Not Everybody’s Darling

 

The original sources for the detailed descriptions of legends and fairy tales which circulate among both ordinary people in the Islamic world and, for example, Sufis since Muhammad’s and his followers’ conquest of much of the world have never been described in a scientific way. When reading, for instance, Eliot Weinberger’s Muhammad (Verso, London 2006), which is, according to the author, mainly based on the Holy Qur’an and ahadīth, or the traditions of the Prophet, one may ask the question how many generations of people have, over the centuries, embellished so nicely the historical facts (?) so that an attractive legend was created which fascinates even sober, contemporary Westerners, the main target audience of Weinberger’s nice booklet.    

Allah’s Darling (or Allahs Liebling, the original title of the book which has, so far, been published only in German) is the attempt of the renowned German Orientalist Tilman Nagel, a professor emeritus of the University of Göttingen, to explain the origins and manifestations of the belief in the founder of Islam, Muhammad. The book is sort of a spin-off of Nagel’s opus maximum, his voluminous biography of the Prophet, mainly praised but also heavily criticized by others.

When having read the subtitle of “Allah’s Darling” (“Ursprung und Erscheinungsformen des Mohammedglaubens”), I was wondering whether the author wants to make the point that Islam is not an extreme form of monotheism, as claimed in particular by Sunni Muslims, but rather that Muslims are “Mohammedans”, a pretty frivolous, Orientalist, conception. He frankly admits that everyone who would undertake the task of highlighting the circumstances under which a faith could emerge which was essentially based on prefabricated “eternal” knowledge, ever-valid for any area of life; a faith in an ever-competent messenger of Allah, would inevitably face the “foolish” charge of Orientalism or Essentialism. He may be right, but whether the charge is in fact foolish was not clear to me after having read the book.

The seemingly sound construction of what one may describe as the House of Islam is, however, not different from that of other, older, world religions. That, after the Age of Enlightenment, fundamentalist Christianity, for instance, has largely (unfortunately not entirely, though) been repelled in modern, determined secular, societies may have something to do with the foundation of Christianity as the author correctly claims, but not with its Church(es), as it (they) developed in century-long processes, with its (their), for example, heated arguments regarding the “nature” of Jesus, the World’s Redeemer; or strange beliefs in the Virgin Mary. There is no difference in overall absurdity. It is self-evident that, in order to write a credible, in particular scientific, treatise or even book on one of the world religions authors should make clear in the very beginning that they are not religious! That is unfortunately not the case here.   

Several times Nagel points to the huge problems of Integrationspolitik, i.e. how Muslims may be integrated in Western societies. He stresses that the time and again overpowering (erdrückende) majority of Muslims still live their fatalism due to strong beliefs in the believer’s general inability of getting hold of his own lives. For Nagel it seems to be clear that Mohammedanism should be regarded the main reason for the widely observed (in comparison) developmental retardation in Islamic societies. His plenty arguments, however, are taken from medieval authors commenting on ahadīth [1]; notoriously unreliable, as it becomes clear time and time again in Nagel’s narrative. The realm of medieval Islam (note, that the Middle Ages describe the dark ages of European cultures and societies when, at the same time, the Islamic world was bright and pretty enlightened) was huge, though, and spanned from Spain to Central Asia, from North Africa to parts of India. Islam, as Nagel describes it using accounts of numerous medieval authors, Andalusian, Cairene, Damascene, or Iranian [2], is not, and never has been, a monolithic entity. There are four prominent Sunni schools of fiqh, or Islamic jurisprudence, and two schools for the Shi’a, which are not covered in Nagel’s book.

In his epilogue, Nagel concludes with the description of his pretty unjustified dismay about the publication of now, since in 1981, eight volumes of Muhammad. Encyclopedia of Seerah (The Muslim Schools Trust, London, 2^nd ed. 1985), clearly a sort of personality cult. He might not even be aware of comparably voluminous works of contemporary authors about Shi’a Imams with a similar, of course questionable, approach [3]. That currently by the majority of the faithful practiced Islam won’t fit into a rapidly changing, now again flat, world with its traffic, world wide web, demands of intercultural competence etc, is commonplace. Professor Nagel acknowledges, in the preface of Allahs Liebling, one of his co-workers for introducing him to and solving emerging problems with electronic data processing. So, even he might not have arrived yet in modern times.

 

Notes

[1] When introducing the reader to his text, Nagel describes the pretty bizarre “fly” hadīth: The Prophet once narrated: “If a fly falls into one of your containers (of food or drink), immerse it completely (falyaghmis-hu kullahu) before removing it, for under one of its wings there is venom and under another there is its antidote.” The purpose here is clearly defamatory, not realizing that Christian salvation history is full of similar absurdities, not mentioning the Jewish Tanakh.

[2] As regards the latter, I am not even sure. Iran, a center of medieval Islam, seems not to be covered at all. Moreover, Nagel rarely informs the reader about the specific background of the authors he extensively quotes: the historical circumstances during the periods they lived when they created their scriptures. That, of course, raises questions about the targeted audience. Is it politicians, a lay audience? The book is not a reference text. In contrast to his claims, I would not even regard it a sound scientific study. Too copious, even biased, in its descriptions of absurdities (see [1]) which may have led eventually to his (or our) perceived totalitarian Mohammedanism of the Islamic world.

[3] I own, for instance, an English translation by Jasim al-Rasheed of the 1926 book by Baqir Sharif al-Qarashi’s The life of Imam Ali bin Musa al Rida; Ansariyan Publications, Qum 2001, which was a personal gift by Kuwaiti Shi’ites on the occasion of their pilgrimage to the Holy Shrine of Imam Ridha in Mashhad in 2006, when I was invited to join the group. Much of Nagel’s descriptions of the Prophet’s reported excellence, for example of his physics, his manners, his generosity etc., which elevated him from ordinary people, may be found in the description of Imam Ridha as well. It would have been even more interesting to study the deeply rooted piety of ordinary, say, Iranian people in rural areas, including their legends and personality cults as regards Ali, Husayn, the numerous Imami Shi’a Saints, etc. In particular ahadīth related to Ali, the Nahj al-Balagha, may prove that Allah may have just another darling besides Muhammad.

