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“You Are All Soldiers in the Battle against the Corona Virus and Your Commander Is the Prophet Muḥammad”: The Fatwās of Sheikh Rāʾid Badīr Regarding COVID-19

Authors:

Abstract

This article deals with the rulings of Sheikh Rāʾid Badīr, who served as a mediator between the Israeli government and the Muslim community over the course of the pandemic. As a senior leader and scholar of the southern branch of the Islamic Movement in Israel, Sheikh Rāʾid Badīr’s fatwās have historically addressed the unique circumstances and situational difficulties faced by Muslims living in Israel.
Citation: Rubinstein-Shemer, Nesya.
2023. “You Are All Soldiers in the
Battle against the Corona Virus and
Your Commander Is the Prophet
Muh
.ammad”: The Fatw ¯
as of Sheikh
R¯
a
id Bad¯
ır Regarding COVID-19.
Religions 14: 98. https://doi.org/
10.3390/rel14010098
Academic Editors: Sariya
Cheruvallil-Contractor and
Sufyan Abid Dogra
Received: 13 November 2022
Revised: 13 December 2022
Accepted: 4 January 2023
Published: 10 January 2023
Copyright: © 2023 by the author.
Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.
This article is an open access article
distributed under the terms and
conditions of the Creative Commons
Attribution (CC BY) license (https://
creativecommons.org/licenses/by/
4.0/).
religions
Article
“You Are All Soldiers in the Battle against the Corona Virus and
Your Commander Is the Prophet Muh
.ammad”: The Fatw¯
as of
Sheikh R¯
a
id Bad¯
ır Regarding COVID-19
Nesya Rubinstein-Shemer
Department of Middle Eastern Studies, Bar Ilan University, Ramat Gan 5290002, Israel; nesya.shemer@biu.ac.il
Abstract:
This article deals with the rulings of Sheikh R
¯
a
id Bad
¯
ır, who served as a mediator between
the Israeli government and the Muslim community over the course of the pandemic. As a senior
leader and scholar of the southern branch of the Islamic Movement in Israel, Sheikh R
¯
a
id Bad
¯
ır’s
fatw
¯
as have historically addressed the unique circumstances and situational difficulties faced by
Muslims living in Israel.
Keywords:
Muslim minority in Israel; fatw
¯
as; Sheikh R
¯
a
id Bad
¯
ır; the Islamic Movement in Israel;
pandemic; COVID-19; Islamic law
1. Introduction
The global impact of COVID-19 created unprecedented challenges for public health
around the world. Religious leaders came to play a vital role bridging gaps between health-
care professionals, state officials, and local communities in order to disseminate accurate
scientific information about the virus and convince people from all walks of life to take the
necessary precautions to prevent its spread. International actors such as the World Health
Organization collaborated with religious leaders to advise their constituents
(WHO 2022),1
while academic institutions such as the Berkeley Center at Georgetown University devel-
oped databases focused on faith-based responses to the pandemic worldwide in order to
provide empirically based insights for policymakers.2
Over the course of the pandemic, research has grown dramatically on the role of
religious leaders and Muslim religious authorities in particular, in combatting COVID-19.
Quantitative surveys have examined these leaders’ efforts to minimize disruption to their
communities (Sonntag et al. 2020), qualitative interviews have investigated the use of reli-
gious credibility as a tool for disseminating health information
(Rachmawati et al. 2022)
, lit-
erature reviews have focused on the Islamic ethical context of their responses
(Shabana 2021)
,
and articles have analyzed the destructive influences of recalcitrant social movements
(Sihombing and Muassomah 2021)
and the spread of religious misinformation (Alimar-
dani and Elswah 2020). As lockdowns became a reality, Muslim leaders needed to reconcile
the preeminent authority of Islamic law with the secondary authority of recommended
health measures such as mosque closures. In many cases, the use of istiqr
¯
a
(Islamic methods
of induction) demonstrated a shift among Muslim scholars to base their fatw
¯
as (Islamic
rulings) on scientific findings rather than jurisprudent precedent, which was inconsistently
applicable to the pandemic (Sodiqin 2021). This novel situation was reflected, for example,
in the informal yet influential fatw
¯
as of Sheikh Muhhamad Mustapha Ben Hamza, a mem-
ber of the Moroccan
ulam
¯
a
(scholarly body) who asserted that the unique circumstances
of the pandemic warranted a ‘jurisprudence of necessity (
d
.
ar
¯
ura)’ (Ezziti 2020). Other
Muslim leaders such as Sheikh Muhhamad al-Yaqoubi utilized ijtih
¯
ad (scholarly reasoning)
to conclude that COVID-19 preventative measures did not in fact contradict Islamic legal
precedents, which elevate the concept of hif
z
.
al-nafs (the preservation of life) (Al-Astewani
2020). However, a UK study on the intersection of English common law and fiqh (Islamic
Religions 2023,14, 98. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel14010098 https://www.mdpi.com/journal/religions
Religions 2023,14, 98 2 of 15
law) during the pandemic documented the tendency of some Muslim leaders, such as
Muft¯
ı Y¯
usuf Shabbir, to prioritize faith over personal health (Al-Astewani 2020).
Muslim communities in Israel defied expectations that they would be ‘super–spreaders’
of the virus. Despite constituting approximately 21% of the population, Israeli Arabs made
up only 8.8% of the country’s reported cases and 3.6% of COVID-19 related deaths (Saban
et al. 2020). This phenomenon was partly due to the Israeli government’s “cultural compe-
tency” efforts, which sought to stabilize infection rates by opening lines of communication
between healthcare authorities and leaders of minority communities (Slobodin and Cohen
2020). Another reason for this success was that Muslim religious leaders promoted health
measures within their own communities and combatted the proliferation of misinformation
that was detrimental to COVID-19 relief efforts (Saban et al. 2020).
The present case study seeks to explore the impact of Arab Israeli Muslim leaders,
their COVID-19 related rulings, and the rulings of Sheikh R
¯
a
id Bad
¯
ır in particular, who
served as a mediator between the Israeli government and the Muslim community over
the course of the pandemic. As a senior leader and scholar of the southern branch of the
Islamic Movement in Israel, Sheikh R
¯
a
id Bad
¯
ır’s fatw
¯
as have historically addressed the
unique circumstances and situational difficulties faced by Muslims living in Israel. Because
a number of Sheikh Bader’s past rulings have engaged with medical issues, including
artificial insemination, organ transplants, and the use of Israeli medical personnel and
hospitals (Rubinstein-Shemer 2022), his scholarship is one of the most suitable for a case
study on Islamic jurisprudence within the context of the frequently overlooked Israeli
Muslim community.
From the beginning of the Corona crisis, jurisprudential literature was being written by
Muslim sheikhs and Jewish rabbis in order to address the questions raised by the pandemic
in their communities.
3
These matters, as well as the challenges and opportunities faced by
Jewish religious leaders both in Israel and globally, have been addressed in a comprehensive
article published by the Israel Democracy Institute (Even-Tzur and Friedman 2020). The
role of these religious leaders in ameliorating the effects of the crisis was no less significant
than that of health professionals due to these leaders’ ability to translate health guidelines
into the religious language and terminology of their constituencies. An article investigating
the impact of the coordination between Muslim and Christian religious leaders in Israel
and official state health bodies, and how this cooperation facilitated acceptance of official
guidelines in their communities, is forthcoming (Essa-Hadad et al. 2022).
In this article, I would like to focus on the ways in which the Islamic Movement in
Israel dealt with the Corona crisis by examining fatw
¯
as published by its religious leadership.
