| FrontPageMag.com | By Robert Spencer | By Hugh Fitzgerald | Books | Dhimmi Watch | Robert Spencer | Islam 101 | Qur'an Blog |  |
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Here is the second and final section of the much-anticipated concluding segment of Jihad Watch Advisory Board Vice President Hugh Fitzgerald's opus. Find Part One here and Part Two here, and the first segment of Part Three here.
In dealing with the phrases of Muslim “reformers” one has to realize what they realized. They had always to be speaking a language that, while appealing to the powerful non-Muslims, and even winning their approval, could also be used to win over Muslims – but at the same time, there would always be a verbal escape hatch. In this case, it is the phrase “without provocation.” Surely, some Muslim interlocutor would reply, Chirargh Ali could not have been suggested that Muhammad, that best of men, al-insan al-kamil, and a role model for all Believers for all time, uswa hasana, could not possibly have done something wrong or doubtful in his life. If he attacked those Jewish farmers of Khyabar, they must somehow have had it coming; provocation would somehow be found, even if it consisted only in their being related to others who had resisted Muhammad and Islam. It is simply too easy to interpret away as justifiable any action taken by Muslims. Are women and children killed by suicide-bombers? Well, the women give birth to children, and the children themselves grow up to be adults, and those adults become soldiers and resist the forces of Jihad, so cutting down those soldiers when they are still babies, and killing those who can produce other babies, can be justified. Chirargh Ali and other “reformers” had their brief moment; many of them became discouraged; none of them found a way to convince more than a handful that Islam needed to be reformed, and certainly none of them suggested a realistic method both of changing the canonical texts, or of persuading the Muslm masses that such changes should be accepted.Much attention is paid today to would-be “reformers” of Islam. Irshad Manji, for example, a flamboyant figure who lives in Toronto and has never lived in a Muslim country, claims to represent a new kind of Muslim. She suggests that the “gates of ijtihad” (interpretation) which were famously closed a thousand years ago, can be swung open again, by --- Irshad Manji. A Turkish Muslim apologist, Muhammad Akyol, has written for conservative on-line magazines in the United States, and engaged in debates with those who are keen students and critics of Islam, and claims that Islam can be reformed through tossing out parts of the Sira, or perhaps retouching certain details, and further suggests, without explaining how this is to be accomplished, that some of the contents in the accepted (Sahih) collections of Hadith, that is Hadith deemed “strong” (or authentic), could be downgraded to “weak,” and “weak” hadith upgraded to “strong.” But what muhaddithin could do this today? Employing what methods? And on the authority of what institution, claiming to speak for most Muslims? And when they were finished, how would they command belief from the hundreds of millions of Believers, told by clerics not to believe this nonsense, all done, it would be claimed, “in order to curry favor with the Infidels”? The idea is as fantastic as that of Irshad Manji straining to open those enormous gates of ijtihad that have been closed for a thousand years. Those “reforming” Muslims who, such as Akyol, insist that, even if Hadith and Sira could be subject to re-examination, the Qur’an must remain completely untouched, fail to realize that as the Ur-source of Jihad, and of inculcated hostility, even hatred, of Infidels, is the Qur’an itself. Before the Sira had been fixed, before the Hadith had been written down, and collected, and winnowed, there were centuries of conquest – a conquest based only on what is contained in the Qur’an.
