To Western Women

Fuzair #144

Fuzair,

Excellent commentary! You have expressed yourself eloquently. Quran would not have been written in symbolic language if literal interpretation were warranted. However, there is one thing, expressed quite literally in Quran, is its subject matter, which is humanity. All fiqahs/sects of Islam agree on that. Ijtamah, being the first step towards organized religion (and we all know what that means), is a controversial, and debatable issue….a major Fiqah of Islam doesn’t even recognize it’s legitimacy – just as well I’d say. The beauty of Quran is that it invites individuals to think…to explore the universe….to make an effort to know what is unknown….and more importantly, it only invites, does not compel….and that is my escape clause!!

I am glad that Fuzair`s comments in 144 were appreciated. Now we are talking. Bravo Fuzair...

and this is exactly what i think Attaturk try to do ... and Attaturk was not the anti islamic monster that Mullahs and neem Mullahs make him out to be.

-Yasser Hamdani

In response to Fuzair (Reply # 144)

Dear Fuzair:

I commend you for your post. As Muslims, we need to focus upon the essence of Islam, rather than its form (i.e. its empirical manifestations). It is only the essence of Islam that makes it a religion for all times (I need not say, for the Muslims). However, it is often very difficult to separate the essence from the form.

I think, Islam is both easy and difficult. Problems arise when we fail to understand and appreciate the dialectics of various Islamic teachings.

Sincerely, Bilal Ahmad

http://www.expressindia.com/ie/daily/20000502/iin02059.html

titled ``Pak girl students face up to culture police`` by BHAVNA VIJ

begins with :

LAHORE, MAY 1: A quiet revolution is unfolding on a Lahore campus. The hold of Jamat-e-Islami, the fundamentalist Islamic group, has been challenged in Punjab University, Lahore. The challenge has come from the women students, trying to unshackle themselves from the ``oppressive Talibanisation`` attempts of Jamat-e-Islam followers.

Fuzair (144)

wah! wah! dado sutho, sain. Your commentary really made me think.

B.

Re: Hamidm

Sir, you are brilliant and a source of constant joy. I look forward to reading your gems. I don`t know whether I should regret that these people don`t get you or laugh at the painful predictability of them missing the point every single time.

Keep writing.

Re: Jazba99 #146

Thanks for your response....If you had kept quiet, it would have maintained a bit of respect in my heart for your opinion that you tried to express through your ``contributed`` poem...now I am satisfied that you deserved every bit of the criticism directed at you and your ``contribution``

If this is your understanding of education/intellect/enlightenment, then we are not only not in the same street, we are on different planets....and if you find chowk so offensive, why do you ``contribute`` to this site?

Next time try www.jahalat.taliban.islam.pk, they might be more interested in your ``contributions``

Farangi-Kush #149

A fire works, it has a very brief life, but it instills joy in many, it reminds of the primodial joy of inventing fire, the joy of controlling it. The billions spent for the `millinium` firworks should tell you something.

You are burdened by the religion, you are on a one track mind, and only the one who can see from different perspective can have a sense of humour, can grow up in life.

Read hamids posts, after words read it again. It could do you some good. Koran is a book, like many others before it and many more after it. Take a deep breath, buy a sparkler.

Fuzair reply 144 .

well put ... yes I do believe that the semetic customs will dissappear over time as some of them have and I also believe that this process should be catalyzed and that is why I admire Attaturk though he went a step too far.The spirit of Islam is what is its heritage.

I am glad that we have agreed for once.

