Texts and Context

Most Christians are not aware of the tremendous differences between the authoritative foundations of their scriptures and the Koran. They simply ignore the fact that the Bible was a compromise reached by a committee, and treat it as the authoritative word of God. They shouldn't ignore this fact, but most do.

I don't think, however, that these sorts of problems disappear once one accepts that the Koran is the direct word of God spoken to Muhammad. The problem is, language gets essentially all of its meaning from the context in which it is spoken, which means the only way one can understand the Koran is to recreate as best one can the historical context in which it was revealed. This is why it so important for Muslims to study both the Koran and the Hadith. When the Koran speaks of "the Jews" or "the Pagans", does it mean all Jews and Christians, or only the Jewish and Pagan Arab tribes that were trying to slaughter Muhammad's people. Sometimes it means one, sometimes the other, and it is very difficult to be sure which is which.

There is also the question of applying the rules implied in the Koran to new cases. Do rules about camels apply to cars? Do rules about swords apply to missiles? Muslims scholars use their intelligence as best they can to answers questions of this sort, but they often do not come to a consensus.

I've been studying the Philosophy of Language for decades, and these problems are much much bigger than most people of any religion realize. They are the main reason that no one has succeeded in building a computer that can understand ordinary language. Philosopher John Searle calls this context "the background" and every sentence gets most of its meaning from this background, and very little from what's actually on the page. This is as true of a sentence like "I'd like a steak with potatoes" as it is with any sentence in the Bible and the Koran. Consequently, even if God or Gabriel spoke directly to Muhammad, we are still left with the hugely challenging task of figuring out what the words meant at the time, and what they would mean today.

I left Christianity and became a Buddhist because of this problem of interpreting Sacred Texts. In Buddhism, we have revered texts, but no texts that can be trusted absolutely, because the truth is seen as something that cannot be expressed in words. I may have move too hastily, for I have since met many Christians and Muslims who recognize that precious as their sacred texts are, they do not absolve you from the responsibility from figuring how to apply their truths to your own life.

Muhammad the Warrior

This quote from a post to Aziz Poonawalla's blog is fairly typical for Islamophobes:

"Even a superficial reading will show that your prophet conducted raids and wars of conquest against his neighbors."

Yes, a superficial reading "shows" this, but a careful reading doesn't. Muhammad never fought any wars of conquest, he only fought to defend himself against the attacks of the Meccans and their Allies. Islam's wars of conquest were fought by the Khalifs who succeeded Muhammad. War during Muhammad's time was a violent and nasty business, even more so than it is now. Often Muhammad rose above his time, and performed acts of unprecedented mercy and compassion. Other times he had to take into consideration the realities of war, and do things that no one would do in peace time. Did he always make the right decisions? Probably not, he was a man, not a god. But I know I couldn't have handled the moral challenges of his situation anywhere near as well as he did.

Let's take one story the Islamaphobes like to cite: Muhammad's slaughter of 600 Jewish Arabs. Three tribes of Jewish Arabs lived near Muhammads community, abiding by an agreement created by Muhammad known as the Constitution of Medina. Later, in two separate battles, two of these Jewish tribes each formed a secret alliance with Mecca, which almost enabled the Meccans to completely massacre Muhammad's community. The Constitution of Medina specifically forbid any diplomatic or commercial relations with Mecca, because of Mecca's overt hostility to the Islamic Ummah. These particular alliances, however, are generally considered to have been military in nature, and a genuine threat to the Islamic Community. The standard procedure during this time was to slaughter any captured adult male prisoners of war, and sell the women and children into slavery. Muhammad insisted on a more moderate course. Two of these Jewish Arab tribes were sent into exile, and the third tribe, the Banu Qurayza, was allowed to remain as neighbors.

A few years later, One of these exiled Jewish tribes returned to invade Medina, having formed an alliance with both Mecca and other nearby Arabic tribes. The Banu Qurayza were caught conspiring with this alliance. If this conspiracy had been successful, it would have exposed the Muslim's entire rear flank, and almost certainly have resulted in the slaughter of the entire Medinan community. After this alliance had been defeated, (even though the Muslims were outnumbered more than 3 to 1), the Muslims marched on the Banu Qurayza, who surrendered, and agreed to be judged by Sa'd ibn Mua'dh, a leading man among Aws, a Jewish tribe that converted to Islam. The Banu Qurayza obviously believed that a Jewish convert would judge in their favor, and it is likely that Muhammad, who suggested Sa'd, believed the same. Unfortunately, Sa'd opted for the traditional punishment of killing the men and enslaving the women and children, and the Muslim community overwhelmingly supported this verdict.

