The Book is also Just a Book

For centuries, the people of these areas have tormented, raided, massacared, pilaged, hummilliated, looted and destroyed other civilizations that lived in relative prosperity and calm.

Now it is their turn to be on the receiving end. This is the Karmic Cycle. Laws of Nature. As you shall sow, so shall you reap. The Karma has finally caught up.

When Nadir Shah was destroying Delhi....and the Public came to the emperor....he replied....may be, the Nadir Shah is sent by Allah to punish them for the sins.

could the mayhem played out in that neck of woods is part of the same game.

Farzana, {``* Sunnis and Shias routinely violate each other’s existence and they follow the same Book.
Would this qualify as desecration?``}

So well stated.
Another timely masterpiece from a talented writer who is not afraid to state the obvious in her own inimitable style.
I agree with you and do so as a person who has a profound respect and love for the Holy Prophet (PBUH) and his noble mission and universal message.
Flushing an object down the toilet, whether true or a fantasy, is exactly that - a stupid attempt at clogging up basic services such as plumbing.
What is sacred is the message and not the paper on which the message is printed. Desecration is definitely in the total disobedience and disregard of the basic message of the Holy Koran - something that most Mullahs, including UBL and his cohorts and supporters are definitely guilty of. Killing, maiming, injuring, suicide, torture, raping, and burning are all acts of desecration of the Holy Koran. Shamefully, most of the perpetrators of these desecrations are people at the forefront of fundamentalist Islam. Thank you for enlightening us once again. Great article.
Salim Ahmed Chauhan

Re: # 66
Boy, as a Hindu I am learning alot!! Thanks, clear and honest thinkers. If only the Chowk group could get together to solve the real world problems!!!

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Re # 65

Well said.

Once our neighbours on the west stop glorifying bootshikans and instead feel ashamed of them and say and act so, I think lot of India/Pakistan Hindu/Muslim problems will
disappear/diminish.

RE: ferozk:
``Therefore, like Christanity before it, Islam too claimed to offer a more personalized faith, without the benefit of the intermediaries known as the clergy and it was, in the beginning, concerned about the salvation of its followers` souls. Later on Islam, too, became corrupted by the rituals, which propagated and drowned out its message.``

Feroz Sahib, i am not sure why did you write this. You dont want me to go to MSA/USC site and give you the exact translation of the verse

Wa AteeUllaha Wa Atee Ur Rasool.

something like - you have to follow prophet to follow Allah...

I think the way you put Islam/Koran`s focus is quite misleading.

RE: ferozk.
``whether they are religious or patriotic or secular in their nature. ``

this lumping of secular vs. religous symbols is at best pathetic.

A secular Individual will work up over forces/actions that infringe/threaten the equal rights and Justices of fellow human beings. (NOTE: we are still talking about things and forces that have a perceiveable implications within Five Senses).

On the other hand, the other group motivated by a herd mentality that is rooted on a mythological symbol (promising a Second Life and orgies for example) or rooted on a patriotic/nationalistic symbol (that probably giving the herd a sense of false-belonging) is something else. This type of fixation IMO, exerts its control by capitalizing on the followers` insecurities.

Dear Farzana:

The problem with this article is that it is too rational while people`s sentiments about their religious symbols are not. People who desecrated the quran knew that very well, presuming that those reports are correct. What other purpose is served by flushing down some paper and ink down the toilet? You might as well say that Indian Muslims should not have been hurt after the demolition of the Babri Masjid because it was merely an ``unused structure``, as was claimed by some. All symbolic destructions are meant to convey a message, whether the damage is done by the Americans, the hindu nationalists, Ghazni or even the Prophet destroying the symbols of his ancestors` worship.

Is it only the Book?
BY RAMZY BAROUD

24 May 2005


THE reported desecration of the Quran by US guards at the infamous Guantanamo prison, as originally reported by Newsweek on May 9, 2005, was not — as it should’ve been — an opportunity for a thorough examination of US army practices, and thus human rights abuses, toward Muslim inmates in the numerous detention camps erected throughout the world.


Considering that such practices are quite consistent with the overriding policy adopted by the Bush administration throughout the Middle East, one hardly crosses the border of reason when one expects key newspapers to contextualise the reported flushing of the Quran down the toilet episode with analogous practices in Iraq and Afghanistan.

