Carv's Thinky Blog I'm an author with a focus on satirical science fiction.

Peace Be Upon Us

From Facebook, 7 September 2010:

Heather C----: "Absolute freedom, in the hands of idiots, is a dangerous thing. This, in my opinion, is the same as any other terrorist act. They are not burning these holy books to keep safe their church's followers from the 'evil' teachings of the east. They are burning these books to incite riot, to entice outrage and fury and to throw a symbolic fire bomb into a crowd of people they feel threaten their beliefs. Shame on you. Shame. On. You."

Robert N----- (Heather's former high school classmate): "Im going to burn a few myself !!! to bad we can only burn a koran tho [sic]"

To be honest, if some self-important, fundamentalist imbecile wants to burn a pile of Qur'ans in Florida, that's his business, and I note with great satisfaction that you have to buy books before you can burn them so it's a passive-aggressive gesture at best. In this age of easy printing, book-burning accomplishes only self-aggrandizement, which is probably what said imbecile was looking for in the first place. The best we can do is ignore him.

Unfortunately, we didn't, so now his stupid plan (I won't say "crusade") might cause unpredictable dangers for American troops in Muslim countries. It's also stirred the dregs of society to expose xenophobic dimbulbs like Robert here. Good. We should know who we're dealing with.

As has been noted by The Daily Show and many other sources, the so-called "Ground Zero Mosque" is neither at Ground Zero (it's two blocks away, on the site of a shuttered Burlington Coat Factory) nor is it a mosque (it's a community center, with a library, a gym, a swimming pool, an exhibition hall, a memorial for victims of 9/11, and a prayer space on one of its thirteen floors). The Cordoba Institute, for which the facility will be named, promises cooking classes. (Terrorist cooking classes!) The bylaws of the Cordoba Institute decree only fifty percent of its board can ever be Muslims, and one of the stated goals of the Community Center is to "promote inter-community peace, tolerance and understanding locally in New York City, nationally in America and globally...to amplify the voices of the overwhelming majority of Muslims whose love for America and commitment to peace gets drowned out by the actions of a few extremists." It's actually a pretty tough venture to complain about, and what better place for it than Manhattan? The last thing al Qaeda wants is interfaith understanding and peace in America.

Enough about that. You know my politics by now, and I imagine you could've predicted where I stand on most of it already. But it reminded me that for all our debates about Islam, most Americans know very little about it. Without even a basic understanding of the religion, it's easy to assume "they don't respect life the way we do" and "they just want to kill us and burn our flag" and "Islam is a terrorist cult." I would venture a guess that most Americans have never even talked to a practicing Muslim for more than a minute or two, so why do we think our opinion is worth a toss anyway?

Here's the catch: I myself know very little about Islam. I've never read more than a few suras (chapters) of the Qur'an. When I wrote about Genesis, I added many hours of special research to thirty-plus years of hardcore study of the Bible and its various proponents. I could claim some level of expertise; but I can't do that with the Qur'an. What I write about the sacred text of Islam is the opinion of a total novice (some might say ignoramus) with no special attachment to its insights.

So here's what I know. According to Muslims, the Qur'an was taught by the angel Jibril (i.e., Gabriel) to the merchant and shepherd Muhammad ibn 'Abdullah (peace be upon him--more on that in a minute) over decades around 630 AD. Muslims regard Muhammad as the seventh and final prophet in a roster that includes Abraham, Moses, and Jesus. The Arabic word Qur'an, often anglicized as "Koran," means "recitation." (It's actually spelled in Arabic script, of course, but I have no convenient way of presenting the word in its original form.) The book is often called the "Holy Qur'an," but I won't do that because I'd be lying. The truth is I don't think any book has been dictated by God, so I don't consider the Qur'an holy. I do consider it sacred, though, in that it's "devoted or dedicated to a deity or to some religious purpose; consecrated" (Dictionary.com). If you believe an angel recited God's words to Muhammad and made him memorize them over decades, more power to you.

