Islam, Middle East and Fascism
In a speech that he gave at Columbia University, Umberto
Eco spelled out fourteen features that he considered were
typical of Eternal Fascism (which he also calls Ur-Fascism
); adding however this explanatory detail: " These features
cannot be organized into a system; many of them
contradict each other, and are also typical of other kinds of
despotism or fanaticism. But it is enough that one of them
be present to allow fascism to coagulate around it."
Umberto Eco: [1] The Cult of Tradition. "Truth has
already been spelled out once and for all, and we can only
keep interpreting its obscure message."
Islam is the quintessentially tradition-bound religion. First,
the Koran is the eternal and infallible Word of God, and
contains the whole of God™s final revelation to man, and
must be obeyed in all its details. "This day I have perfected
your religion for you and completed My favour to you. I
have chosen Islam to be your faith." The Koran is
immutable, "Say: ˜It is not for me to change [the Koran]. I
only follow what is revealed to me. I cannot disobey my
Lord, for I fear the punishment of a fateful day." "Proclaim
what is revealed to you in the Book of your Lord. None
can change His Words. You shall find no refuge besides
Him." The Koran is a faithful and unalterable reproduction
of the original scriptures which are preserved in heaven.
A Muslim™s wish is to establish a new life in accordance
with a religious law willed by God and consonant with the
Prophet Muhammad™s intentions. Clearly the Koran by
itself (i.e. uninterpreted) did not furnish enough guiding
principles to meet the changing requirements of the early
Muslims. Thus, in all matters whether civil or religious,
the will of the prophet had first to be ascertained and
followed as a true guide to practical conduct. The
Prophet™s Companions were considered the best source for
learning the Prophet™s will ; that is, from people who lived
their lives in his company, witnessed his actions, and
heard his very words and pronouncements on every single
aspect of daily life. After the passing of this first
generation, pious Muslims had to rely on the members of
the next generation who passed on what they had learnt
from the first. Thus, transmission from generation to
generation continued down to contemporary periods.
Finally, conduct and judgment were accepted as correct
and their legitimacy was established if a chain of reliable
transmission ( isnad, in Arabic )ultimately traced them
back to a Companion who could testify that they were in
harmony with the Prophet™s intentions. On the strength of
such traditions, certain customs in ritual and law were
established as the usage of the authoritative first believers
of Islam, and as having been practised under the Prophet™s
own eyes. As such, they acquired a sacred character. They
are called sunna, sacred custom. The form in which such a
usage is stated is hadith, tradition. Sunna and hadith are
not synonymous ; hadith being the documentation of
sunna.
Sunna intimately reflects the views and practices of the
oldest Islamic community, and thus functions as the most
authoritative interpretation of the Koran. The Koran
cannot answer every single problem that any morally
sensitive Muslim is likely to encounter ; and it only comes
alive and effective through the sunna. Furthermore the
Koran, contrary to what many Muslims realize, is an
extremely obscure text ; even Muslims exegetes
acknowledge that they do not know the meaning of many
words and whole passages. For instance, the exegetes have
classified obscure or opaque sentences of the Koran into
Zahir ( obvious ) or hidden ( Khafi ). The Khafi sentences
are further subdivided into Khaji, Mushkil, Mujmal, and
Mutashabih. In Khaji sentences the other persons or things
are hidden beneath the plain meaning of a word or
expression ; Mushkil sentences are ambiguous; Mujmal
sentences have a variety of interpretations , while
Mutashabih ones are intricate sentences or expressions, the
exact meaning of which it is impossible for a man to
ascertain until the day of resurrection. The Koran itself
tells us that it contains ambiguous verses, and verses
whose interpretation is only known to God ( sura iii.5 p
.214 vol.1).
The Sharia or Islamic Law is based on four principles: The
Koran; the sunna of the Prophet, which is incorporated in
the recognized traditions ( hadith ); the consensus (ijma) of
the scholars of the orthodox community ; and the method
of reasoning by analogy (qiyas)
Many liberal Muslims ( if that is not a contradiction in
terms) get excited by ijma, sensing that somehow therein
lies their only hope of modernising Islam. However,
historically, the notion of consensus (ijma) has nothing
democratic about it ; the masses are expressly excluded. It
is the consensus of suitably qualified and learned
authorities. The doctrine of the infallibility of the
consensus, far from allowing some liberty of reasoning as
one might have expected, worked in favour of a
progressive narrowing and hardening of doctrine. By the
beginning of 900 C.E., Islamic Law became rigidly fixed
because Muslim scholars felt that all essential questions
had been thoroughly discussed and finally settled, and a
consensus gradually established itself to the effect that
henceforth no one might be deemed to have the necessary
qualifications for independent reasoning in law, and that
all future activity would have to be confined to the
explanation, application, and, at most, interpretation of the
doctrine as it had been laid down once and for all. This
closing of the gate of independent reasoning, in effect,
meant the unquestioning acceptance of the doctrines of
established schools and authorities. Islamic Law became
increasingly rigid and set in its final mould.
Liberal Muslims think they are more liberated than their
"fundamentalist" cousins because they (the Liberal
Muslims) believe that by some creative re-interpretation of
the Koran they will thereby bring the Koran, albeit
screaming and kicking, into the 21st Century. First, it does
not seem to strike these misguided liberal Muslims that
they are still prisoners to an obscure, incoherent, bizarre
mediaeval text, a curious amalgam of Talmudic Judaism,
apocryphal Christianity and pagan superstitions (especially
in the rites and rituals of the Hajj), full of barbarisms.
They have not cut their umbilical cords, and are still trying
to make sense of an often senseless text, more than a
thousand years old. Second this desire to re-interpret has
led to some willful and intellectually dishonest "re-
reading" of the Koran. Feminists pretend that the "real
Koran" is progressive towards women, human rights
activists pretend, in the face of overwhelming evidence to
the contrary that the « real Koran » is totally compatible
with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The
reality is that the Koran, and the Sharia derived from the
Koran, are totalitarian constructs that try to control every
single aspect of an individual™s life from the way he or she
urinates and defecates, the way he/she eats, dresses, works,
marries, makes love, prays, to the way he or she thinks on
every conceivable subject. Finally, while the Koran is open
to some re-interpretation, it is not infinitely flexible.
Umberto Eco: [2] "Traditionalism implies the rejection of
modernism ¦The Enlightenment, the Age of Reason, is
seen as the beginning of modern depravity. In this sense
[Eternal fascism] can be defined as irrationalism."
Umberto Eco: [3] "Irrationalism also depends on the cult
of action for action™s sake ¦. Thinking is a form of
emasculation. Therefore culture is suspect insofar as it is
identified with critical attitudes. Distrust of the intellectual
world has always been symptom of Ur- [or Eternal
Fascism ]."
Umberto Eco: [4] " No syncretistic faith can withstand
analytical criticism. The critical spirit makes distinctions,
and to distinguish is a sign of modernism. In modern
culture the scientific community praises disagreement as a
way to improve knowledge. For Ur-Fascism (or Eternal
Fascism), disagreement is is treason."
Umberto Eco: [5] "Besides, disagreement is a sign of
diversity. Ur-fascism (or Eternal Fascism) grows up and
seeks for consensus by exploiting and exacerbating the
natural fear of difference. The first appeal of a fascist
movement is an appeal against intruders. Thus Ur-Fascism
(or Eternal Fascism) is racist by definition."
I shall show that, mutatis mutandis, Islam also rejects
modernism, is hostile to reason, critical thought, fears
disagreement, and is terrified of ˜intruders,™ though
Islam™s form of exclusion is based on religion and not
race.
The revival of modern Muslim thought owes a great deal
to the writings of the Indian (later Pakistani) al-Maududi.
