On April 15 I received a response to the correspondence begun about three weeks earlier with a Muslim man who'd taken exception with things I'd written about Islam in my blog. Here's his email and my response.
> -----Original Message-----
> From: ________________________
> Sent: Thursday, April 15, 2004 4:53 AM
> To: gregburch@gregburch.net
> Subject: RE: Islam/Your website
>
> Hello Greg,
>
> This is Sadat again; you might remember my letter to you
from a little while
> ago. I'll respond now to some of your points and share my
thoughts.
>
> >I had a very bad personal experience with Muslims. Two
and half years ago
> >19 Muslims - in the name of their religion - killed thousands
of innocent
> >people in buildings in which I have done business many
times.
>
> Emotional responses such as the above run both ways, and
Muslims arguably
> have a whole lot more reasons to be angry; no `conspiracy
theories' against
> the West and Jews needed.
Actually, I didn't think my response was an "emotional" one. Instead, I considered it to a kind of shorthand to express the very contemporary and real threat I perceive from militant Islam. Much of what your message addresses is Arab "anger", and I want to address that, too. But, while I AM angry, I am much more frightened - frightened of what I consider to be violence fueled by an irrational approach to human life. And, quite frankly, I think that this violence will become much worse before it can possibly become any better. But more of that below.
> It would be like the father of one of the thousands of deformed Iraqi babies
I will definitely address this below. For now, let me say that if you are referring to the impact of sanctions against the Saddam Hussein regime, I believe you have been the victim of a grossly incorrect picture of the facts.
> or a Palestinian whose husband got shot
> saying, "I've had bad personal experiences with Americans."
I suppose if we are to continue our discussion, we will eventually have to address the Palestinian situation. Both you and I will be tempted to write a lot about this subject, but it might be best if we tried to start with basic principles on the subject. Let us start here: I think that the state of Israel has a legitimate right to exist. Do you?
> 'It's a hard choice, but I think, we, think, it's worth
it.'
>
> That was Madeline Albright's response to a May 11, 1996
60 Minutes question
> about the over 500.000 children killed by sanctions on Iraq.
Now such a
> cold and irresponsible statement hurts Iraqi mothers and
fathers as much as
> Palestinians dancing on September 11th hurt people like you,
if not more.
> And contrary to popular American belief, we Muslims *do*
care about our
> children and love them.
Here's where I will respond to the "500,000 Iraqi children" matter. I strongly urge you to read this:
http://reason.com/0203/fe.mw.the.shtml
(If you are unfamiliar with the source, Reason magazine's editorial line tends to be generally opposed to the Bush administration's policies in Iraq since last year, but they also have, I believe, a strong commitment to ensuring that policy discussions be informed by the most reliable possible facts.)
The most important points are these: 1) the sanctions were a U.N. policy directly reacting to a) Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait and b) his subsequent refusal to abide by the terms of the armistice at the end of the 1991 war and 2) the figures cited by the opponents of the sanctions were based on no real solid factual basis or statistical methodology. In light of the clear facts now coming to light that Saddam abused the "Oil-for-Food" program in the later years, siphoning off a large portion of the funds for his own personal benefit, (including to bribe Western supporters of his regime), I find it hard to blame anyone but Saddam for the problems caused by the sanctions. Had he abided by the terms of 1991 armistice, there would have been no sanctions.
For some figures about the scale of Saddam's theft from the Oil-for-Food program, take a look at this article from the New York Times (as you know, a periodical usually opposed to the Bush administration's foreign policy):
> Now you admittedly did not spend too much time giving
me an emotional
> response, but I'm going to take a minute to really try to
drive a point
> home. Greg, you sound like a reasonable fellow to some extent.
I want you
> to reflect just a bit on exactly who is killing you. Survey
the last
> hundred years of your proud and progressive secular history
and just ask
> yourself the question if more non-whites have killed whites
or whether it's
> been vice-versa?
Well the largest number killed in the last hundred years or so seem to me to have been within the same cultures. Tens of millions of Europeans were killed by other Europeans in the world wars and the Russian revolution and the tyranny that followed. Likewise Japanese people killed millions of Chinese and then the Chinese engaged in their own domestic self-destruction that resulted in tens of millions of deaths during the failed policies of the Mao years. Cambodians only failed to reach these absolute numbers in their own Maoist revolution because the total numbers of people in their country was relatively smaller. The total numbers of non-Euro-Americans killed by Euro-Americans pales in comparison.
Let me comment on your rhetoric, using the term "proud and progressive history." In my view, the wars against totalitarianism in Europe in the 20th century were a purging of a wrong turn that the civilization of the Enlightenment took during the French Revolution. Communism and fascist nationalism were the pathological results of that wrong turn. It was the great hope of many in the west that, with the end of the Cold War, we could return to the roots of the Enlightenment from the time before the French Revolution and basically "get things back on track." As you may have gathered from other things I have written, I am deeply saddened by the current conflict with Islam because I see it as yet another diversion from that program. In that regard, I see the conflicts of the 20th century as the defense of modernism against what can be called "post-modernism." In many ways, I see the current conflict as one between modernism and pre-modernism. It is very ironic to me that this conflict came AFTER the disposition of POST-modernism.
> Have more European and white nations including America
> invaded Muslim countries or has it been vice-versa?
At a level of simple technical capabilities, the opportunities for non-Euro-Americans to invade Europe or America didn't exist. The Ottoman Empire was militarily aggressive against Europe until the last half of the 17th century, when European technology and military organization surpassed that of the Ottomans. The Islamic world was technologically, politically and socially stagnant from before that time to the present, so it simply could pose no military or strategic challenge to any other civilization.
Look at the example of Japan. It faced the initial challenge of technological and social modernity and quite quickly obtained the technical and social means to act on the world stage. It promptly became an imperialistic aggressor, yet Japanese people aren't "white." Thus, I am confused by your reference to race with the term "white." It doesn't have anything to do with race, but DOES have everything to do with culture.
Looking again just at history without making any value judgments, the Islamic world had a period between the time when it's last armed aggression against the West was turned back at the gates of Vienna in 1685, and the time a little over a hundred years later when European powers began colonial incursions into its territory. Unlike the Japanese, who responded to their first exposure to the modern world by zealously working to adopt those parts of it they felt would strengthen their society, the Islamic world reacted to their first brush with modernity by … what? Whatever the reaction, it was not sufficient to withstand the European powers when they did become aggressive against the Arab world.
I am passing no moral judgment on these facts in the preceding three paragraphs, but simply reporting them. To add a moral element, no doubt the outright seizure of territory by European colonial powers was, in the first instance, wrong. However, I view this through the lens of my own idea that Europe and America were during this time increasingly either in the grip of some very bad developments arising out of modernity (aggressive nationalism, fascism, communism, etc.) or were reacting to those developments in ways that certainly involved violence, the threat of violence or, at the least, strategic action on the world stage that involved operating in or near lands occupied by non-Euro-Americans.
> If we were to quantify
> the number of people killed, which people rarely ever want
to do when *they*
> are largely the aggressor (in which case we are told something
such as `the
> innate dignity and value of human life defies quantification'),
we would see
> that Muslims have easily been on the losing side.
Many Muslims have been killed, it is true. I do not deny that many were killed by colonial action, primarily of European countries, as far as I know almost all of it before 1960. But it is 2004. And, during the period of true colonialism, was America ever an aggressor in the Middle East?
> I don't think that we-- collectively as non-Muslims and
Muslims-- have
> really reflected on this number of 500 000 (and probably
more) dead Iraqi
> children, most of whose lives could have probably been saved
with simple
> medicines. Greg, just reflect on that number for one minute.
500 000 dead
> babies means 500 000 very hurt mothers, 500 000 very hurt
fathers, and
> millions of angry youth who have lost a baby brother or baby
sister. Now
> considering this reality, which Madeline Albright incidentally
at no point
> questions or contests, are you really surprised about the
number of angry
> Iraqi `terrorists' or should you be surprised as to why there
are not
> *more*? I'm personally leaning towards the latter.
As you see from what I wrote above and the source I cite (which
itself points to many other sources), I do not accept the reality
of the figure you mention. It is true that Madeline Albright
spoke poorly. She should have had the facts at here command to
challenge the incorrect figures. She should have said that whatever
the cost in human life, it was unfortunate (which it was). But
she should also have said that the sanctions were the result of
Saddam Hussein's actions, which they were.
On the other hand, it seems this idea that somehow before the invasion of Iraq in 2003 the West was responsible for killing people in Iraq has sunk into the minds of people in the Arab and Muslim world. The ranting of al Jazeera and the inflammatory Muslim press has to take a lot of blame for this. I assume you read Arabic. I do not and have to depend on translations. The impression I get is that the Arabic press and electronic media do in fact contribute greatly to the perception Muslims have of themselves as victims. In your view, is this true?