Fatw
¯
as were published on the Facebook pages and individual websites of the Northern and
Southern branches of the Islamic Movement by each of their senior clerics, Sheikh Mashour
Faww
¯
az from Umm al-Fahm, and Sheikh R
¯
a
id Bad
¯
ır from Kufr Q
¯
asim, respectively. I
have chosen to limit the scope of this article to the fatw
¯
as of Sheikh Bad
¯
ır due to the fact
that he published far more than Sheikh Faww
¯
aaz, and that, unlike the Northern Branch,
which is hostile to the State of Israel, the Southern Branch pragmatically coordinates with
state bodies, as well as international actors like the World Health Organization (WHO).
While Sheikh Faww
¯
az’s fatw
¯
as certainly deserve scholarly attention, this article’s focus on
Sheikh Bad
¯
ır provides a more solid starting point as there is more data available regarding
the impact of these efforts, and it fills a lacuna in the emerging scholarly literature on the
intersection of international health bodes, state institutions, and the local communities they
seek to aid.
2. The Islamic Movement in Israel: A Brief Background
The Islamic Movement in Israel, founded in 1972 by Sheikh
Abdall
¯
ah Nimr Darw
¯
ısh,
sought to revive Islamic observance among what had become the Muslim minority in Israel.
The movement split into two factions in 1996, following a disagreement about voting in the
national election for the Knesset (the Israeli Parliament). The more pragmatic and moderate
southern branch, led by Sheikh Darw
¯
ısh of Kafr Q
¯
asim, recognized the political legitimacy
Religions 2023,14, 98 3 of 15
and sovereignty of Israel as a fait accompli, and favored participation in the elections. The
northern faction, headed by Sheikh R
¯
a
id
S
.
al
¯
a
h
.
of Umm al-Fa
h
.
m, remained hostile to the
state and its institutions; it called on Muslims to boycott the election and advocated for
the creation of an “independent Islamic enclave” within the country. In 2015, the northern
branch of the Islamic Movement was outlawed in Israel (Al-Atawneh and Ali 2018).
2.1. Sheikh R¯
a
id Bad¯
ır: A Short Biography
Sheikh R
¯
a
id Bad
¯
ır, born in Kafr Q
¯
asim in 1968, is considered the senior authority
on religious law (muft
¯
ı) for the southern branch of the Islamic Movement in Israel today.
He completed a bachelor’s degree in Arabic language and Islamic law (fiqh) at the Islamic
Shar
¯
ı
a College in B
¯
aqa al-Gharbiyya in 1998. In 2004, he received a master’s degree in
Islamic law from al-Naj
¯
a
h
.
University in Nablus. In addition to these academic degrees, he
has pursued advanced studies in several fields and serves as a pleader in the Shar
¯
ı
a courts
and as a mediator. In 2010, Sheikh Bad
¯
ır was one of the founders of the Supreme Council
for Islamic legal opinions (al-hay
a al-
uly
¯
a li-l-ift
¯
a
) of the southern branch of the Islamic
Movement (Zahalka 2017). Since 2013, he has been a member of the Council of Religious
Scholars of Palestine (hay
at al-
ulam¯
a
wa-l-du
¯
a
f¯
ı filast¯
ın), which sits in Jerusalem.
Since 2006, Sheikh Bad
¯
ır has served as President of the Adam Center for Interreligious
Dialogue,
4
one of the two pillars of the Religious Peace Initiative (RPI).
5
The RPI was
established in 2007 by Rabbi Michael Melchior, President of Mosaica, the second pillar
of the RPI, then a deputy minister in the Israeli government, and by Sheikh
Abdall
¯
ah
Nimr Darw
¯
ısh, Sheikh Bad
¯
ır’s ‘spiritual father’. Bad
¯
ır was Darw
¯
ısh’s personal assistant for
some thirty years. After Sheikh Darw
¯
ısh’s death in 2017, Sheikh Bad
¯
ır, together with Rabbi
Melchior, have worked closely to advance peace based on explicitly religious principles
and to mitigate crises as they arise in the context of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict and
beyond. This is primarily done through discrete meetings with influential religious and
political leaders (Roth 2021).
6
Sheikh Bad
¯
ır maintains two websites on which he publishes
legal opinions and articles.7
On 30 January 2020, the Israeli Ministry of Health began to issue public guidelines
to slow the spread of COVID-19. On 12 March 2020, the Ministry of Health made the
guidelines more stringent, expanding them to include the closure of all educational estab-
lishments, the prohibition of gatherings of ten or more people, and the closure of public
spaces in general. The result was the disruption of the daily life of nearly all Israelis. This
article will focus on the disruption these guidelines posed to the lives of religious people,
which generally include gatherings for the sake of prayer and study. Religious leaders
in Israel had to come up with creative explanations to convince their communities to up-
hold the state’s regulations when these contradicted religious commandments. In what
follows, we shall examine a selection of subjects with which Sheikh Bad
¯
ır engaged during
the COVID-19 crisis, paying special attention to the following aspects: (1) the manner in
which Sheikh Bad
¯
ır crafted his messages in Arabic; i.e., into a form that suited the cultural
perspective of his intended audience; (2) the messages that the sheikh chose to emphasize;
and (3) the degree of his cooperation with national and international actors.
2.2. A Theological Approach to the Pandemic
On 5 March 2020, Sheikh Bad
¯
ır began a series of public lectures on Facebook under
the title “Coronavirus in the Eyes of the Shar
¯
ı
a”. The goal of the series was to discuss the
various ways in which COVID-19 was influencing our lives from a theological, religious,
educational, or humanitarian perspective. Sheikh Bad
¯
ır spoke first about matters of faith:
Should COVID-19 be understood as a divine punishment for human actions? The high
number of deaths resulting from COVID-19 raised the question of divine punishment: Do
good deeds guarantee one a comfortable life, while wicked actions condemn one to suffer?
Such a principle is well established in the sacred writings of many religions, including the
Qur
¯
an, which promises reward for those who follow the path of God and punishment for
those who do not. On this principle, it would seem to follow that the COVID-19 pandemic
Religions 2023,14, 98 4 of 15
is a divine punishment for human wickedness. Indeed, in the Qur
¯
an and the Muslim
tradition, many sources express this possibility. However, there are also several sources
that view plagues as a sort of trial by which God tests humankind (Shabana 2021).
Bad
¯
ır chooses to view the pandemic as a trial. In his opinion, the COVID-19 pandemic
is not a divine punishment (
uq
¯
uba), as other religious people in the Muslim world claim
(e.g., Käsehage 2021;Altiordu 2021;Svenson 2021). In Bad
¯
ır’s eyes, COVID-19 is a trial of
faith for humanity, as the Qur
¯
an says: “We shall certainly test you with fear and hunger,
and loss of property, lives, and crops. But [Prophet], give good news to those who are
steadfast” (2:155).
