veiled4allah

some Islamic law links

For those interested in Islamic legal theory (and with the patience to read texts that are somewhat technical in nature), you may wish to check out the following articles by Mohammad Hashim Kamali: Freedom of Association: The Islamic Perspective - Argues that although the scholars of the past have not fully developed theories of freedom of association, there is a sound basis in the texts of the Shari'a for doing so. Also discusses the permissibility of political parties and refutes claims made against this. Freedom of Religion in Islamic Law - Sets out why freedom of religion is one of the most fundamental rights of the individual in Islamic law and provides evidence that neither the death penalty for apostasy nor the idea of "conversion by the sword" are part of Islam. The Citizen and the State in Islamic Law - Discusses limitations on state power in Islamic legal theory, and argues that Islamic law calls for a limited government. The Limits of Power in an Islamic State - Similar to the previous, but looks at some specific issues and areas of government authority. The Right to Personal Safety and the Principle of Legality in the Shari'a - Really looks at criminal procedure and the protection of the rights of the individual from suspicion and accusation of crime, through arrest and detention, to interrogation, as well as the right to counsel. There is a discussion of beating the accused during interrogation, which has generally been upheld by the scholars, but Kamali argues that the stronger position is that this is forbidden. Some previous entries I've made to this blog that link to other essays by Kamali include Dissent and disorder: American and Islamic approaches and Fundamental rights of the individual in Islamic thought.

theological musings

Just to follow up on the previous entry, in case this isn't clear. The only real grounds on which Christians can say that Muslims don't believe in the same God is if they insist that the Trinitarian conception of God is the only valid conception. And let's be really clear about this: the Trinity is not a "Judeo-Christian" concept. Last I heard, Jews do not believe in the Trinity. Anybody who says that Muslims have a false religion because they don't believe in the Trinity must necessarily also be saying that Jews have a false religion because they don't believe in the Trinity. Ask these Christian Right leaders what they think of Judaism and make sure to mention that Jews don't believe in the Trinity. You might find their answer a bit hard to take, even though you don't blink at their saying the same thing about Islam. To be honest, I find it very strange for people who consider themselves monotheists to insist that the Unitarian conception of God is somehow "wrong" or "false". I don't really understand this view. I could understand it from polytheists or non-theists or atheists, but it doesn't make sense to me for monotheists to say it. Do other people find this as odd as I do? Added: Just to get it all out of my system, there was one other part of this story that really made me wonder. The president of the National Association of Evangelicals is quoted as saying: "Muhammad's central message was submission; Jesus' central message was love". Um, hello? This is comparing apples and oranges. The submission in Islam refers to the attitude of the human being towards God, that is, submission to God's will. If Rev. Haggard doesn't believe that the proper attitude of people towards God is submission to His will, what exactly does he think is the right attitude? Defiance? I doubt it. I'm sure he agrees that people should submit to God's will. And the love in Christianity that he mentions is (I assume) a reference to God's love for people. So is Haggard saying that in Islamic teaching, God doesn't love people? Does he have any basis for what he's saying or is he just talking out his orifice? C'mon. The stuff that people like him are saying doesn't even make sense! Are we not engaging in any critical thinking skills in this country anymore? In case you do need evidence that in Islam, God loves people, see here

hawala: an alternate banking system

Patriot Watch (no permalinks) and TalkLeft both report on an article in the NY Daily News about the so-called "Victory Act" (Vital Interdiction of Criminal Terrorist Organizations Act). I have no doubt that I'll be posting articles on this to The Clipboard blog in the coming days and weeks. However, PG asked a question in my comments section about the part of the proposed bill that promises to "clamp down on Arab hawala transactions, where cash exchanged in an honor system has been funneled to terrorists". Hawala is an unofficial or parallel banking system used in South Asia, the Middle East and other parts of the world. Back in November 2001, when the first news articles about terrorist financing and hawala appeared, I posted a question at an Islamic discussion board to Mustafa Kamal, an expert in Islamic finance. I wanted to know what exactly hawala is. Kamal replied:

