In a new piece at the Daily Beast, moderate Muslim Maajid Nawaz has sorrows. Why? Because members of his very own branch of Islam, the Barelwi sect of Pakistani Sufi Islam, are not behaving moderately.
The backstory is this: a Christian woman in Pakistan, Asia Bibi, was sentenced to death for blasphemy, apparently a charge cooked up by local Muslims who could not forgive her for drinking from the cup they used. (She’s still in jail.)
Then, a “flamboyant secular Muslim,” Salmaan Taseer, governor of Punjab province, defended Asia Bibi in public and lobbied for a lightening of Pakistan’s odious laws against blasphemy. That itself was considered blasphemy, and so, in January, 2011 Taseer was gunned down iwith an AK47 by his bodyguard, Mumtaz Quadri. Predictably, thousands of Pakistanis considered Quadri to have done a heroic thing, and protested in his favor. Nevertheless, he was arrested and hanged for murder on February 29 of this year.
What bothers Maajid most, though, is the reaction of his fellow British Muslims, including those of his own sect, to Quadri’s “martrydom”. And here I’ll quote Nawaz himself:
Even in the U.K., the reaction has been difficult to comprehend.
Previously, a quarter of my fellow British Muslims have expressed sympathy with the terrorists who attacked the Charlie Hebdo offices in Paris. And now, certain Muslim religious and community “leaders,” who position themselves as anti-ISIS and “mainstream,” have come out publicly praising Qadri as a hero.
One of Europe’s largest mosques, the Barelwi Sufi-managed Ghamkol Sharif in Birmingham, U.K., held a wake “in honor of the lover of the Prophet, Warrior Mumtaz Qadri, the martyr.”
Another Barelwi Imam, Muhammed Asim Hussain, whose verified Facebook page has been liked nearly 137,000 times, posted his position openly:
“A dark day in the history of Pakistan; the day Ghazi [warrior] Mumtaz was wrongfully executed and martyred in the way of Allah, when he did what he did in honor of the Prophet.”
A mainstream conservative Barelwi leader, Muhammad Masood Qadiri, who presents a weekly show on Ummah TV, available on the Sky TV platform, doubled-down after hailing “warrior” Qadri as a “martyr”:
“This does not make me a terrorist sympathizer as I, along with millions of fellow Muslims, do not accept that Gazi Mumtaz Qadri was a terrorist in the least. I have always been the first to condemn terrorism wherever in the world it takes place. I am also an Islamic religious minister. I therefore have a duty to express an opinion on fundamental matters concerning Islam and on this occasion, the crime of blasphemy.… As for having travelled to the funeral of Gazi Mumtaz Qadri, along with hundreds of thousands of others who also attended, I am not at all ashamed of this.”
Mohammed Shafiq, who runs the Ramadan Foundation website, a regular pundit on the “community leader” circuit, posted a prayer eulogizing Qadri and criticized Pakistani media for not condemning Qadri’s execution.
What makes the positions of all of these “community leaders” so hurtful is that they hail from the relatively moderate, Barelwi strand of Sufi Pakistani Islam.
Nawaz goes on to beg his coreligionists to rethink their stand on blasphemy, to show love instead of hate—even to “come and talk to our senior theologians at my organisation Qulliam,” a think tank dedicated to opposing religious extremism.
It’s sad to hear Nawaz’s pleas, but I’m surprised that he was surprised. Surveys of British Muslims have long shown them to be more extremist than most people think, and Nawaz’s importuning will, I fear, fall on deaf ears. The article seems more like a cry of torment than a call for empathy. Such is the situation of the moderate British Muslim.
sub
“Nawaz goes on to beg his coreligionists to rethink their stand on blasphemy, to show love instead of hate”
He needs to offer a rationale that would allow them to do that. Perhaps “Let Allah punish his own blasphemers.”
He offers the surah Al-Furquan:
“And the servants of the Most Merciful are those who walk upon the earth gently, and when the ignorant address them, they say ‘peace.’”
He also points out that the blasphemy law they are upholding is not a Muslim tradition. It is an old law left over from Britain’s colonial rule of Pakistan.
The law introduced by Britain applied to all religions equally. The provisions intended to protect Islam and the Prophet specifically date from the military government in the 1980’s.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-12621225
Reblogged this on The Logical Place.
“Nawaz goes on to beg his coreligionists to rethink their stand on blasphemy, to show love instead of hate.”
That’s the problem. People everywhere revere love, but what they really really love is hate. Just look at the current GOP.
“Hatred is the most accessible and comprehensive of all the unifying agents. Mass movements can rise and spread without belief in a god, but never without a belief in a devil.”
