I place this in the religion category for the purpose of posing this as a theology question, less so a political one, but obviously of political consequence. .
I Googled looking for the Muslim reaction to the attack and found nothing in the way of Muslim leadership condemning it. The response from Iran and radicalized Muslim governments was celebratory, with India remaining quiet.
I am aware of two critical factors at play here in the Muslim world: (1) the official fatwa from the Ayatollah Khomeini that serves as a decree to kill Rushdie, and (2) fear of reprisal throughout the Muslim world should they condem the attack.
I candidly do not know what the primary driver of the silence from Imams in the West is. Are they in agreement with the attack as justified per their leadership, or do they hold their tongues in painful silence at this injustice? While the latter would be my hope, it's hardly befitting leadership from what ought be a person of integrity over self-preservation.
If it's the former (i.e #1), what restraint in civilized society should one have in discussing the virtue of Islam if its official contemporary 2022 doctrine is the murder of those who write books critical of its historical figures?
My views tend toward the progressive in acceptance of diversity, with a particular openess toward religious diversity, but I can't align in any way with an organization that officially advocates and celebrates the murder of simple detractors.
But back to the theological question, anyone find sources of mainstream. Imam condemnation of the attack or fatwa?
The fatwa was from a Shia. 15% of Muslims are Shia, the rest are Sunni. I don't know if Sunnis would feel the need to address a Shia issue. Sunni leaders don't have any authority over Shias.
god must be atheistAugust 14, 2022 at 01:38#7288990 likes
India has been divided into an Islamic part and another part. The Islamic part is Pakistan, and more recently the independent Bangla Desh. What we call today India is not Islamic. So their silence is not the silence of a Muslim country.
Your post is otherwise impeccable, save for the Shia-Sunni issue of fatwa as pointed out by Tate.
Was participation by white Christian nationalists in the events on January 6 in Washington DC consistent with mainstream Christian theology?
As is common in situations like this, the question asked is more telling than the answer.
No, you just try to divert by chastising me for covert bigotry, but at best you've presented a tu quoque fallacy. If i treat Christians with kid gloves but am critical of Muslims, I'm a hypocrite at worst, but my statements are not deemed wrong
Regardless, the 1/6 events were not carried out in the name of religion, but were the result of a political ideology. I do condemn those in the Republican party who have either supported those acts or claimed them part of their ideology. .
No, you just try to divert with by chastising me for covert bigotry, but at best you've presented a Tu quoque (
It was not my intention to imply your post is bigoted any more than yours implied that Islam is a violent religion. I was implying that your example is misguided. Yours is generally a voice for moderation but I think you were immoderate here.
The fatwa was from a Shia. 15% of Muslims are Shia, the rest are Sunni. I don't know if Sunnis would feel the need to address a Shia issue. Sunni leaders don't have any authority over Shias.
Regardless, the 1/6 events were not carried out in the name of religion, but were the result of a political ideology. I do condemn those in the Republican party who have either supported those acts or claimed them part of their ideology.
You added this to your post after I had already responded.
As you say, for most people the events were not performed for religious reasons, but some white nationalists I have read about participated with explicitly religious motivation.
was not my intention to imply your post is bigoted any more than yours implied that Islam is a violent religion. I was implying that your example is misguided. Yours is generally a voice for moderation but I think you were immoderate here.
And I think you're wrong. My voice is moderate. A man was stabbed in the eye for a work of fiction, carrying out his wishes in the name of religion, and I want to know the official position of the Muslim community. Point me in the direction of the article you rely upon for that position.
The Catholic Church engaged in horrible, systemic sexual abuse, but their official position, for what it's worth, is condemnation.
I can deal with failing to meet a standard far better than having a failed standard. I'm just asking what that standard is.
don't know if Sunnis would feel the need to address a Shia issue. Sunni leaders don't have any authority over Shias.
You've drawn a distinction here between the reactions of the Sunni and Shia but I can't find support for that anywhere. Do you have cites?
I do know that the fatwa was issued well after general Muslim outrage began, but I can't find support that the Sunnis disagreed with it. What I did find was that the Ayatollah presented the fatwa in a manner to gain support from the Sunni population:
"To win back the interest in and support for the Islamic Revolution among the 90% of the population of the Muslim world that was Sunni, rather than Shia like Khomeini. The IranIraq War had also alienated Sunni, who not only were offended by its bloodshed, but tended to favour Iran's Sunni-led opponent, Iraq. At least one observer speculated that Khomeini's choice of the issue of disrespect for the Prophet Muhammad was a particularly shrewd tactic, as Sunni were inclined to suspect Shia of being more interested in the Imams Ali and Husayn ibn Ali than in the Prophet.[58]"
you say, for most people the events were not performed for religious reasons, but some white nationalists I have read about participated with explicitly religious motivation.
There are always radicals, but my concern is official group doctrine. It does seem the Sunnis may separate themselves from the Shia here, leaving their problem not a moral one, but a PR one in that the distinction in position is not known by many.
Regardless, there are between 154 to 200 million Shia in the world.
"An overwhelming majority of Muslims are Sunnis, while an estimated 10-13% are Shias. This report estimates that there are between 154 million and 200 million Shia Muslims in the world today." https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2009/10/07/mapping-the-global-muslim-population/#:~:text=or%20more%20Muslim.-,Sunni%20and%20Shia%20Populations,Muslims%20in%20the%20world%20today.
There are always radicals, but my concern is official group doctrine. It does seem the Sunnis may separate themselves from the Shia here, leaving their problem not a moral one, but a PR one in that the distinction in position is not known by many.
I've changed my mind. I think you are engaging in religious bigotry. Also hypocrisy. If you were talking about black people, women, or gay people, I don't think your abusive diatribe would be allowed on the forum. I don't think you would allow a discussion like that on the forum yourself.
the the OP had read "mainstream Shia Muslim theology" I would have laughed.
You emoji affirmed @Tate's distinction between the ideologies of the Sunni and Shia, so now you laugh at it, as if implying the Shia mainstream position isn't decipherable, or whatever I'm to decipher from your laughter.
I'm really just asking a question here is all regardless of whatever you're trying to read in. A man stabs someone in the eye for disrespecting his religion, based upon his leadership's stance, and I want to know if his behavior is acceptable within his community, which is a subset of Muslims but still a large number.
What prompted this discussion from me was this article from The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/aug/13/salman-rushdie-attack-prompts-muted-reaction-in-india-and-pakistan
I've changed my mind. I think you are engaging in religious bigotry. Also hypocrisy. If you were talking about black people, women, or gay people, I don't think your abusive diatribe would be allowed on the forum. I don't think you would allow a discussion like that on the forum yourself.
Except I'm not. A religious leader specifically decreed that Rushdie be murdered, a man went out to carry out his plan, the Guardian (not exactly a conservative bastion) reports celebratory and mited reaction, and I ask how widespread this ideology is and how attached to the ideology it is because I truly don't know.
Read all my posts. I'm looking for clear answers on what the ideology actually is. By exampke, the Old Testament talks about stoning. It's a legitimate question to ask (and it has been) whether Jews permit stoning.
The answer is they don't, but it's a reasonable question based upon the text and the fact that the OT is held as Truth.
I suggested I would laugh at a "Shia mainstream" because it's like asking about a Coptic Christian mainstream. It's a niche religious position, so the concept of a "mainstream" version of a niche faction is laughable. You originally asked if the stabbing was consistent with "mainstream Muslim theology", which is not Shia theology. You're begging the question now. By the way, I love Clarky but I think he's overreacting a bit.
Reply to Hanover I don't have much understanding of differences between Shia and Sunni Muslims. I won't draw any analogies.
The Catholic Church has, had, or used to have something called the "Index Librorum Prohibitorum" -- banned books. In recent times no one has been burned at the stake for either writing or reading a forbidden book. In the past, at various times, Christians resorted to grotesque executions for violations of doctrine. William Tyndale was strangled and burned at the stake for translating the Bible into English. What a monster! John Wycliffe was executed in 1384. Wycliffe also translated at least part o the NT into Middle English, and questioned some core Catholic theology. He was so heinous that years later his corpse was dug up and burned at the stake.
No -- Rome's or Canterbury's excesses neither justify nor excuse Tehran's pontificating mullahs. A plague on all their houses!
Most Christian churches have, through reformation, incremental change, an embrace of secular ideas (the Renaissance, Enlightenment, and science) lost a lot of their former triumphal absolutism--all to the good. There are some outstanding exceptions, of course.
Islam has not had a reformation (so I am told). There seems to be a substantial core of absolutism remaining. The Taliban demonstrates this, as does the malignant Islamic State and various spin-offs.
So we have a medieval ayatollah issuing death warrants for authors who they think ought to be punished by death. Then we have young Moslems cultivating the same medieval thinking on line, unto the heathen state of New Jersey.
All religions which presume to hold the final and absolute truth are a mortal danger.
Was the attack on Salman Rushdie consistent with mainstream Muslim theology?
I think there is a problem with the question, namely that there is no such thing as mainstream Muslim theology. The holy texts and traditions of Islam have been used both to condemn and to support various acts of violence, and these interpretations are conditioned by politics and history. The same thing happened with Christianity (and still does to some extent).
But unlike Christianity, there is no credible central Islamic authority.
The reactions from governments and religious leaders in Islamic countries will be interesting in the context of the various Islamic civil wars, but I personally don't see the point in looking at theology.
But if you're talking about Iranian religious clerics in particular, I'd expect support for the attack. On the other hand, Shia Islamists Hezbollah have so far said something along the lines of "no comment".
If you guys need me to stand from a mountain top and proclaim my ignorance of Islam outside a very limited academic context I will. but do read my posts from that perspective, that I'm looking for relief from the narrative that a dude gets his eye stabbed out and there is large spread acceptance of the act.
I personally don't see the point in looking at theology.
That's fair to the extent we see Muslims as a political group, which can be done with any religion, but there are underlying belief systems that do hold things together generally within these groups.
The article I located condemning the act referenced the theology, but, again, I realize that too could be a political move.
There could be, and I expect somewhere there is, a well schooled Muslim who could break the I'm sure many sects of Islam to where I could follow this.
If the answer is simply that Islam does not permit such fatwas but through corrupt leadership the ignorant masses were led to believe such in order to take a swipe at the West, that have done well to respond, but I'm still sorting out the politics from the theology..
No problem. I know you're coming from a good place here. Rushdie getting stabbed is upsetting to anyone with a moral center and a pulse. I feel it too. But Islam is a dizzyingly complex religion, so I felt the need to push back and add a few comments.
But unlike Christianity, there is no credible central Islamic authority.
That is an important feature. Theological interpretation is apparently quite decentralized and local. There's no pope, no Vatican, no infrastructure of command and control.
There is no central authority to which condemnation, approval, or appeal can be addressed.
Reply to Hanover IF you polled 10,000 Moslems from various countries, my guess is that a majority would not be in favor of executions for book writing. There would be a minority (10%? 20%? 30%?) who would approve, and they would approve for various reasons.
TRUE BELIEVERS of any stripe are more likely to follow available "hard lines" than people for whom belief does not dominate their thinking or their life. There are Christian fascist and white nationalist TRUE BELIEVERS who are quite capable of carrying out violence against fellow Americans who are not displaying sufficient loyalty to the Prez, for example. There are TRUE BELIEVERS in Islamic countries who have no qualms about blowing up a bomb in a market to to kill Shias or Sunnis.
That is an important feature. Theological interpretation is apparently quite decentralized and local. There's no pope, no Vatican, no infrastructure of command and control.
It's the same really of every religion, with the Baptists having their authority, the Catholics theirs, the Mormons, and then the unaffiliated churches with no hierarchy at all. Each Hadidic sect has their own head rabbi, etc.
But clearly some listen to the Ayatollah. Not sure of his scope of influence, but he's a Godfather enough that if he puts a hit on you, you lay low..
you polled 10,000 Moslems from various countries, my guess is that a majority would not be in favor of executions for book writing. There would be a minority (10%? 20%? 30%?) who would approve, and they would approve for various reasons.
I hope so. Those objectors get little press. And by press, I mean throughout, not just FoxNews.
If the answer is simply that Islam does not permit such fatwas but through corrupt leadership the ignorant masses were led to believe such in order to take a swipe at the West, that have done well to respond, but I'm still sorting out the politics from the theology..
I don't think it's that simple, because what's going on in Islamic countries is so varied and complicated. It's really not just, or even primarily, about Islam vs the West.
As to what Islam permits, opinions differ, and that's the point. There are widely differing interpretations, each of which has some support somewhere. The everyday beliefs and practices of most pious Muslims, as with most believers in any religion, are a mixture of peace, love, family values, and social conservatism.
But it might be the case that right now, in the present context, Islam is particularly resistant to progress and plagued by violence, and by violent theological interpretations. This is different from saying that Islam is intrinsically worse than other religions (more violent, more conservative, what have you). I say this not exactly to defend Islam (which in my opinion deserves a mixture of respect and contempt, as with all religions), but rather to defend the potential for change without the wholesale rejection of entrenched traditions. This is the only realistic way forward.
There was a time when Islam was a beacon of enlightenment, but even that was an expression of social and political realities rather than some true pure heart of Islam. And alas, that's not the world we live in today.
Is the final answer: Yes to Shia Muslims, no to Sunni Muslims
Credit where credit's due: don't forget about ISIS and al Qaeda.
You might see a fundamental difference: unlike the attack on Salman Rushdie, those Sunni Islamists are or were not led or motivated by any country's official doctrines and rulings. To the extent that this is the case, it's a reflection of Iran's particular history, in which it ended up with a radically reactionary government whose authority in the region rests largely on its continuing radical position. On the other hand, if I'm not mistaken the Sunni Islamists have been supported more or less covertly by various governments or other powerful groups, whose representatives have sometimes at the same time publicly expressed sympathy with their actions and views.
Sunni Islamists have been supported more or less covertly by various governments or other powerful groups, whose representatives have sometimes at the same time publicly expressed sympathy with their actions and views.
Yes, exactly. Every government with a "Pan-Islamism" point of view supported those groups and their actions. We can check a lot of examples like Egypt with Gamal Abdel Nasser Hussein as Prime Minister. Irak with Sadam Hussein and his "Baaz party" or Bashar al-Assad's family members controlling Syria since the 1970's.
unenlightenedAugust 14, 2022 at 08:09#7289650 likes
Terrorism is always a political act. Religious organisations always have political aspirations. Thus the target of this attack is not the man himself, but the rest of the world.
One does not look for chapter and verse to justify or condemn the cover-up of paedophiia in the clergy it is obviously expedient to the organisation. The attack on Salman Rushdie is obviously advantageous to the power of any Islamic group. 'Don't mess with us, wimps!'
I believe the answer to the OP question lies in a careful reading of the Satanic Verses. It's a masterpiece of a novel, highly enjoyable for a non-Muslim reader, but from a Muslim perspective it pushes a lot of the 'wrong' buttons.
I read it while living in Pakistan. At some point an Afghan door keeper / cleaner found the book on my bed and wrote in persian over the first page: "Death to Rushdie and Thatcher". (Unfortunately I lost this copy since then) I asked him 'WTF?' and we went into a long discussion about it.
In summary, his beef was that the life of Mohammad was not an appropriate subject for a novel. At some point he asked: How would you feel if someone wrote a novel about Jesus? I answered that it has been done, many times over, and while the hardest integrists were typically angered by movies or novels about Jesus, most Christians consider that it's fair use of freedom of speech.
This is something general, not specific to my door keeper: one of the issues with the Satanic Verses is that it includes a non-authorized biography of Mohammad, his revelation, and the writing of the Quran.
The eponymous satanic verses are a part of that story. At some point Mohammad issued some verses saying that the three traditional goddesses of Mecca were in fact intermediaries between Allah and His creation. By giving some space for the old polytheist religion, Mohammad might have tried to make his new, radical monotheism more easily acceptable to the Meccans. A few days later, the Prophet rejected those verses, stating that they were inspired to him by the Devil. This is actually true, historically, but a matter of embarrassment for Muslims. The book's title is quite provocative, for a Muslim.
More deeply, while Christianity and its holy books have been subject to much interrogations and challenges from Voltaire onward, Islam has never explored its own origins critically. Books analysing the early history of Islam critically are all written by non-muslim westerners. The only admissable tone or style of writing about Mohammad in Islam is hagiography: it has to be the life of a saint, told reverentially by believers in his sainthood.
Anything departing from such hagiography is blasphemous, even if showing Mohammad in a positive light (as Rushdie does in the Satanic Verses), even if historically accurate.
In particular, the Quran is untouchable. It is supposed to be the direct writings of God. Yet Rushdie shows a conflictual, painful revelation process, where Mohammad goes through much physical and mental suffering and struggle, and where the politics of the city get to impact the holy book, albeit in a transient manner. It implies that the Quran has a human touch, even if divinely inspired, and thus introduces an element of doubt.
Another 'button' in the book is that it represents Ayatollah Khomeini as an instrument of the Devil. That would explain the fatwa.
universenessAugust 14, 2022 at 09:30#7289740 likes
In my atheist opinion, those who follow the Allah fable ride on the coattails of those who follow the Yahweh fable. The Mohamed fables were suggested as delivered by Gabriel after god and his squad got fed up with their first choice of 'chosen people.' The Yahweh followers used to call for the death penalty for all apostates or those who 'blasphemed' against their main character, way before Allah was invented.
Even the Assyrians would kill those who did not accept their pantheon of invented characters. This so-called fatwa is in fact, a very ancient edict.
We all know how easy it is to wind up clockwork extremists and set them toddling off towards their targeted victims. One of these dehumanised robots is bound to get through in the end.
This was just another maniac attack, probably totally organised within the head of the perpetrator alone. But yeah, based on his own conviction that he has been sanctioned to perform this act by his theistic dogma and those who preach/confirmed it in his own head. He probably believes he would be hailed as a moslem/muslim hero at the end of it all. He may be sadly correct but I certainly lay litlle responsibility on the shoulders of everyday shia or sunni, who are themselves victims of theism. I do blame the main authorities of their religion. Salman already won his battle a long time ago in my opinion.
The only hope for individual theists imo, as we move forward with enlightenment is to switch to a belief in something like pantheism or such like. The Yaweh/Christian followers need to admit that the bible is just a collection of ancient myths based on old Assyrian, Sumerian, Phonetician, Egyptian fables which were simply reviewed and updated for the new testament and the Jesus myth. They should also admit that if their god committed or sanctioned events such as ethnic cleansing or smiting guys that stumbled and dropped one end of the ark of the covenant or sending she bears to consume children for calling one of its prophets baldy etc, then their god always was a bit nuts. I would love to see all the imams and leaders of those who follow Allah, draw lots of pictures/illustrations of their main characters and all the main events in their stories including Mohamed's 'night flight to Venus.' but I don't see that happening anytime soon.
Events like the stabbing of Salman in the name of Islam just makes the followers of Islam look like they are still playing catch up with the more enlightened. This foolish act looks desperate and will only make most people in the west become more and more anti-Islamic. Maybe that's exactly what some nefarious forces want. While we are all arguing about the tenets of Islam, the rich are siphoning off more and more resources, while a great number of people can hardly afford to eat and heat.
I don't agree. An artist was stabbed in the face because of an official decree of a leading cleric of a major branch of a world religion. There's a lot of complexity and nuance beyond that but this cannot go unopposed and questions should be asked, so I applaud @Hanover for bringing the subject up even if I don't agree with the angle he came at it from. The angle I would take wouldn't focus excusively on Islam but use this event as an example of a wider problem--extreme religious fundamentalism, which is a stain that bleeds across different religions in different ways and is destructive in different ways. But getting back to the OP, I think it's absolutely right to expect loud condemnations from Muslim clerics worldwide.
universenessAugust 14, 2022 at 09:39#7289760 likes
I think it's absolutely right to expect loud condemnations from Muslim clerics worldwide.
Would be great if they did but as I suggested, I think there is as much chance of that as there is of each of them drawing their own rendition of mohamed and publishing all of them in an on-line gallery.
I'm not so pessimistic. But I think it's important because if an unwillingness to condemn is for relgious reasons, i.e. If some Islamic cleric believes a condemnation would put him in conflict with his religion then by defnition he's lending credence to the idea that the attack is consistent with his religion. No need to sugarcoat that.
Other reasons for lack of condemnation among some clerics could be, e.g.:
1) Political: There is no religious justification for the act but my condemnation would be unpopular with my flock.
2) Principled: I don't want to suggest an association between the act and (my version of) Islam when no such association can be made.
3) Personal: I dislike Rushdie and those who insult Islam.
Maybe more. Anyhow, it's absolutely justified in my opinion to examine official reactions to this one way or the other.
universenessAugust 14, 2022 at 10:19#7289840 likes
Reply to Baden
I hope you are correct but is there much evidence that theism has progressed in very significant ways in the past 2000 years ? Or is it only secular national and international law that has kept it in check? Religious authority is only tempered by fear of breaking laws that don't allow the incitement of violence or intolerance towards apostates. Orthodox Islam will still call for apostates to be put to death but I think Islamic countries are afraid of global economic sanctions so their religious fervour is tempered somewhat. Remember it was the past popes who were loudest when calling for holy war/crusades and extremists like the branch dividians (of waco texas fame), the Westboro Baptist Church (WBC) described as an American hyper-Calvinist hate group, many evanhellical groups etc all seem to be thriving pretty well today. I suppose these groups do just deliver annoying 'bee stings' to the human race when viewed as a totality but too many bee stings can kill you. I think the secular world must in the final analysis remain willing to fight hard against religious extremism when all other alternative non-violent approaches have been tried and have failed.
As recently as February 2017, Khamenei tersely answered this question posed to him: Is the fatwa on the apostasy of the cursed liar Salman Rushdie still in effect? What is a Muslims duty in this regard?
Khamenei responded: The decree is as Imam Khomeini issued.
many evanhellical groups etc all seem to be thriving pretty well today. I suppose these groups do just deliver annoying 'bee stings' to the human race when viewed as a totality but too many bee stings can kill you
E.g. About a third of Brazilians are now evangelical and this is partly why Bolsanaro still has such hardcore support even while threatening to ignore the results of the upcoming election, de facto threatening a coup.
I think the secular world must in the final analysis remain willing to fight hard against religious extremism when all other alternative non-violent approaches have been tried and have failed.
The problem is the situation is so nuanced. Religious extremism isn't standing in the middle of a field waiting to be lanced by the Knight of secularism. It's either concentrated in countries whose cultures the secular West has little or no influence over or chaotically distributed in secular countries among non-extremists who have no responsibility for it. And if we're believers in liberal democracies, we're believers in religious freedom. You can't entirely cure liberal democracies of religious fundamentalism without killing the patient along with the disease.
Well, as it was Iran that issued the Fatwa, maybe look to Iran?
An interesting irony about 'look to Iran,' it has been ever thus, Iran/Iraq was Persia, Mesopotamia etc Parts of Iraq and Syria were Sumeria, Assyria, Babylon etc. You are correct but I think we have spent a great deal of historical effort 'looking at such places.' I so wish many more theists could see through the obvious manipulation of primal human fears which are so clearly evidenced by following the bread crumb trails from those places and those times to the Islamic and Christian myths peddled today as a way to control and direct masses of people. When are we going to reach a point when the majority of the human race stop looking towards such old dead ancient places and start looking towards the final frontier, space! Our future lies there, not in theistic tenets originally sourced in the primal fears and sociopolitical manipulations of the ancients. The guy who stabbed Salman is a Sumerian religious throwback imo, exact same thinking processes. Not exactly a progressive!
universenessAugust 14, 2022 at 11:12#7289940 likes
The problem is the situation is so nuanced. Religious extremism isn't standing in the middle of a field waiting to be lanced by the Knight of secularism. It's either concentrated in countries whose cultures the secular West has little or no influence over or chaotically distributed in secular countries among non-extremists who have no responsibility for it. And if we're believers in liberal democracies, we're believers in religious freedom. You can't entirely cure liberal democracies of religious fundamentalism without killing the patient along with the disease.
I accept what you type here in general but it's probably even more nuanced than you suggest.
I think there are many 'cowed secularists' around all concentrations of religious extremists, even when the extremists are powerful enough to claim their country is 'Christian' or 'Islamic. I wouldn't invoke the 'knight' image as I don't see such 'sir' / heraldic images as positive. I see them as aristocratic.
I am for the serfs, the workers, the peasants, the true soldiers of secularism. I think there are a lot of skeptical 'Islamists,' 'Christians' who only comply because they are too afraid not to. I would have probably been too scared to profess my atheism in the days of Giordano Bruno.
I do believe in religious freedom as I believe in free speech but I will still attack fascist ideologies whether secular based or religious based. I will also physically attack those involved, especially if they physically attack us! I think there is ample local resistance anywhere religious extremism exists. I just think it needs to be organised and supported in better ways than it is at present. [s]Evangelicals[/s] Evanhellicals have made inroads in many places such as Brazil and parts of Africa because it's easy to dupe desperate people who are desperately poor. Education and economic balance is the only solution to that.
You've drawn a distinction here between the reactions of the Sunni and Shia but I can't find support for that anywhere. Do you have cites?
The blurb you found from a Sunni imam was nice, but Indian Sunni imams are just respected elders. Their opinions are valuable, but they don't render binding rulings. To find something like that in Sunni islam, I think you'd need something like Saudi Arabia's type of Islam where the government backs the dictates of a particular family of clerics.
One of the reasons for this shortage of authority is that Sunni islam sort of froze doctrinally around the 10th Century. There's no way to update policy. If the Prophet waged war (which he did), you can't really say that violence is prohibited.
Here's a thing on imams:
"What is an Imam?
For Sunni Muslims, an Imam is typically the name given to the leader of worship in a mosque. These Imams would lead worship services and prayers, as well as serve as leaders in the community. Sunni Imams also take on the role of providing religious guidance to those in need of it. The only requirement for Sunni Muslims to become Imams is to study the basic Islamic sciences.
"For Shia Muslims, on the other hand, the role of an Imam is much more exclusive. Imams in Shia Islam are the unerring leaders of the community, second only to the Prophet Muhammad. Whats more, unlike in Sunni Islam, an Imam is not something that Shia Muslims can just become. This is because they believe that only members and descendants of the Ahl al-Bayt, the family of the Islamic Prophet Muhammad, can take on the role. In Twelver Shi'ism, which is the biggest branch of Shia Islam, there are only 12 Imams, the last of which is Imam Mahdi who they believe will return at the end of times.
"How is an Imam selected?
Again, the process of selecting an Imam differs depending on the sect of Islam. For Sunni Muslims, an Imam is chosen at the community level. This essentially means that the members of the Muslim community choose someone who they deem as wise to be an Imam. It is a requirement that all Imams have a good knowledge and understanding of the Quran. This includes being able to recite it correctly and eloquently.
"In some cases and communities, Imams are specifically trained and recruited for the role. However, in other, typically smaller, Muslim communities, Imams are simply selected from the pre-existing members of the community.
The supervision of Imams is also done at a community level, as there is no appointed governing body to do so. here
Reply to Tate What is the view of Sunnis towards Shias? Do they reject entirely Shia Imam authority, or do they find them persuasive but just not binding?
My curiosity arises from the silence of Muslim condemnation, and the answers I've gotten here are: (1) it's a radical Shia thing that the Sunnis are so divorced from they see no reason to respond, and (2) the Sunni structure is so localized and non-hierarchical that they lack the means to present an official comprehensive response.
As to #1, I leave the PR to them, but that seems a dangerous reaction because they must obviously know they are being grouped with the Shias, The bright line clarification regarding this issue of their distinction is made perfectly clear here, but, like I said, it's been terribly hard to find this argument you've made researching the web.
#2, again, limited personal knowledge here, but my wife works for the school system here and has had interaction with what seems fairly progressive Muslim community centers that offer social service outreach to recent immigrants, offering direction for schooling, housing, healthcare, etc. My point being that there is a high level of education, sophistication, and organization at some level, which points to leadership that has not spoken out.
I'm not trying to poke holes in the argument that Muslims share in non-Muslim horror over the event, but I'm trying to get this. There is a tendency among beleaguered minorities to never criticize one another publicly. It's an ill fated strategy based upon strength in numbers, but it predictably destroys credibility to the entire group. Looking for the generous read, maybe that?
Was the attack on Salman Rushdie consistent with mainstream Muslim theology?
What would be considered mainstream? There are a billion or so muslims in the world and this was an act of one.
