Irshad Manji and her "Rosa Parks' moment

Sat, 10 Dec 2011 16:26:00 GMT

On the evening of 7 december were Irshad Manji and Tofik Dibi, a member of Dutch parliament, the main speakers at De Balie, a public center in Amsterdam, where they discussed on the love, freedom and hardships that surround Islamic reform. Unfortunately they had to withstand a brief interruption of hatred. The beautiful turned into the bizarre when a group of 20 young hatemongerers disrupted the debate in the name of Islam and started screaming and threatening everyone present, especially Irshad. Other attendees, such as Thijs Kleinpaste (see links below), have already described the whole event so I want to concentrate on the question on how I experienced it as a Muslim and a friend of Irshad.

On Tuesday 6 December, the evening before, there was a similar discussion between Irshad and I in the Geerte Church in Utrecht (a recording of this interesting evening will soon be available) where we focused on the present obstacles within Muslim cultures which block the progressive flexibility of Islam. With cultures I mean the identity structures, modern and historical, formed by people with a shared background, context and ideology, and is thus far more then just a national or ethnic framework. In the past 150 years there have been many important Islamic reformers who have created enough material to adequetly rethink and reconstruct Islamic theology so it can address contemporary problems, systems, knowledge and insights. But the impact of this material is marginal. And this is because there are several historical and cultural causes that must be overcome in the way we form our identitystructures. In her new book 'Allah, Liberty and Love' (which she came to discuss and promote in Europe) she makes some very interesting and important observations on these obstacles and how we as Muslims must face them. Also when it was Tofik's turn to host, he talked with Irshad about the loneliness that we as a reform-oriented Muslim thinkers often experience, and how a joy it is when we meet each other. We stick our necks out to create an open discussion on the positive potential we see in our faith, and even though most Muslims agree with many points we make, there is a lack of will and responsibility to express it openly. And this because we neglect to see that religion is a human construct. Although we as Muslims believe Islam is based on divine sources (God-inspired messages in human language and symbolism), the ways these sources are understood and used are complete human constructs. And humans are changing, diverse and limited beings. The various ways these sources are used and inform cultures must be constantly rethought, and the ways to rethink them should not be restricted by old (human constructed!) systems and methods. These should be rethought as well. That is the core of Islamic reformist thought. But when we are on stage we often stand alone and the audiences are mostly small or non-Muslim, so we have a long road ahead of us to get our message across. And that road has a lot of potholes. In 'Allah, Liberty and Love', Irshad says that it is exactly the kind of fanatics that disrupted the debate that are the true Islamophobes. They are afraid of the positive potential that Islam has. That potential lies in providing a worldview of equality and diversity in which people can live together without a need of feelings of superiority. And it is the latter what the fanatics want, what they need. Ironically, in the Qur'an it is devil who is the only one that says, "I am better than the other" (Sura 7:12 ana khayrun Minhu). In other words, feelings of superiority should be completely alien to Muslims.

When the hatemongerers started throwing eggs, spitting, screaming, cursing and threatening, I wondered where in the Qur'an or in the reliable parts of biographies on the Prophet Muhammad, they see an allowance for hate? Where in the biographies it is said that the Prophet spat on people, threw eggs, or took away other's freedom of speech? Was it not the Prophet himself who was stoned, spit on, discriminated against, and expelled? Was it not he who was hated for his otherness? Where was the Akhlaq, the ethics, respect and modesty which is required of a Muslim because he was created by something greater than him? Islam cannot be claimed through superficial symbols like holding a flag with the Shahada, the Islamic creed, or by shouting the slogan of Allahu Akbar, God is greater. The latter even means that you as a human or anything else in creation, cannot be seen as special, chosen or superior. God will always be greater, so never think that we can represent Him or understand His will. God will always be greater than our interpretations of Him or His revelations. Allahu Akbar is an expression of modesty, not of authority. This is also why He warns us that we should never interpret our faiths in a way that it becomes a source of oppression (Sura 6:82). Therefore it is vital to have a culture where we openly and democratically discuss interpretations (The late Egyptian Qur'anic scholar and my friend prof. Nasr Abu Zayd called this 'Democratic Hermeneutics') .

In her new book Irshad also says 'that some things are more important than fear'. No one must by allowed to diminish your dignity. Through fear we become less than we are, then how God created us. The fanatics tried to intimidate her to get off the stage. When the police came, the hatemongerers demanded their right of freedom of expression to demand Irshad's right to be taken away. Only then they would leave. I really do not understand why people like this can't see the contradictions, their hypocricy. The police asked Irshad out of FEAR for her safety to go off the stage, and she refused. She even started to blow kisses to the mob that threatened to break her neck. Perhaps now you understand why I chose this title for the article. Irshad cites many people involved in the global civil rights movements as inspirations and examples for when it comes to the question why certain things are more important than fear. The whole event at De Balie I see as Irshad Manji's 'Rosa Parks'-moment. After all, she did not move to the back of the bus...

Arnold Yasin Mol is chairman of www.deenresearchcenter.com, a modern Islamic think tank, editor at the Dutch Muslim website www.nieuwemoskee.nl and studies Islamic Theology at Leiden university, The Netherlands.

The original article in Dutch: www.nieuwemoskee.nl/2011/12/irshad-manji-en-haar-‘rosa-parks-moment’/

Reports on the disrupted debate:
www.thijskleinpaste.nl/weblog/to_irshad_and_tofik

Compassie in de islam: het bestaan als ontwikkeling

Sat, 30 Apr 2011 19:29:00 GMT

Compassie is een humanistisch begrip dat in bijna alle levensbeschouwingen voorkomt. Maar dit begrip wordt in elke taal op een andere manier uitgedrukt. Om de betekenis van ‘compassie’ in de islam uit te leggen, moeten we daarom eerst het wereldbeeld van deze Semitische religie begrijpen.

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Human rights are compass-less values

Sun, 30 Jan 2011 22:06:00 GMT

In recent years, the criticism on human rights and Islam has increased. This includes two extreme views which surprisingly both have the same claim, namely that Islam and human rights do not go together. One group 'Western secular vision " which sees Islam as a religion with fossilized medieval laws incompatible with contemporary "Western human rights'. The other group consists of Muslims from an orthodox-dogmatic perspective 'argues that the phenomenon of' human rights' is a human, Western innovation in no way compatible with the divine law.

To form a correct vision on human rights in Islam, we must begin by reading texts in the Qur’an itself and examine the context in which these texts were created. We immediately notice that Islam introduced revolutionary values to the seventh century Arabs. These revolutionary values came from newly accepted principles such as 'all people have the same origin’, ’all men are equal', 'all people have freedom of religion’ and that Muslims should cooperate with other faiths to pursue a just moral society ( see Qur’anic verses 4:1, 5:8, 5:32, 4:85, 16:90, 4:75, 2:256, 22:39-40, 2:62, 2:148, 3:110 - 115, 5:48, 3:64, 17:70, 42:15, 49:13 and 60:8).

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