To answer the original question, under Hawala, a person living in country A gives local currency to Hawala dealer. The dealer, through an affiliate or a subsidiary dealer in country B, delivers the funds to the beneficiary in country B in that country's currency. The entire transaction is requested, processed, and executed verbally. There is virtually no paper trail except, of course, the dealer in country A must somehow communicate with the dealer in country B, i.e., via email, fax, or phone. The transfer is almost as fast as a wire transfer through a commercial bank if not faster. The exchange rate used to deliver funds is several units of currency (of destination country) lower than the open foreign exchange market of the destination country but higher than the official bank rate, or what is called 'interbank' rate. Commercial banks charge a fixed fee for wire transfers regardless of the amount being wired whereas Hawala charges per unit of currency transmitted. Therefore, from purely financial utility point of view, Hawala may be cheaper for the sender than a wire through a commercial bank as long as the amount in question is a few hundred dollars. Beyond that equilibrium amount, Hawala will lose its immediate financial benefit. For example, assume that you wanted to send US$400 to your family in Pakistan from the United States and that the open market exchange rate in Pakistan is Rupess 60 per US dollar and the interbank rate is Rupees 55 per US dollar. You will give that amount to a Hawala dealer in the U.S. The dealer will inform you that the exchange rate will be, say, Rupees 57. The Pakistani affiliate of that dealer will deliver Pakistan Rupees 22,800 to your family. Remember, the US dollars you gave to the dealer did not leave the U.S; There was no exchange of funds between a US bank and a Pakistani bank; and the dealer did not file any regulatory report with the IRS. Also, the pure financial utility of Hawala will diminish if the open market exchange rate and the interbank rate in the destination country are so close together that there is no room for a profit margin for the dealer. Such is the case in most Western European countries, Malaysia, UAE, Saudi Arabia, and many other countries with strong economies. Most countries' tax code requires financial institutions to report money transfers of above a ceiling amount per customer per day to that country's revenue department. In the U.S., financial institutions are required by the Internal Revenue Code to report to the Treasury Department when a customer transmits $10,000 or more to a foreign country on a single day. The analysis of Hawala presented by the prior post seems accurate. There are a couple of issues that should be borne in mind. Now let us examine these issues. 1) Muslims are required (by Quran and Hadith) to write the transactions amongst themselves and have the transactions witnessed. Granted that writing of transactions is not a Fardh like prayer or fasting or the like. However, the Hawala system, as it exists today, does violate that requirement. 2) We know that the funds transmitted through Hawala do not circulate through the foreign exchange market of the country they are sent to. We also know that the system is practiced by expatriates of mostly developing Muslim countries. Although the individual end of sending the funds for the family is served adequately, the collective end of benefiting from the additional foreign exchange is ignored in the Hawala system. In the end, the family receiving the funds needs local currency and will get local currency either way. In Hawala system the local foreign exchange market will be deprived of its precious product, foreign exchange. Could that be 'unpatriotic'? 3) Foreign exchange dealerships are state licensed and, to a limited extent, federally regulated. Hawala dealers are not licensed or registered with any regulatory authority. Therefore, if someone does request them to transfer funds in excess of the per day ceiling established by the regulation, they do not report it. Hawala was a usual mode of money transmission up until early twentieth century. With the advent of International Monetary Fund in mid-twentieth century, most countries of the World had enacted legislation to regulate foreign exchange transactions. Of course, there are still countries that have no regulation of foreign exchange, but most countries have some degree of regulation. Usually, the poorer the country, the higher the regulation of foreign exchange. With the exception of a handful of Muslim countries, all have strong regulation of foreign exchange. Having examined that, I personally do not share the 'concerns' of the media. I do see, however, that the Hawala system has the potential for abuse given its nature. Allah knows best.

