American values, New Hampshire Primaries and Islam
First of all, I'm now out from under a pile of Contracts exams, all of which are now graded, and hopefully the posts will become frequent once again, for the foreseeable future. Sorry about that, I did miss doing this the past two weeks.
Today's post is on a subject much discussed, but nonetheless comes up so frequently that it should be raised I think at every possible opportunity; namely, how America's own image of itself and its ideals tend to distort more sensible understandings of the Muslim world. I offer two examples, one from a self styled Canadian Muslim feminist, and the other from recent discussions respecting the Iranian activities in the Gulf of Hormuz.
Turning to the latter of these first, because it is easier to understand, apparently there was on Monday some sort of altercation that occurred in the Gulf of Hormuz between Iranian gunboats and an American ship that almost fired on one of the boats apparently. Each side has its own account, who cares, but what struck me as interesting was the extent to which popular, American media at least suggested it might have been done to affect the primaries in New Hampshire.
I guess journalists are too busy reporting to do too much thinking, but huh? It takes a remarkably America-centric vision of the world to think that anyone in Iran has any idea what the hell the New Hampshire primary is and what it means. I know and have worked pretty closely with some pretty senior members of Iraq's goverment, and I am sure if I sat down for half an hour, with say the head of the Constitutional Committee, I don't think I could get him to understand the American primary system. And it's not because he's dumb, he's actually quite smart, but think about it. The presidential election, sure. Primaries? Harder. 50 primaries in a weird order where they pick delegates and some small states matter because of a momentum effect, you can't be serious. If I were to say (and I'm making this up) that the way the Chinese premier is selected is first through a system of local party meetings and it's important to win in province x because it is early and then from there you really need to head to province y where there are a lot of Buddhist Communists and those guys have a different vision. Suffice it to say, I think you'd lose me pretty quickly and certainly trying to affect that process would seem rather silly. Yet somehow, out in Iran, they're counting delegates, because we are, and that's what counts. (Just to be sure I was right about this, I checked out the foreign news sources, it's pretty clear that even when they discuss New Hampshire, it's with some degree of mystification. Even BBC Arabic has a foreign correspondent write the piece, most of which is trying to explain why it is that the Americans let some small otherwise insignificant place decide something like this. No reason is ultimately given that makes any more or less sense than anything I've heard).
Now to the feminist, Irshad Manji, who just wrote a very interesting review in the New York Times Book Review of a book that appears quite fascinating, entitled Arguing the Just War in Islam by John Kelsay. I've already ordered it. But in it one thing that Kelsay says (I'm going by the review, not the book itself so please pardon any errors), and that Manji takes issue with, is the notion that in the modern world, Shari'a reasoning is an "open practice", rather than one closed to all but the guilded scholars.
First, my pet peeve is back, as this is entirely wrong respecting Shi'i Islam. But they aren't talking about Shi'i Islam (in which case they should say so, but anyway), and in the Sunni world, it seems largely true to me. Whether it is Hassan Banna the schoolteacher or Maulana Maududi the journalist (Kelsay's examples), you don't have to be accredited to speak with authority in the Muslim world. Manji disagrees, saying that if this open practice idea were true, then Islam would have had its "liberal reformation."
Umm, why? This sounds suspiciously like the Bush doctrine, remove the bloody tyrant shackling his people, give them freedom and all of a sudden everyone from the dude herding goats in Kurdish mountains to the Shi'i seminary student deep into 16th century theological works to the Sunni tribal leader living in his village with three wives and a tribal dispute concerning which nephew gets to marry his daughter will thank you and start up a stock market.
Manji's point, that the Brotherhood did not democratize shari'a reasoning and that they sought a form of thought control of their own, which thus prevented liberals from appearing, is largely beside the point. Yes the brotherhood didn't much believe in liberal forms of shari'a, and yes they sought their own forms of thought control. But they didn't actually take over Egypt. One of the more radical (and enamored of violence) Brotherhood leaders (or maybe leader of an offshoot group is a better way to phrase that), Sayyid Qutb, was executed by the state. Islamist leaders elsewhere met the same fate, whether Iraq's Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr or Pakistan's Abul A'la Maududi, whose death sentence was later commuted and then annulled entirely. The popularity of these figures grew immensely after their deaths, and certainly not because it was encouraged by the state. To use but Iraq as an example, in Saddam's Iraq the mere possession of a photograph of Baqir al Sadr in one's wallet was enough to lead to death for more than two decades. Then the statue fell, and his visage is everywhere. (Sadr is a complex and brilliant figure with some excellent ideas on jurisprudence, so I hate lumping him in with some of these other folk, but for these purposes, I guess it works. Read here for a better recitation of my ideas on him.)
