by Raymond Ibrahim
I was recently involved in an interesting exercise—examining taqiyya about
taqiyya—and believe readers might profit from the same exercise, as it
exposes all the subtle apologetics made in defense of the Islamic
doctrine, which permits Muslims to lie to non-Muslims, or “infidels.”
Context: Khurrum Awan, a lawyer, is suing Ezra Levant, a Canadian
media personality and author, for defamation and $100,000. Back in 2009
and on his own website,
Levant had accused Awan of taqiyya in the context of Awan’s and the
Canadian Islamic Congress’ earlier attempts to sue Mark Steyn.
For more on Levant’s court case, go to www.StandWithEzra.ca.
On behalf of Awan, Mohammad Fadel—professor of Islamic Law at the
University of Toronto’s Faculty of Law—provided an expert report to the
court on the nature of taqiyya, the significance of which he portrayed
as “a staple of right-wing Islamophobia in North America.”
In response, Levant asked me (back in 2013) to write an expert report on taqiyya, including by responding to Fadel’s findings.
I did. And it had the desired effect. As Levant put it in an email to me:
It was an outstanding report, very authoritative and
persuasive. Of course, we don’t know what the plaintiff’s [Awan’s]
private thoughts about it were, but we do know that after receiving the
report, he decided to cancel calling his own expert witness [Dr.
Fadel]—who happens to be a Muslim Brotherhood sympathizer. After reading
your rebuttal, he decided he would rather not engage in that debate.
My expert report follows. In it, I quote relevant portions of Fadel’s expert report (which can be read in its entirety here).
Most intriguing about the professor’s report is that it’s a perfect
example of taqiyya about taqiyya. By presenting partial truths
throughout the report, Fadel appears to have even employed taqiyya’s
more liberal sister, tawriya.
Accordingly, readers
interested in learning more about the role of deception in Islam—and how
to respond to those trying to dismiss it as an “Islamophobic
fantasy”—are encouraged to read on.
Raymond Ibrahim’s Expert Report on Taqiyya
Instructions: I have been asked to assess a report concerning the doctrine of taqiyya
in Islam, written by one Mohammad Fadel; and, if I disagreed with any
parts of it, to explain why—objectively, neutrally, and in a
non-partisan manner. My findings follow.
Introduction
The Islamic doctrine of taqiyya permits Muslims to actively deceive non-Muslims—above and beyond the context of “self-preservation,” as is commonly believed.
One of the few books exclusively devoted to the subject, At-Taqiyya fi’l-Islam (“Taqiyya
in Islam”) make this unequivocally clear. Written (in Arabic) by Dr.
Sami Mukaram, a former Islamic studies professor at the American
University of Beirut and author of some twenty-five books on Islam, the
book demonstrates the ubiquity and broad applicability of taqiyya in its opening pages:
Taqiyya is of fundamental importance in Islam.
Practically every Islamic sect agrees to it and practices it … We can go
so far as to say that the practice of taqiyya is mainstream in Islam, and that those few sects not practicing it diverge from the mainstream … Taqiyya is very prevalent in Islamic politics, especially in the modern era.[1]
The following report is written as a response to Mohammed Fadel’s
report (henceforth referred to as MFR) which deals with the topic of taqiyya
and its place and usage in Islamic jurisprudence. Because MFR is
written in a premises-conclusion format, the following report will
follow MFR’s numbering schemata, pointing out which premises are
agreeable and which are not—offering correctives to these latter
resulting in an antithetical conclusion.
Numbers/Premises of MFR in Order:
1-3: Preliminary statements.
4: Agreed.
5: Agreed, with the following caveat: To many Muslims,
jihad, that is, armed struggle against the non-Muslim, is the informal
sixth pillar. Islam’s prophet Muhammad said that “standing in the
ranks of battle [jihad] is better than standing (in prayer) for sixty
years,”[2]
even though prayer is one of the Five Pillars, and he ranked jihad as
the “second best deed” after belief in Allah as the only god and he
himself, Muhammad, as his prophet, the shehada, or very First Pillar of Islam.[3]
All this indicates jihad’s importance in Islam—and thus importance to this case, since, as shall be seen, taqiyya is especially permissible in the context of jihad or struggle to empower Islam and/or Muslims over non-Muslims.