In works such as Jihad in Islam, Islam and Jahiliyya, The
Principles of Islamic Government, al-Maududi was the
first modern Muslim thinker to "arrive at a sweeping
condemnation of modernity and its incompatibility with
Islam, and to formulate a definition of the danger it
constituted." Sayyid Qutb, the Egyptian thinker, was in
part influenced by al-Maududi, and felt that "Domination
should be reverted to Allah alone, namely to Islam, that
holistic system He conferred upon men. An all-out
offensive, a jihad, should be waged against modernity so
that this moral rearmament could take place The ultimate
objective is to reestablish the Kingdom of God upon earth
¦"
Second, let us not forget that all three of the major
Abrahamic religions are irrational, that is, they are based
on irrational dogma that do not stand up to critical
scrutiny. The whole framework of the three religions is
historical, in that all three depend on the historical veracity
of putative events described in their respective scriptures.
But increasing critical inquiry and scientific thought(
historical, philological , archaeological ) has revealed the
improbability of the historical events described in their
scriptures, and traditions. While Higher Biblical Criticism,
developed by great thinkers such Spinoza, and further
elaborated in Germany in the 19th Century, is well-known
to, at least, educated Westerners and intellectuals in
general , astonishingly few people even among the
Western Islamologists seem to be aware of the shaky
historical foundations of the beliefs of Muslims.
Muslims seem to be unaware that the research of the
German Higher Critics apply directly to their belief
system, which seems impervious to rational thought. For
instance, there is absolutely no evidence, archaeological,
epigraphic, documentary, that Abraham ever set foot in
Arabia, let alone build the Kaaba. Many scholars such T.
L. Thompson have even put forward the idea that not only
Abraham but Isaac and Jacob never existed. Muslims are
also committed to the dogma that Moses wrote the
Pentateuch despite research since the 17 the Century of
thinkers such as La Preyre, Spinoza, and Hobbes, and in
the 19th Century by historians such as Julius Wellhausen
who have all argued that Moses could not possibly have
written the First Five Books of the Old Testament. No
Western scholar believes the apocryphal Christian story of
Jesus that is to be found in the Koran. Further it is surely
totally irrational to continue to believe that the Koran is
the word of God when the slightest amount of rational
thought will reveal that the Koran contains words and
passages addressed to God ( e.g. the Fatihah; sura vi.104;
vi..114 ; xvii.1; xxvii.91; lxxxi.15-29; lxxxiv.16-19; etc.) ;
that it is full of historical errors: at sura xl.38, the Koran
mistakenly identifies Haman, who in reality was the
minister of the Persian King Ahasuerus ( mentioned in the
book of Esther ), as the minister of the Pharaoh at the time
of Moses ; there is a confusion of Mary, the mother of
Jesus, with the Mary who was sister of Moses and Aaron ;
at sura ii.249/250, there is obviously a confusion between
the story of Saul as told therein, and the account of Gideon
in Judges, 7.5; the account of Alexander the Great is
hopelessly garbled historically (sura xviii.82).
Finally, Goldziher, Lammens and Schacht, have shown
that a vast number of traditions (hadith) accepted even in
the most rigorously critical Muslim collections were
outright forgeries from the late 8th and 9th centuries. It is
simply irrational to go on accepting the "truth" of these
traditions.
The history of the Islamic theology can be seen as a
struggle between reason and revelation, with the eventual
triumph of the dictates of revelation, with a victory for
irrationalism and blind obedience to tradition.
It is undoubtedly true that there was at the dawn of Islam,
a rationalising tendency as, for example, in the theology of
the Mu˜tazilites. But the Mu˜tazilites were nonetheless
Muslims, which in itself, as I have tried to argue above, is
an indication of irrational beliefs. Second, they were ready
to assassinate those who rejected their doctrines and
advocated the jihad in all regions in which their dogma did
not have the ascendancy. They were responsible for the
Mihna or the Muslim Inquisition.
Finally, the rationalism of the Mu ˜tazilites was defeated
by the philosophy of al-Ashari (died 935 C.E.) who, while
not totally abandoning reason, did essentially subordinate
reason to revelation. And the final death blow was given to
rationalism by the real traditionists whose views
eventually prevailed in Islam. The traditionists had no time
for scholastic theology, which, for them was no different
from Aristotelian philosophy “both led to unbelief. The
traditionists refused to bend to aql, or reason, for them,
reason was not required for religious understanding.
Religious truth lay in in the Koran and the sunna, both of
which had to be accepted without question and doubts. For
example, al Shafi ˜i is made to say in true traditionist
fashion that people who advocate scholastic theology with
its modest amount of rationalism, "should be beaten with
whips and the soles of sandals, and then paraded through
all tribes and encampments while it is proclaimed of them,
˜Such is the reward of those who forsake the Koran and
sunna and give themselves up to scholastic theology (
kalam ). ™" Al-Ghazali was similarly dismissive of reason;
he constantly criticizes the Greeks and the Muslim
philosophers influenced by them. Al Ghazali finds Greeks
the source of all kinds infidelity ; he was totally opposed
to spirit of free inquiry; for example in section 7, chapter 2
of his Ihay ulum al-adin, al Gahazali tells us that certain of
the natural sciences are contrary to the law and religion,
and in chapter 3 he tells us to abstain from free thought
and accept the conclusions of the prophets. The great Ibn
Khaldun is also suspicious of unbridled reason, which he
also finds the source of unbelief. "No," wrote Ibn Khaldun,
"one must be on guard by completely abandoning any
speculation about (causes)...We have been commanded
completely to abandon and suppress any speculation about
[causes] and to direct ourselves to the Causer of all causes,
so that the soul will be firmly coloured with the oneness of
God. A man who stops at the causes is frustrated. He is
rightly (said to be) unbeliever ¦.Therefore we are
forbidden by Muhammad to study causes."
The ultimate sign within Islam of the fear of disagreement
is surely the law of apostasy, (in Arabic, irtidad, or ridda ;
while an apostate is called a murtadd). In the Koran
(xvi.106 ff ) the apostate is threatened with punishment in
the next world only, but under Islamic law the penalty is
death. In the Traditions, Ibn Abbas transmits the following
saying of the Prophet : . "Kill him, who changes his
religion" or "behead him" ( Ibn Maja, Hudud, bab 2 ;Nasai,
Tahrim al-dam, bab 14; Bukhari, Murtaddin, bab 2;
Tirmidhi, Hudud, bab 25, Abu Dawud, Hudud, bab. 1; Ibn
Hanbal, i.217, 282, 322.)
Finally, we come to Islam™s fear of ˜outsiders.™ Islam
undoubtedly preached, to its credit, the equality of all free-
born, Male Muslims. However Muslim women, and
Muslim slaves are of course not considered equal. Thus
Islam is not, in theory, racist .However Islam excludes
people on the basis of belief. Salvation outside the Islamic
faith is impossible. The world is divided between Muslims
and Non-Muslims. There are very many sayings in the
Koran which preach hatred and ill-will towards non-
Muslims , and show a pathological fear of the "other:"
iv.101: The unbelievers are your sworn enemies.
lx.4: We renounce you (i.e. the idolaters): enmity and hate
shall reign between us until you believe in Allah only¦
lviii.23: You will not find believers in Allah and the Last
day on friendly terms with those who oppose Allah and
His apostle, even though they be their fathers, their sons,
their brothers, or their nearest kindred ¦
ix.7: Allah and His apostle repose no trust in idolaters ¦
viii.13-14: Thus We punished them because they defied
Allah and His apostle. He that defies Allah and His apostle
shall be sternly punished. We said to them, "Feel our
scourge. Hell-fire awaits the unbelievers."
viii.55: The basest creatures in the sight of Allah are the
faithless who will not believe ¦
xxv.55: Yet the unbelievers worship idols which can
neither help nor harm. Surely the unbeliever is his Lord™s
enemy.
v.72: ¦ He that worships other Gods besides Allah shall
be forbidden Paradise and shall be cast into Hell-fire.
