The Qur’an and the US Constitution
By Mohammad Ashraf Chaudhry
Pittsburg, CA


The original US Constitution, a skinny document, which contained 4,543 words written some 216 year ago in 1789, was so handy that you could easily carry it in your coat pocket. But imagine the powerful punch these words were to carry in later years in the life of the citizens of the early, or modern-day United States of America. If optimistic, they read the message of the realization of their hopes and dreams, and if pessimistic, they read their fears in it.
Like the British loyal to the Crown, the Americans had been to the Constitution. Even after 216 years they still have not written another Constitution, let alone two or three. Change and progress often characterize the American mindset, but not in the case of the Constitution. (27 Amendments, and the first ten in the first two years, guaranteeing against infringements of civil liberties by the federal government, and guaranteeing such vital freedoms as the freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of religion and right to trial by jury, and the remaining 17 Amendments in 214 years, were deemed more as a step towards strengthening the Constitution than as an attempt to weakening it).
What the Holy Qur’an is to the Muslims; US Constitution is to the Americans. Muslims made progress when they followed their Holy Book in spirit and in its essence. Progress and ascendancy followed them in leaps when they put the Qur’an to practice. Imagine a 7th century Arabia, a dark and dreary region inhabiting the world’s premier abysmal civilization, consisting of Arabs who knew nothing of books or science, but only of one science, one art: the art of wreaking vengeance. Then came the word of God through Prophet Muhammad, telling them to, “Read”. Thus establishing the universal principle that knowledge alone is to be the passport to human up-lift and progress. The use of the term “read” symbolically included such connotations as reading, understanding, and writing, educating, learning and comprehending. In the words of Thomas Cleary, “The Qur’an is not only called the Reading or the Recital but also the Criterion: It is a Reminder and also a Clarification”. The Qur’an connected Faith with Reason, and thus it enabled the Islamic Civilization to absorb and vivify useful knowledge, including that of ancient peoples, whereby it eventually nursed Europe out of the Dark Ages, laying the foundation for the Renaissance. Following the Qur’an, the vengeful and bloodthirsty Bedouins became the role models of compassion and brotherhood. Since the sole aim of the Qur’an has been the establishment of a socially and economically Just society on earth, it did make it happen so. And it happened so when it was not used for purposes that are far removed from its true revealed purpose.
Now it stands usually hung on the walls of houses within decorative covers, or is used for some very interesting benefits. Qirat competitions outnumber insightful debates, explaining different verses of the Qur’an, and the message contained therein. It is frequently used for protection against evils or accidents, it is breathed hard after a weird ritual on the face. For averting a bad luck, its words are used as an amulet. Some believe it has a frightening power too, as it smites those who tell lies; some turn its pages to find a message of good fortune for themselves. It is revered to the extent that most people even do not change in a room where a copy of it is placed. All this may be true as a by-product, but it essentially was not sent to affect these objectives. Alas! This Holy Book once brought unthinkable progress to Muslims, and made them the harbinger of Renaissance, now its wrong interpretations have put its entire dynamism, and its eternal progressiveness in the reverse gear. “And We have indeed made the Qur’an easy to understand and remember: but will any take heed?” Al-Qamar 54:32. So the Qur’anic cry for the modern-day Muslims is, “But will any take heed?”
In countries where Arabic is the lingua franca, about nine out of ten can read it though hardly 4 out of 10 know what its contents are and what message it contains. In South Asian countries, about 6 out of 10 learn early on how to read it; hardly 1 out 100 know what is written within its pages. The results are obvious.
In 17th and 18th century Europe, a revolution of ideas, popularly known as “the Enlightenment”, occurred, and one of the revolutionary concepts to emerge from this period was the idea of natural rights - the right to life, liberty and property. The idea gained tremendous popularity in a highly suffocating atmosphere of Europe of that time when a Frenchman, Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) articulated it with a passion. The idea was not new as it had already been extolled by a Scot, John Locke (1632-1704) and a French lawyer, Charles Louis de Montesquieu (1689-1755). The two of the major luminaries of the American Revolution, James Madison and Thomas Jefferson were readily available there across the Atlantic to encash upon these ideas, resulting in Thomas Jefferson drafting a bill in 1777 for Establishing Religious Freedom and James Madison, later striving hard to incorporate it into the US Constitution as the First Amendment.
The Holy Qur’an some 1159 years earlier to the passing of the Bill of Rights in (1791) had very clearly and in unequivocal terms given all these rights to the people, not Muslims alone, and had made it clear that Human Rights are the birth rights of humans and they are granted to them, not by a King, or a legislative assembly, but by Allah. It also made it incumbent on the Rulers to make sure that they were granted, accepted and enforced. Anyone failing to do so, or attempting to deny them or amending them was, according to the Qur’an, to be counted among the non-believers. “Those who do not judge by what Allah has sent down are the non-believers”, (5:44)…are wrong doers (5:45), and are the law- breakers (5:47). Today, Muslim countries have the worst record as for as instances of Human Rights violations are concerned. Justice receives such prominence in the Qur’an that it is regarded as one of the reasons why God created the earth: “And we have created the heavens and the earth in Truth so that every soul may earn its just recompense for what it earned and that it may not be oppressed” (45:22), and corruption of judiciary is the cardinal cause behind the rampant violation of human rights in Muslim countries. The Qur’an did not fail us; we, as Muslims, have failed the Qur’an.
On the other hand, the US Constitution is a man-made document, but it has assumed an aura of natural law; a law that defines right from wrong, a law that is considered higher than human law. “The Fathers grew even larger in stature as they receded from view; the era in which they lived and fought became a Golden Age” of America. Their wording of the Constitution ushered in a dawn of progress and prosperity for the New World.
