dear matthew,

yeah ... saw it. i wonder if someone (hinthint) could write an e-mail to the f.t. & ... errr ... "alert them" to the idiocy of said article and how we've already covered it.

thanks!

--raf*

i wonder if someone (hinthint) could write an e-mail to the f.t....

Yes, preferably someone (hmmm....who?, who? who?....{head scratch})that subscribes and presses others to do so.:-)

Sadly, even the FT is occasionally idiotic.

Come now Comrades, there are some good and bad points there. Substance.

sounds like L has become an appologist!

Yesterday i made the point that apostasy in Islam is punishable by death. I hadn't seen this article in Friday's USA TODAY.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/religion/2006-03-19-convert_x.htm

I won't quote the entire article, just the headine, and a couple of short paragraphs, including a quote from the Judge (Judge Ansarullah Mawlavezada )

Afghan man prosecuted for converting

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — An Afghan man who allegedly converted from Islam to Christianity is being prosecuted in a Kabul court and could be sentenced to death, a judge said Sunday.
...
Afghanistan's constitution is based on Shariah law, which states that any Muslim who rejects their religion should be sentenced to death.

"We are not against any particular religion in the world. But in Afghanistan, this sort of thing is against the law," the judge said. "It is an attack on Islam. ... The prosecutor is asking for the death penalty."

---

Okay, let's hear it. They are misapplying Islam. It's a backward country. They are extremists. Etc., etc. And surely some Christian country or other in the past five centuries has had a similar law so why blame Islam?

Maybe because it is the 21st century.

Most places.

And you wonder why Wafa Sultan and Irshad Manji and Ayaan Hirsi Ali are listened to. Maybe, just maybe, because they tell the truth?

Note that the Arabist has put up the whole text of the article at the link above, for anyone curious and not subscribed.

dear prup

,

please do not use the comment section of post (1) to reply to comments of post (2).

as to your argument/example, what you failed to quote (maybe it wasn't in the usa today, but it is certainly in the bbc article) is that there is a debate within afghanistan and its legal system as to how exactly one should deal with people who convert from islam to another religion.

the article's sentence "Afghanistan's constitution is based on Shariah law, which states that any Muslim who rejects their religion should be sentenced to death." is simply misleading as there is no one single, codified "Sharia law". as we have spelled out time and again ... there are all sorts of interpretations, some harsher than others. guess what - that's kinda like ... errr ... every other religious law.

in my point of view, this judge is not misapplying islam(ic law) - he's holding a very extreme stance. and i personally think that his stance is wrong. afghanistan is not a "backward country" - i do not subscribe to modernization and/or historical evolution theories. but yes, i think that the stance that "any apostate from islam must be first given the chance to repent, and if s/he doesn't be put to death" is on one extreme of the spectrum of islamic law. i also think that the "well, they're not the only ones who do it - x-ianity did it in ... & hindus do it ..." argument is bullshit. and i never used it. that's kinda like arguing "yes, the nazis killed x million people, but stalin killed even more, so hitler was not that bad." not the kind of thinking i subscribe to.

i don't say that wafa sultan, and irshad manji, and ayaan hirsi ali are completely wrong. what we're criticizing here is the METHOD. for instance, i think that hirsi ali's film "submission" was absolutely right on point. unfortunately, by using an absolutely crass way of conveying her message ... she managed to alienate the very people who were her target audience. and now we can't even bring up the topic because it is "soiled by association". thank you ayaan, thank you very much. ditto for irshad manji & wafa sultan.

--raf*

Lloyd also missqouted Fayrouz Shaqrawi(sadoranges.blogspot), and how fair is it to qoute someone who just wrote four posts and started her blog a week ago.I totally agree with raf about submission, and how Hirsi Ali mismanaged to convey the message.

I have a slightly different angle. (BTW: I do think Afghanistan is backward as a general point not because of an ideological thing, I just tend to view widespread illiteracy and pre-industrialization that way).