None shall help the evil-doers.
ix.23: Believers! do not befriend your fathers or your
brothers if they choose unbelief in preference to faith.
Wrong-doers are those that befriend them.
ix. 28: Believers ! know that the idolaters are unclean.
xi. 28: Let believers not make friends with the infidels in
preference to the faithful ; he that does this has nothing to
hope for from Allah “ except in self-defence.
iii.118: Believers ! do not make friends with any men other
than your own people. They will spare no pains to corrupt
you. They desire nothing but your ruin. Their hatred is
clear from what they say, but more violent is the hatred
which their breasts conceal ¦
v. 14: Therefore, We stirred among them (the Christians)
enmity and hatred, which shall endure till the Day of
Resurrection, when Allah will declare to them all that they
have done.
v.64 ¦ That which Allah has revealed to you will surely
increase the wickedness and unbelief of many of them (the
Jews). We have stirred among them (the Jews) enmity and
hatred which will endure till the Day of Resurrection.
v.51: Believers! take neither Jews nor Christians for your
friends. They are friends with one another. Whoever of
you seeks their friendship shall become one of their
number. Allah does not guide the wrongdoers.
Christians are marginally better regarded than the Jews,
but the Koran still accuses them of falsifying the
scriptures.v.75: "They surely are infidels who say, "God is
the third of three"; for there is but one God; and if they do
not refrain from what they say, a severe punishment shall
light on those who are unbelievers."
They are also accused of worshipping Jesus as the son of
God, and like the Jews, they have been led astray and must
be brought back to the true religion, that is, Islam.
According to the Koran, Jews have intense hatred of all
true Muslims, and as a punishments for their sins, some of
them had, in the past, been changed into apes and swine
(surah v.63), and others will have their hands tied to their
necks and be cast into the Fire on Judgment day. The
attitude enjoined upon the Muslims towards the Jews can
only be described as anti-Semitic, and certainly was not
conducive to a better understanding, tolerance or co-
existence.
v.51: Believers, do not take Jews or Christians as
friends They are but one anothers friends. If
anyone of you takes them for his friends,, then he is
surely one of them. God will not guide evil-doers."
v.56-64: O Believers, do not take as your friends
the infidels or those who received the Scriptures
before you [Jews and Christians] and who scoff
and jest at your religion , but fear God if you are
believers. Nor those who when you call them to
prayer, make it an object of mirth and derision This
is only because they are a people who do not
understand.
Say: "People of the Book: isn't it true that you hate
us simply because we believe in God, and in what
He has sent down to us, and in what He has
revealed to others before; and because most of you
are evil doers?"
"Why don't their rabbis and doctors of lax forbid
them from uttering sinful words and eating
unlawful food ? Evil indeed are their works.
"The hand of God is chained up ", claim the Jews
.Their own hands shall be chained up __ and they
shall be cursed for saying such a thing ".
Jews are often accused, in the Koran, of perverting the
scriptures, and holding doctrines they never held:
ix.29,30: "Declare war upon those to whom the
Scriptures were revealed but believe neither in God
nor the Last Day ,and who do not forbid that which
God and His Apostle have forbidden, and who
refuse to acknowledge the true religion [Islam]
until they pay the poll-tax without reservation and
are totally subjugated.
"The Jews claim that Ezra is a son of God, and the
Christians say, " the Messiah is a son of God
".Those are their claims which do indeed resemble
the sayings of the Infidels of Old. May God do
battle with them! How they are deluded!"
And they deserve fully any punishment they get:
ii.61: "Wretchedness and baseness were stamped
upon them [That is the Jews] and they drew on
themselves the wrath of God. This was because
they [the Jews] disbelieved the signs of God and
slew the Prophets unjustly, and because they
rebelled and transgressed ."
iv.160,161: Because of the wickedness of certain
Jews, and because they turn many from the way of
God, We have forbidden them good and
wholesome foods which were formerly allowed
them; and because they have taken to usury, though
they were forbidden it; and have cheated others of
their possessions, We have prepared a grievous
punishment for the Infidels amongst them ".
Such are some of the sentiments expressed in the Koran,
which remains for all Muslims, and not just
"fundamentalists", the uncreated word of God Himself. It
is valid for all times and places, its ideas are, according to
all Muslims, absolutely true and beyond any criticism.
The treatment of the Jews by Muhammad is certainly not
above reproach. The cold-blooded extermination of the
Banu Qurayza ( between 600 and 900 men ), the expulsion
of the Nadir and their later massacre (something often
overlooked in the history books) are not signs of
magnanimity or compassion. His treatment of the Jews of
the oasis of Khaybar served "as a model for the treaties
granted by the Arab conquerors to the conquered peoples
in territories beyond Arabia." Muhammad attacked the
oasis in 628, had one of the leaders tortured to find the
hidden treasures of the tribe, and then when the Jews
surrendered, agreed to let them continue cultivating their
oasis only if they gave him half their produce. Muhammad
also reserved the right to cancel the treaty and expel the
Jews whenever he liked. This treaty or agreement was
called a DHIMMA, and those who accepted it were known
as DHIMMIS. All non-Muslims who accepted Muslim
supremacy and agreed to pay a tribute, in return for "
Muslim protection," are referred to as dhimmis.
The second caliph Umar later expelled the Jews and the
Christians from the Hijaz (containing the holy cities of
Mecca and Medina) in 640, referring to the dhimma of
Khaybar. He is said to have quoted the Prophet on the right
to cancel any pact he wished, and the Prophet's famous
saying: " Two religions shall not remain together in the
peninsula of the Arabs." To this day, the establishment of
any other religion in Saudi Arabia is forbidden, many
Christians have been executed for simply practising their
religion. Here is how Amnesty International describes the
situation in Saudi Arabia :
"Hundreds of Christians, including women and children
have been arrested and detained over the past three years,
most without charge or trial, solely for the peaceful
expression of their religious beliefs. Scores have been
tortured, some by flogging, while in detention¦.The
possession of non-Islamic religious objects “ including
Bibles, rosary beads, crosses and pictures of Jesus Christ “
is prohibited and such items may be confiscated" (AINO
62 ; July /August 1993).