But as experience has shown, that’s just too much to expect. Instead, the focus of the vast news coverage and commentary throughout the media was fixed on the less urgent matter of journalistic responsibility and the seemingly inherent problem of Muslim backwardness and sadism.

The Times of London made a clever choice when it selected a Muslim, Irshad Manji, to address the fierce response to the scandal.

In an article entitled, ``Why don’t we Muslims grow up?`` Manji, who seems demonstrably disengaged, found it most appropriate to prompt a discussion in semantics, questioning the wholesomeness and sanctity of the Quran itself. The Quran, according to the writer, ``contains ambiguities, inconsistencies, outright contradictions and the possibility of human editing.``

What does this have to do with anything? The article, also published by the celebrated New York Review of Books, insisted on pinning the blame on the popular and sometimes violent Muslim response to the report, rather than the culminating feelings of anti-imperialist oppression experienced by the poorest of Muslim nations, most notably Afghanistan.

On the other hand, Jeff Jacoby, a columnist for the Boston Globe, chose to push the limits of cultural insensitivity to downright insult in his piece entitled, ``Why Islam is disrespected.`` Opening his article with imaginary scenarios of Christians, Jews and Buddhists violently rioting in response to the desecration of their religious symbols, Jacoby aims to catch his unsuspecting audience off guard, weaving together a fantastic anecdote and then pronouncing that these stories ``never occurred.`` They were simply convoluted analogies aimed at enlightening his innocent and naïve readers, to draw a comparison between the barbarism of Muslims and the nonviolent and civilised everyone else.

``Christians, Jews and Buddhists don’t lash out in homicidal rage when their religion is insulted. They don’t call for holy war and riot in the street. It would be unthinkable for a mainstream priest, rabbi, or lama to demand that a blasphemer be slain,`` and so forth.

Other commentators who refrained from scrutinising and ``exposing`` Islam’s theological limitations or discrediting its cultural practices, rituals, beliefs and so on, confined their arguments to Newsweek’s judgment, or lack thereof, regarding the running the May 9th article.

Some sided with the White House interpretation, as uttered by Press secretary Scott McClellan, in his call on Newsweek and other media not to lose their ``credibility.`` Others questioned McClellan’s own credibility. The agreement however, regarding Newsweek editor Mark Whitaker’s clearly forced apology and subsequent retraction of the article was across-the-board.

It’s ironic that Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is in fact the one speaking the unexamined words of truth. He said that Army Gen. Carl Eichenberry, the senior US commander in Afghanistan, reported that the violence ``was not at all tied to the article in the magazine.``

So to what could it possibly be tied?

Did it dawn on anyone in the mainstream media that the Afghan people might possibly be angry over years of American occupation? Perhaps this failed to cross anyone’s mind.

Could it possibly be that hundreds of millions of Muslims might’ve had enough common sense to connect the dots and to establish that the desecration of the Quran is only the latest episode of a consistent US military policy that hasn’t only dishonoured religious symbols but the sanctity of human life, in fact hundreds of thousands of human lives?

Could the hypothesis be true that Muslims, despite their alleged backwardness, had access to TV news, print media and the Internet and might’ve accidentally run across hundreds of vile photos of physically humiliated and sexually abused Iraqi prisoners? Could it be possible that these ``savages`` learned of harrowing testimonies of former prisoners at Guantanamo detailing what numerous human rights groups unhesitatingly described as ``war crimes``?

But why confine the argument to over-generalised, rhetorical questions? In its response to the scandal, Human Rights Watch issued a statement on May 19 confirming that sadly, the Guantanamo episode is the norm. ``In detention centres around the world, the US has been humiliating Muslim prisoners by offending their religious beliefs,`` according to Reed Brody, a HRW special counsel.

The defilement of religious symbols, like the Quran however, is part of the unfailing US foreign and military policy that has utilised every creative, albeit inhuman option to further its colonial designs throughout the Muslim world for an array of economic and strategic gains.

Thus, if Muslim fury is to be examined appropriately and truthfully, then the desecration of the Quran must be analysed together with the violent death of ``at least`` 100,000 Iraqi civilians, the greater majority of them at the hands of the ``coalition``, according to ``the first comprehensive investigation of civilian deaths in Iraq, published in the Lancet,`` and cited recently by respected Australian journalist John Pilger. Separating both issues is downright irresponsible.