In East Anatolia

 

 

 

 

 

Rebel Land [1] is the story about the ethnic and religious conflicts in East Anatolia in the 20^th century. It is remarkable as it blends known and largely unknown historical facts with personal experiences of an investigative journalist and very emotional descriptions of a largely forgotten, harsh and dramatic region and its mainly inhospitable people(s). It is from the borders between civilization and notorious unrest, West and East, Europe and, well, something in-between. Let’s describe it as a country gradually developing into (or from) Central Asia, from where the various Turkish tribes have once colonized the Anatolian highlands. Willingly or not, Rebel Land provides excellent evidence for denying modern Turkey’s desire of eventually joining the European Union in the near future.

The author, Christopher de Bellaigue, is a likeable writer. He has lived in Turkey in the 1990s for five years and speaks the language fluently. At first encounter he is usually considered a Turk, as he writes not without some pride. I have become curious after having read his two books about Iran [2], a country which also fascinates me for a long time. He went farther. He has got married to an Iranian woman and even converted to the Shi’a branch of Islam. Rebel Land is written in a century-long tradition of a traveling reporter who wants to tell a true story about history.

De Bellaigue’s first and main intention to travel to Varto in the East Anatolian province of Mus was definitely to figure out the truth about the Turkish genocide of the Armenian people in 1915. It is the most disturbing part of the book and portrays well the problems of modern Turkey, which officially denies the very facts and threatens with prosecution everybody who is telling what actually had happened. It is also about Turkish ‘historians’ counterfeiting the dark chapters of Turkish history in the last century [3]. There is an unfortunate melting pot there made of Armenians, Ottoman Turks and Kurds, Sunnis and Alevis. The struggle for forced modernity in remote regions hopelessly stuck in medieval traditions, numerous military coups, etc.

De Bellaigue visited and interviewed also Turks from Eastern Anatolia now living in by and large xenophobic Germany, who seemed to have lost their real identity as Armenians, or Alevis, even Kurds. Lost identity, another sad aspect of this book. It may culminate in the epilogue, when de Bellaigue describes a visit in Armenia’s capital Yerevan and an afternoon in an unforgiving Armenian friend’s home. Armen, so his name, told him that once he met, in a tea house in Anatolia, a Kurdish man wearing a silver belt heavily embossed with detachable sections and with Armenian inscriptions of 1902. He managed to buy the belt after some bargaining. Men are not wearing this kind of belts, he said. Armenian girls are given these belts when they got married. For his friend, still full of hatred, it was clear that this belt had been stolen from an Armenian family which had been killed in the massacres. Now, ridiculously, a man was wearing it! De Bellaigue confesses:

“I think these things in a neat, well-ordered terraced house in London, where I have belts of my own – my family; the nice reassuring things that I inherited from my mother. Supposing these people, these things, were wrenched away from me by an ancestral enemy, supposing that I were robbed of everything in a matter of minutes – I suppose that I too would disregard those principles, of love and forgiveness, that were instilled in me painlessly as a child, and abandon myself to insatiable rage.”

The book is at best when its author entertains with sad and poetic stories about the people there, somewhat disclosing their soul. “Tell me about the Armenians”, de Bellaigue asks an Alevi from Varto, who narrates the following story about the pepukh, the yellow-winged cuckoo.

“There were once a sister and a brother. Their mother had died and their father had married again. The stepmother was wicked and she was cruel to the children, who were scared of her. When spring came, and the cardoon started to sprout across the meadows, the stepmother gave the children a saddlebag and told them to fill it with cardoon. When they had filled it, they set out for home, the little boy carrying the saddlebag over his back. As they approached home, the girl noticed that the saddlebag was empty and she accused her brother of eating the cardoon. ‘It’s almost dark! What will our stepmother do to us now?’ Her brother was distraught. ‘I didn’t eat the cardoon. I only took one stalk, and that was with your permission. Open up my stomach and look; you’ll find one stalk inside.’ So the girl split open her brother’s stomach and saw that he was telling the truth; there was only one cardoon stalk inside. Then she was filled with remorse, for her brother would never rise again, and after washing and burying him she prayed: ‘God! Turn me into a bird that will forever mourn my brother.’ And this is what God did. And she sang:

‘Pepukh! Oh woe! Who slew him? I slew him! Who washed him? I washed him! Who buried him? I buried him!’”

“We and the Armenians were like brother and sister,” the Alevi said sadly. “Only we didn’t have the decency to bury them.”

                                                        

Notes

[1] Christopher de Bellaigue C. Rebel Land. Among Turkey’s Forgotten Peoples. Bloomsbury Publishing Plc. London 2009.

[2] C. de Bellaigue. In the Rose Garden of the Martyrs. A Memoir of Iran, HarperCollins Publishers 2005; and The Struggle for Iran, NYRB collections 2007

[3] De Bellaigue describes with bitterness his discussions in the 1990s with Professor Yusuf Halacoglu, author of Ermeni Tehciri, or Armenian Deportation, who estimates a ridiculous 30’000 casualties among the Armenian people during the 1915 deportations, rather than the one or one and a half million commonly assumed.

The Light Verse

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pentecost might be the right holiday for asking this simple question: Can Christians, or even agnostics, be touched by verses of the Holy Qur’an? Yes, they can (we are not in Obama’s campaign here). Some years ago, when I had just moved to Kuwait, which is a very conservative Islamic country, I got a gift from my brother, Navid Kermani’s doctoral thesis about the beauty of the Qur’an. Its main topic (on a bit more than 500 pages) was, in particular, what Muslims know as i‛ğāz, meaning the miracle of the supernatural beauty of their Holy Book. I am quite convinced that he (my brother) has not read it, but on me it had a profound effect. It is, of course, a scientific text but easy to read and of admirably persuasive power. The effect was twofold. I first became interested in the Qur’an, and even religion at large. And then I detected that I am not really religious. The holy book I am more familiar with, the Bible, obviously lacks beauty and poetry, and Kermani, a German-Iranian orientalist, novelist, and journalist who is living in Cologne, is a master of explaining that particular (if you want) deficiency of the Book of the Books (I would still disagree spontaneously for certain parts, for example, the Sermon on the Mount, Matth 5-7. But being nearly overwhelmed by revolutionary ethics is somewhat different from being immensely touched by pure beauty).