At least since the Renaissance, one of the characteristics of
Western civilisation has been its interest in other lands and
societies. "This universal curiosity is still a distinguishing,
almost an exclusive, characteristic of Europe and her
daughters." Muslims are by contrast profoundly convinced
of the finality, completeness, and essential self-sufficiency
of their civilisation. For the Muslim, Islam is the one true
faith, beyond which there are only unbelievers. "You [
Muslims ] are the best of peoples" the Koran tells Muslims
(sura iii.110) It is a remarkable fact that until at least the
late 16 th century, when Turkish historians began to show
a vague and still faint interest in European history, Muslim
historians, with three noble exceptions, and Muslims in
general, showed little desire to step outside their
civilisation intellectually. The exceptions are just that,
exceptions : the geographer Masudi, cultural historian and
observer al-Biruni, and historian Rashid al-Din. Until the
end of the 18th century, very few European books were
translated into Muslim languages, and most of these dealt
with useful topics such as medical science. This attitude
has continued to this day. No Islamic country has
university faculties that study non-Islamic civilisations,
with the exception, significantly of Turkey, where, in
Ankara, one can study Sanskrit. Even to listen to Western
classical music is considered undesirable, and a danger to
Islamic civilisation; "the treason of an Arab begins when
he enjoys listening to Mozart or Beethoven;" wrote the
Tunisian al-Wasiti ( quoted by Norman Daniel, Euro-Arab
dialogue, p.88 ) Here is how one political analyst sums up
the situation in the 1990s :
"Arabs may be well informed on currency movements and
the latest chat on the prospects of the Western economies
but know surprisingly little about how Western societies
and governments operate. Even those who live in the West
or visit it frequently on holiday do not have much
understanding of it because, in most cases, when they are
there they mix with other Arabs,, principally their own
relations, and take no interest in the culture, history or
institutions of the countries they are in." Dr.Muhamed
Talbi also makes a similar point by quoting Ibn Khaldun
and Maryam Jameelah :
"Au VIIIe / XIVe siècle, Ibn Khaldun, dont le génie est
pourtant incontestable,écrivait: "Il faut donc se tenir à
l'écart des sciences relatives aux religions antérieures à
l'Islam et il est interdit d'en discuter". Ibn Khaldun, en cela
seulement, fut écouté, ou plutôt il était l'interprète d'une
mentalité qui avait preevalu jusqu'à nos jours. "Peu de
musulmans, écrit Maryam Jameelah, ont réellement une
connaissance profonde de l'Occident. Combien de
musulmans, par exemple, maîtrisent - ils le grec ou le
latin, et combien sont - ils intellectuellement équipés pour
étudier le Judaïsme et le Christianisme aussi bien que les
idéologies laïques à partir d'un point de vue musulman?
Alors que des générations d'orientalistes occidentaux
avaient étudié l'Islam conformément à leurs besoins et à
leurs buts, n'est - il pas essentiel que quelques ulémas
deviennent des occidentalistes?"
Muslims are certain that Islam is not only the whole of
God™s truth, but it is its final expression. Hence Muslims
fear and persecute such post-Islamic religious movements
as the Baha™is and the Ahmadis. Here is Amnesty
International on the plight of the Ahmadis [ ASA
:33/15.91]: "Ahmadis consider themselves to be Muslims
but they are regarded by orthodox Muslims as heretical
because they call the founder of their movement al-Masih
[ the Messiah ]: this is taken to imply that Muhammad is
not the final seal of the prophets as orthodox Islam holds,
i.e., the Prophet who carried the final message from God
to humanity ¦. As a result of these divergences, Ahmadis
have been subjected to discrimination and persecution in
some Islamic countries. In the mid-1970s, the Saudi
Arabia based World Muslim League called on Muslim
governments worldwide to take action against Ahmadis.
Ahmadis are since then banned in Saudi Arabia."
Umberto Eco: [6] "Ur-Fascism (or Eternal Fascism)
derives from individual or social frustration."
There has been a demographic explosion in the Islamic
world, and the leaders have simply not coped, unable to
provide jobs, housing, health facilities, transport, inflation
running high, all compounded by human rights abuses
(torture, summary justice, executions, and so on ) This
failure has been very ably exploited by the Islamists to
increase their prestige, to increase their power, which has
led, in turn, to mounting demands for increasing
Islamization of society. Another essential factor in the
current Islamic revival has to do with Islam™s crisis of
identity, especially in face of the West™s overwhelming
economic and cultural success in contrast to the relative
economic, cultural, human rights failures of the post-
independence regimes in the Islamic world. These failures
have led to an increase of frustration, envy and hatred of
the West, and an exaggerated emphasis on their Islamic
identity. And "since for Muslims Islam is, by definition,
superior to all other faiths, the failures and defeats of
Muslims in this world can only mean that they are not
practicing authentic Islam and that their states are not true
Islamic states. The remedy, therefore, is return to the pure,
authentic Islam of the Prophet and his Companions, a
rejection and elimination of the accretions and innovations
that had debased and corrupted the faith and enfeebled the
Islamic society ¦ "
Umberto Eco: [7] " ¦Thus at the root of the Ur-Fascist
psychology there is the obsession with a plot, possibly an
international one. The followers must feel besieged. The
easiest way to solve the plot is the appeal to xenophobia.
But the plot must also come from the inside: Jews are
usually the best target because they have the advantage of
being at the same time inside and outside."
A belief in international plots, or, in other words,
conspiracy theories are the key to understanding the
politics of the Middle East. As Daniel Pipes in his
acclaimed study, "The Hidden Hand, The Middle East
Fears of Conspiracy" put it : "¦Whoever hopes to
understand the Middle East must recognize the distorting
lens of conspiracy theories, understand them, make
allowance for them, and perhaps even plan around them.
Conspiracism [the belief in international plots or
conspiracies] provides a key to understanding the political
culture of the Middle East." Amazingly enough, most of
the leading Muslim thinkers and actors of the twentieth
century have put forward conspiracy theories to excuse the
continuing cultural and economic backwardness of Islamic
countries; the prevalence of such theories indicate a
refusal on the part of Muslims to take responsibility for
their own failures. As Pipes in his brilliant work says,
"although grand conspiracy theories surfaced in the Middle
East only in the late nineteenth century, their subject
matter ranges much farther ; indeed it often extends right
back to the time of the Prophet Muhammad. More broadly,
conspiracy theorists reinterpret the whole sweep of Islamic
history, plundering medieval texts to locate instances of
conspiracy, especially on the part of Christians and Jews."
The Iranian scholar Ervand Abrahamian has shown how
prevalent the conspiracies are in Iran,, leading often to
tragic consequences , as in the mass executions of 1981-
82:
"When in June 1981 the [People™s] Mojahedin tried to
overthrow the Islamic Republic, Khomeini proclaimed that
the CIA was planning a repeat performance of 1953 and
that the whole opposition, not just the Mojahedin, was
implicated in this grand international plot. In six short
weeks, the Islamic Republic shot over one thousand
prisoners. The victims included not only members of the
Mojahedin but also royalists, Bahais, Jews.
"Kurds, Baluchis, Arabs, Qashqayis, Tukomans, National
Frontists, Maoists, anti-Stalinist Marxists, and even
apolitical teenage girls who happened to be in the wrong
street at the wrong time. Never before in Iran had firing
squads executed so many in so short a time over so flimsy
an accusation."
Muslim thinkers premise their understanding of modern
history on Western plots against Islam. For example,
Muhammad al-Ghazali, a leading contemporary Muslim
thinker from Egypt, wrote, "there is a conspiracy against
Islam ¦by Western secularism because it claims that
Islam is a dangerous religion.". Khomeini goes further by
explaining, "In the interests of the Jews, America, and
Israel, we [Muslims] must be jailed and killed, we must be
sacrificed to the evil intentions of foreigners." According
to such Muslim thinking, Islam made the Muslims great,
culturally, militarily, economically , but because of
external influence and plotting of the Jews and the
imperialists, Muslims have been lured away from the
Koran, the Sharia, the Muslim way of life, and hence have
lost their moorings. Khomeini saw the Shah of Persia ˜s
granting women the right to vote as an "attempt to corrupt
our chaste women" and a plot against Islam "perhaps
drawn up by the spies of the Jews and the Zionists"
intending to destroy "the independence of the state and the
economy." Rushdie™s novel, Satanic Verses he saw as a
mortal threat to Islam.
As Pipes concludes, nearly all the most influential Muslim
thinkers, such as Hasan al Banna, Sayyid Qutb, Abu™l A™la
al-Maududi, accept the premise of anti-Islamic
conspiration by Jews and Europeans, as do most of the
preachers, scholars , journalists, and politicians. The very
constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran refers to
plotting, when it describes the White Revolution (the
Shah™s land-reform program) as an "American plot ¦ a
ploy to stabilize the foundation of the colonialist
government [of the Shah] and strengthen Iran™s ¦ties with
world imperialism." This constitution also promises that
non-Muslims will be well-treated if they refrain from
getting "in conspiracies hatched against the Islamic
Republic of Iran."