6: Agreed. Qiyas, or analogical reasoning, the
practice of finding antecedents in the teachings of the two revelatory
sources (Qur’an and Hadith) and rationalizing their applicability to
modern phenomena, also belongs to usul al-fiqh, or Islam’s roots of jurisprudence. It gives more elasticity to Islam’s rules (a major theme throughout this report). Qiyas,
for example, is the way al-Qaeda and other jihadi organizations justify
suicide attacks: although killing oneself is clearly forbidden in
Islam, in the context of jihad—in the context of trying to empower
Islam—suicide attacks are rationalized as legitimate forms of stealth
warfare, since those giving their lives are not doing so out of despair
but rather for Islam (as in Qur’an 9:111).[4]
7-19: Generally agreed (or indifferent to: some information in
these numbers is not necessarily germane to the issue at hand and did
not warrant confirmation).
20: “Normative Islamic doctrine places strong emphasis on the obligation to speak the truth.”
This is the first of many statements/premises that are only partially true.
For starters, Islamic jurisprudence separates humanity into classes.
The rules concerning the relationship between a Muslim and a fellow
Muslim differ from the rules concerning the relationship between a
Muslim and a non-Muslim.
First there is the umma—the “Islamic nation,” that is, all
Muslims of the earth, irrespective of national, racial, or linguistic
barriers. Many of the Qur’an’s and Hadith’s teachings that appear
laudable and fair are in fact teachings that apply only to fellow
Muslims.
For example, although the Qur’an’s calls for Muslims to give charity (zakat)
appear to suggest that Muslims may give charity to all humans—in fact,
normative Islamic teaching is clear that Muslim charity (zakat) can only be given to fellow Muslims, never to non-Muslims.[5]
As for legal relations between Muslims and non-Muslims—or kuffar, the “infidels” (kafir, singular)—within the Islamic world, these fall into two main categories: first, the harbi,
that is, the non-Muslim who does not reside in the Islamic world; if at
any time a Muslim comes across him in the Muslim world, according to
classic Islamic doctrine, he is free to attack, enslave, and/or kill him
(the exception is if he is musta’min—given a formal permit by an
Islamic authority to be on Muslim territory, such as the case of the
many foreigners working in the Arabian Peninsula).[6]
Second is the dhimmi, the non-Muslim who lives under Muslim
domination (for example, all the indigenous Christians, Jews,
Zoroastrians, Berbers, etc. whose lands were conquered by Muslims
beginning in the 7th century). By today’s standards, the rules governing the dhimmi, most of which are based on the so-called “Conditions of Omar”
(sometimes the “Pact of Omar”) are openly discriminatory and include
things such as commanding non-Muslims to give up their seats whenever a
Muslim wants it.[7]
It is, then, in this divisive context that one must approach the
Qur’an, keeping in mind that most of the verses discussing human
relations are discussing intra-relations between Muslims, not Muslims
and non-Muslims. For examples of the latter, see Qur’an 9:5, 9:29,
5:17, and 5:73 for typical verses that discuss relations between Muslims
and non-Muslims, verses which have further abrogated the earlier, more
tolerant ones. [8]
As for the Qur’an verses listed in MFR 20—which are meant to support
the statement that “Normative Islamic doctrine places strong emphasis on
the obligation to speak the truth,” a close reading, supported by
mainstream Islamic exegeses, demonstrates that the true function of
those verses is to portray true believers (Muslims) and Islam’s prophets
as the epitome of honesty and sincerity. Significantly, none of the
verses mentioned in MFR 20 actually exhort Muslims to be honest
and truthful, including to fellow Muslims, in the same vein as, for
example, unequivocal statements such as “Do not lie to one another” (Colossians 3:9) and “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor” (Exodus 20:16).
The fact is, other Islamic teachings and caveats have permitted
Muslims to deceive even fellow Muslims. For example, the doctrine of tawriya allows Muslims to lie in virtually all circumstances provided that the lie is articulated in a way that it is technically true.
The authoritative Hans Wehr Arabic-English Dictionary defines tawriya
as, “hiding, concealment; dissemblance, dissimulation, hypocrisy;
equivocation, ambiguity, double-entendre, allusion.” Conjugates of the
trilateral root of the word, w-r-y, appear in the Quran in the context of hiding or concealing something (e.g., 5:31, 7:26).
