One of the most maliciously confusing words in contemporary discourse is "link". It was used to great effect during Obama's presidential run, during which he was "linked" to his former minister, to a group who registered voters for him, and to a guy he met once at a party who blew stuff up when Obama was eight years old. One "link" that allegedly helped to justify the Iraq war was a communication in which Osama Bin Laden asked for help, and Sadam Hussain refused it. Before and after that conversation, each man offered a reward for killing the other, which apparently didn't weaken the link significantly. And then there is the Mother of all Links: George Bush's "Axis of Evil". For the historically challenged, the original Axis was an alliance between Fascist Italy, Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan, who signed a treaty which outlined a detailed plan for world conquest which was financed with billions of dollars, and executed by millions of trained soldiers, weapons, and military transport. . Bush's "Axis of Evil" consisted of two countries who had been at war with each other for over a decade, and a third country that barely knew the other two existed. When I first said this, someone told me that Korea was "linked" to one of these other countries (I forget which, because I don't care) because it had allegedly sold it nuclear material. The word "link" blurs the fact that there is a tremendous difference between being a military ally and being a customer. I have frequently bought french fries at McDonalds. Does that make me and McDonalds part of the Axis of French Fries?
The men who overpowered airplanes and crashed them into the World Trade Center were not just "linked". They were organized and co-ordinated in essentially the same way that a football team or an army is co-ordinated. To conflate this kind of organization with a "link" that consisted of a few emails between an Imam and a single soldier is to be dangerously confused. One of the things that makes this kind of confusion even more likely is that no terrorist organization has done anything as remotely well co-ordinated since, and consequently there really isn't that much difference between terrorists and lone gunmen today. There is a difference in degree but today there is no real sharp way to draw the line. Al Qaeda once had almost completely political control of Afghanistan , which became their base of operations for something that resembled a genuine military campaign. That base was destroyed during the war with Afghanistan, and now Al Qaeda is nothing but a disorganized group of malcontents that share little more than a willingness to wear the same T-shirt.
The underlying assumption of the controversy around Fort Hood has been that if we see lots of similarities between Hasan and Al Qaeda, this must prove that Hasan is somehow part of the same Mass-movement as Al Qaeda, and therefore should be feared. What I am saying is the fact that there are so many similarities between Hasan and Al Qaeda shows that we should consider both to be ordinary criminals, not a major military threat. There is not that much difference between Hasan and the other nutcases blowing things up in the name of Islam, because all the so-called Jihadists are a rag tag bunch of losers, who had one lucky strike with the World Trade Center, and have no central organization worthy of the name. Those of us who grew up with the fear of Communism should remember (and some of us do) that in comparison to the Commies, these so-called threats to our security are a disorganized bunch of loonies, not a serious well-organized threat. They did and will continue to do some damage, but in comparison to Hurricane Katrina and Global warming they should be seen as a very low priority. These guys are about as organized as the Bloods and the Crips in LA, and probably less dangerous. They are certainly less organized than the Mafia.
Surprisingly,I have heard similar thoughts from two of NYtimes' token conservatives: John Tierney and Ross Douhat.
A year or so ago, Tierney pointed out that more people have died in bathtubs since 9/11 than have died from Terrorist attacks. Anybody want to allocate a billion dollars to keep America safe from the Axis of Bathtubs? There are probably "links" that connect all of those bathtubs to a few key manufacturers, some of whom might be Muslims. Should we throw out the constitutional right to privacy and put cameras on every bathtub in America? Call me wild and reckless, but I'm not willing to give up my constitutional rights to be that safe. For those who keep saying "Freedom doesn't come Free": You're right. The price of freedom is living with the possibility that occasionally crimes get committed, and people get hurt. A society in which everybody was constantly under surveillance might be a society with no crime, but it would also be a society with no freedom.
Ross Douhat wrote on the Anniversary of the falling of the Berlin Wall that " "Osama bin Laden is no Hitler, and Islamism isn’t in the same league as the last century’s totalitarianisms. Marxism and fascism seduced the West’s elite; Islamic radicalism seduces men like the Fort Hood shooter. Our enemies resort to terrorism because they’re weak, and because we’re so astonishingly strong." You never know who's going to end up agreeing with you.
We Americans got emotionally wounded by the 9/11 experience, and with good reason. That incident caught us unawares, (or with our "unawares" down, as it were), and did a spectacular amount of damage to America, both physically and emotionally. But now, several years later we need to put what happened in perspective. We need to recognize that these guys are at this point not significantly more organized than Hasan, and we should stop acting like they are the biggest threat we face. Some of them do think of themselves as striving towards world domination, but they have less chance of beating the US army than a flea has of winning a wrestling match with an elephant. They don't have the resources to conquer the world, and they don't have the mental discipline to hold on to power even if they had it. For obvious reasons, suicide bombers are not very good at focusing on long range plans.
The basic principle of mind is that everything is related to everything else, so finding links is always easy. Discussions about terrorism would produce a lot less heat, and a lot more light, if the participants spent less time looking for links and more time trying to make significant distinctions. We should stop using terms like "Islamofascism", which "links" all sorts of groups together simply because they might be dangerous to us. Instead we need to make distinctions like Sunni and Shiite, Salafi and Sufi, Farsi and Arabic, Wahhabi and Qutbist. Some people claim that the real danger is not Islam itself but Wahhabi Islam, which I think is on the right track. However, even that claim gives too much unity to this so-called "movement." Bin Laden sees himself as Wahhabi, but the head Wahhabi clerics in Saudi Arabia have condemned him to death. Many of them have also issued detailed scholarly criticism of the idea that Islam permits violence against civilians. For more on this, see this website on The Wahhabi Myth As I understand it, the guys that are being described on this site also believe that women should not be allowed to uncover their faces, work outside the home or drive cars, which makes them bad guys in my book. But these attitudes are no threat to American security, and shouldn't be lumped together with the belief that Muslims have an obligation to violently attack non-Muslims. They both need to be dealt with, but they need to be dealt with in different ways. It's rather like seeing Iran as part of the same conspiracy as Al Qaeda, even though Al Qaeda in Iraq is blowing up Shiite Mosques. It's also rather like lumping Palestinian suicide bombers together with the suicide bombers who are seeking world Islamic domination. Palestinian suicide bombers don't want to dominate the world, they just want to acquire one particular piece of real estate they believe is rightfully theirs. This distinction doesn't justify the actions of either group, but it does show that it is dangerously confused to think of them as being "linked".
