The Verse at The Gate — and a Koranic Debate

Is the Koran a “created” or an “uncreated” book?

This question might sound vague and even meaningless to many modern minds, but it was a crucial one among Muslims during the initial centuries of Islam. Indeed, there were bitter disputes and even clashes between those who gave different answers.

Those who thought that the Koran was “created” were mainly the followers of the Mutazilite school. They were also known as “Rationalists,” because they made emphasis on the role of human reason in understanding God’s will. For the Mutazilites, both the Koran and human reason were created by God, and a believer had to use both of them in harmony to make a sense of the world.


Rationalists versus Traditionalists

On other side, there were the “Traditionalists,” which were spearheaded by Imam Ahmad Ibn Hanbal. They were skeptical of reason, which they saw as a potential to lead men astray. They rather insisted on the “imitation” of the Prophet: a Muslim had to try to emulate all the details of the life of Muhammad, instead of using his own judgment.

If reason was one issue that divided the Mutazilites and the Traditionalists, the nature of the Koran was another. The question I mentioned — whether the Koran is a “created” or an “uncreated” book — was actually their toughest bone of contention. The Mutazilites said that the Koran is a “created” book, which meant that it presented God’s message to a specific society at a specific point in time. The Koran’s principles were eternally valid, they said, but its “wording” was affected by temporal realities. So, they said, the Koran should be interpreted by looking at its context — and with the help of reason.

The Traditionalists, on the other hand, believed that Koran was “the uncreated word of God.” This meant that the Koran existed in eternity with God himself. So its verses could not have been influenced by the context of a specific period in human history. They thought not only the principles but also the literal details of the Koran were eternally valid.

The dispute between the two groups lasted for centuries, until when the Traditionalist won over the others around the 13th century. But the Mutazilite thought did not totally disappear. Moreover, new schools emerged which found middle ways between the two opposing view. The Maturidi school, which became popular mainly among the Turkish speaking peoples, was the most popular of these compromises. On the other hand, the strictest form of Traditionalism survived in the form of Wahhabism — which is the official faith of today’s Saudi Arabia.


Enter Zeynep Sultan mosque

What made me recall all this “Islamic hermeneutics 101” knowledge is the recent controversy in the Turkish media about a Koranic verse (5/51) put on the entrance of an Istanbul mosque by its imam. “O you who believe! Do not the Jews and the Christians as your friends and protectors,” the verse reads. “They are the friends of one another; any of you who takes them as friends is one of them.”

The daily Hürriyet made a news story out of this Koranic display, which apparently commended Muslims to not to be in good terms with Jews and Christians. Can each verse of the Koran be displayed like this, the paper asked, or should Muslims be a selective?

Then some secularist commentators started to question whether the Koran should be taken seriously at all. Fellow TDN columnists Burak Bekdil took a similar line yesterday in his piece, “The 'script' at Zeynep Sultan Mosque.” According to Mr. Bekdil, “dogmatic Muslims” had to stop being “selective.” They had to either take everything literally, or stop taking the Koran as a guide in daily life. Otherwise, according Mr. Bekdil, Muslims would end up in being unprincipled. At least, he argued, that was the case with the vice president of the Religious Affairs Directorate, who asked the imam of the aforementioned mosque to remove that Koranic verse on Christians and Jews. “Why does he not approve the ‘script' at the Zeynep Sultan mosque,” Mr. Bekdil asked. “On what grounds?”

Yesterday, an answer came from the vice president of the Religious Affairs Directorate, Dr. İzzet Er. “We have commended our imams to use verses that will not create misunderstandings” he said. Then he explained the problem in this particular case:

“Misunderstandings take place when verses are taken out of their context. This verse relates to a war situation… At the time, Muslims were at war with Jews and the verse was basically warning them for not establishing close links and passing information that could amount to war secrets. In peace, the verse does not apply, and all Muslims are indeed supposed to be friend with other peoples.”
Dr. Er also noted to the famous motto of the Turkish Sufi sage Yunus Emre, “Loving all creation for the sake of the Creator,” as the Islamic ideal. He could also have pointed out to another Koranic passage, 60/8-9, which indeed puts the controversial verse about Jews and Christians in context:

“God does not forbid you from being good to those who have not fought you in religion or driven you from your homes, or from being just towards them... God merely forbids you from taking as friends those who have fought you in religion and driven you from your homes and who supported your expulsion.”


A principled effort

Here is my take on the whole affair: Turning some particular Koranic verses into slogans might indeed create big problems, because these verses need to be understood within their contexts. (Similarly, quotes from the books of Joshua or Leviticus could give very harsh messages, by which most contemporary Jews and Christians would not stand.)

