A Russian King of Old

A Russian King of Old

1997 3-4 March-April 20-23 A Russian King of Old (1663) The commandments of Islam, as laid down in tile Qur’an and expounded by the Prophet of God, are permanent in nature and Muslims are required to observe them. Although these commandments may not be subjected to any kind of curtailment or amendment, in special cases they can certainly be waived.

Vladimir I of Russia (956-1015 AD) was the first King of that country to convert from idolatry to Christianity. Many of his subjects followed his lead and the idols which had been the objects of their worship were cast into rivers. An eleventh century Christian monk, named Jacob, has recorded the details of King Vladimir’s conversion to Christianity. He writes that the Russian King, having suffered a loss of faith in the polytheistic religion of his ancestors, summoned scholars of Judaism, Christianity and Islam in order to find out more about their respective religions.

According to Jacob’s account, the Jewish theologians admitted, in the course of detailed discussions, that they, the Jewish people, had incurred the wrath of God and, in consequence, did not know their true abode either on earth or in heaven. Discouraged at this, Vladimir said that he had no need of such a religion.

After having the teachings of Islam explained to him by Muslim theologians, Vladimir became interested in Islam and was on the point of accepting that faith, when one fatal drawback emerged. “I am in the habit of drinking,” he told the Muslim theologians, “I am ready to follow all the teachings of Islam but drinking – that, I am unable to forego.” They informed him that Islam prohibited the drinking of wine and that if he was to accept Islam, he should have to give up this habit. He pleaded with them at great length to exempt him from the law forbidding wine-drinking, but the theologians could not bring themselves to agree. There the matter ended, and the Russian King refrained from entering the fold of Islam.

King Vladimir then held discussions with the Christian theologians, who proved themselves wiser and more tactful than their Muslim counterparts. Although unable to give the King complete satisfaction as to the tenets of their faith, they did agree that he would be allowed to continue drinking wine. Despite his reservations about Christianity in principle, he gave it his approval out of purely practical considerations. His adoption of the Christian faith was, as Professor Roberts puts it, “a turning-point in Russian history and culture” (The Pelican History of the World, by J .M. Roberts, p. 355). The future of Russia might well have lain in Islam, had it not been for a purely tactical error made by its missionaries.

The Muslim scholars who made this exposition of their religion were well-versed in the legal aspects of lslam, but appear to have been in the dark about its other aspects. With their concentration on what was lawful and unlawful, they paid scant attention to the strategy to be employed in propagating the message of Islam. This explains their failure in the case of Vladimir I.

Wine-drinking is, of course, prohibited by Islam, but it should not be forgotten that at the very beginning, there was no such prohibition; this came at a later stage. For those who accepted Islam in the early stages of the Prophet’s mission in Mecca, the teachings of the Prophet centered on the oneness of God and belief in prophethood, and it was to these tenets that Muslims were required to swear their allegiance. They were not commanded by the Prophet to give up drinking wine. In the early Mecca days, there were, therefore, some amongst the Muslims who despite their acceptance of Islam, continued the practice of drinking. It was only after they had emigrated to Medina-the final verse on prohibition having been revealed at that time- that they renounced this pernicious habit.

It is quite clear from this sequence of events that the propagation of Islam should not begin with a bald statement of the Islamic standpoint on the drinking of wine. The renunciation of this habit is not such a condition for admission to the fold of Islam that it should be laid down as a prerequisite, regardless of the circumstances. If it appears impossible for a potential convert to give up drinking at the very beginning, this problem can always be tackled at a later stage. It may be objected that this lenient attitude to drinking was acceptable only before the Quranic verse prohibiting it was revealed, and that now no further stand up to inspection, for it does not tally with the Prophet’s own methods.

In the course of his own mission, the Prophet was quite flexible on certain points whenever inflexibility would have harmed the cause of Islam. There is one very good example of this in the way he dealt with the Thaqeef tribe, which hailed from Taif. In the year 9AH, they sent a delegation to Medina to announce their acceptance of Islam, with the proviso, however, that they would neither pay Zakat nor engage in Jihad. At that time injunctions both on Zakat and Jihad had been revealed in the Qur’ an, yet the Prophet accepted their conditions, adding that in time they themselves would include both Zakat and Jihad in their practice of Islam.

Abu Dawud relates this incident in his Sunah:

“Wahab recounts how he asked Jabir about the Thaqeef at the time of their swearing allegiance. Jabir told him that the Thaqeef had imposed the condition on the Prophet of their not having to pay Sadaqah or participate in Jihad. He then heard the Prophet say that they would give Sadaqah and perform Jihad at a later stage, once they had entered the fold of Islam” (Seerat ibn Hisham, vol. 4, p. 56).

The commandments of lslam, as laid down in the Qur’an and expounded by the Prophet of God, are permanent in nature and Muslims are required to observe them. Although these commandments may not be subjected to any kind of curtailment or amendment, in special cases they can certainly be waived. Indeed, the need to be flexible in the imposition of Islamic “injunctions is in itself an obligation which Islam requires us to recognize.

In propagating the message of Islam, one must never lose sight of this need to avoid rigidity. It has to be accepted that the adoption of Islam by an individual or a nation is a gradual process. When one is engaged in the preaching of Islam one must recognize that gradualness can be a virtue, and should accordingly, draw up a phased programme of action. The Prophet and his companions were keenly aware of the necessity to proceed step by step towards total Islamization. By virtue of this very awareness, they were able to spread the message of Islam from one end of the world to the other. It was at a later stage that Muslims neglected this aspect of their mission, thus hindering the further spread of Islam.