There is a reason why the “reformers” who had a brief run early in the twentieth century (Islamic reform floruit circa 1900-1920) insisted on promoting the idea of “jihad” as “a spiritual struggle.” By so doing, they accomplished two things. In the first place, the “reformers,” faced with the daunting or impossible task of ignoring the clear meaning of the words in Qur’an and Hadith, attempted to supply a new authority for their novel interpretations and analyses.. In the second place, at a time when Europe was overwhelmingly powerful, and the Arabs and Muslims weak, it was important to assuage any worries Infidels might have, and to gain their support. In 1900, there were many educated Orientalists, including a number among the Anglican clergy who lived in India, and who knew perfectly well what the doctrines of Islam were all about. William St. Clair Tisdall, for example, engaged in a fierce polemic with a Muslim apologist over Tisdall’s Original Sources of Islam. From Ignaz Goldziher, the Hungarian who was the first Westerner to subject the Hadith to rigorous study, to Emile Fagnan, a French scholar who lived, and published, in Algeria, to Samuel Zwemer, the American missionary, to Henri Lammens, a Jesuit and Professor of Arabic at St. Joseph’s University in Beirut, to the Dutchman C. Snouck Hurgronje, to the Italian Leone Caetani, the great Orientalist who also happened to be the Duke of Sermoneta, to the Englishman David Margoliouth, Laudian Professor of Arabic at Oxford, to Arthur Jeffery, who taught at Columbia University when that school’s Islamic scholars were a matter of pride, and whose studies on loan-words in the Qur’an appeared in a sumptuous edition, aux depens du Gaekwar of Baroda himself, the period 1900-1940 represented the highest point in the Western study of Islam – a point not reached since.It is only in the West, and by non-Muslims, that Islam has been subject to real study, and to the beginnings of the kind of Higher Criticism (philological, historical)that Christianity and Judaism were subjected to during the last two centuries. In a sense, what is now occurring is simply a picking-up where Orientalists left off a few decades ago. Much of this work is done by lone scholars, for the situation in academic departments in the Western world, and especially in Great Britain and the United States, has been grimly declining for some time. Muslims and non-Muslim apologists for Islam have taken over many of the major departments, and have been systematically hiring each other, and keeping out all those who might offer another view. At Columbia University’s Midde Eastern and Asian Languages program, there is not a chance that today, either Arthur Jeffery or Joseph Schacht would be hired by the likes of Rashid Khalidi, George Saliba, and Hamid Dabashi. Rather, these apologists for Islam or perhaps, more exactly, protectors of Islam, and promoters of the Arab and Muslim worldview, insist on offering every conceivable subject, real or imaginary, that they can connect to the Middle East, real or imaginary -- Arab nationalism, the “construction of Israeli identity” (bad), the “construction of Palestinian identity” (good), colonialism, the West’s need for “the Other,”postcolonial hegemonic discourse, studies in narrativising the construction of identity on the basis of the alterity inherent in postcolonial hegemonic discourse – in short, every modish kind of transparent (though hardly lucid) gobbledygook one can imagine -- but not a word about the canonical texts of Islam, Qur’an, hadith, sira, and nothing about the 1350-year history of Jihad-conquest, or about the nature, and history, of the subjugation of non-Muslims under Muslim rule. If Islam is taught at all at all, it is in courses on World Religions, where there may be a “unit” on Islam, taught by some enthusiast who insists that All Religions Want the Same Thing, and who is enamored of the “three abrahamic faiths” idea, and who mistakes the appropriation, and distortion, of Christian and Jewish figures and stories, by Islam, and Islam’s contempt for the original versions of the same, for a splendid “sharing” of a common monotheistic tradition. If the Qur’an is read at all, it will most likely be offered in carefully-selected excerpts, such as the “lyrical” suras collected by Michael Sells’s in his utterly misleading and treacly Approaching the Qur’an. The Haidth and sira are likely to be passed over in silence.
It is apparently still impossible for Believers to approach Islam with anything like the critical scrutiny and historical sense that informed the Higher Criticism. The search for the historical Jesus has been going on for quite some time; the quest for the historical Muhammad is something only Western non-Muslims, and ex-Muslims (Ibn Warraq’s splendid anthologies of scholarship of early Islam come to mind) of Christianity which led, among other things, to studies of the historical Jesus, and of the form, content, and chronology of the Gospels. Nothing like this has happened to Islam. Muslims treat all studies by non-Muslim scholars, unless apologetic or even hagiographic in nature, as either to be ignored, or belittled, or denounced. Not a single Muslim scholar, anywhere, has attempted to treat of the varied matters that Patricia Crone, or Christoph Luxenberg, or Bat Ye’or, have all raised. Was Mecca in existence in 630 A.D.? Does the Qur’an contain many passages that make sense only if given a “Syro-Aramaic reading”? And does not the evidence amassed by Bat Ye’or, about the heavy burden of “dhimmitude,” deserve a respectful hearing, rather than denunciation. Or, where there is not denunciation, there may be something akin to what a celebrated Shi’a Muslim from Iraq, who had been a brave opponent both of Saddam Hussein and of Edward Said, offered by way of review of one of Bat Ye’or’s books – a grimace of distaste, as he handed the clearly-unopened book back to the man who had urged him to read it, and with a gesture that suggested the book was an “unclean” thing, “najis,” hardly to be touched.