As a doctrine, “double-entendre” best describes tawriya’s function. According to past and present Muslim scholars (several documented below), tawriya
is when a speaker/writer asserts something that means one thing to the
listener/reader, though the speaker/writer means something else, and his
words technically support this alternate meaning.
For example, if someone declares “I don’t have a penny in my pocket,”
most listeners will assume the speaker has no money on him—though he
might have dollar bills, just literally no pennies.
This is legitimate according to Islamic law, or shari‘a—the body of legal rulings that defines how a Muslim should behave in all circumstances—and does not constitute “lying.”
In a fatwa, or Islamic decree, popular Sheikh Muhammad Salih al-Munajid asserts that, “Tawriya is permissible if it is necessary or serves a shari‘a interest.” As mentioned, empowering Islam is one of the highest shari‘a interests [9] (hence why jihad, so lauded by Islam’s prophet as aforementioned, is sometimes seen as the “sixth pillar”).
After surveying the consensus of the Islamic community (ijma, a root source of Islamic jurisprudence, as MFR 6 correctly indicates) Sheikh al-Munajid concludes by saying: “Tawriya
is permissible under two conditions: 1) that the words used fit the
hidden meaning; 2) that it does not lead to an injustice” [“injustice”
as defined by shari‘a; empowering Islam through tawriya or empowering a Muslim against an infidel is certainly not an injustice from an Islamic point of view].
Otherwise, it is permissible for a Muslim even to swear when lying through tawriya. Munajid, for example, cites a man who swears to Allah that he can only sleep under a roof (saqf);
when the man is caught sleeping atop a roof, he exonerates himself by
saying “by roof, I meant the open sky.” This is legitimate. “After all,”
Munajid adds, “Qur’an 21:32 refers to the sky as a roof [saqf].”
By way of modern examples, and because some Muslims hold it to be a “great sin”[10]
to acknowledge Christmas (since doing so validates Christianity, a
different message than Islam), one Muslim cleric recently appeared on
video counseling Muslims to tell Christians, “I wish you the best,”
whereby the latter might “understand it to mean you’re wishing them best
in terms of their [Christmas] celebration.” But—here the sheikh giggles
as he explains—“by saying I wish you the best, you mean in your heart I wish you become a Muslim.”[11]
As with most Muslim practices, tawriya is traced to Islam’s prophet Muhammad. After insisting Muslims “need” tawriya because it “saves them from lying,” and thus sinning, in a video, Sheikh Uthman al-Khamis adds that Muhammad often used it.[12]
Indeed, Islam’s prophet is on record saying “Allah has commanded me to
equivocate among the people inasmuch as he has commanded me to establish
[religious] obligations”; and “I have been sent with obfuscation”; and
“whoever lives his life in dissimulation dies a martyr.”[13]
More specifically, in a hadith, Muhammad said: “If any of you ever
pass gas or soil yourselves during prayers [thus breaking ablution
purity, or wudu‘ [14]], hold your nose and leave”[15]:
Holding one’s nose and leaving implies smelling something
offensive—which is true—though it implies someone other than the
offender is responsible.
Following their prophet’s example, many leading Muslim figures have used tawriya,
such as Imam Ahmed bin Hanbal, founder of one of Islam’s four schools
of law, practiced in Saudi Arabia (the teachings of which have spread
far and wide among the world’s Muslims, thanks to Saudi funding). Once
when Hanbal was conducting class, someone came knocking, asking for one
of his students. Hanbal answered, “He’s not here, what would he be doing
here?”[16]—all
the time pointing at his hand, as if to say “he’s not in my hand.” The
caller, who could not see Hanbal’s hands, assumed the student was simply
not there and left.
Sheikh Muhammad Hassan,[17]
another very popular Egyptian cleric (who once said
Islam forbids Muslims from smiling to infidels, except when to Islam’s
advantage [18]) and Dr. Abdullah Shakir,[19] are also on record justifying tawriya.
In recorded videos they both give the example of someone knocking on
your door, you do not wish to see them, so a relative answers the door
saying, “He’s not here,” and by “here” they mean the immediate room,
which is true, since you will be hiding in another room.
