Posted on: 07 Jun 2016
Shri Anil asked: Padanamaskaram Swami
Kindly give Your responses to the following questions
1) There are some misunderstanding regarding the following verses from Quran. Kindly give the right meaning of these verses.
a. Fight non-Muslims: Qur'an 9:29
This widely known verse orders Muslims to fight non-Muslims simply because they do not believe in the same God that Muslims do:
"Fight those who do not believe in Allah, nor in the latter day, nor do they prohibit what Allah and His Messenger have prohibited, nor follow the religion of truth, out of those who have been given the Book, until they pay the tax in acknowledgment of superiority and they are in a state of subjection."
b. A woman inherits half of what a man inherits: Qur'an 4:11
This verse says that a woman inherits half of what a man inherits:
"Allah enjoins you concerning your children: The male shall have the equal of the portion of two females; then if they are more than two females, they shall have two-thirds of what the deceased has left, and if there is one, she shall have the half; and as for his parents, each of them shall have the sixth of what he has left if he has a child, but if he has no child and (only) his two parents inherit him, then his mother shall have the third; but if he has brothers, then his mother shall have the sixth after (the payment of) a bequest he may have bequeathed or a debt; your parents and your children, you know not which of them is the nearer to you in usefulness; this is an ordinance from Allah: Surely Allah is Knowing, Wise."
c. A woman's witness testimony is half of that of a man's: Qur'an 2:282
This verse says the witness testimony of one man is equivalent to the witness testimony of two women:
"O you who believe! when you deal with each other in contracting a debt for a fixed time, then write it down; and let a scribe write it down between you with fairness; and the scribe should not refuse to write as Allah has taught him, so he should write; and let him who owes the debt dictate, and he should be careful of (his duty to) Allah, his Lord, and not diminish anything from it; but if he who owes the debt is unsound in understanding, or weak, or (if) he is not able to dictate himself, let his guardian dictate with fairness; and call in to witness from among your men two witnesses; but if there are not two men, then one man and two women from among those whom you choose to be witnesses, so that if one of the two errs, the second of the two may remind the other; and the witnesses should not refuse when they are summoned; and be not averse to writing it (whether it is) small or large, with the time of its falling due; this is more equitable in the sight of Allah and assures greater accuracy in testimony, and the nearest (way) that you may not entertain doubts (afterwards), except when it is ready merchandise which you give and take among yourselves from hand to hand, then there is no blame on you in not writing it down; and have witnesses when you barter with one another, and let no harm be done to the scribe or to the witness; and if you do (it) then surely it will be a transgression in you, and be careful of (your duty) to Allah, Allah teaches you, and Allah knows all things."
d. A man may marry the wife of his adopted son: Qur'an 33:4
Muhammad married Zaynab, the wife of his adopted son. This verse suggests that the adopter may marry the wife of his adopted son and vice-versa:
"Allah has not made for any man two hearts within him; nor has He made your wives whose backs you liken to the backs of your mothers as your mothers, nor has He made those whom you assert to be your sons your real sons; these are the words of your mouths; and Allah speaks the truth and He guides to the way."
e. Turned into Apes: Qur'an 2:65
People who broke the Sabbath were turned into apes:
"And you know well the story of those among you who broke Sabbath. We said to them: "Be apes—despised and hated by all. Thus We made their end a warning to the people of their time and succeeding generation, and an admonition for God-fearing people."
f. A man can have sex with prisoners of war: Qur'an 33:50
This verse allows men to have sex with women who are prisoners of war: "O Prophet! We have made lawful to thee thy wives to whom thou hast paid their dowers; and those whom thy right hand possesses out of the prisoners of war whom Allah has assigned to thee; and daughters of thy paternal uncles and aunts, and daughters of thy maternal uncles and aunts, who migrated (from Makka) with thee; and any believing woman who dedicates her soul to the Prophet if the Prophet wishes to wed her;- this only for thee, and not for the Believers (at large); We know what We have appointed for them as to their wives and the captives whom their right hands possess;- in order that there should be no difficulty for thee. And Allah is Oft-Forgiving, Most Merciful."
g. A man can marry a girl who hasn't reached puberty: Qur'an 65:4
This highly controversial Qur'anic verse prescribes the waiting period of a female who has not yet reached puberty thereby permitting men to have sex with girls who have not reached puberty:
"Such of your women as have passed the age of monthly courses, for them the prescribed period, if ye have any doubts, is three months, and for those who have no courses (it is the same): for those who carry (life within their wombs), their period is until they deliver their burdens: and for those who fear Allah, He will make their path easy."