-Yasser Hamdani

For the Defence

Our long lost poet Acerbic Jazbati quotes Mirza Ghalib to drive home his point thus

``` sharam tum ko magar nahin aatey ``

The sanctimoniousness is out of context pal. The very Mirza Ghalib preceded that line by these:

``Janta hoo`n sawab-e-tahat-o-zohud

Par tabiyat idhar nahin aati``

The last thing you radicals ought to do, of course if you are intellectually honest that is, is bring Ghalib to support your claims. Mirza shaib was anything but a fundamentalist. He drank, he swore, he made fun of mullahs, and he gambled. And he had a lot of other virtues as well.

Welcome Back Mademoiselle/Monsieur Jazba99/Acerbic Jazbati :-)

Well Said!

Reading your intents, I just feel like quoting ``Inn`a mul Aa`maal-o-Binn`iyaa`t``

After that, I don`t see any need to comment on your words.

Regards

PM # 130:

How dare you :)

Are we sober today?

Pinch of salt? Tequila?

rgds

t

jazba99 #146:

SERMON FROM THE SOAPBOX

This deals with your assertions in the first three paragraphs.

If Chowk had put in the disclaimer ``This poem is a contribution from Acerbic Jazbati, source is unknown`` in the beginning none of the detractors would have taken a shot at it.

Spare us the righteous indignation. Take out your wrath on Chowk.

rgds

t

sigalph235 Reply #: 92

[``… the British borrowed from the example of Hazrat Omar (RA) who burned down the libraries in Alexandria saying ` all the wisdom needed is conteined in this Book`…``]

This may sound like a clever retort but unfortunately, it is based on the same kind of twisted scholarship of which you accuse the `fundamentalist`. It is just as wrong to demonize historical figuers by false accusations as it is to super-agrandize them by glossing over their shortcomings and inventing tall tales of heroism. You stoop to the level of the demagogue by asserting a long defunct and prejudicial anecdote.

It was popular amongst the `western historians` who were critical of Omar ibn al-Khattab to blame him for the destruction of that great treausure of humanity, the Library of Alexanderia. Much as many would like it to have been the truth, the fact is that modern hsitorians (`Farangi` historians, as one of our enthusiastic Chowkwalas likes to call them) have rejected the story of Omar being responsible for the burning of the library.

The first time the Library burnt down was the result of an unfortunate accident when ambers from a burning Roman galley (that was sent into the blockading Egyptian fleet, on Julius Caesar`s orders) spread into the wooden structures on shore and spread to engulf the library. That was about 48-47 BC. Over the next several centuries the library was rebuilt and its shelves restocked.

The Muslim conquest of Alexandria under the generalship of Amr ibn al-Aas came in the year 641 AD (during Omar`s caliphate). The story about Omar being responsible for the burning of the library did not appear until almost six hundred years later. First mentioned as a mere speculation by a Muslim scientist called Abd al-Latif (1162-1231), this story was further embellished by a Syrian Christianized Jew, Abu`l Faraj (mid-1200s). Abu`l Faraj, know to the West as Bar-Hebreaeus, (who wrote in Arabic) was the one to popularize the accusation that it was Omar who had the library burnt.

That was a period of intense Muslim hatred because of the Crusades going on. But today`s historians reject this accusation because the evidence does not support it.

First, during the five centuries that passed between this supposed library burning on Omar`s orders and the time of this accusation coming to surface not a single Christian historian ever mentioned the event. Most noteworthy, is the fact that the Eutychius who was the Archbishop of Alexanderia and wrote a most detailed historical account of the Arab conquest of Alexandria in 933 AD, never even hinted at any such event as the Muslims burning the library.

In fact a large part of the library had been destroyed by the actions of fanatical Christians in the time of Patriarch Theophilus in the year 392 AD. Then during the following one hundred and fifty years the rest of the `destruction` resulted from a gradual decay and neglect such that by the year 642 AD (when Muslims are alleged to have torched it) most of the literary treasures of the famous library were already gone. What was left did not match its former glory but it did continue to survive and suffer slow attrition through further neglect.

The Umayya prince, Khalid ibn Yazid, who was a scholar in his own right, went to Alexandria many years later and there he first translated into Arabic several Greek texts. This alone bears witness to the existence of the library, albeit in a state of neglect and decay.

When in 641-42 AD, Alexandria fell to the Muslim army after a 23 month long siege, Amr ibn al-Aas went to great lengths to ensure that there was no looting or pillage of the great city. He was more interested in protecting the local economy so that a new tax base could be ensured. Amr was also not interested in taking sides between the competing Christian sects and disregarded their rivalries. Thus he even managed to annoy his allies who were the Monophysite Christians and were bitterly opposed to the Orthodox church who had hitherto persecuted the Monophysites. But Amr did not allow his allies to extol revenge against their orthodox rivals. He even allowed complete freedom for ALL communities to exercise their respective religious practices and thus earned the displeasure of the various denominations who had never learnt to be tolerant of one another.