Lots has been written, especially by Sam Harris and others, about how Islam inherently encourages violence more than other religions. But its just not so simple. For a more complex analysis (in my view), Id check out Scott Atran.
The angle I would take wouldn't focus excusively on Islam but use this event as an example of a wider problem--extreme religious fundamentalism, which is a stain that bleeds across different religions in different ways and is destructive in different ways. But getting back to the OP, I think it's absolutely right to expect loud condemnations from Muslim clerics worldwide.
1.
The government of Iran is an Islamic theocracy that includes elements of a presidential democracy, with the ultimate authority vested in an autocratic "Supreme Leader";[26] a position held by Ali Khamenei since Khomeini's death in 1989.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran
2. Iran is a sovereign country.
3. Iran doesn't have a secular legal system the way Western secular countries typically do.
For a foreign country to interfere with a decision issued by the Iranian Supreme Leader would be a case of said foreign country interfering with Iran's internal affairs.
Iran effectively declared Rushdie to be an enemy of the state of Iran. As a sovereign country, it has the right to do that.
But the real issue is that secularists believe that Iran's fatwa was somehow frivolous. Leaking classified military documents and diplomatic cables is bad enough to consider someone an enemy of the state, but saying disrespectful things about a religious figure is somehow not. This is how secularists deny the autonomy of the religious.
And if we're believers in liberal democracies, we're believers in religious freedom.
No. If we're believers in liberal democracies, we're believers in religious superficialism: "It's okay to be religious, you can be any religion you want, as long as you don't take it all that seriously."
What is the view of Sunnis towards Shias? Do they reject entirely Shia Imam authority, or do they find them persuasive but just not binding?
Various aspects of Shia Islam are deeply offensive to Sunnis. There's widespread mistrust of Iran among Sunnis, because they fear that Iran is trying to help bring Shias to power. Violent conflicts between them erupt from time to time, with abuse leading to more abuse ad infinitum.
There are pockets of progressive Muslims, like the one you quoted, who want to move toward interfaith, but that can only happen in societies that have separation of church and state.
(1) it's a radical Shia thing that the Sunnis are so divorced from they see no reason to respond, and (2) the Sunni structure is so localized and non-hierarchical that they lack the means to present an official comprehensive response.
I think it's both.
Say there's an odd Jewish sect that does something bizarre. How would global Judaism respond? American Judaism?
Say there's an odd Jewish sect that does something bizarre. How would global Judaism respond? American Judaism?
There are many examples of diversions by insular groups that have been criticized within, and the chasm between Hasidic orthodoxy and liberal reform Jews is deep and wide. These things aren't interesting outside the religion because most don't really care if some in the Lubavitcher sect held the late Menacham Schneerson the messiah and others rejected it.
But despite these differences, there is an unbending view that a Jew of any stripe is a Jew. As they say, Hitler saw no distinctions.
But, Jewish terrorist groups need to be condemned, and if they aren't, the leaders need to explain why. I'm not trying to assert perfection here, just trying to decipher meaning from silence so I can figure out where they stand.
But despite these differences, there is an unbending view that a Jew of any stripe is a Jew.
Why should the same kind of reasoning apply to other religions?
Designating someone as a member of a particular religion is sometimes purely an artifact of secular religiology.
For example, the people who consider themselves Christians do not necessarily mutually recognize one another as such.
As they say, Hitler saw no distinctions.
He's hardly an authority on religious identity, is he.
But, Jewish terrorist groups need to be condemned, and if they aren't, the leaders need to explain why.
Why do they need to explain that? Can you explain? Who are you to impose on them that necessity?
I'm not trying to assert perfection here, just trying to decipher meaning from silence so I can figure out where they stand.
There are a billion or so muslims in the world and this was an act of one.
Except that his actions were based on an official decree by the highest leader in his religion. He wasn't just some nut job who was scribbling manifestos and getting messages from his dog.
Shias comprise a small percentage of Muslims but represent a huge number of people. I'm not trying to impose his actions upon every Muslim, but I also think it's a stretch to claim he's just one guy who happened to be Muslim and this act wasn't consistent with many to believe being Muslim requires of them.
But I'm in agreement that Islam is not inherently evil. People, as moral agents, not religions, get categorized as good or bad. I trust that anyone of us here who for whatever reason became Muslim would find a way to do it consistent with our morality.
That said, leadership matters and how they react and steer the ship can have profound consequences. And do note that my concerns rest in how leadership has responded and how they've resorted to their theology in responding, or not responding
Except that his actions were based on an official decree by the highest leader in his religion. He wasn't just some nut job who was scribbling manifestos and getting messages from his dog.
And the guy who just attacked the FBI in Ohio wasnt a nut job either. Does he represent mainstream conservatism? I dont think so, despite the messaging coming from the top (and the media).
I also think it's a stretch to claim he's just one guy who happened to be Muslim and this act wasn't consistent with many to believe being Muslim requires of them.
But he is just one guy. If he were Christian, or a Trump supporter, you could ask similar things fine. I still wouldnt say its mainstream.
I care much more about actions than intentions or beliefs. Although the latter are certainly important, if the former doesnt represent a real crisis, Id conclude that there isnt much to discuss. What do I mean by crisis? Is not a man being stabbed on stage a crisis? Statistically, not really. If we see a general uptick in violent attacks, thats one thing I dont see evidence for that yet.
Regardless, the messaging matters. That this was ultimately spurred from a political/religious leader is certainly a problem. Im against calling for the death of writers no question. Im against the calling for the hanging of FBI agents as well. That someone out there eventually acts on this messaging only proves that it has a real effect, and should be doubly condemned. But Im very reluctant to make claims about Islam or conservatism or Christianity on the basis of what one person tells their followers.
That said, leadership matters and how they react and steer the ship can have profound consequences. And do note that my concerns rest in how leadership has responded and how they've resorted to their theology in responding, or not responding
But, Jewish terrorist groups need to be condemned, and if they aren't, the leaders need to explain why
Say there's a case where some Jews in Jerusalem beat the hell out of a Muslim youth and it goes viral in the world's newspapers. Who exactly is responsible for explaining the mainstream Jewish view of that? Which rabbi would do it? How many Jews would applaud it? How many would be aghast?
Islam was born out of a bloody conflict. The imprint of that is definitely on Islam, just as Jesus' pacifism is imprinted in Christianity.
What that means is that Christian clergymen would have to really strain to find a backing for violence out of the New Testament. In the same way, Muslims have to tip toe carefully around the Quran to condemn violence. The Prophet was a violent man.
Say there's a case where some Jews in Jerusalem beat the hell out of a Muslim youth and it goes viral in the world's newspapers. Who exactly is responsible for explaining the mainstream Jewish view of that? Which rabbi would do it? How many Jews would applaud it? How many would be aghast?
Jewish terrorist groups can be found here: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_religious_terrorism
As to each one, you can click to go to that link and see what the response has been and who made it.
Jews are part of the fabric of Western society, especially the US, and have therefore set up specific organizations to respond to issues that affect their community.
You needn't have hierarchical systems or centralization to form organizations responsive to the realities of society. Accepting that the press matters is a Western idea and so I'm not holding all organizations to that understanding, but I do think some recognition must be had that if you're not going to announce your condemnation just to relieve my personal discomfort, I should at least overhear it when you speak among yourselves.
I'm not surprised. The forum and it's leaders allow, promote, disrespect for religion and religious belief in a way that would never be allowed for any other group. The forum means a lot to me, but I think this attitude, policy, is shameful.
Nonsense, we banned one of the best posters we've ever had, @Streetlight, partly for bigotry against Christians and we've banned others for Islamophobia too. E.g.
Also, I hope no one thinks that this type of thing:
I take it for granted that Christians are vicious, vacuous, shells of human beings who actively ruin everything around them when they are not busy raping children or defending those who do.
Streetlight
is acceptable. If you do, please do us all a favour and leave now.
Enough said.
(If you want to debate this, you can open a feedback thread but please stay on topic here. )
Streetlight:I take it for granted that Christians are vicious, vacuous, shells of human beings who actively ruin everything around them when they are not busy raping children or defending those who do.
Funny. I think what Streetlight, whom I still mourn, said is more defensible than what Hanover did. It's true. The Catholic Church, including leaders at high levels, allowed the sexual exploitation of thousands of vulnerable children, then helped their rapists, who also included high church leaders, avoid facing the consequences of their actions. I can't imagine a more horrible betrayal.
I wouldn't have said it the way Streetlight did, but his anger and disgust were justified.
It's OK for Street to label Christians rapists or defenders of rapists ("Christians", read it, not "the Catholic Church") but completely unacceptable for Hanover to ask if this attack is consistent with Islam? And all this adds up to us getting things backward? OK, sure.
As I said if you want to open a thread, feel free. Future off-topic comments will be deleted.
Was the attack on Salman Rushdie consistent with mainstream Muslim theology
If I remember correctly, Rushdies crimes were that of blasphemy. Though there is a theological debate whether such a crime should lead to worldly punishment, such as beheading, the very accusation can and has justified religious violence.
If I emember correctly, Rushdies crimes were that of blasphemy. Though there is a theological debate whether such a crime should lead to worldly punishment, such as beheading, the very accusation can and has justified religious violence.
Oliver offers a good summary here of the book and why it evoked controversy: Reply to Olivier5
I want to say yes just to see you talk more silliness.
She was a linguist and she loved it when I corrected her speech so that she could learn how Americans really spoke. So, if you met her after me, you now know why she says "Fuck yeah motherfucker" instead of "yes, thank you.."
Was the attack on Salman Rushdie consistent with mainstream Muslim theology?
Hanover
Is the final answer: Yes to Shia Muslims, no to Sunni Muslims?
Or is there another distinction I've missed with my Western eyes?
Your question asks about mainstream Muslim theology and mainstream Muslim theology applies to all Muslims, or rather, what is common to all sects of Islam. Blasphemy in Islam is an impious utterance or action concerning God, Muhammad, or anything considered sacred in Islam. The Quran admonishes blasphemy but does not specify any worldly punishment for it.
I'm sure it's been mentioned that Muslim clerics may call for the punishment of an alleged blasphemer by issuing a fatw?.
According to Islamic sources Nadr ibn al-Harith, who was an Arab Pagan doctor from Taif, used to tell stories of Rustam and Esfandiy?r to the Arabs and scoffed at Muhammad. After the battle of Badr, al-Harith was captured and, in retaliation, Muhammad ordered his execution in hands of Ali, who was a cousin, son-in-law, and companion of Muhammad.
The following is a depiction of Nadr ibn al-Harith's punishment in the presence of Muhammad.
Your question asks about mainstream Muslim theology and mainstream Muslim theology applies to all Muslims, or rather, what is common to all sects of Islam. Blasphemy in Islam is an impious utterance or action concerning God, Muhammad, or anything considered sacred in Islam.
And so this would blur the distinction between the Sunni and Shia condemnation of the Satanic Verses (as they'd both be in agreement there), but they'd vary drastically in their response in terms of advocating violence.
It'd be akin to a peaceful abortion protestor versus an abortion bomber, where the underlying sentiment is the same, but the response different. Again, questioning the wisdom of silence in the analogy just given, if I were in a group that advocated non-violent protest against abortion, and a bombing took place, I'd realize the significance of the moment and formally declare my distance from it.
In all fairness, no religion cares much for the blasphemous.
Leviticus 24:16 says, Anyone who blasphemes the name of the LORD must be put to death. The entire assembly must stone him. Whether an alien or native-born, when he blasphemes the Name, he must be put to death.
Leviticus 24:16 says, Anyone who blasphemes the name of the LORD must be put to death. The entire assembly must stone him. Whether an alien or native-born, when he blasphemes the Name, he must be put to death.
That's true what it says, but, as noted in other threads, there's no evidence of any actual stonings or biblically mandated death penalties in the past 2,000 + years.
It's part of the reason for the OP, in trying to figure out the real theology because it's often very distant from its literal decrees.
In all fairness, no religion cares much for the blasphemous.
It probably goes back to that time somebody said "God sucks!" and then the crops were eaten by locusts, so they made it illegal to say things like that.
a Muslim cleric daring to defend Rushdie would become a potential target.
- then we have a religion with some considerable problems above and beyond any sectarian variations. I spoke to two Sunni collogues of mine. Their response about what happened to Rushdie was - "You mock Islam, what do you expect? He's lucky to still be alive." Were they against the attack? "I wound't do it myself, but I understand the anger." This may be the nub of it and we forget how violently this religion often feels about blasphemy and apostasy.
I am reminded of the work of gay Islamic writer and feminist Irshad Manji who has argued quite vociferously for years now that Islam desperately needs a reformation - a point alluded to earlier by @Bitter Crank.
It is time for those who love liberal democracy to join hands with Islam's reformists. Here is a clue to who's who: Moderate Muslims denounce violence committed in the name of Islam but insist that religion has nothing to do with it; reformist Muslims, by contrast, not only deplore Islamist violence but admit that our religion is used to incite it.
argued quite vociferously for years now that Islam desperately needs a reformation
Yes. Its a religion thats gone through many phases; our western perception of it is not an accurate picture of what its been for the majority of its history.
That's true what it says, but, as noted in other threads, there's no evidence of any actual stonings or biblically mandated death penalties in the past 2,000 + years.
I read a biography of Spinoza that said Jewish communities banished and assassinated members who broke their rules. Spinoza was banished, but assassination was a possibility.
Certainly in pop-culture but most people I know admire Islam's past cultural history and its capacity for pluralism and diversity. There's a great book by Stephen Schwartz about this called The Two Faces of Islam.
read a biography of Spinoza that said Jewish communities banished and assassinated members who broke their rules. Spinoza was banished, but assassination was a possibility.
Spinoza is a well known case of banishment.
I'm not trying to argue here who's best and will concede religion does all sorts of evil. The OP wasn't focused on that.
If you're interested in the halacha of the Jewish death penalty, you can search this forum or Google it, but I think it's far afield from the focus here. My point here being if I did show the very limited Jewish application of the death penalty, that hardly means the religion superior and I don't want to insinuate that.
Me neither. I think we've established that all three of the "religions of the book" have histories of executing blasphemers. I would say Muslims are still doing it because they haven't evolved out that the way Christians and Jews have. They're culturally backward in some ways.
Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini never read Salman Rushdies book The Satanic Verses, his son Ahmed told me in Tehran, in the early nineteen-nineties. The Iranian leaders murderous 1989 fatwa against the British American writer was a political move to exploit the erupting fury in Pakistan, India, and beyond over a fictional dream sequence involving the Prophet Muhammad. The books passages, which portrayed human weaknesses and undermined the Prophets credibility as a messenger of God, were blasphemous to some Muslims.
The Ayatollah was shrewd that way. At the time, the young Islamic Republic was emerging from existential challenges: an eight-year war with Iraq that produced at least a million casualties; widespread domestic discontent; deepening political rifts among the clergy; a flagging economy that had rationed basic food and fuel; and a decade of diplomatic isolation. Khomeini condemned Rushdie, as well as his editors and publishers in any language, to death.He called on all valiant Muslims wherever they may be to go out and kill all of themwithout delayso that no one will dare insult the sacred beliefs of Muslims henceforth. Whoever is killed in this cause will be a martyr and ascend instantly to heaven. Tehran offered a reward that eventually grew to more than three million dollars.
Khomeini often capitalized on issues that distracted public attention from the Revolutions fissures and failures.
That's true what it says, but, as noted in other threads, there's no evidence of any actual stonings or biblically mandated death penalties in the past 2,000 + years.
:chin: Really? Historical events like the Inquisition immediately come to mind.
Reply to praxis Hanover was talking about Jews stoning heretics. If I am not mistaken, the Inquisition was run by Dominicans, a Catholic order not usually confused with Jews. For further information, see Python, Monte: The Spanish Inquisition
Reply to Bitter Crank I like the Monty Python's caricature of Spanish inquisition, but truste me when I say they weren't that bad as the "history" books say.
Plot twist: Germany burnt down more "witches" and heretics than the Spanish inquisition. I never understood why we are the only ones who looks like as the bad character inside of history.
Note that I do not pretend to defend my ancestors but only to highlight that it wasn't as excessive as the people tend to think!
Really? Historical events like the Inquisition immediately come to mind.
They had a special court called "the court of inquisition in Madrid" they rarely set the people in fire... if you check the data (not influenced by black legend) you would see that they were a few who experienced that drama. Again, as I said to Bitter Crank, non Catholic countries as Germany or Austria burnt down more witches or heretics than the Spanish inquisition...
Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini never read Salman Rushdies book The Satanic Verses, his son Ahmed told me in Tehran, in the early nineteen-nineties.
Rare are the Muslims who ever read the Satanic Verses. That includes Rushdie's attacker, Hadi Matar. They just believe what some other cretin said about it. That's a big part of the problem. We got guys ready to kill for hearsay, for a fucking rumor...
I guess some people beg to be manipulated.
To my taste, I don't see enough in the press in defence of the book itself. It is a great piece of literature and I hope that people read it, and read it for a good reason, ie their reading pleasure. Haters looking for a dress-down of Mohammad will be disappointed. The prophet comes across as a great man, and there is no contempt for Islam in that book whatsoever.
So it's really sad to hear or read something like this:
. I spoke to two Sunni collogues of mine. Their response about what happened to Rushdie was - "You mock Islam, what do you expect? He's lucky to still be alive." Were they against the attack? "I wound't do it myself, but I understand the anger."
I don't doubt what Tom says -- this is exactly the kind of feedback you'd get from any serious/involved believer in Islam. And yet there no mocking in that book.
Meanwhile:
Police are investigating a threat against JK Rowling that was made after she posted her reaction on social media to the attack on Salman Rushdie.
Rowling tweeted on Friday: Horrifying news. Feeling very sick right now. Let him be OK.
A Twitter user under the name Meer Asif Asiz replied: Dont worry you are next.
Reply to Olivier5
I've been following this informative and thought-provoking thread. Thanks @Hanover
I had wondered when anyone would start talking about the attack and from what angle.
The focus is exceptional. Quoting Hanover
But back to the theological question, anyone find sources of mainstream. Imam condemnation of the attack or fatwa?
I've been looking too and glad to have learned more from other posters.
Apologies if I've departed some from original OP questions.
I bolded bits of interest, where any questioning at all is forbidden and can result in death via fatwah.
Anything departing from such hagiography is blasphemous, even if showing Mohammad in a positive light (as Rushdie does in the Satanic Verses), even if historically accurate.
In particular, the Quran is untouchable.It is supposed to be the direct writings of God. Yet Rushdie shows a conflictual, painful revelation process, where Mohammad goes through much physical and mental suffering and struggle, and where the politics of the city get to impact the holy book, albeit in a transient manner. It implies that the Quran has a human touch, even if divinely inspired, and thus introduces an element of doubt.
Rare are the Muslims who ever read the Satanic Verses. That includes Rushdie's attacker, Hadi Matar. They just believe what some other cretin said about it. That's a big part of the problem. We got guys ready to kill for hearsay, for a fucking rumor...
That point was covered in a recent Guardian article.
Basically, it doesn't matter the contents, it's the principle...the mere fact of criticism.
Emotional manipulation. Not just a rumour but brain-washing.
Another excellent piece mentioned our 'internalisation' of the fatwah with links to other articles.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/aug/13/we-internalised-the-fatwa-against-salman-rushdie-this-horrific-attack-is-what-follows
A bit like how Rushdie just had to get on with life...accepting of his potential fate.
It's a pity that there has been no clear understanding re the lifting of the fatwah.
Channel 4 news not long after the attack explored this:
Krishnan Guru-Murthy
We spoke to Indian MP and author Shashi Tharoor about the attack of Salman Rushdie.
I don't see enough in the press in defence of the book itself. It is a great piece of literature and I hope that people read it, and read it for a good reason, ie their reading pleasure. Haters looking for a dress-down of Mohammad will be disappointed. The prophet comes across as a great man, and there is no contempt for Islam in that book whatsoever.
I read that the sales have increased. Long live literature.
Again, the Guardian has that covered.
Salman Rushdie, who was stabbed repeatedly at a public appearance in New York state, and his supporters are to blame for the attack,Irans foreign ministry spokesperson has said.
Freedom of speech did not justify Rushdies insults upon religion in his writing, Nasser Kanaani said in a press briefing on Monday.
Police are investigating a threat against JK Rowling that was made after she posted her reaction on social media to the attack on Salman Rushdie.
Rowling tweeted on Friday: Horrifying news. Feeling very sick right now. Let him be OK.
A Twitter user under the name Meer Asif Asiz replied: Dont worry you are next.
I know we are travelling away from the initial OP but I think it's worthwhile to view in the greater context:
(Mods @Hanover not sure about splitting this off to a separate thread. It is all so inter-related)
In any future monument to murdered, tortured, imprisoned and persecuted writers, Rushdie will feature large. On 12 August he was stabbed on stage by an assailant at a literary event at Chautauqua, a venerable American institution in upstate New York. Yet again that sort of thing never happens here has been proven false: in our present world, anything can happen anywhere. American democracy is under threat as never before: the attempted assassination of a writer is just one more symptom.
Without doubt, this attack was directed at him because his fourth novel, The Satanic Verses, a satiric fantasy that he himself believed was dealing with the disorientation felt by immigrants from (for instance) India to Britain, got used as a tool in a political power struggle in a distant country.
When your regime is under pressure, a little book-burning creates a popular distraction. Writers dont have an army. They dont have billions of dollars. They dont have a captive voting block. They thus make cheap scapegoats. Theyre so easy to blame: their medium is words, which are by nature ambiguous and subject to misinterpretation, and they themselves are often mouthy, if not downright curmudgeonly. Worse, they frequently speak truth to power. Even apart from that, their books will annoy some people. As writers themselves have frequently said, if what youve written is universally liked, you must be doing something wrong. But when you offend a ruler, things can get lethal, as many writers have discovered.
In Rushdies case, the power that used him as a pawn was the Ayatollah Khomeini of Iran. In 1989, he issued a fatwa a rough equivalent to the bulls of excommunication used by medieval and renaissance Catholic popes as weapons against both secular rulers and theological challengers such as Martin Luther. Khomeini also offered a large reward to anyone who would murder Rushdie. There were numerous killings and attempted assassinations, including the stabbing of the Japanese translator Hitoshi Igarashi in 1991. Rushdie himself spent many years in enforced hiding, but gradually he came out of his cocoon the Toronto PEN event being the most significant first step and, in the past two decades, hed been leading a relatively normal life.
But on Monday, Iran's foreign ministry spokesperson Nasser Kanaani - giving the country's first official reaction - said Tehran "categorically" denied any link, adding "no-one has the right to accuse the Islamic Republic of Iran".
However, he said freedom of speech did not justify Mr Rushdie insulting religion in his writing.
"In this attack, we do not consider anyone other than Salman Rushdie and his supporters worthy of blame and even condemnation," the spokesman said during his weekly press conference in Tehran.
"By insulting the sacred matters of Islam and crossing the red lines of more than 1.5 billion Muslims and all followers of the divine religions, Salman Rushdie has exposed himself to the anger and rage of the people."
Reply to Olivier5 This: a few translators and sympthasizers have already been attacked. The Japanese translator died and the Norwegian and Italian translators survived.
We got guys ready to kill for hearsay, for a fucking rumor...
I guess some people beg to be manipulated.
I unfortunately do not share your disbelief. Isn't every religious war exactly this? It requires you to buy into the religious fundamental assumptions that I'm pretty certain most believers never experienced either. God is infallible, omnipresent, angels, hell, heaven, etc.
I suppose it's not so much manipulation but the indoctrination resulting from whatever society you grow up into. Most people do not question their position or role in that society. And I'd say "education" is an important factor in avoiding this but then Iran was well-educated and "modern" well into the 70s. So it's also politics and how politics and religious thinking can be (mis)used. Just like "God save America", "God is with us!" and "I'm doing God's work" are and were used for political purposes.
Another excellent piece mentioned our 'internalisation' of the fatwah with links to other articles.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/aug/13/we-internalised-the-fatwa-against-salman-rushdie-this-horrific-attack-is-what-follows
This is a good article and makes an interesting link to identity politics.
Upon reflection, what surprises me is that despite the decentralised nature of religious leadership in Islam, such a fatwa can have such a far-reaching almost monolithic agreement with the fatwa even by Muslims who aren't part of the religious tradition of Ayatollah Khomeini. I somehow feel that it can't just be identity politics that resulted in that. Am I overestimating European societies ability to create room for people to have their own opinions about these sort of things? Hell, I have very fundamental different views than my parents about almost everything to do with politics.
Iranian media have extensively commented on the attack, calling it "divine retribution".
Iran's state broadcaster daily Jaam-e Jam highlighted the news that Rushdie might lose an eye following the attack, saying "an eye of the Satan has been blinded".
Absolutely disgusting. What can be done about it?
[i]Mr Blinken had earlier denounced Iran's state institutions for inciting violence against the author.
He said in a statement that Mr Rushdie had "consistently stood up for the universal rights of freedom of expression, freedom of religion or belief, and freedom of the press".
"While law enforcement officials continue to investigate the attack, I am reminded of the pernicious forces that seek to undermine these rights, including through hate speech and incitement to violence.
"Specifically, Iranian state institutions have incited violence against Rushdie for generations, and state-affiliated media recently gloated about the attempt on his life. This is despicable."
Mr Blinken added the US and its partners would use "every appropriate tool" at their disposal to stand up to what he called "these threats".[/i]
***
So, there we have it:
'Every appropriate tool' against 'pernicious forces', 'hate speech' and 'incitement to violence'.
I hope that includes all domestic extremism too.
But when Presidents get away with it...this gives me no hope.
Meaningless words without action against powerful words of anger.
And we spend time looking for who condemns attacks.
What will change...?
It seems hatred and division rule.
No matter what.
Funny. Its also funny that on the day before the Salman attack a man attacked the FBI armed with an assault rifle. This man was also at the January 6th assault on the Capital.
Many Trumpists openly advocate for the establishment of a Christian theocracy in the US.
Ok but what criticism? If memory serves, the Satanic Verses does NOT read like a criticism of Islam at all, more like an independent exploration.
I haven't read it. Not to my taste when published but strangely enough had just been thinking of it when the attack happened.
As to how it reads, like any book, even the cover and title can trigger.
So perhaps not an either/or but both depending on interpretation.
I'll leave it there, for now.
As to how it reads, like any book, even the cover and title can trigger.
So perhaps not an either/or but both depending on interpretation.
I guess I should read it again. It's (at least superficially) about Satan, known as Shaitan in Islam. And many other things.
A quick check on the history behind the title:
The Satanic Verses are words of "satanic suggestion" which the Islamic prophet Muhammad is alleged to have mistaken for divine revelation.[1] The verses praise the three pagan Meccan goddesses: al-L?t, al-'Uzzá, and Man?t and can be read in early prophetic biographies of Muhammad by al-W?qid?, Ibn Sa'd and the tafsir of al-Tabar?. The first use of the expression in English is attributed to Sir William Muir in 1858.[2]
The incident is accepted as true by modern scholars of Islamic studies, under the criterion of embarrassment, citing the implausibility of early Muslim biographers fabricating a story so unflattering about their prophet.[3][4] It was accepted by religious authorities for the first two centuries of the Islamic era, but was later rejected by some religious scholars (Ulama) as incompatible with Muhammad's perfection ('isma), implying that Muhammad is infallible and therefore cannot be fooled by Satan.[...]
There are numerous accounts of the incident, which differ in the construction and detail of the narrative, but they may be broadly collated to produce a basic account.[5] The different versions of the story are recorded in early tafsirs (Quranic commentaries) and biographies of the Prophet, such as Ibn Ishaq's.[6] In its essential form, the story reports that Muhammad longed to convert his kinsmen and neighbors of Mecca to Islam. As he was reciting these verses of S?rat an-Najm,[7] considered a revelation from the angel Gabriel:
"[I]Have you thought of al-L?t and al-'Uzzá? And about the third deity, al-Man?t?"[/i]
Quran 53:1920
Satan tempted him to utter the following line:
"These are the exalted ghar?niq, whose intercession is hoped for."
Al-L?t, al-'Uzz? and Man?t were three goddesses worshipped by the Meccans. Discerning the precise meaning of the word ghar?niq has proven difficult, as it is a hapax legomenon (i.e. used only once in the text).
