The Trouble With Islam

United Press International ^ | January 14, 2004 | Arnaud de Borchgrave

[ValenB4]

I largely agree with you.

[RightWingAtheist]

My favorite Indo-Ugandan Canadian Muslim is Alliance MP Rahim Jaffer.

[FormerLib]

Well, there must be something faulty with that line of reasoning since she is the only moderate voice from Islam that I have heard speak.

No, there is no fault in the reasoning. You've mistaken her moderate sounding words to mean that she is a moderate. The fact that she is not unfortunately will be used (in the Muslim community) to undermine her stated position.

[ml/nj]

The NYT Book Review for tomorrow has this review:

'The Trouble With Islam': Reform From Within

By ANDREW SULLIVAN

Published: January 25, 2004

here is one anecdote in this bracing little book that still makes me crack a smile long after reading it. As a 13-year-old student attending a madrasa in suburban Vancouver, Irshad Manji, a Muslim immigrant of South Asian origins from Uganda, was subjected to a familar tirade against the Jews by her teacher -- to whom she gives the name ''Mr. Khaki.'' Unfazed by the disapproval she knew she would garner and completely unsuited to the kind of supine deference her teacher was obviously asking for, Irshad began to pose some tough questions:

''I remember asking why Prophet Muhammad would have commanded his army to kill an entire Jewish tribe when the Koran supposedly came to him as a message of peace. Mr. Khaki couldn't cope. He shot me a look of contempt, gave an annoyed wave of the hand and cut short history class, only to hold Koran study next. Me and my big mouth.''

But Irshad wasn't done with Mr. Khaki. She kept asking awkward questions throughout the year. A kind of Lisa Simpson of Islam, one day she simply demanded that Mr. Khaki provide some evidence of the alleged Jewish plot. She recalls:

''What he provided was an ultimatum: 'Either you believe or get out. And if you get out, get out for good.'

'' 'Really? That's it?'

'' 'That's it.'

''With my temples throbbing and my neck sweating under the itchy polyester chador, I stood up. As I crossed the partition checkpoint, I could have uncovered my head for all the boys to see, but I didn't want to risk the humiliation of being chased out by an even more scandalized Mr. Khaki. All I could think to do was fling open the madrasa's hefty metal door and yell, 'Jesus Christ!' A memorable exit, I hoped.''

''The Trouble With Islam'' is a memorable entrance. It isn't the most learned or scholarly treatise on the history or theology of Islam; its dabbling in geopolitics is haphazard and a little naive; its rhetorical hyperbole can sometimes seem a mite attention-seeking -- like that final ''Jesus Christ!'' in the madrasa. But its spirit is undeniable, and long, long overdue. Reading it feels like a revelation. Manji, a Canadian journalist and television personality, does what so many of us have longed to see done: assail fundamentalist Islam itself for tolerating such evil in its midst. And from within.

Her basic argument is that the Koran is a complex, contradictory, human book. Its proscriptions are many and conflicting. Abandoning the role of a thinking person is not something that should be required of any religious individual. Reason and faith, Manji wants to believe, are not in conflict. And yet, as Islam is frequently practiced, reason is deplored as something that should defer in every instance not simply to the Koran but to the political authoritarians who reserve to themselves the sole right to interpret it.

What Manji discovered in the madrasa was a symptom of what she sees as a broader and deeper problem: that Muslims have stopped thinking, that their faith has been hijacked by tyrants and bullies, and that it has become infested with all kinds of hatred -- of Jews, of women, of gays, of the West. And instead of confronting these issues directly and openly, most Western Muslims -- perhaps the only group of Muslims with the actual freedom to question, criticize and debate -- have decided to retreat into victimology and appeasement. Aided and abetted by the moral nihilism of academic postmodernism, these people have surrendered to the new fascists of the Arab world.

I just hope Manji is ready for a very rough ride ahead. She is not exactly diplomatic. Here's one typical rhetorical flourish: ''Through our screaming self-pity and our conspicuous silences, we Muslims are conspiring against ourselves. We're in crisis, and we're dragging the rest of the world with us. If ever there was a moment for an Islamic reformation, it's now. For the love of God, what are we doing about it?''

Her answer to her own question is guilelessly to challenge certain givens. The Koran mandates the veiling of the wives of the Prophet. So why are all women now required to be covered from head to foot? In the distant past, Islam integrated and celebrated human diversity, and honored Christian and Jewish culture. So why has Islam degenerated into a maelstrom of the most virulent anti-Semitism? ''Let there be no compulsion in religion,'' says Chapter 2 of the Koran. So why do many Arab Muslim states persecute or ostracize nonbelievers?

