Islam, Alcohol and Charee Stanley's Religious Freedom

Charee Stanley is a Muslim flight attendant, who was suspended by her employer, Express Jet, for refusing to serve alcohol to passengers. Stanley recently filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. During a brief appearance on The View, Stanley and her lawyer, Lena Masri, put forward a compelling argument for exploring the protection of her religious freedom.  Masri responded intelligently to the question of whether this is a case that is similar to that of Kim Davis, the Kentucky civil servant who refuses to issue marriage licenses to gay couples. If you'd like to see this brief exchange, see it here.

I personally relish actual, not token, diversity in the workplace. If I were Stanley's boss, I would continue to accommodate her request to refrain from serving alcohol and delegating this task to a colleague, because, as she argues, serving alcohol is a non-essential function of the condition of her employment. But, if I were Stanley's friend, or community member, I would suggest to her that Islam is not a closed set of commandments. Too often we hear "Islam says this, Islam does that..." or "In Islam there is no this...." People make this mistake with their religions all the time. They objectify them, making rigid certainties out of otherwise complex, multifurcated discursive structures. They forget that religion, vis-a-vis scripture, is a living, organic process, that in this case is 1400 years old. I might say to Charee Stanley, if I found her open to my suggestions, that the early Muslim community founded in Madinah was a minority community that had to coexist with a non-Muslim majority. It was here, in this condition, that many of the rituals that Islam shares with Judaism came to be infused in the way the faith is practiced today. The lesson learned from that period is that a Muslim living in a non-Muslim majority context may make adjustments in order to function more effectively as the case may require. For example, in recent years, the Islamic establishment responded by giving women reprieve from donning variations of 7ijab in countries where prohibition of these could lead to hardship for observant Muslim women. If you're fluent in Arabic you can listen to Sheikh al-Tantawi from al-Azhar issue this decree here.

I might also tell Charee that for the Abbasids of Iraq, the drinking of date wine was permitted and that folktales of the period are riddled with stories of Muslims undertaking some interesting libations. I could add that for the sufis, worship is the greatest form of intoxication one could ever aspire to and this is why Omar Khayyam's poetry uses the analogy of drinking wine to refer to communion with Allah. I might tell her of the most beautiful poetry that alcohol has inspired under the patronage of Islamic caliphs from Baghdad to al-Andalus. Finally, I would indicate what is to this day a very controversial realization. There is no verse in the Quran that sets punishment for the consumption of alcohol, or that expressly forbids it in the way other matters, like fornication, are explicitly forbidden.

In Surat al-Nisa', verse 23, we read: يَا أَيُّهَا الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا لَا تَقْرَبُوا الصَّلَاةَ وَأَنْتُمْ سُكَارَىٰ حَتَّىٰ تَعْلَمُوا مَا تَقُولُونَ // O, ye who believe, do not approach prayer while you are intoxicated, so that you may know what you are saying (translations are mine). This verse came down, evidently, at a time where Muslims were not observing complete abstinence from alcohol. According to the researcher Ali al-Muqri, in his book Al-Khamr Wa al-Nabeeth Fi al-Islam, the verse was inspired by an incident, in which one of the prophet's companions accidentally said أعوذ بالشيطان الرجيم // I seek strength in Satan, as opposed to what he should have said, I seek strength in God from Satan.The companion was trying to pray whilst drunk and the advice in the Quran is that you shouldn't pray if you're drunk because you need to know what you're saying.

In Surat al-Baqara, verse 219, we read: يسئلونكَ عنِ الخمرِ والمَيسرِ قُلْ فيهما إثمٌ كبيرٌ ومَنافِعُ للناسِ وإثمهما أكبرُ مِن نَفْعِهما//They ask you about wine and gambling, tell them there is great wrong-doing in both of those and that the sin in them is greater than the benefit. The word إثمٌ is almost universally translated as "sin" but here it can function as an "adverse effect." No sin is said to have a potential benefit, or does it?

In Surat al-Ma2ida, verse 90, we read: يا أيُّها الذينَ ءامنوا إنَّما الخمرُ والمَيسرُ والأنصابُ والأزلامُ رِجْسٌ مِنْ عملِ الشيطانِ فاجتَنِبوهُ لعلَّكُم تُفلِحون // Oh, ye who believe, alcohol, gambling, pagan ritual and divination are the ugly work of Satan, avoid him so that you may be saved. This is the advice I would expect to hear from a parent who has been there and done that, to a child who just might get carried away in seeking unfettered pleasure, it's not the eternal fireplace that stokes our contemporary imaginations when we think of Islam and alcohol.

We find, when we look closely at the Quran, that a lot of what we take for granted as essentially Islamic is not. The story is quite different when it comes to the spoken traditions, al-ahadeeth, of the Prophet, whereby multiple sources are said to have indicated forbiddance of consumption and handling of alcohol. And here is where the question of religious freedom becomes all important. One is free to choose one's religion and free to practice it, but there is also another freedom you can accord yourself. This is the freedom to seek the truth of scripture for yourself. Should you abstain from this freedom, then your convictions are those that others have arrived at, but without the intellectual process that brought those convictions into being. Under such circumstances, I wonder if religious freedom is truly possible.