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In Defence of Johann Hari

Sunday, February 15th, 2009

Reposted from my blog.

“Freedom of thought,” says the philosopher Andre Comte-Sponville, “is the only good more important than peace. Without it, peace would be another word for servility.” This is the basis for the first amendment in the American constitution; itself formulated from the thoughts from the man who perhaps coined the term “United States of America”, namely the great Thomas Paine.

As Paine wrote in Common Sense:

A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right, and raises at first a formidable outcry in defense of custom.

Those last words are resounding and might be the distant echo to the so-called Rushdie Affair. The “defense of custom” seems to have become the staple diet for the majority. We have fought so long and so hard for tolerance that we tolerate the intolerant; We defend their customs and their ideas which themselves are based on bullying strategies that renders a cloud of protection on “men of faith”. When someone who is not of the cloth utters that the 2007 floods in Northern Yorkshire are a deity’s judgments on homosexuality, as the then Archbishop of Carlyle, Graham Dow, did, we would think them insane. But because he has archbishop next to his name we are meant to “respect” such barbaric, backward and unhelpful thoughts.

Recently, my friend the great Johann Hari has faced a horrible string of threats, underpinned by death, fear and Islam. He alerted his faithful readership to the horrid poison, weaving a noose within the veins of equality in the UN. Islamic countries are demanding that we respect their hideous misogynist notions of shari’ah, to steer clear of criticising an illiterate pedophile who flew on horses to heaven, and to never raise reason as an ecumenical notion for everyone.

They are demanding this because the Universal Declaration of Human Rights stresses the right to free-speech, free-thought. This logically means the ability to criticise openly any and all ideas. The only thing that the UDHR even alludes to being “sacred”, in the normative sense of the word, is the unified human spirit to unite without superstitious, overzealous boundaries. Muslims fear this, as Hari correctly highlight, because it would mean that young people would do the one thing all religions fear: THINK FOR THEMSELVES.

“Sapere Aude (Dare to know)!” says Kant in his essay on the Enlightenment. ” ‘Have courage to use your own understanding’ – that is the motto for the Enlightenment.” Islam – and all religions – would quiver under such scrutiny. The use of intellect is hardly encouraged unless it is in accordance with Allah’s will. Everything is supposed to be through Allah; but everything includes good and bad, right and wrong, evil and misconceptions. So wouldn’t this religion, which is mistakenly called a “religion of peace” by many world leaders, cherish such open-mindedness? Why then the fear of Enlightenment values?

Because then the foundations would fail, it would flounder and like a hydra dying and frothing red beneath the sea, it would sink into the bottom depths of our history. Muslims realise this. They realise their grips would falter on the minds of their flock; so much so that they are willing to arrest the Indian editors of Hari’s article.

How could Ravindra Kumar and Anand Sinha be arrested for publishing Hari’s article? Because hurting religious feelings is part of the Indian penal code. Under section 295A of the Indian Penal Code it forbids “deliberate and malicious acts intended to outrage religious feelings”. The irony rests in the double-standards. And what religions are included in section 295A? Why some religions, Islam, but not others, Norse or Roman? And, of course, what about those who are outraged but are not religious? Why do we never get any “special treatment” for our “feelings”?

Boo-hoo, my childish Islamic friends. Your feelings were hurt? Shame. I can tell you exactly why those of us without religion neither have any law against offending us, in India (and most places), and more importantly, why we usually don’t fight for one: Because we believe in the freedom of open criticism. We believe in the right to express any ideas, in a rational, open way.

This means I do not care whether you worship Zeus, Allah, or Yahweh: If it makes you happy, go ahead. If it consoles, by all means do it. But you can not demand me to respect such ideas and to not criticise them. I am open to you criticising my ideas, any of them. I will not be privy to respecting any ideas just to make the faithful happy. To quote Hari:

[A] free society cannot be structured to soothe the hardcore faithful. It is based on a deal. You have an absolute right to voice your beliefs – but the price is that I too have a right to respond as I wish. Neither of us can set aside the rules and demand to be protected from offence.

Whilst we writers against religion limit ourselves to words, our antagonists would find vent in bullets. Whilst we would change and let the plateau of equality be the ground on which we all walk, Muslims would have the high-ground to censure equal human rights. They would rather we shut up and step away from hurting their poor feelings.

I support Hari in his criticisms, as is apparent. Hari had every right to write what he liked, as did people in my country’s past. Consider that Steve Biko’s book is entitled I Write What I Like. I even support the freedom to write tripe like creationist or Holocaust-denial literature. Because scientists and historians can then openly criticise and point out the flaws in the creationist and “revisionist” literature. I don’t believe in banning books or writers or the stultification – in fact, my life is dedicated to fighting for anyone to say anything, in an open minded, discursive way.

Not so for the religious, as this reaction to Hari’s article displays. If that is not a sign of backward thinking, pointing away from the path of reason into the dark woods of dogma, then I am not sure what is. Perhaps the Quran and its horrible statements of death to infidels (”Kill them where ye find them!”)? Perhaps the terror Muslims invoke, when we draw cartoons of their Prophet, or the death-threats when a Teddy-bear is named after him?

I want us all to be amenable to change, criticism and open to ideas. This is a grownup way to look at the world. But the neotony inherent in our species finds vent in that which is itself a product of our mind’s infancy. Consider this bounder, called Abdus Subhan, who “[was] prepared to lay down his life, if necessary, to protect the honour of the Prophet [against Hari]” and Hari should be sent “to hell if he chooses not to respect any religion or religious symbol … He has no liberty to vilify or blaspheme any religion or its icons on grounds of freedom of speech.”

But why not? We need to all grow up and face the fact that many things will “offend” us. We are diverse and diversity inculcates a sense of realisation of many different things. So, using “that offends me” as a reason and argument to cease that which causes offence, is no grounds at all for it to cease. Before you think me venturing into the territory of cultural relativism, I mean it simply according with what we understand to be human rights, personal autonomy, the right to liberty, freedom of thought, and so on.

I stand by what I write here as I stand by Johann Hari. Muslims should be more horrified at me, someone who was once Muslim, now admonishing them; I deserve their scorn and outrage more than someone who won the Amnesty International Newspaper Journalist of the Year (2007). Please let us all grow up, face the beauty of the world and time we have. Muslims must realise that we are fighting for them and their freedom as much as anyone else. The ones who suffer the most from the dogmatic assertions of clerical bullying are other Muslims.

We want everyone to be free, we want everyone to have the right to liberty and freedom. Let the ashes of dogma settle to allow some growth of a newfound liberation and reasoned tolerance. If we hurt each others feelings so be it. But that does not mean we are allowed to kill, arrest or maim each other. Growing up and opening our eyes means we see and experience more, which means more opportunity for pain. But it also means more opportunity for growth. Like trees entwined at the roots, our growth rests in each other. The faster we all severe our ties from celestial propitiation, the faster our own lives can be rendered to soar with freedom and openness

I know this will do nothing to stop or cease Muslim’s anger. It might incite more. But, I will quote Paine again to finish. Immediately after the first line I quoted above, he says:

But the tumult soon subsides. Time makes more converts than reason.

Let it be so.

Tags: atheism, dogma, freedom of speech, islam, Johann Hari, nonbelief, religion, Thomas Paine, universal declaration of human rights
Posted in Commentary | 1 Comment »

The Barbarism of Islam

Friday, December 5th, 2008

This is the third part in an ongoing espousing on the rejection of Islam and why it outrages reason to ascribe to this brand of faith.

It is no simple matter.

Forged by steel and moulded by conquest, the once conquered lands of Islam are not easily bracketed off into obscurity. As much as apologists want, we know a great deal about them. The rosy-speckled history the apologists paint of dhimmis is not true: The conquered ahl al-kitab (Christians and Jews) were not bedfellows of Muslims; nor on friendly terms with their Muslim overlords. A casual glance through any history of Constantinople, Iran, Iraq, and so on will reveal cultures already in place; cultures that were thriving, accentuating their identities. Islam has made of itself a new garb of pride – that before its installation into the minds of its bloodthirsty warlords, the peoples were “godless pagans”. Any Imam will tell his flock these people were barbarous, “naked”, murderous, mad and unforgiving. I have heard this from pulpits and daises from many mosques. It is patently wrong and arrogant that without Islam people were (or are!) unforgiving tyrants of puritanical evil.

However, one of the many the many trenches between reason and ignorance, was (and is) dug from Islam’s condemnation of anything pre-Islamic. Muslims are taught to relish in how powerful the Islamic warriors were: unstoppable, unthinking, conquering machines. Indeed, we may be in awe at their power and might but by today’s standards we do not unflinchingly appraise such crass abandonment of human rights. No “Briton” that I know is proud of the many colonised lands that Britain managed to usurp; I hardly think colonial powers today are proud of their forefathers inclination to make the rest of the world fall under their dominance. We look, we relent and we learn. Why not so for Islam, then? It is nothing to be proud of and quite shocking to love such carnage from that time.

Most readers who are not Muslim will not understand the previous point. But it is a serious one: Islam really teaches its followers to be proud of its conquering mindset, its history of brutality, its dismissal of “pagans” and their idols, because they did not worship the “true god”. Yes, we can point the finger also at other theisms, but the level of pride that is thrust toward Muslims, like a crown of thorns, is one that would make anyone else flinch when grabbing – yet Muslims’ hands would bleed with eagerness to clutch such thorny accomplishments. The easy dismissal in the Quran of pagans is horrid to contemplate: these were humans, worthy of respect and rights. The crass dismissal to hellfire, under the solitarist “pagan” approach, is horrid to contemplate and quite sickening.

There is nothing Muslims can be proud of in their history of war. There is nothing any of us should be proud of in our cultures’ histories of war. That may be for another argument, but at no time can I see advocating bloodshed as good, as a source of pride.

My reasons for raising the history of Islam are twofold: It needs to be understood and it leads me to my second point.