Muslims of the Middle East fear two main conspirators,
Jews and Imperialists. Jews are seen as a threat to the
whole of humanity, and are considered responsible for
every evil in the world, from assassinations of Lincoln,
McKinley, and Kennedy, to the French and Russian
Revolution, and so on. As Robert Wistrich put it, for the
Muslim Brethren of Egypt, "Of all the myriad enemies of
Islam ¦Jewry represents the ultimate abomination, evil in
its purest ontological form." and as Daniel Pipes adds, and
the same applies for many other Muslims, for example,
Sayyid Qutb, the very influential Egyptian thinker, wrote,
"Through the lengthy centuries “ regretfully “ [the Jews]
poisoned the Islamic heritage in a way that may itself be
revealed only with the effort of centuries."
While Mustafa Mashur, another Egyptian thinker sees
Jews behind "every weird, deviant principle" in history.
Muslims considered the U.N. International Conference on
Population and Development held in Cairo in 1994 as an
international plot to undermine Islam, and to annihilate
Muslims. Adil Husayn, a leading Muslim Egyptian thinker
argued that the West™s promotion of birth control "is not
aimed at developing the poor world. It is a racist plan to
designed to continue looting and weakening us in favour
of the dominating white race ¦.The conference is the
culmination of a scheme aimed at annihilating mankind
and Muslims."
What precisely is the reason for the prevalence of
conspiracy theories in the Muslim Middle East. Many
analysts are convinced of the role and nature of Islam in
the incubation and perpetuation of conspiracy theories.
The saying "better a 100 years of repression than a day of
anarchy" sums up the fear of anarchy (fitna) that lies deep
in Islamic culture, and may be responsible for encouraging
the paranoid style of thinking. More commonly, Middle
Eastern analysts point to the fatalism inculcated by Islam .
Though there, as usual contradictory statements in the
Koran on this subject, in the end it was the predestination
doctrine that prevailed in Islam .Here are some quotes
from the Koran that have led to a kind of fatalism within
Islam :
liv. 49 All things have been created after fixed decree.
iii.139 No one can die except by God™s permission
according to the book that fixes the term of life.
lxxxvii.2 The Lord has created and balanced all things and
has fixed their destinies and guided them..
viii.17 God killed them, and those shafts were God™s, not
yours.
ix.51 By no means can anything befall us but what God
has destined for us.
( See also, xiii.30 ; xiv.4 ; xviii.101 ; xxxii.32 xlv.26 ;
lvii.22 )
Kanan Makiya, the Iraqi political thinker, sees, "extreme
fatalism ¦that may be a characteristic of Islamic culture
generally « as a key explanation for conspiracy theories. In
his view, this world view undermines the notion of man as
responsible to himself. Similarly, Homa Katouzian traces
conspiracy theories to an « unimaginable fatalism;" and
Jahangir Amuzegar ascribes them to a "fatalistic streak."
Others point to the Shi™a tradition of taqiya ( dissimulation
“ for self-protection and the safeguarding of faith ; and
finally some single out the Shia tradition of martyrdom
(shihada) that causes Iranians to externalize evil, to seek to
put the responsibility for their failures, misdeeds, blunders
onto others plotting against them.
Umberto Eco: [8] "The followers must feel humiliated by
the ostentatious wealth and force of their enemies
¦.However, the followers must be convinced that they
can overwhelm the enemies. Thus, by a continuous
shifting of rhetorical focus, the enemies are the same time
too strong and too weak. Fascist governments are
condemned to lose wars because they are constitutionally
incapable of objectively evaluating the force of the
enemy."
The Muslims in the Middle East have been constantly
humiliated for centuries, but perhaps at no time more so
than since the late 18th century when Napoleon first burst
upon the scene with the conquest of Egypt. Ever since
then, Muslims have continued to be at once both attracted,
and repelled by Western civilisation, and all its material
and spiritual wares, which they cannot afford to buy, or
emulate for fear of being accused of treason towards
Islam. The Six “Day War with Israel totally humiliated not
just Arabs, but all Muslims around the world. And as
Umberto Eco says, they are condemned to lose wars as
they seem incapable of rationally and objectively assessing
the strength and weaknesses of the enemy. The enemy is
seen as both too strong and too weak . As Field puts it, the
paranoid style in the Middle East "is obviously linked to
the theorists™ general ignorance of the outside world and
this is clearly a disadvantage for any society. The belief in
plots, combined with ignorance, leads the Arabs to
exaggerate the power of the West and misjudge its
motives, making them believe that it is hostile and
manipulative when it is more likely to be morally
censorious, occasionally concerned with upholding states™
sovereignty and /or protecting its oil interests, generally
interested in promoting its exports, and often indifferent to
Arab issues “ or concerned but unable to see how it can
influence events."
For the Middle Easterner, the Jewish or Imperialist
conspirator is at once too powerful and too weak. Thus
"the conspirator never rests, never falters, never makes
mistakes, and never shows fear; word to the contrary is
disinformation. He is tireless." "Every day the [enemies of
Islam] plot new conspiracies and schemes." The Zionist
conspiracy "has enormous resources at its disposal: money,
media, industry, technology, oil, military hardware, and
the intelligence agencies, led by Mossad and CIA." Gamal
Abdel Nasser also believed in the omnipotence of the
West, "The Americans know perfectly well what we will
say, where we will proceed, and what we will do." While
Sattareh Farman Farmaian tells of the servants in her
family™s Iranian home that they "believed that the English
were so diabolical that they could even cause floods,
droughts, and earthquakes. And it was true that to Iranians,
the British seemed almost supernaturally clever."
And yet, the enemies of Islam never wins . "The Jews may
try, but they will never destroy the [Muslims]." Or as The
Baghdad Observer put it, "A savage campaign has been
conducted by the U.S. inside the Security Council to hurt
Iraq, choke its economy and starve its people. Yet, as the
first chapters of the conspiracy have failed to weaken Iraq,
the final phase of the enemies™ schemes is definitely going
to meet the same fate. The whole conspiracy is doomed to
failure."
Umberto Eco: [9] "For Ur-Fascism, (Eternal Fascism)
there is no struggle for life, but rather life is lived for
struggle. Thus pacifism is trafficking with the enemy. It is
bad because life is permanent warfare."
Umberto Eco: [11] "¦Everybody is educated to become a
hero ¦This cult of heroism is strictly linked with the cult
of death. In non-fascist societies, the lay public is told that
death is unpleasant but must be faced with dignity ;
believers are told that it is the painful way to reach a
supernatural happiness. By, contrast, the Ur-Fascist craves
heroic death, advertised as the best reward for a heroic
life. The Ur-Fascist hero is impatient to die. In his
impatience, he more frequently sends other people to
death."
Umberto Eco™s feature [9] goes naturally well with feature
[11], so I shall discuss them here, and leave feature [10]
for later.
The totalitarian nature of Islam is no where more apparent
than in the concept of Jihad, the Holy War, whose ultimate
aim is to conquer the entire world and submit it to the one
true faith, to the law of Allah. To Islam alone has been
granted the truth - there is no possibility of salvation
outside it. It is the sacred duty - an incumbent religious
duty established in the Koran and the Traditions - of all
Muslims to bring it to all humanity. Jihad is a divine
institution, enjoined specially for the purpose of advancing
Islam. Muslims must strive, fight and kill in the name of
God:
ix.5-6: "Kill those who join other gods with God wherever
you may find them."
iv.76: "Those who believe fight in the cause of God..."
viii.12: "I will instill terror into the hearts of the Infidels,
strike off their heads then, and strike off from them every
fingertip."
viii.39-42: "Say to the Infidels: If they desist from their
unbelief, what is now past shall be forgiven them; but if
they return to it, they have already before them the doom
of the ancients! Fight then against them till strife be at an
end, and the religion be all of it God's."
ii.256: "But they who believe, and who fly their country,
and fight in the cause of God may hope for God's mercy:
and God is Gracious, Merciful."