8
According to this verse, Bad
¯
ır claims, COVID-19 should be understood
as a divine trial of humankind (ibtil
¯
a
) which was sent to test peoples’ faith in God in the face
of fear and other obstacles to that faith. As an example of such a divine trial, Bad
¯
ır cites the
Quranic story of Job (21:83–84), who is tested repeatedly and severely despite not having
sinned. So too in our days, Sheikh Bad
¯
ır contends, people are afflicted by hardships despite
not having sinned. As another example, Bad
¯
ır cites the existence of infants and young
children who suffer from serious illnesses. The Quranic story of Job not only provides
an example of divine trial but offers insight into the COVID-19 pandemic in other ways
as well, serving as a scriptural source for the obligation to isolate. Sheikh Bad
¯
ır claims
that we learn of the obligation to isolate (al-
h
.
ajr al-
s
.
i
h
.¯
ı) in cases of contagious illness from
Job, who isolates himself outside of his village when he becomes ill so that he only comes
into contact with his wife and caretaker—even his two brothers only speak to him from
a distance. This story constitutes proof that the Qur
¯
an taught of the obligation to isolate
long before the present day. Having mined the Qur
¯
an, Sheikh Bad
¯
ır turns to the Had
¯
ıth
for more prooftexts relating to the obligation to isolate. He cites had
¯
ıth that seem to signify
that it is necessary to isolate people who are ill. For example, when the Prophet arrived in
Greater Syria, a plague broke out among the soldiers and so he separated the sick soldiers
from the healthy ones. Accordingly, the Prophet taught: “flee from the leper as you would
flee from a lion” (firr min al-majd
¯
um firaruka min al-asad). Bad
¯
ır pleads with the public to
heed the Ministry of Health’s guidelines, insisting that COVID-19 is an issue affecting the
lives of all people, with no relation to national, political, or ideological differences among
communities; it is an international humanitarian crisis that does not discriminate between
borders and boundaries. For this reason, Bad
¯
ır insists, it is incumbent upon anyone who
returns from a trip abroad to follow the Ministry of Health’s guidelines and enter isolation.
Following the Ministry of Health’s guidelines is following the shar
¯
ı
a, Bad
¯
ır teaches, and
he reprises this point multiple times throughout the series. Whoever feels unwell, even if
he is not sick with COVID-19, should not attend Friday prayer in the mosque, and should
instead pray at home. We must follow these guidelines to uphold the value of saving a life
(hifz
.al-nafs) (Bad¯
ır 2020a).
It is worthwhile to consider how Bad
¯
ır chose to relate to COVID-19 as a trial and not
as a punishment. In my opinion, this choice allowed him to enlist the public’s participation
more easily. For in most cases, a man who suspects that God is punishing him even though
he is innocent will become embittered and suffer, and it will be more difficult to enlist his
participation. Throughout the series, Bad
¯
ır notes the importance of approaching issues from
a theological perspective, for the believer relates to reality differently than the nonbeliever.
One ought to consider how Bad
¯
ır uses had
¯
ıth from the life of the Prophet to show that
the Ministry of Health’s guidelines are not original to them and can indeed be traced back
to the Prophet himself. For this reason, Bad
¯
ır argues, following the Ministry of Health’s
guidelines is effectively identical to upholding the shar¯
ı
a and sunna.
Why did COVID-19 appear in the world? Bad
¯
ır finds an allusion to COVID-19 in a
Quranic story about the worm that ate Solomon’s walking stick (cf. 34:14). According to
the Qur
¯
an, a small worm made its way into Solomon’s walking stick in secret. The worm
gnawed through the stick until one day it suddenly breaks, causing Solomon to fall and die.
Sheikh Bad¯
ır explains that the COVID-19 pandemic is like the woodworm: It moves from
place to place in secret, striking people down unopposed. Solomon’s walking stick is a
symbol of stability and support. Sheikh R
¯
a
id elaborates that the walking stick also alludes
Religions 2023,14, 98 5 of 15
to might, power, law, justice, and the economy, all of which were stable in Solomon’s time.
Even the jinn, to which the Qur
¯
an attributes the ability to know secrets, did not know what
the worm was doing. The jinn’s lack of knowledge in this story thus parallels the lack of
knowledge and confusion of modern man: like the jinn, modern man is accustomed to
believing that he is powerful and all-knowing when suddenly, a plague breaks out and
demonstrates to him his own powerlessness. Further, just as Solomon’s death brought
about a new order to the world, the COVID-19 pandemic has brought about stillness in
place of activity, lack of knowledge in place of knowledge, isolation in place of freedom,
sadness in place of joy, and the end of life as we knew it, perhaps also bringing about a new
world order. Sheikh Bad
¯
ır wonders whether the coronavirus has a function identical to
that of the woodworm: just as the woodworm brought about the revelation of Solomon’s
death, so too the coronavirus is revealing the limitations of humanity (
ajz al-bashriya) (Bad
¯
ır
2020b). On this reading, Sheikh Bad
¯
ır is choosing to view the phenomenon of COVID-19
in a positive light, not as the end of the world, but rather as the herald of a new stage,
heretofore unknown, in the development of humanity.
3. Closure of the Mosques
Sheikh Bad
¯
ır was the first Muslim cleric to call for the closure of mosques in Israel. On
9 March 2020, he released this announcement efforts (Saban et al. 2020). The upper portion
of the announcement contains a photograph of Bad
¯
ır on the right-hand side accompanied
by the text: “Sheikh R
¯
a
id Bad
¯
ır, Member of the Institute for Islamic Law and Research” (d
¯
ar
al-ift
¯
a
wa-l-bu
h
.¯
uth al-isl
¯
amiyya). The heading of the announcement advertises that it is a legal
opinion (fatw
¯
a shar
¯
ı
a), the content of which is as follows: “Mosques will be closed for public
prayer for two weeks and closed for Friday prayer for the foreseeable future” (see Figure 1).
In a story released on i24 about his efforts to close mosques in Israel (including al-Aqsa),
Bad
¯
ır claimed that his office had been the first to call for the closure of mosques, and from
there the call to close mosques had spread to neighboring states in the Middle East. Bad
¯
ır
explained that this regulation would be difficult for the Muslim community to swallow:
while the Muslim community is accustomed to gathering for prayer more frequently in
times of hardship, in this case, they were being asked to do precisely the opposite. In the
same story, Sheikh R
¯
a
id also reiterated that the guidelines around social distancing could
be traced back to the example of the Prophet. He explained how the Prophet refrained
from shaking hands with a man who came to swear loyalty to him because the man had a
contagious disease (Bad¯
ır 2020c;Rocca and Marson 2020).
Religions 2023, 14, x FOR PEER REVIEW 6 of 16
Figure 1. Announcement to Local Muslim Community on Mosque Closure. Image distributed by
Sheikh Badīr, and shared directly with Author (1 April 2020).
In a video posted to Facebook on 13 March 2020, Sheikh Badīr spoke about gatherings
(Badīr 2020d). Badīr explains that while the law commands people to pray the Friday
prayer communally in the mosque, this law only applies in the general case. According to
Badīr, the sharīʿa also contains special emergency ordinances (khua al-awāriʾ al-
tashrīʿiyya). Giving an example, Badīr explains that according to the Qurʾān (5:3), it is for-
bidden for a Muslim to eat pork. However, the Qurʾān goes on to say that if a Muslim
finds himself in a situation in which his life would be endangered were he not to consume
pork, it is of course permissible for him to eat it. In Islamic law, such an instance of break-
ing the general law is called darūra (necessity); that is to say, it is necessary to break the
general law for the sake of life, since otherwise, man would die. Badīr demonstrates this
principle with additional examples from the Qurʾān and hadīth: the Qurʾān (2:183) com-
mands a Muslim to fast on Ramaān, but in the following verse (2:184), it is written that
anyone who is ill or traveling is, in fact, free of the obligation to fast. “Pray while stand-
ing”, the Prophet says, “but if one is not so able, pray while sitting” (al-Bukhārī 2002).9
Whoever is at home (muqīm) should pray the full prayer, but anyone who is traveling
(musāfir) is permitted to shorten his prayer (al-Tirmidhī 1996).10 All of these are examples
of emergency ordinances (fiqh al-istithnaʾāt or khua al-awāriʾ al-tashrīʿiyya). Badīr elabo-
rates that these emergency ordinances include a few general principles: fat al-dharāʾiʿ, or
permitting something forbidden; and sadd al-dharāʾi, or forbidding something permissible.
