'Find Heaven' by Daniyal Noorani

Poem: So I Heard they Killed Satan

So I heard they killed Satan

Yet

The crow-picked sockets of rotting cherubs

Shed no tears of joy nor pain.

So they smiteth the Devil

Still

The earth's impaled with crimson steel

Ripped from sinless carcasses.

The evil one is dead and gone

Yet

The Beast has come -

The gorger on the effluent

The coprophage of human hate

And petty caprice, belching

Over Armageddon.

Men gloat over corpses

To them, fair trade for vengeful gain

The Devil may be dead and gone

But Hell and demons still remain.

What's in a Name Part XVIVXIXIXIXIXIXIXIXI

I found out in the newspaper the other day that 41 people were killed and 175 injured in a bombing at a Sufi shrine in Lahore (http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/bombers-target-heart-of-liberal-islam-in-pakistan/story-e6frg6so-1225887291875). My heart filled with rage – but not because of the actual incident itself. Astaghfirullah, something else was the initial cause of my anger.

That article was the front-pager and plastered all over the top in big bold letters was the title ‘Bombers target heart of liberal Islam', in a move that ‘appeared designed to inflame sectarian tensions’. The article goes on to state ‘Lahore is a sort of mecca for Sufism, the liberal, mystical arm of Islam that rejects the concept of jihad and promotes spiritual development through music and prayer’, finishing with a mention of an earlier attack on two Ahmadi mosques.

This piece is a near-perfect example of the hackneyed, reductionist and misleading use of language that newspaper editors and journalists seem so fond of, especially when writing about topics related (or not – religious profiling of delinquent youths, anyone?) to Islam. Complex phenomenon are reduced to easily-digestible categories that pit good versus evil, ‘liberal’ versus ‘conservative’ in a Manichean struggle, for the entertainment of the plebiscite.

As one who is highly empathetic to Sufism, I take it I am a ‘liberal’ then. So what the heck does that mean? That I listen to popular western music (I don’t)? Go to nightclubs (nope)? Wear revealing clothing (I don’t even wear shorts in the Australian summer)? Am I really the same as, for example, the westernized descendents of upper-class Iranian exiles who may do all of the above? On the other hand, I can tell you for a fact that I feel uncomfortable being at the same table with someone with a glass of bubbly. I also pray five times a day, which usually would have marked me as a backward zealot except that according to this article my that is something I do a a means to lovey-dovey spiritual enlightenment (presumably other Muslims don’t pray?).

Oh yes, and I reject jihad! Damn the fact that ‘jihad’ is the term used to mean anything a Muslim might undertake to ‘struggle’ for the perfection of his/other people’s Islam, and can range from refusing to have that extra cookie in the jar, to smiling whenever one greets another person, to defending Jerusalem from the forces of Richard the Lionheart! Damn the fact that so many of the greatest heroes and defenders of the Muslim peoples and upholders of chivalry and honour have been Sufis. Presumably Imam Shamil and Abd al-Qadir al Jazairi spent their days drinking tea and whining about what they could do to better integrate into Imperial society with those nice Russians and Frenchmen (a sausage-sizzle, perhaps?)!

And Sufism is implied to be a sect – but ‘Sufi’ itself is just a term used by westerners to categorise the expression of the science of the purification of the heart. It is a practice and a discipline. Sufism exists across the entire spectrum of Islam. Saying Sufism is a sect is like saying peanut butter is a type of bread. The Ahmadis, with their radically different beliefs, are indeed a sect – they themselves are named after their founder who believed he was the Messiah. Please do not compare us to them.

Criticism of such use of language may seem to be nit-picking, but such writings have a very real and very serious effect in the real world. If one controls language, one controls the way people think, and the media wields huge power and responsibility. I strongly do not appreciate the implication that in order to be seen as more acceptable to western society, I have to be a lesser Muslim, and that those who indiscriminately murder are somehow judged as being ‘more’ Muslim. I do not appreciate the caricature of Islamic spiritual practices and the implication that the only acceptable Muslim is one who unquestioningly devours current western trends and fashions. The pigeonholing of Muslims into ‘liberal/moderate’ and ‘conservative/radical’, in denying any complexity to us, effectively denies our humanity, reinforces the world-view of the terrorists, insults the victims of the bomb attack under the façade of mourning and shackles any real attempts to achieve meaningful international relations and inter-religious understanding

What's in a name?

