Searching for Answers

I really liked this piece for its straight forward style. You pose the best sort of questions, the kind that can never be answered. Without the infalibility of text, Islam is a paper tiger. The debate and issues of what constitutes `proper` versus `execissive` assimilation will get played out, but never resolved in the world at large. All of us trying to take what is good from each culture and produce something we hope resembles but never actually producing our inherited and learned ideals.

Farouq,

This was brilliant. You managed to capture the spirit and question of the times. Your queries transcend the isles, the punjabi`s or the working class. Every Pakistani parent, to a greater or lesser degree has to deal with this.

I sometimes wonder whether we, the generation in transition, have not made their jobs harder. No one reaches such a venerable age without becoming inured to the occasional failure. I see far too many instances of hypocrisy amongst our own generation. This prolonged ``death of a thousand cuts`` is perhaps more traumatic than simply saying to them ``this is who I am, this is how I live, and I am in accord with my own conscience``.

Women date on the sly, men have countless sexual liaisons and demand virgin brides and vestal sisters. We owe our parents the courtesy of telling them the truth and the respect to believe they will have the strength to handle it.

I take issue with one aspect of your piece however. You pointed out that while the occident races ahead, we bury ourselves in angst about our sexual inequity. No doubt a significant problem, but, IMHO less of one than the broader intolerance we display to ideas which do not conform to our cherished, albeit hidebound beliefs.

Our weakness lies in a cultural constraint well discussed on Chowk. We believe implicitly in the infallibility of text. As such our notions have been those of interpretation rather than critical inquiry. We constrain knowledge, circumscribe social freedom and liberty of debate, and finally we venerate the ``elders`` whose values, beliefs, traditions and ignorance got us into this mess because they are ``mum and dad``.

The discussions on Chowk themselves are a case study in the composition of our psyches. We confidently nitpick the failings of the West as you so astutely pointed out. Smugly confident of our morality we argue the cause of feminism, ecological friendliness, ....maintaining our culture (that last is guaranteed to get me frothing at the mouth) little realising that the average villager in the average village would cheerfully throw all of this over for the healthy food, medical attention and opportunities for children that the west provides. We presume to stand in judgement over them, patronising and secretly contemptuous. We have constantly and perpetually blamed ``our leaders`` for our problems. Have you heard anything so ridiculous in a democracy? We apathetically refuse to do anything about it, but heck its got to be their fault. We are all OK.

So, yes, religion is truly the opiate of the masses, one which becomes particularly useful when the pain of everyday existence requires a sedative. And there, but for the grace of god go you and I. (pun intended)

Tahnoon.

Re: Anita Zaidi

(“...[religion] is very important to most people, no matter how educated or enlightened they are. Turkey serves as a great example... have to FORCE their people to remain secular...”)

Unfortunately, you are very right that no matter what we do, the masses need some form of “opium” (be it inside a sports arena, on television, or in the temple) to take the edge off their daily reality of mundane lives. People who have evolved beyond a certain point don’t NEED that but the masses do. So the best thing to do is to let society have an attenuated strain of religion instead of a virulent one. This is why it is important for modern Muslims to spearhead reform from within. Remember Gorbachov? :)

Re: maTha

(“...authenticity based on arithmetic: Sura 74: Ayat 30 Over it are Nineteen...”)

I love it. Never read this anywhere before, but its brilliant. This means they knew about the concept of “checksums” and compression algorythms.

BTW, it was not Hazrat Usman, but his cousin Mirwan who headed the commission which complied the Quran. Poor Usman was too old and hard of hearing by that time and he also had cataract. Mirwan, whom the Shiia despise, was his cousin’s executive secretary and thus the de facto caliph. I remember reading somewhere the Alviites alleged that there were originally 40 siparahs (not 30) of the Quran but 10 of then were eaten by a goat. It was Mirwan’s goat. Thus the portions which were fed to the goat are the ones that would have clarified all the disputes. There is hope yet, because the original manuscript is ostensibly preserved in the Heavens.

