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Islam and Affirmative Action

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 October 2015

S.A. Jackson
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Extract

This essay must begin with a point of clarification that is critical for those unfamiliar with Islam. While it is my belief that the view I present represents an Islamic position on Affirmative Action, I make no claim to represent the Islamic position. For far from constituting a monolith, as American public perception has it, the Muslim population in the United States is a heterogeneous amalgamation of somewhere around six million people. And while it is true that as Muslims—immigrant and native-born—they share a common scriptural heritage and, to a significantly lesser extent, a common intellectual one, it is also true that their lives, and hence their priorities and thinking, are informed by historical, cultural, political and social realities that are in many instances unrelated to each other and in some instances diametrically opposed. On such recognition, it should not stretch credulity to imagine a Muslim adopting a position on a topic like Affirmative Action that is, on the one hand, diametrically opposed to my own yet, on the other hand—at least prima facie—equally justified in its claim to be Islamic. In the present atmosphere, where Western ignorance and bias only adds to the tendency among Muslims to react in ways that promote rather than discourage stereotyping and essentialist readings of Islam, it would seem only fitting to insist that before we rush to catalogue the Islamic position on a matter like Affirmative Action, we first hear from a lot more voices from within the Muslim community.

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Articles
Information
Journal of Law and Religion , Volume 14 , Issue 2 , 2000 , pp. 405 - 431
Copyright
Copyright © Center for the Study of Law and Religion at Emory University 2000

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References

1. For more on this point see Jackson, Sherman A., Muslims, Islamic Law and Public Policy in America in American Public Policy and American Muslims 51–83 (Int'nl Strategy & Policy Institute, 2000)Google Scholar.

2. Interestingly, according to James Parry Eyster, an immigration attorney in Ann Arbor, Michigan, the massive increase in the number of immigrants from Muslim countries, which began in the late sixties and early seventies, was a direct result of the efforts of blacks in the U.S. to eradicate racism. These efforts ultimately led the Kennedy and Johnson administrations to adopt the view that discrimination against non-(west) European immigration applicants was no different from the now discredited discrimination against blacks. This led to a relaxing of the extremely low quotas on immigrants from non-European countries. James Parry Eyster, conversation with author, August, 1998.

3. The bulk of the effect of this phenomenon on American Islam came from Muslims of Arab and Indo-Pakistani origins.

4. On one aspect of this understanding, see my comments on equality, justice and fairness below, pp 422-29.

5. There is no recognition at all for “the descendents of slaves,” as a “discreet and insular” class inordinately stigmatized by the legacy of slavery. This is in large measure explained by the fact that slavery in Islam was not race-based, and, as such, there were no identifying insignia, such as color, that would set the descendents of slaves off from others in society. Blacks, at any rate, did not have the largest representation as slaves in Muslim history. This distinction belongs, rather, to the Turks.

6. This includes all systems of supremacy as legitimizers and instruments of domination, including Arab supremacy and domination, or even male supremacy and domination. I simply limit myself here to white supremacy because it is the dominant hegemony in America.

7. Dyer, Richard, While 2 (Routledge Press, 1997)Google Scholar.

8. Id at 1.

9. Dyer, who is careful to note that he himself is white, observes that “white people claim and achieve authority for what they say by not admitting, indeed not realizing, that for much of the time they speak only for whiteness.” Dyer's stated aim is to bring people to see that this is how the position of white authority is achieved, “in order to help undermine it”. Id at xiv.

10. Indeed, the Qur'ân itself equates the use of one's God-given faculties for knowing God with being human, referring to those who do not use these faculties as being on a lower level than beasts:

And We have filled the depths of Hell with many a human and jinn who had hearts that they did not use for understandings, eyes that they did not use for seeing and ears that they did not use for hearing. Such individuals are like beasts; nay, they are even more astray!

See 7:179.

11. Dyer suggests that it is precisely the shifting, unclear and unstable borders of whiteness that have proved its strength. “Because whiteness carries such rewards and privileges, the sense of a border that might be crossed and a hierarchy that might be climbed has produced a dynamic that has enthralled people who have had any chance of participating in it.” See Dyer, White at 19-20 (cited in note 7). One wonders how much this contributes to Arab and Asian silence about white supremacy, particularly in light of their legal status in America as white versus their social status as non-white. While there is much talk among Arab and Asian Muslims about “the West,” rarely, if ever, is whiteness or white supremacy spoken of.

