Disclosure - I am a progressive christian trending agnostic. Most of the information I am reading about Al-taqiyya is coming from conservative boards where the level of discourse does not attain quite the level we get here. I am posting this to fight my own ignorance.
**
One thing we hear from the right and those who are rabidly anti-muslim is “Where are all the muslims who are opposed to violence? Why don’t they ever speak out?”
Well I took the time to compile a list of links on Youtube and elsewhere of just that - muslims who say violence and terrorism is unacceptable, lamenting the death of innocents, and voicing support for democratic principles.
Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, the leader of the “Ground Zero” community center/mosque seems to be the muslim you want as a leader in your community. I pointed this out and that is where I heard about the concept of al-taqiyya.
If you search for the meaning of al-taqiyya, your results vary greatly depending on the source. Some say it simply allows muslims to conceal their faith when it would put them in peril, others say it is the obligation of muslims to lie and deceive non-muslims.
So what is al-taqiyya? People are using it as an example of why we cannot trust people such as Imam Rauf, as they are concealing their true motives. It is becoming a bit of a meme on the right whenever a muslim seems to be doing “the right thing”. Is it a harmless principle or a weapon of deceit?
Quite a bind for Muslims to be in. If they remain silent, the are said to implicitly encourage the extremists by not speaking out. If they speak, they are said to be lying under this “al-taqiyya” principle.
I’ll defer to anyone knowledgable about al-taqiyya, but I wanted to point out the non-falsifiability of this general hypothesis. Under this analysis, it’s impossible for a Muslim to take any action that proves his distate for extremists and violence.
It’s a reference in the Qur’an to the fact that God will forgive someone denying elements of their faith if they or someone else are in actual physical jeopardy. That’s the interpretation I get from EVERY source.
What’s the big deal about that? It seems like common sense to me, and a rule that a merciful and just God would totally be behind. How does it have anything to do with the Cordoba project?
And of course, as Bricker has pointed out, assailing taqiyya appears to be a rhetorical way of putting Muslims into an inescapable trap:
“I demand Muslims come out and speak against violence!”
“Hello, I’m a Muslim. I abhor religious extremism and violence. Allah demands we be merciful and decent. I do not support terrorism of any sort.”
Apart from the dubious nature of the claim that the Koran calls for lying to non-Muslims, there’s uncomfortable evidence that elements of other major religions are comfortable with lying to advance perceived principles of their faith.
As an example, we see this commonly in key segments of the anti-abortion movement directed by Christian organizations, which spread falsehoods about abortion and utilize deception to get women into so-called “crisis pregnancy centers”.
Whatever deceptions are spread by some adherents of Islam, they’re hardly unique in lying for their religion.
I wasn’t familiar with the term until you mentioned it, but I am familiar with the concept. Seems like a legitimate tactic for self-preservation and plain good sense to me. If I or my family are under physical threat of harm if we profess to being Muslim, then this just gives us an out by letting us hide our faith.
For example I seem to remember reading about Spanish Muslims living in Spain under the threat of the Inquisition. Rather than openly admit their faith and subject themselves to torture and death, they would pretend to be Christians and even go so far as to hang hams in their houses. There was a saying at the time that goes something like “My heart is within my heart and my heart is Muslim.”
Bibliovore has it. It’s not a blanket justification for lying to non-Muslims; it’s the principle that Muslims can (and should) lie about being Muslim to protect themselves from imminent harm.
ETA: AK84, why would you post just to say “never mind”?
I’ve actually seen some people claiming that option C is true, namely that there are peaceful Muslims out there, but “they’re only peaceful because they don’t fully understand or properly practice what is *inherently *an evil and violent religion.”
I wonder if Muhammed did this at least in part to contrast Islam with the strictures of Christianity.
Luke 12:8-9 -
So Christians are not supposed to disavow their faith, even under threat. I don’t think this affects the “lying to get into an abortion clinic” or “lying if the Nazis ask you if you have Anne Frank in your attic”, though.
That’s really interesting. I hadn’t realised it was part of the tenets of Christianty to not disavow your faith under any circumstances. Is that true for all branches of Christianity?
As far as I know. I was raised Catholic, and the Church is chock-full of martyrs who died because they wouldn’t deny their Christianity. At least 1/3 of the saints fall under this category.
You can see this thought process at work when Christians in the USA, which is undeniably a Christian-populated nation in the vast majority, try desperately to winkle out any explanation of any situation that places them in the martyrdom spotlight, despite the fact that probably 99% of all positions of any power whatsoever in this country are filled by Christians.
Also, Peter’s denial of Christ the morning after His arrest is definitely depicted in the Gospels as something to be ashamed of and not to be emulated.
To the extent that anything is true for all branches of Christianity, yes.
There were two classes of people after some of the great persecutions of the Church - martyrs, who died because of their confession, and “confessors”, who made it thru without being killed even though they had confessed the faith. Very, very big deal.
There is a part in the Creeds where it is mentioned that there is “one baptism for the remission of sins”. Partly that is based on a controversy where people weren’t sure if, if they were confronted with torture or death and renounced the faith, did they have to be re-baptized? It was decided no they didn’t - one baptism covered all your sins, past and present, even serious ones like that. (It was also decided that the sacraments of a priest who had renounced the faith and then returned were stil valid. People were really worried about things like that.)
Fortunately or otherwise, we have had a good deal of practice dealing with things like this.
OTOH, we are not compelled to sit still and die -
None of this should be taken to imply that Christians are always courageous enough to die for the faith.
From what I understand, Taqiyya isn’t an encouragement to lie to or deceive non-Muslims at all. It’s merely a principle along which one can claim not to be Muslim, and even commit “sins” if asked to, when their life would be in danger if they didn’t.
As in, if the brown shirts are demanding you spit on the Koran or they cut your nuts off, then Allah will understand and won’t hold it against you if you spit.
I fail to see what’s so outrageous or controversial about it.
ETA : heh, so beaten to the punch. Ah well, can’t have too many voices of reason.
On a related note, Muslims are permitted to eat pork or drink alcohol if the alternative is starvation, but we’re only talking about life-or-death situations here - you’re not really fooling anyone if you head out into the middle of the desert with nothing but some bacon-stuffed kielbasa and a six-pack.
Its a pretty intersting question, theology wise. Is life sacred? Throwing away life for a cheap ticket to Heaven, isn’t that a form of suicide? If you take that route and leave behind family to fend for themselves, isn’t that fundamenally selfish? If a man lives a thoroughly sinful life and cops martyrdom as a “Get Out of Hell Free” card, is that valid?
The Hebrew tradition is very clear about that. You may totally break the law to preserve life, because God treasures life above law. On the other hand, of course, if God told me to sacrifice my son for Him, I would tell Him to go fuck Himself. I would not obey a god that places obedience above love. Fuck that shit!
Some people creatively interpret the teachings of their religion to justify what they want to do. There are Jews who do this, Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, and probably every religion that has ever existed has had people do this sort of thing. Of course religious Muslims who want to justify violence will find a way to do it with Muslim teachings. Christians and Jews who wanted to justify violence in the name of their faith have done the same thing. It’s something that humans are good at.
People find a way to justify their distrust of someone they don’t want to trust. Using religious concepts or doctrines to do this is not new or unique to Islam. Anti-Semites have done it (they used to say our prayer annulling vows was a reason we couldn’t be trusted), anti-Christians have done it. Probably every religion has had somebody who didn’t like it, and who used some teaching or tradition of that religion to justify that dislike. People are good at justifying their feelings and prejudices.