At any rate, your point here has gone from the general (Muslims as victims of Western violence) to the particular (the "500,000 dead children"). To summarize: With regard to the former I think that Western colonialism was probably morally wrong on balance (it did have some positive impacts elsewhere in the world, but I won't go into that here), but with regard to the specific allegation that the West was somehow to blame for deaths in Iraq between 1991 and 2003, I reject the scale of the damage as described in the sources to which you refer, and I reject the idea that anyone other than Saddam Hussein was responsible for the sanctions.
Let me end my response to this point with a question: Even
assuming that Saddam Hussein was even only PARTLY responsible
for the suffering of Iraqis before 2003, what steps are you aware
of that were taken by Muslims OUTSIDE of Iraq to help the Iraqis
get rid of Saddam and build a more civil, humane society in Iraq?
> >The 2002 U.N.-sponsored Arab Human Development Report,
produced by Arab
> >intellectuals, >detailed the backwardness of the Arab
world in freedom,
> >knowledge, and the status of women. "The 22 Arab
states rank at the bottom
> >of the freedom scale of the world's seven regions. Arab
despots' fear of
> >their own people forces them to keep a tight control
on all knowledge.
> >Internet >onnectivity in the Arab world ranks behind
sub-Saharan Africa.
> >The entire Arab world translates one-fifth the number
of books annually as
> >Greece. From 1980-2000, the Arab states registered 370
patents compared to
> >Israel, with little more than 2% of the population, which
registered
> >7,652. No wonder the total GNP of 22 Arab states, with
280 million
> >people, is less than that of Spain, with 40 million.
>
> Greg, I absolutely agree with you. I have already read that
> report before.
What do you think are the most important things that need to be done to address these problems?
> I do think that you very quickly and cynically dismissed
Islamic
> contributions to science as being things of the past though.
In 2003, Dr.
> Karimat El-Sayed won the L`Oreal-UNESCO award for Women in
Science
> (http://www.ameinfo.com/news/Detailed/19539.html).
There are also many
> Egyptian scientists and engineers who contribute to American
society and no
> shortage of Muslim doctors in America as well. A few years
ago, Dr. Ahmad
> Zoweil was rewarded the Benjamin Franklin award in science
and also the
> Nobel Prize in chemistry (http://www.nobel.se/chemistry/laureates/1999/).
> So there is a lot of talent under your nose which you may
or may not be
> aware of. My own wife is a neuroscientist who has contributed
to research
> on Schizophrenia. If David Letterman can make a joke on
national air about
> his doctor `facing Mecca', I think that says something.
The example of Dr. El-Sayed is impressive and certainly I applaud people such as her. I note that your second example, Dr. Zoweil, is teaching and working in America, though. As for the work of your wife, I think you can be very proud of her and I wish her well, as I'm feeling crazier every day :-)
Seriously, I'd ask what you think the reasons for the obvious lag in development are. While countries like Egypt and Pakistan have a lack of wealth, ones like Saudi Arabia certainly haven't for a long time. Of course there will be bright spots in any dark picture but, as you concede, the picture IS dark: The Arab and Muslim world are NOT by and large contributing to the global expansion of knowledge. Why? The flow of immigration is almost all in one direction. People such as yourself come from the Muslim world to settle in the West to pursue their dreams but, other than temporary work assignments, Westerners do not move to Muslim lands. Why?
> I'm not however denying that the Muslim world largely
lags behind right now
> when it comes to science. But when you look at the larger
scope of history,
> you can't limit a people's contributions to only one time
and place, because
> advancements are made upon earlier advancements. Furthermore,
every nation
> or people has a stage of increased interest in science and
decreased
> interest in science, increased interest in the arts and decreased
interest
> in the arts, and so forth.
Here we disagree. While, as you will have gathered, I am an
avid student of history, my concern is for the here and now and
the future. The past is interesting in itself, and also for what
it can teach us about the present and the future. But when it
comes to progress in knowledge, past glories are just that - past.
The pre-Columbian Americans had quite advanced astronomical and
calendrical science for their day and level of technological achievement.
But the Aztecs and the Mayas and Incas are gone, gone, gone.
Likewise the ancient Egyptians. Surely contemporary Egyptians
can be proud that such a civilization once flourished in the area
in which they live, but it was a different civilization and one
can't meaningfully "credit" contemporary Egyptians with
the building of the pyramids.
> Another point to ponder, which you would probably not agree
with, is that
> scientific and material progress is not the only standard
by which to judge
> a nation's `progress' or `decadence.' Egypt may have a higher
GDP than,
> let's say, Bangladesh, but it also has a far worse pollution
and
> environmental degradation problem. Industrialization run
rampant is not a
> sustainable thing and is largely leading our planet to ruin.
We both agree and disagree. I certainly don't think that scientific and material progress is the only standard by which to judge a culture's progress or decadence. It's morality, law, poetry, music, dance, cinema, visual art, manners and many other things are also elements by which one judges a society and its culture.
On the other hand, I sense that you may believe that "industrialization" is something that always means pollution and environmental degradation. In the First World, a given unit of material value today uses far less energy and material and pollutes far less in its production than it did in the past. This trend is continuing. "Industrialization" as a phenomenon of choking smoke and giant, ugly factories is a phase we as a species are going though. Elements of the developed world are already exiting this stage. With any luck, those parts of the world that want to move forward will have the benefit of our experience and, more importantly, the technological developments we have produced, so that their passage through the "smoke-stack phase" can be shorter and cleaner. There are technologies on the horizon that promise to produce wealth at environmental costs orders of magnitude below that of even present day state-of-the-art industry. Of course, we will have to be alive to enjoy the fruits of those technologies, which is why I am so concerned about the spirits of humanity's childhood coming to haunt us again as they do now.
> Muslims would
> also add further factors of consideration into the picture
such as intact
> moral values, family, and awareness of the Creator. I know
you will differ
> in your opinions on this, but I'm simply telling you that
not all people in
> the world share the same vision of `progress', nor do we
have to agree with
> the predominant western notion that all change is necessarily
good.
First, let me address the last point. I certainly don't think that all change is good. In fact, given that human society is itself an evolved phenomenon, change can often be very bad in the sense that it decreases a culture's viability, its vitality, its fitness to thrive in the world. So that it is clear, I utterly reject the notion that change is in itself good. However, change is necessary when circumstances change. I see Arab and Muslim culture as an evolved phenomenon (really, to make the analogy more correct, a mutation) that was wildly successful in a particular environment, that of humanity on Earth in the 7th through the 14th centuries or so. Unfortunately, one of the things that made it so successful was that it provided a formula that would be relatively inflexible across time and space. As the world has changed, that inflexibility has become its downfall. And, if we in the modern world are not careful, the spasms that Arab and Muslim civilization must go through as it finally faces the fact that it cannot escape change may cause terrible damage in those parts of the world not already under its sway
Beyond that, I sense that you may think that a secular person cannot have "intact moral values" or place a high value on family. (I shall leave the Creator for later.) Have you not known secular people who are good? Or who love their families, honor their parents, care for their children? Perhaps not, but for now, suffice it to say that there are very many people in the world (but, in truth, a fairly small minority, in relative terms) who find that one can live a moral life with healthy family relations without need for a religion to provide the rules for such matters. I count myself one, but then I could be wrong about myself - I might be a very bad person.
> Having said all that, however, I reiterate that I *do*
agree with you and
> that Muslims do have a lot of catching up to do. Period.
I sincerely appreciate that acknowledgement.
> >Many Muslims and Arabs blame all this on the West or,
more narrowly on "the
> >Jews." Do you?
>
> No.
And this, too.
> >Beyond this, do not mistake my enmity for the superstitions
in Islam as one
> >aimed only at Islam. I >abhor supernaturalism in all
its forms.
> >Supernaturalism is still rampant in the West...
>
> Such as the idea that consciousness evolved from non-consciousness?
I'm not sure of your meaning here, but I think I understand that you are accusing science of itself being "supernatural" because not every last detail of the evolution and operation of the universe is yet known or understood. My meaning was that the majority of people in the West still ascribe the complexity of the universe to the action of some invisible god whose existence was revealed to our premodern ancestors but, for some reason, is silent in our own time.
But if your meaning was to challenge whether I think that consciousness evolved from non-consciousness, then most assuredly, my answer is a resounding "Yes."
> Such as
> the idea that there are eternally-existed atoms in our universe
which
> randomly formed our solar system and life on earth?
Yes - and no. Put the way you have, the materialist view of the world (and here I use that term in the philosophical sense) seems inadequate. But a materialist in the 21st century has a rich body of knowledge about the operation of complex natural systems that our forefathers did not. Have you studied the science of complexity? "Random" is a word that cannot possibly express the rich fertility of the universe. As matter and energy combine in evolving systems over cosmic lengths of time, the complexity of interaction among those systems is far more than the simple bumping together of atoms imagined by the earliest Greek materialists 2500 years ago.
> Such as the idea that
> human feelings (of love, hate, and self-sacrifice) and the
whole of your
> existence can be explained in terms of atoms bumping into
each other? We
> all in some dogmatic way subscribe to some idea of supernaturalism,
because
> our present-day scientific and material knowledge doesn't
connect all the
> dots for us.
