The Death of Edward Said -- A tribute

MNIPhirsay #95 I searched Amazon.Com on Islam, and I got three different books than the ones you had, as follows:

1. Onward Muslim Soliders: How Jihad still threatens America and the West by Spencer;
2. What Went Wrong: THe clash between Islam and Modernity: by Bernard Lewis;
3. After Jihad: America and the Struggle for Islamic Democracy by Feldman.

Also: I have read 2. recently, and by no reasonable standard can that be called an anti-Islam book. It is in fact a very well written book that provides some very interesting insights into how the muslims, while initially ahead of Europe, lost ground under the Ottomans in the 15th/16th centuries. I have not read the other two books, and may check them out later.

In the meantime, if you wish to tell me which specific page has something that can be anti-Islamic in any of these books, I will be much obliged.

I will ignore the abusive language in your post.

I am usually careful about what I write. When I make a mistake, I acknowledge it and apologize (as I did to Romair).

In this case, all I said was, that what was being touted as an ``argument`` (by SameerJB) was basically all an excercise in calling names. He can call names all he wants. Just don`t consider it ``argument``. That`s all I am saying. My calling Lewis an insufferable racist is also not an ``argument`` against Lewis. Let the quote that followed my characterization show for itself if Lewis fits that characterization.

I have never professed to be above name-calling. I can do that and often do that very well. And often you have been and will continue to be on the receiving end. The only limits I obey in such discussions is to keep people`s families out of this, and on chowk I also desist from moTi gaaliyaaN.

TAhmed:

``Today bookstores in the US are filled with shabby screeds bearing screaming headlines about Islam and terror, Islam exposed, the Arab threat and the Muslim menace, all of them written by political polemicists pretending to knowledge imparted to them and others by experts who have supposedly penetrated to the heart of these strange Oriental peoples. ``

This is quite simply a lie. If I lived in the middle east (like most of his readers) I may have believed him. But since I live in the US, and often visit book stores and sometimes check out the religious sections for any new books on Islam, I know he is lying. Far from the nonsense he writes, the bookstores generally carry books that are very positive about Islam. Karen Armstrong alone has probably done more to create a better and more favorable understanding of Islam in the west than all the muslim writers in the world together.


I ignored this unfalsifiable assertion because rebutting it would surely start a pointless argument over what constitutes ``most of`` and ``full of``. But now that you are insistently touting some kind of an uncovering of a ``lie``, it is time that this garbage of a post be addressed.

First of all, you are not the only one who visits bookstores in the US. Secondly, it`s clear you don`t look hard enough. It is time that this canard of yours be addressed, lest you think too highly of yourself on account of this ``discovery``.

Search under ``Islam`` on Amazon.com

The three featured titles are:

1. ``The Dark Side of Islam`` by R. C. Sproul, Abdul Saleeb
Make up your own mind if this book is favorable to Islam. Abdul Saleeb is actually someone I know indirectly. He is an Egyptian Christian who is now paraded as Exhibit A in the anti-Islam propaganda.

2. ``The Crisis of Islam: Holy War and Unholy Terror`` by Bernard Lewis
This is not favorable to Islam either.

3. ``Unveiling Islam: An Insider`s Look at Muslim Life and Belief`` by Ergun Mehmet Caner, Emir Fethi Caner
Neither is this.

Amazon`s top three features are all books that are quite unequivocally anti-Muslim and anti-Islam.

Further results are:

``Reading Lolita in Teheran`` by Azar Nafisi
(This is a book i recently read and liked; but this is not a book that shows Islam in a favorable light. For apologists of the fascist regime in Iran, this book is an eye-opener.)

``The Crisis of Islam: Holy War and Unholy Terror`` by Bernard Lewis
(Lewis again..)

``What Went Wrong: The Clash Between Islam and Modernity in the Middle East`` by Bernard Lewis
(Lewis yet again)

``Autobiography of Malcolm X`` by Malcolm X et. al.
(This can`t really be considered a book on Islam to start with.)

``Hatred`s Kingdom: How Saudi Arabia Supports the New Global Terrorism`` by Dore Gold
(Dore Gold should be remembered as the fat moustached Likud supporter and adviser to Israeli prime ministers who is present in various talk shows pushing the Israeli cause. )

``Nine Parts Desire: The Hidden World of Islamic Women.`` by Geraldine Brooks
(Brooks is a reporter for the Wall Street Journal: not exactly a testimony to her dispassion.)

``A History of God: The 4,000-Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam``
(This, after 6 or 7, is the first book that doesn`t have something bad to say about Islam or Muslims.)

``Onward Muslim Soldiers: How Jihad Still Threatens America and the West`` by Robert Spencer
(Title is self evident.)

