islamicate

Interesting links

Couple of nice short articles today from alt.muslim:

Killing the Moderates

We're Fighting a War on Islam (the same topic as my You Can Call Me Satan.)

You can call me Satan

Malcolm X, before he converted to Islam, was known as Satan. Al-Hallaj claims that the truest lover of God was Iblis, because he refused to bow down in front of Adam; Iblis acknowledged no other than his Beloved. I suppose that means I'm not in such bad company.

Some of you may remember this comment by the Attorney General of the United States, John Ashcroft, entrusted with making sure I suffer no discrimination:

"Islam is a religion in which God requires you to send your son to die for him. Christianity is a faith in which God sends his son to die for you."
--Attorney General John Ashcroft, during an interview with syndicated columnist and radio personality Cal Thomas
[I can't find a date on this quote, if you have it, please send it my way.]

It gets better today according to CNN. Apparently a Deputy Undersecretary of Defense, Lt. Gen. William G. Boykin, believes that we are not fighting a war against terror. No, we are in fact fighting Satan. The relevant passage from CNN is as follows:

"Appearing in dress uniform before a religious group in Oregon in June, Boykin said Islamic extremists hate the United States "because we're a Christian nation, because our foundation and our roots are Judeo-Christians. ... And the enemy is a guy named Satan.""

I would like to give this guy the benefit of the doubt, and say that he is talking about terrorists as evil, working off of Bush II's comment about evil-doers. Unfortunately, this guy is talking about a "Christian nation," and referring to a Muslim warlord in Somalia in 1993, he made a comment that "my God was bigger than his."

So, the only way to read this now is that as a non-Christian living in a Christian nation, I am Satan. Rumsfeld and the Joint Chiefs of Staff have already defended his honor.

All this Satan has to say is: God bless America. We need it.

When did the Wahabbi movement become Muslim? [corrected]

Correction: After several months, I finally realized this article has a persistent typo. The correct transliteration is "Wahhabi" not "Wahabbi." Therefore the title should properly be When did the Wahhabi Movement become Muslim? Arabic does not favor a double consonant at the end, and I should have known better. Rather than correct the entire piece, I'm simply putting the caveat up front. Sorry for the confusion.

This is a serious question: When did the Wahabbi movement become Muslim?

Just finished re-reading Hamid Algar's excellent essay, Wahabbism: A Critical Essay, and the one question that he never answers is when did the movement become Muslim?

A few authors, thankfully, are now talking about how the Wahabbi movement was initially not considered Muslim. They also talk about how the Wahabbi movement exercises control in the Muslim world. But I have yet to find a source that tells me how or when the Wahabbis became Muslim.

Until then I can only assume that we, that is Muslims, are allowing a group that has traditionally been considered non-Muslim, to tell us what the true meaning of our religion is.

Any help on this matter would be greatly appreciated.

How do you say "WTF" in Malay?

Several news outlets (1, 2, 3, 4) are reporting that the Prime Minister of Malaysia, Mahatir Mohammad, opened the summit of the Organization of Islamic States with some good ol' fashioned anti-Semitism. I'm not talking anti-Israeli comments - which are often labeled as anti-Semitic, but more on how that lazy use of language, and how it does a dis-service to all involved, in another post - but full out Judeophobia. Just so you don't doubt me, here's the most obvious example:

"The Europeans killed six million Jews out of 12 million, but today the Jews are in control of the world via their proxies. They lead others to fight and die for them."

Someone needs to take back his Protocols of the Elders of Zion and let him know it's all a forgery. There is no Jewish conspiracy to rule the world. Never has been. He's right that the Muslim community is faltering in the modern period, and there needs to be a push towards self-improvement, but that isn't going to come by expressing our failures as Judeophobia. And just to be clear, I really can't be bothered with the rest of his message, because much like the Nation of Islam, there may be some good, but it's so tainted by hatred, fear and ignorance that it's not worth salvaging.

Judeophobia and Islamophobia spring from the same well; a lack of awareness, understanding and self-confidence. It's also a huge power issue: rather than admitting powerlessness, attribute a greater/different power to someone else, whether they in fact have that power or not. Power, in this situation, is additionally exercised by naming and classifying in order to gain some level of control.

All these comments have done is disgrace the Muslim world. They highlighted the failure of the ummah to advance itself and it's unwillingness to face reality. The comments disgraced us, not only because they focused on our weaknesses, but because they showed that we ignore our own history, when our strongest periods were when lived in pluralistic societies, and more importantly we are denying our own heritage, our own selves. God's trust to humanity was intellect. All these comments did was show that the ummah has no interest in fulfilling that trust.