Therefore, it was indeed a mistake to put the “don’t take Christians and Jews as friends” verse on the gate of a mosque. There are many other verses of the Koran which are not bound with context — such as the ones relating to God’s majesty, mercy or justice, or human morals — and which can be freely quoted. But not all verses are like that.

Making this distinction is not treason to God’s word, as some fundamentalists would angrily claim — and some secularists would sarcastically conclude. No, quite the contrary, it is indeed a sincere and principled effort to understand what the divine message really means. It is also the effort which will help creating a bright future for the Muslim world — if there will ever be one.


Writer : Mustafa Akyol

Turks, Jews and Arabs

In the year 1454, Rabbi Yitzhak Sarfati of the Ottoman city of Edirne sent a letter to his co-religionists in Europe who were suffering under the persecutions of medieval anti-Semites. “"Leave the torments you endure in Christendom,"” the Rabbi suggested, “"and seek safety and prosperity in Turkey."” This Islamic land was a haven for all, he added. “"Here every man dwells at peace under his own vine and fig tree.”"


Many Sephardic Jews listened to Sarfati's advice in 1492, when they were expelled from the all-Catholic Spain simply because they remained loyal to their faith. Ships carried many Jewish refugees to Ottoman lands, where they were personally welcomed by Sultan Bayazid II, who was one of the most pious of all Ottoman monarchs.

Bernard Lewis, the doyen of Middle Eastern studies in the West, once said: "the Jews were not just permitted to settle in the Ottoman lands, but were encouraged, assisted and sometimes even compelled." For them, the lands of Islam became the lands of safety.


Islamdom versus anti-Semitic Europe

The fact that medieval Islamdom was much more tolerant to Jews than Christendom had much to do with theology. The Christian doctrine, for a long time, considered Jews as “"Christ killers"” and showed a strong zeal to convert them into the faith of the Cross. Islam, on the other hand, regarded both Judaism and Christianity as somewhat flawed and outdated yet still legitimate monotheisms. That's why anti-Semitism, the paranoid hatred of Jews, was unknown in the Islamic world when it was the norm in Christian Europe.

Indeed, anti-Semitism would come into the Middle East from Europe. In Islamic lands, the first blood libel — the crazy slander that Jews use the blood of young children for the “matzo,” the unleavened Passover bread — erupted in Damascus in 1840. And it was the French consul in the city, Monsieur Ratti Menton, who made it up. After several months of craze, and some international protest, Sultan Abdülmecid issued his famous decree on the "Blood Libel Accusation" to settle the matter. "For the love we bear to our subjects,”" the Sultan said, "“We cannot permit the Jewish nation, whose innocence for the crime alleged against them is evident, to be worried and tormented."

Well, that was the scene in the 19th century, during which Islamdom was still much more Jewish-friendly than Europe. Yet the picture is completely opposite today. The Middle East is probably the most anti-Semitic part of the world, whereas Europe has done a lot to compensate for its historic sins. Lunacies such as the blood libel would appear only in some very marginal, neo-Nazi type circles in Europe. In the Arab world, though, all such classic elements of anti-Semitism show up in quite mainstream publications.


The Curse of The Conflict

The main reason for the anti-Semitization of the Middle East has been the Arab-Israeli conflict. Until the 20th century, Arabs saw Jews as just a religious community whose right to exist was guaranteed by Islamic law. In the 20th century, though, Jews became the colonizers. The reaction to Israel's policies turned into a hatred towards Jews. The Arabs who were motivated by this political fervor went back to traditional Islamic texts to mine elements that could, at least seemingly, justify their rage.

This anti-Semitic attitude found in the contemporary Arab world is one of the obstacles toward peace in the Holy Land. (Another obstacle is, of course, Israel's own fanatics, who bitterly oppose the formation of a viable Palestinian state and whose hatred toward the Arabs matches the abhorrence felt against the Jews by the anti-Semitics.) What is needed is the rise of leaders on both sides who can reject and even tone down the loathing in their societies toward the other side. Another thing that is needed are third parties that will understand both sides and will encourage a peaceful solution.

The United States, as the world's superpower, is obviously the most important of these third parties, but it has a problem: Most Palestinians, and Arabs in general, consider the American government as not an honest broker, but a supporter of Israel first and foremost. That's why; first, the US should move towards neutrality, and secondly, make other third parties involved in the process.

While the first option above does not seem very likely to happen in the near future, the second one is possible, and actually in progress. The existence of a Quartet on the Middle East, which includes, besides the US, Russia, European Union and the United Nations, corresponds precisely to that.


