What role does the Islamic principle of Urf play in establishing a moral Islamic culture?

To understand how pre-Islamic practices ended up into Muslims, we have to understand Islam as a constructive system. Islam is a not a destructive system. For example, when Islam came first it didn’t destroy the existing civilization or cancel everything they did and came up with something that is totally new. No. Islam affirmed all the things that were good in the society, corrected the things which were good but distorted and forbade the things which were wrong. So it was a system that helped, developed and brought the greatest possible good for the society. It built on what was good, corrected what was wrong and modified what needed to be modified. There are many examples we can see in the life of Prophet Mohammad (ﷺ) which illustrated that.

For example, Hajj which was already in practice from the time of Prophet Ibraheem (عَلَيْهِ السَّلاَمُ), Prophet Mohammad (ﷺ) didn’t institute it in Makkah. But changes took place between the years of Prophet Ismail (عَلَيْهِ السَّلاَمُ) and Prophet Muhammad (ﷺ). So man and women came to do tawaf naked around the ka'ba saying “we are coming to you O Allah as you created us” , men and women walked around ka'ba naked saying “we hear your call O Allah”. So Prophet (ﷺ) corrected that saying "put clothes on, Allah doesn’t ask us to walk naked, we are born that way but we don’t live that way." So Islam corrected, prohibited and reformed the society.

So when we look now at the Muslims' cultures, we will find today people practice things that were in existence in those areas before Islam came. When Islam came, it modified or corrected, but some of the practices slipped in and they weren’t corrected because Islam has the easy attitude towards the Urf  or common custom of people. Islam allowed it to the extent when Urf didn’t seem to oppose Islamic teaching of people. So through this flexibility, some practices were not corrected in the outline parts of Muslim empire, but close to the center these things were cleared away. But as Islam spread further and further through generation, the strength of the message of Islam somewhat diluted. The early generation, those who carried Islam out of Arabia were firm and clear, but those who carried out further in later generations were not that much clear, later generations became more dubious.

So we find for an example, in Indo-Pakistani subcontinent, they have practice of getting married in red wedding dress. Now Islam doesn’t have any problem with any color, but however when a society says that you have to get married with this color then it become a problem. Because now you are making it obligatory on people something which Islam did not make obligatory. So we have to look at these things, that why people are insisting that you have to get married in red? Then if we look at the Hindus, we can see their women are marrying in red and we realize that’s where this red came from. The practice of Hindus is to get married in red, so Muslims converted into Islam but they brought this practice along with them like an obligation.

Similarly in other parts of the Muslim world we find women marrying in white dress, in Lebanon, Syria, Egypt. Again we know Islam doesn’t have any problem with any color. But when a cultural imposes that you must get married in white, then we have to say "what’s happening here?" And we see this is actually a tradition among Christian who insist to wear white to indicate purity, virginity etc. So people converted to Islam in that area brought this white along with them. Again people will say this is something minor. But if we progress with other similar custom and we have today in Egypt, Sudan, Somalia, Ethiopia, in that region, what has come to be a big cause amongst the feminist in the world today who do all kinds of programs on it and show people what Muslims do to their women. These feminists raised the banner of FGM means female genital mutilation, that is Muslims cut up the private part of their women. And it’s true, people of that area do this and also so do the Christians. The Christians of Egypt, Sudan, and Ethiopia all do the same. So it’s really not a Muslim thing, but it associated with Muslims, and only that part of Muslim world are doing this, not other part but still this is associated with Muslims. This mutilation is called Al khitan alpharauni or The Pharaonic Circumcision, which existed long before Islam came. Every year a number of female die or have infection who undergo this mutilation. It is an evil which is attributed now to Muslims and causing harm to the Muslim society for it.