You can read more about hawala in the following publications: The hawala alternative remittance system and its role in money laundering from Interpol and Hawala from the International Monetary Fund (IMF). A briefer overview is provided by Wikipedia. As Kamal indicated in his response to me, the hawala system as it is practiced today is not really in line with the rules of Islamic finance. Specifically, Islamic financial law requires transactions to be witnessed and recorded in writing. The lack of a paper trail is precisely what makes hawala problematic. The point is, it is problematic under Islamic law as much as under any other law system. Hawala is not an "Islamic" banking system. It is a banking system that is used by Muslims. There is a difference. If hawala transactions were performed according to Islamic law, they would be witnessed and recorded in writing. Such a system would be much more difficult to use for money laundering. From the various accounts that I have read, the idea behind the hawala system was developed many centuries ago in India and continues to flourish in that country, where it is known as "hundi". The basic mechanism of money transfer through hawala is a lawful transaction under Islamic law, based on the idea of transferring debt (read this for a look at what a real Islamic hawala system would be like). In the last century or so, the hawala system has been supplanted by modern banking systems established by Western countries. Because these systems are the formal and official ones, the hawala system has gone underground. It is the underground or unofficial status of the hawala system that makes it vulnerable to use by money launderers. The same would be true of any other undeground or unofficial banking system. People will continue to use hawala as long as it is convenient to them. The best answer seems to be to regulate it. It's not clear what Ashcroft's plans to "clamp down on Arab hawala transactions" amount to. I assume that "Arab hawala transactions" is the reporter's way of saying "transactions in the Arab hawala system" and it doesn't mean "all hawala transactions by Arabs".

a lesson in Islamic legal theory

One of the aspects of Islamic family law that is often singled out as unfair is that female heirs seem to receive only half of what male heirs receive. Muslims generally make two responses to this. First, this is not a general rule. There are any number of possible scenarios in which a female heir receives more than any male heir, or even than all male heirs combined. This one-half rule only applies when male and female heirs are of the same class (e.g., they are both children of the deceased or something similar). Moreover, the rule does not apply to every case when there are male and female heirs of the same class. For example, if the two heirs are the parents of the deceased, they receive the same share. An example of this type of argument can be seen in Position Paper on Islamic Inheritance. Second, male heirs have a financial obligation that female heirs do not, namely, the male heirs are required to support the female heirs while female heirs are never required to support anybody. In other words, because the male heirs have extra financial needs, they get extra money to fulfill those needs. In practice, the male heir may have less money left after spending it on his dependents than the female heir has. In that case, it's the female heir who comes out ahead in the end, if the object is to have the largest amount of discretionary money through inheritance. An example of this type of argument can be seen in The Issue on Inheritance: The Unfair Treatment of Women? A law journal article that I found this afternoon via Lexis takes these arguments one step further. The article is The Myth of Misogyny: A Reanalysis of Women's Inheritance in Islamic Law, 61 Alb. L. Rev. 511. The article is by Muslim lawyer Zainab Chaudhry. It does not seem to be freely available on the web. Chaudhry provides a general background on Islamic jurisprudence and its sources, then introduces the reader to two concepts in Islamic legal theory: maqasid (intents or purposes of the law) and 'illah (legal cause). She then provides an overview of Islamic inheritance law and the rules of succession followed by some examples of female heirs inheriting the same as or more than male heirs. For instance, if a woman dies and leaves behind as heirs only a husband and a daughter, the husband and the daughter each receive one half of her property. The article then returns to maqasid and 'illah, particularly 'illah. 'Illah is the legal cause of a ruling. It is the reason that the ruling exists. For those who are interested, here are three articles about 'illah: Methods Of Finding The Cause Of A Legal Injunction In Islamic Jurisprudence, Modes of Reasoning in Legal Cause, and How to Ascertain the 'Illah in the Islamic Legal System (PDF). You can also read Maqasid Al-Shari'ah: The Objectives Of Islamic Law. Chaudhry applies the legal theory of 'illah to inheritance law, specifically to the cases where male and female heirs of the same class receive different shares. She writes:

Turning now to those two circumstances where a son and daughter, or a full brother and sister, are inheriting jointly, is the rationale for that Quranic injunction fixing a two to one ratio for such distribution based on gender? In other words, is the 'illah, the effective cause behind the injunction, gender?... ...If gender, as such, is the correctly identified 'illah in those cases, it must have a causal relationship with the injunction (the two to one ratio), and it must cause the same result (i.e., the same ratio) in every like circumstance. The result then should be the same in all cases where males and females of the same class are inheriting together from the decedent's estate, with the resulting injunction being a two to one distribution in all cases. As shown above, this two to one ratio is only apparent in the fixed allocations of two out of the four basic classes of relatives - sons and daughters and full brothers and sisters taking in their absence. Gender as such, is therefore considered to be an invalid 'illah and the claim that the sex-based inferiority of the female is the underlying rationale for the differences in the distribution cannot stand. To continue to believe so would violate the concept of ta'lil [finding the 'illah], one of the most fundamental pillars of Islamic legal theory.

