Qaradawi and the Consumption of Alcohol: Scholarly Authority and Sensible Debate
One comment lament on hears in the Sunni world is that because Sunni authoritative scholarly authorities disappeared around a century ago, the Sunni world is in some level of chaos and uncertainty, captivated by pseudo-scholarly charlatans hurling Qur'anic verses and Prophetic statements wildly out of context and refusing in the most anti-intellectual manner to engage in any serious debate over anything they hold dear.
There is some truth to this, though it's a little overstated. Yes, the Shi'i interpretive community is certainly far more intellectual than some of the Wahhabi nonsense you hear coming from some Saudi funded mosques and Sunni Islamists (my favorite Muslim Brotherhood line "there are no debates in Islam"---compare to the Shi'i Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr's, "interpretation occurs at the spearhead of dispute"). And so when my thoughtful and deeply intellectual Sunni friends lament, I understand it, though they should realize that the interpretive community LIMITS intellectual debate as well within its boundaries. By which I mean, while anti-intellectual Islamists in Sunnism run rampant, it's also easier to be a renegade, smart, careful very intellectual liberal in the Sunni world than in the Shi'i, where if the marja'iyya after due and careful and thorough consideration declares your opinion to be beyond acceptable limits, there isn't much left you can do to dispute it. You're sort of like the priest who disagrees with the Vatican. My Sunni liberal friends also might underestimate the extent to which an interpretive community is still in this day and age going to be very conservative. Muslim doctrine doesn't just pump out from the interpretive communities like some sort of computer, it's shaped by political and social circumstances and so the same circumstances that cause such anger in the Muslim world in the Sunni context exist in the Shi'i, and doctrine is thus shaped. There are no real discussions of women's rights as I understand them in the marja'iyya, for example.
But as noted, there is some truth to it, too, the fact that when you have scholarly authorities who actually are forced to think about things and come to sensible conclusions about them, it's much easier to have a healthy, responsible and honest debate rather than just engage in silly name calling and accusations of false agendas. Today's post shows just that in the context of alcohol consumption, in the Sunni and Shi'i paradigms.
Just days ago Yusuf Qaradawi, the Qatari based Sunni scholarly authority, issued a fatwa (in Arabic) indicating that certain types of beverages containing alcohol percentages less than 0.5% alcohol--that's 1 proof--are permissible, in particular those that as a matter of course become alcoholic over time (fruit juice, for example).
Now while I've been critical of Qaradawi on other posts (particularly concerning female genital mutilation), in this case he seems only to be trying to be sensible about something that too often Muslims largely dance around. The reality is that if you pretend that even one molecule of alcohol renders a beverage suspect, then a large number of seemingly ordinary drinks (orange juice) for example, become forbidden. That is, and I did check this with a chemistry friend, it's not like the alcohol starts to form in orange juice days after it's left out, it's a slow and exponential rise over time, so that there are perhaps molecules of alcohol in orange juice virtually immediately. Or grape juice. Or apple juice. I've always thought that if the point is "intoxicants", which is how the Sunni authorities include beer in an initial prohibition of date wine, then surely if the alcohol content was so low that a 95 pound woman on an empty stomach could consume large amounts and feel nothing, then it's not an intoxicant. I see Qaradawi as trying to sort of create bright lines of this sort--to distinguish between real intoxicants and stuff that might have trace amounts developed naturally. After all, Sunnis drink orange juice, so we need some sort of rule.
(I can't resist but add to this that in the classical Sunni world, among Hanafi jurists, the consumption of alcohol that was not "wine" was not even criminal, as it was in the other three major Sunni schools. Yes, whiskey consumption for a Hanafi in the 15th century was okay. Why modern Islam ended up rejecting this position, even in areas of former Hanafi dominance, can be traced to any number of factors of a social, political, cultural nature that I will write about some other time, but suffice it to say, it doesn't have anything to do with faithfulness to some autonomous classical doctrine that supposedly exists somewhere. There are many instances where Hanafi rules are adopted to the derogation of the other schools, and here it is the opposite.).
