Islam and Nonviolence ISLAM AND NONVIOLENCE Edited by Glenn D. Paige Chaiwat Satha-Anand (Qader Muheideen) Sarah Gilliatt Center for Global Nonviolence 2001 Copyright © 1993 by the Center for Global Nonviolence Planning Project, Spark M. Matsunaga Institute for Peace, University of Hawai'i at Manoa, Honolulu, Hawai'i 96822, U.S.A. Copyright © 1999 by the nonprofit Center for Global Nonviolence, Inc., 3653 Tantalus Drive, Honolulu, Hawai'i 96822-5033. Website: www.globalnonviolence.org. Email: [email protected]. Copying for personal and educational use is encouraged by the copyright holders. ISBN 1-880309-0608 BP190.5.V56I85 1992 To All Nonviolent Seekers of Truth CONTENTS Preface ix Introduction Chaiwat Satha-Anand (Qader Muheideen 1 The Nonviolent Crescent: Eight Theses on Muslim Nonviolent Actions Chaiwat Satha-Anand (Qader Muheideen) 7 Islam, Nonviolence, and Global Transformation Razi Ahmad 27 Islam, Nonviolence, and National Transformation Abdurrahman Wahid 53 Islam, Nonviolence, and Social Transformation Mamoon-al-Rasheed 59 Islam, Nonviolence, and Women Khalijah Mohd. Salleh 109 Islam, Nonviolence, and Interfaith Relations M. Mazzahim Mohideen 123 Glossary 145 Suggested Reading 151 Contributors 153 Index of Qur‘anic Verses 157 Index 159 PREFACE The Center for Global Nonviolence Planning Project is pleased to present this report of an international exploratory seminar on Islam and nonviolence held in Bali, Indonesia, during February 14-19, 1986. The origins of the seminar are explained in the Introduction by Chaiwat Satha-Anand (Qader Muheideen). We are grateful to the United Nations University, and especially to the then Vice-Rector Kinhide Mushakoji and senior programme officer Dr. Janusz Golebiowski, of its Regional and Global Studies Division, and to the cosponsor, Indonesia’s Nahdatul Ulama, led by Abdurrahman Wahid, for making the seminar possible. The cooperation of the Government of the Republic of Indonesia, exemplified by the presence of its Minister of Religious Affairs, H. E. Mr. Munawir Sjadzali, who opened the seminar and wished it success, is gratefully acknowledged. The inspired hospitality extended to participants by Mrs. Gedong Bagoes Oka and members of her globally respected Ashram Canti Dasa [Servants of Peace Ashram], which welcomes seekers after nonviolence of all faiths and callings, continues to uplift us as it does all who have been blessed by it. So does the warm welcome extended by the people of the East Bali Muslim village of Budakeling to our seminar members who visited their village and mosque for Friday prayers. We thank the Amana Corporation, Brentwood, Maryland, for permission to reprint Commentary 1, 2, 3, and 4 on Surah 2:138 from The Meaning of the Holy Qur‘an, by A. Yusuf ‘Ali (1991, p. 71); and Lynne Rienner Publishers, Inc., Boulder & London, for permission to reprint “The Nonviolent Crescent” by Chaiwat Satha- Anand (Qader Muheideen) from Arab Nonviolent Political Struggle in the Middle East edited by Ralph E. Crow, Philip Grant, and Saad E. Ibrahim (1990). This essay was originally prepared for the Bali seminar. ix Preface Quotations from the Holy Qur‘an in the present volume are from The Meaning of the Holy Qur‘an, by ‘Abdullah Yusuf ‘Ali, New Edition with Revised Translation and Commentary, prepared under the supervision of the then president of the International Institute of Islamic Thought, the late Isma‘il Raji al Faruqi (Brentwood, MD: Amana Corporation, 1991 We have tried to regularize English transliteration of the principal Islamic and Arabic terms used in the volume. To assist readers unfamiliar with them we have appended a Glossary that also includes some alternative spellings. The generous advice and assistance of George Simson and the publications committee and Stanley Schab, editor, of the Spark M. Matsunaga Institute for Peace, is gratefully acknowledged. We hope that this book will encourage further exploration of nonviolence in Islam as a contributor to the spirit, science, and skills that are needed for nonviolent global transformation. The Editors Honolulu, Bangkok, and Boulder August 1993 x Introduction Chaiwat Satha-Anand (Qader Muheideen) INTRODUCTION A seminar on Islam and Nonviolence, to many, sounds unimaginable in a world where the term “Islam” has ceased to be a simple description. Instead, it means a lot of “unpleasant” things to some non-Muslims. Edward Said, a Columbia University professor, writes, “For the right, Islam represents barbarism; for the left, medieval theocracy; for the center, a kind of distasteful exoticism. In all camps, however, there is agreement that even though little enough is known about the Islamic world there is not much to be 1 approved of there.” Needless to say, concerning the issues of violence and nonviolence, Islam