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
The Fort Hood Incident
There's no way that a person concerned about Islamophobia could ignore the Fort Hood incident. I've been posting on discussion boards all week, and this post is to some degree a summary of what I read and wrote. I've got one main point I want to make, but there are a couple of auxiliary points that can't be ignored, not even in the interests of stylistic coherence.
I)There are a lot of Muslims, even very conservative ones, who are openly repudiating the shooter. I visited the site of Anwar al-Awlaki, the Radical Imam "linked" to Hasan, who praised the shootings. By my estimation, The Muslim posters who criticized his stance outnumbered the supporters by about two to one. There are also several prominent Islamic organizations and clerics who have denounced the shootings, including a very conservative imam in Saudi Arabia. It's important to remember that, just because someone has hateful beliefs about women's rights to drive cars and show their faces in public, doesn't mean they think it's OK to murder people in the name of God. All this can be found at the City of Brass Blog, by Aziz Poonawalla. Poonawalla also quotes from an interview with al-Awlaki, back in the days when he was a moderate. An even more extensive list of Muslim organizations condemning extremism can be found at www.theamericanmuslim.org
I've always been a bit irritated by the cries of "Where's the Muslim Outrage" every time a Muslim nutjob blows something up. First of all, I haven't seen any Christian organizations speaking out against the abortion clinic murders,and no one seems angry about that. Secondly, there are two excellent reasons why most Muslims are hesitant to speak up against Muslim extremism 1) It's hard for Muslims to feel solidarity with a government that treats them as collateral damage. American government policy assumes that the danger of terrorism justifies harrasing innocent Muslims at airports, arresting and detaining them without trial, and killing them with robot drones. This is not the sort of behavior that inspires trust in those on the receiving end. 2)Speaking up against Muslim extremists greatly increases your chances of being killed by them. Muslim extremists have killed far more Muslims than non-Muslims. Despite these factors however, more and more Muslims are denouncing the Fort Hood Shootings, and I applaud their courage. It must be difficult to be caught between two groups that violently disagree with each other, each of which is determined to dehumanize you if you show any signs of disagreeing with them.
II) A lot of people are complaining about the fact that maintaining "PC" attitudes has compromised our ability to protect ourselves against terrorism. I think this is a false controversy because:
ISLAMOPHOBIA IS MUCH MORE DANGEROUS THAN TERRORISM!!
ISLAMOPHOBIA IS MUCH MORE DANGEROUS THAN TERRORISM!!
ISLAMOPHOBIA IS MUCH MORE DANGEROUS THAN TERRORISM!!
Sorry to shout and repeat myself, but this is something that doesn't get said often or loudly enough. It's not just that terrorism is the lesser danger. Islamophobia is the thing that makes terrorism grow, and so fighting Islamophobia is the most effective way of fighting terrorism. I write this blog because I don't want to live in a country where guys in pickup trucks are running around shooting little girls in hijabs, and their fathers are responding by bombing pickup trucks. Islamophobia is the first step in that direction, just as man-on-the-street anti-semitism was the first step towards Auschwitz. You don't have to be a Muslim to condemn Islamophobia, just as you don't have to be Jewish to condemn Auschwitz.
Now to the real meat of this post: The dispute over whether Hasan is a "Lone Gunman" or a "Terrorist" or in David Brooks' words, was this "an isolated personal breakdown" or an "ideological assault". If we start with the Aristotelian category system (as Common Sense always does), the natural thing is to look for the essential properties that define each of these categories, and see which of these properties Hassan possesses. As new information came in, Muslims and others argued over whether Hasan was really a Muslim, whether he shouted "Alahu Akbar!" when he was shooting, whether he exchanged emails with Anwar al-Awlaki etc. David Brooks came up with what he saw as the most essential property of all: The embracing of a narrative that "has emerged on the fringes of the Muslim world. It is a narrative that sees human history as a war between Islam on the one side and Christianity and Judaism on the other. This narrative causes its adherents to shrink their circle of concern. They don’t see others as fully human. They come to believe others can be blamelessly murdered and that, in fact, it is admirable to do so."
One commenter on the NYTimes website correctly pointed out that because Brooks asserted that "the war narrative of the struggle against Islam is the central feature of American foreign policy", he had bought into the exact same narrative himself. The only difference between Brooks and Hasan on this issue was which side of the narrative they each chose to play out. I would add that the fact that innocent Muslims are often seen as collateral damage shows that both sides embracing this narrative "shrink their circle of concern".
Brooks argues that Hasan must be seen as as a terrorist because he had this narrative in his head: end of story, and anyone who wanted to include any other narrative was not "serious". That is the problem with arguments using the Aristotelian category system: they ultimately boil down to assertions that "My intuitions can beat up your intuitions" as to the differences between accidental and essential properties." This is the main reason that the classical American Pragmatists (Peirce, James, and Dewey), adopted a method James called "cash value analysis". They claimed that the meaning of any assertion consists of nothing but the actions that accepting it would require. If there is no difference in action, there is no difference in meaning. Suppose we argue about whether a tomato is a fruit or a vegetable. Everyone recognizes that tomatoes have seeds, and thus are fruits from a biologist's point of view, and that they provide the kinds of nutrients that prompt nutritionists to classify them as vegetables. According to the pragmatists, that settles the matter. There is no point in asking whether the tomato is REALLY a Fruit or REALLY a vegetable, independent of these kinds of actions.
Similarly we need to ask ourselves "How would it effect our behavior, our goals, our actions if we labeled Hasan a terrorist or a loan gunman?" If we label him a terrorist, this could mean that we should strengthen the Patriot act, throw all Muslims out of the military, and cry out that Bush, unlike Obama, kept us safe from terrorism. If that's what you mean by terrorist, then I will argue against all of these actions. Such an argument has some real chance of being about the facts, rather than an empty question about definitions. Similarly, if we label him a lone gunman, we need to ask whether gun control laws ought to be tightened to stop crazed actions like this, and we need to stop comparing him to Osama Bin Laden and start comparing him to people like the Columbine Killers, the Korean student at Chapman University, and probably most importantly, the other shooters who have killed people at Fort Hood during the past few years. It seems to me that Hasan has much more in common with the latter than the former. The thing that made Bin Laden dangerous was the fact that he once had an organized military machine that had almost complete control of a foreign country. This enabled him to launch a well co-ordinated strike involving dozens or even hundreds of accomplices. The fact that Hasan and Bin Laden had the same narrative in their heads is an accidental, not an essential property, and therefore should not be used to put them in the same category. What goes on between their ears is not the problem, the problem is what actions they perform and/or are capable of performing. The actions that Hasan performed were those of a lone gunman, and that's what they would have been even if, like the Columbine killers, he had had two or three friends who had helped him. His appearance on the scene gives us no reason to either believe or disbelieve that terrorism is again on the march, or that we need to gird up our loins to prepare for another 9/11 style assault.