So in asking why that is, and why comparative liberal scholars who were also executed, like Mahmoud Taha of the Sudan, remain so relatively marginal, it isn't enough to suggest that the poor liberals are oppressed and it's not very democratic, because the Islamists largely meet the same fate and have no better access as a result to power, and it doesn't much hurt their message. Manji is in America, Khomeini was in France, why did he get to lead a revolution where his message was banned and she find herself ignored in a post internet age where almost everyone has access to her ideas?
The mistake seems to me to be in assuming that American ideals are somehow global ones, that everyone wants the same sort of political and social order and that in the end, if the liberals could just get their voices heard in the Muslim world, reformation would occur. That there is a Muslim world teeming with rage at the West for whom any reading of shari'a that would allow it to comport with Western liberal values would be rejected as entirely antithetical to "true" Islam, that shari'a is understood by large parts of this very angry world to be the vehicle of protest and resistance to the hegemonizing, colonizing, imperialistic, hubristic West (real or perceived, it doesn't matter) and that as such shari'a is supposed to be salvation and deliverance from what Manji seeks rather than an embrace of it, all of this Manji seems fundamentally unaware of. As a Muslim in America, I share her values, and wish she were right, but don't begin to see evidence of it among all too many of our co-religionists.
This is not to suggest that the entire Muslim world is in permanent clash with the West, as Huntington would have it, but when they do seek such a clash, or do seek some form of resistance to Western values, THAT's when you start to hear about shari'a. When Western values are accepted (say, in the reality of the modern nation state, or abolition of slavery), shari'a starts to become rather marginal to the popular considerations. Academics seem to be able to find shari'a everywhere, but that's another matter.
And we're back . .. . .
Today's post is on a subject much discussed, but nonetheless comes up so frequently that it should be raised I think at every possible opportunity; namely, how America's own image of itself and its ideals tend to distort more sensible understandings of the Muslim world. I offer two examples, one from a self styled Canadian Muslim feminist, and the other from recent discussions respecting the Iranian activities in the Gulf of Hormuz.
Turning to the latter of these first, because it is easier to understand, apparently there was on Monday some sort of altercation that occurred in the Gulf of Hormuz between Iranian gunboats and an American ship that almost fired on one of the boats apparently. Each side has its own account, who cares, but what struck me as interesting was the extent to which popular, American media at least suggested it might have been done to affect the primaries in New Hampshire.
I guess journalists are too busy reporting to do too much thinking, but huh? It takes a remarkably America-centric vision of the world to think that anyone in Iran has any idea what the hell the New Hampshire primary is and what it means. I know and have worked pretty closely with some pretty senior members of Iraq's goverment, and I am sure if I sat down for half an hour, with say the head of the Constitutional Committee, I don't think I could get him to understand the American primary system. And it's not because he's dumb, he's actually quite smart, but think about it. The presidential election, sure. Primaries? Harder. 50 primaries in a weird order where they pick delegates and some small states matter because of a momentum effect, you can't be serious. If I were to say (and I'm making this up) that the way the Chinese premier is selected is first through a system of local party meetings and it's important to win in province x because it is early and then from there you really need to head to province y where there are a lot of Buddhist Communists and those guys have a different vision. Suffice it to say, I think you'd lose me pretty quickly and certainly trying to affect that process would seem rather silly. Yet somehow, out in Iran, they're counting delegates, because we are, and that's what counts. (Just to be sure I was right about this, I checked out the foreign news sources, it's pretty clear that even when they discuss New Hampshire, it's with some degree of mystification. Even BBC Arabic has a foreign correspondent write the piece, most of which is trying to explain why it is that the Americans let some small otherwise insignificant place decide something like this. No reason is ultimately given that makes any more or less sense than anything I've heard).