It is a grave sin for a Muslim to shirk the battle against the
unbelievers, those who do will roast in hell:
viii. 15, 16: "Believers, when you meet the unbelievers
preparing for battle do not turn your backs to them. [
Anyone who does ] shall incur the wrath of God and hell
shall be his home: an evil dwelling indeed ".
ix.39: "If you do not fight, He will punish you severely,
and put others in your place."
Those who die fighting for the only true religion, Islam,
will be amply rewarded in the life to come:
iv.74: "Let those fight in the cause of God who barter the
life of this world for that which is to come; for whoever
fights on God's path, whether he is killed or triumphs, We
will give him a handsome reward."
It is abundantly clear from many of the above verses that
the Koran is not talking of metaphorical battles or of moral
crusades; it is talking of the battle field. To read such
blood thirsty injunctions in a Holy Book is shocking.
Mankind is divided into two groups - Muslims and non-
Muslims. The Muslims are members of the Islamic
community, the umma, who possess territories in the Dar
ul Islam, the Land of Islam, where the edicts of Islam are
fully promulgated. The non-Muslims are the Harbi, people
of the Dar ul Harb, the Land of Warfare, any country
belonging to the infidels which has not been subdued by
Islam but which, nonetheless, is destined to pass into
Islamic jurisdiction either by conversion or by war (Harb).
All acts of war are permitted in the Dar ul Harb. Once the
Dar ul Harb has been subjugated, the Harbi become
prisoners of war. The imam can do what he likes to them
according to the circumstances. Woe betide the city that
resists and is then taken by the Islamic army by storm.. In
this case, the inhabitants have no rights whatsoever, and as
Sir Steven Runciman says in his "The Fall of
Constantinople, 1453":
"The conquering army is allowed three days of
unrestricted pillage; and the former places of worship,
with every other building, become the property of the
conquering leader; he may dispose of them as he pleases.
Sultan Mehmet [after the fall of Constantinople in 1453
allowed] his soldiers the three days of pillage to which
they were entitled. They poured into the city...They slew
everyone that they met in the streets, men, women and
children without discrimination.. The blood ran in rivers
down the steep streets...But soon the lust for slaughter was
assuaged. The soldiers realized that captives and precious
objects would bring them greater profits."
In other cases, they are sold into slavery, exiled or treated
as dhimmis, who are tolerated as second class subjects, as
long as they pay a regular tribute.
It is common nowadays for the apologists of Islam,
whether Muslims or their Western admirers, to interpret
"Jihad" in the non-military sense of "moral struggle,"
"moral striving." But it is quite illegitimate to pretend that
the Koran and the books on Islamic Law were talking
about "moral crusades." Rather as Rudolf Peters says in his
definitive study of Jihad says, "In the books on Islamic
Law, the word means armed struggle against the
unbelievers, which is also a common meaning in the
Koran." Apologists of Islam, even when they do admit that
real battles are being referred to, still pretend that the
doctrine of Jihad only talks of "defensive measures," that
is, the apologists pretend that fighting is only allowed to
defend Muslims, and that offensive wars are illegitimate.
But again, this is not the classical doctrine in Islam; as
Peters makes clear, the Sword Verses in the Koran were
interpreted as unconditional commands to fight the
unbelievers, and furthermore these Sword Verses
abrogated all previous verses concerning intercourse with
non-Muslims. Peters sums up the classical doctrine as:
"The doctrine of Jihad as laid down in the works on
Islamic Law, developed out of the Koranic prescriptions
and the example of the Prophet and the first caliphs, which
is recorded in the hadith; The crux of the doctrine is the
existence of one single Islamic state, ruling the entire
umma [Muslim community]. It is the duty of the umma to
expand the territory of this state in order to bring as many
people under its rule as possible. The ultimate aim is to
bring the whole earth under the sway of Islam and to
extirpate unbelief : "Fight them until there is no
persecution and the religion is God™s entirely." (sura ii.193
; viii.39). Expansionist jihad is a collective duty (fard ala
al-kifaya), which is fulfilled if a sufficient number of
people take part in it. If this is not the case, the whole
umma [Muslim community] is sinning."
Here are more bellicose verses from the Koran, the words
of Allah telling Muslims to kill, murder on his behalf :
ii.193: Fight against them until idolatry is no more and
Allah™s religion reigns supreme.
ii. 216: Fighting is obligatory for you, much as you dislike
it. But you may hate a thing although it is good for you,
and love a thing although it is bad for you. Allah knows,
but you do not.
ix.41: Whether unarmed or well-equipped, march on and
fight for the cause of Allah, with your wealth and your
persons. This is best for you, if you but knew it.
ix. 123: Believers! make war on the infidels who dwell
around you let them find harshness in you.
lxvi.9: O Prophet! make war on the unbelievers and the
hypocrites and deal sternly with them hell shall be their
home, evil their fate.
ix.73: O Prophet Make war on the unbelievers and the
hypocrites. Be harsh with them. Their ultimate abode is
hell, a hapless journey™s end.
viii.65: O Prophet! Exhort the believers to fight. If there
are twenty steadfast men among you, they shall vanquish
two hundred; and if there are a hundred, they shall rout a
thousand unbelievers, for they are devoid of
understanding.
xlvii.4-15: When you meet the unbelievers in the
battlefield strike off their heads and when you have laid
them low, bind your captives firmly ¦.
xxv.52: Do not yield to the unbelievers, but fight them
strenuously with this Koran.
viii.67: It is not for any Prophet to have captives until he
has made slaughter in the land ¦
What Umberto Eco calls the cult of heroism and the cult
of death is beautifully exemplified in the Muslim cult of
martyrdom. The Koran promises Paradise with its
seductive houris to all those who die in the cause of Islam :
x. 4-15 "...As for those who are slain in the cause of Allah,
He will not allow their works to perish. He will vouchsafe
them guidance and ennoble their state; He will admit them
to Paradise He has made known to them."
ix.111: "Allah has purchased of their faithful lives and
worldly goods and in return has promised them the
Garden. They will fight for His cause, kill and be killed."
iii.169-171: "You must not think that those who were slain
in the cause of Allah are dead. They are alive, and well-
provided for by their Lord¦. "
iii.157-158 "If you should die or be killed in the cause of
Allah, His mercy and forgiveness would surely be better
than all the riches that amass. If you should die or be
killed, before Him you shall all be gathered."
Bukhari gives the following hadith : "Narrated Anas bin
Malik : ˜The prophet said, 'Nobody who dies and finds
good from Allah (in the hereafter) would wish to come
back to this world even if he were given the whole world
¦except the martyr who, on seeing the superiority of
martyrdom, would like to come back to the world and get
killed again (in Allah's cause.)'"
Finally, on the obligation of Jihad, I shall quote from two
Muslim thinkers greatly admired in the West. First Ibn
Khaldun in his Muqaddimah writes: "In the Muslim
community, the holy war is religious duty, because of the
universalism of the Muslim mission and (the obligation to)
covert everybody to Islam either by persuasion or by
force."