The Quran (or at least the one we have now, chosen from amongst others and out of arrogance by Uthman) is said to be eternal, perfect, the “Word of God”, unalterable, unchanging and unchanged through the centuries. It apparently holds all the truths of the world inside it: Science, politics, ethics, prophecy. People truly believe this to be a “magic book”, to use the great Sam Harris’ phrase. Yet when you point out any of this to Muslims, they will reply with the horrid doctrine of “abrogation” or it was “part of the times”. Yet, if god’s word is eternal how can it be part of “those times”? And why did this god need abrogation (i.e. when a verse trumps what a previous verse says, as it is now no longer applicable), and not simply give the better command in the first place? Either he is stupid, or he is imperfect, or he is not omnipotent.

Nonetheless, Muslims can not escape the fact that their past is made of bloody conquests, in the name of their god. But it is now time to realise, this is not something a normal human being would lay their pride in.

The slaughter and massacring, the acquisition of slaves, the destruction of temples, idols and all forms of a culture’s identity were and are thrust into the darkness of oncoming faith. Those who are fans of Allah, no doubt feel some great passion and love and equate the two in the conquering of lands.

No doubt they praised god when they won and cursed their enemies when they lost. In contemplating this two-fold notion of love, projected onto a person or idea (or deity), WB Yeats wrote a series of poems giving the Blakean notion of the Rose. Many critics have called William Blake’s poem The Serpent & The Rose the most “perfect” poem, as it encapsulates all ideas and every story we will tell as a species. But in understanding this passion, this parallel of ensconced ideas, twirled together like a self-eating serpent, Yeats gave a cry which no doubt echoes many extremist Muslims:

… I, too, await,
The hour of thy great wind of love and hate.
When shall the stars be blown about the sky,
Like the sparks blown out of a smithy, and die?
Surely thine hour has come, thy great wind blows,
Far-off, most secret, and inviolate Rose?
- The Secret Rose

The relations of smithy and fires to terrorist bombings should be ignored to a certain degree: But truly, this could be the dying words of any martyr for Islam. Perhaps not so eloquently, but in its eloquence I hope it conveys the two-fold passion of love for something powerful.

Underlying the arrogant notion that the Divine loves you, cares about you and answers your prayers, there is the idea of reciprocity. The amount of passion shown and the desire for that beloved god’s hour to finally arise, underpins all atrocities committed in his name. This might be linked to the “death wish” or “death instinct” or thanatos identified by Freud – along with eros.

The bonus of arriving in paradise or Heaven to be greeted by many virgins (or, as recently translated, raisins!), seems to encapsulate the reciprocated love of any relationship. God just happens to be the most beloved of all things, above and beyond any “mere mortal” or, worse, “woman”. How are we meant to step between something which is regarded as “above and beyond” normal human reasoning; how are we to step in-between the Rose (that has become of Allah) and the twirled serpent of extremist Muslims, curled and licking the leaves of this bronze-aged myth?

I call that serpent “faith” and I call that rose “religious belief”. That serpent will suck on the old, dry leaves, it will taste the bitter crackle of stale ideas. It will feel the thorns of humanity that plague every man-made thing; that serpent can not ignore the sharp-points as it coils lovingly around this concept of god. That rose is long dead and we critics, we ex-Muslims, are calling it for what it is: Unnecessary, unhelpful, untrue. We want all these serpents to release the hold of that rose, to let it fall softly to the ground and gaze above the long grass of obscurity. “Above and beyond” should not be applied to human reasoning, but to human superstitions! Above and beyond all notions lies the plain mortality and humanity and sequestered fallibility that repudiates all concepts of perfection!

The sun still shines and the dew will come again. We hope that all humans might lower their hands and touch that dripping dew. We hope that you raise your eyes to the bearning sun and relish in the dimming of clouds. To look up, beyond the dying rose of old ideas. This must be humanity’s hour, come ‘round at last, slouching away from Bethlehem to be born.

Tags: dhimmis, extremism, faith, history, islam, past, Sam Harris
Posted in Featured | 5 Comments »

Satanic Verses II – Starring author Sherry Jones

Monday, December 1st, 2008

Here we go again…

Some of you may have been following the development of Sherry Jone’s book The Jewel of Medina. Here’s a quotation from the book’s official website:

A’isha bint Abi Bakr is the daughter of a rich merchant from Mecca in the harsh, exotic world of seventh-century Arabia at the time of the foundation of Islam. When she is married to the Prophet Muhammad at the age of nine, she must rely on her wits, her courage, and even her sword in a struggle to control her own destiny and carve out a place for herself in the community, fighting religious persecution, jealous sister-wives, political rivals, and her own temptations. As she grows to love her kind, generous husband, her ingenuity and devotion make her an indispensable advisor to Muhammad. Ultimately, she becomes one of the most important women in Islam, and a fierce protector of her husband’s words and legacy.

Not exactly one I’m quivering to buy. But, as I highlighted in another article, I don’t have to like Mickey Mouse to defend him from a mullah’s fatwa.

Jones studied Arabic, Islamic history from early sources and was inspired to write on Aisha. This is a wonderful reason to write and she received a contract from none other than Random House. In an effort at obtaining endorsements, Random House sent out pre-pub copies to a number of scholars. One of these was Denise Spellberg, a respected scholar and whose book Politics, Gender, and the Islamic Past: The Legacy of ‘A’isha Bint Abi Bakr, Jones read. Because of Jones’ liking for Spellberg’s book, she put the scholar on the list for Random House.

However, as the Wall Street Journal reported:

Spellberg wasn’t a fan of Ms. Jones’s book. On April 30, Shahed Amanullah, a guest lecturer in Ms. Spellberg’s classes and the editor of a popular Muslim Web site, got a frantic call from her. “She was upset,” Mr. Amanullah recalls. He says Ms. Spellberg told him the novel “made fun of Muslims and their history,” and asked him to warn Muslims.

Excuse me? “Warn Muslims”? There is a reason why this article in the WSJ is entitled “You Still Can’t Write About Muhamma”. Spellberg is again adopting the position of the parent preventing the younger, “not as intelligent” or “not old enough” child from experiencing a book. Are Muslims not adults? Can they not judge for themselves?

In fact, this same Shahed Amanullah – the editor-in-chief for altmuslim.com – wrote an article entitled “Muslims have nothing to fear from this book” in The Guardian. This can be seen as a dismissal of Spellberg’s “warning” to Muslims. In this article, he highlights what occurred behind the scenes.

As you may have figured, Random House “decided to pull The Jewel of Medina”. The reasons?

[D]eputy publisher Thomas Perry said the company was advised that the publication might be offensive to Muslims, and that it could incite acts of violence by a small, radical segment.

And thanks to Amanullah’s article, we have a further understanding of it. The flames are doused, wood is thrown and the fires of intolerance are pointed to. Yet the firestarters themselves are to blame, not Sherry Jones. And the fear of Random House is legion. Salman Rushdie wrote a scathing attack against Random House’s decision especially when their reasoning was: “We don’t want another Satanic Verses“.

Naturally, Jones was devastated by Random House’s decision. Says Jones:

[A]fter being told that her book would not be published, [she said]: “I wanted to honour Aisha and all the wives of Muhammad by giving voice to them, remarkable women whose crucial roles in the shaping of Islam have so often been ignored — silenced — by historians.”

Naturally many Muslims are against “Western” writers, or people using “Western techniques” to analyse their history. Accordingly, this “sacred history” is impenetrable to normal sceptical, scientific scrutiny. Reza Aslan in No God but God writes very beautifully about this elastic, vaporous faith that has little hold in the real world. But why? Shouldn’t we be viewing Muslims and their history in the grown-up, real-world context just as we view other “grown-up” things, like politics, philosophy, history and science? I believe this is less patronising to Muslims then constantly attempting to shield them from things that might hurt their feelings. Why treat them like children? I treat them like adults, and so should we all. They are not better or worse, but my equal and I will treat their ideas as such. I will not attempt to demean, mock or dismiss them – but I will certainly not hold the same respect for their ideas.

My friend, Maryam Namazie and the great Paul Kurtz, constantly remind us that: Rights and respect belong to people not ideas! It is in this spirit we progress, not by shielded ignorance and forced dismissal.

Yet, what are we to make of this? Amanullah writes in that same article:

In this case, however, that pattern has been broken. There have been no actual threats of violence from Muslims to date, nor has there been any organised effort by Muslims to stop the publication of the book. The author herself – unlike others who have sought to intentionally provoke and insult – has insisted that her book was written with a profound respect and admiration of the central characters. And the Muslims she has engaged with so far (in three sites online) have treated her respectfully, allowing her to clarify her intentions without censorship.

This was written on the September 9 2008. But consider the events of just 20 days later.

Three men have been charged after the office of the British publisher of the controversial novel The Jewel of Medina was firebombed Saturday.

Luckily no one was injured. We are uncertain about the reasons behind it or whether the men were acting out of Islamic duty^*. Yet I have trouble seeing other reasons for the firebombing of a not-particularly famous publishing house – maybe it was jealous lovers of an employee, maybe it was the wrong address. Sure, we can’t dismiss other reasoning but how likely is that? If evidence were to surface, I would immediately retract this statement and apologise. But as yet, I can think of no reason for doing so.

To add blood to the wound, my own country is not allowing the distribution of the book. The article, on a popular Muslims radio-station’s website, states:

A controversial book by American journalist turned novelist, Sherry Jones entitled Jewel of Medina, has been banned from being distributed in South Africa. This comes as the Johannesburg High Court ruled on Wednesday that the contents were found to be blasphemous.

I have emailed the popular radio-station which deals with Muslim-views, but I highly doubt I will receive a reply. “Blasphemous”? I am particularly averse to this claim. Some people’s feelings will be hurt because of a fictional book. Have we not been through this before. Can anyone say: Satanic Verses?

But it is easy to mock the High Court ruling and the banning of this book. I do not doubt the intelligence of these people, but the problem is this: They are catering for those violent, dangerous men by banning it. They are catering for it in two polarised ways.

