Observing Faith

Observing Faith

1988 8 August 25-32 Observing Faith (2810) “He has ordained for you the faith which He enjoined on Noah and which We have revealed to you, and which We enjoined on Abraham, Moses and Jesus, (saying) ‘Observe this faith and be not divided therein.’” Quran, 42:13

All commentators of the Quran are agreed that “faith” here means the fundamentals of religion which are common to all the Prophets. It is not the laws and customs of each religion which are referred to, for the Quran has made it clear that these differed with each Prophet:

“We have ordained a law and a path for each of you. Had God pleased, He could have made you one nation.” Quran, 5:48

Since the laws and the paths of each religion are different, all of them cannot be followed equally. Only teachings which are common to all the prophets can be followed by everyone alike. So the “faith” which we are enjoined to observe in the above verse consists of fundamental tenets, not detailed instructions. The point that is being made in this verse is that in detailed injunctions one can be flexible; one can adapt to the situation. Firm and unchanging emphasis should be laid on matters that are common to every religion. Only then can a truly religious spirit flourish in a community. If permanent emphasis is laid on the subordinate issues of religion, which change according to time and circumstances, people will become disunited and confused. An atmosphere will develop in the name of religion which is, in fact, harmful to religion.

In recent times this verse has been explained differently. That is, that it enjoins the enactment and enforcement of all Islamic laws as a complete legal system since the biggest obstacle to the enforcement of a complete legal system is the institution of government, the first task in observance of the faith – according to this interpretation – is opposition to the government of the time, so that power can be taken from it and a complete legal system implemented. In countries with Muslim minorities there is no opportunity for political struggle of this nature, so there this interpretation can be followed out only by campaigning through oratory and literature. But in countries with Muslim majorities, where opportunities are multiple, it has taken the form of direct attacks on the established Muslim government. The result of this has been civil strife, with immeasurable loss of life and property. Added to this, the spirit of religious unity – which was the real purpose of the enjoinment to observe the faith – has been destroyed. And all this has been done in the name of observing the faith. The reverse effects which movements for the observance of religion have had should have been enough to make its proponents revise their thinking; but instead they have attempted to indoctrinate their followers even further by writing new commentaries of the Quran. Let us examine what one recent commentator of the Quran has to say on this matter. This is how he explains this verse of Sura 42 of the Quran:

Some people have observed that this verse enjoins the observance of that faith which is common to all the Prophets, and the laws of all the Prophets have been different. As the Quran says: “We have ordained a law and a path for each of you.” So they have formed the opinion that this faith cannot refer to canonical rules and regulations; it refers only to belief in one God, the next world, the Scriptures, the Prophets and worship of God. At the most it includes those basic moral principles which are common to the laws of all the Prophets. But this is a very superficial interpretation, which has been arrived at by taking a cursory glance at the oneness of the religions, as opposed to laws, of the different prophets. This is a very dangerous interpretation. If not corrected, it will eventually lead to the sort of differentiation between religious faith and religious law which was behind St. Paul’s faith – without-law theory which destroyed the religion of the Prophet Jesus. For when religious law is something apart from religious faith, and it is only the observance of religious faith that has been enjoined, then inevitably Muslims – like Christians – will come to think of religious law as unimportant and no end in itself, and make do with basic tenets of faith and broad moral principles. Instead of specifying the meaning of religion by analogies of this nature, why should we not refer to the Book of God and ask the question: Does the faith which we are enjoined to observe in this verse just consist of articles of faith and broad rules of ethics, or does it include religious laws as well?

(Tafheem-ul-Quran, by Sayyid Abul Ala Maududi, Vol IV, pp. 488-490).

The author then goes on to refer to various verses of the Quran in which faith (deen) includes religious laws and injunctions as well as articles of faith. He therefore concludes that all religious injunctions are a part of the faith, and the observance of faith entails the implementation of all of them.

1. The word “some” which commences this quotation understates the seriousness of the matter. The opinion that the author is refuting, is held by all commentators of the Quran worth mentioning, not just “some.”

