Over two months ago, a few
gunmen, invoking the religion Islam, killed cartoonists over a drawing. While violence of
any kind always upsets me very much, the nature of the Paris attacks struck a particularly painful note, making me
wonder why it mattered so much more to me. It triggered a personal
study, and in the light of these findings I feel responsible to respond.
Stories within Islam:
The first myth to debunk is that there is one Islam.
Of course there are many voices in Islam. A religion is what its people make it. Throughout history, people of different faiths have found ways to practice what they felt was the path to god. Some were pathbreaking, and others ordinary, some rebelled and created alternatives and some obediently ploughed on the beaten track. And strangely, the rebels and original thinkers are the ones we celebrate and remember. Even today, many Muslims hold very strong, tolerant and liberal views.
A current, European example is the very same French Muslim policeman, Ahmed Merabet, who died doing his duty to protect the Charlie Hebdo office from the terrorists. While he lay injured, the gunmen stopped to shoot him. Of Algerian origin, he identified strongly with French secular principles of liberty, equality and fraternity and died defending his fellow countrymen’s freedom of expression - a truer Muslim to me than any violent one. Please listen to his brother’s moving speech here.
We have known Rumi, Akbar, Ghalib, and other brilliant Muslims who were ahead of their time (and often criticised by the orthodoxy). The Indian subcontinent especially has a tremendously rich and liberal heritage. Where then, have the liberal Islamic traditions disappeared? Unfortunately, this twelve century old heritage has now been denied by a mere six decade old intolerant, orthodox 'Islamist' ideology.
Changing traditions and the rise of 'Islamism':
To understand how a rich, twelve century old Islamic tradition has turned overwhelmingly gruesome and extreme today, one must look at the political scene in recent times. This has mainly been the 'political' spread of Wahhabism or Salafi Islam.
The short explanation is here, though I recommend a longer one here (minus the lean towards conspiracy theory) and ask the reader to embark upon a personal study to understand the subtleties.
Much more engaging is the reading of “The Sheepification of Bakistan” in which Mina Malik-Hussain (a feminist Muslim from Lahore) describes how ‘insiduously, The Arabs crept up on us’, how ‘Ramzan became Ramadan’, and how “Now it was cool to sound Arab, and soon enough it began to be increasingly desirable to look it.” It is a must read, very endearing!
I could hug the writer when her impassioned words ring out “…really enough is enough. This is Pakistan, formerly of the Indian Subcontinent. This is still the place where people knew Farsi and had read the Baburnama in the original. This the land of kings and warriors, a civilization as old as the Indus. Where does Saudi Arabia, that land of the crazed Bedouins so uncivilized and jangli that they needed the best of our Prophets to come save them, get off on telling us how to be Muslims?”
That, right there, is my Pakistani sister reclaiming our shared roots (I can't explain why, but at those words, my soul feels the joy of discovering a long lost companion)!
Following this beautiful article is another one by Shireen Azam describing how, within the Indian scene, “Khuda-Hafizbecame Allah-Hafiz”
A political explanation is here in this little clip (the crux is between minutes 2:50 to 3:45)
It is certainly the political scene that inspired this change, and with it came a dangerous consequence. Religion was brought slowly and inconspicuously, from the personal space to the political space. And to describe this new political ideology, we use the word “Islamism”.
(Part two will be posted shortly)
Stories within Islam:
The first myth to debunk is that there is one Islam.
Of course there are many voices in Islam. A religion is what its people make it. Throughout history, people of different faiths have found ways to practice what they felt was the path to god. Some were pathbreaking, and others ordinary, some rebelled and created alternatives and some obediently ploughed on the beaten track. And strangely, the rebels and original thinkers are the ones we celebrate and remember. Even today, many Muslims hold very strong, tolerant and liberal views.
A current, European example is the very same French Muslim policeman, Ahmed Merabet, who died doing his duty to protect the Charlie Hebdo office from the terrorists. While he lay injured, the gunmen stopped to shoot him. Of Algerian origin, he identified strongly with French secular principles of liberty, equality and fraternity and died defending his fellow countrymen’s freedom of expression - a truer Muslim to me than any violent one. Please listen to his brother’s moving speech here.
We have known Rumi, Akbar, Ghalib, and other brilliant Muslims who were ahead of their time (and often criticised by the orthodoxy). The Indian subcontinent especially has a tremendously rich and liberal heritage. Where then, have the liberal Islamic traditions disappeared? Unfortunately, this twelve century old heritage has now been denied by a mere six decade old intolerant, orthodox 'Islamist' ideology.
Changing traditions and the rise of 'Islamism':
To understand how a rich, twelve century old Islamic tradition has turned overwhelmingly gruesome and extreme today, one must look at the political scene in recent times. This has mainly been the 'political' spread of Wahhabism or Salafi Islam.
The short explanation is here, though I recommend a longer one here (minus the lean towards conspiracy theory) and ask the reader to embark upon a personal study to understand the subtleties.
Much more engaging is the reading of “The Sheepification of Bakistan” in which Mina Malik-Hussain (a feminist Muslim from Lahore) describes how ‘insiduously, The Arabs crept up on us’, how ‘Ramzan became Ramadan’, and how “Now it was cool to sound Arab, and soon enough it began to be increasingly desirable to look it.” It is a must read, very endearing!
I could hug the writer when her impassioned words ring out “…really enough is enough. This is Pakistan, formerly of the Indian Subcontinent. This is still the place where people knew Farsi and had read the Baburnama in the original. This the land of kings and warriors, a civilization as old as the Indus. Where does Saudi Arabia, that land of the crazed Bedouins so uncivilized and jangli that they needed the best of our Prophets to come save them, get off on telling us how to be Muslims?”
That, right there, is my Pakistani sister reclaiming our shared roots (I can't explain why, but at those words, my soul feels the joy of discovering a long lost companion)!
Following this beautiful article is another one by Shireen Azam describing how, within the Indian scene, “Khuda-Hafizbecame Allah-Hafiz”
A political explanation is here in this little clip (the crux is between minutes 2:50 to 3:45)
It is certainly the political scene that inspired this change, and with it came a dangerous consequence. Religion was brought slowly and inconspicuously, from the personal space to the political space. And to describe this new political ideology, we use the word “Islamism”.
(Part two will be posted shortly)
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