1. As Indicative of Violence

By banning it, these extremists have something to be angry about. Anyone who has been to Mosques and heard sermons by mullahs and imams, will know how easy it is to gain coherence through anger. Consider how many books are out there that offend to the greatest degree the Islamic or any faith: The God Delusion, God is Not Great, Why I am Not a Muslim, Why I am Not a Christian, even the novels of Salman Rushdie and Tariq Ali. Some of these books are written with the deliberate intent of mocking and blaspheming against the core tenets of religious belief. Yet they remain on the shelves. So far, no one I know has been hurt because they bought any of these books.

But a novel – a piece of art – a fictional story based on historic events, set to glorify Muhammad and especially his wives – is dubbed blasphemous. No doubt the reasoning would be easy to disclose: It attacks ideas that would hurt the feelings of grown-up Muslims (talk about treating them like children, how patronising). But if they are going to ban a fictional book, written with the intention of respecting the ideas of Islam (mostly), then they must ban the non-fiction, intentionally insulting books of Hitchens, Ibn Warraq and Russell. Otherwise, as is the case at the moment, it is a double-standard.

(JM Coetzee remarks that the truly nauseating aspect on book-banning is the licence to say “art is offensive”. Who is judging art this way?)

2. Protecting the Innocent

And here’s where I struggle. Somehow, I do not see it completely in the light of Orwellian paranoia. I can’t bring myself to be too angry at the fact that someone else is deciding what I can and can not read. Yes, I am upset. Yet, I can not help wonder if they are simply trying to do the right thing. We’ve seen that these extremists will kill and destroy, if they feel someone is upsetting their ideas. We’ve seen that the reason patronising ghouls like Denise Spellberg will “warn” adult Muslims that their feelings will be hurt by a fictional novel – is nothing but a pandering to how extremists want to be treated. Extremist Muslims have shown, in their child-like but horrible responses, how they take fictional books talking about their faith: death, violence, carnage. Extremist Muslims have told us with gunshots as fullstops and death as exclamation marks, how we must treat them.

It is strange that it must be the critics of religion who say “Let us treat them like adults”. I have little respect for the so-called moderate voices in Islam. But the case-in-point remains: Is the High Court ruling attempting to actually protect its citizens from the religious bullies of Islam?

In this case, I think yes. They are doing what they can, but in so doing, are unconsciously pandering to the spoilt brat crying in the corner, that has become extremist Islam. And they keep using it! They will keep on using it if books get banned, if cartoons are not shown, if we are afraid of them.

I believe the solution is to begin treating them as adults and ignore the brats. Sure, we can not engage in discussions when the dialogue uses bullets instead of words, but a way can be reached. How we find that balance I am making my life’s work. And I hope that it will be part of your lives too.

Lets find the human behind the human-bomb, and ignore the child screaming for attention.

* – if anyone has further info, regarding these men’s reasoning please email me.

Tags: aisha, extremism, ficiton, god is not great, islam, johannesburg high court, muhammad, salman rushdie, satanic verses, sherry jones, south africa
Posted in News | 8 Comments »

Islam Says It’s Okay

Tuesday, November 11th, 2008

…to marry girls under 16. The Prophet did it, so why can’t Muslim men? Afterall, they are only trying to live out the sunnah, or the way the Prophet lived. I do not make these claims, but yet another Muslim clown/cleric (the two are becoming synonymous) has claimed:

the marriage of nine-year-old girls was allowed by Islam as the Prophet Muhammad consummated the marriage to one of his wives when she was that age.

He derided criticism of his claims as “part of a secular attack against the Islamic nation and its theologians”.

Sheikh Mohamed Ben Abderrahman Al-Maghraoui has come under attack from the ulema in the region of Rabat, Morocco, for his statements and views. But this issue does not rest its hands there; rather it gazes across toward yet another Islamic country.

In Indonesia:

a wealthy Muslim cleric who married a 12-year-old girl and is reportedly planning to wed others aged seven and nine, a spokesperson said on Tuesday [...]

Widiyanto has been backed by some high-profile Muslim figures, including Hilman Rosyad Syihab, the deputy head of the Islam-based Prosperous Justice Party (PKS), according to the Detikcom online news service.

Islam allows for marriage regardless of whether a girl has reached sexual maturity, Syihab was quoted as saying.

“It is not a problem under Islamic law,” Syihab said.

What we can at least be assured about is our knowledge of it. We can glad in that we at least know these things are occurring, spurring our anger into action. The fact that other bodies of clerics are decrying these practices; that governments and police are investigating the violation, in Jacarta, of the “2002 child protection law for forcing or trading a child into sex and for marrying below the legal minimum age of 16.”

Such acts are abhorrent, yet fall under swift reappraisal from behind faith. “What would Muhammad do?” seems to be swan song for human sensibility. Down it goes, echoing into the chasm where reason would normally dwell.

But aside from this so-called “fringe” acts (no moderate, TRUE Muslim would do this would be the usual claims), we must wonder at the outright instigation toward this act. What else other than religion could justify such retardation of values? Where else would someone find himself in a position to say “God says I can” except behind faith, an eternal book that is the word of god, and being a leader of the faith. This is not some random Muslim, but a religious leader. Yet, why shouldn’t he make such claims? Yet again, I am not surprised, but I am shocked. And it proves yet again that with faith, anything is justified.

The old maxim of Ivan Karamazov is flipped on its head. It is not “Without god, anything is permitted”, it is rather “with god, anything is permitted”. Be it slavery, child abuse, child marriage, enforced sexual relationships with children or non-consenting women, murder, – you can find many places in the holy books to justify it. Afterall, I’m not stating this as something new or from “thin air”, I’m merely quoting this from what the clerics, priests and leaders say. They’ve told us why and how they are able to justify it. We must make a stand to show faith as not a virtue, as irrational and a plague to our species.

We can so easily toss it out and find respect and faith and happiness, behind all this silliness. We are better than this! We are worth it. It takes faith to not believe our worth; It takes reason to realise it.

I am, however, pleased that we are all, regardless of religion or faith, able to view this as abhorrent and stand against it. Let this be a mark next to faith’s name and a tick next to reason’s.

Tags: child abuse, cleric, faith, islam, muslim, religion, sheikhs, stupidity
Posted in News | 9 Comments »

A Sense of History

Thursday, November 6th, 2008

Meet your new president -

Tuesday was a truly historic day. Not only did America elect its first African-American president, but it also decided to reject the policies of perhaps the worst US president in history and also the fear-baiting, irrelavent fringe-issue politics of John McCain and Sarah Palin. And while racism certainly isn’t dead in America, the election of Barack Obama at the very least sends a powerful symbol to the rest of the world that we have begun to move past the old race and culture wars of the 1960s. And while Obama may be far from perfect and we don’t necessarily agree with all his policies, there is no doubt that he is extraordinarily intelligent and curious – and given the far-right stoicism and domination of religious conservatives in government of the past 8 years that have run the country into the ground, there is no place to go but up.

Obviously the election of a black man is a huge unprecidented milestone, but other milestones were reached today for the nation and the Democratic Party. I will attempt to list them below:

Barack Obama has won more votes than any other candidate for president in history. He also has won a greater percent of the popular vote than any other Democrat since 1964 and a greater percent of the popular vote than any candidate since 1988.
The Obama-Biden ticket is the first Democratic ticket without a southerner on the ticket to win since 1944.
Obama (or McCain for that matter) is the first president to have spent much of their childhood outside the country.
Obama won Virginia and Indiana. The former is of course the capitol of the old Confederacy. The latter is the 7th most conservative state in the nation. Neither state has gone for a Democrat since 1964.
Obama won North Carolina, a state that hasn’t gone for a Democrat since 1976.
Obama won the greatest number of electoral votes of any candidate since 1996.
Perhaps most importantly for Edger readers… Obama probably isn’t an atheist. But he has a multicultural as well as an interfaith family. His mother and father are atheists. He and Michelle are Christians (unless you ask Roy). His half-sister Maya is Buddhist. And his stepfather is Muslim. Hopefully this diversity will give us a President who is more inclusive of people of all beliefs rather than just someone who panders to the Religious Right.

Also, Obama won the popular vote by 53% to 46%, just as I had predicted. Furthermore, there is a good indication that the right-wing culture warriors are losing on the so-called “pro-life” issues -

South Dakota defeated a draconian abortion bill 55% to 45%
Colorado defeated a measure to define life as “the point of conception” 72% to 28%
California rejected Proposition 4, a parental notification measure, 52% to 48%
Michigan approved embryonic stem cell research 52% to 48%. They also approved medical marijuana by double digits.
Washington approved a measure to allow euthanasia of terminally ill patients 57% to 42%

But not everything went well on November 4th. While all the anti-abortion measures were defeated, anti-gay marriage measures were also defeated across the nation. We still have a long way to go -

Proposition 8 was passed 52% to 48%. Gay marriages are now banned in California according to its constitution, although homosexuals who have already married still are legally married… for now.
A constitutional ban on gay marriage was passed in Arizona 56% to 44%
A constitutional ban on gay marriage was passed in Florida 62% to 38%
A measure to ban gay adoption was passed in Arkansas 57% to 41%

Proposition 8 Post-Mortem

Proposition 8 was the only aforementioned measure that had a good chance of failing. In fact, it was trailing by 17% in the polls at one point. However, there were several factors that helped get it passed -

The Mormon Church. Say what you will about them, but they do have military-like precision, and they pumped enough money into the campaign to outspend the No on 8 people by a 2-to-1 margin. They also knew how to press peoples’ buttons. Rather than trying the measure as a civil rights issue, they falsely claimed that schools would be forced to impose the notion of homosexual marriage on young schoolchildren. They also falsely claimed that both Barack Obama and John McCain support Prop 8 (Obama opposes it)… but if you repeat a lie enough if becomes true.
Ineptitude of the No on 8 Campaign. The No on 8 Campaign blew a 17 point lead and endorsements by Barack Obama, Dianne Feinstein, Barbara Boxer, and Arnold Schwarzenegger by a lack of funds and a lack of organization. They only really got off the ground one week before the election when they finally decided to take money from the teachers’ and the nurses’ unions. And by then it was too late. They also did not exploit endorsements by the aforementioned – all of whom are popular politicians in CA – until the very end either.
Old People. Young voters (those aged 18-29) overwhelmingly rejected Prop 8 62% to 38%. However, the 30-44 voting bloc split evenly on Prop 8, and those 45 years of age and older all voted for Prop 8 by significant margins.
San Bernadino and Fresno Counties. They voted for Prop 8 by almost 40% margins. Can we kick them out? The 51 state can be called Dumbifornia.