(“...Does this process fortify our convictions, which we lack the confidence... we start ``reengineering`` Islam...etc. etc...”)

We’ve touch upon all this before elsewhere, but I’ll try another slant (although as one pan-dimensional hedonist to another :) I will agree that: ``... is say farQ to paRta naheeN``)

Religion is a force to be reckoned with. It cannot be suppressed, the masses will demand it. A theologian once said that “if God did not exist, people would have invented him”. He was simply stating that there is need amongst people to have (imaginary) allies in the sky.

Now WHY, you ask, do we HAVE to call ourselves Muslims when (according to you) we are butchering the orthodox concept and bending over backward to try and “reinterpret” Islam and in the process forcing a square peg in a round hole?

In this I agree with Ibne Sina and summarize what he states in a one phrase answer: Cultural Identity.

We cannot deny our heritage, and one significant component of our heritage is our ancestral religion.

Suppose I was the son of a rapist or a murderer. No matter how much I disliked that and disagreed with my parent, I would still remain that person’s son. I would have to make my peace with that reality. Such is my argument with all aspects of our heritage. We are Punjabis (or Pathan, or, Sindhi etc.), we are Muslims (or Hindu, or Sikh etc.), we are Lahoris (or Karachiites, or Jhelumis, or Luknowies etc.), we are Shehris (or Pendus, or Tehsilwalls, etc.) and no matter what we say or do we are and will always be identified as such. We might as well make our peace with it and learn to embrace our heritage. We take what is good from it and we reject what is not.

You seem to take a very purist approach in this matter. Either swallow it hook, line and sinker, or don’t bite. My God, THAT is a very rigid stance. Soften up!

Re: Israr Khan

(“...expatriate muslims...faced a culture which was alien ...the challenge was met by the sufi... they created an indian islam. we need the people ...who could create a british islam...think about it....”)

Excellent point. Populist Islam in India saved the day back then. Today in the UK it is already in its infancy. The Bhangrah music and Nusrat Fathey Ali Khan are the first steps in the right direction.

Here we can learn from the modern Christians’ model. The Christian church survives and thrives today because it no longer speaks of burning people alive for heresy. In fact if you talk to a contemporary Christian she will give you a version which would have completely appalled Boniface VII or Innocent III, or even John Calvin. Today they only talk about love, love, love, and play music and dwell upon forgiveness and mercy etc.

Hell, we need to do the same. The single most often repeated phrase in the Quran is “Rehman ur Rahim”. Lets build upon THAT theme and bring Peter Gabriel in on the deal also, and, Allah key kasam, before you know it the Gorays will be converting by the thousands. Then we can all rightly rejoice the triumph and recite surah An-Nasr.

...SR

PS: Thanx for the info about Kureshi`s book. (MQ of WVa: I have your incorrect e-mail address!)

Taj Sahib:
Excellent, excellent article! However, if I may remind you that Punjabi is not the only language of ``Pakistanis`` in UK. Maybe your upbringing in a Punjabi household had to do with this impression. There are many Pakistanis in UK who don`t understand a word of Punjabi. But they are still Pakistanis.

The dilemmas - moral, cultural and philosophical - faced by Pakistanis abroad are presented well in your article.

You say you have no answers but plenty of questions. Having many answers and few questions is the mark of a zealot.

Regards
mni

Re: MaTha

``I still don`t understand how trying really, really hard to stay a Muslim,
or feel legitimized to be called one, is such
an important aspiration for otherwise seemingly
logical individuals?``

Great question, MaTha! All I can say is - belief and faith in something larger than themselves is very important to most people, no matter how educated or enlightened they are. Turkey serves as a great example - they have tried for over 70 years to get rid of Islam from the minds of their populace - to no avail. They still have to FORCE their people to remain secular. The other obvious examples are Iran and Algeria - both well on the secular road before Islamic revivalism set in. Its the people`s will.