Side note: When Muslims refer to Muhammad, they often add the phrase "peace be upon him" or its abbreviation, "pbuh." I've chosen not to do that here--again, to avoid accusations of hypocrisy--but some non-Muslims do so as a token of respect, similar to capitalizing pronouns for God in Judeo-Christian contexts.

Those who believe the Qur'an to be a blueprint for terrorism will find little in its pages to support their prejudice. It's less than eighty thousand words, a bit shorter than my own book Lightfall and a tenth the length of the Bible, which helps explain how millions of Muslims memorized the entire text over the centuries. Muhammad didn't actually write the book down or collate it into its present form; that was largely the work of a caliph named Uthman ibn 'Affan. Experts are divided over the extent of Muhammad's literacy, though he was a businessman so it's likely he could read and write at least enough to get by. It begins simply enough:

1 The Prologue (Al-Fatihah: Makki)
________________________________________
In the name of Allah, most benevolent, ever-merciful. ALL PRAISE BE to Allah, Lord of all the worlds,
2. Most beneficent, ever-merciful,
3. King of the Day of Judgment.
4. You alone we worship, and to You alone turn for help.
5. Guide us (O Lord) to the path that is straight,
6. The path of those You have blessed,
7. Not of those who have earned Your anger, nor those who have gone astray.

Not too threatening, right? It could almost be one of the Psalms. Well, okay, there is that "Allah" in there; that's kinda weird. Except Allah is just Arabic for "The God," meaning The One True God, so it's stupid to get too worked up about that. Muslims regard Allah as the same monotheistic deity worshiped by Jews and Christians and, as stated above, they revere the patriarchs and Messiah of Western faiths. To call Islam (which means "submission" to God) a "cult" would be both insulting and untrue. The sociological definition of a cult is an unorthodox, often anti-establishment, religious group centered around a charismatic leader. By that (admittedly academic) definition, Islam began as a cult, but so did Christianity and many of its current denominations.

In modern parlance, of course, "cult" means "a religion I don't like," which opens a whole new can of worms. I can only offer my agnostic perspective here. To me, most religions are commendable and illogical in equal measure. I have a fundamental objection to any mortal, finite, imperfect human being telling me he knows God's opinion on anything. On those days when I believe in a Higher Power, I'm humble enough to admit I'd be far less significant than a paramecium to such a hyper-cosmic being. I feel it's the height of arrogance to suppose God cares about me or my species any more than He cares about the fate of galactic clusters elsewhere in the universe. I don't believe God holds our lives for ransom until we pray hard enough to effect an improvement. I don't believe He's insecure enough to care whether we love and worship Him, and I don't believe He gives a fig one way or the other what we do with our genitalia. But I know that to most of you, those sentiments seem less like reasonable humility and more like blasphemous hostility. I'm sorry if my comments insult you or make you angry, but my point is I don't believe the tenets of Islam or any other specific faith. In other words, I don't find Islam any easier or harder to believe than Christianity.

Again, I haven't read most of the Qur'an, but I can't find anything in it to earn its reputation as a terrorist guidebook. Granted, it has a fair number of militant passages--well, look, here's one:

(From Sura 9, "Repentance":)

29. Fight those people of the Book who do not believe in God and the Last Day, who do not prohibit what God and His Apostle have forbidden, nor accept divine law, until all of them pay protective tax in submission.
30. The Jews say, "Ezra is the son of God;" the Christians say, "Christ is the son of God." That is what they say with their tongues following assertions made by unbelievers before them. May they be damned by God: How perverse are they!
31. They consider their rabbis and monks and the Christ, son of Mary, to be gods apart from God, even though they had been enjoined to worship only one God, for there is no god but He. Too holy is He for what they ascribe to Him!

Let's be honest, he has a point--but it gets worse. In some translations, for example, Sura 72:15 reads, "The disbelievers [i.e., non-Muslims] are the firewood of Hell." Yikes!

Now, I won't claim to be proficient in Muslim history, but as I understand it, the Quraysh tribesmen who lived in Muhammad's home town of Mecca were essentially at war with the people of Medina, where he lived at the time. Muhammad was himself born of the Quraysh tribe, but his homeboys abhorred his teachings and opposed them and him at every turn. It seems clear Muhammad was in riled-up, self-defensive mode when these words were first uttered.

