under|progress

Glorifying idiocy

Blair's desire to have new laws which will ban "glorification of terrorism" were voted through this past week. These laws have nothing to do with making people feel 'safe', and everything to do with playing political football with terrorism:

"The underlying problem about [the terror debate] is that Labour has become dangerously addicted to campaigning by legislating. New laws are too quickly promised as a way of taking a public stand rather than as a solution to a problem. Parliamentary votes then become, as Mr Blair put it yesterday, a way of sending a message (or not) rather than a means of addressing a lasting need. William Hague was not far wrong, in response, when he dubbed the anti-glorification clause a "press release law"."

Andrew Bartlett sums it up best:

"I cannot think of any wording of a modern, just law which would criminalise the imam who argues that a suicide bomber is a martyr and[, at the same time,] would leave a right-wing newspaper columnist free after he calls for the use of torture or supports the use of extra-judicial death squads. But these laws will not be used to imprison Gary Bushell or Richard Littlejohn, I will promise you [... T]he Guardian writes; “Claims that the clause will be used to arrest Irish people celebrating the 90th anniversary of the Easter Rising are alarmist nonsense.” Perhaps, but such a sop both illustrates the true nature of these laws and is, at the same time, a gross misrepresentation of the argument against these laws. It is not that they will lead to the arrest of someone praising a distant historical event. It is that it will only be used to counter praise of terror resulting from the apparently inscrutable Orient. Western-inflicted terror and its supporters will write their columns evermore, glorifying in human destruction. For this law to work it will necessarily have to be unevenly enforced, on a political basis. That is no basis for just laws."

Gabriele Marranci writes how certain Arabic words, which have entered popular usage in English and carry negative connotations, could become criminalised and how the legislation might even affect his own work as an academic:

"[I]t seems that two particular Arabic words will be the victim of this legislation: Jihad and Shahid (martyr). Every time a Muslim will use them, he could find himself or herself (yes, women too use bad words) under investigation by the police who will have the difficult task to decide whether the word has been used in a context which glorifies what the Home Office has defined as 'terrorism.'"

And what about inviting heads of states who are guilty of perpetrating and 'glorifying terror' against civilian populations? In fact, isn't any form of nationalism 'glorification of terror' on a certain level? And will we see more examples of this sort of harassment, which can apparently already take place under the Terrorism Act?

Let's not forget that the it was existing laws which locked up Abdullah el-Faisal and Abu Hamza (we'll never know if Omar Bakri Mohammad could have been charged under existing legislation.)

There is also the silly idea of banning Hizb ut-Tahrir. I've already argued against this, not because support their (political) beliefs, but because such a move lends credibility to people who should only gain credibility through the use of argumentation and reason (and on this I believe they fail). In any case, there is no real evidence to link the Hizb to terrorism or even an advocation of violence to achieve their aims (people seem to confuse the supposedly defunct al-Muhajiroun with Hizb al-Tahrir; the former was a splinter group which rejected the Hizb's methods), despite what part-time journalists claim.

In defiance of this uneven law eventually being used, and the increasing power Blair wishes to hand to the state, I will reproduce a poem by a fellow Muslim blogger, entitled Charles Clarke Blues:

Suicide bombing is glorious
We love to kill and maim
If suicide wasn't fatal
We'd blow up ourselves again

(For the slow of thinking, I recommend reading A Modest Proposal.)

I also declare my support for:

• Chechens to use violence to resist occupation.
• Palestinians to use violence to resist occupation.
• Kashmiris to use violence to resist occupation.
• Iraqis to use violence to resist occupation.
• Any peoples to use violence as and when necessary to resist the looting, murder and rape of their land and people.

I will also reiterate:

• Jihad is both an internal struggle and a term for warfare with in an ethical boundary.
• Any Muslim who dies on while struggling for God is a martyr.