is normally perceived as heavily oriented towards the former. But Glenn D. Paige, professor emeritus of political science at the University of Hawai‘i thinks differently. This American professor is not a Muslim. People around him sense that he has a strong inclination towards Buddhism and Jainism. His most significant bond with them is, perhaps, the precept that instructs human beings to abstain from taking the lives of other living things. He exemplifies this very principle because he is an extremely rare political scientist. He is seeking to be a nonviolent (or to be more precise—a nonkilling) political scientist; since 1980 he has taught a course in Hawai‘i on “Nonviolent Political Alternatives.” Professor Paige was the temporary convenor of the United Nations University exploratory seminar on “Islam and Nonviolence” held in Bali in February 1986. The idea of this seminar grew out of a special relationship between us. We met in 1978 in Hawai‘i, where I was a Ph.D. student in political science. It all began when I registered for 1 Chaiwat Satha-Anand Professor Paige’s course on “Nonviolent Political Alternatives.” As a member of the Muslim minority community in Thailand, I had left my home country one year after a bloody episode in its political history had taken place at Thammasat University, and I had come in search of political alternatives to violence. This American professor was ready. Together we strolled along the relatively virgin academic path of nonviolence. In the professor, I found academic training in nonviolence. In me, the professor found a case of Muslim receptivity to nonviolence that radically altered his former perception of Islam. Subsequently the professor met another nonviolent Muslim political scientist, Syed Sikander Mehdi, a University of Karachi professor. Paige met Mehdi at an international course on “Nonviolence: Meanings, Forms and Uses,” organized by Theodore L. Herman, then director of Peace Studies at Colgate University, held at the Inter-University Centre of Post- graduate Studies, Dubrovnik, Yugoslavia during June 26–July 6, 1983. Meeting these two Muslim political scientists who took nonviolence seriously led Paige to dream of a seminar, a meeting place, a forum where those keenly interested in developing Islamic contributions to peaceful global transformation could meet, exchange ideas, and try to identify feasible future projects of common interest. Paige then put his dream into writing and sent a proposal to the United Nations University in Tokyo for consideration. It was approved on December 6, 1984. First, it was scheduled to be held in Sabah, Malaysia, in May 1985. But the seminar had to be cancelled because of a change of the Sabah Government in April 1985. Then it was rescheduled for December 1985 in Bali, Indonesia, only to be postponed again until early 1986, at the Indonesian Government’s request, so that the Minister of Religious Affairs officially could open it. Paige’s dream was finally realized when the seminar was held successfully at Ashram Canti Dasa, Bali, Indonesia during February 14–19, 1986. Among eighteen participants from India, Jordan (an American), Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, Egypt, and the United States, there were fourteen Muslims—ten men and four women. It must be pointed out that Mrs. Gedong Bagoes Oka, the famous Gandhian of Bali and head of the Bali 2 Introduction Canti Dasa Ashram, provided all the participants with rare motherly care that was unforgettable. THE EXPLORATION The papers presented in this volume cover a wide range of issues. Nevertheless these varied issues can be grouped into three categories—theoretical, theological, and instrumental. My paper, “The Nonviolent Crescent,” is basically theoretical. It tries to argue for the Muslim’s sacred obligation to fight for justice in the modern world through nonviolent means. Three papers take primarily a theological approach to their subject: the first by an Indian historian, Razi Ahmad’s “Islam, Nonviolence, and Global Transformation”; the second by an Indonesian political leader and writer, Abdurrahman Wahid’s “Islam, Nonviolence, and National Transformation”; and the third by a rural development activist from Bangladesh, Mamoon al- Rasheed’s “Islam, Nonviolence, and Rural Transformation.” Addressing issues of social transformation at the global, national, and local levels, these authors attempt to show how Islam is indispensable for human change. They argue that such transformations need to be carried out nonviolently and that there are ample Islamic injunctions which sanction peaceful change. One author, however, cautions that nonviolence will only be realized in the contemporary world when equality becomes a reality. Since Islam highly values equality,