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].”

Here is another common example of tawriya in the West. Fourteen years ago I exposed an Arabic language Youtube video (since removed) where a cleric says that it’s a “great sin” for Muslims to acknowledge Christmas. That said, Muslims living in the West can say to Christians during the Christmas season, “I wish you the best.” The logic? Christians, continues the sheikh, will “understand it to mean you’re wishing them best in terms of their [Christmas] celebration.” But—here the wily sheikh giggles as he explains—“by saying I wish you the best, you mean in your heart I wish you become a Muslim!”

In a canonical hadith, Muhammad says: “If any of you ever pass gas or soil yourselves during prayers [breaking wudu], hold your nose and leave” (Sunan Abu Dawud): Holding one’s nose and leaving implies smelling something offensive—which is true—though people will think it was someone else who committed the offense.

Similarly, on the popular Islam Web, where Muslims submit questions and Islamic authorities respond with a fatwa, a girl poses her moral dilemma: her father has explicitly told her that, whenever the phone rings, she is to answer saying “he’s not here.” The fatwa solves her problem: she is free to lie, but when she says, “he’s not here,” she must mean he is not in the same room, or not directly in front of her.