Kermani comes to the (my) point on page 122 when he portrays, and tries to interpret, the famous Light Verse (Q24:35): 

“God is the Light of the heavens and the earth.

The parable of His light is, as it were, that of a niche containing a lamp;

the lamp is [enclosed] in glass,

the glass [shining] like a radiant star:

[a lamp] lit from a blessed tree -

an olive-tree that is neither of the east nor of the west

the oil whereof [is so bright that it] would give light [of itself] even though fire had not touched it:

Light upon Light!

God guides unto His light him that wills [to be guided];

and [to this end] God propounds parables unto men,

since God [alone] has full knowledge of all things.”

Ayat An-Nur is named after this verse, although the remaining revelations deal with completely different issues. Indeed, when I tried to get a comment from a dear Muslim friend on it, she became angry, for obvious reasons. But I only wanted some opinions about this special, mysterious, paragraph, in particular this “neither of the East nor of the West”. The English translation (here by Mohamed Asad) is, as all translations of, what is believed by Muslims, God’s words, insufficient.

As I learned later, especially this most famous verse in the Qur’an has guided so many mystics on their spiritual journeys!

Published first at Salmiya.

Interreligious Incompetence

Celebrated German-Iranian scholar of Islamic Sciences, novelist, essayist and journalist Navid Kermani was denied Hesse’s highest cultural award, the Kulturpreis. As he tells us, he was second choice anyway after Professor Fuad Sezgin, Director of the Institute of Arabic-Islamic Sciences at Frankfurt University, who had been nominated first, had already declined; allegedly because of some statements made by Salomon Korn, Vice President of the Central Council of Jews in Germany and another laureate, on Israel’s war in Gaza.

After Kermani had accepted the award, definitely too quickly but bona fide, the other two awardees, Karl Cardinal Lehmann and the former President of the Protestant Church of Hesse-Nassau Peter Steinacker declined next, owing to Kermani. Allegedly, because he (Kermani) had described his emotions when contemplating a painting of the crucified Christ by Guido Reni (d. 1642) in such a positive way that one indeed may doubt his good Muslim faith. However, of course is the crucifix the main reason for the schism in monotheism. Of course must Muslims consider worshipping the crucified Christ as idolatry. This is THE DIFFERENCE. What one faction considers the holiest expression of piety is for the other pure blasphemy. By definition.

Nothing is wrong with the decisions of these honorable men, except the insistence on fundamentalist religious dogmas and childish bossiness. One might advise these ignoble laureates to scrutinize their own level of tolerance first before frivolously accepting awards which they might not really deserve.

 

See also on this blog

Almost a Revelation. Some thoughts after reading Navid Kermani’s Der Schrecken Gottes.

Pope Benedict

Pope Bededict’s remark on his first Apostolic Journey to Africa (Cameroon and Angola) that the continent’s fight against HIV/AIDS is a problem that “cannot be solved by the distribution of condoms: on the contrary, it will increase it”, has led to a fierce editorial in the prestigious medical journal The Lancet. Irrespective of whether the Pope’s error was due to ignorance or because of a deliberate attempt to exact Catholic ideology, it had led to sharp criticism among several European governments and international health organizations. Now the scientific community condemns disastrous remarks as well, in particular as the Vatican is not withdrawing the devastating message but maneuvers with different versions and interpretations.

 

What can be found on the web site of the Holy See looks, in fact, a bit different than what had been reported at first:

 

Q. – Your Holiness, among the many ills that beset Africa, one of the most pressing is the spread of Aids. The position of the Catholic Church on the way to fight it is often considered unrealistic and ineffective. Will you address this theme during the journey? Holy Father, would you be able to respond in French to this question?

 

A. – I would say the opposite. I think that the most efficient, most truly present player in the fight against Aids is the Catholic Church herself, with her movements and her various organizations. I think of the Sant’Egidio community that does so much, visibly and also behind the scenes, in the struggle against Aids, I think of the Camillians, and so much more besides, I think of all the Sisters who take care of the sick. I would say that this problem of Aids cannot be overcome merely with money, necessary though it is. If there is no human dimension, if Africans do not help [by responsible behavior], the problem cannot be overcome by the distribution of prophylactics: on the contrary, they increase it. The solution must have two elements: firstly, bringing out the human dimension of sexuality, that is to say a spiritual and human renewal that would bring with it a new way of behaving towards others, and secondly, true friendship offered above all to those who are suffering, a willingness to make sacrifices and to practice self-denial, to be alongside the suffering. And so these are the factors that help and that lead to real progress: our twofold effort to renew humanity inwardly, to give spiritual and human strength for proper conduct towards our bodies and those of others, and this capacity to suffer with those who are suffering, to remain present in situations of trial. It seems to me that this is the proper response, and the Church does this, thereby offering an enormous and important contribution. We thank all who do so. (Emphasis added.)

 

Did the Pope talk about condoms or what is meant by prophylactics? Does he weaken his first condemnation of condoms or is he rather worsening the message by referring now to ‘prophylactics’? Difficult to tell, indeed. The script on the web page of the Holy See of his infamous lecture in Regensburg in September 2006 now contains also numerous rectifying footnotes diluting the rude and insulting first remarks on Islam and its Prophet which has led to outrageous reactions in the Muslim world and the death of at least one nun in Somalia.