― Eric Hoffer, The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements
There is one difference in the comparison you make with the Muslim problem and the GOP or parts thereof. The Muslim problem is baked in and long lasting – hundreds and hundreds of years. That is why Nawaz may be so down.
But the GOP is a short lived problem and will likely destroy itself. It has been headed in this direction for several years and now we are seeing the final act. It will end soon but the Muslim problem goes on.
Oh, I think they can sink lower. The Republican party, I mean.
Yes, and that old saying – nowhere to go but up may not apply any longer. There has been some good articles finally coming out on the current mess – one calling Trump the Kardashian of politics, all celebrity and no substance. Also, that besides the GOP, the media is complicit in creating what we have in politics today. In the end, the people get what they deserve.
calling Trump the Kardashian of politics”
I guess that means a big ass.
Unfortunately, as Dubya amply demonstrated, *other* people end up getting what ‘the people’ (i.e. the majority vote) really deserve…
cr
That is a crucial difference, I’m afraid. Well said.
I foresee a rather immediate payoff/payback to the current electoral insanities, but these deeply entrenched cultural misapprehensions, with all their attendant dogmas and strictures, are definitely of a whole ‘nother order.
There’s a meta-theme where they are functionally identical, but in the particulars… one is a fever blister, the other is the Black Plague.
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I feel terrible for Maajid, because he always struck me as someone who earnestly believes that his cause is both righteous, and ATTAINABLE.
This must have been a huge blow for him.
Unfortunately the Maajids of this world can rarely bring themselves to think outside the box of their respective religions. He would like his fellow Muslims to be nicer than they are, but ignores the fact that most non Muslims already are. He needs to denounce this poisonous ideology in its entirety and urge others to do the same. Digging up the tiny scraps of the Koran that aren’t hate filled and vile just isn’t going to get the job done.
In another thread on a different site I commented that “But Trump’s current success is not based on appeals to intellect and won’t be defeated by rational analysis. His appeal is visceral and the visceral kicks in before the intellect has chance to analyse facts.”
I expect that this is the problem with Maajid Nawaz’s approach. Most Muslims, by nature of their initial exposure to the religion, have internalised their beliefs. They respond viscerally and rational reflection doesn’t get a look in. There’s faith and there’s Faith.
This reminds me of Pro-Life xians who don’t get too worked up with an abortion clinic is attacked and someone just doing their job, gets killed. Very little sympathy or calls for prayers for the families.
exactly.
I fear that Majiid Nawaz may not be long for this world.
William James, over one hundred years ago, characterized fanaticism as, “loyalty carried to a convulsive extreme”.
“When an intensely loyal and narrow mind is once grasped by the feeling that a certain superhuman person is worthy of its exclusive devotion, one of the first things that happens is that it IDEALIZES THE DEVOTION ITSELF (emphasis mine). To adequately realize the merits of the idol gets to be considered the one great merit of the worshiper; and the sacrifices and servilities by which savage tribesman have from time immemorial exhibited their faithfulness to chieftains are now outbid in favor of the deity. Vocabularies are exhausted and languages altered in the attempt to praise him enough; death is looked on as gain if it attract his grateful notice; and the personal attitude of being his devotee becomes what one might almost call a new and exalted kind of professional specialty within the tribe…..
An immediate consequence of this condition of mind is jealousy for the deity’s honor. How can the devotee show his loyalty better than by sensitiveness in this regard? The slightest affront or neglect must be resented, the deity’s enemies must be put to shame. In exceedingly narrow minds and active wills, such a care may become an engrossing preoccupation; and crusades have been preached and massacres instigated for no other reason than to remove a fancied slight upon the God.
He ends with: “Fanaticism must then be inscribed on the wrong side of religion’s account, so long as the religious person’s intellect is on the stage which the despotic kind of God satisfies. But as soon as the God is represented as less intent on his own honor and glory, it ceases to be a danger”.
When will these poor dumb animals realize that, if their deity is indeed all-powerful, He has no need for anyone to “protect” His honor? The explanation for this ridiculous and barbaric behavior is that is really is NOT rooted in love of the deity; it is rooted in egotism, where the actions are performed to make the worshiper appear more worthy in the eyes of his God.
“When will these poor dumb animals realize that, if their deity is indeed all-powerful, He has no need for anyone to “protect” his honor?”
Mark Twain once ridiculed the idea of blasphemy by saying that one could no more hurt God by insulting Him than one could hurt a planet by throwing a clod of dirt at it.
I asked a Catholic about blasphemy once and it isn’t that god is *hurt*, but it is somehow a crime of “respect”. I’m not sure what that means, needless to say. Also no idea what the Islamic explanation of why blasphemy is a big deal is, too.