In this way, Chaudhry disposes of the idea that women in these cases inherit less because women are considered inferior. If women inherit less because women are inferior, women would always inherit less. They don't. Chaudhry then examines the obligation of male heirs to support female heirs and proposes this as the 'illah. As she shows, in all cases where the male heir has an obligation to support the female heir, the male heir receives a double share. In cases where the male heir does not have an obligation to support the female heir, the male heir does not receive a double share. The point of all of this is, Chaudhry is not just making these claims to defend Islam based on her wishes or desires nor is she making up some innovated or unsupported argument. Instead, she is using the methodology of Islamic jurisprudence itself to prove her case. People might be able to ignore the two articles I linked earlier in this entry as fanciful and say "oh, sure, liberal Western Muslims say that but traditional Muslims never heard of it". They can't brush off Chaudhry's article so easily. As a footnote to this, until 1971 the state of Idaho had a law regarding intestate succession that stated that in the case of competing petitions from otherwise qualified individuals of the same priority relationship, 'males must be preferred to females'. This law was overturned by the Supreme Court in Reed v. Reed, 404 U.S. 71 (1971). If even the "enlightened West" still had these laws as recently as 32 years ago, maybe we ought to cut developing Muslim countries a bit more slack, hmm?

fundamental rights of the individual in Islamic thought

I've been reading Fundamental Rights of the Individual: An Analysis of Haqq (Right) in Islamic Law, by Mohammad Hashim Kamali. This is a long article that covers a lot of ground. Rather than attempting to discuss the entire article in this blog entry, I'd like to focus on one aspect today, inshallah. One of the issues that often comes up in discussions of the Shari'a is whether an Islamic state should enforce religious observances such as hijab and prayer. I have consistently argued that it should not. I first addressed the question in Hijab and Choice, part of a larger article on veiling that I wrote in October 2001 for non-Muslims. In this article, I wrote:

The right to freedom of speech is guaranteed in the First Amendment to the Constitution. Yet there are certain types of speech that are against the law. These are when the speech is slanderous or libelous, making false and damaging statements about another person. In short, our freedom of speech is not absolute, but rather there is a certain line, set by the law, beyond which the speech is deemed so injurious to others that it should not be allowed. Legal systems are always seeking such a balance, and Islamic law is no different. In particular, Islamic law distinguishes between a sin and a crime. A sin is a disobedience of God, and is punishable by Him. A crime is something that is punished by the state. A study of the sources of Islamic law will quickly show that although many things are mentioned as sins, only certain types of sins are designated as also being crimes, which the state is given the authority to punish. And the acts that are designated as crimes are those which harm others. For instance theft, slander, assault, murder.

I returned to the issue again a couple of months ago in my blog entry Islam and Individual Freedom. I summed up my view as:

[E]ach person has a right to his or her religion, life, intellect, progeny, and property and the law's purpose is to protect these rights from being violated by others. Acts that harm others or violate their rights should be punished by the law. Acts that harm only the self are God's exclusive preserve and people should leave it to Him.

The Kamali article presents a third argument supporting this same position:

Haqq (right) can be subdivided further in terms of enforceability: religious moral (dini) and juridical (qada'i). The former, although validated by the Shari'ah, cannot be proven or enforced by a court... Most of the rights of God [...] are in this category. As no one is expected or authorized to demand their enforcement, they are basically unjustifiable, despite the fact that the judge is vested with discretionary powers (ta'zir) to discipline those who seriously neglect them. Rights without a particular party as the right-bearer, such as a religious endowment (waqf) for the poor and the indigent, also fall into this category. Juridical rights, on the other hand, are susceptible to proof at the behest of the right-bearer, and a Shari'ah court has the power to adjudicate them. Some examples of this right are the creditor's right to demand repayment from a debtor and a wife's right to maintenance by her husband (Abu Sinnah 1971; al Mawsu'ah al Fiqhiyah 1987). Contrary to the assertion of western commentators that the Shari'ah recognizes no separation between law and religion, there is evidently such recognition as regards matters of haqq. Legal rights and duties are identified and separated from their purely religious counterparts... The Shari'ah is in unison with religion in matters of belief, 'ibadat (worship practices), and in commitment to basic values, yet it clearly recognizes a functional separation between law and religion on an extensive scale.