Author’s note: sincere apologies for the long absence, at the moment I am undergoing a bit of hullabaloo in my personal life. Hopefully things will even out in a month or two, but until then please enjoy this belated update.
Within the mass media there exists a popular taxonomy within which to classify members of the Islamic religion. Basically, one is either

1. Liberal/Secular/Reformist
2. Moderate

Or

3. Conservative/fundamentalist

Although such a classification may be politically convenient and easy for the masses to digest, it reflects reality poorly and generates more questions than answers. For instance, if a Muslim man refuses to shake the hands of women but constantly misses his prayers, where does that leave him? Being people, Muslims possess the complexity which goes hand in hand with the possession of humanity. Such reductionism, consciously or not, thus also serves to lessen the humanity of the subject.

We should also keep in mind that these terms have developed in a Western social context. The word ‘fundamentalism’ only came into being in the early 20th century when certain American Protestants took issue with what they perceived to be the abandonment of tradition by their cooreligionists. They thus decribed themselves as ‘fundamentalists’, in order to imply that they alone had any real grasp of the fundamentals of Chirstanity. However, this term became pejorative after the Stokes Trial of 1925, when the teaching of evolutionary biology in schools was legally challenged. So what is an Islamic fundamentalist then? In the West we usually use this term to describe members of such organizations like al-Qaeda and Hamas. But as may be figured out from previous posts of mine, these organizations are far from traditional. Presumably, this rules them out from being conservative as well – the Taliban may not believe in women’s education, but this makes them repressive rather than conservative.

Let us consider liberal/secular Muslims. Popular discourse would regard them as the polar opposite of the individuals which we discussed in the last paragraph. But rather, they are two sides of the same coin. Both liberals and so-called ‘fundamentalists’ are at best indifferent and at worst disdainful of traditional scholarship and practices. They share a revolutionary mentality, oppose ‘superstition’ and are obsessed with modern sciences and technologies and political institutions which they deem as useful for achieving their goals. They differ in form but are essentially the same in content.

In popular terminology, we are also led to believe in the existence of ‘moderate’ Muslims, who, if not the desirable standard, are at least the second best thing to having liberal Muslims. This term is problematic as it implies the inherent inferiority of the Islamic religion, and that to be an acceptable member of society one has to water down one’s religion – “Oh, don’t worry, he’s just a moderate Muslim!” “Islam eh? Oh, I suppose it’s alright in moderation!”. Actually, the use of the entire liberal-moderate-conservative spectrum itself reinforces this insinuation.

Recent news reports about the attempted bombing of an airliner by a Nigerian man, in profiling him made special effort to mention his, quoting one newspaper “increasingly religious beliefs”. The newspaper itself was no tabloid, being a historically respected publication which prided itself on the quality of its journalism. However, such thoughtless use of emotion-baiting language like this which establishes a causal link between a Muslim’s orthodoxy and extremist practices, is detrimental to media objectivity. It additionally has harmful real-world implications in that Islam itself is framed as the culprit, contributing to poor policy which punishes the innocent and ignores the fundamental causes of terrorism. Language frames how we see the world. We must make and effort to make sure it is reflective of what is actually going on in the world.

Very Western Terrorism

One of the most enduring images of intercivilizational conflict these days is that of the Islamist terrorist and his war on the West. This is almost universally portrayed as a conflict between the traditional, the oriental and the quintessentially Islamic and the modern, culturally and intellectually superior occident. However, this perspective is dependent on a historical amnesia that affects so much of modern society today. Islamist terrorism is not a story of Islam versus the West, but rather of modern secularism falling upon its own sword.