I)There are a lot of Muslims, even very conservative ones, who are openly repudiating the shooter. I visited the site of Anwar al-Awlaki, the Radical Imam "linked" to Hasan, who praised the shootings. By my estimation, The Muslim posters who criticized his stance outnumbered the supporters by about two to one. There are also several prominent Islamic organizations and clerics who have denounced the shootings, including a very conservative imam in Saudi Arabia. It's important to remember that, just because someone has hateful beliefs about women's rights to drive cars and show their faces in public, doesn't mean they think it's OK to murder people in the name of God. All this can be found at the City of Brass Blog, by Aziz Poonawalla. Poonawalla also quotes from an interview with al-Awlaki, back in the days when he was a moderate. An even more extensive list of Muslim organizations condemning extremism can be found at www.theamericanmuslim.org
I've always been a bit irritated by the cries of "Where's the Muslim Outrage" every time a Muslim nutjob blows something up. First of all, I haven't seen any Christian organizations speaking out against the abortion clinic murders,and no one seems angry about that. Secondly, there are two excellent reasons why most Muslims are hesitant to speak up against Muslim extremism 1) It's hard for Muslims to feel solidarity with a government that treats them as collateral damage. American government policy assumes that the danger of terrorism justifies harrasing innocent Muslims at airports, arresting and detaining them without trial, and killing them with robot drones. This is not the sort of behavior that inspires trust in those on the receiving end. 2)Speaking up against Muslim extremists greatly increases your chances of being killed by them. Muslim extremists have killed far more Muslims than non-Muslims. Despite these factors however, more and more Muslims are denouncing the Fort Hood Shootings, and I applaud their courage. It must be difficult to be caught between two groups that violently disagree with each other, each of which is determined to dehumanize you if you show any signs of disagreeing with them.
II) A lot of people are complaining about the fact that maintaining "PC" attitudes has compromised our ability to protect ourselves against terrorism. I think this is a false controversy because:
ISLAMOPHOBIA IS MUCH MORE DANGEROUS THAN TERRORISM!!
ISLAMOPHOBIA IS MUCH MORE DANGEROUS THAN TERRORISM!!
ISLAMOPHOBIA IS MUCH MORE DANGEROUS THAN TERRORISM!!
Sorry to shout and repeat myself, but this is something that doesn't get said often or loudly enough. It's not just that terrorism is the lesser danger. Islamophobia is the thing that makes terrorism grow, and so fighting Islamophobia is the most effective way of fighting terrorism. I write this blog because I don't want to live in a country where guys in pickup trucks are running around shooting little girls in hijabs, and their fathers are responding by bombing pickup trucks. Islamophobia is the first step in that direction, just as man-on-the-street anti-semitism was the first step towards Auschwitz. You don't have to be a Muslim to condemn Islamophobia, just as you don't have to be Jewish to condemn Auschwitz.
Now to the real meat of this post: The dispute over whether Hasan is a "Lone Gunman" or a "Terrorist" or in David Brooks' words, was this "an isolated personal breakdown" or an "ideological assault". If we start with the Aristotelian category system (as Common Sense always does), the natural thing is to look for the essential properties that define each of these categories, and see which of these properties Hassan possesses. As new information came in, Muslims and others argued over whether Hasan was really a Muslim, whether he shouted "Alahu Akbar!" when he was shooting, whether he exchanged emails with Anwar al-Awlaki etc. David Brooks came up with what he saw as the most essential property of all: The embracing of a narrative that "has emerged on the fringes of the Muslim world. It is a narrative that sees human history as a war between Islam on the one side and Christianity and Judaism on the other. This narrative causes its adherents to shrink their circle of concern. They don’t see others as fully human. They come to believe others can be blamelessly murdered and that, in fact, it is admirable to do so."
One commenter on the NYTimes website correctly pointed out that because Brooks asserted that "the war narrative of the struggle against Islam is the central feature of American foreign policy", he had bought into the exact same narrative himself. The only difference between Brooks and Hasan on this issue was which side of the narrative they each chose to play out. I would add that the fact that innocent Muslims are often seen as collateral damage shows that both sides embracing this narrative "shrink their circle of concern".
Brooks argues that Hasan must be seen as as a terrorist because he had this narrative in his head: end of story, and anyone who wanted to include any other narrative was not "serious". That is the problem with arguments using the Aristotelian category system: they ultimately boil down to assertions that "My intuitions can beat up your intuitions" as to the differences between accidental and essential properties." This is the main reason that the classical American Pragmatists (Peirce, James, and Dewey), adopted a method James called "cash value analysis". They claimed that the meaning of any assertion consists of nothing but the actions that accepting it would require. If there is no difference in action, there is no difference in meaning. Suppose we argue about whether a tomato is a fruit or a vegetable. Everyone recognizes that tomatoes have seeds, and thus are fruits from a biologist's point of view, and that they provide the kinds of nutrients that prompt nutritionists to classify them as vegetables. According to the pragmatists, that settles the matter. There is no point in asking whether the tomato is REALLY a Fruit or REALLY a vegetable, independent of these kinds of actions.
Similarly we need to ask ourselves "How would it effect our behavior, our goals, our actions if we labeled Hasan a terrorist or a loan gunman?" If we label him a terrorist, this could mean that we should strengthen the Patriot act, throw all Muslims out of the military, and cry out that Bush, unlike Obama, kept us safe from terrorism. If that's what you mean by terrorist, then I will argue against all of these actions. Such an argument has some real chance of being about the facts, rather than an empty question about definitions. Similarly, if we label him a lone gunman, we need to ask whether gun control laws ought to be tightened to stop crazed actions like this, and we need to stop comparing him to Osama Bin Laden and start comparing him to people like the Columbine Killers, the Korean student at Chapman University, and probably most importantly, the other shooters who have killed people at Fort Hood during the past few years. It seems to me that Hasan has much more in common with the latter than the former. The thing that made Bin Laden dangerous was the fact that he once had an organized military machine that had almost complete control of a foreign country. This enabled him to launch a well co-ordinated strike involving dozens or even hundreds of accomplices. The fact that Hasan and Bin Laden had the same narrative in their heads is an accidental, not an essential property, and therefore should not be used to put them in the same category. What goes on between their ears is not the problem, the problem is what actions they perform and/or are capable of performing. The actions that Hasan performed were those of a lone gunman, and that's what they would have been even if, like the Columbine killers, he had had two or three friends who had helped him. His appearance on the scene gives us no reason to either believe or disbelieve that terrorism is again on the march, or that we need to gird up our loins to prepare for another 9/11 style assault.