There is a common thread running through all of this. Rights that belong to a specific person or group are considered in Islamic thought as juridical rights or legal rights. A violation of a juridical right will cause harm to someone. You can look at it that the government is only authorized to intervene when doing so will prevent harm. Or you can look at it that legal action will only commence when there is an injured party who seeks to enforce their right. Either way, the result is the same: violation of a juridical right leads to legal action. I referred to this violation as a crime. Rights that belong to God or that have no person that bears them are considered in Islamic thought as religious or moral rights. Violation of a religious right does not harm another person. You can look at it that the "injured party" is God, who will mete out justice in His own court, or you can look at it that no legal action can commence without a person who is seeking to enforce their rights. Either way, violation of religious rights does not lead to legal action. I referred to this violation as a sin. The distinction between crimes and sins is, I think, the most familiar and understandable to Western readers and that's why I made that distinction when I first wrote on the issue. When I wrote on the issue a second time, I focused on what I think is the reason that governments should limit themselves to prosecuting actions that harm others: to do otherwise is to attempt to usurp rights that God has reserved to Himself. Any devout Muslim should be very wary of such a usurpation. I also argued (not quoted here) that when the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) implemented the Quran, he only sought to punish acts that harmed others. Devout Muslims should also be wary of departing from how the Prophet (pbuh) implemented the Quran. The Kamali essay puts the same argument in the language and terminology of the Islamic legal scholars, as set out above. It also shows that something that has been an intuition on my part, based on what I believe to be the fundamental moral principles of Islam, is in fact a recognized part of the Islamic discourse. Inshallah, in future posts I will share more of what I've learned from Kamali's article.

public expenditure in an Islamic state

In Public Expenditure in an Islamic State, Dr. Muhammed Nejatullah Siddiqi provides a detailed overview of the functions of an Islamic state. Broadly speaking, an Islamic state has three types of functions: those assigned by the Shari'a on a permanent basis, those derived from the Shari'a to respond to current circumstances, and those assigned to it by the people through consultation. Siddiqi lists eight permanent functions:

i) Defence ii) Law and Order ii) Justice iv) Need fulfilment v) Da'wah i.e., communicating the message of Allah to mankind. vi) Enjoining right conduct and forbidding wrong (al-amr bi al-maruf wa al-nahy an al-munkar). vii) Civil administration. viii) Fulfilment of such socially obligatory duties (furud kifayah) as the private sector fails to fulfil.

He goes on to explain each of these in more detail. For instance he defines "need fulfillment" as providing food, water, clothing, shelter, education and transport. Siddiqi identifies six functions that are necessary in the current circumstances:

i) Protection of the environment. ii) Supply of necessary public goods other than those included in the first list. iii) Scientific research. iv) Capital formation and economic development. v) Subsidies for priority private activities. vi) Expenditure necessitated by stabilization policies.

After explaining his reasoning for each of these items, he goes on to look at historical precedents to support his views. He sets out a theory of public expenditure based on the above. He looks at how the people can be encouraged to save and to work if they are receiving public funds. Finally, he looks at the limits on public expenditure, and what the priorities are if not all needs can be met.

