Respecting Dissent (3/4)

The next two examples touch on the legal status of instrumental music and producing two and three dimensional images of living things. It is commonplace to hear that Islam unconditionally forbids both. Yet there are noteworthy positions permitting them under certain conditions, as the following examples indicate. In any case, whether music and images are judged to be prohibited or permissible in the law, each ruling regarding them is predicated upon readings of presumptively authoritative evidence. Islam's position toward both questions is not immutably fixed like rites of worship; both issues are based on rationales and have tangible purposes, which leave their status open for discussion.

The majority of legal scholars forbade music; generally they did so on the ground that music was closely associated with drinking, dancing girls, and licentiousness, which was often the case in Middle Eastern and South Asian culture. But there were notable dissenting views on music when performed in other contexts. The famous Andalusian judge Abu Bakr ibn al-‘Arabi and the notable scholars Ibn Hazm and ‘Abd al-Ghani al-Nablusi wrote legal opinions in defense of music. Al-Kattani, a contemporary Moroccan scholar, cites twenty Muslim jurists who wrote on various types of musical instruments and the arts of audition (sama’).[1] In many Muslim lands, hospitals made regular use of musicians, comedians (muharrijun), and teaching hobbies to cure the sick and the clinically insane. As a rule, Muslim hospitals were pious endowments under the supervision of Islamic judges; their allowance of music, humor, and hobby therapy constituted legal validation of each.[2]

Similarly, most Muslim scholars upheld the prohibition of producing two or three-dimensional images of animals and human beings. They based their positions on numerous Hadith, from which they derived rationales such as preventing idolatry, precluding human beings from rivaling the creative power of God, and avoiding the strong this worldly focus that such images may instill. But without violating these rationales, modern Muslim jurists authorize the use of photo identification cards and permit the use of anatomically correct models of the human body to teach anatomy, medicine, and related sciences.

The thirteenth-century Egyptian scholar al-Qarafi, one of the most brilliant and highly regarded jurists in Islamic history, mastered many technical skills and scholarly arts. He was known for his expertise in building astronomical instruments and other mechanical devices, to which he often attached three-dimensional mobile figures. Al-Qarafi writes in his work The Priceless Principles (Nafa'is al-Usul), a compendious work on legal theory, that he once designed a candlestick holder to tell the hours of the night. The main candle changed colors with each passing hour; the fixture contained a figure shaped like a lion whose eyes also changed color. During the first hour of the night, the lion's eyes would be jet black. At the second hour, they turned bright white; the next hour they became intensely red; and they continued to take on different colors until the break of dawn. At dawn, the figurine of a little man, the prayer caller (mu'adhdhin), emerged at the candelabrum's highest point with his finger placed to his ear, indicating that the time for prayer had come. Al-Qarafi regretted never having discovered how to make the little man actually call the prayer.[3]

Traditional Islamic art was functional; it invariably served pragmatic purposes. One sees this exemplified in calligraphy, mosque architecture, schools, bridges, rugs, pottery, and so forth. Al-Qarafi's candelabrum, as he indicates, was also artistically functional; it was meant to serve as a clock for staying awake at night until dawn. All the visual elements of the lion clock were calculated to break up monotony and keep one alert. Although there was nothing frightening about the hgurine of a lion with eyes that glowed in different colors, it served as a somewhat amusing diversion that seems to have hinted: imagine that a lion like this were standing in the room, would you fall asleep? The lion and the prayer caller in al-Qarafi's candelabrum were not frivolous objects; the purpose behind them was akin to those behind modern photo identification cards and anatomically correct models of the human body.

Respecting dissent means respecting the truth and recognizing that it often takes different paths and results in competing visions of reality. Because dissent is indispensable in the quest for knowledge, Islamic scholarship regarded the compilation and study of dissenting opinions as an essential form of learning. Ibn c Umar, who was among the most learned of the Prophet's Companions, was widely known for the great value he placed on his extensive knowledge of dissenting opinions; he often said that he would not exchange that knowledge for the most valuable possessions on earth.

Receptivity to dissent counteracts rigidity and dogmatism; familiarity with competing interpretations and different points of view leads to flexibility and intellectual maturity. For reasons such as these, Islamic scholarship looked upon well-reasoned dissent as a divine gift and a special mercy to humankind. Muslim jurists often alluded to a weakly transmitted but widely known Hadith: "The dissent of my community is a special mercy."[4] The Umayyad caliph ‘Umar ibn ‘Abd al-‘Aziz, who was known for his righteousness and probity, commented on this Hadith: "It would not please me if the Companions of Muhammad had not differed; if they had not differed, there would be no room for license in the religion." Al-Khattabi, one of the most prominent Hadith scholars, noted that the type of dissent referred to in the Hadith is dissent regarding presumptively authoritative rulings of law. The opposing opinions that occur on such questions, al-Khattabi explained, are a special mercy from God and a unique honor (karama) that distinguishes the scholars who find answers to them.[5] As regards scholarly effort in presumptively authoritative questions, it was held in the Islamic tradition that God would reward scholars for their dissenting opinions even if they were wrong. Jurists often cited the Hadith: "If a judge (hakim) interprets the law and finds the correct answer, he receives two rewards from God. If he is honestly mistaken, he receives one."[6]

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