Now to the feminist, Irshad Manji, who just wrote a very interesting review in the New York Times Book Review of a book that appears quite fascinating, entitled Arguing the Just War in Islam by John Kelsay. I've already ordered it. But in it one thing that Kelsay says (I'm going by the review, not the book itself so please pardon any errors), and that Manji takes issue with, is the notion that in the modern world, Shari'a reasoning is an "open practice", rather than one closed to all but the guilded scholars.
First, my pet peeve is back, as this is entirely wrong respecting Shi'i Islam. But they aren't talking about Shi'i Islam (in which case they should say so, but anyway), and in the Sunni world, it seems largely true to me. Whether it is Hassan Banna the schoolteacher or Maulana Maududi the journalist (Kelsay's examples), you don't have to be accredited to speak with authority in the Muslim world. Manji disagrees, saying that if this open practice idea were true, then Islam would have had its "liberal reformation."
Umm, why? This sounds suspiciously like the Bush doctrine, remove the bloody tyrant shackling his people, give them freedom and all of a sudden everyone from the dude herding goats in Kurdish mountains to the Shi'i seminary student deep into 16th century theological works to the Sunni tribal leader living in his village with three wives and a tribal dispute concerning which nephew gets to marry his daughter will thank you and start up a stock market.
Manji's point, that the Brotherhood did not democratize shari'a reasoning and that they sought a form of thought control of their own, which thus prevented liberals from appearing, is largely beside the point. Yes the brotherhood didn't much believe in liberal forms of shari'a, and yes they sought their own forms of thought control. But they didn't actually take over Egypt. One of the more radical (and enamored of violence) Brotherhood leaders (or maybe leader of an offshoot group is a better way to phrase that), Sayyid Qutb, was executed by the state. Islamist leaders elsewhere met the same fate, whether Iraq's Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr or Pakistan's Abul A'la Maududi, whose death sentence was later commuted and then annulled entirely. The popularity of these figures grew immensely after their deaths, and certainly not because it was encouraged by the state. To use but Iraq as an example, in Saddam's Iraq the mere possession of a photograph of Baqir al Sadr in one's wallet was enough to lead to death for more than two decades. Then the statue fell, and his visage is everywhere. (Sadr is a complex and brilliant figure with some excellent ideas on jurisprudence, so I hate lumping him in with some of these other folk, but for these purposes, I guess it works. Read here for a better recitation of my ideas on him.)
So in asking why that is, and why comparative liberal scholars who were also executed, like Mahmoud Taha of the Sudan, remain so relatively marginal, it isn't enough to suggest that the poor liberals are oppressed and it's not very democratic, because the Islamists largely meet the same fate and have no better access as a result to power, and it doesn't much hurt their message. Manji is in America, Khomeini was in France, why did he get to lead a revolution where his message was banned and she find herself ignored in a post internet age where almost everyone has access to her ideas?
The mistake seems to me to be in assuming that American ideals are somehow global ones, that everyone wants the same sort of political and social order and that in the end, if the liberals could just get their voices heard in the Muslim world, reformation would occur. That there is a Muslim world teeming with rage at the West for whom any reading of shari'a that would allow it to comport with Western liberal values would be rejected as entirely antithetical to "true" Islam, that shari'a is understood by large parts of this very angry world to be the vehicle of protest and resistance to the hegemonizing, colonizing, imperialistic, hubristic West (real or perceived, it doesn't matter) and that as such shari'a is supposed to be salvation and deliverance from what Manji seeks rather than an embrace of it, all of this Manji seems fundamentally unaware of. As a Muslim in America, I share her values, and wish she were right, but don't begin to see evidence of it among all too many of our co-religionists.
This is not to suggest that the entire Muslim world is in permanent clash with the West, as Huntington would have it, but when they do seek such a clash, or do seek some form of resistance to Western values, THAT's when you start to hear about shari'a. When Western values are accepted (say, in the reality of the modern nation state, or abolition of slavery), shari'a starts to become rather marginal to the popular considerations. Academics seem to be able to find shari'a everywhere, but that's another matter.
And we're back . .. . .
Hmm, ok. First, welcome back, I missed the regular posts over the holiday break, so grats on finishing your grading!
Now, on to the meat of the discussion. I appreciate the breakdown of the perceived imbalance of opinion about how Shari'a law is closed off to liberal scholars. I certainly agree with your point that just because a certain segment of a population feels that X or Y should happen, doesn't mean that the rest of the same population agrees that it should. We could go into endless examples of this even among American political parties, but that's neither here nor there. Suffice it to say that your critique of Manji's view rings true with me.
