Is there a place for intolerance in Islam?

Sukidi Mulyadi, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA

In his book, The Place of Tolerance in Islam, (2002:22-33), Khaled Abou El Fadl, a distinguished Islamic scholar at the University of California, Los Angeles, makes a clear statement about the close interaction between the Koran as the text and the Muslim as the reader and interpreter in the construction of intolerance in Islam. "If the reader is intolerant, hateful, or oppressive," he argues, "so will be the interpretation of the text."

In particular, the intolerant interpretation of Islam is then attributed to the Muslim puritans and extremists who read and interpret the Koran strictly, literally, and ahistorically. In support of his thesis, Khaled points to a number of these puritans and extremists in the course of Islamic history.

First, intolerance in Islam, as Khaled postulates, may be traced back to the formation of the Kharijites (Arabic, pl. Khawbrij; s. Khawbrijn) in the first century of Islam. The Kharijites were commonly considered "seceders," "rebels," or "revolutionary activists,", because they seceded and fought against the leadership of the fourth caliph, Ali b. Abi-Talib (r. 656-61), cousin and son-in-law of Muhammad.

According to Khaled, the Kharijites were responsible for the assassination of Ali b. Abi-Talib by one of their members, Ibn- Muljam, in 661, and the deaths of both Muslims and non-Muslims at that time. He regards such historical events as examples of intolerance and fanaticism in the first century of Islam. Before the rise of the Kharijites, however, Khaled disregards several earlier examples that could also be taken to demonstrate intolerance in the course of Islamic history. One of these incidences involved the assassination of the third caliph, Uthman b. Affan (r. 644-56), at Madina by the mutineers -- a modern term for religious extremists -- who broke into Uthman's house and killed him in the year 656.

Second, intolerance in the modern period is often associated with the rise of fanatics and extremist groups such as the jihad organizations -- al-Qaeda and the Taliban. Khaled argues that their theological foundations draw upon the so-called "intolerant puritanism of the Wahhabi creed." The Wahhabi creed is a puritan form of Islamic teaching and propagation that is based mainly upon a strictly literal interpretation of the Koran and the Hadith. The founder of its movement, Muhammad b. Abd al-Wahhab (1703-1791), was a typical puritan Muslim.

However, it seems to me that Khaled fails to trace the line connecting the teachings of Abd al-Wahhab back to the tradition of Ibn Taymiyyah (1263-1328). I believe it is essential to describe him briefly in order to get a proper understanding about the origins of the sort of intolerant interpretations of Islam that can be traced back to Ibn Taymiyyah. Born in Harran in Mesopotamia and trained in the Hambali tradition, Taymiyyah attempted to reinforce the doctrines of sharia using a strictly literal method, and declared that the Mongols and their descendants, regardless of their profession of faith in Islam, were infidels and apostates, because they paid more attention to the propagation of the Yasa than Islamic sharia.

His literalist and intolerant view of Islam led him to regard the development of Islamic practices after the death of the Prophet Muhammad and the four rightly guided caliphs as "unauthentic Islam," including popular Sufism, Shi'ism, and the veneration of saints' tombs. As a consequence, Taymiyyah began to oppose all forms of popular Sufism, cultic forms of worship, and the veneration of saints' tombs, in favor of purifying Islamic belief and practices from such religious deviations.

Having been influenced by Taymiyyah's exclusivist and intolerant interpretations of Islamic sharia, Abd al-Wahhab also reinforced the Islamic sharia with a strictly literal approach, and began to purify Islamic doctrines and practices from corrupting customary Islam. Accordingly, forms of customary Islam were considered "unauthentic Islam" as they were characterized by a combination of Islamic values and doctrines adapted to shared characteristics of identity, local tradition and ancestral heritage.

Similar to Ibn Taymiyyah, Abd al-Wahhab, as Marshall G.S. Hodgson (1974:161) argues, "was not the first to denounce most other Muslims as infidels to be killed, but the Wahhabi state built up by the Sa'ud family proved effectively powerful ... to destroy all the sacred tombs, including the tomb of Muhammad, to massacre the Muslims of the holy cities, and to impose their own standards on future pilgrims." As such, Saudi Arabia's state version of "Wahhabi Islam" is founded on a strictly literal interpretation of the Koran and the Hadith, and an intolerant view of both Muslims and non-Muslims alike.

Given such brief historical accounts of the place of intolerance in the course of Islamic history, one may ask: What does Abou El Fadl mean by "the place of tolerance in Islam?" He attempts to ground the origins of tolerance in the Koran (Q.S., 2:109; 5:13; 15:85; 24:22; 43:89; 64:14). If Khaled regards tasamuh as the modern Arabic term for tolerance, it must be admitted that such Koranic verses do not specifically or literally mention the term tasamuh.

I would argue that the Koran itself lacks a specific term to express the concept of tolerance. The term tasamuh, however, is found in the Hadith, as the prophet Muhammad said, "the religion most beloved to Allah is the kindly hanifiyya (ahabbu al-din ila Allah al-hanifiyya al-samha)." The linguistic affinity of samha with tasamuh or samaha in the Hadith is highly regarded as the modern reference for discourse on tolerance in Islam.

Though the Koran does not provide a specific term for tolerance, the core idea of tolerance and pluralism is firmly grounded in the Koran. The Koran espouses tolerant and pluralist views. As the last installment of a series of scriptures in the Semitic religions, the Koran affirms and confirms the pluralism of the scriptures, prophets and religions that preceded the Koranic revelation.

The Koran commands every Muslim "to believe in God and in what has been revealed to us and what was revealed to Abraham, Ishmael, Isaac, Jacob and the Tribes, and in the books given to Moses, Jesus and the prophets from their Lord". Believing that the existence of diversity in various forms is in accordance with the divine will and His intended creation, Khaled argues that the underlying notion in the creation of diversity is to know each other and to promote tolerance, harmony and cooperation among people of different faiths.

As such, the Koran supports a number of different religious beliefs, laws and expressions in a positive way. The Koran states, "To each of you God has prescribed a Law and a Way. If God would have willed, He would have made you a single people. But God's purpose is to test you in what he has given each of you, so strive in the pursuit of virtue, and know that you will all return to God (in the Hereafter), and he will resolve all the matters in which you disagree".

This pluralist Koranic worldview has encouraged Khaled to conclude that tolerance and pluralism have their own origins in the Koran. However, I feel compelled to sign off with the question: Are there any Islamic countries today that have preserved a model for applied civic and religious tolerance among Muslims and non-Muslims alike?

The writer is a graduate student of theological studies at the Harvard Divinity School, Harvard University, Cambridge, USA. He can be reached at sukidioslo@yahoo.com).