Dissent and disorder - American and Islamic approaches

In my Civil Rights Law class this week we've been discussing freedom of expression and what limits can be set on it. We've been particularly looking at the question of speech that is felt to pose a threat to public safety or national security. We've looked at a series of 20th century cases starting from the period of World War I and continuing through the Vietnam War. For those who are familiar with the field or interested in looking them up, the cases we've studied include Schenk v. United States, 249 U.S. 47 (1919); Abrams v. United States, 250 U.S. 616 (1919); Gitlow v. New York, 268 U.S. 652 (1925); Dennis v. United States, 341 U.S. 494 (1951); Brandenburg v. Ohio, 395 U.S. 444 (1969); United States v. O'Brien, 391 U.S. 367 (1968); and Tinker v. Des Moines, 393 U.S. 503 (1969). Schenk, Abrams, Gitlow, and Dennis were all socialists or communists and were charged with plotting against the government in various ways. Schenk urged people to resist the draft (during WWI), while Abrams, Gitlow, and Dennis were all advocating for an overthrow of the capitalist system in the United States and for the establishment of a socialist or communist system. Brandenburg was a member of the Ku Klux Klan who organized a KKK rally, while O'Brien and Tinker protested the Vietnam War, O'Brien by burning his draft card and Tinker by wearing a black armband to school. The Supreme Court applied various tests to these cases to determine if the laws that criminalized these peoples' speech were unconstitutional. The basic principle is that speech that presents a danger to public safety may be prohibited. But what is the definition of dangerous speech? Is it any speech that is intended by its speaker to create tumult, even if it doesn't actually have that effect, or that advocates unpopular or offensive ideas, even if no action is called for? Is it speech that advocates wrongful action such as the use of force or the violation of law, again, even if the speakers never take those actions? Or is it only speech that incites imminent lawless conduct? Obviously, this question is very timely today because of the war in Iraq and, more generally the war on terrorism. How great is our right to dissent? But these lessons were interesting to me for another reason, because it echoed an article on Islamic law that I read a few months ago called Freedom of Expression in Islam: An Analysis of Fitna by Mohammad Hashim Kamali. The Arabic word "fitna" has a general meaning of "trouble" or "tumult". It expresses very well the idea of disorder and danger that the Supreme Court was looking at in the cases that I mentioned. Here are some highlights from the article:

...The Shari'ah ... confines the scope of restrictions [on expression] to measures necessary to repel an imminent danger to normal order in society. The individual's freedom to investigate facts and ideas and to formulate and express an opinion are integral to Islam's approach to the dignity of the individual and the quest for ascertaining the truth... ...Seditious (i.e., political) fitnah is an abuse of the freedom of expression that threatens the legitimacy of a lawful government as well as the collapse of a society's normal order. This theoretical characterization may appear fairly uncontroversial, but problems arise when it is translated into practice. Defining its scope and establishing a correct balance among conflicting values often tend to be problematic. For instance, while sedition by definition undermines the authority of a legitimate government, the very legitimacy of the government in question is not always self evident, as in the case of the Soviet-installed regimes that ruled Afghanistan during the 1980s (Kamali 1985). Such regimes often imprison and persecute their internal opponents on charges of sedition and other crimes against the state. It should also be noted that words and acts constitute fitnah only if they succeed, or are likely to succeed, in posing a threat to a society's normal order. An isolated opinion that remains ineffective and does not incite opposition to a lawful government would therefore fail to qualify as fitnah... ...Abu Zahrah thus concluded that the imam(leader) may not fight the rebels over mere differences of opinion unless they break the peace and embark on violence... ...'Awdah ... outlines the rights and duties of those whose views are in opposition to those of the community and its legitimate government. The opposition has the right to propagate its views through peaceful means and enjoys the freedom, within the limits of the Shari'ah, to say what it wishes. The community also has the right to refute such views. If either side verbally or otherwise violates the Shari'ah's injunctions pertaining, for example, to blasphemy and slander, the perpetrator can be punished under the normal rules of law as an ordinary offender. The opposition is entitled to assemble, provided that it does not renounce obedience to the imam or obstruct or violate the rights of others. This is based on the precedent of 'Ali and his treatment of the Kharijites who, although isolating themselves from the rest of the community in Nahrawan, still obeyed his regional governor. The caliph fought the Kharijites only after they murdered his governor. They then refused to surrender the murderer to the authorities on the grounds that it had been a communal act committed by every one of them. Faced with this open challenge to his authority, 'Ali declared war...