And now Averroes, a much romanticized figure in the
West : "According to the majority of scholars, the
compulsory nature of the jihad is founded on sura ii.216:
˜Prescribed for you is fighting, though it is hateful to you.™
The obligation to participate in the jihad applies to adult
free men who have the means at their disposal to go to war
and who are healthy, ¦ Scholars agree that all polytheists
should be fought; This founded on sura viii.39: Fight them
until there is no persecution and the religion is God™s
entirely"¦ Most scholars are agreed that, in his dealing
with captives, various policies are open to the Imam. He
may pardon them, enslave them, kill them, or release them
either on ransom or as dhimmi [non-Muslim, second class
subject of the Islamic state], in which latter case the
released captive is obliged to pay poll-tax (jizya) ¦.Sura
viii.67 "It is not for any Prophet to have prisoners until he
make wide slaughter in the land." as well as the occasion
when this verse was revealed [viz.the captives of Badr]
would prove that it is better to kill captives than to enslave
them. The Prophet himself would in some cases kill
captives outside the field of battle, while he would pardon
them in others. Women he used to enslave ¦. The
Muslims are agreed that the aim of warfare against the
People of the Book ¦is two-fold :either conversion to
Islam or payment of poll-tax “jizya)."
Umberto Eco: [10] "Elitism is a typical aspect of any
reactionary ideology, insofar as it is fundamentally
aristocratic, and aristocratic and militaristic elitism cruelly
implies contempt for the weak. Ur-Fascism can only
advocate a popular elitism. Every citizen belongs to the
best people of the world, the members of the party are the
best among the citizens, every citizen can (or ought to)
become a member of the party ¦ "
Here, it takes very little substitution to see how Umberto
Eco's tenth feature applies to Muslims as well. "Every
[Muslim] belongs to the best people of the world, the
members of the [Umma] are the best among the citizens,
every citizen can (or ought to) become a [Muslim]
member of the [Umma]."
Islam is the most perfect of religion, and Muslims are the
chosen people, as sura v.3 tells us: " This day I have
prefected for you your religion and completed My favour
to you and chosen for you Islam as a religion." Islam is
destined to triumph ultimately, sura ix.33 "He it is Who
sent His Messenger with guidance and the Religion of
Truth, that He may cause it to prevail over all religions,
though the polytheists are averse" (see also xlviii.28;
lxi.9).
The arrogance of Muslims is captured very precisely by
Frithjof Schuon, a Western convert to a mystical variety of
Islam:
"The intellectual “ and thereby the rational “ foundation of
Islam results in the average Muslim having a curious
tendency to believe that non-Muslims either know that
Islam is the Truth and reject it out of pure obstinacy, or
else are simply ignorant of it and can be converted by
elementary explanations; that anyone should be able to
oppose Islam with a good conscience quite exceeds the
Muslims™ imagination, precisely because Islam coincides
in his mind with the irresistible logic of things."
Umberto Eco: [12] "Since both permanent war and
heroism are difficult games to play, the Ur-Fascist
transfers his will to power to sexual matters. This is the
origin of machismo (which implies both disdain for
women and intolerance and condemnation of non-standard
sexual habits, from chastity to homosexuality)."
Here are some machismo sayings from the Koran :
iv..34 Men are in charge of women, because Allah hath
made the one of them to excel the other, & because they
spend of their property (for the support of women). So
good women are the obedient, guarding in secret that
which Allah hath guarded. As for those from whom ye fear
rebellion, admonish them & banish them to beds apart;
and beat them. Then if they obey you, seek not a way
against them Lo! Allah is ever High Exalted, Great.
v.6... And if ye are sick on a journey, or one of you cometh
from the closet, or ye have contact with women & ye find
not water, then go to clean high ground & rub your faces
& your hands with some of it...
xxxiii. 32-33 O ye wives of the Prophet! Ye are not like
any other women. If ye keep your duty (to Allah), then be
not soft of speech lest he in whose heart is a disease aspire
to you, but utter customary speech And stay in your
houses. Bedizen not yourselves with the bedizenment of
the time of ignorance. Be regular in prayer, & pay the poor
due, & obey Allah & His Messenger...
Equally, in numerous Hadiths on which are based the
Islamic laws we learn of the woman' s role - to stay at
home, to be at the beck & call of man, to obey him (which
is a religious duty,) to assure man a tranquil existence.
Here are some examples:
_____ If it had been given me to order someone to
prostrate themselves in front of someone other than God, I
would surely have ordered women to prostrate themselves
in front of their husbands... A woman cannot fulfill her
duties towards God without first having accomplished
those that she owes her husband.
_____ The woman who dies & with whom the husband is
satisfied will go to paradise.
_____ A wife should never refuse herself to her husband
even if it is on the saddle of a camel.
_____ Hellfire appeared to me in a dream & I noticed that
it was above all peopled with women who had been
ungrateful. "Was it towards God that they were
ungrateful?" They had not shown any gratitude towards
their husbands for all they had received from them... Even
when all your life you have showered a woman with your
largesse she will still find something petty to reproach you
with one day, saying, "You have never done anything for
me."
_____ If anything presages a bad omen it is: a house, a
woman, a horse.
_____ Never will a people know success if they confide
their affairs to a woman.
Al -Ghazali (1058 - 1111), whom Professor Montgomery
Watt describes as the greatest Muslim after Muhammad, in
his " The Revival Of The Religious Sciences," defines the
woman' s role:
"She should stay at home & get on with her spinning, she
should not go out often, she must not be well-informed,
nor must she be communicative with her neighbours &
only visit them when absolutely necessary; she should take
care of her husband & respect him in his presence & his
absence & seek to satisfy him in everything; she must not
cheat on him nor extort money from him; she must not
leave her house without his permission & if gives his
permission she must leave surreptitiously. She should put
old on clothes & take deserted streets & alleys, avoid
markets, & make sure that a stranger does not hear her
voice or recognise her; she must not speak to a friend of
her husband even in need... Her sole worry should be her
virtue, her home as well as her prayers & her fast. If a
friend of her husband calls when the latter is absent she
must not open the door nor reply to him in order to
safeguard her & her husband's honour. She should accept
what her husband gives her as sufficient sexual needs at
any moment "...She should be clean and ready to satisfy
her husband's sexual needs at any moment." The great
theologian then warns all men to be careful of women for
their, "guile is immense & their mischief is noxious; they
are immoral & mean spirited." "It is a fact that all the
trials, misfortunes & woes which befall men come from
women," moaned Al Ghazali.
In his Book of Counsel for Kings, Ghazali sums up all that
a woman has to suffer & endure because of Eve's
misbehaviour in the Garden of Eden:
"As for the distinctive characteristics with which God on
high has punished women, (the matter is as follows):
"When Eve ate fruit which He had forbidden to her from
the tree in Paradise, the Lord, be He praised, punished
women with eighteen things: (1) menstruation; (2)
childbirth; (3) separation from mother & father &
marriage to a stranger; (4) pregnancy; (5) not having
control over her own person; (6) a lesser share in
inheritance; (7) her liability to be divorced & inability to
divorce; (8) its being lawful for men to have four wives,
but for a woman to have only one husband; (9) the fact
that she must stay secluded in the house; (10) the fact that
she must keep her head covered inside the house; (11) the
fact that two women's testimony has to be set against the
testimony of one man; (12) the fact that she must not go
out of the house unless accompanied by a near relative;
(13) the fact that men take part in Friday & feast day
prayers & funerals while women do not; (14)
disqualification for rulership & judgeship; (15) the fact
that merit has one thousand components, only one of
which is attributable to women, while 999 are attributable
to men; (16)... (17) the fact that if their husbands die they
must observe a waiting period of four months & ten days
before remarrying. (18) The fact that if their husbands
divorce them they must observe a waiting period of three
months or three menstrual periods before remarrying... "
The Koran, of course, permits men an unlimited number of
women: IV.3 And if ye are apprehensive that ye shall not
deal fairly with orphans, then, of other women who seem
good in your eyes marry but two, or three or four; & if ye
still fear that ye shall not act equitably, then one only; or
the slaves whom ye have acquired XXIII.1,5,6. Happy now
the believers, humble in their prayers, shunning vain
conversation, paying the poor-due,& who restrain their
appetites except with their wives or the slaves whom their
right hands possess: for in that case they shall be free from
blame.