But to me the problems with Sultan and Manji are several: 1) that they are falsely set up as "authentic" voices who might be taken seriously in the wider societies they purport to speak about, 2) that they are ascribed noble intents, rather than anger, ego, and profit that well outweigh serious risk, 3) that they are used as "authentic" voices to justify physical oppression or invasion among people who simply hold MENA societies and people in abject hostile contempt

Voltaire didnt reform Christianity. He was an apostate. No one was ever dopey enough to say that he was a reformer. He considered Christianity a superstition. Right or wrong, no one postulated him as a wise reformer fo Christianity.

He did help lead to a more liberal society in the Christian world because he was not seen as a foreign agent, or advocate of tyranny and he did not advocate Prussia or Turkey come and liberate France. He was also taken seriously because he was a sincere liberal for his people and did not say bring on the police state Emergency Law (Manji), nor did he issue patently inaccurate facts (unlike what Wafa said for example, Jews have done illegitimate violence in pursuit of aims felt to be just (yes, even churches were destroyed when Israel was founded -- see Biram and Ikrit as milder examples) and certainly an audience that has had experience with such injustices would scoff and lose any attention to anything credible).

And so far, I havent heard Sultan -- I retract if I am wrong -- bravely condemn the slaughter of the city of Hama, Syria in pursuit of insurrectionists, largely Islamists, by a secular government in 1980(?). It matters, because a) if you are truly brave, you will condemn your own tyrannical Syrian government publicly and not just the rebels, b) if you are sincerely liberal, you might really find such things bad.

There is also a "land the plane" issue -- what's the ultimate point and proposed action.

Apostasy punishment is bad, and it is central to Islam and therefore Islam a) must be destroyed and its adherents hunted down, their publications suppressed, or b) Islamic societies must be "controlled" or "supervised" by well-meaning outsiders?

Then, for Prup aka JB --

Land the plane, cut to the chase:

Okay, let's hear it. They are misapplying Islam. It's a backward country. They are extremists. Etc., etc. And surely some Christian country or other in the past five centuries has had a similar law so why blame Islam?

So accepting the saracasm then, if they, the apostate-slayers of Afghanistan, are properly applying Islam (the "true" one, which btw, Western Islamophobish people seem to think they know better than most Muslims who are in disagreement), and they not extremists, and it is also irrelevant what Christians [let's leave out totalitarian secularists for now] may have done similarly, and it is also ok to "blame Islam", what's the next logical step?

Answer that -- cut to the chase; land the plane, turn over the cards and reveal the answer, is it:

a-- invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity

b-- make all Muslims register as "dangerous persons"

c -- burn all Korans and Islamic literature

What do we learn as a bottom line from this episode of illiberalism in Afghanistan? What program of action works? And what can Wafa Sultan and Irshad Manji do to help? Obviously nothing so far, dont forget the current regime in Afghanistan is one installed by us (USA) after ousting the wacky Taliban. So clearly there is a limit to what outside military interventions can do. And clearly a limit to the influence of those who appear as merely self-serving critics.

Also for Prup --

Side observation, not directly on this subject.

Maybe because it is the 21st century.

Most places.

I think the "Third World" -- and I mean all regions -- which is most of the places and people of the earth, isn't there quite yet either. And substantial parts of more advanced places. And even the advanced 21st century isnt all that great on personal freedoms, even in the developed world (drug wars, socialized economic sectors, enforced leftish political correctness).

Ooops, that "Most places" above should be in italics as part of that original quote from Prup aka. Sorry.

First, let me disagree with Raf Bey and his academic mealy mouthed "Afghanistan is not a backwards country because I'm not judgemental in that way" tripe.

Afghanistan is in fact a backwards, tribal wreck of a country.

And there it is. As for Afghanistan executing someone for apostasy, well, what a surprise it would happen in Afghanistan.

That aside, to the comment that had nothing to do with the OP:
Okay, let's hear it. They are misapplying Islam. It's a backward country. They are extremists. Etc., etc. And surely some Christian country or other in the past five centuries has had a similar law so why blame Islam?

Surely some Xian countries in the past century, actually.

Nevermind witchburning and the like by Xians in Africa right now. (Oh yes, it's Africa so it's not really Xian and they do tend to take such scripture as 'suffer a not a witch to live' literally ... blah blah; i.e. it's poor, rural, and tribal)

Maybe because it is the 21st century.

Most places.

Thank's your holiness.

