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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