Render even your souls unto Caesar

"Turkey's highest administrative court, the Council of State, said it objected to the promotion of an elementary school teacher because she wore a head scarf outside of school [...] Under Turkish law, women are not allowed to enter schools and other public buildings wearing head scarves, and the teacher removed it each day while teaching classes. In its decision, however, the council expressed concern that even though she removed her head covering in class, the teacher was setting a bad example for young people and had violated the secular principles of the Turkish state. The teacher, Aytac Kilinc, has said she will appeal the decision to the European Court of Human Rights." [my own emphases]

Or is the real reason to restrict Muslim women from gaining jobs, positions of influence, and entering public life in general? In that case these secularists are not much different from the sort of religious people they claim to oppose.

On authority II [1]

Marqas, of The Manrilla Blog, has a post on a recent Sherman Jackson lecture where Jackson discusses the problem of authority among American Muslims. By extension this could apply to all Western Muslims (maybe even Muslims in general).

Marqas raises some interesting points, including those well known to Western Muslims: authenticity and identity, and how Islam will develop in the US (Britain, France, etc.). That is being a 'Western Muslim' will not seem like an anomaly, anymore than being a Muslim from the various Islamic traditions in India, the Arab peninsula, North Africa and so on is considered an anomaly. I would hazard a guess that, in this respect, American Muslims will surpass their coreligionists in Europe; we, at least British Muslims, are still tied very strongly to our 'ancestral' homelands.

There is on additional point I would like to add, which Marqas hasn't explicity mentioned, and that is the one related to competing sets of knowledge. Not only has literacy enable people to formulate their own opinions, but the increase in knowledges, from the 'hard' to the 'human' sciences, has led to a direct challenge to religious knowledges. [2] The specialisation of traditional religious knowledge has led to a boundary being erected around what is and isn't "religion"; this can only have the effect of limiting the scope of the religious scholar's authority. So the additional questions to the problem Marqas raises are how religious knowledge is integrated with the physical and human sciences; and is this possible or even desirable, and what would be the consequences? [3]

Notes
[1] See an earlier post where I discussed the topic of authority of Islam, "On authority".

[2] Let me make it clear that I do not subscribe to the religion versus science argument (for obvious reasons). It is worth noting that far too many "founders" of modern science were also "religious" for the simplified religion-versus- science clash to be fruitful for any understanding. In any case, this is a slightly skewed myth, helped along by polemics from Victorian agnostics and atheists, as well anti-Catholic English writings, from the 19th-century. But it is fair to say that scientific knowledge puts a strain on certain religious doctrines (and vice versa); the most obvious one being related to the existence of homo sapiens (evolution versus creationism). This is why, I believe, people educated in the traditional Islamic disciplines, but with exposure to modern science, attack the epistemological and ontological foundations of modern science (a la S.H. Nasr) and not merely the results of such a scientific endeavour. For a good example of this sort of critique see Nuh Ha Mim Keller's response to a question on evolution.

[3] See an earlier post on contemporary Muslim approaches to science, "The Muslim Science Wars".

The State of the Ummah II

I will be hosting The State of the Ummah II a Muslim blogging carnival. Started by Umm Yasmin last year, the idea of the carnival is to allow Muslim bloggers to showcase their best writing. It is hoped that the Carnival will be picked up by other bloggers and so "travel" across the blogosphere. At the moment there is no fixed interval, although I would suggest two to four weekly intervals at different blogs. If you're interested in picking this up after me, please contact Umm Yasmin.

Last year's carnival was an open affair with no particular theme, but this year I have decided on a theme: Beyond hatred and apologia: contemporary Muslim responses to sacrilegious treatments of Islam.

The Danish "cartoon controversy" has become a huge story. The publication of those cartoons have been blown out of all proportion, but the issues raised are real enough. Of course, this isn't the first time such a "clash" has occurred. For this reason I've decided on a topic which revolves around Muslim responses to productions (novels, plays, visual arts) that are deemed sacrilegious. The emphasis is on responses to the arts, because equally offensive material is produced every year under the guise of news, history or politics, but there are no such widespread angry response (these might be considered worse because they are being passed off as "fact"). As the theme of the Carnival suggests, I am looking for those posts which engage with the issues, not merely suggest they stand for "free speech" or "against Islamophobia". Posts needn't be limited to the recent Danish controversy, although I suspect most of them will be about those 'toons (which, as an individual who grew up reading comics and watching animation, I have to say are aesthetically unpleasant. That's twice the insult!).