As far as I have understood, the “Islamic explanation” boils down to a detailed description what Allah will do in the afterlife to the soul of the blasphemer, and of all who have heard the blasphemy and not acted accordingly.
Beautifully put.
“When will these poor dumb animals realize that, if their deity is indeed all-powerful, He has no need for anyone to “protect” His honor?”
Sorry, but the Good Book tells them their duty IS to protect His honor. What action do you think the word “infidel” implies?
And I am not sure where you are going with your use of the word “animal”, but I don’t think you want to go there.
You’re entirely right; I guess I owe the animals an apology- I didn’t know what else to call them, as they don’t in any way resemble rational human beings. By the way, I don’t need you to be telling me where it is I want to “go”, either.
I’ll go there…
You certainly owe animals an apology. So far as I know they are far too intelligent to have invented religion.
cr
😉
Madness is immune to moderation.
Allow me to offset that bad news with an item that inspires glee. Yes I also checked to see whether it was not an old April 1 article:
Bangladesh may drop Islam as country’s official religion following attacks on minorities. The country’s Supreme Court is currently hearing arguments in favour of removing Islam as the official religion of Bangladesh, the Daily Mail reported.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/south-asia/Bangladesh-may-drop-Islam-as-countrys-official-religion-following-attacks-on-minorities/articleshow/51275715.cms?utm_source=TOInewHP_TILwidget&utm_medium=ABtest&utm_campaign=TOInewHP
That would certainly be a step in the right direction. You do have to wonder how much support the Islamist killers feel from the government.
Well, for the lawsuit to reach the stage it has, I would guess there must be a substantial number of Bangladeshis who either aren’t Muslim, or who are Muslim but aren’t happy with the more fanatical exponents of their religion.
cr
I don’t hold out much hope, but maybe Majid Nawaz will finally be able to admit there is a real problem with his religion. If he joins the gentleman Sam Harris wrote a book with (his name escapes me), then that would be a strong blow in favor of a more rational public view of Islam.
I’m just so sick and tired of hearing the utterly polarized views of Islam and Muslims. I don’t know what it’d take to ‘moderate’ Islam, but the fewer people being called “Porch Monkey” for trying to do so, the better.
The gentleman is he.
Nawaz is a brave man, politically and physically.
While I heartily support Majid Nawaz’s goal, I’m always left wondering which approach is actually best for dealing with the problem of religious belief: trying to soften the belief by having liberals believers try to lure fanatics away from more literal interpretations, or just keep hammering away at the very foundation, as atheists do.
It seems at least at first intuitively the case a fanatical or literalist religious person would take baby steps, and that the leap to a more liberal, less literal version of faith would be easier.
But these impressions start to fade whenever I read, or listen to debates among theists (and I’ve listened to a lot!). The first thing is that neither have a leg to stand on – it’s all quicksand and interpretation, and each recognizes the other’s quicksand. Especially when it comes to liberal vs fundamentalist versions of Christianity, the literalists are having none of what the Liberal is serving. Though liberal Christians scoff at literalists, I find the biblical literalists usually get the better of the liberal Christians in debate, because the fundies have a very good knowledge of the biblical text and they immediately nail the liberal for cherry picking, ignoring troubling verses, etc. The fundies at least make an attempt at consistency with what the bible actually says.
And I think of this when Majid Nawaz or his partners are trying to convince literal-minded Muslims to re-interpret the text.
Good luck.
My thoughts too. As much as I dislike them, fundies, as you say, appear to be more intellectually honest. While I obviously prefer people like Nawaz or Asra Nomani, I always have the feeling that they must somehow lie to themselves about the content of their sacred texts.
For me there are two levels: the personal one and the intellectual one. You can be a good person performing a dubious intellectual effort. And you can be a hideous person with a very straightforward thinking. (Combinations are possible too).
My feelings drive me toward the good people, but my intellect is unhappy with their cherry-picking and self-imposed (selective) blindness.
Sadly that’s my take on the matter too – although I may not say “lie” so much as choose selectively and over-complicate the explanations.
The religious texts (and jurisprudence, in Islam’s case) don’t comport to reality. Religious fundamentalists ignore reality and conform to the texts. We try to conform to reality and ignore the texts. Trying to ride both of those horses simultaneously seems to be asking for trouble.
To clarify, I’d far prefer a world with moderates replacing the fundies, but without a massive raise in the level of education I can’t see it happening.
Or perhaps if the Koran was widely and legally available in people’s native tongues? Wycliffe and Tyndale (and similar scholars in other countries) certainly helped Protestantism along, breaking the iron grip of the Roman Catholic Church (still in progress after 500 years).
I suspect reforming Islam, if possible, may take a similar amount of time.