All in all, I was very pleased with Tuesday’s results. I would trade 20 Proposition 8s for an Obama administration, perhaps even more.

Tags: 2008 Presidential Elections, African-American President, atheism, Barack Obama, Buddhism, Democratic Party, islam, Joe Biden, John McCain, Proposition 8, sarah palin
Posted in Feature | 9 Comments »

Freedom of Thought Is More Important Than Peace

Thursday, November 6th, 2008

Freedom of thought is the only good that is perhaps more precious than peace, for the simple reason that, without it, peace would merely be another name of servitude.

So ends André Comte-Sponville on the existence of God, in his latest book. The book itself is entitled The Book of Atheist Spirituality, outlining a fully rounded human life which includes the numinous devoid of supernatural deities. The central question I wish to ask is this:

Is Comte-Sponville correct in his assessment of freedom of thought?

From my myopic standpoint, I fully agree – but perhaps someone can show me otherwise. I want to lay out an initial argument for my reasoning.

Freedom of thought is one of the most precious things we have, which only reminds me of Einstein’s statement:

One thing I have learned in a long life: that all our science, measured against reality, is primitive and childlike—and yet it is the most precious thing we have.

Does not some of the very notions of scientific inquiry reside in the domain of free thought? If hypotheses were restricted by the domain within which they dwelt, how far could our science and reason stretch? How far would our understanding go? Protracted and stifled on to a banal island of incredulity – this is not a picture of a beautiful mind.

The fight for freedom of thought is perhaps the same battle as freedom of expression. The freedom to express the very thoughts. It is for this reason I loathe the restrictions in any form, be it the banning in Turkey of Richarddawkins.net “after a Muslim creationist [Adnan Oktar] claimed its contents were defamatory and blasphemous”; or the famous Jyllands-Posten depictions of Muhammad (very dubious and overblown); We must not forget that YouTube was banned in Pakistan because, as the Pakistan Telecommunications Authority (PTA) stated: ”the ratio of non-Islamic objectionable videos has increased on it”.

My attacks here are on Islam. I’m interested in how scared people are over this overtly-sensitive, hormonally charged domain. Many companies and groups are viewing the Muslim world as something of a growing beast, its jaws quivering in anticipation of the next freedom to devour: cartoons, videos, etc. The worst part is not even the direct attacks mocking Islam or Muslims or Muhammad. The worst are those that inadvertently feature something that is related to Islam, by someone who is not themselves Muslim, then retracted upon hindsight because it might “offend”.

A recent example of this was the release of the anticipated PlayStation 3 game Little Big Planet. The release date was supposed to be last month, but has now been pushed back to November. Why? Because one song, in one part of the game, contained two lines which are in the Quran. The music, sung and performed by a devout Muslim no doubt inspired by his faith, is a fragmentary part of an larger whole. Someone isolated it, played it back, repeated it, found where it was in the Quran and sent a letter of complaint to Sony.

In the letter it states:

We Muslims consider the mixing of music and words from our Holy Quran deeply offending. We hope you would remove that track from the game immediately via an online update, and make sure that all future shipments of the game disk do not contain it.

We would also like to mention that this isn’t the first time something like this happened in video games. Nintendo’s 1998 hit “Zelda: Ocarina of Time” contained a musical track with islamic phrases, but it was removed in later shipments of the game after Nintendo was contacted by Muslim organizations. Last year, Capcom’s “Zack & Wiki” and Activision’s “Call of Duty 4″ also contained objectionable material offensive to Muslims that was spotted before the release of the final games, and both companies thankfully removed the content.

This more than annoys me. There may be other issues here, such as the obvious racial stereotyping that occurs in many present video games (American good guys and Arab terrorists), but that is not the case in point. Freedom of expression is being denied here for no other reason than faith. Why are they so special that they are beyond having their faith touched? The intention is not even there: I fail to imagine people making video games, such as the adorable Little Big Planet, to deliberately offend Muslims.

Faith is not a virtue, it is not special. It does not occupy something sacred or special. It is a position that has come to be protected, again and again, for no reason other than traditional treatments in our society. No doubt people are terrified of Islam and its offence and who can blame them?

Do I need to mention the banning and death of writers? The many people that have died as a result of writing against Islam or just bringing it under the spotlight of scepticism? Ignoring my overtly long expose on Salman Rushdie, let’s look at the recent example of Sherry Jones‘ The Jewel of Medina.

What is the blasphemy? Once again, making Muhammad and parts of Islam fall under the mammalian light. The Prophet had sexual organs, he used them. He is an important figure of history and the shaping of our world. Why can Neal Stephenson depict Isaac Newton, but when Rushdie or Jones depict Muhammad it is a no-no? I want answers to this but I want a reasonable justification for why Muhammad is beyond being viewed as human, whilst other historical figures are shrugged off.

Let us understand firstly the paradox: Muhammad is denied depiction in any form to eliminate idolatry. But what has happened? Does it not feel as though he has become the idol? Something divine, restricted from being shunned or mocked by “mere humans”? He was a human being like you and me. But under the guise and protection of faith, he takes on a divine status – beyond all mockery.

Muslims around the world mostly laugh off these ridiculous things. Muslims friends and acquaintances find the action of knee-jerk fundamentalists absolutely bizarre – as much as I do. Muslims who are offended by two lines in part of a game need to face the big wide world. We do not pander to each others thoughts, but question them. In order to move forward, it won’t be through being silent and restricting my thoughts against you, it will be voiced, expressed in co-operation with your own thoughts critical of me.

But if we each wrap our hands around silence, we are both grabbing a blind fold and stumbling mute toward darkness.

I also, however, find the grovelling at the feet of Muslims and Mullahs by, for example, Sony another blow to human sensibility. That person who wrote the letter has all the makings of a bully. Faith would bully us into respecting it, for no other reason than its might, its own circular reasoning and so on. If faith wants us to respect it, properly, it needs better reasons. And there are absolutely no good reasons for respecting something as a virulent and toxic as religious faith.

I expect better of my fellow humans. We are much better than this. Imagine a world where we all just didn’t offend someone, lest we were tried and executed. I can quite easily imagine that this would be one option to ensure peace. No one would be fighting or be enmeshed in conflict, as there can be no offence, no crossing of lines. Yes, this would be peace. But I would rather die than live in a such a world, where my freedom of thought is denied me. This is essentially the ideal of religious dogma and bullying – peace, but one maintained by the silence of freedom.

I wonder, dear readers, do you share my view that this is no life, this is servitude? That peace is only marginally less important than freedom of thought? The tide must turn against faith and respect should be given for good reasoning, humanity and respect – not to the childish faith claims of religious believers, especially (at the moment) Muslims.

Tags: andre comte-sponville, faith, freedom of speech, freedom of thought, islam, little big planet, offence, ps3, rushdie, sherry jones
Posted in Commentary | 11 Comments »

Why I am an Ex-Muslim, Part #2

Sunday, November 2nd, 2008

My idea was to have an account of my status as an ex-Muslim, in two parts. However, due to space, I am going to conclude in a final third (or even fourth) part. In this part, I want to discuss what impact Salman Rushdie had on my faith when I was a Muslim. In the next part, I am going to finally critique moderate Muslims and the dangers behind their inaction; especially considering their implications on fundamentalist Islamic states, peoples and organisations.

The Devilishly Brilliant Sir Salman Rushdie

Between the dusty covers of a conventional book, its jacket long discarded, wisdom arose like fingers pointing to the sun. The light seemed so blindingly obvious; Here were words spoken that were heartfelt, true, and beautiful. It recalls the longing of lands that many writers have focused their brilliance on: Consider the exiled words, longing and writings of Milan Kundera or James Joyce. Salman Rushdie writes, in The Satanic Verses:

An exile. Which must not be confused with, allowed to run into, all the other words that people throw around: emigre, expatriate, refugee, immigrant, silence, cunning. Exile is a dream of glorious return. Exile is a vision of revolution: Elba, not St Helena. It is an endless paradox: looking forward by always looking back. The exile is the ball hurled high into the air. He hangs there, frozen in time, translated into a photograph; denied motion, suspended impossibly above the native earth, he awaits the inevitable moment at which the photograph must begin to move; and the earth reclaim its own.

I fell in love with these words, with the writer, instantly. The entire book is a great piece of literature, as are all of Rushdie’s works. But captured here is the essence of being secure – what do I call my home? Where do I find stability and peace? It is one of our eternal questions as individuals we have to face. One of the ways many have answered this question is by identifying with religious faith.

One might call faith a moving island, its inhabitants gesturing toward others to join them upon their tiny piece of stability. Faith here is beyond all truth-claims and philosophy: It is a place for one to feel safe and belong. I have perhaps answered my first question in matters of treating faith like a race: In a sense, yes, it is. People feel perhaps more strongly about their moving island of stability, their faith, – foggy, distant and inherently personal as it is amidst the moving sea of objectivity – than about their “race”. I understand this, as I was part of something close, personal and welcoming. Like a cog in a growing, organic machine, I slotted in amidst the grinding wheels of progress.

Salman Rushdie was the spanner.

Grinding to a halt, my moving island and its inhabitants jerked with a profound startlement. Our eyes widened and accepted something had changed. The sea around us was whipped into a fury; fists were raised, glaring at the spanner. Who does he think he is to comment on the leader, the creator of this great island: Muhammad? Who was this Rushdie-Spanner to claim Muhammad was human, all too human, able to make mistakes?