 

It is a pity that the 81-year-old Pope, a professor of Catholic Theology with an immense reputation, has proved again and again that he had not effectively changed since the times of Joseph Ratzinger: a merciless exponent of the former Roman Inquisition. As a matter of fact his pontificate has been a series of scandalous speeches, remarks and deeds; a rather recent and especially incomprehensible example being his pardon (later withdrawn upon international pressure) of Holocaust denier Richard Williamson.

 

The Lancet’s condemnation today will not lead to a change in the Vatican’s policies. Life is shed with and without an organization which might vanish in due time anyway.

 

 

See also on this blog

 

Out of Control.  Pope Benedict’s scandalous pardon of Holocaust denier Richard Williamson.

 

 

 

Najasat-e Ahl-e Kitab

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Daniel Tsadik. Between Foreigners and Shi’is. Nineteenth-Century Iran and its Jewish Minority. Stanford University Press, Stanford, California 2007, 295 pages.

 

When Cyrus the Great freed the Jews from Babylonian Captivity in 539 BCE, some of them did not return to Jeruslaem but eventually settled on the banks of the Zayandeh Rud in Central Iran, possibly founding the city of Esfahan [1]. This is the beginning of Jewish life in Iran which thus started two-and-a-half-thousand years ago. While Cyrus is betoken as ‘the anointed’ [2] in the Book of Isaiah, Jews seem to have lived for centuries in peace with the indigenous Persian populace. Persian religious tolerance was legendary as long as Zoroastrianism was the state religion. The alarming rhetoric in particular of the current President of Iran, who had openly questioned the Holocaust of the Jews by the Nazi’s terror regime in the early 1940s and the very right of Israel to exist, has caused considerable new concern about the safety of the Jews in the Islamic Republic. It raises again the question, what do we actually know about the relationship of Shi’a Muslims and other ‘people of the book’, or Ahl al-Kitab?

 

Daniel Tsadik is an Assistant Professor at Yeshiva University, New York. He has earned a PhD from the History Department at Yale University. Apparently, Tsadik’s family is still living in Iran. In his new book he tries to illuminate the more than difficult situation of the Jews under the rule of the Shahs of the Qajar-Dynasty, in particular the second half of the 19^th century. Iran has seen the Constitutional Revolution (1905-1911), the reign of the Pahlavis afterwards and, most significant, the Islamic Republic with its determined Shi’a fundamentalism as state doctrine. Is it possible to draw a parallel between, as Tsadik describes it, religiously motivated anti-Semitic inhumanity and present days’ threats and persecution [3]? On several occasions in the mid-19^th century, so Tsadik, international Jewish organization such as the Alliance Israélite Universelle, the Anglo-Jewish Association or the Jewish Board of Deputies tried to put pressure on the Shah to improve the situation of their brethren in Iran and demanded equal rights as citizens, with fragile, rather transient success, though. Thus, Tsadik traces the debate about the status of religious minorities in Iran, including the Jews, back to the 19^th century interplay between intervening foreigners, the Shah, the Shi’a majority and especially the Ulema, or religious jurists, and local non-Muslim minorities.

 

Tsadik claims that, “[b]eginning with the end of the reign of Shah Abbas I (r. 1588-1629) the condition of the Jews generally deteriorated. This trend became more pronounced under Shah Abbas II (r. 1642-66) and continued in subsequent years.” Abbas the Great, who made Shi’a Islam the Iranian state religion, had even encouraged Jews (and Armenians as well) to settle in his new capital Esfahan. Tsadik stresses that it was largely the legal attitudes of the Shi’i toward the Jews, in particular, considering them (and Christians as well) as impure (najasat-e ahl-e kitab) and inferior as compared to Muslims. It is interesting to see that under the Sunni Muslim Nadir Shah (r. 1736-47) who abolished Shi’a Islam in Iran, Jews experienced a short period of relative tolerance. They were then even allowed to settle in the holy city of Mashhad in Khorasan [4]. But new persecutions emerged with the advent of the Shi’a Qajar dynasty of Shahs (1794-1925).

 

Precise estimates are actually missing but it is clear that the Jewish populace in Iran underwent considerable changes over the past few centuries. At the beginning of the 20^th century, there might have been 40’000 Jews in Iran, roughly 0.4% of the total population [5]. Clearly, with some exceptions, for example traders and physicians, Jews comprised the lowest social status in Iran’s society. They were frequently peddlers or more or less forced to choose vocations usually forbidden to Muslims, such as dyeing, scavenger work, cleaning excrement pits, etc. According to Tsadik, “[S]hi’i (and Muslim, in general) polemic contentions regarded contemporary Judaism as consisting of negative innovations and the Jews as obstinate deviators from their own Torah”.

 

In the 19^th century, afraid of completely loosing its independence, Iran addressed the demands of foreign powers such as Britain, French and Russia, even those regarding minorities in the society. During Shah Nasir al-Din Qajar’s lengthy reign (1848-96) Western powers (particularly British and French) intervened on behalf of the Iranian Jews but his overall positive response (in 1873 the Shah granted the Jews in his country equal civil rights as the Muslims, soon after the 1871-72 Great Famine in Iran which had elicited a growing European Jewish concern for Iranian Jews) was not implemented in full by the government, and a Jew was in fact never treated as an equal private citizen but always a member of the Jewish community. It is revealing for the weakness of the Shah’s order that Jews, as most other non-Muslims, had to remit the jizyah, the annual extra tax imposed on members of the Dhimmah, even after 1873, when Nasir al-Din visited several European states and was directly addressed by Jewish organizations. Tsadik argues that, in the latter half of the 19^th century, the Muslim (i.e., Imami Shi’a) majority in the country and, in particular, the Ulema, by and large prevented the Shah’s intentions of improving the situation of the Jews in Iran. “Portions of Muslim society strongly resisted the bestowal of a new status on the Jews. They fought for the application and reinforcement of the dhimmah laws.”