h. A man may marry four wives: Qur'an 4:3
This verse allows a man to marry up to four wives:
If ye fear that ye shall not be able to deal justly with the orphans, Marry women of your choice, Two or three or four; but if ye fear that ye shall not be able to deal justly (with them), then only one, or (a captive) that your right hands possess, that will be more suitable, to prevent you from doing injustice.
i. "Cut off their hands": Qur'an 5:38 & Qur'an 5:33
This verse orders an irreversible punishment for thieves, taking away their chance to rehabilitate, improve as human beings and become a productive member of society later on. As an example, Terrence Barkley was arrested on his 16th birthday for stealing cars, but that resulted in him getting out of gangs and into college to study criminal justice at the University of Central Missouri. If Terrence's hands and feet had been cut off according to Islamic laws, none of this would have been possible.
As for the thief, both male and female, cut off their hands. It is the reward of their own deeds, an exemplary punishment from Allah. Allah is Mighty, Wise."
Sura 5:33 orders the cutting off of the hands and feet of those who wage war against Allah and his Messenger.
The punishment of those who wage war against Allah and His Messenger, and strive with might and main for mischief through the land is: execution, or crucifixion, or the cutting off of hands and feet from opposite sides, or exile from the land: that is their disgrace in this world, and a heavy punishment is theirs in the Hereafter;
j. "Beat Them": Qur'an 4:34
This verse advises men to beat their wives if they don't obey them:
"Men are the maintainers of women because Allah has made some of them to excel others and because they spend out of their property; the good women are therefore obedient, guarding the unseen as Allah has guarded; and (as to) those on whose part you fear desertion, admonish them, and leave them alone in the sleeping-places and beat them; then if they obey you, do not seek a way against them; surely Allah is High, Great."
2. If anyone desires a religion other than Islam, never will it be accepted of him; and in the Hereafter, he will be in the ranks of those who have lost (their selves in the Hellfire) (Quran 3:85)
3. Qur’an 5:51—O you who believe! do not take the Jews and the Christians for friends; they are friends of each other; and whoever amongst you takes them for a friend, then surely he is one of them; surely Allah does not guide the unjust people.
Shri Swami Replied:
Introduction: The human incarnation of unimaginable God or Father of heaven (called Allah), Prophet Mohammad gave comments on the situations of events existed in some old span of time. These comments exactly suit and were valid to that context of time and to that limited region of the world in which the pious Prophet appeared. If the same situations occur anywhere exactly, same comments can be applied at any time in the same region or in other regions of the world. If approximately similar situations occur, the essence of the comments of Prophet made can be applied to other events also provided there are some similarities at least. I will illustrate this with the following example.
Ex.: Some time back in My native place a case appeared before Me for judgement. There were two brothers. The younger brother earned a house by his own efforts while he was unmarried and not knowing the responsibilities of family. The elder brother had already his family. The clever elder brother influenced the mind of the innocent younger brother and got registered the younger brother’s house in his name. Later on, the younger brother also got married and had family. The younger brother requested the elder brother to give him at least half of the house for him and his family to live. The elder brother refused stating that the house was earned by him and was registered in his name. Both were devotees of this Datta Swami, whom they consider as human incarnation of God. This Datta Swami passed the Judgement: The elder brother must give the total house to the younger brother and can stay in that house as long as the younger brother allows.
The above Judgement should be restricted to that specific case only occurred in the past time and cannot be generalised to apply to all contexts and all times. Suppose in some other time and some other in place, a father gave two houses to his two sons. You cannot apply the above statement to this context also blindly and say that Datta Swami’s judgement is ultimate anywhere and anytime and the elder brother always should give his house to his younger brother. The background of this context was totally different from the background of the above context.
