An Islamic Jihad against Political Islam: A Review of Fatemolla's
www.jamatepislami.com
Taj Hashmi
York University, Toronto
The Bangladeshi writer Fatemolla is a familiar name, mainly among Internet
users/readers
interested in the critique of political Islam, especially among Bangladeshi
Muslim
freethinkers. He is one of the leading crusaders against persecution of
women, minorities and others in the name of Islam. While sections of
liberal-democrat-secular Bangladeshis adore him for his maverick views
and bold ideas, some conservative and traditional Muslims have already
declared him an Iblees or devil, and a murtad or apostate.
However, despite being fully aware of the implications of getting
branded as a murtad, Fatemolla has remained unstoppable. He has been hitting
hard
the core of obscurantist mullahs and the so-called Islamic thinkers and
philosophers like Hasan Banna, Sayyid Qutb, Abul Al'aa Mawdudi and
their modern adherents. He is hitting political Islam, not with atheism or
secular philosophy, but with Islamic texts, mainly the Quran and some
authentic
hadith or sayings of Prophet Muhammad in the light of history. Islamic
dogmatism and the mindless conformity of the ultra-orthodox Muslim
clerics, who lack the ability and will to change the Shariah law in
accordance
with the changed circumstances of our age, have been the main targets of
Fatemolla's blitzkrieg.
This highly misunderstood, prolific writer has been running a Bengali
language web page
called www.jamatepislami.com since mid-2003, posting his own thoughtful
essays,
poems, and satiric writings and a few relevant news items from
newspapers and journals. The web page has become quite popular among a large
number of Bangladeshis. Some of his postings came out in Bangladeshi
newspapers
and his satiric play depicting the plight of Muslim divorcees is being
turned into a feature film in Canada.
Unlike what the Islam-bashers do, attack Islam - its Prophet and Scripture -
for the violation of human rights and all the prevalent vices present among
Muslims, Fatemolla has consistently defended the Quran and the Prophet.
The main thrust of his argument is that the Quranic verses and the
authentic sayings of the Prophet should be taken contextually and that the
Muslims in our times should apply common sense and reasoning ('aql and
ijtihad) to
get the right meaning and message of the Quran. He has argued that nothing
short of an Islamic Reformation can salvage the downtrodden Muslims who are
one of the most backward, illiterate, superstitious, poor and stigmatized
communities in the world. He thinks that Muslim orthodoxy and stubborn
mullahs' obduracy to reform and re-interprete the teachings of Islam in the
light of new knowledge and changed circumstances are mainly responsible for
the appalling image of Islam and its adherents throughout the world.
The title of his website, 'Jamatepislami' literally means "the slimy
Jamaat", and might be
misleading, as it rhymes with "Jamaat-i-Islami", an Islam-oriented
ultra-rightist political party of Bangladesh (and Pakistan and India), which
is stigmatized among the average Bangladeshi for its active collaboration
with the Pakistani occupation army during the Liberation War in 1971.
Some readers might consider it only as an anti-Jamaat platform. However,
once
they go through Fatemolla's various well-written essays on the inherent
dangers posed by "political Islam", they would appreciate its real value.
Although some peripheral discussions about the Shariah-based autocracies are
osted on Jamatepislami, Fatemolla's main focus is on the ludicrous idea of
Shariah as a universal code for all Muslims for all times everywhere. He has
skilfully pinpointed the ambivalence of the Shariah code by exposing its
contradictions with the teachings of the Quran and the Holy Prophet. He is
dead against the literal interpretations and out of context citing of
some Quranic verses, which might justify polygamy, slavery and cohabitation
with slave girls, wife beating, killing of non-Muslims and other inhuman
practices. In short, this is an attempt to re-open the doors of ijtihad -
both qias and ijma (individual and collective re-interpretations of the
scripture) - by shunning the Shariah as much as possible.
Some of the very interesting essays and articles by Fatemolla are:
"Mukh Khola" ('Opening One's Mouth'),"Khamba" ('Pillar'), "Pislami Syllabus"
('A
Critique of Al-Azhar University's Reactionary Syllabus') and "Ke Murtad?"
('Who is an Apostate'?) . The other pieces on female leadership, honour
killing,
polygamy, female testimony, arbitrary issuance of fatwas (religious
decrees) by the mullah to the detriment of women and religious minorities
are thought
provoking, very well argued and reflective of his missionary zeal to save
Islam as well as the victims of "political Islam". While on the one
hand he is critical of some of the modern stalwarts of "political Islam" for
their refusal to separate religion from politics; he on the other hand takes
certain Islamic groups like the Al-Mohajeroon of Britain to task for
considering those Muslims who take part in the British Parliamentary
elections as apostates, as the Parliament enacts secular laws, which
often go against the tenets of Islam.
Contesting the legitimacy of the "sixth pillar" of Islam, as espoused
by Baana-Qutb-Mawdudi type Islamist thinkers (vide "Khamba"), which does
not separate religion from politics, Fatemolla reiterates his point quite
convincingly that the prophets did not come as politicians or
administrators but guides for mankind. He thinks it is high time that
Bangladeshi
Muslims stop "Jamaati" or "political Islam" in its tracks, calling it the
"dangerous transgressor of the teachings of the Quran, Islam's enemy number
one".
His "Pislami Syllabus" is another eye-opener for Muslims who are
awe-stricken by the sanctity of the famous Al-Azhar University of Egypt.