Manji wants to know why some extraordinary statements of Muslim intolerance are dismissed or ignored. She writes: ''Here's a passage straight out of an Arabic-language textbook distributed by the Saudis to Muslim schoolchildren in America: 'The unbelievers, idolaters and others like them must be hated and despised. . . . We must stay away from them and create barriers between us and them.' '' This textbook is being read in America. Why? And why isn't there a groundswell of outrage among American Muslims about this kind of message? Or, for that matter, by American non-Muslims?

Of course, Manji will be widely dismissed. She is a young woman and she is a lesbian. She loves the West, its freedoms and its opportunities. She has visited Israel and found it more open, more self-critical, more admirable than its Arab Muslim neighbors. She is clearly and primarily an individualist, a person who thinks for herself. It will be asked, as it is asked of many Westerners, why she simply cannot accept that religion is not about reason. Why doesn't she simply cease being a Muslim? Or why doesn't she simply submit?

Her answer is a straightforward and moving one. She wants to embrace her faith by understanding it fully, by realizing its vision of human equality, by resuscitating the ancient Islamic tradition of ijtihad: questioning, asking, thinking. Like gay Christians demanding accountability from their faith, she is not content to have Scripture read to her and then be told to shut up. She refuses to be treated like an idiot. Sure, when she reads about women being stoned for adultery or gay people being murdered by religious fanatics, she is tempted merely to leave, to wash her hands. ''But each time I reached the brink of excommunicating myself, I pulled back. Not out of fear. Out of fairness -- to myself. One question begged for more thought: If the all-knowing, all-powerful God didn't wish to make me a lesbian, then why didn't he make someone else in my place?''

I'm glad he didn't. Manji's prescriptions for change in Islam -- Western loans to Muslim businesswomen, for example -- seem dwarfed by the scale of the problem. She barely touches the difficult topic of American foreign policy as a critical aspect of the defanging of Islamism. She can be a little glib at times, a little too fond of her own tone of voice and of her smart-aleck phrasemaking. But her plea endures because it is so clearly genuine. One question she asks reverberates in my mind: ''What if Mohamed Atta had been raised on soul-stretching questions instead of simple certitudes?''

The relationship between the state of contemporary Islam and the mass murderers of Al Qaeda is not a simple one; but it surely exists. In the voice of this young woman, you can hear the willingness to ask why, and how the situation can be remedied. You can hear, in fact, the distinct tone of liberalism, a liberalism that seeks not to abolish faith but to establish a new relationship with it. If we survive this current war without unthinkable casualties, it will be because that kind of liberalism didn't lose its nerve. Think of Manji as a nerve ending for the West -- shocking, raw, but mercifully, joyously, still alive.

Andrew Sullivan is a senior editor at The New Republic and a columnist for Time.

ML/NJ

[swarthyguy]

>>I doubt that the people she wants to listen to her will listen to her.

She will be useful in providing a countervailing voice to young muslims in the west and even overseas.

A growing number of islami women not looking like Borg assimilees could start to overcome the poison of the jihadis.

[Free ThinkerNY]

Islam is on a collision course with the 21st century.

[quidnunc]

Free ThinkerNY wrote: Islam is on a collision course with the 21st century.

Hell, it's on a collision course with the 15th century.

[Doc On The Bay]

You are Probably EXACTLY CORRECT about the "Psychopathology Known as 'Islam'"

The Problem Is, the "Tenets Of" our "Civilized Culture" PROHIBIT "US" from the OBVIOUUS REBUTTALS of the Aggressive Expansionism of "Islam."

Western Civilization believes that ALL LIFE is "Sacred."

"Islam" Tells it's followers that Their Lives are Less Important than "The Cause!!--", that they may "Immolate Themselves,(as Long as they Kill the "appropriate 'Others'"), & They will be "Rewarded."

This "System of Conquest" works great--UNTIL SOMEONE "Fights BACK!!"

The "Kamikaze Culture" is UTTERLY REPUGNANT to Judeo-Christian Culture.

There is NO CONCEIVABLE WAY that a "Death Culture" would EVER gain the Respect of Those of Us who adhere to Western Values.

If We ("The West") are to be "At WAR" with "Islam,"--SO BE IT!!

"ISLAM",--Like "Communism,"--is SO ANTITHETICAL to Basic Human Nature, that it will Ultimately Collapse.

"Islam,"--Like "Communism,"--is an Artificial-PHONEY-Religio-Political Construct designed to allow a few "Leaders" to become "Dictators"--Until the "People," "Catch On!!"

How Sad!

Doc

[Chu Gary]

This young woman is speaking with a clear vision of the truth. Unfortunately, I think she has signed her own Death Warrant. Remember the death sentence for Salman Rushdie although he has, to date, avoided his fate.