2. The author has no justification for calling this opinion superficial. The verse enjoins observance of the faith of all the Prophets, and says not to be divided in it. So one is bound in this particular verse to take the word ‘deen’ to mean that part of religion which is common to all the Prophets, not the part in which they are divided.

3. If one does not include payment of the poor-due (zakat) in verses where only prayer has been enjoined, it does not mean that one is denying the obligation to pay zakat. All it means is that this injunction is in another verse, not that which deals with prayer alone. In the same way, to say that religious laws are not included in observance of the faith does not mean that they are not to be followed. All it means is that this verse does not deal with religious laws. They are dealt with in other verses, and their nature can be understood from the words of those verses. If, for instance, anyone were to extract the principle of public ownership from the verse of the Quran which states that “the earth is God’s”, he would be told that this verse has nothing to do with ownership. Certainly, there are injunctions in Islam regarding ownership, but they are contained in other verses, not this one.

4. The reference to St. Paul in this connection is totally out of place. Paulism is the belief that one cannot gain salvation by virtue of one’s own actions or beliefs; one can only gain salvation by accepting the doctrine that the Son of God was crucified in atonement for man’s original sin. In other works, Paulism holds that the salvation of man does not depend on what is normally understood by beliefs and actions; it depends on belief in a particular doctrine – the doctrine of atonement. Clearly, this is an entirely separate school of thought. It bears no relation to the author’s explanation of the verse of the Quran enjoining observance of the faith.

5. It is not true to say that if it is only the basic tenets of religion that are to be observed, then other injunctions and laws have no place in religion. The Quran makes it clear that one is bound by religious laws according to one’s capacity (Quran, 2:286). This means that if an individual does not have the capacity to implement a certain order, then in practice it will remain pending until that power comes into being. The fundamentals of religion are those things which lie within everybody’s capacity all the time. There is no one who is not able to love and fear God at all times, and be kind towards his fellow men. That is why observing the fundamentals of religion is a universal order, which applies to everyone and at all times. Social laws, on the other hand, require power to be implemented. So their implementation has been made conditional. If one has the power, one should put them into practice. They are obligatory in accordance with the amount of power that one wields: the more the power, the more one is bound by them. From this point we can understand why the Prophet of Islam established constitutional laws during the Medinan period, whereas the Prophet Abraham did not do so throughout his whole life. In spite of this difference, both were complete believers in the sight of God; for complete faith comes from imposing religion on oneself, not from enforcing it on others.

6. Neither is the fear that Muslims will rest content with individual actions justified. In this verse we are enjoined to adopt belief in One God. In other verses of the Quran there is a universal order to disseminate this belief among mankind. The implementation of religious laws is, without doubt, a conditional order; but preaching the word of God is a universal one that is required of us at all times. This task gives the whole Muslim community a great collective purpose.

7. One word usually has more than one meaning. The word deen has been used in several different contexts in the Quran, and has a different definition and meaning in each instance. It is unreasonable to make a list of all these meanings, and say that observance of the faith refers to all of them. A word can only be understood from its relation to individual contexts, and not from an aggregate of its different meanings. The faultiness of this method of reasoning is clear from the fact that in the first Sura of the Quran, the word deen is used to mean retribution. If this reasoning is considered sound, it means that in order to observe the faith, Muslims must make efforts to bring about the Day of Judgement, so that people may be rewarded or punished for their actions. Are the proponents of this revolutionary interpretation ready to include becoming masters of the Day of Retribution as part of their programme to make religion complete?