Yes: Our eyes widened and with that came clarity. Our choices opened up in a two-fold path: Those whose tongues licked the flame of hatred, and those who brushed themselves off from the security, the belonging and the safety of religious faith. The machine called Islam continues to grind, puff and drive through the waters of our lives, turning tumultuous waves of horror and destruction where it goes. White foam is turned blood red as it weaves it course through our lives. This island is now a machine – as has become of many religious faiths. Floating amidst the privacy of personal lives no ripple would quiver out, but this is not the goal of faith.

If religious faith, specifically Islam began as an island, it is an island seeking to become the whole world. Outside its domain, nothing but Infidels, Apostates, Nonbelievers exist. It is known as dar al-harb, or the territory of war: The bifurcated world as a Muslim ought to see it. The territory to be conquered (dar al-harb) and the territory already conquered, erroneously known as lands of peace (dar al-islam).

The distinction between the two is more complicated than first appears and one would be better off learning more than what is spoken of here.

Implications of The Satanic Verses, or, In Mammalian Light

I am often asked “What was the big deal with the book?”

I will speak briefly about the wider, political implications but focus more on their impact in reducing Muhammad to the mammal he was. There are many places to read about the horrible time (from 1989 to the late 90’s) that unveiled itself, revealing the wider implications for intolerant, religious bullying from behind the waggling finger of pretentious, sexually repressed old men.

There are actually two issues engaged here: the issue of the “Satanic Verses” within Islam and the book by Rushdie under the same name. Correctly brought to wider realisation, Rushdie did not simply create this story of the Prophet “out of thin air” (as the Shakespearean sayings goes). The incident itself is central to the history of Islam and is spoken of by people such as al-Tabari and Ibn Ishaq. These are scholars Muslims regard as authoritative in all other aspects of Islam – there is no reason why, simply because Muhammad is placed in a mammalian light, Muslims can or should deny this incident.

It occurred during the time that Muhammad was attempting to penetrate Mecca (or Makkah as Muslims call it). Many of his followers had retreated to Abyssinia. According to the histories, Muhammad was told by Jibreel (Gabriel) to allow the importance of the three popular deities to rest alongside that of Muhammad’s god. It was because of these deities (Lat, Mannat and Uzza, then dominating the minds of the Meccans) that Muhammad was having little success in swaying more people into his brand of worship.

Muhammad then recited specific verses that praised or confessed the importance of the three other deities. Of course, Muhammad later realised his mistake after careful pains were taken in the realisation of the “Oneness” of Allah. It is for this same reason that Muslims reject or don’t identify with the Doctrine of the Trinity (to be fair, the Doctrine was formulated by Gregory of Nazianzus and others. People, in other words, that Muslim scholars would not take seriously beyond the bounds of eliminating the singularity of their god). Muhammad claimed that the verses he spoke were deceptively endowed by the lying lips of Shai’tan (Satan). Hence, those verses and the incident itself became known as the Satanic Verses.

“So what?” one might fairly ask.

One website, particularly scathing of the “blasphemer” Salman Rushdie states:

The true, vital issue about the Satanic verses is this. If Muhammad were unable to distinguish Satan’s voice from God’s voice, then could there be verses in the Qur’an that Muhammad assumed were from God but were really from Satan? Maybe much of the Qur’an is Satanic in origin, in spite of Muhammad’s conviction that it was entirely from Allah.

Like “The Problem of Evil” in Christianity, or the revelations of science over doctrines in all Abrahamic faiths, this is yet another problem as a nonbeliever I do not have to face. No mental contortions to fit beliefs into the tiny box of faith. No breaking of truth to funnel into gooey lumps of religious obscurantism. I don’t have to do this anymore. But here, we see the problem for Muslims.

Their beloved Prophet could not distinguish between the word of their god and Satan. How far are they willing to trust him? Looking at it very basically, one can see something more important than the tug of war between god and Satan: The unmasking of a mammal to reveal his humanity and therefore fallibility. The most devastating realisation hits the hearts and minds of those islanders, as their eyes widen to the roaring sea:

Islam rests on the shaky shoulders of a normal human being.

The Island is Shaken

Rushdie simply alerted me to this fact, in his beautiful prose. He goes further by creating a character who was the Prophet’s scribe. It was this character’s actions which shifted the ground beneath my feet. Muhammad is widely known for being illiterate (an unprovable claim and rather dubious considering his abilities as a businessman); he had scribes that wrote down his words (which supposedly came from the angel Jibreel). Rushdie has a character who decides to start changing words, here and there, after the Prophet recites (hence, this became the Quran^* which means “recitation”). He then reads these passages back to the Prophet, who approves. The Prophet (the character in Rushdie’s book) does not notice the differences. Eventually, this clever scribe changes the meanings of whole sentences and still the Prophet (called Mahound in The Satanic Verses) does not notice!

The scribe loses his faith in Muhammad, as being anything beyond a mortal man. When the scribe’s writing fell into the dust at his feet, my faith went with him. It lies there now, forever, gathering the dust of knowledge, buried beneath the sands of what I hope is progress. Is it still an island, a place to belong? If I dig myself down, remove all that I’ve learnt, all that I know, all that I believe in now, that Island would forever have the scars and pockmarks of truth that destabilised it in the first place. It would be like a place recently devastated by war. Even if I chose to return, not for the metaphysical claims, not for the rewards in heaven, but simply for solace and belonging – I would find nothing but the roar of the outside world, as the Island slowly begins to sink beneath the sea.

____

ENDNOTE

* – the Qu’ran is neither perfect, infallible or beyond criticism; it is perhaps less violent than the Old Testament, but nonetheless constantly calls for death to nonbelievers; it is not a work of science and it has not remain unchanged as it is. There were many parts tossed out, never spoken of and forgotten – ie. many Qu’rans. Its arrangement follows the pattern of longest to shortest verse, excluding the central Surah Al’Fatiga at the beginning. I suggest reading or owning a copy of this very important book, but to realise that is not the work of god but the work of fallible, ignorant men.

Tags: god, islam, khomeini, muslim, salman rushdie, satanic verses
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Why I am an Ex-Muslim, Part #1

Friday, October 24th, 2008

Whilst I find biographical writing egotistical in most cases, I hope to indulge here in a trajectory of thought rather than a life. I hope to show my own severing of the Islamic veil, which shrouded everything within its bleak dichotomous imagery, and how it is that ex-Muslims are a rarity. Though we are growing in number, there are not many who are willing to openly criticise Islam – I consider this to be part laziness, part apathy and part incredulity by “moderate” Muslims.The major reasons and criticisms will be dealt with in the second part.

Is it racist to loathe some one’s nonevidential-based and metaphysical beliefs? I do not think so. If this were true, I’d be considered alongside the person who decided “Whites Only” was a good sign to make on park-benches. We do not find black people declaring themselves ex-black, or white people declaring themselves ex-white. To say then that I am a racist is incorrect. I was Muslim, now I am no longer.

The question then is why declare oneself by what one is not. Why focus on being an ex-Muslim?

Power in Words

Defining oneself by a negative is something we as sceptics and atheists often have to puzzle over. Indeed, such a sentence might itself preclude this notion. I have said and I will continue to say that atheism is not a thing, a group, a set of goals. It is not a group of people clamouring for their world view to be adopted, since it is not a world-view. It comes close to be meaninglessness as air comes to being an ocean breeze. Indeed, the harshest critiques of labelling arises from amongst the “upper” echelons of the pursuit of reason.

Sam Harris in his address at Atheist Alliance in 2007, picks up on this theme of racism and atheism too, when he states:

Attaching a label to something carries real liabilities, especially if the thing you are naming isn’t really a thing at all. And atheism, I would argue, is not a thing. It is not a philosophy, just as “non-racism” is not one. Atheism is not a worldview—and yet most people imagine it to be one and attack it as such. We who do not believe in God are collaborating in this misunderstanding by consenting to be named and by even naming ourselves. So, let me make my somewhat seditious proposal explicit: We should not call ourselves “atheists.” We should not call ourselves “secularists.” … “humanists,” or “secular humanists,” or “naturalists,” or “skeptics,” or “anti-theists,” or “rationalists,” or “freethinkers,” or “brights.”

We should not call ourselves anything. We should go under the radar—for the rest of our lives. And while there, we should be decent, responsible people who destroy bad ideas wherever we find them.

No doubt, my dear readers, some of you will already have objections to this. Whilst I am not dealing with atheism in general, the application to ex-Muslim can be seen as a two-pronged defence: To labeling ourselves atheists and maintaining the use of ex-Muslim.

The main reason: No, there is no such thing as non-racism. But there was a very prominent, destructive, irrational and un-evidential claim known as racism. But we can not deny the activism of “black consciousness”; No reasonable person today would support my country’s history of apartheid. Yet during that time, people proudly – but sometimes in secrete for fear of reprisal – called themselves “anti-apartheid activists”. Yet would any of us today call ourselves “anti-apartheid”? Well, yes, if there was an apartheid to oppose.

Similarly, the tide must turn with faith. I believe it must be eradicated, for good if we are to even grasp at the near-infinite beauty of a good life. No: We do not call ourselves non-astrologers, as Harris states. Nonetheless, just as it needed activism to render most people’s accepted world-view of “race” into something aversive, I think it will take such “activism” to render faith into the vice it is. But this is for another article.

I believe, then, that the use of reason effectively dealt with racism, such that only stragglers and madmen could present themselves proudly as racists today. Similarly, with faith: It too is a great retardation of intelligence. But one so great that even those who do not have “faith” sometimes think it must be sacred, left to its own devices, “it’s not harming anyone” (those I call IDGAFS¹).

And a form of faith that has coiled into a great fist, smashing the ground beneath our feet, is Islam. All religions have their horrors and their extremists, no one denies this. Essentially, it is our main point in critiquing it: Religion is man-made. That must be religion’s most salient and nocuous property.