In the Shi'i world, this hasn't been an issue. Sistani has developed rules similar to those that Qaradawi seems to propose, allowing small amounts of alcohol (up to 4 proof) in medicines and other beverages, but prohibiting beers from which alcohol was removed on the grounds that they are impure because once impure. It creates a pretty workable rule that doesn't require rather extreme measures to self monitor, even if some might scratch their heads and wonder if Kaliber is really that bad because it used to have alcohol in it. (As an aside, link above is to the Arabic rules, the English ones are badly translated and as translated make no sense, though they are available on the Sistani website. They seem to say certain medicines are okay because the alcohol "dissolves" in the medicine. Indeed, as vodka dissolves in tomato juice, but I don't think he meant to suggest that Bloody Marys are okay. It's got to be a translation issue). And Sistani being who he is, devout Shi'is read it, incorporate it and move on.
Anyway, the point here is that Qaradawi in this case was trying to put together something similar that made sense and that worked and that more or less coincided with Sunni practice, which is to drink orange juice, but not anything that can intoxicate in the slightest. And the extremely negative reaction on the blogs, the websites, even media has been quite shocking. He's an American stooge, he's paid by multinational Big Oil (why they want to get Muslims drinking is left unexpressed), even Qatari official press sources are saying he's being far too confusing by allowing this, and blanket prohibitions are best.
But anyone who isn't overcome with irrational revulsion at anything that looks like any form of accommodation to the West we are supposed to be resisting, anyone who just stops for a second and THINKS about it, would come to the necessary conclusion that a blanket rule saying any single molecule of alcohol is forbidden would be very difficult to implement, and in any event bears no resemblance to the praxis of the believing Muslim world on the subject who drinks fruit juice to break the Ramadan fast. But unfortunately everyone is in resistance mode, nobody is thinking and there is no authority in the Sunni world to make everyone stop for a second and consider this. Qaradawi, as close to authority as it gets, is shouted down for even suggesting a workable rule. We can't have one, we have to scream our opposition to the decadent ways of the intoxicating West to the hilltops, listen to Friday Prayers about how bad their fraternities are and how good our mosques are and then refuse to engage in any thoughtful debate on how to deal with any liquid with sugar in it, which could very well have a molecule of alcohol in it. It's really a sad state of affairs when things devolve to this level of stupidity.
HAH
There is some truth to this, though it's a little overstated. Yes, the Shi'i interpretive community is certainly far more intellectual than some of the Wahhabi nonsense you hear coming from some Saudi funded mosques and Sunni Islamists (my favorite Muslim Brotherhood line "there are no debates in Islam"---compare to the Shi'i Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr's, "interpretation occurs at the spearhead of dispute"). And so when my thoughtful and deeply intellectual Sunni friends lament, I understand it, though they should realize that the interpretive community LIMITS intellectual debate as well within its boundaries. By which I mean, while anti-intellectual Islamists in Sunnism run rampant, it's also easier to be a renegade, smart, careful very intellectual liberal in the Sunni world than in the Shi'i, where if the marja'iyya after due and careful and thorough consideration declares your opinion to be beyond acceptable limits, there isn't much left you can do to dispute it. You're sort of like the priest who disagrees with the Vatican. My Sunni liberal friends also might underestimate the extent to which an interpretive community is still in this day and age going to be very conservative. Muslim doctrine doesn't just pump out from the interpretive communities like some sort of computer, it's shaped by political and social circumstances and so the same circumstances that cause such anger in the Muslim world in the Sunni context exist in the Shi'i, and doctrine is thus shaped. There are no real discussions of women's rights as I understand them in the marja'iyya, for example.
But as noted, there is some truth to it, too, the fact that when you have scholarly authorities who actually are forced to think about things and come to sensible conclusions about them, it's much easier to have a healthy, responsible and honest debate rather than just engage in silly name calling and accusations of false agendas. Today's post shows just that in the context of alcohol consumption, in the Sunni and Shi'i paradigms.
Just days ago Yusuf Qaradawi, the Qatari based Sunni scholarly authority, issued a fatwa (in Arabic) indicating that certain types of beverages containing alcohol percentages less than 0.5% alcohol--that's 1 proof--are permissible, in particular those that as a matter of course become alcoholic over time (fruit juice, for example).
