THE MECCAN QURAN VERSUS THE MEDINESE QURAN
A woman’s legal testimony is worth half that of a man. That is, it takes two women to testify alongside a male witness, then, their testimony is acceptable. The same applies to inheritance, as your brother inherits double what you inherit. Also in marriage, a man can marry one, two, three, or four women, on the condition that he is able to deal justly with them. That is, if he has four wives, and he bought a dress for one of them, he must then buy a similar dress for each of the other three wives. The same applies when buying wrap-around clothes or food, they must be treated equally. This is the requirement of polygamy. If a man meets this requirement, he can polygamize based on the verse: “Marry those that please you of women, two or three or four; but if you fear that you will not be equitable, then marry one woman” (4:3). This gives an illustration of the Medinese Quran. As we have said, it aims at making women advance step-by-step by taking into consideration their long-standing incapacitation.
On the other hand, the Meccan Quran is where all the great verities are saved for men and women. In an address to the Prophet, the Meccan Quran says: “You remind, for you are only a reminder; you are not a warder over them” (88:21-22); and “You are but a warner, and God is in charge of all things” (11:12). This gives an illustration of the Meccan Quran. It is as if people are noble, wise, and discerning. This Meccan Quran has been abrogated and replaced with the Quran of guardianship. Even in a hadith of the Prophet derived from the Quran, it states: “I have been ordered to fight against the people until they testify that there is no deity but God, and that Muhammad is the Messenger of God. If they do that, then they will gain protection from me for their lives and property, unless they violate the exoteric code, then their reckoning will be with God.” That is, the safeguard of blood is embracing Islam; and the safeguard of wealth is almsgiving. If a person embraced Islam and paid alms, his wealth and blood are to be spared based on the hadith: “I have been ordered to fight against the people until they testify that there is no deity but God, and that Muhammad is the Messenger of God. If they do that, then they will gain protection from me for their lives and property, unless they violate the exoteric code, then their reckoning will be with God.” Here, the capital crime is when a person causes harm through the land or kills someone, while the punitive taxes on wealth are the obligatory alms. A person is required to behave rationally in behavior, along with other things that fall under the exoteric code after the person becomes part of the community of Islam.
What we say is that the Prophet, when he made the point that people will turn away from religion, he did not stop at that point. If the Prophet said that people will turn away from religion and become extinct, as the hadith that we mentioned a little while ago has been portrayed, there would have been no hope. Yet, he went on to say: “Islam began as something strange and will revert to being strange as it began; so good tidings for the strangers. It was asked: Who are those strangers, O Messenger of God? He replied: Those who revive my esoteric code when it is forgotten.” Islam began as something strange, because when it arose in Mecca, Islam was calling for monotheism, “there is no deity but God.” At that time, the Arabs placed 360 idols in the house of the Lord, the Kaaba, which the Lord commanded Abraham to build for monotheism. The Prophet lived among them for thirteen years, while in the Kaaba there were 360 idols. When he prophesied, he asked them to attest that: “there is no deity but God.” They exclaimed: Has he made all these deities one God? This is a strange thing! This has been recounted in the Quran: “Has he made the deities one God? This is a wondrous thing” (38:5)! That is something strange. As the Prophet foretold, Islam will revert to being strange as it began, which is an indication that it will bring back monotheism. Men and women will wholeheartedly re-attest “there is no deity but God,” so as to transform their moral norms into religious ones; and to change their course of life and the way they treat other people and each other, as religion is found in the treatment of others.
The allusion to the revival of “there is no deity but God” requires that people look into the codification, because this would be tantamount to an establishment of a new community. The new community will not be the exclusive preserve of the Arabs, because God sent the Prophet with Islam for all mankind―He maintained that the Quran belongs to all mankind: “We have not sent you except to be a bringer of good tidings and a warner to all mankind” (34:28). Today mankind includes many countries that you see, and those great civilization that you see. We are living today on a very small proportion of their production and inventions. Whether they are the cars we ride or the different things we use, all of this is a very small proportion of the civilization by which we are living. Islam came for those people as well, as it is for us. Is current Islam of sufficient capacity to accommodate them, and is it (therefore) advisable that we keep silent? Islam’s capacity is great. Superior nations and the greatest minds will find in Islam what they need and more. They will find in Islam more than they think and then will become more virtuous. Thus, they will increase in advancement, civilization, education, and in perceptivity. Yet, it is necessary that we present the original message of Islam to the people. We should not present to them the superficial understandings, many of which are in fact not Islamic, while we ourselves are neither availing ourselves of them, nor we are living by those understandings.
