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St Francis Magazine Vol 8, No 4 | August 2012
(1979) as an example of the violence which can grow out of Islam,
rather than Islam being ‘the solution’.
In pressing his argument, Rishawi takes on the thought of Sayyid
Qutb (1906-1966), the influential Egyptian Islamist and author of
Milestones and In the Shade of the Qur’an—a key figure in the revival of
political Islam in the 20 th Century and a founding father of the Muslim
Brotherhood. Qutb divides the world into two societies, the pure
Islamic one that only follows the laws of God, and the pagan society
of jahiliyya/ignorance. The only environment wherein the Shari’a can
be applied is in the Islamic society. Qutb had made the shocking
judgment that even the countries where almost all the people are
Muslims (like Egypt) are not, in fact, Islamic societies, but they rather
belong to the society of ignorance or jahilyya. Since this is the
case, imposing the Shari’a is out of the question an counterproductive.
Rishawi agrees—there is no place for the Shari’a in the Muslim
world today. (This desire to create a genuine Islamic society which
then could truly live according to the Shari’a is one reason for the
Brotherhood—it was to be that Islamic society or vanguard.)
In the book’s second section, titled ‘A New Reading of Qur’anic
Verses’, the author urges the Muslim reader to look at the Qur’an
and its content in a critical way, daring to ask questions. What about
the different recensions of the Qur’an There were other recensions,
some with more chapters and some with fewer, and certainly, he concludes,
the Qur’an we have today was not the same as the one present
during the time of Muhammad. Surely this is a problem.
Also, the historical event of the Qur’an is claimed to be a proof of
its miraculous nature (‘ijaaz). But this claim must be challenged by
the the truth-seeker, since the Qur’an ignores the basic historical
structure for the text such as time, place, etc. When speaking about
the Cross, the writer points out, the Qura’nic narrative leaves the
reader with unanswered questions. Then he asks, if there was a twisting
of the Biblical story as it was being told in Muhammad’s time,
why is the Qur’an silent regarding what parts of the crucifixion story
were changed, and by whom, and when Finally he questions the
‘illiteracy’ of Muhammad as a sign of the miraculous nature of the
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