That said, as a self-proclaimed liberal (or is modern a better descriptor?) Muslim, what is your response then to the curent status of Shari'a law. If the law cannot be used as a vehicle for societal (and in this case religious) change, then isn't it by definition a restraint upon a society?
I'm not arguing that a more open Shari'a would result in a liberal or even slightly democratized Islam, as I think that you are right in pointing out that even with complete freedom, a Western perspective isn't likely to be the first choice of non-Western peoples. But while Manji might be interjecting a little more persecution of her views into the equation than is warranted, isn't there a truth to viewing Shari'a as a closed system if it doesn't allow for change without the threat of violent punishment?
Yes, Sayyid Qutb, Baqir al-Sadr, and Abul A'la Maudu may have imfluenced change (regardless of what the change was) but they paid for change with threat of or actual death, sanctioned by the state in some cases. Can any system that responds to advocacy for change in this manner be termed an open system?
Granted, I understand that this reaction is probably not the first reaction of the large majority of practicing Muslims. But it worries me that we see it used by states which hold themselves to be Islamic (or even Egypt, with Shari'a law as part of the judicial structure). Is this simply politicians using Islam as a means of control over possible "subversive" elements, or is this a symptom of Shari'a law itself in allowing violent response to calls for change?
Then again, maybe I still don't have a deep enough understanding of the interplay between Shari'a Law, politics, and religious leaders and I'm missing some obvious truth about how these relationships work. If so, please do enlighten!
As always, keep up the great writing. It's the best education of Islamic legal issues I've ever had!
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Thanks Wes.
Let's see, I think I should break all of this down. Good points by the way.
In terms of whether or not shari'a interpretation is an "open" or "closed" practice in Sunni Islam, I suppose there are two issues. The one that Kelsay seems to focus on from the review (just received the book, will open it tonight) is that you don't actually have to be some sort of guilded scholar in order to be considered competent to interpret. I think that's right, the process is far more open than that now in Sunnism, authorities seem to spring up from all over the place, and training is not as much an issue. That's not necessarily an unadulterated great thing by the way, as what is open to Khaled Abou El Fadl is also open to Osama Bin Laden, but no point going there for now. The point is, the fact that a journalist or a high school teacher can now make authoritative interpretations is an ambiguous advantage at best, I might argue something considerably worse though.
But in any event, if we adopt this as the paradigm and the standard of what is and is not open, then I don't accept what appears to be Manji's claim, that shari'a interpretation is not open to women or gays, and if it were, then the liberal reformation would have taken place. Why isn't it so open? If the issue is "those interpretations developed by school teachers adopt thought control", then I fail to see the relevance when those movements failed to take over the states in which they arose, in large part and never got to exercise that thought control, being subjected to secular thought control instead. If the issue is "if a woman comes up with a novel interpretation, it's a death sentence", well there are a lot of things people get killed for in our part of the world in shar'a interpretation, yet the interpretations gain authoritative credibility even when their authors get killed. If the issue is "everyone ignores them when they interpret", well sure that's true, and we Muslim liberals can and do hate that, but that doesn't mean the playing field isn't open, it just means we get our butts handed to us every time we get out there. I hate watching Ohio State lose every national championship game year after year, it doesn't mean the SEC is cheating. Anyway, I don't see the systematic marginalization of women's views to have something to do with the lack of an open practice because some higher poobah has decided women can't interpret, so much as a deep bias among modern Muslims in large parts of the Muslim world that the shari'a is enormously restrictive of what women may do, and a determination by large numbers of Islam's adherents (not all, of course) not to change that.
Now I understand you to be saying that even if this is the case, the practice isn't open if state repression is present. Maybe it's not open to conservatives or liberals, maybe Manji's feeling that it's skewed against her is wrong, maybe you don't need 50 years of study anymore, but the standard of openness must be one where pretty much everyone can say anything they want, and the state leaves it alone, and that isn't present. Well there I completely agree with you, and would further state that unlike the other definition of open practice (where authority depends on scholarship credentials), the one you argue for would be an unadulterated good. I'd love to see it. That said, I think it exceedingly unlikely, absent some sort of commitment to that formof liberalism in Muslim societies. And some do seem to have it, but large numbers don't.
HAH
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