These questions should ideally be addressed to Dr. Shahid Shafi at a public hearing, in the most courteous, non-confrontational, we-just-want-to-clarify-a-few-things manner — not that, given his pattern thus far, he is likely to answer them.
Here are some questions that come to mind:
1. Dr. Shafi, in saying your five daily prayers, you — and all Muslims — curse the Kuffar 17 times a day. Robert Spencer notes that “in the course of praying the requisite five prayers a day, an observant Muslim will recite the Fatihah, the first surah of the Qur’an and the most common prayer in Islam, seventeen times. The final two verses of the Fatihah ask Allah: ‘Show us the straight path, the path of those whom Thou hast favored; not the (path) of those who earn Thine anger nor of those who go astray.’ The traditional Islamic understanding of this is that the ‘straight path’ is Islam — cf. Islamic apologist John Esposito’s book Islam: The Straight Path. The path of those who have earned Allah’s anger are the Jews, and those who have gone astray are the Christians.’ In light of that, would you support dropping that curse against non-Muslims?
2. What do you make, Dr Shafi, of the 109 Qur’anic verses that command Muslims to engage in violent Jihad? For example, what do you think of such verses as 2:190-194, 3:89, 8:12, 8:60, 9:5, 9;29, and 47:4? What should be done, what can be done, about all these verses that prescribe the killing of Infidels? You must surely have given this matter some thought, having been born and raised a Muslim, and now living among non-Muslims. Can you suggest a way forward toward a true “convivencia” that would require Muslims to give up the idea of Jihad?
3. The Qur’an describes Muslims as “the best of peoples” (3:110) and non-Muslims as “the most vile of creatures” (98:6). Do you agree with those statements? If not, what is to be done about them so that Muslims no longer take them to heart?
4. Do you agree that Muhammad is the Perfect Man (al-insan al-kamil) and the Model of Conduct (uswa hasana)? If you do, what do you think of Muhammad consummating his marriage to Aisha — that is, having sexual relations with her — when she was nine years old and he was 54?
5. Do you approve of Muhammad’s attack on the Jews of the Khaybar Oasis, and his taking as his sex slave Saafiya, after having had her father and husband killed? Do you think Muhammad was right to order the torture and killing of Kinana of Khaybar? Do you regard Muhammad as “the Perfect Man”?
6. As I’m sure you know, Muhammad claimed in a famous hadith that angels would not enter a house where there were pictures. For 1400 years, as a result of that hadith, Muslims have refrained from painting living creatures or sculpting statues. Muslims are also discouraged, in other hadith, from playing musical instruments. Do you think that either of these prohibitions should continue to be followed today? Do you support Muslims who want to paint living creatures or play musical instruments?
7. Muhammad is reported in the hadith to have expressed pleasure when he learned of the killings, by different followers, of Asma bint Marwan, Abu ‘Afak, and Ka’b bin al-Ashraf, who had all criticized or mocked him. What do you think of Muhammad’s reaction to those murders?
8. In the most authoritative hadith collection — Sahih Bukhari — Muhammad is quoted at 52:269 as saying that “war is deceit.” What do you think of this statement? What do you think of the practice of taqiyya, that is, religiously-sanctioned dissimulation to protect both the faith and Believers?
9. In the Qur’an Muslims are told not to take “Christians or Jews as friends, for they are friends only with each other.” Dr. Shafi, you have certainly ignored that verse, making friends with many people here in Tarrant County, and some of whom are right here tonight. What made you decide to ignore that Qur’anic verse?
10. In another hadith in Bukhari, Muhammad declared that “I have been made victorious through terror.” What should we non-Muslims make of this remark, Dr. Shafi, especially in the light of such Qur’anic verses as 3:89, 8;12, 8:60, 9:5, 9:29, and 47:4, where Muslims are unambiguously told to attack, and kill, and strike terror in the hearts of Infidels? Do you think we can afford to ignore them?
11. Dr. Shafi, we’re sure you know that the position of women according to Islamic law is somewhat difficult. For example, a daughter normally inherits half of what a son inherits. A woman’s testimony is worth half that of a man’s. Muhammad himself explains that disparity as reflecting the fact that “women are deficient in intelligence.” (Sahih Bukhari 1.6.301) Men can take plural wives, while a woman is limited to one husband. Men can divorce those wives, at whim, merely by reciting the triple-talaq. Women wanting a divorce are required to return the mahr, the amount given by the husband to her on entering the marriage, and — unlike a divorcing husband — to supply a valid reason for the divorce. Finally, as I’m sure you know, a husband has the right to “beat” a “disobedient wife.” (Qur’an 4:34) Dr. Shafi, what do you think of these many examples of unequal treatment of women in Islam?
12. Dr. Shafi, Muhammad owned and traded slaves. As you know, the Muslim Arab slave trade in Africa lasted far longer, and was far more extensive, and claimed many more victims, than the Atlantic slave trade. The German-Egyptian scholar Dr. Hamed Abdel-Samad has recently devoted his online lecture series on Islam to the fact that the Arabs were the greatest slave-owners of all. Do you think that such rich Arab states as Saudi Arabia and the Emirates, acting on behalf of all the Muslim Arabs, should pay reparations for slavery to those black African countries from which the slaves were seized?
13. Here, Dr Shafi, are five Qur’anic verses: Quran 3:151 – “Soon shall We cast terror into the hearts of the Unbelievers, for that they joined companions with Allah, for which He had sent no authority.
Quran 8:12 – “(Remember) when your Lord inspired the angels… “I will cast terror into the hearts of those who disbelieve. Therefore strike off their heads and strike off every fingertip of them.”
Quran 8:39 – “And fight with them until there is no more fitna (disorder, unbelief) and religion is all for Allah.”
Quran 9:5 – “So when the sacred months have passed away, then slay the idolaters wherever you find them, and take them captive and besiege them and lie in wait for them in every ambush, then if they repent and keep up prayer and pay the poor-rate, leave their way free to them.” [in other words if they become Muslims, observing the five daily prayers and paying the zakat]
Quran 9:29 – “Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger, nor acknowledge the religion of Truth, (even if they are) of the People of the Book, until they pay the Jizya with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued.”
Dr. Shafi, could you please comment on these verses? Do you think they have no place in the thinking of Muslims today?
If Dr. Shafi fails to answer these questions, that will be most telling. The questions ought to be made public — ideally published in the papers, as well as presented at open meetings of the local Republican Party — so that everyone in Tarrant County, and many in other Texas counties, will be made aware of these Qur’anic verses and hadith stories. It’s a way of raising the public consciousness about such things as the story of little Aisha, or of Muhammad claiming that “war is deceit” and “I have been made victorious through terror.” Very few non-Muslims read the Qur’an. This is a way to supply them with the verses they most need to be made aware of. We want people to know that Muslims are not to take Christians and Jews as friends (though false friendship is permitted in order to further the cause of Islam), and that the Qur’an tells them to regard non-Muslims as “the most vile of creatures.”
Whatever the response of Dr. Shafi to any or all of these questions, the most important thing is to have these Quranic verses and hadith stories — which will startle many — become widely known. That will be a victory for a campaign of counter-Da’wa. The debate over whether to ratify Dr. Shafi’s appointment will provide the occasion, the excuse, for asking these questions, which are just as important for people to learn about as his answers and non-answers would be revealing. Think of the questions above as The Big Ask.