I’ve been watching the recent Oxford Union debate on whether the West has the right to be “suspicious of Islam.”
Amidst all the bickering, it is interesting to note that no one has taken the time to methodically answer the ultimate question: How does one determine what is—and is not—Islamic?
Once this all-important question is answered, it becomes clear that “debating”—including by quoting this or that Koran verse, in a positive or negative context—is a fool’s errand. For the question on what is and isn’t Islamic has already been settled, and it isn’t connected to the opinions of this or that person, be they pro- or anti-Islamic.
Here, then, is the traditional answer—the Islamic answer—on how one determines what is and is not Islamic:
What do the core texts and scriptures of Islam say about the thing in question, let’s call it x? Does the Koran, believed by Muslims to contain the literal commands of Allah, call for or justify x? Do the hadith and sira texts—which purport to record the sayings and deeds of Allah’s prophet, whom the Koran (e.g., 33:21) exhorts Muslims to emulate in all ways—call for or justify x?
If any ambiguity remains, the next question becomes: what is the consensus (ijma) of the Islamic world’s leading authorities concerning x? Here one must turn to the tafsirs, or exegeses of Islam’s most learned men—the ulema—and consider their conclusions. Muhammad himself reportedly said that “My umma [Islamic nation] will never be in agreement over an error.”
For example, the Koran commands believers to uphold prayers; accordingly, all are agreed that Muslims need to pray.
Yet the Koran does not specify how many times a day Muslims are to pray. In the hadith and sira, however, Muhammad makes clear believers should pray five times. And the ulema, having considered all these texts, concluded that Muslims are to pray five times a day.
Thus, it is most certainly Islamic for Muslims to pray five times a day.
Interestingly, however, whereas Western academics and Muslim apologists readily accept such methodology in determining what is Islamic—prayer is in the Koran, Muhammad clarified its implementation in the hadith, and the ulema are agreed to it—whenever the thing in question deals with anything that makes Islam “look bad,” then this standard approach to ascertaining what is Islamic is wholly ignored.
That is precisely what happened at the Oxford Union debate. The “pro-Muslim” side often tripped up the “anti-Muslim” side by asking them to “show me where in the Koran it says that?”
Of course, the thing in question need not be fully spelled out in the Koran—the way prayer and so many other Islamic things are not fully spelled out—for it to be a part of Islam.
For example, let us consider some of the most extreme acts committed by the Islamic State—an organization which the pro-Islam side of the debate insisted is not Islamic. Let us examine, one by one, things like beheadings, crucifixions, enslavements, sexual predations, massacres, and the persecution of religious minorities, and see if they pass the test, see if they meet the criteria to be considered part of Islam.
Beheadings
The Islamic State beheads “infidels,” including women and children. This aspect of the Islamic State has provoked horror around the world.
Is it Islamic?
The Koran calls for the beheading of Islam’s enemies, especially in the context of war, or jihad: “When you encounter infidels on the battlefield, strike off their heads until you have crushed them completely” (47:4). Another verse states: “I will cast terror into the hearts of infidels—so strike off their heads and strike off all of their fingertips [i.e., mutilate them]” (8:12).
As for the other criteria—the example or Sunna of the prophet and the consensus of the umma—Timothy Furnish, author of the 2005 essay, “Beheading in the Name of Islam,” writes:
The practice of beheading non-Muslim captives extends back to the Prophet himself. Ibn Ishaq (d. 768), the earliest biographer of Muhammad, is recorded as saying that the Prophet ordered the execution by decapitation of 700 men of the Jewish Banu Qurayza tribe in Medina for allegedly plotting against him. Islamic leaders from Muhammad’s time until today have followed his model. Examples of decapitation, of both the living and the dead, in Islamic history are myriad…. For centuries, leading Islamic scholars have interpreted this verse [decapitation verse, 47:4] literally…. Many recent interpretations remain consistent with those of a millennium ago.
Crucifixions
As for crucifying people, which the Islamic State has been doing regularly, Koran 5:33 asserts that “the penalty for those who wage war against Allah and His Messenger and strive upon earth [to cause] corruption is none but that they be killed or crucified or that their hands and feet be cut off from opposite sides or that they be exiled from the land.”
Accordingly, crucifixions are common throughout Islamic history.
After Islam’s prophet died in 632, many Arabs were accused of apostasy. The first caliph, Abu Bakr, launched a jihad campaign on them, and many “apostates” were crucified as an example to the rest. In the book Witnesses For Christ: Orthodox Christian Neomartyrs of the Ottoman Period 1437-1860, crucifixion is listed as one of the many ways thousands of Christians were executed by the Muslim Turks.
More dramatically, in her memoir, Ravished Armenia, Aurora Mardiganian described how in the early twentieth century she saw 16 girls crucified, vultures eating their corpses: “Each girl had been nailed alive upon her cross, spikes through her feet and hands,” wrote the Armenian survivor. “Only their hair blown by the wind covered their bodies.”
Slavery and Rape
What of slavery—especially the enslavement of non-Muslim women for sexual purposes—which the Islamic State and other jihadist organizations engage in?
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