Tariq Ramadan Calls for Hudud Freeze

By IOL Staff

GENEVA, March 30, 2005 (IslamOnline.net) - Tariq Ramadan, a world-renowned Muslim thinker, issued Wednesday, March 30, a call for an international moratorium in the Muslim world on the application of Hudud (prescribed Islamic penalties), a call likely to stir controversy among Muslim scholars.

“We are officially launching today an international call for an immediate moratorium on corporal punishment, stoning and the death penalty in all majority Muslim countries,” Ramadan said in a press release obtained by IslamOnline.net.

“This call for a moratorium is being made considering that the opinions of most Islamic scholars is neither explicit nor unanimous (indeed even without a clear majority) as far as the comprehension of the texts and to the application of the Hudud.”

Ramadan further said the political systems and the state of the majority Muslim societies do not guarantee just or equal treatment of individuals before the law.

“A still more grave injustice is that these penalties are applied almost exclusively to women and the poor, the doubly victimized, never to the wealthy, the powerful, or the oppressors.

“Furthermore, hundreds of prisoners have no access to anything that could even remotely be called defense counsel. Death sentences are decided and carried out against women, men and even minors (political prisoners, traffickers, delinquents, etc.) without ever given a chance to obtain legal counsel.

“In resigning ourselves to having a superficial relationship to the scriptural sources, we betray the message of justice of Islam,” Ramadan argues.

Ramadan, named by Time magazine as one of the world's top 100 influential thinkers, also called on all Islamic religious authorities of the world, whatever their school of thought, to engage in a dialogue on the issue of Hudud laws.

“It is urgent that Muslims throughout the world refuse the formalist legitimization of the teachings of their religion and reconcile themselves with the depth of the message of Islam that invites towards spirituality, demands education, justice and the respect of pluralism.”

Click to read Tariq Ramadan's Call in detail

“Serious”

Muslim scholars, however, beg to differ with Ramadan, warning that his public call is a very serious matter.

“When this call comes from a respectable scholar like Dr. Tariq Ramadan, it may encourage others also to disrespect the laws of Allah,” Muzammil H. Siddiqi, the former President of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), said in a statement to IOL.

“Some may start calling for moratorium on the family law of Islam also, and some others on the business and finance laws of Islam, and some may ask for moratorium on the whole Shari`ah”.

Sano Koutoub Moustapha, member of the Islamic Fiqh Academy attached to the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), urged Ramadan to backtrack on his controversial call “for the sake of the Muslim Ummah.”

“I do have a great respect and love for Dr. Tariq. [But] If we call today for an international moratorium on corporal punishment, stoning and the death penalty, then tomorrow I am so worried that they may ask Muslims to suspend their Friday Prayer,” he told IOL.

Salah Sultan, member of the European Council for Fatwa and Research and the International Association of Muslim Scholars (IAMS), called on Ramadan to give his idea a second reading.

“Such a call will only stir too much ado about an issue that is by no means a priority,” Sultan told IOL. “It will further beef up seculars and enemies of Islam, who will step up their war on Islam.”

Taha Jabir Al-Alwani, President of the Fiqh Council of North America, agreed that Muslims had enough of problems and pressing issues.

“The Muslim nation is facing nowadays enemies who are trying to pit Muslims against one another,” he said, urging Ramadan and leading Muslim thinkers not to fall into the trap.

Unfounded Innovation

Other scholars dismissed Ramadan’s call as an “unfounded innovation” rearing its ugly head on the Muslim world.

“It came after the woman-led prayer in the United States and the opening of a women-only mosque in Holland and now we have the Hudud moratorium call from Switzerland,” Ahmed Al-Rawi, chairman of the Islamic Organizations in Europe, told IOL.

Rawi agreed that Ramadan’s “impotent” call did much fuss about nothing.

“Where on earth such Hudud are applicable? Rawi wondered, answering: “They are not implemented in all Muslim countries and there are some reservations on the application of these Hudud in Saudi Arabia.”

Alwani added that he did not believe that there is a country on earth applying Shari`ah the way it should be applied.

“There are some aspirations that have not been yet translated into concrete steps,” he told IOL.

Rawi feared that Ramadan’s call could trigger “needless religious sedition”, noting that he should have consulted leading Muslim bodies before jumping to his conclusion.

“There is something called the International Association of Muslim Scholars and the European Council for Fatwa and Research and, to my way of thinking, they are the one and only bodies that can address such questions.”

“Better Application”

Siddiqi said Ramadan should have called for a “better application” of Hudud instead of halting them all at once.

“Dr. Ramadan should have called for better and comprehensive application of the Shari’ah. He should have criticized more openly and clearly the misapplications of the Hudud in some Muslim countries,” he said.

He said the Islamic penal code is very vast, and its purpose is to establish justice and to protect the rights of individuals, family and society.

“The corporal punishments on certain crimes and violations are only one aspect of the Shari`ah. Their purposes are to discipline the violators, to deter other offenders and to keep the society safe for all people.”

Sultan sees eye to eye with Ramadan on the unfair application of Hudud.

“But we can’t take the misconduct of rulers as a justification to call publicly for a moratorium on the application of Hudud,” he told IOL.

No Excuse

Rawi added that the vile campaigns targeting Islam in the West cannot also justify Ramadan’s stance.

“We have been living in the West for so many years and the attack on Islam will never come to a stop by such calls, but rather they could open a new front against the Muslim faith.”

Tariq El-Bishri, former head of Egypt’s State Council and prominent Islamic thinker, said Ramadan’s call is “juristically baseless.”

“It is based on reality in the West and the challenges faced by Ramadan over there,” Bishri told IOL.

“He wants Muslims to lay Shari`ah and penal references in the Noble Qur’an and Sunnah to rest until further notice. But Muslims are not in position to take such a decision.”