Sunday, November 8, 2009
Who are "the Unbelievers"?
I have been following a discussion on beliefnet in which an apparently Christian poster quotes this passage from the Koran.
"O you who believe! do not take the Jews and the Christians for friends; they are friends of each other; and whoever amongst you takes them for a friend, then surely he is one of them; surely Allah does not guide the unjust people." Qur'an 5:51
and claims this is proof that "Islam is against the rest of humanity".
The Author admits that "I have heard that particular Ayah explained as not applying to all Jews and Christians" , but adds "there is no general consensus about that in the various sects of Islam, nor is there anything to conclusively prove otherwise in Hadith or other sources, so it seems correct to take that literally."
He/She contrasts this with the following passage in the Bible
Philippians 2: 3,4
Do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.
Overall the tone on this post is quite reasonable and patient, although you might not think so from the quotes I've made here. This provides one more piece of evidence for my main criticism of this post: the phrase "take that literally", which I hear so much from those in the Abrahamic traditions. I think that phrase can only mean "whatever meaning pops into my head, when I read it 2000 years after it was written." Meaning is always determined by context, so if you want to know what any sentence means you have to know when it was said and what was happening at the time. When these phrases came to Muhammad, he was surrounded by Arabs of 3 different religions (Christians, Jews and Pagans) that were actively trying to kill him and his community. He had preached peace for the years prior to that, and his community needed to realize that in this case those teachings of peace had to be temporarily suspended to insure the survival of the community. There are several passages describing characteristics of "The Jews", "The Christians" or "The Pagans", which refer to specific actions performed by those particular Jewish, Christian, and Pagan Arabs, which show that these were the only Pagans, Jews and Christians he was referring to. Some translations of the Koran translate the word I refer to as "Pagan" with the word "Unbeliever", which causes even greater confusion. Many Christians think that this term refers to them as well, even though distinctions are made between Christians, Jews, and Unbelievers in the complete text. Ambiguity in translation causes almost as many problems as ambiguity of context.
The author of this post is quite right that there are some Muslims who interpret these passages as applying to all non-Muslims. I would encourage all Muslims to actively speak up against these interpretations of the Koran. All texts are subject to multiple interpretations, and a legitimate interpretation would have to harmonize with the overall message of the Koran. My interpretation above harmonizes with the famous "Let there be no compulsion in religion" sura, so it seem to me that it is the most rational one to accept.
The fact that there is more than one interpretation of a text does not mean that any interpretation is acceptable. There is no legitimate way you can accept Woody Allen's interpretion of the Talmud as saying that one should only avoid eating pork in certain restaurants. The most widely accepted "literal" interpretion of Sura 4:89 (that Apostates should be killed) is just plain wrong, even though many Muslims and Islamophobes interpret it that way. To see this, you don't have to recreate the context of 7th century Arabia. You only have to read two or three passages on either side of the quote. Taken 'literally", i.e. out of context, it means exactly the opposite of what it actually says. Check my post on Sura 4:89 for a further explanation.
P.S. I also don't think it was fair to compare Islam and Christianity by quoting the worst passage one can find in the Koran and the best passage in the Bible. There are plenty of passages in the Bible that are scarier than that (Esther ordering the slaughter of all of Haman's people). And if you look at the history of the Islamic empires, you'll see that the Muslims had a much better record for tolerance that the Christians (Compare Spain before and after Christian rule.)
"O you who believe! do not take the Jews and the Christians for friends; they are friends of each other; and whoever amongst you takes them for a friend, then surely he is one of them; surely Allah does not guide the unjust people." Qur'an 5:51
and claims this is proof that "Islam is against the rest of humanity".
The Author admits that "I have heard that particular Ayah explained as not applying to all Jews and Christians" , but adds "there is no general consensus about that in the various sects of Islam, nor is there anything to conclusively prove otherwise in Hadith or other sources, so it seems correct to take that literally."
He/She contrasts this with the following passage in the Bible
Philippians 2: 3,4
Do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.
Overall the tone on this post is quite reasonable and patient, although you might not think so from the quotes I've made here. This provides one more piece of evidence for my main criticism of this post: the phrase "take that literally", which I hear so much from those in the Abrahamic traditions. I think that phrase can only mean "whatever meaning pops into my head, when I read it 2000 years after it was written." Meaning is always determined by context, so if you want to know what any sentence means you have to know when it was said and what was happening at the time. When these phrases came to Muhammad, he was surrounded by Arabs of 3 different religions (Christians, Jews and Pagans) that were actively trying to kill him and his community. He had preached peace for the years prior to that, and his community needed to realize that in this case those teachings of peace had to be temporarily suspended to insure the survival of the community. There are several passages describing characteristics of "The Jews", "The Christians" or "The Pagans", which refer to specific actions performed by those particular Jewish, Christian, and Pagan Arabs, which show that these were the only Pagans, Jews and Christians he was referring to. Some translations of the Koran translate the word I refer to as "Pagan" with the word "Unbeliever", which causes even greater confusion. Many Christians think that this term refers to them as well, even though distinctions are made between Christians, Jews, and Unbelievers in the complete text. Ambiguity in translation causes almost as many problems as ambiguity of context.
The author of this post is quite right that there are some Muslims who interpret these passages as applying to all non-Muslims. I would encourage all Muslims to actively speak up against these interpretations of the Koran. All texts are subject to multiple interpretations, and a legitimate interpretation would have to harmonize with the overall message of the Koran. My interpretation above harmonizes with the famous "Let there be no compulsion in religion" sura, so it seem to me that it is the most rational one to accept.
The fact that there is more than one interpretation of a text does not mean that any interpretation is acceptable. There is no legitimate way you can accept Woody Allen's interpretion of the Talmud as saying that one should only avoid eating pork in certain restaurants. The most widely accepted "literal" interpretion of Sura 4:89 (that Apostates should be killed) is just plain wrong, even though many Muslims and Islamophobes interpret it that way. To see this, you don't have to recreate the context of 7th century Arabia. You only have to read two or three passages on either side of the quote. Taken 'literally", i.e. out of context, it means exactly the opposite of what it actually says. Check my post on Sura 4:89 for a further explanation.