Islam is a religion that takes the temporal circumstances of reality (sharīʿa wāqiʿiyya) into
consideration. Thus, if we once again consider the issue of holding Friday prayers in the
mosque, not praying inside the mosque would not only not be considered a breach of the
sharīʿa, but would moreover be considered as upholding the sharīʿa since in times of
emergency one should not undertake to fulfill those commandments that are only in-
tended for normal circumstances. It is for this reason that Badīr forbids anyone who is sick
or feels unwell from attending the mosque for prayer, regardless of whether they might
have COVID-19 or another illness. Badīr again insists that following the Ministry of
Health’s guidelines is tantamount to following the path of the Prophet (Badīr 2020d). In a
video posted on 6 April 2020, Sheikh Badīr elaborates that anyone who follows the Min-
istry of Health’s guidelines will receive the same divine reward as he would for fulfilling
a commandment, since saving a life (hif al-nafs) is one of the sharīʿa’s supreme goals. The
intentions or goals of the sharīʿa (maqāid al-sharīʿa) are five elements that are most essen-
tial for humankind, namely: religion, the soul, offspring, property, and knowledge (Opwis
2017).11 True belief thus entails doing everything possible to save lives and avoid endan-
gering lives (Badīr 2020m).
4. Addressing Youth
Figure 1.
Announcement to Local Muslim Community on Mosque Closure. Image distributed by
Sheikh Bad¯
ır, and shared directly with Author (1 April 2020).
In a video posted to Facebook on 13 March 2020, Sheikh Bad
¯
ır spoke about gatherings
(Bad
¯
ır 2020d). Bad
¯
ır explains that while the law commands people to pray the Friday
prayer communally in the mosque, this law only applies in the general case. According to
Bad
¯
ır, the shar
¯
ı
a also contains special emergency ordinances (khu
t
.
a
t
.
al-
t
.
aw
¯
ari
al-tashr
¯
ı
iyya).
Religions 2023,14, 98 6 of 15
Giving an example, Bad
¯
ır explains that according to the Qur
¯
an (5:3), it is forbidden for a
Muslim to eat pork. However, the Qur
¯
an goes on to say that if a Muslim finds himself
in a situation in which his life would be endangered were he not to consume pork, it is
of course permissible for him to eat it. In Islamic law, such an instance of breaking the
general law is called dar
¯
ura (necessity); that is to say, it is necessary to break the general
law for the sake of life, since otherwise, man would die. Bad
¯
ır demonstrates this principle
with additional examples from the Qur
¯
an and had
¯
ıth: the Qur
¯
an (2:183) commands a
Muslim to fast on Rama
d
.¯
an, but in the following verse (2:184), it is written that anyone
who is ill or traveling is, in fact, free of the obligation to fast. “Pray while standing”, the
Prophet says, “but if one is not so able, pray while sitting” (al-Bukh
¯
ar
¯
ı 2002).
9
Whoever
is at home (muq
¯
ım) should pray the full prayer, but anyone who is traveling (mus
¯
afir) is
permitted to shorten his prayer (al-Tirmidh
¯
ı 1996).
10
All of these are examples of emergency
ordinances (fiqh al-istithna
¯
at or khu
t
.
a
t
.
al-
t
.
aw
¯
ari
al-tashr
¯
ı
iyya). Bad
¯
ır elaborates that these
emergency ordinances include a few general principles: fat
h
.
al-dhar
¯
a
i
, or permitting
something forbidden; and sadd al-dhar
¯
a
i, or forbidding something permissible. Islam is a
religion that takes the temporal circumstances of reality (shar
¯
ı
a w
¯
aqi
iyya) into consideration.
Thus, if we once again consider the issue of holding Friday prayers in the mosque, not
praying inside the mosque would not only not be considered a breach of the shar
¯
ı
a, but
would moreover be considered as upholding the shar
¯
ı
a since in times of emergency one
should not undertake to fulfill those commandments that are only intended for normal
circumstances. It is for this reason that Bad
¯
ır forbids anyone who is sick or feels unwell
from attending the mosque for prayer, regardless of whether they might have COVID-19
or another illness. Bad
¯
ır again insists that following the Ministry of Health’s guidelines is
tantamount to following the path of the Prophet (Bad
¯
ır 2020d). In a video posted on 6 April
2020, Sheikh Bad
¯
ır elaborates that anyone who follows the Ministry of Health’s guidelines
will receive the same divine reward as he would for fulfilling a commandment, since saving
a life (hif
z
.
al-nafs) is one of the shar
¯
ı
a’s supreme goals. The intentions or goals of the shar
¯
ı
a
(maq
¯
a
s
.
id al-shar
¯
ı
a) are five elements that are most essential for humankind, namely: religion,
the soul, offspring, property, and knowledge (Opwis 2017).
11
True belief thus entails doing
everything possible to save lives and avoid endangering lives (Bad¯
ır 2020m).
4. Addressing Youth
In a video posted on 26 March 2020, Sheikh Bad
¯
ır spoke forcefully to young people
who were not obeying COVID-19 safety guidelines. He enjoined them to not join the
ranks of those who create death (
s
.
un
¯
a
al-mawt) by leaving the house and breaking isolation,
transmitting their contagious COVID-19 to sick and elderly people. More broadly, Bad
¯
ır
called upon young people to take responsibility for the sick and vulnerable, imploring
them to respect and honor the elderly, for it is by honoring the elderly that we ultimately
merit entrance into Heaven (Bad
¯
ır 2020e). On 29 March 2020, in the wake of the first
COVID-19 death in Israel, Sheikh Bad
¯
ır issued a legal opinion solely devoted to explaining
the importance of isolation to young people (Bad¯
ır 2020f).
5. Cooperation with National and International Actors
On 6 April 2020, a video was posted to the Facebook page of the IDF spokesperson
for the Arab media, Lieutenant Colonel Avichay Edre’i (Bad
¯
ır 2020g). In this video, Sheikh
R
¯
a
id Bad
¯
ır discusses the need to obey guidelines set by medical and governmental profes-
sionals and claims that obeying these is tantamount to obeying the words of the Prophet.
Bad
¯
ır explains that in ancient times, there was another version of the call to prayer, in
which the muezzin would recite Muhammad’s injunction to “pray in your homes” (
s
.
al
¯
u f
¯
ı
buy
¯
utikum) instead of the standard call to pray in the mosque. He emphasizes that in light
of this had
¯
ıth, people should pray in their homes and observe social distancing and public
health measures, thereby fulfilling their obligation to heed the Ministry of Health’s guide-
lines. On 3 May 2020, another of Sheikh Bad
¯
ır’s videos was released, this time on the Home
Front Command’s YouTube channel (Bad
¯
ır 2020h). The video featured the seals of both the
Religions 2023,14, 98 7 of 15
State of Israel and the Home Front Command. In this video, Bad
¯
ır discusses a had
¯
ıth about
contagious illnesses as a source for thinking about how to address COVID-19. The had
¯
ıth
relates a story about a man with a contagious illness who came to meet the Prophet, but
whom the Prophet sent back home, instructing him that he was forbidden from praying in
public spaces. Bad
¯
ır also details several of the Prophet’s habits such as covering his mouth
while sneezing and coughing and maintaining his personal hygiene (e.g., purifying himself
before prayer), both of which principles are crucial to safeguarding public health. The end
of the video features contact information for the Home Front Command so that viewers
can receive updates on COVID-19-related news and guidelines.
It is not insignificant that a member of the Islamic Movement produced a video in
cooperation with the IDF: while the Southern Branch of the Islamic Movement has accepted
the existence of the State of Israel ex post facto, it does not support it actively. Both branches
of the Islamic Movement naturally identify with Palestinians in the Territories and the
Gaza Strip and accordingly perceive the IDF in a negative light, as an oppressive force.