``Midnight`s Children`` by Salman Rushdie
(This is a novel. )

---

And I haven`t mentioned books like ``The Arab Mind`` by Raphael Patai, ``Terrorists Among Us`` by Steve Emerson, and many more pieces of offensive rubbish that you can easily find in a bookstore.

Now I`d suggest you don`t harp on this bakvaas any more. Thank you.

``Fuzair`s ``argument`` if it can be called that was pure name-calling (``neo Marxist``, e.g.) and juvenile cat calls really, except for one excerpt by Ibn Warraq. ``

Name calling is especially disgusting is it not? Except perhaps when directed towards those one disagrees with...

``The insufferable racist Bernard Lewis came up with this brain fart in one of his books:..``


And so the left reveals itself again for what it is. Insufferable, self righteous, hypocrites...one could go on.

My dear Dionysus:

Calling a Leftist a Commie or Neo Marxist is at best a generic description of their political views, maybe making it sound more extreme than it is but the right direction. I don`t think you could call a self proclaimed Leftist a freebooting capitalist.

OTOH

``y Dear fuzair,
You are a complete and utter rambling, waffling, attention-seeking IDIOT.

My Dear tahmed32,
Please refer to the above. ``


These are certainly not comments on the said individuals political views. These are derogatry terms about the individuals themselves.

I see that ego has replaced intelligce as far as you are concerned.

plats: you wrote ``A person of Said`s calibre perhaps needs to be evaluated by his collective body of work, rather than individual newspaper articles by an ailing man``

I am not evaluating Said`s work, less alone his life, here. I know very little about him, and care even less.

All I am commenting on is what I read in the couple of articles I checked out that I mentioned. And in particular the piece I cut and paste. What I do care about is the mess the muslims are in. The arrogance (``glorious past``) matched only by their shabby performance - intellectually, economically, culturally, politically. And what I do care about is the thousands of people who died on 9/11 and ever since - people of every nationality, including fathers and mothers who jumped from top floors of WTC to escape death by fire to sons of peasants in NWFP who were mowed down on the front lines of the taliban as the US acted to root out the mess. Clearly the article by a leading Arab ``intellectual`` Said, written in a major Arab newspaper, is a part of the problem in these difficult times rather than a part of the solution.

Does the fact that a leading ``intellectual`` can so greatly falsify facts mean nothing? Are we as muslims willing to hide our head in the sand and pretend that reality will go away? And the reality is that muslims are their own biggest enemies. Because they seek enemies rather than friends. And forget the basic values of honesty that their own prophet fruitlessly tried to convey to them.

My naive estimate would be that Edward Said had a far more refined appreciation of western civilization than any of us here - perhaps all of us put together.

Thank you. Very well put.

The insufferable racist Bernard Lewis came up with this brain fart in one of his books:

``The works of Mozart and Shakespeare and Voltaire have traveled around the globe, as for that matter have Stravinsky, jazz and George Orwell. But they all pretty much stop at the frontiers of the Arab world, which has shown little interest in how others think, write, compose.``

It is quite amusing to note that his bete noir Edward Said, an Arab, knew infinitely more about every single one of these (Mozart, Shakespeare, Voltaire, Stravinsky, Jazz, Orwell) than Lewis himself.

While Lewis was peddling this racist bakvaas, the West-Eastern Divan orchestra organized by Edward Said and Daniel Barenboim -- comprising of young Israeli and Arab musicians -- played Beethoven and Mozart in Morocco, to an obviously delighted audience.

dost-mittar #71,

Actually, Said did always try to pose the Palestinian question in a secular framework.
Much of his work does focus on interpreting the Islamic world for the west, but he did
not project Palestine as a dominantly Muslim problem. Perhaps his being a Christian
(Maronite?) himself had something to do with it.

tahmed #72,

For someone who claims to have read little of Said, you seem quite comfortable
blaming him for all sorts of things - from generating hatred in the Arab world to
causing the demolition of Western civilization. And all this out of a casual reading
of two newspaper articles he wrote. You don`t feel at all that this is stretching the
evidence beyond reasonable limits ? I am sorry, but the ``truth more important
than feeling good`` statement just doesn`t do it for me. It sounds rather condescending
in the context of this man`s life and work.

My naive estimate would be that Edward Said had a far more refined appreciation of western civilization than any of us here - perhaps all of us put together.

sameerJB #78 Rather than focussing on the charge of lying on a specific issue on the part of Said, you to bury it by making a countercharge on me of lying on something else. This is hardly the way to have an intelligent discussion.