On the popular Islam Web,[20]
where Muslims submit questions and Islamic authorities respond with a
fatwa, a girl poses her moral dilemma: her father has explicitly told
her that, whenever the phone rings, she is to answer saying “he’s not
here.” The fatwa solves her problem: she is free to lie, but when she
says “he’s not here,” she must mean in her mind that he is not in the
same room, or not directly in front of her.
Despite their deceptive natures, and in accordance to mainstream Islamic teaching, none of the aforementioned examples of tawriya—beginning with Islam’s prophet and followed by Islam’s doctrinaires, past and present—are considered lies.
This is significant.
Furthermore, that tawriya, which allows Muslims to deceive fellow Muslims, is legitimate according to shari‘a,
should be indicative of how much leeway there is for Muslims when
speaking to non-Muslims—considering that Islam also teaches Muslims to
be loyal to fellow Muslims and to have enmity for non-Muslims, as in the
doctrine of wala’ wa bara’.[21]
21: Again, the statement that “The Prophet Muhammad also emphasized the importance of honesty as a central principle of Islam,” followed by the hadith “Honesty leads to righteousness…” is only valid in the context of Muslim to Muslim relations.
Again, because tawriya is techincally not lying, as Islamic
consensus holds—provided the words fit the meaning used to mislead
others—it is considered permissible, or mubah, though a minority
categorize it as “disliked,” meaning that its performance is not a sin,
though not performing it is rewarded (as MFR 17 correctly indicates).
As for the Islamic prophet himself—whose example is to be upheld as closely as possible by Sunni Muslims (sunna
meaning “example”)—above and beyond the aforementioned, according to a
canonical hadith, it is well known that he permitted lying in three
scenarios: to reconcile quarreling parties, to one’s wife, and in war,
or jihad.[22]
It is the third of these categories, jihad, that is relevant here.
According to one Arabic legal manual devoted to jihad as defined by the four schools of Sunni Islamic law, “The ulema [“scholars”] agree that deception during warfare is legitimate … deception is a form of art in war.”[23] Moreover, according to Dr. Mukaram, the foremost expert on taqiyya, this deception is classified as taqiyya: “Taqiyya in order to dupe the enemy is permissible.”[24]
This Muslim notion that “war is deceit” goes back to the Battle of
the Trench (year 627), which pitted Muhammad and his followers against
several non-Muslim tribes known as Al-Ahzab. One of the members of
Ahzab, Na‘im ibn Mas‘ud, went to the Muslim camp and converted to Islam.
When Muhammad discovered that the Ahzab were unaware of his conversion,
and thus defection, he told Mas‘ud to return and try to get the Ahzab
forces to abandon the siege. It was then that Muhammad memorably
declared, “For war is deceit.” Mas‘ud returned to the Ahzab without
their knowing that he had switched sides and intentionally began to give
his former kin and allies bad advice. He also went to great lengths to
instigate quarrels between the various tribes until, thoroughly
distrusting each other, they disbanded, lifting their siege.[25]
A more compelling expression of the legitimacy of deceiving
non-Muslims is found in the following authentic anecdote from the Muslim
prophet’s life. A poet, Ka‘b ibn Ashraf, offended Muhammad with his
verse, prompting the latter to exclaim, “Who will kill this man who has
hurt Allah and his prophet?” A young Muslim named Muhammad ibn Maslama
volunteered on condition that in order to get close enough to Ka‘b to
assassinate him, he be allowed to lie to the poet.
Muhammad agreed.[26]
Ibn Maslama traveled to Ka‘b and began to denigrate Islam and
Muhammad. He carried on in this way till his disaffection became so
convincing that Ka‘b took him into his confidence. Soon thereafter, Ibn
Maslama appeared with another Muslim and, while Ka‘b’s guard was down,
killed him.[27]
Accordingly, normative Islam teaches that deceit is integral to
jihad: Ibn al-Arabi declares that “in the Hadith [sayings and actions of
Muhammad], practicing deceit in war is well demonstrated. Indeed, its
need is more stressed than the need for courage.” Ibn al-Munir (d. 1333)
writes, “War is deceit, i.e., the most complete and perfect war waged
by a holy warrior [mujahid] is a war of deception, not
confrontation, due to the latter’s inherent danger, and the fact that
one can attain victory through treachery without harm [to oneself].” And
Ibn Hajar (d. 1448) counsels Muslims “to take great caution in war,
while [publicly] lamenting and mourning in order to dupe the infidels.”[28]
In short, the earliest historical records of Islam clearly attest to the prevalence of taqiyya—deception
and betrayal, as in the case of the poet Ka‘b —as a form of Islamic
warfare against the non-Muslim infidel. And this is still a legal
strategy for Muslims vis-Ã -vis non-Muslims—especially if the lying is
rationalized as a form of jihad to empower Islam or Muslims.