Yes, but I do not jump from ignorance about some things to faith in invisible superbeings. What I see is that in science, humanity has developed a method of knowledge that has yielded vastly more information and understanding in 300 short years than all of the millennia of superstition that came before it. Furthermore, there is no reason to suspect that the scientific method cannot ultimately answer all questions that are amenable to its inquiry.
One thing that distinguishes the scientific frame of mind from its predecessors is the willingness to suspend belief in the absence of evidence. Some of the ultimate cosmic questions of the origin of the universe are not yet amendable to scientific knowledge. Of these things, I am willing to allow that they are the realm of theory and inquiry, but simply not yet of KNOWLEDGE. There is a humility in the scientific method that encourages its practitioners to say "I don't know." However, the progress we have made just in my lifetime is breathtaking; so much so that I have no reason to believe that there is some limit to what will yield to the scientific method, at least in the realm of the matter and energy and systems.
> >One of the fundamental values that has allowed science
and reason to exist
> >in at least a few places and, in a very few to even
flourish in the West
> >is the separation of religion and state.
>
> In the West, yes. But you should not super-impose your experiences
and
> solutions on the rest of the world. This has been far from
the Islamic
> experience in which science was seen as complementing religion.
The Qur'an
> is a Book which repeatedly invites the reader to ponder on
the `signs' of
> God-- including nature all around him/her-- and to discover
the Oneness of
> God through the order of the working of the cosmos. You
have already
> previously acknowledged-- if only hesitantly-- that such
a thing as Islamic
> science did in fact flourish at one point in time.
In fact, I do not acknowledge that there really was any real science prior to the beginnings of the Enlightenment. There were brilliant people who managed to achieve great things given the limits imposed on them by their culture. But until the power of the human mind was unleashed through the self-conscious employment of the scientific method, these were isolated islands of light in a sea of darkness. In the realm of pure mathematics, much progress was made over the long centuries in many cultures. But connecting mathematics to the experimental method and systematic doubt of science had to wait for a time and place where conditions were right for a revolution in human thinking. Behold the amazing things we as a species have come to know since then!
Beyond this, I do think that the idea of "religious science"
is an oxymoron, but one that we as a species have had to tolerate
for three hundred years. The vast majority of the human race
is still religious and will likely continue to be, because most
people prefer the comfort of having a ready-made set of answers
to the big issues in life handed to them with the double authority
of tradition and the alleged endorsement of a superbeing that
is in control of everything.
> > Do you support the separation of church and state?
I do not find any
> >support for this notion in the basic texts of Islam,
nor in the practice of
> >Islam anywhere in the world where Muslims are in the
majority. Instead,
> >what I see everywhere in the Muslim world is the notion
that there should
> >be no separation of church and state; in fact that the
concept of shariah
> >is precisely the opposite > of this.
>
> I believe that clerics running the state in Iran, to some
degree, is an
> innovation. Islamic scholars throughout the ages have often
shyed away from
> becoming involved in politics directly and from involvement
in government,
> something which can compromise their principles and also
taint their image
> in the eyes of the masses. It's true however that the Qur'an
and the Sunna
> has many regulations and guidelines for the state, and that
Islamic morals
> and ethics are supposed to guide the forming of laws in a
truly Islamic
> nation. From a philosophical point of view, it makes logical
sense that the
> same Creator Who would reveal guidance for man's day to day
living would
> also have something to say about the running and operation
of a society, its
> military defence (jihad), and so forth.
Here is the ultimate political issue. How can a civil society protect and reflect the interests of non-Muslims in a Muslim-majority state? I know that Muslims point to the supposed peaceful tolerance shown to dhimmis in Islamic states in the past. I am deeply skeptical of this for a number of reasons. First, I urge you to review at least a little the work of Bat Ye'or, an Egyptian-born scholar who has developed the first real scholarship regarding the role and treatment of dhimmis in Islamic-controlled societies over the course of Muslim history. Her work is in contrast to what may be considered at least questionable self-serving accounts by Muslim historians of the good treatment afforded dhimmis in the past. Second, and more important in principle in my view, what of the status in a Muslim-controlled state of people who fall into the categories to whom the status of dhimmi is not offered, e.g. Hindus, Buddhists and atheists? They are not afforded protection under Islamic law. In fact, quite the contrary. Do you acknowledge that this is true?
Once one accepts an explicitly religious foundation for the constitution of the state, how will the power of the state NOT be employed to further the interests of one religion over another, and to oppress those who do not ascribe to the favored religion or religions? It seems that human beings cannot resist the temptation to employ that power if it is available to them. For some reason that is unfathomable to me as a thoroughly secular person, nothing seems to incite the desire to oppress more than religion. The founders of my country had the relatively recent experience of the bloody wars of religion in 17th century Europe as a guide and made the bold decision to create a strong separation of church and state. So far, it has held, although its protection apparently requires eternal vigilance, because people seem inclined to always want to decree and enforce the "Truth" through the power of the state.
> >Yes, I've seen that saying of Muhammed's. But I've
also seen extended
> >discussions by Muslim >scholars that say that a husband
may beat his wife
> >or wives if they are disobedient [if] more gentle >means
of persuasion do
> >not work to bend her or them to his will.
>
> In its original context, 4:34 of the Qur'an would be viewed
in terms of
> being a restriction rather than in terms of permissibility.
Like its
> approach to sexual hunger and war, the Qur'an takes something
of a practical
> approach in trying to curb the excesses of men beating their
wives. It
> says:
>
> "As for those women on whose part you fear disloyalty
and ill-conduct,
> admonish them (first), (next) refuse to share their beds,
(and last) beat
> them (lightly)."
>
> As with everything else in the Qur'an and hadith, there are
extensive works
> of fiqh or Islamic jurisprudence that technically define
Arabic terms
> according to their lexicological and contextual meanings
and then derive
> detailed rulings from Qur'anic verses or hadith statements.
It's true that
> there has been a lot of debate on this one, but I'll share
the majority
> understanding of the above words with you.
>
> Islamic scholars state that the `disloyalty' and `ill-conduct'
mentioned in
> the above verse refers to open and clear lewdness, such as
adultery. It
> does not mean beating your wife because she doesn't cook
for you, because
> she's arguing with you, or even because she's looked at another
man.
> Secondly, there is a 3-step process that is suggested. It's
not "Go ahead,
> beat your wife." It's `admonish them.' Admonish them
verbally, or give
> them good counsel. Now considering the gravity of the situation,
I think
> this is a very calm response that the male is expected to
hold to. If she
> still persists, then he should refuse to sleep with her and
physically sleep
> away from her. The symbolical power of such an act is clear.
Now if she
> still persists, and she doesn't want to leave you either,
then this is like
> the case of someone who has their heels dug into your foot
and who won't let
> you go. Even at this point, the majority of scholars have
explained that
> the beating or striking is light, it cannot be with anything
bigger than a
> stick the size of a toothbrush (a `miswak', which is a little
twig
> traditionally used in the Middle East to brush the teeth),
and she cannot be
> bruised or struck in the face. Considering the three-step
process, however,
> a wife would theoritically know when a husband is about to
strike her, and
> even then it is more symbolical than anything else. The
word for `beat' or
> `strike' that occurs in the Qur'an is the same Arabic word
that is used for
> `striking' the ground with one's palms to use the dust to
symbolically clean
> one's face before prayer when no water is available. And
any Muslim should
> know that the `striking' of the earth with one's palms during
the act of
> `tayammum' is not meant to be a beating.
>
> I know that despite the above explanation much of it still
runs counter to
> modern western sensibilities, but we'll just have to live
with that. You
> can't understand the `pillars' unless you understand the
`edifice' that it's
> meant to carry up and preserve. If a westerner cannot be
convinced that
> adultery and fornication is something which is intrinsically
wrong, which
> individuals and societies should continuously strive to minimize
through
> personal spiritual struggle as well as external laws and
expected norms of
> social behaviour, then trying to explain the above Qur'anic
resolution or
> things such as the hijab is a nonstarter. You can't explain
laws against
> drug use to someone who isn't convinced that drug use is
wrong. So
> similarly, we Muslims won't always be able to explain Islamic
laws to
> westerner non-Muslims who may or may not agree with the intended
results.
>
>
> >Now these authorities are quick to say that you shouldn't
hit your wife in
> >the face. But did the >Prophet say that one may hit
his wife, or not? And
> >doesn't the doctrine of the Sunnah set out as >a basic
tenet of Islam that
> >the life of Muhammed is to be emulated in the closest
detail, since he is
> > >to be considered the most exemplary of human beings?
>
> Actually, that ruling comes straight from a hadith in which
the Prophet said
> that no one, not even an animal, should ever be struck in
the face. As for
> the Prophet Muhammad's life, it has never been reported in
any hadith or
> Seerah (biographical literature) that he ever struck any
of his wives. The
> only time he raised his hand was in defence of his family
and his religion.