AZ

Re: maTha

I really admire the way you can wrap wisdom in sarcasm -it is a wonderful gift!

You are absolutely correct, if we are convinced of right and wrong, what is the need to drag religion into it? Why does one need to push and pull at every corner of one`s being so that one can fit into an Islamic (or any other religion`s) framework?

My question: How does one decide what is right and what is wrong though? Through taking all that is common in all religions? Through forming one`s own moral code? Through following someone else`s? ...

I think I would go with option 2 -Morality defined as individual and collective modes of conduct aims to achieve a balance between the individual and the collective. Therefore, ``right`` and ``wrong`` should be transparent to an astute human being without the need for any ``Divine`` intervention whatsoever. Are we astute enough to do so? I think so.

Re: Sohail

Excellent point, Sohail. If the Chinese can have a stock exchange, and the Jews can eat pork, why can`t we liberate ourselves from ancient superstitions? We can, and we should.

I see myself connected to Islam in two distinct ways: First, there is the doctrinal aspect, and second there is the cultural aspect.

For all practical purposes, I do not give a hoot about what the doctrinal aspects are. Today, for my daily life I do not care whether there were prophets, whether there is a god, whether there are angels or whether I will get hoors to spend eternity with if I am good (well, I do care about that a little :)). The doctrinal aspect of Islam is an academic question, today it is 1400 years distant to us. Come to think of it, it is impossible for me to imagine the circumstances under which Islam arose, or the circumstances to which the specific injunctions of Islam were applied. Those guys were in a different part of the world, at a different time, in a different culture, spoke a different language, knew different things, cared about different things, ... To bicker about what Islam really is, I think is irrelevant. It is impossible for us to decipher it completely today.

But there is the other connection: The cultural connection. I value Islam because the people I value, care about it. I celebrate eid with them, talk about the same things, seem to share the same thought processes with them. My strongest bind is that I want to follow the way followed by my ancestors. One could call it a weak link (as Quran is so fond of doing) or a strong link (as evidenced by people`s attachment to their cultures). If I understand that this cultural attachment is something that is somehow part of my nature, like the attachment of a parent towards his/her children, or vice versa, then I am in a better position to understand my Islamic attitudes.

It is not rationality and understanding on my part which makes it crystal clear to see the beauty of Islam, but rather it is the other way around. It is my desire to stick to my Islamic traditions and to maintain a link with my forefathers that makes me rationalize and find ways of justifying Islam.
The rationalizations can be complicated or simple, but they are after all mere rationalizations!

I think the doctrinal aspects of Islam make no sense whatsoever in the modern world. It all reads like a fairy tale. How often have we encountered the supernatural that Quranic characters seem to do on every other page? And what is there that justifies the veracity of the Quran? Meta-circular arguments? (The Quran is true because it says so in the Quran). Or perhaps, is it the repeated carrot and stick treatment of jannat and jahanam?

It seems to me that there is no confusion amongst the Muslims, they are sincerely trying to make sense of a confused religion, and therefore end up being confused.

Why can`t we recognize that Islam is a philosophy that worked for a while, but is sterile today. Its time is past, and anyone who clings to the past cannot embrace the future. Islamic ideologies need heavy editing and re-sculpting in order to make them relevant to the problems of today.

As mentioned by Ibn-e-Sina, the compilation of the
Quran (and this is what has survived 1400 years
without a single change, although I`m sure Plato and Aristotle have produced literature
which boasts a similar fate after a much longer
period of time) was done many years after the
Prophet`s death, in the caliphate of Uthman. There
is no way to get an idea of what the Prophet himself would say about the authenticity of this
surviving compilation (all others were eliminated), unless either a record of some sort is archeologically excavated to shine some light on the situation or we can harness the energy of
jinns (they are made of fire, and of course we`ll start with Iblees) to create a temporal wormhole.
Ahmad Deedat took the following verse and provided an explanation for Quran`s authenticity
based on arithmetic:

Sura 74: Ayat 30
Over it are Nineteen.

