under|progress

Interpreting the interpretation

In the age old tradition of Muslim commentaries, supercommentaries and super-supercommentaries, comes Eteraz's Cleansing With Sunlight: Traditionalist Inadequacy and Terror. This is a commentary on Haroon Moghul's two part commentary (1, 2) on Abdul Hakim Murad's popular essay "Bombing Without Moonlight: The Origins of Suicidal Terrorism". Eteraz is hopeful his own essay is a way out of the modernist/traditionalist duality which vexes many Muslims today.

Haroon has also responded to Eteraz's essay.

Update (26/04): Eteraz writes up Part II of Cleansing With Sunlight. Check it out. Not quite Al-Ghazali and Ibn Rushd. But close.

Tradition

Abu Muhammad left this comment on Svend White's blog, which I thought was worth reproducing here:

Tradition is our perpetual converstation with history while we are flowing. Being aware of their absolute contemporaneousness, those who affirm to undertake this conversation are traditionalists. Others who view tradition as a specific point in history are pseudo-traditionalists not ready to get out of this misplaced anachronism. Rationalsim is merely an awareness of this construct.

Review of 'Warbloggers' Bible'

Aaronovitch Watch has a very detailed review of Paul Berman's Terror and Liberalism, a favourite amongst many 'muscular liberals'.  Whatever your views it is worth a read.

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7

Palenque: A lost city uncovered

I'm away from home again. This time I'm in Mexico. I've been for over a week now, mixing work and  little holiday. Last week was Easter, and this being a Roman Catholic country, meant several days off. This gave me time to visit some of the Mayan ruins. So I was in Palenque (with my friend and colleague), which is a few hours south of my base here in Ciudad del Carmen (Carmen itself is a dusty, dirty, run down oil and gas city, which was an old fishing town).

Palenque is one of the most well known of the Mayan ruins dotted around this quarter of Mexico (made up of the modern southern Mexican states of Chiapas and Tabasco, and the Yucatan peninsula states of Quintana Roo, Campeche and Yucatan), although no where near the size of other Mayan ruins like Tikal in Guatemala and Copan in Honduras. Palenque was a major city in the B'aakal state, and was developed mainly by Pakal (who, according to some notes I was given, had a club-foot, married his sister, and had sons with six thumbs). But Palenque still remains largely uncovered; it is amazing to think just 5% of the pyramids and other buildings have been uncovered when you actually see the size of the ruins which are already uncovered. The city itself was abandoned long before the Spanish invasions, perhaps due to perpetual warfare -- the city was overgrown with rainforest when the first European arrived in the 16th-century. There remains the possibility that planned excavations might undercover the largest pyramid in Mesoamerica.

Here are some views of Palenque through my digital camera.

The Temple of Inscriptions; the tomb of Pakal. This is now off limits to visitors due to damage caused by tourism.To the right of this is a fairly recently discovered tomb, which is said to belong to the Red Queen (the body found had been preserved with a chemical which had made turned the remains red). In a few years time, most of this site will be closed due to vandalism by tourists.

A table used for sacrificial rituals.

The hill in the back is potentially the largest pyramid in Mesoamerica; the two buildings to either side are the Temple of the Cross and the Temple of the Sun (I believe). The mention of 'cross' in this case should not be confused with Roman Catholic beliefs -- the cross was a Mayan symbol for a 'holy tree' Mayans believed linked the next world to this world one.

Stone work depicting Pakal's edcuation.

Stone work on the royal palace depicting Pakal. Lots of stone work is found within this complex showing the nobility (mostly of them awaiting their ritual piercings); but much of this work has been stolen.

A view from within the rainforest which surrounds the city of Palanque. The water in that stream was crystal clear -- I've never see water than clean before!

A view of the surrounding rainforest from the Temple of the Cross. The views here were breathtaking -- we drove up to a famous natural land mark through Zapatista country in the state of Chiapas (where Palenque is located) and no picture can capture some of those views (certainly not me with a digital camera!).

A view of the Temple of Inscriptions (left) and the Palace (right).

The biggest concern for middle class Muslims in Britain

Want to know what all those Muslim doctors, lawyers, engineers, accountants, businessmen and women have on their minds? What is of greatest concern to them during their working day?

The location of the nearest halal eatery.

"European ideas"

The car, the television, the radio, the aeroplane, pencillin, the internet, the AK-47, the tank, etc. are 'ideas' which can be loosely ascribed to 'modern Europe'. But why do some (many?) Muslims rail so hard against other 'ideas' also considered 'modern' (and/or 'European') like 'democracy' or 'liberalism' or 'secularism'? Why do we grant a treatsie written by a 16th- or 17th-century European philosopher more weight than the car and aeroplane? Quite easily the latter have transformed our lives far more than what Hobbes, Locke or Kant might have written (unless someone makes a compelling argument to link the rail network and refrigeration with, say, Hobbes' Leviathan).

