by Raymond Ibrahim
What Tawriya Really Means
London mayor Sadiq Khan recently engaged in a shameless bit of tawriya, a little-known Islamic doctrine that allows Muslims to engage in “creative” lying.
Background: On March 16, Khan allowed thousands of Muslims to take over Trafalgar Square, with worshippers sprawled in prostration across the streets as Koran verses, including “Allahu Akbar,” were blared out over megaphones. Many British Christians accused the gathering of being a provocative act of domination over the city’s historically Christian public space. After expressing his disappointment that these Christians were not behaving like doormats, Khan said,
You know, our religion is about submission, it’s about peace. I began my speech with a greeting of peace, asalima alikum, may the peace and blessing of our creator be upon you. What can be more peaceful than that?
On the one hand, these words are essentially true and accurate; on the other, they do not, at all, mean what he wants Western people to think they mean.
Welcome to the all-important but obscure doctrine of tawriya. In what follows, I explain this Muslim teaching and then show how it applies to Khan’s words.
What is Tawriya?
The authoritative Hans Wehr Arabic-English Dictionary defines tawriya as, “hiding, concealment; dissemblance, dissimulation, hypocrisy; equivocation, ambiguity, double-entendre, allusion.” Conjugates of the trilateral root of the word, w-r-y, appear in the Koran in the context of hiding or concealing something (e.g., 5:31, 7:26).
As a doctrine, double-entendre best describes tawriya’s function. For example, John asks Dave if he can borrow $20, and Dave says, “Man, I don’t have a penny in my pocket!” Although John will assume that Dave is saying he has no money on him, Dave may well have a wad of $20 bills—though he literally has no pennies on him. According to the Islamic doctrine of tawriya, Dave did not lie.
In the words of Sheikh Muhammad Salih al-Munajid (based on scholarly consensus): “Tawriya is permissible under two conditions: 1) that the words used fit the hidden meaning; 2) that it does not lead to an injustice” (injustice as defined by sharia, of course, not Western standards). Otherwise, it is permissible even for a Muslim to swear when lying through tawriya. Munajid, for example, cites a man who swears to Allah that he can only sleep under a roof (saqf); when the man is caught sleeping atop a roof, he exonerates himself by saying “by roof, I meant the open sky.” This is legitimate. “After all,” Munajid adds, “Koran 21:32 refers to the sky as a roof [saqf].”