[evad]

..You've mistaken her moderate sounding words to mean that she is a moderate. The fact that she is not ...

Maybe we have a different definition of "moderate" or very possibly you have more insight into this lady than I.

Since I can find nothing of what you speak, could you provide an example or two.

[evad]

The problem with Islam is that it is a cult rather than a religion.

You are Probably EXACTLY CORRECT about the "Psychopathology Known as 'Islam'"

Right on TAS & Doc..

The most cogent and succinct understanding of true izlum that I've seen yet.

Like liberalism, I don't think we can ever stamp it out but maybe we can chop enough heads off this hydra to someday render it feckless.

[M Kehoe]

The price of pointing out that it is insanity is the fatwa and death.

Seems like every time I turn around there's another fatwa. A fatwa here, a fatwa there, here a fatwa, there a fatwa, everywhere a fatwa, Ol' Mc...

And who the heck keeps track of all these fatwas? Or is it 'fatwi?'

5.56mm

[hosepipe]

[ My point was, given that she lives a rather unorthodox lifestyle for a Muslim, ]

Mohammad himself was a switch hitter.. had wives, concubines(both male and female).. , wasn't shy about it either.. most Muslim clerics know it too.. homosexual ism is common in Muslim country's... The Hadiths( source for Quran) even quotes rules for bestiality..

Studying Quran is crotchology and requires wiping your mind often.. but takes weeks to get relatively clean..

[RLK]

"ISLAM",--Like "Communism,"--is SO ANTITHETICAL to Basic Human Nature, that it will Ultimately Collapse.

------------------------

It won't collapse any more than cancer collapses although it is antithetical to survival of the human body. It hasn't collapsed in fourteen hundred years. If not cut out and destroyed, it will spread and devour the earth.

[anniegetyourgun]

Sin is always an affront to God. But not because I said so. If you disagree with that, you're argument isn't with me.

[Valin]

Why haven't other Muslims realized that an Islamic movement similar to the Protestant Reformation and the Enlightenment is the only way their faith will survive?

Part of the reason is, Islam is decentralized. There really is no one person or institution to rebel against. Think of it as trying to reform Protestantism, you can't.

OTOH there are organizations, sects, people out there trying to bring Isalm into the ZZ! century, and are fighting(literally) the radicals. And they deserve our support.

Islamic Supreme Council of America
http://www.islamicsupremecouncil.org/bin/site/wrappers/splash.asp

Center for the Study of Islam & Democracy
http://www.islam-democracy.org/

Too name two.

[quadrant]

I agree with your historical conclusions.
It is erroneous to take the theological underpinnings of a movement in one religion and transfer them to another.
The Protestant Reformation was a call to end the corruption in the Church and to make the Scripture the ultimate authority for Christian worship.
As such it is inappropriate to apply that to the need in the Muslim world for a recognition that the world has changed since the 8th Century, AD.

However, many would say that Osama bin Laden is doing for Islam what Luther did for the Church. Bin Laden is stressing the need for a return to purity of early Islam.
From a historical perspective, it is doubtful that such a purity ever existed, but repeated calls for such a return by some members of the Muslim community indicate that in their minds such a state existed.

I used the term "reformation" because Ms Manji lamented that the Muslim world has failed to produce a Martin Luther.
Unfortunately, she misunderstands Luther's role because she labels him as the leader of the counter reformation.

[quadrant]

I agree.
I think it will be far more difficult for Islam to
reconcile itself with the 21st Century than it was for the Roman Church to reconcile itself with the Reformation.

I planned to write that perhaps instead of a Martin Luther, Islam needed a Henry VIII. But states within the Muslim world have been led by rulers who tried to break the power of the religious establishment. I'm thinking specifically of Saddam and the late Shah of Iran, both of whom came to a bad end and mostly because of their own megalomania.

Islam, as Bernard Lewis wrote in ISLAM AND THE WEST, is too central to the life of the Muslim community for its power to be cracked by a secular power. Muslims, however foolishly, feel themselves and their religion under attack by the United States. They are going to respond and respond violently. We must get used to that response and prepare ourselves.
Unfortunately, we in the United States cannot and must not under any circumstances take the one action (abandon our support for the State of Israel) that might assuage Muslim anger.

Frankly, then, I don't think there is a "solution" in the sense that there exists a specific set of policy prescriptions to will lead the Muslim world away from violence that will come from confrontations with the United States.

Perhaps, Samuel Huntington was right: the conflict between the West and Islam is a clash of civilizations.
One thing is certain, the ideas advanced by Thomas L. Freedman in a column in today's New York Times will do next to nothing to alleviate the anger in the Islamic world.