P.S. I also don't think it was fair to compare Islam and Christianity by quoting the worst passage one can find in the Koran and the best passage in the Bible. There are plenty of passages in the Bible that are scarier than that (Esther ordering the slaughter of all of Haman's people). And if you look at the history of the Islamic empires, you'll see that the Muslims had a much better record for tolerance that the Christians (Compare Spain before and after Christian rule.)
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
Abida Parveen:Daughter of the Dargah
From an article first published in India Currents
The Liner notes of the recent Navras DVD Songs of the Mystics assert that Abida Parveen is “The only woman allowed to sing at the shrines of the Sufi saints.” There must be a story behind this, I thought. I was sure there must have been public denunciations of her by fundamentalist mullahs, which were answered in turn by Sufi mystics and music lovers, resulting in her being carried into the shrines on the shoulders of triumphant well-wishers. I thought that all I would have to do is line up the positive and negative quotes, and I’d have a great story about the triumph of common sense, art, and genuine religious feeling. The problem with this speculation was that this woman seemed to be as universally popular as the Dalai Lama. I couldn’t find anybody who criticized her, even on the most conservative Moslem websites, except for one polite suggestion that she wear a headscarf. Even more remarkable, she had been trained by Khyal vocalist Salamat Ali Khan. How was this woman able to change the mind of a man who for many years had refused to give musical instruction to his own daughter, who would grow up to become the popular Pakistani vocalist Riffat Sultana?
The answer turned out to be far more complicated than it first appears. Riffat informed me that her father’s early refusal to teach her had nothing to do with Islam. “There are some families that permit woman to sing and others that don’t,” she said. “My mother sang for friends and family, and she was very good. But my family gharana was a lineage of male singers, so we women were not permitted to sing in public.” And yet, the Navras DVD liner notes say that Parveen’s father also came from a lineage of male singers. Despite this, he had designated her as his musical successor when she was five years old, even though he had eligible male relatives. Apparently these rules, like most other South Asian traditions, can be bent or broken when necessary. Does this make it possible for women to express themselves in a culture that Westerners see as male-dominated?
The beginnings of an answer can be found in The Female voice in Sufi Ritual by Bengali Anthropologist Shemeen Burney Abbas. According to Abbas, some dargahs (Sufi shrines), do forbid women to sing. However, most dargahs permit women to sing for other women, many dargahs permit them to perform for everyone on special occasions, and many dargahs permit woman to perform regularly for everyone. There is in fact, a whole class of women who make their living by singing at dargahs for alms. They perform in a style called Sufiana-kalam, which is both similar to and significantly different from the male-dominated Qawwali. Both forms derive their texts from the teachings of the great Sufi mystics. But Qawwali usually begins with an invocation in Arabic or classical Persian before switching to a vernacular language such as Sindi or Punjabi. Sufiana-Kalam is sung in the local vernacular throughout. Qawwali singers create complicated improvisations. Sufiani-Kalam sticks to a well-known folk melody sung solo or in group unison. Qawwali is thus a sophisticated elitist form that makes room for artistic virtuosity, whereas Sufiani-Kalam is a folk form sung mostly by the poor and uneducated. The main reason that women of certain families are not allowed to sing thus appears to be a very non-Islamic one. Even though Islam officially rejects the caste system, people everywhere don’t like to be associated with those on the bottom of the economic ladder.
Abida Parveen’s studies of Khyal and Qawwali have enabled her to transform Sufiani-Kalam to a new level of improvised artistic virtuosity. Although not the first woman to sing in dargahs, her artistic innovations have made her the first to be treated with this kind of respect and reverence. She also performs her own unique versions of ghazals, qawwali, and other traditionally male-dominated styles, in ways which can be seen as truer to the original intentions of the poetry. Because the word “Islam” literally means submission, the great Sufi mystics believed that the essence of Islamic worship was visible in the lives of women, who regularly submit to the demands of husband and family. Consequently, they often wrote poetry from the point of view of women, comparing themselves, for example, to brides who lift the veil when they first see the face of Allah. When male Qawwali singers perform these songs, they often sing them in falsetto, an artifice which is obviously unnecessary for Parveen. One could say that when she performs these songs, she is a woman pretending to be a man pretending to be a woman. But in fact, what she expresses, both by her singing and her personal example, is that spiritual aspiration transcends all distinctions of class and gender.
The Liner notes of the recent Navras DVD Songs of the Mystics assert that Abida Parveen is “The only woman allowed to sing at the shrines of the Sufi saints.” There must be a story behind this, I thought. I was sure there must have been public denunciations of her by fundamentalist mullahs, which were answered in turn by Sufi mystics and music lovers, resulting in her being carried into the shrines on the shoulders of triumphant well-wishers. I thought that all I would have to do is line up the positive and negative quotes, and I’d have a great story about the triumph of common sense, art, and genuine religious feeling. The problem with this speculation was that this woman seemed to be as universally popular as the Dalai Lama. I couldn’t find anybody who criticized her, even on the most conservative Moslem websites, except for one polite suggestion that she wear a headscarf. Even more remarkable, she had been trained by Khyal vocalist Salamat Ali Khan. How was this woman able to change the mind of a man who for many years had refused to give musical instruction to his own daughter, who would grow up to become the popular Pakistani vocalist Riffat Sultana?
The answer turned out to be far more complicated than it first appears. Riffat informed me that her father’s early refusal to teach her had nothing to do with Islam. “There are some families that permit woman to sing and others that don’t,” she said. “My mother sang for friends and family, and she was very good. But my family gharana was a lineage of male singers, so we women were not permitted to sing in public.” And yet, the Navras DVD liner notes say that Parveen’s father also came from a lineage of male singers. Despite this, he had designated her as his musical successor when she was five years old, even though he had eligible male relatives. Apparently these rules, like most other South Asian traditions, can be bent or broken when necessary. Does this make it possible for women to express themselves in a culture that Westerners see as male-dominated?
