Positive Liberty

I am not a Muslim, so I beg Muslims’ forgiveness if this seems naive or ill-informed.

I’m puzzled about takfir:

[Takfir] is the practice of declaring that an individual or a group previously considered Muslims are in fact kafir(s) (non-believers in God). The act which precipitates takfir is termed the mukaffir.

This declaration may be made if the alleged Muslim in question declares himself a kafir. However, more usually it applies to the judgment that an action has been taken that clearly indicates knowing abandonment of Islam. Which actions constitute sufficient justification for takfir is disputed between different schools of religious thought…

The sentence for apostasy (irtidad), under Sharia law as traditionally interpreted, is execution. For this reason, orthodox Islamic law normally requires extremely stringent evidence for such accusations… however, certain extremist movements have been much readier to practice takfir, for which they have been condemned by more mainstream Muslims.

I know that definitions tell only part of a story, so you may consider this post a plea for more information. See, often I find the following advanced as a liberal reform much needed in the Muslim world:

No individual should use, spread or tolerate the rhetoric of takfir.

Takfir and calling others wrong-doers is not merely the violation of the rights of an individual, rather it is also a crime against society. It is an act of injustice against the entire Islamic society, and it does immense harm to the Muslims as a community.

No entity or program, under any name, may adopt racism, terrorism, the calling of others infidels.

I have to say I just don’t get it.

It seems to me that it isn’t a real crime to call someone else an infidel. Of course it is wrong to beat him up, take his belongings, throw him in jail, kill him, or do him some other genuine harm. There is no good or self-respecting God who could possibly need this kind of assistance. No good or self-respecting person would offer it.

But to call someone unpleasant name — or even a downright horrible one — should not be a crime. Forbidding takfir, rather than actual violence, seems resoundingly illiberal to me.

The consequences, too, are dire. Prohibit takfir, and a few people will do it anyway. These will be the very worst sort of people, and they will become tyrants over the rest. Meanwhile, the decent majority will feel less obliged, and less able, to condemn them. After all, they cannot say that these people are not Muslims, for takfir has been prohibited.

I can’t see how this is a good outcome when it works so clearly to the advantage of our common enemies. Hiding behind a facade of worldwide unity seems not to help religion, but to hurt it: Let only one man determine who are the people of faith, and he will become a tyrant. Let everyone call everyone else an apostate, and the charge will lose its sting. When all are kaffir to someone else, none are kaffir to anyone.

Why, anyway, should there be such intense concern with what your neighbors think? Isn’t God the only one who matters? Not being a religious person myself, I find it surpassingly odd that those who claim to care for God alone are so passionately interested in what their neighbors think of their religion. If God doesn’t care, why do you?

In the United States, Methodists are apostates to Baptists; Baptists are apostates to Lutherans; Lutherans are apostates to Catholics. Mormons are apostates to everyone else. Jews meanwhile think that all of the others are apostates, and I’m sure they’re pretty amazed sometimes at the wondrous mess the Christians have made of their religion. No one, however, would even think of killing someone else for the sake of their beliefs.

To us, the real kaffir – the real apostates — are those who would use religious differences as an excuse for killing. People like that, we have no problem hating them. That’s where we draw the line. That’s where we will never go, no matter what we believe.

Why then is takfir such an important subject in Islam? This may be part of the answer:

The fundamental difference between the Islamic society and non-Islamic societies is that the latter are based on the ties of colour, race, language and country, and in contrast to these the Islamic society is based only on the bond of religion. In non-Islamic societies, differences of belief and thought do not introduce any obstacle because such differences do not remove people from the bonds which are based on uniformity of race or country or language or colour. Views may be as far apart as heaven and earth, but neither the relationship of blood, nor the ties of country, nor the link of language, nor the unity of colour, are cut off. Therefore, differences of belief pose no danger to non-Islamic societies. However, in Islam the factor which unites persons of different races, colours, languages and countries into one nation is nothing else but unity of belief. Here belief is all in all; race, colour, language and country do not matter. Therefore, the man who cuts the bond of faith really cuts that rope of God which binds together all those who worship one God, who accept one Messenger and who believe in one Book. In Islam, to call a person or a group as kafir does not only mean that his faith and integrity are attacked, but it also means that all the ties of brotherhood, love, association, dealings and mutual co-operation between the Islamic society and one or more of its members are cut off; and one or more limbs of the body of the Muslim community are severed and discarded.

But are non-Islamic societies based only on the ties of color, race, language, and country? (Are they not sometimes on religion?) And must a society only be based on whether you are part of “my” group? Are all others cast forever into the outer darkness?

And is this the best social thought that Islam has to offer? Really? It saddens me to think that the only antidote to tribalism might actually be more tribalism, plus “because God said so” tacked on at the end. It is this view of the world — not Islam, but this particular view — that troubles me as an outsider. As Rowe pointed out in his truly excellent recent essay,

…the rights of conscience are so profound government has no business saying what is true or false religion. Yet, government indeed does have an interest in promoting the “right” kind of religion, that is religion compatible with liberal democratic, secular, pluralistic norms.

I would add: Not just the government. We all have the same interest here. This is why we must constantly point out that there are alternatives to the rigid world of us and them. We aren’t simply agglomerates of color, race, language, country, or religion. We never really have been. The ability to form meaningful associations, to bond across these divides, resides in everyone — believer, infidel, apostate. We can work together in businesses, in charities, in social and artistic endeavors, in science.

These are ends worth pursuing, and no good God could possibly want us to give them up. Those who deny it, well — I declare them kaffir, and I shun them from my community.  This, at any rate, is what I cannot help but believe.  What have I missed about takfir?

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