by Raymond Ibrahim<\/p>\n
PJ Media<\/em><\/p>\n A\u00a0recent episode<\/a>\u00a0of the popular Arabic show\u00a0al-Sharia wa al-Haya<\/em>\u00a0(Law and Life), which airs weekly on Al Jazeera and features renowned Muslim scholar Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, addressed the important yet little known Muslim concept of\u00a0taysir<\/em>\u00a0(pronounced “tey-seer”).<\/p>\n Qaradawi, who is touted by the likes of\u00a0John Esposito and CAIR<\/a>\u00a0as a “moderate” \u2014 even as he legitimizes\u00a0suicide attacks<\/a>\u00a0against Israel (includingby women<\/a>) and\u00a0death for apostates<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 explained that, according to\u00a0fiqh al-taysir<\/em>\u00a0(the “jurisprudence of ease”), Islam (not unlike Catholicism) offers Muslims dispensations, whenever needed: “For Allah desires ease for you, not hardship” (Koran 2:185; see also 5:6, 4:26-28, 2:286). For instance, Muslims traveling during the month of Ramadan or engaged in jihad need not observe the obligatory fast.<\/p>\n Qaradawi stressed that no one advocated taking the “easy way” as much as Muhammad himself. He offered several examples, including how Muhammad would be angry with prayer leaders who tired the people with long prayers. (Other less flattering though applicable anecdotes concerning Muhammad’s “leniency” come to mind, such as when his followers thought they had to practice coitus interruptus while raping their captive women so as not to impregnate them, only to\u00a0be told<\/a>\u00a0by the prophet that “There is no harm if you do not practice it, for it [the birth of the child] is something ordained [by Allah]”).<\/p>\n Lest it be abused, Qaradawi warned that\u00a0taysir<\/em>\u00a0should only be used as needed, based on the vicissitudes of time and chance. In other words, Muslims should not\u00a0actively<\/em>\u00a0seek the easy way, but rather, when uncontrollable circumstances create hardships, Muslims are free to opt for the easy way \u2014 as long as they recognize that the “hard way” (i.e., total implementation of Sharia) is the ideal way.<\/p>\n Qaradawi proudly contrasted\u00a0taysir<\/em>\u00a0with the practices of Jews and Christians who “took things to the extreme, and thus were treated extremely.” After quoting the verse, “Ask not about matters which, if made known to you, may make things difficult for you” (Koran 5:105), Qaradawi said Allah made things difficult for the “anal” Jews because they always insisted on receiving specific details for his otherwise simple commandments. As for Christians, Qaradawi, in dismay, pointed to monks and anchorites, who, by shunning all female contact, and living in absolute solitude and austerity, also went to the extreme.<\/p>\n The most significant point of the program came when Qaradawi said thattaysir<\/em>\u00a0is especially needed in “this era” and “especially for those Muslim minorities living in Europe and America.”<\/p>\n Now, why is that? For starters, by migrating to the West\u00a0of their own free will<\/a>, Muslims themselves \u2014 not “uncontrollable circumstances” \u2014 create this apparent need for\u00a0taysir<\/em>. Moreover, Western religious freedom allows Muslims to uphold Islam’s fundamental Five Pillars: Muslims can proclaim the\u00a0shahada<\/em>(profession of faith), pray, fast, give zakat (except to terrorists<\/a>), and go on the hajj. So what, exactly, is Sheikh Qaradawi referring to that makes living in the West especially hard on Muslims?<\/p>\n The answer is obvious: Qaradawi is referring to those\u00a0other<\/em>\u00a0aspects of Sharia law \u2014 you know, subjugation of non-Muslim infidels, absolute authority over women, jihad, draconian punishments, and all the rest \u2014 that\u00a0do<\/em>\u00a0create “hardships” for Muslims who try to implement them in the West, for instance, by getting them arrested and imprisoned.<\/p>\n In other words, far from “liberalizing” Muslim life,\u00a0taysir<\/em>\u00a0allows only for insincere conformity. As Qaradawi made clear, to practice\u00a0taysir<\/em>\u00a0is not to renounce Sharia’s otherwise harsh obligations; it is to put them on hold till circumstances are more accommodating.<\/p>\n Qaradawi’s Muslim Brotherhood colleague,\u00a0Tariq Ramadan<\/a>, provides an ideal example: he recommends that a “moratorium” \u2014 a temporary ban \u2014 be placed on the Muslim practice of stoning adulterers to death; yet he refuses to say that stoning is intrinsically un-Islamic. This, of course, is\u00a0taysir<\/em>\u00a0in practice: because stoning people in the West is liable to get the stoner incarcerated or worse, upholding the Sharia mandate to stone adulterers is “hard” on Muslims living in the West, so best to put it on hold \u2014 that is, till circumstances are more opportune.<\/p>\n A final observation: the notorious\u00a0doctrine of\u00a0taqiyya<\/em><\/a>, which permits Muslims to deceive non-Muslims, is rooted in\u00a0taysir<\/em>; in fact, one of the few books devoted to the topic,\u00a0al-Taqiyya fi al-Islam<\/em><\/a>, spends some time rationalizingtaqiyya<\/em>\u00a0in light of\u00a0taysir<\/em>. And there it is: when Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, perhaps the most authoritative Muslim voice in Sunni Islam today, calls on Muslims “especially in Europe and America” to practice\u00a0taysir<\/em>, he is, in essence, calling on them to practice\u00a0taqiyya<\/em>\u00a0\u2014 calling on them to conform outwardly to Western standards while inwardly maintaining loyalty to Sharia.