The beginnings of an answer can be found in The Female voice in Sufi Ritual by Bengali Anthropologist Shemeen Burney Abbas. According to Abbas, some dargahs (Sufi shrines), do forbid women to sing. However, most dargahs permit women to sing for other women, many dargahs permit them to perform for everyone on special occasions, and many dargahs permit woman to perform regularly for everyone. There is in fact, a whole class of women who make their living by singing at dargahs for alms. They perform in a style called Sufiana-kalam, which is both similar to and significantly different from the male-dominated Qawwali. Both forms derive their texts from the teachings of the great Sufi mystics. But Qawwali usually begins with an invocation in Arabic or classical Persian before switching to a vernacular language such as Sindi or Punjabi. Sufiana-Kalam is sung in the local vernacular throughout. Qawwali singers create complicated improvisations. Sufiani-Kalam sticks to a well-known folk melody sung solo or in group unison. Qawwali is thus a sophisticated elitist form that makes room for artistic virtuosity, whereas Sufiani-Kalam is a folk form sung mostly by the poor and uneducated. The main reason that women of certain families are not allowed to sing thus appears to be a very non-Islamic one. Even though Islam officially rejects the caste system, people everywhere don’t like to be associated with those on the bottom of the economic ladder.
Abida Parveen’s studies of Khyal and Qawwali have enabled her to transform Sufiani-Kalam to a new level of improvised artistic virtuosity. Although not the first woman to sing in dargahs, her artistic innovations have made her the first to be treated with this kind of respect and reverence. She also performs her own unique versions of ghazals, qawwali, and other traditionally male-dominated styles, in ways which can be seen as truer to the original intentions of the poetry. Because the word “Islam” literally means submission, the great Sufi mystics believed that the essence of Islamic worship was visible in the lives of women, who regularly submit to the demands of husband and family. Consequently, they often wrote poetry from the point of view of women, comparing themselves, for example, to brides who lift the veil when they first see the face of Allah. When male Qawwali singers perform these songs, they often sing them in falsetto, an artifice which is obviously unnecessary for Parveen. One could say that when she performs these songs, she is a woman pretending to be a man pretending to be a woman. But in fact, what she expresses, both by her singing and her personal example, is that spiritual aspiration transcends all distinctions of class and gender.
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Islam and Hindustani Music
One of the reasons I cannot think of Islam as being a fundamentally intolerant religion is that almost all of my Hindustani music teachers, and many of my favorite Hindustani musicians are Muslim. These men are extremely devout, and see their music as their spiritual practice. They also frequently combine their Islam with reverence for various Hindu deities. Salamat Ali Khan came from a four hundred year old lineage that was commissioned by the Emperor Akbar to perform and preserve Hindu religious songs. Ali Akbar Khan and his father Allaudin Khan were both devotees of the Goddess Saraswati, and there are several portraits of her at the Ali Akbar College of music, including a stained glass window. Bismillah Khan was a devout Shia Moslem. He prayed five times a day, abstained from pork and alcohol, took the pilgrimage to Mecca, and regularly gave alms to the poor. He also abstained from beef to honor the values of Hinduism. However, his family has played in Hindu temples for generations. He is also a devotee of Saraswati, and he onced received a vision of a Hindu avatar while playing. And how does he justify this to the fundamentalist Shia who claim that all music is haraam? (damned). The following quote (from INDIA TODAY, July 15, 1986, pp. 122-131) expresses his integrity and devotion with an eloquence that requires no further comment.
“When maulvis and maulanas ask me about this, I tell them, sometimes with irritation, that I can't explain it. I feel it. I feel it. If music is haraam then why has it reached such heights? Why does it make me soar towards heaven? The religion of music is one. All others are different. I tell the maulanas, this is the only haqeeqat (reality). This is the world. My namaaz is the seven shuddh and five komal surs. And if this is haraam, then I say: aur haraam karo, aur haraam karo (if music be a thing of sin, sin on)."
“I was once in an argument with some Shia maulavis in Iraq. They were all well-versed in their subject and were making several effective arguments about reasons why music ought to be damned. At first I was left speechless. Then I closed my eyes and began to sing Raga Bhairav: Allah-hee....Allah-hee....Allah-hee...I continued to raise the pitch. I opened my eyes and I asked them : 'Is this haraam? I'm calling God. I'm thinking of Him, I'm searching for Him. Isn't this namaaz? Why do you call my search haraam?' They fell silent.”
“When maulvis and maulanas ask me about this, I tell them, sometimes with irritation, that I can't explain it. I feel it. I feel it. If music is haraam then why has it reached such heights? Why does it make me soar towards heaven? The religion of music is one. All others are different. I tell the maulanas, this is the only haqeeqat (reality). This is the world. My namaaz is the seven shuddh and five komal surs. And if this is haraam, then I say: aur haraam karo, aur haraam karo (if music be a thing of sin, sin on)."
“I was once in an argument with some Shia maulavis in Iraq. They were all well-versed in their subject and were making several effective arguments about reasons why music ought to be damned. At first I was left speechless. Then I closed my eyes and began to sing Raga Bhairav: Allah-hee....Allah-hee....Allah-hee...I continued to raise the pitch. I opened my eyes and I asked them : 'Is this haraam? I'm calling God. I'm thinking of Him, I'm searching for Him. Isn't this namaaz? Why do you call my search haraam?' They fell silent.”
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
The TaqwaTour
My second article on Muslim punk from India Currents
Writing a review of a book or recording is much easier than writing about the reality that produced it—or in the case of Michael Muhammad Knight’s the Taqwacores, the reality the book produced. Knight’s book is full of surprises, but at least it sits there quietly in your hands and doesn’t protest any of your descriptions of it. Real-life Taqwacore musicians are an independent lot, and resist anyone’s attempt to create a pigeonhole for them. The New York Times and the Rolling Stone both said that Muslim Punk was created in response to Knight’s book. Marwan Kamel, whose band Al-Thawra takes its name from the Arabic translation of "The Revolution, explains that the truth is more complicated. “ We were not the first Muslim punk bands, even if we were the first Taqwacore bands. Punk bands have existed in Indonesia, Malaysia, and the rest of Southeast Asia since the 80's. The idea of "Muslim punk" isn't that important there, because the vast majority of people are Muslims. As Mike said in a conversation with me once, ‘What do you call Chinese food in China, it's just food.’ So, likewise Muslim punk is just punk for them.”
So what is Taqwacore, if not Muslim punk? I tried at first to answer that question quasi-scientifically, by sending out a generic questionnaire to several bands that identified themselves as Taqwacore. I got some friendly and informative responses, but some band’s reactions varied from suspicious to overtly hostile. “Look, there are plenty Muslims who don’t know s—t about Islam.” replied Saag Al-sistanti of the Saag Taqwacore Syndicate “Just like the back country good ol boys who don’t know s--t about the bible. But they still consider themselves Christian, and they are not put to a 'Christian Litmus Test'..... Are we not Muslim enough? Is that it?” He had my agenda wrong, but he was right that I had an unconscious agenda. I was trying to make Taqwacore represent a new Muslim ideology. Taqwacore is more interested in questioning all ideology than creating a new one. “We (the real-life taqwacores) are really just putting our identity conflict on display for the world to see” says Kamel, “Taqwacore means we can be complicated Muslims and complicated punks... as long as we stay true to ourselves.”