Redemption Song

I thought I would start my first foray into the world of webblogs with an entry on why and how I became interested in the subject of Islam. Let me first state that I am an architect by training and have never had any courses on Islam, its history, its jurisprudence, or its various expressions. My interest is simple a matter of “redemption”. In the books I read and the movies that I watch, I have always been fascinated with the notion of the fall and the process of redemption. This is why I have been particularly fascinated with Westerns over the years. Here I can recommend Unforgiven or Apocalypse Now (not a Western, but exploring similar terrain).

How does this relate to Islam? I came to be interested in Islam, again, not as a philosophy, but rather, looking at Muslims and how they dealt with Islam, particularly after September 11. I wanted to know how Muslims perceived the events that were spiraling out of control around them. I wanted to understand how something that was so beautiful to me (my personal search and practice of the faith) could be seen as something to be feared, not only in the West but in the Muslim world as well. I was searching for where the sparks of hope and voices of empowerment would come from and the manner in which they would speak. I was looking for hidden strands of Muslim practice and thought to emerge that have remained quite for centuries while more rigid and normative practices became defined as the true Islam. I looked for these voices to resonate and cast into a positive light my faith and the faith of over one billion living souls.

Thus, I began my pursuit to listen closely for this resonance in the hope that the combined sounds would indeed shatter the confines of that which has remained dormant for far too long in Islam: the use of the intellect, and Islam’s inherent humanity. September 11 has been described as a wake up call for America. It has been a wake up call for me as well and cast me on an intellectual search, one that continues to lead directly into the heart of darkness, into the values that define who I am. My fall came when the first plane hit the tower, I have been looking for redemption ever since.

Here then are some of the voices that have struck a chord with me. Not all of them are well written and many can be criticised, but each of them have helped me to stake out my own position. It is my hope that you too will find something to critique and to also help you clarify.

What is the Koran

Religion and Our World in Crisis

Islams Forgotten Heritage

A Muslim Voice Against Suicide Bombers

Thanks

A quick thanks to Muslim WakeUp! for being so quick to acknowledge us and sending us good wishes and support.

The Stories We Tell

One of the stories I remember clearly from my childhood concerns Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) and the insult he suffered from a woman everyday on his way to pray.

The story, in brief, is that the Prophet would be walking to prayers everyday and a woman would dump garbage on him as he walked by, necessitating a thorough cleansing before prayers. This series of events went on for some time, and then for several days it stopped. Upon inquiring the Prophet discovered the woman had fallen sick. He then took to her abode and nursed her back to health.

For a long time I thought this was a story particular to my family. Then I heard it in my religious education classes, and thought perhaps it was unique to my community. Recently, I've started using it in lectures and realized that it is a fairly universal story amongst Muslim communities in the US.

I always liked this story as a child. Now I look at it and think about the lessons it offers. There is clearly the notion of forgiveness; of having a purpose and not letting others dissuade you from it; and of the importance of ritual. Reading the story now, I see so much more to it.

The woman was clearly a non-Muslim, but she was allowed to live unhindered in a Muslim milieu, even after insulting the Prophet. I think about how many Muslim communities would be offended by the presence of a non-Muslim in their midst. For some reason though, it wasn't objectionable to the Prophet and his companions.

The Prophet spent time with a woman, without any indication of a chaperone, and in all likelyhood, she wasn't even veiled. Now, as good Muslims we must let little girls burn in buildings unless they are covered from head to foot and have a male escort to protect us from their beguiling ways. I wish I could say I was proud of this particular advance made by the Muslim community.

I know this is a story, and not part of any "historical" record. However, I believe the stories we tell are our aspirations; a telling of what and who we hope to become; an idealization of the human experience. The fact that this story has such universal reach makes me wonder, do we still have hope? do we still strive to move beyond our limitations? or is this another story to fill our heads with no thought of what it might actually mean?

I hope my grandchildren will know this story one day. But I fear too, that one day it will be changed. I can hear the banging of the war drums when the first bit of rubbish touches the Prophet. Of course, it won't be a woman, and it won't be a non-Muslim, because in the revisionist world view, there were never any non-Muslims in the Prophet's time, and women were kept in secluded parts of the basement never to come near a window. The man at the window will be someone who thinks independently, which is bid'a, an innovation, conformity always having been the call of Islam. Of course, stories do reflect our aspirations, and this change in the story does come to pass, then the story is not the only thing I fear for.

a recent trip

A travel journal and photos can be found here.