I could end the post here, but will provide you the courtesy of responding to your countercharge, as follows:

The cutandpaste from my post where you claim I am lying is: ``the Quran itself tells us as muslims to trust our eyes and ears and not to look towards other men for guidance on religious matters. ``

I am not lying. Based on my reading of the Quran, it is very clear to me that the concept of individual responsibility is in fact a central message of the Quran. The specific verse I had in mind (and I normally dont waste time quoting individual verses, but will make an exception this time...) is as follows:

32:9 Al Sajdah ``And He gave you (the faculties of) hearing and sight and feeling (and understanding): Little thanks do ye give!``
To me this verse clearly place responsibility upon me as an individual to trust my God given faculties of hearing and sight and understanding, since to do otherwise would be ingratitude.

More significantly, this verse is consistent with the spirit of the Quran which stresses individual responsibility. Thus (to quote another verse):
36:66 Ya Sin ``That Day (the Judgement Day) shall We set a seal on their mouths. But their hands will speak to Us, and their feet bear witness, to all that they did.``

Thus, the second verse I quote above also adds responsibility on me for my actions. Furthermore, in a number of places the Quran makes it clear that the Holy Prophet himself carries no more authority than that of ``a Warner`` (e.g. 46:9 Al Ahqaf ``Say...I am but a Warner``).

And while I am at it, let me toss in another verse:

55:9 Al Rahman ``So establish weight with justice and fall not short in the balance``. In other words, be honest. And this point is made elsewhere as well. And it is this intellectual dishonesty that is pervasive among muslim ``scholars`` that I am railing against.

I dont want to turn this into a discussion on the Quran. But since you tossed that countercharge, I decided to spend some time responding to it.

stuka #54

My Dear stuka,
Those who dismiss the entire left wing with its galaxy of brilliant thinkers as `commies` or in the case of the more refined fuzair as `neomarxists`, should be the last people on earth to talk about `inflated egos` and `perverted opinions`.

Samina,
My #81 was a gentle nudge-- neither an attempt to start ``this`` on this baord nor to elicit a response (at this time, anyway).
re. Said`s interpretation of Lewis`s usage of ``thaw`ra``, I have no problems accepting your and MSK`s explanation that it msut be seen in the light of Lewis`s barely concealed anti-Arab agenda. But all the sexual inuendo he reads into it?!? Perhaps you, or MSK, can provide some context beyond the suggestion that one must understand Said (and Lewis) in totality to begin to get an idea of what that was all about.
And yes, it does affect credibility.
rgds,
PM

SameerJB:

I really don`t see the reason why a post by fuzair has kicked up such a storm and couple of people immediately jumping on his side and making it a partisan discussion.

Where is the storm? It looks like you want to see one so you can lecture everyone about it.

Fuzair`s ``argument`` if it can be called that was pure name-calling (``neo Marxist``, e.g.) and juvenile cat calls really, except for one excerpt by Ibn Warraq.

There is a common thread in the detractions heaped on Said, that he blamed the West for the problems of the Muslim world, including Ibn Warraq`s op-ed in the Wall Street Journal. This is also many people`s critique of his book Orientalism. These charges are outright falsehoods. There is no point in saying anything more on this issue.

tahmad

Nawabzada sahib started his political career from the platform of Majlis-e-Ahrar-e-Islam during the British Raj. Majlis was one of those Muslim political parties who opposed the creation of Pakistan under the leadership of flamboyant Attaullah Shah Bokhari. He was never associated with Unionists as sameerjb suggested. He joined Muslim league probably in early 50s.

I did not like your characterization of him as one helping make strange bedfellows. This sentence has slanderous undertones. If that were the case that you imply then he should have no problem making bedfellows with military men and despotic elected leaders. His struggle against anyone who compromised law and constitution regardless of who he was, makes him an exceptional idealist. He was an inspiration to those who want to see the rule of law and respect of constitution in this country.

PM,

I dont agree with your position, since you insist on elliciting my response. But I have duly read your arguments. One might argue that one binary is Western paternalism and Eastern childlike dependence on superpowers that gained the upper hand in this relationship by forcing the less developed (eco, militarily, pol) into non consensual and exploitative commerce in which the more developed party receives what it wants. But you know this....so lets save this for an appropriate board...

Sameer, Tahmed,

Sameer`s post was probably the most rational in terms of evaluating the various movements and theorists being referenced here. My point here is that ANY reader of Lewis is required to look at his agenda in his texts. One must also look at what motivates journalists like Lewis to attack intellectual post colonialists like Said. What does it mean to ignore these agendas? Has anyone been reading the critiques of disinformation coming from the Bush Administration viz Iraq? Or do we not talk about it anymore, because its obvious that we have all been lied to, and well Afghanistan and Iraq are not working out as some of us had boasted they would?

Tahmed, again, visit all bookshops that you want, but unless you have not read Said`s major work, the work for which he is respected for by the entire world, your claims have little validity as far as I`m concerned. Please provide the text in which Said meets the claims to which you attribute him.

in my #81, ``..then legitimate`` should have been ``once legitimate``