At this point, Muhammad said something like "you have spoken rightly", which I think was probably the Arabic equivalent of "OK". Did this express approval or reluctant acquiescence? Muhammad's ideas of peace and justice were radically alien to most people of his time and place, including his followers. I don't think he could afford to overturn the traditional procedure for dealing with prisoners of war once his new ideas had placed his people in danger. He did what he could, but it's hard to expect mercy from people whose life has been threatened. What do you think would happen to Obama if he freed everyone at Guantanamo and several of the ex-prisoners commited a terrorist act? And Obama is dealing with a culture that supposedly accepts the idea that people should not be imprisoned without trial.

Bikinis and Earthquakes

A lot of people have been talking about the claims of some Iranian Clerics that scantily dressed women cause earthquakes.

I don't know what the Koran says about this, but I do know that even though this kind of talk is forbidden by the Bible, Christians like Pat Robertson do it all the time. In the book of Job, Job's comforters go on for pages trying to explain why Job is suffering, telling him it must be because of his sins. God appears in a whirlwind, and rebukes the comforters for several pages, telling them that human ignorance makes it impossible for them to account for any of Gods reasons for doing anything. The point being that yes, God has a reason for why bad things like earthquakes happen, but we are specifically forbidden from speculating as to why they happened, and certainly forbidden from using people's bad luck as proof that God is punishing them. My guess is that somewhere in the Koran or the Hadith it says the same thing, as Islam is always stessing that we must accept that God's will exceeds our understanding.

Personally, I think we should recognize that there are not just these two positions on the issue 1) The Universe is a meaningless mechanical process 2) Everything is deliberately planned by an Omnipotent God. I think it is at least possible that there are ordering forces in the universe which shape our destiny, but that they don't control every sparrow's fall, and therefore sometimes shit happens. That's what the ancient Greeks believed, and I think that's very plausible. It would account for the fact that Universe appears to contain both meaningfulness and absurdity, by saying that this appearance is accurate. Speculations about a blind watchmaker require us to claim that the meaningfulness is an illusion, and speculations about an omnipotent God require us to claim that the absurdity is an illusion. I think Occam's razor favors a position which says the world really does contain both meaningfulness and absurdity. On the other hand, I also think that our ignorance of theology is so great that Occam's razor should be used with a grain of salt (to create a painful mixed metaphor.)

Muslim Protest

I originally thought this was overstating the case, but after thinking about it I can see only one thing in this statement that I disagree with. The Palestinians are not being persecuted by Israelis because they are Muslims, but because they are occupying land that the Israelis want. They would get the same treatment if they were Buddhists or Pagans or Christians (Indeed, many Palestinians are Christians.) I think the Palestinians and the Israelis behave about equally badly on this issue, although the winner of the "bad guy race" fluctuates from month to month. The issue of who has the right to be there really is completely orthogonal to questions of religion, which is obscured by the fact that Muslims from England to Malaysia tend strongly to root for the Palestinians because they are Muslims. That's why I'm not going to talk about it here, and why I think it would be better for everyone not to confuse these two issues as deeply as they are confused today.

Muslim Outrage keeps coming (and being ignored)

Thanks once again to Aziz Poonawalla for spreading the word about Muslims who are protesting Islamoid Extremism. Abu Laith Luqman Ahmad is the imam and director of the Masjid Ibrahim Islamic Center in Sacramento, CA. He issued a scathing critique of Anwar Al Awlaki's call to violence recently. I did searches on both his name and his center.s name on the New York Time Website, and found nothing. There were 231 references to Anwar al Awlaki during that same period.

You can find Ahmad's entire statement here. Some excerpts are below.

You asked; “To the Muslims in America, I have this to say: How can your conscience allow you to live in peaceful coexistence with a nation that is responsible for the tyranny and crimes committed against your own brothers and sisters?”

Well, now that you’ve posed the question, I’ll tell you why, and may Allah grant us His mercy. First of all, peaceful coexistence is not a crime; it is a mercy from the Almighty God be He Exalted and Glorified. As American Muslims, we peacefully coexist with our country because we are not under attack because of our faith and we are not driven from our homes; “Allah forbids you not, with regard to those who fight you not for (your) Faith nor drive you out of your homes, from dealing kindly and justly with them: for Allah loveth those who are just.” 60:8 Quran. We live here because some of us were born and raised here, and it is the only home that we know. My forefathers came here as slaves, and have helped build this country with their bare hands. Millions of other Muslims have sought and received refuge and safe passage through this vast land of ours, and have made it their home. As American Muslims, we are of different origins; nevertheless we are here now, and it is the result of God’s divine Providence, and we are connected to this soil.