And you wonder why Wafa Sultan and Irshad Manji and Ayaan Hirsi Ali are listened to. Maybe, just maybe, because they tell the truth?

No, you're confounding two or perhaps three seperate questions.

(i) the content of Wafa Sultan et al messages (in the plural);
(ii) the utility of the messangers
(iii) the content of Islam in the abstract.

Now, at 'Aqoul of late the main point of argument (until apparently hijacked by the Xian variety of "True Believers" if I am able to discern your writing well enough) has not been over (i) so much as (ii), although most 'Aqoul writers would agree that (i) is, depending on the person, far off base or not rooted in reality, or largely irrelevant.

Now as to (iii) which is Islam qua Islam and in your context appears to be one of those "Islaaaaaam is eviiiiiiiil sort of posts, welll rather obviously few - that is to say none of the authors here would agree. Not even the atheists/apostates.

You're not going to find the slightest symapthy for such idiocy here, and any such conversations are a waste of both your time and ours (more ours as I suspect one or two of us may be moved to try to effect a change in your stupidity and ignorance).

Now, there is the good chance I have misread (given quickness of read, thinness of writing), and the posting is really about "Here's why I think Wafa et al are important as reformers" in the context of why "reform" of Islam is important, in which case you get back to the core 'Aqoul arguments that (i) their arguments are almost entirely irrelevant to where most of the Arabic speaking region is (never mind backwoods bloody illiterate Afghans who play polo with headless goats), (ii) the speakers themselves are utterly irrelevant (or close enough) as well, not being the sort of people that can stand up rhetorically to the Islamist-Salafi arguments, that already "have the commanding heights."

This is not 1970 during the height of secularism, this is 2006, and yes, the 21st century. The 20th century in the Arab region was secular and largely a failure. That's our context, that's where Islamist arose from, and only when one begins to work with the reality as it is, not the ill-informed fantasy stereotypes will one get beyond "Dark Continent Part II" flailing about and down to proper business.

I may add that Matthew hits on a key question for Sultan:
And so far, I havent heard Sultan -- I retract if I am wrong -- bravely condemn the slaughter of the city of Hama, Syria in pursuit of insurrectionists, largely Islamists, by a secular government in 1980(?). It matters, because a) if you are truly brave, you will condemn your own tyrannical Syrian government publicly and not just the rebels, b) if you are sincerely liberal, you might really find such things bad.

That's true. Is Sultan letting the slaughter of Hama slide? If so, she's a hypocrite. If not, I am more inclined to give her props. My sensation is that she's not a liberal at all, really, but a Secular Arab Nationalist that's mad about the way things went off the rails... well since 1975 really. I could well be wrong, it's just a gut and I'd be happy to retract.

Indeed, I found the Hama omission rather telling and wondered if it was deliberate.

It's the same thing as pissing on the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood while studiously ignoring the repressive actions of secular governments there (past and present) and the reprcussions (e.g. exile, radicalization, Qutb's post-torture writing).

Mendacious really, because all blame is placed on Islam when the problems are in fact much broader and more complicated.

However, arguing that both secular and religious movements in the ME are bloody-minded opens the way for xenophobic claims that Arabs are inherently barbaric. Wafa would obviously not make that claim, but Manji already has with her assertion that Arabization of Islam is the problem (she is Indo after all, not Arab).

dear L,

at some point we'll have a discussion about things like "modernity" & "backwardness". i prefer this to happen while we both sip our respective drinks of choice (bombay sapphire with schweppes tonic for me, and yours?).

i am not, btw, being "academically mealy-mouthed non-judgemental" -- "modern vs. backwards" is simply a wrong explanatory model. but that's not important right now.

one thing right now, though: it's ... ahem ... buzkashi not polo. i do take my goat carcass sports very seriously.

--raf*

at some point we'll have a discussion about things like "modernity" & "backwardness"

No, we won't. I don't find the 'critiques' interesting.

"modern vs. backwards" is simply a wrong explanatory model.