Similarly, in the time of the divine Prophet Mohammad, the atmosphere of a specific region was horrible in which several religions appeared with several Gods and all were fighting with each other. The fight brought climax of Chaos and people were killing each other based on the religious differences. Then, Allah appeared in human form called Prophet Mohammad. He established a religion which is the actual Islam proposing only one God called Allah. If this religion gets established, the quarrels will stop and killing each other will end. There was a vigorous necessity to establish Islam even by force to stop mutual fights. Naturally, those ignorant and blind religions opposed the Prophet. This means that their religions should continue and the killing also should continue without end. To bring them to the concept of one God and to avoid the mutual fights and mutual killing, the Prophet went to the last resort of even killing those leaders and rigid followers of various religions so that eternal peace will be established for future generations. Hence, orders like ‘fight non-Muslims’, ‘cutting off the hands and feet of those against Allah and His messenger’ etc., were passed in that context and in that specific region in which such worst situation existed. These comments of the Prophet were confined to that time and to that region only where people were fighting and killing with each other based on different religions. In normal situations same Prophet Mohammad advised the followers to protect anybody in problem and to become the escort up to his/her house. Then, preaching about Allah should be done and to leave him/her without any force. Here, in this context, the world Allah means one God only and not several Gods since He established His religion in the context of rejecting many Gods only. Similarly, Lord Krishna, a human incarnation conducted a mighty war to destroy the injustice completely in a specific region and in a specific old span of time. This does not mean that whenever injustice grows, a mighty war is always inevitable. In a specific region and in some span of specific old time, a divine human incarnation preached the required spiritual knowledge to that place and that context of time and underwent crucifixion silently so that the hearts of those people get reformed by repentance. This does not mean that any spiritual preacher of any time in any area should undergo crucifixion silently to reform the hearts of the people. Today, crucifixion is never allowed on the grounds of spiritual knowledge and even on the grounds of political issues.
Today, in all regions of the world all religions co-exist with mutual love and respect to each other. Even if there are differences in religions, situation is limited to some hot discussions and debates or at the maximum abusing each other very rarely. You can’t bring those comments of the divine Prophet confined to that context and that place to the present context and present world. You should not implement those punishments on non-Islamic religions because that situation was very serious and this situation is very normal.
The divine Prophet Mohammad means ONE GOD as the meaning of the world Allah because the entire lifelong context in which He was placed was horrible fights based on religious differences establishing different Gods. The punishments suggested by Him were in the context of forcible suppression of multiplicity of God by even wars to stop mutual killing based on wrong spiritual knowledge. Today also, many religions and many Gods based on wrong spiritual knowledge exist, but, the situation is not as worse as that of that time. In that context, wars and severe punishments were inevitable and in this context of today, propagation of right spiritual knowledge is sufficient. You should not extend the statement of one context blindly to other different context of the same event also. Today, the solution can come by cutting the wrong arguments with the help of right arguments and hands and feet need not be cut with knives. The whole problem arises by blindly bringing the comments of God made in one context to another different context due to ignorance without little common sense and a trace of analysis!
Similarly, issues of inheriting the property, control of women, concepts of marriage, the status of adopted sons etc., present in that context and in that region were analysed with justified logic and judgements were passed by the divine Prophet Mohammad. Everywhere, every time, we must not miss the basic point that these judgements were specific to those situations only. If the situation is exactly same, anytime, anywhere, you can simply extend and apply the same judgement word to word. But, if situations were different, the same judgement of past different situations should not be applied to the new situations without suitable modifications.
Women: In that old context, women were terribly suppressed in all aspects by the ignorant men. This situation existed in every religion and in every region of the world. When you suppressed by somebody, he/she will react and revenge in silent or open ways. Women couldn’t revolt in open ways due their weaker physical strength compared to men. Showing difference by caste and gender is the climax of ignorance and stupidity. Naturally, women revolted in silent ways by becoming more alert and intelligent than men. Women became experts in cold war. They were trying to retort injustice through curved ways called cheating. Men blamed women as cunning liars. This was true in that situation but such retort was not unjust since diamond should be cut by diamond only. You cannot blame those women in view of their unjust suppression. Hence, the witness of two women was felt necessary for the truth to come out because of the non-unity of women in those days. Wife being left half of the husband, witness of one man was said to equal to the witness of two women. Suppression of women from education and property made them to become weaker sex. The divine Prophet gave equal right of property to the women because wealth or money is the basic strength of the entire world. Even in Hinduism the Veda said (Putrebhyo daayam...) that issues (Putra) should divide the property equally. As per Sanskrit grammar (Ekashesha sutra) the word ‘putra’ means both son and daughter. But, the word putra was misinterpreted by men to have the only meaning ‘son’. Selfish souls always pollute the scripture and analysis is the filter to be used for cleaning.