We live here because we are free men, women and children. We have the right to live here and this is our country. We live here because Millions of American Muslims attend this nations masaajid every week without being accosted, bombed while in prayer, or hindered in any way from worshipping our Lord. Many Muslim Imams and scholars have branded our country as evil, even calling her the ‘Great Satan’. I say that the Lord that we worship favors not the east or the west; He favors the righteous wherever they dwell. “Say: To Allah belong both East and West: He guideth whom He will to a Way that is straight.” Quran, 2:142. So to answer your question about our conscience as we peacefully coexist in The United States of America, my conscience, and the conscience of many Muslim Americans who live in this great land, is clear. As for those Muslims whose conscience and belief compels them to leave this country for another land, then the door is open for them to leave.

As for your call for American Muslims to wage jihad against our country and homeland; the land that you are urging us to wage war against, is the land of our homes that we are obligated to protect. In a prophetic narration by Abdullah ibn Amr ibn al-’As, he said: When we were around the Apostle of Allah (SAWS), he mentioned the period of commotion (fitnah) saying: “When you see the people that their covenants have been impaired, (the fulfilling of) the guarantees becomes rare, and they become thus (interwining his fingers). I then got up and said: What should I do at that time, may Allah make me ransom for you? He replied: “Keep to your house, control your tongue, accept what you approve, and abandon what you disapprove, attend to your own affairs, and leave alone the affairs of the generality.”[1] Therefore as Muslim Americans we are obligated by faith to protect our homes, and our homeland upon which they stand, as our homes are our refuge.

The people whom you claim we are obligated to take up arms against are our neighbors whom we live next to and share neighborhoods with, and our Prophet (SAWS) informs us to honor our neighbors by his words in the hadith reported by Abu Shuraih; “By Allah, he does not believe! By Allah, he does not believe! By Allah, he does not believe!” It was said, “Who is that, O Allah’s Apostle?” He said, “That person whose neighbor does not feel safe from his evil.“[2] Furthermore, in the hadith of Aisha, she mentioned that the Prophet (SAWS) said “Gabriel continued to recommend me about treating the neighbors kindly and politely so much so that I thought he would order me to make them as my heirs.”[3] They are our co-workers whom we work alongside them, our students who we teach, and our teachers who we learn from. The people whom you incite us to violence against are our firefighters who defend our homes and our property from ruin, our law enforcement officers who patrol our streets at night, and municipal workers who restore power after the storms, and remove injurious objects from the road. The individuals whom you suggest we wage jihad against are our physicians, nurses and medical professionals who care for our sick and mend the broken bones of our children. They are university professors that you yourself have benefitted from and under whose instruction you obtained your engineering degree. So in summary, my dear Imam and may Allah guide us, we must categorically reject your petition that we wage jihad against the United States of America as in doing so we would be in disobedience to Allah subhaanahu wa ta’ala and His Prophet (SAWS).

Muslim Non-Outrage

Below is the complete text of Statement made by Karamah an organization of Women Muslim Lawyers, which is pretty much self-explanatory. It counteracts the stereotype of irrational insult-sensitive Muslims quite well, I think. They are also doing some really extraordinary and important other work, as you can see by looking at other pages of their website.


KARAMAH was contacted by a number of Muslim organizations, which were concerned about reports of a sculptured representation of the Prophet Muhammad in the historical frieze on the north wall of the Supreme Courtroom. KARAMAH was also asked by these organizations to contact the Supreme Court administrators and discuss the matter.

A KARAMAH delegation visited the Supreme Court and looked at the frieze, one of several honoring a broad spectrum of leading figures in the law, including the Prophet Moses, Napoleon, and the fourth Chief Justice of the United States John Marshall. Contrary to early information, the frieze does not contain an inscription referring to the Prophet Muhammad as "the founder of Islam." That statement appears in a caption prepared by the museum in connection with a miniature replica of the frieze on display there. The statement is repeated in brochures distributed to visitors.

KARAMAH explained to the administrators that for Muslims, the Prophet is not the "founder" of Islam. As an Abrahamic religion, Islam is considered by Muslims as a later revelation of the same message revealed to Moses and Jesus. Supreme Court administrators showed great sensitivity and understanding of the matter. It was readily agreed that the caption would be revised to describe Prophet Muhammad as the "Prophet" of Islam. It will also be revised to refer briefly to the concerns discussed below.