Most commentators claim that this is a reference to nineteen faculties of man, but Deedat claims that actually this is the magic number safeguarding the Quran from infiltration. Since nineteen is a fairly high prime number it has been
deployed by Allah to keep the Quran from being
successfully tampered with my mere mortals. Each
Sura (there are 114) have the number of Alif`s
and NuN`s occuring in the Sura such that they are divisible by 19. So even a tiny change
somewhere needs a cascade of changes to keep a
balance, and such a cascade would certainly be
recognized.

Calculating the veracity of these claims (and others made by Deedat) are left as an exercise for the reader. But if these claims are true then
Uthman did something quite remarkable!

Following are some of the verses which talk about
the authenticity of the Quran.

All translations are by Abdullah Yusuf Ali.
Sura 69: Ayat 51
But verily it is Truth of assured certainty.

Sura 4: Ayat 82
Do they not consider the Quran (with care)? Had it been from other than Allah they would have surely
have found therein much discrepancy.

Sura 11: Ayats 13-14
Or they may say ``He forged it`` Say ``Bring ye then ten Surahs forged like unto it and call (to your aid) whomsoever ye can other than Allah! if ye speak the truth!
``If then they (your false gods) answer not your (call) know ye that this Revelation is sent down (replete) with the knowledge of Allah and that there is no god but He! Will ye even then submit (to Islam)?``

Sura 11: Ayat 17
Can they be (like) those who accept a Clear (Sign) from their Lord and whom a witness from Himself doth teach as did the Book of Moses before it a guide and a mercy? They believe therein; but those of the Sects that reject it the Fire will be their promised meeting place. Be not then in doubt thereon: for it is the Truth from thy Lord: yet many among men do not believe!

Sura 10: 37-39
This Qur`an is not such as can be produced by other than Allah; on the contrary it is a confirmation of (revelations) that went before it and a fuller explanation of the Book wherein there is no doubt from the Lord of the Worlds.

Or do they say ``He forged it``? Say: ``Bring then a Surah like unto it and call (to your aid) anyone you can besides Allah if it be ye speak the truth!``

Nay they charge with falsehood that whose knowledge they cannot compass even before the elucidation thereof hath reached them: thus did those before them make charges of falsehood: but see what was the end of those who did wrong!

Sura 32: Ayat 2-3
(This is) the revelation of the Book in which there is no doubt, from the Lord of the Worlds.

Or do they say ``He has forged it``? Nay it is the Truth from the Lord that thou mayest admonish a people to whom no warner has come before thee: in order that they may receive guidance.

Sura 29: Ayat 48-49
And thou wast not (able) to recite a Book before this (Book came) nor art thou (able) to transcribe it with thy right hand: in that case indeed would the talkers of vanities have doubted.

Nay here are Signs self-evident in the hearts of those endowed with knowledge: and none but the unjust reject Our Signs.
__________
Most of these verses talk
about asking non-believers to prove that Quran is not Divine by writing one for themselves. Of course, a lot of people do that nowadays, and are
quite successful in leading decent, fulfilling
lives. No matter! Burn in Hell they will, since
lumber is not readily available anymore anyway.
It sure is a Catch-22. How do you judge the verity
of something which claims to be true? I am sure the giants of logic at Chowk will present other
similar paradoxes for the readership`s amusement.

I have debated about this point before and made many ``friends.`` I still don`t understand how trying really, really hard to stay a Muslim,
or feel legitimized to be called one, is such
an important aspiration for otherwise seemingly
logical individuals? If we already know what is
right and wrong then what need is there to drag
religion into it? Does this process fortify our convictions, which we lack the confidence to stand
behind otherwise? Once we start ``reengineering``
Islam, are we being ``unjust`` according to Allah?