Discipline of the family is essential and one head of the family should exist, be father or be mother. In the old context father (man) remained as head and the entire family including mother (woman) was obeying the head. In the case of disobedience, the family looses unity and discipline. In such case beating was recommended just to induce fear and control. In this way, if understood properly, this gives justified colour. If misinterpreted in wrong way, it shows atrocity against women. This topic should be carefully and patiently understood and everywhere misinterpretation drags you to side. Today, there are several families in which the woman is the only earning member and happens to be the head of the family. In such case if the husband or children become disobedient, she, as the head of the family can beat her husband or children. Headship is important and not gender. In the old context, the head was always male, it is said that a disobedient wife should be controlled even by beating. Here, head controlling others is real focus and man controlling women is misinterpreted false focus. If the discipline comes by punishment, the anger should no more continue and no injustice should be done to anyone in anyway keeping past in mind (‘do not seek a way against them...’).
Adopted son: This son is not given by God. This type of son is got by the man only. There is no blood relationship between father and adopted son. The widow wife of such adopted son can be married by the father provided both are willing. This applies to a case of mutual willingness and not force to be applied in every case. Extension of it to all cases is again misinterpretation of selfish people.
Apes: Those who oppose the word of God, become undisciplined criminals to be treated as animals and not at all human beings. Animals have no ethics at all. In the animals also apes are very much unstable in psychology. Hence, such unstable criminals doing various types of sins without ethics are best addressed as apes.
Prisoners: The widows of prisoners are to be supported by providing peaceful family life. Here, wedding means maintenance. Husband means he, who maintains a woman (Bibharti iti bhartaa) and wife means she, who is maintained by the husband (Bhriyate iti bhaaryaa). The wedding with Prophet or human incarnation means that such unfortunate widow shall be maintained and supported by God. The word wedding should be taken as in the sense of supporting the widow and her children. If the widow and the supporter (man) are mutually willing, both can get further children through the sex. This applies to specific cases only to avoid the secret sexual dealings of a widow with many men and marriage with a man is better than that bringing deceases. Rules of ethics differ from case to case and no single rule exists that should be applied to all the cases in all the contexts.
Marriage before puberty: This existed in Hinduism also in a specific span of time and not necessary for all the times. The Manusmuruti says that a girl should be married in her 8th year (Astavarshaa bhavet...). The Veda says that the girl should be married after 16th year (Maa me dabhraani...). This difference is based on the different contexts. A time was there when the girls were forcibly taken away for marriage. But, if the girl was married, she was leftover. To this context the first scripture applies. The normal context of all times was that such danger of looting unmarried girls was absent, which is even in the present time and to this context the second scripture applies. In such normal span of time, a grown up girl has grown up mentally also to select her husband. This process called svayamvaram existed in which a grown up girl interviews various grooms directly and makes her own selection with full freedom. Hence, such rules are specific for specific contexts only and this is very very important point.
Four wives: This rule again applies to a specific context of time and region in which a man was marrying many many girls based on his power of money and rowdy nature. Such infinite number is reduced to four and here one is also suggested. Hence, from case to case the number varies from one to four. A soul can’t do justice to more than four based on the condition of health in that time.
Cutting hands of thieves: This again differs from context to context. When the sin of stealing reached climax and not controlled by any punishment, the last resort of the punishment was this. This can’t be applied to another context where the sin is under control.
Cutting hands and feet of opponents of Prophet: Jesus was the Prophet before Mohammad as agreed by Islam also. His hands and feet were cruelly nailed. Such criminals opposing God should be given this punishment. Jesus indicated that He and His father are one and the same (Monism). The anger for crucifixion came at this point. Jesus told the absolute truth as said by Shankara. The ego and jealousy of other co-human beings reached climax and Jesus was brutally killed. To avoid this horrible crime from which no involved soul can ever be excused by God, Prophet Mohammad established dualism (God and soul are totally different) and separated Allah from His messenger. Though He was human incarnation of Allah, to avoid such anger of God on souls, He rejected monism based on the context. In fact, both theories are correct and one and the same. When current flows through wire, current (God) is inseparable from the wire (messenger) and the electrified wire shows the property of electricity (shocking) whenever and wherever touched. For all practical purposes though both are different, remain as one and the same. The electrified wire is called as electricity itself. Prophet Mohammad criticized Jews and Christians in old context only and not in all contexts of all times. The reason for such criticism was only in the context of crucifixion of Jesus, since He was crucified on twisted background of political offence of anti Government, though the hidden real reason was the disliked spiritual knowledge of Jesus. He was aiming at the religious leaders and their followers only, who plotted the crucifixion in most cunning way and hence friendship with such people should not be done. The latter generations should repent to do such act again and this was the main aim of criticising their latter generations after a long time and this criticism subsequently applies to all.
(To be continued...)