And no more so demonstrated than through the repugnant, almost childish knee-jerk reactions from fundamentalist Muslims. Having unwoven the threads of caustic intellectual abuse, by the hands of the vice of faith, I can finally step back to see this for what it is. But there are no woods to step out of to see trees of respect, love, or reason. Faith would have us cover our eyes and just nod to shadows. Islam, being what it is, as dangerous as it is, would send those shadows out to fight. It is time to fight back.

We know what a terrible darkness such shadows of truth hold.

The Triumph of Reason

I can admit something I was never very proud of before: I do not think I ever truly believed in a god or afterlife. Along with probably most of you, I am the addressee of Pascal’s Pensées: He who is so made that he can not believe. I learnt the Quran – and still know it – from beginning to end. I can read and write in Arabic. It is a very beautiful language and the incredible aesthetic beauty of its script no less appealing.

But what does the Quran say? If you had asked me that after I had read it the first time, then proceeded to memorise it, I would have stared at you blankly.

As we speak, there are approximately 1.2 billion Muslims in the world, comprising 22% of world. The results may vary but we can assume this: There’s a lot. Of those, I’m an uncertain how many of those are children of Muslim parents (did you flinch when you thought of “Muslim children”?). We can safely say though that millions of children around the world are taught to read, learn and recite in Arabic without understanding a word they’re saying.

I did not know I was reading this, when I recited:

98:6 Lo! those who disbelieve, among the People of the Scripture and the idolaters, will abide in fire of hell. They are the worst of created beings.

88:23-24 But whoso is averse and disbelieveth /Allah will punish him with direst punishment.

These are mere tips of growing icebergs, as fundamentalists freeze ancient ideas into growing pandemics of destruction.

Perhaps your own thoughts can formulate on why it is dangerous to learn in a language you essentially do not speak, to learn sentences you would not condone. I do not condone murder or destruction or harm to any person, yet here I was, learning verses spoken by “Allah Himself” (via Jibreel, to Muhammad, to the scribes, to etc.). Who was I to question my duty as a Muslim?

I attended seven madrassas. At each one, I was physically abused by the jaded jackals of god’s word. If we did not pronounce certain Arabic letters correctly, our fingers were bleeding after a good dose of punishment by a cane. We were yelled at, screamed at, hair was torn out in anger as we were not feeling Allah’s power and grace and beauty. It is neither hard nor uncommon to consider such occurences and perhaps that’s what makes it so wrong. A lot of my ex-Muslim friends also went through similar conditions. All this amidst a growing society, fresh from the battle against oppression – a society still licking its war-wounds and scrambling for some semblance of stability.

I neither consider myself scarred, harmed or abused to any great degree. I am neither angry at those men nor wish them harm. In a sense, I thank them for instilling the most powerful seed that resides in the human mind: Doubt.

We all know the foundation for stable thought in analysis begins with Cogito ergo sum. Yet, we must also remember Dubito ergo Cogito (I doubt, therefore I think), THEN Cogito ergo sum. I found myself wondering, if god’s love is so great, his power so immense, why do I constantly feel nothing but the biting cain against my knuckles?; Why do I feel nothing but paper when I touch the Quran?; and where is that rapturous experience that exudes from all the imams and mullahs I had interacted with?

It was then that stumbled across the most important book in my life: The Satanic Verses. It was to render that doubt into reason, to turn my apathy into action and so stabilise why I think being an outspoken ex-Muslim is important…

ENDNOTES

^______

1. Idgafs are not necessarily “not giving a frack”, as the term suggests, but they are primarily nonbelievers who treat faith as something that should not be attacked, mocked, criticised, or at least attempted to be understood using emotion. Most nonbelievers I know are like this, even though they would be supporting me in any other area to promote reason.

Tags: atheism, islam, muslim, quran, religion, Sam Harris
Posted in Feature | 9 Comments »

Islamic death sentence for blasphemy thrown out

Tuesday, October 21st, 2008

The Associated Press reported that today a journalism student at Balkh University in Afghansitan had his death sentence overturned. The crime? Blasphemy.

The student was convicted earlier this year for distributing “offensive” material he had found on the internet, pertaining to individual freedoms. His original fate was bleak, but the 20 years behind bars he received today cannot be much brighter.

The student was not allowed a lawyer during his trial, and his first one lasted just five minutes. While his family is relieved to hear that their son’s original sentence has been overturned, they are still campaigning for his release.

Tags: afghanistan, islam, News, Sayad Parwez Kambakhsh
Posted in News | 3 Comments »

Raise Your Voice

Sunday, October 19th, 2008

It takes a lot to get me angry. But if I look for it on the Internet, I can find it. When reading about Lisa McPherson – who died as a result of Scientology – my blood boils and my fists contract. When I read a website that documents “3,254 people killed, 235,558 injured and over $455,070,000 in economic damages” from quack medicine, frauds and snake-oil merchants who are simply there to make a quick buck, I am ready to burst.

I want to address the question of being involved in sceptical circles, in being (a kind of) social critic. Why do it? “Why do you care about these things?”

I don’t care who you are, dear reader.

I don’t care what your religion, culture, nation or background is. I don’t care what you think of atheism, secularism. I do, however, care about you as a human being. I do care that we try to live as a respectable species, fighting for knowledge, fighting for equality everywhere – all the time. Make no mistake, I want to see past the barriers of incredulity, set up by trenches of ancient ideologies and barbed-wires of recent quackery.

I raise this, to raise your eyes. To raise your voice. I want you to speak out. If you value others’ lives, if you value the gift of reason, if you want to see some peace filter through the nonsense, I am calling upon you to raise your voice. Be it in any words of any format: Through keyboards, microphones or telephones. Be it in talks, conferences, papers, radio-shows.

I am angry and I want you to be angry. We shouldn’t have to settle for 130 children dying each year because their parents are Jehovah’s Witnesses. We should fight, shout and keep kicking as we hear about Muslim women being killed for leaving abusive husbands, when we hear that “[m]ore than 25 … “honor killings” have been confirmed in Britain’s Muslim community in recent years”. We should raise our fists against the retardation of sensibility when reading:

In Saudi Arabia, the Islamic police prevented schoolgirls from leaving a burning building because they were not wearing headscarves and abayas; 15 of the girls died in the inferno.

[Or] The president of Cairo’s Al-Azhar University, a renowned center of Islamic learning, described the proper method of wife-beating in a television interview: “It’s not really beating,” Sheikh Ahmad Al-Tayyeb explained on Egyptian television. “It’s more like punching.”

Why should we remain silent about these things? No longer should people have to die from this. No longer should Muslim women have to face charges of death, stoning or flogging for being raped.

Words can be bullets, no less than ideas can be foundations for change. I don’t care who you are, at this moment, and I ask you to not care who I am either. In this time, we must be able to recognise idiocy, lunacy and the proud march of unreason that parades through our streets, in our backyards, crushing whoever so steps in its path.

And there is little way to stop it, as it contorts into something new. My own president caused undue harm in denying the link between HIV and AIDs. He was supported by the ever-horrid Minister of Health who stated eating fresh fruit and vegetables could prevent AIDS.

Reason comes in fits and spurts, it seems. Dominating every aspect of our lives is a fertile ground for unreason, some parts in full bloom others already seeded. There’s a great deal of it to be torn down, so that we are able to not only lead lives, but actually save them. It is time to start being more aware of the nonsense out there. Please, help us fight this. We may be fighting against certain people and their very bad ideas, but we are also fighting for every single human being to live as a fully-fledged individual, regardless of race, creed, culture.

I don’t care who you are, but if you have fingers or a voice, you can start changing the tide today.

EDIT – The question remains: Why do I care and why should you? Am I pessimistic, negative or cynical?

No! On the contrary: My reason for raising these points of retarded lecherous thinking is to show that we can do better. I believe, quite strongly, that we are better than these things. We are capable of greater good and greater kindness. Instead a lot of people are more worried about other people’s dress-sense, sexual relations, and other vicarious interferences, than they are about happiness, fulfilment and basic respect.

We need to connect on what we know (we are all humans with similar loves, hates, desires) rather than kill each other on what we can not know (god, the afterlife, and paradise). We can do better, I really believe we can. That is why I care and so should you.

Tags: Humanism, islam, lisa mcpherson, quackery, reason, scientology, women
Posted in Feature | 7 Comments »

Conservapedia on Obama

Thursday, October 16th, 2008

We all know that you can search for about anything left of the centre or non-religious on Conservapedia and come up with gut-wrenchingly hilarious results. But with that laughter comes a loss of faith in humanity’s ability to reason clearly. Usually I just brush off the pain that comes with reading utter stupidity, but this one was too much.

“If elected, Obama would likely become the first Muslim President, and could use the Koran to be sworn into office.[5][6]”

Whoever wrote this article must have been jumping at the gun to get it off their chest that they think Obama is a Muslim. It comes in the first paragraph. Usually on a Wiki negative remarks like this are left for the criticism section, and then there’ll be something about how it’s only speculation. Not Conservapedia. They’ll throw all honesty and objectivity out the door to accomplish their goal – in this case to slander Obama.

At least they try to back up their claim that Obama is a Muslim with this list of weak evidence:

Obama’s background and education are Muslim, and fewer than 1% of Muslims convert to Christianity.
Obama’s middle name means “a descendant of the Prophet Muhammad,” which most Christians would not retain.
Obama recently referred to his “Muslim faith.”
Obama uses the Muslim Pakistani pronunciation for “Pakistan” rather than the common American one.
Obama has written that the autobiography of Malcolm X, the Nation of Islam leader, inspired him in his youth.
Obama’s claims of conversion to Christianity arose after he became politically ambitious, lacking a date of conversion or baptism.
On the campaign trail Obama has been reading “The Post-American World” by Fareed Zakaria,which is written from a Muslim point-of-view.
Contrary to Christianity, the Islamic doctrines of taqiyya and takeyya encourage adherents to deny they are Muslim if it advances the cause of Islam.
Many of Obama’s statements about religion conflict with Christianity, leading one group to demonstrate with a 7-part video series, “Why Barack Obama is Not a Christian.”
Obama was thoroughly exposed to Christianity as an adult in Chicago prior to attending law school, yet no one at law school saw him display any interest in converting. Obama unabashedly explained how he became “churched” in a 2007 speech: “It’s around that time [while working as an organizer for the Developing Communities Project (DCP) of the Calumet Community Religious Conference (CCRC) in Chicago] that some pastors I was working with came around and asked if I was a member of a church. ‘If you’re organizing churches,’ they said, ‘it might be helpful if you went to a church once in a while.’ And I thought, ‘I guess that makes sense.’”

