Some fourteen hundred years after the Prophet Muhammad first articulated God’s law—the shari‘a—its earthly interpreters are still arguing about what it means. Hard-liners reduce it to amputations, veiling, holy war, and stonings. Others say that it is humanity’s only guarantee of a just society. And as colossal acts of terrorism made the word “shari‘a” more controversial than ever during the past decade, the legal historian and human rights lawyer Sadakat Kadri realized that many people in the West harbored ideas about Islamic law that were hazy or simply wrong. Heaven on Earth describes his journey, through ancient texts and across modern borders, in search of the facts behind the myths.
Kadri brings lucid analysis and enlivening wit to the turbulent story of Islam’s foundation and expansion, showing how the Prophet Muhammad’s teachings evolved gradually into concepts of justice. Traveling the Muslim world to see the shari‘a’s principles in action, he encounters a cacophony of legal claims. At the ancient Indian grave of his Sufi ancestor, unruly jinns are exorcised in the name of the shari‘a. In Pakistan’s madrasas, stern scholars ridicule his talk of human rights and demand explanations for NATO drone attacks in Afghanistan. In Iran, he hears that God is forgiving enough to subsidize sex-change operations—but requires the execution of Muslims who change religion. Yet the stories of compulsion and violence are only part of a picture that also emphasizes compassion and equity. Many of Islam’s first judges refused even to rule on cases for fear that a mistake would damn them, and scholars from Delhi to Cairo maintain that governments have no business enforcing faith.
The shari‘a continues to shape explosive political events and the daily lives of more than a billion Muslims. Heaven on Earth is a brilliantly iconoclastic tour through one of humanity’s great collective intellectual achievements—and an essential guide to one of the most disputed but least understood controversies of modern times.
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“Eloquent . . . Thorough and admirable . . . Kadri’s background gives him a grounded and many-angled perspective on Islamic law. He finds a great deal to admire in it, and he is deft at dispelling myths . . . [A] colorful march through Islamic history and jurisprudence . . . [Kadri] explores these complicated issues with probity but also good humor.” —Dwight Garner, The New York Times
“A vivid history of Islam . . . Kadri’s writing is full of elegance and wit.” —The New Yorker
“A carefully researched history of how Islamic jurisprudence has evolved since the seventh century . . . [Kadri] writes with a breezy, witty tone and excels at synthesizing Islamic scholarship for a general reader. He provides a lively intellectual history of Islam.” —Mohamad Bazzi, The New York Times Book Review
“Heaven on Earth is an evolutionary look at Islamic jurisprudence that is subtle, generous and—rather improbably—dryly hilarious . . . What makes this book so good isn’t just that it manages the odd feat of delivering a discriminating, magisterial history of shari‘a that’s also quite funny; it’s that its humor isn’t merely incidental. Kadri’s tone—gently skeptical, wittily deflationary, and most of all darkly delighted by the absurdities of history—is perfectly consonant with the substance of his project.” —Gideon Lewis-Kraus, NPR.org
“Measured [and] accessible . . . With the enthusiasm for complexity of a practicing lawyer, and the empathy of one descended from devout Indian Muslims, Kadri embraces this most controversial of topics with humor, heart and hope.” —Brook Wilensky-Lanford, San Francisco Chronicle
“Learned, level-headed, engaging, [Heaven on Earth] deserves praise on every front . . . [Kadri] finds that the kinds of shari‘a now trumpeted by theocrats and militants always owe more to human arrogance than to divine inspiration.” —Boyd Tonkin, The Independent
“An ambitious, accessible survey from the first notions of as conveying ‘the idea of a direct path to water’ in the time of Muhammad when no written form of the moral law yet existed . . . With occasional personal travel details added to an engaging scholarly history, Kadri offers a readable, useful companion to the Qur’an.” —Kirkus Reviews
“This is a beautifully nuanced and incisive study of a subject beset by misunderstanding. A timely and important achievement.” —Colin Thubron, author of Shadow of the Silk Road
“Compelling . . . Admirably even-handed . . . [Heaven on Earth] book greatly enriches our understanding of a much misunderstood subject.” —Ian Critchley, The Sunday Times (London)
“A truly penetrating and provocative book.” —Aatish Taseer, The Observer (London)
“If you are about to utter the word ‘Islam’ or ‘shari‘a,’ stop and read this book first. It’s a fascinating and often witty account of the evolution of the shari‘a through the ages and the way it’s practiced across the Muslim world now. I never thought legal history could be made into a page-turner. Kadri is a brilliant historian and an even better writer.” —Mohammed Hanif, author of A Case of Exploding Mangoes
“An elegantly composed model for writing cultural and intellectual history, Heaven on Earth explodes the nation of the Muslim world as a monolith and Islamic tradition as unchanging.” —David Luhrssen, Express Milwaukee
“[A] fascinating journey . . . Skilfully weaves history with travelogue to guide the reader into this most contentious and topical of territory . . . Kadri approaches these themes with unstinting humanity and intelligence, as well as great fluency.” —James Mather, The Spectator
“Captivating . . . Heaven on Earth is an erudite and instructive book.” —Ziauddin Sardar, The Times (London)
“Illuminating . . . Intriguing and memorable . . . [An] intellectually nimble and rigorously researched book . . . Kadri is a precise and stylish writer, as good on explicating abstruse arguments as he is at conjuring vivid scenes . . . Given how heated debates about shari‘a have become, and given how glancing the intellectual engagement with it is on the part of some of the most strident voices, this brave and sane book could not be more timely.” —Stuart Kelly, The Scotsman
“[A] brilliant and illuminating study . . . A gripping account . . . Kadri is far too subtle to either to mount an attack on shari‘a, or to defend it. He has demystified it . . . With tact and fine writing, [Kadri] has helped us to understand what shari‘a really is, and how it emerged, and that will do at least something to demolish prejudice.” —Boris Johnson, The Mail on Sunday
“Lively, yet scholarly . . . Kadri is an ideally positioned guide.” —Sameer Rahim, The Daily Telegraph
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Part I provides a concise journey through the history of Shari'a law. The author covers the main developments in Islamic jurisprudence and puts those developments in their historical and political context. He makes a compelling point for not limiting our opinions and treatment of Shari'a law to what we know about it based on the past few decades.