Commentators wrote that it meant "the cranes". The Arabic word does generally mean a "crane" appearing in the singular as ghirn?q, ghurn?q, ghirnawq and ghurnayq, and the word has cousin forms in other words for birds, including "raven, crow" and "eagle".[8] Taken as a segment, "exalted ghar?niq" has been translated by Orientalist William Muir to mean "exalted women", while contemporary academic Muhammad Manazir Ahsan has translated the same segment as "high-soaring ones (deities)". Thus, whether the phrase had intended to attribute a divine nature to the three "idols" is a matter of dispute.[9]
In either case, scholars generally agree on the meaning of the second half of the verse, "whose intercession is hoped for", and this by itself would contradict a core tenet of what would become orthodox Islamic doctrine, namely that no saint or deity nor Muhammad himself can intercede for Muslims.
Funny. Its also funny that on the day before the Salman attack a man attacked the FBI armed with an assault rifle. This man was also at the January 6th assault on the Capital.
Many Trumpists openly advocate for the establishment of a Christian theocracy in the US.
I don't follow the relevance of these references. Even if a moral equivalency could be concluded (and I think the distinctions might be significant enough that it can't be (as the basis for the attacks on the FBI is an argument of abuse of power in trying to seize illegally stored documents from the former President), what difference would it make to prove we've got just as bad Christians actors as we do Muslim actors? I don't think anyone has made the argument that one group is superior to the other. The argument has been that the Rushdie attack was evil and that the response inappropriate (by being either overly celebratory or muted). Whether that has happened in other places by other groups means very little to this conversation. If there are those attacking the FBI with assault rifles and those attacks are being hailed as justified, then I think we'd all agree that is wrong, but not that it should offer an excuse for others to behave terribly.
I just found it a funny coincidence, both attacks having occured within a day of each other and both being related to the power of theocracy and wannabe theocracy.
I don't follow the relevance of these references. Even if a moral equivalency could be concluded (and I think the distinctions might be significant enough that it can't be (as the basis for the attacks on the FBI is an argument of abuse of power in trying to seize illegally stored documents from the former President), what difference would it make to prove we've got just as bad Christians actors as we do Muslim actors?
Because if you point out that only a few progressive Muslims can manage to strongly condemn the attack, then what does this tell us about the guy who runs the Pakistani restaurant down the street? If we ask, he might tell us that Rushdie should have been killed a long time ago. Now what?
What's your response to that? What should we conclude about the Muslims around us?
Because if you point out that only a few progressive Muslims can manage to strongly condemn the attack, then what does this tell us about the guy who runs the Pakistani restaurant down the street? If we ask, he might tell us that Rushdie should have been killed a long time ago. Now what?
What's your response to that? What should we conclude about the Muslims around us?
It's hard to conclude anything from some anecdotal information, which is why I was looking for some type of statement from leadership. We've made assumptions as to what polling data might show, but I think the conclusion you must draw prior to having supporting data is that we're not in a position to conclude anything.
I think the aim of the OP is trying to deal with how to decipher silence.
I do think most people are pragmatists at a most basic level, meaning their concerns deal with paying their bills, taking care of their families, and doing their day to day activities. If you ask a staunch Republican what he thinks ought be done about this or that, you might get all sorts of aggressive talk that you don't agree with, but come Monday, he's back at work just doing his job. So, I'd agree with the basic statement that most people are not poised to do something crazy, but I also see too much leeway given by some people when crazy people do crazy things.
So, I'd agree with the basic statement that most people are not poised to do something crazy, but I also see too much leeway given by some people when crazy people do crazy things.
My way of dealing with it is to put aside the idea of craziness. The guy who attacked Rushdie may have been schizophrenic or something, but look at the part of it that isn't crazy.
Thomas Aquinas said that atheists should be executed. He was echoing Plato. None of those guys were crazy. It's part of who we are as a species to get murderous about sacrilege, which has many forms. I don't say that to apologize for Muslim leaders who are silent now. It's just that I need a way to understand.
Thomas Aquinas said that atheists should be executed. He was echoing Plato. None of those guys were crazy. It's part of who we are as a species to get murderous about sacrilege, which has many forms. I don't say that to apologize for Muslim leaders who are silent now. It's just that I need a way to understand.
Agree. I believe civilisation really is only a very thin veneer, easily dropped under various circumstances.
the Satanic Verses does NOT read like a criticism of Islam at all, more like an independent exploration.
Independent exploration is criticism to a theocracy. Don't forget also that Rushdie is viewed as an apostate which in itself calls for the death penalty.
I'm asking Muslims in the West a very basic question: Will we remain spiritually infantile, caving to cultural pressures to clam up and conform, or will we mature into full-fledged citizens, defending the very pluralism that allows us to be in this part of the world in the first place? My question for non-Muslims is equally basic: Will you succumb to the intimidation of being called "racists," or will you finally challenge us Muslims to take responsibility for our role in what ails Islam?
Independent exploration is criticism to a theocracy. Don't forget also that Rushdie is viewed as an apostate which in itself calls for the death penalty.
Indeed. Still, I remain puzzled with the intensity of the reaction to what I remember as a respectful, even insightful 'novelisation' of Mohammad's revelation.
I'm starting to think that Rushdie's real "crime" was simply to reveal to the world an embarrassing yet probably true story about Mohammad, that of the quranic verses inspired by the Devil (or by politics) and later retracted.
That story reminds us that no religious leader is perfect, not even the greatest one ever. Quite subversive when you think of it.
Indeed. Still, I remain puzzled with the intensity of the reaction to what I remember as a respectful, even insightful 'novelisation' of Mohammad's revelation.
If the Quran is supposed to be divinely inspired then the suggestion some of the text is the consequence of political considerations is blasphemous. That part seems relatively straightforward, if possibly alien/ridiculous to most Christians and atheists.
As a Muslim (though a highly idiosyncratic unorthodox one!) I have observed that there is a huge divergence of interpretations on issues by Muslim scholars.
It's almost like asking what is the mainstream opinion on metaphysics in philosophy.
At the ground level it also varies a lot depending on the degree of "religiosity".
The media always seems to pinpoint the most extreme versions of Islam,but in reality most Muslims are harmless in terms of trying to assassinate someone.
Many Muslims are only aware of the basics of their faith or do not practice at all.
I have heard that many Muslim councils and leaders condemned the attack.
Just like Christianity or atheism it's only the extremists that are troublesome.
Islam as a whole is not dangerous,its extremists that can be.
Islam remains a very minority religion where I live, and it's hard to get my finger on the pulse of that part of my/our community, especially with the silence in the press on what the general reaction was.
I would expect the problem to be isolated to extremists, but what some have reported here is that the defamation of Muslim founders is considered by all Muslims to be a great affront to Islam that could understandably result in a violent response, and "extremists" mean Shia adherents, which appears to be over a hundred million people.
Do you agree with these assessments?
I know I've set things out here very starkly, and it's not to be provocative, but it's really to push for an answer because you might be in the best position to know about this.
Reply to Hanover
Thank you.
Defamation of Muhammed is considered insulting by many orthodox Muslim scholars.
As for the average Muslim,I think many are not happy with gratuitous insults,but that doesn't mean engaging in violence. Some more religious types might engage in public protests. But in that way it's no different from any other "group".
As for Shia Islam,its no more extreme than other religions in general. Some elements in Iranian politics do pump out propoganda and initially it was Ayatollah Khomeini who issued the fatwa against Rushdie way back. But still the vast majority of shia were not violent,and individual fatwas by clerics are not necessarily binding.
The media do really misrepresent Islam during these kinds of horrible isolated incidents. Fear sells!
Most ordinary Muslims want a good job,nice family and a peaceful-ish life same as most secular people.
The prophet comes across as a great man, and there is no contempt for Islam in that book whatsoever.
You don't get to decide that.
Your response is typical for the way secularists approach the matter: They see themselves as authorities over "how things really are", as arbiters of the Truth. They see themselves as the ones who get to decide how others should think, feel, speak, and act about things. It's plain old authoritarianism under the guise of humanism.
If the Quran is supposed to be divinely inspired then the suggestion some of the text is the consequence of political considerations is blasphemous. That part seems relatively straightforward, if possibly alien/ridiculous to most Christians and atheists.
If you were to burn the Dutch flag in public, what would be the consequences?
It's just a piece of cloth, isn't it?
IOW, it's not only some "primitive" or "violent" nations or religions who punish people, but Western democratic (" ") nations also punish (including with death) the transgression of certain rules.
The execution of these punishments is just a matter of practical means, not a difference in the motive for punishment.
Name one instance where it's not like this. I can't think of any field of human knowledge and endeavor where "independent exploration" is not considered criticism.
I'm asking Muslims in the West a very basic question: Will we remain spiritually infantile, caving to cultural pressures to clam up and conform, or will we mature into full-fledged citizens, defending the very pluralism that allows us to be in this part of the world in the first place? My question for non-Muslims is equally basic: Will you succumb to the intimidation of being called "racists," or will you finally challenge us Muslims to take responsibility for our role in what ails Islam?
Reply to baker https://nl.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vlagschennis#:~:text=Vlagschennis%20is%20het%20verbranden%2C%20verminken,de%20nationale%20vlag%20strafbaar%20stellen.
The Dutch version explains it's neither a crime in the Netherlands nor Belgium.
Reply to Benkei Indeed, countries differ in how they treat flag desceration. In some countries, you can go to prison (for years) for burning the flag. (I brought up flag desecration because it seemed like the universal example of an item of symbolic value, where the value of the item is far more and far different than the material it is made of. The decriminalization of flag desecration seems like a relatively recent development; I wasn't aware of its extent.)
My point is that there are material and non-material items of symbolic value in a culture the desecration of which is punishable by law. Just like the national flag isn't just a piece of cloth, words aren't just sounds or ink blots. This notion isn't limited to primitive cultures.
There is a trend in interpreting the stance of Iran as somehow irrational, that they are "working themselves up over nothing" and severly punish a person who is not guilty of any crime.
I'm pointing out that Western, supposedly democratic, secular cultures can be charged with the same criticism. Just about different things. For example, high treason is punishable by death or life imprisonment in many democratic countries.
The fatwa against Rushdie is equvalent to our notion of high treason. So where seems to be the problem?
Reply to baker Equivocating a fatwa with a rule of law is just plain wrong. A fatwa isn't law and in this case the rule was also intended to have retroactive effect, because it imposes a punishment for behaviour that existed before the rule was communicated. That is always bad law.
The reason high treason is punishable is because it generally detrimentally affects a large group of people. So from a typical liberal perspective, the harm principle can be applied. Since nobody is harmed by Rushdie's book, they can after all choose not to read it, punishing it is quite frankly ridiculous. If you don't want to be aggravated or insulted, don't interact with people at all, don't read, don't watch television and don't listen to the radio.
In a similar vain, treason that could never damage people or protects a higher norm, shouldn't be punished either. Generally, judges tend to take such effects into account when deciding on the severity of punishment.
Name one instance where it's not like this.
baker
Literature.
I majored in literature. An authoritarian endeavor it is. It's all dogma and power games through and trough. "Independent exploration" my ass. At the end of the day, you're supposed to think, feel, and speak about a literary text the way your superiors expect you to, or you fail the grade.
Oh, the political correctness!
baker
What point are you making?
The passage you quoted is an example of the kind of talk I've heard before, from people from other religions. I've seen it myself that when such an invitation is accepted and the requested challenge in fact posed, the religious get offended. All too often I've seen religious people be like one person in their public talks, but then, when personally addressed, it's like they become someone else, another person.
In my experience such requests were never meant to be taken seriously. It's just religious grandstanding, much like when the RCC pope issues a public apology.
Equivocating a fatwa with a rule of law is just plain wrong. A fatwa isn't law and in this case the rule was also intended to have retroactive effect, because it imposes a punishment for behaviour that existed before the rule was communicated.
That's just the thing: It _is_ law. It is _Islamic_ law.
Since nobody is harmed by Rushdie's book,
The Islamic authorities disagree.
they can after all choose not to read it, punishing it is quite frankly ridiculous.
Would you make the same case for hate speech?
If you don't want to be aggravated or insulted, don't interact with people at all, don't read, don't watch television and don't listen to the radio.
Wrong. It's not about not wanting to be aggravated or insulted. It's about not tolerating such aggravation or insult.
Nobody specifically wants to be aggraved or insulted. It is not fair to expect some people to quietly tolerate aggravation and insult, while others get to revenge themselves.
In a similar vain, treason that could never damage people or protects a higher norm, shouldn't be punished either.
Blasphemy does damage a higher norm.
Example: If a person who is not a citizen of the US says or does something that the US authorities consider harmful to the US, what does the US do? They punish this person, and this punishment can include death. When another country does this same kind of thing, why is this problematic?
At the end of the day, you're supposed to think, feel, and speak about a literary text the way your superiors expect you to, or you fail the grade.
Sure, that happens. But the point is you don't risk death or maiming by strangers all around the world for decades. Nor will anyone throw acid in your face for being a woman daring to gain an education. For my money you can't compare these expressions of 'authority'. And even if they were exactly the same, this would amount to a tu quoque fallacy.
Artists in the West can generally be hatefully critical towards power elites and government and religions and not face these problems.
I've seen it myself that when such an invitation is accepted and the requested challenge in fact posed, the religious get offended. All too often I've seen religious people be like one person in their public talks, but then, when personally addressed, it's like they become someone else, another person
Whatever you may have seen does not necessarily warrant calling the quote 'politically correct' as a kind of pejorative. That's a Fox News style comment. But you are correct that some people are hypocrites. Sometimes you can tell if they are or not by how much their public comments have cost them.
Point me to the part where they considered the harm principle. They didn't disagree, it simply wasn't a consideration. Your statement is therefore false.
A book that would call for violence against others is not protected speech and does harm others when people act upon the call. Since Rhusdie didn't, your suggested equivocation is wrong footed.
Wrong. It's not about not wanting to be aggravated or insulted. It's about not tolerating such aggravation or insult.
Nobody specifically wants to be aggraved or insulted. It is not fair to expect some people to quietly tolerate aggravation and insult, while others get to revenge themselves.
You're simply missing the point and arguing against a straw man. The point is that aggravation is not grounds for punishment. You currently aggravate me with a badly argued post. Off with your head.
Example: If a person who is not a citizen of the US says or does something that the US authorities consider harmful to the US, what does the US do? They punish this person, and this punishment can include death. When another country does this same kind of thing, why is this problematic?
This is not an example but an interesting representation of your biases. I talk shit about the USA on a daily basis and I'm fine.
I've removed the completely irrelevant personal attacks, because this discussion has been civil for a good four pages and I don't want it to degenerate like the Ukraine discussion did.
@baker Raises some very telling observations.
The "law" is used arbitrarily by nation states when it suits their political and economic agendas. Flag burning is a prime example.
We have heard US politicians call publicly for the assignation of leaders of other nations when it suits.
The US has also blatantly contravened international law in engaging in conflict.
Personally I see double standards and an Elitist mindset from "western" nations and Iran.
There should be freespeech but also common sense.
Public calls for political violence are the limit of freespeech for all parties.
Reply to Adamski And what I see more so unfortunately is an attempt to derail the thread into one over hypocrisy and strained attempts at moral equivalency as opposed to better understanding why a religious leader would send marching orders to murder an author and there would be muted reaction from other religious leaders.
I do think we made some headway into understanding why.
The point being that even should we conclude the US (or whoever) is just like the Ayatollah, that offers zero excuse for the decree to have Rushdie murdered. If the OP were meant just to itemize the good and bad acts of various political and religious entities so the we could announce a winner, I guess I could have done that, but such wasn't the goal.
And I'm really not coming after you so much for this, but just responding to you from how another poster who I generally ignore has responded in the hopes of better explaining my position.
I think that's fair comment. The topic here concerns reactions to the attack and what conclusions, if any, can be drawn from those. It's a difficult enough question without a bunch of distractions that seem to be aimed at mitigating the injustice of what was done to Rushdie. If someone wants to start a thread on whether we should get behind stabbing an artist in the face because a leading religious extremist took offence to his book, they can try that elsewhere. Preferably on a forum that caters to that sort of thing.
If the OP were meant just to itemize the good and bad acts of various political and religious entities so the we could announce a winner, I guess I could have done that, but such wasn't the goal.
There's presently a public discussion going on about freedom of speech, specifically regarding the tender topic of criticising Islamic leaders without being accused of Islamophobia.
I don't trust anyone on the American right to say squat about Islamic leadership because they've stood by silently as Trump and his buddies were racist as hell. Republicans do not deserve the trust of the rest of Americans on this issue.
I understand your goal, but it's like doing forensics on an active battlefield.
I get we hate Trump, racists, Republicans, and probably all sorts of other things, like climate change deniers, Covid deniers, US Middle East policy, and I could go on and on, but let's focus on the topic at hand.
If Trump, Mother Theresa, Charles Manson, and Abraham Lincoln all declared "stabbing out eyes ought be publicly condemned," they'd all be equally correct.
@Hanover
There are two points here,but related.
First,as I said fatwas are not universally binding or accepted by all Muslims. Many Shiah clerics do not accept the fatwa either.
There isn't a "muted" reaction,it's just the media doesn't report the councils and leaders who have condemned the attack,or those who disagree with the fatwa.
In the Islamic world it's extremely rare for a cleric ( who also happened to be the country's leader) to set a worldwide binding fatwa. Just like Christianity There are many denominations and subdivisions beyond Sunni and Shia. There is no one pope in Islam to usher worldwide edicts.
As a very loose analogy,the Marlborough baptist church does not represent Christianity as a whole.
Secondly,one must be consistent and think beyond a colonial mindset. Islamic theology is not a monolith.
At the moment the Eastern orthodox churches of Ukraine and Russia have issued edicts backing war against each others people. How is this not an equivalence?
My own position is crystal clear I condemn all sides religious and secular for using "law" to publicly endorse violence for political ends.
Finally,I'm not even sure if Rushdies attacker was a shia or just an extremist acting on his own steam? Why an inquisition before the facts are in?
@Baden
You are speaking to a Muslim here,and one who has condemned the attack on rushdie,and ALL public calls for political violence.
I'm trying to explain how theology is not a monolith,and how a lot of Muslims perceive things specifically and in a wider context.
Yet here you are censoring a previous post of mine and throwing in a red herring comment about people starting threads in defense of violence.
Either you want to hear from normal Muslims and get a better understanding or your just hearing what you've already made up your mind upon.
Bottom line,Muslims are not a monolith theologically or as people.
There isn't any organization that can detect the confusion among non-Muslims about the silence of Islamic leaders. There's no Islamic PR department in the US. Even if there was, as you point out, religious authority in Islam doesn't work the same way as it does in Judaism and Christianity.
@Tate
When I get the opportunity I try to explain to people that Muslims in general are not violent,nor do many even listen to their imams.
To many Islam is a basic personal faith consisting of belief in God,an afterlife,a time of judgement for good deeds,prayer,fasting etc.
Many have no idea of theology,fatwas and most haven't even read the quran in a language they understand.
Just as many Christians and Jews are not beholden to their priests or rabbis,ditto for Muslims.
Though most Muslims believe in God,their lives are otherwise "secular."
Twenty years ago or so ago I would criticise many Muslims leaders for not saying enough against fundamentalism,but in that twenty year span Muslims have learned and the culture is now a lot different and many Muslim leaders voice their disapproval.
The thing is,if your not on the ground or privy to imams its much harder to hear this disapproval as the media does not readily report these imams but instead sensationalises and tbh misleads the non discerning public.
Finally,I'm not even sure if Rushdies attacker was a shia or just an extremist acting on his own steam? Why an inquisition before the facts are in?
His Facebook post indicated he was a Shia Muslim supportive of the Ayatollah, also supportive the Iranian government. https://www.livemint.com/news/world/who-is-salman-rushdie-attacker-hadi-matar-what-we-know-so-far-11660372333595.html
@Tate
There are numerous non famous Muslim clerics
who have condemned this Rushdie violence.
There are many others who have condemned terrorism in general.
A Google search will bring up some of them.
@Hanover
Well,has he gone through a court of law yet?
The article you linked contains "reportedly","some stories","apparently" all less than certain phrases.
Let's say for arguments sake he legit did this in following Khomeini,does that mean the majority of Muslims agree with him? How many other people tried in all these years?
Also ignoring that not every Iranian or shia cleric agrees with Khomeini.
Finally,I waiting for you to engage fully with my other post rather than focusing on ONE extremist person.
Is it guilt by identity you are insinuating?
@Tate
Yes,I have just seen hanovers post linking it.
So how many do you want off Google?
And was it reported by the media? Remember hsnover had to search for it...That's the point!
I don't think it's reasonably disputed that he is a Shia Muslim, not just based upon his admissions, but also upon the very unlikely coincidence that the attempted murder was upon a person who had a specific directive upon him for his murder from a Shia leader.
Finally,I waiting for you to engage fully with my other post rather than focusing on ONE extremist person.
Is it guilt by identity you are insinuating?
I don't think my prior posts were evasive or unclear. He was not a single, one off extremist. He was an adherent of a leader with a following of over millions of people and he did exactly what that leader directed him to. Rushdie had been in hiding for years and remained an object of attack because of this fatwa.
It's one thing to say that the attacker's allegiance was to a radicalized, non-representative Muslim linked religious group (just as you could say about various Christians) as opposed to saying he was this odd-ball Son of Sam sort of character that went out and committed a random act of violence. He was the former.
I have repeatedly not taken aim at every Iranian or Shia, but have really just asked what the response from the Muslim (generally) community was, having specifically cited to an Indian cleric who expressed his condemnation.
I'm not on a covert mission to insinuate anything about innocent people who might share some basic demographic background with the attacker. I don't exactly know why I'd care to do that. All I wanted to know was what the general community reaction was.
And don't get me wrong here. We both live in the same world, and I fully realize that the Muslim community does not feel trusted by the West, feeling like sanctimonious Westerners have no moral authority to criticize Islam after all has been done in the name of Christianity, Judaism, and just general American oil interests. So, when an American steps up and says "why don't you condemn that crazed killer," you bristle. Fair, but not the purpose of the OP.
My point is that I understand all of that, which means I don't need to be schooled on those facts. I was very much asking about something I was terribly ignorant about, which was the inner workings of a Muslim culture I didn't understand, and that's all I really was asking for. If I had something openly angry or critical to say, I'd just say it. You wouldn't have to read between the lines.
I have repeatedly said Islamic theology is not a monolith,neither is the shia version a monolith.
There are many sects within shia islam.
There are many secular and nominal muslim Iranians.
The average shiah will not attempt this kind of attack and you KNOW this.
You are still terribly ignorant of Islamic culture and guilty of horrible double standards and ignoring what I've written.
Fact Is you probably fear being called out if you really said what you think.
Can you not distinguish between ordinary religious people and political rhethoric?
Or is the non western world held to different standards and looked down upon?
Please,spit out what you are really saying if you can.
Reply to Adamski I have said exactly what I meant to say, and there's not more that I need to say now that you've offered me permission to speak more freely.
I've not indicated that an average Shiah would attempt anything and I've not imputed blame on anyone other than the attacker. I even specifically stated that religions are not good or evil, but such descriptors lie entirely with people. I asked about the Muslim response, and even indicated several times that this might have to do with a PR issue more than anything else. I recognized different distinctions between Muslim ideologies and acknowledged the same occurred in the West. I even located a response that was very much aligned with what you were saying (i.e. that there is a condemnation by some Muslims for what occurred), only for you to re-post my cite later as your own to prove that I was wrong for believing what you thought I did (which is that there there have been no such condemnations). You will note that I posted that cite and indicated it came with great comfort by me, as opposed to ignoring it, which I would have if my goal was just to blindly self-promote my malicious position.
I'm really not sure whose posts you're confusing with mine. Anyway, I'm fine with emotion, passion, and hostility when it comes to things like this that matter. But, if you're really asking me what I think? It's simply that the Muslim community could do better in expressing its distance from its radicalized components, even if such expression should be unnecessary and feels unfair. This comment has nothing (and I mean truly nothing) with morality. Not doing so does not make anyone more evil; it just exposes them to misinterpretation. What I'm saying has to do with the pragmatic reality of living in a mass media controlled environment where information is largely received and accepted by the masses as truth, without which people draw very different conclusions.
With @baker's permission :joke: , I will continue to explore the Muslim grievances re. the Satanic Verses. The bold parts give a summary.
There are two points in that wiki article quoted above that may be worthy of some further digging. One is this:
The first use of the expression ["satanic verses"] in English is attributed to Sir William Muir in 1858.
So this is not an Arabic phrase, but one coined by a British orientalist, hence a Westerner. Arab scholars do not call these two verses ("These are the exalted ghar?niq, whose intercession is hoped for.") the "satanic" verses; they call them the ghar?niq verses (the verses of the cranes).
The title of Rushdie's uses a phrase borrowed from a western characterisation of an incident in the life of Mohammad, a phased not used in Islam. Probably because the reference to the cranes is less embarrassing, less sensational, and more technical.
The title "satanic verses" may thus be seen as tendentious, as not using the due respectful tone and vocabulary one should use while speaking of the Prophet. And it is also western and therefore ideologically suspect from a modern Muslim perspective.
And rightly so IMO, since Muir was a colonizer, in a very literal sense: he was a colonial administrator, enrolling at the age of 18 and serving mainly in the North-West Provinces of British India (now Pakistan) from 1837 to his retirement in 1876, when he became a member of the Council of India in London after a distinguished career. He studied Arabic history and literature. His older brother was John Muir, the Indologist and Sanskrit scholar.
As a matter of fact, Muir's writings about the case have been criticized as polemical or irreverent. These polemics included the episode of the ghar?niq verses.
Wikipedia :His original book "A Life of Mahomet and History of Islam to the Era of the Hegira" was initially published 1861 in four volumes. The book received attention in both literary and missionary circles, and provoked responses ranging from appreciation to criticism. ... A significant rebuttal to Muir's book was written Syed Ahmed Khan in 1870, called A Series of Essays on the Life of Mohammed, and Subjects Subsidiary Thereto.[9] Khan praised Muir's writing talent and familiarity with Oriental literature, but ... accused Muir of misrepresenting the facts and writing with animus. ... Later reviews of the work have also been mixed, with many scholars describing Muir's work as polemical.
In conclusion, one reason for Muslim ire may be that Rushdie attracted attention to an embarrassing (alleged/reported) incident in Mohammad's life, and used in his book's title a sensationalistic phrase, one that rings well, a bit too well, one that catches attention instantly.
If Rushdie had used a different title, less catchy and sensational, maybe the book would not have sold so well. "The Verses of the Cranes"?
And this too is an accusation one reads on social media: Rushdie did this to sell books. Back to what my door keeper told me: don't write a novel, a work of fancy about Mohammad, in part because that would be disrespectful but also because it would be lowly commercial, hence consumerist, capitalist, sensational, etc. Not serious. Not good.
None of this of course justifies murder but it's an effort to understand the beef.
@Hanover
A fine piece of evasion and mealy mouthed misinformation hanover.
How would you know how the Muslim community distances itself from extremists? How many Muslims do you engage with offline regularly?
If the media is controlled by vested interests ( unless you really think the media is impartial!) why would they report extensively on imams condemning events?
Fact is I had the same complaint twenty years ago,the difference being there was a problem back then,but it's been addressed,now the problem lies with your countries media. What's more my knowledge of the problem came from personal knowledge of directly knowing Muslims.
You seem to think you can criticise purely from your knowledge of American media and Google without having any local knowledge.
Maybe get offline a bit and talk to Muslims if your really that concerned. Because your speaking from major ignorance and not looking at the "impartiality" of the media.
Very poor.
fine piece of evasion and mealy mouthed misinformation hanover.
Either that or I rehashed and summarized what I previously said because you asked me to. Quoting Adamski
How would you know how the Muslim community distances itself from extremists? How many Muslims do you engage with offline regularly?
The point of this exercise was to save me from having to conduct street interviews. I can say I now have your opinion for whatever it's worth. Whether I can extrapolate much from my poll of 1 is questionable. Quoting Adamski
You seem to think you can criticise purely from your knowledge of American media and Google without having any local knowledge
So yeah, the question of what the response from the Muslim community has been isn't going to be deciphered by our insulting each other, attacking each other, questioning one another's motives, or arriving at clever one liners. It's an empirical question. So, cite me to whatever link, organization, media outlet you trust, journal article, professor's homepage, or whatever so I can see what you're referencing.