 

Tsadik’s book is an excellent study shedding light on a so far largely unknown relationship between the fundamentalist Imami Shi’a branch of Islam and religious minorities in Iran. It raises concerns that even the currently valid fatwa by the late Ayatollah Khomeini who, after his return from exile in Paris, declared Jews (and Christians and Zoroastrians as well) of being protected under the Dhimmah, might not be implemented in full. In particular the unacceptable rhetoric of the current President of Iran and irresponsible acts such as the so-called ‘International Conference to Review the Global Vision of the Holocaust’ in 2006 in Tehran might remind us that even fatwas might be abrogated.

 

Outside of Israel, most holy sites for Jews are found in Iran, for instance Daniel’s tomb in Shush, the ancient Susa, or sites related to Esther and Mordecai in Hamadan, the ancient Achaemenid capital Ecbatana [6]. Self-evidently Jews in Iran consider themselves as Iranians. They regard offers of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS) to emigrate to the US an unreasonable demand. Presently, the Jewish population in Iran seems to be safe. It is hoped that their 2500-year-old history in Iran will continue.

 

 

 

Notes

 

[1] In fact, settlements in what is now called Esfahan are essentially older and may well have their origins in the 5^th or 6^th millennia BCE, the so-called Zayandeh Rud River Culture with a strong link to Kashan’s Tappeh Sialk, an ancient ziggurat some 200 km north of the modern city of Esfahan.

 

[2] Cyrus might have been regarded by Jews as the (or one) Messiah. According to (Deutero-)Isaiah (Isa 45:1-8), God would anoint the Persian king Cyrus who would then destroy Babylon and liberate the Jews.

 

[3] Tsadik does not mention the term ‘anti-Semitism’ in his book a single time. It is obvious that he based anti-Jewish sentiments of Iran’s Muslims entirely on the religious doctrine which is, according to his arguments, especially characteristic for Imami Shi’a Islam.

 

[4] According to Tsadik, the central government of the Shah in Tehran was in essence not able or willing to prevent persecutions in the impassable countryside which were mainly due to the zeal of the Ulema, who were implementing stricter Shi’a laws dooming Jews and other minorities as impure and inferior. How could the new Sunni leader Nadir Shah reverse deeply rooted resentments of his people?  

 

[5] Although generally a tiny minority in a large Muslim country, due to the severe restrictions implemented by the Shi’a laws on the Dhimmah, or people of protection, Jews concentrated in the greater urban centers such as Shiraz, Esfahan, Hamadan, Urumiyah, Tehran etc. where they were more visible and could make up even 5-10% of the inhabitants. At the time of the foundation of the State of Israel, more than 100’000 Jews lived in Iran, but since then, their numbers have dropped, especially after the Islamic Revolution. Presently, 20’000 to 25’000 have stayed there, still (as ever) the largest Jewish population in the Middle East outside Israel. According to Iran’s Constitution, they are equal to Muslim. Jews have a representative in the Iranian Majlis, or parliament. Currently seen emigrations to, for instance, the USA are due to economical strain rather than persecution.

 

[6] One major pilgrimage site is the huge Jewish cemetery in Lanjan, 20 km south of Esfahan. The small synagogue contains the shrine of Sarah bat Asher, son of the Patriarch Jacob. Tzadik writes that “[a]ccording to the midrash […]Sarah never died, and popular Iranian Jewish tradition held that she arrived in Isfahan with the exiled Jews from the tribe of Judah. Miraculous stories and legends surrounding this figure were common in Jewish circles. Although her veneration site drew pilgrims every month, it constituted a pilgrimage center for Jews mainly during the month of Elul and in the days preceding Day of Atonement, in the following month of Tishrey. Near the Jewish site there was also a Muslim tomb, Pir Bakran, named after a religious figure who was believed to be buried there. A stream that flowed from the Zayandih Rud River separated the two shrines. The Islamic tomb also functioned as a school for the children of the nearby village, similarly named Pir Bakran.” Some recent pictures taken at the sites mentioned above may be found here.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

See also on this blog

 

Begs to Differ. Hooman Majd’s explanations of the Iranian soul.

 

From Aradan. How the current president of the Islamic Republic of Iran came into power.

Begs to Differ

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hooman Majd. The Ayatollah Begs to Differ. Doubleday, New York 2008, 271 pages.

 

Pointing every now and then at THE DIFFERENCE in our cultures and civilizations is a necessity. Realizing the differences is a first and necessary step in trying to understand. Hooman Majd, an Iranian-American, who has lived for most of his life in the US, makes another attempt to explain us Westerners the Iranian soul. He has been engaged in very diverse fields including the movie and rock music business, and serving as an advisor and translator for the two Iranian presidents, Mohammad Khatami and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. His new book The Ayatollah Begs to Differ which, according to its subtitle, wants to tell about the paradox of modern Iran is regarded a rare and most welcome insider’s report which might explain the still asked question of surprised Americans: “Why do they hate us?” (over 34 million hits in Google, Feb. 27, 2009); and, at the same time, adore Western lifestyle, one might add.

 

It is a lot about the Iranian custom of ta’arouf. For those who don’t know, this is a form of exaggerated politeness, almost self-humiliation, a sort of white lies in order to get things done in the way one wants them to proceed. Even the book’s title is ta’arouf, playing down the malicious clerical system in Iran. For foreigners, ta’arouf may be a minefield with a high potential of getting completely confused. One of Majd’s central theses is that President Ahmadinejad’s more bizarre public performances in the West might in fact have been ta’arouf. Impossible to comprehend and therefore considered more or less insane. But can or should we forgive him for his frank threats and remarks on Israel, Jews, the Holocaust, not mentioning his scandalous conference about the latter? Or his letters to G. W. Bush, A. Merkel, to whoever? Because of the Iranian custom of ta’arouf (“Don’t get me wrong, but …”)? Certainly not! That this country with its very long history is now ruled by authorities with an incredibly irresponsible and absolutely unacceptable rhetoric [1] should be a shame for any Iranian. Belittling these constant embarrassments, even threats, as cultural peculiarity (ta’arouf) is one of the more negative aspects of Majd’s book. 