This article reveals the obscurantist and pre-modern syllabi of the
university, which among other things justify: a) conversion of
non-Muslims by force, death being the other option for them; b) jihad
against the
non-Muslims as obligatory; c) treating the non-Muslim subjects as
zimmis or "protected people", forcing them to cut the fringe on their
forehead as
their symbol of identity, denying them the use of horse but donkeys instead
and e) the ban on music and musical instruments. Fatemolla has rightly
compared these draconian rules with the edicts of Mullah Umar of
Afghanistan under the Taliban.
The moral of the story is that unless Bangladeshi Muslims are saved
from the hands of the obscurantist mullah, a replication of the Al-Azhar
dogma
of hate and violence is possible in Bangladeshi madrassas or Islamic
seminaries. Fatemolla has pointed out (vide 'Ke Murtad?') how very
similar to Al-Azhar mullahs, who never stop from issuing fatwas-to-kill
so-called
"murtads" or apostates, Nagib Mahfouz, Nawal Sadawi, Nasr Zaid and their
likes,
Bangladeshi mullahs have been issuing such fatwas against several prominent
poets and writers for alleged blasphemy and apostasy. He has cited Quranic
verses, including 4:137 (Sura Nissa), in buttressing his argument that
the Quran does not prescribe death penalty for apostasy, at all. His
logical justification for female leadership in Islam, rejection of polygamy
as
un-Islamic, and advocacy of equal rights and opportunities for women
and minorities in Muslim countries are too difficult to demolish by the
conformist, traditional Muslims. The ulama are simply not equipped with
enough arsenals to confront Fatemolla, unless they resort to take cover
behind the corpus of the problematic Hadith literature and the obsolete
Shariah.
The latest addition in the list of Fatemolla's tirade against
obscurantism and un-Islamic preaching and practices by the mullah is the
series of
commentaries on the retired bureaucrat Shah Abdul Hannan's recent book,
Bidhibaddho Islami Ain ( 'The Prescribed Islamic Law or Shariah'). This
monster of a book, 2300 pages in several volumes, published by the
Islamic Foundation in Dhaka ( this autonomous body, like the Bangla Academy,
is
very "generous" to the authors whose remunerations depend on the length of
their respective works - more pages simply mean more money) is another
example of what closed minds can produce and do to the detriment of human
progress
and knowledge. The blind followers of the Shariah, including people like
Shah Abdul Hannan, neither apply reason nor the teachings of the Quran to
evaluate (accept and reject) the man-made Shariah law. Fatemolla has
skilfully exposed this flaw. He has correctly pointed out
the main flaw in Hannan's exposition is his argument that Imam Abu Hanifa
and his
companions not only codified the Shariah for their age but for the Muslims
everywhere in all ages. He has buttressed his argument that Shariah is
obsolete in
our times and has no eternity like the Holy Quran by citing several Islamic
scholars of our time. They include Hashim Kamali, Abdur Rahman Doi,
Abdul Aziz Sachedina, Fazlur Rahman and others who have all rejected the
divinity of Shariah law. While Hashim Kamali has pointed out the
inadequacies of
the Shariah in meeting the needs of modern Muslims, and has suggested
drastic changes and modifications in the so-called Islamic code, Sachedina
has
succinctly stated that the needs of the past and present are very
different.
What we get in this interesting web site is that:
a) Shariah or the predominantly Hadith-based code often goes against the
teaching and spirit of the Quran, protects the institutions of slavery,
absolute monarchy, patriarchy and misogyny, concubinage and illicit sex with
slave girls and many other revolting and inhuman institutions and
practices.
b) The fundamental problem with both the Hadith literature and the
Shariah is their being equated with the Holy Quran as divine and eternal by
the
bulk of the ulama throughout the Muslim World. Many Muslim
theologians, jurists and philosophers during the hey day of the Abbasid and
Ottoman dynasties, were simply subservient employees of the autocratic
rulers
(also known as caliphs), and so justified autocracy, patriarchy, polygamy,
slavery
and other vices through the so-called sayings of the Prophet or Hadith and
the Shariah. Thus the compilers of the books of Hadith, including Imams
Bukhari, Muslim, Abu Dawood, Tirmizi and others as well as the Muslim
jurists like Abu
Hanifa and Shafi have occupied the stature of saints, almost with the
infallibility of the Holy Prophet. Meanwhile, Sufis and saints like
Abdul Qadir Jeelani, Mansoor Hallaj, Rabiya Basri, Muinuddin Chishti,
Bahauddin Zakariya Multani, Nizamuddin Aulia and many others tried in vain
to
stage an Islamic Reformation, promoting a liberal doctrine of love
and peaceful co-existence of Muslims and non-Muslims, believers, agnostics
and non-believers in the true spirit of Islam.
c) Unless the Muslims learn about the flaws of the Hadith literature,
including the unreliability of many so-called sahih or "authentic" Hadith,
and
the limitations of the man-made Shariah, there is no way out for them
towards freedom - freedom from the clutches of autocracy, terrorism and
"mullahcracy"- almost everywhere in the Muslim World, including
Bangladesh.
In sum, although Fatemolla does not provide a comprehensive,
flawless compendium of ideas to eradicate terrorism and inhuman laws created
and
nourished in the name of Islam, he has taken a bold step towards reason and
rationalism, that are positvely enjoined upon in Islam.
============================================================
The author of this article, Taj Hashmi, is a noted Bangladeshi scholar, who
teaches at the York University, Toronto, Canada. He can be contacted on
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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