Anyway, let's get back on the right foot here. The conversation was more interesting back then.
nd this too is an accusation one reads on social media: Rushdie did this to seel books. Back to what my door keeper told me: don't write a novel, a work of fancy about Mohammad, in part because that would be disrespectful but also because it would be lowly commercial, hence consumerist, capitalist, sensational, etc. Not serious. Not good.
Rushdie is probably one of the greatest living fiction prose writers in the English language, whose complex stories of identity and colonization are woven in the context of his own Indian/Islamic/English background. The Satanic Versus is exactly the kind of novel one would expect him to write. He should be free to make any choice he wants to make. Best way to understand Rushdie is to read his gorgeous, reflective essays - I'm particularly partial to the compilation Imaginary Homelands.
The title of Rushdie's uses a phrase borrowed from a western characterisation of an incident in the life of Mohammad, a phased not used in Islam. Probably because the reference to the cranes is less embarrassing, less sensational, and more technical.
The title "satanic verses" may thus be seen as tendentious, as not using the due respectful tone and vocabulary one should use while speaking of the Prophet. And it is also western and therefore ideologically suspect from a modern Muslim perspective.
Didn't original muslims scholars (back in the 600s-700s) actually refer to them as inspired by Satan? Rhushdie's version sounds at least as historically true.
I've removed the completely irrelevant personal attacks, because this discussion has been civil for a good four pages and I don't want it to degenerate like the Ukraine discussion did.
Well done you and @Hanover for keeping this thread clear, relevant and a worthwhile read.
Remarkable patience being shown in some increasingly aggressive responses.
Not an easy subject to discuss.
Thanks to all for keeping the conversation cool :cool:
You reject people's lived experience and think some academic can top what real Muslims actually feel?
No, I simply refuse to attribute to a people what a single person has done or said, which includes your comments here. That you don't serve as a particularly positive ambassador for your position hasn't really moved the meter for me here. I realize I'm talking to one guy, one opinion.
Since I can't even begin with most basic factual notions with you, it's hard to make progress. You've presented arguments the attacker doesn't even make for himself (that he's not even a Shia, but even if he happens to be, it's just coincidence, having nothing to do with the act). The truth is he followed his beliefs, set forth by his leader, however bastardized they may have been.
As I said before not everything is online or reported.
It's like you want reams of online documents to disprove the guilt you've already imputed.
You are aware that many imams give a speech every Friday and that this is purely oral,it doesn't go online?
This isn't your argument. Your argument is not that "not everything" is reported. It's that "nothing" is reported. My OP asks why nothing is reported. That's the gist of it.
Sure, there's media bias, but you've not even cited to an open forum like this where anyone can say whatever they want. Quoting Adamski
your ignorance of this culture you feel fear and resort to suspicion and media propoganda.
The Guardian was my only cite. Point out the propaganda I cited to.
Tell why do many western people on the ground live,work,befriend and marry Muslims,even shia ones!
Nor are they afraid of the average Muslim.
Of course they do, but assuming they don't, and you're right, what bearing does this have on the OP?Quoting Adamski
Your attitude is primitive just like a person who wants academic evidence that non white people are not dangerous savages.
Own your ignorance hanover.
No, I've not asked for conclusory evidence regarding an offensive premise. I've asked for a cite of condemnation. Period. If there were an attack by white supremacists upon blacks, I would absolutely expect outrage from the white and world community, in speech, in writing, in action. I would not call out for proof, as you suggest, that white people generally prove they're worthy. That's the nonsense in your head, not mine.
And the conclusions I've reached on my own are hardly as critical as you suggest, leaning toward the pragmatic, despite your best efforts to point me toward a less generous conclusion. But, like I said, you're just one guy, one opinion.
Since I can't every begin with most basic factual notions with you, it's hard to make progress. You've presented arguments the attacker doesn't even make for himself (that he's not even a Shia
Wait a minute. You don't know the attacker's identity and motives better than anyone else. My guesses about the extent to which he's a faithful disciple of Ayatollah Khomeini as opposed to a troubled person are as good as yours.
You appear to be bent on taking anything anyone says as a defense of the attack or a vindication of Iran even after they've already condemned it. You've done that to at least two posters so far
Wait a minute. You don't know the attacker's identity and motives better than anyone else. My guesses about the extent to which he's a faithful disciple of Ayatollah Khomeini as opposed to a troubled person are as good as yours.
You appear to be bent on taking anything anyone says as a defense of the attack or a vindication of Iran even after they've already condemned it. You've done that to at least two posters so far
What happened was the poster said that I had no evidence that the attacker was even a Shiah and so why would I rush to judgment in that regard. I posted to his Facebook page and comments by his mother that indicated he considered himself a Shiah and was acting pursuant to the fatwa. What was being asserted was that the attacker was this lone, crazy, knife wielding attacker suffering purely from mental illness. That, based upon the facts, is burying one's head in the sand. He acted pursuant to an ideology advanced by a religious leader held in much esteem by a large number of people.
I don't take that as a defense of the attack, as even if it were true that he was not acting pursuant to his religious beliefs, the attack is just as wrong. What I do take it to be is simply a misstatement of the facts so as to remove this question entirely from the OP by saying this has nothing to do with Rushdie's work and the Muslim animosity it engendered, but to instead suggest we're just dealing a single nut job.
Those just aren't the facts and it creates the false illusion that this has nothing to do with Islam, Shiahs, the Ayatollah, or Rushdie. It most certainly did, and that is the point of this OP.
What was being asserted was that the attacker was this lone, crazy, knife wielding attacker suffering purely from mental illness. That, based upon the facts, is burying one's head in the sand. He acted pursuant to an ideology advanced by a religious leader held in much esteem by a large number of people.
No one asserted that. What was commented was that we don't know. Maybe he did consider himself to be Shia. He still could have been a troubled person.
Yes, his action was obviously called for by a Muslim leader. No one denied that. Adamski was simply explaining that Islam is too fragmented to make much of that.
What I do take it to be is simply a misstatement of the facts so as to remove this question entirely from the OP by saying this has nothing to do with Rushdie's work and the Muslim animosity it engendered, but to instead suggest we're just dealing a single nut job.
Those just aren't the facts and it creates the false illusion that this has nothing to do with Islam, Shiahs, the Ayatollah, or Rushdie. It most certainly did, and that is the point of this OP.
Well, you're so versed on the facts, what does the event and its fallout tell us about mainstream Islam?
Well, you're so versed on the facts, what does the event and its fallout tell us about mainstream Islam?
Hardly a good faith question based upon how it is phrased, but no reason not to just go ahead and hit send the way it is. Why not?
With that qualification:
I've already stated this the best I could, which is that my best guess is that there is not the impetus upon public condemnation within that community that there is other communities, and I'm not clear exactly where that arises from. My suspicion is that it arises over this free speech question generally and what social expectations there are in terms of what is acceptable speech (in terms of criticizing another's belief system), what is mandated speech (in terms of criticizing another's actions in order to bring forth justice) and what is simply pragmatic speech (in terms of obtaining a particular result after certain actions occur).
These are just my thoughts after reading, but I could be wrong. That's why I'm having the conversation.
No. You'll have to keep this conversation contextualized yourself.
It's not clear at all which community you're talking about. Really and truly. :love:
absoluteaspirationAugust 18, 2022 at 17:35#7304120 likes
1. There are more Muslims in India than in Pakistan. That said, I'm sure Indian Muslims would say cruel things about Rushdie if they weren't terrified of the BJP.
2. Speaking as an Indian ex-Muslim atheist, my understanding is that mainstream Islam is a more explicit version of classic Western conservatism: It doesn't care what you do in private as long as you don't embarrass the community. In fact, one of the asma ul husna (names of God) is al sittir, the one who hides our sins. Allah is understood to be complicit in hiding our sins out of mercy.
In medieval times, the evidentiary standards of religious courts was so high, it was possible to convict only the most shameless criminals. As a result, Europeans considered Islamic morality "degenerate" upto early modern times. In contrast to the current image of Islam as a fundamentalist religion that curbs all worldly pleasure, medieval philosophers regarded Islam as a religion operating under the astrological sign of Venus, making people pleasure-seeking, lascivious and lazy. Why the change? I'm inclined to think that the Terror Management Theory applies very strongly to "Third World" peoples.
3. This no doubt makes Islam a terrible religion in the 21st century, and I don't condone anyone joining it, but it's no worse than Judaism or Christianity. The relevant factor is that Muslims live in poor and/or repressive countries. Christians in Africa and Northeast India inflict similar repressive measures on minorities. Europe was also very similar in the past. Eg. A Jewish zealot once stabbed Spinoza IIRC.
I created a playlist with excerpts from the Quran that may give you a general idea of Islam's style of religiosity: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLLz-S1Fiqsmt52eX9vmjGf3OJlrea4Apg
Sure, that happens. But the point is you don't risk death or maiming by strangers all around the world for decades. Nor will anyone throw acid in your face for being a woman daring to gain an education. For my money you can't compare these expressions of 'authority'.
Don't confuse an absence of action with an absence of motive. At this very forum, moderators get to tell people to kill themselves or express the desire to kill others. Just in the last couple of weeks, at least three instances of this, by two moderators.
And even if they were exactly the same, this would amount to a tu quoque fallacy.
It wasn't an attempt at justification, but pointing out that those who so severely condemn the "Rushdie attack" are not beyond harboring the same hostility that they so criticize.
Artists in the West can generally be hatefully critical towards power elites and government and religions and not face these problems.
What's the use of being "hatefully critical"?
As for "not facing these problems" when criticizing the government or the elite or religion: absence of retributive action doesn't automatically mean approval or tolerance. Perhaps such retributive action just isn't high on their priority list. Or they are allowing it for their own PR purposes.
Whatever you may have seen does not necessarily warrant calling the quote 'politically correct' as a kind of pejorative. That's a Fox News style comment. But you are correct that some people are hypocrites. Sometimes you can tell if they are or not by how much their public comments have cost them.
And further, for a religious person to request input on how to practice their religion -- from outsiders of that religion??? (Like in the passage you quoted earlier.) This is absurd.
The prophet comes across as a great man, and there is no contempt for Islam in that book whatsoever.
Olivier5
You don't get to decide that.
baker
I do, at least for myself. If you disagree, you are welcome to pinpoint what you personally see as the contemptuous parts in Rushdie's book.
Rushdie invented a parallel history for the Prophet. In Islam this is considered unacceptable and punishable.
There is reason to suspect that Rushdie knew what the possible consequences would be but went on anyway; the way he later on defended his work justifies this suspicion.
There is reason to believe that this was a deliberate provocation on his part, and such deliberate provocation is what is problematic.
Why would a civilized, highly moral person resort to provocation?
That's just the thing: It _is_ law. It is _Islamic_ law.
baker
No, it isn't. Depends on whether a given country recognises is as such. So it might have been law in Iran but it certainly wasn't in the US.
Do you dispute that Iran is a sovereign country?
The Islamic authorities disagree.
baker
Point me to the part where they considered the harm principle. They didn't disagree, it simply wasn't a consideration. Your statement is therefore false.
"Offending the Prophet" is how they apply what you call the "harm principle".
A book that would call for violence against others is not protected speech and does harm others when people act upon the call. Since Rhusdie didn't, your suggested equivocation is wrong footed.
Rushdie and those who defend him are implying that it's okay to reinvent history. You see no problem with that?
You're simply missing the point and arguing against a straw man. The point is that aggravation is not grounds for punishment.
Of course it is, and always has been. The only qualification is that not everyone has the means to act on it.
You currently aggravate me with a badly argued post. Off with your head.
So now I am responsible for how you feel?? To the point where you want to kill me????
Blasphemy does damage a higher norm.
baker
Which higher norm?
Respect for religious authority.
You're free to follow a religion,
Since this is a philosophy forum, the concept of freedom of religion shouldn't be treated so lightly.
Doxastic voluntarism is a highly problematic notion; as is the idea that one can unilaterally choose which religion to follow, regardless of whether one is accepted by its members or not. We have threads on this.
I'm free to ridicule you for it.
As if ridicule would be a civilizational accomplishment.
This is not an example but an interesting representation of your biases. I talk shit about the USA on a daily basis and I'm fine.
You're so confident. Wait until you apply for US citizenship or want something else from the US.
absoluteaspirationAugust 18, 2022 at 18:30#7304280 likes
Reply to baker Thanks to the internet, I read a pirated ebook of the Satanic Verses decades ago, back when I was in middle school.
I remember feeling that Rushdie expressed the soul-crushing alienation I felt when my mother forced me to conform to the outward rituals of a religion I didn't believe in. I support Rushdie because he gave voice to my pain without, unlike the nationalists, calling for my community to be exterminated.
Personally I see double standards and an Elitist mindset from "western" nations and Iran.
Of course. It would be comical if it wouldn't be so sad to see various authoritarians fighting among eachother. If only the planet wouldn't have to pay the price for it.
There should be freespeech but also common sense.
Public calls for political violence are the limit of freespeech for all parties.
The problem is that when one party breaks the agreement of non-violence, should the others desist from violence or not? And on what metaphysical grounds?
So far, the general practice in human cultures has been retribution. Nobody wants to make the first step and desist from provocation. Nobody wants to refrain from retribution. So here we are.
I remember feeling that Rushdie expressed the soul-crushing alienation I felt when my mother forced me to conform to the outward rituals of a religion I didn't believe in.
I also remember the soul-crushing alienation I felt growing up as someone who was ostracized from the religious community by birth. What I'd give to be able to belong! But no, it was as if I had the mark of the devil on my forehead, for all to see.
Nobody I know gives voice to that.
I support Rushdie because he gave voice to my pain without
One has to take responsibility for one's situation, whatever it may be. Crying foul, wanting the religious community to understand one's plight is a waste of time and effort, dangerously so.
There isn't any organization that can detect the confusion among non-Muslims about the silence of Islamic leaders.
Google does. I was once having an email conversation about religion with someone. When the discussion came to Islam, the emails came with delays, sometimes for several days. We concluded that the emails were filtered by Google, and that a computer program, perhaps even a person was reading them.
I condemn it because I want a thicker, and better, veneer of civilization. Civilization is what we use to counter those parts of our brains that send us off into wild rages and flights of irrationality. Religion has delivered a decidedly mixed performance as a component of civilization. Islam and Christianity have a particularly mixed record. Where/when/why it fuels uncivilized behavior, it should be pruned.
absoluteaspirationAugust 18, 2022 at 18:50#7304360 likes
Reply to baker Why should Rushdie have to take responsibility? Rushdie should cry foul as much as he likes, and then let the Islamic community take responsibility for that situation.
I have no idea what kind of alienation you're talking about. Religious communities usually welcome converts. Maybe you should write your own Satanic Verses.
Google does. I was once having an email conversation about religion with someone. When the discussion came to Islam, the emails came with delays, sometimes for several days. We concluded that the emails were filtered by Google, and that a computer program, perhaps even a person was reading them.
As if ridicule would be a civilizational accomplishment.
Most certainly. George Carlin is a prime example of how to marry ridicule with intelligent commentary. I'm obviously not as funny but I'm several hundred steps above promoting people to kill someone. I confidently and comfortably claim the higher moral ground there.
Everyone does, or else they are left to the mercy of others.
Rushdie should cry foul as much as he likes, and then let the Islamic community take responsibility for that situation.
Really? You believe that other people are responsible for one particular person's existential problems?
I have no idea what kind of alienation you're talking about.
I'm talking about being born as an illegitimate child into a religious community where being illegitimate amounted to having committed a crime, a stigma one can never recover from.
I condemn it because I want a thicker, and better, veneer of civilization.
Only a veneer? See, that's the problem: setting one's expectations so low.
Civilization is what we use to counter
those parts of our brains that send us off into wild rages and flights of irrationality.
Are you sure about that? People often like to blame our lizard brain, yet all too often, it's just an empty refrain.
The dichotomy between the lower and higher parts of our brains seems first and foremost to be a convenient excuse for people to continue to act on lower intentions, to renounce the power that they have. One has to wonder why. The simplest answer is that those "lowly intentions" aren't actually lowly at all.
Only a veneer? See, that's the problem: setting one's expectations so low.
I thought the problem was being stabbed in the face for writing a book.
absoluteaspirationAugust 18, 2022 at 19:52#7304650 likes
Reply to baker Yes, other people should be responsible for one man's existential problems. We form a community with the expectation of tolerating each other's differences. You have assumed a definite cutoff point for tolerance without arguing for it.
If you were alienated from a religious community for being an illegitimate child, then why are you arguing on behalf of traditional religion? The alienation you suffered is plastered all over pop culture. See the Game of Thrones, for example.
And this too is an accusation one reads on social media: Rushdie did this to sell books. Back to what my door keeper told me: don't write a novel, a work of fancy about Mohammad, in part because that would be disrespectful but also because it would be lowly commercial, hence consumerist, capitalist, sensational, etc. Not serious. Not good.
Agreed.
None of this of course justifies murder but it's an effort to understand the beef.
The consequences for a transgression need to be serious. What is considered serious depends on the particular religion's metaphysical system.
In Buddhism, for example, the worst thing that can happen to a person who disrespects the Buddha is that the advanced practitioners shun them. This is deemed worse than being physically killed (such as by being shot or hanged).
Outsiders will probably laugh at this, but to the Buddhists, this is the worst that can ever happen to a person, being cut off from the Teaching.
From the perspective of Muslims, being maimed or killed probably isn't the worst thing that can happen to a person.
Yes, other people should be responsible for one man's existential problems. We form a community with the expectation of tolerating each other's differences.
Rushdie didn't do his part. He wants other people to respect him, to tolerate him at least, but he doesn't want to return the favor.
If you were alienated from a religious community for being an illegitimate child, then why are you arguing on behalf of traditional religion?
I'm not arguing on behalf of it, I'm presenting its stance. Because nobody else does that here, yet it's crucial for understanding where they come from, and it's crucial for understanding conflicts with it.
One can save oneself a lot of time and grief by understanding traditional religion. It puzzles me how come more people don't take this route.
The alienation you suffered is plastered all over pop culture. See the Game of Thrones, for example.
Yeah, that reeeeally offers brilliant ways of coping. The dragons, they make it all so viable.
And further, for a religious person to request input on how to practice their religion -- from outsiders of that religion??? (Like in the passage you quoted earlier.) This is absurd.
So we disagree on this point and the others are not significant enough to follow up. Irshad Manji is a Muslim. When she makes comments about Islam and the wider world community, it is worth listening. That's a judgement of course, and one you obviously don't share. Fine.
And further, for a religious person to request input on how to practice their religion -- from outsiders of that religion??? (Like in the passage you quoted earlier.) This is absurd.
baker
So we disagree on this point and the others are not significant enough to follow up. Irshad Manji is a Muslim. When she makes comments about Islam and the wider world community, it is worth listening. That's a judgement of course, and one you obviously don't share. Fine.
It's not fine. It's part of the answer to the OP's quest: to understand religious autonomy.
absoluteaspirationAugust 18, 2022 at 20:25#7304940 likes
Reply to baker Rushdie does return the favor. The Satanic Verses is highly ambiguous in its condemnation of Islam, conforming to the emotional contours of many Indian ex-Muslims including myself.
In fact, the Rushdie has been more pro-Islam than (IIRC) Nobel-nominated writers like Milan Kundera have been pro-Communist, i.e. not at all. Kundera has argued that Communism is an eastern invasion into a Western cultural space like Czechoslovakia. Although that sentiment sounds borderline fascist, I don't condemn him for it. People who have internalized repression tend to scream out their freedom more loudly than strictly necessary. Similarly, Rushdie's provocation is a creation of Islamic repression. Would the Communists have been right to silence Milan Kundera too?
-----
If a Hugo Award winning writer like GRR Martin is not good enough for you, then how how about something classic like The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne?
But neither he, nor anyone else, is free to dictate what effect that choice should have on others and how others should respond to it.
That's a strange way to frame the argument. That secondary issue is, should fanatics have the right to threaten and kill people whose art/opinion they don't like? There's only one correct answer here.
What if it an author wrote a book about a bikie gang and a club decides to kill the author and publisher and anyone else involved because the book took a controversial view of the club's history?
What's your response to that? What should we conclude about the Muslims around us?
People threatening others with death is quite a common occurence. Just look at this forum. Even moderators quite nonchalantly tell others to kill themselves or that they deserve death.
What should we conclude about the people around us?
My point is, those Muslims who believe that someone deserves to be killed aren't some kind of aberration, exception. Liberals, secularists, also threaten with death. (And insofar they hold positions of power, they make it happen too, legally.)
I think that we can conclude from that that some (if not many, most) people want to rule over the lives and deaths of others.
That's true what it says, but, as noted in other threads, there's no evidence of any actual stonings or biblically mandated death penalties in the past 2,000 + years.
It's part of the reason for the OP, in trying to figure out the real theology because it's often very distant from its literal decrees.
It's more relevant in how one interprets the discrepancy: Do they not stone people because they have mercy, or see them as "fellow humans who shouldn't be hurt"? Or is it because they don't believe that the religious decree was actually issued by God?
absoluteaspirationAugust 18, 2022 at 22:03#7305320 likes
Reply to Tate Or, you know, they might be Rushdie fans who are afraid to speak out.
But neither he, nor anyone else, is free to dictate what effect that choice should have on others and how others should respond to it.
baker
That's a strange way to frame the argument.
Why strange? Can you explain?
That secondary issue is, should fanatics
So a "fanatic" is now a clearly definable and universally binding category?
have the right to threaten and kill people whose art/opinion they don't like? There's only one correct answer here.
Should people have the right to act in bad faith, to be hostile, to provoke others, and yet others must take this stoically, because the hater's rights are above every other concern? There's only one correct answer here.
What if it an author wrote a book about a bikie gang and a club decides to kill the author and publisher and anyone else involved because the book took a controversial view of the club's history?
Some people have too much time and money on their hands.
I'm saying it's fine that you make difference judgements to mine - after all no one is going to get killed.
No, it's not fine. We cannot peacefully coexist that way.
absoluteaspirationAugust 18, 2022 at 22:11#7305350 likes
Reply to baker Why do I have to "coexist peacefully" with an unjust medieval tradition? I want to live in a society where I'm free to tell the world the pain I suffered because of their hypocrisy. Many others are much worse off than me thanks to them.
Similarly, Rushdie's provocation is a creation of Islamic repression.
Again, a case of blaming others.
And a repression of what exactly? Rushdie was at no time a citizen of an Islamic republic where he would be bound, by his citizenship, to a particular religion. So he has no grievance of this kind. Sure, his parents expected him to comply with certain norms. So what? It's teenager rebellion on his part.
Would the Communists have been right to silence Milan Kundera too?
Who says they didn't keep him around for strategic purposes?
-----
If a Hugo Award winning writer like GRR Martin is not good enough for you, then how how about something classic like The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne?
Just what do you think that reading books like that can accomplish? All they do is make people hop from one train of passion onto another one, while the problem of suffering remains looming as ever.
Why do I have to "coexist peacefully" with an unjust medieval tradition?
Why should they coexist peacefully with an unjust secular tradition?
I want to live in a society where I'm free to tell the world the pain I suffered because of their hypocrisy.
Just listen to yourself. You expect justice and redress from the very people you consider unjust (and all kinds of bad).
Do you really think that's a sane expectation??
And what do you think will happen if you tell the world "the pain you suffered because of their hypocrisy"?
Why should they care about you and your pain? Can you explain? Can you spell it out?
absoluteaspirationAugust 18, 2022 at 22:20#7305420 likes
Reply to baker I think we have every age we passed through as part of our personalities. The teenage part of me is still partly here. I just sort of outgrew him. I think that being unable to vocalize strong traumatic emotions from the past can lead to mental illness if present experiences trigger them. For example, if I never conceptualize in words how I felt about my mother, I may grow to irrationally resent a boss who reminds me of her.
And what I see more so unfortunately is an attempt to derail the thread into one over hypocrisy and strained attempts at moral equivalency
On the contrary. In order to be able to judge others from the moral high ground, one actually has to hold the moral high ground.
If it can be pointed out that a prospective judge does not hold such a moral high ground, his judgment is at least suspect.
[i]He that is without sin, let him first cast a stone.
Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye.[/i]
as opposed to better understanding why a religious leader would send marching orders to murder an author
Because the religious leader believes he has the divine authority to do so.
That you don't believe he has such divine authority is on you, not on him.
And I'm really not coming after you so much for this, but just responding to you from how another poster who I generally ignore has responded in the hopes of better explaining my position.
You keep complaining about how religion is treated poorly at this forum. I'm offering some explanations as to why.
For me, the main reason why religions aren't credible is insofar they are worldly, secular, and insofar religious people themselves relativize their own doctrines.
Anyway, I'm fine with emotion, passion and hostility when it comes to things like this that matter.
There you go. With passion, and hostility, it all goes downhill. Once you approve of passion and hostility, how can you expect anything other but killing, raping, and pillaging?
I've already stated this the best I could, which is that my best guess is that there is not the impetus upon public condemnation within that community that there is other communities, and I'm not clear exactly where that arises from.
Like I already said, I think it's because at least some religious people have a strong sense of religious autonomy, and so see no need to make themselves seem credible to others, or to seek to be understood by others. So they don't explain themselves to others.
A classical example with this is when atheists request theists to provide proof of God. The atheists claim that the burden of proof is on the theists, yet the theists don't consider themselves as having that burden at all (and that instead, if anything, the burden is on the atheists).
That's why it's important for religious leaders to speak up. It's their job to go full MLK Jr and shout "Let freedom ring!"
Only if they are committed to secularism.
absoluteaspirationAugust 18, 2022 at 22:27#7305500 likes
Reply to baker I don't consider them bad, necessarily. I consider their tradition bad. I think they should at the very least reform their tradition. Currently, their "tradition" is not even particularly traditional. I don't have to spell out how they made me feel because, thankfully, Rushdie did it for me.
You seem to be under the impression that Muslims irrationally defend Islam whenever possible. This is not true. Muslims criticize aspects of their society like everyone else. If you don't believe me, I believe there is a YouTube channel called something like Islamic Center of Orange County. Watch the most popular videos on that channel. (I will clarify if I remembered the name wrong.)
I think they should at the very least reform their tradition.
Why do you need them or their tradition to be different than they are?
Because you're not in control of your feelings?
You seem to be under the impression that Muslims irrationally defend Islam whenever possible.
No, I'm not under that impression. It's not clear why you think that.
absoluteaspirationAugust 18, 2022 at 22:33#7305540 likes
Reply to baker There is tons of clinical evidence for the barebones theory I laid out. It's still used in contemporary psychology. I didn't mention any of Freud's many versions of the Father figure.
absoluteaspirationAugust 18, 2022 at 22:34#7305550 likes
Reply to baker Yes, obviously. Islam is committed to human flourishing. They should change their tradition so that it's nicer to me.
That's why it's important for religious leaders to speak up. It's their job to go full MLK Jr and shout "Let freedom ring!"
7
So you asked what I meant earlier and I didn't respond because it was clear to me you did, and this is the point I was making. Is there a duty to speak truth to power, damn the consequences?
absoluteaspirationAugust 18, 2022 at 23:10#7305610 likes
Reply to Tate Surely, after Trump's America, you have some experience with how demoralizing conservative hypocrisy can be.
Is there a duty to speak truth to power, damn the consequences?
If you don't, your culture will erode. There has to be a moral backbone for a culture to grow and thrive. Holy people have that responsibility more than anyone else.
Reply to Hanover Yes. When people behave in ways that one thinks are anti-social, uncivilized, or immoral, one must condemn it. One must disavow the unacceptable action.
From time to time, we witness acts that are "bad", whether that's stabbing authors or shooting the convenience store clerk; stealing catalytic converters or defrauding the Medicare program; trying to overthrow the election or seize the neighboring country. We can't be indifferent. We need to be clear to ourselves (and to whoever is in earshot) that we condemn wrongdoing.
You used the word "community". I still don't know what community you mean. In the US? The global community? Iran? Shiites?
The OP was clearly about the Muslim reaction, later focused to Shias, then some reopening it to Sunnis as well. I'm confused why you're confused. This whole conversation has been about my difficultly understanding why the reaction has been difficult to decipher.
That's why I responded to you as I did. Where was all this ground lost and then needing re-plowed?
Beats me. Maybe that clarifies?
absoluteaspirationAugust 19, 2022 at 01:17#7305780 likes
Reply to Hanover I don't think current Trumpist reactions cover all Christian violence in America. Off the top of my head: Violence against gay people used to be very common. Even in recent times, there have been bombings of abortion clinics.
Violence against gay people used to be very common.