XXXIII.49-51 O Prophet! We allow thee thy wives whom
thou hast dowered, & the slaves whom thy right hand
possesseth out of the booty which God hath granted thee,
& the daughters of thy uncle, thy paternal & maternal
aunts who fled with thee to Medina, & any believing
woman who hath given herself up to the Prophet, if the
Prophet desired to wed her - a Privilege for thee above the
rest of the Faithful We well know what we have settled for
them, in regard to their wives & to the slaves...; that there
may be no fault on thy part... Thou mayst decline for the
present whom thou wilt of them, & thou mayest take to thy
bed her whom thou wilt, & whomsoever thou shalt long
for of those thou shalt have before neglected, & this shall
not be a crime in thee."
The inequality between men & women in matters of
giving testimony or evidence; or being a witness is
enshrined in the Koran: II.282 "Call in two male witnesses
from among you but if two men cannot be found, then one
man & two women whom you judge fit to act as witnesses;
so that if either of them commit an error the other will
remember."
On adultery the Koran says: XXIV.4 Those that defame
honourable women & cannot produce four witnesses shall
be given eighty lashes. "Of course, Muslim jurists will
only accept four male witnesses. These witnesses must
declare that they have "seen the parties in the very act of
carnal conjunction".
In questions of heritage, the Quran tells us that male
children should inherit twice the portion of female
children IV.11-12 A male shall inherit twice as much as a
female. If there be more than two girls, they shall have
two- thirds of the inheritance, but if there be one only, she
shall inherit the half. Parents shall inherit a sixth each, if
the deceased have a child; but if he leave no child & his
parents be his heirs, his mother shall have a third. If he
have brothers, his mother shall have a sixth after payment
of any legacy he may have bequeathed or any debt he may
have owed.
The birth of a girl is still seen as a catastrophe in Islamic
societies.. The system of inheritance just adds to her
misery & her dependence on the man.... If she is an only
child she receives only half the legacy of her father, the
other half going to the male members of the father's
family. If there are two or more daughters, they inherit
2/3rds. This pushes fathers & mothers to prefer male
children to female so that they can leave the entirety of
their effects or possessions to their own descendants. "Yet
when a new-born girl is announced to one of them his
countenance darkens & heis filled with gloom"; Koran
XLIII. 15. The situation is even worse when a woman
loses her husband - she only receives a quarter of the
legacy & one eighth if there are. If the deceased leaves
more than one wife, all the wives are still obliged to share
among themselves a quarter or one eighth of the legacy.
All Muslim males can at any moment separate themselves
from their wives, can repudiate their wives without
formality, without explanations, without compensation. It
is enough for the husband to pronounce the phrase "You
are divorced" & it is done. Up to a period of three months
the divorce is revocable. If the husband pronounces "You
are divorced" three times, then the divorce is definitive. In
the latter case the divorced wife cannot return to her
husband until she has been married, "enjoyed", & divorced
by another husband. Divorce depends entirely on the will
& caprice of the husband - he may divorce his wife
without any misbehaviour on her part, or without assigning
any cause. As far as the custody of children goes, it is the
mother who has the right to keep them. But as soon as she
decides to remarry, she automatically loses her right to her
children from the previous marriage.... In the case where
the husband has the custody of children, if he remarries he
does not lose this right to keep his children. Thus the
woman is faced with the choice of remarrying & losing
custody of her children or keeping her children & not
marrying. This of course leads to a total insecurity for the
women. Divorce is very frequent in Arab countries;
instead of keeping four wives at the same time, which is
rather expensive, a man simply changes his wife several
times as recommended by the great Al Ghazali.
If a woman asks a man for a divorce, he may agree if he is
paid or compensated in some way...In such a case she is
not entitled to the repayment of her dower. The Koran
sanctions such a dissolution II.229 "If ye fear that they
cannot observe the ordinances of God, then no blame shall
attach to either of you for what the wife shall herself give
for her redemption."
An annulment of a marriage means a woman loses the
right to the dowry & must give back what she has already
received. Divorced women do have the right to re-marry
but " must wait keeping themselves from men, three
menstrual courses." ( II. 228 )
Umberto Eco: [13] "Ur-Fascism (Eternal Fascism) is based
upon a selective populism, a qualitative populism, one
might say. In a democracy, the citizens have individual
rights, but the citizens in their entirety have a political
impact only from a quantitative point of view “ one
follows the decisions of the majority. For Ur-Fascism
(Eternal Fascism), however, individuals as individuals
have no rights, and the People is conceived as a quality, a
monolithic entity expressing the Common Will. Since no
large quantity of human beings can have a common will,
the Leader pretends to be their interpreter..."
Liberal democracy extends the sphere of individual
freedom and attaches all possible value to each man or
woman. Individualism is not a recognizable feature of
Islam ; instead the collective will of the Muslim people is
constantly emphasized. There is certainly no notion of
individual rights, which developed in the West, especially
during the eighteenth century. The constant injunction to
obey the Caliph, who is God™s Shadow on Earth, is hardly
inducive to creating a rights “based individualist
philosophy. The hostility to individual rights is manifest in
these two excerpts, one from the great Ibn Khaldun, and
one from a recent Muslim thinker A.K. Brohi, a former
Minister of Law and Religious Affairs in Pakistan who has
often written on human rights from an Islamic perspective.
First, Ibn Khaldun: "All religious laws and practices and
everything that the masses are expected to do requires
group feeling. Only with the help of group feeling can a
claim be successfully pressed,¦.Group feeling is
necessary to the Muslim community. Its existence enables
(the community) to fulfill what God expects of it."
Now A.K.Brohi : "Human duties and rights have been
vigorously defined and their orderly enforcement is the
duty of the whole of organized communities and the task is
specifically entrusted to the law enforcement organs of the
state. The individual if necessary has to be sacrificed in
order that that the life of the organism be saved.
Collectivity has a special sanctity attached to it in Islam."
"[In Islam] there are no "human rights" or "freedoms"
admissible to man ¦in essence the believer owes
obligation or duties to God if only because he is called
upon to obey the Divine Law and such human rights as he
is made to acknowledge seem to stem from his primary
duty to obey God ." (Note the chillingly frightening, fascist
and totalitarian phrase, "the individual if necessary has to
be sacrificed.")
Umberto Eco [14] "Ur-Fascism speaks Newspeak.
Newspeak was invented by Orwell, in 1984, ¦But
elements of Ur-Fascism are common to different forms of
dictatorship. All the Nazi or Fascist schoolbooks made use
of an impoverished vocabulary, and an elementary syntax,
in order to limit the instruments for complex and critical
thinking."
A.K.Brohi already quoted above, goes on to write, "By
accepting to live in bondage to this Divine Law, man
learns to be free," which again frighteningly reminds one
of Orwell™s Newspeak...
"Freedom is Slavery."
As for Arabic, one Muslim philosopher, Shabbir Akhtar
who taught at the International Islamic University in
Malaysia has written of the limitations of Arabic, "In
modern analytical philosophy, there is hardly anything in
Arabic or any other Islamic tongue. Philosophical
discussion is best conducted in English. Owing to the
grammatical limitations of of Arabic, it is impossible to
express most philosophical claims with an acceptable
degree of rigour and clarity. Moreover Arabic is a
devotional language lacking the vocabulary requisite for
detached discussion of controversial matters."
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