A Muslim who gets it…

Sunday, 20th January 2008

Tawfiq Hamid is a courageous Muslim who has understood and renounced his own extremist history. In this reprint of an essay he wrote last year, he describes what makes a man turn into a jihadi. He describes his dilemma when, having come under the sway of al Qaeda’s number two Ayman al Zawahiri (pictured) he came eventually to reject jihadi precepts and yet could not accept that a peaceful interpretation of his religion could be theologically grounded. Eventually, he says he managed to square the circle:

By immersing myself in Salafi ideology, I was better able to judge the impact of its violent tenets on the minds of its followers. Among the more appalling notions it supports are the enslavement and rape of female war prisoners and the beating of women to discipline them. It permits polygamy and pedophilia. It refers to Jews as ‘pigs and monkeys’ and exhorts believers to kill them before the end of days: Say: ‘Shall I tell you who, in the sight of God, deserves a yet worse retribution than these? Those [the Jews] whom God has rejected and whom He has condemned, and whom He has turned into monkeys and pigs because they worshiped the powers of evil: these are yet worse in station, and farther astray from the right path [than the mockers]’. (Koran 5:60). Homosexuals are to be killed as well; to cite one of many examples, on July 19, 2000, two gay teenagers were hanged in Iran for no other crime than being gay.

These doctrines are not taken out of context, as many apologists for Islamism argue: They are central to the faith and ethics of millions of Muslims, and are currently being taught as part of the standard curriculum in many Islamic educational systems in the Middle East as well in the West. Moreover, there is no single approved Islamic textbook that contradicts or provides an alternative to the passages I have cited. It has thus become clear to me that Salafi ideology is what is largely responsible for the so-called ‘clash of civilizations.’ Consequently, I have chosen to combat Salafism by exposing it and by providing an alternative, peaceful and theologically rigorous interpretation of the Koran.

He therefore does not sanitise what is happening as ‘un-Islamic’; but at the same time he believes in a theologically grounded interpretation of his religion that would enable it to promote peace rather than war. He runs a terrible risk in promoting reform in this way. He deserves every encouragement. And his writing should be sent to every member of our political and security establishment, so many of whom deny the reality he has so painfully realised.

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George Steiner

January 21st, 2008 12:38am

With all due respect to Mr. Hamid for his courage, the circle can not be squared. But I hope he will continnue, for even a good approximation will produce remarkable practical results.

Shy Guy

January 21st, 2008 6:54am

Melanie, you were interviewed in this report: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xn-KsSX_0us Why do you still insist on describing the Islamic deeds the world is suffering from as "extremist"? What makes you think that everything being done in the name of Islam isn't "historical" or "traditional" Islam?

Jack Diamond

January 21st, 2008 3:45pm

It is not simply "Islamic textbooks" it is Islamic law, fixed forever by scholarly consensus based upon Qur'an & hadith & the primacy of the Salaf, Muhammad's generation and the two after ("the best Muslims" according to Muhammad himself) that teach these doctrines. If "Salafism" isn't Islam, what is? That aside, I applaud his (rare) honesty & calling for Muslims to turn from literalism, Jihad ("waging war against non-Muslims to establish the religion--over earth"--Umdat al-Salik, classic legal manual), shari'a supremacism and the barbarism of it's legal mandates.

Earl

January 21st, 2008 6:59pm

Jack Diamond understands Islam. Hamid is to be lauded for his goal, but he hopelessly complicates the matter by artificially and unhelpfully distinguishing between Salafism and Islam. No such distinction exists.

I commend the Umdat al-Salik (the Sunni shafi'i shari'ah fiqh text/manual) to any readers- it regularly sells new on amazon.com for only $20. No need to guess at the core tenets of Islamic jurisprudence- it is all here, neatly organized and well-translated.

Ryan

January 22nd, 2008 12:25am

It would be wonderful if it could be true for Muslims to turn from "literalism", Jihad ("waging war against non-Muslims to establish the religion--over earth". But let's be real... That's not according to Mohammed's behavior or Islam's history. Tawfiq Hamid would then be the new Prophet for Islam, with a new message.

M Clyde

January 23rd, 2008 12:06am

The exiled Sudanese scholar An-Na'im, a professor at Emory, has advocated reversing the traditional order of abrogation between the Meccan and the Medinan suras, in favour of the peaceful Meccan ones, when the Islamic community lived in a pluralistic context. It is from this phase that we get benign verses like 'there is no compulsion in religion'. This is a radical idea, and I'm not aware that there are many takers for it, but it does prove that a hermeneutic exercise is possible to bring Islam into peaceful co-existence with its neighbours in the world community. And to be a spiritual path, not a political ideology. There is hope, even if it is just a trickle. God bless all honest seekers after peace.

Jack Diamond

January 23rd, 2008 9:36am

M.Clyde--Muhammad Taha also of Sudan was executed for proclaming such things, he was called an apostate. Speaking of Islamic Law, apostasy is a crime a crime that calls for the death penalty. Apostasy includes simply leaving Islam. Blasphemy is also a capital crime. Jihad, in Islamic Law, quite unified in understanding among the schools of jurisprudence for 1400 years, falls under the category of the Rights of Allah (God has rights!) a communication from Allah creating an obligation on man which man can never overrule. Then note, Islamic Law is embedded in the constitutions of most Middle East Muslim countries (no matter how imperfectly realized). That is what you are up against in reversing abrogation or replacing Medina Qur'an with Mecca Qur'an. That said, I am all for Muslims who confront and renounce the violence & supremacist message in Islam. Even if their theology is suspect, their voices are of real value amidst the general silence if not indifference of their co-religionists to the murder & mayhem being done in their name.

Arthur Lincoln

January 24th, 2008 3:31pm

Another Muslim who will probably be murdered for straying from the true path.

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Melanie Phillips is a Daily Mail columnist. She also writes for the Jewish Chronicle and is a panellist on BBC Radio Four's Moral Maze. Her most recent book is 'Londonistan', published by Encounter and Gibson Square.

For a complete set of Melanie's articles click here