The preponderance of evidence strongly suggests that the fable of Muslims burning the library of Alexandria is an error at best and a vicious slander at worst.

Sincerely,

…SR

(references: The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, by E. Gibbon; Hellenistic Civilization, by W. Tarn; The Age of Faith, by Wil Durant; Science and Civilization in Islam, by S. Hossein Nasr)

RE: SR, ylh and some other posts.

I think it might be worthwhile to clarify a point, if any one is actually interested. If not, I apologize for wasting their time. While I cannot speak for others on this thread, I am not anti-Islam as such. What I am against is (1) the belief that the Koran is the literal word of God and (2) any attempt to impose this ``fundamental`` an interpretation on society.

Islamic history and culture is actually a bit of a hobby of mine and I wish I knew more than I did, but I am trying to rectify that. Having worked as a banker in Pakistan, I know from first-hand experience the impossibility of actually trying to implement any such nonsense as interest-free banking in a modern economy. Having also read Prof. Timur Kuran`s (and other`s) critique of ``Islamonomics,`` I am aware of its general impracticality at all levels. The same for such ``Islamic`` items as the role of women, or the practicality of harnessing ``jinn power`` to solve our energy crisis (laugh if you will but its actually true--under Zia`s ``Islamic`` empire, this idea was actually seriously proposed) or the need to keep a beard or to wear a shalwar above the ankle or pay zakat at 1/40 rate or to pray five times a day or to eat only with the right hand, etc. etc. etc.

So, we have a problem. If the Koran is the literal word of God, it clearly cannot cope with the modern world.

So we have to come to one of two possible conclusions:

1 Either God is not omnipotent, or;

2 That the Koran is not the literal word of God.

If proposition 1 is correct, then Islam, or Judaism or Christianity, is simply wrong and its time that we shut the whole thing down.

However, if proposition 2 is correct, then we have an escape clause. Namely that the Koran, like the gospels, is merely divinely inspired and not the

literal word of God. God (or his agent, the angel Gabriel) told the Prophet God`s word. Being a mere man, the Prophet did his best to transcribe/dictate it. Being a mere man, he may not have had the ability to fully comprehend it and therefore his 7th century mind gave God`s word a 7th century interpretation. Such an interpretation cannot be binding on us in the last year of the 20th century. Being God`s messenger, his interpretation of God`s word should be our starting point but it is not, cannot be, our ending point. The Prophet himself opened the door to this can of worms by introducing the concept of Ijtima. It seems that he was a far, far

more intelligent person than the current crop of mullahs/ulema befouling the place.

(the above appeared in a slightly different form in another post of mine.)

I suspect that ylh would agree with me on this since he is the one who opined that it is simply a matter of time before some ``semitic`` customs disappeared from Islam. They cannot disappear if they are God`s commands. However, if they were 7th century interpretations of God`s divine words, then its high time we got rid of them and concentrated on fashioning a 20th century interpretation of God`s words.

The history of the West bears ample witness to this process. As long as the Bible was held to be the literal word of God and its interpretation confined to the ranks of the cognoscente, the West made minimal progress. It is only after the Renaissance and the Reformation that you have free thinking, the Enlightenment, and the Industrial Revolution.

You also have countless sects of Christianity and no one ``Truth`` and no one dominant interpretation. There are still fringe groups who believe in the Bible as the divine word of God and pick up the odd obscure reference to hate homosexuals or demand that women be silent in Church or that women cannot be ordained or other such observances but they are seen as what they are: fringe elements. The tragedy of Islam is that it has managed to marginalize all reform movements and the concept of Ijtima ended many, many centuries ago.

So, ylh is correct: we should all be proud of our Muslim heritage. Like Mr. Jinnah I am proud of it and also like Mr. Jinnah I do not wish to live my life according to a 7th century interpretation of morality.

I think it was a Jewish sage who, when asked by his students what was the most important lesson they should glean from the Torah, replied, ``Love thy fellow man. All the rest is mere commentary.`` That to me is the essence of Islam, or any other religion for that matter.

There are many that will disagree with me. But to me, it cheapens and demeans Islam when we use it as a tool to repress women or non-Muslim minorities.

PM #130

Thanks for your kind remarks, I am quite overcome. Now if you were my employer speaking, I would be in a state of real PANIC!! :-) :-)

I need to say, the scholarly depth of knowledge and thoroughly thought-through understanding on various subjects displayed by many chowkwallahs including yourself is in another league altogether. In my personal opinion, chowk cannot be irrelevant as long as a glimpse of that is seen here. In addition, the quick perception of ones incomplete thought and expression and appropriate illuminating reply one can always expect on chowk, well, it all adds up...

Sadhana