At the end of the day, in the words of a pan-dimensional hedonist:
``halaNkeh is say farQ to paRta naheeN``

``My Son the Fanatic,`` by the way, was published in the New Yorker, and is included in Kureishi`s relatively new collection of stories, ``Love in a Blue Time,`` which, inexplicably, has not been reviewed on Chowk. Last I heard, the BBC was going to make a serial on the story.

sallaams
an excellent article indeed, enjoyed it...
what is ``real islam`` anywayz? who defines it?
the ``maulanas``? who rail against anything different?
Ultimately it will be regular joe muslim, who i
think it going to give a definition...however,
the spirituality that islam has is not going
away anywhere anytime soon...there is an attraction
to islam that people find in the west find
very appealing...
http://www.wco.com/

Re: Kureshi`s ``My Son the Fanatic``

This is by the author Hanif Kureshi who also wrote ``My Beautiful Laundrette``, ``Sami and Rosie Got Laid``, ``Buddha of Suburbia``. Many of his works are quite good (some are bad). They usually involve the ``first generation`` of Pakistanis in Britain. He himself had an English mother and Pakistani father.

Re: Re-analysis of Islam

Excellent idea. Why is pork banned anyways? Cause it`s a ``dirty`` animal? What kind of reasoning is that? Have you seen how cattle our raised in Pakistan. Tauba Tauba!

Re: Raaj

(“...if anyone has read Kureishi`s ``My Son the Fanatic.`` Interesting phenomenon of disenfranchised Pakistani children born in England embracing Islam with a radical zeal...”)

My ignorance hinders my understanding of this reference. Please tell me which Kureishi is this? What is his/her full name and where is the book available. It sure seems interesting. I’d like to look into it because my nephews in UK are subject to heavy doses from the “mosque committee” and I take it upon myself to redress the balance.

Raaj:
(“...things which bothered me...that Prophet married a very young girl. I have heard different things ... I read that she was eleven, and recently someone wrote she was six years old. I simply refuse to believe all this...”)

You incredulity is very understandable. However, you cannot judge actions of people from centuries ago by the same standards as you would judge them today. However, having said this I will add that the Prophet’s character must not be looked at in simplistic black-and-white terms of All-Good vs. All-Evil. He was a very complex man and you have to see his life in its entirety. At different stages of his life he went through a very wide range of circumstances and all those things had to have had an effect on his psyche.

Of all historical sources the one which is considered most authoritative is the comprehensive account by Ibn Ishaq (Sirat-e-Rasul Allah). Ibn Ishaq is the earliest written source which has survived. (Even Ibn Khuldoun constantly quotes him as the “source”.) According to him Aisha (the daughter of Abu Bakr Siddique) was nine when the marriage was decided, while the Prophet was still in Mecca, but the wedding occurred four years later in Medina (soon after Hijrat). This puts her age at past13, almost 14. By today’s standards it is statutory rape but that would be an unfair point of view. If all of us ask our grandmothers, chances are, many of them will have been married off at 16 or so. That was only in this century. When you think of 14 hundred years ago, then the charge of paediophilia does not hold water.

Prophet Mohammed and Changez Khan are the only two people in history that I know of who started as destitute orphans and progressed up to become founders of great empires within their lifetimes. This takes ambition, strength and character. It also requires political astuteness and expedience, imagination and creativity, resourcefulness and yes, at times, even violence and cruelty. These things do not take away from his Greatness.

He assumed privileges which others were not allowed, and his geneous is that his followers, accepted those things.

If we demystify the man and see him for who he was (and not what the “sales brochures” say he was), we can understand why he did what he did and there is no moral conflict. You or I would never have measured up to even a fraction of the challenge he faced.

...SR

Farouq:

Thanks for sharing your personal experiences and observations. I think you bring some very pertinent concerns to the fore. Thanks for stimulating a much needed debate.