As far as I know, the Reformation was not about making Christianity moderate and tolerant. The latter was rather a side-effect of the exhausting conflicts between Protestants and Catholics that left both churches too weak to properly oppress people.
Quite so. The aim wasn’t moderation or tolerance – but providing the sacred texts in everyday language did open up the discussion and enable different interpretations of scripture.
As a thought experiment what would the western world be like if the Bible was still only readily available in Latin? Not as religously moderate I expect.
I think it wouldn’t be much different from today, provided that the 30-yr war had taken place.
By the same token, I think that if Sunni and Shia Muslims were more equal in number and strength and if they engaged in a long, devastating conflict, this would work wonders in moderation of Islam.
Disclaimer: I wouldn’t support deliberate instigation of Sunni-Shia enmity.
+ 1
“As much as I dislike them, fundies, as you say, appear to be more intellectually honest.”
Same here. Being very wrong about reality is, in and of itself, less of a problem than trying to destroy the very notions of “right” and “wrong” (wrt accuracy). When you’re just wrong, you still have the tools to maybe realise that you are.
For that reason, a good dog-fearing redneck scares me a lot less than a sophisticated theologian or a post-modernist. Not individually, but as a factor in the evaluation of the likelihood that humanity will get its act together before the next civilisation-extinguishing catastrophe. For if education and intelligence are not enough to dispel the most obvious nonsense, what are our chances?
It might be an intergenerational thing. In European countries, the most religious demographics tend to belong to the older generations. I don’t know what the statistics are for countries with Muslim majorities, but it might be the case that next-generation moderates and infidels are in the offing. However, without statistics it’s hard to tell.
I think both make sense. Non-believers can collaborate to help protect religious minorities, etc. for example. Similarly, my goal at least is to help people come to think for themselves, and there are many ways to do that. This is why I find “tone trolling” obnoxious – different tones for different folks!
I’ve wondered about the same, and I think that Islam cannot be moderated.
It makes me think of a comment made by another atheist once in defence against the usual “Stalin was an atheist” argument. It went something like this: We don’t condone or worship Stalin, yet you worship and revere the murderers of your religion. That’s the difference between us.
He was thinking of the murderers in the Bible an Quran like the prophet, but it works equally well against cases like this.
When an atheist goes crazy and kills people, everyone condemns him/her, when a religious person kills people, well, clearly the victims were unclean or deserved it.
What annoys me the most are the people who go:” I don’t condone murder, but…”
Everything that comes before the “but” can be ignored because what comes after will be a defence of the murderer.
It was the same in the Charlie Hebdo case.
A lot of Muslims and fatheists (meaning atheists that think faith is a good thing) in my country stated that they were against the murders BUT Charlie Hebdo was also in the wrong.
I feel like tearing off my hair at statements like that and hearing people defend these atrocities in Pakistan is just as bad.
This is my first comment on this site by the way, but I’ve been reading this site for a long time. I love it. 🙂
I hadn’t heard that line of reasoning regarding putatively atheist dictators before, nor though of it myself. I like it, thanks for sharing.
Most arguments by believers against atheism, and interestingly against science also, seem to take the general form of “you’re just as bad as we are.”
I try very hard, but when I hear of behaviour like this, with little or no condemnation from other Muslims, I find it very difficult to avoid just labelling all Muslims as “savages.”
I know it’s not true – it would be impossible for an entire demographic to be so utterly fucking barbaric over such an utterly fucking ridiculous “offence” – but why do we hear so little condemnation from the rest of the Muslim community if they don’t, deep down, support the actions of these extremist arseholes?
Why would it be impossible??
Unfortunately you may be much closer to the truth than you think.
This is why we hear no condemnation from the “rest”
Remembering those images of Muslims dancing in the streets after 9/11, I fear you may be right.
Perhaps they’re too intimidated to speak out? In a sufficiently paranoid system, merely playing devil’s advocate is a risky business, never mind being the devil.
Go back 300 years and *everyone* was a savage by modern Western standards.
The universe is under no compulsion to prevent massive savagery. Or anything else. Our inquisitors and conquistadors and nazis were not non-human monsters but the same animals we are, shaped differently by their experiences.
Hence the importance of preserving the experiences that shaped us — and improving on them so that hopefully we become the next generation’s savages.
“It’s sad to hear Nawaz’s pleas, but I’m surprised that he was surprised. Surveys of British Muslims have long shown them to be more extremist than most people think […]”
I wish we had similar survey data on Muslim attitudes in other European countries. I’m afraid that we could find ourselves surprised by how close they would be to the British…
Please watch this video: Muslims in Europe
Moderate Muslim = Oxymoron.
🐷