Furthermore, early Muslims are often depicted in early Islamic texts
as lying their way out of binds—usually by denying or insulting Islam or
Muhammad—often to the approval of the latter, his only criterion being
that their intentions (niya) be pure.[29] During the centuries-long wars with Christians, whenever and wherever the latter were in authority, the practice of taqiyya became even more integral and widespread.
Professor Mukaram states, “Taqiyya was used as a way to fend
off danger from the Muslims, especially in critical times and when their
borders were exposed to wars with the Byzantines and, afterwards, to
the raids of the Franks and others.”[30] The widespread use of taqiyya
was one of the main reasons that prompted the Spanish Inquisition:
hundreds of thousands of Muslims who had feigned conversion to
Christianity secretly remained Muslim, conspiring with North African
Muslim tribes to reconquer the Iberian Peninsula.[31]
22-23-24: Partially agreed. These three sections deal
primarily with the importance for a Muslim to uphold his covenant (a
presumably immaterial point in the case at hand). Covenants are in fact
to be honored according to mainstream Islamic teaching. Even so,
however, and as with the general ban on lying, caveats abound:
Consider the role of covenants between Muslims and non-Muslims in the
context of the perpetual nature of jihad: based on the 10-year treaty
of Hudaybiya (628), ratified between Muhammad and his Quraish opponents
in Mecca, mainstream Sunni jurists are agreed that ten years is the
maximum amount of time Muslims can be at peace with non-Muslims; once
the treaty has expired, the situation needs to be reappraised.
Based on Muhammad’s example of breaking the treaty after two years
(by claiming a Quraish infraction), the primary function of the truce is
to buy weakened Muslims time to regroup before renewing the offensive. [32] According to shari‘a
law expert Dr. Majid Khadurri, “By their very nature, treaties must be
of temporary duration, for in Muslim legal theory, the normal relations
between Muslim and non-Muslim territories are not peaceful, but
warlike.” [33] Hence “the fuqaha [jurists]
are agreed that open-ended truces are illegitimate if Muslims have the
strength to renew the war against them [non-Muslims].”[34]
Some of Sunni Islam’s four schools of law (or madhahib), such as the Hanafi, assert that Muslim leaders may abrogate treaties merely if it seems advantageous for Islam.[35] This is reminiscent of the following words of Prophet Muhammad as found in a canonical hadith:
“If you ever take an oath to do something and later on you find that
something else is better, then you should expiate your oath and do what
is better.”[36]
Nearly 1400 years after Muhammad abrogated the covenant with the
Quraish, Yasser Arafat, soon after negotiating a peace treaty criticized
as conceding too much to Israel, addressed an assembly of Muslims in a
mosque in Johannesburg justifying his actions by referring to Muhammad’s
example: “I see this agreement as being no more than the agreement
signed between our Prophet Muhammad and the Quraish in Mecca.”[37] In
other words, like Muhammad, Arafat gave his word only to annul it once
“something better” came along—that is, once the opportunity to renew the
offensive to empower Islam came along.
In short, the idea of making covenants with non-Muslims revolves
around Muslim capability. This is made clear in an authoritative Sunni
legal text, Umdat as-Salik, compiled by a 14th century Egyptian scholar, Ahmad Ibn Naqib al-Misri: “There must be some benefit [maslaha]
served in making a truce other than the status quo: ‘So do not be
fainthearted and call for peace when it is you who are uppermost’
[Qur’an 47:35].” [38]
25-26-27: These sections finally deal directly with the topic of taqiyya. Again, because they are built atop some invalid premises, they are only partially correct.
Thus, “A Muslim who is subject to severe religious
persecution—which exposes him to a reasonable fear of death or severe
bodily injury unless he renounce Islam—is permitted, but not required,
to renounce Islam verbally even though he remains inwardly a faithful
Muslim.”