8. Taking observance of the faith to apply to the basic tenets of religion does not mean that one should be preoccupied with the prominent teachings of religion while passing over the rest. All it means is that, one should adhere to the religion on which all prophets are agreed, and which is fundamentally and permanently required of man. One should not base one’s observance of faith on subordinate and controversial issues. It is not prominent teachings that are intended here; it is the basic teachings of religion on ‘which eternal salvation depends that are intended. We do not have to use analogies to ascertain what the teachings of every prophet were. The Quran itself has informed us of them. Here are a few references:

1. Not worshipping any other than God (21:25).

2. Worshipping one God alone (41:14).

3. Living in fear of God (16:2).

4. Eating pure food and doing good deeds (23:51).

5. Being just with one another (57:52).

6. Being patient in the face of suffering inflicted by others (46:35).

7. Associating oneself with the true call (3:81).

8. Warning people of hell-fire, and giving them good news of heaven in the life to come (4:165).

This has been the religion of all the Prophets, and this is the religion that God basically and permanently requires of man. External actions can only be acceptable if the spirit of these teachings is found in them; without it, no action has any value. Furthermore, the whole of God’s religion is incorporated in these teachings. Whoever observes them is observing the whole of religion; in the sight of God his faith is complete. Religion in its true essence is not an external system, which requires power for it to be enforced on people. In reality religion is an individual pattern of life. It is man’s own being – the being that he lives with day in and day out, the being that he is born with and dies with – that has to be made religious; it is this being that has to be moulded according to the will of God. This is what observance of the faith basically is. Man’s being is not bound by any law or political institution; it can only be controlled by man’s own will. Man can not be ordered by others; he has to order himself. Observance of the faith, then is – of one’s own free will, to impose religion on one’s own being. Offering political opposition to rulers, and flogging others on the back, is not the way to observe the faith.

It is true that Islam looks at political power as something desirable. But it is God’s reward to the faithful (Quran, 24:55). This reward is only obtained when a substantial number of Muslims observe the faith in their own lives. Only after observation of the fundamentals of religion do opportunities emerge for the observation of religious laws. To observe the basics of religion in one’s own life is like presenting one’s own back for flogging. Those who offer themselves up in this manner can be presented with the political authority to flog the backs of others. Those who flog others without having offered themselves up first are only causing corruption in the land; they are not contributing to the cause of justice. Such people are eager to flog the backs of others; but they are not able to tolerate even verbal criticism of themselves. Such people are wrong-doers in the sight of God. How was it – they will be asked on the Day of Judgement – that you were not ready to bear a whip of words yourselves, but were eager to flog others with real whips? What conceit made you act in this way?

One result of this faulty interpretation has been to make that which was important in the sight of God, unimportant, and that which was unimportant, important. In his commentary on the verse about observing the faith, the same author writes:

When Prophets were ordered to observe this faith, and make sure that others observe it, it did not only mean that they themselves should practice it; neither did it just mean that they preach this faith to others so that they should admit the truth of it. Once people had accepted it, the Prophets were expected to take one step forward and practically implement and enforce religion in its totality. Their aim was to make sure that it was practiced, and continued to be practiced. There is no doubt that preaching is an important first stage in this work, without which the second stage cannot be arrived at. But anyone with any sense can see that preaching is not the purpose of this commandment; the purpose of it is to see that the faith is observed and continues to be observed. Preaching is certainly a means towards the attainment of that purpose; it is not the purpose itself. How, then, can anyone say that it was the only purpose of the mission of the Prophets?

(Vol IV, p. 488.)

The Quran has stated explicitly that the sole mission of all the Prophets was communication of the faith. Once they had conveyed their message in full to their peoples, their personal responsibility ended. Seeing that the faith is observed, and continues to be observed, is something that depends entirely on the reaction of those who are being addressed. Nowhere has the Quran said that the Prophet’s mission was to see that the faith is observed, and continues to be observed.” In several places, however, their official duty has been specified as preaching of the faith. Here are a couple of examples:

Yet what should prophets do but give plain warning? (Quran,16:35)

We send forth Our apostles only to give good news to mankind and to warn them. Quran, 6:48. The lives of the Prophets have been devoted to preaching the faith. Every prophet communicated the faith in complete and total form. The accomplishment of this cause, then, is the task which is common to all the Prophets. Only that mission which is common to all the Prophets can be classified as their purpose. “Practical implementation and enforcement of religion in its totality” was not a mission common to all the Prophets. This is sufficient proof of the fact that the true purpose of the Islamic mission is communication of the message of Islam to the rest of mankind, rather than seeing that it is observed and continues to be observed.