In contrast, Shaikh Bad
¯
ır demonstrates a willingness to cross the aisle to reach the widest
possible audience with his message.
On 31 December 2020, a video entitled “The Doctor and the Religious Man” (
t
.
abib
wa-faq
¯
ıh) (Bad
¯
ır 2020i) was posted to the Facebook page of the Islamic Institute for Legal
Decision-Making. The video opens with Sheikh Bad
¯
ır in the Klalit clinic in Kfar Qasim,
with Bad
¯
ır explaining that several people have solicited his legal opinion as to whether
they are required to take the COVID-19 vaccine. Rather than immediately offering his
own opinion, Bad
¯
ır instead turns to pose the same question to his family doctor, Dr. Sala
h
.
Bad
¯
ır. We see Dr. Bad
¯
ır examining the sheikh’s medical file and recommending that he be
vaccinated immediately. Sheikh Bad
¯
ır then asks the doctor whether he recommends that
everyone be vaccinated. The doctor replies that while he does recommend that everyone
get vaccinated, people should consult with their own doctors before so doing. The video
concludes with Dr. Bad
¯
ır explaining that the COVID-19 vaccine is safe and effective, and
not something to be afraid of. In this video, we can see Sheikh Bad
¯
ır’s clearly acting in
cooperation with Klalit, the largest HMO in Israel, in an effort to encourage vaccination
among the Arab community.
Through his activity in the nonprofit Mosaica, Sheikh Bad
¯
ır also participated in several
of the World Health Organization’s (WHO) initiatives in Israel (WHO 2022),
12
includ-
ing The Kavod-Karama (Dignity) Project: Insider Religious Meditation in the Context
of
COVID-19
. The main goal of this project was “to strengthen and expand Mosaica’s
religious and community mediators’ capacity to respond more effectively to both the cur-
rent
COVID-19
pandemic and future emergencies”. As part of the project, Sheikh Bad
¯
ır
worked to refute conspiracy theories that were widespread in the Arab community, e.g.,
that WHO was bribing hospitals to report higher numbers of COVID-19 deaths. He also
organized meetings between the religious community at large, senior medical authorities
in the Arab community, and Dr. Dorit Nizan of WHO, which he subsequently wrote about
in the Arabic-language media.
13
Bad
¯
ır joined forces with Rabbi Steinberg and Archbishop
Yousef Matta to produce a video with the support of WHO entitled “The Bishop, the
Sheikh, and the Rabbi: Battling COVID-19 in the Holy Land” (Bad
¯
ır et al. 2022). In the
video, they describe their struggles with their respective communities, principally relating
to their efforts to impress upon their communities the importance of following public
health guidelines as part and parcel of upholding the religious value of the sanctity of
life. Mosaica also organized a forum in which senior religious leaders could discuss the
various medical and religious challenges with which their communities were struggling
because of the pandemic. At the end of the forum, they signed a declaration—written
in Hebrew, Arabic, and English—that details the obligation to save human life and that
specifies that “The sanctity of life is the supreme value and saving every person created in
the image of God is the highest religious obligation” (Kavod-Karama Project 2022).
14
On 15
March 2022, Sheikh Bad
¯
ır participated in the Second International Congress for Religious
Diplomacy as part of the Conflict Resolution, Management, and Negotiation program
Religions 2023,14, 98 8 of 15
at Bar Ilan University, the focus of which was “Religious Leaders Contending with the
Common Enemy of COVID-19”. The Congress addressed questions surrounding religion’s
role in responding diplomatically to crisis situations and encouraging the participation of
religious leaders in both the short and long term.15
6. Learning from Past Plagues
The Muslim tradition contains many materials relating to instances of plague—and
Muslims’ dealings with those plagues—throughout history (Shabana 2021). In September
2020, Sheikh Bad
¯
ır proposed two different strategies for dealing with the pandemic based
upon the worldviews of two of the Prophet’s friends: Amr ibn al A
s
.
and Mu
¯
adh ibn
Jabal. Bad
¯
ır does not explain the historical context of these two different worldviews, so
to understand them fully we shall turn to the major plague that occurred in the period
of the R
¯
ashidun, known as the plague of
Amw
¯
as. The plague of
Amw
¯
as broke out in
639 during the caliphate of
Umar ibn al-Khat
.t
.¯
ab, a year after
Amw¯
as was captured from
the Byzantines by the Muslim Army. The plague spread from
Amw
¯
as to Syria, Iraq, and
Egypt, and had a huge death toll in the Muslim Army, killing nearly 2500 soldiers and
slowing the momentum of the Muslims’ conquest. Many of the Prophet’s companions
(
s
.
a
h
.¯
abah) were killed by this plague; the commander of the Muslim Army, Abu Ubayda
ibn al-Jarrah, did not want to abandon his troops, and so refused
Umar ibn al-Kha
t
.t
.¯
ab’s
directive to return to Medina. He successfully escaped with his troops to Hauran, but
eventually caught the plague in Jabiya and died. Before dying, he appointed another of
Muhammad’s companions, Mu
¯
adh ibn Jabal, as his successor, but ibn Jabal too caught the
plague and died immediately thereafter, along with his wives and children. The Muslim
tradition characterizes ibn Jabal as exhibiting a passive attitude toward the plague: he
relates to the plague as a heavenly decree, accepting his fate with an attitude of submission.
Following his death, yet another new commander is appointed for the Muslim Army, Amr
ibn al A
s
.
. When Amr is appointed commander, he orders his soldiers to light the lower
fields on fire and then hide in the mountains to avoid breathing the dangerous smoky air.
Thus, Amr removes the plague from the people of Greater Syria (al-sh
¯
am). Amr’s active
approach to the plague stands in clear contrast to the passive attitude assumed by his
predecessors, who simply accepted the plague as a divine decree (Dols 1974).
Based on this story, Sheikh Bad
¯
ır proposes two different strategies for dealing with the
pandemic in his article “Islam: The Way to Prevent Disaster in Our Battle Against COVID-
19” (Bad
¯
ır 2020j). First, in the spirit of Amr ibn al A
s
.
, he presents an active strategy, the
core of which consists of shutting down the entire economy and entering a full lockdown
for thirty days. He urges readers to recognize that the pandemic is dynamic, clever, and
lethal, supporting this idea with the Quranic verse: “It and its forces can see you when you
cannot see them” (7:27). For this reason, Bad
¯
ır insists, it is necessary to halt the proceedings
of everyday life, obligations included, for a month, so that people can lock down and
avoid contact with one another. This strategy aligns with a principle set forth in the had
¯
ıth:
“if you know of a plague in some region, do not enter it, and if the plague comes to a
region in which you dwell, do not leave it”.
16
Likewise, Bad
¯
ır says, we ought to pause
the usual operations of democracy and turn instead to a system of emergency ordinances,
since democratic negotiations pose an obstacle to swiftly dealing with the pandemic. The
best solution is for every family to isolate in their homes, just as the Prophet directed his
soldiers to avoid the men of Quraysh following the capture of Mecca: “Whoever closes the
door to his home, he is most certainly safe” (Ab
¯
u D
¯
a
ud 2009).
17
Bad
¯
ır also calls for every
household to be supplied with food, drink, and medicine throughout the full duration of
the lockdown, supporting this with yet other principles from the had
¯
ıth: “Inform them
that Allah commands them to give charity, that the wealthy among them should give to
the poor among them”;
18
and “whoever goes to bed satiated while his neighbor is hungry
should not be called ‘believer’” (al-N
¯
ıs
¯
ab
¯
ur
¯
ı 1990).