This is true. However, fear of religious persecution is hardly the
only criterion to justify deception in Islam, as demonstrated above.
Accordingly, the assertion from MFR 26 that “Significantly,
however, he [Muslim] is only permitted to lie about his religious belief
if he is subjected to severe persecution, e.g., loss of life or severe
bodily pain” is plainly false.
As mentioned, according to shari‘a law, deception is permissible in several contexts above and beyond the question of self-preservation against persecution.
Furthermore, MFR mentions Qur’an al-Nahl (16:106), which discusses
the permission for Muslims to dissemble their identity if persecuted by
non-Muslims, as the primary verse justifying taqiyya. In fact, Muslim jurists often point to another verse, Qur’an 3:28, which better captures the overall nature of taqiyya
in a more applicable context: “Let believers [Muslims] not take
infidels [non-Muslims] for friends and allies instead of believers.
Whoever does this shall have no relationship left with God—unless you
but guard yourselves against them, taking precautions.”[39]
The exegesis of Qur’an 3:28 of Muhammad ibn Jarir at-Tabari (d. 923),
author of one of the most standard and authoritative Qur’an
commentaries throughout the Islamic world, follows:
If you [Muslims] are under their [non-Muslims’]
authority, fearing for yourselves, behave loyally to them with your
tongue while harboring inner animosity for them … [know that] Allah has
forbidden believers from being friendly or on intimate terms with the
infidels rather than other believers—except when infidels are above them
[in authority]. Should that be the case, let them act friendly towards
them while preserving their religion.[40]
Regarding Qur’an 3:28, Ibn Kathir (d. 1373), another standard
authority on the Qur’an, writes, “Whoever at any time or place fears …
evil [from non-Muslims] may protect himself through outward show.” As
proof of this, he quotes Muhammad’s close companion Abu Darda, who said,
“Let us grin in the face of some people while our hearts curse them.”
Another companion, simply known as Al-Hasan, said, “Doing taqiyya is acceptable till the Day of Judgment [i.e., in perpetuity].”[41]
Other prominent scholars, such as Abu Abdullah al-Qurtubi (1214-73) and Muhyi al-Din ibn al-Arabi (1165-1240), have extended taqiyya to
cover deeds. In other words, Muslims can behave like infidels and
worse—for example, by bowing down and worshiping idols and crosses,
offering false testimony, and even exposing the weaknesses of their
fellow Muslims to the infidel enemy—anything short of actually killing a
Muslim. [42]
[Note: Although MFR 25 correctly asserts that “there are occasions in which it is permitted, or even required, to lie,” nowhere in the report are examples offered of when it is “required” for Muslims to lie.]
28-29: “In no case, as far as I know, have Muslim
theologians taken the position that it is generally permissible, much
less obligatory, for Muslims to lie to non-Muslims, whether in matters
regarding religious belief or secular practices…” And (#29), “…there is no doctrinal basis in authentic Islamic teachings to support the claim, made by Ezra Levant and others … that taqiyya
is anything other than an exceptional doctrine justified under
circumstances of extreme duress that are simply inapplicable to Muslims
living in Canada and the United States.”
The many references above (with endnotes below) from the Qur’an, from
the sayings and deeds of Islam’s prophet Muhammad, and from the decrees
and consensus of past and present Islamic authorities, demonstrate
otherwise.
As for the idea that taqiyya is “an exceptional doctrine
justified under circumstances of extreme duress,” it is well to remember
that the premiere authority on taqiyya, Dr. Mukaram, asserts that:
Taqiyya is of fundamental importance in Islam.
