islamicate

A Letter from Saudi Arabia

Passed on from a friend from a friend. I can assure that the person is writing from Saudi Arabia.

Dear Friends,   

As I am sitting in front of my home computer, an intense pounding  is  trying to break through my forehead. I am wondering how quickly  the  Tylenol will kick in. I have been up this morning since 5:30 AM,  which  any of you who know me well will be surprised to hear. I was  awakened  this morning by a telephone call from the Booz Allen senior  employee in  Riyadh who works on the Saudi Navy Project and lives on the Arizona  Compound. He informed me that an American had been kidnapped  either  late last night or early this morning. I was aware that an  American had  been shot and killed yesterday in an area not far from my place of  work.  For those of you who know Riyadh, the shooting occurred in the Hayy  Al-Dhubat area, behind Shola Mall and the former Hyatt Hotel. If  memory  serves me correctly, this is the fourth shooting this month in  Riyadh.  To enumerate, there was a shooting of an American leaving ESKAN, a  shooting of a BBC reporter and his cameraman in the Al-Suwaidi  District  in the south of Riyadh, a shooting of a Vinnell employee as he  entered  his home in Al-Khaleej District (to the east of Rawdha), and now an  AEC  employee last night in Malaz. With the exception of the ESKAN  vehicle  and the BBC reporter, all other shootings have been fatal. I  assumed  that the Booz Allen Principle was calling to inform me of the  shooting  yesterday. "Have you heard about the kidnapping?" he asked. Still  groggy, my mind raced to process the words I had just heard.  "Kidnapping?" I thought. "He must be talking about yesterday's  shooting." But he was not. In addition to  yesterday's shooting of  an  AEC employee, an employee of Lockheed Martin has been kidnapped.  "Until  we get further information about the circumstances of the  kidnapping, we  are advising all Booz Allen employees to stay home on their  compounds,"  said the voice on the other end of the line. "Do you have anything  pressing today?" he asked. While I hated the thought of falling  even  further behind on the mountains of work in the office, I realized  that  it was not worth my life. "No, I will stay on the compound," I  said.  It is now nearly 1:00 PM, and I thought it might be interesting to  inform you of a few stories I have heard over the past week, to  give a  flavor of the mood in Riyadh.    While I feel that we Americans are the prime target, I believe that  all  Westerners are feeling the tension. After all, it was a German  citizen  who was shot last month in Riyadh. I sincerely doubt that the  terrorists can distinguish between an American and the various  European  nationalities, many of us sharing a common European heritage. And  even  Saudis are feeling uptight, with many parents who have the means  making  plans to place their children in schools outside of the Kingdom  next  year - either Lebanon or Europe.

Rage

Not outrage. Simply rage.

Demi has commented before about how amazed she is that we can be (relatively) calm about the situation in Iraq. I think I've hit my limit.

I've previously posted about how the abuses committed by insurgents are utterly un-Islamic. Nick Berg, Paul Johnson, Kim Sun-Il, God rest their souls, each one, and may God grant their families strength and peace. Regardless of the fact the Wahhabis think that beheadings are cool, they are not, and furthers my argument that the Wahhabis should not be a voice for Islam if they are not Muslim. I feel an unbelievable rage against these people that they would choose to say what they are doing is related to Islam.

Imam Husayn (PBUH) died for what he believed in, he didn't capture and kill civilians to prove his point. The Prophet (PBUH) never caught and killed non-combatants to prove that he could. Islamic civilization, like other civilizations, has a history of conflict, but the idea of indiscriminate killing and the slaughter of un-related parties has been traditionally anathema to the Islamic world-view.

Aside from the fact that these insurgents have no regard for Islamic tradition, they also have no regard for Muslims and how their acts defame the faith they claim they belong to. They have kidnapped Muslims from Turkey - although they also released the Turks ostensibly because they were Muslim and they've got an Arab-Muslim Marine as a hostage.

I can't even begin to describe the anger and hatred I feel towards these individuals. They are not freedom fighters - they are not putting forward a positive vision of Iraq - they fight from their hate. I'm not convinced that a majority of them are Iraqis. I don't have much respect for Muqtada Sadr as a leader, but he at least appeared to be fighting for his vision of Iraq and was out in the open, so you knew who was responsible.

I'm glad "sovereignty" has been returned to the Iraqis. I think now we'll see how much support these goons actually have.

Islam does this, Islam does that...

Been laid up up for a few days with a bum ankle. This has given me some time to catch up on my web reading. It doesn't look good from here. Forgetting Iraq and Saudi Arabia, for the moment, I am saddened that calmer voices have been shouted down both here and in the Muslim world. We have made this an issue about Islam, and I too have been guilty of this. I apologise. I have recently been in the company of some really interesting thinkers listening to them debate the current state of Islam. Thinkers such as Reinhard Schulzeand Mojtaba Sadria, have re-invigorated me and given me hope. In some of my past postings, I have been to quick to blame Islam for instiling undemocratic principles in its adherents. I should have been blaming the political/social conditions in Muslim countries that have surpressed the the Rule of Law, human rights, political and economic freedom, and gender equality and have promoted bad governance, corruption, and unaccountability. These situations have arisen partially due to complex historical actions by outside forces. It is too simplistic to blame Islam. I apologise. I have been guilty of tying up these negative attributes with Islam, much like many commentators. Was WWI and WWII a failure of Christianity? To simple? Read on.

