I’ve been hearing strange things about Islamic “fundamentalists” lately. I’ve been told repeatedly that anyone who is an “extremist” apparently wants to take Islam back “to the 7th century.” Every time I’ve read this, I paused, but I guess I never really knew what to think about it, until now.
The assumption on the table is that these “fundamentalists” are drawing their understanding of Islam from some legitimate, albeit historic, source. In all of their extremism, they somehow have managed to extract their ideology from the very basis of Islam. In assuming this, western analysts are purporting that traditional Islam, as it was known in the 7th century, was extreme, oppressive towards women, power-hungry, and violent. They imagine that the Taliban, for example, are drawing their jurisprudence (fiqh) straight from the source-well of shari’ah, the tradition of the Prophet himself.
If one truly studies history, however, one will not find Islamic history to be filled with extremism and violence but rather moderation and tolerance. In order to prove this, I’d like to focus on a few key issues as examples:
1. Shari’ah punishments (stoning of adulterers, lashing of wine-drinkers, etc.)
2. Enforcement of Islamic dress codes (hijab, beard, etc.)
3. Violence against non-combatants (i.e. terrorism).
1. The very…er…cool thing about shari’ah punishments is that there is little record of them in history. Does that mean that they were so commonplace that they weren’t worth mentioning? Of course not! Classical Islamic historians wrote about everything, even what people ate for dinner. What it shows is that, as the so-called “moderate” scholars of today have maintained, such punishments were prescribed as deterrents from committing forbidden acts. Furthermore, the Qur’an says that four witnesses must testify in cases of adultery and fornication. To my knowledge this did not happen during the lifetime of the Prophet (Allah bless him and grant him peace). The only way that people could generally be convicted of such a crime is by confessing, which did occur a couple of times during the Prophet’s life. Even then, he gave them chances to leave without being punished, but those people refused and insisted on being punished. Does that sound anything like the way such punishments are imposed today in the supposed “fundamentalist” regimes?
2. As far as I know, there are no books on enforcing hijab or any other type of dress code. I’ve never read any history of anyone ever being punished for not being dressed properly. There’s really not much else to say on this point. Enforcement of hijab is definitely a modern innovation.
3. As our “moderate” scholars have always said, Islam does not condone violence against innocent people. What westerners perhaps missed was that, historically, Muslims did not attack innocent people either. Muslims of the past even took care not to harm animals and trees. They certainly did not use any type of mass killing devices to wipe out villages of innocents. Modern Muslims learned these tactics from other modern terrorist groups. Suicide bombing, of course, is a modern innovation (as is bombing of any kind). My only point here is that there are no records of flaming suicide camel riders or any nonsense of the sort.
The above three examples illustrate what moderate Muslims have known all along. There is no historical justification for extremism in Islam anymore than there is justification in the Qur’an itself. Those extremists who are inappropriately labeled “fundamentalists” are not following the fundamentals of Islam at all. They follow their own desires and their own understanding, not the classical traditional Islamic understanding.
It should also be noted that the trend of some Muslims to abandon the shari’ah (i.e. to not practice Islam) is also not new. Western media sometimes portrays this trend as some type of modern rebellion against “traditional fundamentalist Islam.” History tells us, however, that there have always been those who did not practice Islam, even in the classical Islamic empires. Proof of this can be found in such books as, “The Superiority of Dogs Over Many of Those Who Wear Clothes” and other works of classical Islamic literature that provide commentary on the “moral decay” of society in classical Islamic states. Even some of the classical Muslim rulers were drunkards and womanizers. So, we cannot say that there is any modern rebellion against shari’ah anymore than there was a classical rebellion. Such is the nature of human beings.
Extremism is also not new. The khawarij and other such groups also practiced extremism, and like the modern extremists of today, they killed more Muslims than anyone else. In those times the original understanding of Islam, which is moderate, prevailed, and that same understanding will prevail in this era, inshaAllah. We must not exaggerate the role of extremists or their movements and not allow them to convince the general public that they represent traditional classical Islam or the fundamentals of this religion. They do not.
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There’s an interesting chapter in Juan Cole’s book “Sacred Space and Holy War” in regards to the Iranian revolution. He argues, and rightly so, that it wasn’t a retrogressive movement, but very very modern. He also points out that modern doesn’t necessarily equate itself with liberal, Iran in many ways being an anti-liberal govt. I happen to concur.