 

Majd has or had more or less immediate access to the complicated central administration in Tehran; to both clerics (a grandson of an eminent Ayatollah himself) and politicians. But even he describes (as a writer or sort of journalist) the ever-present, culture-immanent, enormous obstacles with fruitless discussions and endless ta’aroufs of getting some useful information. Anybody visiting the country may have experienced that as well [2].

 

Another extensively outlined concept is that of haqq, Iranians’ preoccupation with what is considered their natural rights. I cannot follow exactly Majd’s claims that haqq is not pure nationalism [3]. In times when the Iranian nuclear program (for peaceful electricity generating fuel production it seems to be too limited, for producing a nuclear bomb its breakout capability might have been reached already) is becoming again more than obscure, an offered explanation such as haqq, i.e., Iran’s rights, might again be trivializing rather than enlightening.

 

Majd tells us again some fairy tales about Jamkaran near Qom where the Mahdi had allegedly appeared in 984 CE, and about President Ahmadinejad’s great sympathy for the 12th Imam. Jamkaran, which is visited by crowds of tens of thousands every Tuesday night (the Mahdi’s return is expected on a Tuesday) when the faithful are throwing letters to the Mahdi into two wells, one for men and one for women [4]. Majd is not afraid to hawk that he “was told by one person present at his inauguration that Ahmadinejad told several people there that he was only temporary president, and that the Messiah would relieve him of the burdensome responsibility in a ‘few’ years, at most.” In fact, most of this is known for some time. But Majd retains an inappropriate, ironic tone when describing, for instance, Ashura ceremonies of the masses [5], opium smoking in Qom (shir’e) not to mention joints and Johnny Walker at the more fancy parties of upper class bohemians in Northern Tehran; even indiscreet, albeit serious, official questions by an unmarried female nurse about when having had sex the last time when actually planning donating blood on the occasion of Ashura [6]. But, much worse is Majd’s almost mocking when referring to increasing numbers of scandalous public hangings of delinquents at cranes since 2007 [7].

 

The lack of critical distance here and in his closeness to the former president of the country, Hojjatoleslam Mohammad Khatami [8], is obvious, and I am afraid that Majd, both an insider and outsider here, is perfectly taking advantage of an inhumane system which is not really criticized in the book in its monstrous perversion of religion.

 

 

Notes

 

[1] For instance, the chairman if Iran’s Guardian Council, Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, hand-picked by the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has called for ‘shooting’ Israel’s Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni in his Friday prayers last week. “Every time the picture of this woman is shown, I really wish that somebody would expend a bullet on her,” he dared to say according to Associated Press, conveying an unmistakably message to his Islamic Revolutionary Guards, the Pasdaran. Ta’arouf?

 

[2] Interesting to note that, in order to get access to the inner circle, growing a beard (he has listed mentioning his beard on 8 pages even in the Index of his book), or showing carelessness in having a working class dress or outfit, had been helpful for Majd. At least he was disguising that he was living in the West, in the United States even.

 

[3] True, Iranians have, in their millennia-old, at times glorious, history suffered a lot from invasions, manslaughter, wars and revolutions. The ever-made, even by young people, remarks that they are Aryans such as the Germans , constantly embarrasses the visitor, though, who knows that nationalism in its extreme form, namely racism, has caused the holocaust of 6 million Jews and others.

 

[4] I had visited Jamkaran, actually on a Tuesday, in 2006 before traveling further to Shiraz. The site had already at that time attracted considerable attention in western media when it became known that President Ahmadinejad would support the complex with huge amounts of money. It might in fact differ from other holy sites (tombs or mausoleums) in Iran as it relates to a specific belief in Shi’a Islam, the return of the Messiah at the end of times (who is, according to Twelver Shi’a, the hidden 12th Imam Muhammad al-Mahdi). It may render, according to some western appraisals, the whole branch as irrational. Many of my rather religious friends and colleagues in Iran have admitted that they had never visited the site.

 

[5] One would in fact rather like to know whether these rites and ceremonies on the occasion of Tasua and Ashura experience a revival under the present Islamic regime with its hardliner president, or whether they have in fact been conducted for centuries. It would also be informative to read whether the Pahlavis had effectively banned Ashura ceremonies. I have been impressed by the diligent preparations of Ashura processions and the enthusiasm of especially young people when recently visiting Iran on the first days of Muharram. I have also noticed that public gatherings and husseiniyyas were largely organized by hardliners, with Basij and chador-wearing women outnumbering other participants by far.

 

[6] The most explosive power which finally might bring this regime to an end is hopelessness of the youth. Those who have been born after the Islamic Revolution (in fact, the majority of the population) do not see any opportunities any more of getting married. Unemployment is extremely high among young people and marriage became unaffordable in recent years. When visiting Iran last month, I was told by several youngsters that young people have to find ways of having ‘illicit sex’, a ‘crime’ which has relentlessly been prosecuted in the Islamic Republic, I have thought at least.

 

[7] Iran is, sad to say, second on the list of execution frequencies, only after China, which has 18 times more people and other problems. Majd is certainly wrong when mentioning that the slow strangulation of the convicts in Iran is due to the hangmen’s incompetence in facing “mathematical challenges” in order to quickly break the neck of the delinquent. He is annoyingly wrong when mentioning that Shari’a “deems that death must come to the condemned quickly and painlessly.” He frivolously even compares executions with “halal regulations [mandating] the same for animals destined for the dinner table.” In fact, suffering is expected and desired by the crowd. A typical example is, of course, lapidation (stoning to death) for ‘crimes’ such as adultery which, by intention, should exert as much as pain as possible before the person dies. Besides the sheer number of executions, the way victims are executed, in particular in Iran or Saudi Arabia is an endless scandal.