There is no impulse among Muslim scholars of Islam to have Islam examined, and studied, as Christianity and Judaism have been. Whether those studies of early Islam are philological (the line from Alphonse Mingana to Christoph Luxenberg), or historical (David Margoliouth, John Wansbrough, Michael Cook, Patricia Crone), they are a threat. The Higher Criticism of Christianity did not destroy the Christian faith. Albert Schweitzer, author of The Quest for the Historical Jesus, and latterly Jaroslav Pelikan, and many before, between, and after them, could weigh the evidence about Jesus the Man and yet remain Christians. The study of the chronology, and composition, of the Gospels did not cause other Christians to fall away from faith. But Islam exhibits a peculiar brittleness. Since the Qur’an is held to be the literal word of God, any attempt to point out, for example, that about 20% of the Qur’an does not make sense, and to explore why, is not welcome, not by Muslims, and not by islamisant scholars of Islam who, in fact, often turn out either to have Muslim spouses, or to have “reverted” to Islam – at least for a time.
The new attitude toward Islam by Western scholars unafraid to study it as they would Christianity or Judaism (or, for that matter, Hinduism or Buddhism) permitted Ignaz Goldziher to study the Hadith without the paralyzing reverence of Muslim scholars, and to show that they had no independent existence but were creations teased out, over the centuries, from the Qur’an. This did not change the view of Believers, but it certainly allowed for progress in the study of Islam by non-Believers.
Philological study also came into its own, once the mind-formed manacles of Islamic belief had been jettisoned. Early in the twentieth century the lone scholar Alphone Mingana, and then Arthur Jeffery, began to identify the foreign loan-words in the Qur’an. Jeffery’s study, in fact, was so admired by a broad-minded non-Arab but Muslim admirer, the Gaekwar of Baroda, that he published Jeffery’s study in a sumptuous edition, with many and various fonts, But no one had been so systematic, and meticulous, as Christoph Luxenberg, whose recent his “Syro-Aramaic Reading” of the Qur’an. (“Die syro-Aramaische Lesart von der Koran”) can truly be described as a revolutionary study of the early Qur’an. And Luxenberg’s fearless philology has been extended to the study of other writings that have hitherto been too-easily accepted as purely Islamic in nature.
The historians of early Islam, who do not simply accept, but weigh the evidence for, the existence of Mecca in the early 7th century, or who examine the connection between the Hadith and the Qur’an itself (with the skepticism that non-Muslim scholars can allow themselves), or about the sira itself, are not welcomed by Muslims. There is no incipient sign, within Islam, of any attempt to seriously study the origins of the religion in a manner similar to what both Christianity and Judaism have undergone. Instead, the work of Western scholars is ignored, or denounced, or attacked. And some of them have changed their tone, out of palpable fear of giving offense, or even caused some of the books not to be reprinted.
Muslims, and not only on NPR, have preferred that Infidels take the word “Jihad” to mean what they want those Infidels to think it means: “a spiritual struggle.” But of course the evidence, textual and historical, is overwhelmingly the other way. We are told, in effect: Forget what people chant at rallies in Cairo (May, 1967), or Karachi, or Gaza, or what imams in Jiddah and Baghdad and Fallujah and Basra and Teheran preach. Forget what the boys in the madrassas learn, or what the Qur’anic commentators have written. Forget all of it. Just remember – What the World Needs Now Is Love, Sweet Love, and not a “clash” but a “dialogue” of “civilizations,” and if that means pretending that people do not mean what they mean, surely it is worth it.
It is prudent for Muslims in the West not to attack Infidels head on (though little can be done about hotheads such as Abu Hamza, late of the Finsbury Mosque) , but rather to treat Infidels in Europe as a bunch of frogs in pots full of water. The flame beneath is being turned up, slowly and steadily, but so slowly, and so steadily, that those amphibians go quietly, as if falling asleep in a warm bath. And many non-Muslims have begun to despair, as if their own culture of “tolerance” is some kind of permanent bar to their taking actions that, in order to preserve a modicum of that culture, they will have to reconsider. Lacking the wit and imagination to figure out what can be done about creeping islamization in Europe, and regarding as “unthinkable” the most obvious of measures of the kind that Benes and Masaryk, in tolerant Czechoslovakia, undertook to deal with the permanent security threat posed by the Sudeten Germans (i.e., mass expulsions), they have convinced themselves that there is no point in getting excited. Why alarm people unduly about “Jihad” if they are convinced that there is nothing to be done about it? An extraordinary defeatism needs to be identified and attacked, wherever it is. It is not “too late” or even close to being “too late”; Muslim strength, and islamization, depends entirely on the continued misperception, by Infidels, both of Islam, and of the measures that they are amptly justifried in taking.