Furthermore, the sculptured figure purportedly of the Prophet, carries what appears to be a Qur’an in one hand and a sword in the other. Some Muslims expressed their concern to us that the sword would reinforce the current stereotype about Muslims as violent. In fact, KARAMAH discovered that throughout the friezes in the Supreme Courtroom and at the entrance of the Supreme Court itself (statue on the Authority of the Law, lamppost on west entrance, base of Plaza flag poles), swords are repeatedly used as a symbol for the protection of law and justice. Based on these facts, KARAMAH has concluded that there is no reason to assume a contrary intention in the case of the Prophet Muhammad.

A more complex issue remained; namely that of the sculptured representation of the Prophet in the frieze. Muslims have generally refrained from such representation as a strong expression of their commitment to monotheism. Islam was revealed initially to a population of idol worshippers. Fearing a return to these old practices, jurists discouraged any sculptured or even pictorial representation of the Prophet early on. That tradition has generally continued throughout Muslim history, although some Muslim cultures, such as the Turkish and Persian ones, did produce throughout history art, which represented the Prophet pictorially.

While KARAMAH fully identifies with the Islamic aversion to such representation of the Prophet, we are very pleased that Islamic contributions to law are recognized in the highest court of our land. We see that attempt in a tolerant light similar to that in which earlier Muslims saw Turkish and Persian art. It is well intentioned. While it is not what we would have chosen to represent Islam, we do appreciate this early attempt at recognizing Islamic contributions to American jurisprudence and we do not believe it is necessary to destroy it. In reaching this position, we have consulted with many Muslim leaders and relied upon the reasoned opinion of Dr. Taha Jabir al-Alwani, President of the Fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence) Council of North America.

The Trouble with Mawlid

This Post is inspired by a beliefnet discussion on the celebration of Muhammad’s birthday or Mawlid . The discussion began with a post which said in part:

I converted to Islam almost 10 years ago. One of the many things that I found interesting about this deen is how G-d (Allah, swt) is a diety with no partners and how the messengers of G-d are not diefied. As a Christian, I always thought that the reverence for Jesus (Isa, as) was equal to worship.… My husband really wants our family to partake in the Mawlid festivities this year. I am extremely uncomfortable with it. Not just because I feel that this is wrong on so many levels, but, I find myself thinking of my Muslim brothers and sisters as hypocrites for mocking the Christians who celebrate Christmas yet find it "permissable" to celebrate Mawlid. Really, what is the difference?

I do love the Prophet, saws. He was a special creation for all mankind and I am a beneficiary of the message from Allah, swt, he delivered. But, he was a man- not G-d.

The responses this discussion received reveal that modern Islamic thought cannot be understood with a simple dichotomy of liberals vs. conservatives. The posters I’ve thought of as liberal were unsurprisingly supportive (one compared it to celebrating one’s mother’s birthday). The Conservatives, however, were all over the map. Abdullah gave his usual scholarly review, and claimed that it was a matter of choice because there was a roughly equal number of Imans who came down on each side.

There seem to be two main arguments against celebrating Mawlid 1) We should not add new practices that were not performed in Muhammad’s time 2) Muhammad was a man, not God, and therefore should not be worshipped as Jesus is worshipped.

The first argument cannot be consistently used by the Conservative Clerics who cite it most frequently, because they themselves have added a host of prohibitions to Islamic practice that were not followed in Muhammad’s time: separating men and women during worship, forbidding music, requiring women other than the prophet’s wives to wear veils, forbidding women to run businesses and drive cars etc. etc. Interestingly, these clerics seemed to think it’s OK to forbid things that Muhammad didn’t forbid, but not OK to permit things unless Muhammad specifically permitted them. Apparently whatever isn’t permitted is forbidden. This kind of attitude is not unique to the Muslim world by any means. H.L. Mencken defined a puritan as a person who is deeply worried that someone somewhere might be having fun. These people often acquire positions of spiritual authority in every religious tradition, because it is easy to confuse hating the world with loving God.

