Shaykh Google: The Epidemic

by Behar (Kurdistan)

Using a term that I first heard coined by Shaykh Hamza Yusuf, we are living in the time of “Shaykh Google”, where any child or teenager, any disgruntled youth looking for a cause to justify his ridiculous actions, any man looking for a new fatwa, can simply turn to Shaykh google and the religious edicts are as plentiful as they are misleading. A new study shows that Americans shouldn’t be worried about this supposedly new wave of brainwashed extremists coming from American mosques, because all but 2 of the last 30 suspects detained in recent months (including the infamous converts) were influenced by Shaykh G. who offered them the religious justifications they needed via extremist and fundamentalist websites, to go forth and attempt to harm innocent American civilians.

What’s more problematic though, is that Shaykh google is producing a new generation of Muslim youth who, rather than put in the years worth of study and scholarly research necessary to even begin discussing religious edicts, turn instead to a search engine where the information—and viewpoint—they seek is at their fingertips in seconds. This is a generation that is no longer interested in reading the complete Quran with the centuries worth of commentary, tafsir, and hadiths that go with it, and will quote verses that discuss punishments when individuals break the law, only to overlook the verses that follow that almost always say that to forgive is better in the eyes of God. There are those who state that men can take up to 4 wives, and both proponents and opponents of this position fail to see the myriad of factors behind this verse. Some men pervert the verse, preferring young virgins over their aging wives, and those against it site human rights violations against those very men for usually putting out their first wives. For one thing, having up to 4 wives in 600 AD was putting a limit on the number of wives a man could marry because men often married dozens of wives as a symbol of status or wealth. In fact, there are multiple prophets mentioned in the Old Testament, such as Jacob, who took both Leah and her sister Rachael as wives. (Racahel, ofcourse, being the mother of Joseph) For another thing, the verse was revealed after a particularly difficult battle in which many men were killed, and the ratio of men to women was significantly less. Finally, the verse itself comes with two warnings: if you don’t treat them all exactly alike the consequences are particularly terrible for the male. In a verse that follows not long after that it says that males will NEVER be able to treat their wives equally, i.e. don’t take on more than one unless it is absolutely necessary. There is also the issue of domestic abuse, and how men claim that there is a verse that condones beating women, when in fact someone who doesn’t have a strong grasp of the Arabic language, let alone the Quran, wouldn’t know that not only does that narrative not fit with the narrative of how the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) treated his own wives (all but two of whom were previously widowed, living in a society that did little to protect or even care for widows and orphans) but how the word that is misunderstood for “beat” is used multiple times in the Quran to mean anything from “barely tapping” to “a sign from God”. Just to give you a grasp of the difficulty of the Arabic language, there are 300 words alone for a lion, each of which depict what the lion is doing. It is important to know the origins of what you are reading and you’ll only know those origins if you don’t take the google shortcuts and put in the time to learn from an actual scholar. This doesn’t mean that every scholar is always right or that every website is flawed. It simply means that there are multiple interpretations and perspectives about almost everything, whether it’s Islam, Christianity, religion in general, politics, etc. The most effective thing one can do is put in the time to understand the issue first. A political scientist’s perspective is much more credible than the perspective of Glen Beck, but Glen Beck is a crazy man with a microphone, so people listen. Don’t listen to the crazy men with the microphones. Don’t go to Shaykh google when you know that your local Imam at least has the books and degree to back up some of his claims. I might not agree with every political scientist, but I can respect the fact that they are academics in their own right in their particular fields. The Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, once said that the best of any two extremes is somewhere in the middle. Stay in the middle. It makes you sound rational.

There are those who claim that women should be stoned for adultery, homosexuals and witches should be killed, and thieves should have their arms cut off. What you should always be wary of is what I like to call, “the one verser”. The “one verser” sounds a lot like the Glen Becks running around shouting “Muslims believe that you should kill non believers wherever you find them!”They take one verse, disregard the commentary associated with that verse for the past 1400 years, disregard what Muslims themselves have to say about it, and make one general statement. The Glen Becks are just as guilty as the Jihad Janes, those who use the Quran in the name of Islam to taint our faith. They don’t look at the fact that the verses about fighting in the Quran are set for a particular place at a particular time when Muslims were being persecuted for their beliefs—not unlike the multitude of verses in the Old Testament that talk about various battles. They don’t look at how Muslims were killed and abused for 13 years and were ordered not to lift a finger to fight back. They don’t look at how the verse says that you have every right to defend yourself against those who wish you harm, but if they stop fighting you then you must stop fighting back because God doesn’t love aggressors. No, they’ll just look at “fight them wherever you find them.”

They also fail to see that Islamic laws can only be applied in a truly Islamic state in an Islamic court, and that the individual is not allowed to take the law into his own hands. They won’t look at the myriad of commentary on adulterers and what the law truly says, such as that one cannot be accused of adultery and tried as an adulterer unless there are four witnesses who say that he or she did it, and even then she cannot be stoned, because by virtue of being stoned the individual must choose to take the punishment in this life rather than before God, and so the person must choose, and the Quran says that God forgives all sins for those who truly repent. Moreover, there is no mention of stoning in the Quran, it is in the Hadith, and the science of hadith relies on “isnad”, i.e the chain of transmission which attests to the Hadith’s reliability, as the Hadith are the words and actions of the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, and the Quran is the direct word of God.  The same thing goes for thieves. The female and male thieves are ordered to have their hand cut off in Surat al-Maeda (Surah 5:38), so that they will remain an example to the community for others who wish to commit similar crimes. However, those who steal out of necessity—such as the poor who steal food—cannot be tried in that manner, and forgiveness is there for those who repent. The amount is important too—i.e. a loaf of bread is not the same thing as cleaning out someone’s bank account and destroying their livelihood. A person deemed to be insane also cannot be tried.  

In a hadith by Bukhari (known to be one of the strongest collections of hadith), It is written that,

“Said Anas Bin Malik, ‘I was present beside the Prophet (Pbuh) when a man came and said; ‘O Prophet of God I have committed a punishable sin, so enact the punishment’. The Prophet (Pbuh) did not ask him any question till it was time for prayer. After he had offered the prayer with the Prophet (Pbuh), he again approached him and said; “O Prophet of God I have committed a punishable sin, so judge me by the book of God”. The Prophet (Pbuh) asked him, ‘ Have you not offered prayer with me’? He replied, ‘Yes’. Then the Prophet (Pbuh) said, ‘God has pardoned your sin and your punishment.”   The purpose of punishments in Islam is to prevent criminals who continuously commit crimes from harming society.

Moreover, most would argue that there isn’t a single truly Islamic nation out there today because of the levels of corruption that exist at the highest levels of government, who seldom held accountable for their actions. Islam therefore defines for Muslims what is sin and what is not. It must then be implemented completely in a truly Muslim society so that it is clear what is and isn’t permissible in that particular society, and the leaders themselves must be held to the highest standard because they are setting the example. Only when that happens, can the law be implemented.

And just who am I to be discussing such controversial issues at length? I certainly don’t consider myself to be an esteemed scholar by any means, but I have studied Islam intensively in an academic environment for 13 years and can understand Arabic well. I’ve read the commentaries, the Quran, the various hadiths, and the religious rulings, and while I’m no expert, I certainly am not a pupil of Shaykh google either. However, my perspective may be just as flawed as the next person’s, Allahu a’alam (God knows better), but my perspective is simply that: a perspective and not a definitive position. It should be examined, criticized, and perhaps thought about a bit, but it is not infallible.

As the greatest Muslim scholars did and still say, all the truth in this piece comes from God, and all of the mistakes are mine alone.