Or perhaps another analogy is more fitting. Remember Abbott and Costello? Thin Abbott and fat Costello were always getting into verbal misunderstandings (as in “Who’s On First”). In one skit, they are in the jungle, accompanied by a native interpreter. Suddenly they are surrounded by menacing men with bones in their noses, wearing grass skirts. The sound of tom-toms can be heard. The chief head-hunter approaches. He looks at Costello, points to his head, then licks his lips. And Costello, sweating and stuttering with fright, asks the interpreter what was just said, and the interpreter explains: “Oh, he was just admiring the way you look. And he asked me ‘Who does his hair?’” Costello is greatly relieved.
But we Infidels are not so many Lou Costellos. And when Asina Mehdi, or John Esposito, or Karen Armstrong, or Richard Bulliet, a professor of history at Columbia and author of The Case for IslamoChristian Civilization, all tell us, in the same misleading spirit as that native-interpreter, that “Jihad” does not mean “Jihad” or, still worse, that the word should not be used by Infidels because they might get the wrong idea, we are entitled to our doubts.
Suppose we were all to pledge to use the word “Jihad” only with the clear understanding that it be taken to mean “a spiritual struggle,” a way to establish internal mental harmony and well-being “in the path of Allah,” fi sabih Allah. Then, to be consistent, we should endow every well-known fixed phrase in which the word “Jihad” occurs with new meaning. Take, for example, the group “Tawhid and Jihad” (Monotheism and Jihad). The word “monotheism” is in constant use in all those Interfaith Outreach Programs, and assorted Dialogues of Civilization: “We have so much in common, we are the three abrahamic faiths, we are the three monotheisms.” Any phrase in which “Tawhid” or “monotheism” occurs demands the vigilance of Defenders of the Faith. So let us translate “Tawhid & Jihad” differently than “Monotheism and Jihad.” As is well-known, the mild-mannered Dr. A. M. Al- Zarqawi has taken a leadership role in “Tawhid & Jihad,” that samaritan organization of psychiatric social workers dedicated to meeting the psychic needs of the troubled Sunni community of Iraq, and to address their feelings of inadequacy and loss of status. Perhaps the title “Mental Health Through Monotheism” would help to win friends and influence Infidels. There may be other benefits as well, for a group whose name shows it to be a faith-based, not to say fate-based, initiative.
American tax dollars, along with those of many other hapless Infidels, have long supported the PLO. American taxpayers help maintain Hosni Mubarak and those who partake of his Family-and-Friends plan in their comfortable life-style. American aid to Pakistan over many decades helped to provide the discretionary income that made Dr. A. Q. Khan’s projects possible. Indeed, it sometimes seems as if American, and other Infidel aid, is lavished on every Muslim country and ruler that has not managed to find itself sitting on top of an OPEC oil bonanza.
And many more words and phrases will need to be carefully redefined to protect Islam from prying eyes and minds. Certain words that could prove too hot to mishandle may have to be eliminated altogether. One word that seems to be getting much disturbing attention lately, is “dhimmi.” If Infidels were to visit the website www.dhimmitude.org, or even read the books of Bat Ye’or, they might develop a negative view of Islam. And that would never do. Muslims are keenly aware of the problem – hence all the talk of “protected peoples” and the Compact of Omar.. No less a personage than Dr. Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, a Turkish historian of Ottoman science, who is now the Secretary-General of the Organization of Islamic Countries, helpfully explained in a recent address to an audience of American Infidels, that the “privilege of becoming a protected minority via an act of dhimmiship was given only to the followers of a prophet to whom a sacred book was revealed.”
In defining “dhimmiship” as the “privilege of becoming a protected minority” Dr. Ihsanoglu did his best. But those who are so solicitious of the public image of Islam and of Muslims in mind realize that it should not be left up just to NPR, or the BBC, or Le Monde; we all have to pitch in, and do our bit. It might be better if “dhimmi” were to be jettisoned altogether. The word upsets Infidels, and it does nothing for Muslims, either.
Instead of “dhimmis” why not call them “Friends With Benefits”?
Posted by Robert at February 14, 2005 10:33 AM
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Basically, my takeaway is this: Unless Islam itself recognizes the need to reform, there will be no reform. That reform must come from the center of Islam, not the fringes ("moderates" living in the West, for instance); it must be organically related to the major insttitutions of Islam. Is this correct?