I am glad that Abdullah was willing to accept that there was no consensus of scholars on this issue, and that his conclusion was clearly based on careful research and reasoning. I would suggest, however, that he be less willing to rely on an argument that he has frequently used in our discussions with each other “Allah never unites the Muslims on an error”. The Salafi scholars he frequently cites almost universally agree that the Muslims have been united on many errors ever since the passing of the rightly guided Khalifs. Beliefnet poster Bint Maqbool apparently agrees with this when he says that the Prophet's birthday was celebrated only "when many of the features of true religion had vanished and bid’ah had become widespread”. I disagree with almost all of the reforms proposed by the followers of Muhammad ibn Abd al Wahhab, but I do agree with him that all religions need to reform themselves regularly in order to stay spiritually healthy. The Koran does say “If ye turn back (From the Path), He will substitute in your stead another people; then they would not be like you! (Sura 47:38). This seems to me to imply that it is possible for the Muslims (or any other group) to unite on an error, and that we each have an obligation to constantly be on guard against that possibility.

The second objection—that Mawlid involves worshipping Muhammad—has grains of truth that cannot be so easily dismissed. If I were a Muslim, I would be more aggressively critical of certain practices common in Islam which seem to me to come dangerously close to deifying Muhammad. I would question the willingness to treat everything Muhammad said (or Muhammad’s cousin said) with the same kind of reverence as the Koran. I would also question the banning of pictures of Muhammad, which I believe is now having the opposite effect than it had in Muhammad’s time. Muhammad originally banned his followers from making pictures of him because he wanted to make sure that his followers worshipped Allah without any intermediary. However, when this ban is applied to non-Muslims, as it never was in his time and often is today, Muhammad becomes so sacred that no one should ever be allowed to make pictures of him.

However, as I am not Muslim, I am both more tolerant of the use of spiritual intermediaries and less willing to make judgments about what is going on in the hearts of people from other cultures. I am a professor of Western Philosophy and am reasonably skilfull at interpreting texts. But my study of Islam has only just begun, and mere study can never substitute for the experience that comes from actual spiritual practice. Only those who live and practice Islam can judge if there is any validity to these comments. I offer them only for your consideration.

With that caveat in mind, I shared with this Muslim sister some comments that might have validity because of our shared experiences of being converts from Christianity to another religion. (Buddhism in my case.)

Perhaps the reason that you find Malwid so disturbing is that it reminds you of your own experience of worshipping Jesus as God during Christmas. If so, it might be best for you to ask your husband to let you stay away from Mawlid ceremonies, until you work these issues out. If I were you, I would recognize that this is your problem, not his or Islam’s, but I think he should respect the fact that these are serious religious issues that you need to wrestle with. Perhaps someday you will see the holiday the way your family and children see it—as an expression of love and respect for Muhammad roughly analogous to celebrating any other esteemed person’s birthday. Until then, however, it is good to search your heart, to make sure that this celebration is genuinely in harmony with your spiritual aspirations.

This is a problem that all religions have recognized, although it is especially crucial to Islam. Sociologist of Religion Peter Berger talks about what he calls the Sacred Canopy—a network of rituals, buildings, art works, priests etc. which enables people to connect to God on a daily basis. The problem with this sacred canopy is that it often becomes a substitute for God, rather than a means of reaching him. (Buddhist teacher Chogyam Trungpa called this mistake “Spiritual Materialism”.) When religious reformers become aware of this kind of corruption, they often demand that the sacred canopy be destroyed, and/or be made as simple as possible, so that people can have a more direct experience of God. We can see this kind of reform in the transition from Catholicism to Protestantism in Christianity. The Catholics rely heavily on what they sometimes call “smells and bells”-Incense, rituals, priests in bejeweled robes etc. The first protestants replaced all this with bare wooden buildings, with one man in a plain black robe reading from a single black book. In Buddhism, Chinese teachers rebelled against the elaborate rituals of Indian Vajrayana Buddhism by creating what is now known as Chan or Zen. Instead of complicated mantras and visualizations, Zen meditation consists of staring at a wall and counting your breaths.

I practice Vajrayana Buddhism (which now survives only in the Tibetan lineages), but I initially had some troubles with the fact that many of the rituals are very similar to Catholic rituals. I eventually discovered that the Vajrayana tradition deals with spiritual materialism not by renouncing the sacred canopy, but by constantly reminding oneself that this canopy is only an illusion that works as a means to enlightenment. There are special meditiations that remind us that our practices, and everything else, are only illusions created by our attachments and choices. But these practices are challenging, and there is no denying that Muhammad was right that there are real dangers in mistaking the means for the ends. Perhaps I am sometimes seduced by spiritual materialism, despite my attempts to focus my awareness on higher essences. But I find these practices seem to make me more patient and compassionate than I otherwise would be, so I keep doing them. Because you have chosen Islam as a spiritual path, you will probably have to make very different decisions about what is spiritually acceptable than the ones that I have made. I wish you all the best in your journey