The Manrilla Blog | Life. Art. Religion. Culture.

Today was an odd turn of events that had the building which houses my office on UPenn’s campus, play host to a talk on Islam by one of today’s most darling Muslim pundits, Irshad Manji. A self-proclaimed Muslim reformist, activist, human rights lobbiest and lesbian, Irshad gave a talk to an attentive audience which was comprised of both Muslim and non-Muslim, old and young alike. Dr. Leonard Swidler, from Temple University, was also on hand to add to the discussion. But, unfortunately, like her book, The Trouble With Islam Today, the talk was filled with nothing more than drivel. And that’s just the good part.

So much of the dialog today regarding Islam is in how it can fit into the master narrative of Western discourse. This encompasses everything from morals, ethics, to aesthetics, such as standards and concepts of beauty. When Islam fails to authenticate a narrative that falls within the margins of the dominant culture, it and vis-a-vie, the Muslims, are condemned as being backwards, barbaric, and even morally, ethically, and intellectually bankrupt. And when a people are deemed barbaric or morally bankrupt, the slippery slope to subjugation, whether it be figuratively, psychologically or physically can never trail far behind. This process of brutalization bears striking resemblance to the types of psychological terror that have been visited upon various minority groups in the West, especially in America, when they failed to meet the criterion of a dominant force that often have a pattern of “moving the goal post” when it suited itself opportune.

A major portion of my critique on Manji’s arguments and positions as well as comments that Dr. Swidler gave, were that neither Manji nor Swidler are scholastically equipped to answer any such questions regarding the intellectual tradition of Islam. Manji is a journalist of questionable objectivity and Swidler’s expertise lies outside the fold of Islam. Manji often relies on crude reductionism coupled with a woefully absent basic familiarity with the Islamic Tradition. Buzz words like ijtihad, fatwah and of course, the crowd pleaser, jihad, are tossed out to lend to her some Islamic academic credibility. In fact, Swidler’s presence is somewhat questionable as Temple University could have certainly offered up someone who would have been far better suited to the task at hand. In light of access to scholars like Khaled Blankinship, it remained a curiosity as to why Manji chose a non-Muslim religious professor to engage in talks about Muslim reform.

But to take things a step further, Manji’s book, The Trouble With Islam Today, is guilty of the same crime that many of its contemporaries are: making the personal experience an ontological narrative. To help further explain my point, let me offer this explanation: because of the trials and tribulations that Manji faced as a child, because of the personal experiences that Manji had and the choices she’s made, she has taken the sum of those experiences and built the foundation of her argument around them such that they take on a scope that is completely inappropriate. That because they were or are issues for Manji they must be equally important issues for all Muslims in all times and in all places. A great deal of Manji’s contemporaries, such as Ayan Hirsi Ali to name one, frame their arguments in the same manner. But to reiterate, these criticisms of Islam do not simply stop at personal narrative, they apex again at how Islam falls short on a laundry list of items such as equality, human rights, tolerance and progression. In where Islam fails to be equal, tolerant or progressive in the “Western” paradigm that Manji offers up, Islam is deemed to have a problem. So this left me asking some simply but pertinent issues. Are any of these issues true? And if so, how, and in what way? And again, if so, what would be the best way of looking for resolutions. Read more this entry »

The following is an article about the Sudanese bassist and composer, Ahmed Abdul-Malik, that was originally published in Down Beat Magazine, July 4th, 1963. The article was written by Bill Coss. Beyond an excellent insight into the workings of a master musician, Abdul-Malik ties the thread between knowing the Creator and knowing one’s world. Given Modernity’s fractured vision on the relation of things, Abdul-Malik’s words are erudite and moving. He was also a stellar musician of world-class calibre. Hat tip to Doug Benson for the resource. May Allah have mercy on his soul.

In some degree, all music is about something. But what it is about, its contents, differs widely and generally determines its essential worth.

For composer Ahmed Abdul-Malik the content encompasses all the sciences. particularly the sociological, ethnic, and theological. The easiest thing to say would be that Abdul-Malik is different from most jazz musicians, and both his brief biography and the development of his thought immediately show that difference, while at the same time serving as a primer for youngsters who might aspire to be what Abdul-Malik considers the complete musician.

All his conscious development has come from religious convictions. “People think I am too far out with religion,’ he said. “But it is so necessary to know the Creator, to know the rules of being - what it means - to know the commandments, to know you are commanded to use your intellect and will… That allows you to advance in all subjects. How else can you know about life? And music is life.

“You must do subsidiary study. All music has its own history, of course, and you need to know that, but it is also important to know the non-musical side of a people. That way you learn more about their music. By studying a people’s habits, you find their musical expressions.