 

[8] The former ‘reformer’ Mohammad Khatami (Majd calls him ‘President’ even when describing his private New York visit in 2006 when he accompanied him), who is supposed to run in June for presidency again, is not the ‘redeemer’ as some of the western media want to stylize him right now. Apart from largely failing to pursue more liberty in the country, a promise he had made in the 1997 campaign and which had granted him a landslide victory, under his presidency (1997-2005) Iran had, according to US American intelligence, a military nuclear program ‘with high confidence’. That the country had been put on the infamous ‘axis of evil’ together with North Korea and Iraq by President G. W. Bush in his State of the Union address on January 29, 2002 was a direct consequence of the Israeli navy interception of the Karine-A in the Red Sea earlier that month, exposing Iran’s illicit support of Palestine via Lebanese Hisbollah. That the president is in fact ultimately powerless and all final decisions are made by the Supreme Leader, or Rahbar-e Enqelab, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is one of Majd’s numerous omissions when describing the paradox of modern Iran.

 

 

See also on this blog

 

From Aradan. How the current president of the Islamic Republic of Iran came into power.

 

Out of Control

When the Holy Father recently (in fact, immediately before the so-called Holocaust Memorial Day on January 27) rehabilitated and welcomed back into the Roman Catholic Church the confessing holocaust denier Richard Williamson it was only another provocation of the German Pope. Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, a well-known hardliner and actually Prefect of the Congregatio pro Doctrina Fidei (formerly the Holy Office of the Inquisition), liked and likes to push the limits. One has to remember, for instance, Benedict’s infamous lecture in 2006, when he visited Regensburg University und insulted millions of Muslims by quoting the Byzantine Emperor Manuel II Palaiologos in a discussion with Persian scholar (probably in 1391 CE in a winter camp at Ankara):

 

„Zeig mir doch, was Mohammed Neues gebracht hat, und da wirst du nur Schlechtes und Inhumanes finden wie dies, daß er vorgeschrieben hat, den Glauben, den er predigte, durch das Schwert zu verbreiten.“

 

He later distanced himself from the quotation when he added footnotes to the text of his speech, which had not been there when it was published at the Vatican’s web page. Particularly revealing might be the following:

 

„[3]Controverse VII 2c; bei Khoury S. 142/143; Förstel Bd. I, VII. Dialog 1.5  S. 240/241. Dieses Zitat ist in der muslimischen Welt leider als Ausdruck meiner eigenen Position aufgefaßt worden und hat so begreiflicherweise Empörung hervorgerufen. Ich hoffe, daß der Leser meines Textes sofort erkennen kann, daß dieser Satz nicht meine eigene Haltung dem Koran gegenüber ausdrückt, dem gegenüber ich die Ehrfurcht empfinde, die dem heiligen Buch einer großen Religion gebührt. Bei der Zitation des Texts von Kaiser Manuel II. ging es mir einzig darum, auf den wesentlichen Zusammenhang zwischen Glaube und Vernunft hinzuführen. In diesem Punkt stimme ich Manuel zu, ohne mir deshalb seine Polemik zuzueignen.“

 

 

This is Pope Benedict’s typical strategy. As a scholar, even Professor in Theology, he certainly knows or should know [1] the potential explosive force of his words and deeds in a world right now struggling in a so-called War on Terror, which in fact is about religion, and, in particular, Islam [2]. It was a purposeful provocation, especially when considering the time he was talking about. In the 14^th century, the Byzantine Empire was in agony and the Islamic world had been shaken by the Mongolian conquests. There had been centuries of war in the region. Manuel’s quotation was completely taken out the context. Benedict’s main intention was rather to point to the inevitable connection of Faith and Reason. He wants to make the point that God acts, of course, su logw, with logos, meaning rationality. A bitter irony of Benedict’s argument is that, at that time, Science and Art reached its climax in the Islamic world, not in Christianity, which was still bound in the dark middle ages.

 

What Pope Benedict XVI thinks when he commits highly symbolic acts, is not really known. I am afraid he is a hypocrite. When he visited Istanbul later in 2006 (annoyingly, he talked about ‘Constantinople’ in the preparation of his visit of senior Muslim, Catholic and Greek Orthodox clerics) he paused at Sultan Ahmed Mosque (the ‘Blue Mosque’) together with Muslim clerics and in fact seemed to pray in the Makkah direction.

 

Pope Benedict should make very clear that anti-Semitism is not compatible with the message of Christ the crucified Jesus Christ and has no place in any Christian church. The above-mentioned bishop should be brought to justice rather than being welcomed back into the Catholic Church, almost an accolade. Everything else would only very badly reflect on a German Pope who might have not understood his lessons from history well.

 

 

 

Notes

 

[1] Maybe he doesn’t. In his Regensburg speech he refers to verse 2:256 in the Qur’an stating that “[T]here is no compulsion in religion …” was an early verse when the Prophet Muhammad was supposed to be powerless. In fact, the second Surah is one of the latest in the Qur’an, revealed after the hijra (622 CE) in Madinah, at a time when the Muslim state had established itself for the first time.

 

[2] There were some public protests in the West Bank where Christian churches were set on fire. An Italian nun was killed by Somali gunmen.

 

 

Ya Husayn

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Husayn ibn Ali ibn Abi Talib and his family left Madinah on the 4^th of Rajab in the year 60 AH, and reached Makkah on the 4^th of Shaban. They stayed there for some time, but they did not complete the hajj as they had pretended to do. Instead, on the 8^th of Dhu’l Hijjah a small caravan set out to Kufa in Iraq, Ali’s former Capital. It was on a hopeless mission. The plot against Yazid, the infamous and so much hated Umayyad Caliph, Muawiya’s dissipated and incompetent son in Damascus, had been betrayed. When they reached the Euphrates, the ringleaders had been executed already. Husayn, his family and his men, not more than a few dozens, would have better been advised to surrender. The enemies’ army consisted of thousands. But the brave knights didn’t.

