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Let There be no Compulsion in Religion: Difference between revisions
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Quran 2:256 ("There is no compulsion in religion...") is a verse often mentioned on the topic of freedom of and from religion (along with [[To_You_Your_Religion_and_To_Me_Mine|Qur'an 109:1-6 "to you your religion and to me (my) religion."]]). Modernist and reformist Muslim commentators (who do not necessarily accept hadith in the traditional way) commonly cite such verses to advocate for religious freedom in Islam. Others argue that the verse relates only to conversion to Islam, but not [[Islam_and_Apostasy|apostasy from Islam]]. | Quran 2:256 ("There is no compulsion in religion...") is a verse often mentioned on the topic of freedom of and from religion (along with [[To_You_Your_Religion_and_To_Me_Mine|Qur'an 109:1-6 "to you your religion and to me (my) religion."]]). Modernist and reformist Muslim commentators (who do not necessarily accept hadith in the traditional way) commonly cite such verses to advocate for religious freedom in Islam. Others argue that the verse relates only to conversion to Islam, but not [[Islam_and_Apostasy|apostasy from Islam]]. | ||
Yohanan Friedmann has writen extensively on these verses in his book, ''Tolerance and Coercion in Islam''.<ref>Yohanan Friedmann, ''Tolerance and Coercion in Islam: Interfaith Relations in the Muslim Tradition''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003</ref> Quran 2:256 was discussed by early commentators in terms of the circumstances of revelation and seen as an injunction against forced conversion, though there was discussion on the question as to which groups of disbelievers it applied, and whether it had been abrogated by verses promoting jihad. The circumstances of revelation of that verse reportedly involved Jewish children in Medina whose parents wanted to force their children to join them in the new faith to prevent their expulsion from the city. Alternative, similar traditions held that Muhammad had been asked by a father in Medina to forcibly convert his sons, or a slave owner made the same request regarding his slave. Later commentators on 2:256 were interested instead in the theological issues regarding the feasibility of forcing belief and considered that forced belief would render meaningless the Quranic concept that life is a test.<ref>Friedmann, 2003, pp. 100-101</ref> | Patricia Crone wrote an extensive article on the history of interpretation of the no compulsion verse. She notes that Q 2:256 was commonly interpreted alongside {{Quran-range|10|99|100}}, which uses the same verb, "to compel", ikrāh ("And had your Lord willed, those on earth would have believed - all of them entirely. Then, [O Muhammad], would you compel the people in order that they become believers?"). Crone describes the widely varying views as to the time and context in which the no compulsion verse was revealed, as exegetes gave it legal implications but disagreed on how to reconcile it with {{Quran|9|29}}. She concludes that some exegetes had to interpret Q 2:256 as abrogated because by their time religion had come to function as a civic status and religious freedom had become undesirable. Nowadays, neither modernists nor Islamists consider 2:256 to be abrogated. In her view, the verse was plainly not uttered in a law-giving capacity but rather expressed the principle that religious choice cannot be coerced by people upon others, which had become a commonplace and self evident truth in the post-pagan, Christian millieu in which the principle became relevant.<ref>Patricia Crone. [https://www.ias.edu/sites/default/files/hs/Crone_Articles/Crone_la_ikraha.pdf No Compulsion in Religion: Q 2:256 in Mediaeval and Modern Interpretation] In Le Shi’isme Imamite Quarante ans apres: Hommage ‘a Etan Kohlberg. Edited by Mohammad Ali Amir-Moezzi, Meir M. Bar-Asher and Simon Hopkins. Turnhout: Brepols Publishers, 2009, pp. 131–78</ref> | ||
Yohanan Friedmann has also writen extensively on these verses in his book, ''Tolerance and Coercion in Islam''.<ref>Yohanan Friedmann, ''Tolerance and Coercion in Islam: Interfaith Relations in the Muslim Tradition''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003</ref> Quran 2:256 was discussed by early commentators in terms of the circumstances of revelation and seen as an injunction against forced conversion, though there was discussion on the question as to which groups of disbelievers it applied, and whether it had been abrogated by verses promoting jihad. The circumstances of revelation of that verse reportedly involved Jewish children in Medina whose parents wanted to force their children to join them in the new faith to prevent their expulsion from the city. Alternative, similar traditions held that Muhammad had been asked by a father in Medina to forcibly convert his sons, or a slave owner made the same request regarding his slave. Later commentators on 2:256 were interested instead in the theological issues regarding the feasibility of forcing belief and considered that forced belief would render meaningless the Quranic concept that life is a test.<ref>Friedmann, 2003, pp. 100-101</ref> | |||
==Qur'an== | ==Qur'an== | ||