But, none of those conditions exist now. Are you saying that we will either have to live under Islam (i.e., give up); fight constant and at times bloody battles; or compel, through force and threats, Islam to reform?
Posted by: Seymour Paine![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.jihadwatch.org/nav-commenters.gif)
at February 14, 2005 11:23 AM
The three possibililities mentioned above can be discussed in turn:
1) Giving up, is both completely unnecessary and a ridiculous idea. More Infidels have learned more about Islam in the last year or two -- after they had to brush aside the "why do they hate us" school than one could have believed possible. It was foolish of Bin Laden to strike; Al Qaeda should have just waited another ten or twenty years, until the migration into Europe, outbreeding of Infidels by Muslims already in Europe, could no longer be stopped. Since the Qur'an, Hadith, and Sira are readily available, and since the propagandizing authorities of MESA Nostra and other groups can easily be exposed and mocked, if not removed from their well-funded positions (sometimes funded by the Arabs, and sometimes, by foolish universities, whose presidents have so far failed to recognize that it is their new responsibility to study Islam, without recourse to apologists, and to ensure that not propaganda but scholarship and uninhibited discussion of what Islam is all about is permitted, including of course the historical study of Islam that is neither more nor less uninhibited than the study of Christianity or of any other religion), education of Infidels should have the highest priority.
2) "Fighting bloody battles" is hardly necessary either. Simply depriving the Muslim world of certain kinds of weaponry, and working relentlessly to diminish the "wealth" weapon of Muslims -- which will be accomplished, in any case, as a necessary by-product of measures that must be undertaken for quite different, i.e., environmental reasons. Save the Earth, Weaken the Jihad fits nicely on a bumpersticker, if you like that sort of automobilistic declaration.
A little more thought could go into demoralizing the enemy, simply by pointing out home truths. Without the accident of oil, the Muslim states would have almost nothing. Use their own data, or the data of the "Arab intellectuals" who keep writing these U.N. reports, where despite every damning bit of data, they still manage to blame the Arab-Israeli dispute, and fail completely to mention Islam.
But Islam, and its worship of Muhammad, accounts for the natural antipathy of Muslims for "democracy." The primitive mere head-counting version in Iraq, in turn leading to a new jefe or generalisssimo, Muslim-style, is not something to crow about. Islam naturally favors despotism, for at its core is a figure, a role-model, al-insan al-kamil, who was a despot, an absolute leader who arrogated to himself a largepart of the booty seized from conquered non-Muslims, who ordered political assassinations, and who was not a great fan of Jefferson, or Mill, or Bagehot. And he remains the model for all mankind, for all time.
Islam is an economic failure. The Muslim state relied primarily on tribute: the jizyah from non-Muslims within the state, and what could be seized in raiding parties against non-Muslims outside the state, including vast numbers of Infidels, both European and African, seized and enslaved.
Islam is an intellectual failure. It probably began a century after the received version: let's say in the eighth century. For 200-300 years it had a brief run, the so-called "Golden Age." But that "Golden Age" depended in large part on Muslim near-heretics (as Ar-Razi), and on the still existing Christians and Jews who performed such important work as translators and as, still, independent scholars. Though their work has been enrolled in the Muslim narrative, it would be truer to suggest that once the non-Muslim populations were sufficiently reduced in size, through the slow asphyxiation of dhimmitude, and once the "gates of ijtihad" were slammed shut, and once the parasitical existence of Islamic culture on prior, non-Islamic civlizations ceased to be possible -- and that would include the Persian poetry (Firdowsi, Hafiz, Sa'adi, Khayyam) that exists, like the Mughal miniatures, that in its content exists despite and not because of Islam. Sculpture, painting, music, and real science are not possible for those who fully accept the Islamic view. Only those who dissent, in practice if not theory, can therefore, in Islam, fully participate in artistic expression (other than calligraphy or architecture) or in scientific work (as opposed to mere weapons technology, about which all Muslim states and leaders wax rhapsodic).
Islam is a moral failure. In its reduction of the world to Believers and Infidels, it exhibits precisely that kind of division that one recognizes from the True Believers of Nazism and Communism. It purports to regulate every area, virtually every detail, of life -- and is thus an enemy of freedom and autonomy.
