GLOSSED IN TRANSLATION

Mike Potemra brings to our attention a new Penguin translation of the Koran by Tarif Khalidi and cites verses 2:177/178 as examples of both “very clear contemporary English,” relative to the earlier Yusuf Ali translation (2:177, 2:178), and, more important, “a pretty good summary of mainstream monotheistic thought and theistic ethics.”¹

But Potemra's gloss on 2:177/178 amounts to nothing more than wishful thinking that ignores a millennium of authoritative Koranic commentaries (tafsir) that elucidate the meaning of these verses.

Koranic verses 2:177/178 initiate a larger series of injunctions (through verse 2:203) that legislate on sundry matters: zakat (almsgiving), the Ramadan fast, the hajj, and jihad. Koran 2:178, for example, establishes the law of retaliation (qisas) for murder: Equal recompense must be given for the life of the victim. This can take the form of blood money (diyahj. a payment to compensate for the loss suffered.

Let's take a look at the opening statement of verse 2:177: “It is not righteousness That ye turn your faces Towards East or West; But it is righteousness—To believe in Allah.” Great classical commentators of the Koran—including Qurtubi (d. 1273), Ibn Kathir (d. 1373), and Suyuti (d. 1505)—concur that this passage addresses, and refutes, the Jews and Christians, while affirming the exclusive “righteousness” and supremacy of Islam. Qurtubi notes, “The Jews faced west towards Jerusalem and the Christians east toward where the sun rose.. They were told that was not where true goodness lay.”² Ibn Kathir repeats this observation, adding, “[T]hose who acquire the qualities mentioned in the Ayah [verse] will indeed have embraced all aspects of Islam, and implemented all types of righteousness—believing in Allah, that He is the only God worthy of worship, and believing in the angels, the emissaries between Allah and His Messengers.”³ Suyuti confirms these exegeses, stating plainly, “Goodness does not lie in turning your faces in [the] prayer to the East or to the West.

Contemporary exegeses reiterate these interpretations of Koran 2:177. For example, the best-known Koranic commentary in Urdu is Ma’ariful Qur 'an,⁶ written by Maulana Mufti Muhammad Shafi (1898-1976).⁷ Even in death, Mufti Shafi's influence remains vast. He was the grand mufti of (pre-Partition) India, was a graduate of the Darul Ulum Deoband, and later founded the Darul Ulum Karachi. Through his twenty-seven years of teaching (until 1943), approximately thirty thousand students from all over the world experienced his discourses. He wrote more than three hundred books, broadcasted Koranic commentary on Radio Pakistan for years, and managed the influential Darul Ifta department of Darul Ulum Deoband, where juristic questions from across the world were discussed.⁸

Mufti Shafi's gloss on 2:177 from Ma'ariful Qur'an notes that when “the House of Allah at Makkah [Mecca] was made the Qiblah [object/direction of worship] of the Muslims...the Jews and Christians, who were much too eager to find fault with Islam and Muslims, were stirred and they started coming up with all sorts of objections against Islam and the Holy Prophet [Muhammad].”⁹ He concludes that 2:177 addresses “Jews, Christians, and Muslims at the same time, the sense being that real righteousness and merit lies in obedience to Allah Almighty”—a modern affirmation of Islamic supremacism consistent with the classical exegesis on this verse.¹⁰

More ominous are the classical exegeses on Koran 2:178, which meld the Islamic supremacist conception of 2:177 to the discriminatory punishment of non­Muslims (relative to Muslims) for the crime of murder. Qurtubi's gloss maintains that “a Muslim is not killed in retaliation for an unbeliever since the Prophet said, ‘A Muslim is not killed in retaliation for an unbeliever.'”¹¹ (This hadith, or saying of the prophet, is found in the al-Bukhari collection which is one of the two most important canonical hadith collections.¹²) Ibn Kathir reiterates this notion in his commentary, citing the same hadith and adding, “No opinion that opposes this ruling could stand correct, nor is there an authentic Hadith to contradict it.”¹³

These consensus principles, as elucidated by renowned mainstream Koranic exegetes, have also been codified into the sharia. They thus resonate, alarmingly, in our era.

The modern Shi'ite perspective is concordant. Sultanhussein Tabandeh, the Iranian Shi'ite leader of a prominent Sufi Order, wrote an “Islamic perspective” on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.¹⁶ In essence, he simply reaffirms the sacralized inequality of non-Muslims relative to Muslims under the sharia, stating (for example),

Since Islam regards non-Muslims as on a lower level of belief and conviction, if a Muslim kills a non-Muslim. then his punishment must not be the retaliatory death, since the faith and conviction he possesses is loftier than that of the man slain.. Again, the penalties of a non­Muslim guilty of fornication with a Muslim woman are augmented because, in addition to the crime against morality, social duty and religion, he has committed sacrilege, in that he has disgraced a Muslim and thereby cast scorn upon the Muslims in general, and so must be executed. Islam and its peoples must be above the infidels, and never permit non-Muslims to acquire lordship over them. Since the marriage of a Muslim woman to an infidel husband (in accordance with the verse quoted: “Men are guardians for women”) means her subordination to an infidel, that fact makes the marriage void.¹⁷

It is critical to understand that Tabandeh's key views on non-Muslims were implemented “almost verbatim in the Islamic Republic of Iran,” according to Professor Eliz Sanasarian's important study of religious minorities in the Islamic Republic.

Also noteworthy is the 1990 Cairo Declaration, known as the “Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Islam.”¹⁹ It was drafted and ratified by all the Muslim member nations of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC). The OIC, a fifty-seven-state collective including every Islamic nation, is currently headed by Turkey's Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu. It represents the entire Muslim ummah(global community) and is the largest single voting bloc in the United Nations.²⁰

The Cairo Declaration's preamble and concluding articles (24 and 25)²¹ make plain that it is designed to supersede Western conceptions of human rights as enunciated, for example, in the American Constitution's Bill of Rights.²² The preamble repeats another Koranic injunction (3:110)23 asserting Islamic supremacism: “Reaffirming the civilizing and historical role of the Islamic Ummah which Allah made the best nation." (emphasis added).²⁴ The gravely negative implications of this sharia-based document (e.g., “There shall be no crime or punishment except as provided for in the Sharia”) are most apparent in its transparent rejection of freedom of conscience in Article 10.—Articles 19 and 22, moreover, reiterate Sharia principles stated throughout the document, clearly promulgating the

“punishment”—death—for so-called “apostates” from Islam.²⁶

Thus, the Cairo Declaration, entirely consistent with Islamic law, also introduces unacceptable discrimination against non-Muslims and women, while sanctioning the legitimacy of such sharia-compliant punishments as flogging, mutilation, and stoning.²⁷

Contra Mike Potemra, “[T]he ideals of 2:177” are epitomized by the sacralized inequality that the sharia prescribes for non-Muslims according to the “law” of retaliation, highlighted in verse 2:178.28 Potemra's decontextualized “Koranic exegesis”²⁹ is punctuated by groundless ideological claims that express his own good intentions. This stubbornly confused approach ignores the major living doctrinal issues, rooted in the Koran, which will require wrenching reforms to be initiated by unapologetic Muslims. Only then will it be possible for a modern Islam, truly compatible with Western, Judeo-Christian standards of human rights and dignity, to emerge.

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