We often attribute the violence of entities like Al-Qaeda and Hezbollah to superstitious primitivism. Far from being medieval throwbacsk, such movements have their ideological foundation in Western modernity. The most distinctive features of violent Islamism - the globalization of organized violence and the belief in the possibility of establishing a utopia via acts of destruction - are unfounded within traditional Islamic scholarship. Rather, they are the by-products of Enlightenment philosophy. The Islamist is just as likely to be middle-class and university-educated, rather than a stereotypical ignorant Third-Worlder. He often has spent time in the west, and received a western education. We only need to read the history of Muslim political radicalism to understand these facts.
The association between Islam and anti-Western violence is notable only because of its rarity. Except in cases of response to direct military invasion, such as African resistance to the redcoats of the British Empire, and more recently the conflicts in Bosnia and Cold War Afghanistan, the Muslim response to the challenges of the West was overwhelmingly informed by pragmatism, self-reflection and conciliation. The true weapons of the dissemination of Islam have always been through culture, religion and philosophy, hence its ability to spread to places like Southeast Asia, China and West Africa. Even during periods of military conquest by Muslim kingdoms, one would be hard pressed to find examples where it was actually motivated by religion.

However, many radicals see the traditional response as a flawed approach, and in espousing of violent insurrection reject the scholarship of tradition. In drifting away from Tauhid, the metaphysical Unity at the heart of Islam, they adopt the cosmology of the universe as Light and Dark, with the former’s imperative to conquer the latter. This Occidental archetype, this pursuer of victory against an Other, who if incapable of achieving this goal settles for the glorious and spectacular end, is an impossible role model if one follows the religion of a God who is the master of history, who sends the rain on good and evil alike.

How terribly modern the terrorist is! They justify the targeting of civilians as religiously-sanctioned, but how ironic is it that the self-styled warriors of God base their philosophy on secular modernism. From the bombing of German cities by the RAF to the nuclear annihilation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, such violence is typical of the utilitarian Enlightenment ethic. For the religious, morality can never be subjected to the whims of convenience. On the contrary, the harder it is to follow, the more crucial it becomes. Within this attitude war is no longer an activity of defence, or a way to attain resources or power, but a veritable act of social engineering. This Utopianism, arising from the revolutionaries of France to be later passed down to innumerable inheritors, is obsessed with ideas of progress. That humanity can somehow be made better, and the fundamental evils and injustices wiped out through external action – armed conflict being an effective and legitimate way of achieving this. The ‘Greater Good’ conquers all.

Similarly, the fashion of the suicide attack is Islamically baseless in spite of its perceived normativity. Even the Hashashin preferred to be struck down by the bodyguards of their victims or be dragged off for torture than turn their blades upon themselves. If Christians would forgive me for the use of this polemic device; in the Quran there is no Samson. Jonah does not ask to be chucked overboard and Job does not pray for death. Though Islamic history and literature is replete with martyrs, one would be hard-pressed to find any who actively sought after martyrdom. There is neither Achilles nor Ajax, nor any of those who threw themselves at the Roman authorities begging for death, glorifying it for its own sake. Suicide bombing itself was pioneered by the Tamil Tigers, a Marxist-Leninist group which carried out the most number of these attacks up to the Iraq invasion, and passed on this technique to groups in the Middle East which were also of Marxist persuasion.

The insurrectionist and revolutionary mentality of the philosophers of Islamism, is symptomatic of a Westphalian conception of statehood with no basis in religion. ‘Muslim’ no longer becomes a descriptor of one’s metaphysical world view, but the name of a member of a certain political party, and jihad is the token revolutionary struggle through which supremacy is established. The Islamist attempts to establish a state where, in contrast to the traditional proliferation of self-regulatory bodies and separation between the ulema and the political leadership, he mimics the ideological totalitarianism of the modern centralised entity. In such a state, political dissidence is identical to blasphemy and people fear the government rather than God. In these “Islamic” societies morality is relegated to the law courts and individual conscience is negated. Virtue thus becomes superfluous and Paradise is accessed through obedience rather than effort or devotion.

From the Jacobins to the Marxists to the neoconservatives, modern philosophy gave rise to the view, found nowhere within Islam, that a new world may be brought about through the use of systemic violence. It is one of the great ironies of our times how the Islamists have internalized the essence of the very things they profess to hate.