12. See al-Jawharî, Ismâ'îl b. Hammâd, in ‘Attâr, Ahmad ‘Abd al-Ghaffûr, ed, al-Sihâh tâj al-lughah wa sihâh al-‘arabîyah 6 vols 5:2175–7Google Scholar (Dâr al-‘Um li al-Malâyîn, 1376/1956); Ibn Manzûr, Jamâl al-Dîn Abû al-Fadl Muhammad b. ‘Alî b. Ahmad b. Abû al-Qâsim b. Habqah, Lisân al'arab 6 vols 4:3344 (Dâr al-Ma‘ârif, n.d.).

13. Sihâh, 5:2175; Lisân al-‘arab, 4:3344; al-Râghib al-Isfahânî, Abû al-Qâsim al-Husayn b. Muhammad, in Muhammad Sayyid Kîlânî, ed, al-Mufradât fi gharîb al-qur'ân 371 (Dâr al-Ma‘rifah, n.d.).

14. 21:35.

15. 64:15.

16. 2:193.

17. 85:10.

18. See, for example, the translation of Qur'ân 2:191 by M.M. Pickthall at 31 (Taj Co.Ltd., n.d.). See also al-Tabarî, Muhammad b. Jarîr, Jâmi' al-bayân ‘an ta'wîl al-qur'ân 30 vols 2:191–192, 2:349-351 (Mustafâ al-Bâbî al-Halabî, 1388/1968)Google Scholar, & al-Shawkânî, Muhammad b. ‘Alî b. Muhammad, Path al-qadîr 5 vols 1:191Google Scholar, 1:192 (Mahfûz al-‘Alî, n.d.) for various interpretations of Companions and Followers on the meaning of fitnah in various verses.

19. See, for example, Kamali, Mohammad Hashim, Freedom of Expression in Islam at 3, 4, 277–82Google Scholar & passim (Islamic Texts Soc'y, 1997).

20. In this regard, the Prophet is reported to have said, “I have left no greater fitnab for men than women.” See al-Rifâ'î, Sh. Qâsim al-Shamâ'î, ed, Sahîh al-bukhâri 9 vols 8:16Google Scholar (bâb al-nikâh) (Dâr al-Arqam b. Abî al-Arqam, n.d.).

21. On this point, see al-Isfahâni, , Mufradât 372 (cited in note 13)Google Scholar.

22. See George Orwell, 1984 (Penguin Putnam Press, first published 1949). In what is perhaps the crowning scene of the book, the state officials place the protagonist, Winston, in a “Pain-chair” and one of them holds up four fingers and asks Winston how many fingers he sees. When Winston responds, “Four,” the pain-chair is tweaked up, and he is told that there are five fingers before him. This questioning and tweaking continues until Winston finally loses his ability to believe in his own eyes. “How many fingers am I holding up, Winston.” ‘I don't know.… Four, five, six—in all honesty I don't know.’”

Id at 208.

23. Among the many passages in the Qur'ân that attribute communities' refusal to follow the truth to their clinging to the ways of their forefathers, see 2:170, 5:104, 7:28, 10:78, 21:53, 43:22, 43:23 & passim.

24. I maintain, here, for the sake of convention, the common translation of kufr as “unbelief,” “disbelief,” the active participle, kâfir, being “unbeliever,” “disbeliever.” The Qur'ân, meanwhile, proceeds on the assumption that while humans can refuse to acknowledge the existence of or their debt to God, they cannot really disbelieve any of this, in the same way that one can refuse to acknowledge the existence of the sun but cannot truly disbelieve in it. It is this refusal to acknowledge that is captured in the Arabic word kufr, which in its original usage meant “to cover up.” Thus, in pre-lslamic parlance, the night, the ocean and farmers were all referred to as kâfir, because they covered things up (in the case of the farmer the seeds he threw into the earth). In this light, perhaps a more accurate (but more awkward) translation of kufr would be “agnosticism,” which refers more to a refusal or failure to acknowledge than to a refusal or failure to believe.

25. To some extent, this contrast of focus parallels the difference between the Qur'ân, on the one hand, and the theologians, on the other, the latter appearing to be far more concerned with defining specific acts of “heresy” or unbelief, with little attention to how or why these acts gain or sustain their currency.

26. 43:87. Similar statements appear at 10:30, 29:61, 31:25, 39:38,43:9 & passim.