19
Bad
¯
ır calls upon those whose net
income exceeds 15,000 INS to donate (zak
¯
at) 2.5% of their earnings to a mutual fund for
those struggling with COVID-19. In sum, Bad
¯
ır exhorts those with COVID-19 symptoms
Religions 2023,14, 98 9 of 15
to self-isolate until their health is restored. In support of this, he cites the had
¯
ıth that
“the sick person should not come before the healthy under any circumstance”,
20
and the
legal principles that “the individual should be willing to endure harm in order to prevent
harm from coming to the public at large” and that “preventing harm is prior to producing
benefits” (al-B¯
urn¯
u 1996).21
If all these active strategies in the spirit of Amr ibn al A
s
.
prove ineffective, then we
can turn to the passive strategy of Mu
¯
adh ibn Jabal. According to this strategy, citizens
should prepare themselves for the impending disaster, readying themselves to accept the
physical, psychological, spiritual, economic, social, and educational tolls of the pandemic,
and to relate to these as a divine decree which they are to endure bravely, according to the
Quranic dictum: “We shall certainly test you with fear and hunger, and loss of property,
lives, and crops. But [Prophet], give good news to those who are steadfast” (2:155). In this
view, individuals should assume ultimate responsibility for whatever happens, as it says
in the Qur
¯
an: “Whatever misfortune befalls you, it is because of what your own hands
have done, for God forgives much” (42:30). COVID-19 should be understood as a divine
judgment, as it is written in the Qur
¯
an: “No misfortune can happen, either in the earth or
in yourselves, that was not set down in writing before We brought it into being, that is easy
for Allah” (57:22). Sheikh R
¯
a
id claims that the world will not return to its previous state
and that instead, a new order will be established. The significance of this transformation
lies in our recognition and admission that we are powerless both in general and in our
struggle against the COVID-19 pandemic in particular. Accordingly, our only option is to
pray to Allah that vaccinations speedily increase or that the pandemic comes to an end.
He supports this idea with the had
¯
ıth that “Allah does not bring about any sickness in the
world without also bringing about its cure; those who know this know, and those who do
not know, do not;” and that “Allah does not create any sickness without also creating its
cure, save one sickness. They asked: Messenger of Allah, what is this [incurable sickness
referred to]? He answered: Old age” (Bad¯
ır 2020j).22
7. Encouraging the Community to Follow the Ministry of Health’s Guidelines
To address the Arab community’s failure to follow the Ministry of Health’s guidelines,
Sheikh Bad
¯
ır composed a lengthy article entitled “Letter to the Cities defined as ’Red’
23
in General and to Kfar Qasim in Particular”. He begins this letter with a had
¯
ıth about the
Prophet and Ab¯
u Bakr:
From the mouth of Asm
¯
a
, the daughter of Ab
¯
u Bakr (Asm
¯
a
bint Ab
¯
ı Bakr), who
related: We went with the Prophet, peace and prayers be upon him, to fulfill the
commandment of pilgrimage, when suddenly, upon arriving in the village of
al-
Araj, the Prophet stopped on the side of the road, and we stopped there with
him. The Prophet’s wife Aisha sat beside him, while I sat beside my father. Ab
¯
u
Bakr and the Prophet’s provisions were being transported by a camel led by Ab
¯
u
Bakr’s servant, and Ab
¯
u Bakr sat waiting for him to arrive. Eventually, the servant
arrived, but without the camel who was carrying the food and drink. When Ab
¯
u
Bakr asked him to explain what had happened he said that the previous day
he had lost the camel on the road. In response, Ab
¯
u Bakr screamed: “There
was only one camel, and you managed to lose it?!” and then began hitting him.
The Prophet watched Ab
¯
u Bakr, then smiled and said: “See what this pilgrim is
doing!”. (Ibn M¯
aja n.d.)24
In this had
¯
ıth, the servant failed to carry out the task with which he was charged, and
because of his irresponsibility, the pilgrims’ lives were put in danger when they were stuck
on the road without any food or drink. Ab
¯
u Bakr’s hitting of his servant illustrates that the
servant’s losing of the camel should not be simply excused or dismissed as an act of fate.
The servant was charged with protecting the well-being of other people and he failed to
carry out his task, thus he is responsible for bearing the burden of punishment.
Religions 2023,14, 98 10 of 15
Allegorically, the servant in the story symbolizes the Arab community’s failure to
follow the Ministry of Health’s COVID-19 guidelines. According to Sheikh Bad
¯
ır, anyone
who willfully neglects to uphold guidelines is endangering the lives of others and threat-
ening peoples’ economic, social, psychological, and spiritual interests, causing schools to
close and tens of people to go into isolation unjustifiably, since they knew that it was their
responsibility to self-isolate. The negligent must bear responsibility for the consequences
of their actions before Allah. Sheikh Bad
¯
ır insists that the believer should always keep in
mind the verse “Does he not realize that Allah sees all?” (96:14), for while the negligent
may be saved in this world, they shall certainly not be saved in the world to come. At
the same time, Sheikh Bad
¯
ır implores those who must stay in isolation to understand that
Allah is doing this for their benefit and in order that they receive an unparalleled reward. It
is incumbent upon the believer to consider every affliction that befalls him as Allah’s way
of getting him to atone for his sins, as it says in the had¯
ıth:
Ab
¯
u Hurayra transmitted from the Prophet, peace and prayers be upon him:
Allah, may He be exalted, said: My servant considers all My actions to be good.
He also said: Afflictions do not befall the believer—whether it be weariness,
exhaustion, worry, sorrow, regret, or even the smallest of burdens in the world—
unless Allah is making him atone for his sins.25
How part of the Arab community relates to the Ministry of Health’s guidelines is
similar to the way people related to Noah’s admonitions of the impending flood: “they
thrust their fingers into their ears, cover their heads with their garments, persist in their
rejection, and grow more insolent and arrogant” (71:7). Nothing can improve this sector
of the community: it was the cause of the flood in Noah’s day, just as it is the cause of the
COVID-19 pandemic, and just as it will, in the future, cause harm for us in other arenas: in
the areas of physical, psychological, and spiritual health, in the social sphere, in the realm
of economics, in the sciences, plus in other domains besides these. Still, another part of the
Arab community considers the COVID-19 pandemic to be a conspiracy or an elaborate lie.
Bad
¯
ır writes that we are forbidden from dismissing these people and rather must engage
them in conversation, just as Moses engaged the children of Israel in conversation about the
cow that God sought as a sacrificial offering (2:67–71). Even though the children of Israel
wearied Moses with many questions and made him turn repeatedly to God for answers,
Moses did not abandon his conversation with them and answered all of their questions
patiently (Bad¯
ır 2020k).