“That you are commanded to do. The whole health of the world is based on each contributing to one another: doctors, bakers, musicians. If musicians want to co-operate, they must be masters of all scales which will broadcast to the receiver of the mind.”

“Really, a musician should be in excellent condition, physically, mentally, professionally, and scientifically,” Abdul-Malik continued. “I have studied all the elements: animals, insects, plants, space – the universe - old and new jazz but most importantly the Creator.

“How can you play beauty without knowing what beauty is, what it really is? Understanding the Creator leads to understanding the creations, and better understanding of what you play comes from this. How can you understand fully without knowing the start, the continuation, and the ending? Read more this entry »

It seems that Islam and more specifically Muslims just can’t stay out of popular discourse these days. The so-called rise of Islam in our Modern Time has scribed such sloganistic terms as Clash of Civilizations. Additionally, Islam has fostered a entire profession of self-loathing, self-serving arm chair apostates, who, having left Islam, crown themselves as self-proclaimed ex-Muslims, make a living off of an odd mixture of bashing and faux-reformation, supposedly aimed at rectifying the masses of Muslims, who they have deemed as having succumbed to the innate barbarity that is at the very heart of Islam.

What is often left out of this elitist discourse is that many of these pundits are not part of any community of Muslims [how could they - they’ve left the religion]. Nor do they have any vested interest in these communities successes or failures. To the contrary, they have an interest in the “failures” of these Muslim communities, without which they would have to procure honest employment. Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Irshad Manji are two such critics and reforms that come to mind. In a recent article in the Washington Post, Ali sited Manji as a, “genuine Muslim reformer”. I would have to ask Ms. Ali how she came to such a decision, being that in Manji’s book, The Trouble With Islam Today, is mainly a self-aggrandizing rant of one person’s experience growing up in an ethnic Muslim family. As woeful as Manji’s childhood tale may be, it is precisely just that. I am constantly awestruck by the arrogant and lapdog mentality of these “experts” in how they make their personal experiences an ontological criterion from which all Muslims and all of Islam, outside of time and space, can and will be judged. Manji’s book is as transparent as it is of value: she extols all that is white, Christian and Western [any such faults, as she fails to mention, would be presumably by accident] and defames all of Islam by the actions of her father or of her surroundings. In a sense, Islam is in need of reformation not because of any real issues, but because Manji was personally treated badly at the hands of some Muslims. A self-proclaimed homosexual, Manji objects to her exclusion from the Muslim community because of this stance. It is here that the arguments of these pundits fall apart. They will only see value in Islam as in how it fits neatly into a pre-packaged Western and yes, white ideal. Human rights, women’s rights, freedom of speech, are all sifted through the white, Christian sieve of upper middle-class white women. That which passes through is deemed admirable. That which does not - backwards and worthy of critique. In the following paragraphs I will share some sentiments on how the philosophy of globalization has infected the discourse on everything from economics to cultural dialog to how we go to war. But first, a few words about modern Muslim ideologies as well. Read more this entry »

In lieu of the previous post, I thought I’d add this link to some material by Olivier Roy, the author of The Political Failure of Islam, has written a new book, Globalized Islam: The Search for a New Ummah, as a sort of sequel or follow up to the first book. Roy was invited to speak at CCEIA. I found his talk to be quite insightful. Here’s a link to the video, audio and transcript. Enjoy.

Like many, both Muslim and non-Muslim, I have paid attention to the events that have unfolded abroad – the UK incidents and the Lal Mosque standoff. My sentiments were inline with many readers I came across: bewilderment at the UK incident [doctors killing people?] and disappointment mixed with confusion of the Lal Mosque siege. But perhaps what caught my attention even more was the reaction of Muslims, predominantly from America, more specifically in the American-Muslim blogosphere, a reaction that seemed to revolve around apologizing for the attacks. The root of this apology seems to be rooted more in the embarrassment that these heinous acts have had upon the public lives of many American-Muslims. I found this embarrassment to be somewhat concerning. Were American-Muslims more concerned with how they were viewed at work than with the crimes themselves? If so, then why is there not an equal outcry of embarrassment over, say, the Dar Fur atrocities or, if we want to keep it simply humanistic and go beyond religion as a signifying factor, why has not inner-city gun violence [especially for the many Blackamericans who are also Muslims!] garnered the same rosy-cheeked blush? Perhaps this embarrassment has more to do with “who’s watching us” than it really has to do with any moral outcry. It is this latter part here that I shall address in a moment, but first things first. What gets our deserving attention and what sets us off? Read more this entry »