27. For a brief and accessible survey on the main theological movements in Islam, see Abrahamov, Binyamin, Islamic Theology: Traditionalism and Rationalism (Edinburgh U Press, 1998)Google Scholar. Note, however, that some of Abrahamov's definitions, for example, of traditionalism, rationalism, anthropomorphism, require revision. On this see Jackson, Sherman A., The Boundaries of Theological Tolerance in Islam (Oxford University Press, 2001)Google Scholar.

28. See, for example, Taymîyah, Ahmad Ibn, Tafsîr sûral al-ikblâs 13–17 (Dâr al-Tibâ'ah al-Muhammadîyah, n.d.)Google Scholar.

29. See Kholeif, Fathalla, ed, Kitâb al-tawhîd 23 (Dar el-Machreq, 1986)Google Scholar. Al-Mâturîdî's distinction between rubûbîyah (lordship) and ulûhîyah (godhood) should not be confused with this distinction as it was later articulated and popularized by Ibn Taymîyah. Al-Mâturîdi is almost certainly not Ibn Taymîyah's precedent in this regard.

30. See, for example, 4:97:

‘Verily’ the angels (shall) say to those who are in a state of having given themselves over to wrongfulness at the time they meet their appointed death, ‘What were your circumstances?’ They (shall) reply, ‘We were weak and oppressed in the land.’ They (the angels shall) then ask, ‘Was not God's earth spacious enough for you to migrate to another place?’ These are the people whose resting place shall be Hell, a grievious end indeed—except those men, women and children who were (truly) weak and oppressed and unable to concoct a stratagem or find a way out. These are the people whom God may pardon. And God is ever pardoning, ever forgiving.

31. 17:73-74.

32. A fact almost certainly related to the meaning of the verse, “… and human beings were created weak (wa khuliqa 'l-insânu da'îfan).” See 4:28.

33. At one point, for example, when Moses categorically proves his prophethood through miracles granted by God and the Children of Israel, along with Pharaoh's magicians, declare their belief in the one true God, Pharaoh erupts: “Do you dare believe in him before I have given you permission to do so?” See 7:123: 26:49; 20:71.

34. 28:76.

35. 28:1-5.

36. See 40:28 ff.

37. See Curry, George E., The Affirmative Action Debate 161 (Addison-Wesley Pub Co., 1996)Google Scholar.

38. Id.

39. For more on the five-compelling interests, see Jackson, Sherman A., Islamic Law and the State: The Constitutional Jurisprudence of Shihab al-Din al-Qarâfi 59–62Google Scholar, especially 60 (E.J. Brill, 1996).

40. For example, the incident involving the Companions at the Battle of Hunayn following the Surrender of Mecca is well known. Here non-Muslims and newly converted Muslims were lavishly treated to the spoils of the Battle, while the Helpers (Ansâr), who had sacrificed life, limb and property for the entire period of the Prophet's stay in Medina received nothing. The compelling interest here was apparently the preservation of religion: By treating these new and non-Muslims (all of whom represented the old Meccan aristocracy) with favor, the Prophet was seeking to open up psychological space via which they could embrace Islam as their own, as opposed to resenting it as a capitulation to the Prophet. At sixty-one years old, the Prophet knew that any lingering Meccan resentment would likely result in a riposte after his imminent death.

41. The infamous Affair of the Lie (Khabar al-ifk) for their part in which all of the culprits were punished except ‘Abd Allâh b. Ubayy is a radiant example of the Prophet's pragmatism. Given the subversive stance and personal opposition of ‘Abd Allâh b. Ubayy to the Prophet, to punish him would have run the risk of being seen as carrying out an act of personal vengeance. Clearly, as a prophet, avoiding this stigma outweighed any earthly punishment to be meted out to Ibn Ubayy.

42. See al-Kishnâwî, Abû Bakr, Ashal al-madârik shark irshâd al-sâlik fi flqh imâm al-a'immah mâlik 3 vols 2:63 (Îsâ al-Halabî, n.d.)Google Scholar.

43. Curry, , Affirmative Action at 141 (cited in note 37)Google Scholar.

44. 5:8.

45. 4:135.

46. See, for example, al-Jawharî, Sihâh 5:1977; Manzûr, Ibn, Lisân 4:2756Google Scholar.

47. See, for example, 6:164; 17:15; 39:7; 53:38 and passim for similar verses.

48. 10:74.