M
mamlukman
Guest
From what I know of Orthodoxy, there is no real difference in dogma. Orthodox didn’t like the fact that the Pope inserted “filioque” in the Creed regarding the source of the Holy Spirt, but the split in 1054 was much more political than religious–more to do with allying against the Normans in Sicily–who were enemies of both the Pope and Byzantium–than any real religious issue. Orthodox are welcome to take communion in Catholic churches, although Orthodox don’t allow Catholics–I think they’re still pissed off about the Fourth Crusade in 1204. But both accept the other’s baptism, etc. It’s not like Protestant churches. I thought you were a former Orthodox–you should know all this better than me.
As for the fatwa, the entire article was about the fatwa–it most certainly was not a misprint! As always, the defense is “That is not Islam” --it’s “not reliable or followable.” I have to say that if I–or anyone else–brings up a piece of evidence, and the only defense against it is “This is not Islam”–when the evidence comes from Muslims themselves, it seems rather pointless to have any sort of debate or dialog. As I said before, we’re playing with different rules.
Here are two more things you can deny by saying “That is not Islam.”
First, hiyal. “hiyal,” for those who don’t know, is legalistic trickery to get around legal prohibitions. The most common concerns interest–if paying interest is forbidden, no problem. You just sell your dog to Muslim #1 for $10 and then buy it back a year later for $15. In effect, you’ve paid 50% interest on the $10 “loan,” but you’ve structured it as a commercial transaction. I had to deal with this myself–though not in an Islamic context–when Merrill Lynch signed a contract with Guarantee Security Life in the early 1990s–GSL sold Merrill Lynch their junk bonds (illegal for an insurance company to hold) in December, just before the audit. Then GSL bought them back for a slight increase within a 30 day period. Completely illegal. It was signed off on by the auditors, Coopers. Illegal. But it’s an example of Islamic hiyal. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ḥiyal
“A special sub-field of ḥiyal is “oath-trickery” (maʿārīḍ) dedicated to the formulation of ambiguous statements designed to be interpreted as an oath or promise while leaving open loopholes to avoid perjury.” Catholics would call it “equivocation” and also allow it. But it’s pretty sneaky. A modern day example is Imams swearing up and down that they are against “terrorism” without defining what they consider terrorism. It happens all the time.
Here’s an actual personal account. When I lived in Egypt, I was the one to buy movie tickets for our little group because I spoke Arabic, and I was big. You had to be big because there were no lines. It was more or less a rugby scrum, and the bigger you were, the easier it was to get to the ticket window. All seats were reserved, so you had to buy tickets in advance. And all seats were priced at weird fractional prices-- 10.85 piasters, etc. So I would carefully calculate how many tickets I needed, multiply by the price, and, because small change was rare–and because small change consisted of all types of coins dating back to the Ottomans, so you might have 10 types of piastre coins–you would get up to the ticket window with hundreds of peoples pushing against you, throw down your 20 piastre note for a 13.5 piastre price, and hope for the best. I kept track, because I was bemused. Of the 19 times I bought tickets, I was cheated–given the wrong change–12 times. Impressive.
Another time I was puzzling over this type of behavior–it was the rule in Egypt, sadly–and I asked my class of adults if they had any thoughts. One guy was a dentist. He said he had his office above a fruit seller, and they became friends. The dentist even fixed the guy’s teeth for free. One day the dentist wanted a fruit basket to give a relative in the hospital, so he asked the fruit seller to make up a basket, for which he paid him. When he took the fruit basket apart in the hospital…well, you know the rest of the story, right? Yes, there was good fruit on top and rotten fruit underneath. The fruit seller had cheated him! The dentist wasn’t surprised, though. He said that’s just the way it was. (If you like that story, read “The Mercy of Allah” by Hilaire Belloc. Hilarious–and true!)
I wish you would address my concern about the Hadith though, but it’s alright if you are not in a disposition to do so.