Dear Farzana,

One of the characters of Mushtaq Ahmed Yusufi once admonished another character, for reciting a couplet by Ghalib incorrectly, saying, “Mian, yeh koi quran hadees nahin ke jaisa chaha paRh diya. Yeh Ghalib ka sher hai. Issay sahi paRho”.

My sentiments towards your interpretation of Iqbal’s line are the same. This is not Quran that can be, and has been, interpreted in tens of different ways. It is a line by Iqbal which clearly says that the politics and religion should not be separated.

In one of his Allahbaad lectures, Iqbal says that the issue of separation of Church and State is a non-issue for Islam since in Islam, these are not two different institutions. Although, the state he describes exists only for the purpose of achieving the “spiritual” goals of Islam but a state nevertheless. In the same lecture series, Iqbal recognized that it was the understanding of the prophet that the Muslim rulers of conquered territories would dispense law according to Quran and would trouble their brain-cells only when Quran was not explicit on something (does sound like ‘Islamic state’, doesn’t it). That recognition by Iqbal of prophet’s understanding runs contrary to Mr. Fatah’s assertion that the prophet of Islam never explicitly called for an Islamic state.

And here I must admit that you might find a rebuttal of my point in the same Allahbaad lecture series because in the series, like his thoughts in the rest of his life, Iqbal was all over the place. That is why so many people can claim Iqbal to be in their respective corners. On the train ride from Indian Nationalism to Pan-Islamism, Iqbal got out of the train on every station it stopped and tasted the local delicacies. He enjoyed Tehrik-e-Khilafat’s halwa and later fell in love, head over heels, with new Turkey’s sis kebabs. He also flirted with fascist sauerkrauts, met Mussolini and even tried to rationalize (or maybe apologize) acts of Mussolini in a poem in Zarb-e-Kaleem. (And why not! Benito fitted Iqbal’s description of a Muslim for being Qahari, Ghaffari, Qudoosy and Jabroot). As I said before, Iqbal tried everything. (The only consistent thread in his ideology was anti-Imperialism for which he should be greatly admired). So, when Iqbal reached his ultimate destination, he was bloated and had a terrible nausea. That is why he developed a contempt for everything he had eaten on his way. After that, for the rest of his life, he decided that Maududi's falafel after the popular Jack Deniel's sundowner at Jinnah House was just what the doctor ordered.

So, I would not like to have such a confused personality in my corner who, according to  Mr. Fatah, was against the idea of political Islam and then went ahead and invited Maududi to head the institution in Pathankot. And that was the point I made about Mr. Fatah’s depiction of Iqbal and Maududi being on the opposite ends on such an important issue as Islamic state and yet history telling us that they joined hands in mid-30’s. I can’t make any sense of that.

Enough about the Allama. Your point that the Quranic laws can be looked at as temporal and mutable is not just “another way of looking” as you put it. It is a new, revolutionary, unprecedented and, as far as most of the history of Islamic scholarship goes, an alien idea. That is not a bad thing in itself but the trouble is with the marketability of this notion. Where are the theological grounds? The other side can easily say that a Muslim has to judge by Quran according to 5:44 and Quranic laws are immutable in the light of 6:115. Where in Quran is the support for the contrary? I didn’t find the theological grounds of this groundbreaking idea in Mr. Fatah’s book. All he used were historic conjectures from a history that is highly disputable and disputed. Don’t take me wrong. I like the case Mr. Fatah makes and I want him to win the argument. I am just not sure that it can be done in the manner in which Mr. Fatah frames the argument in the book.

Thanks,

 Rafi Aamer

PS:

Let me qualify the last paragraph with the following.

Quranic laws being mutable is not a new idea. It has been proposed before. But it is a new notion in the context of Mr. Fatah’s fundamental notion that Islam doesn’t want Muslims to constitute an Islamic state. In that context, its very new. Iqbal proposed it in Allahbaad lectures and later GA Parvez elaborated on it but both of them based their arguments on the acts of one Khalifa or another. In that context, it is understandable because a certain prerogative can be given to a state or a head of a state to suspend or amend a Quranic law. But in the absence of such an authority, saying that Quranic laws are temporal and mutable ultimately renders Quran irrelevant. Now, there is an idea!