Part II of the book was OK. I can't put my finger on why I do not like it as much as Part I. It is possibly due to my inability to piece together the diverse stories from the author's travels into a coherent message. That said, chapter 10, which is part of Part II, ended with three paragraphs I consider among the most powerful in the book.
The basic document of Islam is the Qur'an; however much of its original meaning is unclear or no longer relevant: "most of the Qur'an's 114 chapters had been overruled - 71 of them, according to one authoritative estimate." Islamic scholars explain that "God's responses to changing circumstances meant that many older verses of the Qur'an could be legally ineffective."
Muslims differ as to when the Qur'an appeared. It "was first enunciated by the Prophet Muhammad during the 620s." It is not composed chronologically, but organized according to the size of its chapters. Its name means "recitation," and many are convinced that it wasn't written down until after Muhammad's death. Others insist that he had it written during his lifetime. Some say that Allah composed it. Others insist that it existed as long as Allah. This later view suggests that the Qur'an's content has nothing to do with divine will or earthly circumstances; it is truth personified. However, this view seems to be contradicted by its changes due to altered circumstances.
Shari'a is Islamic laws, from inheritance to warfare. The name conveys "the idea of a direct path to water - a route of considerable importance to a desert people." However, it is more than that. Water is a sustainer of life. As one Syrian jurist put it: "If it had not been for the fact that some of its rules remain [in this world] this world would [have] become corrupted and the universe would [have been] dissipated." Changes in human circumstances also resulted in changes in the shari'a. As with the US Constitution, Muslim scholars differ how to interpret it. Some are open to modern interpretations, seeking how the ancients might have resolved legal questions that they knew nothing about. Others are strict constructionists and insist that God manifested his will through the shari'a; obliging Muslim judges to interpret shari'a according to its ancient no longer relevant meaning. Kadri writes that this traditional approach has "the whiff of a séance about it... (and) seems akin to ancestor worship"
The third part of the Islamic legal system is the fiqh, meaning "deep understanding." These are legal decisions by Muslim jurists designed to explain the Qur'an and shari'a. Like religious leaders of other religions, they "Hypothesized fantastically unfortunate dilemmas: what Muslims should do on a desert island, for example, if they found themselves pining away alongside a dead shipmate, a pig, and a flask of wine (clue: avoid the pig and alcohol until desperate)." Different Islamic schools have different interpretations of fiqhs.
The fourth and most troubling in every religion is the hadiths, the stories told about the ancients, from Muhammad on, with the idea that religious people should copy their age-old behavior. Kadri points out that most of these tales are filled with fantastic events, pure inventions, and many were written to justify certain behaviors that are not explicit in the shari'a or fiqh and are contrary to its spirit.
The fifth level is fatwas. These are religious opinions issued by any religious leader and are only binding on Muslims who attached themselves to the religious leader who issued the opinion. Thus, Pakistan's schools "refused on religious principle to put their clocks forward for the summer, because the muftis in charge considered daylight saving time to be an unholy innovation." Another important example is that the ancient laws never allowed the murder of civilians. Yet, Osama bin Laden bizarrely relied on a fatwa by ibn Taymiyyah (1263-1328) to justify killing non-combatants, Muslim and non-Muslims, during and not during war. Ibn Taymiyyah decision only addressed the conditions of his time. He allowed Muslims to defend themselves against the attacks by Mongols and to kill Muslims soldiers who had joined the Mongol forces in self defense during the battles.
There is no overall religious body in Islam today which decides which ruling is correct, Islam has no Pope capable of resolving earthly disputes, and, as a result, there is much disagreement among Muslims about how to act. The only certainty, as with the other religions today, is that Islam is generally more conservative today than it was in the past. Thus, for example, "The very idea that Muslims might blow themselves up for God was unheard-of before 1983, and it was not until the early 1990s that anyone anywhere had tried to justify killing innocent Muslims who were not on the battlefield. The arguments for violence are recent."
The results are macabre. "After a twenty-seven-year-old woman killed herself and an eighty-one-year-old Jewish man outside a shoe shop on Jerusalem's Jaffa Road in January 2002, for example, the only moral qualms expressed by the Egyptian jurist Yusuf al-Qaradawi concerned the propriety of a female martyr traveling to her death unchaperoned."
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