> And this makes a very powerful reason for why a Muslim man
should avoid
> hitting his wife.
>
> >If so, does this mean that a man may - as Muhammed did
- take as his wife a
> >six year old girl (although he may not, apparently consummate
the
> >relationship until she has reached the ripe age of nine)?
I cite this
> >point -- the marriage of Aishah -- only to question whether
the strict
> >doctrine of sunnah is rational and morally defensible
in the modern
> >world...
>
> Yes, I believe it is defensible even in the modern world,
because there is
> arguably enough flexibility in it to adapt to changing circumstances.
> Nowhere does it say in Islam that you should marry a 9-year
old. Again,
> this is where I think that non-Muslims drawing misleading
generalizations
> from a cursory glance at the Qur'an is almost as dangerous
as uneducated
> Muslims drawing fatwas from it without authority. Islamic
scholars have
> divided the Sunna (the sayings/actions of the Prophet) into
things that he
> did because he was a Prophet, and things that he did because
he was a 7th
> century Arab. He went to the mosque on Fridays because it
is an obligatory
> act for Muslim males and, as the Prophet of God, he had to
lead by example.
> But he rode a donkey or a mule to the mosque because he was
a 7th century
> Arab. We emulate his example by going to the mosque on Friday;
but we can
> walk, drive the car, or take a bus.
>
> We understand that the Prophet married a young girl because
it was an
> acceptable part of the culture in which he lived. Islam
surprisingly
> doesn't really have too much to say about the age of marriage
or how people
> should get married (like Judaism, for that matter). In a
way, it lets
> societies be and lets them continue to marry as they always
did. And for
> most of history and in most societies, including Christian
Europe, the age
> of marriage was typically puberty. It was arguably more
in rhythm with
> nature and didn't rely on arbitrary determinations of `adulthood'
based on
> the tick of a hand on a clock. If the female was suddenly
growing taller
> and growing breasts, she was fit for marriage. She was only
five years away
> from middle age, afterall. And similarly, if the boy was
suddenly growing
> tall and sporting a fuzzy moustache, he too was ready to
be hitched. So it
> continued this way in early Islam and for a very long time
after that,
> including even the present time in some Muslim and non-Muslim
societies.
> But this does not in any way imply that a western Muslim
man marrying at the
> age of 30 is somehow less pious than his sub-Saharan counterpart,
or that by
> his marrying an older woman he is less of a man. What's
interesting is that
> you find a universal model in the person of the Prophet.
We hear a lot
> about his marriage to young Ayesha (a favourite point brought
up by the
> Christian missionaries, used only in more modern times to
attack the
> character of the Prophet) but we hear very little about his
marriage to
> Khadijah, who was nearly double his age when he married her
and with whom he
> had a twenty year monogamous relationship (how many western
men can honestly
> claim such a thing today?) So again, in answer to your question,
yes, the
> Sunna is morally defensible and practical even today, in
the modern world.
> My own wife is 8 years my senior.
I am also married to a woman older than myself - perhaps we share a desire for the company of people who are more interesting than we are :-) Seriously, the kind of reasoning you employ above is so foreign to me that I will not attempt to meet it head-on. Since I personally do not accept the authority of ancient holy books as some kind of legal guide to modern life, let me ask you another question: Why can't modern Muslims simply say that it is wrong to hit your wife, leave the old texts alone and get on with life? Why all the thousands of pages of intricate analysis of texts from a thousand years ago and more to find answers regarding daily conduct and morality?
Regarding the question of custom, I appreciate your willingness to distinguish those matters that are simply questions of the contemporary culture in which Muhhamed lived from those that have some sacred authority. Do you believe this is a mainstream way of looking at matters of the Sunnah?
> >Now of course, there are primitves among Christians
who oppose any kind of
> >change in the ancient form of their religion. Some of
them even make
> >movies. But -- other than in Ireland -- it's been hundreds
of years since
> >large groups of Christians have engaged in organized
violence on the basis
> >of their religion.
>
> But Ireland is a significant example. Furthermore there
*are* many more
> acts of organized violence perpetrated by Christians on the
basis of their
> religion. I'm sorry if you disagree, but the western media
does play a role
> here in underplaying the role of religion when non-Muslims
are the
> aggressors and overplaying it when Muslims are the aggressors.
When a
> Palestinian kills Israeli civilians (I'm not implying that
Palestinians are
> the aggressors in that conflict overall, of course), of course
it's religion
> that caused it. But when Orthodox Serbs kill 2000 Muslims
in Srebrenica,
> then no, it's just an `ethnic conflict.' They killed those
Muslims because
> they didn't like their food. Similarly, when mostly Christian
Dayaks
> beheaded 500 Madurese Muslims on the Indonesian island of
Borneo a couple of
> years ago, it's just `ethnic violence.' Religion is completely
underplayed.
> But what difference does it make whether it's categorized
by the media as
> `ethnic violence' or `religious violence'?; it would hardly
make a
> difference since the story was hardly reported in the first
place.
Let me say immediately that your example of Serbia is a good one, and I am sorry that I did not supplement my mention of Ireland with that example. That makes two. And Ireland is still the only example I can think of of organized inter-sect Christian violence. My point regarding the "wide view" is that Christianity AS A RELIGION has largely been "tamed." Yet bloody rhetoric between Shiite and Sunni is still quite common and I fully expect open inter-sect warfare in Iraq. Do you? If so, why are Sunnis and Shiites so violent to each other?
While I am on this subject, consider that Arab and Muslim perceptions of religious motivations by "the Christian West" may be actually just a projection of their own way of thinking into a culture foreign to them in which it doesn't apply in the same way. In other words, could it be that Muslims see religious motivations in the West because they (the Muslims) are used to thinking in terms of religious motivations, but in fact the Westerners have very different kinds of motives? I suggest this because I believe that most Western policy analysts and policy makers still seriously underestimate the extent to which political actors in the Muslim world are motivated by religious conviction and religious goals. I know I did until very recently. Westerners have a hard time really understanding just how fundamental religion remains in the Muslim world because that way of thinking is a thing of the past to many westerners in positions of power. In that regard, George Bush, being a relatively simple-minded and very religious person, may actually be better equipped to understand the Islamic world than many westerners with more raw brain power and better educations than the simple man from Texas.
> Despite the media's reluctance to put `militant' and `Christian'
in the same
> phrase, however, we can view many instances of overtly Christian
violence in
> various parts of the world. It depends largely on one's
perspective. The
> war on Iraq is both secular aggression as well as Christian
aggression to
> some degree, since it's mostly pastors that bless those American
soldiers
> before they go into Iraq and shoot some `sandniggers.'
As you can imagine, I am quite uncomfortable being in the position to defend Christians, since I am utterly irreligious myself. While the war in Iraq may be depicted in the Arab media as a Christian crusade, that is a minority view in America. It is one thing to have a war in which the combatants happen to be mainly of one religion on one side and another on the other, and another thing to have "religious war." Few, if any Japanese combatants in World War II were Christian, while most U.S. soldiers, sailors and airmen were Christians or Jews. Yet I have never read any document from the time describing the conflict in religious terms on the U.S. side.
> Christian
> hatemongers like Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, Franklin Graham,
and Jimmy
> Swaggart play no small role in helping to fuel the war machine
against
> Muslims, since American invasion usually means the facilitation
of Christian
> evangelical proselytization as well. Now tell me, is that
an example of
> religion spreading by the sword? There was also a very prominant
American
> military leader recently who made it clear that he viewed
much of this as a
> Christian-Muslim war. Please see:
>
> http://www.biblicalrecorder.com/content/news/2003/10_24_2003/text/Tne241003army.shtml
All of this is abhorrent to me. I see it as ugly primitivism of the same kind I decry on the Muslim side. However, these people are still mainly on the fringe of American society, although they do their best to be otherwise. The mainstream press would never speak of the conflict in terms of religion on the American side.
Prior to the advent of Islamic violence on a global scale, I was much more concerned personally about the kind of people you mention above than Muslim religious militants. As a review of my website will reveal, I wrote and spoke on the subject from time to time. This is for the reason I mention above: Despite the breathtaking success of the forces of the secular world in unlocking the secrets of the universe and delivering unprecedented prosperity and liberty to humanity, the vast majority of the world even in the West still perceives life and the universe in basically premodern terms as the work of a superbeing who runs the world like a videogame that he wrote, sending some of the players to eternal hell and others to some kind of paradise, usually because the players refuse to acknowledge that they are living in a video game and that its author is all-powerful.
Yet that seems to be the primary avenue of the rhetoric on the Muslim side. Am I not getting a true picture of the press in the Islamic world?