 

The battle on the banks of the Euphrates at Karbala, on the 10^th of Muharram in the year 61 AH, the day of Ashura, didn’t take long. Although Husayn was wearing his grandfather’s cloak and took-up the Dhul’fiqar, Ali’s famous double-bladed sword, it didn’t help. He and all men of his army were killed, and women and children deported to Damascus. Yazid himself ordered the mutilation of Husayn’s body. His severed head was also carried to Damascus. His little daughter Ruqaiyyah, who was desperately asking for her father, was shown the head, and she died on the spot. Her shrine in the old city of Damascus is full of toys; she was only 5 years old when she died in a shock.

 

After the battle, Lady Zaynab, Husayn’s brave sister, became for a short while the leader of the Shi’at Ali and the guardian of the orphans of Ahl al-Bayt, the family of the Prophet. The heads of the martyrs and all womenfolk and children were sent to Yazid in Damascus. When Yazid was presented with Husayn’s head on a gold dish he started to poke his lips and teeth with a cane, to the disgust of a venerable companion. ‘Take your cane from those lips,’ he cried, ‘for by Allah, I have seen the lips of the Prophet (pbuh) kiss those lips!’

 

Lady Zaynab was later sent back to Madinah where she died the following year. Her shrine is in a mosque in the vicinity of Damascus. Another is in Cairo, Egypt. Some people assume her tomb in Madinah.

 

Wilfred Thesiger, an extremely knowledgeable British explorer who in fact lived with the people in the vicinity of the Holy Cities of Karbala and Najaf (the former Kufa) in Iraq, wrote in his famous book Marsh Arabs (1964) on page 53:

 

“Shiism had started as a political movement among the Arabs to advance the claims of Ali and his descendants to the Caliphate. But after the martyrdom of Husain, it established itself as a new religious movement and soon became especially powerful in Iraq and Persia, embodying the social discontent of the indigenous population with the Arab aristocracy. In time, Shiism split Islam as decisively as the Reformation devided the Catholic Church. Whereas the orthodox Sunnis recognize Ali as the fourth of the Caliphs, or successors to Muhammad, the Shias regard the first three Caliphs as usurpers. They believe in an apostolic succession of Imams who followed the Prophet. Most of them believe in twelve of these, of whom Ali, Hasan and Husain were the first three, the others being Husain’s descendants. According to the Shias, the last Imam was Muhammad al Mahdi who mysteriously disappeared at Samarra and whose return they await in the fullness of time as the Mahdi or Expected One.” 

 

The first 9 days of Muharram, the first month of the Islamic calendar, are dedicated to intense mourning in any Shi’a community, be it in Iran, Iraq, in the Emirates of the Gulf or in the Eastern regions of Saudi Arabia. The Ashura Festival on the 10^th of Muharram commemorates the events of the Battle at Karbala and the Martyrdom of Husayn with vivid performances, processions, and a shocking brutality of self-flogging of young man and boys. If you won’t believe that there is a close, at least spiritual, relationship between Roman Katholic Church and Shi’a Islam, have a look at (very realistic if not real) crucifixion scenes on the Good Friday in the Philippines.

 

First published at Salmiya. 

 

 

The DIFFERENCE

Being fascinated by the DIFFERENCE in culture of Western and Muslim societies, I find the study of differences as much as important as the study of similarities in understanding what separates us. These days see, once again, an almost coincidence of the holiest Muslim and Christian holidays. Only a couple of days ago, two to three million pilgrims assembled in Makkah to perform hajj, the fifth pillar of Islam, which every Muslim is supposed to perform at least once in his or her lifetime if physically able and can afford to do so. Only ten days later, Shi’a Muslims commemorate the designation of his cousin and son-in-law, Ali ibn Abi Talib, as the Prophet Muhammad’s successor. In Iran, Eid-e Ghadeer is even more important than Eid-e Ghorban, the Festival of Sacrifice.

 

Christians, on the other hand, celebrate and count right now the weeks until Christmas by lighting candles on an advent wreath. It should be a quiet time of contemplation, some spirituality, and with a thorough and thoughtful review of the past year. Impatient kids would perceive these four weeks usually as too long. But the hunt for Christmas gifts may result for adults in more stress than usual as well. The same procedures as every year, I suppose.

 

What I experience right now in my self-imposed arctic solitude is Christmas overkill. This is a winter-wonder-Christmas country with all houses over and over decorated and illuminated. A true Christmas Disney World with Santa Claus, reindeers, jingle bells, blinking and twinkling tinsel town. People get crazy about Christmas here. The rather depressing darkness for more than two months may be one explanation.

 

Legend holds it that Santa Claus, or Father Christmas as he is called here (are they really the same?) is living at the North Pole, I was told. The 4^th century bishop of Myrna in modern-day Turkey, well-known for his secret support for the poor, namely Saint Nicholas (d. 346 CE), has been transformed into sort of a dwarf with a red suit and a pointed cap. One has to remember that Norwegians, if religious at all, are mainly belonging to the Lutheran Church. The great reformator Martin Luther had invented another peculiarity in the 16^th century. Since Catholics distributed their gifts on the anniversary of St. Nicholas’ death on the 6^th of December, he had created an equivalent for Protestants, the Christkind, whose actual role and function has always been difficult if impossible to understand. It doesn’t play a big role here.

 

Christmas has been completely trivialized when commerce highjacked it especially after World War II. For so many years the whole country’s economy now more or less depends on business on the four Saturdays before the Holy Night. Christmas is celebrated in Japan and China. Santa you may find even in the Sultan Center in Salmiya in Kuwait, and Arab children are keen sitting on his lap.

 

I suppose that this is exactly the way how to make one of the more strict Monotheisms with a, sad to say, bad history of crusades and manslaughter (not really better than Islam) in fact harmless. In reducing its main holidays to kitschy and childish symbols in a secular society, its teeth are altogether pulled out at once. Jesus’ message (love, peace) has vanished, too. And, a majority of people living, for example, in Germany do not really know what is celebrated on Easter, not to mention Pentecost.

 

Yesterday someone told me a joke. We should not forget that Christmas is not only gifts and presents, Christmas tree and tinsel, goose, cookies and chocolate. It is also the Birth of Santa.

 

Merry Christmas!