The best strategy does not require the spending of $300 billion in Iraq. It requires only that Muslims be kept from acquiring major weaponry, that their numbers in the West be kept at present levels, or in fact diminished as much as possible (there is no need to make Infidel countries bend to the will of Muslims; rather, it is they who should understand that they will have to modify their beliefs, and practices, and that if they cannot, in order to fit in , they should be encouraged to move to any of 56 Muslim countries currently in the O.I.C. -- there is no divine right to move and settle anywhere, especially ammong those whom one's deepest faith teaches one to despise and to exhibit hostility and contempt, even in such matters as everyday greetings)battles.
The only way the Muslim countries could achieve the power and menace that they now possess is through several accidents. One was the accident of Western tolerance and Western ignorance of Islam, that permitted the large-scale migration of Muslims to Western Euroope and North America, and the free conduct of Da'wa in prisons, schools, and elsewhere. The second, which took place at roughly the same time that the Muslim migration was taking off, was that of OPEC oil money. Muslim countries produce almost nothing. Tunisian dates in Monoprix, Tunisian and Moroccan olive oil for those down-market brands (or cleverly mixed in with oil billed as "Italian" or "Spanish" or "Greek" olive oil), rugs (but note that even here, the poverty of the Arabs. Muslim countries also supply those magic carpets -- Persian rugs, Berber rugs, Kurdish rugs, Baluchi rugs, Turkish rugs, Afghani rugs, Bakhtiari rugs, Caucasian rugs, Armenian rugs, but no Arab rugs to speak of -- an observation that needs to be pondered. But aside from Egyptian cotton, and those seven sands, each a different colored, imprisoned within a glass box with seven partitions, that is the best souvenir from the seven-membered U.A.E. Egyptian cotton. Olive-wood souvenirs in Jordan or from local Arabs in Israel. And that's it, and that would continue to be it, without the oil and gas deposits.
Soviet Communism came to an end because there was a mechanism for failure. When Communism failed to deliver, it took a while -- but ultimately enough Communists (e.g., Alexander Yakovlev) themselves discovered that it had been a political, economic, intellectual, and moral failure. It will be much harder to do that with Islam.
But it is better to do something rather than nothing. Not everyone born into Islam remains permanently unaware that something is wrong with Islam, even if they cannot admit it publicly, or even to themselves when filial piety, or other loyalties (if Islam has been so awful, then what happens to the self-esteem of those, that is the Arabs, is apparently so wrapped up in Islam? It may be easier for non-Arab Muslims to move away from, or even jettison altogether, the faith -- Kurds, Berbers, East Indians, Pakistanis who become Christians, for example, do not continue to parrot the Muslim line as do so many Arab Christians, a difference worth noting. Encourage them. Encourage the Iranians not to be satisfied with the "Islam-is-not-to-blame" casuistry of Shirin Ebadi, and other putative "brave reformers" who remain apologists for Islam, an Islam milder than that of Khomeini, but still Islam.
Threats and force and battles are not as important as not doing anthing to inadvertently prop up Muslim peoples and polities. Let them feel their own political and economic desarroi. Let them come to realize, or at least let the connection be made, for example, between the emphasis on the collective and on Islam as a Total Explanation of the Universe, in inhibiting free and skeptical inquiry. Let the connection between economic failure and inshallah-fatalism (which is precisely what American soldiers in Iraq, furious over the "wake-me-when-it's-over" attitude of the Iraqis, prepared to pocket American aid and American money, but so hesitant to pitch in themselves, and so indifferent to, or even ungrateful for, everything that those soldiers have done and are doing) be made clear, first to Infidels, and then possibly to Muslims. Let them understand that the failures of Muslim states are directly related to Islam. It is not something they want to hear.
Too bad. It happens to be true.
Posted by: Hugh at February 14, 2005 1:54 PM
Hugh:
I am a representative of a Muslim organisation dedicated to reform. We are working towards developing a framework, along the lines of abandoning the Muslim tradition and developing a new exegesis of the Qu'ran. You are absolutely correct about the challenges that face us, and if we cannot meet these challenges, then we will accomplish nothing.
But are you simply saying we should give up? Some of us are working hard. But we are constantly bombarded from Muslims and non-Muslims that we cannot do this. We are also bombarded by the left and the right wing. It is getting tiresome.
Yours sincerely
Thomas
at February 14, 2005 3:33 PM
*Offers some 'right-wing' support to Thomas* C'mon, kj! Get the other side, we need some balance! *g*
(Erk. time to get the lobsters. Valentine's Day, dontcha know).