I second the call for examining every aspect of Islam. However, at the risk of going off on a tangent, I have another question, one that Ibne Sina does allude to:

Is Pakistani identity and culture inherently an islamic one, partition history notwithstanding? I find that whenever one questions the statusquo, or suggests reformation of Pakistani society (or communities overseas), one invariably talks about reinterpretation of Islam - which, as I have already said, I am all for. I am curious to know whether non-muslims of Pakistani origin living overseas feel maladjusted or ``coerced`` to conform to a Pakistani culture that people couch in Islamic ``traditions``.

Farouq:

Thanks for sharing your personal experiences and observations. I think you bring some very pertinent concerns to the fore. Thanks for stimulating a much needed debate.

I second the call for examining every aspect of Islam. However, at the risk of going off on a tangent, I have another question, one that Ibne Sina does allude to:

Is Pakistani identity and culture inherently an islamic one, partition history notwithstanding? I find that whenever one questions the statusquo, or suggests reformation of Pakistani society (or communities overseas), one invariably talks about reinterpretation of Islam - which, as I have already said, I am all for. I am curious to know whether non-muslims of Pakistani origin living overseas feel maladjusted or ``coerced`` to conform to a Pakistani culture that people couch in Islamic ``traditions``.

Re: Farouq Taj

My absolute, unreserved admiration and salutations to you for your, honest, lucid and enlightened views. With people like you and some of the respondents here, there may yet be hope for the Muslim world.

We do need to re-examine EVERYTHING in the light of the truth. No matter where the search for truth takes us, we must go boldly.

There are many, many nuggets of wisdom in this article and the responses I’ve read (particularly, Ibne Sina’s), this should be a long and very fruitful discussion on a very important subject. Thank you very, very much, indeed.

If the Chinese communists can have a Stock Exchange in Hong Kong and Shanghai and still call themselves Marxists, why can’t we reject the ancient superstitions, liberate our thinking and yet proudly claim to be Muslims? The secular minded Jews and Christians have done it, so can we. Let us begin the process of Reformation, there are provisions under the system of “ijtihad”. We need to undo the damage done (inadvertently) by Imam Ghazali which led to the stasis and sclerosis of Islamic philosophical thought.

...SR

A very interesting discussion. I am glad there is a forum that such frank discussion can take place without being labeled ``kafir``. I must say that many of the questions being asked in this discussion did not bothered me so much (may be because I was a regular reader of Tulo-e-Islam`` magazine when I was growing up in spite of most of my cousins calling the Editor of the magazine a Kafir or some such derogative names. But I liked the Islam it presented). Thanks to that magazine I stopped paying attention to Ahadees. Later when I came across with some Ahadees which really made me believe that Islam has nothing to do with these so-called Ahadees, if you really want to believe that it is a true religion.

There are a number of things which bothered me for example the saying that Prophet married a very young girl. I have heard different things Most of my young life I was told he married a nine year old girl, later somewhere I read that she was eleven, and recently someone wrote she was six years old. I simply refuse to believe all this because that man of the character that he was I cannot believe he would do a thing like that. My theory is that some dirty old men who wanted to justify there own such criminal deeds always invented such stories. I am sure Aisha must be young but not eleven, nine or six years old. It is simply cannot be true.

There are some questions because it does not effect everyday life I don`t want to go after them. Like Ajuj and Majuj etc. God knows what he meant by that story. But there are a whole lot of things which prove that Quran is a book like no other book. So I believe it must be from God. That is good enough for me because it teaches you to be good and humane.

But I have no problem with people discussing whatever is on their mind about their religion.
That is the only way was one can learn and become a better person.

Regarding your description of Pakistanis who believe religious fervor is the answer, I wonder if anyone has read Kureishi`s ``My Son the Fanatic.`` Interesting phenomenon of disenfranchised Pakistani children born in England embracing Islam with a radical zeal. Kureishi`s Black Album deals somewhat with the same theme. It might not provide the ansers you`re searching for, but maybe it`ll get you some questions.