I don't think homophobia is specifically Christian.
absoluteaspirationAugust 19, 2022 at 01:25#7305840 likes
Reply to Tate I agree that clerics should be more affirmative about freedom. But the Islamic world has never been very free. Like in Russia, it's hard for people to believe in freedom for very long when money flows reinforce tyranny. The people who are committed to freedom usually try to move elsewhere.
That's why I responded to you as I did. Where was all this ground lost and then needing re-plowed?
The guy you banned spent some time explaining how fragmented Islam is. Then you mentioned "that community.". I see now that I was supposed to read that as the global Muslim community, which the guy you banned said doesn't really exist, which is true.
When people behave in ways that one thinks are anti-social, uncivilized, or immoral, one must condemn it. One must disavow the unacceptable action.
And I think that's the gist of this whole thing, which is that the West holds speech as holy, both in the right to offend and duty to protect. It's primary. We perceive it fatally wrong to be told we can't express our wrongness and we feel a piwerful imperative to speak against injustice.
So that's what makes this thing stick in my craw. Rushdie was being told to shut up, and when he was physically attacked for it, the speech reaction from those best positioned to be heard didn't scream.
It's a realization of what free speech means to Western morality. An interesting revelation for me, at least.
Back to my theological musings now. I don't know enough about the Koran for a comparative analysis, but thematic to the OT is the power to create the universe from speech acts alone and for humans to challenge the authority of God, offering foundational support for where this free speech protection emphasis distinction arises.
Maybe I'm wrong here, but it's an interesting thesis.
absoluteaspirationAugust 19, 2022 at 01:31#7305870 likes
Reply to Tate Until the 20th century, Europeans considered Muslims to be notorious sodomites. Homosexuality proliferated in Islamic society because it was very difficult to get multiple witnesses to swear that you had gay sex. A lot of gay poems also circulated under the cover of Sufi poetry that addresses Allah as The Beloved.
The guy you banned spent some time explaining how fragmented Islam is. Then you mentioned "that community.". I see now that I was supposed to read that as the global Muslim community, which the guy you banned said doesn't really exist, which is true.
No, now I see my initial assumption of the bad faith basis of your question was correct. You weren't confused, and I regret attempting to clarify. I didn't say the entire Muslim community in my last post. I explained it was the entire community at first, clarified to be Shiah, then opened by others back to the community. I contextualuzed what occurred, which is what I asked you do the first time, but such wasn't your desire.
No, now I see my initial assumption of the bad faith basis of your question was correct.
I have no idea how you got this impression. Why don't we ignore one another from now on? :smile:
absoluteaspirationAugust 19, 2022 at 01:38#7305940 likes
Reply to Hanover "Western" morality is ambiguous phrasing. Free speech was not considered a right in the West until enlightenment thinkers like Locke. A lot of these enlightenment thinkers like Voltaire were inspired by their idea of "Turkish society", where they believed multiple religions lived and worked side by side. That was an exaggeration, but not incorrect as a comparative statement vis a vis Europe at the time.
Western" morality is ambiguous phrasing. Free speech was not considered a right in the West until enlightenment thinkers like Locke. A lot of these enlightenment thinkers like Voltaire were inspired by their idea of "Turkish society", where they believed multiple religions lived and worked side by side. That was an exaggeration, but not incorrect as a comparative statement vis a vis Europe at the time.
Sure, it's a broad based theory that requires some tinkering, but I'm not in agreement that the power of speech and its special status can only be traced to the Enlightenment.
absoluteaspirationAugust 19, 2022 at 01:48#7305960 likes
Reply to Tate Yes, but I don't know where Islam says you can take the law into your own hands like that. If you know, please tell me. I do know that Zoroastrianism allows you to kill gay people where they stand, and doing so forgives your sins. (It says so in the Vendidad.) I think the movie 300 depicted the Ancient Persians in line with the old European conception of Muslims as lascivious degenerates.
absoluteaspirationAugust 19, 2022 at 02:07#7305990 likes
Reply to Hanover I'm by no means an expert on Islam. (I've done more reading in philosophy and computer science.) My understanding is that Allah created the world by will. If you apply your suggestion to Islam, then Muslims should have a lot of respect for individual will, and leave most punishments up to God.
Besides, do you have any evidence that free speech was considered a right before the enlightenment? I've never seen any indication of that. IIRC the word "heresy" is Greek for choice. A "heretic" was someone who chose his own beliefs.
To be fair, medieval philosophers did consider Christianity to be the religion of Mercury because Jesus is the Word. But if we run with that, some Shia Muslims consider Ali to be the Book of God. Iran shouldn't be censoring any books.
I also know for a fact that Shia hadiths have incredible respect for the intellect. Iran shouldn't be censoring sincere intellectuals, then. I believe the name of the hadith book is Usul al-Kafi. You might also find a few lectures on the Shia intellect on YouTube. Try the channel: al hujjah Islamic seminary. Go to playlists and find the oldest year one demo titled Usul al-Kafi. If you wait a while, I'll find it myself and paste the link here.
Edit: Found it: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLrK-FXb0E44tRfxDKOeq4_wLXhXURvoNc
absoluteaspirationAugust 19, 2022 at 02:11#7306000 likes
Reply to Tate No, thanks for the recommendation. I'll check it out. :up:
The anger is "understandable". Is it really though? It's understandable in the sense people are emotional and half of the time act like sheep and do act irrational. Other than that, not so much understanding here for many reasons. The most important one that Rhusdie's representation of that time is exactly what Muslim scholars talked about until the 800s. So Islamic religious truth in this case is a joke and if Khomeini was worth his salt as a scholar, he would know this. So we can rest assured this was entirely political.
Is this the kind of conservative climate you were talking about?
Saudi Arabia lives in a feudal system ruled by families. They do not know anything about conservatives, lefties, trade workers, representatives, seats, etc... or what we see as "normal democracies" in our world
Saudi Arabia lives in a feudal system ruled by families. They do not know anything about conservatives, lefties, trade workers, representatives, seats, etc... or what we see as "normal democracies" in our world
Their version of Islam seeks a return to old ways. In any society, I would call that conservative.
I disagree. I think you are misunderstanding conservative with tradionalism. Conservatives tend to be related to capitalism, free market, liberalism, etc...
Anyway I still think those characteristics do not fit in a state like Saudi Arabia. As I said they are just feudal
Didn't original muslims scholars (back in the 600s-700s) actually refer to them as inspired by Satan? Rhushdie's version sounds at least as historically true.
I was getting to that. The second point I would like to raise is related to the current status of Muslim doxa or exegesis on the ghar?niq verses, in terms of their being considered authentic history or not. I quote from wiki again:
The incident is accepted as true by modern scholars of Islamic studies, under the criterion of embarrassment, citing the implausibility of early Muslim biographers fabricating a story so unflattering about their prophet.[3][4] It was accepted by religious authorities for the first two centuries of the Islamic era, but was later rejected by some religious scholars (Ulama) as incompatible with Muhammad's perfection ('isma), implying that Muhammad is infallible and therefore cannot be fooled by Satan.
Emphasis added to show the evolution in the interpretation, from the story being genuine early on in the history of Islam, to it being seen as improbable based on dogmatic grounds of the Prophet's infallibility.
I can't verify all the authors but the original account seems to be that of Tabari in his History of Kings and Prophets (c.?915 CE), volume 6. It goes like this:
... The prophet was eager for the welfare of his people, desiring to win them to him by any means he could. It has been reported that he longed for a way to win them, and part of what he did to that end is what Ibn Humayd told me, from Salama, from Muhammad ibn Ishaq, from Yaz?d ibn Ziy?d al-Madan?, from Muhammad ibn Ka'b al-Quraz?:
When the prophet saw his people turning away from him, and was tormented by their distancing themselves from what he had brought to them from God, he longed in himself for something to come to him from God which would draw him close to them. With his love for his people and his eagerness for them, it would gladden him if some of the hard things he had found in dealing with them could be alleviated. He pondered this in himself, longed for it, and desired it.
Then God sent down the revelation. 'By the star when it sets! Your companion has not erred or gone astray, and does not speak from mere fancy ' [Q.53:1] When he reached God's words, "Have you seen al-L?t and al-'Uzz? and Man?t, the third, the other?' [Q.53:1920] Satan cast upon his tongue, because of what he had pondered in himself and longed to bring to his people, 'These are the high-flying cranes and their intercession is to be hoped for.'
When Quraysh heard that, they rejoiced. What he had said about their gods pleased and delighted them, and they gave ear to him. The Believers trusted in their prophet with respect to what he brought them from their Lord: they did not suspect any slip, delusion or error. When he came to the prostration and finished the chapter, he prostrated and the Muslims followed their prophet in it, having faith in what he brought them and obeying his command. Those mushrik?n of Quraysh and others who were in the mosque also prostrated on account of what they had heard him say about their gods. In the whole mosque there was no believer or k?fir who did not prostrate. Only al-Wal?d bin al-Mugh?ra, who was an aged shaykh and could not make prostration, scooped up in his hand some of the soil from the valley of Mecca [and pressed it to his forehead]. Then everybody dispersed from the mosque.
The Quraysh went out and were delighted by what they had heard of the way in which he spoke of their gods. They were saying, 'Muhammad has referred to our gods most favourably. In what he has recited he said that they are "high-flying cranes whose intercession is to be hoped for".'
Those followers of the Prophet who had emigrated to the land of Abyssinia heard about the affair of the prostration, and it was reported to them that Quraysh had accepted Islam. Some men among them decided to return while others remained behind.
Gabriel came to the Prophet and said, 'O Muhammad, what have you done! You have recited to the people something which I have not brought you from God, and you have spoken what He did not say to you.'
At that the Prophet was mightily saddened and greatly feared God. But God, of His mercy, sent him a revelation, comforting him and diminishing the magnitude of what had happened. God told him that there had never been a previous prophet or apostle who had longed just as Muhammad had longed, and desired just as Muhammad had desired, but that Satan had cast into his longing just as he had cast onto the tongue of Muhammad. But God abrogates what Satan has cast, and puts His verses in proper order. That is, 'you are just like other prophets and apostles.'
And God revealed: 'We never sent any apostle or prophet before you but that, when he longed, Satan cast into his longing. But God abrogates what Satan casts in, and then God puts His verses in proper order, for God is all-knowing and wise.' [Q.22:52]
So God drove out the sadness from His prophet and gave him security against what he feared. He abrogated what Satan had cast upon his tongue in referring to their gods: 'They are the high-flying cranes whose intercession is accepted [sic]'. [Replacing those words with] the words of God when All?t, al-'Uzz? and Man?t the third, the other are mentioned: 'Should you have males and He females [as offspring]! That, indeed, would be an unfair division. They are only names which you and your fathers have given them".
[...] When there had come from God the words which abrogated what Satan had cast on to the tongue of His prophet, Quraysh said, 'Muhammad has gone back on what he said about the status of our gods relative to God, changed it and brought something else', for the two phrases which Satan had cast on to the tongue of the Prophet had found a place in the mouth of every polytheist. They, therefore, increased in their evil and in their oppression of everyone among them who had accepted Islam and followed the Prophet.
The second point says: in a political context the one I was referring to since the beginning) favouring free enterprise, private ownership, and socially traditional ideas.
Similar:
right-wing
reactionary
traditionalist
unprogressive
establishmentarian
The second point says: in a political context the one I was referring to since the beginning) favouring free enterprise, private ownership, and socially traditional ideas.
Similar:
right-wing
reactionary
traditionalist
unprogressive
establishmentarian
Yes. I agree the word can be used that way. It's also correct to call Salafism conservative or ultra-conservative. It's useful to think of it that way.
Ultra-conservatives are people who hold to tradition as if to a rock in a storm. They're like that because their way of life is under attack, or they perceive that it is.
absoluteaspirationAugust 19, 2022 at 22:36#7308660 likes
Reply to Tate I previously used "conservative" to mean an ideology that seeks to maintain appearances while leaving private life to the individual conscience. All authentic Islamic schools follow this pattern. Wahhabism is a new ideology that seeks to bring Arab society in line with how it was structured in the lifetime of Muhammad. (As the Wahhabists understand it, which is historically dubious.)
To be consistent with my previous usage, I'd have to classify Wahhabists as extreme reactionaries. This is also consistent with Islamic scholarship. When they first appeared, Wahhabists were denounced as heretics by the consensus of Islamic scholars.
Traditionally, Islam has never understood itself as seeking to preserve one culture or another. Its purpose is to worship God and create a just society as Islam understands it: feed the poor, care for orphans, prevent female babies from being abandoned, prevent slaves and animals from being overly mistreated, etc. For taking good care of the world, they expected its creator to reward them in extremely sensual ways.
IIRC one of the most influential scholars, al-Ghazali, suggested that the purpose of Islamic law is to protect the 5 components of well-being: religion, life, intellect, offspring and property.
In this context, even the understanding of "religion" is more universal than you might expect. Islamic theology is very different from Christianity in that you don't have to follow Muhammad's revelations to be a "muslim", i.e. submit to God. According to Islamic scholarship, God created humanity with an innate disposition to believe in him: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fitra Apparently, anyone who doesn't reject the stirrings in one's own soul to worship God and uphold justice is a true believer and will be rewarded. There is a medieval novel that spells out the consequences of this understanding: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hayy_ibn_Yaqdhan
Neither in the words of the Quran nor in traditional scholarship does Islam have anything to do with a reactionary preservation of Arab culture as attempted by the Wahhabists.
I get what you're saying. Salafism was first preoccupied with bringing Muslims back to monotheism. All sorts of superstitious worship had blended with Islam. And while I share your distaste for Saudi culture, I have to admit that what they've created is extremely stable and has made Saudi Arabia a sort of beacon for Islam. Though Salafism may not be mainstream (I don't really know how to assess that), it's influence is widely felt. Don't you agree?
absoluteaspirationAugust 20, 2022 at 00:28#7309480 likes
Reply to Tate Wahhabists pretty much argue for a return to the first 3 generations after Muhammad's time. This would mean they reject every intellectual achievement of medieval science and philosophy.
I don't know if I'd characterize Saudi Arabia as stable. They made a deal with Western powers and will remain very wealthy as long as there is demand for their oil. There used to be similar states in Latin America, and those are no longer wealthy.
They are a "beacon" in the sense that thanks to their deal, they took over Mecca, and corrupted Islam all over the world. The new inquisitorial face of Islam is, to a great extent, their fault.
So who were you talking about when you spoke of conservative Muslims?
absoluteaspirationAugust 20, 2022 at 05:27#7310350 likes
Reply to Tate See the four Sunni madhhabs: Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi'i and Hanbali. I'm most familiar with the Hanafi school. I gather the others are stricter.
absoluteaspirationAugust 20, 2022 at 09:02#7310830 likes
Reply to Tate They were Hanbali even before they were taken over by the Wahhabi state. There are still Hanbalis outside Saudi Arabia who are not Salafi. The traditional madhhabs don't get along with Salafis. Try googling Sunni vs Salafi.
What worries me is this: An attack on a freethinker such as Salman Rushdie is a) possible and b) that too in the US of A. Had this happened in Iran or Indonesia, it would've made complete sense. The fatwa (death sentence) was issued in Iran and the near-execution took place in the USA.
Why in Indonesia? It is true they are Muslims, but they are not extremists as much as Saudi Arabia or Iran.
Indonesia because it's the world's largest Muslim nation. It hasn't issued fatwas (yet) but if memory serves some Indonesians did go on record that they would kill for Islam.
But having the world's largest Muslim nation is not related to be extremist. It is a recent but good democracy: Since 1999, Indonesia has had a multi-party system. In all legislative elections since the fall of the New Order, no political party has managed to win an overall majority of seats. The Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), which secured the most votes in the 2019 elections, is the party of the incumbent president, Joko Widodo. Other notable parties include the Party of the Functional Groups (Golkar), the Great Indonesia Movement Party (Gerindra), the Democratic Party, and the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS).
They are so far from feudal states such as Afghanistan or Iran
Yes. When people behave in ways that one thinks are anti-social, uncivilized, or immoral, one must condemn it. One must disavow the unacceptable action.
And then they call the police on you and you're the one who gets into trouble.
From time to time, we witness acts that are "bad", whether that's stabbing authors or shooting the convenience store clerk; stealing catalytic converters or defrauding the Medicare program; trying to overthrow the election or seize the neighboring country. We can't be indifferent. We need to be clear to ourselves (and to whoever is in earshot) that we condemn wrongdoing.
But with a simplistic approach like that, you condone the hostility with which it all started. "It's okay to be hostile, it's just not okay for others to return in kind."
Reply to baker Not my problem you don't understand the harm principle. I'm not deciding anything, I'm explaining you're not applying the principle correctly and that it was never considered by the ayatollah. Not even avant la lettre.
Reply to baker Not what I said. And let's not pretend you actually now how Sharia works. You raising straw men every post is tiresome so I'm done here.
The exact workings of the Sharia law are irrelevant in this. All we need to know is that
1. Sharia law foresees the death penalty for some offenses,
and
2. the ultimate authority in the government of Iran is vested in an autocratic "Supreme Leader" (who has the authority to interpret Sharia law).
Which is exactly what happened. (And why on earth would they issue him a death verdict if not because they thought that what he did was harmful to Islam?)
If you don't like that, sue them. You're a lawyer, you know how that works. Sue Iran, sue the Shias, sue the Muslims altogether. Sue the UN for allowing such countries and religions to exist. Tell them that they're wrong to take offence at a book. Tell them they have no right to feel and think as they do. Tell them they have no right to retaliate. (And while you're at it, sue, for example, the Thai king. They don't take too kindly to those they deem to be desecrating their religion either.) I would love to see you do that. Sue them. Take action. Don't be a coward. Stop this ineffectiveness. Because the posters of this forum are not the right audience for your grievance.
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
So what does that account by Tabari tell us? For one, that the episode stemmed from Mohammad's desire for acceptance as a prophet among Meccans (who were on the whole rejecting his ministry by then).
The passage immediately before the incident reads:
... he longed in himself for something to come to him from God which would draw him close to them [Meccan pagans]. With his love for his people and his eagerness for them, it would glad en him if some of the hard things he had found in dealing with them could be alleviated. He pondered this in himself, longed for it, and desired it. ...
The verses look like a freudian lapse, acting on a secret desire. For Tabari, this secret longing for acceptance is what the devil acts upon, but it looks like almost the same idea. The Id is the devil.
For two, archangel Gabriel (the vector between God and Mohammad) reproaches the latter for having strayed away from the real, authentic text of the Surat an-Najm. This I interpret as yet another illustration that Mohammad is not the author of the Quran -- God is. The Prophet is not allowed to add to what is revealed to him.
For three, the following revelation is then made:
'We never sent any apostle or prophet before you but that, when he longed, Satan cast into his longing.' [Surat Al-?aj:52]
And thus Mohammad is like any other apostle or prophet, and Satan tempts them all. This is something presented as universal, related to the nature of Satan which is to try and oppose God's will.
This is in my mind a very important point: even the Prophet made mistakes. And some rather grave ones, too, as reported by Tabari. And not because he was bad but precisely because he was an instrument of God, and thus attracted Satan.
Satan (or the Id) who acted upon Mohammad secret longing for social acceptance and made him lapse the so-called satanic verses.
It follows that even the holiest of leaders make mistakes, and can be tempted by Satan.
[B] We can now start to understand what is at play in the historic evolution of Muslim dogma, from one that originally recognizes Mohammad's temptation and lapse, to one that denies it, hides it under a technical name ("the verses of the cranes"), and considers it apocryphal. I think it's about moving from an open society, where all men make mistakes but can correct themselves, to a closed society where some leaders at the top are beyond reproach.[/b]
Some posters have said that Islam needs a reformation, and I agree. I wonder if Rushdie's book was not an attempt at reminding readers, including Muslim readers, that Islam was a brilliant, successful civilisation once, precisely when it held the modest, yet surprisingly progressive idea that all men, including the greatest prophet of all, make mistakes, and that rejecting this idea has something to do with what sent Islam into a decline.
Reply to Olivier5 I hadn't put it in such a context but that's certainly a fascinating take. I assume you have a background in Islamic or Middle Eastern studies?
Comments (280)
I Googled looking for the Muslim reaction to the attack and found nothing in the way of Muslim leadership condemning it. The response from Iran and radicalized Muslim governments was celebratory, with India remaining quiet.
I am aware of two critical factors at play here in the Muslim world: (1) the official fatwa from the Ayatollah Khomeini that serves as a decree to kill Rushdie, and (2) fear of reprisal throughout the Muslim world should they condem the attack.
I candidly do not know what the primary driver of the silence from Imams in the West is. Are they in agreement with the attack as justified per their leadership, or do they hold their tongues in painful silence at this injustice? While the latter would be my hope, it's hardly befitting leadership from what ought be a person of integrity over self-preservation.
If it's the former (i.e #1), what restraint in civilized society should one have in discussing the virtue of Islam if its official contemporary 2022 doctrine is the murder of those who write books critical of its historical figures?
My views tend toward the progressive in acceptance of diversity, with a particular openess toward religious diversity, but I can't align in any way with an organization that officially advocates and celebrates the murder of simple detractors.
But back to the theological question, anyone find sources of mainstream. Imam condemnation of the attack or fatwa?
India has been divided into an Islamic part and another part. The Islamic part is Pakistan, and more recently the independent Bangla Desh. What we call today India is not Islamic. So their silence is not the silence of a Muslim country.
Your post is otherwise impeccable, save for the Shia-Sunni issue of fatwa as pointed out by Tate.
Was participation by white Christian nationalists in the events on January 6 in Washington DC consistent with mainstream Christian theology?
As is common in situations like this, the question asked is more telling than the answer.
No, you just try to divert by chastising me for covert bigotry, but at best you've presented a tu quoque fallacy. If i treat Christians with kid gloves but am critical of Muslims, I'm a hypocrite at worst, but my statements are not deemed wrong
Regardless, the 1/6 events were not carried out in the name of religion, but were the result of a political ideology. I do condemn those in the Republican party who have either supported those acts or claimed them part of their ideology. .
It was not my intention to imply your post is bigoted any more than yours implied that Islam is a violent religion. I was implying that your example is misguided. Yours is generally a voice for moderation but I think you were immoderate here.
:up:
You added this to your post after I had already responded.
As you say, for most people the events were not performed for religious reasons, but some white nationalists I have read about participated with explicitly religious motivation.
And I think you're wrong. My voice is moderate. A man was stabbed in the eye for a work of fiction, carrying out his wishes in the name of religion, and I want to know the official position of the Muslim community. Point me in the direction of the article you rely upon for that position.
The Catholic Church engaged in horrible, systemic sexual abuse, but their official position, for what it's worth, is condemnation.
I can deal with failing to meet a standard far better than having a failed standard. I'm just asking what that standard is.
Quoting Tate
You've drawn a distinction here between the reactions of the Sunni and Shia but I can't find support for that anywhere. Do you have cites?
I do know that the fatwa was issued well after general Muslim outrage began, but I can't find support that the Sunnis disagreed with it. What I did find was that the Ayatollah presented the fatwa in a manner to gain support from the Sunni population:
"To win back the interest in and support for the Islamic Revolution among the 90% of the population of the Muslim world that was Sunni, rather than Shia like Khomeini. The IranIraq War had also alienated Sunni, who not only were offended by its bloodshed, but tended to favour Iran's Sunni-led opponent, Iraq. At least one observer speculated that Khomeini's choice of the issue of disrespect for the Prophet Muhammad was a particularly shrewd tactic, as Sunni were inclined to suspect Shia of being more interested in the Imams Ali and Husayn ibn Ali than in the Prophet.[58]"
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Satanic_Verses_controversy#:~:text=On%2014%20February%201989%2C%20Ayatollah,that%20persisted%20for%20many%20years.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/indianexpress.com/article/cities/lucknow/islam-does-not-permit-violence-aimplb-member-8088729/lite/
A clear Sunni response.
There are always radicals, but my concern is official group doctrine. It does seem the Sunnis may separate themselves from the Shia here, leaving their problem not a moral one, but a PR one in that the distinction in position is not known by many.
Regardless, there are between 154 to 200 million Shia in the world.
"An overwhelming majority of Muslims are Sunnis, while an estimated 10-13% are Shias. This report estimates that there are between 154 million and 200 million Shia Muslims in the world today." https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2009/10/07/mapping-the-global-muslim-population/#:~:text=or%20more%20Muslim.-,Sunni%20and%20Shia%20Populations,Muslims%20in%20the%20world%20today.
Quoting Hanover
Is the final answer: Yes to Shia Muslims, no to Sunni Muslims?
Or is there another distinction I've missed with my Western eyes?
Sunni's are the vast majority, so the answer to the question of whether the attack was consistent with mainstream Islam is no.
Well I think that's clear from what I said, with a disambiguation needed for the term "Muslim" needed by me.
Should the OP have read "mainstream Shia Muslim theology," is your response "yes" to those 154 to 200 million adherents?
W0t?
Quoting Hanover
If the the OP had read "mainstream Shia Muslim theology" I would have laughed.
I've changed my mind. I think you are engaging in religious bigotry. Also hypocrisy. If you were talking about black people, women, or gay people, I don't think your abusive diatribe would be allowed on the forum. I don't think you would allow a discussion like that on the forum yourself.
You emoji affirmed @Tate's distinction between the ideologies of the Sunni and Shia, so now you laugh at it, as if implying the Shia mainstream position isn't decipherable, or whatever I'm to decipher from your laughter.
I'm really just asking a question here is all regardless of whatever you're trying to read in. A man stabs someone in the eye for disrespecting his religion, based upon his leadership's stance, and I want to know if his behavior is acceptable within his community, which is a subset of Muslims but still a large number.
What prompted this discussion from me was this article from The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/aug/13/salman-rushdie-attack-prompts-muted-reaction-in-india-and-pakistan
And this too from the Guardian:
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/aug/13/salman-rushdie-attack-iranians-react-with-mixture-of-praise-and-concern
Except I'm not. A religious leader specifically decreed that Rushdie be murdered, a man went out to carry out his plan, the Guardian (not exactly a conservative bastion) reports celebratory and mited reaction, and I ask how widespread this ideology is and how attached to the ideology it is because I truly don't know.
Read all my posts. I'm looking for clear answers on what the ideology actually is. By exampke, the Old Testament talks about stoning. It's a legitimate question to ask (and it has been) whether Jews permit stoning.
The answer is they don't, but it's a reasonable question based upon the text and the fact that the OT is held as Truth.
I suggested I would laugh at a "Shia mainstream" because it's like asking about a Coptic Christian mainstream. It's a niche religious position, so the concept of a "mainstream" version of a niche faction is laughable. You originally asked if the stabbing was consistent with "mainstream Muslim theology", which is not Shia theology. You're begging the question now. By the way, I love Clarky but I think he's overreacting a bit.
Explaining why you feel entitled to express bigoted beliefs is not the same as not expressing them.
You and I are not getting anywhere and won't. I'm going to leave it at that.
The Catholic Church has, had, or used to have something called the "Index Librorum Prohibitorum" -- banned books. In recent times no one has been burned at the stake for either writing or reading a forbidden book. In the past, at various times, Christians resorted to grotesque executions for violations of doctrine. William Tyndale was strangled and burned at the stake for translating the Bible into English. What a monster! John Wycliffe was executed in 1384. Wycliffe also translated at least part o the NT into Middle English, and questioned some core Catholic theology. He was so heinous that years later his corpse was dug up and burned at the stake.
No -- Rome's or Canterbury's excesses neither justify nor excuse Tehran's pontificating mullahs. A plague on all their houses!
Most Christian churches have, through reformation, incremental change, an embrace of secular ideas (the Renaissance, Enlightenment, and science) lost a lot of their former triumphal absolutism--all to the good. There are some outstanding exceptions, of course.
Islam has not had a reformation (so I am told). There seems to be a substantial core of absolutism remaining. The Taliban demonstrates this, as does the malignant Islamic State and various spin-offs.
So we have a medieval ayatollah issuing death warrants for authors who they think ought to be punished by death. Then we have young Moslems cultivating the same medieval thinking on line, unto the heathen state of New Jersey.
All religions which presume to hold the final and absolute truth are a mortal danger.
Aw, shucks.
I think there is a problem with the question, namely that there is no such thing as mainstream Muslim theology. The holy texts and traditions of Islam have been used both to condemn and to support various acts of violence, and these interpretations are conditioned by politics and history. The same thing happened with Christianity (and still does to some extent).