No one wanted to use ideology to divide or unite the “good” and “bad” Muslims. The Secret Trial Five is a Canadian All-female Taqwacore band, whose lead singer, Sena Hussain, is openly gay. I thought she would have felt some solidarity with gay Islamic reformer Irshad Manji, but instead Hussain criticized Manji for her support of “Apartheid states like Israel.” “I know some very conservative Muslims who treat me as a brother, even though I've made all kinds of crazy rebellious statements about religion” says Knight “They humble me with the way that they live their Islam. I've spoken at mosques and Islamic events and have been received with decency.” Real-life Muslims, unlike their media caricatures, often agree to disagree, and tolerate their differences even when their disagreement is strong and passionate.
When Michael Muhammad Knight painted camels on the side of his green bus and began his “Taqwatour” of both Punk Clubs and Moslem community centers, he traveled with five Taqwacore bands that shook up both Muslim and Punk Orthodoxy. Only the Secret Trial Five exemplified the raw angry adolescent energy of traditional hardcore punk. Al Thawra uses sophisticated sampling and mixing techniques that combine drum machines, violins, and middle-eastern instruments with what they call “heavy sludgy crust punk”. The Kominas use dramatic changes in tempo, orchestration, and musical style that create political playlets reminiscent of Brecht and Weil (Only louder, most of the time.) Vote Hezbollah repeatedly point out that their name is a joke, but their song “Poppy Fields” pulls no punches in its criticisms of American foreign policy. It features a gritty Tom Waits-style vocal, and closes with an impressively frantic hi-hat solo. Omar Waqar performed without his former band Diacritical, perhaps because certain members were ambivalent about being exclusively identified as Taqwacore. (There is a long discussion about this issue on his blog.) His style with that band was closer to being heavy metal than anything else, but his numerous other influences defy easy categorization. The evening’s entertainment was thus definitely not for the purist, whether punk or Muslim. Despite the Taqwatour’s deliberately controversial style, however, the mainstream American Muslim reaction was admirably restrained.
Perhaps the most crucial moment of the Taqwatour was their performance at the national convention of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA). Undeniably, they freaked out lots of people. The Secret Trial Five’s blog reports that many walked out when they heard the group’s “scratchy punk vocals”. There was an off-stage argument between the “head dude” and Mike Knight. The police were called, which inspired Knight to lead the crowd in a chant of “Pigs are Haram”. But hey, nobody threw any bombs, or stones, or crashed any airplanes into the side of the green bus. The Taqwatour set up a booth at the ISNA conference and the public reaction was summed up as “a few people looking at us funny…overall a controversy free day.” At the ISNA open mike, the Taqwatour shared the stage with Muslim rappers, beat boxers and poets who used almost as much profanity as they did. There are online videos of the event which show girls in hijabs smiling, screaming, and giving devil-horn hand gestures. The organizer of the event eventually admitted she made a judgment error in calling the police, and that it would have been better to have talked things out. It is not always a peaceful relationship, but the Taqwacore sensibility is an integral part of modern Moslem culture, and not just in America. The Dead Bhuttos live in Pakistan, and record in Punjabi. The Kominas have toured Pakistan. Personally, I’m looking forward to the time when Christian and Moslems parents can sit down together and mutually commiserate over their crazy Punk Rock children. If that won’t shatter old boundaries, I don’t know what will.
(The Myspace pages of these groups can be found through the search engines at www.myspace.com)
Writing a review of a book or recording is much easier than writing about the reality that produced it—or in the case of Michael Muhammad Knight’s the Taqwacores, the reality the book produced. Knight’s book is full of surprises, but at least it sits there quietly in your hands and doesn’t protest any of your descriptions of it. Real-life Taqwacore musicians are an independent lot, and resist anyone’s attempt to create a pigeonhole for them. The New York Times and the Rolling Stone both said that Muslim Punk was created in response to Knight’s book. Marwan Kamel, whose band Al-Thawra takes its name from the Arabic translation of "The Revolution, explains that the truth is more complicated. “ We were not the first Muslim punk bands, even if we were the first Taqwacore bands. Punk bands have existed in Indonesia, Malaysia, and the rest of Southeast Asia since the 80's. The idea of "Muslim punk" isn't that important there, because the vast majority of people are Muslims. As Mike said in a conversation with me once, ‘What do you call Chinese food in China, it's just food.’ So, likewise Muslim punk is just punk for them.”
So what is Taqwacore, if not Muslim punk? I tried at first to answer that question quasi-scientifically, by sending out a generic questionnaire to several bands that identified themselves as Taqwacore. I got some friendly and informative responses, but some band’s reactions varied from suspicious to overtly hostile. “Look, there are plenty Muslims who don’t know s—t about Islam.” replied Saag Al-sistanti of the Saag Taqwacore Syndicate “Just like the back country good ol boys who don’t know s--t about the bible. But they still consider themselves Christian, and they are not put to a 'Christian Litmus Test'..... Are we not Muslim enough? Is that it?” He had my agenda wrong, but he was right that I had an unconscious agenda. I was trying to make Taqwacore represent a new Muslim ideology. Taqwacore is more interested in questioning all ideology than creating a new one. “We (the real-life taqwacores) are really just putting our identity conflict on display for the world to see” says Kamel, “Taqwacore means we can be complicated Muslims and complicated punks... as long as we stay true to ourselves.”
No one wanted to use ideology to divide or unite the “good” and “bad” Muslims. The Secret Trial Five is a Canadian All-female Taqwacore band, whose lead singer, Sena Hussain, is openly gay. I thought she would have felt some solidarity with gay Islamic reformer Irshad Manji, but instead Hussain criticized Manji for her support of “Apartheid states like Israel.” “I know some very conservative Muslims who treat me as a brother, even though I've made all kinds of crazy rebellious statements about religion” says Knight “They humble me with the way that they live their Islam. I've spoken at mosques and Islamic events and have been received with decency.” Real-life Muslims, unlike their media caricatures, often agree to disagree, and tolerate their differences even when their disagreement is strong and passionate.