8. Prohibition of Large Wedding Parties
In October 2020, Sheikh Bad
¯
ır released an article whose purpose was to combat the
phenomenon of large weddings in the Arab community, which had started to be held again
following the end of the first wave of COVID-19 in April 2020. Against state government
prohibitions against large wedding parties, people in the Arab community continued to
hold wedding parties in parks and forests (Nusbaum 2020). In the Arab community, the
wedding season extends from April to August, and virtually every wedding has hundreds
of guests, meaning that these weddings caused a huge number of people to contract
COVID-19. Accordingly, the goal of Bad
¯
ır’s article was to explain to the community why it
is important for people to have smaller wedding parties, and that to do anything else ran
contrary to established custom since small wedding parties were in accordance with the
sunna of the Prophet:
To my brothers and sisters and cousins in Kfar Qasim: All of you are soldiers in
the battle against COVID, and your commander in chief is the Prophet, peace
and prayers be upon him. Glory be to you, for you are fighting COVID under
his banner. Just as you have prevailed in the realm of mosques, so too shall you
prevail in the realm of weddings! (Bad¯
ır 2020l)
Sheikh Bad
¯
ır describes the struggle experienced by the people of Kfar Qasim during
the first wave of COVID-19, during which time mosques were completely closed and both
Religions 2023,14, 98 11 of 15
Friday prayers and tar
¯
aw
¯
ıh prayers, recited at night during Rama
d
.¯
an, were canceled. Bad
¯
ır
praises the people of Kfar Qasim who have acted as soldiers and prevailed in battle: you
deserve glory, Bad
¯
ır writes, on account of your emerging victorious under the leadership of
the Prophet, who taught us how to vanquish plagues by his own example. Bad
¯
ır cites the
following had
¯
ıth as exemplary guidelines for how people dealt with plagues in the time
of the Prophet: “we do not bring the sick into contact with the healthy”, and “flee from
plague as you would flee from a lion”. He also cites
Abd Allah ibn
Abb
¯
as’ instruction
to his muezzin on a rainy day, namely, that instead of reciting “come to prayer” during
adh
¯
an he should say “pray in your homes” (
s
.
al
¯
u f
¯
ı buy
¯
utikm). The son of caliph
Umar ibn
al-Kha
t
.t
.¯
ab also modified the adh
¯
an for rainy days, adding the call “pray upon the saddles
of your beasts of burden” (
s
.
al
¯
u f
¯
ı ri
h
.¯
alikum); that is to say, do not descend from your beasts
of burden to pray with all of the usual bodily motions, but rather pray as you sit upon your
saddles, simply by bowing your head (Rubinstein-Shemer 2012).
26
In other words, Bad
¯
ır
finds had
¯
ıth sources for the Ministry of Health’s guidelines, transforming these into part of
the tradition of the Prophet and so the obligation to heed them into a religious obligation.
After you conquer the arena of prayer, Bad
¯
ır writes to the people of Kfar Qasim, it
will be time to turn to another battle, namely, that of large wedding parties, which are
customary among the Arab community. Large wedding parties spread COVID-19 which is
then transmitted to other venues, such as schools, universities, and workplaces. We should
not depend upon the rapid development of a vaccine that will solve all our problems, and
should instead assume the worst-case scenario, behaving with extra caution and following
guidelines, since this is what has proven to be effective. Accordingly, Bad
¯
ır claims that there
is a need to establish a new, smaller format for wedding parties. While having a wedding
is a commandment, Bad
¯
ır reasons that since this commandment is less important than the
commandment to pray, and that since even regarding the latter, Muslim law allows for
flexibility in emergency situations, it must follow that Muslim law is also flexible on the
subject of weddings. Bad
¯
ır reiterates the idea that in both cases, the reason that the law is
flexible is because the most fundamental value in the shar
¯
ı
a is that of saving a life (
h
.
if
z
.
al-nafs huwa al-maq
s
.
ad al-a
l
¯
a f
¯
ı al-shar
¯
ı
a) (Bad
¯
ır 2020l). It is impossible, Bad
¯
ır writes, that
weddings should be a cause for the disruption of young children’s studies, resulting in a
generation that would not know how to read or write; or else that weddings should be a
cause for people not being able to open their businesses and support their families. Bad
¯
ır
draws inspiration for the model small wedding from a had
¯
ıth that recounts the marriage of
one of the Prophet’s friends,
Abd al-Rah
.m¯
an ibn
Awf:
Abd al-Ra
h
.
m
¯
an ibn
Awf related: When we arrived in Medina, the Prophet
turned me and Sa
d ibn al-Rab
¯
ı
into brothers. Sa
d ibn al-Rab
¯
ı
said to me: I am
the wealthiest among the an
s
.¯
ar,
27
I shall give you half of my possessions, and you
may choose for yourself whichever you prefer of my two wives; I will divorce her
and after she completes the period of ‘idda,
28
you can marry her.
Abd al-Ra
h
.
m
¯
an
ibn
Awf replied to him: I have no need for this. Is there a marketplace here where
one can trade? Sa
d replied to him: The marketplace of the Banu Qaynuqa. He
went there to trade what he had with him, which was only a small amount of oil
and cheese. One day he came to the Prophet and there was yellow on his clothes.
The Prophet asked him: “Are you beloved?” He answered: “I have married”.
The Prophet asked him: “How much did you pay for her?”
Abd al-Ra
h
.
m
¯
an
answered: “The weight of a date-seed in gold”. The Prophet said to him: “May
God bless you, a wedding party has now been set, even if it is for only one little
lamb”.29
Abd al-Ra
h
.
m
¯
an ibn
Awf was married without anyone knowing of his marriage; the
Prophet only knew of his pauper’s wedding from the scent of perfume that lingered on
him.
Abd al-Ra
h
.
m
¯
an did not invite anyone to his wedding, which did not include a feast
(wal
¯
ıma). Not only did the Prophet not consider his behavior impolite or scornful, but
moreover, he blessed him for his marriage. Additionally, most marriages are established
in exchange for only a very small dowry. Even these modest marriages are not in accord
Religions 2023,14, 98 12 of 15
with the noble rank of
Abd al-Ra
h
.
m
¯
an, who was among the eight first Muslims, the ten
Muslims who were told that they had merited entrance into Heaven, and the six individuals
who made up the sh
¯
ur
¯
acounsel. He joined the Prophet in all the major battles and made
hijra twice from Mecca, first from Mecca to Habash, and then from Mecca to Medina.
Abd
al-Ra
h
.
m
¯
an’s modest marriage, Bad
¯
ır writes, can serve as a model for us of what weddings
should look like in the time of COVID-19 (Bad¯
ır 2020l).
In a time of confusion, as we seek leadership to guide us to safety until the long-
awaited vaccine is developed, Bad
¯
ır claims that we in fact already have such leadership in
the form of the Prophet, whose guidelines can lead us to conquer COVID-19. In the Qur
¯
an
it is written that Allah guarantees victory to whoever follows the Prophet, e.g., “and obey
God and the Prophet so that you may be given mercy” (3:132); and “so accept whatever the
Messenger gives you and abstain from whatever he forbids you” (59:7) (Bad
¯
ır 2020l). If
this is the case, then obeying COVID-19 guidelines is tantamount to not only following the
path of the Prophet but, moreover, to obeying God Himself.
A month after composing his article on model small weddings (i.e., in November 2020),
c published another article calling upon couples to not delay their weddings on account of
COVID-19, and to instead have their weddings on the planned date (Bad
¯
ır 2020n). In this
article, Bad
¯
ır lays out ten reasons why it is not worthwhile to delay weddings. He discusses
the characteristics of those people who remain in denial of reality and refuse to accept that
COVID-19 will continue to be around for the foreseeable future. Unable to accept reality
as it stands, these people struggle in vain to return to their former lives. Their condition
is similar to that of the second caliph,
Umar ibn al-Kha
t
.t
.¯
ab, who refused to accept the
Prophet’s death and claimed that he had not died but had only ascended to God for forty
days, as had Moses. His denial was so absolute that he commanded that the hands and
feet be cut off of anyone claiming that Mu
h
.
ammad had died. Those who are unable to
accept reality are the most wretched, Bad
¯
ır writes, for they struggle to resume their former
lives, even as reality fails to align. COVID-19 has forced new conditions upon the whole
world, in which markets, airports, and even schools, are all closed; there is no reason why
weddings should be an exception to this rule.
Even before COVID-19, Bad
¯
ır writes, we were concerned with easing expenditures on
weddings. Although weddings pose a serious expense for families, people are reluctant to
have more modest weddings because they are concerned with what others will say about
them. COVID-19 presents a perfect opportunity to normalize modest weddings without
being concerned with what others will say.