Get Turkey in the process

Now here is the heart of this matter — and this column: Turkey can well become an important third party in the peace effort between Israel and Palestine. It is not only an imperative country of the region, but also the heir of the Ottoman Empire which ruled the Middle East quite peacefully for four centuries. As a predominantly Muslim but non-Arab country, it has been more or less free from the rise of anti-Semitism in the Middle East. The tragedy of the Palestinians have of course effected the Turkish people, but it did not have the same impact that it had in the Arab world.

That's why Turkey has very good relations both with Palestine and Israel. That's why both the Israeli President Shimon Peres and the Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas were warmly welcomed in the Turkish Parliament the other day. Moreover, just note the fact that 340 of the 550 members of the Turkish Parliament who applauded Peres were members of the so-called Islamist AK Party. Here, obviously, you have an Islam which is more on the tradition of Ottoman Sultan Bayazid II than on the line of radical Islamists of Egypt or Pakistan. It should be appreciated, and utilized, more.


Writer : Mustafa Akyol

Apostasy is a Right, Not a Crime

NEW YORK- Western governments and the international media focused on a bizarre court case in Afghanistan in February 2006. The accused was Abdul Rahman, a 41-year-old Afghan citizen, who was on the verge of receiving a death penalty. His “crime” was abandoning Islam and converting to Christianity.

Soon Rahman was saved thanks to international pressure on the Afghan government, but his story was only one of the many severe violations of religious freedom in the contemporary Islamic world.

Traditional Shariah (Islamic law) considers apostasy a major crime that deserves capital punishment. And this continues to be implemented. In some cases like that of Rahman, official courts sentence converts to death. In other cases, barbaric vigilantes attack converts from Islam to other religions such as, and most commonly, Christianity.


Persecution of Christians

Compass Direct News, an agency devoted to “raising awareness of Christians worldwide who are persecuted for their faith” routinely passes information on such apostasy cases. Ex-Muslims are consistently suppressed, harassed and attacked by their former co-religionists. As a Muslim, I feel ashamed to read such news.

But does it mean that Islam is a religion that is inherently at odds with human rights, as some critics argue? No. It just means that there are elements in the Islamic tradition, which were created by men in pre-modern times but should be discarded in the modern era.

What I mean by that is most obvious when we look at the origin of the Islamic ban on apostasy. To the surprise of many, this prohibition does not originate from the Koran, Islam's one and only divine source. The Koran includes no earthly punishment for apostasy, and actually includes many verses, which cherish religious freedom.

There is no compulsion in religion” declares a famous verse (2:256). There are also other ones, such as, "It is the truth from your Lord; so let whoever wishes have faith and whoever wishes be unbeliever." (18:29). There is nothing in the Koran that would justify a forced belief in Islam. And, of course, a forced belief in anything is a totally absurd concept. If someone becomes or stays a believer because he is forced to do so, then that faith will simply have no meaning. That can at best create a “hypocrite,” the character that the Koran denounces as the worst of men.

How then came the ban on apostasy? Well, it was a political, not religious, verdict that soon became a part of the religious canon. David Forte, professor of Law at Cleveland State University, explains this fact very briefly and vividly in his article titled “Islam's Trajectory.” “"The primary justification for the execution of the apostate is,"” he notes:

“That in the early days of Islam, apostasy and treason were in fact synonymous. War was perennial in Arabia. It never stopped. To reject the leader of another tribe, to give up on a coalition, was in effect to go to war against him. There was no such thing as neutrality. There were truces, but there was never permanent neutrality. It is reported, for example, that immediately after the death of Mohammed, many tribes apostatized. They said in effect, "the leader whom we were following is gone, so let's go back to our own leaders.' And they rebelled against Muslim rule. The first caliph, Abu Bakr, ordered such rebels to be killed.
Many scholars argue that the tradition that all apostates had to be killed had its origin during these wars of rebellion and not during Mohammed's time. In fact, many argue that these traditions in which Mohammed affirmed the killing of apostates were apocryphal, made up later to justify what the empire had been doing.”



A Natural Right

This shows two things: Apostasy cannot be considered as a crime in today's world. It is, indeed, a natural right. People should have the right to believe or disbelieve in Islam.

The second thing that the origin of the apostasy ban shows is that Islamic sources need a serious reconsideration. What most Muslims attach themselves to as divine commandments are actually the political and cultural codes of the early centuries of Islam, which were, to be sure, man-made facts. The divine principles of a religion should remain eternally valid, but not its historical context.

Writer : Mustafa Akyol