When Michael Muhammad Knight painted camels on the side of his green bus and began his “Taqwatour” of both Punk Clubs and Moslem community centers, he traveled with five Taqwacore bands that shook up both Muslim and Punk Orthodoxy. Only the Secret Trial Five exemplified the raw angry adolescent energy of traditional hardcore punk. Al Thawra uses sophisticated sampling and mixing techniques that combine drum machines, violins, and middle-eastern instruments with what they call “heavy sludgy crust punk”. The Kominas use dramatic changes in tempo, orchestration, and musical style that create political playlets reminiscent of Brecht and Weil (Only louder, most of the time.) Vote Hezbollah repeatedly point out that their name is a joke, but their song “Poppy Fields” pulls no punches in its criticisms of American foreign policy. It features a gritty Tom Waits-style vocal, and closes with an impressively frantic hi-hat solo. Omar Waqar performed without his former band Diacritical, perhaps because certain members were ambivalent about being exclusively identified as Taqwacore. (There is a long discussion about this issue on his blog.) His style with that band was closer to being heavy metal than anything else, but his numerous other influences defy easy categorization. The evening’s entertainment was thus definitely not for the purist, whether punk or Muslim. Despite the Taqwatour’s deliberately controversial style, however, the mainstream American Muslim reaction was admirably restrained.
Perhaps the most crucial moment of the Taqwatour was their performance at the national convention of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA). Undeniably, they freaked out lots of people. The Secret Trial Five’s blog reports that many walked out when they heard the group’s “scratchy punk vocals”. There was an off-stage argument between the “head dude” and Mike Knight. The police were called, which inspired Knight to lead the crowd in a chant of “Pigs are Haram”. But hey, nobody threw any bombs, or stones, or crashed any airplanes into the side of the green bus. The Taqwatour set up a booth at the ISNA conference and the public reaction was summed up as “a few people looking at us funny…overall a controversy free day.” At the ISNA open mike, the Taqwatour shared the stage with Muslim rappers, beat boxers and poets who used almost as much profanity as they did. There are online videos of the event which show girls in hijabs smiling, screaming, and giving devil-horn hand gestures. The organizer of the event eventually admitted she made a judgment error in calling the police, and that it would have been better to have talked things out. It is not always a peaceful relationship, but the Taqwacore sensibility is an integral part of modern Moslem culture, and not just in America. The Dead Bhuttos live in Pakistan, and record in Punjabi. The Kominas have toured Pakistan. Personally, I’m looking forward to the time when Christian and Moslems parents can sit down together and mutually commiserate over their crazy Punk Rock children. If that won’t shatter old boundaries, I don’t know what will.
(The Myspace pages of these groups can be found through the search engines at www.myspace.com)
Thursday, October 15, 2009
Islam and Forgiveness
I saw a post underneath a video trailer for the new movie "The Stoning of Soraya M." This post said among other things. "I believe the Muslim society shows no forgiveness". This is just plain wrong. Forgiveness is recognized as a virtue in the Koran, and there are specific criteria explaining when it is permitted and encouraged. The famous commandment about cutting off hands for stealing, for example, is supposed to be carried out ONLY if the thief refuses to ask for forgiveness. It's true that there are lots of people raised as Muslims who do not live up to this ideal. There are also Christians who called out for the Blood of Tookie Williams, and would not let him live out his life sentence in prison, even though he had clearly repented his past actions and was doing everything he could to make amends for them. The worst Muslims do not define Islam, and the worst Christians do not define Christianity.
One of Islam's great contributions to moral reasoning is that they use a three part distinction where most other religions use two. Instead of dividing actions into Good and Evil, Islam make a distinction between actions which are 1) Forbidden 2)Permitted and 3)Blessed. When someone has been wronged, they are permitted to ask for justice, but it is considered blessed to forgive.
I really like this distinction. When I was a Christian, I was frustrated by the fact Christianity required far more from us than anyone could ever possibly give. As Nietzsche and Ayn Rand pointed out, being a good Christian seemed to be a formula for self-mutilation. Muhammad perceptively realized that there are certain things that people must never do under any circumstances, such as murder or theft. However, he also realized that there was more to being a spiritual person that just being a respectable citizen. With the concept of blessed action, he gave people the opportunity to be called to moments of spiritual greatness, recognizing that this opportunity would encourage people to frequently rise above the minimum. It was one more example of his recognition of the principle that there should be no compulsion in religion. If you give people an opportunity to be exceptionally good, they will often take it. If you try to force them to be good, all you produce is backsliders and hypocrites. It's a shame that so many contemporary "Islamic" states have forgotten this.
Reading articles and comments on The Roman Polanski case reminded me of this distinction. Many people have pointed out that Polanski's victim has publically forgiven him, and said that she sees no reason to send him to jail. Others have replied by saying that this makes no difference. According to Western Law, he has committed a crime against the state, and therefore her forgiveness is irrelevant. I am told, however, that according to Sharia Law, if a criminal asks his victim for forgiveness, and the victim grants it, sentences can be reduced or eliminated. Is this why so many people say that Western and Islamic values are incompatible? Because Muslims are not as violent and vengeful as Westerners?
One of Islam's great contributions to moral reasoning is that they use a three part distinction where most other religions use two. Instead of dividing actions into Good and Evil, Islam make a distinction between actions which are 1) Forbidden 2)Permitted and 3)Blessed. When someone has been wronged, they are permitted to ask for justice, but it is considered blessed to forgive.
I really like this distinction. When I was a Christian, I was frustrated by the fact Christianity required far more from us than anyone could ever possibly give. As Nietzsche and Ayn Rand pointed out, being a good Christian seemed to be a formula for self-mutilation. Muhammad perceptively realized that there are certain things that people must never do under any circumstances, such as murder or theft. However, he also realized that there was more to being a spiritual person that just being a respectable citizen. With the concept of blessed action, he gave people the opportunity to be called to moments of spiritual greatness, recognizing that this opportunity would encourage people to frequently rise above the minimum. It was one more example of his recognition of the principle that there should be no compulsion in religion. If you give people an opportunity to be exceptionally good, they will often take it. If you try to force them to be good, all you produce is backsliders and hypocrites. It's a shame that so many contemporary "Islamic" states have forgotten this.
Reading articles and comments on The Roman Polanski case reminded me of this distinction. Many people have pointed out that Polanski's victim has publically forgiven him, and said that she sees no reason to send him to jail. Others have replied by saying that this makes no difference. According to Western Law, he has committed a crime against the state, and therefore her forgiveness is irrelevant. I am told, however, that according to Sharia Law, if a criminal asks his victim for forgiveness, and the victim grants it, sentences can be reduced or eliminated. Is this why so many people say that Western and Islamic values are incompatible? Because Muslims are not as violent and vengeful as Westerners?
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