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Clerical errors in the name of God
Published 24 April 2008
A death fatwa issued by an ageing cleric against Saudi intellectuals has caused outrage in the Arab world
News that an ageing cleric has issued a death fatwa against two Saudi intellectuals does not surprise me. The religious hierarchy in Saudi Arabia has no redeeming features. Its hallmarks are fanaticism, misogyny and xenophobia, with a strong accent on conformity and absolutism. Like the Inquisition, it moves rapidly to suppress any signs of dissent or independent thinking.
The cleric is the widely revered Sheikh Abdul-Rahman al-Barrak. He does not represent the religious voice of the government but his aspirations are shared by many religious scholars in the kingdom. The sheikh was incensed by articles in al-Riyadh by Yousef Aba al-Khail and Abdullah bin Bejad al-Otaibi arguing for a more humane and balanced interpretation of the Quran.
Entitled "The other in the Islamic balance" and "The Islam of the sharia and the Islam of struggle", the articles pointed out that the Quran does not denounce non-Muslims as "infidels", but describes Jews and Christians as "people of the Book" and urges Muslims to show respect towards other faiths, their followers and places of worship. Far from hating the "Other", the Quran urges people of all creeds to live in peace.
These are the kinds of simple, sensible things that folk like me have been saying for decades. Indeed, I have been arguing for such a pluralistic interpretation in my Guardian Quran blog, which has been banned in Saudi Arabia.
Sheikh al-Barrak's reaction naturally conforms to Wahhabism, the hardline Saudi version of Islam. "Anyone who claims this," the sheikh thunders, "has rejected Islam and should be tried in order to take it back. If not, he should be killed as an apostate from the religion of Islam." It is, of course, beyond the learned sheikh's comprehension that the Quran contains no notion of apostasy. On the contrary, it declares that "there is no compulsion in religion". People are free to change their faith as many times as they like.
The fatwa has outraged the Arab world. A group of a hundred writers and human rights activists, including the Egyptian philosopher Hassan Hanafi and the Lebanese academic Radwan al-Sayyed, issued a statement describing the fatwa as "intellectual terrorism" and the work of "clerics of darkness". The Saudi clergy see "Islam as their monopoly" and followers of other faiths as people whose blood can be "shed freely", the statement says. It goes further to suggest that clerics are being "fooled through their arrogance and inflated by their status into thinking that they speak in the name of God".
But I fear it is worse than that. The Quran is open to a number of interpretations. If, however, you insist that your interpretation is the only correct one, the Truth, then you do much more than simply speak "in the name of God": you not only know the Truth but are the Truth. You assume the absolute power of God. By branding two Muslims "infidels", the sheikh shows his godlike powers. Indeed, he goes where the Quran insistently refuses to: into the realm of the personal relationship between individual and God. The fatwa suggests that the sheikh has godlike knowledge of this relationship, and by sentencing the two authors to death, it even exceeds the bounds of the Quran. The sheikh does not think he is speaking "in the name of God". He thinks he is God incarnate.
The Saudi clergy operate with godlike powers throughout the kingdom. Nothing moves unless they will it. King Abdullah may wish to engage in dialogue with other religions, but he remains motionless unless the clergy provide the necessary momentum. Only a few weeks ago, the Shura Council, the consultative body dominated by the clergy, rejected a proposal to adopt a law promoting respect for other faiths and religious symbols. Efforts to give human status to women have similarly run into a brick wall.
Saudi Arabia is the guardian of the holy cities Mecca and Medina. It is only natural that God's sacred land should be ruled by people who see themselves as personifications of God!
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