Re: slavery, polygamy

Salaams Mudhillun, I agree on the apologist tone. Its intersting that we feel the need to justify everything within the Qur'an historically speaking. i.e. it was fine to have 4 wives because of the wars and the need to take care of the orphans, slavery was bad but Qur'an tried to alleviate the conditions of the slaves etc. As Ebrahim Moosa a South African theologian points out, the Qur'an is historical in nature but one can enter into a conversation with it within one's own context and understand that it is also replete with trans-historical ethics. The Qur'an's historicity necessarily binds it to the exigencies of its time, expecially since its message was put across by a Prophet who had to engage with a particular context. The hard part about being a Prophet is that s/he can't just dwell in the meta physical but must also be profoundly political.
That meant that there needed to be a level of engagement that was organically rooted.

So as EP Thompson the Marixist historian says, one doesn't want to get into the trap of the profound condescension of posterity by judging the Prophet and his actions, BUT this does not mean one does not historicise the Qur'an and also clearly assert that despite the Qur'an allowing for slavery and polygamy etc. these practices were wrong and there is no justification for them. If it was allowed it was primarily because of the Prophetic role that at once broke ranks and at the same time negotiated. Any cursory reading of the sira of Mohammed (saw) shows clearly the enormous socio-political constraints within which he operated. There was a limit to how radical his message could be without it being rejected outright. Now this understanding is very different from a retrospective justification that says that slavery, concubinage, polygyny etc. was ok within that historical setti
ng. I strongly feel that these things are NEVER ok, but the Prophetic role is such that it is at once spiritual and political and being political necessarily meant having to engage.

Fatima Merinissi the Moroccan feminist sociologist does a brilliant job of this in her book Women and Islam, she locates the Prophet (saw) in his socio-political setting. She brings out the humanity of the Prophet to the extent that one can identify with him so much more than the usual deified picture that the dominant narrative paints. Personally I truely felt a genuine affection for the Prophet not when I read Martin Lings or Ameer Ali but when I read Fatima Merinissi.

So yes apologia comes in when we feel the need to justify retrospectively everything that the Qur'an says. But we don't need to do that. We Muslims understand Allah (swt) as a God who is a participant in history and whose word was carried forth by Mohammed (saw) who was entrusted with the task of building an umma. This means that yes there were limits to how radical the message could be. But this means that the spirit of the Qur'an is radical in its essence and this is where we enter into a conversation with it and identify the trans-historical liberatory message in it. At least that gets us out of arguing ad-nauseum about how polygamy and slavery was justified in 7th century Arabia but not now.

Liberation is not a historical moment but a long march, full of struggles, courage and occasional compromises. The Prophet (saw) exemplified this. To keep him alive is to understand him as a real actor and not as a diety with magical powers. It is the only way his spirit will be kept alive in today's struggles. Otherwise he will be commodified and marketed like Che Guevara t-shirts, reified and showcased.

Warmest, k

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