> There's also overtly Christian organized violence being
perpetrated in
> Uganda by the `Lord's Resistance Army' who wants the biblical
Ten
> Commandments to become the law of the country. See:
>
> http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/para/lra.htm
>
> This group, in the name of God, kills innocent civilians,
kidnaps children
> and forces them into becoming sex slaves. They're guilty
of many other
> things as well which, had they occured in a Muslim country
by a Muslim
> group, would have probably provided a nice pretext for `American
liberation'
> to drop on by. So no, Greg, I don't agree with your statement
that "it's
> been hundreds of years since large groups of Christians have
engaged in
> organized violence on the basis of their religion."
No.
Well, I condemn all of this just as strongly as I condemn those who blow themselves and innocents up to get to what I can only perceive as a heavenly whore-house. I wish our political leadership in America could condemn all kinds of religious nonsense equally. I wish it wasn't necessary for our own political leadership to pledge personal allegiance to one religion or another to get elected; I wish secular people could become leaders in America. An atheist couldn't get elected dog-catcher anywhere but in a few places in San Francisco and New York City. For now, though, although our politicians mouth personal religious belief, the wall between church and state still stands in America.
But, to be clear, I absolutely and unreservedly condemn the examples of Christian violence you've cited.
> As for why news
> terms such as `Christian terrorism' and `Militant Christians'
do not exist,
> that is more of a question and challenge for CNN, not me.
A similar
> argument can be made for the inclusion of the term `secular
extremists' for
> the bigots running France, and `secular maniacs' for the
people that engaged
> in the two World Wars, Hiroshima, the Holocaust, etc.
You've seen my comments on this above. I admit that I am ambivalent about the French action to which you refer: On the one had, as much as the French bother me as the leaders of Western anti-Americanism, part of me supports their attempts to create a truly secular society, so long as they are even-handed about it. If they ban the hajib, they must also ban the crucifix and the Star of David. If they are not even-handed, then it is clearly wrong; just state support for one kind of religion over another. On the other hand, their action seems to infringe on what could be the legitimate expression of personal and private opinions. The problem, of course is that the action is aimed only at religious expressions in publicly-supported, state-sponsored schools, not elsewhere in the country. Ultimately, perhaps, the issue in France arises from a lack of confidence in secularism, because the proponents of the measure really don't have a deep understanding of secular values of individual liberty. This, I will confess, is a challenge to all modern people: Supporting individual liberty isn't easy; it's always tempting to use the power of the state to enforce conformity. On balance, I probably think the French action is unwise, and only happens because they have allowed their society to drift too long without strong individualist values. I am tempted to ascribe the action to the long period of influence of socialism in France, a mind-set that sees the state as the ultimate arbiter of too many things in human life and doesn't leave enough room to individual freedom. Having indulged in the mental and moral laziness of socialism, native Frenchmen have left themselves open to being infiltrated by immigrants with stronger values than they have. Now they perceive the danger of being overwhelmed and are acting too strongly in reaction.
As for Hiroshima, which you mention elsewhere in your letter,
I certainly have an opinion about that and it is one that is not
shared by those on the left in the West. As you may see from
my website, my main orientation (pun intended) prior to 911 was
to East Asian history. I've read and thought a lot about how
World War II ended in the Pacific theater and the aftermath that
resulted. I think that a Japanese surrender without the use of
the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs was by no means certain unless
the U.S. invaded the main Japanese islands with a much greater
cost in human life on both sides than resulted from the use of
nuclear weapons. Furthermore, their use at the end of World War
II was one of the major factors in nuclear weapons NOT having
been used since. Had the US not used nukes at Hiroshima and Nagasaki,
the power of these weapons would have been left to the imaginations
of the people of the world. Given the limitations on most people's
ability to think through such things, the temptation for all of
the nuclear-equipped armed forces of the world to use nukes in
subsequent conflicts would have been irresistible. But with the
tangible examples of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the world knew concretely
how bad a true nuclear war would be. I do not mean to sound heartless
in this, but I think on balance, the use of nukes in August 1945
was the best of a bad situation.
> >Here is the problem I have with the reasonable-sounding
words you have
> >written. What evidence is there that Muslims of seemingly
moderate
> >opinions such as yours have ACTED to stop the violence?
>
> If you're talking about the violence alleged to be perpetrated
by Muslim
> extremists in places like Spain, then there is no shortage
of moderate
> Muslims who are bending over backwards to convince people
like you that we
> are not terrorists, that we shouldn't be hated, that our
citizenships
> shouldn't be revoked, that we shouldn't be spied on and detained
and
> arrested at random, that we shouldn't be quietly shipped
to Syria in the
> middle of the night on a private plane to be hung upside
down and tortured,
> etc. etc. There's no shortage of those Muslims. I join
them in that cause.
> If however you're looking for Muslims to renounce Iraqi
resistance against
> American imperialists or attacks on military targets in the
Middle East,
> then I'm sorry but you won't be seeing that from me. Even
then, a good
> number of Muslims would probably do so. But not me. Sorry
Greg, but
> there's a new generation of Muslims rising who are willing
to question your
> definition of `terrorism', `justice', `liberation', and so
on. There's a
> new generation of Muslims rising up who have the audacity
to actually ask
> the question, "Hey, what was the U.S. Cole doing in
Yemen anyways?", "Who
> invited American soldiers into Fallujah anyways?", and
also questioning the
> up-until-now completely unquestioned assumption that the
white man has the
> inherent God-given right to patrol and parade into any country
he so wishes,
> to navigate the seas of any country he so wishes, to build
military bases on
> the soil of any country he so wishes, to monopolize the economies
of any
> country he so wishes, to militarize the space over any country
he so wishes,
> etc. Yes, I dare to question all of those assumptions.
If that makes me
> another `radical' in your view, then so be it. I know and
God knows that I
> am not a terrorist, I do not wish for the spilling of any
innocent
> non-combatant blood, I wish for only the best for Greg Burch,
and at the end
> of the day I'd just like to enjoy a nice hot spicy shawarma.
Muslim needs
> and demands on an individual level are not radically different
from the
> individual human needs and demands and concerns of non-Muslim
Americans such
> as yourself. Well, I imagine you wouldn't want as much hot
sauce on your
> shawarma. ;)
As someone who employs rhetoric for a living, I hand it to you that the above is quite well said. There are many assumptions and presumptions in this passage I certainly do not share. A specific point: As far as I know, the Cole was in Yemen with the permission of the Yemeni government. Rising one level of generality, freedom of navigation is a matter of international custom since time immemorial: Beyond the narrow territorial sea, any country's ships may pass. I don't think you're challenging that; the world may grumble that America can sail its warships in international waters, but any country's navy can.
Beyond this, no one in America believes that America has the right to invade any country it wishes. This is how the Left in Europe (and, to a certain extent, even in America) and the firebrands in the Muslim world portray American foreign policy, but it's simply not true. The government of Iran is certainly an avowed enemy of the U.S., but no U.S. troops have invaded that country (except for the miserable failure of President Carter's attempt to free hostages in 1979). I cite that as an example. U.S. forces were in Saudi Arabia following the 1991 war at the invitation of the Saudi government. You may note that as soon as the threat that brought them there was gone - Saddam Hussein - the U.S. removed basically all of its military forces from Saudi Arabia. Believe me, Saudi Arabia's climate and culture are about as close to the average American's conception of hell as you can get.
As for monopolizing a country's economy, I know of no situation where that has happened as a matter of American policy. Surely you are aware of the diplomatic background of the limitation of contracts in Iraq to those countries that were willing to share the risk and cost to destroy Saddam Hussein's government. Beyond that narrow and unusual example, American companies compete with businesses from other countries everywhere in the world. The U.S. has been the leading advocate of free trade throughout the world across both political parties for 20 years or more. If it happens that American companies are more efficient than those of a specific country, what is the alternative? Tariff barriers? If we've learned one thing from history, it is that protectionist policies never offer more than short-term relief to a non-competitive country. In the long run, trade barriers only impoverish the people they are supposed to help. Do you disagree?
> Now let me ask *you* a question. Are *you* ready to renounce
violence and
> hate? How come I don't see Americans standing up to Muhammad-bashers
like
> the `Reverand' Jerry Vines of the Southern Baptists? Are
you ready to
> renounce Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson who openly quote
verses of the OT
> to legitimize the killing of Palestinians by Zionists? Are
you ready to
> renounce the war on Iraq? Yes or no? And if you are, are
the majority of
> Americans willing to do the same? As Malcolm X said back
in the 60's, "When
> you tell your people to put their guns down, I'll tell mine
to put their
> guns down." None of this one-sided condemnation of
`Islamic violence.' We
> need you to renounce your hate-mongers, war-fuelers, and
world-endangering
> presidents as well.
We obviously disagree deeply here. If Bush loses in the Fall, you'll likely get a chance to see what the result of U.S. disengagement from the world will bring. I predict a short period of relative peace, followed by even more violence, just as appeasement of Hitler brought only a very temporary peace to Europe.
Beyond this, we obviously disagree about Israel and the Palestinians. The Palestinians had their best chance for peace with the "Road Map." Hamas and Hezzbollah derailed it with suicide bombings, because they do not want to live in peace with Israel, they want to destroy it. When clerics officially supported by the Palestinian Authority preach that Jews are the sons of dogs and pigs every Friday, what do you expect?