Posted by: Gary at February 14, 2005 3:53 PM
To Thomas Haidon above --
How many Muslims are working to jettison, or rewrite, or re-interpret, large parts of the Qur'an? Of the Hadith? Of the Sira? Which facts, for example, in Muhammad's life will be tossed aside? Will it be his watching with evident pleasure the execution of the 600-900 prisoners, already tied up, of the Bani Qurayza? Will it be the stories about the murders of Asma bint Marwan or Abu Afak? Will it be the attack on the Jewish farmers of the Khaybar Oasis? Or will it be any of another hundred details that form the "biography" -- whether true or false hardly matters, for Muslims believe that these acts, and those words, are in fact attributable to Muhammad -- of Muhammad?
Who will have enough prestige to go through Bukhari or Muslim, or what group, in conclave assembled, will presume to second-guess Bukhari or Muslim? On what basis will hundreds or thousands of dangerous-to-the-health-of-Infidels Hadith be thrown out? Who will offer new criteria, and who, among the hundreds of millions of extremely simple folk, primitive Believers, will accept these new editions?
And even if Sira and Hadith could be changed, what about the Qur'an itself? Who will dare to touch the text that is the Word of God? What Muslim will dare even to recognize the work of Christoph Luxenberg, or begin to study the Qur'an in the same way that Christians or Jews have studied their sacred texts?
Is it possible?
These are questions.
And if a handful of Muslims think they can change all of this, what do they make of Islam as both offering, and imposing, a Total Explanation of the Universe and a Total Regulation of Existence? Is this something they take pleasure in? That they find comforting? Is there something about belonging to the group, the umma al-islamiyya, that is so heartwarming?
And what of the Muslim attitude toward music, painting, sculpture, toward skeptical inquiry (see Rodney Stark, see Toby Huff's exchange with George Saliba on why science under Islam died out). Does Islam stunt mental growth, as I believe, or does it encourage art, science, and autonomy?
These are questions. Reform-minded Muslims will have to answer them without, if they can, recourse either to filial piety, or to the desire not to admit, those that are "reverts," that perhaps what they thought they were reverting to turned out not to be so wonderful after all, and that once one got done with suggesting this reform and that reform and that other reform, it was all becoming a bit silly and one might just declare, as the clear-sighted Ibn Warraq and many tens of thousands of others have declared themselves (and hundreds of thousands, or perhaps millions, of course, have not declared themselves non-Believers, but have silently given up their belief in Islam) to be "ex-Muslims." Is that a bad thing?
All sorts of people engage in Spiritual Searches for all sorts of reasons. Some of them fall into something, or sign up for something, the way an innocent boy signs up for the Army Reserves, or an innocent girl says yes to a marriage proposal.One doesn't always know what one is getting into. But once one has discovered more about what one has signed up for, after the signing-up bonus has been spent, or the epithalamic bliss has dissipated, then one may ponder.
Why should those who, a year ago, or ten years ago, "reverted" to Islam, and have learned a good deal about it, especially in the last few years, where the real attitudes of most Muslims have been revealed for those with eyes to see, not permit themselves the freedom of re-thinking their initial excitement and curiosity and innocence? Why hold fast to something that will require so much work, and so much impossible change, as to be both quixotic and sisyphean, if a Spanish picaresque novel and Greek mythology may be allowed to elbow one another in the same slightly claustrophobic clause?
Posted by: Hugh at February 14, 2005 7:24 PM
Thomas:
You might also be aware that there is no hope of a successful exegesis of islam. Hugh himself has made that clear. My fear is that you are wasting your time.
The only hope for islam is that it is neutralised. And that can be done by advising muslims who are doubtful of the relevance of islam in the 21st century, to leave it for good.
Posted by: DP111
at February 14, 2005 7:25 PM
Dear Hugh:
Fair points. At the outset, reform is a long term solution for Islam. The short term solution is marginalisation and neutralisation.
I want Muslims to challenge our faith, every single aspect. To be honest, I would like to see a moratorium on conversions. I would love to see prospective reverts read and seriously consider the critical writings on Islam as well as classical materials. I would also encourage Muslims to read these critcial sources. And, I must say that I have undergone a great deal of critical examination myself. What I have witnessed by Muslims over the three years (as a Muslim) has shaken my beliefs).
A new exegesis of Islam can be developed. There are scholars such as Sheikh Ahmed Mansour, and Khaleel Mohammed who are undertaking serious academic work in these areas. If the majority of the Ummah, chooses not to follow us, then perhaps we will have to leave the Ummah...