Where the Muslims have failed, the Americans have succeeded. And one single factor has made the whole difference: the Muslim’s respect and love for the Qur’an, though unequal and matchless in comparison, has failed to unite them. The reason being that instead of using it as a unifying factor, they over a period of time, have reduced it to a mechanical lip-service ritual. They accepted what was easier to practice, the verbal reverence; and blatantly ignored what was difficult, which is the modification of ones conduct according to the dictates of the Qur’an.
The American’s early worship of their Constitution helped them keep an otherwise diverse new nation together. The Framers work became a part of the American creed. It symbolized their national loyalty to the extent that now they refuse to accept the existence of the United States of America if it were without their very own Constitution.
The second most crucial and exceedingly important point that put America on to the road of perennial progress, even though it being so diverse and varied, has been its zeal and zest in following the Constitution in letter and spirit. They did not make amulets of it; nor did they put it on high shelves in colorful wrappers. They also did not tear it apart and throw it out of the window. They took it as a living entity, like an ever watchful and powerful guardian.
This, however, does not mean that all Americans know what the American Constitution is about. A recent poll conducted by the National Constitution Center found that nine out of ten Americans are proud of the Constitution, and feel it is important to them. One in six believes the Constitution established Americans as a Christian nation. Only one out of four could name a single First Amendment right. Although two out of three know that the Constitution creates three branches of the national government, namely the Executive, the Legislative and the Judiciary, only one in three could name all three branches.
The key to progress was handed over by James Madison to the fledgling nation when he made it clear in very certain terms that “No political truth is certainly of greater intrinsic value than the separation of powers… the accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive and judiciary in the same hands… may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny”.
Religious freedom became a founding principle of American democracy, though it continually has been redefined, and in many place, challenged. It was ironic that many settlers who had migrated to this country seeking freedom from religious persecution and their right to worship freely, once settled in a particular colony, became themselves the religious persecutors. Like the Shias and Sunnis and many other vying denominations of the religion, Islam, the Puritans of Connecticut and Massachusetts declared Puritanism as the single religion of their states; New York became a follower of the Dutch Reformed church; Maryland a Catholic, and colonies established by the English government, such as Virginia and South Carolina established Anglicanism as their official religion. And with the exception of the Baptists and the Quakers, none of the above displayed any inclination to be tolerant, or willing to accommodate those who professed a different form of Christianity.
Was it not a miracle then that after the signing of the Declaration of Independence in 1776, the colonies still remained a unified nation? Indeed, it was. Religious affiliation was central to most colonies, and to convince them to co-exist side by side with those who held a different religious view was a Herculean task. Thomas Jefferson, just after one year sensed the impeding danger and in 1777 drafted a Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom which declared that: “…all men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinions in matters of religion, and that the same shall in no wise diminish, enlarge, or affect their civil capacities” 10 years heated debate made it a law in Virginia. A turning point in American history came when James Madison championed the statute, adopted on January 16, 1786, and in five years, i.e. in 1791 got it adopted as the “first freedom”, in the First Amendment of the US Constitution, providing that: “ Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…” The Founding Fathers gave to the Americans, what in case of Muslims, Allah had given them more than a millennium earlier.
The Qur’an declares no coercion in religion and safeguards the rights of the minorities, and defines Governance or Authority as a Sacred Trust. But the Muslim world stands polarized in every meaning of the word. Most forms of government, as per the definition given by Madison, are “tyrannical”, because all powers accumulate in one hand. The earthquake of October 8, 2005 in Pakistan destroyed five out of eight districts of Azad Kashmir and a good portion of the Northern areas, leaving thousands still buried under cement and steal, and our religious leaders are seen fighting over whether it is permissible to accept aid from NATO, India and Israel. And they quote from the Qur’an too that non-believers can never be your friends. When Halaku Khan was knocking at the door of Baghdad, the religious elite was fighting over the question whether it was permissible to eat the meat of Buraq, the winged-steed that the Prophet rode on his nocturnal heavenly journey.
The Qur’an is not just an amulet to be hung around ones neck. It is, in the words of Huston Smith, a memorandum for the faithful, a reminder for daily doings, and a repository of revealed truth. It is a manual of definitions and guarantees, and at the same time a road map for the will. Centuries' stagnation, exacerbated by colonization, no doubt, has created a rift in the Muslim world. Our religious elite accepts the industrial modernization, but is scared of Westernization; cars, cellular phones, aero-planes, heating and cooling appliances etc are perfectly acceptable to them invented by the West, even dollars and sterling pounds, embossed with the photographs of their respective luminaries are also welcome; but not those who own them. They preach nationalism and regionalism in one breath, and in the next they also talk of the unity of Ummah under Islam. They need not benumb our people any more because the Qur’an aims at nothing short than the success of mankind as a whole, and this success can only be attained by cultivation of man’s total gifts and faculties that he is endowed with by God. The West made use of this Qur’anic principle, and are successful. We let them rust, and the consequences are obvious.

 


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Editor: Akhtar M. Faruqui
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