As if perpetuating the myth that Obama is a dangerous Muslim isn’t enough, this Conservapedia article goes on to attack another enemy of contemporary conservatism, elitism.

Asked to explain why working-class Democrats do not support him while campaigning for the Pennsylvania primary, Obama replied “it’s not surprising, then, they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”^[26] In response to outrage when his remarks were unexpectedly publicized, Obama replied, I “didn’t say it as well as I should have.”^[27]

It says alot for the status of bigotry, racism, and stupidity of some people in the United States that people would actively contribute filth to such a widely read Wiki. But hey, a spades a spade – it isn’t called Conservapedia for nothing. Anything they don’t like they consider anti-American, and they’ll twist facts any which way to fit their perspective. Just look at the first picture of Obama in this article:

Stupid Conservatives, you think that the reason Obama isn’t holding his hand over his heart for the pledge of allegiance is because he’s not American.
Wrong answer.

The correct answer is….

Muslim’s don’t have hearts. Jeeeezzzzzzz. Get it right Consveratives.

Tags: conservapedia, conservatism, islam, Obama, stupidity
Posted in Commentary | 2 Comments »

Pat Condell on Sharia Law in Britain

Wednesday, October 1st, 2008

The video that was originally in this post was taken down by Youtube. This video is a commentary on what happened.

Below is a repost of the original video on someone elses Youtube account:

Tags: islam, pat condell, sharia law
Posted in Media | 3 Comments »

Publisher of The Jewel of Medina Firebombed

Tuesday, September 30th, 2008

London based publisher Gibson Square, who is publishing the controversial The Jewel of Medina, was firebombed over the weekend.

“The bomb was placed through a letter slot in Rynja’s north London home, which doubles as the office of Gibson Square…Police had the home under surveillance and broke down the door to put out the fire with the help of firefighters…Three men were arrested on suspicion “of the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism,” the police said.”

The Jewel of Medina has been flooding my Google reader over the past few months as it picked up new publishers after being dropped by Random House for fear of violent reactions. Random House was rightfully condemned for its actions by Salman Rushdie, who once relied on Random House to publish his Fatwa inspiring The Satanic Verses.

Despite the threat of violent reactions, Gibson Square will proceed to publish the novel, and Sherry Jones (the author) will go ahead with public appearances.

It is a sad state of affairs that some of the most courageous people in the world today are authors who just want to write what they want. Sherry Jones isn’t even trying to criticize Islam. But that doesn’t seem to matter, because fundamentalist Muslims are in need of a funny bone. The only bone they do have is a hard on for violent reactions in the name of Allah and his prophet Mohamed.

Afternote: I couldn’t find anywhere that the firebombs were planted in the name of Islam. However, this seems to be implied in the articles I read, and it’s very likely.

Tags: aisha, free speech, islam, Jewel of Medina, mohamed, Satanic Versus
Posted in News | 6 Comments »

“Death to Mickey Mouse!” says Muslim Cleric

Saturday, September 27th, 2008

This might be seen as my commentary on Tyler’s piece South Park + Free Speech = a Bad Day for Religion Part 3 – Islam on the silliness of religious bigotry on the freedom of expression

How far can we throw the net of reason before it is overwhelmed by religious nonsense? Apparently not far enough. In the unending Saga of Stupid Fatwas, we have a new contender for the top of the chain: a fatwa issued for the death of Mickey Mouse.

After you have stopped laughing, start getting angry then continue reading.

It seems no one is out of range for the fundamentalist Muslim clerics and their sordid approaches to life. Not even a cartoon character, beloved by millions (well not me, really, but I can’t/wouldn’t issue ‘holy’ orders against him).

Sheikh Mohamed al-Munajid, a cleric who often appears on Saudi television and who is also a former Saudi diplomat in the United States, said last week that mice were “agents of Satan” and should be killed.

Wait, here comes the best/worst part. Al-Munajid said:

Sharia (Islamic law) calls for the extermination of all mice. That includes the rodents as well as ‘the famous cartoon mouse’.

That’s right: the famous Mickey Mouse. He is blaming Mickey for allowing people to develop emotional attachments – things called ‘feelings’, which I think he’d probably also issue a fatwa on, if he discovered them – toward mice and thus not killing them, as instructed by shari’ah law. Mickey Mouse is to blame. I’m surprised Mickey hasn’t been blamed for other societal ills. I’m hoping that another sexually repressed cleric will vent his insidious despotism in some anserine verdict of holiness.

This is a cleric who is frequently on the media. I do not know what sort of authority he has on anything, considering that even an editorial in the Middle Eastern Times thinks Al-Munajid is being hysterically stupid.

And Al-Munajidis is not just some overzealous faith-head. As the editorial for ME Times says: ”[he] was formerly attached to the Saudi Arabian Embassy in Washington, where he served in the Islamic Affairs Department.”

We are also told that this same cleric had an earlier

rant of Aug. 10 when he took on the Beijing Summer Olympics. The sheikh decried the world’s major sporting event as the ‘Bikini Olympics’ and lashed out at the “immodest dress” worn by female athletes.

He is reported to have issued a fatwa banning women competing in the Olympics; an event he also labeled ’satanic.’

(Another cleric has stated that nakedness during sex undermines the marriage. My friend asked me: “Well what’s worse? Having sex naked or in a bikini?”)

Another article tells us that Sheikh “Unreason” al-Munajid: ”had called for a ban on football, because the shorts worn by the players ‘reveal nakedness’.”

Mickey Mouse, the Beijing Olympics, and football (presumably soccer to other people). My question is not why - I’ve stopped asking these folks – but rather, to my co-thinkers, “why not?”

Why shouldn’t a cleric decry shorts? Why shouldn’t he want the death of a cartoon mouse? Considering the position of superstitious, overzealous faith, my problem does not lie with incongruity. It actually makes sense for a believer in the unwavering dictum of a celestial dictatorship to issue fatwas against revealed human skin. This is not something we can argue with.

I make you aware of this nonsense yet again to raise our awareness to the inherent stupidity and disappointment with our fellow mammals. We can do better than this silly Sheikh. We are better than this. People like him are severely hampering efforts by, for example, King Abdullah from Jordan from fostering interreligious dialogue and moderation with Islam. Seeing satan in everything that moves – cartoon or real – does not help.

I can only end with a sharp note that I wish I had written, but comes from the editorial of the ME Times:

It would be safe to deduce that the only devil here is to be found in the deranged minds of such retarded thinking.

I couldn’t have said it better.

Tags: fatwa, Fundamentalism, islam, mickey mouse, reason
Posted in News | 6 Comments »

South Park + Free Speech = a Bad Day for Religion Part 3 – Islam

Thursday, September 25th, 2008

While attacking faiths like Scientology and Christianity might stir up some controversy, poking fun at Islam is like pissing on a bee hive. Maybe this is why Parker and Stone have stayed away from attacking it a lot. They consistently portray Jesus, but only once portray Mohamed. Portraying Mohamed, of course, is not allowed in the Muslim faith, but what many people don’t realize is that any prophet of Islam is not allowed to be depicted, and Jesus is a Muslim prophet. In a sneaky way, SP has always mocked Islam, even if they didn’t know it.

The one time they actually did portray Mohamed was in the episode “Super Best Friends”. He was part of the super best friends, had the superpower of fire, and had to help destroy a giant Abraham Lincoln. To everyone’s surprise, no one seemed to care and this episode went unnoticed to the waiting bee hives of “fundamentalist” Muslims.

What really stirred the nest was the epic two-parter in season 11 entitled “Cartoon Wars.” This episode was a reaction to the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy. In this episode, Family Guy is planning on airing an image of Mohamed which throws American’s into a state of fear that the Muslim world will retaliate. Their solution? They bury their heads in the sand to show the Muslims that they didn’t want to watch it.

But Kyle stands up for free speech and in a touching speech where he says “If you don’t show Mohammed, then you’ve made a distinction of what is okay to poke fun at, and what isn’t. Either it’s all okay, or none of it is,” convinces the President of Fox to air the episode. Coincidentally, Comedy Central censored SP’s image of Mohamed in fear of a Muslim retaliation. Parker and Stone used this censoring as meta-humour by showing a black screen saying “Comedy Central has refused to broadcast an image of Muhammad on their network.” Kyle’s plea to the network executive was the exact wording of Parker and Stone’s plea to the president of Comedy Central.

The censoring they were making fun of in their episode actually happened to the show itself, only concreting their point that the only reason we don’t depict Mohamed is because we’re scared of violent reactions. At the very end of the episode SP shows Jesus defecating on President Bush; therefore mocking the general American public by showing how backwards it is that they can show the prophet in the hearts of most Americans defecating on the American President but not a simple image of Mohamed.

This two-parter ideally sums up SP’s view on religion and free speech. The theme was primarily critiquing the West’s response to Muslim rioting, but it was much more than that. It was a controversial episode thats message played itself out in the controversy it caused. A speech by the character Stephen gets their message across perfectly,

“Freedom of speech is at stake here, don’t you all see? If anything, we should all make cartoons of Mohammed, and show the terrorists and the extremists that we are all united in the belief that every person has a right to say what they want! And if we aren’t willing to risk what we have, then we just believe in free speech, but we don’t defend it.”