But the interest in appropriateness and truthfulness in the media fades away before the seemingly much more compelling and urgent topic of the theological roots of Muslim violence, and the Muslim and Arab minds’ alleged innate deficiency and backwardness.

I am afraid that it will take more than a simple apology or a newspaper retraction to right this collective and perpetual wrong. Much more.

Raw Dust,
what is pathetic is your inability to understand that a person of faith is not one who necessarily ascribes to a `herd mentality`, and excuse me, but all persons of faith/ideology are not incapable of working against forces which threaten/infringe the equal rights and justice of fellow human beings. i really fail to see where you being the secular humanist that you are differ in your narrow way of thinking, from a religious person`s narrow way of thinking. as uncomfortable as i am with the word ``irrational``, this is in part the issue that feroz is addressing.

vertex,
Do you think the reaction of people would have been different if Iraq and Afghanistan had not been occupied? I am very sure there would have still been a violent reaction. I ask you this question because of the article you posted on #73.

ana:
1-
my contention still stands - there are no secular symbols the desecration of which will create a hue and cry from secular Individuals. I would back down from this assertion immediately if someone would show me one symbol (Signifier) that points to a Signified entity beyond the realm of Five Senses and if That symbol is reverred (publicly) by secular Individuals. This is the distinction i was bringing the Feroz Sahib`s attention to. I would be glad to see if i am wrong.

2-
There is alot of unnecessary defense in your post. Dont read too much into what i wrote. I never said that religous peeps are ``incapable of working against forces which threaten/infringe the equal rights``, Nor implied.

3-
And by the way, there are alotta religous folk out there who are secular humanists and dont bring in their religions and relgous arguments, by default, among buddies. There belief is apparently intimate and private and i wholly respect that.

many thanks.

echoboom #68.
My dear friend, we are basically agreeing. I took the Shia Sunni reference from Farzana`s essay to highlight where our emphasis in Islamic energy should be placed. We need to do positive things to and for each other and then to extend that truly ``Mohammedan`` behavior to non-Muslims, as well. Let`s not think of the soccer game nor of the Olymipics, let`s think of the creatures participating in them. I said ``Mohammedan`` because I consider myself one - a follower of that perfection of a man, who was compassionate, selfless, non-violent, loving, tolerant, and understanding. Flushing pages on which his message is printed is like burning another country`s flag - neither translates into victory or satisfaction. Echo, buddy, make the umbrella of Islam as wide as possible and accommodate as many as possible - then you will have true success.
Salim Ahmed Chauhan

raw dust,
when you differentiate between one group`s doing something, and another group`s doing something without acknowledging the other group`s contribution to the same issues, it can be viewed as implied regardless of your intention.

then again it is all semantics and pragmatics.

plus to #76 and 71:

Feroze Sahib will work up when the Supreme Court will be invaded by the goons (PML-N style) or a Retired General, for example, ventures inside the Parliament building in uniform or the worst of the worst that creature commits the act of treason and conquers his own country. Feroze Sahib will not give a flip if e.g., Indian BJP party stage a rally and burn Pakistani flag in Delhi.

Vivek,

I think the reaction has in fact been different. There was only a ``violent reaction`` in Afghanistan, and most of that was American-backed Afghan security troops gunning down the rowdy protesters (disturbingly similar to the Uzbek slaughter).

There were protests elsewhere (Pakistan, Indonesia), but no violence there. I know of no protests in the Arab world.

Now, perhaps a few crazies may be compelled to kill some obscure artist, or this and that, but the context of this particular violence, and those who presided over it, make this an issue much greater than the alleged ``Muslim`` (more like a handful of Afghans) reaction to some article. And even then, it probably wasn`t a reaction to the article at all. Nor is this the first anti-govt protest that was crushed in Afghanistan.

So why the focus on the 16 (6, 17,10?) dead in connection with the newsweek story (and is there a connection in the first place)?

I mean, to me it seems like people are misusing this story to produce righteous diatribes, and we see this not only from the usual suspects (Manji, Tom Friedman), but even some resident chowkies ... :-)

This issue in any interpretation has little to do with ``tolerance``, or expression.