Here is a sample of some rather bellicose statements made by influential Americans and organisations in the past few years: [taken from an article entitled "Why We Hate Them?, by Brian Mitchell]

“We should invade (Muslim) countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity.”
-Columnist Ann Coulter, National Review Online, Sept. 13, 2001.

“Just turn (the sheriff) loose and have him arrest every Muslim that crosses the state line.”
-Rep. C. Saxby Chambliss (R-GA), chairman of the House Subcommittee on Terrorism and Homeland Security and Senate candidate, to Georgia law officers, November 2001.

“Islam is a religion in which God requires you to send your son to die for him. Christianity is a faith where God sent his Son to die for you.”
-Attorney General John Ashcroft, interview on Cal Thomas radio, November 2001.

“(Islam) is a very evil and wicked religion; wicked, violent and not of the same God (as Christianity).”
-Rev. Franklin Graham, head of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, November 2001.

“Islam is Evil, Christ is King.”
-Allegedly written in marker by law enforcement agents on a Muslim prayer calendar in the home of a Muslim being investigated by police in Dearborn, Michigan, July 2002.

“Who put our oil under their sand?”
-A banner of the Orange County Peace Coalition (OCPC), a broad-based group of diverse individuals and organizations. OCPC is a multiethnic, multireligious, multipolitical organization composed of over 20 volunteer groups united for peace. They indicate they have come together because national leaders are propelling the United States into a war that will destabilize the world and threaten our civil liberties.

“We are going to correct a mistake that God made?”
-Army Lt. Gen. William G. Boykin, a senior intelligence chief who made church speeches casting the fight against terrorism in religious terms. The three-star general is deputy undersecretary of defense for intelligence.

For an interesting read to show you what I am talking about, check out 'When Islam Breaks Down", by Theodore Dalrymple. This article attempts to blame Islam for all the cultural ills afflicting Muslim society. What is afflicting Muslim societies is not Islam, but the ignorance of the true beauty and civilising nature of Islam.

The Company You Keep

My parents always told me that the company you keep says something about you. What does that say about those who keep the company of Attorney General Ashcroft. Krugman has a thing or two to say about a "Travesty of Justice."

Say it ain't so

Brigitte Bardot believes in racial purity. [Thanks to Miamvi for the link.]

Marriage is a gay event

While I don't live in the Republic of Cambridge, I do spend enough time there that the ruling concerning gay marriage has a personal impact on my friends.

I posted a while ago about how I think it's a bad idea for the state to legislate morality. There may be arguments for legislating against marriage for same-sex couples, but morality is surprisingly not in the state's interest. Haroon, from over at Avari-nameh, challenged my basic assumption, and I promised him a good fight, but let it go. Now he's posting on the same subject, using the same source no less!, so I thought it would be a good opportunity to throw in my two cents again.

Reading List: Women

Islam, Gender and Social Change
Women and Gender is Islam
Islam and Gender
The Tao of Islam
Windows of Faith
"Believing Women" in Islam
Qur'an and Women
My Soul is a Woman
Women in the Medieval Islamic World
Women of Sufism
The Scimitar and the Veil
Daughters of Abraham
Western Representations of the Muslim Woman

Video:
Adventure Divas: Iran: Behind Closed Cha-dors (PBS link)

Reading Lists

A few weeks ago this is me did a post on women and hijab in Australia. Velveteen Rabbi asked about some readings, and Hijabman has recently proved people do read what we post about books, so I thought we'd begin an irregular series of reading lists. We made an effort earlier at one, but we are going to formalize it into topic based material.

As always, feel free to add what you will in comments. However, I just discovered I do have to do a shameless plug. If you buy from links on this site (Amazon links) you help keep the site going. If you are buying from an independent bookseller, more power to you. In fact, I encourage you to find a local independent bookseller and support your community. But, if you are going to Amazon it, please click through on this site.

Hijab

There is an op-ed written in a NY Urdu language paper (English translation) that deals with the issue of hijab. I'm looking for the Urdu version, but the English translation reminds me very much of what some of the early debate was like in NY in English. You would throw out a whole bunch of arguments and see what would stick. The arguments have become much more sophisticated and targeted, helped both by time and the easy accessibility of more academic material. I think this article is important, not because of what it says, but because of the language and audience it's written for. Urdu is the language of a particular segment of the society, of Pakistani immigrants, and mostly of the 1^st generation. The dynamic of the argument is being shifted from those who are attempting to reconcile identities, to those who are attempting to preserve an identity. More importantly, the debate is getting to a question of religion and culture, and the hypocrisy of certain Muslims in the US.

As an aside, in the same issue of the Indy Press, there's an article about the approval by Orthodox Rabbis of a dating site. I wonder how much longer until we get muftis and mullahs thinking about similar things.

Independence Day

So today begins Iraqi sovereignty. Apparently they are exercising their right not to go along with the US already. So we have Paul Bremer, Lakhdar Brahimi and the former IGC trying to figure out who is NOT in charge. So now the question is who's taking care of our people?