Now, let us talk a moment about speech. I don't like what Falwell et al. have to say. About anything. But they do have freedom of speech. They can say whatever they want. I condemn them. But they aren't supported by the state, the way clerics in Egypt and Saudi Arabia and Palestine are who specifically support armed conflict as part of their weekly religious messages. When the religious zealots of the Muslim world are no longer part of the political process, I will perceive an equation between them and the fundamentalist preachers in America. Do you acknowledge that there IS a difference between the private preachers in America and the government-supported mullahs of the Muslim world? It's a different kind of institution here, precisely because we have adopted a separation of church and state.
Now, to answer your question. First, I don't HATE Muslims, as such. In truth, I fear them far more than I have feelings toward Muslims akin to "hate." So it's not hard for me personally to renounce hate. It will take a lot, though, to make me not fear Islam. As for violence, I first want to avoid what has very aptly been called "provocative weakness." Contrary to what moderate Muslims may sincerely want to believe, I think there ARE Muslims who want to spread Islam by the sword. I think it would be foolish to renounce violence unconditionally in this situation. But violence per se is bad, certainly. This seems to be a mirror-image of your position, which doesn't bode well for the prospects for peace.
> >... why do I find some Muslim scholars who find an
intriguingly different
> >translation of the very word "Islam" - to mean
"submission," not "peace,"
> >as in, for instance, http://www.submission.org/.
>
> Arabic words are based on trilateral roots. So Islam is
derived from the
> three letters of `sin' (s), `lam' (l), and `mim' (m). So
is the word
> `salaam', which means peace (like `shalom' in Hebrew). Arabic
is a very
> deep and flexible language and every word contains many different
shades of
> meaning and nuances. So while Islam does in fact literally
mean
> `submission', it also carries this shade of meaning of `peace.'
So we may
> understand it as either way, or, as I like, "Peace through
submission [to
> God]."
You will understand that the distinction is hard for me to swallow. To my Western liberal ears, the concept of submission is ominous and threatening. Given the universalist foundation of Islamic theology (the one, true religion for all people, for all time, everywhere) and the history of conquest in the name of Allah in the past, along with the contemporary rhetoric of jihadis that calls for the institution of shariah throughout the world and the seemingly universal belief in the Muslim world that there should be no separation between church and state, it doesn't take much imagination to develop a fear of Islam per se. Yes, today, the Islamic world is technologically and militarily backward. But what if Pakistan's nukes fall into the hands of the fundamentalists there? What if Iran develops nukes, as it is seeking to do? "Submission" takes on a very threatening connotation in this context.
When I read things like this:
http://www.reuters.co.uk/newsPackageArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=495171§ion=news
(from Reuters, another notoriously anti-American news source), I feel that "submission" has a very threatening meaning. To quote the cleric in question:
"We don't make a distinction between civilians and non-civilians, innocents and non-innocents. Only between Muslims and unbelievers. And the life of an unbeliever has no value. It has no sanctity." I understand that you must disagree with this man's sentiments, but what are we - people of good will on both sides - to do?
Let me ask you a question about submission, shariah and the
state. At least some Muslims who live in the West have called
for institution of Islamic law in the Western countries in which
they live: They say that it is the fate of the world that all
lands should eventually become Muslim lands. Do you agree with
this?
> >Why are there so many websites -- in English -- that
seem to state with
> >commendable clarity that Islam is most defiinitely not
a "religion of
> >peace." For instance, here we have what appears
to me to be a site created
> >by Muslims with the fairly straight-forward URL of
> >"www.understanding-islam.com"
that clarifies that no, "jihaad" doesn't
> >mean just "spiritual struggle" as some Muslim
apologists state or just
> >"defenseive war" as others state but "war
fought for the cause of the
> > >Almighty." If this is what I can easily find
at the top of any search for
> >guidance on Islamic doctrine in English, what must be
written in Arabic?
>
> Again, I think the different definitions and understandings
can be easily
> reconciled. There's no doubt that jihad's primary meaning
throughout
> history has been that of strategic warfare which should generally
be
> defensive in nature. This allows for the idea of `preliminary
strikes' and
> things like that, similarly to American military strategy.
But it is meant
> to be primarily defensive in nature. But `jihad' does also
contain other
> shades of meaning such as that of `struggle.' So these `apologists'
and
> certain passive Sufis who would sometimes like to exclusively
stress the
> spirituality of Islam are, in my opinion, correct in their
view that `jihad'
> means `spiritual struggle.' But I think only an extreme
person would argue
> that it exclusively means spiritual struggle and not physical
warfare. It
> in fact includes both. Jihad can be physical, it can spiritual
(against
> one's own whims, desires, lusts, greed, etc.), and it can
even be writing an
> e-mail in defence of Islam to an American atheist. :)
Let me say that if I thought the struggle implied by jihad consisted exclusively of things like the latter rather than flying airplanes into office towers or dressing children in bomb belts, then I would heartily endorse it. If the day comes that devout Muslims feel that they are doing their religious duty by writing to poor materialists like me, the world will have evolved to a point where we can all feel safe.
> This also returns to my point in the previous e-mail in
which I said that we
> should try to avoid generalizations and oversimplifications.
"Islam is a
> religion of peace" is as much the slogan of most scared
American Muslims as
> "Islam is a religion of war" is the slogan of the
Falwells and Pattersons
> and their huge leagues of followers. In honesty to you,
however, I believe
> that there is truth in both. That's not a contradiction
for me. Being the
> `middle path', as the Qur'an describes it, I believe that
Islam has a time
> and place for almost everything. It is by default a religion
of peace but,
> when the Mongols come running down the hills ready to rape
our women, it is
> most definitely a religion which has an authentically-embedded
militant
> tradition as well, and foreign invaders very quickly learn
that Muslims are
> not ones to `turn the other cheek.' At that point, in a
time of war, Islam
> becomes a religion of war, striving however for the ultimate
end-goal of
> peace.
Let me ask this: What do you think the specific terms of a
peace between Islam and the West could be?
> >Finally, let me address the use of the word "Islamofascist."
Here is a
> >quick definition of "fascism:"
> >A system of government marked by centralization of authority
under a
> >dictator, stringent socioeconomic controls, suppression
of the opposition
> >through terror and censorship, and typically a policy
of belligerent
> >nationalism and racism.
>
> Fascism is a secular invention. There's nothing in the Qur'an
or Sunna that
> indicates to me that an Islamic state or society should be
run by a
> tyrannical dictator. There's nothing intrinsic in the Shari`ah
that points
> towards that or advocates it. I believe that the actual
mode of government
> is something which is, wisely, left open by the Qur'an.
Why are Muslim lands so poorly governed today? Syria, Jordan, Egypt and Pakistan don't have oil, so it's hard to blame Western imperialism or capitalist exploitation for the kind of government these countries have. To be blunt, none of those countries have anything the west really wants; in fact, some of them receive what amounts to welfare payments from the west. Turkey, the most democratic and stable of all Islamic countries (or so it seems to me) has also been one of the most secular.
I cannot exclusively blame Islam for the poor governance of Muslim countries, since there are plenty of non-Muslim countries that also have essentially no working civil society. On the other hand, there does seem to be a corollary between poor governance and religiosity. I would offer Latin America as the prime additional example. Sub-Saharan Africa seems to be a different case, one in which an essentially tribal society has come face-to-face with the modern world with no cultural tools to build civil structures beyond the scope of the tribe.
In this respect, I would suggest that you might consider the possibility that religions like Islam, Christianity and Judaism were humanity's most successful pre-modern attempts to build structures larger than the tribe, by offering a moral context that superceded kinship as the basis for trust and goodwill in society. However, I ask whether we can't do better than that. I know, as a devout Muslim, you will be inclined to say no, that no moral structures superior to religion are possible. In such a case, then I can see how you would oppose a separation of church and state. It is in this that ultimately we will disagree to the core: The West has forged a truce between religion and civil society (albeit an uneasy one, it is usually peaceful). Outside of Turkey, the Islamic world hasn't even yet really considered the possibility, since the "secular" Baathist states are just premodern tribal despotisms armed with machine guns and jet planes.
> What the Qur'an
> does say is that the ruler or the government, irregardless
of whether he is
> a dictator, a monarch, or a democratically or tribally-elected
leader,
> should bring the laws of the society in harmony with Islamic
ethics. As for
> nationalism and racism, I believe it is completely antithetical
to the
> spirit as well as the word of Islam. Nationalism was given
to us by the
> Europeans, who carved our land and created us into states,
mini-states, and
> mini-fiefdoms. The Europeans have themselves wisely left
the concept of
> rigid nationalism for the concept of the E.U., something
which I strongly
> believe Muslims should parallel with their own meaningful
Islamic
> Commonwealth. As for racism, there is no racism in Islam
based on colour,
> language, or ethnicity. The Qur'an says, "We (God)
created you into nations
> and tribes so that you may recognize one another."
