"Islamic Sex Laws Are Easy to Break, Impossible to Enforce"
Los Angeles Daily Journal

August 5, 1999

By Khaled Abou El Fadl

Laws endeavor to resolve conflicts and regulate human behavior. However, often the real force of law is in making moral points, educating and indoctrinating. Some legal systems moralize explicitly, while other legal systems indulge in the fiction of moral neutrality. But all legal systems say something about the morality of right and wrong.

For example, in Islamic law, one of the world's oldest and perhaps most significant legal systems, sometimes morality is the only point - which is hardly surprising considering that Islamic law is also a religious system. But what is fascinating about Islamic law is the way it balances competing moralities at the expense of the possibility of enforcement.

For instance, Islamic law is reputed to be a rather strict, puritan legal system. This is both true and false. Consider the way Islamic law punishes illicit sexual relations. The punishment for fornication or adultery in Islam is rather harsh. A fornicator is flogged 100 lashes, and an adulterer is stoned to death. However, adultery or fornication can only be proven in two ways.

First, it can be proven by a free, uncoerced confession that is repeated three times on three separate occasions. If the alleged perpetrator confesses twice but recants on the third time, he or she cannot be punished.

The second way fornication or adultery can be proven is by the testimony of four adult males who witness the actual act of penetration. It is not sufficient for the witnesses to catch the couple naked in bed. Likewise, if the witnesses see an act of oral copulation, that is not sufficient. A videotape or pregnancy is also inadequate to prove fornication or adultery. Furthermore, the evidence is excluded if the witnesses violate the defendant's privacy. In other words, spying will not do.

A false accusation of adultery or fornication will result in punishment for sexual slander, which is 60 hard lashes. For example, if three witnesses say they saw the act of penetration while the fourth witness changes his mind at the last minute saying, "I am not sure I saw the penetration," then the first three witnesses are punished for slander.

Obviously, in Islamic law the crime of fornication or adultery is hard, if not impossible, to prove. So why have the punishment at all? There are two competing values here.

Illicit sexual relations must be condemned. At the same time, people should mind their own business, and spying or slandering cannot be tolerated. The solution was to make the moral point that fornication and adultery are terrible crimes, and only if they could be proven would they be punished severely. Nevertheless, the issue is generally between a person and God. Societal interests are implicated when these crimes are committed openly and publicly.

At the same time, an accusatory culture in which people spy and slander is reprehensible, and that will be punished as well. Unlike our legal system, making the moral point is a sufficient justification for the law, even with practically no chance of enforcement.

Read the Koran. It is a short book. There is no need to rely on Karen Armstrong to tell you what it says. Her omission of the parts of the Koran which call for violence and intolerance makes her book a truly one-sided affair. To her credit, she warns you of her agenda right up front. She wants to convince you that a particular point of view is correct. What she does not say is that she omits passages from the Koran, Muhammad's utterances, and other facts inconsistent with that point of view.

She says nothing of the passages in the Koran which tell Muslims not to help unbelievers and not to be their friends. She ignores the parts of the Koran which mandate violence against unbelievers (Suras 8 and 9, for example). She does not mention the Hadith relating Muhammad's statement that, before the Final Day, the Muslims will kill the Jews (If you think such things have no relevance to Muslim's today, you will find reference to this Hadith in Article 7 of the Charter of Hamas, the present ruling party in Palestine). To read Armstrong's book, you would not guess that most Muslim scholars teach - based on Muhammad's statements - that unbelievers should not be allowed to set foot on the Arabian peninsula.

Armstrong also fails to take into account the principle of Koranic interpretation which requires that later suras be given more weight than earlier ones. Muhammad's earlier suras tend to sound more tolerant and peaceful - he was part of a small minority in Mecca when he uttered them. The later suras are more intolerant and violent because they are from the time when Muhammad was in power in Medina, raiding Meccan caravans for a living. "Raiding" means killing people (Armstrong says killing people was not really the point), taking their property, and enslaving survivors. Armstrong says Muhammad did these things to get the Meccans' "attention." No doubt. These later suras are given more weight by Muslim scholars.

Armstrong does relate some facts which reflect badly on Muhammad. That is unavoidable in even the most pro-Muhammad account. When she does so, however, she consistently makes excuses or tries to explain them away. She does a truly remarkable job of telling the story of the Muslims' execution (by beheading) of 700 male captives in one day, the selling into slavery of their families, and Muhammad's approval in advance of these actions. It is clear these executions could not have happened if he had opposed them. Muhammad is a "prophet for our time" anyway.

Armstrong also blurs the distinctions between Islam and other religions. For example, she says that Muslims believe in Jesus, but does not point out that the Koran clearly denies the Christian belief that Jesus was the son of God and also denies he was crucified. While it may be fair to point out that Muhammad believed in Jesus, it seems misleading not to add this information.

Because you must read several other books - including at least the Koran - to disabuse yourself of the silly notions Armstrong states as fact, her book seems a waste of time.