Now while I've been critical of Qaradawi on other posts (particularly concerning female genital mutilation), in this case he seems only to be trying to be sensible about something that too often Muslims largely dance around. The reality is that if you pretend that even one molecule of alcohol renders a beverage suspect, then a large number of seemingly ordinary drinks (orange juice) for example, become forbidden. That is, and I did check this with a chemistry friend, it's not like the alcohol starts to form in orange juice days after it's left out, it's a slow and exponential rise over time, so that there are perhaps molecules of alcohol in orange juice virtually immediately. Or grape juice. Or apple juice. I've always thought that if the point is "intoxicants", which is how the Sunni authorities include beer in an initial prohibition of date wine, then surely if the alcohol content was so low that a 95 pound woman on an empty stomach could consume large amounts and feel nothing, then it's not an intoxicant. I see Qaradawi as trying to sort of create bright lines of this sort--to distinguish between real intoxicants and stuff that might have trace amounts developed naturally. After all, Sunnis drink orange juice, so we need some sort of rule.
(I can't resist but add to this that in the classical Sunni world, among Hanafi jurists, the consumption of alcohol that was not "wine" was not even criminal, as it was in the other three major Sunni schools. Yes, whiskey consumption for a Hanafi in the 15th century was okay. Why modern Islam ended up rejecting this position, even in areas of former Hanafi dominance, can be traced to any number of factors of a social, political, cultural nature that I will write about some other time, but suffice it to say, it doesn't have anything to do with faithfulness to some autonomous classical doctrine that supposedly exists somewhere. There are many instances where Hanafi rules are adopted to the derogation of the other schools, and here it is the opposite.).
In the Shi'i world, this hasn't been an issue. Sistani has developed rules similar to those that Qaradawi seems to propose, allowing small amounts of alcohol (up to 4 proof) in medicines and other beverages, but prohibiting beers from which alcohol was removed on the grounds that they are impure because once impure. It creates a pretty workable rule that doesn't require rather extreme measures to self monitor, even if some might scratch their heads and wonder if Kaliber is really that bad because it used to have alcohol in it. (As an aside, link above is to the Arabic rules, the English ones are badly translated and as translated make no sense, though they are available on the Sistani website. They seem to say certain medicines are okay because the alcohol "dissolves" in the medicine. Indeed, as vodka dissolves in tomato juice, but I don't think he meant to suggest that Bloody Marys are okay. It's got to be a translation issue). And Sistani being who he is, devout Shi'is read it, incorporate it and move on.
Anyway, the point here is that Qaradawi in this case was trying to put together something similar that made sense and that worked and that more or less coincided with Sunni practice, which is to drink orange juice, but not anything that can intoxicate in the slightest. And the extremely negative reaction on the blogs, the websites, even media has been quite shocking. He's an American stooge, he's paid by multinational Big Oil (why they want to get Muslims drinking is left unexpressed), even Qatari official press sources are saying he's being far too confusing by allowing this, and blanket prohibitions are best.
But anyone who isn't overcome with irrational revulsion at anything that looks like any form of accommodation to the West we are supposed to be resisting, anyone who just stops for a second and THINKS about it, would come to the necessary conclusion that a blanket rule saying any single molecule of alcohol is forbidden would be very difficult to implement, and in any event bears no resemblance to the praxis of the believing Muslim world on the subject who drinks fruit juice to break the Ramadan fast. But unfortunately everyone is in resistance mode, nobody is thinking and there is no authority in the Sunni world to make everyone stop for a second and consider this. Qaradawi, as close to authority as it gets, is shouted down for even suggesting a workable rule. We can't have one, we have to scream our opposition to the decadent ways of the intoxicating West to the hilltops, listen to Friday Prayers about how bad their fraternities are and how good our mosques are and then refuse to engage in any thoughtful debate on how to deal with any liquid with sugar in it, which could very well have a molecule of alcohol in it. It's really a sad state of affairs when things devolve to this level of stupidity.
HAH
Salaam brother,
I needed this today! I have referenced you once more in a post. Thank you for your work. Also, could you reference some Shia reading sources for my readers.
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Alaikum Assalam Brother, happy I could help.
Tabataba'i's work Shi'ite Islam, translated by Hossein Nasr is my favorite. Also Moojan Momen's book on Shi'i Islam is excellent. For works related to modern Shi'i movements, the two best are Roy Mottahedeh's translation of Sadr's Principles of Islamic Jurisprudence, and Chibli Mallat's magnificent and unparalleled The Renewal of Islamic Law. Finally, an edited work by Janet Walbridge called I think the Most Learned of the Shi'a, or some such thing, is really good too. I thank you again for your cites.
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