I don't think Jews or Christians have much of a leg to stand on here, frankly. Yahweh was the Hebrew war god, and even Jesus once said, "Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword." (Matthew 10:34) He also said, "But those mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither, and slay them before me." (Luke 19:27) Christians would protest it's a matter of context and "what about all the peaceful things he said" and so forth, and they'd be right. Muslims are likewise justified when they defend their prophet's teachings, personality, and intent.

Here's the entire text of Sura 109, "The Unbelievers," one of the last few chapters in the Qur'an:

1. In the name of Allah, most benevolent, ever-merciful: Say, "O you unbelievers,
2. I do not worship what you worship,
3 Nor do you worship who I worship,
4. Nor will I worship what you worship,
5. Nor will you worship who I worship:
6. To you your way, to me my way."

In other words, live and let live. Who could argue with that? Perhaps the most famous quote from the Qur'an is from ayat (verse) 5:32: "[W]hosoever kills a human being, except (as punishment) for murder or for spreading corruption in the land, it shall be like killing all humanity; and whosoever saves a life, saves the entire human race." The word "Islam" comes from the same Arabic root as "salaam," a greeting that (like "shalom" in Hebrew) means "peace." Granted, the Qur'an can be a bit bipolar when it comes to peace and violence, but so is the Bible; and like the Bible, its most warlike passages were written during times of war. We humans often invoke God when we're busy killing people we don't agree with. Again, we're so stunningly conceited we convince ourselves He cares who wins, even as we tear the children of our enemies limb from limb.

I've been using Ahmed Ali's English translation of the Qur'an, by the way, but there are many, and I gather there are objections to all of them. That's because the Arabic text of the Qur'an is said to be so ravishingly beautiful that it brings grown men to tears. It's written in poetry of a highly complex verse form considered inimitable by mere humans. Arabic-speaking Muslims claim translating the Qur'an into any other language robs the book of the mesmerizing beauty that proves its divine authenticity, but they've done so anyway to bring the message of the Prophet to the masses. Converts to Islam are encouraged to learn Arabic and memorize the text in its original form. Personally, I find the fraction of the Qur'an I've read mind-numbingly repetitive, but no more so than the Hebrew Psalms.

Actually, reading the Qur'an turns out to be a lot like reading the Old Testament: truly noble, cooperative ideals are strewn like flowers into a bloody, petty history of sanctimonious tribal warfare. By contrast, I've known exactly one practicing Muslim in my life, and he was a sweet guy who brought our office tasty homemade treats every Eid ul-Fitr, the holiday which follows the Ramadan month of daylight fasts. I could no more condemn that guy or his religion than I could condemn Christianity for the atrocities of its history or modern extremists. We tend to have a blind spot where our own faith and culture are concerned. We know, for example, most Christians are good; so although the monsters who demolished the Murrah Building and its day care center were associated with a movement called Christian Identity, we never refer to them as "Christian terrorists." So maybe it's time we Americans quit holding al Qaeda and its murderous actions against the entirety of Islam. Terrorists are just simpleminded, overzealous murderers regardless of their faith. I know I'm preaching to the converted here, but as (by happy coincidence!) today is Eid ul-Fitr, perhaps this toe-dip into the Qur'an will help prepare us for debates with Islamophobic morons who, all too often, claim divine inspiration for their pathetic revilements. Oh, and by the way:

"revile: 1. to assail with contemptuous or opprobrious language; address or speak of abusively. 2. to speak abusively." (Dictionary.com)

"Be not deceived: ...nor revilers...shall inherit the kingdom of God..."

That's from the Qur'an, in Sura...Oh, wait, I meant 1 Corinthians 6:9-10. Sorry about that. My mistake. Happy Eid ul-Fitr, Gentle Reader. May it bring you peace, no matter your culture or religion.

Eid Mubarak! Kul 'am wantum bikhair. ("Blessed Festival! May you be well every year.")