As you can see from this, Islamic law approaches the question in very much the same way that the U.S. Supreme Court has done. Kamali calls on the governments of Muslim countries to follow this model in order to guarantee freedom of expression for their citizens.

birth control in Islamic law

Family Planning And Islam: A Review provides a good overview of the status of birth control in Islamic law. The article also briefly discusses abortion; I looked at that issue here. The general rule is that it is permitted to use temporary forms of birth control even if the reason for not wanting children is selfish; however their use is discouraged. The scholars are agreed that a person must have the permission of their spouse to use birth control, because the spouse has a right to have children and has to agree to give up that right. Some scholars also mention that the use of birth control methods may reduce the pleasure that one or both partners enjoy from the marital act, and each spouse also has a right to enjoy the full pleasure of marital relations and has to agree to give up that right. The most common method of birth control historically is the withdrawal method, called 'azl in Arabic. Since this is a method used by men, the discussions of the consent issue tend to focus on the wife's right to children and to sexual enjoyment and the husband's need to ask her permission, rather than the other way around. Permanent methods such as sterilization, hysterectomy and vasectomy, etc. are forbidden except if they are medically necessary to preserve health and prevent harm. A number of conservative scholars today want to strictly limit the permissibility of birth control; however, they have some trouble explaining away the clear permission for it in the texts. Scholars who are both very conservative and at the same time honest to what the Islamic texts say, such as the late Saudi scholar Shaykh Muhammad al-Uthaimin (as quoted by his student Shaykh Muhammad al-Munajjid), find a compromise by placing strict limits on the use of contraceptive methods other than 'azl. The problem I see with Shaykh Uthaimin's ruling is that one of the basic principles of Islamic jurisprudence is that all things are considered to be permissible unless there is a proof-text showing that they are forbidden. Thus the fact that only 'azl is mentioned does not mean that other methods are forbidden; it simply means that they are not mentioned. A scholar would have to show a clear difference between 'azl and other methods and a reason why this difference meant that the other methods should be forbidden while 'azl is allowed. Shaykh Uthaimin's ruling seems to me to be weak in this regard. Perhaps he set out his reasoning in more detail elsewhere.

Islamic principles of limited government

Since I know that most people don't want to read a 22-page article called An Islamic Perspective on the Wealth of Nations, I plan to summarize a few of its highlights in my blog, inshallah. The article is divided into four major parts, dealing respectively with private ownership of property, hard currency monetary policy, low taxation, and limited government. In the article, author Imad ad-Dean Ahmad sets out several principles that Muslim nations should follow. These include:

• Decentralization of ownership of the resources down to the level of the individual, protected by a system of well-defined private property rights including the internalization of costs incurred by environmental impact must be the first concern of any Islamic government towards the end of an economically successful society.
• In any case, sound monetary policy is a pre-requisite for sustainable comprehensive development. Hard money is the sunnah method for establishing sound money through the natural process of the market.
• If Muslim states wish to see prospering economies they should reduce the variety and size of taxes. Ideally they should impose only those taxes authorized by the Quran and at those rates practiced by the righteous caliphs.
• Muslim states which wish to see an industrial revolution should pursue a policy that permits the private sector to engage in any and all lawful pursuits.

I'm not an economist so I can't go into a great deal of detail explaining what Ahmad is saying but the clear thrust of all of his arguments is that the government needs to get out of peoples' lives and out of their dealings with each other (which make up the basis of the economy). Ahmad also believes that limited government is the Islamic way and the example of the Prophet Muhammad (sAas) and the early caliphs and he cites verses of the Quran and historical narratives to back up his case. Next: A look at the "hard currency" issue.

Islamic water law

While browsing Common Dreams, I came across an article by Democratic presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich called Water is a Matter of Public Debate. Kucinich argues that water must be publicly rather than privately owned, as is the growing trend. I thought I remembered seeing somewhere that Islamic law considers water to be communal property, so I did a little research. I was correct. The basis for this is the saying of the Prophet Muhammad (sAas),

Muslims have common share in three: grass, water and fire.

Water issues are obviously extremely important in many parts of the Middle East and North Africa where water is scarce. Identifying Islamic Approaches to Water Management reviews a book that looks to find solutions within Islamic law for modern water rights issues. This page looks at water laws in Palestine, Islamic and otherwise. National Water Law (Somalia) is an actual water law written for Somalia based on Islamic legal principles. Finally, An Islamic Perspective on the Wealth of Nations, a Muslim libertarian treatise, discusses water rights briefly. I don't know enough about water law in general or Islamic water law in particular to comment further, but I do want to point out these resources for people who are more knowledgeable in law. Also, I post it as a reminder that Islamic law is about a lot more than just stonings and veils. It covers economic law as well and has a great deal of relevance for today's issues.