Practically every Islamic sect agrees to it and practices it … We can go
so far as to say that the practice of taqiyya is mainstream in Islam, and that those few sects not practicing it diverge from the mainstream … Taqiyya is very prevalent in Islamic politics, especially in the modern era.[43]
Conclusion
Deception—known under the broad term taqiyya—is permissible in
Islam, above and beyond the limited issue of self-preservation. This
assertion is not “Islamophobic”; it is true. From a legalistic point of
view, and as seen especially via the concept of tawriya, as long
as deceptions are technically true (“I don’t have a penny in my
pocket,” only dollars), they are not even considered lies. The prophet
of Islam, Muhammad—the example that Sunni Muslims especially pattern
their lives after—regularly made use of deceit. In order to assassinate a
poet (Ka‘b ibn Ashraf) who offended him, Muhammad permitted a Muslim to
lie to the poet. Muhammad is further on record giving license to
breaking oaths (“if something better” comes along) and openly lying
(without even employing tawriya) to one’s wife and in war. As
for the latter, which assumes a perpetual nature in the guise of the
jihad against the non-Muslim in order to make Islam (and Muslims)
supreme (e.g., Qur’an 8:39), deception and lies are certainly
permissible.
Notes:
[1] Sami Mukaram, At-Taqiyya fi ’l-Islam (London: Mu’assisat at-Turath ad-Druzi, 2004), p. 7, author’s translation.
[2] John Calvert, Islamism: A Documentary and Reference Guide (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2008), p. 197.
[4] See Raymond Ibrahim, The Al Qaeda Reader (New York: Doubleday, 2007), pgs. 141-144 where al-Qaeda leader Ayman Zawahiri tries to rationalize suicide attacks through qiyas and in the context of deceit.
[6] Majid Khadduri, War and Peace in the Law of Islam (London: Oxford University Press, 1955), p. 162-163.
[7] Mark Durie, The Third Choice: Islam, Dhimmitude, and Freedom (Australia: Deror Books, 2010), pgs. 40, 141-146.
[13] Sami Mukaram, Al Taqiyya Fi Al Islam (London: Mu’assisat al-Turath al-Druzi, 2004), p. 30.
[21] See “Loyalty and Enmity” in Raymond Ibrahim, The Al Qaeda Reader (New York: Doubleday, 2007), pgs 63-115.
[22] Imam Muslim, “Kitab al-Birr wa’s-Salat, Bab Tahrim al-Kidhb wa Bayan al-Mubih Minhu,” Sahih Muslim, rev. ed., Abdul Hamid Siddiqi, trans. (New Delhi: Kitab Bhavan, 2000).
[23] Ahmad Mahmud Karima, Al-Jihad fi’l Islam: Dirasa Fiqhiya Muqarina (Cairo: Al-Azhar, 2003), p. 304, author’s translation.
[24] Mukaram, At-Taqiyya fi ’l-Islam, p. 32.
[25] Mukaram, At-Taqiyya fi ’l-Islam, pp. 32-3.
[27] Ibn Ishaq, The Life of Muhammad (Karachi: Oxford University Press, 1997), pp. 367-8.
[28] Raymond Ibrahim, The Al Qaeda Reader (New York: Doubleday, 2007), pp. 142-3.
[29] Mukaram, At-Taqiyya fi ’l-Islam, pp. 11-2.
[33] Majid Khadduri, War and Peace in the Law of Islam (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press, 1955), p. 220.
[34] Ahmad Mahmud Karima, Al-Jihad fi’l Islam: Dirasa Fiqhiya Muqarina, p. 461, author’s translation.
[38] Ahmad Ibn Naqib al-Misri, Reliance of the Traveller: A Classic Manual of Islamic Sacred Law (Beltsville: Amana Publications, 1994), p. 605.
[39] See also Quran 2:173, 2:185, 4:29, 16:106, 22:78, 40:28, verses cited by Muslim jurisprudents as legitimating taqiyya.
[40] Abu Ja’far Muhammad at-Tabari, Jami’ al-Bayan ‘an ta’wil ayi’l-Qur’an al-Ma’ruf: Tafsir at-Tabari(Beirut: Dar Ihya’ at-Turath al-‘Arabi, 2001), vol. 3, p. 267, author’s translation.
[41] ‘Imad ad-Din Isma’il Ibn Kathir, Tafsir al-Qur’an al-Karim (Beirut: Dar al-Kutub al-‘Ilmiya, 2001), vol. 1, p. 350, author’s translation.
[42] Mukaram, At-Taqiyya fi ’l-Islam, pp. 30-7.
[43] Sami Mukaram, Al Taqiyya Fi Al Islam (London: Mu’assisat al-Turath al-Druzi, 2004), p. 7.
Raymond Ibrahim
Source: http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/raymond-ibrahim/taqiyya-about-taqiyya/
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