There is much debate these days regarding Islam, the West, democracy, human rights, statism and a whole slew of other topics which all collide in a jumble of arm chair reactions and suppositions. Slogans are volleyed at slogans – a cycle of retaliation. As someone who is now more frequently called upon to talk about Islam [or more specifically, to “explain Islam”], this has become an increasingly difficult and sophisticated task. One of the most glaring difficulties is that the dialog is often between two comparatives – meaning that the position that many non-Muslim [and quite frankly, anti-Muslim] opponents is that the West is the criterion in which to judge the rest of the “free world” by. As Olivier Roy illustrates their case, “that there is no salvation (no modernity) outside of the Western political model.” [Roy, Olivier. The Political Failure of Islam. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1994. Pg. 8.]. To be fair, there are many Muslims today who have an imagined concept of what the Muslim society or even ummah, should be: a societal body governed by shari’ah, where within both the sovereign and the people are subjects to shari’ah. That there is no law, secular or religious, that works either parallel or perpendicular to the shari’ah. To a great extent, this imagination is evoked from the first early communities of Muslim, the Pious Ancestors and the Rightly Guided Khalifas. To bring us back to our impasse, the Western critic sees Islam locked in an ahistorical, static mode, and mainly due to their [limited, in my opinion] understanding of shari’ah, Muslims can never break out of this mold and therefore Islam and Muslims are doomed to an at best social structure that something out of the Middle Ages. Ironically, many Muslims use the same said argument as their clarion call to both Islam and the establishment of the Islamic state – Islam is timeless, and due to its Divinely Inspired system of lifestyle, is beyond reproach.

In order to move beyond this seemingly immutable approach on both parties, comparativism will have to be dropped. Instead, both parties will have to accept a certain degree of innate legitimacy on the other, even if they will never adopt one another’s system. In the simplest terms, proponents of Islam and the West will have to agree to disagree. But this is only the beginnings of cross-societal understandings. In addition to such modern topics as statism, more enduring subjects such as freedom and justice will also have to be engaged. It is from here that I shall steer the direction of this post. Read more this entry »

We may have to add an addendum to Al Franken’s book - Lying Muslim Haters et cetera. Tariq’s article is quite disturbing, though, in truth, not hard to believe. And while I wish to treat this incident in isolation, it is concerning that a group of people will go to any lengths to prosecute and demonize Muslims simply for being Muslim.

It appears that a group of men, affiliated with Mapping Shari’a.com [their bi-line reads: “Mapping Shari’a in America: Know the Enemy”, entered a mosque in the DC area, posing as potential shahadahs, claiming to be wearing thobes [what?! No one ever shows up with Middle Eastern clothes on!], and that they were giving Jihad Qatil literature and so forth. While this might initially seem to portray itself as a right-wing, pro-patriotic organization, it’s true colors bleed to the edge, as seen in their Mission Statement:

America is a unique people bound together through a commitment to America’s Judeo-Christian moral foundation and to an enduring faith and trust in G-d and in His Providence. America’s founding, and its greatness was neither accident nor staging ground for some better existence or world state. America was the handiwork of faithful Christians, mostly men, and almost entirely white, who ventured from Europe to create a nation in their image of a country existing as free men under G-d.

This type of extreme White Supremacy is the same old schtick that is from a page right out of the Klan. It has not taken very long in the scheme of things for Muslims to become targets for hate groups, and what better group than the poster child of hate in America than the Klan or its affiliate or off-shoot groups. I know imam Johari - I just was with him a few months ago at a talk for WHYY. He’s a good man. With the “veil” lifted from this idiots, Muslims will not have to go to great lengths to exonerate themselves in the eyes of their own community. But in the eyes of America? We shall have to wait and see if the seed of hate sprouts. Check out Tariq’s article. Perhaps they mistook the thobes for white hoods?

I’ve been steadily making my way through my summer reading that I’ve set out for myself. One of the titles, A History of Islamic Societies, by Ira M. Lapidus, as a sort of encyclopedic body of work that covers various Muslim societies through a historical frame work. In addition to Islamic Societies, I have also been reading several essays of Professor Lapidus that have been published in various academic journals. While not as a direct read, I do recommend his book as I is a great resource book for those who would like to have a firmer historical foundation on the many different Muslim societies and how they have been born out of one another. Professor Lapidus’ scholarship is exquisite and I recommend it highly. For those who are unfamiliar, Professor Lapidus, Professor Emeritus of History at the University of California, Berkley. In addition to his book, here’s a link to a very informative lecture of Professor Lapidus at Berkley, hosted by Harry Kreisler. Professor Lapidus gives a very interesting insight into the various reasons why different Muslim women wear hijab as well as given a very broad, pluralistic description of the various Muslim societies, always reminding the viewer that Islam is a very grand, broad entity.

Direct link here [RealOne Player required]. Page link here.