This is an outstanding biography of the last Prophet. I know this is coming from a follower but brief is a strange human phenomenon and who ever believes, he or she knows from the heart that it to be true and whosoever does not -well- they should be curious enought to try to know. I highly recommend a complementary biography of Muhammad by Martin Lings. I would ask people that if you are not a believer even then try to learn the life of a man who has the most influence on human civilization-ever. More than Eienstein, Newton, Jesus and Moses. He was the lawgiver (like Moses), currently has over one billion followers and preached warship on One God (like Moses and Abrahim). Over three billion people have taken his name as theirs during the last 14,000 years. Read about him and decide for yourself. The both biographies I recommended are written by Westerners!

Karen Armstrong is a first rate historian and does some rare justice to the Prophet Muhammad in this piece. Her 'History of God' was also a well written and nicely weaved account of the Abrahamic religions. In the sea of political and evangelical attacks on Islam and its Prophet, this is a welcome, historically based account that any reader would benefit from. (Can we really keep ignoring a Prophet and Religion that created such a world revolution and continues to do so today? - see www.alislam.org).

A note on the Edward Trimnell review: Trimnell, like other agendists (political and evangelical), argues the Pre and Post Meccan verses nonsense. There is no such concept in the understanding and practice of the Prophet Muhammad - the Quran was taken in its entirety and was put into practice in context of each situation. There is no historical basis that Muhammad became more violent or followed different rules when in power. This was a later innovation by corrupt ulema (scholars) and secular leaders in the Muslim world. Sadly, many Muslims believe this concept of 'abrogated' verses, though the concept is totally rejected by the Quran itself. As a matter of fact, the Prophet Muhammad forgave all of Mecca after having to flee for his life and returning victorious - and this after horrible crimes were done by them to his family and followers. Trimnell is of the "Clash of Civilization" Cult and tries to denigrate Islam with anti-historical and biased, opinionated drivel: "why is there so much violence against women and non-believers in the Muslim world if Islam and its prophet are so peaceful?" (I suppose there is no violence against women and by Christian groups around the world? (KKK, IRA, Serbian atrocities, the Mafia, Christian bombers...) Should we attribute modern Christian behaviour to Jesus as well? What a ridiculous argument.)

Karen Armstrong's book provides maps, a useful glossary, ample references and, of course her usual clear, crisp prose in very readable form. She shows how Muhammed devoted his adult life to bringing together very divergent tribal societies into a somewhat cohesive group willing to use Islam to work together for the common good. She makes it clear that Muhammed - although chosen to be a prophet - was always considered a man, not a god. Her chapter on Jihad is especially good, as it explains the true meaning of Jihad in Islam: not a battle cry, but a constant struggle to improve on oneself according to the requirements of Islam. The term Jihad has been twisted all too often into a derogatory word among those who do not understand Islam. This is an excellent book for learning about the origins of Islam.

This is a second biography of Prophet Muhammed by Karen Armstrong. It is brief and to the point. It is a good attempt to make readers understand a man, who changed the world and is respected and adored by millions of our fellow human beings. Though I still like her first attempt.

Other books to consider for biography of Prophet Muhammed would be In the Footsteps of the Prophet: Lessons from the Life of Muhammad and Muhammad: His Life Based on the Earliest Sources

In the introductory section of the book, the author expresses her alarm at anti-Islamic sentiments in the West in the wake of recent Islamist terrorist attacks. Armstrong's stated purpose is to depict the "peaceful" side of Islam and Mohammed. This book is an historical narrative, but it is also a sales pitch of sorts. She openly scolds her fellow Westerners for jumping to conclusions about Islam. This book is apparently intended to set us straight.

First, the positive points: This book presents a clear chronology of Mohammed's life and the early days of Islam. Many of these events (like the Battle of Badr) are quite apolitical and difficult for Westerners to glean from original sources. Karen Armstrong is a detailed historian, and her biography of Mohammed packs a lot of information into a short volume.

Now, the negative: Armstrong is so eager to sell the notion of Islam as a peaceful religion that she completely whitewashes major aspects of its history. Like many apologists for Islamist violence, Armstrong relies on the so-called Meccan verses of the Koran, which were written while Mohammed was still in Mecca, before the Muslims became a military force. These suras do indeed contain statements like "there is no compulsion in matters of religion." And these are the only portions of the Koran that Armstrong wants the reader to know about.

But there is another Koran: the Koran of Medina. The Medina verses were written after the Hejira, when the Muslims were a rising military power in Arabia. The Medina suras contain many violent references to jihad, and forbid Muslims to have contact with Jews and Christians. These suras comprise about half of the Koran, so it was irresponsible for Armstrong to completely omit these references from her biography.

Moreover, Armstrong's position that Mohammed was a prophet of peace makes her unable to connect her historical narrative to contemporary events. It would be reasonable to ask why there is so much violence against women and non-believers in the Muslim world if Islam and its prophet are so peaceful. These questions are quite relevant in light of recent headlines---and they are questions that Armstrong, in her efforts to present the politically correct version of Islam, completely evades.

E. Trimnell, author of "Understanding the Middle East: History, Religion, and the Clash of Cultures" (ISBN: 0974833061)