and points of reference; from now on they are bent on reacting.

3. The Sunna, or the reported traditions of the Prophet (peace be upon him) is the whole of what the Prophet Muḥammad (peace be upon him) said, did or approved of during his life. The inventory of these traditions and the verification of their content are, by themselves, the object of a science, the science of the traditions. Its critique today is very refined and allows a classification of texts according to their degrees of authenticity. The traditions confirm, clarify and rarely complete the Qur’ānic obligation, prohibitions and recommendations, which are the first source.

4. Approximately between the years 610 and 632 of the Christian Era, the date of Muḥammad’s death (peace be upon him).

5. According to the Qur’ānic verse It is We who have sent the remembrance, and We watch over it. (15:9)

6. Who have given both their names, after their death, to juridical schools.

7. The application of this punishment requires very strict conditions, and particularly a social environment which gives to everyone what is vitally necessary. Theft which is motivated by need is not theft in the sense meant by the Qur’ānic verse.

8. Jurists have different opinions on this question. The counting of “legislative verses” depends upon the degree of interpretation made at the time of their reading (some of these count – according to more extensive interpretations – up to 600 verses).

9. The sciences of the Qur’ān (‘Ulūm al-Qur’ān) are vast. They include a number of domains and require precise types of knowledge: the determination of Makkan and Madinan Revelations, the causes of revelation (for the majority of verses), abrogating and abrogated verses, a perfect mastery of the Arabic language, and so on.

10. In contrast to the usual usage applied in renderings made in the West, the Sharī‘a cannot be reduced to a penal code. The notion is definitely more vast and conveys, beyond even the legislative formulation, the principle of faithfulness to God, to His Prophet and to His revelation. This faithfulness does not lie in literalism, as we are here trying to show.

11. Muhammad Asad (Leopold Weiss, an Austrian Jew who converted to Islam in the 1920s and author of a number of books on Islam as well as a translation of the Qur’ān into English) reminds us that the best commentary (tafsīr) on the Qur’ān is the Prophet’s (peace be upon him) own life.

. 12How many times have I heard remarks to the effect that constant references to the Qur’ān and the sayings of the Prophet (peace be upon him) amount to a relative fundamentalism, and that there is in this a suspected imprisonment of thought, an impossible autonomy for free thinking. These remarks are sometimes made by committed Christians (Catholics СКАЧАТЬ