The liberal double standard on abortion

I was going to mention something on some commentary on abortion in India, where Indians (and British Asians) are said to be aborting female foetuses at incredibley high rates, by Joan Bakewell in the Independent recently. (Apart from moral and ethical concerns, this practice is having its own social problems.) But in today's edition, a commentator (Dominic Lawson) responds to her assertions about 'our [British, secular, Western, liberal; choose your flavour] values' on abortion (the Indy's terrible website asks you to pay for their commentaries!).

Bakewell entertained the possibility that there was something 'incongruous about regretting the abortion rates in India as they operate while at the same time defending abortion in Britain'. She then dismisses this concern because the reason for a British woman to abort her foetus was not the same as an Indian, who merely use modern technology to continue holding their traditional views on women. A British woman, however, uses abortion to "deal with abnormalities of the foetus and to prevent the birth of a baby that is not wanted to a woman who never intended to get pregnant in the first place. [As such t]his is not a case of sex discrimination in the womb." Lawson rightly points out the hypocrisy the stance which moralises to Indians about their abortion rates and the 'reasons' for diong so, while at the same time defending British women's rights to abortion.

First, one must ask about the abortion of the "planned" child (as opposed to the "unplanned" one). What if a woman changes her mind and aborts a planned child, she intended to have? How can anyone judge that? No amount of statistics will ever provide us with a clue to those British women who defy this supposed superior moral stance that exists in liberal Britain regading abortion. Some may use abortion to further their own 'lifestyle choice'. Why does this make them any less worthy of blame or criticism than Indians?

Seocndly, and the point to which Lawson responds as it affects him personally, there is the question of aborting the 'abnormal' foetus. Why is is it unacceptable to abort a foetus because it is female, but acceptable to abort a foetus because it is 'abnormal'? The arguments about the cost-benefit to both the family and society if an abnormal foetus are those very same ones advanced by some when choosing to abort female foetuses! In fact, the very idea of a cost-benefit approach to defending abortion should concern people interested in the very idea of 'humanity'. Then there is argument over 'suffering' of the 'abnormal' individual, but which also falters. Consider the very idea of 'suffering': don't we all, male and female, 'normal' and 'abnormal' suffer? Isn't suffering part of life? Consider the men and women across the globe who undergo, sometimes unimaginable, suffering? Should they have simply not have been born? Should they stop having children? Then there is the very idea of what constitutes 'abnormal'. Is a cleft lip and palate, for example, 'abnormal'? I have a younger cousin who might be considered 'abnormal' by some; but I know his parents and siblings love him dearly and he enjoys the company, friendship and enjoyment of life, its ups and its downs, as much as any 'normal' child.

Veiling unveiled: Muslim women speak

Synaptic Cartography: "I can not with honesty look at a female singer selling her song with a barely clad sexual mime and think, "there is an empowered, self-assured woman." That's my bias. It is not a bias, however, which makes me "medieval, puritanical, and intolerant." Rather, it is a bias born of my own cultural experience. And while I can't speak for any women other than myself, I am a woman, and as such I take issue with anyone who makes a flat statement such as "dressing sexy makes women feel good about themselves." While this may be true for some, my experience and that of those like me tells that for many women dressing sexily makes them feel good on what they have learned to be the highest grounds upon which a woman might feel good: sexual attention from any man willing to send it their way. And how sad is that."

Muslim Hedonist: "I am not surprised that so many of us converts have seized upon the hijab as a “symbol of our faith.” Wearing hijab is almost the only public expression of our Islam which is generally acceptable to even the most conservative members of our communities. The feeling of community we experience when we are recognized as Muslims, or we see other women in hijab helps to alleviate our sense of marginalisation and isolation within the mosque and Muslim community[. The] hijab is one of the few ways in which we can blend beauty and faith. While I wouldn’t call much of the 100% polyester or viscose or man-made-whatever stuff “beautiful” (with a few exceptions), one can also sometimes find, say, silk Turkish scarves with delicate flowers or geometric designs highlighted in gold (dryclean only!). Or Malaysian hand-painted scarves. Or whimsical, tie-dye silk scarves [...] While I like beautiful scarves, and have accumulated a fair number of them, nonetheless, I find it sad that among us, beauty most often finds expression in efforts to cover women up [...] I suspect that a lot of the endless wrangling about hijab is a way to avoid dealing with far more serious questions. The problem is not so much whether Muslim men can survive the sight of our uncovered hair, but if any of us—female or male—are able to accept women as embodied and spiritually equal beings."