That was one, now go to another level. In India, the common practice when people marry is to give dowry to the men. Mehar is given by family of women to men, so just opposite of Islam. And this was also a Christian tradition of Europe, where women were looked as a liability for whom you have to pay the men to take them off from your hand. This is not an Islamic point of view. But it was a common practice amongst Indian, and then what is the result of that practice? Result is when a man wants to get his daughter married, he has to offer boy all kind of things like car, big television, nice house etc., to win the boy over to take his daughter. And what happen after the marriage? When the father is not able to fulfill his promises, the husband starts putting pressure on his wife. “Where is the car? Where is the Plasma TV?” Wife doesn’t have any answer. When husband sees there is no way to get the things then to get rid of that wife, he and his mother catch her in the kitchen, pour kerosene on her and set her on fire. Thousands of Indian women are burnt alive in fire every year, what they called Bride burning. So this is the evil consequence of it. Indian government recognizes this and has prohibited this dowry system.

However, it is common in the Muslims of India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. In the newspaper, I have read an article “ Women burnt to death” in Dhaka, it says “ A greedy husband burnt to death his young wife at Shikhpara in city following a feud over dowry,” police said.  When I read this I thought “Oh! Another case of Hindus in Bangladesh who burn their brides. Then I went on and it said “ Zahir Mia”, I was thinking Zahir is a name that Muslim carries. And then the news says, “Zahir Mia poured kerosene over the body of his wife Shahnaz who is 20 years old and set her on fire on Sunday. After that she died in Dhaka Medical College Hospital yesterday. “

Another article, “Domestic violence on the rise in Pakistan”. It says at least 300 Muslim women are burnt to death every year. This is also same kind of article which is saying the same thing that Muslim women are brunt to death every year for dowry. So these things are great evils that are taking our women's lives.

I read another article. In southern Egypt, “Son hanged for killing mother”. In Kina, Egypt, a 22 year old son beheaded and dismembered his widow mother when he found out that his mother secretly remarried and broke the tradition of southern Egypt . Police here said yesterday, “ Salah Ahmed Hasan, helped by one of his uncles, forced Samira Salam who was 35 years old, into the village Samitary in Noqada, a hamlet north of southern resort of Loxore, where they strangled and beheaded and dismembered Samira. The women was pregnant. Hasan and Samira’s brother was detained for questioning and admitted their crime.”

So what was the basis of this? This young man who was 22 years old, his mother was 35 years old meaning she got married when she was 13 years old. No problem, Islam is fine with that. So when husband died, she is still a young woman. But in southern Egypt, if your husband dies then don’t think of getting remarried. This is the consequence. You will be killed by the society. Your brother, your son will kill you. But why??  From where this came form? The origin of this is an ancient Egyptian myth concerning goddess Isis. According to this myth, Set desired his sister Isis so much so that he killed her husband Osiris in order to marry her. However Isis refused to marry set and hid her son Horus until he came of his age and took revenge of his father death by killing of his uncle Set. The cult of Isis began in lower Egypt and spread throughout the whole country. What is the relationship with Islam with Isis, Osiris and Set? This is an ancient pagan set of beliefs, which affecting the Muslims of southern Egypt so much so that they murder their women when they seek to get married.

These are what is in front of us today. These are only few example just to make it real. We have to realize that this is a real threat in our Muslim societies today and we have to eradicate it. We have to re-establish Islam by removing these things, by correcting it. That is the only way forward. And Prophet Mohammad (ﷺ) was the example of change, one who came and reformed the culture and evil culture of Saudi Arabia with good. It had a culture which buried its girls alive, Islam came and prohibited this evil, corrected and reformed and made that change. That why Allah called us in Qur'an,

"Indeed, Allah confers blessing upon the Prophet, and His angels [ask Him to do so]. O you who have believed, ask [ Allah to confer] blessing upon him and ask [ Allah to grant him] peace." [1]

That‘s why we ask Allah’s peace and blessing upon Prophet Mohammad because he was an example of change and reformation. He is the guide for us to reform ourselves, our societies and to bring them back to the moral ideal.

I ask Allah (سبحانهُ وتعالى) to give us the courage to take on this huge responsibilities of reforming our societies and ourselves. I ask Allah to help us to find our way back to true Islam and to eradicate the false practices and customs of our society. I ask Allah to keep our heart dedicated to our religion and keep our faith growing until we die and to make the last breath that we take will be a breath of faith and live this life in true belief. Ameen.

Reference:

[1] [Qur’an 33:56]