But unlike Christianity, there is no credible central Islamic authority.
The reactions from governments and religious leaders in Islamic countries will be interesting in the context of the various Islamic civil wars, but I personally don't see the point in looking at theology.
But if you're talking about Iranian religious clerics in particular, I'd expect support for the attack. On the other hand, Shia Islamists Hezbollah have so far said something along the lines of "no comment".
Emoji affirmed.
If you guys need me to stand from a mountain top and proclaim my ignorance of Islam outside a very limited academic context I will. but do read my posts from that perspective, that I'm looking for relief from the narrative that a dude gets his eye stabbed out and there is large spread acceptance of the act.
:100:
That's fair to the extent we see Muslims as a political group, which can be done with any religion, but there are underlying belief systems that do hold things together generally within these groups.
The article I located condemning the act referenced the theology, but, again, I realize that too could be a political move.
There could be, and I expect somewhere there is, a well schooled Muslim who could break the I'm sure many sects of Islam to where I could follow this.
If the answer is simply that Islam does not permit such fatwas but through corrupt leadership the ignorant masses were led to believe such in order to take a swipe at the West, that have done well to respond, but I'm still sorting out the politics from the theology..
No problem. I know you're coming from a good place here. Rushdie getting stabbed is upsetting to anyone with a moral center and a pulse. I feel it too. But Islam is a dizzyingly complex religion, so I felt the need to push back and add a few comments.
That is an important feature. Theological interpretation is apparently quite decentralized and local. There's no pope, no Vatican, no infrastructure of command and control.
There is no central authority to which condemnation, approval, or appeal can be addressed.
IF you polled 10,000 Moslems from various countries, my guess is that a majority would not be in favor of executions for book writing. There would be a minority (10%? 20%? 30%?) who would approve, and they would approve for various reasons.
TRUE BELIEVERS of any stripe are more likely to follow available "hard lines" than people for whom belief does not dominate their thinking or their life. There are Christian fascist and white nationalist TRUE BELIEVERS who are quite capable of carrying out violence against fellow Americans who are not displaying sufficient loyalty to the Prez, for example. There are TRUE BELIEVERS in Islamic countries who have no qualms about blowing up a bomb in a market to to kill Shias or Sunnis.
It's the same really of every religion, with the Baptists having their authority, the Catholics theirs, the Mormons, and then the unaffiliated churches with no hierarchy at all. Each Hadidic sect has their own head rabbi, etc.
But clearly some listen to the Ayatollah. Not sure of his scope of influence, but he's a Godfather enough that if he puts a hit on you, you lay low..
Quoting Bitter Crank
I hope so. Those objectors get little press. And by press, I mean throughout, not just FoxNews.
I don't think it's that simple, because what's going on in Islamic countries is so varied and complicated. It's really not just, or even primarily, about Islam vs the West.
As to what Islam permits, opinions differ, and that's the point. There are widely differing interpretations, each of which has some support somewhere. The everyday beliefs and practices of most pious Muslims, as with most believers in any religion, are a mixture of peace, love, family values, and social conservatism.
But it might be the case that right now, in the present context, Islam is particularly resistant to progress and plagued by violence, and by violent theological interpretations. This is different from saying that Islam is intrinsically worse than other religions (more violent, more conservative, what have you). I say this not exactly to defend Islam (which in my opinion deserves a mixture of respect and contempt, as with all religions), but rather to defend the potential for change without the wholesale rejection of entrenched traditions. This is the only realistic way forward.
There was a time when Islam was a beacon of enlightenment, but even that was an expression of social and political realities rather than some true pure heart of Islam. And alas, that's not the world we live in today.
Credit where credit's due: don't forget about ISIS and al Qaeda.
You might see a fundamental difference: unlike the attack on Salman Rushdie, those Sunni Islamists are or were not led or motivated by any country's official doctrines and rulings. To the extent that this is the case, it's a reflection of Iran's particular history, in which it ended up with a radically reactionary government whose authority in the region rests largely on its continuing radical position. On the other hand, if I'm not mistaken the Sunni Islamists have been supported more or less covertly by various governments or other powerful groups, whose representatives have sometimes at the same time publicly expressed sympathy with their actions and views.
Yes, exactly. Every government with a "Pan-Islamism" point of view supported those groups and their actions. We can check a lot of examples like Egypt with Gamal Abdel Nasser Hussein as Prime Minister. Irak with Sadam Hussein and his "Baaz party" or Bashar al-Assad's family members controlling Syria since the 1970's.
One does not look for chapter and verse to justify or condemn the cover-up of paedophiia in the clergy it is obviously expedient to the organisation. The attack on Salman Rushdie is obviously advantageous to the power of any Islamic group. 'Don't mess with us, wimps!'
I read it while living in Pakistan. At some point an Afghan door keeper / cleaner found the book on my bed and wrote in persian over the first page: "Death to Rushdie and Thatcher". (Unfortunately I lost this copy since then) I asked him 'WTF?' and we went into a long discussion about it.
In summary, his beef was that the life of Mohammad was not an appropriate subject for a novel. At some point he asked: How would you feel if someone wrote a novel about Jesus? I answered that it has been done, many times over, and while the hardest integrists were typically angered by movies or novels about Jesus, most Christians consider that it's fair use of freedom of speech.
This is something general, not specific to my door keeper: one of the issues with the Satanic Verses is that it includes a non-authorized biography of Mohammad, his revelation, and the writing of the Quran.
The eponymous satanic verses are a part of that story. At some point Mohammad issued some verses saying that the three traditional goddesses of Mecca were in fact intermediaries between Allah and His creation. By giving some space for the old polytheist religion, Mohammad might have tried to make his new, radical monotheism more easily acceptable to the Meccans. A few days later, the Prophet rejected those verses, stating that they were inspired to him by the Devil. This is actually true, historically, but a matter of embarrassment for Muslims. The book's title is quite provocative, for a Muslim.
More deeply, while Christianity and its holy books have been subject to much interrogations and challenges from Voltaire onward, Islam has never explored its own origins critically. Books analysing the early history of Islam critically are all written by non-muslim westerners. The only admissable tone or style of writing about Mohammad in Islam is hagiography: it has to be the life of a saint, told reverentially by believers in his sainthood.
Anything departing from such hagiography is blasphemous, even if showing Mohammad in a positive light (as Rushdie does in the Satanic Verses), even if historically accurate.
In particular, the Quran is untouchable. It is supposed to be the direct writings of God. Yet Rushdie shows a conflictual, painful revelation process, where Mohammad goes through much physical and mental suffering and struggle, and where the politics of the city get to impact the holy book, albeit in a transient manner. It implies that the Quran has a human touch, even if divinely inspired, and thus introduces an element of doubt.
Another 'button' in the book is that it represents Ayatollah Khomeini as an instrument of the Devil. That would explain the fatwa.
Even the Assyrians would kill those who did not accept their pantheon of invented characters. This so-called fatwa is in fact, a very ancient edict.
We all know how easy it is to wind up clockwork extremists and set them toddling off towards their targeted victims. One of these dehumanised robots is bound to get through in the end.
This was just another maniac attack, probably totally organised within the head of the perpetrator alone. But yeah, based on his own conviction that he has been sanctioned to perform this act by his theistic dogma and those who preach/confirmed it in his own head. He probably believes he would be hailed as a moslem/muslim hero at the end of it all. He may be sadly correct but I certainly lay litlle responsibility on the shoulders of everyday shia or sunni, who are themselves victims of theism. I do blame the main authorities of their religion. Salman already won his battle a long time ago in my opinion.
The only hope for individual theists imo, as we move forward with enlightenment is to switch to a belief in something like pantheism or such like. The Yaweh/Christian followers need to admit that the bible is just a collection of ancient myths based on old Assyrian, Sumerian, Phonetician, Egyptian fables which were simply reviewed and updated for the new testament and the Jesus myth. They should also admit that if their god committed or sanctioned events such as ethnic cleansing or smiting guys that stumbled and dropped one end of the ark of the covenant or sending she bears to consume children for calling one of its prophets baldy etc, then their god always was a bit nuts. I would love to see all the imams and leaders of those who follow Allah, draw lots of pictures/illustrations of their main characters and all the main events in their stories including Mohamed's 'night flight to Venus.' but I don't see that happening anytime soon.
Events like the stabbing of Salman in the name of Islam just makes the followers of Islam look like they are still playing catch up with the more enlightened. This foolish act looks desperate and will only make most people in the west become more and more anti-Islamic. Maybe that's exactly what some nefarious forces want. While we are all arguing about the tenets of Islam, the rich are siphoning off more and more resources, while a great number of people can hardly afford to eat and heat.
I don't agree. An artist was stabbed in the face because of an official decree of a leading cleric of a major branch of a world religion. There's a lot of complexity and nuance beyond that but this cannot go unopposed and questions should be asked, so I applaud @Hanover for bringing the subject up even if I don't agree with the angle he came at it from. The angle I would take wouldn't focus excusively on Islam but use this event as an example of a wider problem--extreme religious fundamentalism, which is a stain that bleeds across different religions in different ways and is destructive in different ways. But getting back to the OP, I think it's absolutely right to expect loud condemnations from Muslim clerics worldwide.
Would be great if they did but as I suggested, I think there is as much chance of that as there is of each of them drawing their own rendition of mohamed and publishing all of them in an on-line gallery.
I'm not so pessimistic. But I think it's important because if an unwillingness to condemn is for relgious reasons, i.e. If some Islamic cleric believes a condemnation would put him in conflict with his religion then by defnition he's lending credence to the idea that the attack is consistent with his religion. No need to sugarcoat that.
1) Political: There is no religious justification for the act but my condemnation would be unpopular with my flock.
2) Principled: I don't want to suggest an association between the act and (my version of) Islam when no such association can be made.
3) Personal: I dislike Rushdie and those who insult Islam.
Maybe more. Anyhow, it's absolutely justified in my opinion to examine official reactions to this one way or the other.
I hope you are correct but is there much evidence that theism has progressed in very significant ways in the past 2000 years ? Or is it only secular national and international law that has kept it in check? Religious authority is only tempered by fear of breaking laws that don't allow the incitement of violence or intolerance towards apostates. Orthodox Islam will still call for apostates to be put to death but I think Islamic countries are afraid of global economic sanctions so their religious fervour is tempered somewhat. Remember it was the past popes who were loudest when calling for holy war/crusades and extremists like the branch dividians (of waco texas fame), the Westboro Baptist Church (WBC) described as an American hyper-Calvinist hate group, many evanhellical groups etc all seem to be thriving pretty well today. I suppose these groups do just deliver annoying 'bee stings' to the human race when viewed as a totality but too many bee stings can kill you. I think the secular world must in the final analysis remain willing to fight hard against religious extremism when all other alternative non-violent approaches have been tried and have failed.
Praise, worry in Iran after Rushdie attack; government quiet
E.g. About a third of Brazilians are now evangelical and this is partly why Bolsanaro still has such hardcore support even while threatening to ignore the results of the upcoming election, de facto threatening a coup.
Quoting universeness
The problem is the situation is so nuanced. Religious extremism isn't standing in the middle of a field waiting to be lanced by the Knight of secularism. It's either concentrated in countries whose cultures the secular West has little or no influence over or chaotically distributed in secular countries among non-extremists who have no responsibility for it. And if we're believers in liberal democracies, we're believers in religious freedom. You can't entirely cure liberal democracies of religious fundamentalism without killing the patient along with the disease.
I did that and also saw lots of popular support in the press, which suggests broad public support.
An interesting irony about 'look to Iran,' it has been ever thus, Iran/Iraq was Persia, Mesopotamia etc Parts of Iraq and Syria were Sumeria, Assyria, Babylon etc. You are correct but I think we have spent a great deal of historical effort 'looking at such places.' I so wish many more theists could see through the obvious manipulation of primal human fears which are so clearly evidenced by following the bread crumb trails from those places and those times to the Islamic and Christian myths peddled today as a way to control and direct masses of people. When are we going to reach a point when the majority of the human race stop looking towards such old dead ancient places and start looking towards the final frontier, space! Our future lies there, not in theistic tenets originally sourced in the primal fears and sociopolitical manipulations of the ancients. The guy who stabbed Salman is a Sumerian religious throwback imo, exact same thinking processes. Not exactly a progressive!
I accept what you type here in general but it's probably even more nuanced than you suggest.
I think there are many 'cowed secularists' around all concentrations of religious extremists, even when the extremists are powerful enough to claim their country is 'Christian' or 'Islamic. I wouldn't invoke the 'knight' image as I don't see such 'sir' / heraldic images as positive. I see them as aristocratic.
I am for the serfs, the workers, the peasants, the true soldiers of secularism. I think there are a lot of skeptical 'Islamists,' 'Christians' who only comply because they are too afraid not to. I would have probably been too scared to profess my atheism in the days of Giordano Bruno.
I do believe in religious freedom as I believe in free speech but I will still attack fascist ideologies whether secular based or religious based. I will also physically attack those involved, especially if they physically attack us! I think there is ample local resistance anywhere religious extremism exists. I just think it needs to be organised and supported in better ways than it is at present. [s]Evangelicals[/s] Evanhellicals have made inroads in many places such as Brazil and parts of Africa because it's easy to dupe desperate people who are desperately poor. Education and economic balance is the only solution to that.
The blurb you found from a Sunni imam was nice, but Indian Sunni imams are just respected elders. Their opinions are valuable, but they don't render binding rulings. To find something like that in Sunni islam, I think you'd need something like Saudi Arabia's type of Islam where the government backs the dictates of a particular family of clerics.
One of the reasons for this shortage of authority is that Sunni islam sort of froze doctrinally around the 10th Century. There's no way to update policy. If the Prophet waged war (which he did), you can't really say that violence is prohibited.
Here's a thing on imams:
"What is an Imam?
For Sunni Muslims, an Imam is typically the name given to the leader of worship in a mosque. These Imams would lead worship services and prayers, as well as serve as leaders in the community. Sunni Imams also take on the role of providing religious guidance to those in need of it. The only requirement for Sunni Muslims to become Imams is to study the basic Islamic sciences.
"For Shia Muslims, on the other hand, the role of an Imam is much more exclusive. Imams in Shia Islam are the unerring leaders of the community, second only to the Prophet Muhammad. Whats more, unlike in Sunni Islam, an Imam is not something that Shia Muslims can just become. This is because they believe that only members and descendants of the Ahl al-Bayt, the family of the Islamic Prophet Muhammad, can take on the role. In Twelver Shi'ism, which is the biggest branch of Shia Islam, there are only 12 Imams, the last of which is Imam Mahdi who they believe will return at the end of times.
"How is an Imam selected?
Again, the process of selecting an Imam differs depending on the sect of Islam. For Sunni Muslims, an Imam is chosen at the community level. This essentially means that the members of the Muslim community choose someone who they deem as wise to be an Imam. It is a requirement that all Imams have a good knowledge and understanding of the Quran. This includes being able to recite it correctly and eloquently.
"In some cases and communities, Imams are specifically trained and recruited for the role. However, in other, typically smaller, Muslim communities, Imams are simply selected from the pre-existing members of the community.
The supervision of Imams is also done at a community level, as there is no appointed governing body to do so. here
You mean Farsi.
My curiosity arises from the silence of Muslim condemnation, and the answers I've gotten here are: (1) it's a radical Shia thing that the Sunnis are so divorced from they see no reason to respond, and (2) the Sunni structure is so localized and non-hierarchical that they lack the means to present an official comprehensive response.
As to #1, I leave the PR to them, but that seems a dangerous reaction because they must obviously know they are being grouped with the Shias, The bright line clarification regarding this issue of their distinction is made perfectly clear here, but, like I said, it's been terribly hard to find this argument you've made researching the web.
#2, again, limited personal knowledge here, but my wife works for the school system here and has had interaction with what seems fairly progressive Muslim community centers that offer social service outreach to recent immigrants, offering direction for schooling, housing, healthcare, etc. My point being that there is a high level of education, sophistication, and organization at some level, which points to leadership that has not spoken out.
I'm not trying to poke holes in the argument that Muslims share in non-Muslim horror over the event, but I'm trying to get this. There is a tendency among beleaguered minorities to never criticize one another publicly. It's an ill fated strategy based upon strength in numbers, but it predictably destroys credibility to the entire group. Looking for the generous read, maybe that?
What would be considered mainstream? There are a billion or so muslims in the world and this was an act of one.
Lots has been written, especially by Sam Harris and others, about how Islam inherently encourages violence more than other religions. But its just not so simple. For a more complex analysis (in my view), Id check out Scott Atran.
1.
2. Iran is a sovereign country.
3. Iran doesn't have a secular legal system the way Western secular countries typically do.
For a foreign country to interfere with a decision issued by the Iranian Supreme Leader would be a case of said foreign country interfering with Iran's internal affairs.
Iran effectively declared Rushdie to be an enemy of the state of Iran. As a sovereign country, it has the right to do that.
But the real issue is that secularists believe that Iran's fatwa was somehow frivolous. Leaking classified military documents and diplomatic cables is bad enough to consider someone an enemy of the state, but saying disrespectful things about a religious figure is somehow not. This is how secularists deny the autonomy of the religious.
It could be that, or it's simply that such criticism would in some cases amount to interfering with the internal affairs of another country.
Moreover, perhaps they don't think there is anything to criticize.
Quoting Hanover
You think they care whether you find them credible or not?
Thou shalt have no other gods before Me.
No. If we're believers in liberal democracies, we're believers in religious superficialism: "It's okay to be religious, you can be any religion you want, as long as you don't take it all that seriously."
Various aspects of Shia Islam are deeply offensive to Sunnis. There's widespread mistrust of Iran among Sunnis, because they fear that Iran is trying to help bring Shias to power. Violent conflicts between them erupt from time to time, with abuse leading to more abuse ad infinitum.
There are pockets of progressive Muslims, like the one you quoted, who want to move toward interfaith, but that can only happen in societies that have separation of church and state.
Quoting Hanover
I think it's both.
Say there's an odd Jewish sect that does something bizarre. How would global Judaism respond? American Judaism?
There are many examples of diversions by insular groups that have been criticized within, and the chasm between Hasidic orthodoxy and liberal reform Jews is deep and wide. These things aren't interesting outside the religion because most don't really care if some in the Lubavitcher sect held the late Menacham Schneerson the messiah and others rejected it.
But despite these differences, there is an unbending view that a Jew of any stripe is a Jew. As they say, Hitler saw no distinctions.
But, Jewish terrorist groups need to be condemned, and if they aren't, the leaders need to explain why. I'm not trying to assert perfection here, just trying to decipher meaning from silence so I can figure out where they stand.
Why should the same kind of reasoning apply to other religions?
Designating someone as a member of a particular religion is sometimes purely an artifact of secular religiology.
For example, the people who consider themselves Christians do not necessarily mutually recognize one another as such.
He's hardly an authority on religious identity, is he.
Why do they need to explain that? Can you explain? Who are you to impose on them that necessity?
More importantly, where you stand.
Except that his actions were based on an official decree by the highest leader in his religion. He wasn't just some nut job who was scribbling manifestos and getting messages from his dog.
Shias comprise a small percentage of Muslims but represent a huge number of people. I'm not trying to impose his actions upon every Muslim, but I also think it's a stretch to claim he's just one guy who happened to be Muslim and this act wasn't consistent with many to believe being Muslim requires of them.
But I'm in agreement that Islam is not inherently evil. People, as moral agents, not religions, get categorized as good or bad. I trust that anyone of us here who for whatever reason became Muslim would find a way to do it consistent with our morality.
That said, leadership matters and how they react and steer the ship can have profound consequences. And do note that my concerns rest in how leadership has responded and how they've resorted to their theology in responding, or not responding
And the guy who just attacked the FBI in Ohio wasnt a nut job either. Does he represent mainstream conservatism? I dont think so, despite the messaging coming from the top (and the media).
Quoting Hanover
But he is just one guy. If he were Christian, or a Trump supporter, you could ask similar things fine. I still wouldnt say its mainstream.
I care much more about actions than intentions or beliefs. Although the latter are certainly important, if the former doesnt represent a real crisis, Id conclude that there isnt much to discuss. What do I mean by crisis? Is not a man being stabbed on stage a crisis? Statistically, not really. If we see a general uptick in violent attacks, thats one thing I dont see evidence for that yet.
Regardless, the messaging matters. That this was ultimately spurred from a political/religious leader is certainly a problem. Im against calling for the death of writers no question. Im against the calling for the hanging of FBI agents as well. That someone out there eventually acts on this messaging only proves that it has a real effect, and should be doubly condemned. But Im very reluctant to make claims about Islam or conservatism or Christianity on the basis of what one person tells their followers.
Quoting Hanover
Agreed.
Say there's a case where some Jews in Jerusalem beat the hell out of a Muslim youth and it goes viral in the world's newspapers. Who exactly is responsible for explaining the mainstream Jewish view of that? Which rabbi would do it? How many Jews would applaud it? How many would be aghast?
Islam was born out of a bloody conflict. The imprint of that is definitely on Islam, just as Jesus' pacifism is imprinted in Christianity.
What that means is that Christian clergymen would have to really strain to find a backing for violence out of the New Testament. In the same way, Muslims have to tip toe carefully around the Quran to condemn violence. The Prophet was a violent man.
Sheer hatred.
More than unpopular: a Muslim cleric daring to defend Rushdie would become a potential target.
Quoting Tate
Jewish terrorist groups can be found here: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_religious_terrorism
As to each one, you can click to go to that link and see what the response has been and who made it.
Jews are part of the fabric of Western society, especially the US, and have therefore set up specific organizations to respond to issues that affect their community.
You needn't have hierarchical systems or centralization to form organizations responsive to the realities of society. Accepting that the press matters is a Western idea and so I'm not holding all organizations to that understanding, but I do think some recognition must be had that if you're not going to announce your condemnation just to relieve my personal discomfort, I should at least overhear it when you speak among yourselves.
Quoting Tate
The OT isn't exactly a book about peace and kindness either.
I'm not surprised. The forum and it's leaders allow, promote, disrespect for religion and religious belief in a way that would never be allowed for any other group. The forum means a lot to me, but I think this attitude, policy, is shameful.
Nonsense, we banned one of the best posters we've ever had, @Streetlight, partly for bigotry against Christians and we've banned others for Islamophobia too. E.g.
Quoting Baden
Enough said.
(If you want to debate this, you can open a feedback thread but please stay on topic here. )
Funny. I think what Streetlight, whom I still mourn, said is more defensible than what Hanover did. It's true. The Catholic Church, including leaders at high levels, allowed the sexual exploitation of thousands of vulnerable children, then helped their rapists, who also included high church leaders, avoid facing the consequences of their actions. I can't imagine a more horrible betrayal.
I wouldn't have said it the way Streetlight did, but his anger and disgust were justified.
It's OK for Street to label Christians rapists or defenders of rapists ("Christians", read it, not "the Catholic Church") but completely unacceptable for Hanover to ask if this attack is consistent with Islam? And all this adds up to us getting things backward? OK, sure.
As I said if you want to open a thread, feel free. Future off-topic comments will be deleted.
If I remember correctly, Rushdies crimes were that of blasphemy. Though there is a theological debate whether such a crime should lead to worldly punishment, such as beheading, the very accusation can and has justified religious violence.
You're right. That's amazing.
Oliver offers a good summary here of the book and why it evoked controversy:
She was a linguist and she loved it when I corrected her speech so that she could learn how Americans really spoke. So, if you met her after me, you now know why she says "Fuck yeah motherfucker" instead of "yes, thank you.."
Your question asks about mainstream Muslim theology and mainstream Muslim theology applies to all Muslims, or rather, what is common to all sects of Islam. Blasphemy in Islam is an impious utterance or action concerning God, Muhammad, or anything considered sacred in Islam. The Quran admonishes blasphemy but does not specify any worldly punishment for it.
I'm sure it's been mentioned that Muslim clerics may call for the punishment of an alleged blasphemer by issuing a fatw?.
According to Islamic sources Nadr ibn al-Harith, who was an Arab Pagan doctor from Taif, used to tell stories of Rustam and Esfandiy?r to the Arabs and scoffed at Muhammad. After the battle of Badr, al-Harith was captured and, in retaliation, Muhammad ordered his execution in hands of Ali, who was a cousin, son-in-law, and companion of Muhammad.
The following is a depiction of Nadr ibn al-Harith's punishment in the presence of Muhammad.
And so this would blur the distinction between the Sunni and Shia condemnation of the Satanic Verses (as they'd both be in agreement there), but they'd vary drastically in their response in terms of advocating violence.
It'd be akin to a peaceful abortion protestor versus an abortion bomber, where the underlying sentiment is the same, but the response different. Again, questioning the wisdom of silence in the analogy just given, if I were in a group that advocated non-violent protest against abortion, and a bombing took place, I'd realize the significance of the moment and formally declare my distance from it.
Leviticus 24:16 says, Anyone who blasphemes the name of the LORD must be put to death. The entire assembly must stone him. Whether an alien or native-born, when he blasphemes the Name, he must be put to death.
That's true what it says, but, as noted in other threads, there's no evidence of any actual stonings or biblically mandated death penalties in the past 2,000 + years.
It's part of the reason for the OP, in trying to figure out the real theology because it's often very distant from its literal decrees.
It probably goes back to that time somebody said "God sucks!" and then the crops were eaten by locusts, so they made it illegal to say things like that.
I thought your question was reasonable and apropos given what has happened. And if this claim is true: -
Quoting Olivier5
- then we have a religion with some considerable problems above and beyond any sectarian variations. I spoke to two Sunni collogues of mine. Their response about what happened to Rushdie was - "You mock Islam, what do you expect? He's lucky to still be alive." Were they against the attack? "I wound't do it myself, but I understand the anger." This may be the nub of it and we forget how violently this religion often feels about blasphemy and apostasy.
I am reminded of the work of gay Islamic writer and feminist Irshad Manji who has argued quite vociferously for years now that Islam desperately needs a reformation - a point alluded to earlier by @Bitter Crank.
It is time for those who love liberal democracy to join hands with Islam's reformists. Here is a clue to who's who: Moderate Muslims denounce violence committed in the name of Islam but insist that religion has nothing to do with it; reformist Muslims, by contrast, not only deplore Islamist violence but admit that our religion is used to incite it.
Irshad Manji
Yeah, thats definitely what happened and the reason why blasphemy isnt tolerated.
Yes. Its a religion thats gone through many phases; our western perception of it is not an accurate picture of what its been for the majority of its history.
I read a biography of Spinoza that said Jewish communities banished and assassinated members who broke their rules. Spinoza was banished, but assassination was a possibility.
Certainly in pop-culture but most people I know admire Islam's past cultural history and its capacity for pluralism and diversity. There's a great book by Stephen Schwartz about this called The Two Faces of Islam.
No doubt
Spinoza is a well known case of banishment.
I'm not trying to argue here who's best and will concede religion does all sorts of evil. The OP wasn't focused on that.
If you're interested in the halacha of the Jewish death penalty, you can search this forum or Google it, but I think it's far afield from the focus here. My point here being if I did show the very limited Jewish application of the death penalty, that hardly means the religion superior and I don't want to insinuate that.
Thanks, I'll check that out. I'm trying to deepen my understanding of Islam.
Me neither. I think we've established that all three of the "religions of the book" have histories of executing blasphemers. I would say Muslims are still doing it because they haven't evolved out that the way Christians and Jews have. They're culturally backward in some ways.
Is it part of mainstream Islam? Yes. For now.
:chin: Really? Historical events like the Inquisition immediately come to mind.
Plot twist: Germany burnt down more "witches" and heretics than the Spanish inquisition. I never understood why we are the only ones who looks like as the bad character inside of history.
Note that I do not pretend to defend my ancestors but only to highlight that it wasn't as excessive as the people tend to think!
They had a special court called "the court of inquisition in Madrid" they rarely set the people in fire... if you check the data (not influenced by black legend) you would see that they were a few who experienced that drama. Again, as I said to Bitter Crank, non Catholic countries as Germany or Austria burnt down more witches or heretics than the Spanish inquisition...
Rare are the Muslims who ever read the Satanic Verses. That includes Rushdie's attacker, Hadi Matar. They just believe what some other cretin said about it. That's a big part of the problem. We got guys ready to kill for hearsay, for a fucking rumor...
I guess some people beg to be manipulated.