<\/p>\n \u00a92010 Raymond Ibrahim<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Top Muslim cleric Qaradawi urges western Muslims to ‘liberalize’ outwardly, anyway. by Raymond Ibrahim PJ Media A\u00a0recent episode\u00a0of the popular Arabic show\u00a0al-Sharia wa al-Haya\u00a0(Law and Life), which airs weekly on Al Jazeera and features renowned Muslim scholar Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, addressed the important yet little known Muslim concept of\u00a0taysir\u00a0(pronounced “tey-seer”).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[227,586],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-nO","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":3424,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/libya-what-to-do\/","url_meta":{"origin":1476,"position":0},"title":"Libya, What To Do?","author":"victorhanson","date":"March 20, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"by Raymond Ibrahim National Review Online As with Egypt, American sympathies instinctively side with Libya's oppositional forces as they seek to overthrow the tyrant Qaddafi \u2014 and rightfully so. But where US foreign policy is concerned, prudence is in order. This is especially the case considering that the Obama administration\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Libya"","block_context":{"text":"Libya","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/the-world\/the-middle-east\/libya\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2349,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/why-muslim-charities-fund-the-jihad\/","url_meta":{"origin":1476,"position":1},"title":"Why Muslim Charities Fund the Jihad","author":"victorhanson","date":"August 16, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"by Raymond Ibrahim PJ Media From what American schoolchildren are being\u00a0taught\u00a0[1] by their teachers to what Americans are being told by their presidents, concepts unique to Islam are nowadays almost always \u201cWesternized.\u201d Whether the product of naivety, arrogance, or downright disingenuousness, this phenomenon has resulted in epistemic (and thus endemic)\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Raymond Ibrahim"","block_context":{"text":"Raymond Ibrahim","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/our-contributors\/raymond-ibrahim\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5450,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/waning-support-for-suicide-attacks-in-the-muslim-world\/","url_meta":{"origin":1476,"position":2},"title":"Waning Support for Suicide-Attacks in the Muslim World?","author":"victorhanson","date":"August 22, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"by Raymond Ibrahim Private Papers A recent poll released by the Pew Research Center indicates that, among other things, support for suicide-attacks \u2014 or, what are known in Islamic terminology as \u201cmartyrdom operations\u201d \u2014 is on the decline in the Islamic world. There is no denying that there are a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Raymond Ibrahim"","block_context":{"text":"Raymond Ibrahim","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/our-contributors\/raymond-ibrahim\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2509,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/new-saudi-fatwa-defends-pedophilia-as-marriage\/","url_meta":{"origin":1476,"position":3},"title":"New Saudi Fatwa Defends Pedophilia as ‘Marriage’","author":"victorhanson","date":"July 24, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"by Raymond Ibrahim Jihad Watch Muslim \"child-marriage\" \u2014 euphemism for pedophilia \u2014 is making headlines again, at least in Arabic media:\u00a0Dr. Salih bin Fawzan, a prominent cleric and member of Saudi Arabia's highest religious council, just issued a fatwa asserting that there is no minimum age for marriage, and that\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Islam"","block_context":{"text":"Islam","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/the-world\/the-middle-east\/islam\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2558,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/why-muslim-demands-for-headscarves-are-exaggerated\/","url_meta":{"origin":1476,"position":4},"title":"Why Muslim Demands for Headscarves Are Exaggerated","author":"victorhanson","date":"July 6, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"by Raymond Ibrahim Hudson New York Islamic attire for women \u2014 the burqa and hijab \u2014 is back in the news, though with a twist: In America, where they are legal, problems and lawsuits are arising, while in France, where they are banned, Muslim women are happily complying. 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