Depends on where one wants to go. Outside of academic whanking land, modern versus backwards works well enough. (Or one can choose dead-end traditionalism if you want, I don't care)

(and I know it's not bloody polo, but headless goat polo is far more amusing to write, isn't it? That's the problem with an academic formation, it squeezes out your sense of humour.)

dear l,

oh ye of little faith ... "traditionalism" (dead-end or otherwise) IS modern.

but fine, we WON'T have a discussion. i'll just clubber you with a headless goat until you admit that i am RIGHT. and i don't give a berber cat's ass if you believe it as long as you say it loud and clear for everyone else to hear.

my sense of humor is ... montypythonesque with a dash of calvin&hobbes.

cheerio,

--raf*

Dear Raf Bey

I grant you readily most traditionalism is 'modern' in some aspects, and one can quibble in academics about the fabrication of the same, etc.

However, for the purposes of this sort of conversation, the very special langauge of academics strikes me as not useful. Nor that enlightening (ceteris paribus) in the overall context.

In circumstances of discussions between trained professionals I am willing to entertain the differentiation you make, but in this sort of context, no.

Now, all this distracts from eerie's more interesting obs supra re Sultan's selective condemnation.

I still read her as an old school Baath type Arab nationalist secularist ever more frustrated that the old Arab Nationalist Secular dream is not only in tatters, it's fallen off the flagpole.

This is getting hilarious, really. On another site run by a 'moderate muslim' (The Big Pharaoh, and my comments are not directed at BP, it is a great site), because I OPPOSE the Iraq war, I have been called a 'hypocrite who only complains because he wants a bigger share of the public treasure,' a 'liar' for claiming I am concerned with the Iraqi people, and earlier today, I was called a 'tool of Al Qaeda."

Here, because I
believe that the criticisms of Islam are correct,
because I think there are structural problems in Islam too deep to be reformed,
because I believe that 'moderate Muslims' and 'Muslim reformers' (which includes Manji, btw, since she repeatedly declares herself a Muslim) in fact, while widely represented in the blogosphere (Hooray! seriously) in fact represent a small and totally powerless minority in the Muslim world and in most Muslim communities in the West outside of America
and finally because I believe the actions of Muslims in many areas, the cartoon riots being one but far from the only one, are bringing on a dangerous confrontation between Islam and the West,
I am told that the logical outcome of my position is
is it:

a-- invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity [I'm a complete athiest, btw]

b-- make all Muslims register as "dangerous persons"

c -- burn all Korans and Islamic literature.

Nope.

But rather than continue here, I will be posting on my own blog a series of questions for moderate Muslims. I'd appreciate it if any of you would come there and answer them -- but directly, and not with 'ad hominem,' 'your another' or similar arguments, or arguments about the way it was during time of the Four Ruightly Guided Caliphs. I have been trying for months in various discussions to find someone who CAN defend Islam and show me the good points in it. Because the lack of positive responses I have found ARE convincing me that Islam is inherently evil, and I DON'T WANT TO THINK THAT WAY.

I am told that the logical outcome of my position is
is it:

a-- invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity [I'm a complete athiest, btw]

b-- make all Muslims register as "dangerous persons"

c -- burn all Korans and Islamic literature.

No, you were ASKED what is the logical outcome of your position, with these as suggestions as to where one might be going. Besides, I was just enjoying satrizing Ann Coulter.

I can't answer your questions as I am not a Muslim, moderate or otherwise. Personally, I am perfectly comfortable with people believing Islam is inherently evil; if you belong to another religion or feel religion is bad, or don't agree that it is wrong to drink alcohol, one may feel that. I think socialized medicine and drug wars are inherently evil. My solution is not to establish them. I as an American do not want to see these established, nor do I want to see Islam established in America. What other societies do, I have opinions but I wouldnt FORCE them to do much about it.

My viewpoint is also that as religions go as a social force, Islam is a similar mixed bag to other Abrahamic faiths and to a certain extent there really is no visible "Islam" per se anyway; has virtues above say Hinduism in its rejection of a caste system and raw paganism, below the Bahai in social tolerance. There is room for flexibility, of which not enough is manifested or articulated today and in the immediate generation, it has regressed drastically, in part, as our colleague here notes, as a reaction to the failure and brutalities and corruption of secular regimes, colonial and indigenous.

The point is -- and we are asking the questions here -- what is the political outcome of your viewpoint? Or is there one?