Our colours, our
> different languages, our different food, make the world a
more interesting
> place to live in. We also largely identify people by their
tribal or ethnic
> origin, where they're from, and so on. As long as it is
for the purpose of
> identification or getting to know and understand someone,
it is fine. But
> when colour or ethnicity becomes the basis on which we negatively
> discriminate against someone, it becomes racism and that
is haraam.
> Especially in regards to the Muslim brotherhood, the Prophet
said that all
> Muslims are brothers and sisters of one another, and that
no Arab is
> superior to a non-Arab, and no non-Arab is superior to an
Arab. People
> become superior to others based on their piety, and that
is something which
> ultimately God determines and judges.
Islamic rejection of nationalism COULD be a good thing, but to my eyes, it is a reactionary rejection, rather than a progressive rejection. Since civil society will always be subjugated to religion in your view, non-religious social structures above the level of the kinship-based tribe can never thrive. I could write much more here, but I fear we have little common ground; if we were ever to see a thriving network of non-religious, non-state civil organizations in the Islamic world, then I think there would be hope for stability and peace. So long as religion and the state (which is to be subject to religion) are the only glue that holds society together above the level of the tribe, politics in the Islamic world will be what inter-tribal politics always are: violent.
I will say that the overt rejection of racism is perhaps the most positive quality of modern Islam. As an early attempt by humanity to transcend ethnic and tribal boundaries, it was a good thing in that respect.
> Is there discrimination based on
> religious affiliation? Yes there is. In a nation or state
where religion
> is the most valued thing, the religious interests of Muslims
are looked out
> for first.
Just as you must be disgusted by my overt statements that I am an atheist, this is to me a horrifying statement. Here you are in perfect harmony with the rulers of European states in the 16th and 17th century. All I can say is that it is obvious to me where this kind of thinking leads: To the millions who died in the wars of religion in Europe. I cannot accept that Islam is any different, when I see expressions of violent hatred between Shiite and Sunni every day. In this regard, I fully expect violent bloodshed between Shiites and Sunnis in Iraq to go on for a very long time, with the risk that such a conflict could become a spark for a general war between the two sects elsewhere.
> This is in line with majority democratic thinking up to
a
> certain point. Here in Canada, I can't yell the adhaan (public
call to
> prayer) from the mosque at 5am in the morning, because the
majority of
> people in this non-Muslim society are still sleeping and
don't wish to be
> awoken. Similarly, there are restrictions on where the dhimmi
may drink
> alcohol (it can't be done in the public), where he may build
a church so
> that it doesn't come into conflict with the majority Muslim
community around
> it, and restrictions on his/her serving in the armed forces
of the Islamic
> state. So you can look at it as `second-class citizenship'
if you wish, but
> I think that term has a lot of negative connotations associated
with it. If
> we theoritically as well as practically confer upon them
the rights of
> second-class citizenship, we will arguably be doing a better
job than what
> many western countries do in only theoritically conferring
first-class
> rights on immigrants and non-Christian minorities. I'm theoritically
a
> first-class citizen of Canada, but I can't give the adhaan
from the mosque,
> I don't have `Eid' off (I do have Christian and Easter off),
Islamic schools
> don't get public funding like Catholic schools do, and so
forth. But I'm
> okay with all of that.
Well, all I can do is shake my head in incomprehension at a gut level. But so long as you do not advocate forcing shariah on the West, then I suppose there's no harm in this way of thinking.
> Also on the note of religious plurality, it can be argued
that Christians in
> Muslim countries have remained better Christians than the
ones in the West.
> Those Christians in Egypt and Syria and Jordan still care
to go to church,
> they still have intact families, most aren't fornicating
and committing
> adultery. I believe that, by reducing and/or eliminating
things such as
> pornography and the degradation of women through nakedness
in car
> advertising, the Islamic state in some ways not only serves
the cause of
> Islam and Muslims but the cause of *religion* itself. That
may not be a
> bonus in your book but it is something for religionists of
all persuations
> to atleast consider in this day and age when religion has
become the object
> of attack by anti-godly secularist and capitalist forces.
> I myself sometimes wish I could live in the Canada of the
1950's, which on a
> legal level would not be as accomodating of Islam and Muslim
citizens' needs
> but which on a practical societal level would be much more
conducive to the
> preservation of traditional forms of morality which are common
to all of the
> world's religions.
But here's the problem: Unless real tolerance for ALL religions and NO religion is built into the basic constitution and social fabric of a society, inevitably one group will use the power of the state to favor one religion over others. You not only acknowledge this, but welcome it. But in the case of Islamic states, this appears to include a LEGAL prohibition on "apostasy," i.e. renouncing Islam if one is born into or once accepts Islam.
This is not a matter of speculation on my part, but rather one of historical reality. Most intellectuals in the West are unaware that the governments of the Arab world all reject the United Nations Universal Declaration on Human Rights because one of the principles enunciated in it is freedom of religion:
Article 18.
Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience
and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion
or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with
others and in public or private, to manifest his religion
or
belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.
http://www.un.org/Overview/rights.html
Every Arab government has explicitly and formally refused to acknowledge this part of the UNUDHR. Why? Because apostasy under Islamic doctrine is not only a sin, but is punishable by death under many traditional interpretations of shariah. Also, Islamic doctrine allows a limited tolerance only for the proscribed practice of Christianity and Judaism in Muslim-controlled lands. Isn't it true that under shariah, "pagans" (e.g. Hindus, Buddhists and African animists) and atheists (e.g. me) CANNOT be tolerated and MUST be persecuted? (Thus the slaughter now underway in the Sudan and the fatwa against Salman Rushdie).
Apparently embarrassed by their unwillingness to subscribe to the UNUDHR, the Arab League in 1994 adopted their own "human rights" charter. You can find it here:
http://www1.umn.edu/humanrts/instree/arabcharter.html
How did they deal with the issues in Article 18 of the UNUDHR? Take a look:
Article 26
Everyone has a guaranteed right to freedom of belief,
thought and opinion.
BUT
Article 27
Adherents of every religion have the right to practise
their
religious observances and to manifest their views through
expression.
practice or teaching, without prejudice to the rights of others.
No restrictions shall be imposed on the exercise of freedom
of
belief, thought and opinion EXCEPT AS PROVIDED BY LAW.
(emphasis mine.) You don't have to be a constitutional lawyer to see what's going on there. "[E]xcept as provided by law" can mean whatever they like, including what they really meant, which is shariah's extreme limitations on "the People of the Book," strict prohibition of all other faiths and complete rejection of atheism and apostasy.
Question: Should Muslim STATES outlaw apostasy? Should apostasy from Islam be punishable by death? Many Muslims seem to think so and have no problem publishing that view, e.g.:
http://www.al-islam.org/short/apostacy.htm
http://muslim-canada.org/apostasy.htm
Although in some countries, viz. Malaysia, the punishments decreed are only imprisonment and "re-education:"
http://www.ccmalaysia.org/news/news%20200312c.htm
> Although the historical argument may not hold much water
with you, it is
> worthwhile to note here that *most* western scholars of Islam
and
> present-day Orientalists generally concede that Jews and
Christians fared
> bettered in Islamic lands than Muslims and Jews fared in
Christian lands (it
> was illegal to be a Muslim in England up until only about
two or three
> centuries ago, and up until 1982 in Spain!) So `second-class
citizenship',
> with all the present-day negative connotations attached to
that term, was
> still a far better deal than no citizenship which was often
the case for
> non-Christians in Europe.
As I've indicated, I believe that the question of the quality of life afforded to dhimmis in Islamic regions in premodern times is one into which objective scholarly inquiry is just beginning. I do urge you to look into the works of Bat Ye'or on the topic:
Beyond this, I do not doubt that there was terrible intolerance in Europe and America in premodern times and that creating a tolerant society requires constant effort even now. However, again, the question is not about how things were in the past, except insofar as the are a guide to the present and the future. The interaction between civilizations was much less broad-based in premodern times than now: Only along the borders did strong cultures like Islam and Christianity have to figure out how to deal with each other except as majority powers. In the modern world, cultures "speak" to each other all the time and across their whole geographic extent. Can Islam be as tolerant to dhimmis today when they can look at a satellite television picture or the Internet and see that there are lands in which they do not have to pay the jizyah and refrain from public expression of their religion or lack of it?
> >Perhaps you will protest that there is nothing inherently
dictatorial about
> >Islam and shariah. I can only point to the states that
have managed to
> >institute strict shariah-bound societies, such as Iran
under the
> >ayatollahs, Afghanistan under the Taliban and Saudi Arabia.
Are these
> >polities in which open dissent and free expression are
allowed? They look
> >like theocratic dictatorships to me.