And now for the small print (thanks to Umm Yasmin for letting me lift bits from her weblog):

What is a blogging carnival?
A blogging carnival is a regular or semi-regular forum where bloggers nominate posts, typically centred around a particular theme or fulfilling certain requirements, to a specified blog (either hosted permanently, or floating around the blogosphere). When the due date is up, the Carnival host then collects all, or the best of, the posts and creates an uber-post of links for Carnival members and interested visitors to surf.

For a good example of what this is all about see The State of the Ummah I. You can find an index of carnivals here and a bit more about a blogging carnival here.

How does it work?
Send your nomination to the following email address: thestateoftheummah [at] yahoo [dot] co [dot] uk

Include the following information in the email:

• The name of your blog with a link (with a hyperlink).
• The title of your submitted post and a link to the post (with a hyperlink).
• A couple of sentences to describe your submitted post (which may be edited by the host).
• Optional (for host and blogger): a trackback link.

An example will help:

Dervish
The Scriptures on Forgiveness
Description: A short collection of verses from the Bible and the Qur’an on forgiveness.
Trackback

The due date for submitting a post is: 11:59PM, 6 March 2006, Greenwich Mean Time. (Click here to convert to your own timezone.)

What are the rules?
The rules are as follows:

• The State of the Ummah is open to all bloggers who hold to the basic Muslim credal statement: la illaha illa Allah, Muhammad arrasul Allah, “there is no god but God, Muhammad is the Messenger of God”. A non-Muslim blogger who writes an exceptionally good post about Islam and/or the Muslim world, which is not antithetical to Islam or Muslims, may submit their post for consideration.

• The point of The State of the Ummah is to give readers a taste of the state of Muslim blogging today, what informs Muslims, what Muslims believe, what Muslim life is like etc. For the second Carnival, the topic is: Beyond hatred and apologia: contemporary Muslim responses to sacrilegious treatments of Islam.

• Bloggers can sumbit one post from an individual blog. You can nominate a post from your own and/or other blogs. (I might include posts which are themselves collections of other posts).

• The nominated posts must be submitted to the given email address before the deadline. Posts submitted after the dealine might be considered, but please don't complain if they do not appear on the Carnival!

Go get nominating.

Brass Crescent Winners

The winners of the Second Annual Brass Crescent Awards have been announced. I was given an honourable mention as Best Thinker. Thanks to the anyone who voted for me. The winners are as follows:

Best Blog: Sunni Sister

Best Non-Muslim Blog: Juan Cole (Informed Comment)

Best Post or Series: Baraka (Truth & Beauty), "On Illness"

Best Female Blog: Shabana Mir (Koonj)

Best Thinker: The joint winners were Haroon Moghul (avari/nameh) and the two contributors to Mere Islam, Qadeeb al-Ban Harris and Abdurrahman Squires.

Most Deserving of Wider Recognition: Akram's Razor

Best Group Blog: Living Tradition

Best Middle-Eastern/Asian Blogger: A Star from Mosul

Congratulations to all the winners.

'Liberated'

No comment.

Q-News Event: Why differences of opinion make us stronger

I was wondering if anyone attended the Q-News Event: One Faith, Many Voices: Why differences of opinion make us stronger, which took place last night at Friends' House, Euston (London)? I was unable to attend due to work commitments. If so, what did you make of the talk? If anyone has any comments or a review, pop it in the comments box or mail me and I'll post it here.

Thanks.

Abu Hamza locked up for seven years

Well he'll serve at least two years, before being eligible for parole. From the BBC:

"Controversial Muslim cleric Abu Hamza al-Masri has been jailed for seven years after being found guilty of inciting murder and race hate [...] Abu Hamza, 47, who preached at Finsbury Park Mosque, London, was convicted of 11 of the 15 charges he faced [...] He has already been in jail since May 2004, and will appeal. His lawyer said he considered himself "a prisoner of faith" subject to "slow martyrdom"."