I think "inherently evil" is not a useful way to characterize anything. Also, (and this is not an ad hominem attack, merely an observation) I don't think you know all that much about Islam or the Middle East-North Africa region. There is much to be critical about regarding how things are done in the Middle East, but to blame Islam in the narrowest terms will not lead to a solution. In many cases, it's a matter of teasing apart an issue and seeing where Islam plays a role (if at all). Similarly, for issues concerning Western Muslims, one can't simply point to Islam as the problem without considering economic factors, the immigrant experience in a given Western country, government policy, etc.

My point (somewhat related to Matthew's comment) is that there is no operational value in concluding that a religion is evil. You can't make a policy based on a broad conclusion like that. You can make a policy around the way divorce law is practiced in Egypt if the evidence shows that women have a tougher time initiating divorce due to the way sharia is interpreted in Egyptian family law courts. That is a precise problem for which a precise solution can be designed and executed. Merely claiming that Islam is "evil" has no precise solution save for isolationism or "aggressive isolationism" (e.g. separation, expulsion, surveillance, military intervention). These approaches are high-risk, high-cost and not terribly successful in the long run.

Well, Prup old man, it would seem that (i) you misunderstood Matthew yourself, (ii) you could be rather more clear in your expression, (iii) you seem to have ignored uncharacteristically polite questions put to you (that would be mine, but I am mean to one and all).

I myself noted it was hard to read your comments, so your posturing in comment above is more than slightly overdone.

If I may, I think part of what you're seeing in the Muslim world is a form of what anthropologists call "nativism": that is, when a people feel themselves threatened and under severe stress, they tend to pull back into what they percieve to be tradition. For Americans, a good example would be the Ghost Dancers that arose among the Plains Indians in the latter decades of the nineteenth century. A very mild version would have been the strong Catholicism of Poland, which partly arose as a matter of resistance to Russia.
From afar, Islamism looks similar. I'm not sure how much of the impulse in the direction of Islamism is similar, but it certainly looks like a version from here. To me anyway, the sure sign of it is the extremism of the Salafis, who of course insist that they are the one true Islam, which would certainly repel the vast majority of what lounsbury characterizes as the "pious middle". Unfortunately, given the chaos in Iraq, we may expect to find more Salafi types emerging from that mayhem.
Westerners are making the mistake, it would appear, of taking the Salafi extreme and thinking it's the mainstream. Understandable, given the publicity and of course 9/11, but not anywhere near the truth. No large religion is made up of extremists, anymore than any other large movement would be. To become large, you have to attract the normal, mainstream folks. Islam is no different than Christianity in this regard.
Also, from all appearances, the mainstream of Islam is located where the mainstream of Christianity was not so long ago; a mere half-century ago the Catholic Church was practically turning away people who wanted to enter the clergy, annulments were so rare few had even ever heard of them, and masses were celebrated in Latin with the priest mostly doing his thing with his back turned. US readers would do well to remember that even today, this is the largest Christian denomination, so we're talking about how Christianity was practiced among a large plurality, if not an absolute majority, of the worldwide Christian population. So having a strict and not exactly woman-friendly interpretation of divorce in Egypt is not so far from where a very large part of Christianity was within the living memory of a very large part of the Christian population.
As for heretic barbeques, I miss 'em dearly, anyway. I'd love to roast me some Pat Robertson chestnuts over an open fire.
Ah, the good old days. Somebody pass me a toasted marshmallow.

raf:

you would pollute pure Bombay Sapphire with such a thing as schweppes?! for shame!

dear hakim,

the point of a gin tonic is to have ... err ... TONIC in it. you know, for being against malaria & such. but only the best. and that IS schweppes.

cheers,

--raf*

pardon, i have yet to pass my syriana test, but i beg leave to comment on this--

i also think that the "well, they're not the only ones who do it - x-ianity did it in ... & hindus do it ..." argument is bullshit. and i never used it. that's kinda like arguing "yes, the nazis killed x million people, but stalin killed even more, so hitler was not that bad." not the kind of thinking i subscribe to.

raf* bey, this is not "bullshit". Xians burned heretics and apostates at the state, and put great swaths of the heathen to the sword. The interesting and important part to me is, why don't they do that anymore?
Is it a function of time?
The process of acculturation?
The rise of science and freetrade?
i want to know.