Cheers
Thomas
at February 14, 2005 8:01 PM
Me thinking after reading all these comments and quite a few books on this problem...How can we defend ourselves against our cultural enemy? -Because clearly Islam is our enemy and we do not have a way to stop it without destroying it-. I suspect that America might be alone in this battle to save Western civilization: Europeans are possessed by the socialist views -all cultures are goods, we are all together, etc- and our universities are totally domesticated. -Europe gave up and the media is probably owned by the Saudist.- I just saw for a second time a woman stoned by Iranians and learned more about the rejection of democracy by the good Muslems...How could we justify these behaviors? I believe that in the West human rights represent the best of views. What can we do when we see our society infirtrated by those who oppose our ways of life? 65 % of historical events are typically explained by demography. We are facing history. What can we do? To talk? To write? To scream that we are in danger? I am open to suggestions because after reading the Koran and other Islamic books I came to the sad conclusion that Islam is self-consistent and self-justifiable, that there is no way to convince anyone who believe that trash that something is really wrong...I guess I face tonight a little dispair. What to do? If those who believe really believe, then they will go after us... We have been warned...It is time to ready ourselves.
Posted by: seeso at February 14, 2005 9:51 PM
One last word: neither Khaleel Mohammed nor Mansour impress me as being completely on the level, but the first at least is having a high old time lecturing, for goodly sums, in synagogues -- google "Khaleel Mohammed" and "Andrew Bostom" for more; another "reformer" is the self-promoting and dramatically decked-out Irshad Manji. What a contrast to the sober intelligence of Ibn Warraq.
Here is something posted in 1998 at a Muslim website, which I found linked to at www.faithfreedom.org. It may be of interest:
"I am seriously thinking of 'leaving' Islam - a.k.a., renouncing it. Why?
It's not a simple question of 'losing faith' or not being able to live
according to the Sunnah and Hadith (which I do). It's infinitely more
complex than that. Ever since accepting Islam, I have felt seriously
alienated from my western Christian culture. I can't pretend to be an Arab
or an Easterner - I am unabashedly American, and thoroughly Christian in my
outlook and attitudes, although probably not faith.
Islam appears to me to be seriously lacking in the 'relationship' aspects of
an individual's faith - i.e., I never actually 'feel' close to God when I
pray salat - Allah/God appears in presentation to be impersonal and
uncaring, devoid of compassion, despite the constant assertions to the
contrary. I feel utterly abandoned from my literary and cultural heritage,
pressured to renounce the cultural and family traditions which are important
to me and to my family - Christmas, Easter, family prayer, the Bible, etc.
I know - I am probably the WORST heretic you can imagine, but I have been
struggling with depression over this issue for some time. I went through a
period of 'bliss' after conversion, but when the day-to-day living settled
in, it became obvious that I was wearing a suit of clothes ill-suited for me
both culturally and emotionally.
I'm not looking for 'permission' to renounce Islam here - only some words of
guidance from WHATEVER point of view you have. I no longer believe in
'blinding revelations' or in a faith without evidence - i.e., I could NEVER
be a 'fundamentalist' Christian - perhaps a liberal one, maybe a Unitarian
or something (who knows - maybe an Anglican?), maybe not even have any
formal church affiliation. I have lost my faith in both the literal reading
of the Quran and in the 'literalism' many tout as 'Biblical truth'.
Comments? Questions? Guidance?"
Well, those who convert (revert) to Islam are not locked in. Indeed, if they can unlock those mind-forged manacles, and return to their previous mental freedom, they could be valuable witnesses as to what causes some to fall for Islam in the first place, what techniques are used by the specialists in Da'wa, what they missed and thought (incorrectly) was to be found in Islam, and much else. They could, in short, be the most valuable of defectors from what is not a religion, or not mainly a religion, but a geopolitical cult.
You might think about the likelihood that it will be "reformed" after 1350 years. Very likely? Likely? Utterly impossible?
Your call -- to Islam, or away from it.
at February 14, 2005 10:11 PM
seeso: Not to despair. There are ways of stopping the Islamic advance now, before its eventual destruction by lethal means. There are steps that you can take--personally--aside from screaming into the deaf ears of politicians and trying to alarm your disinterested friends ad acquaintances. Some, outlined by Hugh Fitzgerald, have been collected and can be found at the No Jihad website.
Posted by: unicorns62000 at February 15, 2005 1:07 AM
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