I was driving home from a thoroughly enjoyable social occasion (a baby shower for two couples) and the batteries had given out on the iPod radio thingemejig so I had Light FM on the radio as is my wont. I chanced upon a discussion of a book called Not Under Bondage: Biblical Divorce for Abuse, Adultery and Desertion. Not having been raised a Christian, my limited knowledge about divorce in the Christian church is as follows: Catholics aren’t allowed to get divorced, the rest can. Apparently, however, there is still some discussion in Christian churches about the status of divorcees, particularly those who are ministers, preachers etc.

Now, of course Jesus, peace be upon him, grew up in the context of Jewish religious law and so his statements about divorce would naturally have to be understood in the context of a discussion with Jewish scholars of religious law. But because Paul made some statements about how it was all legalistic and Christians don’t have to worry about any of that stuff, religious law has tended to have a pretty low status in Christian thinking. It’s one of the common criticisms you hear some evangelical Christians make about Jews and Muslims.

Yet Jesus, peace be upon him, taught his followers to respect and follow religious law and in particular the legislation he brought:

Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. Anyone who breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven. (Bible, Matthew 5:17-20)

Because later Christians rejected religious law (but became known for their commitment to ethics and morality) there are a few issues the church does stumble over. Divorce is one of them. Consequently, listening to Christians discussing their fiqh of divorce, I realised how immature (by comparison with Jews and Muslims) their fiqh is. It is a little bit like a muscle that hasn’t been exercised for a long time, in comparison to those of athletes who are constantly training.

I haven’t read the above mentioned book, but from the radio discussion I gathered her interpretation of the fiqh of Christian divorce is that Christians married to non-Christians can be divorced if the non-Christian is antagonistic to the Christian faith however Christians married to other Christians who are abusive, may divorce but may not remarry. The law that stuck out at me though, was a reference to how Christian leaders may only be the “husband of one wife”. When I heard that, my first thought was ‘oh, that’s a limitation on polygyny’, however the author made no reference to that possibility, but rather that it was symbolic of a Christian leader keeping fidelity to his wife and keeping a high morality.

At anyrate, I just found it really interesting to listen to a fiqh discussion on Christian radio, but I don’t envy them their difficulty in trying to interpret Christian shari`a without the tools that Jewish and Muslim scholars have long developed in approaching understanding sacred law.

My scribe-fire plugin is eating my entries. I had a post, but it ate it and I can’t be bothered retyping it, so here is the link.

If the state is going to enforce any principle from Islamic sources,
according to Abdullahi An-Na‘im, then it should implement the principle
that the state should not enforce Islamic principles. This is the crux
of An-Na‘im’s new book, Islam and the Secular State: Negotiating the Future of Shari‘a.

Read the rest of the book review by Charles Kurzman, of this promisingly exciting new book by Abdullahi An-Na’im.

I’m watching Who Do You Think You Are with Alistair McGowan. From the BBC site:

With the assistance of a local historian, Alistair finds a reference to Suetonius McGowan in a religious pamphlet. He learns that Suetonius [of Irish descent] married a noble Muslim lady, whose name was omitted from the baptism record because she refused to convert to Christianity. And thus the mystery is solved: here is the Indian link that Alistair had felt sure he would find. He does have Indian blood after all.

Here are the interesting factoids from the show. When the British colonised India in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the men were encouraged to take Indian wives to cement the British hold on the area. The Anglo-Indians (people of mixed race, North-West European with at least one Indian female ancestor) tended to marry among themselves, and they took British culture, names, dress, and were Christians.

Nevertheless, there were at least some Muslims who agreed to marry their daughters to British–and Christian–men. The reason, is because Alistair’s female Indian ancestor was a noblewoman (the Muslims in that area were landowners in that time). She would have required her father’s consent for marriage. So interracial and more importantly inter-religious marriages between Muslim women and Christian men seem to have been considered possible.

This is contrary to the present widespread view that marriage between a Muslim woman and any type of non-Muslim man is (and always has) been completely prohibited. What were the religious scholars of that time and place saying about such interreligious marriages? I would be fascinated to know.

I have long suspected the scholarly censure of interreligious marriage, came out of the notion that to marry your daughter to a non-Muslim would be to set up an unequal relationship implying the woman in a higher position than her husband (i.e. non-Muslims not carrying the same status as Muslims), but I imagine in colonized India, where non-Muslims were in a higher position of status this may not have been a problem, hence a Muslim nobleman and land-owner giving permission for his daughter to marry a British Christian. Fascinating!!

[Update: it turns out Suetonious was a non-trinitarian Christian–a follower of Swedenborg–who respected the Muslims rather than being a missionary trying to convert them. Gosh sometimes I wish I was a historian, this is fascinating stuff.]

I’ve sometimes wondered why the word wudu’ is not translated as baptism in English. One of the meanings of baptism is to perform ablutions, which is what wudu’ is, but not only is wudu’ a condition for valid salat, but it is actually a means of forgiveness.

The Wikipedia article on baptism from a Christian context notes:

Scholars of various denominations point to two passages in the New Testament as indicating that the word was used also for something much less than the total immersion of the person. Luke 11:38 recounts that, when Jesus ate at a Pharisee’s house, “the Pharisee was astonished to see that he did not first wash (literally, “be baptized” or “baptize himself”) before dinner.” Those who point to this passage say that the Pharisee will not have expected Jesus to immerse himself fully before having a meal and that his surprise will have been at Jesus’ omission of the customary ritual washing of the hands. By Jewish tradition this washing of the hands before a meal is performed by pouring water over them, not by dipping the hands in water. The other New Testament passage pointed to is Mark 7:3–4a: “The Pharisees … do not eat unless they wash (the ordinary word for washing) their hands thoroughly, observing the tradition of the elders; and when they come from the market place, they do not eat unless they wash themselves (literally, “baptize themselves”)”.

Jewish law has a ritual immersion called a mikvah, similar to a ghusl, which grants ritual purity, for example after menstruation.

In Judaism, Christianity and Islam the practice of immersion in water upon conversion is practiced. Although only Christianity limits baptism to the conversion process, where is symbolises cleansing and purity from sins. Different Christian denominations practice different baptismal rituals and give different meanings to the practice.

For Muslims, wudu’ (and ghusl) when properly performed with a pure intention, not only prepares a person for acts of worship such as prayer, but in itself is a means of forgiveness that God grants to us. The blessed Prophet, may the peace and blessings of Allah be upon him said:

Anyone who does wudu’, and does it well, and then does the prayer, will be forgiven everything that he does between then and the time when he prays the next prayer.

and

The Muslim (or the believer) does wudu’ and as he washes his face every wrong action he has seen with his eyes leaves with the water (or the last drop of water). As he washes his hands every wrong action he has done with his hands leaves with the water (or the last drop of water). And as he washes his feet every wrong action his feet have walked to leaves with the water (or the last drop of water) so that he comes away purified of wrong actions.

My teacher of sacred law reminded us that we should examine ourselves, if we are feeling lazy or sad or some such state, then we should get up and perform wudu’ and our lives will be transformed by this simple act!

Subhanallah, we have the opportunity and blessing to undergo this baptism each and every day.