If you bury your head in the sand, like the Americans in SP, then you’re not defending free speech. Parker and Stone risked their lives by depicting Mohamed in the name of free speech.

In conclusion, one things is for sure when it comes to SP, nothing that’s held sacred is safe from being challenged. If you want to bury your head in the sand like the Americans in SP then you’re just someone who believes in free speech, but doesn’t defend it. Kudos South Park, you are true champions of one of our most cherished civil rights, free speech.

Afterword,

SP has also critiqued Judaism, Mormonism, and even Atheism. However, I felt their depictions didn’t warrant their own sections in this post. In a future post I will tackle these three together.

Part 1 – Scientology
Part 2 – Christianity

Citations for all three posts

Arp, Robert. “South Park and Philosophy: You Know I Learned Something Today.” Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2007.

David, Koepsell. “Blasphemy and South Park.” Lecture, University of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, 2007.

Hanley, Richard. “South Park and Philosophy: Bigger, Longer, and More Penetrating.” Chicago: Open Court Press, 2007.

Southparkstuff.com. 1 November, 2007. <http://www.southparkstuff.com/south_park_downloads/episode-related_downloads/south_park_scripts >

Tags: free speech, islam, religion, south park
Posted in Feature | 64 Comments »

Mufti Morality – Death to Cable-Viewers

Saturday, September 13th, 2008

Sheikh Salih Ibn al-Luhaydan is of the highest order of mullahs in Saudi Arabia. A recent report from BBC News states:

The most senior judge in Saudi Arabia [al-Luhaydan] has said it is permissible to kill the owners of satellite TV channels which broadcast immoral programmes.

Some of you may know, the fasting month began recently. The month is called Ramadahn (not be confused with my antagonist Tariq Radaman). All forms of luxury are restricted or reduced greatly. This is a month when various questions are asked of mufti’s (judges). Recently it was brought to al-Luhaydan’s attention that women wore very little on satelittle television stations! (Yes, I can see you gasping in shock!)

What was his response? After classifying these programs as promoting debauchery, he stated:

There is no doubt that these programmes are a great evil, and the owners of these channels are as guilty as those who watch them … It is legitimate to kill those who call for corruption if their evil can not be stopped by other penalties. (1)

“Kill”? Why are Muslim men in power so prone to violence? It is quite annoying and defamatory to the common rational human. It’s an insult to our intergrity as intelligent agents, able to act ethically. But no – let’s just kill those who do not agree with our views – even if we’ve never met them and their actions have no impact on our lives.

But fundamentalist Muslim men make judgments behind pointing fingers and triggers. This is no out-of-proportion assumption. I’ve criticised the “moderate” figurehead of Islam – Tariq Ramadan – and now I turn my attention to the man with the highest “holy” power in Saudi, Sheikh Salih Ibn al-Luhaydan.

It is worrying, as BBC Arab affairs analyst, Magdi Abdelhadi, correctly points out “[g]iven his position as the country’s most senior judge, the sheikh’s views can not be easily dismissed”. Are we not to be concerned about such statements? I think we need to raise our voices against such trigger-happy irrational religious bullies. Who does he think he is declaring death to innocent people?

Why is the call for peace and reformation coming from places like the CEMB (Council of Ex-Muslims Britain)? The first part of their manifesto reads:

We, non-believers, atheists, and ex-Muslims, are establishing or joining the Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain to insist that no one be pigeonholed as Muslims with culturally relative rights nor deemed to be represented by regressive Islamic organisations and ‘Muslim community leaders’.

Those of us who have come forward with our names and photographs represent countless others who are unable or unwilling to do so because of the threats faced by those considered ‘apostates’ – punishable by death in countries under Islamic law.(2)

When the high priest of Saudi Arabia calls for death on such a minor charge, whereas ex-Muslims like myself call for reformation and awarness, this results in a problem. Once again, religion is not responsible – but to dismiss Islam’s impact on these sorts of decisions would be myopic at the very least and deluded at worst. This mindset allows for “[a] Saudi Arabian Muslim father [to] cut out his daughter’s tongue and [light] her on fire upon learning that she had become a Christian.”

Once again, it is not Islam. But consider the man’s job. He was part of the mutaween, “or Commission for Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice. The muwateen are police tasked by the government with enforcing religious purity.” (3) Tell me such an organisation is safe, promotes happiness and cooperation and recognition of the beauty in human diversity, spreading equality amongst the genders. No. Because they have the backing of men like al-Luhaydan, what do you expect them to do?

These sorts of stories worry me and I hope they worry you, too. I’m angry about this. But I’m always more disappointed. I believe that people could do so much better for themselves. There is much beauty to be gained in this life and squandering it on petty misgivings because its The Fast seems to be a great insult to the human endevour.

With anger comes change, so I will ride my anger alongside my fight for reason. Call it a “faith” in reason if you wish. And by doing so, you call me one of the most faithful in the world.

____________________

REFERENCES

(1) http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7613575.stm

(2) http://www.ex-muslim.org.uk/

(3) http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=72273

Tags: faith, islam, mufti, reason, religion, saudi arabia, tariq ramadan
Posted in News | 5 Comments »

Walk the Line, Brother Tariq

Thursday, September 11th, 2008

Perhaps it was my namesake that started this but now I must take a stand. Those of you who are unfamiliar with Tariq Ramadan, need only browse a few sites to get up-to-date. We could contextualise Ramadan in the following way (to paraphrase the great Francis Wheen): A mind so open that his brain has fallen out.

A brief bio describes him this way:

Named by Time magazine as one of the 100 most important innovators of the 21st century, Tariq Ramadan occupies a unique place among leading Islamic thinkers. Representing a new generation of Islamic reformers, Dr. Ramadan advocates the exploration and application of Islamic traditions and values within a modern pluralistic context, calling on Western Muslims to embrace Western culture rather than reject it. A Swiss national, he is a well-respected professor of philosophy at the College of Geneva and Professor of Islamic Studies at the University of Fribourg. In fall 2004 Ramadan was appointed Henry R. Luce Professor of Religion, Conflict and Peacebuilding at the Kroc Institute at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana, USA.

Ramadan has written more than twenty books exploring the difficult issues of reinterpretation and reform within Islam itself and between the Islamic world and its neighbors around the globe. His books include Western Muslims and the Future of Islam (Oxford University Press, 2003), Islam, the West, and the Challenges of Modernity(The Islamic Foundation, 2000), To Be a European Muslim(The Islamic Foundation, 1998), and Jihad, Violence, War and Peace in Islam (in French only, Tawhid, 2002). He has also published a total of 700 contributions or articles in collective books, academic reviews, and magazines.

Ramadan serves as an expert in various commissions linked to the Brussels Parliament, and is a member of several working parties concerned with Islam in the world and on the continent: Deutsches Orient Institute, British Council, Vienna Peace Summit, The Parliament of the World’s Religions 2004 in Barcelona, and the “Laïcité et Islam” commission of the French Educational League.(1)

Very impressive, you might think. I’d agree. But what does he really represent?

He straddles the middle-ground of extremist Islamists like the society his grandfather help start, The Muslim Brotherhood, and the vaporous beauty espoused by Karen Armstrong and Reza Aslan. Like a poor animal knocked over in the middle of the road, he is struggling and rolling clumsily to either side.

Perhaps my dislike of Ramadan began with his view on the stoning of women. In a discussion with Nicholas Sarkozy (on a French show called ‘One Hundred Minutes to Convince’), Ramadan gave his view on this disgusting practice:

Ramadan … replied that he favored a moratorium on such practices but refused to condemn the law outright.(2)

I can hear ‘Where Is My Mind’ beginning its first chords – and I think we have found Ramadan’s theme song. Brothers and sisters of freethought, rationalism and reason – what is a moratorium? Let us consult Meriam-Webster. It gives us these two definitions:

1 a: a legally authorized period of delay in the performance of a legal obligation or the payment of a debt b: a waiting period set by an authority

2: a suspension of activity (3)

Yes, let us think long and hard about whether it’s okay to stone women to death. Let’s first pause it for a while – but not stop it completely. This decision requires deep thought and, Ramadan’s favourite word, ‘contextualisation’. This corresponds to my favourite word: BS. We need to make ourselves good BS-detectors and my detector is spinning when it comes close to Ramadan-speak.

In a recent book about Tariq Ramadan (hence why this article is in ‘News’), Caroline Fourest carefully dissects the rhetariq, I mean, rhetoric of Ramadan. She gives numerous examples of his views. If his view on stoning women is not enough to upset you about this line-straddling “academic” mumbo-jumbo merchant, note that according to Ramadan”

[T]he reason women should be veiled is that ‘men are the weakest of the two [genders] and because the way men look at women is much more fragile than the reverse. This veil is a protection for the weakest of the two.’ In other words: women must be covered up to protect men from their own carnal appetites. Ramadan also counsels for ‘modesty’ in general: ‘If you try to attract men’s look by your forms, your perfume, your appearance or your gestures… you are not taking a spiritual path.’ A Muslim woman ‘can’t marry a man from another religion.’ And nor can she divorce.(4)

This form of thinking should be banished along with astrology, numerology, alchemy and other fibs of the Dark Ages. Where is the promotion of freedom? Where is the promotion of happiness and choice for all? Don’t look to Ramadan unless you want enmeshed tangled weeds of unreason, sprouting from the fecund decayed ground of nonsense.

Many are looking for Reformation in Islam – and they are looking to this double-speaker to do it. The middle ground will get us nowhere and I find it shocking that THIS is who represents moderate Muslims: A man who would bring back views of women from darker times. I urge everyone to read this book and to familiarise yourself with the problems of Islam, its leaderships and its tenets. And to improve your mumbo-jumbo detectors.

Brother Tariq: The Doublespeak of Tariq Ramadan by Caroline Fourest (Foreword by Denis MacShane) is published by The Social Affairs Unit, 2008, 293. pp.

Tags: islam, muslims, tariq ramadan, unreason
Posted in News | 11 Comments »

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