Here's a list of the charges. The US will now resume attempts to extradite Abu Hamza for terrorism offences.

No doubt some will compare this verdict with the release of Nick Griffin, leader of the British Nazi National Party, and one of his cohorts (who both face a retrial.)

The popular use of hadith material

Here are a couple of links (1, 2) to a lecture by Abd al-Hakim Murad, given sometime last year, to the Oxford Muslim Community Association. He discusses ijtihad, hadith and the approach to Islamic law by Muslims today. One problem he highlights is the current, popular, approach to the hadith material where people open a printed copy of, say, Sahih al-Bukhari, and derive all sorts of conclusions and edicts. Yet, this approach is flawed because people who tend do this are relying on only one of the 'readings' of Sahih al-Bukhari, when in fact there are several to consider.

One point he makes is eye opening (and I've tried to get his exact words from the lecture):

"[I]f you talk to Shaykh Ahmad Ma'bad, who's the greatest muhaddith in Egypt at the moment [and] who's responsible for [the] project of editing the hadith for the first time, he'll say: "Really, classically speaking, none of any of the fatwas that have appeared from the Islamic fiqh academies in Egypt and Saudi Arabia, in the last 50 or 60 years, can be regarded as binding on Muslims," because in most cases, he says, they actually use printed copies of the hadith rather than the ijazas [license to teach] or the manuscripts."

I'm with stupid (unfortunately)

It is said that Muslims should find excuses for their brother in cases where they misbehave or commit a wrong (sisters, usually, seem to have a lot more sense than brothers).

I am fast running out of excuses for these acts of idiocy and foolishness.

But how could these demonstrations, and the ransacking and burning of the embassies, have occurred in states where the secret police know everything; even when you flush a toilet? (Hint: They couldn't.)

"I have said before: Arab governments have instigated protests: I particularly noticed the unusual friendliness of (the usually brutal) Jordanian mukhabarat leading on the demonstrators in Amman after the Friday prayers yesterday. Those governments, aware of the public anger of their populations regarding US foreign policy and its alignment with their oppressive government, do not dare permit anger at the US or Israel, so they find it tempting, easy, and costless to champion anger against Denmark or Norway."

And this is just vulgar and stupid. I'm sorry, but no one wants that here. What, in the name of God, does this have anything to do with the July bombings last year? What, in the name of anything Good left on this planet, does it have to do with Jews? Or the United States? Or Iraq? Or bin Laden? Why do some of us enjoy living up to those, and other, caricatures?

Let's put aside any moral concerns about these sorts of actions and see the reasoning behind them. These actions were done to seek revenge against those who slandered the Prophet's (upon whom be peace) character; right? But by this very logic the torching of the embassies was a complete and utter failure for the simple fact that the publications were not produced by the Danish or Norwegian governments. Though I suppose a reasoned and rational response is probably haram.

And I find the invocation of the life and teachings of the Prophet (upon whom be peace) by murderers, thugs and other criminals, to be quite offensive, and slanderous to his character, too.

I'm sorry, but I have to ask: what is that has really been offended here? The character of a man much loved and revered (upon whom be peace)? Or the egos of a few people?

(And yes, I did say that would be my last post on those rubbish cartoons. But strictly speaking this isn't about those cartoons. It's about stupid Muslims.)

Update: The Fourth Law of Blogynamics (otherwise known as Thabet's Rule) says that one must never -- ever -- declare a post to be their last word on the subject. This is a sure fire way of causing the story to explode.

• Four Afghans have died, and many more have been injured in a protest against those cartoons.
• Some Nigerian MPs decided to burn the Danish flag.
• The State Department in the US sided with Muslims.
• Is anyone surprised? I'm not.
• A Dane speaks (or types).
• Extremists are usually united in their methods, even if they disagree on the goal.
• If true, I hope Abu Laban is happy.
• A protester who turned up dressed up as a suicide bomber, has been returned to prison after it was discovered he was out from prison on licence.