IDEA 26
Twelve Aspects of Justice (A)
No man is allowed to be a judge in his own cause, because his interest would certainly bias his judgment, and, not improbably, corrupt his integrity. With equal, nay, with greater reason, a body of men are unfit to be both judges and parties at the same time; yet what are many of the most important acts of legislation but so many judicial determinations, not indeed concerning the rights of single persons, but concerning the rights of large bodies of citizens? And what are the different classes of legislators but advocates and parties to the causes which they determine? [The Federalist, Number 10]
One of the strongest arguments to be made for the necessity and sanctity of Divine Law is that human legislation is never disinterested and almost never enlightened. Any law that proceeds from fallible human beings is tainted with the suspicion of injustice, as the Qur’ān implies with the rhetorical question: And who is better than AL-LĀH in judgement for a people who have certainty? (Q5:50)
The laws of AL-LĀH still need to be interpreted, enacted, and enforced by human beings, however, which is why we find verses such as these: AL-LĀH demands that you restore what is entrusted to its owner, and that when you judge among the people that you judge with justice. (Q4:58) and O you who have believed, be guardians of justice, witnesses to GOD, although it be against yourselves, your parents, or your relatives. If he be wealthy or deprived, AL-LĀH has greater right to either of them. So follow not desires lest you deviate. And if you swerve or turn away, then verily AL-LAH has ever been Aware of what you do. (Q4:135) We are told to judge with justice and follow not desires, but what do we mean by justice? Will our desire for justice also be tainted or skewed by wrong interpretations and partial application?
As shown in my essays on Slavery (Qur’anic Essay 8: Slavery) and Concubines (Qur’anic Essay 13: Concubines), our notions of justice vary over time and from place to place. The wives and companions of the Prophet (may GOD bless him and give him peace) were not the only contemporaries of his to be impressed by his fairness and dedication to justice; even his enemies, while doubting his motives and mocking his claims to be GOD’s Messenger, had nothing but good to say about his character, particularly his trustworthiness. That he had several concubines and multiple wives never became an issue in their invective. Yet today our notions of justice make us wonder how these very features that were so unremarkable to his companions could ever have been ignored. Is it fair that a man can have more than one wife? How can a man of high morals possess a concubine? And beyond that, how can a man of God lead men to fight and kill other men on a battlefield? Is not war among the greatest evils that God’s creatures inflict on one another? How can all that be reconciled with our present-day achievements in the fields of human rights and justice?
My purpose here is not apologetic or polemic, but only to illustrate how divergent our ideas of justice can be. This, I believe, is why we are not given a single decisive definition of justice in the Qur’ān. AL-LĀH refers to it often enough, but the diversity of references seems to tell us that we should not hasten to impose one particular version of it when there are so many that might escape our gaze. Different ages and different cultures perceive justice differently, and the Qur’ān appears to have room for all of them. The following twelve frames for discussing what is just may help to explain why we disagree about matters of right and wrong, and why our thought leaders should refrain from demanding that the straight path of guidance to heaven in Q1:6 be manifest as a uniformity of judgement on earth.
The following pairs of opposites should not be regarded as mutually exclusive, but as labels on a continuum representing relative emphases rather than solid black-or-white contraries.
- Justice can be global or instrumental.
The contrast here is between two versions of how justice is to be applied consistently. The global version declares that the same principles apply to all persons in all situations and in the same way. If, for example, women are free to wear what they want, within the bounds of common decency, then Muslim women should have the right to wear the burqa in public, regardless of where they live. The instrumental version insists that different situations may require the same justice to appear differently. It may stipulate, for example, that one purpose of justice is to preserve the integrity of one’s national identity. If Afghani justice can demand that women in public wear the burqa, in obedience to an Afghani interpretation of GOD’s Law, French justice can, by the same principle, demand that they not wear it, in conformity to France’s secular vision of what society should look like in public spaces.
The Qur’ān is clearly meant for all communities on earth, as the Messenger (GOD bless him and give him peace) was sent as a mercy for the worlds (Q21:107) and to make the religion of the truth prevail over all religions (Q9:33). This could be seen as favouring the global version of justice. But if Islamic justice can stipulate that there be no Christian or Jewish places of worship on the Arabian peninsula and yet permit them elsewhere, and if traditional fiqh (jurisprudence) recognizes the importance of ‘urf (local custom) as an element in making law, then we could say that the instrumental version of justice has considerable standing in Islam as well.
2. Justice can be communal or personal.
If we agree, as per the instrumental view of justice, that justice can have specific ends, where should the preponderance of rights lie – with society or with the individual? If we take smoking as an example, does the smoker’s right to consume what he wants outweigh the right of a community offering free public health care to restrict it or prevent it? The smoker might claim that he willingly bears the cost of smoking, but the community might claim that he should then disavow all claims on public health services that would be burdened by the after-effects of long-term ailments caused by smoking. Most people in secular society would agree with the latter position. But the same people might find the Islamic prohibition and punishment of adultery and fornication to be too harsh, even though the reasoning is similar, namely that the attitudes permitting consensual sex between unmarried persons, however much they reflect personal ‘rights,’ undermine social order by destroying family values and encouraging an unhealthy obsession with sex among adolescents and even children. On the other hand, the right of a community to police its members’ morals, such as by requiring that every Muslim male attend every congregational prayer, can be taken so far that it extinguishes the right of a Muslim male to protest the appointment of a corrupt prayer leader by not attending.
Both points of view are strongly represented in the Qur’an. The basic right of a dividual to judge his community and dissociate himself from it – Say, “I do not follow your caprices; I would have fallen into error otherwise and not have been among the rightly guided” (Q6:56) – is predicated on the fact of being judged by GOD individually (the only real Individual) on Judgement Day. On the other hand, the community has rights in the Qur’ān that the dividual cannot dismiss, such as a compulsory tax on ‘private’ wealth for the benefit of the poor, slaves to be freed, debtors, and even travellers.
(to be continued)
Download the PDF version for free at Ideas Inspired by the Qur’ān – Mont Redmond complete version, or purchase a hard copy at Ideas Inspired by the Qur’an: Redmond, Mont: 9781738842506: Books – Amazon.ca.
Photo by Tim Mossholder on Pexels.com