>
> A very complicated question and concern, one which I again
believe defies a
> simplistic answer. America had only one attack on it and
we suddenly
> started seeing the restricting of its borders (atleast to
Muslims and Arabs)
> and the curtailing of civil rights which, quite frankly,
we know was aimed
> at Muslims. That was just one attack. Now imagine if your
borders are
> constantly under attack or threat of attack like Taliban
Afghanistan or
> Shia-governed Iran. That is not exactly a climate in which
good relations
> with the outside world *or* congenial relations with minority
groups within
> the society is a priority. It's just not a very conducive
climate. When
> you back people into a corner, they become defensive.
Do you honestly believe that the repressive policies of the Taliban were the result of "defensiveness?" They were the products of fundamentalist madrassas that were set up as a conscious policy by the Saudis of exporting extreme forms of Salafist Wahabbism, and their ideology was formed long before the brewing conflict between Islam and the West began to take shape in the 1990s. What western country has attacked the borders of Iran? Sunni-governed Iraq did, but I'm not aware of any military intervention in Iran by a western power (except, as noted above, President Carter's miserable effort to free the U.S. hostages held there for so long). And who (other than, again Saddam) has ever threatened the modern Saudi government militarily? If anything, western powers seem to me like their lapdogs, for fear of threatening the flow of oil.
> If the religious
> authorities in Zamfara state were left alone and they had
a proper handle on
> Islamic jurisprudence, they may have very well let that woman
accused of
> adultery go free, since it's extremely difficult-- nay, almost
impossible--
> to prove an adultery charge according to Islamic law. But
humans being
> humans, they sometimes compromise the principle of the matter
and become
> very defensive and antagonistic in their approach to politics.
So when the
> West is crying `Savage! Savage!', sometimes these folks end
up with
> responses such as, "Who are *you* to tell us what to
do in our country?
> You're telling us not to convict her? Well then we're *definitely*
going to
> convict her! You can't dictate to us what to do!"
And so, as always, power
> politics comes into play as well.
And from my side, it looks like the only thing that saved the woman's life was the attention of the world brought to bear on the barbarism that was about to be perpetrated in the name of "religious morality." When a story like that comes to light, it makes me wonder how many go unreported, rather than makes me feel that it is an exception.
> I'm just giving you one little example of
> how the issue is much more complicated than it initially
seems at surface
> value. I don't agree with your conclusion that dictatorships
and closedness
> is somehow intrinsic to Islam or that the Shari`ah promotes
it.
Well, again we shall have to agree to disagree. Assuming that a peace can be achieved between the West and the Islamic world, we shall see. My prediction is that countries governed by shariah will never prosper, because skepticism, which is the root of progress, is ultimately discouraged in a regime in which so many things are held to be haraam, off limits, forbidden, heretical. To the modern mind, all things are subject to question, governed only by facts that can be proven in a systematic, reproducible way. This approach to life seems to be inconsistent with the basic foundation of Islam as, apparently, is the reward of risk-taking that is inherent in capitalism. If the Muslim world rejects systematic skepticism and capitalism, then it IS rejecting modernism.
If the Muslim world IS willing to declare a truce, then it
will have to build walls around itself to hold out the modern.
This, to me, is the formula for the kind of lock on the minds
and bodies of its people that the Communist world sought to enforce,
also with walls, both physical and cultural. The only way that
the communist world could sustain itself was through an enforced
rejection of the West, a rejection its own people hated. Of course,
the Communists didn't have the promise of eternal bliss to hold
out to those who they sought to hold in their utopias by force.
> >I've spent some time this evening reading material by
and about Hanson. I
> >find things like this >heartening. But it didn't take
me more than a second
> >to find him strongly condemned. Why? >Because Hanson
condemned the 911
> >murderers. In fact, it didn't take me long to find a
website devoted
> >solely to a strong condemnation of Hanson's attempts
to find a
> >"progressive" Islam.
>
> I think that's a very pessimistic attitude. You find good
and bad, smart
> and not-so-smart. You're only looking at the `glass empty'
part of the
> above issue. You know as well as I do that you can find
*anything* on the
> Internet. Just do a search on yourself. Maybe someone like
me has already
>set up an `anti-Greg-Burch' page. ;-)
Oh, I have my critics, but so far, no one has seen fit to devote the time to putting up such a page. I guess I would be flattered if such a page were some day to be found through the infinite wisdom of Google.
> Yes, it's true that many Muslims
> criticized Imam Hamza Yusuf but no, it wasn't because he
condemned 9/11. As
> I said, practically all of us have condemned 9/11 and I don't
know what we
> need to do to convince you of that. Imam Hamza went, some
of us think, a
> bit overboard and told Muslims who disagree with America
to leave and go
> back to their countries. That was the main controversial
point. One of the
> reasons that many Muslims came to America was because they
were under the
> impression that it was part of American society to be able
to disagree with
> elements of it.
Oh, disagreement is fine. It's just not OK to seek to forcibly impose one's views on another.
> Another point here-- Imam Hamza Yusuf is no marginal figure.
You can go to
> www.zaytuna.org to see the type of work he's involved in.
He has a
> tremondous following amongst Muslims, especially many
> Pakistani-American/Canadian youth. And Pakistani-American
youth will be the
> group, along with Afro-American Muslims, who will probably
have the biggest
> clout and say in the direction of American Islam in the coming
decades
> ahead.
Well, I hope so, because although he is definitely a man of faith, he does seem genuinely peaceful. It is to figures like him that Islam must look for any hope to make peace with the world, in my view. I wish him the best.
> >I wish I could be hopeful. I'm sorry, but I can't.
I look at the Arab and
> >Muslim world today and I see a culture that is in the
same state of
> >development that Europe was when it was wracked by genocidal
wars of
> >religion hundreds of years ago. I imagine what the intollerant
religious
> >zealots of Europe would have done if they had had access
to machine guns
> >and tanks and jet planes and now atomic bombs ... and
I see the Arab and
> >Muslim world.
>
> You seem to forget that your somewhat-secular country is
the only nation in
> the history of the earth that has actually *used* the atom
bomb. Do you
> also see the potential danger posed by secular states (of
varying
> ideologies) such as North Korea, China, Russia, and America
possessing
> nuclear technology?
Actually, as it turns out, the period of balanced nuclear opposition between the U.S. and the USSR now almost seems like one of idyllic peace, in hindsight. Consider that the even-more-materialist and secular communists had only this world to look to for happiness, so were not so likely to burn it up.
> You've wrongly identified `the Arab and Muslim world'
> as the great danger to humanity when it is the weapons themselves
that are
> the collective enemy and threat to all of humankind.
Well, I am tempted to respond that "guns don't kill people,
people kill people." But that is a saying with a cultural
connotation in America that even a native-born Canadian such as
yourself may not fully appreciate.
> I also wish that you could be more hopeful, but to be honest,
I can't help
> you on that one. Now we come to a real deep issue. I don't
know how to
> give hope to someone who believes that his entire life is
only the result of
> atoms bumping into one another, that our lives have no eternal
ramifications
> for our souls, that the soul does not even exist because
there is no
> empirical evidence for it, and that we become dust after
we die. In such a
> state of mind, should it really matter to you how the world
turns out, and
> how your position in this world turns out? If we are destined
to become
> dust, which could theoritically happen at any moment, and
our lives hold no
> great spiritual or moral purpose other than eating, sleeping,
having sexual
> relations and then dying-- then I don't know what reason,
purpose, or even
> need there is for such a thing as `hope.' This is something
which a
> believing Muslim would not be able to understand or address,
unless the
> parameters of your thinking and the paradigm of possibilities
being
> entertained in your mind and heart are modified first.
Here we face a gulf that separates not the Muslim from the Westerner, but the religious person from the non-religious person. I feel that life is FULL of meaning, and am capable of great joy in life; all without the need to have an invisible friend or invisible master to provide that meaning for me. The fact that life ends infuses it even more with meaning, although I think it does require some strength of character to maintain a positive attitude toward life in the absence of a belief in an invisible afterlife and a big daddy in the sky who makes everything OK in the end.
I think you misapprehend the fullness of a secular approach to life by thinking that we see it as only "eating, sleeping, having sexual relations and then dying." That may be a correct description of the life of a primitive animal, but I think even apes have more to their lives than that, much less humans. To us, the great beauty, depth of understanding, myriad emotional textures and moral justice of which humans are capable are themselves things that give real meaning to life. Beyond this, some humanists, such as myself, believe that humanity as it now exists is really only an early stage in the great adventure of the evolution of life and mind in the universe; that we have just barely begun to be what we can be, that in fact we have barely begun to awaken to our potential. Far from being distressed at the lack of a supernatural background to being and feeling and moral judgment, we are invigorated by the challenge of building ourselves and CREATING meaning and beauty and justice in the world.
> I hope that God will guide you and me. I apologize for
an extremely long
> e-mail and I hope that nothing I said will be taken offensively
or
> personally against you. I've tried my best to address your
questions and to
> engage honestly and frankly in this discussion.
Do not apologize. I appreciate your willingness to communicate
on these difficult issues. That willingness alone has given me
at least a little hope!
> Take care for now,
And you.