To my taste, I don't see enough in the press in defence of the book itself. It is a great piece of literature and I hope that people read it, and read it for a good reason, ie their reading pleasure. Haters looking for a dress-down of Mohammad will be disappointed. The prophet comes across as a great man, and there is no contempt for Islam in that book whatsoever.
So it's really sad to hear or read something like this:
Quoting Tom Storm
I don't doubt what Tom says -- this is exactly the kind of feedback you'd get from any serious/involved believer in Islam. And yet there no mocking in that book.
Meanwhile:
I've been following this informative and thought-provoking thread. Thanks @Hanover
I had wondered when anyone would start talking about the attack and from what angle.
The focus is exceptional.
Quoting Hanover
I've been looking too and glad to have learned more from other posters.
Apologies if I've departed some from original OP questions.
I bolded bits of interest, where any questioning at all is forbidden and can result in death via fatwah.
Quoting Olivier5
Quoting Olivier5
That point was covered in a recent Guardian article.
Basically, it doesn't matter the contents, it's the principle...the mere fact of criticism.
Emotional manipulation. Not just a rumour but brain-washing.
Another excellent piece mentioned our 'internalisation' of the fatwah with links to other articles.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/aug/13/we-internalised-the-fatwa-against-salman-rushdie-this-horrific-attack-is-what-follows
A bit like how Rushdie just had to get on with life...accepting of his potential fate.
It's a pity that there has been no clear understanding re the lifting of the fatwah.
Channel 4 news not long after the attack explored this:
Krishnan Guru-Murthy
We spoke to Indian MP and author Shashi Tharoor about the attack of Salman Rushdie.
Quoting Olivier5
I read that the sales have increased. Long live literature.
Again, the Guardian has that covered.
Latest on who is to blame:
Quoting Guardian
There you go...
I know we are travelling away from the initial OP but I think it's worthwhile to view in the greater context:
(Mods @Hanover not sure about splitting this off to a separate thread. It is all so inter-related)
Quoting Margaret Atwood - the Guardian
So they say the attack is justified.
Quoting Olivier5
I unfortunately do not share your disbelief. Isn't every religious war exactly this? It requires you to buy into the religious fundamental assumptions that I'm pretty certain most believers never experienced either. God is infallible, omnipresent, angels, hell, heaven, etc.
I suppose it's not so much manipulation but the indoctrination resulting from whatever society you grow up into. Most people do not question their position or role in that society. And I'd say "education" is an important factor in avoiding this but then Iran was well-educated and "modern" well into the 70s. So it's also politics and how politics and religious thinking can be (mis)used. Just like "God save America", "God is with us!" and "I'm doing God's work" are and were used for political purposes.
Quoting Amity
This is a good article and makes an interesting link to identity politics.
Upon reflection, what surprises me is that despite the decentralised nature of religious leadership in Islam, such a fatwa can have such a far-reaching almost monolithic agreement with the fatwa even by Muslims who aren't part of the religious tradition of Ayatollah Khomeini. I somehow feel that it can't just be identity politics that resulted in that. Am I overestimating European societies ability to create room for people to have their own opinions about these sort of things? Hell, I have very fundamental different views than my parents about almost everything to do with politics.
Yes. And from the same BBC article, the sickening:
Quoting BBC News
Absolutely disgusting. What can be done about it?
[i]Mr Blinken had earlier denounced Iran's state institutions for inciting violence against the author.
He said in a statement that Mr Rushdie had "consistently stood up for the universal rights of freedom of expression, freedom of religion or belief, and freedom of the press".
"While law enforcement officials continue to investigate the attack, I am reminded of the pernicious forces that seek to undermine these rights, including through hate speech and incitement to violence.
"Specifically, Iranian state institutions have incited violence against Rushdie for generations, and state-affiliated media recently gloated about the attempt on his life. This is despicable."
Mr Blinken added the US and its partners would use "every appropriate tool" at their disposal to stand up to what he called "these threats".[/i]
***
So, there we have it:
'Every appropriate tool' against 'pernicious forces', 'hate speech' and 'incitement to violence'.
I hope that includes all domestic extremism too.
But when Presidents get away with it...this gives me no hope.
Meaningless words without action against powerful words of anger.
And we spend time looking for who condemns attacks.
What will change...?
It seems hatred and division rule.
No matter what.
Funny. Its also funny that on the day before the Salman attack a man attacked the FBI armed with an assault rifle. This man was also at the January 6th assault on the Capital.
Many Trumpists openly advocate for the establishment of a Christian theocracy in the US.
https://amp.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/apr/13/extremists-like-marjorie-taylor-greene-are-the-future-of-the-republican-party
Ok but what criticism? If memory serves, the Satanic Verses does NOT read like a criticism of Islam at all, more like an independent exploration.
I haven't read it. Not to my taste when published but strangely enough had just been thinking of it when the attack happened.
As to how it reads, like any book, even the cover and title can trigger.
So perhaps not an either/or but both depending on interpretation.
I'll leave it there, for now.
I guess I should read it again. It's (at least superficially) about Satan, known as Shaitan in Islam. And many other things.
A quick check on the history behind the title:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satanic_Verses
I don't follow the relevance of these references. Even if a moral equivalency could be concluded (and I think the distinctions might be significant enough that it can't be (as the basis for the attacks on the FBI is an argument of abuse of power in trying to seize illegally stored documents from the former President), what difference would it make to prove we've got just as bad Christians actors as we do Muslim actors? I don't think anyone has made the argument that one group is superior to the other. The argument has been that the Rushdie attack was evil and that the response inappropriate (by being either overly celebratory or muted). Whether that has happened in other places by other groups means very little to this conversation. If there are those attacking the FBI with assault rifles and those attacks are being hailed as justified, then I think we'd all agree that is wrong, but not that it should offer an excuse for others to behave terribly.
Because if you point out that only a few progressive Muslims can manage to strongly condemn the attack, then what does this tell us about the guy who runs the Pakistani restaurant down the street? If we ask, he might tell us that Rushdie should have been killed a long time ago. Now what?
What's your response to that? What should we conclude about the Muslims around us?
It's hard to conclude anything from some anecdotal information, which is why I was looking for some type of statement from leadership. We've made assumptions as to what polling data might show, but I think the conclusion you must draw prior to having supporting data is that we're not in a position to conclude anything.
I think the aim of the OP is trying to deal with how to decipher silence.
I do think most people are pragmatists at a most basic level, meaning their concerns deal with paying their bills, taking care of their families, and doing their day to day activities. If you ask a staunch Republican what he thinks ought be done about this or that, you might get all sorts of aggressive talk that you don't agree with, but come Monday, he's back at work just doing his job. So, I'd agree with the basic statement that most people are not poised to do something crazy, but I also see too much leeway given by some people when crazy people do crazy things.
My way of dealing with it is to put aside the idea of craziness. The guy who attacked Rushdie may have been schizophrenic or something, but look at the part of it that isn't crazy.
Thomas Aquinas said that atheists should be executed. He was echoing Plato. None of those guys were crazy. It's part of who we are as a species to get murderous about sacrilege, which has many forms. I don't say that to apologize for Muslim leaders who are silent now. It's just that I need a way to understand.
Lovely.
Quoting Tate
Agree. I believe civilisation really is only a very thin veneer, easily dropped under various circumstances.
Independent exploration is criticism to a theocracy. Don't forget also that Rushdie is viewed as an apostate which in itself calls for the death penalty.
I'm asking Muslims in the West a very basic question: Will we remain spiritually infantile, caving to cultural pressures to clam up and conform, or will we mature into full-fledged citizens, defending the very pluralism that allows us to be in this part of the world in the first place? My question for non-Muslims is equally basic: Will you succumb to the intimidation of being called "racists," or will you finally challenge us Muslims to take responsibility for our role in what ails Islam?
- Irshad Manji
:up:
Indeed. Still, I remain puzzled with the intensity of the reaction to what I remember as a respectful, even insightful 'novelisation' of Mohammad's revelation.
I'm starting to think that Rushdie's real "crime" was simply to reveal to the world an embarrassing yet probably true story about Mohammad, that of the quranic verses inspired by the Devil (or by politics) and later retracted.
That story reminds us that no religious leader is perfect, not even the greatest one ever. Quite subversive when you think of it.
If the Quran is supposed to be divinely inspired then the suggestion some of the text is the consequence of political considerations is blasphemous. That part seems relatively straightforward, if possibly alien/ridiculous to most Christians and atheists.
It's almost like asking what is the mainstream opinion on metaphysics in philosophy.
At the ground level it also varies a lot depending on the degree of "religiosity".
The media always seems to pinpoint the most extreme versions of Islam,but in reality most Muslims are harmless in terms of trying to assassinate someone.
Many Muslims are only aware of the basics of their faith or do not practice at all.
I have heard that many Muslim councils and leaders condemned the attack.
Just like Christianity or atheism it's only the extremists that are troublesome.
Islam as a whole is not dangerous,its extremists that can be.
Islam remains a very minority religion where I live, and it's hard to get my finger on the pulse of that part of my/our community, especially with the silence in the press on what the general reaction was.
I would expect the problem to be isolated to extremists, but what some have reported here is that the defamation of Muslim founders is considered by all Muslims to be a great affront to Islam that could understandably result in a violent response, and "extremists" mean Shia adherents, which appears to be over a hundred million people.
Do you agree with these assessments?
I know I've set things out here very starkly, and it's not to be provocative, but it's really to push for an answer because you might be in the best position to know about this.
Thank you.
Defamation of Muhammed is considered insulting by many orthodox Muslim scholars.
As for the average Muslim,I think many are not happy with gratuitous insults,but that doesn't mean engaging in violence. Some more religious types might engage in public protests. But in that way it's no different from any other "group".
As for Shia Islam,its no more extreme than other religions in general. Some elements in Iranian politics do pump out propoganda and initially it was Ayatollah Khomeini who issued the fatwa against Rushdie way back. But still the vast majority of shia were not violent,and individual fatwas by clerics are not necessarily binding.
The media do really misrepresent Islam during these kinds of horrible isolated incidents. Fear sells!
Most ordinary Muslims want a good job,nice family and a peaceful-ish life same as most secular people.
You don't get to decide that.
Your response is typical for the way secularists approach the matter: They see themselves as authorities over "how things really are", as arbiters of the Truth. They see themselves as the ones who get to decide how others should think, feel, speak, and act about things. It's plain old authoritarianism under the guise of humanism.
If you were to burn the Dutch flag in public, what would be the consequences?
It's just a piece of cloth, isn't it?
IOW, it's not only some "primitive" or "violent" nations or religions who punish people, but Western democratic (" ") nations also punish (including with death) the transgression of certain rules.
The execution of these punishments is just a matter of practical means, not a difference in the motive for punishment.
Nothing happens. It's not considered criminal behaviour.
Flag desecration is often a crime.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_desecration
Name one instance where it's not like this. I can't think of any field of human knowledge and endeavor where "independent exploration" is not considered criticism.
Oh, the political correctness!
The Dutch version explains it's neither a crime in the Netherlands nor Belgium.
Literature.
Quoting baker
What point are you making?
My point is that there are material and non-material items of symbolic value in a culture the desecration of which is punishable by law. Just like the national flag isn't just a piece of cloth, words aren't just sounds or ink blots. This notion isn't limited to primitive cultures.
There is a trend in interpreting the stance of Iran as somehow irrational, that they are "working themselves up over nothing" and severly punish a person who is not guilty of any crime.
I'm pointing out that Western, supposedly democratic, secular cultures can be charged with the same criticism. Just about different things. For example, high treason is punishable by death or life imprisonment in many democratic countries.
The fatwa against Rushdie is equvalent to our notion of high treason. So where seems to be the problem?
The reason high treason is punishable is because it generally detrimentally affects a large group of people. So from a typical liberal perspective, the harm principle can be applied. Since nobody is harmed by Rushdie's book, they can after all choose not to read it, punishing it is quite frankly ridiculous. If you don't want to be aggravated or insulted, don't interact with people at all, don't read, don't watch television and don't listen to the radio.
In a similar vain, treason that could never damage people or protects a higher norm, shouldn't be punished either. Generally, judges tend to take such effects into account when deciding on the severity of punishment.
I majored in literature. An authoritarian endeavor it is. It's all dogma and power games through and trough. "Independent exploration" my ass. At the end of the day, you're supposed to think, feel, and speak about a literary text the way your superiors expect you to, or you fail the grade.
The passage you quoted is an example of the kind of talk I've heard before, from people from other religions. I've seen it myself that when such an invitation is accepted and the requested challenge in fact posed, the religious get offended. All too often I've seen religious people be like one person in their public talks, but then, when personally addressed, it's like they become someone else, another person.
In my experience such requests were never meant to be taken seriously. It's just religious grandstanding, much like when the RCC pope issues a public apology.
That's just the thing: It _is_ law. It is _Islamic_ law.
The Islamic authorities disagree.
Would you make the same case for hate speech?
Wrong. It's not about not wanting to be aggravated or insulted. It's about not tolerating such aggravation or insult.
Nobody specifically wants to be aggraved or insulted. It is not fair to expect some people to quietly tolerate aggravation and insult, while others get to revenge themselves.
Blasphemy does damage a higher norm.
Example: If a person who is not a citizen of the US says or does something that the US authorities consider harmful to the US, what does the US do? They punish this person, and this punishment can include death. When another country does this same kind of thing, why is this problematic?
Sure, that happens. But the point is you don't risk death or maiming by strangers all around the world for decades. Nor will anyone throw acid in your face for being a woman daring to gain an education. For my money you can't compare these expressions of 'authority'. And even if they were exactly the same, this would amount to a tu quoque fallacy.
Artists in the West can generally be hatefully critical towards power elites and government and religions and not face these problems.
Quoting baker
Whatever you may have seen does not necessarily warrant calling the quote 'politically correct' as a kind of pejorative. That's a Fox News style comment. But you are correct that some people are hypocrites. Sometimes you can tell if they are or not by how much their public comments have cost them.
No, it isn't. Depends on whether a given country recognises is as such. So it might have been law in Iran but it certainly wasn't in the US.
Quoting baker
Point me to the part where they considered the harm principle. They didn't disagree, it simply wasn't a consideration. Your statement is therefore false.
Quoting baker
A book that would call for violence against others is not protected speech and does harm others when people act upon the call. Since Rhusdie didn't, your suggested equivocation is wrong footed.
Quoting baker
You're simply missing the point and arguing against a straw man. The point is that aggravation is not grounds for punishment. You currently aggravate me with a badly argued post. Off with your head.
Quoting baker
Which higher norm? You're free to follow a religion, I'm free to ridicule you for it.
Quoting baker
This is not an example but an interesting representation of your biases. I talk shit about the USA on a daily basis and I'm fine.
I do, at least for myself. If you disagree, you are welcome to pinpoint what you personally see as the contemptuous parts in Rushdie's book.
The "law" is used arbitrarily by nation states when it suits their political and economic agendas. Flag burning is a prime example.
We have heard US politicians call publicly for the assignation of leaders of other nations when it suits.
The US has also blatantly contravened international law in engaging in conflict.
Personally I see double standards and an Elitist mindset from "western" nations and Iran.
There should be freespeech but also common sense.
Public calls for political violence are the limit of freespeech for all parties.
I do think we made some headway into understanding why.
The point being that even should we conclude the US (or whoever) is just like the Ayatollah, that offers zero excuse for the decree to have Rushdie murdered. If the OP were meant just to itemize the good and bad acts of various political and religious entities so the we could announce a winner, I guess I could have done that, but such wasn't the goal.
And I'm really not coming after you so much for this, but just responding to you from how another poster who I generally ignore has responded in the hopes of better explaining my position.
There's presently a public discussion going on about freedom of speech, specifically regarding the tender topic of criticising Islamic leaders without being accused of Islamophobia.
I don't trust anyone on the American right to say squat about Islamic leadership because they've stood by silently as Trump and his buddies were racist as hell. Republicans do not deserve the trust of the rest of Americans on this issue.
I understand your goal, but it's like doing forensics on an active battlefield.
I get we hate Trump, racists, Republicans, and probably all sorts of other things, like climate change deniers, Covid deniers, US Middle East policy, and I could go on and on, but let's focus on the topic at hand.
If Trump, Mother Theresa, Charles Manson, and Abraham Lincoln all declared "stabbing out eyes ought be publicly condemned," they'd all be equally correct.
Such is correct whether you trust them or not
Such is the basis behind the ad hom fallacy.
Must be exhausting.
I know, right?
There are two points here,but related.
First,as I said fatwas are not universally binding or accepted by all Muslims. Many Shiah clerics do not accept the fatwa either.
There isn't a "muted" reaction,it's just the media doesn't report the councils and leaders who have condemned the attack,or those who disagree with the fatwa.
In the Islamic world it's extremely rare for a cleric ( who also happened to be the country's leader) to set a worldwide binding fatwa. Just like Christianity There are many denominations and subdivisions beyond Sunni and Shia. There is no one pope in Islam to usher worldwide edicts.
As a very loose analogy,the Marlborough baptist church does not represent Christianity as a whole.
Secondly,one must be consistent and think beyond a colonial mindset. Islamic theology is not a monolith.
At the moment the Eastern orthodox churches of Ukraine and Russia have issued edicts backing war against each others people. How is this not an equivalence?
My own position is crystal clear I condemn all sides religious and secular for using "law" to publicly endorse violence for political ends.
Finally,I'm not even sure if Rushdies attacker was a shia or just an extremist acting on his own steam? Why an inquisition before the facts are in?
You are speaking to a Muslim here,and one who has condemned the attack on rushdie,and ALL public calls for political violence.
I'm trying to explain how theology is not a monolith,and how a lot of Muslims perceive things specifically and in a wider context.
Yet here you are censoring a previous post of mine and throwing in a red herring comment about people starting threads in defense of violence.
Either you want to hear from normal Muslims and get a better understanding or your just hearing what you've already made up your mind upon.
Bottom line,Muslims are not a monolith theologically or as people.
:up:
There isn't any organization that can detect the confusion among non-Muslims about the silence of Islamic leaders. There's no Islamic PR department in the US. Even if there was, as you point out, religious authority in Islam doesn't work the same way as it does in Judaism and Christianity.
When I get the opportunity I try to explain to people that Muslims in general are not violent,nor do many even listen to their imams.
To many Islam is a basic personal faith consisting of belief in God,an afterlife,a time of judgement for good deeds,prayer,fasting etc.
Many have no idea of theology,fatwas and most haven't even read the quran in a language they understand.
Just as many Christians and Jews are not beholden to their priests or rabbis,ditto for Muslims.
Though most Muslims believe in God,their lives are otherwise "secular."
Twenty years ago or so ago I would criticise many Muslims leaders for not saying enough against fundamentalism,but in that twenty year span Muslims have learned and the culture is now a lot different and many Muslim leaders voice their disapproval.
The thing is,if your not on the ground or privy to imams its much harder to hear this disapproval as the media does not readily report these imams but instead sensationalises and tbh misleads the non discerning public.
His Facebook post indicated he was a Shia Muslim supportive of the Ayatollah, also supportive the Iranian government. https://www.livemint.com/news/world/who-is-salman-rushdie-attacker-hadi-matar-what-we-know-so-far-11660372333595.html
There are numerous non famous Muslim clerics
who have condemned this Rushdie violence.
There are many others who have condemned terrorism in general.
A Google search will bring up some of them.
Thing is,the media have to report it.
Which non famous Muslim clerics condemned it? Any outside the West?
Well,has he gone through a court of law yet?
The article you linked contains "reportedly","some stories","apparently" all less than certain phrases.
Let's say for arguments sake he legit did this in following Khomeini,does that mean the majority of Muslims agree with him? How many other people tried in all these years?
Also ignoring that not every Iranian or shia cleric agrees with Khomeini.
Finally,I waiting for you to engage fully with my other post rather than focusing on ONE extremist person.
Is it guilt by identity you are insinuating?
https://munsifdaily.com/news/india-news/pan-india-news/muslim-cleric-condemn-attack-on-salman-rushdie/
Yes,I have just seen hanovers post linking it.
So how many do you want off Google?
And was it reported by the media? Remember hsnover had to search for it...That's the point!
I don't think it's reasonably disputed that he is a Shia Muslim, not just based upon his admissions, but also upon the very unlikely coincidence that the attempted murder was upon a person who had a specific directive upon him for his murder from a Shia leader.
Quoting Adamski
I don't think my prior posts were evasive or unclear. He was not a single, one off extremist. He was an adherent of a leader with a following of over millions of people and he did exactly what that leader directed him to. Rushdie had been in hiding for years and remained an object of attack because of this fatwa.
It's one thing to say that the attacker's allegiance was to a radicalized, non-representative Muslim linked religious group (just as you could say about various Christians) as opposed to saying he was this odd-ball Son of Sam sort of character that went out and committed a random act of violence. He was the former.
I have repeatedly not taken aim at every Iranian or Shia, but have really just asked what the response from the Muslim (generally) community was, having specifically cited to an Indian cleric who expressed his condemnation.
I'm not on a covert mission to insinuate anything about innocent people who might share some basic demographic background with the attacker. I don't exactly know why I'd care to do that. All I wanted to know was what the general community reaction was.
And don't get me wrong here. We both live in the same world, and I fully realize that the Muslim community does not feel trusted by the West, feeling like sanctimonious Westerners have no moral authority to criticize Islam after all has been done in the name of Christianity, Judaism, and just general American oil interests. So, when an American steps up and says "why don't you condemn that crazed killer," you bristle. Fair, but not the purpose of the OP.
My point is that I understand all of that, which means I don't need to be schooled on those facts. I was very much asking about something I was terribly ignorant about, which was the inner workings of a Muslim culture I didn't understand, and that's all I really was asking for. If I had something openly angry or critical to say, I'd just say it. You wouldn't have to read between the lines.
Fact is I will read between your lines.
I have repeatedly said Islamic theology is not a monolith,neither is the shia version a monolith.
There are many sects within shia islam.
There are many secular and nominal muslim Iranians.
The average shiah will not attempt this kind of attack and you KNOW this.
You are still terribly ignorant of Islamic culture and guilty of horrible double standards and ignoring what I've written.
Fact Is you probably fear being called out if you really said what you think.
Can you not distinguish between ordinary religious people and political rhethoric?
Or is the non western world held to different standards and looked down upon?
Please,spit out what you are really saying if you can.
I've not indicated that an average Shiah would attempt anything and I've not imputed blame on anyone other than the attacker. I even specifically stated that religions are not good or evil, but such descriptors lie entirely with people. I asked about the Muslim response, and even indicated several times that this might have to do with a PR issue more than anything else. I recognized different distinctions between Muslim ideologies and acknowledged the same occurred in the West. I even located a response that was very much aligned with what you were saying (i.e. that there is a condemnation by some Muslims for what occurred), only for you to re-post my cite later as your own to prove that I was wrong for believing what you thought I did (which is that there there have been no such condemnations). You will note that I posted that cite and indicated it came with great comfort by me, as opposed to ignoring it, which I would have if my goal was just to blindly self-promote my malicious position.
I'm really not sure whose posts you're confusing with mine. Anyway, I'm fine with emotion, passion, and hostility when it comes to things like this that matter. But, if you're really asking me what I think? It's simply that the Muslim community could do better in expressing its distance from its radicalized components, even if such expression should be unnecessary and feels unfair. This comment has nothing (and I mean truly nothing) with morality. Not doing so does not make anyone more evil; it just exposes them to misinterpretation. What I'm saying has to do with the pragmatic reality of living in a mass media controlled environment where information is largely received and accepted by the masses as truth, without which people draw very different conclusions.
There are two points in that wiki article quoted above that may be worthy of some further digging. One is this:
So this is not an Arabic phrase, but one coined by a British orientalist, hence a Westerner. Arab scholars do not call these two verses ("These are the exalted ghar?niq, whose intercession is hoped for.") the "satanic" verses; they call them the ghar?niq verses (the verses of the cranes).
The title of Rushdie's uses a phrase borrowed from a western characterisation of an incident in the life of Mohammad, a phased not used in Islam. Probably because the reference to the cranes is less embarrassing, less sensational, and more technical.
The title "satanic verses" may thus be seen as tendentious, as not using the due respectful tone and vocabulary one should use while speaking of the Prophet. And it is also western and therefore ideologically suspect from a modern Muslim perspective.
And rightly so IMO, since Muir was a colonizer, in a very literal sense: he was a colonial administrator, enrolling at the age of 18 and serving mainly in the North-West Provinces of British India (now Pakistan) from 1837 to his retirement in 1876, when he became a member of the Council of India in London after a distinguished career. He studied Arabic history and literature. His older brother was John Muir, the Indologist and Sanskrit scholar.
As a matter of fact, Muir's writings about the case have been criticized as polemical or irreverent. These polemics included the episode of the ghar?niq verses.
In conclusion, one reason for Muslim ire may be that Rushdie attracted attention to an embarrassing (alleged/reported) incident in Mohammad's life, and used in his book's title a sensationalistic phrase, one that rings well, a bit too well, one that catches attention instantly.
If Rushdie had used a different title, less catchy and sensational, maybe the book would not have sold so well. "The Verses of the Cranes"?
And this too is an accusation one reads on social media: Rushdie did this to sell books. Back to what my door keeper told me: don't write a novel, a work of fancy about Mohammad, in part because that would be disrespectful but also because it would be lowly commercial, hence consumerist, capitalist, sensational, etc. Not serious. Not good.
None of this of course justifies murder but it's an effort to understand the beef.
A fine piece of evasion and mealy mouthed misinformation hanover.
How would you know how the Muslim community distances itself from extremists? How many Muslims do you engage with offline regularly?
If the media is controlled by vested interests ( unless you really think the media is impartial!) why would they report extensively on imams condemning events?
Fact is I had the same complaint twenty years ago,the difference being there was a problem back then,but it's been addressed,now the problem lies with your countries media. What's more my knowledge of the problem came from personal knowledge of directly knowing Muslims.
You seem to think you can criticise purely from your knowledge of American media and Google without having any local knowledge.
Maybe get offline a bit and talk to Muslims if your really that concerned. Because your speaking from major ignorance and not looking at the "impartiality" of the media.
Very poor.
Either that or I rehashed and summarized what I previously said because you asked me to. Quoting Adamski
The point of this exercise was to save me from having to conduct street interviews. I can say I now have your opinion for whatever it's worth. Whether I can extrapolate much from my poll of 1 is questionable. Quoting Adamski
So yeah, the question of what the response from the Muslim community has been isn't going to be deciphered by our insulting each other, attacking each other, questioning one another's motives, or arriving at clever one liners. It's an empirical question. So, cite me to whatever link, organization, media outlet you trust, journal article, professor's homepage, or whatever so I can see what you're referencing.
Anyway, let's get back on the right foot here. The conversation was more interesting back then.
Rushdie is probably one of the greatest living fiction prose writers in the English language, whose complex stories of identity and colonization are woven in the context of his own Indian/Islamic/English background. The Satanic Versus is exactly the kind of novel one would expect him to write. He should be free to make any choice he wants to make. Best way to understand Rushdie is to read his gorgeous, reflective essays - I'm particularly partial to the compilation Imaginary Homelands.
You reject people's lived experience and think some academic can top what real Muslims actually feel?
As I said before not everything is online or reported.
It's like you want reams of online documents to disprove the guilt you've already imputed.
You are aware that many imams give a speech every Friday and that this is purely oral,it doesn't go online?
In your ignorance of this culture you feel fear and resort to suspicion and media propoganda.
Tell why do many western people on the ground live,work,befriend and marry Muslims,even shia ones!
Nor are they afraid of the average Muslim.
Your attitude is primitive just like a person who wants academic evidence that non white people are not dangerous savages.
Own your ignorance hanover.
Didn't original muslims scholars (back in the 600s-700s) actually refer to them as inspired by Satan? Rhushdie's version sounds at least as historically true.
I agree, and I love his books. Just trying to understand the mainstream Muslim position here.
Well done you and @Hanover for keeping this thread clear, relevant and a worthwhile read.
Remarkable patience being shown in some increasingly aggressive responses.
Not an easy subject to discuss.
Thanks to all for keeping the conversation cool :cool:
No, I simply refuse to attribute to a people what a single person has done or said, which includes your comments here. That you don't serve as a particularly positive ambassador for your position hasn't really moved the meter for me here. I realize I'm talking to one guy, one opinion.
Since I can't even begin with most basic factual notions with you, it's hard to make progress. You've presented arguments the attacker doesn't even make for himself (that he's not even a Shia, but even if he happens to be, it's just coincidence, having nothing to do with the act). The truth is he followed his beliefs, set forth by his leader, however bastardized they may have been.
