The Lady of Heaven — An Appraisal (2)
The Lady of Heaven film is sectarian.
It will perhaps surprise many—especially those unfamiliar with the intricacies of Muslim scholarship and history—that the generic Muslim does not exist—and never did in history. The idea that there is a non-sectarian, non-factional, and non-communal Islam flies in the face of history. It is, more importantly, untenable.
Let me explain. Muslim identity, past and present, is necessarily predicated on sectarianism, and by the same token, essentially partisan, in content and outlook. To be Muslim in the past or at present is to commit to a particular reading of Islam and to adhere to a worldview anchored in parochial religiosity, which, no matter how you spin it, is underpinned by atomised, sectarian, and partisan commitments in theology, history, legalism, and spirituality.
To take the Qurʾan as divine revelation, and to follow the example and teachings of the Prophet Muhammad, is the hallmark of Muslim identity. To be Muslim, is to take these twin pillars as the fountainhead of knowledge, action, inspiration, and exemplars. But how do we arrive at the teachings of the Prophet? Whence do we learn his sunnah and hadith? And how do we make sense of a multifaceted sacred text like the Qurʾan?
To arrive at a body of prophetic knowledge we need to locate the place where such knowledge is held or preserved. This is what scholars of religious studies call a corpus. A corpus is a collection of texts and writings attributed to a particular individual and community of thinkers. For instance, today we speak of the Corpus Aristotelicum as (i) the body of works of the celebrated philosopher Aristotle as (ii) transmitted in the scholarly circles of antiquity and the Middle Ages. For any material, then, to qualify as authentically Aristotelian, it must necessarily be located in the Corpus Aristotelicum. Notwithstanding the internal disagreements, it is simply inconceivable that a person bypasses the Corpus Aristotelicum while still claiming to belong to the Aristotelian tradition. Similarly, to follow the teachings of the Prophet Muhammad is to draw from the Prophetic Corpus which contains his teachings in the form of hadith, sunnah, sermons, etc., as transmitted by generations of scholars over the centuries and preserved until the present.
The Prophetic Corpus is disputed, however. Muslims of different stripes disagree on its content, leading to multiple bodies of writings that purport to stem from the teachings of the Prophet. The Sunnis and the Shiʿis, the two largest Muslim groups today (not to discount Ibadi and Muʿtazili Muslims), have ended up with two different and often antagonistic prophetic corpora, each having been preserved, transmitted, and codified by their respective community of scholars over a long period of time. We do not have—and never had—a prophetic corpus that is neutral, accepted across the board, and undisputed. That is the reality we have to accept.
In the last post, I said all historical writings are sectarian, in so far as they reflect the worldview and idiosyncrasies of their authors, transmitters, and editors (not to mention their patrons and sponsors). The prophetic corpus is likewise a body of writings and teachings that were collected, preserved, transmitted, edited, and codified by learned communities and generations of scholars with a shared theological outlook, religious commitments, and communal identities. Put simply, the prophetic corpus of the Sunnis was collected by the Companions, preserved by their Successors (the Tabiʿin), transmitted by early Sunni authorities like Malik b. Anas (d. 795) and Ahmad b. Hanbal (d. 855), and later codified into ostensibly Sunni canons such as the Kutub or Sihah al-Sittah (The Six Authentic Books).
Similarly, the prophetic corpus of the Shiʿah was collected by the Ahl al-Bayt, preserved by the early Imams and their companions, transmitted by the later Imams and their circles, such as Jaʿfar al-Sadiq (d. 765) and Zurarah b. Aʿyun (d. 767), and later codified into thoroughgoingly Shiʿi canons such as the Kutub al-Arbaʿah (The Four Books).
This is not to say that the Shiʿi and Sunni prophetic corpora do not share commonalities. As a matter of fact, they do—and quite plenty of commonalities and confluences, too. However, the differences and divergences are too significant to ignore, or brush aside. For example, on theological issues such as the conception of prophecy, the nature of revelation, on historical matters such as the will of the prophet, and on legal principles, the Shiʿi prophetic corpus and the Sunni prophetic corpus are worlds apart—and often antagonistic. There are too many examples to share but to drive the point home one example should suffice.
The accepted theological position in the Sunni prophetic corpus maintains that the Prophet Muhammad was a mere deliverer of a divine message; that he like others was capable of falling into major errors; and that like his seventh-century Meccan contemporaries, he worshipped idols and practiced polytheistic religion before the advent of revelation.
The Shiʿi prophetic corpus diverges on almost every single point: for Shiʿis, the Prophet Muhammad hailed from a family of monotheists and was raised in the monotheistic tradition of Abraham (al-din al-hanif); that he was a perfect in every sense; and that he was impeccable (maʿsum), having been protected from falling into error.
The above principles apply to the Qurʾan, too. Like the prophetic corpus, the Qurʾan was subject to disagreements that developed later into ossified sectarian schools of exegesis. Since our understanding and knowledge of the Qurʾan and the prophetic corpus is mediated through sectarian lenses—and necessarily so, because humans are naturally biased and given to their subjectivities—the idea of an objective Islam, while desirable and noble, is somewhat impossible—unless the figure of the Prophet Muhammad intervenes in every age and in every generation to validate and invalidate Muslim claims of authenticity. This leads us to recall the earlier statement: Muslim identity, past and present, is necessarily predicated on sectarianism.
The truly good will live in bliss, seated on couches, gazing around. You will recognise on their faces the radiance of bliss. They will be served a sealed nectar, its seal [perfumed with] a fragrant herb—for this let the competitors compete (Qurʾan 83:23-26).
I hope that the foregoing addressed the question of sectarianism. I mentioned in Response I that sectarianism comes in different hues and expressions: it can be benign, tolerable, aggressive, or toxic. The Shiʿah faithful are religiously mandated, by the teachings of the Prophet and the Ahl al-Bayt (and the dictums of the Shiʿi ʿulema) to shun aggressive and toxic sectarianism. While their worldview is different from its Sunni, Ibadi, and Muʿtazili counterparts, the ethics of disagreement (adab al-ikhtilaf) demands Muslims comport themselves with refined decorum and polite mannerism—without comprising or shying away from contentious issues, even if deemed sectarian by the other camp.
After all, Shiʿi law is defined as that which allows human beings to acquire moral traits beneficial to their life and character, and to reject those considered morally destructive and religiously repugnant. Shiʿi law is epitomised as a journey towards moral perfection in order to imitate the example of the Prophet and the Ahl al-Bayt.
In Part III I will turn my attention to offensive sectarianism and historical narratives and theological beliefs that cause upset to others.