9. Summary and Conclusions
In this article, we have surveyed Sheikh R
¯
a
id Bad
¯
ır’s efforts to protect the Muslim
community in Israel from the COVID-19 pandemic. Given that Islamic law implicitly
includes guidelines for protecting public health, Bad
¯
ır chose to make the Ministry of
Health’s guidelines accessible to the Muslim community by presenting them in a way that
spoke to them. Central to Bad
¯
ır’s project was his promotion of the idea that saving a life
(
h
.
if
z
.
al-nafs) is the most important principle of the shar
¯
ı
a. To uphold this principle, people
must follow the Ministry of Health’s social distancing and hygiene guidelines. What is
more, these guidelines predate the current COVID-19 era, and, in fact, can be traced back
to the Prophet. Sheikh Bad
¯
ır attempts to find a source in the Muslim tradition for every
COVID-19-related guideline, drawing parallels from stories about the Prophet and his
companions. In this way, Bad
¯
ır uses characters from the Qur
¯
an and the tradition—such as
Noah, Job, Ab
¯
u Bakr,
Abd al-Ra
h
.
m
¯
an ibn
Awf, and above all, the Prophet—to wage his
public health campaign. To overcome the Muslim community’s resistance to disruptions
of their routine religious practices, such as holding Friday prayers in the mosque, Sheikh
Bad
¯
ır attempts to send the message that in the era of COVID-19, different rules apply out
of necessity (d
.ar¯
ura), for the sake of saving lives.
Bad
¯
ır cooperated with national governmental actors, such as the Ministry of Health,
HMOs, and even the IDF to spread his message to the widest audience possible. He also co-
Religions 2023,14, 98 13 of 15
operated with both Christian and Jewish leaders in Israel to present a united religious front
in the struggle against COVID-19 and worked closely with the World Health Organization
to supply the most up-to-date medical and scientific information to the Arab community to
refute prevalent conspiracy theories. Bad
¯
ır attempted to reach his intended audience in
the most diverse manner possible, and so wrote dozens of articles and legal opinions, all
of which he published on his website. To this end, he also posted videos to Facebook and
YouTube on different platforms, from Kfar Qasim’s municipal website to the Home Front
Command’s YouTube channel. Taking Sheikh Bad
¯
ır as a test case, it is clear that religious
leaders can act for the benefit of their communities in times of crisis.
Funding: This research received no external funding.
Institutional Review Board Statement: Not applicable.
Informed Consent Statement: Not applicable.
Data Availability Statement: The data can be found at here https://tinyurl.com/33hzn97r.
Conflicts of Interest: The author declares no conflict of interest.
Notes
1
The Israel-based CSO Mosaica worked with the WHO to link health professionals with Muslim, Christian and Jewish religious
leaders in an effort to combat the pandemic.
2
Acting as an information hub, the Faith and COVID-19: Resource Repository compiled research, news articles, policy reports and
data collected by international institutions to provide religious leaders and policymakers with resources and opportunities for
collaboration in strategic responses to the pandemic. See: https://covidfaithrepository.georgetown.domains/ (accessed on 9
January 2023).
3
For examples of Jewish jurisprudence, see: Steinberg (2020). See also: Ochana (2020). Both of these sources were uploaded directly
to the internet in order to facilitate their speedy distribution. See also: Feldman (2020). Muslim jurisprudential literature may be
found on the respective websites of the Islamic Movement: The Northern Branch: http://www.fatawah.net/Fatawah/1081.aspx
(accessed on 9 January 2023); The Southern Branch: https://nawazel.net/ (accessed on 9 January 2023).
4For Sheikh Bad¯
ır’s curriculum vitae, see https://tinyurl.com/ymtu8vzy (accessed on 12 January 2020).
5On the RPI see https://tinyurl.com/4tvruy73 (accessed on 25 May 2022).
6On Sheikh Bad¯
ır’s activities in Mosaica, see Roth (2021), pp. 49–50.
7
Bad
¯
ır’s websites are: https://nawazel.net/ and http://scharee.com/. Sheikh Bad
¯
ır also posts many fatw
¯
as and articles on the
Kafr Q¯
asim website: https://tinyurl.com/yd24jc57.
8Here and elsewhere, all Quranic citations are taken from Haleem (2010).
9For this h
.ad¯
ıth see al-Bukh¯
ar¯
ı(2002), p. 271, h
.ad¯
ıth no. 1117 (hereafter: S
.ah
.¯
ıh
.al-Bukh¯
ar¯
ı).
10 For this h
.ad¯
ıth see al-Tirmidh¯
ı(1996), p. 85, h
.ad¯
ıth no. 715.
11 On maq¯
as
.id al-shar¯
ı
a, see EI2, s.v. Maq¯
as
.id al-Shar¯
ı
a (R.M. Gleave).
12 On the collaboration with WHO see WHO (2022).
13
On the Kavod-Karama (Dignity) Project see, https://tinyurl.com/dwpfybsr (accessed on 21 August 2022). Rabbi Dr. Daniel Roth,
Director of Mosaica’s Religious Peace Initiative presents the project, The Role of Religious Leaders in Responding to COVID 19:
A Case Study of Sheikhs and Rabbis in the Holy Land at a WHO Europe RCCE Webinar.
14 On the declaration see, https://tinyurl.com/dwpfybsr (accessed on 21 August 2022).
15 For the recording of the conference see (20+) Facebook.
16 For this h
.ad¯
ıth see S
.ah
.¯
ıh
.al-Bukh¯
ar¯
ı, p. 1451, h
.ad¯
ıth no. 5728.
17 Ab¯
u D¯
a
ud (2009), p. 633, h
.ad¯
ıth no. 3022.
18 al-Bukh¯
ar¯
ı, S
.ah
.¯
ıh
.al-Bukh¯
ar¯
ı, p. 338, h
.ad¯
ıth no. 1395
19 al-N¯
ıs¯
ab¯
ur¯
ı(1990), p. 15, h
.ad¯
ıth no. 2166.
20 Al-Bukh¯
ar¯
ı, S
.ah
.¯
ıh
.al-Bukh¯
ar¯
ı, p. 1461, h
.ad¯
ıth no. 5771.
21 On this legal principles see al-B¯
urn¯
u(1996), p. 263.
22 al-N¯
ıs¯
ab¯
ur¯
ı, al-Nustadrak, vol. 4, p. 15, h
.ad¯
ıth no. 8206.
23
The Israeli government used a color-coded system to classify cities in terms of the occurrence of COVID-19 per capita. Red
signified the highest level.
Religions 2023,14, 98 14 of 15
24 Ibn M¯
aja (n.d.), p. 978, h
.ad¯
ıth no. 2933; al-Bukh¯
ar¯
ı, S
.ah
.¯
ıh
.al-Bukh¯
ar¯
ı, p. 1827, h
.ad¯
ıth no. 7405.
25 Al-Bukh¯
ar¯
ı, S
.ah
.¯
ıh
.al-Bukh¯
ar¯
ı, p. 1431, h
.ad¯
ıth no. 5642.
26
Prayer by nodding the head only is called in Islamic law al-
s
.
alat bi-l-
¯
ım
¯
a
. Muslims pray this way in situations where they cannot
pray normally, as in a state of illness or fear. See Rubinstein-Shemer (2012).
27
The An
s
.¯
ar were the local inhabitants of Medina who, in Islamic tradition, took prophet Muhammad and his followers (the
Muh¯
ajir¯
un) into their homes when they emigrated from Mecca during the hijra.
28 The length of time a woman has to wait between divorcing her husband and the time she can marry another man.
29 al-Bukh¯
ar¯
ı, S
.ah
.¯
ıh
.al-Bukh¯
ar¯
ı, p. 927, h
.ad¯
ıth no. 3780.
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