Quoting Adamski
This isn't your argument. Your argument is not that "not everything" is reported. It's that "nothing" is reported. My OP asks why nothing is reported. That's the gist of it.
Sure, there's media bias, but you've not even cited to an open forum like this where anyone can say whatever they want. Quoting Adamski
The Guardian was my only cite. Point out the propaganda I cited to.
Quoting Adamski
Of course they do, but assuming they don't, and you're right, what bearing does this have on the OP?Quoting Adamski
No, I've not asked for conclusory evidence regarding an offensive premise. I've asked for a cite of condemnation. Period. If there were an attack by white supremacists upon blacks, I would absolutely expect outrage from the white and world community, in speech, in writing, in action. I would not call out for proof, as you suggest, that white people generally prove they're worthy. That's the nonsense in your head, not mine.
And the conclusions I've reached on my own are hardly as critical as you suggest, leaning toward the pragmatic, despite your best efforts to point me toward a less generous conclusion. But, like I said, you're just one guy, one opinion.
Interestingly, the "denouncements" in Iran focus on the detrimental consequences to Iran but not the immorality of the act itself.
https://www.firstpost.com/world/attack-on-salman-rushdie-shows-divisions-among-lebanese-shia-11072441.html
There are vocal Lebanese that denounce it but they in turn receive death threats.
Wait a minute. You don't know the attacker's identity and motives better than anyone else. My guesses about the extent to which he's a faithful disciple of Ayatollah Khomeini as opposed to a troubled person are as good as yours.
You appear to be bent on taking anything anyone says as a defense of the attack or a vindication of Iran even after they've already condemned it. You've done that to at least two posters so far
What happened was the poster said that I had no evidence that the attacker was even a Shiah and so why would I rush to judgment in that regard. I posted to his Facebook page and comments by his mother that indicated he considered himself a Shiah and was acting pursuant to the fatwa. What was being asserted was that the attacker was this lone, crazy, knife wielding attacker suffering purely from mental illness. That, based upon the facts, is burying one's head in the sand. He acted pursuant to an ideology advanced by a religious leader held in much esteem by a large number of people.
I don't take that as a defense of the attack, as even if it were true that he was not acting pursuant to his religious beliefs, the attack is just as wrong. What I do take it to be is simply a misstatement of the facts so as to remove this question entirely from the OP by saying this has nothing to do with Rushdie's work and the Muslim animosity it engendered, but to instead suggest we're just dealing a single nut job.
Those just aren't the facts and it creates the false illusion that this has nothing to do with Islam, Shiahs, the Ayatollah, or Rushdie. It most certainly did, and that is the point of this OP.
No one asserted that. What was commented was that we don't know. Maybe he did consider himself to be Shia. He still could have been a troubled person.
Yes, his action was obviously called for by a Muslim leader. No one denied that. Adamski was simply explaining that Islam is too fragmented to make much of that.
Quoting Hanover
Adamski didn't say that.
Quoting Hanover
Well, you're so versed on the facts, what does the event and its fallout tell us about mainstream Islam?
Hardly a good faith question based upon how it is phrased, but no reason not to just go ahead and hit send the way it is. Why not?
With that qualification:
I've already stated this the best I could, which is that my best guess is that there is not the impetus upon public condemnation within that community that there is other communities, and I'm not clear exactly where that arises from. My suspicion is that it arises over this free speech question generally and what social expectations there are in terms of what is acceptable speech (in terms of criticizing another's belief system), what is mandated speech (in terms of criticizing another's actions in order to bring forth justice) and what is simply pragmatic speech (in terms of obtaining a particular result after certain actions occur).
These are just my thoughts after reading, but I could be wrong. That's why I'm having the conversation.
Could you specify the community you're talking about?
Quoting Hanover
What free speech question?
Quoting Hanover
You're having a conversation where you repeatedly misrepresent what others are saying. Is there a reason you feel the need to do that?
No. You'll have to keep this conversation contextualized yourself.
It's not clear at all which community you're talking about. Really and truly. :love:
2. Speaking as an Indian ex-Muslim atheist, my understanding is that mainstream Islam is a more explicit version of classic Western conservatism: It doesn't care what you do in private as long as you don't embarrass the community. In fact, one of the asma ul husna (names of God) is al sittir, the one who hides our sins. Allah is understood to be complicit in hiding our sins out of mercy.
In medieval times, the evidentiary standards of religious courts was so high, it was possible to convict only the most shameless criminals. As a result, Europeans considered Islamic morality "degenerate" upto early modern times. In contrast to the current image of Islam as a fundamentalist religion that curbs all worldly pleasure, medieval philosophers regarded Islam as a religion operating under the astrological sign of Venus, making people pleasure-seeking, lascivious and lazy. Why the change? I'm inclined to think that the Terror Management Theory applies very strongly to "Third World" peoples.
3. This no doubt makes Islam a terrible religion in the 21st century, and I don't condone anyone joining it, but it's no worse than Judaism or Christianity. The relevant factor is that Muslims live in poor and/or repressive countries. Christians in Africa and Northeast India inflict similar repressive measures on minorities. Europe was also very similar in the past. Eg. A Jewish zealot once stabbed Spinoza IIRC.
I created a playlist with excerpts from the Quran that may give you a general idea of Islam's style of religiosity: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLLz-S1Fiqsmt52eX9vmjGf3OJlrea4Apg
Don't confuse an absence of action with an absence of motive. At this very forum, moderators get to tell people to kill themselves or express the desire to kill others. Just in the last couple of weeks, at least three instances of this, by two moderators.
It wasn't an attempt at justification, but pointing out that those who so severely condemn the "Rushdie attack" are not beyond harboring the same hostility that they so criticize.
What's the use of being "hatefully critical"?
As for "not facing these problems" when criticizing the government or the elite or religion: absence of retributive action doesn't automatically mean approval or tolerance. Perhaps such retributive action just isn't high on their priority list. Or they are allowing it for their own PR purposes.
And further, for a religious person to request input on how to practice their religion -- from outsiders of that religion??? (Like in the passage you quoted earlier.) This is absurd.
Quoting Bitter Crank
Then why condemn what happened to Rushdie?
Rushdie invented a parallel history for the Prophet. In Islam this is considered unacceptable and punishable.
There is reason to suspect that Rushdie knew what the possible consequences would be but went on anyway; the way he later on defended his work justifies this suspicion.
There is reason to believe that this was a deliberate provocation on his part, and such deliberate provocation is what is problematic.
Why would a civilized, highly moral person resort to provocation?
Do you dispute that Iran is a sovereign country?
"Offending the Prophet" is how they apply what you call the "harm principle".
Rushdie and those who defend him are implying that it's okay to reinvent history. You see no problem with that?
Of course it is, and always has been. The only qualification is that not everyone has the means to act on it.
So now I am responsible for how you feel?? To the point where you want to kill me????
Respect for religious authority.
Since this is a philosophy forum, the concept of freedom of religion shouldn't be treated so lightly.
Doxastic voluntarism is a highly problematic notion; as is the idea that one can unilaterally choose which religion to follow, regardless of whether one is accepted by its members or not. We have threads on this.
As if ridicule would be a civilizational accomplishment.
You're so confident. Wait until you apply for US citizenship or want something else from the US.
I remember feeling that Rushdie expressed the soul-crushing alienation I felt when my mother forced me to conform to the outward rituals of a religion I didn't believe in. I support Rushdie because he gave voice to my pain without, unlike the nationalists, calling for my community to be exterminated.
Of course. It would be comical if it wouldn't be so sad to see various authoritarians fighting among eachother. If only the planet wouldn't have to pay the price for it.
The problem is that when one party breaks the agreement of non-violence, should the others desist from violence or not? And on what metaphysical grounds?
So far, the general practice in human cultures has been retribution. Nobody wants to make the first step and desist from provocation. Nobody wants to refrain from retribution. So here we are.
I also remember the soul-crushing alienation I felt growing up as someone who was ostracized from the religious community by birth. What I'd give to be able to belong! But no, it was as if I had the mark of the devil on my forehead, for all to see.
Nobody I know gives voice to that.
One has to take responsibility for one's situation, whatever it may be. Crying foul, wanting the religious community to understand one's plight is a waste of time and effort, dangerously so.
Google does. I was once having an email conversation about religion with someone. When the discussion came to Islam, the emails came with delays, sometimes for several days. We concluded that the emails were filtered by Google, and that a computer program, perhaps even a person was reading them.
I condemn it because I want a thicker, and better, veneer of civilization. Civilization is what we use to counter those parts of our brains that send us off into wild rages and flights of irrationality. Religion has delivered a decidedly mixed performance as a component of civilization. Islam and Christianity have a particularly mixed record. Where/when/why it fuels uncivilized behavior, it should be pruned.
I have no idea what kind of alienation you're talking about. Religious communities usually welcome converts. Maybe you should write your own Satanic Verses.
Could be.
Rhusdie's account is historically more accurate than what is now considered truth among Muslims.
Quoting baker
The prophet is dead, he can't be harmed.
Quoting baker
Respect for people sure, respect for things not so much. Respect for people means respect for life, that always comes before authority.
Quoting baker
Most certainly. George Carlin is a prime example of how to marry ridicule with intelligent commentary. I'm obviously not as funny but I'm several hundred steps above promoting people to kill someone. I confidently and comfortably claim the higher moral ground there.
Quoting baker
I wouldn't want anything from the USA even when it was the last government on Earth. It's only marginally better than most dictatorships.
Everyone does, or else they are left to the mercy of others.
Really? You believe that other people are responsible for one particular person's existential problems?
I'm talking about being born as an illegitimate child into a religious community where being illegitimate amounted to having committed a crime, a stigma one can never recover from.
Only a veneer? See, that's the problem: setting one's expectations so low.
Are you sure about that? People often like to blame our lizard brain, yet all too often, it's just an empty refrain.
The dichotomy between the lower and higher parts of our brains seems first and foremost to be a convenient excuse for people to continue to act on lower intentions, to renounce the power that they have. One has to wonder why. The simplest answer is that those "lowly intentions" aren't actually lowly at all.
I thought the problem was being stabbed in the face for writing a book.
If you were alienated from a religious community for being an illegitimate child, then why are you arguing on behalf of traditional religion? The alienation you suffered is plastered all over pop culture. See the Game of Thrones, for example.
Agreed.
The consequences for a transgression need to be serious. What is considered serious depends on the particular religion's metaphysical system.
In Buddhism, for example, the worst thing that can happen to a person who disrespects the Buddha is that the advanced practitioners shun them. This is deemed worse than being physically killed (such as by being shot or hanged).
Outsiders will probably laugh at this, but to the Buddhists, this is the worst that can ever happen to a person, being cut off from the Teaching.
From the perspective of Muslims, being maimed or killed probably isn't the worst thing that can happen to a person.
What is wrong with you? Are you unable to see things from another's perspective??
Rushdie didn't do his part. He wants other people to respect him, to tolerate him at least, but he doesn't want to return the favor.
I'm not arguing on behalf of it, I'm presenting its stance. Because nobody else does that here, yet it's crucial for understanding where they come from, and it's crucial for understanding conflicts with it.
One can save oneself a lot of time and grief by understanding traditional religion. It puzzles me how come more people don't take this route.
Yeah, that reeeeally offers brilliant ways of coping. The dragons, they make it all so viable.
So we disagree on this point and the others are not significant enough to follow up. Irshad Manji is a Muslim. When she makes comments about Islam and the wider world community, it is worth listening. That's a judgement of course, and one you obviously don't share. Fine.
This kind of trivializing really doesn't help.
But neither he, nor anyone else, is free to dictate what effect that choice should have on others and how others should respond to it.
Quoting Tom Storm
It's not fine. It's part of the answer to the OP's quest: to understand religious autonomy.
In fact, the Rushdie has been more pro-Islam than (IIRC) Nobel-nominated writers like Milan Kundera have been pro-Communist, i.e. not at all. Kundera has argued that Communism is an eastern invasion into a Western cultural space like Czechoslovakia. Although that sentiment sounds borderline fascist, I don't condemn him for it. People who have internalized repression tend to scream out their freedom more loudly than strictly necessary. Similarly, Rushdie's provocation is a creation of Islamic repression. Would the Communists have been right to silence Milan Kundera too?
-----
If a Hugo Award winning writer like GRR Martin is not good enough for you, then how how about something classic like The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne?
That's a strange way to frame the argument. That secondary issue is, should fanatics have the right to threaten and kill people whose art/opinion they don't like? There's only one correct answer here.
What if it an author wrote a book about a bikie gang and a club decides to kill the author and publisher and anyone else involved because the book took a controversial view of the club's history?
Quoting baker
I'm saying it's fine that you make difference judgements to mine - after all no one is going to get killed.
Is condemnation a moral imperative?
People threatening others with death is quite a common occurence. Just look at this forum. Even moderators quite nonchalantly tell others to kill themselves or that they deserve death.
What should we conclude about the people around us?
My point is, those Muslims who believe that someone deserves to be killed aren't some kind of aberration, exception. Liberals, secularists, also threaten with death. (And insofar they hold positions of power, they make it happen too, legally.)
I think that we can conclude from that that some (if not many, most) people want to rule over the lives and deaths of others.
It's more relevant in how one interprets the discrepancy: Do they not stone people because they have mercy, or see them as "fellow humans who shouldn't be hurt"? Or is it because they don't believe that the religious decree was actually issued by God?
Why strange? Can you explain?
So a "fanatic" is now a clearly definable and universally binding category?
Should people have the right to act in bad faith, to be hostile, to provoke others, and yet others must take this stoically, because the hater's rights are above every other concern? There's only one correct answer here.
Some people have too much time and money on their hands.
No, it's not fine. We cannot peacefully coexist that way.
Again, a case of blaming others.
And a repression of what exactly? Rushdie was at no time a citizen of an Islamic republic where he would be bound, by his citizenship, to a particular religion. So he has no grievance of this kind. Sure, his parents expected him to comply with certain norms. So what? It's teenager rebellion on his part.
Who says they didn't keep him around for strategic purposes?
-----
Just what do you think that reading books like that can accomplish? All they do is make people hop from one train of passion onto another one, while the problem of suffering remains looming as ever.
I'm pretty happy most of the time.
Why should they coexist peacefully with an unjust secular tradition?
Just listen to yourself. You expect justice and redress from the very people you consider unjust (and all kinds of bad).
Do you really think that's a sane expectation??
And what do you think will happen if you tell the world "the pain you suffered because of their hypocrisy"?
Why should they care about you and your pain? Can you explain? Can you spell it out?
That's why it's important for religious leaders to speak up. It's their job to go full MLK Jr and shout "Let freedom ring!"
Isn't it?
Ok. Bye.
On the contrary. In order to be able to judge others from the moral high ground, one actually has to hold the moral high ground.
If it can be pointed out that a prospective judge does not hold such a moral high ground, his judgment is at least suspect.
[i]He that is without sin, let him first cast a stone.
Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye.[/i]
Because the religious leader believes he has the divine authority to do so.
That you don't believe he has such divine authority is on you, not on him.
You keep complaining about how religion is treated poorly at this forum. I'm offering some explanations as to why.
For me, the main reason why religions aren't credible is insofar they are worldly, secular, and insofar religious people themselves relativize their own doctrines.
Quoting Hanover
There you go. With passion, and hostility, it all goes downhill. Once you approve of passion and hostility, how can you expect anything other but killing, raping, and pillaging?
Quoting Hanover
Like I already said, I think it's because at least some religious people have a strong sense of religious autonomy, and so see no need to make themselves seem credible to others, or to seek to be understood by others. So they don't explain themselves to others.
A classical example with this is when atheists request theists to provide proof of God. The atheists claim that the burden of proof is on the theists, yet the theists don't consider themselves as having that burden at all (and that instead, if anything, the burden is on the atheists).
Only if they are committed to secularism.
You seem to be under the impression that Muslims irrationally defend Islam whenever possible. This is not true. Muslims criticize aspects of their society like everyone else. If you don't believe me, I believe there is a YouTube channel called something like Islamic Center of Orange County. Watch the most popular videos on that channel. (I will clarify if I remembered the name wrong.)
Why do you need them or their tradition to be different than they are?
Because you're not in control of your feelings?
No, I'm not under that impression. It's not clear why you think that.
So you asked what I meant earlier and I didn't respond because it was clear to me you did, and this is the point I was making. Is there a duty to speak truth to power, damn the consequences?
You used the word "community". I still don't know what community you mean. In the US? The global community? Iran? Shiites?
Quoting Hanover
If you don't, your culture will erode. There has to be a moral backbone for a culture to grow and thrive. Holy people have that responsibility more than anyone else.
Yes. It's incredibly demoralizing. And he's likely to be elected again. Jesus.
From time to time, we witness acts that are "bad", whether that's stabbing authors or shooting the convenience store clerk; stealing catalytic converters or defrauding the Medicare program; trying to overthrow the election or seize the neighboring country. We can't be indifferent. We need to be clear to ourselves (and to whoever is in earshot) that we condemn wrongdoing.
Quoting Hanover
Quoting Tate
The OP was clearly about the Muslim reaction, later focused to Shias, then some reopening it to Sunnis as well. I'm confused why you're confused. This whole conversation has been about my difficultly understanding why the reaction has been difficult to decipher.
That's why I responded to you as I did. Where was all this ground lost and then needing re-plowed?
Beats me. Maybe that clarifies?
I don't think homophobia is specifically Christian.
The guy you banned spent some time explaining how fragmented Islam is. Then you mentioned "that community.". I see now that I was supposed to read that as the global Muslim community, which the guy you banned said doesn't really exist, which is true.
And I think that's the gist of this whole thing, which is that the West holds speech as holy, both in the right to offend and duty to protect. It's primary. We perceive it fatally wrong to be told we can't express our wrongness and we feel a piwerful imperative to speak against injustice.
So that's what makes this thing stick in my craw. Rushdie was being told to shut up, and when he was physically attacked for it, the speech reaction from those best positioned to be heard didn't scream.
It's a realization of what free speech means to Western morality. An interesting revelation for me, at least.
Back to my theological musings now. I don't know enough about the Koran for a comparative analysis, but thematic to the OT is the power to create the universe from speech acts alone and for humans to challenge the authority of God, offering foundational support for where this free speech protection emphasis distinction arises.
Maybe I'm wrong here, but it's an interesting thesis.
No, now I see my initial assumption of the bad faith basis of your question was correct. You weren't confused, and I regret attempting to clarify. I didn't say the entire Muslim community in my last post. I explained it was the entire community at first, clarified to be Shiah, then opened by others back to the community. I contextualuzed what occurred, which is what I asked you do the first time, but such wasn't your desire.
I didn't know that. Wasn't there a Muslim who shot up a gay nightclub in Florida?
I have no idea how you got this impression. Why don't we ignore one another from now on? :smile:
Sure, it's a broad based theory that requires some tinkering, but I'm not in agreement that the power of speech and its special status can only be traced to the Enlightenment.
That's insane.
Quoting absoluteaspiration
Funny, that whole movie has been accused of being soft gay porn. Did you see the Doraleous and Associates spoof?
Besides, do you have any evidence that free speech was considered a right before the enlightenment? I've never seen any indication of that. IIRC the word "heresy" is Greek for choice. A "heretic" was someone who chose his own beliefs.
To be fair, medieval philosophers did consider Christianity to be the religion of Mercury because Jesus is the Word. But if we run with that, some Shia Muslims consider Ali to be the Book of God. Iran shouldn't be censoring any books.
I also know for a fact that Shia hadiths have incredible respect for the intellect. Iran shouldn't be censoring sincere intellectuals, then. I believe the name of the hadith book is Usul al-Kafi. You might also find a few lectures on the Shia intellect on YouTube. Try the channel: al hujjah Islamic seminary. Go to playlists and find the oldest year one demo titled Usul al-Kafi. If you wait a while, I'll find it myself and paste the link here.
Edit: Found it: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLrK-FXb0E44tRfxDKOeq4_wLXhXURvoNc
The anger is "understandable". Is it really though? It's understandable in the sense people are emotional and half of the time act like sheep and do act irrational. Other than that, not so much understanding here for many reasons. The most important one that Rhusdie's representation of that time is exactly what Muslim scholars talked about until the 800s. So Islamic religious truth in this case is a joke and if Khomeini was worth his salt as a scholar, he would know this. So we can rest assured this was entirely political.
A Saudi woman will spend 34 years in prison for tweets.
Is this the kind of conservative climate you were talking about?
Saudi Arabia lives in a feudal system ruled by families. They do not know anything about conservatives, lefties, trade workers, representatives, seats, etc... or what we see as "normal democracies" in our world
Isn't it basically Salafism? Why wouldn't you call that conservative?
Quoting javi2541997
Their version of Islam seeks a return to old ways. In any society, I would call that conservative.
I disagree. I think you are misunderstanding conservative with tradionalism. Conservatives tend to be related to capitalism, free market, liberalism, etc...
Anyway I still think those characteristics do not fit in a state like Saudi Arabia. As I said they are just feudal
I was getting to that. The second point I would like to raise is related to the current status of Muslim doxa or exegesis on the ghar?niq verses, in terms of their being considered authentic history or not. I quote from wiki again:
Emphasis added to show the evolution in the interpretation, from the story being genuine early on in the history of Islam, to it being seen as improbable based on dogmatic grounds of the Prophet's infallibility.
I can't verify all the authors but the original account seems to be that of Tabari in his History of Kings and Prophets (c.?915 CE), volume 6. It goes like this:
Conservative: averse to change or innovation and holding traditional values. Here
Quoting javi2541997
That's a narrow definition. Look to context to know when you need to widen it.
The second point says: in a political context the one I was referring to since the beginning) favouring free enterprise, private ownership, and socially traditional ideas.
Similar:
right-wing
reactionary
traditionalist
unprogressive
establishmentarian
Yes. I agree the word can be used that way. It's also correct to call Salafism conservative or ultra-conservative. It's useful to think of it that way.
Ultra-conservatives are people who hold to tradition as if to a rock in a storm. They're like that because their way of life is under attack, or they perceive that it is.
:up: :100:
To be consistent with my previous usage, I'd have to classify Wahhabists as extreme reactionaries. This is also consistent with Islamic scholarship. When they first appeared, Wahhabists were denounced as heretics by the consensus of Islamic scholars.
Traditionally, Islam has never understood itself as seeking to preserve one culture or another. Its purpose is to worship God and create a just society as Islam understands it: feed the poor, care for orphans, prevent female babies from being abandoned, prevent slaves and animals from being overly mistreated, etc. For taking good care of the world, they expected its creator to reward them in extremely sensual ways.
IIRC one of the most influential scholars, al-Ghazali, suggested that the purpose of Islamic law is to protect the 5 components of well-being: religion, life, intellect, offspring and property.
In this context, even the understanding of "religion" is more universal than you might expect. Islamic theology is very different from Christianity in that you don't have to follow Muhammad's revelations to be a "muslim", i.e. submit to God. According to Islamic scholarship, God created humanity with an innate disposition to believe in him: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fitra Apparently, anyone who doesn't reject the stirrings in one's own soul to worship God and uphold justice is a true believer and will be rewarded. There is a medieval novel that spells out the consequences of this understanding: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hayy_ibn_Yaqdhan
Neither in the words of the Quran nor in traditional scholarship does Islam have anything to do with a reactionary preservation of Arab culture as attempted by the Wahhabists.
I get what you're saying. Salafism was first preoccupied with bringing Muslims back to monotheism. All sorts of superstitious worship had blended with Islam. And while I share your distaste for Saudi culture, I have to admit that what they've created is extremely stable and has made Saudi Arabia a sort of beacon for Islam. Though Salafism may not be mainstream (I don't really know how to assess that), it's influence is widely felt. Don't you agree?
I don't know if I'd characterize Saudi Arabia as stable. They made a deal with Western powers and will remain very wealthy as long as there is demand for their oil. There used to be similar states in Latin America, and those are no longer wealthy.
They are a "beacon" in the sense that thanks to their deal, they took over Mecca, and corrupted Islam all over the world. The new inquisitorial face of Islam is, to a great extent, their fault.
I gather they're not your favorite version of Islam. :razz:
So who were you talking about when you spoke of conservative Muslims?
Why in Indonesia? It is true they are Muslims, but they are not extremists as much as Saudi Arabia or Iran.
Indonesia because it's the world's largest Muslim nation. It hasn't issued fatwas (yet) but if memory serves some Indonesians did go on record that they would kill for Islam.
But having the world's largest Muslim nation is not related to be extremist. It is a recent but good democracy: Since 1999, Indonesia has had a multi-party system. In all legislative elections since the fall of the New Order, no political party has managed to win an overall majority of seats. The Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), which secured the most votes in the 2019 elections, is the party of the incumbent president, Joko Widodo. Other notable parties include the Party of the Functional Groups (Golkar), the Great Indonesia Movement Party (Gerindra), the Democratic Party, and the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS).
They are so far from feudal states such as Afghanistan or Iran
Why are to telling me that?
And then they call the police on you and you're the one who gets into trouble.
But with a simplistic approach like that, you condone the hostility with which it all started. "It's okay to be hostile, it's just not okay for others to return in kind."
This whole thing has always been about Western secular supremacism.
How about instead of speculating, you ask the only people who can answer your question: the imams in the West?
Eight days into the discussion, have you done that? If not, why this absurd insistence on speculation and ineffective problem solving?
The exact workings of the Sharia law are irrelevant in this. All we need to know is that
1. Sharia law foresees the death penalty for some offenses,
and
2. the ultimate authority in the government of Iran is vested in an autocratic "Supreme Leader" (who has the authority to interpret Sharia law).
Which is exactly what happened. (And why on earth would they issue him a death verdict if not because they thought that what he did was harmful to Islam?)
If you don't like that, sue them. You're a lawyer, you know how that works. Sue Iran, sue the Shias, sue the Muslims altogether. Sue the UN for allowing such countries and religions to exist. Tell them that they're wrong to take offence at a book. Tell them they have no right to feel and think as they do. Tell them they have no right to retaliate. (And while you're at it, sue, for example, the Thai king. They don't take too kindly to those they deem to be desecrating their religion either.) I would love to see you do that. Sue them. Take action. Don't be a coward. Stop this ineffectiveness. Because the posters of this forum are not the right audience for your grievance.
Really? Encouraging people to be senseless consumerist zombies destroying the planet?
I'm supposed to believe that this is what grandfather fought for?
Really? They fought and died in order to establish ridicule and hostility as civilizational achievements????
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
Quoting baker
Damn straight.
So what does that account by Tabari tell us? For one, that the episode stemmed from Mohammad's desire for acceptance as a prophet among Meccans (who were on the whole rejecting his ministry by then).
The passage immediately before the incident reads:
The verses look like a freudian lapse, acting on a secret desire. For Tabari, this secret longing for acceptance is what the devil acts upon, but it looks like almost the same idea. The Id is the devil.
For two, archangel Gabriel (the vector between God and Mohammad) reproaches the latter for having strayed away from the real, authentic text of the Surat an-Najm. This I interpret as yet another illustration that Mohammad is not the author of the Quran -- God is. The Prophet is not allowed to add to what is revealed to him.
For three, the following revelation is then made:
And thus Mohammad is like any other apostle or prophet, and Satan tempts them all. This is something presented as universal, related to the nature of Satan which is to try and oppose God's will.
This is in my mind a very important point: even the Prophet made mistakes. And some rather grave ones, too, as reported by Tabari. And not because he was bad but precisely because he was an instrument of God, and thus attracted Satan.
Satan (or the Id) who acted upon Mohammad secret longing for social acceptance and made him lapse the so-called satanic verses.
It follows that even the holiest of leaders make mistakes, and can be tempted by Satan.
[B] We can now start to understand what is at play in the historic evolution of Muslim dogma, from one that originally recognizes Mohammad's temptation and lapse, to one that denies it, hides it under a technical name ("the verses of the cranes"), and considers it apocryphal. I think it's about moving from an open society, where all men make mistakes but can correct themselves, to a closed society where some leaders at the top are beyond reproach.[/b]
Some posters have said that Islam needs a reformation, and I agree. I wonder if Rushdie's book was not an attempt at reminding readers, including Muslim readers, that Islam was a brilliant, successful civilisation once, precisely when it held the modest, yet surprisingly progressive idea that all men, including the greatest prophet of all, make mistakes, and that rejecting this idea has something to do with what sent Islam into a decline.